*****************************************************************
01/14/07 ****     RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL)       **** VOL 15.11
*****************************************************************
   RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE
*****************************************************************
Send News Stories to news@energy-net.org with title on subject
line and first line of body

                         NUCLEAR POLICY
 
1 Guardian Unlimited: Iraqi Official Seeks Release of Iranians 
2 [NYTr] Bush's Secret War on Iran, Syria (Updated)
3 BBC NEWS: Rice commits to Mid-East roadmap
4 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: Raid on consulate, desperate move 
5 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: FM condemns US illegal raid 
6 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: Unsaid side of Hormuz ship collision 
7 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: Fate of IRI diplomats still in dark 
8 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: US seeks to form 6+2 equation 
9 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: IRI's consulate in Arbil was legal 
10 AFP: Iran rejects US claims as Iraq tensions rise 
11 Guardian Unlimited: Rice Defends Raids on Iranian Targets 
12 AFP: UN-weary, US opts for unilateral moves against Iran 
13 AFP: US keeps pressure on Iran over Iraq meddling 
14 AFP: Rice starts Mideast tour 'without a peace plan' - 
15 AFP: Presidents of Iran, Nicaragua to meet for talks 
16 UPI: Saudis and Italians look to Iran
17 Guardian Unlimited: Administration: No Plan to Strike Iran | 
18 Korea Herald: ASEAN warns N.K. on nuke test   
19 Korea Herald: 'N.K. will talk nukes after sanctions meeting'   
20 Korea Herald: [EDITORIAL] Wrong timing   
21 Korea Herald: Seoul plans defense chiefs' talks with Washington   
22 Korea Herald: U.S. envoy sees progress on Pyongyang nuke issue   
23 AFP: China, Japan and SKorea set for summit 
24 AFP: US NKorea envoy headed back to Asia but no signs of renewed six
25 AFP: North Korea nuclear talks slow but progressing - US envoy -
26 Japan Times: World to boost pressure on N. Korea, Abe says 
27 UPI: Abe seeks French support against N. Korea
28 Guardian Unlimited: Asian Nations Urge N. Korea Sanctions 
29 [NYTr] Calling time on nuclear weapons
30 US: SF Chron: Key legislators threaten funds for nuclear weapons ove
31 US: The News Journal: EPA's new rules allow loophole for costs
32 AlterNet: The Nightmare Weaponry of Our Future
33 US: New London Day: New Warhead Could Siphon Funds From Sub Builders
34 The Hindu: India not to accept any legal binding on N-testing 
35 The Observer: Spend our taxes on troops - not Trident
36 BBC NEWS: India-Pakistan talks 'positive'
37 Antiwar.com: Mistakes Were Made - 
38 Guardian Unlimited: Russia to Send Police to Probe Spy Death
 
                         NUCLEAR REACTORS
 
39 US: Charlotte Observer: New nuclear plant hinges on fuel disposal
40 US: SanLuisObispo.com: Suit says Diablo mitigation falls short
41 US: Rutland Herald: Panel to consider Yankee's water release
42 US: Times Argus: NRC to consider Vt. Yankee's effects on Connecticut
43 US: News Journal: Cooling systems ravage river, activists say 
44 US: Chicago Tribune: Exelon may seek to buy power firm 
45 AU: The Australian: Uranium mining to 'slash' emissions | WA | 
46 National Post: Dion dismisses nuclear power in oilsands extraction
47 US: NEI: Electric Sector Report to DOE Spotlights Nuclear Energy's 
 
                          NUCLEAR SECURITY
 
 
                          NUCLEAR SAFETY
 
48 Independent: Russian police head to London for Litvinenko investigat
49 US: The Spectrum: If they can't, neither can we
50 US: GAP: Senate Committee Reintroduces Whistleblower Protection Legi
51 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Let's band together and put an end to this Di
52 Sf Chronicle: Ross Report: Return of the Doomsday Clock
53 US: Developer wants more tests on land near contamination
54 Japan Times: Britain tells five Japanese to get polonium-exposure te
 
                         NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
 
55 US: North County Times: 40 years of radioactive waste is more than e
56 US: Deseret News: Utah delegates seem pleased with committee posts
57 US: POAC: NRC denies effort to halt waste storage
58 US: POAC: DEP loses bid to stop radioactive-waste plan
59 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Agency issues report on Utah environment
 
                           PEACE
 
 
                        US DEPT. OF ENERGY
 
60 KnoxNews: Daxor expanding Oak Ridge operations
61 Tri-City Herald: Battelle gives $750,000 for education 
62 Tri-City Herald: Low-level waste landfill records falsified 
63 Tri-City Herald: Workers uncover Hanford test animals 
64 KnoxNews: DOE: Budget plan would cause delays in research
65 Tracy Press: Site 300 test threat
*****************************************************************
*****************************************************************
                         FULL NEWS STORIES
*****************************************************************
*****************************************************************
 1 Guardian Unlimited: Iraqi Official Seeks Release of Iranians 

From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Sunday January 14, 2007 11:16 PM

AP Photo BAG110, BAG105 

By KIM GAMEL 

Associated Press Writer 

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - The Iraqi foreign minister called Sunday
for the release of five Iranians detained by U.S. forces in what
he said was a legitimate mission in northern Iraq, but he
stressed that foreign intervention to help insurgents would not
be tolerated. 

The two-pronged statement by Hoshyar Zebari highlighted the
delicate balance facing the Iraqi government as it tries to
secure Baghdad with the help of American forces while
maintaining ties with its neighbors, including U.S. rivals Iran
and Syria. 

``Any interventions - or any harmful interventions to kill
Iraqis or to provide support for insurgency or for the
insurgents should be stopped by the Iraqi government and by the
coalition forces,'' Zebari said in an interview with CNN's
``Late Edition.'' 

But he also stressed Iraq has to keep good relations with its
neighbors in the region. 

``You have to remember, our destiny, as Iraqis, we have to live
in this part of the world. And we have to live with Iran, we
have to live with Syria and Turkey and other countries,'' he
said. ``So in fact, on the other hand, the Iraqi government is
committed to cultivate good neighborly relations with these two
countries and to engage them constructively in security
cooperation.'' 

The U.S. military said the five Iranians detained last week in
the Kurdish-controlled northern city of Irbil were connected to
an Iranian Revolutionary Guard faction that funds and arms
insurgents in Iraq. It was the second U.S. raid targeting
Iranians in Iraq in less than a month. 

The military said the Quds Force faction of the Revolutionary
Guard, a hard-line military force that reports directly to
supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is ``known for providing
funds, weapons, improvised explosive device technology and
training to extremist groups attempting to destabilize the
Government of Iraq and attack Coalition forces.'' 

``Al-Quds'' is the Arabic name for Jerusalem, and a frequent
term for political or military factions across the Muslim world. 

Iran's government denied the five detainees were involved in
financing and arming insurgents and called for their release
along with compensation for damages. 

``Their job was basically consular, official and in the
framework of regulations,'' Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman
Mohammad Ali Hosseini said Sunday. ``What the Americans express
was incorrect and hyperbole against Iran in order to justify
their acts.'' 

The United States repeatedly has denied the office was a
consulate and the State Department has said no legitimate
diplomatic activity was being carried out at the site. 

Bush's national security adviser Stephen Hadley said Sunday that
the U.S. had the authority to pursue Iranians in Iraq because
they ``put our people at risk.'' 

``We are going to need to deal with what Iran is doing inside
Iraq,'' he said. 

Vice President Dick Cheney added: ``Iran is fishing in troubled
waters inside Iraq.'' 

Hadley was interviewed on ``This Week'' on ABC while Cheney was
on ``Fox News Sunday.'' 

Zebari, a Kurd, said those detained had been working in a
liaison office issuing travel permits for the local population,
and he reiterated that the office was in the process of being
regularized into a consulate. 

``Well, we have asked for their release,'' he told CNN. ``They
are being interrogated by the U.S. forces. But we have
established all the information that this office has been there
for many years with the approval of the Kurdish regional
authorities with their knowledge of the Iraqi government.'' 

Bush accused Iran and Syria of not doing enough to block
terrorists from entering Iraq over their borders in his speech
last week outlining his new strategy for Iraq. The U.S. has
accused them of funneling arms and fighters to aid the
insurgency. 

In another indication of Iraqi efforts to reach out to neighbors
hostile to the U.S., Iraqi President Jalal Talabani visited
Syria on Sunday, becoming the first Iraqi president to travel to
the country in nearly three decades. 

Syria's official news agency SANA said the talks between Syrian
President Bashar Assad and Talabani focused on ``bilateral
relations,'' and that both sides expressed a desire to
strengthen ties between their countries. Assad also stressed
Syria's readiness to help Iraq achieve national reconciliation
and political stability to help end the increasing sectarian
violence in the country, the state news agency said. 

Mahmoud Othman, an Iraqi lawmaker close to Talabani, said the
Syria trip was not intended as a snub to Bush. It had been
planned for nearly a year, but its date was finalized about two
weeks ago, he said from Baghdad. 

Hosseini, the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, said the
United States was resorting to ``hostility and conflict toward
neighbors of Iraq'' because it did not want to acknowledge it
had failed to stabilize Iraq. 

There is already a standoff between the U.S. and Iran over
Tehran's atomic program. Iran has rejected all allegations that
it is trying to make nuclear arms. 

The Iraqis and the Americans, meanwhile, prepared for a new
joint security operation to secure Baghdad as it faces spiraling
sectarian violence. 

Bush said Wednesday that additional 21,500 U.S. troops will head
to Iraq soon to try improve the security situation mainly in
Baghdad and the western province of Anbar. 

At least 78 people were reported killed or found dead on Sunday,
including 41 bullet-riddled bodies discovered in Baghdad. The
U.S. military also said an American soldier died Saturday in an
explosion in northern Iraq, while a roadside bomb killed a
soldier Sunday and wounded four others in Baghdad. 

Separately, the Iraqi army arrested 50 suspected insurgents and
seized nearly 2,000 rockets in a raid in a predominantly Shiite
area 45 miles northeast of Baghdad, Defense Ministry spokesman
Maj. Gen. Ibrahim Shaker said. The suspects were detained late
Saturday. 

The Iraqi army arrested 32 other suspected insurgents during
house-to-house searches in Abu Ghraib, on the western outskirts
of Baghdad, Shaker said. They also seized seven cars packed with
light weapons and 40 barrels of chemicals that could be used in
making explosives. 

--- 

Associated Press writer Nasser Karimi in Tehran contributed to
this story. 
		 	 	   
    Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007
*****************************************************************
 2 [NYTr] Bush's Secret War on Iran, Syria (Updated)
 
Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 11:31:23 -0600 (CST)

X-Sender-Host-Name: chumbly.math.missouri.edu
X-DSPAM-Result: mail; result="Innocent"; class="Innocent"; probability=0.0000; confidence=1.00; signature=N/A
X-Spam-Class: SPAM-LOW
X-Spam: [SPAM] - LOW

Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit
 
[This is an updated version of the piece originally posted by Clemons
at the Huffington Post blogs on Jan 11, 2007. The earlier version at:
http://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/Week-of-Mon-20070108/056201.html

Sent by Ed Pearl

(Think Cambodia as you read, the final paragraph a deadly accurate
summation -Ed)

"The Washington Note" via Info Clearing House - Jan 12, 2007
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article16149.htm

Did the President Declare "Secret War" Against Syria and Iran?

By Steve Clemons

Washington intelligence, military and foreign policy circles are abuzz today
with speculation that the President, yesterday or in recent days, sent a
secret Executive Order to the Secretary of Defense and to the Director of
the CIA to launch military operations against Syria and Iran.

The President may have started a new secret, informal war against Syria and
Iran without the consent of Congress or any broad discussion with the
country.

The bare outlines of that order may have appeared in President Bush's
Address to the Nation last night outlining his new course on Iraq:

"Succeeding in Iraq also requires defending its territorial integrity and
stabilizing the region in the face of extremist challenges. This begins with
addressing Iran and Syria. These two regimes are allowing terrorists and
insurgents to use their territory to move in and out of Iraq. Iran is
providing material support for attacks on American troops. We will disrupt
the attacks on our forces. We'll interrupt the flow of support from Iran and
Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced
weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.

We're also taking other steps to bolster the security of Iraq and protect
American interests in the Middle East. I recently ordered the deployment of
an additional carrier strike group to the region. We will expand
intelligence-sharing and deploy Patriot air defense systems to reassure our
friends and allies. We will work with the governments of Turkey and Iraq to
help them resolve problems along their border. And we will work with others
to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons and dominating the region."

Adding fuel to the speculation is that U.S. forces today raided an Iranian
Consulate in Arbil, Iraq and detained five Iranian staff members. Given that
Iran showed little deference to the political sanctity of the US Embassy in
Tehran 29 years ago, it would be ironic for Iran to hyperventilate much
about the raid.

But what is disconcerting is that some are speculating that Bush has decided
to heat up military engagement with Iran and Syria -- taking possible action
within their borders, not just within Iraq.

Some are suggesting that the Consulate raid may have been designed to try
and prompt a military response from Iran -- to generate a casus belli for
further American action.

If this is the case, the debate about adding four brigades to Iraq is
pathetic. The situation will get even hotter than it now is, worsening the
American position and exposing the fact that to fight Iran both within the
borders of Iraq and into Iranian territory, there are not enough troops in
the theatre.

Bush may really have pushed the escalation pedal more than any of us
realize.

UPDATE: This exchange today in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
between Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph Biden and Senator
Chuck Hagel with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is full of non-denial
denials and evasive answers to Biden's query about the President's ability
to authorize military operations against forces within Iran and Syria:

SEN. BIDEN: Last night, the president said, and I quote, "Succeeding in Iraq
requires defending its territorial integrity and stabilizing the region in
the face of extremist challenges, and that begins with addressing Iran and
Syria." He went on to say, "We will interrupt the flow of support for Iran
and Syria, and we will seek out and destroy networks providing advanced
weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq." Does that mean the president
has plans to cross the Syrian and/or Iranian border to pursue those persons
or individuals or governments providing that help?

SEC. RICE: Mr. Chairman, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs was just asked
this question, and I think he perhaps said it best. He talked about what
we're really trying to do here which is to protect our forces and that we
are doing that by seeking out these networks that we know are operating in
Iraq. We are doing it through intelligence. We are then able, as we did on
the 21st of December, to go after these groups where we find them. In that
case, we then asked the Iraqi government to declare them persona non grata
and expel them from the country because they were holding diplomatic
passports.

But the -- what is really being contemplated here in terms of these networks
is that we believe we can do what we need to do inside Iraq. Obviously, the
president isn't going to rule anything out to protect our troops, but the
plan is to take down these networks in Iraq.

The broader point is that we do have and we have always had as a country
very strong interests and allies in the Gulf Region, and we do need to work
with our allies to make certain that they have the defense capacity that
they need against growing Iranian military build-up, that they fell that we
are going to be a presence in the Persian Gulf Region as we have been, and
that we establish confidence with the states with which we have long
alliances, that we will help defend their interests. And that's what the
president had in mind.

SEN. BIDEN: Secretary Rice, do you believe the president has the
constitutional authority to pursue across the border into Iraq (sic/Iran) or
Syria, the networks in those countries?

SEC. RICE: Well, Mr. Chairman, I think I would not like to speculate on the
president's constitutional authority or to try and say anything that
certainly would abridge his constitutional authority, which is broad as
commander in chief.

I do think that everyone will understand that -- the American people and I
assume the Congress expect the president to do what is necessary to protect
our forces.

SEN. BIDEN: Madame Secretary, I just want to make it clear, speaking for
myself, that if the president concluded he had to invade Iran or Iraq in
pursuit of these -- or Syria -- in pursuit of these networks, I believe the
present authorization granted the president to use force in Iraq does not
cover that, and he does need congressional authority to do that. I just want
to set that marker.

SEN. HAGEL: I want to comment briefly on the president's speech last night,
as he presented to America and the world his new strategy for Iraq, and then
I want to ask you a couple of questions.

I'm going to note one of the points that the president made last night at
the conclusion of his speech. When he said, quote, "We mourn the loss of
every fallen American, and we owe it to them to build a future worthy of
their sacrifice" -- and I don't think there is a question that we all in
this country agree with that -- but I would even begin with this evaluation;
that we owe the military and their families a policy, a policy worthy of
their sacrifices, and I don't believe, Dr. Rice, we have that policy today.

I think what the president said last night -- and I listened carefully and
read through it again this morning -- is all about a broadened American
involvement, escalation in Iraq and the Middle East. I do not agree with
that escalation, and I would further note that when you say, as you have
here this morning, that we need to address and help the Iraqis and pay
attention to the fact that Iraqis are being killed, Madame Secretary, Iraqis
are killing Iraqis. We are in a civil war. This is sectarian violence out of
control -- Iraqi on Iraqi. Worse, it is inter-sectarian violence -- Shi'a
killing Shi'a.

To ask our young men and women to sacrifice their lives, to be put in the
middle of a civil war is wrong.

It's, first of all, in my opinion, morally wrong. It's tactically,
strategically, militarily wrong. We will not win a war of attrition in the
Middle East.

And I further note that you talk about skepticism and pessimism of the
American people and some in Congress. That is not some kind of a subjective
analysis, that is because, Madame Secretary, we've been there almost four
years, and there's a reason for that skepticism and pessimism, and that is
based on the facts on the ground, the reality of the dynamics.

And so I have been one, as you know, who have believed that the appropriate
focus is not to escalate, but to try to find a broader incorporation of a
framework. And it will have to be, certainly, regional, as many of us have
been saying for a long time. That should not be new to anyone. But it has to
be more than regional, it is going to have to be internally sponsored, and
that's going to include Iran and Syria.

When you were engaging Chairman Biden on this issue, on the specific
question -- will our troops go into Iran or Syria in pursuit, based on what
the president said last night -- you cannot sit here today -- not because
you're dishonest or you don't understand, but no one in our government can
sit here today and tell Americans that we won't engage the Iranians and the
Syrians cross-border.

Some of us remember 1970, Madame Secretary, and that was Cambodia, and when
our government lied to the American people and said we didn't cross the
border going into Cambodia. In fact we did. I happen to know something about
that, as do some on this committee.

So, Madame Secretary, when you set in motion the kind of policy that the
president is talking about here, it's very, very dangerous. Matter of fact,
I have to say, Madame Secretary, that I think this speech given last night
by this president represents the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in
this country since Vietnam, if it's carried out. I will resist it --
(interrupted by applause.)
       
                                *
================================================================
.NY Transfer News Collective    *    A Service of Blythe Systems
.          Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us         .
.339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012     http://www.blythe.org
.List Archives:   https://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/
.Subscribe: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr
================================================================
*****************************************************************
 3 BBC NEWS: Rice commits to Mid-East roadmap

Last Updated: Sunday, 14 January 2007, 21:04 GMT 

[US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (left) and Palestinian 
President Mahmoud Abbas 

Condoleezza Rice says she is in the region to talk and listen 

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said the US is deeply
committed to reviving the Middle East roadmap. 

"I have heard loud and clear the call for deeper American
engagement," she said after talks in Ramallah with Palestinian
President Mahmoud Abbas. 

Ms Rice, who later met Jordan's King Abdullah, offered no new
suggestions. 

Arab governments are thought to want greater United States
engagement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in return for
their support over Iraq. 

Ms Rice is to hold talks with the Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud
Olmert, on Monday. 

The establishment of a Palestinian state should be pursued on its 
own merits, not because of anything else - not because of Iran, 
not because of Iraq, not because of anything           [ src=] 
Condoleezza Rice US secretary of state

She is also due to visit Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait in an
attempt to drum up support for President George W Bush's new
strategy in Iraq. 

Ms Rice has said Arab leaders have every incentive to help as a
stable Iraq is also in their interests. 

In advance of her visit, the secretary of state said she was not
bringing new proposals but would be listening, talking and
looking for creative solutions. 

During a news conference after her talks with Mr Abbas, she
refuted suggestions that Washington was too distracted by
concerns about Iraq and Iran to have any significant impact on
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 

"The establishment of a Palestinian state should be pursued on
its own merits, not because of anything else - not because of
Iran, not because of Iraq, not because of anything. 

"The Palestinian people have waited a long time for their own
state... and if there is anything that I can do and that the
president can do to finally realise that day, why wouldn't we
want to do that?" 

Regional alarm 

Mr Abbas said that his people would not accept temporary
statehood, as mooted recently by Israel. 

"We told Secretary Rice that we reject any temporary solutions,
including a transitional stage, because we don't see it as a
realistic option," he said. 

He also repeated his promise to hold early legislative and
presidential elections if talks with the ruling Palestinian
party Hamas over forming a national unity government failed. 

Hamas, for its part, accused Ms Rice of taking sides. 

A Hamas spokesman, Fawzi Barhum, said her visit was serving only
to "support one side [of] the Palestinian people against other". 

Hamas and Mr Abbas's Fatah organisation have been at loggerheads
since Hamas won last year's election and lost Western funding
for the Palestinian territories over its refusal to recognise
Israel. 

The dispute has alarmed some of the region's leaders, including
Jordan's King Abdullah who has warned that three civil wars are
possible in the Middle East: in Iraq, the Palestinian
territories and Lebanon. 

In Amman, King Abdullah told Ms Rice of the importance for the
region of progress on the roadmap, warning that without tangible
steps in the near future the cycle of violence would widen. 

He also said that Iraq's Sunni Arabs must be engaged in the
country's political process. 

The king "stressed that any political process that does not do
so was likely to fail and to invite more violence", a court
statement said.
*****************************************************************
 4 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: Raid on consulate, desperate move 

  2007/01/14   
  
The attack by American troops on Iranian consulate in northern
Iraq indicated Washington's anger and extreme desperation, said
Majlis Speaker Gholam-Ali Haddad Adel on Sunday.
 
Addressing the open session of Majlis, the Speaker condemned the
American troops raid on the consulate in the Iraqi city of
Erbil, calling it "a surprising and regrettable act."
 
American forces broke into the consulate building at 3 am
Thursday (local time) by disarming its guards and breaking the
lock of the gate. They then arrested six consular staff and took
them along with computers and documents to an unknown place.
 
One of the staff, a local employee, was released on Friday but
the fate of five others is still in the dark.
 
Quoting American Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as saying
the raid on the Islamic Republic of Iran's consulate had been
ordered by Bush, the speaker said "America invaded Iraq in the
past under the pretext of finding weapons of mass destruction in
that country and now American forces raid IRI's consulate which
has a diplomatic status."
 
Haddad-Adel stressed that such moves by the American army in
Iraq would bring "nothing but shame" for Washington.
 
M/D   

  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: FM condemns US illegal raid 

  2007/01/13   
  
Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki on Friday condemned the
American raid on the Islamic Republic of Iran's Consulate
General in Erbil, saying such an attempt runs contrary to the
Vienna Convention. 

He also told Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zibari on phone
that it was a blatant intervnetion in the relations of two
brotherly nation of Iran and Iraq. 

Mottaki referred to summoning of Swiss and Iraqi envoys to the
Iranian Foreign Ministry and the responsibility of the
government of Iraq in this regard. 

He also demanded serious action for release of the consulate's
staff in Erbil kidnapped in the raid on Thursday. 

According to the Directorate General Information and Press of
the Foreign Ministry, Zibari said that the attack on the Iranian
mission was unacceptable. 

Voicing his regrets over American adventurist move, he assured
that government of Iraq has been following up the issue with
American officials. 

Zibari expressed the hope that the kidnapped staff of the
Iranian mission will be soon released. 

sam   

  Copyright 2004, All Rights Reserved By Islamic Republic of Iran 
Broadcasting News Network Sponsored By IRIB News Computer Center. 
E-Mail: Info@IRIBNEWS.ir     
*****************************************************************
 6 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: Unsaid side of Hormuz ship collision 

  2007/01/13   

Commander of IRI's Naval Forces elaborated on the unsaid side of
the collision of a nuclear-powered American submarine with a
Japanese oil tanker east of the 34-mile wide Straits of Hormuz,
bordered by the Islamic Republic of Iran and Oman at the
entrance to the Persian Gulf. 

In an interview with Fars News Agency, Admiral Sajjad Kouchaki
said that the spilling of oil and leakage of nuclear fuel is one
of the environmental consequences of the collision. American
Naval Force and the Japanese government had earlier denied any
leakage. 

The American submarine "Newport News" is one of the Eisenhower
aircraft careers that collided with the Japanese supertanker
Mogamigawa on January 8. 

Kouchaki said the submarine was coming to the surface of the sea
but did not calculate due ascending rules according to which
there must be a one kilometer empty space around an ascending
submarine. 

Despite news reports claiming that the Japanese ship was not
damaged seriously, more than four thousand tonnes of water has
entered the Japanese oil tanker, he revealed. 

America has tried to censor the event in order to hide the
negative environmental consequences of the oil spill and nuclear
leakage, he added. 

The nuclear-powered American submarine was also damaged to the
extend that it had to be hauled to the Persian Gulf border
countries by two ships. 

The Commander of IRI Navy Forces reiterated that the submarine
was responsible for the collision. 

Regarding the reasons behind the accident, Kouchaki said, "Just
like other American military forces in the region, those being
in the submarine have a very low motivation (to be in the
region). Operational spirit, risk-taking, bravery and will of
the occupying forces have gone away." 

He noted that the collision by a nuclear submarine which enjoyed
a high technology was a political blunder (for the American
navy). 

"That the submarine workers have not seen a 300,000 tonne ship
is a sign of weaknesses among the (American) navy force," he
added. 

Admiral Kouchaki underlined that the negative environmental
consequences of this event on the regional countries will
gradually be revealed. 

Referring to the recent advice of the Islamic Revolution Leader
Ayatollah Sayed Ali Khamenei to 'those who submit themselves to
Bush's commands' to take lessons from Saddam's bad destiny, he
said that servants of America must seperate their path from
those criminals before it is too late. 

Addressing the regional states who are dependent on American
forces for developing the security of oil he said, "If they want
oil to be transported through the strategic Hormuz Strait, they
have to cooperate with each other in order to provide regional
security." 

"Iran is also ready to cooperate with regional countries in this
regard," the Commander added. 

sam   

  Copyright 2004, All Rights Reserved By Islamic Republic of Iran 
Broadcasting News Network Sponsored By IRIB News Computer Center. 
E-Mail: Info@IRIBNEWS.ir     
*****************************************************************
 7 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: Fate of IRI diplomats still in dark 

  2007/01/13   
  
The fate of five Iranian diplomats seized by American troops in
the Iranian diplomatic office in Erbil, Iraq, is still in the
dark three days after their capture during a raid conducted by
the troops on the place in northern Iraq, it was reported on
Saturday. 

The diplomatic office was raided Thursday morning and its six
staff taken away by the forces. One, a local employee, was
released Friday, reliable sources in Baghdad said. 

Speaking on condition of anonymity, they said that the American
forces were forced to release the local employee because of
intense pressure from Tehran and Baghdad. 

