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NUCLEAR POLICY
1 [southnews] Iran not nuclear threat, says IAEA
2 U-Turn by White House As It Blocks Direct Talks With Iran
3 [southnews] Non-aligned states urged to support nuclear Iran
4 IRNA: Belarus backs Iran in nuclear standoff
5 IRNA: Iran denies reported suspension of uranium enrichment
6 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Says It Wants to Resume EU Talks
7 Guardian Unlimited: U.S. Cautious on New Iran Diplomacy
8 IRNA: Indian FM:Iran's N-case should be settled within IAEA regulati
9 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: Army ready to encounter any threat
10 AFP: Iran says overstretched US cannot launch strikes
11 IRNA: Cuban FM declares support for Iran's nuclear program
12 AFP: Iran offers to restart nuclear talks but US still warns of sanc
13 AFP: China confirms world powers to meet Thursday on Iran
14 AFP: White House 'glad' Iran willing to hold nuclear talks -
15 AFP: Iran says will study EU nuclear offer -
16 TomPaine.com: Iran, Israel And Nuclear Weapons
17 IRNA: NAM-Iran-Nuclear /POL/
18 AFP: US confident incentive package for Iran to be approved
19 AFP: US lawmaker calls for NATO 'ring of deterrence' around Iran -
20 IRNA: Russian Mufti supports Iran on nuclear issue
21 IRNA: Iran will not accepted limited enrichment - Asefi
22 IRNA: Ultimately US has to talk with Iran, says Albright
23 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: N.Korean FM Visits China
24 BBC: N Korea foreign minister in China
25 US: Weapons of Mass Destruction: House Acts to Stop Their Spread -
26 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Postponed test should be permanently shelved
27 US: AFP: Pentagon postpones huge bomb test in Nevada desert
28 Guardian Unlimited: Congress balks at Pentagon 'war on terror' missi
29 Guardian Unlimited: US faces new challenge after riots in Kabul
30 AU ABC: Professor challenges scientific community over global warmin
NUCLEAR REACTORS
31 US: [NukeNet] Forbes.com: The Joys Of Going Nuclear?
32 Moscow Times: Sobyanin to Chair Nuclear Champion
33 The Australian: Nuclear power too expensive until 2030
34 Guardian Unlimited: British nuclear renaissance faces threat of skil
35 US: Summit Daily News: Keystone Center gets $100k to hold nuclear po
36 Sydney Morning Herald: Iemma rocks boat on push for nuclear power
37 US: San Luis Obispo Tribune: Diablo's steam jumper, David Beals
38 RIA Novosti: Nuclear agency head outlines plans to build Urals NPP
39 US: NRC: NRC Publishes Licensing, Inspection and Annual Fees for Fis
40 RIA Novosti: Is the Chernobyl reactor really empty?
41 US: Platts: Working group devoted to nuclear established in White Ho
42 US: Herald Journal: President is right to call for more nuclear powe
43 US: NRC: Nuclear Management Company, LLC; Point Beach Nuclear Plant,
44 US: NRC: Kerr-McGee Corporation; Notice of Termination of Kerr-McGee
45 AU ABC: Rann rules out nuclear power plant.
46 AU ABC: Nuclear energy lobby gains unexpected scientific boost
47 US: Roanoke Times: It's time to stop fearing nuclear power
NUCLEAR SECURITY
NUCLEAR SAFETY
48 US: New IEER book: Insurmountable Risks: The Dangers of Using
49 US: NRC: NRC Proposes $3,250 Civil Penalty for Elizabeth, Pa., Firm
50 US: Deseret News: Nuclear fallout is to blame
51 BBC: Niger probes uranium health scare
52 Greenpeace International: Radioactive Champagne in our future? |
NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
53 Guardian Unlimited: Irish Sellafield appeal ruled illegal
54 AU: The AGe: ALP appears close to opposing enrichment -
55 MDN: Japan plans to build new fast breeder reactor by 2025 -
56 BBC: Irish setback in Sellafield
57 Pravda.Ru: Nuclear waste seeping into groundwater from French storag
58 US: Gazette.com: State: Roads ready for lethal nuclear waste
59 US: NRC: List of Approved Fuel Storage Casks: VSC-24 Revision 6,
PEACE
US DEPT. OF ENERGY
60 2 deadly Livermore Lab bio-facilities planned, SF Chronicle
61 Knox News: Technology park roars to start
62 DOE: Department of Energy Prepares for Hurricane Season
63 Tennessean: Dismantling nuclear warheads speeds up -
64 NMBW: Former LANL physicist named to Nuclear Regulatory Commission
65 lamonitor.com: Three labs showcase new energy technology
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FULL NEWS STORIES
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1 [southnews] Iran not nuclear threat, says IAEA
Date: Tue, 30 May 2006 19:34:27 -0500 (CDT)
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IRAN does not pose an immediate nuclear threat and the world must act
cautiously to avoid repeating mistakes made with Iraq and North Korea,
the head of the UN nuclear watchdog agency said today.
Iran not nuclear threat, says IAEA
By Thom Akeman in Monterey, California
Reuters31may06
IRAN does not pose an immediate nuclear threat and the world must act
cautiously to avoid repeating mistakes made with Iraq and North Korea,
the head of the UN nuclear watchdog agency said today.
Mohamed ElBaradei, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA), said the world should not "jump the gun" with erroneous
information as he said the US-led coalition did in Iraq in 2003, nor
should it push the country into retaliation as international sanctions
did in North Korea.
"Our assessment is that there is no immediate threat," the winner of the
2005 Nobel Peace Prize told a forum organised by the Monterey Institute
of International Studies south of San Francisco.
"We still have lots of time to investigate.
"You look around in the Middle East right now and it's a total mess," he
said.
"You cannot add oil to that fire."
The recent violent history in Iraq bears an important lesson for
diplomacy with neighbouring Iran, the diplomat said.
"We should not jump the gun. We should be very careful about assessing
the information available to us," he said.
The Bush administration led a coalition into Iraq in 2003 saying
President Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction. No
such weapons were found.
"I ask myself every day if that's the way we want to go in getting rid
of every single dictator," Mr ElBaradei said.
While it was unclear whether Iran ultimately intended to redirect its
development of nuclear power into a weapons system, it was clear there
was no danger of that right now, he said.
The five UN Security Council permanent powers and Germany, trying to
curb Tehran's nuclear program, are planning to meet in Vienna on
Thursday to try to finalise a package of incentives for Iran to halt
uranium enrichment along with penalties if it keeps defying
international pressure.
Mr ElBaradei said he believed a majority in the Iranian leadership was
still interested in a negotiated solution and normal relations with the
world. The US is pressing for tough UN sanctions if Iran does not comply.
"It would be terrible" to try to strengthen sanctions, which could force
Iran to retaliate, he said.
"We have learned some lessons from North Korea," he said.
"When you push a country into a corner, you are giving the driver's seat
to the hard-liners there."
The archives of South News can be found at
http://southmovement.alphalink.com.au/southnews/
*****************************************************************
2 U-Turn by White House As It Blocks Direct Talks With Iran
Date: Tue, 30 May 2006 01:47:35 -0500 (CDT)
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/052506L.shtml
Go to Original
U-Turn by White House As It Blocks Direct Talks With Iran
By Julian Borger and Ewen MacAskill
The Guardian UK
Thursday 25 May 2006
Hardening of Bush policy rebuffs Tehran's approach. Move appears to
surprise US ambassador to Iraq.
The White House yesterday ruled out previously authorised direct
talks between Tehran and the US ambassador in Baghdad, which were to
have focused on the situation in Iraq. The move marks a hardening of
the Bush administration's position, despite pressure from the
international community to enter into direct dialogue with Iran.
A White House official said that although the US envoy had
originally been granted a mandate for talks with Iran, "we have
decided not to pursue it."
Western diplomats hoped that talks on Iraq could have widened into
a discussion of Iran's alleged nuclear arms programme. Iran has been
asking in recent weeks for direct talks with Washington on the nuclear
issue and the Bush administration had come under pressure from Kofi
Annan, the United Nations secretary general, and countries such as
Germany to hold direct talks.
Washington's decision not to pursue the talks with Iran on Iraq,
which would have been conducted by the American ambassador, Zalmay
Khalilzad, came as the US, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China
concluded a meeting in London last night to discuss a new offer to
Iran. The Foreign Office reported progress on agreeing on a
combination of sticks and carrots to try to entice Iran into
suspending its uranium-enrichment programme, which is seen by the west
as a step towards achieving a nuclear weapons capability.
The progress at the meeting contrasted with a bad-tempered
discussion on May 8 between the foreign ministers of the six countries
in New York.
The decision not to pursue direct talks has exposed rifts in the
Bush administration on how to deal with Iran. Mr Khalilzad had told
reporters on Sunday that the formation of the Iraqi government had
cleared the way for direct negotiations with Iranian officials. "We
have a lot of issues to discuss with them with regard to our concerns
and what we envision for Iraq and are prepared to listen to their
concerns," he told the Associated Press.
However, Frederick Jones, a National Security Council spokesman,
said yesterday there were no longer any plans for talks. "We will
assess the situation and see when talks with the Iranians about the
situation in Iraq might be useful," he said, noting that the US had
talked to Iran about Afghanistan and drug-trafficking. "If it makes
sense in Iraq, we'll do it. But we'll assess it based on what makes
sense."
The US has had no formal contact with the Iranian government since
students in Tehran took 52 Americans hostage in 1979.
The tough White House line appeared to take Mr Khalilzad's office
by surprise. A US official in Baghdad said senior administration
officials, including the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, had
previously said that Mr Khalilzad's talks with the Iranians could
proceed once a government in Baghdad was sworn in.
There were also reports of rifts on how to respond to President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's letter to George Bush. The Washington Post
reported that some intelligence analysts saw the letter as an
important diplomatic opening and US government experts had "exerted
mounting pressure" on the White House to respond.
However, Tony Snow, the White House spokesman, ruled out any such
response yesterday. "Iran, in responding to pressure, is trying to
change the subject and we won't let them change the subject," he said.
He said the precondition for bilateral talks would be that Iran cease
enriching uranium and did "nothing to build up its capacity to make
nuclear weapons".
In the London meeting, senior officials discussed the detail of an
offer to construct a light-water nuclear reactor for Iran, which is
seen as less of a threat than its uranium-enrichment programme. But
the package also includes a threat to punish Iran with sanctions if it
refuses to suspend uranium-enrichment.
These sanctions would include a ban on arms sales, no transfer of
nuclear technology, no visas for Iranian leaders and officials, and
freezing their assets.
There would also be an embargo on shipping refined oil products to
Iran. Although Iran is a leading producer of crude oil, it is short of
petrol and other oil derivatives.
Western diplomats are braced for rejection by the Iranians. The
US, Britain and France would then return to the UN security council to
table a resolution setting a deadline for Iran to suspend its uranium
enrichment programme or face sanctions.
*****************************************************************
3 [southnews] Non-aligned states urged to support nuclear Iran
Date: Tue, 30 May 2006 02:03:41 -0500 (CDT)
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Non-Aligned Movement chairman Malaysia called today for the 114-member
grouping to back Iran's right to nuclear technology, accusing the West
of nuclear double-standards.
Non-aligned states urged to support nuclear Iran
PUTRAJAYA, Reuters:
Non-Aligned Movement chairman Malaysia called today for the 114-member
grouping to back Iran's right to nuclear technology, accusing the West
of nuclear double-standards.
Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, normally soft-spoken and
diplomatic, used his opening speech at a NAM meeting to contrast the
West's tough approach towards Iran with what he described as inaction
over Israel's nuclear advances.
''Allowing Israel to develop nuclear weapons with impunity -- which it
does not deny -- while others in the region are prohibited from doing
so, is a blatant case of double standard,'' he told the meeting in
Malaysia's administrative capital.
''In this matter, we must recognise Iran's right to develop such
technology for peaceful purposes,'' he added.
NAM, born in 1961 in reaction to Cold War geopolitics, accounts for
two-thirds of the United Nations and includes all of Washington's most
prominent adversaries, including Iran and North Korea -- two nations on
President George W. Bush's ''axis of evil''.
Other NAM states include Cuba, Myanmar and Zimbabwe.
UNWIELDY GROUPING
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki is in Malaysia to lobby for
support and restated Tehran's position that it seeks to develop a
peaceful nuclear-power programme, not a nuclear weapon.
''The time for double standards is over, the time of threats to other
nations is over, selective approach to humanitarian issue is over, ''
Mottaki told reporters on the sidelines of the meeting, after Abdullah's
speech.
He said the world should recognise Iran's ''essential rights''.
The Malaysian talks coincide with this week's meeting of major-power
foreign ministers in Europe to finalise a package of incentives and
sanctions aimed at giving Iran a stark choice if it continues sensitive
activities such as uranium enrichment.
NAM encompasses half of the world's population and nearly 85 percent of
its oil resources, but it is an unwieldy grouping which, critics say,
has lost its way since the Cold War ended. Its spends a lot of time
discussing ways to remain meaningful.
In discussing a draft NAM statement on Iran at the weekend, senior
officials from Singapore and Jamaica, both US allies, objected to some
of the wording as too one-sided in favour of Iran and asked Malaysia as
chair to redraft it, diplomatic sources said.
In the initial draft statement, NAM called for a balanced and
even-handed approach but also urged Tehran to cooperate with the
International Atomic Energy Agency to resolve it.
''Any rightful nuclear activity for peaceful purposes under the agency's
safeguards does not constitute any concern,'' the initial draft said.
The Palestinian issue also took centre-stage at NAM, with the Malaysian
leader asking the United States and other Western powers to resume aid
to the Palestinian Authority, the local government inside Gaza large
chunks of the West Bank.
Financial aid dried up after Hamas, whose charter calls for the
destruction of Israel, won Palestinian elections in January.
''The leadership of Hamas must be engaged through contacts and dialogue,
not shunned or ostracised and sanctioned,'' Abdullah said in his speech.
________________________________________________
UN and Non-Aligned Movement must advance towards shared goals Annan
UN News 29 May 2006 The Non-Aligned Movement, which exists to give
voice to developing countries and advance a more democratic
international order, must move forward with the United Nations towards
their shared goals, Secretary-General Kofi Annan said today.
In a message to the Non-Aligned Movement Coordinating Bureau Ministerial
Meeting held in Putra Jaya, Malaysia, Mr. Annan said he counted on the
Movement's support for UN reform. Its backing for the recent peace
agreement in Sudan and for elections in Haiti illustrates the crucial
and constructive role you can and must play in promoting peace and
security in our world, he added.
Stressing that the UN exists to give voice to the principles of the
Charter, he said: It is in your Movement's interest to see the UN work
efficiently and effectively towards this goal. Working together, we can
achieve great progress, and make a real difference in the lives of those
who need it most: the peoples whom the Non-Aligned Movement represents.
He said despite great changes in recent decades
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=18656&Cr=Non&Cr1=Aligned#
The archives of South News can be found at
http://southmovement.alphalink.com.au/southnews/
*****************************************************************
4 IRNA: Belarus backs Iran in nuclear standoff
Kuala Lumpur, May 30, IRNA
Iran-Belarus-NAM-Nuclear
Belarussian Foreign Minister Sergei Martynov in Putrajaya,
Malaysia on Tuesday reiterated his country's stance on Iran's
right to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes within the
framework of International Atomic Energy Agency rules and
regulations and the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Martynov met with Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki
on the sidelines of a meeting of the Coordination Bureau of the
Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), which is currently holding a foreign
ministerial meeting in Putrajaya, Malysia.
During the meeting, the Iranian and Belarussian ministers
discussed avenues for bolstering bilateral cooperation
particularly in trade and other economic fields.
The two sides called for activation of the Iran-Belarus Joint
Economic Commission, noting an earlier call of their presidents
in this regard.
Mottaki praised Belarus for backing up Iran's peaceful nuclear
activities.
He also extended an invitation to the Belarussian foreign
minister to pay a visit to Iran which Martynov accepted.
The two-day meeting of foreign ministers of the Non-Aligned
Movement (NAM) kicked off at the International Convention Center
in Putrajaya with an inaugural speech by Malaysian Prime
Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.
The meeting ends Tuesday evening with the issuance of a
statement.
*****************************************************************
5 IRNA: Iran denies reported suspension of uranium enrichment
Tehran, May 30, IRNA
Iran-Asefi-Enrichment
Iran on Tuesday rejected reports by certain Western media that
Iran has suspended uranium enrichment activities.
Asefi was speaking at a press conference with domestic and
foreign reporters.
"The issue of whether Iran would halt or suspend enrichment is
not on its agenda," he clarified.
*****************************************************************
6 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Says It Wants to Resume EU Talks
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Tuesday May 30, 2006 4:01 PM
AP Photo KL104
By SEAN YOONG Associated Press Writer
PUTRAJAYA, Malaysia (AP) - Iran's foreign minister said Tuesday
that Tehran is ready to restart negotiations with the European
Union on its nuclear program, but he ruled out direct talks with
the United States.
``I announce that Iran is ready to respond positively to the
call'' made by the Nonaligned Movement ``for resuming the
negotiations on Iran's nuclear issue without any
preconditions,'' Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told
reporters.
``Accordingly, I would announce our readiness to restart
immediately the negotiations with the EU Three to resolve the
issues,'' he said, referring to Britain, France and Germany.
The announcement raised hopes that Iran would react positively
to a planned package of incentives meant to convince it to
abandon uranium enrichment. The package has been put together by
the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus
Germany.
The package was to be presented to Tehran by France, Britain and
Germany - the nations that broke off talks with Iran in August
2005 after it resumed activities linked to uranium enrichment.
The process can produce fuel for a nuclear reactor or fissile
material for an atomic bomb, depending on the level of
enrichment.
The Security Council gave Iran until the end of April to suspend
all enrichment activities. But Iran announced last month it had
for the first time successfully enriched uranium and was doing
research on advanced centrifuges to produce more of the material
in less time.
If Iran remains defiant and refuses to give up uranium
enrichment, it could open the way for sanctions.
Mottaki said there was no question of direct talks with the
United States, which accuses Iran of using its civilian nuclear
program as a cover to produce nuclear weapons. Tehran says its
nuclear program is merely to generate electricity.
``The level of enrichment is enrichment for peaceful purposes,''
said Mottaki, who was in Malaysia to attend a meeting of foreign
ministers of the Nonaligned Movement that ended Tuesday. ``I
mean the level which makes us able to produce fuel for our
nuclear power plants. It means we are not going to the level of
enrichment for other purposes, including military purposes.''
A meeting of the European foreign ministers, including Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice, was set for Thursday in Vienna, said
the diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they
were disclosing confidential information.
Indirectly linked to any possible deal for Iran would be
agreement on a resolution tough enough for Washington but
acceptable to Tehran ally Moscow, a dispute that has hobbled
action by the Security Council's permanent members for months.
If Iran remains defiant, the proposal - as outlined to AP by
diplomats familiar with the text - calls for a resolution
imposing sanctions under Chapter 7, Article 41 of the U.N.
Charter. But it avoids any reference to Article 42, which is the
trigger for possible military action to enforce any such
resolution.
The proposal also calls for new consultations among the five
permanent Security Council members on any further steps against
Iran - a move meant to dispel complaints by the Russians and
Chinese that, once the screws on Iran are tightened, the council
would automatically move toward military involvement.
Among the possible sanctions are a visa ban on government
officials, the freezing of assets, blocking financial
transactions by government figures and those involved in the
country's nuclear program, an arms embargo and a blockade on the
shipping of refined oil products to Iran.
If Tehran agrees to suspend enrichment, enter new negotiations
on its nuclear program and lift a ban on intrusive inspections
by the International Atomic Energy Agency, rewards would include
agreement to ``suspend discussion of Iran's file at the Security
Council,'' as well as help in building a peaceful domestic
nuclear program that uses an outside supply of enriched uranium.
---
On the Net: www.iaea.org
---
Associated Press Writer George Jahn in Vienna, Austria,
contributed to this story.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
7 Guardian Unlimited: U.S. Cautious on New Iran Diplomacy
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Wednesday May 31, 2006 12:16 AM
By ANNE GEARAN AP Diplomatic Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration cautiously welcomed
Iran's new willingness to negotiate over its disputed nuclear
program on Tuesday, even as it intensifies efforts to use
international trade and financial levers to pinch the clerical
regime.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Tuesday his
country was ready for ``negotiations on Iran's nuclear issue
without any preconditions,'' a reference to suspended talks with
European nations that would give Iran modest economic incentives
to drop suspect nuclear activities.
``Trust but verify,'' White House press secretary Tony Snow
replied, after saying the United States was glad that Iran would
return to the table. ``We'll just have to wait and see.''
Snow said he hoped the talks would ``produce productive
results.''
The administration previously has said Iran makes such pledges
as a stalling tactic when international pressure mounts. At the
State Department Tuesday, spokesman Sean McCormack noted that
Iran has made similar promises in the past.
``Nothing new there,'' he said of the Iranian statement.
Iran left the European talks last year and recently resumed
nuclear activities that it had voluntarily suspended during
negotiations. Tehran has refused to give up its right to master
all aspects of nuclear production, including uranium enrichment,
which it says will be used only for peaceful nuclear energy.
The U.S. has accused Iran of hiding ambitions to build weapons,
and has long tried to use the powerful United Nations Security
Council, which can impose mandatory economic sanctions, to deter
Iran.
The United States supported the European negotiations and waited
until they faltered before making a push to take Iran's case to
the Security Council this spring. Now that the case is there,
the Bush administration has been unable to persuade Tehran's
commercial partners Russia and China to take harsh steps.
As a backup, the U.S. is working increasingly publicly to line
up banks and allies in Europe, the Persian Gulf and Asia to curb
or cut off business with Iran. The Bush administration cites as
a model the restrictions a Macao bank imposed last year on North
Korea.
``This is something that we work on, for example, with other
like-minded countries concerning North Korea, as well as other
countries around the world,'' State's McCormack said Tuesday.
Officials from the State and Treasury departments have been
traveling heavily in recent weeks, pushing for voluntary
sanctions if the U.N. Security Council is unwilling to impose
mandatory global restrictions and Iran refuses to back down.
The U.S. has little economic leverage over Iran by itself, since
it cut almost all business and trade ties following the 1979
Islamic revolution and the storming of the U.S. Embassy in
Tehran. Europe and Asia maintain strong economic ties with the
oil exporter, and would thus by affected by the same voluntary
financial strictures meant to hurt Iran.
President Bush called Russian President Vladimir Putin to
discuss Iran on Tuesday, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
called her Russian counterpart ahead of meetings among the
Security Council permanent membership later this week in Vienna,
Austria.
European negotiators hope to present a new package meant to
reward Iran if it gives up uranium enrichment activities - or
penalize it if it doesn't - before Bush travels to Europe for a
summit with the European Union on June 21.
At the State Department, McCormack said the ministers are close
to agreement on the new package and hope to announce its
contents this week.
The package would probably come with the threat of harsher
Security Council action.
The Security Council gave Iran until the end of April to suspend
disputed activities.
