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                         NUCLEAR POLICY
 
1 BBC NEWS: Iraq war justifications laid bare
2 washingtonpost.com: U.S. Casualties in Iraq Rise Sharply - 
3 BBC NEWS: Iran rejects six nations' demands
4 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: Talks key to resolve Iran's N-issue 
5 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: Anxiety over IRI N-issue, baseless 
6 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: Speaker urges 5+1 to soften tone 
7 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: EP, Iran MPs to meet in Brussels 
8 Guardian Unlimited: Iran: Sanctions Threat a 'Rusty' Weapon
9 AFP: Sanctions threat against Iran back on front burner
10 AFP: Sanctions threat against Iran back on front burner 
11 AFP: Iran refuses to halt enrichment despite sanctions moves
12 UPI: Sanctions closer for stubborn Iran
13 Guardian Unlimited: 6 World Powers to Discuss Iran Sanctions
14 N KOREA CARRIES OUT NUCLEAR TEST
15 North Korea says it conducted successful nuclear weapons test
16 UNSC urges DPRK to cancel nuke test
17 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: [EDITORIALS]Seoul further out of step
18 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: Sanctions calls mount against North Korea
19 Guardian Unlimited: N. Korea Appears to Back Down on Threat
20 US: SF Chron: North Korean nuclear test may indicate nation's aims /
21 Guardian Unlimited: Japan, China: N. Korea Test Unacceptable
22 AFP: World powers urge NKorea to cancel nuclear test 
23 AFP: Domino effect of N Korean nuclear test will harden Iran's resol
24 AFP: China, Japan express "deep concern" at NKorea nuclear plans -
25 Japan Times: Japan, U.S. to seek sanctions if North Korea sets off n
26 Guardian Unlimited: Tensions Rise Over North Korean Threat
27 UPI: Kim: U.S. should talk directly to N. Korea
28 Guardian Unlimited: Tensions Mount Over North Korean Threat
29 US: Rutland Herald: Energy a hot issue this election season
30 Experts warn of an accidental atomic war
31 ANI: India's nuke deal talks with US have to wait - Menon
32 Guardian Unlimited: Brown heckled on nuclear weapons
33 ANI: Pak says it won't accept nuclear 'discrimination'
34 IANS: Russia keen to expand nuclear cooperation with India
35 AFP: Rice wraps up snag-filled trip to Middle East and London -
36 AFP: Nuclear renewal rooted in new political climate - NEA -        
 
                         NUCLEAR REACTORS
 
37 Nuclear Hypocrisy: Washington backs Egypt's civil nuclear program sa
38 Guardian Unlimited: Nuclear sector calls for new agency
39 US: Longview News-Journal: Rusk County could land nuclear plant
40 Gulfnews: Egypt's nuclear challenge
41 US: San Luis Obispo Tribune: Access issue stalls opening of Diablo C
42 MDN: Seaweed clog shuts down nuclear reactor - 
43 India News: Hearing on more reactors at Koodankulam put off - 
44 TheStar.com: Right to invest in nuclear energy
45 US: Worcester News: What Happened When County Soldiers Had To Destro
46 US: Daily Press: Transformers quit, shut down Surry nuclear reactor
47 US: TN: Nuclear power is not best way to get electricity 
48 rozhovor: Austrian activists block border in protest against Temelin
49 US: Hudson Valley News: Entergy tells NRC the new Indian Point notif
 
                          NUCLEAR SECURITY
 
 
                          NUCLEAR SAFETY
 
50 US: US Cancer Secret: 1959 Simi Valley Nuclear Accident
51 FOXNews.com: Spain, U.S. Agree to Radioactivity Cleanup 
52 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Research seeks pills for anti-radiation
53 Japan Times: Japan starts radiation study with South Korea
54 Japan Times: Monitoring sites gearing up to gauge radiation
 
                         NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
 
55 US: Daily Sentinel: Uranium mill likely coming to West Slope
56 Summit Daily News: Two weeks in the West: an update on environmental
57 US: Bradenton Herald: Toxic discrimination
58 US: SanLuisObispo.com: A place for waste 
59 RIA Novosti: Belarus warns Lithuania on nuclear storage site near bo
60 US: Radio Polonia: Uncovering old uranium deposits in south-west Pol
61 US: YubaNet.com: Boxer and Feinstein letter to EPA on Perchlorate
62 AFP: Secret nuclear waste disposal sites revealed 
 
                           PEACE
 
 
                        US DEPT. OF ENERGY
 
63 Rocky Mountain News: Drilling at nuke site opposed                  
64 Pahrump Valley Times: Test site report indicates no off-site radioac
65 Las Vegas SUN: Editorial: A disturbing trend 
66 Hanford News: B Reactor roof construction delayed until next summer
67 Hanford News: K East Basins close to cleanup
68 Tri-City Herald: Senate hopefuls differ on future of Hanford site 
69 Hanford News: Court awards $143 million to reactor companies over wa
70 Hanford News: Hanford empties fifth tank, 144 to go
71 SF Chron: Group files longshot bid for control of lab /
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                         FULL NEWS STORIES
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 1 BBC NEWS: Iraq war justifications laid bare
 
Last Updated: Saturday, 9 September 2006, 00:04 GMT 01:04

  By Adam Brookes BBC News, Washington   

The Senate Intelligence Committee has found no evidence of links 
between the regime of Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda. 

[Composite image of Saddam Hussein at his trial in Aug 2006 and 
an undated US Department of Defense handout photo of Abu Musab 
al-Zarqawi, who was killed in June]                                
No allies: Saddam Hussein and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi                                                                 

In a report issued on Friday, it also found that was little or no 
evidence to support a raft of claims made by the US intelligence 
community concerning Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. 

The 400-page report was three years in the making, and is
probably the definitive public account of the intelligence used
to justify the invasion of Iraq. 

One starting point is this: 

In a poll conducted this month by Opinion Research Corporation
for CNN, a sample of American adults was asked: "Do you think
Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the 11 September
terrorist attacks, or not?" 

Forty-three percent of those polled answered yes, they believed
Saddam was personally involved. 

Even though it is well-established that Saddam Hussein was no
ally of al-Qaeda, nor did he possess weapons of mass
destruction, the original justifications for the invasion for
Iraq linger on, often in ways that have strangely mutated on
their journey through politics and media. 

Cheney claims 'untrue' 

In fact, the intelligence agencies had been extremely cautious
in suggesting links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda. 

[George W Bush and Dick Cheney at the 2002 State of the Union 
address]                              

Mr Bush and Mr Cheney have been making the link for years                                                              

It was Vice-President Dick Cheney who asserted most strongly in 
public that Saddam Hussein's regime and al-Qaeda had an 
operational relationship. 

In a television interview in September 2003, he said there was "a 
relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda that stretched back 
through most of the decade of the '90s... al-Qaeda sent personnel 
to Baghdad to get trained... the Iraqis providing bomb-making 
expertise and advice to the al-Qaeda organisation." 

It was "clearly official policy" on the part of Iraq, he said. 

Friday's report, issued by the Senate Select Committee on 
Intelligence, provides another definitive statement that that 
assertion is simply not true. 

It says that debriefings conducted since the invasion of Iraq 
"indicate that Saddam issued a general order that Iraq should not 
deal with al-Qaeda. No post-war information suggests that the 
Iraqi regime attempted to facilitate a relationship with [Osama] 
Bin Laden. 

"Saddam Hussein was distrustful of al-Qaeda... refusing all 
requests from al-Qaeda to provide material or operational 
support." 

Administration confusion 

The report supports the intelligence community's finding that Abu 
Musab al-Zarqawi - the man who was al-Qaeda's chief operative in 
Iraq between the invasion and his death in June this year - was 
indeed in Baghdad in 2002. 

Saddam Hussein was distrustful of al-Qaeda and viewed Islamic 
extremists as a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from 
al-Qaeda to provide material or operational support          [ 
src=] Senate report Most computers will open PDF documents 
automatically, but you may need to download Adobe Acrobat Reader   
[ src=] 'Terror war' loses direction Quick guide: Al-Qaeda                                

Was this an Iraqi link to al-Qaeda? 

No, says the report. Far from harbouring him, Saddam's regime was 
trying to find and capture him. 

But the Bush administration has a way, still, of confusing this 
issue. 

As recently as 21 August this year, President Bush said that 
Saddam "had relations with Zarqawi". 

The Senate report is scathing of the intelligence community's 
product concerning Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. 

"Post-war findings", it reads, "do not support the 2002 National 
Intelligence Estimate judgement that Iraq was reconstituting its 
nuclear weapons program." 

Nor do "post-war findings" support the 2002 NIE's assertions that 
Iraq had chemical or biological weapons. 

Political fallout 

to damage the Republican Party in the run-up to Congressional 
elections in November by reminding the American public of the 
intelligence debacle that preceded the invasion of Iraq, and 
ascribing that failure to the leadership of the Bush 
administration. 

[Senator Carl Levin]                            

Sen Carl Levin said the report was damning

It is far from clear they'll be able to do so. 

The president has been extremely active in the last week, selling 
his successes in the "war on terror" in a series of speeches; 
demanding Congress give him greater powers to fight it; and 
announcing that the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks will 
be brought to trial. 

The Democratic Party still seems unable to find a concerted 
critique of President Bush's handling of the "war on terrorism" 
and the conflict in Iraq, without themselves appearing defeatist.
*****************************************************************
 2 washingtonpost.com: U.S. Casualties in Iraq Rise Sharply - 

U.S. Casualties in Iraq Rise Sharply

Growing American Role in Staving Off Civil War Leads to Most
Wounded Since 2004

By Ann Scott TysonWashington Post Staff Writer

Sunday, October 8, 2006; Page A01

The number of U.S troops wounded in Iraqhas surged to its
highest monthly level in nearly two years as American GIs fight
block-by-block in Baghdad to try to check a spiral of sectarian
violence that U.S. commanders warn could lead to civil war.

Last month, 776 U.S. troops were wounded in action in Iraq, the
highest number since the military assault to retake the
insurgent-held city of Fallujah in November 2004, according to
Defense Department data. It was the fourth-highest monthly total
since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

The sharp increase in American wounded -- with nearly 300 more
in the first week of October -- is a grim measure of the degree
to which the U.S. military has been thrust into the lead of the
effort to stave off full-scale civil war in Iraq, military
officials and experts say. Beyond Baghdad, Marines battling
Sunni insurgents in Iraq's western province of Anbar last month
also suffered their highest number of wounded in action since
late 2004.

More than 20,000 U.S. troops have been wounded in combat in the
Iraq war, and about half have returned to duty. While much media
reporting has focused on the more than 2,700 killed, military
experts say the number of wounded is a more accurate gauge of
the fierceness of fighting because advances in armor and medical
care today allow many service members to survive who would have
perished in past wars. The ratio of wounded to killed among U.S.
forces in Iraq is about 8 to 1, compared with 3 to 1 in Vietnam.

"These days, wounded are a much better measure of the intensity
of the operations than killed," said Anthony H. Cordesman, a
military expert at the Center for Strategic and International
Studies in Washington.

The surge in wounded comes as U.S. commanders issue increasingly
dire warnings about the threat of civil war in Iraq, all but
ruling out cuts in the current contingent of more than 140,000
U.S. troops before the spring of 2007. Last month Gen. John P.
Abizaid, the top commander in the Middle East, said "sectarian
tensions, if left unchecked, could be fatal to Iraq," making it
imperative that the U.S. military now focus its "main effort"
squarely on Baghdad.

Thousands of additional U.S. troops have been ordered to Baghdad
since July to reinforce Iraqi soldiers and police who failed to
halt -- or were in some cases complicit in -- a wave of hundreds
of killings of Iraqi civilians by rival Sunni and Shiite groups.

U.S. commanders have appealed for weeks for 3,000 more Iraqi
army troops to help secure Baghdad but as of Thursday had
received only a few hundred, according to military officials in
the Iraqi capital. Mistrust of Iraqi police in Baghdad remains
high, Abizaid said. Last week, an Iraqi police brigade with
hundreds of officers was removed from duty over its involvement
in sectarian killings.

"The Baghdad security plan and the general spiral of operations
is driving us to be more active than we have been in recent
months," said Michael E. O'Hanlon, a military analyst at the
Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank. "We have
more people on patrols and out of base, so we get more people
hurt and killed in firefights," he said, explaining that U.S.
military offensives -- more than other factors such as shifting
enemy tactics -- tend to drive the number of American casualties.

In March, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said that Iraqi
forces -- not U.S. troops -- would deal with a civil war in Iraq
"to the extent one were to occur." Today's operations in Baghdad
demonstrate that that goal was not realistic, experts say.

"In a sense, the Baghdad security plan is a complete repudiation
of the earlier Rumsfeld doctrine where he said the Iraqis would
prevent the civil war," said O'Hanlon.

Despite the mounting cost in U.S. wounded and dead -- including
13 American soldiers killed in combat in Baghdad in three days
last week -- Pentagon officials say aggressive military
operations in the Iraqi capital are at best a short-term and
partial solution, buying time for political compromise, which
they call the only way to arrest Iraq's disintegration.

"The Baghdad security plan will only be a temporary fix," said a 
Pentagon official who has served in Iraq. "You need to address 
the root causes," said the official, who spoke on the condition 
of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.

The rising toll of wounded reflects ongoing heavy combat in Anbar 
as well as in Baghdad, where U.S. troops face an escalation of 
small-arms and other attacks as they push into the city's most 
violent neighborhoods to rein in sectarian death squads, militias 
and insurgents, officers say.
        
"Attacks against the coalition have definitely increased as . . . 
the enemy is trying to come in and reestablish themselves" in a 
dozen religiously divided districts in east and west Baghdad, 
said Lt. Col. Jonathan Withington, a spokesman for the U.S. 
military command in the city. "There's a lot of weapons in 
Baghdad," contributing to an increase in enemy attacks using 
small arms, he said.

Withington said he was not authorized to release the number of 
U.S. military personnel wounded in Baghdad or the number of 
attacks in the city, although the military has released such data 
in the past.

A survey of reports on combat deaths from August through early 
October, however, shows an increase in those killed in Baghdad 
from small-arms fire as well as bombs along roads. Dense urban 
terrain in the city of 6 million people, where enemy fighters 
have many places to hide and can attack from close quarters, 
reduces the advantage of the better-trained and better-equipped 
U.S. forces.

"September was horrific" in terms of the toll of wounded, and if 
the early October trend continues, this month could be "the worst 
month of the war," said John E. Pike, director of 
GlobalSecurity.org, a Virginia-based Web site that tracks defense 
issues.

The worsening violence in Baghdad has led some Pentagon officials 
to criticize decisions by the U.S. military since early 2005 to 
transfer responsibility for security in large swaths of Baghdad 
to Iraqi forces while cutting back on American patrols.

"We made decisions to take an indirect approach, which is great 
if you want low U.S. casualty rates," said the Pentagon official. 
However, he said: "Passing responsibility to Iraqis does not 
equal defeating terrorists and neutralizing the insurgency. 
Period."

 Copyright 1996- The Washington Post Company | User
*****************************************************************
 3 BBC NEWS: Iran rejects six nations' demands

Updated: Sunday, 8 October 2006, 15:50 GMT 16:50

[A general view of the Bushehr nuclear reactor] 
The UN Security Council is expected to discuss sanctions next 
week

Iran has refused to suspend its uranium enrichment programme 
after six key countries agreed to discuss possible sanctions 
against Tehran. 

A spokesman for Iran's foreign ministry said suspension was
"unacceptable" and the threat of sanctions "inefficient". 

The five permanent UN Security Council members and Germany held
talks in the UK on Friday to discuss Iran's repeated refusal to
halt nuclear activities. 

Despite fears it is developing nuclear arms, Iran says its aims 
are peaceful. 

"The suspension is completely unacceptable and we have rejected 
it," foreign ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini told 
reporters. 

"The threat of sanctions is an inefficient means to achieve a 
solution," he said. 

Russia and China favour diplomacy, not sanctions. A UN debate on 
punitive action could start as early as next week. 

'Time limited' 

Speaking after discussions in London, UK Foreign Secretary 
Margaret Beckett said the six powers would "consult on measures 
under article 41 of Chapter 7 of the UN Charter". 

[Iranian student outside Isfahan uranium enrichment plant in 
Iran.] Iran's nuclear programme is popular with many in the 
country                                                             

Article 41 authorises the Security Council to apply non-military 
means, such as economic or diplomatic sanctions, "to give effect 
to its decisions". 

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said earlier that "the door 
to negotiations is and will be always open", despite saying 
earlier this week that little progress had been made in his 
"endless hours" of talks with Tehran. 

He said the issue could only be solved through negotiations, 
although talks could not go on forever. 

The six nations - the UK, Russia, China, France, the US and 
Germany - had offered Iran a package of incentives in return for 
the suspension of its uranium enrichment programme. 

Iran missed a 31 August UN Security Council deadline to stop 
work, after which the US agreed to allow Mr Solana to continue 
talks with Tehran. 

But BBC diplomatic correspondent James Robbins says the major 
powers now seem to accept that Iran is not prepared to meet their 
demand for a halt. 

'Extreme measures' 

There are sharp differences between the six countries attending 
the meeting on what kind of sanctions to possibly impose on Iran. 

[President Ahmadinejad opens the Arak heavy water plant on 26 
August, 2006 ] Tehran says it will not give up its nuclear 
programme                                                           

The US and the UK favour immediate punitive sanctions, but in 
order to win over Russia and China, they are believed to be 
considering a series of low-level sanctions as a first step. 

These would be what British officials describe as incremental, 
proportional and reversible. 

They could include travel restrictions on Iranian officials and 
embargoes on missile and nuclear technology that could have dual 
civilian-military use. 

But China and Russia have both said diplomacy is still the best 
way to achieve a solution. 

On Thursday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov described 
sanctions as "extreme measures". 

He said he would like to "see what extra possibilities exist to 
pursue multiparty diplomatic efforts". 

Russia has built a nuclear power station in Iran and China relies 
on oil imports from the country.                                                          

*****************************************************************
 4 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: Talks key to resolve Iran's N-issue 

  2006/10/08   
  
Parliament Speaker Gholamali Haddad-Adel said in Tehran on
Sunday dialog is the only way to settle Iran's nuclear issue.
 
Addressing an open session of parliament, Haddad-Adel said,
"Since we have logic, we are not afraid of talks."
 
Referring to the new round of talks of certain countries over
imposing sanctions and threats against Iran, Haddad-Adel said,
since the result of talks between Iran's Secretary of the
Supreme National Security Council, Ali Larijani and EU Foreign
Policy C hief, Javier Solana, were positive and satisfactoy,
talks to impose sanction and threat show that certain countries,
America in particulare are after pretexts to exert pressure.
 
He reiterated that Iran is fully ready to solve the issue
through diplomacy.
 
The top parliamentarian official further said Tehran has
expressed several times that Tehran is at the ready to cooperate
with IAEA's observers, based on international regulations.
 
He added that if the other side wants to settle the issue
logically and through talks, Iran would continue the way,
otherwise Majlis as the representative of the Iranian nation
would assert the nation's inalienable right to produce peacefull
nuclear ener gy.
 
mk   

  Copyright 2004, All Rights Reserved By Islamic Republic of Iran 
Broadcasting News Network Sponsored By IRIB News Computer Center. 
E-Mail: Info@IRIBNEWS.ir     
*****************************************************************
 5 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: Anxiety over IRI N-issue, baseless 

  2006/10/07   
  
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad referred to Iran as a nuclear
power and called on Arab states to have exchange of views with
Iran based on realities. 

He made the remark in an interview with the Kuwaiti al-Anba
Daily, which was published on Saturday.

 At the interview he referred to Iran as a great country with
high influence on Arabs and said that similarly Arabs influence
Iran.

 Assad underlined that Arabs should exchange views with this
powerful country by taking into view the realities rather than
having a sentimental approach.

 Stressing the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program, he
considered the West's approach to Iran as political.

 He said that the anxiety of some Arab states bordering the
Persian Gulf on the impact of Iran's nuclear activities on
environment is baseless.

 "After the Iranian officials were informed by Syria of such
concerns, some delegations departed to various Arab states,
including Kuwait, to clarify the issue and remove their
anxieties," he added.

 Underlining that Arabs should rather have concern over the
Zionist regime's nuclear program, he said that given the
regime's history and its intention to use atomic bomb against
Arabs in 1973, Arab countries should actually worry about the
peril of Tel Aviv's military nuclear program instead of Iran's
peaceful nuclear activities.

 M.H.Z   

  Copyright 2004, All Rights Reserved By Islamic Republic of Iran 
Broadcasting News Network Sponsored By IRIB News Computer Center. 
E-Mail: Info@IRIBNEWS.ir     
*****************************************************************
 6 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: Speaker urges 5+1 to soften tone 

  2006/10/08   


Majlis Speaker Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel Sunday recommended group
5+1 not to speak with the Iranian nation with a language of
threats and sanctions. 

Haddad-Adel made the remark at Majlis open session while
addressing the group 1+5.

 "The Islamic Consultative Assembly, which is the mouthpiece of
the Iranian nation, stresses peaceful use of nuclear energy," he
said.

 Pointing to positive talks recently held between Secretary of
Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) and the European Union
Foreign Policy Chief Javier Solana, the Speaker added, "Though
the two sides were happy with outcomes of talks, certain remarks
made at the session of group 5+1 over the past two days showed
signs of threats and sanctions."

 The session of group 5+1 once again raised the issues of the
Security Council and threats, he said, adding, "Iran is ready to
continue nuclear talks because it speaks logically and does not
intend to violate international regulations and those of the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

 M.H.Z   

  Copyright 2004, All Rights Reserved By Islamic Republic of Iran 
Broadcasting News Network Sponsored By IRIB News Computer Center. 
E-Mail: Info@IRIBNEWS.ir     
*****************************************************************
 7 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: EP, Iran MPs to meet in Brussels 

  2006/10/08   
  
For the first time since it was set up in 2004, the delegation 
for relations with Iran in the European Parliament will hold 
inter-parliamentary meeting with its Iranian counterparts in 
Brussels on Monday. 

According to an EP announcement, MEPs and members of the Majlis 
will discuss trade relations, negotiations on the Iranian nuclear 
program, cooperation in international energy security, Iran's 
accession to the WTO, human rights issues, the situation in the 
Middle East and the fight against terrorism and drugs 
trafficking. 

The Iranian parliamentary delegation will be led by Mahmoud 
Mohammadi, chair of the Majlis' foreign relations committee. 

SM   

  Copyright 2004, All Rights Reserved By Islamic Republic of Iran 
Broadcasting News Network Sponsored By IRIB News Computer Center. 
E-Mail: Info@IRIBNEWS.ir     
*****************************************************************
 8 Guardian Unlimited: Iran: Sanctions Threat a 'Rusty' Weapon
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Sunday October 8, 2006 11:01 PM

AP Photo NY190 

By NASSER KARIMI 

Associated Press Writer 

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran called the threat of international
sanctions over its disputed nuclear program a ``rusty'' weapon
and repeated Sunday that it would not abandon uranium
enrichment. 

The six countries at the center of efforts to persuade Iran to
drop uranium enrichment - a key step toward making nuclear
weapons - said Friday they have agreed to pursue possible
sanctions. 

However, all five permanent security council members - the U.S.,
France, Britain, Russia and China - along with Germany stopped
short of demanding Iran be punished by the U.N. Security
Council. 

``Both officials and people in Iran have always viewed threats
of sanctions as a rusty and derelict weapon,'' Foreign Ministry
spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said at a weekly news briefing.
``They are accustomed to the threats.'' 

However, Hosseini said Iran does not ``welcome sanctions'' and
that they would damage both Iran and the countries that impose
them. 

Although he reiterated Iran's determination to continue
enriching uranium, Hosseini said ``negotiation is the best
way.'' 

He said Iran will resume negotiations with European nations,
talks that are seen as a final attempt to avoid a full-blown
confrontation between Tehran and the Security Council. Hosseini
did not offer specifics on the talks, such as when they might
begin. 

In September, European Union envoy Javier Solana and Iranian
envoy Ali Larijani ended two days of talks in Berlin with no
agreement on the enrichment issue. They insisted, however, that
they had made progress on ways to open broader discussions. 

Those talks came after Iran ignored an Aug. 31 deadline to
suspend uranium enrichment or face punishment. 

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday told a cabinet meeting:
``Some bullying powers, applying intimidation and threats,
intend to confront Iran's nuclear rights but our nation has
strongly and smartly resisted,'' according to state television. 
		 	 	   
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
 9 AFP: Sanctions threat against Iran back on front burner

 by Pierre Lesourd Sat Oct 7, 8:29 AM ET 		 	 

LONDON (AFP) - The United States, following crunch talks in 
London, geared up for tough negotiations with other world powers 
over a draft UN resolution to impose sanctions against Iran" /> 
Iranfor its nuclear program. 

 Senior US official Nicholas Burns said the five permanent UN
Security Council members -- the United States, Russia, China,
Britain, and France -- plus Germany would start drafting next
week a sanctions resolution. 

However, he conceded that the tough part would be deciding the
extent of punitive measures following the talks here that
involved US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice" /> Condoleezza
Riceand top diplomats from the five other nations. 

In a statement issued by host Britain, the group agreed to
discuss sanctions and lamented Tehran's refusal to suspend
uranium enrichment, but insisted that the door remains open to
negotiations if Tehran were to back down. 

Burns, the US under secretary of state for political affairs,
said that work on a new Security Council resolution under
Article 41 of the UN charter, which allows for diplomatic and
economic sanctions, would start next week. 

It would probably kick off Tuesday or Wednesday with a video
conference involving him and his five counterparts before it is
pursued a day later at the level of the ambassadors at the
United Nations" /> United Nationsof the six powers, he added. 

"I am quite confident that we are now heading towards a
sanctions resolution," Burns told BBC radio on Saturday. 

"There will be tough negotiations ahead to define the specific
nature of those sanctions. This is always a complex business." 

He could not give an estimate of how long the talks would last. 