The American forces broke into the building at 3 AM Thursday
(local time) by disarming its guards and breaking the lock of
the gate. They then kidnapped the staff and took them away along
with computers and documents to an unknown place, the sources
added. 

The sources described the move by the American forces as
unprecedented since the invasion of Iraq by America and allied
forces in 2003, the sources said. 

The government of the Iraqi Kurdish region said the raid was
conducted without a notification to the local government. 

Releasing a statement, the government of Kurdish party leader
Massoud Barzani condemned the American raid on the Iranian
diplomatic office and demanded immediate release of all detained
consular staff. 

The government of the Kurdish region of Iraq expresses its
disapproval of the operation against the Iranian consulate, the
statement added. 

Noting that the raid was conducted without notifying the
regional government, the statement said that the attack on the
Iranian consulate damaged efforts to restore stability and
security in Iraq. 

Barzani's statement further said that the American move was
condemned by the entire Kurdish people. 

Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told his
Iraqi counterpart, Hoshyar Zebari, in a telephone conversation
after the incident that "America's illegal and adventurist acts
should stop in Iraq." 

"These acts violate the Geneva convention (which mandates
inviolability of embassies and consulates) and the attack was an
obvious interference of the brotherly relations between the two
countries," he added. 

The Iranian diplomatic office was established in Erbil two years
ago upon the request of the Kurdish regional government to
facilate travel and other exchanges of residents. 

The office was intended to facilitate travel and other exchanges
between nationals of the two neighboring countries. 

sam   

  Copyright 2004, All Rights Reserved By Islamic Republic of Iran 
Broadcasting News Network Sponsored By IRIB News Computer Center. 
E-Mail: Info@IRIBNEWS.ir     
*****************************************************************
 8 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: US seeks to form 6+2 equation 

  2007/01/14   
  
Establishing 6+2 equation in Iraq is among the aims of Rice's
trip to the Middle East region, a political expert told IRIB
Sunday.
 
"Americans claim the formation of such an equation is a way to
oppose what some countries in the Middle East call radicalism,"
Asadollahi added.
 
Using the equation, America wants to restrict the role of Syrian
Arab Republic and specially the Islamic Republic of Iran in
Iraq's issues, he further added.
 
The political expert pointed to the equation established by the
participation of six members of the Persian Gulf Cooperation
Council plus Egypt and Syria in the era of Iraq's attack to
Kuwait, reiterating that now America seeks to form the equation
in Iraq by replacing Syria with Jordan.
 
Asadollahi pointed that America has put away the Great Middle
East Plan, reiterating that Americans have now encountered
widespread problems in Iraq and in this current situation they
only want to amend their face in the World's public opinion.
 
He said prior to Rice's trip to the Middle East region, she "had
spoken about a new plan for Palestine but the priority of her
trip is making restrictions for IRI and Syria."
 
M/D   

  Copyright 2004, All Rights Reserved By Islamic Republic of Iran 
Broadcasting News Network Sponsored By IRIB News Computer Center. 
E-Mail: Info@IRIBNEWS.ir     
*****************************************************************
 9 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: IRI's consulate in Arbil was legal 

  2007/01/14   
  
Islamic Republic of Iran on Sunday said that all activities of
its consulate general in the northern Iraqi city of Arbil were
legal, official and endorsed by Iraqi officials.
 
Foreign Ministry Spokesman Sayed Mohammad-Ali Hosseini made the
remark at his weekly press conference
 
He said IRI's consulate general in Arbil was officially
inaugurated in 1992 upon an agreement signed between Iranian and
Iraqi officials
 
He added that America's attack on IRI's consulate on Thursday
was a willful measure against international conventions and
diplomatic norms
 
"American forces should release Iranian diplomats immediately
and compensate for the damages they have inflicted on the
building," the Spokesman said
 
He added that five Iranian diplomats working at the consulate
have been engaged in legal and official activities within the law
 
"America intends to make the atmosphere more radical but the
Islamic Republic of Iran will pursue the case wisely through
official channels," Hosseini stressed
 
M/D   

  Copyright 2004, All Rights Reserved By Islamic Republic of Iran 
Broadcasting News Network Sponsored By IRIB News Computer Center. 
E-Mail: Info@IRIBNEWS.ir     
*****************************************************************
 10 AFP: Iran rejects US claims as Iraq tensions rise 

 by Aresu Eqbali Sun Jan 14, 7:25 AM ET 		 	 

TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran" /> has protested that five nationals 
arrested by US forces in Iraq" /> were merely consular staff 
doing their job, amid intensifying American warnings over 
Tehran's role in its war-torn neighbour. 

 The detention of the five on suspicion of being agents of the
Revolutionary Guards seeking to stir trouble came after US
President George W Bush vowed the military would "seek out and
destroy" networks destabilising Iraq. 

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice" /> is also on a tour of
the Middle East aimed at showing up alleged Iranian interference
in the region to Washington's allies. 

"What they (the arrested five) were doing was consular work.
These were official employees who were doing their job according
to the rules," foreign ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini
told reporters Sunday. 

"What the Americans claim is incorrect. They want to create a
climate that justifies their illegal action," he added. 

Six Iranians were arrested in a night-time swoop by US forces on
an office in the Kurdish northern Iraqi city of Arbil Thursday,
one of whom was later released. 

The United States has said the men had links to Iran's elite
Revolutionary Guards and none of them held diplomatic passports. 

The arrests came amid continued accusations by US commanders
that Tehran is arming militias and inciting anti-US attacks to
feed intercommunal bloodletting that its dogging Iraq. Iran
vehemently denies the charges. 

"We have had a strategy toward Iran, I think, that has been
evolving to deal with the serious problems that Iran is
causing," Rice said in Israel" /> at the start of her Middle
East tour. 

Rice warned that similar actions to the Arbil raid could be
undertaken. "We've done it a couple of times. We're going to
keep doing it." 

A statement by the US military in Baghdad said that preliminary
results of their investigation "revealed the five detainees are
connected to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard - Qods Force
(IRGC-QF)." 

The "organisation is known for providing funds, weapons,
improvised explosive device technology and training to extremist
groups attempting to destabilise the government of Iraq and
attack coalition forces," it said. 

Bush's vow Wednesday that US forces would "seek out and destroy"
networks funnelling weapons or fighters from Syria" /> or Iran
into Iraq forced his spokesman to dismiss talk of war with the
Islamic republic as an "urban legend". 

The tensions over Iraq between the two arch-enemies -- which
have had no diplomatic relations since radicals stormed the US
embassy in Tehran in November 1979 -- also come amid mounting US
impatience over the Iranian nuclear drive. 

Despite UN Security Council sanctions, Iran has refused to halt
uranium enrichment, an activity Washington claims Tehran could
use to make a nuclear weapon. Iran insists its atomic programme
is peaceful. 

A senior US military official said Thursday that the United
States planned to keep two aircraft carrier battle groups in the
Gulf for months -- the first such deployment since the first
year of the Iraq war in 2003. 

An Iranian official even denied rumours spread by SMS messages
that US and Iranian naval ships had been involved in clashes,
the Fars news agency reported. 

"These rumours are part of the psychological warfare of the
enemy after its failure to influence the morale of Iranians
after the adoption of the resolution," the top security official
from the coastal province of Hormozgan said. 

Meanwhile, Iran's top national security official Ali Larijani
left on a previously unannounced visit to Saudi Arabia for talks
with King Abdullah, the official IRNA news agency reported. 

IRNA said Larijani would discuss issues of mutual interest
related to the Islamic world and the regional situation but it
was likely that visit would be dominated by Iraq 

Both countries share long borders with Iraq and Shiite Iran has
expressed concern over suggestions that Saudi Arabia might
intervene on the side of Iraq's Sunnis if the United States
swiftly pulls out of Iraq. 	 		 			
 							 					 					 					 					 					 					 					 					 					
Copyright © 2007 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 11 Guardian Unlimited: Rice Defends Raids on Iranian Targets 

From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Saturday January 13, 2007 11:01 PM

AP Photo AKCF120 

By ANNE GEARAN 

AP Diplomatic Writer 

JERUSALEM (AP) - U.S. raids that President Bush approved against
Iranian targets in Iraq are part of broad efforts to confront
Tehran's aggression, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said
Saturday. 

``The United States is simply responding to Iranian activities
that have been going on for a while now that threaten not just
to destabilize the chance for Iraq to proceed to stability but
also that endanger our forces,'' Rice said before meeting with
Israel's foreign minister. 

Bush approved the strategy several months ago, U.S. officials
said, in response to what Washington claims is Iran's support
for terrorists inside Iraq and the alleged funneling of bombs to
anti-U.S. insurgents. 

Echoing other Bush administration figures, Rice said the U.S.
does not intend to cross the Iraq-Iran border to attack
Iranians. 

Five Iranians were detained by U.S.-led forces after a raid
Thursday on an Iranian government liaison office in northern
Iraq. The move further frayed relations between the two
countries. 

The United States accuses Iran of helping provide roadside bombs
that have killed American troops in Iraq. Also, a bitter
standoff already exists over Iran's nuclear program. 

Rice told reporters that the Iranian office was not a diplomatic
consulate, which would be protected by international treaty. 

The State Department said Friday that U.S.-led forces entered an
Iranian building in Kurdish-controlled Irbil because information
linked it to Revolutionary Guards and other Iranian elements
engaging in violent activities in Iraq. 

State Department spokesman Tom Casey said there was no truth to
reports that Iran was carrying out legitimate diplomatic
activity at the site. 

But Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, a Kurd, contended the
Iranians were working in a liaison office that had government
approval and was in the process of being approved as a
consulate. In Iran, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said the
U.S. raid constituted an intervention in Iranian-Iraqi affairs. 
		 	 	   
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007
*****************************************************************
 12 AFP: UN-weary, US opts for unilateral moves against Iran 

 by Sylvie Lanteaume Sun Jan 14, 4:42 AM ET 		 	 

JERUSALEM (AFP) - Recent US operations against Iranian interests 
in Iraq" /> appear to signal a shift by Washington towards 
unilateral action after growing frustated with slow-moving UN 
diplomacy. 

 "We have had a strategy toward Iran" /> , I think, that has
been evolving to deal with the serious problems that Iran is
causing," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice" /> said in
remarks released Saturday by the State Department. 

Rice, who arrived in Jerusalem Saturday at the start of a Middle
East tour partly aimed at rallying Arab nations against Iran's
influence, defended a US raid Thursday against an Iranian office
in Iraq. 

US troops entered an Iranian office in Arbil and arrested five
people suspected to be engaged in anti-US activities. Tehran
condemned the operation. 

Rice warned that similar actions would be undertaken. "We've
done it a couple of times. We're going to keep doing it," she
said aboard a plane heading to the Middle East. 

In late December, the US military arrested two Iranian diplomats
in Baghdad, then released them several hours later. 

Faced with lawmakers' concerns in the Democratic-led Congress
that Washington could launch a military intervention in Iran,
the White House and the Pentagon" /> have been trying to dispel
fears and rumors of a conflict with Iran or Syria" /> , after
the announcement of a US military buildup in the Gulf. 

President George W. Bush" /> , in unveiling his new plan for
Iraq, announced Wednesday the imminent deployment of Patriot
anti-missile defense systems in the region to defend
Washington's allies and support stability in the Middle East. 

In addition, according to a senior US military official,
Washington will send two aircraft carrier groups to the Gulf in
the coming weeks. 

US administration officials now describe Iran as the single
greatest threat the United States faces in the Middle East. 

Rice assured that the US was not giving up on diplomacy in
dealing with Iran, particularly on the issue of its nuclear
program that Washington suspects masks a weapons program. Iran
insists it is for civilian energy production. 

"The nuclear problem -- we're going to continue to leave the
door open for diplomacy," Rice said in the State Department
release. 

"But frankly, the process that we went through to get this last
(UN Security Council) resolution was -- even though I think the
resolution itself is very good, the process was, I think, not
really actually helpful because I think it exposed certain
splits. 

"Fortunately, we were able to bring it back together around an
actual resolution," she said. 

The US battled for months to overcome resistance from China and
Russia to impose sanctions on Iran for its refusal to suspend
uranium-enrichment activities. 

A Security Council resolution finally was passed on December 23,
but the sanctions imposed were far weaker than those sought by
Washington. 

The first sign that Washington would act alone came from the US
Treasury, which has barred two Iranian banks since September and
pressured global financial firms to break their ties with Iran. 

"We're going to keep designating Iranian banks," Rice said en
route to the region. 	 		 			

Copyright © 2007 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 13 AFP: US keeps pressure on Iran over Iraq meddling 

 by David Millikin Sun Jan 14, 4:57 PM ET 		 	 

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US Vice President Dick Cheney" /> Dick 
Cheneywarned Iran" /> Iran's leaders to "keep their folks at 
home" after US forces detained a group of Iranians on suspicion 
of trying to disrupt efforts to stabilize Iraq" /> Iraq. 

 At the same time, President George W. Bush" /> President George
W. Bush's top security adviser refused again to rule out
military action against Iran due to its support for radical
Islamists in Iraq and throughout the Middle East. 

Cheney said Iran was "fishing in troubled waters" in Iraq by
aiding attacks on US forces and backing Shiite militia involved
in sectarian violence against minority Sunnis that has pushed
the country towards civil war. 

Bush highlighted the Iranian role when he unveiled his new Iraq
strategy last week, promising to "seek out and destroy" any
networks feeding the violence in Iraq. 

Bush also announced the United States was beefing up its naval
presence around Iran and sending anti-missile systems to
regional allies. 

"I think the message that the president sent clearly is that we
do not want (Iran) doing what they can to try to destabilize the
situation inside Iraq," Cheney told the Fox network. 

"We think it's very important that they keep their folks at
home," Cheney said. 

The vice president, the US administration's leading hawk, went
on to describe the Iranian threat as "multi-dimensional" --
reaching beyond Iraq to menace US-allied moderates by supporting
radical Islamist movements in Lebanon, the Palestinian areas and
throughout the Middle East. 

"They have begun to conduct themselves in ways that have created
a great deal of tension throughout the region," he told the Fox
network, adding that allies like Saudi Arabia and Jordan were
worried by Iranian support for Islamist radicals and Tehran's
suspected efforts to develop nuclear weapons. 

"If you look down the road a few years and speculate about the
possibility of a nuclear armed Iran, astride the world's supply
of oil, able to affect adversely the global economy, prepared to
use terrorist organizations and/or their nuclear weapons to
threaten their neighbors and others around the world, that's a
serious prospect," he said. 

"It's important that not happen." 

Cheney spoke as US forces in Iraq held five Iranians arrested in
the north of the country late last week and accused of being
linked to Iran's Revolutionary Guard. 

The raid the nabbed the five from an Iranian "interests" office
in the city of Arbil, coming on the heels of Bush's warnings to
Tehran and the US military buildup in the Gulf heightened fears
the administration was laying the groundwork for an attack on
the Islamic Republic. 

The White House and the Pentagon" /> Pentagonsought Friday to
dispel the war concerns, which Bush spokesman Tony Snow
described as "kind of a rumor, an urban legend that's going
around". 

"This notion that somehow what the president was announcing was
a precursor to planned military action -- a planned war against
Iran, that's just not the case," Snow said. 

But Bush's national security advisor, Stephen Hadley" /> Stephen
Hadley, then refused on Sunday to exclude the possibility of US
troops entering Iran. 

Hadley told interviewers in two television appearances that
Washington would continue diplomatic efforts through the United
Nations" /> United Nationsto convince Iran to suspend its
uranium enrichment program, which the US and others fear is a
cover for making nuclear weapons. 

But asked if that meant invading Iran over its other activities
was off the table, Hadley insisted "I didn't say that." 

"What I'm saying is ... this is a problem. It needs to be dealt
with. We intend to deal with it by interdicting and disrupting
activities in Iraq, sponsored by Iran, that are putting our
troops and Iraqis at risk," he said. 

Democratic Congressman John Murtha (news, bio, voting record),
who chairs the subcommittee that controls Pentagon spending, was
emphatic that the president should not order US troops into
Iran. 

"The president does not have legal authority to go into Iran,"
he said. "There's no question in my mind about that. And he
wouldn't have the capability of doing that even if he wanted
to." 	 		 			

Copyright © 2007 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 14 AFP: Rice starts Mideast tour 'without a peace plan' - 

 Sat Jan 13, 3:47 AM 		 	 

JERUSALEM (AFP) - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is due 
to kick off a Middle East tour to make another crack at reviving 
the Israeli-Palestinian peace process but without a specific plan 
to resolve the conflict. 

She was to arrive in Israel for talks with leaders there and in
the Palestinian territories before heading to Arab capitals to
rally support for a new US war strategy in Iraq and to counter
Iran's alleged interference in the war-ravaged country. 

Rice said Saturday she had no specific plan to resolve the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but was coming to listen. 

"I am not coming with a proposal. I am not coming with a plan,"
she told journalists accompanying her during a stopover in
Shannon, Ireland. 

"I have as an academic spent a good deal of time reading about
past efforts to try and make progress on the Israeli-Palestinian
issue and a couple of things are crystal clear: if you don't lay
groundwork very well, it is not going to succeed," said the
former political science professor. 

"And I think no plan can be 'Made in America'. There are too
many important stakeholders and any progress on the
Israeli-Palestinian front is going to require all of the
parties." 

Rice is expected to meet Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz
and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni on Saturday before traveling to
Ramallah Sunday to talk with moderate Palestinian president
Mahmud Abbas. 

She is also set to meet Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on
Monday. 

The administration of President George W. Bush has asked
Congress to authorize 86 million dollars in military aid to
boost security forces loyal to Abbas, who is locked in a deadly
power struggle with the rival Hamas. 

The Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), which heads the
Palestinian government, is boycotted by Israel and the West
which consider it a terrorist group. 

Rice will then travel to Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait,
Germany and Britain before returning to Washington on January
19. 

Her trip comes two days after President George W. Bush presented
a new strategy to quell surging sectarian violence in Iraq with
the deployment of 21,500 more troops. 

Bush also declared a new initiative against Iranian and Syrian
elements, which the United States accuses of destabilizing Iraq,
while stepping up the US military presence in the Gulf. 

Before her departure, Rice told US lawmakers her trip "will
focus heavily on rallying the support of those responsible Arab
states to support the government of Iraq, to support what needs
to be done there, to support, of course, also Lebanon and the
moderate Palestinians." 

In an interview with the BBC's Arabic television released
Friday, Rice said it was ultimately up to the Iraqi leadership
to restore security. 

Bush's plan "very much puts Iraqis at the center of
responsibility for dealing with what is their most urgent
problem," Rice said. 

"Their most urgent problem is that the population has lost
confidence that the government of Iraq can and will defend them
in an even-handed fashion, whether they are Sunni or Shia," Rice
said. 

Rice said on Thursday that it was vital to counter Iranian
influence in Iraq and the region. 

"What we are... looking at is the need to solidify the
consensus, the interest of these states that all fear Iran's
moves in the region, fear the regional aggression of Iran," Rice
said. 

"I think you will see that the United States is not going to
simply stand idly by and let these activities continue." 

Rice appeared to face an uphill battle on promoting Bush's new
war plan in the region nearly four years after the US-led
invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein. 

Newspaper commentators across the Middle East cast doubt on the
strategy, with Qatar's Al-Raya daily saying it was "doomed to an
unavoidable and appalling failure." 

The trip comes as Tehran continues to scorn international
efforts to convince it to halt nuclear fuel enrichment, which
major powers believe is aimed at developing nuclear weapons. 

Amid rising tension between the United States and Iran,
Washington announced Thursday two aircraft carrier battle groups
would stay in the Gulf for several months. That was the first
time since just before the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, a
US military official said. 

Rice's visit to Kuwait will include a meeting with foreign
ministers from the Gulf states of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the
United Arab Emirates, Oman, Qatar and Bahrain, as well as Egypt
and Jordan. 	 		 			

Copyright © 2007 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 15 AFP: Presidents of Iran, Nicaragua to meet for talks 

 Sun Jan 14, 4:41 AM ET 		 	 

MANAGUA (AFP) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will hold 
talks Sunday with Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega on the 
second stop of a Latin America tour aimed at winning new anti-US 
allies. 

 Ahmadinejad arrived here Saturday and, despite the late hour,
was met at the airport by Ortega himself and other top
Nicaraguan officials. 

The two were to meet Sunday for official negotiations, which
were expected to produce a raft of economic cooperation
agreements in areas ranging from agriculture to crude oil
processing. 

Ortega, who was the Marxist leader of the leftist Sandinista
National Liberation Front that ousted US-backed dictator
Anastasio Somoza in 1979, was sworn in as president last
Wednesday, promising generous anti-poverty programs. 

Analysts said that Iran" /> Iran, flush with oil money, is in a
position to help Ortega with his ambitious plans. 

"We will try to expand and strengthen ties in our visit to this
country and talks with him," Ahmadinejad said of Ortega before
leaving Tehran. 

The Iranian leader began his Latin American tour Saturday in
Caracas, where he met with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez,
hailing him as an ideological ally. 

Tehran and Caracas, said the Iranian president, had the task of
"promoting revolutionary thought in the world." 

"The reason for all the current problems is the erroneous
direction of the powerful countries, where there is poverty,
hate, enmity and war," he said. 

According to the Iranian leader, Western powers were responsible
for "discrimination and injustice" and their only concern is "to
reap their economic benefits." 

"As two brother peoples and governments, we have the
responsibility to promote this clear idea about the world
situation," he said to Chavez. 

Chavez, who has been a vocal advocate of Tehran's nuclear
program, said Venezuela and Iran would "continue to act as
always with one voice." 

Venezuela remains Iran's main supporter of its nuclear program.
Russia and China recently joined Western powers in approving UN
Security Council sanctions against Tehran. 

Following their talks, the two presidents of oil-rich countries
announced a joint effort to obtain new OPEC" /> OPECoil
production cuts that would support slumping world oil prices,
which have fallen 14 percent since January 1. 

The announcement eclipsed the signing of 11 bilateral
agreements, including a deal to create an international oil
company. 

"We agreed this afternoon to coordinate our forces within OPEC,"
said Chavez, the president of the only Latin American member of
the 11-nation Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. 

"Today we know that there is too much crude in the market,
that's why we support, we will support the decisions that have
been taken to reduce production and protect the price of oil,"
he said. 

Chavez emphasized that he was sending that message "to all the
heads of state in the OPEC countries to continue to strengthen
our organization in this direction." 

In an earlier speech to the Venezuelan parliament, Ahmadinejad
had praised his host as a "fighter for just causes", a "brother"
and a "revolutionary." 

The Iranian president's visit, the second to Venezuela in five
months, was the first stop in a tour aimed at strengthening ties
with anti-US leaders in the region. 

Monday, Ahmadinejad and Chavez will attend the inauguration of
Ecuador's new president Rafael Correa, who has pledged to forge
stronger ties with Venezuela and allow a lease for a US military
airbase on the country's Pacific Coast to lapse. 

The Iranian president will also meet other South American
presidents including Bolivia's Evo Morales on the sidelines of
the ceremony in Ecuador, before finishing his tour on Tuesday. 	
		 			
Copyright © 2007 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 16 UPI: Saudis and Italians look to Iran
     
United Press International - NewsTrack - 

1/14/2007 11:33:00 AM -0500

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, Jan. 14 (UPI) -- Italian Foreign Minister
Massimo D'Alema and Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal are
looking to Iran to play a diplomatic role in the Middle East. 

"We hope that Iran will be determined to solve regional problems
since it is a large country with a significant influence,"
D'Alema told journalists Saturday in Riyadh, Arab News reported. 

Al-Faisal said Saudi Arabia would not use oil as a weapon if an
oil crisis were to result from any actions taken in Iran to
protest sanctions imposed against it because its nuclear
program, Arab News reported. 

"We do not consider oil a weapon," he said. "Oil is a resource
used for the welfare of our people and the people of
oil-producing and oil-importing countries." 

Al-Faisal said he looked forward to U.S. Secretary of State
Condeleezza Rice's visit to promote President Bush's new
strategy in Iraq. He said that Saudi Arabia "was already
involved in Iraq."

© Copyright 2007 United Press International, Inc. All Rights
Reserved.
*****************************************************************
 17 Guardian Unlimited: Administration: No Plan to Strike Iran | 

From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Saturday January 13, 2007 1:16 AM

By ANNE FLAHERTY 

Associated Press Writer 

WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. officials said Friday there was no
immediate plan to strike targets in Iran, but they also wouldn't
rule out military action. 

Their comments came after President Bush vowed in a prime-time
address to the nation to go after Iranian terrorist networks
feeding the insurgency in Iraq. 

The U.S. and Iran have been involved in a bitter standoff over
Tehran's nuclear program, a clash that has intensified because
the United States says Iran helped provide roadside bombs that
have killed American troops in Iraq. Tensions inched upward
another notch this week after five Iranians were detained by
U.S.-led forces after a raid on an Iranian government liaison
office in northern Iraq. 

Bush's remarks Wednesday in a speech announcing his plan to bve
long refused to rule out any options against Iran but said
military action would be a last resort. 

On Friday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Gen. Peter Pace,
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate Armed
Services Committee that while U.S. forces are trying to prevent
Iran and Syria from disrupting U.S. forces in Iraq, there were
no immediate plans for an attack. 

``We believe that we can interrupt these networks that are
providing support through actions inside the territory of Iraq,
that there is no need to attack targets in Iran itself,'' Gates
told the panel, adding that he continues to believe that ``any
kind of military action inside Iran itself, that would be a very
last resort.'' 

Pace said special operations forces are continually battling
insurgents who are getting aid from Iran. 

``I think one of the reasons you keep hearing about Iran is
because we keep finding their stuff in Iraq,'' Pace said. 

Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., chairman of the Foreign Relations
Committee, wrote to Bush on Thursday asking for clarifications
on the administration's stance toward attacking Iran. Sens. John
Warner, R-Va., and Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., raised the issue at a
hearing Friday. 

``The president seems to have placed diplomacy on the
back-burner again,'' Byrd said. 

In his speech Wednesday, Bush chastised Iran and Syria for not
blocking terrorists at their borders with Iraq. He specifically
blamed Iran for providing material support for attacks on
American troops. 

``We will disrupt the attacks on our forces,'' Bush said. ``We
will interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we
will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced
weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.'' 

On Friday, White House spokesman Tony Snow called the suggestion
that war plans were under way an ``urban legend.'' 

``What the president was talking about is defending American
forces within Iraq, and also doing what we can to disrupt
networks that might be trying to convey weapons or fighters into
battle theaters within Iraq to kill Americans and Iraqis,'' Snow
said. 
		 	 	   
    Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007
*****************************************************************
 18 Korea Herald: ASEAN warns N.K. on nuke test   
        
CEBU, Philippines - Southeast Asian nations urged North Korea
Sunday to cancel any plans for a second nuclear test and to
address the world's humanitarian concerns about the secretive
country.

