***************************************************************** 05/14/06 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 14.114 ***************************************************************** 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 WorldNetDaily: Media liars exposed 2 [NYTr] BBC: Would an Attack on Iran Be Legal? 3 IRNA: Int'l body condemns US threats against Iran 4 IRNA: Europe's implementation of NPT, best incentive for Iran - Pres 5 IRNA: Highly enriched uranium in Iran of little significance - ElBar 6 IRNA: FM hopes EU will press for solution to nuclear standoff 7 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Rejects Incentives to Stop Enrichment 8 Guardian Unlimited: Iran's Nuke Program Overshadows Summit 9 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Won't Hold Nuke Talks Under Threat 10 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Rejects Incentives to Halt Enrichment 11 BBC: EU to make nuclear offer to Iran 12 IRNA: Oil for no one if Iran attacked - Chavez 13 Reuters: Afghanistan offers to mediate in Iran nuclear row 14 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: Ahmadinejad meets Indonesian Speaker 15 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: EU not to repeat past experience- FM 16 IRNA: PGCC, EU to hold talks on Iran N-case Monday 17 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: Asefi denies new nuclear allegations 18 AFP: Summit of large Muslim countries skirts Iran's nuclear issue - 19 AFP: Iran issues warning on new Europe nuclear offer 20 AFP: Iran insists European offer must recognise enrichment right - 21 AFP: Iran to reject any offer to halt nuclear programme - Ahmadineja 22 AFP: Israel's Mossad remains in charge of Iran nuclear file - report 23 IRNA: Annan, ElBaradei call for direct Iran-US talks - UN spokesman 24 IRNA: Russian deputy calls for veto of any anti-Iran resolution 25 AFP: UN "right forum" to address Iran nuclear program: White House o 26 IRNA: Iran to face US fearlessly in nuclear case - Chinese analyst - 27 IRNA: Iran receives no new proposal from Europe - Asefi 28 [NYTr] Canada Being Pulled into US Star Wars Missile Shield System 29 US: Deseret News: 'Divine Strake' test fuels Dixie protest 30 Las Vegas SUN: Southern Utah residents rally to protest Divine Strak 31 US: Salt Lake Tribune: 'Harmless' mushroom? 32 Guardian Unlimited: IAEA Director Says Nuke Terrorists a Worry 33 Guardian Unlimited: Prodding the bear 34 Guardian Unlimited: The Russian bear is back - and this time it's ga 35 Sydney Morning Herald: No moves to change nuclear treaty - PM - 36 Kerala online: Capturing the essence of Kerala 37 Japan Times: Fuel program may violate U.S.-Japan nuclear pact NUCLEAR REACTORS 38 [NYTr] Chinese Nuclear Reactor Connected to Power Grid 39 US: Columbian: Gone fission: Trojan tower to tumble 40 US: toledoblade.com: Industry ready to fuel nuclear power rebirth 41 US: CNW Telbec: B Canada Signs Nuclear Services Contract for Bruce P 42 Xinhua: Zambian govt urged to map out nuclear policy 43 Xinhua: China's largest nuclear generator joins power grid 44 Xinhua: China's largest nuclear generator connected to power grid 45 THERECORD.COM: INSIDER | Harvesting the WIND 46 US: Daily News: Meet Trojan's demolition crew 47 US: Daily News: 'Simpsons' keeps Trojan tower legacy alive ... or do 48 AFP: Heightened activity at North Korean nuclear plant 49 The Sunday Times: The nuclear lobbyist plugged into Labour NUCLEAR SECURITY 50 Austin American-Statesman: UT professor fights U.S. uranium exports 51 US: SFBJ: Government renews Wackenhut nuclear contracts - NUCLEAR SAFETY 52 [NYTr] DU Catastrophe for Iraq, Afghanistan Worse than 9/11 53 US: Kansas City Star: House approves study of uranium exposure in U. 54 Daily Yomiuri: A-bomb victims hail recognition 55 US: Spectrum: Test blurs political lines 56 US: Spectrum: Protesters fight the bomb test 57 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Anti-Divine Strake rally draws fewer than hop 58 US: Pahrump Valley Times: 'DIVINE STRAKE' NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 59 US: [NYTr] Wanted: a warning to last 10,000 years 60 Cayman Net News: Reactor Fuel to Pass Sister Islands 61 US: NEWS.com.au: Plan to 'lease' Australian uranium - 62 US: Sydney Morning Herald: Howard plays down nuclear issue - 63 US: Bradenton Herald: Tallevast plume analyses conflict 64 US: Deseret News: House panel allocates $$ for nuclear storage 65 RIA Novosti: TVEL to apply for public funding on $400 mln project 66 US: LA Daily News: Perchlorate study sought 67 US: AU ABC: China uranium exports no issue for US, Howard says. 68 US: AU ABC: PM downplays uranium 'leasing' proposal. 69 US: AU ABC: Govt 'open-minded' on uranium waste. 70 US: Cape Cod Times: State's perchlorate plan too strict, Pentagon sa PEACE US DEPT. OF ENERGY 71 KnoxNews: OR experts helping with Venezuela incident ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 WorldNetDaily: Media liars exposed Founded 1997 Sunday, May 14, 2006 Today's Edition [Supercritical Thoughts] [Gordon Prather] [WND Exclusive Commentary] Posted: May 13, 2006 © 2006 WorldNetDaily.com Notwithstanding the fact that Article IV of the says: Nothing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination and in conformity with articles I and II of this Treaty. On Feb. 4, 2006, the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency adopted a resolution in which, inter alia, the panel noted "that outstanding questions" in the minds of some of the governors concerning the implementation of the Iranian Safeguards Agreement could "best be resolved" in the minds of some of the governors and "confidence built" in the minds of some of the governors "in the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program" if – and only if – Iran were to: + re-establish full and sustained suspension of all enrichment related and reprocessing activities, including research and development, to be verified by the Agency; + reconsider the construction of a research reactor moderated by heavy water; + ratify promptly and implement in full the Additional Protocol; + pending ratification, continue to act in accordance with the provisions of the Additional Protocol which Iran signed on Dec. 18, 2003; + implement transparency measures, as requested by the director general, including in GOV/2005/67, which extend beyond the formal requirements of the Safeguards Agreement and Additional Protocol, and include such access to individuals, documentation relating to procurement, dual-use equipment, certain military-owned workshops and research and development as the Agency may request in support of its ongoing investigations. The Board also requested that the director-general inform the United Nations Security Council that those steps "were required of Iran by the Board." Now, what the UNSC should have done is to tell the Board in no uncertain terms that the Board had vastly exceeded – even abused –- its authority under the , under which the IAEA, a U.N. agency, is required to operate. The most outrageous abuse of the IAEA Statute, indeed the U.N. Charter, itself, was the attempt to "require" Iran – a sovereign state – to "ratify promptly and implement in full the Additional Protocol" to the Iranian Safeguards Agreement. Not even the UNSC has the authority to do that. Iran did undertake – as did all signatories to the NPT not already having nuclear weapons – to conclude and abide by a Safeguards Agreement with the IAEA for the exclusive purpose of providing "verification" to other NPT signatories that no "source or special fissionable material" is diverted from peaceful purposes to a nuclear weapons program. And in report after report – including the "confidential" one he just made to the IAEA Board and shared with the UNSC – Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei has provided "verification" that, as best he can determine, no source or special fissionable material has been diverted. Ever. Well, the UNSC didn't actually discipline the IAEA Board. Nor did it, contrary to many reports by dolts and/or liars, make any demands on Iran. Rather, the UNSC issued a non-binding , essentially "calling" upon the parties to settle their differences amongst themselves. Now, while that last report was "confidential," the media elite were telling us that ElBaradei had reported that "Iran defied the council's call to freeze uranium enrichment" and that Iran was "conducting an enrichment program in defiance of UNSC demands to halt it." Well, unfortunately for those members of the media elite who were making those inflammatory accusations, the actual has now been posted several places on the Internet. Those members are now revealed to either have a reading comprehension problem or to have deliberately misrepresented what ElBaradei actually reported. There is scarcely any difference between this report and a dozen other reports ElBaradei has made over the past three years, either in tone or substance. His latest report begins to end – and should have finally ended – this way: All the nuclear material declared by Iran to the Agency is accounted for. Apart from the small quantities previously reported to the Board, the Agency has found no other undeclared nuclear material in Iran. That's it. Mission Accomplished. ElBaradei has done his job. As best ElBaradei can tell, Iran is now, and has been for several years, in complete, total compliance with the requirements of its basic Safeguards Agreement. How about those IAEA Board members who claim to have "outstanding questions" about the "exclusively peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program." Well, that's their own personal problem. Physicist James Gordon Prather has served as a policy implementing official for national security-related technical matters in the Federal Energy Agency, the Energy Research and Development Administration, the Department of Energy, the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Department of the Army. He also served as legislative assistant for national security affairs to U.S. Sen. Henry Bellmon, R-Okla. Dr. Prather had earlier worked as a nuclear weapons physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico. All Rights Reserved. WorldNetDaily.com Inc. ***************************************************************** 2 [NYTr] BBC: Would an Attack on Iran Be Legal? Date: Sun, 14 May 2006 13:28:21 -0400 (EDT) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit sent by Dave Muller (southnews) - May 10, 2006 BBC News http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4754009.stm Would an attack on Iran be legal? By Paul Reynolds World Affairs Correspondent, BBC News website As diplomatic attempts continue in the UN Security Council to get Iran to suspend its nuclear enrichment activities, the question has been raised about an American attack on Iran and whether it would be legal under international law. If the US decided to attack Iran, it would probably claim that it was acting pre-emptively and exercising an inherent right of self-defence under the UN Charter. One can rule out the US taking the other main legal path by which one state can attack another - an authorisation of force by the Security Council. Russia and China, both veto holders, are opposed to sanctions against Iran, let alone military action. And nor would it invoke the growing doctrine of a humanitarian intervention, as the conditions needed for that do not apply. So the US would probably seek to justify an attack under the self-defence principle, and it would first of all have to outline the nature of the threat. Currently, this would refer to Iran's previously secret development of enrichment technology, and therefore its forfeiture of trust; its refusal to follow Security Council demands to suspend enrichment; and its president's hostile comments on Israel's right to exist. All of these would be declared a threat to the US, its interests and to regional and world security. At some future date, the US might bring forward further arguments, depending on how Iran's nuclear programme develops. Article 51 Having defined the threat, the US would then invoke Article 51 of the UN Charter, which allows self-defence. This article says: "Nothing in the present charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security." To get round the phrase "if an armed attack occurs", the US would say that international law does not require that an attack is actually taking place, and that its own new doctrine of pre-emption, an extension of the self-defence principle, was being implemented. It justified pre-emption in a National Security Strategy document in 2002, after the attacks of 11 September 2001: "The greater the threat, the greater is the risk of inaction - and the more compelling the case for taking anticipatory action to defend ourselves, even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy's attack. To forestall or prevent such hostile attacks by our adversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act pre-emptively." The US might say that it was acting in protection of or at the request of Israel, which could argue that it was under a greater threat than the US itself. Collective defence is allowed by the UN if the original state claiming self-defence asks for help. It is possible that, if the Security Council ever agreed a resolution under the enforcement of Chapter Seven of the UN Charter, which orders a member state to comply, the US could declare that it was enforcing it unilaterally. International law Would such arguments be accepted in international law? There is currently no basis for an American attack on Iran under Article 51 Elizabeth Wilmshurst There is some legal backing for the principle of not waiting too long. A British judge, Dame Rosalyn Higgins, who was made president of the International Court of Justice in February, said before she joined the court: "In a nuclear age, common sense cannot require one to interpret an ambiguous provision in a text in a way that requires a state passively to accept its fate before it can defend itself." However, the general view among international lawyers is that there has to be the threat of an "imminent" attack. British Attorney General Lord Goldsmith, who used a complex series of Security Council resolutions on Iraq to justify the 2003 invasion, was critical of pre-emption in the House of Lords in April 2004: "International law permits the use of force in self-defence against an imminent attack, but does not authorise the use of force to mount a pre-emptive strike against a threat that is more remote." There is therefore a fairly fundamental divergence between the US doctrine and the view of much of the rest of the UN membership. At the very least, there is no settled opinion. The question of imminence Elizabeth Wilmshurst, senior fellow in international law at the British think tank Chatham House, who resigned as a legal adviser to the Foreign Office because she felt the invasion of Iraq was illegal, told the BBC News website: "There is currently no basis for an American attack on Iran under Article 51. There certainly is not a case for self-defence at the moment. "You do not have to wait for an attack but the threat has to be real and imminent." She did not think the conditions for a self-defence argument existed. "Does enrichment of uranium count as a threat?" she asked. "It has not been weaponised. Is there a threat?" Nor did she accept that the US could enforce a Chapter Seven resolution by itself. "This requires a further resolution authorising force and is a settled view," she said. That an attack is illegal is also a view shared by former British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw. He told reporters the other day that an Article 51 action could not be justified. The new Foreign Secretary, Margaret Beckett, has not gone that far, saying only that nobody had any "intention" of attacking Iran. British Prime Minister Tony Blair has pointedly refused to say that an attack is "inconceivable", a word used by Mr Straw, but whether this is a tactical use of language to rattle Iran or whether it foretells potential British support for an attack is not clear. Ms Wilmshurst accepted that Israel might regard itself as threatened, given the remarks made by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But she added: "Israel would have to take an objective, realistic view as to whether there was a real threat, and I am doubtful at the moment." The Caroline incident Much of the traditional doctrine on self-defence comes from an incident in 1837 near the Niagara Falls, in which a boat called the Caroline was attacked and tipped over the Falls by British forces that moved into American waters from Canada. The boat was being used by Canadian rebels preparing an attack. Some very elegant diplomatic exchanges between US Secretary of State Daniel Webster and British Foreign Secretary Lord Ashburton led to the acceptance of Webster's principles of pre-emptive self-defence. These held that it was justified only in cases in which the "necessity of that self-defence is instant, overwhelming, and leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation". The UN Charter basically adopted that rule, and a highlevel group which looked at UN reform in 2004 said that "Article 51 needs neither extension nor restriction in its long understood scope". The General Assembly confirmed that view. However there remains some debate about how "imminent" a threat has to be, and how large. The doctrine of pre-emption has therefore not received widespread international backing. Last year, Chatham House sent a questionnaire about self-defence to 13 international lawyers in Britain. As a result, a number of principles were drawn up to give precision to Webster's phrasing. These stressed the importance of imminence. Post-9/11 style pre-emption was not endorsed. * ================================================================ .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 ================================================================ ***************************************************************** 3 IRNA: Int'l body condemns US threats against Iran Kuwait City, May 14, IRNA Iran-Nuclear-US Threats The Organization of Afro-Asian Peoples Solidarity condemned US threats against Iran and urged the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to take up Iran's nuclear case. In its statement issued on Saturday, the Egypt-based organization, stressed that using peaceful nuclear energy for economic and scientific progress was the right of all states. It supported Iran's right to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes based in international laws and regulations. The statement condemned the dual approach of Western states with respect to the use of nuclear energy and called for establishment of a Middle East region free from weapons of mass destruction. ***************************************************************** 4 IRNA: Europe's implementation of NPT, best incentive for Iran - President - Tehran, May 14, IRNA Iran-D 8-President President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said here Sunday morning that implementation of Articles 2 and 4 of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) by Europe would be the best incentive for Iran. Ahmadinejad made the remark while speaking to reporters at Tehran's Mehrabad International Airport upon return from his five-day official visit to Indonesia. "Any proposal that will oblige Iran to halt peaceful nuclear activities has no credit," he said in response to a question on news about new incentives of Europe and West for Iran to abandon uranium enrichment. "We are surprised that some individuals intend to decide for us in our absence. They are still living in a colonial era and their decisions have no value for us. "We do not know why they are against Iran's scientific progress. It is obvious that our scientific progress is very important and considerable," he added. He stressed that such proposals in the absence of Iran will be meaningless, saying, "When we are not present at discussions, such decisions will have no meaning." Asked about his letter to US President George W Bush and receiving no response, Ahmadinejad said, "The letter had two important points. It included a list of problems that human society is currently faced with. Every one who reads the letter, will find out root-causes of those problems. "The second point was that messages of Holy Prophets have been mentioned in the letter. It was an invitation to follow up the path of Holy Prophets and provided a historical opportunity for its receiver." ***************************************************************** 5 IRNA: Highly enriched uranium in Iran of little significance - ElBaradei - May 14, IRNA -- Head of the UN nuclear watchdog Mohamed ElBaradei said on Sunday he believes existence of highly enriched uranium in an Iranian atomic site was of little significance at the current juncture. Arabic TV station Al Jazeera on Sunday quoted the International Atomic Energy Agency chief as saying research is still underway to find the source of contamination. The source of contamination may have originated from machines that were imported to Iran, ElBaradei said, adding time is still needed to reach a conclusion in this respect. He stressed Iran's right to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes and added a balance between Iran's nuclear rights and concerns of the international community would not be created through verbal disputes, but rather dialogue would be the solution. ***************************************************************** 6 IRNA: FM hopes EU will press for solution to nuclear standoff recognzing Iran's nuclear right - Bali, Indonesia, May 13, IRNA Indonesia-Iran-FM Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki here Saturday expressed hope European states will press for a solution to the current nuclear standoff recognizing Iran's right to peaceful nuclear energy and capabilities when they resume negotiations next week. Mottaki made the remarks while speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the fifth summit of the D-8 (Group of 8 developing Muslim countries) which opened in the Indonesian island of Bali Suturday morning. "In that happens, Iran will have its highest cooperation," he said. Referring to the EU's nuclear negotations with Iran in August last year which eventually broke off, he urged European states, as the chief negotiators in the nuclear issue, not to repeat their past experience. "The Iranian government and nation will not be encouraged by any incentive that will not deprive Iran of the right to access peaceful nuclear technology and defend its other rights," Mottaki said. The Islamic Republic of Iran, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Egypt, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan and Turkey, members of the Group of 3 large Muslim states or the D-8, began their 5th summit in the Indonesian island of Bali earlier today with an inaugural speech by President Ahmadinejad. The group was founded in Istanbul, Turkey on June 15, 1997 with the goals of expanding cooperation among its member states in the economic and commercial fields, promoting collective cooperation in international decision-making and providing more welfare facilities to member countries. ***************************************************************** 7 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Rejects Incentives to Stop Enrichment From the Associated Press [UP] Sunday May 14, 2006 8:31 PM AP Photo XWM110 By ALI AKBAR DAREINI Associated Press Writer TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran's president said Sunday it was pointless for Europe to devise an incentive package if it required Tehran to stop enriching uranium - effectively thwarting the latest international diplomatic effort before it even began. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spoke on state television after returning from Indonesia, where he was warmly welcomed and won developing nations' support for the peaceful production of nuclear energy. Thinsignificant'' reports that inspectors from the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency found traces of highly enriched uranium on equipment from an Iranian research center. Refusing to budge in his relentless and strident campaign to assert Iranian regional power and leadership, Ahmadinejad said opponents of Tehran's nuclear program were ``living in the era of colonialism'' and did not respect Iran's national sovereignty. Iran insists its nuclear program is designed only to build electricity-generating reactors. The United States and some allies suspect Tehran is hiding a military program to make nuclear weapons. Ahmadinejad's remarks were clearly aimed at European Union foreign ministers meeting Monday in Brussels, Belgium, to consider sweetening a package of incentives that would entice Iran to suspend uranium enrichment - an issue that has now reached the U.N. Security Council but was put on hold to give the EU more time for diplomacy. In August, Iran rejected an initial European initiative that included economic benefits and the transfer of some nuclear technology for a civilian program. Iran has repeatedly stalled or waffled on a November offer from the Kremlin to enrich uranium on Russian soil for use in Iranian reactors. In January, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Iran would not give up control over a single step of the nuclear fuel cycle - from mining uranium to enriching it. Iran then announced it was resuming research-level uranium enrichment. In February, the International Atomic Energy Agency board voted to report Iran to the Security Council, and Tehran vowed to immediately start work on full-scale uranium enrichment and curtailed the IAEA's powers in Iran - ending intrusive, surprise inspections. At the Security Council, the United States - with limited backing from Britain and France - sought a tough resolution to declare Iran a threat to world peace and subject it to sanctions or even military action. But Russia and China, both of whom hold vetoes in the council, opposed such dramatic measures. Given the divisions among the five permanent members of the council, which includes the U.S., Britain and France, Washington was forced to back down while the European Union took another run at a diplomatic solution. A document posted on the EU's Web site said the ministers were likely to express the bloc's ``preparedness to support Iran's development of a safe, sustainable and proliferation-proof civilian nuclear program, if international concerns were fully addressed.'' But European officials said no major progress on a final proposal could be expected at the Brussels meeting. The plan would be held in reserve until after talks among nonproliferation officials from the five permanent members on Friday in London. Iran also showed its determination not to step back when Foreign Ministry spokesman Hammed Reza Asefi on Sunday dismissed a report two days earlier that IAEA inspectors had found traces of highly enriched uranium on some of Iran's nuclear equipment. ``It's insignificant. It's not important. Previously, things like this were said but later inspectors arrived at the right conclusions,'' Asefi told reporters. It was the second time the IAEA inspectors found traces of highly enriched uranium at Iranian facilities. The first discovery was later traced to equipment from Pakistan that Iran bought on the black market during nearly two decades of clandestine activity. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 8 Guardian Unlimited: Iran's Nuke Program Overshadows Summit From the Associated Press [UP] Saturday May 13, 2006 1:01 PM By ROBIN McDOWELL Associated Press Writer BALI, Indonesia (AP) - Iran's nuclear ambitions overshadowed trade talks among Muslim leaders Saturday, with the country's hardline president drumming up support for the right to develop alternative energy sources. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and heads of state from Indonesia, Pakistan, Nigeria, Turkey and Malaysia met behind closed doors to discuss ways to boost economic and political cooperation, alleviate poverty and restructure debt. The Developing Eight, or D-8, summit also brought together government ministers from Egypt and Bangladesh. Although Iran's nuclear crisis was not officially on the agenda, Ahmadinejad sought support from his Islamic brothers on the meeting's sidelines. He insists his nuclear program is aimed only at generating energy, but Washington claims the real purpose is to build weapons. Ahmadinejad, who says all countries should have the right to develop new technologies, was clearly among friends on Saturday. ``Our people need to do more to help one another,'' Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said in an opening statement, adding that among other things ``proud'' Islamic nations should work together to develop renewable and alternative energy sources. ``Our potentials are enormous,'' he said before reporters were ushered out of the opening session. ``Our resources are vast. Great opportunities lie await.'' Hours later, Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar held a hastily arranged meeting with the Iranian leader, telling reporters afterward that he supported a diplomatic solution of the nuclear standoff. ``Dialogue is the best way,'' he told reporters. ``We should not create another crisis.'' Ahmadinejad was expected to discuss his country's nuclear ambitions privately with Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz as well. Fears that Iran is trying to build nuclear warheads were aggravated Friday, when diplomats said U.N. inspectors may have found traces of highly enriched weapons-grade uranium on equipment from an Iranian research center linked to the military. The diplomats, who demanded anonymity in exchange for divulging the confidential information, cautioned that they were still awaiting confirmation from other laboratory tests. Ahmadinejad did not comment publicly on the claims. The D-8 member countries, who comprise 14 percent of the world's population, together have a gross domestic product of $1.22 trillion and trade among them grew 127 percent in the last five years. Hoping to expand on that, government ministers from all of the countries except Bangladesh signed agreements on preferential trade Saturday. They also reached an accord on cooperation in customs administration. The meeting took place under tight security, with snipers on rooftops, anti-terror squads patrolling the resort and security posts on the beach. Bali island has been the site of a string of suicide bombings blamed on the al-Qaida-linked militant group Jemaah Islamiyah. Twin nightclub attacks in 2002 killed 202 people, many of them foreign tourists, and attacks in October on three crowded restaurants claimed 20 lives. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 9 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Won't Hold Nuke Talks Under Threat From the Associated Press [UP] Saturday May 13, 2006 9:46 PM AP Photo DA125 By ZAKKI HAKIM Associated Press Writer BALI, Indonesia (AP) - Iran's president, emboldened by the support of Muslim nations, said Saturday he was willing to hold talks over Tehran's disputed nuclear agenda but not with Israel or countries that hold ``bombs over our head.'' President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said he has cooperated fully with the U.N. nuclear agency and the world has nothing to fear from his program to enrich uranium, which can be used for generating electricity or in making atomic weapons. The hardline leader spoke after meeting with heads of state and prime ministers from Indonesia, Pakistan, Nigeria, Turkey and Malaysia and government ministers from Egypt and Bangladesh. Though they were on the Indonesian resort island of Bali to discuss ways to boost economic and political cooperation, alleviate poverty and restructure debt, it was impossible to ignore Iran's intensifying nuclear stalemate with the West. Washington and its allies fear Iran is trying to develop atomic weapons. But Ahmadinejad insists his nuclear program is only for generating electricity and accuses the West of greedily trying to monopolize nuclear technology. He received a boost Saturday from the eight Islamic leaders, who released a statement after their D-8 summit of developing nations supporting the rights of countries to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. ``Our people need to do more to help one another,'' Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said, adding that ``proud'' Islamic countries should work together to develop renewable and alternative energy sources. Later, Indonesian Energy Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro said his country plans to build its first major nuclear power plant by 2015 and has been offered assistance by companies from South Korea, Japan, France and an unspecified fourth country. Much of Ahmadinejad's work was done on the sidelines of the trade talks, meeting privately with Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar, Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Fears that Iran is trying to build nuclear warheads were aggravated Friday, when diplomats said U.N. inspectors may have found traces of highly enriched uranium on equipment from an Iranian research center linked to the military. The diplomats, who demanded anonymity in exchange for divulging the confidential information, initially said the density of enrichment appeared to be close to or above the level used to make nuclear warheads. But later a well-placed diplomat accredited to the International Atomic Energy Agency said the level was below that, although higher than the low-enriched material used to generate power and heading toward weapons-grade level. ``I have not heard that,'' Ahmadinejad said when asked about the claims, saying the world had no reason ``to become nervous ... The nuclear program of Iran is totally peaceful.'' He said he his country has worked closely with the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog. ``The cameras are there, the facilities are there, closely monitoring our activities. Therefore there are no concerns.'' He also said that while he was willing to talk to just about anyone about the dispute he would not do so with ``countries that hang planes with bombs over our heads'' - an apparent reference to the United States. ``If they want to threaten the use of force we will not go into dialogue with them.'' Washington has said it favors diplomacy in resolving the dispute with Iran but has left open the possibility of military strikes against Iran over its nuclear ambitions. The Bush administration had been pressing for U.N. Security Council action against Tehran but recently agreed to put such efforts on hold and give new European-led attempts to find a negotiated solution. Russia and China have balked at efforts to put a Security Council resolution under Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter. Such a move would declare Iran a threat to international peace and security and set the stage for further measures if Tehran refuses to suspend uranium enrichment. Those measures could range from breaking diplomatic relations to economic sanctions and military action. Saturday's summit came amid European moves to help Iran develop a civilian nuclear power program if the Islamic republic agrees to international controls to ensure it will not build an atomic arsenal. The Europeans are seeking to build on a package of economic and political incentives offered to Iran in August last year in return for a permanent end to uranium enrichment activities. Iran rejected that deal, but EU governments have continued to offer sweeteners to persuade Tehran to bring its nuclear program into line, as well as pushing at the United Nations for measures that could lead to sanctions if Iran refuses. Iran's Foreign Minister said in Bali, however, that ``no incentive can be interesting for the Iranian government and the Iranian nation unless it includes Iran's right to benefit from nuclear technology.'' Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 10 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Rejects Incentives to Halt Enrichment From the Associated Press [UP] Sunday May 14, 2006 10:31 AM AP Photo XWM110 By ALI AKBAR DAREINI Associated Press Writer TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran's president said Sunday that any European proposal that demanded an end to his country's uranium enrichment activities would be unacceptable. ``They (must) know that any proposal that requires a halt to our peaceful (nuclear) activities will be without any value and invalid,'' President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on state-run television. ``They want to offer us things they call incentives in return for renouncing our rights.'' European governments are seeking to build on a package of economic and political incentives offered to Iran in August last year in return for a permanent end to its uranium enrichment activities. The Bush administration had been pressing for U.N. Security Council action against Tehran but recently agreed to put such efforts on hold and give time for new European-led attempts to find a negotiated solution. Iran rejected last year's offer, but the Europeans have continued to try to sweeten the proposal, as well as pushing at the United Nations for measures that could lead to sanctions if Iran refuses. Washington and its allies fear Iran is trying to develop atomic weapons. But Ahmadinejad insists his nuclear program is only for generating electricity and accuses the West of greedily trying to monopolize nuclear technology. The Iranian leader spoke a day after returning from a trip to Indonesia, where received a boost from the leaders of Pakistan, Nigeria, Turkey and Malaysia and government ministers from Egypt and Bangladesh. At a meeting on economic cooperation, the eight Islamic leaders released a statement supporting the rights of countries to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. In Indonesia, Ahmadinejad insisted the world has nothing to fear from his program to enrich uranium, which can be used for generating electricity or in making atomic weapons. The hard-line leader insisted he has cooperated fully with the U.N. nuclear monitor, the International Atomic Energy Agency. Fears that Iran is trying to build nuclear warheads were aggravated Friday, when diplomats said U.N. inspectors may have found traces of highly enriched uranium on equipment from an Iranian research center linked to the military. The diplomats, who demanded anonymity in exchange for divulging the confidential information, initially said the density of enrichment appeared to be close to or above the level used to make nuclear warheads. But later a well-placed diplomat accredited to the International Atomic Energy Agency said the level was below that, although higher than the low-enriched material used to generate power and heading toward weapons-grade level. ``I have not heard that,'' Ahmadinejad said Saturday when asked about the claims, saying the world had no reason ``to become nervous ... The nuclear program of Iran is totally peaceful.'' Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 11 BBC: EU to make nuclear offer to Iran Last Updated: Saturday, 13 May 2006 [Iran technicians] Iran says its nuclear programme is designed to meet its energy needs The European Union is drawing up new proposals to offer to Iran to get it to halt its nuclear programme. The package, believed to include freer trade and political incentives, is to be discussed by permanent UN Security Council members and Germany next week. Iran responded by insisting that it had a "right" to nuclear technology. Tehran has dismissed Western concerns, saying its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful, and has rejected calls to stop uranium enrichment. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said there was no need for anyone to be nervous about the programme. "All of them know 100% that the nuclear programme in Iran is totally peaceful," he said at the Developing Eight summit of Muslim nations in Bali, Indonesia. Mr Ahmadinejad repeated that Iran was ready to hold dialogue with any country except Israel but not with "bombs over our heads". "If they want to resort to the use of force we will not go into dialogue with them," he said. Incentives The EU has not given details of the new offer to Iran being considered, but diplomats describe it as a mixture of "the carrot and the stick". The EU would be prepared support Iran's development of a safe and proliferation-proof civilian nuclear programme EU draft statement Q: Iran nuclear stand-off BBC world affairs correspondent Jonathan Charles says Iran will be encouraged to import the fuel it needs for its civil nuclear power stations, rather than producing its own. The aim is to persuade Iran to halt uranium enrichment. In return, the European Union would offer freer trade as well as political guarantees and technological incentives. "The EU would be prepared to support Iran's development of a safe, sustainable and proliferation-proof civilian nuclear programme if international concerns were fully addressed," says a draft EU statement obtained by Reuters news agency. Desperation The package would expand on an offer made last August, which Iran rejected. I think it is important th the United States come to the table Kofi Annan Our correspondent says it is a measure of the West's desperation that it has had to resort to such an offer. The chances of getting tougher wording on a UN resolution to threaten Iran appear slim, he adds. Both China and Russia, which are veto-holding members of the Security Council, do not want to support any move which might open the door to military action. The United States, Russia, China, Britain and France plus Germany are to meet in London next Friday. Meanwhile Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said in Bali that any proposal that did not include Iran's right to nuclear technology would not be acceptable. "No incentive can be interesting for the Iranian government and the Iranian nation unless it includes Iran's right to benefit from peaceful nuclear technology." 'No bilateral issue' On Friday UN Secretary General Kofi Annan urged the US to hold direct talks with Iran to try to break the stalemate. "I think it is important that the United States come to the table and that they should join all the European countries and Iran to find a solution," he said. Washington, however, rejected the suggestion. US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton said: "This is not a bilateral issue between the US and Iran. It is an issue between Iran and the world." Also on Friday, EU diplomats said UN inspectors had found traces of highly enriched uranium at the Lavizan-Shian research site, which Iran dismantled in 2004. However the diplomats said the results still had to be confirmed and one source close to the International Atomic Energy Agency said the enrichment level was below that needed to make nuclear warheads. Iran denied any illicit activity took place at the site. ***************************************************************** 12 IRNA: Oil for no one if Iran attacked - Chavez Rome, May 12, IRNA Chavez-Iran-Oil Visiting Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said here on Thursday in case of a military attack against Iran, no country in the world would have access to crude oil. Chavez made the remark at a press conference, adding, "As Iran's President Ahmadinejad has reiterated, if Tehran would come under attack, oil would get scarce for everyone." He also said that the US President George W. Bush should be put to trial at the international court of justice for having launched genocide in Iraq. The Venezuelan President added, "For all the horror it has created around the globe in the course of the past century, the United States' war machine should be dismantled, since under the current conditions it is a threat against the entire mankind, particularly against our children." Chavez added, "The North American empire is the most cruel murderer regime that has ever come to power in world history and a serious threat for all nations." He believes the death of the United States had better taken place in the course of the 21st century, because "otherwise the entire world would face the threat of annihilation." The revolutionary Latin American President concluded his remarks, arguing, "Although in terms of military power the United States ranks first in the world, but in the public opinion of the world nations it ranks rock bottom low, and many nations fell stronger in terms of logical reasoning than the United States." Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez who was in Italy's capital, Rome, on a two day visit left for Vienna, Austria, on Thursday evening. During his stay in Rome President Chavez in addition to his Italian counterpart, met and conferred with the new Italian Parliament Speaker Fausto Bertinotti, the Head of Italy's leftist Democratic Party Piero Fassino, and in Vatican, with Pope Benedict XVI. ***************************************************************** 13 Reuters: Afghanistan offers to mediate in Iran nuclear row Sun 14 May 2006 7:05 AM ET BERLIN, May 14 (Reuters) - Afghanistan has offered to mediate between Washington and Tehran in the dispute over Iran's nuclear programme, Afghan Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta was quoted on Sunday as saying. Spanta added that he and Afghan President Hamid Karzai planned to travel to Tehran at the end of May to assess the "room for manoeuvre" for a peaceful resolution to the conflict. Iran, which in April said it had enriched uranium suitable for use in power stations, is under pressure from the United Nations, and in particular the United States and its European allies, to halt its atomic programme or risk sanctions. "I will gladly mediate between the United States and Iran if desired," Spanta told German newspaper Bild am Sonntag. "Afghanistan is a friend of both these countries and neither Iran nor the United States has attempted to use our country as a tool in this conflict," he added. The United States and its western allies suspect Iran's declared civilian nuclear programme is a smokescreen for building atomic weapons. Iran denies this, saying it wants nuclear power to generate electricity. © Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved. [ border=] ***************************************************************** 14 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: Ahmadinejad meets Indonesian Speaker 2006/05/13 08:59:25 Þ.Ù Kuala Lumpur, May 13 - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in his last meeting with Indonesian Parliament Speaker and a number of parliamentarians that the West is resorting to nuclear pretext in a bid to exert its hegemony over Iran. Elaborating on Iran's reasons behind its insistence to keep its nuclear technology, President Ahmadinejad reiterated, "If the nuclear energy is beneficial, our right to take advantage of it, too, should be recognized, and if it is hazardous, why then the western powers are taking broad advantage of it?" The Iranian political leader whose remarks were applauded by the Indonesian lawmakers, added, "The western countries are not truly worried about deviation of Iran's nuclear programs from their peaceful purposes and their claim in that respect is a big lie." He added, "They are the first ones that have deviated in from peaceful purposes in that path, and if justice is to be applied, they should be punished for having done so before any other country." Ahmadinejad said, "They still keep compiling nuclear weapons in their arsenals and conduct nuclear tests, despite treaties against doing so, which are clear reasons why they have deviated in their usage of the nuclear energy." Elaborating on the current status of the world, the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran added, "Today is the day for the reign of the world nations, and for the materialization of their ideals." Ahmadinejad concluded his remarks by announcing that Tehran considers no limits for expanding comprehensive ties with Indonesia, stressing, "Strong Tehran-Jakarta ties would be to the benefit of the entire Islamic world." The Indonesian Parliament Speaker Agung Laxuno, too, in his address recognized Iran's absolute right to nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. Laxuno added, "Indonesia, too, is facing an energy shortage now, and Jakarta is, therefore, considering taking advantage of the nuclear energy." A number of Indonesian MPs, too, in their addresses, while supporting Iran's wise stands on its nuclear dossier, announced their backing for Tehran in that respect. All Rights Reserved By Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting News Network Sponsored By IRIB News Computer Center. E-Mail: Webmaster@IRIBNEWS.ir ***************************************************************** 15 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: EU not to repeat past experience- FM 2006/05/13 10:59:19 Þ.Ù Indonesia, May 13 - Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki Saturday expressed hope European states will press for a solution to the current nuclear standoff recognizing Iran's right to peaceful nuclear energy and capabilities when they resume negotiations next week. Mottaki made the remarks while speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the fifth summit of the D-8 (group of 8 developing Muslim countries) which opened in the Indonesian island of Bali Saturday morning. "In that happens, Iran will have its highest cooperation," he said. Referring to the EU's nuclear negotations with Iran in August last year which eventually broke off, he urged European states, as the chief negotiators in the nuclear issue, not to repeat their past experience. "The Iranian government and nation will not be encouraged by any incentive that will not deprive Iran of the right to access peaceful nuclear technology and defend its other rights," Mottaki said. The Islamic Republic of Iran, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Egypt, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan and Turkey, members of the group of 8 large Muslim states or the D-8, began their 5th summit in the Indonesian island of Bali earlier today with an inaugural speech by President Ahmadinejad. Copyright 2004, All Rights Reserved By Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting News Network Sponsored By IRIB News Computer Center. E-Mail: ***************************************************************** 16 IRNA: PGCC, EU to hold talks on Iran N-case Monday Riyadh, May 13, IRNA PGCC-EU-Iran Foreign Ministers of the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council (PGCC) and the European Union will hold a session in Brussels, Belgium, on Monday to discuss Iran's peaceful nuclear activities. During the session, the sides will review possible avenues for peaceful settlement of the ongoing crisis created by the West on Iran's peaceful nuclear program. The Persian Gulf Cooperation Council supports Iran's right to have access to peaceful nuclear energy and criticizes the West's double standards in assessing the case. PGCC officials have cautioned against any military action on Iran and welcome a peaceful solution to its nuclear case. United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahayan, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the PGCC, told reporters last week that regional states praised the confidence-building measures taken by the Iranian government. He assessed Iran's nuclear case as having crucial importance to the region and the world, saying Iran and the PGCC states enjoy economic, political, social and historical ties. The PGCC groups the six states of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Qatar and Bahrain. ***************************************************************** 17 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: Asefi denies new nuclear allegations 2006/05/14 11:55:33 Þ.Ù TEhran, May 14 - Foreign Ministry Spokesman Sunday rejected recent allegations that highly-enriched uranium had been found in Iran, adding that the reports were not confirmed by IAEA's inspectors. Speaking to a weekly press conference, Hamid-Reza Asefi said that such allegations were only made by certain Western diplomats which are unimportant. Asked about a reported proposal by IAEA's Director General Mohammad ElBaradei that America and Europe allow Iran to have limited enrichment, Asefi said that these reports are only media campaign. "We must know the conditions (of the proposal) prior to any reply," he added. "Anyway, we will never abandon our rights," Asefi said, adding that Iran has on agenda to expand nuclear researches. Copyright 2004, All Rights Reserved By Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting News Network Sponsored By IRIB News Computer Center. ***************************************************************** 18 AFP: Summit of large Muslim countries skirts Iran's nuclear issue - Sat May 13, 4:26 PM ET NUSA DUA, Indonesia (AFP) - A summit of eight large Muslim countries largely skirted a diplomatic nuclear crisis engulfing its member Iran" /> but agreed that members should cooperate to develop atomic energy. Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was asked at the end of the one-day Developing 8 (D-8) summit that he hosted whether international reaction to Iran's nuclear ambitions was about anti-Islamism. "We did not discuss specifically on Iran, so there is no statement formally or informally to connect the Iranian nuclear issue with Islamophobia," he told a press briefing. "We strictly looked at it as a problem of communication and cooperation between Iran and IAEA (the International Atomic Energy Agency" /> )," he said. "I appealed to His Excellency, Iranian President Ahmadinejad to continue cooperation between Iran and the IAEA to find a peaceful and just solution," he added without elaborating. Western nations have been seeking to halt Iran's nuclear enrichment program, fearful it is using it as a cover to develop an atomic bomb, but Iran insists it is only pursuing nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. A declaration from the D-8 did not mention Iran's nuclear issue but instead affirmed member commitment "to develop alternative and renewable energy resources, among others biofuel, biomass, hydro, solar, wind and the use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes." D-8 groups Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan and Turkey. The forum focuses on commercial and economic cooperation among member states, including in the areas of science, industry and investment. In keeping with its focus on trade, the group said in its declaration that it gave "full support" to the speedy accession of Iran to the World Trade Organisation (WTO). It also called on WTO members to "accelerate the application and accession process of all developing countries based on non-discriminatory principles." The wide-ranging declaration also saw the eight nations "express our concern over the crisis following the publication of insulting caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed which has deeply offended Muslim populations worldwide." The publication of the cartoons, initially by a Danish newspaper last year, set off a wave of worldwide violence and triggered an outpouring of Muslim anger against the West. The summit opened with both the Indonesian and Iranian leaders calling for unity and greater cooperation among their members. President Yudhoyono urged the D-8 to promote dialogue among civilisations. "We must be able to embrace modernity by becoming forward-looking, by becoming knowledge-driven, by advancing a culture of excellence," Yudhoyono said. Iran's usually firebrand leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, handing over the grouping's chairmanship to Yudhoyono, did not mention his country's nuclear ambitions as he urged the D-8 to work together for the welfare of the Islamic world and the entire world community. "We are all members of the Muslim ummah (community) and the human society as a whole and thus have shared interests and concerns," he said. Greater cooperation "will bring about greater strength, dignity and progress to the Muslim ummah ... which can be used in the service of international peace and security and also the welfare of the entire international community," he said. The D-8 held its first summit in 1997 and last met in Tehran in February 2004. The eight nations have a population of about 500 million people combined. Recommend It: Not at All Somewhat Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 19 AFP: Iran issues warning on new Europe nuclear offer Sat May 13, 7:31 AM ET TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran" /> Iranhas warned that it would only consider new European incentives aimed at finding a deal over its atomic program if the offer recognizes the Islamic republic's right to enrich uranium. The comments from Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki starkly underlined Tehran's refusal to abandon a process that Western countries want Iran to renounce and is the key sticking point in the escalating nuclear standoff. "Any incentive that does not include Iran's right to nuclear technology and the ways to secure it will not have any attraction for the Iranian people and government," the IRNA agency quoted Mottaki as telling reporters in Indonesia Saturday. For Iran, the right to nuclear technology means first and foremost its right to uranium enrichment, a highly sensitive process that can be used both for making nuclear fuel and in a weapons program. Europe is currently preparing a new package of trade, security and technological incentives to try to entice Tehran away from uranium enrichment and resolve the nuclear crisis peacefully. However Mottaki warned the Europeans "not to make the same mistake" he said they made last August when they came up with a list of incentives that also demanded Iran gives up uranium enrichment. "We hope that our case will be dealt in a way that Iran's right to peaceful nuclear technology will be recognized," Mottaki told reporters in Bali, where he is attending the D-8 Summit with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. "It is then that Iran will provide its utmost cooperation," he said. European Union" /> European Unionefforts since 2003 to win guarantees that Iran's nuclear program is peaceful in nature have foundered, with Iran defiantly pushing ahead since April on enriching uranium. Iran says it has enriched uranium to 4.8 percent, sufficient to make nuclear fuel for a power station. In highly enriched form, the uranium can form the explosive core of an atomic bomb. The United States charges that Iran is using its nuclear program -- which Tehran insists is a merely peaceful effort to generate electricity -- to hide the development of nuclear weapons. Tehran last year rejected a previous offer of incentives, including desperately needed civilian aircraft parts and support for World Trade Organization" /> World Trade Organizationmembership, insisting on the right to enrich uranium on its soil. Mottaki's warning came after UN Secretary General Kofi Annan" /> Kofi Annanurged the United to talk directly to its arch foe over the nuclear issue, saying Tehran would not negotiate seriously if Washington is not involved. However the United States lost little time in rejecting Annan's advice, with State Department spokesman Sean McCormack saying Tehran was interested only in "delaying and stalling". "We believe that we are following the right diplomatic process now," he said. In a development that could further intensify the crisis, diplomats said UN inspectors found traces of weapons-grade uranium in vacuum pumps at the Lavizan-Shian site in Tehran where Iran had denied carrying out such work. Iran denied that such particles had been found. UN nuclear chief Mohamed ElBaradei said Thursday he was "optimistic" about Washington giving its European allies more time to seek a solution, after a deadlock at the UN Security Council on moving towards sanctions against Iran. Diplomats said negotiators from the Council's permanent members -- the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France -- plus Germany planned to meet in London on May 19 to weigh a new package of incentives as well as penalties. Although the United States has insisted on its wish to see the crisis resolved through diplomacy, administration officials have steadfastly refused to rule out the option of military action. Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 20 AFP: Iran insists European offer must recognise enrichment right - Sat May 13, 5:24 AM ET TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran" /> has warned that new European incentives to find a deal over its atomic programme would only be of interest if the offer recognised the country's right to uranium enrichment. "Any incentive that does not include Iran's right to nuclear technology and the ways to secure it will not have any attraction for the Iranian people and government," the IRNA agency quoted Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki as telling reporters in Indonesia. He also warned the Europeans Saturday "not to make the same mistake" they did last August when they came up with a list of incentives that also asked Iran to give up uranium enrichment. "We hope that our case will be dealt in a way that Iran's right to peaceful nuclear technology will be recognized... It is then that Iran will provide its utmost cooperation," he said in Bali, where he is attending D-8 Summit with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. European Union" /> efforts since 2003 to win guarantees that Iran is not making nuclear weapons have foundered, with Iran pushing ahead since April on enriching uranium. This sensitive process is used to make nuclear reactor fuel but in highly enriched form the uranium can form the explosive core of an atomic bomb. The United States charges that Iran is using its nuclear program, which Tehran insists is a peaceful effort to generate electricity, to hide the development of nuclear weapons. Washington's European allies have spearheaded negotiations with the Iranians and are currently preparing a new package of trade, security and technological incentives to try to entice Tehran away from uranium enrichment. Diplomats said negotiators from the Council's permanent members -- the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France -- plus Germany planned to meet in London on May 19 to weigh a new package of incentives as well as penalties. Tehran has rejected a previous offer of incentives, including desperately needed civilian aircraft parts and support for World Trade Organization" /> membership, insisting on its right to enrich uranium on its soil. Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 21 AFP: Iran to reject any offer to halt nuclear programme - Ahmadinejad Sun May 14, 5:55 AM ET TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran" /> Iran's hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said that Tehran will reject any new deal offered by European powers in order to halt the Islamic republic's nuclear activities. "Any offer which requires us to halt our peaceful nuclear activities will be invalid," Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying by the state news agency IRNA Sunday. "I am surprised that a group of people hold meetings without us being present there and make decisions for us," he added, referring to talks between Western diplomats over the nuclear standoff with Tehran. EU powers Britain, France and Germany are considering offering a new bundle of wide-ranging incentives to Iran in return for a guarantee that it will suspend its uranium-enrichment activities, which the West suspects of being part of a covert atomic weapons program. Their foreign ministers are due to meet along with EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana on the issue on Monday. "These masters believe that they are still living in the colonial era, and so their decisions are not valid for us," said Ahmadinejad, who was speaking after returning from a five-day visit to Indonesia. "When we are not present (in the discussions), any decisions become meaningless," he added. Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi also vowed: "We will not back down on our rights. "Any offer to Iran must recognise the rights of Iran and guarantee the means to exercise those rights," he told reporters. For Iran, the right to nuclear technology means first and foremost its right to uranium enrichment, a highly sensitive process that can be used both for making nuclear fuel and in a weapons program. According to Ahmadinejad, the "best incentives" for cooperation from Tehran would be the implementation of parts of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty which recognise the right of signatory states to do research on and produce nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. Such a view is not held by the Western powers, which are also pushing for a UN Security Council resolution that would make a suspension of enrichment legally binding. Iran has vowed to ignore any such resolution. Diplomats said negotiators from the Security Council's permanent members -- the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France -- plus Germany plan to meet in London next Friday to weigh a new package of incentives as well as penalties. Although the United States has repeatedly said it wants to see the crisis resolved through diplomacy, US administration officials have refused to rule out the option of military action. The so-called EU-3 have already tried but failed to use incentives to coax Iran into agreeing to a moratorium on fuel work. Iran says it has also already enriched uranium to 4.8 percent, sufficient to make nuclear fuel for a power station -- progress that it argues the Western world needs to accept. Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 22 AFP: Israel's Mossad remains in charge of Iran nuclear file - report - Sat May 13, 8:28 AM ET JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has decided that Mossad, Israel" /> 's intelligence agency, will remain in charge of the Iranian nuclear file. With his decision, Olmert rejected an appeal by the Israeli army's military intelligence service to assume responsibility for Iran" /> , the army radio added Saturday, without giving further details. Known by its Hebrew acronym AMAN, the military intelligence service, with an estimated 7,000 employees, is regarded as Mossad's chief rival. Olmert's decision comes on the heels of a meeting with Mossad chief Meir Dagan, the hawkish political advisor to former prime ministers Ariel Sharon" /> and Benjamin Netanyahu" /> . Israeli media reported that Mossad's annual budget was doubled last year largely due to increased concerns over the Iranian nuclear program. In recent months, US, Arab and Israeli newspapers have been rife with speculation about the likelihood of an American or Israeli attack against Iran's nuclear sites. American and Israeli officials have denied those reports. In December, Dagan, 60, predicted Iran would be able to manufacture a nuclear bomb within one to two years. Israeli fears of Iran were heightened after Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called for Israel to be wiped off the map last October. Mossad answers to a parliamentary sub-committee made up of members of the defense and foreign affairs committees in the Israeli legislature. On June 7, 1981, Israeli war planes destroyed the Iraqi nuclear plant at Osirak, close to Baghdad. Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 23 IRNA: Annan, ElBaradei call for direct Iran-US talks - UN spokesman - United Nations, May 13, IRNA Annan-ElBaradei-Iran UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Mohamed ElBaraei are urging direct negotiations between Tehran and Washington, it was announced here Friday. Annan's spokesman, Stephan Dujarric, made the disclosure while talking to reporters here yesterday. The UN secretary-general, for the third time, has emphasized that Washington should enter direct negotiations with Tehran, he added. Answering a question on whether Annan would be ready to participate in ongoing negotiations to settle the Iran nuclear issue, Dujarric said Annan had announced his readiness to participate in the talks if necessary. Annan has emphasized that all parties necessary to resolve the issue should attend the talks, the spokesman said. ***************************************************************** 24 IRNA: Russian deputy calls for veto of any anti-Iran resolution Moscow, May 13, IRNA Russia-Iran-Duma A deputy of the Russian Duma, Alexei Mitrafanov, here Saturday called on Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov to use the country's veto power against any resolution that may be passed by the UN Security Council to impose sanctions or military force on Iran. In a letter to Fradkov, Mitrafanov criticized a draft resolution prepared by Britain and France and supported by the United States against Iran's peaceful nuclear activities. Washington has had a hostile stance on Iran's peaceful nuclear programs and supports a policy of adventurism against any country, he said. Addressing Duma deputies, he said that after a military attack on Iran, Russia would be next because Moscow is surrounded by aggressive forces against the US. He termed Iran as "a friend and partner" of Russia, and said Moscow's stance in the West's standoff with Iran was intended to prevent crisis and instability in the region and not instigate confrontation with Washington. Mitrafanov called on Duma members to support his letter to their country's prime minister. ***************************************************************** 25 AFP: UN "right forum" to address Iran nuclear program: White House official - Sun May 14, 2:10 PM ET WASHINGTON (AFP) - A top White House official said that the United Nations" /> United Nationswas the "right forum" to address Iran" /> Iran's nuclear program and shrugged off suggestions for direct talks between Washington and Tehran. Asked on CNN's "Late Edition" whether the United States should open direct talks with Iran, National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley" /> Stephen Hadleysaid Washington would prefer to continue backing European countries holding direct talks with Iran, while pursuing the issue through the UN Security Council. "We think the framework we have is even better (than direct talks)," Hadley said. "We have a number of countries that are engaged with Iran on this issue. "The forum has now shifted to a discussion in the UN Security Council, where the international community as a whole, of which the United States is a part, can make clear to Iran what it needs to do," he said. "We think that's the right forum at this time for this issue." The United States wants the council to pass a resolution based on Chapter 7 of the UN Charter placing Iran in violation of UN rules and opening the way for punitive measures. "There needs to be a Chapter 7 resolution coming out of the United Nations Security Council that makes clear what Iran needs to do, in terms of reassuring the international community that it has given up its weapons ambitions," Hadley said. "We are looking at the kinds of sanctions that might be applied if (Iran) does not make the right choice," he added. "We're also looking at the kinds of benefits that might be applied if Iran does make the right choice." The idea of Washington opening direct talks with Tehran, which it believes aims to produce nuclear weapons, arose this week after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sent a letter to US President George W. Bush" /> President George W. Bush. It was the first direct communication between the two countries' leaders since the United States broke off relations in 1980. Former secretaries of state Henry Kissinger, a Republican, and Madeleine Albright" /> Madeleine Albright, a Democrat, both urged Bush to follow up on Ahmadinejad's letter. But the White House has resisted engaging Iran directly, saying it needs to give in to UN demands to halt its uranium enrichment program, which Tehran claims has only peaceful goals. "There have been a lot of opportunities for Iran to make the right choice, which is respond to the will of the international community and give assurances, by getting out of the enrichment business, that it's not pursuing a nuclear bomb," Hadley said. Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 26 IRNA: Iran to face US fearlessly in nuclear case - Chinese analyst - Beijing, May 13, IRNA China-Iran-Nuclear Iran will face the United States fearlessly because it has the strong religious backing of its nation, a Chinese political analyst said here Friday. China's Institute for International Development Studies political analyst Guo Xangang further said that Iran's nuclear program was not aimed at a nuclear weapon as Tehran had repeatedly assured. He voiced doubts the nuclear issue would be settled the way discussions are currently proceeding with the US insisting that Iran does not deserve nuclear technology and a nuclear program, and warned that Tehran was prepared to confront Washington's policies. Noting that the Middle East is the birthplace of many religions, he said the current situation in the region has been complicated by the fact that a country therein, Israel, has nuclear weapons which have not been reined in and which threaten the region's security. The Chinese analyst stressed that realization of the goal of a Middle East free from weapons of mass destruction would be the best solution to the standoff with regard to Iran's nuclear activities. He urged the international community to convince Israel to take the lead in freeing the Middle East of nuclear weapons. ***************************************************************** 27 IRNA: Iran receives no new proposal from Europe - Asefi Tehran, May 14, IRNA Iran-Nuclear-Europe-Asefi Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hamid-Reza Asefi here Sunday said Iran has not yet received any new proposal from Europe on its nuclear case. Asefi made the comment while addressing domestic and foreign reporters at his weekly press conference. "According to news, European states are to discuss such a proposal on Monday," he said. "Iran will never give up its rights," he said and proposed the Europeans to take Iran's two main conditions into consideration in their new offer. "The proposal should officially recognize Iran's (nuclear) rights and guarantee ways to attain and restore them," he said. Asked about recent remark by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Mohamed ElBaradei that Iran's nuclear case should be discussed at the agency, he added, "ElBaradei's remark was based on realities. "ElBaradei and the IAEA have also announced that all nuclear sites in Iran have been inspected. "It means the Islamic Republic of Iran has never been diverted from its peaceful purposes." The spokesman added, "Probe into Iran's case at any organization except the IAEA will be politically-motivated and illegal. It will have no justification. "The Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) clarifies rights of signatories. The rights include access to nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. "Nuclear technology should be officially recognized because Iran is a signatory to the NPT. No discriminatory attitude should be adopted on the case." ***************************************************************** 28 [NYTr] Canada Being Pulled into US Star Wars Missile Shield System Date: Sun, 14 May 2006 15:46:35 -0400 (EDT) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit sent by mart The Ottawa Citizen - May 12, 2006 http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=8fc919a4-185c-4ed0-924a-6e244614b26a Canada likes NATO proposal for missile defence Alliance considers shield for Europe just like US project that Canada spurned by Mike Blanchfield Canada is back in the politically sensitive business of ballistic missile defence, just 15 months after it spurned the controversial Bush administration plan for a shield for North America. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization announced this week that it would push forward with a political discussion on whether to build a missile defence shield to protect continental Europe from long-range missile threats. Canada, as a member of the 26-nation alliance, fully endorsed the decision. The NATO plan is a virtual mirror image of the U.S. shield for North America - one that proved to be a major political headache for the previous Liberal government and that Canada opted out of after much opposition from left-wing Liberal ranks and Quebec. The resurrection of ballistic missile defence will also pose a major political challenge for Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative minority because a significant number of Liberals, as well as the full NDP and Bloc Quebecois, were adamantly opposed to Canada's participation. Public opposition is strongest in Quebec, where Mr. Harper is trying to make in-roads to win a majority government in the next election. This political tempest was unleashed quietly and with little fanfare at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Wednesday, when a NATO military panel delivered a 10,000-page report to the North Atlantic Council, the alliance's governing body, titled NATO Missile Defence Feasibility Study. NATO assistant secretary general for defence investment Marshall Billingslea said the report was intended to stimulate "informed discussion" in member countries. Mr. Billingslea also said it would be up to the political leadership in NATO to pursue missile defence for Europe. The study outlines how a ground-based system of interceptor rockets in tandem with ground sensors and orbiting satellites would be used to identify and shoot down an incoming long-range missile attack. Mr. Billingslea went to great lengths not to identify which countries posed a threat to Europe. When the U.S. was developing its system - and trying to persuade Canada to participate - rogue states such as North Korea and Iran were often cited as the main threats..... The study, he added, "marks a significant milestone in the effort to protect our publics from the menace of long-range ballistic missiles. It opens the way for an informed political dialogue in the North Atlantic Council and relevant NATO bodies. Mr. Harper and his fellow NATO leaders, including U.S. President George W. Bush, will have to consider this new missile defence proposal at their annual summit this fall in Latvia. "The United States is a crucial member of the alliance, of course, and the United States Missile Defence Agency has been a key part of the whole process within the alliance discussion," Mr. Billingslea said, noting that "there would inevitably be a logical interface between the two systems" in Europe and the U.S. "Each nation and the publics of each nation will look at this, and they may look at it in different perspectives," he added. In Canada, missile defence has already been the subject of heated debate. The U.S. tried unsuccessfully for years to persuade Canada to join its shield for North America, saying it would go ahead with or without Canadian participation. The U.S. was seeking political support, and did not make a financial request or ask Canada to base interceptor rockets here. Paul Martin's Liberal government opted out in February 2005 because of political pressure inside Canada. Former U.S. ambassador Paul Cellucci later blamed the Martin government for sending mixed signals over its intentions and said Canada was compromising its sovereignty by not joining the project. The Harper government has sent out strong indications it would be willing to revisit the decision to participate in the U.S. plan, even though the Pentagon has moved ahead without Canada. During the election campaign, Mr. Harper said he would be willing to put the matter to a free vote in Parliament, but only if Washington asked, which does not appear likely. Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor reiterated that position in February. Critics have questioned the scientific viability of the system, often described as a bullet-to-bullet approach, in which ground-based interceptor rockets, called kill vehicles, hit an incoming missile in outer space and destroy it before it re-renters the atmosphere. * ================================================================ .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 Deseret News: 'Divine Strake' test fuels Dixie protest [deseretnews.com] Sunday, May 14, 2006 60 rally in St. George against the planned detonation in Nevada By Nancy Perkins Deseret Morning News ST. GEORGE — John Nordin remembers growing up with his best buddies in Dragerton, Carbon County, and keeping an eagle eye on the sky. Nancy Perkins, Deseret Morning NewsRoy Hahn signs a petition Saturday that calls for stopping the June 23 "Divine Strake" test. "When I was 10, we would go outside and try to see the mushroom cloud coming up from the atomic tests," said Nordin, who now lives in the St. George area with his wife, Hughette. "Everyone said we might see the cloud and the colors it made in the sky." Nordin said when he heard of the federal government's plans to detonate a massive conventional weapon, called "Divine Strake," at the Nevada Test Site next month he knew it was time to speak up. "The government seems to be fighting its own people on this," he said Saturday at a protest rally held at Bluff Street Park. Nordin and many others at the rally said they had family or friends who either died of cancer or were now fighting one of its deadly forms. Nearly 60 people showed up for the morning rally to share information, listen to speakers, and sign petitions urging Utah Sens. Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett to stop the blast. Several people carried protest signs, including one person whose sign suggested dropping a bomb on Iraq would be a good idea. "This is just the beginning of educating this community. It's a good start," said Hughette Nordin, who helped organize the rally and took issue with the "bomb Iraq" placard. Another organizer, Helene Stone, said the public must let Utah's elected leaders at all levels know the planned test is unacceptable. "The government still feels we are expendable," she said. "Let them know we are not." Janet Aumann, who works as a dietician in the medical oncology unit at Dixie Regional Medical Center, said she felt strongly that the rally was where she needed to be on a beautiful Saturday morning in Dixie. "I've never attended a protest before," she said "But I don't believe these tests are safe, and I want them stopped. I don't trust the government, based on what I've seen happen to people here, the downwinder group." Downwinder is a term used to describe people who lived downwind from hundreds of nuclear tests conducted by the federal government between 1951 and 1992 at the Nevada Test Site. Although the public was assured the tests were safe, thousands of Utahns and others who lived and worked downwind from the detonations have since contracted various forms of cancer. The federal government now offers a one-time settlement of from $50,000 to $100,000 to downwinders who qualify under specific guidelines. The Divine Strake test, planned for June 23, will ignite 700 tons of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil over a limestone tunnel in the Nevada desert. Critics claim the blast will release contaminated soil left from previous tests, while the government insists the explosion will not harm humans or the environment. "My mother was pregnant with me when some of the dirtiest atomic bombs were tested. I did not choose to be a veteran of the Cold War, but I am," said St. George resident Michelle Thomas, a documented downwinder who has survived several bouts with cancer and suffers from an autoimmune disease. "I was dumbfounded when I heard they were talking about this bomb. This protest is very much about pro-life, yours and your children's lives. Please fight this with all you have." Iris Mortenson said her husband, veterinarian Dr. Roy K. Mortenson, conducted autopsies of sheep that were found dead in Millard County after the first nuclear test in the early 1950s. "They were his cousin's sheep, and they didn't know what to do with them. They couldn't sell the meat, so they sold the wool to people in Denver," she said. "I'm sure that exposure shortened his life. He had a good, strong constitution, and I fed him good." Snow Canyon High School student Hannah Zander, 17, attended the protest with four of her friends. "We saw a flier on it last night and really wanted to come," Zander said. "It's wrong to test bombs. People get sick and die." Kyle Stanford, a 17-year-old student at Millcreek High School, said his grandmother was a downwinder who died of breast cancer. "I don't want any more bombs tested," he said. "I don't want to have 16-fingered children later in life, either." Roy Hahn signed a petition against Divine Strake and summed up the feelings of many at the rally. "I just don't see the need for it," he said. © 2006 Deseret News Publishing Company ***************************************************************** 30 Las Vegas SUN: Southern Utah residents rally to protest Divine Strake Today: May 14, 2006 at 14:21:53 PDT ASSOCIATED PRESS ST. GEORGE, Utah (AP) - Several dozen southern Utah residents gathered at a park Saturday to question the safety of detonating a 700-ton explosive in the neighboring Nevada desert. The blast known as "Divine Strake," which is planned to occur about 85 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is expected to generate a 10,000-foot mushroom cloud and a shock wave that can be felt dozens of miles away. Southern Utah residents are concerned that a blast could stir up radioactive components left over from atomic testing in the 1950s and early 1960s. The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act of 1990 provides for compassionate payments to downwinders who contracted certain cancers and other serious diseases. Michelle Thomas spoke of her experiences as a downwinder during the rally as she urged others to become more aware of what's going on with the scheduled blast. "My mom was pregnant with me in 1951 when the first tests were done," Thomas said. "I didn't get to choose to be a veteran of the Cold War when I was a 2-month-old fetus. I was enlisted and so was my mother. Support the young people who can't make this decision. As Nancy Reagan would say, 'Just say no.'" In 1993, Thomas was diagnosed with breast cancer, which was when she officially was classified as a downwinder. Thomas said her doctor informed her she had the same type of cancer women in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan developed after the bombings that took place there and would be eligible for downwinder funding. "Everyone was told it was safe and that it would do no harm - the exact same thing they tell us today," Thomas said. "This isn't about being a Republican or a Democrat, it's about being pro-life." The federal Defense Threat Reduction Agency claims the explosion of a 700-ton ammonium nitrate and fuel oil bomb will help design a weapon to penetrate hardened and deeply buried targets. Critics have called it a surrogate for a low-yield nuclear "bunker buster" bomb. Bloomington resident Chuck Neagle, a retired environmental manager from the Nevada Test Site, told The Spectrum of St. George he doesn't fear fallout reaching southern Utah. "They couldn't put the blast in a better place," Neagle said. "It's going to be quite a bit away from the general test area. They should open up tour guides and let people see there's nothing out there." Others are more concerned. Katy Kroupa grew up on Main Street in St. George, lost two downwinder grandparents to cancer. "You wonder how much more time we could have had with them," Kroupa said. "That's enough to make anyone passionate about not wanting the same thing to happen again. If our grandparents were here they wouldn't want us to carry on blindly and trust the government like they did." --- Information from: The Spectrum, http://www.thespectrum.com All contents copyright 2005 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 31 Salt Lake Tribune: 'Harmless' mushroom? Article Last Updated: 05/12/2006 09:17:50 PM MDT When Condoleezza Rice was talking about a "mushroom cloud," I somehow pictured an attack on the United States. Now it appears the 10,000-foot high mushroom cloud is going to be generated with the blessing of our own United States government. Utah, this is a call for those who care. Are we are going to revisit the "harmless" mushroom clouds coming from Nevada over Utah? Are Utah citizens going to be victimized once more with "friendly fire"? I remember the 1950s and the assurances from the government that the nuclear testing in Nevada was going to be harmless to Utah. Not again. This time I don't believe it, and Utah should be united in stopping this assault on innocent Utahns. I pray our governor stands up against this egregious assault on our environment and the people of Utah. Deanna Neeley Ogden © Copyright 2006, The Salt Lake Tribune. ***************************************************************** 32 Guardian Unlimited: IAEA Director Says Nuke Terrorists a Worry From the Associated Press [UP] Saturday May 13, 2006 2:01 AM AP Photo AMS104 AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) - The world should be more worried about nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorists than about Iran's nuclear program, the head of the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog agency said Friday. Mohamed ElBaradei, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said there is no military solution to the standoff with Iran over its determination to continue its uranium enrichment program. ElBaradei, who spoke Thursday with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, said he was ``for the first time somewhat optimistic'' that the Iran standoff can be resolved. ``I think everybody understands that we need to exhaust every possible route to find a diplomatic solution,'' he said. But he said the risk that terrorists could acquire a nuclear weapon was of greater concern. ``Terrorists are a different thing,'' he told the Dutch television program Netwerk. ``The fear of terrorists acquiring nuclear weapons is much more, in my view ... than a country acquiring nuclear weapons right now,'' he said. ElBaradei said the international community needed a collective security system that does not have an exclusive nuclear club, ``a system where every country feels secure.'' Otherwise, he said, ``we are going to see proliferation of nuclear weapons.'' Key U.N. Security Council members agreed this week to postpone a tough resolution against Iran, giving Tehran another two weeks to reassess its insistence on developing its uranium enrichment capabilities. Britain, France and Germany were working up a new package of incentives and sanctions to present to Iran, in a move applauded by the IAEA chief. The United States accuses Iran of seeking to develop nuclear weapons, but Tehran says it aims only to generate energy and charges that the West is guilty of ``double standards.'' Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 33 Guardian Unlimited: Prodding the bear Comment is free | Saturday May 13, 2006 The Guardian Back in the bad old days of the cold war, western Kremlinologists used to earn their keep by interpreting impenetrable data about Soviet five-year plans, Pravda editorials or the pecking order of politburo gerontocrats on the Red Square reviewing stand. No such expertise is required to decode the meaning of what Vladimir Putin has been saying recently. In his annual state of the union address this week, the Russian president sniped openly at US complaints about his democratic credentials and warned that the country must modernise its armed forces to be able to withstand foreign pressure. Two days earlier, he failed to even mention the western allies at the Moscow ceremony marking the anniversary of the victory over Nazism in the second world war. Much of what Mr Putin said was about domestic issues, calling for investment to boost growth and measures to reverse a declining birth rate. But it was his dismissive riposte to the US vice-president, Dick Cheney, which attracted most attention. Speaking in Lithuania, Mr Cheney prodded the bear by regretting Russia's backsliding on democracy and warned it not to use its energy might at a time of record prices for "intimidation or blackmail" against its neighbours. That was the harshest public criticism of Russia yet from the Bush administration. Russia-bashing plays well in Washington, especially as ratings for the president reach new lows. Nor did it escape notice that Mr Cheney was far less negative about Kazakhstan, a US client where oil is cheaper than human rights. Still, there was substance enough to his comments, reflecting a belated admission that Mr Bush's trusted ally in the "war on terror" has ensured, through Chechnya, the Yukos affair and a crackdown on NGOs and the media, that Russia's democracy is still a carefully "managed" one. Nostalgics apart, no one believes that Russia has any real claim to be the global titan it once was, though it is still a nuclear-armed, veto-wielding member of the UN security council and thus a key player on issues like Iran. But its oil and gas reserves have given it a clout it could only dream of in the dying days of the Soviet Union, as Mr Putin recognises with his use of the term "energy superpower". The first real sign that this was more than just semantics came in January, when Russia shut down its gas pipeline to Ukraine after the man it backed had been defeated by the "Orange" candidate in the presidential election - though this also meant shortages in Austria, Italy and Germany. Now the state-controlled exporter Gazprom has threatened to cut supplies to worried EU governments and seek new markets in Asia unless they let it gobble up companies such as Britain's Centrica. Economic pressure has been used openly against Georgia and Moldova, where Russia still meddles in the old Soviet "near abroad". Even the Germans are uncomfortable with the way Moscow props up Alexander Lukashenko in Belarus - using heavily subsidised gas to keep his people from challenging what the Americans call Europe's "last dictatorship". Only yesterday Mr Putin welcomed President Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan, almost a year since hundreds died in the Andijan massacre. The Putin-Cheney exchanges hardly constitute a new cold war, as some claim, though there is a distinct nip in the summer air. It seems certain to be felt at the G8 summit in St Petersburg in July, when Mr Putin is hoping for progress on Russia's bid to join the World Trade Organisation. The Kremlin has hired a slick PR firm to improve its image. The problem is that image and reality will have to coincide more closely for such a campaign to have much effect. Churchill once quipped that Russia was "a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma". It's a memorable line, but no longer a useful one. For what's going on these days is now fairly clear - and fairly alarming. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006. Registered in England and Wales. No. 908396 Registered office: 164 Deansgate, Manchester M60 2RR ***************************************************************** 34 Guardian Unlimited: The Russian bear is back - and this time it's gas-powered Ian Traynor, Nick Paton Walsh in Moscow and Ewen MacAskill in Washington Saturday May 13, 2006 The Guardian In the Kremlin on Thursday a little-known but powerful Russian official held court for the first time before foreign journalists with a very simple message: Russia is great and getting greater by the week. Sergei Sobyanin, a former governor of the oil-rich region of Tyumen, chief of staff to President Vladimir Putin, and one of the mightiest men in Russia, was enlarging on his leader's state-of-the-nation speech 24 hours earlier in which Mr Putin identified the key to Russia's progress in both human and military regeneration. The shrinking of Russia's population had to be reversed. Russian mothers would be paid to have more babies. And for the first time in ages, Mr Putin talked of missiles and nuclear rearmament. The obvious if unstated enemy was not Chechen "terrorists" or "coloured" revolutionaries from the former vassal states of the old Soviet Union but the old foe, the American "wolf", with its voracious appetite dressed up as phony concern for human rights and the spread of democracy. "Russia's international weight rises every year," Mr Sobyanin boasted. The country is strong, wealthy, and throwing its restored weight around internationally. After 20 years of decline combined with the festival of liberty ushered in by Mikhail Gorbachev's revolution in 1985, the bear is back. Helped by a tide of petrodollars, his "national champion" gas and oil titans projecting Russia's power abroad, and his authority unassailable at home in contrast to Bush, Blair and Chirac, Mr Putin is walking tall on the global stage. The climax comes in July in his hometown, the old imperial capital of St Petersburg, when Mr Putin hosts the leaders of the world's richest seven countries. The rest of the world is worried. The US has concluded that Mr Putin represents a clever return to traditional Russian authoritarianism. Central and east Europeans, all too familiar with Russian domination, are quaking. Western Europeans, mired in introspection, are waking up to the new challenges. All are scrambling to devise new policies towards Russia. Andrew Kuchins, a Russia expert at Washington's Carnegie Endowment, said: "It is a precarious situation. We need cool heads and for neither side to over-react." Aleksandr Vondra, a former deputy Czech foreign minister, said: "The post-cold war world is somehow finally starting. We all need to sit down and come up with an agenda, new policies." Alexander Rahr, a biographer of Mr Putin and Germany's leading analyst of Russia, said years of western cooperation with Russia were giving way to rivalry. "Putin is starting to set the international agenda. The Americans are getting nervous and angry. The US wants to prevent this but has very limited means to do it." A week before Mr Putin delivered his address to the nation, the US vice-president, Dick Cheney, went to Russia's Baltic border to read Mr Putin the riot act. Five years ago at a country house outside the Slovenian capital of Ljubljana, George Bush first met Mr Putin. The US president said he looked into the eyes of the former KGB officer, caught a glimpse of his soul and saw a man he could trust. But now, with the bitterness of a jilted lover, Mr Cheney called an end to the US romance with post-Soviet Russia. "None of us believes that Russia is fated to become an enemy," he declared, before accusing the Kremlin of exploiting Russia's mineral wealth to blackmail and bully foreign customers, of reversing the democratic gains of the past decade, of "improperly" curbing Russians' rights. If Mr Cheney's attack was the strongest ever on Mr Putin from the Bush administration, the vice-president's criticisms can be heard all across bipartisan Washington. Bruce Jackson, an influential neo-con lobbyist on Russia, said: "It's a difficult time now for the Russia romantics. The people who over-invested in this are in intellectual and political trouble right now." Mr Cheney's Lithuania speech was preceded by criticism from Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state. Mary Warlick, her Russia department chief, said last month: "The promise of strategic [US-Russian] partnership has not been fulfilled ... the jury is out about where Russia is going to end up." Leading Republicans and Democrats, such as John McCain and John Edwards, have joined the chorus of what critics of the new line call Russophobia. Mr Kuchins says the Kremlin is enraged by the American lectures but Mr Putin's speech showed his contempt. "Putin lumped together the US, Africa and Latin America and that is new. That is part of the response: 'You Americans no longer are important to us, so piss off'." The Russian response has been to warn of a new cold war. This seems an over-reaction but the frostiness does suggest what Mr Jackson calls the onset of a "soft war". He welcomes it. "There's nothing wrong with a battle of ideas," he says. "It's a soft power competition. It's desirable." Mr Jackson sketches three fronts on the new battlefield of ideas and values between Russia and the west: "Our institutions versus their Potemkin institutions, free markets versus their coercive state monopolies, and our democracy versus their managed democracy. What we don't want is militarised competition." As well as Mr Putin's quiet and methodical consolidation of control over the past five years, the fundamental reasons for the balance of power tilting Mr Putin's way is money, derived from colossal mineral wealth when oil is selling at more than $70 a barrel and when the state corporation Gazprom has a monopoly on supplying a third of Europe's gas supplies. He has paid off much of Russia's foreign debt and built a $62bn (£33bn) "stabilisation fund" from the windfall. Russia now has some of the world's biggest financial reserves; Gazprom recently overtook BP as the world's second-biggest energy firm by market value, and Mr Putin has eliminated all important rival centres of power in Russia while enjoying consistent popularity ratings of more than 70%. The outcome, analysts predict, is that if he stands down after two terms as scheduled in 2008, Mr Putin may be gone but "Putinism" will remain. "The transition will be smooth - he will handpick his successor," predicts Mr Rahr in Berlin. "Putin will be like a Russian Deng Xiaoping, still there behind the scenes." But these strengths are also weaknesses. Russia's new wealth is utterly dependent on the markets and the price of oil, which can fall as well as rise. And Gazprom's power is umbilically linked to Europe, which provides two-thirds of its revenue. "They need Europe as much as Europe needs Russia," said Chris Weafer, chief strategist at Alfa Bank in Moscow. Nonetheless, Russia's new clout is making itself felt on the biggest problems on the international agenda - Iran's nuclear ambition is number one. Russia is the biggest block to the US and Europeans punishing Tehran and Mr Cheney's attack looks unlikely to change Moscow's policy. Quite the contrary; there is talk in Washington that Mr Cheney timed his speech to dash any chance of a diplomatic breakthrough on Iran since, as a hawk, he favours confrontation with the mullahs. Hamas and Palestine is another neuralgic point, with the Kremlin at odds with the west on how to deal with the "elected terrorists". There are even suggestions that Russia sees itself as better able, with China, to sort out Afghanistan, branding the US and Nato missions a failure. And in the contest for influence among the post-Soviet states bordering Russia, Moscow is recovering ground after setbacks in Ukraine and Georgia. It is asserting control of central Asian gas by agreeing distribution deals with the despotic regimes of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, while slapping trade embargoes on pro-western neighbours such as Moldova and Georgia, which says a Russian ban on wine imports and a brief halt to gas supplies were revenge for closer ties with the west. Georgia's foreign minister, Gela Bezhuashvili, said Russia's "imperialist mentality means they still see [Georgia] as a backyard that cannot have its own choice. And they are squeezing us for our European choice, that is clear." Mr Putin's speech this week, he added, was "a wake-up call ... for Europe to realise who they are dealing with." In the long term, Mr Rahr predicts, Russia could lead a new "gas Opec", a Eurasian gas cartel controlling central Asia and backed by China. "Gas will be more important than oil in the future. What will that mean for the world economy?" Mr Jackson also identifies the Caspian basin and the Black Sea region as the cockpit of the tussle between Russia and the west, a battle of ideas that is also a fight for markets and energy security. What has changed in the balance of power, say long-term Russia watchers, is that for most of the two decades since Mr Gorbachev began dismantling the Soviet Union Russia has been in decline. Mr Vondra, in Prague, said: "The west was setting the agenda and Russia was reacting, on the defensive. Now that Putin has completed his renationalisation and consolidation of power, he is setting the agenda and it is the west that is on the defensive. Energy policy is a classic example. But it's not a new cold war. Its weapons are not missiles but oil, gas and uranium. Putin has a long vision, while the Europeans are very short-sighted." In Washington, Mr Kuchins says relations between Russia and the west are now at their worst since 1999, when Boris Yeltsin named an obscure apparatchik and ex-KGB officer, Vladimir Putin, as his successor. "The difference with '99 is Russia was in the toilet and had no leverage. Now we have a real competitor." Useful links Itar-Tass news agency Moscow Times Russia Today St Petersburg Times Caucasian Knot [UP] Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 35 Sydney Morning Herald: No moves to change nuclear treaty - PM - www.smh.com.au May 13, 2006 - 10:14AM Prime Minister John Howard says he's not looking for changes to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty despite Australia considering selling uranium to India. The nuclear issue is expected to figure highly in talks during Mr Howard's current two-week visit to the United States, Canada and Ireland. The United States has said it will begin selling uranium to India for civil nuclear energy projects even though the Asian giant has not signed up to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Indian officials are hoping the United States will persuade Mr Howard to allow Australia - which has the world's largest uranium reserves - to follow suit. Mr Howard told reporters in Washington he expected the issue to come up in talks with US President George W Bush, Vice-President Dick Cheney, Energy Secretary Sam Bodman and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice over the next few days. "I'm sure it will come up because it's an important issue," Mr Howard said. But he said Australia was not planning to ask for changes to the treaty to allow the sales to go ahead. "We're not seeking any particular changes to it, no," he said. Mr Howard predicted much debate in Australia in coming months about the nuclear issue, including within the opposition. Some Labor figures want the party's decades-old policy of banning any new uranium mines overturned. "There will be a big debate in Australia in the months ahead regarding nuclear energy," Mr Howard said. "I think it's a debate we have to have. "It's gone beyond the paradigm of the 1980s and there are some very interesting shifts of opinion within our own country. "And because of the fact that we have the largest reserves of uranium of any country in the world, we're obviously somebody whose view will be sought and whose view is relevant." © 2006 AAP Copyright © 2006. The Sydney Morning Herald. ***************************************************************** 36 Kerala online: Capturing the essence of Kerala May 15, 2006, 3:05 am Govt tables N-separation plan in Parliament New Delhi India will place 14 out of its 22 thermal nuclear power reactors under international safeguards between 2006 and 2014, according to the Nuclear Separation Plan mandatory for fruition of the Indo-US Civilian Nuclear Energy cooperation agreement. The full and complete text of India's (Nuclear) Separation Plan, which gives details of the nuclear installations to be put under international safeguards, was tabled in Parliament on Friday. While Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Suresh Pachauri presented it in Lok Sabha, Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) Prithviraj Chavan tabled it in Rajya Sabha. The Plan was earlier presented to the US on March two during the visit of President George W Bush to India. India will also permanently shut down the CIRUS reactor in 2010 and will be ready to shifft the fuel core of the APSARA reactor, that was purchased fron France outside BARC, and make the fuel core available to be placed under safeguards in 2010. In addition, all future civilian thermal power reactors and civilian breeder reactors will be placed under international safeguards and the government retains the right to determine such reactors as civilian. The Plan says that India is willing to accept safeguards in the campaign mode after 2010 in respect of Tarapur Power Reactor Fuel Reprocessing Plant. Agency : ACV News Copyright © 2001-06 KeralaOnline All Rights Reserved. Asianet Satellite Communications Ltd. ***************************************************************** 37 Japan Times: Fuel program may violate U.S.-Japan nuclear pact WASHINGTON (Kyodo) A U.S.-initiated international program aimed at safely providing nuclear fuel to developing nations, in which Japan has agreed to take part, may violate the Japan-U.S. pact on atomic energy cooperation, Japanese government sources said Saturday. The program, intended to develop new and more efficient ways to produce nuclear fuel and provide it to other countries, may infringe on the 1988 agreement for cooperation of peaceful uses of atomic energy. The pact clearly bans the transfer of recycling technology for nuclear waste. Dennis Spurgeon, assistant secretary for nuclear energy at the U.S. Energy Department, said Friday the issues need to be resolved. He indicated that a revision to the agreement is currently being considered, saying the pact was made at a time when the U.S. government was against the promotion of nuclear fuel recycling and it should be reconsidered with a view to the future. On May 5, Japan offered to cooperate in five areas with the U.S.