***************************************************************** 09/03/06 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 14.209 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** Send News Stories to news@energy-net.org with title on subject line and first line of body NUCLEAR POLICY 1 GlobalResearch.ca - Behind the Plan to Bomb Iran 2 Iranian President Prepared To Negotiate On Nuclear Issue, Annan Says 3 [NYTr] The USA's Iranian Puzzle 4 IRNA: Annan says he got good understanding of Iran's stance on nucle 5 IRNA: Iran, Finland discuss ME, nuclear issues 6 IRNA: UK press call for negitiations with Iran 7 IRNA: Annan terms talks with Iranian officials "constructive" - 8 IRNA: Germany fears long-term loss of Iran's lucrative market, 9 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Snubs Annan Over Nuclear Program 10 Guardian Unlimited: Report: U.N.'s Annan Arrives in Tehran 11 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Remains Defiant Over Nuke Program 12 Guardian Unlimited: Annan: Iran Wants Talks on Nuke Program 13 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Offers to Back Lebanon Cease-Fire 14 Guardian Unlimited: Iran open to nuclear talks, says Annan 15 BBC: Tehran assures Annan on Lebanon 16 BBC: No UN advance on Iran nuclear row 17 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: Solana says no deadline put on Iran 18 IRNA: Majlis commission to discuss suspension of IAEA inspections - 19 AFP: Iran tells Annan no uranium enrichment suspension before talks 20 AFP: US denies report ex-Spain prime minister mediating for it with 21 AFP: Annan in Iran for talks on Lebanon, nuclear - 22 AFP: Iran defiant on nuclear issue as EU offers more time - 23 AFP: Ahmadinejad vows Iran will defend nuclear aims 24 AFP: EU gives Iran two more weeks in atomic standoff 25 AFP: Iran's Khatami says US policies fuel terrorism 26 [Interview] Ban Ki-moon says action plan exists in face of N.K. nucl 27 Korea Times: China to Invite North Korean Leader 28 Korea Times : Missile Activity Seen in N. Korea 29 Korea Times: Month of Diplomacy 30 AFP: NKorea accuses US of threatening war after anti-missile test - 31 US: [NYTr] Bush Pushes Nuclear Weapons Development in US 32 WorldNetDaily: John Bolton: Mission accomplished? 33 US: UCS: California Enacts Nation's Toughest Global Warming Bill NUCLEAR REACTORS 34 US: Waco Tribune-Herald: Edwards, Taylor support nuclear energy expa 35 London Times: Fluor threatens to withdraw bid for British Nuclear Gr 36 London Times: McConnell to drop nuclear opposition - 37 US: San Luis Obispo Tribune: Diablo leak fixed, full power restored 38 US: VOA News: Nuclear Energy Hotly Debated in United States 39 Sunday Herald: Nuclear safety fears after power cut at plant delays 40 US: Star Tribune: Editorial: Future won't favor new nuclear plants 41 Greem Left Weekly: Wind vs nuclear energy? No competition 42 US: News Journal: Nuclear agency ends increased oversight 43 Energy Business Review: Fluor tables bid for BNG - 44 US: Detroit Free Press: State pondering nuclear power 45 US: Boston Globe: Judge withdraws from Pilgrim nuclear plant license 46 Bahrain News Agency: Bahrain to host conference on nuclear widesprea 47 US: Decatur Daily: Nuke plant leaks cited: Group says TVA, NRC are ‘ 48 US: Portsmouth Herald: Seabrook nuclear plant off-line during repair 49 Reuters: Japan preparing nuclear accident-response steps-Kyodo NUCLEAR SECURITY 50 Austin American Statesman: Nuclear site 'like a candy store' for ter 51 Sunday Herald: Trident fleets safety alerts double - 52 TheStar.com: Alarm over using lake as firing range 53 US: Lincoln Journal Star: Future Cloudy for Terrorism Insurance NUCLEAR SAFETY 54 US: Pahrump Valley Times: Subcritical 'Unicorn' experiment conducted 55 US: STLtoday: More leaks of radioactive tritium are revealed 56 US: Telegraph: Children told to stay off radioactive beach NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 57 US: Sydney Morning Herald: Downer reassures Indonesia on uranium - 58 Korea Herald: Japan to conduct survey off Dokdo 59 Las Vegas SUN: Science isn't only Yucca issue 60 reviewjournal.com: Yucca Mountain dead? Don't believe it 61 US: DailyBulletin.com: Is perchlorate cleanup slipping from our gras 62 US: San Bernardino County Sun: Calm reigns at perchlorate meeting 63 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Safe disposal of nuclear waste is top priorit 64 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Feds may step in after Goshutes vote to shut 65 US: PE.com: Cleanup will be long haul, residents told 66 US: AU ABC: Politicians urged to make stand against uranium. PEACE US DEPT. OF ENERGY 67 [NYTr] US Reports "Success" in another Nuke Test 68 VCS: Field Lab cleanup papers leave site's neighbors with questions 69 Albuquerque Tribune: Los Alamos bomb plan disputed 70 AP Wire: Paducah vying for grant to study nuclear fuel recycling 71 Pueblo Chieftain: Rocky Flats defendants seek mistrial 72 Tri-City Herald: Benton commissioner seeks federal grant for Hanford 73 Tri-City Herald: DOE says revamped office will aid safety ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 GlobalResearch.ca - Behind the Plan to Bomb Iran by Prof. Ismael Hossein-zadeh September 1, 2006 GlobalResearch.ca It is no longer a secret that the Bush administration has been methodically paving the way toward a bombing strike against Iran. The administration's plans of an aerial military attack against that country have recently been exposed by a number of reliable sources. [1] There is strong evidence that the administration's recent public statements that it is now willing to negotiate with Iran are highly disingenuous: they are designed not to reach a diplomatic solution to the so-called "Iran crisis," but to remove diplomatic hurdles toward a military "solution." The administration's public gestures of a willingness to negotiate with Iran are rendered utterly meaningless because such alleged negotiations are premised on the condition that Iran suspends its uranium enrichment program. Considering the fact that suspension of uranium enrichment, which is altogether within Iran's legitimate rights under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), is supposed to be the main point of negotiations, Iran is asked, in effect, "to concede the main point of the negotiations before they started." [2] The administration's case against Iran is eerily reminiscent of its case against Iraq in the run up to the invasion of that country. Accordingly, the case against Iran is based not on any hard evidence provided by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), but on dubious allegations that are based on even more dubious sources of intelligence. Iran is asked, in effect, to prove a negative, which is of course mission impossible-hence grounds for "noncompliance" and rationale for "punishment." The administration's case against Iran is so weak, its objectives of a military strike against that country are so fuzzy, and the odds against achieving any kind of meaningful victory are so strong, that even professional military experts are speaking up against the plans of a bombing campaign against Iran. [3] Furthermore, predominant expert views of such a bombing campaign maintain that it would more likely hurt than help the geopolitical and economic interests of the United States. So, if the administration's "national interests" argument as grounds for a military strike against Iran is suspect, why then is it so adamantly pushing for such a potentially calamitous confrontation? What are the driving forces behind a military confrontation with Iran? Critics would almost unanimously point to neoconservative militarists in and around the Bush administration. While this is obviously not false, as it is the neoconservative forces that are beating the drums of war with Iran, it falls short of showing the whole picture. In a real sense, it begs the question: who are the neoconservatives to begin with? And what or who do they represent? The neoconservative ideologues often claim that their aggressive foreign policy is inspired primarily by democratic ideals and a desire to spread democracy and freedom worldwide-a claim that is far too readily accepted as genuine by corporate media and many foreign-policy circles. This is obviously little more than a masquerade designed to hide some real powerful special interests that lie behind the fa‡ade of neoconservative figures and their ideological rhetoric. The driving force behind the neoconservatives' war juggernaut must be sought not in the alleged defense of democracy or of national interests but in the nefarious special interests that are carefully camouflaged behind the front of national interests. These special interests derive lucrative business gains and high dividends from war and militarism. They include both economic interests (famously known as the military-industrial complex) and geopolitical interests (associated largely with Zionist proponents of "greater Israel" in the Middle East, or the Israeli lobby). There is an unspoken, de facto alliance between these two extremely powerful interests--an alliance that might be called the military-industrial-Zionist alliance. More than anything else, the alliance is based on a conjunctural convergence of interests on war and international convulsion in the Middle East. Let me elaborate on this point. The fact that the military-industrial complex, or merchants of arms and wars, flourishes on war and militarism is largely self-evident. Arms industries and powerful beneficiaries of war dividends need an atmosphere of war and international convulsion in order to maintain continued increases in the Pentagon budget and justify their lion's share of the public money. Viewed in this light, unilateral or "preemptive" wars abroad can easily been seen as reflections of domestic fights over national resources and tax dollars. In the debate over allocation of public resources between the proverbial guns and butter, or between military and nonmilitary public spending, powerful beneficiaries of war dividends have proven very resourceful in outmaneuvering proponents of limits on military spending. During the bipolar world of the Cold War era that was not a difficult act to perform as the rationale-the "communist threat"-readily lay at hand. Justification of increased military spending in the post-Cold War period has prompted these beneficiaries to be even more creative in manufacturing "new sources of danger to U.S. interests" in order to justify unilateral wars of aggression. It is not surprising, then, that a wide range of "new sources of threat to U.S. national interests" have emerged in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union: "rogue states, axis of evil, global terrorism, Islamic radicalism, enemies of democracy," and more. Just as the powerful beneficiaries of war dividends view international peace and stability inimical to their business interests, so too the hard-line Zionist proponents of "greater Israel" perceive peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors perilous to their goal of gaining control over the promised "Land of Israel." The reason for this fear of peace is that, according to a number of the United Nations' resolutions, peace would mean Israel's return to its pre-1967 borders; that is, withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza Strip. But because proponents of "greater Israel" are unwilling to withdraw from these territories, they are therefore fearful of peace and genuine dialogue with Palestinians-hence, their continued disregard for UN resolutions and their systematic efforts at sabotaging peace negotiations. By the same token, these proponents view war and convulsion (or, as David Ben-Gurion, one of the key founders of the State of Israel, put it, "revolutionary atmosphere") as opportunities that are conducive to the expulsion of Palestinians, to the territorial recasting of the region, and to the expansion of Israel's territory. [4] The military-industrial-Zionist alliance is represented largely by the cabal of neoconservative forces in and around the Bush administration. The institutional framework of the alliance consists of a web of closely knit think tanks that are founded and financed primarily by the armaments lobby and the Israeli lobby. These corporate-backed militaristic think tanks include the American Enterprise Institute, Project for the New American Century, Center for Security Policy, Middle East Media Research Institute, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Middle East Forum, National Institute for Public Policy, and Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs. These think tanks, which might appropriately be called institutes of war and militarism, are staffed and directed mainly by the neoconservative champions of the military-industrial-Zionist alliance, that is, by the proponents of unilateral wars of aggression. There is strong evidence that the major plans of the Bush administration's foreign policy have been drawn up largely by these think thanks, often in collaboration, directly or indirectly, with the Pentagon, the arms lobby, and the Israeli lobby. These war mongering think tanks and their neoconservative champions serve as direct links, or conveyer belts, between the armaments lobby and the Israeli lobbies on the one hand, and the Bush administration and its Congressional allies on the other. Take the Center for Security Policy (CSP), for example. It "boasts that no fewer than 22 former advisory board members are close associates in the Bush administration. . . . A sixth of the Center's revenue comes directly from defense corporations." The Center's alumni in key posts in the Bush administration include its former chair of the board, Douglas Feith, who served for more than four years as Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, Pentagon Comptroller Dov Zakheim, former Defense Policy Board Chair Richard Perle, and long-time friend and financial supporter Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. In its 1998 annual report, the center "listed virtually every weapons-maker that had supported it from its founding, from Lockheed, Martin Marietta, Northrop, Grumman, and Boeing, to the later `merged' incarnations of same-Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and so forth." [5] Likewise, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a major lobbying think tank for the military-industrial-Zionist alliance, can boast of being the metaphorical alma mater of a number of powerful members of the Bush administration. For example, Vice President Dick Cheney and his wife Lynne Cheney, State Department arms control official John Bolton (now U.S. ambassador to the UN), and former chair of the Defense Policy Board Richard Perle all have had long-standing ties with the Institute. The Institute played a key role in promoting Ahmed Chalabi's group of Iraqi exiles as a major Iraqi opposition force "that would be welcomed by the Iraqi people as an alternative to the regime of Saddam Hussein." The group, working closely with the AEI, played an important role in the justification of the invasion of Iraq. It served, for example, as a major source of (largely fabricated) intelligence for the militaristic chicken hawks whenever they found the intelligence gathered by the CIA and the State Department at odds with their plans of invading Iraq. [6] Another example of the interlocking network of neoconservative forces in the Bush administration and the militaristic think tanks that are dedicated to the advancement of the military-industrial-Zionist agenda is reflected in the affiliation of a number of influential members of the administration with the Jewish Institute for the National Security Affairs (JINSA). These include, for example, Douglas Feith, assistant secretary of defense during the first term of the Bush administration, General Jay Garner, the initial head of the U.S. occupation authority in Iraq, and Michael Ledeen, who unofficially advises the Bush administration on Middle Eastern issues. JINSA "is on record in its support of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and against the Oslo Accord. . . . In its fervent support for the hard-line, pro-settlement, anti-Palestinian Likud-style policies in Israel, JINSA has essentially recommended that `regime change' in Iraq should be just the beginning of a cascade of toppling dominoes in the Middle East." [7] The fact that neoconservative militarists of the Bush administration are organically rooted in the military-industrial-Zionist alliance is even more clearly reflected in their incestuous relationship with the warmongering think tank Project for the New American Century (PNAC). Like most of its lobbying counterparts within the extensive network of neoconservative think tanks, PNAC was founded by a circle of powerful political figures a number of whom later ascended to key positions in the Bush administration. The list of signatories of PNAC's Founding Statement of Principles include Elliott Abrams, Jeb Bush, Elliott Cohen, Frank Gaffney, Zalmay Khalilzad, I. Lewis Libby, Norman Podhoretz, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz. Add the signature of Vice President Dick Cheney to the list of PNAC founders, "and you have the bulwarks of the neo-con network that is currently in the driver's seat of the Bush administration's war without end policies all represented in PNAC's founding document." [8] A closer look at the professional records of the neoconservative players in the Bush administration indicates that "32 major administration appointees . . . are former executives with, consultants for, or significant shareholders of top defense contractors." For example, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is an ex-director of a General Dynamics subsidiary, and his deputy during the first term of the Bush administration, Paul Wolfowitz, acted as a paid consultant to Northrop Grumman. Today the armaments lobby "is exerting more influence over policymaking than at any time since President Dwight D. Eisenhower first warned of the dangers of the military-industrial complex over 40 years ago." [9] This sample evidence indicates that the view that the neoconservative militarists' tendency to war and aggression is inspired by an ideological passion to spread American ideals of democracy is clearly false. Their successful militarization of US foreign policy stems largely from the fact they operate essentially on behalf of two immensely powerful special interests, the military-industrial complex and the influential Israeli lobby. Neoconservative architects of war and militarism derive their political clout and policy effectiveness primarily from the political machine and institutional infrastructure of the military-industrial-Zionist alliance. It is necessary to note at this point that, despite its immense political influence, the Zionist lobby is ultimately a junior, not equal, partner in this unspoken, de defacto alliance. Without discounting the extremely important role of the Zionist lobby in the configuration of the U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, I would caution against simplifications and exaggerations of its power and influence over the U.S. policy in the region. It is true that most of the neo-conservative militarists who have been behind the recent U.S. military aggressions in the Middle East have long been active supporters of Israel's right-wing politicians and/or leaders. It is also no secret that there is a close collaboration over issues of war and militarism between militant Zionism, neoconservative forces in and around the Bush administration, and jingoistic think tanks such as AEI, PNAC, CSP, and JINSA. It does not follow, however, that, as some critics argue, the U.S.-Israeli relationship represents a case of "tail wagging the dog," that is, U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East is shaped by the Israeli/Zionist leaders. While, no doubt, the powerful Zionist lobby exerts considerable influence over U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, the efficacy and the extent of that influence depend, ultimately, on the real economic and geopolitical interests of U.S. foreign policy makers. In other words, U.S. policy makers in the Middle East would go along with the desires and demands of the radical Zionist lobby only if such demands also tend to serve the special interests that those policy makers represent or serve, that is, if there is a convergence of interests over those demands. [10] Aggressive existential tendencies of the U.S. military-industrial empire to war and militarism are shaped by its own internal or intrinsic dynamics: continued need for arms production as a lucrative business whose fortunes depend on permanent war and international convulsion. Conjunctural or reinforcing factors such as the horrors of 9/11, or the Zionist lobby, or the party in power, or the resident of the White House will, no doubt, exert significant influences. But such supporting influences remain essentially contributory, not defining or determining. The decisive or central role is played, ultimately, by the military-industrial complex itself-that is, by the merchants of arms or wars. Ismael Hossein-zadeh is an economics professor at Drake University, Des Moines, Iowa. USA. This article draws upon his newly released book, The Political Economy of U.S. Militarism (by Palgrave-Macmillan Publishers). Contact: ismael.zadeh@drake.edu, http://www.cbpa.drake.edu/hossein-zadeh Note: Readers are welcome to cross-post this article with a view to spreading the word and warning people of the dangers of a broader Middle East war. Please indicate the source and copyright note. References 1. See, for example, Seymour M. Hersh, "The military's problem with the President's Iran policy," The New Yorker (July 10, 2006): ; Evan Eland, "Military Action Against Iran?" antiwar.com (January 24, 2006): http://www.antiwar.com/eland/?articleid=8433 2. Hersh, "The military's problem with the President's Iran policy." 3. Ibid.; see also Ismael Hossein-zadeh, "U.S. Iran Policy Irks Senior Commanders: The Military vs. Militaristic Civilian Leadership," OpEdNews.com (July 24, 2006): http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_ismael_h_060724_u_s__iran_policy_irk.htm 4. A detailed discussion of this issue, and of the de facto alliance between militant Zionism and the powerful beneficiaries of war dividends, can be found, among other places, in Chapter 6 of my recently released book, The Political Economy of U.S. Militarism (Palgrave-Macmillan 2006). 5. William D. Hartung, How Much Are You Making on the War, Daddy? (New York: Nation Books, 2003), P. 101; William Hartung and Michelle Ciarrocca, "The Military-Industrial-Think Tank Complex," Multinational Monitor 24, nos. 1 &2 (Jan/Feb 2003): . 6. Hartung, How Much Are You Making on the War, Daddy? PP. 103-106. 7. Ibid., PP. 109-11. 8. Ibid., P. 113. 9. William Hartung and Michelle Ciarrocca, "The Military-Industrial-Think Tank Complex." 10. I have provided a longer discussion of the role of the Zionist lobby in the configuration of the U.S. policy in the Middle East in Chapter 6 of my recently published book, The Political Economy of U.S. Militarism (Palgrave-Macmillan 2006). Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Centre for Research on Globalization. ***************************************************************** 2 Iranian President Prepared To Negotiate On Nuclear Issue, Annan Says Date: Sun, 3 Sep 2006 15:00:54 -0400 IRANIAN PRESIDENT PREPARED TO NEGOTIATE ON NUCLEAR ISSUE, ANNAN SAYS New York, Sep 3 2006 3:00PM Iran's President is prepared to negotiate on the issue of his country's nuclear ambitions but said he will not suspend uranium enrichment activities, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said today in Tehran following a meeting with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other top officials. The UN Security Council, which has threatened sanctions if Iran does not suspend uranium enrichment and reprocessing activities and take steps to assure the world that it is not developing nuclear arms, is currently considering a new report on the matter from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). "On the nuclear issue, the President reaffirmed to me Iran's preparedness and determination to negotiate and find a solution to the crises," Mr. Annan told reporters in the capital today. "He indicated that they do not accept suspension before negotiations. But he assured me that they are prepared to negotiate." In addition to meeting with President Ahmadinejad, the Secretary-General has held talks this weekend with Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council Ali Larijani, former President Hashemi Rafsanjani and Kamal Kharazzi, the Chairman of the Foreign Relations Strategic Committee. Looking forward to a planned meeting between Mr. Larijani and Javier Solana, the High Representative of the European Union for Common Foreign and Security Policy, the Secretary-General said, "I hope at that point they will find a way to move forward and begin serious work on this dossier." The Secretary-General is currently on an intensive diplomatic tour of the region aimed at bolstering support for the Security Council resolution that ended the hostilities in Lebanon last month while and addressing other regional hotspots. He has held meetings in Lebanon, Israel, Syria and Qatar. He told reporters that President Ahmadinejad voiced backing for the resolution, which mandated a cessation of hostili the size and scope of the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon. "He reaffirmed his country's support for the implementation of resolution 1701 and agrees with me that we should do everything to strengthen the territorial integrity of Lebanon, the independence of Lebanon, and work together for the reconstruction of Lebanon." President Ahmadinejad also "indicated that Tehran will work with us in a collective effort to reconstruct Lebanon," Mr. Annan said. "Iran is an important regional player and has a key role to play, and the President did assure me that it would play that role." Responding to press questions, he emphasized that both Israel and Lebanon accepted the resolution, and troops are deploying quickly into southern Lebanon. "I expect around the middle of the month that we would have, if all goes well, about 5,000 international troops there in addition to the 16,000 Lebanese troops ready to deploy to the south," he said. "That will constitute a credible force that will take over the territory in the south of Lebanon in support of the Lebanese Government so that the Israel troops can withdraw completely." The Secretary-General also voiced concern about the Holocaust cartoon exhibit. He recalled his own appeals for sensitivity during the furor over the Danish cartoons. "I did state that, while there may be freedom of expression and the right to freedom of expression, that right is not a license and that it has to be exercised with responsibility, with sensitivity, and judgment. And I think that the tragedy of the Holocaust is a sad and undeniable historical fact so we should really handle that and accept that fact, and teach children what happened in World War II, and ensure that it is never repeated." Mr. Annan further cautioned that, "Words can soothe and words can harm. And we should be careful not to say anything that can be misused as an excuse for incitement to hatred or violence." 2006-09-03 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/ ***************************************************************** 3 [NYTr] The USA's Iranian Puzzle Date: Sat, 2 Sep 2006 02:51:47 -0500 (CDT) X-Sender-Host-Name: chumbly.math.missouri.edu X-Spam-Class: HAM-VERY-WHITELIST Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit Le Nouvel Observateur via Truthout - Aug 31, 2006 http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/090106G.shtml The United States' Iranian Puzzle By Philippe Boulet-Gercourt English translation by Leslie Thatcher (TruthOut) In Washington, the war in Lebanon has chilled partisans of a military option against Tehran. But shouldn't the United States also revise its diplomatic strategy? A CIA-organized conference at the end of 2002. Wayne White, one of the State Department's Middle East specialists, listens to pollster John Zogby detail the results of a poll on American unpopularity in Arab countries. In passing, Zogby gives the results for Iran: as calamitous as for the rest of the region. White hits the ceiling: up until then, State Department investigations showed the United States enjoyed good regard among the Iranian population in spite of the mullahs' tirades. The official, seized with a suspicion, raises his hand: "When was the poll effected?" Zogby: "The end of January, 2002, why?" White: "Just after Bush's speech on Iran being part of the 'Axis of Evil!'" "We hoped that this speech would be a single gaffe only," recounts the official, who left the State Department in 2005. But no, Bush reiterated it, even as the administration encouraged regime change in Tehran. "If that's your objective, the last thing to do is alienate the population." Welcome to the strange universe of Iranian-American relations! Forget the UN Security Council, which fixed August 31 as the last day for the Iranians to suspend their uranium enrichment activities; forget the British, French, Germans, Russians, and Chinese! "The present crisis can essentially be summarized as a face-off between the Iranians and the United States," White recalls. "It's a fascinating dance: when we invite them onto the floor, they say they're tired. And when they invite us, we tell them, 'Not now. We'll see about later.'" "And it's been going on like that at least since Reagan," notes George Perkovich, non-proliferation specialist at the Carnegie Foundation. When Washington is in a position of strength as in 2002-2003, the Iranians make under the table appeals that are ignored; when, on the other hand, the Americans get bogged down in Iraq or in their support for the war in Lebanon, it's the Iranians who reject every advance. Their pas de deux is hypnotic: when one of the dancers absens themselves, as when, in 2004-2005, the United States took a back seat to the Europeans, nothing happens: dance and music stop completely! Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's election to the Iranian presidency has not made things better. Beginning in 2006, relations had become so toxic; the American administration seriously studied the prospect of a massive military attack against Iranian nuclear installations. The White House even wanted the Pentagon to consider use of tactical nuclear weapons to destroy the most inaccessible bunkers. But the military scenario is no longer current. According to our information, a series of detailed briefings in the spring and this summer have convinced the White House that the military option was not viable. All the experts emphasized it and even the neo-conservatives acknowledge it: the idea of a single "surgical" strike is a fantasy. By attacking Iran, the United States would launch itself into a real war, extraordinarily costly militarily and economically. An aggravating factor: the US being bogged down in Iraq monopolizes its military capacity, and its presence in that country would make a perfect target for the Iranias. "The only ones who still don't understand that no good military option exists are part of the Cheney team. Certainly, that's a powerful component of the administration, but less so than before Iraq," Perkovich remarks. Seymour Hersh, the legendary "New Yorker" reporter, has told how the Bush administration had given the Israelis its preliminary green light against Hezbollah, seeing the Lebanese campaign as a sort of dress rehearsal for what could be an offensive against Iran. To obtain Washington's agreement, "the Israelis started with Cheney," Hersh reports. There's no point in detailing that the disastrous results of the Israeli campaign chilled what remained of American warrior designs. But the simple fact of abandoning - at least temporarily - the military scenario is not enough. A good number of experts deem that it's time for Washington to change its diplomatic strategy. "Most of the administration's demands are perhaps not unjustified, but they are unrealistic because Washington does not have any means to impose them. The more you insist on unrealistic demands, the weaker you appear in negotiations," asserts Trita Parsi, a specialist in Iranian-Israeli relations. "The United States would do better to engage immediately in real negotiations with Iran, dropping this prerequisite of a cessation of enrichment activities. They've got to understand that the Iranians are more ready than ever to negotiate since they don't know what the world will be like in two years and they feel they're in a position of strength today." The prospect of forgetting about potential UN sanctions certainly does not please everybody: "It would be a mistake to abandon what constitutes a United Nations demand followng violations denounced by the International Atomic Energy Agency, and not the United States," says non-proliferation specialist Perkovich, "but at the same time, we should announce that we are ready to discuss everything: their regional security, Iraq, the Persian Gulf, etc." Even enrichment. Many experts deem that the Iranians could accept the principle of a limited enrichment capacity on their soil. If the United States is right to want to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power, it must acknowledge one of the underlying rationales for the Iranian effort: with an already nuclear Pakistani rival and an America that unceasingly allows the threat of an attack to hang over it, "Iran illustrates the classic case of a state that seeks to procure nuclear weapons for deterrence," insists Scott Sagan, of Stanford University in California. In other words, the United States may not only consider the Iranian position to be that - not necessarily imaginary - of a terrorist state ready to unleash nuclear Armageddon. It must also take into account the nationalism of the Iranians, for whom the bomb is a symbol of their historic dominance of the region and a means to protect themselves. "Every solution viable to the Iranians' nuclear appetite demands that Washington learn to coexist peacefully with the Tehran government, however problematic that may be," writes Scott Sagan [1]. A big recognition carrot matched, all the same, with an obvious stick. For "all the Clinton administration efforts to establish good contact with the Iranians, in particular those of Madeleine Albright, failed," Wayne White acknowledges. "We should," he suggests, "get this message to the Iranians: we're serious on two fronts; we want real negotiations, without prerequisites, but if those fail, we won't hesitate to resort to the military solution." Probably an exercise too subtle for the White House jack boots ... End Notes: [1] "How to Keep the Bomb From Iran," Foreign Affairs, September-October 2006. * ================================================================ .NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems . Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us . .339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org .List Archives: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ .Subscribe: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ================================================================ ***************************************************************** 4 IRNA: Annan says he got good understanding of Iran's stance on nuclear program - , Sept 3, IRNA -- Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan said on Sunday he got a good understanding of Iran's stance about national nuclear program. He told a press conference in presence of Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki that he would raise his new understanding with the states involved in the stand-off over Iranian nuclear program to fulfill his duty as the UN secretary-general. He said that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and members of the Security Council are studying Iranian nuclear program and good discussions have been made thanks to Iran's contacts with the Group 5+1 (five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany). He said that in his negotiations with iranian officials, he expressed concern about holding an exhibit of caricatures with the theme of Holocaust and recalled the controversy caused by the blasphemous caricatures published in the Danish press. The blasphemous caricatures led to worldwide protests by the Muslims and caused some casualties when demonstrators clashed with police in different countries. He said that freedom of expression is a right which should be used carefully. We should be cautious not to use certain terms which may lead to violence and subsequent losses. "We should accept the Holocaust as an undeniable fact and we should teach our children what happened in the course of the World War II and help guarantee that such events would not take place once again," Annan said. ***************************************************************** 5 IRNA: Iran, Finland discuss ME, nuclear issues London, Sept 2, IRNA Iran-Finland-Meet Iran and Finland in Helsinki on Friday discussed the Iran nuclear issue as well as developments in the Middle East. Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Europe and American Affairs Saeed Jalili met with Finnish Ministry Undersecretary for Political and Security Affairs Marcos Lira. Jalili said Iran and Finland enjoy good and friendly ties, and added that "challenges currently faced by Iran and the European Union can provide good ground for cooperation between the two sides." He also expressed the hope that Finland, during its current EU Presidency, would be successful, and highlighted the constructive and positive role Helsinki has discharged in settling international issues. He added that strengthening of cooperation among EU states would help minimize unilateralism in the world. Pointing to Iran's nuclear program, Jalili said that the Islamic Republic of Iran considers as "immoral and anti-human" the use of weapons of mass destruction and believes international security and stability can best be promoted through international disarmament. "Nuclear weapons will not bring power to any country," he said. The official stressed the importance of defending the rights and duties of member states of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and pointed out that under "Article 4 of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) all signatories, including Iran, had the indisputable right to nuclear energy." He spoke breifly of confidence-building measures taken by Iran over the past three years, including voluntary suspension of enrichment, implementation of the Additional Protocol, numerous IAEA inspections of its nuclear facilities and installation of cameras to monitor its nuclear activities. "As reported by IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei, not a single document has been found showing any non-peaceful activity of Iran." Jalili pointed to Iran's need for 20,000 megawatts of electricity to meet domestic demand, and said the national consensus is that Iran has to have access to peaceful nuclear energy. Lira, for his part, pointed to the ample grounds for cooperation existing between Iran and Finland, and said Iran was an important country in the region which the EU attached special significance. Pointing to Iran's contribution to efforts to establish peace and security in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Finnish official called for Iranian cooperation in restoring peace and stability to Lebanon. He also stressed Iran's right to peaceful nuclear energy and urged the two sides to take confidence-building measures to resolve the current dispute. ***************************************************************** 6 IRNA: UK press call for negitiations with Iran , Sept 2, IRNA -- A leading British daily suggested Saturday that western countries should change their policies and re-open talks with Iran over its nuclear program. "The fragile unity that produced a UN-endorsed package of economic and technological incentives for Iran is unlikely to survive for long," the Guardian wrote. The newspaper discounted attempts led by the US and Britain to impose sanctions on Iran, saying they would be "very hard to agree" and would "in any case almost certainly be counter-productive and useless if not multilateral." "The smarter choice would be to take up Iran's offer of `serious negotiations' to test whether it might halt enrichment by some other route -- though that would have to include a tight UN inspections regime to allay suspicions," an editorial said. The daily suggested that any such effort should be "accompanied by intensified contacts with Tehran." The current visit to the US by former president Mohammed Khatami is a "timely reminder of his call for a `dialogue of civilizations' in 1998," it said. "Iranian confidence, international divisions and the sheer importance of what is at stake here make this a fiendishly difficult tangle," it said. "That must be a spur to creativity, not a counsel of despair. Like it or not, Iran's nuclear defiance poses a huge challenge to the battered credibility of the UN. It cannot just be ignored," the paper concluded. In its editorial, the Financial Times also believed that there must be negotiations to address the main concerns of both sides to have any hope of success. It described last Thursday's deadline set by the UN Security Council for Iran to cease its nuclear enrichment activity "fateful." The offer of direct talks by Washington in June also had the "killer pre-condition" that Iran immediately cease enrichment, the paper said. "There are no good options from now on, but there are some potentially terrible ones. It is therefore important to subject all policy options to a simple test: what stands a chance of persuading Iran to set aside its presumed nuclear ambitions?," it suggested. For Iran's part, the Finaicial Times said that it essentially wanted "security guarantees and recognition as a legitimate regional power." "These are two things that, ultimately, only the US can provide," it said. "The best way to confront Iran is with a deal," it concluded. ***************************************************************** 7 IRNA: Annan terms talks with Iranian officials "constructive" - Tehran, Sept 3, IRNA Iran-Annan-Visit UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan described his talks with Iranian leaders in Tehran on Saturday as "very good and constructive". He made the remark while talking to reporters after meeting with Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Ali Larijani. On his meeting with Larijani, he said the nuclear issue as well as many regional issues of mutual concern were reviewed during the meeting, a press release issued by the UN Information Center (UNIC) said here Saturday. "I found the discussions helpful and it will come in handy as I move ahead with my work. And I need all the help I can because your region is keeping me and the United Nations very, very busy," he told reporters. Annan arrived in Tehran Saturday and was greeted at the Mehrabad International Airport by Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi. In the afternoon, the secretary-general, accompanied by his senior advisors Terje Roed Larsen, Vijay Nambiar and Michael Williams, held talks with Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki. They held wide-ranging talks which included implementation of Security Council resolution 1701 (2006), the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan, the nuclear issue and human rights. Meanwhile, Annan met Chairman of the Expediency Council and former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani on Saturday afternoon. The secretary-general briefed Rafsanjani on the outcome of his visits to Lebanon, Israel and Syria and the latest developments in Iran's nuclear case. Later in the evening, Annan attended a dinner banquet hosted by the Iranian foreign minister in favor of the UN secretary-general and his delegation. Annan is expected to meet President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Sunday morning. ***************************************************************** 8 IRNA: Germany fears long-term loss of Iran's lucrative market, if sanctions are imposed: official Berlin, Sept 2, IRNA Germany-Iran-Sanctions Germany may have to relinquish Iran's lucrative market for good, should sanctions be leveled against Tehran, news reports quoted two leading German trade officials as saying on Saturday. The head of the foreign trade department of the German Wholesale and Foreign Trade Association (BGA), Jens Nagel told the online site of the daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that sanctions against Tehran may force Iran to look for alternative trading partners in the Far East, notably the People's Republic of China. "There is a big danger that Tehran will in the long run seek its suppliers in East Asia," Nagel warned. He added, "Before sanctions are leveled, politicians have to pose the question on the degree of the sanctions' impact. To impose sanctions against Iran is fanciless." Meanwhile the chairman of the Near and Middle East Association (NUMOV), Martin Bay agreed with Nagel's assessment about the potential harming effect of sanctions on German-Iranian business ties. "If we were only traders, we could temporarily pull out of the Iranian market. But if we do this in the sectors of technology and the creation of infrastructure, we will hardly get a foot back into the door," Bay added. Last year German companies exported 4.4 billion euros worth of goods to Iran, among them industrial machinery, automobiles, steel and chemical products. ***************************************************************** 9 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Snubs Annan Over Nuclear Program From the Associated Press [UP] Sunday September 3, 2006 9:46 PM AP Photo XHS107 By NASSER KARIMI Associated Press Writer TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - The U.N. chief got little satisfaction Sunday at the close of his trip to Tehran, snubbed by Iran's leader over international demands to stop enriching uranium and ignored in warnings not to incite hatred by questioning the Holocaust. In a provocative move on the final day of Kofi Annan's two-day visit, Iran announced it would host a conference to examine what it called exaggerations about the Holocaust, during which more than 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazis. The move was sure to draw new international condemnation of Iran's stance on Jews. Hours after the announcement, Annan repeated his displeasure over an exhibition in Tehran of cartoons mocking the Holocaust that was opened as a response to Western caricatures of Prophet Muhammad. ``I think the tragedy of the Holocaust is an undeniable historical fact and we should really accept that fact and teach people what happened in World War II and ensure it is never repeated,'' Annan told reporters. He commented after a meeting with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but the hard-line Iranian leader didn't accompany the U.N. chief to the news conference. Ahmadinejad has drawn strong condemnations around the globe for calling the Nazis' slaughter of Jews a myth and saying Israel should be wiped off the map or moved to Germany or the United States. The Holocaust exhibit is being held to underline outrage over Prophet Muhammad caricatures in Western media. Islam forbids picturing Muhammad at all, but Muslims also were angered by the cartoons' negative tone, such as one showing the prophet wearing a turban shaped as a bomb with a burning fuse. Annan first raised his concerns about the exhibit during a meeting Saturday with Iranian Foreign Minister Manoucher Mottaki, according to the U.N. chief's spokesman, Ahmad Fawzi. He quoted Annan as saying that ``we should avoid anything that incites hatred.'' Annan's visit came after Iran ignored the U.N. Security Council's Thursday deadline for Tehran to halt uranium enrichment, opening the door to possible sanctions over concerns that the Iranians are trying to develop atomic weapons. ``On the nuclear issue, the president reaffirmed to me Iran's preparedness and determination to negotiate'' a solution to the nuclear confrontation, Annan said at the news conference. However, Ahmadinejad ``reiterated that he did not accept suspension before negotiations,'' the U.N. chief said, conveying Iran's rejection of a condition set by the five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany. In June, the six nations offered Iran a package of economic and diplomatic incentives to limit its nuclear program. Iran didn't respond until Aug. 22, rejecting the condition that it stop enriching uranium before talks. The content of its response has not been made public. Tehran hid its nuclear program for 18 years and its continued lack of full cooperation with U.N. inspectors has increased suspicions about Iranian aims. The oil-rich nation insists the program is peaceful, intended only to produce fuel for nuclear reactors that generate electricity. Iran's slowness in responding to the incentives package prompted the Security Council to issue a resolution July 31 ordering it to halt uranium enrichment by the end of August. On Sunday, Mottaki said the council issued the resolution ``under pressure from the United States and Britain'' and described it as a ``mistake'' and a ``black mark against them.'' State television quoted Ahmadinejad as saying he was ready to negotiate, but the onus was on Western countries to repair relations with Tehran. ``Iran's trust has been undermined during the past three years,'' he said. ``They (the West) should try to win our trust to solve the issue.'' Although Iran's defiance of the U.N. deadline opens the way for the Security Council to consider sanctions, it is unlikely punitive measures will come soon. Both Russia and China, which are among the council's veto-holding permanent members, oppose strong sanctions. The European Union is taking another shot at diplomacy this week, with EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana planning to meet with Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani. But the bloc said Saturday that it would not give much time for the effort to produce results. Annan got a more favorable response from Iranian leaders on Lebanon, where Tehran is a backer of the Hezbollah guerrilla group and is believed by many to be its top arms supplier. Ahmadinejad ``reaffirmed his country's support for the implementation of resolution 1701,'' Annan said of the U.N. resolution that ended the 34-day war between Israel and Hezbollah and calls for preventing the rearming of the Shiite militants in Hezbollah. But Annan did not disclose the specifics of his talks on Lebanon. Mottaki, after meeting with Annan on Saturday, made a vague promise to support the resolution, but did not directly mention Hezbollah. Annan said Friday that Syria, another key Hezbollah ally, promised to patrol its side of the frontier to prevent arms deliveries, though Israel was skeptical that would happen. Still, the Syria stopover has been Annan's most upbeat on his tour of the Middle East to promote peace. He had little success in Beirut, where Prime Minister Fuad Saniora said Lebanon would be the last Arab country to make peace with Israel. In Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert rebuffed Annan's call for quickly lifting its air and sea blockade of Lebanon. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 10 Guardian Unlimited: Report: U.N.'s Annan Arrives in Tehran From the Associated Press [UP] Saturday September 2, 2006 10:46 AM TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan arrived in Tehran Saturday for talks with Iranian leaders on the country's disputed nuclear program, the official IRNA news agency reported. The visit comes two days after Iran failed to meet a U.N. deadline for suspending its enrichment of uranium, paving the way to possible sanctions against the Islamic republic. In a report Thursday, the U.N. nuclear watchdog said Tehran has not halted uranium enrichment, It also said three years of probing had been unable to confirm ``the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program'' because of lack of cooperation from Tehran. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 11 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Remains Defiant Over Nuke Program From the Associated Press [UP] Saturday September 2, 2006 12:46 PM AP Photo VAH101 By NASSER KARIMI Associated Press Writer TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran's hardline president maintained a defiant tone Saturday ahead of talks with U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan on the country's suspect nuclear program. Annan flew into Tehran two days after Iran failed to meet a U.N. deadline for suspending its enrichment of uranium. Iran now faces the possibility of economic sanctions under a U.N. Security Council resolution approved July 31. Annan was also expected to press Tehran to assist in implementation of the U.N.-sponsored cease-fire in Lebanon, whose Hezbollah guerrillas are believed to receive major financing and weapons from Iran. Syria, the other main ally of Hezbollah, promised Annan on Friday to increase border patrols and work with Lebanese troops to stop the arms flow to Hezbollah. Hours ahead of Annan's arrival, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reiterated Iran's determination to forge ahead with its nuclear program. ``Hyperbole against Iran's peaceful nuclear activities by Western countries especially the U.S. will continue,'' state-run television quoted Ahmadinejad as saying. ``But the resistance and awareness of this nation will defuse all these plots.'' ``Today those countries, which have filled up their arsenals with nuclear weapons, threaten nations and make claims about human rights and democracy. They are the biggest liars of the world.'' ``Avaricious powers can't create any obstacles on the way to the progress of our nation,'' he told a crowd in the town of Miandoab in northwestern Iran. The comments echoed his remarks on Friday, when he proclaimed that Iran would never to give up its nuclear program and accused the West of misrepresenting Tehran's nuclear activities. In a renewed European diplomatic effort, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana will hold talks in the coming days with the top Iranian nuclear negotiator, likely in Europe. John Bolton, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said the U.N Security Council would wait to consider possible actions until after Solana has met with Larijani. The Security Council had dangled the threat of sanctions if Iran defied its will. But with permanent veto-wielding council members Russia and China opposed to quick and harsh penalties because of their strong trade ties with Iran, the likelihood of immediate punitive measures appeared in doubt. Iran says it wants to develop a full-scale enrichment program to generate electricity, but there is growing suspicion the oil-rich country wants to misuse enrichment to create fissile material for nuclear warheads. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 12 Guardian Unlimited: Annan: Iran Wants Talks on Nuke Program From the Associated Press [UP] Sunday September 3, 2006 12:46 PM AP Photo VAH104 By NASSER KARIMI Associated Press Writer TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wants negotiations on Iran's nuclear program but won't halt uranium enrichment ahead of talks, U.N. chief Kofi Annan said Sunday after meeting the Iranian leader. Annan's two-day visit to Tehran comes after Iran ignored a United Nations deadline to halt uranium enrichment by the end of August, opening the door to possible sanctions. ``On the nuclear issue, the president reaffirmed to me Iran's preparedness and commitment to hold negotiations'' with Western powers to find a solution to the impasse over Tehran's nuclear activities, Annan told a joint press conference with Iranian Foreign Minister Manoucher Mottaki. However, Ahmadinejad ``reiterated that he did not accept suspension before negotiations,'' the U.N. chief said, conveying Iran's rejection of a condition set by the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany. Ahmadinejad did not attend the press conference or give any statements. On Saturday - the first day of Annan's visit - he reiterated that Tehran would continue its nuclear activities. Iran appeared more responsive to U.N. concerns regarding Lebanon, where Tehran is a backer of the Hezbollah guerrilla group. Ahmadinejad ``reaffirmed his country's support for the implementation of resolution 1701,'' Annan said, referring to the resolution that imposed a cease-fire in fighting between Israel and Hezbollah and included measures to prevent the rearming of Islamic militia. The U.N. chief did not disclose specifics of his talks on the topic with the Iranian president. After meeting with Annan on Saturday, Mottaki made a vague promise to support the resolution, but did not directly mention Hezbollah. Annan also reiterated his displeasure over an exhibit in Tehran of cartoons on the Holocaust. The exhibit is a response to the outrage among Muslims caused by the publication earlier this year of the Danish cartoons of Islam's Prophet Muhammad. Earlier Sunday, Iran's Foreign Ministry said the country planned to hold a conference this fall questioning evidence of the Holocaust. Ahmadinejad has dismissed the Holocaust as a myth, provoking an international outcry. Annan's meeting with the Iranian president came on the final day of his two-day visit to Iranian capital on a tour that has included stops in Lebanon, Israel and Syria. He is slated to make stops in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 13 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Offers to Back Lebanon Cease-Fire From the Associated Press [UP] Saturday September 2, 2006 8:46 PM AP Photo VAH107 By NASSER KARIMI Associated Press Writer TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran offered to help support the cease-fire in Lebanon in talks Saturday with U.N Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and insisted that diplomacy is the only way to resolve Tehran's nuclear dispute with the West. The talks came two days after Iran defied a U.N. deadline to halt uranium enrichment, opening the door to consideration of sanctions to reinforce Western demands that the Islamic republic rein in its nuclear program and allay suspicions it is working on atomic weapons. Before the Security Council discusses the issue, the European Union is taking another stab at diplomacy this week, and Annan said before arriving that he hoped sanctions could be avoided so as to keep from adding to tensions in ``a region already subjected to a great stress.'' The tone from Annan's first meetings in Tehran was positive. Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, described his talks with the U.N. chief as ``constructive'' and said ``both sides agreed that problems should be solved through negotiations.'' Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said the Tehran regime supported the U.N.-mandated truce that ended the fighting in Lebanon, although he didn't directly address the resolution's call for halting shipments of weapons to Hezbollah, which is allied with Iran. There was no immediate comment from Annan or other U.N. officials on the talks. Despite the upbeat tenor of the Iranian statements, the U.N. chief faced an uphill battle on both issues. Shortly before Annan arrived, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad repeated his insistence that the country won't give up its nuclear program, state-run television reported. Iran says the program has only a peaceful purpose - to use nuclear reactors to generate electricity. ``Hyperbole against Iran's peaceful nuclear activities by Western countries especially the U.S. will continue ... But the resistance and awareness of this nation will defuse all these plots,'' Ahmadinejad told a crowd in Miandoab in northwestern Iran. Annan was scheduled to talk with Ahmadinejad on Sunday, and European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana planned to meet with Larijani in the coming days. After an EU foreign ministers meeting in Finland, the bloc said Saturday that there was no deadline for the talks to produce results but warned it would not give Iran much time. ``We need some sessions - one or two, not more - to clarify some of the issues,'' Solana said at a news conference. A commentary by state radio said Iran hoped Annan could persuade the U.N. Security Council to adopt ``new approaches toward Iran's nuclear case.'' In a reminder of Iran's hard-line stance, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency, warned that Tehran could block access by the U.N. watchdog's inspectors if sanctions were imposed. ``Iran will revise in its cooperation with the IAEA if punitive measures by the U.N. Security Council are applied against Iran,'' he said in a phone interview with state-run television. In an interview with the French newspaper Le Monde, Annan said sanctions aren't the solution to all problems in responding to a question about U.S. calls for Iran to be punished for ignoring the Security Council's Thursday deadline for suspending uranium enrichment. ``There are moments when a bit of patience produces lots of effects. I think that is a quality we must exercise more often,'' Annan said in the interview published Saturday. There are doubts the council would impose tough sanctions. Both Russia and China, which as veto-wielding permanent members of the council, have opposed to sanctions because of their strong trade ties with Iran. Turning to Lebanon, Annan told Le Monde he wants Iran to use its influence in helping the international community disarm Hezbollah. But Iran and Hezbollah deny Tehran supplies weapons to the Shiite Muslim guerrillas. But many in the West, Israel and the Arab world believe Iran provided the rockets fired by the guerrillas into northern Israel during the 34-day war. Annan was in Syria, Hezbollah's other top ally, on Friday. He said he secured a promise from Syrian President Bashar Assad to increase patrols along its border with Lebanon and work with Lebanese troops to thwart the flow of arms to Hezbollah. But the promise was met with immediate skepticism from Israel and some in Lebanon. The U.N. resolution that halted the Lebanon war calls on all countries not to supply weapons to any parties in Lebanon other than the Lebanese government. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 14 Guardian Unlimited: Iran open to nuclear talks, says Annan Robert Tait in Tehran Monday September 4, 2006 [Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Kofi Annan] Mahmoud Ahmadinejad shakes hands with Kofi Annan in Tehran. Photograph: Abedin Taherkenareh/EPA Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general, eased the pressure on Iran over its nuclear programme yesterday when he stopped short of condemning it for ignoring an international deadline to suspend uranium enrichment and appeared to accept a key part of its negotiating stance. Speaking in Tehran at the end of a two-day visit, Mr Annan's comments contrasted with those of President George Bush, who demanded "consequences" after Iran missed last week's UN security council ultimatum. Mr Annan said that he understood the issue better after meeting senior Iranian officials, including President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Ali Larijani, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, and the foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki. His comments followed an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report which confirmed that Iran had defied a UN resolution to freeze uranium enrichment, a process that can be used to make atomic bombs. The agency also said it had been unable to confirm Iran's claim that its nuclear programme was peaceful because of a lack of cooperation. The west believes the programme is designed to produce nuclear weapons. But rather than rebuke Tehran, Mr Annan pointed to an assurance from Mr Ahmadinejad that Iran wanted compromise. "The president reaffirmed to me Iran's preparedness and determination to negotiate and find a solution to the crisis," Mr Annan told a press conference. He said Mr Ahmadinejad had told him that Iran "does not accept suspension [of uranium enrichment] before negotiations". But he added: "Iran has said it is open for negotiations. All issues can be discussed at the negotiations." That comment appeared to mirror Iran's position that the demand for suspension should be included in general negotiations and not set as a precondition. Mr Annan's remarks came in the face of a US-led clamour for sanctions. They appeared destined to further slow the momentum after EU foreign ministers gave Tehran another two weeks to clarify its position and called for negotiations. The security council is expected to meet soon to discuss a new resolution that could include punitive measures. But hard-hitting sanctions are unlikely because of the opposition of Russia and China, which have strong economic ties to Tehran. Mr Annan also said he had secured Iran's support for the UN-brokered ceasefire in Lebanon. He said Iran had promised to work with the UN to help rebuild Lebanon's shattered infrastructure. But no mention was made of Tehran's relationship with Hizbullah, which it is generally accepted used weapons supplied by Iran. In a pointed reproach, Mr Annan condemned a cartoon exhibition in Tehran satirising the Holocaust, which Mr Ahmadinejad last year described as a "myth". "I think the tragedy of the Holocaust is a sad and an undeniable historical fact so we should really handle that, accept that fact and teach children what happened in world war two and ensure that it is never repeated," he said. The exhibition was organised by Iran's biggest-selling newspaper, Hamshari, in retaliation for the publication of Danish cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed in European newspapers earlier this year. [UP] Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 15 BBC: Tehran assures Annan on Lebanon Last Updated: Saturday, 2 September 2006 [Kofi Annan in Tehran] Mr Annan is holding an intensive round of talks UN chief Kofi Annan has received assurances from Tehran that it will co-operate fully with the UN resolution on Lebanon, his spokesman says. Mr Annan is in Iran for talks on strengthening the UN-sponsored truce which halted 34 days of conflict. He also met the top nuclear official for "good" and "constructive" talks. The visit comes two days after the UN nuclear watchdog reported that Iran had failed to meet the Security Council's deadline to halt uranium enrichment. On arrival in Tehran, Mr Annan said he expected to discuss "issues of concern to this region and to the international community". It is the latest stop on Mr Annan's tour of a crisis-ridden Middle East. Stabilise Mr Annan began his time in Iran by meeting Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki and nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani. [Lorries loaded with rubble from bombed suburbs of south Beirut] Iran may accept that Lebanon now needs a period of calm to rebuild He was expected to seek Iranian backing for UN resolution 1701, which ended the war in Lebanon. A spokesman for Mr Annan said that when he and Mr Larijani had discussed the resolution, Mr Larijani had said: "You can count on our full support, sir." As he met Iranian leaders, the first major new contingent of foreign troops to expand the UN force tasked with policing the ceasefire arrived in southern Lebanon. Nearly 900 Italian soldiers have begun landing from boats in the southern port city of Tyre. They will be part of a UN force which will eventually total up to 15,000 troops. Hezbollah's arms Resolution 1701 calls for other countries to withhold supplies of arms to any group other than the Lebanese government. Along with Syria, Iran is a key supporter of Hezbollah. It says its support for Hezbollah is primarily political, although analysts say it remains a major supplier of weaponry. The BBC's diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus says although Iran is unlikely to give up its strong support for Hezbollah, it may well meet Mr Annan half-way. This could amount to tacitly accepting a period of calm during which Hezbollah can regroup and southern Lebanon's infrastructure can be rebuilt, our correspondent says. Nuclear deadlock Iran's nuclear programme also featured in talks between Mr Annan and Iranian leaders. [The UN Security Council meets to hear a report on Iran's nuclear programme, 22 August 2006] The Security Council is divided over how to respond to Iran Both Iran and the UN said talks between Mr Annan and Mr Larijani were very positive, but neither side gave details. The UN said it was an interesting and useful meeting, but they wanted to wait for talks on Sunday with Iran's Supreme leader Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad before making a final assessment of Iran's mood. Iran strongly asserts its right to uranium enrichment, insisting it is solely for civilian power generation. Hours before Mr Annan's visit, the Iranian president repeated his warning that Iran would not abandon its nuclear programme. "They (the West) should know that this nation will not give up its absolute right to benefit from nuclear energy even one iota," Mr Ahmadinejad told an applauding crowd in the city of Miandoab. Western powers suspect Iran may have ambitions to create a nuclear bomb. Six world powers are set to meet next week to decide on the way forward, after Iran missed the UN's 31 August deadline to halt enrichment. The EU has indicated it is willing to give Iran extra time, during talks between the EU's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana and EU foreign ministers. Correspondents say it is not clear what sanctions the UN could agree to impose on Iran as the key powers are deeply divided over whether punitive measures should be taken. ***************************************************************** 16 BBC: No UN advance on Iran nuclear row Last Updated: Sunday, 3 September 2006 [President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Kofi Annan] Lebanon and the nuclear issue were the key matters discussed UN chief Kofi Annan has ended a trip to Iran with little apparent progress over its controversial nuclear programme. Mr Annan said Iran was prepared to discuss its uranium enrichment programme, but would not suspend the work before negotiations. He also said that Iran had reaffirmed its commitment to support the UN resolution on Lebanon, following talks with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He did not meet Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, which the UN had expected. The secretary general also touched on the issue of the Holocaust, saying it was a fact that should be accepted. Iran's president earlier called the Holocaust a "myth". Sanctions Mr Annan arrived in Tehran on Saturday for talks with Mr Ahmadinejad, Ayatollah Khamenei and other key leaders. I think the tragedy of t Holocaust is a sad and undeniable historical fact and so we should really handle that Kofi Annan On the nuclear issue, Mr Annan said the president "reaffirmed to me Iran's preparedness and commitment to hold negotiations" on the issue and wanted a negotiated settlement. EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana is to meet Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani next week for key talks. But Mr Annan said Mr Ahmadinejad had stressed there would be no suspension of uranium enrichment - as demanded in a UN resolution - before negotiations. Iran insists its nuclear programme is solely for civilian nuclear power generation, while Western powers fear a weapons programme. Iran failed to heed the 31 August UN deadline to stop enrichment and on Friday the US said it was consulting European governments about the imposition of punitive sanctions against Iran. Regional player On Lebanon, Mr Annan said the president had assured him Iran would back UN resolution 1701, the basis of the ceasefire which ended the recent 34-day conflict between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. [Reconstruction in Beirut] Mr Annan said Iran pledged to help Lebanon's reconstruction Iran is a key backer of Hezbollah, and is widely suspected to have supplied arms used against Israel. Mr Annan told reporters the president had agreed to "do everything to strengthen the territorial integrity of Lebanon, the independence of Lebanon and work together for the reconstruction of Lebanon". Mr Annan said Iran was an important regional player and the president had assured him it would play that role. The issue of the Holocaust also surfaced during Mr Annan's visit. Iran said it would go ahead with sponsoring a conference on the scientific evidence of the Holocaust, calling it exaggerated. Mr Annan linked the issue to that of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, which incensed the Muslim world. He said the cartoons had shown freedom of expression had to be "exercised with responsibility, with sensitivity and judgement". There is currently an exhibition in Tehran of cartoons on the Holocaust. Mr Annan added: "I think the tragedy of the Holocaust is a sad and undeniable historical fact and so we should really handle that. "We have to be careful, words can soothe and words can harm, and we should be careful not to say anything that is used as an excuse for incitement to hatred or violence". ***************************************************************** 17 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: Solana says no deadline put on Iran 2006/09/03 EU high representative for a common foreign and security policy, Javier Solana, said Saturday that he will meet Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, at the beginning of next week to begin talks on Iran's nuclear program. "The date and venue where the meeting will take place is being worked out probably right now. I can tell you it will be at the beginning of next week." Solana told a press conference following a two-day informal meeting of EU foreign ministers in the Finnish town of Lappeenranta Saturday afternoon. "I cannot tell you exactly the date, place and hour," he added. Asked if the EU has set a deadline for talks with Iran, he said "No. ... No such thing has been discussed today." Solana noted that on September 15, EU Foreign Ministers are to hold their regular meeting in Brussels where they will discuss ties with Iran. On his part, Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja said Solana gave an update on the Iranian situation. He said the EU ministers reiterated their full support to Solana for the work he is doing and that he has the authority to speak for all of the EU member states on this issue. Finland holds the current EU Presidency. mk Copyright 2004, All Rights Reserved By Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting News Network Sponsored By IRIB News Computer Center. E-Mail: Info@IRIBNEWS.ir ***************************************************************** 18 IRNA: Majlis commission to discuss suspension of IAEA inspections - Tehran, Sept 3, IRNA Iran-Majlis-Nuclear Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Commission on Sunday is to discuss a bill on suspension of inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to Iran's nuclear facilities. A package of incentives was presented to Iran on June 6 by five permanent members of the UN Security Council -- China, Russia, Britain, France and the United States -- plus Germany (Group 5+1). Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Ali Larijani presented Tehran's response to ambassadors of the Group 5+1 as well as Swiss envoy who is acting as caretaker of US interests in Iran on August 22. Meanwhile, Supreme Leader's Advisor for International Affairs Ali-Akbar Velayati will present a report to the Majlis Sunday on Iran's future foreign relations with respect to the 20-Year Development Vision Plan. The Foreign Relations Committee of the commission will also discuss economic issues with respect to Iran's nuclear case on Tuesday. ***************************************************************** 19 AFP: Iran tells Annan no uranium enrichment suspension before talks - Sunday September 3, 12:18 TEHRAN (AFP) - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has told UN chief Kofi Annan he was prepared to negotiate on Iran's nuclear programme but would not accept a suspension of uranium enrichment before talks. "The president assured me ... Iran is prepared to negotiate and find a way out of this crisis," Annan said after talks with Ahmadinejad in Tehran. But he added Ahmadinejad had also said that "Iran does not accept a suspension (of uranium enrichment) before negotiations". Annan expressed hope that the Islamic republic and international community would find a way to move forward at talks between EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and Iran's top national security official Ali Larijani this week. Copyright © 2006 Yahoo! UK Limited. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 20 AFP: US denies report ex-Spain prime minister mediating for it with Iran - Fri Sep 1, 1:34 PM ET WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States poured cold water on reports that former Spanish leader Felipe Gonzalez was acting as a mediator in the nuclear standoff between Washington and Tehran when he met with Iranian leaders this week. "I am not aware of any mediation efforts," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said when asked about the meeting this week between Gonzalez and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. McCormack reaffirmed that Washington would not negotiate with Iran" /> Iranunless Tehran complies with a UN Security Council resolution demanding that it halt uranium enrichment and reprocessing activities the US believes are aimed at producing nuclear weapons. "The Iranians know what they have to do and we're waiting for them to do it," he said. Gonzalez, who led a Socialist government in Spain from 1982 to 1996, met with Ahmadinejad this week as part of broader European efforts to convince Iran to freeze its enrichment program. The center-left newspaper El Pais, which is close to Spain's Socialists, reported Friday that "Gonzalez undertook mediation between Tehran and Washington" at Iran's request. El Pais said Gonzalez was "working to bring closer the positions of Tehran and Washington" and pointed out that Gonzalez discussed the issue with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice" /> Condoleezza Ricelast May. Iran ignored a Thursday UN deadline to halt its uranium enrichment, opening the door for possible economic sanctions. Iran says its nuclear program is purely for the civilian production of energy. The European Union" /> European Unionexpressed determination Friday to keep dialogue open with Iran amid rising calls for sanctions after the Islamic republic refused to suspend its nuclear activities. With talks due early next week with top Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana warned against any firm action on sanctions which could compromise the discussions. "Since we are going to have a period of talks, during this period of talks it would not be reasonable to move on" with sanctions, he said on the sidelines of a meeting of European Union foreign ministers in Finland. Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 21 AFP: Annan in Iran for talks on Lebanon, nuclear - by Farhad Pouladi Sat Sep 2, 8:09 AM ET TEHRAN (AFP) - UN Secretary General Kofi Annan" /> Kofi Annanwas holding talks in Tehran on Iran" /> Iran's controversial nuclear programme and a request for help in shoring up a nearly three-week-old truce in Lebanon. His visit comes as the United States leads a drive for UN sanctions against Tehran after it refused to heed a Security Council deadline on Thursday to halt sensitive nuclear operations. The truce in Lebanon was also to feature prominently as the United Nations" /> United Nationsseeks to expand its force in the south of the country to keep the peace between Israel" /> Israeland the Shiite militant group Hezbollah, which Tehran backs. Annan was holding talks with Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki on Saturday afternoon and was expected also to meet President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and chief nuclear negotiatior Ali Larijani during his stay, officials said. "I am here to discuss implementation of (UN Security Council) Resolution 1701 which deals with the situation in Lebanon," Annan told reporters after arriving. "I will also discuss issues in relation to this region, to the international community. I'm looking forward to my talks with Iranian leaders," he said. Annan's 10-day tour of the Middle East is principally aimed at implementing the UN resolution which halted a 34-day conflict that killed more than 1,200 people in Lebanon, overwhelmingly civilians, and 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers. On Friday, he won a pledge from Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, an Iranian ally, that Syria" /> Syriawould respect an arms embargo against Hezbollah called for by the UN truce resolution that went into force on August 14. Israel accuses Iran of providing military and financial backing to Hezbollah through Syria but Tehran insists that its support for the group is only moral. Annan's spokesman had said ahead of the trip that the United Nations was hoping that Iran would use its "influence" over Hezbollah positively in order to ensure that peace was preserved in the Middle East. Meanwhile Annan expressed caution over the US drive to impose sanctions on Tehran, warning patience would prove more effective than sanctions in persuading Iran to suspend sensitive uranium enrichment work. "I do not believe sanctions are the solution to everything. There are times when a little patience is more effective. I think that is a quality we should exercise more often," Annan told the French newspaper Le Monde. European countries have emphasised that the door remains open to negotiations with Iran, with Larijani set to meet EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana for talks on an incentives package next week. The so-called 5+1 -- Security Council permanent members Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States, plus Germany -- have offered Iran a package of incentives in return for a nuclear freeze. Solana said during talks in Finland with EU foreign ministers that the European Union" /> European Unionwas giving Iran a "short" time but no set deadline to move into talks on suspending uranium enrichment activities. However Ahmadinejad indicated that Iran does not intend to budge over demands that it freeze uranium enrichment operations, saying Iran would defend the aims of its nuclear programme "with firmness". "The people will not give in by one iota in their desire to use nuclear energy for peaceful ends and officials have the duty to defend these objectives with firmness during negotiations," he said in a speech quoted by state radio. The United States accuses Iran of seeking nuclear weapons, a charge fiercely denied by Tehran, which insists that its nuclear programme is solely aimed at providing civilian energy. Annan, who has already visited Lebanon, Jordan, Israel and Syria, arrived in Iran from Qatar. He is also due to visit Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt, where he is due to arrive on Thursday. Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 22 AFP: Iran defiant on nuclear issue as EU offers more time - by Stuart Williams Sat Sep 2, 2:27 PM ET TEHRAN (AFP) - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed Iran" /> would defend the aims of its nuclear program during any negotiations, as the European Union" /> gave Tehran extra time to show it was serious about talks. And as UN Secretary General Kofi Annan" /> began two days of talks in Iran, a top Iranian nuclear official warned that the country might reconsider its cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog. "The people will not give in by one iota in their desire to use nuclear energy for peaceful ends and officials have the duty to defend these objectives with firmness during negotiations," Ahmadinejad said. "The Iranian people will defend their absolute right to use civilian nuclear energy in its entirety and will not step back," he said in a speech in West Azarbaijan province. Iran has defied Western demands to suspend uranium enrichment, a process that can be used to make nuclear fuel and, in highly extended form, the explosive core of an atomic bomb. Its rejection of a Thursday deadline to halt enrichment have left it facing a push by the United States for the UN Security Council to impose sanctions on Tehran. But EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said during talks in Finland with EU foreign ministers that the European Union was giving Iran a "short" time but no set deadline to make progress in talks on suspending uranium enrichment. "We are going to start in the coming days and I hope it will be very short," Solana told reporters in Lappeenranta, Finland, while declining to set a deadline. In an interview to appear on Sunday in the French newspaper Journal de Dimanche, Solana said: "For the moment we must make an effort at understanding one another's positions." Solana and Iran's top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani are to meet in Berlin Wednesday for talks on an incentive offer from the five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany aimed at making Iran suspend enrichment. "We don't want to slam the door but we need a signal from Iran that it is ready to move in our direction," German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said. Meanwhile, Annan expressed caution over the US drive to impose sanctions on Tehran, warning that patience would prove more effective than sanctions in persuading Iran to suspend sensitive uranium enrichment work. "I do not believe sanctions are the solution to everything. There are times when a little patience is more effective. I think that is a quality we should exercise more often," Annan told the French newspaper Le Monde. Iran could prove its peaceful aims "by giving the UN inspectors access to all its facilities", he said. "Such a move could allow us to move forward." Annan held talks with Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki and Larijani on Saturday, after which Larijani said: "Kofi Annan's position for solving the Iran nuclear issue is positive and we support this position." The UN chief was to meet Ahmadinejad early Sunday, with Lebanon also on the agenda, officials said. Mottaki said Saturday that "Iran has supported the Lebanese consensus on the resolution (UN resolution 1701 that ended the fighting) and the United Nations" /> can consolidate the creation of peace on the border" of Lebanon and Israel" /> . But he warned against any attempt to change the mission and called for a probe into "Zionist crimes" allegedly committed by Israel during its 34-day offensive in Lebanon. Annan told Le Monde that Iran would also be asked to help secure the release of the two Israeli soldiers whose capture by Hezbollah, a Shiite group backed by Tehran and Damascus, sparked the devastating month-long war with Israel. On the nuclear front, Iran's ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency" /> (IAEA) warned that Tehran would "revise" its policy of cooperating with the UN watchdog if UN sanctions are imposed. "If other erroneous measures are committed and the UN Security Council decides on sanctions or punitive measures, there is no doubt that the Islamic Republic of Iran will revise its policy of cooperation and its engagements laid out in the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty," Ali Asghar Soltanieh told state television. "We will continue our policy of cooperation only if there are no measures against Iran and our rights are not violated," he added. He did not specify what cooperation would be affected but such measures could include limiting IAEA inspections of Iranian nuclear sites. In an interview published Saturday in Arab daily Asharq Al-Awsat, Soltanieh said Tehran would refuse to suspend enrichment during fresh negotiations with the international community. Tehran had agreed to suspend enrichment as part of a 2003 and 2004 deal with Britain, France and Germany. "Iran will not repeat the experience of when it agreed to suspend enrichment for negotiations which dragged on for three years without results," he said. The United States accuses Iran of seeking nuclear weapons, a charge fiercely denied by Tehran, which insists its nuclear program is solely aimed at providing civilian energy. Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 23 AFP: Ahmadinejad vows Iran will defend nuclear aims by Farhad Pouladi Sat Sep 2, 4:16 AM ET TEHRAN (AFP) - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has vowed that Iran" /> Iranwould defend the aims of its nuclear programme "with firmness" during any negotiations on the issue. "The people will not give in by one iota in their desire to use nuclear energy for peaceful ends and officials have the duty to defend these objectives with firmness during negotations," he said in a speech in the northwestern town of Maku. "The enemies should know Iranians are standing firm on obtaining their rights and will not give up one iota of their nuclear rights," Ahmadinejad told the crowd, state media reported. On Thursday, the UN nuclear watchdog concluded in a confidential report that Tehran had not suspended its enrichment-related activities, as demanded by the Security Council. The deputy chief of Iran's nuclear agency insisted the report was "not negative" and vowed to continue uranium enrichment for research purposes while keeping open negotiations with the international community. "The report is very factual and adds that the Iranian nuclear programme is under the supervision of the IAEA and that there has been no deviation" towards any military purpose, he said. Iran insists it is exercising a right to develop civilian atomic energy. On Friday, Russia expressed "regret that Iran did not fulfill the demands of (UN) Resolution 1696 ... and did not stop work on uranium enrichment," foreign ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin said. Russia and China have consistently resisted calls for sanctions against Iran, preferring a diplomatic solution to the crisis. In a speech to university students, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said: "We will consider a whole range of options ... but only those options that take us forward." The IAEA report was submitted to the Security Council as an August 31 deadline for Iran to suspend uranium enrichment expired, and could lead to UN sanctions against Tehran. Uranium enrichment provides fuel for civilian nuclear reactors but in highly refined form can also serve as the raw material for atom bombs. In New York, US ambassador to the United Nations" /> United NationsJohn Bolton said the report "provides ample evidence of (Iranian) defiance." European foreign ministers meeting Friday in Finland were faced with a diplomatic tight-rope act -- considering sanctions with Washington without compromising dialogue with Tehran. "European Union diplomacy remains the number one way forward," Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja said. "If their (Iran's) response is truly what they say, that they are ready to engage in negotiations, then we have to see what the conditions are, if these can be met," he said. British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett voiced regret and urged Iran's leadership to restart talks with the West. "I regret that Iran has not taken the steps required by the (UN) Security Council. I urge Iran once again to do so, which would allow negotiations to resume," she said. France said the world could not accept Iran's nuclear activities, while Italy identified the country as one of the chief international challenges. "We cannot accept that Iran should be able to resume its activities in the nuclear field," French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said, describing Iran's response as "unsatisfactory." "The door must always remain open to dialogue, but the international community cannot accept that undertakings given are not respected." Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi emphasised his country's agreement with France and said "Iran is one of the great challenges to resolve." As the Security Council deadline passed, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana also sought to maintain diplomatic efforts, agreeing to meet with Iran's top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani in Berlin on Wednesday. They were to discuss Iran's 21-page response to an international package of political and economic incentives in exchange for Tehran suspending enrichment. Solana warned Friday against any firm action on sanctions that could compromise the discussions. "Since we are going to have a period of talks, during this period of talks it would not be reasonable to move on" with sanctions, he said in Finland. But he said the fact that Europe is willing to talk does not mean Tehran has an unlimited amount to continue its nuclear activities and that he hoped to know soon whether the negotiations would be fruitful. "That doesn't mean that Iran has an infinite time," he warned. According to a Western diplomat in Vienna, the talks with Solana would be followed by a meeting in the German capital of Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States. Once the UN deadline expired, Washington said it was now time to act. In a speech to a US veterans' group, President George W. Bush" /> President George W. Bushsaid: "It is time for Iran to make a choice. "We will continue to work closely with our allies to plan a diplomatic solution, but there must be consequences for Iran's defiance and we must not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon." Iran's ambassador to France told France-Info radio that Tehran would repel any US military attack. "If they go that way, we will be forced to defend ourselves. We are capable of defending ourselves and confronting any sort of threat," he said. US Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, who will represent Washington in Berlin, said he expected the Security Council to adopt a sanctions plan within a month, although either China and Russia could veto such proposals. Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said the IAEA report "clearly shows that Iran has acted within the framework of the international safeguards and Non-Proliferation Treaty and is ready to answer the remaining issues through talks with the IAEA." Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 24 AFP: EU gives Iran two more weeks in atomic standoff By Ingrid Melander Sat Sep 2, 2:18 PM ET LAPPEENRANTA, Finland (Reuters) - The European Union" /> European Unionagreed on Saturday to try to clarify Iran" /> Iran's nuclear stance within two weeks and Iran told visiting U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan" /> Kofi Annanit wanted fresh negotiations on the issue. Annan's visit to Iran takes place two days after the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency" /> International Atomic Energy Agency(IAEA), reported Tehran had failed to meet the U.N. Security Council" /> U.N. Security Council's August 31 deadline to suspend sensitive uranium enrichment work. The United States, which accuses Iran of seeking atomic bombs, said on Friday it was consulting European governments about possible sanctions against the Islamic Republic, but the EU signaled it wanted to see more dialogue with Tehran which says its atomic activity is aimed at producing power. EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana will meet Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, next week to try to clear up ambiguities in Tehran's reply to the major powers' offer of broad cooperation if it stops the nuclear work. "If the meeting goes well and Iran accepts the philosophy of the cooperation project we presented to it in June, I think we will be able to start a more formal negotiation," French Sunday newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche quoted Solana as saying. Slovenian Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel said after the 25 EU ministers discussed the Iranian issue in Finland on Saturday: "We give Solana two weeks for his clarification talks." But Solana told reporters: "There's no deadline, whenever we finish ... We are going to start in the coming days and I hope that it will be very short. We don't need many meetings." Other EU ministers said Solana would report back to them in Brussels on September 15 and they had agreed not to take any action against Iran before then. Annan met Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki and Larijani, who is also the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, on Saturday. Annan described his talks with Larijani as "constructive." Larijani said: "Both sides agreed that it would be better to move by negotiations and we hope that Kofi Annan's very high capabilities could be used in that way," the semi-official ISNA students news agency quoted him as saying. EU WANTS SOLUTION THROUGH DIALOGUE The United States is the driving force behind possible sanctions but Russia has cast doubt on whether the U.N. Security Council could reach a quick consensus and said threatening Iran would lead to a "dead end." In Finland, ministers declined to speak publicly about what sanctions they might apply if Tehran did not comply. But Czech Foreign Minister Cyril Svoboda said a coalition might have to impose sanctions unilaterally if the United Nations" /> United Nationswas unable to agree on punitive measures. "It will be very, very difficult, but ... please, we need to stick together with the United States," he told reporters. In reaction to the prospect of sanctions, Iran's deputy foreign minister for economic affairs, Alireza Sheikh-Attar said: "Putting Iran under sanctions will damage the big countries which consume oil. We have a plan for different scenarios to combat any possible sanctions." World leaders and foreign ministers are set to discuss next steps toward Iran at their annual gathering in New York. The five countries with permanent seats on the Security Council -- China, Britain, France, Russia and the United States -- plus Germany would meet in Berlin on September 7 to discuss the way forward, the French Foreign Ministry said. Copyright © 2006 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 25 AFP: Iran's Khatami says US policies fuel terrorism by Mira Oberman Sun Sep 3, 7:20 AM ET CHICAGO (AFP) - Former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami" /> Mohammad Khatamihas said that US foreign policy is fueling terrorism and warned a conference of Muslims in Chicago of the dangers of allowing "narrow minded viewpoints and practices" to dominate public policy and discourse. His remarks late Saturday came as Tehran and the UN Security Council head for a showdown over Iran" /> Iran's nuclear energy program, which is suspected of masking an effort to develop atomic weapons. Khatami is the most senior Iranian to visit the United States since Washington broke off diplomatic relations following the 1979 takeover of the US embassy in Tehran. He did not comment on the current impasse but spoke of the need to promote dialogue and understanding in order to stem the current cycle of violence. "As America claims to be fighting terrorism, it implements policies that cause the intensification of terrorism and institutionalized violence," Khatami said through an interpreter. "The power of powers enjoys access to international instruments for securing their supremacy and strengthening their dominance, only seeking total subservience of others," he told the Islamic Society of North America's convention. He castigated the United States for finding it "more convenient" to deal with despots than democratic regimes that do not serve its interests and he denounced the current "war mongering against Islam and Islamophobia." "The outcome of such behavior is the cyclical increase and buildup of hatred towards policies implemented by the United States throughout the world, and particularly in the Middle East," he added. He urged American Muslims to challenge the misguided images of Islam portrayed by the media and politicians so that a more balanced foreign policy can be achieved. "Public opinion can be rescued from the grips of ignorance and blunder and the domination of arrogant, warmongering and violence-triggering policies will end," said Khatami, a reformist who was president from 1997 to 2005 and whose successor is the more hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Khatami, who founded and heads the International Institute for Dialogue Among Civilizations and Cultures, was granted a US visa on Tuesday even though he was president when the United States declared that Tehran backed terror activities. He noted Saturday that he was quick to denounce the terrorist attacks of September 11 "since I knew this inferno would only intensify extremism and one-sidedness and would have no outcome except to retire justice and intellect and sacrifice righteousness and humanity." At an earlier speech Saturday, Khatami denounced terrorists and extremists who "exploit the name of religion" and said they are not people of "true faith." Speaking to a group of Islamic community leaders at a suburban Chicago mosque, Khatami said a dialogue needs to be created between the secular and religious worlds. "The people of true faith and the people who are truly concerned about humanity... These two communities can work together," Khatami said in his first public appearance in the United States. "They can communicate among one another for the betterment and better understanding of the cause of humanity," he said through an interpreter. "The dialogue can help to bring these two communities together." Neither religions that preach a complete withdrawal from the material world nor the modern religion of science and materialism can eliminate insecurity, Khatami said. Only by finding a "third way" that addresses both the spiritual needs and the material needs can a "life of peace and satisfaction" be achieved, he said. On Thursday he is expected to address a select audience at the Washington National Cathedral. He will attend a United Nations" /> United Nationsconference in New York on the "Dialogue of Civilizations" on Friday, which comes five years after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. He might also meet with former US president Jimmy Carter, whose presidency was marred by the 1979 takeover of the US embassy in Tehran. Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 26 [Interview] Ban Ki-moon says action plan exists in face of N.K. nuclear test The Hankyoreh Foreign affairs minister stresses bridging of U.S.-S.K. perception gaps Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Ban Ki-moon "South Korea has begun working on a concrete action plan for North Korea¡¯s possible test of a nuclear weapon," said Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Ban Ki-moon during an August 31 meeting with journalists in Seoul. "Should the North go ahead with the test, it will threaten the security of all of Northeast Asia and ruin the weapons of mass destruction (WMD) non-proliferation plan." Regarding Ban¡¯s remarks, a government official said, "There has been no discussion on joint countermeasures between South Korea and the U.S., but the two allies will start consultation over [a possible] North Korean nuclear test." In connection to Japan¡¯s upcoming election for prime minister, Ban stressed that dialogue between the two countries "has stopped. It is important that the Japanese next leader has an awareness of history and the [meaning of the] Yasukuni Shrine." The shrine is a controversial commemoration of Japanese war dead, including Class A war criminals. Current prime minister Junichiro Koizumi has been criticized for his regular visits there. Asked about the possibility of Japanese Foreign Minister Shotaro Yachi visiting South Korea, Ban answered, "If he visits Seoul, we will welcome him, The 6th South Korea-Japan exclusive economic zone (EEZ) will open in Seoul between September 4 and 5," he added. In relation to the South Korea-U.S. summit due to open in Washington on Sept. 14, Ban said, "Unfortunately, there can be a number of perception gaps between Seoul and Washington. The upcoming summit is important. Once a perception is formed, it is difficult to remove it. The urgent thing is to dismiss it," added Ban, preferring to remain general as to which ¡¯perception gaps¡¯ he was referring. One probable gap that the minister was referencing is the controversy over transfer of wartime operational control from U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) back to South Korea. Regarding the issue, the foreign minister said, "We have four principles [involved in the handover], and the U.S. agreed to them." The four principles are maintaining the South Korea-U.S. mutual defense treaty signed in 1953, the continued presence of the USFK and guaranteed dispatch of additional American troops during wartime, continuous informational and intelligence support from the U.S., and maintaining joint war deterrence and arranging joint preparatory measures on the Korean peninsula. Posted at : Sep.2,2006 15:05 KST Modified at : Sep.4,2006 09:12 KST © 2006 The Hankyoreh Media Company. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 27 Korea Times: China to Invite North Korean Leader Hankooki.com > The Korea Times North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, second from left, talks to officials during his inspection at a machinery factory in Kusong, North Korea, Sunday. /Yonhap The Chinese government has decided to invite North Korean leader Kim Jong-il to visit Beijing, amid efforts to persuade Pyongyang not to test nuclear weapons, the Yonhap News Agency in Seoul reported on Sunday. "The Chinese government has decided to restore its relationship with the North, and inviting Kim Jong-il on a state visit is going to be its first step," a South Korean government official was quoted as telling Yonhap. The reported move by the Chinese government comes amid reports that the North may be preparing to test a nuclear bomb. Earlier reports also said the North Korean leader may already be on a trip, or soon take one, to China as part of efforts to restore his country's estranged relationship with its closest ally. Citing sources in Seoul and Beijing, the official said Kim has yet to take the trip. He said on condition of anonymity that Beijing's official invitation was expected to be made when its new ambassador to Pyongyang Liu Xiaoming arrives in the North this week. Other diplomatic sources said the new Chinese ambassador was expected to arrive in Pyongyang on Wednesday. Relations between Pyongyang and Beijing, the North's largest donor, were compromised after Pyongyang launched seven ballistic missiles into waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan on July 5, despite repeated opposition and warnings from its Asian neighbors, including South Korea and China. Beijing did not hide its dismay and anger at its communist neighbor, voting in favor of a U.N. Security Council resolution on July 15 that condemned the North's provocative act and prohibited all U.N. member nations, including China, from engaging in any missile-related dealings with the North. Earlier reports said a Chinese bank, the Bank of China, has frozen all of North Korea's accounts with its Macau branches, with an apparent nod from Beijing, for suspicions of being a front for the North's illegal financial scheme to launder counterfeit foreign currencies, including U.S. and Chinese bills, according to Yonhap. China's apparent frustration with the North partly comes because of its failure to woo its communist ally back to six-nation negotiations over the North's nuclear ambitions. jckim@koreatimes.co.kr 09-03-2006 17:17 ***************************************************************** 28 Korea Times : Missile Activity Seen in N. Korea Hankooki.com > The Korea Times By Jung Sung-ki Staff Reporter An interceptor missile, launched from the Ronald W. Reagan Missile Defense Site at Vandenberg Air Force Base, moves to its target in California on Sept. 1. / AP-Yonhap South Korean and U.S. intelligence authorities have detected suspicious movements of large trucks at a North Korean missile launch site, a sign for a possible missile test, a government source said on Sunday. The move came after the U.S. military announced over the weekend it had successfully intercepted a dummy long-range warhead that in some respects, according to defense experts, resembled a warhead from a North Korean rocket. ``I was told that intelligence authorities of South Korea and the United States have recently spotted several large vehicles moving around at the launch site located in Kitaeryong, Kangwon Province, the source was quoted as saying by the Yonhap News Agency in Seoul. ``Now, we do not exclude the possibility of the North conducting additional missile-firing.'' Defying the international community, Pyongyang test-launched a total of seven missiles, including the long-range Taepodong-2 missile, into the East Sea on July 5 from the Kitaeryong site. The multi-stage Taepodong-2 missile is believed to be capable of hitting Alaska and Hawaii. On July 16, the U.N. Security Council adopted a resolution to denounce the missile launches and ban countries from missile-related dealings with the reclusive regime. The North, however, threatened to take stronger action, hinting at further missile tests. Intelligence authorities are not verifying whether the trucks were equipped with missile launch pads or not, while some military sources say the trucks could be launch vechicles, the source said. He expressed concern if Pyongyang would take provocative steps, such as missile launches or a nuclear test, timed with a summit between President Roh Moo-hyun and U.S. President George W. Bush in Washington D.C. in the middle of this month. ``The government is intensifying monitoring North Korea's missile sites and areas believed to have nuclear facilities by mapping out various scenarios regarding possible threats from the North,'' the source said. Last Friday, Defense Minister Yoon Kwang-ung told a National Assembly session that Seoul suspects Pyongyang possesses one or two nuclear bombs. Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Ban Ki-moon warned Pyongyang of a severe international response if it pushes for a nuclear test. July's missile launches prompted calls for the resumption of six-party talks on the North's nuclear weapons program. But the communist regime said it would not return to the disarmament talks, citing Washington's financial restrictions against it for the alleged illicit financial activities, such as the counterfeiting of U.S. bills and money laundering. The talks, involving the two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia, were last held in November last year in Beijing, China. gallantjung@hotmail.com 09-03-2006 16:59 ***************************************************************** 29 Korea Times: Month of Diplomacy Hankooki.com > The Korea Times > Opinion Seoul Should Mend Fences With Allies, Neighbors President Roh Moo-hyun Sunday embarked on a tour of four countries, including the United States, opening a month of diplomacy. Next Thursday, Roh will hold a summit with U.S. President George W. Bush. Five days later, there comes an anniversary of the agreement on North Korea¡¯s abandonment of nuclear programs. It has been 10 months, however, since Pyongyang and other members of the six-party talks sat at the same table. The following day, Japan will have a new prime minister. All of these hectic political events and schedules mean the situation surrounding the Korean Peninsula could considerably change before this month passes. As Foreign Minister Ban Kimoon acknowledged Friday, there is a ¡°perception gap¡± between Seoul and Washington, and the Sept. 14 summit will be ¡°important¡± to get rid of this difference. Foremost among them is how to deal with North Korea . engagement or punishment. A failure on compromise would ring the knell of multilateral talks. President Roh may try to persuade his U.S. counterpart to ease his stance a bit to bring Pyongyang back to the dialogue table. Instead, Seoul will likely have to agree on joining U.S.-led sanctions if the communist regime keeps making trouble. So they need to agree on specific carrots and sticks jointly offered to the recalcitrant regime. Other issues, such as the smooth transfer of wartime military control and free trade negotiations, are bilateral in nature and can be settled in businesslike talks. No less tricky will be Seoul¡¯s relationship with its longtime regional ally . Tokyo. Shinzo Abe, who is certain to succeed Junichiro Koizumi, is known to be leaning further toward the right in historical and territorial issues. The 51-yearold, probable new leader of Japan has maintained a particularly hard-line stance toward North Korea over Pyongyang¡¯s abduction of Japanese citizens. Abe¡¯s Japan will likely accelerate efforts to become a ¡°normal¡± country by revising its constitution and having a regular military. The first test will be the negotiations on exclusive economic zones this week and Japan¡¯s proposed radioactivity survey nearby Dokdo in mid-September. Seoul should learn how to handle increasingly self-assertive and right-leaning Japan, either jointly with China or by itself. It also has to work on how to amend the traditional Washington- Tokyo-Seoul alliance by narrowing gaps in perception on North Korea. This is an extremely difficult . if not impossible . diplomatic task. Some say there will be no drastic improvements in Seoul¡¯s relationship with Washington until the administrations change on both sides of the Pacific. But any future Korean leaders and governments will likely have to seek a balance between independence and alliance. Narrowminded, shortsighted nationalism may have to give place to broader and more common human values, but the first goal of diplomacy is also maximizing national interests. And this should last despite governmental changes. 09-03-2006 18:02 ***************************************************************** 30 AFP: NKorea accuses US of threatening war after anti-missile test - by Park Chan-Kyong Sat Sep 2, 4:38 AM ET SEOUL (AFP) - North Korea" /> North Koreahas accused the United States of threatening war by carrying out a test of its missile defense system and conducting joint military exercises with the South. The North's semi-official Committee for Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland also attacked South Korea" /> South Koreafor taking part in the annual war games and said it would only drive Pyongyang to build up its self-defence capability. "The US staged not only a large-scale north-targeted naval and air combined maneuver in the waters around the Korean Peninsula with troops of its allies involved but carried out a missile test-fire to strike the DPRK and intercept its missiles," the committee said in a statement carried by state media. It called the "Ulchi Focus Lens" military drills, which ended on Friday, "little short of a declaration of war against the DPRK (North Korea)", saying the exercises had been "of a more provocative nature" than previous war games. Some 9,000 US troops and an undisclosed number of South Korean soldiers took part in the 10-day exercises. The United States also successfully tested its controversial ballistic missile defense system over the Pacific on Friday, almost two months after North Korea stoked international tensions with its long-range missile tests. The US Missile Defense Agency said a ground-based interceptor missile launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California hit a dummy armed missile in space that had been fired from Kodiak, Alaska. "It is the height of folly for the US to threaten the DPRK and try to bring it to its knees, pursuant to the policy of 'strength'," the committee said, according to the statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). "This desperate effort on the part of the US will only harden the will and determination of the army and the people of the DPRK to bolster up its deterrent for self-defence," it said. Turning on South Korea, the committee -- which is in charge of inter-Korean exchanges -- said Seoul had committed an "unpardonable crime against the nation" by joining the United States in the war games. "The South Korean authorities' act of supporting the US in its dangerous war moves against the North is a serious perfidy to the June 15 joint declaration and an unpardonable crime against the nation," it said, referring to a 2000 inter-Korean declaration for peace and reconciliation. It said the South's participation in the joint drills "totally bedevils inter-Korean relations and brings dark clouds of a nuclear war to this land." Relations between the two Cold War rivals have been soured since North Korea conducted the missile tests in July, provoking international condemnation and a sharp rebuke at the UN Security Council. The North left six-party talks on ending its nuclear weapons programmes last November and said it would not return until US financial sanctions against it were dropped. The ABC television network, quoting US officials, said last month that the North -- which claims to have built nuclear weapons -- may be preparing an underground nuclear test. The United States and South Korea -- both parties to the stalled six-way nuclear disarmament talks with North Korea, along with China, Japan and Russia -- have warned Pyongyang against any such tests. North Korea said in February 2005 that it had nuclear weapons, but there have never been reports that it has actually tested a nuclear bomb. Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 31 [NYTr] Bush Pushes Nuclear Weapons Development in US Date: Sat, 2 Sep 2006 02:51:52 -0500 (CDT) X-Sender-Host-Name: chumbly.math.missouri.edu X-Spam-Class: HAM-VERY Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit Truthout - Sep 1, 2006 http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/090106J.shtml Bush Pushes Nuclear Weapons Development in US By Sarah Olson In the face of increased Congressional opposition to US nuclear weapons development, the Bush administration appears to be making an end run around governmental checks and balances. The bizarrely named Divine Strake project is a 700-ton explosive experiment, first scheduled to detonate at the Nevada Test Site in June of this year. Thanks to furious grass-roots opposition to the proposal, Divine Strake has been twice delayed, and is currently projecting a detonation date of no sooner than early 2007. But as the Department of Defense attempts to justify this explosion, many say the government is simply obfuscating and delaying: the blast, they say, is a simulated nuclear explosion designed to provide important test and calibration data for existing and possibly new nuclear weapons. It will happen at the Nevada Test Site after the elections, and it will kick up a 10,000-foot mushroom cloud potentially full of Cold War-era radioactive dust. Further, as the UN Security Council deadline for Iran to halt its uranium enrichment program passes, and hostilities throughout the Middle East increase, many find the possible threat of US nuclear weapons development to be an unnecessary exacerbation of hostilities. The Bush administration, they say, is engaging belligerent nuclear swashbuckling, and as a result, it is putting US citizens in danger. What Is Divine Strake and Why Should We Care? Divine Strake is a planned test explosion managed by the Department of Defense's combat support organization, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA). According to DTRA spokesperson Irene Smith, "Divine Strake would consist of a surface detonation of 700 tons of ammonium nitrate-fuel oil, or ANFO, above a tunnel, constructed for multiple research efforts. The amount of explosive was selected to produce the energy needed to cause differing levels of ground shock - severe to light - along the length of the tunnel." Divine Strake is not a nuclear weapons test; it's also not a conventional weapons test. It is simply 700 tons of explosives deposited into the ground and detonated. According to Smith "Divine Strake would not use a nuclear device or nuclear weapon materials, and would not test a weapon." Perhaps it is the uncertainty of precisely what Divine Strake is all about that has local activists so concerned; that, and the threat of a 700-ton explosive disturbing the Cold War-era radioactive dust. In addition to postponing the Divine Strake test after activists protested, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), which manages the Nevada Test Site, was also forced to withdraw its finding of no significant impact regarding the environmental impact of the explosion at the Nevada Test Site. In a May 26th press release, NNSA announced: "This action is being taken to clarify and provide further information regarding background levels of radiation from global fallout in the vicinity of the Divine Strake experiment. Atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons by several countries in the 1950s and 1960s resulted in the dispersion of radioactive fallout throughout the northern hemisphere. The efforts of the Nevada Site Office are focused on explaining, in a means clearly understandable to all, what background radiation from this fallout means with respect to the contemplated Divine Strake experiment." According to DTRA's Irene Smith, "NNSA and DTRA are developing a plan that would permit the experiment if it is determined that Divine Strake can be conducted safely, in compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act, and there is a favorable court ruling on legal proceedings regarding the experiment. DTRA is also assessing other possible sites for the experiment." Bedford, Indiana was one of those sites until Wednesday when DTRA confirmed it would not seek to detonate Divine Strake in a limestone quarry there. John Blair is the director of the Indiana-based environmental group Valley Watch. "When I learned about Divine Strake coming to Indiana, I sent out an email and I said something kind of bold - that this will only happen over my dead body. And I kind of meant it." With the risk to Indiana averted, Blair says he and other activists will turn some of their attention to helping west coast activists defeat Divine Strake. There are two largely interconnected types of objection to the Divine Strake explosion. The first is that Divine Strake appears to be a test to simulate a nuclear weapons explosion, and as such it puts the United States on a path towards a new generation of nuclear weapons. The second is that if Divine Strake were to be detonated at the Nevada Test Site, the blast is likely to unsettle radioactive dust from the Cold War-era nuclear tests. "Slippery Slope" Utah Congressman Jim Matheson wrote DTRA's director that he was greatly concerned that Divine Strake was an attempt to build low-yield nuclear devices. The DTRA budget, Matheson writes, "states that the demonstration 'will develop a planning tool that will improve the warfighter's confidence in selecting the smallest proper nuclear yield necessary to destroy underground facilities while minimizing collateral damage.' That sounds like preparation for a low-yield nuclear weapon to me." While DTRA's Irene Smith declined to comment on whether Divine Strake would provide information for nuclear weapons, she did say that it "is part of the Hard Target Defeat program that develops and demonstrates new weapons, delivery concepts and planning capabilities to defeat hard and deeply buried targets. The improved computer model planning tools that are expected from the Divine Strake experiment could eventually help give combatant commanders greater operational flexibility and confidence in their ability to defeat hardened and deeply buried targets." In general, DTRA has been reticent on whether they were testing for the effects of nuclear weapons, but they officially declined to rule it out. Hans Kristensen, at the Federation of American Scientists, reported that on April 3rd, DTRA acknowledged in written correspondence that Divine Strake was "a low-yield nuclear weapons calibration simulation against an underground target." This confirmation alarmed peace and environmental activists. "The reason you want to see the effect of the impact of a weapon is to see if the weapon works," says Vanessa Pierce, director of the environmental advocacy group HEAL Utah. "This really does represent a slippery slope to creating a new generation of nuclear weapons," says Pierce. She says the Bush administration has consistently pushed for a nuclear weapons program, and Congress has consistently said no. According to Pierce, Divine Strake represents a thwarting of Congressional will. Traditionally, funding for nuclear weapons goes through the Department of Energy. However, Pierce explains, funding for Divine Strake was obtained through the Department of Defense. By wrapping Divine Strake funding inside the defense budget and decoupling it from traditional nuclear funding sources, the Bush administration succeeded in funding a program that neither Congress nor the public wants. And this is done in the face of increased global tension regarding nuclear weapons development programs. "The hypocrisy is incredible. You cannot preach temperance from a barstool. And that's precisely what the Bush administration is doing," says Pierce. "Divine Strake sends a message to other nations. It escalates the value of nuclear weapons in the eyes of those who seek to attack this country." "Children of the Bomb" J. Truman is the director of Downwinders, an organization advocating for the rights of those downwind from Cold War-era atomic testing at the Nevada Test Site. He was born in 1951, the year the atomic testing started. "It was like a big carnival," Truman says. "We were encouraged to go watch history being made. The government said there was no danger." First the sheep in the area started dying. Then people began to die too. A 1997 National Cancer Institute Study - the most comprehensive study of the effects of atomic testing at the Nevada Test Site to date - estimated fallout from nuclear weapons testing generated anywhere from 10,000 to 75,000 cases of thyroid cancer. Political activism in the 1980s revealed documents admitting the government knew the danger to downwind populations, even at the time of the tests. According t0 Truman, this disaster is easily repeatable. "Divine Strake is just a steady step toward resuming testing. Another round of nuclear weapons development could make us all downwinders." A lawsuit filed on behalf of two Western Shoshone tribes and downwinders from Nevada and Utah is attempting to stop Divine Strake based on these same health concerns. Attorney Robert Hager accused the Department of Defense and Bechtel of Nevada of "junk science" and intentionally failing to conduct proper soil samples. Toxic exposure expert Richard Miller and Physicians for Social Responsibility both filed papers in support of the lawsuit. Miller wrote that "insufficient research [has been done] regarding the health effects of many of the potential radio isotopes possibly buried in the soil that may be entrained in the dust cloud as a result of the Divine Strake event." Dr. Thomas Fasy is with the executive committee of the New York chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility. Fasy argues: "to a reasonable degree of medical and scientific certainty ... the 'Divine Strake' explosion would disperse large amounts of radioactive particles into the atmosphere ... millions of citizens living downwind ... are at risk of inhaling particles." Fasy also believes "it is virtually certain that this inhalation of radioactive particles would result in an increased frequency of a variety of cancers in the exposed populations. Moreover, the increased risk of developing cancers would be borne disproportionately by the children living downwind." Opposition to nuclear testing and nuclear weapons development isn't a radical issue for people in the southwest, according to J. Truman. Nearly everyone knows someone who has cancer. Nearly everyone in his generation has been affected by the tests. "Those of us who were children of the bomb are in charge now. We said, 'You're not going to do this to our children. To our grandchildren. No more downwinders. Enough.'" HEAL Utah's Vanessa Pierce agrees this is an issue shared by many in the west. "When you lose a part of yourself because the federal government put you in harm's way, that's not a transgression you can ever forgive or forget. This goes to the very core of human survival." "Divine Strake Is an Important Wake-Up Call" Jacqueline Cabasso is the executive director of the Western States Legal Foundation. She says it's important to understand that Divine Strake is not a nuclear weapons test; it's a test to evaluate the effect of existing nuclear weapons. This distinction should not mollify concern about nuclear weapons use. To the contrary. "Operationally, nuclear weapons are more fully integrated into the US defense plan than ever before," Cabasso says. Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) was previously in charge of all US nuclear weapons; its arsenal has been streamlined to include both nuclear and conventional weapons under the same roof. Worse still, she says, the US public doesn't fully understand the reality of US nuclear position. "There is no public discussion or debate about US nuclear weapons. Their existence, their purpose, or their future. Yet they are integrally related to our wars." "In every aspect, the nuclear weapons program is moving forward. Billions of dollars have been spent. This Divine Strake test is a tiny point of this program that has become visible. But there are many interconnected programs also happening just below the radar of public scrutiny." For example, on Wednesday, even as we discussed Divine Strake, the Nevada Test Site was conducting a subcritical nuclear test. Divine Strake has a certain symbolic importance. The more the US appears to be considering nuclear weapons use - appears to be moving forward with nuclear weapons development and testing - the more other countries will consider themselves in danger. But, Cabasso says, it's important to consider Divine Strake within the context of the existing nuclear arsenal and the ongoing conventional weapons testing. "This is just one of many, many ongoing tests. Divine Strake should be seen as a wake-up call." * ================================================================ .NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems . Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us . .339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org .List Archives: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ .Subscribe: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ================================================================ ***************************************************************** 32 WorldNetDaily: John Bolton: Mission accomplished? [Supercritical Thoughts] [Gordon Prather] Posted: September 2, 2006 1:00 a.m. Eastern This year, Bonkers Bolton and his Gang of Three – the British, French and Germans – have managed to get the other members of the Interna-tional Atomic Energy Agency Board of Governors and the United Nations Security Council to commit 'assisted' suicide, seriously undermining – as intended – the authority and effectiveness of the United Nations itself. First, the IAEA – whose primary mission is to "seek to accelerate and enlarge the contribution of atomic energy to peace, health and prosperity throughout the world." On Feb. 4, U.N. Ambassador John Bolton got the IAEA board to pass a resolutionthat begins by stipulating "that nothing in the Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable rights of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear en-ergy for peaceful purposes without discrimination," but then perversely goes on not only to deny Iran its inalienable Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, or NPT, rights but presumes to make additional demands on Iran as an NPT signatory. Bolton already had attempted, but failed, to drastically modify the NPT at the 2005 NPT Re-view Conference, removing the demands made on us and the rights bestowed on everyone else. Now, the IAEA board "deemed it necessary" that Iran – inter alia – "ratify promptly and implement in full the Additional Protocol" to its NPT Safeguards Agreement. Of course, the IAEA board has no authority to make any such demands. So, recess-appointee Bolton brought the IAEA resolution before the U.N. Security Council, which does. But upon first referral, all Bolton got was a U.N. Security Council 'non-binding' Presidential Statement which begins: The Security Council reaffirms its commitment to the Treaty on the Non Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and recalls the right of States Party, in conformity with articles I and II of that Treaty, to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination. Bummer. Meanwhile, with Bush-Blair acquiescence – if not downright encouragement – the Israelis had launched a bona fide "act of aggression" against Lebanon. Bolton soon had his hands full, preventing the Security Council from condemning Israel for it flagrant violations of the U.N. Charter, while strong-arming it into passing Resolution 1696. The resolution, "acting under Article 40 of Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations," demands, in this context, that Iran shall suspend all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities, including research and development, to be verified by the IAE. …" What does that mean – acting under Article 40? Well, Bolton previously had strong-armed the IAEA Board of Governors into asking the Security Council to "determine" that Iran's refusal to re-suspend – as "required" by the U.N. Security Council Presidential Statement– certain IAEA Safeguarded activities constituted under Article 39 as a "threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression." Article 40 says: In order to prevent an aggravation of the situation, the Security Council may, before making the recommendations or deciding upon the measures provided for in Article 39, call upon the parties concerned to comply with such provisional measures as it deems necessary or desirable. Such provisional measures shall be without prejudice to the rights, claims, or position of the parties concerned. The Security Council shall duly take account of failure to comply with such provisional measures. Now, the Security Council has yet "to deter-mine" under Article 39 that Iran's safeguarded activities constitute a threat to the peace, much less an act of aggression. So, technically, the council shouldn't yet be "acting" under Article 40. Nor should the council "call" upon Iran to take without further delay the steps "required" by the IAEA board in its resolution of Feb. 4, which in-cluded requiring Iran to "ratify promptly and im-plement in full the Additional Protocol" to its NPT Safeguards Agreement. An Additional Protocol – once ratified – can hardly be considered a "provisional measure." The Security Council shouldn't be "demanding" that Iran suspend safeguarded uranium enrichment activities. After all, Bolton and his Gang of Three have made it clear such suspensions will hardly be temporary "provisional measures," taken "without prejudice" to the exercise of Iran's "inalienable rights" under the NPT. As Iran's U.N. representative, Javad Zarif, put it, upon passage of Security Council Resolution 1696: Today we are witness to an extremely dangerous trend; while members of the NPT are denied their rights and are punished, those who defy the NPT, particularly the perpetrators of [the] current carnage in Lebanon and Palestine, are rewarded by generous nuclear cooperation agree-ments. Having successfully established such a "trend," it may not matter to recess-appointee Bolton whether or not he becomes permanent ambassador to the United Nations. Physicist James Gordon Prather has served as a policy implementing official for national security-related technical matters in the Federal Energy Agency, the Energy Research and Development Administration, the Department of Energy, the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Department of the Army. He also served as legislative assistant for national security affairs to U.S. Sen. Henry Bellmon, R-Okla. Dr. Prather had earlier worked as a nuclear weapons physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico. All Rights Reserved. WorldNetDaily.com Inc. ***************************************************************** 33 UCS: California Enacts Nation's Toughest Global Warming Bill August 31, 2006 Scientists and Economists Laid Groundwork for Legislation BERKELEY, CA, August 31The California Legislature today passed landmark legislation to create the nation's first economy-wide cap on global warming emissions, and Governor Schwarzenegger has agreed to sign the bill into law. The mounting scientific evidence gathered and produced by California's scientific community helped build the political will that led to this historic day. "This bill marks a national turning point in the fight against global warming," said Jason Mark, California Director of the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). "It sends a strong signal to the international community that Americans are committed to climate action despite Washington's intransigence." Our Changing Climate, a scientific analysis developed by the state's California Climate Change Center in collaboration with UCS, demonstrated that if heat-trapping emissions are not reduced, California faces a future of poorer air quality, a sharp rise in extreme heat, a less reliable water supply, more large wildfires, and expanding risks to agriculture. "California has a lot to lose from continued global warming but a lot to gain from taking action to lower emissions," said Dr. Amy Lynd Luers, UCS Climate Impacts Scientist and co-author of the new state report. "The mounting scientific evidence is the writing on the wall, and California policymakers have gotten the message." Climate action can not only protect California from the most severe impacts of global warming, it can also boost the economy. A recent study by the University of California at Berkeley projects that meeting AB 32's emissions limits can boost the Gross State Product (GSP) by $60-74 billion and create 17,000-89,000 new jobs. Separately, UCS helped organize an open letter by 60 Ph.D. economists from across California, including 3 Nobel Laureates, urging them to accelerate climate action. The letter calls emissions caps a "particularly potent strategy" and warns that "the most expensive things we can do is nothing." As the world's twelfth largest source of carbon dioxide, the chief global warming gas, California has a responsibility to act. And as the sixth largest global economy, California's efforts will reverberate around the globe as the state uses existing and new technologies to reduce emissions. "With this groundbreaking legislation, California politicians have come together to lead the nation in taking action on global warming," said Dan Kalb, California Policy Coordinator for UCS. "This bill is a valuable template for other states and the federal government." Our Changing Climate: Assessing the Risks to California, the UC Berkeley study, the economists' letter, and a summary of the legislation can all be viewed at For general media inquiries, please call our press office at 202-331-5420. Press Contacts: ERIC YOUNG Press Secretary 202-331-5439 EMILY ROBINSON Press Secretary 202-331-5427 AARON HUERTAS Assistant Press Secretary 202-331-5458 RICH HAYES Media Director 202-331-5437 © Union of Concerned Scientists Page Last Revised: 09/01/06 ***************************************************************** 34 Waco Tribune-Herald: Edwards, Taylor support nuclear energy expansion Saturday, September 02, 2006 By Dan Genz staff writer The day after TXU announced plans to build three new nuclear power plants in Texas, U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Waco, said he supports expanding nuclear energy. I think nuclear power has been proven to be safe, does not pollute the atmosphere and can be a competitive source of energy in the years ahead, Edwards said Friday in an interview with the Tribune-Herald editorial board. I think expansion of nuclear power has to be one of the ingredients in an energy security policy for our country, he said. Edwards said one of the proposed plants would be built at the existing Comanche Peak nuclear power plant in Glen Rose, which is in Edwards 17th Congressional District. The other two sites have not been identified. Republican congressional nominee Van Taylor said he also supports expanding nuclear energy production. We need to lower energy prices for people here in Central Texas and nuclear power is a clean, economical way to generate energy for future generations, he said. Together, the three proposed power plants would supply energy for 4.5 million homes, the Associated Press reported. The first TXU plant could be operational in 2015 and would partially address the expected increase in the states population and energy demand over the long term, TXU spokesman Chris Schein said. The biggest stumbling block in approving new power plants is determining where to deposit the highly radioactive spent fuel. Plans to use the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada have been beset by controversy. One proposal Edwards supports would create regional sites where the radioactive material could be stored until a more permanent national site is found. Critics claim nuclear energy is expensive, unsafe and dangerous to the environment. I dont know what books theyre reading, said Tom Smitty Smith, of the advocacy group Public Citizen Texas. The history of nuclear power has been littered with cost overruns, accidents, and certainly nuclear power is enormously polluting. dgenz@wacotrib.com 757-5743 Sponsored Links [Cox Newspapers, Inc.] ***************************************************************** 35 London Times: Fluor threatens to withdraw bid for British Nuclear Group - September 04, 2006 By Angela Jameson FLUOR, the US engineering group that wants to buy Britain’s main nuclear decommissioning business, says it will walk away from the privatisation process if ministers do not restore faith in it. Alan Boeckmann, chairman and chief executive of the Texas-based Fluor Corporation, will visit Britain in the next two weeks to make this point to the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL). Fluor is understood to have made clear to ministers that the company cannot be counted on to bid for British Nuclear Group unless there is greater confidence in the sales process. Lord Renwick of Clifton, the chairman of Fluor’s UK business, met Geoffrey Norris, Downing Street’s special adviser on nuclear matters, last week. Lord Renwick, a former British Ambassador to Washington and a vice-chairman of JPMorgan Cazenove, said: “We have concerns about the competitive process, which we are discussing with the UK authorities. The process is currently a shambles.” Last week Fluor offered the Government between £250 million and £400 million for British Nuclear Group and expressed its dissatisfaction with the way in which the privatisation of the group was being handled. Fluor’s concerns are understood to involve two unexpected twists in the sales process. The first was the lifting of an embargo on Bechtel, another American group and the principal adviser to the DTI on nuclear decommissioning, from bidding for clean-up contracts before June 2008. The second twist was BNFL’s decision last month to break up British Nuclear Group and sell it piecemeal. Meanwhile, Serco, the services company, said it was interested in competing for nuclear decommissioning contracts but would rather not join a consortium seeking to buy British Nuclear Group. Copyright 2006 Times Newspapers Ltd. ***************************************************************** 36 London Times: McConnell to drop nuclear opposition - The Sunday Times September 03, 2006 Jason Allardyce THE first minister is set to abandon his staunch opposition to nuclear power in a major U-turn that challenges public opinion and threatens an irrevocable split with the Liberal Democrats. Jack McConnell is to drop his blanket ban on new nuclear power stations being built in Scotland, claiming that any proposal will be considered “on its merits”. It is a major shift from the position he has held since 2003: to oppose all new nuclear installations in principle until a solution for dealing with radioactive waste was found. While publicly championing renewable sources of energy, McConnell has come under pressure from pro-nuclear trade unions and Labour activists who believe that nuclear generation should be a central part of a balanced energy policy. During a visit to Edinburgh last Friday, Tony Blair sounded a sceptical note about green energy, warning that it was “very, very ambitious” to attempt to replace nuclear entirely with renewable production. McConnell’s change of direction will be signalled in the Labour manifesto for next year’s Holyrood election. It will recommend a balanced energy policy in which nuclear, as well as renewables and coal, will play a part. The shift will create a further gulf between Labour and its coalition partners, the Lib Dems, who are implacably opposed to the building of any new nuclear stations north of the border. It will also fly in the face of Scottish public opinion — an ICM poll for the BBC in February found that 51% of Scots were against building new nuclear power stations north of the border, compared with 33% in favour. However, continued prevarication threatened to set McConnell against Blair — who announced his support for a new generation of nuclear power stations as part of Britain’s long-term energy strategy earlier this year — and activists within his own party who voted to back new nuclear power stations at the Scottish Labour spring conference. “There’s a real belligerence in the party and a feeling that we can’t have the Lib Dems being the tail that wags the dog on this,” said a source close to the first minister. “If Nicol Stephen (the Lib Dem leader) is against it, that’s seen as a good reason for us to back it.” In response to a parliamentary question Allan Wilson, the deputy enterprise minister, said the executive would have to balance the pros and cons of each application rather than simply veto them for political reasons. “In considering an application to build a new power station ministers must consider each application on its individual merits and must take into account all material considerations,” he said. “Examples of material considerations would be the economic, social, environmental, cultural and heritage impacts of a nuclear power station, health and safety issues, and relevant UK government and executive policies.” Wilson confirmed that Scottish ministers would also have to take account of the UK’s position on this before making a planning decision. Sources close to the executive say ministers have no choice other than to keep the nuclear option open. "The waste issue can be only one consideration among many others. If we just say we're going to rule out new nuclear power stations in principle until that's sorted out, we could end up being taken to the courts by any company we turn down," one said. Supporters of nuclear say that Scotland would face an energy gap unless stations reaching the end of their life at Torness and Hunterston are replaced because wind and wave projects are less reliable sources. Further doubts were cast over the future of renewable energy last week when the Scottish executive announced a public inquiry into plans to install giant pylons between Beauly and Denny to transmit power from wind farms into the national grid. The move, which will at least delay the project, follows a high-profile campaign by opponents who said that, like wind farms, it would scar the countryside. A European Union directive requires new nuclear power stations to be justified by the UK government in advance, by assessing whether economic, social or other benefits outweigh any adverse health effects that could be caused. Last year Lord Sewell, a former minister and architect of the devolution settlement, told The Sunday Times that ministers could reject an application on planning grounds but lacked the power to block nuclear power stations in principle because energy policy is reserved to Westminster. Yesterday McConnell warned Labour supporters that they faced "the toughest election campaign in Scotland that any of us can remember", after an opinion poll gave the SNP a four-point lead. "The SNP have a chance to take Scotland to the brink of independence," he said. Copyright 2006 Times Newspapers Ltd. ***************************************************************** 37 San Luis Obispo Tribune: Diablo leak fixed, full power restored | 09/02/2006 | Reactor brought down to 73 percent power during repairs; possibly radioactive water was contained in dome, plant offical says By Mariecar Mendoza The Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant was back to full power early Friday after a water leak prompted the shutdown of one of its two reactors the day before. Operators worked all night Thursday after the leak was discovered around 10:15 a.m. in one of the reactors. A monitoring system within the reactor’s containment dome notified operators that liquid was being lost from the unit, plant spokesman Jeff Lewis said, and they began to power down the unit at 2:10 p.m. The plant returned to full power around 5:30 a.m. Friday. The power plant provides about 10 percent of the state’s electrical needs. "We ran the unit down to 73 percent power overnight to isolate and find the leak and make repairs to the system," Lewis said. "Then it was a matter of bringing the unit up to full power." Though the total amount of water lost is unknown, Lewis said one to two gallons per minute leaked out over a span of several hours Thursday. The water could contain radioactive material. But the leak flowed into the containment dome, preventing any radioactivity from escaping to the environment, Lewis said. The matter never approached emergency classification, Lewis said. "It was an operational issue," he said. "It wasn’t that dramatic." ***************************************************************** 38 VOA News: Nuclear Energy Hotly Debated in United States By Richard Green Washington 02 September 2006 There is a debate under way in the United States about the benefits of nuclear power, as the country looks for alternatives to its dependence on foreign oil. Advocates say nuclear power will provide a clean and safe form of energy, but opponents say concerns about safety and what to do with nuclear waste far outweigh any benefits. There are currently 104 nuclear power plants operating across the United States. President Bush is calling for expanding the nation's reliance on nuclear power as part of his energy plan. Supporters of nuclear energy say it will make the United States less dependent on foreign sources of oil. But Tyson Slocum, director of the energy program for Public Citizen, a public-interest watchdog group, says increasing nuclear power will not significantly reduce oil consumption. "Oil is only used to power 1.2 percent of the nation's electricity," he noted. "Nuclear power is not used to power automobiles, which is the biggest source of our oil consumption, and oil is not a significant source of electricity consumption. So, increasing America's reliance on nuclear power is not going to alter the current oil demand balance that we have in this country." Another contentious issue is the environmental impact of nuclear power plants. Mal McKibben, a retired nuclear engineer who is now executive director of the non-profit Citizens for Nuclear Technology Awareness, says nuclear power plants are environmentally safer than other types of energy producers, such as coal. "Nuclear [power] does not produce any acid rain. It does not produce smog. It does not produce global warming, where[as] coal and gas do all of those things," he said. Christine Todd Whitman headed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under President Bush. She is now co-chair of the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition, a group, which advocates the use of nuclear energy. She agrees nuclear plants have little impact on the surrounding environment. "The footprint of nuclear facilities are very small, so that, many times, you find that you get natural habitats in and around nuclear facilities, because they do have such a low impact on the surrounding community," she explained. But Tyson Slocum of Public Citizen says nuclear power plants carry their own unique risk to the environment. "Each facility produces hundreds of tons of high-level radioactive waste that sticks around in the environment for hundreds of thousands of years," he said. "We currently have no solution of how to deal with the hundreds of tons of high-level radioactive waste safely, efficiently or environmentally sustainably." President Bush has backed a controversial plan to build a storage facility for nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, a remote area in the western U.S. state of Nevada. He also supports the recycling and reprocessing of nuclear waste through the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership. McKibben, the former nuclear engineer, says there is an alternative to storing nuclear waste, recycling it. "You use all the energy that's in that fuel," he said. "Right now we're using less than 5 percent of it, by just going through one time and not recycling. If we did recycle, we could use up at least 95 percent of it." Opponents of nuclear energy also point out the possibility of an accident, citing the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island in the northeastern United States, and the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in what is now Ukraine. But Dale Klein, the new chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, praised the nuclear industry's safety record during a recent talk with reporters in Washington. "Chernobyl was a very unstable reactor," he explained. "The western world has no commercial reactors like Chernobyl and its inherent instability characteristics. The kinds of reactors in the western U.S. and [the kinds] Western Europe has are much more stable and have an excellent record." But nuclear energy opponents, such as Dr. Ira Helfand with the group, Physicians for Social Responsibility, say there is a much more ominous risk involved with nuclear energy. "I think, we have to look at nuclear power plants, basically, as prepositioned weapons of mass destruction that we place at various strategic points around our country, that we make available to terrorists, who might attack them in the future," said Dr. Helfand. But the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Klein says the industry has beefed up security to ward off any potential terrorist attacks, particularly since the terrorist attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001. "I believe the industry has responded very well after 9/11, they have spent a lot of money to make things better, and the security of the nuclear plants is quite good," he noted. Klein says the nuclear industry must not become complacent. Nuclear energy opponents, however, say the United States should consider alternative sources of energy, such as wind and solar power. ***************************************************************** 39 Sunday Herald: Nuclear safety fears after power cut at plant delays emergency shutdown - From Corrina Thomsonin Uppsala A QUESTION mark hangs over the emergency shutdown of nuclear reactors after two of the four diesel generators at a Swedish plant failed to connect properly during a 22-minute power cut. Plant operator Forsmark Kraftgrupp, a subsidiary of Vattenfall and Eon, has just submitted a report to the Swedish atomic regulator about the events, which occurred after the grid failed to supply electricity to Forsmark, resulting in an emergency shutdown on July 25. During the incident, the reactor control rods were automatically placed into the reactor to shut it down but plant staff could only surmise the position of these rods as the power cut had affected the flow of information to the control room. The operators could only confirm that a stable shutdown had been achieved after 45 minutes. Forsmark is putting on a brave face but anti-nuclear campaigners across Europe see the incident north of Stockholm as proof that reactors are far from safe. The incident was rated at two on the International Nuclear Event Scale, where seven is a major accident. Some of the problems at the plant were deemed to be generic, so several reactors in southeast Sweden were shut down days later. Four reactors remain shut down costing their operators millions of pounds until regulators are sure the same problem will not occur again. The Forsmark Kraftgrupp report lists several short and long-term actions in response to the incident. These include design changes to the internal plant circuitry, installation of parallel power supplies, protection from short circuits in the grid, improvements to the control room and investigating what happens when the Swedish Power Distribution Board works on the grid. The Swedish Nuclear Power Inspectorate (SKI) is still studying the incident and has not issued its conclusions yet, although it has said that plant safety systems were not independent enough. Speaking at Forsmark last week, public relations official Peter Jansson said: We have just sent a report to SKI about the loss of external power and loss of power supply from two of four diesel generators. Jansson insisted the incident had not damaged the reactors fuel rods, and explained that the electrical system was designed by AEG, which has been running a simulator in Germany to investigate what happened. He continued: The management board at Forsmark is calm about the units not producing electricity because safety has to come first and we are eager that something good should come of this. It is important that we know why this happened, so that is why we are using information from the AEG facility. Commercial electricity production at Forsmark began in 1980 and Jansson was keen to point to its history, saying: We have been very careful and for years we havent had any incidents at all. In the long run, its good to have an incident to make you wake up, think more and focus more. SKI and the environment minister were here on Friday to talk about what happened. Two of the four diesel generators started but we would have preferred if four had started, even though these are extra. Everything was contained in the plant. We have filter systems to take care of particles but we were very far from anything like that kind of problem it was serious for us but not a concern for the environment. Independent nuclear expert John Large said the incident showed that nuclear plant scram systems used for emergency shutdowns are not as reliable as the nuclear industry would like people to think. Large said: The basic assumption is that the scram system would come in and, alone, deal with the reactor. In that it has failed. Emergency generators should come into operation and the turbines should spin up in five seconds. It could be a design flaw, a management failure to use the system in the way it was designed, or faulty equipment. The whole concept of passive safety is that the system can shut itself down, but if it encounters a situation that has not been taken account of in the design, then it wont work. He went on to question why emergency shutdowns are not carried out much more often: The frequency of scrams in reactors is not that common but you would expect it to be. The effects of a reactor scram are very important and this makes you wonder what would happen at other nuclear plants if they had an emergency situation and had to shut down quickly. This system is made by AEG, and their systems are used across the EU. Chernobyl went wrong for different reasons, but the point is about reactor cooling problems and how serious they can be. The Swedish governments previous decision against nuclear new build has resulted in companies looking for ways to produce more power from existing plants, whether by installing new equipment or by reducing refuelling and shutdown maintenance time. Sweden is reliant on nuclear power to the tune of about 50%, so the ongoing closure of reactors has a significant effect on the countrys power generation. Forsmarks three reactors produce about one-sixth of Swedens electricity. 