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NUCLEAR POLICY
1 [NYTr] US Offers to Talk to Iran
2 IPS-English U.S./IRAN: Conditional Offer for Talks Seen as a
3 [southnews] Non-aligned summit backs Iran, flays 'brutal'
4 IRNA: Mottaki: NAM members strongly support Iran peaceful N-program
5 IRNA: Iran concerned over application of double-standards in dealing
6 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Media Calls Talks Offer 'Propaganda'
7 Guardian Unlimited: U.S. Says It's Prepared to Talk With Iran
8 Guardian Unlimited: U.S. Reportedly Ready to Join Iran Talks
9 BBC: US offers direct talks with Iran
10 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: AL rejects US charges against Iran
11 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: IRI's nuclear program irreversible
12 AFP: US will play lead role in resolving Iran nuclear standoff - Bus
13 IRNA: MP calls for continuation of nuclear talks with Russia
14 IRNA: British Islamic scholar: Europe wants to resolve Iran's nuclea
15 IRNA: China urges int'l community to recognize Iran's nuclear demand
16 Xinhua: DPRK FM in Beijing for talks
17 IPS-English PAKISTAN: Villagers Pay the Price of Nuclear
18 Guardian Unlimited: Security Council Meeting Degenerates
19 Russia Profile: A New Energy Eldorado
20 IRNA: EU states not sure of holding next meeting in Vienna
NUCLEAR REACTORS
21 US: [NukeNet] What If?........... FYI: IP Siren Test: June 6;
22 Climate change: Nuclear is no solution! Green Left Weekly #669,
23 [NYTr] Cuba Has Treated More than 20,000 Chernobyl Children
24 US: NRC: NRC to Present Results of Catawba Nuclear Power Plant Inspe
25 Guardian Unlimited: Setback for Ireland in nuclear row
26 US: AP Wire: Nuclear regulators give nod to Exelon-PSEG merger
27 RIA Novosti: Belarus drafts concept of nuclear power plant construct
28 US: NRC: NRC Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste to Meet in Rockvill
29 US: APP.COM: Oyster Creek nuclear plant to conduct test |
30 US: Detroit News: America needs more nuclear energy to confront cris
31 US: Rutland Herald: Protesters won't be prosecuted
32 US: EBR: Nuclear inclusion in emissions trading would shift goalpost
33 US: APP.COM: AmerGen, NRC to meet over drywell |
34 US: CITIZEN-TIMES.com: Asheville hearing to weigh nuclear power prop
35 US: Brattleboro Reformer: Yankee's back at full power
36 US: NRC: NRC’s Revised Differing Professional Opinions Program Asses
37 US: Civil Society Institute: pro nuke survey
38 US: NRC: Notice of Availability of Draft Standard Review Plan for
39 US: NRC: Agency Information Collection Activities: Submission for th
40 US: NRC: Sunshine Act Meeting
41 US: Boston Globe: Vermont Yankee returns to full power after low lev
42 ITAR-TASS: Turkey may be interested in Russia’s big experience in nu
43 US: Vermont Guardian: NRC vetoes lone commissioner’s safety concerns
NUCLEAR SECURITY
NUCLEAR SAFETY
44 UN Committee That Seeks To Make World Safe From Radiation Celebrates
45 Coastal Post: Depleted Uranium: the Screaming Mute
46 US: Chillicothe Gazette: DUF6 project building work moves forward
47 US: NRC: Ward Center for Nuclear Studies at Cornell University; Trig
48 US: Middletown Press: Contaminated tools leave CY site
NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
49 Dominican Today: Reprocessing:Greenpeace files legal challenge
50 The Australian: I'm happy to have nuclear waste buried in my backyar
51 Guardian Unlimited: Q on Uranium Enrichment
52 Guardian Unlimited: Greenpeace: Nuke Waste in France Water
53 BBC: Nuclear
54 US: NRC: Request for a License To Import Radioactive Waste
55 US: NRC: Request for a License To Export Radioactive Waste
PEACE
US DEPT. OF ENERGY
56 Knox News: Tech park set for ORNL campus
57 DOE: Statement from Secretary Bodman on the Resignation of
58 DOE: Statement from Secretary of Energy Samuel W. Bodman on the
59 DOE: Statements from Secretary of Energy Samuel W. Bodman on the
60 DOE: Statement from Secretary Bodman on the House Passage of the
61 Boise Weekly: Court to INL: Get Rid of the Junk
62 DOE: Environmental Management Site-Specific Advisory Board, Paducah
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1 [NYTr] US Offers to Talk to Iran
Date: Wed, 31 May 2006 17:19:56 -0400 (EDT)
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
Snowmail - Channel 4 News (UK) - May 31, 2006
http://www.channel4.com/snowmail
America [sic] offers talks with Iran
Big day on the Iran nuclear issue. For the first time in a very long time
the United States is offering multi-lateral talks with Iran but there is an
almost inseparable condition: The Iranians have to cease nuclear enrichment
right now.
Condoleeza Rice, speaking just now, mindful of having to keep two camps in
play at home - those who want engagement and those who want Iran bombed,
spoke of the Iranian "regime" - not even blessing the authorities with the
title of elected government that they are.
When we were in Iran a few months ago, we found that the right to generate
nuclear power, even for those who opposed the very concept, rallied everyone
behind president Ahmadinejad. Even though privately they may have wished to
say that on many other fronts he was either wrong or mad.
They see it as their inalienable right and they don't see it in terms of the
weapon that the West fears. Ms Rice also accuses Iran of being involved in
the violence in Iraq ...
*
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2 IPS-English U.S./IRAN: Conditional Offer for Talks Seen as a
Date: Wed, 31 May 2006 16:49:10 -0700
ROMAIPS MM NA HD IP BW NC NU=20
U.S./IRAN: Conditional Offer for Talks Seen as a Gamble
Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, May 31 (IPS) - Wednesday's unprecedented offer by U.S. Secret=
ary of State Condoleezza Rice to join multilateral negotiations over Tehr=
an's nuclear programme was hailed as a positive step by Iran specialists =
here, who warned, however, that its conditional nature could prove proble=
matic.
Bowing to weeks of growing pressure from European allies, Rice announced =
that Washington was willing to join ongoing talks between the EU-3 -- Bri=
tain, France and Germany -- and Tehran provided, however, that the Islami=
c Republic first =94verifiably=94 freeze its uranium-enrichment efforts.
=94This is a positive step, but it's fraught with some danger in the sens=
e that imposing preconditions, as reasonable as they may be, may invite t=
he Iranians to put forward their own preconditions,=94 said Trita Parsi, =
an Iran scholar at Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studie=
s (SAIS) here.
=94And then suddenly we're back to square one, in which we have no talks,=
no progress, and no diplomacy, while the Iranians go ahead with their pr=
ogramme,=94 he told IPS.
=94I suspect that the Iranians won't absolutely dismiss the offer and wal=
k away,=94 noted Gary Sick, director of the Middle East Institute at Colu=
mbia University who served as the chief Iran expert on the National Secur=
ity Council under former President Jimmy Carter.
=94But by putting it in the form of a contingency where Iran first has to=
bow to our wishes, Iran will be very reluctant to go along,=94 he predic=
ted.
Rice's announcement came on the eve of the latest rounds of talks between=
the U.S., the EU-3, Russia and China in Vienna on a package of carrots a=
nd sticks that they hope will persuade Iran to halt its enrichment activi=
ties as a first step toward an agreement that would ensure that Tehran co=
uld not build nuclear weapons.
With support from the EU-3, the administration of President George W. Bus=
h has been pushing hard in the U.N. Security Council for a resolution tha=
t would impose sanctions against Iran if it did not freeze its enrichment=
programme. China and Russia, however, have opposed such a resolution in =
the absence of greater flexibility on Washington's part.
The Europeans, who for the last three years have acted as Washington's su=
rrogates in talks with Iran, have also appealed with growing urgency -- m=
ost recently via last week's visit here by British Prime Minister Tony Bl=
air -- for the U.S. to join them at the table.
Their position has strengthened in recent weeks amid signals by Tehran, i=
ncluding an unprecedented 18-page letter from President Mahmoud Ahmadinej=
ad to Bush himself, that it was ready to engage in direct talks with Wash=
ington on a range of issues, including its nuclear programme.
=94Some kind of positive response became almost obligatory, especially in=
the context of Ahmadinejad's letter and other reported feelers that Tehr=
an has put out,=94 noted Charles Kupchan, director of European Studies at=
the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) here.
In addition to persuading Washington to join the talks, the EU-3 have als=
o promoted a package that includes providing Iran with light-water nuclea=
r reactors, trade benefits and other economic incentives, and discussion =
of a =94framework=94 to address Iran's security concerns.
The last component, however, is strongly opposed by administration hardli=
ners, who are led by Vice President Dick Cheney and favour a policy of =94=
regime change=94 in Iran.
One source Wednesday suggested that administration hawks may have gone al=
ong with Rice's offer in exchange for European promises that Washington w=
ill not be asked to provide security assurances as part of any eventual n=
egotiation.
Indeed, in answer to one reporter's question Wednesday, Rice stressed tha=
t =94we have not been asked about security assurances, and I don't expect=
that we will be=94.
She also stated that the administration was not taking its military optio=
ns off the table and stressed that Washington was not interested, at leas=
t for now, either in bilateral talks or in negotiations for a =94grand ba=
rgain=94 with Tehran that would address all of the key issues which have =
divided the two countries.
(Such diplomacy has been recently advocated by a number of prominent Repu=
blicans, including the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee=
, Richard Lugar, and Richard Armitage, who served as deputy secretary of =
state during Bush's first term.)
=94We are not in a position to talk about full diplomatic relations with =
a state with which we have so many fundamental differences,=94 said Rice,=
who added, however, that a successful resolution of the nuclear question=
could =94change the relationship that it has with the United States (and=
) begin to open the possibilities for cooperation=94.
The careful terms in which she couched the new offer, as well as the prec=
ondition that she imposed on it, made clear to observers here that the in=
ternal battle over Iran policy between administration hardliners and the =
=94realists=94 centred at the State Department remains unresolved, even i=
f the latter appear to have scored an important victory.
=94We know that this is an issue over which a lot of blood has been spill=
ed in the corridors of power,=94 Kupchan told IPS. =94I would assume that=
what one could call the State Department gang is prevailing in this roun=
d of the fight, although it's not over.=94
=94For the purists, even a stated willingness to talk with the Tehran reg=
ime is hard to swallow, whether conditional or not,=94 he said.
Indeed, as European pressure on the administration to compromise increase=
d over the past weeks, hard-line neo-conservatives, whose influence in th=
e administration runs chiefly through Cheney's office, have been arguing =
that by talking directly with Tehran, Washington would not only fall into=
a =94trap=94 designed to extract more U.S. concessions, but also would d=
emoralise the =94opposition=94 in Iran by implicitly according unpreceden=
ted recognition to the regime.
Sick and Parsi also see Rice's offer as a victory for the =94realists=94 =
and an important policy change but, given the precondition of an enrichme=
nt freeze that comes with it, remain sceptical that it will yield diploma=
tic fruit.
=94It's an open question,=94 according to Sick, who noted that, after off=
ering to meet with Iranians about Iraq earlier this year, Washington got =
=94cold feet=94 once Tehran showed interest in convening talks.
Moreover, he suggested, if Tehran agrees to an indefinite and verifiable =
freeze in its nuclear programme to fulfill the precondition, it is unclea=
r what the purpose of the negotiations will be. =94I disagree with the id=
ea that we can only talk with Iran after our major problems (with it) are=
taken care of. We should be talking to get problems solved,=94 he said.
Parsi also worried that the precondition to suspend enrichment indefinite=
ly could be a =94deal-breaker=94.
=94The Iranian fear is that, if they agree to suspend enrichment, and the=
re's no progress in the talks, then two or three or four years from now, =
they could find themselves in a much weaker position,=94 he said. =94This=
is what happened with the EU-3; the Iranians agreed to suspend so long a=
s talks were taking place, but then the Europeans just stalled.=94
As a result, Parsi said Tehran may seek to set its own preconditions for =
talks, possibly including a limited time horizon in which enrichment will=
be suspended -- a suggestion, he said, it has proposed before -- or even=
a demand that Washington formally recognise it before negotiations take =
place.
=94For a week or two, there will be some haggling, and then the question =
will be, to a large extent, how the other powers will react,=94 he said, =
adding, however, that Rice's announcement should not be taken lightly.
=94Privately,=94 he said, =94administration officials now clearly recogni=
se that it's the U.S. that has the weight to make diplomacy work, and tha=
t is very positive.=94
*****
+POLITICS-US/IRAN: Khamenei in Control and Ready to =94Haggle=94 (http://=
ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=3D33412)
+POLITICS: Iran Proposal to U.S. Offered Peace with Israel (http://ipsnew=
s.net/news.asp?idnews=3D33348)
(END/IPS/NA/MM/IP/HD/NU/BW/NC/JL/KS/06)
=20
=3D 06010123 ORP002
NNNN
*****************************************************************
3 [southnews] Non-aligned summit backs Iran, flays 'brutal'
Date: Wed, 31 May 2006 19:26:31 -0500 (CDT)
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114-nation Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Tuesday backed Iran in the
standoff over its nuclear ambitions and condemned Israel for its
"brutal" occupation of Palestinian lands.
Non-Aligned summit backs Iran, flays 'brutal' Israel
The Daily Star - Lebanon - Wednesday, May 31, 2006
The 114-nation Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Tuesday backed Iran in the
standoff over its nuclear ambitions and condemned Israel for its
"brutal" occupation of Palestinian lands.
The communique issued by the grouping of mostly developing nations after
two-day talks in Malaysia did not include any criticism of Iran's
nuclear activities.
Instead it emphasized the right of all nations "without any
discrimination" to nuclear technology for research and energy production
and warned against any attack on peaceful nuclear facilities.
"The ministers reaffirmed the basic and inalienable right of all states
to develop, research, production and use of atomic energy for peaceful
purposes," it said.
"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 to international
law."
The NAM communique also condemned Israel for a military campaign which
it said had resulted in death and injury to Palestinian civilians
through excessive force and extra-judicial executions.
"The ministers expressed their deep regret that the Palestinian people
continue to suffer under the prolonged and brutal Israel military
occupation of their land since 1967 and continue to be denied their
fundamental human rights." The statement targeted Israeli "settlers" and
the construction of a separation wall as the "core danger to the
realization of the inalienable and national rights of the Palestinian
people."
The Palestinian issue featured prominently at the NAM talks, which were
overshadowed by a row between the Hamas and Fatah representatives which
prompted host Malaysia to urge the rival factions to sort out their
differences.
Palestinian Foreign Minister Mahmoud al-Zahhar quit the delegation on
the eve of the two-day meeting in protest over the arrival of Fatah's
Farouk Kaddoumi as head of the Palestinian delegation.
Malaysian Foreign Minister Sayyed Hamid Albar said that if the
Palestinian leaders wanted to be respected they should project a united
front.
"If there are any differences or disputes between them, it is for them
to sort it out. We support the Palestinian cause, the Palestinian
struggle, the result of the free election but we don't want to get
involved in any dispute between them," he said.
Sayyed Hamid denied that Malaysia committed a diplomatic gaffe by
allowing both to come.
"There is no such thing as a diplomatic mistake. The mistake is not on
the part of Malaysia. If one of the parties feels uncomfortable or
doesn't want to attend, there is nothing much we can do," he said.
On Afghanistan, NAM stopped short of giving full support to the war-torn
country in its efforts to prevent former Taliban members from taking
refuge in neighboring countries, especially Pakistan.
But Pakistan objected and the relevant paragraph was included in
parentheses, which in diplomatic jargon means is subject to revision.
The paragraph in question reads that NAM ministers urge states "to
refrain from extending support, protection and shelter to former Taliban
cadres, recognizing that failure to do so would seriously undermine
efforts by the international community to combat terrorism, and
expressing concern that terrorist groups were regrouping in the southern
and eastern parts of Afghanistan." - Agencies
www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=2&article_id=24851#
________________________________________
ALL FOR NAM, NAM FOR ALL
An NNN-New Straits Times, Malaysia, Editorial, May 31, 2006
UNDATED: PERHAPS, with the Non-Aligned Movement, "unity" should not be
the operative word. The imperative that brought together 29 Asian and
African countries 51 years ago -- the need to shore up a space for
emergent new nations between superpowers -- no longer applies.
The NAM is a classic case of the irony of success: Born amid the rubble
of empires, it fulfilled its founding purpose, outliving superpower
contentions and ushering an expanded membership of 116 nations into this
brave new world of not just one great divide but a multitude.
Nothing could have been more emblematic of this than the rancorous
encounter in Kuala Lumpur, at the NAM Co-ordinating Bureau ministers
meeting, of contending Palestinian representatives -- Mahmoud al-Zahar
of the newly-elected Hamas Government and Palestinian Liberation
Organisation Foreign Minister Farouk Kaddoumi. With Palestine so dear to
the heart of NAMs considerations for so long, this was a reminder of
how the many can remain in thrall to the few.
With diplomatic aplomb, Malaysia defused the spat between the two
Palestinian leaders by redesignating al-Zahars presence as a "bilateral
visit", observing protocol with respect to the PLO while according with
the meetings call for the democratic mandate of Palestinian voters to
be respected. This, too, emphasised that the NAM, as with so many
international organisations up to and including the United Nations, has
come to offer better scope for the management of conflicts, rather than
their resolution.
Malaysia will soon pass the NAM baton to Cuba for the next three-year
term of chairmanship. We would do well to tack onto it a reminder that
conflict need not obstruct consensus, and consensus offers considerable
momentum. Its membership riven by differing interests and conflicting
loyalties, the NAMs consensus may need to be painted in the broadest
strokes -- on Iraq, Iran and Palestine, as well as in the anti-poverty,
anti-terrorist principles lauded by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in
his message to the meeting here.
The NAMs fractiousness, and its steady relegation amid the multiverse
of international forums that has emerged in its lifetime, need not
diminish the clout of its consensus.
Without the unity Malaysia called for, however, it will remain a voice,
without limbs; "all talk, no action". And there are endless ways to
merely talk the talk. If the NAM still wishes to consider itself an
agent of substantial change, consensus alone is woefully inadequate.
