***************************************************************** 03/18/07 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 15.64 ***************************************************************** 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 US: New York Times: Valerie Plame Wilson, Subject of C.I.A. Leak, Te 2 US: BBC NEWS: Ex-CIA agent blasts White House 3 AFP: Gulf states can respond to any Iran attack - Bahrain - 4 Reuters: Israel, U.S. scale back war-game amid Iran face-off 5 AFP: Russia warns US not to use nuclear issue to change Iran 6 [NYTr] N Korea 'committed' to nuclear disarmament deal: UN 7 Digital Chosunilbo: U.S. Seeking Full Disclosure of North Korean Enr 8 Korea Times: US Lawmakers Oppose Early Removal of NK From Terrorism 9 Guardian Unlimited: N. Korea Plans to Shut Down Nuke Reactor 10 AFP: Macau to decide whether to unfreeze NKorea funds - US official 11 Guardian Unlimited: U.S.: $25M North Korea Dispute Resolved 12 New York Times: Beyond Nukes 13 Reuters: Abe: Japan should boost security ties with U.S. 14 US: Antiwar.com: Novak's 'Outings': Damage Control - 15 Guardian Unlimited: Israel, U.S. Test Missile Defense 16 [NYTr] Blair wins nuclear vote despite revolt 17 Google Alert - nuclear 18 The Observer: Why Pakistan is crucial to the world's stability 19 BBC NEWS: MSPs put in a spin over Trident 20 Sunday Herald: In A Party At War With Itself Trident Will Bring Abou 21 Sunday Herald: Trident Plan Puts Climate Change Research At Risk 22 Sunday Herald: 10 Things You Need To Know About Trident 23 Comment is free: Question time 24 Guardian Unlimited: Germany Urges U.S. Missile Defense Talks NUCLEAR REACTORS 25 Daily Yomiuri: Shika N-plant suspension likely to lead to rise in CO 26 Daily Yomiuri: Alarms rang 'nonstop' during nuclear accident at Shik 27 The Hindu: Our concerns on N-deal need to be explicitly addressed - 28 US: Albuquerque Tribune: Boomtown: Eunice welcomes nuclear plant 29 Caribbean Net News: Nuclear power plant and aluminum smelter planned 30 AU ABC: Scientists line up to use new nuclear reactor 31 Guardian Unlimited: Anti-Nuclear Rallies Fill French Cities NUCLEAR SECURITY NUCLEAR SAFETY 32 US: Las Vegas SUN: Editorial: Protecting whistleblowers 33 US: Pittsburgh Post Gazette: Company drops plans for anti-radiation 34 US: Ventura County Star: 487 Claims Department of Labor has received 35 US: Great Falls Tribune: Doctors doubt 'minimal impacts downwind' 36 US: South Bend Tribune: Law keeps emergency plans secret 37 US: Ventura County Star: Workers' claims denied NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 38 The Hindu: India says reprocessing of spent n-fuel 'non-negotiable' 39 US: Sydney Morning Herald: Uranium heads for $US100 - 40 reviewjournal.com: Yucca cost projections outlined 41 DAILY SOUTHTOWN: The mountain that will spit poison 42 Las Vegas SUN: Turning out the lights on Yucca Mountain 43 The Tribune: N-fuel: India firm on reprocessing 44 US: Telegraph: Urenco profits soar as uranium goes nuclear 45 US: Journal Star: Federal cleanup waits for more funding 46 DNA: India says nuclear spent fuel reprocessing 'non-negotiable' - 47 US: AU ABC: SA Labor divided over uranium mines policy. PEACE 48 TorontoSun.com: Toronto And GTA - Destroy all nukes - Rally 49 BBC NEWS: Anti-nuclear protesters arrested US DEPT. OF ENERGY 50 Pahrump Valley Times: Recalling a time before the test site 51 Santa Fe New Mexican: LANL working on new radiation detector 52 Tri-City Herald: TRIDEC says Hanford reservation good site for nucle 53 Tri-City Herald: Congress OKs extra $33 million for Hanford 54 Tracy Press: Back scratching 55 lamonitor.com: Regents approve $1.2 B pension deals ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 New York Times: Valerie Plame Wilson, Subject of C.I.A. Leak, Testifies - By DAVID STOUT Published: March 16, 2007 WASHINGTON, March 16 — Valerie Plame Wilson testified today that the career she loved as an undercover C.I.A. agent was “over in an instant” when her role was disclosed in the summer of 2003. Doug Mills/ The New York Times Valerie Plame Wilson was sworn in before testifying to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Diary of the Leak Trial Speaking in public for the first time about the episode that touched off a scandal in the Bush administration, Ms. Wilson told a House committee that her undercover status “was not common knowledge on the Georgetown cocktail circuit,” as some people have suggested. Nor did she recommend her husband for a now-famous trip to Africa as some of the couple’s critics have asserted, Ms. Wilson said. Ms. Wilson said she felt as though she had been “hit in the gut” when her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV, dropped a newspaper on their bed on the morning of July 14, 2003, and she saw that the columnist Robert D. Novak had mentioned her C.I.A. status in passing. Ms. Wilson said she realized at once that “I could no longer perform the work for which I had been highly trained.” “It was over in an instant,” she told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. “That career path was terminated.” Ms. Wilson appeared before the panel while the memory of the conviction of I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff, was still fresh, and the committee’s Democrats, led by Chairman Henry A. Waxman of California, seemed to relish the opportunity to flail the administration. Ms. Wilson did not disappoint, telling the panel she felt hurt and betrayed by members of the administration who not only failed to protect her identity but, indeed, “were the ones who destroyed my cover.” She said they knocked her off a career path that had included numerous secret trips overseas and exciting, satisfying work in the unit of the Central Intelligence Agency that tries to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction. “I loved my career because I love my country,” she said. Nor did she have “a desk job” at C.I.A. headquarters in Virginia, as some administration allies have asserted, Ms. Wilson said. “I could count on one hand the number of people who knew who my true employer was,” Ms. Wilson testified. Ms. Wilson said she considered intelligence-gathering “more an art than a science,” but that intelligence is useless, or worse, if it is tainted by political considerations. “I feel passionately about that,” she said. Intelligence, and whether it was tainted for political reasons, was a big part of the episode that led to Ms. Wilson’s appearance today. Her husband, a former diplomat with considerable experience in Africa, traveled to the continent in 2002 to investigate rumors that Saddam Hussein was trying to acquire uranium from Niger to build Iraq’s nuclear arsenal. In July 2003, an Op Ed essay by Mr. Wilson in The New York Times expressed deep skepticism about Iraq’s arsenal, and by implication skepticism about President Bush’s justification for the war that toppled the Iraqi dictator. Soon afterward, Ms. Wilson was unmasked by Mr. Novak. That incident led to an investigation to find who had leaked her name, possibly in violation of the law. While no one was prosecuted for the leak itself, Mr. Libby was found guilty of lying to grand jurors and F.B.I. agents during the investigation. Administration critics have long asserted that Ms. Wilson’s name was leaked to intimidate others who differed with the White House. Ms. Wilson said she was shocked at what the Libby trial showed about the extent of the administration’s efforts to discredit her husband and retaliate for his findings. Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, the White House political adviser Karl Rove and the former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer are all known to have discussed Ms. Wilson’s C.I.A. employment with reporters in the summer of 2003. Ms. Wilson told the committee that, despite what has been written and said repeatedly, she did not recommend her husband for the trip to Africa. In fact, she said, she had unhappy visions “of myself at bedtime with a couple of two-year-olds” to handle alone if her husband went overseas. (The Wilsons have young twins.) “I did not recommend him, I did not suggest him, there was no nepotism involved,” she said. “I did not have the authority.” Ms. Wilson said she did sound out her husband about the trip after she was asked to do so, but that her husband was picked for the trip because of his background in Africa. Committee Democrats seized on the opportunity to paint the Bush administration in an unflattering light. Their questions to Ms. Wilson contained allusions to unrelated episodes, like the firing of Treasury Secretary Paul H. O’Neill; the early predictions of Gen. Eric Shinseki, the former Army chief of staff, that several hundred thousand troops would be required to keep the peace in Iraq, and even the administration’s stance on global warming. Under questioning from the committee’s top Republican, Representative Thomas M. Davis III of Virginia, Ms. Wilson said that she was not demoted after her covert status was revealed, and that she went on to “other jobs with commensurate responsibilities.” But the job she enjoyed most, and the possibility that she might go overseas again when her children were older “came to an abrupt end,” she said.With her covert life ended, Ms. Wilson is to move with her husband to Santa Fe, N.M. She hopes to write a book about her life in the C.I.A. and what happened after her cover was blown. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company ***************************************************************** 2 BBC NEWS: Ex-CIA agent blasts White House Last Updated: Friday, 16 March 2007, 19:17 GMT Valerie Plame said her identity was 'recklessly abused' Secret CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson has accused senior Bush administration officials of "carelessly and recklessly" revealing her identity. The comments were her first public statements on a political scandal which rocked Washington. She says her identity was revealed in 2003 to discredit her husband, a former diplomat, for criticising the Iraq war. It was a terrible irony that administration officials were the ones who destroyed my cover Valerie Plame Ex-spy makes tough Bush critic Lewis "Scooter" Libby, former chief of staff to Dick Cheney, resigned from his role as chief of staff and was convicted of perjury and obstruction in the case earlier this month. He could face up to 25 years in prison. A US former Deputy Secretary of State, Richard Armitage, has admitted that he first disclosed that Ms Plame was an undercover CIA agent. Exaggerated Former US ambassador and Ms Plame's husband, Joseph Wilson, stated publicly that the case for war against Iraq and the threat the country posed had been exaggerated. Soon after his comments, government sources revealed the secret identity of his wife to US media. Ms Plame said she had always been aware that her identity might have been discovered by foreign governments but never expected her own to leak her role. * BBC Copyright Notice ***************************************************************** 3 AFP: Gulf states can respond to any Iran attack - Bahrain - Sunday March 18, 12:44 PM DUBAI (AFP) - Arab states in the Gulf have the capability to respond to any attack from neighbouring Iran, Bahrain's defence minister said in an interview published on Sunday. "Gulf countries are able to defend themselves against Iran... we have the military strength and capability," Khalifa bin Ahmad Al-Khalifa told the pan-Arab Al-Hayat newspaper. He added that any conflict between Western powers and Iran over its controversial nuclear programme would impact other states in the region, including Bahrain. Washington fears Iran is secretly developing an atomic weapon, a charge Iran strongly denies insisting its nuclear programme is for peaceful energy production only. The island state of Bahrain is a key ally of the United States and is home to the US Navy's Fifth Fleet. Washington also has troops stationed in Kuwait. The minister said Bahrain, as well as other Arab states, would "respond with force to defend itself" if Iran blocked the strategic Strait of Hormuz in the event of a confrontation over its nuclear drive. The strait at the southeastern tip of the Gulf separates Oman from Iran. Almost all crude exports from oil-rich Gulf states go through the strait, making it the world's most important oil passage. Iran is a key OPEC member and the world's fourth-biggest oil producer. AFP ***************************************************************** 4 Reuters: Israel, U.S. scale back war-game amid Iran face-off 10:16PM EDT, Sun 18 Mar 2007 By Dan Williams JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli and visiting U.S. forces are holding a biennial air-defense exercise this month but on a reduced scale, partly out of reluctance to stoke tensions with Iran, Israeli security sources said on Sunday. They said the exercise, dubbed Juniper Cobra, this year involves fewer troops and advanced computer simulations -- rather than live-fire drills -- of anti-missile systems such as Israel's Arrow-II and the American-made Patriot PAC-3. "Given the regional situation, especially with Iran, and other factors, we have opted for a much lower profile than previously," an Israeli security source said. Israel and the United States accuse Iran of trying to produce nuclear weapons that could be mounted on long-range missiles. Iran insists its atomic ambitions are peaceful but has defied foreign demands that it curb projects with bombmaking potential. The showdown has stirred speculation that Israel or the United States could mount military strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, a move for which Tehran has vowed to retaliate. Should Washington decide to go it alone against Iran, it may try to garner Arab support by keeping Israel out of the attack. But continued forbearance by Israel, which is assumed to have the Middle East's only atomic arsenal, would hinge on the Jewish state feeling protected from any Iranian missile salvoes. Continued... © Reuters 2007. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 5 AFP: Russia warns US not to use nuclear issue to change Iran Sun Mar 18, 8:43 AM ET MOSCOW (AFP) - Russia's security chief issued a veiled warning to Washington on Sunday not to use the Iranian nuclear issue to try to change Tehran's political course. "We oppose this question being used as an instrument of pressure, being used to interfere in Iran's internal affairs," said Igor Ivanov, the head of Russia's Security Council, Interfax news agency reported. At the same time Ivanov, who is Russia's chief negotiator with Iran over its nuclear programme, called on Tehran to clarify unanswered questions about its uranium enrichment activities. "For 18 years Iran conducted enrichment that was not under the control of the International Atomic Energy Agency. We insist that these questions be resolved," Ivanov told the Council for International and Defence Policy, a club of Russian officials and foreign policy specialists. "If this issue is closed, then Iran will have the right to develop peaceful atomic programmess." Washington accuses Iran of working to develop nuclear weapons, while Tehran insists its only goal is electricity generation. A nuclear-armed Iran "would present a threat to Russia's interests both directly and indirectly. We will do everything to make sure this doesn't happen," Ivanov said. He also said that Russia's suspension last week of plans to launch a nuclear power plant it is building near the Iranian town of Bushehr was not linked to Iran's possible pursuit of nuclear weapons. "This is an independent question, and all the work that is done and continues there is under the strict control of the IAEA," he said. Washington has consistently pressed Moscow not to launch the plant, which it fears could cover weapons-related work. Copyright © 2007 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 6 [NYTr] N Korea 'committed' to nuclear disarmament deal: UN Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2007 16:22:40 -0400 (EDT) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit sent by Simon McGuinness The Irish Times - Mar 15, 2007 http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/world/2007/0315/1173880234736.html North Korea 'committed' to nuclear disarmament agreement by Chris Buckley UN/KOREA: North Korea is committed to a disarmament agreement reached in February but wants sanctions against it lifted first, the head of the UN nuclear watchdog said yesterday. It was the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) first negotiations with North Korea in more than four years, even though IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei was told the North's top nuclear negotiator was too busy to meet him. Mr ElBaradei said the visit had been "quite useful" and opened the way to a normal relationship. He said North Korea was positive about returning to IAEA membership, but wanted sanctions lifted. "I think they were very clear that they are willing to implement the February 13th agreement once the other parties implement their part," he said, referring to an agreement reached at six-party talks grouping the two Koreas, Russia, Japan, the US and host China. "The DPRK [North Korea] mentioned that they are waiting for the lifting of sanctions with regard to the Macau bank." Referring to the closure of the Yongbyon nuclear plant, he said: "They said they are ready, willing and capable of doing that as soon as the financial sanctions are lifted." Mr ElBaradei's visit was the first by the agency since late 2002, when North Korea expelled its inspectors as an earlier disarmament deal fell apart. It withdrew from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty days later. Under the terms of the February agreement, the Yongbyon reactor, which makes plutonium that can be used in nuclear weapons, must be shut by mid-April in return for an initial shipment of heavy fuel oil. However, South Korean foreign minister Song Min-soon said earlier that North Korea had shown no signs of closing the reactor. North Korea tested its first nuclear device last October, drawing widespread condemnation and UN sanctions. "There is no indication of a change in the operational condition of Yongbyon," Mr Song told a news conference in Seoul. The IAEA, which is trying to iron out the details of a return of its inspectors to North Korea, will be key to verifying whether the state makes good on its pledge. In addition to US envoy Christopher Hill, South Korean envoy Chun Yung-woo arrived for working-group meetings. Both envoys, along with China's Wu Dawei, will take part in discussions to flesh out parts of the agreement dealing with disarmament and energy. The US said that within 30 days of the February deal it would settle a dispute over North Korean bank accounts frozen in Macau, which the US says were used to launder illegal earnings. "The Macau issue will be resolved as we've promised," Mr Hill said. As part of the give-and-take to settle the dispute, the US Treasury Department would bar US banks from doing business with the Macau bank, allowing Macau authorities to decide whether to release some of the frozen accounts. But releasing the funds could take weeks and the US restrictions will hinder the North's access to the international financial system. Western diplomats said they expected no immediate progress and warned the process of establishing relations with the IAEA or bringing back inspectors into North Korea would need time. "North Korea wants to show that they are in the driving seat. They want to drive home the point that they are on eye level when it comes to these negotiations," one diplomat in Vienna said. - ( Reuters ) C 2007 The Irish Times * ================================================================ .NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems . Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us . .339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org .List Archives: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ .Subscribe: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ================================================================ ***************************************************************** 7 Digital Chosunilbo: U.S. Seeking Full Disclosure of North Korean Enriched Uranium Program Updated Mar.17,2007 10:15 KST The United States' chief negotiator on North Korea's nuclear programs has said Pyongyang needs to be open about its enriched uranium activities in order for an agreement on denuclearization to move forward. But, as Daniel Schearf reports from Beijing, the issue could prove a sticking point, as North Korea has never publicly admitted to having such a program. The U.S. envoy to talks on North Korea's nuclear programs, Christopher Hill, told reporters Friday he aims to seek an explanation from North Korea on its uranium enrichment program. In an agreement reached in February the North would receive aid and improved diplomatic ties if it declared its nuclear facilities and shut down its main Yongbyon nuclear reactor. Hill said this means that North Korea must provide an explanation of the alleged uranium enrichment program. "This is an issue that must be addressed and must be resolved because we can't have a complete declaration unless there's been a complete understanding of the highly enriched uranium issue," he said. The U.S. first accused Pyongyang of having a secret highly enriched uranium program in 2002. That prompted North Korea to kick nuclear inspectors out of the country, withdraw from the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and restart its plutonium reactor. That reactor provided the nuclear material for North Korea's first successful nuclear test in October. The U.S. fears Pyongyang may be hiding a highly enriched uranium program, although the North denies it. Hill said he would be discussing the alleged enriched uranium program with North Korea's chief negotiator Kim Kye-Kwan when they meet on Saturday in Beijing for a working group on denuclearizing the North. Hill said they would also discuss the U.S. Treasury's decision this week to ban U.S. banks from doing business with a Macau bank, Banco Delta Asia. Washington says this bank helped Pyongyang launder money and deal in counterfeit currency and cigarettes. Banco Delta Asia's chairman, Stanley Au, on Friday denied intentionally helping Pyongyang with any illegal activity. South Korea said Friday it would resume shipments of fertilizer aid to North Korea later this month, after a gap of almost a year in response to a North Korean missile test. The various steps - in Washington, South Korea and Beijing - are all a prelude to the sixth round of six-nation talks to begin Monday in Beijing, which include North Korea, Japan, and Russia. VOA News ***************************************************************** 8 Korea Times: US Lawmakers Oppose Early Removal of NK From Terrorism State List Hankooki.com > The Korea Times > Special Senior U.S. Republican legislators on Friday opposed dropping North Korea anytime soon from the U.S. list of nations sponsoring terrorism, attaching conditions that include a full accounting of abductions of Japanese citizens, the Yonhap News Agency reported. Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Edward Royce and Donald Manzullo sent a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice saying they would resist any attempt to prematurely remove North Korea from the list, which is updated annually in April, according to the report. Ros-Lehtinen is the ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. North Korea continues to transfer missile technology and has yet to resolve the kidnappings of Japanese citizens and a U.S. resident, the letter said. The legislators demanded as preconditions that North Korea must have verifiably ceased support or involvement in terrorist acts, not have engaged in state-sponsored terror for four previous years, have resolved all outstanding cases of past terrorist activities including abductions, and have signed international anti-terrorism agreements. ``The State Department's list of terrorist states cannot be used as a bargaining chip in diplomatic negotiations,¡¯¡¯ the letter said. ``Until these requirements are met, there is no guarantee that North Korea will not revert to activities that have earned it the designation as a state sponsor of terror.¡¯¡¯ Pyongyang's removal from the list is one of the key elements in the Feb. 13 denuclearization agreement signed jointly by South and North Korea, the U.S., China, Russia and Japan. Under the accord, the North would shut down and eventually disable its nuclear weapons and programs in exchange for political and economic rewards by other states. The agreement states that the U.S. would ``begin the process of removing¡¯¡¯ North Korea's designation in the State Department list. The issue was one of the topics when U.S. and North Korean diplomats met in New York earlier this month to discuss diplomatic normalization. Pyongyang was put on the list soon after North Korean agents blew up a South Korean civilian jet while in flight in 1987, killing 115 passengers and crew members. The annual State Department report points out Pyongyang kidnapped Japanese citizens, believed to have been abducted to train North Korean spies to pose as Japanese. U.S. resident Kim Dong-shik, a Christian priest, is also unaccounted for after disappearing in 2000 while helping North Korean refugees hiding in China. 03-18-2007 14:42 ***************************************************************** 9 Guardian Unlimited: N. Korea Plans to Shut Down Nuke Reactor From the Associated Press Saturday March 17, 2007 1:16 PM By BO-MI LIM Associated Press Writer BEIJING (AP) - North Korea told delegates at nuclear talks on Saturday that it is preparing to shut down its main reactor, South Korea's chief nuclear envoy said, a key step promised in a landmark disarmament pact. The apparent progress in implementing last month's agreement came only hours after North Korea's lead nuclear envoy said his government would not close its main nuclear facility until all $25 million of its money frozen in a Macau bank is released. But U.S. Assistant Secretary of States Christopher Hill, the top American envoy, said late Saturday that the North was still ``fulfilling their obligations.'' The fate of the frozen funds, the result of a blacklisting by U.S. authorities, has become a central issue in the talks. The U.S. promised to resolve the bank issue as an inducement to North Korea to return to the negotiations, but its solution - an order this past week to U.S. banks to sever ties with Banco Delta Asia - has been criticized by China and left North Korea sending mixed signals. At one follow-up meeting Saturday, another North Korean diplomat, Kim Song Gi, said North Korea has ``begun preparations to shut down its Yongbyon nuclear facility,'' South Korean envoy Chun Yung-woo told reporters afterward. Kim promised that North Korea will submit a list of its nuclear programs and disable its nuclear facility ``as soon as the right conditions are created,'' Chun said, without explaining what the conditions were. Chun did not independently confirm whether shutdown preparations were under way. Under the Feb. 13 agreement, which involves the United States, China, Japan and Russia as well as the two Koreas, North Korea has 60 days to shutter the Yongbyon reactor and a plutonium processing plant which have produced material for a nuclear weapons program. U.N. monitors are supposed to be allowed in North Korea to verify the shutdown, and once confirmed North Korea is to receive energy and economic assistance. The United States, in a side agreement, promised to resolve the Banco Delta Asia funds, which U.S. authorities alleged may have resulted from counterfeiting or money laundering. ``We are on schedule for this first phase,'' Hill told reporters after daylong meetings with delegates in the other five countries. Earlier, North Korea's chief nuclear negotiator, Kim Kye Gwan, said his country would not stop nuclear activity ``until our funds frozen in the BDA are fully released.'' Also Saturday, a senior U.S. Treasury Department official traveled to Macau to discuss the results of the investigation with officials there. It will be up to the government of Macau - a semiautonomous Chinese territory - whether to release any of the funds, which have been frozen since 2005. The Treasury Department is expected to help Macau's regulators identify accounts connected to North Korea that are not tainted by links to alleged nuclear proliferation or counterfeiting, smuggling and other crimes. ``I think it is important to emphasize this was a Macanese action to freeze the funds, and it would be a Macanese process to determine'' whether to release them, U.S. Deputy Assistant Treasury Secretary Daniel Glaser told reporters. As part of the disarmament meetings in Beijing, Hill said he would push North Korea to disclose all its nuclear programs, including an alleged uranium enrichment program. U.S. allegations that North Korea has a secret uranium enrichment program brought on a nuclear crisis in 2002 that led the country to expel U.N. inspectors and eventually led to North Korea exploding its first nuclear device in October. North Korea has never publicly acknowledged a uranium program, although Kim indicated the North was willing to discuss the issue. ``We are willing to cooperate with the United States to address the allegations,'' Kim said. ``We will clarify this when (the U.S.) presents the evidence.'' --- Associated Press writers Christopher Bodeen, Audra Ang and Mari Yamaguchi contributed to this report. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007 ***************************************************************** 10 AFP: Macau to decide whether to unfreeze NKorea funds - US official - Sat Mar 17, 1:27 PM ET HONG KONG (AFP) - A US Treasury official on Saturday said it was up to the Macau authorities to decide whether to release North Korean funds which were frozen at a Macau bank under US financial sanctions. Deputy Assistant Secretary Daniel Glaser led a Treasury delegation to the former Portuguese enclave for talks on Banco Delta Asia, three days after the department barred US banks from any dealings with BDA. It was a move that effectively cut off the family-owned bank from the global financial system, but cleared the way to unfreeze North Korean funds in a move seen as part of an international deal to end Pyongyang's nuclear programmes. "It will be for the Macau authorities to decide what to do with the funds, whether to release it or not. We did conduct an investigation and hope our investigation will be helpful to their determination," he told reporters in Hong Kong after returning from Macau. "I think they will act responsibly with that information as they have acted responsibly all along," he added. "The authorities don't need my suggestion." The financial sanctions issue was one of the major outstanding hurdles to a February 13 accord under which Pyongyang promised to begin shutting down its nuclear programme in exchange for energy aid and diplomatic concessions. Macau's Monetary Authority took control of BDA in late 2005, after the United States declared it a "primary money laundering concern," and froze about 25 million dollars in assets belonging to North Korea. Glaser said the Macau authorities had "behaved very responsibly and diligently" in their management of BDA and had taken "the legislative and regulatory actions needed to take to protect in Macau financial system from abuse." The Treasury official said his team would head to Beijing on Sunday but did not disclose further details. A fresh round of disarmament negotiations, which group the two Koreas, China, the United States, Russia and Japan, begins in Beijing on Monday. Copyright © 2007 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 11 Guardian Unlimited: U.S.: $25M North Korea Dispute Resolved From the Associated Press Sunday March 18, 2007 8:46 PM By MARI YAMAGUCHI Associated Press Writer BEIJING (AP) - The top American nuclear envoy said Sunday that he believed North Korea and the U.S. had ``gotten past'' a dispute over $25 million in frozen North Korean funds, and the communist nation was moving toward nuclear disarmament. Christopher Hill, the American envoy, said he met with North Korean representatives on Saturday and Sunday to explain the U.S. position on the funds held in Macau's Banco Delta Asia bank, and was hopeful that the issue had been resolved. He had yet to meet with his North Korean counterpart, Kim Kye Gwan. Kim arrived Saturday but did not participate in meetings leading up to a formal resumption of six-party nuclear talks on Monday. The talks are meant to assess progress in implementing a Feb. 13 disarmament agreement. The deal gave North Korea 60 days to shut down both its main reactor and a plutonium processing plant, allowing U.N. monitors to verify the shutdown. In return, North Korea is to receive energy and economic assistance and a start toward normalizing relations with the U.S. and Japan. Washington also promised to settle the frozen funds issue as an inducement for North Korea to disarm. The funds, some of which U.S. authorities suspect may be linked to counterfeiting or money laundering by cash-starved North Korea, had become a key issue in the talks leading up to the deal. Kim, the North Korean envoy, told reporters upon his arrival in Beijing on Saturday that North Korea ``will not stop its nuclear activity'' until the entire $25 million in the frozen accounts is released. Hill told reporters late Sunday that, ``I think we have gotten past the BDA issue and that will not be an impediment to our six-party process.'' Hill said the North Korean officials he spoke with ``made it very clear that they have begun their tasks for the purpose of denuclearization.'' Delegates from the six countries involved in the talks - China, the two Koreas, Russia, Japan and the United States - met Sunday. Japan's representative to the talks, Akio Suda, said North Korean delegates at the meeting said ``they are prepared to do what they are supposed to do on the condition that the five other members do what they are required to do,'' without giving details. South Korean envoy Chun Yung-woo said that he expected the funds issue to be resolved ``within a short period of time in a way that will not be an obstacle to the progress of the six-party talks.'' Chinese State Councilor Tang Jiaxuan told a group of visiting Japanese lawmakers that the U.S. and North Korea had already resolved the dispute, Hidenao Nakagawa, secretary-general of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party, told reporters. Nakagawa was in Beijing to meet China's leaders. U.S. allegations in 2002 that North Korea has a secret uranium enrichment program prompted the North to expel U.N. inspectors and eventually led to North Korea detonating its first nuclear device last year. U.S. Deputy Assistant Treasury Secretary Daniel Glaser arrived in Beijing on Sunday following meetings in Macau to discuss the issue with government officials, who have the authority to release the funds. Macau is a semiautonomous Chinese territory that maintains its own legal and financial systems. The Treasury Department is expected to help Macau bank regulators identify accounts connected to North Korea that are not tainted by alleged links to nuclear proliferation or other crimes, possibly resulting in the release of about $20 million. --- Associated Press writer Christopher Bodeen in Beijing contributed to this report. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007 ***************************************************************** 12 New York Times: Beyond Nukes Cleaning Up the 20th Century THE PAST?S PULL The festering issues in northeast Asia include the Korean War, which ended with a demilitarized zone. By JIM YARDLEY Published: March 18, 2007 Lee Jin-man/Associated Press PROTESTS Former South Korean ?comfort women? from World War II last week marched to Japan?s embassy in Seoul. FOR more than three years, the grinding, often exasperating negotiations over North Korea’s nuclear weapons program have been about taking the bomb away from Kim Jong-il. As if that were not complicated enough, the agenda is now becoming more ambitious. One new goal could be loosely described as cleaning up the 20th century. Starting tomorrow. That is when diplomats from the United States, North Korea, China, Japan, South Korea and Russia will reconvene in Beijing with a docket that is still dominated by nuclear disarmament but that also now includes unresolved disputes that have bedeviled northeast Asia for decades. The process might accomplish far more than denuclearization — a formal peace treaty ending the Korean War could be one dramatic possibility. Or it could just as easily collapse under the weight of so many moveable pieces and kill a nuclear deal, too. “This process, not unlike a video game, gets more and more difficult as you go into more and more levels,” Christopher R. Hill, the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs and chief American envoy, said earlier this month in New York. History can be omnipresent or repressed in northeast Asia, but nearly everyone agrees it is festering and unresolved. Historic resentments and nationalist anger are volatile and easily inflamed, as evidenced by the outrage that followed recent comments by Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, about Korean “comfort women” in World War II. Yet, most often, that anger is compartmentalized to protect the hum of commerce. China and Japan conduct record bilateral trade even as public attitudes in both countries can range anywhere from mutual distrust to open loathing. North Korea is a bit like the crazy uncle whose refusal to stay locked and quiet in the region’s attic has forced everyone to the same table, with historic baggage and contemporary rivalries in tow. The North’s demands for economic and energy aid nearly derailed the last round of talks, and now negotiations are being separated into working groups to tackle decades-old issues like normalizing relations between North Korea and both Japan and the United States. Discussions over a peace treaty to end the Korean War will be held in a “separate forum” that has yet to be named. “These are the precise issues that North Korea really wants to address,” said Bates Gill, a China specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “They want a peace treaty. They want a normal relationship with the United States.” Already, animosities between Japan and North Korea that have nothing to do with nuclear weapons are roiling the process. The working groups are the products of the deal struck last month in which North Korea agreed as an initial step toward denuclearization to close its main nuclear reactor by April. In return, the other nations agreed to make an initial shipment of 50,000 tons of fuel oil. Japan, though, refused to contribute to the aid package because of its claims of unresolved cases of Japanese abducted in the 1970s and 1980s by North Korean agents. Japan has insisted that the North address the issue before any progress can be made on normalizing relations. North Korea considers the matter resolved and a “nonissue.” Earlier this month, North Korea and Japan held their first working group on normalization and neither side budged. An afternoon session was unexpectedly canceled, reportedly because the North Koreans were incensed over the Japanese position on the abductees. The North, meanwhile, wants Japanese “atonement” as well as reparations for Japan’s colonial rule of the Korean peninsula during the first half of the 20th century. With no progress after two days of meetings, which were held in Hanoi, the best that Japan’s chief negotiator could say about the meetings was that both sides “reconfirmed our mutual positions.” No one expected a breakthrough, but the difficulties are worth noting, given the growing expectations for this diplomatic structure, known as the six-party talks. The Bush administration once regarded the talks with almost palpable distaste; now it seems to be embracing the idea that the talks could morph into the first permanent regional body dealing with security and other issues. Mr. Hill has often cast the disarmament talks as part of a larger, holistic effort to address the full range of conflicts in the region. “We are dealing not only with denuclearization, but we are dealing with some of the problems in the region, some of the problems in the region caused by the region’s difficult history,” Mr. Hill said at one news conference during last month’s negotiations in Beijing. “This type of ambitious undertaking hasn’t been tried before.” “Difficult history” is a gracious description. On some days, World War II seems ongoing. Japanese mines are still being unearthed in northeast China, and “patriotic education” in China has helped create a younger, more nationalistic generation that seems to relish confrontation with Japan. Diplomatic relations between the two countries were essentially paralyzed because of visits by the former Japanese prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, to a shrine for war dead and war criminals that China and South Korea consider a potent symbol of past Japanese militarism. Japan's populace, meanwhile, is increasingly weary of the regional criticism and feel that rivals like China are using historical grievances to play contemporary politics and impede Japanese efforts to become a "normal" nation. South Korea's relations with Japan are also seriously strained. And while trade has brought South Korea closer to China, those two countries also are arguing over an ancient historic dispute about China's claims over a region considered the birthplace of the Korean people. Other lasting issues include the unresolved cases of Japanese abducted by North Korean agents (Shigeru Yokota shows his daughter Megumi before and after abduction), above, and Japan's brutal occupation of Nanking, China. Readers' Opinions Forum: Asian Politics This messy historical baggage only complicates the still unrealized task of disarming Mr. Kim. Hawks in Washington warn that North Korea cannot be trusted and has no intention of relinquishing its nuclear arsenal. Others caution that it is unrealistic to expect the six-party talks to become a diplomatic cure-all for the region's complicated security issues. Alan D. Romberg, a senior associate specializing in East Asia at the Henry L. Stimson Center in Washington, said the process was creating "habits of consultation" that could ease suspicions in the region. But he said he thought that the region's security issues were far too complex to be resolved under a single diplomatic roof. He noted that Taiwan, which represents one of the region's most contentious security issues, is not even part of the process. Japan and China, meanwhile, are locked in a testy dispute over territorial claims in the East China Sea as part of their rivalry over which country will eventually dominate the region. "I think there are a lot of over-expectations for what this will do," Mr. Romberg said of the negotiations. "We could be bogged down pretty quickly. It depends on what everybody's real goals are here." Susan L. Shirk, a State Department official responsible for East Asia during the Clinton administration, said one advantage of expanding the agenda - and separating it into different negotiations - was that it sidelined polarizing issues like the Japanese abductees dispute away from the talks about nuclear disarmament. But she added that Japan's insistence on focusing on the issue could serve to marginalize Japan in the broader discussions, even as China, the host, stays above the fray. "You have China at the center of the action and Japan at the margins," said Ms. Shirk, now director of the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation at the University of California, San Diego. "In the rivalry between China and Japan - and I would say they are both rising powers," she said, "in this arena, we see China playing it so they are coming out ahead." The future, and how it will look in northeast Asia, is a matter of international concern. Japan, China and South Korea represent the world's 2nd-, 4th- and 11th-largest economies. The region is considered a model of restraint and practicality compared with the Middle East, but analysts do not rule out the possibility of future conflict. For now, though, the past must be navigated. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company ***************************************************************** 13 Reuters: Abe: Japan should boost security ties with U.S. Sun Mar 18, 2007 2:24AM EDT TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan should strengthen its security ties with the United States in the face of threats such as North Korea's nuclear and missile programs, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Sunday. Japan has been moving toward a bolder security stance, upgrading its defense agency to a full-fledged ministry in January. Last week it signed a defense pact with Australia, the first such agreement with a nation other than the United States. Speaking at graduation ceremonies at the National Defense Academy, Abe -- who is working to transform the country's diplomatic and security policies -- said regional threats such as North Korea meant still stronger ties with the United States were needed. "Given these threats, it is essential that Japan strengthen its alliance with the United States, as well as improving its own national security structure, to protect the lives, health, and property of the nation," Abe was quoted by Kyodo news agency as saying. He did not give further details. Abe will visit Washington in late April for a summit with President Bush. Japan has in recent years pushed the limits of its U.S.-drafted pacifist constitution, and Abe wants to rewrite the document to clarify the legal status of its military and facilitate a bigger global security role. © Reuters 2007. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 14 Antiwar.com: Novak's 'Outings': Damage Control - by Gordon Prather March 17, 2007 Hours after the jury convicted Lewis "Scooter" Libby of obstructing justice – preventing Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald from finding out whether a crime had been committed in the outing by columnist Bob Novak of CIA operative Valerie Plame – Joseph C. Wilson IV told reporters that the CIA was holding up publication of Valerie Wilson’s book. Tentatively entitled Fair Game, her book reportedly not only chronicles the consequences to Valerie Wilson of the outing of Plame by Novak, but would also reveal some things about the life of Valerie Plame, the CIA operative Novak outed. According to Mark Mansfield, a CIA spokesman, Valerie Wilson’s book is still under review because of concerns "that the manuscript, as it was originally submitted, would cause additional damage to operational matters." Would cause? Howzat? Well, you see, as far as the CIA is (officially) concerned, Valerie Wilson first became a CIA employee on January 1, 2002. As far as the CIA (officially) is concerned, they’ve never heard of Valerie Plame, the "CIA operative" Novak "outed" on July 14, 2003. And the CIA has certainly never (officially) heard of Brewster-Jennings & Associates, Valerie Plame’s employer, which Novak deliberately "outed" as a CIA "front" on CNN on October 3, 2003, almost a month after the Justice Department had announced it had begun – at the request of the CIA – an official investigation to determine if a crime had been committed in Novak’s outing of Valerie Plame. By the time this column appears, Valerie Wilson will (probably) have already testified before the House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee, which is investigating "issues raised" by documentary evidence of conduct or misconduct by Bush-Cheney administration officials, introduced by both prosecution and defense during Libby’s trial. Because Valerie Wilson is – and young Valerie Plame was – a beautiful woman, Chairman Waxman will almost certainly allow some of her testimony to be made publicly. But because of CIA concerns – which according to Prosecutor Fitzgerald and Judge Reggie Walton are warranted – most of the questions Waxman wants answered about the outing of Valerie Plame and Brewster-Jennings will probably have to be asked and answered in closed sessions. Recall that in a Truthout column written on the eve of Libby’s trial, Jason Leopold noted that "Many of the officials identified as potential witnesses were members of the White House Iraq Group (WHIG), which came together in August 2002 to publicize the threat posed by Saddam Hussein. WHIG was founded by Bush's chief of staff Andrew Card and operated out of the vice president's office. The WHIG was not only responsible for selling the Iraq War, but it took great pains to discredit anyone who openly disagreed with the official Iraq War story." The conventional wisdom is that WHIG somehow got Novak to out CIA operative Valerie Plame in retaliation for Joe Wilson’s July 6, 2003 op-ed piece, which began thusly; "Did the Bush administration manipulate intelligence about Saddam Hussein's weapons programs to justify an invasion of Iraq? "Based on my experience with the administration in the months leading up to the war, I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat." But evidence was introduced at Libby’s trial that WHIG began its campaign to discredit "a former US ambassador to Africa" two months before, almost immediately after Nicholas Kristof had this to say in his May, 6 2003 column: "Consider the now-disproved claims by President Bush and Colin Powell that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger so it could build nuclear weapons. "I'm told by a person involved in the Niger caper that more than a year ago the vice president's office asked for an investigation of the uranium deal, so a former U.S. ambassador to Africa was dispatched to Niger. In February 2002, according to someone present at the meetings, that envoy reported to the CIA and State Department that the information was unequivocally wrong and that the documents had been forged." Evidently, initially, WHIG didn’t know the ambassador was Joe Wilson. And they certainly didn’t know "Wilson’s wife" worked at the CIA. And they sure as hell didn’t know about "CIA operative" Valerie Plame. Or did they? Recall that the Cheney Cabal had managed to get prominently featured in the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq’s WMD capabilities, hastily constructed in the summer of 2002, an allegation – hotly disputed within the intelligence community – that Saddam Hussein had attempted to import thousands of aluminum tubes, which, according to then National Security Advisor Condi Rice were "only really suited for nuclear weapons programs." Now, according to David Corn and Michael Isikoff; "A shipment of the tubes was seized in Jordan under an operation headed by Valerie Plame Wilson. She oversaw the operation that intercepted these tubes that were then shipped back to the CIA. "She actually was Chief of Operations for the Joint Task on Iraq. It's part of the Counter-proliferation Division which is part of the super-secret Operations Directorate. So she was actually in charge of overseeing and running operations for two years prior to the invasion that were designed to find evidence of Iraq's WMD's." Since, according to the CIA, Valerie Wilson only became an "official" CIA employee on January 1, 2002, how could she have overseen the operation in 2001 that intercepted these tubes, confiscated them and sent them "back to the CIA"? As we now know, in 2001 and for years before, she was Valerie Plame, an employee of Brewster-Jennings – a company the CIA says it has never heard of (officially) – and she has W-2 forms to prove it. We also now know that at the 2-hour meeting Libby had – at the direction of Vice President Cheney – with WHIG media-sycophant Judith Miller to provide her with classified information contained in the 2002 NIE on Iraq, Libby referred to Valerie Plame. (Miller wrote "Flame" in her notes.) This Valerie "Flame" disclosure by a member of WHIG came on June 22, 2003 – weeks before Novak’s column of July 14, 2003, "outing" Valerie Plame as a CIA operative. So, suppose Waxman cites the report by David Corn and Michael Isikoff and asks Valerie Wilson if it’s true that she intercepted the aluminum tubes, and if so, did she intercept them as Valerie Plame, an employee of Brewster-Jennings, or as a "CIA operative"? If he does ask her that, you might want to pay close attention to her response, if and when it is rebroadcast on C-SPAN. Antiwar.com Home Page Physicist James Gordon Prather has served as a policy implementing official for national security-related technical matters in the Federal Energy Agency, the Energy Research and Development Administration, the Department of Energy, the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Department of the Army. Dr. Prather also served as legislative assistant for national security affairs to U.S. Sen. Henry Bellmon, R-Okla. -- ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee and member of the Senate Energy Committee and Appropriations Committee. Dr. Prather had earlier worked as a nuclear weapons physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico. Reproduction of material from any original Antiwar.com pages without written permission is strictly prohibited. Copyright 2007 Antiwar.com ***************************************************************** 15 Guardian Unlimited: Israel, U.S. Test Missile Defense From the Associated Press Sunday March 18, 2007 5:31 PM By ARON HELLER Associated Press Writer JERUSALEM (AP) - Thousands of American and Israeli troops conducted an operation Sunday to test new ways of intercepting missiles able to carry nuclear, chemical and biological warheads, American and Israeli military officials said. Israel and the U.S. are concerned that Iran could be developing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles able to threaten Israel. But both sides said the timing of the operation in southern Israel's Negev Desert was routine and unrelated to those fears. The officials gave details of the operation on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to do so. This is the fourth time the two countries have conducted the joint exercise, code-named ``Juniper Cobra,'' which is held every two years. The United States is Israel's closest ally, providing about $2.2 billion a year in military assistance and coordinating many aspects of defense policy. ``It is a computer simulation exercise designed to test the interoperability of the air defense system,'' said Stewart Tuttle, the U.S. Embassy spokesman in Tel Aviv, who declined to provide details. ``The air defense can protect you against whatever happens to be on the warhead.'' Both Israel and the U.S. are wary of Iran's nuclear program, suspecting that the goal is to produce nuclear weapons, despite Iran's claims that it wants nuclear energy only for civilian use. Israel considers Iran its most serious strategic threat, since its president has often questioned the legitimacy of Israel's right to exist. The current drill began last week and is set to end Tuesday. During the last exercise, in 2005, the tests included integrating the Israeli-made Arrow anti-ballistic missiles with the U.S. Patriot system to create a multilayered air defense system. The concept is for the Arrow, a joint U.S.-Israeli project, to intercept inbound missiles at high altitudes, while the Patriot provides cover at lower levels. The U.S. deployed Patriot batteries in Israel in 1991, when Iraq fired 39 Scud missiles at Israel during the first Gulf war. The Arrow was jointly developed by Israel Aircraft Industries and Chicago-based Boeing Co. at a cost of more than $1 billion, in response to the Patriots' failure to intercept many of the incoming Scuds. Some reports say Patriots missed them all. ``From time to time, the United States and Israel conduct routine exercises in Israel,'' the Israeli military said in a statement. ``This exercise has been planned for over a year and is part of a routine training cycle designed to validate interoperability of air defense systems.'' Military officials said Israel's air defense artillery brigade and the U.S. Army Corps' 69th Air Defense Artillery Brigade were taking part in the drill. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007 ***************************************************************** 16 [NYTr] Blair wins nuclear vote despite revolt Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2007 17:04:51 -0400 (EDT) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit sent by Dave Muller (southnews) - Mar 15, 2007 AFP - Mar 15, 2007 Blair wins nuclear vote despite revolt LONDON (AFP) - Prime Minister Tony Blair won backing for plans to renew Britain's nuclear deterrent Wednesday, but only after an embarrassing revolt from within his own Labour ranks. After a sometimes rowdy debate and the resignation of two more junior government ministers, lawmakers voted by 409 in favour of renewing the US-built Trident missile system, and 161 against. The motion only passed with the backing of opposition Conservatives, after 95 Labour MPs voted against their own government, according to the BBC. The parliamentary rebuff was believed to be the the biggest rebellion within Labour ranks since March 2003, when 138 Labour MPs, including former foreign secretary Robin Cook, voted against invading Iraq. Anti-nuclear campaigners hailed the vote as a success with Kate Hudson of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) describing it as a "major victory for the peace movement." The leader of the smaller opposition Liberal Democrats, Menzies Campbell, who opposed the decision, said it was a "humiliation" for the government. "I think the government will be well advised to take account not only of the vote but also of public opinion which is very very doubtful" about the Trident renewal plans, he added. Blair is widely perceived as gradually losing his grip on party discipline as he prepares to step down in the coming months after a decade in power. He is expected to hand over to finance minister Gordon Brown. Before lawmakers debated the issue, Blair told them a future parliament could still decide in 2012-2014 whether or not to put out new contracts for new nuclear submarines that carry the weapons. But it was vital to begin the concept and design process on the vessels immediately as they took 17 years to develop and the four existing submarines were expected to reach the end of their working life by 2024. "I think it's right we take the decision now to begin work on replacing the Trident nuclear submarines. I think that is essential for our security in an uncertain world," Blair said. "I believe it is important that we recognise that although it is impossible to predict the future, the one thing ... that is certain, is the unpredictability of it. "For that reason, I think it is sensible we take this decision today." Blair outlined proposals in December to replace the submarines and extend the shelf-life of the weapons beyond 2050, sparking widespread opposition from the traditional anti-nuclear lobby and many in his own Labour party. Many Labour MPs had indicated they would go against the government over Trident while four junior ministerial aides this week resigned in protest -- including two during the debate itself. Opponents, including Church leaders and unions, dispute government claims it would cost 15-20 billion pounds (22-29.1 billion euros, 29-38.5 billion dollars) to replace. They argue the cost could rise to more than 100 billion pounds if maintenance and other costs are added, that Trident is a Cold War relic and the money could be better spent elsewhere. Opponents say most Britons are against renewing Trident and that in doing so Britain is being hypocritical because of its attempts to prevent Iran and North Korea obtaining nuclear weapons. It could also potentially trigger a new wave of nuclear proliferation, they add. Within Labour, where unilateral nuclear disarmament was party policy in the 1980s, grassroots members and left-wing traditionalists in parliament have accused Blair of stifling debate on the proposals. * ================================================================ .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 ================================================================ ***************************************************************** 17 Google Alert - nuclear Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2007 19:17:53 -0700

Google News Alert for: nuclear

Japanese Company Admits To Nuclear Cover Up
Slashdot - USA
a-charles writes "Just as power companies are considering the first expansion of nuclear power usage in the US since the 70s, Reuters reports on a ...