Burns played down suggestions that Russia and China remain
reluctant to pursue sanctions against Iran, despite its refusal
to comply with an earlier Security Council resolution calling on
Tehran to suspend uranium enrichment. 

"It is very clear that this group of countries is united," Burns
said. "The Iranians believed, apparently, that they could divide
this group. They haven't succeeded in doing that." 

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, whose country has balked
at US-led calls for sanctions on Tehran, reiterated after the
talks here Friday that the standoff still could be resolved
through negotiations. 

British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett, who chaired the
talks, also cautioned that the sanctions debate "will require a
great deal of work and understanding." 

French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said "the door to
dialogue will remain open," allowing for the Islamic republic to
back down. 

"We decided in unison to work together in the coming days" on
"sanctions which are proportionate and reversible," he said. 

Washington has long led charges that Iran's nuclear program is a
covert grab for atomic weapons, something that Tehran has hotly
denied. Tehran argues that the nuclear program is purely for
civilian energy purposes. 

European Union" /> European Unionforeign policy chief Javier
Solana has held a series of talks with Iranian negotiators in
recent months in order to get them to consider EU trade
proposals in exchange for halting nuclear enrichment, but
pressure for an accord intensified after Iran failed to meet a
UN deadline by August 31. 

Rice has said the United States wants a graduated series of
sanctions, to be implemented through multiple UN resolutions
that would ramp up pressure on Iran if it persists with its
nuclear program. 

The first set of measures is expected to focus on preventing the
supply of material and funding for Iran's nuclear or ballistic
missile programmes. 

Other steps could include asset freezes and travel bans on
officials linked to possible Iranian weapons programmes. 

Expectations for the London meeting had been low, partly because
a technical problem with Rice's plane in northern Iraq" />
Iraqmade her late for the meeting here, but US officials said
they were "very pleased and gratified" by the outcome. 

China, the only country not represented at the ministerial level
here, was represented by Zhang Yan, an armament expert. 	 		 			

  Copyright © 2006 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 10 AFP: Sanctions threat against Iran back on front burner 

 by Pierre Lesourd Sat Oct 7, 5:59 PM ET 		 	 

LONDON (AFP) - The United States, following crunch talks in 
London, geared up for tough negotiations with other world powers 
over a draft UN resolution to impose sanctions against Iran" /> 
Iranfor its nuclear program. 

 Senior US official Nicholas Burns said the five permanent UN
Security Council members -- the United States, Russia, China,
Britain, and France -- plus Germany would start drafting next
week a sanctions resolution. 

However, he conceded that the tough part would be deciding the
extent of punitive measures following the talks here that
involved US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice" /> Condoleezza
Riceand top diplomats from the five other nations. 

In a statement issued by host Britain, the group agreed to
discuss sanctions and lamented Tehran's refusal to suspend
uranium enrichment, but insisted that the door remains open to
negotiations if Tehran were to back down. 

Burns, the US under secretary of state for political affairs,
said that work on a new Security Council resolution under
Article 41 of the UN charter, which allows for diplomatic and
economic sanctions, would start next week. 

It would probably kick off Tuesday or Wednesday with a video
conference involving him and his five counterparts before it is
pursued a day later at the level of the ambassadors at the
United Nations" /> United Nationsof the six powers, he added. 

"I am quite confident that we are now heading towards a
sanctions resolution," Burns told BBC radio on Saturday. 

"There will be tough negotiations ahead to define the specific
nature of those sanctions. This is always a complex business." 

He could not give an estimate of how long the talks would last. 

Burns played down suggestions that Russia and China remain
reluctant to pursue sanctions against Iran, despite its refusal
to comply with an earlier Security Council resolution calling on
Tehran to suspend uranium enrichment. 

"It is very clear that this group of countries is united," Burns
said. "The Iranians believed, apparently, that they could divide
this group. They haven't succeeded in doing that." 

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, whose country has balked
at US-led calls for sanctions on Tehran, reiterated after the
talks here Friday that the standoff still could be resolved
through negotiations. 

British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett, who chaired the
talks, also cautioned that the sanctions debate "will require a
great deal of work and understanding." 

French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said "the door to
dialogue will remain open," allowing for the Islamic republic to
back down. 

"We decided in unison to work together in the coming days" on
"sanctions which are proportionate and reversible," he said. 

Washington has long led charges that Iran's nuclear program is a
covert grab for atomic weapons, something that Tehran has hotly
denied. Tehran argues that the nuclear program is purely for
civilian energy purposes. 

European Union" /> European Unionforeign policy chief Javier
Solana has held a series of talks with Iranian negotiators in
recent months in order to get them to consider EU trade
proposals in exchange for halting nuclear enrichment, but
pressure for an accord intensified after Iran failed to meet a
UN deadline by August 31. 

Rice has said the United States wants a graduated series of
sanctions, to be implemented through multiple UN resolutions
that would ramp up pressure on Iran if it persists with its
nuclear program. 

The first set of measures is expected to focus on preventing the
supply of material and funding for Iran's nuclear or ballistic
missile programmes. 

Other steps could include asset freezes and travel bans on
officials linked to possible Iranian weapons programmes. 

Expectations for the London meeting had been low, partly because
a technical problem with Rice's plane in northern Iraq" />
Iraqmade her late for the meeting here, but US officials said
they were "very pleased and gratified" by the outcome. 

China, the only country not represented at the ministerial level
here, was represented by Zhang Yan, an armament expert. 	 		 			

  Copyright © 2006 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 11 AFP: Iran refuses to halt enrichment despite sanctions moves

 by Stuart Williams Sun Oct 8, 2:23 PM ET 		 	 

TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran" /> flatly refused to suspend uranium 
enrichment despite moves at the UN Security Council to draft a 
sanctions resolution against it for failing to halt the sensitive 
nuclear work. 

 "The suspension is completely unacceptable and we have rejected
it," foreign ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini told
reporters. "It has no place in Iran's peaceful nuclear
programme." 

His comments marked an unequivocal refusal from Tehran to back
down in the face of pressure to suspend uranium enrichment, a
process which the West fears could be diverted towards making
nuclear weapons. 

"The greatest sanction would be for a generation to deprive its
own people and future generations of nuclear technology," he
added. 

In a meeting late on Friday, representatives of the five UN
Security Council permanent members plus Germany agreed to
discuss sanctions against Tehran after it failed to suspend
sensitive uranium enrichment operations. 

Senior US official Nicholas Burns said the so-called "5+1" group
would start drafting this week a sanctions resolution, although
he admitted finding a consensus on the extent of punitive
measures would be difficult. 

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also maintained his defiant
stance, brushing off the intensifying moves to impose sanctions
against Iran over its nuclear programme. 

"The Islamic Republic of Iran is interested in talks and
negotiations, and resorting to the language of force and threats
will have no results with Iran," official media quoted him as
saying. 

Ahmadinejad also said in a meeting with his cabinet that Western
powers "intend to achieve their aims through intimidation and
threats". 

"But our people are strong, wise and steadfast, and will not
back down on their rightful position," he added, according to
the ISNA news agency. 

General Yahya Rahim Safavi, head of the Revolutionary Guards,
warned that "in this sensitive situation we have to be ready to
confront the probable foreign threats," ISNA also reported. 

Alaedin Borujerdi, the head of parliament's foreign affairs
committee, said any hasty measures by the West would spark "as a
consequence a reaction by the parliament and national security
council." 

However the momentum towards imposing some kind of UN sanctions
regime on Tehran appears strong after the London meeting, which
gathered US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice" /> and top
diplomats from the five other countries. 

In a statement issued by host Britain, the group agreed to
discuss sanctions and lamented Tehran's refusal to suspend
uranium enrichment, but insisted that the door remains open to
negotiations if Tehran were to back down. 

Burns, the US under secretary of state for political affairs,
said that work on a new Security Council resolution under
Article 41 of the UN charter, which allows for diplomatic and
economic sanctions, would start next week. 

It remains to be seen what kind of sanctions regime will be
acceptable to Russia and China, which have both always insisted
on the importance of a diplomatic solution to the crisis. 

Hosseini claimed the world powers were split over what action to
take against Iran. 

"Divisions have even appeared within the UN Security Council.
With the policy of Iran's government, these divisions have
become more apparent," he said. 

Iran's insistence on its right to enrich uranium lies at the
heart of the crisis. The process can be used to make nuclear
fuel and, in highly extended form, the fissile 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. 

Rice has said the United States wants a graduated series of
sanctions, to be implemented through multiple UN resolutions
that would ramp up pressure on Iran if it persists with its
nuclear work. 

The first set of measures is expected to focus on preventing the
supply of material and funding for Iran's nuclear or ballistic
missile programmes. 

Other steps could include asset freezes and travel bans on
officials linked to possible Iranian weapons programmes. 	 		 			
 							 					 					 					 					 					 					 					 					 					

  Copyright © 2006 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 12 UPI: Sanctions closer for stubborn Iran
     
United Press International - NewsTrack - 

        10/7/2006 3:07:00 PM -0400

LONDON, Oct. 7 (UPI) -- The six world powers that met in London
to discuss Iran's nuclear program have agreed in principle to
impose sanctions on Iran, a U.S. official said. 

"The decision has been made we'll go for sanctions,"
Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns
said after the ministerial-level meeting among United States,
Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia Friday. "The question
is what will the extent of the sanctions be." 

The Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz confirmed Saturday the delegates
agreed in principle to sanctions because of Iran's refusal to
suspend uranium enrichment. 

The U.N. Security Council is set to begin informal discussions
on a new, tougher resolution about the Iranian nuclear issue
next week. 

Russia said Friday it was still open to negotiations with Iran. 

In June, the six countries offered Iran economic and political
incentives to halt uranium enrichment. 

Iran says its nuclear program is only for power generation and
has refused to stop uranium enrichment.

© Copyright 2006 United Press International, Inc. All Rights
Reserved

*****************************************************************
 13 Guardian Unlimited: 6 World Powers to Discuss Iran Sanctions
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Saturday October 7, 2006 12:46 PM

AP Photo LON110 

By BETH GARDINER 

Associated Press Writer 

LONDON (AP) - Six key world powers have agreed to discuss
possible sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program but
shied away from demanding Tehran be punished by the U.N.
Security Council. 

The United States, Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia
said in a joint statement Friday night after talks in London
that they were ``deeply disappointed'' by Tehran's refusal to
suspend uranium enrichment, a key step toward making nuclear
weapons. 

Apparently divided about how quickly to move, the powers stopped
short of declaring European negotiations with Iran a failure, as
some had expected them to do. 

U.S. Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns told American and
British media that work on a new U.N. Security Council
resolution allowing for sanctions would start next week. 

``I am quite confident that we are now heading toward a
sanctions resolution,'' he told British Broadcasting Corp.
radio. ``There will be tough negotiations ahead to define the
specific nature of those sanctions. This is always a complex
business.'' 

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said officials from
the six nations will continue their talks in a teleconference on
Monday or Tuesday. 

Reading the joint statement, British Foreign Secretary Margaret
Beckett said Iran had two choices when the United Nations
demanded that it halt enrichment activities. ``We regret that
Iran has not yet taken the positive one,'' she said. 

European foreign policy chief Javier Solana briefed the group on
his stalled nuclear negotiations with Tehran. Beckett said the
envoys were ``deeply disappointed that he has had to report that
Iran is not prepared to suspend its enrichment-related
reprocessing activities.'' 

She said they ``will now consult on measures under Article 41 of
Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter.'' 

Article 41 authorizes the Security Council to impose nonmilitary
sanctions such as completely or partially severing diplomatic
and economic relations, transportation and communications links. 

French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said the diplomats
would discuss ``proportionate and reversible sanctions'' and
that ``the door of dialogue'' would stay open to Iran. 

Iran insists that its enrichment of uranium is purely for
peaceful purposes to be used for nuclear energy. But the United
States and many European nations believe Iran is seeking to
produce nuclear weapons. 

The U.S. and Britain are leading the push for sanctions against
Tehran. To avoid alienating the Russians and the Chinese - both
major commercial partners of Iran - any measures are likely to
be relatively mild, including embargoes on missile and nuclear
technology, and possible travel bans and other penalties on
Iranian officials involved in their country's nuclear program. 

Britain's U.N. ambassador said Thursday that he expected ``the
Iran dossier'' to return to the Security Council in the next
week, but Beckett set no timeframe for action. 

The London meeting was disrupted by the late arrival of
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. She was delayed leaving
Iraq because of mechanical difficulties with her plane, meaning
the diplomats had little time to reach a consensus. 

But even before the logistical problems arose, it was clear
there were significant differences among the participants, with
Russia voicing reluctance to move toward sanctions and Rice
suggesting it was ``getting pretty close to ... time'' to take
Iran to the Security Council. 

``There is an issue of the credibility of the Security Council
and the international system and you simply can't just keep
talking with no outcome,'' she told reporters on her way to
London. 

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Thursday that
sanctions now would be ``extreme,'' hinted Friday that Moscow
might accept some action. 

``We do not rule out additional measures,'' the Interfax news
agency quoted him as saying in London. 

Beckett denied suggestions that the five permanent U.N. Security
Council members and Germany had been unable to agree on a course
of action. 

She told The Associated Press that the international community
was united in wishing to negotiate with Iran and urging it to
suspend enrichment. 

``None of us want to get involved in sanctions, but at the
present time, Iran is not responding to probably the most
generous offer that has ever been made by the international
community,'' she said. 

She said the package of technological and political incentives
which the six countries offered Iran in June was still on the
table if it commits to freezing enrichment. 

Iran ignored an Aug. 31 deadline to suspend uranium enrichment
or face punishment. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was
defiant Thursday, saying his country would not be intimidated. 

Before leaving Britain on Saturday, Rice met with Prime Minister
Tony Blair at his country residence, but British and U.S.
officials declined to immediately discuss the meeting. 

^--- 

Associated Press Writers Thomas Wagner and Anne Gearan in
London, Stephen Graham in Berlin and Steve Gutterman in Moscow
contributed to this report. 
		 	 	   
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
 14 N KOREA CARRIES OUT NUCLEAR TEST
 
Date: Sun, 8 Oct 2006 23:37:03 -0500 (CDT)

X-Sender-Host-Name: chumbly.math.missouri.edu
X-Spam-Class: HAM

This is a likely excuse to attack IRAN with no delay

M

=======================

http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,20548728-5006301,00.html

AdelaideNow... - home

N KOREA CARRIES OUT NUCLEAR TEST

October 09, 2006 12:45pm
Article from: AAP

NORTH  Korea  has  this  afternoon  detonated a nuclear device despite 
global  warnings  that  it  would  bring  a powerful response from the 
international community.

The  country's official Korean Central News Agency said there had been no 
radioactive leakage from the site.

"The  nuclear  test is a historic event that brought happiness to the our 
military and people," KCNA said.

"The  nuclear test will contribute to maintaining peace and stability in 
the Korean peninsula and surrounding region."

South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun has convened a meeting of security 
advisers  over  the  issue, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported, and 
intelligence  over  the test has been exchanged between concerned 
countries.

The  North  said  last week it would conduct a test, sparking regional 
concern  and  frantic diplomatic efforts aimed at dissuading Pyongyang 
from  such  a  move.  North  Korea  has  long  claimed to have nuclear 
weapons,  but  had  never  before  performed a known test to prove its 
arsenal.

The  nuclear  test  was  conducted at 10:36 a.m. (0136 GMT) in Hwaderi 
near  Kilju  city,   Yonhap   reported,  citing defence officials. The 
detonation caused a significant seismic event, which was identified by 
agencies around the world.

The  North  has refused for a year to attend international talks aimed at 
persuading  it  to  disarm.  The country pulled out of the Nuclear 
Nonproliferation  Treaty  in 2003 after U.S. officials accused it of a 
secret  nuclear  program,  allegedly violating an earlier nuclear pact 
between Washington and Pyongyang.

Speculation  over a possible North Korean test arose earlier this year 
after  U.S.  and  Japanese  reports  cited  suspicious  activity  at a 
suspected underground test site.
*****************************************************************
 15 North Korea says it conducted successful nuclear weapons test
 
Date: Mon, 9 Oct 2006 00:09:14 -0500 (CDT)

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X-Spam-Class: HAM

News Update from Citizens for Legitimate Government 08 October 2006
http://www.legitgov.org/ http://www.legitgov.org/index.html#breaking_news

North Korea says it conducted successful nuclear weapons test 08
Oct 2006 North Korea said Monday it has performed its first-ever
nuclear weapons test.

U.S. and South Korean officials could not immediately confirm the
report.

Please forward this update to anyone you think might be interested.
Those who'd like to be added to the Newsletter list can sign up:

http://www.legitgov.org/#subscribe_clg.

Please write to: signup@legitgov.org for inquiries.

CLG Newsletter editor: Lori Price, General Manager. Copyright )
2006, Citizens For Legitimate Government . All rights reserved.

*****************************************************************
 16 UNSC urges DPRK to cancel nuke test
 
Date: Sun, 8 Oct 2006 08:43:54 -0500 (CDT)

X-Sender-Host-Name: chumbly.math.missouri.edu
X-Spam-Class: HAM

People's Daily Online http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/

World

UPDATED: 11:48, October 07, 2006

UNSC urges DPRK to cancel nuke test
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200610/07/eng20061007_309674.html

The United Nations Security Council on Friday unanimously adopted a
presidential statement, expressing deep concern over the statement by
the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) that it would conduct a
nuclear test in the future.

The statement said the Security Council deems that should DPRK carry out
its threat of a nuclear weapon test, it would jeopardize peace,
stability and security in the region and beyond.

"The Security Council underlines that such a test would bring universal
condemnation by the international community and would not help the DPRK
to address the stated concerns particularly with regard to strengthening
its security," the statement said.

The Security Council urges the DPRK not to undertake such a test and to
refrain from any action that might aggravate tension, to work on the
resolution of nonproliferation concerns and to facilitate a peaceful and
comprehensive solution through political diplomatic efforts, the
statement said.

"The Security Council reiterates the need for the DPRK to comply fully
with all the provisions of the Security Council Resolution 1695 (2006),"
the statement added.

Source: Xinhua

Copyright by People's Daily Online, all rights reserved
*****************************************************************
 17 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: [EDITORIALS]Seoul further out of step

Octorber 9, 2006 KST 12:29 (GMT+9)


  The United Nations Security Council adopted a statement
strongly warning North Korea against proceeding with its nuclear
test plans. During the process of adopting the statement,
China's response was especially noticeable as it demonstrated a
much stronger stance compared to when North Korea launched seven
missiles in July. It did not apply the brakes to the adoption of
the statement, which includes the possibility of forceful
intervention. China's ambassador to the UN, Wang Guangya, also
said that the North will face a severe situation should it
proceed with its nuclear test plans and that "for bad behavior
in this world, no one is going to protect them." Considering
that China had refrained from criticizing North Korea in the
past, the recent actions suggest an enormous change in position.

They reflect China's urge to prevent the Kim Jong-il regime from
testing nuclear weapons. 

Our neighbor up north must catch the meaning of China's recent
actions. North Korea knows all too well that the decisive factor
that allows it to maintain its current regime is economic aid
from Beijing. 

Contrary to the firm stance shown by the international
committee, including China, we are worried about Seoul's
lukewarm response. Of course there have not yet been any
unreasonable comments billing the recent developments as having
"political intentions," as came immediately after North Korea's
missile tests. Instead, the South Korean government has only
been releasing statements stating that it is prepared for all
situations. What is missing is a specific and firm warning to
Pyongyang. Japan had its vice foreign minister, Shotaro Yachi,
meet immediately with the U.S. deputy national security advisor,
Jack Crouch, in Washington to discuss countermeasures. But all
our government did was arrange phone calls between the foreign
and defense ministers of the two countries. If a change in the
U.S. policy toward Pyongyang is so urgent, shouldn't the
government at least dispatch a special envoy to Washington and
try to persuade the Bush administration to do so? 

Seoul must bear in mind that preventive measures are more
important than coming up with countermeasures after a nuclear
test occurs. In order to do that, it must shed its current
passive stance. The administration must notify the North through
unofficial channels that a nuclear test would bring the end to
all aid packages, including the Kaesong Industrial Complex and
Mount Kumgang tourism programs. Unproductive comments from the
ruling party, emphasizing diplomatic efforts to sanctions and
dialogue between North Korea and the United States, do not help
in solving the problem. Those comments are responsible for
worsening things, resulting in the current status. Seoul must
keep in line with the international community and strongly warn
North Korea while pressing Pyongyang to return to the six-party
talks.   
	  
  2006.10.08       
     		
Copyright by Joins.com, Inc. Terms of Use |
*****************************************************************
 18 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: Sanctions calls mount against North Korea

Octorber 9, 2006 KST 12:29 (GMT+9)                               
                       
  October 09, 2006 ¤Ñ The international community stepped up
efforts over the Chuseok holiday to stop North Korea from
testing a nuclear weapon, as concern grew that a test might be
imminent. The latest diplomatic efforts to dissuade the North
from a test came yesterday, when Shinzo Abe, Japan's new prime
minister, met President Hu Jintao of China.

 Despite strained relations over Japan's imperial past and its
interpretation of that history, the two leaders found common
ground in discussing the North's nuclear brinkmanship. Their
meeting, China's Foreign Ministry told reporters, resulted in
agreement on the issue that generally echoed a UN statement
issued Friday. The leaders said they were concerned about a
possible nuclear test by Pyongyang and agreed to cooperate to
prevent one from taking place. But Liu Jianchao, a ministry
spokesman, gave no details on what form that cooperation might
take. He deflected questions about sanctions, saying the two had
agreed that multilateral dialogue was the best way to defuse the
crisis.

 After the North's announcement on Tuesday that it would conduct
a nuclear test, the United States issued a series of stern
warnings, the strongest of which came from Christopher Hill,
U.S. assistant secretary of state for Asian affairs and the
chief U.S.negotiator at the six-nation nuclear talks. On
Wednesday in Washington, Mr. Hill said, "We are not going to
live with a nuclear North Korea; we are not going to accept it."
He warned Pyongyang that "it can have a future or it can have
these weapons. It cannot have both."

 Japan, in cooperation with the United States, is devising new
plans to squeeze North Korea. Japanese media reported yesterday
that Tokyo and Washington were discussing plans to interdict a
North Korean ship suspected of transporting nuclear materials in
international waters near the Korean Peninsula. Jack Crouch, the
U.S. deputy national security advisor, and Japanese Vice Foreign
Minister Shotaro Yachi reportedly discussed such a plan on
Thursday in Washington. 

At the United Nations in New York, the Security Council issued a
council president's statement Friday urging the North not to
carry out a nuclear test. "The Security Council stresses that a
nuclear test, if carried out by the DPRK, would represent a
clear threat to international peace and security and that,
should the DPRK ignore calls of the international community, the
Security Council will act consistent with its responsibility
under the Charter of the United Nations," the statement said,
referring to the North's full name, the Democratic People's
Republic of Korea. 

The 15 members of the council, including the North's friends
China and Russia, all approved the statement. Before it was
issued, China's UN ambassador, Wang Guangya, was quoted by
international media as saying, "I think that for bad behavior in
this world no one is going to protect them." A Hong Kong news
magazine, Open, reported in its latest edition that China's
Foreign Ministry had given its North Korean counterpart a
proposed revision of their Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and
Assistance of 1961. China suggested that it would not honor its
promise of military intervention if a North Korean nuclear test
prompted an attack by a third country. The Hong Kong report
could not be verified. 

In Seoul, officials tried to calm the situation on the eve of
President Roh Moo-hyun's meeting with Mr. Abe, scheduled here
today. A senior Roh administration official dismissed
speculation that a nuclear test was imminent. "On the surface,
no signs were detected that the North is preparing a nuclear
test," the official told journalists in a background briefing.

"We are observing the North around the clock and communicating
with the United States and other neighbors." He added, however,
that he could not say the North was not planning a test just
because no evidence has been seen. He added that South Korea was
also preparing for what might happen if diplomacy failed.
 A Defense Ministry official also said no signs of a nuclear
test had been detected. The United States, Japan and South Korea
have been monitoring suspected test sites more intensely since
the North's announcement. "Kilju, North Hamgyong province, is
the most probable site, but there are many abandoned mines
around the North, so that could be a cover-up," said Kim
Tae-woo, a senior researcher at the Defense Ministry's Institute
for Defense Analysis. 

Domestic criticism grew stronger over Seoul's alleged inactivity
in trying to stop Pyongyang's nuclear brinkmanship, and the
administration appeared to be relying heavily on China to bring
the North around. "North Korea depends heavily on China's
economic aid and trade, so we expect Beijing to pressure and
negotiate with Pyongyang," a Foreign Ministry official said
yesterday. "That is practically the only course available to
Seoul."

 Chun Young-woo, a deputy foreign minister and Seoul's chief
delegate at the six-nation talks, will meet senior Chinese
officials this week, including Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei. A
government source said Mr. Chun would urge Beijing to send a
strong message to the North to prevent a nuclear test. 
Following his meeting with China's leaders yesterday, Mr. Abe
will meet Mr. Roh in Seoul today to continue his initial Asian
diplomacy. 

After announcing its test plan, North Korea has been silent
about any nuclear countdown. North Korean media reported on Kim
Jong-il's routine activities, including a meeting with 500
military and political leaders. 


by Ser Myo-ja, Park Seung-hee myoja@joongangt.co.kr>   
	  
Copyright by Joins.com, Inc. Terms of Use 
*****************************************************************
 19 Guardian Unlimited: N. Korea Appears to Back Down on Threat
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Sunday October 8, 2006 10:46 PM

AP Photo SEL110 

By ERIC TALMADGE 

Associated Press Writer 

BEIJING (AP) - North Korea's main ally, China, joined Japan in
sending a strong message Sunday that a nuclear test by the North
``cannot be tolerated,'' and Pyongyang appeared to back down
from its threat as an important anniversary passed without any
sign of nuclear activity. 

The estranged neighbors, holding their first summit in five
years, put aside their differences over visits by the Japanese
prime minister's predecessor to a Tokyo war shrine to issue a
joint warning to North Korea. 

