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                         NUCLEAR POLICY
 
1 IPS-English POLITICS-US: Intel Estimate on Iran Blocks Neocon
2 [NYTr] Kofi Annan Urges World to Cool It on Iran
3 Guardian Unlimited: U.S. Officials Press for Iran Sanctions
4 Guardian Unlimited: Bush: Won't Allow a Nuclear-Armed Iran
5 Guardian Unlimited: Iran to Discuss Nukes With EU Official
6 Guardian Unlimited: Iran to Meet With EU Official Over Nukes
7 IRNA: Elham: Annan's Iran visit positive 
8 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: Negotiation, solution to IRI N-issue 
9 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: Speaker meets Russian over Bushehr 
10 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: EU, loser under America's pressure 
11 AFP: Iran, EU 'probably' to meet September 6 in Vienna - diplomats -
12 AFP: Iran's ex-president Khatami believes US attack on Iran unlikely
13 AFP: Diplomats to meet in Berlin on Iranian nuclear crisis 
14 AFP: Time for sanctions on Iranian nuclear program 
15 AFP: Diplomacy on Iranian nuclear issue continues; no sanctions for 
16 AFP: China wants peaceful resolution of Iran nuclear issue - 
17 AFP: Bush steps up war of words with Iran 
18 UPI: Iran eyes pre-emptive move over sanctions
19 Guardian Unlimited: U.S. Envoy Frustrated With North Korea
20 Guardian Unlimited: Report: U.S., 2 Korean Delegates Meet
21 Hankyoreh: Beijing's Foreign Ministry denies report of N. Korean lea
22 Korea Herald: Hill calls for 'concrete action' on N.K.   
23 Korea Herald: N.K. leader's special train sparks Chinese whispers   
24 BBC: US envoy in new N Korea diplomacy
25 BBC: US move to restart N Korea talks 
26 Korea Times: North Likely to Keep Plutonium in Stockpile¡¯ 
27 AFP: US envoy warns NKorea against nuclear test
28 AFP: US envoy warns NKorea against nuclear test 
29 AFP: US envoy calls for 'concrete action' on North Korea 
30 UPI: Analysis: N.Korea facing critical choice
31 Guardian Unlimited: U.S. Nuclear Envoy to Visit Beijing
32 HindustanTimes.com: US keen to pass N-deal unchanged
33 [NukeNet]  Scotland:  Trident fleet's safety a lerts double
34 IPS-English POLITICS: Snubbed by US, Pakistan Doing Nuclear
35 AU The Age: Submarine fleet 'should go nuclear' - 
36 India Defence: India, France civilian nuclear co-operation to move f
37 BBC: Fears over nuclear terror threat
38 IAEA: ElBaradei Calls for Entry-into-Force of the Nuclear-Test-Ban T
39 Japan Times: Nakasone proposes Japan consider nuclear weapons
40 IAEA: The Clock is Ticking
 
                         NUCLEAR REACTORS
 
41 US: CALIFORNIA RAISES NUCLEAR DOUBTS
42 US: Atlanta Progressive News: Possible New Nuclear Reactor is Threat
43 Hankyoreh: Nuclear plant refurbishing decried by environmental group
44 US: Kansas City Star: Nuclear plant leak investigated
45 US: The Arizona Republic: Palo Verde keeps its rating 
46 The Local: Few Swedes favour nuclear expansion
47 US: St. Petersburg Times: A firsthand account of nuclear power
48 US: SitNews - Column: Another Nail in the Coffin (nuclear California
49 RBC: Russia and Norway to sign nuclear cooperation agreement 
50 US: Gazette.com: Energy sector wary of re-investing in (nuclear) pla
51 Russia Newswire: Operation of Rosenergoatomâ€™s NPPs - Safe and Reli
52 Russia Newswire: Rosenergoatom Appoints Sergey Obozov as General Dir
53 US: Columbia Missourian: Pipe leak found at Callaway
54 US: AFP: Bush marks Labor Day with call for nuclear energy, lower ta
55 US: BostonHerald.com: Seabrook Station back on line after weekend ou
 
                          NUCLEAR SECURITY
 
56 The Hindu: Security revamped at all nuclear establishments in the co
57 RIA Novosti: Russia's position on energy security
58 ITAR-TASS: Nuclear weapons safeguarding improved in Russia
 
                          NUCLEAR SAFETY
 
59 US: (POGO) Blog: Another Good Whistleblower Goes Unprotected
60 US: IDSnews.com: WE SAY: No 'Divine Strakes' for us, thanks. 
 
                         NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
 
61 US: The Australian: Australia to corner China uranium market
62 US: NEWS.com.au: Uranium exports to reach $250m | 
63 US: Sydney Morning Herald: Chinese join hunt for uranium - 
64 US: Lexington Herald-Leader: Nuclear recycling plant sought
65 US: RIA Novosti: Russia may claim 25% of nuclear-fuel market-Rosatom
66 RIA Novosti: Kiev to study public opinion on proposed nuclear 
67 Manila Times" 1M liters of nuke waste intercepted
68 US: El Paso Times: Focus shifts to more nuclear operations
69 Nine Billion Dollars And They Still Can't Get It Right ---
70 US: AU ABC: Dispute over uranium takeover bid goes to court. 
71 US: AU ABC: Uranium exports to China could start in 2007. 
72 US: AU ABC: Australian uranium could boost China's arsenal - expert
73 US: Daily Californian: State Inspection Found Improper Disposal of H
 
                           PEACE
 
74 The Herald: Further anti-nuclear protests planned   
 
                        US DEPT. OF ENERGY
 
75 Albuquerque Tribune: Editorial: Los Alamos bomb role needs public he
76 ScrippsNews: Energy Department safety reorganization draws fire 
77 Hanford News: Hazardous materials managers earn awards
78 Hanford News: Lawmakers' demand for open hearings on nuclear waste d
79 Tri-City Herald: 300 Area cleanup ahead of schedule 
80 Tri-City Herald: Hanford fire marshal retires at 81 
81 Courier Journal: Paducah seeks nuclear-recycling grant 
82 El Paso Times: Carlsbad at forefront of nuclear business
83 KnoxNews: Security contracts decision expected soon
84 RedOrbit: Paducah Bids for Another Boom - A Location for Nuclear 
85 Knox News: Oak Ridge reactor startup delayed
86 lamonitor.com: Internal report faults LANL, subcontractor for accide
87 KnoxNews: Bechtel Jacobs, steelworkers sign pact
88 KnoxNews: Remnants of experiments at reactor transferred
89 UPI: Lack of skilled workers hampers cleanup
*****************************************************************
*****************************************************************
                         FULL NEWS STORIES
*****************************************************************
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 1 IPS-English POLITICS-US: Intel Estimate on Iran Blocks Neocon
 
Date: Tue, 05 Sep 2006 15:02:36 -0700


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ROMAIPS MM NA HD IP BW ML NC NU=20
POLITICS-US: Intel Estimate on Iran Blocks Neocon Plans
Analysis by Gareth Porter*

WASHINGTON, Sep 5 (IPS) - In the struggle over U.S. policy toward Iran, n=
eoconservatives in the George W. Bush administration spoiling for an atta=
ck on Iran's nuclear sites have been seeking to convince the public that =
the United States must strike before an Iranian nuclear weapons capabilit=
y becomes inevitable.

In order to do so, they must discredit the intelligence community's concl=
usions that Iran is still as many as 10 years away from being able to bui=
ld a nuclear weapon and that such a weapon is not an inevitable consequen=
ce of its present uranium enrichment programme.

Those findings were first circulated in a top secret National Intelligenc=
e Estimate on Iran completed in May or June 2005, and could be a rallying=
  point for Democrats and dissident Republicans inclined to oppose an atta=
ck on Iran. It has also inhibited the neoconservatives from being able to=
  launch the kind of propaganda campaign against Iran they would prefer.

Before the 2005 estimate, neoconservatives in the administration had been=
  free to issue alarmist warnings about impending Iranian acquisition of n=
uclear weapons. John R. Bolton, now Washington's ambassador to the U.N. a=
nd then the administration's point man on weapons of mass destruction, de=
clared in April 2004, =94If we permit Iran's deception to go on much long=
er, it will be too late. Iran will have nuclear weapons.=94

The pro-war camp quickly tried to cast doubt on the new estimate, which m=
ade it more difficult for them to make such lurid claims. Asked about the=
  estimate soon after it was issued, Robert G. Joseph, Bolton's successor =
as undersecretary of state for arms control, cleverly dismissed it by say=
ing: =94I don't know quite how to answer that because we don't have perfe=
ct information or perfect understanding.=94

That theme was to become a propaganda leitmotif for the neoconservatives =
on Iran. Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld picked up the same theme in=
  a major assault on the Iran estimate on Apr. 18, 2006. Asked by conserva=
tive radio talk show host Laura Ingraham if he had confidence in the curr=
ent U.S. intelligence assessment that Iran is five to 10 years away from =
producing a nuclear weapon, Rumsfeld replied, =94No, I'm not confident.=94

Referring condescendingly to the intelligence analysts, Rumsfeld said =94=
They work hard at it and they're fine people, but it's a difficult thing =
to do. Our visibility into their circumstance is imperfect.=94

The neoconservatives returned to that theme again, using the staff report=
  of the House Intelligence Committee's Subcommittee on Intelligence Polic=
y, issued Aug. 23, as a launching vehicle. A key message of the report is=
  that =94American intelligence agencies do not know nearly enough about I=
ran's nuclear weapons programme.=94

The intelligence community has not been passive in the face of this subtl=
e campaign to dismiss its analysis on Iran's nuclear programme. On Apr. 2=
0, Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte, answering questions=
  after a speech at the National Press Club, reaffirmed the 2005 estimate.=
  He said the intelligence community believes it is =94still a number of y=
ears off before they are likely to have enough fissile material to assemb=
le into or to put into a nuclear weapon, perhaps into the next decade...=94

Equally important, in an interview with NBC news the same day, Negroponte=
  repeated that same formula and then added, =94According to the experts t=
hat I consult... getting 164 centrifuges to work is still a long way from=
  having the capacity to manufacture fissile material for a nuclear weapon=
.=94 That implied that uranium enrichment alone should not be seized on a=
s evidence that time is running out.

The day after Negroponte's remarks, the neoconservative Joseph launched a=
  direct attack on that point in a briefing for reporters at the State Dep=
artment.

Ostensibly the briefing was about Joseph's trip to the Gulf States to dis=
cuss the Iranian nuclear programme. But he zeroed in on what he called =94=
the question of the point of no return=94 in regard to Iranian nuclear we=
apons, meaning the point at which a nuclear weapons capability becomes in=
evitable.

Joseph suggested that there were different views on the point of no retur=
n, such as when Iran as produced enough fissile material, or the point of=
  successful weaponisation.

But he said there was =94an earlier point of no return,=94 which is when =
Iran =94has acquired the confidence and capability of running centrifuges=
  over a sustained period of time, allowing it to produce enrichment urani=
um.=94 The =94key point,=94 he asserted, =94has always been the 164-casca=
de centrifuge.=94

The idea of successful uranium enrichment as equivalent to the =94point o=
f no return=94 came from the Israeli government. As early as Jan. 26, 200=
5, Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz warned that Iran would reach =94t=
he point of no return=94 within 12 months.

The Israeli argument is a clever formulation of the claim that Iran has a=
lready made the decision to manufacture nuclear weapons. By invoking the =
Israeli concept, Joseph was really suggesting that efforts to offer incen=
tives for Iran to eschew nuclear weapons would be futile.

The intelligence estimate on Iran, however, explicitly takes the view tha=
t there is nothing inevitable about an Iranian decision to weaponise. Pau=
l Pillar, who was the National Intelligence Officer for the Iran NIE, and=
  is now teaching at Georgetown University, declared in an interview with =
Newsweek published Aug. 28 that the =94point of no return=94 is =94a ridi=
culous concept=94. Pillar explained why: =94There's no reason any country=
  -- Iran or anyone else who has such a programme -- can't turn back or wo=
n't turn back with the right incentives.=94

Pillar told this writer last February that the =94dominant view=94 among =
intelligence analysts had been that a willingness on the part of the Unit=
ed States to provide security assurances could cause Iran to change cours=
e on the issue of nuclear weapons.

Significantly, the chief of Israel's intelligence organisation, Meir Daga=
n, has sided with the U.S. intelligence community rather than the neocons=
ervatives on this point. Dagan refused to use the concept of =94point of =
no return=94 last December in testimony before the Knesset. Instead he sa=
id Iran was six months away from gaining =94technical independence=94 in =
regard to a nuclear capability.

As the Jerusalem Post observed on Dec. 27 in reporting the testimony, Dag=
an's choice of wording implied that, even after Iran had acquired the cap=
ability to make a nuclear weapon, it might still be persuaded not to do s=
o by an international agreement.

The intelligence judgment on this is also supported by independent analys=
ts of the Iranian programme. Ray Takeyh, senior fellow at the Council on =
Foreign Relations, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last March=
  that it was =94neither inevitable nor absolute=94 that Iran would turn t=
o nuclear weapons, because =94its course of action is still unsettled.=94

The intelligence community's conclusion that Iran may still turn away fro=
m nuclear weapons if the United States offers real incentives, including =
security guarantees and normalisation of relations, is crucial to the pos=
sibility of a bipartisan resistance to war against Iran.

The neoconservatives can be expected to work assiduously in the coming we=
eks and months to discredit the current intelligence analysis and substit=
ute their own alternative as they position themselves for the attack on I=
ran they have long wanted.

*Gareth Porter is an historian and national security policy analyst. His =
latest book, =94Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to W=
ar in Vietnam=94, was published in June 2005.
*****
+POLITICS: Diplomacy Intensifies on Iran's Nuke Programme (http://ipsnews=
.net/news.asp?idnews=3D34541)
+POLITICS-US: Neo-Cons Denounce Khatami Visit as =94Appeasement=94 (http:=
//ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=3D34521)
+POLITICS-US: Republican Report Hypes Iran Threat (http://ipsnews.net/new=
s.asp?idnews=3D34473)

(END/IPS/NA/MM/IP/HD/BW/NU/NC/ML/GP/KS/06)



=20
=3D 09052221 ORP015
NNNN

</x-flowed>
*****************************************************************
 2 [NYTr] Kofi Annan Urges World to Cool It on Iran
 
Date: Tue, 5 Sep 2006 15:24:13 -0500 (CDT)


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X-Spam-Class: HAM-VERY-WHITELIST

Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit
 
sent by Simon McGuinness

Reuters via The Irish Times - Sep 5, 2006
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/world/2006/0905/1156791398760.html

Avoid confrontation with Iran, urges UN chief

by Odai Sirri in Doha

IRAN: UN secretary general Kofi Annan yesterday urged the world to avoid
confrontation with Iran over its nuclear goals, after Tehran told him it
wanted a negotiated solution but would not halt uranium enrichment
before any talks.

But Germany said that if talks between the EU foreign policy chief and
Iran's top nuclear negotiator failed to persuade Iran to change its
behaviour, further negotiations would be pointless and UN Security
Council action would have to be considered.

"This is not the time for anyone to take independent decisions," Mr
Annan said during a visit to Qatar. "We want to avoid confrontation.
Confrontation is not in the interest of anyone in the region or in the
international community." Mr Annan has been touring the Middle East for
a week to shore up a ceasefire that halted more than a month of fighting
between Israel and Iranian-backed Lebanese Hizbullah guerrillas.

During a stop in Tehran on Sunday, Mr Annan said Iranian president
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had "reaffirmed to me Iran's preparedness and
determination to negotiate and find a solution to the crisis", but would
not stop making nuclear fuel.

Mr Annan visited Tehran three days after Iran failed to meet a Security
Council deadline to stop enriching uranium, which the United States says
is aimed at producing nuclear weapons, but which Tehran says is to
fulfil civilian energy needs.

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana is to meet Iranian negotiator Ali
Larijani later this week to clarify Iran's hint - made in a reply to big
powers' offer of incentives not to enrich - that the extent of its
programme could be negotiated.

"If another conversation with Solana does not bring about a change in
their attitude, then further negotiations will certainly not bring us
further," German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said
yesterday.

"Then we have to refer this matter to the Security Council," Mr
Steinmeier told a meeting of the heads of German diplomatic missions
around the world.

He voiced frustration at Iran's refusal to suspend enrichment as a
precondition for talks to implement the trade and technology incentives.
Mr Steinmeier said he was "running out of arguments" for Iran and that
he was not very hopeful that Mr Solana's meeting with Mr Larijani would
yield much.

Iranian newspapers said legislators had moved a step closer to approving
a Bill to ban inspectors of the watchdog International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) from Iranian nuclear sites, in response to Security
Council pressure.

In parliament on Sunday, "the Bill for suspending the entry of IAEA
inspectors was received by the presiding board and handed over to the
National Security and Foreign Policy Committee for study," the daily
Jomhouri-ye Eslami reported.

The head of the committee, Allaeddin Boroujerdi, was quoted as saying by
Sharq newspaper: "If the Security Council decides to deprive the Iranian
nation of its legal rights, we will obligate the government to suspend
all of the inspections of the IAEA inspectors that are going on at the
moment."

Although conservatives who dominate parliament are vocal foes of
compromise with the West, the final say in nuclear policy lies with
supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Asked about the row at a weekly news conference, government spokesman
Gholamhossein Elham said: "We think a logical atmosphere is starting to
prevail and we are optimistic."

The US said on Friday it was consulting European allies about possible
sanctions against the Islamic republic.

But the EU, wary of isolating a major oil supplier and export market,
has signalled it wants more dialogue with Iran and has agreed to try to
clarify its stance within two weeks. "Many EU states don't want
sanctions... Many prefer a negotiated solution," said one EU state
diplomat.

C Reuters 
       
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*****************************************************************
 3 Guardian Unlimited: U.S. Officials Press for Iran Sanctions
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Tuesday September 5, 2006 11:16 PM

AP Photo VAH107 

By GEORGE JAHN 

Associated Press Writer 

VIENNA, Austria (AP) - U.S. officials pressed their case Tuesday
for sanctioning Iran over its defiance on uranium enrichment,
calling for punishment even ahead of a meeting billed as a
last-ditch effort to persuade Tehran to freeze its nuclear
program. 

In a Washington speech on terrorism, President Bush warned that
he would never allow a nuclear-armed Iran to blackmail the world
and threaten the American people. 

Formally, the United States and five other world powers are
giving the Iranians a final chance to compromise on enrichment
at talks planned for Wednesday between European Union foreign
policy chief Javier Solana and top Iranian nuclear negotiator
Ali Larijani. 

But U.S. officials on both sides of the Atlantic suggested the
time had already come for sanctions. 

Their comments reflected Washington's skepticism that Tehran
would change course in talks with Solana and signal readiness to
heed the U.N. Security Council demand for a halt to enrichment,
which can produce civilian nuclear fuel or fissile material for
an atomic bomb. 

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in Washington
that the Security Council had made clear in a resolution that it
was prepared to vote for sanctions if Iran failed to meet the
Aug. 31 deadline to suspend enrichment. 

The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed on
the deadline day that Tehran had failed to cease enrichment. 

And so, McCormack said, the United States intended to proceed
``down that pathway.'' 

Echoing those comments, Gregory L. Schulte, chief U.S. delegate
to the IAEA, accused Iran's leaders of making ``a strategic
decision to acquire nuclear weapons,'' adding: ``The time has
come for the Security Council to back international diplomacy
with international sanctions.'' 

U.N. and European officials told The Associated Press Monday on
that Larijani and Solana had tentatively agreed to try to bridge
differences over the nuclear program. The officials insisted on
anonymity for sharing the confidential information. 

They said the date and venue could still change, and details
were being kept confidential in an apparent attempt not to
jeopardize any chance of success. 

The Solana-Larijani talks are seen as the last chance for a
negotiated solution before the council actively starts work on
sanctions. Senior negotiators of the five permanent Security
Council members plus Germany are to meet in Berlin on Thursday
to discuss the results of Wednesday's meeting. 

Iran's unyielding stance appears to be based on the calculation
that sanctions will be opposed by Russia and China, both
veto-wielding Security Council members that have major
commercial ties with Iran. 

In Moscow on Tuesday, a top Kremlin aide said sanctions against
Iran could be counterproductive. Still Igor Shuvalov, a senior
aide to President Vladimir Putin, said that ``every possibility
is present ... we are not closing the door on anything.'' 

Shuvalov said that reluctance on sanctions did not imply support
for a nuclear-armed Iran. ``We could suffer more than anyone
else if they built nuclear weapons,'' he said. 

But he cautioned that introduction of economic sanctions could
further increase global oil prices and have a negative impact on
regional stability. He added that Russia's location next to Iran
and former Soviet Muslim republics in Central Asia made it
particularly vulnerable. 

``We don't mind using a stick, but we don't want that stick to
hit us or our partners over the head,'' he said. 

Russia is building a nuclear power plant in Bushehr, Iran, to
which the United States long objected, saying the plant could be
used by Iran to produce material for weapons. Russia eventually
worked out a deal with Iran for all the plant's spent fuel to be
sent to Russia, theoretically limiting the possibility Iran
could reprocess it for arms. 

However, Iran has resisted Russia's proposal to conduct all
Iran's uranium enrichment on Russian soil. 

In June, the five permanent members of the Security Council plus
Germany offered Iran a package of economic and diplomatic
incentives to limit its nuclear program. Iran did not respond
until Aug. 22. Government officials and diplomats have said Iran
did not address a freeze on uranium enrichment - the key
condition sought by the six powers. 

Iran's slowness in responding to the incentives package prompted
the Security Council to issue the resolution ordering a halt in
Iran's uranium enrichment by the end of August. 

--- 

Associated Press writers Barry Schweid in Washington and
Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow contributed to this report. 	 
		 	 	   
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
 4 Guardian Unlimited: Bush: Won't Allow a Nuclear-Armed Iran
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Tuesday September 5, 2006 9:31 PM

By BARRY SCHWEID 

AP Diplomatic Writer 

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush said Tuesday a nuclear-armed
Iran would blackmail the free world and raise a mortal threat to
the American people. 

``I am not going to allow this to happen,'' Bush said in a
speech on terrorism. ``And no future American president can
allow it, either.'' 

With allies urging a go-slow approach on pressuring Iran to stop
enriching uranium, Bush pledged to work closely with other
governments to find a diplomatic solution to the standoff with
Tehran over its nuclear programs. 

But he also stressed, ``The world's free nations will not allow
Iran to develop a nuclear weapon.'' 

Iran has refused to stop enrichment as a precondition to
negotiations on U.S. and European offers of concessions,
including U.S. help with civilian nuclear programs. 

``Their choice is increasingly isolating the great Iranian
nation from the international community,'' Bush said. ``It is
time for Iran's leader to make a different choice.'' 

While standing firm on seeking U.N. sanctions against Iran, the
administration acknowledged there would be weeks of work to nail
them down. 

``There is going to be some work that's required in the Security
Council,'' State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said. ``I
would expect that that is going to be tough, intensive diplomacy
over the course of the coming weeks.'' 

But he said the U.N. Security Council had already made it clear
in a resolution that if Iran failed to meet an Aug. 31 deadline
to suspend uranium enrichment, the Council was prepared to vote
for sanctions. 

And so, he said, the United States intends to proceed ``down
that pathway.'' 

Iran has renewed to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan an offer
of negotiations about its nuclear programs but has declined to
suspend enrichment of uranium as a precondition. 

Tehran insists that its nuclear activities are designed to
produce civilian power and are within its rights. 

Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns is to hold talks in
Berlin on Thursday with European, Russian and Chinese diplomats
on strategy for applying sanctions. 

To maximize chances for agreement, the Bush administration is
inclined to seek graduated sanctions, beginning with such
limited measures as restrictions on providing Iran with
technology that could be used in military programs. 

European governments as well as Russia and China have urged
patience with Iran. The senior European diplomat, Javier Solana,
is expected to meet Wednesday in Vienna with Ali Larijani, the
chief Iranian nuclear negotiator. 

``Maybe the Iranians want to communicate something different
than they have previously,'' McCormack said. 

McCormack said the administration would encourage governments
``that might have some sway over Iran to engage them and to send
a very clear message to them that they need to comply with the
just demands of the international community.'' 
		 	 	   
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
 5 Guardian Unlimited: Iran to Discuss Nukes With EU Official
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Monday September 4, 2006 9:31 PM

AP Photo XHS107 

By GEORGE JAHN 

Associated Press Writer 

VIENNA, Austria (AP) - The European Union's top foreign policy
chief and Iran's senior nuclear negotiator tentatively agreed
late Monday to meet in two days in Vienna in a last-ditch
attempt to try and bridge differences over Tehran's nuclear
program, U.N. and European officials said. 

The officials, who demanded anonymity for discussing
confidential information with The Associated Press, stressed the
date and venue could still change despite initial agreement to
meet Wednesday in the Austrian capital. 	 
		 	 	   
      Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
 6 Guardian Unlimited: Iran to Meet With EU Official Over Nukes
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Tuesday September 5, 2006 7:31 AM

AP Photo VAH104 

By GEORGE JAHN 

Associated Press Writer 

VIENNA, Austria (AP) - The European Union's foreign policy chief
and Iran's senior nuclear negotiator tentatively agreed to meet
Wednesday in a last-ditch attempt to bridge differences over
Tehran's atomic program, U.N. and European officials said. 

With the Vienna meeting seen as the last chance for Iran to
avoid sanctions, U.N. Secretary- General Kofi Annan threw his
weight behind a negotiated solution, saying Monday that
confrontation with the Security Council ``will not be in Iran's
favor or that of the region.'' 

The officials, who agreed to share confidential information
about the meeting with The Associated Press only if their names
weren't used, stressed that the date and venue of the talks
could still change. 

While word leaked last week that Iranian chief negotiator Ali
Larijani agreed to meet with top EU envoy Javier Solana to
discuss ways to solve the impasse, details of the talks were
being officially kept secret in an apparent attempt not to
jeopardize any chance of their success. 

Asked to confirm the reports, Cristina Gallach, the spokeswoman
for Solana, would only say that ``the lines of communications
are being kept open'' between the two sides. 

At issue is Tehran's defiance of the Security Council's Thursday
deadline for it to freeze uranium enrichment, a potential
pathway to atomic arms. The oil-rich nation insists the program
is peaceful, intended only to produce fuel for nuclear reactors
that generate electricity. 

Senior negotiators of the five permanent Security Council
members plus Germany are expected to convene in Berlin on
Thursday to discuss the results of the Solana-Larijani meeting. 

Annan appealed for moderation instead of confrontation. ``The
best solution to the issue is talks,'' he was quoted as saying
by the official Qatar News Agency while on a stop in Doha,
Qatar, after visiting Tehran. 

The U.S. and its allies are increasing pressure for punishing a
defiant Iran. But they agreed last week to give the
Solana-Larijani talks a chance in an attempt to mollify Russia
and China, which are reluctant to endorse harsh and swift U.N.
punishment for Iran, a major trade partner. 

Beside his failure to nudge Iranian leaders toward an enrichment
halt, Annan's Tehran visit was marred by Iran's announcement
Sunday that it will host a conference to examine what it calls
exaggerations about the Holocaust, during which more than 6
million Jews were kilboth veto-wielding permanent members of the
Security Council, will oppose sanctions. 

On Monday, the Iranian government insisted a hostile U.S.
attitude was to blame for the crisis. 

``There is a good trend over the nuclear issue,'' government
spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham said. But he added: ``Some
countries and powers like the U.S. want to turn the logical
trend into an illogical one.'' 

Still, with Annan failing to secure any commitment to halt
uranium enrichment from Iran's leaders, other nations shared
U.S. doubt about the Solana-Larijani meeting. 

``We must remain skeptical'' that the talks will achieve
results, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told
Germany's ambassadors. ``If not, the road to the U.N. Security
Council will be unavoidable.'' 

In June, the five permanent members of the Security Council plus
Germany offered Iran a package of economic and diplomatic
incentives to limit its nuclear program. Iran didn't respond
until Aug. 22. 

While Tehran's response has not been made public, government
officials and diplomats have said it did not address a freeze on
uranium enrichment - the key condition set by the six powers. 

Iran's slowness in responding to the incentives package prompted
the Security Council to issue a resolution July 31 ordering
Tehran to halt uranium enrichment by the end of August. 

Iran also said Monday that it had tested a new air defense
system to counter missiles and aircraft during large-scale
military exercises throughout the country, state-run television
reported. 

Footage showed at least four surface-to-air missiles being fired
from mobile launching pads. The report did not say if the
missile was equipped with a guidance system. 

Iran's military test-fired a series of missiles during
large-scale war games in the Persian Gulf in March and April,
including a missile it claimed was not detectable by radar that
can use multiple warheads to hit several targets simultaneously. 

--- 

Associated Press writers Nasser Karimi in Tehran and Stephen
Graham in Berlin contributed to this report. 
		 	 	   
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
 7 IRNA: Elham: Annan's Iran visit positive 

Tehran, Sept 4, IRNA

Iran-Elham-Annan 

Government spokesman Gholam-Hossein Elham here Monday assessed
the recent visit to Tehran of United Nations Secretary-General
Kofi Annan as "positive."

 Speaking to reporters at his weekly press conference, Elham
said regional developments as well as the Iran nuclear issue
were among topics discussed during Annan's talks with senior
Iranian officials.

 "Annan believes that the Iran nuclear standoff should be
settled through negotiations. He, himself, signified willingness
to put forward the case for negotiations to find a solution to
the issue.

 "Iran accepts the path of negotiations. We believe in talks and
seek sustainable peace as well as tranquility and security" in
the the international arena, he said.

 He added that peace and security can only be sustainable
realities when they are based on justice and a commitment to
(international) rules and regulations."

 Pointing to Iran's response to the package of incentives
offered by the world's six powers (5+1 Group), the spokesman
urged the group to remain focused on negotiations and reason as
the only path to resolving the nuclear issue.

 Iran on June 6 was offered a package of incentives by the five
permanent members of the UN Security Council -- China, Russia,
Britain, France and the United States -- plus Germany (Group
5+1) for it to suspend all uranium and reprocessing activities.

 Details of Iran's response to the offer, presented by Supreme
National Security Council (SNSC) Ali Larijani to ambassadors of
the 5+1 Group as well as the Swiss envoy, who takes charge of US
interests in Iran, on August 22, have not been divulged. Tehran,
however, insists it will not suspend uranium enrichment before
talks begin.

 "Certain states, particularly the US, want to change the
reasonable course of settling the nuclear case to suit their
interests and this should be resisted by states," Elham further
said.

*****************************************************************
 8 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: Negotiation, solution to IRI N-issue 

  2006/09/05   
  
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) Deputy Prime Minister Sheikh
Hamdan bin Zayed an-Nahyan in a meeting with Iran's Deputy
Foreign Minister Mehdi Mostafavi on Monday emphasized the
necessity of peaceful settlement of Iran's nuclear issue. 

According to Iran's embassy in Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Hamdan said his
country believes Iran and the Western countries can find a
proper solution for this dispute through negotiation. 

The UAE official expressed his country's intention to expand
bilateral ties with Iran. 

Mostafavi, for his part, briefed the UAE official on the latest
developments concerning Iran's nuclear stance and also Iran's
response to the 5+1 proposal. 

The Iranian official also discussed issues of mutual interest
with the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Muhammad-Hussein
al-Sha'li. 

In his last leg of his tour to the Persian Gulf countries,
Mostafavi arrived in Abu Dhabi, capital of the UAE, on Monday
morning from Qatar and will depart there for Tehran on Monday
evening. 

sam   

  Copyright 2004, All Rights Reserved By Islamic Republic of Iran 
Broadcasting News Network Sponsored By IRIB News Computer Center. 
E-Mail: Info@IRIBNEWS.ir     
*****************************************************************
 9 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: Speaker meets Russian over Bushehr 

  2006/09/05   
  
Majlis Speaker Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel said Monday completion of
construction of Bushehr atomic powerplant on time will
contribute to the promotion of future cooperation between Iran
and Russia. 

According to majlis Media Department, Haddad-Adel in a meeting
with the Head of Russia's Supreme Court Vicheslav Lebedov called
Bushehr atomic powerplant as a symbol of friendly cooperation
between the two countries. 

