***************************************************************** 02/11/07 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 15.34 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** Send News Stories to news@energy-net.org with title on subject line and first line of body NUCLEAR POLICY 1 [NYTr] Target Iran: US Has Nuke Sites Lined Up 2 [progchat_action] Will They Nuke Iran? 3 AFP: Ahmadinejad promises nuclear progress news by April 9 - 4 Guardian Unlimited: Envoy: Iran Ready to Settle IAEA Issues 5 UPI: Iran says nuclear program will continue 6 AFP: Iran says no to key demand on nuclear drive 7 AFP: Iranian bombs have killed 170 Iraq coalition troops - US 8 MNA: West should respect nuclear aspirations of millions of Iranians 9 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Refuses to Give Up Nuclear Program 10 Guardian Unlimited: U.N. Nuclear Agency Suspends Iran Aid 11 Guardian Unlimited: Merkel: Iran Nuke Program Must Be Halted 12 Guardian Unlimited: Envoy: Iran Poses No Threat to Israel 13 BBC NEWS: How close is Iran to a nuclear bomb? 14 BBC NEWS: IAEA suspends Iran aid projects 15 AFP: Iran further isolated over nuclear program - US 16 Guardian Unlimited: US accuses highest levels in Iran of supplying d 17 AFP: Merkel says world determined to stop Iran having nuclear weapon 18 Guardian Unlimited: U.S. Weighs Divulging Iran-Iraq Proof 19 BBC NEWS: Iran insists on nuclear programme 20 [NYTr] Korea Nuke Talks in 3rd Day, No Deal Yet 21 Korea Times: US Vows to Lift Financial Sanctions Within 30 Days 22 AFP: US betrayed Berlin accord, says pro-North Korea paper 23 AFP: No deal yet in 'tough' North Korea nuclear talks - 24 Sf Chronicle: India lies in America's blind spot / Emerging world po 25 AFP: US defence chief to Putin: 'One Cold War enough' 26 Reuters: Gates dismisses Putin remarks as blunt spy talk 27 The Observer: Putin hits at US for triggering arms race 28 BBC NEWS: Putin attacks 'very dangerous' US 29 AFP: Putin hits out at US global dominance 30 [NYTr] Nuclear War: A Warning from the Wise 31 IHT: Israel considering building nuclear power station - 32 BBC NEWS: Swiss still braced for nuclear war 33 Sunday Herald: Replacing Trident System To Cost 100bn NUCLEAR REACTORS 34 US: Rutland Herald: Nuclear energy has to be part of the mix 35 Korea Times: Russia's Fragile Power 36 EEN: Swedish power concern reveals new flaws at Forsmark nuclear pla 37 Independent Online: British Energy heralds new nuclear age 38 OhmyNews International: Japan's Nuke Power Policy Limps Along - 39 The Local: Forsmark fiasco turns Swedes off nuclear power 40 US: HVNS: Hall to call for independent assessment at Indian Point 41 Japan Times: Walls at old reactor found substandard | 42 US: Cape Cod Times: NRC OKs reduced safety staff at Pilgrim 43 US: BostonHerald.com: NRC approves reduced safety staffing at Pilgri 44 US: HVNS: Spano wants Indian Point out, but is less adamant on NYRI 45 US: Fredericksburg.com: Reactor hearing to be held NUCLEAR SECURITY 46 toledoblade.com: Russia's unsecured uranium poses scary scenario 47 US: New York Times: New York to Test Ways to Prevent Nuclear Terror NUCLEAR SAFETY 48 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Mediocre moniker 49 US: Pahrump Valley Times: Reid announces effort to help test site wo 50 US: Deseret News: Utah House committee unanimously opposes Nevada te 51 US: Deseret News: Scientists call Strake dangerous NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 52 US: Green Valley News & Sun: Uranium, lead, arsenic levels concern E 53 Las Vegas SUN: 2007 Nevada Legislature starts second week 54 Pahrump Valley Times: Overall Yucca Project spending is scaled back 55 Pahrump Valley Times: Study says existing sites will cost less than 56 Pahrump Valley Times: Fund cuts won't hinder county oversight 57 US: Daily Herald: Removal of radioactive tailings could last until 2 PEACE US DEPT. OF ENERGY 58 KnoxNews: Old K-25 Site to be part of a power play 59 KnoxNews: DOE official disputes report ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 [NYTr] Target Iran: US Has Nuke Sites Lined Up Date: Sat, 10 Feb 2007 16:29:48 -0500 (EST) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit The Guardian - Feb 10, 2007 http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,2010001,00.html Target Iran: US able to strike in the spring Despite denials, Pentagon plans for possible attack on nuclear sites are well advanced By Ewen MacAskill in Washington A second battle group has been ordered to the Gulf and extra missiles have already been sent out. Meanwhile oil is being stockpiled. US preparations for an air strike against Iran are at an advanced stage, in spite of repeated public denials by the Bush administration, according to informed sources in Washington. The present military build-up in the Gulf would allow the US to mount an attack by the spring. But the sources said that if there was an attack, it was more likely next year, just before Mr Bush leaves office. Neo-conservatives, particularly at the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute, are urging Mr Bush to open a new front against Iran. So too is the vice-president, Dick Cheney. The state department and the Pentagon are opposed, as are Democratic congressmen and the overwhelming majority of Republicans. The sources said Mr Bush had not yet made a decision. The Bush administration insists the military build-up is not offensive but aimed at containing Iran and forcing it to make diplomatic concessions. The aim is to persuade Tehran to curb its suspect nuclear weapons programme and abandon ambitions for regional expansion. Robert Gates, the new US defence secretary, said yesterday: "I don't know how many times the president, secretary [of state Condoleezza] Rice and I have had to repeat that we have no intention of attacking Iran." But Vincent Cannistraro, a Washington-based intelligence analyst, shared the sources' assessment that Pentagon planning was well under way. "Planning is going on, in spite of public disavowals by Gates. Targets have been selected. For a bombing campaign against nuclear sites, it is quite advanced. The military assets to carry this out are being put in place." He added: "We are planning for war. It is incredibly dangerous." Deployment Mr Cannistraro, who worked for the CIA and the National Security Council, stressed that no decision had been made. Last month Mr Bush ordered a second battle group led by the aircraft carrier USS John Stennis to the Gulf in support of the USS Eisenhower. The USS Stennis is due to arrive within the next 10 days. Extra US Patriot missiles have been sent to the region, as well as more minesweepers, in anticipation of Iranian retaliatory action. In another sign that preparations are under way, Mr Bush has ordered oil reserves to be stockpiled. The danger is that the build-up could spark an accidental war. Iranian officials said on Thursday that they had tested missiles capable of hitting warships in the Gulf. Colonel Sam Gardiner, a former air force officer who has carried out war games with Iran as the target, supported the view that planning for an air strike was under way: "Gates said there is no planning for war. We know this is not true. He possibly meant there is no plan for an immediate strike. It was sloppy wording. "All the moves being made over the last few weeks are consistent with what you would do if you were going to do an air strike. We have to throw away the notion the US could not do it because it is too tied up in Iraq. It is an air operation." One of the main driving forces behind war, apart from the vice-president's office, is the AEI, headquarters of the neo-conservatives. A member of the AEI coined the slogan "axis of evil" that originally lumped Iran in with Iraq and North Korea. Its influence on the White House appeared to be in decline last year amid endless bad news from Iraq, for which it had been a cheerleader. But in the face of opposition from Congress, the Pentagon and state department, Mr Bush opted last month for an AEI plan to send more troops to Iraq. Will he support calls from within the AEI for a strike on Iran? Josh Muravchik, a Middle East specialist at the AEI, is among its most vocal supporters of such a strike. "I do not think anyone in the US is talking about invasion. We have been chastened by the experience of Iraq, even a hawk like myself." But an air strike was another matter. The danger of Iran having a nuclear weapon "is not just that it might use it out of the blue but as a shield to do all sorts of mischief. I do not believe there will be any way to stop this happening other than physical force." Mr Bush is part of the American generation that refuses to forgive Iran for the 1979-81 hostage crisis. He leaves office in January 2009 and has said repeatedly that he does not want a legacy in which Iran has achieved superpower status in the region and come close to acquiring a nuclear weapon capability. The logic of this is that if diplomatic efforts fail to persuade Iran to stop uranium enrichment then the only alternative left is to turn to the military. Mr Muravchik is intent on holding Mr Bush to his word: "The Bush administration have said they would not allow Iran nuclear weapons. That is either bullshit or they mean it as a clear code: we will do it if we have to. I would rather believe it is not hot air." Other neo-cons elsewhere in Washington are opposed to an air strike but advocate a different form of military action, supporting Iranian armed groups, in particular the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK), even though the state department has branded it a terrorist organisation. Raymond Tanter, founder of the Iran Policy Committee, which includes former officials from the White House, state department and intelligence services, is a leading advocate of support for the MEK. If it comes to an air strike, he favours bunker-busting bombs. "I believe the only way to get at the deeply buried sites at Natanz and Arak is probably to use bunker-buster bombs, some of which are nuclear tipped. I do not believe the US would do that but it has sold them to Israel." Opposition support Another neo-conservative, Meyrav Wurmser, director of the centre for Middle East policy at the Hudson Institute, also favours supporting Iranian opposition groups. She is disappointed with the response of the Bush administration so far to Iran and said that if the aim of US policy after 9/11 was to make the Middle East safer for the US, it was not working because the administration had stopped at Iraq. "There is not enough political will for a strike. There seems to be various notions of what the policy should be." In spite of the president's veto on negotiation with Tehran, the state department has been involved since 2003 in back-channel approaches and meetings involving Iranian officials and members of the Bush administration or individuals close to it. But when last year the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, sent a letter as an overture, the state department dismissed it within hours of its arrival. Support for negotiations comes from centrist and liberal thinktanks. Afshin Molavi, a fellow of the New America Foundation, said: "To argue diplomacy has not worked is false because it has not been tried. Post-90s and through to today, when Iran has been ready to dance, the US refused, and when the US has been ready to dance, Iran has refused. We are at a stage where Iran is ready to walk across the dance floor and the US is looking away." He is worried about "a miscalculation that leads to an accidental war". The catalyst could be Iraq. The Pentagon said yesterday that it had evidence - serial numbers of projectiles as well as explosives - of Iraqi militants' weapons that had come from Iran. In a further sign of the increased tension, Iran's main nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, cancelled a visit to Munich for what would have been the first formal meeting with his western counterparts since last year. If it does come to war, Mr Muravchik said Iran would retaliate, but that on balance it would be worth it to stop a country that he said had "Death to America" as its official slogan. "We have to gird our loins and prepare to absorb the counter-shock," he said. War of words "If Iran escalates its military action in Iraq to the detriment of our troops and/or innocent Iraqi people, we will respond firmly." -George Bush, in an interview with National Public Radio "The Iranians clearly believe that we are tied down in Iraq, that they have the initiative, that they are in position to press us in many ways. They are doing nothing to be constructive in Iraq at this point." -Robert Gates "I think it's been pretty well-known that Iran is fishing in troubled waters." -Dick Cheney "It is absolutely parallel. They're using the same dance steps - demonise the bad guys, the pretext of diplomacy, keep out of negotiations, use proxies. It is Iraq redux." -Philip Giraldi, a former CIA counter- terrorism specialist, in Vanity Fair, on echoes of the run-up to the war in Iraq "US policymakers and analysts know that the Iranian nation would not let an invasion go without a response. Enemies of the Islamic system fabricated various rumours about death and health to demoralise the Iranian nation, but they did not know that they are not dealing with only one person in Iran. They are facing a nation." -Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. * ================================================================ .NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems . Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us . .339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org .List Archives: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ .Subscribe: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ================================================================ ***************************************************************** 2 [progchat_action] Will They Nuke Iran? Date: Sat, 10 Feb 2007 22:14:27 -0600 (CST) CounterPunch/ Weekend Edition February 10 / 11, 2007 Intelligence Briefings to NYT Notch Up Tension Will They Nuke Iran? By Alexander Cockburn President Nixon, a very good poker player, once defined the art of brinkmanship as persuading your opponent that you are insane and, unless appeased by pledges of surrender, quite capable of blowing up the planet. By these robust standards George Bush is doing a moderately competent job in suggesting that if balked by Iran on the matter of arming the Shi'a in Iraq or pursuing its nuclear program he'll dump high explosive, maybe even a couple of nukes, on that country's relevant research sites, or tell Israel to do the job for him. In Washington there are plenty of rational people in Congress, think tanks and the Pentagon who think he's capable of ordering an attack,-- albeit not a nuclear one -- with bombers carrying conventional explosive and with missiles from US ships in the Persian Gulf. Colonel Sam Gardner, who's taught at the National War College recently sketched out on this site the plan as it could unfold: already the second naval carrier group has been deployed to the Gulf area, joined by naval mine clearing ships. "As one of the last steps before a strike, we'll see USAF tankers moved to unusual places, like Bulgaria. These will be used to refuel the US-based B-2 bombers on their strike missions into Iran. When that happens, we'll only be days away from a strike." Gardiner cautioned that "It is possible the White House strategy is just implementing a strategy to put pressure on Iran on a number of fronts, and this will never amount to anything. On the other hand, if the White House is on a path to strike Iran, we'll see a few more steps unfold. "First, we know there is a National Security Council staff-led_group whose mission is to create outrage in the world against Iran. Just like before Gulf II, this media group will begin to release stories to sell a strike against Iran. Watch for the outrage stuff." As regards "the outrage stuff", here on cue comes the New York Times' Michael Gordon with a front page story today, February 10, headlined "Deadliest Bomb in Iraq is Made by Iran, US Says", and beginning "The most lethal weapon directed against American troops in Iraq is an explosive-packed cylinder that United States intelligence asserts is being supplied by Iran." It's no doubt true that Iran has been arming the Shi'a. What Gordon fails to mention is that over 90 per sent of the IEDs used against US troops in Iraq have been detonated by the Sunni insurgents , who of course are not supplied by Iran. More generally, the prime point of interest of the intelligence briefings given to Gordon and other journalists is the timing. At any point in the past couple of years the US could have gone public with roughly the same accusations. Shades of the Ho Chi Minh trail! Year after year first Johnson then Nixon would claim that the resistance in south Vietnam was not indigenous but created and armed by North Vietnam, backed by the Soviet Union and China--which these days has flourishing economic ties with Iran, particularly in the field of energy. Another tripwire for escalation would be the UN Security Council Feb 21 deadline for Iran to suspend "all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities, including research and development, to be verified by the IAEA," the International Atomic Energy Agency. There's certainly disquiet in Congress, particularly after Bush's State of the Union address January 17 where he reprised his notorious "Axis of Evil" address of January 2002, identifying Iran as the number one troublemaker and fomenter of terror in the region. "Is it the position of this administration that it possesses the authority to take unilateral action against Iran, in the absence of a direct threat, without Congressional approval?" the Virginia Democrat, Senator James Webb recently asked Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Rice said she'd get back to him. The Bush administration is capable of almost any folly, but is it likely that it would bomb Iran's nuclear research labs? Would it really prod Israel into taking on the job? Israel of course has been making plenty of quite predictable hay out of President Ahmadinejad's crack about how "the regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the pages of time." Of course the let's-stay- calm types say it was just a stale old one-liner from the Ayatollah Khomeini and please to note he used the word "regime", not "Israel". Plant that one in the graveyard of wimpy rationalizations. Along with the recent"holocaust conference", it's probably the biggest leg-up for Israeli bond drives since the Yom Kippur war. Prime minister Olmert quotes it on an almost daily basis, echoed by his rival, Netanyahu. Aside from the rhetorical haymaking, the notion of Israel nuking Iran's N-plants is very far-fetched. Indeed, the military wisdom here is that as a practical enterprise, it can't, since among many technical limitations Israel's bombers would require refueling over hostile territory. Aside from this, Israel still won't officially admit to having a nuclear arsenal. It would a stupefying jump, from that disingenuous posture to being the first power in the region to explode a nuclear device. The point of having a nuclear deterrent is to deter, not to use. Iran is well aware that in 1999 and 2004 Israelis bought Dolphin submarines from Germany reportedly capable of carrying nuclear-armed cruise missiles. As President Chirac asked in his recent press conference, what good it would do Iran to have a nuclear bomb, or even two. "Where would it fire that bomb? At Israel? It wouldn't have traveled 200 meters through the atmosphere before Tehran would be razed." (Reservations among Irael's elites about attacks on Iran are the topic of an excellent piece by Gabriel Kolko on this site today. So the job of attacking would fall to the US Air force and US Navy and there are certainly generals, particularly in the Air Force, telling Bush it would be a snap, just as Curt LeMay, at that time head of the Strategic Air Command, told President Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis that SAC could "reduce the Soviet Union to a smouldering irradiated ruin in three hours". But Air Force credibility is low at the moment. LeMay's heirs told Bush that "shock and awe" bombing in 2003 would prompt Saddam to run up the white flag. It didn't. US ground forces carried the day--at least at the outset. But there aren't any US ground forces available to invade a country many times bigger than Iraq, filled with a large population mostly loyal to the regime. After sorties against Iran with bombs and missiles what would the US do? The problem is that brinkmanship suits everyone's book. Ahmadinejad, facing serious political problems, can posture about standing up to the Great Satan. Olmert can say Ahmadinejad wants to finish off Israel and kill all the Jews. Bush sees Iran as a terrific way of changing the subject from the mess in Iraq and putting the Democrats on the spot. The Democrats take the lead of their presidential hopefuls, who have no intention of being corralled by the Republicans as symps of holocaust deniers who want to destroy Israel. These days, to be a player, any candidate for the US presidency has to raise about $100 million, of which a large tranche will come from American Jews. Barack Obama and John Edwards call for swift withdrawal of US forces from Iraq. When it comes to Iran they roar in unison with Hillary Clinton that no option can be left off the table. In other words, if it comes to it, nuke 'em . Is there room for sanity here? The best hope will be for Iran to finish its testing cycle, declare mission accomplished and figure out some sort of face-saving halt in its program by February 21. Can we hope for prudence from the White House? Who knows? Bush is a nutty guy. It was his insistence on democratic elections in Iraq that put the Shi'a in control. Now he's blaming Iran for trying to capitalize on the consequences. This is not a regime that thinks things through very sensibly. http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn02102007.html This email was cleaned by emailStripper, available for free from http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm ***************************************************************** 3 AFP: Ahmadinejad promises nuclear progress news by April 9 - Sunday February 11, 09:24 AM TEHRAN (AFP) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has vowed that Iran would make new announcements about progress in its nuclear drive by April 9, without giving further details. "From now until April 9 you will hear frequently about the great progress of the Iranian people and unique developments in the domains of industry, agriculture, and especially nuclear energy," Ahmadinejad told a rally in Tehran on Sunday. Expectations had built that Ahmadinejad would be making a major announcement on the nuclear programme in Sunday's speech marking the 28th anniversary of the Islamic revolution. AFP ***************************************************************** 4 Guardian Unlimited: Envoy: Iran Ready to Settle IAEA Issues From the Associated Press Sunday February 11, 2007 11:01 AM AP Photo EMUN104 MUNICH, Germany (AP) - Iran is prepared to settle all outstanding issues with the International Atomic Energy Agency within three weeks, the country's top nuclear negotiator said Sunday. The IAEA, led by Mohamed ElBaradei, has said it has found no evidence that Iran is trying to build nuclear weapons. But the watchdog has suspended some aid to Iran and criticized the country for concealing certain nuclear activities and failing to answer questions about its program. ``I have written to Mr. ElBaradei to say we are ready to within three weeks to have the modality to solve all the outstanding issues with you,'' Ali Larijani said at a forum gathering together top security officials from around the globe. On Friday, the IAEA suspended nearly half the technical aid it provides to Iran, a symbolically significant punishment for nuclear defiance that only North Korea and Saddam Hussein's Iraq had faced in the past. That decision was in line with U.N. Security Council sanctions imposed on Iran for its refusal to suspend uranium enrichment. The suspension must still be approved by the 35 countries on the IAEA's board of the International Atomic Energy Agency. ElBaradei's Friday report to board members called for the full or partial suspension of 18 projects that it deemed could be misused to create nuclear weapons. The agency had already suspended aid to Iran in five instances last month. Iran insists it will not give up uranium enrichment, saying it is pursuing the technology only to generate energy. The United States and some of its allies fear the Islamic republic is more interested in enrichment's other application - creating the fissile core of nuclear warheads. While the IAEA programs do not involve significant amounts of money, a senior U.N official familiar with Iran's file said the suspensions carry ``symbolic significance'' because they are part of Security Council sanctions. Iran gets IAEA technical aid for 15 projects and 40 more involving multiple other countries. In projects involving other nations, only Iran was affected by the suspensions. The United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany all want Iran to stop its enrichment program. But their approaches have differed over the past year, often straining the joint effort. Russia and China, which both share economic and strategic interests with Iran, have been reluctant to impose harsh sanctions. After months of disputes, the Security Council imposed sanctions in December that fell short of the harsher measures sought by the United States. In March, the IAEA board will also hear a report from ElBaradei expected to confirm that Iran has expanded its enrichment efforts - a development that would empower the Security Council to impose stricter sanctions. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007 ***************************************************************** 5 UPI: Iran says nuclear program will continue United Press International - Published: Feb. 11, 2007 at 6:21 AM TEHRAN, Feb. 11 (UPI) -- Iran's president said Sunday his country won't bow to international pressure to abandon its uranium enrichment program. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tehran will announce new advances in its nuclear program this April, CNN reported. "If you seek negotiation, why do you insist on suspension? If we suspend, what do we want to talk about," he said in a speech broadcast on state television on the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution, CNN reported. "How come your factories and reactors are working day and night while you're asking our factories and centers to stop it facilities? Our nation will never accept such conditions." The United Nations has demanded that Iran halt enriching uranium, which the West suspects is aimed at developing nuclear weapons and Iran has said is for peaceful nuclear power. ***************************************************************** 6 AFP: Iran says no to key demand on nuclear drive by Aresu Eqbali Sun Feb 11, 7:11 AM ET TEHRAN (AFP) - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has vowed Iran would never surrender to the key demand of the West over its nuclear programme, even as he pledged to remain within the bounds of international atomic rules. "If you are willing to negotiate why do you insist on a suspension (of nuclear enrichment)?" Ahmadinejad said Sunday, referring to the sensitive nuclear process the West wants Iran to halt as proof it is not seeking nuclear weapons. "If we suspend our activities then what are we going to talk about? Why if your nuclear plants are working 24 hours a day why must Iran be pressured to shut them down?" "We are ready to negotiate but under fair and even conditions," he added. Ahmadinejad promised more news would come on Iran's nuclear programme by April 9, confounding expectations that his speech to mark the 28th anniversary of the Islamic revolution would unveil a major development. Hundreds of thousands of Iranians massed around the country in their annual show of support for the revolution, with slogans like "Death to America" mixing with the now familiar "Nuclear Energy is Our Natural Right". His defiance comes despite the UN Security Council's decision to impose sanctions against Iran in December and its deadline for Iran to halt uranium enrichment by February 21 or face further action. A senior advisor to Iran's supreme leader urged Russia to "do its best to prevent the adoption of another resolution against Iran," while Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani was attending a major Munich security conference along with Western officials. However, there was little hope of contacts on the sidelines of the event defusing the crisis. French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said any idea of holding talks while Iran carried out uranium enrichment was "totally unacceptable" Expectations were high that Ahmadinejad would announce a breakthrough in towards an industrial-scale enrichment of uranium, a process that can be used both in nuclear power stations and atomic bombs. Instead, he promised that announcements would follow by April 9 -- the day designated by Iran as a holiday celebrating its achievements in nuclear technology. "From now until April 9 you will hear frequently about the great progress of the Iranian people and unique developments in the domains of industry, agriculture, and especially nuclear energy," Ahmadinejad said. Ahmadinejad himself had repeatedly spoken of the 10 days marking the Islamic revolution, of which Sunday is the culmination, as a celebration of the "nuclearization" of Iran. "Today's presence across the country, with such a unity and solidarity defused the enemies' plot. Today, you stabilized your nuclear rights and disappointed the enemy. "This is the nuclear celebration," Ahmadinejad told the crowd. Striking a conciliatory tone with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN nuclear watchdog, he said that the government had no intention of quitting the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. "We are willing to follow the regulations," he said, referring to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty of which Iran is a signatory. "Despite the authority of the parliament for the government to reduce its cooperation with the agency or even quit the NPT, the government, with the coordination of parliament, has not used this. "It is willing to defend the people's rights within the framework of the law." There was a festive spirit at the mass rally in Tehran, with children clutching balloons emblazoned with pro-nuclear slogans and the revolution motto: "Freedom, Independence and Islamic republic." The United States accuses Iran of seeking a nuclear weapon, a charge denied by Tehran which insists its atomic programme is peaceful in nature. Diplomats close to the UN nuclear watchdog in Vienna have said that Iran has installed at least two cascades of 164 centrifuges to enrich uranium at an underground plant beneath its nuclear facility in Natanz. Iranian officials have said they want to install about 3,000 centrifuges at the massive underground facility in the next few months, in what would be a major provocation for the West. Although the United States has said it wants the nuclear standoff resolved through diplomacy, Washington has never ruled out military action to thwart Iran's atomic drive. Copyright © 2007 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 7 AFP: Iranian bombs have killed 170 Iraq coalition troops - US by Dave Clark Sun Feb 11, 12:03 PM ET BAGHDAD (AFP) - Sophisticated Iranian-built bombs smuggled into Iraq have killed at least 170 US and allied soldiers since June 2004, senior US defence officials have said, amid ongoing carnage. The allegation that Iran is backing Shiite extremists came as suspected Sunni insurgents killed more than 30 people Sunday, most of them members of the security forces, in a spate of bomb and gun attacks in northern Iraq. US defence officials presented their evidence at a background briefing in Baghdad's fortified Green Zone, after Washington stepped up criticism of Iran. The allegations will feed a fierce international debate over relations with the Islamic republic, whose nuclear programme is already at the centre of mounting tension amid reports that America is readying air strikes. "Iran is involved in supplying explosively formed projectiles or EFPs and other material to Iraqi extremist groups," a senior official from the US-led multinational coalition told journalists. Three coalition officials met reporters to point the finger at the Al-Qods Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, part of Tehran's elite forces accused of links with foreign militants. "The Qods Force arms extremists and insurgents to carry out terrorist attacks and guerrilla warfare," he said. "The Qods Force provides advice, training and weapons to proxy forces in Iraq." The men spoke on condition of anonymity for their security and cameras and recording devices were barred from the briefing, where an array of mortar shells and booby traps were laid out for inspection. Reporters were issued with a disc containing photographs of alleged Iranian weapons seized in Iraq -- a Misagh-1 ground-to-air missile, EFPs and mortar shells -- showing manufacturing dates in late 2006. A senior defence analyst said US-led forces had evidence that Iran had stepped up shipments of EFPs, factory-built explosives designed to cut through armour, to armed Iraqi Shiite groups. He said five Iranians arrested in January in the northern Iraqi city of Arbil were Al-Qods force officers who had no diplomatic cover and had tried to flush documents down a toilet as they were arrested. "We assess that these activities are coming from the senior levels of the Iranian government," he said, noting that the Al-Qods brigade reports to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamanei. The senior official said Iran's involvement was being revealed as a "force protection measure". "They're pretty devastating," he said of the EFPs, holding up a lump of melted metal that he said had been fired through a US vehicle. "More than 170 US and coalition troops have been killed by these things, and 620 wounded. There was a significant increase in their use over the past six months," he added. A total of 3,113 US troops have died in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion, according to an AFP count based on Pentagon figures, with main ally Britain suffering 132 fatalities over the same period. American and allied troops first encountered Iranian-made EFPs in mid 2004, and since then US commanders have often accused Tehran of fomenting unrest by supplying weapons, cash and training to Iraqi militants. The device -- one of which was shown to reporters by a senior coalition explosives expert -- consists of a machined steel tube lined with a metal coating and packed with explosives. When the charge detonates, the metal coating melts and is forced out at high velocity as a white-hot lump, cutting through the armour plating on the target vehicle. Iraqi and US forces have launched a major crackdown on insurgents and illegal militias in Baghdad, but on Sunday their enemies proved they could still strike in towns north of the capital. In the bloodiest attack, a suicide bomber blew up an animal feed lorry, destroying a police station near Tikrit, killing 17 people including policemen and detainees and wounding 20 more, police said. Further north near the Syrian border, insurgents ambushed a bus carrying new recruits from the Iraqi border security force, gunning down eight of them. Police Lieutenant Colonel Hur Baz said the bomb hidden in the feed lorry destroyed his headquarters in the town of Ad-Dawr, where Iraq's executed dictator Saddam Hussein was captured in December 2003. More than 20 people were wounded -- including police, detainees and civilian visitors -- and rescue teams were searching through the rubble. At least four other people died in three attacks in Tikrit itself and in Baquba, the violent capital of Diyala province, security sources said. Copyright © 2007 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 8 MNA: West should respect nuclear aspirations of millions of Iranians : Karrubi Tehran:08:56,2007/02/12 Tehran: 19:43 , 2007/02/11 Print version TEHRAN, Feb. 11 (MNA) -- The former Majlis speaker Mahdi Karrubi said here on Sunday that the West should respond to "millions of Iranians” who want to use nuclear energy for civilian purposes. “Today, in Bahman 22 rallies millions of people cried for their right to nuclear technology and called on the Europeans to pay attention to their demands,” Karrubi told the reporters on the sidelines of the rallies, marking the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution’s victory. “Surely the officials of the United Nations, European countries, and the United States can not simply ignore the (legal) demands of millions of Iranians,” the National Confidence Party Secretary General stated. Karrubi urged the people and the government to remain united, calling reinforcement of national unity the “most important duty” of everyone. RMN/MS END MNA 446706 © 2003-2005 Mehr News Agency ***************************************************************** 9 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Refuses to Give Up Nuclear Program From the Associated Press Sunday February 11, 2007 11:16 AM AP Photo XHS101 By ALI AKBAR DAREINI Associated Press Writer TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad struck a defiant yet vague tone on Sunday, telling Iranians during the 28th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution that their country would not give up uranium enrichment but was prepared to talk with the international community. The hard-line leader's remarks, which came days before a U.N. Security Council deadline demanding Tehran halt enrichment or face further sanctions, fell short of an expected announcement that Iran had started installing 3,000 centrifuges to enrich uranium at its Natanz plant. ``The Iranian nation on Feb. 11, 2007, passed the arduous passes and stabilized its definite (nuclear) right,'' Ahmadinejad said. He did not elaborate or explain what his comments meant. Ahmadinejad, however, also said Iran was ready for ``dialogue,'' and his country's program would remain within the limits of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty that bans production of nuclear weapons. ``We are prepared for dialogue but won't suspend our activities. ... The government will defend the rights of the Iranian nation within the framework of the law,'' he said. While Iran insists it will not give up uranium enrichment, the United States and some of its allies fear the Islamic republic is more interested in enrichment's other application - creating the fissile core of nuclear warheads. At a security conference in Germany, Iran's top nuclear negotiator said Sunday its nuclear program is not a threat to Israel or any other nation. ``That Iran is willing to threaten Israel is wrong,'' Larijani said. ``We pose no threat and if we are conducting nuclear research and development we are no threat to Israel. We have no intention of aggression against any country.'' Ahmadinejad said Iran's nuclear technology advances will gradually be made public over the course of the next two months until April 9. He did not explain what would happen on that date, but it marks the one year anniversary of Iran's announcement that it had enriched uranium for the first time. ``Until April 9, 2007, you will witness the great advances of the Iranian nation ... especially in the field of nuclear technology,'' he said. The Iranian leader suggested last week that Tehran would announce that it had begun installing a new assembly of 3,000 centrifuges in an underground portion of its uranium enrichment facility at Natanz that the U.S. and some of its allies fear could be used to build nuclear weapons. Had Ahmadinejad made such a provocative announcement, it would have heightened tensions between Iran and the West. It is widely believed Ahmadinejad listened to moderate voices within the ruling Islamic establishment telling him not to do so. ``After the U.N. Security Council imposed sanctions on Iran last December, Ahmadinejad has come under pressure at home and abroad to moderate his tone. He refused to make that announcement not to further provoke the West at this crucial time,'' political analyst Iraj Jamshidi said. The Security Council has threatened to impose further sanctions on Iran later this month if it refuses to roll back its program. Ahmadinejad's comments Sunday were part of a speech that was broadcast live during nationwide rallies marking the 28th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution. On Feb. 11, 1979, Iran's imperial armed forces withdrew support for the U.S.-backed monarchy and declared its allegiance to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini after a popular peaceful uprising throughout Iran. Khomeini's followers seized control of the capital and two months later declared Iran an Islamic republic. Sunday's rallies also were a referendum of sorts on the country's nuclear program. Ahmadinejad's government, whose nuclear diplomacy has been criticized domestically by both reformers and conservatives in recent weeks, wanted to show that the nation stands united behind him despite mounting pressures from the West. ``On the basis of the law, we have the right to possess the full (nuclear) fuel cycle,'' Ahmadinejad said, addressing hundreds of the thousands of Iranians who gathered in a Tehran square. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007 ***************************************************************** 10 Guardian Unlimited: U.N. Nuclear Agency Suspends Iran Aid From the Associated Press Saturday February 10, 2007 1:46 AM By GEORGE JAHN Associated Press Writer VIENNA, Austria (AP) - The U.N. atomic monitor on Friday suspended nearly half the technical aid it provides to Iran, a symbolically significant punishment for nuclear defiance that only North Korea and Saddam Hussein's Iraq had faced in the past. The decision was in line with U.N. Security Council sanctions imposed on Iran for its refusal to suspend uranium enrichment. It must still be approved by the 35 countries on the board of the International Atomic Energy Agency. But with the agency empowered by the Security Council to freeze any aid to Iran that could be misused for nuclear weapons, approval was likely. IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei's report to board members called for the full or partial suspension of 18 projects that it deemed could be misused to create nuclear weapons. The agency had already suspended aid to Iran in five instances last month. Iran insists it will not give up uranium enrichment, saying it is pursuing the technology only to generate energy. The United States and some of its allies fear the Islamic republic is more interested in enrichment's other application - creating the fissile core of nuclear warheads. While the IAEA programs do not involve significant amounts of money, a senior U.N official familiar with Iran's file said the suspensions carry ``symbolic significance'' because they are part of Security Council sanctions. Only North Korea, which has defied international pressure to dismantle its nuclear weapons program, and Saddam's Iraq, which was suspected of trying to develop such weapons, had previously faced such suspensions. Iran gets IAEA technical aid for 15 projects and 40 more involving multiple other countries. In projects involving other nations, only Iran was affected by the suspensions. The Security Council sanctions called for a review of IAEA's technical aid for Iranian programs meant to bolster the peaceful use of nuclear energy in medicine, agriculture, waste management, management training or power generation. A list accompanying ElBaradei's report described the projects in vague, technical terms. One suspended program involved strengthening Iran's capacity for providing ``safe and reliable nuclear power generation.'' In November, the board indefinitely suspended a project that would have helped Iran put safety measures in place for a heavy water reactor that would produce plutonium, another pathway to developing atomic weapons. Most of the aid frozen Friday, however, was for programs with less obvious potential weapons applications. One diplomat in Vienna had said the United States and some of its allies wanted the cancellation, restriction or close monitoring of half the projects involving Iran. The officials all demanded anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. The United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany all want Iran to stop its enrichment program. But their approaches have differed over the past year, often straining the joint effort. Russia and China, which both share economic and strategic interests with Iran, have been reluctant to impose harsh sanctions. After months of disputes, the Security Council imposed sanctions in December that fell short of the harsher measures sought by the United States. In March, the IAEA board will also hear a report from ElBaradei expected to confirm that Iran has expanded its enrichment efforts - a development that would empower the Security Council to impose stricter sanctions. Diplomats earlier this week revealed that technicians had assembled hundreds of centrifuges in series in an underground facility near the central Iranian city of Natanz, in another step toward Tehran's stated goal of running 54,000 centrifuges to churn out enriched uranium. Friday's report came amid confusion over whether Iran's chief nuclear negotiator would meet with senior European officials on the sidelines of a security conference in Munich, Germany. Organizers of the Munich conference initially said Ali Larijani canceled because of an unspecified illness but later said he had promised to show up after all. IAEA officials said earlier Larijani pulled out of a Vienna meeting Friday with ElBaradei for ``technical reasons.'' There was no comment from the Iranian government. On the Net: The International Atomic Energy Agency: www.iaea.org Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007 ***************************************************************** 11 Guardian Unlimited: Merkel: Iran Nuke Program Must Be Halted From the Associated Press Saturday February 10, 2007 9:46 AM By DAVID RISING Associated Press Writer MUNICH, Germany (AP) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Saturday that the international community is determined to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. Speaking at a weekend gathering of the world's top security officials, expected to include Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani, Merkel said Tehran needed to accept demands made by the U.N. and the International Atomic Energy Agency. ``There is no way around this,'' she told the 250 officials, including more than 40 defense and foreign ministers. ``What we are talking about here is a very, very sensitive technology, and for that reason we need a high degree of transparency, which Iran has failed to provide, and if Iran does not do so then the alternative for Iran is to slip further into isolation.'' Merkel, whose country holds the rotating European Union presidency, emphasized the international community's support for Israel and said there was a unified resolve to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. ``We are determined to prevent the threat posed by an Iranian military nuclear program,'' she said. The annual Munich Conference on Security Policy, now in its 43rd year, is often used as an opportunity for officials to conduct diplomacy in an informal setting. Key figures attending also include Russian President Vladimir Putin, new Defense Secretary Robert Gates and other top officials. Some 3,500 police were on hand to provide tight security for the conference and kept the usual throng of demonstrators away. This year, several thousand protesters were expected, protest organizers said. Heading in to the conference, Larijani, who is scheduled to speak on Sunday, said he planned to use the conference as an opportunity to talk about Iran's nuclear program. Those would be the first talks with Western officials since limited U.N. sanctions were imposed on the country in December, which fell short of harsher measures sought by the United States. Larijani was expected to meet with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Javier Solana, the EU's chief foreign policy envoy. At the opening dinner on Friday, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni urged international solidarity in putting pressure on Iran to prevent it from producing a nuclear weapon. ``It is a regime that mocks the Holocaust while threatening the world with a new one, while trying to develop a weapon to do so,'' she said. ``Iran is a threat not only to Israel ... but to the world. The international community cannot show any hesitation ... Any hesitation on our part is being perceived as weakness.'' The conference this year focuses on ``Global Crises - Global Responsibilities,'' looking at NATO's changing role, the Middle East peace process, the West's relations with Russia and the fight against terrorism. Merkel opened the conference telling the delegates that one of the major threats facing the world today is global warming, urging a combined effort to combat it. ``Global warming is one of the major medium- to long-term threats that could have a dramatic effect,'' Merkel said. Gates, who planned to talk Sunday on trans-Atlantic relations, was expected to press allies for more troops and aid for a spring offensive in Afghanistan. He delivered the message Friday to a NATO defense minister's meeting in Seville, Spain, but got a lukewarm response. France and Germany are questioning the wisdom of sending more soldiers, while Spain, Italy and Turkey have also been wary of providing more troops. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007 ***************************************************************** 12 Guardian Unlimited: Envoy: Iran Poses No Threat to Israel From the Associated Press Sunday February 11, 2007 12:01 PM AP Photo EMUN104 By SLOBODAN LEKIC Associated Press Writer MUNICH, Germany (AP) - Iran's nuclear program is not a threat to Israel and the country is prepared to settle all outstanding issues with the International Atomic Energy Agency within three weeks, its top nuclear negotiator said Sunday. Ali Larijani, speaking at a forum that gathered the world's top security officials, said Iran doesn't have aggressive intentions toward any nation. ``That Iran is willing to threaten Israel is wrong,'' Larijani said. ``We pose no threat and if we are conducting nuclear research and development we are no threat to Israel. We have no intention of aggression against any country.'' Iran insists it will not give up uranium enrichment, saying it is pursuing the technology only to generate energy. The United States and some of its allies fear the Islamic republic is more interested in enrichment's other application - creating the fissile core of nuclear warheads. In Israel, Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev dismissed Larijani's comments, saying Iran's government was trying to convince the international community that their intentions are benign. ``The fact is that they have failed in this attempt and there is a wall-to-wall consensus that the Iranian nuclear program is indeed military and aggressive and a threat to world peace,'' he said. The IAEA, led by Mohamed ElBaradei, has said it has found no evidence that Iran is trying to build nuclear weapons. But the watchdog has suspended some aid to Iran and criticized the country for concealing certain nuclear activities and failing to answer questions about its program. ``I have written to Mr. ElBaradei to say we are ready to within three weeks to have the modality to solve all the outstanding issues with you,'' Larijani said at the forum. On Friday, the IAEA suspended nearly half the technical aid it provides to Iran, a symbolically significant punishment for nuclear defiance that only North Korea and Saddam Hussein's Iraq had faced in the past. That decision was in line with U.N. Security Council sanctions imposed on Iran for its refusal to suspend uranium enrichment. The suspension must still be approved by the 35 countries on the IAEA's board of the International Atomic Energy Agency. ``Today we announce to you that the political will of Iran is aimed at the negotiated settlement of the case and we don't want to aggravate the situation in our region,'' Larijani said. ``We know that this issue can be settled won in a constructive dialogue and we welcome that.'' ElBaradei's Friday report to board members called for the full or partial suspension of 18 projects that it deemed could be misused to create nuclear weapons. The agency had already suspended aid to Iran in five instances last month. While the IAEA programs do not involve significant amounts of money, a senior U.N official familiar with Iran's file said the suspensions carry ``symbolic significance'' because they are part of Security Council sanctions. Iran gets IAEA technical aid for 15 projects and 40 more involving multiple other countries. In projects involving other nations, only Iran was affected by the suspensions. The United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany all want Iran to stop its enrichment program. But their approaches have differed over the past year, often straining the joint effort. Russia and China, which both share economic and strategic interests with Iran, have been reluctant to impose harsh sanctions. After months of disputes, the Security Council imposed sanctions in December that fell short of the harsher measures sought by the United States. In March, the IAEA board will also hear a report from ElBaradei expected to confirm that Iran has expanded its enrichment efforts - a development that would empower the Security Council to impose stricter sanctions. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007 ***************************************************************** 13 BBC NEWS: How close is Iran to a nuclear bomb? Last Updated: Saturday, 10 February 2007, 02:11 GMT By Gordon Corera BBC security correspondent Tehran says its nuclear programme is purely civilian In the coming days, Iran is expected to make what is being billed as a major announcement on its nuclear programme to coincide with the anniversary of the Iranian revolution. But just how close is Iran to mastering nuclear technology? Both Iran and some of its critics may have their own reasons for exaggerating the progress - but the real truth is hard to establish. In its announcement, Iran may claim to have begun large-scale industrial enrichment of uranium. But any statement is likely to be as much about political positioning as real technical progress, according to nuclear analysts. The announcement may focus on work Iran has conducted in installing two cascades of more than 300 centrifuges in an underground industrial size plant at Natanz with the aim of moving towards a total of 3,000 machines. With US troops so close to Iran's borders, a small event could easily ignite a wider escalation and even trigger an 'accidental' war The centrifuges are used to enrich uranium. This is in addition to two existing cascades in a pilot plant above ground. But Iran's plan to initially run 3,000 centrifuges before moving towards an ultimate goal of 54,000 has run into obstacles and delays and is well behind target. Even the cascades in the pilot plant have seen problems. However, once Iran has mastered the technology of enrichment and the ability to enrich gas at high speeds in a centrifuge then transferring it to a larger scale presents a lesser challenge. 'Own mistakes' Uranium enriched to around 5% can be used as nuclear fuel, but if it is enriched to around 90% it can be used in a weapon. Diplomats have been shown the Isfahan nuclear plant recently Over the years, some of the problems with the programme seem to be due to Iran's own mistakes. For instance, one of the top figures in the programme has talked of how in the early days, those assembling the centrifuges did not wear cloth gloves. As a result, tiny beads of sweat would be transferred to the rotor which spins inside the centrifuge. This almost imperceptibly increased the weight of the rotor which then unbalanced the centrifuge when it started to spin, causing it to "explode". Iran also was thought to have had problems with the purity of the uranium hexafluoride which is fed into the centrifuges, although its scientists now say this has been solved. 'Mossad's hand' But the problems may also be due to more shady activity by others. Over a number of years, both US and Israeli intelligence are believed to have covertly passed flawed parts and equipment to Iran to cause technical difficulties and slow the Iranian programme down. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has warned the US against attacks on Iran In one event last April, according to Iranian press reports, the explosion of another set of centrifuges was attributed to problems with the power supply. The supply needs to be kept precise and constant to ensure the centrifuges spin at the correct speed but Iranian scientists said that on this occasion the power supply might have been "manipulated" which may imply they were sabotaged. It is possible that some of the electrical parts for Iran may have come through the Turkish end of the network run by Pakistani scientist AQ Khan which also supplied electrical components to the Libyan nuclear programme. By the end of the network's activity in early 2004, it had been penetrated by British and American intelligence with some of the suppliers turned as agents. Recent reports have also questioned whether the death in January of a 45-year-old Iranian scientist, Ardeshire Hosseinpour, might have been the result of an operation by Israel's intelligence service, Mossad. Hosseinpour had been involved in the enrichment programme, but Iranian reports have denied that his death was due to anything other than natural causes. Mossad is widely believed to have been behind a campaign of killings and intimidation targeted at the Iraqi nuclear programme and some of its suppliers in Europe in the early 1980s, but this has never been definitively proven. 