``We agreed that a nuclear weapon test by North Korea cannot be
tolerated,'' Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe - who assumed
office just two weeks ago - said at a news conference after a
day of meetings with President Hu Jintao and other Chinese
leaders. ``We need to prevent a nuclear North Korea.'' 

The common ground Japan and China found over North Korea came as
a South Korean politician said a North Korean nuclear test was
not imminent and the North was ready to drop its plans if
Washington engaged in direct talks. 

The United States has refused to meet with North Korea outside
of stalled negotiations by the Koreas, the United States, Japan,
China and Russia. Washington has said it would have bilateral
talks with North Korea only in the context of those six-party
talks. 

``President Bush and administration officials have made our
position on bilateral talks clear,'' said Emily Lawrimore, a
White House spokeswoman. ``We will continue to encourage North
Korea to participate in six-party talks.'' 

Abe said China was determined to bring the North back into the
talks aimed at getting it to abandon development of nuclear
weapons and the long-range missiles it needs to use them. 

``We saw eye-to-eye,'' Abe said. ``I think that was very
significant.'' 

North Korea announced last week that it would conduct a nuclear
weapons test. Though the North has long claimed to have nuclear
weapons, the test would be the first incontestable proof of its
capabilities. 

Analysts had speculated that North Korea might test as early as
Sunday because it often uses anniversaries or other
international events to stage provocations. 

Sunday was the ninth anniversary of North Korean leader Kim Jong
Il's appointment as head of the Korean Workers' Party. Tuesday
will be the 61st anniversary of the party's founding. 

And South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon was expected to be
nominated by the U.N. Security Council to be the world body's
next secretary-general on Monday. 

But there were signs the North was using the threat as a
bargaining chip. 

Former South Korean lawmaker Jang Sung-min said Sunday in Seoul
that the North informed China it may desist from testing if the
United States holds bilateral talks - a long-standing demand of
the North. 

Jang said he got the information from a telephone conversation
with a Chinese diplomat whom he did not further identify. 

The U.S. rejection of bilateral talks has not met with universal
support among American foreign policy experts. 

``I don't think you restrict your conversations to your friends.
At the same time, it's got to be hard-nosed. It's got to be
determined,'' former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, who
held the post under President George H.W. Bush, said on ABC's
``This Week. 

Getting Beijing and South Korea to support energetic diplomacy
and potentially tough sanctions against North Korea is seen as
crucial to efforts to make the isolated regime give up its
nuclear weapons program. 

China and South Korea have argued for engagement and resisted
sanctions, but North Korea's latest nuclear-test threat has
hardened Japan's line. 

Japan helped usher a stern statement through the U.N. Security
Council on Friday that urged North Korea to cancel its nuclear
test and warned of unspecified consequences if it did not
comply. 

``We need to transmit a message to North Korea that unless it
revokes its test plans, it will face further isolation from
international society and its situation will deteriorate,'' Abe
said before leaving Tokyo on Sunday. 

The positive tone of Abe's visit to China - his first major test
on the international stage - may have caught North Korea by
surprise. 

China called the summit a positive step toward resolving a
bitter rift over official visits to a Tokyo war shrine and
flaring territorial disputes. 

Abe, despite a reputation for advocating a more patriotic and
powerful Japan, made China his first overseas trip because of
the anger over former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's
repeated visits to the Yasukuni war shrine, which many in Asia
see as a symbol of Japanese militarism. 

Abe stuck to his policy of neither confirming nor denying
whether he will visit the shrine. But he said he would ``act
appropriately'' and apologized for Japan's wartime brutality. 

``Japan caused tremendous damage and suffering,'' he said after
meeting Hu. ``But in the 60 years since the war, we have walked
a path of peace and democracy.'' 

Though he offered nothing new, Abe's approach seemed to work. 

``This visit is the first by a Japanese prime minister in five
years, which represents a positive turn in our relationship,''
Hu said after greeting Abe in the Great Hall of the People. 
		 	 	   
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
 20 SF Chron: North Korean nuclear test may indicate nation's aims / 
Type of underground blast would reveal technical know-how, level 
of sophistication

[San Francisco Chronicle] 
				 
James Sterngold, Chronicle Staff Writer

Sunday, October 8, 2006

With North Korea's announcement last week that it plans to
conduct a nuclear bomb test, a number of experts said such a
test could prove invaluable for determining Pyongyang's true
nuclear aspirations and evaluating what kind of threat the
country will be in the future. 

Many Korea specialists and nuclear experts agree that an
underground test would strike a dangerous note of defiance by a
government anxious to get the attention of the world's powers. 

But the test could also provide some important technical
insights, these experts said. A big question will be whether the
North Koreans conduct a single test, which could signify the
blast was essentially a symbolic political act, or a series of
nuclear devices, suggesting their nuclear program could be
sufficiently advanced to be testing different designs small
enough fit on a missile, a major technical step. 

"If this is just a shake-the-seismometers kind of thing for the
North Koreans, then it doesn't matter much" what kind of design
they use, said John Browne, a former director of the Los Alamos
National Laboratory, one of two American weapons design labs.
"It doesn't even matter that much what the yield is. It's just a
demonstration. But if there is a series of tests, it probably
means they are weaponizing a design" for a missile -- a far more
threatening act, he said. 

Although Pyongyang's active nuclear program and its success in
separating plutonium for bomb fuel are open secrets, the North
has been warned repeatedly by the United States, the United
Nations and its Asian neighbors not to cross the testing
threshold. There would be great pressure at the United Nations
to respond to such a test with sanctions or other harsh
measures, a warlike gesture that could set off an international
crisis. 

Sigfried Hecker, another former director of the Los Alamos lab,
which is managed by a consortium that includes the University of
California, said the number of blasts and the explosive yield of
those blasts could provide a stark new perception of what the
North Koreans have achieved. 

If Pyongyang is just trying to let the world know that it has
achieved the ability to produce a nuclear blast, it would merely
need to detonate underground a single, fairly basic device,
probably similar to the bomb the United States dropped on
Nagasaki, Japan, ending World War II. 

"That bomb is well advertised by now, and the dimensions and so
forth are well known," Hecker said. "That bomb most likely would
work without a test." 

But when India and then Pakistan conducted dangerously
provocative nuclear tests during a military confrontation in
1998, each produced a series of explosions rather than just one,
demonstrating, he said, that they were refining sophisticated
warhead designs for missiles. 

Making a bomb that can fit on a missile means making it smaller,
which is more challenging technically and requires more testing
to make sure not just that it will explode, but that it will
explode with the desired force, called "yield." 

"They can't test that many, because they don't have that much
plutonium," said Hecker, who went last year on a special mission
to North Korea, where he was allowed to hold a jar with 200
grams of plutonium as proof the North had succeeded in producing
the fuel. 

He said the North Koreans are believed to have 40 to 50
kilograms (88 to 110 pounds) of plutonium, enough for anywhere
from 5 to 12 warheads, depending on how advanced the designs
are. 

"But if they are taking the next step and miniaturizing the
device to put it on a missile, that is a much more complex
issue," said Hecker. "That needs more testing." 

Browne said the United States and the Soviet Union had conducted
hundreds of tests during the Cold War precisely because they
were designing smaller and smaller warheads, part of the effort
to place more than one on each missile. The tests produced not
just enormous blasts, but a wealth of technical data on the
yield of the blasts and whether the bombs would work as
designed. 

Philip Coyle, a senior Pentagon official in the administration
of former President Bill Clinton and a nuclear scientist at the
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory for 33 years, said North
Korea's preparations for a test could also reveal a great deal
about its intentions and progress. 

To conduct a test, a shaft is usually dug several thousand feet
underground, depending on the expected power of the blast. That
is the easy part. More difficult is threading all the cables
down into the hole that will be plugged into sophisticated
sensors to collect data on the detonation. 

Presumably, any test site would be observed closely from U.S.
spy satellites. The amount of activity observed, and the length
of time it takes to prepare the site, Coyle said, might give an
indication of whether the test was more symbol or substance. 

"If they are simply trying to show that they can build one of
these devices, they don't need a lot of diagnostic devices,"
said Coyle, who observed a number of U.S. tests. "If they are
really testing a design, they need as much data as they can
get." 

There are two basic types of atomic warhead design. The easiest
to construct, known as a gun-type design, involves shooting a
large pellet of highly enriched uranium against a concave
uranium target, beginning the nuclear fission that delivers the
immense heat and explosive force. This was the type of weapon
dropped on Hiroshima in 1945, and the U.S. scientists had so
much confidence it would work properly that they used it without
ever conducting a test. 

Although the United States has said it suspects that North Korea
has a clandestine enrichment program, Pyongyang is not believed
to have a stockpile of weapons-grade uranium. 

What is known is that the North has been producing plutonium, in
defiance of U.N. demands that it stop. 

Plutonium bombs must be constructed differently, following a
more difficult model. The plutonium must be fashioned into a
hollow spherical shape, surrounded by conventional high
explosives. The explosives must be detonated precisely at the
same moment so that the radioactive plutonium is crushed
uniformly, triggering the fission -- that is, a runaway chain
reaction. That implosion is a far more difficult engineering
feat and can have a profound effect on the yield of the nuclear
blast, and so it is a key to any test. 

The concern is not just that North Korea might someday use a
nuclear bomb, but that the poor, cash-strapped country might
sell the technology, weapons fuel or an actual warhead to
another country or a terrorist group. It has almost certainly
been a buyer of technology in the underground nuclear market. 

David Albright, the director of the Institute for Science and
International Security in Washington, said there has been
speculation for some time that the North Koreans might have
purchased a warhead design from either the rogue Pakistan
scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan or from the Chinese, both of whom
have provided some assistance to Pyongyang in the past. 

A North Korean test, he said, might provide some evidence of
whether North Korea was relying on one of those proven designs,
or a design of its own. 

Albright said a test could also be useful for domestic purposes
inside North Korea. In July, the North Koreans conducted what
appeared to have been an unsuccessful test of a multistage
ballistic missile. The missile, which might have had the
capability to travel more than a thousand miles, blew up shortly
after takeoff. 

The failure was the subject of derisive comments by U.S. and
some Japanese officials, marking a potentially embarrassing blow
to the prestige and credibility of North Korea's military and
its weapons complex. A nuclear test, Albright speculated, might
be a way of rebuilding the military's tainted prestige both for
the North Korean leadership as well as the five other countries
that have engaged in nuclear talks with the North. 

"The missile test was a black eye for them, and that puts even
more pressure on them to make any nuclear test a success," he
said. 

Donald Gregg, a former U.S. ambassador to South Korea and before
that a CIA station chief in Asia, went further. 

"It's quite possible that the missile test failure may have
provoked them to do a nuclear test" to maintain their
credibility, he said. 

But most of the experts agreed that, if the North Koreans are
determined to at least produce a strong blast, they probably
can, and that the demonstration would generate both seismic and
political shock waves, saying at least a little about what is
otherwise one of the most closed societies on Earth. 

"What they do or don't have is ultimately a mystery to
everybody," said Paul Robinson, a former director of the Sandia
National Laboratories, another U.S. weapons lab, and a former
U.S. government arms control negotiator. "But the bigger mystery
is how we are going to respond." 

E-mail James Sterngold at jsterngold@sfchronicle.com. 				
Page A - 19 			

The San Francisco Chronicle
*****************************************************************
 21 Guardian Unlimited: Japan, China: N. Korea Test Unacceptable
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Sunday October 8, 2006 8:16 PM

AP Photo XITS111 

By ERIC TALMADGE 

Associated Press Writer 

BEIJING (AP) - North Korea's main ally, China, joined Japan in
sending a strong message Sunday that a nuclear test by the North
``cannot be tolerated,'' and Pyongyang appeared to back down
from its threat as an important anniversary passed without any
sign of nuclear activity. 

The estranged neighbors, holding their first summit in five
years, put aside their differences over visits by the Japanese
prime minister's predecessor to a Tokyo war shrine to issue a
joint warning to North Korea. 

``We agreed that a nuclear weapon test by North Korea cannot be
tolerated,'' Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe - who assumed
office just two weeks ago - said at a news conference after a
day of meetings with President Hu Jintao and other Chinese
leaders. ``We need to prevent a nuclear North Korea.'' 

The common ground Japan and China found over North Korea came as
a South Korean politician said a North Korean nuclear test was
not imminent and the North was ready to drop its plans if
Washington engaged in direct talks. 

The United States has refused to meet with North Korea outside
of stalled negotiations by the Koreas, the United States, Japan,
China and Russia. Washington has said it would have bilateral
talks with North Korea only in the context of those six-party
talks. 

``President Bush and administration officials have made our
position on bilateral talks clear,'' said Emily Lawrimore, a
White House spokeswoman. ``We will continue to encourage North
Korea to participate in six-party talks.'' 

Abe said China was determined to bring the North back into the
talks aimed at getting it to abandon development of nuclear
weapons and the long-range missiles it needs to use them. 

``We saw eye-to-eye,'' Abe said. ``I think that was very
significant.'' 

North Korea announced last week that it would conduct a nuclear
weapons test. Though the North has long claimed to have nuclear
weapons, the test would be the first incontestable proof of its
capabilities. 

Analysts had speculated that North Korea might test as early as
Sunday because it often uses anniversaries or other
international events to stage provocations. 

Sunday was the ninth anniversary of North Korean leader Kim Jong
Il's appointment as head of the Korean Workers' Party. Tuesday
will be the 61st anniversary of the party's founding. 

And South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon was expected to be
nominated by the U.N. Security Council to be the world body's
next secretary-general on Monday. 

But there were signs the North was using the threat as a
bargaining chip. 

Former South Korean lawmaker Jang Sung-min said Sunday in Seoul
that the North informed China it may desist from testing if the
United States holds bilateral talks - a long-standing demand of
the North. 

Jang said he got the information from a telephone conversation
with a Chinese diplomat whom he did not further identify. 

The U.S. rejection of bilateral talks has not met with universal
support among American foreign policy experts. 

``I don't think you restrict your conversations to your friends.
At the same time, it's got to be hard-nosed. It's got to be
determined,'' former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, who
held the post under President George H.W. Bush, said on ABC's
``This Week. 

Getting Beijing and South Korea to support energetic diplomacy
and potentially tough sanctions against North Korea is seen as
crucial to efforts to make the isolated regime give up its
nuclear weapons program. 

China and South Korea have argued for engagement and resisted
sanctions, but North Korea's latest nuclear-test threat has
hardened Japan's line. 

Japan helped usher a stern statement through the U.N. Security
Council on Friday that urged North Korea to cancel its nuclear
test and warned of unspecified consequences if it did not
comply. 

``We need to transmit a message to North Korea that unless it
revokes its test plans, it will face further isolation from
international society and its situation will deteriorate,'' Abe
said before leaving Tokyo on Sunday. 

The positive tone of Abe's visit to China - his first major test
on the international stage - may have caught North Korea by
surprise. 

China called the summit a positive step toward resolving a
bitter rift over official visits to a Tokyo war shrine and
flaring territorial disputes. 

Abe, despite a reputation for advocating a more patriotic and
powerful Japan, made China his first overseas trip because of
the anger over former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's
repeated visits to the Yasukuni war shrine, which many in Asia
see as a symbol of Japanese militarism. 

Abe stuck to his policy of neither confirming nor denying
whether he will visit the shrine. But he said he would ``act
appropriately'' and apologized for Japan's wartime brutality. 

``Japan caused tremendous damage and suffering,'' he said after
meeting Hu. ``But in the 60 years since the war, we have walked
a path of peace and democracy.'' 

Though he offered nothing new, Abe's approach seemed to work. 

``This visit is the first by a Japanese prime minister in five
years, which represents a positive turn in our relationship,''
Hu said after greeting Abe in the Great Hall of the People. 
		 	 	   
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
 22 AFP: World powers urge NKorea to cancel nuclear test 

 by Gerard Aziakou Sat Oct 7, 8:30 AM ET 		 	 

UNITED NATIONS (AFP) - The UN Security Council unanimously agreed 
to press North Korea" /> to drop plans to test an atom bomb, 
which Japan said could be detonated this weekend. 

 A Japanese-drafted statement, adopted Friday by the 15-member
body, made no explicit threat of sanctions but expressed "deep
concern" over the North's announcement that it planned to test a
nuclear device. 

The non-binding text warned that such a move "would represent a
clear threat to international peace and security." 

Russia's UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said the statement sent "a
very strong message in favor of respect for non-proliferation." 

Japan's UN envoy Kenzo Oshima, who chairs the council for
October, said it decided to drop language pushed by Tokyo and
Washington for an explicit threat of an arms embargo and trade
sanctions under Chapter Seven of the UN charter. 

China and Russia are known to be opposed to biting sanctions. 

But Oshima said there was a clear warning in the text that there
would be consequences if an explosion was carried out. 

"Should the DPRK (North Korea) ignore calls of the international
community, the Security Council will act consistent with its
responsibility under the Charter of the United Nations" /> ,"
the statement said. 

Japan and South Korea" /> Saturday hailed the UN statement and
warned their reclusive neighbour to be ready for the
consequences if it follows through with plans to test a nuclear
weapon. 

"Should North Korea carry out a nuclear test despite the common
concern expressed by the international community, Japan believes
the Security Council should swiftly adopt a resolution that
contains stern measures," Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso
said in a statement. 

South Korea also warned the North would be held "wholly
responsible for all the consequences" if it exploded an atom
bomb. 

The White House said a North Korean test would be an
"incendiary" event threatening Pyongyang's neighbors, but
refused to comment on the possible timing of the test. 

"I'm not going to comment on any of our intelligence," White
House deputy spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters. 

A senior South Korean foreign ministry official told Yonhap news
agency the North was under round-the-clock surveillance and that
so far the South Koreans had spotted no unusual movements that
might suggest a nuclear test was imminent. 

But Japanese vice foreign minister Shotaro Yachi warned
Pyongyang's resolve to test its first atom bomb -- a plan it
announced Tuesday -- should not be underestimated. 

"We discussed the possibility that the test would occur this
weekend," he said after talks in Washington with US deputy
national security adviser Jack Crouch. 

He added: "They will probably go ahead and do it as they had
that tone in their declaration. It possibly means they are
already very prepared." 

In Tokyo, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he would be
seeking common ground with his counterparts from China and South
Korea during his first foreign trip starting Sunday. 

"It's important to share the same understanding of the situation
between Japan and China, and also between Japan and South Korea,
during the summits," Abe said. 

"We need to send messages together to stop the North before they
make such a reckless action." 

Abe has taken a hardline stance on North Korea, while China has
favoured a more conciliatory approach. 

Both the United States and South Korea have warned they cannot
tolerate a nuclear-armed North, Russia has held direct talks
with the regime, while China, Pyongyang's main ally, has urged
it to show restraint. 

The UN statement urged North Korea to return immediately to
six-nation talks on its nuclear programme and keep to a
September 2005 pledge to abandon it in exchange for energy and
security benefits. 

The North has since November boycotted the talks with China,
Japan, South Korea, Russia and the United States in response to
US financial sanctions. 

US State Department deputy spokesman Tom Casey said that if
North Korea carries out a test, "we are open to considering a
full range of diplomatic actions," but played down talk of
military action. 

North Korea declared in February 2005 that it had nuclear
weapons, and the US Central Intelligence Agency" /> says it
believes Pyongyang has developed a number of crude atomic bombs. 

Amid the heightened tensions, South Korean troops fired warning
shots after five North Korean soldiers briefly crossed the
inter-Korean border on Saturday, military authorities said. 

It was the first time since May that North Korean soldiers have
crossed the sensitive border between the two countries, which
remain technically at war after the 1950-53 Korean War ended in
an armistice. 	 		 			

  Copyright © 2006 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 23 AFP: Domino effect of N Korean nuclear test will harden Iran's resolve - 
 
 by David Millikin Sun Oct 8, 6:48 PM ET 		 	 

WASHINGTON (AFP) - A North Korean nuclear test could set a chain 
reaction rippling across Asia and to the doorstep of Iran" /> , 
hardening the Islamic Republic's resolve to develop its own 
atomic arsenal, analysts warn. 

 North Korea" /> 's threat this week to carry out its first test
of a nuclear bomb came just as the major world powers were
finally on the verge of imposing timid sanctions against Iran
over its far less developed nuclear program. 

Foreign ministers from the five permanent UN Security Council
members -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States
-- plus Germany were expected at a meeting in London Friday to
set in motion a UN resolution punishing Iran for refusing to
suspend its nascent uranium enrichment program. 

Iran insists it has the right to enrich uranium for use as fuel
for nuclear power stations, but the West fears the fuel could be
further enriched to provide material for nuclear weapons -- a
development experts say is in any case years away. 

The United States is confident a UN vote imposing even limited
sanctions will have a powerful symbolic impact on Iran,
strengthening the hand of moderates worried about their
country's relations with the world and eventually leading Tehran
back to the negotiating table. 

But if North Korea carries out its threat -- and some predict it
may test a bomb as soon as this weekend -- it could negate the
impact of any sanctions on Iran and undermine attempts to take
harsher steps in future if Tehran persists with its enrichment
activities, analysts said. 

"Iran is going to be watching the situation with North Korea
very closely," said Joseph Cirincione, a foreign policy expert
with the Center for American Progress in Washington. 

"If North Korea is not deterred or punished, it will embolden
Iran to accelerate its own nuclear efforts," he said. 

More broadly, he said, a North Korean test would set off an
"Asian nuclear chain reaction" that could spur an arms race from
South Korea" /> , Taiwan and Japan to India, Pakistan and Iran. 

"You could let loose a dynamic that you're not going to be able
to stop. The non-proliferation treaty will be in tatters," he
said. 

Even if North Korea can be dissuaded from going ahead with the
test, the diplomatic capital spent on the effort by China and
Russia -- the key players in both stand-offs -- could make them
more reticent to act against Iran, said George Perkovich, a
non-proliferation expert at the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace. 

"The Chinese are reluctant users of the Security Council and
reluctant to be real tough on proliferation, so if you're going
to want them to do something on North Korea, it's going to make
them even more resistant to doing something on Iran," he said. 

If dissuasion fails and North Korea goes ahead with a test, it
remains uncertain how far China, and to a lesser extent Russia,
are willing to go in shutting off the flow of oil and other
goods that prop up their erratic and poverty-stricken neighbor. 

"They fear a nuclear North Korea, but they fear an unstable
nuclear North Korea even more," said Cirincione, echoing the
widely held view that severe sanctions would cause the collapse
of Kim Jong-il's regime and send millions of refugees over the
country's borders. 

Many analysts say the only solution to both crises lies with
Washington meeting North Korean and Iranian demands for direct,
bilateral negotiations -- a move opposed by hawks in President
George W. Bush" /> 's administration. 

The hardliners, led by Vice President Dick Cheney" /> and
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, say such a concession
would reward "rogue states" for their bad behavior. 

Proponents of talks, believed to include Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice" /> , point to the success of secret
negotiations which led Libya to renounce terrorism and give up
its illicit weapons programs three years ago. 

The New York Times threw its weight behind negotiations in an
editorial Friday, calling on Bush to drop his "ambivalence over
whether to negotiate with Kim Jong-il or try to overthrow him"
and engage in "real diplomacy to get the north out of the
nuclear weapons business". 

There have been calls for Rice or her top aides to make an
emergency trip to northeast Asia for talks aimed at forestalling
a test by North Korea, but her spokesman said Friday there were
no immediate plans for such travel. 	 		 			

*****************************************************************
 24 AFP: China, Japan express "deep concern" at NKorea nuclear plans -
     
 Sun Oct 8, 12:56 PM ET 		 	 

BEIJING (AFP) - A united China and Japan have kept up pressure on 
North Korea" /> following landmark talks overshadowed by global 
jitters at the Stalinist regime's stated plan to test an atom 
bomb. 

 Visiting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Chinese Premier
Wen Jiabao reaffirmed their commitment to a non-nuclear Korean
peninsular, after the first top level Sino-Japanese summit in
Beijing since 2001. 

The two countries, who have been uneasy neighbours in recent
years, were meeting one day after a shooting incident on the
heavily fortified Korean border set off alarm bells around the
world. 

"Both sides expressed deep concern about recent situations over
the Korean peninsula, including the issue of nuclear tests,"
said a joint statement after Abe's meetings with Wen and Chinese
President Hu Jintao" /> Sunday. 

It also said both nations would "work hard" to push for the
resumption of stalled six-nation talks aimed at reining in North
Korea's nuclear program. 

China and Japan were committed to realizing "a non-nuclear
Korean peninsula as well as maintaining peace and stability in
Northeast Asia," according to the statement. 

At a press conference after their summit, Abe said the leaders
had sent a "strong message" to North Korea and warned of tough
action if Pyongyang defied pressure against testing an atom
bomb. 

"That China and Japan came to an agreement at a summit never to
accept a North Korean nuclear test is in itself a strong message
to North Korea," Abe told reporters. 

"I think North Korea is closely watching this summit. It was
meaningful that we were able to send the message that we won't
accept a nuclear test." 

The North Korean issue has cast a shadow over Abe's visit to
China, his first foreign trip since becoming prime minister two
weeks ago. He is due to travel to Seoul on Monday for talks with
South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun" /> . 

The world has been on alert after North Korea said last week it
would test its first atom bomb, a threat that could
theoretically be carried out at any time. 

China and South Korea" /> have in the past adopted a more
conciliatory line than Japan over North Korea and warned against
further isolating the impoverished country, a reclusive regime
enveloped by a personality cult surrounding Kim Jong-Il. 

Meanwhile, North Korea on Sunday responded aggressively to South
Korea's firing of warning shots across their border, describing
the incident as "intolerable" provocation, reports said. 

Five North Korean soldiers briefly crossed the border line in
the Demilitarised Zone on Saturday but retreated after some 60
warning shots were fired by South Korean soldiers. 

The North's Korean Central News Agency, quoted by the South's
Yonhap news agency, said the North Korean soldiers remained at
their posts but the South's soldiers deliberately attacked them
without warning. 

"On October 7, South Korean soldiers lurking near a guard post
fired some 60 shots at our soldiers who were carrying out
regular duty," the report said. 

"This is a brazen challenge and an intolerable act of military
provocation against us." 

