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NUCLEAR POLICY
1 Xinhua: 1 mln kw nuke power project to be launched in E China
2 AFP: Rice defends Mideast policy after criticism by Baker report -
3 Xinhua: Iran starts installation of 3,000 centrifuges
4 Xinhua: Iran warns UN against adoption of sanction resolution
5 Reuters: Iran sets conditions for talks with U.S. on Iraq
6 Alarab: Olmert calls for dramatic measures against Iran
7 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: IRI N-program not a threat - Bahrain
8 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Expands Uranium Enrichment Program
9 AFP: Major UN powers to debate how to punish Iran over nuclear work
10 AFP: Iran warns on nuclear cooperation if sanctions imposed -
11 AFP: Iran ready to help US withdrawal from Iraq
12 AFP: Israeli PM calls for 'drastic measures' on Iran's nuclear progr
13 Los Angeles Times: Iran looks like the winner of the Iraq war -
14 UPI: Olmert won't rule out attack on Iran
15 UPI: Revised U.N. resolution on Iran drafted
16 YONHAP NEWS: New U.N. chief expresses willingness to visit Pyongyang
17 YONHAP NEWS: (LEAD) China proposing Dec. 16 for six-party talks - so
18 washingtonpost.com: Six-Party Negotiations On N. Korea to Resume -
19 AFP: Japan objects new nuke talks without NKorea compromise -
20 Guardian Unlimited: N.Korean Nuclear Talks to Resume Dec. 18
21 AFP: Six-party NKorea talks 'around December 16' - US
22 US: San Luis Obispo Tribune: Boxer, now in majority, sees things dif
23 AFP: India's media rejoices at end of "nuclear winter" -
24 AFP: Indian doubters unswayed after US passes nuclear bill
25 US: UPI: U.S. Congress closes Republican era
26 BBC NEWS: From Our Own Correspondent | The orphans of Sumqayit
27 Daily Times: Leading News Resource of Pakistan
28 Sunday Herald: Tridents Footprint
29 AFP: Former Israeli envoy slams Gates over nuclear 'disclosure' -
30 Guardian Unlimited: Russians to Probe Ex-Spy's Death in U.K.
31 UPI: Gates causes worry in Israel
NUCLEAR REACTORS
32 [NYTr] US Congress Approves Bush Nuke Deal w/India
33 US: [NYTr] India Nuke Deal: Congress Didn't Give Bush-Rice Everythin
34 AFP: Bush welcomes US Congress's approval of Indo-US nuclear deal -
35 US: Tucson Citizen: Emergency system woes at Phoenix nuke plant
36 BBC NEWS | South Asia: US approves Indian nuclear deal
37 US: ST L D: UM drops plans to double capacity of its nuclear reactor
38 washingtonpost.com: House Backs Nuclear Sales to India -
39 Guardian Unlimited: Indian, U.S. Officials Welcome Nuke Deal
40 Guardian Unlimited: Arab States Study Shared Nuclear Program
41 Xinhua: Gulf nations eye nuclear energy amid tenser situation
42 US: toledoblade.com: Problems with Fermi generators passed over
43 US: AFP: Hitachi to build nuclear energy factory in North America
44 montgomeryadvertiser.com: 'Nuclear future' not desirable
45 Los Angeles Times: Congress OKs nuclear pact with India -
46 AFP: US Congress approves landmark Indian nuclear deal
47 US: KSL: Ads Promote Nuclear Power
NUCLEAR SECURITY
48 Guardian Unlimited: Blunt truths about Britain's security from an ol
49 London Times: Kenny Farquharson: Nuclear weapons? Yes please -
50 US: ENS: Bill to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism Introduced in Congress
51 New Scientist: Nuclear submarines - the ultimate insurance? -
52 US: Guardian Unlimited: Met Police in radioactivity scare
53 ITAR-TASS: Topol-M mobile missiles supplement Russia nuclear forces
54 AFP: Pakistan tests nuclear-capable ballistic missile -
55 Scotsman.com: Fox launches nuclear fight
NUCLEAR SAFETY
56 Russian businessman named as radiation source in murder case
57 Spy's assassins may have poisoned themselves
58 [NYTr] All the Poisoned Spies: Close Encounters of the Deadly Kind
59 Independent: Russian businessman named as radiation source in murder
60 AFP: Russian poisoning saga widens to Germany
61 AFP: Two police officers test positive for low levels of radiation c
62 AFP: Germany finds polonium trail as Litvinenko widow blames Moscow
63 US: Chicago Tribune: Isotope project back on track |
64 FT.com: Scientists draw lessons from polonium scare
65 Guardian Unlimited: Spy murder: new radiation find
66 Guardian Unlimited: Radiation Found in Germany Linked to Spy
67 Los Angeles Times: Russia's poisoned democracy -
68 Los Angeles Times: A German twist in poisoning trail -
69 Salt Lake Tribune: Russia again: Spy's poisoning should refocus Amer
70 UPI: EcoWellness: Polonium's dangerous kin
71 London Times: Radiation trail leads to Hamburg -
NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
72 US: News Target: Rocket fuel from military planes poisoning U.S. wat
73 US: Gilroy Dispatch: Olin Corp. Says Cleanup Plan is Too Expensive
74 RGJ.com: New energy chair endorses Yucca Mountain
75 Sunday Herald: Conflict of interest over nuclear waste
76 Deutsche Welle: Environmentalists Angry About Air Transport of Nucle
PEACE
US DEPT. OF ENERGY
77 The Herald: Plan to cut nuclear stockpile ‘a hollow gesture’
78 Tri-City Herald: Richland mayor to take nuclear holiday
79 Tri-City Herald: TRIDEC says Hanford pacts do too little for Tri-Cit
80 Detroit Free Press: Fermi fixes equipment in wake of 2 violations
81 Carlsbad Current-Argus: Mayor wants city on trigger production list
82 Inside Bay Area: Lab bids bomb material adieu
83 Detroit Free Press: Fermi makes fixes after 2 violations
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FULL NEWS STORIES
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1 Xinhua: 1 mln kw nuke power project to be launched in E China
www.chinaview.cn 2006-12-09 16:05:26
BEIJING, Dec. 9 (Xinhua) -- China is likely to launch a
nuclear power project with one-million-kilowatt capacity in the
eastern province of Zhejiang, an official with the China
National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) said.
The project is proposed by the CNNC, a state-owned nuclear
energy conglomerate, to build a domestically manufactured
nuclear plant of such a massive capacity.
Actually it is part of an extension project of the Qinshan
nuclear power plant in east China's Zhejiang Province.
Experts have approved a feasibility report and the central
government is examining the project proposal, safety analysis of
plant location, and evaluation report of the impact on
environment.
"It takes us six years and more 200 million yuan (25 million
U.S. dollars) to design the project," said CNNC General Manager
Kang Rixin.
China began developing its nuclear power industry in the
late 1980s to help ease the energy bottleneck. In March this
year, the State Council adopted a strategy to promote nuclear
power capacity.
The goal is to make the nation's total installed capacity of
nuclear power reach 40 million kilowatts by 2020.
Editor: Fiona Zhu
*****************************************************************
2 AFP: Rice defends Mideast policy after criticism by Baker report -
Fri Dec 8, 6:46 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - US Secretary of State Condeleezza Rice
defended her handling of Middle East policy, rejecting criticism
in the just released Iraq" /> IraqStudy Group report of her
refusal to bring Syria" /> Syriaand Iran" /> Iraninto talks on
ending the chaos in Iraq.
Rice did echo the report's recommendation for a renewed push to
break the stalemate in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process,
though she declined to accept the panel's argument that such an
initiative was linked to efforts to resolve the Iraq crisis.
Speaking publicly for the first time since the high-level policy
panel released its scathing report Tuesday on the situation in
Iraq, Rice said: "None of us see the situation in Iraq as
favorable, we all see it as extremely difficult".
But the top US diplomat put the blame for the ongoing turmoil
not on administration missteps but on Al-Qaeda and other
extremists stoking sectarian violence to "undermine the
democratic developments" in the country.
She rebuffed the bipartisan panel's strong recommendation to
open direct talks with both Iran and Syria, who are widely
accused of backing anti-US insurgents and rival Sunni and Shia
extremists involved in bloodletting.
"As to Iran and Syria, let's remember that the issue here is
behavior," said Rice during a joint press conference with German
Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
"In both Syria and Iran, you have states that have chosen to be
on the side of the divide that is fueling extremism, not
moderation, and that is the essential problem," she said.
"The fact is that if they want to help stabilize Iraq, they
will," without needing compensation or prompting from the United
States, she said.
Rice reiterated that Washington was willing to break a 27-year
rupture in direct formal contacts with Iran, but only if Tehran
complies with UN demands that it freeze nuclear enrichment and
reprocessing the US and others say are aimed at producing
nuclear weapons.
"I will repeat what I've said many times: I will meet my Iranian
counterpart under those conditions any place, any time,
anywhere.
"That's the offer. It's still on the table."
On the Israeli-Palestinian front, Rice said she saw a possible
"opening to move that process forward" following implementation
of a ceasefire between the two sides late last month in the Gaza
Strip" /> Gaza Strip.
"My own commitment, and that of the President (George W. Bush),
to trying to resolve this conflict is very deep and very
strong," she said.
Describing the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside
Israel" /> Israelas the "centerpiece" of Bush administration
policy, Rice said: "I think we can begin to deliver on that
promise, and my own commitment to doing so is very, very
strong."
Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
3 Xinhua: Iran starts installation of 3,000 centrifuges
www.chinaview.cn 2006-12-09 20:00:15
Special report: Iran Nuclear Crisis
[Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Saturday that
his country had started the installation of 3,000 centrifuges]
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (File Photo)
TEHRAN, Dec. 9 (Xinhua) -- Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad said on Saturday that his country had started the
installation of 3,000 centrifuges in uranium enrichment
facilities in central Iran, the local Fars news agency reported.
"Iran has started installing 3,000 centrifuges," Ahmadinejad
was quoted as saying.
The president described the measure as a long stride towards
production of nuclear fuel for the country's nuclear power
plants and facilities, saying Iran would "produce its own
nuclear fuel once we install 60,000 centrifuges."
Uranium enrichment activities, which Iran claimed for
generating electricity while the West feared might be used to
make nuclear weapons, were the main sticking point in the
nuclear standoff between Iran and the international community.
Iran, the world's fourth largest oil exporter, says it needs
to enrich uranium as a peaceful, alternative energy source and
has the right to do so under the nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty (NPT).
However, the West has accused Iran of trying to produce
nuclear weapons under a civilian cover, a charge denied by
Tehran.
Due to Iran's resistance to suspend uranium enrichment, the
European countries and the U.S. have been seeking a UN Security
Council resolution to impose sanctions on Tehran.
Related:
Diplomatic efforts on Iran's nuclear issue run into deadlock
TEHRAN, Dec. 7 (Xinhua) -- The controversial and highly
sensitive Iranian nuclear issue, coming in the spotlight for
more than three years, was stuck at a standstill by the end of
2006 due to the hardline stance pursued by both Tehran and the
Western countries. <<
U.S. rejects talks with Iran until it suspends uranium
enrichment
WASHINGTON, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- The White House said on
Wednesday that it will have no talks with Iran until the Islamic
country suspends uranium enrichment. <<
Iran vows to continue nuclear activities
TEHRAN, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad said on Wednesday that Tehran is determined to
continue its nuclear activities despite looming UN sanctions
against the Islamic republic, the official IRNA news agency
reported. <<
Six powers fail to agree on Iran sanctions
BEIJING, Dec. 6 (Xinhuanet) -- Six powers failed on Tuesday
to agree a draft U.N. resolution to punish Iran for defying
demands to halt its nuclear program, according to the French
Foreign Ministry. <<
Editor: Lu Hui
*****************************************************************
4 Xinhua: Iran warns UN against adoption of sanction resolution
www.chinaview.cn 2006-12-10 23:30:02
Special report: Iran Nuclear Crisis
TEHRAN, Dec. 10 (Xinhua) -- Iran on Sunday warned the UN
Security Council against adoption of any resolution that would
impose sanctions on the Islamic republic, threatening to drop
out cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA).
"If the UN Security Council adopts a resolution against the
Islamic Republic of Iran, Tehran will revise its policies on the
level of its cooperation with the IAEA," Iranian Foreign
Ministry spokesman Mohammad-Ali Hosseini told his weekly press
briefing.
He also criticized Britain, France and Germany for choosing
a "very wrong course" in dealing with Iran on its nuclear issue.
"The three European countries have taken up a very wrong
course and we hope that they revise their policies and return to
the talks," Hosseini said.
Britain, France and Germany circulated on Friday afternoon
to UN Security Council members a revised draft resolution which
imposed sanctions on Iran for its refusal to suspend uranium
enrichment.
"The present draft is more in line with the U.S. interfering
policies," Hosseini said.
According to a copy of the draft resolution obtained by
Xinhua, it urges Iran to suspend all enrichment activities as
well as all heavy water related projects.
It bars Iran from importing or exporting key materials and
technology related to its nuclear and ballistic missile
programs. Meanwhile, the text, drafted by the three European
countries, also imposes financial and travel restriction on
persons and agencies involved.
However, the new text is still far from Russia's
expectation, a UN diplomat said on condition of anonymity
because of the sensitivity of the issue.
"Without further revision, it is really hard for Russia to
endorse it," he added.
The six major powers -- the United States, Russia, China and
the three EU countries -- are set to resume talks on the text on
the table Monday morning, according to the diplomat, who
disclosed that the West is pushing hard for the adoption of the
draft resolution before the Christmas.
Editor: Mu Xuequan
*****************************************************************
5 Reuters: Iran sets conditions for talks with U.S. on Iraq
Sat 9 Dec 2006 7:57 AM ET
By Mohammed Abbas
MANAMA, Dec 9 (Reuters) - Iran will only hold direct talks with
the United States on Iraq if Washington announces plans to pull
its troops out, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said
on Saturday.
Mottaki was responding to this week's U.S. Iraq Study Group
report, which recommended Washington should directly engage with
Iran and Syria to try to stabilise Iraq.
U.S. President George W. Bush has said he will not talk to Iran
unless it suspends its nuclear programme.
On the question of direct talks, "the first and most essential
step ... is the United States announce they have decided to
withdraw from Iraq", Mottaki told reporters at a security
conference in Bahrain.
"Iran is ready to help the administration to withdraw its
troops from Iraq," he said, but his country did not "see such
political will yet in the United States".
Washington has said it will keeps its troops in Iraq as long as
the Iraqi government wants.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said last month his
country's forces would be able to assume security command by
June 2007 -- which would allow the United States to start
withdrawing troops.
U.S. and Iraqi officials at the conference were sceptical about
any Iranian help for U.S. troop withdrawal.
"I don't know how Iran can help the United States withdraw from
Iraq peacefully. They should define that ... What about the
Iraqis? Nobody asked them," said Saadoun Dulaimi, adviser to
Maliki.
Washington blames Iran and Syria for stirring up conflict in
Iraq nearly four years after the U.S.-led invasion toppled
Saddam Hussein.
"The biggest help Iran can make is to stop what they're doing
in Iraq right now," a senior U.S. military official, who did not
want to be named, told Reuters.
"The Iranians are good chess players ... and they are going to
find a way to prolong this effort and help discredit the United
States ... to gain more influence and possibly work on their
nuclear programme," he said.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has suggested Tehran
would demand some payback in return for any help on Iraq,
probably over its nuclear programme, which the West fears could
include nuclear weapons. Iran says it has no intention of
acquiring nuclear weapons.
Asked if Iran would ask for concessions if it helped the U.S.
withdraw, Mottaki said: "When they announce they have decided to
withdraw from Iraq, then we will explain how the region can help
the Americans to withdraw."
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari said Syria or Iran would
demand payback for any help they offer the United States.
"No country will come and offer you good services free of
charge. What's the price?" he said.
© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.
*****************************************************************
6 Alarab: Olmert calls for dramatic measures against Iran
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called for more dramatic
measures to be taken against Iran and declined to rule out a
military attack against Tehran in an interview with Germany's
Spiegel magazine.
Olmert criticised the international community's hesitation in
dealing with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
The West fears Iran's nuclear programme is aimed at developing
nuclear weapons but Tehran denies this.
"I am anything but happy," Olmert was quoted as saying in an
interview released ahead of publication on Sunday.
"I expect significantly more dramatic steps to be taken. Here is
a leader who says openly that it is his aim to wipe Israel off
the map. Israel is a member of the United Nations."
"That someone says such a thing these days is absolutely
criminal."
When asked if he would not rule out a military strike against
Tehran, Olmert replied: "I rule nothing out." Olmert repeated he
was prepared to withdraw from the majority of settlements in the
occupied West Bank.
"A prime minister should not make promises that he cannot keep
but my message is clear: I am prepared to give up regions. That
means that I am ready to evacuate territories. You know how hard
this is," he said.
"And we are ready to do this in such a way that would allow the
Palestinians in the West Bank to have a contiguous state. I am
not making any conditions which would not be made by the
international community."
Olmert is due to visit Germany on Tuesday and will hold a joint
press conference with Chancellor Angela Merkel.
-Reuters-
Alarab Online. © 2005 All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
7 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: IRI N-program not a threat - Bahrain
2006/12/09
Bahrain's King Sheikh Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa Friday in Manama
said that regional states do not view Iran's peaceful nuclear
activities as a threat to the region.
During a meeting with Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr
Mottaki, he said the Islamic Republic of Iran has the right to
access nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.
He said a secure Islamic Republic of Iran was crucial to
guaranteeing security for the Persian Gulf region, and stressed
the need to guarantee Iran's security.
Expressing satisfaction with the current level of Tehran-Manama
relations, the Iranian foreign minister said the ground has been
paved for further expansion of bilateral political, economic,
security and defense cooperation.
As to recent developments in Iraq, he said the Baker-Hamilton
report proves the fact that Washington cannot "stay the course"
but should revise its policies.
Stressing the need for withdrawal of foreign forces from Iraq,
Mottaki said Iraqis are capable of restoring security to their
country provided occupying forces leave the war-torn state.
On the continuing standoff in Lebanon, he said any decision
should come from the Lebanese people themselves and should be
respected.
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
*****************************************************************
8 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Expands Uranium Enrichment Program
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Saturday December 9, 2006 12:46 PM
AP Photo VAH102
By ALI AKBAR DAREINI
Associated Press Writer
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran has begun installing 3,000 centrifuges
in an expansion of its uranium enrichment program that brings
the Islamic nation significantly closer to large-scale
production of nuclear fuel, the president said Saturday.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also claimed that the
international community was caving in to Tehran's demands to
continue its nuclear program.
``Resistance of the Iranian nation in the past year forced them
to retreat tens of steps over the Iran's nuclear issue,'' the
semi-official Fars agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying. Fars is
considered to be close to Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards.
Iran has been locked in a standoff with the West over its
nuclear program. The U.S. alleges that Tehran is secretly trying
to develop atomic weapons, but Iran contends its program is for
peaceful purposes including generating electricity.
Iran said earlier this year that it intends to move toward
large-scale uranium enrichment involving 3,000 centrifuges by
late 2006, and then expand the program to 54,000 centrifuges,
which spin uranium gas into enriched material to produce nuclear
fuel.
Uranium enrichment at low levels can be used to produce fuel to
generate electricity but at higher levels can be use to make
atomic bombs.
``We have started installing 3,000 centrifuges'' at a plant in
central Iran, Ahmadinejad told a group of students in Tehran on
Saturday, according to Fars. He said the move, at a plant in
central Iran, marks the ``first step toward industrial
production.
``We will be able to produce our nuclear fuel once we install
60,000 centrifuges,'' he said.
Iranian nuclear officials say 54,000 centrifuges would produce
enough enriched uranium to fuel a 1,000-megawatt reactor, such
as the one Iran has built with Russian assistance at Bushehr,
southern Iran. The reactor is due to come on stream next year.
The United States and its European allies have been seeking a
U.N. Security Council resolution to impose sanctions on Tehran
for refusing to suspend enrichment. But Russia and China have
opposed tough action advocated by the U.S., Britain, Germany and
France and the Security Council appears to have reached a
standstill on the issue.
Iran announced for the first time in February that it had
enriched uranium using 164 centrifuges, and it confirmed last
month that it has stepped up uranium enrichment by injecting gas
into a second network of centrifuges.
``When we built these centrifuges, they (the U.S. and its
European allies) said Iran won't be able to assemble them. ...
Now, a month has passed since we launched the second cascade,''
Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying.issue.
Ahmadinejad boasted last month that Iran would soon celebrate,
probably in February, the completion of its nuclear fuel cycle
program - from mining uranium ore to enriching it.
On Friday, key European nations circulated a revised U.N.
resolution that narrowed the proposed sanctions on Iran in a bid
to win Russian and Chinese support. The new draft would ban the
supply of materials and technology that could contribute to
Iran's program, but it gave much greater detail on what items
would be prohibited.
Iran has said it will never give up its right under the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty to enrich uranium and produce nuclear
fuel. Officials have said they plan to generate 20,000 megawatts
of electricity through nuclear energy in the next two decade
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
9 AFP: Major UN powers to debate how to punish Iran over nuclear work
by Gerard Aziakou Sun Dec 10, 4:47 AM ET
UNITED NATIONS (AFP) - The debate over how to punish Iran" />
Iranfor its refusal to suspend sensitive nuclear fuel work will
resume in New York Monday with Western diplomats confident that
the UN Security Council will approve targeted sanctions against
Tehran by Christmas.
Ambassadors of the Security Council's five permanent members --
Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States -- plus
Germany are to meet informally Monday morning to consider a
revised sanctions draft resolution, which was circulated Friday
to the full 15-member Council, diplomats said.
Following inconclusive talks among senior officials of the six
powers in Paris last Tuesday, the sponsors slightly amended the
draft to try to make it more palatable to Russia and China. The
two countries have opposed previous proposals as too tough and
unlikely to persuade Tehran to comply with UN demands that it
halt all uranium enrichment activities.
The latest European text, a copy of which was obtained by AFP,
would mandate a ban on trade with Iran on goods related to its
nuclear and ballistic missile programs and impose financial and
travel restrictions on persons and entities involved.
Specifically targeted are "all items, materials, goods and
equipment which could contribute to Iran's enrichment-related,
reprocessing or heavy water related activities, or to the
development of nuclear weapon delivery systems."
Russia and China -- which have close economic and energy ties
with Iran -- have been trying to water down the European draft,
while the United States has sought to harden it.
Despite Russian objections, the new text includes a list of a
dozen Iranian officials directly involved in their country's
nuclear and ballistic programs who would be targeted for UN
sanctions.
At Moscow's insistence, it however drops all references to
Iran's first nuclear power station, a one-billion-dollar
facility which Russia is helping to build in Bushehr.
Bushehr had been mentioned by name in previous drafts but had
been exempted from sanctions although there was some ambiguity
about delivery of nuclear fuel to the plant.
The draft does not include a US demand for an explicit
characterization of the Iranian nuclear program as "a threat to
international peace and security".
It states that Iran "shall without further delay suspend
proliferation sensitive nuclear activities, in particular all
enrichment-related reprocessing activities, including research
and development, and work on all heavy water related projects,
including the construction of a research reactor moderated by
heavy water."
The draft asks the head of the Vienna-based International Atomic
Energy Agency" /> International Atomic Energy Agency(IAEA) to
submit a report within 60 days on whether Iran has fully
complied with the demands.
It says implementation of the sanctions would be suspended if
Iran halts uranium enrichment but warns that failure to heed the
UN demands would lead to "further appropriate measures", a
reference to economic sanctions.
Monday's informal talks at ambassador level come less than a
week after political directors of foreign ministries of the six
nations failed in Paris to agree on the scope of the proposed
sanctions.
But in Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack
said Friday that the six had now narrowed their differences over
the terms of the draft.
"The sense is the differences are narrowing," he told reporters
after US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice" /> Condoleezza
Ricediscussed the issue here Friday with Russian Security
Council Secretary Igor Ivanov.
But a diplomat close to the negotiations here said tough
bargaining lies ahead, notably to win over the Russians who are
keen on maintaining a dialogue with the Islamic Republic.
US and European officials however said they were hopeful that an
acceptable text would be agreed by Christmas.
"The goal is still unanimity (on a text) but not at any price,"
a Western diplomat said.
Meanwhile Iran, which ignored an August 31 deadline to freeze
uranium enrichment, has said it will not give up its nuclear
program even if faced with UN sanctions.
Uranium enrichment is used to make nuclear fuel as well as the
core of an atom bomb. Iran insists it only wants to enrich
uranium to generate electricity.
Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
10 AFP: Iran warns on nuclear cooperation if sanctions imposed -
Sun Dec 10, 3:04 AM
TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran has warned it will revise its cooperation
with the UN nuclear watchdog if the UN Security Council imposes
sanctions against Tehran over its contested nuclear programme.
"Imposing sanctions and adopting a resolution will as a result
prompt a reaction from Iran, and in this case we will revise our
cooperation with the agency," foreign ministry spokesman
Mohammad Ali Hosseini told reporters.
Hosseini did not specify what cooperation with the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) could be hit, but such a move would
most likely restrict UN inspections of Iran's atomic facilities.
"Our decision will depend on the decision" of the five permanent
Security Council members plus Germany, which have been examining
Iran's nuclear case.
Hosseini said Russia was seeking to tone down the text of the
draft resolution, which he said bore the marks of the
"interventionist policies of the United States".
He criticised the three major European powers for "choosing a
wrong path... I hope they will change their policy and return to
a policy of negotiation."
The six major powers were to resume talks in New York on Monday
on proposed targeted UN sanctions against Tehran over its
refusal to halt uranium enrichment.
The sanctions would bar trade with Iran in goods related to its
ballistic missile programme and nuclear industry, and impose
financial and travel restrictions on people and entities
involved.
The six powers have been trying to thrash out agreement on the
text for weeks, with Russia and China -- which have strong
economic interests in Iran -- seeking to water down the
European-proposed draft.
Iran vehemently rejects US charges that it is seeking to make a
nuclear weapon, saying it has every right to the full nuclear
fuel cycle in order to supply civilian energy.
Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
11 AFP: Iran ready to help US withdrawal from Iraq
by Christian Chaise Sat Dec 9, 6:41 AM ET
MANAMA (AFP) - Iran" /> Iranis ready under certain circumstances
to help the United States withdraw its troops from neighbouring
Iraq" /> Iraq, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki has said.
"If the United States changes its attitude, the Islamic
Republic of Iran is ready to help this administration" to
withdraw its troops from Iraq, Mottaki told a Gulf security
conference in Bahrain, the home base of the US Fifth Fleet.
"The key to solve Iraq's problems is the withdrawal of foreign
forces from Iraq," he said Saturday, adding that "the United
States should help themselves before anybody else".
"When they have said they have decided to withdraw from Iraq,
then we will explain how the region can help," Mottaki said.
"The essential thing is to have a realistic picture of the
current situation in Iraq."
Opening a dialogue with Iran and its regional ally Syria" />
Syriawas one of the key recommendations of a bipartisan panel
set up to review US policy in Iraq after three and a half years
of escalating conflict.
The Iraq Study Group, co-chaired by former secretary of state
James Baker, recommended Wednesday that Washington hold direct
talks with Iran and Syria -- until now a diplomatic red line for
an administration that has long branded the two states part of
an "axis of evil."
"Given the ability of Iran and Syria to influence events within
Iraq and their interest in avoiding chaos in Iraq, the United
States should try to engage them constructively," said the
report by the 10-member panel of veteran Washington insiders.
But Mottaki said the report was "half of the truth, not all" and
that "changing the policy is not enough".
"We do believe there are so many other steps that should be
taken by the Americans" before talks are held.
"First, and most essential, is announcing they have decided to
withdraw from Iraq," Mottaki said, adding that "we don't see the
political will in the United States yet."
President George W. Bush" /> President George W. Bushsaid
Thursday that Iran and Syria must stop helping extremists and
undertake to help Iraq's fledgling government before any talks.
"If people come to the table to discuss Iraq, they need to come
understanding their responsibilities to not fund terrorists, to
help this young democracy survive, to help with the economics of
the country," he said after talks with British Prime Minister
Tony Blair" /> Tony Blair.
"And if people are not committed, if Syria and Iran is not
committed to that concept, then they shouldn't bother to show
up," said Bush, who also ruled out direct talks with Iran unless
it verifiably freezes sensitive nuclear work.
Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
12 AFP: Israeli PM calls for 'drastic measures' on Iran's nuclear program -
Sat Dec 9, 3:47 PM ET
BERLIN (AFP) - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called on the
international community to take "much more drastic measures"
regarding Iran" /> 's nuclear activities, while Israel" /> would
keep all options open towards Tehran, including military force.
Olmert made the comments in an interview in German weekly Der
Spiegel, to be published Monday, in which he was asked about a
"hesistant" international response to Iranian President Mahmud
Ahmadinejad.
"I am waiting for much more drastic actions to be taken," he
said, according to an advance copy of the interview.
With visits to Berlin and Rome planned next week, the Israeli
leader said he wanted "to speak about effective measures which
can be accepted by the international community."
In order "to stop the Iranian danger," Olmert said "nothing is
excluded", including a military attack.
As for possible direct talks between the United States and Iran,
he said: "Anything done to prevent Iran from developing nuclear
weapons is a step in the right direction."
Israel and the US accuse Iran of using its civil nuclear program
as a cover for secretly developing weapons, which Tehran denies.
For his part, Ahmadinejad has had strong words about the Jewish
state, saying his goal is to "wipe" Israel off the map.
Iran has refused demands by the UN Security Council to suspend
its program of enriching uranium which can be used to fuel
nuclear energy but also to develop atomic weapons.
Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
13 Los Angeles Times: Iran looks like the winner of the Iraq war -
10:38 PM PST, December 10, 2006
The Islamic Republic's clout in the region, confirmed by the
Iraq Study Group, could cost the United States.
By Alissa J. Rubin, Times Staff Writer
PARIS The report issued last week by the blue-ribbon Iraq
Study Group provides fresh proof of Iran's strengthened hand in
the Middle East since the U.S.-led invasion: It mentions the
Islamic Republic more than 50 times and makes clear that the
U.S. will have to seek Iran's help for any resolution.
"The report told the Iranians, You are mighty now in the region
and in Iraq. The Iranians feel now they are untouchable," said
Mustafa Alani, director of security and terrorism studies at the
Gulf Research Center, an independent think tank in Dubai, United
Arab Emirates.
The Bush administration no longer has much leverage to stop Iran
from pursuing uranium enrichment, diplomats and analysts said.
And the price of cooperation, Alani said, will be very high.
"They are looking for a grand bargain that includes the nuclear
issue, recognition of their influence and position in Iraq, and
their position in the balance of power in the region," he said.
Far from spreading democracy through the region, the Iraq war
has strengthened a theocracy in which unelected religious
figures make many of the crucial decisions.
"So far, Iran won the Iraq war," said George Perkovich, the vice
president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace. "They gained the most by far."
He said the U.S. hand was already weak on the nuclear issue
because of Russia's reluctance to go along with sanctions
against the Islamic Republic. But the report makes clear that
Iran has substantial leverage in any negotiation, he said,
because of Iran's importance in helping to quell the civil war
in Iraq. "We have to deal with reality," Perkovich said.
Israel views the situation with alarm. "The idea was to make
Iraq a partner in the moderate Arab camp. Instead, it has come
under the influence of Iran, a state that calls for Israel's
destruction," said Ephraim Sneh, Israel's deputy defense
minister.
Underpinning Iran's increased clout are the U.S. failures in
Iraq a state with a Shiite Muslim majority, among whom Iran
has long exercised influence and Tehran's deft diplomacy
around the nuclear issue. In a region dominated by Sunni Muslim
governments, Shiite-ruled Iran has set itself up as a leader in
the confrontation between Islam and the West.
Western diplomats are reluctant to describe Iran as a victor but
concede that for the moment, at least, it looks that way.
"Iran won the first round," said a senior Western diplomat in
an Arab state. "But there is a long way to go, and if the U.S.
leaves Iraq and other countries in the region come in Saudi,
Syria Iran's position could weaken."
Since Iran was reported to the U.N. Security Council nearly a
year ago for failure to comply with the United Nations' nuclear
inspections, the Islamic Republic has undertaken a major
lobbying campaign in the undeveloped world, which includes many
Muslim countries, aimed at shoring up support for its nuclear
program.
Iranian officials have framed the Security Council action as a
scheme engineered by the West to stifle the progress of less
developed countries, and they have encouraged countries to
assert their nuclear rights. Signatories of the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty are guaranteed the right to pursue the
nuclear fuel cycle for peaceful purposes such as generating
electricity as long as they forswear nuclear weapons.
Iran says it seeks nuclear technology for civilian purposes such
as electricity and medical treatment, but because it kept its
program secret for 18 years and there are many questions about
aspects of its atomic research, Western countries believe its
goal is to gain the capability to make nuclear bombs.
In what has been described as a battle between nuclear haves and
have-nots, Iran has altered the debate terms to the point that a
number of countries that hadn't previously expressed interested
in nuclear technology are now considering it among them Egypt,
Algeria, Nigeria and Indonesia.
"We want to protect our right to civilian nuclear energy," said
an African nation's ambassador to the International Atomic
Energy Agency.
Iran has also tried to identify itself with the Muslim Middle
East, rather than allowing the ethnic and religious differences
between Iran and other Mideast countries to dominate the debate
as they have in the past. In addition to being Shiite-ruled in a
region dominated by Sunnis, Iran is Persian; nearly all other
Mideast countries are Arab.
Analysts emphasized, far more than the report's authors did,
that Iran's strengthened position means the nation is unlikely
to see any reason to help the U.S. unless Washington meets
Iran's demands.
And, they said, Iran will put such a high price on cooperation
that it will be impossible for Washington to agree.
"Iran certainly would want recognition of their enrichment
program, what they claim to be their rights to uranium
enrichment…. They would also want lifting of [existing] U.S.
sanctions, particularly on investment in oil and gas," said Mark
Fitzpatrick, a senior analyst at the International Institute for
Strategic Studies in London.
*****************************************************************
14 UPI: Olmert won't rule out attack on Iran
United Press International - NewsTrack -
12/9/2006 4:59:00 PM -0500
JERUSALEM, Dec. 9 (UPI) -- Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert
says he cannot rule out an attack against Iran, which much of
the world believes is trying to develop a nuclear weapon.
Olmert said Iran's repeated threats to destroy Israel are
"absolutely criminal."
The prime minister's comments are contained in an interview to
be published in Der Spiegel magazine Sunday, ahead of Olmert's
planned meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, The
Jerusalem Post said.
On Friday, Olmert reportedly told Russian President Vladimir
Putin that the U.N. Security Council should sanction Iran if it
continues to ignore demands to halt its nuclear development
program.
Olmert also told Der Spiegel that he is prepared to hand over
large sections of the West Bank to the Palestinians, believing
that will allow a real peace accord.
"A prime minister should not make promises that he cannot keep
but my message is clear: I am prepared to give up regions,"
Olmert said.
© Copyright 2006 United Press International, Inc. All Rights
Reserved.
*****************************************************************
15 UPI: Revised U.N. resolution on Iran drafted
United Press International - NewsTrack -
12/9/2006 6:55:00 AM -0500
PARIS, Dec. 9 (UPI) -- France, Germany and Britain drafted a
new, more narrowly defined proposed U.N. Security Council
resolution aimed to restrain Iran's nuclear efforts.
Talks in Paris among diplomats from the five permanent United
Nations Security Council members and Germany ended with no
agreement, the BBC said Saturday. But diplomats said
negotiations are moving forward and expressed hope of voting on
a resolution by Christmas.
The draft outlines materials Iran would be barred from obtaining
under the threat of U.N. Security Council sanctions, officials
said. It also threatens Iran with unspecified actions if it does
not suspend its uranium enrichment program.
Russia and China, both with financial ties to Iran, said
previous drafts were too restrictive on Iran.
The new draft still would bar countries from supplying materials
and technology that could contribute to Iran's nuclear and
missile programs, officials said, but it details exactly what
items would be prohibited.
The proposal also reportedly retains a travel ban and the freeze
on assets of individuals, companies and organizations involved
with the Iranian programs, a sanction Russia opposed.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad previously threatened to
reconsider relations with countries who support sanctions.
© Copyright 2006 United Press International, Inc. All Rights
Reserved.
*****************************************************************
16 YONHAP NEWS: New U.N. chief expresses willingness to visit Pyongyang
2006/12/09 19:23 KST
BERLIN, Dec. 9 (Yonhap) -- The next U.N. Secretary-General Ban
Ki-moon has expressed a willingness to visit North Korea to
solve Pyongyang's nuclear problem, a German daily said Saturday.
"We need to achieve the denuclearization of the Korean
Peninsula as soon as possible," Ban was quoted as saying in an
interview with Die Welt.
Adding that he is willing to visit Pyongyang, the new U.N. chief
designate said he would fulfill his role in the North Korean
nuclear issue. Sending the secretary-general's special envoy is
one of the options he is considering.
The nuclear issue surrounding North Korea entered a new stage
in early October when the communist state agreed to reopen the
long-stalled six-party talks aimed at nuclear disarmament on the
Korean Peninsula.
Early Saturday, a Seoul diplomatic source, asking not to be
named, said China has made the proposal to each of the other
five members - the two Koreas, the United States, Japan and
Russia - to reopen the negotiating table on Dec. 16. Washington
and Pyongyang have not yet replied.
Ban said he will put the primary focus on the North Korean and
Iranian nuclear problems as well as other issues at hand, such
as Sudan's Darfur conflict, during his five-year term.
The former South Korean foreign minister met with German
Chancellor Angela Merkel and Foreign Minister Frank-Walter
Steinmeier Thursday to ask for German support in the U.N.
activity.
Ban left Berlin for New York Friday and had a press meeting at
the U.N. headquarters with the incumbent U.N. chief Kofi Annan
and former U.S. President Bill Clinton. He plans to meet U.S.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Washington on Monday.
(END)
*****************************************************************
17 YONHAP NEWS: (LEAD) China proposing Dec. 16 for six-party talks - source
2006/12/09 11:36 KST
SEOUL, Dec. 9 (Yonhap) -- China has proposed resuming
six-nation talks over North Korea's nuclear weapons programs on
Dec. 16, a diplomatic source here said Saturday.
The source, asking to remain anonymous, said that China has
made the proposal to each of the other five members of the talks
-- the two Koreas, the United States, Japan and Russia.
Washington and Pyongyang have not yet replied, the source added.
"It's likely that North Korea will agree on the Dec. 16
proposal," the source said. "The U.S. is also deliberating the
matter."
Lead negotiators were in Beijing last week for a series of
bilateral and multilateral meetings aimed at clarifying each
other's intentions. But they parted without setting a date for
the resumption of the talks.
But on Friday, a senior U.S. official in Washington said the
six-party talks could reopen within "the next 10 days or so."
"There is nothing to guarantee," he said, "but if there is a
reconvening of the talks, then you can assume that everybody has
a rational expectation that there would be an outline for some
progress."
The U.S. and other members have repeatedly demanded that North
Korea, which conducted a nuclear test on Oct. 9, take concrete
steps toward nuclear dismantlement before the six-party talks
reopen.
After a year-long boycott, North Korea agreed last month to
come back to the six-nation forum. It did not give a reason for
the unexpected turnaround, but claimed the U.S. agreed to
discuss and resolve the issue of financial sanctions against it.
(END)
*****************************************************************
18 washingtonpost.com: Six-Party Negotiations On N. Korea to Resume -
Talks Have Been Stalled for Over a Year
By Glenn KesslerWashington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, December 9, 2006; Page A16
Six-nation talks on ending North Korea'snuclear program will
begin next Saturday morning in Beijing, two months after
Pyongyang defied international pressure and conducted its first
nuclear test. Such talks have been stalled for more than a year.
"We're going back," Assistant Secretary of State Christopher R.
Hill said in an interview. Hill, the chief U.S. negotiator, said
China, the host of the talks, will make a formal announcement
this weekend. The first session is expected to last a few days,
then take a break before Christmas.
The talks have been stalled in part because of North Korean
pique at a U.S. Treasury Department effort to crack down on
North Korean counterfeiting. The United States has agreed to set
up a working group at the talks to find ways to finalize a
Treasury investigation of a Macau bank, provided North Korea
takes steps to end its illicit activities.
U.S. officials said all sides have agreed that the talks will
seek to implement the joint "statement of principles" issued on
Sept. 19, 2005, which was designed to lay out a negotiating road
map. That statement, which said North Korea would "abandon" its
nuclear programs, is filled with diplomatic ambiguity, with no
clear timeline for when the North would give up its programs, or
how, or in what sequence. The statement said the steps would
take place under the principle of "commitment for commitment,
action for action," but now negotiators must agree on which
steps will take place first.
In talks with the North Koreans, Hill has indicated a clear
sense of urgency in implementing the agreement. Some Asian
diplomats reported that he sought a timeline as short as 18
months, before President Bush completes his term. A U.S.
official said Hill and the North Koreans have discussed in
general terms how long it would take to implement the 2005
statement.
"There was a discussion about getting the September statement
done in a reasonable amount of time," he said. "Eighteen months
would be included in a definition of 'reasonable,' but there
were lots of time frames given out."
The six-party talks, which also include Japan, South Koreaand
Russia, began in 2003, after North Korea restarted a nuclear
reactor in Yongbyon that had been frozen under a 1994 deal and
began to extract weapons-grade plutonium from spent fuel rods.
The Bush administration cut off heavy-fuel deliveries promised
under the deal after it accused Pyongyang of building a
clandestine uranium-enrichment program. Since then the six-party
talks have generally taken place only intermittently and have
generally made little progress.
U.S. officials said Hill, in bilateral talks in Beijing with his
North Korean counterpart on Oct. 31 and Nov. 28, did not offer
any enhanced humanitarian or economic benefits if Pyongyang
agreed to give up its programs. Instead, Hill reiterated
long-standing U.S. proposals, such as joining in providing
energy assistance, offering security assurances, outlining a
path to negotiating a peace treaty to end the Korean War and
normalizing relations.
U.S. officials do not expect North Korea to take any visible
steps at the start of the talks, such as shutting down its
nuclear reactor, but they want to seek evidence that North Korea
is committed to speedy implementation of the 2005 statement.
"They have indicated they are interested in an end to what they
call the U.S. 'hostile policy,' " Hill said. "We made very clear
to them that we don't have a hostile policy to them. We have a
hostile policy to their policies, including and especially their
nuclear policies."
Asian diplomats said China believes that the stage is set for
progress at the talks. Beijing was embarrassed when North Korea,
a longtime client state, gave it only two hours' warning of its
nuclear test, and Chinese officials have been eager to repair
the diplomatic damage.
Many Korea experts, however, increasingly think that North Korea
will never give up its nuclear weapons programs, or at least
that the price for giving them up has increased significantly. A
group of experts recently returned from meetings there and said
they believe that Pyongyang is returning to the talks simply to
placate China and has little interest in giving up its nuclear
programs.
© Copyright 1996- The Washington Post Company | User
*****************************************************************
19 AFP: Japan objects new nuke talks without NKorea compromise -
Sun Dec 10, 2:11 AM ET
TOKYO (AFP) - A key policymaker in Japan's ruling party has said
Tokyo would object to an easy resumption of talks on North Korea"
/> North Korea's nuclear program, warning compromise from
Pyongyang was a prerequisite for dialogue.
"The six-party talks should not resume without careful
consideration," Syoichi Nakagawa, chairman of policy research
council of the Liberal Democratic Party, told a television news
program.
"It's OK if (North Korea) brings something about progress or
contribution to peace. But otherwise, it's no good," Nakagawa
said. "We don't think that resuming talks itself is meaningful."
A senior US State Department official, who wished to remain
anonymous, said on Friday talks could restart in the next 10
days, but stressed this was only a possibility.
China said Saturday it was still continuing its efforts to
reopen the six-way talks, which groups China with North and
South Korea" /> South Korea, Japan, the United States and
Russia.
US negotiator Christopher Hill said on a visit to Beijing last
month he hoped the talks would restart in December.
In the television program, Nakagawa proposed talks without North
Korea if Pyongyang continues refusing to compromise for
resumption of the multilateral dialogue.
"It depends on conditions, but we can first hold five-way talks
or a meeting of Japan, China and the United States, which may be
necessary as a means of pressure," Nakagawa said.
"It is North Korea who will be in trouble when North Korea
dawdles," he added.
North Korea drew international condemnation and UN sanctions
after announcing that it conducted its first-ever atomic bomb
test on October 9. On October 31 it agreed in principle to
resume the six-party talks but no date has been agreed.
Nakagawa also hinted that Japan would take up a row over North
Korea's abductions of its citizens at the planned six-party
talks.
"The US main interest seems nuclear non-proliferation while
China's main goal is abolition of nuclear weapons. In Japan's
case, we have two matters -- nuclear abolition and abduction,"
he said.
"It is important to discuss the abduction issue at the six-way
talks."
North Korea has admitted kidnapping Japanese civilians in the
1970s and 1980s to train its spies and handed over five victims
and their families to Japan in 2002.
Japan believes more kidnap victims are alive and kept under
wraps because they know secrets. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe,
known for his tough stance to North Korea, has sought to
increase pressure on Pyongyang to release all of them.
Japan has repeatedly raised the emotionally charged row in
six-way talks, angering North Korea and irritating China and
South Korea.
Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
20 Guardian Unlimited: N.Korean Nuclear Talks to Resume Dec. 18
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Sunday December 10, 2006 11:46 AM
By KWANG-TAE KIM
Associated Press Writer
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - International talks aimed at ending
North Korea's nuclear weapons program are likely to resume in
the week starting Dec. 18, South Korea's top nuclear envoy said
Sunday.
Chun Yung-woo told The Associated Press that he expects the
talks to resume in the week starting Dec. 18, but that
consultations are still under way and China will announce the
date soon.
In Washington, a senior U.S. official said Saturday the talks
are expected to reconvene Dec. 18 in Beijing and continue for
three to five days. The official spoke on condition of anonymity
because host China has not announced a final schedule.
North Korea has boycotted the talks since November last year,
angered by U.S. financial restrictions imposed because of
Pyongyang's alleged involvement in money laundering and
counterfeiting of dollars.
The parties to the talks - the two Koreas, the U.S., China,
Russia and Japan - have been trying to set a date for the fresh
round of talks. North Korea agreed to a resumption of
negotiations after it tested a nuclear bomb on Oct. 9.
Chun said Seoul hopes to see ``substantial progress toward
implementing the Sept. 19 statement'' in the upcoming nuclear
talks, referring to a breakthrough agreement reached at talks
last year when North Korea agreed to abandon its atomic program
in exchange for security guarantees and aid.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Saturday that any future
nuclear talks must yield ``early and concrete results.''
``We believe it is necessary for North Korea to show concrete
actions toward the abandonment of all nuclear weapons and
existing nuclear programs,'' Abe said.
Last month, the U.S. offered North Korea specific details about
the kind of economic and energy assistance the North would
receive in exchange for shutting down its nuclear arms
facilities. But it remains unclear whether the communist country
has made specific promises for the outcome of the new talks.
In Tokyo, a top Japanese ruling party official warned Sunday
that that his country opposes resuming the nuclear talks unless
Pyongyang is ready to compromise.
``It's fine if North Korea can bring some contribution to peace,
but simply starting talks is not meaningful,'' Shoichi Nakagawa,
chairman of the Liberal Democratic Party's policy research
council, said on a morning talk show carried by public
broadcaster NHK.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
21 AFP: Six-party NKorea talks 'around December 16' - US
Sun Dec 10, 7:31 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Six-party talks on ending North Korea" />
North Korea's nuclear program will resume "around December 16" in
Beijing, the US State Department said.
Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill will lead the US
delegation to the talks "around December 16" in the Chinese
capital, State Department spokeswoman Joanne Moore told AFP.
Moore said she expected the State Department to announce a firm
date on Monday.
Efforts to resume the disarmament talks, which broke off in
November 2005 when Pyonygang walked out in protest at US
financial sanctions, were given renewed urgency when the North
tested an atomic device for the first time October 9.
"At this discussion, we expect that the parties will discuss
ways to implement the September 2005 joint statement," Moore
said.
A senior South Korean government official, speaking on condition
of anonymity, said Sunday: "We are preparing for the talks in
expectations that the next round will open in the week starting
on December 18."
He said host China would announce a fixed talks schedule
shortly.
South Korea" /> South Korea's Yonhap news agency earlier said
China, which had proposed December 16 as a preferred date, was
readjusting the schedule for the talks to reopen either on
December 18 or 19.
The six-party talks include the United States, China, the two
Koreas, Japan and Russia.
Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
22 San Luis Obispo Tribune: Boxer, now in majority, sees things differently
12/10/2006 |
By David Whitney Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON — Barbara Boxer swept into the Senate radio and
television studio, cushioned by her posse of aides. The room was
packed with reporters, cameras and digital recorders all pointed
at her, to hear her talk about — bipartisanship?
It’s another sign of the times.
The liberal California Democrat, who began the 109th
congressional session 23 months ago with such flamboyance that
she alone challenged certifying the 2004 Ohio presidential vote
because of "irregularities" and later stopped just short of
calling Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice a liar at a hearing
on the Iraq war, these days is sounding restrained.
"I really have two major goals," Boxer said as she began to
unveil her agenda as the incoming chair of the Senate
Environmental and Public Works Committee. "They are to protect
the health of the American people and ... to make the
environment a bipartisan issue again on Capitol Hill."
At 66, the third-term senator who spent a decade in the House
before her 1992 election to the upper chamber is suddenly at the
pinnacle of power by virtue of the Democrats’ sweeping victory
in the November elections.
The committee she will head has enormous reach, covering
everything from global warming and clean air to nuclear safety
and flood control.
Boxer has taken nothing off the table.
Air pollution. Safe drinking water. Perchlorate leaching into
the ground from defense plants. Nuclear waste from government
bomb plants. Cleanup of toxic Superfund sites. All could be
subjects of oversight hearings.
The world’s biggest oil companies and polluters, who rarely
faced a tough question in the Republican-controlled Congress,
will have to answer in the Senate to Boxer, one of their biggest
critics.
"She is going to be a very tough chairwoman who’ll do a lot of
things we don’t like," predicted Frank Maisano, an energy
industry lobbyist whose clients include oil refiners and
electricity producers.
"I don’t know how effective she will be. It will be a tough
challenge for her — and for us."
A senator in demand
Boxer, who calls the environment her "signature issue," suddenly
is in hot demand.
"Already I am getting calls from global leaders," Boxer said,
saying the world wants to know if the United States is going to
lift its reluctance to reduce pollutants that contribute to
global warming.
Last week, for example, Boxer met in the afternoon with
California Assembly Speaker Fabian Núńez, D-Los Angeles, to talk
about the state’s global warming initiative, and then was among
a group meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair in the
evening to talk globally.
It’s not just the world stage that has opened in front of her.
As head of the 18-member committee, Boxer will take direct
charge of legislation on Sacramento flood control, long-term
storage of nuclear waste at the former Rancho Seco power plant,
air pollution spreading like fog over the Central Valley and,
her most ambitious priority, making a national model out of the
state’s groundbreaking law to limit greenhouse gases.
For the first time in her Senate career, Boxer is likely to step
out from behind the large shadow cast by the state’s senior
senator, fellow San Francisco Democrat Dianne Feinstein, and
into a spotlight all her own.
Núńez said California will be the winner, particularly on global
warming.
"I am very optimistic because the senator is the best person to
take the leadership on this issue," Núńez said. "This has been
her No. 1 issue for a long time. The fact that she is chairing
the pertinent committee I think is phenomenal."
Environmentalists, for whom Boxer has been a faithful champion
since entering politics as a San Francisco County supervisor
more than three decades ago, are ecstatic.
"Her taking that position will transform that committee from the
pollution protection committee to the environment committee,"
said Frank O’Donnell of Clear Air Watch. "What I anticipate is
that she’ll hold lots of hearings and lay the groundwork for
real action on global warming."
But can Boxer push through the Senate a version of the landmark
California law that calls for a 25 percent reduction in
greenhouse gases by 2020?
"Congress is probably not ready for that," O’Donnell conceded.
"The real challenge will be to make members understand that it’s
a big problem and that California has taken action worthy of
emulation."
Dramatic change
The committee’s outgoing chairman, Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla.,
is a global-warming skeptic. In his last hurrah as chairman,
Inhofe held a hearing last week into how the news media were
whipping up worldwide "hysteria" over the warming phenomenon
that he regards as nothing more than a natural cycle without
human cause.
Inhofe is not alone in his skepticism. And because actions to
curb emissions have regional implications, some of Boxer’s
toughest critics could turn out to be Democrats such as Sen.
Robert Byrd of coal-rich West Virginia and Rep. John Dingell.
Dingell, incoming chair of the House Energy and Commerce
Committee, represents the Detroit area, home to the domestic
auto industry.
At a recent meeting of the Western Business Roundtable in
Colorado, Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, pointed out the
difficulties ahead for Boxer.
"Barbara can do all she wants to do as chairman of the
environment committee," Craig was quoted as saying in Greenwire,
a leading environmental issues publication. "She can jump up and
down. She’s not going to get anywhere without John Dingell. And
she’s not going to get anywhere without 60 senators."
Sixty is the magic number of senators needed to stop a
filibuster and move legislation to a vote.
Boxer’s answer is to move slowly with hearings, steadily
building a case for environmental reforms. Others on the
committee are anxiously awaiting her arrival — even some
Republicans who, unlike Inhofe, believe global warming is real.
"What’s bothered me about the committee is that we get together
to discuss issues, and because of special interests and the
media we don’t listen to each other," said Sen. George
Voinovich, R-Ohio.
Boxer summed up her approach in three words: "Listen, listen,
listen."
But she was careful not to promise results, saying she doesn’t
believe pent-up frustration of Democrats and environmentalists
over what they see as environmental regression during the last
six years of Republican control will put unrealistic pressure on
her to produce reforms.
"When you shine a light of truth on these issues, they take on a
force of their own," Boxer said. "I don’t think people are
expecting too much. I’ve said I will take these issues as far as
I can."
David Whitney covers federal issues for The Tribune in the
McClatchy Co.’s Washington Bureau.
Go to sanluisobispo.com to read recent stories on Sen. Boxer’s
plans.
*****************************************************************
23 AFP: India's media rejoices at end of "nuclear winter" -
Saturday December 9, 06:27 AM
NEW DELHI (AFP) - Indian newspapers have rejoiced after the US
House of Representatives passed landmark legislation allowing
the export of civilian nuclear technology to India for the first
time in 30 years.
"It's a done deal," read the bold headline on the front page of
the Times of India, declaring the main hurdles to the passage of
the deal had been crossed.
The legislation reconciled separate bills adopted by the House
and Senate aimed at implementing a nuclear agreement between
Indian (Advertisement)
[ src=] Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President George W.
Bush in July last year.
Lawmakers passed the legislation by an overwhelming 330-59 votes.
Under the controversial deal, India, a non-signatory to the
nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), will be given access to
civilian nuclear fuel and technology in return for placing its
atomic reactors under global scrutiny.
The legislation is expected to easily clear the Senate later
Saturday before heading to President Bush for his signature at a
White House ceremony Monday.
The Indian Express daily said that the stage was set for ending
India's "nuclear winter", while the Hindustan Times crowed that
"India gets to have its nuclear cake and eat it too."
The last statement was a reference to the final wording of the
agreement, which states that it does not seek to limit India's
military nuclear program.
"The conferees understand that US peaceful cooperation with
India will not be intended to inhibit India's nuclear weapons
program," reads the text, the Hindustan Times' report said.
The new law marks a sea-change in US policy, which barred
nuclear cooperation with India after it conducted its first
nuclear test in 1974.
The United States and India will now have to frame a
comprehensive agreement incorporating all technical elements of
the deal and it has to be passed by the US Congress again.
The agreement includes a set of international safeguards to be
approved by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the global
nuclear watchdog, and to which India must adhere.
The deal also needs the backing of the influential 45-nation
Nuclear Suppliers Group.
AFP
*****************************************************************
24 AFP: Indian doubters unswayed after US passes nuclear bill
by Tripti Lahiri Sun Dec 10, 7:11 AM ET
NEW DELHI (AFP) - Skeptics in India continued to express fears
that a landmark Indo-US civilian nuclear deal passed by the US
Congress will hobble India's strategic military programme.
The law, expected to be signed by US President George W. Bush" />
President George W. BushMonday, allows the export of nuclear fuel
and technology to India for the first time in the more than 30
years since the Asian country first tested a nuclear device.
But Indian critics of the agreement insist that several clauses
of the legislation, which reconciled versions of the law
approved by the US House of Representatives and Senate, remained
too intrusive.
The Asian Age daily on Sunday commented that the "final nuclear
bill not only scoffs at Indian concerns but also infuses more
sting", and highlighted the lack of a guarantee of a fuel supply
over the lifespan of imported reactors as a key problem.
Under the deal announced by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
and Bush in July 2005, India, a non-signatory to the nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), agreed to place its civilian-use
reactors under global scrutiny.
The agreement includes a set of international safeguards to be
approved by the International Atomic Energy Agency" />
International Atomic Energy Agency(IAEA), the global nuclear
watchdog, and to which India must adhere.
But the Asian Age said that the final text appeared to require
monitoring above and beyond that, pointing to a clause asking
for annual estimates on how much uranium India has "mined and
milled."
In a watered-down version of an earlier amendment, the law also
asks for India's participation in US efforts to "dissuade,
isolate, and, if necessary, sanction and contain Iran" /> Iran."
"This clause has been incorporated as a reporting requirement
and will still figure as a perpetual point of pressure,"
political analyst Siddharth Varadarajan wrote in the
left-leaning Hindu newspaper.
Although India has sided with the United States in pressuring
Iran at the IAEA, the energy-hungry Asian giant is also still
eyeing up Iran's huge gas reserves.
A section of the bill that calls for setting up a joint
scientific program to develop non-proliferation safeguards has
also been viewed with alarm by Indian scientists.
"The presence of Section 109 alone must be considered an
absolute deal breaker," said Adinarayana Gopalakrishnan, the
former head of India's Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, in a
report published in The Telegraph.
Gopalakrishnan had said earlier that such a program could allow
for the possibility of gathering information on India's nuclear
weapons activity.
But one analyst said that many of the clauses raising hackles
were contained in a section of the bill that is considered
nonbinding.
The United States and India still have to frame a comprehensive
agreement finalising all technical elements of the deal and it
has to be passed by the US Congress again.
The deal also still requires the endorsement of the influential
45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).
"It's neither a case for euphoria nor for a panic situation.
There is cause for satisfaction," said C. Uday Bhaskar, a
defence analyst with the government-funded Institute for Defence
Studies and Analysis.
"Now we have to go to the next step and work out the fine print
of the 123 (technical agreement) because India's commitment
actually starts from there, not from this bill."
Bhaskar added India's strategic goals now depend not on the
accumulation of large numbers of nuclear weapons -- the thinking
behind the fears that are driving opposition to the deal -- but
access to energy.
"The twentieth century was all about nuclear weapons. The 21st
century is not," said Bhaskar.
"India's ultimate strategic interest is not really the accretion
of more nuclear weapons. Cracking the energy problem is more
urgent for India at this stage."
Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
25 UPI: U.S. Congress closes Republican era
United Press International - NewsTrack -
12/9/2006 10:48:00 AM -0500
WASHINGTON, Dec. 9 (UPI) -- The U.S. Congress ended an era of
Republican rule Saturday, adjourning before dawn after passing
energy, tax and trade legislation.
In a burst of activity, lawmakers approved $38 billion in tax
breaks, normalized trade with Vietnam and opened a large section
of the Gulf of Mexico to oil and gas drilling, The Los Angeles
Times reports.
Congress also passed a stop-gap funding bill to keep the
government running. But because it did not pass a regular
spending bill, Democrats will be forced to deal with leftover
money issues when the 110th Congress convenes Jan. 4.
"It is not just that (the Republicans) turned out the lights --
they took the light bulb," Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., told the
New York Times.
Before adjourning around 4:40 a.m. Saturday, Congress confirmed
Kansas Republican Jill Sommers to the Commodity Futures Trading
Commission and passed a trade bill backed by President Bush
establishing normal trade relations with Vietnam. A separate
bill lets India buy U.S. nuclear reactors and fuel for the first
time in 30 years.
The bills will likely be signed by Bush next week.
© Copyright 2006 United Press International, Inc. All Rights
Reserved.
*****************************************************************
26 BBC NEWS: From Our Own Correspondent | The orphans of Sumqayit
Saturday, 9 December 2006, 11:59 GMT
By Nigel Green BBC News, Azerbaijan
With some of the biggest oil reserves in the world, Azerbaijan is
fast becoming an energy giant.
But although foreign investors have pumped billions into the
economy in the 15 years since the country gained independence,
some grim aspects of the Soviet legacy remain.
[Sumqayit. Photo courtesy Nigel Green ]
Sumqayit was once the Soviet's biggest petro-chemical centre.
Sumqayit may be a seaside town but it is not somewhere you would
want to spend your holiday.
Not unless you like a place that looks like the backdrop for a
science fiction movie.
Sumqayit is just an hour's drive from Baku, the oil-rich capital
of Azerbaijan.
But here, rather than the gleaming office blocks and the marble
squares, green parks and fountains, all we could see were
derelict factories, twisted, rusting metal pipes and tankers
abandoned on broken railway lines.
There were few people to be seen - and the only animals we came
across were wild dogs.
My guide for the day was Akif Askerov, a likeable young man who
once played football for his country and now has a well-paid job
as a health and safety officer employed by a western oil company.
As we got out of the car, Akif pointed out we were walking on
crushed sheets of asbestos. The smell of chemicals, aggravated by
dust churned up by our car, hit our throats.
Birth defects
Just 20 years ago, Sumqayit was the biggest petro-chemical centre
in the Soviet Union.
[Map showing Sumqayit, Azerbaijan]
Under Stalin's orders, this town had been built in the 1930s to
feed off the huge oil reserves nearby.
After World War Two, Sumqayit's population grew to a third of a
million. The workers were mostly young and relatively
well-rewarded.
The list of substances they used to manufacture at Sumqayit is
long, but it included huge quantities of lindane, a pesticide
that has been compared to Agent Orange, the chemical so widely
used during the Vietnam War.
And, like Agent Orange, lindane has been blamed for causing birth
defects.
In Soviet days, the workers were given extra cheese and milk in
the misguided belief that this would strengthen their bodies'
defences. It did not.
Exact figures are hard to find but numerous reports link the town
with high levels of deformities in new-born children. The number
of girls and boys here with Downs syndrome, cerebral palsy and
spina bifida is way above average.
The new, independent government of Azerbaijan declared Sumqayit
an ecological disaster zone and closed most of its factories. But
they seem to have left an appalling legacy.
'Twisted limbs'
Akif wanted to show me the work that he and his British oil
worker friends have done renovating an orphanage not far from
Sumqayit.
[Children in the orphanage. Photo courtesy Nigel Green ] Local
people believe pollution is the root of the children's problems
It is a large, white four-storey building and as our car pulled
up outside, we were mobbed by children - all clearly handicapped.
But these children were the relatively healthy ones, the ones
able to wander out into the fresh air by themselves.
Inside it was different.
Rahila Hasanova, the nurse in charge, agreed to show me around
the orphanage. As we started to walk along its corridors, there
was a strong smell of urine.
We went from room to room, seeing children with twisted limbs or
distorted faces.
They ranged from toddlers in cots, sleeping eight to a room, to
teenagers who, because they could not walk, were left to drag
themselves along the floor.
Many were screaming but the handful of nurses seemed to be doing
their best to care for them.
One boy in particular grabbed my attention. He was about 10 years
old and his arms were wrapped around his body by a makeshift
strait-jacket.
Using her own hands and pretending to scratch at her face, Rahila
tried to explain to me that this boy had to be kept like that,
otherwise he would tear at his face.
Rahila could not speak any English but, through Akif, she told me
she had worked at the home for 22 years.
Medical conditions
She earns just $30 (Ł15) a month - around a third of the average
wage in Azerbaijan.
[Rahila and her grand daughter Fatima. Photo courtesy Nigel Green
] Rahila's grand daughter was born with a heart defect
But she cannot bring herself to leave the children - most of whom
have been abandoned by their parents.
None of these boys and girls have undergone detailed medical
tests and so it is impossible to know the precise cause of their
conditions, but Rahila told me that everybody believed that the
disabilities had been caused by the pollution.
There are around 160 children in the 20 rooms of this building.
It was worse in Soviet times, when the orphanage had been home to
400 youngsters and conditions here were much tougher.
As we left, Rahila took me to her house nearby to show me her own
two-month-old grand daughter Fatima, who was born with a heart
defect.
She said her baby was in desperate need of an operation and would
probably be dead by the age of two if she did not get it.
Another victim, Rahila believes, of the legacy of Sumqayit.
From Our Own Correspondent was broadcast on Saturday, 9 December,
2006 at 1130 GMT on BBC Radio 4. Please check the programme
schedules for World Service transmission times.
*****************************************************************
27 Daily Times: Leading News Resource of Pakistan
Sunday, December 10, 2006
Terrorists could get N-device at little cost
WASHINGTON: Terrorists will need just $5.43 million to make a
nuclear device and launch an attack, says a new study.
According to researchers Peter Zimmerman and Jeffrey Lewis,
writing in the current issue of Foreign Policy, terrorists can
construct a nuclear device within the United States, which could
be a highly-enriched uranium bullet that they could fire through
a gun. Once complete, the device is likely to be less than nine
feet long and could be transported in a van or a small panel
truck.
The two scientists recall that eight years earlier, aides to
Osama bin Laden met Salah Abdel al-Mobruk, a Sudanese military
officer and former government minister, who offered to sell
weapons-grade uranium to the terrorists for $1.5 million. He
proffered up a three-foot long cylinder. The Al Qaeda
representatives agreed to the purchase. The cylinder turned out
to be a dud. But had it actually contained highly enriched
uranium, and if bin Laden’s deputies had managed to use it to
assemble, then transport and detonate a nuclear bomb, history
would have looked very different. September 11 would be
remembered as the day when hundreds of thousands of people were
killed.
They write, “Osama bin Laden’s longstanding interest in
developing nuclear weapons is deeply troubling, and the attempt
to purchase uranium from the Sudanese was far from an isolated
incident. Al Qaeda operatives have repeatedly tried to acquire
nuclear materials over the years. In August 2001, a month before
the September 11 attacks, bin Laden received two former
Pakistani nuclear officials, asking them to help recruit other
Pakistani scientists with expertise in building nuclear weapons.
After the military effort to oust the Taliban from Afghanistan,
US forces found extensive documents, including crude bomb
designs, at an Al Qaeda safe house in Kabul. In 2003, bin Laden
sought a fatwa from an extremist Saudi cleric permitting the use
of weapons of mass destruction, calling their acquisition a
‘religious duty’.”
As for the physics and computation of the device, a senior
physicist with two assistants could be hired at a cost of
$200,000. Metallurgy and casting would cost $270,000, precision
machining and construction $230,000, gun design, assembly and
training $230,000, electronics, arming, fusing and firing
$150,000, other facilities $200,000, fissile material between
$300,000 and $500,000 and transportation $153,000. The total
cost would be $5,433,000. khalid hasan
Daily Times - All Rights Reserved
*****************************************************************
28 Sunday Herald: Tridents Footprint
December 11, 2006 Est 1999 Scotland's award-winning independent
By Torcuil Crichton
STAND ON the pink-white beach of Sandwood Bay, with its eerie
sea stack on one side and the cliffs running to Cape Wrath on
the other, and you can feel quite lonely. Of course, you are
never alone, even on this remote northwestern shore. Stare
straight out into the teeth of the inevitable north Atlantic
gale and you are looking at Trident's backyard.
Somewhere beneath the grey majesty of the ocean, a sleek
150-metre, nuclear-powered Vanguard-class submarine is on
patrol. It might be close by or in a deep Atlantic trench, but
one of the UK's four submarines is out there, 24 hours a day,
seven days a week, its 132- strong crew drilling over and over
again to unleash armageddon.
The sea northwest of Scotland is what used to be called the
Greenland/ Iceland-United Kingdom Gap. Once upon a time, the
subs of the Soviet nuclear fleet would glide down this corridor
from their Barents Sea bases in times of Cold War
tension.continued...
Now the undersea hydrophones rarely hear the hum of Soviet
engines. The Russian Northern fleet, hobbled by obsolescence and
deterioration, spends most of its time tied up at Severomorsk.
The Trident boats stake out their territory largely unopposed,
poised to deliver instant retaliation against a threat from
another era.
Trident's domain is not just the deep Atlantic ocean. From the
north Atlantic coastline, the UK's Trident trail makes its way
as far south as the market towns of Berkshire, by way of more
totemic points of geography - such as Faslane - and unexpected
backwaters such as the quiet town of Beith in Ayrshire.
Following this route of Trident technology offers a real insight
into just how embedded into the geography and economy of the
British Isles the nuclear deterrent has become.
The crinkled outline of the west coast of Scotland, with its
deep lochs and glens, is one of the most heavily militarised
regions of western Europe. The Highlands and Islands play host
to war games, missile tests, bombing ranges, torpedo trials,
nuclear bunkers, armament depots and, of course, moorings for
the nuclear submarines.
The cradle of Britain's nuclear programme, the Dounreay plant in
the far north, is still used to test submarine reactors. At HMS
Vulcan, the naval reactor test establishment, a small naval team
liaise with 300 Rolls-Royce workers. The testbed gives naval
crews hands-on experience of running nuclear reactors while safe
on shore.
A short distance north of Sandwood Bay is the Cape Wrath bombing
range, part of the 253,000 acres of Scottish land owned by the
Ministry of Defence. The military has the run of the sea too.
There are some 26 submarine exercise areas on the west coast of
Scotland, extending from the Butt of Lewis to the southern
shores of Arran. This is where submarine crews come to practise
and occasionally mispractise.
In November 2002, HMS Trafalgar, one of the navy's
nuclear-powered attack subs, ran aground on a well-marked
outcrop off the north of Skye during a captains' training
programme. The vessel returned to Faslane for embarrassing
repairs costing Ł5 million.
The incidents aren't always hilarious or at the expense of the
navy, though. In November 1990, four crewmen on the
Carradale-based fishing boat Antares were drowned after its nets
were snagged by the nuclear submarine HMS Trenchant, which was
taking part in a Perisher exercise for training submarine
commanders. After the Antares tragedy, the navy introduced the
Subfacts scheme, broadcasting where submarines are due to
exercise and when fishing areas are closed.
Some of Britain's deepest waters are found in the few miles
between the Isle of Raasay and the mainland Torridon mountains
where the ocean plummets to depths of 1500 feet. This is where
submarines can run at full speed and where Trident boats come to
have their sonar footprint recorded and calibrated.
The British Underwater Test and Evaluation Centre (Butec) was
set up in Kyle of Lochalsh in the 1970s to test torpedoes and
sonar. The base, which employs 115 people, is operated on behalf
of the MoD by QinetiQ, the defence contractor created by
privatisation of parts of the Defence Evaluation and Research
Agency in 2001.
With a shore base at Kyle of Lochalsh and a range head at
Applecross, Butec measures the acoustic signature of surface
ships and submarines using underwater hydrophones. Sound
patterns from the tests are recorded at a complex on the island
of Rona.
Nearby Broadford Bay on Skye is designated as one of the few
remaining Z berths where nuclear submarines can lay up in an
emergency. The others are Loch Ewe, close to the Aultbea
refuelling depot, Coulport and Loch Goil, near the home base of
the fleet, and Rothesay. But nobody has seen a large black
submarine berthed at the Clyde holiday resort for some time.
The submarines are easily seen by anyone taking the ferry to
Bute though, or by anyone at the Rhu Narrows near Dunoon.
Faslane has been a naval base since the 16th century and the
submarines have been in its deep and easily defended waters
since 1917.
THE UK's hunter-killer fleet slips in and out of the Faslane
base through the morning mist, sleek, sinister and black, but at
16,000 tonnes displacement, the gigantic Trident boats are
harder to miss. The omegas of warfare fill your line of vision
as they are nursed in by a school of tugs and bobbing protection
dinghies.
Here, just a short drive from Glasgow, past the mansions of
Helensburgh, behind a vast expanse of razor wire, lies the
beating heart of Britain's nuclear arsenal. Faslane, the Royal
Navy Clyde Submarine Base - or, to give it its official
designation, HMS Neptune - is where the submarines come in from
ocean patrol. Yet you could drive through the whole of
pine-covered Argyll without ever realising the immense
destructive power housed just around the next glen and bay.
Apart from the perimeter wire and graffiti left by anti-nuclear
protesters, there's little to indicate that Gare Loch is home to
Britain's nuclear submarine fleet. All four of Britain's
intercontinental missile submarines (the Vanguard, Victorious,
Vigilant, and Vengeance) are based at Faslane. Each is armed
with Trident D5 missiles, purchased in the last days of the cold
war and with the power to unleash 1500 Hiroshimas.
Faslane is the largest single site employer in Scotland. More
than 7000 military and civilian staff work here for the navy and
defence company Babcock Naval Services. By comparison, the
Chrysler car factory at Linwood, which wreaked economic
devastation when it closed in 1981, employed just over 8000
people at the height of production.
In 2004 there were more than 24,000 members of the MoD and armed
forces working at military sites all over Scotland - 15,000
military personnel and nearly 9000 civil servants. Some Ł1.5
billion of defence expenditure is spent directly in Scotland.
The bill for Trident is just a little more, about Ł1.7bn a year
or 5% of the defence budget. Trident, and its proposed
replacement, costing about Ł25bn, will go down in history as the
most costly UK industrial projects ever undertaken in peacetime.
In addition to the Trident fleet, Faslane also houses five
conventionally armed Swiftsure nuclear submarines (Sovereign,
Sceptre, Spartan, Superb and Splendid).
Just six miles along the road from Faslane on the Rosneath
peninsula is Coulport. Lined with genteel Victorian villas and
the original site of the Kibble Palace, before it was moved to
Glasgow's Botanic Gardens, the area is now a vast warehouse for
Britain's Trident missiles stockpile.
At the Royal Naval Armament Depot (RNAD) at Coulport on Loch
Long, 16 underground atom bomb vaults with airlocked doors have
been built into a ridge overlooking the shore to store spare
missile warheads. The warheads can be detached from the Trident
missiles and unloaded using a custom-built lift on a huge
covered jetty.
The missiles themselves can also be removed at Coulport, but
this is usually done at the Strategic Weapons Facility Atlantic
at Kings Bay, Georgia, in the United States. RNAD Coulport and
the huge munitions depot in Glen Douglas, covering an area of
650 acres, are also storage and loading facilities for
conventional torpedoes.
From Coulport, Trident watchers can track the nuclear warhead
lorry convoys as they make their way back and forth from
Aldermaston and Burghfield in England. Every loch in this part
of Scotland seems to have a military function.
Carving deep inland, Loch Goil is home to another QinetiQ
testing facility, while nearby Loch Striven was used during sea
trials of Vanguard submarines, though nowadays the casual
visitor could not fathom any military purpose.
Deep into the Ayrshire countryside is the next link in the
Trident chain. Covering more than 1000 acres and with 21 miles
of internal roads, the defence munitions depot at Beith
produces, tests and stores missiles and torpedoes for the armed
forces.
Behind six miles of razor wire, 18,000 cubic metres of high
explosives can be stored in buildings designed to implode in the
event of an accident. Beith is also sub-contracted by BAE
Systems to produce Spearfish torpedoes, the heavyweight Trident
self-defence weapon. The torpedoes are tested at the Butec range
at the Kyle of Lochalsh.
Across on the other coast of Scotland, at Rosyth, are the hulks
of seven redundant nuclear submarines, including all four
Polaris boats. The docks are no longer used to service the
nuclear submarine fleet - that work is now carried out at
Devonport.
The helicopters that would drop sonar buoys to listen for
Russian submarines as the UK nuclear fleet left coastal waters
have also moved south from HMS Gannet at Prestwick. Although the
danger has lessened, helicopters still fly from their Cornwall
base to accompany a change in the Trident patrol. And the Nimrod
surveillance aircraft at Kinloss still look for hostile
submarines.
Just before the Trident trail leaves Scotland, it pauses briefly
at the Chapelcross power station near Annan in Dumfries. The
decommissioned plant's original function was to produce
plutonium for the nuclear weapons programme, but it was also a
crucial supplier of tritium, a vital part of Britain's bomb. For
Trident's replacement, an alternative supply of the material -
probably from the US - will have to be found.
South of the Border, the first encounter with Trident comes with
the radio masts in a cluster of BBC and World Service aerials at
Skelton near Penrith. The transmitter keeps the Trident subs in
contact with onshore commanders. Anthorn in Cumbria, nearer the
coast, is a Nato transmitter that serves the same purpose. Other
stations in Europe and the United States are available to
communicate orders from command posts in the UK.
Were it not for the Sellafield works, the Cumbrian coastline
might feel as empty as Sandwood Bay. Sellafield is where old
nuclear submarine reactor cores are stored, so radioactive they
cannot be reprocessed.
Further down the English coast, across the sands of Morecambe
Bay, at Barrow-in-Furness is where the nuts and bolts of the
Trident operation are. The enormous Vickers yard, now run by
BAE, has a symbiotic relationship with Trident. It depends on
orders for nuclear submarines for its existence, and without the
human skills here, Britain could not have a nuclear deterrent
programme.
The much-delayed and over-budgeted Astute-class submarines keep
the yard working, but the 200 highly skilled submarine designers
and technicians at the yard are part of the reason the
government is injecting urgency into the Trident replacement
programme. If their jobs are made redundant through a lack of
orders, the capability to build submarines in the UK will be
lost forever.
Derby is the powerhouse of the Trident operation. The reactors
that power Trident subs are built by Rolls-Royce just outside
the town. The fuel rods - using 98% highly enriched uranium, as
high as or higher than is used in the warheads - are also
manufactured here.
The servicing of the submarines proper takes places on Britain's
south coast at the Devonport Royal Dockyard in Plymouth. HMS
Vanguard was re-fitted here, Victoria is here at the moment. Old
reactor cores go to Sellafield and old submarines remain on
site.
The holy grail of deterrence is the Atomic Weapons Establishment
at Aldermaston, near Reading, an hour's train ride west of
London in rural Berkshire. This is Britain's bomb factory, the
epicentre of nuclear weapons design and production. It is
responsible for the manufacture, maintenance and decommissioning
of Britain's nuclear warheads.
Aldermaston cooperates extensively with nuclear weapons
laboratories in the US on developing of the next generation of
nuclear warheads that will replace Trident. More than Ł1bn has
already been spent modernising the facility and recruiting
scientists to produce the next bomb. Although the MoD owns the
site, private companies run the day-to-day operations.
Aldermaston is synonymous with nuclear weapons, and the CND -
launched by the philosopher Bertrand Russell and Canon John
Collins - grew out of a demonstration held outside the site
during Easter 1956.
Not far away is Burghfield, the huge ordnance factory where the
Trident warheads are assembled and maintained. Once complete,
warheads are stored temporarily then loaded on to lorry convoys
for Coulport.
Three to five lorries, plus escorts, make the three-day journey
every couple of months, passing around London on the M25 and
either north around Edinburgh or through the centre of Glasgow
on the M8, completing a circular Trident trail around Britain.
There is only one location left. Trident's nerve centre, the
connection between its political brain and the military muscle
is, surprisingly, in London suburbia.
The Northwood command centre of the Royal Navy is where the
signal to launch a nuclear attack would be sent from. The
control centre has been recently modernised, but peace
campaigners reckon the computer system involved for nuclear
operations is at Whitehall buildings of the MoD in central
London.
There is no way of confirming this or the recent claim by Sir
Michael Quinlan, former permanent secretary at the MoD, that
Britain's nuclear submarines now go to sea without any target
plans. It is likely that the systems are a lot more flexible and
that target co-ordinates can be changed from Moscow for Tehran
within seconds. It may also be possible that the strategic
nuclear deterrent, prowling the oceans day and night, costing
Ł1.5bn a year, may have the ultimate weapon targeted at nobody
at all.
©2006 newsquest (sunday herald) limited. all rights reserved
*****************************************************************
29 AFP: Former Israeli envoy slams Gates over nuclear 'disclosure' -
Saturday December 9, 08:49 PM
[Robert Gates]
JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israel's former ambassador to Washington
criticized as "lamentable" the public disclosure by US defence
secretary-designate Robert Gates that the Jewish state is a
"nuclear power."
"These are lamentable words. Perhaps his tongue is forked, but
maybe not. In any case Israel must demand explanations," Danny
Ayalon told Israel's 10th television channel.
Ayalon has just finished his term as ambassador.
"It is not up to Washington to end the policy of ambiguity" on
Israel's nuclear capabilities, he said, referring to the fact
that his country has never confirmed it has nuclear weapons.
Gates told the Senate armed forces committee last Tuesday that
Iran is "surrounded by nuclear powers, with Pakistan to the
east, Russia to the North, Israel to the west."
Israel is believed to be the only nuclear power in the Middle
East, with experts saying it has some 200 nuclear missiles.
Israel, and its major ally the United States, are trying to
force Iran to end its nuclear programme which Tehran says is for
purely peaceful civilian purposes and which it has every right
to pursue.
AFP
*****************************************************************
30 Guardian Unlimited: Russians to Probe Ex-Spy's Death in U.K.
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Saturday December 9, 2006 1:16 PM
AP Photo LKW101
By DAVID STRINGER
Associated Press Writer
LONDON (AP) - Russian investigators confirmed Saturday that they
will question witnesses in Britain over the death of a former
KGB agent as forensic teams searched two houses in Germany and a
London hotel now at the center of the investigation into his
poisoning.
Police in Germany said traces of polonium-210, the radioactive
element that killed Alexander Litvinenko, were found at two
Hamburg-area homes linked to a contact of the ex-KGB officer.
At London's Millennium Hotel in Mayfair, where Litvinenko drank
tea with a group of fellow Russians and where he appears to have
been fatally poisoned, officers reportedly were testing a cup
and a dishwasher for traces of the isotope.
In Moscow, prosecutors said officials would travel to Britain as
part of a Russian inquiry into the killing, but did not confirm
who would be questioned or when the interviews would take place.
Andrei Nekrasov, a friend of Litvinenko, said there was concern
among emigres in the British capital that the Kremlin would use
the inquiries as a ``pretext to harass exiles in London.''
German police said Saturday they had found traces of radiation
at two Hamburg area homes linked to Dmitry Kovtun, a Russian
businessman present at the London hotel meeting and later
hospitalized with polonium contamination.
Traces were found at his ex-wife's Hamburg apartment, and an
initial scan also yielded signs of contamination at Kovtun's
former mother-in-law's home in Haselau, west of the port city,
Hamburg police said.
Litvinenko, 43, died in London on Nov. 23 after blaming
President Vladimir Putin in a deathbed message - an accusation
the Kremlin has vehemently denied.
A spokeswoman for Moscow's Prosecutor General's office, who said
she was not authorized to give her name to media outlets, told
The Associated Press there were plans to send Russian
investigators to London.
She said it was unclear when they would make the trip. ``There
is no concrete date,'' she said.
British police said they had no details of the planned visit by
Russian investigators and it was not immediately clear whether
they would be given access to exiles granted political asylum by
the British government.
Exiles in London feared the Russian investigators would seek to
unsettle the emigre community, Nekrasov said.
He said that former Russian security officer Mikhail Trepashkin,
serving a four-year prison sentence after being convicted of
divulging state secrets, had said a Kremlin agent previously
ordered to monitor Litvinenko was among those appointed to
investigate the killing.
Investigations in Britain have focused on the Pine Bar at
London's Millennium Hotel, where Litvinenko held a morning
meeting over tea and gin with three fellow Russians on Nov. 1 -
the day he fell ill.
Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper said police were testing a
tea cup and dishwasher at the hotel for signs of radiation.
Andrei Lugovoi, also an ex-Soviet agent, Kovtun and Vyacheslav
Sokolenko, the head of a private Russian security firm, joined
the meeting in the hotel's intimate, blond oak-paneled bar.
All three have denied involvement in the ex-spy's death.
Litvinenko later met with Mario Scaramella, an Italian security
expert, at a Piccadilly sushi bar.
By evening, Litvinenko was in a London hospital with stomach
pains and nausea. He died within weeks from radiation poisoning
that caused his hair to fall out and organs to fail.
All seven staff working at the bar on Nov. 1 showed evidence of
exposure to polonium-210, Britain's Health Protection Agency
said. Kovtun and Scaramella both have fallen ill since the
meeting.
Dr. Michael Clark of the Health Protection Agency said it was
likely the poisoning occurred at the hotel bar. He said food,
drinks and cigarettes all could have been used to hide the
poison.
Polonium is so dangerous that a lethal dose would occupy a space
just 100 micrometers across - slightly larger than the point of
a pin. Though polonium-210 is available by mail, one vendor in
New Mexico, Bob Lazar, said such small amounts are sold that
15,000 orders would be needed to potentially harm someone.
Scaramella was hospitalized last week in London. He said doctors
told him he had received five times the lethal dose of
polonium-210, although he showed no symptoms. He left the
hospital Wednesday.
In Moscow, Kovtun had ``developed an illness also connected with
the radioactive nuclide (substance),'' Russian prosecutors said.
Lugovoi was tested for radiation poisoning in a hospital, and
Russia's Interfax news agency said he showed signs of
contamination.
---
Associated Press writers Steve Gutterman in Moscow; Simone Utler
in Hamburg, Germany, and Matt Crenson in New York contributed to
this story.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
31 UPI: Gates causes worry in Israel
United Press International - NewsTrack -
12/10/2006 7:57:00 PM -0500
JERUSALEM, Dec. 10 (UPI) -- Israeli officials want to know why
U.S. Secretary of Defense-designate Robert Gates made a
statement to Congress that Israel has nuclear weapons.
The U.S. media generally reports that Israel has such weapons,
but there has been no official confirmation.
Haaretz reported that Israeli officials are worried about Gates'
statement and want to know if it was a private statement or if
Gates conferred with top U.S. officials prior to making the
claim.
They also want to know whether Gates was implying Israel could
handle a nuclear Iran by itself.
Although Gates has extensive experience in intelligence and
diplomacy, the implication reportedly contradicts what U.S.
President George Bush told Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert at
a recent meeting, the newspaper said.
Haaretz reported that Israeli officials were also shocked at
Gates's statement that he understood why Iran wished to obtain
nuclear weapons.
© Copyright 2006 United Press International, Inc. All Rights
Reserved.
*****************************************************************
32 [NYTr] US Congress Approves Bush Nuke Deal w/India
Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2006 13:13:26 -0600 (CST)
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AFP via Yahoo - Dec 9, 2006
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061209/ts_afp/usindianuclearpolitics_061209113131
US Congress approves landmark Indian nuclear deal
by P. Parameswaran
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US Congress has given its final approval to landmark
legislation allowing export of civilian nuclear fuel and technology to
India for the first time in 30 years.
The Senate passed the deal by voice vote during an all-night session. The
House of Representatives approved it 330-59 late Friday.
The legislation, which reconciles separate bills adopted by the House and
Senate aimed at implementing a nuclear agreement between Indian Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh and US President George W. Bush in July last year.
"This truly bipartisan effort is an excellent step forward," said Henry
Hyde, the outgoing Republican chairman of the House International Relations
Committee. "It recognises the nuclear reality of India," he said Saturday.
Named after the retiring 16-term Congressman, the "Henry J. Hyde United
States-India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act of 2006" was expected
to be signed by Bush into law.
Under the controversial deal, India, a non-signatory of the nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), will be given access to civilian nuclear
fuel and technology in return for placing its atomic reactors under global
scrutiny.
The US Congress had to create a rare exception for India from some of the
requirements of the US Atomic Energy Act, which currently prohibits nuclear
sales to non-NPT signatories.
Washington stopped nuclear cooperation with India after it conducted its
first nuclear test in 1974.
"This is a historic day for this House and for the United States," said Tom
Lantos, the new Democratic chairman of the House international relations
committee.
Indian newspapers rejoiced at the expected signing of the bill on Monday by
Bush.
The Indian Express daily said the stage was set for ending India's "nuclear
winter", while the Hindustan Times crowed that "India gets to have its
nuclear cake and eat it too."
However, some US lawmakers and weapons experts warned that the deal could
make it harder to enforce rules against nuclear renegades such as North
Korea and Iran and set a dangerous precedent for other nations with nuclear
ambitions.
"This bill is a historic mistake," countered Democratic lawmaker Ed Markey,
who had vehemently opposed the legislation.
Holding a large picture of Pakistan's disgraced nuclear pioneer Abdul
Qadeer Khan, Markey said "A.Q. Khan would accept a deal like that for
Pakistan.