'Many unknowns' Arguably it is human expertise in the form of trained scientists rather than equipment which is the most important element of a nuclear programme. Whether or not there has been extensive covert activity directed at Iran (and by definition it is hard to discern the truth), the variety of technical problems mean that its hard to know if Iran is actually far away from mastering nuclear technology or relatively close to it and thereby able to make the relatively short journey from "peaceful" civilian technology towards manufacturing nuclear material for a bomb. The problem is that there remain many "unknowns" when it comes to the Iranian programme. One of the most important is exactly how much help Tehran received from the Khan network. The network first sold centrifuge designs to Iran in 1987 and provided on-off help for more than a decade after, including parts and designs for more advanced machines. But international investigators remain unsure that they have an understanding on the full extent of the assistance, not least because no-one outside Pakistan has been able to question Khan directly whilst he remains under a form of house-arrest in Islamabad. The biggest question surrounds the more advanced P2 centrifuge design that Khan passed to the Iranians. Iran initially said it had conducted little work on the design but last year Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that Tehran was working on the machine (which would be far more efficient than the model in Natanz). However, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has not been provided any information on such work. No rush? If Iran was able to run a parallel, second enrichment program which it had managed to keep secret, then many of the estimates of how far Iran was from mastering the technology might be way of the mark. But this remains an unknown. The degree of uncertainty can cut the debate over action against Iran in both directions. Some voices argue that Iran remains at least five years away from nuclear weapons capability, and US intelligence estimates have consistently pushed back when that might be - so some argue there is no rush. Other hawkish and pessimistic voices argue that Iran could soon master the technology and the time-frame for action lies this year. Israel is keen to emphasise that it sees the shorter time-frame as the valid one and is willing to take action. The US has been playing down its willingness to engage in military action but is currently pushing the Europeans to squeeze Iran financially. 'Accidental war' But conflict between the US and Iran is still possible. President Ahmadinejad is facing his own domestic problems with mounting criticism of not just his approach to foreign policy and the nuclear issue but also his failure to deal with economic concerns at home. This could lead to other power centres in Iran forcing him to back down but could also encourage him to take a harder line on the nuclear programme in order to try and rally support. At the same time, Washington has been increasing the pressure over Iran's alleged involvement in Iraq. * BBC Copyright Notice ***************************************************************** 14 BBC NEWS: IAEA suspends Iran aid projects Last Updated: Saturday, 10 February 2007, 00:33 GMT Iran says it nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes The UN nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, says it has frozen almost half its technical aid projects involving Iran. The IAEA says its move is to comply with UN sanctions imposed on Tehran late last year over its refusal to halt uranium enrichment. Twenty-two projects have been suspended, according to an IAEA report. European officials hope to hold informal talks with him on the nuclear stand-off at the top-level security conference in Munich. 'Message of inducement' The IAEA gives technical aid to dozens of countries on the peaceful use of nuclear energy in fields such as medicine, agriculture and power generation. The nuclear watchdog has 55 projects that involve Iran. Of these, 22 have now been frozen to comply with the UN sanctions, which call for an end to programmes that could be exploited by Iran to develop nuclear weapons. The IAEA board is expected to formally back the move, recommended by IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei, when it meets next month. The BBC's Kerry Skyring in Vienna says that the IAEA has been under pressure from the United States to take a tough line. A senior UN official told Reuters news agency the freeze constituted a "substantial cut" in technical aid to Iran. "It is a message of inducement to Iran to reconsider its course," the official said. The US believes that Iran is working to develop nuclear weapons. Iran says its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes and has vowed to continue. * BBC Copyright Notice ***************************************************************** 15 AFP: Iran further isolated over nuclear program - US Sat Feb 10, 1:01 PM ET BUENOS AIRES (AFP) - Iran is finding itself further isolated as international supporters for its nuclear program are reduced to "a gang of four," the number-three US diplomat said. The "gang of four is Cuba, Venezuela, Syria and Belarus. I don't think there is any other country supporting Iran," said Nicholas Burns, the US State Department's under secretary for political affairs. "Iran seems to be determined to further isolation," he said. But Burns said a diplomatic resolution could overcome the impasse between global powers and Tehran over its alleged ambitions to develop nuclear weapons, which Iran denies. A June 2006 offer of cooperation and a suspension of sanctions in return for Tehran's suspension of uranium fuel enrichment is still viable, he said. "The offer is still on the table for us to negotiate," said Burns, at the end of a 24-hour visit to Argentina, which has its own concerns with Tehran. "There is a way out, a diplomatic path forward, a diplomatic solution to this problem," Burns said. "Iran is digging a hole deeper and deeper," Burns said. The International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN atomic watchdog, has halted almost half its aid to Iran as part of UN sanctions, an IAEA report said Friday. The UN Security Council on December 23 imposed sanctions on Iran for continuing to enrich uranium and called for cuts in the IAEA's aid to the Iranian nuclear program. Tension is escalating over Iran's uranium enrichment, which United States says Tehran wants to build atomic weapons, while Iran says it wants to generate electricity. Argentina has demanded Iran turn over former officials, including one-time president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, it claims were involved in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish charity in Buenos Aires, in which 85 died. AFP Photo: US Under-Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns and US Assistant Secretary of State... Copyright © 2007 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 16 Guardian Unlimited: US accuses highest levels in Iran of supplying deadly weapons to Iraqi insurgents Ewen MacAskill in Washington, Ian Traynor in Munich and Robert Tait in Iran Monday February 12, 2007 The Guardian The Bush administration stepped up pressure on Iran yesterday by producing what it claimed was intelligence that Tehran was behind roadside bombs used by insurgents against US forces in Iraq. It also said the decision to send the arms had been made at "the highest levels". The US move came as diplomatic discussions in Munich to revive negotiations over the Iranian nuclear crisis and ward off the chances of American air strikes broke up in failure. Washington officials have been debating whether to release the intelligence, expecting scepticism after having lost credibility by publishing misleading claims about weapons of mass destruction in the run-up to the war in Iraq. After more than a fortnight of procrastination and revision of a 200-page US classified military intelligence document, military officials briefed journalists in Baghdad on the contents yesterday. The briefers claimed the deadliest of the roadside bombs being used in Iraq were from Iran: the machine-tooling was so sophisticated that the only place it could have been done in that part of the region was Iran. They said that mortars found in Iraq were also from Iran. The US claimed that Iranians arrested at Irbil in northern Iraq last month included a member of the Quds brigade, a secretive organisation directed by the Iranian leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and part of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. News agencies based in Baghdad said the briefers, a defence official, an explosives expert and a defence analyst, had told them that between June 2004 and last week more than 170 Americans had been killed by the sophisticated bombs, referred to by the military as "explosively formed projectiles". Those weapons are capable of destroying an Abrams tank. Iran will dismiss the claims, saying it is hardly surprising there are Iranian weapons in Iraq given that the two countries fought between 1980 and 1988, and that Tehran had armed militia groups fighting Saddam Hussein. Ali Larijani, the head of national security in Iran, who was in Munich at the weekend to meet western politicians and officials, criticised the US occupation of Iraq and said the only parts of Iraq which were secure were those along the border with Iran where there were no US troops. America is building up its naval and air forces in the Gulf to put pressure on Iran and has adopted a policy of strategic ambiguity to keep Tehran guessing about its intentions. At present, there is no casus belli for an air strike. The Washington Post reported that a Washington-based ambassador had been told by John Hannah, national security adviser to the vice-president, Dick Cheney, that this was "the year of Iran" and that a US attack was a real possibility. Others in Washington say that Mr Bush is so isolated after the failures in Iraq that it will be difficult to embark on a new war, and that the claims about Iranian involvement in Iraq are part of a diplomatic squeeze rather than preparations for war. Washington-based analysts have said recently that the policy appears to be working, with signs of uncertainty among the leadership in Tehran. The Munich talks between Iran and the west were the first since the UN decided to impose sanctions against Tehran in December over its alleged nuclear weapons programme. Mr Larijani told Javier Solana, the EU foreign policy chief, that Iran would not freeze its uranium enrichment activities to get talks started and UN sanctions suspended. The message was reiterated in Tehran by Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But he confounded expectations that he would announce a major advance in the country's nuclear programme to coincide with yesterday's 28th anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution by instead declaring a readiness for talks. Mr Ahmadinejad's moderate tone appeared to confirm speculation that senior figures close to Mr Khamenei had forced him to ditch his previously confrontational rhetoric on the grounds that it risked provoking the west. Mr Larijani travelled to Munich to address western policy-makers on the impasse, a rare occasion of an Iranian official speaking before US congressional figures and a US cabinet member. He stressed Iran wanted talks on the nuclear impasse, said he had written to Mohammed ElBaradei, the head of the UN's nuclear watchdog, explaining that the dispute could be settled in three weeks, but refused in 90 minutes of talks with Mr Solana to bow to western demands that Iran freeze uranium enrichment. Iran could face tougher sanctions after a UN deadline for freezing uranium enrichment expires in 10 days. Mr Larijani also had talks with the German foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier. European officials dismissed reports that Germany and Switzerland were quietly offering a back channel for a deal where Iran would freeze enrichment to get talks restarted but would be allowed to experiment with the gas centrifuges used to process the uranium gas. The US and the British oppose any such deal. European sources and retired US officials said the stakes were increasing in the Iranian confrontation, but that no breakthrough was likely without direct talks between the Iranians and the Americans. The Iranian nuclear standoff appears to be leading to the kind of proliferation feared by the west. Six Gulf Arab states plan to explore development of nuclear energy plants, with representatives planning to seek help from the UN's nuclear watchdog this month, Abdul Rahman al-Attiyah, the secretary-general of the Gulf Co-operation Council, said yesterday. Key points · Pictures of weapons, including fragments of Iranian-made roadside bombs (EFPs) which penetrate tank armour by channelling explosive force through a single point. · False IDs of those held in Irbil, one an apparent operational chief of Iran's Quds Force. Some allegedly tried to destroy documents. One had traces of explosives. · Slides showing other weapons, including a shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile and a mortar bomb with manufacturing number. · Iran said to have surrogate groups including among the Mahdi militia, which "carried out most EFP attacks". · Evidence of Iraqis smuggling bomb parts across Iranian border. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007 ***************************************************************** 17 AFP: Merkel says world determined to stop Iran having nuclear weapons - by Guy Jackson Sat Feb 10, 8:20 AM ET MUNICH, Germany (AFP) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said the international community was resolved to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. "We are all determined to prevent the threat of an Iran with a military nuclear programme," Merkel said in a speech Saturday to the Munich Conference on Security Policy. Merkel said the Islamic republic must conform with international demands to stop enriching uranium "without ifs and buts and without tricks". "What we are talking about here is a very, very sensitive technology and so we need a high degree of transparency, which Iran has failed to provide, and if Iran does not do this it risks falling deeper into isolation," Merkel said. Iran's top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani is attending the annual high-level gathering and will give a speech on Sunday. Larijani has said he will also meet European officials in Munich, who, it is believed, will try to get Iran to re-engage in talks over its nuclear programme. He will have his first meeting in five months with EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, but Solana's spokeswoman Cristina Gallach dampened hopes of a major step forward. "There will be no breakthrough. It will be an opportunity for an exchange of views," she told AFP. Larijani struck a defiant tone as he arrived in Germany, saying Iran's nuclear activties were "under the supervision" of the International Atomic Energy Agency and that the country was committed to its engagements under the Non-Proliferation Treaty. "Iran is following a clear path in its nuclear activities and this not hidden to anyone," he told the Iranian state agency IRNA. Iran rejects a UN Security Council resolution of December 23 which imposed limited sanctions to force it to stop enriching uranium. Uranium enrichment uses centrifuges to make fuel for civilian nuclear reactors but can also be used to make material for bombs, although Iran denies it is developing nuclear weapons. In Iran itself, hundreds of thousands of people were to rally on Sunday in an annual show of support for the Islamic revolution, with the country's leaders promising a major announcement which was expected to focus on the achievement of a new stage in uranium enrichment. In a sign of the continuing divisions between the international community over how to handle Iran, President Vladimir Putin defended Russia's friendship with Iran which includes the ongoing construction of a nuclear power station at Bushehr. "We don't want Iran to feel cornered in a hostile environment. They should understand that they have some friends," Putin said in response to questions from US politicians after his speech to the Munich conference. "We must all be patient and offer Iran incentives and show their leaders that it is best to avoid confrontation with the international community." Copyright © 2007 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 18 Guardian Unlimited: U.S. Weighs Divulging Iran-Iraq Proof From the Associated Press Saturday February 10, 2007 9:46 PM AP Photo BAG115 By KATHERINE SHRADER and ANNE GEARAN Associated Press Writers WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration is haunted by the history of intelligence blunders about Saddam Hussein's supposed weapons of mass destruction as the United States tries to document that Iran is providing lethal help to Iraqi fighters. After weeks of preparation and revisions, U.S. officials are preparing to detail evidence supporting administration's claims of Iran's meddlesome and deadly activities. A briefing was scheduled Sunday in Baghdad. The Iran dossier, some 200 pages thick in its classified form, was revised heavily after officials decided it was not ready for release as planned last month. What is made public probably would be short, and shorter on details than the administration recently had suggested. No one who has seen the files has suggested the evidence is thin. But senior officials - gun-shy after the drubbing the administration took for the faulty intelligence leading to the 2003 Iraq invasion - were underwhelmed by the packaging. Officials from several intelligence agencies scrutinized the presentation to make sure it was clear and that ``we don't in any way jeopardize our sources and methods in making the presentation,'' State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Friday. National security adviser Stephen Hadley recently said some Iran material was overstated. Privately, officials say they want to avoid the kind of gaffe akin to former Secretary of State Colin Powell's case for war before the United Nations in 2003. ``My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions,'' Powell said as he laid out unproven claims of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. ``What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence.'' It later turned out that Iraq did not have such weapons. The evidence on Iran is intended to give backbone to the administration's claim that an emboldened Iran is playing a dangerous game across the Middle East: meddling in conflicts and planting terrorism beyond its borders while rushing to acquire nuclear know-how that could produce a bomb. Government officials familiar with the dossier's documents and slides, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the materials still were classified, said they make a compelling case about Iranian actions in Iraq. Among the evidence the administration planned to present are weapons that were seized over time in U.S.-led raids on caches around Iraq, said one military official. Other evidence includes documents captured when U.S.-led forces raided an Iranian office Jan. 11 in Irbil, a city in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq about 220 miles north of Baghdad, this official said. In that raid, the U.S. captured five Iranians. They included the operations chief and other members of Iran's elite Quds Force, which is accused of arming and training Iraqi militants. Tehran said it was a government liaison office and called for the release of the five, along with compensation for damages. The dossier also details Iran's role in providing Iraqi fighters with the ``explosively formed penetrator'' devices that can pierce the armor of Abrams tanks with nearly molten-hot charges. One intelligence official said the U.S. is ``fairly comfortable'' that it knows with some precision the origin of those Iranian-made explosives. While traveling in Europe on Friday, Gates said that serial numbers and markings on explosives used in Iraq provide ``pretty good'' evidence that Iran is providing either weapons or technology for militants there. Gates did not how the U.S. knows that, and officials in Washington declined comment. A senior U.S. government official said Saturday that members of Congress were shown proof in December. ``I'm convinced from what I've seen that the Iranians are supplying and are giving assistance to the people in Iraq who are killing American soldiers,'' said independent Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut. The evidence in the dossier also includes what is known about Iranian efforts to train Iraqis in making bombs, using firearms and other military skills. But officials described internal disagreement about how closely Iranians can be linked to the training: Is there an Iranian in a classroom or some other setting showing Iraqis how to place and detonate roadside bombs? That, the official said, is less clear. Analysts at the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Office of the National Intelligence Director and elsewhere have been double- and triple-checking the information to ensure it is well supported. Officials said that is particularly the case when the material comes from sources with agendas. For instance, groups such as the Mujahedeen Khalq, which advocates for the overthrow of Iran's rulers, have provided some useful information to the United States in the past, but officials said material from them and other similar sources must be handled carefully. The vigorous fact-checking brings up a recurring problem: the precise nature of Iran's actions is often murky, but the intelligence must be solid. After mistakes on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, U.S. officials recognize there is skepticism about U.S. intelligence claims. --- Associated Press writers Lolita C. Baldor and Pauline Jelinek contributed to this report. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007 ***************************************************************** 19 BBC NEWS: Iran insists on nuclear programme Last Updated: Sunday, 11 February 2007, 13:46 GMT Iran says it wants nuclear power, not nuclear weapons President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has insisted on Iran's right to develop nuclear fuel while staying within international rules. Mr Ahmadinejad accused the West of making false offers - calling for talks and then insisting that Tehran first halts its uranium enrichment work. The president was addressing a mass rally in Tehran, marking the 28th anniversary of the Islamic revolution. Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, met European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana on the sidelines of the conference. Mr Solana said after the meeting no deal had been reached but possible solutions were being explored. It was their first meeting since the collapse of talks last year and the imposition in December of limited UN sanctions on Tehran for its failure to stop the enrichment of uranium. In Tehran, the BBC's Frances Harrison says school children waved flags and screamed hysterically when the president appeared at the podium to speak. [Iran] is interested in defending the rights of the Iranian people within the framework of the law President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Cold war fears Nuclear stand-off guide The capital's largest square was packed with people, some holding posters comparing the US president to Adolf Hitler or making fun of US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice. Mr Ahmadinejad accused Iran's enemies of trying to use the nuclear issue to undermine its independence. "Today, the pretext of their opposition is the progress the Iranian nation has made in the field of nuclear energy," he said. The president said Iran had no intention of pulling out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty but added that it would be a "humiliation" to abandon its programme. He said he would defend the rights of the Iranian people "within the framework of the law". Our correspondent says this gives little hope of a change of heart just 10 days ahead of a UN deadline to stop enriching uranium or face broader economic sanctions. Uranium enrichment is a process that can make fuel for power stations or, if greatly enriched, material for a nuclear bomb. * BBC Copyright Notice ***************************************************************** 20 [NYTr] Korea Nuke Talks in 3rd Day, No Deal Yet Date: Sat, 10 Feb 2007 16:01:23 -0600 (CST) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit Prensa Latina, Havana http://www.plenglish.com Korea Nuke Talks Third Day, No Deal Yet Beijing, Feb 10 (Prensa Latina) Negotiators on Korea Peninsula's denuclearization entered into the third day of discussions of some important items, diplomatic sources reported. Representatives from China, US, Russia, Japan, South Korea and the Democratic Popular Republic of Korea (DPRK) tackled the terms presented by China in the rough draft. In the document proposal that would be the third phase final declaration was stipulated, broadly speaking, that Pyongyang will freeze its nuke programs in two months term in return for help of energy resources. But the proposal did not succeed and the six delegations began a considerably long and decisive weekend, according to sources. China began working on a counter proposal including the participants' observations with the view to start out implementing a joint declaration on September 19, 2005. According to Xinhua news agency "the delegates remain split up in some specific items," while the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Losiuk predicted the negotiations will end with a two-page declaration. The South Korean negotiator refused to predict the results of the negotiations although said the differences are being reduced. hr abo jhb PL-8 * ================================================================ .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 ================================================================ ***************************************************************** 21 Korea Times: US Vows to Lift Financial Sanctions Within 30 Days : Pro-NK paper Hankooki.com > The Korea Times > Nation SEOUL (Yonhap) _ The United States has promised to lift financial sanctions imposed on North Korea within 30 days in return for the North taking the first steps toward dismantling its nuclear weapons programs within 60 days, a pro-Pyongyang newspaper based in Japan said on Sunday. The U.S. made the agreement at the end of the one-on-one talks with North Korea in Berlin last month, according to the Choson Sinbo, a Korean-language newspaper published by the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan. The report comes as nuclear envoys to the six-nation talks are haggling over a Chinese draft accord in Beijing. Quoting a source, the paper said, ``The issue (of energy aid) is a matter to be solved, not numerically but politically. The main goal of North Korea is to determine whether the United States has the will to change its policy toward North Korea through energy aid.ˇŻˇŻ U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill and his North Korean counterpart Kim Kye-gwan held rare direct talks in Berlin on Jan. 16-18, paving the way for the resumption of the six-nation talks over the NorthˇŻs nuclear weapons program. The Choson Sinbo also claimed that during the Berlin talks, the U.S. and the North agreed to discuss ways of removing the communist country from a list of terrorism-sponsoring countries and easing a trade embargo at working-level negotiations in a follow-up to the six-party talks. The six-party talks _ involving the two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia _ are under way in Beijing, but North KoreaˇŻs ``excessive demandˇŻˇŻ for large amounts of energy assistance is a stumbling block to any kind of agreement, according to JapanˇŻs top negotiator Kenichiro Sasae. In September 2005, North Korea agreed to dismantle its nuclear program in return for security guarantees and aid in the areas of energy, trade and investment. In late 2005, however, the U.S. cut off Macau-based Banco Delta AsiaˇŻs access to the U.S. financial system, alleging that North Korea used the bank to engage in illicit financial activities such as money laundering and counterfeiting U.S. dollars. In retaliation, North Korea boycotted the six-party talks until December, suggesting that the U.S. should discuss ways to lift the sanctions outside the six-party talks. U.S. Treasury Department officials discussed the issue with North Korean officials in Beijing last month. The outcome of the talks has yet to be disclosed, but U.S. officials hinted that the talks might help foster a good mood for the six-nation talks. 