***************************************************************** 03/25/07 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 15.70 ***************************************************************** 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 Security UN Tightens Sanctions Against Iran Over Uranium Enrichment 2 [southnews] Text of UNSC Resolution on Iran 3 Reuters: Britain wants explanation over sailors' seizure 4 Reuters: Iran says entry of Britons a suspicious act 5 UPI: Document describes Iran 'fuel-gas bomb' 6 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Ups the Rhetoric on Seized Sailors 7 AFP: Iran to restrict cooperation with UN nuclear watchdog 8 ITAR-TASS: UN resolution on Iran reflects world’s concern over Its N 9 Guardian Unlimited: U.N. Approves Tougher Sanctions on Iran 10 Korea Times: BDA: Hill's Tactical Miscalculation 11 Yonhap News: U.S. official arrives in Beijing to resolve NK money tr 12 AFP: Hu heads to Russia for closer diplomatic, trade ties 13 antiwar.com: Fooled Again - 14 Times of India: 123...India, US get going on nuclear agreement NUCLEAR REACTORS 15 US: Gore's Plan Goes Far Beyond What Congress Envisions 16 The Hindu: India, Slovakia discuss civil nuclear issue 17 RIA Novosti: Nuclear power plant energy unit shut down in central Ru 18 US: POAC: Oyster Creek nuclear plant starts slow return to full powe 19 US: JOURNAL NEWS: Two years of ups and downs at Indian Point 20 US: Brattleboro Reformer: Activists plead for real-time VY monitorin 21 Kommersant Moscow: Lithuania Marshals Forces for Building New Nuclea 22 IBNL: India, US set for nuclear bargain : Indo-US nuclear deal, 123 23 IHT: Brazil expected to announce plans to complete stalled nuclear p 24 US: Los Angeles Times: Why the right goes nuclear over global warmin 25 Telegraph: Britain's power groups pursue nuclear option 26 AFP: Greenpeace urges Mideast to shun nuclear power NUCLEAR SECURITY NUCLEAR SAFETY 27 The effects of depleted uranium weapons in Iraq 28 US: Pueblo Chieftain: Radiation impact lasts forever, says scientist 29 US: Herald News: No class-action for tritium lawsuit NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 30 Las Vegas SUN: Delegate goes stealthy with Yucca Mountain 31 Las Vegas SUN: Q+A: Hillary Clinton: If president, no way on Yucca M 32 US: thewest.com.au: Greens want to ban WA uranium mining 33 Sunday Herald: Nuclear strategy may lead to rash of dumping sites 34 US: Newswire: Spot Uranium Price Increases to US$95 per Pound - 35 US: Albuquerque Tribune: Editorial: Nuclear future bright for Eunice 36 US: Canon City Daily Record: Cotter Concerns PEACE US DEPT. OF ENERGY 37 Inside Bay Area: Is new H-bomb design better? 38 KnoxNews: Upgrading Oak Ridge ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 Security UN Tightens Sanctions Against Iran Over Uranium Enrichment Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2007 17:00:23 -0400 SECURITY COUNCIL TIGHTENS SANCTIONS AGAINST IRAN OVER URANIUM ENRICHMENT New York, Mar 24 2007 5:00PM The United Nations Security Council acted unanimously today to tighten sanctions on Iran, imposing a ban on arms sales and expanding the freeze on assets, in response to the country's uranium-enrichment activities, which Tehran says are for peaceful purposes but which other countries contend are driven by military ambitions. Resolution 1747 reaffirms that Iran must take the steps required by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Board of Governors, which has called for a full and sustained suspension of all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities; and ratification and implementation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty's (NPT) Additional Protocol granting the IAEA expanded rights of access to information and sites, as well as additional authority to use the most advanced technologies during the verification process. States are called on "to exercise vigilance and restraint regarding the entry into or transit through their territories of individuals who are engaged in, directly associated with or providing support for Iran's proliferation sensitive nuclear activities or for the development of nuclear weapon delivery systems." Any such persons should be reported to the Council's Iran sanctions committee. A designated list of individuals banned from travel is annexed to the resolution, but its provisions apply to others not listed who are involved in Iran's nuclear weapons programme. The resolution imposes a strict import/export ban on Iranian weapons, deciding that "Iran shall not supply, sell or transfer directly or indirectly from its territory or by its nationals or using its flag vessels or aircraft any arms or related materiel, and that all States shall prohibit the procurement of such items from Iran by their nationals, or using their flag vessels or aircraft, and whether or not originating in the territory of Iran." States must also "exercise vigilance and restraint" with regard to an battle tanks, armoured combat vehicles, large calibre artillery systems, combat aircraft, attack helicopters, warships, missiles or missile systems destined for Iran. Except for humanitarian or development aid, States and international financial institutions should not provide funds to Iran, according to the resolution. All countries have 60 days to report to the Iran sanctions committee on steps they have taken to give effect to the resolution. The resolution also aims for a diplomatic breakthrough, expressing the Council's conviction that if the IAEA can verify that Iran has suspended its uranium enrichment and reprocessing, this would lead to a negotiated solution that guarantees Iran's nuclear programme is for exclusively peaceful purposes. Underlining a willingness to work positively for a diplomatic solution, the Council encourages Iran, "to re-engage with the international community and with the IAEA." Under other provisions of the resolution, the Director-General of the IAEA is to report back to the Council within 60 days on Iran's nuclear programme. The Council will review Iran's actions in light of that report and will suspend the sanctions "if and for so long as Iran suspends all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities, including research and development, as verified by the IAEA, to allow for negotiations in good faith in order to reach an early and mutually acceptable outcome." The measures will be terminated once Iran has complied with all Council demands. However, if Iran does not comply, the Council will "adopt further appropriate measures" aimed at persuading Teheran to comply with its resolutions and the requirements of the IAEA, the resolution warns. Today's text also recalls an IAEA Board of Governors resolution adopted last year which states that "a solution to the Iranian nuclear issue would contribute to global non-proliferation efforts and to realizing the objective of a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction, including their means of delivery." Annexed to the reso countries -- China, France, Germany, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States -- aimed at achieving an end to the standoff by providing elements of a long-term agreement. Three months ago, the Council imposed a more limited set of sanctions on Iran over the nuclear issue. That resolution, also adopted unanimously following weeks of intensive diplomacy, contains a list of persons and entities involved with Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programmes that are subject to a freeze on their financial assets. Today's resolution expands that list with an Annex containing additional persons and entities also subject to the measures. Iran's nuclear programme has been a matter of international concern ever since the discovery in 2003 that it had concealed its nuclear activities for 18 years in breach of its obligations under the NPT. 2007-03-24 00:00:00.000 ___________________ For more details go to UN News Centre at http://www.un.org/news To listen to news and in-depth programmes from UN Radio go to: http://radio.un.org/ _______________________________ To change your profile or unsubscribe go to: http://www.un.org/apps/news/email/ ***************************************************************** 2 [southnews] Text of UNSC Resolution on Iran Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2007 01:35:10 -0500 (CDT) UN Security Council 5647th Meeting (PM) RESOLUTION 1747 (2007) BThe Security Council, BRecalling the Statement of its President, S/PRST/2006/15, of 29 March 2006, and its resolution 1696 (2006) of 31 July 2006, and its resolution 1737 (2006) of 23 December 2006, and reaffirming their provisions, BReaffirming its commitment to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, the need for all States party to that Treaty to comply fully with all their obligations, and recalling the right of States parties, in conformity with articles I and II of that Treaty, to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination, BRecalling its serious concern over the reports of the IAEA Director General as set out in its resolutions 1696 (2006) and 1737 (2006), BRecalling the latest report by the IAEA Director General (GOV/2007/8) of 22 February 2007 and deploring that, as indicated therein, Iran has failed to comply with resolution 1696 (2006) and resolution 1737 (2006), BEmphasizing the importance of political and diplomatic efforts to find a negotiated solution guaranteeing that IranBs nuclear programme is exclusively for peaceful purposes, and noting that such a solution would benefit nuclear non-proliferation elsewhere, and welcoming the continuing commitment of China, France, Germany, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States, with the support of the European UnionBs High Representative, to seek a negotiated solution, BRecalling the resolution of the IAEA Board of Governors (GOV/2006/14), which states that a solution to the Iranian nuclear issue would contribute to global non-proliferation efforts and to realizing the objective of a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction, including their means of delivery, BDetermined to give effect to its decisions by adopting appropriate measures to persuade Iran to comply with resolution 1696 (2006) and resolution 1737 (2006) and with the requirements of the IAEA, and also to constrain IranBs development of sensitive technologies in support of its nuclear and missile programmes, until such time as the Security Council determines that the objectives of these resolutions have been met, BRecalling the requirement on States to join in affording mutual assistance in carrying out the measures decided upon by the Security Council, BConcerned by the proliferation risks presented by the Iranian nuclear programme and, in this context, by IranBs continuing failure to meet the requirements of the IAEA Board of Governors and to comply with the provisions of Security Council resolutions 1696 (2006) and 1737 (2006), mindful of its primary responsibility under the Charter of the United Nations for the maintenance of international peace and security, BActing under Article 41 of Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations, B1. Reaffirms that Iran shall without further delay take the steps required by the IAEA Board of Governors in its resolution GOV/2006/14, which are essential to build confidence in the exclusively peaceful purpose of its nuclear programme and to resolve outstanding questions and, in this context, affirms its decision that Iran shall without further delay take the steps required in paragraph 2 of resolution 1737 (2006); B2. Calls upon all States also to exercise vigilance and restraint regarding the entry into or transit through their territories of individuals who are engaged in, directly associated with or providing support for IranBs proliferation sensitive nuclear activities or for the development of nuclear weapon delivery systems, and decides in this regard that all States shall notify the Committee established pursuant to paragraph 18 of resolution 1737 (2006) (herein Bthe CommitteeB) of the entry into or transit through their territories of the persons designated in the Annex to resolution 1737 (2006) or Annex I to this resolution, as well as of additional persons designated by the Security Council or the Committee as being engaged in, directly associated with or providing support for IranBs proliferation sensitive nuclear activities or for the development of nuclear weapon delivery systems, including through the involvement in procurement of the prohibited items, goods, equipment, materials and technology specified by and under the measures in paragraphs 3 and 4 of resolution 1737 (2006), except where such travel is for activities directly related to the items in subparagraphs 3 (b) (i) and (ii) of that resolution; B3. Underlines that nothing in the above paragraph requires a State to refuse its own nationals entry into its territory, and that all States shall, in the implementation of the above paragraph, take into account humanitarian considerations, including religious obligations, as well as the necessity to meet the objectives of this resolution and resolution 1737 (2006), including where article XV of the IAEA Statute is engaged; B4. Decides that the measures specified in paragraphs 12, 13, 14 and 15 of resolution 1737 (2006) shall apply also to the persons and entities listed in Annex I to this resolution; B5. Decides that Iran shall not supply, sell or transfer directly or indirectly from its territory or by its nationals or using its flag vessels or aircraft any arms or related materiel, and that all States shall prohibit the procurement of such items from Iran by their nationals, or using their flag vessels or aircraft, and whether or not originating in the territory of Iran; B6. Calls upon all States to exercise vigilance and restraint in the supply, sale or transfer directly or indirectly from their territories or by their nationals or using their flag vessels or aircraft of any battle tanks, armoured combat vehicles, large calibre artillery systems, combat aircraft, attack helicopters, warships, missiles or missile systems as defined for the purpose of the United Nations Register on Conventional Arms to Iran, and in the provision to Iran of any technical assistance or training, financial assistance, investment, brokering or other services, and the transfer of financial resources or services, related to the supply, sale, transfer, manufacture or use of such items in order to prevent a destabilising accumulation of arms; B7. Calls upon all States and international financial institutions not to enter into new commitments for grants, financial assistance, and concessional loans, to the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, except for humanitarian and developmental purposes; B8. Calls upon all States to report to the Committee within 60 days of the adoption of this resolution on the steps they have taken with a view to implementing effectively paragraphs 2, 4, 5, 6 and 7 above; B9. Expresses the conviction that the suspension set out in paragraph 2 of resolution 1737 (2006), as well as full, verified Iranian compliance with the requirements set out by the IAEA Board of Governors would contribute to a diplomatic, negotiated solution that guarantees IranBs nuclear programme is for exclusively peaceful purposes, underlines the willingness of the international community to work positively for such a solution, encourages Iran, in conforming to the above provisions, to re-engage with the international community and with the IAEA, and stresses that such engagement will be beneficial to Iran; B10. Welcomes the continuous affirmation of the commitment of China, France, Germany, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States, with the support of the European UnionBs High Representative, to a negotiated solution to this issue and encourages Iran to engage with their June 2006 proposals (S/2006/521), attached in Annex II to this resolution, which were endorsed by the Security Council in resolution 1696 (2006), and acknowledges with appreciation that this offer to Iran remains on the table, for a long-term comprehensive agreement which would allow for the development of relations and cooperation with Iran based on mutual respect and the establishment of international confidence in the exclusively peaceful nature of IranBs nuclear programme; B11. Reiterates its determination to reinforce the authority of the IAEA, strongly supports the role of the IAEA Board of Governors, commends and encourages the Director General of the IAEA and its secretariat for their ongoing professional and impartial efforts to resolve all outstanding issues in Iran within the framework of the IAEA, underlines the necessity of the IAEA, which is internationally recognized as having authority for verifying compliance with safeguards agreements, including the non-diversion of nuclear material for non-peaceful purposes, in accordance with its Statute, to continue its work to clarify all outstanding issues relating to IranBs nuclear programme; B12. Requests within 60 days a further report from the Director General of the IAEA on whether Iran has established full and sustained suspension of all activities mentioned in resolution 1737 (2006), as well as on the process of Iranian compliance with all the steps required by the IAEA Board and with the other provisions of resolution 1737 (2006) and of this resolution, to the IAEA Board of Governors and in parallel to the Security Council for its consideration; B13. Affirms that it shall review IranBs actions in light of the report referred to in paragraph 12 above, to be submitted within 60 days, and: (a) that it shall suspend the implementation of measures if and for so long as Iran suspends all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities, including research and development, as verified by the IAEA, to allow for negotiations in good faith in order to reach an early and mutually acceptable outcome; (b) that it shall terminate the measures specified in paragraphs 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 12 of resolution 1737 (2006) as well as in paragraphs 2, 4, 5, 6 and 7 above as soon as it determines, following receipt of the report referred to in paragraph 12 above, that Iran has fully complied with its obligations under the relevant resolutions of the Security Council and met the requirements of the IAEA Board of Governors, as confirmed by the IAEA Board; (c) that it shall, in the event that the report in paragraph 12 above shows that Iran has not complied with resolution 1737 (2006) and this resolution, adopt further appropriate measures under Article 41 of Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations to persuade Iran to comply with these resolutions and the requirements of the IAEA, and underlines that further decisions will be required should such additional measures be necessary; B14. Decides to remain seized of the matter.B http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2007/sc8980.doc.htm The archives of South News can be found at http://southmovement.alphalink.com.au/southnews/ ***************************************************************** 3 Reuters: Britain wants explanation over sailors' seizure Sat Mar 24, 2007 10:10AM EDT By Aref Mohammed BASRA, Iraq (Reuters) - Efforts were underway on Saturday to try to resolve a diplomatic dispute between Britain and Iran triggered after Iranian forces seized 15 British sailors and marines off the coast of Iraq. Britain said two boatloads of sailors and marines had searched a cargo ship in Iraqi waters on a U.N. approved mission when Iranian gunboats encircled and captured them on Friday. No shots were fired and the British servicemen were unharmed, officials said. Iran accused the British of illegally entering its waters. The incident came as U.N. Security Council members were putting the final touches to a resolution imposing new sanctions on Iran over its refusal to halt sensitive nuclear work. A vote on the resolution could take place as early as Saturday. Oil prices rose more than one percent to a three-month high on the news of the Britons' seizure. Britain summoned Iran's ambassador in London and demanded the servicemen's immediate release. Continued... © Reuters 2007. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 4 Reuters: Iran says entry of Britons a suspicious act Sat Mar 24, 2007 5:11AM EDT TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's Foreign Ministry condemned what called the illegal entry of British naval personnel into Iranian waters as a "suspicious act", the official IRNA news agency said on Saturday. Iranian forces seized 15 British servicemen on Friday in the mouth of the waterway that separates Iran and Iraq, triggering a diplomatic crisis at a time of heightened tension over Tehran's nuclear ambitions. "The Foreign Ministry's spokesman called the illegal and interfering entry of British forces into Iranian territorial waters a suspicious act and against international laws and rules and has harshly condemned it," IRNA said, revising an earlier report which did not include the word "interfering". It quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini as saying: "Violating the territory of other countries and non-permitted entrance ... show unusual aims and is against international treaties and there are no excuses for ignoring and not accepting the responsibility for that." Iranian state television said on Friday Iran had summoned the British charge d'affaires to protest over the incident. Britain said the servicemen were seized in Iraqi waters and demanded their release. "We will continue to be in contact with the Iranians here and in London," a British diplomat in Tehran told Reuters, adding Ambassador Geoffrey Adams has returned to Iran. Continued... © Reuters 2007. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 5 UPI: Document describes Iran 'fuel-gas bomb' United Press International - NewsTrack - Published: March 25, 2007 at 5:38 PM WASHINGTON, March 25 (UPI) -- Iranian scientists appear to have explored the potential military applications of powerful fuel-gas explosions, it was reported Sunday. In a jointly authored thesis, three Iranian scientists wrote that "fuel-vapor cloud explosions can cause "severe damages" and that "preventing such events from happening requires a good knowledge." Raymond Tanter, who heads the Washington-based Iran Policy Committee, told YNetNews Sunday that while the language is "seemingly innocent and only for scientific purposes, the document seems to contain military applications for fuel-gas bombs." Tanter said such documents were allowed to be published up until recently in Iran in order "to keep its young scientists at home rather than traveling to the West to publish." Tanter said too much attention is being paid to one aspect of Iranian nuclear development activities. "Based on reports of the National Council of Resistance of Iran -- the main Iranian opposition group -- the regime has made great progress" in other forms of nuclear enrichment, he said. Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammed Ali Hosseini said his country would be unaffected by the latest U.N. resolution tightening sanctions against Tehran. © Copyright 2007 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 6 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Ups the Rhetoric on Seized Sailors From the Associated Press Saturday March 24, 2007 9:01 PM By ALI AKBAR DAREINI Associated Press Writer TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran claimed Saturday that 15 British sailors and marines had confessed to entering its waters in an act of ``blatant aggression,'' an escalation of Tehran's rhetoric over the confrontation. The British Foreign Office summoned Iran's ambassador for the second time in two days, saying an under-secretary had spent more than an hour in ``frank and civil'' talks demanding the safe return of the sailors and Royal Marines, and seeking assurances about their welfare and access to British consular officials. Iran's top military official, Gen. Ali Reza Afshar, said the sailors and marines were moved to Tehran and under interrogation ``confessed to illegal entry'' and an ``aggression into the Islamic Republic of Iran's waters.'' Afshar did not say what would happen to the sailors. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini accused the British of ``violating the sovereign boundaries'' of Iran, calling the entry a ``blatant aggression.'' He accused Britain of trying to cover up the incursion, saying it should ``refrain from putting the blame on others.'' The U.N. Security Council, meanwhile, unanimously voted to impose new sanctions against Iran for its refusal to stop enriching uranium - a move intended to show Tehran that defiance over its nuclear program will leave it increasingly isolated. British opposition lawmakers called on the government not to allow Iran to use the capture of the military personnel as a tool in the nuclear dispute. ``The United Kingdom will not be blackmailed. Iran has a choice: to act responsibly; or face greater isolation,'' said Menzies Campbell, leader of the opposition Liberal Democrats. But the British government appeared to be avoiding harsh language in its public statements as it continued to gather information about exactly what had happened and why. The British sailors had just searched a merchant ship Friday morning when they and their two inflatable boats were intercepted by Iranian vessels near the disputed Shatt al-Arab waterway, U.S. and British officials said. The Iranians surrounded them and escorted them away at gunpoint. Britain immediately demanded the return of the eight Royal Navy sailors and seven Royal Marines - at least one of who was a woman - and denied they had strayed into Iranian waters while searching for smugglers off Iraq's coast. Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett and the Ministry of Defense said the troops were in Iraqi waters when they were seized. Iraq's military commander of the country's territorial waters, Brig. Gen. Hakim Jassim, told AP Television News that Iraqi fishermen had reported that the British boats were ``in an area that is out of Iraqi control.'' In June 2004, six British marines and two sailors were captured, then paraded blindfolded on Iranian television. They admitted they had entered Iranian waters illegally but were released unharmed after three days. Iranian hard-liners have already called for the 15 Britons to be held until Iran wins concessions from the West. Several conservative student groups urged the Iranian government not to release the sailors until five Iranians detained by U.S. forces in Iraq earlier this year are freed and U.N.'s new sanctions against Iran are canceled. Some 500 Iranian students gathered on the shore near where the soldiers were captured, shouting ``Death to Britain'' and ``Death to America,'' the semiofficial Fars news agency reported. With tensions already running high, the United States has bolstered its naval forces in the Persian Gulf in a show of strength directed at Iran. There is concern that with so much military hardware in the Gulf, a small incident could escalate dangerously. Afshar, the Iranian officer, warned the United States would not be able to control the consequences if it attacks Iran. ``The United States and its allies know that if they make any mistake in their calculations ... they will not be able to control the dimensions and limit the duration of a war,'' Afshar said. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader,warned this week that Western countries ``must know that the Iranian nation and authorities will use all their capacities to strike enemies that attack.'' The Britons were seized in an area where the boundaries of Iraqi and Iranian waters have long been disputed. A 1975 treaty set the center of the Shatt al-Arab - the 125-mile-long channel known in Iran as the Arvand River - as the border. But Saddam Hussein canceled that treaty five years later and invaded Iran, triggering an eight-year war. Virtually all of Iraq's oil is exported through an oil terminal near the mouth of the channel. Iran and the new Iraqi government have not signed a new treaty on their sovereignty over the waterway. The seized sailors, from the British frigate HMS Cornwall, are part of a task force that maintains security in Iraqi waters under authority of the U.N. Security Council. Cornwall's commander, Commodore Nick Lambert, said he hoped the detention was a ``simple mistake'' stemming from the unclear border. ---- Associated Press Writer Thomas Wagner contributed to this report from London. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007 ***************************************************************** 7 AFP: Iran to restrict cooperation with UN nuclear watchdog by Siavosh Ghazi Sun Mar 25, 4:15 PM ET TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran is to restrict its cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog in retaliation for the Security Council sanctions over its disputed atomic programme, a government spokesman announced on Sunday. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, meanwhile, vowed that no Security Council resolution could ever halt the Islamic republic's "march" toward the development of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. "Iran has decided to partially limit its cooperation with this agency until the Iranian nuclear file is transferred from the Security Council" back to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said spokesman Gholamhossein Elham. The spokesman, quoted on the state news agency IRNA, explained that Iran had accepted four years ago an arrangement under which it informed the IAEA of any decision to construct a new nuclear installation. But it would no longer inform the Vienna-based nuclear watchdog of new installations until six months before they are brought into service, Elham said. In Vienna, there was no immediate IAEA reaction to the announcement but one diplomat said "it was pretty clear this was coming down the pike". UN inspectors visited the Iranian nuclear facility in Natanz on Tuesday, diplomats said, but it was not clear if they resolved a dispute over monitoring a strategic underground bunker. Iran is building an industrial-scale plant in the bunker at Natanz to make enriched uranium, which can be used for nuclear reactor fuel or atomic bomb material. Diplomats in Vienna speculated that cutting off access to Natanz might be part of Iran's response to the reinforced sanctions. At the United Nations, Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said his country would also respond soon to an offer by six major powers -- Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States -- to resume talks to end the nuclear standoff. "If there are new requests or proposals made we will have appropriate reactions and answers to those too. "We hope that they (the six) are not going to repeat what has been repeated in the past," he noted, referring to the UN demand that Iran suspend sensitive uranium enrichment in order for talks to begin. The Security Council's five permanent members plus Germany have tasked EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana with seeking new talks with Iran on ways to stop Tehran from enriching uranium. Mottaki repeated his view that the sanctions unanimously approved by the Security Council were "illegal and unjustified" and stressed that "all questions about Iran's nuclear programme have been answered." He reiterated that the "appropriate place for dealing with the (Iranian nuclear) issue is the International Atomic Energy Agency," not the Security Council. Back home, Ahmadinejad was unbowed by the sanctions, vowing that Tehran would "not halt for a second the peaceful and legal nuclear march of the Iranian people." "They can publish hundreds of such documents, but let them be sure that nothing will change in Iran and our march will continue without any interruption," said the hardline president. He warned that "the Iranian people will not forget the hostility of countries" which opposed Tehran's nuclear programme. The UN resolution, agreed after days of behind-the-scenes bargaining, blocks all Iranian arms exports and freezes the overseas assets of 28 additional officials and institutions linked to Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programmes. It also restricts financial aid or loans to Tehran, and sets a fresh 60-day deadline for Iran to comply with UN demands or face "further appropriate measures." The new sanctions, slapped on Tehran after measures already adopted in December, were imposed after Iran ignored repeated ultimatums from the Security Council to suspend uranium enrichment. Tehran insists its nuclear program is designed for civilian energy purposes, but Western nations fear it is a cover for building an atomic bomb. UN chief Ban Ki-moon on Sunday appealed for fresh dialogue, urging Tehran "to urgently take the necessary steps to restore the international community's trust that its nuclear program is peaceful in nature," his office said. Copyright © 2007 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 8 ITAR-TASS: UN resolution on Iran reflects world’s concern over Its N-problem 25.03.2007, 14.03 MOSCOW, March 25 (Itar-Tass) - The unanimous adoption of resolution 1747 of the UN Security Council “reflects deep concern of the world community over the Iranian nuclear programme”, says a statement by the Russian Foreign Ministry, received by Itar-Tass on Sunday. The statement outlines the content of the final document. “We express a regret that Iran could not implement the previous resolutions of the UN Security Council and of the IAEA and call again on Iran to observe fully its international obligations,” the ministry’s statement notes. “We are committed to a search for a negotiated solution which would remove concerns of the world community.” The aim of talks could be “achievement of an all-embracing agreement with Iran, based on mutual respect, which would restore confidence of the world community in a totally peaceful nature of the Iranian nuclear programme and would open a way for improving relations and developing broader cooperation between Iran and all our countries”. © ITAR-TASS. All rights reserved. You undertake not to copy, store ***************************************************************** 9 Guardian Unlimited: U.N. Approves Tougher Sanctions on Iran From the Associated Press Saturday March 24, 2007 10:46 PM By ALEXANDRA OLSON Associated Press Writer UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The U.N. Security Council unanimously voted Saturday to impose new sanctions against Iran for its refusal to stop enriching uranium - a move intended to show Tehran that defiance will leave it increasingly isolated. The moderately tougher sanctions include banning Iranian arms exports, and freezing the assets of 28 people and organizations involved in Iran's nuclear and missile programs. About a third of those are linked to the Revolutionary Guard, an elite military corps. The United States is ``very pleased by the strength of this resolution'' after two years of diplomacy, said R. Nicholas Burns, undersecretary for political affairs at the State Department. In December, the 15-member Security Council ordered all countries to stop supplying Iran with materials and technology that could contribute to its nuclear and missile programs. It also ordered a freeze on assets of 10 key Iranian companies and 12 individuals related to those programs. ``It's a significant international rebuke to Iran and it's a significant tightening of international pressure on Iran,'' Burns said of the new sanctions. ``We do believe it's going to leave Iran even more isolated than it has been.'' Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki rejected the sanctions and said Iran had no intention of suspending its enrichment program. ``The world must know - and it does - that even the harshest political and economic sanctions or other threats are far too weak to coerce the Iranian nation to retreat from their legal and legitimate demands,'' Mottaki told the Security Council after the vote. ``Suspension is neither an option nor a solution.'' Mottaki made the trip instead of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who claimed he canceled his appearance because the U.S. failed to deliver his visa in time. The U.S. said it had issued the visa promptly. Raising tensions, Iran detained 15 British sailors and marines Friday in what it said were Iranian territorial waters near Iraq. The British sailors and marines had been on a mission to search for smugglers in Iraqi waters. The six world powers that drafted the new resolution spent Friday trying to overcome objections from several council members, reflecting concerns that anything short of consensus would weaken efforts to rein in Iran's nuclear defiance. There were several minor concessions but no changes to the key sanctions agreed upon last week by the United States, China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany. The new sanctions - already a compromise between the stronger measures favored by the United States and the Europeans and the softer approach advocated by Russian and China - are considered modest. The ban on exports is among the harshest measures, but many of Iran's arms sales may not be affected because they are illicitly sent to militant groups like Lebanon's Hezbollah and Shiite militias in Iraq. Still, world powers hoped that approving the resolution quickly and unanimously would signal that Iran will face stricter sanctions each time it ignores a Security Council deadline to suspend uranium enrichment, a process that can be used to produce nuclear energy or nuclear weapons. ``This resolution sends an unambiguous signal to the government and people of Iran ... that the path of nuclear proliferation by Iran is not one that the international community can accept,'' said British Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry. Iran responded to the first set of sanctions in December by expanding enrichment. Tehran has offered to provide guarantees that its nuclear program won't be diverted toward weapons, as the U.S. and some of its allies fear. Iranian leaders kept up their defiant rhetoric in the days leading up to the vote, with Ahmadinejad calling the Security Council illegitimate and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei suggesting Iran would pursue nuclear activities outside international regulations if faced with more sanctions. The new resolution calls for voluntary restrictions on travel by the individuals subject to sanctions, on arms sales to Iran, and on new financial assistance or loans to the Iranian government. It asks the International Atomic Energy Agency to report back in 60 days on whether Iran has suspended enrichment and warns Iran could face further measures if it does not. But it also says all sanctions will be suspended if Iran halts enrichment and makes clear that Tehran can still accept a package of economic incentives and political rewards offered last year if it complies with the council's demands. After the latest resolution met with surprising resistance from several elected Security Council members, a reference was inserted to a past resolution from the IAEA calling for the Middle East to be free of weapons of mass destruction. Indonesia and Qatar had wanted the council to make that appeal outright, but that would have had implications for Israel, a U.S. ally widely believed to possess nuclear weapons, though it has never officially acknowledged it. ---- Associated Press Writer John Heilprin contributed to this report from Washington. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007 ***************************************************************** 10 Korea Times: BDA: Hill's Tactical Miscalculation Hankooki.com > The Korea Times > Opinion By Tong Kim It is now clear what the confusion was all about in Beijing last week, concerning the technicalities involved in transferring the freed North Korean funds of $25 million from the Banco Delta Asia (BDA) in Macau to an account held by North Korea in the Bank of China (BOC) in Beijing, or transferring them through BOC to a bank account in a third country. No party in the talks seemed to have expected the money transfer issue would hold up the serious talks of nuclear dismantlement. No diplomat at the talks seemed to have studied beforehand the international banking requirements for ``remittance business¡¯¡¯ and the legal ramifications and concerns for an international bank to accept ``illegal funds.