***************************************************************** 04/01/07 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 15.76 ***************************************************************** 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 "How I know Blair faked Iran map" 2 Nimmo: Hezbollah, Hamas, Iran, Nukes, and Western Logic 3 Guardian Unlimited: Iran forces Israeli rethink 4 The Observer: Iran must face isolation if it fails to free our force 5 The Observer: Iran snubs UK olive branch 6 Guardian Unlimited: Comment is free | Europe has failed us in the Ir 7 BBC NEWS: Bush attacks Iran over captives 8 Washington Post: Bush Says Iran Must Release 'Hostages' - 9 IRNA: Blair no credibility in citing international law, says UK dail 10 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: Arrogant issue demands instead of apology 11 Reuters: Iran fears U.S. attack in summer - Israeli general 12 Reuters: Britons confess on Iranian TV 13 UPI: Britain urged to get tough on Iran 14 AFP: Iran accuses US jet fighters of violating airspace - 15 AFP: Crisis escalates over Iran's seizure of British sailors - 16 The Guardian: Hostages caught in Tehran-Washington crossfire | 17 Guardian Unlimited: Bush to Iran: 'Give Back the Hostages' 18 Antiwar.com: Any Casus Belli Will Do - 19 AFP: UN nuclear chief to visit Jordan 20 AFP: Pakistan test-fires nuclear-capable missile - 21 Guardian Unlimited: Pakistan Test-Fires Nuclear Missile NUCLEAR REACTORS 22 [southnews] Aussie Palm Sunday rally against "Nuclear Fools Day" 23 The Hindu: 'US acted in good faith in 123 agreement talks' 24 AU ABC: Protesters mark 'nuclear fools day' in Darwin 25 US: AJC: With nuclear power, hopes turn to ashes | 26 US: CDT: Callaway nuclear plant closes for regular refueling, mainte 27 Haaretz: Jordan to build nuclear power plant by 2015 - 28 adn.com: Flashback: Nukes at Kincaid? 29 US: APP.COM: Oyster Creek plant hasn't lived up to promises 30 Moscow Times: Oil, Atoms and High-Tech Dominate Kazakhstan Talks 31 US: Journal News: Indian Point 3 reactor returns to service after 24 32 US: JOURNAL NEWS: Indian Point 2 inspection finds low-level safety c 33 US: Rutland Herald: Nuclear fuel is vexing issue 34 US: Rutland Herald: Key OK for Vt. Yankee relicensing 35 US: Times Argus: Vermont Yankee passes key safety review 36 US: Concord Monitor: Nuclear plant shut down for repairs 37 Hamilton Spectator: Mac's nuclear reactor 'just cannot go boom' 38 Hamilton Spectator: Rumours dog Mac reactor 39 Hamilton Spectator: Mac sues U.S. author over terror allegations 40 US: UPI: Analysis: Nuclear-powered oil sands 41 Telegraph: Clean power is coming soon, scientists believe 42 Business Standard: EU mulls civil nuclear energy cooperation with In 43 US: Decatur Daily: TVA considers letting distributors have stake in 44 Lancashire Evening Post: 'County must embrace nuclear power' NUCLEAR SECURITY 45 Times of India: Arrest of two Indians may hurt nuke deal 46 US: Boston Globe: NRC asked to consider terrorism risk - NUCLEAR SAFETY NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 47 LVN: Local students impressed by safety of nuclear repository after 48 US: Sydney Morning Herald: Howard to visit Olympic Dam uranium mine 49 Pahrump Valley Times: County OKs Yucca Mtn. study pact 50 US: AU ABC: Beattie surprised by 'confusion' on uranium position 51 Las Vegas SUN: Reid in lead, Senate stands up to Bush 52 US: Carlsbad Current-Argus: DOE extends GNEP public comment period t PEACE US DEPT. OF ENERGY 53 Seattle Times Newspaper: Broken pump delays Hanford project 54 ScrippsNews: Emergency training at Hanford to get boost 55 KnoxNews: Nuclear terror risks result in return of lab 56 lamonitor.com: News Audit flags former director's reassignment ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 "How I know Blair faked Iran map" Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2007 13:38:59 -0500 (CDT) Daily Mail is not- for me - a prime source of reliable facts. But the below is their today's story, and it is well enough supported so as to be not suspect as an April Fool's day joke. M. ########### http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/newscomment.html?in_article_id=445896&in_page_id=1787&in_a_source= Daily Mail (London) --1st April 2007 How I know Blair faked Iran map By CRAIG MURRAY, Former Ambassador to Uzbekistan and Head of the Foreign Office's Maritime Section - Below are extracts from Craig Murray's blog at Like most senior Royal Navy officers, Commodore Nick Lambert has great reserves of professional expertise and common sense. The Coalition task force commander was aboard HMS Cornwall when 15 Royal Navy personnel serving on the frigate were seized at gunpoint by Iranian forces on March 23. The Navy states the 14 men and one woman were on a routine patrol in rigid inflatables off Iraqi shores - Iran insists they were in its waters illegally. A few hours after the 15 were seized, Cdre Lambert said: 'There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that they were in Iraqi territorial waters. Equally, the Iranians may well claim that they were in their territorial waters. The extent and definition of territorial waters in this part of the world is very complicated.' And his predecessor in command of the task force, Commodore Peter Lockwood of the Royal Australian Navy, said last October: 'No maritime border has been agreed upon by the countries.' Both officers told the truth. It is the burial of this truth by No 10 spin doctors, and Tony Blair's remark that he is 'utterly certain' the incident took place within Iraqi territorial limits, that has escalated this from an incident to a crisis. Blair is being fatuous. How can you be certain which side of a boundary you are when that boundary has never been drawn? I am best known as the former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, but from 1989 to 1992 I headed the Foreign Office's maritime section. This included responsibility for territorial sea claims and for negotiating our own maritime boundaries. The expertise of the Royal Navy was invaluable. For eight months I also worked with Royal Naval and Defence Intelligence Service personnel in the Embargo Surveillance Centre, a secret unit operating 24 hours a day from an underground command centre in Central London to prevent Iraqi attempts at weapons procurement. We analysed information from intelligence and other sources, and could instruct Royal Naval craft in the Gulf to board and inspect individual ships. I was responsible for getting the political clearance for operations just like the one now in question, in this exact location. So I know what I'm talking about. There is no agreed boundary in the Northern Gulf, either between Iran and Iraq or between Iraq and Kuwait. The Iran-Iraq border has been agreed inside the Shatt al-Arab waterway, because there it is also the land border. But that agreement does not extend beyond the low tide line of the coast. Even that very limited agreement is arguably no longer in force. Since it was reached in 1975, a war has been fought over it, and ten-year reviews - necessary because waters and sandbanks in this region move about dramatically - have never been carried out. But what about the map the Ministry of Defence produced on Tuesday, with territorial boundaries set out by a clear red line, and the co-ordinates of the incident marked in relation to it? I have news for you. Those boundaries are fake. They were drawn up by the Ministry of Defence. They are not agreed or recognised by any international authority. To put it at its most charitable, they are a potential boundary. It is accepted practice, where no boundary exists, to work by a rule-of-thumb idea of where a boundary, based on a median line between the two coasts, might be. But to elevate that to a hard and fast boundary, and then base a major international incident on being a few hundred yards one side or the other, is out of order. Negotiating a maritime boundary is horribly complicated. To set a median line you agree a series of triangulation points on both coastlines and do a geometric triangulation exercise to find a line running out from the coast. Of course, both sides will argue about which triangulation points on the coast to use. You are allowed, for example, to draw a line across a bay entrance and use that as the coast, but there is plenty of room for the other side to argue over where that line is drawn. That is only the start. For territorial seas you start at the low tide mark and uninhabited rocks and sandbanks count. There is huge room for argument - ownership of a useless sandbank is not necessarily a settled thing. Then it really gets complex. What if the sandbank appears only at low tide or moves? In this area of the Gulf, sands shift endlessly. It is, in short, impossible to say where a real, negotiated or adjudicated Iran-Iraq boundary might eventually lie. It is also why the instinct of both the Foreign Office and MoD was to play this quietly and negotiate our people back. But the No10 spin doctors stepped in, seeing a propaganda opportunity to portray Blair as fighting evil Iranians. Navy and Foreign Office experts were horrified at the notion of publishing that map. In doing so we entrenched Blair's ridiculous boast that our 15 Navy personnel were definitely in Iraqi territorial seas, and claimed the right to dictate Iran's boundary. It's not surprising Iraq backed British claims - the map is favourable to them. But it makes compromise on the captives very difficult. Of course, the Iranians equally cannot say unilaterally that these are their territorial waters, and act as if they owned them. In disputed waters it behoves everyone to act with caution and respect. Plainly the Iranians are not doing that. None of this vindicates Iran's aggressive behaviour in holding the captives or the so-called confessions. For Iran to detain the British sailors in these circumstances was provocative and bellicose. To hold them for a few hours could have been taken as a legitimate, if over forceful way, of indicating their claim to the disputed waters in which the British personnel boarded a neutral vessel. But Iranian behaviour in the past few days has tipped over into the plain illegal and indefensible. However I have no doubt Blair is delighted at last to have a Middle East issue with popular support before May's elections. Yes, Iran has a bad government that is behaving stupidly. But perhaps it is not alone. Both sides have to climb down. We have to state that no agreed border exists and that we had no intention of straying into Iranian waters. The Iranian government should let our people go immediately. That is the way out of this mess for both sides. ***************************************************************** 2 Nimmo: Hezbollah, Hamas, Iran, Nukes, and Western Logic Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2007 13:55:03 -0500 (CDT) http://kurtnimmo.com/?p=819 Hezbollah, Hamas, Iran, Nukes, and Western Logic Sunday April 01st 2007, 8:46 am Citizens of Lebanon, beware. Arieh Eldad has it out for you. After the scandal-ridden government of Ehud Olmert falls, probably within the next few weeks, a new government, likely led by Binyamin Bibi Netanyahu, will attack Lebanon. We have no choice. We will have to do it, Eldad tells the neocon website, NewsMax. Dr. Eldad explained that Israel was facing a new strategic threat, caused in part by its own failure to deal a crushing blow to Hezbollah in Lebanon and the impression of weakness last summers failed war created in the minds of Israels enemies. In fact, short of killing hundreds of thousands of Lebanese, there is no way for Israel to deal a crushing blow to Hezbollah, as more than half of the population supports the Islamic organization, created in response to Israels invasion of Lebanon in 1982. Since Israel will certainly face defeat on the ground in Lebanon, as it did last summer, the only option will be to shock and awe the country into submission. But it is simply not Hezbollah. The Hezbollah template for attacking Israel is being repeated in Gaza, Dr. Eldad said. Hamas is building bunkers. They are bringing missiles across the Egyptian border, and the Egyptian government is failing to prevent it. So I hope the next Israeli government will be courageous enough to carry out these operations before it is too late. Swap courageous for psychotic and youll have a pretty good idea of what Eldad and Moledet have in mind for the grandmothers and toddlers of Lebanon, Gaza, and the West Bank. Arie Eldad, a member of the right-wing (that is to say, fascist) Moledet political party, heads the Ethics committee of the Knesset. Of course, when we talk about ethics here, we are talking about a brand of moral principles alien to the West and Christianity. According to Eldad, sanctions of the sort to be levied against Iran are based on Western logic. But when states have missions that are bigger than life, they are not obeying the basic rules of logic that Western civilization obeys. And what is are these missions that are bigger than life? Ethnic cleansing. Moledet advocates the voluntary transfer of the Palestinian population out of the West Bank and Gaza. A few years ago, Moledet bought space on billboards around Tel Aviv, calling for ethnically cleansing the Palestinians. Only transfer will bring peace, read the billboards. Imagine this tactic repeated here in the United States. Only sending the Blacks back to Africa will reduce crime. It does not take an overactive imagination to envision the response. But in Israel this sort of behavior is normal, even considered mainstream politics. Think about it this month, as you get ready to fill out your tax forms. Since 1973, Israel has cost the United States about $1.6 trillion. If divided by todays population, that is more than $5,700 per person, reports the Christian Science Monitor. Israel is the largest recipient of US foreign aid. It is already due to get $2.04 billion in military assistance and $720 million in economic aid in fiscal 2003. It has been getting $3 billion a year for years. This military assistance translates into 770 cluster-bomb sites in southern Lebanon, according to the United Nations. And the current U.N. estimate is that Israel dropped between 2 million and 3 million bomblets on Lebanon, of which up to a million have yet to explode, according to Saree Makdisi of UCLAs International Institute. It also translates into 3,020 Palestinians killed since 2000, the wanton destruction of the Palestinian health and educational infrastructure, widespread and growing poverty and unemployment, environmental degradation, and a large and increasing number of Palestinians interned in prisons, well over 650,000 since 1967. Concern over such things, of course, is an artifact of Western logic, as a large number of Israelis consider Palestinians little more than drugged cockroaches in a bottle, as Rafael Eitan, former Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defense Forces, characterized them. Eldad soon moved on to Iran. Eldad is not suggesting economic or diplomatic engagement, as the State Department might use the term. He is talking about having Israels military take out Iranian nuclear and missile sites if the Western nations refuse to do the job. Iran is behaving on a state level as a suicide bomber behaves on the personal level, Dr. Eldad said. Eventually, military action against Iran will become necessary. In other words, if AIPAC and the neocons cannot once again trick the American people into attacking Iran, as they tricked them into attacking Iraq in the name of Israel, the IDF will do it. Of course, this is nonsense, Israel will not go it alone against Iran. In fact, Eldad is simply spewing more rhetoric, as Israel has long expected the United States to attack and slaughter its enemies. If the invasion of Lebanon last summer demonstrated anything, it is that Hezbollah can hold its own and Israel is impotent to change the situation on the ground, in essence a result of its own unwavering policies of aggression, be it by way of direct military confrontation or black flag operations. Like most Israeli leaders, Dr. Eldad would prefer that the United States and its partners take out Iranian nuclear and missile sites, if for no other reason than the vastly superior conventional firepower the U.S. could bring to bear. Israel has plenty of superior conventional firepower, courtesy of the American tax payer, never mind what its leaders tell the media. Point is here, Israel expects the United States to pay forin squandered treasure and sacrificed livesits long-standing effort to balkanize Arab and Muslim states, beginning most recently with Iraq and continuing with Iran. Because Iran has built its nuclear plants in deeply buried, hardened facilities, it will be difficult if not impossible. Translation: simple high-explosives, depleted uranium, and millions of cluster bombs will no longer do the trickit is time to nuke the Arabs and Muslims, as Western logic, i.e., use of nuclear weapons is unconscionable, does not apply. If