-- NNN
http://www.namnewsnetwork.org/read.php?id=3200
The archives of South News can be found at
http://southmovement.alphalink.com.au/southnews/
*****************************************************************
4 IRNA: Mottaki: NAM members strongly support Iran peaceful N-program -
Kuala Lumpur, May 31, IRNA
Iran-NAM-Mottaki
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said here Tuesday
evening that members of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) have
expressed strong support for Iran's peaceful nuclear programs.
Speaking to IRNA before leaving Kuala Lumpur for Tehran after
attending the NAM foreign ministerial meeting in Malaysia's
political capital Putrajaya, Mottaki said the joint statement
issued by NAM's 116 member states fully support Iran's civilian
nuclear activities.
"The move (of issuing the joint statement) was made for the
first time and at such (official) level is considered a great
victory for our country," said the foreign minister.
He further said that given the fact that NAM members make up
two-thirds of the United Nations, their strong support for
Tehran's peaceful nuclear programs should put an end to the
West's negative and false propaganda against Iran.
"Using its media network which controls over 80 percent of the
world's news coverage, the West wanted to make it appear that
the international community was against Iran's peaceful nuclear
activities," Mottaki said, adding that "NAM's joint statement
exposed the falseness of their propaganda."
However, Mottaki reiterated that Tehran was ready to continue
negotiations to resolve the nuclear dispute without
pre-conditions.
Referring to various inspections of the UN nuclear watchdog's
experts on Iran's nuclear sites and facilities, Mottaki said
"all these measures have been accepted voluntarily by Tehran and
no violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) has been
found by IAEA inspectors."
The minister further referred to the US' failure to win the
consensus of its six allies (UN's five permanent members and
Germany) in their meeting in New York on Iran's nuclear case.
"All these indicate that Iran's nuclear program is moving on
the right track," Mottaki stressed.
He said that the US president's act of accusing Iran of trying
to produce nuclear weapons was a means of winning more votes for
the November elections.
"These (the accusations) are nothing but a big lie as Iran by
all means has been or will be pursuing a program for nuclear
energy development," Mottaki stressed.
Stating that Tehran's nuclear programs were completely "clear"
and "transparent," he said the fact that President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad invited foreign private and public companies to
participate in Iran's nuclear programs was another clear
indication of the transparency of Tehran's nuclear activities.
In his last year's address to the UN General Assembly,
President Ahmadinejad called on all foreign companies to invest
on Iran's peaceful nuclear programs.
Referring to a decision made by the NAM foreign ministers on
Tuesday that Iran would host a meeting on human rights and
cultural diversity next year, Mottaki hoped that meeting would
bring "good results" from participants' cooperation and their
exchange of views on major issues like human rights, terrorism
and democracy.
Pointing to the latest regional developments, including the
political death of the former premier of the Zionist regime of
Israel, Ariel Sharon, and holding of free and democratic
elections in Palestinian occupied territories, Mottaki said all
such events have been good signs of a better situation in the
Middle East.
*****************************************************************
5 IRNA: Iran concerned over application of double-standards in dealing
with terrorism -
New York, May 31, IRNA
Iran-Security Council-Sadeqi
Representative of Iran's Permanent Mission to the UN, Mansour
Sadeqi, has stressed that application of double-standards in
dealing with terrorism and terrorist groups is an important
matter of grave concern, which seriously undermines the
international community's collective campaign against terrorism.
He made the statement while addressing a session of the
Security Council on threat to international peace and security
caused by terrorist acts.
Stressing the importance of fight against terrorism for the
international community, he said the role of the UN in
addressing this menace is of great magnitude, he said.
Iran remains fully committed to cooperate with the UN
committees in fulfilling the important tasks with which they
have been entrusted, he said adding that in the last 4 to 5
years, three visits have been paid to Iran, by the chairman of
the 1267 Committee and the 1267 Committee's Monitoring Team.
Besides, Iran has furnished the said committees with the
required reports, and is in the process of finalizing its fifth
national report to be sent to the CTC, he noted.
"As a victim of terrorism, the Islamic Republic of Iran has
always strongly condemned terrorism in all its forms and
manifestations and has demonstrated its strong conviction in
fighting terrorism by all means, including through the arrest of
one of the greatest number of al-Qaeda members apprehended by
any single state and handing them over to the authorities of
their countries in the past 5 years."
In this context, Iran has intensified the control over and
security at its borders with a view to preventing the entry of
terrorists into or their transit from its territory, Sadeqi said
stressing, "Moreover, and having in sight the indisputable
mutually reinforcing connections between terrorism, particularly
that of al-Qaeda and the Taliban and drug-trafficking, Iran has
fought a costly war against this menace on which al-Qaeda feeds".
"Here, I would like to emphasize that the efforts of the
international community in fighting terrorism, particularly
those posed by al-Qaeda and the Taliban, would not yield the
expected results unless adequate attention would also be given
to the menace of drug-trafficking which serves as the main
financial feeding ground for this terrorist group."
Indeed, Iran has shouldered this burden almost single-handedly
thus far, the Iranian envoy said reiterating, "Therefore, the
contribution and attention of the whole international community
to this important aspect of fighting al-Qaeda and the Taliban is
unquestionably needed".
Referring to terrorism as a serious threat and a global menace,
he said the increasing insecurity and the escalation of acts of
violence and terrorism perpetrated by malicious terrorists in
different parts of the world including the heinous and
unspeakable terrorist acts in Iraq and also the daily
cold-blooded state terrorism practiced by Israel in Palestinian
territories are of serious concern to the international
community.
Urging the international bodies, including the UN, to eradicate
the menace of terrorism, Sadeqi said, "Yet, the international
community's efforts to eradicate terrorism have been facing some
hurdles along the way that needs to be addressed appropriately".
Moreover, while the decisive stage in the war against terrorism
is one of capturing the minds and hearts of peoples, the abuse
of the fight against terrorism by some demagogues to spread
hatred and bigotry among various cultures and religions and
their efforts to demonize and defame certain religions or
cultures by unfair and unfounded attribution of terrorism to
them, may in fact prove to be no less serious in its gravity
than terrorism itself.
"In its endeavors to fight terrorism, the United Nations should
also consider proper mechanisms to rescue the much abused term
of terrorism from those countries that unfairly and baselessly
use it as a pejorative term for any other country which is
dissent from their policies," he said.
*****************************************************************
6 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Media Calls Talks Offer 'Propaganda'
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Wednesday May 31, 2006 10:31 PM
AP Photo DCHG101
By ANNE GEARAN
AP Diplomatic Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The United States said Wednesday it would join
in face-to-face talks with Iran over its disputed nuclear
program if Tehran first agreed to put challenged atomic
activities on hold, a shift in tactics meant to offer the
Iranians a last chance to avoid punishing sanctions.
Iran dismissed the offer as ``a propaganda move.''
Before leaving for meetings in Europe on Iran, Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice said that while the U.S. was willing to
join talks between European nations and Iran, it was also
helping to prepare a package of sanctions that Tehran could face
should it decline the new offer.
``We're prepared to go either way,'' she said
At the White House, President Bush said, ``I believe that it's
important that we solve this issue diplomatically, and my
decision today says that the United States is going to take a
leadership position in solving this issue.''
The overture to join stalled European talks came after mounting
pressure on the U.S. from European allies. The administration is
convinced that Russia and China would support sanctions or other
harsh measures if new talks fail to persuade Iran to abandon
nuclear efforts that the West fears could lead to a bomb, a
senior administration official said.
Rice will be working to reaffirm such support on Thursday, said
the official, who briefed reporters only on condition of
anonymity because the secretary was continuing talks with other
countries.
The Iranian news agency said Iran accepts only proposals and
conditions that are in the nation's interest. ``Halting
enrichment definitely doesn't meet such interests,'' IRNA said.
The United States has had no diplomatic ties with Iran and few
contacts at all with its government since Islamic radicals took
over the U.S. Embassy in 1979 and held diplomats for more than a
year.
Rice will meet with foreign ministers from the other permanent
U.N. Security Council members on Thursday in Vienna to finalize
a package of economic incentives and threats to be presented to
Tehran. That package would be on the table in any new talks
involving the United States.
The Bush administration had until now refused to talk directly
to the Iranians about their nuclear program, although there have
been sporadic contacts among relatively low-level officials on
other subjects.
The offer to talk should strip Iran and some U.S. allies of the
argument that the hardline U.S. stance was an obstacle, or that
Washington was not willing to try every means to resolve the
impasse peacefully, U.S. officials said.
``This is the last excuse, in some sense,'' Rice said.
She said the United States was not offering full diplomatic
relations with Iran and would not swear off ever using military
action to stop what the U.S. contends is a rogue program to
build a nuclear weapon.
``This is not a grand bargain,'' Rice said. ``What we're talking
about here is an effort to enhance the chances for a successful
negotiated solution to the Iranian nuclear problem.''
The administration has given arms-length support to European
efforts to bargain with Iran, but also has been the prime mover
for sanctions or other tough United Nations action. Russia and
China, Iran's commercial allies on the council, have so far
blocked that path.
Rice would not directly answer questions about whether those
nations are committed to tough measures if the U.S. overture
doesn't work.
She spoke of ``tactical differences'' and said, ``I think you
can be sure that our friends and our partners understand the
importance of the step and the importance that the Iranians must
now see of making a choice and making that choice clearly.''
In Brussels, Belgium, European Union foreign policy chief Javier
Solana welcomed the U.S. words. ``Direct U.S. participation
would be the strongest and most positive signal of our common
wish to reach an agreement with Iran,'' he said.
British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said, ``The European
side's goal is to present a serious and substantial offer of
cooperation, which demonstrates to Iran the benefits that would
flow from compliance ... rather than the further isolation which
would result from their failure to do so.''
The U.S. offer is conditioned on Iran suspending its enrichment
of uranium and related activities and allowing inspections to
prove it. European nations and the Security Council have
demanded the same thing, but Iran has refused to comply.
Iran did suspend enrichment activities while talks were active
with the Europeans last year but resumed and stepped up the
program this spring.
Uranium enrichment can led either to a bomb or to nuclear power
production, and Iran has so far insisted that it won't take any
deal that involves giving up that technology.
If Iran agreed to suspend disputed activities in order to talk
with the United States, it could still insist on resuming them
later, which U.S. officials say would be a deal-breaker.
At that point, the United States and its allies would be
expected to move for tough U.N. action, possibly including
economic or other sanctions.
The U.S. ambassador at the United Nations had a ``courteous
conversation'' Wednesday with his Iranian counterpart to tell
him about Rice's proposal, said Richard Grenell, a spokesman for
John Bolton.
It was a rare one-on-one discussion between Bolton and Javad
Zarif. Bolton has said previously there are a few diplomats at
the U.N. he never talks to - from Iran, North Korea, Venezuela
and Cuba.
---
Associated Press Writer Ali Akbar Dareini contributed to this
article from Tehran.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
7 Guardian Unlimited: U.S. Says It's Prepared to Talk With Iran
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Wednesday May 31, 2006 8:16 PM
AP Photo DCHG104
By ANNE GEARAN
AP Diplomatic Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The United States said Wednesday it will join
in face-to-face talks with Iran over its nuclear program if
Tehran first agrees to put disputed atomic activities on hold, a
shift in tactics meant to offer the Iranians a last chance to
avoid punishing sanctions.
At the White House, President Bush said, ``I believe that it's
important that we solve this issue diplomatically, and my
decision today says that the United States is going to take a
leadership position in solving this issue.''
The overture to join stalled European talks came after mounting
pressure on the U.S. from European allies. It also followed what
European diplomats told The Associated Press was a pledge that
Russia and China would support sanctions or other harsh measures
if new talks fail to persuade Iran to permanently abandon
nuclear efforts that the West fears could lead to a bomb.
``We're prepared to go either way,'' Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice said before leaving for talks in Europe on
Iran.
There was no immediate response from Iran.
The United States has had no diplomatic ties with Iran and few
contacts at all with its government since Islamic radicals took
over the U.S. Embassy in 1979 and held diplomats there for more
than a year.
Rice will meet with foreign ministers from the other permanent
U.N. Security Council members on Thursday in Vienna to finalize
a package of economic incentives and threats to be presented to
Tehran. That package would be on the table in any new talks
involving the United States.
The Bush administration had until now refused to talk directly
to the Iranians about their nuclear program, although there have
been sporadic contacts among relatively low-level officials on
other subjects.
The offer to talk should strip Iran and some U.S. allies of the
argument that the hardline U.S. stance was an obstacle, or that
Washington was not willing to try every means to resolve the
impasse peacefully, U.S. officials said.
``This is the last excuse, in some sense,'' Rice said.
She said the United States was not offering full diplomatic
relations with Iran and would not swear off ever using military
action to stop what the U.S. contends is a rogue program to
build a nuclear weapon.
``This is not a grand bargain,'' Rice said. ``What we're talking
about here is an effort to enhance the chances for a successful
negotiated solution to the Iranian nuclear problem.''
The administration has given arms-length support to European
efforts to bargain with Iran, but also has been the prime mover
for sanctions or other tough United Nations action. Russia and
China, Iran's commercial allies on the council, have so far
blocked that path.
Rice would not directly answer questions about whether those
nations are committed to tough measures if the U.S. overture
doesn't work.
She spoke of ``tactical differences'' and said, ``I think you
can be sure that our friends and our partners understand the
importance of the step and the importance that the Iranians must
now see of making a choice and making that choice clearly.''
In Brussels, Belgium, European Union foreign policy chief Javier
Solana welcomed the U.S. words. ``Direct U.S. participation
would be the strongest and most positive signal of our common
wish to reach an agreement with Iran,'' he said.
British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said, ``The European
side's goal is to present a serious and substantial offer of
cooperation, which demonstrates to Iran the benefits that would
flow from compliance ... rather than the further isolation which
would result from their failure to do so.''
The U.S. offer is conditioned on Iran suspending its enrichment
of uranium and related activities and allowing inspections to
prove it. European nations and the Security Council have
demanded the same thing, but Iran has refused to comply.
Iran did suspend enrichment activities while talks were active
with the Europeans last year but resumed and stepped up the
program this spring.
White House press secretary Tony Snow said, ``This is a time to
move very aggressively to reach out to the government of Iran
and say, `The ball is in your court.'''
Uranium enrichment can led either to a bomb or to nuclear power
production, and Iran has so far insisted that it won't take any
deal that involves giving up that technology.
If Iran agreed to suspend disputed activities in order to talk
with the United States, it could still insist on resuming them
later, which U.S. officials say would be a deal-breaker.
At that point, the United States and its allies would be
expected to move for tough U.N. action, possibly including
economic or other sanctions.
The U.S. ambassador at the United Nations had a ``courteous
conversation'' Wednesday with his Iranian counterpart to tell
him about Rice's proposal, said Richard Grenell, a spokesman for
John Bolton.
It was a rare one-on-one discussion between Bolton and Javad
Zarif. Bolton has said previously there are a few diplomats at
the U.N. he never talks to - from Iran, North Korea, Venezuela
and Cuba.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
8 Guardian Unlimited: U.S. Reportedly Ready to Join Iran Talks
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Wednesday May 31, 2006 1:01 PM
AP Photo XHS109
By GEORGE JAHN
Associated Press Writer
VIENNA, Austria (AP) - The United States is ready to meet with
Iran and other nations for talks on Tehran's nuclear ambitions
if the Islamic republic gives up uranium enrichment, diplomats
said Wednesday.
But the diplomats, who requested anonymity because the
information was confidential, said Washington would only do so
if Russia and China agreed to back U.N. Security Council
sanctions against Iran if it remains defiant on the enrichment
issue.
One of the diplomats told The Associated Press that the Bush
administration was planning to make an official announcement on
Washington's conditional readiness to join in such talks later
in the day.
The development is significant because the United States has had
no official direct talks with the Iranians since the two
countries cut diplomatic ties following the occupation of the
U.S. Embassy in Tehran by radicals in 1979.
However, Tehran has repeatedly said it will not stop enriching
uranium, and China and Russia have both said they oppose the use
of sanctions against Iran.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
9 BBC: US offers direct talks with Iran
Last Updated: Wednesday, 31 May 2006
[The Iranian nuclear plant at Natanz]
Western powers suspect Iran's nuclear ambitions are not peaceful
The US says it is ready to join direct multilateral talks with
Iran on its nuclear programme if Tehran suspends disputed nuclear
activities.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the US would join EU
nations in talks if Iran suspended uranium enrichment and
reprocessing work.
President Bush said he believed the issue could be solved
diplomatically.
The Iranian state news agency dismissed the offer as a
"propaganda move", in the first reaction from Iran.
EU countries and the UN nuclear watchdog welcomed the offer,
which is seen as a significant US policy shift.
Washington broke off diplomatic ties with Iran in 1979 and the
two sides have had little official contact since.
Proposal
Ms Rice said "as soon as Iran fully and verifiably suspends its
enrichment and reprocessing activities, the United States will
come to the table".
[US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice delivering her statement]
Ms Rice urged Iran to consider the new proposals
The move was to show US commitment to a diplomatic solution and
"to enhance the prospects for success", she said in a statement.
Ms Rice also urged Iran to "thoroughly consider" a package
currently being agreed by the US and EU nations aimed at
persuading Tehran to abandon its nuclear plans.
She is set to meet the five permanent members of the UN Security
Council and Germany in Vienna to discuss the package.
I believe this problem can solved diplomatically and I'm going to
give it every effort to do so US President George W Bush Full
text: Rice speech on Iran
Ms Rice recognised Iran's right to a civilian nuclear programme,
but condemned what she called Iran's support for terror.
When asked about the possibility of pursuing a military option
against Iran, she said Mr Bush "was not going to take any of his
options off the table".
Speaking to journalists after Ms Rice's statement, Mr Bush said
America was ready to take a leadership role on the issue.
Correspondents say the US move emphasises diplomacy rather than
confrontation.
Analysts believe that in one bold move Washington has regained
the diplomatic advantage, with the onus now on the Iranians to
respond.