¡¯¡¯ All U.S. banks operating under U.S. laws including the Patriot Act are on notice to cut off transactions with any foreign bank that is involved in money laundering or terrorist financing. Nobody explained why the North Koreans did not want or could not transfer the funds to their Trade Bank in Pyongyang or why they wanted the money transferred to BOC. A testimony to the confusion and unpreparedness was found in the words of South Korean chief delegate to the talks, Chun Yung Woo, ``Absurd and preposterous things are happening, but nobody really knows why these things are happening.¡¯¡¯ Now Washington is sending back deputy assistant secretary of treasury Daniel Glaser, who watches terrorist financing and financial crimes, to explain to the reluctant BOC officials that their bank will not be punished after it receives the ``dirty money¡¯¡¯ from BDA. Glaser was in Beijing only a week earlier to announce the conclusion of an 18 month investigation of North Korean illicit financial activities – including money laundering and counterfeiting – and a U.S. decision to unfreeze the DPRK related funds from BDA a couple of hours before the convening of the multilateral talks last Monday (March 19th). Despite the U.S. treasury department¡¯s barring all American banks from doing business with BDA and its condition that the released DPRK funds could only be used for educational and humanitarian purposes, assistant secretary of State Christopher Hill, who joined Glaser at the hurriedly staged announcement, appeared confident that the BDA issue would no longer be an impediment to the nuclear talks. It took him only a few hours to find that he was wrong afterwards. Washington could have told Glaser to stay in Beijing and do what he is now going back there to do. This action could have saved at least a few days to a week to complete the transfer and to bring the parties back together sooner than possible under the present circumstances. It does not surprise me that the North Koreans refused to discuss the substantive issues of how to implement the 2.13 agreement and what steps to take for disablement in the next phase. Under different circumstances, the defiant North Korea had walked out of meetings before, even when they had less understandable justification to do so. From the beginning, the North Koreans said they would not move until the issue of financial sanctions is fully resolved. However, what they did not make clear before was that they wanted to ``see the money¡¯¡¯ deposited in their own account. Apparently the U.S. negotiating team had erroneously assumed ``U.S. assurances¡¯¡¯ for releasing the frozen DPRK funds, backed up by a policy pronouncement _ which was not exactly seen as an exoneration of North Korea from the U.S. charges of financial crimes _ would suffice to meet North Korea¡¯s needs. This assumption quickly proved wrong. Amid last week¡¯s confusion, the frustrated U.S. chief negotiator said, ``The day I am able to explain to you North Korean thinking is probably the day I¡¯ve been in this process too long.¡¯¡¯ About the same time the South Korean foreign minister said North Korea is ``an unpredictable group that gives us a headache.¡¯¡¯ The common sentiments reflected in these two statements are the incomprehensiveness and unacceptability of North Korean behavior. Well, unacceptability is one thing, but if it is about incomprehensiveness, here is something to consider. Having a few bilateral meetings, a few occasions for social dinners and drinks or even going to a Broadway show is hardly enough to understand the reasons for North Korean behavior. Those of us who had engaged the North Koreans for many years still found it hard at times to figure out the true motivation of what often appeared to be unreasonable or offensive behavior. But they always acted on their own reasoning and logic, either as a tactical move for what to pursue next or as a matter of ``principle¡¯¡¯ reflecting their unique thinking. Their logic is typical: ``You did or did not do that, so we do this.¡¯¡¯ There is plenty of blame to go around for the unproductive conclusion of the last round. Some of the blame goes to the United States, some to North Korea, some even to China _ for failing to persuade BOK to accept the risky DPRK related funds. The rest of the six parties were actually irrelevant to the complicated problem, and there was little that they could do, except wait in vain, wasting their valuable time. My uneasy hunch is that the DPRK leadership, beyond the level of vice minister Kim Kye Gwan, was not fully satisfied by the final BDA outcome. It might be going through an internal debate over how far and how fast it should proceed with the negotiation process. It is also possible that the DPRK, now possessing nuclear weapons, may even think that they can drag out the process to squeeze the maximum political and economic benefits, believing that the Bush administration badly wants to strike a deal to meet its political agenda. Washington is hoping to resume the talks in a week or two, once the money transfer is completed. The U.S. disposition of the BDA issue _ a verdict of conviction but no immediate punishment against the DPRK _ was perhaps the best creative compromise possible from the legal and political perspectives of Washington. That compromise probably was made possible by Hill¡¯s negotiations within the administration, as Don Oberdorfer, chairman of the U.S.-Korea Institute at SAIS wrote in last week¡¯s Newsweek Korea about the U.S. envoy¡¯s internal efforts. The North Koreans should heed the rekindled criticisms among the opponents of the Bush administration¡¯s new approach to the DPRK since their refusal to participate in the talks last week. They should remind themselves that they won a rare opportunity to engage the United States after waiting 6 long years. They should also remember that the United States still has other options to resort to, if it is convinced, as events may prove right or wrong, that there is no way to reach a fair negotiated settlement. Lessons from last week: for the United States, it does not pay to push the process too fast. As a principle in negotiation, it will be more difficult to get a desired result, if you are seen as badly wanting a settlement. It should not act on assumptions until validated by unmistakable communication. Critics of the administration¡¯s BDA disposition are quick to point out no negotiation can succeed without pressure on the opposing party. Some of them warn that the United States should not use up all its bargaining chips at this stage. Some may even argue that negotiation must be conducted from a position of strength if it is to succeed. But I think the United States has plenty of leverage, including its capability and strength to pressure the DPRK, and the DPRK knows it. The DPRK learned from its experience last week first what it takes to transfer funds from one bank to another in the international financial community. The real ownership of the released funds may belong to the government of the DPRK, but since the funds were deposited in 50 accounts under different names of entities and individuals some of whom are dead, the BDA required applications for each account, not a single, master application for all the accounts as the DPRK presented at first. More importantly, the DPRK must have learned it will be extremely difficult to have access to banking benefits if it engages in illicit financial activities in the future. As long as the DPRK wants normalized relations with the United States and a stronger economy, its leadership should seriously cooperate with other parties to steadily move towards the common goal of denuclearization. What¡¯s your take? Tong Kim is former senior interpreter at the U.S. State Department and now a research professor at Korea University and a visiting scholar at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). The Korea Times welcomes our readers' contributions to Letters to the Editor and Thoughts of The Times. The article should be preferably submitted by e-mail to opinion@koreatimes.co.kr and not exceed 900 words. _ ED. ***************************************************************** 11 Yonhap News: U.S. official arrives in Beijing to resolve NK money transfer A senior U.S. Treasury Department official arrived in Beijing on Sunday to settle a dispute over the transfer of North Korean funds frozen in a Macau bank that led to the recess of the six-party talks over North Korea's pending denuclearization. Daniel Glaser, deputy assistant secretary for terrorist financing and financial crimes, said at Beijing's international airport that he came here to give Macanese and Chinese authorities technical assistance in solving the dispute over the transfer of the North Korean funds. Banco Delta Asia (BDA) had frozen some US$25 million of North Korea-related money at the bank after the U.S. Treasury in September 2005 accused it of laundering money for Pyongyang. Earlier in the week, the U.S. and North Korea announced an agreement that the BDA will release the money and transfer it to a Pyongyang-held account at the Bank of China. However, the transfer has yet to be made due to technical problems, which led to a suspension of the six-way talks involving South and North Korea, the U.S., China, Russia and Japan. Last Thursday, North Korea refused to take part in the nuclear talks, arguing that it first needs to take back its funds from the Banco Delta Asia accounts. "Glaser is likely to offer the Bank of China a written securities guarantee that if the bank receives North Korea's money from the BDA, it won't be penalized in financial transactions with the U.S.," diplomatic sources here said. Beijing, March 25 (Yonhap News) Posted on : Mar.25,2007 20:10 KST © 2006 The Hankyoreh Media Company. All rights reserved. copyright The Hankyoreh ***************************************************************** 12 AFP: Hu heads to Russia for closer diplomatic, trade ties by Dan Martin Sat Mar 24, 3:58 AM ET BEIJING (AFP) - Chinese President Hu Jintao heads to Russia on Monday for talks on growing energy, trade and diplomatic ties between the two countries that are posing a growing counterweight to US power in the world. Hu's three-day visit will include talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the Iran nuclear issue and is expected to result in the signing of trade and investment deals worth at least two billion dollars, according to Chinese officials. Russia and China, which both have energy interests in Iran, have sought to blunt US pressure on Tehran over its nuclear programmes. Their closer cooperation comes as the United States is increasingly short of friends in the world, oil-rich Russia feels threatened by the West, and China seeks additional suppliers for its growing energy needs, analysts said. "There's a triangular relationship among China, Russia and the United States. If any two countries improve ties, it will have an influence on the third party," said Shi Yajun, a professor of Russian Studies at Shanghai's East China Normal University. "So, as China-Russia ties get closer, the more concern US leaders will have." Ties have improved steadily since China and Russia set aside decades of Cold War rivalry after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, growing closer amid a shared concern over US power around the world. In February, Moscow and Beijing signed a joint statement calling for a "democratisation of international relations" to build a multi-polar world. "This is a very significant visit, for both political and economic relations between the two countries," said Sergei Sanakoyev, head of Moscow's Russian-Chinese Centre for Trade and Economic Cooperation, a lobby group. Relations have received a further push from increasing trade, which reached a record 33.4 billion dollars in 2006, up nearly 15 percent from 2005, according to Chinese figures. "As our relations and strategic interaction forges ahead, I am sure that the objectives we set with President Putin -- to bring trade to 60-80 billion dollars by 2010 -- will be met," said Hu, who is making his third trip to Russia as president, in an interview with Russian media last week. Russia's energy resources and China's insatiable hunger for fuel will lead the way in trade growth, experts believe. Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister Li Hui told a briefing last week that Hu and Putin would discuss long-delayed plans for a Siberian oil pipeline. Russia in 2003 opted against plans for a single pipeline straight to China, choosing instead to skirt its neighbour with a line to Russia's Pacific coast. Since then, the talk has been of building a branch off that main route to China's oil capital Daqing. The prospect of closer Sino-Russian energy ties has caused some supply concerns in the West, but Li sought to ease those fears, while offering no specifics on next week's talks. "Energy cooperation between China and Russia... will not undermine the interests of other countries or impact (on) the world energy landscape," he said. Experts doubt the two countries, which once bitterly vied for domination of the communist world, will ever walk completely in step, but the current improvement in relations is expected to continue blossoming. "Relations are the best they've ever been and this visit will make them even better," Professor Shi said. Copyright © 2007 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 13 antiwar.com: Fooled Again - by Gordon Prather March 24, 2007 Past and present Congresspersons from across the political spectrum insist that if they had known then, what they know now, they would never have allowed President Bush to use the conditional authority they had provided him to launch a pre-emptive war against Iraq. Of course, they should have known when they gave him that authority in October, 2002 that their basic presumption – "Iraq both poses a continuing threat to the national security of the United States and international peace and security in the Persian Gulf region and remains in material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations by, among other things, continuing to possess and develop a significant chemical and biological weapons capability, actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability, and supporting and harboring terrorist organizations" was false. Should have known, because in the aftermath of Operation Desert Storm, the International Atomic Energy Agency Action Team on Iraq was established by UN Security Council Resolution 687 and was charged with overseeing the destruction [or removal from Iraq] of all nuclear-weapons-usable materials, components and subsystems, plus any and all related research, development, support or manufacturing facilities. In what amounted to his final report as Director-General, Hans Blix concluded way back in 1997 that; "Most of the IAEA activities involving the destruction, removal and rendering harmless of the components of Iraq's nuclear weapons programme, which to date have been revealed and destroyed, were completed by the end of 1992." Of course, when Bush got Congress to give him that conditional authority to use force, he assured them he was committed to seeking a diplomatic solution. He got the UN Security Council to pass Resolution 1441, which required Iraq to provide the IAEA and other UN inspectors "immediate, unimpeded, unconditional and unrestricted access" to any and all "areas, facilities, buildings, equipment, records and means of transport," as well as "private access" to all pertinent officials. Consequently, IAEA Director-General was able to report to the Security Council on March 7, 2003 that "Since the resumption of inspection a little over three months ago, and particularly during the three weeks since my last ordered report to the council, the IAEA has made important progress in identifying what nuclear-related capabilities remain in Iraq and in its assessment of whether Iraq has made any effort to revive its past nuclear program during the intervening four years since inspections were brought to a halt. "At this stage, the following can be stated: "One, there is no indication of resumed nuclear activities in those buildings that were identified through the use of satellite imagery as being reconstructed or newly erected since 1998, nor any indication of nuclear-related prohibited activities at any inspected sites. "Second, there is no indication that Iraq has attempted to import uranium since 1990. "Three, there is no indication that Iraq has attempted to import aluminum tubes for use in centrifuge enrichment." Hans Blix, since 1998 the Chairman of the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, gave a similar, although less conclusive, null report about Iraq's chemical, biological and ballistic missile activities. In other words, the Congressional presumptions of October 2002 and the Cheney Cabal allegations of 2002 and 2003 about Iraq's weapons programs were all wrong! Saddam Hussein was not a threat even to his neighbors, much less to the United States. Well, we all certainly had a close call. If Congresspersons hadn't made their authorization conditional, namely – "In connection with the exercise of the authority … to use force, the President shall … make available to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President pro tempore of the Senate his determination that … reliance … on further diplomatic or other peaceful means alone will not adequately protect the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq," then Bush could have ignored the null reports of ElBaradei and Blix, could have defied the UN Security Council and the UN Charter, could have launched a pre-emptive war of aggression against Iraq. But Congress had made his authority conditional, and the Congressional conditions had clearly not been met. Hence, Bush hadn't been authorized by Congress to use US Armed Forces against Iraq. So, where has Congress been since March 20, 2003? Why haven't they impeached Bush? And Cheney? If not immediately, in 2003, then why not in the years since, as the gravity of their crime has become more and more apparent? Or, at a minimum, have hearings on how Bush was allowed to "exercise authority" he didn't have? But Congress didn't even do that. So, is that why their baffled and betrayed constituents threw many of those Congresspersons out of office last November? Did they intend to elect a Congress that would truly provide "oversight" on the President and his vigilante posse? Were they truly alarmed about the resolutions Congress passed last year about Iran that read almost verbatim like the resolutions Congress passed in the years immediately preceding Bush's pre-emptive war of aggression against Iraq? Did they expect House Speaker Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Reid to place enforceable conditions on Bush's authority to launch a pre-emptive war of aggression on Iran? Well, if they did, then they've been fooled again. According to the Associated Press, Pelosi and "other members of the leadership" decided to remove from a "major military spending bill" a requirement that the President get prior approval from Congress before launching a pre-emptive attack on Iran. Why? Well, for one thing, after putting the requirement in, Pelosi was reportedly loudly "booed" when she appeared before an American Israel Public Affairs Committee hoohah. 