***************************************************************** 10/04/06 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 14.235 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** Send News Stories to news@energy-net.org with title on subject line and first line of body NUCLEAR POLICY 1 [NYTr] Negotiator Says "No Progress" with Iran 2 [NYTr] Iran May Offer "Nuclear Tourism" 3 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: Tourists allowed in IRI nuclear sites 4 AFP: Iran vows no nuclear suspension as sanctions loom 5 AFP: Western powers warn Iran sanctions threat nearing 6 AFP: Iran to open nuclear sites for tourists 7 UPI: Analysis: Iranian offer falls short 8 [NYTr] DPRK to conduct nuclear test against US hostile policy 9 Security UN Members 'strongly Urge' Dpr Korea Not To Carry Out Nucle 10 Koreas: Nuclear Testing and UN Post 11 The Ugly Truth about Washington's Policies towards North Korea 12 [toeslist] DPRK to conduct nuclear test against U.S. hostile policy 13 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: North promises a test of a nuclear weapon 14 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: [OUTLOOK] North bluster, or chaos again? 15 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: [EDITORIALS] North endangers us all 16 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: North's pledge wins warnings from all sides 17 BBC: China calls for calm over N Korea 18 Independent: Iran and North Korea defy nuclear warnings 19 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: N-consortium mechanism still weiged 20 AFP: NKorean nuclear test likely unless six-way talks resume - minis 21 AFP: Security Council mulls response to North Korea nuclear test thr 22 Comment is free: North Korea's nuclear wake-up call 23 UPI: S.Korea looks for possible nuke test sites 24 UPI: Japan, S. Korea, China to meet on N. Korea 25 Guardian Unlimited: China Appeals to N. Korea to `keep Calm' 26 Guardian Unlimited: North Korea Planning Nuclear Test NUCLEAR REACTORS 27 US: NRC: NRC to Discuss Process for Review of License Renewal 28 Gulfnews: Middle East must develop nuclear energy 29 US: Arizona Daily Star: Feds begin probe at Palo Verde | 30 US: NRC: NRC Issues Supplemental Safety Evaluation for North Anna Ea 31 US: NRC: NRC to Hold Public Meeting Oct. 19 on Environmental Scoping 32 US: Monroenews.com: Program set on Fermi 1 incident 33 US: Rutland Herald: Women speak out on Yankee danger 34 US: NRC: Florida Power & Light Company; Turkey Point Nuclear Plant, 35 US: NRC: Florida Power and Light Company, et al.; Notice of Withdraw 36 US: NRC: NRC Implements Reorganization of Materials and Agreement St 37 US: Hemscott: Court awards $143M to reactor companies 38 ITAR-TASS: Russia ready to cooperate with Belarus in NPP constructio 39 US: Beaver County Times Allegheny Times: Nuclear plant incidents 40 US: Newsday.com: NRC says Indian Point, other radioactive leaks led 41 AU ABC: Nuclear energy panel considers Chernobyl. 42 NewsRoom Finland: Finland should build sixth nuclear reactor -Report 43 US: NRC: NRC to Hold Public Meeting Nov. 1 in Rockville, MD on Propo NUCLEAR SECURITY NUCLEAR SAFETY 44 US: NY Daily News: Small victory for ailing G.I.s 45 US: News Journal: Feds look to update nuclear plant risk 46 US: Berkeley Citzen: Global impact of radiation 1945-2003 47 US: NRC: NRC Tritium Task Force Issues Report and Recommendations, F NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 48 US: Platts: Congress urged to oppose away-from-reactor storage sites 49 rbc.ru: Capacity of SNF storage to be increased 50 US: Ascribe: NAS-enviro-perchlorate 51 US: TheStar.com: Where will province store its nuclear waste? 52 US: Newswise: New Study Suggests Perchlorate Effects on Thyroid Func PEACE US DEPT. OF ENERGY 53 DOE: Energy Secretary Bodman and Minister of Natural Resources 54 Hanford News: Congress OKs $2 million more for national lab 55 Hanford News: DOE misses tank waste cleanup deadline 56 Hanford News: Group awards IsoRay $1.4 million loan 57 Hanford News: Congress approves $82 million for explosives detection 58 Hanford News: B Reactor roof construction delayed until next summer 59 Hanford News: Vit demonstration project still a go; 60 Hanford News: Wave of the future 61 Bellona: US DOE and US-based NGO cooperate to down-blend Kazakhstan 62 lamonitor.com: LANL meets with subcontractors 63 Knox News: Y-12's uranium processing still nagged by old issues ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 [NYTr] Negotiator Says "No Progress" with Iran Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2006 14:29:03 -0500 (CDT) X-Sender-Host-Name: chumbly.math.missouri.edu X-Spam-Class: HAM-VERY-WHITELIST Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit AP - Oct 4, 2006 http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/IRAN_NUCLEAR?SITE=ALTAL&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT Oct 4, 1:09 PM EDT Negotiator Says No Progress With Iran By CONSTANT BRAND Associated Press Writer BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) -- A top European Union negotiator said Wednesday that "endless hours" of talks with Iran about its nuclear program have failed to make any progress, while the Iranian president said U.N. sanctions would not stop Tehran from enriching uranium. EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana told the European Parliament Iran must decide whether it wants to continue negotiations about suspending enrichment as demanded by the U.N. Security Council. "Today, Iran has made no commitment to suspend," Solana said. "This dialogue I am maintaining cannot last forever and it is up to Iranians now to decide whether its time has come to end." He suggested that if the talks ended, the standoff should be moved to the Security Council. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned the West that sanctions would not stop his government from uranium enrichment. "You are mistaken if you assume that the Iranian nation will stop for even a moment from the path toward using nuclear energy due to your nagging," he told supporters, drawing chants of "Death to America!" from a crowd in Hashtgerd, outside the Iranian capital, Tehran. "It's been 27 years that they (the West) haven't allowed us to use technologies that they possess," Ahmadinejad said. "This nation is powerful and won't give in to one iota of coercion." Solana has been leading talks with Iran's top negotiator, Ali Larijani, on behalf of Britain, France, Germany, China, the United States and Russia, which are seeking to persuade Iran to suspend work on processing uranium in return for a package of incentives. Iran insists it is developing enrichment technology to produce fuel for nuclear reactors that generate electricity. But Washington and others suspect Tehran's real goal is to use enriched uranium to build nuclear weapons. Solana told the lawmakers that four months of talks with Larijani had not made any progress. "We have reached common ground only on a number of issues, an important number of issues, but we have not agreed in what is the key point, which is the question of suspension of activities before the start of the negotiations" with the West on Iran's use of nuclear technology, he said. Solana said he remained committed to continuing talks. "I have negotiated endless hours, it has been my top priority, because I am convinced, I continue to be convinced that this is a crucial subject .. not only for the Europeans, but for the international community as a whole," he said. Diplomats familiar with the Solana-Larijani talks said Tuesday that the effort was all but dead due to Iran's continuing refusal to suspend enrichment. Ahmadinejad said he wanted negotiations to continue. "We are for talks. We can talk with each other and remove ambiguities. We have logic. We want talks to continue," he said. The negotiations had been seen as a last-ditch attempt to avoid a full-blown confrontation between Iran and the Security Council after Tehran ignored an Aug. 31 deadline to suspend enrichment or face punishment. Foreign ministers of the major powers urging Iran to suspend enrichment could meet in the coming days to assess the status of negotiations, an EU official said. The official refused to elaborate on when the meeting might take place, saying only that it was under consideration. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks. Ahmadinejad said the U.S. and its European allies want Iran to suspend enrichment as a first step toward forcing a permanent halt in the nuclear program because they opposed Tehran's progress. "If we stop (enrichment), then what would we negotiate about? You want us to stop and then run after you. Why would we do that?" he said. "The Iranian nation won't be deceived." Before Solana spoke, Iranian state television announced that Ahmadinejad had ordered that the country's nuclear facilities opened to foreign tourists to prove the program is peaceful. "After an order by the president ... foreign tourists can visit Iran's nuclear facilities," the head of Iran's tourism division, Esfandiar Rahim Mashai, was quoted as saying. The report did not clarify the definition of a foreign tourist. The announcement came a day after Iran's parliament voted to debate a bill that would require the government to fingerprint U.S. citizens visiting Iran. The measure is a response to the fingerprinting of Iranians visiting the United States under a procedure implemented in 2002 that affects citizens of several nations. ) 2006 The Associated Press. * ================================================================ .NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems . Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us . .339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org .List Archives: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ .Subscribe: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ================================================================ ***************************************************************** 2 [NYTr] Iran May Offer "Nuclear Tourism" Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2006 10:01:49 -0500 (CDT) X-Sender-Host-Name: chumbly.math.missouri.edu X-Spam-Class: HAM-VERY-WHITELIST Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit Prensa Latina, Havana http://www.plenglish.com Iran May Offer Nuclear Tourism Teheran, Oct 4 (Prensa Latina) Esfandiar Rahim Mashai, Iranian vice president for Tourism and Cultural Heritage, proposed Wednesday that nuclear plants become tourism attractions for foreigners. The initiative, which would help to support the peaceful nature of Teheran s nuclear program, was launched at the first Strategic Committee for Tourism and Sports. Rahim Mashai stressed if the President Mahmud Ahmadineyad gives the project the go-ahead, the organization would study a system for tourists to be able to visit those installations. sus ymr jcd mf * ================================================================ .NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems . Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us . .339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org .List Archives: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ .Subscribe: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ================================================================ ***************************************************************** 3 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: Tourists allowed in IRI nuclear sites 2006/10/04 Vice-President and head of the Cultural Heritage Organization Esfandyar Rahim-Moshaei said Tuesday that foreign tourists can view Iran's nuclear facilities. "Upon permission granted by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the organization is currently working on ways by which foreign tourists can view Iran's nuclear facilities," IRNA quoted Rahim-Moshaei as telling reporters. He added that the president issued the authorization to help prove that Iran's nuclear activities are peaceful. Copyright 2004, All Rights Reserved By Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting News Network Sponsored By IRIB News Computer Center. E-Mail: Info@IRIBNEWS.ir ***************************************************************** 4 AFP: Iran vows no nuclear suspension as sanctions loom by Stuart Williams Wed Oct 4, 12:03 PM ET TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran" /> Iranhas vowed that it will not suspend uranium enrichment, defying warnings from world powers that it faces UN Security Council sanctions for failing to halt the sensitive nuclear work. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in a speech outside Tehran on Wednesday that Iran would not back down "one inch" against Western pressure for it to halt enrichment -- a process the West fears could be used to make a nuclear bomb. "They (the West) want us to stop our (nuclear) machines just for a day to launch a war of propaganda against Iran. But if we stop our machines there will be nothing left to negotiate," he said. "We will not accept any climbdown, we will not accept any suspension," added Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli, the deputy to Iran's top nuclear negotiator. The unequivocal vows not to halt enrichment appear to open the way for Tehran's case to be sent to the Security Council and a draft resolution prepared for possible sanctions. Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana have staged four rounds of talks on Iran's nuclear programme but have failed to make a breakthrough. It is unclear if they will meet again. "We have reached common ground on an important number of issues but we have not agreed in what was the key point, which is the question of suspension of activities," Solana admitted to the European Parliament's foreign affairs committee. "The dialogue cannot last for ever. It is up to the Iranians now to decide whether this time has come to an end. If this is the case, we will have to begin to follow the second track" of the Security Council, he added. Enrichment of uranium is at the heart of the crisis. The process can be used to make nuclear fuel and, in highly enriched form, the explosive core of an atomic bomb. Tehran insists its nuclear programme is solely for peaceful energy needs, vehemently rejecting US allegations that it is seeking to manufacture nuclear weapons. The United States has repeatedly insisted that Iran would be sent to the Security Council automatically if it failed to suspend enrichment, while France spoke up in favour of sanctions against Tehran if its position does not shift. "The international community is running out of time because soon its own credibility in terms of enforcing its own resolutions will be... a matter of question," said US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice" /> Condoleezza Rice. US Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, the pointman on Iran, told The Washington Times: "At some point, you have to draw the line. So I think you'll have the answer by the end of the week." A high-ranking British official has said preparations are now under way to propose a draft resolution at the UN Security Council under Article 41 of the UN Charter, which allows for economic sanctions. France, like Washington and London, is a veto-wielding permanent member of the Security Council. It said that if Iran does not suspend enrichment, world powers will "draw the consequences". "The measures which could be taken under resolution 1696 (which opens up the possibility of sanctions) should be progressive, proportionate and reversible," said foreign ministry spokesman Jean-Baptiste Mattei. It remains to be seen how the two other permanent Security Council members, Russia and China, would respond to a draft resolution proposing sanctions. Both have always insisted on a diplomatic solution to the standoff. Despite the threats, Ahmadinejad maintained a defiant front in two speeches Wednesday afternoon outside Tehran, lambasting the West for blocking Iran's progress. "They are hostile to our progress and they do not want Iran to become a model. They fear that if we develop we will become the greatest world power," he said in a speech in the city of Hashtgerd. "They cannot obtain in negotiations what they could not achieve by force and pressure," he added. The deputy head of Iran's atomic energy organisation, Mohammad Saeedi, on Tuesday ruled out suspending enrichment but instead suggested France creates a consortium to enrich uranium on French soil. However Rice, who is on a visit to the Middle East, dismissed the move as an "old idea" that has "been around for a while" while France reacted with little enthusiasm. Iranian officials on Wednesday also appeared to backtrack from the idea, with foreign ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini saying "no decision has been taken for the moment on how to form a consortium". Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 5 AFP: Western powers warn Iran sanctions threat nearing by Stuart Williams Wed Oct 4, 4:52 AM ET TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran" /> was facing a barrage of Western warnings time has almost run out to clinch a deal over its nuclear programme and it could be hauled up before the UN Security Council within a week. Western powers have reacted coolly to a proposal by the Islamic republic that France monitor the enrichment of uranium on Iranian soil as a way out of the impasse, with the United States dismissing the suggestion as "stalling". Efforts to find a solution remain blocked by the question of uranium enrichment, a sensitive nuclear activity world powers want Tehran to suspend as proof it is not seeking nuclear weapons. Iran insists it will not halt its programme. "I hope that there is still room to resolve this," said US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice" /> , who is on a tour of the Middle East. "But the international community is running out of time because soon its own credibility in terms of enforcing its own resolutions will be ... a matter of question," said Rice. Officials in Washington and London suggested the momentum was now moving towards the issue being taken to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions within a week. "If (Iran's answer) is maybe, it's a no," US Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, the State Department point man on Iran, told The Washington Times. "If it's 'We'd like to negotiate this further,' it has been negotiated for four months," Burns said. "At some point, you have to draw the line. So I think you'll have the answer by the end of the week," he added. A high-ranking British official, who declined to be named, said preparations were now underway to propose a draft resolution at the UN Security Council under Article 41 of the UN Charter, which allows for economic sanctions. "Unless there is a sudden unexpected change of heart by the Iranians, we can expect this to move to New York in the coming week or so," he said. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was due to give a televised speech in the afternoon, but there was little expectation he would announce any shift in Tehran's position. The deputy head of Iran's atomic energy organisation, Mohammad Saeedi, on Tuesday ruled out suspending enrichment but instead offered "the best solution". "It is that France creates a consortium with Eurodif and Areva to carry out enrichment in Iran and thus they can closely monitor our nuclear programme," he said, referring to France's enrichment specialist and its parent company. But Rice, in Cairo as part of her Middle East tour, dismissed the move as an "old idea" that has "been around for a while". "I fear that this may instead, therefore, be a stalling technique because we don't want to get to the basic issue which is that Iran has to suspend its enrichment and reprocessing in order to begin negotiations," Rice said. Enrichment of uranium is at the heart of the crisis as the process can be used both to make nuclear fuel and, in highly enriched form, the explosive core of an atomic bomb. Tehran insists its nuclear programme is solely for peaceful energy needs, vehemently rejecting US allegations it is seeking to manufacture nuclear weapons. EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani have been leading talks aimed at finding a deal on Iran's nuclear programme but have so far failed to reach a breakthrough. The pair are expected to be in touch again by telephone this week. Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 6 AFP: Iran to open nuclear sites for tourists Wed Oct 4, 4:07 AM ET TEHRAN (AFP) - Tourists visiting Iran might be able to add an unusual stop-off on their itinerary -- a trip to one of the Islamic republic's nuclear sites at the centre of a standoff with the international community. The state news agency IRNA reported Wednesday that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has given permission for tourists to visit nuclear sites as proof that Iran's atomic activities are peaceful. "Foreign tourists can visit Iranian nuclear sites, after Dr. Ahmadinejad issued an authorization ordering this organization to study ways to do so," the head of Iran's Tourism and Cultural Heritage Organization Esfandyar Rahim Mashaii said. "This authorization has been issued since the Iranian nuclear activities are peaceful," he told the agency. No details were given on the nature of the visits that would be allowed or when it would become legal for tourists to take a trip to one of the facilities. Possible attractions for tourists would include the uranium conversion facility outside Isfahan, the uranium enrichment plant in Natanz or the Islamic republic's first nuclear plant being built in the southern city of Bushehr. So, having marvelled at Isfahan's magnificent architectural heritage and admired the ruined Achamedian city of Persepolis, a tourist could could find him or herself checking out a nuclear installation. So far only United Nations atomic watchdog and reporters have been allowed to visit the sites. The move comes amid a growing push from Western countries for Iran to be hauled up before the UN Security Council for possible sanctions over its nuclear program, which Washington alleges masks a weapons drive. Iran insists its nuclear program is solely aimed at providing energy for civilians. Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 7 UPI: Analysis: Iranian offer falls short United Press International - Intl. Intelligence - 10/4/2006 2:27:00 PM -0400 By STEFAN NICOLA UPI Germany Correspondent BERLIN, Oct. 4 (UPI) -- Iran has proposed that France should help enrich uranium inside Iran, a move that has been met with suspicion in the West. "There is nothing substantive behind it," a senior French official on the condition of anonymity told the New York Times. "This is not the first time the Iranians have tried to divide the international community." Mohammad Saeidi, the deputy director of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, had told a French radio station Tuesday that Iran was ready to be more flexible to relieve the deadlock over its controversial nuclear program. "In order to reach a solution, we've just had an idea: We propose that France create a consortium for the production in Iran of enriched uranium," Saeidi said. He added that Iran's uranium enrichment activities could be organized and monitored by French-based nuclear energy companies Eurodif and Areva. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in a news conference with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit in Cairo Wednesday, said the idea of a consortium "has been around for a while" and was most likely "a stalling technique because we don't want to get to the basic issue which is that Iran has to suspend its enrichment and reprocessing in order to begin negotiations." "It's now a month past August 31. The Iranians have had plenty of time to find a way to suspend their enrichment and reprocessing." The international community has been frustrated by Tehran's unwillingness to halt its uranium enrichment program, which can be used to produce civil energy or make a nuclear bomb. Tehran has repeatedly denied wanting to acquire the bomb, but the West mistrusts the Iranian leadership, especially after overly aggressive rhetoric from its President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. While the Iranian move marks the first time in months that Iran has come forward and made a proposal on its own -- rather than brushing away the West's numerous compromise offers -- experts have doubted its honest intentions. "One would have to analyze the offer in greater detail, I suppose," Erwin Haeckel, Iran expert at the German Council on Foreign Relations in Bonn on Wednesday told United Press International. "But for the past months, maybe even years, the Iranian strategy has been to gain time, and I don't see this offer as different." Washington meanwhile has urged its European negotiation partners -- Germany, France and Britain -- to up the pressure on the Islamic Republic and introduce a clear deadline before pushing for sanctions mandated by the U.N. Security Council. "At some point, you have to draw the line," U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns said in an interview with the Washington Times. "So I think you'll have the answer by the end of the week." The Iranian move may be a sign that Tehran knows it has to act to avoid sanctions; the international community so far has been surprisingly close-knitted, with China and Russia now even mulling to agree to sanctions, albeit soft ones. The idea of a consortium was first floated by the Europeans, who earlier this year offered a plan foreseeing Russia enriching uranium on its soil for Iran. Tehran did not accept that offer. Javier Solana, the EU's foreign policy expert, is growing increasingly tired over the negotiations, observers say. "The Europeans are clueless right now, no one really knows what to do except proceeding with sanctions," Haeckel said. Tehran, in a rather comical bid to soothe the West, has announced it will open the doors of its nuclear facilities to tourists. Berlin, a key member of the negotiations, is not impressed. A foreign affairs spokesman Wednesday in Berlin told a news conference the German government was "increasingly worried" that Tehran still has not given the West a real answer. "The Iranian government must know: There is not much time left," he said. © Copyright 2006 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved ***************************************************************** 8 [NYTr] DPRK to conduct nuclear test against US hostile policy Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2006 14:50:57 -0400 (EDT) X-Sender-Host-Name: olm.blythe-systems.com X-Spam-Class: HAM-VERY-WHITELIST Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit Xinhua via China Daily - Oct 3, 2006 DPRK to conduct nuclear test against U.S. hostile policy PYONGYANG, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Tuesday announced that it would conduct a nuclear test in the future as a war deterrent against the U.S. hostile policy. In a statement issued by the Foreign Ministry, the DPRK said "(for) scientific research, the DPRK will in the future conduct a nuclear test under conditions where safety is firmly guaranteed," the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. But the statement did not give a specific date or location for the upcoming test. The DPRK said it would implement its international commitment on nuclear non-proliferation "as a responsible nuclear weapons state" although in January 2003 it quit the Non-proliferation Treaty. The DPRK "will never use nuclear weapons first, but strictly prohibit any threat of nuclear weapons and nuclear transfer," the statement said. Meanwhile, The DPRK also affirmed that it would strive to "realize the denuclearization of the (Korean) peninsula and give impetus to worldwide nuclear disarmament and the ultimate elimination of nuclear weapons." The statement accused the United States of adopting a hostile policy toward the DPRK, saying that was why it must conduct a nuclear test, as a way of bolstering its war deterrence. "The U.S.' extreme threat of a nuclear war and (its) sanctions and pressure compel the DPRK to conduct a nuclear test", said the statement. "Under the present situation ... the U.S. moves to isolate and stifle the DPRK have reached the worst phase, going beyond the extremity," it said. "The DPRK can no longer remain an on-looker to the developments," it added. The DPRK is believed by U.S. officials to have possessed one ortwo nuclear weapons for years, and that it has the capability to produce more. In a joint statement at the end of the fourth round of the six-party talks in September 2005, the DPRK promised to abandon all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs while the United States affirmed that it had no intention of attacking or invading the DPRK with nuclear or conventional weapons. In October last year, Washington imposed financial restrictionson the DPRK, saying that Pyongyang's companies had been involved in illicit activities, including counterfeiting, money laundering and financing weapons proliferation, which, in turn, led to the DPRK refusal to return to the six-party talks. The talks, which involves China, the DPRK, the United States, South Korea, Russia and Japan, have been stalled since the first phase of the fifth round of talks ended last November. Enditem * ================================================================ .NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems . Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us . .339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org .List Archives: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ .Subscribe: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ================================================================ ***************************************************************** 9 Security UN Members 'strongly Urge' Dpr Korea Not To Carry Out Nuclear Test Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2006 15:00:04 -0400 SECURITY COUNCIL MEMBERS ‘STRONGLY URGE’ DPR KOREA NOT TO CARRY OUT NUCLEAR TEST New York, Oct 4 2006 3:00PM The United Nations Security Council held closed consultations on the stated intention of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) to carry out a nuclear test, and all members voiced “very strong concern… and strongly urged North Korea to desist from it,” the Council president said. Ambassador Kenzo Oshima of Japan, Council President for October, told reporters after the meeting that the 15-member body would meet later today to discuss issuing a formal statement. He said there were different views as to the approach that should be taken. The Council meeting followed a warning from Secretary-General Kofi Annan last night that a test by the DPRK would be counter-productive and worsen tensions in the region. He called on the DPRK “to exercise utmost restraint and adhere to the international community’s norm on nuclear testing and also observe the current moratorium.” 2006-10-04 00:00:00.000 ___________________ For more details go to UN News Centre at http://www.un.org/news To listen to news and in-depth programmes from UN Radio go to: http://radio.un.org/ _______________________________ To change your profile or unsubscribe go to: http://www.un.org/apps/news/email/ ***************************************************************** 10 Koreas: Nuclear Testing and UN Post Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2006 14:58:32 -0500 (CDT) X-Sender-Host-Name: chumbly.math.missouri.edu X-Spam-Class: HAM-VERY-WHITELIST Institute for Public Accuracy 915 National Press Building, Washington, D.C. 20045 (202) 347-0020 * http://www.accuracy.org * ipa@accuracy.org ___________________________________________________ Wednesday, October 4, 2006 Koreas: Nuclear Testing and UN Post The North Korean government has announced that it will "conduct a nuclear test." See text of statement: . South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon is expected to become the next Secretary General of the United Nations. BRUCE CUMINGS, rufus88@uchicago.edu, http://history.uchicago.edu/faculty/cumings.html A specialist in Korea, Cumings is a professor at the University of Chicago. His latest book is "North Korea: Another Country." Cumings said today: "The North Korean announcement needs to be read carefully; the 'nuclear test' may be a bomb or it might be a detonation device. It's odd to announce such things ahead of time because they might fail. "In any case, this is a very dangerous thing and may lead to further proliferation in the region. But it is a clear response to the U.S. preemption policy announced in 2002, which was particularly dangerous for the volatile Korean DMZ. The lessons that the North Koreans took from the Iraq invasion were: The UN agencies went into Iraq and disarmed it and then the U.S. invaded. Their logical conclusion is not to disarm, but to go nuclear." JONATHAN GRANOFF, jgg786@aol.com, http://www.gsinstitute.org Granoff, president of the Global Security Institute, states: "North Korea's announcement that it plans to test a nuclear weapon is the logical extension of the failure of the international community to obtain a universal ban on the testing of nuclear weapons, known as a comprehensive test ban treaty. The U.S. government has tested these weapons more than 1,000 times and has a conventional arsenal unrivaled in human history. Should not the U.S. take the lead in prohibiting any more tests, by anyone, anywhere? This crisis should be a wakeup call for a universal ban on the testing of nuclear weapons." MEREDITH JUNG-EN WOO, mjewoo@umich.edu, http://polisci.lsa.umich.edu/faculty/mjwoo.html Professor of political science at the University of Michigan, Woo is author of several books including "Race to the Swift: State and Finance in Korean Industrialization." She is able to comment on South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon's anticipated designation as Secretary General of the United Nations. For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy: Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167 _________________________________________________________________ You received this message as a subscriber on the list: public@lists.accuracy.org To be removed from the list, send any message to: public-unsubscribe@lists.accuracy.org For all list information and functions, including changing your subscription mode and options, visit the Web page: http://lists.accuracy.org/lists/info/public ***************************************************************** 11 The Ugly Truth about Washington's Policies towards North Korea Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2006 21:28:54 -0500 (CDT) X-Sender-Host-Name: chumbly.math.missouri.edu X-Spam-Class: SPAM-LOW X-Spam: [SPAM] - LOW "Another Guest on Democracy Now: EUNG HYE SUH: And I would add to that that in the Pentagon's Nuclear Posture Review which was released in December 2001, that the U.S. IDENTIFIED NORTH KOREA AS A POSSIBLE TARGET OF NUCLEAR *FIRST* *STRIKE*" [NOTICE THAT'S IN DEC OF 2001, so that came way before the main reactions, one hears about, the main responses, by N Korea, reactions to these idiotic policies in Washington. How many other countries say "It's ok for me to launch a nuclear first-strike against other countries"? Would it be ok for any other country to have a first-strike policy like that? It's both immoral, dangerous, stupid, and encouraging the worst reaction in other countries, that Washington keeps this policy. EMPH. all emphasis added -ed.] - - - "THE U.S. IN 1957 VIOLATED THE TERMS OF THE ARMISTICE BY BRINGING NUCLEAR WEAPONS TO SOUTH KOREA. CONTINUED OVER THE DECADE OF THE 60'S AND '70S TO INCREASE THE NUCLEAR WEAPONRY, and through the '80'S AND INTO THE early 90's.. ".. through their Team Spirit War Games, THE U.S. PRACTICED SIMULATED NUCLEAR AND BIOLOGICAL AND CHEMICAL ATTACKS ON NORTH KOREA. So the North Koreans have a long history of having been forced to deal with in fact the nuclear threat that the U.S. has brought. And North - - - North Korea was promised the shipment of a lot of oil (not as "donation" but as part of the agreement to scrap parts of its nuclear program that could provide energy to heat during the cold winters). This was delayed and delayed and delayed. They had promised to freeze various nuclear reactor areas in return for oil (and non-weapons nuclear facilities) to help meet their energy needs. When these didn't materialize, they said, wait a minute, if you're not keeping your end of the deal, we're not keeping ours -- we will re-start our Yongbyon facility. All of this is on top of the economic embargo complicating North Korea meeting its energy needs. = = = = Repost: You don't have to like the leadership of any country, and certainly not North Korea's to appreciate the following, just to care about the lives of all peoples and world peace -- and the truth -- facts too inconvenient to merit mention in our papers. By hiding history and relevant background, the Bush clique and the media make those North Koreans look "oh so inscrutable" and "hard to understand" if not "irrational" but basic background shows they are not at all hard to understand. Websites are given below. #1 You would easily forget, or for younger viewers, you would almost never know this seldom mentioned fact in articles about North Korea, but the Korean War has never ended. There was an armistice signed on July 27, 1953, but a peace treaty was never signed. More than 5 million people were killed or wounded or disappeared during the three year-war Korean War. Today 700,000 South Korean troops, 1.1 million North Korean Troops, and 37,000 US troops stand in the peninsula. #2 Put that fact together with Bush calling your country part of the "axis of evil" if you are in North Korea's shoes, and things start to make more sense, but wait, there is more... #3 The little-known event in Geneva. Professor Martin Hart-Landsberg (see URL below) elaborates: Q: What was the understanding 50 years ago? A: Well, the understanding was that there would be a peace treaty following a conference in Geneva, that would follow the armistice. The US insisted on only formally ending the fighting and not in fact signing a peace treaty with North Korea at the time. And one of the little known facts of history, is that shortly -- about half a year after the armistice was signed, there was a conference in Geneva that was supposed to settle the issue of Korea, help promote a peaceful reunification of Korea, and the U.S. single handedly undermined that conference. If you read the memos of the representatives from England, from Canada, from Belgium, they're all quite clear. The North Koreans proposed country-wide elections, North and South, to elect a new Korean government. And the U.S. having just fought a war essentially to hold onto [ie, control -ed.] the South,was not interested in that, and basically brought the conference to a close, and has been content really ever since, to maintain a state of hostilities in Korea. * So the articles almost universally talk about North Korea "starting" the crisis -- when in fact our "leaders" in Washington have sabotaged the signing of a formal end of hostilities, have kept a state of war with North Korea, and have not only in actions but openly targeted North Korea as "axis of evil" for "regime change" and "not ruling out" military "action" (that is, a unilateral first-strike military assault) on North Korea. We haven't mentioned the Embargo designed to destroy North Korea yet..in which the gun to North Korea's head (as usual, the leadership isn't suffering but it's people -- and the people of South Korea) have their lives at risk due to Washington's threats... #4 We are told Washington does not want to be "blackmailed" but just who exactly is blackmailing whom? Everyone in the world (except maybe US citizens kept in the dark by our media) understands the lesson of Iraq: if you disarm, give in and let us interview your scientists, give in and let us fly U2 overhead, give in and dismantle Al Saud missiles, give in and allow inspectors so you are mostly disarmed -- then you're helpless and you will be demolished at will and "regime changed" (and thousands of your innocent civilians women, men, children,and babies, slaughtered by Washington's firepower) A very ugly lesson Bush taught the world: "disarming is a big, big mistake" And the world, including North Korea, but others, from many countries have pointed this out: only by having a strong deterrent force can you protect yourself from unilateral attack, invasion, and overthrow by Washington. #5 North Korea is facing the Embargo and the non-WMD defense it has is it's army of over 1 million plus conventional missles...all of which are very expensive. A typical cartoon seen on the internet shows starving North Koreans and the leadership saying "hey, we need money for weapons to protect our people" but this cartoon gets it exactly backwards: the North Korean leadership (which, though like much of Asia, is not democratic but is not stupid, and does enjoy much support from its people), they want to cut military spending. Now, given a strong economic embargo against the North, and given Washington refusing to sign a non-aggression treaty and to normalize relations with North Korea, and saber-rattling about "Axis of evil"...and the conventional defense the North has being very expensive..then a nuclear defense is the only cheaper option. And the North has said loud and clear: please give us non-aggression nd normalizing relations, so we can be secure and cut our military spending, but if you refuse to end the threats against our existence, and the costs of conventional defense are so high, we will be forced to look for cheaper, non-conventional defense" Suddenly it's not so "inscrutable" to understand, if you put yourself in the shows of North Korea. MARTIN HART-LANDSBERG: I think one of the problems here is that the U.S. has sort of successfully constructed this whole issue as the problem of the North Korean nuclear weapons program. And the North Koreans have been trying, not always successfully to I think more accurately construct the issue as a problem of U.S.-North Korean relations. And that is the fact that the U.S. has refused to normalize relations with North Korea. The US has refused to sign a peace treaty ending the Korean War, and the U.S. has refused to drop its embargo, which has also -- the U.S. has also put pressure on Japan essentially not to normalize relations, not to drop its economic embargo. So the North has been trying very hard to say, look, this is an unnatural state and given the situation in our economy, we need investment, we need normalization. We need the U.S. to agree to sit down with us and change this situation and the U.S. has basically refused. So the North Koreans have been saying, look, we need to sit down, U.S.-North Korea resolve these things. Everything is on the table. As recently as April of this year they said, you have your concerns, we have our concerns. Let's settle this and we're willing to open up our whole nuclear program. We're willing to even halt missile exports if you would do these few simple things: Normalize relations, sign a peace treaty, drop your economic embargo. The U.S. has refused... # 6 REPEATED NUCLEAR THREATS -- BY WHOM? By Washington... "..And I think it's very important when people talk about North Korea having generated the nuclear crisis bringing nuclear threats to the peninsula, to get some history. And that history is that the U.S. during the Korean war, THREATENED TO DROP NUCLEAR WEAPONS ON KOREA. "THE U.S. IN 1957 VIOLATED THE TERMS OF THE ARMISTICE BY BRINGING NUCLEAR WEAPONS TO SOUTH KOREA. CONTINUED OVER THE DECADE OF THE 60'S AND '70S TO INCREASE THE NUCLEAR WEAPONRY, and through the '80'S AND INTO THE early 90's.. ".. through their Team Spirit War Games, THE U.S. PRACTICED SIMULATED NUCLEAR AND BIOLOGICAL AND CHEMICAL ATTACKS ON NORTH KOREA. So the North Koreans have a long history of having been forced to deal with in fact the nuclear threat that the U.S. has brought. And North Korea's reactions and responses have really all been conditioned by the fact that they have been under threat of nuclear attack, ...[and] are forced to put a tremendous amount of resources into the military to try and maintain their independence...They want to resolve the problem with direct talks. And this seems to me, while those talks may be difficult it's a perfectly reasonable response. Let's normalize relations, let's end the Korean war, let's create a context for peace on the Korean peninsula. But the U.S. has refused to see that wider historical context for reasons that we talk about in a minute if you want. Another Guest on Democracy Now: EUNG HYE SUH: And I would add to that that in the Pentagon's Nuclear Posture Review which was released in December 2001, that the U.S. IDENTIFIED NORTH KOREA AS A POSSIBLE TARGET OF NUCLEAR *FIRST* *STRIKE*. [all emphasis added -ed.] #7 Yes, but what about North Korea and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)? Right now the world is also paying attention to the major meeting in Nebraska this (Thursday August 7, 2003) by Washington, to push for building even more, new types of nuclear weapons (just the US media, and thus public isn't paying attention to it) When Washington pushes for other countries to give up nuclear ambitions, the world will respond in the predictable way, seeing Washington not only keep it's nuclear weapons, but working to build even more new ones. The US public, mostly in the dark about this, will wonder how strangely the world reaction is -- yet again. By the way, Washington is in violation of the non-proliferation treaty (NPT) -- we only hear about the half that says non-nuclear states must stay non-nuclear -- we almost never year about the other half, as you may or may not be aware, that states those countries having nuclear weapons must work to reduce and move towards eliminating them. Needless to say, expanding one's nuclear capabilities and building new types of nuclear weapons beyond even the already deadly ones that exist, is a violation. Again, the world sees this, and US public is kept in the dark, and so it wonders what a strange irrational world out there is, that doesn't want to obey the NPT, and wants to get nuclear weapons -- the actions of our own government being not very well known to the US public. [See: http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/08/05/1455235, "U.S. Marks Hiroshima Anniversary By Holding Top Secret Summit to Discuss Expanding Nation's Nuclear Arsenal"] #8 "Ok, Bush/Washington is guilty too, and they should stop threatening North Korea with nuclear weapons. They should sit down and have a peace treaty, and then press the North. They are handling it bad. But North Korea still started it, by leaving the NPT, right?" Answer: During his State of the Union address on January 29, 2002, President Bush singled out North Korea as part of his so-called "Axis of Evil" That came months *before* the supposed "admission" by North Korea in October of 2002 that they would pursue or are pursuing a nuclear program. Thus, after the above history of threatening North Korea by refusing to sign a peace treaty, after threatening North Korea in the past with nuclear missiles, and after threatening North Korea in December 2001 with Nuclear First Strike -- Bush yet again increased the saber-rattling rhetoric on January 2002, months before the alleged (and disputed) first sign from North Korea they may pursue a nuclear defense. This doesn't make North Korea of a pure innocent virgin role. No, the issue is simply that given this background, the media and political portrayal of some kind of "irrational" or hard to understand nature on the part of North Korea is pure bunk. It's very easy to understand how and why they would react when they are under severe and repeated threat by the most powerful (and recently, most interventionist) power in world history. #9 "I didn't know that. So again important history has been omitted This repeated history of threats by Bush is not good for South Koreans or American any more than for North Koreas citizens. But North Korea did threaten to withdraw from the NPR in 1994, which pre-dates this" In fact, the conflict in U.S.