'Added weight'
In Vienna, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) head
Mohammed ElBaradei welcomed the US move.
It was also backed by the EU foreign policy chief and talks
participants France, Germany and the UK.
[Iran's first nuclear reactor in Bushehr]
There has been no official reaction from Iran
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said he hoped the "way
will be open to a political solution" after the talks in Vienna,
while the Chinese envoy to the UN praised Washington's offer, but
urged the US not to attach conditions, the AFP news agency
reported.
But the Iranian state-run news agency IRNA said Ms Rice's
comments could be considered a propaganda move "given the
insistence by Iranian authorities on continuing uranium
enrichment".
An Iranian security official who did not want to be named called
it a good opportunity for Iran.
He indicated Tehran might consider suspending its enrichment work
for a limited time period during negotiations, but he ruled out
an unlimited suspension of enrichment.
Iran says its nuclear programme is aimed at energy production.
But the US and Western allies suspect Iran of trying to build a
nuclear weapon.
*****************************************************************
10 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: AL rejects US charges against Iran
2006/05/31
Beijing, May 31 - Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa on
Wednesday rejected US accusations against Iran over its peaceful
nuclear program.
The secretary-general, who is currently in the Chinese capital
for a meeting of the China-Arab Cooperation Forum, was quoted by
China's official Xinhua news agency on his remarks.
Criticizing the huge nuclear arsenal of the Zionist regime, he
called for establishment of a Middle East free from weapons of
mass destruction.
Earlier on Monday, he said the Arab League will give no
credence to US assertions that Iran intends to produce a nuclear
bomb, and expressed support for Iran's peaceful nuclear
activities.
Copyright 2004, All Rights Reserved By Islamic Republic of Iran
Broadcasting News Network Sponsored By IRIB News Computer Center.
E-Mail: Webmaster@IRIBNEWS.ir
*****************************************************************
11 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: IRI's nuclear program irreversible
2006/05/31
Tehran, May 31 - An official of the Atomic Energy Organization
of Iran (AEOI) Tuesday called on European states to accept
realities and the fact that Iran's decision to pursue nuclear
energy is irreversible when they meet in Vienna on Thursday.
AEOI Deputy Head for International Affairs Mohammad Saeedi was
speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a conference on
nuclear energy in Tehran University.
Representatives of the five permanent members of the United
Nations Security Council (China, Russia, France, Britain and the
United States) plus Germany (5+1 Group) are meeting in Vienna,
Austria tomorrow to discuss Iran's nuclear case and finalize a
package of incentives to be offered to Iran in exchange for
suspension of its nuclear activities.
"If the Europeans refuse to acknowledge the nuclear progress
achieved by Iran they will face problems in their next steps" in
the negotiation process, Saeedi said.
"Iran's nuclear program is completely transparent. The world
should accept and respect current realities in Iran and take
these into consideration in their future decisions," Saeedi
added.
He stressed that Iran has the resources to complete the nuclear
fuel cycle.
"Iran is perfectly capable of constructing nuclear power plants
inside its territory."
Noting that Iran is currently in the development stage of
nuclear production, Saeedu said development of the Bushehr power
plant and production of some of its fuel inside the country
would be the next steps.
Pointing to tomorrow's meeting of the 5+1 Group, he was
optimistic negotiations would bear fruit provided the "Europeans
were willing to accept Iran's rational and wise proposals in
reaching decisions."
He stressed the importance of continuing the current research
work of Iranian scientists, saying "suspension of nuclear
research even for a brief period is impossible given Iran's
potentials."
Copyright 2004, All Rights Reserved By Islamic Republic of Iran
Broadcasting News Network Sponsored By IRIB News Computer Center.
*****************************************************************
12 AFP: US will play lead role in resolving Iran nuclear standoff - Bush
Wed May 31, 1:09 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States will play a leading role in
resolving the international impasse with Iran" /> Iranover its
nuclear program, US President George W. Bush" /> President George
W. Bushsaid.
"I believe it is very important that we solve this issue
diplomatically and my decision today is that the United States
is going to take a leadership position in solving this issue,"
Bush told reporters at the White House.
"I believe this problem can be solved diplomatically, and I want
to give it every effort to do so," the US leader said, saying
that the United States would engage in "robust diplomacy" to end
the standoff.
The US president added, however, that Washington will hold fast
to its insistance that Iran abandon its alleged efforts to
create a nuclear weapon.
"Our message to the Iranians is that one, you won't have a
weapon. And two, that you must verifiably suspend any programs
at which point we will come to the negotiating table to work on
a way forward," the president said.
"You're seeing robust diplomacy," Bush added.
"I believe this problem can be solved diplomatically, and I'm
going to give it every effort to do so."
The US leader added that he has conferred on the issue in recent
days with the heads of several key nations, including France,
Britain, Russia and Japan.
"I'm on the phone a lot talking to our folks that share the same
concern I share, and saying, 'look, let's get this solved
diplomatically'," said Bush.
"But there must be a united international front."
Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The
*****************************************************************
13 IRNA: MP calls for continuation of nuclear talks with Russia
Tehran, May 31, IRNA
Iran-Jalali-Nuclear
Rapporteur of Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy
Commission Kazem Jalali here Wednesday called for continuation
of Iran-Russia nuclear talks.
On the sidelines of Majlis open session, he told IRNA that
relations between Iran and Russia are strategic.
Stressing that Iran-Russia talks should increase, he said that
during such talks ways of ending the current challenges may be
found.
Jalali once more underlined Iran's right to access nuclear
energy for peaceful purposes and said that Iran will stress its
relevant right in holding talks with any country.
"The Russians are only involved in Iran's nuclear power plant
project, which is currently underway. We need to continue
exchange of views to complete this project," he added.
*****************************************************************
14 IRNA: British Islamic scholar: Europe wants to resolve Iran's nuclear
dossier by dialogue -
Brussels, May 31, IRNA
EU-Iran-Interview
A British Islamic scholar said that Europe wants to resolve
Iran's nuclear dossier through dialogue and is opposed to any
use of force.
"Europe does not want to solve Iran's nuclear issue through use
of force. Europe will oppose any such move if at all raised.
China and Russia will also oppose it. Therefore we should not
be much concerned about it," Imam Abduljalil Sajid from the
Muslims Council for Religious and Racial Harmony, UK, told IRNA
in an interview.
Sajid was in Brussels to participate in a meeting of leaders
and representatives of the Christian, Jewish and Muslim
communities in Europe, organized by the EU on Tuesday.
He underlined that Iran has the right within international laws
to develop nuclear technology for peaceful means.
Why is nobody talking about Israel's nuclear arsenal, he asked.
Commenting on the letter sent recently by Iranian President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to US President George W. Bush, he said "it
was a very clever move." "First of all he showed the Americans
their real colour that how biased they are towards Iran and
secondly it showed that Iran wants to open a dialogue with them
to resolve the issues through talking."
"Unfortunately the American president through his arrogance did
not respond or reply,'' added Sajid.
*****************************************************************
15 IRNA: China urges int'l community to recognize Iran's nuclear demands
, May 31, IRNA
China International Radio on Wednesday urged the international
community to heed Iran's logical nuclear demands and to act with
tolerance and wisdom in trying to settle the case through
diplomatic channels.
The radio said representatives of the five permanent members of
the United Nations Security Council (China, Russia, France,
Britain and the United States) plus Germany (Group 5+1) are to
hold a meeting in Vienna, Austria, on Thursday to discuss Iran's
nuclear case and finalize a package of incentives for Iran.
It added the session would usher in a new strategy of the
international community in trying to settle Iran's nuclear case,
that is, through diplomacy.
It said the European Union's latest proposal focuses on giving
Iran more incentives if it abandons uranium enrichment;
otherwise, sanctions would be imposed on the country.
The European Union is to officially present a package of
incentives to Iran after foreign ministers and diplomatic
officials of the 5+1 Group reach agreement on the proposed
incentives and finalize the offer, the radio added.
It quoted certain media as saying the EU, the United States,
Russia and China have different views on Iran's nuclear case,
and added the sides needed more time to consult with each other
and reach a consensus on the EU's latest proposal.
Washington last week said the military option remains on the
table and there would be "no security guarantees" for Iran.
According to the Chinese radio, the US also opposed holding of
direct talks with Iran upon a request of the EU.
It said the EU was also opposed to the idea of imposing
sanctions on Iran if it refused this latest offer, saying it
(EU) believes it would sustain great damage from sanctions on
Tehran.
It stressed that Iran has not closed its doors to negotiation.
*****************************************************************
16 Xinhua: DPRK FM in Beijing for talks
www.chinaview.cn 2006-05-30 21:38:05
BEIJING, May 30 (Xinhua) -- Paek Nam Sun, Minister of
Foreign Affairs of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea
(DPRK), arrived here Tuesday for talks with senior Chinese
officials on issues of common concern.
"On issues that concern the interests of DPRK, China will
keep communications with DPRK and step up mutual understanding
and support," Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing said in a
meeting with Paek on Tuesday afternoon.
"Li and Paek exchanged views on Korean Peninsula nuclear
issues," said a statement released by Chinese Foreign Ministry.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao told the
regular briefing Tuesday afternoon that Paek's talks with
Chinese officials were "mainly about bilateral issues."
China and DPRK have conducted active exchanges and
cooperation in various fields, and the bilateral relations have
shown renewed vitality, the statement said.
Li reiterated that China would like to work with DPRK to
continuously promote the bilateral ties.
"DPRK will try its best to advance its friendly cooperation
with China, which is the unchanged guideline of the DPRK
government," Paek said.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao also met with Paek on Tuesday
afternoon, discussing bilateral relations and issues of common
concern.
Paek is visiting China as a guest of his Chinese
counterpart.
Paek's China tour came at a time when the six-party talks on
Korean nuclear issue remained stalled since the last round of
meeting was held in Beijing last November.
The last round of talks, involving China, DPRK, the United
States, the Republic of Korea, Russia and Japan, ended up with a
Chairman's Statement, in which the parties concerned agreed to
resume the talks as soon as possible.
But as Washington imposed financial sanctions on Pyongyang
for alleged counterfeiting and money laundering. Until now,
there has been no signs that the talks will be resumed.
Christopher Hill, chief U.S. negotiator to the six-party
talks on Korean nuclear issue, visited Beijing last week and
said that there was no new progress on the six-party talks.
Experts said that Paek's talks with Chinese officials will
not produce any substantial results on the resumption of
six-party talks as he was not DPRK's chief negotiator to the
nuclear talks.
"But Paek's visit could at least ensure the good
communication between China and DPRK," experts said.
Paek will also tour Guangdong, a booming province in south
China, where DPRK leader Kim Jong Il visited in January.
Spokesman Liu Jianchao said Paek's visit to Guangdong is
helpful to enhancing mutual understanding and exchanging
experience on economic development. Enditem
Editor: Pan Letian
*****************************************************************
17 IPS-English PAKISTAN: Villagers Pay the Price of Nuclear
Date: Wed, 31 May 2006 16:16:38 -0700
ROMAIPS AP DV EN HD IP CS CV NU=20
PAKISTAN: Villagers Pay the Price of Nuclear Ambitions
Zofeen Ebrahim
KARACHI, May 31 (IPS) - ''We've been treated worse than animals,'' says N=
azeer Buzdar, his voice cracking with emotion over the telephone. =94We w=
ere the ones who helped make Pakistan a nuclear power. But now that we're=
suffering, there is no one to even hear us out.=94 =20
Buzdar was speaking to IPS from Baghalchur, a remote tribal village, unre=
markable except for its uranium mines, in moutainous Dera Ghazi Khan dist=
rict, some 400 km north of this southern port city. =20
=46rom 1978 to 2000 Baghalchur provided the secretive Pakistan Atomic Ene=
rgy Commission (PAEC) with the =91yellow cake' it needed for its nuclear =
programme, the success of which was dramatically announced to the world, =
in 1998, through a series of tests. =20
In 2000, by PAEC's own admission, =94mining was stopped on the exhaustion=
of uranium=94. But that was when the villagers' troubles began because =
the site was then converted into a storage and disposal site for radioac=
tive uranium waste.
And now, Baghalchur is back in the headlines -- this time as an embarassm=
ent to the PAEC. The local people have gone to the Supreme Court with a=
complaint that nuclear waste dumped in the area had contaminated the en=
vironment and affected the health of both humans and animals.=20
Affected are some 50,000 people who live in hamlets scattered around Bagh=
alchur and the 500,000-strong population of nearby Dera Ghazi Khan town.=
The area is dominated by Balochi tribes.
According to Pervez Hoodbhoy, a physicist and internationally-known peace=
activist, the fact that ordinary villagers, who are normally frightened =
of confronting the government on even minor matters, have dared to take t=
he powerful PAEC to court was a sign of the enormity of the problem. =20
=94I think this shows how desperate they have become for their own safety=
and the safety of their livestock. It is truly unfortunate that the PAEC=
is not listening to them and is merely trying to cover up its tracks, wh=
ile using its clout in the courts to prevent their access to justice,=94 =
he says.
=94We had one of the finest pedigreed livestock in this part of the count=
ry, but now they don't survive. It is normal to find cows developing larg=
e hooves that fester. We have been observing this for the past three year=
s,=94 says Buzdar.=20
He also speaks of abnormalities among the local people. =94I can give you=
scores of examples but in my own family, my sister-in-law recently gave =
birth to twin daughters, and both had six fingers on each hand and six t=
oes on each foot. One of the twins died after a month. You will find many=
born with no palate. Our children are forever falling sick and most run=
very high temperatures and then die, mostly of cancer.'' =20
PAEC has defended itself in a press statement that said the body =94perfo=
rms surveillance of the area for the presence of radioactivity in water, =
vegetation and air, and as per the survey, no radioactivity has been foun=
d in any of these sources. There is, therefore, no reason for a large-hoo=
fed cow due to radiations.=94
It added: =94The areas in use are fenced and guarded, with no chances of =
unauthorised entry. Hundreds of PAEC workers had been involved in mining =
uranium from Baghalchur during 30 years of mining operation, who maintain=
ed a residential colony at this site. Thanks to foolproof safety measures=
, no adverse radiation effects were ever detected in any of them or their=
family members.=94 =20
But Buzdar contests that. =94About six months back, the commission start=
ed dumping close to 1,000 drums into the front yard of its facility. This=
is fenced and guarded but we could see the drums from across the road wh=
ere we live. When this was reported in the media about two months ago, th=
e drums were removed from sight and taken indoors,=94 explains Buzdar.
Complaints by the local people to the border military police proved to be=
in vain. =94We even held a protest rally one night to stop the activity,=
but even that did not get us any positive results.=94=20
Buzdar, along with other locals then lodged a formal complaint in the Sup=
reme Court. The apex court has asked the PAEC to provide evidence that co=
uld dispel the fears of the villagers.=20
Under intesne media scrutiny, PAEC has stuck to its guns, vehemently deny=
ing allegations of radioactive leakage from the stored drums. In an inter=
view with IPS over e-mail and telephone, a PAEC spokesman insisted that =
=94only uranium-contaminated solid waste is being stored/disposed at Bagh=
alchur=94 and that =91'storage prior to disposal is an internationally ac=
cepted practice=94.
While the Baghalchur villagers wait for the verdict of the apex court wit=
h confidence nuclear physicists are sceptical.=20
Prof. Khalid Rashid, a former PAEC employee who currently teaches Mathem=
atical Modelling and Simulation at the Bahria University, in Islamabad, =
says what is important is to carry out a survey that would reveal =91'the=
effects on health of the people of Baghalchur''. =20
Looking at the records for the last 30 years, that are kept in the distri=
ct hospital, would give some clue, says Rashid. He added that, as far ba=
ck as in 1982, a medical doctor at the hospital had told him that the in=
cidence of leukemia among Baghalchur residents was about six times higher=
than the national average.=20
But, however much the commission tries to argue about safe storage and di=
sposal, experts say that nuclear waste disposal is major issue the world=
over. =20
=94There is no perfectly safe option,=94 says Rashid. =94This is an unsol=
ved problem and the real price of nuclear power as well as of nuclear wea=
pons.=94 He listed various options for disposal that seemed to belong in =
the realm of science fiction: =94Storing it deep underground in geologic=
ally stable areas; entombment under the seabed, nuclear transmutation an=
d shooting nuclear waste into the space or the sun.=94 =20
=94Baghalchur is in no way suited for a storage site for the obvious reas=
on that it is geologically dynamic,'' said Hoodbhoy, who is professor of =
physics at the Qaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad.=20
=94The safety and environmental problems that uranium mining brings, as i=
n the case of Baghalchur, are of two kinds,'' said Hoodbhoy. =91'On the =
one hand dangerous chemical poisons (such as arsenic, uranium, molybdenum=
, and other heavy metals) find their way into the soil, air, and water. B=
ut still more threatening is the radon gas and its various radioactive pr=
oducts. Near uranium mines, there are tiny dust particles containing vari=
ous radionuclides. Easily spread by the wind, this dust creates cancers a=
nd genetic damage.''
Nuclear power cannot be produced without risk, says Rashid. =91'Radioact=
ive waste will be produced and there is always the possibility of an acc=
ident. The radioactive dirt will stay on for thousands of years. The nucl=
ear lobby is bankrupt and more interested in business than the welfare of=
the people.=94
Through the debate, the PAEC has continued to make its claims of foolproo=
f safety.=20
=94=94We know what we're doing. There is no crisis and there is no evil g=
oing on,=94 said the PAEC spokesman. =91' We have no interest in creating=
an unsafe environment for the citizens of Pakistan.''=20
Asked if the PAEC has carried out any scientific analysis of the area in =
question the spokesman says: =94We do periodic monitoring as per internat=
ional standards and our technical personnel were sent to the area to chec=
k leakages after media reports.=94
=94Not one person from the commission has visited the area in months,'' w=
as Buzdar's response to that claim.=20
Dr A.H Nayyar, visiting fellow, Sustainable Development Policy Institute,=
who is also a physicist and peace activist refuses to buy the PAEC line.=
=94Some six or seven years ago, workers at the mines and milling plant i=
n D.G. Khan had gone on strike for not being provided proper safety gear,=
and sufficient health facilities. Nobody knows what happened to the stri=
ke or the strikers. But it goes to prove that the commission was not taki=
ng care of all the safety aspects.=94=20
According to Zia Mian, currently research scientist with the programme o=
n science and global security at Princeton University, the PAEC has =91'h=
idden behind walls of secrecy since it was founded 50 years ago. It has n=
ever been accountable to parliament, the law, or the public. Nuclear faci=
lities and the radioactive materials they process are far too dangerous t=
o people and the environment to be managed without strong independent leg=
al and public accountability''.=20
=94Nuclear operators, in our case the PAEC, are not always known to be ca=
reful abut protecting the public against harmful radioactivity. It is bec=
ause of this lack of trust that nuclear regulatory authorities are establ=
ished to act as a watchdog. Like any regulatory authority, this has also =
to be independent but the Pakistan Nuclear Regulatory Authority (PNRA) ha=
s had a questionable history,'' says Nayyar.