If Iran remains defiant, the resolution - as outlined to AP by
diplomats familiar with a draft version of the text - calls for
imposing sanctions under the U.N. Charter. But it avoids any
reference to a specific article of the charter that can trigger
possible military action to enforce any such resolution.
The proposal also calls for new consultations among the five
permanent Security Council members on any further steps against
Iran. That is meant to dispel complaints by the Russians and
Chinese that once the screws on Iran are tightened, the council
would automatically move toward military involvement.
Among the possible sanctions are a visa ban on government
officials, freezing assets, blocking financial transactions by
government figures and those involved in the country's nuclear
program, an arms embargo and a blockade on the shipping of
refined oil products to Iran.
---
Associated Press writer George Jahn in Vienna contributed to
this report.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
8 IRNA: Indian FM:Iran's N-case should be settled within IAEA regulations -
, May 29, IRNA
--
Indian Foreign Minister Anand Sharma said Iran's nuclear case
should be settled according to the existing conventions and in
the framework of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
regulations.
In a meeting with Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki on
the sidelines of Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) ministerial meeting
in Malaysian city of Putra Jaya on Monday, Sharma pointed out
that India pursues its own national interest on which it
establishes relations with other countries and is never
influenced by others in this concern.
He expressed his country's interests to develop ties with Iran
especially in the field of energy.
Referring to firm civilizational and cultural ties between the
two countries, Sharma called Iran as a good friend of India with
wide exchanges in different fields.
Iran's foreign minister also evaluated bilateral relations with
India 'expanding.'
He added, in the new age, the traditional and good relations
between Iran and India should enter into a new phase.
Referring to India's role as one of the founders of NAM,
Mottaki said India can play a more important role in current
developments.
The two ministers also discussed gas pipeline between Iran,
Pakistan and India.
NAM ministerial meeting started its work Monday in Malaysian
political capital, 'Putra Jaya'.
Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmed Badawi inaugurated the
meeting.
*****************************************************************
9 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: Army ready to encounter any threat
2006/05/30
Zahedan, May 30 - Deputy IRI Army Commander Ashtiyani declared
on Tuesday the Islamic Republic of Iran's army is ready to
encounter any conspiracy and aggression whoever the aggressor is.
"By relying on God and enjoying a brave and calibered commander
and leader and through the spirit of martyrdom seeking and
dedication, the Army is ready to confront and stifle any
conspiracy and aggression, whatever the position and identity of
the aggressor is," the Army senior official.
Addressing a flag-hoisting ceremony of the Armored Army Division
88 in Sistan and Balouchestan, Deputy Army Commander Ashtiyani
referred to the current critical conditions of Iran and the
region, saying, "The enemy seeks dominance over the region by
invading some Muslim countries and provoking psychological
warfare."
"However, our nation and armed forces will frustrate enemies'
plot by taking lessons from the valuable teachings of the noble
Messenger of Allah who invited Muslims to unity and solidarity,"
he added.
Ashtiyani reiterated that IRI Army has gained independence and
self-sufficiency in different fields and is ready more than ever
to play an active role in the national and international arenas
and prove its capability to guard the sublime national and
Islamic values.
The Commander pointed to improvement of the fighter-navigation
systems and production of different types of weaponry, submarine
and missile as some of the Army achievements.
SAM
Copyright 2004, All Rights Reserved By Islamic Republic of Iran
Broadcasting News Network Sponsored By IRIB News Computer Center.
E-Mail: Webmaster@IRIBNEWS.ir
*****************************************************************
10 AFP: Iran says overstretched US cannot launch strikes
Tue May 30, 4:32 AM ET
KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) - The United States would not be able to
launch military strikes on Iran " /> Iranbecause it is already
overstretched on too many fronts, Iran's Foreign Minister
Manouchehr Mottaki said here.
Mottaki said he was not concerned about the prospect of military
action if Iran fails to comply with US demands over its nuclear
program, which it insists is only for peaceful purposes.
"They can't. The US is not in a position to impose another
crisis on taxpayers. There are a lot of difficulties in Iraq
" /> Iraqand Palestine. They are not in a position to create a
new crisis in the region," he said.
"The US position is that they would not like other countries to
have nuclear technology. This is a double standard policy. This
is not acceptable," he added.
Mottaki was speaking at a meeting of the 114-nation Non-Aligned
Movement (NAM) which was set Tuesday to issue a declaration
supporting Iran's right to nuclear technology for peaceful
purposes.
A draft statement obtained by AFP warned that any attack against
nuclear facilities "poses a great danger to human beings and the
environment, and constitutes a grave violation to international
law."
"The ministers reaffirmed the basic and inalienable right of
developing countries to engage in research, production and use
of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, without any
discrimination," it said.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday that world
powers are prepared to guarantee Iran's nuclear rights provided
it eases international concerns over its intentions and
cooperates fully with the UN atomic watchdog.
One European diplomat said the talks were being arranged to
"fine-tune" an EU-drafted package of incentives to get Iran to
guarantee it will not make nuclear weapons, as well as sanctions
if Tehran does not comply.
The United States suspects Iran is working secretly toward
building its own nuclear weapons under cover of a civilian drive
for atomic power, and accuses Tehran of failing to cooperate
with the IAEA.
Iran denies the charges, saying its nuclear work is confined
strictly to generating energy and insisting that it has always
cooperated with the IAEA.
Mottaki has said that any new incentive which did not
acknowledge Iran's right to develop nuclear energy on its own
would be a non-starter.
Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The
*****************************************************************
11 IRNA: Cuban FM declares support for Iran's nuclear program
Kuala Lumpur, May 29, IRNA
Iran-Mottaki-Cuba
Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque Monday declared the
support of his government and nation for Iran's legal right to
access nuclear technology for peaceful purposes and expressed
their solidarity with the Iranian nation.
Speaking at a meeting with his Iranian counterpart, Manouchehr
Mottaki, on the sidelines of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM)
ministerial meeting, he said that Iran's stance to safeguard its
right to access nuclear technology for peaceful purposes is
legitimate.
He referred to NAM's high capacities to promote global peace
and security as well as economic cooperation and urged
independent countries to use it to expand multifaceted
international cooperation.
For his part, Mottaki assessed the current trend of global
developments and the growing world opposition to unilateralism
and policies of threat and fear as the cause for increasing the
incentive and interest of some world states to promote the
justice-oriented view in global development.
The NAM ministerial meeting opened at the international
conference center in Malaysia's political capital of Putrajaya
on Monday with an inaugural speech of Malaysian Prime Minister
Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.
At the meeting, the foreign ministers of NAM member states are
expected to discuss the key issue dubbed 'Towards a Dynamic and
more Integrated NAM: Challenges Facing 21st Century'.
Senior officials from 114 NAM member states prepared the agenda
of the event in a two-day session behind closed doors.
On the sidelines of NAM foreign ministers meeting, other
sessions, such as that of Troika ministers of former, current
and future heads of the movement at the UN Security Council and
the Palestine Committee meeting will be held.
2326/2322/1412
*****************************************************************
12 AFP: Iran offers to restart nuclear talks but US still warns of sanctions -
by Michael Adler Tue May 30, 3:31 PM ET
VIENNA (AFP) -
Iran offered to restart nuclear talks with the European Union "
/> but the EU and Washington were still pressing for sanctions if
Tehran refuses to halt atomic work that could be weapons-related.
Six world powers were to meet in Vienna Thursday to bridge
differences over offering Iran trade and other benefits in return
for guarantees it will not make nuclear weapons, while still
preparing for sanctions if Tehran does not comply, spokesmen in
capitals confirmed.
The United States said it was optimistic a plan would be
endorsed to end the crisis over an Iranian nuclear program which
Washington fears hides the secret development of atomic weapons.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
" /> is to leave Washington Wednesday for the Vienna talks.
"I think the assessment right now is that we feel as though
we're in pretty good shape going into Vienna," State Department
spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters in Washington.
He declined to give details "until we really have the whole
thing put together, ministers and capitals having blessed it,
and ready to talk about it in public."
A Western diplomat told AFP that disagreements among the six
nations centered around the timing of a UN Security Council
resolution, if one was needed to require Iran to comply, and
which would open the door to sanctions.
Russia and China want to delay any sanctions but the United
States, France, Germany and Britain want them imposed quickly
following any Iranian non-compliance, the diplomat said.
At stake is whether Iran will stop making enriched uranium,
which can be used for nuclear power reactor fuel or atom bomb
material, as the six powers all demand.
Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Tuesday in
Malaysia that Iran was "ready to respond positively in resuming
negotiations (with the EU) on Iran's nuclear enrichment program
without any preconditions."
The United States greeted the news by saying: "We are glad they
are going back to the EU-3 (Britain, Germany and France) talks
and we hope that they produce productive results," White House
spokesman Tony Snow told reporters.
But it was not clear if Iran was ready to meet EU-3 demands that
Tehran stop all uranium enrichment work if the talks were to
resume.
The talks broke off last August when Iran resumed uranium
conversion that is the first step in enriching uranium.
Then in April Iran finally enriched a small amount of uranium,
but only to levels adequate for reactor fuel and not to the more
refined weapons-grade.
A senior European diplomat in Vienna described the new Iranian
offer as "meaningless."
"We know there cannot be negotiations just like that," the
diplomat said, referring to Iran's refusal to suspend its
uranium enrichment work.
Officials in Tehran indicated that Iran may be willing to hold
off on industrial-level enrichment using huge numbers of
centrifuges and limit itself to research-scale work.
But the US position is that not one centrifuge should be
spinning, in order to keep Iran from obtaining knowledge that
would represent a "break-out" capability for making nuclear
weapons.
Iran signalled Tuesday that it would study an EU-3 draft
proposal of possible benefits and sanctions that is to be
finalized in Vienna Thursday, but stuck by its refusal to halt
sensitive uranium enrichment work.
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said Tuesday that Iran's
reaction to the EU-3-drafted offer would be crucial.
"If they reject (it), it will be once again a clear sign (that)
what they are looking (for) is not only the production of
energy, but they are looking for a level (of) enrichment going
way beyond," Solana said in Brussels.
According to a draft text seen by AFP, but which was being
revised, the possible sanctions include an arms embargo on Iran
-- something Russia, a major arms supplier to Iran, and China, a
major consumer of Iranian oil, resist.
On the benefits side, the EU-3 proposal says world powers should
help Iran build light water reactors to help its civilian
nuclear energy program.
Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The
*****************************************************************
13 AFP: China confirms world powers to meet Thursday on Iran
Tue May 30, 6:09 AM ET
BEIJING (AFP) - The five permanent members of the UN Security
Council and Germany will meet in Vienna to discuss a proposal to
end the crisis over Iran " /> 's nuclear program, China's foreign
ministry confirmed.
"It is true that there will be a meeting... vice foreign
minister Dai Bingguo will attend," foreign ministry spokesman Liu
Jianchao told reporters Tuesday when asked about reports of the
Thursday gathering.
Diplomats had told AFP the five permanent members -- the United
States, Russia, China, France and Britain -- and Germany had
proposed, but not confirmed, the meeting in the Austrian capital.
The meeting was also slated to include European Union
" /> foreign policy chief Javier Solana.
One European diplomat said it was being arranged to "fine-tune"
a European Union-drafted package of incentives to get Iran to
guarantee it will not make nuclear weapons, as well as sanctions
if Tehran does not comply.
The diplomat said disagreements among the group centered around
the timing of a Security Council resolution to require Iran to
comply and open the door to sanctions.
Russia and China want to delay any sanctions but the United
States, France, Germany and Britain want them imposed quickly
following any Iranian non-compliance, according to the diplomat.
Foreign ministry spokesman Liu did not comment on China's
position on the timing of the sanctions, only reiterating
Beijing's stance that the Iran stand-off must be resolved
through diplomacy.
"It serves all relevant parties interests to solve the Iranian
nuclear issue through diplomatic efforts and by peaceful means,"
he said.
"Under the actual circumstances, the relevant parties should
have a constructive attitude and create a harmonious atmosphere
in order to get a resumption of the talks."
Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The
*****************************************************************
14 AFP: White House 'glad' Iran willing to hold nuclear talks -
Tue May 30, 1:37 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States is "glad" about Iran " />
Iran's stated wish to restart negotiations with the European
Union " /> European Unionover its nuclear enrichment program, a
White House spokesman said.
"We are glad they are going back to the EU-3 talks and we hope
that they produce productive results," spokesman Tony Snow told
reporters at a briefing.
His remarks came as Britain, France and Germany were working to
restart negotiations on halting the Islamic republic's uranium
enrichment, which the United States fears could be diverted into
materials for making nuclear weapons.
The Bush administration's remarks welcoming the talks came after
a White House spokeswoman earlier Tuesday expressed skepticism
over remarks by Iran's foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki that
his country was willing to restart talks with the European Union
immediately over Tehran's nuclear program.
Britain, France and Germany have been putting together a package
of trade and other incentives aimed at coaxing Iran into
agreeing to halt uranium enrichment -- work that can be extended
to making nuclear weapons.
But Mottaki, who is in Malaysia for a gathering of nonaligned
countries, ruled out the prospect of negotiations with the
United States.
Washington suspects Iran is working secretly toward building its
own nuclear weapons under cover of a civilian drive for atomic
power.
Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The
*****************************************************************
15 AFP: Iran says will study EU nuclear offer -
Tue May 30, 8:07 AM ET
TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran " /> signalled it would study European
proposals to end a crisis over its nuclear programme, but stuck
by its refusal to halt sensitive uranium enrichment work.
"We have to wait and see what kind of proposal will be made. We
haven't seen it yet. They have to submit it so it will be studied
and we will see how it can be followed up," foreign ministry
spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters.
Britain, France and Germany are currently putting together a
package of trade and other incentives they hope will coax Iran
into agreeing to halt uranium enrichment -- work which can be
extended to making nuclear weapons.
But Iran insists it only wants to make civilian reactor fuel and
that enrichment is a right enshrined by the nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty. Asefi repeated that a freeze in fuel
cycle work was therefore not on the agenda.
"No, we do not accept any restrictions," the spokesman said.
"Halting or stopping enrichment is not on the agenda. The
Islamic republic is continuing its activities. Enrichment is our
right."
The United States suspects Iran is trying to acquire nuclear
weapons, and the European powers view a freeze of enrichment as
the best "objective guarantee" that Iran will not do so.
But Asefi did indicate that Iran may be willing to hold off on
industrial-scale enrichment using huge numbers of centrifuges
and limit itself to research-scale work -- something the
Europeans currently deem too much.
"There are different interpretations on what is a pilot
activity. The number of centrifuges is subject to negotiation,"
he said.
Critics of Iran argue that even a small-scale enrichment
facility is too much, given that the concern is that if Iran
fully masters the technology it would acquire weapons know-how.
Asefi also praised the stance by permanent UN Security Council
members Russia and China, which are resisting a US push for
tough sanctions against Iran over the crisis.
"I should thank China and Russia's position in talks. They have
shown an independent policy in meetings and publicly," he said.
Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The
*****************************************************************
16 TomPaine.com: Iran, Israel And Nuclear Weapons
I was just about to start a quick blog advising our readers to
examine several recent pieces by Gareth Porter, a historian and
journalist for the Inter Press Service, on the history of our
diplomatic relations with Iran in the past five years. His
articles are critical to understanding the current debacle,
revealing the way Bush has continually rebuffed efforts to solve
differences diplomatically.
Then he went and wrote a superb article for American
Prospect that ties it all together in one neat package.
The story Porter tells is surprising and absolutely essential
reading. I'll excerpt now only the broad outlines of the plot,
but you really need to read the entire thing.
Iran experts at the State Department had been working throughout
2001 on increasing relations with Mohammed Khatami's Iran. Post
9/11, they immediately realized the strategic value of working
with Iran against a common enemyal-Qaida.
It was the beginning of a period of extraordinary strategic
cooperation between Iran and the United States. As America began
preparing for the military operation in Afghanistan, Deputy
Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Ryan
Crocker held a series of secret meetings with Iranian officials
in Geneva. In those meetings, Iran offered search-and-rescue
help, humanitarian assistance, and even advice on which targets
to bomb in Afghanistan, according to one former administration
official. The Iranians, who had been working for years with the
main anti-Taliban coalition, the Northern Alliance, also advised
the Americans about how to negotiate the major ethnic and
political fault lines in the country.
The Iranian-U.S. strategic rapprochement continued to gain
momentum in November and December 2001. In early December, at a
conference in Bonn to set up a post-Taliban Afghan government,
Iran pressed its allies in the Northern Alliance to limit their
demands for ministerial seats and even made sure antiterrorism
language was included in the agreement, according to U.S.
Special Envoy James Dobbins. Leverett agrees. The Bonn
Conference would not have been successful without [Irans]
cooperation, he says. They had real contacts with the players
on the ground in Afghanistan, and they proposed to use that
influence in continuing coordination with the United States.
As we know was the case with Iraq, tragically, cooperation was
not going to be allowed.
But neoconservatives had no intention of letting the engagement
initiative get off the ground, and they were well-positioned to
ensure that it didnt.
The main drama around Iran policy in late 2001 was played out in
the White House, where the drafting of the State of the Union
message was under way and where the neoconservatives held sway.
The inclusion of Iran in the axis of evil was at first opposed
by thenNational Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and her
deputy, Stephen J. Hadley, because, as Hadley told journalist
Bob Woodward, Iran, unlike Iraq or North Korea, had a
complicated political structure with a democratically elected
president. But Bush had already made up his mind; regime change
was the goal.
After the invasion of Iraq, however, a second hope emerged:
The effect of the Bush administrations signals of hostility was
to discredit the idea of cooperation with Washington as a means
of obtaining U.S. concessions to Iranian interests. Reflecting
the mood in Tehran, in May 2002, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei denounced the idea of negotiations with the United
States as useless.
But Iranian calculations were dramatically altered by the
impending U.S. attack on Iraq ... Iranian national security
officials were convinced that the Bush administration intended
to move against their country once the United States had
consolidated its position in Iraq. Trita Parsi, a specialist on
Iranian foreign policy at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced
International Studies who has had extensive interviews with
officials of Irans Supreme National Security Council as well as
the Foreign Ministry, says, They believed if they didnt do
something, Iran would be next. ... The only way Iranian
officials could head off that threat was to offer Washington
things it needed in return for things that Iran needed.
And then comes the bombshell. Iran drafted a massive, concrete
proposal, with the direct involvment of Iran's highest
authorities, including the Supreme National Security Council and
the personal guidance of Supreme Ayatollah Ali Khamenei:
The proposal, a copy of which is in the authors possession,
offered a dramatic set of specific policy concessions Tehran was
prepared to make in the framework of an overall bargain on its
nuclear program, its policy toward Israel, and al-Qaeda. It also
proposed the establishment of three parallel working groups to
negotiate road maps on the three main areas of contention --
weapons of mass destruction, terrorism and regional security,
and economic cooperation. ...
To meet the U.S. concern about an Iranian nuclear weapons
program, the document offered to accept much tighter controls by
the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in exchange for
full access to peaceful nuclear technology. It proposed full
transparency for security [assurance] that there are no Iranian
endeavors to develop or possess WMD and full cooperation with
IAEA based on Iranian adoption of all relevant instruments (93+2
and all further IAEA protocols). That was a reference to new
IAEA protocols that would guarantee the IAEA access to any
facility, whether declared or undeclared, on short notice --
something Iran had been urged to adopt but was resisting in the
hope of getting something in return. The adoption of those
protocols would have made it significantly more difficult for
Iran to carry on a secret nuclear program without the risk of
being caught.
The Iranian proposal also offered a sweeping reorientation of
Iranian policy toward Israel. In the past, Iran had attacked
those Arab governments that had supported the
Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and Tehran had supported
armed groups that opposed it. But the document offered
acceptance of the Arab League Beirut declaration (Saudi
initiative, two-states approach). The March 2002 declaration
had embraced the land-for-peace principle and a comprehensive
peace with Israel in return for Israels withdrawal to 1967
lines. That position would have aligned Irans policy with that
of the moderate Arab regimes.
The document also offered a stop of any material support to
Palestinian opposition groups (Hamas, Jihad, etc.) from Iranian
territory and pressure on these organizations to stop violent
actions against civilians within borders of 1967. Finally it
proposed action on Hizbollah to become a mere political
organization within Lebanon. That package of proposals was a
clear bid for removal of Iran from the list of state sponsors of
terrorism.
The document appears to have assumed that the United States
would be dependent on Irans help in stabilizing Iraq. It
offered coordination of Iranian influence for activity
supporting political stabilization and the establishment of
democratic institutions and a nonreligious government.
Comprehensive peace with Israel. An end to support for terrorist
organizations. Complete nuclear transparency. And what did the
Bush administration do when faced with this historic
opportunity?
The outcome of discussion among the principals -- Bush, Cheney,
Rumsfeld, and Powell -- was that State was instructed to ignore
the proposal and to reprimand Guldimann for having passed it on.
It was literally a few days, Leverett recalls, between the
arrival of the Iranian proposal and the dispatch of the message
of displeasure with the Swiss ambassador. ...
Nevertheless, within a few days, Rumsfeld and Cheney had
persuaded Bush to cancel the May 21 meeting with Iranian
officials [to discuss a much narrower proposal exchanging
anti-Iranian terrorist information for information about
al-Qaeda]. In a masterstroke, Rumsfeld and Cheney had shut down
the only diplomatic avenue available for communicating with Iran
and convinced Bush that Iran was on the same side as al-Qaeda.
Oh, and by the way, on a slightly related note, that story you
might have heard circulating recently about Iran forcing
non-Muslims to wear distinctive clothing? Complete and utter
bullshit. --Ethan Heitner | Friday, May 26, 2006 3:29
TomPaine.com.] [ /]
[ /]
*****************************************************************
17 IRNA: NAM-Iran-Nuclear /POL/
NAM Coordinating Bureau's statement on Iran's nuclear issue
Kuala Lumpur, May 30 IRNA -- The ministerial meeting of the
coordinating bureau of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) issued a
statement Tuesday in Putrajaya, Malaysia, on Iran's nuclear
issue. The full text of the statement is as follows:
"1. The ministers reiterated their principled positions on
nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation reflected in the final
document of the ministerial meeting of the coordinating bureau
of the Non-Aligned Movement, held in Putrajaya, Malaysia from
May 27 to 30, 2006. They considered the developments regarding
the implementation of the NPT safeguards agreement in the
Islamic Republic of Iran.
"2. The ministers reaffirmed the basic and inalienable right of
all states, to develop research, production and use of atomic
energy for peaceful purposes, without any discrimination and in
conformity with their respective legal obligations. Therefore,
nothing should be interpreted in a way as inhibiting or
restricting this right of states to develop atomic energy for
peaceful purposes. They furthermore reaffirmed that states'
choices and decisions in the field of peaceful uses of nuclear
technology and its fuel cycle policies must be respected.
"3. The ministers recognized the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) as the sole, competent authority for verification
of the respective safeguards obligations of member states and
stressed that there should be no undue pressure or interference
in the agency's activities, specially its verification process,
which would jeopardize the efficiency and credibility of the
agency.