02-11-2007 21:40 Kim Jong-nam, the eldest son of North KoreaˇŻs leader Kim Jong-il is surrounded by media upon arrival from Macau at Beijing Airport in Beijing, China, Sunday. His appearance in Beijing sparked interest among North Korea watchers, as the six-party talks over the NorthˇŻs nuclear weapons programs are being held in the Chinese capital. /AP-Yonhap ***************************************************************** 22 AFP: US betrayed Berlin accord, says pro-North Korea paper by Harumi Ozawa Sun Feb 11, 7:15 AM ET TOKYO (AFP) - North Korea has accused the United States of attempting to scupper a recent deal to lift financial sanctions on the communist state within a month, a report said. The Chosun Shinbo, a pro-Pyongyang newspaper for ethnic Koreans in Japan, said in its online edition Sunday that the renewed six-party talks had hit a snag because of "betrayal" by the United States, which refused to pledge energy incentives for denuclearisation. "The DPRK (North Korean) delegates participating in the six-party talks are expressing distrust over the US act of betrayal," Chosun Shinbo said in the story. The newspaper said at a meeting last month, the United States had promised to lift financial sanctions on Banco Delta Asia -- a Macau bank accused of serving as a conduit for North Korean money laundering and counterfeiting -- within 30 days. In return North Korea had agreed to take the first steps toward dismantling its nuclear weapons programme within 60 days. The United States and North Korea reached the accord when their chief nuclear negotiators, Christopher Hill and Kim Kye-Gwan, met in Berlin in January ahead of the multilateral negotiations on disarming Pyongyang, the Chosun Shinbo said, quoting unnamed sources. Both sides had also agreed on the initial steps to be taken towards denuclearisation, the paper said. But hope for a nuclear disarmament deal at the renewed six-party talks was dimming. "The obstacle is... that the United States and some other countries never think of their duties that have to be implemented (in order for North Korea to take initial steps towards denuclearisation," the Chosun Shinbo said. The paper also said North Korea had demanded at the Beijing talks that a joint statement, to be adopted at the end of renewed negotiations, should promise the cessation of the US-South Korean joint military drills and arms build-up against the communist state. The latest round of talks for the three-year-old six-nation forum -- which also includes Russia, Japan, South Korea and hosts China -- began on Thursday amid optimism that a deal could be reached on a draft accord towards North Korean disarmament drawn up by Beijing. The plan calls for Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear ambitions in return for energy assistance and other incentives, but has snagged on what Japan's envoy called "excessive" demands for energy aid by North Korea. North Korea, apparently emboldened by its October detonation of a nuclear device, has demanded two million tonnes of fuel oil and other inducements, Japanese press have reported. That would be four times as much fuel oil as offered under a landmark yet now-defunct 1994 disarmament deal. The six-party forum began in 2003 with the aim of convincing North Korea to disarm. But it has seen many false dawns and failed to stop the regime from conducting its atomic test. Copyright © 2007 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 23 AFP: No deal yet in 'tough' North Korea nuclear talks - by Jun Kwanwoo and Shigemi Sato Sat Feb 10, 12:13 PM ET BEIJING (AFP) - Six-nation talks aimed at dismantling North Korea's nuclear programme failed to strike a deal as the US chief negotiator said only one sticking point remained. Despite a flurry of bilateral and multi-party meetings on a Chinese draft agreement, talks broke for the night with a long-awaited deal still tantalisingly out of reach. Discussions centred on the host's draft accord outlining steps the five parties would take in order for North Korea to disarm, including the aid package for Pyongyang. Chief US negotiator Christopher Hill said: "There is just one paragraph that keeps on being reworked." "It's very tough to predict success," the envoy told reporters at the end of the day. "I'm dealing with a tough issue in this tough part of the world." He said that the remaining sticking point is "basically an issue between North Korea and the five others." "But we're gonna stay with this. It may take another day or two to get through this," Hill added. "The problem is with North Korea. They want precise measurement of how we go." Chief Japanese delegate Kenichiro Sasae said: "There are differences of opinion among the five nations, but there are greater differences between the five nations and North Korea." Japan has vowed not to extend aid to North Korea unless there is progress on the unresolved question of Japanese who were kidnapped by the communist state in the 1970s and 1980s and are presumed to still live there. South Korean chief negotiator Chun Yung-Woo told reporters: "We still do not know when the egg can hatch. But we can confirm that it will not be an unfertilised egg," he said, referring to an agreement that has eluded the parties since late 2005. "The contentious points have boiled down to one or two things. All participating countries do not easily agree on the issues because of their conflicting interest," said Chun. Under the draft agreement, North Korea would close its main nuclear-related facilities, including a five-megawatt reactor at Yongbyon, within two months in return for alternative energy sources, press reports said. A South Korean official told reporters that he could not confirm reports that North Korea had demanded large amounts of energy aid. Japan's Kyodo news agency reported that North Korea had demanded two million tonnes of fuel oil and two million kilowatts of electricity in exchange for initial steps towards abandonment of its nuclear programs. US officials described the agreement as very different from the nuclear freeze the Clinton administration negotiated in 1994, The New York Times said. "This is the Libya model," The Times quotes one senior official as saying, referring to Libya's decision in late 2003 to turn over all the equipment it had purchased from a secret nuclear network run by a Pakistani scientist. In that agreement, both the Libyans and the United States took a series of steps that eventually rid the country of nuclear technology and ended its isolation. Saturday was spent in a whirlwind of meetings at the Diaoyutai Guest House in western Beijing, scene of all six-party talks since they began in 2003. Envoys refused to give specifics about the Chinese draft accord, but said it sought to begin implementing a six-party agreement reached in September 2005. That deal fell through within just two months over North Korean objections to US financial sanctions imposed against it for alleged money laundering and counterfeiting. In the agreement, North Korea agreed to scrap its nuclear programme in return for security guarantees, energy benefits and aid. The potential breakthrough this week comes after North Korea conducted its first atomic test in October last year, an event it said confirmed its status as a global nuclear power, but which also drew United Nations sanctions. The six-party forum began in 2003 with the aim of convincing North Korea to disarm. But it has seen many false dawns and failed to stop the regime from conducting its atomic test. Copyright © 2007 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 24 Sf Chronicle: India lies in America's blind spot / Emerging world power affects us more each day Cheryll Barron Sunday, February 11, 2007 "Everyone in Washington ignores India," wrote veteran geopolitical analyst and State Department watcher Martin Sieff in 1998 after India's second round of nuclear tests. He complained that America, obsessed by small, insignificant countries, was failing to court India and "secure an important ally." Not until November was there a sign of such advice being heeded. The United States agreed to share nuclear technology with the subcontinent, but only after fierce lobbying by rich and prominent Indian Americans, including Bay Area venture capitalists. America's blind spot about India explains why a $12.2 billion corporate takeover in late January that Europe treated like a scary number on the Richter scale was reported without fanfare and garnered scant comment in U.S. media. Writing in the Independent, the upscale paper of the British left, Hamish McRae -- one of the most sober and respected economics writers for more than 30 years -- said the acquisition signified "a shift of seismic proportions, something far beyond anything that has occurred in our lifetimes." On Jan. 31, India's Tata group, a conglomerate founded in the 1860s and today controlled by a charitable foundation, bought Corus -- the Anglo-Dutch steelmaker that employs 47,000 people and contains the heart of Industrial Age Britain, the company once known as British Steel. Tata is one-fifth the size of Corus, and the takeover was the biggest foreign purchase ever made by an Indian company. Ratan Tata, the company's chairman and a descendant of a founder who was himself descended from a long line of Parsee priests, said that outbidding a Brazilian rival, Companhia Siderurgica Nacional, had led to "a moment of great fulfillment for India." Large Indian corporations in industries ranging from pharmaceuticals to software have quietly been growing bolder about snapping up companies in the United States and Europe, and this reflects the steady upward revision of economic forecasts for India, now that its gross domestic product has grown at an average yearly rate of more than 8 percent for four years -- a pace that could reach double figures by the end of this year. The latest projections from Goldman Sachs, the international investment bank, show India's economy overtaking Italy's in size by 2012, France's by 2015 and Britain's by 2016. Goldman Sachs also expects that while China's economy will be larger than America's by the 2030s, India's could zoom past the United States by 2045. The modest attention that U.S. media paid to Tata and Corus suggests that America only barely acknowledges India's high rank among the fast-rising countries outside the West that were one focus of last month's World Economic Forum in Davos -- "the shifting power equation." Book publishing trends can be an index of what the educated population of a country considers important. It has been more than a decade since Indian writers like Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy, Vikram Seth and Jhumpa Lahiri supplanted Latin American magical realists on U.S. lists of best-selling foreign fiction. Indian cookbooks do well, Bollywood music has for some time been fashionable on university campuses, the Indian-born M. Night Shyamalan has directed Hollywood blockbusters, and yoga is so popular that strains of it are tailored for Americans. Accelerating in the 1960s, with the New Age philosophizing that came with tie-dyed T-shirts and beads and was just as superficial, the crowd-pleasing Indian cultural exports have satisfied American appetites for aesthetic exoticism. By contrast -- and not only because of an outsourcing boom during a deep recession three years ago -- Indian software companies' ever-greater importance in world trade has caused deep unease as they have graduated from routine coding to systems specification and software architecture. Recently, The Chronicle reported on a joint UC Berkeley and Duke University study revealing that a quarter of U.S. technology companies created between 1995 and 2004 had at least one foreign founder. But the paper did not record that the study also uncovered an astonishing fact -- that more Indian immigrants were at the helm of U.S. engineering and technology startups over the period than migrants from China, the United Kingdom, Japan and Taiwan combined. Nor did it say that Indian-born entrepreneurs were principal founders of 26 percent of immigrant-led Silicon Valley ventures, just overtaking Chinese and Taiwanese founders, who accounted for 24.4 percent of the total. Yet in the week that these findings were released, The Chronicle splashed across its arts pages a magnificent color spread about the Indian novelist Vikram Chandra and his million-dollar book advance. Any idea of India as an economic or political power triggers semiconscious prejudices that persist, even though the basis for them has either grown weaker or vanished. Born into the most exalted realization of the Enlightenment ideals of equality and freedom, Americans understandably never quite forget India's centuries-long status as the world's most hierarchical and caste-bound society -- even though modern India, unlike China, has passionately embraced democracy and has struggled for decades to get results from its many versions of affirmative action, making bumpy and slow but still measurable progress. If the news media had given Tata's coup the attention it deserved, Americans would have learned that this corporation, India's largest after the buyout, has for decades given workers in its company town subsidized housing and electricity, free purified water, hospital care and schooling for children. Many Americans have resented Indians' traditional pride in their "ancient and spiritual civilization" and read into it -- accurately or not -- an implication that it is superior to the materialistic New World's. But in the last seven years, the subcontinent has been keener to promote a new image as "shining India," the slogan of one political party that pithily conveys the wish of all dynamic contemporary Indians to be seen as thoroughly future-focused. There are Americans who still cannot forgive India for aligning itself for 30 years with the old Soviet Union, even after that Bolshevik invention fell apart, and even though its rump, Russia, now openly prefers China as an ally. By some estimates, three years from now China and India will together churn out 12 times as many engineers, mathematicians, scientists and technicians as the United States. True, only a small proportion of these are educated to high standards today, but that will improve. Even without any strategic political incentives for treating India as an honored friend -- such as hoping for help with keeping Chinese expansionism in check -- it is impossible to see the United States holding its own in the knowledge economy taking shape without leaning heavily on Indian as well as Chinese workers of many stripes. Cheryll Barron has written about computers, culture and society for the Economist, Salon, the (London) Observer and the New York Times. Contact us at insight@sfchronicle.com. This article appeared on page C - 3 of the San Francisco Chronicle ***************************************************************** 25 AFP: US defence chief to Putin: 'One Cold War enough' by Jim Mannion Sun Feb 11, 7:24 AM ET MUNICH, Germany (AFP) - US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has deflected a stinging broadside against the United States by Russian President Vladimir Putin, declaring: "One Cold War was quite enough." The new US defence chief used wry humor in his debut speech Sunday to an international security conference to deflate Putin's portrayal of the United States the day before to the same gathering as a dangerous, destabilising world power. Gates also mended fences with Europeans alienated by his predecessor Donald Rumsfeld, acknowledged that US mistakes have damaged its reputation and said Washington needed to do a better job of explaining its policies. "Speaking of issues going back many years, as an old Cold Warrior, one of yesterday's speakers almost filled me with nostalgia for a less complex time. Almost," said Gates, a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency. "One Cold War was quite enough." Gates went on to say that the world today is different and more complex than during the Cold War era and that partnerships with other countries, including Russia, were needed to face common problems and a new challenge from Islamic extremism. "Let me repeat there is no desire for a new Cold War with Russia and one is completely unnecessary," he said during a question-and-answer session. He said he had accepted an invitation from Putin and Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov to visit Russia. "I have, like your second speaker yesterday, a starkly different background -- a career in the spy business. And I guess old spies have a habit of blunt speaking," he said. But Gates said he had gone to "re-education camp" as a university president where he learned in dealing with academic faculties that it is either "be nice" or "be gone." The new US defence secretary also made a passing but pointed reference to Rumsfeld, who had antagonised European powers by dividing the NATO alliance into countries that supported the US invasion in Iraq and those that did not. "Over the years, people have tried to put the nations of Europe and of the Alliance into different categories," he said. "And I am told that some have even spoken in terms of 'old' Europe versus 'new'." "All of these characterisations belong to the past," he said. In response to a question however Gates bluntly warned that a US failure in Iraq would have consequences for all NATO countries. "There may be great disagreement in this room in how we got to where we are, but the reality is, as of today, failure in Iraq will impact every country represented in this room," Gates said. He admitted that Guantanamo and prisoner abuse scandals in Iraq have damaged the reputation of the United States, but he defended trials of terrorist suspects by special military commissions as legitimate. "I don't have any doubt that in certain quarters there may be anti-American propaganda. But I think we also have made some mistakes, and not presented our case as well as we'd like in many instances." He added: "I think we have more work to do in terms of restrengthening American soft power around the world." Putin on Saturday stunned top officials and academics at the security conference with a vehement attack on US leadership in the world. A former KGB spy, Putin charged that the United States has "overstepped its borders in all spheres," creating a dangerous "uni-polar" world that had brought war, ruin and insecurity. He questioned the intentions behind NATO expansion eastward into countries that once formed part of the Soviet Union, and US plans for missile defence systems in Poland and the Czech Republic, former Soviet bloc states. Gates in contrast said Russia was "a partner in endeavours". "But we wonder too about some Russian policies that seem to work against international stability, such as its arms transfers and its temptation to use energy resources for political coercion," he said. Russia "need not fear law-based democracies on its border," he said. Gates identified violent extremism "grounded in a profound alienation from the foundations of the modern world" as a challenge "unlike anything the West has faced in many generations." He stressed the importance of not allowing success in Afghanistan to slip away. Other challenges he cited included sectarian conflicts and jihadist movements radiating out from Central Asia and the Middle East; an Iran "with hegemonic ambitions seeking nuclear power"; and the struggle over the future of Iraq. He also said China was at a "strategic crossroads" and noted "with concern" its recent anti-satellite test. Copyright © 2007 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 26 Reuters: Gates dismisses Putin remarks as blunt spy talk 11:43PM EST, Sun 11 Feb 2007 Sun Feb 11, 2007 8:02AM EST Putin says U.S. wants to dominate world MUNICH, Germany (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Sunday dismissed as the blunt talk of an old spy accusations by Russian President Vladimir Putin that the United States sought to force its will on the world. "Many of you have backgrounds in diplomacy or politics," the former CIA director told the Munich Security Conference. "I have, like your second speaker yesterday, a starkly different background -- a career in the spy business. And, I guess, old spies have a habit of blunt speaking. "We all face many common problems and challenges that must be addressed in partnership with other countries, including Russia," Gates said. He said he accepted an invitation from Putin to visit Russia. "One Cold War was quite enough," Gates said. Putin on Saturday offered some of his harshest comments against the United States in seven years in power, attacking the concept of a "unipolar" world dominated by Washington. His remarks came amid continuing disagreement between Russia and the United States over the Iraq war and the nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea. Gates, who studied the Soviet Union and Russia as a career CIA analyst, also raised concerns on Sunday about Russia's arms transfers and "its temptation to use energy resources for political coercion," policies he said could threaten international stability. © Reuters 2007. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 27 The Observer: Putin hits at US for triggering arms race Russian leader launches an assault on America in a sign of growing Kremlin self-confidence Ian Traynor in Munich Sunday February 11, 2007 The Observer Vladimir Putin delivered the strongest attack of his seven-year presidency on the US yesterday, blaming it for fanning conflicts across the world through the unilateral use of 'hyper-force'. He said America was seeking to impose its standards on other nations, triggering new arms races and the spread of nuclear weapons, and threatening Russia through new missile shield programmes. In a blistering assault that reflected the Kremlin chief's self-confidence and conviction that he has restored Russia's international clout after years of decline, Putin told a security conference in Munich that America was destroying the international system and seeking to eliminate nuclear deterrence through the uncontained use of its power. 'One state, the United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way,' he told dozens of Western ministers and policy-makers including the US Defence Secretary, Robert Gates, and a likely Republican presidential contender, Senator John McCain. 'This is very dangerous. Nobody feels secure any more because nobody can hide behind international law,' Putin said. 'This is nourishing an arms race with countries seeking to obtain nuclear weapons... We're witnessing the untrammelled use of the military in international affairs... Why is it necessary to bomb and to shoot at every opportunity?' The Russian leader accused Washington of plotting to evade its commitments to cut nuclear arsenals - already made through US-Russian arms treaties - and raged against the Pentagon's plans to site parts of its missile shield project in Poland and the Czech Republic. 'I don't want to suspect anyone of aggressiveness,' said Putin. 'But if the anti-missile defence is not targeted at us, then our new missiles will not be directed at you.' The tirade indicated that the Kremlin is gearing up for confrontation with the Americans. He did not have a good word to say about Washington's policies. McCain told The Observer the speech was 'the most aggressive from a Russian leader since the end of the cold war', adding that it was confrontational, with some of the observations bordering on paranoia. The US Defence Secretary sat stony-faced throughout Putin's words, The Kremlin spokesman, Dimitry Peskov, denied that his leader had intended to be aggressive or confrontational, but said that the time was right for Putin to throw down the gauntlet. On several key disputes dominating the international agenda, Putin came out in flat opposition to the Americans. Russia was supplying Iran with air defence equipment, for example, so that Tehran did not feel surrounded by enemies. With the US pushing for independence for the Albanian-dominated province of Kosovo in former Yugoslavia, Putin said he would block independence unless Serbia agreed to it. In Russia, he added, Western non-governmental organisations operated as 'instruments' of Western governments. He reserved his bitterest complaints, however, for the US drive to expand Nato into former Soviet eastern Europe and for the plans to deploy parts of the missile shield in central Europe. 'Why do you need to move your military infrastructure to our borders?' he declared. McCain insisted that the missile shield was defensive and did not threaten anyone. Useful links Itar-Tass news agency Moscow Times Russia Today St Petersburg Times Caucasian Knot Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007 ***************************************************************** 28 BBC NEWS: Putin attacks 'very dangerous' US Last Updated: Saturday, 10 February 2007, 19:36 GMT Mr Putin said the US overstepped its borders in every way Russian President Vladimir Putin has criticised the United States for what he said was its "almost uncontained" use of force around the world. Washington's "very dangerous" approach to global relations was fuelling a nuclear arms race, he told a security summit in Munich. Correspondents say the strident speech may signal a more assertive Russia. "We expect to continue co-operation with Russia in areas important to the international community such as counter-terrorism and reducing the spread and threat of weapons of mass destruction," said Gordon Johndroe, press secretary for the White House National Security Council. Mr Putin told senior security officials from around the world that nations were "witnessing an almost uncontained hyper use of force in international relations". What we are talking about here is a very, very sensitive technology, and for that reason we need a high degree of transparency... Angela Merkel Q&A: Sanctions on Iran "One state, the United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way," he said, speaking through a translator. "This is very dangerous. Nobody feels secure anymore because nobody can hide behind international law. "This is nourishing an arms race with the desire of countries to get nuclear weapons." BBC defence and security correspondent Rob Watson, in Munich, said Mr Putin's speech was a strident performance which may well be remembered as a turning point in international relations. Iran says it wants nuclear power, not nuclear weapons US defence secretary Robert Gates, also attending the summit in Munich, said only that the Russian leader had been "very candid". Democratic Senator Joseph Lieberman said Mr Putin's speech was "provocative", adding that its rhetoric "sounded more like the Cold War". And Republican Senator John McCain added: "Moscow must understand that it cannot enjoy a genuine partnership with the West so long as its actions at home and abroad conflict fundamentally with the core values of the Euro-Atlantic democracies. In today's multi-polar world there is no place for needless confrontation." Mr Putin's spokesman Dimitry Peskov said the speech was "not about confrontation, it's an invitation to think". "Until we get rid of unilateralism in international affairs, until we exclude the possibility of imposing one country's views on others, we will not have stability," he said. 'Power not weapons' The conference, founded in 1962, has become an annual opportunity for world leaders to discuss the most pressing issues of the day. Earlier, German chancellor Angela Merkel told delegates the international community was determined to stop Iran getting nuclear weapons. There was "no way around" the need for Tehran to accept demands from the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), she said. "What we are talking about here is a very, very sensitive technology, and for that reason we need a high degree of transparency, which Iran has failed to provide, and if Iran does not do so then the alternative for Iran is to slip further into isolation," she said. Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani, also at the conference, has been repeating Iran's position that it wants nuclear power, not nuclear weapons. "We believe the Iranian nuclear dossier is resolvable by negotiation," Mr Larijani was quoted by Reuters news agency as saying on the sidelines of the conference. European diplomats are hoping to hold informal talks with Mr Larijani at the two-day summit. * BBC Copyright Notice ***************************************************************** 29 AFP: Putin hits out at US global dominance by Nick Coleman Sat Feb 10, 4:22 PM ET MUNICH, Germany (AFP) - Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-frontal attack on the United States, saying it had broken from international law and made the world a more dangerous place. Putin's denunciation of US policy, made at a high-level security conference in Munich, prompted dismay among senior officials and politicians from the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ( NATO). The United States had disastrously "overstepped" its borders, said the Russian leader, who spearheaded international opposition to the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, which was also opposed by Germany and France. "The United States has overstepped its borders in all spheres -- economic, political and humanitarian and has imposed itself on other states," Putin said at the annual Munich Conference on Security Policy. What he called a "uni-polar" world dominated by the United States, "means in practice one thing: one centre of power, one centre of force, one centre of decision-making, a world of one master, one sovereign," Putin said. Such a situation was "extremely dangerous. No one feels secure because no one can hide behind international law." In a first reaction, the White House said it was surprised and disappointed by Putin's charges. White House national security spokesman Gordon Johndroe said: "We are surprised and disappointed with President Putin's comments." "His accusations are wrong," he said. "We expect to continue cooperation with Russia in areas important to the international community such as counter-terrorism and reducing the spread and threat of weapons of mass destruction," Johndroe said. In his remarks Putin said US dominance was "ruinous, not only for those inside the system but for the sovereign himself because it destroys him from within. It has nothing in common with democracy." In a direct reference to US military policy, Putin said "local and regional wars didn't get fewer. The number of people who died didn't get less, but increased.... We see no kind of restraint, a hyper-inflated use of force." The United States, he said, had gone "from one conflict to another without achieving a fully-fledged solution to any of them." Putin also rejected US criticism that Russia has back-tracked on democracy during his period as president. "They are permanently teaching Russia about democracy. But those who teach us, for some reason don't really want to study it themselves." The Russian leader particularly criticised US plans to site a missile defence system close to Russia's border in NATO countries the Czech Republic and Poland, and made clear his opposition to any further NATO enlargement. "Why is it necessary to put military infrastructure on our border? It's hardly connected to today's global threats. What is the real threat? Terrorism," Putin said. The speech marked a further worsening of relations between Moscow and Washington under Putin, who has tried to restore Russia's prestige since the economic collapse that followed the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. Russian officials have accused Washington of sparking a new arms race due to the US plans for missile defence facilities in the Czech Republic and Poland. A spokesman for Putin, Dmitry Peskov, said the speech "is not about confrontation, but an invitation to think." But Putin's words were strongly criticised by NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and US Republican Senator and presidential hopeful John McCain (news, bio, voting record). De Hoop Scheffer said: "I can't hide my disappointment. I will not hide my disappointment. It's not helpful." McCain insisted "today's world is not uni-polar." "The US did not single-handedly win the Cold War.... The transatlantic alliance won the Cold War," McCain said. "Russian leaders' apparent belief to the contrary raises a number of very difficult questions," he said. US Defence Secretary Robert Gates was due to make his first major speech since taking office at the conference on Sunday. Also in the spotlight was Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, who was due to address the meeting after Gates. German Chancellor Angela Merkel told the conference the international community was resolved to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, an aim that Iran denies harbouring. "We are all determined to prevent the threat of an Iran with a military nuclear programme," Merkel said. Larijani has said he will also meet European officials in Munich, who, it is believed, will try to get Iran to re-engage in talks over its nuclear programme. Several thousand anti-war protesters marched through the southern German city to demonstrate against the conference, police said. Copyright © 2007 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 30 [NYTr] Nuclear War: A Warning from the Wise Date: Sat, 10 Feb 2007 16:36:31 -0500 (EST) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit sent by Dave Muller (southnews) The Guardian - Feb 8, 2007 http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/john_gittings/2007/02/a_warning_from_the_wise.html A warning from the wise by John Gittings Out of the mouths of ... retired US officials and generals comes the simple truth about nuclear weapons and the dangers the world faces while its most powerful leaders remain in denial. I would like to think that if Tony Blair had listened yesterday to Robert McNamara being interviewed on the BBC Today programme, the prime minister would now be reconsidering his obsession with "hard power" and Trident renewal - but I very much doubt it. McNamara warned: "The weapons [which nearly led to nuclear war in the Cuba crisis etc] are still there and the potential for misjudgment is still there, and the only way to avoid that in the long term is to eliminate nuclear weapons, that should be our objective, in a very real sense it's the lesson of the cold war." The nub of the problem is the familiar mismatch between intending to remain a nuclear power forever and telling others not to join the club. Hypocrisy apart, it won't achieve its purpose: if nuclear weapons are so vital for defence, others will want them too - which is the logic (as McNamara pointed out) behind Pyongyang's determination to have them. "I must say if I was them," said McNamara of the North Koreans, "I would be worried ... that the US or Britain or one of their allies is seeking to destroy my regime and to prevent that if I had the capability [of making nuclear weapons] ... I would certainly move in that direction." McNamara woke up early on to the inadequacy as well as danger of policies based on the threat of nuclear weapons. Already in 1982 he was advocating (along with George Kennan and McGeorge Bundy) a policy of "no first use": the declaration that one will not use nuclear weapons first is still rejected by the US, Britain, France and Russia, and the British white paper on Trident renewal has dismissed it again. By the mid-l990s, McNamara's views were shared more widely as the nuclear powers were seen to fail, post-cold war, to move decisively towards nuclear disarmament. In the words of General Lee Butler, ex-chief of Strategic Air Command, speaking in 1999: "The leaders of the nuclear weapons states today risk very much being judged by future historians as having been unworthy of their age, of not having taken advantage of opportunities so perilously won at such great sacrifice and cost, of reigniting nuclear arms races around the world, of condemning mankind to live under a cloud of perpetual anxiety." Last month a bipartisan study group at the Global Security Institute in Washington warned: "Current efforts by the administration to stem proliferation fail precisely because they do not uphold the principal bargain of the non-proliferation treaty - a clear commitment to nuclear disarmament in exchange for non-proliferation." The GSI group endorsed a recent op-ed article calling for new efforts to achieve the goal of "a world free of nuclear weapons": it is a sign of the times that the article had been published in the Wall Street Journal and co-signed by Henry Kissinger. Just how to restore confidence in non-proliferation, convince would-be proliferators that they have nothing to fear, and tackle the real problems posed by North Korea and Iran, is a huge and difficult agenda. Occasional hopeful signs - such as today's report from Beijing that Pyongyang may be willing to discuss "initial steps to nuclear disarmament" - have been invariably dashed. But none of these problems can be addressed convincingly if nuclear weapons continue to be regarded, by the handful of powers who possess them, as an unconditional and indefinite requirement. In this context Tony Blair's fall-back argument for Trident renewal, that Britain must retain nuclear weapons for the next half-century because we cannot "predict the unpredictable", means that there are no circumstances under which they will ever be given up. That is the road to eventual disaster, and it is not only CND but those in Washington with long experience of nuclear realities who are saying so now. * ================================================================ .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 ================================================================ ***************************************************************** 31 IHT: Israel considering building nuclear power station - International Herald Tribune The Associated Press Published: February 11, 2007 JERUSALEM: Israel is considering building a nuclear power station, an official of the country's atomic energy commission confirmed Sunday. The report was originally carried in the Haaretz daily, quoting the head of the Israeli electricity company. The official, Uri Bin-Nun, said the head of the Israeli Atomic Energy commission told him that the idea was under consideration — the first time the commission has said that. Nili Lishitz, spokeswoman for the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission, said the idea of building a nuclear power station is not new. "In light of Israel's energy needs it is only natural that we showed interest," she told The Associated Press. "Right now it is just in the planning stage." Israel has two nuclear reactors — ostensibly for research and scientific purposes — but is widely believed to have developed nuclear weapons at the larger of the two, in the Negev Desert. Israel is not a signatory of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), and its nuclear program is not under international supervision. Israel is at the forefront of an international effort to keep Iran, which has signed the NPT, from going nuclear. Iran insists its nuclear development program is for peaceful purposes, but Israel, the U.S. and others believe its real goal is to build atomic bombs. Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has repeatedly called for Israel to be wiped off the map. The newspaper report said the local electricity company has been promoting the idea of nuclear power for years, even allocating land in the Negev Desert for a power plant. The skyrocketing price of oil-based fuel has added impetus to the concept. The spokesman for the Israel Electricity Corporation refused to comment on the report. Israel has been converting its electricity generating plants from coal to natural gas in recent years. Copyright © 2007 the International Herald Tribune All rights reserved ***************************************************************** 32 BBC NEWS: Swiss still braced for nuclear war Last Updated: Saturday, 10 February 2007, 11:58 GMT By Imogen Foulkes BBC News, Switzerland Many historians will agree the fall of the Berlin Wall marked the end of the Cold War, but in Switzerland the threat of nuclear war has left an unexpected legacy. The Sonnenberg tunnel contains the world's largest nuclear shelter If you are driving through Switzerland, south to Italy, you are likely to take the route via the charming town of Lucerne and that means driving through the Sonnenberg tunnel. Those tunnels around Lucerne can be quite irritating, especially in fine weather. Just as you are enjoying a spectacular view of the lake and the mountains, you are plunged into darkness. But when you get to the Sonnenberg, make sure your eyes adjust, and take a closer look, for this is much more than a tunnel. In here is the world's largest nuclear shelter. Under Swiss law, local governments are required to provide shelter spaces for everyone, and in the early 1970s Lucerne was short by several thousand. The new Sonnenberg motorway tunnel, just being built, seemed a neat solution: kit it out as a nuclear shelter as well and it could hold 20,000 people. The Sonnenberg, in theory, is able to withstand a one megaton nuclear bomb, as close as half a mile away "Actually we got the idea from you British," explains Werner Fischer, the local civil protection chief, as he shows me around. "Londoners used the underground as shelter during the blitz." Well maybe, but believe me, there are things in the Sonnenberg that you will never find down the Finchley Road tube station. 'Engineering feat' It starts with the doors, which are a metre and a half thick (5ft), and weigh 350 tonnes each. The Sonnenberg, in theory, is able to withstand a one megaton nuclear bomb, as close as half a mile away. The shelter was designed to be self-sufficient One megaton is 70 Hiroshimas. That means the Sonnenberg residents would have emerged to a world reduced not to smoking rubble, but to ash. Inside, the tunnel is a surreal monument to neutral Switzerland's desire to survive a total war which would, naturally, have been started and waged by someone else. Every eventuality has been thought of. There are vast sleeping quarters, with bunk beds four layers deep. There is an operating theatre, a command post, and as Mr Fischer points out, a prison. "Just because there's a nuclear war outside doesn't mean we won't have any social problems in here," he says. Some of my friends have private ones in their own houses, used, these days, mostly to store wine or skis. There were even, it is rumoured, plans for a post office, until someone asked the obvious question "when the world outside is burning, who would you write to? What would the address be, not to mention who would deliver your letter?" Then there are the coloured lights, indicating whether it is night or day outside. Obviously the country which produces the world's top watches would not like to lose track of time. There are some truly impressive feats of engineering: the air filters, designed to supply those 20,000 souls with 192 cubic metres each of non-radioactive air every day, are indeed breathtaking. So large, the hall they are housed in has the dimensions of a medieval cathedral. Shelter choice But while the Sonnenberg may be the biggest shelter, it is by no means the only one. Many shelters are now being used a storage spaces In fact, there are over a quarter of a million of them in Switzerland, because, 17 years after the end of the Cold War, the policy of providing shelters for the entire population still stands. Some of my friends have private ones in their own houses, used, these days, mostly to store wine or skis. My house, though does not have one. An anxious telephone call to my local civil protection office brings a reassuring answer. "Actually your community has 40% overcapacity in shelters," I'm told. It turns out that, should the unthinkable happen, I have got a luxury of choice. I can settle into a cosy neighbourhood shelter designed for 10. Sounds good, as long as my family and the neighbours we get on with get there first. Or, there is a larger shelter, beneath the local fire station, which those without private shelters would share with the firemen. I can see it is not going to be the easiest of decisions. And down on the main street of my village, new houses are going up, the bulldozers are digging remarkably deep and blast resistant concrete is arriving by the tonne. But why add an estimated 4% to the house price, just to carry on preparing for a threat that has gone away? Until the law changes, bunkers will continue to be dug Karl Widmer, deputy director of Switzerland's civil defence department, looks a little sheepish when I put this to him. "We asked ourselves this question," he admits. "But then we thought, we've built all these things, so let's just carry on. And there could be new threats around the corner." "What threats exactly?" snorts a Social Democrat member of parliament. "Bird flu? Terrorism? An underground bunker won't protect against that. It's time we stopped this nonsense, all we're doing is building very expensive wine cellars." Later this year, the Swiss government will decide whether to continue the shelters-for-all policy, but this week, sirens right across Switzerland were tested, and the population had to check their bunkers were up to scratch. The monstrous Sonnenberg shelter though, is being gradually dismantled. But not because it has finally been deemed unnecessary: no, no, the real problem is those 350 tonne blast doors. When they were tested, they would not shut. From Our Own Correspondent was broadcast on Saturday, 10 February, 2007 at 1130 GMT on BBC Radio 4. Please check the programme schedules for World Service transmission times. ***************************************************************** 33 Sunday Herald: Replacing Trident System To Cost 100bn February 11, 2007 Est 1999 Scotland's award-winning independent By Rob Edwards, Environment Editor Figure five times higher than previously admitted Comment THE REAL cost of maintaining and replacing the Trident nuclear weapons system over the next 50 years could top Ł100 billion - five times higher than the prime minister, Tony Blair, has said. A new analysis of projected spending based on official figures suggests that the cost of buying and operating a successor to Trident will be around Ł70bn. Added to that, there is the Ł30bn it will cost to keep the existing warheads in service until 2023. This contrasts with the Ł15bn-20bn highlighted by Blair and other ministers as the cost of buying a replacement to Trident. "Tony Blair is trying to persuade parliament to sign up to his nuclear insurance policy without revealing its true cost," alleged John Ainslie, the co-ordinator of the Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). "The government is trying to con the taxpayer into spending over Ł100bn on weapons of mass destruction that we don't need and don't want. It will be our schools and hospitals that will suffer if this plan is approved." In the past, ministers have said that maintaining Trident absorbed no more than 3% of the total defence budget. But recently, they have increased this figure to 5%-6%. In evidence to the House of Commons Defence Committee last week, the defence secretary Des Browne admitted that the cost estimates had been revised. "We went through an exercise recently to make sure that we were identifying as accurately as we could the costs that are associated with our nuclear weapons systems," he said. He accepted that it was "perfectly legitimate" to assume that Trident would continue to absorb 5%-6% of the defence budget. On that basis, calculations suggest, the total cost of maintaining and replacing Britain's nuclear weapons between now and 2054 will be between Ł90bn and Ł110bn. The Ministry of Defence did not reject these figures, and reiterated that costs were expected to remain at 5% or 6% of the defence budget. "To try to extrapolate running costs for the whole 50-year period from that is inevitably highly speculative," an MoD spokesman said, adding that the cost was less than 0.1% of gross domestic product, and a "price worth paying for continued security". Blair announced his intention to replace Trident in December, and MPs are expected to vote on the issue in the Commons next month. Tomorrow the anti-nuclear group Greenpeace is promising to "name and shame" 27 Scottish Labour MPs who are either backing Trident or have refused to state their position. A billboard bearing all the names will spend the next 10 days touring Scotland alerting voters to the stance being taken by their MPs. As part of the campaign, the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise will be open to visitors in Leith docks today, before sailing to Greenock and then London. "Three-quarters of Scottish people oppose spending billions of pounds on new nuclear weapons," said Greenpeace's disarmament campaigner, Louise Edge. "Yet the majority of Scottish Labour MPs are either not saying how they will vote, or have made it clear they will vote to replace Trident." A survey of Scottish MPs' voting intentions on Trident by the new umbrella group, Scotland's For Peace, lists 12 Labour MPs, including 10 ministers, as "won't oppose" and 16 as "not known". It says 11 Labour MPs will vote against Trident replacement, including the former minister Gavin Strang. All 12 LibDem MPs in Scotland are listed as "not known", while the six Scottish Nationalist MPs will vote against. Scotland's single Conservative MP, David Mundell, is likely to back Trident. ©2007 newsquest (sunday herald) limited. all rights reserved ***************************************************************** 34 Rutland Herald: Nuclear energy has to be part of the mix Rutland Vermont News & Information February 11, 2007 By J. DYLAN RIVIS The Governor's Commission on Climate Change's reported decision, namely its caving in to pressure from such participants as James Moore of VPIRG, to revert to the use of the word "renewable" as opposed to "clean" forms of energy irks me intensely. I am sure that rational and clear thinking Vermonters do not want any potential solution to our power demands taken off the table. By effectively burying the nuclear option we could well be cutting off our noses to spite our faces. I should point out that, as fuzzy as it may make certain people feel, the hard reality is that present-day renewable energy sources will be unlikely to meet the demands of an ever-increasing world population. This does not mean that we should not make every effort to employ renewable technologies but should also mean that we not get all frantic, rave from our pulpit and irrationally dump other possible solutions. These anti-nuclear proponents are perpetrating fraud on the public by using the example and mistakes of 40 year old nuclear technologies that have since been vastly improved to the point that they no longer require cooling systems, utilize fuel in a far more manageable form and employ safer waste management options. We cannot and should not, as Americans have unfortunately tended to do in the past, continue to think we alone have the only solutions to problems that the rest of the world has resolved far in advance of our own efforts. If a country such as France is successfully increasing its nuclear technological options and countries such as Canada are rapidly accepting the inevitable, we ought to be investigating that option and all others instead of taking what would mirror, in religious terms, a monotheistic view of a multitheistic world. We need to ensure that groups like VPIRG are allowed to perpetrate their own self-serving "religion" on our state. We stand a far better chance of resolving the issue of both producing sufficient power to meet the demand and preserving the environment if we keep an open mind and an access to all possible solutions. J.Dylan Rivis lives in Montpelier. © 2007 Rutland Herald ***************************************************************** 35 Korea Times: Russia's Fragile Power Hankooki.com > The Korea Times > Opinion By Joseph S. Nye Project Syndicate News Service Russia sent an impressive delegation to the World Economic Forum at Davos this year. After strong representation under Boris Yeltsin, the level of Russias participants had slipped since Vladimir Putin became president. This year, however, the Russians sent their A team, and a well-attended session focused on Russia's More Muscular Foreign Policy. With higher energy prices, many Russian officials are enjoying their renewed power. I was asked to comment on United States-Russian relations at a dinner with top officials from the government and Gazprom, the giant energy company. I said that America and Europe had too many illusions about democracy in Russia in the 1990ˇŻs, and were now going through a stage of disillusionment. There is concern about RussiaˇŻs future, how it will use its newfound power, and how the West should respond. One view is that Russian politics is like a pendulum. It had swung too far in the direction of chaos under Yeltsin, and has now swung too far in the direction of order and state control under Putin. It has not swung back to Stalinism; Czarism might be a better historical metaphor. Observers debate whether it will eventually reach a new equilibrium. The optimistic view is that property rights are becoming more deeply anchored than they were in the past, and that RussiaˇŻs future will depend on how fast a middle class with a stake in law-based government can be created. But others are not so sure. Sometimes pendulums continue to oscillate wildly unless there is some friction to slow them down, and sometimes they get stuck. Pessimistic observers foresee a continual decline of freedom rather than a liberal equilibrium. Faced with this uncertainty about the future of liberal democracy in Russia, how should western countries respond? This question is particularly difficult for the Bush administration, which is torn between the presidentˇŻs early endorsement of Putin and his pro-democracy agenda. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice declared in 2005 that ˇ°the fundamental character of regimes matters more today than the international distribution of power,ˇ± and Senator John McCain, a US presidential candidate, has urged removing Russia from the Group of Eight advanced countries. Yet, in addition to its democracy agenda, the West has a realist agenda based on very tangible interests. The West needs Russian cooperation in dealing with issues like nuclear proliferation in Iran and North Korea, the control of nuclear materials and weapons, combating the current wave of radical Islamist terrorism, and energy production and security. Moreover, Russia possesses talented people, technology, and resources that can help to meet new challenges like climate change or the spread of pandemic diseases. There may not be as much conflict between these two agendas as first appears. If the West were to turn its back on Russia, such isolation would reinforce the xenophobic and statist tendencies present in Russian political culture and make the liberal cause more difficult. A better approach would be to look to the long run, use the soft power of attraction, expand exchanges and contacts with RussiaˇŻs new generation, support its participation in the World Trade Organization and other market-oriented institutions, and address deficiencies with specific criticisms rather than general harangues or isolation. In any case, the sources of political change in Russia will remain largely rooted in Russia, and Western influence will inevitably be limited. But advocating engagement over isolation should not prevent friendly criticism, and in Davos I offered four reasons why Russia will not remain a major power in 2020 unless it changes its current behavior and policies. First, Russia is failing to diversify its economy rapidly enough. Oil is a mixed blessing. Riding on record-high energy prices and raw material exports, in January 2007 Russia became the worldˇŻs tenth-largest economy. But energy exports finance about 30% of a government budget that is based on forecasts that oil remains at $61 per barrel. Russian industrial exports primarily consist of armaments, with advanced aircraft accounting for more than half of sales. That leaves Russia vulnerable. A related problem is that Russia lacks a rule of law that protects and encourages entrepreneurs. These are precisely the people needed to help foster a vibrant middle class – the bedrock of a stable democratic market economy. Instead, corruption is rampant. Moreover, RussiaˇŻs demographic crisis continues, sustained by poor public health and inadequate investment in a social safety net. Most demographers expect RussiaˇŻs population to shrink significantly over the coming decades. Adult male mortality is much higher than in the rest of Europe, and it has not been improving. Finally, while one can understand a former superpowerˇŻs temptation to seize its opportunity to return to a muscular foreign policy, RussiaˇŻs bullying in the energy area is destroying trust and undercutting RussiaˇŻs soft power in other countries. Both RussiaˇŻs neighbors and Western Europe have become more wary of depending upon Russia. Most Russian participants at the Davos dinner seemed to ignore these criticisms, but it was interesting to hear one important official admit that reform might progress faster if oil prices dropped somewhat, and another accept the point that criticism should be welcomed as long as it is offered in a friendly spirit. The mere fact that high-level Russians reappeared in Davos to defend themselves may be a small but healthy sign. Joseph S. Nye is a Professor at Harvard and author of Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics. The Korea Times welcomes our readers' contributions to Letters to the Editor and Thoughts of The Times. The article should be preferably submitted by e-mail to opinion@koreatimes.co.kr and not exceed 900 words. _ ED. 02-11-2007 17:13 ***************************************************************** 36 EEN: Swedish power concern reveals new flaws at Forsmark nuclear plant Energy Environment News | Home Posted on : Sat, 10 Feb 2007 13:25:00 GMT | Author : DPA Stockholm (dpa) - State-owned Swedish energy concern Vattenfall on Saturday admitted further serious security deficiencies at its controversial Forsmark nuclear power plant. A company statement said one of the plant's boiling-water reactors had been operating for seven months with deficient rubber seals to its outer walls. The statement said a test rubber sample had been taken last June. "When the test result had been analysed, it was clear that the elasticity of the rubber packing was insufficient," the company