So far, the PNRA has made no statement on the issue and, according to Nay=
yar, =94it is conspicuous by its quietness, even when so much has appeare=
d in the press and the highest court is dealing with the matter.=94 (END/=
IPS/AP/IP/NU/CS/CV/DV/EN/HD/ZE/RDR/06)
=20
=20
=3D 05311554 ORP009
NNNN
*****************************************************************
18 Guardian Unlimited: Security Council Meeting Degenerates
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Wednesday May 31, 2006 2:01 AM
By TAREK EL-TABLAWY
Associated Press Writer
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - Syrian and Iranian diplomats traded barbs
with Israel's U.N. ambassador on Tuesday, as a routine Security
Council meeting on fighting terrorism degenerated into insults
and accusations.
At a meeting aimed at assessing the progress of the Security
Council's three anti-terror committees, Israel's U.N. Ambassador
Dan Gillerman described Iran and Syria as part of an ``axis of
terror,'' and said Iran was the ``greatest state sponsor of
terrorism and the largest threat to international peace and
security.''
Gillerman also disputed the oft-repeated argument by Iran and
many Arab states that a distinction must be made between
terrorism and armed resistance movements - namely the
Palestinians' fight against the Jewish state.
Syrian diplomat Ahmed Alhariri countered that Damascus has taken
a front-line role in the fight against terror and called on the
Security Council to ``avoid double standards in combating
terrorism.''
``All are aware that the source of terrorism in the region is
Israel's continuing occupation of Arab lands, and the ejection
of Palestinians from their land ... as well as continued
aggression against Arabs and the denial of their fundamental
rights,'' Alhariri said.
Israel and the United States have routinely accused Syria and
Iran of supporting terror, either by hosting and funding
militant groups such as Hezbollah, or by doing little to halt
the flow of weapons and foreign fighters into Iraq.
Washington also claims that Iran's nuclear program is aimed at
making nuclear weapons - not civilian nuclear power, as Tehran
maintains.
Gillerman also recalled that Iran's president has called for
Israel's destruction, ``denies the Holocaust and is attempting
to develop the nuclear capabilities to perpetrate the next
one.''
But Alhariri said Gillerman should consider Israel's own nuclear
program before criticizing other countries for theirs.
``Perhaps he should read the Charter of the United Nations,
which was drafted to save generations from the scourge of war
and from foreign occupation,'' Alhariri said. ``Those who are
ignorant of such facts perhaps cannot read, and perhaps if they
cannot read they ought not to be here at the United Nations.''
Iran joined in, with diplomat Ahmad Sadeghi accusing Israel of
being headed by war criminals and saying the country has
suffered from a ``lack of legitimacy'' since its inception.
Sadeghi called on the U.N. to step up pressure on Tel Aviv to
open up its nuclear facilities for inspection, mirroring the
same kind of pressure his nation has received from the
international community.
Israel, which is widely believed to have a nuclear program,
refuses to acknowledge or deny it.
Gillerman was quick to fire back, drily expressing his
``appreciation...for the opportunity...to hear lectures about
terrorism by two of the world's greatest experts on that
subject.''
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
19 Russia Profile: A New Energy Eldorado
[The MoscowTimes]
May 31, 2006
By Michel Akerib
Special to Russia Profile
The Arctic Holds Exciting Oil and Gas Prospects
Not well known, poorly defined, not very populated, not
competing to be a holiday destination, the Arctic, thanks to
global warming, could become the new energy Eldorado. The area
is estimated to hold nearly a quarter of the world’s hydrocarbon
reserves – a resource so valuable that some countries are
threatening to “secure” them with nuclear weapons.
Presently the cost of producing oil and gas in the Arctic
remains high, but global warming, which is affecting the Arctic
region twice as fast as the rest of the world, will allow easier
access to the reserves, and make their extraction more
affordable, particularly if the price of oil stays at its
present levels.
[Murmansk] The Russian government, which controls the majority
of the country's oil and gas reserves, has stated that by 2020,
25 percent of oil production and 33 percent of gas production
should come from the Arctic. Russia owns a large number of
installations in that part of the world, including the port of
Murmansk and loading facilities for hydrocarbons on the Baltic
coast. Russia also has a well-developed military infrastructure,
particularly the Northern Fleet, based in Severomorsk, near
Murmansk, and stationed in the ports of Kola, Motovskiy,
Gremikha and Ura Guba. The Northern Fleet contains two thirds of
Russia’s nuclear submarines and a large part of its entire
nuclear forces.
The most promising deposits are at the Shtokman site. Located in
the Barents Sea 550 kilometers (330 miles) north of Murmansk, it
is the world's largest offshore gas field. Gazprom, which has
plans for 120 wells at Shtokman, is presently looking for a
partner to which it could sell a minority share for $10 billion.
Many firms have expressed interest, including Chevron and Conoco
Phillips, the Norwegian companies Norsk Hydro and Statoil, and
the French group Total. Several sources are speculating that
Total will win the deal because it can offer Gazprom a share in
a liquid gas terminal in Louisiana.
The North American Arctic also has a large energy potential.
Three fields have been identified with a global capacity of 6
trillion cubic meters of gas in the Mackenzie Delta, under
Canadian control. BP Amoco is developing the Northstar and
Liberty oil fields, which are estimated to contain close to 6
billion barrels of oil.
The European Arctic also contains major energy deposits. The
Norwegian group Statoil produces gas from its Snow White deposit
at Hammerfest, which contains 160 billion cubic meters of gas.
The Italian company ENI produces oil from the Goliat field,
estimated to have a reserve of 250 million barrels. The reserves
from these fields are extracted through a sub-marine system
linked to a land-based station that controls the production unit
remotely.
At the moment, however, the area is lacking in transport
infrastructure. The European Union Arcop project has offered to
ship oil through the Northern Maritime Route across the top of
Russia, which would allow energy from the Pechora and Kara seas
to flow into Europe. Currently, this maritime line it is only
used by the Russian fleet.
Canada’s new Conservative government committed to building armed
icebreakers and ports immediately following its election. Canada
now realizes the value of its Arctic lands and is unlikely to
repeat the mistake it made in 1997, when the government sold the
abandoned port of Churchill, Manitoba, to American Pat Broe for
10 Canadian dollars. By 2020, the value of goods flowing through
the port will be $100 million.
Contrary to the Antarctic, no international treaty covers
activities in the Arctic region. Several countries have made
claims to the territory, including Canada, Denmark, Finland,
Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the United States.
International treaties currently in place authorize countries to
lay claim to the ocean floor up to 350 miles from their coast,
provided they can prove a continuation of their continental
platform. To this day, no country has offered proof that its
continental platform allows it to claim the entire reserves of
the pole. As long as that is not done, the neutral zone around
the pole will remain under the administration of the
International Seabed Authority.
In March 2006, the leadership of the Russian fleet announced
that it was studying the possibility of securing the Arctic
energy deposits by using nuclear submarines equipped with
nuclear missiles. Similarly, Canada has unveiled a plan to
defend the Northwest Passage at a cost of $5 billion.
Currently, the Arctic region is used by both the United States
and Russia for moving submarines and planes carrying nuclear
weapons. For this reason, the United States and its allies have
created the North Warning System. In a recent White Book, the
U.S. military has discussed its strategy to destroy Russian
ballistic missiles in the Arctic if a conventional conflict
erupted in Europe.
In a period in which national policies are becoming radicalised,
particularly over energy issues, any activity in the Arctic
region could have a major impact on global geopolitics.
Michel Akerib is a professor at Sacred Heart University in
Luxembourg and a consultant with Rusconsult. He contributed the
English-language version of this comment to Russia Profile. The
French version appeared earlier in the Swiss newspaper Le Temps.
*****************************************************************
20 IRNA: EU states not sure of holding next meeting in Vienna
Paris, May 31, IRNA
EU-Meeting-Iran nuclear issue
European officials have raised doubts their scheduled meeting on
Iran's nuclear case on Thursday in Vienna would push through as
their meetings over the past month have failed to bear fruit.
China and Russia seriously opposed the idea of imposing
sanctions or harsh measures on Iran during last Wednesday's
meeting of the 5+1 Group in London.
The group (consisting of the UN Security Council's five
permanent members plus Germany) gathered in London to discuss
the so-called package of incentives to be offered to Iran in
exchange for suspension of its uranium enrichment program.
Iran, which has not formally received the offer, has already
said that "the issue of whether it would halt or suspend
enrichment is not on its agenda."
According to analysts, given the strong opposition of Russia
and China to the idea of imposing sanctions on Iran, Europe most
likely would not hold its scheduled meeting in London tomorrow
as no positive result can be anticipated.
While talking to reporters on Tuesday, French Foreign Ministry
spokesman Jean Baptist Mattei refused to confirm whether
Thursday would be the exact date of the London meeting.
Officials of the Austrian Foreign Ministry and the British
Foreign Office have also refused to confirm the date of the
meeting when asked by an IRNA correspondent.
Expressing doubts on the date of the meeting, Mattei said the
five veto-wielding members of the UN and Germany were still
consulting on the matter.
He said there were still "some timing restrictions" that
members had to agree upon.
Mattei also said that the meeting would most probably be held
but he could not officially announce when.
*****************************************************************
21 [NukeNet] What If?........... FYI: IP Siren Test: June 6;
Date: Wed, 31 May 2006 20:08:17 -0700
NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net)
These tests are planned. What if there is an actual accident or attack
at just the time the test sirens are running after people have been told
ahead of time that this will only be a test? Has anyone addressed this
rather obvious potential?
-Bill Smirnow
----- Original Message -----
From: Lisa Rainwater
To: ipsecannounce@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, May 26, 2006 10:17 PM
Subject: [ipsecannounce] FYI: IP Siren Test: June 6; 10-11 AM
12b48d2.jpg
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Copyright © 2006 Mid-Hudson News Network, a division of Statewide News
Network, Inc.
This story may not be reproduced in any form without express written consent.
IP siren test scheduled
The next full system siren test for the Indian Point area will be conducted
on June 6 from 10-11 a.m.
All 154 sirens around the nuclear power plants will be activities for three
to four minutes.
If the sirens were sounded during an actual emergency, residents would
listen to an Emergency Alert System radio or TV station for information and
instructions about any action to be taken.
Indian Point officials hope all the kinks have been worked out of the siren
system. A back up remote control system did not work properly earlier this
year, but Entergy said the problems have been resolved.
In the meantime, the company is going to install a new state-of-the-art
siren warning system later this year.
----------
HEAR today's news on MidHudsonRadio.com, the
Hudson Valley's only Internet radio news report.
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Indian Point Campaign Director
Riverkeeper, Inc.
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22 Climate change: Nuclear is no solution! Green Left Weekly #669,
Date: Wed, 31 May 2006 06:16:24 -0500 (CDT)
Green Left Weekly
RSS feed
Green Left Weekly #669, May 31, 2006
Climate change: Nuclear is no solution!
Despite being seen as a climate change `renegade', Australia's Prime
Minister John
Howard is currently attempting to gain `greenie' points by pushing for
acceptance of `cleaner and greener' nuclear power as the solution to
global warming. [Full article]
* Our Common Cause: For a nuclear-free future!
******************************************************************************
John Pilger: 'Support GLW!'
We can't do it on our own! Green Left Weekly $250,000 Fighting Fund 2006
Enjoy reading Green Left Weekly? Want to help support our work? Why not
make an online donation .
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Hands off young workers' rights!
The June 1 student strike against the federal government's anti-union
legislation has struck a real chord around the country,
with students responding enthusiastically to the call to strike and
organising for the action at their schools and campuses. [Full article]
* Paris to Melbourne to Auckland -- fighting for our rights
******************************************************************************
John Pilger: 'Support GLW!'
We can't do it on our own! Green Left Weekly $250,000 Fighting Fund 2006
Enjoy reading Green Left Weekly? Want to help support our work? Why not
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International News
# EAST TIMOR: Foreign troops occupy Dili
# Solidarity with the Timorese people
# VENEZUELA: US attempts to "create conditions to attack"
# VENEZUELA: Chavez: 'The US is like a venomous snake'
# VENEZUELA: Colombians, Peruvians hold joint election rally
# SOLOMON ISLANDS: PM accuses Australia of bullying tactics
# BOLIVIA: Morales pushes more pro-poor measures
# SOUTH AFRICA: General strike reveals growing anger
# IRELAND: 'Lying, thieving, pro-war, anti-union' Howard not welcome
# Protests call for 'hands off' Venezuela, Cuba
# ECUADOR: People power forces Oxy oil contract cancellation
# CUBA: 'Prove that I have one single dollar!'
# IRAQ: Investigation shows marines massacred Haditha residents
# BRITAIN: Strong showing for Respect
# CHINA: Pro-socialist forces denounce right-wing gathering
# SRI LANKA: Violence against Tamils escalates
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# What 'Worst Choices' means for you
# Mass action vital in campaign against Work Choices
# Climate change: Nuclear is no solution!
# West Papua: Aus-Indon security pact a return to form
# Fees? You can bank on them
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# New refugee policy introduces 'era of cruelty'
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23 [NYTr] Cuba Has Treated More than 20,000 Chernobyl Children
Date: Wed, 31 May 2006 12:32:05 -0500 (CDT)
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
sent by Simon McGuinness
EFE via S.Florida Sun-Sentinel (Espanol) - Apr 25, 2006
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/elsentinel/hoy-9497551apr25,0,286124.story
More than 20,000 Chernobyl Children Treated in Cuba
EFE (Spain)
English translation by NY Transfer News
Havana, 25 Apr -- More than 20,000 child victims of the catastrophe
at the nuclear reactor in Chernobyle, which occurred on 26 Apr 1986, have
received medical treatment in Cuba since 1990, according to offical
figures released today on the anniversary of the accident.
The Chernobyl disaster, the worst in the history of nuclear energy, caused
100,000 deaths and has affected the lives of millions of people contaminated
by radiation.
In 1990, Cuba embarked on a medical asisstance project that has helped to
date more than 20,000 children affected by the disaster in Ukraine, Russia
and Belarus, the areas most affected.
Most of the children have received treatment at the Pediatric Hospital and
residential treatment centers at Tarara, located 20 km. east of Havana
The patients stay for an average of three months, and medical assistance has
ranged from psychological help to treatment of leukemia, thyroid cancer ...
and other illnesses caused by the nuclear radiation.
The explosion in the center of Chernobyl, which according to experts was
between 100 and 500 times stronger than that produced by the atomic bomb
dropped by the US on Hiroshim, contaminated an area of 45,200 square
kilimeters with Cesium 137 that so far has affected between 5 and 8 million
people living today.
According to official estimates, in Ukraine the radiation has affected,
to one degree or another, 2.6 million inhabitants, including 600,000 children.
1.2 million people, including half a million children, suffer the effects of
radiation in Russia, while in Belarus more than 1.7 million people (360,000
children), approximately 20% of the population, are suffering the
after-effects of the radiation. EFE
*
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24 NRC: NRC to Present Results of Catawba Nuclear Power Plant Inspection at Rock Hill
Meeting May 31
News Release - Region II - 2006-03 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY
COMMISSION
Office of Public Affairs, Region II No. II-06-032
May 30, 2006 CONTACT: Ken Clark (404) 562-4416 Roger D.
Hannah (404) 562-4417 E-mail: opa2@nrc.gov
A team of Nuclear Regulatory Commission inspectors, sent to the
Catawba nuclear power plant last week, will present the
preliminary results of their inspection at the Rock Hill, S.C.
City Hall on Wednesday, May 31st at 1:00 p.m. The Catawba plant
is located near York, S.C., and is operated by Duke Energy
Corporation.
The inspection was conducted by an Augmented Inspection Team,
which is used by the NRC to review more serious events. The
Catawba plant AIT looked at the circumstances associated with an
unexpected loss of power from offsite sources to both of the
facilitys nuclear reactors on Saturday, May 20th. The general
details of that event were discussed in a previous NRC news
release announcing the inspection (Release No. II-06-031 issued
May 23rd). That news release is available on the NRC web site
(www.nrc.gov) or from the Region II Office of Public Affairs.
The NRC inspection team will present its results at the May 31st
meeting and be available to respond to questions and comments
from the public before the close of the meeting.
A report on the inspection will be issued within 30 days, and
NRC officials will then determine whether additional actions are
required.
Last revised Wednesday, May 31, 2006
*****************************************************************
25 Guardian Unlimited: Setback for Ireland in nuclear row
Nicholas Watt in Brussels
Wednesday May 31, 2006
The Guardian
Ireland's lengthy campaign against the Sellafield nuclear
reprocessing plant suffered a setback yesterday when Dublin was
told it acted illegally in trying to draw the UN into the row.
The European court of justice said that the EU should resolve
such disputes between member states.
Ireland launched a UN action in 2001 over the plant. It
complained that Sellafield's Mox plant, which recycles plutonium
from spent nuclear fuel, was increasing pollution in the Irish
Sea.
A UN tribunal rejected Ireland's demand that the plant should be
closed. But it ordered Britain and Ireland to cooperate to
prevent pollution of the marine environment that might result
from the plant's operations.
The European court of justice ruled yesterday that Ireland should
not have taken the matter to the UN because the EU is the only
body that can settle marine disputes between member states.