Majlis speaker called relations between the two countries in
bilateral and international levels very important and said, " We
must take advantage of all opportunities to strengthen the
cooperation between the two countries." 

Concerning developments in the international relations,
Haddad-Adel said judicial cooperation between countries in the
field of fight against terrorism, smuggling of goods, drugs as
well as human smuggling are one of the most important issues in
the relations. 

One of the important issues of cooperation between the two
countries is human rights, which is abused by super powers and
has turned into a political issue and has been a pretext to
interfere in other countries' affairs, the speaker said. 

Lebedov, for his part, said, Russia considers cooperation with
Iran very important. 

He evaluated his visit to Iran "very valuable" and said in this
trip he has had very important negotiations in the field of
judicial cooperation with Iranian officials. 

The Russian official added strengthening bilateral judicial
cooperation causes consolidation of friendly relations,
confidence and good willing between the two countries. 

Head of Russian Federation Supreme Court arrived in Tehran on
Sunday at the head of a high ranking Russian judicial
delegation. He has met with Iran's Judiciary Chief Ayatollah
Shahroudi and head of Iran's supreme court Ayatollah Hossein
Mofid, so far.   

  Copyright 2004, All Rights Reserved By Islamic Republic of Iran 
Broadcasting News Network Sponsored By IRIB News Computer Center. 
E-Mail: Info@IRIBNEWS.ir     
*****************************************************************
 10 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: EU, loser under America's pressure 

  2006/09/04   
  
Foreign Minstry Spokesman Hamid-Reza Asefi said Monday the
Islamic Republic of Iran will not witdraw from its rights but
will do everything to ease worries. 

Asefi stressed that America has been left alone in its
over-ambitious stance towards Iran's nuclear case. 

He added that America's pressure against Iran will put the
Europeans' interests in danger more than others. 

sam   

  
  Copyright 2004, All Rights Reserved By Islamic Republic of Iran 
Broadcasting News Network Sponsored By IRIB News Computer Center. 
E-Mail: Info@IRIBNEWS.ir     
  


  
*****************************************************************
 11 AFP: Iran, EU 'probably' to meet September 6 in Vienna - diplomats -

 Tue Sep 5, 3:29 AM ET 		 	 

VIENNA (AFP) - EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and Iran" /> 
Iran's top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani will probably meet 
Wednesday in Vienna, diplomats told AFP. 

"They will most probably meet in Vienna Wednesday," said a
diplomat close to the Iranians, adding that the two men might
also meet with UN nuclear watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei. 

"The Vienna weather is fine and this is the headquarters of the
( International Atomic Energy Agency" /> International Atomic
Energy Agency), so why not Vienna?" the diplomat said. 

IAEA officials were not able to confirm the meeting. EU
officials have said only that Solana was seeking a meeting with
Larijani this week somewhere in Europe. 

Other diplomats said that Brussels was also a possibility for
the Solana-Larijani meeting. 

The meeting had originally been scheduled for Wednesday in
Berlin, a day ahead of a meeting there Thursday of Britain,
China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States, the six
powers trying to strike a deal with Iran over its disputed
nuclear program. 

But those countries had ruled out meeting in Berlin with Iran,
and one diplomat said the Iranians wanted to avoid holding their
meeting in the same city in order to avoid looking as if they
were snubbed. 

The six powers have called on Iran to suspend strategic nuclear
fuel work but Iran refuses to do this. 

The IAEA reported last week that Iran has failed to honor a
United Nations" /> United Nationsdemand for Iran to suspend such
work, namely uranium enrichment, in a move that opens the door
to UN Security Council sanctions against the Islamic Republic. 

The United States has begun working toward sanctions, but since
Iran offered new talks on its nuclear programme, veto-holding
Security Council members Russia and China appear to have
softened their stance in Tehran's favour. 

"Russia is already saying that they will not support anything at
the UN Security Council until after" a meeting between Solana
and Larijani that will attempt to re-start negotiations, a
Western diplomat said. 

The European Union" /> European Unionsaid at a foreign ministers
meeting in Finland Saturday that it would give Iran extra time
to show it was serious about negotiating over its contested
nuclear activities but warned the Western bloc expected a clear
response. 

Solana's talks with Larijani are meant to clarify sections of a
21-page Iranian reponse to an incentives deal, which also
includes an offer to relaunch talks. Diplomats have suggested
the text is, at best, unclear. 

EU foreign ministers are due to meet again on September 15 to
discuss developments. 

Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The
*****************************************************************
 12 AFP: Iran's ex-president Khatami believes US attack on Iran unlikely
    
September 4, 10:08

CHICAGO (AFP) - Former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, on a
visit to the United States, said he believes a US attack on Iran
is unlikely and called for a diplomatic solution to the impasse
over the country's disputed nuclear program in an interview
broadcast.

Khatami, who has no scheduled meetings with US government
officials during his two-week visit, is the most senior Iranian
representative to travel to the United States since Washington
broke off diplomatic relations following the 1979 (Advertisement)
[Click Here] [ src=]  takeover of the US embassy in Tehran.

Asked if he feared possible military action against Iran over
its nuclear program, Khatami told CNN television: "We are
definitely worried and hopeful that such a thing will not take
place, such attack will not take place.

"I think, in all honesty, the probability of something like that
taking place are very low. And I believe the only power that can
undertake -- can take such steps is the United States, and,
quite frankly, I think the United States has caused itself
enough problems in Iraq."

Iran rejected an August 31 deadline to halt enrichment
activities and Washington is urging the UN Security Council to
impose sanctions against Tehran.

In the interview conducted in Chicago, Khatami called for a
diplomatic solution to resolve the impasse.

"Through communication and negotiation, the needed guarantees
can be given to give assurances that we're not pursuing the
atomic weapon," said Khatami, speaking through an interpreter.

He said Iran had never sought to secure nuclear weapons.

"It has never been the policy nor the mindset of any branch of
the Iranian government to pursue atomic weapons, which can be
the source of vast, numerous deaths in the world."

Khatami is considered a moderate reformist unlike his hardline
successor, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has provoked
international outrage with comments calling for Israel to be
"wiped off the map."

Asked about Ahmadinejad's remarks on Israel, he said: "I
personally never said that Israel should be wiped off the map. 

"I always said and backed fair and equal peace in the region
with the main pillar -- one of the main pillars of which would
have to be fair treatment of Palestinians and also the
repatriation rights of the Palestinian refugees."

Discussing the prospects for democracy in the Middle East,
Khatami said that any outside intervention only makes political
progress more difficult.

"Obviously, we do have some mistakes, some challenges in the
region, wrong decisions taken by the leaders in the region. But
I firmly believe it's only increased through foreign
intervention," he said.

"I again firmly believe that through dialogue and close
cooperation and understanding there is a better way to work
through and eliminate the problems and challenges, rather than
threats and violence." 

AFP 
*****************************************************************
 13 AFP: Diplomats to meet in Berlin on Iranian nuclear crisis 

 Mon Sep 4, 8:44 AM ET 		 	 

BERLIN (AFP) - High-ranking officials from the five permanent 
members of the UN Security Council plus Germany will meet in 
Berlin this week to discuss the Iranian nuclear crisis, a German 
government spokesman has said. 

 "We are planning a meeting of the political directors as soon
as possible this week," foreign ministry spokesman Martin Jaeger
confirmed to reporters Monday. 

A western diplomat said last week that the six nations would
meet for talks in Berlin on Thursday, September 7. 

Jaeger said the gathering of officials from Britain, China,
France, Germany, Russia and the United States would follow a
planned meeting between EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana
and Iran" /> Iran's top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani. 

Solana has told European Union" /> European Unionforeign
ministers that he and Larijani are "due to meet somewhere in
Europe, sometime soon this week," Jaeger said. 

He said calls were mounting in political circles to punish
Tehran with sanctions after it ignored a UN Security Council
deadline to stop enriching uranium. Enriched uranium is
necessary in the construction of nuclear bombs. 

Iran let the deadline lapse on Thursday and President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad remained defiant in talks with UN chief Kofi Annan"
/> Kofi Annanat the weekend. 

He told Annan he was prepared to negotiate on Iran's nuclear
programme but would not accept a suspension of enrichment before
talks. 

Jaeger said a package of incentives proposed by the Security
Council members and Germany in return for suspending enrichment
was still on the table. 

"The door for negotiations remains open, the offer remains on
the table," he said. 

The United States has said UN-level talks on sanctions would not
take place before the meeting between Solana and Larijani. 

	 		 			
Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The
*****************************************************************
 14 AFP: Time for sanctions on Iranian nuclear program 

 by Michael Adler Tue Sep 5, 2:57 PM ET 		 	 

VIENNA (AFP) - The time has come for sanctions on Iran" /> 
Iranover its atomic program, the US ambassador to the UN nuclear 
watchdog said. 

 His comments came amid diplomacy in Berlin and other capitals
this week designed to get Tehran back to the negotiating table,
and avoid sanctions. 

"The time has come for the ( United Nations" /> United Nations)
Security Council to back international diplomacy with
international sanctions," US ambassador Gregory Schulte told a
meeting of a foreign press association in Vienna. 

He said that Iran's actions "pose a threat to international
peace and security." 

Schulte said a report last week by the watchdog International
Atomic Energy Agency" /> International Atomic Energy Agencyhad
"in just over five pages" listed "a dozen examples of Iran's
failure to provide access (to IAEA inspectors) to information,
facilities and individuals." 

The IAEA report confirmed that Iran has failed to suspend
uranium enrichment, despite calls from world powers as well as
the Security Council for this strategic nuclear fuel work to be
halted. Enrichment makes nuclear power fuel but also atom bomb
material. 

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad remained defiant in talks
in Tehran with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan" /> Kofi Annanat
the weekend. 

Ahmadinejad told Annan he was prepared to negotiate on Iran's
nuclear program but would not accept a suspension of enrichment
before talks. 

By choosing not to suspend, "Iran's leaders are making the
negative choice, a course of confrontation over one of
negotiation." 

"This course will bring not reward but isolation and sanction,"
Schulte said. 

Sanctions should be "applied in a graduated fashion" and "target
Iran's weapons programs and those who guide and support them,"
Schulte said. 

A flurry of international diplomacy over the Iran nuclear crisis
resumes this week, with EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana
and Iran's top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani probably meeting
Wednesday in Vienna. 

The six world powers trying to win guarantees that Iran will not
seek nuclear weapons are confirmed to meet in Berlin on
Thursday. 

But sanctions are not looming in the short-term, even if the
United States had seen the Berlin meeting as the time to decide
how to get the Security Council to move against Iran. 

Iran last week defied an August 31 Council deadline for it to
halt uranium enrichment, which makes nuclear reactor fuel but
also atom bomb material. 

The European Union" /> European Unionsaid at a foreign ministers
meeting in Finland Saturday that it would give Iran extra time
to show it was serious about negotiating but warned that the
Western bloc expected a clear response. 

But Schulte said: "We're going to still move forward in the
Security Council." 

While Iranian allies and key trading partners Russia and China
are reluctant to impose sanctions, Schulte said that at both the
IAEA in Vienna and the Security Council in New York, "Russia and
China share the concern with like-minded countries about" Iran's
nuclear program. 

Schulte refused however to indicate a time frame for getting the
Council to move to impose sanctions. 	 		 			

Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The
*****************************************************************
 15 AFP: Diplomacy on Iranian nuclear issue continues; no sanctions for now - 

 by Michael Adler Tue Sep 5, 1:15 PM ET 		 	 

VIENNA (AFP) - A flurry of international diplomacy over the Iran" 
/> nuclear crisis resumes this week, despite Tehran's defiance of 
a UN demand to halt uranium enrichment or face international 
sanctions. 

 EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and Iran's top nuclear
negotiator Ali Larijani will probably meet Wednesday in Vienna,
diplomats told AFP, and the six world powers trying to win
guarantees that Iran will not seek nuclear weapons are confirmed
to meet in Berlin on Thursday. 

But Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said in Tehran
Tuesday that the date and site of a Solana-Larijani meeting have
still not been "fixed ... and will be finalised between the two
parties in the next days." 

In any case, sanctions are not looming in the short-term, even
if the United States had seen the Berlin meeting as the time to
decide how to get the United Nations" /> Security Council to
move against Iran. 

Iran last week defied an August 31 Council deadline for it to
halt uranium enrichment, the strategic process which makes
nuclear reactor fuel but also atom bomb material. 

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad remained defiant in talks
in Tehran with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan" /> at the
weekend. 

Ahmadinejad told Annan he was prepared to negotiate on Iran's
nuclear program but would not accept a suspension of enrichment
before talks. 

The European Union" /> said at a foreign ministers meeting in
Finland Saturday that it would give Iran extra time to show it
was serious about negotiating but warned that the Western bloc
expected a clear response. 

A meeting between Solana and Larijani would be a key step in
getting talks started. 

Solana will seek to clarify with Larijani a 21-page Iranian
reponse to an incentives deal offered by the six world powers
and which includes an offer to relaunch talks but only if Iran
suspends uranium enrichment. Diplomats have suggested the
Iranian text is, at best, unclear. 

The two men "will most probably meet in Vienna Wednesday," said
a diplomat close to the Iranians, adding that they might also
meet with UN nuclear watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei. 

"The Vienna weather is fine and this is the headquarters of the
( International Atomic Energy Agency" /> ), so why not Vienna?"
the diplomat said. 

IAEA officials were not able to confirm the meeting, while EU
officials said only that Solana was seeking a meeting soon with
Larijani somewhere in Europe. Other diplomats said that Brussels
was also a possibility. 

The meeting had originally been scheduled for Wednesday in
Berlin, a day ahead of a meeting there involving Britain, China,
France, Germany, Russia and the United States - the six powers
trying to strike a deal with Iran over its disputed nuclear
program. 

But those countries had ruled out meeting in Berlin with Iran,
and one diplomat said the Iranians wanted to avoid holding their
meeting in the same city in order to avoid looking as if they
were snubbed. 

The United States has begun working toward sanctions, but since
Iran offered new talks, veto-holding Security Council members
Russia and China appear to have softened their stance in
Tehran's favour. 

"Russia is already saying that they will not support anything at
the UN Security Council until after" a meeting between Solana
and Larijani, a Western diplomat said. 

China called Tuesday for renewed efforts to seek a solution to
the Iranian nuclear issue through dialogue, while announcing it
would attend the Berlin meeting. 

"We have consistently stood for the resolution of the Iranian
nuclear issue through peaceful dialogue and negotiations,"
foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang said in Beijing. 

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Monday that
world powers would have no choice but to take Iran to the UN
Security Council for sanctions if Tehran does not agree to rein
in its nuclear program. 

Steinmeier indicated he was "skeptical" a Solana-Larijani
meeting would produce a breakthrough in the standoff. 	 		 			

Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The
*****************************************************************
 16 AFP: China wants peaceful resolution of Iran nuclear issue - 

 Tue Sep 5, 4:38 AM ET 		 	 

BEIJING (AFP) - China has called for renewed efforts to seek a 
solution to the Iranian nuclear issue through dialogue, while 
announcing it would attend an upcoming meeting of UN Security 
Council members. 

 "We have consistently stood for the resolution of the Iranian
nuclear issue through peaceful dialogue and negotiations,"
foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang said. 

"We hope that the actions of all parties concerned can be
conducive to the early resolution of the Iranian nuclear issue
and the early resumption of the dialogue." 

China will send Zhang Yan, director general of the ministry's
department of arms control and disarmament, to the Council
meeting in Berlin on Thursday. 

The meeting will be attended by officials from the United
States, Russia, China, France and Great Britain -- the five
permanent members of the UN Security Council -- as well as
Germany. 

Calls have been mounting in political circles to punish Tehran
with sanctions after it ignored an August 31 Council deadline to
stop enriching uranium. 

Enriched uranium is needed to construct nuclear bombs. 

Iran" /> Iranlet the deadline lapse and President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad remained defiant in talks with UN Secretary General
Kofi Annan" /> Kofi Annanat the weekend. 

He told Annan he was prepared to negotiate on Iran's nuclear
program but would not accept a suspension of enrichment before
talks. 

Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The
*****************************************************************
 17 AFP: Bush steps up war of words with Iran 

 by Olivier Knox Tue Sep 5, 5:55 PM ET 		 	 

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US President George W. Bush" /> President 
George W. Bushcalled Iran" /> Iran's leaders "tyrants" as 
dangerous as Al-Qaeda terrorists and said they must not be 
allowed to get nuclear weapons -- "the tools of mass murder." 

 "The world's free nations will not allow Iran to develop a
nuclear weapon," he said as the US ambassador to the UN nuclear
watchdog agency in Vienna said it was time to slap sanctions on
Tehran over its atomic activities. 

The sharp escalation in rhetoric came as Bush made the second of
a series of speeches on the war on terrorism in the run up to
November US legislative elections expected to be overshadowed by
the unpopular war in Iraq" /> Iraq. 

It followed the White House's release of a 23-page
anti-terrorism strategy that called Iran and Syria" />
Syria"especially worrisome" threats and downplayed the role of
the Iraq war and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in fueling
terrorism. 

In Vienna, the US ambassador to the International Atomic Energy
Agency" /> International Atomic Energy Agency, Gregory Schulte,
said that "the time has come for the ( United Nations" /> United
Nations) Security Council to back international diplomacy with
international sanctions." 

Bush made no explicit reference to sanctions in his speech but
stressed that: "The world is working together to prevent Iran's
regime from acquiring the tools of mass murder." 

Quoting Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as saying last
month that the United States must "bow down" before Iran, the US
president fired back: "America will not bow down to tyrants." 

Bush accused Iran of funding the Lebanese Shiite militia
Hezbollah and other groups in order to attack Israel" />
Israeland the United States "by proxy" and said Tehran aimed to
dominate its neighbors. 

"Like Al-Qaeda and the Sunni extremists, the Iranian regime has
clear aims. They want to drive America out of the region, to
destroy Israel, and to dominate the broader Middle East," said
the US president. 

"The Shia strain of Islamic radicalism is just as dangerous and
just as hostile to America and just as determined to establish
its brand of hegemony across the broader Middle East" as
Al-Qaeda, he said. 

But, he said, Shiite extremists have done something Al-Qaeda
only dreams of by taking over Iran in 1979, "subjugating its
proud people to a regime of tyranny and using that nation's
resources to fund the spread of terror and to pursue their
radical agenda." 

"The Iranian regime and its terrorist proxies have demonstrated
their willingness to kill Americans, and now the Iranian regime
is pursuing nuclear weapons," said Bush. 

Tehran has insisted that it seeks only civilian nuclear power,
but has rejected an incentives package from the United States,
France, Britain, Russia, China and Germany in return for
freezing uranium enrichment. 

In its report, a reworked version of previous anti-terrorism
blueprints, the White House warned that the United States was
"not yet safe" from terrorism five years after the September 11,
2001 attacks. 

It labeled the possible acquisition of weapons of mass
destruction (WMDs) by terrorists "our greatest and gravest
concern" and said: "Most troubling is the potential
WMD-terrorism nexus that emanates from Tehran." 

Amid the soaring price tag and rising death toll in Iraq and
uncertainty about US efforts to resolve the Middle East
conflict, the report downplayed the impact of both crises as
sources of anger that fuels extremist violence. 

"Terrorism is not simply a result of hostility to US policy in
Iraq," it said. "Terrorism is not simply a result of
Israeli-Palestinian issues." 

In each case, the White House said that Al-Qaeda had plotted the
September 11 attacks in the 1990s, during an "active period" in
Middle East peace talks and well before the March 2003 invasion
of Iraq. 

However, the report also acknowledged that "the ongoing fight
for freedom in Iraq has been twisted by terrorist propaganda as
a rallying cry." 

Opposition Democrats fired back quickly, with Senator John
Kerry" /> John Kerry, Bush's 2004 rival for the White House,
declaring that "We need to change course, not more of the same." 

"Afghanistan is slipping back into chaos, Pakistan is one coup
away from becoming a radical Islamic state with nuclear weapons,
Iran is closer to a nuclear arsenal, and Iraq has become a
recruitment poster for terror," he said. 	 		 			

Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The
*****************************************************************
 18 UPI: Iran eyes pre-emptive move over sanctions
   
United Press International - Intl. Intelligence - 

	9/5/2006 12:09:00 PM -0400 	 	 				 				 					 

TEHRAN, Sept. 5 (UPI) -- Iran is considering pre-emptive
measures to check possible U.N. sanctions for failing to meet an
Aug. 31 deadline to suspend nuclear enrichment. 

Iranian news agency IRNA reported Tuesday that the parliament's
Committee for National Security and Foreign Policy is studying a
draft law under which inspections of Iran's nuclear
installations by the International Atomic Energy Agency would be
suspended in the case of international sanctions being imposed
on Tehran. 

"Members of the Committee of National Security and Foreign
Policy at the Shura Council voted Tuesday on the main guidelines
of the draft law which is about suspending the entry of IAEA
inspectors to Iranian nuclear installations," IRNA said. 

The agency did not report the outcome of the voting, but quoted
committee member Kazem Jalali as saying "details of the draft
legislation will be studied carefully by the committee. 

"Implementation of the draft law will be linked to imposing
sanctions on Iran and increasing pressures on us," Jalali said. 

Iran continued to enrich uranium after the deadline imposed by
the international committee had expired, exposing itself to
international sanctions. 

The United States, in the meantime, has started consultations
with the permanent members of the Security Council and Germany
with the aim of passing a United Nations' decision to impose
sanctions on Iran.

© Copyright 2006 United Press International, Inc. All Rights
Reserved
*****************************************************************
 19 Guardian Unlimited: U.S. Envoy Frustrated With North Korea
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Tuesday September 5, 2006 2:46 PM

AP Photo XED106 

By ALEXA OLESEN 

Associated Press Writer 

BEIJING (AP) - The chief American negotiator on North Korea's
nuclear program expressed frustration Tuesday with Pyongyang's
refusal to return to six-nation talks amid concerns the regime
might be preparing a nuclear test. 

China, meanwhile, denied that arrangements were under way for a
visit by the North's reclusive leader, Kim Jong Il, despite
media reports that his special train had arrived in a city on
the Korean-Chinese border. 

The ``North Koreans apparently have no interest right now in
joining the diplomatic process,'' U.S. Assistant Secretary of
State Christopher Hill told reporters after arriving in Beijing
to meet with his Chinese counterpart. ``We regard this as not
only too bad for the process but too bad, too, for them.'' 

For the second time in as many weeks, South Korean media
reported that Kim was in or about to visit China, with the
JoongAng Ilbo newspaper saying Tuesday that Kim's visit was
likely to begin within the next few days. 

However, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said at a
regular media briefing that he knew of no such trip to Beijing
by the North Korean leader, though one has been rumored for
weeks. 

South Korea's main spy agency warned last week that Pyongyang
could test a nuclear device at any time. The warning followed
reports of suspicious activity at a suspected North Korean
underground nuclear testing site. 

The North claims to have nuclear weapons but has not performed
any known tests. To test now would escalate tensions in the
region, setting up a confrontation with the U.S. and scuttling
the chance for resuming long-stalled negotiations over
Pyongyang's nuclear programs. It would also anger China, North
Korea's main patron. 

Qin said Hill would meet with his Chinese counterpart Wu Dawei,
China's chief representative in the six-nation nuclear talks, as
well as Vice Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai, the country's chief
envoy in charge of nonproliferation issues. 

``They will exchange views on six-party talks and other issues
of common interest,'' Qin said at a regular briefing. He did not
give any details. 

Hill met with his Japanese counterpart Kenichiro Sasae in Tokyo
on Monday. The two agreed to cooperate with China, Russia and
South Korea to bring the North back to the talks, which are
aimed at persuading the reclusive regime to give up its nuclear
ambitions. Pyongyang has boycotted the negotiations until
Washington lifts financial restrictions aimed at the North. 

Hill said the nations were also open to other configurations,
such as the so-called five-plus-five format that brought five of
the six-party nations and five other regional nations together
for talks in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in July. 

South Korea's JoongAng Ilbo quoted an unidentified person in
Beijing as saying that Kim's train has been in the northeastern
border city of Shinuiju and there is a high possibility of Kim
crossing into China in the next few days. 

The newspaper cited another person as saying a team of North
Korean security officials had visited Beijing on Aug. 25 to
prepare security arrangements for Kim's trip. 

Meanwhile, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported that North
Korea had blocked off roads leading to Shinuiju, a possible sign
of security measures indicating that Kim could be passing
through the area. The report cited an unnamed source in the
Chinese border city of Dandong, across from Shinuiju. 

Kim rarely travels abroad, but has occasionally visited allies
China or Russia, last traveling on a tour through several
Chinese cities in January. Beijing and Pyongyang didn't
officially acknowledge Kim had been in the country until after
he left. 

Relations between the communist allies were strained after North
Korea launched missiles in July and China joined in a U.N.
Security Council resolution condemning the tests. 
		 	 	   
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
 20 Guardian Unlimited: Report: U.S., 2 Korean Delegates Meet
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Tuesday September 5, 2006 6:46 AM

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - Delegates from the United States and
the two Koreas were holding a meeting in Beijing, South Korea's
Yonhap news agency reported. 

The report cited an unnamed South Korean official, and no more
details were immediately given. 

The U.S. has refused to hold direct talks with North Korea to
resolve the impasse of negotiations on convincing Pyongyang to
abandon its nuclear weapons programs. However, Washington has
said it could hold multilateral talks along with other
countries. 
		 	 	   
      Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006


*****************************************************************
 21 Hankyoreh: Beijing's Foreign Ministry denies report of N. Korean leader's
Chinese trip 

North Korea has blockaded all roads leading to a city bordering 
China, a source said Tuesday, suggesting the communist state's 
reclusive leader Kim Jong-il may be preparing a trip to China, 
but a spokesman for China's Foreign Ministry dismissed reports of 
his imminent trip.
 
"As far as I know, there is no such arrangement now," the 
ministry spokesman, Qin Gang, told reporters in Beijing.
 
The remarks came amid reports that a special train carrying the 
North Korean leader has arrived in the North Korean town.
 
Earlier on Tuesday, South Korea's mass-circulation newspaper 
JoongAng Ilbo reported that Kim's train has been in Shinuiju in 
northwestern North Korea, and there is a possibility he would 
cross the border within a few days.

"At present, roads leading to Shinuiju from other areas in North
Korea are all blocked," the source in Dandong, a Chinese border
town facing Shinuiju, said on condition of anonymity.
 
"I heard the North took such measures in the name of preventing
the roads hit hard by floods from being washed away," the source
said. "But I can't easily understand the measures since it
didn't rain much in Shinuiju to an extent that would wash away
roads."
 
He added that North Korea blocked roads and made other security
measures around a certain area when Kim visited there in the
past.
 
Quoting an unidentified diplomatic source in Beijing, the
JoongAng Ilbo said North Korean security officials visited
Beijing on Aug. 25, apparently to prepare for Kim's visit. The
paper said Kim's China trip might begin later on Tuesday at the
earliest.
 
Various media reports recently said Kim planned to visit China
soon amid growing security concerns that North Korea may be
preparing to conduct an underground nuclear test. The North's
ties with China are believed to have frayed following the
North's missile tests on July 5.
 
A South Korean newspaper went as far as reporting that Kim's
train had already crossed the Sino-North Korea border. China's
Foreign Ministry denied the report, saying there are no such
arrangements for Kim's visit.
 
Kim rarely travels abroad, but has occasionally visited longtime
allies China and Russia. When he traveled to China in January,
media organizations in North Korea and China imposed a news
blackout on the trip and confirmed it only after Kim returned
home.
 Shenyang/Beijing, Sept. 5 (Yonhap News)
 

Posted at : Sep.5,2006 20:52 KST                                
 		     	 	
© 2006 The Hankyoreh Media Company. All rights reserved.
    


*****************************************************************
 22 Korea Herald: Hill calls for 'concrete action' on N.K.   
        
TOKYO - U.S. envoy Christopher Hill on Tuesday called for
"concrete action" from the international community to press
North Korea to give up its nuclear program.

 "We are interested in trying to resolve this problem to protect
both our countries against the possibility of further
developments of North Korea's weapons programs," Hill told
reporters in Japan on the first leg of a regional tour.

 "The problem we've had is that we do not have a negotiator on
the other side," Hill said.

 He said it was important that U.N. Security Council Resolution
1695, which slapped sanctions on the North's missile program,
was "followed up by concrete action and its full implementation."

 The resolution, which was watered down from its original form,
was passed unanimously in July in response to North Korea's
test-launching of seven missiles.

 Hill's latest trip to the region comes amid media reports that
North Korea may be about to test a nuclear bomb. Pyongyang said
in February 2005 that it was a nuclear power but is not known to
have tested an atomic weapon.

 Hill, the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and
Pacific affairs, left Tokyo for Beijing later in the day for
talks with Chinese officials.

 He expressed his frustration at North Korea for not returning
to six-nation talks, but said the United States is open to other
negotiation formats as concerns mount about a possible nuclear
test.

 Hill had earlier met Japanese chief envoy Kenichiro Sasae, and
the two agreed to cooperate with the other parties in the talks
- China, Russia, South Korea - to bring the reclusive regime
back to the negotiating table.

 But Hill said the nations were also open to other
configurations, such as the so-called five-plus-five format that
brought five of the six-party nations and five other regional
nations together for talks in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in July.

 North Korea was invited to attend the session but declined to
attend.

 "We can look at other formats," Hill said. "The time for
organized, multilateral diplomacy in Asia is now."

 The North triggered intense international protests when it
tested seven missiles on July 5. All the rockets landed
harmlessly in the waters between Japan and the Korean Peninsula.

 While in China, Hill is scheduled to visit Beijing, followed by
stops in Chengdu, Guangzhou and Shanghai. He then comes to Seoul
on Sept. 11, before returning to Washington on Sept. 12,
according to the U.S. Embassy.

 The United States, China, Japan, Russia and South Korea have
tried to persuade the North to abandon its nuclear program at
six-party negotiations. The talks have been on hold since
November because North Korea refuses to attend until Washington
lifts financial restrictions.

 The United States has urged the North to come to the talks
without preconditions, saying the financial issue is unrelated
to the six-party talks but that it would be willing to discuss
them in that forum.

2006.09.06
*****************************************************************
 23 Korea Herald: N.K. leader's special train sparks Chinese whispers   

A special North Korean train has left for a border town in China
but it is not confirmed whether leader Kim Jong-il was on board,
news reports and sources said yesterday.

 Rumors have been rife for the past couple of weeks that the
secretive leader was planning a trip to China in the near future.

 One of the two trains stationed in Shinuiju in northwestern
North Korea left early Tuesday morning towards Dandong in China,
sources said.

 Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe said yesterday China
denied Kim's visit to Beijing.

 "I'm aware that China's Foreign Ministry has officially denied
Kim's visit," Abe said at a news conference in Tokyo. "We're
watching the situation closely."

 The South Korean government said it cannot be confirmed yet
whether Kim was on the train. Some sources also suggested the
train could be an ordinary one, not a special train for the
reclusive leader.

 Another news report said that North Korea has blocked all roads
leading to Dandong.

 "At present, roads leading to Shinuiju from other areas in
North Korea are all blocked," Yonhap News quoted a source in
Dandong as saying on condition of anonymity. 

China reportedly invited Kim through the North Korean Embassy
for a visit in the midst of paralyzed six-party talks and a
pending North Korean nuclear test threat.

 North Korea usually blocks roads as part of security measures
for Kim's visits.

 Another nationwide newspaper, the JoongAng Ilbo, said North
Korean security officials were in Beijing on Aug. 25, apparently
to prepare for Kim's visit.

 But some observers also speculated that the train near the
border could be for other purposes, such as to transport Kim on
his visit to a machinery factory and a chicken farm in the area.

 Kim, who rarely travels overseas, occasionally visits China and
Russia. Kim always travels by train as he has a fear of flying.

 Kim's latest visit to China was in January. China confirmed the
visit after Kim returned home.

 Relations between North Korea and its biggest benefactor China
have been rocky since Pyongyang's missile launches on July 5
despite Beijing's repeated warnings.

 The Chinese Foreign Ministry did not comment on the reports.

 Meanwhile, Christopher Hill, chief U.S. envoy to the six-party
nuclear talks, was to arrive in Beijing from Japan later in the
day for discussions with Chinese officials. 