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NKorea will not stop nuclear program
Radio Australia - Australia
North Korea's chief nuclear envoy says his country will not stop its nuclear development program until the United States lifts financial curbs on North ...
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Anti-nuclear rallies fill French cities
Kansas City Star - MO,USA
RENNES, France - Tens of thousands of people filled the streets of five French cities Saturday to protest plans to build the next generation of nuclear ...
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Fate of nuclear power plant strengthens Iran's resolve to pursue ...
San Diego Union Tribune - San Diego,CA,USA
BUSHEHR, Iran – For Iranians across the political spectrum, delays in construction of the country's first nuclear reactor have strengthened their resolve to ...
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Iran Army Vows to Defend Nuclear Program
New York Times - New York,NY,USA
TEHRAN, March 17 — A senior Iranian army commander warned the United States and other Western powers not to make any “stupid move” over Tehran’s nuclear ...
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North Korea ‘preparing to shut key nuclear reactor’
Daily Times - Lahore,Pakistan
SEOUL: North Korea has begun preparations to shutdown and seal its key Yongbyon nuclear reactor, South Korea’s top nuclear envoy said on Saturday, ...
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Russia to build 3 nuclear plants each year from 2016
People's Daily Online - Beijing,China
Russia will be laying the foundation of three nuclear power plant units per year starting from 2016, and four starting from 2018-2020, head of Federal ...
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Nuclear envoys continue in-depth discussions ahead of 6-way talks
Yonhap News - Seoul,South Korea
BEIJING, March 18 (Yonhap) -- Ahead of a fresh round of six-party nuclear disarmament talks, negotiators were expected to meet on Sunday individually or as ...
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Iran seeks UN OK to make nuclear case
Hinesberg Journal - British Columbia,Canada
... "illegitimate" body and said any new sanctions imposed on his country would only stimulate it to be self-sufficient and further develop nuclear technology.
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Bush's North Korea adviser sets aside tough views on nuclear talks
WHDH-TV - Boston,MA,USA
WASHINGTON -- As an academic, Victor Cha was skeptical about nuclear talks with North Korea. He considered the real value of US engagement as a way to ...
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***************************************************************** 18 The Observer: Why Pakistan is crucial to the world's stability Comment Denis Macshane Sunday March 18, 2007 Anyone who wants political power in Pakistan, so say the street pundits, must hold three aces - America, the army and Allah. As Pakistan plans its 60th birthday celebrations this year, it may hope for a future less in thrall to its military, to its mullahs and to Washington. President Pervez Musharraf, who took power in a bloody 1999 coup, is facing a crisis. Far from being Nato's calm eastern ally, a new front in the fight against terrorism, Islamabad's streets feel shaky, divided and waiting for the worst. Pakistan is neither dictatorship nor democracy. Its newspapers are louder in criticism of their President than the anti-Blair or anti-Bush press in the West. Its intellectuals roam the world, trashing their country. Opposition politician, Cambridge-educated billionaire, Benazir Bhutto, is free to return home when she wants. But General Musharraf and his army are in charge. The house arrest of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, after he refused Musharraf's demand to resign, has caused outrage. In a nation that reveres high office, the manhandling of the judge shocked even the most cynical of Pakistani politicians. Pakistan urgently needs a return to democratic civilian rule even if its elected leaders in the Nineties became bywords for corruption, encouraging the Taliban and the madrassas, as well as the long-bearded, turban-wearing politicians who insist the law should be subordinate to theocracy. Democracy requires compromise between the military and the politicians. Instead there may be a slow drift towards increased authoritarianism under Musharraf, further alienating Pakistan. In fact, the most poignant story in Pakistan last week was not about the Chief Justice but the stoning to death of a woman and two men accused of adultery. The rise of religious intolerance is now a political danger from the Christian West to the Muslim East. Yet it is all too easy to patronise Pakistan. Britain is currently gushing over India with its clever graduates and Midas-touch businessmen. But India's record on human rights and the illiteracy of half its population is little better than Pakistan's. India is rightly seen as a strategic partner for the West, especially the US, which is playing a balance-of-power game using India against China. But Pakistan, not India, is key to stability in the new world order. The chain reaction that began when the West and Saudi Arabia called into being the jihadi movement to oust the Russians from Afghanistan is coming back to haunt Pakistan. In the Eighties it allowed itself to be the base for military attacks on Russia, even as the USSR tottered on the edge of history's dustbin. Now the jihadis are heading steadily eastwards as fanatical Islamism preaches hate and justifies suicide bombings. But Afghanistan could be saved if a political-economic-social campaign can gain ground from a purely military definition of the challenges. Earlier this month US soldiers ran amok after a bomb attack. They fired indiscriminately, killing 30 people. A few more Bloody Sundays like this and Pakistan's neighbour will be Iraqified before reconstruction pays off. Britain is sending one of its toughest trouble-shooting diplomats to take over a beefed-up presence in Kabul. The UN agencies, the European Commission plus the European Council, plus dozens of NGOs constitute the huge effort being made in Afghanistan, yet without better co-ordination it may end up chasing its tail. The news is good in terms of schools, roads and hospitals built. Kabul looks richer than when it was a hippy-trail stopover three decades ago. But relentlessly the Taliban and the jihadis from among the three million Afghan refugees in Pakistan are back in business. Pakistan is endlessly reproached about not doing enough. It is told to close its frontier, as if the US can close the Mexican border or 30,000 British soldiers could seal the border across which IRA killers roamed. Pakistan is pressured to hunt bin Laden, but Nato can't find Radovan Karadzic or persuade the Serbian army to stop protecting Ratko Mladic. The time is overdue to acknowledge the sacrifices Pakistan has made. It has 80,000 soldiers along the 2,300km frontier with Afghanistan; 500 have been killed, far in excess of Nato casualties in Afghanistan or Britain's in Iraq. India could join the war against terror by removing its 700,000 soldiers from Kashmir and opening the border. Musharraf has been braver than his predecessors in acknowledging that Indian-controlled Kashmir is not going to return to Pakistan. If Pakistan felt its eastern flank was secure, it could transfer its military to the west - Afghanistan. Britain in recent years has given £1bn in aid to India, while India spends £200m on aid to Afghanistan. UK aid is, in effect, subsidising India's efforts to pull Afghanistan into its orbit. India is opening consulates in parts of Afghanistan where no Indian has been seen in years. From Pakistan's perspective, this looks like India seeking influence in order to keep up pressure on its old foe. This summer heroin will be cheaper on the streets of Pakistan than sweets. India and China have a bigger drugs problem than the UK. Both countries should cut Islamabad some slack. If Afghanistan goes wrong, the next target for the ideologues who unleash suicide bombers will be Pakistan with its nuclear arsenal. Pakistan is the key to defeating the new threats to the world. Time and again, the West has turned its back on Pakistan. That mistake should not be made again. Britain, with its close links to Pakistan, its able, articulate Muslim MPs, and its duty to tell America to change tactics, should help before it is too late. · Denis MacShane is Labour MP for Rotherham and was a minister at the Foreign Office until 2005. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007 ***************************************************************** 19 BBC NEWS: MSPs put in a spin over Trident Last Updated: Friday, 16 March 2007, 21:16 GMT Has the Trident vote at Westminster cracked the political landscape in Scotland? Fifteen Labour MPs voted against Trident That's the question which has been spinning around Holyrood this week. The Prime Minister's visit to Scotland on Friday only posed the question again. It was his decision after all to press ahead with renewing Britain's nuclear submarine fleet at Faslane which exposed the "democratic deficit" now opening up in the Labour Party and between the nations of the United Kingdom. Out of the 59 Scottish MPs at Westminster, 33 voted against renewing Trident, 4 abstained. Fifteen Labour MPs voted against, half the party's backbenchers in Scotland. The Tories paid a heavy price in Scotland for imposing the Poll Tax and Labour will pay a heavy price for imposing Trident Nicola Sturgeon SNP At question time, the SNP's Nicola Sturgeon said Labour had no mandate to "impose" Trident on Scotland. "The Tories paid a heavy price in Scotland for imposing the poll tax and Labour will pay a heavy price for imposing Trident," she said. "The majority of Scottish people do not want to see £25bn wasted on weapons of mass destruction and certainly do not want to see them dumped on the Clyde." First Minister Jack McConnell is struggling to keep Labour together on the issue of Trident. His tactic is to say it's a matter for Westminster and to focus on the home rule issues of jobs, schools, hospitals, crime and transport. He attacked the SNP for their plans announced this week for what he called "poll tax 2". "The nationalists would impose a flat rate poll tax across Scotland," he said. 'Utter nonsense' "And a cut in the local government budget to go along with it. "Not even the Tories, when they imposed their poll tax on Scotland, proposed cutting services at the same time." Nicola Sturgeon said: "Never before has one man talked so much utter nonsense in one answer." The SNP deny there will be any service cuts and their 3p in the pound local income tax will leave all but the very rich better off than under the present property-based council tax. But before we leave Trident, the Liberal Democrats were allowed an unusual privilege at question time. Jim Wallace was called to ask question number two. Major Reform He pointed out the difference between Labour's "rush to replace Trident " and the Liberal Democrats' policy of waiting a while and instead "making an immediate 50% cut in Britain's nuclear warheads to breathe new life in the international non-proliferation treaty." The Trident debate has certainly opened up the old fault lines between the parties and deep inside the Labour Party, just seven weeks away from an election, when - according to the opinion polls - the SNP are expected to make big gains. Perhaps Tony Blair should have remembered the old Norse proverb - when you walk across a crevasse field, do not stamp your feet. (Actually I just made that up.) Parliament this week passed a major reform of the court sentencing system. Prisoners would not be eligible for automatic early release At present, anyone sentenced to four years or less is automatically released from prison half way through their sentence, without conditions. It was a measure introduced by the Conservatives in the 1990s because of severe prison overcrowding. They've since changed their minds and have been campaigning hard in recent years to have it reversed. The new system introduced by the Labour Lib-Dem coalition will introduce a system of "prison-plus". The trial judge will lay down a period to be spent in prison and then a second period to be spent in the community under supervision. The Conservatives' Annabel Goldie described it as a "mongrel system". She said: "All prisoners could now stroll out after half their sentences. If it looks like early release, if it smells like early release, then it is early release." Incidentally, the same bill introduces a ban on the sale of swords and a licensing system for shops which sell knives. Another bill to finish its passage through parliament this week is the bill to build a rail link to Edinburgh Airport. The total cost the Edinburgh rail link would be £610m This involves nine miles of new track to connect the airport to the Edinburgh/Glasgow line and to the Fife/northern line. It will mean an underground station at the airport and two tunnels under the runway. Total cost £610m, three times what it's costing for a rail link to Glasgow Airport. The SNP and the Greens said the money could be better spent on other transport projects. And the third bill of the week was the school meals bill. This lays down minimum nutritional standards for all food served in school, whether in the canteen or in a tuck shop or from a vending machine. It's an attempt to cut down on junk food and is to be accompanied by a healthy eating campaign, including advice to parents on snack boxes and packed lunches. By the time we get to the election on 3 May, the Scottish Parliament will have passed 128 acts and 4,400 regulations. Not bad for eight years' work. The School Meals Bill was passed unanimously by MSPs The subordinate legislation committee this week alone had no fewer than 65 regulations to be passed. Just to mention a few - an order laying down how many people can sit on the court of Queen Margaret University, a change to tuberculosis regulations, a change to waste management regulations (the 21st such change), rules on horse passports and cattle identification, inshore fishing orders in the Firth of Lorn and changes to individual learning accounts. The Labour Party is promising to cut such red tape if it's re-elected, with a pledge that for every new regulation, it will scrap an existing one. The business community will be pleased, though, if you look into their claim that red tape is costing them £3.5bn a year, they are in fact counting the cost of implementing the new rules and not complaining that they are unnecessary. We live in a complicated world. Millionth visitor There were a few moments this week when we were able to lift our heads out of the rule book. Rob Gibson led a debate on Scotland's traditional music. Karen Gillon led a debate on the Scotland-Malawi partnership. I had the privilege of meeting two women from Zimbabwe who were here to campaign for a Zimbabwe People's Charter. Scotland's 67,000 nurses will get their full 2.5% pay rise on 1 April They spoke of their detention and beatings by the Mugabe regime and said Morgan Tsvangirai's treatment this week was typical of what many people in Zimbabwe are suffering. Finally, on Thursday the new parliament building welcomed its one millionth visitor. She is 11-year-old Eilidh Willis who came with her classmates from the primary school on the island of Lismore, off Oban. "I will remember this visit for the rest of my life," she said. So too will the health minister Andy Kerr. Because the children brought with them a petition calling for the restoration of the post of district nurse for the island (population 170). Mr Kerr has just granted Scotland's 67,000 nurses their full 2.5% pay rise on 1 April, in defiance of the Chancellor Gordon Brown who has staged the increase for the rest of the UK. Now he's got no money left to pay for a district nurse on Lismore. * BBC Copyright Notice ***************************************************************** 20 Sunday Herald: In A Party At War With Itself Trident Will Bring About Mass Destruction March 19, 2007 By Iain Macwhirter LAST WEEK, Tony Blair secured the renewal of Trident only because the Conservatives supported him. A total of 95 Labour MPs were unwilling to support their own prime minister on an issue of national security. It was the largest defence rebellion in Labour history. That this went by largely unmarked outside the Westminster village is an indication of how seriously things have deteriorated in the dog days of Blair. There was a time, not that long ago, when it would have been unthinkable for a Labour leader to rely on Tory votes in this way. Failure to carry the Parliamentary Labour Party would have been a possible resignation issue. Not any more. Instead we had the Labour chairwoman Hazel Blears popping up to congratulate the prime minister for winning "a majority of Labour backbenchers" - as if it was perfectly normal for the PM to fail to win the backing of his own MPs. The contagion of conscience even spread to that most loyal of groups, the Scottish Labour MPs. Fifteen of them rebelled on Trident, including the chancellor's chum Nigel Griffiths, who resigned as deputy leader of the House. The departure of the unnaturally ambitious Griffiths led to speculation about Gordon Brown's private views on Trident renewal. Would the pocket rocket have taken such a drastic step which nevertheless helps his prospects in his tight marginal Edinburgh South constituency, if there hadn't been a hint that Brown might be prepared to forgive this act of conscience and employ Griffiths in future? Only he knows. And we may never find out, because the way things are going, Gordon Brown is unlikely to make it to Number 10. It's too early to say that the Tories have won an election that's more than two years away, but if Labour go on like this, they have certainly lost it. The Cameron Conservatives have been returning their best polling figures since 1992, and this could become habit-forming. There is no law that says people can't start voting Tory again, in England at least. Blair has done Brown and Labour a huge disservice by letting Cameron get his feet under the table at Westminster. The new Tory leader has grown visibly in stature and authority while the prime minister's have drained away. And to add to Labour's woes last week, the Olympic costs tripled, Sir Hayden Phillips called for a cap on election donations from unions and, on a bad Blair day, Cameron's hairstyle upstaged the Climate Change Bill. A collapse of Labour support in the Scottish elections in May could be the beginning of the end for Labour in the UK. The party has been piling up the negatives as if determined to alienate as many Scottish voters as possible. Trident is another nail in the coffin. Renewal of the submarines, which will be based on the Clyde, was rejected by a clear majority of Scottish MPs - something the SNP will not let Labour forget. As we report today, one poll suggests that two-thirds of Scots believe it is unacceptable to station Trident here given the opposition from Scottish MPs. The Blairites want to blame Brown for any Scottish disaster, and the Brownites want to blame Blair - but they are both likely to get a kicking. Labour's electoral credibility will be the first casualty. Following the Trident vote, there is nothing to stop the dissidents from dissing the party establishment. It's not so long ago that rebellion on such a key issue as national security would have led to disciplinary action against errant Labour MPs. Or at least a severe spanking from the whips. That's not the case anymore. Trident shows that Labour MPs can now exercise their consciences without fear of the consequences. That loss of fear is immensely significant. The systems of party discipline and authority that defined New Labour in the early years of this administration have broken down. Remember the "pager clones"? They've gone the way of the electronic messaging device after which they were named. Labour MPs don't give a toss anymore and are increasingly becoming an opposition within their own government. Brown be warned. Meanwhile, Blair is becoming a government leader in exile, relying on Conservative votes to impose policies - from university funding to defence - which his own party oppose. It's a weird reversal of roles. The PM is so close ideologically to the Tories on education, Iraq, nuclear power, Trident, terrorism, attitudes to the White House and public services that there is almost a de facto coalition operating in Westminster. You wonder why Blair doesn't just cross the floor and be done with it. If you were a conspiracy theorist, which, of course, I'm not, you might have wondered whether Blair has been a Tory mole all along. It's difficult to see how he could have made his departure more protracted and damaging to Labour if he'd tried. SO, will Brown be able to put the party back together again? Restore discipline, provide vision and leadership? Inspire and enthuse a party which has lost the will to govern, if not the will to live? Possibly, but it's beginning to look like a lost cause for Brown. British voters don't favour divided parties - a house divided is a house defeated. The chancellor, of course, is a towering intellect and one of the greatest politicians of his age - as he'll no doubt demonstrate in his last Budget on Wednesday - but he's looking old and tired. He has compromised on many of the key issues that are causing his party to disintegrate, including Trident, which he supported. On issues such as defence, Brown is going to have to find some way of addressing the moral revulsion at the renewal of this system. My own view is that he may try to restore moral legitimacy by seeking to decommission Trident as part of the 2010 round of nuclear non-proliferation talks. I see no evidence that Brown is interested in nuclear weapons for their own sake. Since there are no targets for this cold war weapon system, it would be logical to stop sending the boats to sea. This could be used as an inducement to other countries to disarm. I can't help thinking that Brown would like to take a moral lead on nuclear disarmament, if he ever gets the chance. But then, what do I know? Nobody can see into the mind of Broon - a brooding enigma wrapped in a mystery. As on so many issues, the nuclear cards are held very close to the chancellor's chest. There is now a very real possibility that they will stay there, and Brown will take his secrets to the political graveyard. ©2007 newsquest (sunday herald) limited. all rights reserved ***************************************************************** 21 Sunday Herald: Trident Plan Puts Climate Change Research At Risk March 19, 2007 By Jenifer Johnston Fears that scientists will be diverted to nuclear upgrade A GENERATION of scientists will be diverted from fighting climate change because the Trident weapons system is being replaced, an expert has warned. Thousands of highly trained scientists and engineers will be required to develop a new nuclear deterrent after a majority of MPs last week backed the government's controversial plans to renew the UK's ageing Trident missiles. The proposals have sparked a major political and public backlash. The government was forced to depend on the Conservatives to win a vote on the issue last Wednesday after 95 Labour MPs rejected the plans. Now Dr Stuart Robertson of Scientists for Global Responsibility (SGR), a group that represents more than 900 leading scientists and engineers, has told the Sunday Herald the diversion of expertise to Trident risks putting vital climate change research on the back burner. He said: "We are very concerned that scientists will be diverted to Trident and used in that area for many years - this is happening at a time when there is an urgent need for professionals to be working on climate change, environmental sustainability and alternative energy. "The government waxes lyrical about about their commitment to tackling environmental damage, but they are very willing to drive all of these skilled people away from work on climate change to a hugely expensive, flawed project." SGR estimates around 3000 scientists and engineers from various disciplines will be recruited to work on Trident, at a time when official figures show the numbers of science graduates in the UK is falling. Between 1999 and 2005 the number of chemistry students dropped 20%, and maths students by 11%. Robertson also noted that government-funded research and development on alternative energy "is at very low levels" while spending on research for military applications is rising. Robertson said major military projects have a tendency to attract bright minds because of the amount lavished on facilities and support staff - money industry and academia cannot match. "The recruitment ads for scientists to work within the MoD very much emphasise that professionals will be able to work in cutting-edge science, which is attractive. Trident will cause an upscaling of that," he added. Among those who share Robertson's fears is Edinburgh East MP Dr Gavin Strang. He said: "Trident means large numbers of physicists especially being drawn into working on the project. This is a real setback for their deployment in industries and universities. "A lot is said about the technological opportunities climate change is bringing, but we will not get the benefit to industry if we can't get the experts to work on them because they are engaged in defence. That's bad news." Professor Robert Hinde, chairman of the eminent Pugwash Group, an international movement of academics concerned about the social impact of science, said the problem is "huge". "It has been estimated to me that the number of scientists and engineers diverted towards Trident will be in the thousands," he said. However, Professor William Walker of the University of St Andrews, a specialist in nuclear weapons proliferation, disagreed that Trident will cause the effect Robertson predicts. He said: "I don't believe that the number of scientists that will be used on Trident will be so high as to cause this concern. It's not as if the project involves designing new warheads, so the project won't need as many experts this time round." A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence also vigorously denied that Trident would affect scientific research on climate change. He said: "We disagree that scientists are a finite resource. Defence as a whole is the biggest employer of scientists and engineers in the UK and as such drives cutting-edge research and development across many areas "And frankly, we own the Met Office, which employs many experts working in the field of climate change. Without it we wouldn't even know that global warming was happening." ©2007 newsquest (sunday herald) limited. all rights reserved ***************************************************************** 22 Sunday Herald: 10 Things You Need To Know About Trident March 19, 2007 By James Cusick, Westminster Editor THE HOUSE of Commons last week approved the government's plans to begin the process of replacing the Trident nuclear weapons system. But beyond the vote - which left the government needing support from the Conservatives and having to deal with a large backbench rebellion after being embarrassed by resignations - what was really decided? 