-led program, the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership or GNEP, aimed at safely providing nuclear fuel to developing nations and advancing technologies for recycling and protecting nuclear fuel and waste. Science minister Kenji Kosaka made the offer during a meeting with U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman. The proposal includes conducting joint fuel development using the Joyo experimental and Monju prototype fast-breeder nuclear reactors, as well as designing U.S. fuel cycle facilities and drawing up safeguard concepts for fuel cycle facilities based on Japan's experiences. The 1988 agreement bans transfer of documents on such technologies pertaining to the recycling of plutonium, including the designing, construction, operation and maintenance of recycling facilities. The Japanese government sources said it would be an infringement of the agreement if the technologies developed by Japan are to be transferred to the United States in the course of implementing the proposed plan. The Japan Times: Sunday, May 14, 2006 (C) All rights reserved ***************************************************************** 38 [NYTr] Chinese Nuclear Reactor Connected to Power Grid Date: Sun, 14 May 2006 15:51:07 -0500 (CDT) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit Prensa Latina, Havana http://www.plenglish.com Chinese Nuclear Reactor Connected to National Power Grid Beijing, May 14 (Prensa Latina) China successfully connected its largest nuclear reactor to the national electric power network, in their view another success of bilateral ties with Russia. The National Nuclear Corporation (CNNCh) said the 1.06 mW reactor at Tianwan station, in Lianyungang, Jiangsu province, will be fully operational by late 2006 along a second generator nearing completion. CNNCh said the 3.3 billion dollar investment with Russian technology for pressurized water commenced in 1999, adding that both generators rose to nine China's nuclear generators fully operational. Tianwan plant will have another two generators as part of a second phase but construction is still under bidding. China plans to build 100 new hydroelectric plants in the next 20 years at the Yangtse river, largest water stream and third in the world. It also owns the world's largest hydroelectric reserves, estimated in 492 million kW, with only 100 million exploited. hr/emw/nzp * ================================================================ .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 ================================================================ ***************************************************************** 39 Columbian: Gone fission: Trojan tower to tumble Columbian.com - Serving Clark County, Washington Sunday, May 14, 2006 On a Port of Kalama dock a half-mile from Trojan, Doug Loizeaux tells reporters, "People realize that explosives demolition has become a spectator sport." (JANET L MATHEWS/The Columbian) Sunday, May 14, 2006 By THOMAS RYLL, Columbian staff writer The Loizeaux family's business is based on a simple principle: Things want to fall. That broom leaning against the wall? It would rather be on the floor. Uncle Ralph? He prefers flopping onto the couch. The 499-foot-tall cooling tower of the Trojan Nuclear Plant? After weathering years of sun, rain, wind and rare calm, it would just as soon succumb to the pull of gravity. And that is the plan for next Sunday morning, when the 34-year-old guardian of a kink in the Columbia River near Kalama is scheduled to disappear forever from the leafy skyline, hitting the ground in a cloud of concrete dust at 7 a.m. Destruction of a piece of hardware the size of the cooling tower will be a unquestionably spectacular event, but officials will do their best to keep spectators from maneuvering into position for killer views. Roads, river and airspace will be closed; traffic on Interstate 5, the only vantage point from which millions of motorists have ever seen the tower, will be choked off for a six-mile stretch. People who try to take up spots along the freeway before the shutdown will be told by armed personnel to reconsider their decision. Television, carrying the event live for viewers here, and still cameras will fire away as the tower falls away. The Loizeauxs, who own Controlled Demolition Inc. of Phoenix, Md., will have 10 digital video cameras at the Trojan site, recording yet another of the company's many, many, destructive events. "People realize that explosives demolition has become a spectator sport," said company principal Doug Loizeaux at a media briefing last Tuesday at the Port of Kalama dock where reporters will be stationed Sunday morning. Spectating will best be done via television. At least that's the plea of Portland General Electric officials, many of whom wouldn't miss the chance to see the big guy fall to pieces in person that morning. The Trojan Nuclear Plant, which began producing power in 1976, has been idle for 13 years, and owner PGE has been decommissioning the site since 1996. Trojan was Oregon's first nuclear plant, and there was no second. Its 16 years of commercial operation ended after PGE faced hundreds of millions of dollars in expenses to replace the facility's steam pipes. PGE is now restoring the 634-acre site for a future use yet unknown. After the tower falls, Controlled Demolition crews will pound the surviving chunks of concrete into 3-inch pieces, at the same time plucking out hundreds of tons of reinforcing steel for recycling. "This is a totally green project," boasted Loizeaux. "Nothing is going to a landfill." It's also a gray project: The tower's pulverized concrete (none of the structure ever came into contact with radioactivity) will be stockpiled at the site and might eventually be used as a base for roads or parking lots. Other buildings at the site will be demolished in the coming months, possibly with explosives, but there's no way that subsequent work will match the spectacle of 499 feet of concrete cylinder dropping out of circulation. To accomplish that, the tower is being treated as if it were a giant sheet of paper. The Controlled Demolition crew has been punching perforations for weeks: 3,300 15/8-inch-diameter pneumatically bored holes in the structure's curved wall, or veil. The wall thickness varies from 18 inches at the top to 10 inches at the midriff to a robust 45 inches at the base, so the holes also vary in depth. The basic form of the perforations is two horizontal bands, at the 100- and 250-foot levels, covering 70 percent of the tower's circumference. Three vertical rows, like jail-cell bars, link the two horizontal bands. Several smaller bands weaken areas near the 385-foot-wide base. Still more holes have been drilled into many of the 88 concrete legs, 40 inches in diameter, that hold the tower off the ground. Those legs created the openings, functioning like a fireplace flue, that allowed updrafts of air to roar through the tower, carrying away the heat from the water used to cool Trojan's nuclear furnace. Ripping those perforations will be the job of the sticks of dynamite packed into those holes. Armed with detonators and connected with a material called shock tube hollow pencil-thick plastic lined with a gunpowder-like material the dynamite will be triggered by Tom Doud, a Loizeaux relative by marriage, who will be stationed about 500 feet from the tower base. Sending the "you are history" message takes nothing more than a hand-held device (can't beat the name: "blasting machine") powered by two AA batteries. There are two buttons: one to charge, the other to fire. The goal, by kicking the tower's legs out from under it, and delivering a stomach punch like nothing ever seen in a Kalama bar fight, is to force the veil to crumple slightly to the southeast, perhaps 150 feet from the tower base. And no, says Loizeaux, it won't end up in the river: The thing is not a radio tower that can be made to fall like a Douglas fir. That's the beauty of all this, insists Loizeaux: "It's simple. People think you are blowing something up. But what's actually happening is that the building wants to fall down. We're using the explosives as the catalyst." The way he describes it, every ounce of "work force" that went in to building the tower is potential energy, bound up in the gently curved tower veil. It took energy to get all that concrete and steel into position, to build the largest and strangest-looking thing for miles around. The tower weighs 21,000 pounds; Loizeaux and company figure that 2,500 pounds of dynamite will undo all that hard work from the early 1970s. Just like that. In eight seconds (mentioned early in the project) to 14 seconds (Loizeaux's number), the big gray sentinel will be gone. Assuming everything is done just right, of course. "That's another beauty of this business," said Loizeaux. "We can decide in 10 seconds if we are a hero or a bum." Asked last week to describe a demolition project that went horribly wrong, he hesitated and said, "We've broken a few windows. But we've never blown up the wrong building." Loizeaux and his brother, Mark, who briefed almost two dozen reporters at the Trojan plant in March, are as adept at being media-circus ringmasters as they are at laying low the empty building, unused chimney, untraveled bridge or cooled-down cooling tower. Doug Loizeaux showed up at the media briefing on Tuesday with his hands still rough and dirty from packing sticks of dynamite into the cooling tower and plugging the holes with sand. "Would you rather be doing that?" a reporter asked. "Of course," Loizeaux said. Things to know when it blows: + The roughly half-mile-radius exclusion area (the red circle above) is off-limits to everyone but a handful of personnel. + Large areas of U.S. 30 in Oregon, Interstate 5, the Columbia River, and airspace above and around the tower to 3,000 feet above mean sea level for a 1-nautical-mile radius will be closed. + While the Port of Kalama's marina 2.5 miles south of the tower will be open, it is expected to quickly fill with all the vehicles its 300 to 400 parking spaces can accommodate. + Local television stations will carry the event live; www.portlandgeneral.com (click on About PGE and current issues) will have demolition pictures. + Officials say ground vibration will be imperceptible outside exclusion area. + Outside that area, noise is predicted to be no more than that of a summer thunderstorm. + Debris should be contained almost entirely within the area of the tower base, with some materials perhaps 150 feet from that, to the southeast. + The majority of the dust from blasted concrete should dissipate quickly within 1/4- to 1/2-mile of tower. + Fine dust may travel farther depending on wind; the predominant wind direction is from the north/northwest. Interstate 5 Traffic will be slowed at 6:45 a.m. on May 21 and stopped by 7 a.m. at mileposts 28 (south of Kalama) and 34 (2 miles south of the Longview exits), leaving six miles of empty freeway. The freeway is expected to reopen within 15 minutes of tower demolition. The State patrol will chase off motorists who attempt to park along the freeway; unoccupied vehicles will be towed at owners' expense. Similar rules will be in effect for U.S. 30 on the Oregon side between milepost 41 (Neer City Road) and milepost 44 (Little Jack Falls Road). Closed to public The Port of Kalama owns property opposite Trojan and will begin closing it to unauthorized persons on May 20. The area west of I-5 and north of the Kalama city limits to the area north of Kalama River Road will not be open to the public. Park that boat Five miles of Columbia River (river mile 70 at Cottonwood Island to river mile 75 at the Port of Kalama marina) will be closed to all boats, except those authorized to be moored at a permanent dock, from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. May 21. Notification patrols start May 20. The Coast Guard and marine units from seven Oregon and Washington counties will hunt down sightseers. Violators probably won't get a shot across the bow, but they will be escorted from the closure zone. Where the radioactive stuff is Since September 2003, the last of Trojan's radioactive spent fuel has resided in 34 concrete casks in a double-fenced area that officials say will be unaffected by the tower demolition. It could be there a long time 20 years or more before a federal repository is developed and starts accepting shipments. This one survives The newest large structure at the Trojan site is the office-style central building, and it gets diplomatic immunity from demolition plans. What exactly will become of the building and plant environs is not known; with heavy-duty power lines nearby, the area could someday become home to a power plant. PGE will continue to keep the site's park open to the public. Not a telescope The nuclear plant's containment building, with its astronomical- observatory shape, is the second-most distinctive building on the Trojan site. The building housed the reactor vessel, which held the nuclear fuel rods used to generate electricity. In 1999, the vessel was filled with 200 tons of low-density cellular concrete, covered with steel shielding and safely barged to a low-level waste disposal facility near Richland, Wash. The building is scheduled for demolition in 2008. Not domed, but doomed Once home to the steam turbine where Trojan produced its electricity, the turbine building, and three others clustered near the half-dome-shaped containment building, are scheduled for flattening by the end of 2007. One big piece of concrete: + Tower wall thickness: 18" to 10" to 45" (top to base) + Materials: 30,000 cubic yards of concrete, Double mat of steel reinforcing, Asbestos previously removed, No radioactive materials + Weight of collapsing materials: 41,000 tons equivalent to a 15-mile-long string of loaded semis. Swiss-cheesing the tower with 3,300 holes: + Placing dynamite for May 21's big show involved drilling holes in two bands, at the 100- and 250-foot levels, embracing 70 percent of the tower circumference. + Three vertical bands and several in secondary areas are designed to weaken the tower's south side. Explosives are also being placed in some of the tower's 88 concrete legs. + hain-link fencing covers the holes to reduce flying material. + 24-hour security is planned when explosives are on site. + Explosive charges are covered with two layers of chain-link fence and two layers of geotextile fiber. + All debris should be contained within close radius of tower base. + Steel will be recycled. + Concrete debris will be crushed to pieces 3 inches or smaller. + Debris will be stockpiled in tower area; potential uses include becoming base material for roads or parking lots. Blast from the past + Maryland-based Controlled Demolition Inc. has destroyed more than 7,000 structures since founder Jack Loizeaux turned his interest from forestry to flattening buildings, bridges, towers, chimneys, tanks and just about anything that can be pounded into submission with explosives. + Las Vegas' Landmark Hotel fainted like a $2 million jackpot winner in 1995. A string of the city's gaudy buildings has been blown up to make way for more. + March 2000: Seattle's Kingdome set a record for the largest structure by volume, at 19.8 million cubic meters to be felled by explosives. + The Keyspan gas holders, two 750-foot-tall tanks used to hold residential natural gas in Brooklyn, N.Y., were felled in 2001. + Some of CDI's work has made it into movies and music videos, including the former Orlando, Fla., city hall, for "Lethal Weapon 3," in 1991. Built it up, tear it down + May 1976: Trojan plant begins commercial operation. + Jan. 1993: Trojan is closed. + April 1996: Nuclear Regulatory Commission approves Trojan decommissioning plan. + August 1999: PGE transports nuclear reactor vessel to Hanford. + September 2003: Final spent fuel moved to storage yard at plant site's north end. + May 2005: Plant radiological decommissioning certified complete. + March 2006: Current phase of site demolition and restoration begins. + May 21, 2006: Cooling tower demolition. + Dec. 2007: Demolition of four-building "power block" to be completed. + Dec. 2008: Containment building demolition done. ©2006 Columbian.com. All Rights Reserved - ***************************************************************** 40 toledoblade.com: Industry ready to fuel nuclear power rebirth But is the U.S. willing to embrace a comeback? Sunday, May 14, 2006 Article published Sunday, May 14, 2006 [Photo] The Detroit Edison fermi II Nuclear Power Plant in Frenchtown Township, Michigan, show in 2001, is expected to be back at full power soon, after being offline for maintenance. ( ASSOCIATED PRESS ) By TOM HENRY BLADE STAFF WRITER Former Michigan Gov. John Engler is expected to help pump a little more life into America’s nuclear industry this Thursday when he delivers a pitch in San Francisco for more nuclear plants on behalf of the nation’s manufacturing sector. Mr. Engler, now president and chief executive officer of the Washington-based National Association of Manufacturers, is to address more than 350 executives, including those from the nation’s largest utilities, in the ballroom of the Fairmont San Francisco after taped video remarks by President Bush are aired that morning. The event, called the Nuclear Energy Assembly, is the annual conference of the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry’s chief lobbyist group on Capitol Hill. An NEI spokesman confirmed that it is paying to have Mr. Engler flown out to deliver the speech. He’s being courted for an obvious reason: To help the nuclear industry make a comeback. The industry has been struggling to overcome the stigma of the partial meltdown of the Three Mile Island Unit 2 reactor in Pennsylvania in 1979; this year’s 20th anniversary of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster near Kiev, Ukraine, and the near-rupture of the Davis-Besse nuclear reactor head 30 miles east of Toledo in 2002. The latter resulted in a $28 million fine Jan. 20 against FirstEnergy Corp., the largest in U.S. nuclear history, and federal indictments of three former employees whose cases may go to trial in Toledo this fall. Mr. Engler’s support — albeit a small part of the big picture — is the latest sign the campaign to revive the nuclear industry might just be getting some momentum. Less than three weeks ago, on April 24, the NEI announced the formation of the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition (CASEnergy) to ramp up its message. The coalition, funded by the NEI, has 50 charter member organizations, including Detroit Edison’s parent, DTE Energy; the U.S. Chamber of Commerce; Mr. Engler’s group, and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. FirstEnergy is not on the list. The significance of the CASEnergy announcement was the tandem who will serve as co-chairs: Christine Todd Whitman, a former New Jersey governor and the first U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administrator to serve under Mr. Bush, and Patrick Moore, a Greenpeace co-founder who has gained attention for his aggressive pursuit of more nuclear power as a means of addressing global warming. [Photo] Nuclear reactor operators work inside the control room at Davis Besse Nuclear Power Station in Oak Harbor. ( THE BLADE/LORI KING ) Engler pushing need for nuclear energy Mr. Engler declined to be interviewed about his upcoming speech. But his association’s Web site shows it will be at least the fourth he will have delivered about the general need for more energy since April 11. The San Francisco speech will be Mr. Engler’s first devoted exclusively to nuclear power on behalf of the National Association of Manufacturers, said his spokesman, Hank Cox, who provided a couple of snippets from past speeches that reveal Mr. Engler’s fundamental position. “The public is displaying a renewed willingness to consider nuclear power,” Mr. Engler said during an April 26 speech in Montgomery, Ala. On Nov. 15, 2005, while addressing a Rockwell Automation audience in St. Louis, Mr. Engler said nuclear energy “holds great promise as a clean, safe, unlimited source of power for our nation.” “We already produce one quarter of the world’s nuclear power,” he said. “We can do more.” Yes, America can produce more nuclear power. This nation invented it. But does it want to produce more? Costs, rather than rules, halted nuclear growth Contrary to what many people think, nuclear power didn’t become stagnant because of post-Three Mile Island regulations. Even the Nuclear Regulatory Commission — an agency rooted in promoting nuclear power itself back when it began as the Atomic Energy Commission — is quick to point out that Wall Street had a bigger influence. The last application to build a nuclear plant was submitted to the NRC months before the Three Mile Island accident. The construction era came to a halt because projects came in millions of dollars over budget. David Garman, a U.S. Department of Energy under secretary, has said that nuclear power is such a sensitive issue that many public utility boards know better than to put a discussion about new plant construction on their agenda. Doing so hurts their company stock, he said. Such fears haven’t discouraged Ms. Whitman or Mr. Moore. “Our country’s significant energy needs keep growing. We must diversify our energy sources to meet these needs,” Ms. Whitman said. Mr. Moore said nuclear power has proven itself “an environmentally sound and safe energy choice.” He advocates doubling America’s nuclear energy production to curb greenhouse gases that cause global warming. Nuclear provides 20 percent of the nation’s electricity and is second to coal, which produces half. Coal-fired power plants also are the largest source of greenhouse gases. Nuclear has its ownenvironmental hurdles While nuclear plants themselves release no greenhouse gases, the process of enriching uranium for their reactor fuel rods requires huge draws from the nation’s energy grid. Critics such as Dr. Helen Caldicott of the Physicians for Social Responsibility, a 1985 nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize, have told The Blade that the industry’s claim of being emissions-free is misleading because electricity from coal-fired power plants invariably is used to enrich the uranium. The nuclear industry also still has to overcome its biggest hurdle: Waste disposal. Spent reactor fuel rods are the only material in civilian hands classified as high-level radioactive waste. Nevada’s Yucca Mountain has crossed many of the regulatory hurdles to become the federal disposal site. But it is still years away from being developed, if it ever is. Mr. Moore left Greenpeace in 1986. His old group pre-empted the announcement about his pairing with Ms. Whitman by issuing a report that alleges America has had 200 “near-misses” since the Chernobyl explosion. The 2002 incident at Davis-Besse was ranked No. 1. Jim Riccio, Greenpeace’s nuclear policy analyst in Washington, said the industry’s safety record is far from stellar, despite fewer documented injuries compared to some other major industries. He said high-end construction and maintenance costs for new nuclear plants will continue to be the greatest deterrent. “For the first time in history, nuclear plants have to be competitive, and they’re not,” Mr. Riccio said. He said deregulation does not allow state public service commissions to pass along construction costs to ratepayers as the agencies did in the past. The NEI refutes such claims. On Sept. 8, its senior director of business and environmental policy, Richard Myers, told the World Nuclear Association that the industry will prevail because it has “worked to peel apart systematically the risks and business issues that exist at each stage of project development..” Mr. Bush and his allies, including U.S. Rep. George Voinovich (R., Ohio), continue to play key roles. Mr. Voinovich has co-sponsored and helped push for legislation aimed at rejuvenating the nuclear industry, including the reauthorization of the 1957 Price-Anderson Act that put a cap on a utility’s liability in the event of anaccident. Through his position on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Mr. Voinovich has been a proponent of streamlining regulations and in bringing back retired NRC employees at full pay as consultants to help the agency maintain some of its institutional knowledge. Edward McGaffigan, a Democrat and one of five NRC board members, acknowledged some of the agency’s shortcomings as a government watchdog. He said it learned a hard lesson from — and was embarrassed by — the Davis-Besse debacle. “I think [the public] knows that if we screw up, that’ll be the end of the nuclear renaissance,” he said. Contact Tom Henry at:thenry@theblade.comor 419-724-6079. The Toledo Blade Company, 541 N. Superior St., Toledo, OH 43660 , (419) 724-6000 ***************************************************************** 41 CNW Telbec: B Canada Signs Nuclear Services Contract for Bruce Power Restart Project 14 mai 2006 RECHERCHE Attention Business Editors: CAMBRIDGE, ON, May 12 /CNW/ - Babcock & Wilcox Canada has signed a multi- million dollar contract with Bruce Power for nuclear services on Units 1 and 2 steam drums and preheaters to determine overall condition in support of the restart and continued operation of the units. The scope of work involves the preparation of all required documentation, equipment, tooling, and personnel to execute the following: - open and close of Units 1 and 2 steam drums and detailed visual inspection of steam drum internal components, open and close of the Units 1 and 2 preheaters - design, manufacture, and installation of replacement preheater divider plate assemblies - Eddy Current Testing of preheater tubes - visual inspection of internal preheater components This detailed inspection and condition assessment will provide Bruce Power with the technical data needed to establish preventative maintenance and future inspection programs to support plant operations for a number of years. The project involves approximately 50,000 manhours with anticipated completion in mid 2007. "B Canada is the original equipment supplier for the steam drums, steam generators, and preheaters," says George Ulman, Project Manager. "We have the engineering and site execution expertise to support Bruce Power on this scope of work." B will be working closely with AMEC-NCL, the company responsible for the overall project management, to coordinate the work execution and administrative processes. B Canada is also manufacturing 16 replacement steam generators for the Restart Project (as previously announced). The RSGs will be engineered and manufactured at B Canada's Cambridge, Ontario, facility and are scheduled for delivery to the Bruce A site between 2007 and 2008. Engineering, material procurement and manufacturing are already underway. B also has the contract for the supply, installation and removal of the containment isolation bulkheads for the Restart Project. Bruce Power is located on the eastern shore of Lake Huron, north of Kincardine, Ontario. The Bruce A and B stations each consist of four CANDU pressurized heavy water nuclear reactors. Unit 1 and Unit 2, each rated at 769 MWe capacity, were taken out of service in 1997 and 1995 respectively. Restarting of Bruce A Unit 1 and Unit 2 will generate additional clean electricity output to serve the Ontario market. More information on the Restart Project can be found at www.brucepower.com. Babcock & Wilcox Canada Ltd. serves North American electric utility and industrial markets and the global nuclear utility market. Based in Cambridge, Ontario, it is a wholly-owned subsidiary of The Babcock & Wilcox Company in Barberton, Ohio, which is an operating unit of McDermott International, Inc. (NYSE:MDR). Babcock & Wilcox Canada is located on the Internet at www.babcock.com/bwc. For further information: Media Contact: Yvette Amor, Manager, PR & Communications, Babcock & Wilcox Canada, (519) 621-2130 ext. 2416, YAmor@babcock.com © 2005 Groupe CNW Ltée ***************************************************************** 42 Xinhua: Zambian govt urged to map out nuclear policy www.xinhuanet.com www.chinaview.cn 2006-05-13 16:14:35 LUSAKA, May 13 (Xinhua -- Zambia needs to develop a nuclear policy to determine how the recently discovered uranium could be used, Energy Regulation Board (ERB) of Zambia has said. Saturday Post quoted ERB infrastructure and operations regulations director Kenneth Kangende as saying here earlier this week that the formulation of the nuclear policy will give the country a framework on the effective usage of uranium. Uranium deposits were recently detected in North-Western province, which has recorded increased mining operations. Kangende said the discovery of the uranium could be beneficial to the southern African country through power generation and exports. "A policy will guide the country on whether to use the uranium locally or to export the commodity," the director said. Enditem Editor: Yang Li Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 43 Xinhua: China's largest nuclear generator joins power grid www.xinhuanet.com www.chinaview.cn 2006-05-14 21:34:46 by Xinhua writer An Bei BEIJING, May 14 (Xinhua) -- China's largest nuclear power generator has been connected to the national power grid, the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) announced Saturday. The trial launch of the No.1 generator of Tianwan Nuclear Station in Lianyungang City, east China's Jiangsu Province, marked the success of the largest cooperation project between China and Russia. The generator is expected to go into commercial operation at the end of this year. The No.2 generator has been completed and is expected to begin generating power later this year. Both have an installed capacity of 1.06 million kilowatts. In this sense, the two generators at Tianwan will raise the installed capacity by 2.12 million kilowatts in the east China area, which boasts the fastest economic growth in the country. When the two generators go into commercial operation, they are expected to boost China's nuclear power capacity by 30 percent from the current 7 million kilowatts to more than 9.1 million kilowatts, said a CNNC statement. The construction of Tianwan Nuclear Power Station began in 1999, costing 26.5 billion yuan (3.3 billion U.S. dollars). The two generators feature Russian pressurized-water technology. The connection of the No.1 generator to the power grid demonstrated the strategic partnership between China and Russia, said Sergei Razov, Russia's ambassador to China. The advanced technology is said to be more secure than most pressurized-water facilities. In additional to traditional energy resources, the Chinese government is relying more on nuclear power to cope with the rising energy demand of its booming economy. In its 11th Five-Year Plan for economic and social development from 2006 to 2010, the Chinese government opted for a "positive" nuclear power development strategy. In a longer plan, nuclear capacity will reach 40 million kilowatts by 2020, or four percent of the total national capacity. Excluding the two in Tianwan, China has nine nuclear generators in commercial operation with a total capacity of 7 million kilowatts, but the potential for growth is attracting international firms such as U.S.-based Westinghouse, France's Areva and Russia's AtomStroyExport (ASE). Razov said that the two new generators are a sound basis for Russia to participate in more projects in China. The No.3 and No.4 generators at Tianwan are still out to tenderas part of the second phase of the station. Safety is the chief principle for Tianwan Nuclear Power Station, said an official with the CNNC. Enditem Editor: Liu Dan Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 44 Xinhua: China's largest nuclear generator connected to power grid www.xinhuanet.com www.chinaview.cn 2006-05-13 23:07:57 By Xinhua writer An Bei ¡¡ BEIJING, May 13 (Xinhua) -- China's largest nuclear power generator has been connected to the national grid, the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) announced Saturday. The trial launch of the number one generator of Tianwan Nuclear Station in Lianyungang city, Jiangsu Province, marked the success of the largest cooperation project between China and Russia. The generator is expected to go into commercial operation at the end of this year. The number two generator, which has the same installed capacity of 1.06 megawatts (MW) has been completed and is expected to begin generating later this year. When both are in commercial operation, they are expected to boost China's nuclear power capacity by 30 percent from the current seven MW to over 9.1 MW, said a CNNC statement. The two generators at Tianwan are expected to produce 2.12 MW each year for east China, which boasts the fastest economic growth in the country. The construction of Tianwan Nuclear Power Station began in 1999 and has cost 26.5 billion yuan (3.3 billion US dollars). Both generators feature Russian pressurized-water technology. The connection of the number one generator to the grid reflected the strategic partnership between China and Russia, said Sergei Razov, Russia's ambassador to China. The advanced technology was more secure than most pressurized-water facilities. The Chinese government is relying on nuclear power to meet the rising energy demands of its booming economy. In its 11th Five-year Project for economic and social development from 2006 to 2010, the government opted for a "positive" nuclear power development strategy. Under the plan, nuclear capacity is to reach 40 MW, accounting for four percent of the total national capacity. China has nine nuclear generators in commercial operation with a total capacity of seven MW, but the potential for growth is attracting interest from international firms such as US-based Westinghouse, France's Areva and Russia's AtomStroyExport (ASE). Razov said the two new generators were a sound basis for Russia to participate in more projects in China. The number three and four generators at Tianwan are still out to tender as part of the second phase of the station. Safety was the chief principle for Tianwan Nuclear Power Station, said an official with the CNNC. Enditem Editor: Wang Nan Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 45 THERECORD.COM: INSIDER | Harvesting the WIND Fledgling industry spins forward in Ontario BOB BURTT ROBERT WILSON, RECORD STAFF Wind towers dot the rural landscape of Dufferin County, north and east of Waterloo Region. Darlene and Arley Leader have four wind turbines on their Melancthon Township farm, northeast of Waterloo Region in Dufferin County. Canadian Hydro Developers Inc. of Calgary has built 45 wind-power towers in the area. RECORD STAFF. Phil Schiedel stands below a prototype wind turbine on his property near Ayr. He plans to sell the electricity it produces to Ontario Power Generation. The Melancthon One wind farm spreads across two Dufferin County townships in the area of Shelburne. (May 13, 2006) Darlene Leader sits on a deck at her family farm near Shelburne, north of Orangeville in Dufferin County. She watches as the huge blades of four giant wind turbines slowly turn. Critics say they are noisy, but on this day, the sound, if there's any, is negligible. The four white towers on the 500-acre Leader property are part of a 45-tower operation in Melancthon and Amaranth townships that represents the first large-scale wind farm in Ontario. Supporters say it's an indication that wind energy is finally being taken seriously in the province. Some, in fact, see it as the best bet to revive Ontario's struggling rural economies. Darlene and Arley Leader expect to collect as much as $30,000 a year from Calgary-based Canadian Hydro Developers Inc., the firm behind the venture. Already they believe harvesting the wind is apt to be more profitable in future than raising crops or cattle. Battered by two years of concern over mad cow disease and by U.S. farm subsidies that are leaving many Canadian farmers unable to compete, they say any new income source is welcome. The Leaders run a cow-calf operation and rent part of their land to a potato farmer. Both drive school buses to help pay the bills. "It's a lot of land and a lot of work and at the end of year you are doing it for nothing," Darlene Leader says. "We have really low debt, but still can't make enough money to live off the farm. We are getting 1979 prices for our crops and you know what fuel and fertilizer and machinery cost. "There's no way you can keep up. We're just riding a wave now. We drive a 10-year-old truck and we can't see any sense in putting $50,000 into a new one or buying new machinery. It's really sad." Wind, on the other hand, is the fastest growing energy source in Canada. At least six major wind farms are either built or are about to be built in Ontario and the fledgling industry shows the potential of becoming a significant force -- both as a business opportunity and a means of generating clean electricity. Look at the economic impact that one project -- the 45-tower Melancthon One project -- is having, according to a study done by Canadian Hydro: An initial investment of $126 million was required, about $16.2 million of which was spent locally. Each wind tower will generate payments of between $5,500 and $7,500 per year in royalty payments to property owners. The project is expected to generate enough power to provide electricity for 25,000 homes. 