"4. The ministers welcomed the cooperation extended by the
Islamic Republic of Iran to the IAEA including those voluntary
confidence-building measures undertaken, with a view to resolve
the remaining issues. They noted the assessment of the IAEA
director- general that all nuclear material declared by Iran had
been accounted for. They noted, at the same time, that the
process for drawing a conclusion with regard to the absence of
undeclared material and activities in Iran is an ongoing and
time-consuming process. In this regard, the ministers encouraged
Iran to urgently continue to cooperate actively and fully with
the IAEA within the agency's mandate to resolve outstanding
issues in order to promote confidence and a peaceful resolution
of the issue.
"5. The ministers emphasized the fundamental distinction
between the legal obligations of states to their respective
safeguards agreements and any confidence-building measures
voluntarily undertaken to resolve difficult issues, and believed
that such voluntary undertakings are not legal safeguards
obligations.
"6. The ministers considered the establishment of nuclear-
weapons-free zones (NWFZs) as a positive step towards attaining
the objective of global nuclear disarmament and reiterated the
support for the establishment in the Middle East of a nuclear
weapons free zone in accordance with relevant General Assembly
and Security Council resolutions. Pending the establishment of
such a zone, they demanded Israel to accede to the NPT without
delay and place promptly all its nuclear facilities under
comprehensive IAEA safeguards.
"7. The ministers reaffirmed the inviolability of peaceful
nuclear activities and that any attack or threat of attack
against peaceful nuclear facilities, operational or under
construction, poses a great danger to human beings and the
environment, and constitutes a grave violation of international
law, principles and purposes of the Charter of the United
Nations and regulations of the IAEA. They recognized the need
for a comprehensive multilaterally negotiated instrument,
prohibiting attacks, or threat of attacks on nuclear facilities
devoted to peaceful uses of nuclear energy.
"8. The ministers strongly believed that all issues on
safeguards and verification, including those of Iran, should be
resolved within the IAEA framework, and be based on technical
and legal grounds. They further emphasized that the agency
should continue its work to resolve the Iranian nuclear issue
within its mandate under the statute of the IAEA.
"9. The ministers also strongly believed that diplomacy and
dialogue through peaceful means must continue to find a long
term solution to the Iranian nuclear issue. They expressed their
conviction that the only way to resolve the issue is to resume
negotiations without any preconditions and to enhance
cooperation with the involvement of all necessary parties to
promote international confidence with the view to facilitating
agency's work on resolving the outstanding issues."
*****************************************************************
18 AFP: US confident incentive package for Iran to be approved
Tue May 30, 3:24 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States said it was optimistic that
ministers of the five permanent members of the UN Security
Council and Germany meeting in Vienna this week would endorse a
plan to end the crisis over Iran " /> Iran's nuclear program.
The plan involves a European Union " /> European Union-drafted
package of incentives to get Iran to guarantee it will not make
nuclear weapons, as well as sanctions if Tehran does not comply.
Washington confirmed that the five permanent members -- the
United States, Russia, China, France and Britain -- and Germany
were scheduled to meet in the Austrian capital on Thursday.
"I think the assessment right now is that we feel as though
we're in pretty good shape going into Vienna," State Department
spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters.
He said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
" /> Condoleezza Ricewould leave Washington Wednesday for the
Vienna talks on the package, which is to guarantee Iran's right
to develop nuclear energy in return for Tehran agreeing to halt
uranium enrichment.
The enrichment process can be extended to make nuclear weapons,
experts say.
Asked whether the ministers would "bless" the package, McCormack
said confidently, "It is our hope that they will be ready to
sign off on the package in Vienna, if not beforehand."
He declined to give details on the contents of the deal.
"I think we're going to hold off in talking about specific parts
of the package until we really have the whole thing put
together, ministers and capitals having blessed it, and (are)
ready to talk about it in public," he said.
It was reported that disagreements among the six nations
centered around the timing of a Security Council resolution to
require Iran to comply and open the door to sanctions if it does
not.
Russia and China want to delay any sanctions but the United
States, France, Germany and Britain want them imposed quickly
following any Iranian non-compliance, a European diplomat said.
McCormack said the package of incentives would present the
regime of hardline Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with a
choice: "confrontation or negotiation.
If Iran chose to reject the package, "we believe, at a minimum,
a Chapter 7 resolution would be in the offing, again," he said,
referring to the key provision in the UN Charter which could
allow for sanctions or even military action.
Sanctions being considered at present include an arms embargo on
Iran -- something Russia, a major arms supplier to Iran, and
China, a major consumer of Iranian oil, resist.
Iran signalled Tuesday that it would study the EU-3 proposal but
stuck by its refusal to halt sensitive uranium enrichment work.
McCormack reiterated US objection to any security guarantees to
Iran in exchange for forfeiting its nuclear program.
Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The
*****************************************************************
19 AFP: US lawmaker calls for NATO 'ring of deterrence' around Iran -
Tue May 30, 6:48 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - An influential US lawmaker called for a Cold
War-style "ring of deterrence" around Iran led by NATO if Tehran
pursues nuclear weapons.
Senator John Warner, chairman of the Senate Armed Services
Committee, said a parallel option to diplomacy would be a
strategy of deterrence, citing its success through NATO during
the Cold War.
To dissuade Iran from developing nuclear weapons, an "option
would be to begin planning a strategy of deterrence, as a
parallel and supportive effort to diplomacy," the Republican
senator wrote in an op-ed article published by the Paris-based
International Herald Tribune newspaper, as NATO's parliamentary
assembly met in the French capital.
"In the worst-case scenario, where diplomacy fails and Iran
proceeds defiantly with a nuclear weapons program, how would the
world respond?" he asked.
"In preparing for such a scenario, we should reflect on the
lessons of the Cold War, when deterrence succeeded, largely
through the actions of NATO," he said.
"The international community should begin devising the initial
concept of a 'ring of deterrence' that would surround Iran and
deter the use of actual force, as was done so successfully with
the Soviet Union during the Cold War."
Warner said that NATO should be at the heart of such a strategy,
with an initial plan "limited to a stand-off naval force
operating in international waters, and a stand-off air
capability in international airspace."
If NATO considered playing this future deterrent role, it would
gain a place in the combined diplomatic efforts under way, he
said.
"Planning for such an initiative would lend important support to
the combined diplomatic efforts, by signaling that NATO's 26
nations take the Iranian situation seriously," he said.
Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The
*****************************************************************
20 IRNA: Russian Mufti supports Iran on nuclear issue
Moscow, May 29, IRNA
Russia-President-Message
Head of the World Assembly for Proximity of Islamic Schools of
Thoughts (WAPIST) Ayatollah Mohammad-Ali Taskhiri here Monday in
meeting with the Head of Russian Muftis Council Mufti Ravil
Gainutdin submitted President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's message to
him.
According to a fax released by the Cultural Attache Office of
Iran's embassy in Moscow and the Public Relations Department of
the council, at the meeting, Gainutdin conveyed the support of
Russian scholars, clergies and Muslims for Iran's approach to
global developments, in particular Palestinian and its own
nuclear issue.
Meanwhile, Gainutdin said that he intends to visit Iran to
assure Iran of his support formally.
For his part, Ayatollah Taskhiri appreciated the stance of the
Russian Muslims Superior Mufti for his support and officially
invited him to visit Tehran and declared him as a member of
WAPIST.
Taskhiri is visiting Russia to attend the international
conference dubbed `Human Values and Russian Muslim Youth' due to
open in Moscow on Tuesday.
The conference will be attended by 250 cultural and social
officials from several Islamic countries, including Iran, Libya,
Saudi Arabia and some guests from Russian Presidential Office,
Duma, government, Moscow mayor and ambassadors of Islamic states
in the country.
2326/2322/1412
*****************************************************************
21 IRNA: Iran will not accepted limited enrichment - Asefi
Tehran, May 30, IRNA
Iran-Asefi-Nuclear issue
Iran will not accept limited uranium enrichment, Foreign
Ministry spokesman Hamid-Reza Asefi said here Tuesday.
Addressing domestic and foreign reporters at a press
conference, Asefi said news of Iran's acceptance of limited
enrichment was not factual.
Asked about Iran's alleged acceptance of a five percent ceiling
on enrichment, he said: "This percentage relates to fuel
supply." "Iran has a transparent and precise stance in this
regard. The percentage we demand for enrichment is not an
issue," Asefi said.
On the issue of fuel supply for Iran's power plants, he said it
was for Tehran to act on this.
"We act based on our rights and will never give them up for as
long as we know we are acting within the framework of the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)."
Asefi added: "Further issues should be settled during future
talks with the IAEA."
Pointing to the calls of many states for talks between Iran and
the European states to be continued, he reminded that
"negotiations will be the only solution to Iran's nuclear case,"
and added that Iran had not yet received Europe's proposal.
The spokesman reminded that use of threats or harsh words and
misuse of international institutions were not correct. "This
approach will not help promote peace and security in the world."
He urged constructive and transparent talks to solve the
current nuclear dispute.
"We have always announced we will not accept anything beyond
our responsibilities within the NPT. We will not accept
suspension of research," he added.
Asked about remarks made recently by IAEA chief Mohamed
ElBaradei that Iran had accepted suspension of enrichment for a
limited duration, Asefi added: "We insist on our rights.
Completion of the fuel cycle and enrichment are among our
rights" (under the Non-Proliferation Treaty).
In response to a question on the recent visit of Russian
Security Council Secretary Igor Ivanov to Iran, he praised the
Russian and Chinese stances on Iran's nuclear case, saying
"Russia is a big and influential country. During Ivanov's visit,
the sides discussed broad-based and general issues."
Ivanov, accompanied by Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei
Kislyak, arrived in Tehran Saturday night and held talks with
senior Iranian officials on Iran's nuclear program.
A package of incentives for Iran is currently being discussed
by representatives of the UN Security Council's five permanent
members plus Germany (5+1 Group).
The incentives include light water reactors and guarantees of
nuclear fuel in exchange Iran stopping its nuclear activities.
Asefi said Ivanov and senior Iranian nuclear officials had
discussed avenues for returning Iran's nuclear case to the IAEA.
Asked whether Iran had indeed slowed down its nuclear
activities to win the satisfaction of Western states, the
spokesman said: "Such reports are doubts of the media."
Asked where Persian Gulf littoral states stood on the Iran
nuclear row, Asefi said these states "are not very concerned."
What is disconcerting is the disinformation being spread by the
Western media, he said.
*****************************************************************
22 IRNA: Ultimately US has to talk with Iran, says Albright
London, May 30, IRNA
Iran-US Albright
Former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright Tuesday repeated
her call for President George W Bush to engage with Iran over
the dispute on its peaceful nuclear program.
"Ultimately the US should have bilateral talks with Iran to
solve the situation," Albright said in an interview with BBC
Radio Four's Today program.
Her renewed call comes as discussion between France, Germany,
UK, Russia, China and the US have remained deadlock for the past
three weeks over plans to extend an EU offer of incentives to
Iran.
The US has reportedly been reluctant to provide security
guarantees to Iran, but the former secretary of state under
president Bill Clinton said that without having talks they were
"unsure what Iran wants or we need" to do.
"The United States has to engage [with Iran]," she said,
despite adding that she appreciated what the Europeans and the
UN Security Council were trying to achieve.
Albright, who is in London to promote her new book, told a
television's program on May 21 that little would be done "unless
you hold face-to-face talks."
She also described that launching the Iraq war may prove to be
"one of America`s worst foreign-policy mistakes ever" and that
main problem of the invasion were the "unintended consequences."
In her book, 'The Mighty and the Almighty: Reflections on
America, God, and World Affairs,' the former US secretary of
state criticises the negative influence of the religious right
in the US.
In her interview with Today, she expressed concern that,
whereas most American presidents have been people of personal
faith, Mr Bush "has made his [own] religious convictions."
"President Bush's certainty that he talked to God makes it
difficult to test assumptions" in relations to the 9/11 attacks,
Albright said.
*****************************************************************
23 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: N.Korean FM Visits China
Home> National/Politics Updated May.30,2006 18:19 KST
North Korea's Foreign Minister Paek Nam-sun is visiting China
for eight days from Tuesday to meet with his Chinese counterpart
Li Zhaoxing as six-nation efforts to end the North's nuclear
weapons program remain stalled. Though the two ministers are
expected to touch upon North Korea's nuclear issue during their
one-on-one in Beijing, sources say the meeting will not yield a
major breakthrough.
Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar, who recently
visited Pyongyang, said Paek made it clear that North Korea will
not return to the six-party nuclear talks unless the U.S. lifts
its financial sanctions. During his stay in China, the top North
Korean diplomat is also set to tour China's special economic
zones in Guangzhou and Shenzhen.
Arirang News
*****************************************************************
24 BBC: N Korea foreign minister in China
Last Updated: Tuesday, 30 May 2006
By Dan Griffiths BBC News, Beijing
North Korea's Foreign Minister, Paek Nam-sun, is visiting Beijing
amid diplomatic efforts to revive stalled six-nation nuclear
talks.
This visit comes as Chinese officials say negotiations over North
Korea's nuclear programme are facing serious difficulties.
Last September North Korea agreed to give up its nuclear
ambitions in return for aid and security guarantees.
But discussions about implementing that agreement broke down in
November.
There has been no progress since then.
Pyongyang has refused to talk until Washington lifts financial
restrictions it imposed on the North for alleged illegal
activities such as currency counterfeiting.
But last week the top US envoy to the negotiations ruled out
ending sanctions or offering any other incentives to bring North
Korea back to the negotiating table.
China is a major supplier of food and fuel to North Korea and is
one of very few nations with any influence in Pyongyang. But
previous attempts to get the talks back on track have all failed.
*****************************************************************
25 Weapons of Mass Destruction: House Acts to Stop Their Spread -
Date: Tue, 30 May 2006 15:25:41 -0500 (CDT)
For the first time in more then 10 years, members of the House of
Representatives have voted on the House floor to support an arms
control amendment to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. Last week,
the House voted to expand efforts to stop the spread of weapons of mass
destruction by increasing spending for programs to secure and dispose
of vulnerable nuclear materials that could be used to build nuclear
bombs.
Reps. Robert Andrews (NJ) and Jim Leach (IA) led the successful
bipartisan effort to add $27.8 million to nonproliferation programs on
the House floor May 24. The amendment passed by a vote of 227-195. The
Energy Departments Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI) budget
would receive the added funds as part of the annual energy and water
appropriations bill which provides funds for Energy Department
programs.
The programs mission is "to identify, secure, remove and/or
facilitate the disposition of high-risk, vulnerable nuclear and
radioactive materials around the world" that pose a threat to the
United States. Last year, Congress appropriated only $97 million for
the program. The House now has added $41 million to the Energy
Departments request of $107 million in fiscal year 2007, a total
increase of 52 percent for the program over last years funding
levels.
Increased funding for GTRI is critical because securing nuclear
materials is proceeding too slowly, in part because of a lack of
funding. Currently, parts of the program are scheduled to be completed
by 2013. This additional funding could accelerate the securing of
highly enriched uranium and other nuclear bomb materials.
A conference committee will still need to reconcile the House energy
and water appropriations bill with the Senate version, scheduled for
debate in June. For GTRI to receive the additional funding provided by
the Andrews-Leach amendment, the conference committee will need to
accept the addition.
Find out how your representative voted on the Anderws-Leach amendment
at:
http://capwiz.com/fconl/issues/votes/?votenum=199&chamber=H&congress=1092. If your representative voted for the amendment, please thank her or
him.
For additional background, see the article The Administration Is
Starving Cooperative Threat Reduction Programs in FCNLs May
newsletter (free registration required).
http://www.fcnl.org/now/now_item.php?item_id=439&issue_id=34
For more information on nuclear disarmament, please visit
http://www.fcnl.org/nuclear/
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*****************************************************************
26 Salt Lake Tribune: Postponed test should be permanently shelved
Article Last Updated: 05/30/2006 01:56:36 AM MDT
Tribune Editorial
The specter of a mushroom cloud rising over the Nevada desert,
sending radioactive dust and, along with it, disease and death
eastward over Utah - that would be merely a scene from history,
from the Cold War era 60 years ago when the federal government
promised that nuclear tests were safe.
At least that's what most Utah residents believed until a few
months ago, when the National Nuclear Security Administration
announced its Divine Strake test explosion, originally set for
Friday, then postponed to June 23. Now, thanks to lawsuits by
Utah Downwinders and pressure from Nevada officials and both
states' congressional delegations, this misbegotten idea has
been put on hold while the NNSA, finally, begins the due
diligence on this potential threat to public health that it
should have done in the first place.
But, pending the outcome of more thorough assessments, the
only way to ensure the safety of Utahns and others in the path
of winds from the Nevada Test Site less than 100 miles from Las
Vegas is to cancel the test altogether. Government assurances
about the test's safety sound all too familiar to Utahns who
lived through nuclear tests of the '50s and '60s and lost loved
ones or their own health to their deadly effects.
Although the 700-ton explosion would be non-nuclear, using
the same type of chemical explosives - multiplied by 280 - that
Timothy McVeigh detonated to destroy the Oklahoma City federal
building, the test site is contaminated with radioactive dust
from the open-air nuclear testing of decades ago.
It's ridiculous for the NNSA to declare, as it has for
months, that dust and debris kicked up into a 10,000-foot cloud
raised by a blast nearly 50 times larger than the biggest known
conventional weapon in the U.S. arsenal would somehow stay
within the boundaries of the test site.
Utah residents might have believed such a far-fetched claim
in 1950, but now know better.
Bush administration efforts to repeal a ban on development of
low-yield nuclear weapons make it hard to believe its promises
that Divine Strake is not a prelude to a new round of nuclear
tests, but just a way to figure out how best to go after enemy
underground bunkers.
Divine Strake is of no certain value and probably dangerous.
It should be permanently shelved.
© Copyright 2006, The Salt Lake Tribune.
*****************************************************************
27 AFP: Pentagon postpones huge bomb test in Nevada desert
Tue May 30, 7:26 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The planned detonation of a 700-tonne
explosive charge in the Nevada desert has been postponed because
of legal proceedings, a Pentagon " /> agency said.
Dubbed "Divine Strake," the "experiment" has drawn angry
protests from Nevada residents worried about the possible
environmental impact of the huge explosion, which would
potentially send up a mushroom-like cloud 10,000 feet (3,048
meters) in the air.
"The experiment, originally scheduled for June 2, 2006, will not
be conducted earlier than June 23, 2006," the Defense Threat
Reduction Agency said in a statement.
It said the National Nuclear Security Administration, which runs
the test site in Nevada, has "decided to postpone the experiment
due to the scheduling of legal proceedings," the agency said.
DTRA officials have said Divine Strake is part of a US effort to
develop weapons capable of destroying deeply buried bunkers
housing nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.
It involves detonating 700 tonnes of conventional explosives
over a tunnel to gather data on its effect on hard granite
structures.
The commercial ammonium nitrate-fuel oil (ANFO) explosives that
would be detonated are the equivalent of 593 tonnes of TNT.
Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The
*****************************************************************
28 Guardian Unlimited: Congress balks at Pentagon 'war on terror' missile
Julian Borger in Washington
Tuesday May 30, 2006 The Guardian
Congress has stalled Pentagon plans to put conventional warheads
on inter-continental missiles for use in Washington's "war on
terror", out of concern that they could trigger a nuclear war.
The defence department is seeking $127m (Ł68m) for the
conversion of submarine-based missiles as part of its Global
Strike project, aimed at giving Washington the option of acting
fast, pre-emptively and from great distances against targets
that might threaten the US.
The goal would be to destroy a fleeting target, such as a weapon
being assembled or a meeting of terrorist leaders, anywhere in
the world within an hour of intelligence reaching the US of
their location.
But Congress has held back $32m of the funds until the secretary
of defence, Donald Rumsfeld, and the secretary of state,
Condoleezza Rice, present a plan to eliminate the risk that other
countries mistake the launch of the Trident D-5 missile for a
nuclear attack and respond.
"There is great concern this could be destabilising in terms of
deterrence and nuclear policy," Jack Reed, a Democrat on the
senate armed services committee, told the New York Times. "It
would be hard to determine if a missile coming out of a Trident
submarine is conventional or nuclear."
"It's a valid concern - you never want someone to think you're
launching a nuke when you're not," Colonel Richard Patenaude, a
deterrence and air strike strategist told Inside the Air Force,
a defence newsletter. "But I think it's a manageable problem,
and a lot of others do too."
Pentagon planners are confident a system can be worked out with
other nuclear powers to reassure them that a Trident launch is
conventional and not aimed at them. In 2000 the US and Russia
agreed to establish a joint data exchange centre to share
information about ballistic missile launches.
The head of the US Strategic Command, General James Cartwright,
who has oversight over the nuclear and non-nuclear elements of
Global Strike, said the US informed China of any test launches.
"We don't have a treaty, but we tell them so that they know,"
Gen Cartwright recently told Japanese journalists. He said he
hoped China and other nations would join the US-Russian data
exchange centre.
The Global Strike programme was part of the US Nuclear Posture
Review, submitted by the Pentagon at the end of 2001, which
recommended the restructuring of US strategic defences away from
its cold war arsenal towards smaller weapons, nuclear and
non-nuclear, which could be used against terrorists or rogue
states believed to be planning an attack using weapons of mass
destruction.
The review has been criticised for blurring the line between
nuclear and conventional weapons, and Congress has blocked
Pentagon plans to build a new generation of nuclear
bunker-busters and "mini-nukes". Critics also question whether a
US president could be so sure of intelligence to order the launch
of a long-range ballistic missile.
[UP]
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
29 Guardian Unlimited: US faces new challenge after riots in Kabul
puncture illusion of calm
Declan Walsh
Tuesday May 30, 2006 The Guardian
[Afghan police officers detain a protester in Kabul]
Afghan police officers detain a protester in Kabul. Photograph:
Rodrigo Abd/AP
An early morning traffic accident in Kabul involving a US
military vehicle rapidly degenerated yesterday into the worst
upheaval in the Afghan capital since the fall of the Taliban, as
angry protesters burned vehicles and buildings, ransacked shops
and aid agencies and hurled rocks and invective at American
soldiers.
By the time the authorities imposed a rare night-time curfew in
the normally peaceable capital, eight people had been killed and
more than 100 injured. The upheaval was a shock to a city long
considered an oasis of security, and a serious blow to the
authority of the president, Hamid Karzai, who is struggling to
contain an escalating insurgency in the south.
It was also an alarming day for an American military, already
battling large-scale violence in Iraq and squaring up to an
emboldened and nuclear-minded Iran. Now the future of
Afghanistan, often trumpeted as a triumph for US foreign policy,
is coming under increasing scrutiny.
Yesterday the US-led coalition said it killed up to 50 Taliban
fighters in a bombing raid on a village in Helmand province,
where 3,300 British troops are deploying. The air strikes took
the death toll from the past two weeks to more than 350,
according to the highest estimates.
The trouble in Kabul was triggered by an accident involving a US
military convoy that careered through a busy Kabul intersection
yesterday morning, crashing into a dozen vehicles and killing
one person, according to a military statement. But accounts
differed about whether American troops fired into a large crowd
that gathered. A spokeswoman, Lieutenant Tamara Lawrence, said
US soldiers only fired shots in the air. But a senior Kabul
police office, Sher Shah Usafi, said they fired into the crowd,
killing one person.