03 September 2006 sundayheraldtalk.com ***************************************************************** 40 Star Tribune: Editorial: Future won't favor new nuclear plants /www.startribune.com Even with incentives, utilities find the financials don't work. Published: September 03, 2006 The climate for building new nuclear power plants in the United States hasn't been this good for decades. The Bush administration is solidly behind them. Some prominent foes have changed sides, embracing uranium-derived electricity as the best available answer to global warming. Boosters are wearing told-you-so smiles. And Congress is doing its best to help. After establishing liability limits and start-up assistance for new plants, it voted last year to offer utilities a variety of direct incentives and structured them to favor the first half-dozen plants to leave the drawing boards. Companies that design and build reactors are also said to be trying to jump-start new business by offering limited-time discounts. The results, so far? Exactly one utility, Constellation Energy in Maryland, has contracted to buy parts for a new reactor, the first such order since 1973. While the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been saying for months that perhaps two dozen new plants are getting active consideration, polls of utility executives find that most think any notion of a nuclear renaissance is fanciful -- that nuclear power will, at best, maintain its 20 percent share of U.S. power generation, with a dozen new reactors at the most. And the reasons have less to do with Three Mile Island or Yucca Mountain than with Wall Street. When utilities began canceling orders for new reactors in 1973, everyone still assumed the problem of storing spent fuel would be solved. The crisis at Three Mile Island was six years away; the first true nuke-plant catastrophe, at Chernobyl, wouldn't happen for seven years after that. Safety and environmental concerns have shaped public opinion, but the core reasons for America's 30-year hiatus in building new nuclear plants lie in unfavorable balance sheets. Industry analysts say the outlook is no brighter today despite the many factors -- tougher pollution caps for coal plants, higher natural-gas prices, pending controls on greenhouse gas emissions -- that theoretically should favor more cheap, clean nukes. But to consider nuclear power "clean," you have to ignore the pesky problem of permanent waste disposal, and to consider it "cheap" you have to focus only on the ultimate cost to make a kilowatt-hour of juice over a span of decades. Nuclear plants are more expensive than fossil-fueled counterparts to site, license, build, operate and secure; and they are slower to pay off on investment, for which the front-end needs are larger. These factors, plus additional uncertainties of regulation, make them harder to finance. For any kind of power plant, a utility typically tries to presell the power before it breaks ground, and customers just aren't as quick to sign long-term contracts for their power supplies when the electricity will be coming from uranium. So for every utility like Constellation that opts for a new nuke, there will be multiple others that invest elsewhere -- like Constellation's competitor, PPL, which decided to invest $1.5 billion in cleaning up emissions from its coal burners. Besides environmental benefits, PPL expects further payoffs as pollution limits get tighter and, perhaps, as emissions reductions become tradeable assets. On a smaller scale, but at an accelerating pace, private investment is moving toward alternative technologies of sustainable power generation, conservation and efficiency. The nuclear era that began with promises of electricity "too cheap to meter" has given way to a time when a dollar invested in conserving electricity returns six or seven times value of a dollar invested in making more of it. So today the consensus seems to be that nukes have served their purpose, and will continue for a while to do so, but the future lies somewhere else. Copyright 2006Star Tribune. All rights reserved. Feedback|Terms 425 Portland Av. S., Minneapolis, MN 55488 (612) 673-4000 ***************************************************************** 41 Greem Left Weekly: Wind vs nuclear energy? No competition Zane Alcorn Despite PM John Howard’s call for a “full-blooded debate” about energy, greenhouse and uranium mining, there has been little discussion about renewable energy sources such as wind power. Wind power is the fastest-growing energy generation industry in the world. Notwithstanding a lack of government support, across the world the industry has grown at an average rate of 29% over the past 10 years, concentrated in California in the US, Spain, Germany, Denmark and several other European countries. During that time, the amount of wind energy production has risen from 5000 megawatts (MW) to more than 60,000 MW. By 2010, the amount is expected to double to 120,000 MW. Wind power has become more technologically advanced and reliable since it emerged commercially around 25 years ago. One of the most important advancements has been the evolution of larger turbines, which has had a couple of advantages. First, the most consistent and strongest airflow is found higher above the ground; lower-altitude breezes are generally weaker and more erratic. Whereas wind farms used to be viable only in special areas with excellent year-round breezes, newer large turbines are suited to a far wider range of locations. The second advantage of large turbines is that they generate more electricity. The latest generation of mass produced wind turbines has a blade diameter of 90 metres, with the generator, a nacelle, sitting on top of an 80 or 105 metre-high tower. Such turbines consistently produce about 3 million MW of electricity per unit, and cost about $3.6 million each (or about $1200 per kilowatt). A South Australian wind farm recently placed an order for 53 V90 3 MW turbines. Vestas, of Denmark, now has a factory in Tasmania that is equipped to produce several types of large turbines. Next generation turbines are larger again, with 5 MW turbines with a 126-metre blade diameter. While the reliability of wind power has improved, problems remain with consistent supply. One of these is overloading the grid with electricity in times of high wind and, to a lesser extent, under-powering the grid in low wind. A South Australian consortium is investigating using “burst power” by running electricity-hungry seawater desalination plants during peak wind power periods as a way of “soaking up” excess power. The concern that wind power inadvertently kills birds can be minimised by ensuring that the turbines are not built in known flight paths, or near nesting areas and waterholes. Wildlife groups are generally well aware of the benefits of wind power, and are happy to let authorities know about these critical locations. Some birds and bats will still be killed, but only a tiny fraction compared to those killed each year by vehicles. Solutions to community concerns might include building wind farms on private land, where farmers can still graze livestock and grow crops beneath the turbines while earning lease payments for hosting the turbines, and by placing the turbines along roadways and the edges of large public reserves. Turbines do emit some blade noise, but modern models are much quieter due to improved blade aerodynamics. Some argue that turbines are “unsightly”, but these anti-wind groups, often supported by the nuclear industry, should consider how aesthetically pleasing deformed babies and cancer victims are. The electricity grid in Australia, like most around the world, is based around a few centralised power plants that feed high voltages out to a progressively lighter network of transmission lines. Wind farms built around the perimeter of existing power networks would need to be properly linked back into the grid, requiring the construction of new cable infrastructure. Any nuclear power plant would require a similar investment in transmission lines to link them back into the grid. For wind power to be the dominant source of power, it would require a substantial restructure of the grid, and technological advances to further refine the reliability of wind power. However Ben Carmichael of Vestas Australia told Green Left Weekly that, in the immediate future, Australia could derive up to 20% of its national electricity needs from wind without a massive overhaul of the transmission network and without compromising the reliability of supply. According to Carmichael, 20% wind power nationally would require the construction of about 2500 V90 turbines, or equivalent, at a cost of around $9 billion. Expense Compare this to the financial costs of nuclear energy. To achieve a situation where 20% of current national electricity production was nuclear power would require the construction of at least five typical nuclear power plants, each with a capacity of around 1000-1500 MW (a typical reactor size). Based on several recently commissioned third-generation reactors in Japan and South Korea, these reactors would cost between $1500 and $2000 per kilowatt to commission, and therefore between $11.25-$15 billion in total. Clearly, nuclear power is more expensive. Once built, the plants require fuel rods, an additional cost, and these must be enriched at a separate facility, which would cost upwards of $500 million. Nuclear power has higher operational and maintenance costs compared to wind power, and nuclear power stations take longer to commission (seven to 10 years) than wind turbines (three to six months once delivered). More carbon dioxide is emitted in the construction of a nuclear power plant, and in the enrichment of fuel rods, than in the construction of wind towers. Once a wind turbine is up and running it will have generated as much clean energy after six months as “dirty” energy used in its manufacture. It takes about seven years for a nuclear power station to generate more carbon dioxide-free electricity than was spent building the plant and getting it operational. Over the lifetime of a wind turbine, it will generate 17-39 times the amount of energy as was used to build it. Nuclear power plants produce only about 16 times the energy used to build them. Each 1000 MW nuclear power generator would produce about 33 tonnes of highly radioactive waste per year, which would then need to be stored at additional cost, reprocessed at an even greater cost, or dumped — the cheapest and most likely option for dollar-saving corporations. If Australia has its own nuclear power plants, nuclear waste dumps and enrichment facilities, it will be easier to argue for it to become a world dumping ground for nuclear waste. If Australia leases enriched fuel rods to other nations and takes the waste back, a stockpile of dangerous nuclear waste will accrue. The US is partway through constructing a US$28 billion dump in Yucca Mountain, Nevada, due to open in 2017. But the US will still have another 30,000 tonnes of nuclear waste and 22,000 barrels of high-level waste to get rid of within 30 years. Australia might be a cheaper option than hollowing out another Yucca Mountain. But unlike wind turbines, nuclear power plants cannot be disassembled once their operational life is over. A nuclear plant must be properly decommissioned and decontaminated, a multi-billion dollar process usually paid for by taxpayers rather than the corporations that have profited. Risks Although modern nuclear reactors are safer than Cold War-era ones, the ever-present risk with nuclear power is a meltdown that spreads toxic vapour and fragments of nuclear waste and particles. This happens when the ultra-hot fuel rods, through human, mechanical or technical faults, overheat and melt through the core, then floor of the reactor, and come into contact with moisture, causing an explosion. This is what happened in 1986 in the Chernobyl reactor in the Ukraine. A more likely scenario is the overheating, and resultant over-pressurising of the reactor core, which can lead to radioactive steam being vented into the atmosphere. This happened at the Three Mile Island reactor in Pennsylvania in 1979. Then, the hot fuel rods in the core of the reactor caused a “meltdown” when they overheated and started burning through the steel and concrete reactor casing. This destroyed the reactor core and toxic gases leaked into the atmosphere, but did not cause an explosion like at Chernobyl. No new nuclear power plants have been built in the US since the Three Mile Island meltdown. The global nuclear power industry has grown at a rate of 1.7% over the last 10 years, compared to 29% for wind and 28% for solar. The other danger associated with nuclear power is weapons proliferation. Each 1000 MW reactor produces about 200kg of plutonium per year, of which only 5kg is required to make a rudimentary bomb. Even the nuclear industry acknowledges there are no guarantees that plutonium from “peaceful reactors” will not end up in weapons programs, legally or otherwise. Uranium for weapons and for power plants are component parts of the same dangerous nuclear fuel cycle. From Green Left Weekly, September 6, 2006. Authorised by K. Miller, 23 Abercrombie St, Chippendale, NSW ***************************************************************** 42 News Journal: Nuclear agency ends increased oversight delawareonline Activists say N.J. plants show pattern of problems By JEFF MONTGOMERY, The News Journal Posted Saturday, September 2, 2006 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has discontinued its stepped-up oversight of the Salem and Hope Creek nuclear plants along the New Jersey side of the Delaware River, citing company progress in making work areas and managers more sensitive to safety issues. In a letter sent to PSEG Nuclear on Thursday, NRC officials said an assessment report issued July 31 "documents our conclusion that you have made substantial progress" in improving the plant's work environment "and that programs are in place to sustain this progress." The Salem-Hope Creek complex ranks as the nation's second-largest nuclear generating station. Federal officials ordered close scrutiny and extra inspections for the operation in late 2004 after complaints that managers ignored or discouraged safety warnings from workers and after a serious steam leak and breakdown. "We would prefer that the NRC continue their oversight and not slack off," said Norm Cohen, who directs UNPLUG Salem, a group opposed to nuclear power. "This is not a surprise. I have my doubts. This is a pattern that's happened before. PSEG would have problems, they'd patch it together and a few months later, more problems." Cohen said the plants should have to show years of consistent, safety-conscious performance before the NRC changes their status. NRC representatives plan to discuss their decision to return the plants to regular supervision with the public on Sept. 14 at a site near the plant The agency reported its decision as it released midyear assessments for all 103 nuclear power plants now operating in the United States. Contact Jeff Montgomery at 678-4277 or jmontgomery@delawareonline.com. Copyright © The News Journal. ***************************************************************** 43 Energy Business Review: Fluor tables bid for BNG - 1st September 2006 By Stephen McNamara According to a report from The Times newspaper in Britain, US engineering company Fluor has offered the UK government up to GBP400 million for its nuclear decommissioning arm British Nuclear Group. The major US enterprise has long been linked with BNG, having been speculated as a likely bidder for the nuclear clean up outfit since UK chancellor Gordon Brown first hinted of its sale earlier in the year. US firm Fluor is reported to have tabled a bid of between GBP250 million and GBP400 million for the business through a direct offer from its UK director Lord Renwick of Clifton to the prime minister. BNG, which is a division of BNFL, is expected to be given the job of decommissioning the Sellafield site in Cumbria and is likely to be tasked with several other similar jobs in the UK nuclear power sector in the near future, giving it a multi billion pound turnover. Fluor's offer is considered to undervalue the business. However, despite strong interest from other firms in the US and France, Fluor currently benefits from a lack of firm competing bids. ©2006 Business Review Ltd ***************************************************************** 44 Detroit Free Press: State pondering nuclear power Freep.com Published: September 03. 2006 3:00AM Opponents on guard as officials assess future needs BY ALEJANDRO BODIPO-MEMBA FREE PRESS BUSINESS WRITER DTE Energy's Fermi 2 nuclear power plant in Monroe. (JEFF BRUSH/Associated Press) Michigan has begun a stepped-up examination of alternative energy sources to meet the state's ever-growing need for electricity. Now nuclear power, the most controversial form of energy being considered, has a southeast Michigan community up in arms. Monroe is home to DTE Energy's Fermi 2 nuclear power plant, which generates 1,100 megawatts of electricity. It is also the area DTE officials have suggested as the possible site of a future reactor if difficult-to-attain permit and governmental approvals are obtained. The prospect of a new nuclear facility being built in the next 10 years, though remote, is a concern to anti-nuclear groups in Monroe. "Nuclear power professes to be the answer to our energy problems, but it's not," said Michael Keegan, a longtime resident of Monroe and founder of the nonprofit Coalition for a Nuclear-Free Great Lakes. "The average person on the street, unless you work there, just doesn't want it." The debate over building additional nuclear power plants has gotten some traction in recent years, as Michigan's largest utility has expressed new support for the expansion of nuclear energy. "Michigan's long-term electricity needs will require additional electric generating capacity to continue to provide power reliably and affordably," said Anthony Earley Jr., chairman and chief executive officer of DTE, owner of Detroit Edison. His comments Thursday complement the release earlier this year of a Michigan Public Service Commission report that detailed the state's need to boost generation of electricity in the future. The report recommended that Michigan consider building at least one more coal-fired power plant by 2012 to address growing demand. It also discussed the role nuclear power may play in Michigan over time. Nuclear power is primarily used to generate electricity and is considered by some to be a cleaner form of energy than fossil fuel-based materials. The 104 nuclear power plants in operation across the country account for about 20% of the nation's electric consumption annually. Michigan spends $20 billion a year on imported energy. About 26% of all electricity used in Michigan is generated from nuclear power. "Although the timing dictates that the first new base-load capacity in Michigan will likely be coal-fired generation, nuclear power is a very viable option down the road," Earley said. Despite the corporate support, there are several roadblocks standing in the way of building a new nuclear facility in Michigan. The state permit and license process is lengthy, and the costs of construction are steep. It takes at least a decade to get permits and licenses from state and local bureaucracies to build a nuclear power plant. There are more than 25 plans pending for nuclear construction around the country, Keegan said. Estimates for what it would cost to build another reactor on the Fermi 2 site, for example, could be as high as $3 billion, depending on the size of the plant, said Earley, who was recently re-elected chairman of the Nuclear Energy Institute in Washington, D.C. There also are safety concerns that stem from well-documented nuclear accidents at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania and Chernobyl in the former Soviet Union that still resonate with the U.S. public. "Safety is the main concern for me," said Shirley Steinman, a 75-year-old retired teacher who has lived 5 miles from the Fermi 2 plant in Monroe since 1951. "Any of the other alternatives that are safe, which doesn't include nuclear or coal, would be fine with me. Even with the nuclear power getting heavy subsidies, it's still not cost-effective." The nuclear power industry received 95% of all federal subsidies allotted for the study of alternative energy between 1943 and 1999, according to a study by the Renewable Energy Policy Project titled "Federal Energy Subsidies: Not All Technologies are Created Equal." The 2000 report found that the nuclear power industry received $145.5 billion of the $151 billion spent by the federal government on nuclear, wind, solar and photovoltaic power during that 56-year period. Most recently, the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which was signed by President George W. Bush two years ago, added an additional $4.8 billion in subsidies. "I don't think nuclear is a viable option in Michigan's future," said Michael Shriberg, executive director of Environment Michigan in Ann Arbor. "The first reason is that it simply costs too much. Even with the huge subsidies, it's not cost competitive with other forms of electricity." Contact ALEJANDRO BODIPO-MEMBA at 313-222-5008 or . Copyright © 2006 Detroit Free Press Inc. ***************************************************************** 45 Boston Globe: Judge withdraws from Pilgrim nuclear plant license case PLYMOUTH -- One of three judges on the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board panel reviewing the Pilgrim nuclear power plant's bid to renew its operating license for 20 years has withdrawn from the case. Judge withdraws from Pilgrim license case AG, activists argued appearance of conflict By Robert Knox, Globe Correspondent | September 3, 2006 PLYMOUTH -- One of three judges on the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board panel reviewing the Pilgrim nuclear power plant's bid to renew its operating license for 20 years has withdrawn from the case. Judge Nicholas Trikouros said he is recusing himself ``to avoid an appearance of partiality" after disclosing earlier this summer that he previously worked for Pilgrim's owner, Entergy Corp., on a study of another Entergy-owned plant. But he also said he continues to believe his past work for Entergy would not have prevented him from performing his duties fairly and objectively. Both state Attorney General Tom Reilly and the citizens group Pilgrim Watch filed motions calling for his disqualification after Trikouros's disclosure. Both contended that he had taken a position on the security of a nuclear reactor's spent fuel pools, an issue they have raised before industry regulators reviewing Pilgrim's license extension, through his previous work on the issue for Entergy. They said studying the same issue for another Entergy plant created the appearance of a conflict. Both have argued before the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, urging that federal regulators who are deciding whether to renew a plant's license should examine the vulnerability of reactors' spent fuel pools, where nuclear waste is stored, especially in view of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Lawyers for Entergy filed their own motion last week, contending that Trikouros's involvement in the work for a previous plant was ``modest" and that the other plant had significant design differences from Pilgrim. They contended the judge should not be disqualified. Trikouros himself had asserted, in his disclosure statement, that his prior work for Entergy would not cause ``a reasonable person" to believe he would be biased in the Pilgrim case. However, after reviewing the arguments of the disqualification motions, he concluded that the inclusion of his prior work for Entergy in a National Academy of Science report that is specifically referred to by Pilgrim Watch and the attorney general in their arguments to the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board creates ``an appearance" that his prior work is relevant to the Pilgrim case. ``This factor is determinative," Trikouros stated. In his withdrawal statement, he also suggested that consulting work for nuclear energy companies by experts such as himself should not be seen as bias in their favor. Noting that federal law requires two of three members of the licensing board panel to be technical experts in the nuclear field, he said, ``To be technically expert in the nuclear field, one must have worked extensively in the nuclear field. This point should be self-evident." Robert Knox can be reached at . [ /] © Copyright 2006 Globe Newspaper Company. ***************************************************************** 46 Bahrain News Agency: Bahrain to host conference on nuclear widespread date: 02 09, 2006 Manama, September. 2, (BNA) The Ministry of Interior in cooperation with the Gulf Centre for Strategic Studies, will organise a conference on the effects of the widespread of nuclear technology in the Arabian Gulf from September 10 to 11. The conference which will be held under the patronage of the Prime Minister, Shaikh Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa will review the dangers of the widespread of nuclear technology in order to outline the appropriate strategy to avoid the drawback as a result of this. Moreover, the conference will focus on a number of issues that include the phenomena of nuclear widespread, efforts of regional and international confrontation within this framework along with the effects of it on the environment, economy, security and political aspects in the Middle East. HS 02-SEP-2006 13:12 Publishing Rights Reserved to Bahrain News Agency © 2003 - 2004 ***************************************************************** 47 Decatur Daily: Nuke plant leaks cited: Group says TVA, NRC are ‘flippant’ SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2006 By Holly Hollman DAILY Staff Writer hhollman@decaturdaily.com · 340-2445 ATHENS  The head of a nuclear watchdog group says news of tritium leaks at three Valley power plants is disconcerting because of how "flippant TVA and the NRC are" about the contamination. The Tennessee Valley Authority's three nuclear power plants, including Browns Ferry, near Athens, have leaked tritium into the groundwater, according to TVA and Nuclear Regulatory Commission documents. Tritium occurs both naturally and during the operation of nuclear plants. Stephen A. Smith, executive director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, said TVA and NRC officials' comments about the leaks not being a health or safety issue show that this is a low priority issue for them. Smith's group is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that promotes responsible energy choices throughout the Southeast. The leaked tritium has not moved beyond TVA property and is not a public health hazard, NRC officials told The Chattanooga Times Free Press. NRC spokesman Kenneth Clark said if the leaked tritium reached the Tennessee River, the river would dilute it. Smith said tritium is the equivalent to hydrogen and can create a form of radioactive water. It is possible that cells can incorporate the contaminated water, he said. 