Britain welcomed the ruling which will help the prime minister as
he battles to win support for a dramatic increase in nuclear
power.
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
*****************************************************************
26 AP Wire: Nuclear regulators give nod to Exelon-PSEG merger
| 05/31/2006 |
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Federal nuclear regulators on Wednesday approved a
merger between Public Service Enterprise Group Inc. and Exelon
Corp., but more hurdles remain before the companies can combine.
The OK from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission allows
Chicago-based Exelon to operate the four nuclear power plants in
which Newark-based PSEG has a majority stake. The plants are:
Hope Creek and the two Salem plants, all in Lower Alloways
Creek, N.J., and Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station in Delta, Pa.
NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said the commission's criteria were
whether Exelon could run and decommission the plants. The answer
was yes, he said, in part because Exelon is already the nation's
largest owner of nuclear power plants.
Other regulatory approval is needed before the merger can be
completed. The most contentious may be winning approval from the
Board of Public Utilities in New Jersey, where PSEG is the
biggest utility.
New Jersey's public advocate has said that the deal could hurt
the state's consumers and has asked a judge to reject or modify
it.
The $16 billion stock deal to create Exelon Electric & Gas
already has been approved by PSEG shareholders, the Pennsylvania
Public Utility Commission and the Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission.
The joined company, to be based in Chicago, would be the largest
U.S. electric company, with 7 million electricity and 2 million
natural gas customers in Illinois, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
*****************************************************************
27 RIA Novosti: Belarus drafts concept of nuclear power plant construction
31/ 05/ 2006
MINSK, May 31 (RIA Novosti) - Belarus scientists have drafted a
concept for building a nuclear power plant in the republic, a
senior researcher said Wednesday.
But Oleg Martynenko, head of the Energy Strategy enterprise,
said a decision on the NPP, which would take an estimated 10
years to build and would cost $2.5 billion, had not yet been
made.
Martynenko said a nuclear power plant with a capacity of 2,000
megawatts was the best option for Belarus and researchers
suggested the cost price of a kilowatt of power would be $0.017
after the NNP is commissioned.
Vladimir Bobrov, the head of the strategic development
department at the Belarus Energy Ministry, said in turn that the
share of nuclear energy in the republic's fuel and energy
balance could rise to 20% and the share of natural gas could
decline to 50% by 2020.
Experts said a nuclear power plant would enable the republic to
bring the share of nuclear energy to 85% in the republic's fuel
and energy balance by 2050.
© 2005 RIA Novosti
*****************************************************************
28 NRC: NRC Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste to Meet in Rockville, Maryland, June 6-7
News Release - 2006-07
U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs
Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC 20555-0001 E-mail:
opa@nrc.gov No. 06-074 May 31, 2006
The Nuclear Regulatory Commissions Advisory Committee on Nuclear
Waste (ACNW) will meet June 6-7 in Rockville, Md., to discuss
matters related to the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel. The
committee will receive briefings on theory and technology used
in the past for reprocessing, as well as the implications of the
Department of Energys Nuclear Fuel Recycling Program for NRC
regulations.
The committee reports to and advises the Commission on all
aspects of nuclear waste management.
The session on Tuesday will run from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. and the
session on Wednesday will run from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. The
meeting will be held in Room T-2B3 of the agencys Two White
Flint North Building, at 11545 Rockville Pike.
Anyone requiring the use of video teleconferencing to observe
the meeting should contact Theron Brown, at 301-415-8066 to
ensure availability.
A complete agenda will be available on the NRCs Web site at this
address:
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/acnw/agenda/2006/.
Individuals interested in making statements or those seeking
more information should contact Michael Snodderly, at
301-415-6927.
Last revised Wednesday, May 31, 2006
*****************************************************************
29 APP.COM: Oyster Creek nuclear plant to conduct test |
Asbury Park Press Online
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
SIRENS IN 10-MILE RADIUS
LACEY: The annual test of the 42 emergency sirens that surround
the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant will happen at 10 a.m. June
6, plant owner AmerGen announced Tuesday.
The sirens will sound for three minutes, the same duration
government officials would use during an actual emergency at the
plant.
The sirens, located within a 10-mile radius of the Lacey plant,
are meant to notify the public to tune in to a local radio or
television station for instructions on how to react to a nuclear
accident or another public health threat. A 30-second test will
go off about 2 p.m. that day.
Nicholas Clunn
Copyright © 2006 Asbury Park Press. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
30 Detroit News: America needs more nuclear energy to confront crisis -
05/31/06
+ Detnews.com
Clarence Tabb Jr. / The Detroit News
Former Gov. John Engler says the United States needs more nuclear
energy facilities, such as the Fermi plant in Newport.
John Engler America needs more nuclear energy to confront crisis
John Engler
A mericans feel the effects of rising energy costs every day in
heating and cooling their homes, running appliances and keeping
gas in their cars.
Soaring energy prices are one of the biggest challenges facing
manufacturing and the economy. A study supported by the National
Association of Manufacturers and the American Council on Capital
Formation concluded that manufacturers will pay 148 percent more
for natural gas and 115 percent more for electricity by 2020.
Consumers can expect a 61 percent rise in gasoline prices, if
our government does not implement policies to increase supplies
of affordable energy.
Deep-water exploration for oil and natural gas, constructing new
refineries, developing clean-coal technologies, conservation and
biofuels are all key parts of the equation, but our country
needs to pursue every viable option. In the long term, nuclear
power -- efficient and safe -- holds promise as a major source
of electricity.
The 2005 Energy Policy Act took valuable steps to encourage
investments in nuclear power, but there is much more to be done.
To maintain our global competitiveness and help create more
American jobs, we must modernize the nuclear energy
infrastructure. This will not only relieve the pressure on
natural gas prices by freeing up supply, but will also provide
the energy security that is essential for a robust economy.
Environmentalists have opposed the development of nuclear power,
but that position is crumbling before mounting evidence that
nuclear power is safe, affordable and reliable.
Nuclear technology is making rapid gains in efficiency and
productivity. U.S. plants are now fully depreciated after
increasing their capacity factor by 20 percent from the 1990s to
2004 while maintaining predictable operating costs that are
relatively insulated from price fluctuations. This stabilizes
the nation's electricity markets by limiting our dependency on
natural resources from foreign sources.
To see the rewards of nuclear energy, we need to look no farther
than France, which derives 80 percent of its electricity
compared with only 20 percent in the United States. The Chinese
plan to double the world's nuclear output by themselves, and
India seeks to increase its nuclear power production 100-fold by
2050. If we ignore the nuclear option and continue to be
shellacked by the fluctuating prices of foreign energy sources,
it will undermine our ability to compete in the global
marketplace.
Locally, nuclear energy boosts economic growth and supports
high-paying jobs. Every dollar spent by a plant generates about
$1.13 in the local economy. Each new plant will create more than
1,000 construction jobs and add nearly 500 positions with
salaries about 40 percent higher than the average earnings in
the communities surrounding the plants.
Manufacturers will be a bulwark in a great coalition on behalf
of a diversified, flexible energy supply in which nuclear power
plays a central role. We can count on our friends in labor
unions who recognize the value of construction jobs and skilled
trades.
A growing number of enlightened environmentalists are joining
the call for this emission-free source of power. As energy
prices continue to drain everyone's pocketbooks, there will be a
growing consensus among consumers for a new commitment to
nuclear power.
The time has come to move forward on an aggressive national
commitment to nuclear power. This can and must be an urgent
national priority.
John Engler, president of the National Association of
Manufacturers, was a three-term governor of Michigan.
© Copyright 2006 The Detroit News. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
31 Rutland Herald: Protesters won't be prosecuted
Rutland Vermont News & Information
May 31, 2006
By DANIEL BARLOW Southern Vermont Bureau
BRATTLEBORO — Seven anti-nuclear activists from Massachu-setts
were arrested Tuesday morning after allegedly spray-painting
warning signs on the ground outside the Vermont Yankee nuclear
power plant and refusing to leave the corporate offices of the
plant's owner.
The seven protesters were cited for unlawful trespass by
Brattle-boro Police after they allegedly refused to leave the
office grounds of Entergy Nuclear Vermont in Brattleboro, the
owner of the Vernon plant.
Windham County State's Attorney Dan Davis, continuing his recent
practice, said he will not prosecute them.
Tuesday's protest began outside the Vernon plant, where the
demonstrators spray-painted warning signs on the street at about
7 a.m., according to one of those arrested, Harriet A. Nestel,
67, of Athol, Mass.
Following that action, the group demonstrated outside the
corporate offices on Old Ferry Road in Brattleboro. The group
was arrested by Brattleboro Police after they allegedly refused
to leave a glass foyer entrance to one of the offices.
Nestel said the group wanted to discuss their safety concerns
with an Entergy executive.
"We are concerned because Vermont Yankee is a weapon of mass
destruction," Nestel said Tuesday afternoon. "No one is
protecting us from Vermont Yankee. And no one is taking
responsibility to shut the place down."
Davis, the county prosecutor, said he reviewed the cases Tuesday
afternoon and decided not to prosecute the protesters. Since
late last year, when Massachusetts-based protesters began
targeting Vermont Yankee with regular protests and acts of civil
disobedience, Davis has not filed formal charges.
He said Tuesday Brattleboro District Court does not have the
resources to prosecute the cases due to a backlog of cases
already waiting to be tried. The court held 28 jury trials in
2005 — the most in the state for a district court that year —
and he expects to hold twice as many this year.
"There are too many criminal cases to be tried and I don't want
to give the opportunity for them to voice their political
opinions through the justice system," Davis said.
Brattleboro Police Capt. Steve Rowell said he understands Davis'
position, but he is still required to send officers to the
protests despite the fact that no charges result from the
arrests.
But the protests are also a heavy drain on police resources,
Rowell said. The department keeps three officers on duty during
the daytime shifts and all three are typically needed to shut
down the demonstrations.
"All my officers are usually down there," he said. "And while
they are doing that they cannot carry out investigations or go
on patrol."
Nestel said the protesters do not intend to stop their
demonstrations until the plant is shut down.
Also arrested Tuesday were: Frances H. Crowe, 85, of
Northampton, Mass.; Dorthee, 77, of Wendell, Mass.; Marsha H.
Gagliardi, 58, of Athol, Mass.; Claire Change, 49, of
Sunderland, Mass.; Joanne M. Comerford, 42, of Florence, Mass.,
and Harvey Z. Schaktman, 62, of Shelbourne Falls, Mass.
Police said Dorthee is the woman's legal full name.
Contact Daniel Barlow at daniel.barlow@rutlandherald.com.
© 2006 Rutland Herald
*****************************************************************
32 EBR: Nuclear inclusion in emissions trading would shift goalposts -
Energy Business Review
News Alerts]
30th May 2006 By EBR Staff Writer
EDF Energy chief Vincent de Rivaz has stated that financial
backing for new nuclear build would require nuclear power to be
classified as a non-carbon-emitting form of generation within
the European emissions trading scheme (ETS). However this would
then amount to a subsidy of nuclear by fossil-fuelled power
plants.
'Content Currently nuclear power is not an active element
within the EU ETS due to its negligible emissions of greenhouse
gases while operating. Instead, the operators of nuclear fleets
benefit in indirect ways from the scheme through higher prices
for power, a reduction in the competitiveness of competing
thermal generators and the absence of legal restrictions on
their annual output.
['' /] Advertisement However, what Mr de Rivaz has argued is
that nuclear power's formal inclusion in the scheme would
provide it with additional financial security as it may then be
issued with certificates giving the right to emit. These credits
would not be needed by nuclear plants and could be sold on to
other ETS emitters, creating an additional revenue stream for
nuclear as well as enhancing its financial security for
investors and creditors, although the lack of certainty past
2012 may well be cause for concern.
It is not immediately clear whether the ETS should be changed to
accommodate nuclear, or if these credits would be better
parceled out purely at a national level by adjusting each
state's national allocation plan (NAP). Each state within the EU
has allocations set aside for installations that are expected to
be built before the planned end of the first phase of the ETS.
If some of these credits were given to the builders of new
nuclear plant, it would avoid having to take credits already
allotted to existing coal and gas power stations away.
While moves like this would enhance the attractiveness and
likelihood of new nuclear build, this move would be opposed by
almost all of the companies that either do not want to, or are
unable to, participate in the building of new nuclear plant.
Operators of thermal stations will correctly point out that the
money that they will have to pay to purchase these credits will
amount to a subsidy for nuclear and renewable generators are
likely to claim that they should also be entitled to free
credits.
Governments have the unenviable task of balancing commercial,
environmental and security of supply issues against each other
to decide upon an optimum fuel mix. With additional thermal
generation currently "business-as-usual" in many countries and
thermal plants receiving emission credits for free, many
commentators argue that the incentives need to be changed to
encourage diversity.
Yet changing the incentives amounts to moving the goalposts for
energy companies as well as the instant revaluation of their
asset base, a move that would surely spark further disputes
about conflicting interests in the marketplace. 'End Intelliext
©2006 Business Review Ltd
*****************************************************************
33 APP.COM: AmerGen, NRC to meet over drywell |
Asbury Park Press Online
:Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Owner: Oyster Creek plant's liner still safe
STAFF WRITER
A radiation barrier thinned by rust at the Oyster Creek nuclear
power plant will come under scrutiny during a special public
meeting meant to help federal regulators decide whether the steel
shell can last for an additional 20 years.
Technical experts with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will
meet with their counterparts from plant operator AmerGen at
agency headquarters outside Washington, D.C., Thursday morning
to talk about the 100-foot-tall shell, called the drywell liner.
Regulators called the meeting so engineers on both sides could
talk about AmerGen's assessment of how the liner inside the
Lacey plant would age during an extended operating period, said
Diane Screnci, an agency spokeswoman.
Oyster Creek will have the go-ahead to run for an additional 20
years — beyond the 2009 expiration date of its existing 40-year
license — if regulators approve a license renewal application
filed by AmerGen in July 2005.
Much of the application is meant to show that AmerGen could
successfully detect and manage age-related degradation of key
parts and structures related to safety.
The drywell liner is one of those important structures.
Shaped like an inverted light bulb, the drywell surrounds the
reactor vessel, where atoms are split to make heat. The liner is
designed to keep dangerously radioactive and highly pressurized
steam and gas from entering the environment during an accident.
Meetings similar to the one planned for Thursday are
occasionally called by regulators to expedite the flow of
information, Screnci said. The agency usually obtains
information from plant operators in writing.
The meeting will be held in Rockville, Md., because the location
is convenient for the agency engineers who work there and who
are reviewing AmerGen's plans, Screnci said.
Prior meetings about the proposed renewal have taken place in
Lacey and in Dover Township for the benefit of people interested
in the plant's future.
A water leak at the plant during the early 1980s caused sections
of the liner to rust, but AmerGen officials have said that it's
now safe and above code.
On Friday, the company promised to measure the liner's thickness
in October. That pledge came after license renewal opponents
demanded that AmerGen conduct a measurement before an NRC
decision on the renewal.
Nicholas Clunn: (732) 643-4072 or [E-mail] E-mail
• Gannett State Bureau
*****************************************************************
34 CITIZEN-TIMES.com: Asheville hearing to weigh nuclear power proposal
Asheville, NC
by , DNEAL@CITIZEN-TIMES.COM published May 31, 2006
ASHEVILLE — North Carolina regulators want to hear how electric
utilities plan to provide power in the coming years, weighing
controversial nuclear plants against conservation efforts.
The N.C. Utilities Commission will be in town Thursday for a 7
p.m. public hearing in District 1 Courtroom in the Buncombe
County Courthouse. Advertisement
The Public Staff, a separate agency in the N.C. Department of
Commerce representing consumers before the utilities commission,
called for more public hearings after an overflow audience at a
hearing earlier this month in Raleigh.
Officials from Progress Energy and Duke Power, the major
utilities providing electricity to Western North Carolina, will
explain their plans while the public can offer their views.
“Both Progress Energy and Duke are considering coal and nuclear
for their future base-load requirements,” said Progress Energy
spokesman Ken Maxwell. Base load is the minimum amount of power
utilities must generate at all times.
Progress Energy generates about 45 percent of its power from
nuclear reactors. The utility could add another reactor at
Shearon Harris or build two more coal-fired plants, Maxwell said.
Duke Power has announced plans to pursue a nuclear reactor near
Gaffney, S.C., about 90 miles southeast of Asheville.
Mary Olson of the Nuclear Information and Research Service’s
Southeastern office in Asheville want to see Duke and Progress
Energy put emphasis on conservation and alternative sources.
“They should be leading us in the direction of solar and wind
and not promoting these old-fashioned, not cost-effective,
carbon-based technologies,” she said.
Contact Dale Neal at 828-232-5970
Copyright 2006 Asheville Citizen-Times. All
*****************************************************************
35 Brattleboro Reformer: Yankee's back at full power
By ANDY ROSEN, Reformer Staff
Wednesday, May 31 VERNON -- Vermont Yankee is again operating at
full capacity, after technicians replaced a pump motor that
shorted out and set off a fire suppression system last week.
The plant increased its power to full capacity on Monday. Vermont
Yankee declared an "unusual event" late Wednesday when the
suppression system went off, and alerted emergency responders
across the area.
"Unusual event" is the lowest emergency level for nuclear plants.
Engineers initially reduced power to 57 percent of the plant's
full output, and on Thursday, they increased to 75 percent.
Rob Williams, spokesman for Vermont Yankee, said the plant has
replaced the problematic motor. Over the course of the past week,
he said, engineers inspected the pump and found that the motor
was where the short occurred.
The motor has been sent out for further inspection, Williams
said. The affected component was a condensate pump, which sends
water collected from steam to the plant's reactor.
Neil Sheehan, spokesman for the federal Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, said inspectors were satisfied that the plant has
taken the proper steps.
"Our interest is whether they are being thorough and doing
everything they can to make sure the plant is operating safely,"
he said Tuesday. "We didn't see any areas where their work was
not thorough and appropriate."
He said there was no fire at Vermont Yankee. The fire
suppression system went off after the motor shorted out, when a
surge protector heated up and sent dust and smoke into the air.
It's unclear whether the pump issue had anything to do with the
plant's recently completed 20 percent power boost.