(angiely@heraldm.com)
By Lee Joo-hee
2006.09.06
 
*****************************************************************
 24 BBC: US envoy in new N Korea diplomacy
 
Last Updated: Monday, 4 September 2006
 
[Christopher Hill arriving in Tokyo]

Mr Hill said North Korea had nothing to gain from boycotting 
talks

A senior US diplomat has arrived in Japan for fresh
talks aimed at reviving stalled negotiations on North Korea's
nuclear programme. 

Christopher Hill, who will also hold talks in China and South
Korea, said his visit came during a "very difficult period" in
relations with Pyongyang. 

He said North Korea had shown no interest in returning to
multilateral talks on its nuclear ambitions. 

Tensions have remained high since the North's missile tests in
early July. 

Mr Hill is due to meet officials in the Chinese capital, Beijing, 
on Tuesday, followed by talks in Chengdu, Guangzhou and Shanghai. 
He will then move on to Seoul, a US embassy statement said. 

'No incentives' 

Mr Hill said that the US position on six-nation talks with 
Pyongyang, deadlocked since September 2005, had not changed. 

"We have no new proposals. We have no incentives, packages, or 
anything like that," he told journalists in Tokyo. "All we have 
is a September agreement now unfortunately one full year old." 

The agreement, which promised economic aid in return for 
Pyongyang scrapping its nuclear programme, fell apart over 
disagreements on how to implement it. 

But Mr Hill urged North Korea to re-engage in dialogue. 

"There is no reason for the DPRK (North Korea) to stay away from
the diplomatic process and my government is very much committed
to these talks," he said. 

Concern 

North Korea provoked international concern when it launched
seven missiles, including a new long-range weapon capable of
hitting parts of the US, on 5 July. 

[A North Korean soldier looks at a South soldier at the border 
village of Panmunjom]                                

Some reports suggest the North may be planning more tests
                                
There has also been further speculation in the US and South
Korean media that the North may be planning an underground
nuclear test. 

But South Korean and US officials have played down the reports,
saying there is no clear evidence anything is being planned. 

Mr Hill called on Pyongyang to reconsider any further tests. 

"I think all governments in the world have made very clear that
it would be a very unwelcome development, and that the DPRK
should really think long and hard for it to take such a
provocative step," he said. 
*****************************************************************
 25 BBC: US move to restart N Korea talks 
 
Last Updated: Tuesday, 5 September 2006
 
[Christopher Hill arriving in Tokyo]                            

Mr Hill says North Korea has nothing to gain from boycotting 
talks

A top US envoy has arrived in the Chinese capital, Beijing, to 
discuss reviving stalled negotiations on North Korea's nuclear 
programme. 

US Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill has accused 
Pyongyang of boycotting multilateral talks on its nuclear 
ambitions. 

He said he was unsure of reports that North Korean leader Kim 
Jong-il was planning a simultaneous visit to China. 

Tensions have remained high since the North's missile tests in 
early July. 

South Korea's Yonhap news agency quotes an anonymous official as 
saying China had decided to invite Mr Kim amid speculation North 
Korea may be planning an underground nuclear test. 

Pyongyang revealed in February 2005 that it has nuclear 
capabilities but it has not yet tested a nuclear bomb. 

Local media have said a special armoured train, used by the Mr 
Kim to travel long distances, has arrived at the border with 
China, prompting speculation that he is about to visit the 
country. 

Asked about the issue, Mr Hill said he had "no information on Kim 
Jong-il's travels". 

"As you know, I take planes and he takes trains," he said. "So 
I'm not sure, really, what he's doing." 

'No negotiator' 

Following talks with his Japanese counterpart Kenichiro Sade, 
Christopher Hill said both sides had agreed to work with the 
other partners to revive talks with North Korea. 

[A North Korean soldier looks at a South soldier at the border 
village of Panmunjom]                                

Some reports suggest the North may be planning more tests

Advocating "concrete action" to persuade Pyongyang to abandon its 
nuclear programme, Mr Hill said: "The time for organized, 
multilateral diplomacy is now." 

"The problem we've had is that we do not have a negotiator on the 
other side," he said. 

Mr Hill is due to meet officials in Beijing, followed by talks in 
Chengdu, Guangzhou and Shanghai. He will then move on to Seoul, a 
US embassy statement said. 

'No incentives' 

Mr Hill maintains that the US position on six-nation talks with 
Pyongyang, deadlocked since September 2005, had not changed. 

"We have no new proposals. We have no incentives, packages, or 
anything like that," he told journalists in Tokyo on Monday. 

"All we have is a September agreement now unfortunately one full 
year old." 

The agreement, which promised economic aid in return for 
Pyongyang scrapping its nuclear programme, fell apart over 
disagreements on how to implement it. 

North Korea provoked international concern when it launched seven 
missiles, including a new long-range weapon capable of hitting 
parts of the US, on 5 July. 
*****************************************************************
 26 Korea Times: North Likely to Keep Plutonium in Stockpile¡¯ 

Hankooki.com > The Korea Times > Nation   

      

Two-day talks between South Korea and Japan on the vague
demarcation of their maritime border ended yesterday without
progress, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said.

 The two sides agreed to resume negotiations in Tokyo as early
as possible, the exact schedule to be discussed later.

 ¡°The two countries shared the understanding that the boundary
of their exclusive economic zones (EEZs) should be drawn by a
compromise based on international law,¡± the ministry said in a
threeparagraph press release. 

09-05-2006 21:37         
  



*****************************************************************
 27 AFP: US envoy warns NKorea against nuclear test

 Mon Sep 4, 4:39 PM ET 		 	 

TOKYO (AFP) - US envoy Christopher Hill warned North Korea" /> 
against provoking the international community with a nuclear 
test, urging the secretive state to return to stalled talks on 
its atomic program. 

"The DPRK (North Korea) does not seem as enthusiastic as we are
about pursuing a diplomatic track, and obviously this is a very
big problem for the six-party process," he told reporters in
Tokyo at the start of a regional tour. 

"There is no reason for the DPRK to stay away from the
diplomatic process and my government is very much committed to
these talks," said Hill, referring to the North by its official
name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. 

The US assistant secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific
affairs voiced concern about media reports that Pyongyang, which
claims to have built nuclear weapons, may be preparing an
underground nuclear test. 

"I think all governments in the world have made very clear that
it would be a very unwelcome development, and that the DPRK
should really think long and hard for it to take such a
provocative step. 

"I hope the DPRK will understand that their future lives are not
with these tests but by coming to the negotiating table and
implementing the September agreement," he said. 

Hill will also visit China and South Korea" /> during his swing
through the region, which he said was part of regular
consultations. 

The North agreed in principle in September last year to give up
its nuclear weapons program in exchange for aid and security
guarantees but walked out of talks two months later to protest
US sanctions on a Pyongyang-linked bank. 

The United States has been negotiating with the communist state
through six-way talks that also include China, Japan, Russia and
South Korea. 

Hill, who last visited the region in July after North Korea
defied international appeals by test-firing seven missiles, said
there were no new incentives on the table for the reclusive
Communist state. 

"We're not proposing incentives to North Korea to come back to
the talks," he said, noting that an agreement had already been
reached last year. 

"All six parties agree to that and I don't think any party
should be giving incentives to another party to come and
implement what everyone's agreed to," Hill added. 

The North on Saturday accused the United States of threatening
war with a test of its missile defense system and joint military
exercises with South Korea. 

The semi-official Committee for Peaceful Reunification of the
Fatherland called the military drills, which ended on Friday,
"little short of a declaration of war against the DPRK." 

Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The
*****************************************************************
 28 AFP: US envoy warns NKorea against nuclear test 

 Mon Sep 4, 8:12 AM ET 		 	 

TOKYO (AFP) - US envoy Christopher Hill has warned North Korea" 
/> against provoking the international community with a nuclear 
test, urging the secretive state to return to stalled talks on 
its atomic program. 

"The DPRK (North Korea) does not seem as enthusiastic as we are
about pursuing a diplomatic track, and obviously this is a very
big problem for the six-party process," he told reporters in
Tokyo at the start of a regional tour. 

"There is no reason for the DPRK to stay away from the
diplomatic process and my government is very much committed to
these talks," said Hill, referring to the North by its official
name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. 

The US assistant secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific
affairs voiced concern about media reports that Pyongyang, which
claims to have built nuclear weapons, may be preparing an
underground nuclear test. 

"I think all governments in the world have made very clear that
it would be a very unwelcome development, and that the DPRK
should really think long and hard for it to take such a
provocative step. 

"I hope the DPRK will understand that their future lives are not
with these tests but by coming to the negotiating table and
implementing the September agreement," he said. 

Hill will also visit China and South Korea" /> during his swing
through the region, which he said was part of regular
consultations. 

The North agreed in principle in September last year to give up
its nuclear weapons program in exchange for aid and security
guarantees but walked out of talks two months later to protest
US sanctions on a Pyongyang-linked bank. 

The United States has been negotiating with the communist state
through six-way talks that also include China, Japan, Russia and
South Korea. 

Hill, who last visited the region in July after North Korea
defied international appeals by test-firing seven missiles, said
there were no new incentives on the table for the reclusive
Communist state. 

"We're not proposing incentives to North Korea to come back to
the talks," he said, noting that an agreement had already been
reached last year. 

"All six parties agree to that and I don't think any party
should be giving incentives to another party to come and
implement what everyone's agreed to," Hill added. 

The North on Saturday accused the United States of threatening
war with a test of its missile defense system and joint military
exercises with South Korea. 

The semi-official Committee for Peaceful Reunification of the
Fatherland called the military drills, which ended on Friday,
"little short of a declaration of war against the DPRK." 

Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The
*****************************************************************
 29 AFP: US envoy calls for 'concrete action' on North Korea 

 by Kimiko de Freytas-Tamura Tue Sep 5, 3:03 AM ET 		 	 

TOKYO (AFP) - US envoy Christopher Hill has called for "concrete 
action" from the international community on North Korea" /> to 
press the communist state to give up its nuclear program. 

 "We are interested in trying to resolve this problem to protect
both our countries against the possibility of further
developments of North Korea's weapons programs," Hill told
reporters in Japan on the first leg of a regional tour. 

"The problem we've had is that we do not have a negotiator on
the other side," Hill said after talks at the foreign ministry. 

He said it was important that UN Security Council Resolution
1695, which slapped sanctions on the North's missile program,
was "followed up by concrete action and its full
implementation." 

The resolution, which was watered down from its original form,
was passed unanimously in July in response to North Korea's
test-launching of seven missiles. 

Hill's latest trip to the region comes amid media reports that
North Korea may be about to test a nuclear bomb. Pyongyang said
in February 2005 that it was a nuclear power but is not known to
have tested an atomic weapon. 

Hill, the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and
Pacific affairs, said he could not confirm reports of an
imminent nuclear test or speculation that North Korean leader
Kim Jong-Il was en route to China for emergency talks. 

"I have no information on Kim Jong-Il's travels," said Hill, who
was due later Wednesday in China. 

"As you know, I take planes and he takes trains," Hill said. "So
I'm not sure, really, what he's doing." 

Seoul-based daily JoongAng Ilbo reported Tuesday that Kim's
special train had arrived at a border town, raising expectations
he would visit China in the next few days. 

South Korea" /> 's Yonhap news agency, citing an unnamed
government official, reported Sunday that China had decided to
invite Kim amid concern that North Korea would test a nuclear
bomb. 

The North agreed in principle in September last year to give up
its nuclear weapons program in exchange for aid and security
guarantees. 

But Pyongyang walked out of talks two months later to protest US
sanctions on a Macau-based bank accused of laundering and
counterfeiting money on behalf of the impoverished regime. 

Rodong Sinmun, the mouthpiece of the North's ruling Korean
Workers Party, said Tuesday that Washington "observes
international law when it deems this in its interests, but
resorts to a hardline policy and military unilateralism when
this is unfavorable to it." 

"It is a result of the one-man show, arbitrariness and
unilateralism on the part of the United States that the
situation of the Korean Peninsula has reached a critical phase
on the eve of a war," said the daily, as quoted by the official
Korean Central News Agency. 

Hill said the United States and Japan were "very disappointed"
that last year's breakthrough had failed to yield progress. 

The September agreement "gave a very clear statement (to North
Korea) on what they could get from this. I think it was very
much in their interest," Hill said. 

The United States has been negotiating with North Korea through
six-way talks that also include China, Japan, Russia and South
Korea. Hill will also visit South Korea on his tour. 	 		 			

Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The
*****************************************************************
 30 UPI: Analysis: N.Korea facing critical choice
     
United Press International - Intl. Intelligence - 

9/5/2006 11:07:00 AM -0400                                                                                                                       

 By JONG-HEON LEE UPI Correspondent

SEOUL, Sept. 5 (UPI) -- North Korea's "Great Leader" Kim Jong Il
is facing a critical choice over his nuclear card as the
international community is set to take stronger measures to
further isolate the communist country, officials and analysts
say. 

If he chooses to return to the long-stalled multilateral talks
designed to resolve the nuclear standoff through diplomatic
means, his country could get massive economic and political
benefits, they say. 

But if Kim opts for a nuclear test, he is sure to face grave
consequences that could determine the fate of his country, as
the United States has already intensified financial crackdowns
on impoverished North Korea. 

"From North Korea's point of view, it is now in a critical
moment. It is facing a choice between engagement and isolation
with mounting U.S. pressure," said a senior South Korean
official. 

The official referred to Washington's tough measures aimed at
choking the North's cash flow that may be related to its alleged
financial illegalities, such as the counterfeiting of U.S. bills
and money-laundering. 

U.S. nuclear envoy Christopher Hill is traveling to Seoul, Tokyo
and Beijing this week to inform them of Washington's decision to
take additional economic sanctions on the North, according to
diplomatic sources here. 

The Bush administration is expected to announce a package of
economic sanctions against the North after the planned summit
between U.S. President George W. Bush and South Korean President
Roh Moo-hyun on Sept. 14 in Washington, they said. 

Under the new package, the United States would reimpose the
economic sanctions it lifted in 2000, including a travel ban, a
broad trade ban and restrictions on investment and remittances. 

In return for Pyongyang's self-imposed moratorium of missile
tests in 1999, the Clinton administration in July 2000 allowed
North Korea to export raw materials and goods to the United
States and to open air and shipping routes between the two
countries. 

However, when the North fired a set of missiles on July 5,
violating its missile moratorium, the United States said it
would restore the sanctions, according to sources. 

The United States has already frozen North Korean-held accounts
in financial institutions overseas allegedly set up to fund the
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and other illicit
activities. 

Many countries have joined the U.S.-led campaign against the
North's financial illegalities. 

Stuart Levey, U.S. Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and
financial intelligence, said banks in Singapore, Vietnam, China,
Hong Kong and Mongolia were beginning to stop business relations
with the North. 

In an effort to escape the U.S. bank account closures, the North
has opened about 10 bank accounts at Russian financial
institutions, according to a reported published in Japan's
Sankei Shimbun newspaper Sunday. 

But Russia, believed to be the only place where North Koreans
hold bank accounts, is also facing U.S. pressure to suspend
transactions with the communist country, it said. 

In September last year, the United States slapped restrictions
on Banco Delta Asia, a Macau-based bank accused of laundering
money for North Korea. Under the U.S. measure, BDA has cut off
transactions with North Korea, which is believed to have choked
Pyongyang's cash flow. 

The financial sanctions have most likely delivered a blow to Kim
Jong Il's personal consumption and that of the North Korean
economy, which relies on illicit activities for at least 40
percent of its gross domestic product. 

U.S. officials have vowed to tighten economic sanctions against
North Korea. They are pushing to raise the North's financial
illegalities as a main agenda item during this week's meeting of
Asia-Pacific finance ministers in Vietnam. 

Hill, who was in Tokyo on the first leg of a regional tour
Tuesday, called for "concrete action" from the international
community to press North Korea to give up its nuclear drive. 

"We are interested in trying to resolve this problem to protect
both our countries against the possibility of further
developments of North Korea's weapons programs," Hill said. He
is scheduled to stop in Seoul on Sept. 11, after visiting China. 

In an angry protest against the U.S.-led sanctions, the North
has warned of "all necessary countermeasures" while preparing
for an underground nuclear test. 

"Now that the Bush administration is escalating its pressure
upon the DPRK (North Korea) through the tightened financial
sanctions in a bid to keep itself politically alive, the DPRK is
left with no other option but to take all necessary
countermeasures to protect its ideology, system, sovereignty and
dignity," the North's Foreign Ministry said in a recent
statement.

© Copyright 2006 United Press International, Inc. All Rights
*****************************************************************
 31 Guardian Unlimited: U.S. Nuclear Envoy to Visit Beijing
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Tuesday September 5, 2006 10:46 AM

AP Photo KSX103 

By ALEXA OLESEN 

Associated Press Writer 

BEIJING (AP) - The top U.S. nuclear envoy planned to visit
Beijing on Tuesday amid a report that North Korea's reclusive
leader may be prepared to enter China on a special train. 

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill was due to
arrive after meeting with his Japanese counterpart Kenichiro
Sasae on Monday in Tokyo. The two agreed to cooperate with
China, Russia and South Korea to bring the North back to stalled
six-nation talks aimed at persuading the reclusive regime to
give up its nuclear ambitions. 

But Hill stressed the U.S. would be open to meeting with the
North as long as other countries were involved. ``We can look at
other formats,'' Hill said in Tokyo earlier Tuesday. ``The time
for organized, multilateral diplomacy in Asia is now.'' 

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said Hill would meet
with his Chinese counterpart Wu Dawei, China's point-man in the
six-nation nuclear talks, as well as Vice Foreign Minister Cui
Tiankai, the country's chief envoy in charge of nonproliferation
issues. 

``They will exchange views on six-party talks and other issues
of common interest,'' Qin said at a regular briefing Tuesday. He
did not give any details. 

The North has stayed away from six-nation talks on its nuclear
program since November in anger over a widening U.S. campaign to
sever the regime's connections to outside banks due to its
involvement in alleged counterfeiting and money laundering to
sell weapons of mass destruction. 

Also Tuesday, a South Korean newspaper said North Korean leader
Kim Jong Il was likely to begin a visit to China within the next
few days. A special train used by Kim arrived in a North Korean
town on the border with China, the newspaper JoongAng Ilbo said. 

South Korea's Yonhap news agency also reported that North Korea
had blocked off roads leading to the border town, Shinuiju, in
another possible sign of security measures indicating that Kim
could be in the area. The report cited an unnamed source in the
Chinese border city of Dandong, across from Shinuiju. 

Relations between the communist allies were strained after North
Korea launched missiles in July and China joined in a U.N.
Security Council resolution condemning the tests. 

Speculation of a possible trip by Kim has been rife since South
Korea's main spy agency warned last week that Pyongyang could
test a nuclear device at any time, following reports of
suspicious activity at a suspected North Korean underground
nuclear testing site. 

The North claims to have nuclear weapons, but has not performed
any known test. 

Qin, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, denied the media
reports on Tuesday. ``As far as I know, there is no such
arrangement now'' for a visit by Kim, he said. 

Hill said he also had no information about such a visit of Kim's
coinciding with his. ``As you know, I take planes and he takes
trains,'' Hill said. ``So I'm not really sure what he's doing.'' 

Kim rarely travels abroad, but has occasionally visited allies
China or Russia, last traveling on a tour through several
Chinese cities in January. Beijing and Pyongyang didn't
officially acknowledge Kim had been in the country until after
he left. 

--- 

Associated Press Writer Miki Toda contributed to this report
from Tokyo.	 
		 	 	   
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
 32 HindustanTimes.com: US keen to pass N-deal unchanged

[Hindustan Times - The name India trusts for news] 

Press Trust of India

Washington, September 4, 2006
   
With the US Senate getting into a month-long session on Tuesday, 
the Bush administration is keen that the Indo-US civilian nuclear 
act is passed without any changes keeping in mind India's 
apprehensions and objections to certain provisions.

"The administration is keen on the Senate voting on the S 3709
(United States India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act) as
it stands today. The administration is quite aware of India's
apprehensions, concerns and objections in the Senate Bill
especially as it pertains to Sections 106 (Prohibition on
certain exports and re-exports) and 107 (End Use Monitoring
programme)," the sources said.

They said that apparently the thinking was not to start an
argument with Senators now when the Senate gets into session on
Tuesday after its summer break, but use the conference stage to
apply pressure to drop the provisions.

Indications were this Bill would come up in the full chamber
sometime towards the third week of September. But no one either
on Capitol Hill or elsewhere put a firm timeline.

It has been pointed out that the White House and the
administration are keen to have the Senate pass the measure; and
prior to the Senate going on recess last month the
administration was said to have leaned on majority leader Bill
Frist to schedule the vote. That could not be done for time
constraints as there were other pressing issues and votes.

All unfinished legislative business will have to be
re-introduced in the new 110th Congress when it reconvenes in
January in 2007; and if by any chance the character of the
Congress changes in the November 7 elections, it would be a
totally different ball game after that, sources said.

The substantive part of the Bill and the expected objections
from Senators aside, there is a larger procedural impediment
that is yet to be sorted out -- taking out the Title Two of S
3709 that has no relevance to India but a Protocol having to do
with the US and the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Several Conservative Republicans are reportedly against the
Additional Protocol and want it to be debated and voted upon
separately.

Law makers like Senators Jon Kyl of Arizona and John Ensign of
Nevada are not quite satisfied with the kind of obligations
Washington is signing on to by way of an Additional Protocol
with the IAEA, especially as it pertains to inspections and
payments and even perhaps a perceived interference in the
fashion Americans would want to run their programmes.   
    
  © HT Media Ltd. 2006. 
*****************************************************************
 33 [NukeNet]  Scotland:  Trident fleet's safety a lerts double
 
Date: Tue, 05 Sep 2006 15:10:26 -0700


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NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net)

<http://www.sundayherald.com/57701>http://www.sundayherald.com/57701
Sunday Herald - 03 September 2006
Trident fleet’s safety alerts double
By Rob Edwards Environment Editor


----------
BLUNDERS at Britain’s nuclear bomb bases on the Clyde rose dramatically 
last year, provoking fears about the safety of extending the lives of the 
Triden- carrying submarines stationed there.

Internal reports from the Royal Navy obtained by the Sunday Herald reveal 
that the number of serious or significant “nuclear safety events” at 
Faslane and Coulport, near Helensburgh, has doubled. There were 45 such 
incidents between June 2004 and May 2005, twice the average for the 
previous four years.

The increase was described as “a matter of great concern” by SNP leader 
Alex Salmond. “These statistics draw into focus the arrogant desire of Tony 
Blair to waste billions on extending or replacing the Trident nuclear 
system and imposing it on Scotland,” he said.

The UK government has promised to publish a white paper setting out options 
for the future of Trident before the end of the year. It is likely to 
suggest extending the life of the existing system as this will be much 
cheaper than replacing it.

At least 13 of the 45 incidents at the Clyde bases involved one of the four 
Vanguard-class submarines which carry Trident missiles tipped with nuclear 
warheads. They are known within the navy as the “bombers”.

Other incidents happened on shore or on nuclear-powered submarines armed 
with conventional weapons. There were multiple failures in radiation 
protection and a series of problems with submarine reactors.

According to analysis by the Royal Navy in August 2005, the increase in 
serious incidents was “probably as a result of several submarines being 
alongside for a prolonged period, undertaking a considerable and 
complicated repair package and then experiencing defects during plant 
proving”.

Another report by safety officials pointed out that there had been several 
events “involving poor radiological safety controls on submarines” within a 
few months. “A review of these events indicates a weakness in command 
understanding and responsibility for this important aspect of safety,” it 
said.

In January 2005 four scaffold workers were given excess doses of radiation 
by the nuclear reactor on HMS Sceptre, and there was an “unauthorised 
discharge” of waste water from HMS Trafalgar’s reactor in July 2004.

Other lapses included a “cooling water problem”, “failure to set up 
controlled area” and “unauthorised removal of pipework”. There was also 
“non-compliance with nuclear procedure by contractor” and an “incorrect 
reactor compartment waste disposal routine”.

In addition to the 45 serious or significant incidents, there were 34 less 
serious safety events in 2004-05.

The internal reports, released by the Ministry of Defence under the Freedom 
of Information Act, claim the increasing number of incidents did not 
indicate the Clyde bases were becoming less safe. More events were being 
recorded because staff were more aware of the need to report mishaps, they 
suggested.

But this was angrily dismissed by John Ainslie, the co-ordinator of the 
Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. “These figures show an appalling 
decline in safety standards at Faslane,” he said.

If the government gets its way, there could be Trident nuclear submarines 
on the Clyde for the next 40 years, he argued.

“In that time there are likely to be over 3000 nuclear incidents at 
Faslane, just one of which could turn central Scotland into a radioactive 
wasteland,” he said.

However, Neil Smith, spokesman for the Clyde bases, pointed out that 
remedial action action had been taken in response to every incident. “This 
shows that our safety systems are working,” he said. “Every incident is 
treated seriously. Safety is central to everything we do, and if our safety 
wasn’t up to scratch, the regulators could close us down.”


----------

Copyright © 2006 smg sunday newspapers ltd. no.176088
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 34 IPS-English POLITICS: Snubbed by US, Pakistan Doing Nuclear
 
Date: Tue, 05 Sep 2006 15:02:29 -0700


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ROMAIPS AP WD DV EN IP NU=20
POLITICS: Snubbed by US, Pakistan Doing Nuclear Deal With China
Antoaneta Bezlova

BEIJING, Sep 4 (IPS) - Pakistan's growing nuclear energy needs and its le=
aders' determination to look to China for investment and know-how in the =
field are proving an important incentive for the latter's ambitions of be=
coming a global player in the nuclear power industry.

While China itself is still in the process of seeking foreign help to exp=
and its nuclear sector, government officials have made it clear that thei=
r ultimate goal is to build an internationally competitive nuclear power =
industry and venture overseas.

Using its domestically built reactors, China has already completed a 300 =
Mw nuclear power plant in Chashma in Pakistan and is constructing another=
  of the same size there.

During meetings with a delegation of the Chinese Communist Party in
Islamabad late August, Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf sought mo=
re Chinese input in the sector, reportedly requesting a series of new pla=
nts to help his country boost its nuclear power capacity.

Beijing aims to sign a deal in November that will see China helping Pakis=
tan build six nuclear power plants with an installed capacity of 300 Mw e=
ach. The agreement will be inked during a visit by top Chinese leaders to=
  Pakistan, bringing the South Asian country a step closer to meeting its =
target of having 8,000 Mw of nuclear power capacity by 2025.

Pakistan had earlier invited the United States to set up nuclear power pl=
ants in the country but Washington's response has been tepid. Although Is=
lamabad has pledged cooperation in the U.S.-led global fight against terr=
orism, Washington has chosen to reward Pakistan's archrival, India, with =
a deal to supply nuclear fuel and technology.

The deal with India was ratified by the U.S. House of Representatives in =
July. Despite being tailored for the needs of the civilian industry, expe=
rts say it could still allow India to boost its own production of nuclear=
  warheads.

India and Pakistan have fought three wars since they were separated at in=
dependence in 1947. In 1987, A Q Khan, the so-called father of Pakistan's=
  nuclear programme, declared that any future conflict could be nuclear an=
d in 1998 the two neighbours declared themselves nuclear powers.

In spite of that, distrust between the two countries over Kashmir and ter=
rorism has only worsened and led to an intensified military build up at b=
oth sides. Neither country is signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation =
treaty (NPT).

Relations between Pakistan and the U.S. suffered a setback in 2003
when it was revealed that A Q Khan had helped Iran, Libya and North Korea=
  develop their nuclear programmes. Khan has been under house arrest since=
=2E

The Khan episode contributed to the U.S. advising Pakistan to look to its=
  petroleum-rich western neighbour, Iran, for its energy needs.=20
At the same time, the U.S. has actively discouraged India from sourcing I=
ranian gas and all but scuttled a proposed pipeline through Pakistan. =20

China is now eagerly stepping in, hoping to create markets for its own bu=
dding nuclear power industry. Yet, it is doing so with caution and has st=
rengthened its nuclear export controls. =94We will spare no efforts to fu=
lfil our international obligations on nuclear non-proliferation and enhan=
ce cooperation in peaceful utilisation of nuclear energy,=94 Jin Zhuanglo=
ng, deputy director of the Commission of Science, Technology and Industry=
  for National Defence, told an international conference in Beijing late A=
ugust.=20

China itself is in the middle of an ambitious nuclear-power initiative. T=
he country has unveiled ambitious plans to have four percent of the count=
ry's 2020 electricity needs met by nuclear power.

In the current energy mix, nuclear power accounts for less than two perce=
nt. To more than double its share in less than 15 years China would need =
to add at least  two nuclear reactors annually, each with a capacity of 1=
,000 Mw.=20

This aggressive push for nuclear growth is driven by escalating energy sh=
ortages and ever more pressing needs to keep greenhouse gas emissions, th=
at are linked to global warming, under control.

In March this year, China's State Council approved a blueprint for the co=
untry's long-term nuclear industry development, which embraces the nuclea=
r solution as a clean energy alternative. The document sees the expansion=
  of nuclear energy as the most practical option for diversifying from hea=
vily polluting coal-fired plants and Middle Eastern oil.

Initially foreign investors delighted at the prospect of a huge rollout o=
f new plants -- at least 30 by 2020, anticipating how the new expansion w=
ould significantly bolster demand for their technology. After all, only t=
hree of China's nice nuclear reactors currently in operation were domesti=
cally designed and built. Companies from Canada, France, Japan and Russia=
  played
an important part in developing the other six.

But with repeated delays in the announcement of the bidding results for f=
our new nuclear reactors in Zhejiang and Guangdong provinces, foreign com=
panies' hopes of cornering a big piece of the action have begun to look d=
immer.

The Chinese government planned to announce its decision on choosing a win=
ner among the three leading bidders -- Areva Group of France, the U.S.-ba=
sed Westinghouse Electric and Russia's AtomStroy, at the end of 2005 but =
has repeatedly extended the deadline.

As the tendering process drags on, the China National Nuclear Corporation=
, (CNNC), the country's major nuclear conglomerate, has begun portraying =
the planned increase of nuclear power generation as a golden opportunity =
for China's domestic industry to test and improve its indigenous second-g=
eneration-plus reactors.

In that case, China could eventually export its homegrown technology, CNN=
C officials argue, fulfilling the country's ambitions of becoming a globa=
l player in the nuclear-power industry.

At an industry forum earlier this year, Chen Hua, a CNNC senior official,=
  argued that the purpose of foreign cooperation is to help China develop =
its own technology to the point where its nuclear power industry is both =
self-sufficient and internationally competitive. He called for only two r=
eactors to be awarded to foreign companies in the current tendering proce=
ss with the other two reserved for domestic companies.

Meanwhile, CNNC has aggressively pursued its agenda of improving the
existing technology and venturing overseas. In May, it established a new =
engineering-construction venture, the China Nuclear Engineering Co., whic=
h is to take charge of furthering China's nuclear interests overseas.

=94As the newly established China Nuclear Engineering grows, we will
participate in bidding for other projects in a wider range of foreign
countries,=94 Li Xiaoming, a senior nuclear scientist was quoted by the  =
leading newspaper =91China Daily'.=20

He said that CNNC, which developed the nuclear power reactors in Pakistan=
  based on its domestically built reactor at Qinshan, Zhejiang province, i=
s also in talks with other nations in South-east Asia to build nuclear po=
wer plants. (END/IPS/AP/WD/IP/NU/DV/IF/EN/CV/AB/RDR/06)=20





=20
=3D 09041133 ORP005
NNNN

</x-flowed>
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 35 AU The Age: Submarine fleet 'should go nuclear' - 

www.theage.com.au
Katharine Murphy

September 5, 2006
 	 	
AUSTRALIA must consider commissioning a new fleet of
nuclear-powered submarines, a submission to the nuclear
taskforce says. The move will be necessary to deal with complex
security pressures emerging within the region over the next two
decades. 

The former head of the navy's submarine team, Rear Admiral Peter
Briggs, and one of Australia's top national security analysts,
Allan Behm, claim the national debate on nuclear energy allows
Australia to consider seriously the advantages of acquiring
nuclear-powered submarines to replace the Collins class. 