British Royal Marines, stationed in Afghanistan, rescued EU
diplomats after the riots broke out. They escorted 21 people
including a baby and a four-year-old child to the headquarters
of the Nato-led Isaf peacekeeping force as mobs swept through
the city. The marines acted after members of the European
Commission to Afghanistan requested evacuation from their
compound in central Kabul.
Afghan police and soldiers rapidly deployed as rioters smashed
police posts, flung rocks at US Humvee troop carriers and
marched on the presidential palace, some chanting "death to
America!" Vehicles were set ablaze, businesses ransacked and aid
agencies looted. Residents cowered inside their homes until a
measure of calm returned in the late afternoon.
In a televised address last night Mr Karzai appealed to Afghans'
painful memories of the country's destructive civil war in the
1990s in a call for people to "stand up" to the rioters. "These
people are the enemies of Afghanistan," he said. "You should
stand up against these agitators and not let them destroy our
country again."
Yet the rioting reflected the simmering anger that many Afghans
harbour at everything from the slow pace of reconstruction to
the conspicuous wealth of foreigners in Kabul and the aggressive
driving tactics of US soldiers and private security contractors
in the capital.
The US says the tactics are necessary for security, but one
protester, Gulam Ghaus, told the Associated Press: "Americans
killed innocent people. We will not stop until foreigners leave
this city. We are looking for foreigners to kill."
The disturbances spread quickly to central districts frequented
by foreigners and close to American and Nato military bases.
Protesters tore down a billboard poster of Mr Karzai, burned a
US flag and torched the offices of the aid agency Care
International. "I'm pretty shaken," said Care's director, Paul
Barker, speaking to the Guardian by telephone from inside the US
embassy. "About half our office has been burned and everything
inside destroyed."
He said anger at the road accident may have sparked the initial
trouble, but "simmering anger against foreign influence" caused
the wider violence. "There's a lot of resentment against the
perceived wealth of foreigners," he said. Despite $12bn (Ł6.5bn)
in western aid since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, many
Afghans are disillusioned with the government for failing to
reduce poverty and restore security. The Nato-led peacekeeping
force is responsible for security in Kabul, but a spokesman said
Afghan troops insisted on taking the lead in quelling
yesterday's violence. "The police didn't want further Isaf or
coalition troops inflaming the situation," said Major Toby
Jackman.
An Afghan parliamentarian, Shukria Barakzai, said some rioters
appeared to be well organised. "Some had guns and handbombs,"
she said. "These people are taking advantage of the situation
for political ends, to destroy our country again."
Anger at civilian casualties from US bomb strikes may also have
fuelled the rioting. Last week the US military admitted that it
killed 16 villagers during an air strike on a Taliban hideout in
Kandahar province. Local human rights activists estimated the
death toll as high as 34.
When American troops arrived in 2001, they aroused hopes among
Afghans for an end to gnawing poverty and incessant violence.
Today, many say they are bitterly disappointed
After four years and $12bn, Ł6.5bn, in foreign aid, the majority
of Afghans still scrape through life without electricity or
clean water. More than seven million people are chronically
hungry, according to the UN, and 53% live on less than a dollar,
or 54p, a day. The sight of foreigners earning large salaries
and driving large vehicles protected by private security
companies has focused frustrations. More recently, a spate of
civilian deaths in US anti-Taliban bombing has aroused public
anger in a country with a history of violently ejecting foreign
occupiers. The government and its western backers argue that,
since reconstruction started from an impossibly low base, much
progress has been made. The west and north are peaceful, smooth
roads stretch through the countryside, and the economy is
projected to grow by 10% this year. A record number of children
attend school. But faith in the Karzai government, dogged by
violence in the south and allegations of corruption in Kabul, is
faltering.
Many Afghans believe their $12bn in aid has been squandered or
stolen.
Links
Afghanistan Online
US Library of Congress: Afghanistan resources
CIA factbook: Afghanistan
[UP]
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
30 AU ABC: Professor challenges scientific community over global warming
Lateline - 30/05/2006:
Australian Broadcasting Corporation Lateline
Reporter: Tony Jones
TONY JONES, PRESENTER: James Lovelock, thanks for joining us
again.
PROFESSOR JAMES LOVELOCK, SCIENTIST AND AUTHOR: It's my
pleasure.
TONY JONES: Now, you refer to yourself as someone in the role of
a doctor who has to tell his patient they've got a malignant
cancer. Tell us why you use that analogy.
PROFESSOR JAMES LOVELOCK: Well, I think a doctor in a position
like that has one of the toughest jobs in life, bringing really
bad news to someone and in a way the way that the world's
climate is changing is almost like that and I've been thrown
into the position as a kind of planetary doctor, if you like, of
bringing that particular bit of bad news. It may not be quite as
bad as a cancer in someone, but it is pretty serious anyway.
TONY JONES: Now, your Gaia thesis explains the world as a living
organism. You say this organism, the earth, is so seriously ill
that it will soon pass into a morbid fever that will last as
long as 100,000 years.
PROFESSOR JAMES LOVELOCK: Yes, indeed. The reason I can say
that, and other scientists say the same thing, is that the Earth
went through a similar event 55 million years ago when roughly
the same amount of carbon dioxide was put into the atmosphere as
a result of a geological accident. We are doing just the same
thing.
TONY JONES: We've looked at your book, 'The Revenge of Gaia'. It
looks like a kind of cry from the heart. Is it in fact your last
plea to the world, as you see it, to save it from extinction?
PROFESSOR JAMES LOVELOCK: I'm pretty old, but I hope it's not my
last plea to the world. (Laughs) I hope it's not the world's
last event either. But it is a warning cry, if ever there was
one.
TONY JONES: Do you seriously think the human race actually faces
extinction?
PROFESSOR JAMES LOVELOCK: No, I don't. We're an incredibly tough
species. There will be humans surviving around breeding pairs in
all sorts of places, whatever happens. But it is serious and I
should add here that there's nothing certain in science. We
might be saved by some natural events, such as a sequence of big
volcanoes or it may be when the penny drops in the United
States, they'll say, "But we can fix it" and do something about
it like putting up sun shades in space. But, it is a very
serious problem and we should look at it that way.
TONY JONES: It's so serious that you write that billions of
people could die and that the few - you have talked about
breeding pairs. I mean, you say in your book that the few
breeding pairs of people will end up in the Arctic because
that's the only place where the climate will be compatible with
life.
PROFESSOR JAMES LOVELOCK: Well, when we look back at the past
events of history 55 million years ago, which seems to be our
fate now, most of the earth's surface, the great continents,
were overheated and turned to scrub or desert and could support
very little people. The people who are in those regions now will
just not be able to survive. There will be no food and no water
for them. So the consequences are almost inevitable.
TONY JONES: Can you paint a picture for us then of the world as
you imagine it, both at the Northern and Southern hemispheres if
no major change happens to stop global warming now?
PROFESSOR JAMES LOVELOCK: Yes, they will become dry scrub and
desert, those regions, and this is what happened in the past and
when it happened in the past, living things, life migrated to
the polar regions and survived through the change, which lasted
for 200,000 years and when things returned to normal, the living
things up there in the Arctic or in the Antarctic - of course
that was then joined to the rest of the world and not a separate
continent - migrated back and that's why there was no extinction
at that time and there won't be in this time. There will be no
extinction either of people or of - there will be of some plants
and animals, but by no means all of them.
TONY JONES: What do you say to those who believe your theories
are more like philosophy than science?
PROFESSOR JAMES LOVELOCK: Well, all I can say to them is I wish
they were right. No, the theory is well established now and,
indeed, in the UK the Geological Society awarded me their senior
medal, the Walleston Medal, this year purely for Gaia theory.
TONY JONES: Can you just go back and tell us how you formulated
the Gaia Theory in the first place? I understand it actually
came out of conversations with a novelist?
PROFESSOR JAMES LOVELOCK: No. It began, strangely enough, at
NASA's jet propulsion laboratory in California as long ago as
the 1960s and my job was to help them design instruments for
finding life on Mars and this was the kind of space operation
and this enabled me to look back at the Earth and see what it
was about the Earth, as if I was some alien, that would tell me
that there was life on it and it immediately became obvious to
me that the atmosphere reveals the presence of life on the
Earth. It's a mixture of very strange gases, oxygen and methane,
mixed together. That's the kind of gas mixture that goes into
the intake of your car. It's potentially explosive if its
composition were different in proportion. So we have a very
strange atmosphere and that made me think there must be
something in the surface that controls it and regulates it and
keeps it constant and safe. This is what made me think of this
great system Gaia and when I told my friend, the novelist
William Golding, about it and he said, "Oh, you better give an
idea like that a proper name" and he was the one that suggested
Gaia.
TONY JONES: Now you're talking about the revenge of Gaia, that
Gaia in fact will take revenge on the human race for what it's
done.
PROFESSOR JAMES LOVELOCK: Yes. Well, that's a bit of a
metaphoric statement and it expresses strongly what I feel and
you see I regard our planet as a sort of living organism that's
regulated the atmosphere, the water and the chemical composition
of the Earth for 3.5 billion years. It's kept it comfortable for
life for a quarter of the age of the universe and it's amazing
that we're in the midst of wrecking it.
TONY JONES: If global warming continues at the rate that it is
now, what are the steps that need to be taken to stop us
reaching the tipping point, which you've been writing about.
PROFESSOR JAMES LOVELOCK: I'm not sure that we can stop it but
we've got to try, obviously, by cutting back on carbon dioxide
emissions. But remember, it's not just emissions that does the
damage. During the course of our development to our present
numbers over 6 billion, we've taken an awful lot of the land
surface of the Earth for farming and to produce timber for our
homes and that land surface used to be used before we took it
away to regulate the Earth and we can't put that back quickly.
So this is among the reasons why I think it's probably too late
to do very much.
TONY JONES: I'm intrigued to hear you say that because you seem
to have moved beyond the point we were at the last time we
spoke, for example. You were advocating nuclear power worldwide
as a way of stopping carbon emissions. Are you now thinking it's
too late to do that?
PROFESSOR JAMES LOVELOCK: I think it probably is. I don't think
that we have time to do it worldwide, although it takes nowhere
near as long to build a nuclear power station as is often
stated. I think most people forget that the first nuclear power
stations that were producing energy for people, not making
bombs, were in the United Kingdom and they took only 3.5 years
to build and even then when we knew very little about it, I
think they could be built in two or three years now if there was
the will to do so.
TONY JONES: Bearing in mind what you've just said, Australia,
for example, is now having a serious nuclear debate that could
go on, in fact, for many years. The big concerns are both
political - that nuclear power is not politically feasible, but
that it's not economically viable. What do you say to the
Australian politicians who are thinking along those lines?
PROFESSOR JAMES LOVELOCK: I think the anti-nuclear stories are
very understandable. You've got to look at their history. Not
too many years ago, most of us were scared rigid of the
possibility of a nuclear war between America and Russia and that
sort of filled our lives for an awful lot of years after World
War II and during that time a great fear of everything nuclear
built up and we haven't dispelled that fear, in spite of the
cessation of the Cold War. But nuclear power is nothing about
bombs. Modern nuclear power stations are useless for making
bombs and the dangers are not real. They've been exaggerated
beyond all belief in the decent and proper cause of making
people fight against the idea of nuclear weapons. That sort of
objection should not be applied to nuclear energy, which quite
the reverse could be our saving.
TONY JONES: The primary objection now obviously is nuclear waste
is simply very, very difficult to deal with and obviously
remains radioactive for many thousands of years.
PROFESSOR JAMES LOVELOCK: I had dinner with a famous gentleman
Hans Blix about a year ago and he turned to me and said, "What
on earth is all of this fuss about nuclear waste? "There's
hardly any of it, is there?" And this is the truth of it. The
quantity of nuclear waste is trivial, tiny. No great problem. It
stays where it is and that's it. You just think of the carbon
dioxide waste. Every year we produce in the world enough carbon
dioxide that if you froze it solid to dry ice, it would make a
mountain 1 mile high and 12 miles around in circumference. Now,
that is deadly waste and it will kill nearly all of us if we
don't stop doing it.
TONY JONES: I have heard it said that you think nuclear waste is
so containable you actually wouldn't mind having it buried
safely in your own backyard. Is that so?
PROFESSOR JAMES LOVELOCK: It is, indeed. I would be very glad to
have it because when it is freshly produced, it stays hot for
about 10 or 20 years and I'd use it for free home heating. I'd
be glad to use it. It would be a waste not to.
TONY JONES: Now, Professor Lovelock, you've been a proponent for
nuclear power for decades and this has been a huge problem for
the green movement, which, as you know, you're widely regarded
as the father of the environmental movement. Now you appear to
be arguing as well that sustainable development is no longer
possible. You alluded to this before. Can you tell us what you
mean by that?
PROFESSOR JAMES LOVELOCK: If you go right back in history to
Malthus, he proposed that overpopulation would ruin us all,
destroy civilisation, way back 200 years ago. He was laughed at
and people sort of said, "No, no, no." He was exaggerating.
"It's not that bad." I happen to think he was just right because
when he produced his ideas there was about a billion people in
the world and if you kept the population of the world to a
billion you could do almost anything. We could all drive around
in gas guzzlers and it wouldn't really matter. The sad thing is
I'm afraid it's not just population that has grown, but we've
tended to use all of those wasteful things as well and this is
what has landed us in the mess we are now in. So the green ideas
of sustainable development would have been wonderful if we had
done them 100 or 200 years ago, but now they are hopelessly too
late.
TONY JONES: You seem to be arguing for the complete abandonment
of agriculture in some areas of the world at least and the
replacement with synthetic foods.
PROFESSOR JAMES LOVELOCK: I don't think we'll have to abandon
them. Gaia will abandon them for us, in a sense, because as the
climate changes, already it is happening in East Africa and I
think you're finding it more and more in Australia. Growing food
becomes more and more difficult. And so if we want to carry on
with large numbers, we all just have to synthesise food and for
that we'll need lots of energy.
TONY JONES: So in fact you think it's too late for the green
solution? The sustainable agriculture combined with large-scale
alternative energy, sources like wind farms, hot rocks, wave
energy? All of those things combined with solar power, you don't
think that will all work?
PROFESSOR JAMES LOVELOCK: I'm afraid it won't. They would have
worked with a small population like back in Malthus's time. If
civilisation had developed that way we might not be in the mess
we are now in. But you can't support 6 billion, growing towards
7 billion people, on that kind of energy source. It just won't
work.
TONY JONES: So, do you actually think that the green movement,
the environmentalists who hold to those views are deluded?
PROFESSOR JAMES LOVELOCK: No, I don't. As you rightly said, I'm
very much associated with them and have been a green for most of
my life. It's just that the green movement on the whole are not
very scientific and scientists who should be speaking out on
these matters are nowadays hampered by the fact that science is
fragmented into a multitude of different expertises and each one
sees the Earth only through the tiny fragment of their
discipline. So you don't get a clear voice of science. I suppose
it's been thrown at me because amongst scientists I'm one of the
few that looks at the planet from the top down from outside.
TONY JONES: But, a final question for you: if you don't think
that the green movement is deluded, you do apparently think it
is doomed.
PROFESSOR JAMES LOVELOCK: No. I think the green movement has got
to reform and change its attitude away from the rather negative
and rather pointless fear of chemicals and nuclear energy and
things like that that they've had for so long. I'm afraid that
all comes because most of the green movement is supported by
people living in big cities. We're nearly all urbanised nowadays
and they've lost touch with the natural world. They don't see
the world as it really is. They only see their city environment
and I think they've got to grow up and start realising that
their citizens have a really wonderful planet that's looked
after itself for such a long time and we're the enemies of it
and not the supporters.
TONY JONES: Professor James Lovelock, some provocative thoughts
there. We thank you once again for taking the time to join us on
Lateline.
PROFESSOR JAMES LOVELOCK: Thank you.
*****************************************************************
31 [NukeNet] Forbes.com: The Joys Of Going Nuclear?
Date: Tue, 30 May 2006 20:12:22 -0700
NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net)
Forbes.com
http://www.forbes.com/2006/05/24/nuclear-power-plants-cx_jh_0525nukes.html?p
Energy
The Joys Of Going Nuclear?
Jessica Holzer, 05.25.06, 6:00 AM ET
Is nuclear energy enjoying a renaissance? Electrical utilities certainly
think so.
No new nuclear plant has been proposed since the 1970s. But now, three
companies, Exelon, Dominion Resources and Entergy, have filed applications
for site permits with the government, and 16 companies have said they're
planning to apply for licenses to build and operate up to 25 new plants.
On Wednesday, at Excelon's Limerick nuclear plant outside Philadelphia,
President George W. Bush
gushed about the joys of nuclear power and trumpeted Nuclear Power 2010,
his initiative to get more plants built. That was his second appearance at
a nuclear reactor since last June, when he visited a reactor in Maryland.
And it was the second time a sitting president has visited a nuclear
reactor site since Jimmy Carter's appearance at Three Mile Island.
Utilities famously backed away from nuclear power in the decades after that
1979 accident. But their cold feet weren't caused so much by environmental
concerns as financial ones: Once the massive construction costs are
factored in, nuclear plants simply aren't as profitable as their
competitors, coal and gas-fired plants.
"It's not as if Greenpeace killed the industry. Guys in pinstripe suits on
Wall Street killed the industry," said Jerry Taylor, a senior fellow at the
Cato Institute in Washington.
The specter of caps on carbon emissions--which many in the power industry
believe are inevitable--certainly increases the appeal of nuclear power,
which is emissions-free. But even with the run-up in natural gas and coal
prices, nuclear is not profitable without a raft of government subsidies.
Still, with the largess it extracted from the government last year, the
nuclear industry may have put even the ethanol lobby to shame.
The Energy Policy Act of 2005 extended insurance coverage to the public in
case of a reactor accident at any new plant for 20 years. It provided for a
generous production tax credit and federal loan guarantees for up to 80% of
the project's cost. The government even agreed to step in and eat the cost
of any delay in plant construction related to litigation or government
red-tape--a huge prize for plant sponsors and investors given the massive
capital costs associated with building a nuclear plant.
These new subsidies were lavished on top of old ones, including the biggest
one of all: the government's shouldering the problem of nuclear waste. It
is little wonder that nuclear is getting a second look.
But even with all this corporate welfare, those generating electric power
are timid about diving in. "We've not made a decision to build, but we are
very interested," said Sandy Robinson, a spokesperson for Southern Co..
A huge hurdle is the licensing process, which was streamlined more than ten
years ago but still remains untested. Like in the refining industry,
getting the license to build and operate nuclear reactors is so costly and
arduous--it can run several years and cost millions--that power companies
have formed consortia to pool legal expenses in order to test it.
And there are other uncertainties. Once nuclear plants are up and running,
they are far more profitable than gas or coal-fired plants. But the
construction costs can boggle the mind. There were huge cost overruns in
the construction of the last generation of nuclear plants, and many of them
did not get to full capacity for years after they were built. In an
environment of rising interest rates, the power industry and Wall Street
might shy away from such unpredictable and capital-intensive projects, says
Taylor of the Cato Institute.
Given the costs, it isn't obvious to many environmentalists that nuclear
power is going to help solve the problem of climate change. To have an
impact, the country would have to triple the amount of nuclear power
produced today, which would require making it more affordable and solving
the thorny issue of what to do with spent fuel, says Lee Lane of the
Climate Policy Center in Washington.
And building more nuclear power plants won't do much to improve our energy
independence either, since they compete with coal- and gas-fired plants.
The U.S. imports just a small portion of the natural gas it uses and is
blessed with a more than 150-year supply of coal. All this makes one wonder
why the Bush administration is plugging so hard for nuclear.
_______________________________________________________________________
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32 Moscow Times: Sobyanin to Chair Nuclear Champion
May 31, 2006. Issue 3422. Page 5.
By Yuriy Humber Staff Writer
Itar-Tass / AP
Sergei Sobyanin
Nuclear power landed its own top-level political guardian as
President Vladimir Putin's chief of staff, Sergei Sobyanin, was
named chairman of the industry's fuel monopoly, TVEL.
TVEL is slated to serve as a platform for a vertically
integrated state holding that will come to control all the
enterprises that make up the country's nuclear power industry.
The presidential administration is currently reviewing a bill
that will approve the transformation of the sector into a
corporate, market-driven structure.
TVEL's board voted in Sobyanin as chairman at a board meeting
Friday, the company said on its web site.
He joins the ranks of other Kremlin officials who chair key
industrial enterprises.
Sobyanin's deputy, Igor Sechin, is the board chairman of state
oil major Rosneft, while First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry
Medvedev is the chairman of Gazprom.
A former chief of staff to Putin, Alexander Voloshin, is the
chairman of the country's top utility firm, Unified Energy
Systems.
Industry insiders and analysts said the appointment signaled
that the proposals to transform the nuclear power industry into
a corporation had the president's approval. Sobyanin's role
would be to oversee the process and monitor large investments
flowing into the industry from the state and possibly the
private sector, they said.
Sergei Kiriyenko, the head of the Federal Atomic Energy Agency,
has said Russia will need $60 billion over the next 20 years to
build 40 nuclear reactors across the country. Gazprom CEO Alexei
Miller last month said the company saw the nuclear sector as
having investment potential.
Sobyanin's appointment was "a sign of the serious attention the
state is giving to the development of the atomic industry,"
Kiriyenko said in a statement Monday.
TVEL would form "the basis for the atomic sector," Kiriyenko
said.
"This is consistent with the government's moves in what it
considers to be strategic industries," said Chris Weafer, chief
strategist of Alfa Bank.
Seen as strong economic and geopolitical levers, these strategic
industries are earmarked for large state financial support after
the 2008 presidential elections, Weafer said.
"For the government, it is critical that they have direct
control before they put resources into a business," Weafer said.
TVEL and state firm Technabexport, or Tenex, coordinate all the
country's sales of nuclear fuel and uranium enrichment services.
Last year, nuclear fuel sales alone earned Russia $2.4 billion,
according to Tenex figures.
The combined annual revenues of the nuclear power industry's top
four enterprises -- TVEL, Tenex, generation firm Rosenergoatom
and construction firm Atomstroiexport -- are about $5 billion.
© Copyright 2006 The Moscow Times. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
33 The Australian: Nuclear power too expensive until 2030
Andrew Trounson May 31, 2006
THE nuclear debate will remain purely academic for decades in
the absence of any commitment by government to putting a cost on
carbon emissions, according to the electricity industry.
While industry planning has moved to include nuclear power as
an option for the first time, in the event of a carbon tax or
emissions trading, at twice the installed cost of coal or gas
generation it remains too expensive.
"If there is no constraint on building coal and gas power
generation, nuclear still isn't competitive, even by 2030," said
John Boshier, chief executive of the National Generators Forum,
whose members account for 90 per cent of Australia's electricity
market.
Even with a "serious" government policy on restricting or
penalising emissions, the power industry would not expect
nuclear power to be in the frame until 2020 at the earliest, Mr
Boshier said.
"No forum member company has any plans to build nuclear power.