Both Williams and Sheehan said there are no signs of a
connection, and the plant is still investigating the matter.
"At this point, we have no indication of that," Williams said.
"But we will continue to look at all aspects."
He said Vermont Yankee is also still looking into whether the
uprate caused the affected pump motor to work harder.
Howard Shaffer, a retired nuclear engineer who does outreach
about nuclear power, said the motor was probably working harder
than before, but he doubts whether the uprate directly caused
the short.
"More power, more steam. More steam, more water," he said. "More
water and they're pumping more. They should be working harder."
But he said engineers would have had to determine if the pumps
could handle the added workload before they increased power.
More likely, he said, last week's problems were caused by
something like a wiring problem.
"Electric motor insulation, whether in a house or a power plant,
is not a perfect science. When you begin to get into tens of
years, things begin to wear out eventually," Shaffer said. "It
might have happened sooner due to the uprate, but it would've
happened anyway."
Andy Rosen can be reached at or (802) 254-2311, ext 275.
» (802) 254-2311 » 62 Black Mountain Road » Brattleboro, VT
05301-9242
*****************************************************************
36 NRC: NRC’s Revised Differing Professional Opinions Program Assessed
News Release - 2006-075 -
NRC NEWS U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public
Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC 20555-0001
E-mail: opa@nrc.gov www.nrc.gov
No. 06-075 May 31, 2006
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, an agency committed to
promoting safety culture among its staff and licensees, has
released a comprehensive assessment of its Differing
Professional Opinions (DPO) Program, including a review of cases
filed and employee perceptions of the program.
The report, issued by the NRCs Office of Enforcement, covers the
period from May 2004, when the program was revised, until the
end of last year. It also addresses employee concerns about the
program identified by the agencys 2005 Safety Climate and
Culture Survey. The results of that survey were released in
February. The DPO program assessment details the performance of
the program and how it is perceived by agency employees. The
assessment identifies specific issues and recommendations for
each of the programs performance objectives.
The DPO Program is an important part of the NRCs effort to
ensure that all employees and contractors feel free to express
their views on issues related to the agencys mission and
strategic goals, including safety, security, openness,
effectiveness, and management, and that agency decision makers
have access to a wide range of information and opinions on these
matters, said Renée Pedersen, who has managed the program since
it was revamped two years ago and placed within the Office of
Enforcement.
During the period covered by the assessment, the NRC accepted
nine DPOs from members of the staff. Two of those were closed by
the end of 2005 and resulted in improvements in agency
procedures. One was subsequently withdrawn and six remained
under consideration at the end of 2005. Two additional
submissions were returned as premature because the issues raised
were still undergoing staff review.
One of the two DPO cases closed by the end of 2005 resulted in
additional planned improvements to the NRCs evaluation of
licensee performance during force-on-force exercises at nuclear
power plants. Such evaluations will now include additional
performance assessment tools to help identify areas for
improvement, in addition to focusing on whether the security
force successfully defended the target sets. The second closed
DPO case questioned whether NRC staff had adequately reviewed
the Oconee nuclear plants fatigue analysis for pipe whip
restraints. Although the review panel concluded that the staffs
review was appropriate, it recommended improvements to the
agencys significance determination process and, further, that
the pipe whip restraint issue be revisited in a future
inspection.
The assessment report is available in the NRCs ADAMS document
management system at
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams/web-based.html by entering
accession number ML061370538" in the search window.
Last revised Wednesday, May 31, 2006
*****************************************************************
37 Civil Society Institute: pro nuke survey
, Newton, MA., and Washington, DC.
Survey to Show Nuclear Power Is Least Popular Alternative Energy
Source Facing Strong Bipartisan Skepticism Among U.S. Voters
About Costs and Delays
Poll Released Week After Bush Visit to Plant to Tout More
Nuclear Power in U.S.; Public Wants Wind and Solar Power
Alternatives Emphasized Over Nuclear
WASHINGTON, May 30 /PRNewswire/ -- In the week after President
Bush's visit to a nuclear power plant, a major new national
opinion survey will show that nuclear power is far less popular
among Americans (including conservative voters) than the
renewable energy alternatives of wind power and solar energy.
The survey also will show strong bipartisan skepticism about the
costs and delays associated with a major build-up of nuclear
power plant operations in the United States.
News event speakers will be:
* Civil Society Institute President and Founder Pam Solo; and
* Opinion Research Corporation Vice President Wayne Russum.
TO PARTICIPATE: You can join this live, phone-based national
news conference (with full, two-way Q&A) at 1:30 p.m. ET on May
31, 2006 by dialing 1 (800) 860-2442. Ask for the "alternative
energy survey" news event.
CAN'T PARTICIPATE?: A streaming audio replay of the news event
will be available on the Web at
http://www.civilsocietyinstitute.org/ as of 6 p.m. ET on May 31,
2006.
The nonprofit and nonpartisan Civil Society Institute is a think
tank that serves as a catalyst for change by creating
problem-solving interactions among people, and between
communities, government and business that can help to improve
society. CSI has conducted more than half a dozen major surveys
since 2003 on energy issues, including global warming, renewable
energy and vehicle fuel-efficiency standards. CSI is the parent
organization of 40mpg.org (http:/www.40mpg.org). You can find
the Civil Society Institute on the Web at
http://www.civilsocietyinstitute.org/. Website:
http://www.civilsocietyinstitute.org/
Website: http:/www.40mpg.org
Issuers of news releases and not PR Newswire are solely
responsible for the accuracy of the content.
Terms and conditions, including restrictions on redistribution,
apply.
Copyright © 1996-2003 PR Newswire Association LLC. All Rights
Reserved.
A United Business Media company. ![]()
UNSCEAR)
has moved from assessing the lingering
and deadly impact of nuclear warfare to the wider task of gauging
the effects of radiation whatever its cause, be it medical, natural
or industrial.
“Their contributions have led to measures vital to the health
of the global environment,” the former head of the UN International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), <"http://www.unscear.org/docs/UNIS_PressRelease_BLIX_2006-05-31.pdf">Hans
Blix, told an anniversary
celebration in Vienna last night.
In a <"http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs//2006/sgsm10486.doc.htm">message
to the ceremony, Secretary-General Kofi Annan noted that
for half a century the 21-member-state Committee has been the trusted
world authority on ionizing radiation.
“From assessing the significance of fallout from nuclear-weapon tests
in the 1950s, to studying the effects of radiation on the human
genome today, UNSCEAR has always taken an independent and objective
approach to its work,” he said in the message, delivered by
Antonio Costa, Director-General of the UN Office in Vienna.
“On questions that are often highly emotional and political, UNSCEAR’s
reports are impartial, dispassionate and scientific, and have
prompted significant worldwide reductions in radiation exposure.”
Mr. Blix made light of the Committee’s obscurity. “I suspect UNSCEAR
is one of the least understood acronyms in the world. When I
told a friend that UNSCEAR had to do with atomic radiation, he said:
‘Good acronym, radiation is kind of SCARY’,” he noted.
But the Committee’s deadly serious importance is no laughing matter.
“By becoming the authoritative voice of the UN system in matters
of radiation exposure, UNSCEAR turned out to be a key instrument
in the process through which international radiation protection
standards was developed,” Mr. Blix said.
“The existence of such standards accepted by all is of vital practical
importance. Indeed, it is a necessary precondition for the
many safe uses of the atomic radiation,” he added, noting that in
the future the world will undoubtedly expand its use of radiation
for uses ranging from getting better medical diagnoses and treatments,
to improving agriculture to producing clean energy in nuclear
power plants.
“UNSCEAR will need a well-staffed Secretariat and its resources will
need to be strengthened so that its authority can remain based
on rigorous investigation and radiation protection standards and
rules can remain fully based on science,” Mr. Blix concluded.
“UNSCEAR has a great role to help move radiation from the world of
mystique to the natural world and help it to become recognized
as a normal and manageable part of our lives.”
The 21 states who appoint scientists to the committee are: Argentina,
Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Egypt, France, Germany,
India, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, Peru, Poland, Russia, Slovakia,
Sudan, Sweden, United Kingdom, the United States.
2006-05-31 00:00:00.000
________________
For more details go to UN News Centre at http://www.un.org/news
To change your profile or unsubscribe go to:
http://www.un.org/apps/news/email/
*****************************************************************
45 Coastal Post: Depleted Uranium: the Screaming Mute
Article June, 2006
Coastal Post Online
MARIN COUNTY'S NEWS MONTHLY - FREE PRESS (415)868-1600 -
(415)868-0502(fax) - P.O. Box 31, Bolinas, CA, 94924
By Marie Siegenthaler
Like an angry ghost of past wars haunting the Middle and Near
East, an enigmatic disease infiltrates the soil and poisons the
surrounding land and people. Birth defects, leukemia, cancer,
and other ailments plague this war-torn land, all swelling to
catastrophic proportions. Multitudes are doomed to die of a
mysterious condition characterized by a host of symptoms,
ranging from burns to respiratory problems to tumors. Many of
those facing death are children.
What caused all this? According to the Iraqi medical community,
studies, scientists, and anyone who isn't affiliated with the
World Health Organization (WHO) or Pentagon, the lingering
crisis in Iraq was caused, and continues to be caused, by
depleted uranium used by the US military.
Depleted uranium, the waste left over from nuclear reactors,
made its debut during the first Gulf War (1991) and has since
been used in the in the Balkans (1995), in Afghanistan (2001),
and the second Gulf War (2003), and in no small numbers. In
2003, in Iraq alone, we used enough DU to recreate the Nagasaki
bomb 250,000 times, or over 2,000 tons.
Depleted uranium's density, 1.7 times that of lead, offers many
uses in the military. DU is used in shells to penetrate armored
tanks, releasing a spray of radioactive plasma once it has
pierced through the metal and causing the tank to explode, all
within incinerated. Tanks armored with DU have all other bullets
bounce off harmlessly. As it is a cheap substance and as nuclear
reactors are not in short supply, the military can afford to use
this substance generously.
However, both the soldiers and the country's inhabitants pay a
heavy toll for the cheap material. Not only is depleted uranium
chemically toxic, it is also radioactive, with a half-life of
4.5 billion years. It goes against a UN protocol of not using
munitions or other weapons capable of causing suffering in
humans after the war's end.
Worse, the effects of DU, according to expert Leuren Moret, have
been found within a 1000 mile radius of the epicenters of
contamination.Within this radius includes some of our allies,
including Israel. (A rather bitter twist of irony, seeing as we
were trying to help them by attacking their Arab neighbors. As
ye shall sow, so shall ye reap?) Further, DU dust disperses
excellently in the winds. As global winds flow primarily
east-west, much of the DU dust is being blown up through Turkey
and into Europe. A similar phenomenon occurred with the
Chernobyl disaster, wherein the radioactive plume reached our
Eastern seaboard within a matter of days. It takes between a few
hours and a few years for the effects of radioactivity to
surface. Currently civilians across Europe are inhaling toxic
gas that poisons Iraqis thousands of miles away.
But the civilians aren't the only ones at risk. As we protected
our troops around a casing of depleted uranium, we killed our
men in the long run with radioactivity exposure and poisoning.
When men returned from the first Gulf War in 1991, many found
themselves with respiratory problems, wounds that never healed,
and found that their children had birth defects.
At the time little was released about DU and its health effects,
and certainly none that the soldiers were told about. The
Department of Defense screwed over war veterans with mysterious
symptoms for as long as they could get away with, everything
from denying health examinations to withholding information
about DU. Veterans attempting to file medical complaints were
turned away, forcing them to resort to ask uninformed private
doctors what was wrong with them. The truth wouldn't come out
until years later.
And even now we are being lied to. The US government blames the
symptoms of Iraqis on pesticides. The US refuses to supply funds
for a research hospital in Iraq, and there has been limited
cleanup of contaminated sites. Our war vets are told that any
uranium in their systems must come from their diets. Even in my
own research finding reliable information proved to be extremely
difficult, as the usual authorities (Wikipedia, the WHO, the US
government) were all presenting information inconsistent with
the studies I managed to salvage. The only reliable information
is that not given by corporations or governments.
Even though this is a government issue and we cannot directly
stop it, we can organize. The first thing to do is become
informed, as information is the best tactic in times of
misinformation and war. The more informed we are, the more
empowered we are. Beyond that our duty as human beings is to
inform others. Take action, and don't be fooled by the liars of
our government. Their propaganda is designed to reduce us to
witless sheep accepting whatever they do is right.
For example, according to the US Department of State's
guidelines for identifying misinformation, all of the above is
propaganda.
*****************************************************************
46 Chillicothe Gazette: DUF6 project building work moves forward
www.chillicothegazette.com - Chillicothe, OH
The Gazette Staff
PIKETON - A DUF6 conversion project milestone has been passed.
On May 12, Uranium Disposition Services, LLC set the last
exterior panel of the building which would house the depleted
uranium hexafluoride conversion project.
Completion of the building prepares the way to begin installing
the process equipment. Conversion operations are scheduled to
begin by June 2008. "While achieving this construction
milestone, we've also maintained an exemplary safety record,"
said UDS President Tim Forden. "Since construction began two
years ago, our team of UDS and subcontractor employees has
chalked up more than 166,000 hours on this site without a lost
workday. This strong safety culture will benefit us as we begin
the most challenging phase of construction -installation of
process piping and electrical components."
UDS marked the occasion with a safety celebration that included
the UDS subcontractors currently working on site. These
subcontractors included DKM Construction, of Piketon, and Geiger
Brothers Construction, of Jackson. Forden presented Letters of
Appreciation and Safety Awards for Outstanding Performance in
contributing to the project.
More than 800 prefabricated concrete pieces, each weighing up to
several thousand pounds, were used to build the 64,000
square-foot conversion structure. Two other main buildings
associated with the conversion plant, a warehouse and an
administration building, will be completed this fall.
Plant operations staff will move into the new buildings in early
2007.
Once UDS completes construction, the company will begin
operations to convert nearly 250,000 metric tons of DUF6 stored
in cylinders at the Portsmouth site to uranium oxide for reuse
or disposal. Processing of the DOE inventory at the Portsmouth
site will take approximately 18 years to complete.
UDS is the prime contractor to the Department of Energy under
the Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office to design, construct, and
operate the DUF6 conversion facilities in Piketon and Paducah,
Ky.
Originally published May 30, 2006 Print this article Email
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47 NRC: Ward Center for Nuclear Studies at Cornell University; Triga
FR Doc E6-8349
[Federal Register: May 31, 2006 (Volume 71, Number 104)]
[Notices] [Page 30964-30965] From the Federal Register Online via
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr31my06-141] [[Page
30964]]
Research Reactor and Zero Power Reactor; Environmental Assessment
and Finding of No Significant Impact The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (the Commission) is considering the issuance of
license amendments to Facility Operating License No. R-80 and No.
R-89, that would allow decommissioning of the Ward Center for
Nuclear Studies (WCNS) TRIGA Research Reactor (TRIGA), Docket No.
50-157, License No. R-80 and Zero Power Reactor (ZPR), Docket No.
50-97, License No. R-89, located in Ithaca, New York.
Environmental Assessment Identification of the Proposed Action By
letters dated August 22, 2003, as supplemented on May 13,
September 27, October 26, December 13, 2005 and February 13,
2006, the licensee submitted a decommissioning plan (DP) in
accordance with 10 CFR 50.82(b)(1), in order to dismantle the
500-kilowatt (thermal) WCNS TRIGA Reactor and the 0.1-kilowatt
(thermal) WCNS ZPR, to dispose of its component parts and
radioactive material, and to decontaminate the facilities in
accordance with the proposed DP to meet the Commission's
unrestricted release criteria. After the Commission verifies that
the release criteria have been met, Facility Operating License
No.
R-80 and No. R-89 will be terminated. The licensee submitted an
Environmental Report on March 31, 2003, dated March 2003, that
addresses the estimated environmental impacts resulting from
decommissioning the WCNS, which includes the TRIGA Reactor and
the ZPR.
Cornell University ceased operations of the WCNS TRIGA reactor on
April 21, 2003, and the WCNS ZPR ceased operations on February
12, 1997. All the reactor fuel has been removed from both of the
reactors.
A ``Notice and Solicitation of Comments Pursuant to 10 CFR
20.1405 and 10 CFR 50.82(b)(5) Concerning Proposed Action to
Decommission the Ward Center for Nuclear Studies at Cornell
University Reactor Facility'' was published in the Federal
Register on August 10, 2005 (70 FR 46549), and in the Ithaca, New
York daily newspaper, The Ithaca Journal, on September 3, 2005.
No comments were received. Need for the Proposed Action The
proposed action is necessary because of Cornell University's
decision to cease operations permanently at the WCNS TRIGA
Reactor and ZPR. As specified in 10 CFR 50.82, any licensee may
permanently cease operation and apply to the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission for license termination and authorization to
decommission the affected facility. Further, 10 CFR 51.53(d)
provides that each applicant for a license amendment to authorize
decommissioning of a production or utilization facility shall
submit with its application an environmental report that reflects
any new information or significant environmental change
associated with the proposed decommissioning activities. Cornell
University is planning unrestricted use for the area that would
be released.
Environmental Impact of the Proposed Action The decommissioning
plan states that all decontamination will be performed by trained
personnel in accordance with the requirements of the radiation
protection program, and will be overseen by a radiation safety
officer with multiple years of experience in decommissioning
health physics practices. All reactor and pool components will be
removed from the facility as low level radioactive waste and
managed in accordance with NRC requirements. The licensee
estimates the total occupational radiation exposure for the
decommissioning process to be about 18 person-rem. The licensee
proposes controls, as mentioned above and in the DP, to minimize
the occupational exposure to individual workers, thereby ensuring
that the exposures are within the 10 CFR part 20 limits. In
addition, by keeping the public at a safe distance, using access
control, and by using the approved DP and Cornell's radiation
protection program to control effluent releases, the licensee
expects the radiation exposure to the general public to be
negligible.