In a submission to John Howard's nuclear taskforce, they argue
the current and emerging security imperatives of the region,
which will require Australia's defence forces to respond to
"short-notice contingencies" over the next 15 to 20 years,
favour nuclear-powered fleets. 

"Nuclear propulsion allows the submarine to proceed covertly at
high speed … and greatly reduces the risk of counter detection
of the submarine." 

The men warn Australia will not be able to secure such a
controversial shift in defence procurement policy without
bipartisan political support. 

Opposition Leader Kim Beazley was the architect of the
Australian Navy's program that developed the Collins-class
submarine while serving as defence minister in the Hawke
government in the mid-1980s. 

But Mr Beazley has declared his party will oppose any move by
the Howard Government to develop a nuclear power industry in
Australia. 

"Without (the foundation of bipartisanship) any discussion about
the need for nuclear power for Australia's submarine capability
is likely to be poorly directed and at risk of derailing the
fundamental need to start preparations for replacing this
critical national capability," Admiral Briggs and Mr Behm say. 

The controversial argument in favour of Australia considering
nuclear-propelled warships is made in a submission to an inquiry
headed by former Telstra chief Ziggy Switkowski. 

The inquiry has published about 200 submissions considering
arguments for and against Australia developing a domestic
nuclear industry. It will report to the Government in November. 
When you see news happening: SMS/MMS: 0406 THE AGE (0406 843
243), or us. 

 Copyright © 2006. The Age Company Ltd.                                                                        
*****************************************************************
 36 India Defence: India, France civilian nuclear co-operation to move forward |
               
 Receive latest news, analysis, intelligence and reports from
India Defence in your Inbox.. Learn more 

Dated 3/9/2006
 
The French offer of cooperation in civilian nuclear energy
development is likely to figure prominently in defence dialogue
with India tomorrow as Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee said
today that New Delhi wanted to deepen strategic relationship
with Paris.

 "France has assured us of cooperating in development of nuclear
energy for civil use," Mukherjee told newsmen on arrival here
today adding "India wants to take this process forward".

The Minister's remarks came as Indo-US agreement on civilian
nuclear deal is still pending with the US Congress.

Impressing on the United States that the process of removing the
embargo and lifting of ban on supply of fissile material should
be speeded up, Mukherjee said the absence of this is coming in
the way of accessing much-needed nuclear material for India's
power producing reactors.

He said the process has begun with the US and "we await its
final clearance".

"We have a little bit of support from France on this issue and
during discussion it will come up," the Defence Minister said.

Heading a high-level defence delegation comprising senior
officers of his Ministry and the three Services, the Defence
Minister, who arrived here this morning to a warm welcome, is
likely to meet French President Jacques Chirac and hold
wide-ranging discussions with his French counterpart Michele
Alliot-Marie. 

Indo-Russian deal Copyright © 2006 India Defence | All Rights
Reserved
*****************************************************************
 37 BBC: Fears over nuclear terror threat
 
Last Updated: Tuesday, 5 September 2006
 
[Charles Clarke]                                

Mr Clarke was replaced as home secretary by John Reid in May

Concerns that terrorists could attack Britain's nuclear power 
network have failed to be addressed by plans for new nuclear 
plants, says Charles Clarke. 

The former home secretary says the government's energy review 
fails to answer key concerns about a new generation of nuclear 
power stations. 

In a lecture about Labour's future, Mr Clarke also criticises 
Gordon Brown for backing calls for new nuclear weapons. 

He says there is no coherent case for deciding to replace Trident 
arms now. 

Leadership challenge 

His speech in London follows a magazine article in which he said 
Labour had alienated many of its supporters. 

He says changing the leadership will not solve the Labour Party's 
problems and instead there needs to be a debate about future 
policies. 

The power of nuclear ener makes it a natural magnet for terrorist 
activity of a variety of types Charles Clarke

He denies claims by Ed Balls, the economic secretary to the 
Treasury - and one of Gordon Brown's closest allies - that such 
calls mean "navel gazing". 

And he stresses his contribution to the debate is not part of any 
leadership bid. 

The government energy review earlier this year gave the green 
light to a new generation of nuclear power plants, but Mr Clarke 
says he remains sceptical. 

The problem of how to dispose of nuclear waste safely and 
effectively has still not been properly sorted out, he says. 

Mr Clarke argues that the costs of nuclear are very great and it 
is unlikely any private firm would meet them, leaving the state 
having to stump up the funds. 

'Sceptical' 

The safety of plants must be guaranteed, he says. 

"The power of nuclear energy makes it a natural magnet for 
terrorist activity of a variety of types," he says. 

"We need to be absolutely certain that we can protect ourselves 
completely against that threat, the cost of which by the way also 
has to be met by the state. 

[BBC political editor Nick Robinson]

Not everyone believes a new leader will solve Labour's problems 
BBC political editor Nick Robinson <b>Read Nick's thoughts in 
full 

"So I am genuinely sceptical and I do not think that the Energy 
Review answers these concerns adequately. 

"On the basis of the information I have so far seen, I am not 
convinced of the case for proceeding to a new generation of 
nuclear power stations in this country. 

"I believe that investment in conservation and renewable energy 
offers a more reliable route to the energy sustainability which 
this country needs." 

Brown criticism 

In his speech, Mr Clarke is equally scathing about the way debate 
on a possible replacement for the Trident nuclear weapons system 
has been handled. 

Chancellor Mr Brown used a lecture at The Guildhall in London to 
signal his support for keeping Britain's "independent nuclear 
deterrent". 

But Mr Clarke says there needs to be a full consideration of all 
the options. 

"Our resource and strategic allocation should depend on the 
conclusions of that consideration and should not be pre-empted," 
he says. 

"In short a convincing argument for taking the step which the 
chancellor announced at the Guildhall has yet to be presented." 

Aviation tax? 

The former home secretary will also argue that the case for green 
taxes is now "unanswerable". 

Good progress has been made on taxing fuel and it needs to be 
taken further, he says. 

And the case for extra taxes on aviation is now "difficult to 
refute", he argues.
*****************************************************************
 38 IAEA: ElBaradei Calls for Entry-into-Force of the Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty
 th anniversary of the adoption of the Treaty. "/> 

[IAEA.ORG :: Atoms for Peace] 
 
IAEA Director General Opens CTBT Symposium
 
Staff Report
 1 September 2006 [CTBT Symposium] 
IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei and Mr. Tibor Tóth,
Executive Secretary of the Preparatory Commission of the
Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban-Treaty Organization (CTBTO) at
yesterday´s Symposium "CTBTO: Synergies with Science", marking
the Treaty´s 10-year anniversary. (Photo: D. Calma/IAEA) 
  + Story Resources 
  + 
  + 
  + Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) 
  +  Audio: Dr. ElBaradei's Opening Keynote 

The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) is a key to
global security, IAEA Chief Mohamed ElBaradei remarked at the
opening of a two-day symposium marking the 10th anniversary of
the adoption of the Treaty. 

Praising the organization in setting up a comprehensive
monitoring system for verification, he said that the Treaty is
"our best hope of stemming nuclear proliferation". It was
against this background that Dr. ElBaradei expressed his
disappointment that the Treaty was still not formally in force. 

"The CTBT is key to a system of security we are trying to build.
A system of security that does not rely on nuclear weapons," Dr.
ElBaradei told the 500-plus participants who gathered to mark
the anniversary in Vienna. "We either send a clear message that
we want to see a world free from nuclear weapons or we will
continue to see a gradual erosion of the kind of system we have
tried to build since the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of
Nuclear Weapons (NPT) was adopted in the late 1960s." 

The CTBT, which bans all nuclear weapons testing, will not enter
into force until it has been ratified by all 44 States that are
listed in the agreement. Still missing are seven States (China,
Colombia, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Israel and the United States)
that have signed but not ratified, and three States (the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea, India and Pakistan) that
have yet to sign the CTBT. The Treaty was adopted by the United
Nations General Assembly and opened for signature in New York in
September 1996 when it was signed by 71 States, including the
five nuclear-weapon States. To date, it has 176 signatories and
135 ratifying States. (See Story Resources for related links). 

Quoting the preamble to the NPT which recalls the determination
of all parties "to seek to achieve the discontinuance of all
test explosions of nuclear weapons for all time...", Dr.
ElBaradei cited the CTBT as the most logical step after the NPT
for the international community to "make good on a desire to
move toward a world free of nuclear weapons." 

The slow pace of the CTBT's entry into force is not an isolated
phenomenon, noted Dr. ElBaradei but rather it is "symptomatic of
the slow progress with the regard to movement toward
disarmament." In this context, the IAEA Chief noted the on-going
work to achieve a Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty (FMTC). "These
are instruments which should work in parallel," he noted, "to
prohibit both the quantitative and qualitative tools which will
enable countries to move and develop nuclear weapons." 

In his closing remarks, Dr. ElBaradei recalled that the CTBT has
been described as "the longest sought, hardest fought prize in
the history of arms control." The description served to
underline how much the international community "yearns" for the
CTBT. 

"We owe it to ourselves, we owe it to humanity and we owe it to
our people to see that the CTBT comes into force as early as
possible." Copyright ©, International Atomic Energy Agency, P.O.
Box 100, Wagramer Strasse 5, A-1400 Vienna, Austria 
Telephone (+431) 2600-0; Facsimilie (+431) 2600-7; E-mail: 
*****************************************************************
 39 Japan Times: Nakasone proposes Japan consider nuclear weapons
 
Wednesday, Sept. 6, 2006

 Nakasone proposes Japan consider nuclear weapons 
Former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone said Tuesday that Japan
needs to consider developing nuclear weapons, taking into
account the presence of nearby nuclear states and the uncertain
future of the alliance with the United States. 

"There is a need to also study the issue of nuclear weapons,"
Nakasone said during a news conference to release a report by
the Institute for International Policy Studies, an independent
research institute he chairs, that proposes considering the
nuclear option. 

"There are countries with nuclear weapons in Japan's vicinity,"
he said. "We are currently dependent on U.S. nuclear weapons (as
a deterrent), but it is not necessarily known whether the U.S.
attitude will continue." 

Nakasone conceded that the nuclear option should come after the
country makes efforts to reinforce the global nonproliferation
regime, saying, "The first priority is to keep being a
nuclear-free state, and the second is to reinforce the system
under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty." 

Prime minister from 1982 to 1987, Nakasone retired from the Diet
in 2003. 

He has continued making political proposals from the institute,
including one in January on revising the Constitution, which
stirred up debate in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. 

The institute's report, titled "An Image of Japan in the 21st
Century," says the country should consider the nuclear option
while at the same time maintaining its nonnuclear status and
endeavoring to strengthen the nonproliferation regime. 

The paper says if Japan decides to get nuclear weapons, the
pacifist Constitution must be amended. 

The Japan Times (C) All rights reserved 

*****************************************************************
 40 IAEA: The Clock is Ticking
 
+ [IAEA.ORG :: Atoms for Peace] 
 
To Secure Serbia's Bomb-Grade Waste
 
Staff Report
 5 September 2006 [Vinca - the Clock is Ticking] 
Vinca´s shutdown Research Reactor. (Photo: IAEA) 	
  + Photos, Video, News Reports 	
  + [Vinca: The Clock is Ticking]  	
  + [Vinca: Against the Clock] Video: Against the Clock 	[Vinca]
New Story on Hangers (KH) 	[Video report of Latvian Removal]
Video: Pulling Down Hangers 	
  + Related Links 	
  + Associated Press Article [pdf] 	
  + IAEA & Research Reactors 
  + Technical Cooperation



On the outskirts of Serbia's capital Belgrade, nuclear
weapons-grade waste sits in a pool of murky water. It is
potential material to make dirty bombs: lots of them. An IAEA
Inspector team is at the Vinca facility, a shut-down research
reactor at the Institute of Nuclear Sciences, to check that none
of it is missing. 

Small in size, the fuel elements fit into the palm of your hand.
Each a radioactive cocktail of plutonium and high-enriched
uranium (HEU) waste. 

"The biggest threat is, of course, the terrorists," says Vinca's
former operations manager Obrad Sotic, who worries about levels
of security on site. 

It would be very difficult for a terrorist to make a nuclear
weapon out them, experts like Sotic say. But explode a single
fuel element with dynamite in a crude 'dirty bomb' and it's
radioactive aerosol becomes a weapon of terror. 

"For terrorists ready to commit suicide it won't be a problem to
steal a lot of these fuel elements, which are very light and
easy to be taken, and use it as a dirty bomb," Mr. Sotic said. 

Two IAEA inspectors lift covers over the pool to inspect the
spent fuel. It simmers in stagnant water where it has been
cooling for the past three decades. The room is roughly the size
of a 25 metre swimming pool yet contains more than half of the
HEU fuel that the Soviet Union ever produced to fuel research
reactors outside of the Russian Federation. 

It's not only terrorist risks that are driving IAEA and Serbian
concerns about Vinca. The fuel elements are corroding and
leaching radiation into the water. "After a long time in such
conditions, the fuel starts leaking and the fission products,
which are highly radioactive, spread out and of course endanger
this room and the people working here. And, if it goes higher
and higher it will endanger the surroundings," Dr. Sotic warns. 

The sound of Geiger counters crackle and beep, as the IAEA
inspectors go about their job. Fears are the contamination will
seep into the water table or escape via the ventilation system. 

A village of 4,000 residents sits at the doorstep of the site.
Dobrila Markovic owns a local shop five minutes drive away. "I'm
not worried about it," says the mother of three. "But during the
war, I was scared that the facility might be bombed and spread
radiation." 

The bomb-grade waste remained secure throughout major upheavals:
the Balkan wars, the break-up of both Yugoslavia and the USSR.
But in today´s climate with fears of nuclear terrorism rife, it
poses a magnet for would-be nuclear thieves while it remains in
such conditions at Vinca. 

Mike Durst is the IAEA's point man tasked to clean up the site.
"The fuel is clearly both an environmental and a proliferation
issue. Therefore in order to prevent an environmental hazard
from occurring and to prevent, of course, the material from
getting into the wrong hands, we need to get rid of it. And now
is the window of time." 

It is a complex, costly operation. The price tag is well in
excess of $10 million and funds are short. Plans are afoot to
ship the nuclear fuel back to Russia, which supplied it during
Soviet times to power a nuclear research reactor at Vinca. The
reactor was shut down 22 years ago. 

With IAEA support, almost 50 kilograms of unused HEU fuel was
removed from the reactor on 23 August 2002 in a night-time
operation that sealed off half of Serbia and involved 1,200
armed troops. The HEU -- enough to make two simple nuclear bombs
-- was airlifted to Dimitrovgrad in Russia for reprocessing. Now
the remaining spent fuel also needs to be sent to Russia, Durst
and others say. 

Logistically, it is a far more difficult operation. "It's almost
like comparing a light bulb to the sun: it is much, much more
complicated," Mr. Durst said. "This fuel is highly radioactive,
it's leaking, so everything will have to be done remotely." The
fuel must be removed from its current containers using special
tools that have to be designed to operate remotely. Once it is
repackaged, it will be put into heavily shielded shipping
containers that are specifically licensed for international
transport. 

"We're going to ship across several international boundaries
here – and the whole operation is going to take a lot of time,
expertise and money," Mr. Durst said. 

A donor's conference is planned for September 2006 at the IAEA's
Vienna Headquarters, to help raise awareness and the needed
funds. Contributions from the Nuclear Threat Initiative ($5
million), the United States ($4 million) and the Agency's
Technical Cooperation programme ($1.5 million) are a first step
to making the removal operation a reality. 

Until Vinca is stripped of its spent fuel, it will remain a
tempting terrorist target. Life is not easy for people in the
region. Salaries for PhD scientists at Vinca are only $750
dollars a month, stirring concerns among senior employees like
Milan Pesic that strategic information could be sold on the
black-market. 

"When you consider a terrorist attack, you need to take into
account that somebody on the inside could help terrorists by
offering information valuable to terrorists; where it is, how
you can access it, where the guard is and so on. We wouldn't
want this information to spread. Just like all other nuclear
facilities don't want that type of information spread," he said. 

"We need to close the financial gap to do the job and remove the
fuel," Serbian Science Minister, Aleksandar Popovic said. "We
need to ensure Vinca is safe from a possible terrorist attack
and environmental danger." 

The IAEA is working closely with the Serbians to upgrade
security and protective measures on-site. From installing
centrally monitored alarms and ventilation sytems, to
constructing secure storage areas. "Without the help of the
Agency, we wouldn't make it," Minister Popovic said. "It is
painful for me to think how it would be without the expert and
financial help of the Agency." 

The top priority is to get rid of the spent fuel. For Obrad
Sotic that day can not come soon enough. "Day by day it becomes
more and more dangerous. And that's the main reason we have to
ship this fuel as soon as possible." Next: New Story on Hangers
(KH) »
 Copyright ©, International Atomic Energy Agency, P.O. Box 100,
Wagramer Strasse 5, A-1400 Vienna, Austria 
Telephone (+431) 2600-0; Facsimilie (+431) 2600-7; E-mail:
Official.Mail@iaea.org
*****************************************************************
 41 CALIFORNIA RAISES NUCLEAR DOUBTS
 
Date: Tue, 05 Sep 2006 15:11:06 -0700

LEGISLATURE VOTES UNANIMOUSLY TO STUDY ECONOMIC IMPACTS OF NUCLEAR FUTURE

A Message from Rochelle

After two years of work the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility 
is closer than ever to realizing our goal â€“ limiting the 
production of high-level radioactive waste to current license 
terms. 2005 marked the first year that the California Energy 
Commission (CEC) addressed the future of nuclear power in over 
two decades. After a two-day workshop which included the Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission, the Department of Energy, California 
Utilities, the CEC, Coastal Commission, Public Utilities 
Commission, Yucca Mountain representative and the public, the CEC 
voted to continue the ban on new nuclear plants and analyze the 
true costs of continued reliance on nuclear plants.

NOW FOR THE BIG NEWS! 2006 marks the first time in two decades 
that the legislature has acknowledged there are costs of 
continuing to rely on aging nuclear plants: seismic, aging 
components and workforce, proliferation, security and lack of a 
permanent offsite solution to the storage of highly radioactive 
waste.

San Luis Obispoâ€™s first-term Republican Assemblyman, Sam 
Blakeslee, convinced a bipartisan majority to vote for his 
billâ€”AB 1632â€”which would assure that a clean, safe, economic 
and reliable energy source will be addressed by California. This 
unprecedented legislative action was supported by the Counties of 
San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, San Francisco and the California 
Coastal Commission. The Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility has 
been at the forefront of all of these actions of support by state 
legislators and oversight agencies and is truly appreciative of 
Republicans and Democrats putting political party lines aside and 
looking out for the welfare of our state.

Sadly the California Public Utilities Commission staff ignored 
the reasonable arguments of the Alliance for Nuclear 
Responsibility in agreeing to allow ratepayer funding for 
PG&Eâ€™s premature in-house feasibility study of license renewal. 
Along with our joint intervenor the Sierra Club, and together 
with TURN, the Alliance will be filing a Protest to the 
shortsighted settlement on September 20th. But we need your help 
in getting the CPUC to stand up for consumers (see below)

The remaining months of 2006 will continue to be an exciting time 
for the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility and we hope many of 
you will join us in our upcoming actions and events.

ACTIONS * First - Urge Gov. Schwarzenegger to sign the nuclear 
power economic analysis bill (AB 1632) into law!

We did it! Thanks to our hard work and that of many others, an 
analysis of the costs, benefits and risks of Californiaâ€™s 
continued operation of aging nuclear plants beyond current 
license terms has just passed the California Legislature!

Now we need to get the Governor to sign AB 1632 into law. Please 
call and e-mail him expressing your support. Then please e-mail 5 
of your friends and tell them to urge the Governor to pass this 
historic legislation.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger State Capitol Building Sacramento, 
CA 95814 Phone: 916-445-2841 Fax: 916-445-4633

To send an Email please visit: 
<http://www.govmail.ca.gov>http://www.govmail.ca.gov

Take this link 
<http://a4nr.org/letters/govswarzeneggersign1632/view>http://a4nr.org/letters/govswarzeneggersign1632/view
 
to a sample letter to the governor. If you might have a few 
minutes to add a line of your own and send by regular mail the 
impact will be increased. * Second â€“ Send letters asking the 
California PUC (Public Utilities Commission) to deny PG&Eâ€™s 
premature request for $14 million to do an in-house feasibility 
study of license renewal.

<http://a4nr.org/letters/cpucltr/view>http://a4nr.org/letters/cpucltr/view

California PUC San Francisco Office 505 Van Ness Avenue San 
Francisco, CA 94102 Phone: 415-703-2782 Fax: 415-703-1758 * Third 
â€“ Send letters to your representatives thanking them for their 
support of AB 1632 
<http://a4nr.org/letters/thankyouyesab1632/view>http://a4nr.org/letters/thankyouyesab1632/view
 
To find contact information for your representative 
<http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/yourleg.html>http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/yourleg.html

EVENTS

Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility is proudly co-sponsoring 
three events featuring Dr. Helen Caldicott: 
<http://a4nr.org/news-and-events/10.04.2006-caldicott%%20event>http://a4nr.org/news-and-events/10.04.2006-caldicott%%20event
 
http://a4nr.org/news-and-events/earthchartersummit 
<http://a4nr.org/news-and-events/specialevecaldicott>http://a4nr.org/news-and-events/specialevecaldicott

Sierra Club, the San Luis Obispo Chamber of Commerce, and PG&E 
are sponsoring a day long workshop 
<http://a4nr.org/news-and-events/10.10.2006-energysummit>http://a4nr.org/news-and-events/10.10.2006-energysummit

FUNDING

Every success these past two years has been accomplished with a 
bare bones budget and the generosity of our supporters. 
Amazingly, the Alliance has been so busy accomplishing our goals 
that fundraising has been virtually impossible. Planning large 
fundraising events takes time, as does writing grants and mailing 
fundraising letters. We have one event planned after the Sierra 
Club workshop (details to be announced).

We are also hiring a part-time contract staff, David Weisman to 
coordinate our campaign to educate the public and elected 
officials on the growing dangers of producing and storing 
high-level radioactive waste on our fragile coast. This will 
result in a $500 a month commitment and we hope that some of you 
can pledge to offset this much needed position.

Rochelle Becker, Executive Director Alliance for Nuclear 
Responsibility www.a4nr.org (858) 337 2703

<http://a4nr.org/elements/psupporters/howToSuggest>e4235.jpg


Upcoming Events

Important events for the Alliance * A Special Evening with Dr. 
Helen Caldicott * Screening of "Helen's War: Portrat of a 
Dissident," followed by a discussion of Dr. Caldicott's latest 
book, "Nuclear Power is Not the Answer." * 
<http://a4nr.org/news-and-events/specialevecaldicott>Read more * 
EARTH CHARTER COMMUNITY SUMMIT * The keynote speaker of this 
summit will be Dr. Helen Caldicott cofounder of Physicians for 
Social Responsibility . The Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility 
will be conducting a workshop on the Future of Nuclear Power in 
California. * 
<http://a4nr.org/news-and-events/earthchartersummit>Read more * 
Smart Energy Solutions Summit * One day, eight panels, and 
everything you need to know to get to a clean energy future. This 
summit will be the outcome of six months of planning by a long 
and diverse list of interest groups and constituencies including 
PG&E, the Sierra Club, Coast National Bank, ECOSLO, the 
Homebuilders Association, Air Pollution Control District, 5th 
District County Supervisor Jim Patterson, SLO Green Build, 
Cienaga Energy Systems, and the Cal Poly School of Architecture. 
* <http://a4nr.org/news-and-events/10.10.2006-energysummit>Read 
more * Dr. Helen Caldicott "Nuclear Power is Not the Answer" * 
Institute for Peace & Justice (IPJ) Speaker Series presents Dr. 
Helen Caldicott. Co-sponsored by the Alliance for Nuclear 
Responsibility * 
<http://a4nr.org/news-and-events/10.04.2006-caldicott%%20event>Read 
more


Breaking News

Here's the latest news * Nuclear's future heads to governor * 
Blakeslee bill would require California to evaluate the costs of 
continued storage of highly radioactive waste * 
<http://a4nr.org/news-and-events/09.01.2006-slotribune>Read more 
* Schwarzenegger Signs Legislation to Complete Million Solar 
Roofs Plan * Gov. Schwarzenegger today signed SB 1 by Senator 
Kevin Murray (D-Los Angeles), putting the finishing touches on 
the Governorâ€™s Million Solar Roofs Plan. * 
<http://a4nr.org/library/renewables/08.21.2006-solarbuzz>Read 
more * Full steam ahead for Diablo project * PG&E starts building 
a place to house radioactive waste despite requests for an 
injunction to stop construction * 
<http://a4nr.org/news-and-events/08.19.06-slotribune>Read more * 
Radioactive water found beneath San Onofre * One substance tests 
16 times higher than the EPA's allowable level. Another federal 
agency sees no health threat. * 
<http://a4nr.org/library/failures/08.17.2006-ocregister>Read more 
* Tritium found in water under nuclear power plant - Isotope 
likely isn't dangerous * Dominion Inc. says it found a small 
amount of tritium in samples of water taken from under the 
Kewaunee Power Station, and that the discovery poses no threat to 
public health. * 
<http://a4nr.org/library/failures/08.16.2006-greenbaypressgazette>Read 
more * Fuel-Moving Crane Breaks in Bulgaria's Nuke * A 
sixteen-ton crane has broken while transporting waste fuel in 
Bulgaria's only Nuclear Power Plant in Kozloduy, the plant 
reported. * 
<http://a4nr.org/library/failures/08.16.2006-sofianewsagency>Read 
more * BLAKESLEE TAKES FIRST LEGISLATIVE ACTION ON SEISMIC AND 
RADIOACTIVE WASTE VULNERABILITIES IN 20 YEARS - BILL AB 1632 * 
The Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility has sent a letter of 
support for San Luis Obispo's Assemblyman Sam Blakeslee bill, - 
AB 1632. This is a ground breaking step to address both 
high-level radioactive waste and seismicity on our precious 
coast. It is our position that this bill is not about a good 
neighbors, jobs, property taxes or other benefits from a nuclear 
plant on an earthquake active coastal zone. It is about lethal 
radioactive waste left on our countyâ€™s earthquake active coast 
for generations long after the last job, the last property tax 
payment, the last kilowatt has flowed from PG&Eâ€™s nuclear 
plant. * 
<http://a4nr.org/library/blakesleeab1632/ab1632support>Read more 
* N-fuel storage called 'disaster' * Environmentalists are 
worried about increased spent nuclear fuel stored at Tennessee 
Valley Authority power plants, calling the waste "a recipe for 
disaster." * <http://a4nr.org/library/waste/08.04.2006-ap>Read 
more * Maker of fuel rod storage casks cited * The maker of the 
casks that will hold spent fuel from the Limerick Nuclear 
Generating Station was cited last month for violating a 
manufacturing procedure. [Editors note: These are the type of 
casks to also be used at San Onofre] * 
<http://a4nr.org/library/waste/08.07.2006-pottstownmercury>Read 
more * Nuclear plant aircraft hazard * Information provided by 
David Lochbaum, Union of Concerned Scientists * 
<http://a4nr.org/library/safety/08.09.2006-davidlochbaum>Read 
more * Radioactive steam leak at Japanese nuclear plant * An 
increase in the level of tritium was detected during an air 
sampling outside the plant on Sunday, and the operator later 
found that steam containing radioactive material was leaking from 
the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, about 240 kilometers 
(150 miles) northeast of Tokyo, the company said. * 
<http://a4nr.org/library/failures/08.11.2006-powerengineering>Read 
more * U.S. WIND ENERGY INSTALLATIONS REACH NEW MILESTONE * 
Record growth generates economic, environmental, energy security 
benefits as wind capacity reaches 10,000 megawatts * 
<http://a4nr.org/library/renewables/u-s-wind-energy-installations-reach-new-milestone>Read
 
more * California plugs into $3 billion solar plan * Regulators 
approve Schwarzenegger goal of third largest user in world * 
<http://a4nr.org/library/renewables/01312.2006-reuters>Read more 
* Official says no threat from water leak at San Onofre reactor * 
The water containing tritium from nuclear fission was discovered 
last week in soils under a containment building as the reactor 
was being dismantled, said Ray Golden. High levels of tritium can 
cause cancer. * 
<http://a4nr.org/library/failures/08.16.2006-northcountytimes>Read 
more * A nettle-some problem on Potomac * According to reports 
filed with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, jellyfish have 
clogged intake pumps three times this month at the Calvert Cliffs 
Nuclear Power Plant in Calvert County, Md. * 
<http://a4nr.org/library/failures/07.15.2006-fredricksburg>Read 
more


Recent Articles

Recent articles of interest posted on the ANR website * Letters 
to Send * Here you will find letters we would like you to 
download, add your own personal touch and then send to the 
designated addressee. Thank you for taking time to let your 
elected representatives know how you feel! * 
<http://a4nr.org/letters>Read more * AB 1632 * All news articles 
and documents regarding Blakeslee's AB 1632 * 
<http://a4nr.org/library/blakesleeab1632>Read more

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 42 Atlanta Progressive News: Possible New Nuclear Reactor is Threat to Georgia
 
By Betty Clermont, Staff Writer, Atlanta Progressive News
(September 02, 2006) 

(APN) ATLANTA – A possible new nuclear reactor at the plant in
Vogtle, Georgia, being plotted by big business and the
Republican-controlled State Senate, is posing serious dangerous
threats to the people, animals, and environment of Georgia and
the region, Atlanta Progressive News has learned. 

The Georgia plant is seen as just a test drive for several new
nuclear plants being eyed for the US South, Bobbie Paul,
Executive Director of Atlanta Women’s Action for New Directions
(WAND), told APN. "The South is being targeted for eight new
nuclear reactors," Paul said. 

When APN tried to contact Georgia Power for information on their
current plans, we were directed to send an email to GPC
Corporate Communication. That was over a month ago and we still
have received no reply to our inquiry. 

This past March, the Republican-controlled Georgia Senate passed
a resolution urging utility companies to build new nuclear power
plants. 

The resolution also called for the Public Service Commission
(PSC), a five-member body that regulates utilities, to
"encourage" this endeavor. 

The co-sponsors of the legislation included State Senators Mitch
Seabaugh (R-Sharpsburg), Eric Johnson (R-Savannah), Tommie
Williams (R-Lyons), Tim Golden (D-Valdosta), and Emanuel Jones
(D-Decatur). 

All Republican Georgia State Senators voted yea, while three
were not present for the vote. 

Six Democratic Georgia State Senators voted nay, including Sens.
Brown, Fort, Reed, Tate, R Thomas, and Zamarippa. Zamarippa is
retiring but is being replaced by Rep. Nan Orrock, who is an
activist with WAND. 

Democratic State Senators voting yea included Butler, Golden,
Henson, Hooks, Jones, Me V Bremen, Miles, Powell, Seay, Starr,
Stoner, and Tarver. 

There are at least five reasons why we must not build more
nuclear reactors, according to Paul: inherent danger, a rate
hike, diversion of resources in building the plant, nuclear
waste, and nuclear proliferation. 

I. NUCLEAR POWER DANGERS 

Nuclear power is inherently dangerous. 

More than a half-century of accidents, leaks, and fires -
including several in Georgia - have proven humans are fallible
and mishaps inevitable. 

"We have studies going back to the beginning that show in every
community where these facilities are sited, there are higher
incidents of cancer, leukemia, birth defects," Alice Slater,
President of Grace Policy Institute (GPI), warned during a panel
discussion hosted by the institute, on July 6, 2006. 

"The risk associated with this kind of all out political muscle
support for nuclear power is that regulatory process gets
skewed... And it's under those conditions you get events like
the very disturbing accident at (David Bessey) in 2002 in which
the hole in the top of the pressure pistol had essentially
occurred through a rusting process, leaving only the stainless
steel liner between the plant and a significant loss of cooling
accident, of a type for which the safety systems are not
designed," Peter Bradford, former chair of the New York Public
Service Commission and Maine Public Utilities Commission, former
Commissioner of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said
during the GPI Panel. 