There isn't even any active investigation going on," Mr Boshier
said.
While Prime Minister John Howard is pushing for a fresh
assessment of the potential for a nuclear industry in Australia,
and while nuclear power is being discussed more in the corridors
of utilities, industry insiders say it remains largely a
theoretical issue.
According to a power industry insider, at least one board of a
government utility is believed to have had a briefing on nuclear
power, but dismissed it as too expensive.
"You aren't going to do engineering studies on a what if," said
the insider. "At the moment it is just a conversation."
But with nuclear power being increasingly touted as an answer to
cutting greenhouse gas emissions, the forum has plugged it into
its new scenario modelling, the results of which are expected to
be available from the end of July.
"We are examining the impacts of low emission targets on us --
what the industry would look like - and we are including nuclear
power as one of the options," Mr Boshier said.
But at twice the installation cost of coal and gas-fired
generation, nuclear faced a major hurdle in becoming economic,
Mr Boshier said.
The Generators Forum has estimated the installed cost of nuclear
power, in real terms, in 2010 at $US2000/kilowatt, compared with
$US1000/kw for coal and combined cycle gas turbines.
By 2020 the real cost falls to $US1700/kw but is still higher
than the real cost of coal-fired generation, which even after
including the cost of carbon capture technology and underground
sequestration techniques comes in at $US1300/kw.
By 2030 installed nuclear costs fall to $US1500/kw, compared
with $US1200 for coal combined with carbon capture and
sequestration.
So far, the federal Government has ruled out imposing a carbon
tax or emissions trading. But the states and territories are
working on proposals to bypass the federal Government and
introduce emissions trading.
Privacy Terms © The Australian
*****************************************************************
34 Guardian Unlimited: British nuclear renaissance faces threat of skills meltdown
· Staffing is biggest issue for industry, says union
· Firms already offering Ł10,000 signing-on fees
Terry Macalister
Wednesday May 31, 2006 The Guardian
A skills shortage threatens to derail Britain's nuclear
decommissioning and new building programme, the industry's
biggest trade union has warned.
Prospect, the engineering, science and management union, said
the poaching of staff is already endemic among engineering and
other companies ahead of a Ł50bn-plus dismantling bonanza and
the final go-ahead for a second generation of nuclear power
stations.
The Nuclear Industries Inspectorate, which regulates safety at
UK plants, has admitted that it is already finding it difficult
to recruit and believes this is a common problem across this
energy sector.
Article continues
"The skills issue is the biggest problem facing the
industry. It is top of our list to be sorted out," said Mike
Graham, national secretary of Prospect. "There is a lack of
trained staff from craft jobs right up to postgraduates because
people have not been training nuclear engineers."
A long period of public antagonism and lack of government
interest in new nuclear plants had encouraged many to leave an
industry which appeared to have an uncertain future. But Tony
Blair's decision to hand over to private firms the dismantling
of plants that have reached the end of their lives has raised
the profile of the atomic sector.
The decommissioning work comes at a time when the prime minister
has also signalled an intention to give a green light to a new
generation of atomic plants. Up to now the bulk of jobs in the
nuclear industry have been within two main operating companies:
the state-owned British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL), which controls
Sellafield, in Cumbria, and the privatised atomic generator
British Energy. But now major electricity suppliers such as E.ON
and RWE are considering building and operating nuclear
facilities, while engineering firms such as Amec have
established specialist nuclear units.
The British problems are being compounded by the fact that
already around 30 new atomic plants are under construction in 11
other countries, with dozens more planned around the world, from
China to Russia and the US.
In addition there is a more general shortage of unskilled labour
due to the large number of big projects under way in Britain,
such as Heathrow Terminal 5 and the Channel Tunnel Rail Link.
Some of these should be completed before any construction work
begins on new atomic plants, but there will be preparations for
the 2012 Olympic games. There are also numerous other public
sector schemes courtesy of the government's school, hospital and
prison building programme under the Private Finance Initiative.
The oil and gas industry is already struggling against similar
skills shortages. Shell recently said it was postponing projects
because of shortages of people and equipment.
Manouchehr Takin, of the Centre for Global Energy Studies, said:
"Industry is always cyclical and a lot of people left the oil
industry after the downturn of 1998-99. There is always a
limited amount of capacity around, whether it's for
semi-submersible pumps in the offshore industry or the more
advanced kind of technology you need for nuclear."
Top engineering firms such as aero engine maker Rolls-Royce have
been forced to move research and development abroad because of
Britain's diminishing skills base. John Rose, the Rolls-Royce
chief executive, said recently that the number of electronics
and electrical engineering students had dropped by 30% in two
years.
The Nuclear Industries Inspectorate has admitted it would like
180 inspectors but has only 165. "It is no secret that we have
had problems recruiting the right kind of people," said a
spokesman. "There is an issue right across the industry and
various initiatives are ongoing to ensure we can find staff."
The Nuclear Industry Association, which represents 120 of the
leading companies, dismisses worries about future shortages but
admits there could be "potential pinch-points" in reactor
design, safety and licensing. "The current experienced personnel
will be approaching retirement age over the next five to ten
years," it warns, but says there is still time to put training
schemes in place.
The association stands by its recent study which found that
"companies in the UK nuclear industry have the capability to
provide over 80% of the scope of new nuclear power station
projects." The study assumed a programme of ten reactors to be
built at five sites over 15 to 20 years. This would generate
64,000 man-years of work, and it claims there is plenty of slack
in the system to cope.
"The requirement for civil engineering resources to build a new
nuclear power station would represent only a small proportion,
around 2% to 3%, of the national capability," it says. "Any new
nuclear build would occur predominantly after construction for
the 2012 Olympics."
Meanwhile, Prospect members are benefiting from the upsurge in
interest in nuclear power and demand for those who understand
the complexities of decommissioning, says Mr Graham.
"Longstanding employees are being offered up to Ł10,000 as
signing-on fees by new employers, who are often guaranteeing to
preserve pension entitlements and provide other inducements."
Explainer: building new reactors
A project to build five new twin-reactor nuclear plants over 20
years would create thousands of new jobs, the atomic industry
claims.
The chances are that these new power stations would be located
on existing sites, which tend to be in outlying areas of
Cumbria, Suffolk or Scotland, where well-paid jobs are often
hard to come by. While the public at large has reservations due
to considerations about the safety of nuclear power, local
people are often enthusiastic because of the jobs created by the
existing power stations.
The Nuclear Industry Association (NIA) believes that over the
two decades that it would take to build new plants, about 64,000
man-years of work would be created. Some 250 jobs would be
created in project management and technical support; 2,400 more
from construction and site-installation jobs, with a further
thousand in manufacturing. The NIA, which has a clear interest
in playing up the scale of these job opportunities, also claims
that operating 10 new facilities would bring another 3,000 jobs
to oversee operations over their 60-year life cycle.
Some of these jobs would just replace ones that are being lost
as the lifespan of the existing nuclear power stations comes to
an end. By 2023 only Sizewell B is expected to be still
operating.
Terry Macalister
Useful links
British Energy
Department of Trade and Industry
British Nuclear Fuels Ltd
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Greenpeace
HSE nuclear glossary
Come Clean WMD awareness programme
UK atomic energy authority
National Radiological Protection Board
Friends of the Earth
World Nuclear Association
World Nuclear Transport Institute
[UP]
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
35 Summit Daily News: Keystone Center gets $100k to hold nuclear power discussion
Breckenridge, Keystone, Copper and Frisco Colorado - News
May 30, 2006
KEYSTONE - The Keystone Center received a $100,000 grant from
The Pew Charitable Trusts to support a joint fact-finding process
focused on the risks and benefits of the future expansion of
nuclear power in the United States.
"The need for more baseload electricity generation coupled with
concerns about climate change and the high prices of oil and
natural gas have prompted discussions about the possibility of
expanding the role of nuclear power," said Keystone Center
president Peter Adler, Ph.D. "Before debating what role, if any,
nuclear power should play in the future mix of energy sources,
proponents and skeptics need to reach a common understanding
about the state of the technologies and the costs, benefits and
risks."
Nearly 30 individuals representing public interest groups, the
nuclear and utility industries, consumer and environmental
advocates, large consumers, labor representatives, state and
federal regulators, energy policymakers and the financial,
research and academic communities, will participate in the
project, which will include three plenary meetings and six
workgroup meetings.
Through these meetings, The Keystone Center will facilitate
discussions aimed at building a common understanding between
proponents and skeptics of how nuclear technology has changed,
the pros and cons of the technologies, and the costs, human
health and safety impacts of nuclear generation and narrowing
the gap between proponents and skeptics over these issues.
"With a common information base, expert stakeholders will be
better able to discuss in the future the appropriate role of
nuclear generation and what policies are needed to ensure that
nuclear power is consistent with national energy and
environmental goals, as well as stakeholder interests and
values," said Catherine Morris, director of The Keystone
Center's energy practice.
The project is expected to conclude in late 2006 with results
available in early 2007. The Keystone Center is currently
conducting an assessment to identify the scope of issues, the
appropriate design of the fact-finding process and credible
resources and experts.
The Keystone Center also was recently awarded a grant from the
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation for more than $500,000 to
facilitate a dialogue on the role of marketing and advertising
in the increasing problem of childhood obesity in the U.S.
The Keystone Center is a nonprofit organization that was founded
in 1975 to help facilitate cross-sector dialogues on pressing
environment, energy, and public health issues. The Keystone
Center does not take positions or advocate particular points of
view. Instead, it brings stakeholders together and helps them
build practical, consensus-based solutions that break old
logjams or avert unnecessary future science and public policy
battles.
All contents © Copyright 2006 summitdaily.com
Summit Daily - 40 West Main Street - Frisco, CO 80443
P.O. Box 329 · Frisco, CO 80443-0329
E-mail: news@summitdaily.com
*****************************************************************
36 Sydney Morning Herald: Iemma rocks boat on push for nuclear power
www.smh.com.au
[Harbour watched … a protester in Homebush Bay calls for the
removal of toxic sediment, an issue green groups have criticised
the State Government for not fixing.] Harbour watched … a
protester in Homebush Bay calls for the removal of toxic
sediment, an issue green groups have criticised the State
Government for not fixing.
Photo: Lisa Wiltse
Wendy Frew Environment Reporter
May 31, 2006
NUCLEAR power was not a solution to climate change, the Premier
Morris Iemma said yesterday in a speech in which he criticised
the Federal Government and distanced his administration from the
pro-nuclear stance of the former premier Bob Carr.
In an address to the green movement that covered other
environmental concerns such as illegal land clearing and water
shortages, Mr Iemma said the Federal Government was "wasting
time and effort" chasing the red herring of nuclear power.
"Rather than focusing on renewables - gas, clean technologies
and demand management - [John Howard] wants us to debate a
high-cost, high-risk solution whose only real purpose is to
split the ranks of his opponents," Mr Iemma said. "Let me be
clear on this: nuclear power is not a realistic option for NSW …
While I am Premier [nuclear facilities and uranium mining] will
remain illegal."
NSW would tackle rising greenhouse gas emissions by developing a
national emissions trading scheme, he said.
Green groups welcomed the Mr Iemma's rejection of nuclear power.
Earlier this month Mr Carr said the world could not be saved
from global warming without it. He also said it should be
possible to devise a way of safely storing highly radioactive
nuclear waste, even though the US Government has failed to do
that despite spending more than 10 years and billions of dollars
to solve the problem.
Environmentalists and the NSW Greens were also pleased Mr Iemma
had recommitted to ending broad-scale land clearing, but called
on the Government to release data about alleged illegal clearing.
They said Mr Iemma did not cover key environmental problems such
as the Government's failure to clean up all the dioxin hot spots
in Sydney Harbour, the threat to energy and water saving targets
for residential high-rise from developer pressure, and unchecked
coastal development.
Copyright © 2006. The Sydney Morning Herald.
*****************************************************************
37 San Luis Obispo Tribune: Diablo's steam jumper, David Beals
| 05/30/2006 |
Work Spaces: SLO County’s nuclear power plant
Melanie Cleveland mcleveland@thetribunenews.com
He is a volunteer who dons a special protective suit to go into
the plant’s steam generator bowls to inspect for cracks and to
clean up debris when reactor is shutdown for maintenance
David Beals has been a mechanical engineer at the Diablo Canyon
nuclear power plant for four years.
Much of his job involves plant "walk-downs," checking instrument
measurements and making sure the generators and other equipment
are working properly. He also sits at his desk, handling a lot
of paperwork such as filling out field work transmittals,
revising mechanical drawings and writing progress reports.
But five times in the past four years, Beals has shed his
engineer identity to become a steam-generator jumper. He now
trains others how to do it.
A jumper is someone who volunteers to go into the steam
generator bowl, and its radiation field, to block off pipes
connected to the nuclear reactor (when it is shut down for
refueling and maintenance) about 40 feet away. Beals dams the
pipes in order to check for cracks and to clean up debris in the
steam generator system.
"I love to jump because it’s the only really physical thing I do
in my work — and there’s a lot of teamwork and camaraderie in
getting the work done," he said.
What you see: Beals dons a yellow, plastic bubble suit and halo
helmet as he stands next to a mock-steam generator designed for
jumping practice. The loud fan in his helmet, important for
fresh air to flow into the suit, makes it difficult for him to
hear outside noise.
Beals climbs up a ladder to a platform a few feet under a
16-inch manhole that leads into the steam generator bowl. He
raises his arms above his head, and, like Superman, jumps up
headfirst through the hole and disappears.
What he sees: Beals squats in the plant’s metal steam generator
bowl, a curved space about the size of a Volkswagen. It’s dark,
tight, humid and hot.
"I call the plastic suit my own personal sauna," he said. "It
makes you sweat. I’m also in a hurry, but I try not to get amped
up. It’s important to stay collected, to keep my breathing even,
so the hood doesn’t fog up."
He surveys the walls and floor for potential debris, drills a
120-pound flat rubber and metal piece to dam a tunnel hole
leading into the nuclear reactor, and then jumps back out of the
hole again.
To minimize radiation exposure, Beals has less than five minutes
to complete the task, which is timed. Beals’ last time, three
weeks ago, was 2 minutes, 1 second.
What he likes best: "The satisfaction of finishing something in
2 minutes when most of my other work can take as long as a
week."
What he would change: The nozzle dam apparatus. "The bolts take
a (relatively) long time to drill. When we get the new
generators a couple of years from now, we’ll have deadbolts
instead. They’ll be a lot quicker to install."
Reach Melanie Cleveland at 781-7962.
Get your office in Work Spaces
Do you have an unusual or interesting work space, or know
someone who does? Or maybe a recycled space put to new use? If
so, contact Julie Lynem at The Tribune: 781-7932; e-mail:
jlynem@thetribunenews.com. Work Spaces will run here every
Tuesday.
*****************************************************************
38 RIA Novosti: Nuclear agency head outlines plans to build Urals NPP
30/ 05/ 2006
OZERSK, Urals, May 30 (RIA Novosti) - The head of Russia's
nuclear power agency said Tuesday that a nuclear power plant
with four VVER-1000 power units would be built in the Urals.
"We have analyzed the situation with power engineers and the
presidential envoy [to the Ural Federal District, Pyotr
Latyshev], and we realized that the Urals would experience a
lack of electric energy and that an NPP is needed here to cover
the anticipated deficit," Sergei Kiriyenko told journalists.
Kiriyenko said the main condition for construction of the
Yuzhnouralskaya NPP was public approval for the project.
"If we do [build the NPP], we will solve long-term tasks of the
Chelyabinsk Region," he said, adding that nuclear power plants
were the largest taxpayers in their regions.
The Soviet government signed a resolution on construction of the
Yuzhnouralskaya NPP in 1983, but construction was suspended in
1990 due to a lack of financing and protests by
environmentalists.
© 2005 RIA Novosti
*****************************************************************
39 NRC: NRC Publishes Licensing, Inspection and Annual Fees for Fiscal Year 2006
News Release - 2006-07 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office
of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC
20555-0001 E-mail: No. 06-073 May 30, 2006
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is amending its regulations to
reflect the licensing, inspection and annual fees it will charge
applicants and licensees for fiscal year (FY) 2006.
The agency is required by Congress to recover for the Treasury
nearly all of its annual appropriated budget through two types
of fees. One is for specific NRC services, such as licensing and
inspection activities, that apply to a specific license; this
fee is calculated using an hourly rate. The other is an annual
fee paid by all licensees, which recovers generic regulatory
expenses and other costs not recovered through fees for specific
services. These fees are contained in NRC regulations 10 CFR
Part 170 (fees for licensing and inspection services) and 10 CFR
Part 171 (annual fees). These fees are paid to the U.S. Treasury
and go into the general fund.
By law, the NRC must recover 90 percent of its budget for FY
2006 (Oct. 1, 2005 - Sept. 30, 2006) from fees, less the amount
appropriated from the Nuclear Waste Fund for high-level waste
activities and appropriated from general funds for
waste-incidental-to-reprocessing activities. The total amount to
be recovered for FY 2006 is approximately $624 million, about
$83 million more than in FY 2005.
The FY 2006 fees rule was published today in the Federal
Register and will become effective July 31. The final rule sets
the hourly rates for Part 170 fees at $217 for the Nuclear
Reactor Safety Program and $214 for the Nuclear Materials and
Waste Safety Program. The FY 2005 rates are $205 for the reactor
program and $197 for the materials program. The increases to the
hourly rates are due primarily to the government-wide pay raise
and the more accurate allocation of agency overhead to these
programs and fee-exempt activities.
The NRC will begin charging federal agencies Part 170 fees under
its new authority from the Energy Policy Act of 2005, with the
exception of federally owned test and research reactors that
meet certain criteria.
Annual fees will increase for nearly all licensees, primarily
because of the approximately $83 million increase in the agencys
recoverable budget for FY 2006 as the NRC prepares for an
anticipated increase in new reactor licensing reviews.
The FY 2006 annual fees include the following:
Class/category of licenses FY 2006 Annual fee
Operating Power Reactors (including Spent Fuel Storage/Reactor
Decommissioning annual fee) $3,704,000
Spent Fuel Storage/Reactor Decommissioning $173,000
Test and Research Reactors (Non-power Reactors) $80,100
High Enriched Uranium Fuel Facility $5,420,000
Low Enriched Uranium Fuel Facility $1,596,000
UF6 Conversion Facility $1,046,000
Rare Earth Mills $95,900
Typical Materials Users:
Radiographers $15,400
Well Loggers $4,800
Gauge Users (Category 3P) $2,900
Last revised Tuesday, May 30, 2006
*****************************************************************
40 RIA Novosti: Is the Chernobyl reactor really empty?
Opinion &analysis -
30/ 05/ 2006
MOSCOW, (RIA Novosti commentator Tatyana Sinitsina)
German newspaper Berliner Zeitung published articles about the
Chernobyl disaster on April 3 and 26 (Die unverstandene
Katastrophe; Die Katastrophe nach der Katastrophe), which have
been reprinted by many Internet publications.
Journalists Frank Nordhausen and Christian Esch cite Konstantin
Checherov of the Russian Kurchatov Institute, who has "spoken
the truth" at long last, they say. Checherov said "nobody
studied the Chernobyl disaster more carefully" than he.
Thousands of specialists from many states have visited the
accident site in the 20 years since the disaster. Nuclear
physicists joined forces to get to the truth, recreating the
picture, studying the situation, and analyzing the containment
envelope. About 600 staff members of the Kurchatov Institute
have visited the site and continue monitoring the "sleeping"
reactor.
What does Checherov say?
According to Berliner Zeitung, he has visited the destroyed Unit
4 "more than 1,500 times", making measurements and doing
research there. Surprisingly, he has not registered any
excessive radiation at the site.
However, Yevgeny Velikhov, president of the Kurchatov Institute,
says: "Radiation was extremely high at the disaster site. I flew
over the area, accompanying Hans Blix, then head of the
International Atomic Energy Agency, and Blix's long-time
second-in-command Morris Rosen. They had a great number of
gauging instruments on them and asked me what range they should
set out on them. I said a hundred would be fine. A hundred
milliroentgens? they asked. A hundred roentgens, I replied. This
made a huge impression on them."
Velikhov is worried: "It is one thing for Checherov as a private
individual to say what he likes. But it is quite another matter
when he says he works for the Kurchatov Institute - this makes
him our spokesman. Some people may think that what he says is
our conclusion, though this is not true at all."
Dr. Alexander Borovoi, a nuclear physicist from the Kurchatov
Institute, had been head of the Chernobyl group for 20 years. "I
know Konstantin Checherov; we are colleagues, though he is not a
nuclear physicist" he said. "He graduated from the aviation
institute. It is true that he had come to Chernobyl in the first
few days after the accident, but the next time he came there 18
months later, in late 1988."
Borovoi said that by that time scientists had completed the
picture of fuel layout in Unit 4, described it in numerous
documents, and filmed the site. "We were absolutely sure then
that about 95% of fuel remained within the containment
envelope," he said. "The analysis of soil samples, which was
made a thousand times in the industrial zone of the nuclear
power plant and outside it, including in many European states,
reaffirmed that conclusion. All data checked by different
methods showed that less than 5% of fuel had been involved in
the accident."
But Checherov claims there is no radioactive fuel left in the
reactor. According to him, more than 90% of fuel, which is about
200 tons of uranium and plutonium, were blown out of the reactor
and are still flying somewhere over Europe. Checherov presumes
that a nuclear explosion took place at the reactor, which
vaporized the fuel at a temperature of 40000°C (72032°F).
"Checherov is arguing as an amateur who knows nothing about the
laws of nuclear physics," said nuclear physicist Boris Gorbachev
from Kiev, who had worked in Chernobyl for 18 years. "Every
nuclear physicist knows that slightly enriched uranium with a
235U concentration of up to 2% (which was used in the Chernobyl
reactors) cannot explode in principle. To be able to explode,
uranium should be enriched to 80%. The speed of the chain
reaction in a nuclear explosion is millions of times quicker. If
there had been a nuclear explosion, it would have vaporized more
than just fuel. I cannot bear to think about the potential
consequences of such an explosion."
Edvard Pazukhin, a researcher at the Khlopin Radium Institute in
St. Petersburg, wrote his doctorate on the fuel of Unit 4. "The
explosion created a mixture that was like volcanic lava, which
filled the space under the reactor," Pazukhin said. "We have
determined its precise location, and used four independent
methods to determine its amount and the physical and chemical
composition. We have no doubt that less than 5% of fuel was
blown out of the active zone."
If Checherov is right and the reactor is truly empty, why build
a new containment envelope, for which the European Union has
allocated hundreds of millions of euros? To believe Checherov,
Russia is deceiving Europe in order to get more money from
Europe. However, common people can be deceived, but facts speak
the truth.
"One proof of the presence of radioactive fuel in the reactor is
temperatures of up to 40°C (104°F) registered in the destroyed
buildings. The reason for this can be only the continuing
nuclear fission," said Boris Gorbachev.
"The reactor is a nuclear threat," warns Edvard Pazukhin.