 The Association of Southeast Asian Nations urged North Korea to
"desist from conducting further nuclear tests," implement a
de-nuclearization deal it agreed in 2005 and rejoin the nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty.

 "We emphasized that DPRK must effectively address the
humanitarian concerns of the international community," they said
in a statement after their annual summit.

 Leaders of the 10-nation group backed six-party talks on North
Korea and said the international community "must convey in clear
terms to the DPRK that the latter must denuclearize in a
verifiable manner."

 The leaders reaffirmed their support for U.N. sanctions imposed
after the North's missile tests in July and its nuclear test
Oct. 9.

 There have been recent reports that North Korea is preparing
for a possible second nuclear test.

 The East Asian countries will be looking to find a way to
persuade North Korea to return to international talks aimed at
getting it to abandon its nuclear weapons program. The most
recent round of multilateral talks on the issue broke down
without progress last month in Beijing.

 According to a draft of a statement delivered after Sunday's
ASEAN-South Korea summit, Philippine President Gloria Macapagal
Arroyo expressed "solidarity" with efforts to solve the standoff
through talks.

 "The nuclear test of North Korea casts a blight on our dream of
one caring and sharing community," the statement said.

 The nuclear issue was a major topic when South Korean President
Roh Moo-hyun, Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao and Japanese
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe met later on the day.

 It was the first three-way summit between the countries in two
years.

 The Beijing-Tokyo-Seoul trilateral provided a chance for the
three neighbors to mend ties that have been damaged by disputes
over several small islands, oil drilling rights and visits by
Japanese leaders to a Tokyo war shrine seen by many as a symbol
of Japanese militarism.

 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was hoping to finalize plans
for Wen or China's President Hu Jintao to visit Tokyo in the
coming months as a further show of good will.

 President Roh called for the cooperation of Southeast Asian
countries to fight harder against transnational crime and boost
technical and cultural exchanges, his spokesman said.

 In his meeting with the Southeast Asian leaders, Roh asked for
their cooperation in holding a senior officials' meeting aimed
at preventing transnational crimes, which was launched this year
between South Korea and ASEAN, said Yoon Seung-yong, spokesman
for the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae. 

Roh also called for the regional support of Korea's initiative
to prevent drug trafficking, which will be enforced for two
years starting 2007, Yoon said.

 Other agenda Roh proposed to the ASEAN leaders included
cooperation in the exchange of information and communication
technology as well as boosting cultural ties between South Korea
and the region. 

South Korean cultural products, such as television dramas, pop
music and movies, have become hugely popular in the Southeast
Asian region. In recent years, Seoul has sought to make the
unilateral trend mutual through state projects like the Asian
Cultural Partnership Initiative, in which Seoul invites regional
artists to introduce their works to Korea.

 Roh also expressed Korea's support for ASEAN's efforts to
narrow the differences of development levels in the region and
its initiative for integration, his spokesman said.

2007.01.15
*****************************************************************
 19 Korea Herald: 'N.K. will talk nukes after sanctions meeting'   
        

A Japanese lawmaker said Saturday that a North Korean diplomat
told him Pyongyang wants to resume nuclear disarmament talks
after planned talks with Washington over U.S. financial
sanctions.

 Taku Yamasaki, who stopped in Beijing after a five-day visit to
Pyongyang, said the official repeated North Korea's position
that whether it conducts a second nuclear test depends on
Washington's actions.

 Yamasaki, a member of Japan's ruling party, said he met with
officials including Song Il-ho, the North's ambassador for
diplomatic normalization talks with Japan.

 Yamasaki told reporters he and Song agreed it is "desirable" to
hold disarmament talks shortly after North Korean and U.S.
officials meet in New York this month to discuss financial
sanctions.

 China's Foreign Ministry said no date has been set for a new
round of nuclear talks.

 "All parties involved are still involved in discussions," said
an employee of the ministry's media office. He refused to give
his name.

 Yamasaki also quoted Song as saying that whether North Korea
carries out a second nuclear test after its Oct. 9 detonation
"depends on the actions of the United States." Yamasaki said he
believed Pyongyang "had no immediate plans" for a second blast.

 The Japanese lawmaker said the two sides also shared a view
that "the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula is
indispensable for peace and security in Northeast Asia."

 Meanwhile, the top U.S. envoy to nuclear disarmament talks with
North Korea will return to the region late this week to meet key
allies, but there are no indications a resumption of six-party
negotiations with Pyongyang are imminent, a senior U.S. official
said Friday.

 Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill will visit Seoul
Jan. 19, then meet with Chinese officials in Beijing the
following day and go to Tokyo on Jan. 21, State Department
deputy spokesman Tom Casey said.

 "The purpose of those talks, as you expect, will be to continue
consultations with our key partners in the six-party talks on
how we might achieve progress in the next round," he said.

 But Casey declined to predict that Hill's trip could lead to a
quick resumption of the multilateral talks, which involve China,
Japan, the two Koreas, Russia and the United States.

 The six met for five days in December after a yearlong break,
but no progress was made toward dismantling North Korea's
nuclear weapons program.

 "I don't have any information for you on when the next round
might take place," Casey said.

 "Certainly we would like to see it take place as soon as
possible, but only if there's sufficient preparation for it and
reasons to believe that we will make progress," he said.

 Casey said there were no plans for Hill to hold informal talks
with North Korean officials on his Beijing visit, something he
has done on past trips to the Chinese capital.

 A week ago, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met here with
South Korean Foreign Minister Song Min-soon and said the
six-party talks could resume "fairly soon" if Pyongyang signals
it is ready for constructive denuclearization steps.

 The six-party negotiations were suspended in late 2005 after
North Korea walked out in protest at U.S. financial sanctions
imposed on a Macau bank accused of illicit dealings on behalf of
Pyongyang.

 Before the breakdown, North Korea signed a statement agreeing
to give up its nuclear weapons program in exchange for economic
aid and security guarantees from the other five states.

 But it then went ahead and conducted its first nuclear test
explosion in October, sparking international condemnation and
U.N. sanctions.

 Under intense pressure from its main ally, China, and with a
promise from the United States that it would discuss the
financial sanctions issue, North Korea agreed to return to the
talks last month.

 A first round of talks on the sanctions took place on the
sidelines of the six-party meeting in Beijing and were due to
resume later this month in New York.

 Casey said Friday that no date had yet been set for those talks
either.

2007.01.15
*****************************************************************
 20 Korea Herald: [EDITORIAL] Wrong timing   
        
An internal report from the Ministry of Unification shows that a
summit meeting between President Roh Moo-hyun and North Korean
leader Kim Jong-il is being scheduled to take place prior to
December's presidential election, raising concerns that the
administration may exploit the meeting for political reasons. 

The report says that in case of a protracted stalemate over
North Korea's nuclear weapons development, a high-level special
delegation could be dispatched to seek a breakthrough. This
could include a meeting between the leaders of the two sides.

 Administration officials and Uri Party leaders have several
times mentioned a possible summit meeting between President Roh
and Kim. Recently, Unification Minister Lee Jae-jeong said that
a South-North summit meeting is still a valid possibility and,
on a separate occasion, called for regular meetings of top
leaders from the South and North. 

These statements were made despite the government's official
position that it is "not engaged in any preparations for a
summit meeting." The Unification Ministry report, however,
clearly reveals that the government does indeed have plans for
South-North summit talks.

 Speculation about a second inter-Korean summit meeting has
occasionally surfaced since the first historic talks between the
then South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and Kim Jong-il. The
North Korean leader promised a second summit meeting, which has
still not taken place. 

In the South, the ruling party and liberals have raised the need
for a summit meeting to which the North has not responded.
President Roh has also said that he is willing to hold talks
"whenever, wherever," leaving open the possibility of a meeting
between the two leaders. 

South Korea's calls for a summit meeting have so far received
silent treatment from the North. In fact, North Korea seems more
eager for direct, bilateral talks with the United States than
for a South-North summit. With the North preoccupied with
establishing diplomatic ties with the United States and
consequently receiving U.S. economic aid, it seems unlikely that
South Korea's calls for a summit meeting will be met with
serious attention in the communist state. 

Since 2002, 19 ministerial-level meetings between the two Koreas
have been held. It would be hard to argue against the practical
need for summit talks to review the accomplishments of those
meetings and to move forward in new areas of cooperation.
Furthermore, a meeting of the heads of state may indeed provide
a breakthrough in the North Korean nuclear stalemate. South
Korea could perhaps play a mediating role between the United
States and North Korea, as has been suggested by some.

 In light of the Unification Ministry report, it seems that the
government has been working toward a summit meeting. Indeed,
Chung Dong-young, former Uri Party chairman, said last month
that the time has come for a South-North summit and that March
or April is appropriate. 

What results will a summit at this time achieve? The president's
approval ratings stand at a mere 10 percent and, with a looming
presidential election, already suffers from lame duck syndrome.
To the already-busy political schedule, the president has
recently added an amendment to the Constitution. Free trade
agreement talks with the United States are also a crucial task
warranting concentrated attention from the administration. 

Any serious negotiations require that the parties involved have
broad support from the public and that they have the power to
carry out the resulting agreements. President Roh does not
appear to qualify on either requirement. This is one of the
reasons why the motives for a summit at this point are suspect.
The Roh administration will not find it easy to deflect charges
that it is trying to rally popular support for the ruling party
in the run-up to the elections.

2007.01.15
*****************************************************************
 21 Korea Herald: Seoul plans defense chiefs' talks with Washington   
        
Korea is planning to hold a defense ministers' meeting with the
United States next month to discuss a range of current alliance
issues, a Seoul defense official said yesterday.

 The meeting, if held, will be the first between the two
countries' new defense chiefs Kim Jang-soo and Robert Gates.

 "There is an emerging need for the two defense ministers to
meet because they were newly inaugurated late last year. In this
sense, a consensus is rising for the talks," the official said
on condition of anonymity.

 "But currently Korea and the United States haven't officially
agreed on the talks yet. Neither the meeting date nor the place
has been decided," he said.

 Nonetheless, the talks are expected to be held sometime between
February and March, the official said. 

"We hope the talks will be sometime in late February, but the
date would be flexible considering the rapidly evolving Iraq
situation," he said. 

During the meeting, Kim and Gates will discuss the planned
relocation of U.S. military bases to Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi
Province and the transition of wartime operational control
between the two militaries. 

Seoul and Washington agreed in 2004 to consolidate facilities
and troops from the Yongsan Garrison in central Seoul and the
U.S. 2nd Infantry Division, north of Seoul, to Pyeongtaek by
2008. But the plan has been delayed due to continued resistance
from local residents and anti-U.S. civic activists.

 The two sides are currently working on a master plan to
determine details for the $10 billion base project, but they
differ over how to share costs and the relocation schedule. 

Despite both sides' commitment to the original target year of
2008, a delay in base relocation appears to be inevitable due to
technical constraints.

 The two ministers will also tackle the wartime control
transition issue, in which Seoul and Washington differ over the
target timeline. 

The United States believes 2009 is the appropriate target year
while Korea is sticking to 2012. The two sides plan to determine
a concrete date for wartime control transfer, which will affect
the timeframe for changes in the alliance command relation. 

Through the meeting, Kim and Gates are also expected to show off
solidarity of the Korea-U.S. alliance amid reports that
Pyongyang would conduct another nuclear test, the official said.

 (davidpooh@heraldm.com)

By Jin Dae-woong

2007.01.15
*****************************************************************
 22 Korea Herald: U.S. envoy sees progress on Pyongyang nuke issue   
        
International talks on the standoff over North Korea's nuclear
programs are moving forward, albeit slowly, the main U.S.
negotiator said in remarks posted on a South Korean Web site.

 Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said the
six-party nuclear talks offer "no refuge for those in need of
instant gratification, but I do believe that we are making
progress on denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula."

 The comments were part of a New Year's message posted Thursday
on "Cafe USA," an Internet chat site that the U.S. Embassy in
Seoul set up when Hill was chief of the mission in 2004-2005.

 Hill is scheduled to visit Seoul, Tokyo and Beijing later this
week for discussions with his nuclear talks counterparts.

 On Saturday, a Japanese lawmaker said that a North Korean
diplomat told him Pyongyang wants to resume nuclear disarmament
talks after planned talks with Washington over U.S. financial
sanctions.

 Taku Yamasaki, who stopped in Beijing after a five-day visit to
Pyongyang, said the official repeated North Korea's position
that whether it conducts a second nuclear test depends on
Washington's actions.

 Yamasaki, a member of Japan's ruling party, said he met with
officials including Song Il-ho, the North's ambassador for
diplomatic normalization talks with Japan.

 Yamasaki told reporters he and Song agreed it is "desirable" to
hold disarmament talks shortly after North Korean and U.S.
officials meet in New York this month to discuss financial
sanctions.

 China's Foreign Ministry said no date has been set for a new
round of nuclear talks.

 "All parties involved are still involved in discussions," said
an employee of the ministry's media office. He refused to give
his name.

 Yamasaki also quoted Song as saying that whether North Korea
carries out a second nuclear test after its Oct. 9 detonation
"depends on the actions of the United States." Yamasaki said he
believed Pyongyang "had no immediate plans" for a second blast.

 The Japanese lawmaker said the two sides also shared a view
that "the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula is
indispensable for peace and security in Northeast Asia."

 A senior U.S. official said Friday Hill will visit Seoul Jan.
19, then meet with Chinese officials in Beijing the following
day and go to Tokyo on Jan. 21, State Department deputy
spokesman Tom Casey said.

 "The purpose of those talks, as you expect, will be to continue
consultations with our key partners in the six-party talks on
how we might achieve progress in the next round," he said.

 But Casey declined to predict that Hill's trip could lead to a
quick resumption of the multilateral talks, which involve China,
Japan, the two Koreas, Russia and the United States.

 The six met for five days in December after a yearlong break,
but no progress was made toward dismantling North Korea's
nuclear weapons program.

 "I don't have any information for you on when the next round
might take place," Casey said.

 "Certainly we would like to see it take place as soon as
possible, but only if there's sufficient preparation for it and
reasons to believe that we will make progress," he said.

 Casey said there were no plans for Hill to hold informal talks
with North Korean officials on his Beijing visit, something he
has done on past trips to the Chinese capital.

 A week ago, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met here with
South Korean Foreign Minister Song Min-soon and said the
six-party talks could resume "fairly soon" if Pyongyang signals
it is ready for constructive denuclearization steps.

 The six-party negotiations were suspended in late 2005 after
North Korea walked out in protest at U.S. financial sanctions
imposed on a Macau bank accused of illicit dealings on behalf of
Pyongyang.

 Before the breakdown, North Korea signed a statement agreeing
to give up its nuclear weapons program in exchange for economic
aid and security guarantees from the other five states.

 But it then went ahead and conducted its first nuclear test
explosion in October, sparking international condemnation and
U.N. sanctions.

 Under intense pressure from its main ally, China, and with a
promise from the United States that it would discuss the
financial sanctions issue, North Korea agreed to return to the
talks last month.

 A first round of talks on the sanctions took place on the
sidelines of the six-party meeting in Beijing and was due to
resume later this month in New York.

 Casey said Friday that no date had yet been set for those talks
either.

2007.01.15
*****************************************************************
 23 AFP: China, Japan and SKorea set for summit 

 by Kyoko Hasegawa and Verna Yu Sun Jan 14, 3:41 AM ET 		 	 

CEBU, Philippines (AFP) - China, Japan and South Korea" /> have 
held their first summit in two years, looking for a breakthrough 
on the North Korea" /> crisis and a way to patch up their own 
tense relations. 

 New Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has made better ties
with his Asian neighbours a priority since taking office in
September from Junichiro Koizumi, whose war shrine visits
stirred up anger over Japan's militarist past. 

China and South Korea repeatedly denounced those visits, which
resulted in both countries putting off high-level meetings with
Japan. But Abe visited both Beijing and Seoul after he took
office last year. 

The closely-watched meeting between Abe, Chinese Premier Wen
Jiabao and South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun" /> comes on the
sidelines of the annual Southeast Asian summits taking place in
the Philippines. 

Abe and Wen held their own meeting just before the three-way
talks began, and the Chinese leader hailed the thaw in their
relations. 

"Last year you paid an important visit to China and due to the
common efforts between our countries, we have found a solution
to eradicate the obstacles in our relationship," Wen told the
Japanese leader. 

"We are happy to see that China-Japan relations are moving
forward. This is in the interest of the people in our two
countries, Asia and the whole world," he said. "We still have a
lot of difficulties and issues in front of us." 

The crisis on the Korean peninsula figures to be high on the
summit's agenda after North Korea's nuclear test in October and
the lack of progress in subsequent international talks with
Pyongyang. 

The three neighbours are also expected to agree on starting
negotiations on a trilateral investment treaty, Japanese
officials said. 

China, the main lifeline for isolated and impoverished North
Korea, broke ranks with Pyongyang and voted in favour of the UN
sanctions that were imposed after the North's first-ever nuclear
weapons test. 

Along with the United States and Russia, the three countries
have since 2003 held several rounds of talks with the North,
trying to persuade it to renounce its nuclear programmes in
exchange for energy and security guarantees. 

In addition to frayed relations about the war shrine, there have
been disputes with Japan over oil drilling rights at sea as well
as some small islands in the area. 

Abe arrived in the Philippines following a four-nation swing
through Europe, where he underscored Japanese concerns about
China's ongoing military build-up. 

"I explained to European leaders that lifting the ( European
Union" /> ) arms embargo against China would affect the security
of East Asia," he said on Saturday. 

Abe, Roh and Wen were meanwhile also holding their own summits
with the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN), which called Sunday on North Korea not to carry out a
second weapons test. 

ASEAN also urged Pyongyang to address the "humanitarian concerns
of the international community" over North Korea, one of the
world's most impoverished and isolated regimes. 

The bloc voiced its support for the six-party talks with the
North and said the international community "must convey in clear
terms to (North Korea) that the latter must denuclearise in a
verifiable manner". 

Copyright © 2007 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 24 AFP: US NKorea envoy headed back to Asia but no signs of renewed six-party talks 

 Fri Jan 12, 2:39 PM ET 		 	 

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The top US envoy to nuclear disarmament talks 
with North Korea" /> North Koreawill return to the region late 
next week to meet key allies, but there are no indications a 
resumption of six-party negotiations with Pyongyang are imminent, 
a senior US official said. 

 Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill will visit Seoul
on January 19, then meet with Chinese officials in Beijing the
following day and go to Tokyo on January 21, State Department
deputy spokesman Tom Casey said. 

"The purpose of those talks, as you expect, will be to continue
consultations with our key partners in the six-party talks on
how we might achieve progress in the next round," he said. 

But Casey declined to predict that Hill's trip could lead to a
quick resumption of the multilateral talks, which involve China,
Japan, the two Koreas, Russia and the United States. 

The six met for five days in December after a year-long break,
but no progress was made toward dismantling North Korea's
nuclear weapons program. 

"I don't have any information for you on when the next round
might take place," Casey said. 

"Certainly we would like to see it take place as soon as
possible, but only if there's sufficient preparation for it and
reasons to believe that we will make progress," he said. 

Casey said there were no plans for Hill to hold informal talks
with North Korean officials on his Beijing visit, something he
has done on past trips to the Chinese capital. 

A week ago, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice" /> Condoleezza
Ricemet here with South Korean Foreign Minister Song Min-Soon
and said the six-party talks could resume "fairly soon" if
Pyongyang signals it is ready for constructive denuclearization
steps. 

The six-party negotiations were suspended in late 2005 after
North Korea walked out in protest at US financial sanctions
imposed on a Macau bank accused of illicit dealings on behalf of
Pyongyang. 

Before the breakdown, North Korea signed a statement agreeing to
give up its nuclear weapons program in exchange for economic aid
and security guarantees from the other five states. 

But it then went ahead and conducted its first nuclear test
explosion in October, sparking international condemnation and UN
sanctions. 

Under intense pressure from its main ally, China, and with a
promise from the United States that it would discuss the
financial sanctions issue, North Korea agreed to return to the
talks last month. 

A first round of talks on the sanctions took place on the
sidelines of the six-party meeting in Beijing and were due to
resume later this month in New York. 

Casey said Friday that no date had yet been set for those talks,
either. 

Copyright © 2007 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 25 AFP: North Korea nuclear talks slow but progressing - US envoy -

 Sun Jan 14, 4:08 PM ET 		 	 

SEOUL (AFP) - International talks aimed at ending North Korea" /> 
's nuclear weapons programme are slow but progressing, top US 
envoy Christopher Hill said in a message posted on a 
Korean-English website. 

 "It requires a lot of patience," Hill said in a New Year
message put up Thursday for Koreans on the "Cafe USA" website
run by the US embassy in Seoul. 

"It offers no refuge for those in need of instant gratification,
but I do believe that we are making progress on denuclearizing
the Korean peninsula." 

But the US envoy, who a State Department official said would
visit South Korea" /> , China and Japan from Friday, did not
elaborate. 

The latest round of international talks, which involve the six
nations of China, the United States, the two Koreas, Russia and
Japan, ended in Beijing last month without a breakthrough. 

The parties failed to set a date for a next round. 

The State Department had earlier said the talks could resume
this month. Separate US-North Korean financial talks were
supposed to resume in January too. 

The long-running six-party negotiations were suspended in late
2005 after North Korea walked out in protest at US financial
sanctions imposed on a Macau bank accused of illicit dealings on
behalf of Pyongyang. 

The talks resumed in December last year -- following the North's
October 19 nuclear weapons test -- and ended in deadlock as
Pyongyang insisted the financial sanctions be lifted before it
would discuss nuclear disarmament. 

US and North Korean financial teams met in the Chinese capital
on the sidelines of the six-way talks but failed to reach an
agreement. 

Copyright © 2007 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 26 Japan Times: World to boost pressure on N. Korea, Abe says 

Sunday, Jan. 14, 2007

PARIS (Kyodo) Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, wrapping up his 
four-nation European trip Saturday, said it was a success and 
that support from European leaders on implementing sanctions 
against North Korea will serve as additional pressure on 
Pyongyang to give up its nuclear ambitions. 

  [News photo]   
  French President Jacques Chirac welcomes Prime Minister Shinzo
Abe prior to their meeting at the Elysee Place in Paris on
Friday. AP PHOTO   

Abe, who visited London, Berlin, Brussels and Paris on the
five-day trip, reiterated Japan's concern about China's rising
status, saying that while its economic development is an
"opportunity" for Japan and the world, there is a lack of
transparency in its rapid increase in defense spending. 

"I believe I was able to carry out assertive diplomacy and win
support (from European leaders) during this trip," Abe told a
news conference in a Paris hotel. 

Abe, who broke tradition by visiting Europe when he has yet to
go to Washington, said he wanted the trip to reflect the
importance Japan places on its relationship with Europe. 

Abe's predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi, was a close friend of U.S.
President George W. Bush and was criticized for neglecting
relations with Asia and other countries. 

Abe re-emphasized his strong desire to expand the role of the
Self-Defense Forces in global security activities and to create
permanent legislation so such missions will no longer require
special laws for each occasion. 

"It is necessary for Japan to be able to respond speedily and
flexibly to all kinds of events in the world," he said. "We must
also consider a structure in which we can carry out such a
response in a timely and appropriate manner." 

The main purpose of Abe's trip was to build personal trust with
his European counterparts and to win their support to resolve
the North Korean nuclear and abduction issues. Abe is known for
his harsh stance on Pyongyang. 

"I believe I have won the understanding (of the European
leaders) that it is important to put pressure on North Korea by
implementing the U.N. sanctions resolution at an early date," he
said during the 20-minute news conference. "And this will add
further pressure on North Korea." 

Abe, who is faced with political headaches at home due to fresh
allegations of misconduct by his Cabinet and senior Liberal
Democratic Party officials, gave himself a pat on the back by
saying the trip "reaped significant results." U.N. reform plan 
PARIS (Kyodo) Prime Minister Shinzo Abe informed French
President Jacques Chirac of his intent to formulate specific
plans to revamp the U.N. Security Council in consultation with
France and other key countries, a Japanese official said. 

In talks at the French presidential palace on Friday, Abe also
restated Japan's opposition to the European Union lifting its
arms embargo on China. Chirac, known as an advocate of lifting
the arms ban, gave no explicit response, according to the
official. 

On U.N. reform, Abe was quoted as saying, "We would like to
consider specific plans in a flexible manner while listening to
views of major countries including France." 

Chirac said France strongly supports Japan's bid to attain
permanent membership on the Security Council and would like to
discuss reform plans. 

The Japan Times (C) All rights reserved 
*****************************************************************
 27 UPI: Abe seeks French support against N. Korea
     
    United Press International - NewsTrack - 

1/13/2007 2:37:00 PM -0500

PARIS, Jan. 13 (UPI) -- Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe
called on French President Jacques Chirac for help in resolving
the North Korean nuclear issue. 

In the Paris meeting, Abe asked for the international
community's assistance in pressuring North Korea to suspend its
nuclear weapons program. France is a permanent member of the
U.N. Security Council. 

The two leaders also discussed North Korea's past abductions of
Japanese citizens, an action Chirac said he condemned, the
Japanese Broadcasting Co. reported Saturday. 

Abe met with Chirac during Abe's last stop on a European tour
that included Brussels. Chirac pledged France's complete
cooperation, saying France shares Japan's view of North Korea as
a threat to the international community, the Japanese
Broadcasting Co. reported.

© Copyright 2007 United Press International, Inc. All Rights
Reserved.
*****************************************************************
 28 Guardian Unlimited: Asian Nations Urge N. Korea Sanctions 

From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Sunday January 14, 2007 6:31 PM

AP Photo XPR110, XPR116 

By HRVOJE HRANJSKI 

Associated Press Writer 

CEBU, Philippines (AP) - Japan, China, and South Korea urged
North Korea on Sunday to drop its nuclear program and stressed
the need to carry out U.N. sanctions against the reclusive
government. 

The three countries are looking for ways to push forward
international talks over North Korea's nuclear ambitions. The
six-nation negotiations convened in Beijing last month for the
first time in more than a year, but ended without progress. The
countries - China, Japan, Russia, the U.S. and the two Koreas -
agreed to meet again but no date has been set. 

South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao
and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe met in the Philippines
city of Cebu on the sidelines of a summit of the 10-country
Association of Southeast Asian Nations. 

The three leaders reiterated concern about North Korea's Oct. 9
nuclear test and appealed for ``the peaceful resolution of the
nuclear issue on the Korean peninsula through dialogue and
negotiation.'' 

They ``also reaffirmed the need for full implementation of''
U.N. Security Council sanctions, which require all countries to
keep North Korea from selling or buying any material for
unconventional weapons or ballistic missiles. The sanctions also
order nations to freeze assets of people or businesses connected
to these programs, and ban the individuals from traveling. 

On Thursday, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, the
main U.S. negotiator in the standoff, said international talks
were progressing, albeit slowly. 

The talks offer ``no refuge for those in need of instant
gratification, but I do believe that we are making progress on
denuclearizing the Korean peninsula,'' Hill said in a message on
``Cafe USA,'' an Internet chat site set up by the U.S. Embassy
in Seoul. 