Nuclear power plants release radioactive contaminants, such as
tritium, along with hazardous chemicals and heavy metals during
routine operation. 

"These emissions cause leukemia and cancer over extended
periods. It can be a slow, tortuous death," Jeanine Honicker,
WAND activist, told Atlanta Progressive News. "That's enough to
oppose nuclear power, if for no other reason." 

Indeed, the US Department of Energy (DOE) has a "Quarterly
Worker Injury/Illness Rate Chart" for the Office of Nuclear
Energy which shows incidents occurring every quarter. 

On October 29, 2005, fire broke out at Georgia Power's Edwin I.
Hatch nuclear plant located near Baxley. Although the reactor
was not affected, mineral oil from the transformer leaked into
the Altamaha River as a result of the firefighting effort.
Absorption booms were placed in the river and the company said
no adverse environmental impact was expected. 

Soon after the fire, the Southern Company (Georgia Power's
parent) discovered 5 feet, 8 inches of spent nuclear rods
missing. These rods are highly radioactive and extremely
dangerous. On August 22, 2006, the company announced they still
couldn't account for the location of 18 inches. 

"The company said the fragments were the result of a corrosive
water problem at Plant Hatch that broke down fuel rod casings
for a period in the 1980s, allowing the fuel rod pieces to fall
out," The Atlanta Journal Constitution reported. 

August 15, 2006, radioactive, cancer-causing tritium leaked into
the groundwater beneath the San Onofre, California, nuclear
power plant causing San Clemente officials to shut down their
drinking-water well. 

"In recent years, tritium leaks have been found at more than a
dozen nuclear plants across the nation, prompting the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission to form a task force this year to study
the cause of the contamination" according to The Los Angeles
Times. 

In March, a tritium leak contaminated millions of gallons of
groundwater near a nuclear power plant in Illinois. 

II. RATE HIKE 

Construction of Georgia's two existing nuclear plants resulted
in the worst rate hike in state utility history. Georgians were
told in 1971 it would cost $660 million to build four reactors
and the final cost was over $8.7 billion for just two. "And this
was just the known costs," Paul said. 

III. DIVERTED RESOURCES IN BUILDING PLANTS 

Building new nuclear power plants squanders resources that could
be better spent. 

"You have to divert an awful lot of money that would have gone
into a number of alternatives that would achieve equal or better
results. Those include energy efficiency, renewables, and
various carbon sequestration alternatives associated with
conventional generation," Bradford said during the GPI Panel. 

IV. NUCLEAR WASTE 

We have not solved the problem of how to dispose of the waste
produced in an atomic reaction, which in some forms is the most
hazardous substance on Earth. 

Dangerously radioactive spent fuel is being stored around the
world. 

"To start building a new generation of nuclear power stations
before we know what to do with the waste produced by existing
plants is grotesquely irresponsible." George Monbiot wrote in
The Guardian UK. 

Spent nuclear fuel remains lethal for millions of years and the
problem of its safe disposal is but one of the reasons no new
permits for nuclear plants have been issued in over thirty
years. 

We already have more than 50,000 tons of deadly radioactive
nuclear waste in this country produced by our current nuclear
power plants with no place to put it. 

Since their start-up, Plants Vogtle and Hatch have retained
their nuclear wastes on site even though Georgia electric
ratepayers have paid more than $518.3 million into the Nuclear
Waste Fund with nothing to show for their money. 

The Bush administration's recent announcement the Yucca Mountain
Repository site, 90 miles outside of Las Vegas, would be ready
by 2017 met with derision from US Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-NV). 

“This timetable is a rosy scenario painted to please those
desperate to see Yucca Mountain open for business,” Rep. Berkley
told the Associated Press. “The proposed nuclear garbage dump at
Yucca Mountain still faces serious obstacles before it can be
licensed, including additional legal challenges from the State
of Nevada." 

This site has been the subject of lawsuits and charges
government scientists ignored quality control standards, among
other problems. The managing contractor is GOP-linked Bechtel
SAIC. 

V. NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION 

Nuclear energy technology is inescapably linked to nuclear
proliferation. 

"It has become clear we will never rid the world of nuclear
weapons if we do not also rid it of nuclear power. Every state
that has sought to develop a weapons programme over the past 30
years - Israel, South Africa, India, Pakistan, North Korea, Iraq
and Iran - has done so by manipulating its nuclear power
programme. We cannot deny other states the opportunity to use
atomic energy if we do not forswear it ourselves," Monbiot
wrote. 

WHO BENEFITS? 

The primary beneficiaries of the Georgia Senate's resolution
will be the contractors slated to be awarded billions of tax
dollars to build the plants, as well as the investor-owned
utility companies certain to seek rate increases at their
customers' expense. 

"The high cost of nuclear power will place an extra burden on
many families and business owners who are already having a hard
enough time paying for the increasing costs of energy," Rita
Kilpatrick, Georgia Policy Director at the Southern Alliance for
Clean Energy, said during the GPI Panel. 

ALTERNATIVE TO GREENHOUSE GASES? 

Our politicians defend their support for new nuclear power
plants because the plants themselves don't emit greenhouse gases
which produce global warming. 

Indeed, even former US Vice President Al Gore recently said
nuclear power was a lesser of two evils compared to technologies
producing greenhouse gases. We have about ten years to do
something about global warming, Gore said at a recent film
screening of An Inconvenient Truth attended by APN; at least the
nuclear power option buys us more time. 

Others disagree with Gore’s position. 

"What dismays me about the present situation is the extent to
which the Congress and the administration, and now an occasional
state legislature, have rushed to anoint it as the solution to
climate change," former Commissioner Bradford told The New York
Times. 

"This is a paradox, an administration and a Congress that
professes not to believe in climate change, except when it comes
to ladling out billions of dollars of subsidies to nuclear
power," Bradford said during the GPI Panel. 

"A 2003 MIT study showed a new nuclear power would have to come
online every 15 days between 2010 and 2050 to seriously impact
future carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel power plants,"
Paul told Atlanta Progressive News. 

Also, uranium is a finite resource. "Although we may not run out
of uranium altogether, we could quickly run out of high-grade,
easily exploitable uranium," Roger Higman, Campaign Coordinator
at Friends of the Earth, told Reuters. 

Higman referred to studies showing once high-grade uranium ore
bodies had been exploited, lower-grade reserves would require a
massive energy input to convert them into fuel. 

"That would affect the greenhouse impact of the nuclear sector
and would make nuclear energy much more expensive," Higman said. 

DEPENDENCE OF FOREIGN GOVERNMENTS 

Nor will nuclear energy free us from dependence on foreign
governments. 

"The US was once the leading producer of uranium, but now ranks
eighth in the world. In 2004 we had to import more than 80% of
the uranium for US nuclear power plants from foreign sources,”
David Schlissel, energy expert from Synapse Energy, Inc., and
member of the GPI Panel, said. 

WATER USAGE, HURTING MARINE LIFE 

Droughts have become more common in Georgia, and nuclear plants
require massive amounts of water to operate. 

Friends of the Earth warn us the power plant in Vogtle, Georgia,
located in eastern Georgia near Waynesboro, uses over 60 million
gallons of water per day from the Savannah River. 

Two-thirds of the water is lost in evaporation and the remaining
third is released back into the river at extremely high
temperatures, adversely effecting aquatic life. 

BUSH’S ROLE 

"To build a secure energy future for America, we need to expand
production of clean, safe nuclear power," US President George W.
Bush said with the passage of the Energy Policy Act of 2005,
according to a published transcript. 

The bill provides generous tax credits, as well as insurance
against regulatory delays, and loan guarantees. Earlier
legislation gave the industry money to plan new construction. 

This administration is providing administrative and regulatory
support, including a cap on liability damages in case of an
accident. 

"There's $13 billion in this year's [federal] budget for nuclear
subsidies," GPI President Slater said in the panel. 

"Utilities are benefitting from generous incentives," Paul told
Atlanta Progressive News. 

"If nuclear power is such a good deal, why do the taxpayers have
to subsidize it?" Jeanine Honicker, also with WAND, told Atlanta
Progressive News. 

"Why aren't private investors rushing to put their money into
this program?" Honicker asked. 

ALREADY A DONE DEAL? A TIMELINE: 

Georgia Power and the Southern Company continue to insist no
final decision has been made to build another reactor at Plant
Vogtle. 

Atlanta Progressive News finds that difficult to believe given
the inexorable progression of successful deals and government
rewards towards commencing construction. 

In April 2004, the Southern Company, GE Energy, and Westinghouse
Electric Co., among others, formed a consortium - NuStart Energy
Development LLC - to build nuclear power plants. 

Incidentally, GE also owns the NBC television station and news
agency. 

In November 2004, NuStart received a commitment from the DOE to
fund a new program designed to restructure the process of
applying for permits to build new nuclear power plants. These
taxpayer dollars would save reactor developers hundreds of
millions of dollars by paying about half the expense of
obtaining construction and operating licenses as well as cutting
years off the process by allowing companies to apply for both
licenses at the same time. 

Public Citizen and other groups denounced the DOE's actions
citing this as another example of corporate welfare and
expressed safety concerns. 

On December 29, 2004, the Southern Company applied for $245,000
in funding from the DOE to examine "potential" sites for new
nuclear power reactors, "including existing sites." Southern
Company said it would decide at a later date to apply for
permits to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). Georgia
Power spokesman John Sell said no decision had yet been made to
build a new plant. 

In August, 2005, Southern Nuclear Operating Company, another
subsidiary of Southern Company, announced the Vogtle site for
"possible" construction of new reactors. 

In January, 2006, Southern Nuclear Operating Company and Georgia
Power selected Westinghouse's AP1000 reactor design for
"potential" new nuclear power plants at Vogtle. 

Southern said it would file with the NRC in summer 2006 either
an application for an Early Site Permit (ESP) or information
that would become part of the combined Construction and
Operating License (COL) application recently approved by the
DOE. 

Southern Nuclear officials said they would file for the COL in
2008. 

Georgia Power would seek approval from the PSC in 2007, John
Sell said, reiterating a final decision had not been made. 

Members of the Georgia Senate Regulated Industries and Utilities
Committee filed their pro-nuclear resolution in February, 2006.
As already mentioned, it was approved in March. 

Also in February, 2006, Georgia Power filed a request with the
PSC to begin the licensing and pre-construction phase for new
reactors at existing sites. 

Georgia Power's share of the costs to prepare an ESP and COL is
$51 million and they asked the PSC permission to bill their
customers to recover their cost. 

Taxpayers were asked to pay for the licensing and
pre-construction costs for a reactor which had allegedly not
been decided upon yet. 

Southern Nuclear named Joseph “Buzz” Miller as Senior Vice
President of Nuclear Development on February 23, 2006. This is a
new position created to oversee the development of more nuclear
reactors. 

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) held a public meeting to
discuss Southern Nuclear's plans to submit an ESP application
for Plant Vogtle on May 17, 2006. 

As reported by True Citizen, the Waynesboro newspaper, attendees
were divided between business leaders who appreciated Vogtle's
boost to the local economy, and anti-nuclear activists - Nuclear
Watch South, the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy and the
Nuclear Information and Resource Service - who voiced concerns
about nuclear waste, security issues, and thermal release from
the facility. 

It was again repeated no final decision has been made to begin
construction. 

On August 19, 2006, the Southern Company asked the NRC to
approve an ESP for two new reactors at Vogtle, still stating it
has not decided to build them. This puts Southern Company at the
front of the pack. 

COMMISSIONER STAN WISE 

Stan Wise is Chairman of the Georgia PSC. He is also a member of
the U.S. Department of Energy State Energy Advisory Board. 

Wise won the Republican Primary for his third six-year term to
the PSC on July 18, 2006. Wise is an outspoken advocate for new
nuclear plants. 

Georgia and Louisiana are the only two states that allow
regulators to hold behind-closed-doors meetings with the
companies they oversee. 

Commissioner Angela Speir has sought to have all dialogue take
place in public and to forbid commissioners from accepting gifts
from the regulated companies, their executives, and lobbyists. 

The other commissioners recently voted to continue secret
negotiations and Chairman Wise refused to allow Speir's proposal
on corporate gift-giving to come to a vote. 

The PSC uses an adversary staff who act as consumer advocates.
In March 2006, the commissioners voted 4 to 1 to leave the
system as is. The only one who voted to eliminate the advocates
was Stan Wise. 

In January, he had ordered a review, backed by the utilities, to
curtail or eliminate the adversary staff's ability to challenge
rate hikes. 

He will run against Democrat Dawn Randolph in November. 

Randolph has been endorsed by APN’s Board of Directors. 

Although Public Service Commissioners represent specific
districts, they are elected on a state-wide basis, so all
Georgians will be able to choose between Wise and Randolph. 

POSITIVE ALTERNATIVES 

Georgia has an abundance of alternative energy sources,
including wind, solar, wave and bioenergy. Using non-nuclear
means of energy production would hold down utility bills, reduce
global warming, and not exacerbate our drought conditions. Most
important is the safety of other means of producing electricity
compared to the perils of nuclear power. 

New technology to capture carbon dioxide emissions will make
fossil fuels safer for the environment. 

"We're against nuclear power," Georgia Sierra Club spokeswoman,
Colleen Kiernan, said. 

The full potential of alternative sources has yet to be
enthusiastically embraced by our government. 

Betty Clermont is a Staff Writer for Atlanta Progressive News.
She may be reached at betty@atlantaprogressivenews.com 

Syndication policy: 

This article may be reprinted in full at no cost where Atlanta
Progressive News is credited.   

Atlanta Progressive News, Copyright © 2006 
*****************************************************************
 43 Hankyoreh: Nuclear plant refurbishing decried by environmental groups :

Activists say move is meant to extend life of plant beyond 
current date    
     	
Korea Hydro &Nuclear Power Co. has launched its plans to replace
aging parts of a nuclear generator that is facing a shutdown.
The operator argues that it is an inevitable move for safety
reasons, but suspicions are mounting that the move is intended
to extend the power plant¡¯s lifetime amid safety concerns. The
plant is currently set to be shut down in 2012.
 
According to sources, South Korea¡¯s nuclear power operator
signed a contract in March with a Canadian company to replace
pressure tubes on one of its power plants located in Wolsung.
The deal with the Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. (AECL) was
estimated at around 300 billion won (US$308 million), the
sources said.
 
A pressure tube is a key component in the cooling process during
nuclear power generation.
 
The KHNP said it was taking the measures to guarantee safety.
"The Wolsung No. 1 generator has [shown signs of] deterioration,
as it was used more frequently than the other generators. So we
made the decision to replace the key component," a KHNP
spokesman said.
 

But an official of the Canadian company said that replacing the
pressure tubes is tantamount to building a brand new power
plant. 

Seok Kwang-hoon, an official of Green Korea, a civic
environmental group, said, "Once much money is poured into
replacing parts, it would be almost impossible to veto an
extension of the plant¡¯s lifetime at a later date." 

The government has plans to request an extension on the lifetime
of the Wolsung No. 1 generator, whose operation is currently
slated to end in 2012, according to an expert in the field who
has seen KHNP plans for such an extension.
 
Seok said that in other countries such as the U.S., the process
of extending the lifetime of a nuclear generator is subject to
strict deliberation because of the safety issues involved. 

Suspicions are mounting that the KHNP is attempting to avoid
outcry from civic and environmental groups for its alleged
attempt to renew the lifetime of the nuclear generator. 

"If [KHNP] fails to draw trust from people, it would be tough to
persuade the public to agree to an extension," said Yun Sun-jin,
a professor of graduate school of environmental studies at Seoul
National University. "What is important is dialogue and
transparency in procedures." 

The government has already spent more than 100 billion won to
replace components of a nuclear generator located in Gori, which
was followed by a workshop held August 31 by the Electrical
Engineering and Science Research Institute at Seoul National
University to help determine whether the lifespan of the
generator should be extended. The generator, Gori No. 1, the
first power plant in South Korea, saw almost all its components
replaced except for the core reactors. 

		 		  		 	 	
Posted at : Sep.4,2006 14:04 KST                                                Modified at :
 		     	 	
© 2006 The Hankyoreh Media Company. All rights reserved.

*****************************************************************
 44 Kansas City Star: Nuclear plant leak investigated

09/04/2006 | 

So far, no radioactive particles have been found in wells near
Callaway facility.

 The Associated Press 

The reality is we live in an imperfect world and occasionally
things that are mechanical dont work the way theyre supposed
to. Floyd Gilzow, deputy director for policy at the state
Department of Natural Resources 


ST. LOUIS | St. Louis-based AmerenUE said it is investigating
newly discovered leaks of radioactive tritium from a pipeline at
its Callaway nuclear power plant in Fulton. 

So far, no tritium or other radionuclides have been detected in
two rounds of testing on private wells that supply drinking
water to 20 neighboring properties. 



*****************************************************************
 45 The Arizona Republic: Palo Verde keeps its rating 

Improvement noted, more work to be done 

Ken Alltucker

Sept. 4, 2006 12:00 AM                                           

Federal regulators will keep a tight watch over the Palo Verde 
Nuclear Generating Station after finding operator Arizona Public 
Service Co. has improved the nuclear plant's performance but not 
enough to eliminate heightened oversight. 

In its six-month review, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission 
informed Palo Verde's managers last week that the triple-reactor 
nuclear plant will keep its current rating. It had been knocked 
down a notch to "degraded cornerstone." 

Of the nation's 103 nuclear reactors, one reactor has a similar 
rating to Palo Verde and three reactors have poorer ratings. 

Palo Verde's rating stems from a 2004 safety violation for a
"dry pipe" that had the potential to disrupt the flow of water
to the core's emergency core-cooling system. APS repaired the
dry-pipe problem, but federal regulators uncovered other, mainly
non-safety, problems during a series of follow-up inspections. 

"We've had a lot of things to do here and we've got a majority
of the issues closed," said Jim Levine, an Arizona Public
Service Co. executive vice president of generation who oversees
Palo Verde. "But we still have one or two left that we need to
do more work on."

 Federal inspectors found 24 minor violations over the past six
months relating to worker performance, according to the agency's
Aug. 31 letter sent to plant management. 

Among the problems: issues with decision making systems, not
always following technical requirements during nuclear reactor
restarts, ineffective communication and poor interaction between
engineering and operations workers. 

Regulators also said APS needs to improve Palo Verde's
"corrective action" program that deals with identifying and
solving problems. 

Federal inspectors signaled they will return in early 2007 for a
special inspection that will gauge the plant's improvement
efforts. 

An NRC spokesman on Friday could not say specifically what Palo
Verde needs to do to improve its performance rating. The NRC
will discuss the report with APS during a meeting Thursday in
Arlington, Texas. All nuclear reactors receive a twice-a-year
review.

 Palo Verde, located about 50 miles west of downtown Phoenix, is
the nation's largest nuclear power plant and a vital source of
electricity for the Southwest. APS operates the nuclear plant on
behalf of seven owners stretching from Los Angeles to El Paso. 

Palo Verde operated with a stellar operating record from the
mid-1990s, but the plant has struggled the past couple of years
due to numerous outages, some equipment problems and tightened
regulatory scrutiny.

 Last year, APS formed a plant improvement team to address Palo
Verde's problems. The Phoenix-based utility restructured Palo
Verde's management and improved maintenance plans. 

Also, APS completed some major repairs, including installing new
steam generators and fixing a vibrating pipe that sapped Unit
1's output for the first six months this year. 

"Right now, the plants are operating well and running well,"
Levine said. "Are we dealing with some things that we weren't
before? The answer is yes."

 Arizona regulators also have scrutinized APS and Palo Verde.
The utility wants the Arizona Corporation Commission to approve
higher electricity bills so it can recover $44.6 million in
outage-related costs

 A state-hired consultant GDS Associates Inc. of Marietta, Ga.,
concluded that four of 11 outages at Palo Verde in 2005 stemmed
from errors, faulty vendor equipment or other problems. The
consultant recommended regulators not approve $17.3 million in
outage costs. APS is challenging the consultant's report. 

Copyright © 2006, azcentral.com. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 46 The Local: Few Swedes favour nuclear expansion

Published: 5th September 2006 09:14 CET

Online: http://www.thelocal.se/article.php?ID=4784 

A majority of Swedes want to see Sweden’s nuclear power plants to 
continue producing power until they are ready to be shut down 
according to an opinion poll done by Synovate Temo released on 
Tuesday.

Nearly half of those asked — 53 percent — want to see nuclear
power used until the facilities need to be shut down for safety
or cost reasons.

The survey said 58 percent of women and 49 percent on males make
up those who want to see the facilities used until they are too
old or costly.
 
Nearly one third — 30 percent — want an expansion of nuclear
facilities. Some 39 percent of males and 20 percent of females
who shared their opinion support expansion.
 
Only about 10 percent want nuclear power plants shut down
immediately. While 16 percent of men voted for the stoppage,
only 7 percent of women asked want nuclear power halted as soon
as possible.
 
The survey asked about 1,000 Swedes.
 
 News from Sweden in English This Week's Highlights [Simon

*****************************************************************
 47 St. Petersburg Times: A firsthand account of nuclear power
 
A man who worked in a plant for nearly 30 years recounts his
experiences in what he says is a misunderstood industry.

 By JORGE SANCHEZ, Times Staff Writer
 Published September 4, 2006
 
CITRUS HILLS - Alton Morisi's experiences in the nuclear power
industry can be summed up in one word:

"Burnout," Morisi said. "That's what affects a nuclear plant
supervisor the most."

He is in a position to know this firsthand, having worked at a
nuclear plant for 27 years. He recently completed a book that
provides an account of the everyday activities in a nuclear
power plant. Although he's an expert in his profession, the
narrative style is conversational and not condescending.

Days of Glory, Days of Gloom: The Rise and Fall of the Nuclear
Power Industry tells of Morisi's rise through the ranks of the
fledgling nuclear power industry until his retirement.

Morisi worked at the Boston Edison Co. from 1957 to 1993. He has
college degrees in electrical and industrial engineering. The
company started building its nuclear reactor in 1966.

"I was working there when they turned the first spade to start
building the Pilgrim nuclear plant in Plymouth Mass.," he said.

While a proponent of nuclear power, Morisi's theme in Days of
Glory, Days of Gloom is that over-regulation prompted by early
mistakes, coupled with demands from management to turn a profit,
puts supervisors at nuclear plants in a no-win situation.

"You have the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, that doesn't really
care if your company ever produces electricity or turns a
profit, on the one hand. I mean, that's just not their mission,"
Morisi said. "On the other is the plant's upper management.

"Most of these guys early on came from the fossil fuel industry,
where there wasn't hardly as much regulation, nor staffing
requirements, and they were wanting to see the nuke plant make a
profit, which often didn't happen," Morisi said.

Tracing the history of nuclear plant development, he said the
company owners, accustomed to building and operating profitable
fossil fuel electric-generating facilities, stepped into a
regulatory and public relations bear trap when they ventured
into nuclear electrical generators.

"All of a sudden, they had to hire four times as many workers as
they did to run a fossil fuel plant, they were getting barraged
with policies and retrofits from the NRC, and profits were out
the window," Morisi said.

And plant managers were caught in the middle.

"And we didn't earn overtime," Morisi said. "I had people
working for me that made more money, because they were paid
overtime."

He said the public's perception of the nuclear industry was
largely shaped by negative influences such as Three Mile Island
and the Browns Ferry fire in Alabama.

"In the Three Mile Island, if the plant operators had done
nothing - I mean just stood there and put their hands in their
pants pockets - the plant would have shut itself down and cooled
itself down," he said.

"But they couldn't or wouldn't trust their gauges, and they made
the situation worse by shutting off the feedwater, which exposed
the core."

He thinks the Three Mile Island core meltdown in Pennsylvania,
the Browns Ferry reactor fire in Alabama and the Soviet Union's
Chernobyl meltdown shaped the public image of the early days of
nuclear energy.

But the tide is turning, he said, with several factors pointing
toward a new public awareness and acceptance of nuclear energy.

"There's three things," he said. "First, the greenhouse gas
effect. Nuclear plants do not damage the ozone layer.

"Then there's the price of gasoline, which has the whole country
thinking about alternative energy. And let me tell you, there's
plenty of uranium available."

And the third factor is the NRC itself, and its interface with
the nuclear power industry.

"I do think the NRC seems to have cleaned up its act," he said.
"And the factor that's going to revolutionize the industry, in
my opinion, is standardization of plant designs."

Morisi thinks that if just one or two plant systems are
licensed, regulation and staffing will be a lot easier.

"The way it was with us, was that operators in one plant were
just licensed to work in that one plant. There were too many
different designs. With standardization, things will be
smoother. I really believe that's what will tilt the whole thing
back in favor of nuclear energy."

Morisi began writing Days of Glory about 13 years ago, by
writing first drafts of chapters.

"Then I put them in a box," he said. "I called it putting in the
file."

A year ago, he retrieved the rough draft, shaped it into
manuscript form and sent it off to be self-published.

Morisi and his wife, Peggy, retired to the Citrus Hills
community of Fairview Estates in 1993. He now spends his days
playing golf and visiting with neighborhood friends.

Morisi published Days of Glory through PublishAmerica, which is
essentially a self-publishing book firm. PublishAmerica pays its
authors a token sum, and then prints the books as orders are
received.

He jokes that the book's subtitle may be reworked.

"It could be The Rise, Fall and Rise Again of the Nuclear Power
Industry," he said. "Because, even though there hasn't been a
new nuclear plant built in many decades, Progress Energy might
build one here. I think, like the phoenix bird, the industry
will rise out of its own ashes."

Jorge Sanchez covers arts and entertainment in Citrus. Contact
him at sanchez@sptimes.com(352) 860-7313 or toll free at
1-800-333-7505, Ext. 7313. [Last modified September 3, 2006,
19:59:09]

© 2006  All Rights Reserved  St. Petersburg Times 490 First 
Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111                                                    
*****************************************************************
 48 SitNews - Column: Another Nail in the Coffin (nuclear California)

By Bob Ciminel
 
Fish or Cut Bait
 
September 05, 2006 Tuesday 


Would The Last Corporation Leaving California Please Turn Out
the Lights? No. Wait. They're Already Off. 

The Left Coast is at it again. Having terminated the state's
nuclear industry - California will not let its investor-owned
utility companies, or any other entity for that matter, build
another nuclear power plant until the Federal government opens a
spent fuel repository somewhere other than in California. Rest
assured, if the Feds ever do open the Yucca Mountain repository,
which probably will not occur in my lifetime, California's
short-sighted politicians and environmentalist will find another
reason to keep its citizens in the dark. 

"Let's Fix This First And Then Tackle Global Warming" 
Photo credit: www.amrclearinghouse.org 
  
Already suffering from a lack of generating capacity, the state
recently passed sweeping legislation to limit the release of
greenhouse gases to levels that existed in 1990, thereby
hamstringing the companies operating fossil-fueled power plants,
as well as its petrochemical industry, most of whose output
provides reformulated gasoline sold in California to meet the
state's already tight emission standards. 

First, let's get something straight; the term "greenhouse gas"
is a misnomer, something the media insists on using just as they
did when they adopted Ted Kennedy's term, "Star Wars," to
describe President Ronald Regan's Strategic Defense Initiative.
For some reason our elected representatives and the media, who
await their every utterance no matter how mundane or idiotic,
believe the public is too stupid to understand that the "gas"
emitted by a greenhouse is simply water vapor and has nothing to
do with keeping the greenhouse warm. Why hasn't the "public"
asked the simple question: If warm, moist air is good for plants
in a greenhouse, why is it bad for plants in the ecosystem? 

There is no arguing the fact that large concentrations of
certain gases in the atmosphere, carbon dioxide being one of the
culprits, can cause the Earth's temperature to rise. In fact, it
has been rising since man began burning wood. It's a
self-sustaining process; trees take carbon dioxide out of the
atmosphere and store it in the form of wood. Man burns the wood,
releasing carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere. Sounds like a
plan to me. Oh, there is that one little problem; it takes about
20 years to replace a good-sized tree. 

Fortunately, the Industrial Revolution showed us the benefits of
replacing wood with coal, but we didn't take the hint and
replant the forests. Just about the time we were turning day
into night with coal smoke, the Spindletop gusher blew in and
weaned us off of coal. Pollution-wise, I think we made progress
as we moved to higher grades of fuel; the rub was we also
created more carbon dioxide and water vapor. 

As the world's 12th largest emitter of greenhouse gases,
California believes it has a mandate to protect the Sierra
Nevada snowcap. That makes sense because the snowcap is what
recharges the state's aquifers - in Northern California. I'm
pretty sure that everything south of Santa Barbara relies on
augmentation from the Colorado River. Ostensibly, California's
reason for concern about greenhouse gases is, if the Earth's
temperature rises a few more degrees the snowcap might melt
earlier in the year and cause flooding the Central Valley.
Picture those humongous corporate farms getting more water than
they need. Not a pretty picture, is it? However, if the snowcap
waits until May to melt, as I think it normally does, why
doesn't that cause flooding in the Central Valley? 

Personally, I think the reason California doesn't want the
Sierra Nevada snowcap melting too early in the year has nothing
to do with flooding in the Central Valley and everything to do
with keeping the ski slopes packed with skiers and snowboarders.
Altruism seems to always take a back seat to making money. 

Look, don't get the impression that I am anti-environment. I
grew up in that industrial rust bucket known as Southwestern
Pennsylvania. You can't tell me anything about pollution. Hell,
I didn't know creeks were supposed to be clear and not have
orange stream beds until we moved out of state for the first
time. Fish swimming in a creek? You have got to be kidding! 

Nope, we've got more pressing environmental problems to deal
with than global warming right now. We can always wrap our arms
around that tar baby later. Besides, the Kyoto Protocol coated
the little fellow with Super Glue, so once we grab it, we're
stuck. I think California has just given that "baby" a big hug. 

Bob Ciminel's articles may include satire and parody, and mix 
fact with fiction. He assumes informed readers will be able to 
tell the difference. Bob lives in Roswell, Georgia, and works for 
the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations.  He is also a 
conductor on the Blue Ridge Scenic Railway. Contact Bob at 

Bob Ciminel ©2001 - 2006

Ketchikan, Alaska
*****************************************************************
 49 RBC: Russia and Norway to sign nuclear cooperation agreement 

RosBusinessConsulting rbc.ru                                               
     
RBC, 04.09.2006, Moscow 16:29:27.The Federal Atomic Energy
Agency (Rosatom) will hold negotiations with Norway to sign a
cooperation agreement in the nuclear and radiation safety field,
the Russian government's press office reports.

      If the contracts signed under the agreement envisage 
providing access to the Defense Ministry's facilities to foreign 
citizens they should first be reviewed by the Russian Defense 
Ministry. 




    All rights reserved. © 1995 - 2006 RosBusinessConsulting.
Photographs by AP© 2006 Associated Press.
All rights reserved © 1995-2000 RosBusinessConsulting 



--> 
*****************************************************************
 50 Gazette.com: Energy sector wary of re-investing in (nuclear) plants 

September 05, 2006   

Opinion 

Nuclear twilight 

What if the United States rolled out the welcome mat for the 
construction of new nuclear power plants . . . and no one showed 
up to build them? For the nonukes crowd, that would be a victory. 
But it would be a hollow victory for the rest of Americans, who 
get 20 percent of their electricity from an aging nuclear energy 
industry that’s just hanging on by its electrons. 

Some alarmists dread a nuclear energy revival in the United 
States, evoking specters of meltdowns, Chernobyls and three-eyed 
fish to bolster their naysaying. But a growing number
of Americans also seem to recognize that nuclear energy, while
not without risks, is on balance a “cleaner” and better
alternative that the same old, same old. Concerns about climate
change have even prompted some pragmatic environmentalists to
take a second look at the nuclear option, given that these
facilities don’t emit so-called greenhouse gases. The Bush
administration, Department of Energy and some members of
Congress have been offering proposals meant to stimulate a
revival. 

But as The New York Times reported, it may be hard attracting
companies back into nuclear energy, even with a helping hand
from the federal government, given a regulatory and political
climate that makes such ventures risky. Despite Washington’s
dangling of incentives, “utility executives are sharply divided
over whether nuclear power offers an attractive choice as they
seek to satisfy a growing demand for electricity,” reported the
Times. “For them, the question comes down not so much to safety
and environmental impact but to whether the potential reward is
worth the financial risk.” 