"Suffice it to recall the neutron accident (in 1990), when our
Finish system registered a dramatic increase in the neutron
flow, which means that the reactor is alive. Emergency measures
where taken then, with the premises where the accident was
registered filled with a special mixture to absorb neutrons."
From 1998 to 2001, the research institutes of Ukraine, Russia
and Belarus collected, at the initiative of German and French
scientists, all information about the Chernobyl fuel, which they
jointly analyzed again.
"The databank included more than 6,000 entries and photo and
television documents," said Alexander Borovoi. "The final
conclusion was that the containment envelope contained about
150,000 tons of fuel from the destroyed reactor. There should be
30,000 tons more, but we have not found them so far. This does
not mean that they do not exist; it may mean that they are
located in the epicenter, which we could not reach because of
high radiation levels. The price to pay would be prohibitive."
The second containment envelope, which is to be built in
Chernobyl with international assistance, should cover 180 tons
of fragments of the ruined reactor. The new reliable envelope
should keep the radioactive remains calm for about a hundred
years, as well as play a strong psychological role, putting an
end to the Chernobyl fears.
© 2005 RIA Novosti
*****************************************************************
41 Platts: Working group devoted to nuclear established in White House
london (Platts)--30May2006
A White House official announced last week that a special working
group, led by the National Economic Council, has been established
to oversee the expansion of nuclear power in the US.
Lisa Epifani, special assistant to the president for economic
policy on the NEC, told the Nuclear Energy Assembly in San
Francisco that the group is still in the formative stages.
But it is expected that the core members will include
representatives from the White House Council of Economic
Advisers, Office of Management and Budget, Council on
Environmental Quality, Office of Science and Technology Policy,
Office of the Vice President, DOE, and Environmental Protection
Agency.
She said the specific activities of the group are still being
ironed out, but the group possibly could serve as a "sounding
board" for proposals to advance nuclear construction, focus on
plant licensing issues, request progress reports from the NRC,
partner with state and local leaders, and brief President George
W. Bush's cabinet members on nuclear energy-related matters.
Epifani, 34, has been in her position for less than three months.
Prior to working at the White House, she was the majority counsel
for the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
Epifani called the expansion of nuclear power a "presidential
priority" and said the working group's aim is to assist in
delivering results to meet Bush's expectations.
One conference attendee noted that Bush has embraced a "solution"
to the global warming dilemma but "won't embrace the problem."
Epifani told the conference that Allan Hubbard, director of the
NEC, would chair the working group. The role of NEC, which is
part of the executive office, is to advise the president on
economic issues.
Following her talk, Epifani told reporters that the working group
has only met once, on May 4, and that representatives from EPA
and CEA did not attend. She said the group is in the
"brainstorming stages" and plans to meet every two weeks. The
internal group does not yet have a name, though unofficially it
is referred to as the nuclear accelerator working group. The
working group is another indicator that Bush is hoping to see a
new plant order before leaving office. Deputy Energy Secretary
Clay Sell reminded the conference May 18 that the administration
had "only 977 days left to build momentum for the energy policy."
"More than anything, the safety and operational record of the
industry over the last decade have put nuclear power back on the
table," Sell said.
But in the end, there was no one action the government could take
to instigate a nuclear renaissance, he said. "It is you ? the
industry, the investors, the builders ? [that] have the power to
really make it happen," Sell said.
For similar stories, take a trial to Platts Nucleonics Week at
Copyright © 2006 - Platts, All Rights Reserved [The McGraw-Hill
Companies]
*****************************************************************
42 Herald Journal: President is right to call for more nuclear power plants |
GoUpstate.com | Spartanburg, S.C.
Published May 30, 2006 Article Options "
President Bush is pushing the nation toward energy independence
and a cleaner environment by advocating more nuclear power
plants.
The president traveled to a nuclear plant in Pennsylvania last
week to urge power companies to take advantage of new federal
incentives to build nuclear power generation facilities.
"For the sake of economic security and national security, the
United States must aggressively move forward with construction
of nuclear power plants. Other nations are," Bush said.
He's right.
Despite the emotionally charged concerns of some environmental
activists, nuclear power is a clean and safe energy source.
It doesn't burn fossil fuels that must be imported from the
Middle East. That would help free our international policy from
the concerns of obtaining as much oil.
And it eliminates the air pollution that comes with oil-fired or
coal-burning plants. These emissions contribute to air pollution
and global warming concerns.
You'd think environmentalists would jump at the chance to
support such a common-sense choice. But you'd be wrong.
Although some have realized that nuclear power is a good choice,
others continue to oppose nuclear plants and the infrastructure
necessary to support them.
This opposition reaches the ridiculous. Some environmental
groups oppose the proposed long-term nuclear waste storage
facility at Yucca Mountain in Nevada because the federal
government can only guarantee it against leaks for 10,000 years.
They insist on a longer guarantee, refusing to acknowledge that
better technology 100 centuries from now would make a longer
guarantee frivolous.
Federal officials should continue to advocate more nuclear
energy and should work with power companies and state and local
officials to build plants like the nuclear plant planned for
Cherokee County.
That plant would guarantee a full energy supply for the
Upstate's future as well as boost the region's economy.
Those benefits should be available here and to other parts of
the country.
Don't get the Herald-Journal delivered to your home? Click here
for a special offer
©2006 Spartanburg Herald-Journal | Staff directory
*****************************************************************
43 NRC: Nuclear Management Company, LLC; Point Beach Nuclear Plant,
FR Doc E6-8262
[Federal Register: May 30, 2006 (Volume 71, Number 103)]
[Notices] [Page 30700-30701] From the Federal Register Online via
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr30my06-101]
Units 1 and 2; Prairie Island Nuclear Generating Plant, Units 1
and 2; Exemption 1.0 Background The Nuclear Management Company,
LLC (NMC, licensee) is the holder of Facility Operating License
Nos. DPR-24, DPR-27, DPR-42, and DPR-60, which authorize
operation of the Point Beach Nuclear Plant (PBNP), Units 1 and 2,
and the Prairie Island Nuclear Generating Plant (PINGP), Units 1
and 2. The licenses provide, among other things, that the
facilities are subject to all rules, regulations, and orders of
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC, Commission) now or
hereafter in effect.
The PBNP facility consists of two pressurized-water reactors
located in Manitowoc County, Wisconsin, and the PINGP facility
consists of two pressurized-water reactors located in Goodhue
County, Minnesota.
2.0 Request/Action Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations
(10 CFR), section 50.71, ``Maintenance of records, making of
reports,'' paragraph (e)(4) states, in part, ``Subsequent
revisions [to the updated Final Safety Analysis Report (FSAR)]
must be filed annually or 6 months after each refueling outage
provided the interval between successive updates does not exceed
24 months.'' When two units share a common FSAR, the rule has the
effect of making the licensee update the FSAR about every 12 to
18 months. The current rule, as revised on August 31, 1992 (57 FR
39353), was intended to provide some reduction in regulatory
burden by limiting the frequency of required updates. The burden
reduction, however, can only be realized by single-unit
facilities or multiple- unit facilities that maintain separate
FSARs for each unit. For multiple-unit facilities with a common
FSAR, the phrase ``each refueling outage'' increases rather than
decreases the regulatory burden. While the NRC did not provide in
the rule for multiple-unit facilities sharing a common FSAR, it
stated that, ``[w]ith respect to the concern about multiple
facilities sharing a common FSAR, licensees will have maximum
flexibility for scheduling updates on a case-by-case basis'' (57
FR 39355). PBNP and PINGP are two-unit sites, each site sharing a
common updated FSAR \1\. This rule requires the licensee to
update the PBNP FSAR and PINGP FSAR annually or within 6 months
after each unit's refueling outage.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
---------- \1\ The updated FSAR at PINGP is called the Updated
Safety Analysis Report (USAR).
-----------------------------------------------------------------
---------- In summary, the exemption from the requirements of 10
CFR 50.71(e)(4) would allow periodic updates of the PBNP and
PINGP updated FSARs once per fuel cycle, within 6 months
following completion of each PBNP, Unit 1, refueling outage and
within 6 months of each PINGP, Unit 2, refueling outage,
respectively, not to exceed 24 months from the last submittal for
either site.
3.0 Discussion Pursuant to 10 CFR 50.12, the Commission may, upon
application by any interested person or upon its own initiative,
grant exemptions from the requirements of 10 CFR part 50 when (1)
the exemptions are authorized by law, will not present an undue
risk to public health or safety, and are consistent with the
common defense and security; and (2) when special circumstances
are present. Section 50.12(a)(2)(ii) of 10 CFR states that
special circumstances are present when ``[a]pplication of the
regulation in the particular circumstances would not serve the
underlying purpose of the rule or is not necessary to achieve the
underlying purpose of the rule.'' The underlying
[[Page 30701]] purpose of the rule was to relieve licensees of
the burden of filing annual FSAR revisions while assuring that
such revisions are made at least every 24 months.
The NRC staff examined the licensee's rationale to support the
exemption request and concluded that it would meet the underlying
purpose of 10 CFR 50.71(e)(4). The licensee's proposed schedule
for the PBNP FSAR and PINGP FSAR updates will ensure that the
FSAR will be kept current for all units within 24 months of the
last revision. The proposed schedule satisfies the maximum
24-month interval between FSAR revisions specified by 10 CFR
50.71(e)(4). The requirement to revise the FSAR annually or
within 6 months after refueling outages for each unit, therefore,
is not necessary to achieve the underlying purpose of the rule.
Based on a consideration of the licensee's proposed exemption,
the NRC staff concludes that literal application of 10 CFR
50.71(e)(4) would require the licensee to update the same
document within 6 months after a refueling outage for either unit
at each site, a more burdensome requirement than intended by the
regulation.
Therefore, the NRC staff concludes that, pursuant to 10 CFR
50.12(a)(2)(ii), special circumstances are present. 4.0
Conclusion Accordingly, the Commission has determined that,
pursuant to 10 CFR 50.12(a), the exemption is authorized by law,
will not present an undue risk to the public health and safety,
and is consistent with the common defense and security. Also,
special circumstances are present. Therefore, the Commission
hereby grants NMC an exemption from the requirements of 10 CFR
50.71(e)(4) to submit updates to the PBNP FSAR and PINGP FSAR
annually or within 6 months of each unit's refueling outage. The
licensee will be required to submit updates of the PBNP and PINGP
updated FSARs once per fuel cycle, within 6 months following
completion of each PBNP, Unit 1, refueling outage and within 6
months of each PINGP, Unit 2, refueling outage, respectively, not
to exceed 24 months from the last submittal for either site.
Pursuant to 10 CFR 51.32, the Commission has determined that the
granting of this exemption will not have a significant effect on
the quality of the human environment (71 FR 28889).
This exemption is effective upon issuance.
Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 22nd day of May 2006.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Catherine Haney, Director, Division of Operating Reactor
Licensing, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation.
[FR Doc. E6-8262 Filed 5-26-06; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
*****************************************************************
44 NRC: Kerr-McGee Corporation; Notice of Termination of Kerr-McGee
FR Doc E6-8274
[Federal Register: May 30, 2006 (Volume 71, Number 103)]
[Notices] [Page 30699-30700] From the Federal Register Online via
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr30my06-100]
Cushing Site Special Nuclear Materials License No. SNM-1999
AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).
ACTION: Notice of Termination of the Kerr-McGee Corporation
(Kerr- McGee) Cushing Site Special Nuclear Materials (SNM)
License, No.
SNM- 1999.
SUMMARY: The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is noticing
the termination of the Kerr-McGee Cushing Site SNM License, No.
SNM-1999 (NRC Docket No. 70-03073), located in Cushing, Oklahoma.
Background: The NRC granted SNM License SNM-1999 to Kerr-McGee
for the Cushing site on April 6, 1993. The license authorized
possession of uranium and thorium onsite in concentrations above
background levels. The license enabled Kerr-McGee to possess
contaminated soil, sludge,
[[Page 30700]] sediment, trash, building rubble, structures, and
any other contaminated material at the Cushing site during
remediation and disposal activities.
Kerr-McGee remediated the site under a consent order with the
Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality. Kerr-McGee
submitted its Decommissioning Plan (DP) on August 17, 1998, and
NRC approved the DP on August 20, 1999. The licensee conducted
decommissioning activities at the Cushing site in accordance with
the approved DP from January 2000 to June 2005. In accordance
with the DP, the licensee conducted final status surveys (FSSs)
to demonstrate that the facility and site meet the criteria for
unrestricted release as stated in Condition 11(N) of SNM-1999.
Details of the FSS results were submitted to the NRC in 15
separate FSS reports (FSSRs). Kerr-McGee also submitted a dose
assessment demonstrating that the post remediation conditions at
the site meet the unrestricted release criteria of 10 CFR part
20, subpart E. Kerr-McGee submitted a request for termination of
its SNM License on June 15, 2005 (ML051680329), with revisions on
May 11, 2006 (ML061380781).
NRC conducted a number of independent confirmatory surveys to
verify FSS results obtained and reported by the licensee.
Confirmatory surveys consisted of surface scans for beta and
gamma radiation, direct measurements for total beta activity,
collection of smear samples for determining removable
radioactivity levels, and collection and analysis of soil
samples.
The Commission has concluded, based on the considerations
discussed above, that: (i) The remaining dismantlement has been
performed in accordance with the approved DP; (ii) The FSS and
associated documentation demonstrate that the Cushing site meet
the criteria for decommissioning and release of the site for
unrestricted use that are stipulated in Condition 11(N) of
SNM-1999. Further, FSSs demonstrated that the post-remediation
condition of the site results in a dose less than the 25 mrem
(millirem)/year (yr) unrestricted release criteria of 10 CFR part
20, subpart E; and (iii) Kerr-McGee has met the Part 70
requirements for forwarding of specific records to NRC prior to
license termination. Therefore, the Commission is terminating SNM
License No. SNM-1999.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: See the application dated June
15, 2005, with revisions on May 11, 2006, and the Safety
Evaluation Report dated May 18, 2006, available for public
inspection at the Commission's Public Document Room (PDR),
located at One White Flint North, Public File Area O1 F21, 11555
Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville, Maryland. Publicly
available records will be accessible electronically from the
Agency-wide Documents Access and Management System's (ADAMS)
Public Electronic Reading Room on the Internet at the NRC Web
site, http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html (ADAMS Accession
Nos. ML051680329, ML061380781, and ML060960070).
Persons who do not have access to ADAMS or who encounter problems
in accessing the documents located in ADAMS, should contact the
NRC PDR Reference staff by telephone at 1-800-397-4209,
301-415-4737 or by e- mail to pdr@nrc.gov. Dated at Rockville,
Maryland this 18th day of May, 2006.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Daniel M. Gillen, Deputy Director, Decommissioning Directorate,
Division of Waste Management and Environmental Protection, Office
of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards.
[FR Doc. E6-8274 Filed 5-26-06; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
*****************************************************************
45 AU ABC: Rann rules out nuclear power plant.
30/05/2006. ABC News Online
The South Australian Government has ruled out any nuclear power
plant in the state.
The South Australian Premier Mike Rann says Cabinet has quashed
any speculation on the issue.
"A nuclear power plant would bankrupt our state," he said.
"It would not be commercially viable and would not, in my view,
be acceptable to the public.
"Nuclear power plants need giant populations to sustain them,
there is no-one coming to me from the commercial sector or the
mining industry or anywhere else, suggesting a nuclear power
plant."
*****************************************************************
46 AU ABC: Nuclear energy lobby gains unexpected scientific boost
Lateline - 30/05/2006:
Australian Broadcasting Corporation Lateline
Reporter: Brett Evans
TONY JONES: When Prime Minister Howard called recently for a
"full-blooded" debate about nuclear power in Australia, he might
have had Professor James Lovelock, in mind as a participant.
Described by 'New Scientist' as "one of the great thinkers of
our time", James Lovelock first came to prominence for his Gaia
hypothesis - the theory that Planet Earth itself is a living,
self-regulating system. It was an idea that made him one of the
most influential figures in the environmental movement. But
James Lovelock alienated many former disciples when he came to
the conclusion that nuclear energy was the best way to save the
planet from man-made global warming. His latest book, 'The
Revenge of Gaia', claims that climate change has brought
humanity to the brink of destruction. We'll explore that issue
with him in a moment, but first, this background report from
Brett Evans.
BRETT EVANS: The classic 'Mad Max' movies offer a frightening
vision of the future - civilisation brought to its knees, life
reduced to an endless struggle for fuel. George Miller's trilogy
of action films are popular with audiences around the world but
are they also prescient? One of the world's leading
environmentalists certainly thinks so. Professor James Lovelock
claims that man-made climate change will soon cost us the earth.
PROFESSOR JAMES LOVELOCK, SCIENTIST AND AUTHOR (LATELINE 18
OCTOBER, 2004): I don't think people understand. If we get this
6-degree Celsius rise of temperature by the end of the century,
we're talking about billions of deaths.
BRETT EVANS: By continuing to burn fossil fuels and pump
greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, Professor Lovelock is
convinced a grim future awaits the human race. From the
sanctuary of his farm in Devon, the 86-year-old scientist
foresees a world of rising oceans, collapsing ecosystems,
vanishing farmlands; a new dark age ruled by brutal warlords.
JONATHON PORRITT, ENVIRONMENTALIST: Jim Lovelock is extremely
pessimistic about this. I still believe that we have perhaps 10
years, perhaps 15, to put the world on a sustainable energy
path.
BRETT EVANS: He is revered in the environment movement for his
Gaia Thesis, which argues that all life on earth is
interconnected.
DR. TIM FLANNERY, AUTHOR 'THE WEATHER MAKERS': Well, he's always
been one of my great heroes. He's a - he's someone who's
inspired political action on climate change at a very early
stage - he was the one who got Margaret Thatcher moving and
interested in the topic.
BRETT EVANS: But Professor Lovelock has broken ranks with many
of his fellow greens on a key issue. He is a passionate advocate
of nuclear power, arguing it's the only major source of
carbon-free electricity. He's the sort of thinker Prime Minister
Howard would like to hear more from.
JOHN HOWARD, PRIME MINISTER: The scene on nuclear energy is
going to change significantly in our country and I want a
full-blooded debate in Australia about this issue and I want all
of the options on the table.
BRETT EVANS: Australian environmentalists say Professor Lovelock
has got the science of climate change right and applaud his
sense of urgency, but they view his pro-nuclear stance with
scepticism.
DR IAN LOWE, PRESIDENT, AUSTRALIAN CONSERVATION FEDERATION: I
don't think nuclear power is a sensible response to climate
change - it's too expensive, it's too slow, it makes too little
difference. Nuclear power, as a solution, is getting out of the
greenhouse frying pan into the nuclear fire.
BRETT EVANS: The nuclear option has always been a tricky issue
for greens. Physicist Ian Lowe was once a supporter.
DR IAN LOWE: I was reasonably positive about nuclear power 30
years ago, but that was before the age of terrorism and before
we had as many countries developing nuclear weapons as we have
now.
BRETT EVANS: Meanwhile, fellow climate change expert Tim
Flannery is moving in the opposite direction.
TIM FLANNERY: I think personally that nuclear power may be part
of the solution, but, in a sense, the free market has to decide
that, once we factor in all of the costs.
BRETT EVANS: But Dr Flannery is insistent that the Prime
Minister's nuclear power debate should really be a broad debate
about the growing climate change emergency.
TIM FLANNERY: For me the first danger of the nuclear debate is
that it'll sidetrack the real debate about climate change. But
also, you know, let's treat it as we would any of the other
power sources and look objectively at its pluses and minuses.
BRETT EVANS: So, what's in store for the human race? A soft
landing courtesy of nuclear power? Salvation through renewables?
Or a deadly carbon crash? Brett Evans, Lateline.
*****************************************************************
47 Roanoke Times: It's time to stop fearing nuclear power
Editorials
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Nuclear power offers a lot. Just don't let the Bush
administration gut regulations.
In America's search for alternatives to fossil fuels, nuclear
energy belongs on the table. With proper regulation and
safeguards, nuclear plants could meet a significant portion of
the nation's current and future power needs.
Oil, gas and coal are dirty and expensive. Burning them belches
greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, contributing to climate
change. Buying them on the global market is expensive as demand
increases and supply decreases, a fact reflected at the pump and
on electric bills.
Electricity generated in nuclear plants, on the other hand, is
relatively cheap, could be abundant and throws no greenhouse
gases into the sky. Other nations therefore have integrated
nuclear plants into their power infrastructure more and more.
Yet in America, the partial meltdown at Three Mile Island nearly
30 years ago and Russia's Chernobyl disaster 20 years ago still
haunt discussions.
Nuclear power has snags, of course, the greatest being how to
deal with leftover toxic waste that will remain hazardous for
millennia. No state wants it processed or buried within its
borders.
Nevertheless, the benefits, along with the design and safety
improvements made over the years, make nuclear power an
attractive option. President Bush said as much last week.
At the same event, though, Bush called nuclear power an
"over-regulated" industry, and that should send a chill down the
nation's collective spine.
Every time this administration has attempted to loosen
regulations on an industry, the public has lost. The Clear Skies
Initiative allowed more pollution. The Healthy Forest Initiative
allowed more logging. Lax enforcement of mining rules has seen
miners dying at a rate higher than many years.
Regulations exist for a reason, and lifting them so that
industries can save money is very often a mistake.
The federal government will have a tough enough time selling
nuclear power to the American people. Letting the Bush
administration eviscerate public protections, as it has done in
so many other industries, will make the job a whole lot tougher.
Copyright © 2006
*****************************************************************
48 New IEER book: Insurmountable Risks: The Dangers of Using
Date: Tue, 30 May 2006 20:12:32 -0700
Announcing the new book from IEER Press:
Insurmountable Risks: The
Dangers of Using Nuclear Power to Combat Global Climate Change
by Brice Smith
Publisher: IEER Press
Year Published: 2006
Pages: 519 pp.
Binding: Paperback
"How much will nuclear energy cost relative to other means of getting rid
of carbon dioxide emissions? What will be the risks of catastrophic
accidents if we build reactors at the rate of one a week or more,
cookie-cutter style around the world? What about the risks of proliferation
and terrorist attacks and nuclear waste?
"This is _the_ book if you have been waiting for a careful and thorough
analysis of the risks of using nuclear energy to combat global warming. It
is meticulously researched. Were there no alternative, the severity of the
threat facing humankind and other species from global climate change might
well warrant serious consideration of the risks of nuclear energy.
Fortunately, this book convincingly shows that there are far safer
economical alternatives.
"Before buying into the idea that nuclear energy is going to save us from
global climate change because of its theoretical potential for low carbon
dioxide emissions, read this book. And then work for the alternatives."
– Arjun Makhijani, a.k.a. Dr. Egghead
For more information & to purchase the book,
visit: www.ieer.org/reports/insurmountablerisks/
Special price $19.95 through July 2006
e n se dist
Lisa Ledwidge
Outreach Director, United States, and Editor of Science for Democratic Action
Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER)
PO Box 6674 | Minneapolis, MN 55406 USA
tel. 1-612-722-9700 | fax: please call
first | ieer@ieer.org | http://www.ieer.org
IEER's main office: 6935 Laurel Ave. Suite 201 | Takoma Park,
MD 20912 USA | tel. 1-301-270-5500 | fax 1-301-270-3029
*****************************************************************
49 NRC: NRC Proposes $3,250 Civil Penalty for Elizabeth, Pa., Firm Over Temporary Loss of
Nuclear Gauge
News Release - Region I - 2006-03 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY
COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, Region I 475 Allendale Road,
King of Prussia, Pa. 19406 No. I-06-035
May 30, 2006 CONTACT: Diane Screnci (610) 337-5330 Neil A.
