***************************************************************** 03/05/06 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 14.54 ***************************************************************** 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] Turkey Gears Up for War on Iran w/$800 million Weapons 2 [prez_usa_exile] US to present Iran with 30-day ultimatum 3 NATO MAY HELP US AIRSTRIKES ON IRAN 4 IRNA: Iran to continue nuclear research: Asefi 5 IRNA: Interior Minister: Enemies cannot decide on Iran's nuclear iss 6 IRNA: Iran's envoy to IAEA: No agreement signed by Tehran, Moscow ye 7 IRNA: China calls for resumption of Iran-Russia nuclear talks 8 IRNA: Larijani: Iran to resume enrichment if its nuclear dossier is 9 IRNA: Merkel and Putin discuss Iran's nuclear program on the phone - 10 IRNA: Political circles waiting for Tehran's nuclear stance 11 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Defiant As IAEA Prepares to Meet 12 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Threatens to Resume Enrichment Plan 13 Guardian Unlimited: Bolton: World Must Confront Iran 14 Guardian Unlimited: US envoy hints at strike to stop Iran 15 IRNA: Iran's nuclear activities pose no threat to anyone - Majlis sp 16 BBC: Iran issues new nuclear warning 17 IRNA: Larijani assures Arabs of safety of Bushehr Nuke Power Plant - 18 IRNA: Aliyev: Iran's nuclear issue better be settled through talks - 19 AFP: UN atomic agency meets Monday on Iran 20 AFP: Iran says not ready to bargain over nuclear drive 21 AFP: Putin briefs Bush on Hamas, Iran initiatives 22 IRNA: Iran's top nuclear negotiator begins talks with Elbaradei - 23 MNA: Diplomatic initiatives will be dead in the water 24 AFP: IAEA meeting on Iran a prelude to Security Council event - US - 25 IRNA: Research studies, Iran's sovereignty right, Larijani says 26 IRNA: Gary Sick says costs of US attack on Iran enormous 27 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: [OUTLOOK] Kim's trip to North has promise 28 US: [NYTr] US Officially Abandons Goal of Nuclear Disarmament 29 [NukeNet] On Nuclear Deal, India Out-Maneuvered Bush, Who Gave 30 US: It's Official: Bush Wants New Nuclear Arms Race 31 IPS-English INDIA-U.S.: Nuclear deal and a health time bomb 32 IPS-English POLITICS: India Deal Makes US a Nuclear 33 US: [NYTr] Age of Anxiety: Politics Comes Back to the Movies 34 US: [NYTr] Bush Regime Plans to Modernize Nuke Arsenal 35 Guardian Unlimited: U.S., Pakistan Recommit to War on Terror 36 Guardian Unlimited: Report: U.S.-Russia Relations Impaired 37 Guardian Unlimited: Bush calls India ally in 'cause of human liberty 38 AFP: Bush wraps up South Asia trip; braces for political opposition 39 AFP: US signals abandonment of nuclear disarmament 40 AFP: Bush wraps up South Asian trip with nuclear deal, terror assura 41 Guardian Unlimited: Don't wait for God. We will judge you 42 BBC: Weighing up future energy options 43 AFP: Russian foreign minister visits Washington as tensions rise - NUCLEAR REACTORS 44 US: Arizona Republic: Radioactive water found at Palo Verde 45 The Observer: US to clean up on UK nuclear mess 46 London Times: A wind farm too far - 47 US: Arizona Daily Star: APS nuclear plant's water leak studied 48 US: Philadelphia Inquirer: Editorial | Nuclear Energy 49 Daily Yomiuri: KEPCO abandons plan for nuclear plant 50 Sunday Herald: Nuclear power: splitting the LibDems and Labour - 51 US: Tennessean: Nashvillian, five others confirmed for TVA board - 52 US: Rutland Herald: State follows feds, OKs Vermont Yankee power boo 53 US: toledoblade.com: Davis-Besse to close for refueling, upgrades 54 US: Rutland Herald: No margin for error 55 Toronto Star: McGuinty seems plugged in to more nuclear power 56 TheStar.com: Nuclear power poisons the planet 57 ITAR-TASS: Novovoronezhsk NPP stops reactor for maintenance 58 US: SouthofBoston.com: Know nukes 59 SA Sunday Times: Eskom to rescue Koeberg 60 US: KPHO Phoenix: Radioactive water found near nuclear plant 61 US: MetroWestDailyNews.com: Nuclear a sensible power choice NUCLEAR SECURITY NUCLEAR SAFETY 62 US: [NukeNet] "PLANNED DEATHS" By Nuclear Industry-Court Testimony 63 US: Deseret News: Payments to victims of fallout passes $1 billion NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 64 US: [NYTr] Years of Radioactive Leaks Revealed at Illinois Nuke 65 Las Vegas SUN: Bodman says DOE has no plans to move waste 66 Nevada Appeal: What is it about this state that says 'dump all over 67 US: NetXNews: The future of nuclear waste in Utah 68 reviewjournal.com: Anti-Yucca attorney recovering 69 reviewjournal.com: UNTIL YUCCA GETS LICENSED: Nuke waste staying put 70 US: AFP: Australian PM rules out uranium sales to India 71 US: AFP: India to press Australia for uranium deal - Singh 72 US: San Bernardino County Sun: Cleanup proposal denied 73 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Don't be fooled 74 US: PE.com: Chemical found in highest level yet 75 Senator Harry Reid: About Yucca Mountain Oversight Hearing 76 asahi.com: Utility seeks OK to use MOX fuel 77 NewsYemen: Fears of nuclear wastes polluting the sea haunt Yemenis i PEACE US DEPT. OF ENERGY 78 Chillicothe Gazette: New USEC head meets Pike leaders 79 DenverPost.com: Rocky Flats worker claims being stalled ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 [NYTr] Turkey Gears Up for War on Iran w/$800 million Weapons Date: Sat, 4 Mar 2006 21:33:34 -0600 (CST) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit sent by mart - Feb 27, 2006 [In preparation for planned, coming, U.S./NATO war on Iran, Turkey to buy 800 million dollar air-defense anti-missile system.] Russian Information Agency (Novosti) - February 21, 2006 http://en.rian.ru/world/20060221/43674608.html Turkey to buy foreign air-defense systems worth $800 million ANKARA - Turkey's government has decided to allocate some $800 million on creating national air defenses and plans to buy four air defense systems as a first phase of the effort, a local newspaper wrote Tuesday. According to New Anatolian, Turkey's independent English-language daily, Tayyip Erdogan's government is expected to announce a tender. The government, which is said to have made the funding decision late last week, tasked the military industry department with preparing a feasibility study and proposing tender terms. The Turkish media wrote that Ankara was to choose among U.S.-made Patriot systems, Russia's S-300 (Favorit) complexes, and American-Israeli Arrow-2 systems. Russia's state-owned arms exporter Rosoboronexport, which earlier announced plans to take part in the tender, is preparing bids at the moment. According to the paper, Turkey has stepped up efforts to create national air defenses, fearing that the current standoff between the United States, Israel, some European countries and Iran over the latter's nuclear programs, could evolve into a military conflict. Neighboring Iran's Sahap-3 medium-range missiles also prompted Turkey to speed up efforts in the sphere. Turkey received two Patriot air defense systems from the U.S. to protect its airspace from possible airstrikes from Iraq during the Persian Gulf War of 1990-1991, when an American-led coalition responded toSaddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, and during the antiterrorist campaign launched by an international coalition in Iraq in 2003. The systems were dismantled afterward. * ================================================================ .NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems . Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us . .339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org .List Archives: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ .Subscribe: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ================================================================ ***************************************************************** 2 [prez_usa_exile] US to present Iran with 30-day ultimatum Date: Sat, 4 Mar 2006 14:24:15 -0600 (CST) News Update from Citizens for Legitimate Government 04 March 2006 http://www.legitgov.org/ http://www.legitgov.org/index.html#breaking_news US to present Iran with 30-day ultimatum 04 Mar 2006 The United States will present a 30-day ultimatum to the UN Security Council this week, the Washington Post reported Saturday, calling on Iran to cease with its nuclear program. It was reported however, that the US would not request further economic sanctions on Iran. Address to receive newsletter: http://www.legitgov.org/#subscribe_clg Please write to: signup@legitgov.org for inquiries. lrp/mdr CLG Newsletter editor: Lori Price, General Manager. Copyright 2006, Citizens For Legitimate Government All rights reserved. CLG Founder and Chair is Michael Rectenwald, Ph.D. ***************************************************************** 3 NATO MAY HELP US AIRSTRIKES ON IRAN Date: Sat, 4 Mar 2006 20:28:51 -0600 (CST) I don't put great faith in the Brit Sunday Times for its conjectures - read what they say carefully - so please don't jump to any conclusion that NATO as a nominally European military force will jump into action without a clear order from European states. At least - I hope I'm correct that there will be a European involvement in IRAN unlike in the current Iraq context. Michael ============== http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2070420,00.html SUNDAY TIMES The Sunday Times (London) March 05, 2006 WHEN (Germany's) Major-General Axel Tuttelmann, the head of Nato's Airborne Early Warning and Control Force, showed off an AWACS early warning surveillance plane in Israel a fortnight ago, he caused a flurry of concern back at headquarters in Brussels. It was not his demonstration that raised eyebrows, but what he said about Nato's possible involvement in any future military strike against Iran. "We would be the first to be called up if the Nato council decided we should be," he said. Nato would prefer the emphasis to remain on the "if", but Tuttelmann's comments revealed that the military alliance could play a supporting role if America launches airstrikes against Iranian nuclear targets. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will tomorrow confirm Iran's referral to the United Nations Security Council for possible sanctions. Iran insists it is developing peaceful nuclear energy, a claim regarded as bogus by America and Britain, France and Germany, which believe it wants to develop nuclear weapons. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's remarks about wiping Israel "off the map" have added to fears. America and Israel have warned that they will not tolerate a nuclear-armed Iran. If negotiations fail, both countries have plans of last resort for airstrikes against Iran's widely dispersed nuclear facilities. Porter Goss, the head of the CIA, visited Recep Erdogan, the prime minister of Turkey, a Nato country, late last year and asked for political, logistical and intelligence support in the event of airstrikes, according to western intelligence sources quoted in the German media. The news magazine Der Spiegel noted: "Washington appears to be dispatching high-level officials to prepare its allies for a possible attack." Nato would be likely to operate air defences in Turkey, according to Dan Goure, a Pentagon adviser and vice-president of the Lexington Institute, a military think tank. A former senior Israeli defence official said he believed all Nato members had contingency plans. John Pike, director of the US military studies group Globalsecurity.org, said America had little to gain from Nato military help. "I think we are attempting to bring the alliance along politically so that when all diplomatic initiatives have been exhausted and we blow up their sites, we can say, `Look, we gave it our best shot'." A senior British defence official said plans to attack Iran were pure speculation. "I don't think anybody has got that far yet," he said. "We're all too distracted by Iraq." Israel's special forces are said to be operating inside Iran in an urgent attempt to locate the country's secret uranium enrichment sites. "We found several suspected sites last year but there must be more," an Israeli intelligence source said. They are operating from a base in northern Iraq, guarded by Israeli soldiers with the approval of the Americans, according to Israeli sources. The commander of Israel's nuclear missile submarines warned Iran indirectly in a comment to an Israeli newspaper last week that "we are able to hit strategic targets in a foreign country". The Israelis fear Iran may reach the "point of no return" -- at which it has the capacity to enrich uranium to bomb-grade purity -- in the next few months. The Americans are more interested in the point at which Iran is close to developing an actual bomb, thought to be at least three years away. Two Iranian opposition groups claimed this weekend that Iran had increased its production of Shahab 3 missiles, which have a range of 1,200 miles, sufficient to reach Israel. Diplomatic efforts to contain Iran are likely to proceed slowly, given Russian and Chinese opposition to punitive action. A Foreign Office official said although the IAEA would refer Iran to the security council, any sanctions would be a "strictly step-by-step process". ***************************************************************** 4 IRNA: Iran to continue nuclear research: Asefi Tehran, March 5, IRNA Iran-Asefi-Nuclear Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hamid-Reza Asefi said here Sunday Iran would go on with its nuclear research inside the country. Talking to domestic and foreign reporters at his weekly press conference, he said, "Threat, intimidation and blackmailing will not have any effects on Iran's decision in this respect. The Iranian officials cannot act against the public will. "The mistake West is making is that it thinks Iran is after bargaining," he said. He stressed Iran's right to have access to peaceful nuclear energy and recommended the West "not to think it will lose, if it recognizes the country's rights". Asefi highlighted the importance of continuing nuclear talks and said, "This will show Iran's intends to settle the nuclear case through negotiations." He added Iran's readiness to continue talks on its nuclear program indicates the country's transparent performance and that no illegal work is underway in Iran. The spokesman pointed to recent remarks by the French President Jacques Chirac who recommended Iran to avoid anger and said the Islamic Republic of Iran would not leave the negotiating table. "Iran is ready to hold talks with European and non-European states." He said no results would be achieved through creation of more crises, adding, "If situation worsens, Iran will not be the only country to incur damage. The opposite side will suffer more damage. Asefi said the meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)'s Board of Governors on Monday would be regarded as a criteria for South and Third World countries to evaluate the IAEA. He called on the IAEA to prevent political measures. "Tomorrow will be an important day for the IAEA. The international body will take a big test which in turn will show how it defends rights of its members as well as its prestige." ***************************************************************** 5 IRNA: Interior Minister: Enemies cannot decide on Iran's nuclear issue Tehran, March 5, IRNA Iran-Gathering-Nuclear Interior Minister Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi said here Sunday that only the Iranian nation and not the enemies is entitled to decide on the country's nuclear issue. The minister made the remarks in his address to a large gathering of war veterans and families of martyrs at the mausoleum of founder of the Islamic Revolution, late Imam Khomeini in southern Tehran, to support Iran's indisputable right for possessing peaceful nuclear technology. The gathering was held on the eve of the upcoming meeting of the UN nuclear watchdog's board of governors which is to discuss Iran's nuclear stand-off in Vienna on Monday. "The weapon of the Iranian nation is neither an atomic nor a chemical bomb, but rather it is unity and faith," said the minister to the crowd of 5,000 Iranians war veterans. Terming the gathering of such a large number of people as a good indication of Iranian people's unity, Pour-Mohammadi said "The US has to understand that it is no longer popular among the world nations. "Peoples of the world are showing their hatred of the Great Satan (the US)," said the minister. Referring to the disgusting bombings of the holy shrines of two Shiite Imams in the Iraqi city of Samarra on February 22, he said "The enemy targeted shrines of the holy Imams in order to sow discord among Muslims. But such acts will only lead to further awakening of the world nations," Pour-Mohammadi stressed. At the end of the gathering, covered by scores of domestic and foreign reporters, the participants issued a five-article statement in support of Tehran's nuclear policies. The statement also rejected any submission to the pressures exerted by foreign powers as a "damage to the national interests" and "unacceptable". ***************************************************************** 6 IRNA: Iran's envoy to IAEA: No agreement signed by Tehran, Moscow yet Vienna, March 4, IRNA Iran-IAEA-Envoy Iran's Representative to the UN nuclear watchdog Ali-Asghar Soltanieh said here Friday afternoon that no agreement was signed during latest meetings between Iranian and Russian officials in the two capitals. The envoy's remarks were made following a meeting of Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Ali Larijani in Vienna with Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Mohamed ElBaradei. Speaking to IRNA, Soltanieh said that Larijani briefed ElBaradei on Irna's latest talks with Russian officials on Tehran's nuclear programs. "In addition to Moscow proposal to enrich Iran's uranium in its soil, the Iranian negotiating team discussed Iran's nuclear programs in general with their Russian counterparts," said the envoy. He reiterated that the two negotiating teams headed by Iran's Atomic Energy Organization Gholam-Reza Aqazadeh and his Russian counterpart Sergei Kiriyenkov, reached "agreement in principle." Soltanieh stressed that "No written agreement was made" during Aqazadeh-Kiriyenkov meetings. As for Larijani's Friday morning meeting with the EU3 foreign ministers and the EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana in Vienna, the Iranian envoy said that Larijani has informed them of the remarkable agreements made between Iranian and Russian officials on Tehran's nuclear activities. Soltanieh added that Larijani has also put forward a number of effective" offers to the meeting which would later be studied by the European officials. Stressing that intense talks were underway in Vienna between members of the IAEA's Board of Governors and those of the Non-Aligned Movement, the Iranian envoy said "No major development will be made on Iran's nuclear case until Monday." Soltanieh also stressed that Tehran's negotiations in Moscow and Vienna would "effectively influence the next meeting of the IAEA's Board of Governors" slated for March 6. According to the envoy, the NAM members of the IAEA's board have stressed that Iran's nuclear stand-off should be settled within the UN nuclear watchdog. ***************************************************************** 7 IRNA: China calls for resumption of Iran-Russia nuclear talks Beijing, March 5, IRNA Iran-China-Nuclear Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing here Sunday called on Iran to resume talks with Russia and the European Union on its nuclear program as soon as possible. Li made the remark while talking to reporters on the sidelines of China's annual session of parliament one day ahead of the International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-member Board of Governors' meeting in Vienna, Austria. He expressed hope Iran would restart negotiations with Russia and the EU as soon as possible. The Chinese minister said the important thing is to resolve the problem peacefully and properly and through diplomatic means. Iran's Secretary of Supreme National Security Council Ali Larijani held talks with Head of Russian Security Council Igor Ivanov in Moscow last week. Iran and Russia held a third round of negotiations on Moscow's nuclear overture. The first and second rounds of talks were held in Tehran and Moscow in January and February, respectively. During the second round of talks, the two sides reached an agreement in principle on Russia's proposal. ***************************************************************** 8 IRNA: Larijani: Iran to resume enrichment if its nuclear dossier is reported to UNSC Tehran, March 5, IRNA Iran-Larijani-Nuclear Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Ali Larijani here Sunday said that if its nuclear dossier is reported to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), Iran will resume uranium enrichment. Briefing domestic and foreign reporters on latest developments in the nuclear issue, he added that Iran does not welcome being reported to the UNSC, given that it is not a privilege for either side but merely creates problems. Larijani stressed that reporting the dossier to the Security Council will not make Iran give up its research and development. He added that the issue is part of the country's sovereignty and that neither Iran nor any other government will withdraw from such a right. The SNSC secretary referred to all the possible peaceful ways for settling the issue and said that during talks with Russian and European officials, all alternatives likely to reach agreement were examined. "We are committed to the provisions of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and consider it as a positive treaty for the international community, only provided it is fully implemented rather than letting international bodies to avoid fulfilling their actual duties. "If the nuclear dossier is reported to the UNSC, we will certainly resume uranium enrichment. We wished to reach conclusion and eliminate the ambiguities through dialogue and understanding. But, if the other side resorts to force, we will use our own special approach," he added. Larijani noted that Iran is reluctant to use oil as a weapon, given its respect for the international psychological security. "However, once the conditions change, this may become effective," he added. He referred to the `good progress made during talks with the Russian and European parties' and said that some agreements were reached on research and development, which seemed to be reasonable and rational. Larijani expressed the reluctance for either side feeling humiliated, adding that this was pointed out during the talks. ***************************************************************** 9 IRNA: Merkel and Putin discuss Iran's nuclear program on the phone - Berlin, March 4, IRNA Germany-Russia-Iran Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed Iran's nuclear program on the telephone, a German government press release said on Saturday. Merkel has repeatedly said Moscow played a key role in resolving the nuclear row with Iran. Russia and Iran have been involved in talks on a joint uranium enrichment project. ***************************************************************** 10 IRNA: Political circles waiting for Tehran's nuclear stance Tehran, March 5, IRNA Iran-Nuclear-Speculations On the eve of Monday's important meeting of the UN nuclear watchdog on Iran's nuclear case, the world is waiting for Tehran's stance on the issue which is expected to be announced in a press conference by top Iranian national security official on Sunday afternoon. Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Ali Larijani is expected to announce Tehran's latest stance on its nuclear case to domestic and foreign reporters amid the endless speculations about what the SNSC secretary is going to say to the world. The 35-member board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will discuss on Monday the report on Iran's nuclear activities provided to the IAEA by its director general Mohamed ElBaradei. Reports coming from overseas IRNA offices said, foreign media and individuals have intensively been providing a large number of reports and feature stories on Iran's nuclear dossier on the verge of the IAEA meeting. The reports said that efforts were also underway to convince Tehran to maintain the moratorium on its uranium enrichment activities. Meanwhile, latest reports coming form the US indicated that Washington was trying to persuade the United Nations Security Council to set a 30-day deadline for Iran to halt its nuclear program. Although none of the US officials have yet commented on the issue, the Washington Post daily reported that setting the deadline by the UN Security Council was the major part of the US draft resolution to the council. However, the daily added that the US diplomats have already known that the 15-member council would face a tough discussion in its next session regarding the issue of Iran's nuclear programs. Quoting American and European resources, the Washington Post said considering the latest findings of the IAEA on Iran's nuclear activities, the US diplomats have drafted a resolution to be sent to the Security Council. The document set a 30-day deadline for Tehran to stop all its nuclear activities and cooperate with the UN nuclear inspectors or face tougher diplomatic measures, added the paper. Independent experts believed that the move was in line with the US recent political plans to ensure the failure of Iran's nuclear talks including its recent negotiations with Russian officials in Tehran and Moscow. They also believed that the draft resolution was drawn up with the aim to take Iran's nuclear dossier out of the IAEA's control. Meanwhile, the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said in a recent statement that the UN Security Council was unlikely to impose sanctions on Iran as a first step in dealing with the disagreement over its nuclear program. "I don't think people are talking about going directly to sanctions," Rice said speaking to reporters on a trip to Pakistan. However, she added that the Security Council would hold serious discussions on taking next steps dealing with Iran after the body receives an official report on the country's nuclear dossier. Ignoring again the indisputable right of the Iranian nation for acquiring peaceful nuclear technology, the secretary said that any Iranian civilian nuclear program should not include uranium enrichment activities within the country's territory. Rice's comments came at a time when there are evident examples of the US double standards regarding the nuclear issue. Washington has signed new nuclear agreement with India, an already nuclear power, while at the same time, it (Washington) denies Tehran its certain right to access peaceful nuclear technology. Swiss daily, Der Bund, has testified the West's dual approach towards nuclear issue in a recent article titled: "India is different from Iran." Referring to the US nuclear agreement with India, the paper said that the measure only proved that double standard policies were the base for atomic powers' ideology. Criticizing the West's dual approach towards India and Iran, Der Bund said India is not even a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and dose not allow the UN nuclear inspectors to visit its atomic facilities while Iran is an old NPT member which pursues a civilian nuclear program. ***************************************************************** 11 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Defiant As IAEA Prepares to Meet From the Associated Press [UP] Monday March 6, 2006 12:16 AM AP Photo XHS113 By GEORGE JAHN Associated Press Writer VIENNA, Austria (AP) - Iran threatened Sunday to embark on full-scale uranium enrichment if the U.N. nuclear watchdog presses for action over its nuclear program, and the American ambassador to the United Nations warned of the possibility of ``painful consequences'' for Iran. The comments came as the International Atomic Energy Agency's board prepared to meet Monday to discuss referring Iran to the U.N. Security Council, but delegates said whatever step the council might take would stop far short of sanctions. John Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said Sunday there was an urgent need to confront Iran's ``clear and unrelenting drive'' for nuclear weapons. Iran ``must be made aware that if it continues down the path of international isolation, there will be tangible and painful consequences,'' Bolton told the conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. But Iran's government cautioned that putting the issue before the Security Council would hurt efforts to resolve the dispute diplomatically. ``If Iran's nuclear dossier is referred to the U.N. Security Council, (large-scale) uranium enrichment will be resumed,'' Iran's top negotiator, Ali Larijani, told reporters in Tehran. ``If they want to use force, we will pursue our own path.'' He said Iran had exhausted ``all peaceful ways'' and that if demands were made contrary to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the nation ``will resist.'' Larijani said Iran will not abandon nuclear research, or back down from pursuing an atomic program that Tehran insists has the sole purpose of generating electricity with nuclear reactors. IAEA delegates suggested the U.N. agency's board will not push for confrontation with Iran and said any initial decisions by the Security Council based on the outcome of the meeting will be mild. They said the most likely action from the council would be a statement urging Iran to resume its freeze on uranium enrichment - an activity that can make both reactor fuel and the core of nuclear warheads - and to increase cooperation with the IAEA's probe of the Iranian program. Even such a mild step could be weeks down the road. Still, it would formally begin council involvement with Iran's nuclear file, starting a process that could escalate and culminate with political and economic sanctions - although such action for now is opposed by Russia and China, which can veto Security Council actions. Bolton said a failure by the Security Council to address Iran would ``do lasting damage to the credibility of the council.'' ``The longer we wait to confront the threat Iran poses,'' Bolton said, ``the harder and more intractable it will become to solve.'' Russia and China share the concerns of the United States, France and Britain - the three other permanent council members with veto power - that Iran could misuse enrichment for an arms program. But both have economic and strategic ties with Tehran. While they voted with the majority of IAEA board members at a Feb. 4 meeting to alert the council to suspicions about Iran's nuclear aims, they insisted the council do nothing until after this week's IAEA meeting in Vienna. Russia is unlikely to agree to strong action while it negotiates with Iran on a plan that would move Tehran's enrichment program to Russian territory as a way of increasing international monitoring and reducing the chances for misuse in arms work. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is due in Washington and New York this week to discuss the status of those talks with Bush administration officials and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Both Tehran and Moscow have said new talks are planned; diplomats in Vienna, who demanded anonymity in return for discussing the situation, said no dates had been set. In Tehran, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said Iran could reach an agreement with Russia or the European Union within hours, but did not elaborate. Iran rejected an EU proposal last fall to end enrichment in return for the West providing reactor fuel and economic aid. Past IAEA board meetings have ended with resolutions taking Iran to task for hindering investigations into a nuclear program that was kept secret for nearly 18 years and more recently urging it to reimpose a freeze on enrichment. The Feb. 4 resolution asked IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei to report those concerns and others to the Security Council and to formally hand over the complete Iran file to the council. It also asked him to provide the council with his latest report, drawn up for Monday's IAEA meeting. That report, made available to The Associated Press last week, said Iran appeared determined to expand uranium enrichment, planning to start setting up thousands of uranium-enriching centrifuges this year. --- On the Net: International Atomic Energy Agency: www.iaea.org Guardian Unlimited Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 12 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Threatens to Resume Enrichment Plan From the Associated Press [UP] Sunday March 5, 2006 12:16 PM TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran warned Sunday that it will resume large scale uranium enrichment if it is referred to the U.N. Security Council. ``If Iran's nuclear dossier is referred to the U.N. Security Council, (large scale) uranium enrichment will be resumed,'' Larijani told a packed news conference. ``If they (the U.S. and its allies) want to use force, we will pursue our own path,'' he said. The U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency will meet in Vienna, Austria, Monday to discuss Iran's nuclear program. Guardian Unlimited Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 13 Guardian Unlimited: Bolton: World Must Confront Iran From the Associated Press [UP] Monday March 6, 2006 12:16 AM AP Photo WX122 ' By FOSTER KLUG Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations on Sunday told an influential pro-Israel lobbying group there is an urgent need to confront Iran's ``clear and unrelenting drive'' for a nuclear weapons program. John Bolton, speaking before a crowd of 4,500 gathered for an American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference, said that a failure by the U.N. Security Council to address Iran would ``do lasting damage to the credibility of the council.'' ``The longer we wait to confront the threat Iran poses, the harder and more intractable it will become to solve,'' Bolton said. At issue is Iran's ability to enrich uranium to the point it could be used for a nuclear weapon. Iran insists its nuclear program is peaceful and only meant to generate power. Many in the West, however, fear Iran is aiming to develop atomic weapons. The International Atomic Energy Agency will meet in Vienna, Austria, on Monday to discuss Iran's nuclear program and its compliance with an IAEA demand that it renounce uranium enrichment. The U.N. agency's board of governors may at that time send the file to the Security Council for further action. Iranian officials were in Moscow last week, negotiating an offer by Russia to enrich uranium for Iran to be used for energy. The spent fuel would be returned to Russia, easing fears that Iran could use it for weapons. Bolton said the Russian proposal lets Iran ``reap the benefits of civil nuclear power while addressing concerns that they are really pursuing nuclear weapons.'' But he said Iran has been engaging in ``doublespeak'' during these negotiations by saying with one voice it welcomes discussion, but with the other ``flatly refusing'' to give up access to technology and material to eventually develop nuclear weapons. Iran ``must be made aware that if it continues down the path of international isolation, there will be tangible and painful consequences,'' Bolton said. Guardian Unlimited Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 14 Guardian Unlimited: US envoy hints at strike to stop Iran Julian Borger Washington Monday March 6, 2006 The US ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, has told British MPs that military action could bring Iran's nuclear programme to a halt if all diplomatic efforts fail. The warning came ahead of a meeting today of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) which will forward a report on Iran's nuclear activities to the UN security council. The council will have to decide whether to impose sanctions, an issue that could split the international community as policy towards Iraq did before the invasion. Yesterday the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, said: "Nobody has said that we have to rush immediately to sanctions of some kind." However the parliamentary foreign affairs committee, visiting Washington last week, encountered sharply different views within the Bush administration. The most hawkish came from Mr Bolton. According to Eric Illsley, a Labour committee member, the envoy told the MPs: "They must know everything is on the table and they must understand what that means. We can hit different points along the line. You only have to take out one part of their nuclear operation to take the whole thing down." It is unusual for an administration official to go into detail about possible military action against Iran. To produce significant amounts of enriched uranium, Iran would have to set up a self-sustaining cycle of processes. Mr Bolton appeared to be suggesting that cycle could be hit at its most vulnerable point. The CIA appears to be the most sceptical about a military solution and shares the state department's position, say British MPs, in suggesting gradually stepping up pressure on the Iranians. The Pentagon position was described, by the committee chairman, Mike Gapes, as throwing a demand for a militarily enforced embargo into the security council "like a hand grenade - and see what happens". Yesterday Mr Bolton reiterated his hardline stance. In a speech to the annual convention of the American-Israel public affairs committee, the leading pro-Israel US lobbyists, he said: "The longer we wait to confront the threat Iran poses, the harder and more intractable it will become to solve ... we must be prepared to rely on comprehensive solutions and use all the tools at our disposal to stop the threat that the Iranian regime poses." The IAEA referred Iran to the security council on February 4, but a month's grace was left for diplomatic initiatives. By yesterday, those appeared exhausted. A meeting of European and Iranian negotiators broke down on Friday over Tehran's insistence that even if Russia was allowed to enrich Iran's uranium, Iran would enrich small amounts for research. Iran says that it needs enrichment for electricity. According to Time magazine, the US plans to present the security council with evidence that Iran is designing a crude nuclear bomb, like the one dropped on Nagasaki in 1945. The evidence will be in the form of blueprints that the US said were found on a laptop belonging to an Iranian nuclear engineer, and obtained by the CIA in 2004. However, any such presentation will bring back memories of a similar briefing in February 2003 in which Colin Powell, then US secretary of state, laid out evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, which proved not to exist. While the US and Britain keep a united front over Iraq in the UN security council, there are clear differences over Iran. Britain has ruled out a military option if diplomatic pressure fails. The US has not. There is no serious consideration of large-scale use of ground forces, but there are disagreements in the administration over whether air strikes and small-scale special forces operations could be effective in halting or slowing down Iran's alleged nuclear weapons programme. Some believe Iran has secret facilities that are buried so deep underground as to be impenetrable. They argue that the US could never be certain whether or not it had destroyed Iran's "capability". [UP] Guardian Unlimited Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 15 IRNA: Iran's nuclear activities pose no threat to anyone - Majlis speaker - Tehran, March 4, IRNA Iran-Religions-Speaker Iran's nuclear activities would expose no threat to anyone, said Majlis Speaker Gholam-Ali Haddad Adel in a regional meeting here Saturday. Addressing the second regional session of religious leaders here dubbed 'Respecting the Sanctities of Religions and Divine Prophets,' the speaker said there were some trying to convince the rest of the world that Iran is seeking to develop atomic bomb to eliminate the Jews. Father of the Islamic Revolution, the late Imam Khomeini, showed ultimate respect for religious minorities in Iran, Haddad-Adel stressed. He noted that the recent sacrilege to the holy Prophet Mohammad (Peace Be Upon Him) by some European media, was a "clear example of a campaign against Islam" which is currently underway in the West. According to the speaker, the "disgusting" bombings of February 22 in the holy shrines of two Shiite Imams; Imam al-Hadi (AS) and Imam Hassan al-Askari (AS); in the Iraqi city of Samarra were other bitter examples of hostility towards Islam. "How can ever the desecration of religious sanctities of over 1.3 billion Muslims worldwide help solve the problems of current world?" The speaker also criticized European leaders who have said they supported the freedom of expression while they expressed dissatisfaction with the publication of the insulting cartoons. "Pitting religion against freedom was the greatest damage caused by the European media's desecration of the holy Prophet of Islam (PBUH)," said the speaker adding, "We do not believe in such an encounter." Haddad-Adel further argued that Tehran condemned Europe's stance support "clear disrespect" shown by the Western media. Noting that Tehran believed "life without religion is nothing but slavery," the speaker said "The future world belongs to divine religions." Haddad-Adel further stressed that Tehran has always supported the idea of dialogue among different religions and faiths. The day-long meeting of the religious leaders would discuss major issues including peace, desecration of divine religions and prophets as well as freedom of expression. ***************************************************************** 16 BBC: Iran issues new nuclear warning Last Updated: Sunday, 5 March 2006 [Technicians at Iran's Bushehr nuclear reactor] Iran says its nuclear programme is purely peaceful Iran has threatened to press ahead with industrial-scale uranium enrichment if its nuclear work is referred to the UN Security Council. Nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani said Iran would "pursue its own path" if the US and its allies "want to use force". He was speaking a day before the UN nuclear watchdog meets in Vienna. Western powers believe Iran wants to develop nuclear weapons, for which enrichment is a key process, but Tehran says its plans are for civilian energy. Mr Larijani told a news conference in Tehran: "If Iran's nuclear dossier is referred to the UN Security Council, [large-scale] uranium enrichment will be resumed. "If [the US and its allies] want to use force, we will pursue our own path." [Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani] If our case is referred to the Security Council w will resume [large-scale] uranium enrichment Ali Larijani Iranian nuclear negotiator Mr Larijani added: "Going to the Security Council will certainly not make Iran go back on research and development." Mr Larijani said Iran had no interest in using oil prices as a weapon against the West but warned that if action was taken against Tehran, it would affect international oil prices anyway. The UN watchdog - the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) - is beginning on Monday a meeting that will discuss a report on Iran by the agency's director general, Mohammed ElBaradei. The report, which was leaked to the media earlier this week, says the Iranians have begun feeding uranium gas into centrifuges - a first step in a process that can produce fuel for nuclear reactors or bomb material. It also says Tehran has rejected stricter inspections, falling back on the regular regime under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Iranian protests The IAEA's board of governors is expected to confirm its 4 February decision to report Iran to the Security Council - which can in turn impose sanctions. However BBC world affairs correspondent Paul Reynolds says sanctions are still a long way off and might never come. Warning and demands that Iran should suspend its nuclear programme will in any case come first, our correspondent adds. Russian and China - permanent members of the Security Council with the power of veto - have so far opposed imposing sanctions on Iran. Iranian media on Sunday reported small-scale protests in support of the national nuclear programme in several cities, including Tehran, Shiraz, Yazd and Ahvaz. Iran announced in January that it was resuming uranium enrichment research, ending a two-year-old suspension it had agreed to with the UK, France and Germany. ***************************************************************** 17 IRNA: Larijani assures Arabs of safety of Bushehr Nuke Power Plant - Tehran, March 4, IRNA Iran-Larijani-NUclear Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Ali Larijani said here on Saturday that the concern raised by the US over the possible radiations from Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant is a political issue. Speaking to reporters from Arab states and countries bordering the Persian Gulf, he said that Bushehr Atomic Nuclear Power Station is equipped with a highly advanced safety system. According to a report released by the SNSC Public Relations Department, he noted that the US pursues other goals to exaggerate the possibility of radiation at Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant. Turning to efforts towards nuclear disarmament in the region as one of Iran's strategic principles, he said, "As a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iran has accepted the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and demands nothing beyond its relevant right. "We believe that the US pressure to report Iran's nuclear dossier to the UN Security Council (UNSC) is equivalent to the end of Russia's proposed joint venture. " Larijani said that given its membership, Iran has agreed to comply with its commitments and is entitled to the right of access to nuclear energy, which it will not surrender. In response to a question about the criticism of the trend of nuclear talks on the domestic scene, he noted, "There is full accord among officials on the pursuance of the issue, so that there is hardly any project or matter on which such a degree of agreement has been reached. "Suspension of research and development of uranium enrichment is unacceptable to Iran, given that we have gained the relevant expertise and the nation's determination to continue the process." Replying to another question on whether reporting the nuclear dossier to the UNSC will restrict Iran's cooperation with the agency, the secretary said, "We will attempt to comply with NPT regulations. At the same time, we expect our rights to be officially recognized by all IAEA members." Bushehr nuclear installations were inspected by a number of Arab reporters and officials in charge of the news media of Arab states on Wednesday, who at the end of their visit raised their questions on the issue at a press conference attended by Larijani. ***************************************************************** 18 IRNA: Aliyev: Iran's nuclear issue better be settled through talks - Baku, March 4, IRNA Iran-Nuclear-Azerbaijan Azeri President Ilham Aliyev on Saturday said that Iran's nuclear issue should be solved through negotiation and based on international laws. According to a report released by the Azeri non-state Trend News Agency, on the eve of his visit to Tokyo, in an interview with a group of Japanese reporters, Aliyev said that imposing economic sanction against Iran will lead to further tension. "Meanwhile, the Azeri president expressed concern over the current nuclear problem in the neighboring Iran," added the report. In another part of his interview, he denounced the possible landing of the US troops in Azerbaijan's territory. "We have no plan to let the forces of any foreign government enter Azerbaijan to establish a military base," he added. Aliyev is expected to leave for an official visit to Japan on March 7, 2006. He will return on March 11. ***************************************************************** 19 AFP: UN atomic agency meets Monday on Iran Sun Mar 5, 2:31 AM ET VIENNA (AFP) - The UN atomic watchdog will open a meeting expected to clear the way for the UN Security Council to consider acting against Iran" /> over fears it seeks nuclear weapons. Little seems to stand in the way of the crisis over Iran's nuclear ambitions being handed over to the Security Council, which can take punitive action. The board of governors of the UN watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency" /> meets Monday in Vienna to consider a report from IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei on Iran's nuclear program. The item is expected to come up Tuesday or Wednesday. "The report is presented to the board and then has to go to the Security Council," IAEA spokesman Peter Rickwood said Saturday. The IAEA's 35-nation board had reported Iran on February 4 to the Security Council but left a month open for diplomacy before the Council receives ElBaradei's assessment report and decides what measures, if any, to take. "After the board report, I think the Security Council will have to have a serious discussion about what the next steps will be," US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice" /> said Saturday on the sidelines of President George W. Bush" /> 's visit to Pakistan. But Rice said there was no need to rush to sanctions. The Security Council could adopt a "presidential declaration" calling on Tehran to heed IAEA calls for Iran to suspend uranium enrichment and cooperate with IAEA inspections, diplomats in Washington and Vienna said. Key Iranian ally Russia, which has a veto on the Security Council, has said it opposes sanctions. In last-ditch talks in Vienna last Friday, Iran and EU powers Britain, France and Germany failed to strike a deal that could have blocked possible Council action over Western fears that Tehran is secretly developing atomic weapons. The IAEA has called on Iran to suspend uranium enrichment as a confidence-building measure and to cooperate with a now three-year-old agency investigation. But Iran last month started a 10-centrifuge research cascade at a facility in Natanz, signaling it was pushing ahead with enrichment it says is essential to make fuel for a civilian energy program but which could also be used to make atom bombs. In his report, released earlier this week, ElBaradei said Iran had failed to answer crucial questions about its nuclear program but stopped short of saying it was making atomic weapons. Diplomats close to the IAEA said they did not expect there to be a resolution at next week's board meeting. In February the board voted 27 to three to report the matter to the Security Council. A Western diplomat told AFP that the European troika had "decided against a resolution, after hearing from Russia, China and India that there was no support for one, even including some non-aligned members." However, the five permanent Security Council members plus Germany, which are all on the IAEA board, may issue a statement calling on Iran to honor the agency's call for it to suspend enrichment and cooperate with investigators, the diplomat said. Iran meanwhile is lobbying strongly with both the Europeans and Russia for a last-minute compromise "in order to keep the issue within the IAEA," and avoid Security Council action, a diplomat said. The compromise would allow Iran to do very small-scale enrichment work for research while the Islamic Republic would pledge a two-year moratorium on full-scale enrichment that is more of a proliferation risk. But the Europeans Friday said the bottom line was that Iran must first suspend all enrichment, including research, in order to negotiate on getting trade and security benefits in any deal. Russia is trying to strike a compromise in which Iran would enrich on Russian soil, so that it would not get the technology that is considered the "break-out capacity" for making atomic weapons. This compromise may include a Russian promise to let the Iranians run a cascade of 20 centrifuges for enrichment research. But a Western diplomat said the United States and the Europeans reject such a concession. Copyright 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 20 AFP: Iran says not ready to bargain over nuclear drive Sun Mar 5, 4:49 AM ET TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran" /> Iranhas said it is not ready to "bargain" over its bid to master sensitive nuclear work, despite the risk of an escalation of its standoff with the West and UN Security Council action. "Nuclear research will go on, and threats, propaganda and bullying will not affect us," foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters, referring to the country's controversial uranium enrichment drive. The UN's nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency" /> International Atomic Energy Agency(IAEA), opens a meeting Monday that is expected to clear the way for the Security Council to consider acting against Iran over fears it seeks nuclear weapons. International concerns are centered on Iran's bid to master uranium enrichment, even via small-scale research. Tehran says it only wants to make reactor fuel, but the process can be extended to the fissile core of a nuclear weapons and the West is determined to prevent Iran acquiring enrichment know-how. "It would be worrying if it was concealed, but we are doing it transparently and under cameras," Asefi argued Sunday. "The West must not make the mistake that we are seeking to bargain. We have certain rights and the Westerners must accept those," Asefi said, repeating Iran's view that such work is a right enshrined by the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. "Tomorrow the agency (IAEA) must show how it will defend its members and its reputation. We recommend the agency acts professionally and not politically," Asefi told reporters. "If the atmosphere gets tense, the other side will lose," he warned. "It is not the Islamic republic alone which will lose." The IAEA has called on Iran to suspend uranium enrichment as a confidence-building measure and to cooperate with a now three-year-old agency investigation. Iran has refused to do so. On February 4 the UN watchdog's 35-nation board reported Iran to the Security Council but left a month open for diplomacy before the Council receives IAEA director Mohamed ElBaradei's report and decides what measures, if any, to take. In last-ditch talks in Vienna last Friday, Iran and EU powers Britain, France and Germany failed to strike a deal that could have blocked possible Council action. Efforts by Moscow to push a proposal whereby Iranian uranium would be enriched on Russian soil have also yet to yield an accord, given Iran's refusal to return to a moratorium on enrichment. The Security Council could adopt a "presidential declaration" calling on Tehran to heed IAEA calls for Iran to suspend uranium enrichment and cooperate with IAEA inspections, diplomats in Washington and Vienna said. But Iran's Interior Minister Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi also struck a defiant tone Sunday at a gathering of war veterans at the mausoleum of Iran's late revolutionary leader Ayatollah Khomeini on the southern outskirts of Tehran. "Do you think that we are seeking nuclear bomb? Our bomb is not nuclear or chemical. It is unity among the Islamic community. Our bomb brings life, your bomb brings darkness to civilisation," he told the gathering of some 2,000 people. "The destiny of Iran's nuclear case is decided inside Iran, it is this nation that tells you where the case should go," he said, drawing chants of "Death to America", "Death to Israel" and "Nuclear energy is our undeniable right". "God has given his word that he will support us," Pour-Mohammadi said. "We will not allow anyone to stand against the development of our nuclear programme." Copyright 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 21 AFP: Putin briefs Bush on Hamas, Iran initiatives Sat Mar 4, 5:13 PM ET MOSCOW (AFP) - Russian leader Vladimir Putin" /> Vladimir Putinbriefed US President George W. Bush" /> President George W. Bushon Russia's latest Middle East initiatives involving Palestine and Iran" /> Iran's nuclear program, the Kremlin said. "The heads of state discussed the Middle East peace process in light of the results of negotiations in Moscow with a delegation of the leadership of Palestinian group Hamas," a statement said. "There was also an exchange of views regarding the Iranian nuclear issue, taking account of contacts with Iranian officials in Moscow and Vienna," the statement added. "Vladimir Putin and George W. Bush agreed to continue coordinating on these and other current international issues, particularly during the upcoming visit of (Russian) foreign minister Sergei Lavrov to Washington," it said. Lavrov on Sunday will leave Russia for Canada, and is then scheduled to visit Washington. Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal held talks here Friday with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who called on the organization to recognize Israel" /> Israeland accept the positions of the Middle East "quartet" of mediators on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Following the talks, Putin briefed French President Jacques Chirac" /> President Jacques Chirac, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak" /> Hosni Mubarak, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on the controversial meeting. Copyright 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 22 IRNA: Iran's top nuclear negotiator begins talks with Elbaradei - Vienna, March 3, IRNA Larijani-Elbaradei-Talks Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Ali Larijani here on Friday evening began a round of talks with IAEA Chief Muhamed ElBaradei. Also present at the negotiation was the Deputy IAEA Chief Olli Heinonen. The meeting is held a few hours after Larijani's Friday morning negotiation with representatives of Germany, France, and Britain. The Friday morning negotiation was held "amid a constructive atmosphere" according to Larijani, but the two sides reached no agreement during it. The European countries' demand during their Friday talks was that Iran would immediately suspend all its enrichment activities, including those related to its research and development (R) activities. ElBaradei had earlier on Thursday issued a communique in which he had expressed delight over resumption of a new round of talks between Iran and the EU. He had in that communique asked Iran for increasing its trust-building measures, and encouraged the two sides to keep on their negotiations. 2329/1420 ***************************************************************** 23 MNA: Diplomatic initiatives will be dead in the water TEHRAN, Mar. 4 (MNA) -- Following the deadline of March 6 that threatens Iran with UN Security Council referral, we should see a new circumstance made obvious. The stepping up of the game using the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as a political football in the UN Security Council is clearly designed to put Iran into a new and more powerful nutcracker, but players, regardless as to whether they were willing or unwilling, may find themselves and the issue in a new position that some may regret. The response to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Board decision to report Iran to the UN Security Council by Green Peace analyst William Peden is reported by Reuters as: “There will be no winners… All diplomatic initiatives will be dead in the water.” Consistent with this threat, Reuters also reported China has warned of the need for caution and diplomacy while IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei still sees a ‘window of opportunity’ for diplomacy. The Zionists (U.S.A. and Israel) appear to want to use the Security Council to gain new purchase on the political game that failed in the discussions to date. The treaty as it stands and the integrity of the IAEA in relation to the treaty is a technical and legal stumbling block that has to be politically ‘negotiated’ by the Zionists. The Security Council session is a two-edged sword and not an issue Iran needs to fear. Nor does it need to consider who its friends are on the IAEA Board or the outcome of the first meeting. The meeting can possibly be turned into a dead-end street for the Zionists by veto at least, which may tend to return the issue to diplomacy alone and revolve around technical issues not political ones. However, the Zionists will be looking for an opportunity to create new circumstances upon which the future game will be based to put behind them once and for all the stumbling block. The goal then is to appear to legitimize the political game or claim a pseudo-authority based on any consensus regarding an alleged defaming of Iran’s intentions. Even if there is a veto, the Zionists will want to establish a majority or a solid core who will oppose the Iranian right to the enrichment process to stop its nuclear energy program. The Green Peace analyst’s concern that treaty diplomacy will effectively be dead in the water will become so if overshadowed by the political game. The IAEA Board may become one of the players finding new circumstances developing to its regret. One of the possible outcomes is that Iran may have no option but to abandon the Non-Proliferation Treaty and end the inspections. The indicated response by the Iranian government to the IAEA Board’s decision to report Iran to the Security Council, i.e., that they will go back to the original treaty, was to be expected. That is where its strength and the stumbling block are. Any signed concessions granted again to the nuclear watchdog or members of the treaty over and above the treaty or rights surrendered weakens Iran’s position and will be used against it, as we may see in the Security Council session. Only verbal gentlemen’s agreements should be made based on goodwill so that Iran can withdraw whenever it feels the goodwill has failed, forcing renegotiations and corrections. However, it could prove to be very diplomatic to leave the details of what it will do till after the Security Council meeting and to indicate the extra inspection privileges will remain in place by goodwill and subject to goodwill of the treaty members. This shows transparency to the world and creates a little leverage. The option offered by Russia to carry out the enrichment program in Russia and in partnership with Russia will appear as a ready answer to take the wind out of the sails of the Zionist initiative in the Security Council. However, it would be a compromise of the treaty, which grants Iran the right to full nuclear energy development apart from its prior sovereign right. Whatever the outcome, it promises to continue with increasing intensity to prevent Iran from having independent technology for enriching uranium or retaining nuclear waste regardless of the treaty rights. But why should one expect justice when the perpetrators of the war on Iraq, brought about through lies about Iraq as a military threat and pursuer of weapons of mass destruction, are not only both nuclear powers, are members of the NPT, are permanent members of the Security Council, from where they should have been suspended, and have used a weapon of mass destruction, depleted uranium, on Iraq and wherever the winds blow the contaminated dust. If the U.S.A. and Britain are allowed to vote in this session, then what is the point of remaining a treaty member? First there needs to be the establishment of integrity. It is not good to see anything lying dead in the water. It is a tragedy when the very water is seen to be dead. MS/HG End MNA © 2003-2005 Mehr News Agency ***************************************************************** 24 AFP: IAEA meeting on Iran a prelude to Security Council event - US - Sat Mar 4, 2:20 PM ET WASHINGTON (AFP) - Washington sees Monday's meeting of the UN nuclear watchdog agency on Iran" /> 's nuclear program as a prelude to a Security Council gathering on the issue, US officials said. The board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency" /> (IAEA) on Monday begins meetings in Vienna to consider whether the Iran should be referred to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions for pursuing its nuclear program. At the meeting IAEA members will discuss IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei's report on Iran, said US State Department spokesman Adam Ereli. ElBaradei's February report "validates many of the concerns and issues that we've been raising for some time," said Ereli, speaking on Friday. Washington has claimed for years that Iran's nuclear program is aimed at producing nuclear weapons. Iran insists the program is for peaceful purposes. On February 4 the IAEA governors reported Iran to the Security Council, but gave Tehran until March 6 for diplomacy before the world body decides what measures to take. In the meantime they called on Iran to suspend uranium enrichment as a confidence-building measure. The meeting will "review progress or lack of progress that Iran has made" in meeting the IAEA requirements, Ereli said. After the meeting "the matter will be raised in the Security Council," he said. "So more than a formality," said Ereli, the Vienna meeting will be "a substantive discussion of a serious problem, and a review of actions that Iran has taken and failed to take" in response to the IAEA February report, "and a prelude to discussion in the Security Council." Washington believes that no new IAEA resolution is needed to send the Iran dossier to the Security Council. European diplomatic sources in Washington however say that Russia would oppose rushing the issue. The topic is likely to be a main issue when Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov arrives Tuesday in Washington for meetings with President George W. Bush" /> and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice" /> . A senior State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that Washington does not believe another resolution on Iran is necessary. The Security Council "should take up the issue on the following week," the official added. Nobody is talking yet about sanctions, but the Security Council could adopt a "presidential declaration" calling Teheran to order, according to diplomatic sources' in Washington. Such a declaration is adopted by consensus and is not mandatory, and would be considered a "strong signal" of world powers against Iran's nuclear program, a diplomatic source speaking on condition of anonymity. Copyright 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 25 IRNA: Research studies, Iran's