-North Korean relations over the nuclear issue first arose on January 26, 1993, when President Clinton announced that the U.S. military would conduct war games in South Korea. This was followed the next month by the news that some of the NUCLEAR WEAPONS PREVIOUSLY TARGETED ON THE SOVIET UNION WOULD BE REDIRECTED AT NORTH KOREA. By March, massive Team Spirit war games involving bombers, cruise missiles and naval vessels were underway. Interpreting this as a provocation (and serious, conventional *and* nuclear threat), North Korea responded by signalling that it would withdraw from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). However talks with U.S. officials in June 1993 led to North Korea rescinding its announcement. [See various articles by Gregory Elich, some with over 100 footnotes] So Clinton was also a saber-rattler to keep US troops and control over the Korean Peninsula rather than allow peace treaty, reunification of the Koreas, and an end to Washington's hegemony. Additionally, BBC reports indicate that North Korea had another reason since Bush coming to office to re-think its rescinding its announcement to leave the NPT: North Korea was promised the shipment of a lot of oil (not as "donation" but as part of the agreement to scrap parts of its nuclear program that could provide energy to heat during the cold winters). This was delayed and delayed and delayed. They had promised to freeze various nuclear reactor areas in return for oil (and non-weapons nuclear facilities) to help meet their energy needs. When these didn't materialize, they said, wait a minute, if you're not keeping your end of the deal, we're not keeping ours -- we will re-start our Yongbyon facility. All of this is on top of the economic embargo complicating North Korea meeting its energy needs. Various claims of "but they made us suspect they were not honoring other parts, first" etc can be made but again, the above is not to claim North Korea is of a pure innocent virgin nature, but the issue is simply that given this background, the media and political portrayal of some kind of "irrational" or hard to understand nature on the part of North Korea is pure bunk. Again, that it's very easy to understand how and why they would react when they are under severe and repeated threat by the Washington. * * * * Amy Goodman: Seung Hye Suh, talk about your own background. Where your family is from? SEUNG HYE SUH: Sure. Well I have family from both sides of the DMZ.-- my father was born in what's now the D.P.R.K. [North Korea] my mother in, what's now the Republic of Korea [South Korea]. But for us, there's really only one country. They were born prior to the division of the country and so when people say well, which is your home, I feel like the entire Korean peninsula is my home. AMY GOODMAN: Though you were born here in the United States? SEUNG HYE SUH: Yes. AMY GOODMAN: And the feeling of South Koreans right now. The U.S. has ramped up the pressure on North Korea. Presumably the ones who would feel most threatened are the South Koreans. Who do they feel most threatened by? SEUNG HYE SUH: The South Korean people recognize that any war that breaks out is going to be disastrous for the entire peninsula. It's about a 30 minute plane ride between Seoul and Pyongyung. About a 45 minute drive from Seoul to the DMZ. And anything that happens on the Korean peninsula will result in millions of deaths. And right now it looks like the United States is threatening the D.P.R.K. with a nuclear first strike. AMY GOODMAN: What's its interest in provoking that kind of conflict? MARTIN HART-LANDSBERG: Well, I think the first thing is that the U.S. has interest in maintaining hostilities on the Korean peninsula. And that has been both to support conservative governments in the South, to have a reason to maintain troops in the Asian peninsula. After the Soviet Union collapsed, it was to maintain military spending, support for a missile defense program... AMY GOODMAN: And what does this mean for countries like China and Japan? In Japan--I don't know if there is any relation to what happened on Friday--a brawl on the floor of the Japanese parliament, over the call by the leader in the parliament to support sending of troops to Iraq. MARTIN HART-LANDSBERG: Well, I think there's no doubt that a -- this U.S. policy which has raised hostilities in the Korean peninsula, is having very negative effects everywhere. It's definitely strengthening militarism in Japan... It's definitely causing the Chinese and South Koreans to think about, you know, militarizing. So in essence anything that adds to this hostility has given an excuse and cover for militarists in the United States, in Japan, China, everywhere. So the costs are very high. What's important is that the American people need to see the costs of this policy for us as well in the militarism, in the war on terror and in the possible fact that we may well have a war. AMY GOODMAN: And Seung Hye Suh, how are you organizing? As a Korean-American here? This weekend you had the protests in Washington. SEUNG HYE SUH: Right. The protest this weekend is just part of our ongoing campaign to ask for an end to the Korean war. To say that we need to bring peace to the Korean peninsula and unification to Korea. We're also organizing within Korean communities across the country, as well as educating and organizing in the broader American society, and we're really trying to link this issue to things that are going on around the world. If you look at what the United States has done in Iraq and the message that that sends to the D.P.R.K. which is, if you disarm we can attack you. AMY GOODMAN: And finally, on the issue of organizing here, have you made any links, bridges to Korean war veterans, U.S./Korean war veterans? SEUNG HYE SUH: Well, actually there are some U.S. Korean war veterans who are entirely in support of our movement. And I don't think any of them were at our demonstration yesterday. But we are in conversation with Korean war veterans in South Korea, was well as in the U.S. armed forces, who understand that what a horror war is and that we need to do everything we can to avoid it. SEE: http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/07/28/1358225&mode=thre... Martin Hart-Landsberg, author of Korea: Division, Reunification and U.S. Foreign Policy. He teaches economics at Lewis and Clark College. Seung Hye Suh, an organizer with Nodutdol.com for Korean Community Development. They recently organized Commemoration for Change [http://www.july27.org]: a weekend of action to stop war on the Korean Peninsula. ****************************** For additional background, see interview with Professor Han S. Park, Director of the Center for the Study of Global Issues at the University of Georgia. [He avoids directly talking about the history of nuclear threats by Washington against North Korea, etc, but otherwise at least gives some of the important background supplementing the above]: http://www.radio4all.net/proginfo.php?id=7538 Press "play" or, due to slow server, best to let is download in the background until done, then listen to the 10M file from your disk. *From: Economic Democracy *Date: Thurs, Aug 7 2003 12:14 pm *Groups: alt.politics, alt.politics.greens, alt.peace,soc.culture.usa, alt.activism.peacefire = = = = STILL FEELING LIKE THE MAINSTREAM U.S. CORPORATE MEDIA IS GIVING A FULL HONEST PICTURE OF WHAT'S GOING ON? = = = = = = = = Sorry, we cannot read/reply to most usenet posts but welcome email FOR MORE INFORMATION: http://EconomicDemocracy.org/wtc/ (peace) http://economicdemocracy.org/eco/climate-summary.html (Climate) And http://EconomicDemocracy.org/ (general) ** New email: econdemocracy[at]gmail[dot]com ***************************************************************** 12 [toeslist] DPRK to conduct nuclear test against U.S. hostile policy Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2006 02:46:25 -0500 (CDT) X-Sender-Host-Name: chumbly.math.missouri.edu X-Spam-Class: HAM-VERY DPRK to conduct nuclear test against U.S. hostile policy www.chinaview.cn 2006-10-03 18:52:36 PYONGYANG, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Tuesday announced that it would conduct a nuclear test in the future as a war deterrent against the U.S. hostile policy. In a statement issued by the Foreign Ministry, the DPRK said "(for) scientific research, the DPRK will in the future conduct a nuclear test under conditions where safety is firmly guaranteed," the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. But the statement did not give a specific date or location for the upcoming test. The DPRK said it would implement its international commitment on nuclear non-proliferation "as a responsible nuclear weapons state" although in January 2003 it quit the Non-proliferation Treaty. The DPRK "will never use nuclear weapons first, but strictly prohibit any threat of nuclear weapons and nuclear transfer," the statement said. Meanwhile, The DPRK also affirmed that it would strive to "realize the denuclearization of the (Korean) peninsula and give impetus to worldwide nuclear disarmament and the ultimate elimination of nuclear weapons." The statement accused the United States of adopting a hostile policy toward the DPRK, saying that was why it must conduct a nuclear test, as a way of bolstering its war deterrence. "The U.S.' extreme threat of a nuclear war and (its) sanctions and pressure compel the DPRK to conduct a nuclear test", said the statement. "Under the present situation ... the U.S. moves to isolate and stifle the DPRK have reached the worst phase, going beyond the extremity," it said. "The DPRK can no longer remain an on-looker to the developments," it added. The DPRK is believed by U.S. officials to have possessed one ortwo nuclear weapons for years, and that it has the capability to produce more. In a joint statement at the end of the fourth round of the six-party talks in September 2005, the DPRK promised to abandon all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs while the United States affirmed that it had no intention of attacking or invading the DPRK with nuclear or conventional weapons. In October last year, Washington imposed financial restrictionson the DPRK, saying that Pyongyang's companies had been involved in illicit activities, including counterfeiting, money laundering and financing weapons proliferation, which, in turn, led to the DPRK refusal to return to the six-party talks. The talks, which involves China, the DPRK, the United States, South Korea, Russia and Japan, have been stalled since the first phase of the fifth round of talks ended last November. Enditem ***************************************************************** 13 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: North promises a test of a nuclear weapon October 04, 2006 The Korea Central News Agency in Pyongyang yesterday evening broadcast a statement by the North Korean Foreign Ministry that the communist regime would conduct a nuclear test "in the future" to bolster what it called its defenses against increasing U.S. hostility. The statement gave no indication of when the test might be conducted, but said it would be under conditions that guaranteed safety, presumably from nuclear fallout. Although North Korea has declared that it possesses nuclear weapons, it has not asserted that it has tested one and no other government has said one had been detected. "The U.S. daily increasing threat of a nuclear war and its vicious sanctions and pressure have caused a grave situation on the Korean Peninsula," the ministry said, and "compels the DPRK to conduct a nuclear test, an essential process for bolstering our nuclear deterrent." But in the statement, Pyongyang vowed that it would not be the first to use nuclear weapons, adding that it was still committed to a non-nuclear Korean Peninsula and the eventual elimination of all nuclear arms around the world. But it made clear that the removal of nuclear weapons from the peninsula would be on its own terms. "The ultimate goal of the DPRK is not a "denuclearization" to be followed by its unilateral disarmament but one aimed at settling the hostile relations between the DPRK and the U.S. and removing the very source of all nuclear threats from the Korean Peninsula and its vicinity," the ministry said, using the acronym for its official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. In Seoul, officials at the Blue House and the foreign and defense ministries scrambled to formulate a reaction. After a series of emergency meetings, the Blue House issued a brief statement saying it would step up monitoring to detect any test and had begun consulting with other nations. by Brian Lee africanu@joongang.co.kr> Copyright by Joins.com, Inc. ***************************************************************** 14 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: [OUTLOOK] North bluster, or chaos again? Octorber 5, 2006 KST 13:39 (GMT+9) "The United States really doesn't know about us," a North Korean involved in a committee for national reconciliation I met in Pyongyang said Tuesday. It was the day when North Korea's foreign minister declared the North's intention to carry out a nuclear test. "The United States must believe that we would surrender if it pushes us with power and threatens us. But that is where it is wrong, because it does not know about our society and system," he said in a very serious tone. Another North Korean said he did not know much about the announcement, but said, "When we say we will do something, we mean it." On Korean Central Television, the North's government television station, a woman newscaster read the statement of the foreign minister in a determined voice. She articulated every word and read the statement as if declaring it herself. She raised her voice when she read, "A nuclear test has become inevitable because it is a necessary step to secure a deterrence of nuclear weapons." As the statement was read, a scary song entitled "Hundreds of Thousands of People Will Become Bombs," played on the television. The lyrics started with "no pressure will surprise us" and finished with "hundreds of thousands of people will become bombs for the sake of the country and nationals." The refrain went, "When we say it, we mean it." Will North Korea actually carry out a nuclear test, as it said? In Pyongyang I feel that it is more than a threat by now. It seems reasonable to assume that a nuclear test will be conducted unless a direct talk with the United States regarding financial sanctions is held. There was an article entitled "Direct talks between Pyongyang and Washington are the only solution" in Tuesday's issue of the Rodong Sinmun, the North's newspaper for its Workers' Party. The article was written in a way to provoke international opinion and stated that the most constructive way to get out of the tense situation is to have direct talks between North Korea and the United States on Washington's financial and economic sanctions against North Korea. It is not unusual to see all kinds of slogans all over the place in Pyongyang, but this time, slogans about its military-first policy are seen more than others. There are slogans written in red that read, "A Great Victory of Military-First Policy," "Revolution Through Military-First Policy," "Military and People are One." Due to this atmosphere, the fever of Chuseok is hardly felt in Pyongyang. Boys and girls are instead practicing a mass game in Kim Il Sung Square. In this square, the Juche Tower over the Daedong River can be seen. I was told this is preparation for a celebration of the 61th anniversary of the foundation of the Workers' Party on Oct. 10, and a celebration of the 80th anniversary of the formation of an alliance to overthrow imperialism on Oct. 17. "We are preparing a grand event because this is the 80th year since the Great Leader Kim Il Sung, who led fighting against Japan during the Japanese occupation, declared anti-imperialism," a North Korean guide said. I followed a group of families to visit graveyards of their ancestors who had been working for the provisional government of Korea. North Koreans emphasized self-reliance to me, a Korean journalist, whenever there was a chance to talk. They meant we should be reunified peacefully through self-reliance, escaping from Americans' oppression. They repeated the themes of pride, dignity and self-reliance. I responded that international order is about making harmony with other countries, that self-will is not enough to bring reunification. But my words did not seem persuasive. We could not communicate because our perceptions are different. After North Korea clearly revealed its intention to conduct a nuclear test, the situation on the Korean Peninsula was put into chaos once again. South Korea is placed in a most difficult situation. If North Korea carries out a nuclear test, South Korea will lose leverage to work between North Korea and the United States. North Korea is pushing South Koreans into a corner, although North Korea says we are all the same nationals and it shouts for self-reliance. It feels like a hopeless situation because there is no channel for South Korea and North Korea to talk with each other. Now it seems the time has come to prepare all possible measures under the premise that the North's nuclear test is only a matter of time. * The writer is an editorial writer and traveling correspondent of the JoongAng Ilbo. by Bae Myung-bok 2006.10.04 Copyright by Joins.com, Inc. Terms of Use | ***************************************************************** 15 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: [EDITORIALS] North endangers us all Octorber 5, 2006 KST 13:39 (GMT+9) North Korea's announcement of its plan for a nuclear test is shaking up the situation on the Korean Peninsula from its foundations. Although North Korea announced last year that it possessed nuclear weapons, announcing possession is one thing and conducting a nuclear test is another. That announcement will likely create a domino effect of nuclear weapons expansion in Northeast Asia and international pressure against North Korea will increase more than ever before. The United States has been making hard-line reactions since immediately after the North's announcement. The United Nations, the European Union, Japan, China and Russia are sending grave warnings to North Korea in quick succession. North Korea is exercising a diplomacy of brinkmanship with nuclear weapons and missiles and it seems literally to be about to fall from the brink. What is the reason for North Korea running toward this brink? Interpretations vary from it being a means to protect North Korea from the United States' maneuvering to collapse it by oppression, as the North Korean authority argues, to it being an extreme way to protect a system which has been reclusive and isolated to such an extent that it cannot coexist normally with the international community. However, what's more important than the North's intentions is that its actions will worsen the crisis on the Korean Peninsula, and that will inevitably bring us more pain and hardship. If North Korea proceeds with a nuclear test, South Korea has no choice but to think about possessing nuclear weapons because it would have no other way to keep itself safe from the aggression of the North. That would be the same for both Japan and Taiwan, who would be highly likely to join this trend. This behavior would certainly lead the Northeast Asian order toward military confrontations, instead of making us pursue peaceful coexistence within the region. Thus, North Korea's possession of nuclear weapons would decisively make it impossible for Northeast Asia to have and keep peace. South Korea would have to take more of the burden for national security, which has already been almost unendurably heavy for us. Furthermore, Korean's national wish for peaceful reunification would become more difficult to realize. This is a hard situation for Koreans to endure as we have already been separated between the South and the North for more than half a century. The North's announcement of its plan to carry out a nuclear test makes it clear that it will go ahead with such a test unless the United States has direct talks with North Korea and compromises. The statement also strongly implies that not much time is left before such a test. It is obvious what we have to choose in this situation. We need to concentrate all our efforts toward stopping North Korea from carrying out a nuclear test. It was most timely that the South Korean government has sent a warning toward North Korea, saying, "We gravely warn that North Korea alone must take responsibility for all results." The South Korean government should start taking actual measures so that its warning can not be lightly regarded as merely empty words. It should examine the possibility of temporarily stopping assistance to the North, such as the shipping of construction materials including cement, scheduled for today, for the damage that the North received from recent floods. The government should re-examine its North Korea policy as a whole, considering the situation after North Korea carries out a nuclear test. When international society is likely to put increased pressure on North Korea, will it be possible or even reasonable to continue the sunshine policy? Will the government pursue changes in the South Korea-U.S. alliance, including the transfer of wartime operational command of its military? How should it respond to the national security crisis that will rapidly spread? What measures should it take to sustain its economic growth, while living next to the North, the nuclear armed state? Should it go back to the fiercely confrontational situation of the past, if needed? The government should thoroughly re-examine its policies, such as its North Korea policy, national security policy, foreign affairs policy and economic policy. North Korea is trying to justify its position that it has chosen a nuclear test for its survival. But North Korean leaders must know that their wrong choice could threaten the survival of not only North Korea but of all Korean people and shake the basis of development of our nation. North Korea's brinkmanship contains the risk of endangering and even destroying the future of all Koreans. Therefore, the South Korean government must stop North Korea's nuclear test from occurring, by whatever means necessary, while working together with the international community. It is meaningless to debate whether we should embrace the North or oppose it, if North Korea really conducts a nuclear test or even when it has already announced its plan for a test. This is because North Korea's plan for a nuclear test is like forcing us to give in to the North's military-first policy. 2006.10.04 Copyright by Joins.com, Inc. Terms of Use | ***************************************************************** 16 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: North's pledge wins warnings from all sides Octorber 5, 2006 KST 13:39 (GMT+9) October 05, 2006 ¤Ń North Korea's threat to test its nuclear weapons program quickly escalated tensions on the Korean Peninsula to a new pitch Wednesday as Washington warned Pyongyang of "a somewhat different world" and "a qualitatively different situation" as a consequence of a nuclear test. South Korea, China, Japan, Russia and other members of the international community also sent strong messages to the North that it must not cross the red line. "They are an active proliferator," U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Tuesday, traveling in Nicaragua. "And were they to test and were they then to proliferate those technologies, we'd be living with a proliferator and obviously we'd be living in a somewhat different world." Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also voiced concern that a nuclear test by Pyongyang would shake up the dynamics in Northeast Asia. "A North Korean nuclear test would be qualitatively different ˇŞ would create a qualitatively different situation on the Korean Peninsula," Ms. Rice said. "I think you would see that a number of states in the region would need to reassess even where they are now with North Korea." In Seoul, the Roh Moo-hyun administration has faced a predicament in its North Korea policy, as its efforts to persuade the North to end the nuclear crisis appeared to hit a wall. The latest pledge to resolve the situation diplomatically came no more than a month ago, when Mr. Roh met with U.S. President George W. Bush on Sept. 15. On Wednesday, Mr. Roh told his cabinet to cope with the issue "hard-headedly and decisively," his chief advisor for security, Song Min-soon, told reporters. "We need to fully understand the intention of North Korea and we must find a way to settle the issue through dialogue in order to stop North Korea from a nuclear test," Yoon Tae-young, presidential spokesman, quoted Mr. Roh as saying. "On the other hand, we must take measures to let North Korea know clearly about the consequences it would cause if it went ahead with a nuclear test." Although the North's Foreign Ministry did not specify when Pyongyang will test its nuclear weapons program, Defense Minister Yoon Kwang-ung said Wednesday that Seoul is preparing measures, and weighing heavily the possibility that the North will conduct such a test. Despite Pyongyang's revelation of its nuclear test plan, the Roh administration continued shipping aid packages to the North. "The North did not conduct a nuclear test yet, so it is hard to cut off humanitarian aid for flood relief projects," a Unification Ministry official said. The Grand National Party blamed Mr. Roh for the worsening nuclear crisis. "Mr. Roh said the North's nuclear programs are for its self-defense, and we want to know what his current position is," Kang Jae-sup, the Grand National chairman, said. "The North is primarily responsible for this crisis because it attempted to defend its regime with nuclear brinkmanship. But, the Roh administration's responsibility is also great because it has provided carrots without using a stick." by Ser Myo-ja, Chun Su-jin myoja@joongang.co.kr> Copyright by Joins.com, Inc. Terms of Use | ***************************************************************** 17 BBC: China calls for calm over N Korea Last Updated: Wednesday, 4 October 2006 There have been protests in South Korea against the announcement China has appealed for calm following North Korea's announcement that it planned to test a nuclear bomb. "We hope that North Korea will exercise necessary calm and restraint," a foreign ministry spokesman said, urging other states not to escalate tensions. North Korea announced the test on state TV on Monday, saying it would boost security in the face of US hostility. The US said such an action would be "provocative", while Japan said it would be "unacceptable". The US has already indicated it would raise the issue with the UN Security Council, but Beijing says the issue should be handled by ongoing six-nation talks on North Korea's nuclear ambitions. It would be a threat to pea that is absolutely unforgivable Taro Aso Japanese Foreign Minister Public voices fears Press weighs test threat These talks have been stalled for almost a year, with Pyongyang refusing to return to the table unless the US first lifts financial sanctions. Despite a flurry of diplomatic activity in recent months, after the North conducted internationally condemned missile tests, little progress has been made. China, the nearest the North has to an ally, has often advocated quiet diplomacy in efforts to get Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear programme. But other countries involved in the six-nation talks - notably the US and Japan - have frequently taken a harder line. International outcry North Korea said its nuclear test would prove its claim, made publicly last year, that it had nuclear weapons. Pyongyang did not give a date for its planned nuclear test, but North Korean diplomat Pak Myong-guk told the BBC the country had been forced to act because of Washington's stance. "These kinds of threats of nuclear war and sanctions and pressure by the United States compel us to conduct a nuclear test," he said. But there was little sympathy among the international community for Pyongyang's reasons. Japan's new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told parliament on Wednesday that Tokyo "simply could not accept if North Korea were to conduct a nuclear test". South Korean Vice Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan has suggested that a North Korean nuclear test could provoke a regional arms race and "could provide a pretext for Japan's nuclear armament". South Korea also warned that it might abandon its long policy of pursuing engagement with the North if the tests went ahead. Russia and various other European nations have also expressed concern, and a spokesman for UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said a test would only provoke universal condemnation and do nothing towards strengthening North Korea's security. But China said it would be better to revive the six-nation talks, which stalled almost a year ago. "If the six-party talks cannot do anything about it, I don't think the Council is in a position to do it," China's envoy to the UN, Wang Guangya, told reporters. Nuclear capabilities North Korea is thought to have developed a handful of warheads but never before announced it would test one. US and South Korean reports suggest the North has at least one underground test site. The North appears increasingly angry at sanctions imposed by the US and other countries on North Korean businesses accused of arms sales and illegal activities. In 2002, it restarted its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon and forced two UN nuclear monitors to leave the country. It is unclear how far work has progressed at the plant since then. ***************************************************************** 18 Independent: Iran and North Korea defy nuclear warnings By Anne Penketh, Diplomatic Editor Published: 04 October 2006 The West's dispute with Iran and North Korea over their nuclear capability has taken a dangerous turn following the failure of talks on the Iranian programme and Pyongyang's pledge to conduct its first nuclear test. The reclusive Communist state drew a strong response from the US, Japan and Europe yesterday when it issued a statement announcing that because of the American "threat of nuclear war and sanctions" it would carry out a nuclear test. The statement from the North Korean Foreign Ministry said that the test would be conducted "in the future" and "under the condition where safety is firmly guaranteed". Although North Korea claims to have produced nuclear weapons, it has never carried out a nuclear test. Also yesterday, hopes that Iran could be coaxed into curbing its nuclear programme faded after the European official who had been holding discreet talks with the chief Iranian negotiator informed European ministers and the US that they had failed. As a result, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council - Britain, the US, France, Russia and China - have agreed to discuss economic sanctions against Tehran "in the coming week or so" at the United Nations, a senior British official said. Russia, which has resisted possible sanctions aimed at forcing the Iranian leadership to agree to a suspension of uranium enrichment before negotiations on a package of incentives, continued to insist yesterday that the issue should be resolved through negotiations. The British official recognised that "on the details there are differences", but that all the UN big powers agreed on "incremental" coercive measures. As a first step, these are expected to target exports to Iran which could be used for its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes. Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, who is currently on a Middle East tour, may discuss Iran in London with other European partners later this week. Speaking in Cairo last night, she said that "the only choice for the international community is to live up to the terms" of the UN resolution that ordered Iran to freeze its uranium enrichment programme or face consequences. "And that is to bring sanctions," she said. Western experts believe that although Iran and North Korea are not co-ordinating their strategy, they are carefully watching how each other's actions are playing out. The Lebanon war, in which Iran's proxy militia survived a month-long pounding by the Israeli military, is considered to be a factor in the Iranian leadership's resolve to reject the UN demands to curb its programme, which is not as far advanced as that of North Korea. US military strikes against Iran are now seen by Tehran as unlikely because of Hizbollah's proclaimed "victory" in Lebanon. Iran says that its nuclear programme is peaceful, but the US and Europe believe that its civilian programme could be a cover for building a weapon. The long-running dispute with both countries is now entering an unpredictable phase, with uncertainty over how Iran may react to possible UN sanctions. Tehran may be tempted to carry out its threat of using oil as a weapon, or even pull out of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, as North Korea did in 2002. But although the White House and State Department warned that a "provocative" and "reckless" test would only lead to further isolation for Pyongyang, Washington signalled its preference to resolve the dispute through diplomatic channels. The US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, urged Security Council members to discuss the next steps. In an early sign of the tough line being taken by the new government headed by Shinzo Abe in Japan, the Foreign Minister, Taro Aso, called the North's nuclear test plans "totally unforgivable," and said Tokyo would react "sternly" if the North conducted a test. North Korea is being urged to return to six-party talks - involving both Koreas, the US, China, Russia and Japan - which it has boycotted for the past year. Iran is a year away from mastering the enrichment technology that could lead to production of a bomb, according to British officials. © 2006 Independent News and Media Limited ***************************************************************** 19 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: N-consortium mechanism still weiged 2006/10/04 Foreign Ministry spokesman Sayed Mohammad-Ali Hosseini said on Wednesday no decision has been made yet on the process or parties that would be invited to form an international consortium to monitor uranium enrichment in Iran. The spokesman was commenting on reports saying Iran has proposed creation of a consortium with France to enrich uranium in Iran. Latest reports said that the deputy chief of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (IAEO), Mohammad Saeedi, had recently told France Info radio that a solution to the nuclear issue could be creation of a consortium with France to enrich uranium in Iran. "President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced in his address to the United Nations General Assembly last year that public and private sectors of other countries could participate in Iran's nuclear program," the spokesman recalled, saying this was not the first time the offer was made. Morevover, according to a statement released by the president's office, the issue was also discussed in the latest talks held between Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) ALi Larijani and European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana. Hosseini, quoting President Ahmadinejad, said the new Iranian proposal proves the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program. Copyright 2004, All Rights Reserved By Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting News Network Sponsored By IRIB News Computer Center. E-Mail: Info@IRIBNEWS.ir ***************************************************************** 20 AFP: NKorean nuclear test likely unless six-way talks resume - minister - Wed Oct 4, 2:54 AM ET SEOUL (AFP) - North Korea" /> is highly likely to go ahead with its threatened nuclear test unless six-party disarmament talks can be restarted, South Korea" /> 's unification minister has said. Lee Jong-Seok told a parliamentary committee there were no definite signs of an impending test in the North, but Pyongyang was likely to conduct one if the talks do not resume. Defense Minister Yoon Kwang-Ung told the same hearing the government assumes the North is likely to make good its threat. "We are taking measures on the assumption that North Korea is more likely (than not) to conduct a nuclear test," Yoon said. "We are working to come up with countermeasures with significant weight on the possibility" of a test, he added, without elaborating. The communist state's foreign ministry announced Tuesday it would conduct a nuclear test at an unspecified date to bolster its deterrent against what it called threats of US aggression and against sanctions. Lee told the televised hearing that Seoul believes the statement "is aimed at pressuring the United States to change its stance" towards the North. "However, (the government) believes there is a high possibility of a nuclear test if efforts to resume the six-party talks end in failure," he said. China has hosted several rounds of the six-party negotiations on ending the North's nuclear programme in return for economic benefits and security guarantees. The two Koreas, the United States, Japan and Russia are also involved. The North has boycotted the talks since November. It says it will not return unless Washington ends financial sanctions imposed in September last year on a Macau bank accused of laundering cash for the regime in Pyongyang. The US says the action against the Macau bank is a law enforcement issue and separate from the six-party forum. Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 21 AFP: Security Council mulls response to North Korea nuclear test threat - by Gerard Aziakou Wed Oct 4, 6:48 PM ET UNITED NATIONS (AFP) - The UN Security Council sought agreement on a firm response to a North Korean plan to test an atom bomb, hoping to push Pyongyang back to talks over its nuclear program. After morning closed-door consultations on the issue, the council's 15 ambassadors tasked their experts to meet again Thursday to pore over a Japanese draft statement asking North Korea" /> "not to undertake such a test and to refrain from any action that might aggravate tension." The statement, a copy of which was obtained by AFP, also urges Pyongyang to "return immediately to the six-party talks (on ending its nuclear weapons program) without precondition." The Stalinist state has boycotted the talks -- involving China, Japan, the two Koreas, Russia and the United States -- since last November in response to US sanctions against a bank linked to the regime of Kim Jong-Il. Emerging from a 90-minute experts' meeting Wednesday, a Japanese diplomat told reporters: "We had a a very good exchange of views" on the text. "We tentatively agree to have another expert-level meeting some time tomorrow," said the diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Japan presides over the council for this month. The Japanese diplomat said most members supported the draft, including some delegations such as China and Russia which had not yet received instructions from their governments on how to proceed. Earlier Thursday, US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton spoke of "division" within the council, suggesting "North Korea's protectors" -- implying Moscow and Beijing -- opposed his call for a tough line against Pyongyang. "We cannot simply respond with a piece of paper," Bolton said. "I fear that if we do not have a strong response now to this clear signal from the North Koreans ... that they will misread the council. ... I'm not sure everybody on the council shares that view," he added. But Chinese Ambassador Wang Guangya took exception to Bolton's comments, particularly his reference to North Korea's protectors on the council. "We are all concerned about the North Korean announcement. On this issue, everybody is unanimous. ... No one is going to protect them (the North Koreans)," he added. The Chinese envoy also said that all council members support the idea that "the six-party talks (should) be the main channel to address the issue". Other diplomats concurred with that view. Wang urged "less mistrust" between Washington and Pyongyang. "If there could be some progress made between the United States and North Korea, if there could be less mistrust between the two, certainly I think it would lead to good results," Wang told reporters. "This is not an issue between China and North Korea. I do hope that others will also contribute," Wang said. In Washington, US officials strongly slammed the North Korean nuclear test announcement as provocative, but both in public and private avoided talking about ramping up sanctions against Pyongyang to discourage the test. Instead, the State Department urged North Korea to return to the six-nation negotiations. "The right thing is to end these kind of provocations and end these kind of threats and to go back to the six-party talks, which is where we all want to be to come up with a viable solution to North Korea's nuclear program," State Department deputy spokesman Tom Casey told reporters. Pyongyang triggered global jitters Monday when it announced plans to test a nuclear device at an unspecified date and under safe conditions, in response to what it called a "threat of nuclear war and sanctions" from the United States. In Washington, a UN official said US intelligence had detected unusual movement at a suspected North Korean nuclear site and a bomb test could be carried out at any time. "We've seen some activity in the area," said the official. "When I say activity, I mean personnel, vehicles, materials, things of that nature." "We need to make it clear that the (North Korean) threat has to be withdrawn," Bolton said, warning that if the North Koreans did proceed with a test, the council should pass a resolution mandating sanctions going beyond those imposed on the North in a Security Council resolution passed in July. That resolution was passed after the North launched seven missiles, including a long-range Taepodong-2 believed to be capable of striking US soil. China, North Korea's main political ally and chief supplier of food and energy, and Russia have both appealed for "restraint" from the North, while South Korea" /> warned it would cut off vital economic aid if the test went ahead. The United States has warned North Korea directly of international repercussions if it proceeds with a nuclear test, Christopher Hill, the US envoy to nuclear talks with the Stalinist state, said. The diplomat said the North Koreans were contacted through their United Nations" /> mission in New York. "Yesterday we sent the message directly to the DPRK (North Korea) through the New York channel of what such a test would mean," said Hill. "We have spoken consistently that we will meet them bilaterally, but through the context of the six-party talks." Hill spoke at the launching of the US-Korea Institute at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington. A North Korean nuclear test "would be a very highly provocative act, and the international community cannot be indifferent to that," he said. "It will invite the prospect of proliferation ... and we have no choice but to act resolutely to make sure the DPRK and every other country understand" the implications of such a move, said Hill. Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 22 Comment is free: North Korea's nuclear wake-up call Could Pyongyang's first nuclear test convince the world to commit itself to the goal of nuclear disarmament? John Gittings October 4, 2006 Are we now approaching the much-predicted "nuclear tipping-point" if - or as it now seems more likely - when North Korea carries outits first test? Of course Pyongyang will not be the first breakout: the "international community" which will condemn it has long ago condoned Israel, India and Pakistan when they went nuclear. Looking back over the past decade and a half since the end of the cold war, the historical verdict will be that the major nuclear powers fatally muffed their chance to set the world on a non-nuclear road. In effect the five have made it clear that there are no conditions under which they will de-nuclearise, and that the implicit bargain in the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) (that they would move in good faith towards nuclear disarmament while the rest of the world remained non-nuclear) is dead. Yet Pyongyang will have passed a new red line, not just in its own relations with South Korea and its other Asian neighbours, but for the world, because the Iraq disaster has put proliferation into a new and more dangerous context. The US invasion allegedly to remove Saddam's WMD "threat" has demonstrated that is safer to be an actual nuclear power than a potential nuclear power. Even the remotest chance of retaliation is likely to buy immunity - which is why North Korea has been keen (though not yet successful) to demonstrate its long-range missile capability. At the least it will seem prudent for other non-nuclear countries especially in Asia and the Middle East to quietly begin their own feasibility studies. We must still hope that North Korea is bluffing, and will realise that going nuclear in such a visible manner will be an own goal for its own security. By testing a nuclear weapon, it could trigger a regional nuclear arms race and push Japan further down the road of re-militarisation. And we must still hope that the US finally realises that its half-hearted policy of negotiation-cum-denunciation will never work. If the Bush administration had shown a straightforward willingness to talk, one to one, with Pyongyang, instead of condemning it as part of the "axis of evil", we would be in a much less dire situation now. We may even hope that the shock of a Pyongyang bomb might rescue the NPT from the collapse to which it is already heading. The sight and sound of a North Korean nuclear explosion will be, at any rate, the equivalent of those pictures of melting glaciers, which finally convinced everyone of the reality of global warming. Do we want to live in a world where the number of nuclear states is bound to increase inexorably, carrying with it the eventual inevitability of nuclear war? Or is this the long overdue wake-up call warning us that the world community, starting with the principal nuclear powers, has to commit itself, for the first time ever, to the real and serious goal of nuclear disarmament? This entry was tagged with the following keywords: northkorea nuclear About webfeeds Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006. Registered in England and Wales. No. 908396 Registered office: 164 Deansgate, Manchester M60 2RR ***************************************************************** 23 UPI: S.Korea looks for possible nuke test sites United Press International - Security &Terrorism - 10/4/2006 11:44:00 AM -0400 SEOUL, Oct. 4 (UPI) -- South Korean intelligence is working to identify possible test sites for any North Korean nuclear weapons test, the Korea Herald reported Wednesday. So far, experts have focused on four areas -- Gilju in North Hamgyeong province, and Hagap, Mount Mumyeong and Gimdangol in Jagang province. The newspaper said Gilju was believed the most feasible for an underground test and said North Korea had built a pit in the area. North Korea earlier this year threatened to conduct an underground nuclear test amid threats of international sanctions over its refusal to return to international negotiations over its nuclear weapons program. In July, in an act of defiance, it test fired more than a half-dozen missiles, some of them capable of striking Japan. Earlier this week it repeated its threat of a nuclear weapons test. © Copyright 2006 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved ***************************************************************** 24 UPI: Japan, S. Korea, China to meet on N. Korea United Press International - NewsTrack - 10/4/2006 5:33:00 PM -0400 TOKYO, Oct. 4 (UPI) -- Japan, South Korea and China said Wednesday they would meet to repair damaged ties and coordinate a strategy to respond to North Korea's nuclear threat. New Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe planned to meet with Chinese President Hu Jintao Sunday and with South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun on Monday, the Kyodo News Service reported. Roh will then visit Beijing for talks with Hu and other officials four days later. The three Asian countries are key players -- along with the United States and Russia -- in the stalled six-party talks aimed at persuading North Korea to give up its nuclear-weapons program in return for badly needed economic aid. The talks -- which have had five rounds, with little progress -- followed North Korea's withdrawing from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 2003. © Copyright 2006 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved ***************************************************************** 25 Guardian Unlimited: China Appeals to N. Korea to `keep Calm' From the Associated Press [UP] Wednesday October 4, 2006 5:31 AM BEIJING (AP) - China appealed to North Korea on Wednesday to stay calm and show restraint in its plan for a nuclear test, in Beijing's first comment since its ally's announcement of the plan. China ``hopes that the North Korean side will keep calm and restrained on the nuclear test issue,'' the official Xinhua News Agency said, citing Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao. Liu expressed hope all parties to the dispute would reach a negotiated settlement, ``rather than adopt actions that intensify tensions,'' Xinhua said. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 26 Guardian Unlimited: North Korea Planning Nuclear Test From the Associated Press [UP] Wednesday October 4, 2006 6:16 AM AP Photo SEL103 By BO-MI LIM and CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA Associated Press Writer SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea triggered global alarm on Tuesday by saying it will conduct a nuclear test, a key step in the manufacture of atomic bombs that it views as a deterrent against any U.S. attack. But the North also said it was committed to nuclear disarmament, suggesting a willingness to negotiate. The contradictory statement fits a North Korean pattern of ratcheting up tension on the Korean Peninsula, a Cold War-era flashpoint, in an attempt to win concessions such as economic aid. The strategy has had mixed results in recent years as the totalitarian regime sinks deeper into isolation and poverty, with China serving as its lifeline for food and fuel. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called the announcement ``a very provocative act'' and urged Asian nations to rethink their relationships with North Korea. South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun called for a ``cool-headed and stern'' response, his office said. Roh will hold summits with the leaders of Japan and China next week, his office said Wednesday. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said his country would find it unacceptable if North Korea tested a nuclear weapon. China appealed to its communist ally to stay calm and show restraint. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao expressed hope all parties to the dispute would reach a negotiated settlement, ``rather than adopt actions that intensify tensions,'' the official Xinhua News Agency said. The North's announcement came as the standoff deepened over Iran's nuclear program, with senior U.N. diplomats saying six world powers would begin negotiations Friday in London on possibly imposing sanctions against Tehran for refusing to suspend uranium enrichment. It was the first time the North had publicly announced its intent to conduct a nuclear test. Previously, it had warned that it might conduct a test, depending on U.S. actions. ``The U.S. extreme threat of a nuclear war and sanctions and pressure compel the DPRK to conduct a nuclear test, an essential process for bolstering nuclear deterrent, as a self-defense measure in response,'' said a statement by the North's Foreign Ministry and carried by the North's official Korean Central News Agency. DPRK stands for Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the North's official name. Yet it said it wanted to ``settle hostile relations'' between the North and the United States, and that it ``will do its utmost to realize the denuclearization of the peninsula.'' Many North Korea watchers believe the country's dictator, Kim Jong Il, knows that all-out confrontation with the United States would lead to his destruction. Even if Kim seeks negotiations, though, the risk of a miscalculation that spirals out of control cannot be ruled out. The North Korean statement did not say when a nuclear test might occur, but the prospect drew rebukes from Japan, South Korea, and the United States. The allies, along with China and Russia, had participated in the stalled six-party talks aimed at getting the North to give up its nuclear ambitions. The announcement was not a big surprise to many observers of North Korea because U.S. intelligence reports previously had indicated that Pyongyang might be preparing a nuclear test. Many experts believe the North has enough radioactive material to build at least a half-dozen or more nuclear weapons. ``They are an active proliferator,'' said Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. ``And were they to test and were they then to proliferate those technologies, we'd be living with a proliferator and obviously we'd be living in a somewhat different world.'' Rumsfeld, in Managua, Nicaragua, for meetings with Central and South American foreign ministers, declined to say whether Pyongyang's announcement had triggered any changes in the U.S. alert status. During a visit to Cairo, Egypt, Rice said the United States would have to assess its options if the North carries out the test, without detailing what those options were. She stressed, however, that a North Korean test was an issue ``for the neighborhood'' and not just for the United States. ``It would be a very provocative act,'' Rice said. ``A North Korean nuclear test ... would create a qualitatively different situation on the Korean peninsula,'' Rice said. ``I think that you would see that a number of states in the region would need to reassess where they are now with North Korea.'' The remarks appeared directed primarily at China and South Korea. The White House, which has denied it has any intention of attacking the communist nation, also denounced the threat. White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said a test ``would be directly contrary to the interests of all of North Korea's neighbors and to peace and security in the Asia-Pacific region.'' South Korea said it won't tolerate North Korea's possession of nuclear weapons and the presidential office said the country had raised its ``security level.'' ``If North Korea pushes ahead with a nuclear test, North Korea should take full responsibility for all consequences,'' said South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman Choo Kyu-ho. The United States keeps about 29,500 troops in South Korea, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War. The Japanese prime minister said North Korea's announcement was ``extremely regrettable.'' Abe was responding to questions in parliament. ``Naturally, we simply could not accept if North Korea were to conduct a nuclear test,'' he said. China, North Korea's ally and chief benefactor, had no immediate comment. North Korea counters U.S. influence in the region, but China is believed to be increasingly frustrated with North Korea's go-it-alone belligerence. In Finland, European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana said such a test ``is always bad news.'' NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said he was ``gravely concerned'' by the reports of a North Korean test. ``Such a test would pose a threat to peace and security in Asia and the world,'' he said in a statement. In a worst-case scenario, a North Korean nuclear test could prompt Japan to seek its own nuclear deterrent, intensifying historical tensions with China and South Korea, both of which suffered under Japanese colonial rule in the early 20th century. A test could also strain the alliance between the United States and South Korea, which has sought to engage its neighbor. The United States is likely to seek a military solution to the North Korean problem only as a last resort, partly because of the burden of conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan. U.S. Ambassador John Bolton raised the issue before a regularly scheduled meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday. He said he urged members ``to come up not just with a knee-jerk reaction ... but to develop a coherent strategy to convince them that it's not in their interest to engage in nuclear testing.'' But France's U.N. Ambassador Jean-Marc de La Sabliere said he wants a swift council statement, and China's U.N. Ambassador Wang Guangya said the best place to deal with the threat is in the six-party talks. Wang urged stepped up efforts to get the North to return to the stalled talks. After a brief discussion, members decided to meet Wednesday morning to address the issue. North Korea has sometimes made a splash with statements or military actions on important anniversaries at home, or political events such as elections in South Korea and the United States. The test declaration came ahead of congressional elections in the United States in November and shortly before the expected election of South Korea's foreign minister, Ban Ki-Moon, as secretary-general of the United Nations. North Korea staged a series of missile tests to coincide with July 4, needling the United States on its Independence Day. But no talks or concessions were forthcoming. Six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear activity have been stalled for almost a year. Pyongyang skipped the talks in protest over U.S. financial restrictions imposed for alleged illegal activity, including money laundering and counterfeiting. ``If they feel they are not getting interaction with us, they tend to do things to get our attention,'' said Charles Kartman, a U.S. nuclear negotiator with North Korea under the Clinton administration. ``The tools that they have are all bad ones. They don't really have anything else going.'' --- Christopher Torchia, a former bureau chief in Seoul, contributed to this report from Singapore. AP writers Anne Gearan in Cairo, Egypt, and George Jahn in New York also contributed to this report. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 27 NRC: NRC to Discuss Process for Review of License Renewal Application for FitzPatrick Nuclear Plant, Seek Input on Environmental Review News Release - Region I - 2006-05 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, Region I No. I-06-055 October 3, 2006 CONTACT: Diane Screnci (610) 337-5330 Neil A. Sheehan (610) 337-5331 E-mail: opa1@nrc.gov Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will conduct two public meetings on Thursday, Oct. 12, to discuss the agencys review process for the license renewal application for the James A. FitzPatrick nuclear power plant, located in Scriba (Oswego County), N.Y. The sessions will also provide an opportunity for members of the public to comment on environmental issues they believe the NRC should consider during its review of the application, which requests an additional 20 years of operation. The meetings will be held in the conference room at the Town of Scribas municipal building, 42 Creamery Road in Oswego, N.Y. The first session will begin at 1:30 p.m. and continue until 4:30 p.m., as necessary. The second session, which will offer the same presentations as the earlier one, will get under way at 7 p.m. and continue until 10 p.m., as needed. Both meetings will begin with NRC staff presentations on how the overall license renewal review and the environmental review processes work. Following the presentations, attendees will be able to offer their comments. These meetings will afford interested citizens the chance to learn exactly what it is we look at when we perform these reviews, NRC License Renewal Branch Chief Rani Franovich said. Whats more, they will be able to call our attention to any environmental issues they think our review should include. The NRC will host an open house beginning 1 hour before the start of each meeting to give members of the public an opportunity to talk informally with agency staff. However, formal comments must be expressed during the transcribed meetings. Under NRC regulations, the original operating license for a nuclear power plant has a term of 40 years. The license may be renewed for up to an additional 20 years if NRC requirements are met. The current operating license for the FitzPatrick plant is due to expire on Oct. 17, 2014. Entergy Nuclear Operations submitted its license renewal application for the plant on Aug. 1 of this year. As part of its application, the company submitted an environmental report. A copy of the application is available via the NRCs web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/licensing/renewal/applicati ons/fitzpatrick.html. In addition, the Penfield Library, located at the State University of New York Oswego, 7060 State Route 104 in Oswego, and the Oswego Public Library, 140-142 E. Second St., Oswego, have agreed to make the environmental report available for public inspection. An existing NRC document, Generic Environmental Impact Statement for License Renewal of Nuclear Power Plants (NUREG-1437), assesses the scope of environmental impacts that would be associated with license renewal at any nuclear power plant site. The document for which the NRC will gather environmental comments at the Oct. 12th meetings will be a supplement to that report that is specific to the FitzPatrick plant. It will contain a recommendation regarding the environmental acceptability of the license renewal action. At the conclusion of the information-gathering process, the NRC staff will prepare a summary of the conclusions reached and significant issues identified. A copy will be sent to each person who participated in the scoping process. The summary will also be available on the NRCs web site. The NRC staff will subsequently prepare a draft environmental impact statement (EIS) supplement for public comment and will hold a public meeting to solicit comments. After consideration of comments on the draft report, the NRC will prepare a final EIS supplement. Interested individuals may register to attend or present oral comments at the Oct. 12th meetings by contacting Samuel Hernandez of the NRC at 1-800-368-5642, ext. 4049, by Oct. 5. Those who wish to offer comments may also register at the meetings within 15 minutes of the start of each session. Individual oral comments may be limited by the time available, depending on the number of persons who register. In addition, members of the public may send written comments on the environmental scoping process for the supplement to the GEIS to: Chief, Rules and Directive Branch, Division of Administrative Services, Office of Administration, Mailstop T-6D59, Two White Flint North, 11545 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Md., from 7:30 a.m. to 4:15 p.m. during Federal workdays. To be considered, written comments should be postmarked or dropped off by Nov. 14. Electronic comments can also be sent via e-mail to FitzPatrickEIS@nrc.gov, again no later than Nov. 14. NRC news releases are available through a free list serve subscription at the following Web address: http://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/listserver.html. The NRC homepage at www.nrc.gov also offers a SUBSCRIBE link. E-mail notifications are sent to subscribers when news releases are posted to NRC's Web site. Last revised Tuesday, October 03, 2006 ***************************************************************** 28 Gulfnews: Middle East must develop nuclear energy Oil &Gas Published: 10/04/2006 12:00 AM Ahmed Kutty/Gulf News Dr Saleh Al Hashmi, Assistant Professor at the Petroleum Institute announces details of the International Energy 2030 conference in Abu Dhabi. Stanley Carvalho, Staff Reporter Abu Dhabi: The Middle Easts oil producers must develop alternative forms of energy soon, including nuclear power, as world oil demand grows and pushes prices higher, organisers of an upcoming energy conference said. "Oil prices are rising, demand is changing and the global challenge is to meet the huge energy demand in future," said Dr Michael Ohadi, Chief Academic Officer of the Petroleum Institute in Abu Dhabi. "The prime issue in future is to come up with innovative and alternative forms of energy reserves and technologies. "The Middle East must start thinking of alternative energy seriously including nuclear energy," Ohadi said. He cited France as an example the country has little oil reserves but is rich in technology. The Middle East, with plenty of oil, needs to develop new technologies. The Petroleum Institute will host the first international Energy 2030 conference from November 1-2, in the capital. It is being held under the patronage of General Shaikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces. "This region also needs to examine energy forms such as solar and even bio-mass because of the huge quantities of waste produced," said Ohadi. Energy 2030 will be on a bi-annual basis bringing together experts from around the world to discuss current and emerging technologies in the recovery, supply and utilisation of energy resources. "We have selected the year 2030 as the junction that many experts believe will present new challenges for cost-effective recovery and utilisation of the existing fossil fuels," he said. Both, fossil fuels and alternative energies will be discussed at the conference. © Al Nisr Publishing LLC 2006. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 29 Arizona Daily Star: Feds begin probe at Palo Verde | www.azstarnet.com ® the associated press Tucson, Arizona | Published: 10.04.2006 PHOENIX — Federal inspectors have started a weeklong probe of emergency diesel generators at the nation's largest nuclear power plant, which has been plagued by outages and equipment problems the past two years. The special inspection was ordered by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission after a Unit 3 generator at the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station did not activate during plant inspections July 25 and Sept. 22. Each unit of the triple-reactor plant west of Phoenix has two diesel generators, which are operated if there are major disturbances in the power grid. The most recent of those emergency situations was two years ago, said Jim McDonald, a spokesman for Arizona Public Service Co., which operates Palo Verde for a consortium of utility companies in four states. In addition to the inspection of Unit 3, Units 1 and 2 have been taken offline. Unit 1 was shut down on Sept. 19 because of a recurring problem with pressurizer heaters and is expected to be operating by Thursday, according to McDonald. Unit 2 was shut down Saturday for refueling and maintenance and isn't expected to be back in operation until mid-November, said McDonald, adding that Unit 3 will not be shut down during the inspection. A so-called dry pipe that could have disrupted the flow of water to the emergency core-cooling system was found in 2004. APS repaired that problem, but federal inspectors discovered other issues during investigations afterward, most of them not directly tied to safety. In a letter sent to Palo Verde management Aug. 31, NRC officials noted 24 minor violations over six months, including issues with decision-making systems and workers not always following technical requirements during reactor restarts. //--> [virtual.finland.fi] © 1995 – 2005, Virtual Finland Produced by: Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland Department for Communication and Culture/Unit for Promotion and Publications ***************************************************************** 43 NRC: NRC to Hold Public Meeting Nov. 1 in Rockville, MD on Proposed Revisions to Limited Work Authorization Rules News Release - 2006-12 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC 20555-0001 E-mail: opa@nrc.gov No. 06-124 October 4, 2006 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is seeking public comment on a supplemental proposed rule that would amend its regulations regarding the issuance of limited work authorizations (LWA) for construction related to new nuclear power plants. The proposed changes supplement the NRCs rulemaking to revise Part 52 of the agencys regulations, which deal with licensing processes such as Early Site Permits (ESP), Design Certifications and Combined Licenses (COL). The Part 52 proposal would clarify its relationship to Part 50, which has license requirements for currently operating reactors. The NRC will discuss the supplement in a public meeting Wednesday, Nov. 1, in the Auditorium of the Two White Flint North building, 11545 Rockville Pike, Rockville. The meeting, which will include opportunities for the public to ask questions on the proposal, will run from 12:30 p.m. until 3:30 p.m. The supplements changes would revise the definition of construction that requires either a LWA, a Part 50 construction permit or a COL. Under the proposed rule, no LWA would be required for activities such as site clearing, transmission line routing, road building and construction of permanent buildings not required in safety analysis reports for the nuclear power plant. A LWA, construction permit or COL would be required, however, for activities including excavation, pile-driving and foundation work for any structure, system or component required in a safety analysis report. The proposed rule would allow LWA applications before submission of an application for a construction permit or COL. The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board and NRC staff would have to render decisions on the LWA request before work could begin. For a site where a construction permit was issued but no plant was built, the LWA application could reference an existing environmental impact statement for the site, taking into account the possible need for updated information. The text of the proposed changes is available on the NRC's RuleForum page at http://ruleforum.llnl.govby clicking on the"Draft Rule Text for Comment" link. The proposed changes will be published soon in the Federal Register, and after publication the proposed rule can be accessed on RuleForum by clicking on the "Proposed Rules" link. The deadline for commenting on the changes is 30 days after publication of the proposed rule, to guarantee consideration by the NRC. Comments submitted later than this date may be considered if practical. Comments can be mailed to: Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, D.C., 20555-0001, ATTN: Rulemaking and Adjudications Staff. Comments can be hand-carried to 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Md., between 7:30 a.m. and 4:15 p.m. on federal work days, or they can be faxed to 301-415-1101. E-mail comments can also be sent to SECY@nrc.gov. In addition, comments can also be submitted through the NRCs eRulemaking Portal at http://www.regulations.gov. NRC news releases are available through a free list serve subscription at the following Web address: http://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/listserver.html. The NRC homepage at www.nrc.gov also offers a SUBSCRIBE link. E-mail notifications are sent to subscribers when news releases are posted to NRC's Web site. Last revised Wednesday, October 04, 2006 ***************************************************************** 44 NY Daily News: Small victory for ailing G.I.s Juan Gonzalez is a Daily News columnist. Email: jgonzalez@ edit.nydailynews.com A Manhattan federal judge has ruled that a group of New York Army veterans who fell ill after inhaling depleted uranium dust from exploded U.S. shells can sue the federal government - but only for medical malpractice after their discharge. A 1950 Supreme Court decision - commonly known as the Feres Doctrine - has long prohibited suits against the federal government by soldiers, U.S. District Judge John Koeltl ruled last week. "To the extent that the injuries asserted in the plaintiffs' complaint arise out of their military service ... the court is without jurisdiction