Sheehan (610) 337-5331 E-mail: opa1@nrc.gov
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff is proposing a $3,250
fine for a firm based in Elizabeth (Allegheny County), Pa.,
based on a violation of agency requirements stemming from the
temporary loss of a nuclear gauge. The gauge involved contains
radioactive material and is used for such industrial purposes as
measuring the density of soil at construction sites.
NRC inspectors identified the violation during an inspection
conducted in January and February 2006 at the Elizabeth offices
of GeoMechanics, Inc. The inspection was performed in response
to an event in September of last year. On Sept. 18, 2005, a
company employee authorized to use nuclear gauges parked a
pickup truck in the lot of a South Charleston, W.Va., motel. The
truck contained a gauge, which holds small amounts of cesium-137
and americium-241 in sealed form. The gauge was in a locked
container in the open bed of the vehicle.
On the following morning, the employee discovered the lock had
been cut and the container, including the gauge, had been
removed. Local police and the NRC were immediately notified.
The gauge, still in its container and undamaged, was found
abandoned on Sept. 23, 2005, along a highway in Danville, W.Va.
As a result of the NRC inspection, the violation by GeoMechanics
was identified. Specifically, the NRC, as of July 2005, requires
that a minimum of two independent physical controls be used to
secure portable nuclear gauges from being stolen or lost. In
this case, a single chain and lock were used to secure the gauge
to the vehicle while it was parked overnight.
Although you concluded that the source remained in its shielded
position during the time the gauge was in the public domain and,
therefore, no member of the public received measurable radiation
exposure, this violation is of concern to the NRC because (1)
the failure to control radioactive material resulted in the
gauge being stolen and left on a public highway for
approximately five days; and (2) such sources can result in
unintended radiation doses to individuals if the source is
removed from the shielded position, NRC Region I Administrator
Samuel J. Collins wrote to the company in a letter regarding the
enforcement action.
GeoMechanics representatives discussed the violation with NRC
staff during a predecisional enforcement conference held in King
of Prussia, Pa., on April 26, 2006. During that session, the
company acknowledged the violation occurred and discussed its
corrective actions designed to prevent a recurrence. These
corrective actions include retraining all employees authorized
to use nuclear gauges and redesigning the box within which a
gauge is secured to a vehicle in order to ensure proper controls
are maintained.
The company is required to provide the NRC with a written reply
within 30 days.
Last revised Tuesday, May 30, 2006
*****************************************************************
50 Deseret News: Nuclear fallout is to blame
[deseretnews.com]
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
One of my best friends is dying of cancer. He recalls working in
the fields alongside his brother on their father's Aurora, Utah,
farm, observing the "oddly colored" clouds floating overhead.
They had no idea they would someday be classified as downwinders.
Their community, along with other towns and hamlets located to
the north of the Nevada nuclear testing, had been assured that
the fallout passing overhead was harmless. His brother passed
away a couple of years ago, another cancer casualty.
Today, as the U.S. government prepares for more tests,
government scientists are once again giving the same assurances.
Perhaps this time around, government scientists will be able to
blame the deaths on West Nile virus or bird flu.
Gary C. Swensen
Taylorsville
© 2006 Deseret News Publishing Company
*****************************************************************
51 BBC: Niger probes uranium health scare
Last Updated: Tuesday, 30 May 2006
Richard Hamilton BBC News
[Nomads in Niger]
Even low radiation levels can cause diseases in the local
population
Niger's government is investigating reports that people living
near a uranium mine may have been exposed to dangerous levels of
radioactivity.
Local environmental groups say people near Arlit are suffering
from diseases as a result of poor safety measures.
French independent nuclear watchdog CRIIRAD said not enough had
been done to seal off radioactive scrap metal.
Cogema, the company that has been mining there for 30 years, says
it has improved safety standards since 2003.
Uranium mining in Niger rose to prominence amid claims by US
intelligence that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Niger.
Gap
Although mining near the northern town of Arlit has been going on
for the last three decades, it is only fairly recently that local
environmental pressure groups have drawn attention to a possible
link between the extraction of uranium and unexplained diseases.
We want is the company really reduce the doses to the people
immediately CRIIRAD's Bruno Chareyron
In 2003, a team from CRIIRAD visited Arlit and concluded that not
enough had been done to seal off radioactive scrap metal, or to
prevent the spread of radioactive dust and the contamination of
water supplies.
Bruno Chareyron, who was part of that inspection team, says even
low levels of radiation could cause diseases such as cancer in
the local population.
"These doses can really increase the risk of cancer and other
diseases because radioactive metals can be incorporated in the
bodies of people through the water they drink or the air they
breathe," he told the BBC.
"So what we want is the company to really reduce the doses to the
people immediately."
A commission from the government of Niger is meeting some of the
local environmental groups to discuss their concerns.
Cogema says it respects international regulations concerning
radiation and that it has improved safety standards since the
inspections in 2003.
However, the nuclear watchdog says there is a huge gap between
what the company says officially about protecting people and the
reality on the ground.
*****************************************************************
52 Greenpeace International: Radioactive Champagne in our future? |
Champagne should be fizzy, not fissionable.
30 May 2006
Send [Radionucleotides might feature in future Champagne
vintages as dumpsite reports leaks.]
Will future vintages contain radioactive waste?
Enlarge Image
Champagne region, France Ahhh, a fine Champagne. A delicate
nose. Full body. Great colour. And that indescribable sensation
when you raise your glass of having your tongue tickled by ....
TRITIUM???
Raise a toast to the French nuclear industry, whose low-level
radioactive waste is leaking into groundwater less than 10
kilometres (6 miles) from the famous Champagne vineyards.
Problems at a radioactive waste dumpsite in Soulaine were
reported by its operator, ANDRA, to the French nuclear safety
authority on May 24th, 2006. According to their report "the
wall of a storage cell fissured" while concrete was being added
to a recent layer of waste.
Back in the 1980's, ANDRA stated categorically that their
dumpsite would not release any radioactivity into the
environment. But that was when they were seeking planning
permission. Today, the French nuclear authority is saying "This
event revealed a flaw in the conception of the storage cells of
the site."
The waste dump, Centre Stockage l’Aube (CSA) in Soulaine,
contains nuclear waste both from France and abroad. More waste
is trucked into the site every week. Once full, the dumpsite
will be one of the world’s largest with over 1 million cubic
meters of waste, including plutonium.
Greenpeace research released last week showed levels of
radioactivity leaking from another dumpsite run by ANDRA in
Normandy -- at up to 90 times above European safety limits.
That waste has seeped into underground water used by farmers,
with contamination spreading into the countryside and
threatening dairy production.
The Champagne site will receive a total of 4 thousand
terabequerels of tritium -- more than three times the amount of
tritium waste as the dumpsite in Normandy.
A nuclear waste crisis out of control
"We have been told for decades that nuclear dumpsites will not
leak and that the best standards are being applied. In reality
the dumpsite in Normandy is a disaster, and radioactivity is
already leaking from the dumpsite in Champagne," says Shaun
Burnie, nuclear campaigner at Greenpeace International. "The
authorities know they have a problem in Champagne already, with
mistakes in the design. This is only the beginning of the
problem, the bigger picture is that France has a nuclear waste
crisis out of control that is threatening not only the
environment and public health but also the economy of the
Champagne region."
In addition to the low and intermediate waste site in Soulaine,
a new high-level waste dumpsite is being planned in Bure -- also
in the Champagne region -- in which the most radioactive
material in France would be deposited. Plans to build a high
level waste facility in the Rhone Valley were scrapped a few
years ago after strong opposition by wine producers due to the
threat to their vines and wine production.
"The Champagne producers are facing two nuclear time bombs –
one already leaking at Soulaine, and one planned at Bure. The
wine producers in the Rhone region stood up to the nuclear state
in France and won. The Champagne region needs to act fast before
it’s too late," said Fred Marillier of Greenpeace France.
"The French Government must stop this madness. The new facility
must not accept any more waste, and an immediate investigation
launched into how to stop further contamination of ground water."
1,200 tons each year and no place to go
Despite having a nuclear waste crisis the French electricity
providers Electricite de France (EdF) are seeking approval to
build a new reactor at Flamanville, which will increase the
amount of high-level waste.
Today EdF's nuclear reactors produce 1,200 tonnes of highly
radioactive waste every year. The waste expected from the new
reactor would be the most hazardous waste ever produced in a
French nuclear power reactor.
France needs to end its love affair with nuclear power, and
raise a glass to safe, clean, renewable energy.
*****************************************************************
53 Guardian Unlimited: Irish Sellafield appeal ruled illegal
David Fickling
Tuesday May 30, 2006
An attempt by the Irish government to take Sellafield nuclear
power plant to a UN tribunal has been ruled as illegal by the
European Union, in a blow to local anti-nuclear campaigners.
The European court of justice ruled that the appeal had breached
European community law, which insists that European bodies are
the only organisations capable of judging such issues.
Less than 100 miles from Ireland's east coast, Sellafield has
long been a cause of political discontent and anxiety.
Article continues
The plant discharged large quantities of plutonium into
the Irish Sea from the 1950s to the 80s, and continues to
discharge smaller quantities of the element within industry
guidelines.
The Irish government has long called for it to be closed, and
during the country's 2002 election campaign it became a major
issue of contention following a concerted campaign from
anti-nuclear protesters. There are no nuclear reactors in either
the Republic of Ireland or Northern Ireland.
Last month Irish television broadcast a drama-style documentary
about a major nuclear accident at the plant contaminating Dublin
and the east coast of Ireland.
Irish anti-nuclear campaigner Brian Greene said that Sellafield
was becoming "the world's super-dump" for high level waste, and
expressed dismay at the ruling.
"It points to the craziness of EU law, protecting the rights of
member states to use EU law and preventing them from using UN
law," he said.
But the Irish environment minister, Dick Roche, said that Dublin
could have more power to press its case at the EU level as a
result of the ruling.
"Enforcement of a wide range of international agreements,
particularly in the environmental field, are now within the
jurisdiction of the (EU) court. This presents Ireland with a
novel range of opportunities for holding the UK to its
obligations towards the environment and its nearest neighbours,"
he said.
Ireland's nuclear-free status leaves it relatively isolated
within the EU. Before the EU's expansion in 2004 it was one of
only three EU countries not dependent on nuclear power,
alongside Portugal and Greece.
The Irish case was launched in an attempt to stop the
controversial Mox reprocessing plant at Sellafield, which
imports high-level waste from foreign countries and reprocesses
it into usable fuel.
After the plant began operating in 2001, Ireland took the UK to
the convention on the law of the sea, a UN body designed to
settle maritime disputes between countries.
The Irish government argued that the UK had not offered
sufficient safeguards for the protection of the maritime
environment.
But EU law already incorporates the convention on the law of the
sea, and the European commission took action against Ireland
arguing that Dublin had failed to respect the EU's jurisdiction
over the issue.
A recent agreement between the UK and Ireland means that Irish
police and nuclear inspectors now have access to the Sellafield
site.
The European commission wants British Nuclear Fuels to offer its
inspectors more information about the conditions of nuclear
facilities. Full independent inspections of the site are
hampered by the fact that large amounts of the waste have
deteriorated into a radioactive sludge at the bottom of a
containment pond.
Earlier this month, the Health and Safety Executive took the
British Nuclear Group to court over a in April in which 20
tonnes of uranium and plutonium fuel leaked at Sellafield's
Thorp reprocessing plant.
[UP]
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
54 AU: The AGe: ALP appears close to opposing enrichment -
www.theage.com.au
May 30, 2006 - 5:59AM
Labor appears to be moving closer to opposing any plan to enrich
uranium in Australia.
The ALP is divided over the future of its current policy to ban
any new uranium mines, but leader Kim Beazley has pulled the
party into line in opposing nuclear power generation in
Australia.
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer last week raised the prospect
of Australia enriching uranium.
But at a caucus meeting, Mr Beazley indicated Labor would not
support the process.
"On the question of enrichment, he said that basically enrichment
facilities exist in those nations that are using nuclear energy,"
a Labor spokeswoman quoted Mr Beazley as telling the meeting.
Labor's resources spokesman Martin Ferguson was reported last
week as supporting enrichment, which would add value to exports
and allow the mineral to be used for nuclear power generation.
But he later said he did not support enrichment, arguing there
should be no new enrichment plants in the world until there was
a review of the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty and a global
framework for the peaceful use of uranium and nuclear technology.
Several caucus members contributed to the debate at Tuesday's
meeting, the party spokeswoman said.
One MP raised Prime Minister John Howard's suggestion that it
was hypocritical of Labor to support uranium exports but not
deal with the question of nuclear power generation.
Mr Beazley rejected Mr Howard's proposition.
"Obviously this nation for a considerable period of time has
exported uranium without having a domestic nuclear power
generation industry," the spokeswoman quoted him as saying.
© 2006 AAP
Copyright © 2006. The Age Company Ltd.
*****************************************************************
55 MDN: Japan plans to build new fast breeder reactor by 2025 -
MSN-Mainichi Daily News
Japan plans to build new fast breeder reactor by 2025 Japan''s
Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry on Tuesday unveiled its
plan to build a new fast breeder reactor to succeed the "Monju"
prototype reactor by 2025.
The plan is part of the ministry''s draft long-term atomic
energy strategy, which was referred to the atomic energy
subcommittee of its Advisory Committee for Natural Resources and
Energy the same day.
An FBR produces more fissile material than it consumes, and the
ministry is aiming to establish a nuclear fuel recycling system
based on such reactors.
The ministry is set to form a task force in autumn jointly with
the education ministry, electric power companies, reactor makers
and the Japan Atomic Energy Agency to study how to promote the
nuclear cycle.
The Industry Ministry previously intended to build a successor
to the Monju reactor by 2030. But it moved up the deadline by
five years in view of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party''s
eagerness for early construction of a new reactor.
The Japanese government is hoping to put an FBR into practical
use by 2050.
The operations of the Monju reactor, located in Tsuruga, Fukui
Prefecture, central Japan, and owned by the JAEA, were suspended
in the wake of a sodium leak accident in 1995. The government is
working to improve the reactor in the hope of restarting its
test operations in 2008. (Jiji Press)
May 31, 2006
Copyright 2005-2006 THE MAINICHI NEWSPAPERS. All rights
reserved.
*****************************************************************
56 BBC: Irish setback in Sellafield
Last Updated: Tuesday, 30 May 2006
[Sellafield]
The row centres on emissions from the Sellafield plant
The Irish Republic has suffered a setback in its bid to put
international pressure on the UK over the Sellafield nuclear
plant in Cumbria.
The Dublin government went to the United Nations in 2001,
claiming marine pollution from the site broke the UN Convention
on the Law of the Sea.
But the European Commission launched a separate action, which has
been upheld by the European Court of Justice (ECJ).
It ruled that Dublin's accusations should be settled within the
EU.
The Irish government's complaint centred on the Sellafield MOX
(mixed oxide) plant, which recycles plutonium from spent nuclear
fuel.
As a result of the instituti of the MOX case the UK has responded
by improving its level of co-operation with Ireland Dick Roche,
Irish Republic Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local
Government
It began operating in October 2001 and, less than a month later,
Dublin took its complaints to the UN, citing environmental and
health concerns regarding Sellafield's emissions.
It also complained that the UK had failed to provide Dublin with
a copy of the report assessing the plant's economic
justification.
Lawyers for the Republic said the UN action was justified because
of alleged breaches of the UN Convention.
But the Luxembourg judges decided only they had the right to
resolve a dispute between member states about an interpretation
of EU law.
'Tangible improvements'
Reacting to the judgment, Dick Roche, the Irish Republic's
Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government,
said: "As a result of the institution of the MOX case the UK has
responded by improving its level of co-operation with Ireland.
"This has produced tangible improvements in our relationship with
the UK on the nuclear issue.
"However, the significantly different perspectives between the UK
and Irish governments on the continued operation of the
Sellafield Nuclear Plant remain."
A spokesperson for the UK government's Department of Trade and
Industry confirmed relations with the Irish over Sellafield had
improved since the case began.
The spokesperson added: "In the light of these improvements, we
hope that Ireland will no longer feel that it needs to have
recourse to international dispute resolution, and that issues of
concern to them in this area can be settled bilaterally in
discussion between the two governments."
*****************************************************************
57 Pravda.Ru: Nuclear waste seeping into groundwater from French storage site,
Greenpeace says -
05/30/2006 21:33 Source:
The environmental group presented the French Senate on Tuesday
with a report saying that groundwater samples 10 kilometers (6
miles) from champagne vineyards showed contamination from the
waste facility in Soulaines.
The group also took samples from near the other major nuclear
waste site in France, in the Manche region on the English
Channel, that they said contained radioactivity levels 170 times
higher than European legislation allows.
Storing nuclear waste is difficult, costly, politically
sensitive and potentially extremely dangerous - all of which are
key arguments used against nuclear energy, the AP reports.
The French Senate was to debate a law Tuesday on what to do
about France's 1.05 billion cubic meters (35 million cubic feet)
of nuclear waste. The lower house of parliament passed the law
in March, calling for storing the most dangerous waste deep
underground in sealed containers. Other countries, including the
United States, already bury nuclear waste.
The national nuclear waste agency issued a statement on May 24
in which it acknowledged a "defect in the design of storage air
pockets" at the Aube facility, which is in the Champagne region.
Waste at the site is stored in successive concrete containers.
While workers were filling in the concrete for the last
container in April 2005, one of the inner containers cracked,
the statement said.
The nuclear safety agency ordered it rebuilt, but classified the
incident as "zero" on a zero-seven scale. The agency said it
caused no environmental damage.
Currently, 85 percent of France's radioactive waste is stored in
the Manche and Aube storage sites. The remaining 15 percent,
which includes the most highly radioactive materials, are in
temporary facilities around the country.
*****************************************************************
58 Gazette.com: State: Roads ready for lethal nuclear waste
May 30, 2006
Inspector Mike Hall checked this month to see if trucks hauling
nuclear waste were approachable. The I-25 entry near Fort Collins
inspects vehicles carrying nuclear waste two times daily.
Radioactive material handled only by machinery could be rumbling
down Colorado interstate
By DEEDEE CORRELL THE GAZETTE
FORT COLLINS - The most pressing matter of the morning is
whether truck driver Randy Anderson is going to get the No. 1 or
No. 2 breakfast combo.
For his fellow driver, John Bratcher, the question’s settled. He
never deviates from his choice of sausage McMuffin with egg.
“I always get the No. 2,” he said. “Every morning.”
But breakfast is an hour away. First, they’ve got to finish
their paperwork in this port of entry station off Interstate 25
and put their trucks through the drill:
Brakes working? Lights? Horn? Any sign of radioactive leakage?
Check, check, check, check.
Anderson is done first. “See you at McDonald’s,” he tells
Bratcher before climbing into his cab and maneuvering his
flatbed loaded with 39,000 pounds of nuclear waste back into the
traffic on I-25.
That’s it. No drama, no protests, no nuclear emergencies.
In the seven years since the opening of the Waste Isolation
Pilot Plant (WIPP) in Carlsbad, N.M., trucks have chugged daily
down Colorado’s nuclear highway, hauling waste bound for burial
in salt beds 2,000 feet underground.
At first, Coloradans balked at the notion of nuclear waste
rolling through their cities. There were protests and fear: What
would happen if they crashed? What if the containers broke? How
prepared were the fire departments?
But the furor subsided and for years, the trucks headed for
Carlsbad have traversed the state without incident.
“(In 1999) it was new to everybody,” said Roger Reisig, district
supervisor for the Fort Collins port of entry. “Now it’s just
another truck.”
The U.S. Department of Energy is seeking New Mexico’s permission
to bury waste much more lethal than the contaminated rubber
gloves, tools and sludge the plant has received up to now. If
the state agrees, that waste — so radioactive that it is handled
only by machinery — will ride the same trucks through Colorado.
It’s a possibility state officials say they’ve long expected.
“We’re ready for anything that comes down our roads,” said Tammy
Ottmer, the WIPP program manager for Colorado.
SAFETY RECORD PRAISED
Port of entry nuclear inspector Mike Hall notices every morning
which way the wind is blowing.
If his Geiger counter needle climbs too high as he checks a WIPP
truck, he jokes that he’s going to drop everything and run
upwind.
In reality, he’d back up a few feet and check the counter again.
But he’s never had to do either.
Since 1999, state inspectors have examined thousands of trucks
as they enter Colorado, as mandated by state law.
Inspectors have never found serious leakage or detected a
serious radiation emission, Hall said.
Early every morning, three to five trucks arrive and wait for
Hall’s once-over. He checks every system on the truck — lights,
suspension, brakes. The standards for WIPP trucks, he said, are
more rigorous than those for other commercial trucks. For
example, a regular truck can have three loose lug nuts before it
gets a violation; a WIPP truck can’t have one.
Because the trucks are scrutinized so often, it’s rare to find
problems, Reisig said. The daily inspections on WIPP trucks
yield about two violations every month.
By comparison, inspectors said they find dozens of violations
every day on other commercial trucks.
The government’s other defenses against problems are hiring
drivers with unblemished records and keeping the trucks out of
large cities during rush hours. In Colorado, the trucks can’t
pass through Denver, Colorado Springs or Pueblo between 6-9 a.m.
and 3-6 p.m.
Even with such safeguards, federal officials have projected that
56 truck accidents would occur over the 35-year life of the
plant — a rate of 1.6 per year.
The study also predicted 39 injuries and five deaths in those
crashes.
During the past seven years, federal officials said, the trucks
have been involved in nine traffic incidents nationwide — a rate
of 1.3 per year. No serious injuries or deaths have occurred,
said Susan Scott, spokeswoman for Washington TRU Solutions, the
contractor managing WIPP.
The most serious of the incidents occurred Dec. 27, as a driver
returned from New Mexico to the Idaho National Laboratory with
an empty truck. The driver drifted toward the shoulder, then
overcorrected, flipping the truck near Blackfoot, Idaho. The
empty containers flew off the truck but didn’t break, Scott
said.
“They’re sturdy and built for any scenario you can imagine,” she
said.
In Colorado, State Patrol Capt. Allan Turner praised the trucks’
safety record.
“They’ve had very few incidents considering the fact that
they’re on the road every day,” he said.
Authorities said one accident has occurred in Colorado. On March
18, 2005, a loaded truck was heading south on I-25 near U.S. 36
on the north side of Denver. The truck was moving from the right
to the center lane as a passenger car also tried to move from
the left lane to the center lane. The two collided, according to
the Colorado State Patrol report. The WIPP truck was not
damaged.
Anne deLain Clark, coordinator of New Mexico’s radioactive waste
task force, said officials there are pleased with WIPP’s safety
record.