"What are we going to say when China offers the same deal to Pakistan? What
will we say when the Russians offer the same deal the Iranians," he asked.
"When we turn to the other countries and we tell them your standards are
not high enough, they are going to call us hypocrites," said Markey,
co-chairman of the House's bipartisan task force on nonproliferation.
The deal still has to clear several hurdles to become effective.
The United States and India will now have to frame a comprehensive
agreement incorporating all technical elements of the deal and it has to be
passed by the US Congress again.
It includes a set of international nuclear safeguards to be approved by the
International Atomic Energy Agency, the global nuclear watchdog, and to
which India must adhere.
The deal also needs the backing of the influential 45-nation Nuclear
Suppliers Group.
Lawmakers had watered down several contentious provisions in the
legislation opposed by the US and Indian governments, including one that
initially had virtually compelled India to back US efforts to contain the
nuclear program of New Delhi's traditional ally Iran.
Indian Prime Minister Singh and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
personally lobbied lawmakers at the last minute to ease the "problematic"
provisions.
One provision now simply requires the US president to make assessments on
whether India backed US efforts to contain Iran's nuclear program.
Regardless of that evaluation, the two nations would go ahead with nuclear
trade, arms experts said.
Copyright ) 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved.
*
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33 [NYTr] India Nuke Deal: Congress Didn't Give Bush-Rice Everything
Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2006 16:03:13 -0600 (CST)
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The Hindu - Dec 10, 2006
http://www.hindu.com/2006/12/10/stories/2006121004150100.htm
U.S. nuclear Act ignored Rice plea on key points
Administration called some of these 'Deal breakers'
by Siddharth Varadarajan
NEW DELHI: The final version of the United States law authorising nuclear
commerce with India failed to incorporate key eleventh hour suggestions made
by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, despite her claim that some of the
Indian objections they were intended to overcome were "deal-breakers."
Lobby NSG against India
Rice suggestion: In her letter to Senator Richard Lugar, Dr. Rice had said
that the provision urging the President to lobby against nuclear fuel
supplies to India if the U.S. terminates nuclear cooperation should be
changed. "Although non-binding... India has taken the position that this is
a deal-killer, arguing that this provision is directly at odds with the U.S.
pledge to facilitate nuclear supply to India." She suggested changing the
wording to say the U.S. "should not seek to facilitate or encourage the
continuation of nuclear exports to India" by others if the U.S. ends its
exports.
Final provision: This suggestion was rejected. Under Statements of Policy,
Section 103 (a) (6) states that the U.S. shall "seek to prevent the transfer
to a country of nuclear equipment, materials or technology from other
participating governments in the NSG or from any other source" if the U.S.
terminates its exports under the U.S.-India Act or any other U.S. law.
Full nuclear cooperation
Rice suggestion: She said the Bill's language singled out India by banning
transfers related to enrichment, reprocessing and heavy water production.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has also assured Parliament that India would
not accept anything less than full cooperation, including access to these
technologies.
Final provision: This suggestion was rejected, though Congress cleverly
replaced the word "Prohibition" from the title of the relevant clause with
the more anodyne "Exports, re-exports, transfers and re-transfers to India
related to enrichment... " and re-framed the clause to highlight what is
permissible rather than what is being denied. Thus, 104 (d)(4), like the
earlier Senate Bill, allows the sale of such equipment only to multilateral
or bilateral facilities on Indian soil intended to provide "alternatives to
national fuel cycle capabilities" or a "proliferation resistant fuel cycle".
Indian national facilities would still be denied this technology.
Sequencing
Rice suggestion: The Secretary of State had said the requirement that the
Indian safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) should have already entered into force before the U.S. lifts its
restrictions should be changed. Her suggestion was that the agreement should
be fully negotiated and ready for submission to the IAEA Board of Governors
for approval.
Final provision: Rather than incorporating this suggestion, Section 104
(b)(2) says "all legal steps prior to signature" by India and the IAEA must
have been completed, which means approval by the IAEA Board must have been
secured. What this does is to lock in to place the Indian safeguards
agreement even before the U.S. completes all its legal steps to allow
nuclear commerce with India. If Congress introduces new conditions at that
stage, India will find it politically costly to return to the IAEA Board for
fresh approval.
Rice suggestion: She had noted India's objection to the provision that
nuclear cooperation would be automatically terminated if the country
violated the guidelines of the NSG or Missile Technology Control Regime. As
she herself noted, "[These] regimes set policy guidelines rather than legal
prohibitions and operate by consensus, making it difficult to determine and
agree on violations." She urged that the provision by modified into a
statement of policy or a reporting provision since India considered it a
case of "moving the goalposts."
Final provision: The goalposts have still been moved, but by a little less
than before. The Act retains the U.S. "determination" of Indian missile
exports as a trigger for the termination of nuclear cooperation but
moderates the automaticity by allowing for an exception that the Indian
Government has had no role to play in the impugned export and is taking
corrective legal action. But in effect, this means India cannot enter the
business of exporting missiles with a range of more than 300 km to other
countries ? including those which are MTCR adherents ? without triggering
the end of nuclear cooperation.
In other respects, Dr. Rice's suggestions were incorporated, especially the
one on Iran, where she urged the removal of the clause demanding a
Presidential determination that India is "fully and actively participating
in U.S. and international efforts" to sanction Iran. This clause, however,
has been incorporated as a reporting requirement and will still figure as a
perpetual point of pressure.
On intrusive fallback safeguards, the Act in its final form incorporates Dr.
Rice's tactical suggestions.
The specifics of fallback safeguards have not been spelt out though it is
clear the enforcement of perpetuity safeguards as envisaged by Article
123(a)(1) of the U.S. Atomic Energy Act must necessarily involve site visits
by U.S. inspectors as and when the IAEA is unable to do the job. As for the
controversial threat reduction programme, the Act renames it a "scientific"
programme but maintains the same role for the National Nuclear Security
Administration (NNSA), the nodal U.S. nuclear weapons agency, that Indian
scientists are objecting to.
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34 AFP: Bush welcomes US Congress's approval of Indo-US nuclear deal -
December 10, 06:39 AM
WASHINGTON (AFP) - President George W. Bush hailed the US
Congress's passage of a landmark bill allowing civilian nuclear
fuel and technology to be exported to India for the first time
in 30 years.
"I am pleased that our two countries will soon have increased
opportunities to work together to meet our energy needs in a
manner that does not increase air pollution and greenhouse gas
emissions, promotes clean development, supports nonproliferation
and advances our trade interests," Bush said in a statement.
"I appreciate Congress's support for the US-India civil nuclear
cooperation initiative," Bush said, adding: "I look forward to
signing this bill into law soon."
The US Senate passed the deal by voice vote early Saturday,
after an all-night session. The House of Representatives
approved it 330-59 late Friday.
The legislation reconciles separate bills adopted by the House
and Senate aimed at implementing a nuclear agreement between
Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in July of last
year.
Under the controversial deal, India, a non-signatory of the
nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), will be given access to
civilian nuclear fuel and technology in return for placing its
atomic reactors under international scrutiny.
The US Congress had to create a rare exception for India from
some of the requirements of the US Atomic Energy Act, which
currently prohibits nuclear sales to non-NPT signatories.
Washington halted nuclear cooperation with India after it
conducted its first nuclear test in 1974.
Henry Hyde, the outgoing Republican chairman of the House
International Relations Committee, after whom the legislation
was named, hailed the move as "an excellent step forward.
"It recognizes the nuclear reality of India," he said.
Tom Lantos, the committee's new Democratic chairman, meanwhile,
said it was "a historic day for this House and for the United
States."
Indian newspapers also rejoiced at the expected signing of the
Henry J. Hyde United States-India Peaceful Atomic Energy
Cooperation Act of 2006 on Monday by the US president.
The Indian Express daily said the stage was set for ending
India's "nuclear winter," while the Hindustan Times crowed that
"India gets to have its nuclear cake and eat it, too."
However, some US lawmakers and weapons experts warned that the
deal could make it harder to enforce rules against nuclear
renegades such as North Korea and Iran and set a dangerous
precedent for other nations with nuclear ambitions.
"This bill is a historic mistake," countered Democratic lawmaker
Ed Markey, who had vehemently opposed the legislation.
Holding a large picture of Pakistan's disgraced nuclear pioneer
Abdul Qadeer Khan, Markey said "A.Q. Khan would accept a deal
like that for Pakistan.
"What are we going to say when China offers the same deal to
Pakistan? What will we say when the Russians offer the same deal
the Iranians?" he asked.
"When we turn to the other countries and we tell them 'Your
standards are not high enough,' they are going to call us
hypocrites," said Markey, co-chairman of the House's bipartisan
task force on nonproliferation.
The deal still has to clear several hurdles to take effect.
The United States and India will now have to frame a
comprehensive agreement incorporating all technical elements of
the deal, and it has to be passed by the US Congress again.
It includes a set of international nuclear safeguards to be
approved by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the global
nuclear watchdog, and to which India must adhere.
The deal also needs the backing of the influential 45-nation
Nuclear Suppliers Group.
Lawmakers had watered down several contentious provisions in the
legislation opposed by the US and Indian governments, including
one that initially had virtually compelled India to back US
efforts to contain the nuclear program of New Delhi's
traditional ally Iran.
Singh and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice personally
lobbied lawmakers at the last minute to ease the "problematic"
provisions.
One provision now simply requires the US president to make
assessments on whether India backed US efforts to contain Iran's
nuclear program.
Regardless of that evaluation, the two nations would go ahead
with nuclear trade, arms experts said.
Copyright © 2006 AFP. All rights reserved. All information
*****************************************************************
35 Tucson Citizen: Emergency system woes at Phoenix nuke plant
www.tucsoncitizen.com ®
Published: 12.09.2006
The Associated Press
PHOENIX - Federal regulators could be poised to move the
Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station outside Phoenix into their
most stringent oversight category after they found yet another
problem with an emergency backup system. An inspection at the
plant in late September found that an emergency diesel generator
had been inoperative for most of the month, according to a
report released Thursday. The finding is the latest in a series
of problems that have plagued the plant in the past two years.
The most serious was the discovery by inspectors from the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2004 that a large pipe that is
supposed to flood the reactors with water in an emergency had
been left dry for years. Regulators also have recently
discovered that an improper chemical mix in pipes in the
emergency cooling system led to corrosion that went undetected
for years. Responding to concerns about reactor operations from
regulators, plant operator Arizona Public Service Co. also fired
or transferred a dozen supervisors and line workers earlier this
year. Palo Verde is currently listed by the NRC in the
second-to-worst safety monitoring category, and if it finds the
latest problems are anything but minor, the plant would face the
strictest monitoring possible from the agency. "One more finding
of anything but green will change the landscape for Palo Verde,"
said Victor Dricks, an NRC spokesman. That likely would cost APS
and its customers millions of dollars because of increased
repair and monitoring requirements. APS spokesman Jim McDonald
acknowledged that performance at the plant "hasn't been up to
our high standards of the past, and we're committed to changing
that." The commission and Palo Verde officials will meet Jan. 16
in Arlington, Texas, to discuss the agency's report on the
faulty generator and the improper chemical mix.
Copyright © 2006 Tucson Citizen
*****************************************************************
36 BBC NEWS | South Asia: US approves Indian nuclear deal
Last Updated: Saturday, 9 December 2006, 09:04 GMT
[Kakrapar nuclear power station, Gujarat]
Energy-hungry India needs nuclear power
The US Congress has voted in favour of allowing the export of
civilian nuclear fuel and technology to India for the first time
in 30 years.
The legislation will now be sent to President George W Bush to be
signed into law.
The vote follows an agreement earlier this year between Mr Bush
and the Indian Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh.
The accord has been hailed as historic by some, but critics say
it will damage non-proliferation efforts.
It was approved by the House of Representatives on Friday evening
and the Senate early on Saturday.
Weapons sites off-limits
Under the deal, energy-hungry India will get access to US civil
nuclear technology and fuel, in return for opening its civilian
nuclear facilities to inspection.
NUCLEAR POWER IN INDIA
India has 14 reactors in commercial operation and nine under
construction Nuclear power supplies about 3% of India's
electricity By 2050, nuclear power is expected to provide 25% of
the country's electricity India has limited coal and uranium
reserves Its huge thorium reserves - about 25% of the world's
total - are expected to fuel its nuclear power programme
long-term Source: Uranium Information Center [ src=] Global
nuclear powers
But its nuclear weapons sites will remain off-limits.
The Congress decision was welcomed in Delhi as an historic moment
in relations between the two countries.
Once on opposite sides of the Cold War fence, they have become
allies with close economic, political and even defence ties.
Correspondents say that India sees the deal as a tacit acceptance
of its emergence as a global nuclear power.
But some say that by making an exception for India, the US will
find it difficult to rein in the nuclear ambitions of North Korea
and Iran.
'Compromise bill'
Previously, the US had opposed Indian nuclear activities because
it has not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and has
twice tested nuclear weapons, in 1974 and 1998.
[Map showing India's nuclear reactors]
The final bill was said to have been altered to take into account
some Indian concerns about the deal, says the BBC's Shahzeb
Jillani in Washington.
Earlier, senior US state department official Nicholas Burns - who
is visiting India - said he anticipated "a very successful and
supportive bill", well within the parameters of the agreement
signed between India and the US.
India has made clear that the final agreement must not bind it to
supporting the US policy on Iran, and does not prevent it from
developing its own fissile material.
*****************************************************************
37 ST L D: UM drops plans to double capacity of its nuclear reactor
[STLtoday] INTERNET HOME OF: St. Louis Post-Dispatch |
DECEMBER 10, 2006
By Alan Scher ZagierTHE ASSOCIATED PRESS
COLUMBIA, Mo. The University of Missouri has dropped plans to
double the capacity of its nuclear research reactor, citing
progress in a nearly 30-year federal effort to develop a safer
alternative to the highly enriched uranium the reactor uses as
fuel.
Six of the eight American universities that continue to use
highly enriched uranium an ingredient experts say is crucial
to building nuclear weapons are in the process of switching to
the low-enriched uranium commonly found at commercial power
reactors.
Technical limitations, such as smaller reactor core sizes, have
prevented the University of Missouri and the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology from converting their reactors a
nationwide process begun in 1978 by the U.S. Department of
Energy.
University of Missouri officials had long planned to increase
the reactor's capacity from 10 megawatts to 20 megawatts, a
power upgrade they hoped would enhance the university's ability
to help produce cancer-fighting drugs and radioactive isotopes
used for medical diagnosis and treatment.
But the university's recent application for renewal of its
Nuclear Regulatory Commission license makes no mention of the
upgrade.
Instead, reactor scientists are working with Department of
Energy and the Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois on a new
fuel type that "holds some promise," said reactor director Ralph
Butler.
"We need to do what we can to focus our energy on conversion,"
he said Tuesday. "That's the highest priority right now. It's
the government's priority, so it's our priority too.
"We have tabled our desire to upgrade," he said.
A spokeswoman for the Energy Department's National Nuclear
Security Administration said the alternative fuel could be
commercially available by 2010.
A statement on the agency's website adds, "It has long been U.S.
nonproliferation policy to minimize, and to the extent possible,
eliminate the use of highly enriched uranium in civil nuclear
programs throughout the world."
The University of Missouri reactor's federal license limits the
amount of unirradiated, highly enriched uranium to 5 kilograms.
As little as 25 kilograms of highly enriched uranium, or about
55 pounds, is needed to build a nuclear bomb on the scale of the
one dropped on Hiroshima six decades ago.
Smaller nuclear bombs could be built using as little as 12
kilograms of highly enriched uranium, experts say.
The distinction between irradiated and unirradiated fuel is
significant. Once uranium-based fuel is doused with radiation,
the number of isotopes rapidly diminishes, making it unsuitable
as a weapon.
Safety concerns at several campus reactors recently prompted the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission to review security measures at the
sites, which typically keep low profiles, rely on campus
security guards and can often be found near dormitories and
classrooms.
The emphasis on conversion of U.S. research reactors also
increased after the 2001 terrorist attacks, when the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission ordered enhanced security at nuclear sites
over concerns that terrorists would target such power supplies.
Butler said it will take an additional two to three years before
results from the experimental fuel studies are known.
[spacer] Top of page [E-mail this story] E-mail this story to a
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38 washingtonpost.com: House Backs Nuclear Sales to India -
Measure Is Intended to Cement U.S. Ties With the Asian Power
By Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, December 9, 2006; Page A07
The House last night reversed decades of U.S. policy aimed at
preventing the spread of nuclear weapons, voting 330 to 59 to
allow expanded sales of civilian nuclear technology to India.
The Senate is likely to follow suit today and send the measure
to President Bush for his expected signature.
The legislation, pushed hard by the Bush administration, is part
of a strategy to accelerate India's rise as a counterweight to
China in Asia. Republican and Democratic supporters argued that
the measure would solidify India as an ally while providing
millions of dollars in sales for the U.S. energy industry.
(D-Calif.), who will chair the House International Relations
Committee next year, said the measure "ushers in a new era of
cooperation between our two great democracies."
Opponents warned that Congress was moving toward a colossal
error that would accelerate the spread of nuclear weapons and
foment a dangerous nuclear arms race in Asia.
"This bill is an historic mistake, a mistake which will come
back to haunt the United States and the world," said (D-Mass.),
who co-chairs the Bipartisan Task Force on Nonproliferation.
For years, the United States has used nuclear trade as a carrot
to induce nations to agree to the international
Non-Proliferation Treaty, withholding civilian reactors and
technology from nations, such as India, that refuse to sign. But
in March, Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh agreed
to a plan that would allow civil nuclear trade with India in
return for safeguards and inspections at India's 14 civilian
nuclear plants. Eight military plants would be off-limits.
Lantos and other supporters of the measure secured additional
safeguards that they said should allay opponents' proliferation
concerns. They argued that U.S. policy unfairly discriminated
against India, which has never been accused of fomenting nuclear
proliferation, while rewarding China, which has helped Iran and
Pakistan with their efforts.
Nevertheless, much of the support for the bill was for economic
reasons. With a population of 1 billion, India has vast energy
needs, and civilian nuclear technology would help it to
modernize.
Concerns remain, however. By creating a new civilian nuclear
market, critics contend, the deal will allow India's existing
nuclear reactors to be devoted solely to producing fuel for
nuclear weapons. India's nuclear-armed rival, Pakistan, has
condemned the deal, and China has also been leery.
In recent months, India's ties with Iran have also come under
scrutiny, as the Bush administration tries to pressure Tehran to
give up its own nuclear ambitions.
A report issued last month by the Congressional Research
Service, which does in-depth analysis for Congress, said that
"India's long relationship with Iran" made it unlikely that
India would take a hard line on Tehran. India does not support
nuclear weapons for Iran, but, the report said, "its views of
the Iranian threat and appropriate responses differ
significantly from U.S. views."
The Washington Post Company:
*****************************************************************
39 Guardian Unlimited: Indian, U.S. Officials Welcome Nuke Deal
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Saturday December 9, 2006 10:16 PM
By MATTHEW ROSENBERG
Associated Press Writer
NEW DELHI (AP) - Officials trumpeted a U.S.-India civilian
nuclear deal as the centerpiece of the countries' new
partnership, but India struck a note of caution Saturday over
``extraneous'' provisions.
There is broad agreement that the deal, which allows the
shipment of nuclear fuel and know-how to India, is reshaping
India-U.S. relations and could alter the global power balance.
But India's concerns over some of the bill's provisions - while
not enough to scuttle the deal - highlight challenges the two
counties face as they try overcome decades of mistrust.
American and Indian officials also need to work out a separate
technical nuclear cooperation agreement, expected to be
finalized next year.
The civilian pact cleared the Senate on Saturday after sailing
through the House Friday night and is now headed to the White
House to be signed by President Bush.
Bush hailed the agreement in a statement Saturday.
``I am pleased that our two countries will soon have increased
opportunities to work together to meet our energy needs in a
manner that does not increase air pollution and greenhouse gas
emissions, promotes clean development, supports
nonproliferation, and advances our trade interests,'' he said.
U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns called the deal a
``historic step,'' and told reporters in New Delhi on Friday
that it ``is the symbolic center of this new strategic
partnership between India and the United States.''
The deal should further open a huge market for U.S. companies
and give India the energy it needs. But it is far more fraught
politically, as evidenced by India's more muted reaction to U.S.
lawmakers' approval of the pact.
While India's Foreign Ministry also called the deal
``historic,'' it said the U.S. legislation ``contains certain
extraneous and prescriptive provisions.''
``No legislation enacted in a foreign country can take away from
us the sovereign right to conduct foreign policy determined
solely by our national interests,'' it said in a statement.
The statement was referring to language in the bill that would
require Bush and his successors to determine if New Delhi is
cooperating with Washington efforts to confront Iran about its
nuclear ambitions.
Indian officials say they can live with the weakened, nonbinding
language that made it into the final bill. But many in India are
rankled by Washington's suggestions that New Delhi should
support U.S. policy, be it on Iran or China, countries with
which India is also seeking closer ties.
India and the U.S. ``will have to sit together and find out how
they can promote their respective national interests, and work
together to promote global peace and security,'' said Gen. Ashok
Mehta, a retired Indian officer and military commentator. ``It's
not certain they can.''
India also has concerns about provisions that could limit its
right to reprocess spent atomic fuel and employ other sensitive
nuclear technologies.
``We already possess these technologies - we have had the
ability to reprocess since 1965 - so this kind of language is
causing concern to us,'' said M. R. Srinivasan, a member of the
Indian government's Atomic Energy Commission.
``There is also the question of a future weapons test,'' he
said. A test could nullify the deal, but ``suppose Pakistan were
to test. There could be a legitimate reaction in an Indian
test.''
India and its neighboring archrival Pakistan, both
nuclear-armed, have fought three wars since their independence
from Britain in 1947.
Within hours of the deal being approved, Pakistan successfully
test-fired a new version of its short-range nuclear-capable
missile, the Hatf III (Ghazanvi). Pakistan's military said the
test was part of a training exercise.
Economically, the benefits for India and the U.S. could be huge.
Energy, or lack thereof, is the Achilles' heel of India's
fast-growing economy, and officials in the country are looking
to nuclear power as a potential solution.
But India lacks uranium, and the deal will pave the way for its
access to the international nuclear fuel market, from which it
has been excluded for refusing to sign the international Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty.
U.S. companies hope to cash in on the expected boom in nuclear
energy in India. Estimates for how much the Indian market could
be worth range as a high as $100 billion.
---
Associated Press Writer Munir Ahmed in Islamabad, Pakistan
contributed to this report.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
40 Guardian Unlimited: Arab States Study Shared Nuclear Program
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Sunday December 10, 2006 10:31 PM
By ABDULLAH SHIHRI and DIANA ELIAS
Associated Press Writers
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) - The oil-rich Arab states on the
Persian Gulf said Sunday that they will consider starting a
joint nuclear program for peaceful purposes.
The announcement comes as the U.S. and its allies allege Iran is
developing atomic weapons in violation of treaty commitments and
appears to be a muscle-flexing gesture to the gulf's Persian
state. It also was sure to ratchet up concerns about a regional
nuclear arms race.
Issued after a two-day meeting of the six-nation Gulf
Cooperation Council, the statement said the group ``commissioned
a study'' on setting up ``a common program in the area of
nuclear energy for peaceful purposes,'' which would abide by
international standards and laws.
The statement read by Abdul Rahman al-Attiyah, secretary-general
of the political and economic alliance, did not elaborate on the
plan by the group - Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates,
Qatar, Bahrain and Oman.
Saudi Arabia's foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, was
quick to tell reporters after the closing session that the group
did not want to be ``misunderstood,'' saying its aim ``is to
obtain the technology for peaceful purposes, no more no less.''
``Gulf states are not known for seeking hegemony or threatening
power, they seek stability and peace,'' he said.
The area's Arab nations have expressed worry over the disputed
Iranian nuclear program, which is the focus of a standoff with
the West over Tehran's refusal to suspend uranium enrichment.
Iran insists its program is for peaceful purposes, including
generating electricity.
Arab leaders also are concerned over Iran's increasing influence
in the region through its links to the Shiite Muslim parties
that dominate Iraq's government and its backing for the
Palestinians' Hamas-led government and the Hezbollah militant
group in Lebanon.
Kuwaiti columnist Fouad al-Hashem called Sunday's announcement a
``clear, strong and courageous'' message to Iran that the GCC
nations will not sit and watch while Iran presses forward with
its nuclear program.
``They are saying that we can, with the help of our allies,
balance the power and build our own reactors even if we don't
need them,'' said al-Hashem, who writes for the Al-Watan
newspaper. ``They are saying we're here, and we have the whole
civilized world on our side.''
The Arab states around the Persian Gulf have not previously
pursued nuclear power because they possess substantial oil
resources and have lacked the scientific know-how, but their
statement said they will look into the uses of atomic energy.
Saudi Arabia already said in November it was experimenting with
nuclear technology for medical purposes.
Iran's first reactor - being built in Bushehr just across the
gulf from Kuwait and the eastern coast of Saudi Arabia - is
projected to begin operating in late 2007, and its Arab
neighbors have said they fear an accident would endanger their
citizens and the environment.
But Iran's neighbors also fear a military clash between Tehran
and United States and its ally Israel. Gulf nations with U.S.
military bases - Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar - fear Iran could
retaliate against them.
Other Arab countries also have expressed interest in nuclear
programs. In an October warning about the threat of atomic arms
proliferation, the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency said Egypt,
Jordan and Yemen are among nations around the world considering
nuclear programs.
Israel has long been thought to have nuclear bombs, a situation
confirmed last week by incoming U.S. Defense Secretary Robert
Gates. Israel neither acknowledges nor denies possessing such
arms, but it was estimated to have 100-200 nuclear warheads in a
2006 report by the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the
Monterey Institute of International Studies.
On Sunday, the GCC leaders reiterated their position that the
nuclear standoff between Iran and the West should be ``resolved
peacefully,'' and they called on Israel to join the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty, which calls for an atomic weapons-free
Middle East.
---
Associated Press writer Diana Elias reported from Kuwait City.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
41 Xinhua: Gulf nations eye nuclear energy amid tenser situation
www.chinaview.cn 2006-12-11 08:22:42
Related: Gulf nations intends to pursue nuclear energy
technology for peaceful purposes
[Gulf Arab leaders attend the opening ceremony of the Gulf
Cooperation Council Summit in Riyadh, Dec. 9, 2006.]
Gulf Arab leaders attend the opening ceremony of the Gulf
Cooperation Council Summit in Riyadh, Dec. 9, 2006. (Xinhua
Photo)
RIYADH, Dec. 10 (Xinhua) -- Six Gulf Arab nations wrapped up
their two-day summit on Sunday, announcing their intention to
acquire peaceful nuclear technology, while the Saudi King had
warned on Saturday that the region is on the brink of exploding.
The 27th summit of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), a
regional alliance grouping Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman,
Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, has been held on Saturday
and Sunday in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia.
EYEING PEACEFUL NUCLEAR PLAN
On Sunday, six Gulf Arab nations announced at the end of the
summit that they intended to pursue nuclear technology for
peaceful purposes and would establish a joint plan in this
regard.
"The (leaders) commissioned a study by members of the Gulf
Cooperation Council to set up a common program in the area of
nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, according to international
standards and systems," said the statement read by GCC Secretary
General Abdul-Rahman al-Attiya.
"The peaceful use of nuclear energy is the right of every
country," said Attiya, underlining that "every nuclear-related
activity will abide by international treaties and be subject to
inspection."
In a press conference after the summit, Saudi Foreign
Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal dismissed the speculation that
GCC's nuclear intention would add to the regional threat.
"We will develop it openly, not in secret. We want no bombs.
All we want is a whole Middle East that is free of weapons of
mass destruction," he told reporters.
Faisal also urged neighboring Iran to cooperate with the
international community on the nuclear standoff which has raised
great concerns among Gulf states.
Many suspect Iran is secretly developing atomic weapons,
which has been bluntly denied by the Persian country.
Faisal, meanwhile, called on Israel to accept international
inspection on its nuclear facilities, saying, "Israel has no
excuse to develop nuclear arms."
Although widely believed to be the only nuclear power in the
region, Israel has never admitted or denied that it has nuclear
weapons.
ARAB ON BRINK OF EXPLODING
Saudi King Abdullah warned, while inaugurating the summit on
Saturday, that the Arab world was on the brink of exploding
because of escalating conflicts in the Palestinian territories,
Iraq and Lebanon.
In his unusually strong rhetoric, King Abdullah said, "Our
Arab region is surrounded by unrest and danger. It is almost
like a powder keg waiting for a spark to explode,"
Speaking of Palestinian problem, he said "the most dangerous
thing is the internal rift between the Palestinian brothers,"
referring to the in-fighting between the rival ruling Hamas
movement and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah.
As for Iraq, the Saudi King said "brothers in Iraq are
slaughtering each other, and the country is engulfed by
bloodshed and violence," warning of the division in the country.
On Wednesday, the U.S. bipartisan Iraq Study Group issued
the highly-anticipated report that recommends major changes in
the Bush Administration's Iraq policy, which it says is "not
working."
The Sunni-dominated Gulf nations also fear Iraq will be
under too much influence imposed by the Shiite Iran.
As for Lebanon, he also voiced concern that the unity of the
country is in danger.
HINDERED ECONOMIC INTEGRATION
The already slow-paced GCC economic integration process
suffered another blow as reports said Oman will not join the
Arab Gulf monetary union by the deadline of 2010.
"Oman will not join the single currency union because it
won't be ready by that time (2010)," an unnamed official from a
Gulf state told local media on Sunday.
The decision, although not being officially announced yet,
cast doubts over the possibility of achieving GCC's main
economic goals-- establishing a common market by 2007 and a
single currency by 2010.