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 ***************************************************************** 14 Times of India: 123...India, US get going on nuclear agreement [ 25 Mar, 2007 1310hrs ISTIANS ] NEW DELHI: India is readying for some tough negotiations with the US when the two begin a crucial round of talks on Monday on finalising the contours of the bilateral civil nuclear agreement that will govern future nuclear trade between the two countries. Critical issues like nuclear testing and the production of fissile materials, the re-processing of spent fuel and the nature of India's safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will dominate discussions between the two sides. The two sides will build on convergences and concentrate on finalising a large part of the text of the 123 agreement - named after Section 123 of the Atomic Energy Act - that will have to be approved by an up and down vote by both chambers of the US Congress before it becomes operational. A US team led by Richard Stratford, director of Nuclear Energy, Safety and Security in the State Department, will hold talks with the Indian delegation led by Gayatri Kumar, joint secretary (Americas) in the external affairs ministry. The Indian team will also compromise senior officials of the department of atomic energy. This will be the first technical round of talks since the US Congress passed the Hyde Act enabling full civilian nuclear cooperation with India last December. The 123 agreement, which will be the sole legal document that that will govern the terms of civil nuclear commerce between India and the US, will be crucial in influencing the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group to amend its guidelines in favour of global nuclear trade with India. As the two sides begin talks Monday, India will remind the US about the "full civilian nuclear cooperation" it was promised in the July 18, 2005, civil nuclear deal in return for placing civilian nuclear reactors under international safeguards, but which has been restricted by the Hyde Act. The US legislation excludes the sale of equipment related to enrichment, reprocessing and heavy water production to India. India will make a strong pitch for being granted prior consent to re-process spent fuel that the US legislation denies. The US has so far granted reprocessing rights with prior consent to only three countries - Japan, Switzerland and the European Union. The US is pushing hard to convert a voluntary moratorium by India on nuclear testing and the production of fissile material into a permanent binding one - a condition that is not acceptable to New Delhi as enunciated by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in parliament in debates on the nuclear deal. The US also wants to include a condition in the 123 agreement that entails the US terminating nuclear cooperation with India in case it conducts a nuclear weapon test, a situation that will require New Delhi to return all nuclear equipment and fuel given to it by Washington. Ahead of the talks, the US has struck an optimistic note saying "there is pretty good understanding of things that we have to deal with, and even some understandings on how we might move forward". The US was not too happy with the first draft submitted by Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon to US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns when the former visited Washington last month. But since then, the two officials have been engaged in discussions and there is a likelihood that a large part of the text will be finalised at the end of the talks later this week. Copyright ©2007Times Internet Limited. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 15 Gore's Plan Goes Far Beyond What Congress Envisions Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2007 10:19:19 -0500 (CDT) http://www.politicalcortex.com/story/2007/3/23/23413/8121 Al Gore's Plan Goes Far Beyond What Congress Envisions Email Print By LadyInBlack 03/23/2007 11:41:03 PM EST I have to be honest and state that even though I am so very grateful to Mr. Gore for appearing in front of these committees, I am very skeptical about what will come from it from the other side of that table as the only thing many of them seemed concerned about were the coal and nuclear lobbies that support them. Gore's Plan Goes Far Beyond Anything Congress Envisions This article does bring up some good points regarding Congress and I have to be honest and state that even though I am so very grateful to Mr. Gore for appearing in front of these committees, I am very skeptical about what will come from it from the other side of that table as the only thing many of them seemed concerned about were the coal and nuclear lobbies that support them. Where was the urgency? Where were the questions regarding solar power? There wasn't one unless I missed it. Where were the questions that dealt with management of resources in the event of another climate catastrophe? Hurricane Katrina doesn't seem to have changed much in the halls of Congress regarding the way things are done, so why should we expect any changes now? Where were the questions regarding how soon biofuels will be in our tanks nationwide? The majority of questions dealt with nuclear power and coal, which of course those who make deals in Congress have to support regardless of their affects on our planet. It was only due to the fact that Mr. Gore mentioned rivers in danger in this world that the water crisis was even given a mention. And of course, they also had to place him on the spot about nuclear too. I wish he would have simply stated that nuclear power is not an option at this point and moved on, because clearly many members of Congress simply do not have a grasp on how urgent it is for us to not only wean ourselves off of oil, but also the very technology that has brought nothing but death, destruction, and disease to this planet. Their questions only proved to me that they have no intentions of shifting their focus on it. However, aside from that, his plan as delivered to Congress this past Wednesday is also bold and daring and in my opinion not the kind of plan someone running for president in this system would deliver. It is the plan of a man who is totally dedicated to solving this crisis and devoting his time to getting things done regarding that and having it happen as quickly as possible. It is evasive, visionary, necessary, and unlike anything the military/industrial complex would ever truly entertain. The plan includes: 1. Freezing carbon emissions now 2. Instituting a carbon tax 3. Passing on revenues to lower income groups 4. Signing a strong global treaty ( not named Kyoto) with de facto compliance date being moved from 2012 to 2010. 5. A moratorium on construction of coal powered plants not fitted with carbon capture and sequestration features. 6. Electranet-smart grid 7. "CNMA" or Connie Maes for home buyers 8. Replacing incandescent light bulbs Please tell me how any of these plans are going to be passed by this Congress this year or for that matter, any year? Will even Democrats from states where automobiles are the prime source of income ever really entertain carbon freezes? Carbon taxes? Carbon sequestration? Raising CAFI standards? Cutting emissions by 90% even by 2050 which I personally think is even too long to wait? All their corporate backers will do is what they always do. Whine that putting such features on their smoke stacks will cost them and therefore force them to pass that expense on to their customers. They will whine it will cut productivity which will then mean cutting jobs if income does not make up for their expenditures, blah, blah, blah. And the wheels continue to spin. At this point, they shouldn't be allowed to spin their wheels. Al Gore calls this a planetary emergency, and it is not shrill, it is reality for anyone who would dare to look beyond the confines of their own bubble. It is obvious to me however, that politicians and those without a sense of vision on the whole simply do not have the same sense of urgency about this as those of us who see that expending it now in ways that actually can increase productivity and jobs will also save us in future generations regarding having a planet that can sustain us. These are long term plans not quick fixes and as Mr. Gore stated in his testimony this crisis is not going anywhere. It is here, now, and it must be addressed now not just by Congress, but by all of us as he also stated this is not a political football. But will it be in the way it needs to be in order to truly have a positive effect? Or will that catastrophe have to hit us first? Now, before I go on, I have to state that I was blown away by the guts it took for Mr. Gore to venture back to that den of iniquity for the first time after that same Congress were derelict in their duty in the Congressional chambers in 2001 when saving this Democracy was imperative. His going there showed me that this crisis is indeed more important to him than politics, and perhaps it was also a way for him to get closure as this hearing is now the last memory of his being there rather than the gavel being brought down on our Democracy. His opening statement was emotional and so very true. What will our children ask when they are adults and look back on this time? Will they see a generation so embroiled in our own selfish pursuits that we had no time to think of the future? Or will they look back with gratitude that we saw the danger and opportunity and acted on it to avert a catastrophe of our own making? Does Congress truly get that urgency? I think some do, and while I was not totally pleased with all of the questions and discussions on the whole on their part because they truly did not showcase real alternative energy options or delving deeper into other options besides coal and nuclear energy (ocean wave energy is also something I think should be explored but was not discussed) and passing legislation to deal with emissions now, I do see a shift beginning in mindset and that is one positive out of all of it. However, the time between shifting mindset and solution cannot take much longer. Mr. Gore made mention as well that a political shift can happen fast. Well, Mr. Gore, for the sake of this planet it better happen in Congress this year. Call me skeptical, but I don't think it will. I do however, think the grassroots and citizens out here are shifting, changing, and acting and that is due for the most part to your inspiration and guidance regarding this on a global scale. The over 500,000 signatures you brought with you will hopefully now be more than just pieces of paper to be forgotten once delivered. Your testimony made it clear that there is an urgent need to wake up to the consequences of our actions. You did more than many would ever do in advocating for this planet. Let's hope those who needed to hear it take the baton you have passed on to them, and once again, thank you. And as an addendum to this: Senator Inhofe was not worth my time mentioning in this. KEYWORDS: Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth, climate crisis, environment, morals, responsiblity, Earth, citizen activism, Congress ------------------------------------------------- Progchat_action is a non-partisan and progressive political news weblog, chat, and action discussion alternative in cyberspace: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/progchat_action/ ***************************************************************** 16 The Hindu: India, Slovakia discuss civil nuclear issue Sunday, March 25, 2007 : 1730 Hrs New Delhi, March 25 (PTI): As part of efforts to garner support of Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) for its civil nuclear aspirations, India discussed with Slovakia the issue of cooperation in the field. The issue came up for discussion when Minister of State for External Affairs Anand Sharma met Slovak leaders, including Minister for Foreign Affairs Jan Kubis. "They discussed cooperation in the energy sector, including nuclear energy," a press release e-mailed by the Indian Embassy in Slovak capital Bratislava said. Copyright © 2006, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu ***************************************************************** 17 RIA Novosti: Nuclear power plant energy unit shut down in central Russia 15:18 | 25/ 03/ 2007 MOSCOW, March 25 (RIA Novosti) - The third power unit of the Kursk nuclear power plant in central Russia was shut down Sunday by an automated protection system, the press office of the Russian nuclear power generating monopoly said. "At 9.05 a.m. Moscow time (05:05 a.m. GMT), the third energy unit of the Kursk NPP was shut down due to a fault in the electric equipment of the unit's switch gear. The power unit is expected to be put into operation March 27 after repairs," the press office said. The NPP currently operates the first and the fourth units while the second power unit is under planned repairs, the press office said. RIA Novosti ***************************************************************** 18 POAC: Oyster Creek nuclear plant starts slow return to full power Press of Atlantic City By DAVID BENSON Staff Writer, (609) 272-7206 Published: Saturday, March 24, 2007 A degraded seal in a reactor coolant pump has stabilized under pressure, allowing the Oyster Creek nuclear generating station to gradually return to full power, a spokeswoman for the plant said Friday. If the seal continues to hold properly, the plant could be back to full power within a week. Leslie Cifelli, a spokeswoman for Oyster Creek, said the facility reduced power about two weeks ago to between 75 and 82 percent of its capacity because of problems with a degraded seal in one of the five coolant pumps. These pumps cool the reactor. The facility needs at least four of them to generate electricity at 100 percent. One pump, however, was already offline because of a problem with a seal, Cifelli said. When another pump showed signs of a possible seal failure, the plant reduced power to avoid a sudden shutdown that could lead to a fish kill. “We were being environmentally conscious,†Cifelli said of the decision to reduce power output instead of taking the plant offline. At that time, the plan was to operate at reduced power until a scheduled outage sometime in April. Then the pump would be repaired. But whatever the problem with the seal was seems to have cleared. “Now it's back to good condition,†Cifelli said. So the plant is gradually increasing power output. “We increase percent per hour in four-hour increments,†Cifelli said. After an increase of four percent, the plant will operate there for two days before increasing power again. Friday, the Oyster Creek facility was operating at 88 percent of capacity. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said it's safe for the plant to gradually increase power. Diane Screnci, a spokeswoman for the NRC, said the coming outage will help clear up issues with the seal. “What they need to determine during the upcoming outage is what caused the pressure problems,†Screnci said. Cifelli said the seal will be replaced during the outage. For now, she said, the facility will add just a little more power every couple of days. “If the seal continues to stay well, we'll be a full power in about a week.†To e-mail Dave Benson at The Press: DBenson@pressofac.com ***************************************************************** 19 JOURNAL NEWS: Two years of ups and downs at Indian Point By GREG CLARY (Original publication: March 25, 2007) The past two years at the Indian Point nuclear plant have been a study in contrasts. The plant has been beset with what company officials call "challenges" - everything from radiation leaks to workers worried that they might be punished for pointing out safety concerns. Yet the plant's production of electricity - the juice that runs our everyday lives - has hit all-time highs for the site, and the company announced plans in November to seek license extensions that would allow Indian Point to produce energy through 2035. "The numbers are no accident," said Fred Dacimo, who runs Indian Point for the plant's owner, Entergy Nuclear Northeast. "As the team, we have consistently put forth a tremendous effort to achieve the kind of accomplishments that we have." The company has continued to produce 10 percent of the state's electricity, despite what has seemed like an unending series of plant malfunctions, disruptions and intense public scrutiny. The latest series of troubles started as far back as the summer of 2005 with wide-scale emergency siren failures and the discovery of a radioactive tritium leak and have continued with an unplanned reactor shutdown as recently as last month A boiled-down list of the events since 2005 is enough to keep a team of federal regulators busy: - Emergency sirens that didn't work for a six-hour period, one of a half-dozen or so malfunctions of a decades-old system that is about to be replaced. - Two radioactive isotopes - tritium and strontium 90 - leaking from different locations and ending up in tiny concentrations in the Hudson River. - Seven unplanned shutdowns of the two working nuclear reactors in Buchanan, split about evenly between Indian Point 2 and Indian Point 3. - A cracked fuel rod in the spent-fuel pool of Indian Point 2, which stopped a routine inspection until the uranium could be secured in an unused area of the pool. - Workers voiced concerns to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission about potential retaliation for pointing out safety concerns. - A worker was exposed to radiation during a repair of the nuclear reactor. - Debris and ice clogged an intake for cooling Hudson River water, creating a "heightened alert" until adequate flow was restored. Those were merely the operational issues. Elected officials' have continually called for more oversight, as well as the closure of the plants. One of the laboratories testing radiation levels turned up inaccurate results, and strontium 90 found in Hudson River fish samples - though not definitively from the nuclear plant - has precipitated additional testing. And a nuclear engineer at Indian Point was placed on leave days before killing his daughter, his wife and himself, raising concerns that he could have taken his rage out at work instead of at home. Reliable source Still, the energy provider has remained what state electricity officials say is a stabilizing force for supplying reliable electricity to the densely populated southeastern portion of New York. "They've always been an important part, those two units," said Ken Klapp, a spokesman for New York Independent System Operator, which controls and operates the state's grid. "They're pretty much operating all year long, around the clock, except for a refueling outage. In that area, outside of the city, there's no large generation north of the city." Neither of the two 1,000-megawatt plants in Buchanan is big enough to rank at the top of the state's list, but together they produce more electricity than any other site in New York. Klapp says one of the key things in power generation is reliability, and sources such as wind power and other more variable sources are still intermittent in their ability to provide electricity. "You can't store electricity," Klapp said. "You use up what you generate." Indian Point officials had hoped to apply to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission this month for renewals to continue producing electricity after the current licenses for Indian Point 2 and Indian Point 3 expire in 2013 and 2015, respectively. Dacimo said late last month the application would likely be filed in April. A cadre of local congressional representatives want to tie that renewal to an in-depth examination of the plant by the NRC and outside evaluators, an independent assessment opponents believe will make the case that the decades-old site has too many operational problems to be extended another 20 years. Dacimo said the company has spent "hundreds of millions" of dollars since buying the plants in 2001 to make sure that they operate efficiently now and into the future. He said the company was not "deficit-spending" to make those investments. "There is a marked change now from where these units were eight years ago," Dacimo said of the site's two working nuclear reactors. "Unit 3 was a plant that used 65 percent of its capacity eight or nine years ago. Now it's 97 or 98 percent. We're running the plants the way the plants are supposed to be run." Dacimo acknowledged that the spate of high-profile problems in the past two years have been "challenging." "It goes without saying there are a number of areas where we need to continue to concentrate our efforts," Dacimo said. 