Israel is left alone and the point of no return [in Irans nuclear weapons program] arrives, then Israel will have to do the job. But most probably we will not be able to do it with conventional warheads. And this is something the world should know. In other word, heads up. If Israel does attack Iran, they will most certainly use nukes, as they now have around 400 of them stashed away. ***************************************************************** 3 Guardian Unlimited: Iran forces Israeli rethink Simon Tisdall Monday April 2, 2007 Uzi Arad, former director of intelligence at Israel's spy agency, Mossad, has made a lifetime's study of revolutionary Iran. If international sanctions and diplomatic arm-twisting fail to halt its suspect nuclear activities, he is clear what the west must do: bomb Tehran. Israel's official policy, like Britain and the US, stresses peaceful pressure to secure Iran's compliance with its nuclear obligations. The so-called military option has been assiduously talked down ever since President George Bush appeared to talk it up in January. In any case, military experts say, air strikes would have limited success. Mr Arad has no such inhibitions: "A military strike may be easier than you think. It wouldn't just be aimed at the nuclear sites. It would hit military and security targets, industrial and oil-related targets such as Kharg island [Iran's main oil export terminal in the Gulf], and regime targets ... Iran is much more vulnerable than people realise." Like most Israeli politicians and planners, Mr Arad says maximising pressure on Iran by all non-military means is the current priority. "Instead of threatening war, my preference would be for building an international coalition to end the [nuclear] crisis," said Israel's veteran vice-premier Shimon Peres. Yet Iran's behaviour following its seizure of the 15 British service personnel showed how difficult that would be. "They will use every trick," Mr Peres said. "They will try and string it out, try to exert maximum pressure. It's blackmail ... But they will pay the price in the end." To say Iran has become an obsession for Israeli leaders is an understatement. Tehran's sinister hand is seen in all the key problems facing the country, including Hizbullah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine, and in the fostering of what Professor Amnon Rubinstein calls Israel's "sense of abandonment surrounded by a rising sea of Islamism". What is termed the Ahmadinejad phenomenon, after Iran's anti-Zionist president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, represents by common agreement an existential threat. It is radically altering the way Israel views its neighbourhood. One result has been the effective downgrading of the Palestinian issue. Officials welcome the latest US peacemaking efforts. But they say ongoing, low-level conflict can be "managed" almost indefinitely. Similarly, Israel's relations with Arab governments, including Saudi Arabia, have reached a sort of high in recent months, driven not by a developing affinity, but by shared fear of Iran. But perhaps the most startling shift in Israel's outlook is its increased willingness to "internationalise" the search for solutions, whether in Lebanon, where it agreed to an enlarged peacekeeping presence after last summer's war, in Palestine, where it has sought EU and other help in isolating Hamas, and in terms of improving relations with the UN. And as both Mr Arad and government ministers see it, facing down a potentially nuclear Iran is a global, not just an Israeli necessity - and will require a joint international effort. "We draw a parallel with the Third Reich," said a senior leader of the Likud opposition party. "They [Iran's leaders] are mad ... For Ahmadinejad, the cold war idea of mutual assured destruction is not a deterrent, it's an incentive." Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007 ***************************************************************** 4 The Observer: Iran must face isolation if it fails to free our forces Sunday April 1, 2007 There has been something deeply repellent about the sight of Britain's 15 seized sailors being paraded on Iranian television in a tacky propaganda circus. There is simply no case, as Tehran has tried to argue, that they entered Iranian territory. The stilted televised 'confessions' that Tehran has produced are an embarrassing confection full of clumsy denunciations of UK foreign policy. Tellingly their delivery by the British captives is framed in the language of a Revolutionary Guards barracks and not the Royal Navy wardroom. The Iranian claims also have been undermined by the regime's own officials who have demonstrated an almost comic uncertainty about where the British servicemen were actually arrested, which has seen them shift the co-ordinates when challenged in order to place the Britons where Tehran would rather that they had been for the sake of this affair - ie inside Iranian waters. But once the fact of the shock and outrage over this affair has been admitted, the pressing question remains what to do in a situation that leaves little room for manoeuvre? A rescue by the military appears to be out of the question beset, as it is, by the grim memories of the disaster that befell Operation Eagle Claw, the failed mission ordered by President Jimmy Carter to rescue 52 US hostages held in Tehran more than a quarter of a century ago. That resulted in loss of life for the would-be rescuers and humiliation for Carter. There is also the question of the risk of violent retaliation against British servicemen in Iraq, who are operating in a Shia-majority area where both the political parties and armed militias have strong links with Iran. Which leaves the sphere of diplomacy, an inexact science at the best of times, but doubly so when dealing with a regime like Tehran where it can be unclear precisely who is wielding power. Difficult, too, because of the sensitivities in Iran itself of being seen to be scolded by a deeply unpopular former colonial power. Threats to Iran's bilateral relations with the UK, which have already seen government-to-government links severed, seem to have had little serious impact. And while Britain has appealed to the UN Security Council and the EU in the last week, the response so far has been less vigorous than Britain might have hoped. Instead, the approaches have served further to inflame attitudes towards the UK in Tehran, delaying the hoped-for release of Leading Seaman Faye Turney. But all of this is to look at the crisis from the short-term perspective of a handful of days. If the affair so far has posed a painful dilemma for the UK as it has struggled to find the appropriate response, it is clear that the longer it drags on, the more offensive the continued captivity of the 15 Britons will be to world opinion. And the more perilous for the hardline regime of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and for Iran. For while the latest round of UN sanctions against Tehran for failing to cease nuclear enrichment work - part of the background to this affair - were non-binding, the regime faces the risk that the longer it persists in this act of ugly theatre, the more difficult it will be for its allies to give support. And it is precisely the threat of increasing international isolation that Iranians fear, a threat that is emerging as one of the key fault lines in Iran under Ahmadinejad, who is already facing internal criticism for his confrontational leadership style. Beset by demands on all sides for either a tougher or a more humiliating approach, British diplomacy should remain firm: reminding Iran that the issue is non-negotiable and that the hostages are illegally detained, while working to bring about Iran's isolation if there is no movement on release. Yesterday brought some glimmer of hope that negotiations may be round the corner. But whatever the outcome, Iran's remaining allies should remind it that the only result of this crisis is that - day by day - the country comes closer to being an international pariah. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007 ***************************************************************** 5 The Observer: Iran snubs UK olive branch George Bush denounces capture and calls for hostages to be freed Ned Temko, Mark Townsend and Jason Burke Sunday April 1, 2007 President George Bush last night called for the release of the 15 British sailors and Royal Marines being held by Iran, denouncing their capture as 'inexcusable behaviour'. Commenting for the first time on the issue, Bush told a press conference at Camp David: 'Iran must give back the hostages. They're innocent, they did nothing wrong.' He also declared support for Tony Blair's efforts to find a diplomatic resolution. However, he would not discuss options for what might be done if Iran does not comply and he rejected any possibility of swapping the British captives for Iranians detained in Iraq. His remarks came after Britain offered a diplomatic olive branch to Iran earlier in the day to try to secure an early release of the prisoners. Hopes were dashed, however, when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denounced London's handling of the ongoing crisis. In his first statement on the arrest of the crew, he told a rally marking the Persian New Year that Britain should have 'apologised and expressed regret' but had failed to act 'in the legal and logical way'. The crowd shouted 'Death to Britain', Iranian media reports said. Ahmadinejad added: 'The British occupier forces did trespass our waters. Our border guards detained them with skill and bravery.' The comments were reported hours after Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett - in what aides termed a 'step back' from confrontation - told an Iranian television reporter 'everyone regretted' the crisis had been allowed to develop. A 'way out' should be found, she said. As friends of one of the captives showed their concern by draping yellow ribbons over the Cornwall pub where he used to work, Downing Street suggested the crisis was finely balanced. Tony Blair was said to remain determined to press for the immediate release of the hostages, but also to recognise that 'we may be in this for the long haul'. Officials were at pains to say Beckett's use of the word 'regret' in her remarks, made after a European Union ministers' meeting in Germany, should not be seen as an apology, or as a retreat from Britain's insistence the sailors were 'in Iraqi waters, under a UN mandate' and must be unconditionally freed. Asked by the Iranian reporter if she had a message for Iran, she said: 'The message I want to send is that I think everyone regrets that this position has arisen. 'What we want is a way out of it. We want it peacefully and we want it as soon as possible.' The Foreign Office source said: 'For the last couple of days we have been toe-to-toe and nose-to-nose. This is a small step back, to give people a little space and to see whether we get anything substantive from the Iranians.' The Foreign Office also confirmed it had replied to a letter from Iran's Foreign Ministry. The Iranian letter did not ask for an apology, only a future 'guarantee' not to enter Iranian waters. The British reply was apparently aimed at seeing whether that might provide a window for a diplomatic solution. In separate developments yesterday, Downing Street was passed evidence purporting to show that the arrest of the British sailors was planned days in advance. Hossein Abedini, spokesman for the exiled National Council of Resistance of Iran, said the arrests were a 'meticulously concocted operation' to divert attention from Iran's nuclear programme. But the Ministry of Defence hinted for the first time it may have made mistakes surrounding the incident. An inquiry has been commissioned to explore 'navigational' issues around the kidnapping and aspects of maritime law. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007 ***************************************************************** 6 Guardian Unlimited: Comment is free | Europe has failed us in the Iran crisis Labour's Margaret Beckett is getting it right. It's our EU allies who are letting us down Malcolm Rifkind Sunday April 1, 2007 The Iranians are a sophisticated and sensitive people. From time to time, however, they do something dumb. The seizure of 15 British sailors and Royal Marines was one such example. Parading them on television and requiring them to mouth unconvincing apologies was another. These events have not happened by accident. For some time the more radical elements in the Iranian government have been trying to find a way of retaliating against the growing pressure from the United Nations in general and the United States in particular. They have been surprised and disturbed that as a result of their nuclear programme, Washington has now achieved a second unanimous Security Council resolution ratcheting up sanctions against Iran. The Iranians, of course, are indifferent as to whether the British were in Iranian or Iraqi waters. The British were taken for two specific reasons. First, the Iranians want to demonstrate that they will not be passive while UN pressure is increased on them. They can, and will, retaliate through their close links with the Shia militia in Iraq and Hizbollah in Lebanon. They can disrupt normal traffic in what used to be called the Persian Gulf. But they have a second objective. Some weeks ago the Americans arrested Iranians in the north of Iraq. They are still detained, accused of helping foment strife against the coalition forces. Tehran may be hoping to trade the British personnel for their citizens. There is little doubt the British will, eventually, be released but it could now take weeks or months. The Americans have, quite rightly, rejected any deal. That should also be the policy of the British. Any deal would create a precedent that would encourage further kidnapping not just by Iranians but by friends and allies in the region. But is there any other approach that will secure their freedom? I salute Margaret Beckett and the Foreign Office who have not only demanded that the British be freed, but also secured impressive diplomatic support from many governments and have taken the issue to the UN. Most welcome has been the strong pressure from the Iraqi government and from Turkey. But this will not be enough in the short term. Iranians will have expected the protests. They are used to playing a long game. At the beginning of the Islamic Republic in 1979, US embassy hostages were held for months. The failure to secure their release helped ensure the defeat of Jimmy Carter, then running for a second term. The mood in Tehran is not so radical now. President Ahmadinejad may go in for radical rhetoric but the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and his advisors will be more calculating. They will not be impressed by Western speeches. They will be by Western action. The challenge the British government faces is to find a means of putting real pressure on Iran that would hurt the regime without escalating the crisis and pushing the Iranians into a humiliating climb-down. In an ideal world quick action by the UN Security Council would have been the way forward. But the Russians and Chinese insisted on a watered-down statement that neither condemned the Iranian action nor called for the immediate release of the prisoners. Tough action through the UN may prove impossible to achieve given the obstacles on the Security Council. There was, however, one other approach that would have a good chance of succeeding. The members of the EU aspire to having a common foreign policy. What better issue could there be on which our French, German and Italian allies and partners could show solidarity with the UK and demonstrate the benefits of joint action? The best means of pressure would have been the export credit guarantees that are given to assist trade between Iran and western Europe. These, together with banking and other financial facilities are the soft underbelly of the Iranians and their withdrawal could do significant damage to Iran's already weak economy. Such measures have already been canvassed by the Americans in respect of Iran's nuclear defiance. The firm statement made by EU foreign ministers calling for the 'immediate and unconditional' release is welcome. But the apparent lack of any agreement over economic pressure has two serious consequences. First, it makes it very unlikely that Britain will be able to secure the release of the service personnel in the short term. Second, it is now almost inevitable that Iran will try to impose conditions from the international community and, in particular, the US, on their ultimate release. This lack of agreement shows how hollow are the aspirations to a common European foreign policy. France and Germany should be ashamed at their refusal to assist their European partner in a humanitarian cause of this kind. If there had been a political will, there could already have been agreement. The UN, in comparison, would take days or weeks and might face vetoes from predictable quarters. The Iranians might be reluctant to abandon their nuclear programme in the face of such limited economic sanctions from the EU, as they would consider a major national economic interest at stake. But the arrest of the British was a tactic and not a strategy. Once they had realised that their bluff had been called, it would have been quite likely that they would have conceded. All this would have been even more probable if a European threat had been conveyed privately, thereby letting Iran back down without too much loss of face. It may be that a strategy of this kind is still under consideration. We should not expect the government to reveal all its thinking. Modern diplomacy needs confidentiality and private exchanges as much as it did in a previous age. One thing, however, is sure. It will be pressure and not rhetoric that will impress the Iranian regime. If the EU is not prepared to help, there will now be a pause. The ball will now be in the Iranian court. · Sir Malcolm Rifkind was Foreign Secretary and Secretary of State for Defence in the last Conservative government. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2006. ***************************************************************** 7 BBC NEWS: Bush attacks Iran over captives Last Updated: Sunday, 1 April 2007, 11:08 GMT 12:08 UK President George W Bush has condemned Iran's "inexcusable behaviour" after its capture of 15 Royal Navy personnel. The US leader added that he would "strongly support" the British government over the crisis. Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Iran was waiting for a "change in attitude" from the UK and a "moderate approach" to its requests. Mr Bush told reporters at Camp David: "The British hostages issue is a serious issue because the Iranians took these people out of Iraqi water. "And it is inexcusable behaviour. "I strongly support the Blair government's attempts to resolve this peacefully. "And I support the prime minister when he made it clear there were no quid pro quos. The Iranians must give back the hostages." His calls were echoed by German Chancellor Angela Merkel who said Britain had the "full solidarity of the European Union". 'Note considered' Meanwhile, Mr Mottaki confirmed the receipt of a note from the British embassy about the military personnel, Iranian television reported. "This note contains many points which will be considered," he said. "However, we are waiting for a change in the attitude of the British and a moderate approach by this country towards Iran's legal requests. " The captured navy personnel have been shown on Iranian TV Meanwhile, Mr Alexander told BBC One's Sunday AM programme diplomatic efforts would continue. "On one hand, working closely with international partners to make clear the strength of international feeling that these British service personnel should be returned," he said. "And on the other hand exploring the potential for dialogue with the Iranians." IRANIAN VERSION OF EVENTS 1 Royal Navy crew stray 0.5km inside Iranian waters 2 Iran gives set of co-ordinates to back up their claims 3 According to seized GPS equipment, the Royal Navy crew had previously entered Iranian waters at several other points 4 Iran informs Britain of the position where the crew were seized, inside Iranian waters Britain denies Iran's claims that the UK crew was in its waters when seized on 23 March and is demanding their "immediate" return. BBC diplomatic correspondent James Robbins said that, although there was no sign of a major diplomatic breakthrough in the crisis, there was now a sense of dialogue between the two countries. Both sides appeared to be "lowering the temperature", he added. The Liberal Democrat leader, Sir Menzies Campbell, told Sky News there were signs Iran had engineered the crisis for political purposes. "The speed at which the marines and the sailors were captured and the way in which it happened suggests that either it had been organised before or there was a spontaneous effort made to try and get hold of some British troops for some other purposes beyond anything to do with the waters that they were operating in," he said. UK VERSION OF EVENTS 1 Crew boards merchant ship 1.7NM inside Iraqi waters 2 HMS Cornwall was south-east of this, and inside Iraqi waters 3 Iran tells UK that merchant ship was at a different point, still within Iraqi waters 4 After UK points this out, Iran provides alternative position, now within Iranian waters Tory former foreign secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind welcomed statements from the EU and UN, but said "pressure" was needed. He told Sunday AM: "But if you are going to make threats of economic sanctions, for example, they have to be made privately because otherwise the Iranians are pushed into a humiliating climb-down." He called for "solidarity" from EU allies over possible sanctions such as withholding export credit guarantees. Meanwhile, former hostage Terry Waite, who was held captive for 1,760 days in Beirut before being released in November 1991, has offered to travel to Iran to negotiate with those holding the Britons. Mr Waite said threatening the Iranian government was counterproductive and said he would be able to "cut through some of the rhetoric". The Britons, based on HMS Cornwall, were seized by Revolutionary Guards as they returned from searching a vessel in the northern Gulf. * BBC Copyright ***************************************************************** 8 Washington Post: Bush Says Iran Must Release 'Hostages' - washingtonpost.com Tone Marks Shift On British Sailors; Tehran Also Digs In By Peter Baker Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, April 1, 2007; Page A01 CAMP DAVID, March 31 -- President Bush on Saturday condemned Iran's seizure of 15 British sailors and marines as "inexcusable behavior" and demanded that the "hostages" be released, weighing in for the first time as the situation escalates into a sustained confrontation with Tehran. Bush said the sailors had been operating legally in Iraqi territorial waters in the Persian Gulf, as the British have insisted, and not in Iranian waters, and he offered support for British Prime Minister Tony Blair's efforts "to resolve this peacefully." But he rejected any "quid pro quo" trade of Iranians held by U.S. forces in Iraq and ducked a question about whether military force would be justified to free the captured sailors. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva had a rare Camp David meeting with President Bush. (By Charles Dharapak -- Associated Press) Elite Revolutionary Guard Broadens Its Influence in Iran Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, the elite unit at the heart of the latest Middle East crisis, has greater power today than at any point since the revolution's early days to export Islamic militancy and challenge the West's presence in the region, say U.S. officials and Iran experts. Video Bush Calls for Release of British Sailors President Bush says Iran's capture of 15 British sailors and marines was 'inexcusable' and calls for their immediate, unconditional release. "The Iranians must give back the hostages," the president told reporters at a brief question-and-answer session at Camp David after a meeting with the visiting Brazilian president. "They're innocent, they were doing nothing, and they were summarily plucked out of the water. As I say, it's inexcusable behavior." Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made his own first public comments on the standoff Saturday, accusing Britain of arrogance and complaining that it should not have "shouted in different international councils," according to Iranian state radio. "This is not the legal and logical way" to act, he said in Khuzestan, a province that borders the Persian Gulf. The tough words suggested that both sides are digging in for a more prolonged standoff that may not be resolved easily. The sailors, 14 men and one woman, were returning from inspecting a cargo ship for possible smuggling when the Iranian navy seized them March 23. Since then, Tehran has released footage and letters that it says are confessions that the 15 entered Iranian waters. Britain has released satellite data to buttress its case that its personnel were in Iraqi waters. The United States had tried to keep a low profile on the matter and deferred to Blair apparently out of a desire to avoid further inflaming tensions by inserting the fraught U.S.-Iranian relationship into the situation. But some U.S. and British officials believe the capture may have been a retaliation for the seizure of Iranian Revolutionary Guard operatives by U.S. forces in Iraq or for the U.S.-led effort at the United Nations to sanction Iran for its nuclear program. Bush pointedly chose tough language Saturday. After starting to describe the matter as "the Iranian issue," he quickly stopped and corrected himself to call it "the British hostage issue." In response to another question, he denounced Iran's defiance of U.N. demands that it halt its uranium-enrichment program. "It is in the world's interest that Iran not develop a [nuclear] weapon," he said. He would not say whether he would consider the seizure of U.S. sailors an act of war. Iran appeared to take a step further by signaling that it might put the British on trial. Gholamreza Ansari, Tehran's ambassador to Moscow, told Russian television that legal proceedings have begun against the sailors and marines and that they could "face punishment" if found guilty of illegally being in Iranian waters, a statement that triggered concern at a meeting of European Union foreign ministers in Germany. Blair's government appeared to be settling in for a long-term crisis but was still seeking a way to defuse it diplomatically, according to reports out of London. The Sunday Telegraph reported Saturday on its Web site that officials may send an envoy to Tehran who would not admit a violation of Iranian territory but would promise the Islamic government that Britain will never knowingly enter Iranian waters without permission, a formulation designed to secure the release of the captives while allowing both sides to save face. Bush's comments came during a meeting with reporters alongside Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who was visiting the presidential retreat here in the Catoctin Mountains. The meeting was Bush's second with Lula in just a few weeks, following the president's stop in Sao Paulo during a Latin American tour this month. Bush, who uses his rare Camp David invitations to flatter foreign leaders with the impression of intimacy, has made Lula key to his strategy to counter the influence of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and to expand the production of ethanol and other alternative fuels. Lula is the first Latin American leader brought to Camp David since 1998 and the first hosted for a "working visit" since 1991. But Iran shadowed even their talks because of recent U.S. complaints about business ties between Petrobras, a major Brazilian energy company, and Tehran. Lula dismissed those grievances, noting that no international sanctions have been violated and calling the Iranians important trading partners. "We have no political divergence with them," Lula said. Bush acknowledged that Brazil is not violating sanctions but offered a gentle rebuke. "We would hope that nations would be very careful in dealing with Iran," he said. Lula also tested Bush's famed impatience with a rambling, 20-minute opening statement (compared with the president's own four-minute introduction) and lectured at length about what he called the looming crisis of global warming. "Please pay attention," Lula said as he rattled off disturbing indications of climate change. "Global warming is a reality that threatens us by land, air and water." Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva had a rare Camp David meeting with President Bush. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva had a rare Camp David meeting with President Bush. (By Charles Dharapak -- Associated Press) Elite Revolutionary Guard Broadens Its Influence in Iran Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, the elite unit at the heart of the latest Middle East crisis, has greater power today than at any point since the revolution's early days to export Islamic militancy and challenge the West's presence in the region, say U.S. officials and Iran experts. Video Bush Calls for Release of British Sailors President Bush says Iran's capture of 15 British sailors and marines was 'inexcusable' and calls for their immediate, unconditional release. British Sailor Seizure On domestic matters, Bush used the session to offer support to embattled Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, whose veracity was called into question last week by his former chief of staff in connection with the firings of U.S. attorneys. "Attorney General Gonzales is an honorable and honest man, and he has my full confidence," Bush said. When Gonzales goes to Capitol Hill, the president said, "he will testify in front of Congress, and he will tell the truth." Gonzales's seemingly conflicting accounts of his role in the firings prompted a GOP lawmaker to call Saturday for his resignation. "I trusted him before, but I can't now," Rep. Lee Terry (Neb.) said, according to the Associated Press. Although he once thought the controversy was just a Democratic "witch hunt," Terry said, "my trust in him in that position has taken a hit because of these contradictory statements by him." Bush also sparred with Democrats over legislation to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq. The president said in his weekly radio address that it "would substitute the judgment of politicians in Washington for that of our military commanders" and "set an arbitrary deadline for surrender." And he mocked pork-barrel spending in the war funding bill, such as secure peanut storage. "I like peanuts as much as the next guy," Bush said, "but I believe the security of our troops should come before the security of our peanut crop." For their response, Democrats tapped retired Marine Lt. Col. Andrew Horne, who served two tours in Iraq and lost a race for Congress in Kentucky last fall. Horne said the legislation would set badly needed benchmarks for Iraqis: "If the president vetoes this bill because he doesn't want to formally demonstrate progress in Iraq, never in the history of war would there be a more blatant example of a commander in chief undermining the troops under his care." Staff writer Robin Wright in Washington contributed to this report. © 2007 The Washington Post Company ***************************************************************** 9 IRNA: Blair no credibility in citing international law, says UK daily - London, March 31, IRNA UK Daily-Sailor Arrests A leading British daily Saturday suggested that one of the reasons the UK government failed to win the support of the UN Security Council in its diplomatic dispute over Iran's arrest of UK sailors was because Prime Minister Tony Blair has no credibility. "Because of the catastrophe in Iraq, the UK has no real diplomatic leverage in the region," the Independent said in its editorial on the week-long crisis. "Blair calls the Iranian action illegal in international law and cites the United Nations mandate for the presence of British forces in Iraq. But the US and Britain invaded Iraq ignoring the will of the UN," it said. The newspaper, which has been an outspoken critic of the Iraq war, also reminded its readers that former UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, also described the US-led invasion as "illegal." "Blair has little moral authority when he cites international law now. It is notable that the UN statement stopped short of deploring the Iranian action, as requested by Britain," it said. The brief statement, issued after hours of protracted debate in New York on Thursday, also refused to support Britain's claim that the arrest of 15 UK sailors was in Iraqi waters. The Independent further questioned whether British naval operations in the Persian Gulf were completely lawful, saying the statement "makes no mention of Security Council resolution 1723 that authorizes the coalition presence in Iraq." "The wounds opened by the foolish invasion of Iraq by the US and the UK have not healed," it said. The editorial suggested that a way out of Britain's "mess" may well come with the help of the European Union, saying that "Brussels is more respected in Tehran than Britain, the US or the UN." News sent: 14:35 Saturday March 31, 2007 Print ***************************************************************** 10 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: Arrogant issue demands instead of apology 2007/04/01 09:32:36 Ţ.