The North warned of grave repercussions if South Korea
"rampantly behaves." 

"South Korean authorities must mull over what catastrophic
consequences will be caused by their provocative acts in the
intensely fortified frontline border," the report said. 

It was the first time since May that troops from the North had
crossed the military demarcation line into the no-man's land
separating the two nations, which remain technically at war
after the 1950-1953 Korean War. 

Official media also reported patriotic celebrations marking the
ninth anniversary Sunday of Kim taking office as ruling party
chief, praising his Songun (military-first) policy. 

Separately in Seoul, a foreign ministry official said Chun
Yung-Woo, the South's chief delegate to the stalled six-nation
talks, would meet Monday in Beijing with Chinese counterpart Wu
Dawei. 

Pyongyang has boycotted the talks -- grouping the two Koreas,
China, Japan, Russia and the United States -- since last
November in protest at US sanctions against a Macau bank accused
of laundering money for the regime. 

The official also said the North was under round-the-clock
surveillance and that so far the South Koreans had spotted no
unusual movement that might suggest a nuclear test was imminent. 

If the North carries out a successful test, it would be the
eighth country to possess the world's most destructive weapon
and admit it, the others being Britain, China, France, India,
Pakistan, Russia and the United States. 

Israel" /> is widely presumed to have nuclear weapons but has
never officially said so. 

The last country to test a bomb was Pakistan in 1998. 	 		 			
*****************************************************************
 25 Japan Times: Japan, U.S. to seek sanctions if North Korea sets off nuke
 
japantimes.co.jp               
  
Sunday, Oct. 8, 2006

 Japan, U.S. to seek sanctions if North Korea sets off nuke NEW 
YORK (Kyodo) Japan and the United States agreed Friday to call 
immediately for an emergency U.N. Security Council meeting and 
present a draft resolution for sanctions if North Korea carries 
out a nuclear test, council sources said. 

  [News photo]   

  Japanese Ambassador to the U.N. Kenzo Oshima, president of the
Security Council for October, addresses a meeting Friday on
North Korea. AP PHOTO   

The resolution would be based on Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter
that clears the way for the use of force as well as economic
sanctions, they said. 

During closed Security Council consultations, U.S. Ambassador to
the U.N. John Bolton expressed hope for tougher measures against
North Korea than those incorporated in a presidential statement
adopted Friday, the sources said. 

But he weighed in on the importance of issuing Friday's
statement ahead of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit to China
and South Korea this weekend, they said. 

Bolton was quoted as saying, "We believe that this statement was
useful to issue in anticipation of Prime Minister Abe's trip to
Beijing and Seoul." 

Bolton also expressed hope that Abe's visit will help ease
regional tension and resolve the North Korean issue, according
to the sources. 

The presidential statement Friday did not refer to the U.N.
Charter's Chapter 7. 

"I hope that North Korea doesn't misread the intentions of the
United States," the sources quoted Bolton as saying. 

"We think that the main point (of the statement) is that North
Korea should understand how strongly the United States and many
other council members feel that they should not test this
nuclear device and that if they do test it will be a very
different world the day after the test." 

After the closed Security Council consultations, Kenzo Oshima,
Japan's ambassador to the United Nations, told reporters that if
North Korea conducts a nuclear test despite calls from Japan,
China, Russia, the United States and many other countries, "then
I think what would happen is made clear in the presidential
statement that has just been adopted by the Security Council." 

"I think the terms in which this statement was prepared clearly
indicate what will be the consequences of their action if they
(North Korea), in fact, resort to a nuclear test," he said. 

The Japan Times (C) All rights reserved 

*****************************************************************
 26 Guardian Unlimited: Tensions Rise Over North Korean Threat
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 
 	 
Saturday October 7, 2006 7:16 PM

AP Photo SEL104 

By HANS GREIMEL 

Associated Press Writer 

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - Tensions mounted over North Korea's
threat to test its first atomic bomb, with shots ringing out
Saturday along the border with South Korea and Japan warning of
harsh sanctions if Pyongyang goes nuclear. 

With a possible test expected as early as Sunday, the U.N.
Security Council issued a stern statement Friday urging the
country to abandon its nuclear ambitions and warning of
unspecified consequences if the isolated, communist regime
doesn't comply. 

Jittery nations have warned a test would unravel regional
security and possibly trigger an arms race. 

A midday incursion Saturday by North Korean troops into the
southern side of the no-man's-land separating North and South
Korea only stoked the unease. 

South Korean soldiers rattled off 40 warning shots at the five
communist troops who crossed the center line of the
Demilitarized Zone, the inter-Korean buffer. 

It was unclear whether the North Korean advance was intended as
a provocation, or was an attempt to go fishing at a nearby
stream, an official at South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said
on condition of anonymity, citing official policy. No one was
hurt, and the North Koreans retreated. 

While such border skirmishes are not unheard of, they are
relatively rare. Saturday's incursion was only the second this
year, the official said. 

Meanwhile, world powers were stepping up diplomatic efforts to
avert a nuclear test. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was to
visit Beijing on Sunday for talks with Chinese President Hu
Jintao and then proceed to Seoul for talks with South Korean
President Roh Moo-hyun the following day. 

A State Department spokesman, Kurtis Cooper, said Saturday the
United States was concerned about North Korea's threat to test
its first atomic bomb and that the department was closely
monitoring the high tensions. 

Also Saturday, South Korea's nuclear envoy announced he will
visit Beijing on Monday for two days of talks with Chinese
officials about the threatened nuclear test. 

In a separate statement from Tokyo, Japan's Foreign Ministry
said it was prepared to push for punitive measures at the United
Nations if the North goes ahead with the test. 

``If North Korea conducts a nuclear weapons test despite the
concerns expressed by international society, the Security
Council must adopt a resolution outlining severely punitive
measures,'' the ministry said. 

Japan plans to step up economic sanctions against North Korea,
tighten trade restrictions and freeze additional North
Korea-linked bank accounts should a nuclear test be carried out,
Japan's Nihon Keizai newspaper reported. 

The U.N. statement adopted Friday expressed ``deep concern''
over North Korea's announcement Tuesday that it is planning a
test. 

The council acted amid speculation that a nuclear test could
come on Sunday, the anniversary of North Korean leader Kim Jong
Il's appointment as head of the Korean Workers' Party in 1997. 

Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Shotaro Yachi told Japan's TV
Asahi: ``Based on the development so far, it would be best to
view that a test is possible this weekend.'' 

The U.N. statement also urged North Korea to return to
six-nation negotiations aimed at persuading the country to
abandon its nuclear ambitions in exchange for security
guarantees and badly needed economic aid. 

Those talks, which involve the United States, China, Japan,
Russia and North and South Korea, have been stalled since late
last year, when North Korea boycotted the negotiations in
response to American economic sanctions. 

A North Korea expert in China, the North's closest ally, said
only the removal of the sanctions could dissuade the North. 

``North Korea has already made a decision to carry out a test,''
said Li Dunqiu of China's State Council Development Research
Center, a Cabinet-level think tank. But ``if the U.S. removes
sanctions ... then tensions can be eased. Otherwise launching a
nuclear test is unavoidable for North Korea.'' 

The United States imposed economic restrictions on North Korea
last year to punish it for alleged counterfeiting and money
laundering. 

North Korea said Tuesday it decided to act in the face of what
it claimed was ``the U.S. extreme threat of a nuclear war,'' but
gave no date for the test. Washington has repeatedly said it has
no intention of invading North Korea. 
		 	 	   
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
 27 UPI: Kim: U.S. should talk directly to N. Korea
     
 United Press International - NewsTrack - 

10/8/2006 8:32:00 AM -0400

SEOUL, Oct. 8 (UPI) -- Former South Korean President Kim
Dae-jung Sunday called on the United States to talk directly to
North Korea about its nuclear program. 

Kim said direct talks with the isolated country not only could
encourage it to dump its nuclear ambitions but also to return to
the negotiation table, the Korea Times said. North Korean
officials said the country is preparing for a nuclear test. 

"Even former U.S. President Ronald Reagan had dialogue with the
Soviet Union, which he branded as an 'evil empire,'" Kim told
CNN's "Talk Asia" Sunday. "I can hardly understand why the U.S.
does not hold talks with North Korea." 

The former president called North Korea's missile test in July a
"mistake" because it increased tensions in the area and prompted
Japan to rebuild its military strength.

© Copyright 2006 United Press International, Inc. All Rights
Reserved
 		Post A Comment 			 	 		 		 		 		 			 				* 				Name: 			 			
*****************************************************************
 28 Guardian Unlimited: Tensions Mount Over North Korean Threat
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 
 	 
Saturday October 7, 2006 5:46 PM

AP Photo SEL105 

By HANS GREIMEL 

Associated Press Writer 

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - Tensions mounted over North Korea's
threat to test its first atomic bomb, with shots ringing out
Saturday along the border with South Korea and Japan warning of
harsh sanctions if Pyongyang goes nuclear. 

With a possible test expected as early as Sunday, the U.N.
Security Council issued a stern statement Friday urging the
country to abandon its nuclear ambitions and warning of
unspecified consequences if the isolated, communist regime
doesn't comply. 

Jittery nations have warned a test would unravel regional
security and possibly trigger an arms race. 

A midday incursion Saturday by North Korean troops into the
southern side of the no-man's-land separating North and South
Korea only stoked the unease. 

South Korean soldiers rattled off 40 warning shots at the five
communist troops who crossed the center line of the
Demilitarized Zone, the inter-Korean buffer. 

It was unclear whether the North Korean advance was intended as
a provocation, or was an attempt to go fishing at a nearby
stream, an official at South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said
on condition of anonymity, citing official policy. No one was
hurt, and the North Koreans retreated. 

While such border skirmishes are not unheard of, they are
relatively rare. Saturday's incursion was only the second this
year, the official said. 

Meanwhile, world powers were stepping up diplomatic efforts to
avert a nuclear test. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was to
visit Beijing on Sunday for talks with Chinese President Hu
Jintao and then proceed to Seoul for talks with South Korean
President Roh Moo-hyun the following day. 

On Saturday, South Korea's nuclear envoy announced he will visit
Beijing on Monday for two days of talks with Chinese officials
about the threatened nuclear test. 

In a separate statement from Tokyo, Japan's Foreign Ministry
said it was prepared to push for punitive measures at the United
Nations if the North goes ahead with the test. 

``If North Korea conducts a nuclear weapons test despite the
concerns expressed by international society, the Security
Council must adopt a resolution outlining severely punitive
measures,'' the ministry said. 

Japan plans to step up economic sanctions against North Korea,
tighten trade restrictions and freeze additional North
Korea-linked bank accounts should a nuclear test be carried out,
Japan's Nihon Keizai newspaper reported. 

The U.N. statement adopted Friday expressed ``deep concern''
over North Korea's announcement Tuesday that it is planning a
test. 

The council acted amid speculation that a nuclear test could
come on Sunday, the anniversary of North Korean leader Kim Jong
Il's appointment as head of the Korean Workers' Party in 1997. 

Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Shotaro Yachi told Japan's TV
Asahi: ``Based on the development so far, it would be best to
view that a test is possible this weekend.'' 

The U.N. statement also urged North Korea to return to
six-nation negotiations aimed at persuading the country to
abandon its nuclear ambitions in exchange for security
guarantees and badly needed economic aid. 

Those talks, which involve the United States, China, Japan,
Russia and North and South Korea, have been stalled since late
last year, when North Korea boycotted the negotiations in
response to American economic sanctions. 

A North Korea expert in China, the North's closest ally, said
only the removal of the sanctions could dissuade the North. 

``North Korea has already made a decision to carry out a test,''
said Li Dunqiu of China's State Council Development Research
Center, a Cabinet-level think tank. But ``if the U.S. removes
sanctions ... then tensions can be eased. Otherwise launching a
nuclear test is unavoidable for North Korea.'' 

The United States imposed economic restrictions on North Korea
last year to punish it for alleged counterfeiting and money
laundering. 

North Korea said Tuesday it decided to act in the face of what
it claimed was ``the U.S. extreme threat of a nuclear war,'' but
gave no date for the test. Washington has repeatedly said it has
no intention of invading North Korea. 	 
		 	 	   
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
 29 Rutland Herald: Energy a hot issue this election season

Rutland Vermont News & Information

 October 08, 2006
 
 Douglas, Parker spar over sources of power 

By Louis PorterVermont Press Bureau   
  			 
MONTPELIER — Politicians come and go, but in Vermont those whose
reputations linger are often the ones who are known for their
work on electric and public utilities.

George Aiken, former governor and U. S. senator, comes to mind
first, but others in more recent times also rode such issues to
power. Former Gov. Philip Hoff fought, and lost, a war with the
utilities over importation of Canadian power, and the late Gov.
Richard Snelling won his own struggle to bring in "power from
the north."

In Aiken's case, electric power and the related cause of public
control over Vermont's natural resources were a career-long
campaign.

While he is remembered in the rest of the country for his
Vietnam wisdom — "declare victory and go home" — in Vermont he
is equally known for his battles with the "big boys" who ran
electric utilities in New England.

Aiken began his political career in 1930, when he was elected to
represent Putney in the state Legislature, a victory based
partly on his campaign to block the private power companies
"from buying every dam site on every brook in Vermont where they
could generate 500 kilowatts of power."

He was then, and remained until his death in 1984, a champion of
rural electric cooperatives which, he said, gave farmers
"renewed hope, faith and income."gave farmers "renewed hope,
faith and income."

Electric power has re-emerged as a significant issue in this
year's political campaigns, and will probably continue to play a
large role in campaigns over the next few election cycles. In
large part that is because the state is facing huge changes
regarding where its power comes from and how much it will pay
for it.

In recent decades, Vermonters have benefited from long-term
power contracts and from maintaining a fully regulated utility
system, the last one in New England.

The state has gone from having among the highest power rates in
New England to among the lowest. But that's not because
Vermont's rates have gone down.

Some parts of the region — like Cape Cod — have seen increases
as high as 80 percent.

But the good times won't last forever. In less than a decade
those long-term contracts the state has with the Vermont Yankee
nuclear plant in Vernon and the Hydro-Quebec dam system will
expire. Although there is little doubt residents of the state
will still have power at the flip of a switch, they could be
paying a lot more for that convenience. The question has become
a recurring point of contention between Republican Gov. James
Douglas and Democratic challenger Scudder Parker.

Douglas would like a statewide "public engagement" process begun
by his administration and the Democrat-controlled Legislature to
run its course before the state determines what mix of
electrical power to push toward.

The governor has also opposed "industrial-sized" wind projects,
which he worries risk the state's scenic mountains and the
tourism revenues they bring in. And several large wind projects
have suffered setbacks in Vermont in recent months, although
Douglas has little direct control over the Public Service Board,
which makes rulings in such cases.

Instead, the governor says, Vermont should concentrate on using
vegetable oil for powering diesel engines and other farm and
forest fuels, as well as micro-renewable energy projects like
homeowner installed, small-scale wind and solar systems.

And no major power supply should be taken "off the table" yet,
Douglas has said. A couple of the options still on the table
include relicensing the Vermont Yankee plant, whose current
permit runs out in a half-dozen years, and construction of a
natural gas-powered generating station.

Douglas said recently he has already begun talks with Quebec
officials about the future energy relationship between Vermont
and the Hydro-Quebec system.

The Douglas administration downplayed recent remarks by
Massachusetts Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey, the Republican candidate
for governor, that Vermont could host a larger power
transmission line from Quebec to her state.

Supporters of renewable power say that without large wind
projects, in-state power generation levels would be too low.

Parker also says properly sited large turbines are appropriate
for the state.

In Parker's view, Vermont should be expanding on its
first-in-the-nation electrical efficiency program, which he
helped create as an employee of the state's regulatory agency.

The biggest disagreement over energy between Parker and Douglas
is over the sale of the hydro-electric dams on the Connecticut
and Deerfield rivers more than a year ago.

Parker believes the state should have gone further to ensure the
dams, up for sale as part of a bankruptcy proceeding, ended up
in the hands of the state or its utilities. Since the price of
power has gone up, the value of the dams has also soared — as
has the money Vermonters could have saved if they had access to
that cheap power, Parker argued during a recent gubernatorial
debate.

But officials in the Douglas administration disagree. The
governor said the state did try to buy the dams, but was simply
outbid. And to make a commitment to purchase the dams no matter
what the cost would have put the state or the utilities on the
hook for a massive amount of debt. The dams ultimately sold for
more than $500 million.

Not every energy issue has lived up to expectations in this
election year.

Some politicians thought that a skirmish in the Legislature last
session over whether to raise the gas tax to pay the state's
share of a massive federal highway bill would resonate in
Statehouse races this fall.

The fuel tax was blocked in the Senate and by the governor, and
Douglas has aired a political advertisement in which he accuses
his opponent of being "Mr. Gas Tax."

But Rep. Richard Westman, a Republican who is the head of the
House Transportation Committee which passed the measure, said he
believes other energy and environmental concerns will supercede
the gas tax proposal as political issues.

"I don't think it is a huge issue," Westman said, adding that he
hasn't seen many campaigns use the issue.

"I think there are a few, but not many," he said.

Sen. Richard Mazza, a Democrat from Grand Isle who chairs the
Senate Committee on Transportation, agreed that the gasoline tax
proposal has largely been taken off the table as a political
issue since it did not pass.

He has heard concerns from Vermonters about the cost of heating
fuel, he said.

"People have a limited budget for how they are going to keep
warm this winter," Mazza said.

He has also heard from many who wonder if gas and oil prices
have been artificially lowered to give the economy a temporary
boost. Many constituents believe prices will spike after the
election, Mazza added.

"I have heard that over and over again," he said.

Meanwhile some of the state's energy and environmental policies
— such as standards passed by lawmakers and signed into law by
Douglas this year requiring efficiency standards for some
appliances including furnaces and boilers — are under threat
from the federal government, according to environmentalists.

On Friday, the U.S. Department of Energy released proposed
efficiency standards for boilers and furnaces that are weaker
than those established in Vermont. DOE will allow states to seek
a waiver so that they can maintain their standards, said James
Moore, an energy advocate for the Vermont Public Interest
Research Group.

Advocacy groups like Moore's put pressure on candidates and
elected officials to ensure that such energy regulations in the
Green Mountains are as progressive as they are anywhere.

"It's up to Vermont and other states to lead the way. That is
why energy is one of the hottest issues this election cycle,"
Moore said.
   
 2006 Rutland Herald
*****************************************************************
 30 Experts warn of an accidental atomic war
 
Date: Sat, 7 Oct 2006 22:58:42 -0500 (CDT)

X-Sender-Host-Name: chumbly.math.missouri.edu
X-Spam-Class: HAM

"Any launch of a long-range nonnuclear armed sea or land ballistic
missile will cause an automated alert of the Russian early warning
system," Postol told reporters..."there can be no doubt that such an
alert will greatly increase the chances of a nuclear accident
involving strategic nuclear forces."

Mixing conventional and nuclear D5s on a U.S. Trident submarine "would
be very dangerous," Podvig said, because the Russians have no way of
discriminating between the two types of missiles once they are
launched.

=========

Experts warn of an accidental atomic war
Nuclear missile modified for conventional attack on Iran could set off
alarm in Russia

Eric Rosenberg, Hearst Newspapers

Friday, October 6, 2006

(10-06) 04:00 PDT Washington -- A Pentagon project to modify its
deadliest nuclear missile for use as a conventional weapon against
targets such as North Korea and Iran could unwittingly spark an atomic
war, two weapons experts warned Thursday.

Russian military officers might misconstrue a submarine-launched
conventional D5 intercontinental ballistic missile and conclude that
Russia is under nuclear attack, said Ted Postol, a physicist and
professor of science, technology and national security policy at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Pavel Podvig, a physicist
and weapons specialist at Stanford.

"Any launch of a long-range nonnuclear armed sea or land ballistic
missile will cause an automated alert of the Russian early warning
system," Postol told reporters.

The triggering of an alert wouldn't necessarily precipitate a
retaliatory hail of Russian nuclear missiles, Postol said.
Nevertheless, he said, "there can be no doubt that such an alert will
greatly increase the chances of a nuclear accident involving strategic
nuclear forces."

Podvig said launching conventional versions of a missile from a
submarine that normally carries nuclear ICBMs "expands the possibility
for a misunderstanding so widely that it is hard to contemplate."

Mixing conventional and nuclear D5s on a U.S. Trident submarine "would
be very dangerous," Podvig said, because the Russians have no way of
discriminating between the two types of missiles once they are
launched.

Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that the project would
increase the danger of accidental nuclear war.

"The media and expert circles are already discussing plans to use
intercontinental ballistic missiles to carry nonnuclear warheads," he
said in May. "The launch of such a missile could ... provoke a
full-scale counterattack using strategic nuclear forces."

Accidental nuclear war is not so far-fetched. In 1995, Russia
initially interpreted the launch of a Norwegian scientific rocket as
the onset of a U.S. nuclear attack. Then-President Boris Yeltsin
activated his "nuclear briefcase" in the first stages of preparation
to launch a retaliatory strike before the mistake was discovered.

The United States and Russia have acknowledged the possibility that
Russia's equipment might mistakenly conclude the United States was
attacking with nuclear missiles.

In 1998, the two countries agreed to set up a joint radar center in
Moscow operated by U.S. and Russian forces to supplement Russia's
aging equipment and reduce the threat of accidental war. But the
center has yet to open.

A major technical problem exacerbates the risk of using the D5 as a
conventional weapon: the decaying state of Russia's nuclear forces.
Russia's nuclear missiles are tethered to early warning radars that
have been in decline since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in
1991. And Russia, unlike the United States, lacks sufficient
satellites to supplement the radars and confirm whether missile
launches are truly under way or are false alarms.

The scenario that worries Postol, Podvig and other weapons experts is
what might happen if the United States and North Korea come to blows
and a conventional D5 is launched against a target there from a
submerged Trident submarine. Depending on the sub's location, the
flying time to Russia could be under 15 minutes so the Russians would
have little time to confirm the trajectory -- using decaying equipment
-- before deciding to launch a nuclear strike on the United States.

The D5 missile project involves the removal of nuclear warheads from
as many as two dozen D5 ICBMs that are carried aboard the U.S. fleet
of 12 Ohio-class Trident submarines.

The Pentagon has the project on an accelerated schedule, with the goal
of fielding the weapons alongside their nuclear variants in two years.
Each Trident submarine carries 24 D5 missiles, and the plan calls for
using two of those as conventional weapons in each sub.

The rocket fired by a submerged submarine would barrel up through the
ocean powered by its three-stage engine and rapidly ascend through the
atmosphere at speeds up to 20,000 feet per second into outer space.

The warhead compartment of the missile would then plummet back to
earth, guided to its target within about 50 feet by sophisticated
sensors. Defense officials believe it would gain enough speed and
force to penetrate underground command bunkers.

Page A - 7

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/10/06/MNGF9LJSMM1.DTL

= = = =
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
*****************************************************************
 31 ANI: India's nuke deal talks with US have to wait - Menon
 
From ANI
 
New Delhi, Oct 7 (ANI): South Block's dampened mood over the
entangling of the July 18, 2005 US-India civil nuclear
cooperation deal in the US Senate was clearly visible on the
face of Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon as he said on
Saturday that formal talks on the issue would have to wait for
now. 

The ratification of the Bill has been postponed and will be
taken up during the "Lame Duck" session of the Senate after the
Congressional elections in the first week of November. 

"The formal taking up of the issue of civilian nuclear energy
cooperation has to wait in the development in the US legislative
process," Menon told reporters while briefing them about Prime
Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh's forthcoming visit to London and
Helsinki.

He, however, said that India will continue to engage member
countries of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) to garner support
for the deal. The special envoy dealing with the Indo-US nuke
deal, Shyam Saran would continue his meeting with individual NSG
member, Menon added.

A crucial meeting of the NSG is slated to be held in Vienna on
October 10.

Stating that the support count among the 45-member NSG is
growing, Menon said that efforts would be made during Prime
Minister Singh's visit to Britain and Finland to harness more EU
support.

Though Britain has shown keen interest in New Delhi acquiring
global nuclear fuel supply for its energy generation projects,
the European Union members do not have a common position.

In Menon's words, "The EU does not have common position on the
issue of civil nuclear cooperation with India. Certain countries
have been very supportive. Some are less, some have conditions
and some might have reservations. We have been talking to all
the individual member state and explaining our position and
potential of Civil Nuclear Energy Cooperation. And it is our
understanding that we are in a position today- in terms of
amount of support among the EU member states for civil nuclear
cooperation with India, which is better than it was before. We
will continue with this effort."

While Britain and France have come out strongly in support of
the India-US civilian nuclear deal, Nordic countries, especially
Finland have expressed concern over the deal.

Finland, which holds the EU presidency, recently said that India
if gains the civilian nuclear energy cooperation without signing
the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) would be a "matter of
concern".

Recently, European Parliament president, Josep Borrell
Fontelles, said that European Parliament expects India to sign
the NPT regime before it secure its civilian nuclear energy
cooperation with the United States.

When Prime Minister Manmohan Singh meets Finnish President Tarja
Halonen, he would try to assuage concerns of the latter.

India is not a signatory of the NPT and has always opposed it on
the ground that the treaty does not call for global nuclear
non-proliferation and is skewed in favour of the P-5 (Permanent
Five) nuclear weapon states. (ANI)

Copyright ANI							   						 						
	 	 	 
Copyright © 2004-2006 DailyIndia.com    | |       
*****************************************************************
 32 Guardian Unlimited: Brown heckled on nuclear weapons
 
From Press Association   

[UP] 

Sunday October 8, 2006 10:18 PM

Chancellor Gordon Brown has been taken to task by a woman
protester over his stance on nuclear weapons. 

Janet Fenton interrupted Mr Brown as he explained his view, then
tried to hand him a letter. When police moved in she instead
dropped the letter on the stage in front of him, and was allowed
to return to her seat. 

The protest took place towards the end of a book promotion
session in Edinburgh's Queen's Hall. 

Mr Brown had been questioned for nearly an hour by film director
Anthony Minghella, and then took questions from the audience. 