'A streak of bad luck' David Lochbaum, a nuclear safety engineer with the Union of Concerned Scientists, monitors Indian Point and other plants for the national watchdog group, and knows the Buchanan site well. "They have had a series of events," Lochbaum said. "If you look through what caused those events, there's no, at least none I've detected, situation where there are indications that the company has known about these problems and tolerated them or just put on a Band-Aid fix." He said there's no suggestion that there was some kind of link between all those events, that the plant either wasn't able to meet the challenges or wouldn't spend the money to do so. "It would be troubling if that were the case," he said. "Absent that, it's just a streak of bad luck." Lochbaum said Entergy's record for getting the facility to run more efficiently since buying it in 2001 was promising. "The company did spend a lot more money than they anticipated once they opened up the closet door and found all the problems," he said. Lochbaum, a former industry whistle-blower, said the one area that he was especially concerned about was the safety culture at the plants. "Management has to practically go door-to-door," Lochbaum said. "You cannot turn that around by proclamation." He said executives at Indian Point will need to show workers repeatedly that even the slightest safety issue needs to be cited, so all employees know that the threshold for pointing something out was low. Lochbaum said the coming relicensing application and public debate will put the plants in a position where the executives will have to explain the recent problems. The intense scrutiny of the public and the media during the problems may end up making the plants safer. "Because of it being in the fishbowl or being where it is, in some respects, that helps good management," Lochbaum said. Keeping close watch One of the people keeping the plant in the public's view is Lisa Rainwater of the environmental group Riverkeeper, who heads the campaign to close the nuclear plant. She wonders why the company won't just open its doors to an independent assessment. Company officials have said they will comply with whatever federal regulators require. "It's a cumulative effect that you continue to have small problems popping up and you have … unplanned shut-downs … that show that the plant continues to age, yet we also have management that has created a work environment in which folks are at least concerned about raising issues of safety," Rainwater said. The presence of nuclear waste near the region's biggest waterway also is a concern. "We know the pools are leaking and the National Academy of Sciences has said very clearly and strongly, spent-fuel pools are a great risk to the public in the event of a fire or a terrorist attacks," she said. One reason company employees have been able to produce under difficult circumstances, Dacimo said, is a collective belief that nuclear energy is part of the overall solution to the country's energy and environmental needs. Dacimo said the plants' production of electricity meets needs that would have to be met by other methods if the nuclear plant didn't exist, leading to a greater use of oil and coal and more air pollution from those plants. "Because (our) people fundamentally believe that what we are doing is the right thing, it makes it easier to deal with adversity, whether that's adversity from the plant or adversity from the external environment," Dacimo said. Reach Greg Clary at 914-696-8566 or gclary@lohud.com. Copyright © 2006 The Journal News, a Gannett Co. Inc. newspaper serving Westchester, Rockland and Putnam Counties in New York. ***************************************************************** 20 Brattleboro Reformer: Activists plead for real-time VY monitoring BRATTLEBORO, VT By BOB AUDETTE, Reformer Staff Saturday, March 24 BRATTLEBORO -- Now that Oak Ridge University Associates has cleared up the differences between how Entergy and the state measure site-boundary radiation levels, that issue has been resolved, right? Well, maybe not. "We think that the whole monitoring process is inadequate," said Jeff Hunsicker, a member of Nuclear Free Vermont by 2012. Hunsicker and other anti-nuclear activists would like to see Entergy, the owners of Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant, measure the site-boundary levels with real-time dosimeters and not the thermoluminescent devices it now uses, which give an accumulated dose reading over a defined period of time. To measure real-time boundary levels, plant operators take a reading of radiation levels at the plant's main steam line and, using a mathematical formula, extrapolate it to render the boundary dose. That's not good enough for Hunsicker. "If what you are concerned about is radiation at the perimeter, then measure it," he said. The mathematical formula used by Entergy is "exceptionally well-developed," said Bill Irwin, Vermont's chief of radiological health. "It was a very challenging and time-consuming effort in order to develop a correlation that exists in reality between the level of radiation where the steam leaves the reactor and goes to the turbine, and the actual measurement of real radiation at the site-boundary locations." Though he wouldn't say he was totally happy with the process at Vermont Yankee, Irwin said he was "more comfortable than with what we have had in the past. We now rely on multiple methods to assess actual site-boundary doses and evaluate compliance to regulations." "The most important point is we are not going to abandon the monitoring we are doing now," he said. "It has great value and is a good measurement of the doses as they are accumulated over time." However, he added, "it is very useful to have real-time measurements. It allows for the opportunity to assess in between the longer time period the operating conditions and the site-boundary doses." "It's unnecessary," said Rob Williams, spokesman for Vermont Yankee. "We have real-time monitoring at the source, at the main steam line. It's far more accurate and is approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission." Some states do require real-time boundary monitoring, said Neil Sheehan, spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. "And some activist groups do their own real-time monitoring. But, he said, "there is no reason why they can't get good information from the dosimeters (already in use)." "This is another song and dance," said Deb Katz, of the Citizen Awareness Network, calling the thermoluminescent devices now used to determine site-boundary doses "the cheapest you can get." The devices, which are also used by military personnel and workers in laboratories and nuclear power plants, rely on a small crystal and a strip of film which records exposure to radiation. David Lochbaum, a spokesman for the Union of Concerned Scientists, said if the plant operators and state and federal regulators are doing what they are supposed to be doing, techniques used by companies like Entergy to figure boundary levels are scientifically valid. But, not only do you have to do it right, he said, "you have to also be perceived as doing it right." "If the community doesn't accept it, then the real-time monitors are a way to get that comfort level," he said. "If that's what it takes to get that trust, it's probably a worthwhile thing to do." Hunsicker agreed. "They should do it because it's the right thing to do," he said. Bob Audette can be reached at raudette@reformer.com or 802-254-2311, ext. 273. Privacy Policy | MNG Corporate Site Map | Copyright ***************************************************************** 21 Kommersant Moscow: Lithuania Marshals Forces for Building New Nuclear Plant - Mar. 24, 2007 Lithuanian government launched the program for merging private and state energy companies of the country to implement a new ambitious project: to build Novo-Ignalinsk atomic power plant for exporting electric energy to Poland and Sweden. Lithuania wants to invest $2.6 billion into the project. However, the project has already triggered an international scandal: Latvia and Estonia, to whom 33-percent participation in the new atomic plant was promised, protest against Lithuania’s unilateral decision to sell 22 percent to Poland. Lithuanian authorities launched the program for merging the country’s private and state energy companies into a unified energy holding. The holding will include the state enterprise of electric distribution network Rytu skirstomieji tinklai (RST) and similar private enterprise Vakaru skirstomieji tinklai (VST). RST and VST will be merged into state energy enterprise Lietuvos energija. The holding’s chief shareholder will be Lithuanian government (no less than 51 percent of shares). The state now owns 96.59 percent of Lietuvos energija and 71.35 percent of RST shares. The main task of the super-holding will be to implement the project of building Novo-Ignalinsk atomic power plant before 2015, and the power lines from it to Poland and Sweden no later than by 2013. However, a scandal is already spinning off around the project. Lithuania’s partners, Latvia and Estonia, were to have 33 percent each in the project, while Lietuvos energija was to have 34 percent. Yet, Lithuanian Prime Minister Gedyminas Kirkilas and his Polish counterpart Jaroslaw Kaczynski signed a treaty in Warsaw in February, according to which 22 percent of the new atomic plant will be given to Poland’s energy company Polskie Sieci Elektroenergetyczne (PSE). Latvia and Estonia protest against Lithuania-Poland’s agreement. Thus, it is unclear whether Lithuania will be able to retain its Baltic partners. It will not be able to implement the project on its own. www.kommersant.com All the Article in Russian as of Mar. 24, 2007 © 1991-2007 ZAO "Kommersant. Publishing House". All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 22 IBNL: India, US set for nuclear bargain : Indo-US nuclear deal, 123 agreement, negotiations, new delhi : IBNLive.com : CNN-IBN Posted Sunday , March 25, 2007 at 23:28 HARD BARGAIN: The talks will centre around the contours of the Indo-US civil nuclear pact. New Delhi: India and the US will get down to do some tough negotiations on Monday when they begin talks to finalise the bilateral civil nuclear agreement that will govern future nuclear trade between the two countries. Leading the US team will be Richard Stratford, director of Nuclear Energy, Safety and Security in the State Department while the Indian team will be headed by Raminder Jassal, deputy chief of its Washington mission. Jassal will be assisted by Gayatri Kumar, joint secretary (Americas) in the External Affairs Ministry, and other officials of the department of atomic energy. The negotiations on the contours of the 1-2-3 bilateral civil nuclear pact will be the first round of talks between the two sides since the US Congress passed the enabling bill or the Hyde Act for full civilian nuclear cooperation with India in December. India is expected to fight hard for its right to reprocess spent nuclear fuel. India's voluntary moratorium on nuclear testing will also be discussed. Critical issues like nuclear testing and the production of fissile materials, re-processing of spent fuel and the nature of India's safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will also dominate the discussions between the two sides. The two sides will build on convergences and concentrate on finalising a large part of the text of the 1-2-3 agreement — named after Section 123 of the Atomic Energy Act — that will have to be approved by an up and down vote by both chambers of the US Congress before it becomes operational. The Indian side is keen to see that the controversial portions of the Hyde Act are removed from the bilateral agreement. Washington has been insisting that New Delhi first sign the 'India-specific' safeguards agreement before it approaches the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) for amending its guidelines in favour of nuclear commerce with India. New Delhi wants Washington to first clear the 1-2-3 Agreement. The 1-2-3 Agreement, which will be the sole legal document to govern nuclear commerce between India and the US, will be crucial in influencing the 45-nation NSG to amend its guidelines in favour of global nuclear trade with India. Copyright © IBNLive.com. All rights reserved. Reproduction of ***************************************************************** 23 IHT: Brazil expected to announce plans to complete stalled nuclear plant - International Herald Tribune The Associated Press Published: March 24, 2007 RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil: Brazil's president could announce next week a decision to complete construction of a third nuclear plant that has been delayed for years, Folha de S. Paulo, Brazil's biggest newspaper, reported Saturday. "I think now we're going ahead," Science and Technology Minister Sergio Resende told the daily. Resende said the project had divided the cabinet of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and that Environment Minister Marina Silva openly opposed it. "Sometimes things aren't decided entirely by consensus," he was quoted as saying. "The nuclear question in the world today is very different than it was a year ago." Mines and Energy Minister Silas Rondeau defended completion of the plant to the Senate last week, saying Brazil could not abandon a "competitive advantage" it holds with its nuclear program. The project is included in Silva's recently released Accelerated Growth program. Work on the half-finished project would resume in July, and the plant would start operation in 2013 after investments of about US$1.7 billion (€1.3 billion), Folha de S. Paulo said, citing the plan. The argument about whether to build the Angra 3 plant in the coastal city of Angra dos Reis, 110 miles (178 kms) west of Rio de Janeiro, has been going on for years. Brazil currently has two operating nuclear plants, Angra 1 and Angra 2, with an installed capacity of about 2,000 megawatts. Angra 3 would raise nuclear capacity to 3,300 megawatts. Late last year, Brazil announced plans to build four new nuclear plants, each with a generating capacity of 1,000 megawatts, starting in 2015 in Brazil's Northeast and Southeast. Copyright © 2007 the International Herald Tribune All rights ***************************************************************** 24 Los Angeles Times: Why the right goes nuclear over global warming - 9:24 PM PDT, March 25, 2007 Jonathan Chait: Most of the heat is generated by a small number of hard-core ideologues. LAST YEAR, the National Journal asked a group of Republican senators and House members: "Do you think it's been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the Earth is warming because of man-made problems?" Of the respondents, 23% said yes, 77% said no. In the year since that poll, of course, global warming has seized a massive amount of public attention. The U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a study, with input from 2,000 scientists worldwide, finding that the certainty on man-made global warming had risen to 90%. So, the magazine asked the question again last month. The results? Only 13% of Republicans agreed that global warming has been proved. As the evidence for global warming gets stronger, Republicans are actually getting more skeptical. Al Gore's recent congressional testimony on the subject, and the chilly reception he received from GOP members, suggest the discouraging conclusion that skepticism on global warming is hardening into party dogma. Like the notion that tax cuts are always good or that President Bush is a brave war leader, it's something you almost have to believe if you're an elected Republican. How did it get this way? The easy answer is that Republicans are just tools of the energy industry. It's certainly true that many of them are. Leading global warming skeptic Rep. Joe L. Barton (R-Texas), for instance, was the subject of a fascinating story in the Wall Street Journal a couple of years ago. The bottom line is that his relationship to the energy industry is as puppet relates to hand. But the financial relationship doesn't quite explain the entirety of GOP skepticism on global warming. For one thing, the energy industry has dramatically softened its opposition to global warming over the last year, even as Republicans have stiffened theirs. The truth is more complicated — and more depressing: A small number of hard-core ideologues (some, but not all, industry shills) have led the thinking for the whole conservative movement. Your typical conservative has little interest in the issue. Of course, neither does the average nonconservative. But we nonconservatives tend to defer to mainstream scientific wisdom. Conservatives defer to a tiny handful of renegade scientists who reject the overwhelming professional consensus. National Review magazine, with its popular website, is a perfect example. It has a blog dedicated to casting doubt on global warming, or solutions to global warming, or anybody who advocates a solution. Its title is "Planet Gore." The psychology at work here is pretty clear: Your average conservative may not know anything about climate science, but conservatives do know they hate Al Gore. So, hold up Gore as a hate figure and conservatives will let that dictate their thinking on the issue. Meanwhile, Republicans who do believe in global warming get shunted aside. Nicole Gaudiano of Gannett News Service recently reported that Rep. Wayne Gilchrest asked to be on the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio refused to allow it unless Gilchrest would say that humans have not contributed to global warming. The Maryland Republican refused and was denied a seat. Reps. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.) and Vernon Ehlers (R-Mich.), both research scientists, also were denied seats on the committee. Normally, relevant expertise would be considered an advantage. In this case, it was a disqualification; if the GOP allowed Republican researchers who accept the scientific consensus to sit on a global warming panel, it would kill the party's strategy of making global warming seem to be the pet obsession of Democrats and Hollywood lefties. The phenomenon here is that a tiny number of influential conservative figures set the party line; dissenters are marginalized, and the rank and file go along with it. No doubt something like this happens on the Democratic side pretty often too. It's just rare to find the phenomenon occurring in such a blatant way. You can tell that some conservatives who want to fight global warming understand how the psychology works and are trying to turn it in their favor. Their response is to emphasize nuclear power as an integral element of the solution. Sen. John McCain, who supports action on global warming, did this in a recent National Review interview. The technique seems to be surprisingly effective. When framed as a case for more nuclear plants, conservatives seem to let down their guard. In reality, nuclear plants may be a small part of the answer, but you couldn't build enough to make a major dent. But the psychology is perfect. Conservatives know that lefties hate nuclear power. So, yeah, Rush Limbaugh listeners, let's fight global warming and stick it to those hippies! Copyright 2007 Los Angeles Times ***************************************************************** 25 Telegraph: Britain's power groups pursue nuclear option By Sylvia Pfeifer, Sunday Telegraph Last Updated: 3:34am BST 26/03/2007 Heysham Nuclear Power Station in Morecombe. Most experts believe that British Energy's sites are the most suitable to host new reactors but other locations could also be considered Britain's leading energy companies have held secret talks with British Energy, the electricity generator, about building a new generation of nuclear power stations. Executives from Scottish & Southern Energy and Centrica, the utilities giant that owns British Gas, are understood to have had discussions in recent weeks. Although the talks are at a very early stage, they are the first sign that domestic energy suppliers are considering an active role in Britain's nuclear future when the Government gives the go-ahead for new nuclear stations later this year. British Energy, which generates about a fifth of Britain's electricity from its eight nuclear power stations, last month called for external investors to help fund its investment in what is likely to be a £30bn nuclear programme over the coming years. A British-led consortium would almost certainly be welcomed by the Government. Although neither Scottish & Southern nor Centrica generates nuclear power, they would be able to offer British Energy vital access to retail customers. Both already buy a proportion of British Energy's output. Last night senior industry executives said the prospect of non-nuclear partners such as Scottish & Southern and Centrica was likely to be an added attraction to British Energy, as it would allow it a bigger slice in any consortium. Most experts believe that British Energy's sites are the most suitable to host new reactors but other locations could also be considered. "The key value of British Energy is its sites. It makes sense for the company to want as much competition for those sites as possible. Non-nuclear partners like Scottish & Southern would allow it to keep