Ů President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Saturday arrogant powers of the world which should apologize and feel ashamed for the illegal entry of the British sailors into Iranian territorial waters, issue statements and resort to giving lectures instead. Speaking to a group of people in the southern town of Andimeshk, The president said, "the British occupying forces have entered into our waters and our border guards have arrested them courageously. However, the arrogant powers, because of their arrogance and egoistic mentality, do not apologize to the Iranians rather act as if we owe them something." The President added the world arrogance has exploited nations in the past 300 years and after the second world war, they considered themselves as the victors of the war and created some international organizations to establish their rule on the world. "Unfortunately," the president added," the same powers are currently violating the rules that they have made themselves." President Ahmadinejad said these powers do nothing in today's world but looting the nations and make their economy prosperous in this way." Copyright 2004, All Rights Reserved By Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting News Network Sponsored By IRIB News Computer Center. E-Mail: Info@IRIBNEWS.ir ***************************************************************** 11 Reuters: Iran fears U.S. attack in summer - Israeli general Sun Apr 1, 2007 2:40PM EDT By Jonathan Saul JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Iran is making defensive preparations for what it fears will be a U.S. military attack this summer, Israel's military intelligence chief said on Sunday. Major-General Amos Yadlin also told the Israeli cabinet that Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas and Syria believed they could be targeted in any U.S.-initiated war against Iran, an Israeli government official said, briefing reporters on his remarks. "What we are seeing is their preparation for the possibility of war in the summer. My assessment is that they are defensive preparations for war," Yadlin was quoted as saying, referring to Iran, Syria and Hezbollah. The government official said Yadlin spoke about Iranian fears of a U.S., not an Israeli, offensive. The official gave no details about the type of military preparations Yadlin said Iran was making to meet any U.S. attack. "We are closely monitoring these preparations because (Iran, Syria and Hezbollah) could misinterpret various moves in the region," Yadlin said, according to the official. In Washington on Thursday, UnderSecretary of State Nicholas Burns said the United States was "convinced diplomacy is the way to proceed" to curb Iran's nuclear program. Continued... © Reuters 2007. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 12 Reuters: Britons confess on Iranian TV Sun Apr 1, 2007 11:33PM EDT By Edmund Blair TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian television on Sunday showed pictures of two of the 15 British sailors and marines held in Iran, the men saying they were captured after entering Iranian waters. Britain had earlier said it was in direct communication with Iran as it seeks the release of the 14 men and one woman detained on March 23 in the northern Gulf. Iran's capture of the Britons has drawn international criticism, but Tehran has so far ignored calls to release them. The row, at a time of heightened Middle East tensions over Tehran's disputed nuclear program, pushed oil prices last week to six-month highs. The West accuses Iran of trying to build nuclear bombs, a charge Tehran denies. State-run Al-Alam television showed footage of the two men in khaki uniforms standing separately in front of a large map of the Gulf, and pointing to it while speaking. The map showed the positions of various vessels near the mouth of the Shatt al-Arab waterway, which forms the southern border between Iran and Iraq. Written on the map in English was "the point where intruding boats were captured". "At approximately about 10 o'clock in the morning we were seized, apparently at this point here from their maps and the GPS they showed us, which is inside Iranian territorial waters," Captain Chris Air said in the footage which was released to international broadcasters. © Reuters 2007. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 13 UPI: Britain urged to get tough on Iran United Press International - NewsTrack - Top News - Published: March 31, 2007 at 8:45 AM WASHINGTON, March 31 (UPI) -- Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton wants Britain to take a harder line against Iran in the standoff over 15 British sailors. Calling Britain's step-like approach "pathetic," Bolton said Prime Minister Tony Blair should be threatening "real pain, real economic sanctions," the Times of London reported Saturday. "Britain has got to be tougher here," the former Bush administration official said. Former Republican U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich went so far as to say Britain should threaten to destroy Iran's petroleum industry, the newspaper said. Meanwhile, U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said there would be no deal to swap the British detainees for five Iranians held by U.S. forces in Iraq, CNN reported Saturday. "The international community is not going to stand for the Iranian government trying to use this issue to distract the rest of the world from the situation in which Iran finds itself vis-a-vis its nuclear program," McCormack said. The five Iranians are allegedly members of the Revolutionary Guard who were captured in January and accused of aiding insurgents in Iraq. © Copyright 2007 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 14 AFP: Iran accuses US jet fighters of violating airspace - Sunday April 1, 08:27 PM TEHRAN (AFP) - US warplanes have violated Iranian airspace in the southwestern oil province of Khuzestan, the Arabic language channel of Iranian state television quoted a local military chief as saying on Sunday. However, a US military spokesman said he had checked into reports of an airspace violation and denied that any took place. "Two US aircraft trespassed into Iranian airspace northwest of (the port city of) Abadan before flying southwest into Iraq," a Revolutionary Guards commander in Abadan identified only as Colonel Aqili was quoted as saying by the Al-Alam channel's website. "The planes left white vapour trails, attracting the local people's attention," he said, without elaborating on when the alleged incursion took place. The incident happened close to Iran's border with Iraq, where the US and British military are deployed in force, he said. A US military spokesman told AFP that he had investigated the Iranian military's claim and found no evidence to support it. "There is nothing that we saw that would indicate that that happened," he told AFP. The United States is in a mounting diplomatic confrontation with Iran over its efforts to master the nuclear fuel cycle and Western suspicions that Tehran is bent on developing nuclear weapons, a charge vehemently denied by Iran. Washington says it wants a diplomatic solution to the nuclear standoff but has never ruled out military action. Tensions have spiked since Iran's seizure on March 23 of 15 British marines and sailors for allegedly entering Iranian waters. Iran says the Britons entered its waters illegally while London insists they were in Iraqi waters on an anti-smuggling patrol under UN mandate. AFP ***************************************************************** 15 AFP: Crisis escalates over Iran's seizure of British sailors - by Katherine Haddon Sat Mar 31, 5:48 AM ET LONDON (AFP) - The crisis over Iran's seizure of 15 British naval personnel deepened Saturday after Iran aired television footage of another British sailor "confessing" to trespassing in its waters. The government of Prime Minister Tony Blair received strong support from both the United States and the European Union as the crisis entered its second week and showed no sign of ending. But the United States rejected the notion that the group could be exchanged for five Iranian officials who have been held by their forces in Iraq since January. "There have been some anonymous Iranian sources that have sought to draw the United States into this by suggesting a swap of personnel," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said. "We would reject out of hand any suggestion by the Iranian sources that there's any linkage between these issues or linkage of this issue with any other issue." Nevertheless, Washington has "very serious concerns" over Iran's broadcast of footage of the personnel and their alleged confessions, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino added. Perino reiterated the US call for Iran to "immediately and unconditionally" release the 15, but said there was no indication the standoff would be resolved militarily, adding everyone "believes that it can be solved diplomatically." Washington has been conducting naval exercises in the Gulf involving aircraft carriers and is spearheading a drive to stop Iran from pursuing its nuclear programme. Iran insists the programme is peaceful despite US fears it hides efforts to build nuclear weapons. Tehran has so far refused to bow to mounting pressure to release the naval personnel, who are being held in a secret location. Britain insists they were on a routine anti-smuggling patrol in Iraqi waters under a UN mandate but Iran says they were in its territorial waters. The standoff has become "a dangerous test of wills in the Gulf," according to an editorial in the Financial Times. "Escalation, by either side, with the narrow waters of the Gulf already boiling with warships, carries huge risks," it warned. "Iran still needs to be confronted with a reasonable menu of rewards and penalties for its behaviour by a united international community." EU foreign ministers at a meeting in Germany Friday deplored the seizure of the Britons as a breach of international law and threatened to take "appropriate measures" if they were not released soon. The EU foreign ministers expressed their "unconditional support" for London, although Iran labelled the EU's intervention "unjustified, irrational, undocumented and irresponsible". Foreign policy chief Javier Solana now has a mandate to talk to Iranian leaders and seek a resolution to the situation. The EU move came after Britain on Thursday secured a UN Security Council condemnation of the Iranian action, but which was less strident than it had hoped for. Blair voiced his "disgust" at the latest broadcast of the captive Britons and Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said she saw no sign that Iran was seeking to solve the crisis. "I would like to apologise for entering your waters without any permission," a Royal Navy serviceman, identified as Nathan Thomas Summers, said in the interview broadcast on Iran's Arabic-language Al-Alam television. The interview was interspersed with images of the sailor sitting with two of his comrades, including the only woman among the captives, Faye Turney, smiling, and with bowls of fruit and flowers in front of them. Echoing fears in Britain that the personnel are being coerced into "confessing," Roy Summers told The Sun newspaper that his son was reading from an Iranian script, though he expressed relief to see him "alive and well." Firing off new volleys in the propaganda war, Iran also released a third letter attributed to Turney, saying she had been "sacrificed" to the policies of Britain and the United States. Britain has already frozen most ties with Iran, a move Tehran blamed for its decision not to free Turney as promised earlier this week. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was quoted as telling Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan that Britain must apologise. However, Britain said it was giving "serious consideration" to a diplomatic note from Iran which protests at the sailors' "illegal act" but does not call for an apology. Both Britain and Iran have produced maps and global positioning system (GPS) coordinates to back their cases over where the sailors were when they were seized at gunpoint on March 23. Copyright © 2007 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 16 The Guardian: Hostages caught in Tehran-Washington crossfire | Guardian Unlimited Simon Tisdall Saturday March 31, 2007 As Iran sees it, provocative British trespassing in the Shatt al-Arab waterway is one element in an American-driven policy of destabilisation that includes systematic infringements of the country's territorial, economic and political sovereignty. As the US and Israel see it, Iran's unjustified actions are proof that the Tehran regime is dangerous beyond reason, showing that all western and "moderate" Arab countries must join in battering it into submission. That leaves Britain's 15 service personnel stuck in the middle. The extent of covert US operations against Iran is unquantifiable. There is no evidence that Britain is involved, although some knowledge must be assumed given the key role of British forces along the Iraq border. But the impact of Washington's and its proxies' activities is increasingly measurable. Iran's complex ethnic makeup renders it especially vulnerable to external disruption. The population is 50% Persian, 24% Azari, 8% Kurd. Iranian officials maintain Sunni Arab, oil-rich Khuzistan, abutting the Shatt al-Arab, is a high-value target for CIA and British subversion using agents linked to exiled resistance groups. Terrorist bomb attacks and other ostensibly separatist violence are a regular occurrence. There were unconfirmed reports in January last year of an attempt to assassinate President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Ahvaz. The unrest has produced harsh reprisals, including executions. It is perhaps Iran's most sensitive border area - as the British captives have discovered. But Iran also accuses Pakistan's pro-western government and others of complicity in recent attacks on security personnel in mostly Sunni, south-eastern Sistan-Baluchistan province. Apart from strengthening internal opposition, the supposed American aim is to block a gas pipeline that would cross Baluchistan en route to India. The US has been pressing Delhi to scrap the project, as it is urging Turkey, European countries and oil companies to cut Iranian energy ties. Iran's hardline interior minister, Mustafa Pour-Mohammadi, last month alleged a nationwide conspiracy. "Iranian intelligence services have acquired information that show the US, Britain and Israel have been behind the unrest in various parts of Iran, including Khuzistan, Kurdistan and West Azerbaijan in the past few years," he told the Aftab news agency. Turkish sources back Tehran's assertions that the US is funding and indirectly arming the Kurdistan Free Life party, a sister organisation of the proscribed terrorist group the Kurdistan Workers' party. The result has been increased, sporadic violence between Iranian Kurds and security forces - and a de facto anti-Kurdish alliance between Ankara and Tehran that reportedly led at one point to cross-border shelling of Kurdish positions by Iranian artillery. Iranian officials place the row over the British captives in the context of escalating, multi-dimensional pressure on Tehran orchestrated by the US. Acknowledged, as opposed to covert, American policy avenues include bilateral and UN sanctions relating to the nuclear issue; ongoing attempts to choke development of Iran's oil and other industries by curtailing access to the international banking system, foreign investment and (mostly European) export credits; and this week's unsubtle demonstration of US naval and aerial power on Iran's doorstep in the Gulf. The US exercises went ahead despite the delicate position of the British captives, underscoring fears that Washington may try to exploit the situation even as London tries to defuse it. Nicholas Burns, a senior state department official, told the Senate on Thursday that apart from trying to "blunt Iran's regional ambitions", the US was seeking to change Iranian society from within. "We are promoting greater freedom in Iran by funding a variety of civil society programmes ... to improve the free flow of information to the Iranian people [and] support human rights and democratic reform." The White House was requesting over $100m in related funding in the next financial year, he said, including year-round Farsi-language radio broadcasts. For Iranian officials, all this, coupled with US squeezing of Iranian interests in Iraq and Washington's attempts to build anti-Tehran Arab alliances, looks like undeclared warfare. Whether it was pre-planned or not, their handling of the Shatt al-Arab incident may be their way of saying: enough. But for American hawks and Israeli hardliners, the crisis is confirmation of Tehran's malevolence - and proof that US pressure is telling and should be stepped up. They hope to use the stand-off to persuade wavering European and non-aligned states to back their stance on the nuclear and other issues. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007 ***************************************************************** 17 Guardian Unlimited: Bush to Iran: 'Give Back the Hostages' From the Associated Press Sunday April 1, 2007 10:16 AM By DEB RIECHMANN Associated Press Writer CAMP DAVID, Md. (AP) - President Bush on Saturday said Iran's capture of 15 British sailors and marines was ``inexcusable'' and called for Iran to ``give back the hostages'' immediately and unconditionally. Bush said Iran plucked the sailors out of Iraqi waters. Iran's president said Saturday they were in Iranian waters and called Britain and its allies ``arrogant and selfish'' for not apologizing for trespassing. ``It's inexcusable behavior,'' Bush said at the Camp David presidential retreat, where he was meeting with the president of Brazil. ``Iran must give back the hostages. They're innocent. They did nothing wrong.'' It was the first time that Bush had commented publicly on the captured Britons. Washington has taken a low-key approach to avoid aggravating tensions over the incident and shaking international resolve to get Iran to give up its uranium enrichment program. Bush did not answer a question about whether the United States would have reacted militarily if those captured had been Americans. The president said he supports British Prime Minister Tony Blair's efforts to find a diplomatic resolution to the crisis, now in its second week. Bush would not comment about Britain's options if Iran does not release the hostages, but he seemed to reject any swapping of the British captives for Iranians detained in Iraq. ``I support the prime minister when he made it clear there were no quid pro quos,'' Bush said. Like Bush's words, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's comments were his most extensive on the crisis. They tracked tough talk from other Iranian officials, an indication that Tehran's position could be hardening. ``The British occupier forces did trespass our waters. Our border guards detained them with skill and bravery,'' Iran's official news agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying. ``But arrogant powers, because of their arrogant and selfish spirit, are claiming otherwise.'' Britain, however, appeared to be easing its stance, emphasizing its desire to talk with Iran about what it termed a regrettable situation. ``I think everyone regrets that this position has arisen,'' British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said at a European Union summit in Bremen, Germany. ``What we want is a way out of it.'' Iran appeared unreceptive to possible talks with Britain. ``Instead of apologizing over trespassing by British forces, the world arrogant powers issue statements and deliver speeches,'' Ahmadinejad told a crowd in southeastern Iran. The British sailors were detained by Iranian naval units March 23 while patrolling for smugglers near the mouth of the Shatt al-Arab, a waterway that has long been a disputed dividing line between Iraq and Iran. Britain also insists the sailors were in Iraqi waters. In London on Saturday, the political wing of the Iranian opposition group Mujahedeen Khalq said the capture was planned in advance and carried out in retaliation for U.N. sanctions over Iran's nuclear program. The group is listed as a terrorist group by Britain, the U.S. and the European Union. Blair has expressed disgust that the captured service members had been ``paraded and manipulated'' in video footage released by Iran. He warned Tehran that it faced increasing isolation if it did not free them. Britain has frozen most contacts with Iran. The U.N. Security Council has expressed ``grave concern'' about the incident. The EU has demanded the sailors' unconditional release and warned of unspecified ``appropriate measures'' if Tehran does not comply - a position the Iranian Foreign Ministry called ``bias and meddlesome.'' Ahmad Bakhshayesh, a professor of politics in Tehran's Allameh University, said he's convinced that Iran is prepared to stand its ground and insist that the British violated Iranian territory. ``Iran will seriously continue the case and will put them on trial,'' Bakhshayesh said. ``Only an apology by Britain can stop it. Iran thinks that Britons trespassed to test Iran's reaction, and now London is trying to isolate Tehran instead of apologizing.'' But British officials are hopeful that diplomacy can resolve the crisis. The Foreign Office confirmed Saturday that Britain had replied to a letter received earlier in this week from the Iranian embassy. It declined to reveal the nature of either letter. ``We have been exchanging letters with the Iranian government, and we will continue to conduct or diplomatic discussions in private,'' a spokesman said on the government's customary condition of anonymity. ----- Associated Press writers Jill Lawless in London and Benjamin Harvey and Katarina Kratovac in Cairo, Egypt, contributed to this report. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007 ***************************************************************** 18 Antiwar.com: Any Casus Belli Will Do - by Gordon Prather March 31, 2007 According to Russian intelligence, U.S.-allied armed forces in and around the Persian Gulf are being readied for an attack on Iran in the very near future. However, the pretext for the attack may not be related to the increasingly frantic, but totally unsubstantiated, charges that the Iranians have a nuclear weapons program, deep underground and so well hidden that not even the Likudniks know where. You see, since 1974, all Iranian nuclear programs have been subject to a Safeguards Agreement [.pdf] with the International Atomic Energy Agency – as required by the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Under the Safeguards Agreement, the IAEA Secretariat accepts the responsibility for verifying to other NPT members that no NPT-proscribed materials are diverted to a military purpose. And, under the IAEA Statute, the responsibility for reporting to the UN Security Council should any Safeguarded materials or activities be so diverted. As of this writing, the IAEA Director-General continues to report that Iran is in complete compliance with its Safeguards Agreement and that no NPT-proscribed materials have ever been diverted by Iran to a military purpose. So how can the UN Security Council, being "mindful of its primary responsibility" for "the maintenance of international peace and security," pass UNSC Resolution 1747, which "Reiterates its [Council’s] 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 Iran’s nuclear programme;" but then proceeds to declare the UNSC "concerned" by the "proliferation risks" presented by the Iranian Safeguarded nuclear program? That’s what Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki demanded to know when he was allowed to address the Security Council, after – of course – UNSCR 1747 had already passed. "This is the fourth time in the last 12 months that, in an unwarranted move orchestrated by a few of its permanent members, the Security Council is being abused to take an unlawful, unnecessary and unjustifiable action against the peaceful nuclear programme of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which presents no threat to international peace and security and therefore falls outside the Council’s Charter-based mandate. "As we have stressed time and again, Iran’s nuclear programme is completely peaceful. We have expressed our readiness, taken unprecedented steps and offered several serious proposals to address and allay any possible concern in that regard. "Indeed, there has been no doubt on our part from the beginning, nor should there be any on the part of the Council, that all the schemes of the sponsors of the resolution are dictated by narrow national considerations and are aimed at depriving the Iranian people of their inalienable rights, rather than emanating from any so-called proliferation concerns. "In order to give this scheme a semblance of international legitimacy, its initiators first manipulated the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and — as they acknowledged themselves — coerced some of its members to vote against Iran on the Board, and then have taken advantage of their substantial economic and political power to pressure and manipulate the Security Council to adopt three unwarranted resolutions within 8 months. "Undoubtedly, those resolutions cannot indicate universal acceptance, particularly when the heads of State of the nearly two thirds of the States Members of the United Nations that also belong to the Non-Aligned Movement and the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) supported Iran’s position as recently as September 2006 and expressed concern about the policies pursued within the Security Council. ... "As an organ of an international Organization created by States, the Security Council is bound by law, and Member States have every right to insist that the Council keep within the powers that they accorded it under the Charter of the United Nations. The Security Council must exercise those powers consistently with the purposes and principles of the Charter. Equally, the measures it takes must be consistent with the purposes and principles of the United Nations and with other international law. Members of the Security Council do not have the right to undermine the Council’s credibility. "There is every reason to assert that the Security Council’s consideration of the Iranian peaceful nuclear programme has no legal basis, since the referral of the case to the Council and then the adoption of resolutions fail to meet the minimum standards of legality. Iran’s peaceful nuclear activities cannot, by any stretch of law, fact or logic, be characterized as a threat to peace. "Rather, certain members of the Security Council decided to hijack the case from the IAEA, the principal specialized technical organ in charge of the issue, and to politicize it. "How can Iran’s peaceful nuclear programme be considered in the Security Council while Iran has carried out all its obligations and cooperated to the fullest extent possible, far more than it is obliged to do in accordance with its treaty obligations, namely those under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and the Safeguards Agreement? "Is it not simply because the IAEA could not find any diversion from lawful and peaceful purposes?" Well, it looks like all that skullduggery by the Likudniks, the trashing of the NPT, the corruption of the IAEA Statute, the "hijacking" of the IAEA Board and the Security Council, itself, all designed to result in a casus belli has taken far too long and is even less credible than the casus belli fabricated for the pre-emptive attack on Iraq. But, not to worry. Last week the Iranians "detained" fifteen HMS Cornwall personnel who had just boarded an Iraqi fishing boat – allegedly searching for automobiles – in what the Iranians claim is Iranian territorial waters. There had been a similar incident back in 2004, wherein eight Brits were detained by the Iranians for three days. But this time, Prime Minister Tony Blair is outraged. He condemned as "completely unacceptable" a broadcast on Iranian TV of video footage of the "detainees." A casus belli? Well, perhaps. You see, one of the Brits was female and she has apparently been required to wear an Islamic "hijab" while in Iran. 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 ***************************************************************** 19 AFP: UN nuclear chief to visit Jordan Sun Apr 1, 9:09 AM ET AMMAN (AFP) - UN nuclear watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei is to visit Amman this month for talks with officials on Jordan's aim to obtain nuclear energy for peaceful use, the foreign ministry said on Sunday. ElBaradei, who heads the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), is due to begin a three-day visit to Jordan on April 14, a spokeswoman told AFP. His talks in Amman will focus on "Jordan's desire to obtain nuclear technology for peaceful means" and he will also tour some projects financed by the IAEA, the spokeswoman added. Jordan's King Abdullah II has said his country wants to develop nuclear power for peaceful means. "Our countries are in dire need of atomic energy for peaceful purposes, to enable us to build societies and update and modernise our fields of science, industry, agriculture and health," he told last week's Arab summit in Riyadh. "We call for the establishment of an Arab centre for the peaceful use of atomic energy," King Abdullah said in a written speech to the March 28-29 summit in the Saudi capital. He made similar remarks in January in a Israeli newspaper interview. "The Egyptians are looking for a nuclear programme. The GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) are looking at one, and we are actually looking at nuclear power for peaceful and energy purposes," he told Haaretz daily. "We've been discussing it with the West," he said. In his speech to the Arab summit, the king said: "We will continue to demand that Israel become a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and that its atomic reactors be subjected to international inspection." Israel is considered the sole, albeit undeclared, nuclear power in the region. Copyright © 2007 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 20 AFP: Pakistan test-fires nuclear-capable missile - Sat Mar 31, 2:03 AM ET ISLAMABAD (AFP) - Pakistan on Saturday successfully test-fired its short-range nuclear-capable surface-to-surface ballistic missile, the military announced. The Hatf II Abdali missile has a range of 200 kilometers (125 miles) and "can carry all types of warheads," the military said in a statement. The test, aimed at "validation of the desired technical parameters," was a success, it added. Last week, Pakistan tested a longer range version of its nuclear-capable, radar-dodging cruise missile, the Hatf VII Babur. It has a range of 700 kilometres. Pakistan and India have routinely conducted missile tests since the nuclear-armed South Asian rivals carried out tit-for-tat nuclear detonations in May 1998. However in 2004 they launched a slow-moving peace process aimed at ending six decades of hostility and resolving their dispute over the Himalayan territory of Kashmir, the cause of two of their three wars. In February, Pakistan signed a historic deal with India to cut the risk of atomic weapons accidents. Copyright © 2007 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 21 Guardian Unlimited: Pakistan Test-Fires Nuclear Missile From the Associated Press Saturday March 31, 2007 6:16 AM By MUNIR AHMAD Associated Press Writer ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) - Pakistan successfully tested an indigenous short-range, nuclear-capable missile on Saturday, the military said. The surface-to-surface Abdali ballistic missile - with a range of 125 miles - was launched from an undisclosed location inside Pakistan. The missile ``can carry all types of warheads,'' the military said in a statement issued from Rawalpindi, a garrison city near the capital, Islamabad. The military did not provide any further details, but Pakistan and its nuclear-armed rival, neighboring India, routinely test missiles. Pakistan's latest comes about a week after India tested its indigenously developed air-to-air Astra missile, with a range of up to 50 miles. Pakistan and India have fought two of three wars over the mountainous Kashmir region, which is divided between the two countries but claimed in entirety by both, after gaining independence from Britain 1947. India became a declared atomic power in 1974, while Pakistan first carried out underground nuclear tests in 1998 in response to the tests done by New Delhi, rejecting pleas from world leaders at the time. India's and Pakistan's short, medium and long-range missiles are able to hit targets within each other's territory. Pakistan named its Abdali missile after Ahmad Shah Abdali, an 18th-century Afghan king who attacked India and was accused of plundering the country's riches. Pakistan-India relations have improved since 2004, when they began a peace process in an effort to resolve differences, including the one over Kashmir. The leaders from Pakistan and India will meet next week on the sidelines of a regional summit in New Delhi. The two countries are main members of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, or SAARC, which will hold its annual summit in New Delhi on April 3-4. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007 ***************************************************************** 22 [southnews] Aussie Palm Sunday rally against "Nuclear Fools Day" Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2007 12:35:32 -0500 (CDT) This year the traditional Palm Sunday peace rally had the theme "Nuclear Fools Day" to turn attention on the Federal Government's push to investigate nuclear energy and uranium options Senators head anti-nukes march : AAPApril 01, 2007 02:47pm *GREENS Leader Bob Brown and his Democrats counterpart Lyn Allison today led a 1000-strong Palm Sunday rally through Melbourne protesting moves to ramp-up Australia's nuclear industry.