sovereignty right, Larijani says Tehran, March 5, IRNA Iran-IAEA-Larijani Secretary of Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Ali Larijani said on Sunday that research studies on generation of nuclear energy is the sovereignty right of the Islamic Republic and Iran will never overlook its right in the context of Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). He cautioned those lobbying to report Iran to UN Security Council and said that they would get nothing from reporting Iran to Security Council, because, Iran's nuclear program is in line with Safeguards Agreement of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). "Of course, Iran does not welcome reporting its national nuclear program to Security Council, and would make every endeavor to stop such an unfair trend," Larijani said. He said that Iran wants nothing more than provisions of NPT and has kept its national nuclear program within that treaty. Asked to comment on latest report of IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei to be presented to Board of Governors on March 6, he said Tehran welcomes ElBaradei's report, because, the UN nuclear agency admitted that the past three years intensive inspections at Iranian nuclear sites provided them with no evidence to prove any diversion. "Of course, ElBaradei said in the meantime that there remains several questions to be answered," Larijani said. He said that Russia and some European states follow logical approach in negotiations with Iran which will benefit all, but, the US approach is something else. "None of the illogical pressures would force Iran to retreat from its own position," he said. "It is surprising and unprecedented in history of UN nuclear agency that a member state is reported to Security Council for research studies on generation of nuclear energy." "The US has many difficulties in Iraq and thus it is seeking to divert public opinion from Iraq to other subject. If there was not Iranian nuclear program, they would find another scenario to do so," Larijani said. "It is hard for the US to see the Europeans and Russia solving an international issue," he said in reference to US diplomatic campaign to portray failure of European and Russian negotiations with Iran. ***************************************************************** 26 IRNA: Gary Sick says costs of US attack on Iran enormous New York, March 5, IRNA Iran-US-Gary Sick Former US National Security Advisor Gary Sick said here Saturday that any US or Israel military attack on Iran is a blatant mistake and they will incur heavy costs. "Moreover such an attack on Iran is also impossible," he added. Sick who was a member of US National Security Committee during presidents Ford, Carter and Reagan and is currently a professor at the Columbia University's Department of International Affairs said that any attack on Iran will have the opposite effects and the perpetrators will bear heavy costs. Alluding to the recent threats by Israel and US against Iran, he added "contrary to the publicity propagated by the US and Israel they will not launch a military strike against Iran." Also, a point to be borne in mind is that Israel cannot attack Iran unless it is with the US' consent. "In other words any Israel military attack on Iran is like a US strike on the country," he underscored. Sick who is the author of two books on US-Iran policies said that even the US and Israeli leaders are aware of adverse consequences of any attack. As the US attack on Iraq galvanized the Iraqis and garnered the people's support for their government, any attack on Iran will have similar outcome, he added. Attacking Iran will destabilize the Middle East. The aim of threats by the US and Israel is more to start a dialogue, Sick underlined. He said in case of attack on Iran the whole Middle East will be engulfed with anti-American demonstration. Hizbollah and probably Hamas will attack Israel and US interests, Sick stated. The Iraqi government will not cooperate with the US and southern Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia and Bahrain will witness crisis and demonstrations. In related news and on the possible dangers of US interference in the Middle East, Deputy Foreign Minister Mehdi Mostafavi said on Saturday that by interfering with the talks on Iran's uranium enrichment, the US intends to disrupt the regional peace. According to Qatari press, speaking to reporters in Doha, he added that the US, which had suggested establishment of 23 nuclear reactors in Iran in 1974, is now doing its best to deprive the country of its right to access nuclear energy for peaceful purposes under the supervision of the UN unclear watchdog. As President Ahmadinejad's special envoy in the region, Mostafavi stressed Iran's commitment to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and peaceful use of nuclear energy. "According to the remarks of IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei, the agency has no documents to prove that Iran's nuclear program violates NPT. "All nuclear activities in Iran are supervised by the IAEA and the inspectors of the agency constantly inspect our nuclear facilities," he added. Stressing that economic sanctions against Iran will inflict irreparable damage on the entire world, he expressed his belief that no country will break its economic ties with Iran. ***************************************************************** 27 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: [OUTLOOK] Kim's trip to North has promise by Lee Hong-koo 2006.03.05 It is very fortunate in many ways that former president Kim Dae-jung has put his Pyongyang visit off until after the local elections in May. No matter how he aims to improve inter-Korean relations, it is only reasonable to accommodate the circumstances by refraining from pursuing projects or policies that can potentially encourage internal division among us. The former West German leaders who led Ostpolitik, or Eastern politics, such as Willy Brandt and Richard von Weizsacker, all emphasized alike that only a unification policy based on a bipartisan and nationwide consensus could succeed. The decision of Mr. Kim must be a prudent choice that the veteran politician has made based on his experience and wisdom in consideration of concerned citizens. Just as government officials have made clear repeatedly, the scheduled Pyongyang visit of the former president is not an official event representing the government nor of Mr. Kim as a special envoy. Mr. Kim has also stressed that he is preparing for the visit purely as an individual civilian. The very special meaning of Mr. Kim's visit is that he will be able to talk to the North Korean leader as a man with free standing. The Korean government has more than a few things to say to Pyongyang but restrains its tongue out of fear that it could bring an end to dialogue. The government not only asks for the understanding of its citizens but also does not hesitate to threaten that provoking Pyongyang with either the nuclear or human rights issue could lead to war. Therefore, Koreans hope that Mr. Kim, who is free from the various restrictions the government has in official dialogues, might be able to exchange frank opinions without much risk. On the other hand, the Pyongyang visit could be a chance for Mr. Kim to exploit the special position and weight he has in Korean politics and in international society. As a leader of the democratization movement who risked his life by opposing dictatorship, and as a human rights activist who does not tolerate infringement of the rights of a single individual, Mr. Kim projects great authority and dignity. When the aging senior politician goes across the demarcation line and sincerely makes requests out of worry for the future of the nation, it is hard to figure out how the North Korean leader will react. In order to escape the domestic and international restraints pressuring the North Korean regime today, and to earn support and understanding from the South, Pyongyang needs to consider a few things first. Firstly, Pyongyang needs to make a decision to return to the principles of the Joint Declaration of the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula as soon as possible. The best way to seek the utmost security for the 70 million Koreans living on the Korean Peninsula is for both the North and the South to abide by the agreement of 14 years ago not to allow the production or placement of nuclear weapons under any circumstances. If Pyongyang makes up its mind to keep that promise by all means, the South will render all necessary assistance. Secondly, instead of considering the human rights issue, which international society emphasizes as a universal value of mankind, as a threat to the North Korean system, Pyongyang needs to display the flexibility to seek its own solution just as China has: by keeping in mind the international attention to human rights concerns, it has developed a more people-oriented socialism. Koreans have long professed the humanistic belief that there is nothing more precious than people. Pyongyang should have the wisdom to discuss the issue with Seoul and reach a solution together. Thirdly, Pyongyang should know it is by no means beneficial to recklessly defy universal values widely accepted in an era when globalization is an undeniable historical trend. When Pyongyang shows respect for international standards as it deals with sensitive issues, including the counterfeiting of U.S. dollars, it can find a way to a resolution, and Seoul can more actively follow suit. Perhaps, former President Kim is at the top of the list of South Korean leaders who has the authority and wisdom to earnestly convey the above series of concerns and advice to Pyongyang. As a senior politician who has retreated from the turbulent stage of politics and mastered the transience of political life, Mr. Kim is being given a great opportunity to personally show to the North Koreans the truth that a leader might come and go, but the people are forever. At any rate, neither Seoul nor Pyongyang have any reason to get overly excited by Mr. Kim's North Korean visit. * The writer, a former prime minister, is an advisor to the JoongAng Ilbo. Translation by the JoongAng Daily staff. Copyright by Joins.com, Inc. Terms of Use | ***************************************************************** 28 [NYTr] US Officially Abandons Goal of Nuclear Disarmament Date: Sat, 4 Mar 2006 21:36:03 -0600 (CST) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit AFP - Mar 4, 2006 http://www.afp.com/english/news/stories/060304081535.b76w5gj2.html US signals abandonment of nuclear disarmament WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States has signaled its apparent abandonment of the goal of nuclear disarmament "for the foreseeable future" as it embarked on a quest for a new generation of more reliable nuclear warheads. Although the term "nuclear disarmament" quietly disappeared from the Bush administration's vocabulary long ago, the statement by Linton Brooks, head the National Nuclear Security Administration, marked the first time a top government official publicly acknowledged a goal enshrined in key international documents will no longer be pursued. "The United States will, for the foreseeable future, need to retain both nuclear forces and the capabilities to sustain and modernize those forces," Brooks stated Friday as he addressed the East Tennessee Economic Council in the city of Oak Ridge, which is home to a major nuclear weapons complex. "I do not see any chance of the political conditions for abolition arising in my lifetime, nor do I think abolition could be verified if it were negotiated," he pointed out. The acknowledgement represents a departure from commitments given by previous US administrations to their negotiating partners and the international community at large. In September 1998, then-presidents Bill Clinton of the United States and Boris Yeltsin of Russia signed a joint statement, in which they reaffirmed the two countries' commitment to "the ultimate goal of nuclear disarmament". In addition, unambiguous disarmament clauses are contained in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty signed in 1968 by all leading nuclear powers of that era, including the United States, and now used to rein in nuclear ambitions by countries like Iran and North Korea. In the preamble to the accord, the signatories agreed "to facilitate the cessation of the manufacture of nuclear weapons, the liquidation of all their existing stockpiles, and the elimination from national arsenals of nuclear weapons and the means of their delivery." They reaffirmed their commitment to nuclear disarmament in more binding language in the treaty's Article VI, which states that "each of the parties to the treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament." * ================================================================ .NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems . Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us . .339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org .List Archives: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ .Subscribe: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ================================================================ ***************************************************************** 29 [NukeNet] On Nuclear Deal, India Out-Maneuvered Bush, Who Gave Date: Sat, 04 Mar 2006 16:30:57 -0800 NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net) Did Bush Blink? By Dan Froomkin Special to washingtonpost.com Friday, March 3, 2006; 12:30 PM In addition to all the predictable reactions (pro and con) to the landmark nuclear agreement reached in India yesterday, a powerful and unexpected new concern has emerged based on a last-minute concession by President Bush. It appears that, to close the deal during his visit, Bush directed his negotiators to give in to India's demands that it be allowed to produce unlimited quantities of fissile material and amass as many nuclear weapons as it wants. The agreement, which requires congressional approval, would be an important step toward Bush's long-held goal of closer relations with India. It would reflect India's status as a global power. And, not least of all, it would more firmly establish India as a military ally and bulwark against China. Critics have long denounced such an agreement, saying it would reward India for its rogue nuclear-weapons program and could encourage other nations to do likewise. But now the criticisms may focus on this question: By enabling India to build an unlimited stockpile of nuclear weapons, would this agreement set off a new Asian arms race? And here's another question: Were Bush and his aides so eager for some good headlines -- for a change -- that they gave away the store? The Coverage Jim VandeHei and Dafna Linzer write in The Washington Post: "Bush and [Indian Prime Minister Manmohan] Singh praised the deal at a joint news conference, but they did not mention that it would allow India to produce vast quantities of fissile material, something the United States and the four other major nuclear powers -- China, Russia, France and Britain -- have voluntarily halted. The pact also does not require oversight of India's prototype fast-breeder reactors, which can produce significant amounts of super-grade plutonium when fully operating. . . . "Last week, during a private meeting with a group of congressional leaders, [undersecretary of state for political affairs R. Nicholas] Burns suggested it was unlikely the sides would be able to quickly bridge significant gaps on the separation plan. But a last-minute decision by Bush to accept India's demands sealed the deal. . . . "Rep. Ed Royce (R-Calif.), who chairs the International Relations subcommittee on international terrorism and nonproliferation, said he welcomed better ties with India, but not at any cost. In a statement, he said the agreement had 'implications beyond U.S.-India relations' and that the 'goal of curbing nuclear proliferation should be paramount.' He warned that Congress would not be rushed into backing the deal. . . . "But supporters said the pact was an important part of a White House strategy to accelerate New Delhi's rise as a global power and as a regional counterweight to China." Elisabeth Bumiller and Somini Sengupta write in the New York Times: "In New Delhi, American and Indian negotiators working all night reached agreement on the nuclear deal at 10:30 a.m. Thursday local time -- only two hours before Mr. Bush and Mr. Singh announced it -- after the United States accepted an Indian plan to separate its civilian and military nuclear facilities. . . . "India . . . retained the right to develop future fast-breeder reactors for its military program, a provision that critics of the deal called astonishing. In addition, India said it was guaranteed a permanent supply of nuclear fuel. . . . " 'It's not meaningful to talk about 14 of the 22 reactors being placed under safeguards,' said Robert J. Einhorn, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, who served as a top nonproliferation official in the Clinton administration and the early days of the Bush administration. 'What's meaningful is what the Indians can do at the unsafeguarded reactors, which is vastly increase their production of fissile material for nuclear weapons. One has to assume that the administration was so interested in concluding a deal that it was prepared to cave in to the demands of the Indian nuclear establishment.' " Peter Wallsten writes in the Los Angeles Times that "it appeared in the hours after the announcement that India had emerged a winner. . . . "[CSIS's] Einhorn said the U.S. had initially offered to let India produce weapons materials at its two planned fast-breeder reactors -- enough to produce as many as six bombs a year. But India, underscoring its interest in a more robust weapons program, rejected the deal, he said." Farah Stockman writes in the Boston Globe that "critics of the deal, under negotiation since July, said Bush did not drive a hard enough bargain. They said he failed to win any major restrictions on India's nuclear arsenal, such as a halt to the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons. " 'India has wanted this deal for 30 years,' said Jon Wolfsthal, a former policy adviser for the US Department of Energy under President Clinton who now works at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. 'For them, this is the Holy Grail of international acceptance, and we sold it for pennies on the dollar. In the end, the major players in the Bush administration feel it's OK for India to have a large nuclear arsenal as long as its not directed at the United States, and that there might even be benefits, for instance, to deter against China.' " Steven R. Weisman writes in the New York Times: " 'This deal not only lets India amass as many nuclear weapons as it wants, it looks like we made no effort to try to curtail them,' said George Perkovich, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. 'This is Santa Claus negotiating. The goal seems to have been to give away as much as possible.' " James Sterngold writes in the San Francisco Chronicle: "While some officials hailed President Bush's announcement Thursday of a nuclear cooperation deal between the United States and India as a sign of warmer ties, a number of experts and some members of Congress reacted with deep concern, saying the proposal could allow India to expand its nuclear weapons arsenal. . . . "India has a stockpile estimated at 40 to 50 warheads, which it developed to counterbalance threats from China and Pakistan, both nuclear-armed countries with which India has had military conflicts. In 1998, India and then Pakistan conducted underground tests, bringing them to the brink of a nuclear exchange, prompting many security experts to call for steps toward disarmament in the volatile region rather than an increase in nuclear technology. . . . "[N]ow that the two sides have agreed on specific terms, the skeptics said the deal could allow India to expand its arsenal even further and possibly encourage a regional nuclear arms race." Yahoo! Mail Use Photomail to share photos without annoying attachments. _______________________________________________________________________ Subscribe/Unsubscribe Here: http://www.energyjustice.net/nukenet/ Change your settings or access the archives at: http://energyjustice.net/mailman/listinfo/nukenet_energyjustice.net ***************************************************************** 30 It's Official: Bush Wants New Nuclear Arms Race Date: Sat, 4 Mar 2006 13:38:55 -0600 (CST) Although the term "nuclear disarmament" quietly disappeared from the Bush administration's vocabulary long ago, the statement by Linton Brooks, head the National Nuclear Security Administration, marked the first time a top government official publicly acknowledged a goal enshrined in key international documents will no longer be pursued. "The United States will, for the foreseeable future, need to retain both nuclear forces and the capabilities to sustain and modernize those forces," Brooks stated Friday as he addressed the East Tennessee Economic Council in the city of Oak Ridge, which is home to a major nuclear weapons complex. "The end of the Cold War did not end the importance of nuclear weapons," continued the chief steward of the US nuclear weapons program. "I do not see any chance of the political conditions for abolition arising in my lifetime, nor do I think abolition could be verified if it were negotiated." The acknowledgement represents a departure from commitments given by previous US administrations to their negotiating partners and the international community at large. In September 1998, then-presidents Bill Clinton of the United States and Boris Yeltsin of Russia signed a joint statement, in which they reaffirmed the two countries' commitment to "the ultimate goal of nuclear disarmament". In addition, unambiguous disarmament clauses are contained in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty signed in 1968 by all leading nuclear powers of that era, including the United States, and now used to rein in the nuclear ambitions of countries like Iran and North Korea. In the preamble to the accord, the signatories agreed "to facilitate the cessation of the manufacture of nuclear weapons, the liquidation of all their existing stockpiles, and the elimination from national arsenals of nuclear weapons and the means of their delivery." They reaffirmed their commitment to nuclear disarmament in more binding language in the treaty's Article VI, which states that "each of the parties to the treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament." Brooks made the remarks as he showcased the administration's plan to modernize the nation's nuclear arsenal to make it more durable and reliable. Under the Moscow Treaty signed in May 2002, President George W. Bush committed the United States to reducing its arsenal of operationally-deployed strategic nuclear weapons to between 1,700 to 2,200 warheads by December 2012. But experts are concerned the mainstay of the current arsenal, the W-76 warhead, is deteriorating in storage and may soon lose its reliability. Bush requested 27.7 million dollars from Congress earlier this year to develop the so-called Reliable Replacement Warhead. Its technical characteristics are highly classified. But Brooks said that the new warhead would have the same military value and delivery systems while being more reliable, secure and easier to maintain. US scientists are also studying the feasibility of the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator, a new type of nuclear weapon capable of destroying hardened underground targets. Brooks rejected the notion the new nuclear weapons programs undercut efforts to advance global non-proliferation. He insisted that countries like Iran or North Korea "are reacting more to US conventional weapons superiority than to anything we have done or are doing in the nuclear weapons arena." The official also declared the US nuclear posture to be "entirely consistent with our international obligations." ***************************************************************** 31 IPS-English INDIA-U.S.: Nuclear deal and a health time bomb Date: Sat, 04 Mar 2006 16:17:59 -0800 NA WD DV EN HE=20 INDIA-U.S.: Nuclear deal and a health time bomb Att.Editors: The following item is from the Emirates News Agency (WAM) ABU DHABI, Mar. 4 (WAM) - India and the U.S. President's 3-day visit to t= he=20 world's largest democracy, have taken a place in the English United Arab=20 Emirates (UAE) dailies for yet another day. =94Bush ushers in India into nuclear club=94 was the title of the Duba= i-based=20 English daily 'Gulf News' editorial which compared Bush's visit to that o= f=20 Bill Clinton in 2000. =94...The promise of the first has been more than realised by the seco= nd,=94=20 the daily said, adding that the =94visit has been marred by countrywide=20 protests.=94 =94He is not addressing parliament, as Clinton did. Instead a 15th cen= tury=20 fort is the backdrop for his seminal address to the world's largest=20 democracy,=94 the daily remarked. However, the daily added, Bush =94has given New Delhi what it has long= =20 sought: the status of a nuclear weapons state... has ended India's nuclea= r=20 isolation and opened doors to technology that will vastly boost its growi= ng=20 economy. The agreements run the gamut from cooperation on the economic=20 front, to trade deals, agriculture, education and healthcare.=94 Bush's =94American embrace of India must be acknowledged for what it i= s: a=20 major shift in Washington's foreign policy. On balance then, Clinton char= med=20 India. Bush may have won its trust by ushering it into the nuclear=20 community,=94 'Gulf News' concluded. Instead of commenting on the nuclear implications of Bush's visit to=20 India, the Sharjah-based 'Khaleej Times' opted for commenting on =94A hea= lth=20 time bomb=94 in India. =94The WHO has warned India that if serious steps are not taken=20 immediately, millions could die and billions of dollars could be lost in=20 terms of lost work hours and medical costs.... Despite some spectacular=20 progress in biotechnology and formulation of generic drugs, India continu= es=20 to lag behind other developed countries in health care,=94 'Khaleej Times= '=20 said. =94...New diseases and sedentary habits are taking their toll on healt= h....=20 According to projections made for the next 10 years, persisting illnesses= =20 kill more than 60 million Indians and work-related losses caused by disea= ses=20 amount to a staggering $237 billion,=94 the daily added. India's HIV positive is the =94highest number of AIDS patients in the = world=20 after South Africa=94, therefore...=94it is imperative for the country to= =20 diagnose its problems carefully and find a cure=94, 'Khaleej Times' concl= uded.=20 (WAM)=20 =20 ***************************************************************** 32 IPS-English POLITICS: India Deal Makes US a Nuclear Date: Sat, 04 Mar 2006 16:17:59 -0800 ROMAIPS AP NA WD DV IP NU=20 POLITICS: India Deal Makes US a Nuclear Proliferator Ranjit Devraj=20 NEW DELHI, Mar 4 (IPS) - Campaigners for a nuclear-free South Asia are a= ghast at the potential nightmare that lies ahead following the nuclear=20 technology and fuel deal announced here this week by visiting United=20 States President George W. Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. ''This deal may have further complicated an already difficult situation i= n South Asia which has two rival self-declared nuclear weapon states,'' s= aid N.D. Jayaprakash, lead campaigner for the Movement in India for Nucl= ear Disarmament (MIND), which counts among its ranks well-known scientist= s and intellectuals.=20 ''What is sad is that nowhere in all this did the idea that nuclear=20 weapons are not safe in anybody's hands come up, and now, far from the di= sarmament debate, the clamour by other countries that they too be allowed= to possess nuclear weapons has grown louder,'' he added. =20 Pakistan, where Bush was rounding off his four-day South Asian tour on Sa= turday, was first off the block demanding a civilian nuclear technology d= eal similar to the one Washington signed with its regional rival on the g= rounds that it was short on fossil fuel. But, at a televised press conference in Islamabad, Bush ruled out any suc= h deal with Pakistan. ''We discussed the civilian nuclear programme and I= explained to him (Musharraf) that Pakistan and India=20 are different countries with different needs and different=20 histories,'' Bush said.=20 ''What is happening is that, with this deal, the U.S. has itself become t= he biggest proliferator of nuclear technology,'' Prof. Anuradha Chinoy, d= isarmament specialist at the Jawaharalal Nehru University (JNU), told IPS= in an interview. ''The only difference is that what the U.S. is practici= ng is selective proliferation.'' Chinoy said the deal went against the ideal of universal disarmament and = would only make aspirant countries, denied entry into the select nuclear = club, even more dangerous and desperate, as could be seen from the exampl= es of Iran, Pakistan and North Korea. Iran has already accused the U.S. = and India of double standards. As its case moves towards a likely referen= ce to the U.N. Security Council, Iran will certainly raise the 'double st= andards' pitch. Worst of all, said Chinoy, the ''U.S. and India are now partners in=20 violating international law by not involving the International Atomic Ene= rgy Agency (IAEA) and the 45-country Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) before= agreeing to transfer nuclear fuel and technology''.=20 Both the IAEA and the NSG are United Nations bodies.=20 Indian newspapers, however, have been hailing the deal as a triumph for i= ts negotiators' skills. They succeeded in keeping the country's=20 demonstrated capacity to make nuclear weapons away from international ins= pections while gaining access to advanced reactors and technology for its= civilian programme. =20 On top of that India has all along refused to be signatory to the Nuclear= Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) on the grounds that it was discriminatory= . It carried out nuclear tests in 1974, attracting international sanction= s, but defiantly went on to declare itself a nuclear weapons state in 199= 8 through a second round of tests. =20 Following Thursday's deal, Singh told a press conference that under the I= ndo-U.S. pact the NSG and the IAEA would be made to formulate India-speci= fic safeguards. Under existing rules, by contrast, the NSG cannot supply= 'dual-use' nuclear technology to India since it does not accept full-sco= pe IAEA safeguards on nuclear facilities. So far, though, the agreement has received praise from IAEA director=20 general Mohamed El Baradei, who has described it as ''timely for ongoing = efforts to consolidate the non-proliferation regime, combat nuclear terro= rism and strengthen nuclear safety''.=20 India has been allowed to classify eight of its existing 22 reactors as m= ilitary and keep them away from IAEA inspectors and also decide=20 whether any future reactor it builds ought to be classified as civilian o= r military.=20 Most importantly, India has been able to keep its entire fast-breeder rea= ctor programme in the military list. Fast breeders use fission caused by = fast neutrons and burn highly concentrated or enriched fuel and, theoreti= cally, they generate more fissile material than they consume. And the dea= l has no caps on fissile material, including weapons-grade plutonium.=20 Even before Bush landed in India on Wednesday, Singh made pledged=20 in parliament that the fast breeder programme, a pet project of=20 India's secretive Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), would not be=20 compromised in any way. =20 ''It is possible that DAE officials want to have the option of producing = nuclear fuel for weapons in these unsafeguarded reactors,=94 said M.V. Ra= mana, well-known a physicist at Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in E= nvironment and Development, located in southern Indian city of Bangalore.