1: What exactly did the government agree to last week? The House of Commons voted to begin the process that will lead to the replacement of Britain's Trident nuclear deterrent. There are three parts to the overall Trident system: submarines which carry and launch nuclear missiles, the missiles themselves, and the nuclear warheads carried in those missiles. The government says the current system is coming to the end of its life and that the process of delivering a new system must begin. Essentially the government's success in the Commons means Britain will now be able to order up the early "design and concept phase" of a new nuclear submarine, which the Ministry of Defence claims will take 17 years to deliver. The working life of the current submarines used to launch Trident D5 missiles is estimated to end in the 2020s. The government offered assurances that further decisions would need to be taken on the precise design of the new submarines and on the successor to the Trident D5 missile - which is designed, manufactured and essentially stored in the US. The design of any new missile is the US's business. So, although the British government refers to the UK's "independent" nuclear deterrent, the choice for any future government could be limited to take-it-or-leave-it. And "leaving it" would be limited: the Blair government in 2004 renewed the Mutual Defence Agreement (MDA) with the Bush administration, which permits the US to share nuclear weapons technology with the UK. If President Bush believed there was any uncertainty about Britain continuing to be a nuclear "customer" for US weapons technology, it's unlikely the MDA would have been renewed. Although senior Cabinet figures insisted during the Commons debate that it will fall to future governments to discuss the most appropriate form of parliamentary scrutiny for what they termed "these downstream decisions", the present government believes the most difficult hurdle to replacing Trident, the first, has been overcome. 2:Why the rush to decide how to replace Trident? The decision to replace Trident is not being driven by Britain. The British nuclear deterrent is based on US technology, and the US is phasing out Trident. When the US decided to phase out the Trident D4 missile by 2000, that ended UK participation in the programme. The decision on Trident D4 was taken in the US in 1981, 10 years in advance of its replacement. D5 missiles were more expensive, but the UK had no choice - the sole market is the US. The US has already started the design and development process that will lead to a new generation of weapons, so Britain has to begin preparing for what is called the "Reliable Replacement Warhead" programme. Britain's immediate concern is to design and build new nuclear submarines. The oldest Trident submarine, HMS Vanguard, is scheduled to end its planned lifespan in 2023. Given that it takes 15 years to go from drawing board to launch, work needs to start by 2008 to deliver on time. But the US Nuclear Posture Review points to extending the "hull life" of Trident submarines to 44 years. Defence analyst Dan Plesch says this would in turn require the Pentagon to extend the service life of the D5 missile. A parallel decision in the UK would mean HMS Vanguard ceasing to operate not in 2023, but in 2038. So the deadline might not be as urgent as the government maintains. The former defence minister, Peter Kilfoyle, claims the Commons was "being bounced" into a decision. At the MoD he said he was told the submarines would last 30 years, but the lifespan was being cut, he claims, as a political convenience. 3:What do we get for our money? The government points to a capital cost of £20 billion and annual running costs of £1.5bn for Trident. Using the MoD's figures that amounts to £65bn over 30 years, 3% of the overall defence budget. The pro-Trident Commons vote does not mean there has been any formal decision taken on whether there will be three or four new submarines needed to maintain Britain's deterrent. Any replacement for Trident would have to perform as well or better than the current system. That means "a credible nuclear deterrent that has the ability to threaten an assured response to aggression". The current deterrent is four Vanguard-class submarines with 16 missile tubes apiece, each missile carrying up to 12 nuclear warheads, and thus enabling a number of targets to be engaged simultaneously. The Trident D5 missile has a range of 4000 nautical miles and an accuracy said to be within a few metres. Each missile - costing £17m - has the destructive power equivalent to eight Hiroshimas. That bill does not, however, mean cash swilling around the UK economy. Vanguard-class submarines use US-made components and US reactor technology. The new models will be similar. The delivery system in the Trident D5 is designed, made and stored in the US. The firing system is made in the US. The warhead design is based on the American w-76 bomb. Aldermaston, which produces the UK's warheads, is co-managed by Lockheed-Martin, a US company. The UK's submarine maintenance base in Plymouth is 51% owned by American giant Halliburton (Dick Cheney, the US vice-president, was formerly its CEO). What we get for our money is a happy supplier: the US. The "independence" of the UK's nuclear deterrent is therefore an expensive political illusion. 4: Do we need Trident or its replacement at all? If you believed in a nuclear insurance policy against an unknown enemy, the answer would automatically be "yes". If you believe that the "ultimate weapon" has successfully kept the world from nuclear conflagration for more than half a century, then keeping it up to date looks sensible. Given the US's superpower monopoly, the $65bn (£33.5bn) cost to ensure a "favoured customer" relationship, and the protection package it comes with, might look equally attractive. But was Saddam Hussein put off by the possibility of the UK or the US threatening nuclear attack? Did the nuclear deterrent argument have influence in Bosnia, in Vietnam, or in any of the recent warzones that have seen British military involvement? If Britain would never actually resort to using any of its nuclear arsenal, then what value does it actually hold as a deterrent? Given the concerns about whether the US would ever allow Britain to fire Trident or its replacement, what is the point in having it? If the US controls the supply line from guidance software to routine maintenance, then the former Labour defence secretary, Denis Healey, was correct when he said Trident was merely a "rent-a-rocket" enterprise. If Britain was really serious about defending its borders on its own terms, and without recourse to a controlling senior party, then Trident was not the answer regardless of the views anyone held on the effectiveness of nuclear deterrence. 5:Why base the missiles in Scotland? The waters off the west coast of Scotland and the Inner Hebrides are the Royal Navy's Scottish exercise areas. The Navy's connection with the Faslane and Coulport area goes back to the first world war and early use of submarines. When Greenock and Port Glasgow were heavily bombed during the second world war, ministers looked for an alternative site. Floating depot ships had been operating in and around the Holy Loch, Rothesay and Campbeltown. So in 1963 when it came to siting the UK's first nuclear-powered attack submarine, HMS Dreadnought, Faslane appeared to be the perfect location. When the UK bought Polaris from the US in 1967, the Clyde Submarine Base was commissioned as the home of the Tenth Submarine Squadron (Polaris). In the same year the first SSBN (ship submersible ballistic nuclear) vessel, HMS Resolution, was also sited at Faslane. In 1996 the first submarine armed with Trident, HMS Vanguard, arrived on the Clyde. The Clyde base has what most businesses would term history, tradition and commercial momentum to keep its military importance: this means an integrated workforce of 6500 in direct MoD-related work, with a further 3000 jobs indirectly supported by the base. In economic terms, the base is worth £250m a year to the Scottish economy. To move the base out of Scotland would mean capital investment and workforce expertise built up over 40 years being lost as a base was built from scratch in a new location somewhere on the English or Welsh coast. However, the MoD has so far shown no enthusiasm to look beyond Faslane as a nuclear submarine base. 6:Can Scotland say no to Trident? Trident is a military decision in terms of both where it's based and what form it takes. Given that defence is not a devolved issue for Holyrood, the Scottish parliament has no formal ability to deny the MoD permission to continue to base Trident subs at Faslane. But Westminster would soon find itself in grave political difficulty if a Scottish parliament, backed by the majority of the Scottish electorate and Scottish democratic institutions, chose to challenge its authority on the location in Scotland of Britain's nuclear deterrent. Devolution once again takes Scottish democracy and its political authority into new territory. Many regard Trident as an issue already causing division. A majority of Scottish MPs voted against the government motion last week to replace Trident. This reflected a substantial opposition to both renewal and to continuance of the submarines being located at Faslane. There is also a belief in Westminster that Holyrood has the ability to turn Faslane into an issue of wider democratic deficits. Would Westminster choose such a battleground? That may depend on which party controls Westminster, who controls Holyrood and whether there is a climate of compromise. 7:Was Blair damaged by the Labour rebellion? No, because Tony Blair's prime ministerial authority is already at rock bottom. He needed Tory votes to back war in Iraq and he needed Tory votes last year to push through education reforms for England and Wales. Having understood that this issue would divide his party and that he would have to look to the opposition benches to push through Trident, did this put him off trying? Absolutely not. Blair is a few months from departing 10 Downing Street and what he leaves behind for his successor appears to be of minimal concern. 8: So who was damaged by the Labour rebellion? The decision to both begin the process of creating a new breed of ballistic missile submarines and updating the Trident weapons they will eventual carry resurrected a debate the Labour Party would rather not have had at this time. Just as Gordon Brown prepares for entry to Number 10, divisions within Labour over the nuclear deterrent are visible again, amid claims that Blair was playing fast and loose with the handover of power that will take place within a couple of months. Having to rely on Tory votes to secure victory in the Commons, and given the scale of the rebellion - 95 Labour MPs voted against the government - the Conservatives will claim at the next general election that Britain is safe, not because of Labour, but because the Conservatives supported renewal of Trident. That problem will be Brown's, not Blair's. In order to minimise the rebellion supporters of the chancellor believe Blair made matters even worse by giving MPs a "final" approval to the warheads and missiles that will be ordered from the US. Blair told the Commons debate: "When you get to the gateway stage between 2012 and 2014 where you actually get to the main contract for the design and construction, at that point in time, of course it is always open to parliament to take a decision." 9: Who emerged stronger in the wake of the decision? The Conservative Party almost got over-excited at what they had been gifted. Liam Fox, the shadow defence secretary, said: "As Blair heads for the horizon you see the rise of unreconstructed old Labour. Brown's certainly got his work cut out." William Hague, the shadow foreign secretary and former Tory leader, claimed the decision taken was to "replace our nuclear deterrent for another generation abandoning it would be a national act of folly". In other words, Britain's nuclear defence has already become an issue likely to play a major role in the next general election. A united Conservative Party will be stronger than a divided Labour Party on this issue. 10: What happens next? May 3 happens next: there are local council elections in England and Wales, and local and parliamentary elections in Scotland. For the SNP the Trident debate is an eve-of-poll gift and they will take advantage of Labour's division and the opposition to a nuclear replacement the Nationalists believe is overwhelming in Scotland. Labour's opponents might now concentrate on the legality of replacing Trident, focusing on the issue of not re-arming but moving towards total nuclear disarmament. Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty states: "Each of the parties to the treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control." A Trident replacement breaking international law could become a legal headache for any post-Blair administration. A debate associated with the 1960s which caused Labour divisions throughout the 1970s and 1980s has just been put back on the agenda. ©2007 newsquest (sunday herald) limited. all rights reserved ***************************************************************** 23 Comment is free: Question time Guardian Unlimited guardian.co.uk/commentisfree > John Palmer The government has been so overwhelmed recently with scandal and controversy that some obvious questions have not been asked. March 18, 2007 11:00 AM | Printable version Perhaps it is just down to the sheer scale of the controversy and scandal which threatens to overwhelm the government that not all the obvious questions always get asked. Here are just a few: ? The attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, has repeated yet again on Channel 4 news that the only reason the corruption investigation into BAE contracts with Saudi Arabia was halted was because of matters of "vital national interest". Indeed Lord Goldsmith - like Tony Blair before him - says that to have pursued investigations into the alleged Saudi Bank accounts in Switzerland would have risked Saudi withdrawal of their cooperation in the so-called "war against terrorism". Surely the question then is: "How reliable a partner can the Saudi establishment be regarded in the struggle against terror if their goodwill is refused every time members of that establishment are investigated for possible criminal offences?" Perhaps Blair or Margaret Beckett might advise us. ? The cabinet justifies the upgrade of the Trident nuclear force on the grounds that it is impossible today to be sure where the "security threat" to Britain might come from in 20, 30 or more years time. Nothing can be confidently assumed and no potentially hostile development ruled out, they insist. But this leads to the question: "What if, in decades to come, a threat were to be posed by a United States which had - for the sake of argument - fallen under the rule of an extremist, right wing, Christian fundamentalist regime?" Without the continuing material and technological support of the US, the so-called British nuclear "deterrent" would simply not exist. Ministers may justifiably claim that such a development is most unlikely. But in which case perhaps they might be asked: "Which threats do you totally exclude and which do you not? ? Both the British and US governments have accused Iran of fomenting strife in Iraq through militias they control. They have pointed the finger of suspicion at the Mehdi army led by Moqtada al-Sadr. This is puzzling because al-Sadr is a strong Iraqi nationalist committed to the territorial integrity of Iraq - although some dissidents in his militia are undoubtedly involved in sectarian atrocities. On the other hand the Badr Brigade faction, led by Ayatollah al-Hakim - which has long been in conflict with al-Sadr - has made no secret of its profound links with Tehran, which go back before the Iran-Iraq war. However al-Hakim is a valued member of the Maliki led Iraqi government and was recently embraced by President Bush himself while recently on a visit to Washington. Consequently the question to government might be: "Do you really know what is going on in Iraq? If you do, why are you not telling the full truth?" Just asking. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007. Registered in England and Wales. No. 908396 Registered office: Number 1 Scott Place, Manchester M3 3GG ***************************************************************** 24 Guardian Unlimited: Germany Urges U.S. Missile Defense Talks From the Associated Press Saturday March 17, 2007 6:16 PM By DAVID RISING Associated Press Writer BERLIN (AP) - The German foreign minister suggested Saturday that the U.S. plan to build a missile defense system in Europe has merits, but said an open discussion was needed to address concerns from all sides. The U.S. plan envisions 10 missile interceptors in Poland and a radar base in the neighboring Czech Republic to protect Europe and the U.S. East Coast from the possibility of rockets launched from the Middle East. Russia has vigorously opposed the idea, however, saying that the systems being placed so close to its border could diminish its nuclear deterrent. While the U.S. has tried to allay those concerns with assurances that the small bases would have little effect on Russia's thousands of missiles, the country has suggested the deployment could lead to a new arms race or rekindling of the Cold War. In an opinion piece for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung to be printed Sunday ahead of his trip to Washington, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier urged all sides to take a step back from the escalating rhetoric. ``We need calm and seriousness, not agitation. We must ask the right questions and think of the possible consequences,'' he wrote in the piece, provided in advance to The Associated Press. ``The United States maintains a need to protect itself from Iranian long-range rockets. That is legitimate - even when there are not yet any such weapons. But security cannot be bought at the price of a new mistrust or a brand-new insecurity.'' Steinmeier, representing the German European Union presidency, leaves Sunday for talks with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. ``The goal of the debate must be a common solution that provokes nobody,'' Steinmeier wrote. ``Thus trust will grow, and the old reflexes from the logic of the Cold War will be eliminated.'' Speaking in Moscow Saturday, the Russian foreign minister criticized what he called Washington's unilateral foreign policy. ``I understand that on the other side of the Atlantic one still cannot overcome oneself and pronounce the word 'multipolar,''' Sergey Lavrov said. ``I don't understand why multipolarity must be perceived as a confrontational approach.'' Lavrov played down any notion of a new arms race. ``There is no talk of any kind of a new Cold War, for which there are no objective grounds,'' he said. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007 ***************************************************************** 25 Daily Yomiuri: Shika N-plant suspension likely to lead to rise in CO2 Hokuriku Electric Power Co.'s carbon dioxide emissions are expected to rise significantly following the suspension of its nuclear power plant in Shikamachi, Ishikawa Prefecture, halted after the discovery that the power provider had covered up a criticality accident in 1999. The Hokuriku cover-up is not the first time such a scandal has hurt the nation's efforts to reduce the effects of greenhouse gases by relying on thermal power generation when nuclear plants were forced to suspend operations. Hokuriku Electric's misdeeds only add fuel to those concerns. CO2 emissions from power plants nationwide increased to 375 million tons in fiscal 2005 from 277 million tons in 1990. Hokuriku Electric's emission amounts to about 3 percent of the total at 11.38 million tons. Now that operations are suspended at the Shika nuclear power station's No. 1 reactor, which generates about 30 percent of the company's total power output, the company will have to increase its use of thermal power plants to cover the loss, thereby resulting in increased CO2 emissions. To comply with the Kyoto Protocol, Japan has set annual average greenhouse gas emission reduction targets for 2008-12 at 6 percent of the 1990 levels. However, there was actually a 7.7 percent rise in greenhouse gas emissions in 2003. Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s switch to thermal power when it suspended operations at 17 nuclear reactors alone accounted for a 4.8 percent rise--nearly two-thirds of the total increase. The suspension accounted for a 2.8 percent increase in 2004, and 2.3 percent increase in 2005. Electric companies have set reduction targets at 220 million tons in 2010, but the circumstances suggest this goal would be difficult to achieve. The Daily Yomiuri, The Yomiuri Shimbun ***************************************************************** 26 Daily Yomiuri: Alarms rang 'nonstop' during nuclear accident at Shika plant Alarms sounded 12 times in 15 minutes in the central control room of a nuclear reactor in Ishikawa Prefecture when sensors detected an abnormal situation during the criticality accident of June 1999, according to the reactor's system records. The records also show the reactor's system initiated an automatic shutdown signal, indicating the control room was operating in an extreme situation during those moments. The records provide a picture of what happened inside Shika nuclear power station's No. 1 reactor between 2:11 a.m., just before the reactor reached the point of criticality, and 2:33 a.m., when three control rods that had slipped out of place in the Hokuriku Electric Power Co. reactor were reinserted. The control rods began to slip at 2:17:27 a.m. and the first alarm went off at 2:18:43 a.m. from the sensor that detects nuclear fission, according to the records. Six alarms went off one after another in the minute after the first alarm, and four alarms sounded simultaneously at 2:19:59 a.m., the records show. During those minutes, an automatic reactor-shutdown signal was activated, and workers in the control room apparently attempted to reinsert the control rods, but failed because regulating valves in the reactor had been closed. "The records indicate the alarms were echoing around the room nonstop, which would have applied huge psychological pressure on the workers," said Atsuyuki Suzuki, chief of the Nuclear Safety Commission and a professor emeritus of Tokyo University. "Even experienced workers would have struggled to cope with the situation." The original records have been lost, according to Hokuriku Electric, but The Yomiuri Shimbun obtained a copy that had been kept by an anonymous official. Hokuriku Electric did not release the records Thursday when the company admitted it had covered up the accident. "We found a copy of the records, but we couldn't find the originals. Our internal rules require those records to be kept, and we don't know why they've been lost," a company official said at a press conference Thursday. === 'Just another quiet night' Meanwhile, workers at the Shika power station who were present at the time of the nuclear criticality accident, concealed the accident from their colleagues who came in to take over operations for the next shift and made no entry about the accident in a logbook, it has been learned. They also falsified records of the quantity of neutrons measured during the time of nuclear criticality to conceal the accident. At least 10 people, including four workers who were on an overnight shift at the time of the accident, knew about the accident, but all of them apparently kept it secret. The workers wrote in the logbook's "operating status" space that the reactor was on halt due to a regular check, and wrote "none" in the all three spaces for "regular test," "work request" and "others," when they updated the logbook at 8:30 a.m. on June 18, failing to inform replacement staff about the accident. The Daily Yomiuri, The Yomiuri Shimbun ***************************************************************** 27 The Hindu: Our concerns on N-deal need to be explicitly addressed - India Sunday, March 18, 2007 : 1925 Hrs Mumbai, March. 