When one questioner quizzed the Chancellor over his "support"
for a system to replace Britain's Trident submarine nuclear
missile system, Mr Brown insisted no decision had yet been made
by the Government, and said there would be a full public debate. 

"I haven't declared what the Government policy is," said Mr
Brown. "I believe there has to be a public debate. But people
kept asking me what was my personal view." 

He went on to argue for a multilateral process of disarmament,
and to say the number of nuclear states had increased from five
to 10-15 now. 

It was at this point that Ms Fenton shouted: "It's because you
have not complied with the Non-Proliferation Treaty." After her
protest ended, Mr Brown pledged to read her letter "carefully". 

He told his audience: "I don't think at this point it makes
sense for us to unilaterally throw away our weapons. What I
think makes sense for us to do is to use our weapons to
negotiate downwards the amount of weapons that exist in the
world". 

The event was part of the Edinburgh Book Festival. 

© Copyright Press Association Ltd 2006, All Rights Reserved. 
		 	 	   
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
 33 ANI: Pak says it won't accept nuclear 'discrimination'

From ANI
 
United Nations, Oct 7 (ANI): In an obvious reference to the 
controversial Indo-US nuclear deal under which India would get 
sophisticated technology for its civilian nuclear programmes, 
Pakistan has said that it would not accept "discrimination" in 
the nuclear field while underscoring the energy needs of its 
expanding economy. 

Speaking in a debate on disarmament-related issues at the UN,
the country's special envoy to the UN Masood Khan claimed that
discrimination in the nuclear field won't bring stability in
South Asia.

"In strategic and defence areas, Pakistan always demands and
deserves parity of treatment with our neighbour (India). A
discriminatory approach in the nuclear or conventional arms
field will not bring stability in South Asia," an APP report
quoted Khan as saying on Thursday evening.

Khan said that Pakistan would continue to develop nuclear
technology for power generation under strict IAEA safeguards.
"We will not accept discrimination," he said and added that the
sole purpose of Pakistan's nuclear capability was to deter
external aggression and its strategic posture to maintain a
credible minimum nuclear deterrence reflected restraint and
responsibility. Pakistan would not use or threaten to use
nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states, added the envoy.
(ANI)

Copyright ANI							   						 						

Copyright © 2004-2006 DailyIndia.com    Contact| Terms|
*****************************************************************
 34 IANS: Russia keen to expand nuclear cooperation with India

By Indo Asian News Service
 
Chandigarh/New Delhi, Oct 7 (IANS) Russia, an influential member 
of the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), has said it is 
keen to expand civilian nuclear cooperation with India, but 
underlined that issues regarding the Nuclear Non-Proliferation 
Treaty (NPT) and the NSG regime needed to be resolved to 
accelerate the process. 

'We are keen to expand our activity in the nuclear sector with
India. The enhancement of bilateral peaceful nuclear cooperation
is also in the interest of our countries,' Russian ambassador to
India Vyacheslav I. Trubnikov said at a seminar in Chandigarh. 

'Russia is ready to interact in this sphere provided it will not
violate Russia's existing international obligations,' he said as
he alluded to the Kudankulam nuclear power project being built
in India's southern state of Tamil Nadu with Russian help. 

'However, the concrete prospects and possibilities of such
cooperation are closely geared to resolving the issues related
to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the NSG regime,' he
said. 

Nearly seven months ago, Moscow agreed to supply 60 tonnes of
uranium to bail out fuel-starved Tarapur reactors in the teeth
of the American objections. The decision was announced during
the visit of Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov to India in
March. 

India and Russia also decided to expand civil nuclear energy and
space cooperation between them during Fradkov's visit that came
close on the heels of India and the US sealing a landmark
civilian nuclear accord based on New Delhi's plan of the
separation of its civilian and military nuclear facilities. 

Moscow's decision to supply fuel for the Tarapur plant had upset
Washington, which opposed the fuel supply on the grounds that it
violated the NSG guidelines. 

New Delhi had defended the move saying that the fuel was being
sought under safety exception clause of the NSG guidelines, and,
therefore, did not constitute a violation of the NSG guidelines.

The NSG is expected to take a final call on adjusting its
guidelines on permitting global nuclear commerce with New Delhi
after the India-US civil nuclear deal clears the US
Congressional process. 

Copyright Indo-Asian News Service							   						 						

Copyright © 2004-2006 DailyIndia.com    Contact| Terms|
*****************************************************************
 35 AFP: Rice wraps up snag-filled trip to Middle East and London -
     
 by Sylvie Lanteaume Sat Oct 7, 9:24 AM ET 		 	 

LONDON (AFP) - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice" /> 
Condoleezza Ricewrapped up a six-day visit to the Middle East and 
London that was marked by multiple snags, both in terms of 
results and images. 

 Trouble began even before she left Washington Sunday night: A
run of tell-all books on US President George W. Bush" />
President George W. Bush's handling of Iraq" /> Iraqand the war
on terror cast a harsh light on Rice, once the diva of the
administration. 

So an angry Rice began her tour with denials that she had
ignored an urgent warning from George Tenet, who was CIA" />
CIAdirector, about the risk of an Al-Qaeda attack against the
United States, two months before September 11, 2001. 

Then she traveled to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and Cairo to try to
rally a front of eight moderate Arab governments to vigorously
fight extremism and terrorism in the Middle East. 

However, what she obtained was a unified message from
Washington's Arab allies: the US government must engage
seriously in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, or the new
Middle East that she wants will never emerge. 

The message was apparently received. 

"I'm going to go back for extensive discussions with the
president ... and with the national security principals because
this is an absolutely crucial time in the Middle East," Rice
said. 

"And I heard in every single place this isn't a time to stand
still in terms of a policy in the Middle East," Rice said. 

She then traveled to Jerusalem and the West Bank" /> West
Banktown of Ramallah to support the moderate president of the
Palestinian Authority" /> Palestinian Authority, Mahmud Abbas,
while his Fatah" /> Fatahfaction and the Hamas Islamist movement
that heads the government are locked in clashes that have left
dozens dead. 

However, she obtained only limited commitments from the Israelis
to ease the humanitarian plight of the Palestinians. 

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said that the Karni crossing
for goods and people between Israel" /> Israeland the Gaza
Strip" /> Gaza Stripwould be re-opened soon, without giving a
date. 

The Jewish state made no concession on an eventual exchange of
prisoners and made no specific commitment to unfreeze funds owed
the Palestinian Authority. 

Then Rice traveled to Iraq to back the national reconciliation
plan of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, but the snags piled up
for the secretary of state, who is normally used to carrying out
her foreign tours briskly. 

While she never stops speaking of progress in Iraq, her plane
had to circulate above Baghdad airport for nearly 45 minutes to
wait for the end of a rocket attack in order to land. 

She left a day later for Arbil, in Iraqi Kurdistan, but what
should have appeared in the media as a virtuous effort to
convince the Kurds to share their oil wealth with other Iraqis
was beset by more difficulties. 

The military plane loaned to the secretary of state suffered
technical problems, forcing one of the world's most powerful
women to wait for more than two hours for another plane. 

The trouble caused her to miss the start of a crucial meeting of
six world powers on tackling the Iran" /> Irannuclear crisis,
her top priority. In the end, she managed to make the meeting
for 45 minutes. 

However, she and her counterparts from Britain, China, France,
Germany and Russia had to pass up the group photograph,
traditionally used to mark a display of unity, because some of
them had appointments to keep. 	 		 			

  Copyright © 2006 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 36 AFP: Nuclear renewal rooted in new political climate - NEA -                         News

 by Adam Plowright Sun Oct 8, 5:48 PM ET 		 	 

PARIS (AFP) - Nuclear power is poised for a renaissance as 
governments turn to the technology to face down fears about 
global warming and energy security, the head of the Nuclear 
Energy Agency believes. 

 In an interview with AFP, NEA director-general Luis Echavarri
explained how changes in the political climate have cast nuclear
energy in a new light, putting a number of countries on the path
to vast new investment programmes. 

"The important element is the change in the mind of
policymakers," Echavarri says. 

"More policymakers are telling their populations that energy
security is a big concern, that we have to be careful, and that
protection of the environment is another concern," says
Echavarri. 

The tripling of oil prices since 2002, instability in the Middle
East and the Russia-Ukraine gas dispute at the beginning of the
year have made securing reliable future sources of energy a
matter of national priority. 

The main resource required for nuclear power is uranium, more
than half of which is produced in relatively stable OECD
countries, all developed industrialised democracies, according
to NEA data. 

The NEA is the nuclear research arm of the Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development, a multilateral economic
coordination agency based in Paris. 

Furthermore, nuclear power emits no greenhouse gases, giving it
advantages over rival technologies at a time when climate change
and its apparent danger for the planet are in the spotlight. 

"If you put these two things together (energy security and
global warming), it is very logical that policymakers are now
looking at nuclear with the interest of newcomers," he says. 

In a broad look at likely new projects in the next few years,
Echavarri says that China is expected to build 30 new reactors
in the next 20-25 years while 15-20 nuclear units are under
consideration in the United States. 

He says that 6-10 reactors are being reviewed in Britain, while
Finland and France have begun construction of new plants. 

Japan and South Korea" /> have never stopped their nuclear
programmes, while Russia and India already have nuclear
experience and it is "very realistic" to expect them to add
capacity to provide the electricity required to fuel their
economic development. 

However, Echavarri says that nuclear power will remain steady as
a proportion of total electricity production in the next 20
years -- despite these new projects -- because of surging
demand. 

His statement reveals more about the need to find increased
capacity from other sources of energy to meet demand than it
does about the world's dependence on nuclear power. 

"In the next 20 years, the percentage of nuclear power in total
electricity will be relatively stable. 

"There will be more reactors come in and some reactors will be
decommissioned at the end of their life, but there will be
growth in electricity demand overall." 

Nuclear power currently provides 17 percent of world electricity
supply, with a higher proportion, 23 percent, in OECD countries. 

The OECD and NEA predict a doubling in energy demand by 2050
compared to the level of 2000 based on a scenario of modest
growth over the period. 

Nowhere is the trend of rising nuclear production struggling to
keep up with accelerating demand more evident than in east Asia
and Echavarri has some arresting statistics to illustrate the
point. 

"To give you an idea of the order of magnitude of the Chinese
programme, the percentage of electricity from nuclear in China
is currently 1.6 percent from nine reactors. 

"By 2030, if they have 40 reactors in operation, this will
represent only 4.0 percent of total electricity in China." 

Installed nuclear capacity in east Asia is set to double by
2020, according to projections by the NEA. 

China has announced its intention to buy technology from foreign
companies, with the main players, AREVA of France and
Westinghouse of the United States, shadowed by competition from
Canada and Russia. 

"The company that gets the first orders logically is in a very
good position for many new orders in the future," says
Echavarri. 

Echavarri even believes that nuclear power has been able to win
over some of its critics in the environmental world, with some
campaigners now recognising the role of the technology in
reducing greenhouse gas emissions. 

Nevertheless, the influential lobby group Greenpeace remains
fervently opposed and public opposition rooted in fears about
proliferation, safety and waste remains strong in many European
countries. 

In the meantime, the nuclear industry, which Echavarri describes
as "mature" 30 years after its creation, has begun work on a
fourth-generation reactor. 

Third-generation reactors are now off the drawing board and
under construction in Finland and France among others. 

The fourth-generation is expected to be cheaper, more efficient,
safer and less vulnerable to proliferation. 

"The idea is to have the technology available from 2020-2030, so
that prototypes could be operated and then used normally from
2040-2050." 	 		 			


*****************************************************************
 37 Nuclear Hypocrisy: Washington backs Egypt's civil nuclear program says US ambassador
 
Date: Sun, 8 Oct 2006 14:20:47 -0500 (CDT)

X-Sender-Host-Name: chumbly.math.missouri.edu
X-Spam-Class: HAM

"officials topped by President Hosni Mubarak stressed their country's
right to use civil nuclear energy and resume its program to face the
increase in the demand on electricity..." but
the same apparently doesn't apply to Iran, whose electriicty
generating natural gas
is needed to inject into oil wells to keep the peak oil wolf at bay
for Iran while a hugely
growing consumer class demands gigantic increases in energy use domestically...

= = =

Washington backs Egypt''s civil nuclear program -- US ambassador
PWR-EGYPT-US-RICCIARDONE

CAIRO, Oct 7 (KUNA) -- US Ambassador to Egypt Francis J. Ricciardone
said on Saturday his country "fully" supports any civil nuclear
program established in any country including Egypt and welcomed the
US-Egyptian cooperation in this field.

The Middle East News Agency quoted Ricciardone as saying Egypt will be
invited to attend a conference on civil nuclear energy due in Vienna
next December to present its program in this field.

He said his country will back Egypt in this matter and is ready to
fully cooperate with Egypt in developing a peaceful nuclear program.

A number of nuclear power experts will arrive in Egypt in the next few
days to research means of cooperation in this field and although Egypt
has many nuclear scientists, it will also need the aid of other
expertise, he added.

He recalled that since the 1970's both countries have held discussions
on this issue until Egypt had halted its civil nuclear program
following the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident.

Egyptian officials topped by President Hosni Mubarak stressed their
country's right to use civil nuclear energy and resume its program to
face the increase in the demand on electricity.

Meanwhile, Ricciardone said the American administration is greatly
concerned by the Egyptian political and economic reform measures and
is ready to offer any aid to support such measures. (end) rg.

http://www.kuna.net.kw/home/story.aspx?Language=en&DSNO=911278
*****************************************************************
 38 Guardian Unlimited: Nuclear sector calls for new agency
 
Terry Macalister

Monday October 9, 2006
The Guardian 		 

The nuclear industry is calling for the government to establish
a new energy agency - independent of political influence - to
oversee nuclear power if a second generation of atomic stations
is to be built.

A summit of leading figures last week endorsed the idea of an
organisation that would be given the kind of autonomy granted by
Labour to the Bank of England, according to the Prospect union.

EDF, the world's largest operator of atomic plants, also told
the meeting it needed reassurances on many other issues before
it turned from "investor-in-waiting to active investor".

The nuclear industry has been shaken by recent news that the 
first reactor being constructed in Western Europe for two decades 
- at Olkiluoto in Finland - is running wildly over budget and 
causing financial losses for French builder Areva.

"The biggest obstacle to a new generation of [British] plants is
long-term political uncertainty," said a spokeswoman for
Prospect, which organised the meeting. "The five-year cycle of
election politics is too short and we need the kind of approach
that was used with the [Bank of England's] monetary policy
committee to get round this," she added.

Vincent de Rivaz, chief executive of EDF UK, was present at the
meeting on October 3. A spokesman for the company confirmed last
night that Mr de Rivaz "supported the principle" behind the
Prospect idea. "We have to have a cross-party political
consensus on this, given new nuclear would have a 40 to 60-year
time horizon which would run across eight parliaments," he said.

Others at the summit included Bill Coley, the chief executive of
British Energy, Rhys Stanwix from Scottish &Southern Energy, and
Jim Wright, a director of Amex Nuclear. The idea of an
independent agency has also been supported by Dieter Helm of the
Oxera consultancy, an energy adviser to the British government.
The DTI declined to comment on the proposal.

EDF meanwhile wants further clarity on a number of issues
including planning, licensing, availability of sites, waste
storage and carbon pricing. It needs a "self-contained and
unambiguous" statement in a white paper that nuclear has a role
to play in UK power generation, it said.

"Make no mistake - I am advocating a full [planning inquiry]
process which should include public consultation. But let us do
this just once and then let us focus the local planning issues
on site-specific considerations," said Mr de Rivaz in a speech
to the Prospect summit.

The government has already said it wants to streamline the
planning process for new plants, a move criticised last week by
the Campaign to Protect Rural England. "If people can't give
their views at a public hearing, public confidence in
decision-making will be lost ... the government is storing up
trouble for itself," said CPRE planning campaigner Amanda Brace.

EDF wants the government to agree to the pre-licensing of
reactors to shorten the time needed to agree on the technology
for each specific site. It also wants a clear decision on
dealing with nuclear waste.

Many of these needs were met at Olkiluoto but the scheme has
still run into difficulties. Areva's reactor and services arm
recently revealed a first-half loss of 266m (£180m), compared
with a 32m profit during the same period of 2005. Despite the
difficulties, German utility E.ON said on Friday it was looking
at building a second new reactor in Finland.

Meanwhile, opposition to nuclear in Britain stepped up last
week. The government's recent energy review, which backed new
nuclear plants, was "legally flawed", according to documents
given to the high court by Greenpeace. The group said the
government did not carry out the promised "full public
consultation" before making the decision.

Backstory:

After many hints by Tony Blair that he was "minded" to approve
new nuclear power stations the government finally launched its
wider energy review consultation on January 26. Mr Blair made
clear he supported a new generation of atomic power stations -
to fight climate change and reduce reliance on overseas gas.
Conclusions were made public on July 11 and a new consultation
started on a specific nuclear newbuild policy framework which
concludes at the end of this month. The policy will be made
clear in a white paper expected at the end of the year.
 
Useful links
Energy Saving Trust

[UP] 

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
 39 Longview News-Journal: Rusk County could land nuclear plant

Company considering eight sites in Texas
 		 	
By SHERRY KOONCE
 		 
Saturday, October 07, 2006


Rusk County could be the site of a new multibillion-dollar
nuclear power plant if a Chicago-based company decides to go
ahead with plans to build in Texas. 

Exelon Corp. representatives met with Henderson Economic
Development Corp. officials Tuesday to look at 600-plus acres in
southern Rusk County  one possible Texas site for construction
of a nuclear generated power plant. 

The electric utility company in September notified the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission of its intention to start the application
process for a combined construction and operating license. The
process will allow possible construction at a yet-unnamed site
in Texas, but does not lock the company into building. 

Though Exelon has not decided to build a new nuclear plant,
company officials are looking at eight potential sites in Texas,
said Craig Nesbit, Exelon director of communications. 

Nesbit said all of the potential Texas sites are greenfields 
underdeveloped lands such as farmlands, woodlands or fields on
the outskirts of urbanized lands. 

"We feel we have an opportunity here in Henderson," said Joe
Sorrells, Henderson Economic Development Corp. board president. 

After Exelon contacted the state looking for possible building
sites that would meet specified parameters, HEDCO officials
notified the state of their interest. 

Sorrells said the Rusk County site has the opportunity of
reaching two different power grids, which is a big advantage. 

Henderson Mayor J.W. "Buzz" Fullen, who was with the delegation
Tuesday, said Exelon officials noted a disadvantage to Rusk
County site  no large body of water on the property. 

"It is a definite obstacle," Fullen said. 

Possible solutions offered Tuesday by Exelon's engineer included
using cooling tower technology. 

"If they went with the cooling tower, they would have to build a
small lake similar to Martin Lake," Fullen said. 

Another option is to purchase water from nearby waterways,
Fullen said. 

The company, which already has nuclear power plants in Illinois,
Pennsylvania and New Jersey, finds Texas attractive as a
building site because of the state's strong growth projection
combined with the need for power sources that do not produce air
emissions, Nesbit said. 

If built, Nesbit said the nuclear power plant will use
state-of-the-art equipment that does not emit emissions. The
plant's principal fuel source is uranium. 

"The decision about whether or not to build will come late in
the application process," Nesbit said. 

The man at the county seat's helm, Fullen said he "absolutely"
supports building a nuclear plant in Rusk County and is not
concerned about the safety of a nuclear plant. 

"With today's new technology, the (nuclear) plants are safe  far
less restrictive than a coal plant. These plants are cleaner and
safer than a coal plant," Fullen said. 

The timing of the application would allow the company to take
advantage of incentives available from the 2005 Energy Policy
Act, such as participating in nuclear production tax credits,
financial risk insurance and federal loan guarantees. 

Before any formal decision is made, the company must develop a
permanent solution for disposal of used fuel. There must also be
broad public acceptance of a nuclear power plant and assurances
that a new plant using new technology can be financially
successful, according to an Exelon news release. 

The permitting process will take up to two years to complete. 

"Exelon said if they decided to build, it would be at least 2009
before construction starts, and they did not anticipate
generation until the start of 2015," Sorrells said. 

If the nuclear power plant is built in Rusk County, an estimated
500 to 800 permanent new jobs and 1,500 to 3,000 temporary jobs
during the construction phase would be generated. 

Depending on the technology and size of the plant, construction
costs could run between $3 billion and $6 billion, Nesbit said. 

Exelon is the largest operator of nuclear energy stations in the
United States and the third largest in the world, according to
information at www.exeloncorp.com. 	 		 		 								 								
								
  [Longview News-Journal


Cox Newspapers, L.P. - - 
*****************************************************************
 40 Gulfnews: Egypt's nuclear challenge

Last updated: 11:25 (GMT+04:00) Sunday, October 08, 2006 	       

Illustration by Noora Altannak/Gulf News 

By Adel Safty, Special to Gulf News

I argued in my previous column that the recent call by Jamal
Mubarak, the son of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, for Egypt
to develop nuclear energy, was a welcome contribution to a
much-needed grand vision for the role of Egypt in the region. 

Although Egypt, as a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty (NPT), is perfectly entitled to develop nuclear energy,
it is not entitled to develop nuclear weapons unless it
withdraws from the NPT. 

There were suggestions in the past that Egypt might withdraw
unless Israel accepted a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East.
But Egypt renewed the NPT without getting anything from Israel
in return. 

This raises questions about the value of Egyptian membership of
the NPT. Its practical effect, if not its purpose, has been to
perpetrate a discriminatory nuclear regime. 

It allows the nuclear weapon-states to keep and develop nuclear
weapons, but seeks to prohibit others from doing so with the
never-fulfilled promise that the nuclear states would work for
the elimination of nuclear weapons. 

Even Egypt's recent affirmation of its right to develop nuclear
energy for peaceful purposes has met with negative reactions
from Israel and other nuclear powers. 

The discriminatory approach has been also evident in the
scholarly theorisation and the general debate in the US about
nuclear weapons. 

Consider this typical view. In their joint report of the
Carnegie Commission Reducing the Nuclear Danger, McGeorge Bundy,
a former special assistant for national security affairs,
William Crowe, a former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff,
and Professor Sidney Drell of Stanford, reach conclusions that
illustrate this bias. 

The nuclear bomb, write the three veterans, is so dangerous and
"so destructive that in all the conflict and tumult of the Cold
War no one chose to use it or to provoke its use by others". 

They draw from this correct observation the predictable
conclusion: namely that the United States should lead a
worldwide effort for the avoidance of further nuclear
proliferation. 

The usual suspects are rounded up: Iraq, Iran, North Korea and
Libya; while Israel is given the benefit of the doubt, because
"the underlying motivation for the Israeli bomb is clearly the
reality of vastly outnumbering unfriendly neighbours". 

This rationalisation for the Israeli monopoly of nuclear weapons
is based on reasoning by false analogy. It wrongly assumes that
the size of population, number of soldiers and depth of
territories have the same strategic importance for nuclear
weapons that they historically had for conventional weapons. 

The same argument also falsely assumes that nuclear weapons are
war weapons when they are essentially deterrence weapons. 

In fact, the same observation about the extreme danger of the
nuclear bomb making its use unthinkable could more logically
have led to a different conclusion, namely that the nuclear bomb
is primarily a blackmailing weapon whose effectiveness resides,
not in its use, but primarily in its power of deterrence. 

Nuclear weapons may be considered as the ultimate defence
weapons in that they act on the political will of the enemy
deterring aggression by making the cost of war prohibitive.
Neither acquisition of territories nor war loot - the
traditional fruits of war in the conventional era - are worth
the cost of assured destruction. 

This conclusion is supported by the record of nuclear deterrence
during the Cold War. Conventional wisdom, on the other hand, is
based on false analogies with the past and theorisations about
the future, leading to the predictable conclusion the three
veteran specialists reach: We should continue to have the bomb
but they (our challengers) should not be allowed to have it. 

From a technological point of view, nuclear energy stands to
benefit Egypt's scientific and economic development. 

From a political and security point of view, acquiring nuclear
weapons would end Israeli hegemony in the region. It would
establish a different balance of power between the two most
powerful countries in the region. 

Egyptian nuclear weapons and the appropriate delivery means
(air, land and submarines) would introduce a new strategic
doctrine in the region. It would replace the current Israeli
blackmail doctrine of Unilaterally Assured Destruction with the
doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD). 

The MAD doctrine means that if Israel were to threaten Egyptian
national existence, Egypt would be in a position to do the same.
This would render war between the two countries unthinkable and
would introduce different strategic calculations in the region
affecting Israel's bullying behaviour. 

There would simply be no stakes worth fighting for when the only
certainty of going to war is the mutual assured destruction of
the two countries. 

If MAD kept the peace between the US and the Soviet Union during
the Cold War, why can it not keep the peace in the Middle East? 

Racist argument 

To argue that Israel is a democracy and can be trusted with
responsible behaviour whereas the Arabs cannot is a basically
racist argument. It is also not supported by the historical
record of Israeli lawless behaviour in the region. 

In a frank admission of the contradictions and hypocrisy of
American support for this line of thinking the New York Times
wrote: "Rattling windows in Nevada to warn the world that
Washington still has the bomb seems particularly perverse when
the US is trying to persuade nuclear have-nots to stay out of
the bomb making business." 

Now that Jamal Mubarak made the debate public, Egypt will have
to chose: Either it resigns itself to accepting Israeli hegemony
in the region, with obvious consequences as the war in Lebanon
illustrated; or it rises to the challenge of independence and
leadership in the region by asserting and exercising its right
to the development of nuclear energy and eventually the option
of nuclear deterrence. 

Professor Adel Safty is Distinguished Visiting Professor at the
Siberian Academy of Public Administration, Russia. His latest
book, Leadership and Democracy, is published in New York. 

© Al Nisr Publishing LLC 2006. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 41 San Luis Obispo Tribune: Access issue stalls opening of Diablo Canyon coastal trail

10/07/2006 | 

PG, commission staff disagree on need for docents to lead hikers
 By David Sneed dsneed@thetribunenews.com

A 3-mile hiking trail into coastal lands north of Diablo Canyon
nuclear power plant will not open in early December as planned. 