* This year the traditional Palm Sunday peace rally had the theme "Nuclear Fools Day" to turn attention on the Federal Government's push to investigate nuclear energy and uranium options. Senator Brown said the Federal Government was taking "much more note of the people who want to make profits out of uranium and nuclear waste than the Australians who don't want that". Last week, Prime Minister John Howard signalled Australian uranium could be sold to India if New Delhi accepts strict safeguards. But Senator Brown warned there was no way to ensure Australian uranium did not end up in the nuclear weapons of the countries which bought it. "They never could guarantee that uranium out of Australia wasn't going into French nuclear weapons," he said. "They won't be able to guarantee that with Chinese or Indian nuclear weapons. That's the problem." Senator Brown also took a swipe at federal Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd who is pushing for Labor to abandon its `no new mines' policy at the upcoming national conference. It would "absurd" for Labor to oppose nuclear reactors in Australia because they were not safe but then support increased exports to countries where safety regimes were even less strict, he said. Soon after the senators spoke, the rally headed off down Collins Street flanked by a 100-metre rainbow banner, a brass band and protesters chanting `Export Howard, not uranium'. * *: AAP *Sunday April 1, 05:05 PM* Protesters mark 'nuclear fools day' in Darwin A group of about 80 protesters has marched through Darwin's Nightcliff Markets to mark what they are calling nuclear fools day. Palm Sunday peace marchers filed through the food and craft stalls to protest against plans for more uranium mines in the Northern Territory. Indigenous activist Speedy McGuinness is also concerned about the Northern Land Council's negotiations for a possible nuclear waste facility at Muckaty Station in central Australia. "The way they the deals are done undercover, you know, and without any consultation," he said. Environment Centre spokeswoman Emma King says a contest for the silliest costume was won by two primary school students. "They made costumes of flying pigs, saying 'Nuclear power is safe' on the front," she said. A court jester regaled the crowd until a mock battle with protesters portraying the Prime Minister and the Territory's federal parliamentarians turned physical and left her with a split chin. _______________________________________________________ A battle won has to be fought again The Age March 31, 2007 Now, 24 years since we sang and danced our nuclear fears away at the bowl, the nuclear genie is out of the bottle again and tomorrow's Nuclear Fools Day concert at the bowl feels like groundhog day, writes Tracee Hutchison. A MONTH before Bob Hawke became prime minister in 1983, a couple of friends and I painted a huge banner with a mushroom cloud in the middle of it. The banner was long enough to span the stage of the Sidney Myer Music Bowl and emblazoned in big yellow letters on it were the words "STOP THE DROP". To maximise the dramatic effect of the anti-nuclear message we fashioned the mushroom cloud around the H in the "THE". The concert of the same name, in February 1983, featured INXS, Midnight Oil, Goanna and Redgum. And the prevailing mood among the tens of thousands of people who were there suggested a looming fear that the development of a nuclear industry would be bad for our health and our future. With the fallout of the 1979 Three Mile Island reactor accident still casting a long shadow, we sang and danced and shouted our opposition to nuclear proliferation and anointed people such as anti-nuclear campaigner Dr Helen Caldicott as our patron saints. As the '80s rolled on, Hawke introduced the ALP's famed three-mines policy and confidence in nuclear power as a viable and legitimate energy source continued to wane, thanks largely to the 1986 nuclear meltdown in Chernobyl that sent a radioactive cloud across much of Europe exposing 5 million people. The price of uranium plummeted. Now, 24 years since we sang and danced our nuclear fears away at the bowl, the nuclear genie is out of the bottle again and tomorrow's Nuclear Fools Day concert at the bowl feels like groundhog day. Exactly when the tide turned on nuclear power is hard to pin down. Was it English scientist Dr James Lovelock's declaration that he'd happily store nuclear waste under his home as a heat source? Is it a triumph of economic rationalists with short memories or simply boy-men with warmongering tendencies? It's anyone's guess. But somewhere along the way Australia, with 32 per cent of the world's uranium, became a major player in the nuclear industry. Without a real clue on alternative energy options or a strategy to combat global warming, Prime Minister John Howard became the nuclear industry's pin-up boy, stacking an inquiry into nuclear energy options in Australia with nuclear advocates and appointing its chairman, Ziggy Switkowski, to a plum job heading the country's top nuclear research and lobby group ANSTO B before the pro-nuke report was handed down. Somehow the Federal Government also managed to persuade itself that sending our uranium to non-signatory countries to the international nuclear non-proliferation treaty with little post-it notes saying "Not for Weapons" was a reasonable enough guarantee that we're not part of a nuclear arms race. Suddenly the idea that some of that uranium that had underscored the resources boom would have to come back to its country of origin in waste form was firming as our responsibility. And just when you'd think the ALP would step up and take a strong stand on the nuclear issue it buckles. Suddenly the three-mines policy is up for grabs at next month's national conference. Suddenly Queensland Premier Peter Beattie is eating the words he took to the electorate that returned his Government to power just six months ago and dumps a pro-nuclear bombshell from the safety of an overseas junket. Suddenly South Australian Premier Mike Rann is approving a fourth uranium mine, subject to the Feds giving it the green light, with the charming name of "Honeymoon". And suddenly NT Chief Minister Clare Martin is suggesting that the lady may well be for turning. Somehow all of this is supposed to be good for Australia. Yet none of us wants a nuclear reactor or a nuclear waste dump in our backyard. Ask around. I doubt you'll find any takers. And contrary to Martin Ferguson's rhetoric the unions are not on board. No other mineral is connected to the most destructive weapon ever built. It needs to stay in the ground. As Caldicott said on the cover of her most recent book, Nuclear is Not the Answer to Global Warming or Anything Else, it is not the magic non-polluting answer to protracted inaction on alternate energy strategies. And this is not the time to forget that accidents do happen. See you at the bowl tomorrow. I just wish I still had that banner. Tracee Hutchison is a Melbourne writer and broadcaster. http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/a-battle-won-has-to-be-fought-again/2007/03/30/1174761748781.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1 The archives of South News can be found at http://southmovement.alphalink.com.au/southnews/ ***************************************************************** 23 The Hindu: 'US acted in good faith in 123 agreement talks' Sunday, April 1, 2007 : 0300 Hrs Washington, April 1 (PTI): The United States has said it acted in good faith in the negotiations on the proposed 123 agreement with India to operationalise civil nuclear cooperation and assumes that New Delhi did so as well. "Certainly, we have acted in good faith in these negotiations to see that they move forward and we can only assume that that is the motivation of the Indian Government as well," the US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters when asked to comment on the recently concluded talks on the 123 Agreement. He said the agreement being negotiated was a highly technical one and that US Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns would do an internal assessment of the status of the talks after hearing from the American negotiating team. "This is all highly technical stuff. Off the top of my head, I do not know. There are some areas that the Indians have raised and that has caused us to raise some questions back to them as well. "So we're -- Nick (Burns) is going to take the information that he receives from the negotiating team that's just returning. He's going to do a conversation in-house here to assess where we are in these negotiations," McCormack said. The 123 agreement will enable India to get US nuclear fuel and reactors, ending a 30-year freeze. At the two-day talks in New Delhi earlier this week, the two sides had indicated narrowing down of some differences. Both sides are trying to bridge gaps on issues like fuel supply assurances, reprocessing of spent fuel and future nuclear testing by India. McCormack said the Bush administration has already worked with the Congress to pass the overall legislation as part of total implementation of the civil nuclear deal that the Washington concluded with New Delhi. "The negotiations have taken some time. These are tough negotiations. I guess that's the way I'd put it right now. And once we have an opportunity to assess where we are in those negotiations, I think we'll probably have Nick (Burns) go back to the Indians at the political level to really have a conversation about where we are and what's needed in order to move forward and successfully complete these negotiations." McCormack parried a querry on the time frame for the next negotiating session. "I can't tell you. We'll have to do an in-house assessment and see where we are." "...everybody has their own politics... we had our own politics in working with the Congress to pass the overall legislation, so everybody has politics. That's just the reality of democracies dealing with one another. We expect at this point that the Indians do want to move forward with these negotiations and we're acting on that basis," he said. Copyright © 2006, The Hindu. ***************************************************************** 24 AU ABC: Protesters mark 'nuclear fools day' in Darwin ABC Northern Territory (ACDT)Sunday, 1 April 2007. 15:05 (AWDT) A group of about 80 protesters has marched through Darwin's Nightcliff Markets to mark what they are calling nuclear fools day. Palm Sunday peace marchers filed through the food and craft stalls to protest against plans for more uranium mines in the Northern Territory. Indigenous activist Speedy McGuinness is also concerned about the Northern Land Council's negotiations for a possible nuclear waste facility at Muckaty Station in central Australia. "The way they the deals are done undercover, you know, and without any consultation," he said. Environment Centre spokeswoman Emma King says a contest for the silliest costume was won by two primary school students. "They made costumes of flying pigs, saying 'Nuclear power is safe' on the front," she said. A court jester regaled the crowd until a mock battle with protesters portraying the Prime Minister and the Territory's federal parliamentarians turned physical and left her with a split chin. ***************************************************************** 25 AJC: With nuclear power, hopes turn to ashes | ajc.com > Opinion By DIANNE VALENTIN Published on: 04/02/07 After World War II and the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nuclear technology was supposed to be used for peaceful purposes. We were promised that nuclear power would be "too cheap to meter" and that the lethal, radioactive waste produced each day from reactor operation would be long gone. A safe investment in the future, and a clean form of energy? What have we learned? That nuclear power promises are hard to keep. Georgia Power estimated that four nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle would cost about $660 million. The final price tag was about $8.9 billion, and we got only two reactors. We were promised that our utility bills would go down or remain stable. Unfortunately, Georgia Power bills showed the largest rate increase after Vogtle went on line. Another broken promise. We held out hope for industry to make good on the promise of successfully disposing of highly radioactive nuclear waste. Well, it's been over 60 years since that first radioactive waste was created, and it hasn't been disposed of. Ratepayers are now paying for storage sites around the country to hold enormous amounts of deadly radioactive waste that was unanticipated when licenses were first granted for nuclear reactors almost 40 years ago. Our government is struggling to find a suitable storage solution, since the problem-plagued Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada may never open. No matter where we decide to put this radioactive waste, it has to be transported on our roads, in trains, on ships. Translated: through our neighborhoods and on our waterways. When nuclear plants were first built, terrorists were not a concern. After 9/11 we learned that nuclear power plants were intended targets. Yet the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which regulates those plants, still finds the likelihood of a terrorist attack too "remote and speculative." The NRC remains hesitant to require utilities to fully secure these radioactive facilities around the country. In California, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has disagreed, and a case will eventually be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court. The NRC remains hesitant to require utilities to fully secure these radioactive facilities around the country. We are being told that nuclear power is clean and will save us from global warming. But worldwide, it would take some 2,000 new nuclear power plants, at a cost of over a trillion dollars, to make a dent in greenhouse gas emissions. Those plants would require a new Yucca Mountain-sized repository every few years to store the tidal wave of highly radioactive nuclear waste. With no answer to its radioactive nuclear waste, it is clear that nuclear energy will not be the answer to global warming. Nuclear energy promoters disagree when environmentalists suggest that our energy needs can be met with a combination of energy efficiency and conservation, coupled with local, state and federal clean energy policies. However, around the world, various technologies and simple conservation are increasingly reducing CO2 emissions faster and cheaper than nuclear could. With more information becoming available, we are less dependent on the information dispensed by the nuclear industry, and relying more on factual data from research. There is more evidence of health risks and damage to the environment in areas around reactors. The risk of accidents is a reality. The possibility that nuclear materials could fall into the hands of terrorists is a world-wide threat, the fact that nuclear power will not reduce our dependence on foreign fuel sources, the problems with transporting radioactive waste, all combine to make nuclear reactors a really bad idea. The nuclear industry fooled us once and built 104 reactors in this country, but fool us twice ... we don't think so. • Dianne Valentin is a community activist living in Atlanta. © 2007 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution | ***************************************************************** 26 CDT: Callaway nuclear plant closes for regular refueling, maintenance Columbia Daily Tribune Published Sunday, April 1, 2007 The Ameren UE Callaway Nuclear Plant near Fulton is scheduled to shut down starting today for refueling and maintenance. The plant is expected to reopen in 30 to 35 days. This will be 15th time the plant has been shut down for refueling since it opened in 1984. The refueling takes place every 18 months. More than 1,300 extra workers will join the plant’s regular staff to conduct refueling and maintenance activities, as well as other modifications and inspections. Copyright © 2007 The Columbia Daily Tribune. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 27 Haaretz: Jordan to build nuclear power plant by 2015 - Sun., April 01, 2007 Nisan 13, 5767 | | I By Yoav Stern Jordan intends to build its first nuclear power plant by 2015, the Jordanian energy minister said yesterday, and his staff is now working on a timetable for implementing the project. Israel's eastern neighbor will use nuclear energy for various purposes such as electricity and desalination. Energy Minister Khaled Sharida said Jordan would also be initiating power projects from solar and wind energy. Sharida has a doctorate in nuclear physics from a Dutch university. The Arabic daily Al-Hayat reported yesterday that Jordanian universities would begin teaching this field to prepare the country to operate nuclear facilities. Sharida said the plan was the result of "Arab trends accepted by the West." This month the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Dr. Mohammed ElBaradei, will come to Jordan to discuss cooperation between the agency and the kingdom. Jordan is a signatory of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, according to which the IAEA monitors nuclear projects for peaceful purposes in countries seeking to establish a nuclear reactor. Jordanian King Abdullah's brother Hamzah has reportedly been made head of the country's energy committee, which will map out the kingdom's needs for the coming years. Jordan's deserts reportedly contain 2 percent of the world's uranium reserves. A few months ago, Egypt announced its intention to renew a nuclear project halted about two decades ago. There are reports of nuclear plans in other countries including Saudi Arabia, Syria and the United Arab Emirates. © Copyright Haaretz. All rights reserved ***************************************************************** 28 adn.com: Flashback: Nukes at Kincaid? Anchorage Daily News Last Update: April 1, 2007 7:59 PM Nike-Hercules missiles, like these at an undisclosed Alaska location in 1961, were based at what is now Kincaid Park. Site Point, as the facility was known, operated from 1959 to 1979. '64 quake could have set off a cataclysm Published: April 1, 2007 Anchorage got lucky the night of March 27, 1964. True, the biggest earthquake in American history had just struck. More than 100 people were dead across Southcentral Alaska. Upheaval, tsunamis and fires devastated towns, roads and harbors. But, according to some, it could have been horrifically worse. The quake sent Nike missiles tumbling from their launchers just south of Anchorage International Airport. As aftershocks rumbled and temperatures sank below freezing, soldiers gritted their teeth and struggled with numb fingers to stabilize the highly volatile rocket motors and warheads, squinting by flashlight at manuals that didn't match the "mangled mess" they were looking at. This tale is recounted in detail on Nike-Hercules Alaska, a Web site dedicated to Nike installations in Alaska. (home.att. net/~nikealaska/INDEX.html) The extensive site is maintained by historian Jim Sapp, a former Nike soldier. Nikes were built to carry nuclear payloads of up to 20 kilotons, according to the authoritative reference Jane's Strategic Weapon Systems. To this day, the Department of Defense will not reveal whether the Anchorage Nikes were armed only with conventional explosives or with nuclear weapons. That information is still restricted, an Army spokesman at Fort Richardson said last month. Which is almost beside the point. Even if they were armed with (mere) conventional 1,100-pound warheads, an errant spark or open flame or another big jolt could have detonated the clustered solid rocket fuel and multiple explosives in a stupendous fireball. A "dirty bomb" incident -- radioactive material from damaged nuclear devices spewing into the air and dousing the region -- would have turned the '64 disaster into an epic catastrophe. No wonder that some personnel, "scared to death, ran away and were gone for days," an officer at the scene recalls on the Nike-Hercules Alaska Web site. The heroes who stayed and sweated through the hours after the quake received the Army's Meritorious Unit Commendation and a parade in their honor. But no one who knew was allowed to say why. © Copyright 2007, The Anchorage Daily News, a subsidiary of The McClatchy Company ***************************************************************** 29 APP.COM: Oyster Creek plant hasn't lived up to promises Asbury Park Press Online Sunday, April 1, 2007 Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 04/1/07 BY DENNIS ZANNONI Post Comment Go back 40 years. You agree to support the construction of one of the first commercial nuclear plants in the country — Oyster Creek in Lacey. You are told the electricity would be cheap and reliable. You are told the plant would bring jobs and keep your taxes low. You are told it would not operate more than 40 years. You are told the spent fuel would be removed from the site after it is used. You are told the plant is safe and that an accident was almost impossible. You are told an emergency response plan wasn't needed. You are told no state oversight was needed since the federal government would take care of the plant. Fast forward 40 years. Our electricity rates are high, the plant is unreliable and unsafe, the spent fuel will be in town forever, Three Mile Island happened, we have a massive emergency response plan that doesn't work, the state Bureau of Nuclear Engineering has 20 staffers watching Oyster Creek and we have a weak federal regulator. Time is up. Here's why: Economy The economic impact to the region from closing Oyster Creek is not a significant reason for keeping Oyster Creek open. There will be more money circulating in the economy after it shuts down. AmerGen will spend around $650 million over a 10-year period to clean up the site. They will employ around 300 workers, mostly unionized. Others will have opportunities at other Exelon nuclear power plants and at the PSEG nuclear power plants in New Jersey. The Lacey revenue from the plant won't change since it is set by the Legislature. Finally, the site will eventually be used by some business that will generate economic activity, employ people and pay taxes. Electricity Losing Oyster Creek's electrical generation is not a significant reason for keeping Oyster Creek open. New Jersey needs safe and reliable electricity generation. Oyster Creek is neither reliable nor safe. First Energy's combustion turbines, behind Oyster Creek, generate 100 megawatts safely and reliably. Also, PSEG will increase the Hope Creek nuclear plant electrical output by 150 megawatts next year and to 200 megawatts within three years. Environment The environmental impact from the operation of Oyster Creek is a significant reason for closing Oyster Creek. The impacts to the bay are at the top of the list. If state Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Lisa Jackson requires cooling towers at Oyster Creek, AmerGen will close the plant. Security The lack of spent fuel pool security at Oyster Creek is a significant reason for closing Oyster Creek. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission required plants to spend billions after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Unfortunately, the NRC forgot about unprotected spent fuel pools. We were attacked from the air and the NRC ordered plant owners to protect the plants from a ground attack, which was never the intention of the terrorists. The 9/11 Report, the National Academy of Sciences and most reasonable people agree that nuclear power plant spent fuel pools are vulnerable from the air, not only because terrorists have struck from the air before, but because it is easy to do. You can use a plane (big or small), a helicopter (which can land right on top of the spent fuel pool), or other methods to cause a spent fuel pool accident. Spent fuel The accumulation of spent fuel at Oyster Creek is a significant reason for closing Oyster Creek. If Lacey permits more safety canisters and the plant continues to operate, the amount of spent fuel stored in Lacey will continue to accumulate. Even if Oyster Creek closes, the U.S. Department of Energy, which owns the spent fuel, has nowhere to put it. Lacey will have the spent fuel for a very long time. Most of it will remain in a pool of water, never designed as a storage facility, 100 feet above the ground, with only sheet metal between it and you. I have seen the safety canisters dropped, burned, sunk in water, hit by trains, planes and trucks but the spent fuel pools magically became permanent storage facilities overnight. The safest course of action is to close Oyster Creek, remove all the spent fuel from the spent fuel pool and put it in safety canisters, and force the Energy Department to take it all away. Emergency preparedness The emergency response plan is a major reason for closing Oyster Creek. It lacks the confidence of the citizens it is intended to protect. The population, escape routes and fear make the plan unworkable. I have no confidence in the ability of the Oyster Creek operators to take proper emergency response actions after a nuclear accident. In addition, Gov. Corzine requested a review of the Oyster Creek emergency plan, which was not done. The plan has not considered the consequences of a spent fuel pool attack because the NRC will not let us review the available NRC analysis. Finally, the public will be surprised to learn that compensation from a plant accident will come only if "substantial" radiation releases occur. You are on your own otherwise. The NRC The current state of the NRC is a major reason for closing Oyster Creek. I have no confidence in the NRC's ability to make sure Oyster Creek remains safe. After Congress forced the NRC to make the NRC nuclear power plant oversight process more nuclear industry friendly, the NRC lost its clout to make the plants safer. I see the effects of this weakness all the time. Thank goodness the New Jersey Legislature created the Bureau of Nuclear Engineering after the Three Mile Island accident. The plant I have been involved with Oyster Creek for 20 years. My goal was to do what I could to make the plant safer. During that time, I have seen plant owners, managers and operators, NRC regulators and inspectors, and government officials come and go. I have remained, and I have the best understanding of the overall picture of Oyster Creek. Oyster Creek's time is up. Close Oyster Creek, clean up the site and ready the property for the next business. Dennis Zannoni, Florence, was reassigned from his position as chief nuclear engineer for the Department of Environmental Protection in January in response to what he says is an unspecified complaint from a Nuclear Regulatory Commission staffer. He has been on personal leave since then but said he is returning to the DEP this week in a role involving risk reduction. Go the non-toxic, low tech energy sources and not backwards! Nuclear Power Used Up More Energy Than It Delivered To Society ! "At the end of forty years of the US nuclear power program by 1991, this energy- 381302 MW-yrs -delivered to society is still less than the gross cumulative energy invested in nuclear plant construction and maintenance of 489174 MW-yrs! " Energy audit of nuclear fuel cycles By R. Ashok Kumar, B.E,M.E(Power),Negentropist,Flat 1/13, Telec Officers' CHS.,Ltd.,Plot 30, Sector 17, Vashi, Navi Mumbai-400705. Tel:7896209. rakumra@yahoo.com It must be noted that a number of surprises have caused retrofits and replacements like the steam generator premature replacements and the replaced radioactive steam generators enclosed in costly sarcophages worldwide. These have enormously increased the energy invested in these white elephants. Leuren Moret's GLOBAL RADIATION COVERUP SERIES: "Atmospheric Testing, Nuclear Power Plants, Depleted Uranium" http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3626298989248030643 Leuren Moret's GLOBAL RADIATION COVERUP SERIES: "Global Diabetes Epidemic Caused by Depleted Uranium" http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7451332617120640846 Chernobyl 20th Anniversary Pictures NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net) WARNING! Contains Graphic Pictures! Not For the Faint of Heart! The church bells in the Ukraine are ringing in remembrance of Chernobyl.. Every member of Congress should watch the following film before authorizing another nuclear power plant. Click play after the first few pictures. http://todayspictures.slate.com/inmotion/essay%5Fchernobyl/?GT1=8019 ,(Posted for educational and research purposes only, in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107). Posted by: theroyprocess on Sun Apr 01, 2007 11:10 pm "The Dr. John Gofman Nuclear Pseudoscience Award is handed out annually to the anti-nuclear person or group that has shown exemplary performance in the areas of statistical fiddling, misrepresentation, bad editing, dimensional inconsistency, crankiness, quotability, misuse or misunderstanding of the scientific method, conspiracy speculation, politicization of science, and general inanity." The "Doctor" seems to have built up a following Posted by: bl3ccch on Sun Apr 01, 2007 9:40 pm ====================================================================== Letter to the Editor, The aim of nuclear power is spent fuel rods (nuclear waste) from which weapons are made. Atom bombs, easier are dirty bombs, so-called depleted uranium ordinance, not electricity, That is why 40 sovereign countries have nuclear power. Dr. John Gofman says there is no safe dose of man-made ionizing radiation. We should not add to it with new nuclear power plants. Nuclear power is the most dangerous form of electricity. It is the heat which makes steam that powers electric generators. Albert Einstein once said, "Nuclear power is one hell of a way to boil water". Liability is paid by the tax payer under the Price/Anderson Act. Electric rate payers subsidize nuclear power and waste disposal. There is big money and political power in nuclear waste, in killing people, in a toxic regime. Nuclear power pollutes the environment and will not stop global warming according to studies. Posted by: theroyprocess on Sun Apr 01, 2007 9:18 pm ***************************************************************** 30 Moscow Times: Oil, Atoms and High-Tech Dominate Kazakhstan Talks Monday, April 2, 2007. Issue 3627. Page 9. By Anna Smolchenko Staff Writer Oil, nuclear and high-tech industries dominated talks between Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov and Kazakh leaders in Astana, the government said in a statement Friday. "Our talks have been highly constructive and were actively engaged in by both parties," Fradkov told a news conference after a meeting with Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev and Prime Minister Karim Masimov. "In this relatively short amount of time we managed to discuss topics over a wide range of important issues." The trade and economic turnover between the countries increased 30 percent in 2006 to $13 billion, he said. Fradkov also said the two countries were actively cooperating in space and military programs and were planning jointly to establish chemical and petrochemical enterprises, the government said. The delegation to the Kazakh capital included the head of the Federal Atomic Energy Agency, Sergei Kiriyenko, who told reporters that the two countries were negotiating on the possibility of building a nuclear power plant near the Caspian port of Aktau, although he did not offer a timeframe, Interfax reported. Kazakhstan is seeking to increase the amount of crude pumped via the Atyrau-Samara pipleline up to 25 million tons per year from the current 15 million tons, a goal supported by Russia. The talks with Nazarbayev also focused on issues of integration and common economic space. The joint Russian-Kazakh Eurasian Development Bank has started financing of the Zarechnoye uranium mine, he added. In December, Russia and Kazakhstan, the biggest uranium producers in the former Soviet Union, opened the Zarechnoye mine in southern Kazakhstan. Both nations have a 45 percent stake in the venture, in which Russia shares technical expertise with Kazakhstan in exchange for uranium needed to cover a domestic deficit. © Copyright 2006. The Moscow Times. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 31 Journal News: Indian Point 3 reactor returns to service after 24-day refueling Saturday, March 31, 2007 (Original publication: March 31, 2007) BUCHANAN, N.Y. (AP) - The Indian Point 3 nuclear power plant was returned to service this morning after a scheduled, 24-day outage for refueling and maintenance, the plant's owners said. The 14th scheduled refueling of the reactor lasted 24 days and eight hours, which plant owner Entergy Nuclear Northeast said was the least time it has ever taken to refuel the reactor. The site's previous shortest outage was 25 days and six hours in 2003, Entergy said. The plant returned to service at 9:56 a.m., the plant said. "Each outage, our highly professional team has been able to safely get more work done in less time, which is a credit to their commitment to safety and teamwork," Entergy Nuclear President Mike Kansler said. The Indian Point 2 reactor was unaffected by the shutdown and was still operating at full power. Copyright © 2006 The Journal News, a Gannett Co. Inc. newspaper serving Westchester, Rockland and Putnam Counties in New York. ***************************************************************** 32 JOURNAL NEWS: Indian Point 2 inspection finds low-level safety concerns Saturday, March 31, 2007 By GREG CLARY BUCHANAN - An in-depth inspection of Indian Point 2 done every two years has turned up eight safety violations, but federal regulators said yesterday that the findings were all in the lowest category of concern. During the biennial review, which was carried out Jan. 8 to Feb . 