American and North Korean officials are preparing to meet again
over U.S. financial restrictions, a key sticking point in the
nuclear talks. 

In 2005, the United States blacklisted a Macau bank where North
Korea had accounts, accusing it of complicity in the North's
alleged counterfeiting and money laundering. 

At the ASEAN summit, Philippine President Gloria Macapagal
Arroyo also condemned North Korea's nuclear test. 

``The nuclear test of North Korea casts a blight on our dream of
one caring and sharing community,'' she said in a statement. 

``It may be tempting for Japan to consider becoming a nuclear
weapons state,'' she added. ``But the possession of nuclear
weapons by more countries in our region will only lead to
greater risks, not less.'' 

As the only country ever attacked with atomic weapons, Japan for
decades has adhered to a strict policy of not possessing or
developing nuclear weapons. That stance has become a subject for
discussion since North Korea's nuclear test, though the
government has stressed that Japan would stick to its policy. 

---- 

Associated Press writers Jim Gomez, Audra Ang, Sean Yoong and
Kwang-tae Kim contributed to this report.	 
		 	 	   
    Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007
*****************************************************************
 29 [NYTr] Calling time on nuclear weapons
 
Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2007 03:25:31 -0600 (CST)

X-Sender-Host-Name: chumbly.math.missouri.edu
X-DSPAM-Result: mail; result="Innocent"; class="Innocent"; probability=0.0000; confidence=1.00; signature=N/A
X-Spam-Class: HAM

Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit
 
sent by Simon McGuinness

The Irish Times - Jan 13, 2007
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/opinion/2007/0113/1168460435322.html

Calling time on nuclear weapons

WorldView: Most military artefacts have an indefinable life-span. As we
have no way of knowing when the first human was slashed to death, nor
when the last one will succumb to such injuries, it is impossible to
define the life-span of the sword.

by Tony Kinsella

Nuclear weapons are an exception. Their practical military life began on
July 16th, 1945, when the US detonated the world's first fission weapon,
or atomic bomb, in New Mexico and followed three weeks later with the
only atomic attacks our planet has known, on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The practical military life of the atomic bomb ended three years later
when the first Soviet nuclear test ended the US monopoly. No military
strategist would ever subsequently develop a credible strategy for the
use of nuclear weapons. The best was the infamous nuclear stalemate
known as Mutual Assured Destruction, or Mad, during the cold war.

These early bombs were in the 20 kiloton range, the equivalent of
detonating 20,000 tonnes of conventional explosives. Their effect, as
with all subsequent nukes, lay in their explosive power and nuclear
fireball, rather than in their radioactive fallout.

The shockwave from an air-detonated weapon kills people, smashes
buildings, and ruptures fuel tanks, on a massively greater scale, but in
exactly the same way as conventional bombs. The incandescent flash
carbonises people, ignites wreckage and fuel, creating a fire storm. The
mushroom cloud often associated with nuclear explosions is produced by
any big explosion. Although radiation causes gruesome deaths and
illnesses, it is a secondary element. US incendiary air raids on
Japanese cities killed more civilians than Hiroshima and Nagasaki
combined.

The US tested the first thermonuclear weapon, or hydrogen bomb, in 1952.
The first Soviet test, of a weapon designed by Andrei Sakharov, followed
in 1953.

Thermonuclear weapons use a Hiroshima-type atomic bomb to trigger
nuclear fusion. This mimicking of the sun's nuclear power can yield an
explosion the equivalent of 100,000,000 (100 megatons) of conventional
explosive, or 5,000 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb. The
most powerful in today's arsenals is the US nine megaton B-53.

The UK (1952), France (1960), and China (1964), all joined the nuclear,
and eventually the thermonuclear, club. Throughout this cold war arms
race, no one participant ever succeeded in outpacing the other to the
point of making a nuclear conflict "winnable", yet these weapons
continue to threaten the very survival of our species and undermine our
global security 58 years later.

Several nations have developed fission weapons, but have not
demonstrably crossed the thermonuclear threshold. India tested its first
weapon in 1974. Pakistan followed in 1998, and North Korea in 2006.
Israel is widely assumed to have a significant arsenal.

Apartheid South Africa had six bombs, which were dismantled under
president Mandela. The newly independent states of Belarus, Kazakhstan
and Ukraine all inherited Soviet nuclear weapons, but chose to return
them to Russia.

Realising both the danger, and the pointlessness, of nuclear weapons,
the world began to discuss limiting, and eventually removing them, in
the 1950s. Ireland's then minister for foreign affairs Frank Aiken
proposed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1958, and it was
opened for signing a decade later. The NPT recognises five nuclear
weapon states, US, Russia, China, France and the UK, which undertake not
to provide such weapons to other states, to reduce their nuclear
arsenals until they are finally eliminated, and to make civil nuclear
technology available. Non-weapon states undertake not to develop such
weapons. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) polices the
agreement. India, Israel and Pakistan are non-signatories, North Korea
withdrew in 1993.

As today's reality is that none of the five NPT weapon states threaten
each other, Mad, the only military nuclear strategy that can be said to
have worked, no longer applies. If the strategy is obsolete, then so are
its weapons.

If nuclear deterrence can be said to work between nuclear weapons
states, it has demonstrably failed between such states and their
non-nuclear adversaries. The UK's nuclear arsenal did not dissuade
Buenos Aires from invading the Falklands, any more than the 4,000 nukes
in the active US arsenal intimidate Iraqi insurgents.

Israel's arsenal, including submarine-launched weapons, was designed to
counter a massive invasion by its Arab neighbours, a threat the country
no longer faces. North Korea's five kiloton test guarantees Pyongyang
against invasion but barely poses a threat beyond the Korean peninsula.

Although the Pakistani-Indian mini-version of Mutual Assured Destruction
has a degree of logic when viewed through the warped atomic prism, a
nuclear conflict on the sub-continent would still destroy the planet's
climate, according to work published in Atmospheric Chemistry and
Physics Discussions.*

The current Iranian controversy highlights many of the unresolved issues
in the nuclear weapons debate. Iran, as a signatory of the NPT, is
entitled to develop nuclear power. Teheran claims its programme is
entirely civilian, and while many question that claim, no proof to the
contrary has yet been offered.

The harsh reality is that any state determined to develop nuclear
weapons can probably do so. The more outside assistance they receive,
the faster the process, but developing simple fission weapons lies
within the technical and industrial competence of dozens of countries.

So we have useless weapons, capable of destroying our species, which
swallow vast amounts of defence budgets, often leaving security forces
short of helicopters, secure radios, body armour or essential vehicles.
Nuclear expenditures partly explain the absence of deployable forces for
Darfur or Somalia.

Calling time on the dangerous nonsense of nuclear weapons is long
overdue. Nuclear powers which have ratified the NPT have undertaken to
gradually disarm, to deploy fewer weapons with fewer warheads.

This undertaking needs to be gently, but firmly and repeatedly, brought
to the fore of the international agenda by all NPT signatories. EU
members should nudge the union's two nuclear powers, France and the UK,
towards meeting their engagements.

The US and Russia, who between them account for almost 90 per cent of
the world's nuclear arsenal, deserve special pressure, and together with
China need to be constantly reminded of their nuclear disarmament
commitments. Pressure on India, Israel, North Korea and Pakistan could
steadily grow as part of such an approach.

In such a context of gradual but continuous removal of these useless and
barbaric weapons, the pressure on Tehran, and all of tomorrow's Tehrans,
not to go down the pointless kiloton road would become irresistible.

http://www.copernicus. org/EGU/acp/acpd/6/11817/acpd-6-11817_p.pdf

[Tony Kinsella is a writer and international commentator who has
specialised in arms control and security issues]

C 2007 The Irish Times
       
                                *
================================================================
.NY Transfer News Collective    *    A Service of Blythe Systems
.          Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us         .
.339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012     http://www.blythe.org
.List Archives:   https://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/
.Subscribe: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr
================================================================
*****************************************************************
 30 SF Chron: Key legislators threaten funds for nuclear weapons overhaul /

 Bush administration abandoning effort to consolidate, they say
 
[San Francisco Chronicle] 
				 
Sunday, January 14, 2007

At a critical moment when the government is poised to choose a
design for the next generation of nuclear weapons, two
influential members of Congress have threatened to eliminate
funding for the new warheads due to concerns over the Bush
administration's plans for refurbishing the weapons production
complex. 

In a previously undisclosed letter written to the energy
secretary on Nov. 16, Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, who was then
chairman of the House subcommittee that controls nuclear weapons
spending, criticized the department's planning for the new
weapons manufacturing facilities. He insisted he would fight to
halt all spending for the new warheads if the department did not
embrace what he said would be a more efficient, cheaper approach
through consolidation of the production operations. 

The letter was significant not only for its angry tone but also
because Hobson was an architect and perhaps the single most
important congressional supporter of the new weapons plan, known
as the Reliable Replacement Warhead program, or RRW. 

Now that the Democrats control Congress, Hobson has relinquished
his chairmanship of the energy and water appropriations
subcommittee. But his successor, Rep. Pete Visclosky, D-Ind.,
said he holds similar views and will also consider eliminating
the funding. 

Their opposition puts the troubled program in jeopardy just
weeks before a secretive government body, the Nuclear Weapons
Council, is scheduled to select a blueprint from two competing
warhead designs submitted last year by the Los Alamos and
Lawrence Livermore national laboratories. No development of the
designs can take place without renewed congressional
appropriations on a year-to-year basis. 

Visclosky's spokesman, Justin Kitsch, said Visclosky shares
Hobson's views on the need to consolidate the weapons production
complex to make it more modern and efficient. Visclosky is
disappointed, too, in the Energy Department's approach, Kitsch
said, and plans to hold oversight hearings to question
department officials and possibly force change. 

"It is fair to say that every option is on the table regarding
funding" of the Reliable Replacement Warhead program if the
department does not change course, Kitsch said. 

Julianne Smith, a spokeswoman for the National Nuclear Security
Administration, the arm of the Energy Department that manages
the weapons complex, said the secretary, Samuel Bodman,
"welcomed comments from Chairman Hobson as well as others." She
added that it is still possible a consolidated production
facility might be considered. 

The multibillion-dollar program to design and manufacture the
new weapons has been dogged by questions and criticisms from its
inception two years ago. 

Supporters say that the old weapons, most produced more than 20
years ago, are aging and that a new generation of nuclear
warheads would enhance U.S. security and allow the president to
maintain a smaller, safer, more reliable stockpile. 

Opponents have countered that the current U.S. stockpile of more
than 5,000 warheads can, with proper maintenance, continue to
serve as a deterrent for decades -- perhaps more than 50 years,
according to experts. Bush administration officials have
confirmed that the warhead maintenance program, called stockpile
stewardship, is working superbly and that there are no
uncertainties about weapons reliability. 

Opponents also say the program would not only be prohibitively
expensive -- probably hundreds of billions of dollars -- but
also would send the wrong signal at a time when the United
States is struggling to force Iran and North Korea to abandon
nuclear programs. 

Supporters of the program suffered a blow last year when a
government study concluded that the radioactive plutonium that
provides much of the devastating explosive force in
thermonuclear weapons is effective for 100 years or more, far
longer than earlier estimates of 45 to 60 years. The finding
undermined earlier arguments that the government needed to
replace the old weapons partly because of uncertainty over the
useful life of the unstable metal. 

A lengthy analysis of the program last month by the
Congressional Research Service, a nonpartisan research body,
also raised serious questions: whether the government could meet
its stated production schedules, whether there would be any
significant cost savings, and whether the new weapons would be
as reliable as promised absent underground testing, which has
been forbidden by Congress. 

Hobson pushed through the legislation supporting the plan,
partly with an argument that it would result in a more modern,
efficient and smaller complex. Also, the plan is intended to
shrink the nuclear stockpile, allowing the United States to
demonstrate that it is reducing its weapons arsenal. 

Hobson has long suggested that a key part of his plan would
consolidate the aging Cold War-era facilities, now spread across
the country from South Carolina to New Mexico, into a single
large plant, the Consolidated Nuclear Production Complex, or
CNPC. 

But when the National Nuclear Security Administration released
its package of proposals for the new weapons production complex
last year, it rejected the consolidated plant and opted instead
to maintain facilities in several states. 

The plan (called Complex 2030 because it would be completed
around the year 2030) infuriated Hobson and Visclosky because,
they said, it would not achieve the cost savings or the
efficiencies they were seeking. 

"Let me make my position clear," Hobson wrote in the letter to
Energy Secretary Bodman. "If the department is not willing to
conduct a thorough and objective analysis of all reform
alternatives including the CNPC, and instead is determined to
conduct an obviously prejudicial process aimed at ensuring the
department's preferred outcome, then I will not support funding
for the Complex 2030 efforts, including the Reliable Replacement
Warhead program." 

Hobson added, "RRW is a deal with Congress, but the deal
requires a serious effort by the department to modernize,
consolidate and downsize the weapons complex. Absent that
effort, there is no deal." 

Visclosky, through his spokesman, also expressed disapproval. 

"By simply dismissing a Consolidated Nuclear Production Facility
without in-depth analysis or consultation with Congress ... the
Department of Energy is sending the message that they intend to
approach the issue of modernizing the nuclear weapons complex as
an opportunity to rebuild the Cold War complex rather than make
the tough calls that will ensure a complex that makes sense 50
years from today," he said. 

President Bush came into office in 2001 with an ambitious plan
for resuscitating a nuclear weapons complex that had stopped
designing or producing new warheads with the end of the Cold
War. But proposals for new low-yield warheads and for a
specially designed weapon to destroy deeply buried targets --
so-called bunker busters -- were rejected by Congress. 

Hobson shaped an alternative, the Reliable Replacement Warhead
program, as a way, he told The Chronicle, to allow some new
weapons development while also pushing the Bush administration
to reduce the U.S. reliance on nuclear forces and cut costs. 

His legislation set strict conditions: The new weapons had to be
developed without underground testing, which has been banned
since 1992, and the warheads had to only replace old ones
without being designed for new military missions. 

The program has received less than $30 million of funding a
year, mostly to start developing designs for the first new
warhead, which would be placed on the Navy's submarine-based
Trident missiles. Los Alamos and Livermore submitted competing
proposals last year. 

Several people with knowledge of the process said the Nuclear
Weapons Council is likely to combine elements from both designs
but designate one lead laboratory with final responsibility for
the weapon. 

Hobson, however, has expressed growing concern over the Bush
administration's claims about the need for new weapons and
whether it would adhere to the conditions that there be no
testing and no new missions. After the release of the findings
that plutonium could last for a century or more, Hobson said the
government's credibility had suffered. 

"They've been running with RRW like you wouldn't believe,"
Hobson said, referring to the Reliable Replacement Warhead
program. "They see this as a big pot of money to get into. This
shows we can take a breather for a while." 

Visclosky, through his spokesman, also said he is concerned
about government claims and insisted he will not permit the
National Nuclear Security Administration to transform the
program into an opportunity for developing new weapons. 

"RRW stands for Reliable Replacement Warhead, not Reliable New
Warhead," Visclosky said. 

The San Francisco Chronicle] 
*****************************************************************
 31 The News Journal: EPA's new rules allow loophole for costs

delawareonline ¦ 

 By JEFF MONTGOMERY, The News Journal 

Posted Sunday, January 14, 2007 

Delaware has emerged as an early test site for changing national
rules on industrial cooling water intakes. 

The Environmental Protection Agency recently overhauled rules
for cooling water intakes at power plants and larger industries.
But the agency opted for case-by-case, state-level reviews of
factories and small utility intakes instead of across-the-board
standards. 

In Delaware, regulators are working to update long expired plant
wastewater discharge permits, including some that have remained
on pending lists for up to 15 years. 

"There are going to be a lot of eyes, a lot of attention paid
nationally, to the first permit requirements" under the new
rules, said Kevin C. Donnelly, water resources director for the
Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control. 

State officials said they will urge owners of power plants to
install systems that drastically reduce the amount of water
needed to cool the plants. 

But federal regulators agreed to give larger power plants a
chance to avoid requirements for cooling towers or other costly
systems that reduce water use and damage to fisheries -- if they
can prove the systems are too costly. 

Billions of organisms 

Up for action in Delaware this year are two of the five
highest-volume cooling water users on the Delaware River:
Conectiv's Edge Moor power plant and the Delaware City refinery.
Also in line for approval are massive intakes at the Salem
nuclear power complex in New Jersey, the nation's largest power
plant water-user. Those three are believed to destroy billions
of fish, fry, eggs and other aquatic life every year. 

The discharge permit for the Delaware City refinery ran out in
2002 but was extended pending action on a renewal application. A
consultant for the plant's owner claimed the refinery has "no
significant impact" on fish. 

Conectiv's permit for the Edge Moor plant discharge expired in
2003. State officials recently described fish protection
upgrades offered in the utility's current permit proposal as
inadequate. 

NRG's Indian River power plant cooling water permit expired in
1992, but that case is likely to linger, DNREC officials said,
amid disputes over the threat from heated water discharges. 

But reducing the fish losses at the plants is "essential" to a
recovery of the Delaware Bay's long-stressed ecosystems, said
DNREC Secretary John A. Hughes. 

Some environmental groups are calling on DNREC to open its
review process now to allow public participation as they come up
with draft permits. 

But allowances built in to the permitting process, critics say,
could give industries leeway to avoid tougher requirements. 

"The giant loophole in the EPA's regulation is the
reasonable-cost loophole," said Alan Muller, who directs the
environmental group Green Delaware. "The cumulative impact of
all this is an ecological disaster. But the regulatory process
allows the fish exterminators to defeat the system one permit at
a time." Contact Jeff Montgomery at 678-4277 or
jmontgomery@delawareonline.com. 

 The correct url is www.greendel.org.

*****************************************************************
 32 AlterNet: The Nightmare Weaponry of Our Future

By Frida Berrigan,                 
Tomdispatch.com. Posted January 13, 2007.       

The Armed Forces can't adequately equip those already
in uniform, but the Pentagon is committing itself to massive
corporate contracts for new high-tech weapons systems slated to
come on-line decades from now. 		 		 			Tools

We are not winning the war on terrorism (and would not be even
if we knew what victory looked like) or the war in Iraq. Our
track record in Afghanistan, as well as in the allied "war" on
drugs, is hardly better. Yet the Pentagon is hard at work,
spending your money, planning and preparing for future conflicts
of every imaginable sort.

From wars in space to sci-fi battlescapes without soldiers,
scenarios are being scripted and weaponry prepared, largely out
of public view, which ensures not future victories, but
limitless spending that Americans can ill-afford now or 20 years
from now.

Even though today the Armed Forces can't recruit enough soldiers
or adequately equip those already in uniform, the Pentagon is
committing itself to massive corporate contracts for new
high-tech weapons systems slated to come on-line years, even
decades, from now, guaranteed only to enrich their makers.

Future Combat Systems

The typical soldier in Iraq carries about half his or her body
weight in gear and suffers the resulting back pain. Body armor,
weapon(s), ammunition, water, first aid kit -- it adds up in the
120 degree heat of Basra or Baghdad.

Ask soldiers in Iraq what they need most and answers may
include: well-armored Humvees (many soldiers are jerry-rigging
their own homemade Humvee armor); more body armor (an unofficial
2004 Army study found that one in four casualtiesin Iraq was the
result of inadequate protective gear), or even silly string
(Marcelle Shriver found out that her son was squirting the goo
into a room as he and his squad searched buildings to detect
trip wires around bombs).

The same Army that can't provide such basics of modern war is
now promising the Future Combat Systems network (FCS), a "family
of systems" that will enable soldiers to "perceive, comprehend,
shape, and dominate the future battlefield at unprecedented
levels." The FCS network will consist of a "family" of 18 manned
and unmanned ground vehicles, air vehicles, sensors, and
munitions, including: eight new, super-armored, super-strong
ground vehicles to replace current tanks, infantry carriers, and
self-propelled howitzers; four different planes and drones that
soldiers can fly by remote control; and several "unmanned"
ground vehicles.

Put together these are supposed to plunge soldiers into a
video-game-like versionof warfighting. The FCS will
theoretically allow them to act as though they are in the midst
of enemy territory -- taking out "high value" targets, blowing
up "insurgent safe houses," monitoring the movements of
"un-friendlies"-- all the while remaining at a safe distance
from the bloody action.

To grasp the futuristic ambitions (and staggering future costs)
of FCS, consider this: The Government Accounting Office (GAO)
notes that "an estimated 34 million lines of software code will
need to be generated" for the project, "double that of the Joint
Strike Fighter, which had been the largest defense undertaking
in terms of software to be developed."

In charge of this ambitious sci-fi style fantasy version of war
are Boeing and SAIC (Science Applications International
Corporation). They are the "Lead Systems Integrators" of this
extraordinarily complex undertaking, but they are working with
as many as 535 more companies across 40 states.

They promise future forces the ability to break "free of the
tyranny of terrain" and "an agile, networked force capable of
maneuver in the third dimension" in the words last March of
retired Major General Robert H. Scales in a Boeing PowerPoint
presentation entitled "FCS: Its Origin and Op Concept."

Defense Secretary Rumsfeld once famously asserted, ''You go to
war with the Army you have, not the Army you might want or wish
to have." Pentagon planners seem to have taken the opposite
tack. They prefer the military they, or their blue-sky dreamers,
wish to have for the kinds of wars they dream about fighting.
And it won't be cheap.

A March 2005 GAO report found that the total program cost of
Future Combat Systems alone "is expected to be at least $107.9
billion." In 2005, the Pentagon had already allocated $2.8
billion in research and development funds to FCS and, in fiscal
year 2006, that was expected to increase to $3.4 billion. (Keep
in mind, that all such complex, high-tech, weapons-oriented
systems almost invariably go far over initial cost estimates by
the time they come on line.)

"The Maserati of the Skies"

In 2006, the F-22 Raptor began rolling off the assembly line.
The Air Force plans to buy 183 of these high-tech, radar-evading
stealth planes, each at a price tag of $130 million, being
manufactured in a joint venture between Lockheed Martin and
Boeing. But it turns out that the $130 million per plane cost is
just one-third of the total price, once development costs are
factored in. The whole program is slated to cost the Pentagon 65
billion big ones. In July 2006, the Government Accountability
Office asserted. "The F-22 acquisition history is a case study
in increased cost and schedule inefficiencies."

Even if it were a bargain, however, it is a classic case of
future-planning run amok. The plane was originally conceived to
counter Soviet fighter planes, which haven't menaced the U.S.
for more than 15 years. The plane itself is technologically
awe-inspiring, reportedly having a twice-the-speed-of-sound
cruising speed of Mach 2. (The Pentagon jealously guards its
maximum speed as top secret.)

In 2007, the only reason the military might need such a plane is
to outfight its predecessor, the F-16, which Lockheed Martin has
sold to numerous countries that benefited from the corporation's
vociferous lobbying for new markets and our government's lax
enforcement of arms-export controls.

In this classic case of boomeranging weaponry, Lockheed Martin
has triumphed three times: First, General Dynamics sold F-16
fighters to the Air Force beginning in 1976; second, Lockheed
(which bought General Dynamics) sold the planes to Turkey,
United Arab Emirates, Venezuela, and other nationsfrom the 1980s
to the present moment; and third, Lockheed Martin (having merged
with Martin Marietta in 1995 and adjusted its name accordingly)
now gets to produce an even higher tech plane for a U.S. Air
Force that fears it might be outclassed by foreign military
hardware that once was our own. The Bethesda-based company ended
2001 with a stock price of $46.67 a share -- and began 2007 at a
celebratory $92.07.

The Next Generation Fighter

Of course, the lesson drawn from this is to produce yet more
futuristic planes. The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, built by a
team led (yet again!) by Lockheed Martin, made its initial
flight on December 15, 2006. The total program could surpass
$275 billion, making it the most expensive weapons program in
U.S. history. Prime contractor Lockheed Martin is sharing the
work and profits with partners Northrop Grumman and BAE Systems
(not to speak of scads of subcontractors).

The Air Force already hails the F-35s "transformational sensor
capability" and "low-observable characteristics" that will,
"enable persistent combat air support over the future
battlefield. Furthermore, [the] F-35 will help enable the
negation of advanced enemy air defenses because it will possess
the ability to perform unrestricted operations within heavily
defended airspace."

Somewhere in there it is implied that this plane launches
missiles that kill people, but it is very deeply embedded.
Nowhere does it say that its opponent in the skies could be the
F-22 Raptor, once it is sold to all those nations who find their
F-16s woefully out of date.

What's Next Next Next Next?

Even with such spiraling, mind-boggling investments in advanced
weapons systems, the aerospace industry is never satisfied. The
quest for new justifications for ever "better" versions of
already advanced weapons systems is the holy grail of the
business. These justifications pile up in industry magazines
like Aerospace America, the organ of the American Institute of
Aeronautics and Astronautics.

In a typical article in that magazine, the industry makes much
of a comment then-Air Force Vice Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael
Moseley made to Congress in March 2004. In charge of the U.S.
air campaign over Iraq, he observed that most of the sorties
originated from neighboring countries that were allies in
Operation Enduring Freedom.

But what if, he wondered, you wanted to go to war and there were
no local allies willing to offer basing facilities. On the
classic Boy Scout theory, be prepared, he promptly warned in
written testimony to the House Armed Services Committee, "In the
future, we will require deep-strike capabilities to penetrate
and engage high-value targets during the first minutes of
hostilities anywhere in the battlespace."

And he was only making a public point of already popular Air
Force doctrine. The 176-page Air Force Transformation Flight
Plan was issued in all its glittering verbosity in November
2003, bristling with a dismal, hyper-militarized view of the
future. In it, Air Force planners envisioned a world with the
United States even more embattled and unpopular than it was at
that moment, and where we lacked all powers of persuasion to
entice other nations to join future "coalitions of the willing."

The solution: new bombers that could fulfill those "deep-strike
requirements" which, sadly, cannot be carried out by tomorrow's
F-22 and F-35 fighter planes. (They "may not have enough range
to attack critical ground targets far inside enemy territory,
repeatedly, and under all circumstances.")

Not surprisingly, Lockheed Martin tried to knock two birds out
of the sky with one stone, responding to criticism that the F-22
was irrelevant and too expensive, while rushing to meet the Air
Force's perceived need for a new long-range bomber by suggesting
yet another plane: the F/B (for fighter-bomber)-22. As they
described it, in a vision of a kind of high artistry of death,
this wonder of modern air war would even be capable of changing
color to match the sky.

A January 2005 article in the Atlanta Journal Constitution gave
Lockheed Martin visionaries a chance to share their chameleon of
a "high-speed, high-altitude bomber" which could also change
shape, becoming "slimmer and more aerodynamic as its fuel tanks
drain on long-distance flights. It would be invisible to radar,
carry precision bombs and missiles, and fly fast enough to
outrun most fighters."