24 kilometres of roads were built on farms to provide access to the turbines and two kilometres of existing roads were upgraded. Canadian Hydro expects to spend $3.2 million a year on operating costs (not including royalties) of which $1.16 million is expected to be spent locally. About 45 person-years of employment were generated in Melancthon Township and surrounding areas during construction. Canadian Hydro will pay $196,955 in property taxes. Of that, $41,720 goes to Melancthon and the rest goes to nearby Amaranth Township, Dufferin County and county school boards. Canadian Hydro built 55 kilometres of power lines. Melancthon Township Mayor Gerry Mathews says the wind farm is the biggest economic boon the township has experienced. "A couple trucking and construction companies told me they would have gone under if it weren't for this. We have gravel pits in the area and they had trucks on the road like you wouldn't believe. They hauled gravel from June to September. "They (Canadian Hydro) used local companies to put the lines up and there were big contracts for concrete. Mathews says the projects have also helped area farm people by providing a new source of income. "A lot of my neighbours have lost their farms and a lot more are just hanging on. There used to be a lot of beef farms and now I'm the only one in my area." Mathews didn't take part in the debate when the wind farm was discussed by township councillors. He had a conflicting interest because he has a turbine on his own farm. The mayor knows that not everybody is happy with the township's newest business. He fields complaints about noise, and about lights at night. He also hears concerns that Canadian Hydro doesn't pay enough municipal taxes. And the critics do have a point about taxes, Mathews says. For tax purposes, he notes, the towers are assessed at a value of $40,000 each -- even though they cost $2 million to put up. "We (the township) get about $600 (for each tower), but they have improved a lot of roads. They helped the township that way." For Canadian Hydro, the wind farm represents a huge investment, but one that should generate profits. And for the Ontario government, the Melancthon One project is one piece in a puzzle it must solve in order to shut down the province's dirty coal- burning power plants. The province has made a big commitment to wind power and is hoping it will pay off with years of clean power at a stable price. € Melancthon Township farmer John Parr fears the day will come when the township regrets approving the wind farm project -- as well as others yet to come. "It is a massive project for the township and there are too many concerns that no one seems able to answer," Parr says. He says he scrutinized plans for the wind farm before it was built and read extensively about impact such projects have had in other places. Now he doesn't like the picture he sees unfolding. Studies in other areas have determined that communities with wind farms have seen property values slip and have reported a higher incidence of problems, including vibration caused by low-frequency sounds and mental health problems associated with depression, anxiety and suicide. Parr said he also thinks the township negotiated a poor deal with the Canadian Hydro. "In the beginning, there was an understanding that we were going to get a massive amount of tax dollars. And then the province set the assessment for the turbines. That was a real kick in the ass for the community." Parr says many people feel the community is being taken advantage of, but agrees they aren't apt to show up at township council meetings. "The people who are pissed off don't show up council meetings. Our community had a 24-per-cent voter turnout in the last municipal election. Most of the people are so grossed out by what goes on all the time that they don't participate." Parr also anticipates rifts developing between residents who are for and against the wind farm. "At the end of the day, these big monsters will be up, their lights will be flashing and Canadian Hydro will have gone back to Alberta or wherever they go and we'll be left with neighbours hating neighbours." Parr thinks the township should have taken more time to assess the experience after Melancthon One before plowing ahead with the second phase. Instead, he says, the first phase was no sooner up than approvals were being sought for the second phase. Had there been time, community members would have been able to determine if this is really what they want. € Tom Adams, executive director of Energy Probe, a Toronto-based consulting company interested in energy issues, says he's a big fan of wind farms and other forms of renewable energy, but that the province's Liberal government is going about it all wrong. Adams says that by the province ensuring a rate of 11 cents per kilowatt for wind energy, the province has eliminated any need for companies to compete -- or any ability for consumers to enjoy lower prices. His primary complaint, Adams says, is that the price is higher than what has been available on the open market. Instead, the goal should be to deliver energy at the lowest possible cost. "If renewable energy always comes at a premium, the market becomes kind of a ghetto. "If wind power is always an exotic, costly and unreliable source of electricity preferred by wonks, counter- culture people and enthusiasts, it will never really go anywhere and it risks a rebellion from consumers." Moreover, says Adams, neither nuclear or wind energy will fill the void caused by shutting down coal-burning plants. Coal has the advantage of being ramped up or down to meet variable demand -- something neither nuclear or wind projects can do. "When the minister (Ontario Energy Minister Donna Cansfield) talks about wind-power procurement and the standard offer program to replace coal, its just nonsense. "It is either a reflection of profound ignorance on the part of the minister about how the power system works or it is the special kind of truth we call politics." Adams says Ontario power users have higher costs and blackouts to look forward to in the future as a result of choices the government is making. He favours wind and other forms of renewable energy, but is opposed to subsidies or price guarantees and doesn't believe that co-ops or small operators can ever be truly competitive with big producers. € Capturing energy from the wind isn't a new technology. The Germans and Danes have been doing it for years. In Germany, the use of steel for manufacturing of wind turbines is second only to use for auto manufacturing. And Denmark gets 20 per cent of its energy from the wind. But in Canada, the old technology is gaining new popularity. But even so, it has far to go to be in the same league as many European nations. Today, wind energy accounts for only one half of one per cent of all of electricity produced in the country, according to statistics from the Canadian Wind Energy Association. And among provinces, Ontario lags behind Quebec and some western provinces. That's changing fast, however. Ontario wants to have 15 per cent of its power coming from the wind by 2025. To encourage this, it has given wind power a premium price of 11 cents per kilowatt hour. That's considerably more than the rates that Ontario Power Generation gets from the province for the electricity it produces. That agency gets 4.95 cents per kilowatt hour for nuclear power, 3.3 cents for hydro (water-driven turbines) power and 4.7 for power creating by burning fossil fuels such as coal. Proponents of renewable energy argue the numbers aren't a fair comparison because they don't take into account subsidies and the environmental costs of traditional sources of energy. Neil Freeman, director of planning policy with the Ontario Power Authority, says there are limits on how much wind power can be incorporated into the Ontario energy mix. The Ontario Power Authority is a provincial agency with the responsibility to ensure the province has an adequate supply of electricity. "Wind is good energy because it is a free source, but it doesn't always blow. So you need other sources you can fire up when the wind doesn't blow or when it blows too hard." Freeman said the authority is looking for ways to get wind power above the 15 per cent goal, but in doing so must ensure that reliability isn't compromised. Robert Hornung, president of the Canadian Wind Energy Association, says that the amount of windpower that Canada can generate is expected to increase 10-fold over the next couple years. But even then, wind will only provide three per cent of the electricity Canada needs. That compares with six per cent in Germany, eight per cent in Spain and almost 20 per cent in Denmark. "So even with phenomenal growth it is not going to make us world leaders or anything, but if you look at what's projected in the next 10 years, wind will account for 15 to 20 per cent coming from new facilities." And considering what's installed and what's planned, Ontario will surpass other provinces and be a leader in Canada, at least for a number of years. Hornung notes wind is the fastest growing energy source in the world. "There really has been a mind shift away from thinking of wind as this environmentally friendly source that will be able to marginally contribute to Canada's electricity. Now it is a major industrial opportunity." Hornung also said he sees the potential for the manufacturing of parts for wind turbines to become an important industry in Canada. In a small way, that started when companies began making blades and assembling nacelles (the structures that house the generator and mechanical works at the top of the towers) in Quebec and another firm has announced plans to build towers at Fort Erie in the Niagara Peninsula. That's only part of what's required, but the decisions indicate a growing level of interest, Hornung says. The Fort Erie plant alone will employ 100 when it opens, he notes. More than 100,000 people work in the wind industry in Germany, Spain and Denmark, he said. Ironically, the increasing popularity of wind as an energy source could delay the start of projects because of the backlog of orders for wind turbines. Most of the parts for turbines being built in Canada now come from Europe or the United States. But the existing firms can't keep up with the exploding global market and are being pressed to expand. When they do build new plants, the firms will weigh Canada against a number of other countries in deciding where to invest in plants. "In terms off sheer market size, Canada will have trouble competing against China, but Canada has an advantage because of its educated and skilled workforce," Hornung says. € Across Ontario, several wind farms are in various stages of construction. In addition to the Melancthon One project, they include: Erie Shores Wind Farm at Port Burwell, south of Tillsonburg. Prince Wind Farm, near Sault Ste. Marie. Blue Highlands Wind Farm at Blue Mountains, near Collingwood. Kingsbridge Wind Power Project, near Goderich on Lake Huron. So far, large players are dominating the field, but they aren't alone. Co-ops interested in developing wind farms are springing up. In Perth County, Countryside Energy Co-operative Inc. is a Milverton- based organization with plans to harness wind power, reduce pollution and pump money into rural communities. General Manager Doug Fyfe said he hopes construction starts by the spring of 2008 on the first of two 10- megawatt wind farms, each of which will require an investment of $20 million. Fyfe says there is much investor interest in both projects, one to go at Goderich and a second near Milverton. In some areas, co-ops are competing for sites with large companies such as Canadian Hydro. The difference between the two isn't lost on Fyfe. "We are going to have local investors and the vast majority of the money will go to local investors and that money circulates eight times within the community." Fyfe doesn't see a problem attracting investors. Countryside Energy now has more than 57 members and a lot of people were interested even before the campaign to raise funds started. "People see it as the way forward. They are tired of getting smogged out and oil prices are making people think. We can offer energy at stable prices and no pollution," he says. Closer to home in Waterloo Region, a Baden-based co-op called LIFE (Local Initiative for Future Energy) plans to build a $20-million, 10-megawatt wind farm on Erb Street west of Waterloo. It's selling memberships for $175 and shares for $50. LIFE president Linda Laepple said her group hopes to raise half of the money it needs through investors and get the rest at banks or credit unions. She said she figures that with prices set by the province, the venture should pay for itself in seven to 11 years. Unfortunately, says Laepple, local opportunities are limited. There aren't that many prime sites for wind in this area and there is already competition for what sites there are. Laepple's group is now testing its proposed site to make sure it has the potential to produce power. It's important, she says, for wind farms to be close to where the power will be used because as much as 20 per cent of the power can be lost in transmission over long distances. Laepple said she figures the LIFE project will produce enough power from five 10-megawatt turbines to provide electricity for 4,000 homes. € Hans Ohlmann hopes wind power will help him to get back on his feet financially. Until recently, his Ayr-based company, Ventax Robot Inc., manufactured robotic equipment for the automotive industry. But the downturn in the auto industry has left Ohlmann saddled with a huge debt and no business. He now believes his future rests in wind energy and has invented a wind turbine that's dramatically different from those used on wind farms now. Ohlmann holds an U.S. patent on what he calls a vertical axis wind turbine, a system he says is more efficient and avoids many of the disadvantages of the more traditional turbines. Ohlmann says he needs to attract an investor or investors before going into production, but anticipates a day when he has a plant producing turbines and a workforce of up to 150 people. Phil Schiedel, a longtime renewable-energy enthusiast, was so impressed with Ohlmann's design he contracted with him to erect a prototype on his property, not far from Ayr. Schiedel hopes to have his turbine operating by the end of July and his timing appears to be good following the Ontario government's decision to pay independent producers 11 cents per kilowatt for wind power energy that is directed back to the provincial power grid. "We knew there would be things in the works and felt it (wind) is an up and coming thing," Schiedel said. "Environmentally, it makes sense to use renewable resources. The wind is always there and it will be there and your not using fossil fuels." Schiedel says he also hopes to install solar panels. "That would give me a complete package." In addition to guaranteeing the price for wind power, the Ontario government is offering 42 cents for each kilowatt generated from solar energy. Wind and solar energy systems complement each other. That's because when one system isn't working, the other likely is. WIND FACTS About 23 per cent of Ontario's power came from renewable energy sources in 2005, most of that from hydro (water-driven) power plants. Use of power from renewable sources is expected to grow to 40 per cent by 2015. Wind power today accounts for about one half of one per cent of Ontario's electricity. The Ontario Power Authority hopes that grows to 15 per cent by 2025. Nuclear energy accounted for 51 per cent of Ontario electricity in 2005. That's expected to remain about the same through 2025. Ontario has 15 megawatts of installed wind-power capacity now and expects to have over 1,300 megawatts by the end of 2008. The Canadian Wind Energy Association estimates Northern Quebec alone has wind capacity to produce 40 per cent of Canada's electricity needs, but experts believe the most that could be incorporated into the grid would be 20 per cent. At the beginning of 2004, Canada had about 327 megawatts of installed wind power, enough to supply electricity to 100,000 homes. Producing that much power from conventional coal-fired plants would put 850,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide into the earth's atmosphere. The Sierra Club of Canada estimates energy conservation efforts saved the average California family $1,000 on electricity bills in 2004 and prevented more than 16 million tonnes of carbon dioxide from being pumped into the atmosphere -- equal to taking 12 million cars off the road. 160 King St. East, Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, N2G 4E5 519-894-2231 [Torstar Digital] [City Media Group] ***************************************************************** 46 Daily News: Meet Trojan's demolition crew By Barbara LaBoe May 13, 2006 - 11:49:01 pm PDT The problem? "We're boring," said Stacey Loizeaux, the 35-year-old head of publicity for the family-owned Controlled Demolition Inc. and a certified blaster. If there's one thing she could do, she said, it would be to stomp out the cowboy image people associate with her work. "(Television producers) talk about 'Dog the Bounty Hunter,' " she said, referring to the popular show about a colorful bounty hunter. "But that's just not us. We're the most laid back, reasonable people." Their jobs certainly aren't laid back, though. What started as a stump removal business in the 1940s is now an international corporation that created and continues to prefect the art of taking down buildings with a minimum of dust and fuss. Next Sunday, the Loizeauxs will add the Trojan Nuclear Plant cooling tower near Rainier to their list, which already includes the Seattle Kingdome, the bomb-damaged Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City and several world records. World-record holders Controlled Demolition Inc. claims several implosion records: Seattle Kingdome -- March 26, 2000 The world's largest structure by volume (19,821 million cubic meters) to be demolished by explosives. J.L. Hudson Department Store -- Oct. 24, 1998, Detroit, Mich. At 439 feet tall, this was the tallest building and the tallest steel structure ever imploded. At 2.2 million square feet, Hudson's also is the largest single building ever imploded. Villa Panamericana &Las Orquideas -- Aug. 16, 1998, San Juan, Puerto Rico The most buildings (17) shot in a single implosion sequence. Omega Radio Tower -- June 23, 1998, Trelew, Argentina The tallest man-made structure -- 1,201 feet, 5 inches -- ever felled with explosives. Source: CDI Web site They've been featured in numerous documentaries -- it's likely the Trojan project will be filmed, as well -- and also help blow things up for TV commercials and movies. A coffee table book about the family's work, "Demolition: The Art of Demolishing, Dismantling, Imploding, Toppling and Razing," was published in 2000. "My dad and mom really started an industry," said company president Mark Loizeaux, project manager of the Trojan project. "They really changed the landscape." Bing, Bang, Boom Patriarch Jack Loizeaux (pronounced Lo-WAH-zoe) learned about explosives as a forestry major because stump removal was part of the job. It was when he watched a blaster change the course of a river as a student, though, that explosives really caught his attention. He loved the idea of using explosives as a tool rather than a weapon, his granddaughter Stacey said. But it wasn't until a farmer asked if he could apply his stump removal technique to an old chimney that Jack Loizeaux turned his eyes toward demolition. Figuring a chimney was just a large brick tree, he decided all he had to do was take a notch out of it and then blow the legs on the side he wanted it to fall, Stacey Loizeaux said. Soon, others were calling for his explosive expertise, "And bing, bang, boom, word travels fast and he got a call from Washington, D.C., asking if he could take down a building," Stacey Loizeaux said. He said no, but his wife, Freddie, convinced him to try. Freddie Loizeaux was the driving force behind the company's early publicity forays and is credited with coining the term "implosion." It didn't work the first time Jack Loizeaux tried it, but it did the second. The year was 1947 and the CDI company was born. Today it employs 15 people in its Phoenix, Md., headquarters (international agents also help coordinate jobs) and workers travel the globe taking down buildings. Costs and profits are tightly guarded in the implosion business, but an industry expert says it's definitely profitable. Between four or five implosion companies split about $20 million a year, said Mike Taylor, head of the Pennslyvania-based National Demolition Association. Portland General Electric is paying $3.9 million for the tower implosion, which includes security, the implosion itself and other contract specifics, said spokesman Scott Simms. A few years after the first building was imploded, a young Mark Loizeaux -- now 58 -- started stowing away in his father's truck to go to job sites. Later, he ran the movie cameras that captured some of that early work for posterity. Whenever mailboxes in their neighborhood were damaged, the Loizeaux boys were always busted because they'd done such a clean job, added Doug Loizeaux, Mark's brother, the company vice president and owner of Boomer, a dog found on a blast site. "We get paid very well today to live out our childhood fantasies," he joked during a media tour of viewing site in Kalama. Stacey Loizeaux loaded a Mexican earthquake-damaged building with explosives at age 15. There are five family members on the CDI staff full-time and several more relatives lend a hand on the final days of a big job. "We all grew up in it whether we wanted to or not," Stacey Loizeaux said. "Dynamite was a regular word at our dinner table." 3,300 sticks of dynamite Next Sunday, much of the Loizeaux family will be on hand to bid farewell to the Trojan tower. (Founders Jack and Freddie Loizeaux are both deceased). The 499-foot tall structure will implode and crumble to the southeast using the "notch" system created by Jack Loizeaux 59 years ago. Total time? Eight seconds. They'll use 3,300 sticks of dynamite, but Mark Loizeaux said it will be physics that will really bring the building down. Once the notch and legs are blown, the building will "tear itself apart" in midair. Implosion is safer than other demolition methods, Stacey Loizeaux said, because no one has to be on site while the building is coming down. If there are neighbors to worry about, one implosion also creates less dust and noise than several weeks of demolition, she said. Mark Loizeaux said noise, ground movement and dust from the Trojan implosion will be minimal -- most neighbors won't even feel it. The Loizeaux family's work is a unusual legacy, because if it is done right there's literally nothing left to show for it. "It's not like being an architect where you take the kids and show them 'I built that,'" said Mark Loizeaux, an avid gardener his daughter describes as a Renaissance man. "Instead it's 'I created that hole. Or I made space for that.' " Still, Stacey Loizeaux -- who tried waitressing and singing in a band before coming back to the family business -- says she can't imagine her relatives doing anything but blowing up buildings. A good crew is full of confident people who trust each other with their lives, she said, so perhaps it's not surprising CDI is a family business. That and the fact the family seems to have inherited the moxie to wrestle steel and concrete buildings to the ground. "Most people don't have the balls to try," she said. So much for boring. © 2006 The Daily News Lee Publications, Inc. Contact Us 770-11th Avenue P.O. Box 189 Longview, WA 98632 360-577-2500 webmaster@tdn.com ***************************************************************** 47 Daily News: 'Simpsons' keeps Trojan tower legacy alive ... or does it? By Barbara LaBoe May 13, 2006 - 11:51:52 pm PDT Say it ain't so, Homer! As the Lower Columbia region readies for the May 21 implosion of the Trojan Nuclear Plant's cooling tower, a long held-belief about its brush with television fame may crumble along with it. Many -- in the region and throughout the Internet -- have long claimed that Trojan was the inspiration for the nuclear power plant where Homer Simpson munches donuts and naps while he's supposed to be monitoring control panels. The tale makes sense, because the show's creator, Matt Groening, grew up in Portland, less than an hour away from the cooling tower that dominates the landscape along Interstate 5. There are several other Portland or Oregon references in "The Simpsons," so why not Oregon's only nuclear plant? It's also been reported as fact by numerous newspapers (even "A y Caramba!" this one) and on countless fan websites and Simpsons trivia lists. It's even listed in the on-line Wikipedia encyclopedia (wikipedia.org). The listing states "The design and folly of Springfield Nuclear Power Plant is based on the real life Trojan Nuclear Power Plant near Matt Groening's home town of Portland, Oregon." Reference.com hedges its bets and says there's "speculation" of a Trojan-Simpsons connection. Another fan/trivia site -- http://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2002/10/msg04556.html-- pooh-poohs the notion that Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania inspired Groening, because everyone knows that Trojan claims that honor. But Groening's publicist, contacted to get his thoughts about the implosion, said the Simpsons-Trojan lore is just plain bunk. "No, the Springfield Nuclear Power plant was not based on the Trojan Plant or any other power plant in the country. Generic, basically," was the response from Antonia Coffman, a Simpsons executive consultant and Groening's media contact. Coffman's been called by numerous reporters as the implosion nears, but she said she tells them all the same thing: Groening isn't available for interviews and the myth is false. Still, while the tower soon will be history, based on the fan sites and trivia lists it's a good bet the false Trojan tale will linger even after the tower is gone. "D'oh!" © 2006 The Daily News Lee Publications, Inc. 770-11th Avenue P.O. Box 189 Longview, WA 98632 360-577-2500 • webmaster@tdn.com ***************************************************************** 48 AFP: Heightened activity at North Korean nuclear plant Sun May 14, 6:27 AM ET SEOUL (AFP) - New satellite photographs show intensified activity at a North Korean nuclear plant suspected of producing weapons-grade plutonium. The Yonhap news agency published satellite images taken by Global Security (www.globalsecurity.org) on January 5 of the Yongbyon site. Compared with photos taken previously, the latest images showed not only new vehicles, containers and paved roads but also thicker plumes of smoke from the reactor chimney. "The satellite photos ... strongly indicate that the reactor is in full operation," Yonhap said Sunday. The Yongbyon site is at the center of a standoff over the Stalinist state's nuclear ambitions because its five-megawatt reactor is suspected of producing plutonium for nuclear weapons. US and South Korean intelligence believes the reactor is capable of producing at least six kilograms (13.2 pounds) of plutonium -- needed to make one nuclear bomb -- every year, according to Yonhap. The Yongbyon reactor was mothballed after a 1994 US-North Korean agreement on curbing the nuclear programme. It was reactivated in February 2003 following a renewed nuclear crisis. North Korea" /> North Koreasaid in February 2005 that it had built nuclear weapons. Six-nation talks aimed at ending its nuclear weapons drive have been stalled since November due to the North's boycott of the negotiations in protest at US financial sanctions. Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 49 The Sunday Times: The nuclear lobbyist plugged into Labour May 14, 2006 Robert Winnett and Tracey Boles WITHIN days of taking office, new ministers can expect the letter to arrive. "I am delighted at your appointment," reads one such note sent to a new culture minister five days after the 2005 general election. "The prime minister has indicated that the historic third term will deliver a radical agenda, no more so [than] in the areas covered by your portfolio. I am sure you will rise to the challenges presented on this occasion." "Please do not hesitate to contact me if you feel that I can be of assistance in any way . . . Kind regards, Alan." The Alan who pens the letters is not a friendly government colleague but Alan Donnelly, executive chairman of Sovereign Strategy - the Blairite lobbyist of choice. Donnelly, a former Labour MEP, has a contacts book that most lobbyists could only dream of and his "events" are attended by cabinet ministers up to and including Tony Blair himself. The recipient of the letter seen by The Sunday Times was James Purnell, a former special adviser to Blair in Downing Street, who became an MP in 2001 and tourism minister last year. Purnell, a staunch Blairite, is typical of those whom Donnelly targets. The lobbyist has made his name through his contacts with Blair and other senior Labour figures. However, it is his links to David Miliband, one of the prime minister's prot‚g‚s who was promoted to environment secretary in the recent reshuffle, that are now placing the lobbyist's activities under scrutiny. Donnelly is the chairman of Miliband's constituency association and his firm recently helped to contribute towards the cost of refurbishing the minister's constituency headquarters on Tyneside. Yesterday Donnelly insisted that the money was used only to upgrade a kitchen in an area not rented directly by Miliband, but used by local Labour party workers. Miliband's office said that the whole building had been refurbished but the payment for this was a matter for the local constituency. The local constituency incorrectly claimed that the work had been "paid for" by the South Shields Labour party. The payment is an embarrassment for Miliband, who was charged on Friday by Blair with solving Britain's impending energy crisis - a decision which looks set to hand billions of pounds in business to the nuclear industry, which Donnelly helps to represent. Donnelly is the founder of an organisation which promotes the interests of the nuclear industry while Sovereign Strategy represents the Fluor Corporation, one of the world's biggest nuclear companies. The lobbyist has been a Blair loyalist since the prime minister first decided to stand for the Labour leadership. In 1998 Donnelly was made leader of the Labour group of MEPs but resigned two years later. He then founded Sovereign Strategy, which boasts that it offers "pathways to the decision makers in national governments" and provides "high-level briefings on domestic public policy". Such advice is invaluable to multinational firms seeking to do business in Britain and his clients include the Premier League, Siemens Business Services, Premier Waste Management and Formula One Management. Last November Sovereign organised the "northeast economic forum" whose keynote speech was given by Blair. He was joined at the event by Miliband, Lord Adonis, an education minister, Peter Mandelson, the EU commissioner for trade, and Alan Milburn, a Blairite former cabinet minister. Last month Donnelly organised a lunch hosted by Alan Johnson, then trade and industry secretary, who was also playing a crucial role in the government's energy policy. Last year the firm persuaded Richard Caborn, the sports minister, to host a dinner at Durham County Cricket Club. Caborn is a crucial contact for the firm's sports clients and had two private meetings in 2004 and 2005 to discuss "motor sport" with Donnelly. The controversial "potential development" of Silverstone was also discussed. Sovereign is unusual among lobbying firms in donating money to the Labour party. It began donating in 2002 and has since given at least 14 gifts totalling œ77,573. Another senior lobbyist said: "Most people are terrified of doing that as they don't want to be accused of trying to buy access." Donnelly has also proved to be adept at hiring senior Labour figures as they leave government - most notably Lord Cunningham, former minister for the Cabinet Office. Lord Moonie, the former defence minister, and Milburn have also worked for the lobbyist. Cunningham is central to Donnelly's latest project - the Transatlantic Nuclear Energy Forum (Tanef). This was formed in September 2004 and shares the same offices and staff as Sovereign Strategy. Its "legislative chair" is Cunningham, who is paid by Sovereign, and its "industry chair" is John Hopkins, the group president (government), of Fluor. Fluor is one of Sovereign's big clients and its chief executive introduced the prime minister's speech at Donnelly's northeast economic forum. At the moment, multinational nuclear power firms are anxiously awaiting the government's decision on the country's future energy policy. Britain's current nuclear plants will need to be replaced in 10 to 15 years, and the government must decide whether another generation of plants should be built. The process of awarding œ70 billion in government contracts to firms dealing with nuclear waste is set to begin next month. Fluor is expected to be a key bidder. The prime minister is understood to be in favour of building a new generation of nuclear plants, which do not emit carbon dioxide and therefore do not add to global warming. Last Friday Miliband gave the first indication that he was also in favour of nuclear power. "The benefit of nuclear power is that it emits zero carbons, but obviously there are costs associated with nuclear power and there are also waste issues," he said Blair wrote to Miliband later in the day saying that he wanted him to take control of the energy review, which is being handled by the Department of Trade and Industry. ***************************************************************** 50 Austin American-Statesman: UT professor fights U.S. uranium exports Energy Department preparing to sell Canadian company 34 pounds of weapons-grade uranium. By WASHINGTON BUREAU Saturday, May 13, 2006 WASHINGTON A Canadian company's successful effort to get the United States to relax a nuclear proliferation law is starting to bear fruit as the Energy Department prepares to sell it 34 pounds of weapons-grade uranium. The highly enriched uranium would be used by MDS Nordion of Ottawa to manufacture radioactive isotopes for use in X-ray machines and other medical equipment. Deborah Cannon AMERICAN-STATESMAN (enlarge photo) Alan Kuperman, an assistant professor at the University of Texas who has been advocating nonproliferation for nearly 20 years, wrote an article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists criticizing the export of highly enriched uranium to a Canadian medical company. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is reviewing an application from the Energy Department for a license to export the uranium. Most of the medical equipment would be shipped back to the United States, which does not have a company that manufactures the crucial diagnostic and therapeutic medical isotopes. Nonproliferation activists, led by University of Texas assistant professor Alan Kuperman, charge that the sale of highly enriched uranium to Nordion represents a "giant step back" in national security. Because of the ease with which it can be used to make an atomic bomb, highly enriched uranium is considered by some proliferation and terrorism experts as the most dangerous material in the world. Unlike plutonium, the other fissionable substance used in nuclear weapons, highly enriched uranium can be easily handled, is hard to detect and can be made into a Hiroshima-type bomb with power tools available in any hardware store, experts say. "I personally think HEU represents our greatest vulnerability to nuclear terrorism," Kuperman said of highly enriched uranium. "Only with HEU can you make a gun-type nuclear weapon, and that is something that is within the capabilities of terrorist groups." A gun-type weapon, such as the bomb the United States detonated over Hiroshima, Japan, in World War II, creates an explosion by shooting one piece of highly enriched uranium into another. Kuperman and other activists see the relaxed U.S. sales policy as undermining the country's longstanding practice of prodding other nations to stop using highly enriched uranium. Had Congress not loosened the export controls last year, the pending sale to Nordion would not have been possible, Kuperman wrote in the current issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. The export control changes were tucked into the 1,754-page energy bill signed in August by President Bush. The action followed a two-year Nordion-financed lobbying effort in which its American lobbyists donated thousands of dollars to the campaigns of key members of Congress, Kuperman says. "It is a cautionary tale of how a single foreign company can weaken U.S. national security through misleading scare tactics and cold cash," he wrote. New export rules Kuperman charged in an interview that Nordion got American radiologists to support its lobbying effort by fooling them into thinking the country's supply of radioisotopes for diagnostic and therapeutic use would be threatened without the change. Nordion is the world's largest producer of radioactive medical isotopes created from a material called molybdenum-99. To make it, manufacturers bombard uranium-235 with neutrons, transforming a small part of it into molybdenum-99. In reactors operated for this purpose by Nordion and three large isotope manufacturers in Europe, both the target metal and the source of the neutrons that bombard it are highly enriched uranium, in which the concentration of the uranium-235 isotope has been increased to 90 percent or more. However, a technology developed at the Energy Department's Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago makes it possible to make the isotopes from low enriched uranium, which contains only about 20 percent uranium-235 and cannot be used to make a bomb. The previous controls, spelled out in a law that Kuperman drafted in 1992 when he worked as an aide to then-Rep. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., require foreign companies that receive highly enriched uranium from the United States to agree to modify their reactors to use low enriched uranium. Kuperman said that the new law is "riddled" with loopholes. The new export requirement applies to highly enriched uranium users in five countries: Canada, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands and France. It continues to require isotope manufacturers to work toward converting to low enriched uranium, but gives them additional time. It also would waive the requirement if conversion would increase the cost of medical isotopes in the United States by 10 percent or more. For several years, Nordion qualified for U.S. exports by making the required commitment to modify its reactors to use low enriched uranium. But it abandoned the commitment three years ago, Kuperman says. A Nordion spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment for this article. Henry Royal, a professor of radiology at Washington University in St. Louis and past president of the Society of Nuclear Medicine, said that "when it comes to keeping HEU out of the hands of terrorists, we have much bigger problems that we should concentrate on." "The last time I checked, Nordion was not a terrorist organization," said Royal, who is a consultant to the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation. Credible Kuperman? Kuperman's prominent role in opposing the export of highly enriched uranium for making medical isotopes has made him a target of criticism. "He produces a lot of bad information, and I don't trust him," said Edward McGaffigan, who was appointed to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by President Clinton. McGaffigan said the previous controls were so "god-awfully drafted" that they were all but impossible to enforce. The new law was supported by all members of the NRC and will make it easier to enforce export controls, McGaffigan said. Royal said Kuperman was "ignoring some basic laws of physics" in his criticism of the export law changes. Using low enriched uranium to produce medical isotopes would be less efficient and more expensive because it contains less of the needed U-235, he said. Others, including an expert on uranium at Argonne, defended Kuperman as an accurate, if sometimes intemperate, analyst of proliferation issues. Kuperman, 42, joined the staff of the nonproliferation advocacy group, Nuclear Control Institute, in 1987 after graduating from Harvard College. As for the article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, "I know that it was thoroughly vetted before they published it," said Paul Leventhal, fouder of the group. Armand Travelli, who until his retirement in 2004 headed the low enriched uranium technology program at Argonne, said he had not read Kuperman's article. "But in general, I have thought the things he published in the past have been carefully researched," he said, adding, "He's not very diplomatic, sometimes." After working for the Nuclear Control Institute for two years, Kuperman went to work for Schumer and earned a master's degree from Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Relations in Washington. He later received a doctorate in international relations from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He became an assistant professor at UT's LBJ School of Public Affairs last year. Copyright 2001-2006 Cox Texas Newspapers, L.P. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 51 SFBJ: Government renews Wackenhut nuclear contracts - South Florida Business Journal: South Florida Business Journal - 1:06 PM EDT Friday 5-12-6 Government renews Wackenhut nuclear contracts said the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration has chosen it to continue to provide security at the Nevada Test Site and the NNSA Nevada Site office. The Palm Beach Gardens-based company has provided security at the sites since 1965. It successfully competed for the contract every five years. Wackenhut estimated the value of the most recent contract at $386 million, including an initial three-year period and two one-year option periods. Wackenhut has provided security for test events and experiments at the Nevada Test Site for Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore and Sandia national laboratories. The company also secures the 900,000-acre Nevada Test Site, one of the largest restricted areas in the United States. Wackenhut said in 10 Department of Energy performance ratings over the last five years at the Nevada Test Site, Wackenhut para-military, security police officers received only one score below 95 percent. The company said it is the U.S. government's largest contractor for professional security services, with more than 8,000 employees protecting sites both domestically and abroad. © 2006 American City Business Journals, Inc. and its licensors. ***************************************************************** 52 [NYTr] DU Catastrophe for Iraq, Afghanistan Worse than 9/11 Date: Sun, 14 May 2006 13:24:16 -0400 (EDT) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit sent by Tim Murphy (activ-l) Global Research May 3, 2006 http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code 060503&articleId2374 Depleted Uranium - Far Worse Than 9/11 Depleted Uranium Dust - Public Health Disaster for the People of Iraq and Afghanistan by Doug Westerman In 1979, depleted uranium (DU) particles escaped from the National Lead Industries factory near Albany, N.Y.,which was manufacturing DU weapons for the U.S military. The particles traveled 26 miles and were discovered in a laboratory filter by Dr. Leonard Dietz, a nuclear physicist. This discovery led to a shut down of the factory in 1980, for releasing morethan 0.85 pounds of DU dust into the atmosphere every month, and involved a cleanup of contaminated properties costing over 100 million dollars. Imagine a far worse scenario. Terrorists acquire a million pounds of the deadly dust and scatter it in populated areas throughout the U.S. Hundreds of children report symptoms. Many acquire cancer and leukemia, suffering an early and painful death. Huge increases in severe birth defects are reported. Oncologists are overwhelmed. Soccer fields, sand lots and parks, traditional play areas for kids, are no longer safe. People lose their most basic freedom, the ability to go outside and safely breathe. Sounds worse than 9/11? Welcome to Iraq and Afghanistan. Dr. Jawad Al-Ali (55), director of the Oncology Center at the largest hospital in Basra, Iraq stated, at a recent ( 2003) conference in Japan: "Two strange phenomena have come about in Basra which I have never seen before. The first is double and triple cancers in one patient. For example, leukemia and cancer of the stomach. We had one patient with 2 cancers - one in his stomach and kidney. Months later, primary cancer was developing in his other kidney--he had three different cancer types. The second is the clustering of cancer in families. We have 58 families here with more than one person affected by cancer. Dr Yasin, a general Surgeon here has two uncles, a sister and cousin affected with cancer. Dr Mazen, another specialist, has six family members suffering from cancer. My wife has nine members of her family with cancer". "Children in particular are susceptible to DU poisoning. They have a much higher absorption rate as their blood is being used to build and nourish their bones and they have a lot of soft tissues. Bone cancer and leukemia used to be diseases affecting them the most, however, cancer of the lymph system which can develop anywhere on the body, and has rarely been seen before the age of 12 is now also common.", "We were accused of spreading propaganda for Saddam before the war. When I have gone to do talks I have had people accuse me of being pro-Saddam. Sometimes I feel afraid to even talk. Regime people have been stealing my data and calling it their own, and using it for their own agendas. The Kuwaitis banned me from entering Kuwait - we were accused of being Saddam supporters." John Hanchette, a journalism professor at St. Bonaventure University, and one of the founding editors of USA TODAY related the following to DU researcher Leuren Moret. He stated that he had prepared news breaking stories about the effects of DU on Gulf War soldiers and Iraqi citizens, but that each time he was ready to publish, he received a phone call from the Pentagon asking him not to print the story. He has since been replaced as editor of USA TODAY. Dr. Keith Baverstock, The World Health Organization's chief expert on radiation and health for 11 years and author of an unpublished study has charged that his report " on the cancer risk to civilians in Iraq from breathing uranium contaminated dust " was also deliberately suppressed. The information released by the U.S. Dept. of Defense is not reliable, according to some sources even within the military. In 1997, while citing experiments, by others, in which 84 percent of dogs exposed to inhaled uranium died of cancer of the lungs, Dr. Asaf Durakovic, then Professor of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine at Georgetown University in Washington was quoted as saying, "The [US government's] Veterans Administration asked me to lie about the risks of incorporating depleted uranium in the human body." At that time Dr. Durakovic was a colonel in the U.S. Army. He has since left the military, to found the Uranium Medical Research Center, a privately funded organization with headquarters in Canada. PFC Stuart Grainger of 23 Army Division, 34th Platoon. (Names and numbers have been changed) was diagnosed with cancer several after returning from Iraq. Seven other men in the Platoon also have malignancies. Doug Rokke, U.S. Army contractor who headed a clean-up of depleted uranium after the first Gulf War states:, "Depleted uranium is a crime against God and humanity." Rokke's own crew, a hundred employees, was devastated by exposure to the fine dust. He stated: "When we went to the Gulf, we were all really healthy," After performing clean-up operations in the desert (mistakenly without protective gear), 30 members of his staff died, and most others"including Rokke himself"developed serious health problems. Rokke now has reactive airway disease, neurological damage, cataracts, and kidney problems. "We warned the Department of Defense in 1991 after the Gulf War. Their arrogance is beyond comprehension. Yet the D.O.D still insists such ingestion is "not sufficient to make troops seriously ill in most cases." Then why did it make the clean up crew seriously or terminally ill in nearly all cases? Marion Falk, a retired chemical physicist who built nuclear bombs for more than 20 years at Lawrence Livermore Lab, was asked if he thought that DU weapons operate in a similar manner as a dirty bomb. "That's exactly what they are. They fit the description of a dirty bomb in every way." According to Falk, more than 30 percent of the DU fired from the cannons of U.S. tanks is reduced to particles one-tenth of a micron (one millionth of a meter) in size or smaller on impact. "The larger the bang" the greater the amount of DU that is dispersed into the atmosphere, Falk said. With the larger missiles and bombs, nearly 100 percent of the DU is reduced to radioactive dust particles of the "micron size" or smaller, he said. When asked if the main purpose for using it was for destroying things and killing people, Falk was more specific: "I would say that it is the perfect weapon for killing lots of people." When a DU round or bomb strikes a hard target, most of its kinetic energy is converted to heat " sufficient heat to ignite the DU. From 40% to 70% of the DU is converted to extremely fine dust particles of ceramic uranium oxide (primarily dioxide, though other formulations also occur). Over 60% of these particles are smaller than 5 microns in diameter, about the same size as the cigarette ash particles in cigarette smoke and therefore respirable. Because conditions are so chaotic in Iraq, the medical infrastructure has been greatly compromised. In terms of both cancer and birth defects due to DU, only a small fraction of the cases are being reported. Doctors in southern Iraq are making comparisons to the birth defects that followed the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in WWII. They have numerous photos of infants born without brains, with their internal organs outside their bodies, without sexual organs, without spines, and the list of deformities goes on an on. Such birth defects were extremely rare in Iraq prior to the large scale use of DU. Weapons. Now they are commonplace. In hospitals across Iraq, the mothers are no longer asking, "Doctor, is it a boy or girl?" but rather, "Doctor, is it normal?" The photos are horrendous, they can be viewed on the following website Ross B. Mirkarimi, a spokesman at The Arms Control Research Centre stated: "Unborn children of the region are being asked to pay the highest price, the integrity of their DNA." Prior to her death from leukemia in Sept. 2004, Nuha Al Radi , an accomplished Iraqi artist and author of the "Baghdad Diaries" wrote: "Everyone seems to be dying of cancer. Every day one hears about another acquaintance or friend of a friend dying. How many more die in hospitals that one does not know? Apparently, over thirty percent of Iraqis have cancer, and there are lots of kids with leukemia." "The depleted uranium left by the U.S. bombing campaign has turned Iraq into a cancer-infested country. For hundreds of years to come, the effects of the uranium will continue to wreak havoc on Iraq and its surrounding areas." This excerpt in her diary was written in 1993, after Gulf War I (Approximately 300 tons of DU ordinance, mostly in desert areas) but before Operation Iraqi Freedom, (Est. 1,700 tons with much more near major population centers). So, it's 5-6 times worse now than it was when she wrote than diary entry!! Estimates of the percentage of D.U. which was 'aerosolized' into fine uranium oxide dust are approximately 30-40%. That works out to over one million pounds of dust scattered throughout Iraq. As a special advisor to the World Health Organization, the United Nations, and the Iraqi Ministry of Health, Dr. Ahmad Hardan has documented the effects of DU in Iraq between 1991 and 2002. "American forces admit to using over 300 tons of DU weapons in 1991. The actual figure is closer to 800. This has caused a health crisis that has affected almost a third of a million people. As if that was not enough, America went on and used 200 tons more in Bagdad alone during the recent invasion. I don"t know about other parts of Iraq, it will take me years to document that. "In Basra, it took us two years to obtain conclusive proof of what DU does, but we now know what to look for and the results are terrifying." By far the most devastating effect is on unborn children. Nothing can prepare anyone for the sight of hundreds of preserved fetuses " scarcely human in appearance. Iraq is now seeing babies with terribly foreshortened limbs, with their intestines outside their bodies, with huge bulging tumors where their eyes should be, or with a single eye-like Cyclops, or without eyes, or without limbs, and even without heads. Significantly, some of the defects are almost unknown outside textbooks showing the babies born near A-bomb test sites in the Pacific. Dr. Hardan also states: "I arranged for a delegation from Japan's Hiroshima Hospital to come and share their expertise in the radiological diseases we Are likely to face over time. The delegation told me the Americans had objected and they decided not to come. Similarly, a world famous German cancer specialist agreed to come, only to be told later that he would not be given permission to enter Iraq." Not only are we poisoning the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, but we are making a concerted effort to keep out specialists from other countries who can help. The U.S. Military doesn"t want the rest of the world to find out what we have done. Such relatively swift development of cancers has been reported by doctors in hospitals treating civilians following NATO bombing with DU in Yugoslavia in 1998-1999 and the US military invasion of Iraq using DU for the first time in 1991. Medical experts report that this phenomenon of multiple malignancies from unrelated causes has been unknown until now and is a new syndrome associated with internal DU exposure. Just 467 US personnel were wounded in the three-week Persian Gulf War in 1990-1991. Out of 580,400 soldiers who served in Gulf War I, 11,000 are dead, and by 2000 there were 325,000 on permanent medical disability. This astounding number of disabled vets means that a decade later, 56 percent of those soldiers who served in the first Gulf War now have medical problems. Although not reported in the mainstream American press, a recent Tokyo tribunal, guided by the principles of International Criminal Law and International Humanitarian Law, found President George W. Bush guilty of war crimes. On March 14, 2004, Nao Shimoyachi, reported in The Japan Times that President Bush was found guilty "for attacking civilians with indiscriminate weapons and other arms,"and the "tribunal also issued recommendations for banning Depleted Uranium shells and other weapons that indiscriminately harm people." Although this was a "Citizen's Court" having no legal authority, the participants were sincere in their determination that international laws have been violated and a war crimes conviction is warranted. Troops involved in actual combat are not the only servicemen reporting symptoms. Four soldiers from a New York Army National Guard company serving in Iraq are among several members of the same company, the 442nd Military Police, who say they have been battling persistent physical ailments that began last summer in the Iraqi town of Samawah. "I got sick instantly in June," said Staff Sgt. Ray Ramos, a Brooklyn housing cop. "My health kept going downhill with daily headaches, constant numbness in my hands and rashes on my stomach." Dr. Asaf Durakovic, UMRC founder, and nuclear medicine expert examined and tested nine soldiers from the company says that four "almost certainly" inhaled radioactive dust from exploded American shells manufactured with depleted uranium. Laboratory tests revealed traces of two manmade forms of uranium in urine samples from four of the soldiers. If so, the men - Sgt. Hector Vega, Sgt. Ray Ramos, Sgt. Agustin Matos and Cpl. Anthony Yonnone - are the first confirmed cases of inhaled depleted uranium exposure from the current Iraq conflict. The 442nd, made up for the most part of New York cops, firefighters and correction officers, is based in Orangeburg, Rockland County. Dispatched to Iraq in Easter of 2003, the unit's members had been providing guard duty for convoys, running jails and training Iraqi police. The entire company is due to return home later this month. "These are amazing results, especially since these soldiers were military police not exposed to the heat of battle," said Dr. Asaf Duracovic, who examined the G.I.s and performed the testing. In a group of eight U.S. led Coalition servicemen whose babies were born without eyes, seven are known to have been directly exposed to DU dust. In a much group (250 soldiers) exposed during the first Gulf war, 67% of the children conceived after the war had birth defects. Dr. Durakovic's UMRC research team also conducted a three-week field trip to Iraq in October of 2003. It collected about 100 samples of substances such as soil, civilian urine and the tissue from the corpses of Iraqi soldiers in 10 cities, including Baghdad, Basra and Najaf. Durakovic said preliminary tests show that the air, soil and water samples contained "hundreds to thousands of times" the normal levels of radiation. "This high level of contamination is because much more depleted uranium was used this year than in (the Gulf War of) 1991," Durakovic told The Japan Times. "They are hampering efforts to prove the connection between Depleted Uranium and the illness," Durakovic said "They do not want to admit that they committed war crimes" by using weapons that kill indiscriminately, which are banned under international law." (NOTE ABOUT DR. DURAKOVIC; First, he was warned to stop his work, then he was fired from his position, then his house was ransacked, and he has also reported receiving death threats. Evidently the U.S. D.O.D is very keen on censoring DU whistle-blowers!) Dr. Durakovic, UMRC research associates Patricia Horan and Leonard Dietz, published a unique study in the August 2002 issue of Military Medicine Medical Journal. The study is believed to be the first to look at inhaled DU among Gulf War veterans, using the ultrasensitive technique of thermal ionization mass spectrometry, which enabled them to easily distinguish between natural uranium and DU. The study, which examined British, Canadian and U.S. veterans, all suffering typical Gulf War Syndrome ailments, found that, nine years after the war, 14 of 27 veterans studied had DU in their urine. DU also was found in the lung and bone of a deceased Gulf War veteran. That no governmental study has been done on inhaled DU "amounts to a massive malpractice," Dietz said in an interview. The Japanese began studying DU effects in the southern Iraq in the summer of 2003. They had a Geiger counter which they watched go off the scale on many occasions. During their visit,a local hospital was treating upwards of 600 children per day, many of which suffered symptoms of internal poisoning by radiation. 600 children per day? How many of these children will get cancer and suffer and early and painful death? "Ingested DU particles can cause up to 1,000 times the damage of an X-ray", said Mary Olson, a nuclear waste specialist and biologist at the Nuclear Information and Resource Service in Washington D.C. It is this difference in particle size as well as the dust's crystalline structure that make the presence of DU dust in the environment such an extreme hazard, and which differentiates its properties from that of the natural uranium dust that is ubiquitous and to which we all are exposed every day, which seldom reaches such a small size. This point is being stressed, as comparing DU particles to much larger natural ones is misleading. The U.S. Military and its supporters regularly quote a Rand Corp. Study which uses the natural uranium inhaled by miners. Particles smaller than 10 microns can access the innermost recesses of lung tissue where they become permanently lodged. Furthermore, if the substance is relatively insoluble, such as the ceramic DU-oxide dust produced from burning DU, it will remain in place for decades, dissolving very slowly into the bloodstream and lymphatic fluids through the course of time. Studies have identified DU in the urine of Gulf War veterans nine years after that conflict, testifying to the permanence of ceramic DU-oxide in the lungs. Thus the effects are far different from natural uranium dust, whose coarse particles are almost entirely excreted by the body within 24 hours. The military is aware of DU's harmful effects on the human genetic code. A 2001 study of DU's effect on DNA done by Dr. Alexandra C. Miller for the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute in Bethesda, Md., indicates that DU's chemical instability causes 1 million times more genetic damage than would be expected from its radiation effect alone. Studies have shown that inhaled nano-particles are far more toxic than micro-sized particles of the same basic chemical composition. British toxicopathologist Vyvyan Howard has reported that the increased toxicity of the nano-particle is due to its size. For example, when mice were exposed to virus-size particles of Teflon (0.13 microns) in a University of Rochester study, there were no ill effects. But when mice were exposed to nano-particles of Teflon for 15 minutes, nearly all the mice died within 4 hours. "Exposure pathways for depleted uranium can be through the skin, by inhalation, and ingestion," writes Lauren Moret, another DU researcher. "Nano-particles have high mobility and can easily enter the body. Inhalation of nano-particles of depleted uranium is the most hazardous exposure, because the particles pass through the lung-blood barrier directly into the blood. "When inhaled through the nose, nano-particles can cross the olfactory bulb directly into the brain through the blood brain barrier, where they migrate all through the brain," she wrote. "Many Gulf era soldiers exposed to depleted uranium have been diagnosed with brain tumors, brain damage and impaired thought processes. Uranium can interfere with the mitochondria, which provide energy for the nerve processes, and transmittal of the nerve signal across synapses in the brain. Based on dissolution and excretion rate data, it is possible to approximate the amount of DU initially inhaled by these veterans. For the handful of veterans studied, this amount averaged 0.34 milligrams. Knowing the specific activity (radiation rate) for DU allows one to determine that the total radiation (alpha, beta and gamma) occurring from DU and its radioactive decay products within their bodies comes to about 26 radiation events every second, or 800 million events each year. At .34 milligrams per dose, there are over 10 trillion doses floating around Iraq and Afghanistan. How many additional deaths are we talking about? In the aftermath of the first Gulf War, the UK Atomic Energy Authority came up with estimates for the potential effects of the DU contamination left by the conflict. It calculated that "this could cause "500,000 potential deaths". This was "a theoretical figure", it stressed, that indicated "a significant problem". The AEA's calculation was made in a confidential memo to the privatized munitions company, Royal Ordnance, dated 30 April 1991. The high number of potential deaths was dismissed as "very far from realistic" by a British defense minister, Lord Gilbert. "Since the rounds were fired in the desert, many miles from the nearest village, it is highly unlikely that the local population would have been exposed to any significant amount of respirable oxide," he said. These remarks were made prior to the more recent invasions of both Afghanistan and Iraq, where DU munitions were used on a larger scale in and near many of the most populated areas. If the amount of DU ordinance used in the first Gulf War was sufficient to cause 500,000 potential deaths, (had it been used near the populated areas), then what of the nearly six times that amount used in operation Iraqi Freedom, which was used in and near the major towns and cities? Extrapolating the U.K. AEA estimate with this amount gives a figure of potentially 3 million extra deaths from inhaling DU dust in Iraq alone, not including Afghanistan. This is about 11% of Iraq's total population of 27 million. Dan Bishop, Ph.d chemist for IDUST feels that this estimate may be low, if the long life of DU dust is considered. In Afghanistan, the concentration in some areas is greater than Iraq. What can an otherwise healthy person expect when inhaling the deadly dust? Captain Terry Riordon was a member of the Canadian Armed Forces serving in Gulf War I. He passed away in April 1999 at age 45. Terry left Canada a very fit man who did cross-country skiing and ran in marathons. On his return only two months later he could barely walk. He returned to Canada in February 1991 with documented loss of motor control, chronic fatigue, respiratory difficulties, chest pain, difficulty breathing, sleep problems, short-term memory loss, testicle pain, body pains, aching bones, diarrhea, and depression. After his death, depleted uranium contamination was discovered in his lungs and bones. For eight years he suffered his innumerable ailments and struggled with the military bureaucracy and the system to get proper diagnosis and treatment. He had arranged, upon his death, to bequeath his body to the UMRC. Through his gift, the UMRC was able to obtain conclusive evidence that inhaling fine particles of depleted uranium dust completely destroyed his heath. How many Terry Riordans are out there among the troops being exposed, not to mention Iraqi and Afghan civilians? Inhaling the dust will not kill large numbers of Iraqi and Afghan civilians right away, any more than it did Captain Riordan. Rather, what we will see is vast numbers of people who are chronically and severely ill, having their life spans drastically shortened, many with multiple cancers. Melissa Sterry, another sick veteran, served for six months at a supply base in Kuwait during the winter of 1991-92. Part of her job with the National Guard's Combat Equipment Company "A" was to clean out tanks and other armored vehicles that had been used during the war, preparing them for storage. She said she swept out the armored vehicles, cleaning up dust, sand and debris, sometimes being ordered to help bury contaminated parts. In a telephone interview, she stated that after researching depleted uranium she chose not to take the military's test because she could not trust the results. It is alarming that Melissa was stationed in Kuwait, not Iraq. Cleaning out tanks with DU dust was enough to make her ill. In, 2003, the Christian Science Monitor sent reporters to Iraq to investigate long-term effects of depleted uranium. Staff writer Scott Peterson saw children playing on top of a burnt-out tank near a vegetable stand on the outskirts of Baghdad, a tank that had been destroyed by armor-piercing shells coated with depleted uranium. Wearing his mask and protective clothing, he pointed his Geiger counter toward the tank. It registered 1,000 times the normal background radiation. If the troops were on a mission of mercy to bring democracy to Iraq, wouldn"t keeping children away from such dangers be the top priority? The laws of war prohibit the use of weapons that have deadly and inhumane effects beyond the field of battle. Nor can weapons be legally deployed in war when they are known to remain active, or cause harm after the war concludes. It is no surprise that the Japanese Court found President Bush guilty of war crimes. Dr. Alim Yacoub of Basra University conducted an epidemiological study into incidences of malignancies in children under fifteen years old, in the Basra area (an area bombed with DU during the first Gulf War). They found over the 1990 to 1999 period, there was a 242% rise. That was before the recent invasion. In Kosovo, similar spikes in cancer and birth defects were noticed by numerous international experts, although the quantity of DU weapons used was only a small fraction of what was used in Iraq. FIELD STUDY RESULTS FROM AFGHANISTAN Verifiable statistics for Iraq will remain elusive for some time, but widespread field studies in Afghanistan point to the existence of a large scale public health disaster. In May of 2002, the UMRC (Uranium Medical Research Center) sent a field team to interview and examine residents and internally displaced people in Afghanistan. The UMRC field team began by first identifying several hundred people suffering from illnesses and medical conditions displaying clinical symptoms which are considered to be characteristic of radiation exposure. To investigate the possibility that the symptoms were due to radiation sickness, the UMRC team collected urine specimens and soil samples, transporting them to an independent research lab in England. UMRC's Field Team found Afghan civilians with acute symptoms of radiation poisoning, along with chronic symptoms of internal uranium contamination, including congenital problems in newborns. Local civilians reported large, dense dust clouds and smoke plumes rising from the point of impact, an acrid smell, followed by burning of the nasal passages, throat and upper respiratory tract. Subjects in all locations presented identical symptom profiles and chronologies. The victims reported symptoms including pain in the cervical column, upper shoulders and basal area of the skull, lower back/kidney pain, joint and muscle weakness, sleeping difficulties, headaches, memory problems and disorientation. Two additional scientific study teams were sent to Afghanistan. The first arrived in June 2002, concentrating on the Jalalabad region. The second arrived four months later, broadening the study to include the capital Kabul, which has a population of nearly 3.5 million people. The city itself contains the highest recorded number of fixed targets during Operation Enduring Freedom. For the study's purposes, the vicinity of three major bomb sites were examined. It was predicted that signatures of depleted or enriched uranium would be found in the urine and soil samples taken during the research. The team was unprepared for the shock of its findings, which indicated in both Jalalabad and Kabul, DU was causing the high levels of illness. Tests taken from a number of Jalalabad subjects showed concentrations 400% to 2000% above that for normal populations, amounts which have not been recorded in civilian studies before. Those in Kabul who were directly exposed to US-British precision bombing showed extreme signs of contamination, consistent with uranium exposure. These included pains in joints, back/kidney pain, muscle weakness, memory problems and confusion and disorientation. Those exposed to the bombing report symptoms of flu-type illnesses, bleeding, runny noses and blood-stained mucous. How many of these people will suffer a painful and early death from cancer? Even the study team itself complained of similar symptoms during their stay. Most of these symptoms last for days or months. In August of 2002, UMRC completed its preliminary analysis of the results from Nangarhar. Without exception, every person donating urine specimens tested positive for uranium contamination. The specific results indicated an astoundingly high level of contamination; concentrations were 100 to 400 times greater than those of the Gulf War Veterans tested in 1999. A researcher reported. "We took both soil and biological samples, and found considerable presence in urine samples of radioactivity; the heavy concentration astonished us. They were beyond our wildest imagination." In the fall of 2002, the UMRC field team went back to Afghanistan for a broader survey, and revealed a potentially larger exposure than initially anticipated. Approximately 30% of those interviewed in the affected areas displayed symptoms of radiation sickness. New born babies were among those displaying symptoms, with village elders reporting that over 25% of the infants were inexplicably ill. How widespread and extensive is the exposure? A quote from the UMRC