to hear those claims," Koeltl stated in his 29-page opinion. George Zelma, the plaintiffs' lead lawyer, had argued during a Sept. 6 hearing that despite the broad prohibition of the Feres Doctrine, Congress had never intended "our government to betray its own troops." Koeltl rejected Zelma's argument, but he did allow the eight former National Guardsmen to sue the government for medical malpractice they allege was committed by Veterans Administration doctors after they were discharged back into civilian life. "I'm satisfied that we got something," said Ray Ramos, one of the plaintiffs and a former NYPD cop who served as a sergeant in the 442nd Military Police Company in Iraq during 2003. "Because of the Feres Doctrine, I was afraid the judge would rule against us on everything," Ramos said. "This gives us a day in court." In April 2004, the Daily News revealed in a series of articles that several soldiers from the 442nd Military Police Company had been exposed to depleted uranium, a low-level radioactive heavy metal that has been used by the Pentagon since the 1991 Persian Gulf War in artillery penetrators and in the plating for M-1 tanks. Several soldiers from the 442nd - most of them cops, firefighters and correction officers in civilian life - had been sent home from Iraq in late 2003 with a variety of ailments that included constant headaches, blood in their urine, blurred vision, numbness in their hands and persistent rashes. The Army doctors could not account for any of the ailments. The men claimed they were never warned about possible uranium exposure while in Iraq, and when they returned home military doctors either refused to test them for exposure to the radioactive metal or in some cases lost their test results. Independent exams and analyses of urine samples arranged by The News for nine of the sick soldiers showed that at least four had inhaled depleted uranium dust, according to a nuclear medicine expert who conducted the tests. Another test sponsored by The News on a soldier from another National Guard unit, Gerard Matthew, revealed in September 2004 that he also had signs of depleted uranium exposure. In May 2004, Matthew's wife gave birth to a girl who was missing three fingers on one hand. Critics of the military's use of depleted uranium say the microscopic dust released by exploding shells can lodge in a person's lungs for years and cause physical or genetic damage from either the low-level radiation it emits or from its chemical toxicity. Pentagon officials have repeatedly defended its use as safe. The government says there have been virtually no illnesses documented among soldiers exposed to depleted uranium, even among those wounded with fragments from depleted uranium shells. The News' articles created a national firestorm, one that led the Pentagon to tighten testing procedures for all soldiers, and they sparked efforts in more than a dozen state legislatures to require testing of all returning National Guard troops. But the debate over depleted uranium continues to rage. Pentagon officials insist that depleted uranium shells, because of their incredible penetrating power, are an essential weapon that saves lives in combat. Opponents, on the other hand, say our military is spreading radioactive contamination. As for the former soldiers who dared to sue their government, they want a judge and jury and ordinary Americans to hear what happened to them as a result of depleted uranium exposure - and what our government did or didn't do about it. And Koeltl's decision may still make that possible. Originally published on October 4, 2006 All contents © 2006 Daily News, L.P. ***************************************************************** 45 News Journal: Feds look to update nuclear plant risk delawareonline Last analysis of local facilities was in 1982 By JEFF MONTGOMERY, The News Journal Wednesday, October 4, 2006 Although current numbers are higher, about 33,500 people lived within 10 miles of the Salem plant during the 2000 Census, with more than two-thirds in Delaware. Roughly 1.25 million people live in census blocks all or partially inside the area where the 50-mile emergency zones overlap for Salem, Limerick and Peach Bottom, according to Census Bureau records. The three-way overlap zone includes all of northern New Castle County, most of Delaware and Chester counties in Pennsylvania, small sections of Lancaster and Montgomery counties, and a portion of Cecil County, Md. 10/04/2006 --> For the first time since a 1982 study labeled the Salem, N.J., nuclear plant the country's deadliest in the event of a meltdown, federal regulators plan to re-evaluate how many people would die after worst-case accidents at the nation's big reactors. The 1982 report found that a worst-case meltdown at Salem -- which sits on the bank of the Delaware River -- would kill more people within one year -- 100,000 -- than any other reactor built or under construction at that time. Another 40,000 would be at risk of dying from cancer later, the report said. But since that study another reactor, Hope Creek, has begun operating at the Salem complex, and nearby populations have steadily grown. "What they're trying to do is come up with a more realistic evaluation of a severe accident progression," said Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's office in King of Prussia, Pa. Six plants were chosen for the first wave of the three-year study: Salem, Duane Arnold in Iowa, Diablo Canyon in California, Peach Bottom in Pennsylvania, Fermi in Michigan and Seabrook in New Hampshire. Two of those in the first group -- Salem and Peach Bottom -- use 50-mile radius zones for emergency planning that overlap New Castle County and part of northern Kent County. A third plant ranked among the most dangerous in 1982, Pennsylvania's Limerick plant, includes most of northern New Castle County in its 50-mile emergency zone. A News Journal review of 2000 Census data found roughly 1.25 million people living inside, or partially inside, the area where the 50-mile emergency zones overlap for Salem, Limerick and Peach Bottom. About 33,500 people lived within 10 miles of the Salem plant, with more than two-thirds of them in Delaware. Suzanne S. Collins, who moved eight years ago to a home east of Odessa, within two miles of the Salem plant, said she pays little attention to the plant now. "The reality doesn't sink in until you're here for a while and you hear the sirens and think 'Yes, something could happen,' " she said. But, Collins said, she does follow information provided by PSEG Nuclear, the plant's owner. "I definitely want to be informed about any studies and 'what-if-something-does-happen' stuff." Study to take three years Federal nuclear officials said the planned three-year "State of the Art Reactor Consequence Analysis" findings could be used for emergency planning, research or to assist in reviews of licensing and new power plants. "The outcome could shape some of those decisions," about new power plants, said David Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer and analyst for the Union of Concerned Scientists. "I don't believe the [Nuclear Regulatory Commission] is trying to do it simply as a dodge. They're talking about new plants and the need to have information in order to make informed decisions." Biff Bradley, risk analysis manager for the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry group, said Tuesday that nuclear plant owners will assist. He cautioned that the plan "cropped up only in the last few weeks." "A lot has happened in 24 years," Bradley said. "We've learned a lot more about accident progression and the types of releases you might have in an accident." Salem and adjacent Hope Creek's three reactors are ranked together as the nation's second-largest nuclear generating complex, capable of producing more than 3,300 megawatts of electricity. New study techniques available In a letter sent to PSEG Nuclear last month, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said it wants to complete "a realistic evaluation of offsite consequences" using techniques and resources unavailable in 1982, when Sandia National Laboratories conducted the study. "The goal is to accurately represent offsite consequences at each plant based on current, rather than past, plant operations," wrote Stewart N. Bailey, a senior project manager in NRC's Division of Operating Reactor Licensing. The findings would take into account current local populations, which have increased dramatically in Delaware areas near Salem. New Castle County's population rose by about 25 percent between 1980 and 2000, but rates in the Bear and southern New Castle County areas were several times higher, with the Middletown-Odessa-Townsend area now expected to approach 60,000 in 2025, compared with 13,000 in 1980. Patricia E. Anderson, who has lived along the Delaware River within sight of the plant for several years, said she was unaware of Salem's top worst-case ranking when she moved to a home two miles from the plant. "Does it scare me? The only thing that I give any thought to at all is the terrorists. I think that's pretty normal at this point," Anderson said. "Half the time I don't even notice it." Anderson said she offered a grim summary to a contractor who asked about risk while doing work in her home. "He said 'What if it goes now?' " Anderson recalled. "He told me he lives in Bear, and I said 'If I go, you're going, too.' " Skip Sindoni, a spokesman for PSEG Nuclear, said that all nuclear plants eventually would complete the same evaluations. "We just happened to be one of the first out of the gate," Sindoni said. "We do know a lot more now than when that study was done in 1982." Contact Jeff Montgomery at 678-4277 or . THE TOP 5 A worst-case nuclear meltdown at the nation's biggest plants would kill tens of thousands in a 20-mile radius within a year. As of 1982, the last time it was studied, the following plants were the five worst for potential fatalities. 1. Salem (N.J.) 100,000 2. Waterford (La.) 96,000 3. Limerick (Pa.) 74,000 4. Peach Bottom (Pa.) 72,000 5. Susquehanna Units (Pa.) 67,000 Source: Sandia National Laboratories, New Mexico THE AFTERMATH Five worst for subsequent cancer deaths after a meltdown, according to a 1982 study: 1. Salem (N.J) 40,000 2. Millstone (Conn.) 38,000 3. Peach Bottom (Pa.) 37,000 4. Limerick (Pa.) 34,000 5. Millstone (Conn.) 28,000 #storychat { clear: both; margin: 20px 0px 10px 0px; padding: 10px 0px 0px 0px; border-top: 1px solid #EFEFEF; width:auto; } Copyright, The News Journal. ***************************************************************** 46 Berkeley Citzen: Global impact of radiation 1945-2003 Loren Moret [source: Japanese government vital health statistics 1899-2003] Japan govt health statistics 1899-2003, chief causes of mortality. Around 1950 the use of antibiotics caused infectious diseases (the main cause of death until then) to decline to almost nothing. Since bacteria, viruses and parasites cause cancer, the cancer rate should also have declined. BUT after 1945, cancer took over as the main cause of death and continued to rise with the introduction of each new nuclear technology (atmospheric testing, nuke plants, Depleted Uranium). Note that mortality from cerebrovascular and cardiovascular diseases also increased - that's the damage to the mitochondria which have the highest concentrations in the heart and brain (50% of the bulk mass). DU=Depleted Uranium [source: New York Times Jan. 9, 2006] Global diabetes map from NYTimes Jan 9, 2006. Its a fallout/rainout map from atmospheric testing radiation and you can see that the jetstream is the main transport mechanism. US map indicates that the highest diabetes rates in the US are along the Gulf Coast states where the Depleted Uranium is carried across the Atlantic on Westerlies and rained out where the highest rainfall occurs along the Gulf Coast. Basically the US govt is shipping the most radioactive milk from dairies around nuke plants into black and poor inner city communities. Wash. DC looks the same and we have proved it with US govt. measurements of rad in milk by city. [Jay Gould, DEADLY DECEIT: LOW LEVEL RADIATION HIGH LEVEL COVERUP, Chapter "Infant Mortality and Milk"] [data source: Centers for Disease Control] Diabetes incidence for the US from the Centers for Disease Control 1980-2003.] Diabetes increased from 1980-1990 by 18%. Diabetes increased from 1980-2003 by 136%. Europe is in a pandemic of diabetes and the EU just passed a resolution and is asking the UN to help. It is caused by CHERNOBYL and by Depleted Uranium. The above information was provided by Leuren Moret, a geoscientist who worked at the Livermore nuclear weapons lab where she became a whistleblower in 1991, has survived years of retaliation from the Livermore Lab and the University of California and has lived firsthand the experiences of Karen Silkwood. A radiation specialist, she works around the world educating citizens, the media and lawmakers about the impact of radiation globally on the health of the public and the environment. She assisted with Al-Jazeeras recent report on depleted uranium weapons which quickly became one of the most read articles produced by the website. Depleted Uranium: Washingtons Secret Nuclear War She is an independent scientist and an Environmental Commissioner for the City of Berkeley. Video information on Radiation Issues + "Connecting the Dots: 911 Four Years Later, From the A-Bomb to Depleted Uranium and Beyond" Leuren Moret + Leuren Moret's GLOBAL RADIATION COVERUP SERIES: "Atmospheric Testing, Nuclear Power Plants, Depleted Uranium" + Leuren Moret's GLOBAL RADIATION COVERUP SERIES: "Global Diabetes Epidemic Caused by Depleted Uranium" Additional reading: + International Journal of Health Services, Volume 36, Number 3, Pages 503 520, 2006 © 2006, Baywood Publishing Co., Inc. Occupational Hazards of War DEPLETED URANIUM: ALL THE QUESTIONS ABOUT DU AND GULF WAR SYNDROME ARE NOT YET ANSWERED pdf (108KB) Rosalie Bertell + DIABETES RADIATION LINK KNOWN IN EARLY 1960'S Here is a research paper on radioactive isotopes linked to diabetes from 1963. Lyn Anspaugh worked at LBNL, LLNL, and now he's at SAIC and the Univ. of Utah. They have known about the diabetes-radiation link forever: L.R. Anspaugh, "Chemical Elements in the Serum of Man in Health and Diabetes Mellitus: X-Ray Emission Spectrographic Determinations", Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, UCRL-10873 (1963) + "VA requested article on Gulf War Syndrome from the National Academy of Sciences which concludes "Gulf War Syndrome does not exist."... Gulf War and Health: Volume 4. Health Effects of Serving in the Gulf War Committee on Gulf War and Health: A Review of the Medical Literature Relative to the Gulf War Veterans Health, executive summary pdf (503 KB) ©2006 berkeleycitizen.org ***************************************************************** 47 NRC: NRC Tritium Task Force Issues Report and Recommendations, Finds No Health Impact News Release - 2006-12 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC 20555-0001 E-mail: No. 06-123 October 4, 2006 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission today issued the findings of a group of experts from throughout the agency, as well as the State of Illinois, concerning inadvertent, unmonitored releases of radioactive liquids, containing primarily tritium, from U.S. commercial nuclear power plants. The task force found no impact on public health from these events. We looked at a wide range of releases that go back to 1996, and even included a substantial release from the Hatch plant in 1986, and none of these events led to appreciable radiation doses to people outside the plants, said Stuart Richards, the NRC senior manager who led the task force. There are, however, areas of our regulations that could better cover these sorts of inadvertent spills and leaks. For instance, many of the components and systems that have leaked are built to standards less strict than those for systems needed for reactor safety. A number of the systems involved in the releases also fall outside the NRCs requirements for regular maintenance and inspections, increasing the possibility that leaks might go undetected. The task force produced 26 recommendations that apply to the NRC, nuclear power plant operators or both. For instance, the task force recommended updating NRC regulations on monitoring radioactive releases and the environment in and around a plant, to take into account state-of-the-art technology and practices. The task force also recommended that nuclear power plant operators work with local and state agencies to voluntarily report information on radioactive liquid releases that otherwise fall below NRC reporting requirements. Each of the NRCs program offices (e.g., Nuclear Reactor Regulation) will consider the recommendations relevant to their mission. The full report, as well as additional information on inadvertent releases, will be available on the NRC Web site at this address: http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/ops-experience/grndwtr-cont am-tritium.html. The task force included staff from each of the NRCs regional offices, as well as the Offices of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards, Nuclear Regulatory Research, Public Affairs, and Executive Director for Operations. The Illinois Emergency Management Agency also provided a representative to the task force. NRC news releases are available through a free list serve subscription at the following Web address: http://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/listserver.html. The NRC homepage at www.nrc.gov also offers a SUBSCRIBE link. E-mail notifications are sent to subscribers when news releases are posted to NRC's Web site. Last revised Wednesday, October 04, 2006 ***************************************************************** 48 Platts: Congress urged to oppose away-from-reactor storage sites Washington (Platts)--3Oct2006 More than 100 advocacy groups are urging Congress to oppose the interim spent fuel storage facilities called for in House and Senate energy appropriations bills for fiscal 2007 and to concentrate, instead, on safeguarding spent fuel at reactor sites. Letters were sent to every member of Congress October 3 by Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, and the Union for Concerned Scientists, among others. The groups said "there are numerous reasons why away-from-reactor storage is not even a temporary waste solution." Centralized storage would not reduce the number of locations where commercial spent fuel is stored and would "unnecessarily increase transport risks to the public," they said. The House-passed funding bill would require that integrated spent fuel reprocessing/recycling facilities include a storage facility for utility spent fuel. The Senate version of the bill, which likely will move to the Senate floor as part of omnibus legislation, would require DOE to site away-from-reactor storage facilities in the 31 states with operating reactors. Alternatively, the bill would allow the department to site regional storage facilities. Copyright © 2006 - Platts, All Rights Reserved [The McGraw-Hill Companies] ***************************************************************** 49 rbc.ru: Capacity of SNF storage to be increased RosBusinessConsulting: RBC, 04.10.2006, Moscow 17:38:51. The centralized storage of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) will be put into operation at full capacity by 2015, Sergei Kiriyenko, head of the Federal Atomic Energy Agency (Rosatom), told a government meeting today. The dry storage at the mining and chemical works in Krasnoyarsk will be set to operate at 5,000 tonnes of fuel from the RBMK (high power reactor of channel type) by 2010 and at 29,000 tonnes from the RBMK and 9,000 from the water-water energy reactor by 2015. Also, Rosatom is planning to expand the storage to 9,000 tonnes in 2015, Kiriyenko said. Its current capacity is 6,000 tonnes and it is only half-full. All rights reserved. © 1995 - 2006 RosBusinessConsulting. ***************************************************************** 50 Ascribe: NAS-enviro-perchlorate Wed Oct 4 12:34:14 2006 Pacific Time 44 Million Women at Risk of Thyroid Deficiency From Rocket Fuel Chemical; Federal Study Confirms Perchlorate as Widespread Public Health Threat OAKLAND, Calif., Oct. 4 (AScribe Newswire) -- A startling new study by the federal Centers for Disease Control (CDC) says minute traces of a toxic rocket fuel chemical found in milk, fruit, vegetables and drinking water supplies nationwide lowers essential thyroid hormones in women. An Environmental Working Group (EWG) analysis finds that 44 million American women who are pregnant, thyroid deficient or have low iodine levels are at heightened risk from exposure to the chemical. Regulators have known for years that perchlorate, the explosive component of solid rocket fuel, can lower levels of the thyroid hormones essential to proper development of fetuses and infants and good health in adults. But new scientific evidence clearly shows that perchlorate is a much greater public health threat than previously realized. Tests of almost 3,000 human urine and breast milk samples - along with tests of more than 1,000 fruit, vegetable, cow's milk, beer, and wine samples - reveal that perchlorate exposure in the population is pervasive. The CDC's new study, released today, found that perchlorate exposure is affecting thyroid hormone levels in American women, particularly those with lower iodide intake. CDC researchers analyzed urine samples from more than 1,100 women for perchlorate, and then looked to see if perchlorate exposure could predict thyroid hormone levels. They found a statistically significant relationship between perchlorate levels as low as 3 parts per billion - about one teaspoon of water in an Olympic-sized swimming pool - and one type of thyroid hormone for all women, and an even more marked relationship between perchlorate levels and two types of thyroid hormones in women with lower iodine intake. Thirty-six percent of U.S. women have iodine intake that falls into this category. "The Pentagon and defense contractors, who are responsible for much of the perchlorate in drinking water supplies, have lobbied hard against federal standards, arguing that perchlorate posed no threat to healthy adults," said Renee Sharp, an EWG analyst who has studied the chemical since 2000. "This new study shows that even very small levels of perchlorate in water or food can have a marked effect on thyroid levels in women. We can't ignore this serious public health issue any longer." The median level of perchlorate in urine in CDC's study was just 2.9 micrograms per liter (a microgram per liter is equal to 1 ppb). Since average urine output is about 1.5 liters per day, this means that women in the study were ingesting somewhere around 5 micrograms of perchlorate per day. Even at this low level, researchers found effects on thyroid hormone levels. But the federal "safe dose" level corresponds to almost ten times this dose. This clearly indicates that the current EPA reference dose and cleanup guidance is several orders of magnitude too high. EWG urges the federal government to act promptly to set a drinking water standard of no more than 0.1 parts per billion of perchlorate - almost 250 times more stringent than the current federal recommendation for cleanup of contaminated water, and 20 to 60 times stricter than drinking water standards set by Massachusetts and pending in California and New Jersey, the only states to take action so far. With new evidence showing widespread food contamination and effects on the thyroid at typical exposure levels, perchlorate exposure through drinking water cannot be tolerated. EWG also urges the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to consider making the iodization of salt mandatory, because insufficient iodide in your diet can compound perchlorate's health effects, and iodide deficiency has increased sharply since the 1970s. The vast majority of perchlorate manufactured in the United States is used by the Department of Defense to make solid rocket and missile fuel, while smaller amounts of perchlorate are also used to make firework and road flares. Perchlorate is also a contaminant of certain types of fertilizer that were widely used in the early part of the 20th century but are in limited use today. In July, Massachusetts set the nation's first drinking water standard for perchlorate of 2 parts per billion, while California and New Jersey are currently considering standards of 6 ppb and 5 ppb, respectively. The EPA has yet to set a federal drinking water standard, but has issued a controversial cleanup "guidance" level of 24.5 ppb. In March, a federal advisory committee on children's health sharply criticized the agency, writing in a letter to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson that the guidance was "not supported by the underlying science and can result in exposures that pose neurodevelopmental risks in early life." In 2003, EWG and the Riverside Press Enterprise independently tested store-bought winter lettuce for perchlorate and found the contaminant in more than half of the samples tested - in some cases at high levels. A year later EWG tested California milk for perchlorate, finding the chemical in 31 out of 32 samples. Around the same time, the California Department of Food and Agriculture secretly conducted their own milk tests and found perchlorate in all 32 samples collected. These studies were some of the first indications that food might be an important route for perchlorate exposure in addition to contaminated drinking water. More than 1,000 tests by government and independent scientists later, there can be no debate: The US population is being widely exposed to perchlorate, both in water and in the food supply. Perchlorate is polluting water supplies for millions of Americans. According to tests conducted under the EPA's Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule, 160 public water systems in 22 states are contaminated with perchlorate. Perchlorate has also been found in a wide variety of domestic and imported produce, with some of the highest levels being found in oranges, grapes, raspberries, apricots, melons, lettuce, tomatoes, basil, kale, spinach and asparagus. The chemical has also been found in 98 percent of 222 milk samples collected from 22 US states, and in hundreds of samples of beer and wine. Fruits and vegetables had the highest concentrations. Overall, 69 percent of the 1,090 food and beverage samples tested had detectable perchlorate. Tests by the CDC and independent researchers confirmed that many Americans are carrying levels of perchlorate in their bodies well above the levels found to lower thyroid levels. CDC sampled the urine of almost 3,000 Americans - a valid statistical sample of the entire population - and found perchlorate in everyone at an average of 5.5 parts per billion. An academic study of breast milk from 36 women in 18 states also found perchlorate in everyone tested, with an average level of 10.4 ppb. CONTACT: Bill Walker or Renee Sharp, EWG Media Relations, 510-444-0973 -30- AScribe - The Public Interest Newswire / 510-653-9400 www.ascribe.org ***************************************************************** 51 TheStar.com: Where will province store its nuclear waste? Wed. Oct. 4, 2006. | Updated at 07:52 PM AMBRUCE COX On Oct. 4. 