a bigger slice as they would need its nuclear expertise," said one executive. Sources close to the talks cautioned that no company would commit to any investment until the Government announced its final decision and set out how it planned to deal with the disposal of nuclear waste. A White Paper expected to set out a detailed energy strategy was delayed last month after Greenpeace won a court judgment forcing the Government to restart the consultation. A High Court judge ruled that the original consultation had been "misleading" and "seriously flawed". The white paper is now expected in May. The Government is expected to make it financially viable for Britain's ageing reactors to be replaced, for example by guaranteeing a minimum electricity tariff for nuclear power. Security of energy supply is a priority for Britain, which is now a net importer of gas. In the short term, companies such as Centrica have made clear they are focusing on opportunities in "clean coal" and gas. Analysts estimate that 15 gigawatts worth of generation will be needed even before any new nuclear stations come on stream. Spokesmen for Centrica, Scottish & Southern and British Energy all declined to comment. © Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2007. | Terms ***************************************************************** 26 AFP: Greenpeace urges Mideast to shun nuclear power by Alain Navarro Sat Mar 24, 4:31 PM ET ALEXANDRIA, Egypt (AFP) - Greenpeace's Rainbow Warrior has dropped anchor in Egypt's Mediterranean port of Alexandria to deliver an unequivocal message against nuclear programmes -- civilian and military -- to a region suddenly hungry for atomic power. The famous Greenpeace ship, which has sailed the world in support of the environmental group's anti-nuclear crusade, was earlier prevented from entering Iranian territorial waters and later plans to head for Israel. "We were well received here," said ship captain Mike Fincken from the vessel's berth in Alexandria's western harbour. "At least we were allowed to deliver our message." Greenpeace representatives attended a conference sponsored by the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, the modern incarnation of the classical era's Alexandria Library, about creating a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East. While Greenpeace wants all nuclear programmes, military or otherwise, out of the region, it was very clear that Egypt and its neighbours have suddenly become very keen on building up their own nuclear energy projects. In September Cairo announced that it was restarting its nuclear programme, dormant since the Chernobyl disaster of 1986, and President Hosni Mubarak on Sunday maintained that it was "a right for the Arabs." Egypt's announcement was shortly followed by Jordan, Libya, Saudi Arabia and other countries in the region also expressing their desire to pursue peaceful nuclear programmes. Israel, the sole country in the region assumed to have nuclear weapons, has also announced plans to build a nuclear power plant. "What we have been doing here in Egypt and in the other parts of the region as well is raising the issue that nuclear (military) power and nuclear energy... are two sides of the same coin," said Greenpeace campaign coordinator Paul Horsman. "It is true that there is some enthusiastic support in Egypt for recent plans to develop nuclear power, but we believe it is not a good choice for Egypt," he added. Horsman echoed the views of many regional observers who believe the sudden interest in nuclear power by the oil-rich region has less to do with a need for energy than politics and concerns over Israel and Iran's programmes. Rather than try to launch their own nuclear programmes there should be talks on how to remove them from the region, Horsman said. For the Egyptians and other Arab countries, however, the focus is on a Middle East free of nuclear weaponry rather than all things nuclear. "We are totally opposed to any country in the region, Israel or otherwise, having nuclear weapons," said Aly Maher, the director of the Egyptian Institute for Peace Studies and co-organiser of the conference. "The position of Egypt is truly clear -- we need peaceful nuclear energy." He was echoed by Abdel Hakim Qandil, a former member of Egypt's atomic energy commission, who said the country needed to look beyond fossil fuels. "Nuclear energy is safe and cheap," he said. "We need other sources of energy because in 30 or 40 years we won't have either oil or gas." The electricity ministry has since proposed building a 1,000-megawatt power station at Al-Dabah on the Mediterranean coast as part of a plan for three light-water reactors. But Greenpeace's Horsman argues that nuclear power is dangerous, expensive and dirty -- with extensive waste problems. "Egypt has 80 times more renewable energy available that it needs, while the government has a renewable energy target of only three percent in 2010," he said. The organisation also notes that the uranium to power reactors is expensive and will also one day run out. The Greenpeace trip is its first tour of the Middle East and is aimed at the group becoming more involved in the region, especially over issues such as disarmament and the environment. On Sunday, the Rainbow Warrior will up anchor and sail for the Israeli ports of Haifa and Tel Aviv, where activists will urge officials to join the discussion over a nuclear-free Middle East. Copyright © 2007 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 27 The effects of depleted uranium weapons in Iraq Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2007 18:35:48 -0500 (CDT) March 23, 2007 Global Research Uranium and the War The effects of depleted uranium weapons in Iraq By John Williams In five billion years our sun will explode into a white dwarf and envelope the earth, according to NASA projections. The half-life of uranium 238 is 4.5 billion years. This means that by the time the Earth ceases to be a planet, only a little more than half of the depleted uranium (DU) that the United States Army is firing into Iraq and other countries around the world will be gone. The rest of the radioactive material will still be poisoning the Iraqi people. The U.S. Army revealed in March 2003 that it dropped between 320 and 390 tons of DU during the Gulf War the first time the material was ever used in combat and it is estimated that more still has been dropped during the current invasion, though there have been no official counts as yet. Depleted uranium munitions are extremely dense, toxic, and mildly radioactive. And despite mounting evidence of DU's negative health affects for combatants and civilians alike, their use is increasing. Naturally occurring uranium has three forms: uranium 235, 234, and 238. More than 99 percent of earth's uranium is 238. Uranium 238 is much less radioactive than uranium 235, which is why it takes so long to deteriorate. Nuclear weapons and nuclear power plants require highly radioactive uranium, so the uranium 238 is removed from the naturally occurring uranium by a process known as enrichment. Depleted uranium is the by-product of the uranium enrichment process. Since so much of the natural uranium is 238 -- which is nearly useless for nuclear weapons manufacturing and use in power plants -- uranium enrichment factories are left with large amounts of uranium 238, or DU. According to an estimate by the Kansas-based group Nukewatch, the United States has over a billion pounds of DU in its stockpile. This product is twice as dense as lead, and more toxic than it. DU is used to make numerous weapons systems, from shells to bullets to armor for tanks. DU munitions are commonly called Penetrators, a testament to the material's density. Effects in Combat Depleted uranium was a major topic of discussion during a Feb. 24 forum at UC Santa Cruz with speakers from the Iraq Veterans Against War (IVAW). The panel consisted of five members of the IVAW chapter in Olympia, Washington who visited Santa Cruz as part of a speaking tour of the west coast. Joe Hatcher, a member of IVAW who served in Iraq with the army's 4th Calvary Brigade from February 2004 to March 2005, described the on-the-ground reality of DU use in Iraq. "During our invasion of Basra, I got a call from Bravo team, who was on the other side of the town," Hatcher recalled. "They said, 'Stop firing, the DU bullets are coming through at us.' Our bullets were going through the whole city and coming out the other side. Keep in mind Basra is a city of about two and a half million people." (more than three times the population of San Francisco.) Hatcher continued, "If I can shoot a bullet into a mud house and have it go for possibly miles, then it's no wonder there are so many civilian deaths." A Johns Hopkins Study published in October 2006 placed the Iraqi death total during the American occupation at 655,000, roughly one for every 40 people in Iraq due in part to the use of DU munitions. The Royal Society, Britain's preeminent scientific organization, conducted what many consider to be the definitive independent study of wartime DU. The study found that the radioactive dust that a DU bullet creates upon impact can travel more than 26 miles. It also noted that when a bullet made of DU hits a target, it explodes at heat levels upwards of 6000 degrees Celsius. Apart from the physical destruction DU bullets cause, their impact on the health of both soldiers and citizens alike is cause for concern. Tom Cassidy, an IVAW member who served in Iraq from 2003 to 2005 in the 1st Cavalry Division, also spoke of the dangers of nuclear radiation from the DU bullets. "After the first gulf war, the level of radiation was 300 times what is considered normal," Cassidy said. "In this invasion we used even more DU bullets. The effects there are horrible." Joe Hatcher explained that being around nuclear radioactive material in Iraq was commonly known to be part of the job. "Before I went home on my last tour of duty, I was assigned to clean the trucks that we had used, because as they were they wouldn't pass environmental standards to come into Germany, because of the radiation they were around," Hatcher said. "I tell this to folks here in America, and oftentimes they'll freak out, but back there it was just normal, just another assignment." Kate Flanagan, a UCSC feminist studies major and the event organizer, discussed the importance of raising awareness about the prevalence of DU. "Depleted uranium is just one factor in the whole military industrial complex, though a particularly dangerous one," Flanagan said. "The only way to stop depleted uranium is to stop the war." Effects on Health Hatcher and his fellow members of the IVAW believe that their experiences in the Gulf War were the beginnings of what will be a long-term health problem in the region. Dennis Kyne served in the U.S. Army 18th Airborne Division for 15 years as a non-commissioned officer and a drill sergeant during Desert Storm. Kyne has devoted much of his time since his service in the first Gulf War to investigating the use of DU and its effects on soldiers and civilians. One of Kyne's most urgent complaints is the testing that was done on U.S. soldiers returning from Kuwait. "After I returned from Desert Storm, I was put into one of the slew of study groups [the army] stuffed vets into -- mine was for ionizing radiation. In 1995 I was compensated for undiagnosed illnesses," Kyne said. According to a congressional hearing of the Veteran's Disability Benefits Commission, over half a million veterans suffer from undiagnosed illnesses, which may or may not be due to the radiation. Radiation sickness is considered by some researchers to be a leading cause of Gulf War syndrome an illness involving a weakening of the immune system that many veterans of the Gulf War have reported. Kyne has transformed his personal experiences into a public agenda. He has written two books on DU and its effects, a number of articles, including one article entitled, "Whatever Happened to the Test Tube Paradigm," first published in the San Francisco Bayview in Feb. 2005, which was one of the first to bring light to DU issues. He has been interviewed in a number of documentaries, TV shows, and radio shows, including Nightline and NPR. He recently ran for city council in his hometown of San Jose on a peace platform. "The scientists call it cell disruption, and they don't know why it's happening to veterans, but it's really radiation sickness," Kyne said. "And it's because the DU is all over." The Royal Society investigation into DU wartime use found that there was a possibility that soldiers who had been in close proximity with DU munitions would have twice the risk of death from lung cancer as those who were not. Although the World Health Organization (WHO) has not spoken out against the use of DU munitions, their website states that, "the behavior of DU in the body is identical to that of natural uranium." Roberto Gwiazda, a researcher in the environmental toxicology department at UCSC, was the lead researcher in a project examining the level of uranium in veterans of the Gulf War, including vets who had sustained shrapnel wounds involving radioactive material. These were all friendly fire incidents, as the United States is the only country in the world that uses DU shells. "Of those with radioactive shrapnel wounds, all had significant levels of uranium in their urine seven to nine years after the explosion," Gwiazda said. "Of those who only inhaled the incendiary uranium, a statistically significant number also had high uranium levels." A study conducted by the Pentagon in 2002 predicted that, "every future battlefield will be contaminated" with DU. The fact that radioactive dust from a bullet explosion can spread nearly 30 miles means that the radius of disruption surrounding a battle sight can be vast. Further, the WHO report on DU states, "Over the days and years following [DU contamination], the contamination normally becomes dispersed into the wider natural environment by wind and rain. People living or working in affected areas may inhale contaminated dusts or consume contaminated food and drinking water." Army training manuals inform American military personnel that DU contamination renders food and water unsafe for consumption. While soldiers do not have to continue living in the contaminated areas for the rest of their lives, people living in Iraq are not so lucky. Tom Engleart, another IVAW speaker, recalled the high rate of birth complications since the US occupation, and DU use, began. "I don't call the birth defects there defects," Englehart said. "There were defects after the first Gulf War, a lot of them. But now there's a massive upswing in miscarriages and stillborns. They're just these pulpy masses with no form." Up-to-date health information from Iraq is difficult to come by. But a November report from Al-jazeera concluded that, "[The] cancer rate in Iraq has increased tenfold, and the number of birth defects has multiplied fivefold times since the 1991 war. The increase is believed to be caused by depleted uranium." The Future? Alliant Techsystems (ATK) is the country's largest producer of depleted uranium weaponry. While most arms makers use DU to armor tanks, the DU munitions that ATK produces are more controversial. ATK has received contracts from the U.S. Armed Forces totaling $52,000,000 in the past month alone, according to their website. Bryce Hallowell explained ATK's reasoning behind producing DU weapons. "We want to make the best weapons possible for the U.S. Army," Hallowell said. "We do not want a fair fight. We want the army to be able to engage the enemy at long distances and take them out." Dave Hansen, a member of an activist group called Alliant Action, helps organize weekly vigils at ATK's headquarters to protest the company's DU production. Although the vigils have taken place for over a decade, according to Hansen there are as yet no signs of decreasing production from the company. "There have been weekly vigils for ten years now, as well as intermittent civil disobedience," Hansen said. "That's a long time, with not a whole lot to show. But the movement is growing, so that's good news." But Hansen's movement is just to stop the production of radioactive weapons. Even if Alliant Action's campaign to end DU munitions production were successful, hundreds of tons of radioactive material would still be scattered across the globe. This reality was not a landscape of hope for Kate Flanagan. As she put it, "As far as DU is concerned, there's not much hope." ========= ***************************************************************** 28 Pueblo Chieftain: Radiation impact lasts forever, says scientist Pueblo, Colorado U.S.A Saturday March 24, 2007 Arjun Makhijani By TRACY HARMON THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN CANON CITY - Uranium impacts are forever, according to a scientist who was hired to do an independent review of documentation relating to the Lincoln Park Superfund site contaminated by the Cotter Corp. uranium mill. "Uranium is forever - the Lincoln Park people do not use well water, but the impacts of uranium, radium and thorium will be felt hundreds of thousands of years from now," said Arjun Makhijani. Makhijani is president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research in Takoma Park, Md. He is serving as a technical advisor hired by Colorado Citizens Against Toxic Waste to review documentation and provide resources to help residents understand what it means to live with the Lincoln Park Superfund site. "The stuff you have in your neighborhood is long-lived. It is going to affect people for a very long time to come and that puts a heavy burden on our generation," Makhijani said. In 1984, the Cotter uranium mill site and a portion of the surrounding Lincoln Park neighborhood was listed as an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Superfund site because contamination from old unlined tailings ponds seeped into the groundwater and some soils. Makhijani described radiation dose standards and what scientists know about the impact of uranium on humans. He said a single dose of radiation to a child would be eight times larger than it is for an adult. Makhijani said there is a lot of uncertainty about radiation effects, but in his opinion, all radiation impacts the human body. He said the body repairs damage from radiation but when it is unable to repair that damage, radiation leads to cancer, especially as people get older. "Radiation is somewhat more dangerous than previously assumed and what is reflected in present standards. The risks are greater to women because of their susceptibility to thyroid and breast cancer," Makhijani explained. "Natural background radiation does not mean it is harmless because it probably does cause a small portion of cancer. If you are adding to the natural background radiation, you are adding to someone's risk - every little bit of exposure can lead to some risk," Makhijani said. After reviewing Lincoln Park Superfund materials, Makhijani said he has recommended enhanced air monitoring around the Cotter mill site because of the possibility of resuspended contamination from dry tailings areas. "It is a moderate request and I am a little disappointed why more air quality study is not being conducted," Makhijani said. He also recommends the EPA go forward with a more stringent cleanup standard of Lincoln Park groundwater to match the national drinking-water standard of 30 parts of radiation per liter rather than the previous standard of 35. "We know enough about uranium to be much more cautious than 30 per liter in my opinion," Makhijani said. "A new water use survey should be done to find out what well owners are doing with the well water (in Lincoln Park)." Makhijani shared his findings during a public meeting Friday evening. His final, extensive report is expected to be on file at the Canon City Public Library in April. ©1996-2007 www.chieftain.com Star-Journal Publishing Corp. Pueblo, Colorado U.S.A. ***************************************************************** 29 Herald News: No class-action for tritium lawsuit HeraldNewsOnline.com Member of the Sun-Times News Group RESIDENTS VS. EXELON CORP. March 24, 2007 By KIM SMITH STAFF WRITER Class-action status was denied Thursday by a federal judge in the case of a lawsuit filed against Exelon Corp. The lawsuit was filed a year ago in the wake of spills of radioactive tritium