= =20 Another possible reason for the fierce resistance put up by DAE, through = interviews fed to the media by its chief Anil Kakodkar, is that the fast = breeder sites also house facilities for the nuclear reactor that India is= developing for its submarines. ''Indian authorities probably don't want = IAEA inspectors lurking around there,'' Ramana told IPS. =20 (END/IPS/AP/IP/NA/WD/NU/DV/RDR/MMM/06)=20 =20 =3D 03041448 ORP004 NNNN ***************************************************************** 33 [NYTr] Age of Anxiety: Politics Comes Back to the Movies Date: Sat, 4 Mar 2006 21:38:21 -0600 (CST) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit Newsweek - Mar 3, 2006 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11644571/site/newsweek/from/RSS/ Age of Anxiety By Christopher Dickey Newsweek March 3, 2006 - The shrill electronic scream at the end of "Fail-Safe" is the sound of the phone lines burning up as Moscow is hit with a nuclear weapon. Both New York and the Russian capital have just been sacrificed in a grim pact between the United States and the Soviets to avoid an all-out nuclear holocaust. It's quite a scene, quite a movie, and when the original film, directed by Sidney Lumet, came out in 1964 it seemed all too plausible. Flash forward (as it were) to the year 2000. Television and screen idol George Clooney uses his clout with CBS to re-create "Fail-Safe," not only employing the setting and dialogue from the 1960s, but putting it on as a live television production in black and white. When I saw Clooney's version, it brought back the grim angst of the early 1960s, when the threat of global obliteration seemed imminent and almost inevitable. But I wondered, in 2000, why he'd made it. Then, last year we had two more films from Clooney's company: "Good Night, and Good Luck," about the 1954 showdown between legendary broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow and the Red-baiting Republican demagogue Sen. Joseph McCarthy, and "Syriana," about brutal intrigues in the Middle East. Between them they've been nominated for seven awards at the Oscars this Sundayincluding best picture and best director (Clooney) for "Good Night." "Fail Safe," "Good Night" and "Syriana" all echo, in their way, a collection of moviesdoomsday films, reallymade in the 1960s and '70s, and to understand these recent pictures, I think, it helps to understand those old ones. They were movies that changed us, and that is what Clooney most wants to do. In the 1960s, America was on the rebound from McCarthyism; people were fed up with fear, but they couldn't shake it. Children in elementary schools were drilled in what procedures to follow if there were a nuclear attack. (Mostly you were told to hide under your desk, but after we were shown films of atom bomb tests, we were left wondering what possible good that would do.) Then came the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962, and the prospect loomed of living for months or years underground in fallout shelters, if you were lucky enough to live at all. In November 1963, President John F. Kennedy was murdered; anything and everything terrible seemed possible. It was a time, as critic J. Hoberman puts it, when "movies were political events and political events were experienced as movies." In the Kennedy years, "Camelot" may have set an optimistic tone on Broadway, but in the movie houses a rapid succession of fearful pictures echoed and amplified a fearsome message: not only, as the saying goes, "be afraid, be very afraid," but, "be very afraid of your government, especially the Pentagon." A rush of cinematic paranoia, if that's what it was, began in 1959 with "On the Beach," as Gregory Peck and others in Australia, knowing the rest of the world has been destroyed by nuclear war, wait for life to end for them as well. In 1962, Otto Preminger brought out his Capital Hill conspiracy "Advise and Consent" and John Frankenheimer directed a bizarre tale of brainwashing and political murder, "The Manchurian Candidate." In 1963 Marlon Brando played "The Ugly American," a U.S. ambassador in a country much like Vietnam who winds up bringing on the deaths of his friends and his ideals. Then, in rapid succession in 1964 came Lumet's "Fail-Safe"; Frankenheimer's "Seven Days in May," about a coup planned by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Burt Lancaster) to block a nuclear disarmament treaty with the Soviet Union, and Stanley Kubrick's satirical "Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying And Love the Bomb." Slim Pickens as Maj. T. J. (King) Kong tells the crew of his B-52, "Well, boys, I reckon this is it; nuclear combat toe to toe with the Russkies." Later he rides the nuke like a bronco, waving his Stetson all the way to ground zero and global annihilation. In the war room strategic advisor Dr. Strangelove eventually convinces a weak president there's an upside to the end of the world, at least for the men at the top. Hoberman, author of "Dream Life: Movies, Media and the Mythology of the Sixties" (New Press, 2003), writes that these last pictures "conceived American democracy as the province of demagogues, extortionists, traitors, megalomaniacs and assassins. Shot in sober black and white, such movies were pure delirium, glossy prophetic newsreels that set one American president after another in the midst of some obscurely plotted personal or public Armageddon." The doomsday pictures of the early 1960s opened the way for a long series of films that fit the mood of the country as the grim reality of Vietnam set in and then Watergate shook the government to its foundations. "Demagogues, extortionists, traitors, megalomaniacs and assassins"? By the 1970s, they didn't seem like fiction anymore. In 1976, "All the President's Men" would present a more or less factual dramatization of Richard Nixon's date with infamy and Sidney ("Fail-Safe") Lumet's movie "Network" would lay bare the chicanery of the news business, giving voice to people who were mad as hell and weren't going to take it anymore. Except ... by then the public was almost as tired of its anger as it had been of its fear. "All the President's Men" and "Network" were beat out for the best film Oscar of 1976 by the fight-picture fairy tale "Rocky." The age of anxietythat age of anxietywas ending. Today, one of George Clooney's projects is a new TV production of "Network." Wouldn't you know. So, what do we make of this guy? Why would Clooney be so anxious to revive those angst-ridden times? Partly, of course, because of the way Osama bin Ladenand our own politicianshave returned them to us these last five years. "Fail Safe" might have been a one-off. I remember bumping into Clooney at a party in Italy several months after the play was aired. It was the summer of 2001, and Clooney was in his swinging, pseudo-Rat Pack, "Ocean's Eleven" mode, with Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston in tow. I tried to draw him out about his doomsday project of the year before, but it seemed at the time like an experiment in anachronism. Why'd he do it? His answer was basically "because I could." He'd liked the original "Fail-Safe"seen it maybe 100 times. He wanted to do something "different" on television, and CBS agreed. But the cold war seemed, then, as ancient as the ice age. The Chicago Sun-Times, in its review of "Fail Safe," talked about that "spooky time" that appeared "cartoonish now in the purity with which it kept Americans on edge." In that summer of 2001, it's worth remembering, the United States and Europe felt secure, fat, maybe a little bored, and few could imagine the threats on the horizon. President George W. Bush, then on his way to vacation in Texas, was not alone in that. When something horribly suggestive of Armageddon did happen in New York and Washington a few weeks later, on September 11, fear came back to America with a vengeance, and what Clooney seized on, as the earlier film makers had done, was the way the Bush administration manipulated the purity of that fear to keep Americans on edge, to keep the wars going, and to chip away at American freedoms. Looking at old movies, he'd seen it all before. Today, the more disillusioned the American public grows with the Iraq conflict, the more you see the administration trying to revive the spirit of what it seems to recall as the good ol' days of the cold war. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld even talks about "a long, twilight struggle," consciously echoing the anti-Soviet rhetoric of JFK as the Bushies go toe to toe with the terrorists. So if the administration wants to revive an anxious past, and it does, then it certainly makes sense for Clooney to look at that history through the lens of today, and today through the lens of that history. Yet, sympathetic as I am to what Clooney's doing, there are times when he seems to get too wrapped up in the past. Clooney likes to talk about "Good Night" as if it were actual journalism, and it was widely reviewed as such. He kept telling reporters how he looked for multiple sources, because he didn't want to get caught out on details, and you wanted to shout out, "It's about the present, stupid"; a story of the way fear destroys rights and how frightening it can be when you try to fight back. That's not about details, that's not about the past, that's about here and now. "Syriana," so self-consciously obscure that even I had trouble following it, is entirely a work of fiction. Never mind the titles that say it's based on the 2002 memoir, "See No Evil" (Crown), by former CIA agent Robert Baer. The intrigues surrounding Clooney's character take place in a fictional emirate that might be Saudi Arabia, but has a history a little like Qatar and a landscape that is, quite literally, Dubai, where much of it was filmed. Yet it's not about any of those places, in fact. It's about the United States, and it's the style that's important, not the substance. "Syriana" feels like many a spy film from the 1970s, when Watergate and Senate investigations into the American intelligence establishment created a pervasive sense that government was out to defend itself regardless of the cost to American civil liberties, human rights and common sense. For a while, I was a little puzzled by Clooney's particular penchant for this retro sort of angst. He was born in 1961, after all. He was only 2 when President Kennedy was killed, and only 7 years old in the epochal year of 1968. Clooney was 13 when Nixon resigned, and 14 when Saigon fell. So his experience of the '60s, even broadly construed, is essentially second-hand. Then I came across a book by Nick Clooney, George's father. Now 72, Nick Clooney has been a television reporter, a local anchorman and a columnist in the Cincinnati area. In 2004 he ran for Congress in Kentucky and lost, as a liberal Democrat. George is quick to talk about how much he admires his dad, and how he emulates him. "My father had the same fights Murrow had in '54, in '74," he said proudly when "Good Night" was released. And Nick Clooney knows exactly where heand his son, it seems are coming from. "The twentieth century was a war lover's dream," wrote the elder Clooney in his 2002 book, "The Movies that Changed Us: Reflections on the Screen" (Atria). "Men were getting too good at the destruction trade." But "Strangelove" and the other doomsday pictures of the early 1960s "opened the gates for antiwar themes in the movies." They fit the mood of a country where "millions were weary of being held prisoner in a twilight war that had no winners and for which no end was in sight." They ultimately did what films, in Nick Clooney's opinion, ought to do: they made the world a safer, fairer, better place to live in. At the end of his book he talks about a long list of injustices, "all waiting for the still-potent medium of film to take up their cause and join them at the barricadenow, when it can still make a difference." George Clooney, inspired by his father and the films of 40 years ago, is just doing what he can, now, to stop some latter-day cowboy, whooping, hollering and waving his Stetson, from plunging all of us into oblivion for the benefit of a few men at the top. ) 2006 MSNBC.com * ================================================================ .NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems . Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us . .339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org .List Archives: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ .Subscribe: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ================================================================ ***************************************************************** 34 [NYTr] Bush Regime Plans to Modernize Nuke Arsenal Date: Sat, 4 Mar 2006 21:38:36 -0600 (CST) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit [Where is the United Nations? Where is the IAEA? Why hasn't the US been declared a rogue state yet? Why isn't there at least an Interpol warrant out for the arrest of this gang of murdering thugs, thieves and international terrorists? -NY Transfer] The Washington Post - Mar 4, 2006 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/03/AR2006030301757.html?nav=rss_world U.S. Plans to Modernize Nuclear Arsenal By Walter Pincus Washington Post Staff Writer The Bush administration is developing plans to design and deploy refurbished or replacement warheads for the nuclear stockpile, and by 2030 to modernize the production complex so that, if required, it could produce new generations of weapons with different or modified capabilities. Referring to goals established two years ago, Ambassador Linton F. Brooks, administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), told the House Armed Services subcommittee on strategic forces Wednesday that "we will revitalize our weapons design community to meet the challenge of being able to adapt an existing weapon within 18 months, and design, develop and begin production of a new design within three to four years of a decision to enter engineering development." A study by NNSA for restructuring the aging weapons complex, which includes dealing with facilities that dismantle retired weapons, should be sent to Congress this spring, Brooks said. Although there is some updating and modernizing of the present complex, "full infrastructure changes . . . will take a couple of decades," Brooks said. The first step in the long-range plan is focused around the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) program that was approved last year. That program contemplates designing new components for previously tested nuclear packages that would make the resulting bombs and warheads safer and more reliable over the long term than older stockpiled weapons that are being refurbished. The RRW warheads would create, Brooks said, a "reduced chance we will ever need to resort to nuclear testing." In addition, he said, "Once we demonstrate we can produce warheads on a time scale in which geopolitical threats could emerge, we would no longer need to retain extra warheads to hedge against unexpected geopolitical changes." Under current plans, the number of deployed U.S. warheads on submarines, missiles and bombers would be reduced to between 1,700 and 2,200 by 2012. There would be an additional number, said to exceed 2,000, that would remain in a strategic reserve, and it would be the latter that could be further reduced under the RRW program. However, Brooks told the subcommittee that he believes more funds will be needed to prepare for a new multibillion-dollar facility to produce "pits," plutonium triggers for thermonuclear weapons. There is controversy over how reliable the plutonium pits are as they age because of radioactive decay. Brooks told the panel the current belief is they are reliable for 45 to 60 years, but uncertainties have developed. A small facility at the Los Alamos National Laboratory has been established to build pits, but its capacity will be 30 to 40 pits a year beginning in 2012, which Brooks described as "insufficient to meet our assessed long-term pit production needs" created by the RRW warheads. Brooks's description of the U.S. plan for nuclear weapons production came one day before President Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced their agreement for sharing nuclear technology, while permitting India to continue production of weapons-grade materials at one-third of their reactors. It also came one day after testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee by Lt. Gen. Michael D. Maples, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, described how India and other nations are moving forward with their own nuclear programs. "We believe that India and Pakistan . . . continue expanding and modernizing their nuclear weapon stockpiles," Maples said, adding, "Pakistan has also developed the capability to produce plutonium for potential weapons use." He also reported that North Korea is continuing to produce plutonium for its nuclear program, and that China "is likely" to increase the number of its nuclear-armed theater and strategic weapons and "has sufficient fissile material to support this growth." ) 2006 The Washington Post Company * ================================================================ .NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems . Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us . .339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org .List Archives: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ .Subscribe: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ================================================================ ***************************************************************** 35 Guardian Unlimited: U.S., Pakistan Recommit to War on Terror From the Associated Press [UP] Saturday March 4, 2006 11:46 AM AP Photo PKGH115 By DEB RIECHMANN Associated Press Writer ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) - President Bush and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf recommitted their nations Saturday to the difficult task of hunting down terrorists still hiding here and across the globe. Bush came to Pakistan - despite terrorist dangers that demanded extraordinary security - to bolster Musharraf, who straddles a delicate political divide in this impoverished but growing Islamic nation. The U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are unpopular here, and Pakistan's strong anti-American sentiment was reflected in the thousands who demonstrated across the country against Bush's visit. While there are suspicions that al-Qaida and Taliban operatives maintain some degree of safe sanctuary inside Pakistan, Musharraf has defied criticism he is too cozy with Washington to be a strong U.S. partner in the anti-terrorism campaign. Bush said his visit convinced him that Musharraf is as committed as ever. ``We will win this fight together,'' Bush said after more than an hour of private talks with Musharraf. ``While we do have a lot of work to be done, it's important that we stay on the hunt.'' The United States also sees Musharraf as a leader who favors a more open, moderate and tolerant Pakistan. Standing alongside the Pakistani leader whom Bush calls his ``buddy,'' the U.S. president stopped short of criticizing Musharraf on the pace of democratic advances, only gently calling for elections scheduled for next year to be ``open and honest.'' Musharraf seized power in a 1999 bloodless coup. Instead of giving up his military uniform as promised in 2004, he changed the constitution so he could hold both his army post and the presidency until 2007. ``I believe democracy is Pakistan's future,'' Bush said as the leaders stood side-by-side at their outdoor news conference at the marble presidential palace. Musharraf defended his record on democracy, touting steps to liberalize Pakistan's press, usher in an elected parliament and empower women. ``Beyond 2007, this is an issue that has to be addressed and according to the constitution of Pakistan, and I will never violate the constitution,'' said the Pakistani leader, repeating similar reassurances made in the past. ``Democracy will prevail.'' The Pakistani government once supported the repressive Taliban regime in Afghanistan. But after the 2001 terrorists attacks on America, Musharraf aligned himself with Bush and the war on terrorism. Pakistan's law enforcement agencies have arrested more than 700 suspected militants in the past four years. ``The intentions of Pakistan and my intentions are absolutely clear - that we have a strong partnership on the issue of fighting terrorism,'' Musharraf said. ``If at all there are slippages, it is possible in the implementation part. ... We are moving forward toward to delivering and we will succeed.'' The day before the president arrived, an American diplomat was killed in a suicide car-bombing at a U.S. consulate in the southern city of Karachi, a hotbed of Islamic militancy. Musharraf called it a vicious act timed to coincide with Bush's visit. Bush said he was unfazed. ``We're not going to back down in the face of these killers,'' he said. On Saturday, Pakistani police detained Imran Khan, the leader of a small opposition party, ahead of a planned protest. Khan, a respected former Pakistani cricket captain, has condemned Musharraf as an ``American slave.'' Hoping to broadcast American compassion to the Muslim world, Bush showcased the U.S. assistance offered after an earthquake devastated Pakistan in October, killing 86,000 people and leaving more than 2 million homeless. ``It is staggering what the people of this country have been through,'' said Bush, who earlier saw a film on the quake and visited with victims, including orphans, widows, women in wheelchairs and children who lost limbs. ``We're proud to help.'' Musharraf said Pakistan would have been hard-pressed to handle relief operations without U.S. military Chinook helicopters and medical assistance. Bush was also seeking to heighten ties between the two countries by taking in cricket, a popular sport here. ``Maybe I'll take the bat,'' he quipped. ``I don't know. We'll see. I'm kind of getting old these days.'' American and the green-and-white Pakistani flags were posted in honor of Bush's first visit to Pakistan. Streets were mostly empty, aside from the armed security officers standing guard. On Friday night, Air Force One flew through into the Pakistani capital without lights to conceal the plane's profile as it delivered Bush and his wife, Laura, from India. Layers of security, including three helicopters that circled overhead, shadowed Bush's motorcade as it ferried him from the fortified U.S.. Embassy compound to the presidential palace. At the grand official building in the heart of Islamabad's government district, Bush was escorted down a red carpet behind raised swords gripped by Pakistani troops in dark green uniforms. Bush's trip here followed a three-day visit to India where he sealed a civilian nuclear deal with India. Pakistan has asked for the same deal, but Bush made clear that was unlikely, using diplomatic language about the two countries' ``different needs and different histories.'' Just two years ago Pakistan's leading nuclear scientist, A.Q. Khan, was exposed as the chief of a lucrative black market in weapons technology that had supplied Iran, Libya and North Korea. Pakistan's government denied any knowledge of his proliferation activities. But Bush said the United States was committed to helping Pakistan meet its rising energy needs. He expressed no objections to plans by India and Pakistan to build a pipeline to bring much-needed natural gas supplies from Iran, a project that had brought U.S. disapproval. Washington opposes investments that benefit Iran, which it suspects of trying to build nuclear weapons. ``Our beef with Iran is not the pipeline,'' Bush said. ``Our beef with Iran is the fact that they want to develop a nuclear weapon.'' Bush was departing for Washington late Saturday after a state dinner. A huge ballroom at the presidential palace was already decked out in the morning for the evening's formality - under 11 brightly lit chandeliers, tables were adorned with orchids draped from candelabra and elaborate crystal stemware. Guardian Unlimited Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 36 Guardian Unlimited: Report: U.S.-Russia Relations Impaired From the Associated Press [UP] Sunday March 5, 2006 6:31 AM By GEORGE GEDDA Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - Russia's emergence as an increasingly authoritarian state could impair U.S.-Russian ability to cooperate on key international security issues, according to an analysis by a major foreign policy organization. Continuation of Russia's drift away from democratic norms under President Vladimir Putin ``will make it harder for the two sides to find common ground and harder to cooperate even when they do,'' said the report, issued by the Council on Foreign Relations. It warned that some critical problems cannot be dealt with effectively unless Moscow and Washington cooperate. ``If Russia remains on an authoritarian course, U.S.-Russian relations will almost certainly continue to fall short of their potential,'' it said. The report was co-chaired by Jack Kemp, a former Republican presidential candidate; and John Edwards, the Democratic candidate for vice president in 2004. Kemp formerly served in the House, Edwards in the Senate. Release of the report on Sunday was timed to coincide with the Washington visit of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. He arrives Monday and will meet the next day with President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The report urged that the United States preserve and expand cooperation on dealing with the threat posed by Iran's nuclear program and on coping with the risk of Russian nuclear materials falling into the wrong hands. On the whole, though, the report said relations are headed in the wrong direction. ``In particular, Russia's relations with other post-Soviet states have become a source of significantly heightened U.S.-Russian friction,'' it said. It urged that Washington counter Russian pressures that undermine the ``stability and independence'' of its neighbors by helping to secure the success of those states that ``want to make the leap into the European mainstream.'' The report was especially critical of the Kremlin's energy export policy, accusing it of turning ``a prized asset of economic relations into a potential tool of political intimidation.'' Ukraine, it said, ``has been the most shocking and coercive application of this view to date, but others may lie ahead.'' The report recommended that the United States go beyond mere expressions of concern about the rollback of Russian democracy. It urged that Washington step up support for organizations committed to free and fair parliamentary and presidential elections in 2007-2008. ``Russia's course will not - must not - be set by foreigners, but the United States and its allies cannot be indifferent to the legitimacy of this process and to the leaders it produces,'' the report said. Among many setbacks to Russian democracy in recent years, the subordination of the judiciary to executive power received particular importance in the study. ``Under President Putin, power has been centralized and pluralism reduced in every single area of politics. As a result, Russia is left only with the trappings of democratic rule - their form, but not their content,'' the report said. Guardian Unlimited Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 37 Guardian Unlimited: Bush calls India ally in 'cause of human liberty' President's mission Randeep Ramesh in New Delhi Saturday March 4, 2006 The Guardian George Bush last night cast his strategic partnership with India as one between natural allies that has the "power to transform the world," in an attempt to sell his foreign policy shift to critics at home and abroad. The American president, standing on the ramparts of a 16th-century Mughal fort, spoke of being "dazzled" by India, which his nation was bound to by a common desire for freedom and democracy. "We are the brothers in the cause of human liberty," he told a 300-strong audience of the Indian capital's elite. Seeking to reassure wider Indian concerns about his visit to Pakistan, where he arrived late last night, Mr Bush said the day had passed when India should be worried about Washington's ties with Islamabad. Mr Bush made a strong pitch for India to become a fully fledged partner in the war on terror. He pointed out that it too has suffered from terrorism that could "bring down all the progress" India had made. He emphasised that in a world "hungry for freedom" India's leadership was needed for the people of "North Korea to Burma to Syria to Zimbabwe to Cuba" and took a swipe at the "clerical elite" in Iran which "sponsors terrorism and pursues nuclear weapons". Despite his image in many capitals as a gun-slinging Texan cowboy, the American president has charmed the Indian media with his praise for the country. This has not impressed tens of thousands of Muslims and leftwing activists who again took to the streets chanting anti-Bush slogans. Three people were killed in clashes in northern India. In a sweeping tour of Indo-US relations, Mr Bush showed a deft political touch with his Delhi audience: name-dropping India's current tennis star, Sania Mirza, and its film capital Bollywood, and recalling the Indian-born astronaut who died on a shuttle explosion three years ago. America's interest in India has been sparked largely by the developing country's technological expertise that has seen jobs shift eastward to India's southern Silicon Plateau. This has helped swell India's middle class by tens of millions of people - potential consumers for US goods. Spending most of the day in the southern city of Hyderabad, home to many hi-tech US firms, Mr Bush again displayed a common touch, meeting young business school graduates, farmers - and a buffalo. Useful links Government of India Times of India Hindustan Times Week magazine [UP] Guardian Unlimited Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 38 AFP: Bush wraps up South Asia trip; braces for political opposition over nukes deal - Sun Mar 5, 1:10 PM ET WASHINGTON (AFP) - US President George W. Bush" /> returned to Washington from a landmark South Asia trip, bracing for a daunting political challenge at home in persuading Congress to approve a historic nuclear deal with India. The president, who visited Afghanistan" /> , India and Pakistan, wrapped up his maiden South Asian visit Saturday clutching a landmark nuclear deal with India and assurances from Pakistan that it will not waver in the "war on terror". Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh sealed what they hailed as an "historic" nuclear deal that aims to lift three-decade-old US restrictions on sharing civilian nuclear technology with India. The nuclear agreement, which places 14 of India's 22 nuclear power reactors under international safeguards, was the highlight of Bush's three-day trip to India. It commits the Bush administration to seeking approval from the US Congress and the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group in order to share American civilian nuclear technology with the booming Asian giant. But the deal faces bipartisan opposition on Capitol Hill, with several lawmakers wary and some, like Democratic Representative Ed Markey, even vowing to block it outright, saying it has "blown a hole" in the world's nuclear rules. "This nuclear deal has been described as a historic deal -- but it is in fact a historic failure of this president to tackle the real nuclear threats that we face," Markey, co-chair of the Bipartisan Task Force on Nonproliferation, said in a recent statement. "With one simple move the president has blown a hole in the nuclear rules that the entire world has been playing by and broken his own word to assure that we will not ship nuclear technology to India without the proper safeguards," said the senior Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Several Republican lawmakers, meanwhile, praised the civil nuclear energy agreement as a milestone in improving relations with India. Bush launched his trip under extraordinary security on Wednesday with a surprise stopover in Afghanistan, his first since the United States led a global campaign to overthrow the militant Taliban regime after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks. The centerpiece of his five-day trip was the clinching of the civilian nuclear deal with India that aimed to firm up the strategic partnership between the world's most powerful and populous democracies. But the "war on terror" kept haunting Bush during the regional swing. On Thursday, when he was meeting with prime minister Singh in New Delhi, an American diplomat and a US consulate employee were killed by a suicide bomber in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi. A day later, while Bush travelled to the southern Indian city of Hyderabad, where nearly half of the population are Muslim, posters of terror mastermind Osama bin Laden" /> were held up by demonstrators opposed to US foreign policies. Counterterrorism was a common theme in Bush's talks with Singh, Pakistani military ruler General Pervez Musharraf and Afghan President Hamid Karzai. By working with these leaders and their peoples, "we're seizing the opportunities this new century offers and helping to lay the foundations of peace and prosperity for generations to come," Bush told Americans in a radio address broadcast here before his return home early Sunday. Copyright 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 39 AFP: US signals abandonment of nuclear disarmament Sat Mar 4, 3:18 AM ET WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States has signaled its apparent abandonment of the goal of nuclear disarmament "for the foreseeable future" as it embarked on a quest for a new generation of more reliable nuclear warheads. Although the term "nuclear disarmament" quietly disappeared from the Bush administration's vocabulary long ago, the statement by Linton Brooks, head the National Nuclear Security Administration, marked the first time a top government official publicly acknowledged a goal enshrined in key international documents will no longer be pursued. "The United States will, for the foreseeable future, need to retain both nuclear forces and the capabilities to sustain and modernize those forces," Brooks stated Friday as he addressed the East Tennessee Economic Council in the city of Oak Ridge, which is home to a major nuclear weapons complex. "I do not see any chance of the political conditions for abolition arising in my lifetime, nor do I think abolition could be verified if it were negotiated," he pointed out. The acknowledgement represents a departure from commitments given by previous US administrations to their negotiating partners and the international community at large. In September 1998, then-presidents Bill Clinton" /> of the United States and Boris Yeltsin of Russia signed a joint statement, in which they reaffirmed the two countries' commitment to "the ultimate goal of nuclear disarmament". In addition, unambiguous disarmament clauses are contained in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty signed in 1968 by all leading nuclear powers of that era, including the United States, and now used to rein in nuclear ambitions by countries like Iran" /> and North Korea" /> . In the preamble to the accord, the signatories agreed "to facilitate the cessation of the manufacture of nuclear weapons, the liquidation of all their existing stockpiles, and the elimination from national arsenals of nuclear weapons and the means of their delivery." They reaffirmed their commitment to nuclear disarmament in more binding language in the treaty's Article VI, which states that "each of the parties to the treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament." Copyright 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 40 AFP: Bush wraps up South Asian trip with nuclear deal, terror assurances - Sun Mar 5, 2:34 AM ET ISLAMABAD (AFP) - US President George W. Bush" /> wraps up his maiden South Asian visit clutching a landmark nuclear deal with India and assurances from Pakistan that it will not waver in the "war on terror". Bush launched his trip under extraordinary security on Wednesday with a surprise stopover in Afghanistan" /> , his first since the United States led a global campaign to overthrow the militant Taliban regime in 2001 after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks. The centerpiece of his five-day trip was the clinching of a landmark civilian nuclear deal with India that aimed to firm up the strategic partnership between the world's most powerful and most populous democracies. But the "war on terror" kept haunting him during the regional swing. On Thursday, when he was meeting with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi, an American diplomat and a US consulate employee were killed by a suicide bomber in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi. A day later, while Bush travelled to the southern Indian city of Hyderabad, where nearly half of the population are Muslim, posters of terror mastermind Osama bin Laden" /> were held up by demonstrators opposed to US foreign policies. Counterterrorism was a common theme in Bush's talks with Singh, Pakistani military ruler General Pervez Musharraf and Afghan President Hamid Karzai. By working with these leaders and their peoples, "we're seizing the opportunities this new century offers and helping to lay the foundations of peace and prosperity for generations to come," Bush told Americans in a radio address from here before his return home Saturday. Illustrating the terrorism concerns, Bush arrived in Islamabad late Friday under cover of darkness, with the window blinds of his Air Force One pulled down and the lights off to conceal its presence. He was then taken by a helicopter and billeted at the heavily fortified US embassy. Bin Laden and his key lieutenants are believed seeking refuge in rugged mountainous tribal areas along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan. Taliban commanders are also reportedly taking sanctuary in Pakistan. "There's a lot of work to be done in defeating Al-Qaeda," Bush told reporters after talks with Musharraf but added that the Pakistani leader understood the high stakes involved in the battle. "Part of my mission today was to determine whether or not the president is as committed as he has been in the past to bringing these terrorists to justice, and he is," Bush said, with Musharraf by his side. In New Delhi, Bush clinched a deal with Singh in which India agreed to place its civilian atomic reactors under global scrutiny for the first time in more than three decades in return for foreign nuclear technology. The agreement effectively ends India's status as a nuclear pariah, even though it refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. India has been under sanctions on transfer of nuclear material or technology since its maiden nuclear weapons test in 1974. Bush faces an uphill task of convincing a suspicious Congress to give mandatory approval to the deal, which also has to be endorsed by the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group. "Buffeted by political turmoil at home, President Bush" /> sought a foreign affairs victory in India," said Joseph Cirincione, an American nuclear weapons expert, apparently referring to issues such as the unending violence in Iraq" /> . Bush, he said, has given in to demands from the Indian nuclear lobby to exempt large portions of the country's nuclear infrastructure from international inspection. But the US leader said, "this agreement is good for American security because it will bring India's civilian nuclear program into the international non-proliferation mainstream." Copyright 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 41 Guardian Unlimited: Don't wait for God. We will judge you [UP] Comment Near civil meltdown in Iraq greets the third anniversary of Shock and Awe. To families who mourn it seems the world has forgotten Mary Riddell Sunday March 5, 2006 The Observer God will judge Tony Blair on the Iraq war. Or so the Prime Minister told Michael Parkinson. Think back to another television appearance, this time last year. On that occasion, Mr Blair faced a studio of women and a different ombudsman. History would deliver its verdict on him, he said. His audience denounced his war, but he was certain that no tribunal, divine or temporal, would ever find his judgment wanting. This time, as the third anniversary of the start of war approaches, Mr Blair sounded less sure. Wishful thinking, maybe, but he looked to me like a man haunted, at last, by what he had unleashed. If Mr Blair is finally realising his catastrophic error, that shift is partly down to the mothers, wives and partners who have never stopped pointing out the folly of this conflict. Wednesday is International Women's Day. It will be marked by thousands of petitions for peace, to be handed in at US embassies across the world. Such pleas have rarely looked more hopeless. Hundreds lie dead after the bombing of the golden mosque at Samarra. The old conflict, a daily toll of death and suffering, may soon be swept away by new variant civil meltdown. From Burnley to Baghdad, women warned of this. Obviously, millions of men did so, too, but female opponents outnumbered male ones in Britain, and their Iraqi counterparts faced the hideous fate always meted out to the women and children of war. It was not that they had prospered under Saddam Hussein and UN sanctions. In Basra, in 2002, 25 out of the 26 obstetrics and gynaecology students were women. Yet their patients were weak and sick, and one in eight of the babies they delivered would not see their fifth birthday. Grief is more random now. A week ago today, a group of Iraqi mothers watched their teenage sons leave for a game of football. They never saw them again, unless you count a morgue visit to identify body parts scraped from a bombed pitch. Other women will struggle to be heard on Wednesday. Sharia law, they say, has pushed a once-secular society back into a medieval world. Honour killings, beheadings, forced veiling, rape, acid attacks and sexual servitude are a part of everyday life. So are power cuts, dead phone lines, ruptured fuel supplies and no food because the markets are shut and silent. This time three years ago, the planet echoed to the testosteronic din of men marching to war. The UN said no, but God said yes. Politicians bought the neocon fairy tale that totalitarian regimes would collapse into dust, allowing westernised democracies to spring up in their place. Women, and less credulous men, were not so eager to believe that the God-given goodness of America and Britain trumped law and logic. Nor could they grasp how attacking nation states wipes out stateless terror. The noise has turned to purdah. When 60 people died in a single day last week, newspapers and TV networks barely mentioned it. Incipient civil meltdown, insurgency and a more powerful Iran, intent on getting a nuclear bomb, attract hardly more coverage than a prize dahlia contest at a village fete. Iraq was the prototype of the sitting-room war, in which all would be seen, 24/7, and all explained. But the chloroform rag of boredom, embarrassment or hopelessness prevailed. We are all anaesthetised now. In that vacuum, the voice of women has not died. Last week, the families of 18 servicemen killed in Iraq delivered a petition to an absent Prime Minister. Tony Blair was not on the runway to meet the flag-draped coffins of their children, nor available at Number 10. Rose Gentle, whose 19-year-old son, Gordon, is among the dead, had received a personally signed letter saying: 'I am afraid a meeting with you will not be possible.' Another mother, Pauline Hickey, sent her own begging note, imploring Mr Blair to bring the troops home. 'We have lost 103 dedicated soldiers,' she wrote. 'They died in a war based on lies, for nothing.' British and American armed services are never going to end the insurgency fomented by the war they fought. Most Iraqis say they want them gone. The test is whether than an exit is more likely to unleash civil war or forestall it. Iraq's elected leaders still mostly want troops to stay, but the case is getting weaker. My friend in Baghdad says coalition soldiers are a spectral presence, never at the trouble spots. So what are they there for? In other respects, Britain has already walked away. Conflict, when it is discussed at all, revolves round us: our civil liberties, our freedom of speech, our rule of law, our consciences, our wish to wash our hands of a country about which we know very little, except that we never wanted to invade it in the first place. Leave it to the Iraqis, people say. Is that all we have to offer to the thousands of women who mourn their husbands and children in the knowledge that three bitter years may only be a curtain-raiser on the real event? Either Iraq will implode, in which case neighbour will slaughter neighbour and the impact will open all the fault lines of the Middle East. Or else we look for other solutions, frail as they may seem. Iran, which backs Shia Islam, may not want a civil war, knowing the most likely conflict is a three-way Shia clash between the movement's major factions and their militias. There is still scope for a government of national unity, if the Shia majority that won January's elections offers more power to the Sunni minority. Obviously, this is Iraq's business, but, given the gallons of blood on Britain's hands, it could at least look interested. As the anniversary of Shock and Awe approaches, the clamour starts up again. In a flood of books, the impresarios and cheerleaders of war revise their views. Francis Fukuyama declares the end of neoconservatism. Paul Bremer, the US postwar administrator, relives a reign in which he ordered a flat tax of 15 per cent on a country with no taxes. Here is another narrative. After the war, almost eight million children, many of them girls, went back to school. Attendance rose to 85 per cent at primary school, 4 per cent higher than the regional average, and Unicef was hopeful. Last Friday, the charity found out that 400 schools were being targeted by insurgents intent on slaughtering pupils and their teachers. On Ministry of Education figures, 64 children have been murdered in the last four months and 57 injured. Remember them on Wednesday. They are the ones failed by military onslaught and by Tony Blair's God. They are also the reminder that those who seek a political solution for Iraq cannot afford to fail. mary.riddell@observer.co.uk [UP] Guardian Unlimited Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 42 BBC: Weighing up future energy options Last Updated: Monday, 6 March 2006 By Brian Taylor BBC Scotland political editor [Hunterston] Turbines on the hills behind Hunterston nuclear power station The key conclusion from our poll? Nuclear power - No thanks! But look a little more closely and there may still be room for the nuclear lobby to gain ground in Scotland, depending entirely on how the debate develops. As ever, context is crucial. The UK Government is currently undertaking a review of Britain's energy needs. The prime minister has declared that he believes that review must look at the prospect of building new nuclear capacity in the UK to replace ageing atomic power plants. In Scotland, there is an added dimension. The coalition executive, particularly driven by its Liberal Democrat element, has said that it will not sanction a new generation of nuclear plants unless and until there is an acceptable solution to the issue of disposing of nuclear waste. Which leaves a conundrum. Westminster is responsible for the UK's strategic energy needs. Hence the review. But Holyrood has control over planning, determining where new installations, including nuclear plants, can be constructed. Hence the executive has clout. To put it simply, the UK Government may well say: "We want new nuclear generation and we want Scotland to play a share in that." The Scottish Executive may say: "We hear your views but we will not allow a new nuclear plant to be built in Scotland." However, things are rarely so simple - and this is a particularly complex strategic and political debate. Do we need nuclear? Do the alternatives fill Britain's energy needs? Could Scotland's energy mix be different from that in England? Can Scotland say no to nuclear, regardless of the London view? The issue is further complicated by the differing stances of the two parties in the Scottish coalition. The Liberal Democrats are sceptical, if not hostile, towards new nuclear generation. They do not believe that the waste question has been settled. [Nuclear waste at Dounreay] Most were not keen on storing nuclear waste in Scotland Further, they believe that Scotland should strengthen the drive for renewables instead. Several Labour MSPs, including key ministers, believe that renewables will not fulfil Scotland's energy needs. They believe there will be a gap - and that nuclear will be needed to fill that gap. The Scottish Labour conference recently voted in favour of new nuclear generation. Enter our poll. In Question One, people were asked to state their preference for meeting Scotland's future energy needs. They were asked to rank various options - including nuclear, gas fired power stations, coal fired and renewables, such as wave, tidal, solar or wind power. Renewables came top, attracting 52% of first mentions among our sample. Gas-fired power stations gained 21%; nuclear 15; and coal-fired generation 6%. Men and women both placed renewables first - but women were particularly down on nuclear, ranking it more lowly than their male counterparts. Younger people tended to be more keen on renewables than their elders. Scotland, it is argued, nee nuclear power and should prepare to cope with the consequences Glance now at Question Seven: the issue of waste disposal which has so exercised the executive. Perhaps no great surprise but our survey suggested that Scots are less than keen on storing or disposing of nuclear waste within these shores. No surprise, I say. Who wants a nuclear dump? Well, those who argue that safe disposal is possible and a necessary corollary to the establishment of nuclear generation. Scotland, it is argued, needs nuclear power and should prepare to cope with the consequences. Our poll suggests that Scotland will need some convincing. Some 69% were strongly opposed to storage or disposal of waste in Scotland; with 11% tending to oppose; and 9% tending to support alongside just 5% who strongly supported such an option. Turn to Question Two - and those who oppose nuclear power will find more succour still. Respondents were asked if they would support or oppose nuclear power stations being built in Scotland. The default position was opposition - with 35% of the sample strongly opposed to such a development; 17% tending to oppose; while 19% tended to support; and 14% strongly supported such construction. Again, female respondents were notably hostile. [Russian gas pipeline under construction] Imported energy from countries like Russia is now a factor So why do I say there may be some wriggle room for the pro-nuclear lobby? Aren't the findings quite clear? Well, up to a point, Lord Copper. Turn now to Question Three. Here respondents were asked whether they would support or oppose new nuclear power stations being built in Scotland "if they helped to avoid us being dependent on energy imported from overseas". Again, think context. Anti-nuclear campaigners will say such a choice is bogus: that Scotland could develop sufficient renewable energy to prevent such dependence occurring. But, politically, these decisions will be taken in an atmosphere created by Westminster and Downing Street. Those who believe nuclear power is inevitable - arguably including the prime minister - are already stressing the consequences of avoiding such a choice of action. It would appear that Scotla is intuitively sceptical about nuclear generation - and instinctively inclined towards renewables They talk of the lights going out. They talk, in particular, of the hazards of being dependent, for example, on Russian gas, noting that the Russians attempted to cut supplies to the Ukraine. Bogus or real, Scots will be confronted with precisely the dilemma set out in our question when we are invited to make up our collective mind on the future of energy generation in this country. When asked Question Three about foreign supplies, opposition to new nuclear plants in Scotland declined. Indeed the default position was now to support such construction. Thirty per cent of respondents were strongly in favour; with 24% tending to support; 12% tending to oppose; and 22% strongly opposed. Again, men were more inclined towards nuclear than women. Which conjures up a fascinating prospect. It would appear that Scotland is intuitively sceptical about nuclear generation - and instinctively inclined towards renewables. But could that standpoint be turned by a vigorous campaign pointing out the hazards - real or envisioned - from such an approach? Indeed, has such a campaign already begun, with the prime minister at the head? ***************************************************************** 43 AFP: Russian foreign minister visits Washington as tensions rise - Sun Mar 5, 7:42 AM ET WASHINGTON (AFP) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov arrives in Washington amid increasing tensions in US-Russia ties and skepticism among Moscow's allies about its membership in the G8. Lavrov is to meet Tuesday with President George W. Bush" /> and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice" /> , with energy issues, Iran" /> 's nuclear program and the Middle East expected to top the agenda. His visit is taking place Monday against a backdrop of mounting concern in Washington about a rollback in democracy in Russia under President Vladimir Putin" /> and questions about where the bilateral relationship is headed. A report released Sunday by the non-profit Council on Foreign Relations said that 15 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, US-Russia relations were clearly moving in the wrong direction. "The political balance sheet of the past five years is extremely negative," the report said. It noted that while Bush has made democracy a goal of his foreign policy, Putin seems to be moving in the opposite direction by muzzling the press, virtually stripping parliament of power, and using his country's energy resources as a political weapon, as was the case during the recent gas dispute with Ukraine. "Contention is crowding out consensus," the report said. "The very idea of a 'strategic partnership' no longer seems realistic." Mark Medish, an expert on Russia and a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, summed up the current US-Russia relationship as one of missed opportunities. "It takes two to tango and both of the tango partners haven't been living up to the potential," Medish told AFP. He said the United States and its European partners needed to reassess their relationship with Moscow and engage in more candid discussions. "We in the United States go through cycles with Russia, talking about a strategic partnership as though we were getting married, to then talking about disappointment and divorce and child custody," said Medish, who was part of the task force that drew up the report issued by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). He and others said the upcoming G8 summit to be hosted by Russia was the perfect venue for the US and its partners to reevaluate relations with Moscow and raise a number of issues of concern. "The G8 summit is an ideal opportunity to remind Russia as a fellow member ... that the basis of the grouping is to have high common denominators of standards rather than low common denominators," Medish said. Helmut Sonnenfeldt, a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution in Washington, said the July G8 summit in St Petersburg was odd in that seven members of the group had contentious issues with the eighth member Russia. "It's a very unusual situation where the host has aroused as many doubts and questions in the other countries involved," Sonnenfeldt told AFP. "And most of the leaders, from Bush on to the others, don't want to have an open dispute and fight with the Russian leader but they all have their questions." Former congressman Jack Kemp, who co-chaired the bipartisan task force that drew up the CFR report, said cooperation with Russia was essential on a number of issues including Iran, energy, AIDS" /> and terrorism. "The G8 summit may be a watershed on many of these issues, Iran and energy in particular," Kemp said. "It's a real opportunity to lock in more helpful Russian policies. "But if we don't see progress, people are going to ask what Russia is doing in the G8 in the first place." Copyright 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 44 Arizona Republic: Radioactive water found at Palo Verde azcentral.com Ken Alltucker Mar. 4, 2006 12:00 AM Arizona Public Service Co. discovered radioactive water near a maze of underground pipes at the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station this week and plans more tests to ensure that the tainted water hasn't leaked into the area's water supply. Work crews discovered the tritium-laced water in an underground pipe vault near Palo Verde's Unit 3. Tests confirmed that the water contains more than three times the acceptable amount of tritium. State officials say there is no immediate evidence that the tritium, a byproduct of nuclear power generation and a relatively weak source of radiation, poses any public health concerns. "At this point, we don't have any reason to believe there has been any impact on the groundwater," said Steve Owens, director of the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality. The Phoenix-based utility on Thursday notified the Department of Environmental Quality and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission of its discovery. Now, the utility will work with state and federal officials to pinpoint the source of the contaminated water and determine how far it has spread. The Department of Environmental Quality will test soil and water at and near the plant in Wintersburg, about 50 miles west of downtown Phoenix. Aquifers about 70 feet and 200 feet underground supply water for the area. Owens said the nearest public well is at a Wintersburg general store about three miles from the plant. Some homeowners operate private wells closer to the plant. On Wednesday, Palo Verde officials will conduct a public meeting at the plant for nearby residents, who will be notified about the time. Craig Seaman, APS' director of regulatory affairs, said Palo Verde work crews on Tuesday discovered a small amount of water that appeared to leak into the pipe vault. Crews dug a 13-foot ditch, collected samples and conducted tests Wednesday that confirmed the presence of tritium. Palo Verde crews discovered no evidence of contamination during past inspections at the plant's aquifers and wells. More tests are being conducted, and initial samples show no signs of tritium, Seaman said. Although a leaking pipe may be the source of the tritium, Seaman said APS could not rule out other sources. According to the plant's operating permit, tritium can be released into the air. Tritium can be ingested or absorbed in human tissue. Small amounts of tritium pass through the body quickly, usually through urine. Exposure to tritium can increase the risk of cancer and birth defects. Several nuclear power plants around the country have reported tritium leaks. In Illinois, Exelon pledged to help build a new public water system for a small township after tritium was discovered in groundwater and at least one private well. Copyright 2006, azcentral.com. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 45 The Observer: US to clean up on UK nuclear mess [Guardian Unlimited] [UP] British companies are short of expertise in the controversial business of atomic waste. Neasa MacErlean on the race for 80bn of contracts Sunday March 5, 2006 Later this month, the Nuclear Decommissioning Agency (NDA), the government authority created last year to oversee decommissioning over the next 150 years, will know whether its draft strategy for this long-term clean-up operation has been approved by the government. If it has been, a new industry will take shape, worth more than 80bn in the UK if military waste is included. But decommissioning will be controversial and difficult. Like other developers of nuclear weapons, Britain has a particularly nasty physical legacy of waste. Most of ours is in 230 hectares at Sellafield in Cumbria - but there are 19 other civilian sites in England, Wales and Scotland which, along with Sellafield, are also about to become the subject of major clean-up contracts. Much less information is publicly available about the military element but it is estimated that, in total, Britain's nuclear waste would fill the Millennium Dome. Because little decommissioning work has been done in the UK, we lack home-grown expertise. Another area of controversy will, therefore, be the arrival of the Americans - who have the far more extensive experience in this field but will no doubt be accused of profiteering and cutting corners on safety. On top of these issues, the very future of nuclear power hangs to some degree on how decommissioning is handled. It is inconceivable that any new nuclear reactor would be built in the UK without the construction plans taking into account decommissioning and the disposal of radioactive materials. The average Briton lives 26 miles from a nuclear site - a fact that could change the way many politicians and the much of the public view the future of nuclear power. Certainly, the regulators know how the public feels. Sir John Harman is chairman of the Environment Agency, one of the nuclear industry regulators. He said: 'An actual nuclear waste facility is probably 15 years in the future. If a decision was postponed on this, we would think it imprudent to start a new programme of building nuclear reactors not knowing what we are doing about the waste.' Also this month, the NDA will publish an update of its estimate of the cost of cleaning up the 20 sites: this is likely to be an increase on the current 56bn, to be awarded in contracts to private- and public-sector organisations. In April, the NDA is due to start the tender process for its first contract, cleaning up low-level nuclear waste at Drigg, near Sellafield. This contract is relatively small - 1bn or so - but it paves the way for much larger contracts. In July, the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management will make its recommendations to government on the possibilities for future waste disposal. These look likely to say that disposal is feasible for the long-term future either in sites near each reactor or in one shared depository. What has been ruled out is an international site - a politically sensitive issue but one which could have produced a geologically safer solution. While the debate about long-term waste disposal goes on, some of the biggest US names in nuclear decommissioning - Bechtel, Fluor, Shaw and CH2M Hill - will be working out how to go about winning the contracts to be handed out in Britain over the next five years. Bechtel worked closely with the government on establishing the NDA in April 2005; Fluor, with 30,000 employees worldwide, has been working for the US government at its nuclear installations since the 1950s; Shaw, based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, has already turned one US nuclear site back into greenfield land - invaluable experience for the forthcoming UK contracts; and CH2M Hill has joined forces with Amec (the only private British company expected to bid for this work) and the UK Atomic Energy Authority, the government body that claims to have 'more nuclear clean-up experience than anyone else in Europe'. The other US companies in the running to get the contracts might follow the AMEC/UKAEA/CH2M Hill model by teaming up with European partners. Whoever wins, skilled labour will be a problem. One expert believes that in the UK there are 'probably only a few hundred people trained and experienced enough to do this work'. The NDA sees the same problem. 'Overcoming the skills gap is one of the NDA's strategic priorities,' it says. It believes that about 30,000 people need to be recruited from the physical sciences and engineering sector for this work in the next 15 years. The arrival of the Americans will cause an outcry. A spokesman for the NDA suggests that contracts will be awarded on the basis of cost and a mark-up - but the organisation says it will not publish the profit margin 'for commercial reasons'. One UK industry insider commented: 'The Americans will have the British taxpayers over a barrel and will spank their arse.' The main contract that all potential bidders will have their eye on is Sellafield, due to be placed in 2009. A lot of wining and dining and making use of friendships will take place over this waste disposal gem. The value of work estimated by the NDA as needing to be done at Sellafield over its remaining lifetime is about 34bn. 'The place is in a desperate state,' said one specialist. It will not be clean until 2150.' The problem at Sellafield and at some other locations is not so much the high-level radioactive waste - although it can remain highly dangerous for thousands of years, it is fairly easily identifiable. After it is given 40 years or so to cool down (a process now going on at Sellafield), this waste will then be encased in copper canisters and - as in the new Finnish plans which are attracting much interest from the rest of the world - buried in deep depositories in as safe a geological location as can be found. The real problem is the intermediate-level waste, which is not readily identifiable, although some of it is almost as dangerous as that classified as high-level. Nirex, the government-owned company responsible for setting nuclear waste standards, estimates that the UK has 1,120 different types of nuclear waste (many resulting from Second World War and Cold War weapons development programmes). Finland, by comparison, has a much smaller problem, with fewer than 30 different waste streams. 'The really nasty problems are the pools of sludge in Sellafield,' says one insider. 