Sounds cool, right? This might be one instance where the weapons
designers and imagineers took a few steps too far into fantasy
land. There has not been any progress on the idea since 2005,
but don't be surprised if the chameleon fighter-bomber changes
color and shape and soars again in the race for future weapons
funding.

Even without the magical fighter-bomber, over the next eight
years or so the Air Force imagines fielding systems like the
Common Aero Vehicle -- "a rapidly responsive, highly
maneuverable, hypersonic glide vehicle that would be
rocket-launched into space" according to the Air Force
documents. The CAV would be equipped with sensors and bristle
with weapons it could launch from space against fixed and moving
targets on land, and that could be delivered anywhere on earth
within two hours.

As John Pike, a weapons expert and director of
GlobalSecurity.org, told the Washington Postin March 2005, CAV
programs will allow the U.S. "to crush someone anywhere in world
on 30 minutes' notice with no need for a nearby air base."

Looking beyond 2015, the Air Force sees systems like the B-X
Bomber; space-based Hypervelocity Rod Bundles (nicknamed "rods
from God"), a mystical sounding system that promises "to strike
ground targets anywhere in the world"; the Guardian Urban Combat
Weapon, an "air-launched lurk and loiter reconnaissance, rotary
winged, unmanned, combat air vehicle designed for urban
warfare"; and the High Powered Microwave Airborne Electronic
Attack, an "anti-electronics high powered microwave weapon
against 'soft' electronic-containing targets" that would be
operated "from an airborne platform at military significant
ranges."

The Air Force and the Army are not alone in imagining fabulously
wild wars of the future and the multi-billion dollar weapons
systems they can build to fight them. The Navy has its own
gold-plated crystal ball. Their new KDD(X) program could end up
totaling $100 billion for some 70 warships including destroyers,
cruisers, and a seagoing high-tech killer called LCS (Littoral
Combat Ship).

Generously, the Pentagon decided to give the project to two
different ship building companies -- Northrop-Grumman Ship
Systems (Ingalls, Mississippi) and General Dynamics (Bath Iron
Works, Maine). According to the Pentagon's "Program Acquisition
Cost by Weapons System," the DD(X) will include "full-spectrum
signature reduction, active and passive self-defense systems and
cutting-edge survivability features." At $3.3 billion for two
ships in 2007, it better.

Building one ship in each location with each contractor raised
the cost by $300 million per ship, according to 
GlobalSecurity.Org, but to members of Congress representing each
district that is a small price to pay for maintaining
"flexibility." In this business, one becomes accustomed to
flexibility's magical spending properties.

In its 2006 report, the White House's Office of Budget and
Management commented that the Littoral Combat Ship and other
systems mentioned above have a "high potential to meet current
and future threats." Congress, where so much of the game is
bringing the bacon (i.e. shipbuilding contracts) back to the
Baths of the nation, wholeheartedly concurred. That was just
about the sum total of the debate about these
multi-billion-dollar ship systems, multi-million-dollar boons
for a few companies, and the dark specter of the future threats
these ships will theoretically protect us against.

Missile Defense: The Great Misnomer in the Sky

While many of the systems described so far are, at least,
futures that, in some heated imagination, exist, the misnamed
Ballistic Missile Defense System is moving full steam ahead
despite being irrelevant, unworkable, and obscenely expensive in
our less-than-futuristic present moment. The BMD program got
another boost recently when incoming Defense Secretary Robert
Gates gave it his full support, telling the Senate Armed
Services Committee: "I know we've spent a lot of money on
developing missile defense, but I have believed since the Reagan
administration that if we can develop that kind of capability,
it would be a mistake for us not to."

The mistake is wasting one more dime on decades-worth of
failureand bombast that have cost an estimated $200 billion so
far without producing a single workable system to shoot down an
enemy missile or even the sitting-duck targets that have taken
the place of such missiles in half-baked tests of the woeful
project.

Missile defense funding is set to soak up another $9.4 billion
in fiscal 2007 -- part of the Pentagon's ongoing corporate
welfare system -- and the Defense Department's Future Years
Defense Program report proposes that funding averaging $10
billion annually be continued for research and development of
the system through ... (this is not a misprint) 2024. (The
nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects that annual
missile-defense costs will, in fact, increase to $15 billion by
2016.)

Nuclear Projections

And it is not just in the Pentagon where such blue-sky spending
for an overarmed world is underway. Hidden in the innocuous
sounding Department of Energy is the National Nuclear Security
Administration, which has big plans laid through 2030.

Their  vision, released in April 2006, sees a "responsive
nuclear infrastructure" that can continuously dismantle and
rebuild nuclear weapons, reducing their numbers and increasing
their potency, while ensuring that, at any moment an American
leader might want to destroy the planet many times over, nuclear
production rates can be rapidly increased.<BR><BR>The Department
of Energy estimates that Complex 2030 will require a mere
capital investment of $150 billion, but the Government
Accountability Office suggests that, as with so many initial
estimates for future weapons systems, that number was far too
low. Even if the program cost only a dollar, it is but another
typically dangerous and provocative step by the
military-industrial complex that threatens, in this case, to
encourage yet more global nuclear proliferation.<BR><BR>Complex
2030 would, in fact, plunge us back into a Cold War atmosphere,
but with far more nuclear-armed adversaries. It even promises a
return to the underground testing of nuclear weapons and could
require upping the production of new <a
href="http://www.nukewatch.org/facts/nwd/pits.html">plutonium
pits(the fissile heart of nuclear weapons).

What Do We Dream?

As engineers and physicists at Lockheed Martin and the Air Force
dream up new weapons -- shaping bombers out of polymer and
pixels -- politicians and Pentagoneers imagine the threats those
super-bombers of the future will blast to bits.

Only the money -- billions and billions of dollars -- is real ...

But as those billions are sucked away, what happens to our
dreams of clear skies, cures for pandemics, solutions to global
warming and energy depletion? To make more human dreams our
future reality, we have to stop feeding the military's nightmare
monsters. 

Frida Berrigan (berrigaf@newschool.edu) is a Senior Research
Associate at the World Policy Institute's Arms Trade Resource
Center. Her primary research areas with the project include
nuclear-weapons policy, war profiteering and corporate crimes,
weapons sales to areas of conflict, and military-training
programs. She is the author of a number of Institute reports,
including  Weapons at War 2005: Promoting Freedom or Fueling
Conflict.

© 2007 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved. 	 
*****************************************************************
 33 New London Day: New Warhead Could Siphon Funds From Sub Builders  

theday.com
 	
  Two Labs Compete To Design New Tips For Trident Missile  
    
  By Seth Owen, Day Staff Writer E-mail: newmedia@theday.com 
  
  Published on 1/13/2007 in Region » Region News

A long-delayed decision on a replacement warhead for the
missiles carried on Trident submarines may mean more work for
nuclear warhead designers  but possibly at the expense of
funding for submarines.

 What it means is less money for submarines. The cost is
billions, at least enough for another Virginia, said New
York-based military analyst James Dunnigan, author of How to
Make War and other books on military affairs. 

The latest Virginia-class attack submarine, the Hawaii, was a
$2.5 billion project.

 The decision on the Reliable Replacement Warhead, expected next
week, was due by the end of last year, but it's been a forever
moving target, spokeswoman Julie Ann Smith of the National
Nuclear Security Administration said in a telephone interview. 

The NNSA, an agency of the federal Department of Energy, is
responsible for choosing between designs submitted by two
competing laboratories: Los Alamos National Laboratory in New
Mexico and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.
The nation's nuclear warhead programs have been under the
civilian control since the Atomic Energy Commission was created
in 1946. The programs later came under the Department of Energy
when that cabinet-level agency was created in 1977. 

There are still interagency decisions being made, Smith said
this week. There won't be a decision in the next several days.

 The two labs are competing to design a new warhead to replace
the W76, mounted on the tip of the Trident II D-5 missile
carried by Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines. The
challenge is to design a warhead that the engineers can be sure
will work, even though the 1992 U.S. moratorium on nuclear
testing means it cannot be tested.

 The W76 warhead arms most of the Trident missiles carried by
the Ohio class. Production of the newer W88 warhead that was
originally going to replace the W76 was stopped for safety and
technical reasons after about 400 were made, according to
estimates by globalsecurity.org, leaving about 3,000 W76
warheads to arm the rest of the missiles. 

Each of the 14 submarines can carry 24 missiles, with each
missile carrying up to three warheads, although the exact
numbers and types of weapons loaded aboard each submarine is
classified.

 The older warheads need to be maintained and parts eventually
replaced because of age, Dunnigan said.

 The problem with a warhead, like any electromagnetic device,
is that it wears out as it ages, even if you're not taking it
out and using it, he said.

 Critics of the Reliable Replacement Warhead program say,
however, that replacing the non-nuclear components does not mean
it's necessary to replace the nuclear core or design a new
warhead.

 The current approach to surveil and evaluate the existing
stockpile, replacing non-nuclear components and remanufacturing
the plutonium cores, is viable, said Daryl Kimball, executive
director of the Arms Control Association in Washington, D.C., in
a telephone interview this week. It's a radically different
approach to design an entirely new warhead that will not be
field-tested. 

"""""

 Both of the nation's facilities that can design nuclear weapons
are taking part in the RRW competition.

 The Los Alamos design is expected to be a brand new design that
uses existing components that have been tested, Kimball said.
This approach is more radical because it introduces uncertainty
about whether the warhead will work as expected when put
together in a way that's never been tested, he said

 Kimball said the Livermore labs design is expected to be a
more robust version of an existing design in order to achieve
the certainty needed.

 More robust in this context means more fuel for the bomb, he
said.

 In both cases the challenge is to design a weapon that will go
off as expected with the explosive power wanted without ever
being tested in advance, Kimball and Dunnigan said.

 Dunnigan said that is not an insurmountable problem because
simulation technology has advanced to the point that engineers
can know it will work with a high degree of confidence.

 Still, not being able to conduct live tests unavoidably
introduces some doubt into the process, Kimball said, which
could prompt resistance in Congress.

 Congress could say, 'You'd better be sure it's reliable or
we're not going to spend the money,' Kimball said.

 Some experts say the real purpose of the project is to bring
work to the laboratories.

 There's a special interest that needs the work to survive,
said Dunnigan. The worry is that the country's ability to design
nuclear weapons could suffer if the highly skilled scientists
and engineers needed don't have enough work or are not
challenged by the work they do have.

 The purpose of the program is to train and motivate future
designers said Dr. Michael A. Levi, fellow for science and
technology at the Council of Foreign Relations in New York. 

Published reports suggest that the final decision may end up
supporting some hybrid program that combines the ideas of the
two labs, a notion termed peculiar by Levi.

 A hybrid program seems designed to meet bureaucratic needs by
spreading the work around to everyone involved, instead of
selecting the best design, Levi said. It could backfire, Levi
warns, and end up not really motivating anyone because there
would be no consequence to losing the competition.

 The argument that the work is needed to preserve jobs at the
labs and the ability to design warheads is something of a straw
man, Dunnigan said, especially if it comes at the cost of other
programs in the competition for other defense dollars. 

If the country needed to recreate the ability to do the design
work after a long layoff, it could be done, analysts said.

 You can restart a production line, but there's a buy-in cost.
Everything comes down to money. It will cost you money. You see
the problem with the Chinese, who are trying to buy-in to the
high-performance jet engine business and having a devil of a
time, Dunnigan said.

 In 1943 the United States didn't have the capability to build
nuclear weapons. Two years later, in 1945, we used one in
combat, said Levi. I find it hard to believe we could not
reconstitute a nuclear design capability if needed.

 And the two labs already have a considerable amount of work
maintaining the current nuclear arsenal, said Kimball. 

They already have work, he said. It's not like a shipyard. If
there's no contract to build a new sub, then it's not going to
stick around. It will do other work or go out of business. In
the case of Livermore or Los Alamos, they already have the
equivalent of a hefty contract.

 NNSA, the agency overseeing the competition, has been embroiled
in some controversy over the past year over a series of security
breaches at the nation's nuclear labs. This led to the
resignation last week of administrator Linton Brooks at the
request of Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman.

 The planned departure of Brooks does not affect the timing of
the decision, NNSA's Smith said. It's irrelevant, she said.
Brooks will be staying on until a successor is in place. Smith
said Brooks is not playing a central role in the decision, which
involves input from multiple agencies and is mostly being
handled by mid-level officials.

 s.owen@theday.com   
    
Privacy Policy  |  Contact Us at 1 (860) 442-2200  |  New London, 
CT  |  Â© 1998-2007 The Day Publishing Co. [Beacon Locator] ~ 02 
*****************************************************************
 34 The Hindu: India not to accept any legal binding on N-testing 

Saturday, January 13, 2007 : 1930 Hrs
 
On Board PM's Special Aircraft, Jan 13. (PTI): Ahead of
negotiations on the bilateral agreement to operationalise the
civil nuclear deal with US, India today made it clear that it
would not accept any legal binding on nuclear testing. 

"There is no question of signing the Comprehensive Test Ban
Treaty (CTBT). We have our voluntary moratorium (on nuclear
testing). That position remains," National Security Adviser M K
Narayanan told reporters accompanying Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh on his three-day visit to the Philippines. 

He was asked about US insistence on a legal binding banning
nuclear tests and putting a cap on fissile material.

Copyright © 2006, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of





*****************************************************************
 35 The Observer: Spend our taxes on troops - not Trident

[Guardian Unlimited] 

[UP] 

Sunday January 14, 2007 The Observer             

It was not surprising to hear Tony Blair recommend last week that 
Britain looks to the future in anticipation of war.

The assertion was made in the latest chapter of the Prime 
Minister's long, reluctant valediction - a lecture to military 
top brass. He praised the armed forces and acknowledged, but did 
not quite apologise for, the strain they are under as a result of 
fighting two wars on a peacetime budget. He defended his 
government's defence-spending record. He suggested that Britain 
should jealously guard its status as a global military power.

After a decade of interventionist policy, no one could reasonably 
doubt Mr Blair's readiness to pursue foreign policy goals by 
military force. So why restate the case now, in the twilight of 
his premiership? The answer is combat fatigue, not among services 
personnel, but among civilians. The Prime Minister is worried 
that the public has no more appetite for war. He sees in 
hardening opposition to the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns a sort 
of denial, a failure to appreciate the scale of the threat posed 
by Islamic extremism. He fears a drift to isolationism on the 
false assumption that withdrawal from combat abroad will reduce 
the risk of terrorism at home.

Mr Blair is right in one crucial respect. Adjusting foreign 
policy will not prompt all jihadi fighters to revise their hatred 
of Britain. Judicious application of 'soft' power - diplomacy, 
trade and aid - may prevent more hearts and minds from falling 
under the sway of a vicious, nihilistic ideology. But 'hard' 
military power will still be needed where hearts and minds have 
already been lost, against a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan, 
for example.

So the case for having a world-class, combat-ready military 
machine is well made. What is less clear is how such a machine 
will be financed without sacrifices in other areas of public 
spending. That rather mundane but essential question was neatly 
sidestepped by a Prime Minister looking already detached from the 
nitty-gritty of government.

One of Mr Blair's rhetorical tics is the presentation of policy 
problems as paradigmatically different from anything that has 
come before. 'September 11 changed everything,' he said in his 
speech. 'The world has changed.' And: 'The threat is 
qualitatively new and different.'

It is true that Britain's military planners and their political 
masters did not anticipate the scale of the threat that was 
revealed on that day. But the fact of being unprepared does not 
change the laws of nature or the way that politics works. The 
rules of the game stay pretty much the same: Britain needs a 
strong and well-equipped army, but it also needs hospitals and 
schools and other public goods. British people are willing to pay 
for such things, but resist crippling taxes. So they mandate 
government to prioritise spending.

If Mr Blair is right that expeditionary wars abroad are what the
armed forces are most likely to be needed for in the future,
then the defence budget should reflect that. Money should be
spent on the hardware of rapid deployment, such as helicopters
and armoured jeeps, and on recruiting, training and protecting
soldiers - on boots, wages and body armour. But then Britain
will have to do without something else. Teachers? Nurses? Or
perhaps, rather, it should forgo the £25bn upgrade of its
submarine-based nuclear deterrent or the 232 Eurofighter Typhoon
jets it plans to procure, which are good only for engaging in
aerial dogfights with as yet unimagined enemies.

What Mr Blair says about Britain's need to invest in its armed
forces is true. But in dodging the issue of what Britain can
practically afford, he highlighted another truth: that the tough
decisions in government - where the money is spent - will be
taken by his successor. 

Have your say
Email your comments for publication to:
politics.editor@guardianunlimited.co.uk

[UP] 

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007
*****************************************************************
 36 BBC NEWS: India-Pakistan talks 'positive'
 
Last Updated: Saturday, 13 January 2007, 21:57 GMT 

[Pranab Mukherjee]                              

This is Mr Mukherjee's first visit to Pakistan

India and Pakistan have confirmed that the peace process between 
the two countries has resumed. 

India's Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee has been meeting 
Pakistani officials in Islamabad, including President Pervez 
Musharraf. 

After their meeting, Mr Musharraf said conditions were good to 
"resolve outstanding issues" between the two neighbours, 
including divided Kashmir. 

The two sides have agreed to hold another round of talks in 
March. 

Mr Mukherjee's visit and his warm reception are seen as evidence 
that the peace process is moving forward again, after being 
disrupted by the Mumbai blasts last year, says the BBC's Barbara 
Plett in Islamabad. 

Officials examining proposals to withdraw troops from the
disputed Siachen Glacier are to be instructed to meet soon to
move the process along. 

'Conducive atmosphere' 

The nations began peace moves in 2004 but progress slowed after
India blamed Pakistan for last year's Mumbai blasts. 

Mr Mukherjee's visit is the first high-level contact between the
two countries since the September meeting between Gen Musharraf
and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Cuba. 

The two leaders met on the sidelines of the Non-Aligned Summit
and decided to resume talks. 

The Indian foreign minister also met his Pakistani counterpart,
Khursheed Ahmed Kasuri, for talks on a number of bilateral
issues. 

[Indian soldiers on Siachen Glacier]                            
More soldiers die of cold than bullets on the Siachen Glacier
  		
In his statement, Mr Musharraf said the confidence-building 
measures the two countries had made over the last few years had 
"created a conducive atmosphere to resolve outstanding issues". 

"All the issues were discussed, including the difficult ones," 
Indian foreign ministry spokesman Navtej Sarna said after the 
meeting. 

Our correspondent says an agreement on the Siachen Glacier would 
signal growing confidence between India and Pakistan. 

It would be the first conflict between the two countries resolved 
by the peace process. 

But the divided region of Kashmir remains the big sticking point 

India and Pakistan have fought three wars, two of them over 
Kashmir, since both became independent from British rule in 1947. 

The nuclear-armed neighbours nearly went to war a fourth time in 
2002. 

Travel and sport links have been restored since then but little 
progress has been made over Kashmir. 

Last month, President Musharraf suggested Pakistan could give up 
its claim over the disputed territory of Kashmir if India 
accepted his peace proposals. 

He called for a phased withdrawal of troops in the region and 
self-governance for Kashmiris. 

Earlier this week, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh spoke of his 
hopes for lasting peace in South Asia. 

"I dream of a day when one can have breakfast in Amritsar, lunch 
in Lahore and dinner in Kabul. This is how our forefathers lived. 
That is how I want our grandchildren to live," he said.
*****************************************************************
 37 Antiwar.com: Mistakes Were Made - 

by Gordon Prather
 
  January 13, 2007   
  
The goal of American foreign policy has long been the
replacement – by force, if "necessary" – of existing "criminal"
regimes, with regimes sycophantic to us. 

Criminal regimes. Like that of the late Saddam Hussein. 

What makes a regime criminal? 

Well, for self-styled liberal interventionists, it’s human
rights abuse, ethnic cleansing and genocide. 

For self-styled neoconservative interventionists, it’s just
thinking about acquiring nukes or the makings thereof and having
missiles that can reach Israel. 

So, when Clinton attempted to achieve regime change in Iraq
circa 
  Christmas, 1998, from 20,000 feet, he got the support
of the neo-crazies by accusing the on-the-ground United Nations
inspectors of being incompetent or worse for failing to find the
missiles capable of reaching Israel and "weapons of mass
destruction" our "intelligence" said Saddam had. 

The liberal interventionists went along with that fiction
because they knew Clinton’s real rationale for the bombing was
Saddam’s "human rights" abuses. 

Congress – chock full of interventionists – had paved the way by
passing the Iraq Liberation 
  Act of 1998: 

"It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts
to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq
and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to
replace that regime." 

However, the interventionists – in and out of government – soon
realized that bombing the gee-whiz out of a country from 20,000
feet was unlikely to result in the people being bombed rising up
and changing their regime. It would take an invasion and lengthy
occupation. 

The interventionists also determined that the only rationale the
American public would buy for invading and occupying any country
would be proof positive that the "criminal" regime posed a
direct threat to our National Security. 

So, when terrorists associated with radical Middle Eastern
organizations such as al-Qaeda succeeded in bringing down the
Twin Towers, on live TV, killing thousands of Americans in the
process, interventionists – in and out of government – saw a
"heaven-sent" opportunity. 

Almost immediately Congress gave President Bush a blank 
 
check, authorizing the President to "use all necessary and
appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or
persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided
the terrorists attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001." 

The rationale for the use of such force was "to prevent any
future acts of international terrorism." 

Wow! 

Henceforth, all Bush had to do before launching a pre-emptive
attack on any nation, organization or persons was to tell
Congress he had determined – despite a total lack of evidence –
that the attack was necessary "to prevent future acts of
international terrorism." 

So Bush "determined" that Saddam had aided Al-Qaeda and now had
– or soon would have – nukes to give to Islamic terrorists who
would somehow use them against us or Israel. 

Congress, of course, never questioned that "determination." 

Now, in the Iran Freedom 
  Support Act of 2006, Congress
"found" that 

"The United States and the international community face no
greater threat to their security than the prospect of rogue
regimes who support international terrorism obtaining weapons of
mass destruction, and particularly nuclear weapons." 

Furthermore, "Iran is the leading state sponsor of international
terrorism and is close to achieving nuclear weapons." 

So, the 109th (GOP-controlled) Congress – chock full of
international interventionists – has already established the
basis for Bush doing unto Iran what he did to Iraq. 

Even still, in an address 
  to the nationthis week, wherein
Bush was supposedly telling us how he planned to get us out of
the "situation" he got us into in Iraq that is "unacceptable to
the American people," it was somewhat surprising that Bush
claimed: 

"Succeeding in Iraq also requires defending its territorial
integrity and stabilizing the region in the face of extremist
challenges. This begins with addressing Iran and Syria. These
two regimes are allowing terrorists and insurgents to use their
territory to move in and out of Iraq. Iran is providing material
support for attacks on American troops. 

"We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We'll interrupt the
flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and
destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to
our enemies in Iraq. 

"We're also taking other steps to bolster the security of Iraq
and protect American interests in the Middle East. I recently
ordered the deployment of an additional carrier strike group to
the region. We will expand intelligence-sharing and deploy
Patriot air defense systems to reassure our friends and allies. 

"We will work with the governments of Turkey and Iraq to help
them resolve problems along their border. 

"And we will work with others to prevent Iran from gaining
nuclear weapons and dominating the region." 

Great Zot! 

Bush is going to "seek out and destroy" the "networks" in Iran
and Syria that he suspects are providing "training" to "our
enemies" in Iraq? 

Our enemies in Iraq? 

And who might they be? The Iraqis who also find the current
situation in Iraq – the American occupation – "unacceptable"? 

Bush has sent an additional American aircraft-carrier strike
force to the Persian Gulf? 

To strike who? Where? Why? 

Bush is deploying Patriot ballistic-missile defense systems in
Kuwait and Iraq? 

To shoot down whose ballistic missiles? 

To "reassure" whom? 

And who do you suppose we’re going to "work with" to prevent
Iran from diverting its peaceful nuclear energy programs –
currently safeguarded by the International Atomic Energy Agency
– to a military purpose? 

Well, certainly not the IAEA. 

Will the 110th (Democrat-controlled) Congress – also chock full
of international interventionists – allow Bush to implement his
latest "plan"? 

Well, that depends upon whether an aroused citizenry holds
enough Congresspersons’ feet to the fire. 

And there’s some hope. 

Senator Evan Bayh (D, IN) has just announcedhe won’t be a
candidate for President in 2008 after all. 

Why? 

Well, he has concluded that after seeing the unacceptable mess
the interventionists have gotten us in to in Iraq, you
red-blooded American voters don’t want another interventionist
President getting us into another unacceptable mess. 

"You just hope that we haven’t soured an entire generation on
the necessity, from time to time, of using force because Iraq
has been such a debacle. 

"That would be tragic, because Iran is a grave threat. They’re
everything we thought Iraq was but wasn’t. They are seeking
nuclear weapons, they do support terrorists, they have
threatened to destroy Israel, and they’ve threatened us, too." 

Tragic, Yo Mama! 
  
the Antiwar.com 

  Physicist James Gordon Prather has served as a policy
implementing official for national security-related technical
matters in the Federal Energy Agency, the Energy Research and
Development Administration, the Department of Energy, the Office
of the Secretary of Defense and the Department of the Army. Dr.
Prather also served as legislative assistant for national
security affairs to U.S. Sen. Henry Bellmon, R-Okla. -- ranking
member of the Senate Budget Committee and member of the Senate
Energy Committee and Appropriations Committee. Dr. Prather had
earlier worked as a nuclear weapons physicist at Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory in California and Sandia National
Laboratory in New Mexico.   
      

 Copyright 2007 Antiwar.com         
*****************************************************************
 38 Guardian Unlimited: Russia to Send Police to Probe Spy Death

From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Sunday January 14, 2007 4:16 PM

By HENRY MEYER 

Associated Press Writer 

MOSCOW (AP) - Russia will soon send a team of investigators to
Britain to investigate the poisoning death of a former KGB agent
there, the country's top prosecutor said Sunday. 

Russia expected full cooperation from British authorities as it
investigated the death of Alexander Litvinenko, the RIA-Novosti
news agency quoted Prosecutor-General Yuri Chaika as saying in
an interview with Rossiya state TV channel. 

``Our investigators are preparing to travel to Britain in the
nearest future to carry out their work,'' Chaika said. 

The Russian investigators planned to sit in on interviews and
examine venues connected with Litvinenko's murder, the
prosecutor said. Litvinenko died in a London hospital Nov. 23,
several weeks after ingesting the rare radioactive isotope
polonium-210. In a deathbed statement, he blamed Russian
President Vladimir Putin for his poisoning. The Kremlin has
denied the allegation. 

Scotland Yard investigators who went to Russia in December were
not allowed to question anyone directly, instead sitting in
while Russian authorities conducted the interviews. 

Russia also begun its own investigation, seen as a bid to keep
control of the case, which has threatened to drive relations
between Britain and Russia to post-Cold War lows. 

``We have established very good, constructive working relations
with the British. They came here, we gave them all possible
assistance in the course of their investigation on the territory
of the Russian Federation,'' said Chaika. 