18 (PTI): Ahead of the talks on an agreement to operationalise the Indo-US civil nuclear deal, New Delhi has said the Hyde Act "significantly deviates" from the July 18, 2005 understanding and emphasised that it wants its concerns explicitly addressed. Making it clear that India would retain full privileges outlined in the July 18, 2005 joint statement and March 2006 separation plan, the country's top nuclear scientist Anil Kakodkar said if the deal does not go through, New Delhi has other options. He said India has already made its concerns known to the US and emphasised the issue of reprocessing of spent fuel is "non-negotiable". "We want reprocessing rights upfront... Reprocessing is a non-negotiable right," the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) Chairman told PTI, six days ahead of the expert-level discussions here on the 123 Agreement that will operationalise the civil nuclear deal. Retaining full privileges as laid out in joint statement by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President George W Bush on July 18, 2005 and the separation plan of March 2006, "India wants all these to be explicitly addressed," said Kakodkar, who has been closely involved in firming up of the deal. Kakodkar said that India's position was always guided by the July 18, 2005 statement and March 2006 understanding, "but the Hyde Act (passed by US Congress in December) deviates significantly from that." Copyright © 2006, The Hindu. ***************************************************************** 28 Albuquerque Tribune: Boomtown: Eunice welcomes nuclear plant Tim Korte, Associated Press Saturday, March 17, 2007 EUNICE ? There's a saying in these parts: "Where oil flows, a city grows." Yet more than just oil and gas are fueling a growth spurt in the southeastern New Mexico town, whose 2,700 residents have begun to feel the effect of a $1.5 billion uranium enrichment plant going up nearby. Situated on 640 acres just east of town near the Texas border, the first major nuclear facility to be licensed in the United States in three decades has meant lightning-fast change for tidy, stoplight-free Eunice since the facility's groundbreaking last summer. And while the fields of black pump-jacks - clustered like little forests ringing the town - aren't likely to go away, there's a clear and palpable sense that the community won't ever be the same. "There's more going on right now than your mind can manage," said Tom Hastings, an oil field services worker who was sipping coffee recently at the Bakery and More Cafe. "It has been like an ant bed. Everything has exploded." Mayor Matt White needs no reminder of that fact. He's leading a drive to install updated water lines, hire more police officers and, above all, build more housing. The town is growing so fast that one recently hired officer, unable to find a rental unit, had to live in the mayor's recreational vehicle. Over the past six months or so, White said recently, about 300 new workers have arrived. He predicts the town could add another 700 to 800 workers within the next year. "The studies tell us we'd need 220 more houses without the LES (Louisiana Energy Services) plant," said the mayor, a retired Air Force and Southwest Airlines pilot. "With LES, it's closer to 400. The first project is for 60 units. We'll be building apartments, too." Manufactured housing is one short-term option to house officers, said Police Chief Kevin Burnam, who oversees a staff of seven patrol officers and one narcotics officer. The town also recently raised water rates to finance a 24-inch line that will replace smaller pipes installed half a century ago; the $12 million project is partially funded by legislative allocations. LES is paying for a five-mile extension that will provide water to its facility. Work also is ready to begin this year on a $6 million wastewater treatment plant, and city officials have collected more than $1 million in municipal and state funds for a downtown beautification project. And don't forget the swimming pool. The old municipal pool closed five years ago, a crumbling concrete mess, but Eunice recently secured $1.4 million - including a $60,000 contribution from LES - to renovate it. LES also pledged $150,000 per year for three years to help fund two new police positions - one is the officer who had to live in the mayor's RV. The allocation funds salaries, patrol cars and other expenses. The enrichment plant, slated to open in 2009, will employ 1,000 workers during construction and up to 350 when operational. A security firm plans to hire another 70 guards and other employees. Among the challenges spurred by Eunice's growth, the most pressing is a shortage of construction workers. The mayor said an oil boom that has boosted New Mexico's economy in recent years has snapped up most of the available work force. Collectively, these issues have turned one of the most apparent concerns about building a uranium enrichment plant - the nuclear question - into something of an afterthought for many Eunice residents. While the plant secured the needed authorizations by federal and state regulators, environmental groups worry about health risks and argue there's no safe way to dispose of waste the facility will generate. But that talk is yesterday's news to most Eunice residents. Community leaders from towns around Lea County have traveled to the Netherlands to tour a similar uranium plant operated by Urenco, the European parent company of LES. White said his concerns were satisfied by what he saw and learned during his trip, and he said LES officials in Eunice and Urenco representatives overseas have been accessible and accountable. "I can pick up the phone and call their CEO anytime. He knows he can come see me right away, too," White said. White believes Eunice's ties to oil and gas - the ranching village boomed when petroleum was discovered during the 1940s - helped residents comprehend nuclear technology, easing the change toward another energy arm. As for potential risks from the uranium plant, residents agree that everyone in Eunice understands the dangers of the oil patch, from the high-risk jobs to homes routinely built near natural gas wells that give off deadly hydrogen sulfide. By comparison, the mayor said, uranium production is arguably safer. "We're talking about nuclear material. If you didn't say you were concerned, you'd be crazy," White said. "But when people ask us about radiation risks, we know there's already a lot of worse stuff around here." The culture of Eunice is changing, too. It has become common for engineers and planners from faraway places like Scotland and Austria to meet for lunch at the Bakery and More, mixing their accents among the Texas drawl heard for decades around town. Tony King, chief financial officer for the LES plant, moved in September from a suburb of London to nearby Hobbs, which, with 30,000 residents, is the largest town in Lea County. "We sure would love to have some fish and chips," King said with a smile. But he said he was thrilled when Stilton cheese - traditional English fare at Christmas - shipped to his Hobbs supermarket in December. "When the employees learned my wife was English, the manager introduced himself and told her, `If there's anything you miss, let us know.' He said they would try to get it," King said. "They've been very accommodating." © 2007 The Albuquerque Tribune ***************************************************************** 29 Caribbean Net News: Nuclear power plant and aluminum smelter planned in Suriname The source for news throughout the Caribbean Source: afiwi.com Published on Saturday, March 17, 2007 By Ivan Cairo Caribbean Net News Suriname Correspondent Email: ivan@caribbeannetnews.com PARAMARIBO, Suriname: Embarking on an ambitious plan, investors are discussing construction of a nuclear power plant and an aluminum smelter in Suriname, officials here have confirmed. Meanwhile, the authorities have started consultations with stakeholders in several sectors of society to determine whether the country is ready to become member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) of the United Nations. In an invited comment, Foreign Affairs Minister Lygia Kraag-Keteldijk noted that the consultation is necessary. “I started discussions with several stakeholders including the different ministries, the business community and others to sound out whether Suriname is ready to become member of the IAEA,” said the minister. “I don’t want to take the decision all by myself,” she added. According to Suriname’s ambassador, Jules Ramlakhan, the authorities have to look into different aspects, including defence, health and environmental issues in order to formulate a policy regarding nuclear energy and technology in Suriname. According to Bisram Chanderbosh, president of Surinam Industrial Engineering and Vehicle Services, which developed the project, the ground breaking ceremony for the smelter and power plant in Groot-Chatillon is scheduled for August this year. Construction of the facilities will take three years, with an investment of US$3 million from investors in Suriname, the Netherlands, Great Brittain and Germany. “The energy that we will produce is exclusively for industrial purposes and not for common households,” said the businessman. Nuclear fuel for the so-called Simplified Gas Cooled Reactor (SGR) will be supplied by companies in Italy, Japan, South Africa, France and China. Concerns over possible environmental risk are also dealt with, he disclosed. Suppliers will collect the waste every three years, while there would be an advanced monitoring system in place to track delivery of the fuel and collection of the waste. At the power plant, 1,000 to 1,500 people will be employed, while at the aluminum smelter and other industries, including a ceramics factory and wood processing companies connected to the project, a work force of up to 3,000 will be necessary, said the investor. The projected aluminum smelter consisting of two units with a capacity of each 250,000 tons per year will produce high voltage cables, ingots and aluminum foil. “If necessary we will import alumina,” said Chanderbosch, but his company has already held talks with bauxite mining companies in Suriname to supply alumina. Currently Belize and Jamaica are the only CARICOM nations that are members of the IAEA. If Suriname join the organisation it will become the 144st member. Copyright © 2003-2007 Caribbean Net News All Rights Reserved ***************************************************************** 30 AU ABC: Scientists line up to use new nuclear reactor This is a transcript from AM. The program is broadcast around Australia at 08:00 on ABC Local Radio. AM - Saturday, 17 March , 2007 08:24:17 Reporter: Brendan Trembath ELIZABETH JACKSON: Back home, and it won't be officially switched on for a few more weeks, but scientists from as far away as China, Europe and North America are already lining up to use Australia's new nuclear reactor. They plan to use intense neutron beams to study the nature of everything from food to car and aircraft parts. Outsiders being granted access to the research nuclear reactor in southern Sydney does raise issues of security. But Australia's nuclear science agency says overseas scientists will have their backgrounds checked and will be restricted to certain areas. Brendan Trembath reports from Lucas Heights. (sound of machinery operating) BRENDAN TREMBATH: Inside the thick walls of Australia's new nuclear research reactor, a large crane is used to delicately lift a heavy lead shield. Workers are finishing things like a long grey pipe resembling a submarine. Though the scientists here call it something quite different. SHANE KENNEDY: This is what we call the 'Crocker', that's our Australian name, we've given it a unique name to represent something to the international community that they can associate with Australian science. It's designed for studying structure of materials at an atomic and molecular level. BRENDAN TREMBATH: Dr Shane Kennedy is a senior research scientist at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation. He's preparing for the official opening in late April, when the reactor will be switched on by the Science Minister, Julie Bishop. Dr Kennedy says other nuclear scientists from around the world are also looking forward to using the new reactor. SHANE KENNEDY: We probably have, in the course of this next 12 months, of the order of 10 people that will come here for some sabbatical that might be three months, it might be 12 months or so on. They'll be senior scientists. And we also are working to jointly supervise with institutes both around the country and overseas, to supervise research students. BRENDAN TREMBATH: Whereabouts are they coming from? SHANE KENNEDY: Some from Europe and North America particularly, but also we've got fairly good buy-in, I think, from the Asian communities. BRENDAN TREMBATH: But opponents of the reactor say the half a billion dollars spent on the site, and managing its waste, could be better spent elsewhere. Genevieve Kelly is a lecturer at the University of Western Sydney and a Convenor of People Against a Nuclear Reactor. GENEVIEVE KELLY: There was a review done in the early '90s by Professor McKinnon that showed that Australia could get much better research dollar out of visiting nuclear reactors overseas than being committed to this huge infrastructure ourselves. BRENDAN TREMBATH: The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation says the site's security was assessed by US authorities in 2005, and found to be as strong as, or stronger, than any civilian research reactor in the world. Dr Shane Kennedy says overseas scientists conducting research at Lucas Heights will be appropriately monitored. SHANE KENNEDY: There's a process, a well-developed process, over the last 50 years for checking people out and making sure their credentials are safe. But from my point of view, the most significant thing we've done is we've separated out the nuclear part from the user part, and so there's a very strict barrier between the reactor and the access to the scientific equipment. ELIZABETH JACKSON: Dr Shane Kennedy ending that report from Brendan Trembath. © 2007 ABC | Privacy Policy ***************************************************************** 31 Guardian Unlimited: Anti-Nuclear Rallies Fill French Cities From the Associated Press Saturday March 17, 2007 9:46 PM RENNES, France (AP) - Tens of thousands of people filled the streets of five French cities Saturday to protest plans to build the next generation of nuclear reactors. The simultaneous protests organized by Get Out Of Nuclear, a collective made up of hundreds of associations, was intended to raise the prominence of the issue in the run-up to April-May presidential elections. Smaller-party candidates resolutely opposed to the construction of new facilities called European pressurized-water reactors joined the protesters. The nation must ``get out of the nuclear business'' and ``invest in renewable energies like solar energy or wind power,'' said Olivier Besancenot of the Radical Communist League, marching with protesters in the western city of Rennes. Organizers claimed the number of protesters in Rennes was 30,000 to 40,000. Police estimated the crowd at 10,000. There were also protests, with estimated crowds ranging from 4,000 to 9,000 people, in Lyon, Toulouse, Lille and Strasbourg. The most nuclear energy-dependent country in the world, France has dozens of reactors churning out most of its electricity. The first EPR is to be built in Flamanville, in northern France, and would be operational by 2012 - when the new president's five-year mandate ends. Electricite de France, the state electrical company, has said the reactor would pave the way for other plants to adopt the more efficient pressurized-water technology by 2020. Socialist candidate Segolene Royal, whom polls place second behind the conservative Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, has said she would ``open the debate'' on EPR construction should she win, but made no ``yes'' or ``no'' commitment. Sarkozy has not directly addressed the issue. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007 ***************************************************************** 32 Las Vegas SUN: Editorial: Protecting whistleblowers March 17, 2007 Editorial: Protecting whistleblowers Documents show job security in peril for workers who reveal their employers' wrongdoings Federal records reveal that the Labor Department has been approving settlements in which employees permanently lose their jobs after they blow the whistle on safety breaches at toxic waste sites and nuclear facilities. Under federal law, employees are supposed to be protected from on-the-job retaliation and job losses when they reveal wrongdoing on the part of their private or federal employers. But Labor Department records that were obtained by an advocacy group for whistleblowers and given to USA Today showed that the Labor Department has approved 73 settlements between whistleblowers and their employers since 2000. And in 45 of those agreements, whistleblowers were permanently barred from working for the employers. According to USA Today, the cases involved settlements in which whistleblowers claimed they were disciplined or unjustly fired after complaining about health and security issues - allegations that, in some of the cases, had been validated by state or federal agencies. Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said it is "especially troubling" that the Labor Department appears to have sanctioned such settlements, and he has promised to investigate the use of such bans, USA Today reports. Dingell also said that if he discovered the Labor Department is allowing the so-called "blacklisting" of whistleblowers, then he would consider introducing legislation to make certain that such practices stop. This is not the first time in recent months that whistleblower protections have been criticized by Congress. Last year lawmakers testifying before a House subcommittee on national security said that federal whistleblower protections were not working. At the time, examples included demotions and disciplinary actions that were taken against such federal whistleblowers as those who revealed the government's failure to adequately track the hijackers responsible for the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Dingell should diligently pursue this situation, seeking to ensure the protection of workers who uncover wrongdoing by their employers - especially those revealing weaknesses that could endanger the public's health or safety. All contents © 1996 - 2007 Las Vegas Sun, Inc. ***************************************************************** 33 Pittsburgh Post Gazette: Company drops plans for anti-radiation drug Saturday, March 17, 2007 By Greg Gordon, McClatchy Newspapers WASHINGTON -- Days after the government refused to buy its anti-radiation drug, a San Diego pharmaceutical company announced yesterday that it is dropping development of what many considered the most promising treatment for victims of a "dirty bomb" or nuclear attack. Executives of Hollis-Eden Pharmaceuticals Inc. said Department of Health and Human Services officials effectively demanded this week that the company spend another $40 million to $50 million on final safety and efficacy trials without a commitment to a contract. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Richard Hollis said the government's decision undercut a key promise of the nation's BioShield program, which was established to develop new medicines for use if terrorists attack with biological, chemical, radiological or nuclear weapons. That commitment was to provide advance-purchase contracts to offset the heavy costs of the pivotal, final clinical studies, so long as the product wins Food and Drug Administration approval within eight years. Hollis-Eden's drug, NEUMUNE, has been hailed as a breakthrough in restoring vital, blood-forming bone marrow, the body tissue that is most vulnerable to radiation. Acute radiation exposure results in rapid declines in infection-fighting white blood cells and in blood platelets, which form clots and prevent unchecked bleeding. The company says its studies have shown a higher survival rate in irradiated monkeys injected with NEUMUNE, because it promoted the growth of white blood cells and platelets. After nearly a year of deliberations, Health and Human Services officials decided last week to scrap a pending procurement of as many as 100,000 doses of the drug for the government's emergency medical stockpile. Hollis-Eden officials had said a major factor in the federal rejection was that the drug had to be administered within four hours of radiation exposure to be effective, though the firm contended it could strategically deployed to overcome that limitation. Hollis said in a statement that department officials had indicated that the compound was promising and met the requirements of the contract solicitation, but that "the amount of data available for NEUMUNE was not sufficient" to warrant a purchase. The company, which has invested $85 million in the drug to date, said it was unwilling to pay for more research in the absence of an advance-purchase contract and would turn its attention to promising drugs for prostate and breast cancer, diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis. Robert Marsella, a company senior vice president, said the only possibility for reversing the drug maker's decision was if Congress intervened or the Pentagon decided to buy the drug. Copyright ©1997-2007 PG Publishing Co., Inc. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 34 Ventura County Star: 487 Claims Department of Labor has received from Rocketdyne and Atomics International workers. By the numbers Simi Valley March 18, 2007 388 Claims filed for the Part B program, which covers illness stemming from radiation, beryllium or silica exposure. 182 Denials for Part B cases, many due to conditions not caused by radiation exposure or beryllium disease. 172 Part B cases referred to the National Institute for Occupational and Health Safety, to determine the likelihood their illness was caused by occupational exposure in a process called dose reconstruction. 126 Dose reconstructions returned to claimants. 8 Part B claimswithdrawn. 42 Part B claims still waiting for dose reconstructions. 29 Part B claims given final approval. 57 Part B claims denied. 183 The number of cases filed under Part E, which covers illness related to toxic chemical exposures. 