Disagreement over how much access the public will have to the
property as well as delays in completing a resource inventory
are the main reasons for the postponement, said Charles Lester,
Central Coast district manager for the state Coastal Commission. 

"We are a little behind schedule," he said. "Our interest is
having the trail open as soon as possible, but we want to make
sure the access is done in the right way." 

The Coastal Commission is requiring Pacific Gas and Electric Co.
to open the trail as part of an agreement to allow the utility
to build an aboveground storage facility for highly radioactive
waste at the Diablo Canyon plant. 

The commission had given PG a deadline of Dec. 3 to open the
trail. The commission will likely extend the deadline, Lester
said. He does not know when the trail will open. 

The bluff-top trail will run from the southern boundary of
Montaña de Oro State Park to Crowbar Canyon near Lion Rock, a
prominent offshore pinnacle. When the trail opens, it will be
the first time in two decades the public has had access to that
section of the coastline. It has been part of the security
buffer zone around the nuclear plant. 

One main sticking point is whether public access will be limited
to docent-led hikes. PG wants only docent-led hikes in order to
maximize plant security and to protect tide pools and other
marine resources that are largely untouched, said Jeff Lewis, PG
spokesman. 

Coastal Commission staff disagrees, saying that maximizing
coastal access is one of the commission’s main tenets. Seasonal
closures and other techniques can be used to protect resources,
Lester said. 

"You can also have docents who are out there but who don’t lead
hikes," he said. 

*****************************************************************
 42 MDN: Seaweed clog shuts down nuclear reactor - 

MSN-Mainichi Daily News

A nuclear power plant in Aomori Prefecture was forced to reduce
its output by more than 60 percent after a storm washed heaps of
seaweed into its water intakes, causing a shortage of cooling
water, the plant operator said Sunday.

Unit No. 1 reactor of the Higashidori Nuclear Power Station was
generating 400,000 kilowatts Sunday night, down from the usual
1.1 million kilowatts, after seaweed clogged the filters on its
two water entryways, operator Tohoku Electric Power Co. said in
a statement.

Northeastern Japan was hit by stormy weather Friday from
tropical storms in the Pacific Ocean.The seaweed posed no threat
to the environment, and plant workers were scrambling to remove
it, the company said.

It was expected to take several days before the plant can resume
normal operations, it said. (AP)
 

October 8, 2006 	 


      Copyright 2005-2006 THE MAINICHI NEWSPAPERS. All rights
reserved.
*****************************************************************
 43 India News: Hearing on more reactors at Koodankulam put off - 

Last update: Sunday, 08th October 2006

Saturday, October 7th, 2006

 Authorities have put off a public hearing here on setting up
more nuclear power reactors at Koodankulam in Tamil Nadu, with
the local population opposing the projects on environmental
grounds. 

The Koodankulam campus in Tirunelveli district is 900 km from
Tamil Nadu capital Chennai and 100 km from here. 

The government is putting up two 1,000-MW VVER, Russia-made
reactors, at the Koodankulam site at a cost of $1.5 billion. The
reactors will begin power generation by March 2007. 

It is proposed to install eight more 1,000-MW Russian reactors
in the campus to meet the 2020 target of 20,000 MW of nuclear
power. 

But the plan to cluster 10 reactors in Koodankulam has triggered
alarm among the people here. 

A huge nuclear furnace is being set up at Koodankulam to cook
all of us alive, said S.P. Udaykumar, an activist who has been
pleading against placing nuclear reactors in the district for a
decade now. 

While the district collector had called for a hearing Friday
evening on the plan to set up two more reactors at Koodankulam,
it had to be put off as the 800-strong crowd wanting to voice
its opinion became restive. 

The disgruntled villagers heckled M. Appavu, legislator from
Radhapuram, the constituency in which the nuclear power complex
is situated. 

After almost an hour of slogan shouting, the district collector
asked the Koodankulam authorities to put out fresh
advertisements for the public hearing in all major newspapers,
with enough time for the people to prepare. 

He ordered that the public hearing be also held in adjoining
areas. 

- Indo Asian News Service 					 					 								 					 					 					
																				 					
Copyright © IndiaeNews.com.
*****************************************************************
 44 TheStar.com: Right to invest in nuclear energy
 
Sun. Oct. 8, 2006. | Updated at 06:42 PM 

Letters to the editorThis is a letter to the editor.

Where will province store its nuclear waste?

Opinion, Oct. 4.

Bruce Cox, the head of my former organization, Greenpeace
Canada, has wrongly criticized Premier Dalton McGuinty for
supporting nuclear energy  the only non-greenhouse gas emitting
energy source capable of replacing fossil fuels and satisfying
Ontario's growing energy demand. McGuinty's government ought to
be praised for backing a proven, homegrown energy source that
will result in cleaner air for Ontarians. While I strongly
support renewable energy as part of the province's energy mix,
it is totally unrealistic, as Cox argues, to replace existing
nuclear and coal-fired plants  which currently make up 70 per
cent of Ontario's electricity production  with renewables
alone. If we want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and
pollutants from coal-fired plants, we must build new nuclear
energy infrastructure, plain and simple.

Cox claims nuclear energy in Canada has a poor performance
history, yet our 22 Candu reactors have a combined lifetime
performance record of more than 80 per cent, despite required
downtime for refueling.

He tries to scare readers with fears of a major accident, yet
there have been no radiation-related deaths or injuries in the
history of nuclear energy generation  in both Canada and the
U.S.

Cox says nuclear waste will remain "deadly poisonous for a
million years." The reality is spent fuel, which contains 95 per
cent of its original energy, is being safely stored at nuclear
power plants around the world and will be reused by future
generations for electricity. 

Within 40 years, spent fuel has less than one-thousandth the
radioactivity it had when it was removed from the reactor. 

Advances in fuel recycling will reduce the amount of materials
requiring treatment and disposal.

Cox asks if it's "ethical for politicians to invest in nuclear
power today." At a time when the Ontario Medical Association
predicts poor air quality will kill 6,000 Ontarians this year
alone, investing in clean nuclear energy is absolutely the right
thing to do.

 Patrick Moore, Chair and Chief Scientist, Greenspirit
Strategies Ltd., Vancouver.

Legal Notice: Copyright Toronto Star Newspapers Limited.
*****************************************************************
 45 Worcester News: What Happened When County Soldiers Had To Destroy A Nuclear Plant 
And Come Back Alive 

By Tom Edwards

ARMY officers from Worcestershire travelled all the way to
Norway to take part in a gruelling training exercise designed to
test their endurance, mental strength and intelligence. 

The trip, which the Worcester News had exclusive access to, saw
13 members of the 1st Battalion Worcestershire &Sherwood
Foresters travel to a remote village 100 miles south-west of
Oslo. 

They were not told about the trip until Monday morning when the
officers were at Stansted airport, and told to prepare for
"absolutely anything".continued... 

The crew were then handed packs which told where they were
going, why, and how to prepare for it. 

They were to travel to the village of Rjukan to locate a
fictional hard-water nuclear plant which was being used to make
a bomb. 

The trip was based around real life events during World War II -
when members of the regiment travelled to Norway to help destroy
a real nuclear plant operated by Germans. 

The heroic act, during which British soldiers died trying to
destroy the plant, was completed by Norwegian saboteurs and
later dubbed the most successful act of sabotage in all of World
War II by the British SOE. 

The fictional version, which took place on Monday, Tuesday and
Wednesday of last week on the exact same site, was updated to
suit modern conditions. 

They were told to travel to the site of the fictional plant,
locate where it was by using maps, and draw up a plan for
destroying it and escaping with their lives intact. All the
Norwegian soldiers, the story goes, were on duty elsewhere in
the world and therefore they had to step into the country to do
the mission. 

The journey had a testing twist - they were going to travel back
to a hostel and deliver their plan to one of the most
influential people in the country - the chief of defence in
Norway General Diesen. 

Lieutenant James Mack- enzie, aged 22, of School Bank, Claines,
went on the trip as well as Lieutenant Alex Garrard, 24, of
Sling Lane, Fernill Heath. 

Lt Garrard went to Royal Grammer School in Worcester and then
got an MA in civil engineering at university in Nottingham
before joining the army. 

Captain Dan Hinxman, 26, of Arelely Kings, Stourport-on-Severn,
also took part in the trip. All three arrived in Oslo on Monday
afternoon and had little more than 24 hours to locate the site
and draw up a plan to destroy it. 

Lt Garrard said: "We were told we were going to Belgium on
Sunday, then whisked off to Norway and told to find Rjukan in a
banged up van and camp the night. 

"When we realised what we had to do, and told the chief of
defence was coming to hear our plans, we were both nervous and
excited." 

They had to survive in temperatures close to zero overnight,
sleeping in tents on highly dangerous, rocky hills while the
skies rained in on them. 

In full army mode, they donned the kit, packed their survival
packs, including rations of cold pasta and meat, and were told
to drink streamwater if they were thirsty. 

By the time the Worcester News arrived with army bosses to see
the troops, they were cold, hungry and unshaven after staying
out for almost 48 hours before they were told to come in. 

"It's the food that's the worst thing," said Lt Mackenzie. 

"We had to survive on food rations, which tends to be bits of
pasta, and drink water from streams. 

"Morale was good during the night considering the heavy rain and
cold. We think we've got a good plan but we'll wait and see." 

Commanding officer Richard Westley and Regimental Sargeant Major
Neil Cresswell had arrived in town and met up with the soldiers
back to a hostel to see them deliver the plans. 

General Diesen, chief of defence in Norway, the man in charge of
the Norwegian army, RAF and the Navy was on site too. 

The troops were split up into five groups of two and a three for
the mission, and had to deliver their plans group by group. 

Tired after two nights outside, still trying to recover, they
had to deliver their plans to a hostile panel. 

"We have to keep an eye on the media, and try to get a press
release out so that they know we are destroying the plant to get
them on our side," said Cpt Hinxman during one of the
presentations. 

Brilliantly planned, it provided a glimpse into army life - and
how three Worcestershire lads can be thrust into the dangerous,
the hostile and the unknown at a moments notice in a bid to be
the best officers in the world. 

10:30am Saturday 7th October 2006Print   Send    Add Comment

  [Worcester News]   
Newsquest Media Group 
A Gannett Company
*****************************************************************
 46 Daily Press: Transformers quit, shut down Surry nuclear reactor

Hampton Roads, Virginia - October 8, 2006 11:32 PM

By the Associated Press

SURRY, Va. -- One of two nuclear reactors at Surry Power Station 
remained shut down Sunday after two electrical transformers that 
provide backup power to the plant quit working. 

Unit Two was shut down around 6 p.m. Saturday after steam blew
out some sheet metal, which landed on a power line that serves
one of the backup transformers, said Richard Zher, a spokesman
for Dominion Resources Inc., the Richmond-based power company
that owns the plant. Officials weren't sure what caused the
second transformer to shut down, Zher said. 

That first reserve electrical transformer was repaired, and
Dominion was working on the second, Zher said Sunday. A third
transformer was not affected. 

Backup diesel generators kicked in when the two transformers
shut down, Zher said. 

Zher said Dominion was investigating what caused steam to blow
out the siding in a building where cold water is turned into
steam, which powers a turbine that creates electricity through a
generator. 

"Once we have made that determination and resolved any problems,
we will restart" the reactor, Zher said. 

The plant issued an alert, as required by federal guidelines, he
said. 

"No one was injured and it didn't cause any threat to public
health or safety," Zher said. 

Surry's two nuclear units at Surry each produce 799 megawatts of
electricity and provide 15 percent of the electricity in
Dominion's service area. 					
 			 			 			 			
Copyright ©2006 Daily Press                         
*****************************************************************
 47 TN: Nuclear power is not best way to get electricity 

Joseph Mangano

Tuscaloosa News
 
October 08. 2006 3:30AM
 
The possibility of the first new U.S. nuclear reactor order since 
1978 is now getting extensive coverage. But little attention has 
been paid to what will essentially be a new nuke -- the upcoming 
restart of the Browns Ferry 1 reactor near Decatur, 70 miles 
north of Birmingham, which has been shut down since 1985. The 
potential health risks to northern Alabama residents have been 
ignored, but should be examined thoroughly.

Aside from Three Mile Island, the March 22, 1975, accident at
Browns Ferry 1 was perhaps the most serious at any U.S. reactor.

A fire began when workers making repairs held a candle near
flammable material. The brand-new reactor ran again from
1976-1985, but has since been shut down.

The Tennessee Valley Authority, which runs the Browns Ferry
plant, decided to pump $1.8 billion into repairs and upgrades so
that Browns Ferry 1 could operate again beginning next year.

Restart should not be primarily a financial issue, but a health
issue. And while restarting Browns Ferry 1 raises the potential
for another accident, such an event may not be needed to harm
local citizens.

Each day, a nuclear reactor releases more than 100 chemicals
into the air. These chemicals, which are created only in nuclear
weapons and reactors, are radioactive and cause cancer by
damaging cells.

After entering the body through breathing and food, each
chemical affects the body in a different way. Iodine-131 attacks
the thyroid gland, Strontium-90 seeks out bone, and Cesium-137
disperses throughout the soft tissues. The fetus and infant with
undeveloped immune systems and rapidly dividing cells are most
affected.

Since the mid-1970s, local citizens have been subjected to these
chemical releases (the Browns Ferry 2 and 3 reactors have
continued to function even after Unit 1 closed).

The area most affected is the downwind region east of the plant.

Four Alabama counties (Jackson, Madison, Marshall and Morgan)
lie to the east within 50 miles of the plant. The area has a
population of about 550,000, including the city of Huntsville.

It has no obvious health risk factors; it is similar to the U.S.
in poverty rate, racial mix, educational level, and percent of
children and elderly. It has 10 hospitals, with specialized care
close by in Birmingham.

In the mid-1980s, Browns Ferry emitted more radioactivity into
the air than any other U.S. nuclear plant. But when these
emissions were reduced – just after Browns Ferry 1 shut down --
the health of local infants improved.

In 1986-1987, a total of 71 babies died before they were a month
old, down from 96 in the previous two-year period. This 27
percent decline was far greater than the 6 percent national
decline.

Long-term local health trends also suggest that Browns Ferry may
have harmed local citizens.

Just after the plant began operating, the local cancer death
rate was 4 percent below the U.S., but in recent years the rate
was 7 percent above the nation. Cancer deaths among children
were especially high (23 percent above the U.S. average).

Many factors could account for this change, but no apparent
reason explains the shift from a low-cancer to a high-cancer
area.

More study of local health trends, and explanations for
worsening health, should be pursued. In the meantime, the
restart of the Browns Ferry 1 nuclear reactor should not be
permitted by federal regulators until health risks of operating
the reactor are well understood.

Even though the need for electricity in northern Alabama is
growing, power sources such as solar, wind and hydrogen fuel may
be able to meet these needs in a more environmentally friendly
way.

Joseph Mangano, MPH MBA, is national coordinator of the
Radiation and Public Health Project, a research group based in
New York. Reach him by e-mail at Odiejoe@aol.com.
 
Copyright © 2006 The Tuscaloosa News   
*****************************************************************
 48 rozhovor: Austrian activists block border in protest against Temelin

Tomáš Töpfer

kandidát do Senátu
9.10. od 13:00 		 ['foto' /] Auto

 Wullowitz- Austrian opponents of the south Bohemian nuclear
power plant Temelin today blocked the Wullowitz-Dolni Dvoriste
Austrian-Czech border crossing with about ten tractors today in
order to point to defects at Temelin whose safety measures they
view as insufficient. 

By organising the blockade, the Austrian Atomstopp initiative
also wants to make the Austrian government renew its
negotiations with Prague about Temelin. 

About 300 activists gathered at the border crossing earlier this
afternoon. The protesters fly balloons with the inscription Stop
Temelin and are sending postcards and e-mails to Alfred
Gusenbauer, chairman of the election-winning Austrian Social
Democrats (SPOe). 

The protest had been announced beforehand. It has not caused any
troubles in road traffic. 

The activists also want to point to the recent election promises
of the SPOe that it would reopen the Temelin issue in
negotiations with the Czech Republic and push for the observance
of all safety measures in Temelin the two countries had agreed
upon. 

According to Atomstopp's Manfred Doppler, a commission of
experts uncovered shortcomings in the plant's safety in late
2005. 

"Out of the measures that were to be taken, none have been
implemented and the safety shortcomings persist," Doppler told
journalists. 

Atomstopp wants the Austrian government to initiate new
negotiations with the Czech Republic about Temelin. 

Opponents of Temelin, a plant situated some 60km from the
nuclear-free Austria's border, say it is not safe because it
combines Soviet design with western fuel and safety technology.
Czech authorities have repeatedly refuted the fears. 
Author:   
ÈTK.             16:12 - 08.10.2006 ['Print this article']

(c) 1995-2006 Neris s.r.o. Ochrana osobních dat [ Titulní strana
*****************************************************************
 49 Hudson Valley News: Entergy tells NRC the new Indian Point notification system is
built on lessons learned   

Weekend, October 7-8, 2006 

Peekskill  Two-thirds of the new warning sirens are in place,
and are being tested, in the ten-mile radius around the Indian
Point Energy Center.  All 150 sirens are to be installed by
sometime early next year. 

Entergy officials told the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, at a
public meeting in Peekskill on Friday, that the new system
relies strongly on redundancy to ensure reliability, as well as
multi-level power backup to keep the system, and each of the
individual sirens, working in the event of a power failure. 

The current system, using out-of-date custom software from
multiple vendors, is causing more frequent problems, although
Entergys Director of Emergency Planning Mike Solbodien defines
that as working 98 percent of the time, instead of 100 percent. 

How Entergy is coping with the current system was the subject of
extended NRC probing during the first part of the almost
three-hour meeting. 

Solbodien, said they have learned some hard lessons from their
efforts to make the old system work. 

Were using more than one technology.  Its all commercial,
off-the-shelf technology.  Its all tested technology.  And, its
redundant, so, we have many things doing the same thing,
physically separately and operationally separately, so we have
the highest insurance the system will work at all times. 

Solbodien and other Entergy officials said the new system is
fully integrated with New York States current high-tech
emergency notification system. 

Energys Indian Point Site Vice President Fred Dacimo said the
four-faceted system will, in his words be a 21ste century public
information system that will be a model for the rest of the
nation. 

The afternoon session was sparsely attended.  About half the
roughly 100 people in the room were either with the NRC or
Entergy.  That drew fire from one of the four citizens who
spoke.  

Mark Jacobs, of the Indian Point Safe Energy Coalition, took the
NRC to task for holding the meeting in the afternoon, instead of
the usual evening time.  Deputy Regional Administrator Mark
Dapas took responsibility for the scheduling, noting that
typically, this sort of meeting would normally take place at
their regional office near Philadelphia.  

Other questions raised during public comment dealt with the
scope and reliability of the planned backup system, and with
security of the software against outside hacking. 

  HEAR today's news on MidHudsonRadio.com, the Hudson Valley's
                only Internet radio news report. 
*****************************************************************
 50 US Cancer Secret: 1959 Simi Valley Nuclear Accident
 
Date: Sat, 7 Oct 2006 13:05:31 -0500 (CDT)

X-Sender-Host-Name: chumbly.math.missouri.edu
X-Spam-Class: HAM

The nuclear meltdown, which remained virtually unknown to the public
until 1979, could have caused between 260 and 1,800 cases of cancer
"over a period of [not that "many"] decades," the study concluded.

.A team of UCLA graduate students obtained documents through the
Freedom of Information Act detailing the meltdown. The disclosure
resulted in a number of environmental studies that found widespread
radioactive and chemical contamination at the lab..

But the advisory panel that oversaw the five-year study, conducted by
an independent team of scientists and health experts, said it could
not offer more specifics about potential exposure to carcinogens
because the Department of Energy and Rocketdyne's owner, Boeing Co.,
did not provide key information. 

Critics chided Boeing officials Thursday for failing to provide
information for the new study. "The pattern of secrecy and
misrepresentation that began at the time of the accident continues to
this day, where sloppy practices are done under a cover of darkness,"
said Dan Hirsch, a physicist and co-chairman of the advisory panel.

 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Study Says Lab Meltdown Caused Cancer

Scientists say details about the 1959 accident near Simi Valley
continue to be withheld. Other contamination at the site is much
clearer.

Radioactive emissions from a 1959 nuclear accident at a research lab
near Simi Valley appear to have been much greater than previously
suspected and could have resulted in hundreds of cancers in
surrounding communities, according to a study released Thursday.

Chemical contamination from rocket engine testing at the site
continues to threaten soil and groundwater in the area around
Rocketdyne's Santa Susana Field Laboratory, the study also found.

The nuclear meltdown, which remained virtually unknown to the public
until 1979, could have caused between 260 and 1,800 cases of cancer
"over a period of [not that "many"] decades," the study concluded.

But the advisory panel that oversaw the five-year study, conducted by
an independent team of scientists and health experts, said it could
not offer more specifics about potential exposure to carcinogens
because the Department of Energy and Rocketdyne's owner, Boeing Co.,
did not provide key information. 

"This lack of candor...makes characterization of the potential health
impacts of past accidents and releases extremely difficult," the panel
concluded.

Boeing officials vigorously disputed the findings, saying the study
was based on miscalculations and faulty information.

"We disagree entirely with the report's conclusion," said Phil
Rutherford, a health, safety and radiation manager for the company. He
cited a Boeing-commissioned study released last year that found
overall cancer deaths among employees at the field lab and at Canoga
Park facilities between 1949 and 1999 were lower than in the general
population.

The Boeing report contradicted findings from an earlier UCLA study
that found elevated cancer deaths among workers exposed to high levels
of radiation.

Critics chided Boeing officials Thursday for failing to provide
information for the new study.

"The pattern of secrecy and misrepresentation that began at the time
of the accident continues to this day, where sloppy practices are done
under a cover of darkness," said Dan Hirsch, a physicist and
co-chairman of the advisory panel.

The lab was opened on a craggy plateau in easternmost Ventura County
in 1948 as the nearby San Fernando and Simi valleys were on the cusp
of a postwar population boom. Originally operated by North American
Rockwell, it conducted nuclear research for the federal government for
more than four decades before ceasing those operations in the late
1980s. It has also been the site of more than 30,000 rocket engine
tests, the thunderous explosions serving as a Cold War-era
hallmark for nearby residents.

The 2,850-acre site has been the source of much controversy since the
nuclear accident was first widely publicized in 1979. A team of UCLA
graduate students obtained documents through the Freedom of
Information Act detailing the meltdown.

The disclosure resulted in a number of environmental studies that
found widespread radioactive and chemical contamination at the lab. In
turn, several investigations into the potential impact on the health
of lab workers and area residents were triggered.

The advisory panel was created by local legislators in the early 1990s
to oversee some of the studies. Its new report specifically focuses on
how the lab's operations, which included decades of rocket engine
testing, may have affected the health of people in nearby communities.

The study, paid with federal funding, asserted that the rocket engine
tests had caused chemical contamination of water and soil in nearby
areas in recent years and "may indicate pathways for other
contaminants."

Among the scientists' other key   findings:

* As much as 30% of the most worrisome
compounds associated with nuclear testing at the lab, iodine-131 and
cesium-137, may have been released into the air. But Boeing's
utherford said data from the site's own airborn monitoring system
refustes taht claim [oh really? then what percent insteaad of 30%?
they don't even bother telling us what the "correct" number is if the
30% is too unfair...!]

..* For years, IN VIOLATION OF RESTRICTIONS PROHIBITING SUCH ACTIVITY,
radioactive and chemically contaminated components were disposed of at
an open-air sodium burn pit at the field lab, polluting soil and
groundwater.

* Perchlorate, a component of rocket fuel, migrated off the lab site,
  toward populated areas, IN SURFACE WATER RUNOFF. Other contaminants
  may have spread off site in this manner as well, the report said.

The report also disclosed little-known information about lab
operations: It was home to 10 nuclear reactors and numerous low-power
reactors, plutonium and uranium carbide fabrication plants and a "hot
lab" used for remotely cutting up irradiated nuclear fuel shipped in
from other federal nuclear plants.

[suprised? do you think the federal government doesn't
omit certain "details" about the labs they say they want to do A, B,
and C, when the labs secretly also do X, Y, and Z in 
secret from the public? -ED]

About 150 people attended a public meeting Thursday night to discuss
the report's findings. Many of those in the audience are residents or
former residents of the area surrounding the field lab.

They said they appreciated the findings and hoped the report would
spur regulators to force a thorough cleanup of the site.

Marjorie Weems, who lives on property adjoining the site, said her
daughter, Priscilla, 34, had to have part of her thyroid removed 13
years ago and worries about a possible connection to the lab's
operations.

"It's been such a coverup for so many years," said Weems, 62, whose
husband, now retired, worked at the lab. "They lied and lied and lied
and said there was no contamination. But now we know that's not true."

At the time of the 1959 nuclear accident, little information appeared
in the media. Lab officials released a statement saying "no release of
radioactive materials to the plant or its environs occurred, and
operating personnel were not exposed to harmful conditions."

The advisory panel overseeing the most recent study accused the lab's
operators of maintaining a pattern of deception and secrecy ever
since.

For instance, it said researchers discovered that a meteorological
station was atop the nuclear reactor on July 13, 1959, when fuel rods
ruptured and partially melted, emitting radioactive gases into the
plant and the atmosphere.

When the researchers requested the station's weather data to try to
determine how far radioactive gases may have traveled from the hilltop
lab, Boeing officials refused, asserting that the information was
"proprietary -- a trade secret," the panelists said in the report.

"How can you possibly declare a trade secret which way the wind blew
on a certain day?" Hirsch said.

Boeing officials said they do not recall any specific requests for
weather data, adding that such information might not even exist. [umm,
yeah, sure, whatever, let's use two different excuses Boeing, nice
job.. -ED]

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-rocketdyne6oct06,0,125472.story?coll=la-home-headlines

= = = =
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
*****************************************************************
 51 FOXNews.com: Spain, U.S. Agree to Radioactivity Cleanup 

40 Years After Atomic Accident - 

Sunday, October 08, 2006

 AP/National Archive Record Administration

MADRID, Spain —  Spain and the United States have reached an
agreement to clean up radioactivity in the Spanish farming
village of Palomares, on Spain's southeast tip, 40 years after
two U.S atomic bombs fell in the area after a midair collision,
news reports said on Sunday. 		 		 			 