Given the regulatory and political roadblocks that can stand in
the way, it can take up to 10 years to construct a new nuclear
power plant. And one of the biggest uncertainties confronting
would-be builders is what to do about the long-term storage of
spent nuclear fuels, since this country’s efforts to deal with
that issue have bogged down in politics and protests. Even after
years of study, and billions of dollars paid by utilities to the
federal government for the design and construction of an
underground waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, that
project is in trouble and a solution recedes from view. 

Until the nation moves forward on a serious storage solution —
and we believe Yucca Mountain is still the best option out there
— the energy sector likely will remain skittish about
reinvesting in nuclear plants. New reactors can operate for
years in spite of the nonsolution of storing waste on-site, in
temporary facilities. But why would companies and potential
investors think about betting on atomic power again, if the
country can’t address this central, but not insurmountable
challenge? 

In one hopeful note, a consortium of energy companies last week
broke ground on a $1.5 billion uranium enrichment plant near
Eunice, N.M. — the first major nuclear facility built in this
country in 30 years. Whether it will supply American reactors is
far from certain, however, a point underscored when Sen. Pete
Domenici, while heralding the groundbreaking as the start of a
“nuclear renaissance,” talked mostly about what a great thing
this would be for the folks in Brazil and Asia. 

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has 27 potential new reactors
under consideration, to augment the 103 aging units currently
operating. But “under consideration” shouldn’t be confused with
“under construction.” While a few companies remain bullish on
nuclear, “there is still a high degree of skepticism within the
utility industry,” reports the Times. One Pennsylvania utility
that operates two reactors seems disinclined to invest in new
ones. “There are better places to put the money of
shareholders,” a company executive told the newspaper. 

While nuclear power plants may not disappear from the American
landscape altogether, most of 100 senior utility execs surveyed
said they did not expect “a future where nuclear generation
represents a larger share of generation” than it does today.
Instead of a nuclear renaissance, in other words, what the
country seems to be inviting is a nuclear dark age, even while
the rest of the world boldly moves forward. 

Property rights put to the test in California 

California residents have a wonderful opportunity on Election
Day to restore some semblance of property rights in a state
that, for years, has been frighteningly hostile to private
property. Proposition 90, the Protect Our Homes Initiative, is
designed mainly to stop cities from taking homes, businesses and
farmland and handing it over to private developers who promise
to do something “better” with the property. 

Eminent domain abuse was given the U.S. Supreme Court’s stamp of
approval in last year’s notorious Kelo decision, in which the
court said cities can take anyone’s property and give it to any
private entity that promises to pay more taxes than the current
owner. The decision, although wrongheaded, did emphasize that
states have every right to restrict eminent domain abuse. 

Prop. 90 would do just what the court suggested. The proposition
states that “Private property may be taken or damaged only for a
stated public use. Private property may not be taken or damaged
for private use.” That phrase echoes the U.S. Constitution’s
Fifth Amendment, which allows eminent domain only for public
uses. Prop. 90 would not allow California governments to twist
the meaning of “public” to suit their purposes. And the
initiative would force governments to pay for the property they
do take at its highest and best use. 

Local government officials, liberal interest groups,
professional planners and “new urbanists” all hate Prop. 90,
because it would put a crimp in their power and grand plans. But
we’re hopeful that Golden Staters will embrace the measure as a
means of reasserting their property rights.   	   	OTHER

  Copyright 2006, The Gazette, a division of Freedom Colorado
Information. All rights reserved.   
*****************************************************************
 51 Russia Newswire: Operation of Rosenergoatomâ€™s NPPs - Safe and Reliable
 
     04/09/2006                                                  

MOSCOW (RNWire) - For the first eight months of 2006 nuclear
power plants owned by Rosenergoatom are reported to have
produced nearly 100 billion 750 million kW per hour. This is 106
% up on the production for the same period last year. This
represents 99.9% of the Balance of Russiaâ€™s FST.
 
At Russian NPPs, during this period or for last year, there have
been no infringements according to the international INES scale,
as well as last year. The radiation background at the NPPs and
their surroundings corresponds to normal operating levels for
nuclear power plants and does not exceed natural indices. 

Currently, nuclear power plants in the Russian Federation
operate 31 generator units. 15 of these are high-pressure,
water-to-water reactors (WWER), including nine WWER-1000
reactors, six WWER-440 reactors; 15 generator units with channel
boiling reactors (RBMK), including 11 RBMK-1000 reactors and
four EGP-6 reactors, and one generator with a fast neutron
BN-600 reactor.					   							 								 								 				

Policy | Copyright © 2004-2006 Russia Newswire   

*****************************************************************
 52 Russia Newswire: Rosenergoatom Appoints Sergey Obozov as General Director
 
04/09/2006

MOSCOW (RNWire) - A final session of the commission of the
Federal Agency for Nuclear Energy was held September 1 to decide
on the new general director post at FSUE - Russian State concern
on manufacture of electric and thermal energy at nuclear
stations (Rosenergoatom).
 
There were four applicants for the post and one has withdrawn
following the first round of consideration. Other candidates
have provided the commission with their programs for developing
the company. Based on the results of discussion, Sergey Obozov
was declared as the successful candidate: he had acted as
general director of Rosenergoatom since March this year. 

Sergey Aleksandrovich Obozov was born on the 18 September 1960
in Pavlovo, Nizhniy Novgorod region. In 1984 he graduated from
Gorki polytechnical institute, and in 1994 from the Academy of
National Economy under the Government of the Russian Federation
and Volgo-Vyatskaya academy of public service under the
President of Russian Federation. 

He holds a scientific degree of Doctor of Economics. In 1986 -
1987 S.A.Obozov worked as the assistant to the secretary of
All-Union Leninist Young Communist League (VLKSM) committee at
the Krasnoye Sormovo factory; from 1987 - 1988 he had been the
secretary of VLKSM committee at the Krasnoye Sormovo factory. 

In 1988-1990 he worked as a first secretary of Sormovsky
district VLKSM committee of Nizhny Novgorod; in 1990-1992 he was
the vice-president of Sormovsky regional Committee of Peopleâ€™s
Deputies; from 1992-1996 he was assistant of the head of
administration in Sormovsky district, in 1996-1999 he was
assistant to the head of administration of Nizhniy Novgorod,
director of the department of economy and planning of cityâ€™s
administration. 

In 1999â€“2000 S.A.Obozov worked as the president of OAO Volga
Oil Company; in 2000, he was appointed as the first assistant of
the general director at OAO Sibur-Neftehim responsible for
economy and planning. 

In 2000â€“2001 he was the chief federal inspector in Nizhniy
Novgorod district; from April 12t through August 9, 2001 he was
chairman of the government in the Nizhniy Novgorod district. 

From September 2001 up to December 29, 2005 S.A. Obozov worked
as assistant to the representative of the President of Russian
Federation in the Volga Federal District. 

In December 2005 he was appointed as assistant general director
of Rosenergoatomâ€“ the director of the department for
Management of offshore nuclear power plants. 

Since March 15, 2006 he has been acting General Director of FSUE
â€“ the Russian state concern for production of electric and
thermal energy at nuclear stations - Rosenergoatom.					  
							 								 								 				
| Copyright © 2004-2006 Russia Newswire   
*****************************************************************
 53 Columbia Missourian: Pipe leak found at Callaway
 
September 4, 2006                                       

The Fulton plant’s pipeline released a radioactive byproduct.
 	 	 	 	 
Associated Press                       

ST. LOUIS — St. Louis-based AmerenUE said it is investigating 
newly discovered leaks of radioactive tritium from a pipeline at 
its Callaway nuclear power plant in Fulton, following half a 
dozen leaks from pipe breaks dating to 1987. 

The pipeline runs cooling water and other waste from the plant 
near Fulton to the Missouri River. So far, no tritium or other 
radionuclides have been detected in two rounds of testing on 
private wells that supply drinking water to 20 neighboring 
properties. 

“We don’t want to see pipes break,” said Floyd Gilzow, deputy 
director for policy at the state Department of Natural Resources. 
“We don’t want to see these kinds of unplanned releases and I 
don’t think Ameren wants to see them either. Do they concern us? 
Of course they concern us. But the reality is we live in an 
imperfect world and occasionally things that are mechanical don’t 
work the way they’re supposed to.” 

Ameren, the plant’s operator, said none of the leaks have
threatened public health. The most recent leaks were discovered
this summer, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported Sunday. 

Tritium is a byproduct of power generation at nuclear plants
like Callaway. It is considered one of the least hazardous
radionuclides, or atoms that emit radiation. 

In one major pipeline break, in October 1995, two miles north of
the Missouri River, water flowing from the broken pipe eroded a
channel up to 12 feet wide and 12 feet deep to Logan Creek. 

Plant estimates were that the leak began late that summer as a
result of periodic flooding that apparently shifted and stressed
the pipe. 

Ameren is permitted to discharge water containing diluted levels
of tritium into the Missouri River, where it mixes with river
water and is further diluted. 

“While there is no indication that tritium contamination from
the Callaway plant poses a health concern to plant employees or
the public, AmerenUE does take the tritium issue seriously,”
company spokeswoman Susan Gallagher said. “We are working with
the rest of the nuclear energy industry to develop additional
tritium monitoring and control measures.” 

Low-level contamination was found in about half the soil samples
taken this year from the manholes. One soil sample was slightly
above the federal safety limit for tritium in drinking water. 

Other documented leaks occurred in 1987, ’88, ’89, ’98 and 2005.
	 	
Copyright © 2006 Columbia Missourian 
*****************************************************************
 54 AFP: Bush marks Labor Day with call for nuclear energy, lower taxes -
     
 Mon Sep 4, 2:00 PM ET 		 	 

PINEY POINT, United States (AFP) - US President George W. Bush" 
/> President George W. Bushmarked Labor Day with a call for lower 
taxes and expanding nuclear power to ease US dependence on 
foreign oil. 

"So to make sure that we're the economic leader of the world,
we've got to keep taxes low," Bush said in a speech at a
maritime training center here. 

"We ought to make the tax relief permanent," he said. 

In May, the US Congress renewed for two years a package of tax
cuts supported by the president. 

Bush also urged more use of nuclear power, calling it a safe and
clean alternative to fossil fuels. 

"In my judgment, this country ought to continue to expand
nuclear power if we want to become less dependent on foreign
sources of energy," he said. "Nuclear power is safe, nuclear
power is clean, and nuclear power is renewable." 

Bush also championed the use of ethanol as an US-made
alternative to gasoline. 

There have been no new nuclear power plants built in the United
States since a 1979 accident at Three Mile Island plant in
Pennsylvania. The country's 20-some plants produce about 20
percent of US electricity, much less than coal. 

In the United States, Labor Day traditionally marks the
unofficial end of summer and the start of intense campaigning
before the November elections. 

Bush and Labor Secretary Elaine Chao" /> Elaine Chaotouted the
strength of the US economy on Labor Day, citing the country's
unemployment rate of 4.7 percent. 

Union leaders, however, said that living standards were slipping
amid rising health care costs and reduced pensions. 

"We're in a health care crisis deeper than anyone could have
imagined. And many working people worry whether they can ever
retire," John Sweeney, president of the American Federation of
Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), the
country's largest grouping of unions, said in a statement. 

Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The
*****************************************************************
 55 BostonHerald.com: Seabrook Station back on line after weekend outage
 
 By Associated Press

 Tuesday, September 5, 2006 - Updated: 07:44 AM EST

 SEABROOK, N.H. - New Hampshires Seabrook nuclear plant is back 
on-line after a problem during the weekend with backup power 
generators.

    Plant spokesman Alan Griffith said there was no problem with 
the plants nuclear power operations. He says rules required the 
plant to shut down so workers could fix a problem with backup 
generators.

    The plant went back to full power around 8 p.m., Monday,
after being shut down Thursday evening.

 © Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This
material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or
redistributed.

 
*****************************************************************
 56 The Hindu: Security revamped at all nuclear establishments in the country 

Tuesday, September 5, 2006 : 1910 Hrs
 
New Delhi, Sept 5. (PTI): Taking serious note of threat of
'fidayeen' attacks on key installations, the Government has
completely revamped security at all nuclear establishments in
the country, National Security Advisor M K Narayanan said today. 

The security arrangements put in place are "adequate" to meet
the threat, he told reporters after a day-long meeting of Chief
Ministers on internal security, chaired by Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh. 

He was asked about the concerns expressed by Singh during the
conference on increasing activities of "externally inspired and
directed terrorist outfits" in the country. 

The Prime Minister had said that intelligence agencies had
warned of further intensification of violent activities with the
possibility of more 'fidayeen' attacks that could target nuclear
establishments. 

"We have completely revamped security for all nuclear
establishments," Narayanan said. 

Home Minister Shivraj Patil also warned about the nefarious
designs of certain elements wanting to create communal
disturbance in the country. 

Patil said the conference was not aimed at finding faults but to
evolve ways for closer cooperation between the Centre and the
States to tackle security threats and imrpove intelligence
gathering mechanisms.

Copyright © 2006, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of
*****************************************************************
 57 RIA Novosti: Russia's position on energy security

Opinion &analysis - 


04/ 09/ 2006                                  

Moscow. (RIA Novosti economic commentator Nina Kulikova) 

Energy is a major driving force of global economic progress, and
directly affects the prosperity of billions of people. There are
many aspects to energy security, but it has not yet acquired a
clear definition. This is a task for the future. The disparity
between energy producers and consumers is becoming more evident
because they have a different understanding of energy security.
Considering the urgency of this problem, Russia made it a
priority subject for its G8 presidency this year. Up to this
day, many have understood energy security as national energy
self-sufficiency. This approach is increasing competition for
natural resources, and resulting in numerous conflicts.
Meanwhile, many threats to energy security have long become
global, and should have compelled the sides to elaborate a
concept of world energy security. 

In recent years, the global demand for energy resources has been
growing faster than their supply. Most estimates predict that
the former will continue going up due to booming economies of
the developing nations, and the requirements of industrialized
countries, which are also increasing, but at a much slower pace.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts that by the year
2030 the world's aggregate demand for energy resources will grow
by more than 50%. In the same estimates, by 2025 the world's
demand for oil may increase to 35 million barrels per day (or by
42%), and of gas, to 1.7 trillion cubic meters a year (or by
60%). 

In the meantime, the supply of energy is going down. This is due
to substantial industrial growth, and the use of more
sophisticated and expensive technologies for the production of
more difficult-of-access energy resources. 

In the last few years this supply-and-demand disparity has been
generating skyrocketing prices on hydrocarbons. These unstable
prices pose a threat to the global economy in general, and to
each individual country in particular. 

In the last two decades of the past century scientific and
technical achievements in exploration and drilling made up for
the deteriorating mining, geological, regional, and other
conditions; a fast growth in oil production ensured a steady
decline in prices. But in the 21st century the growing general
and per capita demand for motor fuels has not been accompanied
by adequate progress in oil production. This factor and
political tensions in major oil-producing areas are making it
impossible to secure the demand at the prices matching the costs
of production. 

Rapidly growing oil prices are threatening to slow down the
development rates of industrialized economies, and trigger off
financial upheavals in oil-dependent developing economies. 

Lack of certainty and a big gap in forecasts of future oil
prices are making the situation worse, because a long-term
forecast of oil prices is a major element in decision-making on
investment in numerous energy projects with a lengthy
implementation cycle and a very slow capital turnover. 

In addition, regional energy disproportions are increasing. More
and more countries and major regions are becoming energy
insufficient. In 1990s they produced 87% of the world GDP,
whereas in the beginning of this century, the relevant figure
has risen to 90%. The fastest developing countries (China and
India, among others) are becoming more and more dependent on
energy imports. For the time being, they are unable to guarantee
the latter's stability. At the same time, the production of
hydrocarbons, the number one energy component, is being
increasingly concentrated in the regions of the highest social
and political instability. 

Energy poverty is also exacerbating. In the OPEC estimate, at
present it affects about two billion people, and is becoming a
most urgent problem. Moreover, ecological problems, terrorism,
climate changes, and dwindling resources are making energy
security even more fragile. 

It is becoming obvious that it is necessary to create a global
energy system, which would reduce to the minimum the growth of
these threats. The goal of ensuring global energy security calls
for a well-orchestrated effort of the entire international
community. It should elaborate and consistently carry out a
common strategy in energy policy in order to repel these
threats. 

Thrifty and ecologically safe use of energy may become one of
the directions of such strategy. The adopted measures on
rationalizing energy consumption brought about a 14% decline in
the OECD net oil imports, and the amount of oil required for the
production of a GDP dollar decreased by half over 30 years (from
1973 to 2002). 

It is also necessary to step up the supply of commercially
effective energy resources. The world has enough fuel and energy
resources for the foreseeable future. Their shortage is not the
biggest problem. The number one task is to jointly create the
conditions for making use of this potential. 

It is vital to increase investment in energy supply. In the IEA
estimate, an effective and stable system of global energy supply
may require $17 billion in global investment in 2004-2030. 

Investment should be channeled into the effort to expand the
range of hydrocarbon resources; into their production; the
construction of new, and modernization of existing
infrastructure for their transportation and storage; the
development of effective technologies, and broader use of
renewable and alternative energy carriers; the development of
safe nuclear energy generation, to name but a few. In order to
enhance the stability of the energy supply system, defuse
tension in energy supply, and counter the growth of regional
energy disproportions, it is necessary to diversify types of
energy. This strategy could have several directions: 

1. Expansion of natural gas production. Ecological factors and
technological progress have already reduced the costs involved
in the construction of gas pipelines, and have led to the birth
of liquefied gas, thereby enhancing the share of natural gas.
Further expansion of this market depends primarily on
improvements in the production and transportation of natural
gas, and the development of regional and (or) bilateral
cooperation, which will make it possible to reduce uncertainty
and risks involved in the implementation of long-term
capital-intensive projects. 

2. Support for environmentally safe coal-burning technologies,
which may play a major role in ensuring a clean environment in
the future. Up to this day such technologies cannot compete with
those applied to other types of fuel. 

3. Accelerated development of renewable energy sources and
distributed energy. Development of hydropower industry opens up
enormous opportunities for diversification. Apart from
environmental benefits, hydropower industry offers a very
flexible method of energy generation, which provides for timely
response to changes in stress load and demand. At the same time,
renewable energy generation sources, such as the wind and the
sun, or mini hydropower stations can sometimes be the cheapest
way of providing electricity for rural communities. 

4. Full-scale development of safe nuclear power industry. It is
crucial for long-term and environmentally acceptable
diversification of energy supply. Apart from consolidating
national energy supply systems, it will substantially increase
energy supply to the world market, and will make its structure
more flexible. The experience of some European Union countries,
Japan and Korea bears out that nuclear power stations reduce
dependence on natural resources. 

5. Replacement of oil motor fuels with other energy carriers. 

6. In the long term, the development of effective hydrogen and
thermonuclear production technologies can increase energy supply
considerably, make it more stable, and safer environmentally. 

Striving to achieve global energy security, the world community
should develop the infrastructure of the global energy market.
Formation of the global energy space with uniform rules should
be the main goal of energy market development. 

A tangible proportion of energy resources is already supplied
via international borders. Its share is expected to increase.
Development of global energy infrastructure implies
stage-by-stage formation of country-to-country, continental, and
transcontinental associations, which rely on uniform
technological standards and rules of management. Countries
should continuously support the development of international
trade in energy resources, and encourage investment in the
energy sector by creating favorable technical, ecological,
political, and legal environment for international delivery of
energy resources to consumers. 

Concern over energy security should result in the elaboration of
well-balanced common approaches to the drafting of a global
program. This difficult process calls for dialogue and mutual
transparency. But the global character of threats to energy
security is making ineffective the attempts to remove them by
national effort. At present, Russia occupies the leading
positions in the world energy production, as it has one of the
world's greatest fuel-and-energy potentials. This allows it to
assume certain commitments in ensuring global energy security.
As G8 president, Russia interprets energy security as not simply
consumer guarantees, but a package of interrelated interests,
which ensures stable cooperation between the producers and the
consumers. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russia advocates
resolution of energy problems by a concerted effort of the
entire world community. These problems include the need to
overcome the supply-and-demand imbalance, assume common
commitments on sharing profits and risks in the energy sector,
and build a global energy structure, which would rule out the
emergence of conflicts. Global energy security should rest on
the principles of long-term, reliable, environmentally safe
supply of energy at reasonable prices, Putin believes. 

The President said that at their July summit in St. Petersburg,
the G8 countries adopted a common approach to ensuring global
energy security. "Our common strategy is based on the shared
understanding that mankind has a common energy future, a future
for which we all bear collective responsibility," he emphasized. 

© 2005 RIA Novosti   
*****************************************************************
 58 ITAR-TASS: Nuclear weapons safeguarding improved in Russia

05.09.2006, 10.39

MOSCOW, September (Itar-Tass) - The Russian Defense Ministry
will complete within two-three years the modernization of
safeguarding systems of nuclear weapons facilities, the chief of
the ministry’s 12th Directorate, Lieutenant-General Vladimir
Verkhovtsev, said in an interview with the military daily
Krasnaya Zvezda published on Tuesday. 

“The directorate is in charge of running practically the whole
reserve of nuclear ammunition that is turned over by the
industry to the Defense Ministry”, and is one of the the most
secret in the ministry. 

Verkhovtsev said that “at present, guarding systems are being
improved at nuclear weapons storage facilities”. 

“At present, all depots are equipped with engineering barriers
and means for detection of an invader, as well as guarding
complexes meeting all Russian and international standards,
including systems for video surveillance and access control. The
state of guarding and protection of the Russian Defense
Ministry’s nuclear weapons bases ensures reliable safety of
nuclear ammunition,” Verkhovtsev said. 

© ITAR-TASS. All rights reserved. You undertake not to copy,
*****************************************************************
 59 (POGO) Blog: Another Good Whistleblower Goes Unprotected

The Project On Government Oversight 

POGO blog - blogging on corruption, blogging for solutions. 	 	
	 		
Word on the street is that the Office of Personnel Management
Inspector General (OPM IG) is finally moving forward on of the
federal governmentâ€™s whistleblower protector, U.S. Special
Counsel Scott Bloch, in response to by anonymous employees
working for Bloch, the Project On Government Oversight, and
others. 

But is the OPM IG asking about what has happened to the which
have been summarily closed without proper investigation? If they
arenâ€™t, they should. POGO, Government Accountability Project,
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility and others
have seen cases with strong merit closed in recent years.
Weâ€™ve also been concerned by policy changes under Bloch which
make it more difficult for a whistleblowerâ€™s case to be taken
up. 

The Office of Special Counsel (OSC) is supposed to be the agency
where whistleblowers can turn to when they have been fired,
harassed, demoted, moved to the basement or otherwise retaliated
against. This theoretical safe haven against retaliation was
supposed to provide a counterbalance for whistleblowers who risk
losing their jobs, their careers, their homes, and even their
marriages. 

For example, attorneys at Katz, Marshall and Banks about the
case of Art Davies, a senior Army Corps engineer who exposed an
influence-peddling scheme between a government manager and
contractor Parsons which was costing tens of millions of dollars
for the taxpayer. It is difficult to believe that the , after
reading filed with the OSC. Itâ€™s even more difficult to
believe given that, according to his attorneys, the Department
of Defense Inspector General confirmed many of Daviesâ€™
allegations, resulting in the wrongdoers being fired. The IG
even concluded that the government manager â€œschemedâ€ to get
rid of Davies, in other words, they sought to retaliate against
him. 

POGO is collecting other examples of whistleblower cases which
were summarily closed. To let us know about your case, . 

-- Beth Daley 		 		 		 		 		
 		September 5, 2006 in | 		 		 				
*****************************************************************
 60 IDSnews.com: WE SAY: No 'Divine Strakes' for us, thanks. 

Not our kind of blast 
 
Updated: Tuesday, September 05, 2006            

By IDS Editorial Board                                           

After a Nevada newspaper recently reported that the Department of 
Defense was planning to conduct the largest nonatomic blast in 
U.S. history in our backyard, the residents of Bloomington and 
surrounding areas were understandably alarmed. Fortunately, the 
DoD has announced it won't run the operation here -- but that 
doesn't mean it's time for complacency. Mitchell, Ind., the 
rumored sight of the planned blast, is a small town 45 minutes 
away from Bloomington, where the government has held tests in the 
past. The area is strikingly similar in topography to 
Bloomington, with rolling hills, limestone deposits and an 
extensive cave system. 

The test under debate goes by the name "Divine Strake," an
interesting moniker for the most powerful non-nuclear blast ever
devised. 

There is nothing divine about 700 tons of explosives unleashed
in the Hoosier countryside. The effects of merely testing that
amount of explosives would be more than just the collapse of all
cave systems within an immediate radius, but also the injury of
all birds in flight within 1,084 feet, human eardrum rupture
within 2,250 feet and various structural damage within a few
miles. 

Do we have to sacrifice our natural wonders in the name of
Homeland Security? To quote the proverb attributed to Chief
Seattle of the Squamash, "The earth does not belong to man; man
belongs to the earth." The cave system, which has taken eons of
infinitesimal increments of erosion to exist, is not ours to
destroy in the name of a more effective means of violence. Yes,
measuring the destruction inflicted on the delicate cave system
might be a perfect way to test the efficacy of Divine Strake,
but the long-term ecological and topological costs are hard to
determine and most likely would be disastrous.

 That said, the next question that arises is, if not here, then
where? The open farmland of Kansas? The frozen tundra of the
Alaskan wilderness? The rock formations in Utah? The deserts of
Nevada or New Mexico? The traditional line of thinking is that
if the military has developed a new weapon in order to
theoretically keep us safer, it must be tested somewhere. It
could be argued that it is our patriotic duty in this time of
war to support the military in any way, including allowing it to
blow up bits of our country. However, this weapon is so
monumental in its scale of destruction that no place in our
homeland is a good place for detonation. It's hard to fathom the
true extent of destruction following a blast of 700 tons of
military-grade explosives, but it is easy to see that no one
wants or deserves this test in their back yards. The military is
welcome to build structures in which to do a contained blast,
but if the only way to test Divine Strake is by destroying our
environment, then the American people should present the
military with an emphatic "No!" 												
 						 						 						 						 		 	 	 AD LINK HERE-- AND 	 REPLACE
*****************************************************************
 61 The Australian: Australia to corner China uranium market

 Joseph Kerr September 05, 2006 

AUSTRALIA could capture a third of the Chinese uranium market by
2020, worth $250 million a year in exports at current prices.

 Nuclear safeguards officials yesterday said the deal struck
with China this year for the export of Australian uranium could
provide a new market for close to 2500 tonnes of uranium a year
- about a quarter the size of all Australian uranium exports. 

The head of the Australian Safeguards and Non-proliferation
Office, John Carlson, is also confident China would be unlikely
to want to divert Australian uranium into nuclear bomb-making,
because it has ample indigenous supplies for military purposes. 

Speaking to a parliamentary committee yesterday, Mr Carlson said
the administrative arrangements that will govern any transfer of
Australian uranium to China are currently being negotiated and
it would be at least months before any shipments occurred. 

But assuming enough uranium can be produced to satisfy existing
contracts, he said in the long term Australia could supply
hundreds of millions of dollars of uranium to China. 

"From 2020, when China has ... 40 gigawatts of installed
capacity, the amount required for that will be 8000 tonnes a
year." 

As one of the biggest producers in the world, Australia exported
9510 tonnes of uranium worldwide in 2004-05. 

Mr Carlson said even assuming China wanted to diversify its
uranium suppliers, it would be "a reasonable estimate for
Australia to secure one-third of the Chinese market". 

This was equivalent to 2500 tonnes a year, worth $250 million at
current prices. 

Mr Carlson said the bilateral deal signed this year would be in
place for at least 30 years. 

However, he acknowledged that it could be some time before the
first shipments went to China, because of the extensive
contracts already in place between Australian producers and
other countries. 

Like all other bilateral deals Australia has signed to supply
uranium to other countries, the deal forbids China from using
Australian material in any nuclear weapons programs. 

[&raquo;] Print Friendly Version [&raquo;] Email this story 

© The Australian 
*****************************************************************
 62 NEWS.com.au: Uranium exports to reach $250m | 

September 04, 2006 01:28pm 			 			 				Article from: AAP 			 			
		 			 				
AUSTRALIA could begin uranium exports to China within months,
with their annual value estimated about $250 million a year, a
Senate inquiry has been told. 							 							

Much depended on how soon bilateral documents were signed and on
commercial arrangements, but early next year was the best
estimate, Australian Safeguards and Non-Proliferation Office
(ASNO) director-general John Carlson told the inquiry. 

The Senate committee is looking into treaties relating to the
transfer of nuclear material between the two countries. 

Mr Carlson said contracts could be entered at any time but, to
his knowledge, this had not yet occurred. 

"But no material can actually be transferred into China until
the agreements are in place," he said. 

"We hope that that will all be in place by the end of the year. 

"How quickly uranium then transfers into China really depends on
commercial arrangements and whether the uranium bought will be
processed in other countries before going into China. 

"In principle, we could have uranium going into China in the
first half of next year, but that's speculative." 

Mr Carlson said it would be a 30-year agreement and, by 2020
when China had projected energy supply through nuclear
production at 40 gigawatts, the annual uranium requirement would
be about 8000 tonnes a year, almost as big as Australia's
present uranium output. 

Australia could hope for about one-third of that supply, he
said. 

"That would be a reasonable expectation for us to be exporting
to China," Mr Carlson said. 

"In current dollar terms and at current uranium prices, we'd be
looking at something in the order of $250 million (in export
value) a year." 

Mr Carlson told the inquiry that if China were to breach an
agreement, Australia could suspend all further transfers, which
would include material passing through other countries on its
way to China. 

"We'd also have the right to require the return of everything
supplied," he said. 

"(But) the practical sanction on China, if you like, (is) it
will become increasingly dependent on uranium imports for its
nuclear-power program. 

"It would clearly not be in China's interest to disrupt energy
supply. 

"A breach of an agreement with Australia would be taken very
seriously by all uranium suppliers, and all nuclear suppliers
for that matter because China will also be buying its reactors
from other countries. 

"It clearly would not be in China's interest to place itself in
that position, where supply might be halted by a whole range of
suppliers." 

Mr Carlson said there would be no direct Australian involvement
in inspections of China's nuclear facilities and stores. 

"It's up to the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) to
decide exactly what it inspects and how frequently it inspects,"
he said. 

He said there were a number of mechanisms by which Australia
could track the material to ensure it did not go into
weapons-grade production. 

"The first one clearly is reporting and book accounting," he
said. 

"Then there are measurements made at various points as it goes
through the nuclear fuel cycle, when it's received and when it's
transferred. 

"We apply the principles of proportionality and equivalence," Mr
Carlson said. 

"As it changes shape and form, as it goes from an ore through
conversion ... into fuel, then obviously calculations are done
to establish what is moved through the fuel cycle and what is
either re-used or set aside for storage or considered to be a
waste product." 

Copyright 2006 News Limited. All times AEDT (GMT + 11).                                                 
*****************************************************************
 63 Sydney Morning Herald: Chinese join hunt for uranium - 

www.smh.com.au
 
Barry FitzGerald

September 5, 2006

CHINA'S well-flagged interest in buying Australian uranium from
existing mines has been extended to its direct participation in
potential new discoveries thrown up by the gathering uranium
exploration boom. 

The $6 million float of Adelaide's UraniumSA, launched
yesterday, has Chinese investors on its list of seed capital
investors. And on its board is Xu Gang, the Australian
representative of China's monopoly uranium buyer, Chinese
National Nuclear Corp. 

UraniumSA's managing director, Russel Bluck, said having Mr Xu
on the board represented CNNC's first active interest in uranium
exploration in Australia. But he said CNNC was not a "direct"
holder in the company. 

Mr Xu is a non-executive director, as is Alice McCleary, deputy
chancellor of the University of South Australia and a member of
the Takeovers Panel. 

The company chairman is Tom Phillips, former chief executive of
Mitsubishi Motors Australia and a director of Australia Post. 

As its name suggests, UraniumSA's focus is on the uranium
potential of South Australia, home to three of Australia's four
uranium mines/advanced projects - Olympic Dam, Beverley and
Honeymoon. 