'Frustrating' "Is tritium the most dangerous radioactive byproduct?" Smith asked. "No. But it's frustrating to me that those in the nuclear industry will say they are only adding to what is already found in nature. That's a bogus argument. It's not appropriate to add a man-made source of radioactive material and increase the health risk." According to TVA's August letter to the NRC, Browns Ferry has detected tritium four times since January 2001. Browns Ferry quarterly monitors four on-site groundwater locations for tritium. TVA's letter states it has repaired or is repairing the leaks or spills that led to the contamination. One tritium leak occurred when a radioactive material shipping container carrying nine Unit 1 used control rod drives leaked contaminated water on the shipping trailer and then the roadway in front of the plant office building. TVA estimated the total amount of water that leaked was less than one quart. Other instances included: + A leak in an elbow on the east side of the cooling tower. + An overflow of the cooling tower basin due to a malfunction in level indicators. + Concentrations greater than baseline values in an underground cable tunnel located between the intake and turbine building due to a line break. TVA reported that none of the leaks exceeded maximum containment levels for drinking water. "They will argue that the body will flush it through its system," Smith said, "but the body also absorbs water. That means tritium can cause destruction of genetic material, and that can lead to cancer." Smith said eating fish exposed to tritium also could cause humans to absorb it into their cellular makeup. This year the NRC created a tritium review board to examine the issue of inadvertent, unmonitored releases of radioactive liquids containing tritium from U.S. commercial nuclear power plants. The NRC Web site states the group is reviewing incidents such as those at Browns Ferry to ensure nuclear plant operators have taken appropriate action and to determine what, if any, changes are needed to the agency's rules and regulations. On The Net: Tritanium issues, www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/ops-experience/grndwtr-contam-trit ium.html. Copyright 2005 THE DECATUR DAILY. All rights reserved. AP contributed to this report. --> Copyright 2005 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. --> THE DECATUR DAILY 201 1st Ave. SE P.O. Box 2213 Decatur, Ala. 35609 (256) 353-4612 webmaster@decaturdaily.com ***************************************************************** 48 Portsmouth Herald: Seabrook nuclear plant off-line during repairs September 02, 2006 By Associated Press SEABROOK -- The Seabrook nuclear plant was off-line Friday because of an electrical problem with its backup power generators. Alan Griffith, spokesman for FPL Energy Seabrook Station, said Friday there was no problem with the plant's nuclear power generating operations. He said rules required the plant to shut down overnight Thursday so workers could begin fixing a problem with backup diesel generators. Griffith said Seabrook would remain shut down for the rest of the day, possibly longer. Meanwhile, he said customers shouldn't notice any difference in service. Griffith said Seabrook station generates enough electricity to run more than 1 million homes. Copyright © 2006 Seacoast Online. All rights reserved. Please ***************************************************************** 49 Reuters: Japan preparing nuclear accident-response steps-Kyodo 02 Sep 2006 12:25:22 GMT02 Sep 2006 TOKYO, Sept 2 (Reuters) - Japan is preparing a set of high-level alert procedures to follow in the event of a nuclear power plant accident abroad, out of concern that North Korea may carry out an underground nuclear test, Kyodo News said on Saturday, citing government sources. The steps to be taken would be comparable to those Tokyo has in place for a major earthquake or other large-scale natural calamity within Japan, the sources told Kyodo. If the government determines that Pyongyang has detonated a nuclear device, Japan will declare an "emergency situation" and a task force will be set up at the prime minister's official residence, the sources said. Government officials were not immediately available to comment on the report. Arrangements call for the task force, led by Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary for Crisis Management Takeshi Noda, to discuss specific steps such as investigating the impact of radioactivity, they said. On the diplomatic front, Japan would cooperate with the United States and others to introduce a resolution to seek sanctions against North Korea at the U.N. Security Council. It would also take its own measures against the North including blocking money remittances to the country. ABC News of the United States cited U.S. officials in mid-August saying Pyongyang may be preparing for an underground test of a nuclear bomb. North Korea test-fired a barrage of missiles on July 5. The Japanese government has since been stepping up surveillance and intelligence gathering, the sources said. At present, however, "We have not detected any specific signs of a nuclear test," one source told Kyodo. ***************************************************************** 50 Austin American Statesman: Nuclear site 'like a candy store' for terrorists At a decrepit Serbian nuclear site, clean-up experts race to beat the terrorists. By George Jahn ASSOCIATED PRESS Sunday, September 03, 2006 VINCA, Serbia The Vinca reactor stands still, its decrepit innards purged of their unused weapons-grade fuel. But it remains Serbia's little shop of nuclear horrors and a potential magnet for terrorists. It is now part of the world's quest to lift the threat of nuclear material falling into the wrong hands first by taking control of the fuel that makes atomic bombs, and then by tackling the lesser, but still potent, menace of a dirty bomb, meaning radiation spread by blowing up radioactive material with conventional explosives. Srdjan Ilic ASSOCIATED PRESS (enlarge photo) Serbia's Vinca reactor, where inspector Herbert Boadu of the International Atomic Energy Agency measures radiation, has been emptied of unused weapons-grade fuel. But dangerous spent fuel rods remain. At the Vinca Institute of Nuclear Sciences outside Belgrade, there are only a few armed guards in sight, and the barbed-wire fence around the 48-acre facility is only as tall as a person. For would-be terrorists, "it's almost like a candy store," said Mike Durst, the International Atomic Energy Agency's point man working to strip Vinca of its attraction to nuclear thieves. Presidents Bush and Vladimir Putin this summer jointly an- nounced the "Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism," which calls for better accounting and protection of the world's nuclear sites, scattered around the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa. The new program is meant to build on others created by the Bush administration, including the 3-year old "Global Threat Reduction Initiative" to deal with a broad range of vulnerable nuclear and radiological materials around the world. Most of the existing programs focus on unused weapons-grade fuel, nearly 100 pounds of which lay in Vinca until four years ago, when Washington, Moscow and Belgrade mounted a joint operation to remove it. Helicopters and 1,200 heavily armed troops including snipers were deployed along with decoy trucks to thwart potential mischief-makers. Half of Belgrade was sealed off, and within six hours, the fuel enough to make at least two simple nuclear warheads was trucked from Vinca to the airport and onward to a Russian government plant about 470 miles east of Moscow. But inside the Vinca reactor building, 8,000 spent fuel rods still sit in pools of brackish water. Dozens contain uranium in varying degrees of enrichment potential dirty bomb material, not to mention the environmental hazard. Research reactors such as Vinca tend to be less heavily protected than power plants, and, though building a full-blown nuclear bomb is technologically daunting, terrorists could easily use the material such as that in the rods to construct a dirty bomb. With just one dirty bomb, "you could hit Broadway, and you couldn't decontaminate it for years," said Obrad Sotic, Vinca's former operations manager. Although no nuclear material is known to have gone missing, employees speak openly of the potential temptations of selling some on the black market as a way supplementing monthly incomes of less than $750. There's a lot to steal old medical and industrial equipment, and tons of material inside the reactor or in two rickety corrugated metal sheds. There are bags of irradiated grass, containers of depleted uranium ammunition fired by NATO during its 1999 Kosovo campaign, and several tons of yellowcake processed uranium ore of the kind Iran plans to process and enrich. A centrally monitored alarm system is being installed in Vinca. There's a plan to ship the spent fuel to Russia and to build safer storage facilities for the collected nuclear junk. The ultimate goal is to dismantle the reactor But money is a problem. The Serbian Science Ministry, which is responsible for Vinca, has a budget of less than $90 million for this year. That wouldn't cover the cost of upgrading security, shipping the spent fuel back to Russia and dismantling the reactor. Sending the spent fuel back to Russia will cost around $10 million, and more money is needed to reprocess the fuel. Building better storage will cost an additional $5 million. About 60 percent of that amount has been pledged by donor countries, but dismantling the facility will cost some $60 million. For Serbia's science minister, Aleksandar Popovic, the 2002 operation to remove the weapons-grade fuel has left the job only half done. Popovic said he was very unhappy that help hasn't materialized to complete the job. Las Vegas Sun The enthusiastic new director of the Yucca Mountain project got his first look at the site not long ago. But the mountain had seen the likes of him before. No fewer than 10 directors or acting directors have come and gone in the 20 years since the federal government started studying the Nevada desert for the nation's nuclear waste repository. The new director, Edward "Ward" Sproat, now has an idea why. "It's one thing to dig a hole," Sproat said recently after emerging from a tour of the tunnel into the hot sun. "I'm not satisfied we have all the answers." Sproat arrived at the dusty compound 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas with an engineer's optimism: Solving problems is just a matter of working things through to conclusion. Five minutes with Sproat and you begin to see why the Energy Department chose him. He tells you plainly and succinctly what he knows. Then he says just as clearly what it is he doesn't yet know. It's straight talk, the kind that inspires confidence: If he can run nuclear power plants for private industry, as he has for years, he can puff life into this gasping project. His tour of the aging 5-mile tunnel, however, showed some doubt. He had questions you would expect of an engineer: How will they ever finish building the remaining 42 miles if they start at the projected rate of about 2 miles a year? Have they designed all of the necessary protections for storing deadly spent nuclear fuel? But the most pressing question he voiced didn't have an answer rooted in science. Why does it take three tries to get anything done right at Yucca? The never-before-tried engineering feat of storing toxic waste in a mountain has cost $9 billion so far and has suffered from countless, costly do-overs. Now, under most optimistic timetables, it is scheduled to open in 2017, almost 20 years late. An Energy Department inspector general's report last month gave skeptics another reason to sigh - potential problems continue in more than 100 procedural areas already noted for corrective action. Touring the lonely site with Sproat, accompanied by Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., offered a reminder about the amount of work remaining - and the dwindling political will to get it done. Virtually every top elected official in Nevada opposes the project, and even its biggest boosters in Congress are starting to consider interim plans. The 5-mile tunnel opened to great fanfare almost a decade ago, a warm-up for the show that one day was to go on inside. The tunnel serves as a lab for the central question scientists face: Will water seep through the rock, corrode the waste canisters and leak deadly spent fuel into the environment? Project scientists say the water will trickle in, but not in big enough volumes to do harm. The chief scientist says investigation at the site is almost complete. But others, including independent Yucca Mountain researcher Allison Macfarlane, now at George Mason University, believe many questions remain. "They have a lot of work to do," she said last week. Sproat's tour brought home that reality. Not much bigger around than a subway, and outfitted with a train that clickety-clacks visitors into the mountain, the tunnel feels more like an amusement park ride than an engineering marvel being watched the world over. The tunnel's bare walls show off the hearty mountain rock that is the source of such hope and worry - strong enough to store some of the most dangerous stuff on Earth, complicated enough to keep scientists guessing about how it will shift and rumble over the next tens of thousands of years. Workers have created a cozy workspace a mile back, redolent of the smell of dirt and diesel, with a break table and bumper sticker that reminds you to support the troops. With no natural light to set the rhythms, time slips away, as in a casino. Ten years ago the place was buzzing with 750 workers as the tunnel was being drilled. The work has slowed considerably since then, and the workforce has been slashed by two-thirds. Workers now mostly maintain the site, replacing electrical or fire alarm systems that were never expected to stand this long. More than anything, the tunnel feels like a driveway to a house that has yet to be built. The waste is to be set in 42 miles of storage space branching off from the tunnel. Digging it could take decades. Sproat worries about such a prolonged building program. Yucca Mountain should be built fast, he said, as soon as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission gives the project a green light - now pegged at 2011. Also, he sees the construction challenges as less daunting than the job of fixing a management culture that has allowed sloppy documentation. Energy Department representatives explained during the tour that the agency had just spent another $15 million and nine months redoing water infiltration tests after a 2005 scandal, when e-mails showed researchers allegedly discussing falsified quality-assurance documentation. The redone research shows twice as much water as expected will probably seep through the rock, but Energy Department scientists say it is still not enough to be a problem. Sproat said he believes the latest science is sound. But the Nuclear Regulatory Commission still has to be convinced. If Sproat manages that, the pace of work will pick up swiftly. Crews will replace the rickety train with a souped-up version run by robots to carry the waste to its resting place. Another $2 billion in tracks will be set across the Nevada desert to haul in waste from around the country. All those new storage tunnels will have to be built. Sproat spent 10 days in Nevada, meeting with researchers and managers about what it will take to get the project going. He still believes he can hit his 2017 opening date - though he has said that once he gets the project in motion, he is not likely to stick around to see it to completion. "There's a lot of work still to be done," he said before heading to Washington. "I'm not seeing anything here that's overwhelming." Lisa Mascaro can be reached at (202) 662-7436 or at lisa.mascaro@lasvegassun.com. Photos: Edward "Ward" Sproat | Dick Kovach | Train operator | Sproat and Porter All contents copyright 2005 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 60 reviewjournal.com: Yucca Mountain dead? Don't believe it Opinion - FROM OUR READERS Sep. 03, 2006 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal By MARVIN FERTEL Gov. Kenny Guinn confuses the politics of Yucca Mountain with reality in his Aug. 21 assertion that the federal repository project for used nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste from U.S. defense programs "appears to be headed toward the trash bin of history" (commentary, "Is the Yucca Mountain Project in peril?"). Under any scenario for managing used nuclear fuel that produces 20 percent of America's electricity, a specially designed, underground repository will be needed to safely secure the material. This is true even if Congress shifts U.S. policy to recycle the enormous energy potential that remains in nuclear fuel rods after just one use in today's reactors. Given the intense competition for world energy resources, the global commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and a doubling of U.S. electricity demand expected by 2030, it's no wonder why Congress and the nation are looking at an expanded role for nuclear energy. That expanded role must take into account stewardship of used nuclear fuel. In 2002, Congress confirmed Yucca Mountain as the site for a deep geologic repository based on 20 years and $8 billion of scientific analysis. Some secondary aspects of that scientific pedigree have been challenged, but the broad body of work has withstood rigorous independent scientific review. Moreover, Congress has continued to fund this project each year and is now considering legislation that would facilitate building the repository some 1,000 feet under the desert ridge. The DOE will continue to be subject to broad oversight of the program by the state and scientific and regulatory bodies when it moves to the repository construction phase. The nuclear energy industry shares this commitment to safety at the project, just as it has at 103 reactors in 31 states. As part of this oversight, DOE will be subject to a rigorous licensing process before the independent U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. DOE said it will file the license application to build the Yucca Mountain repository in 2008. Two federal agencies involved in licensing Yucca Mountain have vast experience in licensing nuclear fuel storage facilities. The NRC has licensed more than two dozen fuel storage facilities at nuclear plant sites, and the Environmental Protection Agency licensed an underground nuclear waste disposal facility in the salt caverns of Carlsbad, N.M. More than 3,000 safe shipments of used nuclear fuel demonstrate that the material can be moved without impact to the public or the environment. A National Research Council report earlier this year included the principal finding that "radiological risk associated with transportation of spent fuel and high-level radioactive waste are well understood and are generally low." Other used fuel management proposals being considered by Congress would not change the need for the Yucca Mountain repository. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Pete Domenici, who supports a three-pronged effort -- including fuel recycling, interim storage and disposal at a repository -- stated clearly that the Yucca Mountain project must remain a part of a comprehensive used fuel management program. "Yucca Mountain is the cornerstone of a comprehensive spent nuclear fuel management strategy for this country. Let me be clear: We need Yucca Mountain," Domenici said in August. Some Nevada business and community leaders recognize it is inevitable that the repository at Yucca Mountain will move forward, and that Nevada should benefit from partnering with the government on this project. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act requires that the federal government provide benefits for a repository host state. Therefore, the state could negotiate a benefits package that bolsters education, state health care, infrastructure, water and other needs for the long term. Others in Nevada continue to fight the project without success. A federal appeals court in August handed the state yet another loss in the courts, denying Nevada's claim that the environmental impact statement for the project was flawed and dismissing other claims that were "unripe for review." Recognizing these factors, Gov. Guinn is raising false hopes for Nevadans about a project that figures to be a vital part of providing our nation greater energy independence. In addition, the $60 billion project could provide enormous economic opportunity for the state and a chance for Nevada to become a center of science and energy research. Marvin Fertel is chief nuclear officer and senior vice president at the Nuclear Energy Institute in Washington, D.C. NEI is a policy organization that represents users of commercial nuclear technology in energy, medicine and other applications. Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2006 ***************************************************************** 61 DailyBulletin.com: Is perchlorate cleanup slipping from our grasp? Article Launched: 09/03/2006 12:00:00 AM PDT GUEST COLUMN JOSIE GONZALES, Guest Columnist In spite of what you may have been told about Tuesday's unproductive meeting between the County of San Bernardino and the city of Rialto, I have stayed focused on what is important  the containment and cleanup of perchlorate contamination in Rialto's groundwater. The city has sued the county and about 40 other parties who city leaders claim have polluted the city's water. The city's filing of a lawsuit before state environmental enforcement agencies have assigned responsibility for the perchlorate contamination cleanup presents two major problems: " While the parties argue over who may owe what in monetary damages to the city, the eastern plume of perchlorate pollution flows steadily toward more drinking water wells and the Santa Ana River. " And, by whipping up everyone into a litigious frenzy, the city has made it more difficult for the State Regional Water Quality Control Board, Santa Ana Region, to secure the cooperation of the potentially responsible parties to investigate the extent of the contamination and develop solutions to contain it. While I disagree with the city's strategy, I acknowledge its right to pursue it. However, I cannot wait for the lawsuit to solve the problem. Lawsuits take years and millions of dollars to resolve. The residents of Rialto and Colton do not have that kind of time or money. City wells have been shut down because of two perchlorate plumes originating in the north end of the Rialto-Colton Basin. The county is working to contain the western plume of perchlorate in the Rialto-Colton Basin. We have accepted responsibility for cleaning up this plume, because a private aggregate mining operation on county-owned land flushed perchlorate out of the soil near the Mid-Valley Sanitary Landfill. The county has fully cooperated with the State Regional Board. We have spent roughly $7 million during the past four years investigating the contamination flushed by the mining operation and to construct a treatment facility to stop its advancement. The county-built treatment facility at the Rialto Airport started delivering clean drinking water to Rialto residents in early June. The county plans to spend at least $3 million more to expand the treatment facility. And, we will likely spend more than $500,000 per year to operate that treatment facility. As a result of the county's proactive measures, the perchlorate pollution from the private mining operation has not affected the city drinking water supply. In addition as a responsible neighbor, the county reimburses the city for water the city has to import because of the perchlorate contamination. I'm not sure why the city believes the county owes it another $6 million when we've already done so much to clean up perchlorate. Unfortunately, during our meeting Tuesday, Councilman Ed Scott chose to focus on disruptive, unrelated issues rather than explain how the county has damaged the city. I will not pay the attorney's fees for the five law firms the city has hired. The city chose to sue the county a year and a half after the county started its investigation and cleanup measures and a year after the county accepted a cleanup order from the State Regional Board. The city did not need to sue the county. I have offered to meet with city leaders again about their lawsuit if they demonstrate a commitment to contain and clean up perchlorate. I have asked that they sign a memorandum of understanding regarding the pursuit of federal funds for the perchlorate contamination cleanup by Sept. 14. This shouldn't be difficult as the City Council approved the MOU back on March 21. The county, cities of Rialto and Colton, West Valley Water District and Fontana Water worked for nearly a year to draft an Initial 5-Year Groundwater Cleanup Approach white paper. The city demanded the MOU, which every other party has now signed, except Rialto. The city's failure to sign its own MOU calls into question the sincerity of its leaders' stated commitment to protect Rialto residents from the cost of the perchlorate contamination cleanup and provide them with clean drinking water. Our local congressional delegation in Washington, D.C., has made it repeatedly clear to all of us that we will only continue to receive federal funding or be given future consideration if the group stays united. Sen. Feinstein and Congressman Baca were successful in getting authorized this year a $25 million fund for groundwater cleanup in the Santa Ana River watershed and Santa Clara County. We must be ready to submit a joint grant application as soon as funding is appropriated to the program. If Rialto is not on board, I must know now so that I can start working to secure funds without the city. I will not have the important cleanup work held up any longer by the city's baseless demand for a $6 million payment.  Supervisor Josie Gonzales represents the 5th District of San Bernardino County, which includes south Fontana, Rialto and Colton. Los Angeles Newspaper Group ***************************************************************** 62 San Bernardino County Sun: Calm reigns at perchlorate meeting Article Launched: 09/02/2006 12:00:00 AM PDT Jason Pesick, Staff Writer RIALTO - About 50 residents and local officials showed up to a meeting at City Hall on Friday night to hear about the city's perchlorate contamination problem and what is being done to clean it up. Perchlorate is a chemical that can interfere with the functioning of the thyroid gland, causing development and metabolic problems. Perchlorate is used in the production of explosives, such as fireworks, flares and rocket fuel. Despite fears that the meeting would turn into a political slugfest in which city officials would attack San Bernardino County officials, the meeting remained calm. Although one of the city's attorney's, Christian Carrigan, complained about the county's role in a lawsuit the city has filed against it, the U.S. Department of Defense and 40 corporations, city officials remained collegial. Gerard Thibeault, the executive officer of the Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board, said the board will hold hearings at the end of the year to determine what role a number of corporations played in the water contamination and what those corporations should do to clean up the contamination. City leaders called the meeting earlier this week and drew complaints from local officials and perchlorate experts because of the last-minute notice. Councilmen Ed Scott (cmcq) and Joe Sampson (cmcq) released a letter to the community that listed local officials as invited guest speakers at the meeting. However, the invited guest speakers did not receive an invitation prior to receiving the letter, which was addressed to Rialto residents. Some officials had plans to be out of town for the holiday weekend and said they wondered why a meeting about a serious topic would be scheduled for the Friday night before Labor Day. City and county officials scheduled a meeting for this past Tuesday to discuss the city's lawsuit. The meeting lasted only minutes before dissolving into bickering. On Thursday, county Supervisor Josie Gonzales (cmcq), who was at Friday's meeting, sent a letter addressed to Rialto Mayor Grace Vargas and to the City Council asking for the city's cooperation in dealing with the perchlorate contamination. In the letter, Gonzales lays out two conditions for having another meeting. The first is that city and county officials agree on the meeting's format. At the last meeting, there was a dispute as to whether it was a public or private meeting. Gonzales also writes that the city must sign a memorandum of understanding relating to the use of federal funds to clean up the contamination. Los Angeles Newspaper Group ***************************************************************** 63 Salt Lake Tribune: Safe disposal of nuclear waste is top priority Article Last Updated: 09/01/2006 08:48:31 PM MDT The following editorial appeared in the Kansas City Star on Thursday, Aug. 31: Some U.S. utilities and elected officials are pushing hard to increase the country's reliance on nuclear power. They haven't made their case. The federal government has yet to show that high-level nuclear waste can be safely kept at a long-delayed permanent storage area in Nevada. The waste currently is kept at reactors around the nation. It's a risky way to stockpile such hazardous materials. But supporters of nuclear power have friends in high places. Last year, Congress approved tax credits and guaranteed loans for utilities to pursue more reactors. President Bush backs new plants, too. Nuclear power does not contribute to global warming. And high prices for natural gas and oil have boosted the cost of running many power plants. But the government more than 20 years ago promised to develop a place to keep nuclear waste, which remains dangerous for many years. Utilities have collected billions from their customers to build the Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada. Once scheduled to open in 1998, it won't start taking waste for at least another six years. Given that dismal track record, immediately expanding the use of nuclear power can't be justified. © Copyright 2006, The Salt Lake Tribune. ***************************************************************** 64 Salt Lake Tribune: Feds may step in after Goshutes vote to shut down tribal business Article Last Updated: 09/03/2006 01:27:28 AM MDT By Judy Fahys The Salt Lake Tribune Leon Bear, Goshute's right to lead in dispute SOUTH SALT LAKE - The door was locked, the lights out and unopened mail stacked on the reception desk at the Skull Valley Goshutes business office here. It's exactly what members of the tiny Indian tribe had directed last weekend when they voted to accept the resignation of one leader, bar another from doing official business and take the rare step of asking the federal government to supervise an election. The leadership of the organization behind a multibillion-dollar plan to store nuclear reactor waste has been in dispute for a long time. But now, it's in meltdown. Last week, the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs acknowledged that the Skull Valley Goshutes government - which has no constitution or formal legal system - is in a shambles and needs help. The BIA tries to stay out of tribal business as a matter of policy. But, in this case, the agency is looking into what role it can play in an election. "It's unusual for us to do that in this day and age," said Allen S. Anspaugh, the agency's Phoenix regional director. "Time is of the essence, because right now, they really don't have a government." On Aug. 26, nearly all of the 33 adults who attended the annual meeting voted to shut down the executive committee that carries out the tribe's daily business. Handwritten on legal paper, their directive also formally accepts the resignation of tribal Vice Chairman Lori Bear, cousin of Chairman Leon D. Bear, who said she was tired of working with a "king" and forced to sign blank checks without knowing what they were for. The Skull Valley Goshutes have shut down tribal business, and their South Salt Lake office remains closed. (Francisco Kjolseth/The Salt Lake Tribune) The decadelong reign of Leon Bear has been riddled with allegations of corruption and cronyism. He led the tribe of about 120 members through the federally sponsored review of nuclear waste site hosting and ultimately to the contract with Private Fuel Storage, a consortium of eight utility companies. But the real trouble began when he inked the deal for the project, billed then as a $3.1 billion venture to park up to 44,000 tons of used nuclear waste on 100 acres across the highway from the village where about two dozen tribe members live, about 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. Details of the Goshutes' contract with PFS remain secret, but the sums are rumored to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. In 2003, Bear was indicted on six criminal charges, including embezzling money from his tribe, taking double travel payments and cheating on his taxes. He pleaded guilty to one tax charge last year, and agreed to pay back taxes and fines, and to serve three years probation. Bear would not respond to a telephone call seeking comment on the latest developments. But, in a Reuters story this week, he indicated he's going nowhere as long as the tribe's failure to get a quorum of 44. "I'm chief for life at this point," he said. But his critics also have been vocal. They tried to enlist state and federal courts, state and federal regulators and the BIA's parent agency, the U.S. Interior Department, to probe more deeply. They have said Bear has violated tribal law by mishandling funds, playing favorites with supporters for government and tribal benefits and refusing to hold a legitimate election for five years. Little is happening with the waste project now, but the Goshutes do have ongoing businesses, including a landfill for household garbage, and tribal assistance programs that require oversight. "They have to do something," said Rex Allen, the onetime tribal secretary who helped organize the shutdown of the tribal government. He and his sister, former tribal Vice Chair Mary Allen, have been pushing for greater federal involvement for about five years. Allen says he has never been removed officially as tribal secretary. And three members who insist they were elected to the Executive Committee in a September 2002 special election pleaded guilty to theft after they accessed tribal bank accounts and started spending the money. Margene Bullcreek, Bear's across-the-road neighbor and a longtime critic, leads a group of Skull Valley members who are petitioning Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne to intervene. Allen and his sister have a case against Bear over tribal funds in Utah state court. "We've already said what we've had to say," said Bullcreek, referring to the Aug. 26 meeting. "And they [at the BIA] should act on that." At least two American Indian law scholars say, though rare in modern times, the kind of help the Goshute dissidents request is available under the law. Robert Miller, of the Lewis &Clark Law College in Oregon, said the BIA is loathe to involve itself in tribal fights because it does not want to look paternalistic. It is a tough balance to strike with sovereign governments, with which the federal government has a trust relationship. "The BIA has to decide who the government of the tribe is [in order] to have a political relationship," Miller said. Kevin Worthen, dean of the J. Ruben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University, noted that the U.S. government has vacillated between a heavy handed involvement in tribal affairs and a hands-off approach. But, for the past 40 years or so, the agency has meticulously stood back and let these "dependent, domestic nations" handle their own affairs. "Normally, it would be rare for them to get involved," Worthen said. "But given the high stakes [in Skull Valley] there is some chance they would." Chet Mills, the BIA superintendent for Utah tribes, said he cannot schedule an election until he gets proper paperwork from those seeking an election. And that's being discussed with attorneys for the tribe and for the dissidents. "It's just as frustrating for me as for everyone else," he said. fahys@sltrib.com Goshute government crisis timeline * Waste storage lease approved: Private Fuel Storage and the Skull Valley Band of Goshutes three-member Executive Committee, led by Leon Bear, approve waste storage lease in May 1997. Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) gives provisional approval pending PFS receiving license to operate from federal Nuclear Regulatory Agency. * A special tribal election ousts Bear in fall 2001. Bear says a subsequent election confirms his leadership. * The U.S. Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, an arm of the federal nuclear regulation agency, offers in early 2002 to mediate tribal leadership and corruption allegations. Later, the board's "environmental justice" order for tribal leaders is overturned by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Agency. * The BIA offers to mediate leadership dispute that winter, but, in March 2003, says it recognizes Bear as the leader. * U.S. District Judge Paul Cassell in September dismisses a lawsuit brought by 18 tribal members seeking to remove Bear from leadership, ruling the plaintiffs had not exhausted their administrative appeals. * The FBI, in April 2003, seizes financial papers and computers from Goshute tribal office in South Salt Lake. Utah lawmakers ask Gale Norton to intervene to stop the PFS proposal. Before Christmas, Bear and the three-person government that purportedly unseated him in 2001 are indicted on embezzlement, bank fraud and tax charges. * A new landfill is permitted on the Goshute reservation by the BIA in July 2004 over the objections of dissident tribe members. * Prosecutors drop five charges against Bear last summer in exchange for a guilty plea on a single tax charge. He agrees to three years probation. The three would-be leaders indicted at the same time, and their attorney, plead guilty in following months to theft charges. * The BIA says after the Skull Valley Band's August 2006 meeting that it may opt to assist the tribe with a new election, after the vice chair quits in protest of alleged corruption and tribal members vote to shut down the executive committee. © Copyright 2006, The Salt Lake Tribune. ***************************************************************** 65 PE.com: Cleanup will be long haul, residents told Inland Southern California PERCHLORATE: Years and millions of dollars will be required, Rialto officials say at a town meeting. 10:00 PM PDT on Friday, September 1, 2006 By MASSIEL LADRÓN DE GUEVARA The Press-Enterprise Removal of perchlorate from Rialto's water will likely not happen in residents' lifetimes, a city councilman told community members at a town-hall meeting to discuss the pollution problem Friday night. "We are doing this for our children and our grandchildren," said Rialto Councilman Ed Scott, adding that it will cost between $200 million and $300 million to clean up the contamination. Scott and other officials held the meeting to discuss the dangers of perchlorate contamination in Rialto's water and what's being done to hold responsible polluters accountable for the cleanup. The purpose wasn't to scare residents into thinking the situation has become more critical, it was to ensure they are informed, Mayor Pro Tem Joseph Sampson said. Teresa Pichotta, a 20-year-Rialto resident, said she is concerned the cleanup won't happen in her lifetime, but is glad to hear lawsuits have been filed to get those responsible for the contamination to pay. Underlying health problems due to perchlorate-contaminated drinking water, before it was detected in Rialto, continue to be a concern, Pichotta said. Perchlorate, a component of rocket fuel and fireworks, has contaminated six Rialto wells. It is believed the chemical interferes with thyroid function and brain development. Fetuses and newborns are most at risk. For that reason, the city has a zero-tolerance level for perchlorate, Scott said. That commitment to a zero perchlorate presence in its water is some relief, Pichotta said. San Bernardino County, one of the agencies being sued by Rialto, has spent $7 million investigating contamination as well as constructing a treatment facility at the Rialto Municipal Airport, said Bob Page, who is county Supervisor Josie Gonzales' chief of staff. The county will spend another $3 million to expand the treatment facility, he said. On Tuesday, the first settlement talks over perchlorate between Rialto and San Bernardino County officials since last August broke down. At issue was whether -- and how much -- the county owes Rialto to compensate for perchlorate contamination in groundwater from the Mid-Valley Landfill in north Rialto. Although there are some areas where the city and county disagree, it doesn't mean a resolution can't be reached, Sampson said. The city and its utility's decision to sue 42 agencies and companies in January over perchlorate contamination and to work with county supervisors to secure money from Washington, D.C., are two things being done to clean the pollution, said Gerard Thibeault, executive officer of the Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board. The city expects to have a hearing in early December or late January with the three companies they say were major contributors to the perchlorate contamination: Black & Decker, Pyro Spectaculars and Goodrich Corp. The possibility of having those hearings in Rialto so it's more accessible to residents is being investigated, Thibeault said. Goodrich Corp. gave $4 million to the water agencies to treat contaminated wells and reached a settlement with the board in November to drill up to nine test wells. Reach Massiel Ladrón De Guevara at 909-806-3054 or More Press-Enterprise Table of Contents ***************************************************************** 66 AU ABC: Politicians urged to make stand against uranium. 02/09/2006. ABC News Online Environmental and health groups say uranium mining is unsafe and unnecessary and has no place in Queensland. The group is calling on state political parties to make a stand against uranium mining in the lead up to next weekend's election. Dave Sweeney from the Australian Conservation Foundation says the group's objection is based on more than just environmental grounds. "Unresolved issues of worker and community health, major issues about the impacts and dislocation for Indigenous communities, and very, very grave impacts that every gram of Australian uranium is inevitably destined to become radioactive waste," Mr Sweeney said. "Our kids deserve better than to inherit a Queensland that is a radioactive quarry and a nuclear dump. "We're not there now, we shouldn't be there, it's not sustainable, it's not desirable, it's not necessary. Let's rule it out now." ***************************************************************** 67 [NYTr] US Reports "Success" in another Nuke Test Date: Sun, 3 Sep 2006 14:52:08 -0400 (EDT) X-Sender-Host-Name: olm.blythe-systems.com X-Spam-Class: HAM-VERY-WHITELIST Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit sent by Dave Muller (southnews) ABC (Australia) - Aug 31, 2006 http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200608/s1728616.htm US carries out subcritical nuclear test The United States says it has carried out a subcritical nuclear experiment successfully at an underground test site in Nevada - the 23rd such test since 1997. The test came amid intensifying US-led international efforts to press North Korea and Iran to abandon their nuclear programs. It was the 10th test under the administration of President George W Bush, despite persistent criticism by anti-nuclear groups. The previous test was conducted on February 23. Many activists and experts argue that the tests undermine the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty on nuclear weapons and that the Bush administration is carrying them out to use them to boost its efforts to develop new nuclear arms. The US Government maintains the subcritical tests do not violate the treaty because they do not involve a nuclear chain reaction and are necessary to ensure the safety of nuclear stockpiles. It also insists they are fully consistent with nuclear test moratorium it has maintained since 1992. "The Los Alamos National Laboratory conducted the experiment to gather scientific data that provides crucial information to maintain the safety and reliability of the nation's nuclear weapons without having to conduct underground nuclear tests," the department's National Nuclear Security Administration said in a statement. The administration said the subcritical tests do not involve nuclear explosion because they are designed to "examine the behaviour of plutonium as it is strongly shocked by forces produced by chemical high explosives". "No critical mass is formed and no self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction can occur," it said. -Kyodo * ================================================================ .NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems . Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us . .339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org .List Archives: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ .Subscribe: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ================================================================ ***************************************************************** 68 VCS: Field Lab cleanup papers leave site's neighbors with questions Ventura County Star: Simi Valley By Jake Finch, Correspondent September 2, 2006 Officials from the state Department of Toxic Substances Control admitted they made mistakes while planning to clean a toxics-infested burn pit at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory but also pointed fingers at the site's owner, Boeing Co., saying the company stonewalled them. Five department officials responsible for overseeing removal of contaminated soil from part of the lab tried answering questions from neighbors worn down by years of inaction. "The mistake we made is we moved way too fast," Watson Gin, deputy director of hazardous waste management for the department, said at Thursday's public meeting at Simi Valley City Hall. "We didn't share information with you." Department Branch Chief Jim Pappas blamed the stalled cleanup effort at the Area 1 burn pit on Boeing, the hilltop facility's current owner. The site was previously operated by Rocketdyne. Boeing was late in providing supporting documents to the department, he said. The nearly 200 pages of documents released two weeks ago prompted the immediate shelving of the interim cleanup plan because they showed that some of the materials destroyed in the burn pit came from other Rocketdyne facilities — namely its Canoga Park lab and another lab at the Santa Susana site where radioactive work was conducted. Despite repeated requests by The Star on Friday, department officials would not disclose Boeing's deadline for providing related documents. What was revealed was that the department already had the information in its possession. Spokeswoman Jeanne Garcia said the information was contained in hundreds of pages of original documents handed down to the department from previous lead agencies working on the cleanup. The department just didn't know it was there, she said. "We just had so many documents. We finally saw it and saw what we had," she said. Boeing spokeswoman Blythe Jamison also did not answer repeated questions about if and when Boeing had a deadline for providing the documents. "Based on our review of historical records, we provided much of the detailed historical site information to the lead agency in 1981 — the Regional Water Quality Control Board," she said. The pit was believed to have been used to destroy nonradioactive chemicals, including dioxin and chromium. High levels of those toxicants were found in and around the burn pit, which was operated for almost 40 years. The September 2005 Topanga brush fire, which ripped through Rocketdyne's facility, created additional concerns for the department about toxic run-off once the rainy season starts this year. As a stopgap measure, the department required Boeing to come up with an interim plan to remove 6,500 cubic yards of contaminated soil from the burn pit. The agency has halted those plans until it can determine what was destroyed there. Jamison said Boeing was not interested "in stalling the process." "We are working with them, under their direction," Jamison said. "As part of that, a radiation survey was part of the plan. Although we do not have historical records to demonstrate radiation went into that soil, we're still prepared to do that (radiation survey)." Residents at the meeting challenged officials on how they handled the intended cleanup efforts and on Boeing's trustworthiness. "It's a mistake we see over and over again that leads to this level of frustration in our community," said Elizabeth Crawford, a community activist. "We do not have belief or trust in your process." Some residents asked about the site's safety. Most did not get answers to questions about current runoff from the site and the quality of water. Department officials said they would bring the answers back to the community in a meeting to be scheduled in November. Pappas said Boeing has until Oct. 1 to submit a new plan telling how to determine what chemicals are on the site. This would include a list of all the wastes and waste types handled at the site in any way and specifically what was burned there. Contact VenturaCountyStar.com ***************************************************************** 69 Albuquerque Tribune: Los Alamos bomb plan disputed Nuclear watchdogs seek public hearing in Albuquerque By Sue Vorenberg Tribune Reporter September 2, 2006 Just because Los Alamos National Laboratory is hidden on a mesa about 60 miles northeast of Albuquerque, doesn't mean it should be invisible to Duke City residents, one environmentalist group says. Citizen Action wants the National Nuclear Security Administration to hold a public hearing in Albuquerque. At issue is the environmental impact of the lab getting into the business of making plutonium nuclear bomb cores, popularly known as pits, said Dave McCoy, assistant director of the group. "We feel that anything that LANL does with respect to pit production will have effects down here environmentally - and at Sandia National Laboratories," McCoy said. NNSA has held meetings in Los Alamos and northern New Mexico on the issue, but not yet in the Duke City. Bernie Pleau, who works at the NNSA site office in Los Alamos, said he was aware of the request, but didn't know if the agency would add an Albuquerque meeting. "We've gotten requests from a number of people to extend the comment period and have a meeting in Albuquerque, but I don't know the status beyond that," Pleau said. The comment period runs through Sept. 20. Other NNSA officials did not return The Tribune's phone calls requesting more details. Los Alamos had to relearn how to make plutonium weapon pits after the Rocky Flats site in Colorado was closed in the late 1980s. NNSA and the Department of Energy have proposed that the lab make a new generation of pits to replace those in existing nuclear weapons. The U.S. nuclear stockpile is aging, and scientists are concerned about how well the old pits will perform, said Kevin Roark, a Los Alamos spokesman. "The pits are typically described as a nuclear trigger," he said. Since 2002, the Los Alamos lab has made a handful of pits each year, but they are all test units and none are scheduled to be put into weapons, Roark said. The lab is expected to make seven more test pits this year, but the overall goal in the DOE proposal is to make 60 to 80 fully functional replacement pits per year starting in 2012, Roark said. McCoy says he's concerned that if the lab gets into the pit manufacturing business, environmental contamination could spread to Albuquerque. That's why he wants a meeting in the city, he said. "I think resuming pit production and radioactive and hazardous waste production are of national concern," McCoy said. "We're going to have plutonium floating up and down the highway if that happens, and issues of possible contamination in Albuquerque." Citizen Action is opposed to nuclear weapons and new pit production in general. The goal of an Albuquerque meeting is to get the word out about happenings at the lab, McCoy said. "They don't exist in a vacuum," McCoy said. Be heard Text of the draft Los Alamos Environmental Impact Statement is available online at www.doeal.gov/laso/NEPASWEIS.aspx. To submit a comment, call (877) 491-4957 or e-mail lanl_sweis@doeal.gov. You can also mail comments to: Elizabeth Withers, U.S. DOE/NNSA, Los Alamos Site Office, 528 35th St., Los Alamos, 87544-2201. 2006 © The Albuquerque Tribune ***************************************************************** 70 AP Wire: Paducah vying for grant to study nuclear fuel recycling 09/03/2006 | Herald-Leader Associated Press PADUCAH, Ky. - Paducah is vying for one of four $5 million federal grants to build a recycling plant for spent nuclear fuel, a project officials call one of the biggest projects in 50 years. The U.S. Department of Energy is awarding the grants to study if temporary storage and a demonstration project for recycling spent nuclear fuel rods can be built. Paducah officials are hoping the area's long history with the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant helps the area's bid. "This is huge," Mayor Bill Paxton said. "This would be every bit as big as when they built the Paducah plant the first time, as far as what it would do to this community." The program is part of President Bush's initiative to develop new technology for safely and efficiently reusing nuclear power. Bids are due by Sept. 7 and the Energy Department will choose grant winners in October. At least seven other states also are competing for the project. Paxton said it would ultimately create 5,000-plus construction jobs and employ well over 1,000. "Our objective is to maximize jobs," said Steve Penrod, general manager of the Paducah plant and member of the new task force that's working to get money for the project. "But if we don't get the grant, were done." The project consists of a consolidated fuel-treatment center, owned and run by DOE on at least 500 acres of federal land near the Paducah plant, a 500- to 2,000-megawatt advanced burner reactor that will further break down the more highly radioactive components of the spent fuel, and a $1.8 billion, 250-megawatt test burner reactor, operational by 2014. Penrod said the area is centrally located for road, rail, river and air transportation, and within 600 miles of 50 of the 104 operating nuclear power plants in the nation. Honeywell and CH2M Hill, the lead cleanup contractor at the Paducah plant in the 1980s and 1990s, are corporate partners of the task force. Penrod said the two national firms will not work for any other competing communities. Penrod said community support will be "a huge factor" in whether Paducah gets the grant and that public meetings over zoning and having highly radioactive materials in an earthquake zone will be held. Paxton agreed. "The people will have to ultimately decide whether this is something they want to have in their community or not," he said. from: The Paducah Sun, ***************************************************************** 71 Pueblo Chieftain: Rocky Flats defendants seek mistrial - Pueblo, Colorado U.S.A DENVER (AP) - Two companies found guilty in a pollution case involving the former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant northwest of Denver have filed a third motion for mistrial. The latest request is based on a jurors sworn statement that jurors who supported the plaintiffs bullied her because she sided with the defense and that the judge dismissed her without cause. In February, jurors voted 8-2 in favor of a group of landowners who said their property was polluted by radioactive plutonium because of sloppiness by former Rocky Flats operators Dow Chemical Co. and Rockwell International Corp. Two earlier requests for a mistrial to toss out the $354 million verdict against Dow and Rockwell have been denied. The new request was based on an affidavit filed recently in U.S. District Court by former juror Teresa Youngquist, of Longmont, in which she said she cried and had suicidal thoughts because of attacks from pro-plaintiff jurors. I felt strongly that the defendants in the case had done nothing wrong, Youngquist stated. Judge John Kane dismissed Youngquist on the fourth day of deliberations after the presiding juror sent him a note indicating Youngquist had walked out of the jury room during a heated discussion. Kane told attorneys the juror tried to tell him something but that he stopped her before she did, and that she was being excused because of a health emergency. A jury cannot achieve a verdict by forcing the dismissal of jurors who disagree with the majority view, Charles Fried and John Tangren, lawyers for Dow and Rockwell, wrote in a motion filed last month. Peter Nordberg, an attorney for the plaintiffs, wrote in a response that the defendants arguments represent a cynical assault on the trial process, an intolerable affront to the integrity of the jurors deliberations, and a shameless ... attack on this very Court. Nordberg said plaintiffs attorneys may request sanctions against the defense team. According to Youngquists affidavit, other jurors would talk over her when she tried to make pro-defense statements. Youngquist also said she told fellow jurors that the tension in the jury room was causing her to have suicidal thoughts, although she would never act on those thoughts. She said that when she tried to tell the clerk during the trial what was going on, the clerk covered her ears and said she was not allowed to listen to Youngquist. The clerk then said the case had been going on for 16 years and that everyone had invested so much in it, including the judge, who is a very nice man, according to the affidavit. Information from: Denver Rocky Mountain News, http://www.insidedenver.com www.chieftain.com Star-Journal Publishing Corp. Pueblo, Colorado U.S.A. ***************************************************************** 72 Tri-City Herald: Benton commissioner seeks federal grant for Hanford site, FFTF study Published Saturday, September 2nd, 2006 By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer Benton County Commissioner Claude Oliver is proceeding with plans to apply for a federal Global Nuclear Energy Partnership grant despite an announcement that the Tri-City Industrial Development Council also plans to apply. Oliver and longtime supporters of restarting Hanford's Fast Flux Test Facility plan to meet a Sept. 7 deadline with a more limited proposal than TRIDEC plans. "We have got to have something with broad scientific, academic and political support," Oliver said. TRIDEC is applying for a grant of up to $5 million to study parts of the Hanford nuclear reservation as a site for a new federal program to recycle used nuclear fuel. TRIDEC's plan has the support of U.S. Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., who Oliver is challenging on the Republican ballot in the September primary. TRIDEC would like to offer a variety of options in Hanford's 400 Area, which includes the FFTF research reactor; Energy Northwest, which operates a nuclear power plant near the 400 Area; and possibly a laboratory just north of Richland in the 300 Area. DOE is interested in developing a Consolidated Fuel Treatment Center, which would separate reactor fuel left from making electricity into usable and waste components. Then a second facility, an Advanced Burner Reactor, would convert usable components -- long-lived radioactive isotopes -- into shorter-lived radioisotopes that present less of a disposal problem. The reactor also would produce electricity. TRIDEC is proposing a range of land, infrastructure and facilities that might interest DOE. The proposals would offer many options that could work with or without FFTF. When DOE announced the grant competition in August, it said preference may be given to a proposed site that has the potential to be used for the fuel treatment center and the reactor. It also said preference would be given to sites at which there is community and state support for use of the site for GNEP facilities. The proposal Oliver is backing, the Washington State Nuclear Energy and Science Research Center, would include the reactor but not the fuel recycling center. Although DOE appears to be looking to France for nuclear testing for the recycling program and the U.S. for operations of the facilities, Oliver believes FFTF would be a better option for testing. In a letter to Gov. Chris Gregoire, Oliver wrote that he favors using existing facilities for GNEP testing while transitioning into commercial isotope production. Oliver has previously led efforts to get FFTF restarted to make isotopes for medical and other commercial uses, but has not won DOE support. His proposal does not include the fuel treatment center DOE plans because bringing spent nuclear fuel to Hanford for storage until it is reprocessed would not be popular, according to a press release from Oliver's campaign. In 2004, Washington voters passed an initiative intended to bar nuclear waste from being sent to Hanford. The initiative was overturned in federal court, but is on appeal. Sodium used to cool the reactor has been drained and a technical study would be needed to determine if it would be safe to restart. Supporters fighting to save the reactor earlier said draining the sodium would keep the reactor from being restarted, but now are more optimistic. © 2006 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press &Other Wire Services ***************************************************************** 73 Tri-City Herald: DOE says revamped office will aid safety Published Sunday, September 3rd, 2006 By Les Blumenthal Herald Washington, D.C., bureau WASHINGTON -- Months before new health and safety rules are to take effect for more than 100,000 workers at Department of Energy sites across the nation, the DOE is dismantling the office that's in charge of implementing them. The move has drawn sharp criticism on Capitol Hill and from others, who say it will gut the department's worker-safety and health programs. Lawmakers and other critics say the restructuring will roll back more than 20 years of better worker safeguards while appeasing contractors who've long complained about overly restrictive regulations. "This is the pendulum swinging back," said David Michaels, who headed the office as an assistant secretary of energy in the Clinton administration. Department officials defended the restructuring, saying the Office of Environment, Safety and Health needed to be overhauled. Combining it with the DOE's security office will increase, not lessen, workers' safety, they said. They bristled at any suggestion that the department is downgrading its commitment to safety. "That is absolutely and totally incorrect," said Clay Sell, the department's deputy secretary. Critics said their concerns extended beyond the uncertainty over the new rules. Since the Bush administration took office, they said, security issues and modernizing the nation's nuclear arsenal have taken priority over efforts to clean up the toxic legacy of Cold War weapons production and ensure that workers are protected. "We have great concerns about where this is heading," said Tom Carpenter of the Government Accountability Project in Seattle, which tracks developments at the Energy Department. The department has 14,000 direct employees and 100,000 more who work for contractors. Those workers face any number of dangers, from exposure to nuclear materials or highly toxic waste to the problems possible at any major construction or industrial site. Recently, there were concerns that workers at the Hanford nuclear reservation were being exposed to possibly dangerous vapors venting from underground storage tanks that hold nuclear waste, and two workers were seriously injured in a construction crane accident at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Since the days of its predecessor, the Atomic Energy Commission, the department has been self-regulating on issues of worker health and safety rules and the environment. But in the mid-1980s, amid mounting reports of serious worker health and safety problems, widespread environmental contamination and abuses by contractors, Congress stepped in to tighten oversight. It created the Office of Environment, Safety and Health to develop and oversee DOE regulations on worker safety and health and environmental issues. It also created an independent watchdog agency, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. The department announced Wednesday that it would proceed with merging its Office of Environment, Safety and Health with its security office. "Combining health, safety, security enforcement and independent oversight responsibilities into the Office of Health, Safety and Security creates one unified office that will result in improved coordination among important functions, including an integrated approach to managing risks involving safety and security considerations," the DOE said. In defending the restructuring, Sell said the Office of Environment, Safety and Health was disorganized and inattentive to the needs of the department's field offices and lacked oversight authority. "The criticism we are downgrading worker safety and we are returning to the 1980s or giving contractors additional influence is completely and absolutely false," Sell said. The department also has quietly moved to redefine its relationship with the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, which has no enforcement powers but has issued a stream of sometimes highly critical reports on the DOE's projects and policies over the years. As word of the department's proposal to merge its health and safety office with its security office spread on Capitol Hill late last spring, criticism quickly mounted. Much of the opposition has come from Democrats, though some Republicans also have expressed concerns. In a letter to Bodman, Sens. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., and Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., charged that the change could damage the health of DOE workers and people who lived near the department's sites; they also said it probably would complicate the implementation of the new safety rules. Paul Ziemer, who headed the Office of Environment, Safety and Health in the administration of President George H.W. Bush, joined in a letter with Michaels, who headed it under Clinton, asking Bodman to reconsider the reorganization. They warned that the move would be perceived as weakening the DOE's health and safety programs. "The department can ill afford to fuel such a perception," they wrote. Criticism also came from the state level. "The DOE plan downgrades and weakens safety and health protections and is the wrong action to take and the wrong time," Democratic Govs. Chris Gregoire of Washington and Bill Richardson of New Mexico said in a letter to Bodman. Richardson served as energy secretary in the Clinton administration. Democratic members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee have asked the Government Accountability Office to investigate. On Thursday, Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., asked the chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee to hold hearings. "I'm deeply disappointed the Bush administration continues to try to move ahead with this," Cantwell said. © 2006 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press &Other Wire Services ***************************************************************** 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: *****************************************************************