in and around the Braidwood nuclear plant. "We are pleased with this ruling," said Neal Miller, communications manager for the Braidwood Generating Station. "Now our focus can be on our ongoing remediation program and in keeping the public informed." U.S. District Court Judge Suzanne Conlon ruled that the plaintiffs "failed to meet their evidentiary burden to justify class certification." The plaintiffs could provide no proof that tritiated groundwater actually contaminated their properties and may have gone too far when they defined 6,500 potential plaintiffs living in a 25-square-mile area surrounding the Braidwood plant, the judge wrote in her conclusion. Ken Grey, one of the attorneys representing the original three couples filing the suit, said when the suit was first filed not all the facts were in. He said a 10-mile radius was set up that the judge ruled to be too broad of an area. "We will be asking the court to reconsider," Grey said. "If denied we will look at redefining the lines. We are not going away." The suit was filed after Exelon announced millions of gallons of tritium-laced water had leaked outside the plant. Major spills were reported to have occurred in 1998 and 2000. More than 20 spills were reported. Tritium is a radioactive hydrogen isotope that is a byproduct of nuclear reactors producing electricity. Elevated levels of tritium are believed to cause cancer. Tests were done in area wells by Exelon and the Will County Health Department. The results came in below the 20,000 picucuries per liter of drinking water deemed safe by the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency. Some tests did reveal coliform and high nitrate levels in several wells. Since then Exelon donated $11.5 million to create a safe, potable water system for residents of Godley. Exelon also provides free bottled water to residents. Recently, the company announced that the highest concentration of tritium in the groundwater near the nuclear plant has been reduced by 87 percent since remediation began in June. Miller said two new wells are now being drilled on their property as part of the company's ongoing tritium sampling and monitoring program. The drilling started Tuesday and will continue through the weekend. The Will County Forest Preserve closed the Braidwood Dunes and Savanna Nature Preserve to the public as a precaution more than a year ago. The preserves are scheduled to reopen this weekend. The lawsuit asked Exelon to monitor the health status of residents in the area and also seeks payments for property value losses. Some residents say there are a high number of cancer cases and other rare medical problems in the area. No illnesses have been directly linked to the plant. Reporter Kim Smith can be reached at (815) 729-6067 or ksmith@scn1.com heraldnewsonline.com: Feedback | Contact Us | About Us | Advertise © Copyright 2007 Sun-Times News Group | Terms of Use and Privacy ***************************************************************** 30 Las Vegas SUN: Delegate goes stealthy with Yucca Mountain WASHINGTON, D.C. Today: March 25, 2007 at 7:15:36 PDT By Lisa Mascaro Las Vegas Sun WASHINGTON - Last week was not one for bipartisanship among Nevada's congressional delegation. Fresh off winning passage of his bill on Monday to help Lake Mead fight the invasive quagga mussel, Republican Rep. Jon Porter set his sights on a bigger prize: Stopping Yucca Mountain. Within days Porter made a last-minute decision to go after President Bush's proposed $494.5 million Yucca Mountain budget. By Wednesday the congressman was sitting through a House Budget Committee meeting that ran well past midnight for the chance to offer a surprise amendment that would have cut Bush's Yucca budget to zero. Not surprisingly, the amendment didn't pass. But rather than celebrate the stealth move that garnered 12 votes, all from Republicans, Porter railed against committee Democrats for keeping Yucca Mountain "very much alive." That argument runs counter to opinions voiced by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and other Nevadans that Yucca is dead, even if the Bush administration is trying to put the project on sound footing before leaving office. Porter has branched out on his own on Yucca before, when his committee investigated allegedly falsified e-mails and unsuccessfully subpoenaed the White House to release documents last year. But last week's go-it-alone venture potentially left the delegation exposed to partisanship, said David Cherry, a spokesman for Democratic Rep. Shelley Berkley. "I don't think it came across as something important to Nevadans," Cherry said. "It came across as a Republican member offering an amendment to change a Democratic bill." He added, "It's better to work as a delegation, to work together to try to kill it, rather than to have someone say , 'Hey, look at me .'" Porter says he had no choice but to keep the plan hush-hush lest it be killed before he could bring it to a committee vote. Spokesman Matt Leffingwell says winning 12 votes against Yucca was a "huge success" and shows "members are recognizing this is a fiscally irresponsible project." "This is a reckless waste of taxpayer funds. People are starting to get it. The message is starting to resonate." Over in the Senate, Nevadans weren't getting along much better. Reid told Nevada reporters in a conference call about the benefits of the Democrats' 2008 budget: Cut middle-class taxes by $180 billion, fund children's health insurance and produce a budget surplus by 2012. A short time later Republican Sen. John Ensign had reporters on the line to badmouth the spending plan as nothing more than gimmicks that will raise taxes by letting existing tax cuts expire. Perhaps the only Nevadan not slugging it out with another member of the delegation last week was Republican Rep. Dean Heller - he decided to pick a fight with his neighbors instead. Heller took to the House floor to denounce the District of Columbia voting rights bill, which would give residents of the district a full-fledged member of Congress. Because district residents probably would elect a Democrat, the bill also would shift a House seat to a presumably Republican district in Utah. But Heller said it would not be fair to Nevada, where population growth is much greater than Utah's. Nevada is expected to get another seat after the 2010 Census. The bill was sent back to committee. This week, keep an eye out for news about a new top prosecutor for Nevada from Ensign's office: Justice Department spokesman Tory Mazzola said Friday they had started meetings with candidates to succeed ousted U.S. Attorney Daniel Bogden. Lisa Mascaro can be reached at (202) 662-7436 or at lisa.mascaro@lasvegassun.com. All contents © 1996 - 2007 Las Vegas Sun, Inc. ***************************************************************** 31 Las Vegas SUN: Q+A: Hillary Clinton: If president, no way on Yucca Mountain Today: March 25, 2007 at 8:12:19 PDT By Michael J. Mishak Las Vegas Sun Sen. Hillary Clinton visited Las Vegas on Friday. She was one of three Democratic presidential contenders to address thousands of Culinary Union members at a rally billed as the kickoff to the union's negotiations with the big casino companies. Widely seen as front-runner in her bid for the White House, Clinton talked about Western issues with the Sun while traveling between events. With her was Clark County Commission Chairman Rory Reid, of Clinton's Nevada campaign. Told as the interview began that she would be quizzed on Western issues, Clinton said, "Well, Rory may have to answer for me." He didn't. She did. The rub. Q. If elected president, what would you do on the Yucca Mountain issue? I voted against Yucca Mountain as a senator. I was convinced then, and I'm convinced now that it's not a suitable depository for our nuclear waste. I think we need to look for solutions to our waste problem but I am totally against using Yucca Mountain. Period. But is there any way to kill the project? You can refuse to put money in the budget, which is what I would do. The president just doesn't fund it as a priority, which then forces the Congress - if they want to keep pursuing it - to try and do so. And I don't think that they would be able to do that, which would then concentrate everybody's attention on trying to find an alternative. How would you address the larger issue of energy? We need to do much more to incentivize biofuels of all kinds. We also have to do more on solar and wind energy to make them commercially viable. In order to move these forms of alternative green energy more quickly to broader commercial use, we need a strategic energy fund. We should take away the tax subsidies from big oil and gas, because frankly they don't need them anymore. We should put the subsidies into research that fast-tracks these alternative green forms of energy that can be American-owned. It's not something that can happen overnight, but if we combined that with greater efforts on conservation and energy efficiency, we would move considerably toward diminishing our dependence on foreign oil. It's important for our security. It's important for our environment, because I do believe we have a global climate change challenge we need to start dealing with. It's also a job creator. Is there a role for the federal government in the debate over water, or the lack of it? Much of what has to occur must take place locally and on the state level, and even between states. But I think the federal government can be sensitive to this problem, can be a convener, can figure out if there are laws or regulations that stand in the way of getting access to the water that is needed for fast-growing places like Las Vegas. It can look at sensible, effective projects that might help and provide funding for them. I think there's a partnership role. The federal government can't dictate it from Washington but it can be a good collaborator with the Clark County Commission, local governments and the state. Should the government intervene in the Colorado River Compact? I don't know the answer to that. It involves a lot of complex interests. Certainly, as president, I'm interested in solving problems, and I'm interested in helping states get whatever tools they need as they work out their differences. What's your impression of the Las Vegas labor landscape? I think it's a real tribute to Las Vegas that there's this positive relationship between the employers and the union, in part because this is a city that has to make people feel good. People come here because they want to come. It's a fun destination where they get good value for their money. One of the ways you do that is by having productive employees who not only do their work very well but convey that feeling of satisfaction so that people feel good when they're customers and visitors. I think it's a win-win. The employers get a productive, loyal, hardworking workforce. And workers can work their way up if they're willing to work hard and get a good standard of living. So, you support "card checks" and the Employee Free Choice Act? If you go back and look at the 20th century, as labor membership went up, middle-class living standards went up. People got into the middle class. For the first time they could send their children to college, they could buy a home. Now, as labor participation is declining, we see people are squeezed in the middle class. With all due respect, it is not rich people that made America great. It is hardworking people who put their time in, did their part and unions were an essential aspect of that bargain. I think we ought to take a broader view of this, and recognize that if we want to keep the engine of economic growth going for everybody, unions are a part of that balance. We should get rid of the anti-union restrictions that have now been deployed very forcefully in the last six years and let it be free choice. If people don't want to join a union, this is America. But if people do want to join a union , they should not be coerced, harassed and intimidated. How would you approach immigration reform? We've got to do everything simultaneously. You can't do just one. It won't work. We've got to secure our borders with more personnel and technology. We've got to enforce our immigration laws so that employers are not violating them and exploiting workers. We have to provide more assistance to local communities. They don't set national policy on immigration but they're often left with the expenses of education, health care and law enforcement. We have to do more to stimulate our neighbors to the south to have a better economic future. People there are voting with their feet because they can't have a decent life. We have to deal with the 12 million or so people who are here. I want to get them out of the shadows because I want to know who's in our country. Some of the 9/11 hijackers overstayed their visas and nobody knew who they were, where they were or what they were up to. You can't track them if you don't know who they are. You're not going to get them out of the shadows if you're standing there telling them they're going to be deported. Now, we're going to deport all the criminals, make no mistake about it. But if you're a hardworking person and you're doing the best you can and you're raising your kids right, we're going to give you a chance if you pay a fine, pay all your taxes, if you try to learn English, to have an earned path to citizenship. You can't jump the line. It may take years, but you won't be living in fear and you can continue doing the work that is helping to support this economy. With the president threatening to veto Democratic legislation on Iraq, what are the remaining options? We're trying to convince the president to change course in Iraq. He has the power to veto. It's very hard to get the votes to override a veto, but we're going to keep doing what we can to send a message that we should begin withdrawing our troops and we should change direction in getting the Iraqis to take more responsibility. You're in Las Vegas. Are you a gambler? Well, I'm running for president (laughs). I'm a political gambler. I'm not much of a financial gambler. Michael J. Mishak can be reached at 259-2347 or at michael.mishak@lasvegassun.com. Problems or questions? Read our policy on privacy and cookies. All contents © 1996 - 2007 Las Vegas Sun, Inc. ***************************************************************** 32 thewest.com.au: Greens want to ban WA uranium mining 25th March 2007, 9:55 WST The West Australian Greens say they will introduce legislation to ban uranium mining after Premier Alan Carpenter raised the possibility the state could exploit its uranium deposits in the decades to come. On Friday, Mr Carpenter said there would be no uranium mining in WA while he was premier but said the state may need to consider the practise for its own energy needs in about 50 years. Mr Carpenter was responding to an apparent backdown by Queensland Premier Peter Beattie from his opposition to uranium mining. WA Greens MP Giz Watson said she will introduce legislation to state parliament on Tuesday banning uranium mining and the construction of nuclear power stations in the state. "I would find it extraordinary if the Labor Party chooses to vote against their own policy position," Ms Watson said. "I challenge the premier to vote down his stated, not just policy, but stated outcome (and) that is legislation on both of these issues." Ms Watson said Labor had to show there was no doubt about its opposition to uranium mining. "The position on uranium mining needs to be unequivocal," she said. "By leaving the question hanging that at some point of time in the future we might need those reserves gives succour to the industry to keep going." The nuclear issue will be hotly debated at next month's ALP national conference, with right factions pushing for the party to overturn its three mines policy and open up uranium mining in Australia. Mr Carpenter said on Friday any change in federal Labor's uranium policy would have no impact on the WA government. AAP West Australian Newspapers Limited 2007. All Rights Reserved ***************************************************************** 33 Sunday Herald: Nuclear strategy may lead to rash of dumping sites Scotland's award-winning independent newspaper March 26, 2007 Est 1999 Scotland's award-winning independent By Rob Edwards, Environment Editor Least-worst option to store waste near facilities NUCLEAR POWER stations across the country are likely to end up as dumps for thousands of tonnes of radioactive waste under plans to be unveiled by ministers in the next few days. Nuclear sites at Hunterston in North Ayrshire, Torness in East Lothian and Chapelcross in Dumfries and Galloway could all have to build new stores for low-level waste. The Dounreay complex in Caithness has already applied for planning permission for such a store. Though the principle of disposing of radioactive waste where it was created is backed by anti-nuclear groups, it may not be welcomed by local communities. Dounreay's planned facility has sparked furious opposition from villagers in nearby Buldoo. The Scottish Executive, along with the Westminster government, is about to publish a strategy for the management of solid low-level radioactive waste. UK nuclear sites have amassed 31,000 tonnes of such waste, and are expected to produced at least 2.8 million tonnes more as they are decommissioned. The waste includes contaminated soil, building rubble and reactor equipment. It is very bulky, but not as dangerous as the industry's medium and high-level waste, which is due to be buried deep underground at sites still to be decided. Until now most of Britain's low-level waste has been sent for disposal to Drigg, a coastal landfill site near the Sellafield nuclear plant in Cumbria. But the site is nearly full, and ministers sought views last year on what should be done with waste in the future. It is the outcome of this consultation that will be announced in the next few days, and the Sunday Herald understands that the new policy will pave the way for nuclear sites to take responsibility for their own waste. Preliminary assessments at nuclear stations in England suggested onsite repositories were the "preferred option from a technical perspective". In Scotland it is likely that Hunterston, Torness and perhaps Chapelcross will follow Dounreay's lead to build a low-level waste repository. Decisions will also have to be taken on what to do with waste at the nuclear submarine bases at Rosyth on the Forth and Faslane on the Clyde. The prospect of waste repositories at existing nuclear sites was described as "the least-worst option", by Stewart Kemp, secretary of the nuclear-free group of local authorities. He said: "As an interim measure, it may be best to hold the waste where it is. But some communities involved may want to revisit the proposal in the future." The first sign that waste disposal policy was being re-thought came in 2005 when the Scottish environment minister, Ross Finnie, rejected Dounreay's plan to send waste to Drigg. That prompted the operator, the UK Atomic Energy Authority, to develop plans for an onsite repository. According to Pete Roche, a nuclear consultant in Edinburgh, acceptance that waste shouldn't be transported around the country was a step forward. "But that doesn't have to mean lots of local waste dumps," he said. "They should be above ground in retrievable and monitorable storage." Dounreay had applied to build a "modern, engineered facility" for its low-level waste, said a spokesman. "We have no plans to receive low-level waste from any other nuclear site," he stressed. The application is now being assessed by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) - a process which is not expected to be completed until late summer 2008. Dounreay will also have to apply separately to Sepa for authorisation to actually dispose of the waste. ©2007 newsquest (sunday herald) limited. all rights reserved ***************************************************************** 34 Newswire: Spot Uranium Price Increases to US$95 per Pound - Uranium Mining Stocks Rebounding - NewswireToday - /newswire/ - Sarasota, FL, United States, 03/25/2007 - TradeTech’s Nuclear Market Review reported the weekly spot uranium price indicator was raised to a record US$95/pound. Canadian uranium stock index shows uranium mining shares rebounding. On Friday, TradeTech’s Nuclear Market Review (NMR) reported