There had been a major setback in last year's summit when
the GCC decided to extend the transition period of the bloc's
customs union from 2005 to the end of 2007.
Founded in 1981, the GCC has been striving to achieve
wide-ranging cooperation among member states in face of internal
and international challenges.
Editor: Yao Runping
*****************************************************************
42 toledoblade.com: Problems with Fermi generators passed over
Article published Saturday, December 9, 2006
By TOM HENRY BLADE STAFF WRITER
NEWPORT, Mich. - Detroit Edison Co. didn't know the operating
status of Fermi 2's emergency diesel generators as well as the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission thought it did over the last 20
years, according to an NRC report obtained by The Blade yesterday
and an interview with a senior agency spokesman.
The utility came up short by:
"Never following through with a commitment it made on Aug. 22,
1986, to bring its testing criteria in line with changes to the
undervoltage relay setpoints made in the Division 1 electrical
system. That change was necessitated by a design deficiency, the
NRC report said.
By failing to do so, the precise reliability of the generators
wasn't known, Jan Strasma, a NRC spokesman, said.
"Putting undersized control power transformers on service-water
pumps for at least one of the four generators in 1999. That left
open the possibility of at least one generator overheating in an
emergency, if a voltage drop shut off pumps that circulate
coolant water to the equipment.
Only recently have the two problems been corrected.
"The diesel generators are one of the most important parts of
the plant," David Lochbaum, nuclear safety engineer for the
Union of Concerned Scientists. "They get more than their share
of attention. For some reason, this didn't get caught for an
awful long time."
Len Singer, a Detroit Edison spokesman, said the utility is
"looking into why they weren't identified sooner."
Mr. Lochbaum said the NRC is not blameless, either.
The agency's report shows that government inspectors reopened
the 1986 testing-criteria issue July 30, 2003, then closed it
July 27, 2004, with the understanding the problem was about to
be fixed. A special inspection team reopened the issue again
after being dispatched to Fermi 2 in November, 2005.
The NRC recently closed the matter with two "green" findings,
ones considered to be of low safety significance. Such
violations do not result in fines.
Mr. Strasma said the low-safety findings were a fluke: The NRC
went through records, performed tests the way they were supposed
to have been done, and determined the four generators were
operable during that 20-year span - despite what Detroit Edison
did or didn't know about them.
"We don't think this warrants taking away the keys or anything
drastic," Mr. Lochbaum said. "But it's almost a no-blood,
no-foul rule."
The massive generators are one of a nuclear plant's most
important safety features. They provide backup electricity
during off-site power outages and brownouts.
Fermi 2's reactor has four generators; most reactors have only
two, Mr. Strasma said.
The Toledo Blade Company, 541 N. Superior St., Toledo, OH 43660
, (419) 724-6000
*****************************************************************
43 AFP: Hitachi to build nuclear energy factory in North America
Sunday December 10, 03:14 AM
TOKYO (AFP) - Japan's Hitachi Ltd (Xetra: - ) . plans to build a
facility in North America to assemble equipment for nuclear power
plants in the United States, a newspaper has said.
The project is in line with its nuclear power tie-up with US
conglomerate General Electric (NYSE: - ) as part of a broader
industry realignment fueled by renewed interest in atomic energy
particularly in the United States, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun said.
Under the plan, the Japanese company will build the facility as
early as 2009 to strengthen its cost competitiveness and make its
logistics and construction operations more efficient, the
business daily said. The facility will assemble parts made in
Japan into large modules that are then sent to construction sites
by ship, it said.
The report did not specify if the facility would be built in the
US. Hitachi has been involved in building and maintaining boiling
water reactors in Japan and abroad since receiving technical
assistance about reactors from GE in 1967. In their latest deal,
Hitachi and GE reached a general agreement last month to hive off
their nuclear power operations into two joint ventures that will
build, maintain and develop nuclear plants and boiling water
reactors.
The two firms aim to grab one-third of the orders for nuclear
generating plants, and are already close to concluding a contract
for one in Texas. The United States turned away from nuclear
power after a 1979 meltdown at the Three Mile Island plant in
Pennsylvania. No new reactor has been put into service in the
United States since 1996. However, President George W. Bush's
administration wants to relaunch the construction of nuclear
reactors in the United States due to the elevated cost of crude
oil, whose price has been pushed up in recent years by
geopolitical tension and supply concerns.
Copyright © 2006 AFP AFP. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
44 montgomeryadvertiser.com: 'Nuclear future' not desirable
December 10, 2006
Much of the discussion on building new nuclear reactors in the
south focuses on economics. ("Southeast has nuclear future,"
Nov. 13).
A terrorist attack on the large amount of radiation in a
reactor's core and waste pools would be catastrophe, but it
still takes a back seat to finances. As horrible as a large
release of radiation would be, another 9/11 attack isn't
necessary for nuclear reactors to threaten health.
Every day reactors release more than 100 chemicals into local
air and water, and these enter human bodies through breathing,
eating, and drinking. These chemicals attack different body
parts. Iodine-131 seeks out the thyroid gland, Strontium-90
attaches to bone and teeth, and Cesium-137 enters muscles. Each
causes cancer, and is especially toxic to infants and children.
One potential site for new reactors is the Bellefonte plant in
Jackson County in northeast Alabama. The county, with 54,000
residents, is just 40 miles downwind (east) of the Browns Ferry
nuclear reactors, in operation since 1973. A quarter century
ago, as Browns Ferry was just starting, Jackson County's cancer
death rate was 11 percent below the U.S. rate. Today, the county
rate is 20 percent above the nation. The county death rate used
to be 45th highest of 67 Alabama counties; today it is the third
highest.
While many factors could account for this disturbing trend,
radiation exposure must be considered as one. Until studies are
complete, building new nukes in an area already burdened by
cancer may not be the best idea.
Joseph J. Mangano
Radiation and Public
Health Project
Norristown, Pa.
*****************************************************************
45 Los Angeles Times: Congress OKs nuclear pact with India -
The deal, a major policy shift, provides access to American
technology.
By James Gerstenzang, Times Staff Writer
December 9, 2006
'Such a policy unravels years of successful U.S. diplomatic
efforts.'
Robert G. Gard Jr., Retired Army lieutenant general
WASHINGTON Reversing three decades of U.S. policies intended
to halt the spread of nuclear weapons, Congress early today
approved a long-stalled agreement giving India access to
American nuclear technology with limited safeguards to
discourage possible proliferation.
The House of Representatives passed the measure, 330 to 59,
Friday night, and senators voted unanimously in favor of the
deal shortly before 3 a.m. President Bush, who finalized the
terms of the agreement during a visit to India in March, is
expected to sign it quickly.
The pact would lift a U.S. moratorium on nuclear cooperation
with a nation that has developed atomic weapons and has not
signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty of 1970. But Bush and
supporters of the agreement argue that it marks a crucial
advance in restricting nuclear weapons because it permits
international inspectors to examine most of India's civilian
nuclear reactors for the first time.
In addition, they say that opening India's nuclear industry to
$100 billion in potential sales from abroad will help cement a
relationship with a developing economic power that may also
serve as a hedge against the growing clout of China in Asia.
Critics argued that by allowing India's nuclear arsenal to keep
growing and keeping some of its facilities off-limits, the pact
establishes a double standard and sets conditions under which
treaty violations would be tolerated.
"Such a policy unravels years of successful U.S. diplomatic
efforts to convince countries that the benefits of surrendering
the right to develop nuclear weapons outweighed the risk of
staying outside the treaty and pursuing a nuclear weapons
option," said retired Army Lt. Gen. Robert G. Gard Jr., a senior
military fellow at the Center for Arms Control and
Non-Proliferation, a Washington think tank.
The deal now faces at least two additional hurdles. A treaty
putting the provisions into effect will require Senate
ratification, and the Nuclear Suppliers Group, 45 nations that
control exports of nuclear materials, also must approve the pact.
The suppliers group was formed in 1974 after India conducted a
nuclear test.
Over months of debate, the measure's proponents were able to
turn back fears that the accord would fuel a nuclear arms race
in South Asia and that the United States was weakening its hand
in seeking to restrict nuclear weapons development in Iran and
North Korea.
Though India has been a nuclear power since 1974, its rival,
Pakistan, first tested nuclear weapons in 1998.
Pakistan's military said in a statement that it had successfully
test-fired a new version of its short-range, nuclear-capable
missile today, the Associated Press reported.
Supporters said that rather than fueling arms development, the
agreement will promote economic growth in the U.S. and India by
easing political tensions and encouraging trade.
"India is a state that should be at the very center of our
foreign policy and our attention," Rep. Tom Lantos (D-San Mateo)
said in House debate Friday.
Sanjay Puri, chairman of the U.S.-India Political Action
Committee, said some estimates had placed the potential economic
value of the deal at $30 billion in the United States and India
alone, and that it could add 10,000 to 15,000 jobs in the U.S.
Alternatively, the failure of the deal would have "serious
repercussions in terms of the political and economic
relationship," he said.
The issue of Iran's nuclear ambitions delayed the measure's
consideration until the last days of the 109th Congress.
Legislators wanted assurances that India would cooperate with
U.S. efforts to punish Iran, with sanctions if necessary, for
its nuclear program.
But Bush administration officials feared such provisions would
alienate India and scuttle the deal.
Ultimately, the two sides agreed on a compromise under which the
president would submit reports on India's actions regarding Iran.
Under the agreement passed by Congress, India would be allowed
to expand its nuclear weapons arsenal, but for the first time it
would allow international inspections of its civilian reactors.
However, inspectors would have access only to 14 of 22 reactors.
The others, at military installations, would remain off-limits.
At the heart of the debate was the impact the deal would have on
the nonproliferation treaty, a cornerstone of U.S. nuclear
weapons policy since 1970. The treaty, aimed at preventing
nonnuclear nations from acquiring atomic arms, has been signed
by more than 180 countries.
*****************************************************************
46 AFP: US Congress approves landmark Indian nuclear deal
by P. Parameswaran Sat Dec 9, 7:06 AM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US Congress gave its final approval to
landmark legislation allowing export of civilian nuclear fuel and
technology to India for the first time in 30 years.
The Senate passed the deal by voice vote during an all-night
session. The House of Representatives approved it 330-59 late
Friday.
The legislation, which reconciles separate bills adopted by the
House and Senate aimed at implementing a nuclear agreement
between Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and US President
George W. Bush" /> President George W. Bushin July last year.
"This truly bipartisan effort is an excellent step forward,"
said Henry Hyde, the outgoing Republican chairman of the House
International Relations Committee. "It recognises the nuclear
reality of India," he said on Saturday.
Named after the retiring 16-term Congressman, the "Henry J. Hyde
United States-India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act of
2006" was expected to be signed by Bush into law.
Under the controversial deal, India, a non-signatory of the
nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), will be given access to
civilian nuclear fuel and technology in return for placing its
atomic reactors under global scrutiny.
The US Congress had to create a rare exception for India from
some of the requirements of the US Atomic Energy Act, which
currently prohibits nuclear sales to non-NPT signatories.
Washington stopped nuclear cooperation with India after it
conducted its first nuclear test in 1974.
"This is a historic day for this House and for the United
States," said Tom Lantos, the new Democratic chairman of the
House international relations committee.
Indian newspapers rejoiced at the expected signing of the bill
on Monday by Bush.
The Indian Express daily said the stage was set for ending
India's "nuclear winter", while the Hindustan Times crowed that
"India gets to have its nuclear cake and eat it too."
However, some US lawmakers and weapons experts warned that the
deal could make it harder to enforce rules against nuclear
renegades such as North Korea" /> North Koreaand Iran" />
Iranand set a dangerous precedent for other nations with nuclear
ambitions.
"This bill is a historic mistake," countered Democratic lawmaker
Ed Markey, who had vehemently opposed the legislation.
Holding a large picture of Pakistan's disgraced nuclear pioneer
Abdul Qadeer Khan, Markey said "A.Q. Khan would accept a deal
like that for Pakistan.
"What are we going to say when China offers the same deal to
Pakistan? What will we say when the Russians offer the same deal
the Iranians," he asked.
"When we turn to the other countries and we tell them your
standards are not high enough, they are going to call us
hypocrites," said Markey, co-chairman of the House's bipartisan
task force on nonproliferation.
The deal still has to clear several hurdles to become effective.
The United States and India will now have to frame a
comprehensive agreement incorporating all technical elements of
the deal and it has to be passed by the US Congress again.
It includes a set of international nuclear safeguards to be
approved by the International Atomic Energy Agency" />
International Atomic Energy Agency, the global nuclear watchdog,
and to which India must adhere.
The deal also needs the backing of the influential 45-nation
Nuclear Suppliers Group.
Lawmakers had watered down several contentious provisions in the
legislation opposed by the US and Indian governments, including
one that initially had virtually compelled India to back US
efforts to contain the nuclear program of New Delhi's
traditional ally Iran.
Indian Prime Minister Singh and US Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice" /> Condoleezza Ricepersonally lobbied
lawmakers at the last minute to ease the "problematic"
provisions.
One provision now simply requires the US president to make
assessments on whether India backed US efforts to contain Iran's
nuclear program.
Regardless of that evaluation, the two nations would go ahead
with nuclear trade, arms experts said.
Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
47 KSL: Ads Promote Nuclear Power
December 10th, 2006 @ 10:00pm
John Daley Reporting
A series of high-profile ads is urging Utahns to warm up to the
idea of nuclear energy. It's part of the Energy Solutions image
campaign.
The US gets a majority of its electric power from coal burning
power plants; in Utah that number is 95%. But those plants
contribute mightily to our output of the leading greenhouse gas
carbon dioxide. Now, Energy Solutions is spending big bucks to
convince the public nuclear power is the way forward.
TV Advertisement: "Over 20% of the nation's electricity now comes
from safe, clean, domestically produced, nuclear power, energy
that does not create greenhouse gases. It's not going to be easy
to solve global warming, but there's too much at stake if we
don't."
That's the latest in a series of ads the company Energy Solutions
has been running and comes just weeks after it bought the naming
rights to what was the Delta Center and is now the Energy
Solutions Arena.
Steve Creamer, CEO, Energy Solutions: "What we're trying to do is
take the controversy out of it, let people understand. If you
understand things, you're usually not scared of things. And what
we do is not scary. We're the guys who clean up. We're not the
polluters. We're the guys who clean up."
We showed the spots to the co-founder of Utah's anti-nuclear
waste group. He and other green advocates say nuclear is not the
answer.
Jason Groenewold, Co-Founder, HEAL Utah "They are spending
millions and millions of dollars to try and brainwash the people
of Utah into accepting more nuclear waste into our state.
Lawson Legate, Utah Chapter of Sierra Club: "There are very real
serious problems with nuclear power generation. And until those
problems are solved that's just not the path to go down."
The questions about nuclear power are considerable. It's
expensive, the security risks in an age of terrorism are high,
and there's the waste --whether reprocessed on site or dumped
here in Utah-- many are apprehensive about it.
Energy Solutions clearly wants the public to focus instead on
another looming danger.
TV advertisement: "...Are now faced with extinction because of
climate change. At Energy Solutions we're helping the nuclear
industry deliver safer, cleaner nuclear power that doesn't harm
the environment."
The company says the nuclear industry has made a lot of progress
since the bad old days of Three Mile Island.
Mark Walker, Spokesman, Energy Solutions: "I think we need to
look at the technology today as opposed to 20, 30, 40 years ago.
It's much improved."
Because it doesn't produce greenhouse gas emissions, some
environmentalists also think nuclear needs to be part of the
energy answer, but most green groups instead favor investing in
wind, solar and geo-thermal.
Jason Groenewold, Co-Founder, HEAL Utah: "Where we really need to
put our energy and focus is on conservation, efficiency and
renewable energy."
The company declined to disclose how much it spent on renaming
the Delta Center. For this ad campaign the green groups say it
must be in the millions of dollars. A spokesman for Energy
Solutions told me today it's the hundreds of thousands of
dollars, but probably not a million dollars.
*****************************************************************
48 Guardian Unlimited: Blunt truths about Britain's security from an old soldier
Comment
General Jackson was warning not just Tony Blair but all
politicians that the defence of the realm cannot be done on the
cheap
Andrew Rawnsley
Sunday December 10, 2006 The Observer
Before he retired as head of the army, Sir Mike Jackson was
joined at the Sandhurst passing-out parade by the Prime Minister.
He may have sent British troops into battle in more theatres of
war than anyone since Winston Churchill, but the only time Tony
Blair has ever worn a uniform was as a member of the Fettes
school cadet force, an experience that he so loathed that for a
while he became a pacifist. As the parading at Sandhurst was
about to begin, Tony Blair turned to the general and said:
'You'll have to tell me what to do, Mike.'
In the blistering language with which a hopeless cadet might be
bawled out on the parade ground, General Jackson has now told the
Prime Minister what he thinks of his soldiering. The former chief
of the general staff used the elevated platform provided by the
Richard Dimbleby lecture to launch a trenchant assault on the
government's treatment of the men and women it sends into harm's
way.
The general raged against bureaucrats in the Ministry of Defence
who are more concerned with 'process' and 'performance targets'
than about winning wars and treating serving men and women
properly. Pay is inadequate. Accommodation provided to them and
their families is sometimes 'shaming'. Cuts to the medical
services for wounded soldiers have been 'disastrous'. He also
delivered a wider, rather plaintive lament that New Labour
Britain, a comfortable and prosperous land whose citizens view
conflicts at long distance from the ease of a sofa, does not
have much empathy with the 'ethos of soldiering'.
This was the most heartfelt passage of the lecture: 'It is our
soldiers who pay the cost in blood. The nation must, therefore,
pay the cost in treasure.' The most searing accusation in the
general's grand remonstrance was that this contract has been
dishonoured on Tony Blair's watch.
The weak government response to this barrage from the former
head of the army suggests that ministers know he is essentially
correct in his over-arching contention that there is now 'a
mismatch between what we do and the resources we are given'. If
I were the Defence Secretary, I might not be all that terribly
distressed by General Jackson's blast, not if the threat of more
of the same helps me to squeeze additional funds out of Gordon
Brown. One of the bitterest private complaints of many senior
officers over the Blair years is that the Prime Minister has
never fought hard enough on their behalf with the Chancellor.
Sir Mike has been on the receiving end of some unfriendly fire
from within the armed services for not attacking the government
until he had got safely into retirement and secured his pension.
Some of the men who used to serve under him have contrasted his
intervention with the attack on the government two months ago by
Sir Richard Dannatt, the current head of the armed forces. They
see Sir Richard as the braver of the two generals for letting
rip while still in uniform. My sympathy is with Sir Mike on that
point. We get into a perilous constitutional minefield when
serving generals start public disputes over strategy with
elected politicians.
You can see why the armed forces have become much more
politicised over the New Labour years. It flows from the
interventions and conflicts in Sierra Leone, Bosnia, Kosovo,
Macedonia, East Timor, Afghanistan and, most of all, Iraq.
Fighting men and women have been more at the centre of national
attention, and more controversially so, than at any time in
decades.
When the Soviet Union imploded, the armed forces had reason to
fear that they had lost an enemy and would no longer have a
role. With the end of the Cold War, there was a widespread view,
a wildly over-optimistic view as it turned out, that Western
democracies would not have much need for armies, navies and air
forces in the future.
European countries slashed into their defence budgets. Some
countries cut so deep that they are now virtually incapable of
doing anything useful militarily, whether it is fighting
conflicts or keeping the peace. The struggle against the Taliban
in Afghanistan is undermined by those Nato countries which won't
allow their troops to fight in the south or when it is dark or
when it is snowy or when it is wet or without a note from their
mums. General Jackson is rightfully scornful when he says
'risk-free soldiering' is 'a contradiction in terms.'
When Labour first came to office, the new government and the
armed forces looked at each warily, unsure what to expect from
each other. Much to the surprise of both, it was Tony Blair who
provided the British armed forces with a new purpose for the
post-Cold War world as the indispensable agents of his doctrine
of international interventionism. Sir Mike came to national fame
when he led the ground forces in Kosovo, an intervention, as he
pointedly remarked in his lecture, where 'Western blood and
treasure' was risked on behalf of 'beleaguered Muslim
populations'.
That was far from the only passage of his lecture, which was
actually very supportive of the Blair world view. The general's
anger about the shoddy treatment of the armed services by their
political masters was widely headlined. Much less, if at all,
reported was the spirited case he made for sustaining a strong
capacity to confront rogue and genocidal regimes, to tackle
Islamist terrorism, to intervene in failed and failing states
and to meet other threats as yet dimly perceived or simply
unknown.
'I do not think that in this global world pulling up the
drawbridge of a Fortress Britain is a sensible strategy.' It was
not the Blair ends that the general was quarrelling with. It was
the failure to provide the means.
The doctrine of interventionism has been hugely damaged by the
atrocious mistakes made in Iraq. When Tony Blair stood alongside
George Bush at their news conference at the White House last
week, the President was finally forced to use the word 'bad'
about Iraq. Robert Gates, his new Defence Secretary, has
publicly declared that America is not winning. James Baker's
quaintly named Iraq Study Group says even more bluntly that it
is losing. The panel of Washington grey heads begin their bleak
analysis by declaring: 'The situation in Iraq is grave and
deterioriating.' Some in Washington have renamed James Baker and
his colleagues as the Iraq Surrender Group. The analysis is not
that revelatory and the recommendations are not that novel. It
is not what the group says that is of most importance. What's
significant is who is saying it. This is the American political
elite announcing that Iraq has been lost and what is now to be
discussed are the terms and the timing of the retreat.
Future historians will long debate what went so wrong in Iraq.
Sir Mike offers a useful 100-day rule for interventions. If they
are to be a success, the intervening forces have to show they
are making a positive difference to the security, political,
economic and humanitarian situation within 100 days. That's not
a bad rule. Historians may well conclude that Iraq was lost in
the first 100 days after the fall of Saddam as a result of a
series of crazy decisions which allowed disorder, insurgency and
sectarianism to ignite and then consume so much of the country.
Others will argue that the original Blair prospectus for Iraq
was never really deliverable. That was the contention of Sir
Richard Dannatt when the head of the British armed forces
declared that it had been 'naive' to think that a liberal
democracy could be created in Iraq and that it was time to
settle for a 'lower ambition'.
What Sir Mike Jackson's lecture brought into more public
exposure is that the British military is now as divided about
this as the political world. While General Dannatt is of the
view that 'we must get out some time soon', General Jackson
warns against being 'mesmerised by dates'. He took the Blair
view - what used to be the Blair view, anyway. To leave Iraq
against the wishes of its elected government and before it can
deal with the insurgency and violence 'would be both morally
wrong and a fundamental strategic mistake'.
Tony Blair's successors will have a big choice to make about the
armed forces if commitments are to be brought back into balance
with resources. There will have to be a major rethink of both
how much national 'treasure' is spent and where it is spent.
Nearly two decades after the Berlin Wall came down, much of the
defence budget is still shaped around the non-existent threat of
the Red Army. An early - and bad - decision of this government
was to carry on with the enormously expensive Eurofighter
project when the Soviet warplanes it was designed to combat were
not coming any more. Tony Blair has committed a substantial
slice of the future defence budget to renewing a submarine-based
nuclear missile system, a decision endorsed by both Gordon Brown
and David Cameron.
Commitments will have to be reduced to match resources or
resources will have to be increased to deliver commitments
successfully. That is the hard choice Tony Blair has left for
his successors as the Prime Minister heads for his own
passing-out parade from Number 10.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
49 London Times: Kenny Farquharson: Nuclear weapons? Yes please -
The Sunday Times - Scotland
December 10, 2006
At Large
Four out of five Scots say they are against the nuclear missile
programme that will succeed Trident. But it seems none of them
live near Faslane
A few weeks ago a humpback whale was spotted in Loch Long, just a
few hundred yards off the coastal village of Cove. It was a rare
sighting, but it failed to generate the excitement you might
expect among the locals. Massive black beasts emerging from the
deep are commonplace in these waters. From the hills on the
Rosneath peninsula, there are spectacular views to be enjoyed of
Britain’s nuclear weapons programme on the Firth of Clyde.
Vanguard, Victorious, Vigilant and Vengeance, the Royal Navy’s
four Trident submarines, call these sea lochs their home.
To the east of the peninsula is Gare Loch. Here the Faslane
naval dockyard is a sprawl of cranes, workshops and boat sheds,
all painted battleship grey. A cold winter sun glints off the
loch, and a long boom snakes out into the water to seal off the
base from seaborne intruders.
To the west is Loch Long and the Coulport arms depot. Here,
caves tunnelled deep into the rock store almost 200 nuclear
warheads, each capable of reducing a large city to radioactive
rubble. The surrounding hills are austere and wintry, the trees
bare. In the distance are the gnarled summits of the Arrochar
Alps.
Last Monday afternoon the local community was more than usually
attentive to the radio and television news bulletins. They
listened as Tony Blair declared it would be “unwise and
dangerous” for Britain to give up its nuclear missile defence
unilaterally.
There was a communal sigh of relief as the prime minister
committed the government to spending the necessary Ł20 billion
on a new missile system to succeed Trident, securing the
economic future of Faslane and Coulport for the next four
decades.
Opinion polls suggest that four out of five Scots disagree with
Blair and believe Trident should not be replaced. But this
consensus is not shared by those who live on the shores of Gare
Loch and Loch Long. Here, the Royal Navy’s bases provide a
livelihood for 3,000 service personnel, 800 members of their
families and 4,000 civilian workers. Nuclear weapons are a way
of life and a way to secure a living. Inevitably, this means a
tense relationship with the peace protesters who have been
camped at Faslane for the past 24 years.
In the village of Kilcreggan, a local pub is advertising what
passes for Friday night entertainment in this neck of the woods.
One only hopes that “DJ Huffy” does not live up to his name. As
with other villages on the peninsula, it is still possible to
imagine when this was a weekend retreat for wealthy Glaswegian
merchants, who vied with each other building fine Victorian
holiday homes with loch views.
Kilcreggan pier juts into the firth, a stopping-off point for
the Kenilworth, the tiny Clyde ferry that has ploughed its way
daily between the peninsula and Gourock for the past 70 years.
Two months ago, the ferry captain had a reminder of who really
ruled these waves when a US warship radioed an alarming message.
“Unidentified vessel approaching on my starboard side,” it went.
“Please identify yourself. If you fail to do so, we will open
fire on you with live ammunition.” The authorities later
apologised, explaining the ship had been taking part in a
training exercise on preventing seaborne suicide attacks.
A middle-aged man wearing a blue fleece is walking his two dogs
along the water’s edge. He has lived in the area for 24 years
and works in a local hotel, but like most of the people I speak
to, he declines to give his name. In these parts you do not want
to be in the bad books of either the navy or the peace
protesters.
“I’m happy having the base here,” he says, a defiant edge to his
voice. “If the big bang goes up, we’re not going to know
anything about it, are we? If we go, we go and I don’t give two
hoots about it. I have no moral qualms about the weapons.
“People argue about Trident in the hotel bar, but it doesn’t get
you anywhere. We need the deterrent, regardless of what people
say. The protesters don’t come into the bar. Maybe they can’t
afford to. They’ve got their point of view, but they could
protest somewhere else — how about London, where the decisions
are made?” It would be wrong to assume the community is immune
to the political and moral implications of its role in
sustaining a weapons system capable of destroying a continent.
Around the coast from Kilcreggan, in the village of Rosneath, a
middle-aged woman with greying hair and pale blue eyes is
heading for the local shop. This has been her home for 52 years
and the base has always been a presence in her life. Within her
family, she says, there has always been heated debate about the
rights and wrongs of its purpose. “There are moral questions and
I have thought a lot about them,” she says. “But after the
second world war, we do need to have something.
“I don’t think we should be the aggressor, but I do think we
need a deterrent. I have to admit, though, you don’t think about
what’s there as weapons — you couldn’t live like that.”
As teenagers, her children were against the base and the
weapons. But times and opinions adapt to new circumstances.
“They are all grown up now and my daughter is living with a
submariner, so she’s changed her opinion,” she says with a
smile.
Still, there is a capacity in this community to neatly
compartmentalise the function of the Faslane base. This is true
even of people with a highly calibrated sense of moral rights and
wrongs.
Overlooking Gare Loch is Rosneath Catholic church, a modern,
whitewashed building next to a primary school. Father Michael
Moloney explains his role as a part-time chaplain at Faslane.
"Rosneath goes hand in hand with the base - it's part of the
landscape," he says. "There are a lot of people who come here
with the navy and decide they want to stay and settle or retire
here. It's part and parcel of the place."
There will be no pulpit sermons from him on the evils of nuclear
weaponry, regardless of the church's robust views on the matter.
It is not his job, he says, to question the morality of his
parishioners' work.
The chatroom of the peninsula's website buzzes with criticism of
the protesters, whose ramshackle collection of caravans sits a
few miles northwest of Helensburgh. Locals are irked by the
regular blockades of the road that stop children getting to
school and their parents getting to work.
One woman who lives nearby answers the door of her beautiful
lochside cottage with a smile, which quickly turns into a scowl
of rage when the camp is mentioned. "It's a slum and an eyesore,"
she says. "We don't know what kind of people are there. They
could be anybody. The council has permission to move them on but
it doesn't. It's unspeakable."
Not all locals share views as extreme.
Two things dominate the front room of Dominic Colella's home in
the village of Clynder. One is a beautiful baby grand piano. The
other is a superb view of Gare Loch, where the 44-year-old
telecom businessman takes pleasure in looking out for navy ships
and submarines. The protesters, he says, are entitled to their
view and have to be seen as an inevitable consequence of the
presence of the base.
"Sometimes I pick them up when they're thumbing a lift," he says.
"But they've not got a lot to say for themselves. I think they're
running away from something. They are latching on to a cause to
give them some kind of meaning. They may have had other things
going on in their lives."