said. The reactor was closed down on February 2. Vattenfall spokesman Hans von Uthmann, newly nominated as chairman of the Forsmark Kraftgrupp AB board, described the security failure as "not acceptable." The reactor will again be operational following the replacement of the rubber packing. Three nuclear reactors are operated at Forsmark, some 140 kilometres north of Stockholm. The plant has since last year been under review by the Swedish Nuclear Power Inspectorate (SKI) after a shut-down of one of the reactors late July 2006 after a short-circuit in a switchyard outside the plant. The reactor shut down, but two of four emergency generators failed to start. Several other systems partly malfunctioned, sparking a debate over nuclear safety. Safety procedures at the plant were additionally questioned after the recent publication of an internal report that cited "a deterioration in security thinking," citing some two dozen accidents at the plant. The controversy led to the resignation of the plant's chief executive officer Lars Lagerberg on Thursday and the approval of a new programme aimed at improving security issues. Copyright © 2007 Respective Author (c) 2007 Earthtimes.org, All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 37 Independent Online: British Energy heralds new nuclear age Generator in talks with rivals to build new reactors By Tim Webb Published: 11 February 2007 British Energy, the nuclear generator, has held talks with Europe's largest power companies about building a new generation of nuclear reactors in the UK. The company has had meetings with executives from the French group EDF and German group RWE, which owns npower in the UK, ahead of next month's publication of the Government's White Paper on energy. E.ON is also understood to be involved. The White Paper will pave the way for a renaissance of nuclear power in this country. The Government is expected to make it financially viable for the UK's ageing reactors to be replaced, for example by guaranteeing a minimum electricity tariff for nuclear power. Most experts believe British Energy, which operates eight nuclear reactors, owns the sites that are most suitable to host new ones. But EDF and RWE, and probably E.ON, have also sent inspection teams to visit older Magnox reactors, owned by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, to assess their suitability as sites for new reactors. Building on existing sites would make planning permission easier to obtain. The chief executive of British Energy, Bill Coley, will face questions from analysts concerning the company's possible role in a reactor-building programme when it reports third-quarter results on Tuesday. Negotiations with the German and French companies are at a preliminary stage. A consortium of several companies will probably be needed to lead the new-build programme. British Energy could offer the use of its sites on condition that it is involved in a consortium, but is thought to be reluctant to sell them outright. The Government took a 65 per cent stake in British Energy in 2002 to prevent it going into administration. Electricity prices have since risen, helping the company to stage a recovery. But it continues to be dogged by technical problems. Last autumn, two of its reactors, Hinkley Point B and Hunterston B, had to be shut down; British Energy now says they should restart the end of March. When all its reactors are operating as normal, the company produces around a fifth of the UK's electricity. © 2006 Independent News and Media Limited ***************************************************************** 38 OhmyNews International: Japan's Nuke Power Policy Limps Along - 2007-02-11 13:36 KST [Commentary] Uncertainties remain over the nation's nuclear fuel cycle project Hisane Masaki (hmasaki) Email Article Print Article Now that a disaster-hit Japanese nuclear reactor is fully back on line, the reactor operator is soon expected to move toward a resumption of its controversial "pluthermal" (plutonium-thermal) program. The reactor, No.3 at the Mihama nuclear power plant in Fukui prefecture, western Japan, has resumed full-scale commercial operations two and a half years after it was shut down in the wake of the nation's deadliest accident at a nuclear power plant. It is owned and operated by Japan's second-biggest utility, Kansai Electric Power Co. (KEPCO). KEPCO's frozen pluthermal program will begin at the Takahama nuclear power plant in the same prefecture. Pluthermal power generation, in which plutonium-uranium mixed-oxide fuel will be burned at light-water reactors, is one of the pillars of energy-hungry Japan's nuclear fuel cycle policy. The Mihama nuclear power plant's No.3 reactor resumed full-scale commercial operations on Wednesday, after the government's final safety inspection was completed earlier in the day. KEPCO had reactivated the 826,000-kilowatt pressurized water reactor on Jan.10 for the first time since a pipe ruptured at the plant in August 2004, killing five workers and injuring six others. As for KEPCO's frozen pluthermal program at its Takahama nuclear power plant, KEPCO President Shosuke Mori has said," We would like to consider it in a concrete manner after the safety operations of the Mihama No. 3 reactor are confirmed." The program got the nod from the prefectural government in March 2004, but has been put on ice because of the August 2004 accident. 　 Resource-poor Japan imports almost all of its oil, and is the world's largest importer of liquefied natural gas. The Japanese government attaches great importance to nuclear power promotion as a key to ensuring national energy security. Its "New National Energy Strategy," adopted last May, calls for, among other things, raising the percentage of nuclear power in the total national electricity supply from the current 30 percent to up to 40 percent or more by 2030. Japan is already the world's third-largest nuclear power nation in terms of the number of civilian nuclear reactors in operation, at 55. In a desperate attempt to win over local residents, the nation's central government has provided special subsidies without stint to the communities hosting the nuclear power plants. But the Japanese public has grown increasingly wary of the nuclear power industry following a spate of safety problems, shutdowns and coverups, and utility companies face difficulties obtaining local support for new plant sites. In the latest of such a spate of wrongdoings, Japan's largest utility, Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), has recently admitted that it falsified data at its nuclear power plants for three decades in an attempt to easily pass compulsory government inspections. TEPCO said that it discovered falsifications of technical data on nearly 200 occasions from 1977 to 2002 at three nuclear power plants, and reported them to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry as requested. In December, the ministry ordered TEPCO to review past data following the company's discovery that cooling water data had been falsified at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Fukushima prefecture, northern Japan, in the late 1980s. The company also faked test operations at its Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant in Niigata prefecture, central Japan, in 1992, when an emergency core cooling system pump failed during a government inspection. TEPCO came under fire after another safety data coverup scandal in 2002, stirring public distrust of Japan's nuclear industry and forcing the then chairman and the president of the company to resign to take responsibility. The New National Energy Strategy also calls for establishing a nuclear fuel cycle. In October 2005, seven months before the strategy was unveiled, the Atomic Energy Commission of Japan, the highest nuclear decision-making body affiliated with the cabinet, adopted a long-term nuclear plan maintaining the nation's nuclear fuel cycle program, which reprocesses all the spent nuclear fuel to extract plutonium for future use as nuclear fuel. Japan's nuclear fuel cycle program entered a new phase in March last year when a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant run by Japan Nuclear Fuel in the Aomori prefecture village of Rokkasho, in northern Japan, started test operations to extract plutonium for the pluthermal power-generation project. Under the project, plutonium-uranium mixed-oxide fuel will be burned at light-water reactors. The Rokkasho plant is scheduled to come into commercial operation this summer. Government officials say the recycling of uranium resources via the nuclear fuel cycle program will contribute to the stability of energy supplies. According to plans by 11 Japanese power companies, as much as 6.5 tons of plutonium will be burned annually at nuclear plants after the pluthermal power-generation project gets under way. The Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan plans to get pluthermal power generation under way at 16 to 18 power plants by the end of fiscal 2010. The companies have said they first plan to use plutonium produced overseas such as in Britain and France at the pluthermal plants and start burning domestically produced plutonium in 2012 or later. But it remains to be seen whether Japanese power companies, facing a serious loss of public confidence in nuclear plant safety in the wake of a spate of accidents, will be able to carry out their pluthermal plans. According to one opinion poll, a majority of Japanese support the promotion of nuclear power generation while remaining concerned about safety at nuclear power plants. Naturally, opposition to nuclear power plants is particularly strong among residents of host communities. The Japanese government has approved several pluthermal programs. But so far only two of them have managed to get the green light from local governments. Shikoku Electric Power Co. won local approval last October to generate electricity using plutonium-uranium mixed-oxide fuel at the No. 3 reactor of its Ikata nuclear plant in the Ehime prefecture, western Japan. Earlier in March last year, Kyushu Electric Power Co. received local approval for the No.3 reactor of its Genkai nuclear power plant in Saga prefecture, western Japan. Scandals, including fuel data falsifications and accident coverups, also have rocked the confidence of local governments in pluthermal programs. Another key to the future of the nation's nuclear fuel cycle program is the fate of the fast-breeder reactor, which produces more fissile material than it consumes. The prototype fast-breeder reactor, Monju, in Tsuruga, Fukui prefecture, has remained shut since a sodium leak and subsequent fire in December 1995. The operator, then Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development (Donen), tried to cover up the extent of the accident. It remains uncertain when Monju will resume full operations, although its current operator, the semi-governmental Japan Atomic Energy Agency, has been preparing Monju with an eye toward resuming full operations in 2008. Meanwhile, Japan is also revving up its drive to secure uranium abroad as global demand for nuclear power rises amid high oil and gas prices and growing environmental concerns. Major Japanese trading and energy firms are looking at multibillion yen investments in uranium mine projects, while electronics conglomerate Toshiba Corp. purchased Westinghouse, the United States power plant arm of British Nuclear Fuels, for about U.S.$5.4 billion in February last year. In anticipation of further growing demand for uranium, Sumitomo Corp. and KEPCO invested in APPAK LLP, a subsidiary of Kazakhstan's state-run nuclear power company, Kazatomprom, in January last year for the development of the West Mynkuduk mine. Sumitomo and KEPCO acquired stakes in APPAK of 25 percent and 10 percent, respectively. Uranium prices are climbing as energy-hungry China and India are stepping up construction of nuclear power plants to fuel their high-flying economies, while some industrialized countries, including the United States and Britain, are moving to build new nuclear power plants after many years of suspension following nuclear accidents at Three Mile Island in the United States in 1979 and Chernobyl in Ukraine in 1986. Nuclear power generation has begun to come under the spotlight again due to growing environmental concerns as well as the high prices for oil and gas. Nuclear power plants generate much less carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas widely blamed for global warming, than coal-fired facilities. Renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power generation are not available in sufficient amounts -- or at affordable prices. Hisane Masaki is a Tokyo-based journalist, commentator and scholar on international politics and economy. This is a rewritten part of an article that originally appeared on Asia Times. ©2007 OhmyNews ***************************************************************** 39 The Local: Forsmark fiasco turns Swedes off nuclear power 11th February 2007 Online: http://www.thelocal.se/6359/ Over the last four years Swedes have become more positive towards nuclear power, with one in four favouring an expansion of Sweden's nuclear power programme. But recent revelations about safety failings at the Forsmark power station have led to a surge in scepticism. On Thursday Forsmark's managing director, Lars Fagerberg, resigned with immediate effect after it became clear that a sample of a suspect rubber pannel in the reactor's outer housing was left untested for seven months. It was later discovered that the panel had lost its required elasticity, according to a spokesman for Forsmark's operator FKA. Polling company Sifo this week interviewed 1,000 people on behalf of newspaper Svenska Dagbladet about their attitudes towards nuclear power. Some 25 percent say they would favour increasing the number of power stations - up from just 16 percent in 2003. The number of people who would prefer to maintain today's levels of nuclear power has fallen by 6 percent. But at the same time more people - 58 percent, compared to 55 percent three years ago - want to keep at least the ten existing reactors in Sweden. Out-and-out opposition to nuclear power has fallen. The number of people who want to get rid of it altogether, either in the long run or immediately, has dropped from 41 percent to 36 percent. But after information emerged about poor safety at Forsmark, Sifo added another question to the list: has your attitude towards nuclear power been influenced by recent concerns about the safety at Forsmark nuclear power station? One in five of those interviewed said they had become more sceptical of nuclear power. TT/The Local The Local © The Local Europe AB 2007 ***************************************************************** 40 HVNS: Hall to call for independent assessment at Indian Point Hudson Valley News story Weekend, February 10-11, 2007 Copyright © 2007 Mid-Hudson News Network, a division of Statewide Buchanan & Congressman John Hall Monday will call for a tough new independent safety assessment for the Indian Point nuclear power plants in Buchanan. The freshman lawmaker will also call for strict standards for IP relicensing in a bill co-sponsored by House Members Nita Lowey, Eliot Engel, Maurice Hinchey and Christopher Shays. Several lawmakers have called for an ISA, saying the facilities need to be under closer scrutiny. ====================================================================== HEAR today's news on MidHudsonRadio.com, the Hudson Valley's only Internet radio news report. ***************************************************************** 41 Japan Times: Walls at old reactor found substandard | Web japantimes.co.jp Sunday, Feb. 11, 2007 OFFICIAL: 'DIFFICULT TO BELIEVE' Kyodo News The Japan Atomic Energy Agency announced Saturday it has found that concrete walls in a key building at the defunct Fugen nuclear reactor plant in Fukui Prefecture do not meet design standards at 25 of the 34 locations examined. A worker checks the strength of concrete walls at the defunct Fugen nuclear reactor plant in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture, on Oct. 19. JAPAN ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY PHOTO/KYODO "We strictly oversaw the execution of construction and it is difficult to believe such a result came out," an agency official said, adding that the agency will have the strength of the walls checked again. "The accuracy of the measurements is in question," the official said. The agency subcontracted a company to conduct the examination of the auxiliary building that houses the central control room and emergency reactor core cooling facilities. The building is adjacent to the unit containing the reactor. The contracted firm does not specialize in inspections, the agency said. A specialist company is expected to conduct the next round of tests. An official at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, which is in charge of nuclear policy, said there are no problems with the strength of concrete walls at other nuclear plants. "We inspected the strength of concrete at 12 old nuclear plants shortly before they had reached 30 years of operations, and examination results and data on documents all matched," said Hisanori Nei, director of METI's nuclear power inspection division. He said METI instructed the agency to report promptly how it arrived at the latest measurements at the Fugen plant. Located in the city of Tsuruga, Fugen was a new type of reactor developed independently by Japan. Unlike a regular reactor that uses enriched uranium for fuel, Fugen was designed to be capable of running on various kinds of fuel, such as natural uranium and plutonium-uranium mixed oxide fuel. It reached criticality in 1978. The government in 1995 dropped a plan to build a successor reactor because of high operation costs. Fugen was shut down in 2003 and work is under way to dismantle it. According to the agency, an inspection to examine wear after nearly 25 years of operations was conducted on walls by removing cylindrical columns with a 10-cm diameter at 34 locations. The strength of the concrete was lower than the 22.06 newtons, a standard measurement, required by the building's design at 25 spots. At least at one location, the strength measured 10.6 newtons. The Japan Times (C) All rights reserved ***************************************************************** 42 Cape Cod Times: NRC OKs reduced safety staff at Pilgrim (February 10, 2007) By STEPHANIE VOSK STAFF WRITER Only one radiation protection technician needs to be on duty at any one time at the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Plymouth, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials decided this week. In the event of an emergency, radiation protection technicians test contamination levels, make sure no contaminated material leaves the plant and even transport injured workers to the hospital, among other duties, said plant spokesman David Tarantino. There are currently two of these technicians on any one shift. ''Our evaluations determined that the changes that they were suggesting were really consistent with the regulations,'' NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said. Having only one of these technicians on duty at a time is typical of most other nuclear power plants, according to NRC regulations. Entergy Nuclear Operations, which owns the plant, argued there was no justification for requiring Pilgrim to have more. Before reducing the number of radiation protection technicians on shift, the plant will train chemistry technicians to help in the event of an emergency, Tarantino said. There is currently one chemistry technician on each night shift. While Tarantino said he could not discuss workers' salaries, the two positions are paid ''in the same ballpark,'' he said. The Utility Workers Union of America Local 369, which represents about 400 of the 550 unionized workers at the plant, filed a petition with the NRC in January to stop the commission from allowing the change. Union workers also asked for a hearing before the NRC on the topic. The NRC is still evaluating this request, Sheehan said. ''We're gonna continue to pursue the matter. It's a core safety issue and we like to believe that we're kind of stewards of the safety of the power plant,'' union representative David Leonardi said yesterday. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission regulates it and we like to think that the company does what's right, but the rank and file union member that walks around the station for 25 years ''¦ they're the ones that truly understand the impact of these decisions.'' Chemistry technicians are less familiar with the equipment and not used to running around the plant, Leonardi said. Obtaining critical data in the event of an emergency, he said, would be slower with only one radiation protection technician on duty. ''It's obviously inadequate,'' Mary Lampert, head of the Duxbury-based group Pilgrim Watch, said of the staffing changes yesterday. ''If there is a problem, you need more than one person to go around and check the radiation levels in the various rooms where workers can be exposed.'' The NRC also approved the first phase of heightened security measures for all nuclear plants last month. The new rule will put security changes implemented after the Sept. 11 attacks in place permanently. It will increase the number of security guards on duty at all plants from three to five to protect against ground attacks. Some nuclear watchdog groups and government officials have complained, however, that the changes aren't extensive enough. ''It does not require security to defend against an air attack, and we know from ... studies done by the federal government that they are vulnerable to an attack by air,'' Lampert said. Sheehan said the NRC determined that other agencies including the Federal Aviation Administration are adequately dealing with the threat of these attacks. The NRC will hold a public hearing on the security changes Feb. 14 in Rockville, Md. It will accept comments from the public until Feb. 23. Copyright © 2007 Cape Cod Times. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 43 BostonHerald.com: NRC approves reduced safety staffing at Pilgrim - By Associated Press Saturday, February 10, 2007 - Updated: 02:47 PM EST PLYMOUTH, Mass. - The Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station needs just one safety specialist known as a “radiation protection technician” on duty at any given time, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission ruled this week. The decision comes after union workers objected to plans by plant owner Entergy Nuclear Operations to reduce the number of radiation protection technicians on any given shift from two to one. The Utility Workers Union of America Local 369 filed a petition with the NRC last month in an effort to stop the change. But the NRC found the proposed change was “consistent with the regulations,” NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan told The Cape Cod Times. According to NRC regulations, having only one radiation protection technician on duty at a time is typical of most other nuclear power plants. Entergy argued there was no justification for requiring Pilgrim to have more. In an emergency, the duties of radiation protection technicians include testing contamination levels, ensuring contaminated materials don’t leave the plant and transporting injured workers to the hospital, said plant spokesman David Tarantino. Tarantino said the plant will train chemistry technicians to help in emergencies before it reduces the number of radiation protection technicians on shifts. The union will continue pursuing its request for a hearing before the NRC on the topic, said union representative David Leonardi “It’s a core safety issue and we like to believe that we’re kind of stewards of the safety of the power plant,” he said. AP-ES-02-10-07 1431EST © Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This © Copyright by the Boston Herald and Herald Media. ***************************************************************** 44 HVNS: Spano wants Indian Point out, but is less adamant on NYRI Hudson Valley News story Sunday, February 11, 2007 Spano Monticello – Westchester County Executive Andrew Spano is as adamant as ever on the need to shut down Indian Point, as a nuclear facility. Asked if he thinks the Ulster County Legislature’s pending memorializing resolution calling on congress to change the relicensing criteria would work, Spano is in full support: “If you have criteria for siting a plant, then you’ve got to use the same criteria for relicensing a plant.” Spano says it was actually their idea, some time ago, that relicensing should be based on the same criteria as was used to issue the original license: does a nuclear power plant belong in a specific location. As for what to do with the plant, Spano says either convert it to a non-nuclear energy source, or find replacement energy. Time would fix that, he says. “If you have a five-year leeway, the market itself would take care of the 2,000 megawatts.” Asked if Spano things the New York Regional Interconnect power line could be a source of some of that additional power: “The only thing we’re against right now is bringing the gas lines through Westchester County through our park system. That’s all. We were certainly in favor of bringing additional energy down in any form, as long as it didn’t disrupt the quality of life in the county.” Spano made his comments while visiting officials in Sullivan County, where there is strong opposition to a project officials say would be very disruptive to the quality of life. The NYRI line would stop in eastern Orange County, on the other side of the Hudson River, about 30 miles from Westchester County. HEAR today's news on MidHudsonRadio.com, the Hudson Valley's only Internet radio news report. ***************************************************************** 45 Fredericksburg.com: Reactor hearing to be held ASLB holds final public hearing Date published: 2/11/2007 By KERRI SCALES Supporters and opponents of Dominion's bid for additional reactors at its North Anna power station will have another chance to offer testimony and answer questions about the proposal this spring. The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, the administrative long arm of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, will preside over the official hearing as part of the early site permit process, said Scott Burnell, spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. A date for the hearing has not yet been set. The board is scheduled to make its decision on the site permit by the end of the summer. The final step will be in the hands of the five appointed commissioners, who should make a decision in December. The board faced a smaller-than-usual crowd at a meeting Thursday night at Louisa County High School. Crowds carrying protest signs and placards of support at previous hearings were missing this time. Alex Karlin, one of three administrative judges, began Thursday's hearing by emphasizing the fact that the licensing board was not there to answer questions, but to listen and take into consideration speakers' concerns. "This is an opportunity for the public to raise issues with the board that they think are relevant with regards to how the NRC has reviewed the application for the early site permit at North Anna," Burnell said. People from Charlottesville to Fredericksburg signed up to speak at the meeting. There are two nuclear reactors on Lake Anna, a 13,000-acre impoundment that borders Spotsylvania, Louisa and Orange counties. Robert Gibson, director of economic development for Louisa, argued that Dominion Power and the North Anna power station have been vital contributors to Louisa for the past 30 years. In addition to the 1,000 or so people the facility employs, 750 highly skilled jobs would be created with the addition of two more nuclear reactors. Dominion Power is also one of the largest taxpayers in Louisa. Opponents fired back, citing what they feel are issues that have been overlooked by both Dominion Power and NRC officials. Gary Holtman, a Louisa resident, urged the panel to consider the fact that Lake Anna has grown beyond a cooling lagoon into a recreational lake, something that also brings tax revenue into the county. Holtman added that the addition of two nuclear reactors would affect the wildlife, water level and overall ecology of Lake Anna. Other concerns raised at the meeting included global warming, safety and health, waste management and the threat of terrorist attacks. According to Jerry Rosenthal, of Concerned Citizens of Louisa County, these are issues that have been continually brought to the board's attention but never addressed. "From these meetings, all I've gotten is hoarse and yelled at by people who work for Dominion. I've gotten five minutes of fame for being a pain in somebody's butt," said Rosenthal. "I have a feeling very little will happen on this. My optimistic side is that it will take a very long time for Dominion to get this plan in motion." Kerri Scales: 540/374-5000, ext. Email: 5661kscales@freelancestar.com Date published: 2/11/2007 Copyright 2007, The Free Lance-Star Publishing Co. of Fredericksburg, Virginia, USA ***************************************************************** 46 toledoblade.com: Russia's unsecured uranium poses scary scenario Article published Sunday, February 11, 2007 People who follow international news still can't get over the scare after the lethal poisoning of an ex-KGB spy. He was killed in London with radioactive material almost certainly smuggled from Russia, experts say. Now Russia has given us a scare again. Recently, details were released that a Russian national was caught red-handed Feb. 1, 2006, in Georgia, Russia's southern neighbor, while trying to sell a couple of pocketfuls of weapons-grade uranium to an undercover security agent. Reportedly the Russian had told the "buyer" that the 100 grams of material was a sample for a prospective sale of a few kilos. Several shipments like that would be enough to make a crude nuclear weapon. The arrest was a result of a joint sting operation by Georgian and U.S. intelligence. It wasn't the first attempt to smuggle nuclear materials from Russia. Notably, Russia is a country where more than 500 tons of bomb-grade materials - enough to make more than 20,000 nuclear weapons - was reported in a 1997 memo written by Russia's nuclear energy ministry to the Russian government to be stored inadequately, according to the reputable Novaya Gazeta, one of the few remaining independent Russian newspapers. Tons of highly enriched uranium are still poorly stored in Russia, more than anywhere else in the world. This has been documented more than once by Russian and international watchdogs keeping an eye on Chechnya - a home to Muslim radicals fighting for independence in the country's southern provinces. The Kremlin has on multiple occasions noted the radicals' links with al-Qaeda. But the Kremlin isn't too concerned with securing its stockpiles of weapon-grade nuclear material, or it would have secured them by now. That's because, by some accounts, the Kremlin believes terrorists are more likely to put such materials to use in a country that is their sworn nemesis - the United States. This may be why Russian security services were not part of the sting, even though the weapons-grade uranium was smuggled from Russia. The fact also highlights the increasing split between Russian and U.S. security services. This parallels the diplomatic chill in the U.S.