Moscow has asked Britain for permission to interview more than
100 people, a top Russian prosecutor said Friday. 

Russia sent the request to Britain's Home Office, said Deputy
Prosecutor General Alexander Zvyagintsev. He declined to name
the people Russia wanted to interview, and it was unclear if any
were considered suspects. The Home Office declined to comment. 

Chaika said Russian investigators would operate under the same
constraints as their British counterparts in Moscow, able only
to attend interviews. 

Litvinenko fell ill after meeting with Russian businessman
Dmitry Kovtun, Andrei Lugovoi, also an ex-Soviet agent, and
Vyacheslav Sokolenko, head of a private Russian security firm,
at a bar at the Millennium Hotel in London. 

All three men have denied involvement in the former agent's
death. 

Russian prosecutors last month said they were investigating the
possible role of a former owner of the Yukos oil company in
Litvinenko's murder. 

Leonid Nevzlin, a Kremlin opponent who is living in exile in
Israel, dismissed the allegations. Alex Goldfarb, a Kremlin
critic active in London's community of Russian exiles, said they
reflected the Russian government's aim to shift blame from
itself. 

Pro-government Russian lawmakers have also suggested Boris
Berezovsky - a Russian tycoon and critic of Putin who has
political asylum in Britain - could have been behind the death
of Litvinenko as part of a plan to blacken the reputation of the
Kremlin. 

Goldfarb on Sunday accused the Russian authorities of blocking
the British investigation and pointlessly traveling to London. 

``This is nothing but a stunt designed to detract attention from
Russia, a PR exercise to create an appearance of reciprocity,''
he said by telephone from London.	 
		 	 	   
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007
*****************************************************************
 39 Charlotte Observer: New nuclear plant hinges on fuel disposal

01/13/2007 | 

COMPANY'S PROPOSAL IN TEXAS AT STAKE
 
Exelon executive wants U.S. to build depository for spent fuel
rods

 JIM POLSON Bloomberg News 

Exelon Corp., the largest U.S. owner of nuclear power plants,
wants government assurance of a disposal site for spent fuel
before it will proceed with the reactor it has proposed in
Texas, Chief Executive John Rowe said Friday. 

"The government may have fooled me on 17 reactors that I
currently run, but I'm the one who's being foolish if I build a
new plant without knowing what they're going to do with the
spent fuel," Rowe said in an interview in Chicago. 

Rowe, 61, said his preference would be for the federal
government to step up and establish a permanent fuel depository,
something it's been unable to do. However, he would not rule out
the state of Texas creating its own site. 

Proposals to build new nuclear plants, including in the
Carolinas, are gaining momentum as prices rise for coal-fired
and natural-gas plants along with global-warming concerns. About
32 announcements have been made for new nuclear power plant
licenses. No company has sought to build a new reactor in about
30 years. 

Exelon in September said it would seek regulatory approval for a
nuclear-fueled plant in Texas, the largest power-consuming
state. 

Lack of a permanent repository has forced Exelon and other
nuclear-plant operators to store spent fuel at their plants, a
strategy that's been criticized by environmental groups, partly
on concern the sites may be terrorist targets. 

U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat who became Senate
Majority Leader this week, opposes the government's chosen site
in that state's Yucca Mountain. 

The next new U.S. nuclear plant probably will be built in the
U.S. South or Southeast, where economic growth is driving demand
for so-called baseload plants, usually coal-fueled or nuclear
plants designed to run at all hours and all seasons to provide
basic power supply, Rowe said. 

Most of the pending nuclear-plant licenses are for sites in
southeastern states and Texas. A few proposals have also been
made in the state of New York and Maryland. 

Atlanta-based utility owner Southern Co. has won regulatory
approval in Georgia to charge customers for the cost of
licensing new nuclear plants, and Charlotte-based Duke Energy
Corp. is seeking the same in North Carolina. That's a source of
funding not available in Texas, where power-generation, power
delivery and retail-power sales are separate businesses, Rowe
said. 

No new reactor has been ordered in the U.S. since the 1979
accident at Three-Mile Island, near Harrisburg, Pa. 

*****************************************************************
 40 SanLuisObispo.com: Suit says Diablo mitigation falls short

| 01/13/2007 | 

SLO Tribune

 By David Sneed dsneed@thetribunenews.com 

  + Lawsuit filed by an environmental group against the Coastal
Commission for its approval of Diablo Canyon's steam generator
replacement project (pdf)

A Southern California-based environmental group has sued the
state Coastal Commission over its recent decision to approve a
steam generator replacement project at Diablo Canyon nuclear
power plant. 

The suit alleges that the commission did not do enough to offset
the damage that the continued operation of the plant will do to
the ocean. Replacing the generators allows the plant to operate
to at least 2025, when its federal operating licenses expire. 

The suit was filed Wednesday in the Superior Court of San
Francisco County by the Coastal Law Enforcement Action Network
(CLEAN) of Playa del Rey. 

On Dec. 15, the commission approved the replacement project, but
rejected a recommendation from its staff that Pacific Gas and
Electric Co. be required to conserve more than 9,000 acres of
land around the plant. 

Instead, the commission accepted an offer by PG to conserve
1,200 acres surrounding the historic Point San Luis Lighthouse.
Diablo Canyon spokesman Jeff Lewis said the lawsuit is unlikely
to delay the steam generator replacement project. Work is
scheduled to begin in 2008. 

He noted that the commission approved the project and its
mitigations after hours of study and public testimony. “No
governmental body always follows its staff recommendations,” he
said. 

The staff had recommended conserving the larger amount of land
as the only means available to the commission to offset the
daily killing of millions of fish larvae by the plant’s cooling
system. The nuclear plant causes significant damage to the
surrounding ocean. Marine biologists assume that a heat increase
of 20 degrees, along with clams and barnacles, kills all crab
and fish larvae that pass through the cooling system. Clams and
barnacles filter the larvae from the water and eat them as they
pass through the cooling system. 

In its lawsuit, CLEAN asked the court to overturn the commission
and send the ruling back to the commission for additional
mitigation. Officials with the group said they hope the
commission will reconsider and follow its staff recommendation,
although it is not required by law to do so. 

“Given the information the commission had before it, there was
no excuse to not follow the law and require the conditions the
staff had outlined for them in their recommendation,” said David
Weinsoff, lead attorney in the case. 

The commission’s executive director, Peter Douglas, was
unavailable Friday. 

Pete Raimondi, a biologist with UC Santa Cruz, has studied the
impact of power plant cooling systems on marine ecosystems. He
told the commission that 300 to 1,000 acres of rocky ocean
bottom would be needed to offset Diablo Canyon’s damage. Rocky
ocean bottom is habitat for the kind of fish and crabs that
produce the larvae killed by the cooling system. Regulators
considered requiring that PG create more of that kind of habitat
near the plant as a way to offset the plant’s larvae mortality,
but determined land conservation is a simpler way to enhance
ocean ecosystems. 

PG officials argued that the steam generator replacement project
is just an expensive maintenance project that should not fall
under Coastal Commission purview. The plant’s eight steam
generators are deteriorating, and the plant would have to shut
down in 2014 if they are not replaced. 

Formed in 1998, the Coastal Law Enforcement Action Network
specializes in enforcing California’s Coastal Act, the state’s
main coastal protection law and basis for the Coastal
Commission. 

Most of the lawsuits filed by the group are enforcement actions
for violations of the Coastal Act that have been overlooked by
the Coastal Commission. The group recently settled a suit with
the Bel Air Bay Club in Pacific Palisades over installation of a
tower that threatened the public’s view of the ocean. 

“On rare occasions we sue the commission itself,” said Marcia
Hanscom, the group’s managing director. 

This is the first time the group has been involved in a legal
action in San Luis Obispo County. 

Reach David Sneed at 781-7930. 
*****************************************************************
 41 Rutland Herald: Panel to consider Yankee's water release

January 13, 2007 

By DANIEL BARLOW Herald Staff   

VERNON — The five-member Nuclear Regulatory Commission will
personally hear arguments on the potential effects on the
Connecticut River of extending Vermont Yankee nuclear power
plant's operating license an additional 20 years.

In an unusual move, a divided NRC announced Thursday it had
denied plant owner Entergy Vermont Nuclear's request to dismiss
a watchdog group's contention that releasing heated water into
the river beyond 2012 could hurt aquatic life.

Instead, the presidentially appointed body took the issue away
from the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, the quasi-judicial
arm of the NRC now hearing arguments over extending the plant's
operating license.

The NRC cited the potential "wide implication" of the issue,
according to an NRC order released Thursday.

Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the NRC, said the commission
invoked its "sua sponte" right that allows it to review certain
issues on its own initiative. The NRC also cited its own desire
"to provide guidance to a licensing board" in its decision.

"In sum, given the important questions regarding the regulatory
requirements at play in the analysis of the thermal discharge
issue, and our policy of providing guidance to the licensing
board on such issues, we take sua sponte review of the board's
decision to admit the … contention," the 12-page order reads.

Entergy has asked federal regulators to permit the 43-year-old
reactor to continue operating beyond 2012, when its current
license expires. But some groups and interested parties —
including the New England Coalition, Vermont and Massachusetts —
have filed arguments, also known as contentions, against the
license renewal.

The Atomic Safety &Licensing Board has agreed to hear arguments
on five of those contentions, but rejected others from the state
of Massachusetts and the town of Marlboro. Massachusetts has
appealed the rejection of its contention.

One of the four accepted contentions offered by the New England
Coalition, a Brattleboro-based nuclear watchdog group, raised
concerns that the release into the Connecticut River of warmer
water from the plant could harm fish.

"Our attorneys knocked out Entergy's legal arguments in the
first round and on appeal, and the NRC Commission recognized
that in denying Entergy's appeal," said Raymond Shadis, a
technical consultant to the New England Coalition. "But the
commission blew some smoke and pulled out of it an excuse to
give the industry some of what it was asking for, anyway."

The commission voted 3-2 on the issue, with members Peter Lyons
and Gregory Jaczko dissenting.

Lyons and Jaczko write in an attachment to Thursday's order that
they wished to deny Entergy's petition to appeal the contention,
but disagree that the NRC should take the issue away from the
board. The NRC has completed reviews on 23 license extensions,
they wrote, and "had this matter been indeed of substantial
significance, it likely would have surfaced before."

But Commissioners Jeffrey Merrifield and Edward McGaffigan wrote
that while Entergy's appeal did not rise to the appropriate
standards, it is not out of bounds for the commission to tackle
the issue anyway.

"We agree with the dissent that the commission's inherent
supervisory authority does not constitute grounds for a party's
review," they wrote. "However, in a situation that merits
commission review, the refusal to take review because a party
asked us to would elevate form over substance."

A spokesperson for Entergy did not return a call Friday
afternoon.

The NRC also set a deadline of 14 days for the sides to present
briefs on their positions on the release of warm water. Those
arguments would be replied to within the following seven days.

NRC staff will hold two sessions in Brattleboro on Jan. 31 to
discuss details of its draft environmental report on Yankee's
license extension. The draft report gave a preliminary OK for
the extension and the final report is due in August.
*****************************************************************
 42 Times Argus: NRC to consider Vt. Yankee's effects on Connecticut River

January 14, 2007 

VERNON — The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will provide
top-level review to the question of how much the Vermont Yankee
nuclear plant warms the Connecticut River.

That question had been one of many before the NRC's Atomic
Safety and Licensing Board as the federal agency considers plant
owner Entergy Nuclear's request to extend its operating license,
currently set to expire in 2012, by 20 years.

But citing the "wide implication" of the concern about river
temperatures, the five NRC commissioners voted 3-2 this week to
take the issue off the Licensing Board's plate and examine it
themselves.

Vermont Yankee uses river water to cool some of its components,
then discharges it back into the Connecticut. It wants to
increase its impact to raise water temperatures 1 degree a mile
and a half downstream at the Vernon Dam.

The watchdog group, the New England Coalition, maintains that
doing so would be bad for the river's ecosystem and fish
populations.

NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said the five commissioners invoked
their "sua sponte" right to take certain issues from the
Licensing Board and examine those issues as a full commission.
They also cited their desire "to provide guidance to a licensing
board."

Raymond Shadis, technical adviser to the New England Coalition,
said there are about 10 nuclear plants around the country that
use river water for cooling and that are expected to have to go
through the license extension process in the next few years.

———

Information from: Rutland Herald
*****************************************************************
 43 News Journal: Cooling systems ravage river, activists say 

delawareonline ¦ The 

Big industrial sites on the Delaware kill tens of billions of
fish, crabs each year

 By JEFF MONTGOMERY, The News Journal 

Posted Sunday, January 14, 2007 

The cooling tower at the Salem-Hope Creek nuclear power plant 
serves one reactor. Two other reactors do not have cooling 
towers. (Buy photo) The News Journal/CARLA VARISCO 


DNREC's John Hughes said his agency has urged Valero and Conectiv 
to consider cooling-water systems that spare more fish. 

A few industrial sites with cooling systems that draw water from
the Delaware River are killing tens of billions of fish, fry and
crabs each year, making them, by some accounts, the biggest
predators in the river. 

Now five of the largest water users are up for state permit
renewals, giving regulators and environmental groups the chance
for a public debate over industrial cooling-water demands. 

The giant intakes continuously pump in and discharge river water
to cool equipment and systems, sucking trillions of gallons from
stretches of the Delaware that include nurseries and feeding
grounds for some of the region's most popular and valuable
aquatic life, including striped bass and weakfish. 

"The river and bay simply cannot sustain this kind of day-in and
day-out destruction," said Tracy Carluccio, a staff member for
the Delaware Riverkeeper Network. 

Carluccio's group last year joined several others in suing the
Environmental Protection Agency for failing to control damage
from some cooling water intakes. The lawsuit, along with
alarming research, has put the issue in the spotlight just as
several of the plants come up for new permits. 

Some of the fish are trapped on the intake screens, others are
descaled. The ones that are pulled through the screens are
killed by heat or torn apart by the sheer force of the water. 

The deaths caused by the intakes threaten the entire river and
bay ecosystem, environmental groups say, and result in tens of
millions of dollars in economic losses. 

The intakes at the Salem nuclear power complex, Conectiv's Edge
Moor power plant, the Delaware City refinery and Conectiv's
Deepwater, N.J., plant destroy roughly 607 million year-old fish
annually -- a federal estimate based on industry reports that
some experts say might be too low. If fish eggs, larvae and
other organisms are added, the number lost rises to tens of
billions. 

At the river's four largest power plants, annual economic
damages are estimated at $49 million, mostly commercial and
recreational fishing losses, according to one Environmental
Protection Agency study. 

"The final estimates may well underestimate the full ecological
and economic value of these losses," an EPA research office
reported in 2002. 

The best alternatives to intakes are massive water-cooling
towers, which could dramatically reduce the number of fish
killed. But installing the towers would cost hundreds of
millions of dollars, which could be passed on to customers. 

Conectiv's Edge Moor plant draws water from a section of the
river near the Cherry Island "flats," a spawning area for
striped bass. Financial losses to commercial and recreational
fishing due to the kills at Edge Moor were estimated by the
federal government at $12.5 million a year. 

In Delaware City, the Valero refinery has rendered the entire
population of bay anchovies vulnerable, according to a 2001
study. Anchovies are an important food source for many other
creatures in the river and bay. 

"There hasn't really been a significant change to the intake
system at the refinery, I don't believe, since the mid-60s at
least," said Roy Miller, who directs state fish and shellfish
programs. "It's high time." 

In 2002, the EPA estimated that the refinery intakes destroy
775,879 pounds of weakfish annually. Only 16,892 pounds of the
popular sport fish are taken by recreational fishing. 

A DNREC consultant estimated in 2001 that the refinery killed
nearly 40,000 striped bass in a single year, double the number
caught from fishing. Counting egg and larval losses, the EPA
estimated the same refinery cost the river 662,871 pounds of
striped bass, more than four times the number taken by rod and
reel or net in 2003. 

Federal officials estimated fish losses at the Delaware City
refinery at $5.8 million annually. 

The Delaware City refinery combined with the Salem nuclear plant
could kill 34 percent of the bay's anchovy populations each year
and as much as 23 percent of the river's weakfish, or sea trout,
according to the DNREC consultant's report from 2001. 

Details obscured 

For decades, the cooling water carnage went on with little
notice, obscured in part by huge backlogs in state permit
reviews. Most debate flared during the permit reviews carried
out for Salem. But few details were available on other large
intakes. 

"These are hidden, stealth fish kills that take place
underwater, out of sight, out of mind," said Maya K. van Rossum,
who directs the Delaware Riverkeeper Network. "That's why
they're allowed to happen. It changes the whole dynamic of the
ecosystem. It changes the whole food chain." 

But now, with public pressure growing, regulators are leaning on
the plants' operators to change their practices and consider
alternatives to the intake water cooling systems. 

EPA water resources director Evelyn McKnight said last week her
agency has targeted Conectiv's plant and Valero's refinery for
renewal of long outdated permits. That permitting process is
carried out by the states. During the renewal process for Valero
and Conectiv, Delaware regulators said they will push the
companies to consider installing cooling water supply systems,
which could cost millions. 

Those radiator-like cooling towers recycle and reuse water,
drastically reducing the number of fish that are killed. 

For example, the nuclear reactor at Hope Creek, near the Salem
units, already uses a cooling tower. It kills 12 million
juvenile fish each year. Salem, which draws from the river,
kills 354 million a year. 

Tim Dillingham, who directs the American Littoral Society, a
conservation group, said state regulators need to press industry
to invest in that technology. 

"Industry almost across the board has blatantly denied that
they're having any impact, which common sense tells us is just
not right," Dillingham said. "This really is a case where the
industries are using sticks-and-stones kind of technology, and
they're asking for a pass. They're saying 'We don't want to be
brought into the 21st century in terms of reducing our
environmental impact.' " 

DNREC Secretary John Hughes said his agency has urged both
Valero and Conectiv to consider cooling-water systems that spare
more fish. 

"We've got a strong argument. I've made the argument personally
at the highest levels with Valero that ... they need to look at
cooling water as a major investment issue," Hughes said. He
added that talks with the refinery have been hampered by
repeated ownership and management changes at the complex. 

Federal rules allow companies to avoid upgrading their cooling
systems if they can prove the changes are too costly. 

Valero officials could not be reached for comment on the
company's plans. 

For the Salem plant, negotiations are more protracted. There,
New Jersey regulators are waiting to reissue permits for Salem's
intakes until a fight at the nearby Oyster Creek nuclear plant
is resolved. 

At Oyster Creek, which draws water from a Delaware River
tributary, Barnegat Bay, state regulators, the Environmental
Protection Agency and National Marine Fisheries Commission all
have recommended cooling towers. 

Could set precedent 

Oyster Creek's owner, AmerGen, has opposed the cooling tower
demand, arguing that the project could cost hundreds of millions
of dollars. 

"I think what happens at Oyster Creek will tell a lot about what
will happen at Salem," said Norm Cohen, who directs Unplug
Salem, a group that follows PSEG Nuclear's operations closely. 

Construction of a new cooling tower at Salem, PSEG Nuclear
cautioned, could cost $852 million and force prolonged shutdowns
at what is now the nation's second-largest nuclear complex. 

In the company's application to New Jersey's environmental
agency, Salem's owners said the operation has caused "no
substantial harm to fisheries." 

In lieu of a change to its cooling system, PSEG has restored
habitat on thousands of acres of wetlands that it said would
offset fish losses at its plant. 

The company has financed fish "ladders" to help spawning fish
bypass dams around the region as well as improvements in systems
that scare fish away from its intakes. 

"It was just a buyout," said William "Frenchie" Poulin, a Kent
County commercial fisherman and Bowers Beach mayor. "It was just
a drop in the bucket to them." 

But Miller, fisheries program manager for DNREC, said that PSEG
restored tidal flows to thousands of acres of wetlands. 

"Did it compensate for what they're killing up at Salem?" Miller
asked. "They hired some of the top scientists in the world who
claim it compensated." Contact Jeff Montgomery at 678-4277

 The News Journal.
*****************************************************************
 44 Chicago Tribune: Exelon may seek to buy power firm 

chicagotribune.com >> Business 

Price freeze outcome could determine type of target, chief says
 
	Bloomberg News

 Published January 13, 2007

Exelon Corp. might attempt to acquire a utility or power producer 
once it resolves an electricity rate dispute in Illinois, Chief 
Executive John Rowe said Friday.

 The debate's outcome, currently a stalemate between leaders of
the Illinois House of Representatives and Senate, could
determine the type of company Exelon targets, Rowe said.

 In September Exelon abandoned the nation's largest utility
takeover ever, the purchase of Public Service Enterprise Group
Inc. for $17.8 billion, citing excessive concessions demanded by
New Jersey regulators.

 The Illinois House has passed a rate freeze that Exelon has
said would bankrupt its Chicago utility, Commonwealth Edison.

 "We'd like to see a more stable, more widely accepted
settlement in Illinois before we take on something major," Rowe
said.

 Exelon, the nation's largest utility owner by market value,
probably will not buy a utility that is less than 20 percent to
25 percent of its size in that category, Rowe said.

 Currently, that is $8 billion to $10 billion.

 The company might target a smaller power producer that does not
own a regulated utility, because such deals do not need state
approval and transaction costs are lower, he said.

 "It really comes down to the two basics: economics and
politics," Rowe said. "We had a very economic transaction in New
Jersey, but the politics of trying to do it were too expensive."

 He said Exelon might buy power plants to increase sales in
Texas, New York and New England, and sell facilities to reduce
its presence in Illinois and Pennsylvania.

 Exelon's profit forecasts are based exclusively on growth of
its existing operations, he said. "Once you decide in a business
like ours that you will grow at a certain rate through
acquisitions, I guarantee you will make bad investments," Rowe
said.

 Rowe also said Exelon wants government assurance of a disposal
site for spent fuel before it will proceed with the nuclear
reactor it has proposed in Texas.

 "The government may have fooled me on 17 reactors that I
currently run, but I'm the one who's being foolish if I build a
new plant without knowing what they're going to do with the
spent fuel," Rowe said. 

Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune        
*****************************************************************
 45 AU: The Australian: Uranium mining to 'slash' emissions | WA | 

+ NEWS.com.au | The Australian &mdash; Western Australia
 			 								 					 						 			
  + Paige Taylor 					
  + January 15, 2007 				 			 		 		 			 			 				

THE Carpenter Government could save greenhouse gas emissions
equivalent to taking every Australian car off the road for 130
years if it allowed access to Western Australia's uranium
reserves, federal Environment Minister Ian Campbell said
yesterday.
                         
Senator Campbell claimed Western Australia's uranium reserves 
could prevent up to 6000 million tonnes of greenhouse gas 
emissions going into the atmosphere. 

He called on Premier Alan Carpenter to enter talks with the
federal Government about the state's uranium reserves, which
state Labor has repeatedly refused to allow to be mined. 

"I can only assume that he (Mr Carpenter) doesn't understand how
serious climate change is and the substantial contribution that
uranium can make to it," he said. 

"I have no doubt in my mind that when it becomes clear how
important this is, Mr Carpenter or some other future premier
will overturn the policy." 

Senator Campbell said the estimated potential greenhouse gas
savings from Western Australia's 150,000 tonnes of known uranium
reserves was "10 times what the whole of Australia emits in one
year". 

He said this would be the equivalent to taking all of
Australia's 11.8 million cars off the road for 130 years. 

Senator Campbell said his estimates were based on the fact that
every 26 tonnes of uranium oxide used in generating electricity
saved a million tonnes of carbon dioxide relative to using coal
with current technologies. 

"If all of WA's uranium reserves were used to generate
electricity instead of using current-technology coal-fired power
stations, that would mean greenhouse gas emissions savings of
between 5000 and 6000million tonnes," he said. 

"WA has an opportunity to be a great contributor to the global
climate change challenge but sadly it is hell-bent on
maintaining its farcical policy of locking up uranium reserves." 

Senator Campbell accused federal Labor environment spokesman
Peter Garrett of being "stuck in the 1960s" for his stance on
uranium. 

"The technologies which are critical to addressing climate
change include renewable energy such as solar and wind,
energy-efficiency measures, carbon capture and storage, more
efficient vehicles, using alternative fuels, eliminating
deforestation and expanding nuclear," Senator Campbell said. 

"WA and federal Labor's continuing catchcry that Australia can
simply rely on renewable energies alone is pure folly -- you
need all of the technologies." 

A spokesman for the West Australian Government yesterday said
the Government's position had not changed in light of Senator
Campbell's claims. 			 		 		 			

© The Australian 	[/]  
*****************************************************************
 46 National Post: Dion dismisses nuclear power in oilsands extraction

Jason Fekete,                           

CanWest News Service; Calgary Herald

Published:Â Saturday, January 13, 2007

CALGARY -- Federal Liberal Leader Stephane Dion threw cold water 
Friday on using nuclear energy to extract bitumen from the 
Alberta oilsands.

Speaking Friday to the Calgary Herald editorial board, Dion 
acknowledged nuclear is part of the "energy mix" in Canada, but 
doesn't believe it's a viable option for use in Alberta's 
oilsands due to lingering concerns about whether its waste can be 
safely disposed.

"I have no power to stop a province to do that. It's provincial
jurisdiction," Dion said. "I am concerned about the waste and I
don't hide my concerns."

The debate over nuclear power in Alberta has heated up in recent
months as industry and government look for ways to reduce the
use of natural gas and slash greenhouse gas emissions from the
Athabasca oilsands -- a major contributor to carbon dioxide
emissions in Canada.

Enormous amounts of gas are used in the heating and extraction
of tar-like bitumen, and oilsands output generates significantly
more carbon dioxide than conventional crude production.

A nuclear plant would be used to produce electricity and
generate steam that would be pumped underground to help melt the
bitumen for easier extraction. However, exact construction costs
are unknown -- some estimates peg it at $4 billion -- and
significant technical and political hurdles must be cleared
before a nuclear plant in the oilsands could proceed.

Earlier this week, Husky Energy CEO John Lau said his company is
studying nuclear energy for its future oilsands developments in
northern Alberta.

But new provincial Environment Minister Rob Renner said he's
skeptical about nuclear energy in the oilsands, including
concerns over how to dispose of its waste.

"We obviously have no experience with it in Alberta," Renner
told the Herald this week. "It's worth looking at, but I think
it's a very long-term solution."

Environmental groups also are opposed.

"It's the farthest thing from clean energy. It's pretty much a
toxic energy," said Marlo Raynolds, executive director of the
Alberta-based Pembina Institute.

Raynolds doubts the economic viability of a nuclear facility and
said it could make the oilsands potentially a larger terrorist
target.

jfekete@theherald.canwest.com

Calgary Herald

© 2007 CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest
*****************************************************************
 47 NEI: Electric Sector Report to DOE Spotlights Nuclear Energy's 
Role in Curbing Greenhouse Gas Emissions 

Nuclear Energy Institute :

WASHINGTON, Jan. 12 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The nation's 103
nuclear power plants account for the majority of voluntary
greenhouse gas emissions reductions in the electric power
sector, according to the first annual report of Power Partners,
a voluntary partnership between the electric power industry and
the U.S. Department of Energy. The Nuclear Energy Institute is
among the Power Partners participants. 