The agreement to clean the area was reached at a meeting
mid-September between the U.S. Department of Energy and Spain's
CIEMAT, the national Center for Energy and Environment
Investigation, leading Madrid daily El Pais reported. 			 			 

The accident took place on the morning of Jan. 17, 1966, when a
B-52 bomber collided with a flying tanker while refueling over
Palomeras and released all four of its hydrogen bombs in the
ensuing explosion. 			 			 

CountryWatch: Spain			 			 

The high-explosive igniters on two bombs detonated on impact,
spreading radioactive material, including plutonium, over a wide
area of the Spanish countryside. A third bomb landed relatively
intact and was recovered. 			 			 

The fourth bomb landed in the Mediterranean Sea, and U.S.
military searchers took months to find and recover the device
intact. 			 			 				 

Seven of the 11 crewmen aboard the two planes were killed in the
collision. There were no fatalities on the ground. 			 			 

The agreement states that the countries will jointly pay for the
costs and that the works could take years depending on the
levels of radioactivity found, El Pais added. 			 			 

"Not even the Americans know what is there. There could be
nothing, but there could be a problem and if there is, it will
be solved," CIEMAT's General Director Juan Antonio Rubio is
quoted as saying in El Pais. 			 			 

Calls to CIEMAT were unanswered Sunday. 			 			 

New scientific studies have traced the spread of radiation from
the accident site. 			 			 

In 2001 CIEMAT detected higher levels of plutonium, uranium and
americium than average over 24 acres of Palomares. 			 			 

At the time of the collision, villagers, who earned their living
mostly by fishing and farming, feared the plutonium radiation
might have contaminated not only their bodies but also the
waters they fished and the soil they farmed. 			 			 

But in 1966, Spain was under the thumb of Gen. Francisco Franco
and very little information about the accident was officially
released. In order to minimize the consequences of the accident,
Spain's Information and Tourism Minister Manuel Fraga and U.S.
Ambassador Angier Biddle Duke strode into the Mediterranean near
Palomares to demonstrate findings indicating that the waters
were safe. 			 	 
	 	 	 		 			
*****************************************************************
 52 Salt Lake Tribune: Research seeks pills for anti-radiation

By Ronnie Lynn 

Updated:10/08/2006 

Scott Miller holds a portion of a bone from Russia. Miller just 
received a grant to develop anti-radiation drugs for use if the 
U.S. is ever attacked with a nuclear or dirty bomb.

  + »Scott Miller spends his days envisioning worst-case
scenarios of a nuclear disaster. 

    Then he huddles in his lab at the University of Utah and
develops treatments the federal government hopes will protect
Americans from the awful consequences of radiation exposure. 

    Lung cancer. Liver cancer. Bone cancer. 

    Now, he and his colleagues are on a fast track to deliver
new drugs that help the human body excrete radioactive
materials, whether they're inhaled, ingested or absorbed through
the skin. 

    The drugs must be easy to take, available on a wide scale,
and, of course, nontoxic themselves. 

    Perhaps most important, they need to be effective against
any number of materials an enemy might use in a dirty-bomb
attack. 

    "The dirty bomb changes things," says Miller, who heads the
School of Medicine's radiobiology division. "If you have a
nuclear worker working in a nuclear production plant, you know
what they're going to be exposed to. If you have a dirty bomb,
golly, that could be a lot of different things." 
    
   "A nasty situation": Last month, the National Institute of
Allergy and Infectious Disease awarded Miller a $675,000 grant
to develop anti-radiation treatments - ideally in the form of a
pill - that can be added to our national stockpile. 

    Researchers at two other universities and one federal lab
received a combined $3.3 million under the same initiative. 

    The national stockpile has a few countermeasures for
radiation exposure, but they're effective against only a handful
of materials, and they have to be given by injection, said Bert
Maidment, associate director of product development in the
agency's Division of Allergy, Immunology and Transplantation. 

    "If you have a mass-casualty situation, that's probably not
going to work for us, so we want to develop a [treatment] that's
more easily distributable to an exposed population," he said.
"We want to develop an oral formulation for these drugs so they
will be more easily used in a nasty situation." 

   A dirty bomb isn't capable of causing Hiroshima-scale 
devastation because it lacks nuclear technology. What makes a 
dirty bomb so scary is its unpredictability. 

    Its radioactive ingredients can be delivered via an
explosive device, an aerosol device or even a stationary object
- such as a public trash can - that quietly emits radioactive
materials as pedestrians pass by. 

   "Now, we've moved into the terrorism era," says Miller, who
has been working in anti-radiation for 30 years. "We used to
fear the threat from Russia, and now we fear whatever, wherever
it might come from." 
    
   How to help victims: Miller received one of the grants
because of his previous research in anti-radiation treatment. 

   He is one of the few scientists in the world the Russian
government has allowed to analyze tissue samples and medical
records of 27,000 former Soviet workers who built the country's
first plutonium production plant under Josef Stalin. 

    "There are no humans left in the world who have these kinds
of exposure," he says. "They didn't really know what they were
working with, and they contaminated everything." 

    He and his colleagues already have developed compounds
called chelators (KEE-lay-tors) that grab specific radioactive
metals inside the body and help eliminate them naturally through
urine or feces. 

    Their chelators are especially effective at getting rid of
plutonium. 

    Their task now is to develop compounds that work against
other elements, including mercury, uranium, lead and cadmium. 

    "Our chelators are meant to work in the absence of knowing
too much about what [people] are exposed to," he says. 

    Ridding the body of radioactive material should minimize
exposure and adverse health effects, Maidment says. 

    Miller and colleagues from several academic disciplines -
including engineering, pharmacy, and geology and geophysics -
will test those compounds in mice exposed to various radioactive
materials. 

    In 18 months, he and researchers from the other institutions
will share their preliminary data with Maidment's agency. 

   The government then will decide whether to press ahead with
drug development and the Food and Drug Administration approval
process. 

   If the drugs look promising, the agency will spend another 18
months to three years testing them in human safety trials and in
animal trials that predict their effectiveness in removing
radioactive materials from humans. 

   It could be three to five years before the drugs are tested,
manufactured, purchased and added to the national stockpile,
even on an emergency basis, Maidment says. 

    Believe it or not, that's a fast pace in the
drug-development world. 

    "Even at this advanced, targeted, product-development phase,
it's going to take time," he says. "You've got to do it right
the first time. It has to work, and it has to be safe." 
   rlynn@sltrib.com 

   A look back at the U.'s division of radiobiology 

    * Opening the lab: The federal Atomic Energy Commission
launched the Radiobiology Laboratory at the U. in 1950 to study
long-term health effects of exposure to radioactive materials
used in nuclear technologies. It was one of a handful of U.S.
labs doing this kind of work. The commission owned the lab but
contracted with the U. to operate it. 

   * Early research: In the 1950s, scientists at the lab studied
plutonium, a newly discovered element found effective in nuclear
power reactors. They also began studying how radioactive
materials cause cancer. This work continues today. 

   * Looking for solutions: Scientists in the 1970s tested
whether certain compounds bind to radioactive elements and
promote their excretion from living organisms. 

   * U. takes over: The U. assumed ownership of the lab but
continued to draw funding from the U.S. Department of Energy. 

   * Helping victims: Since the 1990s, division director Scott
Miller and other university faculty have lent their expertise in
radiation exposure cases, including those near the Nevada test
site, American uranium workers, victims of the Chernobyl
explosion and former workers who helped build the Soviet Union's
first plutonium plant. 

   * Patented design: In 1995-96, Miller and scientist Fred
Bruenger patented several orally administered compounds that
eliminate plutonium from the body. 

   * A broader goal: Last month, Miller secured a federal grant
to develop drugs that eliminate several radioactive materials
from the human body. 

   Source: Scott Miller, director of the division of
radiobiology at the University of Utah's School of Medicine 
    
© Copyright 2006, The Salt Lake Tribune. 
*****************************************************************
 53 Japan Times: Japan starts radiation study with South Korea
 
Sunday, Oct. 8, 2006

 Japan starts radiation study with South Korea Kyodo News 
A Japan Coast Guard research ship left Moji port in Fukuoka
Prefecture on Saturday to survey the level of radiation in the
Sea of Japan with South Korean researchers. 

Three South Korean researchers from that country's National
Fisheries Research and Development Institute and the Korea
Institute of Nuclear Safety are aboard the Kaiyo for the survey
running through Oct. 14. 

The ship will collect samples of seawater and soil from six
locations, including near the disputed islets called Takeshima
in Japan and Dokdo in South Korea. 

The survey has been conducted every fall since 1994 to measure
the impact of radioactive waste dumped into the sea by Russia. 
Japan has been conducting the survey on its own except for the
first two years when South Korean and Russian researchers joined
in. 

Japan proposed a joint survey with South Korea to mend relations
after Tokyo canceled a maritime survey in April following a
protest by Seoul over the territorial dispute. 

Also on Saturday, the South Korean research ship Tamgu No. 1 was
scheduled to leave Busan. Three Japan Coast Guard researchers
will be aboard the ship, which will collect samples at the same
spots as the Kaiyo. 

The two countries will exchange analytical data after the
survey. 

The six spots are located within the Japan-claimed exclusive
economic zone, and three lie in the area also claimed by South
Korea. 

The Japan Times (C) All rights reserved 
*****************************************************************
 54 Japan Times: Monitoring sites gearing up to gauge radiation
 
Sunday, Oct. 8, 2006

 Monitoring sites gearing up to gauge radiation Kyodo News 
The government has decided to order monitoring facilities across
Japan to measure radiation if North Korea conducts a nuclear
test, officials said Saturday. 

Prefectural governments will be instructed to use existing
monitoring facilities to measure the quantities of particles of
such radioactive substances as cesium 137 and strontium 90,
according to the officials at the Education, Culture, Sports,
Science and Technology Ministry. 

The facilities have already implemented a 24-hour observation of
gamma rays in the atmosphere in preparation for leaks of
radioactive substances that could stem from accidents at Japan's
nuclear power plants. 

They also check for traces of cesium 137 and strontium 90 four
times a year, reporting any findings to the central government. 

In the event that North Korea conducts an underground nuclear
test and fails to prevent resultant radioactive substances from
being released into the atmosphere, particles from such
substances could reach Japan in the atmosphere and descend to
the ground, they warned. 

"Judging from the data obtained when China conducted nuclear
tests in the atmosphere in the past, we do not believe it is
possible" that the quantities of these substances will be great
enough to damage human health, a ministry official said. 

The ministry will also get the Japan Chemical Analysis Center, a
government-backed institute in the city of Chiba, to measure the
quantity of rare radioactive gases like krypton 85. 

The Japan Times (C) All rights reserved 

*****************************************************************
 55 Daily Sentinel: Uranium mill likely coming to West Slope

www.gjsentinel.com

By BOBBY MAGILL and GARY HARMON
 		 
Saturday, October 07, 2006 		 	 		 		 		 		 	 	 	 	 	 			 	 	 	
		 	 	
Energy Fuels Resources Corp. is planning to build a uranium mill 
west of Naturita that could start operating within three years. 

Company President George Glasier said Friday the new mill may be 
built about six miles west of Naturita adjacent to a U.S. 
Department of Energy site in the Paradox Valley. 

The mill, he said, could employ about 100 people and process
uranium and vanadium from mines all over the Western Slope. 

Nucla-based Energy Fuels owns two uranium mines near Gateway and
several others in Utah between Moab and Blanding. 

Other small mines in the region could be on the way, he said. 

One of the things this area lacks is a uranium mill, Glasier
said. But what we really need is a mill thats closer to the
actual mines well be producing from. 

A uranium mill near Blanding is producing at maximum capacity,
he said. 

It will take about two years for the state to license the mill,
and nine months for Energy Fuels to build it, he said. 

One of the keys with this mill, it will have a vanadium circuit,
he said. Vanadium is worth almost as much as the uranium. 

Vanadium is used to harden steel, which is in huge demand in
China and India, Glasier said. 

Despite the demand for uranium and vanadium, the industry faces
challenges, said Michael Moore, vice president of Colorado-Utah
operations for Energy Fuels and a longtime Colorado Plateau-area
miner. 

Gone or retired are most of the old miners, and the newest crop
of potential miners is being drawn to the oil and gas industry,
where they can earn more than the $18-per-hour wages anticipated
by the uranium business, Moore said. 

Miners, on the other hand, have safer jobs, especially
considering the advances in ventilation and respiratory
protection during the last 20 years, he said. 

I dont think its any more dangerous than the construction
industry, Moore said. 

Once its mines start up, Glasier said the company could employ
as many as 400 people. Mix in the mill, and the companys payroll
could total 500, he said. 

Montrose County Commissioner and Nucla native David Ubell said
the mill could revitalize the West End of the county and would
be an economic boon to the area. 

He said many environmentalists will dislike the idea of a
uranium mill in the Paradox Valley, but, I think there are
plenty of environmental laws in place to regulate the industry
where it will be safe. 

Environmental concerns include the mills potential impact on
area air quality and how the uranium ore is stored and
transported, Colorado Environmental Coalition organizer Lee-Ann
Hill said. 

Its anyones guess how (the ore) leaks from trucks themselves to
the storage facilities, she said. 

Bobby Magill can be reached via e-mail at bmagill@gjds.com. 	 	
	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	
Cox Newspapers, L.P. - The Daily Sentinel-
*****************************************************************
 56 Summit Daily News: Two weeks in the West: an update on environmental issues

for Breckenridge, Keystone, Copper and Frisco Colorado - News

October 8, 2006                                                                 
 					     				 			
 						
HIGH COUNTRY NEWS STAFF REPORT

October 7, 2006
 						
 Roadless returns! On Sept. 19, U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth
Laporte reinstated protection for some 50 million acres of
roadless national forest land. (Separate rules govern the
roughly 9 million roadless acres of Alaska's Tongass.) 

Laporte ruled that the Forest Service violated the National
Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act when, in
2005, it repealed President Clinton's 2001 "roadless rule" and
required states to petition for roadless protection. The Forest
Service has roughly three months to decide whether to appeal the
ruling to the 9th Circuit Court. In the meantime, inventoried
roadless areas must be protected under the terms of Clinton's
original roadless rule. The ruling comes just weeks before the
Bush administration's deadline for states to petition the
government for protection. 

It's shady in the Interior. The U.S. Interior Department's top
watchdog, Inspector General Earl Devaney, blasted the department
before Congress on Sept. 13 for waiving billions of dollars in
federal royalty payments from oil and gas companies. He's also
disgusted by the department's refusal to address
conflict-of-interest issues, specifically those including J.
Steven Griles, an oil and gas lobbyist-turned deputy Interior
secretary, who resigned last year amid allegations of ethics
breaches. "I have unfortunately watched a number of high-level
Interior officials leave the department under the cloud of
investigations," Devaney told Congress. "Absent criminal
charges, however, they are sent off in the usual fashion, with a
party paying tribute to their good service and the secretary
wishing them well, to spend more time with their family or seek
new opportunities."

Half a Roan for gas, and half for everyone else. The BLM's
management plan for western Colorado's Roan Plateau, released in
Sept. 7, manages to upset everyone. The plan opens the plateau's
gas reserves to energy companies, irking environmentalists, but
limits surface development to only half of the 34,758 acres on
top of the plateau. The plateau, known for its wildlife and
scenery, is believed to hold enough natural gas to heat 4
million homes for 20 years. 

Take that nuke waste and shove it. "We wanted to put a spike
right through the heart of this project and this does it," said
Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, R, praising the Interior Department's
Sept. 7 rejection of the Skull Valley Goshute Tribe's plan to
store spent nuclear fuel rods on its reservation. The site,
southwest of Salt Lake City, would have temporarily housed up to
44,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste on its way to the
proposed federal repository in Yucca Mountain - likely providing
tens of millions of dollars in revenue for the tribe. Critics
argue that the plan involves unacceptable safety and security
risks, and some say the troubled Yucca Mountain site may never
be built, leaving the Goshutes holding the bag. 

Free will flounders in the courts. Judges in Nevada and Montana
threw out a handful of libertarian ballot measures in September.
Montana State Judge Dirk Sandefur ruled that petition
circulators engaged in a "pattern of fraud," deceiving people
into signing the petitions for a trio of ballot measures in that
state. The measures sought to limit land-use regulations and
taxes, and make it easier to recall judges. The Nevada Supreme
Court also threw out a tax-limit measure, saying petitions for
it were "misleading." And Nevada cut another measure in half: It
had sought to limit governments' eminent domain powers along
with land-use regulations, but state law says a ballot measure
must address only one issue at a time, so the court tossed out
the attack on regulations, leaving only eminent domain. Similar
measures to limit eminent domain remain on the November ballots
in five other Western states.

All contents © Copyright 2006 summitdaily.com
Summit Daily - 40 West Main Street - Frisco, CO 80443
P.O. Box 329 · Frisco, CO 80443-0329
E-mail: news@summitdaily.com                                             
*****************************************************************
 57 Bradenton Herald: Toxic discrimination

10/06/2006 | 

Tallevast residents should demand fuller probe

Tallevast residents should not have had to play the race card to
call attention to their inability to get the pollution plume
beneath their homes fully investigated. 

But they did and they have, with the Rev. Charles McKenzie
charging this week that the handling of the plume is "an example
of environmental racism." If that constitutes playing the race
card, said the Rev. McKenzie, "then so be it." 

McKenzie's is one more strong voice in a chorus of outrage from
the predominantly black Tallevast community over the way state
regulatory officials and the responsible corporate party,
Lockheed Martin Inc., have continually minimized the impact of
the underground plume of poisons leaked from the former Loral
American Beryllium Co. plant on Tallevast Road. From being kept
in the dark for three years after existence of the plume became
known to being forced to hire their own experts to make sure the
plume's boundaries were properly defined, Tallevast residents
have had to fend for themselves in the environmental disaster
that has enveloped their community. 

That's why they now face yet one more decision in the long march
to eventual cleanup of the plume: Whether to appeal a state
Department of Environmental Protection decision saying the
plume's boundaries and impact are now defined and the cleanup
can begin. Residents were given 21 days after the Sept. 25 DEP
ruling to decide whether to file an appeal, which would trigger
a time-consuming administrative hearing process - and further
delay the start of the cleanup. 

They should appeal. Rev. McKenzie is absolutely on the mark in
charging that officials are short-cutting the process because of
what Tallevast is. Now it may not be racially motivated per se
but it's blatant environmental injustice in that it impacts a
community that is predominantly black. As the column below by
Bob Herbert points out, putting environmental disasters in poor
black neighborhoods and then ignoring them is a pattern
nationally. 

We are trying to imagine the reaction if that plume had been
discovered in northwest Bradenton, say, along the Riverview
Boulevard corridor that is lined with mansions. Would the
doctors, lawyers and powerful elected officials in those homes
settle for "good enough" in defining the plume? Or would they
demand that the concerns of independent experts regarding the
unknown aspects of the plume's depth and lateral movement be
quantified? And would they also insist that nearby wells outside
the plume's boundaries that show contamination be part of the
cleanup? 

Of course they would. And local government would be solidly
behind them, too. Certainly it would not be approving a new
construction project on the plume's fringe that would bring
earth-moving equipment and heavy traffic to disturb poisonous
vapors that are potentially a few feet below the ground surface.
Yet that's what is happening in Tallevast with approval by the
county planning commission of a 16,808-square-foot retail center
at the northwest corner of U.S. 301 and Tallevast Road. The
county commission Thursday wisely delayed a public hearing on
the project, but Tallevast residents are justifiably convinced
of its eventual approval despite their objections. 

We understand Lockheed Martin was not the original polluter but
inherited the problem when it purchased the beryllium plant 10
years ago. But it is legally bound to clean up the mess and,
insofar as possible, make the residents whole again. The company
has dragged its feet at virtually every step in the process to
reach this point, obviously seeking to limit its liability at
the expense of Tallevast residents. 

Understandable, but not admirable. This is not a poor company
with limited resources. It recently won a multibillion-dollar
contract to design a spaceship to take the next generation of
astronauts to the moon and, eventually, perhaps to Mars! And it
cannot adequately define and clean up a 200-acre pool of poisons
underneath a historic black neighborhood? 

That may not be environmental racism per se, but at the very
least it amounts to economic discrimination. 

Would you have a problem living atop the pollution plume in
Tallevast?
*****************************************************************
 58 SanLuisObispo.com: A place for waste 

10/07/2006 | 

[Project manager Katch Kunz stands in front of two 270,000-pound
storage cylinders that recently arrived at Diablo Canyon. ]

Tribune photo by Joe Johnston Project manager Katch Kunz stands
in front of two 270,000-pound storage cylinders that recently
arrived at Diablo Canyon. More photos 

Two large cylinders that will store highly radioactive used fuel
at a planned aboveground facility were delivered to Diablo
Canyon nuclear power plant this week. Eventually, several
cylinders will be bolted to a thick concrete pad that has been
poured on a hillside behind the plant. 

The cylinders were part of a shipment of various components that
will be used in the dry cask storage facility. Other components
include casks that will hold the used fuel and others that will
be used to transport the used fuel to the storage site and the
transporter. 

Workers will not load any of the casks until early 2008.


*****************************************************************
 59 RIA Novosti: Belarus warns Lithuania on nuclear storage site near border
 
07/ 10/ 2006

BOBRUISK, October 7 (RIA Novosti) - Belarus is ready to get
involved in building a nuclear storage facility in Lithuania,
but is opposed to its location near the country's border,
President Alexander Lukashenko said Saturday. 

Lithuania's Ignalina nuclear power plant, scheduled to be shut
down by 2009, is similar to the one in Chernobyl, Ukraine, where
the world's worst nuclear accident happened in 1986. Lithuania's
prime minister said in early September it will build a new
nuclear power plant to resolve an energy crisis expected in 2009
and meet the European Union's nuclear safety requirements. 

"Belarus is ready to get involved economically, diplomatically
and financially to address the matter of building a nuclear
waste storage facility in Lithuania," Lukashenko said, adding
his country was against the site being built near the Belarusian
border. 

He said Lithuania was going to build a facility to store nuclear
waste from the Ignalina NPP five kilometers from the
Belarusian-Lithuanian border. 

"We have enough leverage to ensure that the facilities are not
built near the Belarusian border," he said. "The decision to
build [it] should be made by taking into account the interests
of other states." 

He said he hoped the two countries will resolve the issue "in a
civilized manner." 

Lithuania and Estonia dismissed earlier media reports that the
Baltic states would build a joint storage facility for nuclear
waste in Estonia. 

Local media cited Estonian MEP Andres Tarand as saying that his
Lithuanian counterparts had repeatedly suggested that Estonia,
Latvia, and Lithuania would share responsibility for storing
nuclear waste. The three Baltic states agreed to build a nuclear
power plant in Lithuania by 2015. 

© 2005 RIA Novosti   
*****************************************************************
 60 Radio Polonia: Uncovering old uranium deposits in south-west Poland

08.10.2006 
			 			
A strong protest of the local inhabitants and environmentalists 
is being conducted in Mirsk, a small town in south-western Lower 
Silesia. It concerns plans to open a quarry, which in the opinion 
of the protest organizers and many experts will lead to the 
contamination of the area. During the Second World War and in 
post war years, the region had several uranium pits exploited. 
They were ordered closed and covered when adverse health effects 
of their operation on the local population had been discovered. 
It is speculated that the opening of the quarry will uncover 
remnants of the dangerous uranium deposits.

Copyright © Redakcja Internetowa, Polskie Radio S.A. Wszelkie 







prawa zastrze|one          
*****************************************************************
 61 YubaNet.com: Boxer and Feinstein letter to EPA on Perchlorate

  By: Feinstein office

 Published: Oct 7, 2006 at 09:13

U.S. Senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein (both D-CA)
sent the following letter to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson:
 
Dear Administrator Johnson:
 
We are writing to request that the Environmental Protection
Agency ("EPA") immediately issue a perchlorate health advisory
that addresses early life exposures and susceptibility issues
and revise the Agency's perchlorate cleanup goal. EPA should
also establish a drinking water standard that protects
vulnerable pregnant women and children. 

It is critical that EPA take these actions in light of a new
study by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
which shows that women in the United States regularly consume
sufficient amounts of perchlorate to reduce their production of
important thyroid hormones. This exposure can harm the health of
adults and the mental development of infants. The CDC study
shows that the perchlorate exposures that EPA thought were safe,
can threaten public health.
 
Perchlorate is used to create rocket fuel, ammunition, and other
items. It can move through soil, into water, and concentrate in
food. In 2005, the Government Accountability Office found 395
sites in 35 states with perchlorate levels above 4 parts per
billion (ppb), including 106 sites in California. EPA knows of
153 drinking water systems in 26 states with perchlorate
contamination. California knows of 276 active or standby water
wells are contaminated with perchlorate. 

In January 2006, EPA issued guidance that recommended a cleanup
goal at toxic waste sites of 24.5 ppb. In March, 2006, EPA's
Children's Health Protection Advisory Committee wrote to EPA
saying that this goal was "not protective of children's health."
The Committee found that this goal allows infant exposures that
are "approximately 5 to 10 times higher" than the safety level.
It is clear that more protective standards are necessary. 

Given the serious health threat posed by widespread perchlorate
exposure, we request that you take immediate steps to
incorporate the information from the CDC study in a health
advisory and new perchlorate standards and goals, and provide us
with a timeline for accomplishing these actions by October 16,
2006.
 Sincerely,
 
Barbara Boxer United States Senator Dianne Feinstein United
States Senator 

Copyright © 2006 YubaNet.com, all rights reserved.         
*****************************************************************
 62 AFP: Secret nuclear waste disposal sites revealed 

>Friday October 6, 05:00 PM 

By Rob Edwards 

The highly sensitive shortlist of 12 sites where the UK nuclear
industry wanted to dispose of its dangerous radioactive waste
has been unveiled after being kept a closely guarded state
secret for more than 15 years. 