a record weekly spot uranium price increase to US$95/pound ahead of this coming week’s sealed-bid auction of 100 thousand pounds of U3O8 in Corpus Christi, Texas. “Buyers remain willing to pay higher prices,” wrote NMR editor Treva Klingbiel. “Seven buyers continue to seek over three million pounds.” Three transactions took place in the spot uranium market, for immediate and June delivery, for just under one million pounds U3O8 (also known as yellowcake or uranium oxide). TradeTech, the consulting service which polls fuel brokers and utilities, posts changes in the weekly spot price on its website at uranium.info In a related development, uranium mining stocks have rebounded the past two to three weeks, according to TheInvestar group which tracks 43 North American uranium companies and 25 Australian uranium companies. Matthew Smith, who produces the weekly uranium stock index, told StockInterview the uranium indexes could test their all-time highs over the next two months, as investors return to capitalize on the higher commodity price. Agency / Source: StockInterview.com For more information, please visit: StockInterview | StockInterview bookstore Contact: Jackie Lee 941-929-1640 info[.]stockinterview.com ©2006 Newswire Today — Limelon Advertising, Co. ***************************************************************** 35 Albuquerque Tribune: Editorial: Nuclear future bright for Eunice, New Mexico Move over, Albuquerque, Los Alamos and Carlsbad. There's another nuclear city in the Land of Enchantment. The nuclear age is rebounding in southeastern New Mexico, where tiny Eunice is looking like an old West boomtown. But it's not what's in the ground around town that's primarily driving the local economic engine - though Eunice is surrounded by oil and gas wells that are thriving with the currently rising global gasoline and natural gas prices. Rather, it is being driven by the demand - expected to boom soon, too - for nuclear energy and the uranium fuel that generates it. Eunice, population 2,700, is expected to grow by about 1,000 people in the next year or two - workers needed to build and operate the Louisiana Energy Services' $1.5 billion uranium enrichment plant there that recently was approved by state and federal regulators. To accommodate that rush, the city expects it'll need at least 400 new houses and dozens of new apartments. Eunice, which does not have a traffic light, also is preparing to spend millions of dollars on new water lines, a new sewage treatment plant, a new public swimming pool and a downtown beautification project - with some of the financing coming from contributions from the town's new corporate citizen, LES. Anti-nuclear critics say its a fool's bargain, but Eunice and southeastern New Mexico are betting on a future in which nuclear energy is in demand, uranium enrichment is a growth industry and some of the associated profits will flow into Eunice. It's a safe bet. Regardless of whether you like nuclear power, there is an inescapable reality that it is bound to grow as the United States and the world move from coal-fired power plants to reduce the impact of carbon emissions on global warming. Some proposals for stemming the threat of global warming include a ban on the construction of coal-fired power plant. If not coal, what? While alternative and renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar, can help, they are a long way from being able to provide the volume of energy or the consistency of production that today's modern electrical grid demands. Nuclear power is the only option currently on the table that can deliver on the same scale and reliability that coal has done for more than a century. But, like coal and global warming, nuclear energy is not risk-free, and the country and its political leaders must resolve the growing problem of safely handling and disposing of nuclear wastes, as well as the compelling need for a safer nuclear power-plant design. Meanwhile, back on the ranch, New Mexico has no nuclear power plant itself, but it continues a half-century history of being the state most closely identified with the nuclear age. The first atomic bomb was developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory and tested at the Trinity Site near Alamogordo. Los Alamos and its sibling, Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, remain two of the nation's top nuclear weapon research labs. Albuquerque, sometimes known as Atomic City, is the hub for transporting nuclear weapons to and from U.S. armed forces around the world. And it hosts one of the nation's prime nuclear weapons depots on Kirtland Air Force Base. The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad was the first repository in the United States for nuclear wastes - WIPP specifically handling plutonium wastes from the research and production of nuclear warheads. And now uranium enrichment, to power nuclear power plants around the county and world, will be done in tiny Eunice. If New Mexico officials ever decide to add to that list of officially adopted state characteristics - road runner, yucca, chile - New Mexico is nuclear. Posted by agreenwo on March 24, 2007 at 11:29 p.m. (Suggest removal) © 2007 The Albuquerque Tribune ***************************************************************** 36 Canon City Daily Record: Cotter Concerns Publish Date: 3/24/2007 Vic Vela The Daily Record Bobbie Benton Scofield A scientist conducting an independent review of Cotter Corp. documents said Friday more needs to be done to determine the impact that Superfund sites have on local communities. Dr. Arjun Makhijani said at a press conference that “uranium is forever” and Superfund sites, such as Cotter Corp. need to better protect residents from its potentially harmful health effects. “There is no such thing as an acceptable amount of radiation,” he said. “Every level of contamination is an area of concern.” Makhijani is the president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, based out of Takoma Park, Maryland. He specializes in energy and nuclear issues. In addition to Friday’s press conference, Makhijani made two public appearances this week. The first being at a Thursday Community Advisory Group meeting, as well as a Friday evening presentation at Harrison School. Makhijani was one of two scientists hired by Concerned Citizens Against Toxic Waste to perform a review of Cotter documents. CCAT was able to fund Makhijani’s work after it obtained a $50,000 grant from the Environmental Protection Agency. The other scientist hired from the grant money is University of Colorado professor Charles Patterson; he will present his findings in April. Uranium exposure from the Cotter mill has been an area of concern for CCAT since Cotter was designated as a Superfund site in 1984. The mill and the Lincoln Park area, located just 1.5 miles north from of site, were added to the National Priorities List by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that year following a state filed federal lawsuit against Cotter that sought damages to clean up uranium contaminated water. Makhijani said current methodology used by the EPA in determining numbers of acceptable uranium exposure needs to be changed. Currently, the EPA uses a generic “reference man” when determining any sort of radiation protection standards, which would include uranium exposure. The “reference man” is defined as a 20- to 30-year-old Caucasian male who weighs 150 pounds. Makhijani said this is not enough to determine the effects uranium exposure would have, say on pregnant woman or a small child. “If a baby takes in one picogram (one trillionth of a gram), the dose is eight times larger than what it is for an adult,” he said. Makhijani also was concerned with language included in a report written by Dr. Richard Graham of the EPA, regarding vegetation exposure in the Lincoln Park area. Graham referred to one millisievert of exposure as being “a safe public radiation dose” — a millisievert is a unit of measurement for radiation. Makhijani also took issue with a 2003 statement by Dr. Craig Little, an environmental radiation scientist, who was quoted in a Daily Record article as saying, “the risks of health effects are either too small or non-existent” when referring to exposure under 10 millirems, another unit of measurement for radiation. “This is the kind of depressing battle we have to wage time and again,” Makhijani said. “That’s why the radiation establishment is often not trusted by the public.” But, a Cotter Corp. representative said Makhijani may have been too focused on language, saying that he’s too concerned with whether something is deemed “safe” rather than “low-risk.” “His differences with Dr. Graham appeared to be only semantics,” said Cotter mill manager John Hamrick. “They each seem to think the exposure in vegetables is minimal.” Hamrick said Makhijani’s “site knowledge is not really current,” referring to a comment Makhijani made when he implied Cotter wasn’t instituting adequate air monitoring of uranium dust exposure when Hamrick says Cotter has. Hamrick also said residents should keep in perspective the fact that Makhijani had been hired as an expert witness against Cotter in court proceedings regarding the mill’s licensing. Still, Makhijani said no legitimate scientific source can dispute the effects of uranium exposure. “It’s like Global Warming,” he said. “This is a public health matter.” Vic Vela can be reached at vvela@ccdailyrecord.com. News and Information from Cañon City and the Greater Royal Gorge Region All contents Copyright © 2005 The Cañon City Daily Record. ***************************************************************** 37 Inside Bay Area: Is new H-bomb design better? Debate rages over bathtub shape By Ian Hoffman, STAFF WRITER Article Last Updated: 03/25/2007 04:50:06 AM PDT For Gen. James Cartwright, the military commander over U.S. nuclear forces, the first hydrogen bomb to come out of an American nuclear design lab in 20 years doesn't look very new. The warhead is launched by the same submarines on the same missiles at the same targets and produces the same blast as the warhead it replaces. "This is far from being a new warhead because it still has the same form, fit and function as the existing warhead," agrees Steve Henry, deputy assistant defense secretary for nuclear affairs. But Sen. Dianne Feinstein figures by putting more sophisticated warheads on the same missile "you are essentially creating a new nuclear weapon." Weapons experts themselves are sharply divided. In designing a hardier replacement for the warhead atop the Navy's Trident missiles, Lawrence Livermore Lab scientists poured more muscle and a few added features into an early 1980s-vintage warhead. The new/not-new distinction is more than semantic: A truly new bomb probably would need explosive testing, something U.S. presidents have forsworn since 1992, partly to block other nations from testing new designs. What everyone can agree on is that Livermore's latest bomb ? the first in a planned series of "reliable, replacement warheads," or RRWs ? never has been manufactured. That means it is vulnerable to the kinds of flaws and breakdowns that afflict every complex object, from trains to automobiles to computers and even living things. The same is true for newly made nuclear bombs, with thousands of parts. "What you know from bringing in these bright, new, shining systems is they can bring in all these new defects," said Raymond Jeanloz, a physicist at the University of California, Berkeley, who sits on several advisory committees on nuclear weapons matters. "The nature of the glitches have always been very small, detailed things. These are very sophisticated systems, and it's just really hard to be sure that every detail has been shaken down. That doesn't necessarily mean it will have to be the same in the future, but in the past, really diligent people were part of the design and development cycles, and there were glitches." Scientists, engineers, factory workers and nature itself build unforeseen flaws into the things they make. That's why products are recalled, women miscarry and consumers repair a larger universe of unacknowledged mistakes in the things they buy. It's why Windows users still are downloading security fixes and "updates" after the nth service pack. On the other side of the equation from these "birth defects" is aging. In time, more and more critical parts break down in any organism or product until it reaches the end of its service life or dies. Engineers depict these facts of birth, life and death as a curve that looks like a bathtub. After a number of early design- and manufacturing-related failures, the surviving units stumble through a smaller, constant number of random defects and then begin to fail in larger and larger numbers as age takes its toll. It is tempting to think the most horrendously lethal weapons ever devised by humanity are immune to these facts of engineering and manufacture. They're not. Numerous studies have found the weapons to be remarkably defect-free, especially as scientists learned to seal moisture out of the most sensitive components. But flaws have been found ? and when deemed necessary, fixed ? in every kind of bomb and warhead in the current U.S. nuclear arsenal, according to a 1995 study by scientists at all three U.S. nuclear weapons design labs. That study suggested the wholesale failure of one or more bombs or warheads could come somewhere around the 28th year after a weapon is manufactured. The deadly right-hand side of the bathtub curve, in other words, was imminent. Yet subsequent studies showed that conclusion was statistically infirm, based on too small of a sample of examined weapons. Twelve years later, with many weapons aging past that mark and an average arsenal age of about 23 years, weapons scientists acknowledge there is no evidence yet for an age-related meltdown. It is partly fear of such a meltdown that has driven a plan by the weapons labs and the Bush administration to design replacements for every U.S. nuclear explosive. "What is true is I think there has not been an upturn in the frequency of age-related findings that would create a sense of dramatic urgency in the sense we need to do something in the next year or two years or three years," said former Lawrence Livermore director Bruce Tarter, chairman of a committee studying the replacement warhead program for the American Association for the Advancement of Science. U.S. nuclear bombs and warheads then rest somewhere in the stable bottom of the bathtub, past most of their birth defects and adolescence. "I don't know where the right side of the bathtub shows up, but it is measured in hundreds of years," said Bob Peurifoy, a retired Sandia National Laboratories weapons executive. A newly manufactured bomb such as Livermore's latest will slip into the bathtub at the left side, before possible defects in design and manufacture are discovered. The lab's RRW-1 is based heavily on a well-tested warhead from the early 1980s but will never be tested in its final manufactured state, and the probability of defects is unclear. Livermore designers say they learn from mistakes, just as any automaker does. "Just like Toyota, you have many fewer birth defects today than on a Toyota that you bought in 1985," said designer Bruce Goodwin, head of the lab's weapons program. "But at the end of the day a lot of the lessons learned from the last 25 years come down to simplicity of design. If you could look at RRW, you'd see many fewer parts, you'll see things that come together simply and come apart simply." If the lab's designers make mistakes that, as in the current arsenal, don't show up for a decade or two, the RRW-1 is designed so that its first explosive stage produces at least four times the energy necessary to drive the rest of the bomb. "You do have a very, very large margin in the system and so you can absorb defects, you can absorb insults or things that make it work less well," Goodwin said. Without the proof of a nuclear test, skeptics such as Peurifoy aren't convinced. "When you do something new, it's the left side of the bathtub, and if you look at automobiles, flashlight batteries, I don't care, you'll find that statistically, you make mistakes that you only discover after you put something into inventory," he said. "I go with the tried and true. I go with the stockpile that has been surveilled and maintained and, when necessary, fixed, and that's what we have today." © 2000-2006 ANG Newspapers | Privacy Policy ***************************************************************** 38 KnoxNews: Upgrading Oak Ridge Government dollars bring facelift, breakthrough equipment By FRANK MUNGER, munger@knews.com March 25, 2007 OAK RIDGE - The government's Oak Ridge operations have endured bad times and enjoyed good times over the decades, coinciding with the up-and-down cycles of the federal budgets and the political priorities of the moment. This is, by almost any definition, a period of prosperity. Oak Ridge National Laboratory, one of the world's premier research laboratories, has almost completed an overhaul of its physical facilities. Hundreds of millions of dollars were invested in recent years to change the face of the aging lab, which was born during the World War II Manhattan Project, and now there are more than a dozen new buildings - each with a signature mission. In addition, a gigantic new research complex has been constructed on Chestnut Ridge, a couple of miles from the main ORNL campus, with the centerpiece being the $1.4 billion Spallation Neutron Source. The SNS is now the world's top place for scientists to explore the essence of materials using neutron-scattering experiments. Next door is the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, a $65 million research facility that complements the work of the SNS. Scientists will be able to take the research results from the SNS experiments and use that newfound knowledge to fabricate and engineer new materials in the state-of-the-art clean labs at CNMS. Materials research is a big deal at ORNL. The High Flux Isotope Reactor, the world's most powerful research reactor, has recently upgraded its research capabilities to include a "cold source" that slows the movement of neutrons emanating from the reactor's core. Slower neutrons enable scientists to perform experiments heretofore impossible at the Oak Ridge facility, opening up possibilities for the study of polymers and biological substances. The Oak Ridge laboratory also has become a destination for scientists who want to test their research theories with some of the world's fastest supercomputers. The lab's Jaguar, a Cray XT4 supercomputer, has been labeled the nation's fastest computer for open scientific uses, and ORNL is working with Cray Inc. to develop a "petascale" machine capable of 1,000 trillion mathematical calculations per second. As ORNL Director Jeff Wadsworth said, in recounting the success of the modernization program in recent years, "It's time to use these new facilities to produce science." The other major federal installation in Oak Ridge, the Y-12 National Security Complex, is also undergoing major upgrades. A $500 million storage center for the nation's stockpile of bomb-grade uranium is under construction, and workers could begin loading the vaults there in 2009, if work progresses as expected. Y-12 is a key cog in the nuclear weapons complex. It has built parts for every nuclear weapon in the U.S. nuclear arsenal. The Oak Ridge facility dismantles old systems that are retired from deployment and periodically refurbishes parts for existing weapons. The plant has been designated the "uranium center of excellence" under the government's long-term plan for the nuclear weapons complex. A $1 billion manufacturing facility, known as the Uranium Processing Facility, is still on the drawing board, but if Congress gives the go-ahead, construction could begin within the next couple of years. First operations are tentatively planned for 2015. Both Y-12 and ORNL have annual budgets approaching $1 billion, and together they employ about 10,000 workers. The prospects appear relatively stable for the near future. Senior writer Frank Munger may be reached at 865-342-6329. Copyright 2007, Knoxville News Sentinel Co. ***************************************************************** NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: *****************************************************************