The licensees conclusion is consistent with the estimate given
for the ``reference research reactor'' in NUREG-0586, ``Final
Generic Environmental Impact Statement on Decommissioning of the
Nuclear Facilities, August 1988.'' Occupational and public
exposure may result from offsite disposal of the low-level
residual radioactive material from the WCNS, which includes the
TRIGA Reactor and the ZPR. In the DP the licensee stated that the
handling, storage, and shipment of this radioactive material will
meet the requirements of 10 CFR 20.2006, ``Transfer for Disposal
and Manifest,'' and 49 CFR parts 100-177, ``Transportation of
Hazardous Materials.'' The licensee anticipates that about 4700
ft\3\ (133 m\3\) of low level radioactive waste generated during
the decommissioning process will be shipped during approximately
twenty truck shipments in appropriate shipping containers to a
disposal facility. The waste that needs to be processed prior to
disposal will be shipped by the licensee to a licensed waste
processor. The DP states that waste for disposal will be shipped
to either the Barnwell, South Carolina, or the Envirocare of Utah
disposal sites. Included in these shipments will be mixed waste
of activated and/or contaminated lead.
The NRC Final Rule on License Termination, 10 CFR 20.1402,
provides radiological criteria for release of a site for
unrestricted use. Release criteria for unrestricted use is a
maximum Total Effective Dose Equivalent (TEDE) of 25 mrem per
year from residual radioactivity above background. Application of
the as low as reasonably achievable (ALARA) principle is also a
requirement. The results of the final status survey will be used
to demonstrate that the predicted dose to a member of the public
from any residual activity does not exceed the 25 mrem per year
dose limit. The NRC will perform inspections and a confirmatory
survey to verify the decommissioning activities and the final
status survey.
The DP states that liquid waste that is generated during the
decommissioning activities will be filtered or solidified and
disposed of in accordance with the regulations in 10 CFR part 20,
subpart K, ``Waste Disposal.'' Containment measures will be taken
as necessary to minimize the spread of contamination. Engineered
features such as enclosures and temporary barriers with
high-efficiency particulate air filters will be used to control
the spread of airborne radioactive material. Airborne releases of
radioactive materials are not expected.
The licensee analyzed accidents applicable to decommissioning
activities. The accident with the greatest potential impact on
members of the public is the dropping of a waste shipping liner
containing radioactive material. The maximum TEDE to a member of
the public at the site boundary for this accident is about 40
mrem, which is within the dose limits for members of the public
given in 10 CFR part 20, subpart D, ``Radiation Dose Limits for
Individual Members of the Public.'' Based on the review of the
specific proposed activities associated with the dismantling and
decontamination of the
[[Page 30965]] WCNS, which includes the TRIGA Reactor and the
ZPR, the staff has determined that the proposed action will not
increase the probability or consequences of accidents, no changes
are being made in the types of any effluents that may be released
off site, and there will be no significant increase in
occupational or public radiation exposure above those during the
operation of the facility. Therefore, the staff concludes that
there are no significant radiological environmental impacts
associated with the proposed action.
With regard to potential non-radiological impacts, the proposed
action does not involve any historic sites. The predominant
hazardous material in the WCNS site is elemental lead. Proper
precautions will be taken to reduce the exposure to lead dust.
Asbestos is also present in WCNS construction materials (e.g.
floor tiles, roofing materials). Asbestos will be removed by a
licensed asbestos abatement contractor. Decommissioning
activities will not affect non-radiological facility effluents
and have no other environmental impact. The licensee states that
there are no sensitive or endangered species on the WCNS site and
will ensure that all construction activities or any related
disturbance will not result in the impairment of local waterways.
Therefore, the staff concludes that there are no significant
non-radiological environmental impacts associated with the
proposed action.
Accordingly, the NRC concludes that there are no significant
environmental impacts associated with the proposed action.
Alternatives to the Proposed Action The four alternatives for
disposition of the WCNS, which includes the TRIGA Reactor and the
ZPR are: DECON, SAFSTOR, ENTOMB, and no action. Cornell
University has proposed the DECON option. DECON is the
alternative in which the equipment, structures, and portions of
the facilities containing radioactive contaminants are removed or
decontaminated to a level that permits the property to be
released for unrestricted use. SAFSTOR is the alternative in
which the nuclear facilities are placed and maintained in a
condition that allows the nuclear facilities to be safely stored
and subsequently decontaminated (deferred decontamination) to
levels that permit release for unrestricted use. ENTOMB is the
alternative in which radioactive contaminants are encased in a
structurally long-lived material, such as concrete; the entombed
structure is appropriately maintained; and continued surveillance
is carried out until the radioactivity decays to a level
permitting release of the property for unrestricted use.
The no-action alternative would leave the facilities in their
present configuration, without any decommissioning activities
required or implemented.
The SAFSTOR, ENTOMB, and no-action alternatives would entail
continued surveillance and physical security measures to be in
place and continued monitoring by licensee personnel. The SAFSTOR
and no- action alternatives would also require continued
maintenance of the facilities. The radiological impacts of
SAFSTOR and no-action would be less than the DECON option because
of radioactive decay prior to the start of decommissioning
activities. However, these options involve the continued use of
resources during the SAFSTOR or no-action period. The ENTOMB
option would also result in lower radiological exposure than the
DECON option but would involve the continued use of resources.
Cornell University has determined that the proposed action
(DECON) is the most efficient use of WCNS, including the TRIGA
Reactor and the ZPR, since it proposes to use the space that will
become available for unrestricted uses. These alternatives would
have no significant environmental impact. In addition, the
regulations in 10 CFR 50.82(b)(4)(i) only allow an alternative
which provides for delayed completion of decommissioning only
when the delay is necessary to protect the public health and
safety. The staff finds that delay is not justified since the
environmental impacts of the proposed action and the alternatives
are similar and insignificant.
Alternative Use of Resources This action does not involve the use
of any resources not previously considered in the Environmental
Report submitted on March 31, 2003, dated March 2003, as
supplemented on May 13, September 27, October 26, and December
13, 2005, for the Cornell University WCNS TRIGA Reactor and ZPR.
Agencies and Persons Contacted On November 4, 2005, the staff
consulted with a New York State official, Robert Dansereau of the
New York State Health Department Bureau of Environmental
Radiation Protection, regarding the environmental impact of the
proposed action. The staff also consulted with other New York
State officials including the Program Manager of the Radioactive
Waste Policy and Nuclear Coordination Office of the New York
State Energy Research & Development Authority, Chief of the
Radiation Section Division of Hazardous Waste and Radiation
Management of the New York State Department of Environmental
Conservation, and the Director of the Bureau of Environmental
Radiation Protection of the New York State Health Department. The
State officials had no comments.
Finding of No Significant Impact On the basis of the
environmental assessment, the Commission concludes that the
proposed action will not have a significant effect on the quality
of the human environment. Accordingly, the NRC has determined not
to prepare an environmental impact statement for the proposed
action.
For further details with respect to the proposed action, see the
licensee's letter dated August 22, 2003, as supplemented on May
13, September 27, October 26, 2005, December 13, 2005, and
February 13, 2006, which are available for public inspection, and
can be copied for a fee, at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission's Public Document Room (PDR), located at One White
Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville,
Maryland. The NRC maintains an Agencywide Documents Access and
Management System (ADAMS), which provides text and image files of
NRC's public documents. These documents may be accessed through
the NRC's Public Electronic Reading Room on the Internet at .
Persons who do not have access to ADAMS or who have problems in
accessing the documents located in ADAMS may contact the PDR
reference staff at 1-800-397-4209, 301-415-4737 or by e-mail at .
Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 17th day of May, 2006.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Brian E. Thomas, Branch Chief, Research and Test Reactors Branch,
Division of Policy and Rulemaking, Office of Nuclear Reactor
Regulation.
[FR Doc. E6-8349 Filed 5-30-06; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
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48 Middletown Press: Contaminated tools leave CY site
Staff05/31/2006
HADDAM -- Three tools with low-levels of radiation were found in
a worker’s pick-up truck at the Connecticut Yankee Nuclear Power
Plant site on May 18.
Further investigation determined that the truck had previously
left the site with the tools inside, according to the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission.
The tools in question were a mallet and two wrenches.
The NRC received notification of the incident on Wednesday.
State police and the state Department of Environmental
Protection were also notified.
Connecticut Yankee has been decommissioning its plant since 1998.
"They really had a breakdown in their procedures and that’s
something we want to look at," said Neil Sheehan, NRC spokesman.
The Connecticut Yankee spokeswoman, Kelley Smith, said
corrective actions have been taken.
The incident, Smith said, was reported to the workers’ employer.
Smith would not release the name of the employer or the workers.
A meeting during which procedures and policies were reinforced
was held by Connecticut Yankee, Smith said.
It appeared, Smith said, that the equipment was inadvertently
brought to the truck.
When the tools were placed in the truck is not known, Smith said.
"This did not pose any health and safety issues from a exposure
perspective," Smith said.
"To our knowledge the tools were only used at CY."
The contamination was limited to the three tools, Smith said.
The truck was searched after a radiation technician observed the
worker hand a plastic gasket to another worker who was outside
the radiological controlled area.
The investigation, Smith said, was triggered when the gasket
passed beyond the boundary of the two-acre area without being
tested for radiation.
During normal procedure, tools with radiation are
decontaminated.
The radiological controlled area is cordoned off by a fence and
rope and is located near the spent-fuel building.
To contact Josh Mrozinski, call (860) 347-3331, ext. 222 or
e-mail jmrozinski@middletownpress.com.
©The Middletown Press 2006
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49 Dominican Today: Reprocessing:Greenpeace files legal challenge
Date: Wed, 31 May 2006 20:10:25 -0700
Dominican Today
http://www.dominicantoday.com/app/article.aspx?id=13918
Greenpeace files legal challenge against AREVA
La Hague, France.* Greenpeace activists from Germany, the
Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium, Japan and France entered the Centre
Stockage de la Manche (CSM) nuclear dumpsite at La Hague in Normandy
today to demand the removal and decontamination of the dumpsite.
At 9.30am this morning, ten activists placed their countries' flags
on top of the dumpsite and a further four activists with banners
declaring "France: Nuclear Waste Dump climbed onto the roof of the
visitors' center.
The activists represent the principal clients of French state
reprocessing company AREVA that have disposed of nuclear waste at the
CSM. An estimated 140,000 containers of nuclear waste disposed at the La
Hague dump came from foreign nuclear utilities in Europe and Japan.
Under French law, it is illegal to dispose of foreign waste in France.
The largest amount of waste at the site was produced by Electricite de
France (EDF). Greenpeace is demanding that the 1.4 million containers of
waste in the CSM dumpsite be removed and repackaged.
In a further challenge against illegal waste disposal in France,
Greenpeace today is to file legal papers against the reprocessing
company AREVA in relation to Dutch nuclear waste produced at the La
Hague plant. In February this year, Greenpeace obtained an injunction
against AREVA that forced the disclosure of its reprocessing contract
with the Dutch utility EPZ.
Last week, Greenpeace released a study on the radioactive contamination
of the underground water and rivers around the CSM Normandy plant. The
water is used by farmers for their dairy cattle and on their fields. A
former senior engineer at the facility has stated that in addition to
tritium, other radio-nuclides in the dump, including plutonium, will
leak out and given the state of the waste in the dump, it should now be
removed.
"This dumpsite is like a nuclear sponge * it soaks in water and
squeezes out radiation. Foreign customers from Germany, the Netherlands,
Japan, Belgium, Sweden and Switzerland, together with the French utility
EdF are directly responsible for irradiating the countryside. It's a
dump that should not be there containing material that it is illegal
under French law. It is a problem created by them and they need to deal
with it urgently," said Shaun Burnie of Greenpeace International.
The protest comes on the eve of a vote at the French Senate on waste
disposal, including maintaining the "Law Bataille of 1991", which
forbids the disposal of foreign nuclear waste in France. AREVA's
operations have led to the reprocessing, storage and disposal of tens of
thousands of cubic meters of nuclear waste.
At the same time as the Senate is debating nuclear waste problems, EdF
which is responsible for most of the radioactive waste produced in
France, is planning to build and operate the new and controversial
European Pressurized Reactor (EPR) at nearby Flamanville. If it becomes
operational it will add to the problem by producing the highest level
radioactive waste of any commercial nuclear reactor in France.
The protest and filing of legal papers took place on the day that the
site operator ANDRA received the full historical record for the
dumpsite. As a result of flooding, a large amount of documentation was
destroyed by flooding at least on two occasions during the 1970's.
Falsified documents were produced in their place.
"France is an undeclared international nuclear dumpsite in violation
of its own law, contaminating the environment above safety limits. The
French authorities do not have precise information of what is in the
dumpsite * how much plutonium, strontium, and other extremely
long-lived and dangerous materials. There is no real solution to nuclear
waste that will eliminate the threat, but the first step is to stop
further illegal waste disposal, and halt the generation of more nuclear
waste," said Yannick Rousselet of Greenpeace France.
Greenpeace obtained a final victory in the Supreme Court in Paris in
December 2005, when AREVA, was found guilty of illegally importing and
storing Australian nuclear waste.
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50 The Australian: I'm happy to have nuclear waste buried in my backyard |
Cut & paste: Opinion |
+ June 01, 2006
Leading environmentalist James Lovelock, on the ABC's Lateline,
on the imperative of nuclear energy
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 ... could be our saving.
Question: The primary objection now obviously is nuclear waste
...
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 one mile
high and 12 miles around in circumference. That is deadly waste
and it will kill nearly all of us if we don't stop doing it.
Question: You think nuclear waste is so containable you actually
wouldn't mind having it buried safely in your own back yard?
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.
Theodore Dalrymple, in City Journal Online, on the Left's love
for noble guerillas:
NOTWITHSTANDING the political catastrophes of the 20th century,
the notion of the noble guerilla persists on the Left. According
to this notion, a man or woman who takes to the hills, gun in
hand, must be fighting for a good cause, and bringing about a
better and more just world. The Guardian, Britain's left-liberal
newspaper, [and] its most serious paper, can't get enough of the
noble guerilla.
The Guardian's latest glossy weekend supplement carried a
photographic essay about PKK [Kurdish Workers' Party] guerillas
on the Turkish-Iraqi border. Romanticising them could hardly go
further: in rugged landscapes, we see fresh-faced young men and
women in gray-green fatigues either in pensive, poetic mood or
happily singing revolutionary songs. How purposefully authentic
their existence seems compared with ours, who live in large,
comfortable and wealthy cities, selfishly enjoying the rotten
fruits of a decadent civilisation. One almost wishes one could
shed the veneer of sophistication and join up, to breathe the
crystalline, unpolluted air of Kurdistan. How many times in the
20th century did we see the same photographic essays about noble
guerilla movements?
The West Australian Curriculum Council's "plain English"
rationale for the Texts, Traditions and Cultures course which
subsumes English literature curriculum for years 11 and 12:
IN addition to expanding their imaginative and intellectual
experience, students develop and extend their social, cultural
and textual knowledge through a greater comprehension of
cultural meaning-making system. Through critical engagement with
a range of text types and cultural and historical contexts,
students develop their understanding of different approaches to
reading texts. This enables them to ask questions about the
nature of a literary text and how literature is defined by and
functions within Western cultural history.
Such questions include the reasons why cultural value is
assigned to one kind of text and not another; the changing
nature of what is valued as literature at different times and in
different historical and cultural contexts; the ways particular
social groups are given or denied the power to define what is
literary and what is not literary. All students will consider a
variety of texts, including those that are understood as part of
the Western literary canon, texts from non-Western cultural
traditions, popular cultural texts and texts created and used by
subcultural groups.
Students will develop meta-cultural understandings, where they
will discern patterns of thinking that affect how meaning is
made in particular texts at particular points in time ...
Students' active participation in personal, cultural,
meta-cultural reads and textual productions enhance their
interpretive and critical skills, so that they are able to
articulate their creative responses to texts in a range of
textual forms.
Labor frontbencher Tanya Plibersek, in The Sydney Morning
Herald, has a solution to the Aboriginal crisis:
IN recognising what is wrong in some indigenous communities, we
also should identify and promote solutions that are working.
There are communities where Aboriginal men are dropped from the
local cricket team if they have an apprehended violence order
made against them.
© The Australian
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51 Guardian Unlimited: Q on Uranium Enrichment
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Wednesday May 31, 2006 10:31 PM
By H. JOSEF HEBERT
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Uranium must be enriched from its raw ore to
make it useful. The amount of enrichment determines if it can be
used in a civilian power reactor or to make a bomb. And that's
at the heart of the nuclear standoff involving Iran.
Here are some questions and answers on uranium enrichment.
Q: Are there different types of uranium?
A: Yes. Uranium ore that is mined contains about 99 percent of
the U-238 isotope. Less than 1 percent is U-235, the lighter
isotope needed for nuclear fission that creates huge amounts of
energy.
Q: How is the uranium processed?
A: The raw ore is milled into uranium oxide, also known as
``yellowcake,'' and then chemically converted to uranium
hexafluoride which can be in the form of a solid, liquid or gas.
This material is then shipped to an enrichment facility.
Q: What do they mean by enrichment?
A: Enrichment simply refers to increasing the concentration of
the U-235 isotopes by separating them from the U-238.
Q: Are there different levels of enrichment?
A: Yes. A concentration of 3 percent to 5 percent U-235 is
adequate for use in a commercial power reactor. This is referred
to as ``low enriched uranium'' or LEU. A concentration of 20
percent or more U-235 is defined as ``high-enriched uranium'' or
HEU. For weapons purposes, a concentration of 80 percent to 90
percent U-235 is desirable.
Q: How is the U-235 separated?
A: There have been two processes used widely: gaseous diffusion
and use of a centrifuge. Gaseous diffusion, used in the United
States, is technically more difficult and requires huge amounts
of electricity. The centrifuge process, using the force of
gravity, has been used in Europe for decades and is being
pursued by Iran.
Q: How does a centrifuge work?
A: Gaseous uranium hexafluoride is pumped into small
high-strength aluminum cylinders that are rotated at more than
300 meters per second, or roughly the speed of sound, creating a
strong centrifugal force. The heavier U-238 molecules push
toward the outer wall and drop to the bottom, while the lighter
U-235 molecules remain at the center and are collected at the
top of the chamber.
Q: How many centrifuges are needed?