field report reads: "The UMRC field team was shocked by the breadth of public health impacts coincident with the bombing. Without exception, at every bombsite investigated, people are ill. A significant portion of the civilian population presents symptoms consistent with internal contamination by uranium." In Afghanistan, unlike Iraq, UMRC lab results indicated high concentrations of NON-DEPLETED URANIUM, with the concentrations being much higher than in DU victims from Iraq. Afghanistan was used as a testing ground for a new generation of "bunker buster" bombs containing high concentrations of other uranium alloys. "A significant portion of the civilian population"? It appears that by going after a handful of terrorists in Afghanistan we have poisoned a huge number of innocent civilians, with a disproportionate number of them being children. The military has found depleted uranium in the urine of some soldiers but contends it was not enough to make them seriously ill in most cases. Critics have asked for more sensitive, more expensive testing. *** According to an October 2004 Dispatch from the Italian Military Health Observatory, a total of 109 Italian soldiers have died thus far due to exposure to depleted uranium. A spokesman at the Military Health Observatory, Domenico Leggiero, states "The total of 109 casualties exceeds the total number of persons dying as a consequence of road accidents. Anyone denying the significance of such data is purely acting out of ill faith, and the truth is that our soldiers are dying out there due to a lack of adequate protection against depleted uranium". Members of the Observatory have petitioned for an urgent hearing "in order to study effective prevention and safeguard measures aimed at reducing the death-toll amongst our serving soldiers". There were only 3,000 Italian soldiers sent to Iraq, and they were there for a short time. The number of 109 represents about 3.6% of the total. If the same percentage of Iraqis get a similar exposure, that would amount to 936,000. As Iraqis are permanently living in the same contaminated environment, their percentage will be higher. The Pentagon/DoD have interfered with UMRC's ability to have its studies published by managing, a progressive and persistent misinformation program in the press against UMRC, and through the use of its control of science research grants to refute UMRC's scientific findings and destroy the reputation of UMRC's scientific staff, physicians and laboratories. UMRC is the first independent research organization to find Depleted Uranium in the bodies of US, UK and Canadian Gulf War I veterans and has subsequently, following Operation Iraqi Freedom, found Depleted Uranium in the water, soils and atmosphere of Iraq as well as biological samples donated by Iraqi civilians. Yet the first thing that comes up on Internet searches are these supposed "studies repeatedly showing DU to be harmless." The technique is to approach the story as a debate between government and independent experts in which public interest is stimulated by polarizing the issues rather than telling the scientific and medical truth. The issues are systematically confused and misinformed by government, UN regulatory agencies (WHO, UNEP, IAEA, CDC, DOE, etc) and defense sector (military and the weapons developers and manufacturers). Dr. Yuko Fujita, an assistant professor at Keio University, Japan who examined the effects of radioactivity in Iraq from May to June, 2003, said : "I doubt that Iraq is fabricating data because in fact there are many children suffering from leukemia in hospitals," Fujita said. "As a result of the Iraq war, the situation will be desperate in some five to 10 years." The March 14, 2004 Tokyo Citizen's Tribunal that "convicted" President Bush gave the following summation regarding DU weapons: (This court was a citizen's court with no binding legal authority) 1. Their use has indiscriminate effects; 2. Their use is out of proportion with the pursuit of military objectives; 3. Their use adversely affects the environment in a widespread, long term and severe manner; 4. Their use causes superfluous injury and unnecessary suffering. Two years ago, President Bush withdrew the United States as a signatory to the International Criminal Court's statute, which has been ratified by all other Western democracies. The White House actually seeks to immunize U.S. leaders from war crimes prosecutions entirely. It has also demanded express immunity from ICC prosecution for American nationals. CONCLUSIONS: If terrorists succeeded in spreading something throughout the U.S. that ended up causing hundreds of thousands of cancer cases and birth defects over a period of many years, they would be guilty of a crime against humanity that far surpasses the Sept. 11th attacks in scope and severity. Although not deliberate, with our military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, we have done just that. If the physical environment is so unsafe and unhealthy that one cannot safely breath, then the outer trappings of democracy have little meaning. At least under Saddam, the Iraqi people could stay healthy and conceive normal children. Few Americans are aware that in getting rid of Saddam, we left something much worse in his place. ) Copyright Doug Westerman, Vital Truths and Information Clearing House, 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 ================================================================ ***************************************************************** 53 Kansas City Star: House approves study of uranium exposure in U.S. military | 05/13/2006 | By DAVID GOLDSTEIN The Stars Washington correspondent WASHINGTON  Veterans groups and advocates worried about the health effects of depleted uranium on soldiers won a victory this week. The House included an amendment in the defense policy bill that it passed Thursday ordering the Pentagon to study the impact of depleted uranium exposure on troops and their children. The Senate could begin debate on the bill this month. Depleted uranium, or DU, is what remains after natural uraniums radioactive fraction is removed for use as nuclear fuel or weapons. Because DU is very dense, the military uses it for armor-piercing weapons and armor protection, and in some tanks. Troops have been exposed to it during the gulf war, in Bosnia and in Iraq. If DU poses no danger, we need to prove it with statistically valid and independent scientific studies, said Democratic Rep. Jim McDermott of Washington, the amendments author, who has been sounding an alarm for several years. If DU harms our soldiers, we all need to know it and act quickly. Veterans groups and other activists contend that when equipment containing DU is destroyed on the battlefield, exposure to the dust poses radioactive risks to military personnel, as do embedded fragments. Many refer to it as the next Agent Orange, the chemical defoliant used in Vietnam that was thought at the time to be harmless. The military has said studies over the past 50 years have proved the health risks of DU to be minimal. While natural and depleted uranium are considered chemically toxic, they are not considered a radiation hazard, according to a Pentagon Web site at .htm. The World Health Organization has said no increases in leukemia or other cancers have been linked to exposure to depleted uranium. To reach David Goldstein, Washington correspondent, call (202) 383-6105 ***************************************************************** 54 Daily Yomiuri: A-bomb victims hail recognition The Yomiuri Shimbun OSAKA--Nine plaintiffs who have endured physical ailments due to the aftereffects of the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki rejoiced after the Osaka District Court recognized them as atomic bomb sufferers on Friday. The nine plaintiffs of Osaka, Hyogo and Kyoto prefectures had demanded that the central government accept their applications for recognition as atomic-bomb victims, seeking compensation of 3 million yen each. The government had previously denied their applications. Due to the advanced age of atomic-bomb victims, many have died while awaiting rulings in similar suits. Their supporters have asked the central government to help the other victims before it is too late and expressed the hope that the world will eliminate nuclear weapons and never repeat the tragedy of war. After presiding Judge Tomoichiro Nishikawa read the judgment, a group of lawyers for the plaintiffs pumped their fists toward the court's gallery, which burst into applause as supporters rushed to congratulate the plaintiffs. When supporters came out of the courtroom carrying a banner that said "complete victory," about 50 people standing by the court's north gate repeatedly shouted, "Banzai." At a press conference attended by five plaintiffs and a group of lawyers, Toshiaki Saeki, 73, of Ikuno Ward, Osaka, who lost his voice due to larynx cancer seven years ago, communicated by writing in a notebook. He said: "It was a groundbreaking ruling. I'm so happy I'm speechless. It rectifies the stance taken by the government." He was exposed to radiation at a middle school in Hiroshima at age 12 and has keloid scars over his entire body. His mother and sister were killed in the bombing and his father later died of leukemia. Saeki joined the suit because he felt the government did not understand how much atomic bomb victims had suffered. He said in a written statement that he hoped the government would take the ruling to heart. Another plaintiff, Miyoko Odaka, 81, of Minami Ward, Kyoto, expressed her joy, saying she never expected to hear such good news. She was 20 years old, five months pregnant and living in Hiroshima when the bomb was dropped. Although she gave birth to a healthy baby girl the following year, she bled easily, even from minor cuts, and her hair fell out in clumps. She also suffered fatigue and anemia. She was diagnosed with thyroid problems and other diseases and applied for recognition as an atomic bomb sufferer in 2002. When her application was dismissed by the government, she filed a suit, saying the government had neglected the atomic bomb victims despite Japan being the only country ever to have suffered the catastrophe. Seigo Fujiwara, who headed the defense team, said the ruling would aid a wide range of atomic bomb victims. The ruling came as good news to plaintiffs of similar cases and their supporters. At a press conference in Hiroshima, Prof. Kazuyuki Tamura of Ryukoku University spoke for 41 plaintiffs of a suit, saying: "The ruling fundamentally countered the attitude taken by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry and urged the government to seriously reflect on the standards for recognizing atomic bomb victims. It will offer brighter prospects for the Hiroshima suit." Sunao Tsuboi, 81, a member of the Japan Confederation of A- and H-bomb Sufferers Organizations, said the government would recognize atomic bomb victims as suffering from diseases related to the bombings based on the ruling, adding he would ask the government not to appeal the case to a higher court. Minoru Moriuchi, 69, who heads a group of 29 plaintiffs in a Nagasaki suit, said: "As the ruling brought better results than expected, I feel like shouting 'banzai.' I hope the courts will deliver the other rulings while the plaintiffs are still alive." === Ministry shocked at ruling The ministry expressed shock at the ruling, which it said ignored the scientific evidence. Nobuyoshi Ishii, head of the ministry's health service bureau's general affairs section, issued a written statement saying he would refrain from commenting on the issue, adding that the ministry would discuss the issue with other ministries. An employee of the bureau in charge of granting recognition to victims, said: "We thoroughly evaluated the applications and made decisions based on medical examinations. I'm speechless because our efforts were rejected." The ministry's screening committee for determining whether applicants are suffering from atomic bomb-related diseases consists of about 20 experts, including professors of university hospitals and medical staff who provide radiation therapy at the National Cancer Center. They base their recognition of atomic bomb victims on symptoms and life histories. When the government's standard for atomic bomb victims was reviewed in May 2001, it stipulated that the circumstances of the applicants should be comprehensively evaluated in addition to considerations of age, gender and previous diseases. A ministry official said it had made objective judgements and considered the circumstances. However, the court's reversal of the ministry's decision on the applications indicated that the court was not convinced the ministry had comprehensively examined the circumstances of the applicants. (May. 14, 2006) © The Yomiuri Shimbun. ***************************************************************** 55 Spectrum: Test blurs political lines St. George UT. - www.thespectrum.com - The political lines are blurring with regard to the Divine Strake bomb blast in the Nevada desert, which has been postponed until June 23. Parts of the left are drifting to the right and some from the right are moving to the left. The real oddity is how Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, have seemed to switch positions completely. Hatch has voiced loud concerns about the 700-ton conventional blast kicking up radioactive poison from the test site and depositing it on his state. Reid, the Senate minority leader, has feebly accepted the test. If there wasn't so much at stake during this off-year election, Reid would sing a different tune. However, in an effort to win back the House, he and other Democrats are gingerly tiptoeing through this issue. Long regarded as soft on national defense, it's clear Reid doesn't want to stir up a cloud of dust over the Divine Strake test. Politically savvy? Maybe. Looking out for his constituency? No way. Hatch, on the other hand, is jumping into the fray. The conservatives will forgive him, of course, because he was the power behind passage of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, which has paid out more than $1 billion to victims of the atomic testing that took place during the Cold War era. His declaration recently that he doesn't trust the government when it comes to testing and that he is very concerned about this Divine Strake detonation could just as easily come from the mouth of a politician much farther to the left. And, although it probably doesn't sit well with some of his GOP colleagues, give him props for sticking to his guns on this and remembering the devastation that spread throughout the state he represents. Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., another staunch Republican, has also taken a hard line against the test. Reid, however, is a disappointment. He's selling out for political gain. He's placing clout above human lives, and, as a result, is no better than the administration that he has so heavily criticized. His once-sharp words have been dulled by his reluctance to value morality over politics. Among the Democrats, the strongest voice comes from Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, who refuses to back down. His father, a former Utah governor, challenged the federal government many years ago when the testing was under way. A native of Southern Utah, the elder Matheson was a Downwinder who lost his life to the cancer that spread through his body as a result of the testing, which is why his son is always among the first to speak out, whether the subject is the storage of radioactive waste in a cave in southern Nevada, opening a nuclear dumpsite in northern Utah or detonating a huge bomb in the desert. Other Democrats would do well to follow Matheson's lead. To contact city editor Ed Kociela call 435-674-6237 or e-mail Originally published May 13, 2006 Copyright ©2006 The Spectrum. ***************************************************************** 56 Spectrum: Protesters fight the bomb test St. George UT. - www.thespectrum.com - By JILL HUNT jill@thespectrum.com ST. GEORGE - A 9-year-old St. George resident is wondering if a 700-ton blast set to possibly go off on June 23 at a Nevada Test Site will destroy the state that she lives in or if it'll do just a little damage. Another St. George resident knows what the effects of such a blast could be after living through multiple health problems since the 1950's blast. Both of these residents rallied with numerous others in the Bluff Street park Saturday morning to protest Divine Strake - a test that will consist of a 700-ton ammonium nitrate-fuel oil explosion. Old and new residents are concerned that a blast could stir up radioactive components left over from the former atomic testing, redistributing the fallout downwind of the site. Memories of the past Downwinder Michelle Thomas spoke of her life-long experiences during the rally as she urged those in attendance to become more aware of what's going on with the scheduled blast. "My mom was pregnant with me in 1951 when the first tests were done," Thomas said. "I didn't get to choose to be a veteran of the Cold War when I was a 2-month-old fetus. I was enlisted and so was my mother. Support the young people who can't make this decision. As Nancy Reagan would say 'just say no.'" Thomas said her mother put on her father's heavy-duty oversized jumper - which covered her completely - rubber gloves and a hat and put towel over her face just to bring in the laundry that wasn't brought in before daily bombs went off. Thomas' mother would shake the sheets, re-wash them several times and hang them inside the house to dry so the family didn't sleep on the radiation. Thomas' first health problems emerged as a child when she and many of her friends participated in thyroid studies. "Many of my friends had theirs (thyroid) removed, but my mom wouldn't let them take mine until they told her why they needed it," Thomas said. "I had a pre-cancerous ovary removed when I was in high school and at 20 years old was diagnosed with polymyositis - an auto-immune disease that cripples. I have lost the use of my legs." Thomas was also diagnosed in 1993 with breast cancer, which was when she officially was classified as a Downwinder. Thomas said her doctor informed her she had the same type of cancer women in Hiroshima and Nagasaki developed after the bombings that took place there and would be eligible for Downwinder funding. "Everyone was told it was safe and that it would do no harm - the exact same thing they tell us today," Thomas said. "This isn't about being a Republican or a Democrat, it's about being pro-life." Why test? The National Nuclear Security Administration said that the blast is intended to help the military improve weapons that target underground bunkers. The Pentagon has said that new information gained from Divine Stake could be used for the government's existing nuclear weapons. Chuck Neagle of Bloomington is a retired environmental manager from the Nevada Test Site and can't think of any other reason for the proposed blast other than the government has the money to do it. "I'm not sure what this one is all about," Neagle said. "We quit testing because we had tested everything." Neagle said he thinks the downwinder effect is a true result of the past bombs, but doesn't believe this blast will have the same effect as before. "They couldn't put the blast in a better place," Neagle said. "It's going to be quite a bit away from the general test area. They should open up tour guides and let people see there's nothing out there." Distrust in the government Michelle Bird grew up in Milford during the testing time in the 1950s and 1960s. As a forth-grader she had her blood type reportedly tattooed by the U.S. government under an arm. "In 1957, every child in grade school through high school was sent home with a note that said a nurse would take a blood sample from us, get the blood type and then return to the schools to tattoo our blood type under our left arm," Bird said. "The government said it had something to do with civil defense. I think they were testing it for radiation results. I don't know of another place in Utah that did this." Bird moved to California after graduating from high school where she attended a party and someone asked her why she had her blood type tattooed. After realizing that no one else had to have this done, Bird said she then realized how unique this situation was for those who lived in Milford. Colt Savage and Katy Savage Kroupa, brother and sister who grew up on Main Street in St. George, lost two Downwinder grandparents early to cancer. "You wonder how much more time we could have had with them," Kroupa said. "That's enough to make anyone passionate about not wanting the same thing to happen again. If our grandparents were here they wouldn't want us to carry on blindly and trust the government like they did." James Nelson of St. George brought two of his children with him to the protest. He, like the majority of the people gathered at the protest Saturday, did not live in Southern Utah during the nuclear testing. "In my opinion the blast is real ignorant and I don't want it to affect my children," Nelson said. "My kids don't know why they want to do a bomb if there's no war." One of Nelson's children, Brittany, 9, is left wondering what's going to happen to her state if the blast occurs. "Probably a shock wave will affect Utah and do a lot of damage," Brittany said. "It won't be good." Originally published May 14, 2006 + For more information on Divine Strake, visit the archive at www.thespectrum.comon the Internet. + For more information on how to get involved in anti-Divine Strake petitions to Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Sen. Bob Bennet, R-Utah, contact Hughette Nordin at 435-688-2177 or Helen Stone at rmshs@earthlink.net. + For more information on blood-type tattoos done in Milford, contact Michelle Bird at 435-275-4317. + WHAT: STOP DIVINE STRAKE Coalition International Day of Action to call for peace, no war on Iran and environmental justice. + WHEN: 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. May 28. + WHERE: Nevada Test Site Peace Camp, 65 miles north of Las Vegas on Highway 95, directly off the Mecury Exit. + For more information, contact Tony at tonyg@citizenalert.orgor visit www.citizenalert.orgon the Internet. Copyright ©2006 The Spectrum. ***************************************************************** 57 Salt Lake Tribune: Anti-Divine Strake rally draws fewer than hoped; opponents sign petitions Article Last Updated: 05/14/2006 12:54:16 AM MDT By Kirsten Stewart The Salt Lake Tribune About 100 people showed up for a Saturday morning rally in St. George protesting the Pentagon's plans to conduct a major explosives test at the Nevada Test Site. It wasn't the turnout organizers had hoped for, said 67-year-old Helene Stone. "There were other events in town, plus the Republican and Democratic conventions in Salt Lake City." But Stone figures hundreds more citizens, maybe thousands, are concerned about the "dire" consequences of weapons testing for people's health, the environment and local economy. "People outside are watching. It will dissuade tourists from coming here and we'll see fewer retirees and young families buying homes," said Stone. The Divine Strake test detonation of 700 tons of explosives is planned for sometime after June 23 to measure the shaking of the ground and the damage to a below-ground tunnel at the test site, about 200 miles from St. George. The explosion will be nearly 50 times bigger than the largest conventional weapon, leaving a crater 196 feet wide and throwing up a plume of dust 10,000 feet. It is not a nuclear detonation. But last week, an environmental consultant who has studied the Nevada Test Site warned the blast could stir up radioactive contaminants retained in the soil from past nuclear testing. And some Utah members of Congress have been pressing the federal government for evidence to prove that danger doesn't exist. Speaking at the Bluff Street Park protest were some of St. George's "downwinders," so called for having survived the health effects of living downwind of the test site when the United States conducted atomic bomb testing at the site in the 1950s and '60s. Stone said the fear is Divine Strake is the precursor to the production of low-yield nuclear weapons, or "mini-nukes," which could then require testing at the site, putting Utahns at risk once again. "We're known as a 'low-use population,' " said Stone. "That's bureaucratic double-talk for 'expendable.' " The group signed petitions, which they intend to mail to Utah Sens. Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett. Asked Stone: "Even if adults are willing to take the risk, how would any civilized society expose their children to this?" © Copyright 2006, The Salt Lake Tribune. ***************************************************************** 58 Pahrump Valley Times: 'DIVINE STRAKE' May 12, 2006 NTS: It's not a bolt from Thor By PHILLIP GOMEZ PVT The National Nuclear Security Administration last week released a revised environmental assessment of what the public can expect from the "Divine Strake" surface explosion scheduled for late next month at the Nevada Test Site. Essentially, the government's answer is very little. Nevertheless, the blast has been described by the U.S. Department of Energy as the largest open-air chemical explosion ever. The NNSA issued a pre-approved environmental assessment in December and took public comment for 30 days, during which a number of questions were raised about the bomb test. The new report responds to those questions in a 296-page technical assessment, which can be found at www.nv.doe.gov. "Divine Strake" is the codename for one of several so-called "divine," as in "magnificently good," strategic military efforts conceived as "strakes" (the continuous planking covering the bilge of a ship or the fuselage of a jet) and planned under the government's Hard and Deeply Buried Target Defeat program. "Divine Warhawk," "Divine Hellcat" and "Divine Hates" were earlier episodes in the strake program dealing with weapons of mass destruction and the elimination of enemy storage tunnels by using advanced weapons technology. In the upcoming blast, 700 tons of ammonia nitrate and diesel fuel are scheduled to be detonated "no sooner than June 23" on the NTS about 40 miles northeast of Beatty. The conventional, non-nuclear blast is expected produce an explosion equivalent to that of 593 tons of TNT. The test is to determine how much explosive material is needed to impact a tunnel 100 feet below the surface and to sustain a certain level of damage, according to Kevin J. Rohrer, spokesman for the Department of Energy at the NTS. The blast is intended to measure the shock effects created, in order to gauge the effectiveness of the blast on underground bunkers. Of secondary interest is the air blast produced and its diminishment as it travels over the local terrain. According to earlier press reports, the blast will simulate a low-yield nuclear weapon in order to help war planners select the smallest nuclear yield necessary to destroy deeply buried stockpiles of chemical weapons, fortified underground enemy headquarters or other military targets. The hole in which the bomb is to be placed is 30 feet deep and 30 feet across. It will be filled with a slurry of ammonia nitrate having the consistency of wet oatmeal, "sticky and clumpy," Rohrer said in an interview on Tuesday. The bomb's impact will be registered by computers in the tunnel "to help validate the computer models for military commanders in wartime practices," Rohrer said. Rohrer said it was unfortunate that an official from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, a cooperating agency, had publicly stated that a mushroom cloud would result from the explosion. "He never meant to say that," Rohrer said. The cloud of dust raised by the explosion would be no greater than 10,000 feet tall, he said. The reference was to James Tegnelia, director of the Pentagon's DTRA, who had described to reporters "a mushroom cloud" of dust emerging over Nevada. "We really doubt that anybody off the NTS will be able to see it," said Rohrer. In Indian Springs, northwest of Las Vegas on U.S. Route 95, there could be what sounds like distant thunder, he said. In Beatty, which sits in a canyon, Rohrer said there would be "at most a slight rumble." The updated environmental assessment reported no radiological effects would result from the explosion, as some have feared, Rohrer said. "Claims to the effect that a mushroom cloud will be visible at the test site and a plume of radioactive soil and dust will be generated are not true," he said. That is because the explosion is not going to take place in an area where radioactive materials from detonations has settled on and contaminated the ground, he said. Originally planned for detonation June 2, the postponement will still depend on weather conditions, which could cause a delay. The wind direction and speed has to be within certain parameters, the wind having to be blowing in a northerly direction, Rohrer said. Lightening cannot be occurring either, he said, because it could set off the bomb prematurely. Additionally, if a weather inversion system moved into southern Nevada, all bets are off. Gases could be trapped in the lower atmosphere after the explosion, he said. Because the monsoon season is fast approaching, bringing typical southwestern summer weather, monitoring of local conditions will be day-by-day, he said. For comment or questions, please e-mail webmaster@pahrumpvalleytimes.com Copyright © Pahrump Valley Times, 1997 - 2006 ***************************************************************** 59 [NYTr] Wanted: a warning to last 10,000 years Date: Mon, 15 May 2006 01:47:14 -0400 (EDT) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit San Francisco Chronicle - May 14, 2006 http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/05/14/MNGI7IP89E1.DTL&type=printable Wanted: a warning to last 10,000 years U.S. uses a salt mine under New Mexico as plutonium dump by Charles Piller, Los Angeles Times Carlsbad, N.M. -- Roger Nelson has a simple and unequivocal message for the people of the year 12006: Don't dig here. As chief scientist of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, Nelson oversees a cavernous salt mine that is the first geological lockbox for what he calls the "fiendishly toxic" detritus of nuclear weapons production: chemical sludge, lab gear and filters laced with tons of radioactive plutonium. Nearly half a mile underground, workers push waste drums into crystalline labyrinths that seem as remote as the moon. A faint salty haze glows in powdery beams from miners' headlamps and settles on the lips like a desert kiss. Computer projections predict that within 1,000 years the ceilings and walls will collapse in a crushing embrace that seals the plutonium in place. But plutonium remains deadly for 250 times that long -- an unsettling reminder that some of today's hazards will outlast the civilizations that created them. The so-called "forever problem," unique to the modern technological age, has made crafting the user manual for this toxic tomb the final daunting task in an already monumental project. The result is a gargantuan system that borrows elements equally from Stonehenge and "Star Trek." Communicating danger might seem relatively straightforward, but countless human efforts to bridge the ages have failed as societies fall, languages die and words once poetic or portentous become the indecipherable marks of a long-forgotten scribbler. To future generations, warnings about Nelson's dump might seem as impenetrable as the 600-year-old "Canterbury Tales" are for all but a few scholars today. "No culture has ever tried, self-consciously and scientifically, to design a symbol that would last 10,000 years and still be intelligible," said David B. Givens, an anthropologist who helped plan the nuclear-site warnings. "And even if we succeed, would the message be believed?" The U.S. Energy Department predicted such a problem when it began planning for the $9 billion waste dump, dubbed WIPP, in 1974 and for a similar repository in Nevada at Yucca Mountain, near Las Vegas. That site is not yet open. Eventually it will store highly radioactive spent fuel from nuclear power plants as well as high-level waste from the weapons program. Trying to communicate across 500 generations posed an unprecedented challenge of linguistics, semiotics and materials science, so the government first asked scientists, futurists and historians to envision what the far-distant future might be like. Their report combines dry analysis and projections worthy of sci-fi disaster films, including massive climate change and feminist corporations that disbelieve WIPP warnings because they were written by men. Civilization is so interdependent and fragile, one panelist grimly noted, "that any massive global catastrophe might lead to reversion to at least a pre-industrial era." Greed or desperation could give rise to legends that WIPP holds buried treasure -- apparently confirmed by surface warnings to keep out. In a sense, they're right. Oil and gas deposits lie thousands of feet below the plant. In 100 or 5,000 years, an energy-poor government, company or gasoline-addicted tribe in a ruined society, like those depicted in the film "The Road Warrior," could adopt a "drill first, ask questions later" policy -- piercing the repository and pulling death to the surface. Others predicted the invention of self-guided robotic "mole miners" that would penetrate the site from the side or below. In a scenario set in the year 11991, robotic slaves are infected with a computer virus that compels them to override their safety programming as they compulsively drill and construct mine shafts. Opportunities for WIPP to fail, the experts agreed, are limited only by the imagination. The government formed a separate panel of scientists, linguists and artists to create a warning scheme to counter the pessimistic projections. That group immediately rejected digital or paper records -- only a solution cast in stone could hope to solve a problem for the ages. If Egyptian pyramids have lasted more than 5,000 years, today's monuments should fare better -- if built from prosaic materials, such as ultra-hard concrete. Scavengers stripped the pyramids bare for their once-shimmering marble skins. The trefoil symbol for radioactive material might seem a natural alternative to text, but experts doubt that it will be understood by future societies any better than today's English. Consider the swastika, first used on pottery by European tribes in 4000 B.C. It was adopted by ancient Troy and later became a holy icon of Hinduism. When the Nazis claimed it, the symbol became widely reviled. The panelists also considered the plaque on the 1972 Pioneer space probe, now headed for deep space. It pictures a nude man and woman, a schematic drawing of the craft escaping our solar system and a basic interstellar map. They soon rejected it as a model, said Jon Lomberg, an artist who designed the plaque with the late astronomer Carl Sagan. "You'd think it would be easier to communicate with humans (than extraterrestrials)," he said. "But the (Pioneer) spacecraft will never land, so it's only going to be found by some highly developed technological culture. All we can guess about the future inhabitants of the area near WIPP is that they are human -- unless they are cyborgs. ... Once you have people with augmented brains or genetically engineered minds with enhanced perceptions, you can't be sure how human they will be." There are at least two universally understood pictographic forms. The human stick figure has survived nearly unchanged from Stone Age cave drawings to the doors of modern public restrooms. And the sequential panel, or comic strip, was developed independently by ancient Egyptians, American Indians and medieval Japanese. They also are far from foolproof. The South Africa Chamber of Mines learned this when it used a simple picture sequence to train illiterate miners to clear rocks from mine tracks. Instead of improving, the rock problem worsened. "Miners were indeed reading the message, but from right to left," said Lomberg, a former WIPP adviser. "They obligingly dumped their rocks on the tracks." Nelson considers such concerns far-fetched, citing 30,000-year-old cave drawings. "I understand those cave drawings and I don't speak Neanderthal. ... He's killing a bison, 'bison -- food!' I can do pictographs just as well," he said. "I can convey an absolute sense of danger." Yet the same Stone Age caves contain markings and handprints whose meaning remains obscure. "The scribbles, we have no idea what they are. ... The handprints -- is that the artist's signature?" Lomberg said. "We don't know. Of course the big difference is that these were not intended as messages to the future -- so far as we can tell." With so many ways to fail, WIPP's planners opted for the classic American approach: Think big and leave no stone unturned. The plan will take more than a century to implement. To grasp the scale of the warnings, start with the Great Pyramid in Egypt, built from more than 6.5 million tons of stone covering 13 acres. Multiply that mass by five, and you have the first warning layer of this contemporary construction: a 98-foot-wide, 33-foot-tall, 2-mile-long berm surrounding the site. That's just to get the attention of anyone who happens by. "Size equates with importance. The bigger the animal the more that animal is to be reckoned with," Givens said. Powerful magnets and radar reflectors would be buried inside the berm so that remote sensors could recognize the site as purposefully and elaborately designed. It would be surrounded by 48 granite or concrete markers, 32 outside the berm and 16 inside, each 25 feet high and weighing 105 tons, engraved with warnings in English, Spanish, Russian, French, Chinese, Arabic and Navajo, with room for future discoverers to add warnings in contemporary languages. Pictures would denote buried hazards and human faces of horror and revulsion. The same symbols would be printed on metal, plastic and ceramic disks with abrasion-resistant coatings, 9 inches in diameter, that would be buried just below the surface. Three information rooms would archive detailed drawings of WIPP's chambers and the physics of its hazards on stone tablets. They also would provide a world map showing all other known waste repositories and a star chart to calculate the year the site was sealed. One such room would stand in the center of the site. Another would be buried inside the berm, its only entrance a 2-foot hole to inhibit theft of the tablets, sealed with a 1,600-pound stone plug. The third room would be off site -- perhaps inside the nearby Carlsbad Caverns. The final thing WIPP needs is a kind of Rosetta stone, a pictorial dictionary to aid in translation. The markers will take decades to build and test, to help ensure they stand the test of time. But there's no hurry. WIPP won't be full until 2033. It would then be guarded by the Energy Department for 100 years until it is abandoned; no one who designed the markers would be alive to see them succeed for even a single day. Inspired by so long a view, one of the site's expert panels, in an epigraph to its report, quoted Rabbi Tarfon, a Jewish sage who lived 1,900 years ago: "You are not obliged to finish the task, nor are you released from undertaking it." Once the vault is locked, some of WIPP's advisers want the site left unmarked because any warnings would draw only more attention, they say. Warnings, they contend, would be misunderstood or dismissed, the same way ancient grave robbers ignored curses inscribed on the tombs of Egyptian pharaohs to seize the riches inside. Leave it bare, they say, and the site will melt unseen into the harsh New Mexico desert. "I have to assume that the divine creator is going to take care of most of this stuff," said Steve Casey, the WIPP engineer charged with overseeing construction of the warning system. "No matter what confounded thing we come up with, all it takes is one catastrophic event and it's gone." That so much time and effort are spent even thinking about how to warn future generations reflects a significant shift in nuclear attitudes. The past still can be glimpsed a short drive from WIPP at a site where an atomic warhead was detonated 1,151 feet underground in 1961. Two corroded plaques glued to a 4-foot concrete slab commemorate the test, dubbed Project Gnome. The monument has been nudged several yards over the decades by cattle that use it as a rubbing post. Spent rifle shells crunch underfoot; the pockmarked shrine is favored by locals for target practice. A third plaque was pried off, perhaps as a souvenir. According to earlier visitors, it read, in plain English, "This site will remain dangerous for 24,000 years."