2007, exactly a year from today, Ontarians will go to the polls to elect their provincial government. If last month's provincial by-election in Toronto is any indication, energy policy and ethics will play a major role in the next election. Indeed, the new NDP MPP who won the by-election claims energy was the defining issue in that campaign. It should come as no surprise that energy would break out from the pack of issues to dominate the campaign, outstripping health care, education, crime and mud slinging in this inner-city riding. Since being elected in 2003, the McGuinty government has back-pedalled on its promise to phase out coal and committed to build new nuclear reactors despite atomic power's 40-year history of high costs and poor performance. Ontario's energy plan as proposed by the Dalton McGuinty government is a ratepayer funded return to the failed policy initiatives of the 1970s. While other countries, such as Germany and Spain, are fighting climate change and phasing out their unreliable nuclear stations by shifting investment to cleaner and greener energy options, McGuinty's plan opts for spending more than $40 billion on nuclear power, effectively blocking any serious investment in green energy. In the event that this was not controversial enough, Environment Minister Laurel Broten undertook to quietly change the law and had the energy plan exempted from an environmental assessment. Nuclear generation is plagued with a myriad of problems: high-cost, poor performance and the looming fear of the unspeakable  a reactor meltdown or major accident. And then there is the waste. Electricity from nuclear is generated when atoms from uranium bundles interact at high speed, creating heat that in turn creates steam released at high pressure to turn turbines. In the simplest of terms, nuclear generation can be described as the world's most expensive way to boil water. Nuclear waste is the product of "spent" uranium bundles that can no longer produce adequate heat to boil the water and turn the turbines. The problem is, while these bundles can no longer turn turbines, they remain active and "hot" for a long time. Nuclear waste created in a reactor today will remain radioactive and deadly poisonous for a million years. And to date there is no fail safe method of safely storing nuclear waste. This is where ethics come into the next campaign: Is it ethical for politicians to invest in nuclear power today when they don't know how to dispose of the deadly radioactive waste? Is it ethical for any politician to support a plan that creates poisonous waste, if they are not willing to accept a storage facility in their own riding or community? If they are going to ask Ontarians to support their vision of a nuclear future shouldn't they first tell us exactly where they plan to store the waste by-product? If the government proceeds with their planned nuclear expansion it will double Ontario's current nuclear waste stockpile over the next two decades creating an additional 30,000 tonnes of radioactive waste. Currently waste is stored at reactor sites. This has worked reasonably well for the past 50 years but there is another 999,000 plus years to go. France is already experiencing serious problems with leaks at facilities in the Champagne region contaminating ground water. z The provincial government argues that nuclear waste disposal is a federal issue. Clearly, this is an abdication of responsibility by the province. But more importantly, regardless of whose job it is to deal with the waste, is it ethical to produce these long-lived lethal wastes in the first place, when there is no known method to dispose of them safely? As the government begins to position itself for the next election they will argue that they have no option but to go nuclear. Ironically, they will position it as the best option for the environment: they must replace coal to combat climate change and if not nuclear, the lights will go out in Ontario. The "choice" framed by the government conveniently ignores their own research that a diverse mix of green and clean alternatives could replace coal and nuclear over the next 20 years. Regardless of how they try to sell their nuclear plan in the next campaign, in order to be credible and indeed ethical, the Liberals need to come clean with voters about where they will store the nuclear waste they plan to leave as a legacy for the province, and they need to do it before the next election. Bruce Cox is executive director of Greenpeace Canada Legal Notice: Copyright Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All ***************************************************************** 52 Newswise: New Study Suggests Perchlorate Effects on Thyroid Function of U.S. Women Source: Environmental Health Perspectives (NIEHS) Released: Wed 04-Oct-2006, 17:40 ET DescriptionResearchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have released findings showing that American women, particularly those with low iodine intake, may have reduced thyroid function due to perchlorate exposure. Similar thyroid function changes were not found for men. Newswise  Early last year, a National Academy of Sciences (NAS) panel concluded its review of research on the health effects of perchlorate, an inorganic anion and component of rocket fuel known to inhibit the thyroid’s ability to absorb iodine from the bloodstream, by recommending a new reference dose. The NAS also called for further research to identify safe exposure levels for sensitive subpopulations. Now, researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have released findings showing that American women, particularly those with low iodine intake, may have reduced thyroid function due to perchlorate exposure. Similar thyroid function changes were not found for men. Perchlorate’s main use is as an oxidizer in solid rocket fuels. Other uses include explosives, road flares, and pyrotechnics, and the chemical can also form naturally in the atmosphere. A combination of these sources has led to the widespread presence of perchlorate in groundwater, drinking water, and foods including milk, vegetables, fruit, grain, and forage crops. Large doses of perchlorate have been shown to inhibit iodide uptake and reduce thyroid hormone production. Prolonged reduction in thyroid hormone can cause metabolic problems in adults and abnormal neurodevelopment during gestation and infancy. The researchers examined 2,299 men and women, aged 12 and older, who participated in the CDC’s National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) during 2001–2002. Examining the relationship between perchlorate concentrations in urine and concentrations of the thyroid hormones thyroxine (T4) and thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) in blood, researchers observed that perchlorate was a significant predictor of thyroid hormone levels in women, but not in men. After seeing evidence of this gender difference, the authors focused their analysis on women. They categorized a total of 1,111 women into higher-iodine and lower-iodine groups using a cutpoint of 100 micrograms iodine per liter of urine (µg/L), then compared the women’s urinary perchlorate concentrations to their blood levels of T4 and TSH. They found a slight relationship between perchlorate concentrations and TSH for the higher-iodine group, but a much stronger one for perchlorate and both T4 and TSH in women in the lower-iodine group. For the lower-iodine group, increased perchlorate was associated with less production of T4 and more production of TSH (which usually is produced to stimulate T4), suggesting competitive inhibition of thyroid iodine uptake by perchlorate. Women at the 50th percentile for urinary perchlorate had levels of 2.9 µg/L perchlorate, which predicted a decrease in T4 of 1.06 µg/dL; at the 95th percentile of perchlorate (13 µg/L), the predicted decrease in T4 was 1.64 µg/dL. Although the size of perchlorate’s predicted effect on T4 and TSH was small to moderate depending on the amount of perchlorate exposure, given that the normal range of T4 for women is between 5 and 12 µg/dL, these predicted reductions were significant and indicate that even small increases in perchlorate exposure may inhibit the thyroid’s ability to absorb iodine from the bloodstream. In the United States, 36% of women have urinary iodine levels less than 100 µg/L, the same as the women in the lower-iodine group in the study. This study is the first to examine women with lower iodine levels for a potential effect of perchlorate on thyroid function. CDC researchers say that since this is the first time studying these women, another large study is needed to confirm these findings; they are planning that study. The lead author of the study was Benjamin C. Blount of the National Center for Environmental Health, CDC. Other authors included James L. Pirkle, John D. Osterloh, Liza ValentĂ­n-Blasini, and Kathleen L. Caldwell. The article is available free of charge at http://www.ehponline.org/members/2006/9466/9466.pdf. EHP is published by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. EHP is an Open Access journal. More information is available online at http://www.ehponline.org/. Brogan & Partners Convergence Marketing handles marketing and public relations for EHP, and is responsible for the distribution of this press release. © 2006 Newswise. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 53 DOE: Energy Secretary Bodman and Minister of Natural Resources for Canada Lunn Release the 2003 Power Outage Final Report October 3, 2006 WASHINGTON, D.C.  U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman and Minister of Natural Resources for Canada Gary Lunn, today released the final report on the power outage that affected 50 million North Americans in August 2003. In accordance with the mandate of the U.S.-Canada Power Outage Task Force, the report outlines all of the actions taken to prevent or minimize the likelihood of future blackouts, reduce the scope of those that do occur and improve the security of the North American electric power grid. I appreciate the hard work and diligence that went into this important report. It demonstrates that while improvements are being made to enhance grid reliability, Secretary Bodman said. We still have a very complex system that is subject to possible mechanical and human failures. We must remain vigilant. I wish to congratulate the members of the Task Force and the many organizations involved for their hard work and their determination to ensure the completion of key recommendations made to both governments to reduce the likelihood of future large-scale blackouts, Minister Lunn said. The Task Force has been an outstanding example of close cooperation between the governments of Canada and United States, and we have established a Bilateral Electric Reliability Oversight Group for collaboration between authorities in both countries on issues of common concern. The report deals with the largest power outage in North American history, which occurred on August 14, 2003. This outage affected an area served by 61,800 megawatts of electric power in Ontario, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Jersey. There has been significant accomplishments in the three years since the 2003 blackout. Mandatory reliability standards are being implemented in the United States and in jurisdictions across Canada. The North American Electric Reliability Council is submitting 118 new standards to the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and appropriate authorities in Canada for review and approval. Additional standards are also being developed. The governments of the United States and Canada have also established the Bilateral Electric Reliability Oversight Group as a forum in which the U.S. Department of Energy, FERC, Natural Resources Canada and provincial energy ministries can discuss issues of common concern. The final report denotes that the U.S.-Canada Power Outage Task Force has fulfilled its mandate, and that the Task Force is being dissolved. For a copy of the final report, visit: http://www.oe.energy.gov/news/blackout.htm. Media contact(s): Craig Stevens, (202) 586-4940 [ ] U.S. Department of Energy | 1000 Independence Ave., SW | Washington, DC 20585 1-800-dial-DOE | f/202-586-4403 ***************************************************************** 54 Hanford News: Congress OKs $2 million more for national lab This story was published Sunday, October 1st, 2006 By the Herald staff The Senate has approved adding $2 million to funds for the new fiscal year to help Pacific Northwest National Laboratory replace buildings in Hanford's 300 Area just north of Richland. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., secured the funding as a member of the Senate Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee. Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., succeeded in matching the amount in the House version of the budget for the Department of Homeland Security. The bill, passed by the full House and Senate late Friday, now goes to the president for his signature. The money will be used to help construct radiological laboratories to continue the work of the national laboratory in the areas of border security, nuclear and radiation detection and standards development for radiological detection technologies. © 2006 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 55 Hanford News: DOE misses tank waste cleanup deadline This story was published Tuesday, October 3rd, 2006 By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer The Department of Energy has missed the legal deadline to have all 16 tanks in the C Tank Farms emptied of radioactive waste by the end of September. The Washington State Department of Ecology, which regulates the tanks, is keeping its options open in terms of what to do about it, said spokeswoman Joye Redfield-Wilder. Options include assessing a penalty, filing a lawsuit or negotiating a new agreement for emptying waste from old, leak-prone tanks into newer double-shell tanks. "At this time we don't have a revised date for completion," said Erik Olds, spokesman for DOE's Hanford Office of River Protection. "However, retrieval of single-shell tanks will continue to be a top priority for this office." The Hanford nuclear reservation has 149 underground single-shell tanks, some of which have held radioactive waste since World War II. The waste is left from the past production of plutonium for the nation's nuclear weapons program. The legally binding Tri-Party Agreement called for an initial group of tanks to be emptied by last weekend. Hanford workers have emptied four of the 16 C Farm tanks of at least 99 percent of their waste. Retrieval of waste in two more tanks is in progress and preparations are being made to begin retrieval on two more. Emptying the tanks has proved more difficult than DOE and its contractor, CH2M Hill Hanford Group, anticipated. Work slowed in 2004 when some workers complained that chemical vapors released from the underground tanks were making them sick. CH2M Hill has revamped and expanded its safety program related to vapors to ensure workers are safe. In addition, hard waste at the bottom of some tanks has been difficult to retrieve and new technologies have had to be developed. Liquid wastes already have been retrieved from the single-shell tanks, leaving salt cake and sludge to be removed. Getting four tanks emptied of liquid and solid wastes is an achievement that "should not go unnoticed or unsung," said Polly Zehm, deputy director of the Washington State Department of Ecology, at the September Hanford Advisory Board meeting. But the 145 tanks that remain "are not being relieved of their toxic and radioactive contents at any pace that approaches the schedule that was agreed to in the TPA," she said. DOE and the state have been discussing Hanford cleanup challenges, key activities and their relationship to each other, Olds said. The talks could become the basis of negotiations of important TPA milestones, he said. The state and DOE will meet again in a few weeks, Redfield-Wilder said. © 2006 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 56 Hanford News: Group awards IsoRay $1.4 million loan This story was published Tuesday, October 3rd, 2006 By Nathan Isaacs, Herald staff writer IsoRay was awarded a $1.4 million loan on Monday from the Hanford Area Economic Investment Fund Committee. The loan is expected to help the Richland-based company buy more equipment for producing medical isotopes used in treating cancer. The company manufactures and distributes the radioactive isotope cesium 131 to medical clinics from New York to California. "IsoRay has experienced tremendous growth in the cesium-131 seed orders for cancer treatment," said Jonathan Hunt, IsoRay's chief financial officer. "By making key equipment purchases with the funding received from (the investment fund), we have expanded our production capacity to meet the increasing demand for our product." He said the company expects to double its work force within the next year to about 100 employees. Steve Sensney, who evaluated the loan request for the group, said the selling point of the IsoRay loan was the potential job growth in the Tri-City area. Hunt said the company could have up to 250 employees within a couple of years, as it reaches its full production levels. "This loan is going to assist them in reaching that level," Sensney said. IsoRay is just one of about 30 businesses in Benton and Franklin counties that have benefited from the venture capital available through the Hanford Area Economic Investment Fund loan program, said Christine Eide, program coordinator. The loan program was established by state lawmakers with the money intended to stimulate economic diversification and create primary jobs in Benton and Franklin counties. The money comes from a portion of fees collected from companies and others that deposit low-level nuclear waste at the US Ecology site at Hanford. More than $9.8 million has been disbursed in Benton and Franklin counties since the fund's inception in 1991, Eide said. The $1.4 million to IsoRay, however, is the biggest loan awarded so far, she said. Other large loans have been $970,000 to Gordon Brothers Cellars earlier this year; $690,000 to Pasco in 1998; and $400,000 to Mundo Communications. IsoRay also received $5 million in August from a stock sale to a group of investors led by MicroCapital LLC, with offices in New York, San Francisco and the United Kingdom. That deal also included additional sales options that could bring another $6.7 million to IsoRay. © 2006 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 57 Hanford News: Congress approves $82 million for explosives detection research This story was published Tuesday, October 3rd, 2006 By John Trumbo, Herald staff writer U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell announced that Congress approved nearly $87 million during the weekend to allow the Department of Homeland Security to develop detection methods as a countermeasure to explosives and fight terrorism. Most of the money was transferred into the agency's science and technology account after having been initially proposed for the Transportation Security Administration, said Elizabeth Ferranti, the senator's press secretary in Washington, D.C. Cantwell was at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory on Monday afternoon to announce the restoration of nearly $82 million to Homeland Security for explosives countermeasures research. The senator noted that without the restoration of money, the science and technology account would have had only $5 million approved in fiscal year 2007 for explosives countermeasures research. Cantwell said in a prepared statement that "preliminary versions of the DHS appropriations bill passed by House and Senate appropriations committees included deep cuts to (science and technology), with the original Senate bill containing only $5 million for explosive countermeasures and development." Ferranti told the Herald in a phone interview that the 2006 funding for science and technology work within Homeland Security was proposed as $45 million, but dissatisfaction with the lack of progress on several research projects prompted members of Congress to pull back some of the money and redirect it to the Transportation Security Administration. "Had the money stayed in the TSA, it could've been spent in a variety of ways," Ferranti said. Cantwell said the measure approved Friday by Congress also includes proposals to ban construction of border tunnels and to create pilot programs to use unmanned aerial vehicles to patrol the northern U.S. border. "The foiled terrorist plot in the United Kingdom provided a stark reminder we need to accelerate the development and commercialization of explosive countermeasures," Cantwell said. The $87 million will be available through the science and technology directorate of Homeland Security for research on a competitive basis, said Dave Koppenaal, chief research officer for PNNL, which plans to submit an