-Russian relations as Russia reverts to autocracy and acts as a spoilsport in international affairs, notably by supporting the Iranian nuclear program. While this split is understandable, it is no solution to the nuclear proliferation problem. The United States has been for years trying to retrieve bomb-grade uranium from countries across the world. The effort has been futile as nations simply refuse to part with the substance. The United States has also spent millions on efforts to create an alternative, benign fuel for use in nuclear reactors - so far also unsuccessfully. With this in mind, cooperation between U.S. and Russian security services appears to be the most effective way to prevent terrorists from getting hold of loose weapons-grade uranium - most of which is in Russia. However, the security services are the dominant political and economic player in Russia - they largely control the Kremlin, the government, the parliament, and the media. Any cooperation with them can be a double-edged sword, to be used carefully and for specific anti-terrorist operations only. Such an effort would require a commitment by the White House, which has yet to realize that it is time it gave Russian affairs a higher priority. Until that happens, uranium smuggling attempts in Russia will continue. There is no guarantee that some of them won't be successful. Mike Sigov, a Russian-born journalist, is a staff writer for The Blade. » E-mail him at sigov@theblade.com » Read more Mike Sigov columns at www.toledoblade.com/sigov The Toledo Blade Company, 541 N. Superior St., Toledo, OH 43660 , (419) 724-6000 ***************************************************************** 47 New York Times: New York to Test Ways to Prevent Nuclear Terror - Mary DiBiase Blaich for The New York Times A device at New York Container Terminal on Staten Island is designed to detect bomb-building ingredients. By ERIC LIPTON Published: February 9, 2007 WASHINGTON, Feb. 8 — New York City is about to become a laboratory to test ways of strengthening the nation’s defenses against a terror attack by a nuclear device or a radioactive “dirty bomb.” Starting this spring, the Bush administration will assess new detection machines at a Staten Island port terminal that are designed to screen cargo and automatically distinguish between naturally occurring radiation and critical bomb-building ingredients. And later this year, the federal government plans to begin setting up an elaborate network of radiation alarms at some bridges, tunnels, roadways and waterways into New York, creating a 50-mile circle around the city. The effort, which could be expanded to other cities if proven successful, is a major shift of focus for the Department of Homeland Security. As it finishes installing the first generation of radiation scanners at the nation’s ports and land border crossings, the department is trying to find ways to stop a plot that would use a weapon built within the United States. “How do you create deterrence against terrorism?” said Vayl S. Oxford, director of the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, the Homeland Security agency coordinating the work. “You complicate the ability for the terrorist to do what they want.” But even as the new campaign begins, some members of Congress and antiterrorism experts are raising concerns that the initiative, like previous Homeland Security programs, could prove extraordinarily costly and provide few security gains. “This is just total baloney,” said Tara O’Toole, a former assistant secretary at the Department of Energy during the Clinton administration, where she oversaw nuclear weapons safety efforts. “They are forgetting that no matter what type of engineering solution they try in good faith to come up with, this is a thinking enemy and they will look for a way around it.” While Homeland Security officials repeatedly declined to estimate the costs of a nationwide detection system, agency documents show they might spend more than a billion dollars on the cargo-screening equipment alone. Local officials in New York are sparring with Homeland Security over a plan to immediately transfer to local and state authorities the burden of maintaining and operating the network of detection machines when it is completed within several years. “We are concerned they will put money forward for a piece of hardware and then move to another project,” said Raymond W. Kelly, New York City’s police commissioner. He added that while the city supports the plan, he is not convinced that the proposed detection network makes sense. “Whether or not it works, whether or not it causes too many false alarms, which causes a whole other set of problems, all of these things are still to be determined,” he said. Mr. Oxford said he is aware of the concerns about costs, which is still the subject of negotiations, and the performance of the new detection machines. But with a threat like a nuclear attack, the country cannot afford to wait until all the details are worked out, he said. “Our philosophy is not to wait for perfection, because perfection never comes,” he said. The Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, among the newest agencies at Homeland Security, was established in April 2005, in response to criticism that efforts to combat nuclear terrorism were too disorganized. The office focuses on blocking two types of plots: a nuclear weapon or a dirty bomb. A nuclear attack by terrorists is considered unlikely, because of the difficulty of obtaining the required radioactive materials, such as highly enriched uranium. The detonation of a dirty bomb is considered much more feasible. It only requires dynamite or another conventional explosive to detonate a widely available radioactive source — like the cesium or cobalt in certain medical devices. The blast might cause injuries or deaths, but the radioactive residue would cover a two- to three-block area and not pose an immediate health threat. Possible panic and economic disruption could be among the most serious consequences, experts say. The Securing the Cities detection network, as the New York experiment is called, is intended to stop a nuclear or radiological threat as far away from a city as possible. “Detecting it in the core of Manhattan is too late,” Mr. Oxford said. The network would most likely include truck inspection stations along highways approaching New York, which would be equipped with radiation detection devices, agency budget documents say. Devices might also be installed at highway tollbooths and at spots where rail, boat and subway traffic could be monitored. Skip to next paragraph Threats & Responses Go to Complete Coverage Ż The detection equipment, some of which would be mobile, would be electronically connected and monitored so if a suspicious vehicle passed one spot without being stopped, it might be intercepted after passing another detector. Some New York agencies already have a limited supply of radiation detection equipment, but the new system would be much more extensive and go much further outside the city. Mr. Kelly said that the city would, at least initially, use any new detection equipment to screen vehicles heading into Lower Manhattan. The project would complement a city program to install cameras, license plate readers and devices that can block vehicle traffic, creating a "ring of steel" around the financial district. The actual design of the Homeland Security system and the protocols for how responses to alarms will be handled, are still being negotiated by federal officials and authorities in New York City, New Jersey, Connecticut and New York state. Benn H. Tannenbaum, a physicist and nuclear terrorism expert at the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, said the system would never create anything close to an impenetrable barrier, particularly for a nuclear bomb, since the required ingredients have low levels of radioactivity and can easily be shielded. But the project still might be worthwhile, he said. "If nothing else, it makes the terrorist think twice before they do something like this," he said. Ms. O'Toole, the former Department of Energy official, pointed to Homeland Security's BioWatch program, set up in about 30 cities in 2003 to monitor the air for a possible biological attack. The equipment was installed quickly, but there was no detailed plan in place for how to respond to positive alarms, which meant three weeks of confusion among Houston authorities in October 2003, after tularemia, a naturally occurring pathogen, was discovered. "There is this disconnect between these grand schemes for technology and reality," Ms. O'Toole said. Laura S. H. Holgate, vice president at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a Washington-based research group, said the government should put far more energy into a global effort to prevent nuclear materials from getting into the hands of terrorists. The testing planned on Staten Island at the New York Container Terminal is intended to police concerns about false alarms. Three sets of new types of detection machines have been installed there. For the first time, such machines sound an alarm when something radioactive passes through, and simultaneously identify the radioactive isotope. That allows officials to distinguish between innocuous items that can emit low levels of radiation, such as granite or kitty litter, and real threats. Officials at the Government Accountability Office and some members of Congress are concerned that Homeland Security is moving too quickly to buy the new machines. Initial tests have shown them to be not much more effective than existing machines that are a fraction of the cost. "We know this system is going to be expensive," said Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut and chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee. "We need to be sure it will perform as promised." Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company ***************************************************************** 48 Salt Lake Tribune: Mediocre moniker Editorials Public Forum Letter Article Last Updated: 02/10/2007 01:43:26 PM MST Although Divine Strake is a non-nuclear test, environmental groups worry about radioactive dust from earlier tests getting into the atmosphere and contaminating the region. Public health concerns aside, my problem with Divine Strake is the name. It doesn't even rise to the level of the Bush administration's high standard of Orwellian newspeak, like the "Clean Water Act" (higher levels of arsenic in drinking water), the "Clear Skies Initiative" (higher levels of crap in the air), the "Patriot Act" (watering down the Bill of Rights) and my personal favorite, "Operation Iraqi Freedom" (also known as the "Great Oil Grab of '03"). But, "Divine Strake"? It sounds like the kind of moniker that would be used by a porn star. I mean, who named this one? George K. Watt Salt Lake City © Copyright 2006, The Salt Lake Tribune. ***************************************************************** 49 Pahrump Valley Times: Reid announces effort to help test site workers Feb. 09, 2007 WASHINGTON -- U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., announced a petition that will put Nevada Test Site workers, who contracted cancer from their work during the underground nuclear tests, one step closer to receiving the compensation they deserve, Reid's office announced Monday. The goal is to increase the number of former test site workers who receive special exposure cohort (SEC) designation. The SEC is a legal designation that simplifies and expedites the compensation process for workers within the cohort. Only people who worked at the site for 250 days or more between 1951 and 1962 fall in this category. That represents only about a third of all claimants. Reid's goal is to expand the SEC designation to all test site workers who may have been put in harm's way between 1951 and 1993. "This is the right thing to do for Nevada Test Site workers who have become ill as a result of their work," Reid said. "These are atomic energy veterans who deserve nothing but the best in return for the contributions they made to protect our county. I look forward to the day when I can announce that they and their families will receive the compensation they truly deserve." There are two ways to become part of an SEC. The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) can initiate the SEC process or an SEC can be established through legislation. NIOSH initiated an SEC for workers present at the test site before 1963 as a result of a letter Reid wrote to President Bush in November 2005. This SEC was passed by the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health in May 2006 and went into effect July 26, 2006. The current SEC covers Nevada Test Site workers who were employed there from 1951 to 1962 for at least 250 days. This affected approximately one-third of all claimants. Reid submitted legislation last Congress, but was unsuccessful in an attempt to attach it as an amendment to the Department of Defense appropriations bill. Reid will begin work on updated legislation for the 110th Congress. The petition, signed by former workers Paul Stednick and Peter White, and Lori Hunton, daughter of a former worker, will cover employees of the Department of Energy (DOE) or any DOE contractors or subcontractors who were: Present during an underground nuclear test and/or performed drill backs, re-entry, or clean up work following such test at the Nevada Test Site (NTS); Present at an event involving the venting of an underground test at NTS or at other events where there was an uncontrolled episodic radiation release; Present for test or post test activities related to the Nuclear Rocket Testing Program; Assigned to work in Area 51 (or other classified program areas); Employed at NTS in a job activity that was monitored for exposure to ionizing radiation or worked in a job activity that is or was comparable to a job that is, was or should have been monitored for exposure to ionizing radiation at NTS, during the period from Jan. 1, 1963, through Sept. 30, 1992, or in combination with work days with the parameters established for one or more other classes of employees in the SEC. The U.S. held 100 above-ground nuclear tests and 828 underground tests at the site between 1951 and 1993 - when the below-ground nuclear tests stopped. Many people at the test site worked with significant amounts of radioactive materials without knowledge of the risks. Some of those workers have been waiting for decades for the government to acknowledge the sacrifices they made for their country. Many have been waiting for compensation while they suffer from life-threatening cancers, and others have already died. webmaster@pahrumpvalleytimes.com Copyright © Pahrump Valley Times, 1997 - ***************************************************************** 50 Deseret News: Utah House committee unanimously opposes Nevada test Saturday, February 10, 2007 A legislative resolution protesting the U.S. government's proposed Divine Strake weapons test in the Nevada desert was approved Friday by the House Government Operations Committee. Deseret Morning News graphic SCR5's sponsor, Sen. Gene Davis, D-Salt Lake, said the resolution "really professes our opposition as a state legislature." "This is a tough one for me," said Rep. John Mathis, R-Vernal, who said he is a strong supporter of the military. He explained that his wife's mother was a downwinder and died of cancer. "I don't believe that young kids should be raised without parents because of risks placed on them by the government knowingly," Mathis said. The resolution made it out of committee with unanimous support and now awaits consideration on the House floor. © 2007 Deseret News Publishing Company ***************************************************************** 51 Deseret News: Scientists call Strake dangerous Saturday, February 10, 2007 They say blast would stir up radioactive soil By Joe Bauman Deseret Morning News The Divine Strake nonnuclear explosion at the Nevada Test Site "would disperse large amounts of radioactive particles into the atmosphere," says a noted pathologist. Dr. Thomas M. Fasy of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York City, comments on the test's potentially harmful effects in a document filed with the National Nuclear Security Administration's Las Vegas office. The NNSA and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency are planning the detonation of 700 tons of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil. The explosion, dubbed Divine Strake, is intended to give a better idea about how to attack underground fortifications of some enemy. The proposed test has raised concerns among those living downwind because of past nuclear blasts at the test site, particularly in the 1950s and '60s. Many "downwinders" blame such tests for cancers and other diseases suffered over the past half-century. The issue has also elicited comments from scientists on both sides of the controversy, some concerned about particulates raised by such a blast, others doubting the possibility for serious harm. Critical comments by experts were filed with the NNSA by Robert Hager, a Reno attorney for plaintiffs seeking to halt the test. In a telephone interview, he said he had to file the documents by the end of the environmental assessment comment period, which was this past Wednesday. Otherwise, he would not be able to raise the issues later in his lawsuit. After the federal government makes a decision on the project, he can convert the experts' comments into legal affidavits, Hager said. In a transmittal letter to the NNSA, Hager wrote that the explosion "would pose a clear and present threat of irreparable harm" and that if the decision is made to proceed with it, plaintiffs will seek a court injunction. Fasy added in his written comments that he believes "to a reasonable degree of medical and scientific certainty that the inhalation or ingestion of radionuclides may lead to the development of serious diseases, including various forms of cancer, congenital malformations (birth defects), DNA damage, genetic mutations and sterility.... "Thus, internationally recognized authorities acknowledge that there is no dose of radiation below which a population receiving that dose will not incur an increased risk.... " Fasy stated that if the explosion happens as planned, "millions of people living downwind of the Nevada Test Site are at risk of inhaling radioactive particles that will be dispersed into the atmosphere." He said it would be "virtually certain" that such inhalation would result in an increased frequencies of a variety of cancers. "Moreover, the increased risk of developing cancers would be borne disproportionately by the women and children living downwind." Among others filling comments transmitted by Hager are those by: ? Richard L. Miller of Woodlands, Texas, a certified industrial hygienist and certified safety professional who has worked for the Occupational and Safety Health Administration. He is author of the five-volume "U.S. Atlas of Nuclear Fallout." Miller says the government's revised draft environmental assessment is deficient. Area 16, where the blast would take place, "has received contamination from above-ground nuclear tests," he wrote. Federal fallout maps show Area 16 to be "within the contamination zones" of six nuclear blasts between 1955 and 1957. The bombs produced numerous radioactive isotopes that are likely still active, he wrote. Miller listed 11 different isotopes with half-lives into many thousands of years, including deadly radioactive plutonium. He added that the assessment does not include an estimate of the amount of small particles, 2.5 microns in size, that would be stirred up. These particles are able to penetrate into the deepest parts of the lungs, he wrote, citing the Environmental Protection Agency. The government has two different estimates for the possible height of the resulting dust cloud, he said. They are about 8,158 and 9,750 feet above ground level, which is itself at 1,592 feet above sea level. "If the debris cloud reaches nearly 10,000 feet altitude above the ground ... then it will have exceeded the maximum altitudes achieved by many above-ground nuclear tests," Miller wrote. The debris cloud from one of the tests was tracked to Canada, he added. There is a significant potential for radioactive particles to be part of the PM2.5 dust lofted by the blast, according to Miller. "If so, these particles can travel for hundreds or thousands of miles with the wind currents and can potentially be inhaled by persons living downwind." ? Michael E. Ketterer, Northern Arizona University. Ketterer wrote that the government did not do sufficient sampling for plutonium contamination at the blast site. "It is likely that the data presented ... underestimate the average activity and/or total quantity of plutonium and definitely understate the activities present in the top 1-2 cm. of the soil." ? Diane M. Stearns, Flagstaff, Ariz., professor of chemistry at Northern Arizona University. She notes that the environmental assessment "now admits ... (that) 'since suspended natural radionuclides and resuspended fallout radionuclides from detonation have potential to be transported off of the NTS by wind, they may contribute radiological dose to the public.'" The issue, she wrote, is the ability of the planners of the test to properly estimate the amount of radioactive particles and radiation to which nearby residents would be exposed. She called the environmental assessment's description of those factors as "guestimation." E-mail: bau@desnews.com © 2007 Deseret News Publishing Company ***************************************************************** 52 Green Valley News & Sun: Uranium, lead, arsenic levels concern EPA By Dick Kamp, Wick Communications Environmental Liaison Saturday, February 10, 2007 8:21 PM MST A new Environmental Protection Agency Superfund report has determined the Twin Buttes and the Phelps Dodge Sierrita mines outside Green Valley are hazardous high-priority sites that will require further assessment and action. The Jan. 11 report was the first joint EPA-Arizona assessment of the mines, which were listed as potential areas of concern in 1979 and were visited by the EPA several times. The report was sent from the agency’s Region 9 office in San Francisco to owners of the sites. It did not suggest what action would be required, but it said the EPA would be the lead agency, in cooperation with Arizona Department of Environmental Quality, to address the monitoring and cleanup required. The EPA’s Web site says the purpose of Superfund is “to reduce and eliminate threats to human health and the environment that result from releases or potential releases of hazardous substances, pollutants and contaminants from abandoned or uncontrolled hazardous waste sites.” An assessment, which can take decades, precedes listing a site on the national priority list to be cleaned up. ‘Hazardous contaminants’ The January report summarized a history of pollution concerns at the two properties, updated monitoring data gathered and chose two “hazardous contaminants of greatest concern” for both sites. The Phelps Dodge Sierrita mine was formerly called the Duval Esperanza mine. The Sierrita-Twin Buttes mine is owned by Twin Buttes Properties. For Phelps Dodge Sierrita, the pollutants were uranium and manganese. At Twin Buttes, they were lead and arsenic. At both, the “pathways of concern” for the pollutants were groundwater and air pollution from tailings although the air pollution concerns were “documented” for Phelps Dodge and “potential” for Twin Buttes. The Phelps Dodge site has been mined for copper and precious metals as well as for molybdenum, which is also roasted onsite. The January report prioritized site assessment action there as “high.” adding, “There are several million tons of tailings and waste on site.” “Observed releases of arsenic, barium, cadmium, chromium, cobalt, lead, manganese, mercury, molybdenum, selenium, and uranium have been established in groundwater monitoring wells down gradient of the site,” the report said. “There are over 25 drinking water wells within four miles of the site serving a population of over 27,500.” Cyprus-Anamax Twin Buttes was mined for copper, molybdenum and uranium between 1965 and 1993. Phelps Dodge currently pipes in a chemical-copper mix (solvent extraction) from Sierrita to the Twin Buttes electrowinnowing plant that electrolytically produces copper sheets. No aquifer protection The Twin Buttes site lacks any aquifer protection permit such as that issued to Sierrita. EPA gave the minesite the same high priority with the comments, “Observed releases of antimony, arsenic, beryllium, cadmium, copper, chromium, lead, manganese, molybdenum, nickel, selenium, thallium, uranium, and zinc have been established in groundwater monitoring wells down gradient of the site. There are over 50 drinking water wells within four miles of the site serving a population of over 40,000.” EPA Region 9 Superfund NPL Coordinator and Arizona Project Officer Dawn Richmond said that by reassessing the two mines, EPA “responded to a Green Valley citizen’s concern over radiation levels in the water as well as agency concern over a previous report on radiation.” Richmond added that EPA will work with the state to determine what state regulatory actions can address the Superfund concerns. “We want the owners to work with the state to take whatever actions can resolve the concerns,” he said. “EPA’s next step could be to have an expanded site inspection, where we do monitoring and gather a lot of information, completed. “We would want the companies and the state to exhaust all possibilities. We might approach other EPA divisions such as Air and Water Management to see if they can help resolve concerns. Only if these measures did not work would we consider the next stage of listing it as NPL for cleanup.” Different viewpoints It is safe to say that the two companies are likely to bring different resources and strategies to address pollution problems as they respond to the potential implications of ongoing Superfund investigations. Harold Metz of Green Valley-based Twin Buttes Properties, a subsidiary of Green Valley Properties, said he has spoken with the EPA. “We’ll work with ADEQ to find people who know more than we do who can cross-check data,” Metz said. “Sulfates had always been a problem with mining here, but we need to understand more before we can really comment on this report.” In addition to the Phelps Dodge electrowinnowing copper plant, the old Twin Buttes mine property has recently been used to test industrial vehicles and sell earth materials. They mine no copper of their own. Phelps Dodge is the largest copper company in the U.S.; soon likely to be merged with international mining giant Freeport-McMoran. The company addresses dozens of governmental regulatory actions constantly and maintains an independent environmental fund of hundreds of