The electric power sector reported more carbon dioxide
reductions than any other reporting sector -- 63 percent of 445
million metric tons -- in 2004, the latest year for which data
are available. The electric sector's progress resulted primarily
from increased electricity production at emission-free nuclear
power plants, according to the report prepared by the Edison
Electric Institute and submitted today to DOE. The data are from
the voluntary reporting program administered by the agency. 

Nuclear energy accounted for 54 percent of voluntary greenhouse
gas reductions reported by project type in the electric power
sector by preventing the emission of 142 million metric tons of
CO2. 

"This report confirms that nuclear energy plays one of the most
vital roles in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but cannot do
so alone," said Frank L. "Skip" Bowman, NEI president and chief
executive officer. "It's going to take the combined effort of
the entire electric power sector to strike the balance between
increased electricity demand and meeting the nation's
environmental goals." 

The report cites major improvements in nuclear power plant
performance in the 1990s as a critical factor in reducing the
electric sector's greenhouse gas emissions. 

The average capacity factor for U.S. nuclear power plants has
hovered at or near 90 percent since the start of the decade,
while electricity production has risen approximately 16 percent
over the past 10 years. The increase in electricity production
-- from 673 billion kilowatt-hours (kwh) in 1995 to 782 billion
kwh in 2005 -- is roughly equivalent to bringing 14 new 1,000
megawatt power plants into service. Capacity factor, a measure
of efficiency, is the percentage of the maximum amount of
electricity a plant can supply to the power supply system. 

Power Partners signed a Memorandum of Understanding with DOE in
December 2004 that pledged to reduce the power sector's
greenhouse gas emissions intensity during the 2010-2012
timeframe by the equivalent of three-to-five percent below the
2000-2002 base-period average. The report states that the
electric power industry expects to meet its reduction targets
well ahead of schedule. 

Beyond the Power Partners reductions achieved through
incremental gains in electricity production at nuclear power
plants, the total amount of CO2 prevented by U.S. nuclear power
plants was 682 million metric tons in 2005. This is equal to the
annual emissions from 96 percent of the country's passenger
cars. 

"Nuclear power plants play a strategic role in meeting U.S.
clean air goals and the nation's goal of reducing greenhouse gas
emissions," Bowman said. "As our nation looks to meet rapidly
growing electricity demand by strengthening conservation and
efficiency measures and adding new electric generating capacity,
it's vital that we take full advantage of reliable, affordable
nuclear energy and its valuable environmental attributes." 

The Nuclear Energy Institute is the nuclear energy industry's
policy organization. This news release and additional
information about nuclear energy are available on NEI's Internet
site at http://www.nei.org/ Website: http://www.nei.org/
  
Copyright © 1996-2003 PR Newswire Association LLC. All Rights
*****************************************************************
 48 Independent: Russian police head to London for Litvinenko investigation 

By Sophie Goodchild, Chief Reporter 

Published: 14 January 2007 

Vladimir Putin is sending a special squad of Russian police to
Britain to investigate the killing of former spy Alexander
Litvinenko. 

Scotland Yard has received a formal letter from the Russian
authorities requesting official clearance for the visit and to
interview witnesses. 

Police sources told The Independent on Sunday that the Kremlin
is eager to shift the blame for Mr Litvinenko's murder away from
Russia and President Putin and back towards Britain. 

"They have made a formal written request to carry out their own
probe. They are eager to deflect the focus away from Russia on
to Britain and the British authorities," said one source. 

Officers from Scotland Yard have already travelled to Russia to
carry out their own inquiries after it was established that the
former KGB officer died after ingesting huge amounts of
polonium-210, a deadly radioactive substance. 

The extraordinary events surrounding his death have also now
attracted the attentions of Hollywood. 

Johnny Depp, star of the Pirates of the Carribbean series of
films, is understood to be in discussions about a starring role
in a film about Mr Litvinenko's poisoning. Depp's production
company is developing a forthcoming book for the screen. 

© 2006 Independent News and Media Limited 
*****************************************************************
 49 The Spectrum: If they can't, neither can we

www.thespectrum.com - The Spectrum, St. George, UT

Saturday, January 13, 2007

Nearly 62 years ago, the United States unleashed its nuclear 
muscle, dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

It was a nightmarish display of might.

Since then, cooler heads have prevailed, even through the Cold
War and the fine line walked during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
That is until now as the specter of a nuclear strike looms large
over a very unstable world.

The Times of London broke a story this week about Israeli plans
to drop tactical nukes on Iran's uranium enrichment facilities
(http://www. timesonline .co.uk/art icle/0,,2089 2535310.html)at
sites in Natanz, Isfahan and Arak. Israeli pilots have
apparently been conducting training exercises based in Gibraltar
to prepare for such an attack.

The New York Times reports that the U.S. Nuclear Weapons Council
is moving forward to build the nation's first new nuclear
warhead in nearly 20 years(http://www.nytimes
.com/2007/01/07/washington/07nuke.html?ex=1168750800=7274456165fb
d3a6=5070=eta1)called the Reliable Replacement Warhead.

Initially, the new nuke would be used to re-tip submarine
missiles and ensure, according to sources, that the nuclear
arsenal remains robust.

A spokesman for the National Nuclear Security Administration
said the government would not proceed with the design and
manufacture of the weapon if testing is required. However, White
House officials disagree. Robert Joseph, under secretary of
state for arms control and international security, said the
administration should make no comment on testing.

Meanwhile, representatives from the Defense Threat Reduction
Agency recently completed a tour of Las Vegas, St. George and
Salt Lake City, touting the safety and benefits of the Divine
Strake test at the Nevada Test Site, an explosion of 700 tons of
ammonium nitrate and fuel oil.

This test is widely believed to be a precursor to renewed
nuclear testing at the NTS, a place where today's nuclear
arsenal was developed and tested; a place littered with
radioactive materials that have sat dormant in the desert since
1992.

On the other hand, the United States is pulling out all the
stops to bring an end to nuclear programs in North Korea and
Iran.

Explain that one, please.

You want a country to stop producing nuclear weapons. You sit
down at the table to discuss this and everybody knows that one
of the cards on the table is the death card - the one that holds
the key to using your nukes to take out theirs.

Why is it OK for the United States to hold that card?

Why is it not OK for Iran or North Korea to hold that card?

Don't you see, we all perceive the other guy, whoever he may be,
as a threat while we are the epitome of reason and calm.

It's arrogance at its highest level. It's intolerance at its
lowest level. It's trouble for all of us who happen to walk the
Earth right now.

Contact Local News Editor Ed Kociela at
ekociela@thespectrum.comor call 674-6237.
 
 Copyright ©2007 The Spectrum.
 All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 50 GAP: Senate Committee Reintroduces Whistleblower Protection Legislation
 
YubaNet.com
    
By: Government Accountability Project

 Published: Jan 13, 2007 at 08:52


The Government Accountability Project (GAP) applauds members of
the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee
for acting quickly today to plug a government accountability
loophole created last May when the Supreme Court's Garcetti v.
Ceballos decision canceled constitutional free speech rights for
government workers carrying out their job duties.
 
Senators Daniel Akaka (D-HI) and Susan Collins (R-ME), with
other committee leaders introduced the "Federal Employee
Protection of Disclosures Act," S.274, which includes this
reform amidst a general overhaul of the Whistleblower Protection
Act. In response to the court ruling, last June the Senate
agreed to identical legislation by unanimous consent as an
amendment to the 2007 National Defense Authorization Act. The
reform was killed by House leaders in a joint conference
committee after intensive back room pressure by the White House
and Justice Department, despite backing by four Senate and House
committee chairs. 

GAP has been pushing the reform for seven years, along with a
diverse coalition of 45 good government groups.
 
GAP Legal Director Tom Devine praised the Senate leaders for
moving quickly. "If the first 100 hours are reserved for
leadership by Democrats, restoring credible whistleblower rights
should be enacted in the first minute of bipartisan consensus.
It is the foundation for effective congressional oversight and a
prerequisite for enforcement of ethics reform. If Congress is
serious about those goals, it will start protecting its
witnesses."
 
The legislation restores the mandate of the Whistleblower
Protection Act (WPA), which has been gutted by judicial activism
since 1994, when Congress unanimously strengthened the WPA. The
amendment also strengthens the due process enforcement structure
for WPA paper rights, and applies them to a broader set of
harassment scenarios, such as security clearance actions,
retaliatory investigations and gag orders.
 
Specifically, the legislation would –
 
· Codify the legislative history for "any" protected disclosure,
meaning the WPA applies to all lawful communication of
misconduct. This restores "no loopholes" protection and cancels
the effect of Garcetti v. Ceballos on federal workers.
 
· Restore the unqualified, original "reasonable belief" standard
established in the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act for
whistleblowers to qualify for protection.
 
· Make permanent and provide a remedy for the anti-gag statute –
a rider in the Treasury Postal Appropriations bill for the past
17 years – that bans illegal agency gag orders. The anti-gag
statute neutralizes hybrid secrecy categories like
"classifiable," "sensitive but unclassified," "sensitive
security information" and other new labels that lock in prior
restraint secrecy status, enforced by threat of criminal
prosecution for unclassified whistleblowing disclosures by
national security whistleblowers.
 
· Codify protection against retaliatory investigations, giving
whistleblowers a chance to end reprisals in their early stages.
 
· Bar the President from imposing ex post facto "intelligence
employee" status to strip employees of their merit system rights
after they assert them by filing a lawsuit.
 
· End the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals monopoly on appellate
review of the Whistleblower Protection Act (The Court has
single-handedly gutted the WPA, leading to a 2-129 record
against whistleblowers from October 1994 to October 2006),
restoring all-Circuit review, as in the original 1978 Civil
Service Reform Act and the Administrative Procedures Act.
 
· Restore independent due process review of security clearance
determinations for whistleblower reprisal, unavailable since a
1985 Supreme Court decision. 

· Provide specific authority for whistleblowers to disclose
classified information to Members of Congress on relevant
oversight committees or their staff.
 
· Strengthen the Office of Special Counsel's authority to seek
disciplinary sanctions against managers who retaliate.
 
· Authorize the Special Counsel to file friend of the court
briefs.
 

The legislation covers 94.4 percent (1.67 of 1.77 million) of
federal employees, and 88.3 percent (755,000 of 855,000) of
national security whistleblowers at agencies like the Pentagon,
Department of Homeland Security, Department of Energy (DOE) and
Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). But, the bill does not
contain five critical reforms approved last year by the House
Government Reform Committee in two bills, H.R. 1317 and H.R.
5112. These include protection for national security
whistleblowers at the FBI and intelligence agencies, protection
for government contractors, protection for federal baggage
screeners, jury trials for a fair day in court, and
neutralization of the government's use of the "state secrets
privilege" as a way to cancel whistleblower trials.
 
Jury trials are the cornerstone of Congress' Sarbanes-Oxley
reform for corporate workers, and were approved in 2005's Energy
Policy Act for employees at the DOE and NRC. The legislation
also does not address the Office of Special Counsel's abdication
of leadership by Special Counsel Scott Bloch, who has
effectively terminated that agency's mission to help
whistleblowers and turned it into a magnet for contempt by
federal workers.
 
GAP Legislative Representative Adam Miles commented, "When first
proposed in 2000, the Senate bill would have solved the
breakdown of whistleblower law. But the legislation has not
changed significantly during a six year secrecy tidal wave. We
urge the Senate to modernize this legislation before a final
vote. The composite Senate and House committee-passed bills last
session reflect the best practices of global whistleblower law." 

Government Accountability Project
 
The Government Accountability Project is the nation's leading
whistleblower protection organization. Through litigating
whistleblower cases, publicizing concerns and developing legal
reforms, GAP's mission is to protect the public interest by
promoting government and corporate accountability. Founded in
1977, GAP is a non-profit, non-partisan advocacy organization
with offices in Washington, D.C. and Seattle, WA. 


    Copyright © 2007 YubaNet.com, all rights reserved.         
*****************************************************************
 51 Salt Lake Tribune: Let's band together and put an end to this Divine madness

01/13/2007 01:48:41 PM MST 	 
Barb Guy

  + »I wrote about Divine Strake once before. In a draft of that
earlier column, I called it a "bomb test." 

   A wise friend said I couldn't say "bomb" because Divine
Strake will measure not a bomb but an explosion of ANFO, the
fertilizer concoction Timothy McVeigh made famous. (How did he
make it famous? By "bomb"-ing the federal building in Oklahoma
City.) 

    I omitted the word out of respect for my friend but I never
fully comprehended the subtle nuance - and it would surely be
lost on those who went to work at the Murrah Federal Building
that morning in 1995 - but that world-class word wrangle warmed
me up well for last Wednesday's public information session on
Divine Strake at the Grand America Hotel. 

    By the end of the evening, more words, words like "public"
and "information," would be called into question. 

    The session was to be at - and I've never had to write this
before - EnergySolutions Arena, but at the last minute the venue
changed to the Imperial Room at the Grand America. There's a lot
there for a person to ponder. 

    First, the mysterious move. Did the Defense Threat Reduction
Agency dread being seen with the Melta Center, or was it vice
versa? Or was it about minimizing attendance and dissent? In an
atmosphere like the Imperial Room, imaginations can run wild and
conspiracy theories can pop, unbidden, into the minds of
rational people. 
    
Not to take this word business too far, but most folks who were
at the meeting feel we'd have a Grander, less Imperial-ist,
America if only we'd quit devising new ways to bomb, no matter
what we call the ensuing explosion. 

    How do I know this? Usually at a public hearing you get to
hear what folks think as they step to a microphone and comment
for the record, but this public information session was more
like a sedate trade show, with tables quietly staffed by the
Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration
Nevada Test Site Office (whew!) and the Department of Defense's
Defense Threat Reduction Agency. 

    One fellow hollered out to ask if people were against the
proposed test. The room erupted in the affirmative and off-duty
police officers in sportcoats rushed to unceremoniously escort
the guy out. People asked why he was being ejected and the
response was, "This is a private meeting." Wait. No. So their
Divine Intervention, if you will, was one sign of trouble. 

    I met Aralee Scothern in the Imperial Room. She attributes
the deaths of some family members to past nuclear testing. She
said, "In the '50s they told us it was safe. My father got close
enough to see the mushroom cloud with binoculars. The whole crew
he went with died of cancer." 

    A number of the good people who saved us from the MX Missile
were there, some complaining of being too old to go through all
this again, but yet there they were, ready to fight the Divine
Strake test. 

    Thus, the brightest spot of the evening for me was meeting
Kerry Stephenson and his Troop 973 Boy Scouts, Roberto Unzaga,
Johnny Thackeray and Ryan Hilton. They were working on their
Citizenship badges and they're all aspiring Eagle Scouts. 

    Kerry had the presence of mind to do what we all should be
doing, mentoring the next generation of concerned, involved
Utahns. Kerry probably doesn't care what his Boy Scouts think
about Divine Strake, he just wants them to be engaged citizens. 

    I hope this charming Boy Scout leader and his charges come
to the next Divine Strake meeting, this one sponsored by Gov.
Jon Huntsman. I think the governor is a pretty good guy and I
trust that at his "public hearing" the public will be heard. 

    The hearing is Jan. 24, at the Utah State Capitol West
Building, Room 135, 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. Come and bring the kids. 
   
Â© Copyright 2006, The Salt Lake Tribune. 
*****************************************************************
 52 Sf Chronicle: Ross Report: Return of the Doomsday Clock
 
The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists sent out a "news advisory"
this morning advising us that next Wednesday it will move
forward the minute hand of the "Doomsday Clock", the first such
change since February 2002 when it stood at seven minutes to
midnight. 

The "major new step," the announcement states, reflects growing 
concerns about a "Second Nuclear Age" marked by grave threats, 
including: nuclear ambitions in Iranand North Korea, unsecured 
nuclear materials in Russiaand elsewhere, the continuing 
"launch-ready" status of 2,000 of the 25,000 nuclear weapons held 
by the U.S.and Russia, escalating terrorism, and new pressure 
from climate change for expanded civilian nuclear powerthat could 
increase proliferationrisks. 

The clock change promises to be a gala occasion, with
simultaneous events at the American Association for the
Advancement of Sciencein Washington, D.C., and The Royal
Societyin London. 

Speakers are scheduled to include such luminaries as Stephen
Hawking, Lord Martin Rees, president of The Royal Society, and
former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., Thomas Pickering. 

The advisory did not say how close to midnight the Doomsday
Clock will be set at. 

Posted By: Andrew S Ross (Email) | January 12 2007

SFGate
*****************************************************************
 53 Developer wants more tests on land near contamination

BY CHRISTOPHER O'DONNELL

TALLEVAST -- A legal battle between the state and a developer
could further delay the cleanup of contaminated ground water in
Tallevast.

Trey Desenberg, who is planning a 37-acre industrial park in
Tallevast, is asking a judge to rule that the state was wrong to
sign off on a survey it says shows how far ground-water
contamination from an old beryllium plant has spread.

Lockheed Martin, the company responsible for cleaning up the
contamination that covers more than 200 acres, is already
working on a plan to remove the pollution from the ground water.
But until a judge rules on the case, the company will not be
able to finalize the plan.

A hearing has been set for Feb. 13, but it may be weeks or
months after that before the judge makes a ruling.

"It's hard to speculate what that might impact," said Gail
Rymer, a spokeswoman for Lockheed. "I don't believe it requires
additional surveys or that it won't be taken care of in the next
round of sampling we have to do."

Lockheed's most recent survey shows that some of the ground
water underneath Desenberg's property is contaminated.

But attorneys for Desenberg say there has not been enough
testing on other parts of Desenberg's property at the northwest
corner of Tallevast Road and U.S. 301.

Ralph DeMeo, Desenberg's attorney, said there was a danger that
the cleanup plan would leave contaminated areas untouched.
Concern about pollution could also hinder Desenberg's plans for
a commercial park.

"We would need to be able to reassure local government and
future tenants that there would not be any impact," DeMeo said.
"Until the assessment is done, we would not be in a position to
do that."

Desenberg's decision came as a surprise to Tallevast residents,
who after protesting against his proposed commercial park now
find him siding with their request for more testing.

"It shocks me even more because it's Trey Desenberg, and we as a
community had issues with him building on that property," said
Wanda Washington, vice president for the community group FOCUS.
"For him to file saying there may be more contamination
surprises me.

The polluted ground water at Tallevast has been traced to a
former American Beryllium Co. plant, which for nearly 40 years
built parts for nuclear warheads under contract with the federal
government.

Lockheed became the owner of the site in 1996 when it acquired
Loral Corp.

It later sold the property, but not before discovering soil and
ground-water pollution on and around the site. In 2000, Lockheed
notified county and state officials of the pollution.

DeMeo said that since filing the petition, Lockheed has agreed
to do more testing. But unless the petition is dropped, the
deadline for Lockheed to submit a plan will continue to slide,
said Pamala Vazquez, a spokeswoman for the Florida Department of
Environmental Protection.

"We're still continuing conversations with Lockheed Martin, but
the time clock on their remedial action plan has not yet begun
yet," she said. 


Last modified: January 13. 2007 4:56AM TALLEVAST -
*****************************************************************
 54 Japan Times: Britain tells five Japanese to get polonium-exposure test | 

japantimes.co.jp               

Saturday, Jan. 13, 2007

LONDON (Kyodo) British health authorities have advised five
Japanese they should be tested for possible exposure to
polonium-210, the radioactive substance believed to have caused
the death of ex-Russian Federal Security Service agent Alexander
Litvinenko late last year, Japanese Consulate General officials
said Thursday. 

The names of the five Japanese, who have since returned to
Japan, were given to the London consulate, which contacted the
five by telephone and other means, they said. 
The five had visited the bar at the Millennium Mayfair Hotel in
London around Nov. 1, the same bar visited by Litvinenko on Nov.
1 before he fell ill, they said. 

The consulate said it cannot release the names or addresses of
the five. 

British health authorities have so far tested urine samples of
596 British residents who were confirmed to be at places visited
by Litvinenko. While more than 100 of them were suspected of
being exposed to polonium, the level of radiation posed no
health risk to most, authorities said. 

But Britain has been advising about 450 others, mostly foreign
tourists, around the world who were possibly exposed to the
radiation but have yet to be tested. 

It is thought that Litvinenko, who was a constant critic of
Russian President Vladimir Putin, was deliberately given a
lethal dose of polonium. 

The Japan Times (C) All rights reserved 
*****************************************************************
 55 North County Times: 40 years of radioactive waste is more than enough - 

The Californian - Community Forums 
	
 . Last modified Friday, January 12, 2007 7:38 PM PST 

e-mailed to opinion@nctimes.com as text pasted in the body of
Opinion desk, North County Times, 207 E. Pennsylvania Ave., 
Escondido, CA 92025; and FAX to (760) 745-3769. 

By: ROCHELLE BECKER - Commentary                

The goal of the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility is to limit
the production and storage of high-level radioactive waste
produced at San Onofre Nuclear Generations Station to Southern
California Edison's current license of 40 years. When these
licenses expire in the mid-2020s, California's nuclear reactors
(designed in the 1960s) will have left the following radioactive
waste and large radioactive components on our coast: reactor
vessel heads, turbine rotors, steam generators and a new onsite
radioactive waste storage facility. This list is not exhaustive.

Forty years is long enough. The state has passed legislation
---- without a single "no" vote ---- directing the California
Energy Commission to analyze the costs, benefits and risks of
the state's reliance on aging nuclear plants, acknowledging the
threat to California's economy if we do not plan for a reliable
energy future. This study will determine whether nuclear
reactors will be reliable, safe and economically viable until
2045. 		

We are concerned with the growing stockpiles of radioactive
material on our fragile coast. We are equally alarmed by the
failure of aging components, originally designed to last the
full 40-year term, deteriorating and needing to be replaced
after only 20 years. Will billions of dollars of components need
to be replaced again? What other unanticipated costs and
expenses await the ratepayers? Will these aging plants be
reliable for another 40 years if license renewals are granted?
			
Pacific Gas &Electric has asked the California Public Utilities
Commission to pass on the cost of a $14 million,
utility-controlled feasibility study of license renewal to the
ratepayers. If the commission grants this request, it is likely
that Edison will ask the same for San Onofre. The commission
should deny PG's request for an in-house study as premature
until the state's study is completed.

As we plan for our energy future, all cities, counties,
agencies, schools and nonprofits that may be financially
impacted if or when California's nuclear plants are shut down
should be closely involved in the California Energy Commission
process. We will be requesting San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara,
Orange and San Diego counties increase their participation in
the analysis ---- to assure the voices of their constituents are
heard in Sacramento.

Edison is touting its new solar and other renewable projects,
and in Northern California PG has used ratepayer dollars
administered through the PUC to tout its efficiency and
renewable energy goals. They have given us a series of TV
commercials proclaiming that the future is "wind, sun and
water." Rarely is continued operation of aging nuclear reactors
mentioned as Edison advertises its future-generation sources.
California can replace 4,000 megawatts with safe, clean,
efficient energy. Why not work together with the California
Energy Commission to make this slogan a genuine reality?

If you are interested in joining the efforts of the alliance,
please call (858) 337-2703 or visit www.a4nr.org for meetings,
information and action alerts.

Rochelle Becker is executive director of the Alliance for
Nuclear Responsibility. 

© 1997-2007 North County Times
*****************************************************************
 56 Deseret News: Utah delegates seem pleased with committee posts

[deseretnews.com] 

Sunday, January 14, 2007
		
By Suzanne Struglinski

Deseret Morning News

WASHINGTON — The Utah congressional delegation has finally 
received committee assignments for the new Congress, and they all 
claim the new positions will help them better serve the state.

       With the power shift to the Democrats in both chambers,
some reshuffling among committee assignments was necessary. The
majority party has more members and more control over the
committees, but Utah's mainly Republican delegation seems happy
with the results.

       Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, will be on the health; energy
and air quality; and commerce, trade and consumer protection
subcommittees that fall under the House Energy and Commerce
Committee. Under

       House rules, this is the only committee to which he can
belong, but with its broad jurisdiction, it suits Matheson just
fine.

       The health subcommittee oversees public health,
biomedical programs, Medicaid and national health insurance, and
food and drugs, while the energy and air quality subcommittee
handles national energy policy, nuclear facility regulation,
nuclear energy and waste, and the Clean Air Act, according to
Matheson's office. Commerce, trade and consumer protection looks
at privacy matters, product liability, motor vehicle safety and
oversees the Federal Trade Commission.

       "Whether it's cleaning up the Moab tailings pile,
fighting against high-level nuclear waste or protecting kids
from adult material on the Internet, I am in the right place at
the right time to pursue an agenda that is important to Utah
families," Matheson said in a statement.

       In the last Congress, Matheson served on the House
Financial Services, the House Science Committee and the House
Transportation and Infrastructure committees.

       Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, will be juggling more committees
than in the last session. He previously served on the powerful
House Rules Committee, which prohibited him from being on other
panels.

       Bishop's office announced that he has been appointed to
the Armed Services, Resources and Education and Labor committees.

       Bishop will serve on the Army and Air Force subcommittee
and the readiness subcommittee of the Armed Services Committee.

       Bishop called the assignments "good news" for him and for
the district.

       "These committees affect Utah, for better or worse, and
so I want to make sure those impacts are positive," Bishop said.

       The assignments will allow him to do good things for Hill
Air Force Base and the state's other military installations, as
well as monitor legislation affecting public lands. And the
former high school teacher will likely be helpful on the
Education Committee.

       "With the majority of Utah's military structure and
personnel in the 1st District, being on the Armed Services
Committee is critical. There are good things to be done for Hill
Air Force Base, our other installations, and for those who fight
to keep us safe and free. With all the public lands in Utah, the
resources panel plays a key role in the future of our state. And
as a former teacher and resident of a state that cares deeply
about educating its kids, I hope the Education Committee will be
a helpful spot to be as well," Bishop said.

       Bishop returns to the Armed Services Committee with
seniority, because he originally served on the committee during
his first term in 2003. Because being on the Rules Committee
prohibits members from being on any other committees, they are
allowed to be deemed "on leave" from a committee on which they
previously served, according to Bishop's office.

       Rep. Chris Cannon kept all his committee assignments —
Judiciary, House Oversight and Government Reform and Natural
Resources, making him one of the few Republicans to serve on
three committees.

       Cannon's Judiciary Committee post will allow him to work
on immigration issues and Internet taxation. With the change in
House leadership, Cannon said government reform "is going to be
a very demanding and challenging assignment." His specific
subcommittees have not yet been assigned.

       Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, has a new assignment on the
military construction appropriations subcommittee and will be
the top Republican member on the agriculture appropriations
subcommittee. He will keep his seat on the interior, energy and
water, transportation/housing, and state/foreign operations
appropriations subcommittees as well as the Senate Banking and
Joint Economic committees.

       Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, will remain on his same Senate
committees too. They include Finance; Judiciary; Intelligence;
and Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, also known as HELP.

© 2007 Deseret News Publishing Company

*****************************************************************
 57 POAC: NRC denies effort to halt waste storage
 
The Department of Environmental Protection filed a legal document 
in December asking the federal government to throw out an option 
that allows companies to bury, seal and fence off waste for long 
periods of time â€” the same plan that has been proposed by the 
Shield alloy Metallurgical Corp. in Newfield. 

  [The Press of Atlantic City 

DEP had asked federal government not to allow option Shieldalloy 
proposed 

By TOM NAMAKO Staff Writer, (856) 794-5115 

Published: Saturday, January 13, 2007 NEWFIELD â€” The state's 
attempt to hinder a local industry's plan to store slightly 
radioactive waste in the borough was denied Friday.

 The Department of Environmental Protection filed a legal
document in December asking the federal government to throw out
an option that allows companies to bury, seal and fence off
waste for long periods of time â€” the same plan that has been
proposed by the Shieldalloy Metallurgical Corp. in Newfield.

 The DEP also asked that the federal Nuclear Regulatory
Commission's review of the plan be halted while both sides look
at the issue. The NRC will make a decision on the plan in
October 2008.

 The presidentially appointed five-member panel of the NRC
denied those requests Thursday.

 A highly technical, five-page document argued that the DEP can
file a hearing request like every other citizen if it disputes
the NRC's rules for reviewing long-term waste disposal.

 The NRC didn't make any statements on two other DEP documents
filed in December: one a lawsuit that could stop the review of
Shieldalloy's plan, the other a request that the NRC change the
way decommissioning â€” or safe disposal plans like
Shieldalloy's â€” are carried out, NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan
said.

 Meanwhile, members of the public are allowed to ask for a
formal hearing in front of a three-judge NRC panel challenging
specific parts of Shieldalloy's plan.

 The deadline to file a request for a hearing is Tuesday.

 And so far, no one â€” not a state or county official, not an
elected politician or a local citizen â€” has sent in the
paperwork, Sheehan said. Requests can be filed by mail, courier,
fax or e-mail, according to the Federal Register notice.

 Some officials thought their attorneys filed hearing documents
Friday, while others didn't know the deadline was looming.

 â€œI've unofficially heard that some entities are going to
file, but I haven't seen anything yet,â€ Sheehan said Friday.

 The hearing won't simply accept arguments that say, â€œI just
don't want the waste in my backyard,â€ Sheehan said. Instead,
they have to make a specific, technical argument about a problem
with Shieldalloy's plan.

 The three-judge NRC panel could either deny the hearing,
determine that a specific issue needs to be fixed, or can the
plan altogether, Sheehan said.

 Newfield Mayor Joseph Curcio said Friday that he authorized the
borough solicitor to request a hearing.

 â€œI think (the NRC) will have it in their hands today,â€ he
said, although he didn't know what aspect of the plan the
borough would contest.

 Cumberland County Freeholder Lou Magazzu was surprised to hear
that Tuesday was the deadline â€” he said the Southern New
Jersey Freeholder Association planned to meet Jan. 22 to talk
about filing a hearing request.

 But by later Friday, Magazzu and Cumberland County Freeholder
Director Doug Rainear said they would join in any hearing
request filed by the DEP instead of filing their own.

 â€œOne of the things we have to be mindful of is that we have
to use legal dollars judiciously,â€ Magazzu said.

 Assemblyman David Mayer said that he, Assemblyman Paul Moriarty
and state Sen. Fred Madden sent a letter to the NRC requesting a
hearing.

 â€œI think it's beneficial to have a hearing,â€ he said.
â€œThat way, the public will be able to offer more evidence
concerning hardship this plan and site has caused in the area.
It gives us another opportunity to make our arguments.â€

 Mayer also said that the Gloucester County Freeholder Board and
the DEP sent requests for hearings to the NRC, but spokeswoman
Elaine Makatura and Gloucester County Freeholder Director
Stephen Sweeney did not return messages Friday asking whether
they filed a hearing request.
*****************************************************************
 58 POAC: DEP loses bid to stop radioactive-waste plan
 
The Department of Environmental Protection filed a legal document 
in December that asked the federal government to throw out an 
option that allows companies to bury, seal and fence off waste 
for long periods of time â€” the same plan that has been proposed 
by the Shieldalloy Metallurgical Corp. in Newfield. 

  [The Press of Atlantic City

By TOM NAMAKO Staff Writer, (856) 794-5115 

Published: Saturday, January 13, 2007

NEWFIELD â€” The state's attempt to hinder a local industry's 
plan to store slightly radioactive waste in the borough was 
denied on Friday.

 The Department of Environmental Protection filed a legal
document in December that asked the federal government to throw
out an option that allows companies to bury, seal and fence off
waste for long periods of time â€” the same plan that has been
proposed by the Shieldalloy Metallurgical Corp. in Newfield.

 The DEP also asked that the federal Nuclear Regulatory
Commission's review of the plan be halted while both sides look
at the issue. The NRC will make a decision on the plan in
October 2008.

 The presidentially appointed five-member panel of the NRC
denied those requests Thursday.

 A highly technical, five-page document argued that the DEP can
file a hearing request like every other citizen if it disputes
the NRC's rules for reviewing long-term waste disposal.

 The NRC didn't make any statements on two other DEP documents
filed in December: one a lawsuit that could stop the review of
Shieldalloy's plan, the other a request that the NRC change the
way decommissioning â€” or safe disposal plans like
Shieldalloy's â€” are carried out, NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan
said.

 Meanwhile, members of the public are allowed to ask for a
formal hearing in front of a three-judge NRC panel challenging
specific parts of Shieldalloy's plan.

 The deadline to file a request for a hearing is Tuesday.

 And so far, no one â€” not a state or county official, not an
elected politician or a local citizen â€” has sent in the
paperwork, Sheehan said. Requests can be filed by mail, courier,
fax or e-mail, according to the Federal Register notice.

 Some officials thought their attorneys filed hearing documents
Friday, while others didn't know the deadline was looming.

 â€œI've unofficially heard that some entities are going to
file, but I haven't seen anything yet,â€ Sheehan said Friday.

 The hearing won't simply accept arguments that say, â€œI just
don't want the waste in my back yard,â€ Sheehan said. Instead,
they have to make a specific, technical argument about a problem
with Shieldalloy's plan.

 The three-judge NRC panel could either the hearing, determine
that a specific issue needs to be fixed, or can the plan all
together, Sheehan said.

 Newfield Mayor Joseph Curcio said Friday that he authorized the
borough solicitor to request a hearing.

 â€œI think (the NRC) will have it in their hands today,â€ he
said, although he didn't know what aspect of the plan the
borough would contest.

 Cumberland County Freeholder Lou Magazzu was surprised to hear
that Tuesday was the deadline â€” he said the Southern New
Jersey Freeholder Association planned to meet Jan. 22 to talk
about filing a hearing request.

 But by later Friday, Magazzu and Cumberland County Freeholder
Director Doug Rainear said they would join in any hearing
request filed by the DEP instead of filing their own hearing
request.

 â€œOne of the things we have to be mindful of is that we have
to use legal dollars judiciously,â€ Magazzu said.

 Assemblyman David Mayer said that he, Assemblyman Paul Moriarty
and state Sen. Fred Madden sent a letter to the NRC requesting a
hearing.

 â€œI think it's beneficial to have a hearing,â€ he said.
â€œThat way, the public will be able to offer more evidence
concerning hardship this plan and site has caused in the area.
It gives us another opportunity to make our arguments.â€

 Mayer also said that the Gloucester County Freeholder Board and
the DEP sent requests for hearings to the NRC, but spokeswoman
Elaine Makatura and Gloucester County Freeholder Director
Stephen Sweeney did not return messages Friday asking whether
they filed a hearing request.

 To e-mail Tom Namako at The Press:

 TNamako@pressofac.com		       	 
  

*****************************************************************
 59 Salt Lake Tribune: Agency issues report on Utah environment

By Judy Fahys

 The Salt Lake Tribune

01/12/2007 06:39:18 AM MST

Posted: 6:39 AM- The Utah Department of Environmental Quality
released a new report Thursday that enumerates the state's
accomplishments in improving the air, land and water. 

    "By many measures, our environment is healthier today than
it was in the 1970s," says Department of Environmental Quality
Director Dianne R. Neilson in an opening letter to the 40-page
booklet. 

    Packed with informational graphics and photos, the report
focuses on bringing ordinary Utahns up to speed on the agency's
wide-ranging responsibilities to "safeguard public health and
our quality of life by protecting and enhancing our
environment." 

    Both successes and challenges are described in separate
sections on air, land, water and mercury, an environmental
contaminant that has made prompted cautions for six duck and
fish species in Utah waters. 

    The report does not include mention of the state's efforts
to outlaw higher levels of radioactive waste, the struggles over
the Legacy Highway through Davis County and to address climate
change. 

    Nielson said the effort, the first of its kind for the
state, does not paint too rosy of a picture of the state of the
environment. The report also describes challenges ahead, such as
keeping air quality on the Wasatch Front good enough to avoid
additional regulations and possible restrictions on road funding, 
she said. 

    Tim Wagner of the Sierra Club called the report good overall
but questioned the lack of information on greenhouse gasses,
which are a major contributor to global warming. He also urged
policymakers to use the information as a stepping stone, and not
the justification for slowing environmental efforts. 

    "With their help," he said, "we could see even better
improvements." 
    
    The Utah Department of Environmental Quality has posted it
report on Utah's environment and is inviting comment on it at .

Â© Copyright 2006, The Salt Lake Tribune. 
*****************************************************************
 60 KnoxNews: Daxor expanding Oak Ridge operations

Biotech firm merging work into 2 buildings it bought for $775,000

By BOB FOWLER, fowlerb@knews.com 

January 13, 2007                                                                

OAK RIDGE - A biotech company that makes a device for measuring 
blood volume is consolidating operations in two buildings it 
recently purchased. 

Daxor Corp. paid $775,000 for two 10,000-square-foot buildings on 
Meco Lane in east Oak Ridge. 

Business partner Technical Machine Services bought two other, 
similar-sized buildings on Meco Lane for the same price. 

Technical Marine will assemble the $65,000 Blood Volume Analyzer 
BVA-100 for Daxor in one of its buildings and lease the other, 
said Daxor Chief Operating Officer Stephen Feldschuh. 

Daxor will use one of its buildings for research and development 
and the other for storing the radioactive isotope iodine 131, 
which is used in the blood volume analysis process, Feldschuh 
said. 

Daxor, with 50 employees scattered across the country, now
employs between 10 and 15 people at its current Oak Ridge
facilities. It leases space on Union Valley Road and in nearby
Commerce Park. 

With the purchase of the new buildings, the company should ramp
up local employment to between 50 and 75 workers in three to
four years, Feldschuh said. 

"We have very big growth plans,'' he said. 

The company is seeking the necessary federal, state and local
permits for processing and storing the isotope, which Feldschuh
says has an eight-day half-life. 

"There are a fair amount of logistical steps,'' he said of the
permitting process. 

Daxor, founded in 1970 in New York City, is a pioneer in
cryogenics and has thousands of frozen sperm specimens stored in
the Empire State Building, Feldschuh said. 

The firm's patented venture into blood volume analysis is a
relatively new technique that provides quicker results than
conventional procedures for measuring blood volume, he said. 

It can be used in emergency rooms and to diagnose congestive
heart failure, high blood pressure and other ailments, Feldschuh
said. 

"The market for this is huge,'' he said. There are 6,300
hospitals in the U.S., and each hospital could use up to six
analyzers, Feldschuh said. 

Major cardiology clinics would also be potential customers, he
said. 

New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts were among states that
tried to lure Daxor into relocating from its current leased
spaces in Oak Ridge, Feldschuh said. 

"I felt that our best opportunity for expansion and acceptance
was really in Oak Ridge,'' he said. "At the end of the day, it
just felt right.'' 

Both buildings, previously owned by Melton Lake Properties
General Partnership, will require interior renovations before
they are occupied. 

Daxor is traded on the AMEX Stock Exchange under the symbol DXR. 

Bob Fowler, News Sentinel Anderson County editor, may be reached
at 865-481-3625.

© 2007 - Knoxville News Sentinel
*****************************************************************
 61 Tri-City Herald: Battelle gives $750,000 for education 

Published Friday, January 12th, 2007 

By John Trumbo, Herald staff writer 

Students in Washington can expect to see more hands-on science
in their classrooms soon thanks to a $750,000 gift from Battelle
Memorial Institute. 

Battelle's donation is earmarked to expand the Washington State
Leadership and Assistance for Science Education Reform program
into the state's high schools over the next three years. Also
known as LASER, the program is a partnership of private and
public entities that works to improve science and math education
in public schools. 

It comes just as Gov. Chris Gregoire prepares to recommend a
four-fold increase in state funding for science education over
the next biennium. 

Battelle's contribution includes about $100,000 to support the
Battelle Science Materials Resource Center in Kennewick. The
center already provides science education materials for
classrooms and professional development opportunities for more
than 700 teachers in 16 school districts from the Tri-Cities to
Clarkston, reaching 25,200 elementary and middle school
students. 

The remaining money will be divided equally between the Pacific
Science Center in Seattle and for introducing the science
education model into high schools elsewhere across the state. 

Battelle, which manages the Pacific Northwest National
Laboratory in Richland, has been a partner in LASER from the
start. 

LASER was introduced in 1999 to encourage teachers to have
elementary school students do more hands-on discovery in science
and math. Today 151 school districts serving 75 percent of
Washington students have adopted the LASER model. 

Carl Kohrt, president and CEO of Battelle, told the Tri-City
Herald editorial board Thursday that Battelle is committed to
developing the nation's technical literacy through programs like
LASER. 

"We want to be involved. We want to catalyze something a
community can grow and call its own," Kohrt said. Battelle's
collaboration with the Pacific Science Center is a way to ensure
there is "a pipeline of young people who are capable of leading
our country 20 years from now," he said. 

Bryce Seidl, CEO of the Pacific Science Center, said Battelle's
gift and involvement in LASER "is changing the way science is
taught" by "improving the capacities of teachers to teach." 

The donation comes just when Gov. Gregoire is preparing to
release her budget proposal to invest more in science and math
education. 

"Science and math skills are critical for success in our
innovation economy," Gregoire said in a Battelle release dated
today. "The LASER program is an exciting public-private
partnership that brings world-class resources to our teachers
and enables our students to learn science better through
hands-on, minds-on instruction." 

Jeff Estes, a co-director of the state's LASER program and
manager of science and engineer education at PNNL, said the
governor's commitment "will help schools get started and make
what is already going more robust." 

LASER has received $3 million from the state in the past two
years, but because of its successes, part of it demonstrated in
WASL science and math scores, Gregoire is recommending $12
million in the next biennium. 

That would expand LASER to about 1,000 more classrooms, said
Judy Hartmann, the governor's executive policy adviser for
grades K-12. Hartmann said LASER has proved it can work. 

Battelle staff reported that schools using the LASER model in
science instruction have seen "as much as a 20 percent increase
in the number of students reaching proficiency on the WASL
exam." 

LASER's success prompted Battelle and the Pacific Science Center
to establish a leadership institute in the Tri-Cities where
science teachers and administrators from throughout Washington
can learn the LASER model of teaching science. 

© 2007 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press &Other Wire Services
*****************************************************************
 62 Tri-City Herald: Low-level waste landfill records falsified 

Published Saturday, January 13th, 2007 

By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer 

A Hanford subcontractor discovered Friday that data related to
the long-term integrity of the nuclear reservation's low-level
radioactive waste landfill had been falsified. 

"This has everyone's attention," said Pat Pettiette, president
of contractor Washington Closure Hanford. "All the focus is on
getting to the bottom of it." 

S.M. Stoller, which holds the subcontract to operate the
Environmental Restoration Disposal Facility, or ERDF, found the
problem during a routine audit. 

After contaminated soil and building debris from the cleanup of
Hanford is added to the landfill, bulldozers are used to compact
it with different standards followed for different types of
material. 

That ensures that once the landfill is closed and an engineered
cap is placed on the top to make sure water does not infiltrate
contaminated waste, the cap remains secure. If compaction is not
adequate, settling can occur that disturbs the cap. 

Bulldozers run nearly continuously at the landfill, and at least
once per shift a technician goes in with instruments to test
compaction and confirm that it is adequate. 

But Stoller officials noticed that one worker recorded results
for compaction tests when there was no record of the worker
entering the contamination area where he would have needed to be
to perform the tests. 

When questioned, the employee admitted to making entries for
data without performing the test on some occasions over the last
year, said Jeff James, director of waste operations for
Washington Closure. 

In recent months another employee has been doing most of the
compaction tests. The employee who admitted to entering false
data no longer works for Stoller, said Jim Archibald, Stoller
vice president. 

Stoller has evaluated whether there is other data that employee
was responsible for that could compromise the landfill and
determined the compaction tests were the only problem, Archibald
said. 

An investigation is continuing. Among unanswered questions is
the extent of falsified tests. 

The Environmental Protection Agency, which regulates the
landfill, was notified of the problem Friday but does not know
enough yet to draw conclusions on any long-term effects, said
Nick Ceto, EPA Hanford project manager. 

"It does raise concerns about the operation," he said. 

The Department of Energy also is continuing to evaluate the
problem, said DOE spokeswoman Karen Lutz. 

Until Washington Closure knows more, "we have to expect the
worst," Pettiette said. 

But because the compaction methods are sound, odds of a problem
with the compaction are low, he said. 

"I fundamentally believe in the integrity of the landfill," he
said. 

Thousands of compaction tests have been done at ERDF over the
last decade and only a handful have showed that compaction was
inadequate, James said. In most of those cases, another pass by
a bulldozer solved the problem, he said. 

Some of the areas of the landfill where compaction data is
suspected of being falsified have not had more waste piled on
top yet. Checks will be done on those areas. 

Monday, Stoller plans a stand down at the landfill to emphasize
the importance of following requirements, although some limited
work may be done that day, Archibald said. Both he and the
Stoller president plan to come to Hanford for the stand down. 

Pettiette said work wouldnot resume until Washington Closure and
Stoller are confident there will not be a problem going forward. 

Almost all the waste Washington Closure is removing from the 300
Area just north of Richland and from old nuclear reactor sites
along the Columbia River is buried at ERDF in central Hanford. 

It's tearing down buildings, digging up burial grounds and
digging up dirt contaminated from the past production of
plutonium for the nation's nuclear weapons program. 

© 2007 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press &Other Wire Services
*****************************************************************
 63 Tri-City Herald: Workers uncover Hanford test animals 

Published Sunday, January 14th, 2007 

By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer 

Hanford workers have removed 40,000 tons of carcasses, manure
and other waste from burial trenches at the former experimental
animal farms at Hanford. 

That included a railroad tanker car packed with animal
carcasses, then buried, said Mark Buckmaster, Washington Closure
Hanford remediation manager, during a presentation to a Hanford
Advisory Board committee last week. 

Up to 1,000 animals at a time were kept at the animal farm near
F Reactor along the banks of the Columbia River, Buckmaster
said. 

They ranged from rodents to cats and dogs to farm animals,
including cows, sheep, goats and pigs. In addition, the farm had
crocodiles, although no carcasses were found, Buckmaster said. 

And in interviews with former workers, one scientist remembered
rattlesnakes being raised at the farm. 

Animal experiments started at Hanford during World War II, when
plutonium was produced for the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki,
Japan. Some were planned to learn more about the health effects
of radiation to protect nuclear workers, and some were for
military knowledge. 

About 95 percent of the waste dug up from the animal farm
trenches was manure, and radiation checks found quite a bit of
it was contaminated with radioactive strontium 90, Buckmaster
said. 

Animal carcasses and sawdust in bags and boxes also were
recovered from the trenches. Only minimal radioactive
contamination was found in the carcasses, he said. 

Workers expected to find the rail car after an extensive
document search turned up information that animal carcasses were
packed into the car, fuel was added, then the contents were
incinerated. 

But the burn did not appear to work as planned. 

When workers opened the lid and took samples, they found almost
no ashes. Instead, the car was packed with smelly carcasses
wrapped in plastic that had minimal decay. 

All the waste was disposed of at the Environmental Restoration
Disposal Facility, a lined landfill for low-level radioactive
waste, in central Hanford. 

The animal experiments initially were done on fish, Michele
Gerber, a Richland historian, said last spring as preparations
to start cleaning up the trenches were being made. 

The radiological animal testing program underwent a major
expansion in the 1950s, with the largest testing program using
sheep to determine the possible health effects of radioactive
iodine released from Hanford stacks as irradiated fuel was
processed to remove plutonium. 

Different concentrations of radioactive iodine were included in
the sheep's feed during the program that lasted a decade, Gerber
said. 

Dogs were used for a time to test the health effects of
breathing radioactive particles. Another program used hairless
pigs to determine what might happen to soldiers if they entered
a nuclear battlefield, she said. 

Herald articles in the early 1960s talked about a manmade pond
with heat lamps that was home to as many as 55 alligators at the
animal farm. 

The alligators would hold their breath when they first smelled
ether that was used to put them to sleep so researchers could
conduct tests. 

Alligators can hold their breath for up to two hours. 

Researchers used to hypnotize them by carefully rubbing their
bellies, according to Hanford lore. 

The alligators escaped at least once in the early 1960s by
burrowing beneath a chain-link fence or slipping through gaps
where sections of the fence met. 

In a 2002 interview, retired researchers described following
their tracks down to the nearby Columbia River, where Hanford
reactors then discharged warm water. 

Most of the alligators were recovered, but an angler later
caught a 33-inch alligator on the Franklin County shore about
nine miles downriver from the farm near Ringold. He put it on
display at a local sports shop until Hanford officials
confiscated it. 

About 1970, the radiological animal program was scaled down and
moved to the 300 Area of Hanford, just north of Richland. 

Now workers are doing the final cleanup of the animal farm
trenches. It should be ready to backfill this summer, Buckmaster
said. 

© 2007 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press &Other Wire Services
*****************************************************************
 64 KnoxNews: DOE: Budget plan would cause delays in research

Official says new Spallation Neutron Source would sit idle, 
effects would be felt for years

By FRANK MUNGER, munger@knews.com 

January 13, 2007

OAK RIDGE - The newly constructed Spallation Neutron Source could 
sit idle for a year if Congress moves forward with a continuing 
resolution that maintains the 2007 federal budget at last year's 
levels. 

"To some extent, we'd be sitting on our hands," Thom Mason, the 
SNS chief at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, said Friday in a 
telephone interview. "It's the same impact as if we'd blown our 
(construction) schedule by a year." 

In a Jan. 10 report to Congress, the U.S. Department of
Energy identified research delays at Oak Ridge as one of the
critical impacts of a proposed budget plan. 

Based on the expected budget resolution, the SNS "would not
operate at all in FY 2007, and thus its ramp up to full power
and full user program would be delayed by one full year," DOE
said in the assessment sent to congressional staffers. The News
Sentinel obtained a copy of the letter. 

Construction of the $1.4 billion SNS was completed last year,
and the accelerator systems - even operating at limited power
levels - produced record-breaking bursts of neutrons during
tests. The neutrons will be used for experiments that explore
the structure and properties of materials in ways that
heretofore were impossible. 

ORNL was hailed for finishing the nation's biggest science
project ahead of schedule and well within its budget. 

The SNS, however, could be victimized because 2006 was a
transitional year - involving some construction, some
operations. Therefore, there wasn't a full year's operating
budget in place. 

Even if the 2007 budget allotment is based on the project's
total spending in 2006, the SNS will lose more than $40 million
in funding, Mason said. Instead of getting the requested $191
million, which includes money for new research instruments, the
Oak Ridge facility would be allowed to spend about $150 million,
he said. 

There are other scenarios that could be better or worse. 

The Democrat-controlled Congress is expected to act on the
yearlong continuing resolution within the next couple of weeks. 

DOE's overall budget was expected to be flat in 2007, but the
agency's Office of Science - including the SNS - was due to get
a big funding spike. That was in part because of the American
Competitive Initiative, a new effort designed to bolster the
nation's science research base. 

Mason said Oak Ridge officials remain hopeful that Congress will
make some changes before enacting across-the-board budget
restrictions, perhaps giving the Department of Energy authority
to redirect some of the agency's funding. 

SNS managers already have deferred any major purchases to help
prepare for possible budget problems, Mason said. "We're being
cautious," he said. 

Currently, the SNS and other ORNL facilities are operating under
short-term budget extensions approved by Congress last year. 

Even if Congress allows the SNS to operate at last year's total
funding level, that still would preclude running the linear
accelerator and neutron-producing systems, Mason said. It also
would postpone the acquisition of new instruments, he said. 

The staff would concentrate on system designs and study needed
improvements but would delay operations, Mason said. 

The SNS was operated in October-November 2006 and then shut down
for maintenance and testing. Workers currently are preparing the
research facilities for restart, pending the budget outcomes in
Washington. 

The research center employs about 400 people. 

Mason said layoffs aren't likely, but SNS probably would defer
additional hiring until budget restrictions are lifted. 

He said the biggest impacts would be felt not in 2007, but a
couple of years down the road when scientists from around the
world were expected to begin experiments at the SNS. Instead of
full research operations in 2008-09, when 200-300 scientific
users were expected, that work would be postponed until 2010, he
said. 

Senior writer Frank Munger may be reached at 865-342-6329.

© 2007 - Knoxville News Sentinel
*****************************************************************
 65 Tracy Press: Site 300 test threat
 	
EDITOR, 

Those of us whove lived in the rural area southwest of Tracy
since the 1970s have known when underground detonations at Site
300 have gone off as windows shudder and millions of tiny
fissures appear on the stucco exteriors of our houses. 

The reason the Royster Tire fire of 1998 was not extinguished
was because allowing the fire to smolder and eventually burn
itself out would be safer as the ground would harden underneath
(the kiln effect), thus not allowing toxic oil by-products to
seep into the groundwater table. 

The new owner who bought the Royster property under a distressed
value faces the possibility that such harmful by-products did
leech into the aquifer, similar to what happened to tritium, the
underground detonation residue from Site 300. Meanwhile, three
of my immediate neighbors have died from a cancer-related
illness. 

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory admits that depleted
uranium in aerosol form might accompany new Site 300 explosive
testing. What obscure national agency is going to be held
accountable for posing a threat to the health and safety of
persons or property in and around these test sites 

Oh fear not ye of frail heart, you may wish to hold on to your
wallet instead, for it is we who will suffer the inequities of
someone elses negligence. 

K.L. Vosburg, Tracy		 			 
    
*****************************************************************

NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this 
material is distributed without profit or payment to those who 
have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for 
non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more 
information go to: 
<http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml> 
    
*****************************************************************