'Do people know exactly what they contain?' The answer appears to be 'no', as not all the land contamination caused by the waste has yet been identified precisely. Although the cost of nuclear clean-up will be spread over decades, it still represents a great prize to the companies that win the contracts. On its current figures, the NDA will handle contracts over the foreseeable future equal to the size of the entire British construction industry in any one year. Then there is the military sector. This was estimated at 30bn in a rare parliamentary reference in 2001 by Margaret Beckett soon after she became Environment Secretary. If we go for a new generation of nuclear reactors, organisations that win civil or military clean-up contracts will be the best placed to get involved in their design and development. And that's a whole new prize. Useful links British Energy Department of Trade and Industry British Nuclear Fuels Ltd Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament Greenpeace HSE nuclear glossary Come Clean WMD awareness programme UK atomic energy authority National Radiological Protection Board Friends of the Earth World Nuclear Association World Nuclear Transport Institute [UP] Guardian Unlimited Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 46 London Times: A wind farm too far - Sunday Times - Times Online The Sunday Times March 05, 2006 The rejection last week of plans for a giant wind farm in Cumbria has provoked predictably angry reactions. A public inquiry had already turned down the proposed farm, consisting of 27 wind turbines, each 12ft higher than St Paul's Cathedral. The question was whether the government would endorse that rejection or force the plan through against local objections, led by luminaries such as Sir Chris Bonington and Lord Bragg. Thankfully ministers did the right thing, and the Whinash wind farm has rightly been left on the drawing board. As we warned in April last year, "wind farms are the electricity pylons or open-cast mining of the 21st century". To plonk them in the middle of the countryside, visible for miles around, would have been an act of vandalism. Not that the odd collection of backers for the project saw it that way. Friends of the Earth, who might be expected to have regard for preserving beautiful landscapes and unspoilt countryside, said it was "appalled by the decision". Stephen Tindale, executive director of Greenpeace, another who should fall into the "green and pleasant land" camp, gave us a peculiar conspiracy theory. "Any government that wants to expand airports and turn down wind farms is simply not fit to govern," he said. "It's hard to believe that the nuclear industry has not played some role in this. Climate change will ravage beautiful areas like the Lake District. I hope those responsible will be willing to explain to future generations how they played their part in allowing the savage grip of global warming to trash the countryside." The BBC Today programme has been running a poetry competition in praise of wind farms; so far it has not been convincing. It is true that alternative energy sources such as wind power have a limited role to play in meeting Britain's energy needs. But they will only ever have a small role, and if the cost is scarring the increasingly threatened landscape, they should be rejected and other green and more efficient forms, including nuclear power, should prevail. sponsorship in Times Online, The Times and The Sunday Times. Copyright 2006 Times Newspapers Ltd. ***************************************************************** 47 Arizona Daily Star: APS nuclear plant's water leak studied www.azstarnet.com ® The Associated Press Tucson, Arizona | Published: 03.05.2006 PHOENIX — Operators of the nation's largest nuclear power plant are conducting tests to make sure radioactive water discovered near the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station hasn't seeped into the area's ground water supply. Arizona Public Service Co. notified the Department of Environmental Quality and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission of its discovery on Thursday. Now, the Phoenix-based utility will work with state and federal officials to pinpoint the source of the contaminated water and determine how far it has spread. The radioactive water was found by work crews this week near a maze of underground pipes at Palo Verde. APS says it plans more tests. ADEQ says it will also test soil and water at and near the plant in Wintersburg, about 50 miles west of downtown Phoenix. Aquifers about 70 feet and 200 feet underground supply water for the area. APS provides power to about 1 million customers in the state, including a large part of the metro Phoenix area, and parts of Pinal and Cochise counties. Initial tests confirmed that the tritium-laced water contains more than three times the acceptable amount of tritium. However, state officials say there's no immediate evidence that the tritium poses any public-health concerns. DiscussCopyright © 2006Go Back ***************************************************************** 48 Philadelphia Inquirer: Editorial | Nuclear Energy 03/05/2006 | End the taboo, but proceed with care President Bush has become the world's head cheerleader for nuclear energy, promoting it at home and abroad. He's banking on an age-old promise that a tiny bit of uranium can produce fantastic amounts of power. It's an enticing prospect in an age of dwindling oil supply controlled by volatile nations, of natural gas prices spiking out of control, of other fossil fuels driving climate change. The United States needs to diversify its energy supply, and nuclear power needs to play a greater role. But even Bush admits, as in his Feb. 18 radio address, that huge hurdles stand in the way, perhaps none more important than the safe disposal of radioactive waste. No such danger comes from renewable energy such as solar or wind. But neither of those technologies is ever likely to produce enough energy to satisfy America's insatiable appetite. Many nations are moving forward with nuclear, hoping to solve its attendant challenges along the way. Last year, 441 reactors supplied 17 percent of the world's electricity, and 25 new reactors were under construction. China, alone, plans to build 30 reactors in the next 15 years. South Africa is developing a new "pebble bed" technology. Even European countries that recently decommissioned aging stations are reversing course. The United States should cautiously join the worldwide movement toward expanding nuclear power, which already provides 20 percent of our electricity. But before zooming into discussions of new designs and reactor siting, the country needs to examine the uneven state of its stagnant domestic industry. Many of the United States' 103 current reactors are run well. But others have shoddy maintenance records, repeated outages, and hostile workplaces that discourage reports of safety concerns. For example, New Jersey's Salem I, II and Hope Creek reactors were under investigation in 2004 and 2005 for repeated equipment failure and the lack of a "safety-conscious work environment." Government scrutiny and new management teams have improved the plant's performance. Before expanding, Americans would need confidence that all reactors - old or new - would operate like the best of the U.S. fleet. The nation's nuclear watchdog, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, hasn't consistently had the funding or staffing for its multifaceted mission, although the Bush administration is pumping more money its way. The public must trust this agency. It needs adequate tools to do its job. Besides constantly inspecting reactors, the NRC relicenses aging plants. The nation's oldest reactor, Oyster Creek near Toms River, N.J., is going through the 30-month process now. Since 2000, 39 out of 39 requests have sailed through, raising questions about the thoroughness of the reviews. These technical hearings focus solely on environmental impact and managing 40-year-old equipment for another 20 years, ignoring security issues and other concerns. Because no new reactor has been ordered in 30 years, half of industry workers are age 47 or older. The industry will face a critical shortage of workers, as experienced regulators, engineers, technicians and health physicists retire in the next five years. The Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry trade group, projects the loss of 23,000 workers, or 40 percent of all commercial jobs. Training and education programs will be critical. Cheerleader Bush isn't a detail man. But nuclear power is a detail industry. It should move forward, but can't until it's revamped and ready. ***************************************************************** 49 Daily Yomiuri: KEPCO abandons plan for nuclear plant The Yomiuri Shimbun Kansai Electric Power Co. will abandon a 30-year-long project to build a nuclear power plant in the former Kumihamacho, Kyoto Prefecture, now part of Kyotango, it was learned Saturday. KEPCO has decided to withdraw an application with the Kyotango municipal government to conduct preparatory environmental research, due to slow growth in power demand and residents' opposition to the project. The firm is to formally finalize the decision and inform the municipal government in a week. KEPCO first asked the town for permission to carry out environmental research in preparation for constructing the plant in 1975. At one stage, the town and its assembly expressed their intention to accept the assessment. In 1985, the town itself conducted a geological study for the power plant. However, the plan to build a plant was derailed by the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear plant explosion, and other reasons. Kumihamacho became Kyotango in a municipal merger in 2004. Kyotango Mayor Yasushi Nakayama last month asked KEPCO to withdraw its application to do the research. In response, KEPCO concluded it would be difficult to proceed with the project in the face of opposition from both the municipality and residents. In addition, demand for electricity in the Kansai region has not grown in line with the firm's estimates in the 1970s, when it first came up with the project. As a result, the firm decided to drop the project was unlikely to affect power supplies. The latest decision reflected this assessment. This is the second nuclear power plant plan KEPCO has abandoned. It had planned to build a nuclear power plant in Suzu, Ishikawa Prefecture, jointly with Chubu Electric Power Co. and Hokuriku Electric Power Co. But in December 2003, it froze the project due to slow growth in power demand and eventually abandoned it completely. In the same month, Tohoku Electric Power Co. suspended a plan to build a nuclear power plant in then Makimachi, which is now part of Niigata, after it found it could not acquire the site. Since then, the firm has faced difficulties finding a new location for the project due to protests by residents, who are concerned about safety. The choice to locate the plant in Kumihamacho was a joint plan of KEPCO and the municipal government. The Makimachi project, however, is part of the central government's electric power development program, and is expected to be given the go-ahead in some form at another location. In light of the abandonment of the Kyotango plan, KEPCO is now expected to review its plans to renovate and extend its existing power plants in Mihamacho and Takahamacho in Fukui Prefecture, among others. (Mar. 6, 2006) The Yomiuri Shimbun. ***************************************************************** 50 Sunday Herald: Nuclear power: splitting the LibDems and Labour - Row over lobbyists funding as MP threatens to quit post INVESTIGATION By Rob Edwards, Environment Editor WITH nuclear power, its not just atoms that split. Its the Liberal Democrat Party, the Labour Party and the governments green advisers. An investigation by the Sunday Herald has uncovered new and damaging divisions in the ranks of the two political parties that govern Scotland, as well as within the Sustainable Development Commission, which advises ministers in Holyrood and Westminster on environmental issues. We can also reveal that public money has been used to support a vigorous pro-nuclear campaign by trade unionists from power plants. Long-standing tensions over nuclear power are now flaring up because of the energy review launched in January by the Prime Minister, Tony Blair. The review is widely expected to end up this summer recommending a new programme of nuclear power stations. The most dramatic evidence of internal squabbling comes from within the Liberal Democrats. The party, which last week elected Sir Menzies Campbell as leader, has historically been opposed to building any more nuclear stations. But leaked correspondence from shadow Scottish secretary John Thurso MP, who favours nuclear power, suggests pressure is mounting within the party to reverse this policy. In a letter to trade unions at the Dounreay nuclear plant in his Caithness constituency, he discloses the LibDems private disagreements. He describes how he had to abstain on an anti-nuclear motion moved by the LibDem environment spokesman, Norman Baker, in the House of Commons on January 17. It was impossible for me to take part in the debate since the views I would have put forward would have been in contradiction to the views set out by the spokesman on the front bench, Thurso, a hereditary peer, wrote. I have been engaged in promoting a reassessment of the partys policy both in shadow cabinet and in the wider party This activity has been supported by the industry, which has been helpful with factual briefings. Then Thurso dropped his bombshell: It may be that a time will come when I feel obliged to resign from the shadow cabinet to pursue my views more fully. However, for the present I believe I can best use my influence from within the shadow cabinet. Further, I believe that steady pressure is beginning to bear fruit within parliament and wider public opinion. Suspicions that Thurso might be winning the argument within the LibDems were reinforced on Thursday when Baker, a passionate advocate of the anti-nuclear case, suddenly resigned as environment spokesman . Thurso denied that he had made any threat. If the issue does reach criticality, I should have to consider my position, but thats a long way in the future, he told the Sunday Herald. The divisions have been seized upon by the Greens, who believe that LibDem opposition to nuclear power is weakening. We are seeing signs that the LibDems are likely to roll over, said Chris Ballance MSP, the Greens nuclear spokesman. They value power more than principle. They have consistently refused to say that nuclear power will be a coalition-breaking issue, so its fair to assume that support for LibDems is support for new nuclear in Scotland. Labour, too, have their fissions. A pro-nuclear motion passed at the partys Scottish conference in Aviemore a week ago has prompted the partys green wing, the Socialist Environment and Resources Association (Sera), to point out that Labours stance still had to be agreed by the Scottish Policy Forum. Controversy has also arisen over the activities of a group of trade unionists campaigning for nuclear power under the banner of Nuklear21. The group involves five trade unions, including Amicus, which moved the pro-nuclear motion at the Aviemore conference. Workers from the defunct Chapelcross nuclear plant in Dumfries and Galloway have been touring Scottish party political conferences handing out Nuklear21 leaflets. They claim that nuclear power equals atoms for peace and that nuclear will help save the planet. The group, which is planning a mass lobby of the Westminster parliament later this month, has also sent newsletters to every MSP in Scotland. It does not say where its funding comes from. But the Sunday Herald has discovered that Nuklear21 has been given support by the British Nuclear Group (BNG), the state-owned company formerly known as BNFL that runs Chapelcross and Sellafield in Cumbria. BNG admitted that it had been paying travel and business expenses for Nuklear21 union representatives since April 2005. In line with legal obligations, it had also provided paid time off and administrative support facilities such as offices and communication systems. No representatives of Nuklear21 were available for comment last week, but the revelations about their financial backers upset Sera Scotland. The group found it disappointing that Nuklear21 had not made it clear where its funding had come from, said spokeswoman Claudia Beamish. Environmentalists were incensed. It is clearly outrageous that taxpayers money has been secretly funding the nuclear industry to lobby for new reactors, said Dr Richard Dixon, the director of WWF Scotland. But even within green groups there can be disagreements over nuclear power. The Sustainable Development Commission (SDC), the main environmental adviser to ministers, led by green guru Jonathon Porritt, has spoken out against new nuclear stations in the past. But a major schism over the drafting of a new nuclear policy emerged at the commissions plenary meeting last December in Belfast. A number of commissioners questioned whether the UK needed every energy source available in order to combat climate change, making nuclear power a necessity, the minutes record. But other commissioners stated that they were inherently against nuclear. They were worried about nuclear waste, and concerned that not enough was being done to reduce demand for energy and encourage alternative energy sources. Porritt warned that the SDCs position would therefore need to be more complex and reflective, which would make it more representative of society at large. The SDC is due to publish new advice on nuclear power tomorrow. 05 March 2006 newsquest (sunday herald) limited. all rights reserved ***************************************************************** 51 Tennessean: Nashvillian, five others confirmed for TVA board - Saturday, 03/04/06 http://www.tennessean.com Frist negotiates end to political stalemate By NAOMI SNYDER Staff Writer The U.S. Senate confirmed President Bush's six nominees to the TVA board yesterday, including three well-connected Tennesseans, finalizing Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's push for a major restructuring of the New Deal-era federal utility. TVA will go from having a three-member full-time board to a nine-member, part-time board with the power to hire a chief executive officer similar to the way private corporations operate. One of the new board members is Dennis Bottorff, a former banker and chairman of a venture capital firm in Nashville. Joining him will be Susan Williams, who runs a public relations agency in Knoxville and was personnel commissioner for former Gov. Lamar Alexander. William Sansom of Knoxville, who runs a food-distribution company, is a former campaign chairman for Sen. Frist. Also confirmed were Donald DePriest of Columbus, Miss., Howard Thrailkill of Huntsville, Ala., and Mike Duncan, of Inez, Ky. Democratic Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada had held up the confirmations, saying none of the nominees were Democrats. Frist negotiated with Reid for two weeks before yesterday's approvals. "My work on this issue has traveled a long road over the last nine years, and I am extremely gratified by the confirmation of these highly qualified individuals," Frist said. Alexander, now a Republican senator from Tennessee, also praised the decision. "Behind Sen. Frist's leadership, Congress has given the nation's largest public utility what it has needed for a long time, a modern governance structure and a chief executive officer,'' he said in a statement. U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Nashville, said this week that he had questions about the backgrounds of the nominees. "Hardly any of them have any utility experience.'' Two people, a Republican and a Democrat, currently sit on the TVA board after the former board chairman's term expired last year. Bottorff said he expected a swearing-in ceremony with other board members within two to four weeks, with the first board meeting to follow shortly after that. A ninth board seat remains unfilled; no one has been nominated to fill it. The board will start meeting and make decisions with eight members. There is reportedly a broad push for the president to nominate a black candidate from Memphis. No blacks have served on the board, and none of the directors have been from Memphis. The part-time board members each will make $45,000 per year, and the chairman will make $50,000. The current full-time chairman, Bill Baxter, makes $152,000, and the other board member, Skila Harris, makes $143,000. "I think the original mission of TVA, relative to providing reliable, safe, low-cost power is still the forefront," Bottorff said yesterday. The new board will face the challenges of rising demand for electricity and skyrocketing fuel costs, and of deciding what sort of role nuclear power will play. TVA recently approved its second rate increase in six months to pay for rising fuel costs and power purchased from other utilities. TVA, which serves about 8.5 million customers in the Tennessee Valley, also is trying to reduce its $22.9 billion debt load, a legacy of an overbuilt nuclear program in the 1980s. The Associated Press contributed to this story. Copyright 2006, tennessean.com. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 52 Rutland Herald: State follows feds, OKs Vermont Yankee power boost Rutland Vermont News & Information March 4, 2006 By Herald Staff BRATTLEBORO The state Public Service Board on Friday removed the last major hurdle to Vermont Yankee's plans to boost power production, a day before the nuclear reactor's owners plan to ramp up electricity production. The 14-page ruling was released Friday morning, a day after federal regulators at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission gave Entergy Nuclear the green light to increase power by 20 percent. The decision came after more than two years of review. The board said that while a special engineering inspection in the summer of 2004 didn't really meet the conditions for an "independent engineering assessment" called for in its March 2004 permit, the board felt its goals had been met. "The conditions in the March 15, 2004, order have now been met," the two members hearing the case wrote. "The NRC has completed an assessment of Vermont Yankee that accomplishes the objectives of our request for an independent engineering inspection." "We recognize that the NRC's inspection did not employ precisely the methodology we had requested, but it appears to have, nonetheless, achieved the same purpose," wrote David Coen and John Burke. PSB Chairman James Volz, who was appointed last year, did not participate in the original case. Still pending is a ruling from the Atomic Safety Licensing Board, a federal review panel, which has agreed to hear concerns raised by state officials and the New England Coalition, a Brattleboro-based antinuclear group. "It's a new low," Raymond Shadis, senior technical adviser for NEC, said of the PSB's action Friday. He said the final order ignored standards set by the board in earlier rulings and flew in the face of earlier statements by the former Board Chairman Michael Dworkin, who last year said the Yankee review was not completed. The approvals sparked a protest Friday afternoon at Entergy Nuclear's corporate headquarters. No one was arrested. Ten anti-nuclear protesters used duct tape and black plastic Friday afternoon to cover the entrance to the corporate headquarters of Entergy Nuclear in Brattleboro. They claimed it was a symbolic protest of the company's greedy and uncaring attitude toward the increased radiation that will be released from the plant as a result of the power boost. The company has admitted that radiation released from the Vernon reactor will increase 25 to 30 percent, but it maintains it still will be within both state and federal safety limits. The protesters didn't completely seal off the glass entrance to the corporate headquarters. After waiting for an hour, the demonstrators started to leave. Then the Brattleboro police arrived, and the demonstration ended peacefully, without arrests. Entergy Nuclear officials quickly came out, tore down the plastic, stuffed it in trash baskets and returned to the mostly vacant corporate offices. Very few employees were at work Friday at Entergy, because the staff has every other Friday off. Contact Susan Smallheer ***************************************************************** 53 toledoblade.com: Davis-Besse to close for refueling, upgrades Article published Saturday, March 4, 2006 OAK HARBOR, Ohio - The Davis-Besse nuclear power station will shut down Monday to refuel its reactor and make upgrades, officials said. FirstEnergy Corp., which owns the power plant, said the plant will return to service in April. Work will include replacing components to the plant's turbine, which is expected to increase its 935-megawatt power output by 11 megawatts, enough to power about 11,000 additional homes. The last time the plant shut down for refueling, in February, 2002, plant employees found a pineapple-shaped cavity on a six-inch-thick reactor head, where acid had burned the metal down to a line as thin as a pencil eraser. Because of that, FirstEnergy was fined $28 million, an industry record. The plant was not restarted until March, 2004. It was shut down for several weeks in February, 2005, for maintenance. The Toledo Blade Company, 541 N. Superior St., Toledo, OH 43660 , (419) 724-6000 ***************************************************************** 54 Rutland Herald: No margin for error Rutland Vermont News & Information March 4, 2006 Vermonters have to hope that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has done its job well, after the NRC gave its blessing to a power uprate for Vermont Yankee on Thursday and the state Public Service Board followed suit Friday. What this means in layman's terms is the state's only nuclear power plant now has all-but-final approval to increase its output to about 640 megawatts, an increase of 110 megawatts or 20 percent. Before the increase, Yankee produced about two-thirds of Vermont's energy needs, although only about one-half of Yankee's electricity goes to state markets; the rest is sold into the shared New England power grid. Yankee is not the only plant to get an uprate from the NRC, but there is not enough history to approach the increase with any certainty. For instance, the Quad Cities reactor outside Moline, Ill., had to shut down due to cracking in its steam dryer after an 18 percent uprate in 2003. According to the NRC, "corrective actions" were taken after finding and fixing the flaw, which was a direct result of the increase in steam pressure from the uprate. "The lessons learned from the Quad Cities experience are being applied to our review of subsequent power uprates," reads the NRC Web site. To speak plainly again, power increases like this are to a certain extent, trial-and-error. The concern of many opposed to the increase is the margin of error and the potential scale of what may happen if there is an incident at the plant. April 25 will mark the 20th anniversary of the explosion and fire at the nuclear reactor in Chernobyl, Ukraine, which at the time was part of the Soviet Union. The accident at the Chernobyl-4 reactor, the worst nuclear incident in history, released radiation approximately equivalent to 100 times that released by the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II. An area with a radius of 18 miles remains heavily polluted by strontium-90 and caesium-137, which have a half-life of about 30 years. That means about one-half of the radioactive decay occurs in 30 years; after 60 years, the radiation is down to one-quarter; after 90 years, it is one-eighth and so one. Overlay that on a map of Vermont, and you have an area of immediate concern from approximately Dummerston to Greenfield, Mass., which would be uninhabitable for decades. To keep things in perspective, Chernobyl-4 had a maximum capacity approximately four times as large as Vermont Yankee's newer, larger maximum. But a meltdown that "only" rendered, say, Brattleboro uninhabitable isn't any more acceptable than a full-scale, Chernobyl-style incident. Additionally, there is the absence of safe storage for spent, yet still highly poisonous fuel rods: Uranium 235 has a half-life just shy of 704 million years. In other words, there's always the possibility of an accident that would create a dead zone for eons. Nuclear proponents are quick to point out that there's never been an accident nearly as serious as Chernobyl in the United States, although Three Mile Island near Middletown, Pa., came far too close. And our safety and engineering standards are well above those of the former Soviet Union. The point is we simply can't afford even one slip. A safety record of 99.9 percent isn't good enough, given the volatility of nuclear energy. As long as it works right, nuclear energy is among the cleanest, most environmentally friendly energy solutions around. And it's up to the NRC to make sure it works right. Good luck and godspeed. We all need it. 2006 Rutland Herald ***************************************************************** 55 Toronto Star: McGuinty seems plugged in to more nuclear power strong hint in favour of nukes Mar. 4, 2006. 01:00 AMIAN URQUHART The consultations have ended and now comes the time for a decision: Should Ontario turn to new nuclear plants to meet its electricity needs? The question was raised in December in the report of the Ontario Power Authority, the government agency that recommended the building of new nuclear plants (at a staggering cost of $35 billion) both to replace old power stations and to meet the province's growing electricity demands over the next two decades. In the intervening three months, there have been a dozen town hall meetings (attended by about 2,000 people in all), a government brochure was mailed to every home inviting comments (about 4,000 people replied), the authority's report was posted on the environmental registry website (garnering about 1,000 responses), and Energy Minister Donna Cansfield has met with virtually anyone who wanted to meet her. After sifting through all this feedback, the government is expected to provide an answer to the nuclear question in the last week of March or the first week of April. Which way is the government leaning? If the government were to rely on what it heard in the consultations, the answer would be "No more nukes." The town hall meetings were dominated by anti-nuclear environmentalists, with the notable exception of the one in Kincardine, home to the Bruce nuclear plant. Much of the written commentary has also had an anti-nuclear slant, including reports from the Sierra Club, the Clean Air Alliance and the Pembina Institute. What these and other environmental groups say is that, in recommending more nuclear power, the power authority exaggerated the future growth of demand for electricity in the province and understated the potential savings from conservation. There are two major flaws in the environmentalists' analysis, however: Copyright Toronto Star ***************************************************************** 56 TheStar.com: Nuclear power poisons the planet Mar. 4, 2006. 01:00 AM Ontario government too hasty on nuclear power Opinion, Feb. 28. Sierra Club executive director Elizabeth May understates the costs not to mention insanity of Ontario's reinvestment in and expansion of nuclear power generation. Every time I'm fed the soft sell lies of TV ads pitching nuclear power as "reliable, clean, safe, affordable" by the Canadian Nuclear Association, I am reminded that only those supping at the lucrative nuclear trough advocate this proven boondoggle technology that poisons planet Earth (the habitat of all life) in perpetuity. Do they hate their children? Mendelson Joe, Emsdale, Ont. Legal Notice: Copyright Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All ***************************************************************** 57 ITAR-TASS: Novovoronezhsk NPP stops reactor for maintenance 04.03.2006, 01.18 NOVOVORONEZH, March 4 (Itar-Tass) - The Novovoronezhsk nuclear power plant stopped the fourth reactor at midnight on Friday, to carry out maintenance works after peakloads during the cold spell, NPP's acting chief engineer Viktor Loskutov told Itar-Tass. Specialists will check the equipment and safety systems of the nuclear reactor, as well as the condition of the power generators. This time, the maintenance works will run for three days instead of ten days as required by the procedure. The fourth reactor at the Novovoronezhsk NPP, which is a VVER-440 unit, was commissioned in December 1972. After a scheduled overhaul 30 years later, it was certified for another 15 years of operation. "Time has shown that it was a correct decision, Loskutov said," the reactor is reliable, and has a solid margin for safety." ITAR-TASS. All rights reserved. You undertake not to copy, ***************************************************************** 58 SouthofBoston.com: Know nukes MPG Newspapers 9 Long Pond Rd. Plymouth, MA 02360 (508) 746-5555 By Genevieve Wheeler MPG Newspapers KINGSTON (March 4) n Thanks to the night's sudden snowfall, most people interested in nuclear matters probably stayed home Thursday night and listened to the live broadcast on WATD instead. Nevertheless, 30 concerned citizens braved cold temperatures and slippery roads to hear a panel of experts speak on radiation and emergency preparedness at Kingston Intermediate School. The second of the Plymouth Area League of Women Voters' nuclear matters forums, the two-hour presentation came more than a month after Entergy filed its license renewal application for Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Manomet. The first, on plant security, spent-fuel storage and the federal review process took place last September. Pilgrim's operating license expires in 2012. If the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) grants an extension, the plant will be able to operate until 2032. Members of the radiation panel were Pilgrim emergency preparedness superintendent Dr. Thomas Sowdon, and Boston University Medical Center's office of radiation protection director Christopher Martel. Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) public information officer Peter Judge, Bristol County Deputy Sheriff and Special Operations Commander Col. David Gavigan, and Plymouth emergency management director Douglas Hadfield comprised the panel on emergency preparedness. So, what is radiation? The forum started with Sowdon's explanation of radiation: what it is, how it's created, and its effect on human beings. Nuclear fission, the process which generates the heat to power Pilgrim's turbines, splits uranium atoms. The type of radiation released from this splitting can break stable molecules and create ionized atoms. Ionized atoms seek new molecules to share electrons with. When they find the electrons they're looking for, they change the chemistry of the molecules they've latched onto. This can include molecules that make up your cells and your DNA. There's three types of radiation: alpha (weakest), beta and gamma (strongest). Apparently, alpha and beta ionize more than gamma, but gamma penetrates further and needs the densest barriers to contain it. Alpha and beta can be blocked with paper and aluminum foil. Furthermore, a person only gets sick if they get irradiated material into their body. Radioactive contamination spreads, not radioactivity. This is why I hate chemistry. (source: Guidance for Radiation Accident Management, http://www.orau.gov/reacts/guidance.htm) That said, not all types of radiation ionize atoms, and human bodies handle low levels of radiation every day. Sowdon explained how much radiation naturally occurs in the environment. Radiation, measured in millirems, comes from the sun's rays, from the earth, and even from your own body in small doses. And it comes as terrestrial gases we inhale. Massachusetts residents receive most of their radiation not from man-made sources, but from radon. According to Sowdon, you get about 60 millirems per year from man-made sources. From radon, you get about 500. I don't want to scare people. Obviously, we put up with radiation every day of our lives and live. However, sun rays do cause cancer and I believe there's a link between cancer rates and how much radon is in an area, so saying it doesn't cause cellular mutation wouldn't be right. A safety officer's concerns As a radiation inspector at Boston University Medical Center, and as a person with experience with nuclear power plant inspections, Martel had his own concerns about nuclear power plants today. Since deregulation, Martel said, staffing has gone down, production has gone up, and power plants aren't shut down as often to inspect the components. "What's not getting done?" he asked. Human neglect can contaminate the environment just as badly as a large-scale disaster, Martel said. At the Connecticut Yankee power plant, for example, Martel had to evaluate more than 100 homes for radiation contamination. Yankee, when disposing patio blocks once used in a shielding wall, allowed its workers to take home the good ones. The pile of contaminated blocks grew, Martel said, then diminished. On his inspections, Martel found some plant workers had used those contaminated blocks to line their wells, support their docks, and landscape the backyard of a day care center. In addition, Martel warned if relicensing does happen, people should question the adequacy of the radiological monitoring systems in place. The Yankee Rowe plant's groundwater monitoring network was so flawed, he said, 15 years worth of data was called into question. Sowdon pointed out radiological detectors at Pilgrim have an small, embedded source of radioactive material designed to keep the gauge above zero. If the detectors read zero, the device isn't working. According to Pilgrim spokesman David Tarantino, even though outages have decreased, that doesn't mean assessment has. They're just shutting the plant down less. "We've become much better at doing the work online," Tarantino said. "The whole industry is moving to more online maintenance. In a regulated environment, it wasn't as important to have short outages. We do the same work, but we're online now." Since Entergy bought Pilgrim, the plant has been able to bring in workers from other Entergy-owned nuclear power stations to assess equipment and complete inspections while the plant runs. "The specifications haven't lessened," Tarantino said. "The NRC grades us on inspections. If we missed one, it would be a serious violation." Tarantino said it's also unlikely radioactive patio blocks would ever migrate from Pilgrim and end up in Plymouth wells. Everything that comes out of the plant's radiation control area has to pass through radiation monitors, including people, equipment, even rags and mops. Contaminated material has to be properly disposed of. "That (patio block catastrophe) never should have happened," Tarantino said. Are you prepared? Judge and Gavigan offered different opinions on what to do in the event of a radiological disaster. Judge, from MEMA, reminded his audience the state has an emergency plan in place, with reception centers, potassium iodide dispensing sites, and evacuation routes. Every two years, the plan's major elements are tested through Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) exercises. Though it's impossible to perform a real test of the plan, Judge said, there is evidence it works. In Amesbury, a Seabrook town, citizens used the MEMA evacuation plan to clear out after a gas leak at the town's junior high school. MEMA has also been looking at new technologies, like "reverse 911," which would call every house in an affected area with evacuation or sheltering instructions. But, Judge said, people have to know what their emergency plan is. Citizens in Plymouth, Carver, Kingston, Duxbury and Marshfield can find everything they need to know about that plan in the Emergency Preparedness Public Information Calendar. "It's really important to educate yourself and your family," Judge said. "It behooves you to read and understand that calendar." Gavigan, meanwhile, pointed out what he saw as flaws in the evacuation plan. Kingston residents, for instance, are supposed to travel up Route 106 to the reception center at Bridgewater State College. Route 106, however, can have heavy traffic on a normal day. Furthermore, Gavigan said, conditions in mass care facilities leave something to be desired. "I'm not staying in a mass care facility," Gavigan said. "It can become like the Superdome in New Orleans." Finally, Gavigan said, bus drivers expected to shuttle schoolchildren out of danger will put their own children first. "Take care of yourself, do not wait for the government," Gavigan said. "The people are dedicated, but they're few." In the forum's question and answer session, Duxbury nuclear advisory committee member Kevin Craig asked why MEMA didn't push for real exercises, like bringing buses to the schools, or holding shelter-in-place drills. "Why haven't I heard of my kids being taken from class and put in the deepest part of the school?" he said. See for yourself The nuclear matters forum will be broadcast on Channel 15, Plymouth's government channel, Saturday, March 4 and Sunday, March 5 at 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. March 6-10, it will be broadcast at 8 a.m. and 2 p.m. Additionally, local libraries in Plymouth, Kingston, Duxbury and Carver will have video copies of this forum, plus the first League of Women Voters forum, which was on plant security. MPG Newspapers, 9 Long Pond Rd., Plymouth, MA 02360 Telephone: (508) 746-5555 ***************************************************************** 59 SA Sunday Times: Eskom to rescue Koeberg Saturday March 04, 2006 09:16 - (SA) A plan to return Koeberg nuclear power station's two units to full power was announced by Eskom. "Our key focus is to ensure that at least one unit of Koeberg is running at all times," said Eskom's chief executive, Thulani Gcabashe. "We plan to synchronise Koeberg unit 1 to the grid in the middle of May and commence the refuelling and maintenance outage of unit 2 in the third week of May," he said. Eskom had successfully acquired all the spare parts it needed for the repairs, including a rotor and stator bars, and was finalising plans to get the 200 ton rotor to Koeberg and into unit 1. Gcabashe said Eskom would run unit 2 at a decreasing power output until the refuelling and maintenance outage towards the end of May. In the interim, the balance of the Cape's electricity needs would come from high voltage transmission lines and peaking generation in the region. A shortfall of 300MW of power was estimated in peak periods - even with the Eskom's implementation of measures to save 400MW of power. There would be 500 management teams to implement energy conservation programmes including an efficient light programme and the adjustment of geyser temperatures, and to offer advice on pool-pump settings and other conservation measures. "We are appealing to the electricity users in the Cape to participate in the energy savings drive so as to avoid load shedding," said Gcabashe. Other short-term plans to improve the supply to the Cape included the replacement of the glass insulator with silicon insulators, securing non-Eskom co-generators for an additional 80MW at a cost of R115 million, and procuring a number of mobile generation plants for an additional 100MW in the winter peak period. © Johnnic Media Investments Limited 1996-2005. All Rights ***************************************************************** 60 KPHO Phoenix: Radioactive water found near nuclear plant PHOENIX Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station operators are conducting tests to make sure radioactive water discovered near the plant hasn't seeped into the area's water supply. Arizona Public Service notified the Department of Environmental Quality and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission of its discovery on Thursday. Now, APS will work with state and federal officials to pinpoint the source of the contaminated water and determine how far it has spread. The radioactive water was found by work crews this week near a maze of underground pipes at Palo Verde. Initial tests confirmed the water contains more than three times the acceptable amount of tritium. However, state officials say there's no immediate evidence that the tritium poses any public health concerns. Tritium is a byproduct of nuclear power generation and a relatively weak source of radiation. Small amounts of tritium pass through the body quickly, usually through urine. However, exposure to tritium can increase the risk of cancer and birth defects. ___Information from: The Arizona Republic, http://www.azcentral.com Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This All content Copyright 2001 - 2006 WorldNow and News 5. ***************************************************************** 61 MetroWestDailyNews.com: Nuclear a sensible power choice Opinion &Letters: Letter Sunday, March 5, 2006 In response to John Greggs article ("No easy answer to questions on nuclear power," Feb. 25), calling nuclear power clean and safe is exactly where we need to start, if we are to have any kind of intelligent discussion of energy issues. Elimination of gross misconceptions is a prerequisite for meaningful debate. As US nuclear power has not caused a single public death over its near 40-year history, and has never had any measurable impact on public health, it is safe by any objective standard. It is also clean by any objective standard, as it has completely contained all its wastes (or toxic materials), and does not release them into the environment. It is also basically required to prove that its wastes will remain contained indefinitely, so that it will never have any significant impact at any point in the future. Scientific analyses already show that Yucca Mountain can meet this requirement, with maximum possible exposures (to any person) remaining within the range of natural background at all times in the future. Fossil plants, which generate toxins in vastly larger volumes, and (therefore) simply release them directly into the environment, are estimated to cause about 25,000 deaths annually in the US alone (according to EPA), and are the leading cause of global warming. As to nuclears potentially "cataclysmic" consequences, fossil plants annual death toll greatly exceeds the maximum possible consequence of any nuclear plant accident or attack. Credible estimates for the total eventual effects of Chernobyl range from 50 to approximately 4,000 deaths. The maximum conceivable consequences of any event at a Western plant are much smaller than that. JAMES HOPF Public Information Committee of the American Nuclear Society, San Jose, Calif. Order Home Delivery Online: Weekly papers Dailey papers or call 1.800.982.4023 Copyright of CNC and . ***************************************************************** 62 [NukeNet] "PLANNED DEATHS" By Nuclear Industry-Court Testimony Date: Sat, 04 Mar 2006 16:30:56 -0800 NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net) From: "Bill Smirnow" Date: Wed Apr 11, 2001 4:22 am Subject: "PLANNED DEATHS" By Nuclear Industry-Court Testimony By Dr John Gofman smirnowb@... Send Email http://www.mothersalert.org/chernobyl.html ALARA stands for "As Low As Reasonably Achievable". It's definition is in part 20 of the U.S. code of Federal Regulation of the U. S. NRC for exposure to radiation. All ALARA means is that, depending on the amount of money that any nuclear industry wishes to spend on protection of the environment and people, and depending on available technology, that is what they can use! So if you say, as a nuclear producer, "I only intend to spend $10 on keeping emissions as low as reasonably achievable, and that's all the technology that is available" its OKAY! Dr. John W. Gofman[http://www.ratical.org] has stated in front of federal judges in U.S. Federal courts that this constitutes "planned deaths": Question by the court: "What does ALARA..." Answer: "It permits deaths." Question: "Permits human deaths?" Answer: "Yes, because ALARA does not say -- see, the only way you could avoid deaths from the nuclear fuel cycle is to have zero releases. ALARA says keep the releases as low as you can reasonably achieve with the economics that you want to spend on it, and the equipment that you have available and so forth. So it is a planned emission of radioactivity, and that in effect means planned deaths." -- Dr. John Gofman, in conversation with the court, October 2nd, 1978, Jeannine Honicker versus the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission in Federal Court, Nashville, Tennessee, seeking an injunction to shut down the nuclear fuel cycle. The judge found out that he had no jurisdiction and that it had to go instead in front of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission/NRC judges. The petition was denied. (It can be found in "Shut Down: Nuclear Power on Trial: Experts Testify in Federal Court" ISBN 0-913990-21-3, published in 1979 in the U. S. by The Book Publishing Company, 156 Drakes Lane, Summertown, Tennessee, 38483.) From: "Frieda A. Berryhill" Date: Thu Apr 12, 2001 1:41 am Subject: Re: "PLANNED DEATHS" By Nuclear Industry-Court Testimony By Dr John Gofman frieda302@... Send Email Planned deaths indeed.!!!!!A momorandum of September 21,1977 from Dr.Walter H.Jordan of the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Pannel to Dr. James R.Yore Chairman of the ASLB states as follows: "In summary, the values given in Table S-3 for the ammount of RN 222 omitted per annual fuel requirement is grossly in error.So also is the dose to offsite population from milling due to one annual fuel requirement"It was not not until March 1978 that the NRC released the news to the public that the healtheffects to future generations was in error by a factor of 100,000 (no typo onehundredthousand)(part of my testimony before the IRG in Boston August 5th 1978)This was the trigger for me to form the Committy for the Application of the Nuremberg Prinicpal which clearly condems this kind of random murder by any nation..The distinquished panel ( see enclosure) was headed by an attorny who as an assistant Gen Attorny for the state Tennessee and a firce opponent of Oakridge...Much has been done by this committee and as many stories have it it sort of scared the H....out of the NRC. The porblem was that Bill Garner died of a heart attack just as we got going and i could not find another laywer to replace him.However to those who often questioned my sanity i can now say with satisfaction that i was not the only one thinking along those lines as i began searching the eclosed sites I found that everal leaders in other countries have began to realize that the principals so clearly defined in Nurenberg indeed apply here. .http://www.prop1.org/prop1/azantink.htm see attachent "nurenberg Pnncipal _______________________________________________________________________ Subscribe/Unsubscribe Here: http://www.energyjustice.net/nukenet/ Change your settings or access the archives at: http://energyjustice.net/mailman/listinfo/nukenet_energyjustice.net ***************************************************************** 63 Deseret News: Payments to victims of fallout passes $1 billion [deseretnews.com] Saturday, March 4, 2006 WASHINGTON Federal compensation for damages caused by fallout and other radiation exposure has passed the $1 billion mark, reports Sen. Orrin Hatch. The Utah Republican noted in a press release that since the compensation bill he sponsored the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act passed in 1990, payments have totaled $1,002,039,052. The act was expanded by additional legislation he wrote in 2000, says the release. So far, 15,108 individuals and families of downwinders and others exposed to radiation have been paid compensation through the program, administered by the Department of Justice, says the release. "Each payment from RECA shows the nation's commitment to helping victims of radiation exposure," Hatch said in the release. "Thousands of Utahns were harmed by nuclear testing, and we can never do enough to right this." RECA does not only compensate those hit by fallout, who are entitled to up to $50,000. Besides downwinders who meet certain qualifications, it pays up to $75,000 for people exposed by work as ore transporters, up to $100,000 for mill workers, assuming they meet the act's criteria. Hatch said that to date, RECA has compensated 3,731 Utahns with payments of $213,943,745. 2006 Deseret News Publishing Company [ ***************************************************************** 64 [NYTr] Years of Radioactive Leaks Revealed at Illinois Nuke Date: Sat, 4 Mar 2006 21:38:37 -0600 (CST) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit Reuters - Mar 4, 2006 http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=topNews&storyid=2006-03-04T171024Z_01_N01404553_RTRUKOC_0_US-NUCLEAR.xml US nuclear plant leaks fuel health concerns By Andrew Stern CHICAGO (Reuters) - Years of radioactive waste water spills from Illinois nuclear power plants have fueled suspicions the industry covers up safety problems and sparked debate about the risks from exposure to low-level radiation. The recent, belated disclosures of leaks of the fission byproduct tritium from Exelon Corp.'s Braidwood, Dresden, and Byron twin-reactor nuclear plants -- one as long ago as 1996 -- triggered worries among neighbors about whether it was safe to drink their water, or even stay. "How'd you like to live next to that plant and every time you turn on the tap to take a drink you have to think about whether it's safe?" asked Joe Cosgrove, the head of parks in Godley, Illinois, a town adjacent to Braidwood. Cosgrove and some scientists and anti-nuclear activists who monitor health issues related to nuclear power say the delay in reporting the spills is indicative of industry and regulatory obfuscation bordering on cover-up. "We don't know what else has been leaked from that site. When they close ranks, you can't believe them," Cosgrove said, referring to the plant owner and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which oversees safety at the nation's 103 commercial reactors, including 11 in Illinois. Cosgrove recalled a 2002 spill of diesel fuel that was initially mischaracterized by Braidwood's operators as run-off from a parking lot. When information about the tritium spills arose as part of the town's since-dropped lawsuit over the fuel, Exelon asked the court to bar any questions about it. A local doctor and his wife, Joseph and Cynthia Sauer, whose daughter contracted brain cancer when they lived near the Dresden plant, have collected data about heightened rates of cancer and birth defects near the Illinois plants in the period after the spills began. They say they were brushed off by the NRC. CONCLUSIVE INVESTIGATION "I don't say that people don't have concerns, but any suggestion that we are in cahoots with the industry to suppress (information) is baseless," NRC spokesman Jan Strasma said. The industry and the NRC say existing medical research shows people living near nuclear plants are safe and limits on discharges of radioactive liquids and gases are adequate. But some scientists and at least one congressman want a conclusive investigation of the health risks. They say that while tritium is like water, if ingested some of it may remain in the body where it can damage cells, leading to cancers, birth defects and miscarriages. U.S. Rep. Edward Markey has been unable to secure government funding for a health study on people living near nuclear plants, and the Massachusetts Democrat says he opposes U.S. President George W. Bush's prescription to build a new generation of nuclear reactors to lessen reliance on fossil fuels until more is known. "The president's plan is misguided. It presents health risks, creates additional nuclear waste that we have no long-term solution for, creates additional terrorist targets that we do not adequately defend, and costs an enormous amount of money. (Bush's) phrase 'clean, safe nuclear power' is oxymoronic," he said. IS IT SAFE? Exelon and the NRC say a 1998 spill of 3 million gallons of tritium -- a form of hydrogen that becomes radioactive water when it contacts air -- did contaminate ground water that breached the Braidwood plant boundary. But the radioactivity had not risen above federal limits where people live or have their drinking water wells. At Dresden, the 276,000-gallon (1 million-liter) tritium leak is still on-site, and the spill at Byron was found inside concrete vaults along an effluent pipe. The plants are all within 100 miles of Chicago in northern Illinois, which has the largest nuclear capacity of any U.S. state, about equal to Great Britain's. The spilled tritium was destined to be discharged as effluent in rivers anyway, authorities said, and they were not explicitly required to notify the public about it -- a reporting loophole Illinois congressmen want closed. "It's not like people are going to start dropping like flies from this level of radiation," said Arjun Makhijani of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research. "What I am alarmed by is the number of years it has taken, and how lax the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been, and how lax the corporation has been in informing the community fully" about the spills, he said. ) Reuters 2006. * ================================================================ .NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems . Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us . .339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org .List Archives: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ .Subscribe: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ================================================================ ***************************************************************** 65 Las Vegas SUN: Bodman says DOE has no plans to move waste March 04, 2006 ASSOCIATED PRESS LAS VEGAS (AP) - Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman says his department will not begin moving nuclear waste away from power plants around the country until the proposed repository at Yucca Mountain is licensed. At a meeting with reporters in Washington, D.C Friday, Bodman sought to dispel speculation that the Bush administration was considering establishing temporary nuclear waste storage sites while the Nevada disposal site remains on the drawing board. "All our efforts will be going into the procurement of an operating license" for Yucca Mountain, Bodman said. "At that point in time we will make a decision whether we will take advantage of interim storage opportunities or not." DOE missed a Jan. 31, 1998, deadline to begin moving waste off reactor sites, triggering dozens of lawsuits from utilities and continuing pressure to move fuel to Yucca Mountain or elsewhere. Under the scenario Bodman discussed, nuclear waste could remain at plant sites for at least five years. By the time Yucca Mountain is licensed, new research on nuclear waste reprocessing would inform decisions on whether the spent nuclear fuel should be deposited at the site 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas or sent elsewhere in interim storage to await recycling, Bodman said. The energy secretary's comments signal the administration's evolving strategy for handling nuclear waste. In recent days, administration officials have outlined a plan that features continued emphasis on a Yucca repository but also a big push to explore reprocessing technologies that might wring more use out of spent fuel while making the ultimate end products less toxic for burial in Nevada. A nuclear waste bill is expected to be sent to Congress in the coming days. Bodman said it will not contain interim storage provisions. A second DOE official confirmed that later Friday. There had been broad speculation within the nuclear industry and on Capitol Hill that the administration might seek to establish temporary storage on federal land in Washington, South Carolina, Idaho or at the Nevada Test Site. A spokeswoman for Officials at the Nuclear Energy Institute, the nuclear industry's main trade association, had no immediate comment on Bodman's remarks. NEI has been lobbying the government to move faster to remove spent fuel from plants in 39 states where it has been accumulating in pools and in "dry cask" storage containers. The Energy Department is in the midst of a repository redesign and is awaiting radiation health standards for the site. The Environmental Protection Agency has said those will not be finalized until near the end of the year. At whatever point DOE applies for a repository license, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has four years to evaluate it, a schedule that a number of experts say is optimistic. --- Information from: Las Vegas Review-Journal, http://www.lvrj.com All contents copyright 2005 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 66 Nevada Appeal: What is it about this state that says 'dump all over us?' Opinion Letters to the editor March 3, 2006 Now there is an article in the local paper about 3,000 metric tons of mercury that the government wants to ship to and store at the Hawthorne Ammunition Depot. What is it about this state that says "dump all over us?" You would think that we were the hellhole of the country. The people of Nevada need to stand up and I mean big time and voice their thoughts and opinions about the government using the Nevada countryside to dump their hazardous waste in. Having been in the fire service and a haz-mat incident commander, I know how dangerous not only mercury but radioactive material can be. It is not going to go away in a few years. It is here to stay, for the rest of my life, my children's life, and my grandchildren's life and for the next several hundred years. Who knows how long this stuff will last for we have only been delving into the nuclear stuff for about 60 plus years? The scientists have assumed that they know how long the waste stays dangerous, like coffee is good for you today but tomorrow it is not. Depends on who is paying them. The officials and scientists say that nuclear energy is safe, clean and affordable. If it is so safe, why is it that this country has not built any more nuclear power generating plants since the Three-Mile Nuclear Power plant incident? If it is so clean and safe, why has it taken so much money and time to design, build, and open a safe affordable storage place for nuclear waste? I am talking mega-money folks, probably enough so that every citizen in this country could have a decent place to live in, plenty of food to eat, and wonderful medical service. I feel that if this government had spent all the money that has been put forth on the Yucca Mountain project towards other alternative power sources such as wind or solar power we would be better off. Research and development of recycling the nuclear waste, like has been done in other countries, would have helped. To the taxpayers of this country the Yucca Mountain project is just a cash cow for a lot of companies that are doing business with the government working on this project. Here is a thought. Area 51 and its landmass would be a great place for a wind power farm. To go along with all the above I feel that if this waste is going to be stored here that the state of Nevada and its citizens should be compensated for it and big time. William M. Sweetwood Carson City All contents Copyright 2006 nevadaappeal.com Nevada Appeal - 580 Mallory Way - Carson City, NV 89701 ***************************************************************** 67 NetXNews: The future of nuclear waste in Utah Sunday March 05, 2006 USU professor to speak on the challenges facing Goshutes by Ashley Robertson Skull Valley, in Utah, is home to 120 of the less then 500 Goshute Native Americans left in the United States. Due to economic restraints, this Goshute Band has contracted with Private Fuel Storage Corporation (PFS) to build a Nuclear Waste Storage Facility on their reservation, 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. On March 6th, Dr. David Rich Lewis, professor at Utah State University, will be visiting UVSC campus and discussing the debate on why or why not the facility should be built. On one hand, Utahans do not want Nuclear Waste to be stored in the state, and on the other hand the Goshute Indians have the right to do what they please on their land. "This presentation will explore issues of American Indian sovereignty as they are unfolding today in Utah," Lewis said, "My presentation isn't about offering easy answers to the problem of dealing with nuclear waste, but about asking difficult questions." The state government has taken extreme measures in the past to ensure this facility would not be built in Utah, such as seizing the roads going in to the reservation in order to prevent the trafficking and storage of Nuclear Waste on the reservation. Former Governor Leavitt imposed a toll that would "be placed so high that it would be economically impossible to transport wastes to the reservation." Along with a high toll for the shipment of nuclear waste, Leavitt planed on denying the Goshutes a transportation permit to transport the waste into Utah. Worries surrounding this issue include potential contamination and exposure of hazardous materials to Utahans. There are also military weapons testing sites nearby, and other hazardous materials facilities. Some are concerned that the Goshute Band is putting themselves at risk unnecessarily. The Skull Valley Goshute Band has experienced great economic suppression. This contract with PFS will bring millions of dollars to the band, open up approximately 60 local job opportunities and will create revenue great enough to add land to the reservation, build new houses, and build a much needed reservoir to provide irrigation year round. Treaties made in the late 1800's and early 1900's declared that Native American Reservations are subject to their own government. This means the state has no authority over what inhabitants of the reservation choose to do with their 18,000 acres of land. Dr. Lewis hopes to "challenge people to stop accepting simple answers to the wrong questions, and to begin thinking more complexly about the historical roots that inform contemporary realities in conflicts like this." Dr. Lewis' visit is part of the Turning Points in History lecture series hosted by the UVSC History Department to generate recognition and interest for the History Department and also UVSC's History Degree. It also offers UVSC Seniors, working on their thesis, an opportunity to work hands on with different nationally recognized scholars in a research workshop. "It is inspiring for students to have a chance to work with scholars," said UVSC History Professor Lyn Bennett. "It's been very significant for Senior Thesis students working with these scholars, and its not often scholars work with undergraduate students and they get feed back from our students." Dr. David Rich Lewis will lecture in the Liberal Arts Building, room 101 at 7 p.m. Monday, March 6th. There is no admission fee, and it is open to the public. [end of article dingbat] 2006 NetXNews ***************************************************************** 68 reviewjournal.com: Anti-Yucca attorney recovering Mar. 04, 2006 WASHINGTON -- Nevada's chief Yucca Mountain lawyer is recuperating from surgery after cancer was detected in his lower esophagus and stomach. Joe Egan underwent surgery on Feb. 10 at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York after being diagnosed with adenocarcinoma, which begins in cells that line mucous organs. A surgeon removed a third of his stomach and half of his esophagus, and Egan said he plans chemotherapy treatments next month as follow-up treatment. "Hopefully it is all gone," Egan, 51, said Friday, four days after returning home to McLean, Va. The Virginia-based Egan, Fitzpatrick, Malsch & Cynkar has written and argued Nevada lawsuits against the Yucca Mountain Project and is preparing to represent the state in license hearings for the proposed nuclear waste repository 