Earlier that day, a writers' and artists' demonstration had been
held at Faslane's gates. Billy Bragg, A L Kennedy and the poet
Adrian Mitchell all performed outside the 10ft fence topped with
razor wire. Mitchell, 74, found fame in the 1960s with his
anti-war poem with the refrain: "Tell me lies about Vietnam." He
had little sympathy, he said, for locals who worked at the
Faslane base. "I think they have to work it out a bit more
thoroughly. If you think your job is more important than the
burning of men, women and children, there is something wrong with
you. You are not thinking clearly."
Colella is outraged at this. "How dare he say that? I absolutely
have an appreciation of what these missiles can do. But I'm a
positive- thinking person. I don't surround myself with
negativity about the destruction of the world."
Instead, he prefers to enjoy the sight of the submarines making
their majestic way up and down the loch. "It's the same as
watching stars or birds," he says. "It's just taking an interest
in your environment."
Copyright 2006 Times Newspapers Ltd.
*****************************************************************
50 ENS: Bill to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism Introduced in Congress
Environment News Service (ENS)
AmeriScan: December 8, 2006
WASHINGTON, DC, December 8, 2006 (ENS) - Congress adjourned
today until the newly chosen 110th Congress opens in January,
but two Democrats squeezed in a bill to help prevent nuclear
terrorism.
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Congresswoman
Ellen Tauscher of California Thursday introduced legislation in
both chambers of Congress to help prevent nuclear terrorism.
The Nuclear Terrorism Prevention Act of 2006 would create a
senior advisor to the President to focus solely on preventing
nuclear terrorism.
The bill would also require the President to develop a
comprehensive plan to work with the international community to
secure the nuclear materials that terrorists could use to build
a nuclear weapon.
"There's no larger threat to global security than loose nuclear
materials in the hands of a terrorist or rogue nation," said
Congresswoman Tauscher. "The question is, what are we doing
about it? For too long, the answer has been not nearly enough."
In addition, Senator Clinton wrote today to the incoming
chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Carl Levin, and
the new Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph Biden,
urging that they hold hearings in the next Congress "to discuss
how best to address the serious cracks in the international
nonproliferation regime, with the aim of creating a new
nonproliferation blueprint for the security of the United States
and the world."
"Unfortunately, our nation’s influence as a leader in
nonproliferation has been eroded by this administration’s
actions," Clinton wrote.
"The abandonment of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the
administration's interest in developing new nuclear weapons,
have hurt our standing within the global nonproliferation
community," she wrote, "We must restore our nation’s status as a
leader in preventing proliferation worldwide."
"The possibility that terrorists may acquire and use a nuclear
weapon against the United States is an urgent threat to the
security of our nation and the international community,” wrote
Senator Clinton. "We must do everything in our power, working in
concert with other nations, to make that these dangerous
materials are as secure as possible in order to prevent such an
attack. This legislation is an important step toward achieving
that goal.”
Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2006. All Rights
Reserved.
*****************************************************************
51 New Scientist: Nuclear submarines - the ultimate insurance? -
tech - 09 December 2006 -
[NewScientist.com]
Every minute of every day a British submarine armed with up to
48 nuclear warheads, each capable of destroying a city, is on
patrol somewhere under the world's oceans. And that's how Tony
Blair wants it to stay.
The underlying aim of the British prime minister's decision to
replace the country's ageing Trident-armed submarines, announced
this week, is to maintain "continuous deterrent patrols" for the
next 50 years. It will be possible to achieve this, he suggests
in a white paper presented to Parliament on 4 December, while
cutting the number of submarines from four to three and the
number of "operationally available" warheads from 200 to 160.
The weapons are no longer targeted on Russian cities, and Blair
accepts that they won't deter "terrorists". He claims they will
make governments think twice about sponsoring terrorists,
however, and will give the UK the "ultimate insurance" against
future uncertainties.
His arguments are angrily rejected by anti-nuclear campaigners,
who argue that the Trident missile system, and its planned
successor, are a "dangerous irrelevance" in a post-cold war
world.
The proposals also keep the UK bound to the US. In the
government's plan, the new missiles and the warheads will both
depend on US technology and maintenance, as do the present
Trident missiles. "The UK will remain the US's nuclear junkie,"
says Paul Ingram, a senior analyst with the British American
Security Information Council in London.
+ © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd. Vacancies
*****************************************************************
52 Guardian Unlimited: Met Police in radioactivity scare
From Press Association
[UP]
Sunday December 10, 2006 2:48 AM
Two Met Police officers working on the Alexander Litvinenko
murder inquiry have tested positive for polonium-210.
Twenty-six officers closely involved with the investigation into
the death of the former Russia spy were tested for traces of
radioactive contamination. While 24 of the samples showed no
evidence at all of radiation exposure, two showed traces of
polonium.
The Met said the polonium traces were "relatively small" and
were "below defined safety limits". It is understood that both
officers are well and are continuing with their duties. They
will be monitored by health specialists, a police spokeswoman
said.
According to reports, Russian investigators are planning to
travel to London to question witnesses in connection with Mr
Litvinenko's death.
Moscow's Prosecutor General's office has outlined plans to send
officials to Britain but was unable to confirm who they would
question or when the interviews would take place.
A spokeswoman for the Moscow office said it was unclear when
investigators would make the trip, adding: "There is no concrete
date."
A team of nine Scotland Yard counter-terrorism detectives is in
Russia to investigate Mr Litvinenko's poisoning in London last
month.
Meanwhile in London, the police investigation appeared to focus
on the Millennium Hotel where Mr Litvinenko met three Russian
men on November 1, the day he fell ill.
Traces of polonium-210 are reported to have been found in a
fourth-floor room, as well as in a cup from the hotel's Pine
Bar. All seven staff working at the bar on the day of Mr
Litvinenko's visit have been contaminated with polonium-210.
More than 200 customers and other people known to have been at
the bar on November 1 will now be contacted and offered tests to
determine if they have been contaminated with radiation.
© Copyright Press Association Ltd 2006, All Rights Reserved.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
53 ITAR-TASS: Topol-M mobile missiles supplement Russia nuclear forces
10.12.2006, 15.43
MOSCOW, December 10 (Itar-Tass) - The land grouping of Russian
strategic nuclear forces was supplemented with Topol-M mobile
missile systems of new generation, Itar-Tass learnt on Sunday
from public relations chief of the Strategic Missile Troops
Alexander Vovk.
“Mobile land launching systems Topol-M, equipped with ballistic
missiles RS-12M2, entered on duty at the Teikovo (Ivanovo
Region) formation of the Strategic Missile Troops,” he
specified.
© ITAR-TASS. All rights reserved. You undertake not to copy,
store in any medium (including in any other websites),
distribute, transmit, re-transmit, broadcast, modify or show in
public any part of the ITAR-TASS website without the prior
written permission of ITAR-TASS.
Contacts
*****************************************************************
54 AFP: Pakistan tests nuclear-capable ballistic missile -
Sat Dec 9, 3:01 AM ET
ISLAMABAD (AFP) - Pakistan test launched a nuclear-capable
short-range ballistic missile, the third in as many weeks, the
military said.
"The Pakistan army's Strategic Force Command (ASFC) today
conducted a successful launch of the short-range ballistic
missile Hatf-III (Ghaznavi)," it said in a statement on
Saturday.
The Ghaznavi missile has a range of 290 kilometers (181 miles).
The military described the launch of three ballistic missiles in
the past three weeks as part of the training exercises of the
ASFC.
Pakistan troops conducted "successful" launches of the Ghauri
and Shaheen-1 ballistic missiles last month.
Saturday's launch, at an undisclosed location, "came at the
culmination phase of the training exercise, which validated the
operational readiness of the Strategic Missile Group (SMG)
equipped with Ghaznavi missiles," the statement said.
SMG is a unit that handles the nuclear capable missiles.
The Ghaznavi ballistic missile system was handed over to the
army strategic force command a few years ago, it said.
Chief of air staff, Air Chief Marshal Tanvir Mahmood Ahmed, who
witnessed the launch, hailed the "excellent standards achieved
during the tactical and the technical phases of the training,
which was reflected in the successful launch and the accuracy of
the missile on impact," the statement said.
"Pakistan can be justifiably proud of its defence capability and
the reliability of its nuclear deterrence," he added.
He appreciated the efforts of Pakistani engineers, "whose
dedication and professionalism had made it possible for Pakistan
to fully consolidate and operationalise its nuclear capability
in the last seven years."
South Asian rivals Pakistan and India have routinely conducted
missile tests since carrying out tit-for-tat nuclear detonations
in May 1998.
The neighbours have fought three wars since independence from
Britain in 1947, two of them over the disputed Himalayan
territory of Kashmir" /> , which is divided between the two and
claimed by both in its entirety.
Top Indian and Pakistani diplomats at a meeting in New Delhi
last month agreed to create a panel to share intelligence on
terrorism and move to cut the risk of nuclear weapon
"accidents".
The talks rekindled a peace process put on hold since July's
Mumbai train bombings, in which 189 people died. Indian
officials said Pakistan's spy agency was linked to the blasts, a
claim Pakistan denied.
They also agreed on the "early signing" of an agreement to
reduce the risk of "accidents relating to nuclear weapons",
without giving a specific time frame. The two sides are to meet
next in Islamabad in February.
Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
55 Scotsman.com: Fox launches nuclear fight
[Scotsman.com News] Monday, 11th December 2006
SOCIALIST leader Colin Fox was expected to lead a campaign on
Princes Street today against plans to replace Britain's ageing
nuclear deterrent.
The Lothians MSP condemned Prime Minister Tony Blair's ÂŁ25
billion proposal to build new Trident nuclear missiles, unveiled
on Monday.
Mr Fox said: "These Trident nuclear missiles are indiscriminate
and capable of wiping out whole cities and consequently killing
civilians and combatants alike and as such are illegal under
international law."
Mr Fox will be at The Mound between noon and 2pm.
©2006 Scotsman.com| contact| terms & conditions
*****************************************************************
56 Russian businessman named as radiation source in murder case
Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2006 18:24:48 -0600 (CST)
X-Sender-Host-Name: chumbly.math.missouri.edu
X-DSPAM-Result: mail; result="Innocent"; class="Innocent"; probability=0.0000; confidence=1.00; signature=N/A
X-Spam-Class: HAM
11 December 2006
The Independent
www.independent.co.uk
Russian businessman named as radiation source in murder case
By
Jason Bennetto and Tony Paterson in Berlin
The international hunt for the killers of Alexander Litvinenko, the former
KGB agent, took a new twist last night as it emerged that a Russian
businessman was being investigated as the source of the radiation used in
the murder.
Dimitry Kovtun, 41, a former soldier in the Soviet army, and one of three
men who met Mr Litvinenko at a hotel on the day he was given a fatal dose of
radiation, is the latest suspect in the case.
German police revealed that they had found traces of polonium-210 - the
material used in the poisoning - at properties visited by Mr Kovtun in
Hamburg before he flew to London to meet Mr Litvinenko.
Hamburg's chief prosecutor Martin Kvhnke, commenting on Mr Kovtun, said
there was now "a reasonable basis for suspicion that he may not just be a
victim but could also be a perpetrator".
He added that the authorities were investigating him on suspicion that he
may have handled radioactive material.
Mr Litvinenko, a critic of President Vladimir Putin, whose regime he blames
for his murder, was given a massive dose of radiation on 1 November.
His widow, Marina, spoke publicly this weekend for the first time, and
blamed the Russian authorities for his death. Russiahas strongly denied
carrying out the murder.
Scotland Yard believe Mr Litvinenko was probably poisoned twice, once at a
sushi restaurant in Mayfair, and then at the Millennium Hotel, also in
central London, where he had a brief meeting with Mr Kovtun and two of his
business partners.
Anti-terrorist officers from the Metropolitan Police, are in Russia trying
to interview witnesses, including Mr Kovtun, who is in a Moscow hospital
where he is said to be suffering from a low dose of radiation poisoning.
If detectives can prove that Mr Kovtun, who denies any wrongdoing, handled
polonium-210 before Mr Litvinenko was poisoned, then there would be a strong
conspiracy case against him. Detectives from Scotland Yard were reported to
be travelling to Germany to investigate the latest findings.
The potential breakthrough came as Hamburg state prosecutors confirmed that
that they had found traces of polonium-210 in city locations visited by Mr
Kovtun. The radiation was discovered in a flat belonging to Mr Kovtun's
former wife, Marina Wall, 31; on documents handed by Mr Kovtun; in a car
that he had used; and at the home of his former mother in law.
German authorities said Mr Kovtun spent the night at his ex- wife's flat in
the district of Ottensen on 31 October. He flew to London the next day.
Werner Jantosch, the Hamburg police chief heading the case, said: "He [Mr
Kovtun] may have been one of the culprits, although we think it is unlikely
that the murder plot was hatched in Hamburg." Police said there were no
traces of polonium-210 on the flight that Mr Kovtun took from Hamburg to
London.
Mr Kovtun, a German residence permit holder, served as a Russian soldier in
East Germany and Czechoslovakia. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in
1991, he married a German woman whom he later divorced.
German police said Mr Kovtun worked as a business consultant and advised
Western companies that wanted to set up operations in Russia.
Widow tells of last visit to spy
The widow of the murdered former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko spoke
yesterday about her husband's last hours. Marina Litvinenko, 44, left, said
his final words to her were: "Marina, I love you so much. Even until the
last day, and the day before when he became unconscious, I thought he would
be okay," she told The Mail on Sunday. "We were both completely sure that he
would recover. We had been talking about bone-marrow transplants and looking
to the future."
She left her tired and weak husband at night. University College London
Hospital telephoned her the following evening at about 9pm, telling her to
come as quickly as possible. But by the time she arrived her husband had
died.
Jason Bennetto
========
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article2064705.ece
========
*****************************************************************
57 Spy's assassins may have poisoned themselves
Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2006 10:48:21 -0600 (CST)
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,,1968204,00.html
Guardian/UK
Spy's assassins may have poisoned themselves - FBI
7 Killers 'were not trained' in handling polonium-219 7 Method possibly
meant to send message to emigres
Ian Cobain, Jeevan Vasagar, Tom Parfitt in Moscow Saturday December 9,
2006 The Guardian
The assassins who poisoned Alexander Litvinenko in a London hotel bar
may have exposed themselves to a potentially fatal dose of
radioactivity, according to an FBI assessment of the killing.
Tests which have revealed a trail of polonium-210 across more than a
dozen locations around the capital suggest the killers could have
ingested substantial amounts of the isotope.
Seven staff at the Pine Bar of the Millennium Hotel on Grosvenor Square
have been poisoned with small amounts of polonium-210, along with at
least two business associates of the Russian ex-spy, possibly after it
had been dissolved in a solution which would have evaporated during the
poisoning.
Yesterday the Pine Bar was sealed off, with uniformed
police officers guarding the entrance. Two third-floor rooms were also
sealed off.
At least one of the seven contaminated hotel staff is said to be on
holiday, while others were still working. "They're just not allowed to
serve food at the moment," said a colleague. The hotel worker, who is
close to one of the seven staff contaminated with polonium-210, said:
"No one's batted an eyelid. There's nothing you can do about it - so why
worry? It's a 5% increased chance of cancer in your lifetime, when
you've got a 30% chance of cancer anyway. Hopefully it will all blow
over. It's just the media and the police keep kicking it off."
Officials from the FBI, which has been asked to offer technical
assistance to the British investigation, have concluded that the killers
were not professionally trained to handle the substance. This suggests
the use of radioactive material made the killing "as much a message as a
murder", according to FBI sources.
The FBI has been helping British investigators trying to pinpoint the
source of the polonium-210. So far it has been able to establish only
that it was brought to London from Moscow.
Associates of the dead former spy have always insisted he was murdered
on the orders of the Kremlin in a manner intended to terrify other
emigres, an accusation which Russian president Vladimir Putin has
personally denied.
Yesterday Vladimir Bukovsky, a dissident who fled the Soviet Union for
Britain 30 years ago, said: "Terrorist acts are always calculated to
affect others. In this case I wouldn't say it's especially addressed to
the refugee community. It's addressed to all Russians inside the country
and outside, to say: 'We have very long hands.' They are afraid of a
revolution, which is rubbish, it's not going to happen, but some
individuals believe it may."
Russia's prosecutor-general says he too is investigating the death of Mr
Litvinenko and may ask permission for a team of Russian detectives to
fly to London.
A spokesman for the prosecutor-general's office said investigators could
request a meeting in London with Boris Berezovsky, the London-based
Russian multimillionaire, and with Akhmed Zakayev, the Chechen rebel
envoy, both close associates of Mr Litvinenko. Russian politicians have
consistently suggested that Mr Berezovsky, who fled to London in 2000
after falling out with President Putin, has used the death of Mr
Litvinenko as a "provocation" to discredit the Kremlin, an allegation
the businessman denies.
Mr Berezovsky said he would cooperate with the British and Russian
police. "I absolutely trust the British police and absolutely don't
trust the Russian," he said. "But even in a very bad organisation there
are some real people who really care to know the truth, and maybe there
is at least one in the Russian police."
Two of Mr Litvinenko's business associates who stayed at the hotel
between October 31 and November 3 were undergoing tests at an unnamed
Moscow hospital yesterday. One, Dmitri Kovtun, was said by Russian
authorities to have suffered radioactive poisoning, although there were
conflicting reports about whether he is seriously ill.
Mr Kovtun and another associate, Andrei Lugovoi, have both denied any
involvement in the incident and pledged to cooperate fully with the
British inquiry. Mr Kovtun was interviewed in the presence of British
police on Thursday, but Scotland Yard would not say whether Mr Lugovoi
had also been questioned.
Yesterday it also emerged that initial tests which suggested that Mario
Scaramella, an Italian associate of Mr Litvinenko, had ingested large
amounts of polonium-210 were either incorrect or misread.
He is understood to have been poisoned with relatively small amounts of
the substance, is not thought to be in immediate danger, and has been
discharged from hospital.
*****************************************************************
58 [NYTr] All the Poisoned Spies: Close Encounters of the Deadly Kind
Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2006 12:12:53 -0600 (CST)
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Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
Al-Ahram Weekly - Dec 7-13, 2006
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2006/823/in3.htm
Close encounters of the deadly kind
The recent poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko is but the latest
in a line of elaborate and mysterious deaths
by Eva Dadrian
Ten days ago, a former colonel in the Russian secret service and a
critic of President Vladimir Putin died of radiation poisoning
attributed to polonium-210, a substance normally used as part of the
triggering device for atomic weapons. On his death bed, Litvinenko the
Russian blamed President Putin for instigating his murder using a deadly
poison and called him "barbaric and ruthless".
Alexander Litvinenko used to work for the Federal Security Bureau, the
former KGB. Back in 1998, he fell out of favour with the government
after he publicly accused his superiors of ordering him to kill Russian
tycoon Boris Berezovsky. Condemned to spend nine months in jail on
charges of "abuse of office", he was acquitted in 2000. But an acquittal
in the world of any secret agent offers no safe guarantee, especially in
the turbulent years of the post-Soviet Russian state, so Litvinenko
defected to Britain and sought political asylum. His defection made him
a traitor in the eyes of his former colleagues and bosses. But was that
a good enough reason to get rid of him? Had he revealed too many Russian
state secrets? Was his criticism of Putin too outspoken? Or was it
because he just knew too much about the covert operations of the Kremlin
and the mysterious killings of Putin's opponents and critics?
This may sound like a plot fit for a new James Bond movie, but this
latest crime reminds us of several similar "political murders" which to
this day remain unresolved.
The first one that comes to mind is that of Georgi Markov, the Bulgarian
prize-winning author and broadcaster who was assassinated in London in
1978. Markov, who had defected to the West in 1969, was a BBC World
Service journalist and a fierce critic of the communists especially of
the then Bulgarian communist leader Todor Zhivkov. He died as a result
of a platinium-iridium pellet containing Ricin either "fire" or
"injected" from an umbrella tip as he was waiting at a bus stop.
Although no one has ever been charged with Markov's murder, it is widely
believed that the Bulgarian secret service and the KGB were behind it.
The case remains open to this day and though 10 volumes of material
relating to Markov's death have been destroyed by the former Bulgarian
intelligence, the current Bulgarian government has promised to continue
the investigation into the case. Politically inspired murders are
neither recent nor confined to Muscovan plotting. For almost three
decades, the CIA and Cuban exiles based in Little Havana, Florida, have
been trying to devise ways to assassinate Fidel Castro. From poison
pills to toxic cigars and from pen-syringes to bacterial-poison sprayed
handkerchiefs and exploding molluscs, all been tried by the CIA to
dispose of Castro, and if none of these "imaginative" biochemical
assassination devices have yet succeeded, others have reached their
objective.
The disposal of political rivals or "undesirable" leaders has been
common practice since the Greek philosopher Socrates was ordered to
drink a chalice of hemlock, another notorious biochemical poison derived
from the hemlock plant.
While the nature of the poison that killed Litvinenko is still a subject
of speculation -- some toxicologists have suggested that it may have
come from a secret Russian chemical weapons facility -- the use of
radioactive poisons, similar to the polonium-210, may be more widespread
than previously thought and used by several secret bodies. Ricin, which
is believed to have caused the death of Georgi Markov in 1978, is a
political poison of twentieth-century origin. According to biochemical
experts, Ricin is found in the shell casing of "castor beans and is
easily produced, thus having the potential to be a large-scale murder
weapon".
Some of the toxic substances used in such biochemical political
assassinations dissolve instantly in liquids and can't be forensically
detected in the human body once 12 hours have passed since its
ingestion. They can cause fatal symptoms in the blood circulation,
destroy the nervous and digestive systems and cause kidney failure.
These were the symptoms diagnosed by the French doctors who treated the
late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat at the military hospital where he
was admitted in 2004. The findings of the autopsy conducted on Arafat
have been classified as top secret and not officially released, but a
British intelligence report disclosed that Arafat may have been poisoned
with "Acontine", a widely known toxic substance. Israel had threatened
to kill Arafat repeatedly but despite having escaped 13 assassination
plots, including three poisoning attempts, Abu Ammar could not be
"publicly assassinated" like Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and Abdul-Aziz
Al-Rantissi.
Unfortunately not all these biochemical poisons have antidotes, but some
do and when Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal was injected with poison in the
Jordanian capital Amman by a Mossad agent, who was later caught, Israel
was forced to provide Jordan with the antidote that saved Mashaal's
life.
These are hardly rare cases. Through the past century we've had
biological agents to induce all sorts of ailments from Tularaemia
(rabbit fever) to Brucellosis (undulant fever). Mortal diseases as
different as anthrax, smallpox and tuberculosis can be used by shady
agencies to wreak havoc. Or perhaps you'd prefer Venezuelan Equine
Encephalitis (sleeping sickness), which was mixed in the toothpaste used
by the Congolese leader Patrick Lumumba in 1960, and was devised by
Stanley Gottlieb, the notoriously known talented chemist and poisons
expert who worked for decades for the CIA. Or more recently, we've had
the dioxin poisoning of Viktor Yushchenko, the Ukrainian pro-western
leader. The list of "political assassinations" since the end of WWII is
long enough to make one cower in terror at the idea that we are heading
back to the times of the Borgias and the Catherines de Medici.
Or could it be that with the "Clash of Civilisations" and the "Wars of
Religion" we have already returned to the Dark Ages?
Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved
*
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59 Independent: Russian businessman named as radiation source in murder case
By Jason Bennetto and Tony Paterson in Berlin
Published: 11 December 2006
The international hunt for the killers of Alexander Litvinenko,
the former KGB agent, took a new twist last night as it emerged
that a Russian businessman was being investigated as the source
of the radiation used in the murder.
Dimitry Kovtun, 41, a former soldier in the Soviet army, and one
of three men who met Mr Litvinenko at a hotel on the day he was
given a fatal dose of radiation, is the latest suspect in the
case.
German police revealed that they had found traces of
polonium-210 - the material used in the poisoning - at
properties visited by Mr Kovtun in Hamburg before he flew to
London to meet Mr Litvinenko.
Hamburg's chief prosecutor Martin Köhnke, commenting on Mr
Kovtun, said there was now "a reasonable basis for suspicion
that he may not just be a victim but could also be a
perpetrator".
He added that the authorities were investigating him on
suspicion that he may have handled radioactive material.
Mr Litvinenko, a critic of President Vladimir Putin, whose
regime he blames for his murder, was given a massive dose of
radiation on 1 November.
His widow, Marina, spoke publicly this weekend for the first
time, and blamed the Russian authorities for his death.
Russiahas strongly denied carrying out the murder.
Scotland Yard believe Mr Litvinenko was probably poisoned twice,
once at a sushi restaurant in Mayfair, and then at the
Millennium Hotel, also in central London, where he had a brief
meeting with Mr Kovtun and two of his business partners.
Anti-terrorist officers from the Metropolitan Police, are in
Russia trying to interview witnesses, including Mr Kovtun, who
is in a Moscow hospital where he is said to be suffering from a
low dose of radiation poisoning.
If detectives can prove that Mr Kovtun, who denies any
wrongdoing, handled polonium-210 before Mr Litvinenko was
poisoned, then there would be a strong conspiracy case against
him. Detectives from Scotland Yard were reported to be
travelling to Germany to investigate the latest findings.
The potential breakthrough came as Hamburg state prosecutors
confirmed that that they had found traces of polonium-210 in
city locations visited by Mr Kovtun. The radiation was
discovered in a flat belonging to Mr Kovtun's former wife,
Marina Wall, 31; on documents handed by Mr Kovtun; in a car that
he had used; and at the home of his former mother in law.
German authorities said Mr Kovtun spent the night at his ex-
wife's flat in the district of Ottensen on 31 October. He flew
to London the next day.
Werner Jantosch, the Hamburg police chief heading the case,
said: "He [Mr Kovtun] may have been one of the culprits,
although we think it is unlikely that the murder plot was
hatched in Hamburg." Police said there were no traces of
polonium-210 on the flight that Mr Kovtun took from Hamburg to
London.
Mr Kovtun, a German residence permit holder, served as a Russian
soldier in East Germany and Czechoslovakia. After the collapse
of the Soviet Union in 1991, he married a German woman whom he
later divorced.
German police said Mr Kovtun worked as a business consultant and
advised Western companies that wanted to set up operations in
Russia.
Widow tells of last visit to spy
The widow of the murdered former Russian agent Alexander
Litvinenko spoke yesterday about her husband's last hours.
Marina Litvinenko, 44, left, said his final words to her were:
"Marina, I love you so much. Even until the last day, and the
day before when he became unconscious, I thought he would be
okay," she told The Mail on Sunday. "We were both completely
sure that he would recover. We had been talking about
bone-marrow transplants and looking to the future."
She left her tired and weak husband at night. University College
London Hospital telephoned her the following evening at about
9pm, telling her to come as quickly as possible. But by the time
she arrived her husband had died.
Jason Bennetto
© 2006 Independent News and Media Limited
*****************************************************************
60 AFP: Russian poisoning saga widens to Germany
Sat Dec 9, 3:23 PM ET
BERLIN (AFP) - The probe into the death of Alexander Litvinenko
spread to Germany with police there detecting radioactivity in
two properties linked to a contact of the late Russian spy.
No radioactivity was detected in the Hamburg flat where the
contact -- Russian businessman Dmitry Kovtun -- had himself
resided, but it was found at another flat in the same apartment
block inhabited by his ex-wife.
"Traces of contamination have been discovered at two places in
the flat where (Kovtun's) former wife lived," a police statement
said.
Police said they were questioning the ex-wife, an unnamed
31-year-old. Kovtun recently told Moscow Echo radio station that
he had lived in Germany for 12 years and had been married to a
German woman.
The Hamburg apartment building, where about 30 people live, was
evacuated while the police searched the two flats, and police
called on people who had had contact with Kovtun to come
forward.
Radioactivity was later detected at the home of the ex-wife's
mother in the town of Haselau, west of Hamburg, police said.
Police experts were trying to determine if the radioactivity
came from polonium 210, the highly radioactive substance which
killed former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko on November 23.
The death of Litvinenko, which British authorities are treating
as murder, has prompted a media outcry, heightened by
allegations from the dead agent's friends that he was killed on
the orders of Russian President Vladimir Putin" /> Vladimir
Putin.
After the radiation traces were found at the two properties in
Germany, the investigation was widened to include a Germanwings
airliner used by Kovtun on November 1 -- the day he flew to
London to meet Litvinenko.
However, no radioactivity was detected and the aircraft was
quickly returned to service.
German police have denied newspaper reports that they suspected
Litvinenko's murder could have been planned by Kovtun in
Hamburg.
"At the moment, this man (Kovtun) has not been accused," said
Ulrike Sweden, a police spokeswoman in Hamburg.
Kovtun, one of three Russians who met Litvinenko in London on
November 1 shortly before the former intelligence agent fell
ill, was himself reported Friday to be suffering from radiation
sickness.
Russia's Interfax news agency quoted an unnamed medical official
in Moscow as saying that Kovtun had briefly fallen into a coma
Thursday but had since recovered consciousness.
In London, meanwhile, public health officials said that tests on
an Italian contact of Litvinenko found he had "very low" levels
of radioactive material in his body.
British doctors had feared Mario Scaramella had been in contact
with a "significant amount" of polonium 210 and could have had
"very high levels" of the substance in his urine.
Britain's Health Protection Authority, which reiterated that the
risk to the general public of exposure to polonium 210 is likely
to be very low, said 225 urine samples tested so far had found
nothing of concern.
Eight samples, including those from seven bar staff at a central
London hotel where Litvinenko met the Kovtun and the other two
Russian contacts on November 1, have shown exposure to polonium
210.
But the HPA said the levels are not significant enough to result
in any short-term illness. Any increased risk in the long-term
is likely to be very small, they added.