millions of dollars. Phelps Dodge spokesperson Ken Vaughn released the following statement in regard to the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act , commonly known as Superfund, as it relates to his company: “We look forward to working with EPA and ADEQ to answer their questions and address their concerns. We believe most of their concerns will be addressed through the mitigation order we reached with ADEQ, and the pending (APP). We are committed to work cooperatively with EPA and ADEQ to voluntarily address any environmental issues raised in the report that may not be addressed by either the mitigation order or the Aquifer Protection Permit. We do not believe that a CERCLA-based site assessment effort is necessary at operating properties like Sierrita." The 2006 mitigation order regulated Sierrita sulfate pollution rather than the hazardous discharges discussed in the EPA assessment. CERCLA can be applied to operating properties if they are deemed “uncontrollable” for hazardous discharges and assessments are a way of determining the severity of such discharges. What next? ADEQ’s Cortland Coleman was uncertain what comes next. “It is yet to be determined what further actions will be taken at the site, although EPA has determined that further assessment of the site under CERCLA is warranted,” Coleman said. “If further action is taken under CERCLA, it would be in the form of an expanded site inspection or another reassessment.” Copyright © 2007 Green Valley News & Sun 101-42 La Canada Drive, Green Valley, AZ 85622 520-625-5511 (phone) 520-625-8046 (fax) ***************************************************************** 53 Las Vegas SUN: 2007 Nevada Legislature starts second week February 09, 2007 By BRENDAN RILEY ASSOCIATED PRESS CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) - The 2007 Nevada Legislature opens its second week on Monday with an Assembly hearing that's expected to focus on a huge, long-term liability of up to $4.1 billion in health benefits for current and future state government workers. The Government Affairs Committee will hear from Leslie Johnstone, executive officer of the state's employee benefit program. The liability issue is one of the big concerns facing lawmakers. Potential solutions to reduce the liability range from big appropriations for some 30 years to smaller appropriations of taxpayer dollars coupled with moneysaving limits on benefits, higher premiums and reduced pay raises for state employees. Also Monday, Assembly Democrats plan a press briefing on their education agenda, which includes a bid for full-day kindergarten in Nevada's public schools. The kindergarten plan, opposed by Republican Gov. Jim Gibbons, also will be discussed at an Assembly Education Committee hearing. Gibbons' proposed budget for his office and the governor's mansion will be reviewed Monday in Senate Finance. The panel and its Assembly counterpart, Ways and Means, also will review the state Gaming Control Board, which oversees the state's gambling industry. Ways and Means also is scheduled to review spending plans for the state agency that has been battling federal efforts to open a high-level nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain. Senate Judiciary will review a plan for early release of some prisoners from county or city jails to relieve overcrowding. Assembly Judiciary is scheduled to discuss penalties for graffiti and other damage to property. Assembly Natural Resources looks at the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources on Monday, while Senate Human Resources reviews the state's big Medicaid program. The total of Medicaid recipients in Nevada is about 170,000. That's up from about 100,000 in 2000. On Tuesday, a joint Senate-Assembly budget panel will discuss the state Department of Motor Vehicles and the federal Real ID Act, which calls for a national driver's license. DMV chief Ginny Lewis says the new federal requirement could lead to chaos, including DMV wait times for Nevadans that could double. An Assembly panel dealing with corrections, parole and probation will hear from state Department of Corrections officials and also from former Chief Justice Bob Rose. Also Tuesday, the Assembly committee that deals with election rules will discuss AJR10, a resolution that would change the residency requirements for voter registration. On Wednesday, joint Senate-Assembly education committees will discuss a school adequacy study that says Nevada should spend at least $1.3 billion dollars more a year on public education to meet a goal of having most students meet federal and state standards. Assembly Judiciary plans a midweek hearing on AB49, which would reinstate exemptions from jury duty for any federal or state officer, judge or lawyer, various county officials and state prison guards. A new exemption would be created for local jail guards. Assembly Health and Human Services will get a report Wednesday on uninsured Nevadans. In trying to help the state's roughly 400,000 uninsured, lawmakers say they may seek more insurance and health care opportunities for target populations such as pregnant women, poor children or those who work for small businesses. Also Wednesday, Senate Government Affairs will review SB13, which restricts local governments from trying to prevent people from carrying signs on public sidewalks "on the basis of content or viewpoint" of the signs. On Thursday, Assembly Ways and Means will discuss the budget for the Health and Services Department, including spending plans for mental health programs and rural clinics. Friday's hearings include a Senate Human Resources and Education meeting on SB8, which says that repeated misuse of drugs or alcohol by someone responsible for a child's welfare is evidence of negligent treatment. Also Friday, Assembly Judiciary will discuss AB8, which would require that someone arrested for driving under the influence could not be released on bail for at least 12 hours. --- On the Net: Nevada Legislature: http://leg.state.nv.us/ All contents copyright 2005 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 54 Pahrump Valley Times: Overall Yucca Project spending is scaled back Feb. 09, 2007 BY STEVE TETREAULT Stephens Washington Bureau WASHINGTON -- The Department of Energy scaled back its planned Yucca Mountain spending in a 2008 budget it announced Monday, delaying railroad designs and deferring advanced research while focusing on forming a license application for the nuclear waste site. Department leaders sent Congress a budget requesting $494.5 million for the proposed waste repository in the year that begins Oct. 1. It was the smallest Yucca Mountain request since fiscal 2002, and $50 million below what the Bush administration budgeted last year for 2007. That request has not been finalized on Capitol Hill, although lawmakers appeared to be settling on $445 million. "The goal is to try to create a license application in the next 18 months, that is really what the focus is," Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said of Yucca at a budget briefing. "There are various other aspects we are not pursuing." Bodman said the project is not being scaled back. "It is a matter of looking in realistic ways as to where our opportunities are," he said. "It is not a matter of retrenching, it is a matter of try to recognize our priorities." Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., a repository critic, said the budget for the much-delayed repository was "reckless." "To ask for an additional dime for this doomed project is not only fiscally irresponsible but an insult to the residents of Nevada," Porter said. The DOE budget contains $2.5 million for the state of Nevada to fund its own Yucca oversight programs, and $1.5 million for Nye County, where the site is located. Nye County, Clark County and other Nevada counties that border Nye, plus Inyo County in California, would split another $4 million. Within the $494.5 million request, DOE officials said they plan to focus $131 million on completing a voluminous license application by a self-declared June 30, 2008 deadline. Another $195.2 million is budgeted to continue designing an above-ground complex where highly radioactive waste would be managed before being emplaced in the mountainside. On the other hand, designs for a railroad line DOE wants to build to the Yucca site were cut back by $22 million, while spending was deferred on development of rail cars and early purchase of waste casks, a cut of $30.8 million. Research into specialty metals and other advanced technologies that might be integrated into the repository effort also was deferred. But the budget does contain $2 million for a study ordered by Congress on whether a second repository should be built, and where. Project director Ward Sproat said Yucca Mountain was pressed by Bush administration demands to keep spending under control and to lower the federal deficit. Spending for railroad designs became expendable for now, he said, because DOE has not yet decided on competing railroad corridors to the repository site. A draft environmental impact study is expected this summer comparing an east-west corridor from Caliente to Yucca Mountain with a north-south corridor through western Nevada. webmaster@pahrumpvalleytimes.com Copyright © Pahrump Valley Times, 1997 - ***************************************************************** 55 Pahrump Valley Times: Study says existing sites will cost less than Yucca Feb. 09, 2007 CARSON CITY -- A study released this week by the state of Nevada contradicts cost estimates from the U.S. Department of Energy and suggests the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository would actually cost billions more than storing the waste at existing nuclear reactor sites. Bob Loux, executive director of Nevada's Agency for Nuclear Projects, said the study debunks DOE's longstanding argument that it can somehow save taxpayers money by building a proposed high-level nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain. Loux said a detailed analysis of DOE's own cost data confirms that the proposed nuclear waste repository "is a vastly more expensive solution to the nuclear waste problem than indefinite dry-cask storage of spent nuclear fuel at the nation's existing commercial reactor sites." He said previous DOE statements to the contrary are based on faulty economic analyses in DOE's 2002 Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) for the Yucca Mountain Project. He said this FEIS document "totally ignored the simple principle that a dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow." By basing its cost estimates on today's dollar values and ignoring the declining buyer power of a dollar over many years, he said DOE failed to follow the normal accounting guidelines required by the federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB). "When analyzed correctly using the reasonable discount rates required by OMB, DOE's own numbers show that, over time, continued on-site dry storage will save billions of dollars relative to proceeding with the repository," Loux said. "And the longer the repository is delayed, the greater these savings will be. In other words, contrary to DOE's 2002 study, putting off Yucca saves money. Putting it off forever saves a lot of money." Nevada commissioned Michael C. Thorne, an internationally known expert on complex cost studies, to use DOE's own figures to evaluate the cost of proceeding with the Yucca Mountain Project versus the cost of continuing to store spent fuel in dry casks at 100 U.S. reactor sites. Thorne based his analysis on DOE's conservative $58 billion repository cost estimate and a conservative dry-cask storage cost of $4 million per reactor per year. He performed his study using the range of so-called discount rates that OMB has prescribed over the past 25 years -- between 3 and 7 percent per year. Thorne's analysis shows that if the repository is delayed by only one year, the actual cost savings associated with at-reactor storage would range from $1 billion to $1.4 billion, depending on how fast the buying power of a dollar declines during that year. If the repository is delayed for 10 years, cost savings range from $8 billion (at a 3 percent annual discount rate) to $10.4 billion (based on a 7 percent rate). If the Yucca Mountain repository is never built, Thorne found that taxpayers would save at least $30.8 billion (based on the current OMB discount rate of 3 percent). Thorne's analysis shows that (using that same 3 percent discount rate) it would cost $13.3 billion today to pay for the costs of dry storage at all 100 U.S. reactor sites -- "for all perpetuity." Conversely, based on the same conditions, he found that it would cost $38.3 billion to build the Yucca repository by DOE's target date of 2025. The additional cost to store spent fuel until the repository is completed in 2025 is estimated at $5.8 billion. As a result, Thorne determined the total cost savings of at-reactor dry storage over the Yucca repository, using DOE's own conservative numbers, is at least $30.8 billion. If the Yucca repository is delayed beyond 2025, if its construction costs increase, or if the discount rates mandated by the federal government rise even slightly, he found that the potential savings of dumping the Yucca Mountain Project increase dramatically. webmaster@pahrumpvalleytimes.com Copyright © Pahrump Valley Times, 1997 - ***************************************************************** 56 Pahrump Valley Times: Fund cuts won't hinder county oversight Feb. 09, 2007 By MARK WAITE PVT Nye County commissioners didn't seem concerned Tuesday over a slight decrease of $83,000 in oversight funding for Yucca Mountain for 2007. The county's funding will decrease to $2.56 million. Commissioners approved the distribution plan for the remainder of the 2007 federal year without comment. But under the proposed Bush administration budget for 2008 released this week, Yucca Mountain oversight funding combined for the 10 counties neighboring the project would be slashed from $7.5 million to only $4 million. That isn't a concern for county officials working on the Yucca Mountain project either. The reduction of $83,000 for this year came after a Jan. 11 meeting of the 10 counties which receive oversight funds. The federal government is operating under a continuing resolution to the end of the 2007 budget year Sept. 30. The reduction of Nye County funding by $83,000 is to accommodate the funding constraints and the needs of counties along the new, proposed Mina rail route to Yucca Mountain, according to the summary presented to county commissioners by Dave Swanson, Nye County interim nuclear waste repository project office director. Clark County agreed to reduce its allocation by $200,000 to $1.4 million. "We can take slightly less without harming our budget at all," Swanson said afterwards. "These other counties are contemplating some big issues when you're contemplating a railroad being constructed through your county." The 10 counties surrounding Yucca Mountain, including Nye County, will receive their usual $7.5 million in combined, oversight funding this year. Counties less affected by the project, like White Pine, will receive only $267,000, while Lander, Eureka and Churchill counties will each receive $317,000. Esmeralda County is in line for $478,750 in funding and Inyo County, California $562,500. Nye County could actually receive close to the same amount of funding it now receives if the Bush administration budget for 2008 is passed. Nye County normally receives about 35 percent of the funding given to the 10 counties, which would amount to $1.35 million out of $4 million, while separate Section 117 funding under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, under which Nye County received $500,000 this year, would be increased to $1.5 million next year under the Bush administration proposal. The outlying counties would feel more of an impact in the 2008 budget if it passes. Swanson said, however, the Bush administration has proposed a similar budget cut in previous years. The U.S. Senate has always restored oversight funding to previous levels. "It's always been the Senate that has come through with a higher appropriation for us," Swanson said. But he added, "The question is how will that happen this year with Sen. Reid in a slightly different position?" The Nye County percentage of the 10 counties' oversight funding has ranged from 33.5 percent in 1998 to 2004, up to 37.8 percent in 2005. The county's percentage of funds will be 34.2 percent this current year. Nye County authorizes up to $1.7 million of its oversight funding for consultants working on various projects, the remainder is used to operate the nuclear waste project office on East Basin Avenue. A budget proposal in the House of Representatives for 2007 to delete congressional earmarks, would delete the $500,000 in Section 117 funds for the Nye County Yucca Mountain oversight office. That is the fund scheduled to increase to $1.5 million next year under the Bush budget. That pays for a Nye County expert, Bob Gamble, to work day-to-day at the DOE offices in Summerlin. Nye County federal lobbyist Rick Spees was confident Nye County will get that $500,000 anyway. Swanson said the money doesn't fit the definition of an earmark, his programmatic funds under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. The $500,000 was first funded last year. The new Democratic majority wants to crack down on congressional earmarks, items individual congressmen attach on other bills for pet projects. "It was not directed at Nye County. It also did not say DOE could not fund it. It said DOE had the discretion to fund it," Spees said by phone from Washington D.C. "In our discussions with DOE our indications are DOE does intend to give us the oversight money because it is important for the programmatic process." Swanson said Nye County officials are monitoring the situation now that U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., has become U.S. Senate Majority Leader, an avowed foe of the Yucca Mountain project along with other members of the Nevada Congressional delegation. In a written statement on President Bush's 2008 budget proposal, Senator Reid said, "Rather than sending Congress a budget that strengthens homeland security, energy independence, education, affordable health care and fiscal discipline, the president proposes nearly a half-billion dollars for the nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain. The proposed dump is a project whose time has passed. As Majority Leader of the Senate, I promise the highest congressional scrutiny for this waste of taxpayer dollars." But while Reid has talked tough about preventing bills on things like interim storage of nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain or the railroad to the waste dump for discussion on the Senate floor, oversight funding by the local counties continues to flow. Funds like Payment Equal to Taxes for the land value of Yucca Mountain, under which Nye County receives $10 million per year, is mandated by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, Swanson said. "Senator Reid has always been sensitive to our needs to oversee the program," Swanson said. webmaster@pahrumpvalleytimes.com Copyright © Pahrump Valley Times, 1997 - ***************************************************************** 57 Daily Herald: Removal of radioactive tailings could last until 2028 Saturday, February 10, 2007 The Associated Press SALT LAKE CITY -- Tons of uranium tailings near the Colorado River in southern Utah, a legacy of the Cold War, probably won't be removed for another 21 years, U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said. U.S. Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, said the disclosure was "shocking." In 2005, when the government said it would haul the tailings to a lined pit 30 miles north, the job was supposed to be done by 2012. "The information I have is that 2028 is the schedule," Bodman said at a House committee hearing Thursday. "We have a lot of demands on our environmental operations." Energy Department spokeswoman Megan Barnett said 2028 is the target based on the agency's budget, but the date could change when a contractor is selected. The department is reviewing proposals from contractors who would move at least 2.5 million tons over five years. The Bush administration has proposed spending $23 million on the Moab project in the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. "This is an expensive project. I don't want to deny that. ... I've always been worried that budget constraints are going to lower this on the priority scale," Matheson said. The pile of thick sludge covers about 130 acres outside Arches National Park, near Moab. Atlas Minerals Corp. bought the uranium mill in 1962 but closed it in 1984. In 1998, the company filed for bankruptcy, leaving a temporary cap on the pile. The Energy Department has pumped 75 million gallons of contaminated water and put other measures in place to keep chemicals from reaching the Colorado River, Barnett said. "We are committed to making progress there," she said. The river provides drinking water for an estimated 25 million people downstream from the site. This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page D1. Copyright © 2007 Daily Herald and Lee Enterprises ***************************************************************** 58 KnoxNews: Old K-25 Site to be part of a power play World Energy using ORNL technology _to create fuel cells By BOB FOWLER, fowlerb@knews.com February 10, 2007 OAK RIDGE - After years of developing power plants around the globe, Paul Torgerson said he "got to feeling like an industrial litterbug.'' Those conventional power plants only spur global warming, the chairman and president of Worldwide Energy Inc. said. So the Montanan said that in 1999, he started looking into "green'' power sources that are non-polluting. Now, using technology developed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Torgerson plans to build hydrogen fuel cell stacks in a building at a former uranium enrichment facility in Oak Ridge. "It's the most advanced power-generation technology on the planet,'' said Torgerson. Those fuel cells produce electricity from hydrogen and oxygen, and their only exhaust is water. Ultimately, widespread use of hydrogen fuel cells could help reduce global warming, Torgerson said. "It's very exciting work.'' Worldwide Energy this year will outfit its 20,000-square-foot laboratory in Building K-1036 at East Tennessee Technology Park. The sprawling complex in west Oak Ridge was formerly known as the K-25 Site. Torgerson said $3 million would be spent in initial work. According to his timetable, fuel cell prototypes will be built in early 2008. By 2010, Torgerson said he plans to ship commercial products from larger assembly plants on the site and have 50 people on the payroll. Worldwide Energy joins a host of corporate behemoths racing to perfect the next generation of non-polluting power generators. Vast sums are being spent to design better fuel cells, but those efforts aren't common knowledge, Torgerson said. "The only people that know about it are scientists,'' he said. Worldwide Energy, through its partnership with ORNL, should have a unique leg up on its competitors, a scientist said. "The advantage we have is simplicity of design and, we believe, a great cost advantage,'' said Roddie R. Judkins, director of ORNL's Fossil Energy Program. "We've got some technology that nobody else has, and Worldwide Energy has the license to use that technology,'' Judkins said. With patents pending on the lab's creations, "a lot of our work is confidential,'' Torgerson said. The lab's design allows fuel cell parts to be compressed inside a special porous metal tube and work at high temperatures. An electro-chemical reaction inside the tube produces the electrical current, and the tube collects it. The potential is enormous, Judkins said. "Prospects for an economical and very high-quality fuel cell are outstanding,'' the scientist said in an earlier announcement of the licensing agreement. "It's for anybody who needs clean, efficient electrical power,'' Judkins said of the fuel cells. Bob Fowler, News Sentinel Anderson County editor, may be reached at 865-481-3625. Copyright 2007, Knoxville News Sentinel Co. ***************************************************************** 59 KnoxNews: DOE official disputes report Podonsky says watchdog group is wrong, facilities in Oak Ridge are secure By FRANK MUNGER, munger@knews.com February 10, 2007 OAK RIDGE - The U.S. Department of Energy's chief safety and security officer says the strategic nuclear materials stored in Oak Ridge are not at risk - strongly disputing reports that facilities here are vulnerable to terrorism. In a telephone interview from DOE headquarters in Washington, Glenn Podonsky responded to criticisms raised in an October 2006 report by the Project On Government Oversight. He said POGO was "blatantly wrong" when it called ORNL the most vulnerable site in the government's nuclear complex. "I would move and live next door to Oak Ride National Laboratory and put my family there and not be concerned," Podonsky said. "I know what is there. I know the people. I have the utmost confidence that the security posture is commensurate with what they're supposed to be protecting." ORNL houses more than 1,000 cans of uranium-233 - a fissile material of potential use in nuclear bombs - in Building 3019-A, a World War II-era structure. Peter Stockton, POGO's senior investigator, and security analyst Ronald Timm visited ORNL in late 2005 and later said that they were able to drive right up to Building 3019, park there and walk around the premises unimpeded. "If investigators had intended to do harm, they could have quickly detonated a device to blow up the building," POGO said in its October report. "In fact, it would have taken very little time or effort to detonate an improvised nuclear device." The watchdog group said a nuclear explosion at Oak Ridge would kill thousands of people. ORNL officials said the visitors from POGO actually parked next to a lab museum - not Building 3019 - and never breached the security in place there. Podonsky, who is director of DOE's Office of Health, Safety and Security, said it was his understanding that Stockton and Timm were "being observed" during their unescorted venture at ORNL. He said he did not believe that they could have carried out any adverse actions, even if that had been their intent. "I would just tell you that while Pete Stockton and Ron Timm are technically competent, I think they exaggerate things," Podonsky said. POGO said the lab's stockpile of U-233 is just as "potent" as U-235 for making a bomb, adding, "Given the danger of uranium-233, it is extraordinary that ORNL does not have the security systems required for housing weapons-grade materials." Podonsky said ORNL was in compliance with the 2003 Design Basis Threat - the security guidance for terrorism based on the nation's intelligence. He also said some aspects of security at the Oak Ridge lab wouldn't be obvious to visitors, even those with security backgrounds. Meanwhile, the DOE official said POGO was "partially correct" in its criticism of security at the Y-12 National Security Complex. During one test, intruders were able to penetrate Y-12's defenses and gain access to a storage facility within 45 seconds, POGO said. Y-12 is the nation's principal repository for weapons-grade uranium and manufactures parts for nuclear warheads. Podonsky, whose staff has conducted independent tests at federal nuclear sites around the country, acknowledged that there had been "a series of disappointing results" in security exercises at Y-12. "But I would also tell you because we're testing that they have greatly improved their response capability," he said. "My folks have gone down there to introduce new technology that they are deploying." Y-12 meets DOE security standards and is aggressively working to take care of the vulnerabilities, Podonsky said. "It is not at risk currently, but we do believe there are other measures they need to take," he said. POGO said the only way Y-12 was able to comply with security requirements was by a series of waivers and exemptions. Podonsky said he appreciated POGO and other groups commenting on security issues and said, in some ways, they all work in the "same business." But, he said, they often disagree on the bottom-line conclusions. Asked about POGO's contention that it is "extraordinarily simple" to create an improvised nuclear bomb if one has access to fissile material, Podonsky responded: "I'm not a nuclear physicist." He said he had physicists on his staff who evaluated those issues, but he did not respond directly to the question. Instead, he re-emphasized that nuclear assets in Oak Ridge are protected. "I'm not a terrorist, so I don't know how they think," Podonsky said. "But I would say there are many other targets that would be more attractive." Senior writer Frank Munger may be reached at 865-342-6329. Copyright 2007, Knoxville News Sentinel Co. ***************************************************************** 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. 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