The group has secured more than 7500 square kilometres of
prospective exploration ground in what it called the Gawler
Craton uranium province. Much of the package has been
contributed by listed groups Stellar Resources and Marathon
Resources. 

Stellar shareholders are to get a preferential offer for 14.73
million UraniumSA shares at the issue price of 20c each and
Marathon shareholders 6.26 million shares. 

That would leave about 9 million shares available to the public.
The sponsoring broker is Melbourne's Lands Kirwan Tong. 

UraniumSA's main exploration properties are in the Kingoonya
palaeo-drainage system. 

Other explorers that have taken up ground in the area are Toro
and Heathgate, operator of the Beverley mine in South
Australia's Curnamona Craton. 

The area is considered prospective for sediment-hosted uranium
deposits amenable to in-situ leach extraction, such as that used
at Beverley. 

UraniumSA will also be examining the potential of the eastern
region of Eyre Peninsula. 

Different styles of uranium deposits are the target. 

UraniumSA says the region could become a uranium exploration hot
spot. 
When news happens:send photos, videos &tip-offs to 0424 SMS SMH
(+61 424 767 764), or emailus. 

2006-09-05

Copyright © 2006. The Sydney Morning Herald. <img
*****************************************************************
 64 Lexington Herald-Leader: Nuclear recycling plant sought

09/04/2006 | 

Mon, Sep. 04, 2006 email this print this 
 
PADUCAH TOUTS HISTORY IN BID FOR FACILITY
 ASSOCIATED PRESS 

PADUCAH - Paducah is vying for one of four $5 million federal
grants to build a recycling plant for spent nuclear fuel, a
project that local officials call one of the biggest in 50
years. 

The U.S. Department of Energy is awarding the grants to study
whether 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 Thursday, and the Energy Department will choose
grant recipients 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 more than 1,000. 

"Our objective is to maximize jobs," said Steve Penrod, general
manager of the Paducah plant and a member of the new task force
that's working to get money for the project. 

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, which is to be 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 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. 

*****************************************************************
 65 RIA Novosti: Russia may claim 25% of nuclear-fuel market-Rosatom's Kiriyenko
 
04/ 09/ 2006                                  

MOSCOW, September 4 (RIA Novosti) - Russia could control up to
25% of the world's nuclear-fuel services market, the country's
nuclear chief said Monday. 

"Russia believes that 25% of the world's market in nuclear
fuel-cycle services, including uranium enrichment, is an optimal
share," said Sergei Kiriyenko, the head of the Federal Agency
for Nuclear Power (Rosatom). "Technically and technologically,
we are well positioned for this." 

He was upbeat over prospects for Russia's cooperation in the
nuclear realm with the Asia Pacific countries, including China. 

"I am optimistic on our cooperation in the nuclear energy sphere
with China," he said. 

He said he saw no impediments to such cooperation except for
considerations of economic expediency. 

Russia is building two energy units at the Tianwan nuclear power
plant in China. 

© 2005 RIA Novosti   
*****************************************************************
 66 RIA Novosti: Kiev to study public opinion on proposed nuclear 
waste storage
 
05/ 09/ 2006                                  

KIEV, September 5 (RIA Novosti) - Ukraine's fuel and energy
minister said Tuesday the country will make a decision whether
or not to build a spent nuclear fuel storage facility after a
thorough expert analysis and with account taken of public
opinion.

 The head of Ukraine's national energy company, Energoatom, said
Friday a facility to store spent fuel from the country's nuclear
power plants will be built near Chernobyl, the site of the
world's worst nuclear accident. 

Yuriy Nadashkovskiy said construction could begin in 2007 and be
completed three years later.

 "A thorough analysis of all expert findings required for
projects of this scale by the ministry will precede the decision
making," Yuriy Boyko said.

 Boyko also said a public debate will be held before a final
decision is adopted.

 "No decision will be made without studying society's opinion on
the matter, considering the Chernobyl tragedy," he said.

 The idea, although approved by President Viktor Yushchenko, has
stirred wide protests from public and environmental
organizations.

 Ukraine was badly affected by the explosion of the fourth
reactor of the Chernobyl NPP. The radioactive fallout also
contaminated large areas of Belarus, Russia, northern Europe and
other regions farther from the disaster.

 In April, Greenpeace said in a report that up to 600,000 people
may die of cancers developed as a result of Chernobyl radiation
exposure, a huge increase on UN figures, which put the excess
cancer death toll at 9,300. 

A nuclear waste depository could be built within the 30-km
(18-mile) exclusion zone imposed in the aftermath of the
disaster, after 135,000 people were evacuated. The surrounding
area has remained largely deserted to this day.

 Ukraine's four nuclear power plants currently employ a total of
13 power units. Energoatom plans to build another 10 power units
in the country by 2030.

 On Friday, Boyko said Ukraine is stepping up its nuclear power
program.

 "There is no alternative to nuclear power industry
development," the minister said.

© 2005 RIA Novosti   
*****************************************************************
 67 Manila Times" 1M liters of nuke waste intercepted
 	 	
Tuesday, September 05, 2006   
      
By William B. Depasupil, Reporter 

A ship carrying an estimated 500,000 to one million liters of
liquid “nuclear waste” intended for dumping in the Philippines
was intercepted by operatives of the Enforcement and Security
Services (ESS) of the Bureau of Customs while it was being towed
off the coast of Surigao province last Friday. 

In his report to ESS Director Nestorio Gualberto, Maj. Isabelo
Tibayan III, the ESS chief of operations, said Monday that the
nuclear waste came from the island nation of Palau in the
Pacific. 

“The report we received from our informant in Palau said the
nuclear waste came from a nuclear power plant,” Tibayan, in a
telephone interview, told The Manila Times. 

He said the waste was declared “used oil” and consigned to Power
Zone Corp. It came from the Aimeliik power plant in Palau
Island. 

The informant reported that waste dirty oil, estimated to be one
million liters in the Auimeliik tank, came from the construction
of the Compact Road by Daewoo. 

Tibayan believes this is not the first time hazardous waste from
other countries has been brought to the Philippines. “It is
highly possible that the people behind the aborted attempt have
sneaked in the same kind of waste or worse in the past.” 

On being informed, Customs Commissioner Napoleon Morales, who
was attending a congressional hearing, immediately ordered the
ESS to conduct a top-to-bottom investigation into the matter and
coordinate with all the government agencies concerned. 

“We will ship it back to the country where it came from,”
Morales told The Times. “Charges will be filed against those
responsible and definitely heads will roll here.” 

“We will exhaust all means to uncover the brains behind this
incident and pursue the criminal prosecution and conviction of
all those involved,” Morales added. 

He commended Gualberto and his men for foiling what appeared to
be a deliberate attempt by external forces to contaminate the
country’s waters with waste material that could have wreaked
havoc not only on the environment but on the health of the
people. 

Records show that the waste was loaded into a barge named
Cheryll Ann with crewmen onboard. It was being towed by a
tugboat, Jacob, when intercepted. 

Tibayan said the shipment violated the Basel Convention, the
Antiwaste Dumping Law, and the Customs and Tariff Code of the
Philippines.   
        
Copyright (c) 2001 The Manila Times | Terms of Service
*****************************************************************
 68 El Paso Times: Focus shifts to more nuclear operations

Article Launched: 09/05/2006 12:00:00 AM MDT  

     
  Carlsbad Mayor Bob Forrest says a plant to reprocess highly
radioactive fuel from nuclear reactors could bring in as many as
5,000 jobs.

Carlsbad is home to the Department of Energy's Waste Isolation
Pilot Plant, which has become an economic mainstay of Eddy
County. WIPP, which opened in 1999, buries defense
program-related radioactive waste in underground salt beds.

In addition, ground was broken last week near Eunice in adjacent
Lea County for a $1.5 million uranium enrichment plant, which
will make fuel for commercial nuclear reactors.

Now, the cities of Carlsbad and Hobbs and Eddy and Lea counties 
have formed an alliance to compete for the reprocessing plant. 
Forrest said the alliance has retained two companies, Washington 
Group International and Areva, to help.

Associated Press


Copyright 2006 by the El Paso Times and MediaNews Group and/or
wire services and suppliers.
*****************************************************************
 69 Nine Billion Dollars And They Still Can't Get It Right ---
  
Vol. 3,  No. 21          September 1, 2006 		

 Nevada's Online State News Journal             
   
 Porter

Corrective Action Program Not Effectively Managed --- DOE IG

by Johnny Gunn

When the Inspector General (IG) of an agency the size of the 
Department of Energy (DOE) says a large part of your operation is 
not "effectively managed," or when a House of Representative 
sub-committee chairman says your program is "broke," it should 
indicate that it is time to have some serious discussion about 
the program in question.  Particularly when more than $9 billion 
dollars has been spent with no end in sight. 

One thing about Inspectors General reports, they rarely pull a 
punch, and in a memorandum from DOE IG Gregory H. Friedman to the 
DOE secretary, there were many serious punches thrown.  Will 
those that are attempting to get a license procedure underway for 
the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository understand?  They 
never have in the past.  "As part of this complex process 
(licensing) the Department is required by the Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission (NRC) to implement a quality assurance program for the 
data, software, and models supporting the license application."  
After saying that, Friedman blistered the program this way.  
"Since the implementation of the new Corrective Action Program in 
October 2003, over 5,600 conditions have been reported for the 
Yucca Mountain Project."

Friedman said an audit of the quality assurance program at Yucca 
was created in 2005.  "The Corrective Action Program was not 
effectively managing and resolving conditions adverse to quality 
at the Yucca Mountain Project."  It was pointed out in the memo 
that "Corrective actions were not always effective.  We found 
that conditions continued to recur even after management reported 
that appropriate corrective actions had been taken."

Nevada Congressman Jon Porter (R) has been holding hearings to 
look into problems with the quality assurance program at Yucca 
Mountain, and as has been reported over and over in the press and 
in Senate hearings, DOE doesn't seem to understand that lying to 
the public, to Congress, to their own watchdogs is not the way to 
get licensed.  Inter-departmental communications have been found 
to be allegedly false and to make matters worse, according to 
Porter, two sets of quality assurance books may have been 
maintained, one set purporting to be accurate but not so, and the 
other, for internal use only, accurate.

Now it seems that much of what has been known about water 
infiltration may not have been reported properly.  After 20 
years, said Porter, after spending more than $9 billion, "isn't 
it time DOE got something right?"  Porter believes that 
information that has been distributed dealing with water 
infiltration may be off by as much as one hundred percent.  DOE 
officials are saying that the alleged fraudulent e-mails from 
their hydrologists "are being reviewed."

DOE's IG Friedman said, Yucca Mountain officials "did not always: 
(1) support employee participation in the process; (2) make 
needed improvements to the system and procedures; (3) review the 
effectiveness of corrective actions; and (4) utilize the system's 
trend analysis capabilities to identify repeat occurrences and 
generic issues."  Friedman continued, "Additionally, the 
resolution of conditions was not always timely because, as we 
were told by site managers, some corrective actions proved to be 
more complicated than anticipated and, in some cases competing 
budgetary priorities delayed necessary remedial activities." 

The less than favorable report from the Inspector General comes 
on the heels of DOE's report to Congress that everything is 
moving along at a pace that will allow the Yucca Mountain 
Repository to open within the next 15 years.  Or so.  Maybe.  
More than 75,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste is sitting at 
power plants and weapons depots across the country, and the 
stockpile has been building since the early 1980s.  
Administration after administration has been responsible for 
disaster after disaster as far as plans for a geologic repository 
for waste is concerned.  The waste that already exists is also 
the capacity of the Yucca repository.

After all these years, even if DOE had done everything right from 
the git-go, Yucca Mountain would be obsolete at this time and the 
only plans that are known to exist is to change all the plans and 
make the Yucca capacity larger.  At this time DOE cannot make the 
Yucca repository compliant with NRC demands for licensing, and 
now they want to enlarge the capacity with a whole new set of 
unknown plans.  This has been the operational problem from the 
early 1980s.  There never has been a concrete set of plans, 
procedures, or science to create a Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste 
Repository.  With every new set of problems discovered comes a 
new set of plans.

There is one over riding factor that should never be forgotten in 
this discussion that has been continuing for more than 20 years.  
Lives are at stake.  Well over 75,000 tons of the most toxic 
element that can be imagined will be transported over public rail 
and road ways and then stored underground if DOE gets their 
license approved and they are able to finalize all the other 
parts of the program.  Right now, it would be hard to imagine 
anything more dangerous than the transportation factor alone.  
Forget water mitigation, forget fraudulent quality assurance 
programs, even forget questionable casks to store the deadly 
waste, just concentrate on the transportation factor.

Trainload after trainload of deadly nuclear waste making its way 
from all corners of the country to a tiny little railhead in 
southern Nevada.  Would there be a better target for a terrorist 
group?  Scientists all over the world are working to develop a 
way to re-use the waste, in some cases it appears more than just 
progress has been made.  In France nuclear power plants are using 
re-processed fuel.  Nuclear waste is stacking up around the 
world, and Yucca Mountain should not be considered a primary 
source for handling it.  Until so many questions are answered, 
Yucca Mountain should not be considered as any kind of nuclear 
dump, geologic or surface.



*****************************************************************
 70 AU ABC: Dispute over uranium takeover bid goes to court. 

04/09/2006. ABC News Online

A takeover bid involving three companies which own Mount Isa's
Valhalla uranium deposit has led to legal action in the Supreme
Court of Western Australia.

 A $174 million bid by Paladin Resources for Valhalla Uranium
has prompted Summit Resources to apply for access to documents
held by its partners.

 The third company in the joint venture partnership, Resolute
Mining, is the majority shareholder of Valhalla Uranium.

 Summit chief executive officer Allan Eggers says the company is
concerned sensitive information may have been passed onto
non-partners.

 "Resolute Mining Limited appear to want to accept a bid from
Paladin for that company, and that's fine - that doesn't change
our operating bid with the parent companies there," he said.

 "We're just challenging, perhaps, what they've done, and should
we be successful we have the right to acquire that interest as
well, which would leave Paladin with whatever we paid for that
interest in the bank but not the interest in the deposit." 



*****************************************************************
 71 AU ABC: Uranium exports to China could start in 2007. 

04/09/2006. ABC News Online

Uranium exports to China could be worth $250 million a year

A joint parliamentary committee has heard that it is possible
Australia could start exporting uranium to China as soon as next
year.

 The Joint Standing Committee on Treaties is examining two
agreements with China on the transfer and safeguard of nuclear
material. 

John Carlson from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
says the agreement could pave the way for Australia to sell
about 2,500 tonnes of uranium a year to China for power
generation. 

"How quickly uranium then transfers into China really depends on
commercial arrangements, and whether the uranium bought will be
processed in other countries before going to China or will go
directly to China for processing," he said.

 "In principle we could have uranium going into China in the
first half of next year, but that's speculative." 

Mr Carlson says, based on current prices, the sales could be
worth $250 million. 

*****************************************************************
 72 AU ABC: Australian uranium could boost China's arsenal - expert
 
The World Today - Tuesday, 5 September , 2006  12:40:58
 
Reporter: Michael Edwards

 ELEANOR HALL: To Canberra now, where a parliamentary inquiry is
investigating the prospects of Australian exports of uranium to
China. It's estimated the trade could be worth a quarter of a
billion dollars annually to Australia.

But an expert on China's strategic weapons program says
Australian uranium could indirectly boost the Asian giant's
nuclear arsenal.

Michael Edwards has this report.

MICHAEL EDWARDS: Estimates vary as to the full extent of China's
nuclear arsenal. But conservative sources believe,
conservatively, it has several dozen intercontinental ballistic
missiles armed with multiple nuclear warheads. Within range of
these is Japan, the United States and Australia.

A Senate inquiry is presently investigating whether Australia
should supply uranium, the most basic requirement for nuclear
weapons, to China for peaceful purposes. The inquiry's heard the
trade could be worth $250 million a year.

ANDREW DAVIES: When you export uranium to somebody, it's a
fungible quantity, it goes into a general pool, and some of
which will be used for weapons, and some of which will be used
for civilian power. But that's true, when you export to France,
or the United States as well. 

MICHAEL EDWARDS: Dr Andrew Davies is from Australian Strategic
Policy Institute. He doesn't see a big problem strategically
with Australia exporting uranium to China.

ANDREW DAVIES: It depends whether you regard China as an
inevitable strategic competitor, or whether you regard China as
somebody you can work cooperatively with. And I think the
Australian Government's actually made the latter decision. 

MICHAEL EDWARDS: But there are analysts who do see China as a
strategic competitor with Australia.

Dr Ron Huisken from the Australian National University says
China is presently upgrading its nuclear arsenal in terms of its
size and long-term capability.

RON HUISKEN: Logic would be that to the extend that they are
concerned and or the Japanese will thicken the ballistic missile
defences, then their own force requirements will be going
upwards.

MICHAEL EDWARDS: Dr Huisken says the Chinese military will be
welcoming Australian uranium, even though it's not designated
for it.

RON HUISKEN: We have negotiated the tightest possible
arrangement to insure that our uranium doesn't go into bombs,
but it allows China to divert more of its others sources of
uranium, presumably mostly domestic, into its weapons program,
if it deems that to be necessary. 

MICHAEL EDWARDS: Australia could eventually supply up to a third
of Chinese domestic uranium needs. The Australian Safeguards and
Non-Proliferation Office has told the inquiry uranium exports
would immediately cease if China broke agreements guaranteeing
its use for peaceful purposes.

Dr Andrew Davies agrees China's track record on nuclear
non-proliferation isn't perfect, but he says it's improving.

ANDREW DAVIES: Since they've signed the nuclear
non-proliferation treaty, and they've allowed international
inspectors into their civilian power program, their behaviour
has actually improved markedly, and it's a positive from the
security point of view.

And by exporting uranium, provided it's tied to all of those
treaty obligations, and additional safeguards, I think we
actually benefit from it.

ELEANOR HALL: That's Dr Andrew Davies ending that report from
Michael Edwards.   

*****************************************************************
 73 Daily Californian: State Inspection Found Improper Disposal of Hazardous Materials                                                                                         

www.dailycal.org

Mishandling Waste                                                                               

BY Sarah Donner
                                                        
Contributing Writer

Tuesday, September 5, 2006                      

The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is facing more than 
$30,000 in fines for improperly mixing substances in a 
five-gallon container, which resulted in the release of nitrous 
oxide gases. 

Following a spring 2004 inspection, the State Department of Toxic 
Substances Control also fined the UC-owned laboratory for 
inadequate disposal and storage of hazardous wastes and failing 
to meet disposal standards for over a year. 

Due to the violations, the university and the U.S. Department of 
Energy will be required to pay fines, which include a $22,912 
penalty fee and a $8,588 reimbursement fee for required 
maintenance costs, within 30 days. 

According to a report released by the state on Aug. 30, the lab 
has corrected all the violations, which also include failing to 
accurately label hazardous waste according to guidelines and 
storing certain waste without authorization. 

All of the violations discovered by the State Department were 
resolved, according to the report. 

The Livermore lab has been managed by the university for the 
Department of Energy since 1952. It conducts classified nuclear 
weapons and biomedical research. 

While no immediate health or environmental effects have been 
reported, the laboratory's violations were serious and could have 
created a risk due to the reactive nature of the chemicals, said 
Ron Baker, spokesperson for the State Department of Toxic 
Substances Control. 

"Even though no one got hurt, it is still serious because there 
are a number of different types of hazardous wastes," he said. 
"(Inspections) prevent an accidental release in the future." 

While the toxic substances department, a part of the California 
Environmental Protection Agency, conducts yearly inspections of 
UC laboratories, Baker said it conducts additional inspections if 
it suspects any wrongdoing. 

Training and inventory changes have taken place in order to avoid 
future problems, said lab spokesperson Lynda Seaver. 

She also added that this event was rare, and said she has not 
witnessed any previous violations during the 13 years she has 
worked at the lab. 

c) 2005 the Daily Cal

*****************************************************************
 74 The Herald: Further anti-nuclear protests planned   

Web Issue 2610     September 04 2006      

DOUGLAS FRASER, Scottish Political Editor     

September 04 2006   
    
  Campaigners against nuclear weapons are preparing for a major
escalation of their protests ahead of a decision on replacing
Britain's nuclear deterrent.

 Daily blockades of Faslane nuclear submarine base on the Firth
of Clyde are being planned for an entire year, in place of just
two mass events in each of the past six years. 

Cardinal Keith Patrick O'Brien, leader of Scotland's Catholics,
and the Rt Rev Alan McDonald, Moderator of the General Assembly
of the Church of Scotland, are also to take part in a peace
march later this month, from the nuclear base to Holyrood.

 A new campaign, known as Faslane 365, is signing up groups from
around Britain and abroad to take part in a rolling programme of
sit-down protests, aimed at making it impossible to operate the
Firth of Clyde base. Organisers are making clear to participants
 including community organisations, churches, pressure groups
and shared interest associations such as a group of writers 
that they must be non-violent or they will court arrest on a
daily basis. 

That, in turn, will pose a major challenge to Strathclyde Police
and the courts system.

 Protest organisers claim the level of opposition in Scotland is
such that the international movement sees this country as "the
key to unravelling" nuclear weapons as a deterrent. 
The protest is due to start on October 1.
  
 Peace march

 A separate event, The Long Walk for Peace, is also being
organised. 
 
 From Faslane on Thursday September 14, it will go through
Helensburgh, Dumbarton, and Glasgow. A rally is planned in
Glasgow for September 16. 
 
 The march will then continue to Coatbridge, Airdrie, Armadale,
Bathgate, Livingston, Balerno, Currie, arriving in Edinburgh on
Tuesday September 19.
  
 In Edinburgh, there will be a march along Princes Street,
ending at Holyrood.
   
  Copyright © Newsquest (Herald & Times) Limited. All Rights
*****************************************************************
 75 Albuquerque Tribune: Editorial: Los Alamos bomb role needs public hearings


September 5, 2006

To pit, or not to pit? 

That is the question for Los Alamos National Laboratory, and its
answer has implications well beyond the lab's boundaries on a
northern New Mexico mesa. 

The National Nuclear Security Administration has proposed
restarting full-scale plutonium pit production at the lab by
2012, to replace deteriorating pits in the nation's existing
nuclear warheads. 

Plutonium pits, often called the "triggers" of thermonuclear
weapons, are the cores of modern hydrogen bombs, and the NNSA
says the old pits need replacing to ensure the reliability of
the U.S. nuclear arsenal. 

Critics, however, contend it's a ruse to design, fashion and
manufacture new types of bombs, including mininukes and "bunker
busters." 

NNSA made its decision, in part, because: Los Alamos has
extensive plutonium research experience; the lab already has a
highly secure plutonium laboratory; it would be more
cost-effective than building a separate pit plant; and the
nation's nuclear stockpile shortly will need replacement pits,
because the last plutonium-pit factory, at Rocky Flats near
Denver, was shuttered in the late 1980s with severe
environmental and worker-health problems that have yet to be
fully resolved. 

On that score alone, New Mexicans have a huge stake in the NNSA
plans, which have been the subject of public hearings in Los
Alamos and northern New Mexico, but not in Albuquerque or
elsewhere. Those hearings involved the proposal's environmental
impact statement. 

But other questions abound, including whether a research
laboratory of Los Alamos' world-class stature is the best place
to do nuclear-weapons fabrication. 

Indeed, it would make Los Alamos - the nation's first and
premier nuclear-weapons lab - a bomb-part factory, just a short
distance from Santa Fe and Albuquerque. Los Alamos would become
an integral part of the nation's nuclear-weapons production
complex, which has not had enviable environmental or
worker-health records. 

And creating a full-scale bomb-pit factory, where production
would ramp up to 60 to 80 pits per year within six years, raises
reasonable safety, security and environmental concerns. Among
these are the production of new radioactive and hazardous
wastes, some of the most dangerous of which will be destined for
transport to and burial in the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near
Carlsbad. 

As reported by Tribune writer Sue Vorenberg Saturday ("Los
Alamos bomb plan disputed"), Citizen Action, an
Albuquerque-based anti-nuclear group that opposes the proposal,
wants more public input. Warning that Albuquerque is only about
60 miles downstream from Los Alamos, Citizen Action wants NNSA
to at least conduct public hearings in Albuquerque. 

But the comment period is set to expire on Sept. 20. Not good.
The NNSA should reconsider its extremely limited public-hearing
schedule and comment period and significantly broaden its public
outreach. 

Considering the implications of new pit production, the NNSA
should conduct hearings in Albuquerque and across southern and
eastern New Mexico, as well as in other U.S. cities that have
nuclear-weapons production and research facilities or national
labs. 

NNSA should bring nuclear weapons out of the closet and provide
as broad a public forum for debating this proposal - and other
nuclear-weapons issues - as possible. 

2006 © The Albuquerque Tribune | | 
*****************************************************************
 76 ScrippsNews: Energy Department safety reorganization draws fire 

By LES BLUMENTHAL

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 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 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 in
Washington state 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 last week it would proceed with merging
its Office of Environment, Safety and Health with its security
office. The former office's environmental functions, including
writing environmental-impact statements required under the
National Environmental Policy Act, will be transferred to the
department's general counsel's office.

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 new office's responsibilities will be equally divided
between safety and health issues and security, he said.

"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.

An assistant secretary is supposed to oversee the new safety
rules, which are scheduled to take effect in early February.
Sell said there would be no "adverse effects" from the
reorganization.

"We expect there will be a more effective implementation," he
said.

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 Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman, Sens. Jim
Bunning, R-Ky., and Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., charged 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, also
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.

Criticism also has come 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 state and Bill
Richardson of New Mexico said in a letter to Bodman. Richardson
served as energy secretary in the Clinton administration.

Bodman has the authority to make the changes without Congress'
approval.

DOE Safety Changes
 Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 09/05/2006 -
07:59. 

After 20 years in safety management at DOE I've come to the
clear conclusion that DOE should not have sole jurisdiction over
the safety and health of the contractor firms - private and
academic institutions - that operate these DOE sites. This sets
up an inherent conflict within these sites between meeting the
DOE mission and making the DOE regulator happy. Also, DOE does a
poor job of understanding and applying the rules formulated by
other agencies such as OSHA. Would you want the Highway Patrol
enforcing FAA rules? 

General occupational safety and health at DOE contractors sites
and national labs should be regulated by OSHA (Federal or State)
and nuclear operations should be regulated by the NRC. DOE
should stick to management oversight of the programs and
missions that the contractors are carrying out at these sites
and national labs. 

Its time for Congress to step up and amend the Atomic Energy Act
and remove the exemption from competent and independent
regulation by OSHA of contractor safety at DOE sites. » reply |

copyright 2006 Scripps Media
*****************************************************************
 77 Hanford News: Hazardous materials managers earn awards
 
This story was published Friday, September 1st, 2006 

By the Herald staff 

Five members of the Eastern Washington Chapter of the Academy of
Certified Hazardous Materials Managers will receive national
academy awards. 

Rampur Viswanath of CH2M Hill Hanford Group, R. Terry Winward of
Fluor Hanford, Michelle Yates Mandis of the Washington State
Department of Ecology, Andrea Prignano of Fluor Hanford and
Robbie Tidwell of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory each
will receive a Champions of Excellence Award. They will be
presented at the academy's annual meeting later this month. 

The Eastern Washington Chapter also will receive the Honor Roll
of Champions Award for the seventh year in a row. It's one of
five chapters among 66 in the nation to be honored. 

 
© 2006 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved.


*****************************************************************
 78 Hanford News: Lawmakers' demand for open hearings on nuclear waste disposal
at the Idaho National Laboratory and the Savannah River Site
blocks meeting
 
This story was published Friday, September 1st, 2006 

By James Rosen, McClatchy Newspapers 

WASHINGTON - Pressure from Reps. John Spratt of South Carolina
and John Dingell of Michigan prompted the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission to cancel a closed meeting scheduled for Thursday
with the Department of Energy over a disputed plan to clean up
nuclear weapons waste at the Idaho National Laboratory and the
Savannah River Site. 

The two agencies are at odds over how much power Congress gave
the NRC, in 2004 legislation, to monitor DOE cleanup of the
Idaho and South Carolina complexes. 

"This is a matter of enormous public interest, and we believe
the public should not be barred from meetings on the subject
unless a significant national security concern is being
discussed," Spratt and Dingell wrote Tuesday in a letter to Dale
Klein, NRC chairman. 

Dingell is senior Democrat on the House Energy Committee;
Spratt, senior Democrat on the House Budget Committee, has
closely tracked the mounting costs of cleanup efforts at the
Savannah River Site. 

David McIntyre, an NRC spokesman, said the agency had
reluctantly agreed to close the meeting at the insistence of the
Energy Department. 

"Our preference is for open meetings, and the vast majority of
the ones we've had have been public," McIntyre said. "DOE has
always wanted them to be closed to the public." 

Megan Barnett, a DOE spokeswoman, said the meeting with the NRC
had not been rescheduled. 

"At the end of the day, we are focused on moving forward and
getting the waste cleanup work of this department safely done to
best carry out our mission and the provisions of the law,"
Barnett said. "We're committed to the safe storage and ultimate
disposal of tank waste, working in consultation with our federal
and state partners." 

The power struggle between the Energy Department and the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission is rooted in DOE efforts to change the
classification of some atomic weapons waste in Idaho and South
Carolina from "high level" to "low level." 

After a federal judge ruled against the initiative, Congress
passed a measure in October 2004 aimed at reaching a compromise.
In exchange for authorizing DOE to reclassify the waste,
lawmakers gave the NRC new powers to monitor such actions. 

Since then, the NRC has tried to assert its new authority while
the Energy Department has endeavored to limit it. Each agency
points to different sections of the 2004 law to support its
position. 

The waste at both sites is the byproduct of nuclear weapons
production during the Cold War. It is only a fraction of the
total waste at the Idaho and Savannah River sites, two of 15
weapons complexes around the country. 

At the Idaho site, there are 15 smaller tanks holding about 3.4
million gallons of waste. At the Savannah site, the disputed
waste totals more than 60 million gallons in 49 giant tanks,
some as large as 85 feet by 34 feet. 

Geoff Fettus, a staff attorney for the Natural Resources Defense
Council, said the Energy Department has long tried to keep its
nuclear disposal processes secret. 

"DOE seemingly doe not want public scrutiny of its cleanup
decisions," Fettus said. 

Fettus' environmental organization filed the federal lawsuit
that eventually led to the 2004 law, which in turn has sparked
the power struggle between the Energy Department and the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission.

© 2006 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 79 Tri-City Herald: 300 Area cleanup ahead of schedule 

Published Monday, September 4th, 2006 

By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer 

The part of the Hanford nuclear reservation most visible to the
public is starting to look a little bare. 

Only a few buildings remain in the north end of the 300 Area
north of Richland. Look down Ginko Street in the 300 Area, and
concrete pads are all that remain of many of the gray buildings
that once stood there. Today, you can see the Columbia River at
the end of the street. 

When Washington Closure Hanford took over work to clean up
Hanford along the Columbia River a year ago, it told the
Department of Energy it would have 21 buildings demolished at
the site by the end of this month. 

Already 62 are down and the contractor expects to have 70
demolished by the end of the month. A little more than half of
those are in the 300 Area. 

"We messed up in a very good way," said John Fulton, director of
decontamination and demolition. 

At the end of last week, work was under way to take down the 305
Building with a set of giant shears on the end of an excavator
arm. The 300 Area was used for research and to fabricate the
uranium fuel for Hanford reactors. 

For more than 40 years, Hanford produced plutonium for the
nation's nuclear weapons program. Now, the effort is to
dismantle and clean up the site. 

At the 305 Building and another building attached to it, the
graphite blocks for Hanford B and C reactors were tested in
small reactors in underground pits about 12 feet deep, 20 feet
wide and 80 or 90 feet long. 

The pits will be excavated and backfilled once no radioactive
contamination can be found in the remaining soil. 

"This is the glamorous part," Fulton said as the hydraulic
shears cut through metal. "But it takes a small army of people
to get us to where we can do this." 

Hazardous materials have to be removed or otherwise controlled.
That means using a spray fixative to control beryllium dust and
removing lighting that could contain PCBs, and thermometer
controls that could contain mercury. 