*****************************************************************
61 AFP: Two police officers test positive for low levels of radiation contamination -
Sat Dec 9, 7:47 PM ET
LONDON (AFP) - Two London police officers have tested positive
for low traces of the polonium radiation that apparently killed
former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, but both are well, the
police said.
The officers were among 26 Metropolitan Police officers "closely
involved" in the inquiry into the poisoning of Litvinenko who
died on November 23, the force said in a statement.
"The samples of all 26 officers have been tested and all are
within the safe exposure limits as stated by the Health and
Safety Commission," the statement said.
"Whilst 24 of the samples showed no evidence at all of radiation
exposure, two samples showed relatively small traces of
polonium. It should be stressed the amounts of polonium are
below defined safety limits," it said.
"Both officers are well," but the police and health authorities
are monitoring them closely and offering them all the support
they need, the statement said.
Public health authorities said Saturday that tests on
Litvinenko's Italian contact Mario Scaramella found he had lower
than predicted levels of radioactive material in his body.
The Health Protection Agency said extensive tests showed that
Scaramella had "very low levels" of polonium 210 in his body
even though it had initially believed that he could have "very
high levels" of the substance in his urine.
The academic, who met Litvinenko at a central London sushi bar
on November 1 shortly before the former KGB man fell ill, was
discharged from hospital on Wednesday.
He claimed he wanted to warn him they were both on an alleged
Russian secret service "hitlist."
The HPA, which reiterated that the risk to the general public of
exposure to polonium 210 is likely to be very low, said 225
urine samples tested so far had found nothing of concern.
Eight samples, including those from seven bar staff at a central
London hotel where Litvinenko met three Russian contacts on
November 1, have shown exposure to polonium 210.
But the HPA said the levels are not significant enough to result
in any short-term illness. Any increased risk in the long-term
is likely to be very small, they added.
An adult relative of Litvinenko -- reported to be his wife --
also tested positive for low-level radiation.
Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
62 AFP: Germany finds polonium trail as Litvinenko widow blames Moscow -
Sun Dec 10, 4:40 PM ET
BERLIN (AFP) - German police said a Russian contact of poisoned
former spy Alexander Litvinenko had left a trail of polonium 210
in Hamburg as his widow accused Moscow of involvement in his
murder.
Dmitry Kovtun left traces of the radioactive substance which
killed Litvinenko in a car, an office and his ex-wife's house in
Hamburg before flying to London where he met with the former
spy, the leader of the German investigation into the case,
Thomas Menzel, said.
The German authorities have opened a criminal investigation
against the businessman for bringing polonium into the country
though they are not linking him directly to Litvinenko's
killing.
"We found radiation in the car in which he drove after he
arrived in Hamburg from Russia on October 28 and in a document
he signed at the immigration offices," Menzel told reporters.
Investigators have also found traces of polonium 210 on the
couch in Kovtun's ex-wife's flat where he slept on the night of
October 30, Menzel said.
"Tests have shown clearly that we are dealing with polonium
210," Gerald Kirchner from the Federal Office for Radiation
Protection (BfS) told reporters, referring to the places visited
by the businessman during his three-day stay in Germany.
Kovtun is one of three Russians who met with Kremlin critic
Litvinenko in London on November 1, the day on which the former
Russian spy fell ill. Kovtun has also been hospitalised with
severe radioactive poisoning.
"He appeared to have been in active contact with polonium. We
are considering him as a suspect also," Hamburg state prosecutor
Martin Koehnke said.
"We have to establish whether he was poisoned himself or carried
the polonium into the country," Koehnke said.
He said German investigators would share all evidence they
uncover with British counterparts probing the murder which
friends and family of the victim have blamed squarely on the
Russian government.
In her first public interviews since his death on November 23,
Litvinenko's widow Marina on Sunday stood by his death-bed
accusation that he was killed by a Russian "hit squad" because
of his openly critical views of the Kremlin.
"Obviously it was not (Russian President Vladimir) Putin
himself, of course not," the 44-year-old told the Mail on
Sunday.
"But what Putin does around him in Russia makes it possible to
kill a British person on British soil.
"I believe that it could have been the Russian authorities."
Marina Litvinenko told the British press her husband immediately
suspected he had been poisoned when he first fell ill on
November 1.
The former lieutenant-colonel in the Federal Security Services
(FSB) who fell out with Moscow over the conflict in Chechnya" />
Chechnyadied three weeks later after large quantities of
polonium 210 were found in his body.
Litvinenko and his father Valter's accusations against Putin
were supported Sunday by the former agent's friend, Vladimir
Bukovsky, who told the BBC he was convinced of "clear" Russian
involvement.
Moscow has launched its own probe but associates of Litvinenko
said they would only cooperate with Russian investigators if
their safety were guaranteed.
A British Channel 4 television report this week quoted a senior
British police source as saying that they believed Litvinenko
was poisoned at the central London hotel where he met three
Russian contacts on November 1.
The probe widened to Germany after Hamburg police found that
Kovtun was registered with the city's immigration authorities
and found that he still owned a home there.
Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
63 Chicago Tribune: Isotope project back on track |
chicagotribune.com >> Business
Argonne gears up to prepare its case
By Jon Van Tribune staff reporter
Published December 9, 2006
The federal government is reviving plans to build a $500
million rare isotope accelerator that scientists at the
University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory hope to
bring to Illinois.
A report released Friday by the influential National Academies
of Science supports the notion and a task force organized by the
government met in Chicago Friday to discuss how such a project
might proceed.
"The real news today is that a project everyone thought was
dead is really back on track again," said Michael Turner,
Argonne chief scientist. "Argonne will prepare a great case for
building the facility here."
For more than a decade, nuclear physicists have argued the
country needs to build a machine that creates unstable atomic
forms called isotopes that normally are only seen in exotic
locales, such as exploding stars. Isotopes already play major
roles in medical diagnosis and treatment, and creating new ones
is bound to expand that role, scientists contend.
Such isotopes should be valuable in several aspects of science,
as well as bolster interest from Homeland Security in the area
of tracing the origin of nuclear explosive materials, for
example.
Since 1999, the Department of Energy has spent millions
studying the possibility of building a rare isotope accelerator,
and two years ago, the project looked like it would proceed. At
the last minute, the Bush administration balked at its
billion-dollar price tag and sidelined the project.
Energy department officials ordered scientists to scale back
their proposal to the $500 million range and asked the National
Research Council, a non-government, non-partisan organization,
to assess the value of the science involved. Friday's report,
written primarily by scientists outside the nuclear physics
field, supported the project.
The report noted that nuclear physics has "had extremely broad
impact" on science research and technology. It said failure to
build the new machine "would likely lead to forfeiture of U.S.
leadership in nuclear-structure related physics and would
curtail the training of future U.S. nuclear scientists."
When the rare isotope accelerator was first proposed, its
backers were primarily nuclear scientists, said Turner, who
formerly worked with the National Science Foundation, a federal
agency. Without support from the broader science community,
federal authorities were reluctant to endorse such a big
project. Now that the National Research Council, an affiliate of
the National Science Academies, has expressed support, the
project has the broad backing needed to snag federal funding,
Turner said.
The proposal under consideration "would complement nuclear
research machines being built in other countries," said Stuart
Freedman, a University of California at Berkeley professor and
co-chairman of the report committee.
Freedman acknowledged it's unlikely the United States would
willingly forfeit its leading position in nuclear science. Under
the Department of Energy's current timetable, construction of
the accelerator would begin by 2011, and the machine would start
operating by 2016.
Argonne and the University of Chicago have plans for a new
facility that would be built as an extension of the ATLAS
accelerator already operating on the Argonne campus, said Turner.
Researchers from Argonne and Fermilab are collaborating to
advance accelerator science in hopes of landing another proposed
facility, the International Linear Collider, Turner noted. That
collaboration should also bolster the area's case for locating
the rare isotope machine here, he said.
Before the Rare Isotope Accelerator was put on hold two years
ago, Gov. Rod Blagojevich and the state's congressional
delegation joined ranks to bring the facility to Illinois.
Former Gov. James Thompson and William Daley, former Clinton-era
Cabinet member, signed on to head the Illinois lobbying effort.
While cutting the construction budget in half is a setback, the
rare isotope machine would still be a tremendous scientific
prize for the region as well as an economic enhancement, said
Robert Rosner, Argonne's director.
"In the last five years, we've seen many advances in
accelerator technology," said Rosner. "Cutting the budget in
half doesn't mean we'll only get half as much value from the
accelerator. The research and development money already spent
basically has gotten us to a better design now than what was
originally proposed."
If the rare isotope project goes ahead as expected, the
Department of Energy will likely issue a request for proposals
within two years and make a decision as to where the machine
will be built, Turner said.
----------
jvan@tribune.com
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune
*****************************************************************
64 FT.com: Scientists draw lessons from polonium scare
EDITOR’S CHOICE
Scientists draw lessons from polonium scare
By Clive Cookson, Science Editor
Published: December 10 2006 22:04
The scale of public anxiety aroused by the polonium 210
poisoning scare in London is to be investigated by scientists.
Their work could help the authorities to deal with a more
serious incident, such as bioÂterrorism or a “dirty bomb”
attack, that spread radioactivity more widely.
Professor Simon Wessely, of King’s College London, an expert
on the psychology of warfare and terrorism, is leading the
study, backed by the Health Protection Agency, the Home Office
and NHS Direct, the National Health Service
helpline.[Advertisement]
He plans to investigate the alarm caused by continuing reports
of polonium 210 contamination around London and assess the
effectiveness of the information bulletins and media briefings
by the HPA, which has led the official response to Alexander
Litvinenko’s poisoning. “We want to know how much people
understand what they have been told,” Prof Wessely said.
There is anecdotal evidence of confusion and fear, in spite of
reassurances offered by health authorities. But Prof Wessely
said there was no sign of a significant increase in calls to NHS
Direct or visits to accident and emergency departments, which
would indicate widespread anxiety.
“It may be that people do trust the authorities when the chips
are down – contrary to what we are often told – and that
they believe the risk to the public from polonium poisoning is
genuinely very small,” said Prof Wessely. “But their
reaction might be different in a real terrorist incident.”
Bill Durodie, a lecturer in risk and security at Cranfield
University, interpreted the public reaction to polonium 210
differently. “It reveals the extent of mistrust ordinary
people have in the authorities, whether political or
scientific.”
If a terrorist did spread radioactivity to cause panic, public
suspicion of what the authorities told them would be a problem,
Dr Durodie said. He criticised the use of the phrase
“radioactive contamination” in the HPA’s statements, which
he said suggested more danger than existed. Polonium 210
contamination related to the Litvinenko case has been found in
hotels, restaurants, offices and aircraft, although the amounts
are much too low to poison anyone coming into contact with them.
Staff at Itsu, a sushi restaurant on Piccadilly, and the Pine
Bar in the Millennium Hotel on Grosvenor Square who were exposed
to low levels of polonium face “no health risk in the short
term and very small risk in the long term”, according to
initial HPA tests.
Modern analytical instruments are so sensitive they can detect
nanograms of polonium 210. These tiny quantities could be found,
for example, in a hotel bar if someone who had ingested polonium
touched furniture there with sweaty hands.
Small amounts of polonium 210, which has a half-life of 138
days, also occur naturally in the environment through the
radioactive decay of radon. Smokers have significantly more
exposure than non-smokers because polonium is deposited from the
atmosphere on to tobacco leaves.
Polonium is a health hazard only if significant amounts are
taken into the body, where the alpha particles it emits through
radioactive decay can destroy the internal organs. Alpha
particles cannot travel more than a few centimetres in air: they
are stopped by a sheet of paper or by the outer skin on our
bodies.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
65 Guardian Unlimited: Spy murder: new radiation find
From Press Association
[UP]
Saturday December 9, 2006 2:33 AM
Police in Germany have said they have found indications of
radiation in a flat apparently used by a contact of fatally
poisoned former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko.
The flat in the northern city of Hamburg was known to have been
used by Dmitry Kovtun, apparently the same man who met
Litvinenko in London shortly before he fell ill. Mr Kovtun is
reportedly being treated for radiation poisoning in Moscow.
"There are indications that there has been a source of radiation
there, but no source of radiation has been found," said Ulrike
Sweden, a spokeswoman for Hamburg police.
Kovtun, one of two Russians who met Litvinenko at London's
Millennium Hotel, is reportedly being treated in Moscow, also
for radiation poisoning.
German police said they began checking two flats used by
Litvinenko in a same three-storey building after media reports
that Kovtun had flown to London from Hamburg. Sweden said it was
unclear if Kovtun had returned to the German city after meeting
Litvinenko.
She said it was possible that either a person or an object could
have been the source of radiation in the apartment in Hamburg's
Altona district.
While German authorities were in contact with British police,
the search was "purely protective" and not part of any
investigation against Mr Kovtun, Sweden said.
The traces found so far represent no health risk to local
residents, she added. About 30 people live in the building.
Hamburg police sealed off a wide area around the house, while
federal police specialists entered the building to search for
traces of polonium-210, the rare radioactive substance that
killed Litvinenko.
The police said they were also checking other places where
Litvinenko may have spent time as well as other people he came
into contact with.
© Copyright Press Association Ltd 2006, All Rights Reserved.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
66 Guardian Unlimited: Radiation Found in Germany Linked to Spy
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Saturday December 9, 2006 7:31 PM
AP Photo FRA103
By DAVID STRINGER
Associated Press Writer
LONDON (AP) - Russia plans to send investigators to London to
conduct inquiries into the death of a former KGB agent, the
chief prosecutor's office said Saturday, as forensic teams
combed two houses in Germany and a London hotel now at the
center of the investigation into his poisoning.
Police in Germany said traces of radiation were found at two
Hamburg-area homes linked to a contact of the ex-KGB officer,
Alexander Litvinenko.
At London's Millennium Hotel in Mayfair, where Litvinenko drank
tea with a group of fellow Russians and where he appears to have
been fatally poisoned, officers reportedly were testing a cup
and a dishwasher for traces of polonium-210, the deadly isotope
found in Litvinenko's body.
A spokeswoman for Russia's Prosecutor General's office, who said
she was not authorized to give her name to media outlets, told
The Associated Press there were plans to send Russian
investigators to London. ``There is no concrete date,'' she
said.
Andrei Nekrasov, a friend of Litvinenko, said there was concern
among emigres in the British capital that the Kremlin would use
its inquiries in London as a ``pretext to harass exiles in
London.''
Alex Goldfarb, a friend of the family, said he and Litvinenko's
wife, Marina, were prepared to meet Russian officials - but on
the condition British police first tested the investigators for
traces of polonium.
Litvinenko, 43, died in London on Nov. 23 after blaming
President Vladimir Putin for his poisoning in a deathbed message
- an accusation the Kremlin has vehemently denied.
British police said they had no details of the planned visit by
Russian investigators and it was not immediately clear whether
they would be given access to exiles granted political asylum by
the British government.
Exiles in London feared the Russian investigators would seek to
unsettle the emigre community, Nekrasov said.
He said that former Russian security officer Mikhail Trepashkin,
serving a four-year prison sentence after being convicted of
divulging state secrets, had said a Kremlin agent previously
ordered to monitor Litvinenko was among those appointed to
investigate the killing.
German police said Saturday they had found traces of radiation
at two Hamburg area homes linked to Dmitry Kovtun, a Russian
businessman who was at the London hotel gathering. Radiation
traces were found at his ex-wife's Hamburg apartment, and an
initial scan also yielded signs of contamination at his former
mother-in-law's home in Haselau, west of the port city.
A German airline said tests showed no traces of polonium-210 on
an Airbus A-319 that took Kovtun to London from Hamburg on Nov.
1. Germanwings said it had taken the plane out of service at
Cologne-Bonn airport after learning from authorities that Kovtun
had flown on it before he met Litvinenko.
Investigations in Britain have focused on the Pine Bar at
London's Millennium Hotel, where Litvinenko held a morning
meeting over tea and gin with three fellow Russians on Nov. 1 -
the day he fell ill.
Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper said police were testing a
teacup and dishwasher at the hotel for signs of radiation.
Andrei Lugovoi, also an ex-Soviet agent, Kovtun and Vyacheslav
Sokolenko, the head of a private Russian security firm, joined
the meeting in the hotel's intimate, blond oak-paneled bar.
All three have denied involvement in the ex-spy's death.
Litvinenko later met with Mario Scaramella, an Italian security
expert, at a Piccadilly sushi bar.
By evening, Litvinenko was in a London hospital with stomach
pains and nausea. He died within weeks from radiation poisoning
that caused his hair to fall out and organs to fail.
All seven staff working at the bar on Nov. 1 showed evidence of
exposure to polonium-210, Britain's Health Protection Agency
said. Kovtun and Scaramella both have fallen ill since the
meeting.
Dr. Michael Clark of the Health Protection Agency said it was
likely the poisoning occurred at the hotel bar. He said food,
drinks and cigarettes all could have been used to hide the
poison.
Polonium is so dangerous that a lethal dose would occupy a space
just 100 micrometers across - slightly larger than the point of
a pin. Though polonium-210 is available by mail, one vendor in
New Mexico, Bob Lazar, said such small amounts are sold that
15,000 orders would be needed to potentially harm someone.
Scaramella was hospitalized last week in London. He said doctors
told him he had received five times the lethal dose of
polonium-210, although he showed no symptoms. He left the
hospital Wednesday.
In Moscow, Kovtun had ``developed an illness also connected with
the radioactive nuclide (substance),'' Russian prosecutors said.
Lugovoi was tested for radiation poisoning in a hospital, and
Russia's Interfax news agency said he showed signs of
contamination.
---
Associated Press writers Steve Gutterman in Moscow; Simone Utler
in Hamburg, Germany, and Matt Crenson in New York contributed to
this story.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
67 Los Angeles Times: Russia's poisoned democracy -
10:39 PM PST, December 10, 2006 Weather Traffic
EDITORIAL
No matter who killed Litvinenko, Putin's Russia is a killing
zone for journalists.
December 10, 2006
THE RADIOACTIVE poisoning death of former KGB spy Alexander
Litvinenko is mushrooming into a tale of intrigue that is
mesmerizing and confusing in equal measures. But the
cloak-and-dagger theatrics threaten to obscure an urgent danger
at the story's heart journalists in President Vladimir V.
Putin's Russia are increasingly being attacked and killed.
The latest Litvinenko news is the stuff of a John Le Carre
novel: Two Russian businessmen, one of them a former KGB
colonel, and an Italian investigator all of whom who met with
Litvinenko just before he fell ill have also suffered
poisoning from polonium-210.
Traces of the material were also found in employees of the
London bar where Litvinenko and the Russians met and on aircraft
that flew between Moscow and London. Meanwhile, former Russian
Prime Minister Yegor T. Gaidar fell severely ill in Dublin and
also claims to have been poisoned, though not with polonium and,
he insists, not by the Kremlin.
We may never find out whodunit or who ordered it done, but we
know what Litvinenko was investigating at the time of his death:
the killing of decorated Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya,
who had been exposing alleged Russian misdeeds in Chechnya.
Were the killings of Politkovskaya and Litvinenko isolated
incidents, the Kremlin's protests that it suffers most from the
bad international publicity would be more worthy of sympathy.
But Politkovskaya was at least the 21st Russian journalist to be
killed since Putin was elected in 2000, according to Reporters
Without Borders. Two others have disappeared and are presumed
dead, and there have been 320 assaults.
This would be alarming in any country, but it comes during a
period in which the Russian government has nationalized private
TV stations that had been critical of the regime, backed the
takeover of independent media by political allies, arrested
media executives or forced them into exile and repeatedly
brought criminal charges against journalists. The human rights
group Freedom House ranks Russia as simply "not free" when it
comes to the media.
The result has been de facto impunity for those who would
enforce public silence be they corrupt government officials,
sleazy businessmen, gangsters or any others who fear exposure or
debate. That some news outlets have accepted payment to print or
withhold sensitive information in the anarchic post-Soviet
marketplace certainly complicates the picture.
But the pattern of censorship, intimidation and deadly violence
against the Kremlin's fiercest critics makes it increasingly
difficult to give Putin the benefit of the doubt.
Politkovskaya, one of the bravest reporters of her generation,
was gunned down Oct. 7 in what many suspect was a contract
killing. She is the third journalist from her newspaper, Novaya
Gazeta one of the last Russian publications that dares do
investigative reporting to die.
Last month, two other Novaya Gazeta reporters received death
threats; one was investigating Politkovskaya's slaying. While
the newspaper's staff risks their lives to shed light on the
inner workings of Putin's Russia, the West has a moral
obligation to insist that the Russian government protect them.
*****************************************************************
68 Los Angeles Times: A German twist in poisoning trail -
By Jeffrey Fleishman, Times Staff Writer
December 10, 2006
BERLIN The mystery surrounding the poisoning death of a
former Russian spy has veered to Germany, where investigators
Saturday found traces of radiation in an apartment connected
with a businessman who met the ex-KGB agent on the day he fell
ill.
Police said "hints" of radiation were detected in the Hamburg
apartment of Dmitry Kovtun's former wife. Traces were also
discovered in the nearby suburban home of the ex-wife's mother.
Kovtun met with ex-KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko on Nov. 1 in
London, where police suspect he was exposed to the radioactive
polonium-210 that killed him three weeks later.
Kovtun, a Russian businessman, is reportedly ill in a Moscow
hospital.
Authorities said although contamination was detected, they did
not find a radiation source in either building.
Police discounted media reports suggesting that Kovtun, who
reportedly lived in Germany for 12 years, planned Litvinenko's
assassination in Hamburg. No traces of radiation were discovered
in Kovtun's apartment, which is in the same building as his
ex-wife's in the northern port city's Ottensen neighborhood.
"At the moment, this man has not been accused," police
spokeswoman Ulrike Sweden told German radio.
The airline Germanwings said that one of its planes was being
tested for polonium-210. A spokesman told reporters that Kovtun
flew on the plane from Hamburg to Britain the day he met
Litvinenko. Media reports said no contamination was found.
Police are investigating whether Kovtun returned to Hamburg
after the meeting at London's Millennium Hotel.
The murder investigation has skipped across the continent and
led to allegations by Litvinenko's family that intelligence
services connected with the Kremlin were behind the plot.
Moscow has begun its own investigation. Russian authorities are
expected to question Andrei Lugovoy, a businessman and former
KGB colonel who was with Kovtun at the meeting with Litvinenko.
He also is ill.
About 30 people were evacuated from Kovtun's building. Police
told tenants there was no contamination danger, but asked them
to "move out during the time of investigation."
jeffrey.fleishman@latimes.com
Times staff writers Petra Falkenberg and Christian Retzlaff in
Berlin and David Holley in Moscow contributed to this report.
*****************************************************************
69 Salt Lake Tribune: Russia again: Spy's poisoning should refocus Americans' attention
Tribune Editorial
Article Last Updated:12/08/2006 08:32:57 PM MST
The evil Russians are back.
They had gone away for awhile, replaced by good-guy Russians
like Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin (that lovable, drunken
buffoon of a democrat who stood on a tank and declared the
Soviet Union dead). After four decades of nightmares about the
Evil Empire, Americans in 1990 awoke to the happy realization
that they had won the Cold War and that their old enemy was now
trying to remake itself as a democratic ally.
But in typical American fashion, we quickly lost interest in
Russia, and 9/11 refocused U.S. attention on an entirely new
nemesis from an alien culture in a different part of the world.
Americans had to cram on Islam and Islamists (what's a
Salafist?), on Sunnis and Shiites. The Russians receded even
further into the background.
But the bizarre poisoning death of former KGB agent
Alexander V. Litvinenko using an exotic nuclear isotope most
Americans had never heard of has tended to refocus the short
U.S. attention span on dark doings in Mother Russia, if only
briefly. Suddenly we are back in the Kremlin world of John le
Carre novels and spy vs. spy, of puzzles wrapped in enigmas. If
there can be a bright side to an excruciating death, it might be
that Americans will begin to pay some attention again to the
Russian slide from democracy back toward authoritarian
government. If Vladimir Putin's security service really did have
a hand in Litvinenko's death, what does that mean?
And if Litvinenko was killed by someone else, who may be
trying to discredit the Russian president, what does that mean
for Russia and its future as a democratic state?
So far, there aren't answers to these questions. There are
competing conspiracy theories.
But Americans probably are dimly recalling that people who
study Russia have been concerned for some time about the
direction this huge and vastly rich nation - in terms of natural
and human resources - may be taking. The main issue is whether
Russia is run by its government or by organized crime, and what
the relationship is between the two.
Americans should stay tuned. Because there's more to Russia
than Boris and Natasha, expatriate NBA basketball players,
tennis stars and supermodels. And there's much more at stake.
*****************************************************************
70 UPI: EcoWellness: Polonium's dangerous kin
United Press International - Consumer Health -
12/8/2006 5:24:00 PM -0500
By CHRISTINE DELL'AMORE UPI Consumer Health Correspondent
WASHINGTON, Dec. 8 (UPI) -- Polonium-210, the rare radioactive
substance that fatally poisoned a Russian ex-spy, doesn't pose a
threat to most. Found in tiny amounts in the Earth's crust, it's
an alpha emitter, which means it's far less agile and hazardous
than the other types of radioactive materials, the betas and
gammas.
If removed from the soil, polonium-210 doesn't travel very far
or penetrate human skin easily. In fact, the dead layer of skin
on every person's body acts as a shield for polonium-210 and
other alpha-emitting materials.
The problem arises -- as in the case of Alexander Litvinenko --
when the substance gets inside the body and destroys the organs.
Although polonium-210 isn't an overt danger, there are many more
common radioactive elements lurking under the Earth's surface
that can harm health.
Radon, a gamma radioactive gas, is not only widespread in U.S.
homes; it is the second-leading cause of lung-cancer death in
the United States, totaling more than 15,000 each year.
"It's pretty much the worst stuff coming from underground," said
Andrew Gelman, a professor at Columbia University in New York
who has done research on the prevalence of the gas.
Radon is a byproduct of the natural decay of uranium, an element
common in the soil. Once produced, radon gas often travels
through cracks and small holes in the foundations of homes and
buildings, where it becomes trapped inside -- usually in
basements. Homes with unfinished basements that keep windows
closed most of the year tend to have high radon levels, said
Gelman, whereas apartments on upper floors, or homes that keep
their windows open regularly, aren't as much at risk.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates one out of
every 15 homes in the United States has elevated radon levels;
the gas can also emerge in schools and workplaces.
Because radon is invisible, the EPA recommends people test their
homes. Hardware stores sell do-it-yourself radon-detection kits,
and there are also qualified testers who will come into the
home. Gelman advocates getting a professional to do a thorough
test.
Uranium concentrations -- and thus radon concentrations -- also
differ depending on geographic location. New Orleans and other
places in the South, for instance, tend to have lower rates,
while some Northern states have higher amounts.
How detrimental radon can be to health also depends on the dose.
For instance, living in a radon-rich basement may increase a
person's risk for lung cancer, according to Robert C. Whitcomb
Jr., a health physicist in the radiation studies branch at the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
"There is a point, as with any radiation exposure, that our
body's natural mechanism for dealing with low-level exposure
gets hampered," Whitcomb said.
Chronic exposure can cause radon particles to embed themselves
in the lung. As the particles decay, they release short bursts
of energy that over time damage the cells in the lung and lead
to cancer. Smoking -- the leading cause of lung-cancer death --
can also up a person's chances for getting cancer from radon.
Radon was a worrisome issue in the 1980s, said Gelman, but it's
quieted down as new homes are often built to deter the
radioactive material. Some state and local laws require
radon-resistant building practices, especially in areas at high
risk for the gas.
In addition to radon, everyone on Earth experiences some
background radiation that is present in the atmosphere, said
Whitcomb. Radiation exists in air and food, and modern
lifestyles can also mean higher exposures.
For example, flying in an airplane strips people of the
atmospheric shield that usually protects them from cosmic
radiation. Frequent fliers take in much more radiation than
non-fliers.
In fact, being closer to space in general exposes people to more
radiation. The exposure to cosmic radiation of a person in
Atlanta, for instance, is about one-tenth the rate in Denver,
which has an elevation of more than 5,400 feet.
The good news? Radon exposure is preventable, and the EPA
recommends all homeowners or renters -- regardless of their
building's safety precautions -- get radon testing.
For more information: www.epa.gov/iaq/radon/pubs/citguide.html
© Copyright 2006 United Press International, Inc. All Rights
Reserved.
*****************************************************************
71 London Times: Radiation trail leads to Hamburg -
December 11, 2006
Roger Boyes, Tony Halpin and Michael Evans
Traces of radioactive polonium-210 have been found in a Hamburg
flat on objects handled by a former Russian spy a day before he
met Alexander Litvinenko in London, German police said yesterday.
Police found polonium-210 on a desk and chair in the apartment
belonging to the former wife of Dmitri Kovtun. Mr Kovtun, a
former officer of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) who
met Litvinenko at the Millennium Hotel in London on November 1,
the day he was poisoned, is said to be seriously ill, although
reports vary.
Police also found traces in a bed and on a chair at the villa of
his former mother-in-law, Eleonora Wall. Mr Kovtun had keys to
both places. German police questioned mother and daughter on
Saturday.
However, the police appear to have ruled out Hamburg being used
as a base for a plot against Litvinenko. The German commercial
aircraft that took Mr Kovtun to London for his November 1
meeting with Litvinenko has tested negative for polonium-210. In
an interview with Der Spiegel Mr Kovtun claimed he was a victim
of the same plot. He said: “Much is contaminated — my body, my
clothes, my office in Moscow, it’s simply everywhere.”
Andrei Lugovoy, a former FSB officer who is a central figure in
the inquiry, said he would speak to Scotland Yard detectives in
Moscow today.
Health scare
20 people found with suspected poison traces, including two
police officers
3,545 calls from the public to NHS Direct
29 people referred to a specialist clinic for possible
radiological exposure
Source: Times database
Copyright 2006 Times Newspapers Ltd.