New Scientist can reveal that the nuclear waste agency, Nirex,
identified five sites in Scotland and seven in England as
geologically suitable for a deep underground repository. The UK
government was forced to reverse its prolonged refusal to
publish the list by requests in January from New Scientist and 
others under the new Freedom of Information Act. 

Although the list was drawn up in the late 1980s, some of the
sites are likely to become candidates for waste disposal again
in the future. For this reason, the release of the list is
likely to reignite the ferocious debate over nuclear waste
disposal. 

"The geology in the UK has not changed," says Nirex. "So sites
that were considered to be potentially suitable previously on
geological grounds could be considered suitable in a future
site-selection process." 

Geologists agree that another attempt to find waste sites would
be likely to end up with a similar list. "There will be
overlaps," says Dave Holmes, director of environment and hazards
at the British Geological Survey in Keyworth, Nottingham. "But
it is unlikely that a new site-selection exercise would produce
exactly the same shortlist of sites." 

Nirex says that any new site-selection process would not begin
with the old list, and points out that scientists' understanding
of geology is now different. 

The waste to be disposed of now also includes hot, high-level
waste, which could require different rock properties. And new
concerns about sea level rises in response to climate change
could rule out some coastal sites. 

"But what has not changed," says Chris Murray, Nirex's managing
director, "is that the waste still exists and needs to be dealt
with in a safe, environmentally sound and publicly acceptable
way for the long-term. Responsibility lies with this generation
to ensure this is done." 

More than 50 years ago, the UK was one of the first countries in
the world to develop nuclear fission technology into bombs and
power sources. But it is now one of the last to work out what to
do with the large amounts of waste created, and has fallen
behind other European countries and the US. 

The US government already operates the Waste Isolation Pilot
Plant (WIPP) for weapons waste in a salt formation 655 metres
under the Chihuahuan Desert near Carlsbad in New Mexico. It has
also chosen Yucca Mountain in the Nevada desert as a potential
repository for irradiated fuel from reactors. 

Deep underground repositories are also under active
investigation at sites in Finland, Switzerland, Sweden, Belgium
and France. The consensus of scientists internationally is that
burial in stable geological formations below 300 metres is
likely to be the safest method of disposal in the long term. 

This is the option that has always been favoured by Nirex, but
it has not yet been adopted by the UK government. Ministers are
awaiting advice in a year's time from the Committee on
Radioactive Waste Management on whether waste should be stored
at the surface or buried. 

The plan then is to work out how to select suitable locations.
But that process has now been rudely interrupted by the release
of the site shortlist. 

The list of sites (in full below) includes two tiny, uninhabited
Scottish islands, military land, areas by nuclear power stations
and even sites under the sea. 

One of the sites, near the Sellafield nuclear plant in Cumbria,
was eventually chosen by Nirex, but it was rejected by the
government in 1997 after a public inquiry suggested Nirex's case
was scientifically flawed. 

Sites shortlisted by Nirex as potential nuclear waste dumps in
the late 1980s: 

Adjacent to Bradwell nuclear power station in Essex 

Ministry of Defence land on Potton Island, 8 km from Southend on
Sea. Essex 

Under the North Sea, accessed from the port at Redcar, Yorkshire 

Under the sea between the Inner Hebrides and Northern Ireland,
accessed from the port at Hunterston in North Ayrshire 

Killingholme, South Humberside 

Ministry of Defence training area, Stanford, Norfolk 

Adjacent to Dounreay nuclear plant in Caithness 

Two sites near the Sellafield nuclear plant in Cumbria 

Altnabreac in Caithness 18 km south of Dounreay 

Fuday, small, uninhabited island north of Barra in the Western
Isles 

Sandray, small, uninhabited island south of Barra in the Western
Isles

*****************************************************************
 63 Rocky Mountain News: Drilling at nuke site opposed                                                                         

Residents fear natural gas well could tap radiation 

By Mike McKibben, The (Grand Junction) Daily Sentinel
October 7, 2006                                                                                                 

BATTLEMENT MESA - Living on top of an underground nuclear 
explosion site doesn't concern Cary and Ruth Weldon. 

Having a natural-gas well drilled near their log home on their
26-acre property, about six miles southwest of Battlement Mesa,
does. 

The Weldons have owned the land where the nuclear bomb was set
off for about 30 years. 

"I was 34 years old when we looked at this place," Cary Weldon
said. "I asked them if it was safe because I didn't want to glow
in the dark." 

Weldon said he was assured the U.S. Department of Energy would
monitor the site, and a three-mile radius around it would not be
drilled. That already has changed, and the Weldons and two
neighbors fear more wells will be closer. 

Project Rulison was one of three federal government tests in
1969. The 8,426-foot deep underground explosion of a 43-kiloton
nuclear bomb was meant to free gas reserves from the tight
underground sands. It didn't work as planned because the blast
melted the underground rock and formed what experts believe
could be a glass dome. 

After the blast, the Energy Department burned 455 million cubic
feet of gas and found no radioactivity above natural levels. 

The department must be notified and can impose conditions
whenever a well is proposed within a three-mile radius of the
blast. A 40-acre parcel surrounding the site was placed
off-limits to any drilling below 6,000 feet. 

The Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission imposed a
moratorium on any gas wells within a half-mile radius. 

The Weldons and their neighbors, Pat and Randy Warren and Wesley
Kent, say they will do all they can to prevent PRESCO, a Texas
gas company, from getting that moratorium lifted. 

"There's some bad stuff under this ground," Cary Weldon told Tom
Pauling of the Energy Department's Office of Legacy Management
during a site visit last week. 

The Grand Junction office assumed management responsibility for
the site Sunday. 

PRESCO Vice President for Exploration and Production Kim
Bennetts said the company plans to ask the oil and gas
commission to lift the half-mile moratorium some time this year. 

PRESCO has drilled several wells outside the moratorium area,
and reports it found no radioactivity above normal levels when
it monitored the air, water and drill cuttings from the wells. 

"If there was anything down there, there's no way it could
migrate to a well bore," Bennetts said. "There's too much rock.
Even if it did, it would be extremely diluted by all the gas
down there, so by the time it got to the surface, we couldn't
measure it." 

All wells would be monitored for that possibility to help ease
local concerns, Bennetts said. 

Cary Weldon said the three families "will get in everyone's face
at every meeting we can," if PRESCO proceeds. 

Kent said he hopes PRESCO will wait until an Energy Department
study of the underground conditions at the site is finished.
"But they're pushing and pushing to establish a presence here
before then," he said. 

Pauling said the study is under review to ensure no classified
information about the explosion is included. A peer review of
the results will follow, and Pauling said he expects the study
will be released to the public next year. 

Bennetts said the study "won't mean anything, because there's no
radioactivity down there." 

"This is just a delay on (local residents') part, something
they'd permanently like to do," he said. 

PRESCO owns about 2,500 acres around the blast site, Bennetts
said, and has signed mineral leases on several thousand more,
mostly south and southwest of the site. Several hundred wells
could be drilled by PRESCO, he said. 				 				 	 site map-->

2006 © The E.W. Scripps Co.
*****************************************************************
 64 Pahrump Valley Times: Test site report indicates no off-site radioactivity

Oct. 06, 2006 

No airborne or groundwater radioactivity from current Nevada
Test Site operations was detected off-site in calendar year
2005. 

This is the assessment of the Nevada Test Site Annual Site
Environmental Report 2005, released by the National Nuclear
Security Administration Nevada Site Office. The report includes
monitoring conducted by the management and operations contractor
at the test site, and the Community Environmental Monitoring
Program under the direction of the Desert Research Institute of
the Nevada System of Higher Education. 

Bruce Hurley, Nevada Site Office environmental monitoring
program manager, said, "The environmental monitoring results
once again confirmed that activities on the (test site) are
being conducted in a manner that safeguards workers, the
environment and the public." 

He added, "In addition to radiological results, air and water
quality samples confirm that no hazardous constituents were
released off the Nevada Test Site." 

Off-site monitoring is conducted by the Community Environmental
Monitoring Program, which is composed of 27 air sampling
stations surrounding the Nevada Test Site. The emphasis of the
program is to monitor airborne radioactivity and weather
conditions and make the results available to the public. Each
station is operated by local citizens, including science
teachers, farmers, and ranchers, trained to independently verify
the results of the monitoring. 

The monitors are knowledgeable on subjects ranging from
radiation detection to identifying environmental concerns for
people in their communities. Visit www.cemp.dri.edu/cemp.htmlfor
more information on the monitoring program. 	 	 	     

For comment or questions, please e-mail
webmaster@pahrumpvalleytimes.com
Copyright © Pahrump Valley Times, 1997 - 2006 
*****************************************************************
 65 Las Vegas SUN: Editorial: A disturbing trend 

October 07, 2006 

Scientists say Bush administration is hiding research about
global warming's effects

Federal scientists say the Commerce Department has spiked a
scientific paper and a series of news releases that present
conclusions about global warming that conflict with the Bush
administration's views on the phenomenon. 

According to a recent Newhouse News Service story, researchers
at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration say the
news releases and a position paper that examined numerous
studies assessing the risks of global warming all offered
information linking intensified hurricanes, droughts and floods
to global warming. The research also showed that at least a
portion of the warming trend is irreversible. 

But those reports were deliberately kept from the public's view,
the scientists said, by officials at the Commerce Department.
The allegations were first reported in the most recent issue of
the journal Nature, when one of the scientists said the Bush
administration had quashed a report about hurricanes and climate
change that was prepared last spring. 

Richard Wetherald, a career scientist at the federally funded
climate-tracking agency, told Newhouse News that Bush officials
started rejecting his press releases about global warming's
far-reaching effects in 2001 after Congress refused to sign the
Kyoto Protocol. Nations that signed the international treaty
made a pact to reduce the amount of fossil fuel emissions, or
greenhouse gases, from their countries. The United States
produces 25 percent of Earth's greenhouse gas. 

Neither the White House nor top NOAA officials would respond to
Wetherald's accusations, Newhouse News reports. And there
probably isn't all that much that Bush administration officials
could say. 

It is abundantly clear that the president refuses to acknowledge
the problems created by his failure to reduce the amount of
greenhouse gases emitted by the energy industry and Americans'
seemingly insatiable consumption of fossil fuel. Bush's friends
in the energy industry don't want him to enact any legislation
that would force them to clean up their acts or curtail
Americans' appetite for gasoline. 

This is business as usual for the Bush administration. If the
president doesn't like what the facts show, he ignores the facts
and spins the issue in whatever way he chooses. The only truths
that exist are the ones that benefit Bush's political and
industry cronies. 

All contents copyright 2005 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
 66 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.
*****************************************************************
 67 Hanford News: K East Basins close to cleanup
 
This story was published Thursday, October 5th, 2006 

By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer 

The Department of Energy believes it is close to completing work
on one of its most vexing Hanford projects: Getting the
radioactive sludge in the K East Basins into underwater
containers. 

DOE and its contractor, Fluor Hanford, missed a December 2002
deadline to start retrieving the sludge. Then under a new plan,
they missed a DOE commitment to have all the sludge in
containers by the end of 2004. 

The current plan includes a commitment to have the sludge
vacuumed into containers by the end of this month. 

DOE is on track to complete the work by Oct. 17, two weeks ahead
of schedule, if work continues at the present rate, said DOE
Hanford spokeswoman Karen Lutz. Workers have 99 percent of the
sludge contained. 

DOE has notified the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board
that the early finish is a best-case forecast. That caution
reflects the history of unknown circumstances encountered in the
basins, Lutz said. 

DOE told the board, which provides oversight of Hanford, that
vacuuming has been slower than expected in the past six weeks
because more small debris littered the bottom of the basin than
expected. 

The work may not be completed until early November - and in the
worst case - in early December, it told the board. 

The K East Basin is one of two K Reactor Basins holding 1
million gallons of water each that were built in the 1950s to
hold irradiated reactor fuel until it was processed to remove
plutonium for use in producing nuclear weapons. 

After the last Hanford processing plant shut down, leftover
irradiated fuel remained in the pools for more than a decade. It
corroded and particles mixed with dirt and concrete that
sloughed off the sides of the basins to form a radioactive
sludge. 

It's proved much more difficult to remove from the K East Basin
and the less contaminated K West Basin than DOE or Fluor Hanford
anticipated. 

Workers stand on grates above the water in the K East Basin and
maneuver tools with 27-foot handles through holes in the grating
to vacuum up the sludge, guided by underwater video cameras.
They've frequently had trouble with water too clouded by sludge
to see what they were doing. 

While the plan does not include a legal deadline under the
Tri-Party Agreement to get the sludge into containers, DOE did
commit to the defense board that the work would be done by the
end of this month. 

That will keep work at the K Basins on track to meet legal
deadlines that include getting the sludge moved from the K East
Basin containers to the K West Basin by the end of May, and
getting the bulk of the K West sludge into containers by the end
of July. 

The work needs to be finished so cleanup in the 100 K Area,
which includes the K reactors and their attached basins, can be
completed by a Tri-Party Agreement milestone of 2012. 

By the Environmental Protection Agency's count, it has adjusted
the K Basin schedule 10 times to reflect DOE's requests for
flexibility in cleaning up the basins. EPA has said that better
characterization of the sludge could have led to a better design
for retrieval and avoided many of the problems.

© 2006 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 68 Tri-City Herald: Senate hopefuls differ on future of Hanford site 

Published Friday, October 6th, 2006 

By Chris Mulick, Herald Olympia bureau 

Republican Mike McGavick said he'd support moving forward with
the Bush Administration's Global Nuclear Energy Partnership --
hoping a role for Hanford would be in store -- while Sen. Maria
Cantwell was noncommittal Thursday during a meeting with the
Tri-City Herald's editorial board. 

Cantwell spoke more specifically to an array of Mid-Columbia
issues during a fast-moving and civil hourlong discussion. She
talked about her efforts to have the U.S. Department of Labor
take responsibility for compensating Hanford workers who were
exposed to toxic substances, preserve Northwest rights to the
region's cheap federal hydropower and pursue a new reservoir in
the Yakima Basin. 

"I'm here wanting support for the people of this area, who I
believe I have paid attention to," the first-term senator said. 

She was more vague when discussion turned to a possible role in
developing the future of nuclear power, something some Tri-City
interests are hoping to play a role in while breathing new life
into Hanford's Fast Flux Test Facility. 

Cantwell said the country needs to "continue research on nuclear
solutions" and answer questions about long-term storage for
spent nuclear fuel. 

She said she'd defer to the governor questions about whether to
accept more nuclear fuel into the state so it could be recycled
at Hanford -- which one proposal pushed by the Tri-City
Development Council would study. 

McGavick said he "would be vigorously supporting" a GNEP role
for Washington state. 

"I think it's exciting it's possible FFTF could be a part of
that," he said. 

Cantwell also said in her next term she'd press for federal
money to fund research projects at the new Bioproducts, Sciences
and Engineering Laboratory being built jointly in Richland by
Washington State University and the Pacific Northwest National
Laboratory. 

"We will change the direction of this country with the research
that will be done at these facilities," Cantwell said. 

She also predicted that when Congress returns to session after
the November election, it will reauthorize the federal income
tax deduction for state sales taxes, a measure she has pushed
hard for. 

McGavick said he also supports the deduction and criticized
Cantwell and other Senate Democrats for not accepting the failed
tax package that revised the federal estate tax and increased
the federal minimum wage. 

McGavick, once chief of staff to former U.S. Sen. Slade Gorton,
R-Wash., said he is aware of the intellectual resources the
Tri-Cities offers. 

"We have a unique asset of this nation," McGavick said. "We need
to make sure we are constantly thinking of innovative ways to
take advantage of that great national asset" and "keep the work
coming." 

McGavick also pressed Cantwell about debate schedules. So far,
an hourlong debate has been scheduled for Seattle and a
30-minute- long event for Spokane. Both will be televised. 

As most challengers do, McGavick is pressing for more. 

"I think it's particularly insulting for Eastern Washington to
give them only 30 minutes," he said. 

And as incumbents often do, Cantwell said she is hamstrung by
the time she's been required to work in Washington, D.C., and
pointed to as many as a dozen requests to meet with newspaper
editorial boards. 

"That's what we can get done in this time period," she said. 

© 2006 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press &Other Wire Services
*****************************************************************
 69 Hanford News: Court awards $143 million to reactor companies over waste
dispute
 
This story was published Friday, October 6th, 2006 

By H. Josef Hebert, Associated Press Writer 

WASHINGTON (AP) - The owners of three closed nuclear power
plants have been awarded $143 million because the government has
failed to take away their used reactor fuel rods. 

The award by the U.S. Federal Court of Claims settles a
long-standing legal fight waged by operators of the three
reactors in Maine, Connecticut and Massachusetts. 

It also could foreshadow a series of additional financial awards
to operators of reactors nationwide who have argued the federal
government broke contractual agreements that promised the waste
would be taken by 1998. 

The award, granted by Court of Claims Judge James Merow on
Saturday, was unsealed Wednesday. 

It gives $32.9 million in damages to Yankee Atomic Electric Co.,
operator of the Yankee Rowe reactor in Massachusetts; $34.1
million to Connecticut Yankee Atomic Power Co., operator of
Connecticut Yankee reactor; and $75.8 million to Maine Yankee
Atomic Power Co.; operator of the Maine Yankee reactor. 

The companies had asked for $177 million. 

Michael Thomas, vice president and chief financial officer of
the three Yankee companies, said that while the monetary award
is "very positive ... (it) does not solve the problem of used
nuclear fuel remaining at the plant sites." 

"We hope this ruling will spur the U.S. Department of Energy to
begin fulfilling its obligation," said Thomas. 

Federal courts previously have ruled that the Energy Department
was contractually obligated to begin taking used reactor fuel
from commercial power plants by 1998. But the ruling was the
first finding of a significant financial settlement. 

The government missed the 1998 deadline because it doesn't have
any place to put the spent fuel. A proposed central repository
at Yucca Mountain in Nevada is way behind schedule in being
completed. 

Once expected to open in 2010, the Yucca waste site has yet to
received a federal license and is not likely to be completed -
if licensed - by 2018 at the earliest.

© 2006 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 70 Hanford News: Hanford empties fifth tank, 144 to go
 
This story was published Friday, October 6th, 2006 

By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer 

Another of Hanford's leak-prone underground tanks of radioactive
waste has been emptied. 

That's five done, 144 to go. 

CH2M Hill Hanford Group workers have removed all but 351 cubic
feet of waste from the bottom of Tank C-103. That meets the
legally binding requirement in the Tri-Party Agreement that no
more than 360 cubic feet of waste be left in the bottom of the
530,000-gallon tank. 

To protect the Columbia River, waste is being removed from
Hanford's single-shell tanks and stored in 28 newer double-shell
tanks. The waste is left from chemically processing fuel
irradiated in Hanford's nine production reactors to remove
plutonium for the nation's nuclear weapons program. 

The waste will be held in the double shell tanks until it can be
turned into a stable glass form at the $12.2 billion
vitrification plant under construction, or otherwise processed
for permanent disposal. 

Tank C-103 was built in 1946 and received radioactive and
hazardous waste until 1980. All the pumpable liquids were
removed from the tank in July 2003 to reduce the risk of a leak
into the ground beneath the tank that could eventually reach the
ground water. The ground water beneath Hanford moves toward the
Columbia River. After pumpable liquids were removed, 78,000
gallons of solids remained in the tank. 

They were removed using a technique called modified sluicing,
which uses liquid to break up and mobilize the waste so it can
be moved toward a pump in the center of the tank. Because using
water for the sluicing would have created more contaminated
waste to be stored for treatment, liquid waste from a nearby
double shell tank was used for the sluicing. 

Tank C-103 was the second of 12 large tanks in an area called
the C Tank Farm to be emptied. Workers also have emptied three
of four, 55,000-gallon tanks there. Seven of the 16 C Farm tanks
are suspected of having leaked in the past, but Tank C-103 is
not among them. 

Work to empty the 149 single-shell tanks at Hanford has been
slower than anticipated since retrieval of waste from the first
tank, C-106, was completed in late 2003. DOE missed a legally
binding Tri-Party Agreement deadline to have all C Farm tanks
emptied by the end of September. 

Work slowed in 2004 because of health concerns about chemical
vapors released from single-shell tanks. 

But removing waste from single-shell tanks continues to be a top
priority in DOE's cleanup program at Hanford, Roy Schepens,
manager of DOE's Hanford Office of River Protection, said in a
statement. 

"The success we achieved with this tank (C-103) will be carried
over to other waste retrieval projects that are now under way,"
said Ryan Dodd, CH2M Hill director of C Farm closure operations,
in a statement. 

Pumping is under way on the last of the four smaller tanks at C
Farm and another tank, C-108, is being prepared for retrieval. 

© 2006 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 71 SF Chron: Group files longshot bid for control of lab /
Anti-nuclear activists, partners want Lawrence Livermore to focus 
on peaceful pursuits
 
[San Francisco Chronicle] 
				 
Keay Davidson, Chronicle Science Writer

Sunday, October 8, 2006

It's a classic David versus Goliath standoff. 

A band of nuclear disarmament advocates, college educators and
wind-energy developers is positioning itself to go up against a
consortium led by the University of California and the
politically powerful San Francisco-based Bechtel Corp. for
control of one of the nation's top nuclear design labs. 

The band, which includes longtime advocacy group Tri-Valley
CAREs, acknowledges it has little chance of outbidding the
UC-Bechtel group for management rights to Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory, which has been run by UC for more than half
a century. But it plans to press ahead anyway. 

The U.S. Department of Energy has given all comers until Oct. 27
to submit their contract bids. 

"We do not believe the Department of Energy is going to choose
our bid. But that isn't how I define 'winning,' " said Marylia
Kelley, one of the Bay Area's best-known critics of the lab. She
runs Tri-Valley CAREs (Communities Against a Radioactive
Environment), an activist group that in its 23 years of
existence has won widespread respect for its serious and studied
approach to its work. 

But, Kelly said, if her group's bid encourages public support
for phasing out the lab's nuclear weapons work and diverting its
thousands of scientists into research on global warming,
alternative energy sources and other subjects, that'll be a
moral victory. 

Short of that, it'll be a moral victory if the campaign stirs
enough public interest to put pressure on Lawrence Livermore
officials to run the lab in a more environmentally conscious way
and to be less secretive about their work developing and
refining the world's scariest weapons. 

On Sept. 21, Kelley and her colleagues announced they were
bidding for the contract, teaming up with New College of
California, Nuclear Watch of New Mexico and WindMiller Energy, a
small wind-energy firm in rural New York state. 

"It's important for us to try to push for citizen oversight of
this laboratory (so it can) use science for the benefit of the
human experience," said New College President Martin Hamilton. 

The Energy Department is expected to name the winning bid in
March. 

So far, the UC-Bechtel consortium has been the only other
competitor to step forward. A UC spokesman could not be reached
to comment on the rival bid. Susan Houghton, chief spokeswoman
for Lawrence Livermore, declined to comment. 

The bid marks the first time UC has had to compete to run the
lab it has managed for more than half a century under exclusive
contract with the Energy Department. In 2003, Congress and the
department, fed up with security, safety, management and
financial scandals, ordered that all future contracts with
national labs be open to competition. Last December, UC-Bechtel
beat out Lockheed Martin Corp. and the University of Texas for
control of Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, a lab
that UC has also managed for decades. 

UC and Bechtel officials say they'll refuse to release a public
copy of their bid for Lawrence Livermore on the grounds that the
information might be exploited by other competitors. In an
attempt to shame UC-Bechtel, the activists plan to post their
entire bid for the contract online later this month. 

"Lawrence Livermore is a publicly funded institution, funded off
taxpayers' dollars," said Tara Dorabji, outreach director for
Tri-Valley CAREs. "All bids should be public, and we'll make
ours public." 

Dorabji said that if her group manages to win the contract
through an extraordinary set of circumstances, the lab would
undergo a transformation. The group, she said, would: 

-- Spend the majority of lab research funds -- largely provided
by the Energy Department and the Pentagon -- to develop cleaner,
renewable energy and to fight global warming. "Currently, the
lion's share (of money) is going to weapons development,"
Dorabji said, but the lab is already doing "unclassified,
fabulous research" on global warming that should be expanded. 

-- Greatly speed up plans to move the lab's huge cache of
plutonium to a safer, remote site. Lab officials currently plan
to remove the plutonium -- perhaps initially to a site in New
Mexico, then perhaps to final storage elsewhere -- by 2014. By
contrast, Dorabji's group would get rid of the plutonium four
years earlier, after holding public hearings to locate the
safest, most secure new site. 

-- Cancel the lab's current plans to expand its "biodefense"
research facility to study far more dangerous microbes.
Accidental release of killer bugs "could cause many, many, many
deaths in the Bay Area as a whole," Dorabji said. 

-- Ban secret experiments using the National Ignition Facility,
the lab's multibillion-dollar superlaser, which is used
primarily to simulate nuclear explosions to test the existing
stockpile. Rather, the group would encourage scientists to use
the laser for peacetime research, such as experimental
simulations of natural phenomena deep inside the Earth and in
outer space. 

-- Mop up chemically and radioactively contaminated sites at the
lab. 

"None of us want to close the lab," said Barbara Dyskant, vice
president of WindMiller Energy, a three-employee firm that she
runs with her engineer husband, Barry K. Miller. "They have
wonderful scientists there whose expertise could be very, very
well rewarded by working on non-weapons research." 

Hamilton said New College's participation in the bid for the
Livermore contract is consistent with the 1,000-student school's
innovative activities, among them its recent move to save the
Roxie Cinema by blending it with the campus' media studies
program. 

The Livermore contract bid "is a challenge I could not pass up,"
Hamilton said. "A lot of us use Don Quixote as a metaphor (for
our work)." But unlike the fictional Quixote, "we don't want to
attack windmills -- we want to use them to generate energy." 

E-mail Keay Davidson at kdavidson@sfchronicle.com. 				
Page B - 1 			

The San Francisco Chronicle] 
    
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