application. © 2006 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 58 Hanford News: B Reactor roof construction delayed until next summer This story was published Tuesday, October 3rd, 2006 By the Herald staff Washington Closure Hanford has postponed work to put a new roof on Hanford's historic B Reactor until next summer. It received just one bid for the work and plans to issue a new request for bids in the spring. The work has been postponed primarily because of the need to install polyurethane roofing membrane on a dry surface, according to Washington Closure. It is concerned about heavy dews in the morning and the potential for rain during the fall. The Department of Energy has agreed to a new roof to keep the reactor in sound enough repair to allow its possible use as a museum. B Reactor produced plutonium for the world's first nuclear explosion, the Trinity Test, and the bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan. © 2006 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 59 Hanford News: Vit demonstration project still a go; Project in works to see if bulk vitrification could be used to treat tank waste at Hanford This story was published Wednesday, October 4th, 2006 By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer An independent review has found no fatal flaw in plans for a demonstration project to see if bulk vitrification could be used to treat Hanford tank waste. However, it has come up with 19 technical issues that a panel of experts say should be resolved to make sure the demonstration system is effective. The demonstration project is planned to generate data to see if bulk vitrification is a viable treatment option, and many of the expert panel's comments were aimed at making sure the best and right kinds of data are generated, said John Longenecker, president of Longenecker &Associates, and one of 16 members of the panel. "If you are going to spend the money, here's the kind of information it should generate," he said. The demonstration project - from laboratory scale tests done in recent years to decommissioning a pilot plant to be built to test bulk vitrification on radioactive waste - could cost an estimated $200 million to $240 million, according to preliminary estimates by CH2M HIll Hanford Group. At issue is how to treat 53 million gallons of radioactive waste left in underground tanks from the past production of plutonium for the nation's nuclear weapons program. The Department of Energy is building a $12.2 billion vitrification plant, the Waste Treatment Plant, to separate and treat all the high-level radioactive waste from the tanks. Turning the high-level radioactive waste into a stable glass form for permanent disposal would take the vitrification plant up to 25 years. But also treating the remainder of the tank waste - low-activity radioactive waste - would take much longer than 25 years with the plant's current capacity. DOE is considering whether to expand the vitrification plant or to use a supplemental treatment, such as bulk vitrification, to allow some of the low-activity waste to be treated more quickly. Bulk vitrification also would turn the waste into a glassform, but would do it in boxes the size of land-sea shipping containers. The large blocks of glass would then be buried, container and all. So far, bulk vitrification testing has been done in laboratories and at full-scale at a test site near Hanford on mock waste that is not radioactive. Work began to build a pilot facility at Hanford to test the process on real radioactive waste, but construction was temporarily halted to develop a more complete plan for the project. The independent review comes at an ideal time, Longenecker said. The demonstration project is in an early enough stage that improvements can be made, he said. In addition to the 19 technical issues the expert panel considered most important, the review also identified 26 areas of concerns that might require changes to design or additional testing and 13 suggested improvements that could enhance safety, cost or efficiency of testing. Many of the issues raised by the expert panel concerned the test plant's ventilation system and the need to do more extensive testing of the system that dries tank waste and mixes it with soil to be melted into glass, said Zack Smith, assistant manager of tank farm projects for DOE. Much of the testing that already has been done has focused on making sure that bulk vitrification can produce glass that's as protective of the environment as the glass to be made at the main vitrification plant. But full-scale testing has not included tests of prototypes of associated equipment, such as waste dryers, waste feed systems and the off-gas system, the review said. Variations in waste and the soil could cause problems in how the dryers and mixers work, and there are concerns about how effectively the off-gas system will contain and treat the gases produced during the vitrification process. The review also recommended DOE learn more about where one radioactive constituent, technetium, moves during the glassification process to make sure it is safely contained. The review team looked only at technical issues, and DOE still plans a cost and schedule review of the project. That will be done when technical issues are resolved and any changes they require to the design are known. DOE plans to post the technical review report, possiblyas soon as today, at www.hanford.gov. Click on Office of River Protection, go to "Public Information" and then go to "Documents and Presentations." © 2006 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 60 Hanford News: Wave of the future This story was published Sunday, October 1st, 2006 By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer In the desert north of Richland, scientists are betting their careers that a new field of science will be born, changing the way we see the universe. Since 2001 they've been searching for evidence of a gravity wave from outerspace at LIGO, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory. Albert Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves in his 1916 general theory of relativity. But in the 90 years since there's been no direct detection of a gravity wave. The waves, caused by violent events in space, carry huge amounts of energy, but they're expected to be barely detectable with the best scientific instrumentation man has so far been able to develop. The state of the detection art now is twin LIGO facilities, one at Hanford and the other in Louisiana. If both detect the barest movements of mirrors suspended at the end of 2.5-mile long tubes, scientists will know they've detected a gravity wave. "We're in the discovery phase of the field of trying to detect traveling space warps," said Fred Raab, chief of the Hanford LIGO. They're caused by an acceleration or change in direction of objects with the mass of the sun and moving near the speed of light, such as two neutron stars that orbit each other until gravity pulls them together and they collide. That change creates a gravity wave, or a ripple through space and time. The force is so great it could be felt on Earth. As it passes through it would stretch objects lengthwise and cause them to compress sideways; a circle would become an eclipse. But the change would be barely detectable. LIGO is trying to detect a movement about one thousandth of a diameter of a proton, which is the nucleus of a hydrogen atom. It would take 10 trillion such movements to equal the width of a human hair. And it's trying to detect that among all the other movement or "noise" on Earth. In the control room at Hanford, the screens that reach to the ceilings are covered with graphs that show, among other things, different measurements of movement. It's all movement that scientists must sort through to find the movement that might be a space quake, much like trying to hear one beep among the static of a radio. Ocean waves on the Pacific Coast can be detected. In the spring, the ground beneath the observatory trembles from the water coming over McNary Dam. A momentary arc from a power line as far away as central Idaho can be picked up as a pulse at the Hanford LIGO. That's in part why Louisiana has a nearly identical facility. If movement is caused by a gravity wave, it should be detected at both LIGOs. "It helps us determine what is a real signal and what is false," Raab said. To detect a wave, the Hanford LIGO has mirrors suspended by fine wires at the end of two vacuum tunnels stretching out into the desert, one to the northwest and the other at a right angle to the southwest. A laser beam is split in half to travel down each leg of the tunnel and bounce back. In the absence of a gravity wave that return light bounces off the beam splitter and goes back toward the laser. A gravity wave, by changing the distances in the tunnels cause some of the return light not to go back to the laser, but to veer in a different direction. Now most of what we know about the universe comes from some form of electromagnetic study. Astronomers have long used telescopes to view planets and stars. More recently developed instruments like the X-ray telescope allow a look at cosmic electromagnetic waves with wavelengths different from light. They've helped astronomers to learn about quasars and pulsars. But gravity waves have the potential to open up a whole new world of information about a universe that scientists now estimate contains mostly matter unlike that we're familiar with on Earth. Unlike matter made up of protons, electrons and neutrons, it does not interact with electricity and magnetism. "This gets us into a whole new way to see the universe," Raab said. By detecting and measuring gravity waves with an entirely new type of observatory, scientists believe advances can be made in physics and astronomy. Scientists could directly verify that gravitational waves do exist. They could confirm that black holes exist. They could detect the gravitational waves produced in the Big Bang explosion that may have created the universe. But what they cannot now even guess at could be the most amazing discoveries or most significant benefits made through information from gravitational waves. Raab asks, "Is the way we see the universe the way it is or is it the way we look" that has shaped our view of it? It's an important enough question that the National Science Foundation has invested more than $500 million into the two LIGOs and their operation by the California Institute of Technology and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The Hanford LIGO is now looking for gravity waves that come from hundreds of millions of light years away, Raab said. It's an unfathomable distance. The distance to the moon is one light second and the distance to the sun is eight light minutes. The task is made more difficult because the events that could cause a space quake detected on Earth are rare. Based on models of how black holes and neutron stars form, Raab estimates there is a one in three chance that a gravity wave will be detected during LIGO's current run, which started in November and will end in September 2007. At the end of this run, a year or two will be spent to modify LIGO to make it more sensitive. It should then be able to detect gravity waves from a volume of space 10 times as large as it can now. That should give scientists a pretty good chance of discovering a gravity wave, Raab said. "I hope we get a discovery by 2011," he said, after working on LIGO since it was just a concept in 1988. Either way, the observatory will be shut down for a planned $200 million upgrade in the hope that it will give it the sensitivity it needs to detect events at the rate of several per year or even several per month. Now LIGO does the sort of science that makes people shake their heads in disbelief, Raab said. But he hopes that "in 100 years, they're going to think, 'What a crude, quaint device.' " © 2006 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 61 Bellona: US DOE and US-based NGO cooperate to down-blend Kazakhstan HEU stocks Bellona, 03/10-2006 + Washington and Moscow agree to repatriate Russian-origin HEU from 17 countriesThe US Department of Energy (DOE) and the Washington-based Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) have reached an agreement-in-principle with the Kazakh government to down-blend stocks of highly enriched uranium (HEU) held at that country’s Institute of Nuclear Physics, the DOE said in a statement. The agreement also calls for converting Kazakhstans VVR-K research reactor to run on low enriched uranium (LEU) instead of HEU, which can be used in nuclear weapons. The agreement is an important step in fulfilling Kazakh President Nursultan Nazerbayevs pledge last year to rid his country of HEU. This agreement represents another example of the kind of productive cooperation the United States and Kazakhstan have shared in furthering nuclear nonproliferation, said US Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman in the DOE statement. Our cooperative efforts support the Bush Administrations Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism, recently announced by Presidents Bush and Putin." NTI is a non-profit organisation working in the field of threat reduction from nuclear, chemical and biological weapons The project will be administered through the Department of Energys National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). NNSAs Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI) will work with Kazakhstan to make arrangements to down-blend the HEU at the Ulba Metallurgical Plant in Kazakhstan and to initiate conversion of the VVR-K reactor. GTRI will contribute at least $4m to the initiative. NTI played a key role in the agreement by committing up to $1.3m for a new reactor control and protection system to improve reactor safety and a beryllium reflector to enhance reactor performance. Kazakhstan and the United States are to be commended for the foresight and creativity needed to make this agreement a reality, said former Senator Sam Nunn, the co-chair of NTI, which he founded with media mogul Ted Turner. Last month, NTI again made headlines by putting up $50m to aid in the formation of an international uranium bank that would provide nuclear fuel to member nations peaceful nuclear energy programmes. This nonproliferation cooperative project with Kazakhstan is critical to our efforts to eliminate excess amounts of potentially dangerous material around the world, said NNSA Administrator Linton F. Brooks in the DOE statement. To date, the GTRI, which focuses on identifying, securing, recovering and eventually disposing of radiological materials world-wide. Som 230 kilograms have been returned to Russia from vulnerable sites as a result of the GTRIs efforts and 43 research reactors around the world have been converted to run on LEU, the Doe reported. Print Notify a friend Copyright © Bellona -- Reprint and copying is recommended if source is stated  Support Bellona's work for the environment - Phone +47 23 23 46 00 | E-MAIL: info@bellona.no ***************************************************************** 62 lamonitor.com: LANL meets with subcontractors The Online News Source for Los Alamos ROGER SNODGRASS Monitor Assistant Editor Deputy Laboratory Director John Mitchell led a meeting with subcontractors of Los Alamos National Laboratory who have heard indirectly that several hundred of their employees may be the first to feel a budget crunch under the new management contract. Speaking to 150 or so people at Duane Smith auditorium Tuesday evening, Mitchell said that many of the key decisions were made only last week. He said about 350 jobs will be lost through belt-tightening over the next two-to-three months, but he put the total number at 400-600 over the longer term. Mitchell assured the group that he was aware of the impact. "Do we want it to happen?" he asked. "No." He said it was something that made good business sense. "Who is getting laid off?" he asked again later in his presentation. "That choice is yours. They're your employees, not ours." As LANL staff was told by laboratory Director Michael Anastasio in an all-employees meeting last week, anticipated additional expenses for employee compensation and benefits, gross receipts taxes and the management fee are expected to increase annual costs by $175 million. The federal budget appears to be flat and the situation is aggravated by a continuing resolution providing stopgap funding in place of an approved appropriation bill. Mitchell said that 3,000 subcontracts had been reviewed and that basic recommendations were being made at the associate director level, where line management responsibilities reside. The two primary factors in the decision were lab management's determination to avoid laying off LANL employees or charging customers more. The decision about contractor employees was related to fixing the overhead, or indirect costs. Future dismissals would be related to the outcome of the budget process in Washington. Without thinning the subcontracting workforce, he said, the laboratory would have had to raise its overhead to about 50 percent, from the current 36 percent level. Only last week was the decision made to raise the indirect cost to 37 percent and cut the subcontract employees. Subcontractors with specific concerns or complaints were encouraged to contact the person who manages their subcontracts. "They have everything we know," Mitchell said. When Mitchell was asked if the representatives from the congressional delegation could address the question of whether there might be some budget relief forthcoming from Washington, he said it was his meeting, but offered the staff members a chance to respond. The staff members did not answer during the meeting. After the meeting Rep. Tom Udall's staff handed out a letter dated Sept. 29 and signed by the chair and ranking member of the House Small Business Committee, as well as Udall, seeking additional information. "Specifically, we would like to know how many of these contracting jobs will be cut from small businesses. Additionally, what is the dollar amount of the contracts that will be cut," the congressmen asked. The letter noted that the LANS proposal had committed $625 million to small business concerns in the current fiscal year, and asked how the recent decisions would affect that commitment. Asked during the question-and-answer period if the current layoffs were foreseen in the LANS proposal, Mitchell said the proposal answered the questions that were asked by the Department of Energy not the ones that weren't asked. "We intend to honor everything we said in our proposal, including the small business commitments," he said. "It just may take us longer to do that." He said that the small business performance measures were among the details that had not yet been negotiated in the final contract, to be concluded in the next month. Mitchell also acknowledged that three companies would be given preferences as "teaming subcontractors." The teaming subcontractors, who were specifically designated in the contract proposal, are Pro2Serve, North Wind and Ngenuity. Mitchell said the laboratory expected extra help from DOE to support the environmental projects that might be especially hard-pressed during the interim period covered by a continuing budget resolution. © 2003 Los Alamos Monitor All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 63 Knox News: Y-12's uranium processing still nagged by old issues By FRANK MUNGER, munger@knews.com October 4, 2006 Wet chemistry, a series of six chemical processes essential for the recycling of weapons-grade uranium, is operating again at the Y-12 National Security Complex. Sort of. "We have been able to get up and running all the specific processes for wet chemistry," Ted Sherry, the federal manager, said in a recent interview, "but it has been a huge challenge to keep each of those running." Indeed, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board highlighted that problem earlier this year. In a Feb. 14 memo, the board's Oak Ridge staff said, "Over the past 14 months, equipment and safety basis issues continue to preclude these systems from achieving a sustained operational tempo." The problems meant that uranium solutions in storage couldn't be recovered and purified, and the safety board said storage space was running out. Sherry said the Y-12 situation is better now, but - again - he qualified his response. "We're still experiencing some equipment failures, but we've proven in each of those processes that we can safely operate. We've been able to successfully go through all those subsystems, from beginning to end." In addition to wet chemistry, the plant also has to maintain the final step in uranium reprocessing: oxide conversion. At the moment, Y-12 doesn't have a significant concern about storage space for the uranium solutions, but it has become a priority at times, Sherry said. "I would not say we are completely satisfied with the sustained operation of wet chemistry," he said. Asked if wet chemistry was fully operable at the moment, Sherry hesitated. "It's always difficult to say a complex system is fully operable," he said, "because I do know we put equipment down for (maintenance). I do know there's one element of that system where we're waiting on parts. "It's a huge technical challenge operating that old system. Obviously our first priority is safety. Any time we run into something that is somewhat unique, we just stop." Unfortunately, Y-12 will have to deal with the old equipment until the Oak Ridge plant gets a new uranium processing facility. That's years away. The proposed $1 billion project is currently in early design phases and tentatively scheduled for construction in 2009 and first operation in 2015. "In fact, there'll have to be something of an overlap of operations as well," Y-12 spokesman Steven Wyatt said. "Then the current wet chemistry will go into a deactivation phase." According to an old study guide for workers, highly enriched uranium is processed at Y-12 to prepare the material for storage or use in reactor fuel, bomb components and specialty compounds. "The recovery and purification process for HEU relies on the unique physical and chemical properties of uranium in a nitrate system, where uranium forms a strong cationic complex with nitrate anions in the form of uranyl nitrate," the document said. "The approach to recovery and purification, therefore, consists of chemically changing HEU (contained in scrap and waste) into a nitrate solution through dissolution, leaching and other processes and using the chemical properties of uranium to concentrate, purify, extract and, finally, convert the HEU into a pure, metallic form." + Once upon a time, the inventory of nickel inside the uranium-enrichment processes at the K-25 plant was going to help pay for that massive cleanup job in Oak Ridge. That was before then-Energy Secretary Bill Richardson issued a moratorium on selling radioactively contaminated scrap from the Department of Energy's facilities, including those in Oak Ridge. BNFL, the former Oak Ridge contractor that dismantled the processing equipment inside three of the huge buildings - K-29, K-31 and K-33 - rescued about 5,600 tons of nickel. Instead of decontaminating the nickel and selling it on the open market, as was the original plan, BNFL simply put it into storage. At last report, the nickel remained in storage at K-33 while DOE looked for a nuclear reuse for the contaminated metal. Meanwhile, work is proceeding on the dismantling of two other uranium-enrichment behemoths: the original K-25 building and its sister facility, K-27. BNFL is no longer around, and Bechtel Jacobs, DOE's cleanup manager, isn't wasting any time segregating the nickel inside those two buildings. About 840 tons of nickel will be bulldozed along with the rest of the metal and concrete rubble and shipped to the government's nuclear landfill in Oak Ridge. "We're not salvaging anything out of it," Becthel Jacobs spokesman Dennis Hill said. "All of that's going for disposal." Senior writer Frank Munger covers the Department of Energy for the News Sentinel. He may be reached at 865-342-6329 or at munger@knews.com. 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