*****************************************************************
72 News Target: Rocket fuel from military planes poisoning U.S. water supply
http://www.newstarget.com
Friday, December 08, 2006 by: Jerome Douglas
(NewsTarget) The drinking water supply across the U.S. is being
consistently exposed to a rocket fuel chemical known as
perchlorate at levels dangerous to public health, according to a
new report. As a result of the contamination, thyroid deficiency
could be happening in more than 2 million women of childbearing
age.
According to an Environmental Working Group (EWG) analysis of
new data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC),
California health officials will consider a proposed standard
for perchlorate in drinking water that the EWG found could
trigger thyroid deficiency requiring treatment during pregnancy
in more than 272,000 California women.
Another example is in New Jersey, where a proposed standard
could cause such a deficiency in 65,000 women in that state. If
the California standard were applied nationwide, perchlorate
levels could cause thyroid deficiency requiring treatment during
pregnancy in more than 2.2 million women of childbearing age.
EWG scientist Anila Jacob, M.D., who will be presenting the EWG
findings at a hearing this week, stated, "In light of what we
now know from the Centers for Disease Control data, California's
proposed standard is inadequate to protect public health … state
and federal standards should reflect the fact that exposure to
even low levels of perchlorate could place a significant number
of women of childbearing age at increased risk of thyroid
deficiency, and if they became pregnant, they would need
treatment to protect their unborn children."
Perchlorate is an explosive chemical ingredient in solid rocket
fuel, and it has leaked from military bases and from the plants
of defense and aerospace contractors in at least 22 states, at
last count. The result is that drinking water of millions of
Americans has been contaminated. In addition, perchlorate has
also been found widely in supermarket milk, produce and many
other foods. Alarmingly, the CDC found the chemical in the urine
of every person tested in a separate study.
Currently, the U.S. federal government has no perchlorate
contamination standard for drinking water.
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*****************************************************************
73 Gilroy Dispatch: Olin Corp. Says Cleanup Plan is Too Expensive
The Editor
Friday, December 08, 2006
By Tony Burchyns
Morgan Hill - Olin Corporation's latest cleanup plan argues that
removing every ton of perchlorate it's dumped into the water
basin would "adversely affect groundwater management" and would
be "inconsistent with the maximum benefit to the people of the
state."
The 138-page report also states a total cleanup of the South
Valley water table, from which more than 1,500 wells draw water,
could "unreasonably affect present and anticipated beneficial
uses of the water" and would result in "water quality less than
that prescribed" in the Water Quality Control Plan for the
Central Coast Region.
Olin is responsible for a nine-mile plume of perchlorate
stretching south from the company's old road-flare plant in
Morgan Hill. Perchlorate is known to interfere with the natural
function of the thyroid gland. The contamination, first reported
in 2003, spreads from Olin's old site on Tennant Avenue and
travels southeast of U.S. 101 to Masten Avenue.
The cleanup plan was submitted Wednesday to the Central Coast
Regional Water Quality Control Board, where officials say it
will be under review until the end of January.
The report argues that a total cleanup of the basin would be too
expensive and unnecessary because perchlorate levels are below
the state's public health goal of 6 parts per billion.
Olin also submitted a work plan for the area surrounding the
factory, were the highest concentration of the chemical was
found. The company plans to pump polluted water to the surface
and clean it, but still needs to devise what to do with the
treated water.
Morgan Hill City Manager Ed Tewes has not seen the report, but
is growing frustrated with the lack of progress.
"We have acknowledged the complexity of this case, but we have
also expressed our disappointment with the pace of this
regulatory process," Tewes said. "However, we are hopeful the
Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board will adopt a
comprehensive cleanup abatement order at its next meeting in
February for the entire basin, including the part of the basin
from which Morgan Hill draws its domestic water supply."
Tony Burchyns
Tony Burchyns is a staff writer for South Valley Newspapers. He
can be reached at (408) 779-4106 or at
tburchyns@svnewspapers.com.
*****************************************************************
74 RGJ.com: New energy chair endorses Yucca Mountain
December 10, 2006
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The incoming chairman of the Senate Energy
Committee said Friday that Yucca Mountain remains the best
option for nuclear waste disposal, and voiced skepticism about
the alternative plan backed by Nevada's congressional delegation.
The proposed nuclear waste dump "is the best of the options
available to us at the current time assuming that the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission determines that it's an appropriate site,"
Democratic U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico said in an
interview.
U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Nevada's other federal
lawmakers want to store nuclear waste at the reactor sites
around the country where some 50,000 tons of it now sits.
"I don't think that's politically viable. I don't believe that
will become law," Bingaman said.
Republican supporter
When Democrats take over Congress from the GOP in January,
Bingaman will replace U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., as head
of the committee with oversight of the proposed nuclear waste
dump the Energy Department is trying to build
90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
Domenici has been one of Yucca Mountain's strongest
congressional supporters, introducing legislation the Bush
administration has said is needed to move the troubled project
forward.
Reid, who will become Senate Majority Leader, has said he would
not allow any pro-Yucca bills to reach the Senate floor.
Bingaman said he hasn't discussed with Reid what will happen
with future legislation.
Reno Gazette-Journal network: | | |
© Copyright , a Newspaper.
*****************************************************************
75 Sunday Herald: Conflict of interest over nuclear waste
Scotland's award-winning independent newspaper
December 11, 2006 Est 1999 Scotland's award-winning independent
By Rob Edwards, Environment Editor
NEW ARRANGEMENTS to find an underground nuclear waste dump risk
failure because ministers have ignored a recommendation from
their advisers to put an independent body in charge.
Members of the government's Committee on Radioactive Waste
Management (CoRWM) have "substantial misgivings" about Scottish
and English ministers' plans, which they fear could undermine
public trust.
CoRWM recommended in July that 470,000 cubic metres of waste
from nuclear power stations and weapons in the UK, some of which
remains dangerous for hundreds of thousands of years, should be
buried deep underground. It urged that an independent body be
set up to oversee the search for a suitable site "without
delay".continued...
Although Westminster and the Scottish Executive have since
agreed that deep disposal is the way forward, they have rejected
establishing an independent oversight organisation to find a
site. Instead, ministers have given the job to the Nuclear
Decommissioning Authority (NDA), the state agency responsible
for dismantling nuclear plants at Sellafield, Dounreay and
elsewhere. Nirex, the nuclear waste agency, is being closed down
and taken over by the NDA.
CoRWM will meet in London on Thursday to agree its response to
the government's plans. But a newsletter and minutes of its most
recent meeting reveal that many of its 13 experts are worried.
The appointment of the NDA is regarded as problematic by some
because of its agenda to promote short-term efficiency and its
dual role as waste creator and waste disposer.
"The biggest concern was expressed over government's significant
watering-down of CoRWM's recommendation for an independent
overseeing body," stated CoRWM's latest e-bulletin. Plans to
revamp CoRWM next year were too weak to provide the oversight
that was essential, it said.
CoRWM members also criticised the "lack of consultation or
transparency" in the way the government had made its decisions,
according to the minutes of the committee's latest meeting on
November 9. They also feared public confidence could be damaged.
Gordon MacKerron, CoRWM's chairman, stressed that CoRWM welcomed
the government's commitment to deep disposal. "We are preparing
a written response to government which will be considered at a
CoRWM meeting held in public on Thursday," he said.
Nuclear consultant Pete Roche accused ministers of "deliberately
misinterpreting" CoRWM's recommendations. "There is a serious
conflict of interest in the NDA taking control of building the
nuclear waste dump," he said.
The NDA defended its role and claimed safety was its priority.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs denied
that there was a conflict of interest in the NDA.
©2006 newsquest (sunday herald) limited. all rights reserved
*****************************************************************
76 Deutsche Welle: Environmentalists Angry About Air Transport of Nuclear Waste |
09.12.2006
DW-World.de Deutsche Welle
[Anti-nuclear transport protests are a common sight in Germany]
Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Anti-nuclear
transport protests are a common sight in Germany
German authorities have confirmed that Russian nuclear experts
will be allowed to airlift about 300 kilograms (660 pounds) of
enriched uranium from a Soviet-era nuclear research reactor in
Germany.
Anti-nuclear demonstrators are a common sight in Germany.
Virtually every year, thousands of activists chain themselves to
railroad tracks and clash with police to protest against nuclear
transports to and from France, where German nuclear waste is
reprocessed.
Activists have now been given a fresh reason for being up in
arms, as Germany and Russia have agreed to airlift 300 kilograms
of enriched uranium out of Germany -- much of it suitable for
building atomic bombs.
According to authorities, some 200 of the 300 kilogram shipment
consists of highly-enriched uranium, which theoretically could
be used to fuel around 10 nuclear weapons.
Irresponsible
[Green campaigners believe nuclear waste should not cross
borders] Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der
Bildunterschrift: Green campaigners believe nuclear waste
should not cross borders
The decision caused a storm of protest from German anti-nuclear
campaigners, who have long been protesting against shipping
nuclear fuels across Europe. They say an airlift of the material
to Russia would be irresponsible.
"We cannot understand at all why this transport of
highly-enriched uranium should be carried out by airplane," said
Tobias MĂĽnchmeyer, a nuclear expert working for Greenpeace
Germany. "This is irresponsible because it is much more
dangerous than by rail."
"Without a doubt it will provoke strong protests," he added.
The material is waste from a research reactor that was built by
the Soviet Union in East Germany. The reactor is currently being
torn down, and its spent fuel rods are now to be reprocessed in
Russia.
"Absolutely safe"
[Many feel transporting the waste by plane will make it
vulnerable to attacks] Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes
mit der Bildunterschrift: Many feel transporting the waste by
plane will make it vulnerable to attacks
In spite of the protests, German nuclear authorities this week
gave the green light for the airlift, saying the transport in a
special Russian cargo plane was absolutely safe.
But activists reject transports of nuclear waste across borders.
"We believe that every country with a nuclear industry should
keep the nuclear waste it creates within its own borders," said
MĂĽnchmeyer. "That is why the German material must remain at the
reactor site until a solution to the problem of final storage in
Germany has been found."
The recovery of the uranium is part of a joint Russian-American
program in cooperation with a United Nations nuclear watchdog
called Global Threat Reduction Initiative. Its aim is to find,
secure and recover dangerous nuclear materials around the world
to prevent them from falling into the hands of terrorists.
German authorities said the precise day of the transport will
not be disclosed, adding, however, that this was not because of
a fear of violent protests.
Uwe Hessler (jp)
DW-WORLD: Swedish Nuclear Scare Reignites German Atomic
Questions
Germans questioned the safety of atomic power after three
Swedish nuclear reactors were shut down due to safety concerns.
Plant operators in Germany said the country's 17 nuclear
reactors remain safe. (04.08.2006)
+
DW-WORLD: Germany Committed to Phasing Out Nuclear Power
The "gas war" between Russia and Ukraine has fueled a heated
debate in Germany about the country's energy policy, but
Chancellor Angela Merkel reaffirmed her government's commitment
to the nuclear phase-out. (05.01.2006)
+
DW-WORLD: Germans Debate Best Energy Mix for the Future
Rising prices for oil, natural gas and electricity have sparked
a new discussion about the best energy mix in Germany. While
some call for more nuclear energy, others bank on renewable
sources. (22.01.2006) Your Comments
*****************************************************************
77 The Herald: Plan to cut nuclear stockpile ‘a hollow gesture’
Web Issue 26971 December 11 2006
IAN BRUCE, Defence Correspondent December 11 2006
The government's promise to cut the number of missiles and
nuclear warheads carried by Britain's future strategic
submarines was described yesterday as "a hollow gesture".
The Federation of American Scientists, an influential US
lobby-group on global arms' issues, says the UK has barely
enough Trident missiles to arm three of its four current
Vanguard boats in any case, making a cut inevitable.
The FAS also claims the UK has kept a stockpile of nuclear
weapons 20% higher than it needs for most of the last decade.
Tony Blair used the carrot of a reduction in nuclear firepower
last week to help sell the controversial plan of building a
Ł25bn flotilla of replacement submarines over the next two
decades. Britain leases the 5000-mile-range D5 Tridents from a
pool held at the US naval depot at King's Bay, Georgia. The
original deal allowed the UK access to 58 missiles, but eight
have since been fired in test launches.
The Royal Navy's four Vanguard submarines have 16 launch-tubes
apiece. One boat is on patrol at all times, carrying a maximum
of 48 warheads.
Both CND and military insiders say the actual loading is
between 36 to 44 warheads per boat. These include one or more
"sub-strategic" tactical bombs which could be used to strike a
precision target. The main 100-megaton warheads are eight times
as powerful as the weapon which destroyed Hiroshima in 1945.
Although each missile can carry 12 independently-targeted
warheads, the UK has kept the load to three per Trident since
the end of the Cold War.
A spokesman for the Federation of American Scientists said
yesterday: "Prime Minister Blair knew that a new generation of
nukes and expensive submarines would be a hard-sell
domestically. That's why he sweetened the announcement that
Britain will reduce its stock of operationally available
warheads from about 200 to fewer than 160.
"The gesture is somewhat hollow because Britain only has enough
Trident D5 missiles to arm three of its four boats with a
maximum of 144 warheads anyway."
The FAS estimates the Vanguard flotilla needs between 108-132
warheads in total, rather than the 200 held in depots or
deployed on patrols.
"The announcement the UK will retain 'fewer than 160' warheads
seems to reflect this existing reality rather than an additional
operational reduction," Hans M Kristensen, the federation's
Nuclear Information Project director, said. "But it does raise
the question of why the British government has retained 20% more
warheads than it actually needed since it cut the submarines'
war load eight years ago."
© All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without
permissionis prohibited.
*****************************************************************
78 Tri-City Herald: Richland mayor to take nuclear holiday
Published Sunday, December 10th, 2006
By Michelle Dupler, Herald staff writer
Richland Mayor Rob Welch is taking lessons learned in the
Tri-Cities overseas.
Welch is one of a handful of Americans asked to address the
International Atomic Energy Agency at a week-long conference in
Athens, Greece.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission asked him to provide a
small-town perspective on the social and economic effects of
decommissioning nuclear sites. The commission even agreed to
pick up the $3,800 tab.
Welch hopes the Tri-Cities can serve as an example to other
communities around the world whose economies have suffered as
nuclear facilities closed. Part of his talk will focus on "how
the Tri-Cities have come together as one to create a diversified
economy not solely reliant on Hanford," he said.
"It puts the message out there you can clean up and still have
strong communities," Welch said.
The Tri-Cities' economy was strengthened by investments in
economic development by all of the cities, along with
organizations such as the Tri-City Development Council and the
Tri-Cities Regional Chamber of Commerce, he said.
"They have promoted the area to companies not related to
Hanford, focused on the benefits -- quality of life, low crime
rate, the Columbia River, parks and trails," he said. "One thing
that helped turn the community around is folks staying after
they retired."
He remembers a challenging local economy in the 1980s, when it
relied more heavily on Hanford for jobs. Since then, the
Tri-Cities have grown in size and the economy is more varied,
meaning fluctuations in the economy won't be as devastating, he
said.
That doesn't mean there isn't more room to grow, he added. One
thing Welch hopes to accomplish on his trip is to network with
an international audience and bring some outside investors back
home.
He also plans to work in a little leisure time during his
eight-day stay in the historic city. His wife, Sarah, is
traveling with him. They were married two weeks ago, so the trip
will serve in part as a honeymoon, he said.
© 2006 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press &Other Wire Services
*****************************************************************
79 Tri-City Herald: TRIDEC says Hanford pacts do too little for Tri-Cities
Published Sunday, December 10th, 2006
By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer
Proposals for three new Hanford contracts worth billions of
dollars ask contractors to do too little for the community, says
the Tri-City Development Council.
The draft requests for proposals do not include specific
provisions for community involvement and economic development,
according to a letter sent by TRIDEC to the Department of
Energy. The drafts also require too little work be given to
small business, according to TRIDEC.
"Procurements of the size of these three, in a community with a
population of some 200,000, can have a tremendous impact on our
local businesses, our families and our future," the letter said.
DOE plans to award a new contract for operating Hanford's tank
farms, work now done by CH2M Hill Hanford Group. At the same
time, it plans to split the work now done by Fluor Hanford into
two contracts, one for cleaning up central Hanford and the other
for operating the nuclear reservation -- covering tasks such as
firefighting, information technology and utility operations.
The three contracts are planned to be awarded one at a time over
the next two years.
Even if there's no financial benefit to contractors for being a
good citizen, just requiring bidders to come up with a plan for
community involvement and outreach will spur them to think about
how they would participate in the community as Hanford
contractors, TRIDEC president Carl Adrian said in a meeting with
the Herald editorial board.
It also could be used as a tie-breaker in cases where proposals
are ranked equally, he said.
TRIDEC is recommending that as part of community development,
potential contractors be required to detail their education
benefits for employees -- such as tuition reimbursement -- and
any policies to support diversity in education.
Bidders also should be required to outline plans for economic
development that could help lessen the community's dependence on
federal cleanup dollars as work is completed, TRIDEC said.
The draft requests for proposals require some of the work to be
performed by small businesses, but set the bar too low, TRIDEC
believes.
Each contract should require at least 25 percent of work to be
performed by small businesses, unless DOE can come up with a
rationale for the differing percentages now given in each
contract, TRIDEC's letter said. The commitment should be
primarily for work to be given to Mid-Columbia small business,
it said.
Only one of the draft requests for proposals, the one for
Hanford site operations, calls for 25 percent of the contract
value to be subcontracted to small business.
The central Hanford cleanup contract would require 17 percent go
to small business. The tank farms contract would drop to 15
percent subcontracted to small business.
DOE needs annual reviews of small business goals, rather than
assessments every two or three years, the letter said. DOE also
should consider whether a penalty of 10 percent of the fee paid
to contractors who don't meet small business goals is
sufficient, according to TRIDEC.
Many of the cleanup tasks at Hanford, where plutonium was made
for the nation's nuclear weapons program, are challenging and
require innovative approaches, TRIDEC said.
Yet the draft requests include too much "how to" language based
on current plans rather than emphasizing the cleanup goal and
asking bidders how to achieve them, TRIDEC said.
"DOE should request that (bidders) propose innovations to
enhance safety and productivity, accelerate risk reduction,
reduce costs and shorten schedules," TRIDEC said in its letter.
There are some areas TRIDEC believes the three draft requests
for proposals cover well.
Unlike the analysis of Hanford watchdog Heart of America
Northwest, the TRIDEC examination of the drafts concluded they
had a strong emphasis on worker safety and protection of the
public and the environment. The work included also was well
thought out, TRIDEC said.
DOE will take comments on the drafts until Dec. 22.
© 2006 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press &Other Wire Services
*****************************************************************
80 Detroit Free Press: Fermi fixes equipment in wake of 2 violations
+ Freep.com
ASSOCIATED PRESS
FRENCHTOWN TOWNSHIP, Mich. -- Officials at the Fermi 2 nuclear
power plant have corrected equipment problems after the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission found a pair of violations, the plant's
owner said Saturday.
The NRC in a report last month said the plant for 20 years
"failed to maintain appropriate surveillance procedures" for
emergency diesel generators in that in that it fell short of
minimum voltage requirements for safety components.
The NRC concluded a nearly month-long special inspection at the
facility in September. The plant on Aug. 17 notified the
commission that four emergency diesel generators were inoperable.
The commission said the latter violation was of "very low
significance" but had a potentially greater significance
"because the loss of emergency alternating current electrical
power would significantly impact the ability to ensure adequate
core cooling following a loss of offsite power."
Len Singer, spokesman for DTE Energy Co., the facility's owner,
said the NRC issued no fines but cited inconsistencies that
needed rectifying. The plant is located in Monroe County's
Frenchtown Township
"This from a safety standpoint was a very low risk," he said.
Copyright © 2006 Detroit Free Press Inc.
*****************************************************************
81 Carlsbad Current-Argus: Mayor wants city on trigger production list
By Kyle Marksteiner
Article Launched:12/08/2006 10:10:42 PM MST
CARLSBAD — Don't count Carlsbad out on the list of potential
places to make plutonium triggers.
That was the message Carlsbad Mayor Bob Forrest and a pair of
Carlsbad scientists brought to a hearing in Santa Fe Wednesday
evening. Los Alamos is among seven potential sites for a
proposed Consolidated Plutonium Center, which could produce up
to 125 plutonium pits a year. Los Alamos has been doing limited
pit production up to this point.
Plutonium pits are softball-size devices used to trigger the
initial explosion in nuclear warheads. A recent government study
has concluded that pits degrade at a much slower rate than
previously believed. That means not as many new pits will be
needed, but some will still be required.
Wednesday's public hearing was one of several conducted this
week by the National Nuclear Security Administration in northern
New Mexico. Other NNSA hearings are being conducted in
neighborhoods near the other potential sites.
Carlsbad is not on the list. Several years ago, Carlsbad was on
the list of potential sites for a proposed pit manufacturing
facility, but plans for the facility were recently dropped. The
new proposed Consolidated Plutonium Center would involve a
mixture of pit construction and research. Potential sites for the
center are all already Department of Energy facilities dealing
with nuclear weapons work.
But none of that stopped Forrest from visiting the public
hearing in Santa Fe Wednesday to speak on behalf of Carlsbad.
With him were Jim Conca, of the Carlsbad Environmental
Monitoring and Research Center, and Chad Twitchell, of
Carlsbad's office of Sandia National Laboratories.
"They never put Carlsbad in the running," Forrest said. "They
decided they wanted to put this at one of the DOE sites, either
the national labs or the facilities currently dealing with pit
products. They're looking at all seven sites to see which one
would be the best."
The Consolidated Plutonium Center is a new ball game, Forrest
said, but the previous contenders should not be discounted.
"If you junk that one (the modern pit facility), why not pick up
the ones you have on the last list?" he said. "I think this fits
us better than the first one."
Forrest is asking for a reconsideration that will add Carlsbad
to the list of potential sites. He hopes the show of interest
made an impression.
"If I was a person sitting on that NNSA and I was looking for
people with expertise I'd probably look at WIPP (the Waste
Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad)," Forrest said. "The
purpose of our trip was to remind them that they need to take a
look at Carlsbad."
A benefit of having the facility near Carlsbad, Conca said, is
that it is fairly close to both Los Alamos and the PANTEX
facility near Amarillo. TRU (transuranic radioactive) waste
could also be disposed of at WIPP. Related research goes on at
Los Alamos National Laboratory.
"You can make them in Savannah River," he said. "But you'd have
to ship the pits across the country and the waste across the
country. What are you going to do that for?"
About 200 people were at the Santa Fe hearing, Conca said, and
most of them were speaking out against nuclear weapons.
"I think the crowd was taken aback," Conca said of the reaction
to the three Carlsbad speakers.
"As mayor, I appreciate having these two gentlemen go with me,"
Forrest said. "It's not easy to get in front of more than 150
anti-nuclear people and speak about Carlsbad and nuclear
weapons. But someone has got to take care of the problem."
Conca stressed that the pits will be placed in nuclear warheads
that already exist.
"The pits are triggers. That's all they are," he said. "We've
got to maintain them. You are taking out a bad trigger and
putting in a good trigger."
Carlsbad's biggest asset is its community support, Forrest said.
Some needed infrastructure is already in place, and the flat
terrain is an asset to security.
"The NNSA was here (in Carlsbad) a few years ago, and they
remember it as the best show of community support they ever
saw," Forrest said. "I hope it gives them the idea why not
Carlsbad?'"
The hearings, after all, were seeking public comment.
"That's why they are out getting public input," he noted.
"They're trying to decide where the best place is to put this."
The federal government certainly has the ability to consider
other communities that are currently not on the list, Conca
noted.
"This isn't done," he said. "It may be a long shot. I asked them
why we were not in this. We'll see what they say."
Forrest said he's also asked the state's senators and
representatives to plug Carlsbad in Washington, D.C.
The national political shift that will take place next month
could again change the direction of the proposed facility.
Anything could happen, Forrest admitted, but both political
parties certainly need to understand that nuclear will remain an
important part of national policy.
"We've won a lot of people over," Forrest said. "We've come a
long way."Print Friendly View
Copyright © 2005 Carlsbad Current Argus, a MediaNews Group
Newspaper.
*****************************************************************
82 Inside Bay Area: Lab bids bomb material adieu
By Ian Hoffman, STAFF
WRITERArticle Last Updated:12/09/2006 07:09:17 AM PST
Lawrence Livermore weapons lab has begun shedding its dozens of
nuclear bombs worth of plutonium and enriched uranium recently
with a secret first shipment to its sister lab in New Mexico,
Los Alamos.
Details of this and future shipments, including their timing, as
well as the mass and form of the material, remain classified,
according to federal officials.
After insisting that doubling Livermore's maximum plutonium
storage was necessary for national security, the nuclear weapons
arm of the U.S. Department of Energy has done an about-face and
ordered the removal of all but tiny amounts of weapons fuels
from Livermore by 2014.
The reversal was driven partly by soaring security costs.
Keeping paramilitary forcesarmed and on full-time watch against
potential terrorist attacks has been the fastest-growing expense
in the nuclear weapons budget since 2001, amounting to $100
million per year at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
alone.
Congress has pressured three energy secretaries to limit the
number of weapons sites with plutonium and highly enriched
uranium, and watchdog groups have argued that keeping bomb
ingredients in multiple locations is too risky, especially at
Livermore, the nation's largest store of raw weapons materials
close to major U.S. cities.
Officials of the National Nuclear Security Administration said
Thursday that the removal of the first lot of plutonium from
Livermore is an initial step toward a smaller national complex of
weapons labs and factories than that left behind by the Cold War.
"Consolidating material is one of our main goals to transform
the Cold War-era nuclear weapons complex to be even more secure,
more efficient and more modern," said Linton Brooks, chief of
the National Nuclear Security Administration, in a statement
Thursday. "We are taking concrete steps to reduce the number of
locations where we process and store significant quantities of
nuclear weapons materials."
The centerpiece of this new complex is a factory for plutonium
fission cores or pits. The factory in turn is geared toward
replacing the entire U.S. nuclear arsenal by 2030 with hardier
new bombs called "reliable replacement warheads."
But Complex 2030, as Bush administration officials call their
vision for slimmed-down weapons factories and labs, has been too
timid and slow for some in Congress. Last month the chairman of
the House energy and water appropriations subcommittee that
governs spending for nuclear weapons work told Energy Secretary
Samuel Bodman in a letter that he was "extremely disappointed"
in the proposal and threatened to withdraw his backing for the
new warheads.
Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, pointed in particular to the
administration's dismissal of proposals for a single,
consolidated weapons materials facility. Federal weapons
officials are contemplating at least two facilities and forging
ahead with plans for producing the new warheads in roughly the
same Cold War-era weapons complex that exists today.
If the Energy Department is unwilling to consider shrinking all
major work with plutonium and highly enriched uranium to a
single, well-guarded place, Hobson wrote, "then I will not
support funding for the Complex 2030 efforts, including the
Reliable Replacement (RRW) program."
"RRW is a deal with Congress," Hobson wrote, "but the deal
requires serious effort by the department to modernize,
consolidate and downsize the weapons complex. Absent that
effort, there is no deal."
A National Nuclear Security Administration spokesman declined to
discuss the warning or any relationship to the plutonium
shipment out of Livermore.
Some shipments, presumably of plutonium oxide, will be sent to
Savannah River Site in South Carolina once a new nuclear fuels
plant is constructed there, as raw powder to be blended down and
fashioned into reactor fuel.
Disarmament activists who have sought the removal of weapons
materials from Livermore treated news of the first shipment
warily. It is unclear whether the federal government was
removing nearly pure plutonium-239 metal suitable for use in
bombs or impure plutonium residues that have been considered
surplus.
Marylia Kelley, head of Livermore-based Tri-Valley CAREs, said
her watchdog group suspects the plutonium shipment to Los Alamos
is surplus residue to be used in making plutonium pits for new
warheads.
"They're taking it to Los Alamos for pit production experiments
and then will move it again for a new pit factory," Kelley said.
"Our position is that plutonium at Livermore is not secure. It
is vulnerable to disgruntled employee scenarios, to theft, to
terrorist attack and to catastrophic release in the event of a
major earthquake. We want to see it moved for safety and
security reasons, but we only want it moved once and not used
for weapons."
Federal officials said they plan on removing all but small,
undisclosed quantities of weapons fuels used for bench-scale
experiments from Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque,
N.M., by 2008 and from Los Alamos National Laboratory by 2022,
the start-up date for the new plutonium pit factory.
Contact Ian Hoffman at ihoffman@angnewspapers.comor at (510)
208-6458.
© 2000-2006 ANG Newspapers | Privacy Policy
*****************************************************************
83 Detroit Free Press: Fermi makes fixes after 2 violations
+ Freep.com
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Officials at the Fermi 2 nuclear power plant have corrected
equipment problems after the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
found a pair of violations, the plant's owner said Saturday.
The NRC said in a report last month that the Monroe County plant
for 20 years "failed to maintain appropriate surveillance
procedures" for emergency diesel generators, in that it fell
short of minimum voltage requirements for safety components.
The NRC concluded a nearly monthlong special inspection at the
facility in September.
On Aug. 17, the plant notified the commission that four
emergency diesel generators were inoperable.
The commission said that violation was of "very low
significance," but had a potentially greater significance
"because the loss of emergency alternating current electrical
power would significantly impact the ability to ensure adequate
core cooling following a loss of off-site power."
Len Singer, spokesman for DTE Energy Co., the facility's owner,
said the NRC issued no fines but cited inconsistencies that
needed rectifying at the Frenchtown Township plant.
"This, from a safety standpoint, was a very low risk," he said.
Copyright © 2006 Detroit Free Press Inc.
*****************************************************************
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