Much of the hazardous materials workers encounter is asbestos
used in piping or on the outside of buildings. 

For that, Washington Closure Hanford has the Murbach family,
part of a crew of nine Hanford Atomic Metal Trades Council
insulators. 

It's a family tradition. The Murbach's grandfather Walt
Richardson worked as an insulator at Hanford, then then their
father, Robert Murbach, started working there as an insulator
around 1963 or 1964. 

"They put it on and we took it down," Joe Inions said. 

Sons Tom, Jim and Scott Murbach and Inions, Jim Murbach's
brother-in-law, are insulators working on Washington Closure
Hanford projects. Another brother, Gary Murbach, is an insulator
at Hanford's Plutonium Finishing Plant but sometimes is borrowed
for Washington Closure Hanford work. 

"Bob kind of introduced us to the trade," Inions said. 

Gary Murbach once found his grandfather's signature on the
insulation of a hot water tank in Hanford's 200 West Area that
was being decommissioned. 

In fact, the third generation of insulators is now taking down
insulation some of them worked on earlier as buildings are
prepared for destruction. 

"It's kind of sad to see it go -- all the hard work that's gone
into building them, all the craftsmanship," Scott Murbach said. 

Part of the reason Washington Closure Hanford has been able to
pull so far ahead of schedule since it began work in late August
2005 is because of a conservative proposal -- drawn up two years
earlier -- that called for work to ramp up slowly. 

The contractor also has adopted some new approaches and tried
new equipment, including some from other nuclear cleanup sites
like Rocky Flats in Colorado. For instance, insulators who often
work in the rafters use one-person lifts that are maneuverable
and can get into tight spaces instead of ladders and
scaffolding. 

"But the biggest factor is the people," Fulton said. 

He credits Hanford workers with a strong work ethic and strong
skills as the main reason Washington Closure Hanford is ahead of
schedule. He also credits experienced supervisors and bosses
with good job planning and sequencing skills. 

© 2006 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press &Other Wire Services
*****************************************************************
 80 Tri-City Herald: Hanford fire marshal retires at 81 

Published Tuesday, September 5th, 2006 

By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer 

Shortly after atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, Japan, helping end World War II, Navy aircraft gunner
Rex Jordan flew over the sites. 

It seems fitting that 61 years later he would be working at the
Hanford nuclear site, where plutonium for the bomb dropped on
Nagasaki was produced. 

Jordan, 81, was the oldest active full-time employee for Fluor
Hanford when he retired as fire marshal this summer. 

He's already back at work at the nuclear reservation, agreeing
to devote up to 30 hours a week to special projects for the
Hanford fire department. 

The firefighting and prevention profession "gets to be an
avocation," he said. "You just don't walk away from it." 

He did retire once before. In 1991 he was living on a golf
course in Nevada, but thinking that he wanted something more to
do. 

With his background in firefighting and prevention, he didn't
have to look for work. Former Hanford Fire Chief Don Good came
looking for him and asked him if he would be interested in
preparing fire department training and serving as lead
instructor at Hanford. He was promoted to fire marshal when the
position was later vacant. 

"Rex completed one or two full careers before coming to us 15
years ago," said Rich Slocum, a Fluor vice president, when
Jordan's retirement was recognized at a Zero Accident Council
meeting. 

That includes appointments as state fire marshal for Washington
from 1969-77 and Nevada from 1987-91. 

Jordan started working in a grocery store at age 15 for 7 cents
an hour in the Olympia area and seemed to have a start on a
promising business career. He used his earnings to buy a Model A
coupe for $50. He drove it for a year and sold it for $55 so he
could buy a convertible. 

But World War II had begun and he enlisted in the Navy, hoping
for an aviation assignment. During his last months at home, he
wanted a job with more free time than the grocery store offered.
He found work at the Todd Shipyards in Tacoma, where his father
worked, allowing them to car pool at a time when gas was
rationed. He spent three months there as a fire inspector and
firefighter before leaving for the Navy. 

"It didn't last long, but it was a start" to his career in fire
protection, he said. 

In the war, he served as a member of a patrol bombing squadron
flying from Okinawa in the Pacific. 

After the war he went to college on the G.I. bill, sold
insurance and worked every-other-day shifts as a firefighter at
Fort Lewis. Selling insurance was dull, he said, but he liked
the activity at the military installation. Fort Lewis had 10
fire stations and he kept busy training, maintaining equipment
and going on building and area tours to be prepared in case of a
fire. 

He later would work as a fire officer at the Sand Point Naval
Air Station, assistant fire chief and fire marshal at McChord
Air Force Base, Lacey fire chief, Puyallup fire chief and
executive editor of Fire Command magazine for the National Fire
Protection Association. 

That experience, plus his work as a state fire marshal for two
states, has not only led to a national reputation, but given him
broad perspective and breadth of knowledge of fire work, said
Bob Kirk, Hanford Fire Department chief. 

"He's incredibly bright, fast on his feet," Kirk said. "He knows
codes. He knows the business so well." 

As Hanford fire marshal, Jordan was responsible for prevention
and fire investigation work. He developed permitting for "hot
processes" such as welding and grinding at the site and a
chemical inventory system that allows firefighters to know
what's in each building, Kirk said. 

"You've guided us, coached us and sometimes prodded us," said
Fluor Hanford president Ron Gallagher when Jordan's retirement
was recognized. "We are all a lot better off thanks to you." 

The worst of Jordan's career has been the tragedies he's
witnessed, Jordan said. Plane crashes and children caught in
fires were particularly difficult, he said. 

But he's also seen many advances in firefighting effectiveness
and safety. 

Firetrucks have better engines and brakes, pumps have double the
capacity they did when he began and materials are more resistant
to chemicals. He's also pleased with the improved skills and
training firefighters have today, from rescue techniques to
hazardous materials specialties. 

Firefighters also are in better shape, he said. When he started,
the physical requirement for a paid firefighter was that he be 5
feet 8 inches tall so he could reach the ladders on the
firetruck, he said. 

In his retirement, he plans to play some golf and spend more
times with his children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. 

But he still has plenty of energy left to work. He credits his
good health, despite some heart procedures, to quitting smoking
and drinking years ago and lots of walking, particularly on the
golf course. 

© 2006 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press &Other Wire Services
  


*****************************************************************
 81 Courier Journal: Paducah seeks nuclear-recycling grant 

  courier-journal.com > Local News >      

Tuesday, September 5, 2006    

Building of plant would be studied 

Associated Press
 
PADUCAH, Ky. -- Paducah is vying for one of four $5 million
federal grants to study building a recycling plant for spent
nuclear fuel, a project officials call one of the biggest in 50
years. 

The U.S. Department of Energy is awarding the grants to study
whether temporary storage and a demonstration project for
recycling spent nuclear fuel rods can be built. Paducah
officials hope the area's long history with the Paducah Gaseous
Diffusion Plant, which enriches uranium for commercial use,
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 using nuclear power.
Bids are due by Thursday, and the Energy Department will choose
grant winners next month. At least seven other states also are
competing for the project. 

Paxton said the project ultimately would create more than 5,000
construction jobs and employ more than 1,000. 

"Our objective is to maximize jobs," said Steve Penrod, general
manager of the Paducah plant and a member of the task force
that's working to get money for the project. "But if we don't
get the grant, we're done." 

The project consists of a consolidated fuel-treatment center,
owned and run by the Energy Department 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 other competing communities. 

Penrod said community support will be "a huge factor" in whether
Paducah gets the grant and that public meetings will be held
over zoning and having highly radioactive materials in an
earthquake zone. 

Paxton agreed. 

"The people will have to ultimately decide whether this is
something they want to have in their community," Paxton said. 


Copyright 2005 The Courier-Journal.
*****************************************************************
 82 El Paso Times: Carlsbad at forefront of nuclear business

Article Launched: 09/05/2006 12:00:00 AM MDT  

Times staff, wire reports  

  CARLSBAD -- Mayor Bob Forrest says a plant to reprocess highly
radioactive fuel from nuclear reactors could bring in as many as
5,000 jobs.

Southern New Mexico civic leaders are looking at attracting a
reprocessing plant to an area that is seeing increasing nuclear
business.

Carlsbad is home to the Department of Energy's Waste Isolation
Pilot Plant, which has become an economic mainstay of Eddy
County. WIPP, which opened in 1999, buries defense
program-related radioactive waste in vast underground salt beds.

In addition, ground was broken last week near Eunice in adjacent
Lea County for a $1.5 million uranium enrichment plant, which
will make fuel for commercial nuclear reactors.

Now, the cities of Carlsbad and Hobbs and Eddy and Lea counties
have formed an alliance to compete for the reprocessing plant.
Forrest said the alliance has retained two nuclear companies,
Washington Group International and Areva, to help.

Communities in Idaho, South Carolina and Tennessee that also
have major nuclear facilities are expected to bid for the
project as well.

The DOE announced last month it would allocate four $5 million 
grants for site studies for the project, part of the Bush 
administration's effort to expand nuclear power generation. Bids 
are due Thursday.

Environmental groups have said they will fight efforts to build
a reprocessing plant in New Mexico, arguing that it would be a
potentially dangerous technological boondoggle.

Don Hancock, head of the nuclear waste safety project for the
Albuquerque-based Southwest Information and Research Center,
said he expects most New Mexicans will oppose bringing in large
amounts of highly radioactive waste.

"They shouldn't be doing this," he said.

Copyright 2006 by the El Paso Times and MediaNews Group and/or
wire services and suppliers.
*****************************************************************
 83 KnoxNews: Security contracts decision expected soon

DOE amends deal for IT services for the 21st time

By FRANK MUNGER, munger@knews.com 

September 4, 2006

OAK RIDGE - Federal officials may be close to announcing the 
winner of new security contracts in Oak Ridge, with a total value 
of $500 million, but a contract for information technology 
services has been delayed for the umpteenth time. 

"We have finished our evaluations and are working with 
headquarters (in Washington, D.C.) to finalize our decision," 
Steven Wyatt, a spokesman for the National Nuclear Security 
Administration in Oak Ridge, said of the security contracts. 

Two security contracts - one for protective services at the Y-12 
nuclear weapons plant, another for the rest of the Department of 
Energy's Oak Ridge facilities - will be awarded to a single 
winner under the government's procurement plan. 

Wackenhut Services currently holds the Oak Ridge security
contracts and submitted a bid to retain them. Federal officials
have refused to name other companies that submitted bids or to
specify how many bids were received. 

The original plan was to announce a winner of the security
contracts in February, but that plan has been modified a couple
of times, most recently to award the contracts by the end of
fiscal 2006 - Sept. 30. 

Wyatt said that is still the expectation, although he said
things can change. 

Meanwhile, DOE has amended its procurement plan for the IT
services contract - valued at about $125 million - for the 21st
time. It's been nearly two years since companies submitted
proposals for the contract to provide services to DOE's Oak
Ridge contractors, such as UT-Battelle at Oak Ridge National
Laboratory and BWXT at the Y-12 National Security Complex. 

The latest amendment extends DOE's decision-making period to 632
days, with an award date postponed until Sept. 29. 

John Shewairy, public affairs manager for DOE's office, offered
no explanation for the latest delay. 

"When we have an announcement, we'll make it," he said. 

The Department of Energy has come under fire for its tardiness
in contracting practices, including criticism in a recent report
by the Government Accountability Office. 

DOE recently began a second contract offering for information
technology services in Oak Ridge. This one is for services to
DOE's federal operations. 

Shewairy declined to place a dollar value on the new contract
but said the existing one - held by NOLA Computer Services - is
worth about $11 million. 

DOE has not specified a date for awarding the smaller IT
contract, and Shewairy wouldn't comment. "No further info
available at this time," he said in an e-mail response to
questions. 

Senior writer Frank Munger may be reached at 865-342-6329.

© 2006 - Knoxville News Sentinel
*****************************************************************
 84 RedOrbit: Paducah Bids for Another Boom - A Location for Nuclear 
Fuel Recycling is to Be Selected Next June.
 
DOE has said it may or may not build the reactor at the same
site as the fuel-treatment center, Penrod said. 

 A $1.8 billion, 250-megawatt test burner reactor, operational
by 2014. 

The project is a key part of the Bush administration's Global
Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) to recycle nuclear fuel for
use worldwide, foster a new generation of domestic power plants
and greatly reduce nuclear waste. 

Task force members say the Paducah area is ideal because it has
a 54-year history in the nuclear industry, starting when the
plant opened in 1952. Besides having plenty of land, the site
has four switchyards, cooling towers and steam, water and sewer
plants. 

Operator USEC Inc. will gradually close the factory starting in
2011 in favor of a more cost-efficient gas centrifuge plant in
Piketon, Ohio. Penrod said it is uncertain how long the closure
will take, or how many jobs will be retained. 

"We think the GNEP could be a bridge to transition the work
force," 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, he said. 

Another strength is that the new project will be a heavy user of
robotics, and the training for that would come from the planned
Emerging Technology Center at West Kentucky Community &Technical
College, Penrod said. "It's a perfect marriage."

 Penrod said the plant, which is the only uranium-enrichment
factory left in the United States, and related cleanup firms
have a total of about 2,000 trained workers. 

Other experienced personnel are at the Honeywell plant at
Metropolis, Ill., the nation's only manufacturer of uranium
hexafluoride, a raw product for the Paducah plant. 

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. 

Honeywell's involvement gives Paducah strong congressional
support from two states through Sens. Richard Durbin from
Illinois and Mitch McConnell and Jim Bunning from Kentucky,
Paxton said. McConnell, R-Louisville, said he spoke with Deputy
Energy Secretary Clay Sell last spring about Paducah's desire to
compete for the project. 

U.S. Rep. Ed Whitfield, R-Hopkinsville, has endorsed Paducah as
the leading candidate, Paxton said, and Gov. Ernie Fletcher has
been briefed. 

So far, DOE has requested only $250 million next fiscal year for
the program, but Martin and Penrod believe it stands a good
chance of lasting from one Congress and one administration to
the next. That's because of the possibilities of recycling
nuclear fuel, greatly eliminating waste and allowing smaller
nations to have nuclear power without "the fear of separating
out the plutonium" for use in weaponry, Penrod said. The GNEP
program would not strip plutonium from other highly radioactive
materials. 

Growing nations like China and India plan to build many nuclear
power plants as global power consumption doubles by 2030, Martin
said. "There are 30 reactors being built in the world today and
60 more on the drawing board."

 Demonstrating community support will be "a huge factor" in
Paducah's chances, Penrod said, adding that at least two public
meetings will be held should the grant money be received.
Potentially controversial issues like handling highly
radioactive materials and being in an earthquake zone will be
addressed. 

"The people will have to ultimately decide whether this is
something they want to have in their community or not," Paxton
said. 

Paducah's competitors 

Portsmouth, Ohio -- Closed uranium enrichment plant, site of
planned gas centrifuge factory. 

Oak Ridge, Tenn. -- Closed uranium enrichment plant, home of
Manhattan Project, wealth of nuclear scientists and facilities. 

Aiken, S.C. -- Spent nuclear fuel storage and processing site,
closed nuclear weapons materials plant. 

Lovington, N.M. -- New uranium enrichment plant being built to
compete with USEC. 

Idaho Falls, Idaho -- Department of Energy's Idaho National
Laboratory for basic research and development and environmental
innovations. 

Benton County, Wash. -- Former Hanford Engineer Works, which
produced plutonium for nuclear weapons; now the world's largest
environmental cleanup project. 

Burlington, Kan. -- Westinghouse nuclear plant producing enough
electricity for 800,000 homes. 

Paducah Uranium Plant Asset Utilization Task Force 

Mayor Bill Paxton 

Judge-Executive Danny Orazine 

Jimmy Hodges, former Department of Energy site manager 

Howard Pulley, former Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant general
manager 

Steve Penrod, current USEC plant general manager 

Charlie Martin, USEC director of field services/chairman of the
Kentucky Fish and Wildlife Commission 

Henry Hodges, executive director of the Purchase Area
Development District 

Ray Dailey, NewPage director of environmental affairs 

Marty Reibold and Cathy Hickey, CH2M Hill representatives. 

----- 

Copyright (c) 2006, The Paducah Sun, Ky. 
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News. 
For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 
800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or 
write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 
303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. 

*****************************************************************
 85 Knox News: Oak Ridge reactor startup delayed

More tests lined up as scientists around world grow impatient

By FRANK MUNGER, munger@knews.com 

September 4, 2006

OAK RIDGE - Oak Ridge National Laboratory's nuclear reactor was 
shut down in January for installation of a cold source - a dandy 
device that refrigerates liquid hydrogen to slow the movement of 
neutrons for experiments - and to allow work on other research 
equipment. 

The 40-year-old High Flux Isotope Reactor is supposed to be 
better than ever when it returns to action. 

However, the reactor's restart, expected to take place this 
summer, has been delayed until at least December, and the impacts 
are being felt around the world. 

"We certainly need the neutrons. We're waiting for them rather 
desperately to resume our work," said Stephen Nagler, director of 
ORNL's Center for Neutron Scattering. 

Scientists use the nuclear reactor for studies that explore the 
properties and structure of materials, and they're inquiring 
about the reactor's status on a daily basis. As Nagler noted, 
"They're extremely impatient." 

Herb Mook, a senior researcher at ORNL, spent most of his summer 
in Europe attending scientific meetings and visiting other 
research facilities. He said he'd rather have stayed at home and 
done experiments. 

"It's been a long time. I'm getting tired of sitting around and 
having to visit other places," Mook said. 

At recent stops in Prague and Dresden, Berlin and London, the 
first question from his colleagues was always the same: When will 
the HFIR be back in business? 

"Scientists are on edge," Mook said. "They want to get some 
neutrons. But, on the other hand, we want it to work right." 

Getting it right is what's important to Kelly Beierschmitt, 
ORNL's director of nuclear operations. 

The reactor's restart schedule has been pushed back to allow more 
time for work on the instrumentation and controls for the cold 
source and new experimental equipment, Beierschmitt said. 
Everything must work as a system, he said, and that includes the 
cryogen plant that feeds the cold source. 

The plan is to "go cold" this month, testing the new equipment 
without actually operating the reactor, the ORNL official said. 

"We've got a heater test assembly, which mimics the reactor 
heat," he said. 

The cold source will be tested initially with liquid helium, 
which is safer to handle, and then shifted to liquid hydrogen 
after the system has met all the necessary approvals. 

If all goes well, the High Flux Isotope Reactor will be started 
for real before the end of the year. The target date is Dec. 19. 

Meanwhile, the downtime is playing havoc with some of the 
reactor's customers. 

Ripple effects In addition to the neutron-scattering experiments, 
the Oak Ridge reactor is used for production of radioisotopes for 
medical and industrial applications. 

"The delay with the HFIR certainly has impacted us some with the 
medical isotopes," said Rocky Cline, business manager for the 
lab's isotopes distribution program. 

The extended shutdown created an urgent demand for tungsten-188, 
a radioisotope that's being tested in clinical trials around the 
globe. The radioactive material, which decays to form 
rhenium-188, has shown great promise as a cancer treatment and 
for relief of bone pain. 

Russ Knapp, who manages ORNL's nuclear medicine research
program, said rhenium's high-energy beta radiation is being
tested as a therapy for liver and lung cancers, as well as acute
myeloid leukemia and rheumatoid arthritis. 

Although ORNL produced a larger-than-normal amount of
tungsten-188 in the reactor's last cycle, that stockpile is now
depleted, according to Jerry Klein, the isotopes program
manager. Therefore, the lab is purchasing some tungsten-188 from
Russia to fill the void, he said. 

"We have an order in for a batch from the SM-3 reactor at
Dimitrovgrad," Klein said. "That's expected to arrive in
October." 

Research hospitals in the United States and abroad - from
Heidelberg, Germany, to Freemantle, Australia - purchase the
radiation generators from the Oak Ridge lab. "We have several
orders pending until we get the new material," Cline said. "It
disturbs their schedules also because they have to schedule
their patients." 

Officials said they hope the Russian material will suffice until
the Oak Ridge reactor is restarted. 

"We're crossing our fingers," Klein said of the December
start-up plan for the High Flux Isotope Reactor. But he said the
lab's isotopes group is also making contingency plans in case
the reactor start-up is delayed further. 

There are other potential shortages in the radioisotope
supplies, but most of those are in "trivial" quantities, Klein
said. 

Some of the lab's bigger sellers, such as californium-252 and
nickel-63, have significantly long half-lives and are available
in sufficient quantities, he said. 

Safety first Beierschmitt said he wants to restart the reactor
sooner rather than later, but he said if there's any question
about the function of new systems or the operational safety, the
reactor will be shut down immediately. 

He was director of ORNL's environment, safety and health
organization before taking over the nuclear operations earlier
this year. He recently visited research facilities in Europe,
including the Institut Laue-Langevin at Grenoble, France, to
talk with officials about how they've managed the start-up of
research reactors or changing operations. 

"We want to understand the problems they've had and maybe learn
from that," he said. 

Initial operations at the Oak Ridge reactor will be a
"commissioning cycle" to test new equipment, Beierschmitt said.
"We will not go to full power immediately. We will go to low
power and hold and get data." 

Much of the attention is to make sure there are no leaks in any
of the piping associated with the cold source's refrigeration
system and various components. A pinhole leak in a helium gas
line was identified and repaired during one of the installation
checks, Beierschmitt said. 

The system circulates helium refrigerant through a heat
exchanger that cools a "continuously circulating" loop of
hydrogen that travels through the neutron beam tube, according
to information provided by the laboratory. Both the hydrogen and
refrigerating helium systems require vacuum insulation, as well
as instruments that "sniff" for any leaks into the vacuum
cavity, the lab said. 

"Hydrogen is flammable when mixed with air," the ORNL statement
said. "So great care has been taken to prevent this mixture from
occurring." 

Senior writer Frank Munger may be reached at 865-342-6329.

© 2006 - Knoxville News Sentinel
*****************************************************************
 86 lamonitor.com: Internal report faults LANL, subcontractor for accident 

The Online News Source for Los Alamos
 
ROGER SNODGRASS, , Monitor Assistant Editor

A little before 9:42 a.m. on June 28, a serious accident
occurred at Technical Area 50 on a construction site near the
Radioactive Liquid Waste Treatment Facility at Los Alamos
National Laboratory. 
The accident involved rigging and hoisting a 1500-pound section
of a metal staircase that then slipped out of a careless noose
and fell 55 feet, severely injuring one ironworker and
lacerating another.

Six minutes later, the first ambulance arrived, followed minutes
after by additional heavy rescue and ambulance units, dispatched
by the Los Alamos Fire Department. 

According to an internal LANL investigation report, dated Aug.
1, the best part of the entire scenario of the accident was the
emergency response, carried out by the fire department and two
laboratory units, site access and control by Protection
Technology Los Alamos, and the emergency room at Los Alamos
Medical Center.

By contrast, the prologue and first chapters of the story, as
recreated by an investigative team appointed the next day by
laboratory Director Michael Anastasio, were about how three
tiers of contractors assembled the pieces of an accident waiting
to happen and how LANL effectively let it occur. 
The internal report, dated Aug. 1, was obtained this week by the
Monitor.

In five categories - contract management, project management,
work authorization, integrated safety management, and the
immediate task of rigging and hoisting - the report found
multiple failures, errors of judgment, mistaken shortcuts and
inadequate preparations. In the end, the breakdown of a
dangerous and obviously vulnerable hoisting technique fractured
a man's pelvis and broke his leg in three places. 
After he was transported to Denver in critical stable condition,
he underwent a series of surgeries, remained in intensive care
for two days, and in the hospital, nursing home and a
rehabilitation center for three weeks. He will now spend 6-12
months in rehabilitation, according to the report, but as of a
month ago, it was "too early to ascertain the degree of his
medical impairment from the injuries."

Examples of the root causes included the fact that requirements
for a fully implemented health and safety program in the
original contract with the Austin Company were not adequately
communicated and enforced as the responsibilities passed down to
the second tier subcontractor PACE nor to the company hired to
remove the old staircase, Magnum.

Further, it turned out the Magnum had a blemished safety record
including a fatality and federal citations from 2003. Many
indicators of unsafe behaviors were ignored, the report
emphasized.

"The Investigative Team determined that the work habits of
Magnum employees were on display for a sufficient period of time
to have allowed a focused observer to see the unsafe behaviors,"
the report stated.

Although the accident would not have happened if the employees
had not stood under a suspended load, Magnum employees told
investigators that they considered that risk "a normal and
necessary part of their daily work."

The Austin Company, the original prime contractor filed for
bankruptcy at about the same time in September 2005 that its
contract with LANL was terminated.

LANL was forced to assume a role as the general contractor, a
job that it was not fully prepared to handle.

"The lab had to act as the general contractor because we changed
in the middle of the contract," said Barb Stine, deputy
associate director for project management, one of the
investigators on the team. "This was probably the most
complicated project that we have acted in this role."

DOE was criticized by Project on Government Oversight, the
Washington public-interest group, among others for exempting the
laboratory from a full-scale independent accident investigation,
known as a Type B investigation, normally required under these
circumstances.

Stine said the internal investigation was conducted like a Type
B investigation.

"We use the same level of formality," she said, "but we use
internal people."

In this case, the investigative team included the Principal
Assistant Director for Operations, Jan Van Proyen, as chair. A
subject matter expert was brought in from Savannah River.

She said from her perspective the main lesson learned was, "to
make sure we communicate to all workers and subcontractors that
safety is at least as important as work performance, to make
sure that safety is first and that they are looking out for
their own safety and the safety of their colleagues."

"We're here. It's our job. We have the contract. We're
responsible," said Dick Watkins, Associate Director for
Environment, Safety, Health and Quality, in a telephone
interview Thursday. "We came aboard knowing what we need to do.
It's a journey, because you don't change things overnight."

Watkins is a 30-year veteran in the field who has handled
related roles at DOE facilities at Pantex, Idaho Environmental
and Engineering and the Pacific Northwest national laboratories.

"Our goal is zero injuries," he said. Based on his experience,
he said, it takes about 18 months to turn the culture around, to
invest employees with a full sense of their personal
responsibility.

Near-miss safety incidents continued to occur at the laboratory
during August.

The Defense Nuclear Facility Safety Board reported that a
subcontractor contacted a 480-volt power line while drilling
into a motor control center, on Aug. 11, but escaped injury

"There are apparent parallel issues between this event, the June
30th (dropped staircase) event and prior LANL accidents and
near-misses," the site representative observed.

On Aug. 14, another near-miss was reported from Technical Area
48, site of the Radiochemistry Laboratory, when a full size
gas-cylinder fell off a delivery truck and nearly hit a cart of
chemicals and three bystanders.

A safety initiative developed last year began to stall during
the contract transition. The DNFSB reported, "LANL is now
exploring whether and how to change the Integrated Work
Management system."

LANL's new emphasis will be on employee responsibility, Watkins
said.

"That doesn't mean they have to design safety programs," he
said. "But they will have a say and be driving our programs."

Asked about the formal work safety program that was not
adequately followed during the hoisting incident, Watkins said
employees would decide what to call the new safety program.

"We're reviewing things like that right now," he said.

Printed Sept. 3, 2006   

  © 2003 Los Alamos Monitor All Rights Reserved.   
*****************************************************************
 87 KnoxNews: Bechtel Jacobs, steelworkers sign pact

By News Sentinel staff 

September 5, 2006

OAK RIDGE — Bechtel Jacobs Co., the government’s cleanup 
contractor in Oak Ridge, has reached a contract agreement with 
the United Steelworkers union. 

Union workers ratified the contract last week. The four-year 
contract covers about 230 workers at Bechtel Jacobs and 
subcontractors, Shaw International Corp., URS Corp. and WESKEM. 

The workers are involved in the cleanup of the East Tennessee 
Technology Park, the former K-25 uranium-enrichment plant. 

According to information released by Bechtel Jacobs, the new 
contract includes a 4.5 percent wage increase on Oct. 1, followed 
by annual increases of 4 percent, and 3.5 percent. Limited 
negotiations will be reopened in 2009 to discuss wages for the 
final year of the agreement. 

The union agreed to pay a higher percentage of the health care 
costs, and the new contract allows for workers to work a 
four-day, 10-hour schedule when "deemed appropriate," Bechtel 
Jacobs said. 

In a prepared statement released to the news media, Bechtel 
Jacobs president Mike Hughes said, "It is extremely important to 
us that the United Steelworkers know that they are an important 
part of our overall team and that without their support we cannot 
successfully and safely accomplish this challenging mission." 

Dennis Pennington, president of the Steelworkers Local 9-288, 
said, "This settlement remains consistent with our belief that 
everyone — the union, company and the DOE — can benefit when the 
interests of the workers are successfully addressed in a 
non-adversarial environment."

2006, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.
*****************************************************************
 88 KnoxNews: Remnants of experiments at reactor transferred

Sodium shields, which caused chemical fire in 2004, moved to 
safer place

By FRANK MUNGER, munger@knews.com 

September 5, 2006                                                               

OAK RIDGE - Getting rid of sodium shields - a legacy of old 
experiments at an Oak Ridge reactor - has proved troublesome, as 
evidenced by a May 2004 chemical fire that required an evacuation 
of residents near the K-25 site and scuttled plans to recycle the 
reactive materials. 

The U.S. Department of Energy still hasn't decided what to do 
with the sodium shields, which are encased in aluminum containers 
that look like big black pills and weigh thousands of pounds. 

In the meantime, DOE's environmental manager, Bechtel Jacobs Co., 
has moved some of the behemoths indoors to protect them from the 
weather and to reduce the chance of any kind of unexpected 
reaction. Several of the sodium "pills" had been sitting outside 
since the 2004 accident, which was officially labeled an 
"exothermic reaction." 

Workers used large cranes and "down-enders" - frames used to 
stabilize the containers - to lower the sodium shields to a 
horizontal position, where they could be put into position for a 
forklift to move them into a nearby building, K-1313-F. 

The project was accomplished Aug. 25-26. 

"All the shields were successfully and safely moved," said
Dennis Hill, a spokesman for Bechtel Jacobs. "The shields will
remain in safe storage until an acceptable disposition path is
identified by DOE." 

The sodium shields were used many years ago for tests at Oak
Ridge National Laboratory's Tower Shielding Reactor. The
experiments were conducted to evaluate shielding materials for
nuclear reactors. 

As part of the environmental cleanup program at ORNL, DOE in
2003 hired contractors - Toxco, in partnership with Commodore
Advanced Sciences - to recycle the sodium shields of various
sizes. Some of them were moved to a work site west of the old
K-25 uranium-enrichment plant. 

After the May 2004 accident, that project was abandoned, and DOE
reassigned responsibility for the shields to Bechtel Jacobs. 

The remnants of the sodium involved in the accident were placed
in drums, packaged and shipped to a treatment facility in
Illinois, Hill said. 

About four large shields - each 11 feet in diameter and of
varying thicknesses - were transported recently to the indoor
storage facility, the Bechtel Jacobs spokesman said. In
addition, about 40 smaller shields were moved there, he said. 

More than 20 reactor shields remain at ORNL, including one large
spherical lithium-hydride shield that weighs eight tons, Hill
said. 

Senior writer Frank Munger may be reached at 865-342-6329.

© 2006 - Knoxville News Sentinel
*****************************************************************
 89 UPI: Lack of skilled workers hampers cleanup
     
United Press International - NewsTrack - 

9/4/2006 4:48:00 PM -0400                                                                                                                       
 
RICHLAND, Wash., Sept. 4 (UPI) -- A declining nuclear workforce
is complicating efforts to deal with radioactive waste
threatening Washington State's Columbia River. 

The massive project to clean up a Cold War-era nuclear weapons
plant has met with one setback after another since it started
more than a decade ago, the Los Angeles Times reports. 

Academic experts agree the U.S. is losing its expertise in
nuclear engineering, which is one of the reasons there have been
so many problems with the project. 

Known as the Hanford site, it is the most polluted in North
America and a top clean-up priority of the U.S. Energy
Department. 

Unfortunately efforts to build a sophisticated waste treatment
complex to transform the radioactive sludge have foundered
because of engineering mistakes and runaway costs. 

Lead contractor Bechtel Corp, the third firm brought in to do
the job, says it underestimated how much U.S. expertise in
nuclear engineering has atrophied and how difficult it is to
find people with the required skills.

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