43 Part E claimsturned down. 28 Part E claims approved. ? Source: Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Compensation for illness The Energy Employment Occupational Illness Program Act of 2000 compensates current and former workers at Department of Energy sites who became ill after being exposed to radiation and other toxic chemicals during their work to help develop the country's nuclear defense. There are two parts to the program, which provides a lump-sum payment of $150,000 and medical benefits to covered employees and a lump-sum payment of $50,000 to qualifying survivors. Part B: Covers employees whose illnesses stem from radiation, beryllium or silica exposure. The program went into effect in 2001. Part E: Covers illnesses caused by exposure to any toxic substance. It went into effect in 2004. The local sites covered by the program include: ? Area IV of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory from 1955 to 1988 and the remediation process of the area from 1988 to present. ? The DeSoto facility from 1960 to 1995, and the remediation process in 1988. ? The Vanowen building at the Canoga Park facility from 1955 to 1960; and those who worked at Atomics International. ? On the Web: http://www.dol.gov/esa/regs/compliance/owcp/eeoicp/main.htm and http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/ocas/ocaseeoi.html 2006 © The E.W. Scripps Co. Ventura County Star ***************************************************************** 35 Great Falls Tribune: Doctors doubt 'minimal impacts downwind' www.greatfallstribune.com - Great Falls, MT Sunday, March 18, 2007 By KARL PUCKETT Tribune Staff Writer Air dispersion modeling done as part of the environmental impact study on the proposed coal-fired Highwood Generating Station showed the concentration of pollutants from its stack would be far below air quality standards — even at the plant's "fence line." But even if the power plant would meet air-quality standards, some local medical professionals say they worry about its impact on sensitive populations. And a retired meteorologist says he'd like additional information before he reaches a conclusion. "The air dispersion modeling done showed very minimal impacts downwind of the facility and around the facility in all directions," said Jeff Chaffee of Helena-based Bison Engineering, which did the modeling. Bison is a consultant to the plant's developer, Southern Montana Electric Generation & Transmission. When companies apply for an air-quality permit, it's their responsibility to do an air dispersion modeling study, which is then checked by state regulators. Communities as far away as Fort Benton and Havre — which are in the line of the prevailing southwest winds — were studied. "There's no indication there will be any measurable impact on those areas," Chaffee said. Beyond eight miles in the downwind direction, the EIS says, pollution concentrations quickly drop off. Dave Anderson, a pulmonologist at the Great Falls Clinic, opposes the plant because he says it would emit a significant amount of particulate pollution and sulfur dioxide, both of which can affect those with lung disease. Several clinical studies have shown that patients with either chronic lung disease or asthma have to take medication to prevent symptoms when exposed to particulate matter or sulfur dioxide, he said. He pointed to a recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine that said the risk of cardiovascular disease increases as a result of exposure to particulate matter. Current air-quality rules, he believes, are designed to protect people who have no respiratory problems. "They're not stringent enough," Anderson said. Several dozen medical professionals in the area, including Anderson, signed a petition opposing the plant on medical grounds. In a newspaper advertisement, a list of nurses and doctors opposing Highwood was accompanied by a statement that the cumulative effect of mercury, lead, particulate matter and other air pollutants Highwood would emit would threaten the health of people who live in northcentral Montana. "I don't think it's as black and white as it's stated," said Debbie Skibicki, lead environmental engineer in the state Department of Environmental Quality's Air Resources Management Bureau. Whenever there's a source of hazardous air pollution — whether it's from an industrial source or automobiles on 10th Avenue South — there's a potential for sensitive populations "not to be protected all the time," Skibicki said. She added that Highwood, like all new or modified pollution sources that require air-quality permits, is being required to use the best available control technology, or BACT, to reduce emissions. "Ambient air" quality standards are set to protect human health and welfare. Air dispersion modeling is required to show that those standards can be achieved. Weather data, such as wind speed and temperature, and computers are used in the modeling to determine ground-level concentrations. Warren Harding of Simms, who worked at the National Weather Service in Great Falls for 30 years, doesn't contend the Highwood modeling is incorrect. But he would like to see additional information, especially on the trajectory of "fallout" and the impact of arctic inversions. During the Cold War years, Harding was among the Gore Hill meteorologists who studied weather data and predicted what the fallout would be in the event of a nuclear attack. "I'm not saying the emissions are lethal," Harding said. "I'm just saying, before you can say where they are going to drop you have to analyze it at the site." Harding said most of the weather data for the Highwood study was taken from weather service equipment on Gore Hill, not the actual proposed plant site. But data could be adjusted to get better details of the specific weather patterns at Highwood, he said. Ventilation is better on Gore Hill because it's windier and, in many cases, Gore Hill is above inversions that can trap pollution. Chaffee said the use of the weather data from Gore Hill was considered by the state as representative of the area. Richard Blevins, a physician at Big Sky Pulmonary and Critical Care Associates, said the conflicting information about Highwood has made it difficult to make a judgment. He signed the petition against the plant because he trusts the judgment of his medical colleagues, but said he hasn't devoted time to researching the facility himself. "Honestly, I don't know what the truth is," he said. "I think this is being shrouded in a lot of ... well, it depends on who you talk to and who's providing the information. It's certainly being presented one-sidedly." Blevins has a number of patients who have lung problems that can be traced to exposures at the Great Falls' old Anaconda metals refinery, which was torn down in 1980. The DEQ did not have quick access to records of The Big Stack, but experts agree there's no question that emissions from Highwood won't even approach what the refinery emitted in its heyday, when there were fewer environmental regulations. Copyright ©2007 The Great Falls Tribune. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 36 South Bend Tribune: Law keeps emergency plans secret March 17. 2007 6:59AM Sept. 11 attacks cited as reason for withholding response plans. YaSHEKIA SMALLS Tribune Staff Writer The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks are still casting a shadow of political conflict between public access and protection in the state of Michigan, including the state's southwestern corner. The Tribune on Jan. 17 audited three Michigan emergency management sites -- in Berrien, Cass and Van Buren counties -- as part of the Sunshine Week 2007 National Information Audit. Each of the offices denied Tribune requests for that county's comprehensive emergency response plan. Not even filing a Michigan Freedom of Information Act request will make those plans available. In fact, the Michigan FOIA has placed an even stronger latch on those emergency plans since Sept. 11. "There has always been information that's been protected," said Matt Frendewey, a spokesman for the Michigan attorney general's office. "9/11, I think, helped to qualify it more, or maybe highlighted the importance of having a preparedness plan." According to the federal Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act of 1986, local emergency planning committees must review their response plans at least once a year. They must also make them available to the public and annually publish a notice that the plans have been submitted. The plans must describe local emergency response procedures, equipment and evacuation plans. But Section 13 of Michigan's FOIA spells out several legal exemptions from disclosure, including homeland security-related information, Frendewey said. Exemptions include information that relates "to the ongoing security measures of a public body, capabilities and plans for responding to a violation of the Michigan anti-terrorism act." Legislation signed into state law in March 2002 created the Michigan Anti-Terrorism Act, a chapter under the Michigan Penal Code. The act exempts certain information involving terrorist risk assessments and other sensitive information from the FOIA. Michigan's FOIA specifically labels emergency response plans and domestic preparedness strategies as exempt "unless the public interest in disclosure outweighs the public interest in nondisclosure in the particular instance," or unless disclosure wouldn't hamper public security. About publishing a notice of a local plan's public availability, "I don't think it makes sense to publish it if it's not public knowledge," said Frendewey. What Dawn Hertz, general counsel for the Michigan Press Association, has argued is that a local emergency agency has to "respond to at least tell me that there is (a plan)," she said. Beyond that, county officials have every right to withhold the document as long as they separate exempt from nonexempt information. "From time to time, maybe once or twice a year, I hear about people asking for it," Hertz said. "In Michigan, they pretty much are relying on that (FOIA) exemption." Berrien County Lt. Mike Bradley, executive director of Berrien County Emergency Management, a division of the sheriff's office, has made it clear that the county's plan is "not a FOIA-able document." The comprehensive plan, which spans at least a couple hundred pages, is updated every year and used to be available at the public library, Bradley said. But current, up-to-date library copies were pulled just shy of his arrival in the county in 2001, he said. Officials at the St. Joseph Public Library could not find older copies of the county's comprehensive plan, nor did they recall having it during the past few years. Library assistant Alicia Allen found only a 50-page local emergency planning workbook dating back to 1997, designed to help local emergency management programs develop the actual plan, she said. But since 2001, Bradley can't recall getting a public request for the comprehensive plan under FOIA, he said. "We have information in the EOP -- emergency operations plan -- that is pertinent to critical infrastructure," Bradley said. "So what we do is produce documents outside of the EOP that says stuff in the EOP, minus that information." The D.C. Cook Nuclear Power Plant near Bridgman, in particular, is "all the way through our plan." Because of the plant's presence in Berrien County, the county is subject to a great deal of regular state and federal government review, Bradley said. In lieu of the county's step-by-step blueprint -- of which only hard copies exist for emergency officials -- the county more than two years ago began issuing a local emergency preparedness guide to local citizens, along with a calendar distributed through the Cook plant. Bradley's goal is to make this self-help information more easily accessible on the county's Web site this spring. "Usually they are finding all the answers in these documents that they're looking for, for their personal safety," Bradley said. Cass County Cass County officials are still in the process of searching for its next emergency management coordinator, said Patti Kolden, interim coordinator since December. With Patricia Carlisle's departure in December after more than a year there, sorting out the details of what's public record and what's not has been an exercise of its own. Still, Kolden emphasized that the county's emergency action guidelines, or EAG, is not public record, according to FOIA. The county does not call its EAG a "comprehensive emergency response plan," but the EAG does describe the steps various local agencies take in the case of a disaster, Kolden said. "Since 9/11, everything has extra guidelines placed on it," Kolden said. "It's just not there for everybody to see." Kolden, who wasn't sure about the length of the county's EAG, said she believed the guidelines were updated every four years. To her knowledge, no one has ever requested the document, which has generally always been confidential and exists only in hard copy for local officials. "I just don't think it comes up very often," Kolden said. Jennifer Ray, director of the Cass District Library, could not find any previous cataloged copies of such a response plan, she said. "I'm feeling like if somebody walked in and asked to see it, we would be hard-pressed to put it in their hands," Ray said. "I cannot lay my hands on a copy of it." Van Buren With the Palisades Nuclear Plant near South Haven in Van Buren County, Lt. Al Svilpe immediately cites the Michigan Anti-Terrorism Act as a reason to deny public access to response plans here. "We had to institute more planning for terrorist activities than we ever did before," said Svilpe, director of the office of domestic preparedness for Van Buren County, a division of the sheriff's office. "It's obvious we don't want (terrorists) to know what we wanted to do." The county's comprehensive emergency response plan used to be available at the Van Buren District Library, but updated plans no longer are kept there, Svilpe said. No portions of the plan are available "for public consumption." "It's time-consuming, and the information in there is not going to help a specific person do anything in your private life," Svilpe said. "It spells out how a county's going to react in a certain situation." Library Director David Tate said the latest cataloged version of the plan still available at five of the library's six branches and at the main location dates back to 1995. These copies don't circulate and must be used only at the library, Tate said. The plan, about 200 pages long, gives a general overview of county agencies' response capabilities and operations in four situations: a nuclear plant incident, national security procedures, hazardous material incident response and a natural disaster, Tate said. He didn't have any way of knowing how often the plans were requested or used, he said. Svilpe has never fielded requests at the sheriff's office for the current comprehensive plan, which he guessed was a little larger than 400 pages. The county's plan is available on compact disc because the state maintains parts of it, Svilpe said. If a requester provides a legitimate reason to have the current plan, he or she can borrow it on a read-only basis but must return the copy in its original condition and must sign a waiver agreeing not to copy any portion of it, Svilpe said. "Since we're a nuclear plant county, we're required by FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) to update our plans yearly," Svilpe said. "A new one should be out later this March." So, would a terrorist act really happen here in Michigan? Likely not, Svilpe said. "There's always a possibility of a terrorist act anywhere," Svilpe said. "The probabilities are low. A natural disaster is much more likely to happen here before a terrorist act happens here." Staff writer YaShekia Smalls: yassmalls@sbtinfo.com (574) 235-6555 Copyright © 1994-2007 South Bend Tribune ***************************************************************** 37 Ventura County Star: Workers' claims denied Simi Valley Eric Parsons / Star staff Kay Burnside, a former Rocketdyne employee, has been denied three times for benefits through the federal Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Plan, but she still persists and has accumulated hundreds of pages of documentation. Eric Parsons / Star staff Kay Burnside has accumulated hundreds of documents to file claims for both herself and her late husband, who was also a Rocketdyne employee. Former Rocketdyne employees seek compensation By Teresa Rochester, trochester@VenturaCountyStar.com March 18, 2007 Kay Burnside watched her first husband, Dick, battle bladder cancer, only to die a year later at age 61 from esophageal cancer. Three years after Dick died, Kay Burnside was diagnosed with melanoma, a form of skin cancer. The Simi Valley couple worked for Rocketdyne. Dick Burnside was a support worker at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory who regularly worked with toxic chemicals. Kay Burnside was a secretary at facilities in the San Fernando Valley and the field laboratory in the hills south of Simi Valley. She remembers taking cigarette breaks next to a pond so fouled with chemicals it stank and "blurped, like the La Brea Tar Pits." Kay Burnside believes their work may have caused their illnesses; she has filed a claim for each of them with the federal government, seeking compensation through the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program. Burnside is not alone. The Department of Labor, which administers the program, has received 487 claims from workers from the field laboratory and its sister facilities, the Canoga Park campus, DeSoto and Downey. Since the program started in 2001, more than $1.8 billion has been paid to claimants, who worked for Department of Energy contractors and subcontractors at sites across the country. After going through a labyrinthine process, marked by confusion and frustration, many have had their claims denied, including Burnside. In many cases it is because they did not work in a certain place or in a certain program. In other cases, not enough medical proof exists to show an illness is linked to exposure to chemicals or radiation. Of the 487 field laboratory-related claims, 57 have been approved. Floyd Walker of Moorpark worked in the research and development machine shop at the Canoga Park campus, where beryllium fibers floated through the air. He worked with acetone, trichloroethylene and solvents before moving into the planning department. He received a diagnosis of bladder cancer and had his bladder removed. Earl Rhinehart worked his way up from a mechanic at the Field Laboratory to the engineer in charge of an experimental laser laboratory at the Canoga Park facility. Congestive heart failure forced the Simi Valley man to retire after 40 years on the job. He also has problems with his lungs, which are marked with scar tissue. While they have been exposed to dangerous chemicals and contracted illnesses that could be linked to their occupations, they have been locked out of a program they say they were encouraged to apply for. Walker filed a claim after attending a town hall meeting outlining the programs in 2002. He left the meeting believing he would qualify, because the Canoga Park campus is a covered by the program administered by the Labor Department. "They turned me down basically because I worked in the wrong building," said Walker. "They're re-looking at it right now. I expect it will come back denied." Programs to help workers The Energy Employees Occupational Illness Program Act was passed in 2000. Its intention was to compensate men and women who had become ill because of exposures to radiation and toxic chemicals while building the country's nuclear defense as Department of Energy employees or as workers for subcontractors. One Labor Department program is for workers made sick by exposure to radiation or those who have chronic beryllium disease or silicosis. A second program, which was first administered by the Energy Department but taken over by the Labor Department in late 2004, provides compensation for those who have illnesses caused by exposure to toxic substances. The program outlines a number of Energy Department facilities throughout the United States that are covered. Locally, confusion abounds among workers about which locations qualify. Dick Burnside worked all over the "hill," the Field Laboratory's nickname, his wife said. "They are telling me he never worked at an Energy Department facility," Burnside said. "He was on a support group. His home base was in Area 1, but that doesn't mean that's where he stayed." Fallout from Area IV At the 2,800-acre field laboratory, a section called Area IV is covered by the program. It is where the Space Nuclear Auxiliary Power reactor was located, as were other nuclear-related projects operated under contract with the Energy Department facilities. The Energy Department also funded work in the Vanowen building at Canoga Park from 1955 to 1960, and work was conducted in several buildings at the DeSoto facility. Burnside enlisted the help of her husband's supervisors and co-workers, who submitted affidavits detailing where her husband worked. In her own case, the Labor Department sent Burnside a list of the locations the Energy Department has on file for her employment. In some cases the years are wrong. Rhinehart worked in Area IV at a components test laboratory and an engineering chemistry laboratory, where they produced nitroglycerin, he said. The 73-year-old also worked at Canoga Park, but he did not work for an Energy Department program. His claim was denied, but the Labor Department asked him to submit a letter from a doctor that his illness was "at least as likely as not," caused by chemicals he came into contact with. "I can't do that," Rhinehart said. "They're saying that it's probable, but there is no way we can prove it." Rhinehart said he won't pursue his claim further. Labor Department's efforts Last month, in a Simi Valley hotel, dozens of workers turned out for a Labor Department-hosted town hall meeting to learn more about the program. The day before, many of the same workers participated in discussions with a Labor Department contractor who was compiling information about the types of chemicals the employees were exposed to and the safety training they underwent. The information will be used to compile a site profile to help the Labor Department caseworkers when they research claims filed under the toxic chemical program. Claims under that program have been coming in for several years. The new profile will make things more efficient. "We will have all that information collected and in a database," said Peter Turcic, the Labor Department's director of the compensation program. Claims filed under the radiation program, after an initial screening by the Labor Department, are forwarded to the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health. It relies on another site profile to create dose reconstructions, which determine how much of a worker's exposure contributed to his or her illness. The Labor Department and the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health came under intense scrutiny last year during a series of hearings before the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims. The hearings were sparked by a memo written by the Office of Management and Budget that recommended containing costs in the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program by making it more difficult for claimants to apply for a Special Exposure Cohort designation, which allows compensation without the completion of a radiation dose reconstruction or determination of the probability of cause. In an interview last week, Larry Elliott, director of the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, said none of the recommendations were implemented. Gallegly criticizes process During the hearings, subcommittee member Rep. Elton Gallegly, R-Simi Valley, was critical of the time it takes for claims to be processed. He also questioned the completeness of the site profile for the Field Laboratory, which has since been completed. With the hearings over, Gallegly said Wednesday he wants to see if the program's performance improves; if not, he will look at ways to speed it up. West Hills resident Bonnie Klea is an outspoken critic of the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program. A former secretary at the Space Nuclear Auxiliary Power reactor who developed bladder cancer, she was one of the first workers to file a claim under the program in 2001. She has been denied three times and is currently applying for a Special Exposure Cohort designation. "Every time I got a dose reconstruction I sent them more information showing that it's wrong," said Klea, who added that it has taken more than a year to get back her dose reconstruction. Conflict of interest? She also described the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health site profile as lacking necessary information, and questions whether those contractors who do site profiles and dose reconstructions can be impartial if their companies have had contracts with the Energy Department. "It's a fair concern," Elliott said, adding that each claimant is given an opportunity to say whether or not he or she wants a particular person working on his or her claim. "On the other side of the coin, there are those who want someone who is knowledgeable. It cuts both ways." Sitting in her Simi Valley home, Kay Burnside isn't sure what will become of her claims. She plans to keep moving forward with them. "How can they turn down his case?" she asked. "This is what I don't understand." postCount('lcnb1fcworkers18.ec5426659'); | postCountTB('lcnb1fcworkers18.ec5426659'); 2006 © The E.W. Scripps Co. Ventura County Star subscription ***************************************************************** 38 The Hindu: India says reprocessing of spent n-fuel 'non-negotiable' Sunday, March 18, 2007 : 2025 Hrs Mumbai, March. 18 (PTI): Ahead of talks on an agreement to operationalise the Indo-US civil nuclear deal, New Delhi has made it clear that the issue of reprocessing of spent fuel is "non-negotiable" and it is committed to retaining the right to do so. "We want reprocessing rights upfront...Reprocessing is a non-negotiable right," Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) Chairman Anil Kakodkar said ahead of negotiations on the 123 Agreement that will pave the way for the actual implementation of the landmark deal. While retaining full privileges as laid out in the joint statement by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President George W Bush on July 18, 2005 and India's nuclear separation plan of March 2006, New Delhi "wants all these (issues) to be explicitly addressed", said Kakodkar, one of the architects of the deal. India's position was always guided by the July 2005 statement and March 2006 understanding, "but the Hyde Act (passed by the US Congress) deviates significantly from that", he said. If the 123 Agreement does not go through, India has other options, "but this will definitely be a setback for the nuclear business community which is aggressively pushing for the deal", Kakodkar said. "We expect the negotiators to respect the joint statement of July 18 and March 2006 separation plan and proceed further by taking into account India's concerns which arose after the Hyde Act (that gave the US legislative nod to the deal)," he told PTI in an interview here. Copyright © 2006, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the ***************************************************************** 39 Sydney Morning Herald: Uranium heads for $US100 - www.smh.com.au TALK about a nuclear reaction. The spot uranium price, having already risen nearly tenfold during the past four years, is expected to break through the $US100 ($125)-a-pound barrier for the first time, possibly as early as this week. In a case of perfect timing, Perth's Paladin Resources on Friday hosted 200 guests at the official opening of the world's newest uranium mine, Langer Heinrich in Namibia. Paladin stands to be the biggest Australian beneficiary of the increased uranium price, which has risen as a supply shortage has coincided with a huge jump in demand. A spot price of even $US100 a pound would not be particularly helpful to long-time producers such as Energy Resources of Australia and BHP Billiton unless it stayed that high for years, because they locked in long-term contracts when uranium was trading at record lows. But Paladin has positioned itself to be the world's fourth-largest uranium producer by 2010, despite competition from emerging rivals around the globe. "A new exploration cycle is now very much under way and significant new discoveries will be made," Goldman Sachs JBWere analyst Malcolm Southwood said. "But it takes several years to evaluate and prove reserves, and once the economic reserves are defined, it takes 10 years or more to licence and develop a project and bring the mine into production." Paladin has already approved development of its next project, the $US185 million Kayelekera mine in Malawi. And the company's managing director, John Borshoff, is today expected to make an announcement regarding its recent $1 billion scrip offer for Queensland explorer Summit Resources. A successful bid would give Paladin full control of its half-owned Valhalla and Skal deposits near Mt Isa. Paladin has additional prospects in the Northern Territory and Western Australia, and Macquarie Equities thinks it may consider an overseas acquisition to enable it to get a third mine in production by 2010. Paladin's Langer Heinrich mine could benefit immediately from any increase in the spot price. Although contract terms are kept confidential, Macquarie analysts believe Paladin has contracted about half its production from Langer Heinrich with a ceiling of about $US50 a pound and a floor of $US30 a pound. The remaining production is uncontracted and uranium last week was selling at a record spot price of $US91 a pound. Analysts from Macquarie, RBC Capital Markets and Goldman Sachs JBWere all predict uranium prices could hit $US100 a pound this year. But BHP, which owns the world's largest uranium resource at Olympic Dam in South Australia, is not expected to benefit from higher uranium prices until legacy contracts paying less than $US20 a pound run out in 2010. Even worse, BHP has been forced to purchase high-priced third-party uranium to meet the terms of some of its contracts. The pricing terms of Rio Tinto subsidiary ERA's contracts are confidential but Goldman Sachs JBWere said it assumed ERA sold its product through a mixture of spot sales and long-term contracts, with the majority weighted towards long-term contracts. ***************************************************************** 40 reviewjournal.com: Yucca cost projections outlined Mar. 17, 2007 STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- Over the next 16 years, the cost of building and operating a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain will be almost $27 billion, the project's director said Friday. Ward Sproat, director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, said it would cost $18.5 billion to open the repository by 2017 and finish transportation routes to the facility. Another $8.4 billion would be needed to operate the repository through 2023, Sproat said. "We have an 80 percent confidence level that these numbers are correct," he told reporters in a conference call. Sproat noted that the figures do not reflect the amount needed to operate the Yucca Mountain repository until it is closed. He said the Department of Energy plans to release those numbers in May. The estimates released Friday came in response to a request in July from the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The committee, which oversees the Yucca Mountain Project, asked Sproat to provide new cost projections after he said the opening of the repository would have to be delayed from 2010 to 2017. In 2001, the Energy Department said it would cost $57.6 billion to open the repository by 2010. Nevada lawmakers said the new cost estimates demonstrate why nuclear waste should remain at the reactors that produce it. "The DOE's new partial budget estimate is sheer fantasy based on legislation that will never pass and a timetable that is about as realistic as the Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot and the ghost of Elvis," Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said in a prepared statement. Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., issued a statement saying the cost projections show why Congress and the Bush administration "need to put and end to this reckless waste of taxpayer funds now." Last week, the Energy Department reintroduced the "fix Yucca Mountain" bill aimed at expediting the licensing of the repository, which would be located 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Sens. John Ensign, R-Nev., and Harry Reid, D-Nev., on the same day countered with legislation requiring nuclear waste to stay at reactor sites. Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2007 Stephens Media | Privacy Statement ***************************************************************** 41 DAILY SOUTHTOWN: The mountain that will spit poison Marlene Lang :: dailysouthtown.com Member of the Sun-Times News Group March 18, 2007 Mother Earth is not for sale. That's what the Western Shoshone National Council has told the U.S. government. The Nation was offered pennies per acre for their land in parts of Nevada, Utah, Idaho and into California, but the Nation's council said: No deal. The U.S. government said, "Yes deal," and moved in. We needed a radioactive waste dump there, and a place to test nukes. In 2005, the Western Shoshone council filed a lawsuit claiming the land is theirs under an 1863 treaty. They further claim that the Bush administration's 2002 approval of one tract of the land -- Yucca Mountain -- for a nuclear waste repository, violates both the treaty and, in turn, the U.S. Constitution, which their lawsuit points out makes treaties "supreme." I keep my little copy of the Constitution handy when I write. Let me check that. Yup. It does say that, in Article 6. "All treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby." The treaty made with the Western Shoshone allows only five uses of the land by the U.S. government; settlements, mines, ranches, railroads and roads. Any use beyond the five listed must be approved by both the U.S. government and the Western Shoshone National Council, the treaty states. And to add intrigue, there's gold in them thar hills. Ten percent of the world's supply and 64 percent of U.S. gold comes from this desert site, where mountainsides are blasted up tract by tract and the rubble treated with cyanide-laced water, to get the gold out. No one anticipated, back in the days of cowboys and Indians and dirty gold miners, that we would need a place to hide radioactive waste for 10,000 years, lest it poison and deform us all. But that day has come, thanks to science and the ethical deficiencies of mankind. After years of scouting out the best reservation property to use for the really big nuke-dump-to-end-all-nuke-dumps, the Bush administration picked Yucca Mountain in 2002. This was after the U.S. military had already established a nuclear test site nearby, on land included in the 1863 treaty -- a spread the size of Maine, with its own volcano and fault lines. Last's week's column was not long enough to explain this travesty. Nevada's governor in 2002 immediately vetoed the generous approval of a nuke dump in Nevada, only to have the U.S. Congress override that veto. Nevada last week protested the legislation that a sweat-soaked Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman was again pressing urgently along. Nevada is resisting, as is the Western Shoshone Nation. How, then, does the U.S. government explain or justify its violation of an apparently legitimate treaty, authorized by Ulysses S. Grant in 1863? That's what the United Nations wanted to know, after the Western Shoshone Nation's council in 2005 filed an urgent action request with the U.N. Committee on Elimination of Racial Discrimination. Several excuses have been floated. The first and most predictable is that the treaty was merely a friendly agreement. The old, "just kidding," defense. That's the least obscene reason. The Earth Island Institute reports that when the Western Shoshone National Council refused to give up the land for a radioactive waste dump in exchange for money, politicians said the takeover was legitimate because -- pause here and perhaps be seated -- POLLS showed many of the tribe's members want the deal. Never mind letting the Nation settle its own disagreement. Never mind dealing with its rightful representatives. Need I point out the irony of this whopper to my readers? For slow folks, this is a case of convenient governing: We can toss out the representative form when it suits us in mowing over native peoples, but we can use the representative system to mow over the people of Nevada. And why should Chicago's Southland readers care? The official state Web site reports that Illinois stores more radioactive waste at its eight temporary sites than any other state, with a heap in Grundy County. Lemont and Morris were on the radar for industry expansion projects when the Department of Energy visited less than one month ago. ComEd's Zion plant has shut down, but its LaSalle reactors are still pumping out the power and the "spent fuel." It's piling up, and once a home for the big dump is finagled, all that radioactive garbage will be moving around. If that doesn't scare you, maybe this will: To the Western Shoshone, Yucca Mountain is Snake Mountain, a place of prayer and of reputed powerful spiritual energy. One of the Nation's traditional stories is that Snake Mountain will one day be awakened and will split open and spit out poison. Before you sneer, think about that radioactive waste, sleeping safely in its giant tube beneath Snake Mountain, and think of that volcano across the valley, and the nuclear test site not so far away, and the unusual subterranean river system below this part of the desert. What we put in the mountain may not stay in the mountain. Daily Southtown columnist Marlene Lang can be reached at blackbirdlang@yahoo.com">blackbirdlang@yahoo.com. dailysouthtown.com: Feedback | Contact Us | About Us | Advertise © Copyright 2007 Sun-Times News Group | Terms of Use and Privacy ***************************************************************** 42 Las Vegas SUN: Turning out the lights on Yucca Mountain Photo: Bob Loux, Rep. Shelley Berkley and Sen. Harry Reid Today: March 18, 2007 at 7:23:5 PDT Project may be dead, but how will we know? By Lisa Mascaro Las Vegas Sun WASHINGTON - One mile deep into Yucca Mountain, lights are being turned off. The train that carries visitors into the cavernous hole in the mountain will run no more. Layoffs are possible. The Energy Department says it is merely cutting back on unneeded costs. But the moment the lights went out and the train went quiet may one day be remembered as the beginning of the end of the nation's nuclear waste repository in Nevada. Yucca Mountain's leading critics, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, have begun saying that the project is dead. Nearly 20 years behind schedule, it can look that way at times. Yet Washington continues to spend a half-billion dollars a year on Yucca. That's not the balance sheet of something gone dead. So if Yucca Mountain is indeed now dead, if "it's history," as Reid told the state Legislature last month, how would we know it? What will the end look like? The answer is still unclear, but month by month, it's coming into focus. Three clear indicators are just around the corner. First are potentially crippling budget cuts this summer from Congress. Next is whether the Energy Department can meet its June 2008 deadline to submit the project to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for approval. A final indicator is the November 2008 presidential election, which could put an anti-Yucca president in the White House. Action on any one of those could deliver a fatal blow, say lawmakers, Energy officials and industry insiders interviewed by the Sun. Or, despite reports of its death, Yucca could continue along as it has for another 20 years. "There may not be the eureka moment here, but I think it's going to be pretty obvious by the middle to end of next summer," said Bob Loux, executive director of Nevada's Agency for Nuclear Projects, the state agency fighting Yucca Mountain. Budget hearings are to begin soon in Washington and Reid has vowed to cut the project back "as best we can," which is a modest way of describing what has happened in past years. President Bush's $900 million request for fiscal 2005 essentially was halved and has stayed at that level. But that still leaves $494 million in Bush's proposed budget. The Energy Department's project manager, Edward Sproat, insists he needs the full amount to meet the 2008 deadline to forward the project to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for review. Convincing Congress that Yucca is still a worthy investment could prove difficult, given Reid's new clout and waning patience on a project for which 60 percent of the current budget is being spent on do-overs. About $260 million is going to fix shoddy science. The Energy Department has missed this particular application deadline before, which is partly why the dump that was supposed to open in 1998 is now penciled in for 2017. But missing the deadline again, said Michelle Boyd, a nuclear policy analyst at the watchdog group Public Citizen, "is going to be the death knell." Or maybe not. Last week outgoing Nuclear Regulatory Commissioner Jeffrey S. Merrifield said that if the deadline is missed again, the time may have come to turn management over to a public-private partnership. But in Merrifield's view, that means "Yucca Mountain is not dead ... What I'm talking about is Plan B." By the time voters choose a new president in November 2008, nuclear waste could stand as the national issue it was when Yucca was being considered years ago. Nuclear energy is gaining popularity as a power source that doesn't spew global warming pollutants, and Nevada's early Democratic caucus means candidates are being grilled about Yucca Mountain. Democratic candidates are mostly opposed. Republican contenders offer mixed opinions. Veteran nuclear policy expert Daniel Hirsch of the California-based Committee to Bridge the Gap believes Yucca will not truly die until the White House gives the order. Others, including Nevada Democratic Rep. Shelley Berkley, say that even White House opposition might not be enough. But it might set in motion Yucca's demise. "The way I envision the end of Yucca Mountain is when the nuclear industry is so frustrated by the lack of progress ... and comes to Congress and asks us to make a settlement with them." Utility companies desperately need a dump for the waste that is mounting at nuclear power plants nationwide. Congress promised to take it off their hands by 1998, and lawsuits have left taxpayers with a $7 billion liability. If the companies have any hope of building new power plants, they need to assure the public the waste problem is solved. The industry's lobby arm, the Nuclear Energy Institute, believes Yucca remains viable, even as it considers the promise of temporary waste sites being planned for 11 communities nationwide under the government's proposed recycling plan. The institute's Steve Kraft said, "the only thing that would stop it is we discover something about Yucca Mountain that we didn't know before," which, he adds, he "can't imagine." Science remains a wild card. Will water seep through and corrode the waste canisters, sending radioactive toxins into the Nevada ground water? Will standards for protecting residents from cancer be considered good enough? Some answers could start becoming known as the commission review begins. Republican Sen. Pete Domenici of New Mexico, perhaps the leading nuclear energy advocate on Capitol Hill, is not worried. "I do not believe that Yucca Mountain is dead," he said in a statement to the Sun. "I don't doubt that additional delays will occur, but the Yucca program is resilient." Recently the Energy Department decided to turn off some lights at Yucca and skip upgrades to the rail line, relying on computers rather than humans to retrieve data deep in the mountain. Savings of $100 million are expected over several years. Layoffs can happen as work ebbs and flows. So how will anyone know Yucca is gone, done, dead, fini? Reid and others who have watched the project for years say they see the writing on the wall. They sense the momentum shift on Capitol Hill. Saying it's dead will make it so, they say. Or as Reid's office asks: How can you prove it's alive? Longtime nuclear industry observer Paul Craig, a professor emeritus of engineering at the University of California, Davis, doesn't believe anyone will know when it dies - at least not immediately. Nobody will want to fess up, he said, because then someone will have to tackle the thorny issue of what happens to the waste. Craig, who served on an independent Yucca Mountain technical review board until 2004, believes the project will simply go the way of the late war hero Gen. Douglas MacArthur. "My guess is Yucca will never die ... It will fade away." Lisa Mascaro can be reached at (202) 662-7436 or at lisa.mascaro@lasvegassun.com. All contents © 1996 - 2007 Las Vegas Sun, Inc. ***************************************************************** 43 The Tribune: N-fuel: India firm on reprocessing Chandigarh, India - Main News Mumbai, March 18 Ahead of the talks on an agreement to operationalise the Indo-US civil nuclear deal, New Delhi has said the Hyde Act “significantly deviates” from the July 18, 2005, understanding and emphasised that it wants its concerns explicitly addressed. Making it clear that India would retain full privileges outlined in the July 18, 2005, joint statement and the March, 2006, separation plan, the country’s top nuclear scientist Anil Kakodkar said if the deal does not go through, New Delhi has other options. He said India had already made its concerns known to the US and emphasised the issue of reprocessing of spent fuel is “non-negotiable”. “We want reprocessing rights upfront... Reprocessing is a non-negotiable right,” the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) Chairman told PTI, six days ahead of the expert-level discussions here on the 123 Agreement that will operationalise the civil nuclear deal. Retaining full privileges as laid out in joint statement by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President George W. Bush on July 18, 2005, and the separation plan of March 2006, “India wants all these to be explicitly addressed,” said Kakodkar, who has been closely involved in firming up of the deal. Kakodkar said that India’s position was always guided by the July 18, 2005 statement and March, 2006 understanding, “but the Hyde Act (passed by US Congress in December) deviates significantly from that.” “We expect the negotiators to respect the joint statement of July 18 and March, 2006, separation plan and proceed further by taking into account India’s concerns which arose after the Hyde Act (that gave US legislative nod to the deal),” Kakodkar said. If the 123 Agreement does not go through, India has other options, “but this will definitely be a setback for the nuclear business community which is aggressively pushing for the deal,” he observed. Asked when the crucial negotiations on the deal enabling agreement are going to recommence, the top scientist said: “Both India and US are studying the drafts carefully and serious negotiations will begin fairly soon.” About the Hyde Act’s stand on ban on conducting atomic tests, he noted “India had declared a unilateral moratorium on nuclear tests, but that cannot become a bilateral legality.” He, however, pointed out that the Prime Minister has repeatedly assured Parliament that concerns of a section of scientists over the Act will be addressed. Kakodkar reminded that Bush, during his India visit in March last year, had expressed commitment to the July, 2005, statement and assured the country the supply of uranium in perpetuity in exchange of safeguards for imported civilian nuclear reactors. He said India would remain firm and not settle for anything less than the terms outlined in the joint statement and the separation plan even though New Delhi had not been recognised as a N-weapon state. Asked about the frequent visits of US businessmen to India over the past three months, he said: “They are exploring different challenges and possibilities” in the field of nuclear commerce. — PTI ***************************************************************** 44 Telegraph: Urenco profits soar as uranium goes nuclear By Sylvia Pfeifer, Sunday Telegraph Last Updated: 12:29am GMT 18/03/2007 Urenco, the nuclear fuel company, is set to reveal record profits this week on the back of soaring uranium prices. The company, which enriches uranium for power stations, is expected to confirm a burgeoning order book when it announces its annual results on Tuesday. Soaring prices of the metal, which hit record highs earlier this month, have increased the demand from customers for Urenco's enrichment services. By enriching the fuel further, companies require less uranium. Strong global demand, a shortage of supply and the expected renaissance in the nuclear power generation industry are all behind the recent price surge. Earlier this month, analysts at RBC Dominion Securities, the Canadian bank, said they forecast the average price for 2007 to reach $100 a pound, up from its current level of $85. In an interview, Helmut Engelbrecht, Urenco's chief executive, declined to comment on the results but confirmed the rise in price of the raw material has had a positive impact on business volumes. "Now that prices are up, customers are asking for more enrichment services. This has actually reduced demand for natural uranium by 20 per cent. It has increased our business volume," he said. The strong global demand for enriched uranium helped Urenco report strong interim results in August last year. Its pre-tax profits for the half-year rose to €116.8m (£80), up from €87.4m. Its order book stood at €11bn, up 40 per cent on 2005. Urenco, jointly owned by the UK, Dutch and French governments, has 20 per cent of the world market for enriched uranium. It sells its nuclear fuel to power stations in most parts of the world except Russia. Engelbrecht said Urenco was well-placed to meet any increased demand in enriched uranium in the event of new nuclear plants being built. The company is able to build enrichment capacity much faster than its customers can build reactors. A 1,000 MW reactor needs 25 tonnes of nuclear fuel a year, said Engelbrecht. "We are producing 1,500 tonnes of nuclear fuel a year and can expand our capacity rapidly to cope with all the reactors that come onstream." The British government is due to publish its energy White Paper in May and will decide on whether to build a new generation of nuclear power stations this autumn. Engelbrecht said he believed the White Paper would stress that "there is a need for a continuous use or even an enlargement of the nuclear share in electricity generation in the UK". He warned that a decision needed to be made soon. "We don't have 10 more years to make up our minds. The ageing fleet in the UK needs to be replaced by 2020. I don't think we can afford two or five more years of consideration." Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2007. | Terms ***************************************************************** 45 Journal Star: Federal cleanup waits for more funding PJStar.com - 12-year project to remove radium-rich soil costly Saturday, March 17, 2007 BY ERINN DESHINSKY OF THE JOURNAL STAR OTTAWA - A federal cleanup in Ottawa proved to be more laborious than anticipated as officials wait for $4 million to complete the project. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has put an approximately 12-year project on hold as officials wait for the next batch of funding to finish cleaning up four sites in Ottawa that are contaminated with radioactive soil and debris. Since 1994, the EPA has spent $56 million to clean about 14 areas included in an Ottawa Superfund site. According to the EPA Web site, the areas were found to be full of radium from production of clock and watch dials. Radium-based paint was used by the Radium Dial Co. from 1918 to 1936 and by Luminous Processes Inc. from 1937 to 1978. The latest cleanup began last November on four areas in Ottawa: near the Marquette High School athletic field, near Chestnut and Marquette streets, along Bellevue Avenue and at the Illinois Power building. According to early estimates, cleaning up the sites would cost $2 million, as soil 4 to 6 feet deep would have to be removed. Contractors have removed contaminated soil from two of the four areas, which has cost about $2.1 million already, according to project manager Denise Boone. The contaminated soil had to be shipped to a special dump in Clive, Utah. So far, crews have dug as deep as 14 feet, removing the radium-rich soil. The plan is to refill the area with noncontaminated soil. Some of the sites include residential and commercial property. The EPA works to return the site to the original state even if that means planting grass or shrubs. Boone said she anticipates being back out in the field by mid-April and expects to begin cleanup of two more sites by next spring. Not all the sites are blocked off. Residents are at risk if they ingest the contaminated soil, Boone said. She said the project is a top priority of the EPA, and the money is available. It's a matter of filling out the paperwork and waiting for the money to be freed up, she said. Erinn Deshinsky can be reached at 686-3041 or state@pjstar.com. © 2007 PEORIA JOURNAL STAR, INC. :: ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 1 News Plaza, Peoria, IL 61643 :: 1-309-686-3000 ***************************************************************** 46 DNA: India says nuclear spent fuel reprocessing 'non-negotiable' - Mumbai - Daily News & Analysis dnaindia.com | Mumbai | Report Sunday, March 18, 2007 17:10 IST MUMBAI: India has made it clear that the issue of reprocessing of spent fuel is 'non-negotiable' and New Delhi was committed to retaining the right in the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal. "We want reprocessing rights upfront. Reprocessing is a non-negotiable right," Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) Chairman Anil Kakodkar said ahead of the restart of negotiations on the 123 Agreement that will pave the way for the actual implementation of the landmark deal. Retaining full privileges as laid out in joint statement by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President George W Bush on July 18, 2005 and the separation plan of March 2006, "India wants all these to be explicitly addressed," said Kakodkar, one of the architects of the agreement. "We expect the negotiators to respect the joint statement of July 18 and March 2006 separation plan and proceed further by taking into account India's concerns which arose after the Hyde Act, that gave US legislative nod to the deal," Kakodkar said. Asked when the crucial negotiations on the deal enabling agreement are going to recommence, the top scientist said, "Both India and US are studying the drafts carefully and serious negotiations would begin fairly soon." About the Hyde Act's stand on ban on conducting atomic tests, he noted, "India had declared a unilateral moratorium on nuclear tests, but that cannot become a bilateral legality. © 2005-2007 Diligent Media Corporation Ltd. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 47 AU ABC: SA Labor divided over uranium mines policy. 17/03/2007. ABC News Online The South Australian branch of the Labor Party remains divided over the federal party's policy of no new uranium mines. The state's left faction held a meeting today, ahead of a debate on the controversial issue at the party's national conference next month. SA's most senior Left faction MP, state Energy Minister Patrick Conlon, unexpectedly broke from the faction's ranks today by saying Australia should no longer restrict the mining of uranium. Mr Conlon did not attend today's meeting, and convenor Mark Butler says members are yet to be convinced on the issue. "We would only consider supporting the Rudd position to change the policy if we could be convinced that there would be significant tightening of various safeguards going to proliferation and environmental standards and also a strong commitment to investment in renewable energy," he said. © 2007 ABC | Privacy Policy ***************************************************************** 48 TorontoSun.com: Toronto And GTA - Destroy all nukes - Rally Sun, March 18 / 07 torsun.editor@sunmedia.ca Bombs a 'threat to peace' By KEVIN CONNOR, SUN MEDIA It's only a matter of time before there is a worldwide nuclear war unless all the bombs are dismantled, an anti-nuke protest heard yesterday. "If they aren't eliminated, they will be used whether it is war by accident, a false alarm, human error or malfunction," Aubrey Tobias, with Veterans Against Nuclear Arms, told a crowd at the Peace Garden in Nathan Phillips Square who gathered to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Toronto Nuclear Disarmament Referendum. "More than 3,000 of the 25,000 nuclear weapons still held by the U.S. and Russia are on a 15-minute launch on warning status, threatening to destroy the world through technical systems failure and an accidental launch." NUCLEAR WEAPONS-FREE ZONE In 1982, Toronto City Hall held a referendum and 78% of Torontonians who cast a ballot voted for a worldwide disarmament of nuclear weapons and Toronto was designated a nuclear weapons-free zone. It was a solidarity program supporting a proposal by the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. "We could have a nuclear-free world by the year 2020. There is no physical or financial barrier to dismantle these bombs," said Phyllis Creighton, with Science for Peace. The trillions of dollars spent on weapons could have ended world hunger, said Lynn Adamson, with Voice of Women for Peace. Yesterday, the city proclaimed March 17 Abolish Nuclear Weapons Day. "The threat to peace is as strong as ever. We have replaced the Soviet Union with the folks from Islam and these things need to change," said Councillor Joe Mihevc. Previous story: Protesters rally to end Iraq war Copyright © 2006, Canoe Inc. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 49 BBC NEWS: Anti-nuclear protesters arrested Last Updated: Saturday, 17 March 2007, 22:28 GMT The activists were arrested outside the nuclear weapons base Four anti-nuclear protesters who covered themselves in red paint outside Faslane naval base have been arrested. Police detained the group, all from Spain, at the gates of the base which houses the UK's Trident nuclear deterrent, at 1400 GMT. The two men and two women were among 15 Spanish activists to join a permanent peace camp near the base on the Clyde. "We want the resources spent on war preparations to go to build a peaceful world," he said. * BBC Copyright Notice ***************************************************************** 50 Pahrump Valley Times: Recalling a time before the test site Mar. 16, 2007 BOOK REVIEW By MARK SMITH PVT For many baby boomers, the name Nevada Test Site conjures up one word: "Ka-boom!" During the 1950s and well beyond, above-ground mushroom clouds and underground explosions were commonplace. Lasting images include the firing of an atomic artillery shell (muzzle blast from an 8-incher followed by the distant, blinding, artificial E=mc2 sunburst) and the live detonation broadcast early one morning on NBC's Today Show in the days of Dave Garroway and J. Fred Muggs. Few think about the history of the test site before the test site existed. But as Charles Meier relates, long before nuclear fission pockmarked the landscape and places like Frenchman Flat became part of the Cold War lexicon, the area was well known to miners, travelers, writers, even a painter friend of Norman Rockwell and a prolific author. In "Before the Nukes -- The remarkable history of the area of the Nevada Test Site" (2006, Lansing Publication, $12.95, 93 pages with maps, photographs and other images) Meiers has produced a minor gem of popular history. The author steers a sensible course, tempering his obvious enthusiasm for the story by offering a work neither so superficial as to merely graze the surface nor so detailed that the reader may succumb to too much information. In a sense, he avoids the James Michener syndrome ("Millions of years ago lava flooded up from the depths...") and, instead, presents a balanced, well-written outline of a time about which few spend much effort imagining. If there is a criticism, it has to do with the arrangement of the first few chapters, which in places seem out of order, but that is a mere quibble. Overall the book is a delight, introducing a variety of subjects but allowing the reader to decide whether to merely wade or to submerge. A full bibliography serves as a valuable guide for readers who wish to delve deeper. The maps and photos are clearly defined, well reproduced and mesh well with the text. For this reviewer, the most intriguing part of the volume had to do with the '49ers who headed southwest from Utah and found themselves crossing some of the most inhospitable countryside in the nation, including dry Groom Lake, later of Area 51 notoriety, and Yucca Flat. The story related by Juliet Brier is one among many that describe the extreme difficulties faced by those who sought gold and, for the most part, found only hardship. But she never quailed, telling one worried acquaintance who suggested she wait at one spot for help to be found and sent back: "No, I have never been a hindrance, I have never kept the company waiting, neither have my children, and every step I take will be towards California." It is a pleasure to learn that this hardy woman lived to the age of 99. For those who want to know what lies back of the radioactive haze, this is a natural for the bookshelf. Author Meiers comes by his interest in the area through his lengthy acquaintanceship as a mechanical engineer who worked at the test site and became personally familiar with many of the sites about which he writes. "Before the Nukes" is available at the Central Nevada Museum and the Historic Mining Park in Tonopah. Meiers is searching for outlets in Beatty and Pahrump. The volume is also available at the Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas and is expected to be stocked at Barnes & Noble stores. It may also be found at amazon.com and at lansingpublications.com. Copyright © Pahrump Valley Times, 1997 - ***************************************************************** 51 Santa Fe New Mexican: LANL working on new radiation detector Sun Mar 18, 2007 7:06 pm By ANDY LENDERMAN | The New Mexican Lab teams up with global nuclear detection company to develop devices A private company is funding development of a new radiation detector by Los Alamos National Laboratory. Scientists from the lab's nuclear nonproliferation division have teamed with Canberra, a global nuclear-detection equipment company with offices in Albuquerque. The research aims to refine a new hand-held radiation detector and develop a bench-top device that can run without a human operator present. The goal is to make such equipment ready to sell on the open market. These kinds of devices are already used by the International Atomic Energy Agency to detect and track the movement of nuclear materials. "We've got a project plan in place for a two-year completion date," said Matt Newell, a Los Alamos researcher. "The first year, we should have the hand-held unit commercialized, and the second year, we'll be working on the unattended instrument." The devices, called multiplicity shift registers, are instruments that measure the patterns of neutrons emitted by radioactive materials. New ones are being made because older models are slow and their parts are becoming obsolete, Newell said. The International Atomic Energy Agency currently uses these instruments, which were developed by the lab in 1992, the lab reports. The new instruments will be developed to that agency's standards. Newell's team includes five people and so does Canberra's, initially. Newell said his team would create the instruments, and then Canberra would give feedback and make changes to the design. The cost of the project is between $500,000 and $1 million, said Wendy Doyle, a company spokeswoman. "Our collaboration with Los Alamos National Laboratory is vital to Canberra's work extending the boundaries of neutron-counting technology," said company Vice President Markku Koskelo. Contact Andy Lenderman at 995-3827 or alenderman@sfnewmexican.com. Copyright 2007 The New Mexican, Inc. ***************************************************************** 52 Tri-City Herald: TRIDEC says Hanford reservation good site for nuclear fuel recycling Published Saturday, March 17th, 2007 By ANNETTE CARY HERALD STAFF WRITER The Hanford nuclear reservation offers many benefits other sites cannot match as it competes to be the home of a nuclear fuel recycling program that could bring 8,000 jobs, a top official of the Tri-City Development Council said Friday. Gary Petersen, vice president for Hanford programs, outlined Hanford's possible role in the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership at TRIDEC's annual meeting. TRIDEC won a $1 million grant to study Hanford as the site of a nuclear fuel recycling center and an advanced burner reactor to use the recycled fuel. As part of that grant, Columbia Basin Consulting Group is studying whether Hanford's Fast Flux Test Facility could be restarted as part of a GNEP research center. The Bush administration is proposing the project as a way to reduce the amount of used commercial reactor fuel that must be disposed of and to limit expansion of nuclear weapons by limiting the number of countries that would have to enrich or reprocess nuclear fuel for nuclear power. At the Tri-City level, the project also could solve a potential economic problem. "Just about the time Hanford is ramping down drastically, this could come on line," Petersen said. Cold War production of plutonium at Hanford and the cleanup of massive contamination left behind have been a key driver for the Tri-City economy. But Hanford jobs should decrease as the site is cleaned up. DOE is projecting that the nuclear fuel recycling center, advanced burner reactor and research center would be in full operation by 2020 to 2025, with some work starting earlier. Hanford has the advantage of being the only place to have on site an operating commercial nuclear power reactor licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Petersen said. And using the FFTF, a shut-down research reactor, could speed up the project by many years, he said. The site also has on DOE land much of the infrastructure the project needs, including lay-down yards for the fuel; buildings built for previous nuclear projects; a sewage treatment plant; power transmission lines; a training center; and roads, railroads and nearby access for barges, he said. The decision on whether to go forward with the project and where it would be located is to be made by the energy secretary in June 2008, just months before the presidential election. "There's nothing done in June 2008 that the next energy secretary can't change, so it is very important to have broad bipartisan support," said Mike Lawrence of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, operated by Battelle. Battelle, Areva and Washington Group International are working with TRIDEC on the siting study. Dealing with concerns about nuclear waste may be an important issue in gaining support. In 2004, Washington voters approved Initiative 297 to bar the Department of Energy from bringing more waste to Hanford until waste already there is cleaned up. Although the initiative was ruled invalid in federal court and remains the subject of legal proceedings, voters made clear what many in the state thought about Hanford waste, including 53 million gallons of liquid and solid radioactive waste stored in underground tanks. There would be no storage of liquid waste on site under the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, Lawrence said. One benefit pushed by the Bush administration is that the plant would reduce waste produced by U.S. commercial nuclear reactors by reusing their fuel. Now commercial fuel is used just one time, then stored to eventually be sent to Yucca Mountain, the nation's unopened nuclear repository. Reprocessing would reduce both the toxicity of the waste and also its volume up to 100-fold, Lawrence said. The world might need just five nuclear repositories like Yucca Mountain rather than hundreds, he said. The recycling process to prepare fuel to be reused would leave excess uranium that would be disposed of or enriched for use again. The process also would separate out some shorter-lived radioactive isotopes such as cesium and strontium that would lose their radioactivity over hundreds rather than thousands of years. All secondary waste from the project would be turned into a solid, Lawrence said. DOE is continuing to take comments on its environmental study of the project. They may be sent until April 4 to Timothy Frazier, GNEP PEIS Document Manager, Office of Nuclear Energy, Department of Energy, 1000 Independence Ave. S.W., Washington, DC 20585-0119, or e-mailed to GNEP-PEIS@nuclear. energy .gov. Mark envelopes and e-mails as "GNEP PEIS Comments." © 2007 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press & Other Wire Services ***************************************************************** 53 Tri-City Herald: Congress OKs extra $33 million for Hanford Published Saturday, March 17th, 2007 ANNETTE CARY HERALD STAFF WRITER Hanford will receive more money than expected this year under a Department of Energy spending plan released Friday. Hanford projects would receive an additional $33 million in the current fiscal year that began in October. Congress failed to pass a detailed budget for the Department of Energy for the current fiscal year, instead approving an overall appropriation. The operating plan describes for Congress how DOE plans to use the money. Hanford leaders had been expecting to receive the amounts proposed in the Bush administration's budget request made in February 2006. The additional money will be used for "priority cleanup areas," said Karen Lutz, spokeswoman for DOE's Hanford Richland Operations Office. "Full funding keeps us on track to complete substantial cleanup work this year," she said. About $12 million will be added to money to protect ground water from radioactive and chemical contamination at the nuclear reservation, bringing ground water spending this year to about $87 million. Work to retrieve, package and certify transuranic waste -- typically debris contaminated with plutonium -- for disposal at a national repository in New Mexico would receive an additional $15 million. Some of the waste temporarily was buried in drums and boxes until the nation had a repository for it. An additional $3.5 million would be used to treat radioactive sludge from Hanford's K Basins. All those projects fall under the Richland Operations Office, which would receive $948 million, up from the expected $917 million. That number does not include some DOE management costs. The other Hanford office, the Office of River Protection, would receive $690 million as expected for construction of the vitrification plant to treat some of Hanford's worst waste. DOE considers that full funding for the project under its long-term construction plans. Last year, it received $526 million. Hiring of more engineers for the vitrification plant is under way and more construction workers are expected to be hired starting late in the calendar year. The Office of River Protection's other project -- management of the tank farms holding 53 million gallons of radioactive waste awaiting treatment -- would receive $277 million. That's down from the $327 million DOE had to spend at the tank farms last year, but an increase of $3 million more than what was expected this year. The $3 million is planned to be spent on continued testing of bulk vitrification as a technology to supplement the main vitrification plant. © 2007 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press & Other Wire Services ***************************************************************** 54 Tracy Press: Back scratching March 18, 2007 Tracy, CA John Upton/Tracy Press Saturday, 17 March 2007 By John Upton Lawrence Livermore last year said it would help Tracy officials lure a college to town as it lobbied for support for a proposed bio-agent laboratory. As it lobbied for city support for a proposed biological research laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory offered to help woo colleges to Tracy at the suggestion of then-Mayor Pro Tem Brent Ives, who is a senior manager at the lab. Ives later won a mayoral campaign fought in part on his vision of attracting a college to the city. His 2006 campaign opponent this week said the college was a nonissue during the campaign. “Remember,” Ives wrote in a June e-mail to a lab spokesman preparing to discuss the bio-lab with city officials, “it is also important to have something that allows for LLNL to be a benefit to the community in other ways. “In my estimation, we, Tracy, have much going on with the development of relations with colleges right now and that is the one place that you will get most interest, both from the Mayor (Dan Bilbrey) and (City Manager) Dan Hobbs.” The University of California-managed weapons lab later told city employees it would “participate in any way they can” with the education hub project during “very positive meetings,” according to a January report to the City Council. Tracy Economic Development Director Andrew Malik, who signed off on the report, told the council that the lab’s strong links with University of California, Davis, and California State University, East Bay, could help draw partners to a college campus. Mayor Ives said Thursday a college would be valuable for Tracy, and a First Amendment expert at CalAware, Terry Francke, said Ives’ actions to help secure one were lawful. “There’s no secret that I’m trying to get a college in Tracy,” Ives said. Ives said the city is still in “trawling mode” as it works to attract a college to Chrisman Road. The city is preparing to solicit bids for a master developer for the college campus. All five members of the council during a January meeting enthusiastically supported the college campus, and they all volunteered to oversee a subcommittee charged with pushing it forward. Ives during the meeting described the hub as a “legacy project,” and one of his highest priorities. On Friday, he said a college would bring opportunities for young people and vitality to the community. The lab, along with University of California, Merced, California State University, Stanislaus, University of the Pacific and San Joaquin Delta College, is part of a Tracy education hub committee, lab spokeswoman Lynda Seaver said this week. “(Lawrence Livermore) has a long history of educational outreach benefiting the Tri-Valley, San Joaquin Valley and Central Valley,” Seaver said by e-mail. “We do this as part of our outreach efforts because we feel education is important to the community, as well as the future of science.” Seaver said the lab had been “heavily involved” with the development of UC Merced. Asked whether the lab’s support for the project was conditional on city support for any of its projects, Seaver replied, “Outreach has never been conditional on city support and will not be.” The City Council voted in January to oppose building the Department of Homeland Security National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility at Lawrence Livermore’s Site 300 in the hills southwest of Tracy. Site 300 is one of 18 sites being considered to host the bio-lab. To contact reporter John Upton, call 830-4274 ***************************************************************** 55 lamonitor.com: Regents approve $1.2 B pension deals The Online News Source for Los Alamos ROGER SNODGRASS Monitor Assistant Editor The University of California Board of Regents unanimously authorized completing an agreement with the Department of Energy on Thursday to meet ongoing obligations for UC retirees and inactive former employees of Los Alamos National Laboratory. The recommendation from President Robert C. Dynes included a plan to transfer $1.279 billion of pension assets to Los Alamos National Security, the new contract manager. The remainder of $3.17 billion will be retained by the UC Retirement Program to manage and fund liabilities of the LANL employees who retired or became vested inactive members of the program before the contract changed hands. UC spokesman Chris Harrington confirmed the approval on Friday. He said the university had delivered on its promise to protect the interests of the UC retirees at LANL. Charles Mansfield, president of the LANL Retiree Group, said the deal looked good except for one thing. "We haven't heard DOE say that," he said A call to the contract officer at the local National Nuclear Security Office that supervises the laboratory contract for DOE was not returned on Friday afternoon. A fact sheet prepared by UC to explain the transactions represents two fully mature and negotiated agreements ready for formal completion. The transfer of UC assets and liabilities "is planned to occur on or about April 2, 2007," according to the information. Earlier in the week, UC alerted laboratory employees and retirees that the closeout agreements would be considered during the regents' meeting this week in Los Angeles. It has been a roller-coaster couple of years for retirees who found themselves alternately reassured and powerless in the process. Their concerns emerged when the request for proposal was issued to compete the lab contract, without guaranteeing that their pension assets would be retained by UCRP. That raised the possibility that they would be removed from the highly effective UCRP fund and transferred to a smaller and unproven new pension program to be established by a new, stand-alone, limited liability company. Efforts by the Los Alamos Committee on LANL Excellence, including a forum hosted by Joe Ladish and a panel of community leaders, in June 2005, elicited additional assurances on behalf of retirees from Tyler Przybylek, the chair of the Source Evaluation Board that evaluated proposals for managing the laboratory contract. Language about compensation in the request for proposal was changed from "comparable" to "substantially equivalent." But then full alarms went off in early January 2006, when the UC regents did not entirely reject a plan to separate out the assets of the LANL retirees. Nothing had been settled with DOE by the time the contract was transferred to LANS on June 1, 2006. Concerns were compounded for some retirees by a lack of communication from UC that relegated them to a second-class status and shut them out of the negotiations. A measure of assurance was regained on the eve of the contract transfer by Judy Ackerhalt, UC's executive director of human resources and benefits from the Office of the President. In a public meeting at Duane Smith Auditorium, she reaffirmed a commitment made by President Robert C. Dynes that employees would receive the defined benefits they had earned and had been promised. "The University of California remains committed to honoring your pensions and benefits," she said at the time. "You are UC retirees and you will always be UC retirees." Mansfield, whose retiree group has been most prominent in protecting retiree interests, attributed the outcome to political intervention. "I got our congressional delegation really coming down hard on UC and DOE, saying do not separate these people out into a separate plan of some sort," he said. The UC audit found that as of May 31, 2006, the last day of the UC contract with DOE/NNSA, the total market value of UCRP assets accrued for LANL-related members was $4.449 billion. The figure was calculated by the regents' actuary, the Segal Company and accepted by DOE/NNSA. UC also said that DOE/NNSA has agreed to 100-percent funding of what they now call the "Retained LANL segment" within the overall UCRP. DOE/NNSA will maintain that segment at 100 percent, if necessary, with additional payments over a seven-year period, the UC fact sheet stated. On the Internet: http://atyourservice.ucop.edu/news/retirement/ucrp_asset_transfer.html © 2003 Los Alamos Monitor All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 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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