\ ©2006 San Francisco Chronicle * ================================================================ .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 ================================================================ ***************************************************************** 60 Cayman Net News: Reactor Fuel to Pass Sister Islands Lloyds of London Shipping Advisor Raymond Scott A ship loaded with reactor fuel is currently on its way from the UK via the Panama Canal to Japan and is expected to pass close to Cayman Brac and Jamaica next week. Lloyds of London Shipping Advisor Raymond Scott told The Bracker and Little Caymanian that the 4700 tonne British Registered Pacific Sandpiper will pass 280 miles south of Cayman Brac and about 200 miles south of Jamaica, its closest point to the Caribbean. The resumption of shipments of nuclear waste from Japan to the UK comes as Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd, a joint venture of the nation’s biggest utilities, start recycling spent nuclear fuel, enabling Japan to cut its dependence on oil. The company will produce plutonium-uranium mixed oxide fuel, known as MOX fuel, for the first time in the country since the project was stalled after accidents at nuclear plants and revelations that utilities had falsified safety data aroused safety concern. Three ships belonging to a British company associated with British Nuclear Fuels Limited (BNFL), including the Pacific Sandpiper, have been approved for the transport of Nuclear waste. In 2000, Kansai Electric Power, Japan’s second-largest power company, banned BNFL from bidding for contracts to supply plutonium-uranium mixed oxide (MOX) fuel because of falsified quality control records. Three days later, BNFL’s nuclear fuel manufacturing plant at Sellafield, in West Cumbria, was closed for weeks while managers fought to avoid the loss of vital quality assurance accreditation. That same year, Germany joined Japan in banning shipments of MOX fuel from the company and Bill Richardson, the US Energy Secretary, ordered immediate top to bottom review of work being performed by BNFL for the US government. Shipment of nuclear waste through the Caribbean in the past has sparked public protest, notably by the international conservation group Greenpeace. However, Mr Scott said that, whereas he used to hear of such shipments on the BBC’s Caribbean Report, now he hears nothing. According to the World Nuclear Association (WNA), over a thirty year period, 1969 to 1998, there were more than 160 shipments of spent nuclear reactor fuel from Japan to Europe. Reprocessing of the Japanese spent fuel has been undertaken in UK and France under contract with Japanese utilities. Recovered fissile materials are returned to Japan as reactor fuel, notably the mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel shipments in 1999 and 2001. The first shipment to Japan of immobilized high-level waste from reprocessing took place in 1995 and the eleventh was in 2006. Mr Scott said that the last shipment of fuel to pass through the Panama Canal was three months ago. A number of countries, such as Japan, France, Germany and UK, currently reprocess their spent fuel so as to return the useable uranium and plutonium to the front-end of the fuel cycle. They are then left with about 3 percent of the quantity as high-level waste, which includes almost all the radioactivity from the spent fuel. Half-tonne, stainless steel canisters containing high-level waste are transported in specially-engineered, heavily shielded steel and resin containers called casks or flasks, each weighing about 100 tonnes. The ships involved are 104-metre, specially designed double-hulled vessels used only for the transport of nuclear material. nicky@caymannetnews.com www.caymannetnews.com Copyright © 2003 - 2006 Cayman Net Ltd All Rights Reserved ***************************************************************** 61 NEWS.com.au: Plan to 'lease' Australian uranium - From: AAP May 14, 2006 ACTING Prime Minister Mark Vaile has left the door open for Australia to take nuclear waste from uranium it sells to other countries. Prime Minister John Howard was preparing to meet with US President George W Bush and senior members of his administration in Washington in coming days with energy, including nuclear power and potential liquid natural gas exports to the US, on the agenda. In particular, nuclear fuel leasing – where uranium is leased rather than sold to countries and the fuel is taken back for disposal by the supply country – was expected to be discussed. Mr Vaile said everything was on the table. "This concept is just developing and, obviously, there's a lot more work to be done in terms of how the overall life cycle ... is managed of nuclear fuel in terms of its extraction, deployment, use and then how the waste is managed," he said to the Nine Network. "Obviously, there'll be a wide range of views, but we need to keep an open mind on all these issues if we expect to extract benefit from selling the produce. "Then, obviously, there's a role in terms of management – both in terms of how it's used, under what security circumstances it's used in other countries, then the question of waste comes into being." But the door was open to taking back waste fuel, Mr Vaile said. "I'm not saying we could, I'm saying that is yet to be addressed," he said. The leasing system is aimed at ensuring nuclear power is used for peaceful purposes only, preventing leasing countries from holding on to the uranium enrichment and reprocessing that could lead to the development of nuclear weapons. It would mean Australia, which has the world's largest reserves of uranium, would be responsible for storing and ultimately disposing of nuclear waste left over from its exports. ***************************************************************** 62 Sydney Morning Herald: Howard plays down nuclear issue - www.smh.com.au By Phillip Coorey Political Correspondent in Washington, DC May 15, 2006 THE country is headed for a heated debate over whether uranium, exported for nuclear fuel, should be returned to Australia for storage after use. Although the Prime Minister, John Howard, played down the prospect of such a debate - "everybody is running ahead of themselves on this issue", he said in Washington - the Leader of the Nationals and Deputy Prime Minister, Mark Vaile, suggested the return of spent fuel might be an inevitable and responsible consequence of Australia being a key uranium exporter. Mr Vaile indicated he believed Australia could not expect to profit from uranium sales while washing its hands of possibly dangerous consequences, such as the transport and storage of spent fuel. "There will be a wide range of views but we need to keep an open mind on all these issues if we expect to extract benefit from selling the product," he told Channel Nine's Sunday program. Previous proposals for nuclear waste to be dumped in remote parts of Australia led to loud and successful protests. The proposition that Australia bury the waste of other countries is likely to be even more divisive. The Prime Minister, who is due to meet the US President, George Bush, and members of his Administration this week, said no requests had been made to Australia that would require the receipt of spent nuclear fuel. But he was keen to engage. "There has been some talk about certain proposals and it will be interesting to learn a little more about it," he said. "I have an interest in it, Australia has an interest in it, but we're not concerned about anything. We haven't been asked to do anything. "I think we just have to allow any proposals to emerge and we'll respond accordingly." Mr Howard is due to meet the US Energy Secretary, Samuel Bodman, this week to discuss nuclear fuel leasing. This involves returning nuclear fuel, once spent, to countries of origin, because this limits the opportunity to reprocess it for nuclear weapons. As the holder of a third of the world's known reserves of nuclear energy, Mr Vaile said, Australia "is obviously going to be an important player". He said issues to be decided included Australia's role in determining the use of Australian uranium and the security circumstances of overseas buyers. "Then the question of waste comes into being. That is yet to be addressed," Mr Vaile said. "I am aware of some of the discussions that are taking place, and obviously we need to be engaged in those discussions." While in Washington, Mr Howard will push to be given more details of Mr Bush's plan to "lease" radioactive fuel to non-signatories of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, such as India. At the moment Australia requires buyers of uranium to deal with waste. Speculation that Australia would have to take back the waste was still "a totally hypothetical proposition", Mr Howard said. with David Humphries Copyright © 2006. The Sydney Morning Herald. ***************************************************************** 63 Bradenton Herald: Tallevast plume analyses conflict 05/13/2006 | HERALD WATCHDOG DONNA WRIGHT Herald Staff Writer TALLEVAST - Tallevast's independent technical consultant says Lockheed Martin Corp.'s latest assessment of a toxic plume falls short of defining the depth of contamination under the historical community. Lockheed's new data do not support many of the report's conclusions, says scientist Tim Varney, formerly of Chastain Skillman and now on staff at Environ International Corp. in Tampa. Varney was selected by Tallevast residents to be the community's technical adviser in the assessment and clean-up of a toxic plume stemming from a past leak at the former Loral American Beryllium Co. plant. His services as consultant to Tallevast are paid for by Lockheed Martin, which as the former owner of the beryllium plant when the contamination was found, is now responsible for cleaning up the mess. Lockheed Martin has not received a copy of Varney's report, company spokeswoman Gail Rymer stated in an e-mail Friday. She did not return a phone call from The Herald seeking additional comment. A spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Environmental Protection said the department did not receive Varney's report, dated May 8, until 5 p.m. Thursday. His comments, the spokeswoman said, were being reviewed by staff. DEP is expected to release its review of Lockheed's data by the end of June. Lockheed's last report on the plume was submitted to DEP on April 27. Once again, the size of the plume has grown, according to the Lockheed's data. The most recent test results, gathered by the engineering firm Blasland, Bouck &Lee Inc., indicate the underground contamination now covers 200 acres, meaning the plume is 50 percent larger than previously thought. But once again, Lockheed's scientists and engineers insist they have found the plume's edge. While Varney agrees Lockheed has defined the horizontal configuration of the plume, he says test data fall short of confirming its depth. He faults Lockheed for not taking into full consideration how groundwater is moving through the Tallevast area. Moreover, Lockheed's absolute conclusions are weakened by inconsistent data, Varney says. He claims Lockheed has not done sufficient testing in the Florida Aquifer System near the historical point of contaminant release to state with any degree of certainty that impacts to this level of groundwater system have not occurred. Varney also takes issue with Lockheed's dismissal of contamination found in private Tallevast wells as unrelated to the Tallevast plume. Lockheed claims its data show the contaminated private wells are located beyond the perimeter of monitoring wells with non-detectable concentration of contaminants related to the beryllium site. Lockheed therefore concludes that the contamination in those wells, given their distance from the old beryllium plant and the potential contamination from other surrounding industry, is not connected to the Tallevast plume. Varney said the data raise more questions than it answers. "Where are these wells located and have the other sources of contamination been identified?" Varney asks in his review. "To what extent are they impacting Tallevast and to what extent will they affect long-term remediation efforts? These are important questions for the Department of Environmental Protection, Lockheed Martin and Tallevast." Bottom line, Varney says, Lockheed has more work to do before moving on to remediation. This is the fourth time in the past two years that Lockheed has claimed to have found the edge of the plume. In the spring of 2004, Lockheed said the underground contamination of industrial solvents and degreasers was limited to the five-acre factory site. Then in February 2005, Lockheed said new data indicated the plume's size had jumped to 50 acres. By June 2005, further testing by Lockheed revealed the contamination had spread over more than 131 acres. Each time Lockheed claimed to have found the plume's edge, state environmental regulators have sent the defense giant back to do more tests. And with each round of testing the plume's size has grown. In its latest report, Lockheed said once again that the horizontal and vertical extent of the contamination has been fully delineated, citing specific measurements to the north, east, south and west. But Varney questioned how Lockheed's engineers conducted their sampling, the calibration of their instruments and their assessments of how groundwater flows through the area. "The groundwater system underlying the Tallevast area is complex beyond the simple explanations given to date," Varney writes. Moreover, the aquifer/hydraulic testing to date have not adequately described the extent and potential impact of how water flows through the area, Varney said. "This is very important as such factors will impact upon the success of short and long-term remediation efforts," Varney wrote. Varney's said his May 8 report sent to DEP is the first of more to come as he completes his study of Lockheed's latest site assessment. Subsequent reports, Varney said, will include recommendations on the potential placement of additional wells in the lower reaches of the intermediate aquifer system and the upper section of the Floridan Aquifer System as well possible recommendations of further hydrologic testing. Donna Wright, health and social services reporter, can be reached at 745-7049 ***************************************************************** 64 Deseret News: House panel allocates $$ for nuclear storage [deseretnews.com] Saturday, May 13, 2006 Chairman says he's not forcing it on a community By Suzanne Struglinski Deseret Morning News WASHINGTON — The House Energy and Water Development Subcommittee earmarked $30 million Thursday for interim nuclear-waste storage, and with the money came a promise from the subcommittee's chairman that he was not trying to force nuclear waste on any community. The chairman and the Energy Department have insisted they are not looking to put nuclear waste at the Private Fuel Storage site on the Skull Valley Goshute Indian reservation in Tooele County. But any talk of an interim site keeps the PFS idea alive. "We're skeptical the $30 million for interim storage won't target Skull Valley," said Vanessa Pierce, program director at the Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah. "With its NRC license, right now PFS is the only game in town. And that's why we're counting on Sen. Bennett to cut this money when it gets to his committee in the Senate." Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, sits on the Senate Appropriations Committee, which will eventually make its own version of the bill. The House subcommittee's version is expected to go to the House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday. The full House needs to approve it, and the process needs to be repeated in the Senate until lawmakers from each chamber can work out the differences and produce a final budget. The House version so far includes $544.5 million — the president's full request — for the Energy Department's Yucca Mountain nuclear-waste storage project in Nevada. Subcommittee Chairman David Hobson, R-Ohio, is a strong Yucca supporter and wants to see the program move forward and be completed as soon as possible. He also said the government needs to find a place to temporarily store used nuclear fuel until Yucca opens, although he did not name a specific place as to where the waste should go. He would like to see a solicitation go out for license facilities that could store nuclear waste until Yucca is ready. "You're going to need an interim storage facility along the way," Hobson said. "Who has a currently licensed site that would like to store nuclear fuel?" PFS received its license to store nuclear waste earlier this year and has asked the Energy Department to consider becoming its customer. Hobson said he is still waiting for an answer from the department on how it feels about that proposal, although the department has said in the past it will only focus on Yucca Mountain. He said it would be "faster and easier" to move waste temporarily to a site that already has a license. Getting it there would be safe because the government and the nuclear industry have been moving waste all over the country for decades, he added. "I would not put this in a community that is not willing to accept it," Hobson said. Hobson told Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, during an earlier floor debate that he was not looking to put the waste into a private site. "There's no doubt Utah is an unwilling community," said Bishop's chief of staff, Scott Parker. "But we will stay on guard and fight anything that could indirectly or unintentionally help PFS and its foolish proposal." The department still needs permission from Congress to move along with an interim plan before the money could actually be spent on the effort. It could receive permission through a pending bill on the Yucca Mountain project now being considered by Congress. Meanwhile, Hobson said he had "serious policy, technical, and financial reservations" about the administration's Global nuclear Energy Partnership, a plan to reprocess nuclear fuel. The subcommittee only allocated $150 million for the plan, about $100 million below what the department wanted. Heal Utah and almost 40 other environmental and community groups sent a letter to Hobson and the appropriators Wednesday urging them to not support the plan, arguing that reprocessing will only create more nuclear waste and not solve any problems. "Reprocessing is extremely polluting, reuses an insignificant amount of spent fuel, generates large volumes of waste that would likely be disposed of in Utah, creates weapons-grade plutonium, and doesn't alleviate the need for a deep, geologic repository," said Heal Utah's Pierce. "It's a bad idea and a waste of taxpayer dollars." Hobson predicted a difficult conference with the senators once both chambers complete their bill. "This is never a lovefest," he said. Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., the chairman of the Appropriations Energy and Water Development Subcommittee, is one of the Senate's top nuclear supporters. The subcommittee's top Democrat, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, is the Senate's chief Yucca opponent. E-mail: suzanne@desnews.com © 2006 Deseret News Publishing Company ***************************************************************** 65 RIA Novosti: TVEL to apply for public funding on $400 mln project 13/ 05/ 2006 KRASNOYARSK, May 13 (RIA Novosti) - TVEL, a leading producer and supplier of nuclear fuel for power plants, is going to apply for funding from the Investment Fund on two projects worth over $400 million, the corporation's vice president said Saturday. "We intend, before the end of the year, to submit an application to the Economic Development and Trade Ministry for financial resources from the Investment Fund on two of our projects, worth about $400 million," Stanislav Golovinsky said. The Investment Fund was set up in 2005 to develop major nationwide investment projects with joint public-private financing. © 2005 RIA Novosti ***************************************************************** 66 LA Daily News: Perchlorate study sought Article Launched: 05/14/2006 12:00:00 AM PDT Lawmaker calls for look into contamination at former defense sites BY EUGENE TONG, Staff Writer A San Bernardino congressman is pushing legislation that would require the Department of Defense to study perchlorate contamination at former defense sites, but it's uncertain if private defense contractors such as the former Bermite operation would benefit. The House passed an amendment Friday calling for the study. The 996-acre Whittaker-Bermite property in Santa Clarita - linked to perchlorate contamination in groundwater - is not a federally designated Formerly Utilized Defense Site. But Rep. Joe Baca, D-Rialto, author of the amendment, believes federal resources should help remedy contamination cleanups now handled by state and local authorities. "It's important and helpful, at least to uncover the full scope of the problem and assign responsibility, and therefore create more of an impetus for funding of federal cleanup," Michael Levin, a Baca spokesman, said Friday. "The congressman believes the federal government has responsibility for cleanup because defense is a national and federal issue." Perchlorate is a rocket fuel chemical that in large doses has been linked to thyroid problems. It's a known contaminant at the Whittaker-Bermite site south of Soledad Canyon Road, where the explosives and rocket testing occurred more decades until operations ceased in 1987. The chemical migrated into the local aquifer, which led to the capping of six wells since 1997. The state Department of Toxic Substances Control is overseeing cleanup of the land, while water agencies led by the Castaic Lake Water Agency has prepared a water decontamination plan. Though not a federal defense site, Levin said the amendment may have some impact on the Bermite property. "Under the language of the amendment, the Department of Defense would be required to identify all potential parties who stored perchlorate on their sites," he said. "It affects not only military installations, but also contractors." Baca's 43rd Congressional District also is hit with severe perchlorate contamination - the chemical has migrated from defense sites and has been found in large concentrations in both the Rialto-Colton and Chino groundwater basins, Levin said. One Rialto well found perchlorate levels of 1,000 parts per billion, compared to the state standard of 6 parts per billion. Municipal wells in Santa Clarita showed concentrations of about 45 parts per billion. In California, perchlorate has impacted 319 wells. The amendment is part of the House of Representatives' National Defense Authorization Act, which allocates $512.9 billion in defense and national security programs at the Department of Energy. It includes $50 million toward the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and is under debate on the House floor. Baca also proposed another amendment to the defense bill granting funds for local communities involved in perchlorate cleanup, but it failed to pass. "I will continue working on federal funding for perchlorate cleanup," Baca said in a statement. "Most of the contamination resulted from the federal government, so local communities should not get stuck paying the bill." (661) 257-5253 Copyright © 2006 Los Angeles Newspaper Group ***************************************************************** 67 AU ABC: China uranium exports no issue for US, Howard says. 13/05/2006. ABC News Online Prime Minister John Howard says he does not expect the United States to raise concerns about Australian uranium sales to China. Mr Howard is in Washington at the start of a state visit that will include a White House dinner with President George W Bush. Early last month, Australia and China signed a nuclear safeguard agreement that will allow Australia to export uranium to China. Mr Howard says the US understands Australia's position. "We've made it very clear all along that, provided China met the obligation she has under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), obligations of our safeguard principles, then we would be willing to export uranium," he said. "We've made that clear all along, the Americans understand our position on that. I mean they might ask about it, but it's not something I imagine would cause any concern." ***************************************************************** 68 AU ABC: PM downplays uranium 'leasing' proposal. 14/05/2006. ABC News Online Leasing proposal: Australia could be asked to take waste generated from its uranium sales. " (ABC TV) Australia's role in the world-wide expansion of the nuclear power industry will be discussed when Prime Minister John Howard meets the United States President, George W Bush, this week. Mr Howard says he will not speculate if Australia will be asked to take the nuclear waste of other countries which was generated using Australian uranium. The exchange is being dubbed "nuclear fuel leasing". "Everybody is just running ahead of themselves on this issue," Mr Howard said. "There's been some talk about certain proposals [and] I'll be interested to learn a little more about it. "I have an interest in it, Australia has an interest it, but we're not concerned about anything, we haven't been asked to do anything." Mr Howard will also discuss the issue with the US Energy Secretary. ***************************************************************** 69 AU ABC: Govt 'open-minded' on uranium waste. 14/05/2006. ABC News Online The Federal Government has made no firm decision on whether it would allow exported uranium waste to come back to Australia. (ABC TV) The acting Prime Minister, Mark Vaile, will not rule out Australia taking back nuclear waste from uranium it exports. Prime Minister John Howard is in Washington where energy-related issues are expected to be discussed. Mr Vaile has told Channel Nine the Government is yet to address what should be done with nuclear waste. "We need to keep an open mind on all these issues," Mr Vaile said. "If we expect to extract benefit from selling the product then obviously there is a role in terms of management through life both in terms of how it's used, what security circumstance it's used in other countries and then the question of waste come into being." Earlier Mr Howard would not speculate if Australia would be asked to take the nuclear waste of other countries which was generated using Australian uranium. "Look everybody is just running ahead of themselves on this issue," he said. "There's been some talk about certain proposals I'll be interested to learn a little more about it. I have an interest in it, Australia has an interest it but we're not concern about anything, we haven't been asked to do anything." ***************************************************************** 70 Cape Cod Times: State's perchlorate plan too strict, Pentagon says (May 13, 2006) By AMANDA LEHMERT STAFF WRITER BOSTON - Pentagon officials objected to the state's proposed drinking water safety standard for the chemical perchlorate yesterday, saying it offers an unwarranted extra level of safety A letter from Navy environmental program manager Andrew Stackpole was received by state environmental regulators on the last day of a month-long comment period on the proposed 2 parts per billion drinking water and hazardous waste cleanup standards. The Defense Department supports a 24.5 parts per billion standard. Stackpole also argued that the state should justify its assumption that only 20 percent of perchlorate ingestion will come from water, rather than a higher percentage. State officials will respond to questions from the Defense Department and others in the coming weeks as they continue the process of turning the plan into law. Four years ago the state began the process of setting standards for perchlorate - found in rocket fuel, explosives and fireworks - after it was found flowing under the Massachusetts Military Reservation in the Cape's sole-source aquifer, the region's principal source of drinking water. The base has approximately eight groundwater plumes of perchlorate flowing under the base. The concentration of perchlorate in the plumes ranges from trace amounts to 700 parts per billion. One part per billion is roughly equivalent to a drop of water in a 700,000-gallon, Olympic-sized swimming pool. At certain levels, perchlorate will disrupt the function of the thyroid gland, which regulates the body in adults and development in children. If state officials establish the proposed standards as law, it will be the first place in the nation to do so. The Defense Department, a major perchlorate consumer, and defense contractors have challenged similar standards at the federal level and in other states. Because of Defense Department opposition, the National Academies of Sciences stepped in and suggested a safe dose for perchlorate last January. The independent panel's suggestion was later used by the Environmental Protection Agency to suggest an interim guidance of 24.5 parts per billion for its Superfund cleanup programs, like the one at the Upper Cape base. When a safety standard becomes legal, polluters must clean up areas to meet that standard. The stricter the standard, the more expensive the cleanup. State environmental officials reviewed the National Academies of Sciences recommendations, but ultimately decided that a smaller dosage would be safest for ''sensitive populations'' such as children. The National Academies' recommendation, according to Stackpole's letter, already accounted for those sensitive populations so an additional safety factor leading to a stricter standard was not necessary. The Defense Department also asked the state in the letter to substantiate why it decided that people drinking perchlorate in water would only account for 20 percent of their total perchlorate consumption. That 20 percent consumption assumption is a standard value used by both the state and the federal government when setting drinking water standards. In the case of perchlorate, state drinking water officials cited the unfolding research about perchlorate in U.S. food supplies as evidence that it is appropriate to assume people will eat perchlorate as well as drink it. Amanda Lehmert can be reached at alehmert@capecodonline.com. (Published: May 13, 2006) Copyright © 2006 Cape Cod Times. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 71 KnoxNews: OR experts helping with Venezuela incident By FRANK MUNGER, munger@knews.com May 13, 2006 OAK RIDGE - Two Oak Ridge radiation experts were dispatched to Venezuela this week to help deal with an incident involving an unshielded radiation scanner at the port city of Puerto Cabello. Dr. Albert Wiley, director of the Radiation Emergency Center/Training Site, and Steve Sugarman, a health physicist on the REACTS staff, are part of an international team assessing the situation and the potential health consequences, said Pam Bonee, a spokeswoman for Oak Ridge Associated Universities. ORAU manages the radiation emergency center in Oak Ridge for the U.S. Department of Energy. The Oak Ridge experts were sent at the request of the Venezuelan government and the International Atomic Energy Agency, which also has staff members on the scene, Bonee said. A lot of details weren't available Friday, but Bonee said the situation involves a radiography machine used to scan incoming and outgoing containers at the port to look for narcotics and other contraband. The shielding that normally covers the machine's radioactive source - made of cobalt-60 - had been removed, but the reason for that had not been determined, Bonee said. The lack of shielding meant that users or people nearby could have been exposed to the cobalt's gamma radiation, she said. "They're trying to reconstruct what happened and see how long the shielding had been off and how many people have been around it," Bonee said. Wiley and Sugarman flew to Caracas on Thursday, she said. They were to report to the U.S. Embassy there, and it was not immediately clear if they planned to go to the port city where the incident occurred, she said. Bonee said she did not know if anyone had been hospitalized or required medical treatment because of the radiation. "Right now we're not hearing that there's any significant exposures," she said. Senior writer Frank Munger may be reached at 865-342-6329. © 2006 - Knoxville News Sentinel ***************************************************************** 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: *****************************************************************