Their drivers were at fault in only two of the incidents, she
noted, and both of them were fired.
But, she said, task force members worry about the federal
officials’ characterization of the shipments as “safe and
routine transportation.”
“Once something becomes routine, you start to make mistakes,”
Clark said.
The accidents have occurred more frequently in recent years than
when the program began, she said. Of the nine, four occurred in
2005.
That’s because they’re on the road more, Scott said. In 1999,
the plant received three shipments per week. It’s now getting 25
per week, she said.
Don Hancock of the Southwest Research and Information Center, a
nonprofit advocacy group in Albuquerque, also gave the program
qualified praise.
“The system has worked better than I expected,” he said. “But
it’s not foolproof.”
STATE GETTING PREPARED
The government has always planned to bury remote-handled waste
at the WIPP plant, Scott said.
It’s expected to account for 4 percent of the volume of waste
there, she said.
For the past several years, federal officials have sought a
permit modification from the New Mexico Environment Department
that will allow them to do so.
Public hearings on the proposed change, which has generated
considerable controversy, begin Wednesday, environment
department Adam Rankin said.
Remote-handled waste is much more radioactive than the
“contact-handled” waste buried there.
Although long-term exposure to the latter could eventually cause
cancer, exposure to the former could quickly lead to death,
Clark said.
If the state grants permission, the waste would come from a
dozen facilities across the country, including those in Idaho
and Washington that already send trucks down I-25.
If that happens, Colorado officials said they wouldn’t change
their methods of inspection, which they say are at the highest
possible level.
Ottmer said emergency responders are prepared for any
eventuality.
“We’ve been training people to be ready for a long time,” she
said.
As for the drivers, they meet the prospect of a new type of load
with a shrug. It’s all the same, said driver Jeanette Dunnivant,
who once hauled explosives. Now that was fun. This is just the
same route, with the same predictable question at every stop.
“What are you hauling?” the other drivers always ask, eyeing the
odd metal barrels.
“I tell ‘em Jack Daniels,” Dunnivant said. “Or Budweiser.”
Copyright 2006, The Gazette, a division of Freedom Colorado
Information. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
59 NRC: List of Approved Fuel Storage Casks: VSC-24 Revision 6,
RIN 3150-AH87
FR Doc E6-8273
[Federal Register: May 30, 2006 (Volume 71, Number 103)] [Rules
and Regulations] [Page 30576-30577] From the Federal Register
Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr30my06-5]
Confirmation of Effective Date
AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
ACTION: Direct final rule: Confirmation of effective date.
SUMMARY: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is confirming
the effective date of June 5, 2006, for the direct final rule
that was published in the Federal Register on March 21, 2006 (71
FR 14089). This direct final rule amended the NRC's regulations
to revise the BNG Fuel Solutions Corporation VSC-24 cask system
listing to include Amendment No. 6 to Certificate of Compliance
(CoC) No. 1007.
DATES: Effective Date: The effective date of June 5, 2006, is
confirmed for this direct final rule.
ADDRESSES: Documents related to this rulemaking, including
comments received, may be examined at the NRC Public Document
Room, located at One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike,
Rockville, MD 20852. These same documents may also be viewed and
downloaded electronically via the rulemaking Web site (). For
information about the interactive rulemaking Web site, contact
Ms. Carol Gallagher (301) 415-5905; e-mail .
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Jayne M. McCausland, Office of
Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, Washington, DC 20555, telephone (301) 415-6219,
e-mail .
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: On March 21, 2006 (71 FR 14089), the
NRC
[[Page 30577]] published a direct final rule amending its
regulations in 10 CFR part 72 to revise the BNG Fuel Solutions
VSC-24 cask system listing within the ``List of Approved Spent
Fuel Storage Casks'' to include Amendment No. 6 to CoC No. 1007.
This amendment revises the Technical Specifications related to
periodic monitoring during storage operations and updates
editorial changes associated with the company name change from
BNFL Fuel Solutions Corporation to BNG Fuel Solutions
Corporation. In the direct final rule, NRC stated that if no
significant adverse comments were received, the direct final rule
would become final on June 5, 2006. The NRC did not receive any
comments that warranted withdrawal of the direct final rule.
Therefore, this rule will become effective as scheduled.
Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 23rd day of May, 2006.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Michael T. Lesar, Chief, Rules and Directives Branch, Division of
Administrative Services, Office of Administration.
[FR Doc. E6-8273 Filed 5-26-06; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
*****************************************************************
60 2 deadly Livermore Lab bio-facilities planned, SF Chronicle
Date: Tue, 30 May 2006 20:12:19 -0700
Hi, colleagues: Please read carefully as this article covers 2 planned
facilities --
One, the advanced biowarfare research facility that will be a Bio-Safety
Level-3 at the Livermore Lab main site -- and as you may know this has not
yet operated due to litigation.
Second, the article also covers a brand new proposal for an even bigger,
deadlier Bio-Safety Level-4 facility at Livermore Lab's Site 300 high
explosives testing range, located in nearby Tracy, California.
Keay Davidson's article, below, gives a brief synopsis of the types of
bioagents that would be allowed in each facility -- and offers an excellent
overview. Please note the June 13 hearing before the 9th Circuit Court of
Appeals on the Livermore Lab main site bio-lab. If you live in the Bay Area
-- you are invited to come and hear our attorney argue our case.
Stay tuned for details soon -- and read on now...
Peace, Marylia
Livermore considers bio-defense lab in Tracy
Proposed research site might store deadly human diseases
- Keay Davidson, San Francisco Chronicle Science Writer, Sunday, May 28, 2006
The University of California and Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory, which are already pushing for
federal court approval to store and study dangerous
microbes at the Livermore lab, have expressed interest
in building a second bio-defense lab near Tracy -- a
lab that could experiment with even deadlier bugs.
Critics say approval might allow such a facility to be
a storehouse and research center for particularly
virulent diseases such as Ebola, dengue fever, Lassa
fever and other illnesses for which there are no known
cures.
"To propose location of (such a potentially hazardous)
facility in the San Francisco Bay Area is truly beyond
comprehension, because all it would take is a single
earthquake to unleash billions of deadly pathogens,
for which there is no known cure, on an unsuspecting
public," said Oakland attorney Stephan Volker, whose
client Tri-Valley CARES of Livermore, a leading
activist group and lab critic, has already sued over
the first bio-defense lab -- and might take legal
action over the second proposal.
UC and lab officials said this week that the second
lab would focus on agricultural diseases such as
foot-and-mouth, an economically catastrophic epidemic.
Lawrence B. Coleman, a physicist and UC's vice provost
for research, told The Chronicle that a research
facility designed for that purpose would be valuable
because "there are a lot of diseases that could do
incredible damage to California agriculture."
But, if approved and funded by the Department of
Homeland Security, the 50,000-square-foot facility
near Tracy could come with a ranking of "Biosafety
Level Four," a status granted in the United States
only to biological labs that store and analyze the
world's scariest pathogens, both human and animal --
and lab officials refused to rule out the possibility
that they'll study human diseases as well.
The proposal for the second lab angered Tracy City
Councilwoman Irene D. Sundberg, who noted that the
city abuts Site 300 -- as the possible location for
the second lab is known -- and new housing is planned
nearby.
"The (UC Regents) should be putting it in their
backyard and not mine," she said.
The proposal for the lab in Tracy comes just as a
long-running legal dispute over the fate of another
planned bio-defense lab, this one on the main
Livermore campus, approaches High Noon in federal
court.
The Livermore facility, which officials hope to open
later this year, has a security ranking of Biosafety
Level Three, a notch lower than what is being
considered for Tracy.
The Level Three lab, if opened, would be authorized to
study diseases including plague, botulism, anthrax and
Q fever, a bacterial disease that in its more virulent
form, chronic Q fever, kills up to 65 percent of its
victims. Scientists there would seek ways to protect
against the natural occurrence of such diseases or the
use of such deadly agents by terrorists or other foes.
By contrast, researchers at the second lab would
concentrate to a greater degree on natural- or
terrorist-caused agricultural diseases, but might also
have the authority to work on extremely virulent human
diseases such as Ebola, research on which is not
permitted in the lower-ranked lab.
The proposed Level Three lab in Livermore has been
tied up for several years in litigation with critics
who say environmental assessments of the potential
hazards there have been inadequate. In September 2004,
U.S. District Court Judge Saundra Armstrong in Oakland
ruled in the lab's favor, but critics appealed to the
Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco,
where oral arguments are scheduled on June 13.
Volker said he will ask the court to authorize a more
extensive safety study "because (the proposed facility
on the Livermore campus) threatens potentially
catastrophic health and safety impacts on the San
Francisco Bay Area." To try to open a bio-defense
facility in Livermore poses "unconscionable hazards in
a populated area such as the Bay Area."
Volker included in his court filings computer
simulations by Matthew McKinzie, a scientific
consultant for the Natural Resources Defense Council.
They show that plumes of killer microbes could spread
in many different directions across the Bay Area,
perhaps as far as San Francisco or beyond, depending
on wind and other weather conditions.
Both Bill Colston, spokesman for the Level Three lab,
and UC's Coleman declined to discuss McKinzie's models
and referred inquiries on the matter to John
Belluardo, Livermore lab spokesman. Belluardo said lab
officials won't address "specific safety concerns"
because the case involving the Level Three facility
"is presently involved in litigation."
UC officials expressed interest in the possibility of
constructing the Tracy facility in a March 31 letter
to Homeland Security. In January, the federal
department requested feelers from around the nation in
a posting on the Federal Register. Formal requests
will come later.
UC officials refused to release copies, explaining
their letter is "confidential and proprietary" and
releasing it might leak secrets to potential
competitors for the project.
Coleman said having labs in a populated region like
the Bay Area makes sense. "If you want to have the
very best researchers working on these diseases in
defense of the country, you have to put it somewhere
where it'll attract them," he said.
In any case, he added, "we have the technology to make
(the research) extremely safe."
Livermore lab officials also agree that both
bio-defense labs would be safe.
"Lawrence Livermore has a long history of safely and
securely working with biological agents," Colston
said. "There are hundreds of these facilities in the
United States with proven track records."
Asked if the lab had ever had bio-accidents, he
replied: "No, not that I know of."
However, Volker and Marylia Kelley of Tri-Valley CARES
gave The Chronicle copies of documents involving the
alleged mishandling of biological materials at
Livermore lab. One document, submitted to the
appellate court, records a 1999 incident in which a
lab worker "was mistakenly conducting experiments with
a virulent strain of Bacillus anthracis," or anthrax,
and, according to an internal report by lab
investigators, "mistakenly disposed of contaminated
equipment and utensils in the trash."
Critics have questioned Lawrence Livermore lab's
safety and security for decades, and recently gained a
powerful ally: Linton Brooks, head of the National
Nuclear Security Administration, which oversees
Livermore on behalf of the Energy Department.
Livermore lab suffers from "long-standing radiological
protection program, quality assurance, and safety
basis deficiencies," Brooks charged in a Feb. 23
letter to then-Livermore director Michael Anastasio.
CLOUDS OF
KILLER MICROBES?
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is under fire
from critics for plans to open two labs in the region
— in Livermore and in Tracy — to research dangerous
microbes. Lab officials say the labs would be safe,
but critics fear either lab could accidentally unleash
billions of dangerous disease-causing pathogens into
the air.
The diagram shows hypothetical releases of deadly
anthrax spores. Computer scenarios performed by
Matthew McKinzie, a nuclear physicist who is a
consultant to the Natural Resources Defense Council,
show the different paths of spore clouds dependent on
wind direction.
1. Based on wind directions typical in September, the
result would be a long, thin trail to the southeast
that could expose 1,100 people.
2. A boomerang-shaped trail would be likely to form in
February, exposing 128,000 people.
3. When winds blow east to west, a cone-shaped trail
would pass over San Francisco, exposing more than a
half-million people.
Source: ESRI, TeleAtlas
E-mail Keay Davidson at kdavidson@sfchronicle.com.
Page B - 1
URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/05/28/BAGLSJ3NVT1.DTL
###
Marylia Kelley
Executive Director
Tri-Valley CAREs
(Communities Against a Radioactive Environment)
2582 Old First Street
Livermore, CA USA 94551
- is our web site address. Please visit us
there!
(925) 443-7148 - is our phone
(925) 443-0177 - is our fax
*****************************************************************
61 Knox News: Technology park roars to start
By FRANK MUNGER, munger@knews.com
May 30, 2006
OAK RIDGE — A novel technology park — the first of its kind to be
built inside one of the government's national laboratories — got
off to a roaring start Tuesday with two announcements at Oak
Ridge National Laboratory.
Pro2Serve, a 10-year-old engineering company based in Oak Ridge,
announced it would build a 100,000-square-foot National Security
Engineering Center in the new park and move its corporate
headquarters to the site adjacent to ORNL's central campus.
Barry Goss, the company's president, said Pro2Serve planned to
invest $15 million in the new facility and expand operations for
what already is the largest engineering design firm headquartered
in East Tennessee. Over the next several years, Pro2Serve plans
to add a couple of hundred new employees to its current base of
nearly 300, he said.
"This is the largest single investment the company has ever
made," Goss told a group assembled under a tent at the location
— now a parking lot — not far from ORNL's historic nuclear
facilities, including the Graphite Reactor.
Meanwhile, Alex Fischer, ORNL's technology-transfer chief, said
another company, Holrob Investments LLC, headed by Knoxville
businessman Bob Talbott, has tentatively committed to build a
similar $15 million, 100,000-square-foot facility and take up
the remainder of the 12 acres in the park's first phase of
development.
Talbott was traveling and didn't attend the ceremonies launching
the Oak Ridge Science and Technology Park, but Fischer said the
plan was solid and that Talbott reportedly had some tenants
already in discussions for the big facility.
Land for the tech park is being provided by the U.S. Department
of Energy, which transferred the property to the Community Reuse
Organization of East Tennessee, a non-profit organization set up
to use surplus or underutilized federal properties and boost
economic development in the area.
Eventually, the park is expected to grow to 40 acres and provide
space for private-sector companies, many of which are likely to
use research results and technologies developed at ORNL to
support their commercial missions.
UT-Battelle, which manages the Oak Ridge lab for DOE, supported
the plan and modeled the park after other university-related
parks — including one at Stanford University and the Research
Triangle Park in North Carolina,
According to information distributed by ORNL, the Oak Ridge park
will be the first one in Tennessee with a designation from the
Association of University Research Parks.
Fischer said the park could pay "huge dividends" to the regional
economy.
Gerald Boyd, DOE's Oak Ridge manager, said the happenings show
that ORNL and the East Tennessee business community are moving
aggressively forward with technology transfer. He said the new
technology park also shows there's a future vision for the lab's
central campus, which includes many facilities that date back to
the World War II Manhattan Project.
Boyd and DOE's Oak Ridge contractors are pushing for federal
funds to clean up or demolish some of the old nuclear operations
at the lab.
Fischer said new businesses at the park would be the property
tax rolls for Roane County and the city of Oak Ridge, resolving
one of the questions.
U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, R-Tenn., said he initially was concerned
about a federal location competing for business with
private-sector developments. But he said locating the park at
ORNL was good for the environment because you don't have to
develop a green-field site outside the area.
"Companies that would not have considered Tennessee now have a
reason to reconsider," said David Bradshaw, the mayor of Oak
Ridge and chairman of the CROET board of directors.
Senior writer Frank Munger may be reached at 865-342-6329.
© 2006 - Knoxville News Sentinel
*****************************************************************
62 DOE: Department of Energy Prepares for Hurricane Season
May 30, 2006
WASHINGTON, DC The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Director of
the Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability (OE)
Kevin Kolevar today outlined a number of steps that the
department is taking to prepare for hurricane season in the
United States. Last year, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita knocked
out electricity to a large portion of the Gulf Coast and damaged
a number of oil and gas recovery platforms in the Gulf of Mexico
and refineries along the shore.
Electricity and fuel are necessary to sustain the publics
health and grow the nations economy. After a disaster that
shuts down energy supplies, the federal government, state and
local leaders, and the industry need to work together to
eliminate barriers and restore power. Our work in strengthening
communications, improving our modeling systems, and coordinating
overall response will help bring power back online as quickly as
possible after a hurricane, Mr. Kolevar said.
Since the hurricanes of 2005, DOE has strengthened its hurricane
response system through increased coordination between federal,
state, and local leaders in a number of ways, including:
1. Training an additional 30 employees for emergency response,
bringing the cadre of specially trained DOE response
coordination personnel to more than 70;
2. Hosting the Energy Leadership forum in Tunica, MS, in
January, to review best practices and lessons learned with
industry representatives and federal, state, and local
government leaders;
3. Updating and enhanced the hurricane modeling system for
DOEs Visualization Room;
4. Working with states to improve their energy assurance
plans; and
5. Implementing a toll-free hotline for the 2006 hurricane
season which will allow state and local leaders and
representatives from the energy industry to improve
communications with DOE during emergencies.
In 2005, DOE deployed emergency response experts to the Gulf
region and had dozens of other individuals working on the
hurricane response from DOE headquarters in Washington, DC. Led
by OE, the department coordinated with other federal agencies,
state and local government leaders, and private industry to
overcome obstacles and bring power back online and bring fuel to
affected regions of the country. At President Bushs
direction, the department made crude oil from the Strategic
Petroleum Reserve available for loan and sale to oil refiners to
help maintain gasoline supply for the nation. Additionally DOE
ensured that high-sulfur #2 diesel was provided to utility pole
companies so that poles would be ready for installation as soon
as the storms passed.
Media contact(s): Craig Stevens, (202) 586-4940 [ ]
U.S. Department of Energy | 1000 Independence Ave., SW |
Washington, DC 20585 1-800-dial-DOE | f/202-586-4403 |
*****************************************************************
63 Tennessean: Dismantling nuclear warheads speeds up -
Nashville, Tennessee - Tuesday, 05/30/06 - Tennessean.com
OAK RIDGE
Workers at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge are
dismantling nuclear warheads faster than ever before to comply
with arms-control agreements and reduce a backlog of old
warheads.
"Historically, it's been viewed as sort of filler work. That has
changed this year," said Dan Linehan, a manager in the plant's
Directed Stockpile Work organization.
Linehan said he's not at liberty to discuss the actual number of
warhead parts being disassembled at Y-12, the nation's principal
storehouse for bomb-grade uranium, but he said it's several
times that of previous years.
The increase coincides with the construction of a $350 million
storage center for bomb-grade uranium that is about
half-finished and plans for a $1 billion Uranium Processing
Facility that's scheduled for completion around 2015.
According to Y-12 Report, the plant's quarterly publication, as
many as seven retired weapon systems are targeted for
dismantlement during the next five years. That includes
components from air-dropped bombs; Minuteman I and III
intercontinental ballistic missiles; Lance tactical missiles;
and Spartan surface-to-air-missiles, the report states.
— ASSOCIATED PRESS
The Tennessean
Copyright © 2006, tennessean.com. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
64 NMBW: Former LANL physicist named to Nuclear Regulatory Commission -
New Mexico Business Weekly:
The U.S. Senate on Friday approved the nomination of Dr. Peter
B. Lyons, a former Los Alamos National Laboratoryphysicist, to a
five-year term on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Lyons was initially appointed to the post in January of 2005 by
President George W. Bush. His Senate confirmation means he will
serve through June 30, 2009.
Lyons worked at LANL for 28 years, the last three as the
director of the LANL Industrial Partnership Office. During his
tenure in Los Alamos, he served as chairman of the NATO Nuclear
Effects Task Group.
Since 1997, Lyons has worked in U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici's office
on military and civilian uses of nuclear technologies and
national science policy. In 2002, he became a nuclear policy
adviser for the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee,
which the New Mexico Republican chairs.
Send us your comments More Latest News » Get the latest business
news on the go! Brought to you by Cingular
© 2006 American City Business Journals, Inc. and its licensors.
*****************************************************************
65 lamonitor.com: Three labs showcase new energy technology
The Online News Source for Los Alamos
ROGER SNODGRASS, , Monitor Assistant Editor
Los Alamos National Laboratory will join sister labs at Berkeley
and Lawrence Livermore to showcase sustainable, renewable
technologies for venture investors in the California's Bay Area
on June 13.
The reNEWable Technology Expo is an event focused on innovative
clean energy alternatives, ready for licensing, marketing or
other forms of collaboration.
The high cost of gas at the pump has once again exposed a deeper
problem of energy insecurity in the United States, where decades
of warning have reached a new crisis.
Meanwhile, scientists and engineers at the national laboratories
have seen a set of national economic security tasks added to
their standard national security portfolio.
Recognizing a timely moment and an issue very much in the public
eye, the three laboratories, with University of California ties,
are taking a coordinated approach to getting some of their ideas
out into the world.
Duncan McBranch, Tech Transfer division leader at LANL, said the
expo grew out of a realization that each of the labs had some
good technologies.
"Together we could be really great," he said.
A new strategy under development by the laboratories recognizes
that a set of seemingly unrelated patents can be bundled into a
valuable package of intellectual properties and capabilities.
For LANL the meeting will afford an opportunity to get better
visibility in one of the best investment communities in the
country, he said.
"Los Alamos is strong in fuel cells and hydrogen storage," said
McBranch. "We are already partnering with other labs and have
industry partnerships with Chevron and AES."
The meeting has been coordinated by John "Grizz" Deal, one of
LANL's "visiting entrepreneurs," working in the tech transfer
division.
In a telephone conversation this morning, Deal listed areas the
lab wants to spotlight: hydrogen storage, NOX (nitrogen oxide)
reduction in vehicles), carbon sequestration and planning,
software that reduces power consumption in computing, and the
lab's entire fuel cell and conductivity portfolio.
"And a thing that's really cool," he added, "is aligned
crystallized silicon for solar cells," a new invention at Los
Alamos that would replace the most expensive component in solar
cells for a fraction of the current costs.
Last month, the global energy corporation AES announced that it
was setting up a separate alternative energy business group with
a $1 billion investment over three years.
Included in the plans is a strategic partnership with LANL "to
identify, evaluate and bring to market new technologies in the
alternative energy area."
Deal said the AES relationship, along with a similar arrangement
with Chevron, are good examples of how to work with a national
laboratory.
"It's not somebody walking in and saying, 'Give me all your
patents,'" he said, but rather long-term in-depth collaborations.
"We provide solutions to their problems and we invent cool stuff
for them."
The expo is an outgrowth of previous work by the University of
California Tech Transfer Advisory Committee.
Technology Ventures Corporation, the Albuquerque-based company
that facilitates commercialization at DOE laboratories in New
Mexico, Nevada and California is a co-host.
The sponsors of the annual New Mexico Equity Capital Symposium,
TVC is also contributing one of their specialties by helping the
expo get in touch with the venture capital network.
The meeting takes place June 13, 8:30-11 a.m. in SRI
International Auditorium, 333 Ravenswood Ave., Menlo Park, Calif.
More information: On the web, www.threelabs.com or call
505-843-4221.
Printed 5/30/06
© 2003 Los Alamos Monitor All Rights Reserved.
*****************************************************************
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:
*****************************************************************