A: The centrifuges are installed in stacks and groups of stacks
so that the slightly enriched gas can cascade from one unit to
the next for more separation.
Q: How difficult is it to build a system of centrifuges and how
many do you need?
A: The material must be of high strength and built to extremely
precise specifications to avoid an imbalance during high-speed
rotation. Operating a system of hundreds, if not thousands, of
centrifuges, also is complex.
Q: How many centrifuges does Iran have?
A: Currently it has an operating cascade of 164 centrifuges at a
pilot enrichment facility in Natanz, and it is building more.
The facility is slated to have 1,000 centrifuges in the next
year or two, according to the Institute for Science and
International Security (ISIS), a Washington-based arms control
group. Iran has said it plans to begin installing 3,000 units
later this year and eventually have more than 50,000.
Q: Iran claims it needs to produce fuel for its future
commercial nuclear program including a planned 1,000 megawatt
commercial power reactor already under construction. Why is that
being questioned?
A: Uranium enrichment is not necessary for a commercial nuclear
program. European countries and Russia are prepared to make
available low-level nuclear fuel if that's the only purpose for
an Iranian enrichment program.
Q: What's needed to get enough highly enriched uranium for a
weapon?
A: It takes about 1,500 centrifuges operating for a year to make
enough highly enriched uranium for a weapon.
Q: How can outsiders know if centrifuges are being used to make
low-enriched fuel or highly enriched material for a weapon?
A: It is virtually impossible. The technology is the same.
Centrifuge systems can be hidden. Iran appears to be building
two large fuel enrichment facilities 75 feet underground,
covered with concrete and dirt, according to unclassified
satellite images made available by Digital Globe and ISIS.
Iran could have a 500-centrifuge cascade for low-level
enrichment, but then build a secret second cascade to enrich the
material further without detection, says ISIS President David
Albright.
----
On the Net:
Nuclear Regulatory Commission: http://www.nrc.gov
Institute for Science and International Security:
http://www.isis-online.org/
International Atomic Energy Agency: http://www.isis-online.org/
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
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52 Guardian Unlimited: Greenpeace: Nuke Waste in France Water
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Wednesday May 31, 2006 8:16 AM
By INGRID ROUSSEAU
Associated Press Writer
PARIS (AP) - Greenpeace said nuclear waste from a storage
facility is seeping into groundwater in the Champagne region of
France and threatening vineyards that produce the sparkling
wine.
The environmental group presented the French Senate on Tuesday
with a report saying that groundwater samples 6 miles from
champagne vineyards showed contamination from a nuclear waste
facility in Soulaines.
The group also took samples from near the other major nuclear
waste site in France - the Manche region on the English Channel
- that they said contained radioactivity levels 170 times higher
than European legislation allows.
The French Senate is to debate a bill this week that calls for
storing the country's most dangerous nuclear waste deep
underground in sealed containers. Other countries, including the
United States, already bury nuclear waste.
The government has insisted that radiation levels around the
storage sites do not exceed norms.
However, 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 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 said it caused
no environmental damage.
Currently, 85 percent of France's 1.3 billion cubic yards of
radioactive waste is stored in the Manche and Aube storage
sites. The remaining 15 percent - which includes the most highly
radioactive materials - is in temporary facilities around the
country.
The most nuclear energy-dependent country in the world, France
has 59 reactors churning out nearly 80 percent of its
electricity. It also has nuclear weapons and imported waste from
nuclear warheads and reactors in the United States and other
countries for reprocessing.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
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53 BBC: Nuclear
Last Updated: Wednesday, 31 May 2006
[Dunbeath flyover]
The flyover at Dunbeath north of Berriedale contribute to the
costs of a flyover on a notorious stretch of the A9 on the
Caithness coast.
MSP Jamie Stone said the NDA, which is overseeing the clean-up at
Dounreay, was in favour of the plan for the steep and twisting
Berriedale Braes.
The NDA said it was looking at a wide range of projects to soften
the blow of the site's eventual closure.
Transport Minister Tavish Scott is to visit the Braes later this
summer.
Mr Stone described the Berriedale Braes, which can become
congested as drivers slow to negotiate a steep drop and climb, as
a "tourniquet" on a vital supply route to the north.
He is pushing for a flyover to be constructed similar to one a
few miles further along the road at Dunbeath.
'Very expensive'
The MSP is trying to find funding for the project and contacted
the NDA, which is overseeing the 30-year £2.9bn decommissioning
of Dounreay nuclear plant.
He said: "It is significant that NDA said in their letter to me
that they would consider supporting this project. It is going to
be very, very expensive.
"A lot of money has been spent on the A9, but this very, very
dangerous hairpin bend in effect is a tourniquet on a vital
supply route into Caithness from the south and into Orkney and
Shetland."
Transport Minister Tavish Scott has told Mr Stone that he will
visit the site during the summer.
[Dounreay]
The NDA is trying to reduce the impact of the Dounreay clean up
John Farquhar, NDA director for region four, which covers
Caithness, said the authority supported the flyover "in
principle".
The public body was set up 14 months ago through an act of
parliament.
Mr Farquhar said: "Part of that act placed a responsibility on
us to pay very close attention to the socio-economic welfare of
the communities around the sites for which we are responsible.
"For example, at Dounreay, the decommissioning will result in
the loss of 3,000 jobs and so what we are keen to do is soften
the impact of that on the local community."
He said the NDA was working with Caithness and Sutherland
Enterprise, Highland Council and Scottish Executive on the best
way to do that.
Mr Farquhar added: "Whilst we are in principle supportive of
infrastructure projects, of which the Berriedale flyover is one,
we do scrutinise them very, very carefully to make sure we are
spending money in the right way."
Improvements to the railway network in Caithness was another
project being considered by the authority.
*****************************************************************
54 NRC: Request for a License To Import Radioactive Waste
FR Doc E6-8354
[Federal Register: May 31, 2006 (Volume 71, Number 104)]
[Notices] [Page 30965-30966] From the Federal Register Online via
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr31my06-142]
Pursuant to 10 CFR 110.70(C) ``Public notice of receipt of an
application,'' please take notice that the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission has received the following request for an import
license. Copies of the request are available
[[Page 30966]] electronically through ADAMS and can be accessed
through the Public Electronic Reading Room (PERR) link
http://www.nrc.gov/NRC/ADAMS/index.html at the NRC Homepage.
A request for a hearing or petition for leave to intervene may be
filed within 30 days after publication of this notice in the
Federal Register. Any request for hearing or petition for leave
to intervene shall be served by the requestor or petitioner upon
the applicant, the Office of the General Counsel, U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555; the Secretary, U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555; and the
Executive Secretary, U.S. Department of State, Washington, DC
20520.
The information concerning this import license application
follows.
NRC Import License Application Name of
applicant, date of Description of material
application, date received,
End use Country
of Application No., Docket No. Material type Total
quantity origin
Duratek Services,
Inc., April Class A radioactive Up to 6,000 tons For
recycle and Canada.
10, 2006, April 13, 2006, waste in the form of
materials beneficial reuse IW017, 11005621.
of radioactively contaminated with to the greatest contaminated
various possible extent, materials radionuclides in which may
or may including metals, varying not require dry activity
combinations. decontamination. material (such as Total
quantity or Some materials to wood, paper, and activity
level of be incinerated plastic) and each range from a
and/or used in liquids (such as total of .07 TBq Duratek
aqueous and uranium (other operations.
organic based than U-233, U-235 fluids). or
U-238) to a total of 37 TBq Iron-55 (Fe-55), with a combined
total activity level for all
radionuclides not to exceed 108 TBq.
Dated this 22nd day of May 2006 at Rockville, Maryland.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Margaret M. Doane, Deputy Director, Office of International
Programs.
[FR Doc. E6-8354 Filed 5-30-06; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
*****************************************************************
55 NRC: Request for a License To Export Radioactive Waste
FR Doc E6-8355
[Federal Register: May 31, 2006 (Volume 71, Number 104)]
[Notices] [Page 30966] From the Federal Register Online via GPO
Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr31my06-143]
Pursuant to 10 CFR 110.70(C) ``Public notice of receipt of an
application,'' please take notice that the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission has received the following request for an export
license. Copies of the request are available electronically
through ADAMS and can be accessed through the Public Electronic
Reading Room (PERR) link http://www.nrc.gov/NRC/ADAMS/index.html
at the NRC Homepage. A request for a hearing or petition for
leave to intervene may be filed within 30 days after publication
of this notice in the Federal Register. Any request for hearing
or petition for leave to intervene shall be served by the
requestor or petitioner upon the applicant, the Office of the
General Counsel, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington,
DC 20555; the Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission,
Washington, DC 20555; and the Executive Secretary, U.S.
Department of State, Washington, DC 20520.
The information concerning this export license application
follows.
NRC Export License Application
-----------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------- Name of
applicant, date of Description of material
application, date received,
----------------------------------------- End use Recipient
country Application No., Docket No. Material type
Total quantity
-----------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------- Duratek Services,
Inc. April 10, Class A radioactive Not to exceed the Return
of waste Canada.
2006, April 13, 2006, XW010, waste in various total
quantity of resulting from 11005620.
forms either as radioactively processing materials
contaminated contaminated resulting from materials
materials which processing imported under can be
attributed contaminated NRC import to the
Canadian solids and liquids license IW017. generator for
imported from ultimate disposal Canada or as or return of non-
unprocessed, non- conforming conforming contaminated contaminated
materials, which materials imported cannot be materials.
processed.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------- Dated this 22nd
day of May 2006 at Rockville, Maryland.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission Margaret M. Doane, Deputy
Director, Office of International Programs.
[FR Doc. E6-8355 Filed 5-30-06; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
*****************************************************************
56 Knox News: Tech park set for ORNL campus
Pro2Serve, Holrob Investments plan to build million-dollar
facilities there
By FRANK MUNGER, munger@knews.com
May 31, 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 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 nonprofit 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
*****************************************************************
57 DOE: Statement from Secretary Bodman on the Resignation of
Secretary Snow and Nomination of Mr. Paulson
May 30, 2006
WASHINGTON, DC Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman released the
following statement on the resignation of U.S. Treasury
Secretary John Snow and the nomination of Henry M. Paulson, Jr.:
"Since his arrival 3-1/2 years ago, I have witnessed first-hand
Secretary Snow's dedication and devotion to his job and country,
and it was an honor to serve as Deputy Secretary of the Treasury
during his tenure. Under his leadership, the economy has
continued to expand. He is a loyal public servant with an acute
concern for American families. I congratulate John on his
successes and wish him and his wife Carolyn the very best as
they return to private life.
"Additionally, I congratulate Henry Paulson, President Bushs
nominee to be the Secretary of the Treasury. Over the years,
Ive known Hank as a hard-working executive with a deep
appreciation for the power and strength of our economy. A
reliable and affordable energy supply is part of the foundation
of Americas economic growth, and I look forward to working with
Hank to strengthen our nations energy and economic security."
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 |
*****************************************************************
58 DOE: Statement from Secretary of Energy Samuel W. Bodman on the
Senate's Confirmation of Ward Sproat as Director of the Office of
Civilian Radioactive Waste Management
May 30, 2006
WASHINGTON, DC I appreciate the Senate's confirmation of Ward
Sproat to be the Director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive
Waste Management. Ward is highly regarded in the nuclear energy
community and his confirmation will allow us to continue on our
path forward to opening Yucca Mountain as our nation's
repository for spent nuclear fuel. In dealing with the nation's
spent nuclear fuel, we can see a nuclear renaissance in this
nation that will allow us to strengthen our nation's energy mix
in an environmentally safe manner. I congratulate Ward on
today's confirmation and look forward to him joining the
department soon.
I would also like to thank Paul Golan, a valuable member of my
senior leadership team, who stepped in and served so ably as the
acting director of the office for the past year. His diligence,
passion, and perseverance have brought the program through a
difficult transition period and has put us squarely on a path
toward success.
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 |
*****************************************************************
59 DOE: Statements from Secretary of Energy Samuel W. Bodman on the
Senate's Confirmation of Dr. Raymond Orbach as the Under
Secretary for Science
May 30, 2006
WASHINGTON, DC I thank the Senate for their confirmation of
Dr. Raymond Orbach as the department's first Under Secretary for
Science. President Bush has placed a renewed emphasis on
strengthening our nation's basic science research and education
as part of the American Competitiveness Initiative. Ray will
help oversee the expansion of basic science research at the
department, including the doubling of the government's basic
science budget over the next decade. With additional focus on
basic science, our nation will continue to be the economic
leader of the world. I congratulate Ray on today's confirmation
and look forward to his continued service to the department and
the nation.
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 |
*****************************************************************
60 DOE: Statement from Secretary Bodman on the House Passage of the
American-Made Energy and Good Jobs Act
May 31, 2006
WASHINGTON, DC Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman released the
following statement on the House passage of the American-Made
Energy and Good Jobs Act:
"I applaud the Houses passage of a bill that allows
responsible, environmentally safe oil and natural gas drilling
in the ANWR region of arctic Alaska. Had President Clinton not
vetoed the ANWR drilling bill in 1995, we would have at least an
additional one million barrels a day of domestic oil production
available to the citizens of this country today."
"We need to enhance our nations energy mix by increasing
domestic production this bill helps us accomplish that. I
would encourage the Senate to quickly pass a similar bill so
that we can strengthen our nations energy security and reduce
our reliance on foreign sources of oil."
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 |
*****************************************************************
61 Boise Weekly: Court to INL: Get Rid of the Junk
MAY 31, 2006
State Court rules in Idaho's favor on buried waste
YUMMY MUMMY Free Ride? Judy Peavey-Derr More (573)...
It only took 10 years. The Idaho National Laboratory is now
under orders to remove all transuranic waste out at the site,
according to a ruling late last week from the U.S. District
Court in Boise.
The Department of Energy was supposed to start doing it in 1995,
when then-Gov. Phil Batt negotiated an agreement with the
agency, requiring the federal government to remove all
transuranic waste--that is, plutonium-contaminated garbage--and
all spent fuel from INL. But the DOE doubted that buried waste
was specified in the agreement, and fought the order in federal
district court.
According to the Snake River Alliance, INL's burial grounds sit
less than 600 feet above the Snake River Aquifer, North
America's second-largest aquifer and the source of drinking
water for nearly 300,000 people.
"The court's decision was not at all unexpected," said Attorney
General Lawrence Wasden in a prepared statement. "The State of
Idaho maintained that the 1995 agreement was clear and
unambiguous and, specifically, that 'all transuranic waste'
means exactly what it says, all transuranic waste. The court's
decision upheld Idaho's position."
© Copyright 2006, Boise Weekly - Not Your
Everyday Newspaper
*****************************************************************
62 DOE: Environmental Management Site-Specific Advisory Board, Paducah
FR Doc E6-8394
[Federal Register: May 31, 2006 (Volume 71, Number 104)]
[Notices] [Page 30903-30904] From the Federal Register Online via
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr31my06-68]
AGENCY: Department of Energy (DOE).
ACTION: Notice of open meeting.
SUMMARY: This notice announces a meeting of the Environmental
Management Site-Specific Advisory Board (EM SSAB), Paducah. The
Federal Advisory Committee Act (Pub. L. 92-463, 86 Stat. 770)
requires that public notice of this meeting be announced in the
Federal Register.
DATES: Thursday, June 15, 2006, 5:30 p.m.-9 p.m.
ADDRESSES: 111 Memorial Drive, Barkley Centre, Paducah, Kentucky
42001.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: William E. Murphie, Deputy
Designated Federal Officer, Department of Energy
Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office, 1017 Majestic Drive, Suite
200, Lexington, Kentucky 40513, (859) 219-4001.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Purpose of the Board: The purpose of
the Board is to make recommendations to DOE in the areas of
environmental restoration, waste management and related
activities.
Tentative Agenda 5:30 p.m. Informal Discussion. 6 p.m. Call to
Order, Introductions, Review of Agenda, Approval of May Minutes.
6:15 p.m. Deputy Designated Federal Officer's Comments. 6:35 p.m.
Federal Coordinator's Comments. 6:40 p.m. Ex-officios' Comments.
6:50 p.m. Public Comments and Questions. 7 p.m. Task
Forces/Presentations. Southwest Plume Site Investigation.
Status of Land Acquisition Study.
Water Disposition/Water Quality Task Force.
8 p.m. Public Comments and Questions. 8:10 p.m. Break. 8:20 p.m.
Administrative Issues. Preparation for July Presentation.
Budget Review.
Review of Work Plan.
Review of Next Agenda.
8:30 p.m. Review of Action Items. 8:35 p.m. Subcommittee Report.
Executive Committee--Chairs Meeting Review.
8:50 p.m. Final Comments. 9 p.m. Adjourn. Public Participation:
The meeting is open to the public.
Written statements may be filed with the Board either before or
after the meeting. Individuals who wish to make oral statements
pertaining to agenda items should contact David Dollins at the
address listed below or by telephone at (270) 441-6819. Requests
must be received five days prior to the meeting and reasonable
provision will be made to include the presentation in the agenda.
The Deputy Designated Federal Officer is empowered to conduct the
meeting in a fashion that will facilitate the orderly conduct of
business. Individuals wishing to make public comment will be
provided a maximum of five minutes to present their comments.
Minutes: The minutes of this meeting will be available for public
review and copying at the U.S. Department of Energy's Freedom of
Information Public Reading Room, 1E-190, Forrestal Building, 1000
Independence Avenue, SW., Washington, DC 20585 between 9 a.m. and
4 p.m., Monday-Friday, except Federal holidays. Minutes will also
be available at the Department of Energy's Environmental
Information Center and Reading Room at 115 Memorial Drive,
Barkley Centre, Paducah, Kentucky between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. on
Monday through Friday or by writing to David Dollins, Department
of Energy, Paducah Site Office, Post Office Box 1410, MS-103,
Paducah, Kentucky 42001 or by calling him at (270) 441-6819.
[[Page 30904]] Issued at Washington, DC on May 25, 2006.
Rachel M. Samuel, Deputy Advisory Committee Management Officer.
[FR Doc. E6-8394 Filed 5-30-06; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 6450-01-P
*****************************************************************
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:
*****************************************************************