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The firm, which was hired on Sept. 11, 2001, has been paid between $3 million and $4 million so far and is working under an open-ended contract, said Bob Loux, director of the state Agency for Nuclear Projects. Egan's partners continued to work on Yucca matters in his absence, Loux said. Copyright Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2006 ***************************************************************** 69 reviewjournal.com: UNTIL YUCCA GETS LICENSED: Nuke waste staying put Mar. 04, 2006 Copyright Las Vegas Review-Journal Bodman: No plans to move material By STEVE TETREAULT
©STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department does not plan to begin moving nuclear waste away from power plants around the country until it has a license in hand for a repository at Yucca Mountain, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said Friday. Bodman ruled out the government establishing temporary storage sites for nuclear waste while the Nevada disposal site remains on the drawing board. "All our efforts will be going into the procurement of an operating license" for Yucca Mountain, Bodman said. "At that point in time we will make a decision whether we will take advantage of interim storage opportunities or not." At that point, which could be years, Bodman said research on nuclear waste reprocessing might guide decisions on whether the spent nuclear fuel should be moved to Yucca Mountain for disposal or sent elsewhere in interim storage to await recycling. The Bush administration is promoting advanced reprocessing though a new Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, or GNEP. "All of this fits together," Bodman said. "We would be making those judgments in the future based on what we learn about GNEP and how successful we will be." The energy secretary's comments in a meeting with reporters shed fresh light on the Bush administration's evolving strategy for handling nuclear waste. In recent days, administration officials have outlined a plan that features continued emphasis on a Yucca repository but also a big push to explore reprocessing technologies that might wring more use out of spent fuel while making the ultimate end products less toxic for burial in Nevada. Bush administration officials are finalizing a nuclear waste bill expected to be sent to Congress in the coming days. Bodman said it will not contain interim storage provisions. A second DOE official confirmed that later Friday. There had been broad speculation within the nuclear industry and on Capitol Hill that the administration might seek to establish temporary storage on federal land in Washington, South Carolina, Idaho, or at the Nevada Test Site. Officials at the Nuclear Energy Institute were unaware of Bodman's remarks and had no immediate comment, spokeswoman Trish Conrad said. NEI, the nuclear industry's main trade association, has been among the state and industry groups lobbying for the government to move faster to remove spent fuel from plants in 39 states where it has been accumulating in pools and in "dry cask" storage containers. DOE missed a Jan. 31, 1998, deadline to begin moving waste off reactor sites, triggering dozens of lawsuits from utilities and continuing pressure to move fuel to Yucca Mountain or elsewhere. Steve Kraft, NEI nuclear waste director, said last week that moving nuclear waste away from power plants and onto some federal site "is our number one goal" that NEI would lobby for this year. Under the scenario Bodman discussed, nuclear waste could remain at plant sites for at least five years and most probably longer than that. The Energy Department is in the midst of a repository redesign and is awaiting radiation health standards for the site. The Environmental Protection Agency has said those will not be finalized until near the end of the year. At whatever point DOE applies for a repository license, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has four years to evaluate it, a schedule that a number of experts say is optimistic. The concept of interim storage has been controversial. President Clinton in 2000 vetoed legislation that sought to establish temporary waste storage at the Nevada Test Site. Last year, however, the House passed a bill directing the administration to explore interim storage. The proposal was dropped from final legislation. Copyright Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2006 Stephens Media GroupPrivacy Statement ***************************************************************** 70 AFP: Australian PM rules out uranium sales to India Sun Mar 5, 6:48 AM ET SYDNEY (AFP) - Australian Prime Minister John Howard effectively ruled out selling uranium to India as he headed for New Delhi. India wants to expand its nuclear power industry but Howard indicated there would be no uranium deal as the Asian country had not signed the United Nations" /> United Nationstreaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. "We don't have any plan to change our current policy," he told reporters ahead of his departure on Sunday. Howard said a pact signed last Thursday by US President George W. Bush" /> President George W. Bushand Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the sharing of nuclear technology would not change Australia's stance. "We're certainly not going to suddenly change our policy just because the Indians and Americans have reached an agreement," he said. Australia, which has around 40 percent of the world's known uranium deposits, does not sell uranium to countries which are not signatories to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Howard said the main focus of his four-day trip would be to build trade ties and deepen the "strategic relationship" between the two countries. The conservative Australian leader, who celebrated 10 years in office last week, will be accompanied by top business executives as he travels to New Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai. "India is an increasingly influential global and regional player whose interests converge with Australia's. The discussions I will have while in India will add impetus to our growing strategic relationship," Howard said. "During my visit it is anticipated that a number of agreements will be signed in various fields including trade, defence, science and air services," he said. Howard will meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, various cabinet ministers and Congress Party President Sonia Gandhi. Copyright 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 71 AFP: India to press Australia for uranium deal - Singh Sun Mar 5, 7:30 PM ET SYDNEY (AFP) - India will ask Australia to lift a ban on sales of uranium for its growing nuclear energy programme, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in remarks. Singh, who signed a pact on nuclear power with US President George W. Bush" /> President George W. Bushlast week, told The Australian newspaper in an interview that he would raise the issue in talks with visiting Australian Prime Minister John Howard. "I hope Australia will be an important partner in this. We are short of uranium. We need to import uranium and our needs will increase in years to come," he told the newspaper. Australia, which has the largest uranium deposits in the world, does not sell uranium to countries like India which are not signatories to the UN's nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Howard said ahead of his departure from Australia on Sunday that the US-India pact would not immediately change Australia's stance, but appeared to leave open the possibility of a rethink in the future. "We're certainly not going to suddenly change our policy just because the Indians and Americans have reached an agreement," he said. "We'll study it, and if there are things that should additionally be done that are in Australia's interests then we'll do them." Singh and Howard were due to hold talks in New Delhi on Monday. Under the agreement, India has agreed to separate its civilian and nuclear facilities and put 14 of its 22 nuclear reactors under international inspections. Singh said he would also ask for Howard's support in getting the US-India deal accepted by the international Nuclear Suppliers' Group. "I very much hope Australia, as a member of the Nuclear Suppliers' Group, would endorse what I and President Bush" /> President Bushhave worked out," Singh said. "This is an arrangement which helps the cause of nuclear non-proliferation. India has an impeccable record of not entering into any unauthorised arms proliferation." Howard is a close ally of the US president, and Singh's comments put Australia in an uncomfortable position. "If we were to export uranium to India, that would constitute a significant shift in our policy," Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said last week. "It would open up questions of whether we'd export uranium to countries like Israel" /> Israeland Pakistan as well and I think it's probably easier for us to support the current policy." Australia is currently hammering out a deal with China to export the radioactive metal to the country. Downer said the crucial difference was that Beijing has signed the NPT. Copyright 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 72 San Bernardino County Sun: Cleanup proposal denied Article Display Date: 03/04/2006 12:00 AM PST But water board open to revisions Robert Rogers, Staff Writer LOMA LINDA - The Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board on Friday rejected a request by a now-dissolved corporation to adopt its $2.2 million work plan to remedy the perchlorate contamination that for decades has plagued area groundwater. An attorney for Emhart Industries Inc. - a company that dissolved in 2002, but whose parent company is Black &Decker Inc. - aimed to persuade the board to adopt a plan agreeable to more than a dozen chemical dischargers, thwarting the possibility of incurring greater liability. Instead, the board's decision paves the way for another hearing in July, at which the board could determine Emhart responsible for replacement water or well-head treatment. But the Riverside-based board, meeting at the Loma Linda Civic Center, left the door open for negotiations. "We would propose that Emhart prepare a revised proposal of its plan and schedule of water replacement," Chairwoman Carole Beswick announced after emerging with other board members from deliberations. Emhart's attorney, Jim Meeder, argued the board should accept a proposed "steering committee" in which it and another company would partner in constructing two wells to monitor area groundwater, and in doing so, lead the way for more aid from some of the other companies possibly responsible. Meeder said perhaps 45 companies could "contribute to this inclusive process." Perchlorate provides the oxygen for solid rockets, road flares and fireworks, and has contaminated dozens of water wells in San Bernardino County. The underground plume of perchlorate in question on Friday affects Rialto, Colton and Fontana, and taints 22 wells. Emhart officials hoped to defer potentially binding proceedings with voluntary action, said Robert Owen, Rialto city attorney. "No company wants to be subject to decisions regarding what could be a $100 million to $300 million cleanup job," Owen said. After Meeder's 30-minute presentation, a cavalcade of dissenting voices addressed the board. Kurt Berchtold, the board's assistant executive officer, said he agreed with Meeder's steering committee concept a model of collaboration between entities and stakeholders to rectify past environmental damage, a model endorsed by the Environmental Protection Agency. However, he said, Meeder's details, namely a lack of enforcement mechanisms and actual investment, "fall short." Meeder was confronted repeatedly with the disparity between Emhart's proposal and the actions of Goodrich Corp., a company implicated in the pollution that has poured $4 million into well-head treatments in Rialto thus far. Peter Duchesneau, present on behalf of Goodrich, said the company has installed well-head treatment equipment on four wells and planned to do so on five to nine more at a cost of $7 million to $10 million. Emhart distributed "significant" assets upon its dissolution, and is believed to be connected to the costly contamination by a long history. In the 1950s, Emhart's predecessor company, West Coast Loading, manufactured incendiary products in a Rialto facility containing some of the perchlorate thought to be contaminating water today. Scott Sommer, an attorney for Rialto, was the most vitriolic of a crowd generally hostile to Meeder's proposal. Calling Emhart a "wolf trying to masquerade in sheep's clothing," Sommer pointed out to the board that Emhart had yet contributed nothing to remedy the contamination's damage. Sommer said Rialto residents were drinking safe water, but at a high price. "(Rialto residents) are like the victim of a crime paying their own medical bills," Sommer said. It costs about $1 million per well to install treatment equipment, and maintaining it can require $600,000 to $800,000 per year, Owen said. Perchlorate can inhibit thyroid function if ingested, and harm the development of fetuses and children. Owen was supportive of the board's efforts to hold accountable the parties deemed responsible for the pollution. "Rialto supports any action by the regional board to hasten clean up and provide financial relief to the community, which should not be required to pay for the contamination of others," Owen said. After the board officially denied Emhart's request and stressed its desire to see more planning and tighter scheduling in any future proposal, Meeder was undaunted. "There is no determination that Emhart is in any way responsible (for the contamination)," Meeder said, adding that the voluntary work he proposed will be done despite the unfavorable ruling. Los Angeles Newspaper Group ***************************************************************** 73 Salt Lake Tribune: Don't be fooled Opinion Article Last Updated: 03/04/2006 12:47 PM MST I was shocked when I learned that EnergySolutions is actually the old Envirocare. The television commercials portray the company as an environmentally friendly operation, which it is not as they are proposing bringing huge amounts of radioactive waste to Utah which, again, puts all Utahns at risk. Then I was horrified to see in one of the commercials where Steve Creamer (EnergySolutions CEO) was on and said he grew up near Zion National Park and had such a wonderful healthy childhood. People who grew up in Southern Utah during this time suffered greatly from atomic weapons testing. I worked in Zion National Park in the early 1960s with kids from all over the southern part of the state. I also watched as some of them, their parents and relatives, died from exposure to radiation. Let's not be fooled! Kathy Richardson Salt Lake City © Copyright 2006, The Salt Lake Tribune. ***************************************************************** 74 PE.com: Chemical found in highest level yet | Inland Southern California | Inland News PERCHLORATE: The discovery, 3,500 parts per billion, far exceeds what is in nearby wells. 12:13 AM PST on Saturday, March 4, 2006 By JENNIFER BOWLES / The Press-Enterprise New tests have revealed "astronomical" levels of perchlorate below a northern Rialto industrial site, causing concern that another wallop of the rocket-fuel chemical could make worse the pollution already in a key Inland drinking-water basin, officials said Friday. The discovery of the rocket-fuel chemical at 3,500 parts per billion is the highest ever detected in the six-mile plume, more than four times the highest level that has been found in several drinking-water wells in Rialto and Colton. Those cities either treat the water before serving it or don't use any water containing perchlorate, which has been linked to thyroid problems. California's current perchlorate "health goal" -- considered safe for everyone but not an enforceable limit -- is six parts per billion in drinking water. "It's astronomical," Davin Diaz, an activist with the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice, said of the new discovery. "The question is how long will it take to move off the site and hit drinking wells." The test results from January were announced at a Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board meeting in Loma Linda. Bob Holub, a board supervising engineer, said the groundwater levels have been rising in the basin and the water probably reached up into perchlorate-tainted soil at the 160-acre site in northern Rialto. Perchlorate was used by several defense contractors and fireworks manufacturers that have operated at the site since the 1950s. The perchlorate was dropped onto the ground or burned in pits, leaving it seep into the soil and leach into the groundwater, water-quality officials said. The newly discovered high concentration of perchlorate is cause for concern that there's still a "substantial amount" of the rocket-fuel chemical that is acting as an ongoing source of pollution, said Kurt Berchtold, the board's assistant executive officer, after the meeting. The board, meanwhile, rejected an offer by Emhart Industries Inc, believed to be a major contributor to the pollution, saying its plan to test soil and water at the site failed to include handing over much-needed replacement water to the two cities and their 150,000 residents. Colton alone spends $1.2 million annually to operate treatment systems on three groundwater wells tainted by perchlorate, said Danielle Sakai, an attorney for the city. James Meeder, an attorney for Emhart, a subsidiary of Black and Decker, said the company still contends that it is not the corporate successor of West Coast Loading -- which made flares and ground burst simulators for the Army at the site from 1952 until 1957. Water regulators have not agreed with that assertion, but they plan a hearing in July to examine the issue. Carole Beswick, the board's chairwoman, said the company should return to the board by March 31 with a revised plan that includes replacement water so residents don't have to bear the cost. "It's the thing that matters the most to us," she said. In exchange for its testing work, Emhart was seeking a less detailed cleanup order and a broader focus by the board on other suspected polluters. Reach Jennifer Bowles at (951) 368-9548 or Press Enterprise ***************************************************************** 75 Senator Harry Reid: About Yucca Mountain Oversight Hearing Wednesday, March 1, 2006 Washington, DC—Senator Harry Reid delivered the following remarks while testifying at today’s Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing about the Yucca Mountain Project. Remarks by U.S. Senator Harry Reid March 1, 2006 “I am convinced the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump will never be built because the project is mired in scientific, safety and technical problems. “In 1982, Congress passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, which called for disposal of nuclear waste in a deep geological repository that would remain stable for thousands of years. The Act directed the Department of Energy to pick the most suitable site based on natural, geologic features. “In 1987, Congress instead opted for political expediency and limited DOE’s studies to Yucca Mountain, despite the fact that the criteria in the Act would disqualify the Yucca Mountain site. “DOE has been studying Yucca for 20 years now, and the studies are still incomplete. “Transportation of nuclear waste from around the country to Yucca poses hazards to public health, economic and national security, and environmental safety – hazards from accidents or terrorist attacks. DOE has not addressed those hazards. “Moving 77,000 tons of waste to Yucca would involve about 53,000 truck shipments or 10,000 rail shipments over 24 years. The waste would travel through counties housing 250 million people -- including population centers like Chicago, Washington D.C., and Las Vegas. “Before his election, President Bush wrote, -- quote -- “I believe sound science, not politics, must prevail in the designation of any high-level nuclear waste repository. As President, I would not sign legislation what would send nuclear waste to any proposed site unless it’s been deemed scientifically safe.” “Now President Bush is breaking that promise. He’s letting politics and unsound science prevail at Yucca Mountain. “A few of the scientific problems that we have seen the last year and a half include: “In 2004, the Court threw out the Environmental Protection Agency’s first radiation protection standards for Yucca because they were not strong enough to protect the public from radiation exposure and failed to follow the recommendations of the National Academy of Sciences. “In 2005, the EPA published its revised standards for the proposed Yucca Mountain high-level waste dump, which are wholly inadequate, do not meet the law’s requirements and do not protect public health and safety. In fact, EPA is proposing the least protective public health radiation standard in the world. “Numerous scientific and quality assurance problems with transportation plans, corrosion of casks, and the effectiveness of materials have caused DOE to suspend work on the surface facilities, and have caused the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to issue a stop-work order on nuclear containers. “DOE revealed that documents and models about water infiltration at Yucca Mountain had been falsified. The DOE Inspector General reports that DOE continues to ignore falsifications of technical and scientific data. “In numerous media reports, the administration has confirmed that it is preparing a legislative package that will remove health, safety and legal requirements for Yucca Mountain -- a clear admission that the project is a complete public health, safety and scientific failure. “It should be clear to everyone that the proposed Yucca Mountain project is not going anywhere. “It is time to look at alternatives so we can safely story nuclear waste. Fortunately, the technology for a viable, safe and secure alternative is readily available and can be fully implemented within a decade if we act now. That technology is on-site dry cask storage. “Dry casks are being safely used at 34 sites throughout the country right now. The Nuclear Energy Institute projects 83 of the 103 active reactors will have dry storage by 2050. “Senator John Ensign and I have a bill that would safely store nuclear waste while we look for a scientifically-based solution. That bill is the Spent Fuel On-Site Storage and Security Act of 2006. (S. 2099.) Our bill requires commercial nuclear utilities to secure waste in licensed, on-site dry cask storage facilities. “There is absolutely no justification for endangering the public by rushing headlong towards a repository that is fraught with scientific, technical and geological problems. Our bill guarantees all Americans that our nation’s nuclear waste will be stored in the safest way possible. “It is time we addressed the problem at hand – the safe storage of spent nuclear fuel – and stopped pouring taxpayers’ money down the drain on a project that could endanger all of our citizens. “The Yucca Mountain project is a failure. I have fought against Yucca Mountain for decades, and I will continue to fight it.” ### ***************************************************************** 76 asahi.com: Utility seeks OK to use MOX fuel 03/04/2006 The Asahi Shimbun Chubu Electric Power Co. sought permission Friday to start pluthermal operations at its Hamaoka nuclear power plant in Omaezaki, Shizuoka Prefecture, from fiscal 2010. While the request is subject to approval by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, getting the green light for the project is a foregone conclusion. Pluthermal power generation is considered crucial to Japan's nuclear-fuel recycling program, which for years has remained idle due to public opposition over a series of scandals involving forged data and cover-ups of accidents at nuclear power plants. Kyushu Electric Power Co. won prefectural approval last month to start pluthermal operations at its plant in Genkai, Saga Prefecture. Shikoku Electric Power Co. also wants to start pluthermal operations at its plant in Ikata, Ehime Prefecture. The proposal is now being assessed for safety by the government. Pluthermal power is generated by burning plutonium-uranium mixed oxide (MOX) fuel. The plutonium is recycled from spent fuel rods and the resulting MOX fuel can be burned in existing nuclear reactors. To start pluthermal operations at the No. 4 boiling-water reactor of the Hamaoka plant, Chubu Electric will have to alter the reactor's specifications. Currently, the reactor has an output capacity of 1.137 million kilowatts of electricity. Up to one-third of all nuclear fuel used at the plant will be replaced with MOX if the plan is approved, Chubu Electric officials said. A local council on nuclear safety that encompasses four municipalities affected by the plant approved the application on Feb. 28. Chubu Electric President Fumio Kawaguchi met Thursday with Shizuoka Governor Yoshinobu Ishikawa, who expressed his intention to officially support the request. The pluthermal project was announced last September. Chubu Electric initially had planned to file its application by late December or the end of March. The government must now conduct a safety assessment before granting approval, which is expected to be given about one year to 18 months from now. In tandem with the safety review, the utility will start manufacturing materials and components required for the pluthermal project. Once it wins state approval, Chubu Electric will contract overseas plants to start manufacturing MOX fuels, officials said. Kansai Electric Power Co. and Tokyo Electric Power Co. gained official approval for their pluthermal projects around 2000, but their plans ran aground following revelations that inspection data were falsified for MOX fuel for Kansai Electric, while Tokyo Electric came under fire for covering up problems at its reactors.(IHT/Asahi: March 4,2006) Copyright Asahi Shimbun. All rights reserved. No reproduction ***************************************************************** 77 NewsYemen: Fears of nuclear wastes polluting the sea haunt Yemenis in Aden 05/03/2006 Aden, NewsYemen Inhabitants of Aden expressed their fears from effects that may be caused by dropping chemical wastes in the sea especially after sensation of stenches emitting from the sea. The inhabitants of Khor Maksar and the coasts of Abyan and Tawahi in the city of Aden had especially complaint of those odors. The Aden-based Al-Ayyam Newspaper mentioned that last Thursday witnessed the worst emission of stenches coming from the sea in addition to seeing waters with dark green color emitting foul smells. Appearance of wastes on the beaches had also aroused queries of the citizens there and fears of others. They therefore stopped going to the beaches which are the only entertainment for the citizens of Aden. While government sources emphasize that the phenomenon is a natural one that happens every three to five years, many of environment activists have expressed their fears that it may be because of chemical wastes dumped in the sea. Their fears are especially because of absence of any laboratory examinations and tests. Moreover, fishermen have confirmed that the present phenomenon is different of what they had seen in the past as there are now no sea weds and plants to be seen on the beaches. In a report issued on 23 February 2005, the United Nations had warned of nuclear and other dangerous wastes dropped in Somalia offshore and scattered along the coast due to Tsunami that happened at the end of 2004. The report mentioned that in addition to wastes of wastes of radioactive uranium, there were heavy minerals like cadmium and mercury as well as industrial and chemical wastes. The report also mentioned that tsunami caused the barrels containing those wastes to open and let those wastes leak into the sea. Local sources had earlier said that the beaches of Aden remained deserted by people during last weekend. Fishermen also mentioned that the green color of waters this time is different as it is dark green and that now is not the season when waters appear in green color and accompanied with coolness. All right reserved for NewsYemen ***************************************************************** 78 Chillicothe Gazette: New USEC head meets Pike leaders www.chillicothegazette.com - Chillicothe, OH PIKETON - The new president and chief executive of United States Enrichment Corp. recently had the opportunity to familiarize himself with the Pike County community. John Welch met with community leaders at a reception at the OSU Endeavor Center near Piketon and made two presentations to show USEC's gratitude for the continued support of Pike County officials. Welch was named to his position in October and spent Feb. 27 and 28 touring Piketon plant facilities and meeting with plant management and employees. This was his second trip to the Piketon plant since he joined USEC. During the community reception, Welch presented a plaque of appreciation to Blaine Beekman, executive director of the Pike County Chamber of Commerce, for his assistance with the plant's efforts to obtain a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for the American Centrifuge's commercial plant. Welch also presented a $5,000 USEC corporate donation to Jim Brushart and John Harbert, Pike County commissioners, in continued support of the Pike County Communications Project. This represents a total USEC investment of $13,000 over the past year. The project includes the construction of a new 300-foot radio tower that will benefit Pike Emergency Medical Services, Pike County Emergency Management, Pike County fire departments, the Pike County Sheriff's Office and the Pike Engineers and Highway departments. USEC Inc., a global energy company, is the world's leading supplier of enriched uranium fuel for commercial nuclear power plants. It expects to deploy the next generation uranium enrichment technology in Piketon, Ohio - the American Centrifuge. The United States Enrichment Corporation, a subsidiary of USEC Inc., operates a uranium enrichment plant in Paducah, Kentucky, and does contract work for the U.S. Department of Energy in Piketon. Originally published March 5, 2006 Copyright 2006 Chillicothe Gazette ***************************************************************** 79 DenverPost.com: Rocky Flats worker claims being stalled OPINION Article Launched: 03/05/2006 1:00 AM MST editorial Thousands of former workers face prolonged illnesses and premature death as they wait for compensation. The government should speed up the process. Nearly six years after Congress created a compensation program, sick and dying former nuclear defense workers are still having to navigate an incomprehensible bureaucratic labyrinth. A recent report shows why Congress and the U.S. Department of Labor must expedite claims, including thousands from Rocky Flats, the now-demolished nuclear bomb factory near Boulder. Frankly, the government's behavior has been shameful. During half a century of bomb making, workers often weren't warned of the risks or told when they were exposed to radiation or toxins. Today, the workers face an insurmountable legal burden to prove that their fatal illnesses are job-related - but the government and its contractors have lost or destroyed key records. Many former workers are elderly or so sick they can't hold a job, and spending countless hours searching for missing records is a hardship. Yet inside the bureaucracy, there's no sense of urgency to resolve the claims, an agency ombudsman said. Meanwhile, President Bush's budget proposes to cut the program by $686 million, or nearly half. No wonder former workers think the government is delaying their benefits to "wait them out," that is, to wait for them to die. "This perception has been keenly felt" by the workers, said ombudsman Donald G. Shalhoub. The program must be made more efficient if the workers who built America's arsenal are to see justice. Congress authorized the compensation effort in 2000 and in 2004 moved it from the Department of Energy (which in four years paid only 31 of 25,000 claims) to the Department of Labor, which has done better. But not good enough. Under part of the program that pays medical expenses, Labor has received 71,900 claims from former workers, spouses and children. Some 28,600 were denied, 19,300 were approved and 24,000 are pending. Rocky Flats cases fared a bit better: Of 4,600 claims, 2,400 were approved, 1,000 were denied and 1,200 are pending - and only a few hundred have been paid. The numbers would improve greatly, though, if Labor granted a Steelworkers Union petition to relax the overly strict evidence rules for Rocky Flats workers. (The government already gave this "special exposure cohort" status to workers at three other nuclear sites.) Thousands of former defense workers face prolonged illnesses and premature death as they wait for compensation. Let's eliminate the delays. All contents Copyright 2006 The Denver Post or other copyright ***************************************************************** NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: *****************************************************************