15, a team of seven Nuclear Regulatory Commission inspectors and contractors spent 700 hours reviewing 19 systems at the 33-year-old plant. The problems ranged from incorrect pressure calculations on motor-operated valves to on- and off-site electrical problems such as inadequate response to batteries that failed repeatedly. "The inspection included a review of risk-significant and lower-safety-margin plant components, as well as relatively high-risk operator actions," said Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the NRC. "What's important in the case of Indian Point 2 is that they were all classified as very low safety issues." Opponents of Indian Point have been calling for a more detailed review, called an Independent Safety Assessment, of the two working nuclear reactors and the entire Buchanan site and yesterday said the 2007 inspection didn't go far enough in reviewing operations. "The 20 million people living in Indian Point's shadow deserve nothing less than the most comprehensive review," said Lisa Rainwater of the environmental group Riverkeeper. "Unfortunately, we're still waiting." Rainwater said the report yesterday details an inspection that falls short of an Independent Safety Assessment by 10,000 hours and 20 inspectors, and doesn't include any comprehensive look at leaking spent-fuel pools or what she called "unworkable" evacuation plans. Rainwater has taken Entergy to task for leaks of radioactive isotopes strontium 90 and tritium into the Hudson River. State and federal regulators have said the concentrations of the isotopes are too small to pose a threat to public health. NRC officials have said a 2-year-old program of more in-depth inspections like this latest one, targeted to risk and troubled areas, is as effective as an ISA. Jim Steets, a spokesman for Entergy Nuclear Northeast, which bought Indian Point in 2001, said the company has invested hundreds of millions of dollars at the site and the results are beginning to show. "Indian Point 2 was a plant that suffered through some significant performance problems prior to Entergy buying it," Steets said. "This is just another indication about how much we've accomplished." NRC officials said the inspection program has been used since last year and so far a little more than half of the working nuclear reactors in the nation have undergone these reviews. Sheehan said the other plant findings have ranged from zero to 12, with some violations in more serious categories than green, which is where Indian Point 2 ended up with all its problems. Seven of the eight violations have been put into Entergy's corrective action plan and will be inspected further as they are fixed. One item, regarding the adequacy of testing motor-operated valves, is still open and will require further NRC review, agency officials said. Entergy said it would have more discussion with federal regulators before it takes corrective action on that issue. Rep. Eliot Engel, D-Bronx, said the inspection shows the plant's overall safety is in question. "Indian Point has become a series of problems and incidents that are seemingly endless," Engel said. "It is difficult to believe in the safety of this plant when the Nuclear Regulatory Commission keeps finding problems there." Steets said inspections routinely find problems and the company is glad nothing in the report rises above the lowest safety level. "You don't want to have any (violations)," Steets said. "You want to score 100 on any test you take. But we've never pretended we're where we want to be. Especially with Indian Point 2." Indian Point 3 is scheduled for the same type of inspection later this year. Both reports will ultimately be part of the record for the site when Entergy applies for 20-year license extensions, expected to start next month. Reach Greg Clary at gclary@lohud.com or 914-696-8566. Sometimes, an overly emotional, neurotic worldview causes errors. If NRC existed to be the caning and punishment division , it could not function to safeguard the public. Licensees would simply go underground, and do their best to avoid getting punished. No one would be focused on safety.(and certainly not on improvement). The intent of findings in the green, is to tutorially urge improvement, with a reasonable timeframe for attaining it. What NRC generates , when it publishes findings in the green, is a path toward an improved industry. The licensee who fails to take such direction, is downgraded, warned, and finally fined, when lack of cooperative good faith is proven. Our Green Mucklear Gadfly person would short-circuit the entire process, go direct to the caning, and the part he would enjoy the most, the acrimonious adversarial end game. That's what wallowing in eternal activist opposition does to people, it removes their sense of all middle ground. To a heroic avenging Knight of doom, there is no middle ground. These types exist in a fantasy universe. Does America wish a bad-faith food fight to be carried out by NRC within its nuclear plants? I think not. But Green Mucklear Gadfly thinks so. Great. No doubt that's why he remains unemployed, addicted, friendless, clueless, and sporting a broken arm. No middle ground. Posted by: MACLEOD on Sat Mar 31, 2007 10:18 am The NRC has set the inspection system up to assure nuclear plant owners green ights, thus LESS OVERSIGHT. Every one of those and dozens of other violations at Indian Point are FLAGRANT violatons of the 10 CFR rules and regulaions, subject to SUBSTANTIAL FINES. Sadly, the NRC almost NEVER cites the licensee, instead choosing to give them a free pass, regardless of how many of those small violations keep piling up. I can state from personal knowledge that Indian Point has over eight pages of these small violations that have been found, not one of them cited, not one fine handed down. Posted by: GreenNuclearButterfly on Sat Mar 31, 2007 8:21 am Had Elliott Engle ever worked in a real world job, lets say a food processing plant, a factory, or even a power plant, he might have gained the insight he now apparently lacks. In one of these huge agglomerations of mechanical parts, there is never a single instant when each and every part is functioning at 100% correctness.There is never a "perfect moment". In the real world of mechanical work, the closest thing to a "perfect moment" , is when your list of needed tuneups is short, well understood, and doable by the number of maintenance people you have on hand. Indian Point has been inhabiting that space, that perfection, for about 5 or 6 years now. Either Engle is so naive about real world doings, that he ought not pronounce judgement in public--OR-- he is exaggerating for political effect, claiming that the existence of Indian Point's "tuneup list", just given it by NRC, is an indication of (his words) "Safety Problems". Tell me Honorable Mr. Elliott, where do we accurately draw the line between a "do list", and a true safety worry? Do you even know? If you did, would you blur that line, for effect, in talking to the press? I let the reader make his/her own judgement. Posted by: MACLEOD on Sat Mar 31, 2007 6:28 am Copyright © 2006 The Journal News, a Gannett Co. Inc. newspaper serving Westchester, Rockland and Putnam Counties in New York. ***************************************************************** 33 Rutland Herald: Nuclear fuel is vexing issue Rutland Vermont News & Information March 31, 2007 The growing amount of high-level nuclear waste at Vermont Yankee should be of concern to every Vermonter. It is more than a safe bet to say that the lethal by-products of 35 years of power production will not be going to Yucca Mountain, Nevada, anytime soon, if at all. The Rutland Herald article entitled "Vermont AG weighs in on Yankee spent fuel" published on March 20 shows that at least one powerful state leader wants a serious statewide debate on the subject. Sen. Peter Shumlin should be commended for raising concerns and offering direction on what is a vexing and pressing issue. CHRIS WILLIAMS Hancock © 2007 Rutland Herald ***************************************************************** 34 Rutland Herald: Key OK for Vt. Yankee relicensing Rutland Vermont News & Information March 31, 2007 By Susan Smallheer Herald Staff BRATTLEBORO — Entergy Nuclear passed a milestone Friday in its bid to extend Vermont Yankee's license for 20 years when federal regulators said a detailed review of the reactor revealed no outstanding safety issues. In a draft report issued late Friday afternoon, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission identified six areas that still need reports or documentation from Entergy Nuclear. But the report said NRC staff and the company agreed on the underlying issues in those areas. "This is an important milestone — to have this safety review completed," Neil Sheehan, an NRC spokesman, said Friday. Sheehan said the draft report wouldn't be made final until August, along with the other half of the federal review leading to the license renewal. That other half, the draft environmental impact statement, was released late last year and has been challenged by antinuclear groups, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the Vermont Attorney General's office. The six issues the NRC report identified deal mostly with the lack of documentation, such as drawings and blueprints for several safety systems. All six will be subject to further inspection by the NRC. Lack of documentation of design changes made at nuclear plants over their lifetimes — in Vermont Yankee's case, close to 40 years — has been a recurring safety issue across the country. According to a second NRC spokesperson, those inspections have already started and will continue. "There have been teams on-site, but they're still putting together their reports," said Diane Screnci, an NRC spokeswoman. The draft safety report lists three conditions for the license renewal, including that Entergy Nuclear seek approval from the NRC before it changes the conditions for testing a piece of carbon steel, or coupon, that is kept in the reactor vessel. That steel, rather than plant components themselves, is used to determine the aging of plant components. Sheehan said earlier in the day that Vermont Yankee was ahead of its sister plant, Pilgrim, in Massachusetts, for which Entergy Nuclear is also seeking a 20-year license renewal. In the case of Pilgrim, there are several unresolved safety issues that remain open, he said. Sheehan said the draft report represented 10,500 hours of work by NRC staff on safety issues, compared to 3,500 hours on the environmental review. He said the NRC made 88 formal requests for additional information of Entergy Nuclear staff. Only an 11-page summary of the 720-page report was available Friday afternoon, and people associated with the plant either declined comment, citing the size of the report and the timing of its release, or couldn't be reached. Raymond Shadis, senior technical advisor for the New England Coalition, an antinuclear group, said the NRC hadn't sent him notice of the draft report, let alone the report itself. "It's impossible for interveners. There's nothing to be said about the content of the report. Who has time to read it?" Shadis said, noting it would probably take at least a week to read the document and digest it. Any citizen groups concerned about the report's findings have 30 days to read the report and line up experts to challenge it. "It's highly prejudiced against the citizen intervener," Shadis said. "We're very pleased with this report," said Rob Williams, spokesman for Entergy Nuclear. He said that there were no pending or unresolved items. The six items mentioned by the NRC need only written information "to confirm the verbal answer that we provided." "Our engineers have been responding to the NRC for about a year now. They've done very good work," Williams said. Williams said five challenges have already been filed against the license extension request, which he estimated would be held before the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board in 2008. Sarah Hofmann, the director of public advocacy for the Vermont Department of Public Service, which has filed challenges in the past, couldn't be reached for comment. Shadis did say the draft report started a regulatory clock toward getting a final decision on the amended license. The New England Coalition already has had one formal challenge accepted on the environmental report, in addition to three out of the five challenges it filed earlier in the process dealing with the plant's handling of aging components. Shadis said he thought the timing of the report's release was curious, given that it came two days after U.S. Sen. Bernard Sanders, I-Vt., proposed federal legislation that would give governors and public utility commissions the right to seek an in-depth inspection of nuclear reactors facing re-licensing or power uprates. The NRC has said it should have a final decision on Entergy's license request by November, unless the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board decides to hold hearings on Vermont Yankee. In that case, a decision probably would come in July 2008. Contact Susan Smallheer at susan.smallheer@rutlandherald.com. © 2007 Rutland Herald ***************************************************************** 35 Times Argus: Vermont Yankee passes key safety review Vermont News & Information April 1, 2007 The Associated Press Staff Report BRATTLEBORO — Federal regulators have found no outstanding safety issues at Vermont Yankee, giving the nuclear power plant a key OK in its bid to extend operation for an additional 20 years. "This is an important milestone — to have this safety review completed," NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said Friday. In the draft report, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission listed six areas that need further documentation from Entergy Nuclear, the reactor's parent company. The report will be complete in August, along with a report on the environmental impacts of extending the plant's operating license. A draft environmental impact statement released last year has been challenged by the Vermont Attorney General's office, anti-nuclear groups and Massachusetts. In the safety report, the NRC said six areas lacked documentation, such as drawings for a number of safety systems. They will undergo further inspections by federal regulators. Raymond Shadis, technical adviser to the nuclear watchdog group New England Coalition, said Friday he wasn't notified of the report's release."It's impossible for interveners," he said. Citizen Groups have 30 days to challenge the findings. Rob Williams, spokesman for Entergy Nuclear, said the company was pleased that the report found no unresolved safety issues. "Our engineers have been responding to the NRC for about a year now. They've done very good work," Williams said. The NRC is expected to issue a final decision on Entergy's license extension by November. If the NRC's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board holds hearings on Vermont Yankee, a decision would come later, possibly in July 2008. © 2007 Times Argus ***************************************************************** 36 Concord Monitor: Nuclear plant shut down for repairs Concord NH 03301 Copyright 1997-2007 Concord Monitor and New Hampshire Patriot P.O. Box 1177 Concord NH 03302 603-224-5301 Privacy policy Monitor staff and wire March 31. 2007 9:30AM Seabrook Part of the nuclear power plant in Seabrook went offline yesterday afternoon for repairs and will remain shut down for the next few days, a spokesman said. Seabrook Station's non-nuclear operations were shut down about 4 p.m., spokesman Al Griffin said. The plant remains offline for non-emergency repairs. The nuclear power plant produces enough electricity to meet the daily needs of more than 900,000 homes throughout the region. It sits on 900 acres about 40 miles north of Boston and just south of Portsmouth. The plant began operations in 1990 after years of opposition from anti-nuclear groups such as the Clamshell Alliance. The Associated Press Concord Monitor Online, P.O. Box 1177, Concord NH 03302 Phone: 603-224-5301 | E-mail: cmwebmaster@concordmonitor.com ***************************************************************** 37 Hamilton Spectator: Mac's nuclear reactor 'just cannot go boom' By Dana Brown The Hamilton Spectator (Mar 31, 2007) If we're going to have a nuclear reactor in our back yard, McMaster's unit isn't so bad. "You've got a device that just cannot go boom," says Tom Adams, executive director of Energy Probe, a consumer and environmental research group. Although there are concerns about what could happen if a terrorist strike targeted a larger nuclear facility, such as Darlington or Pickering, Adams said the damage that could be done at Mac just isn't comparable. The facility isn't capable of producing enough heat to cause a meltdown. The threat from the facility is more like that of handling hazardous waste, he said. Erika Simpson, a political science professor at the University of Western Ontario, said Canada has not started to ask questions about our nuclear facilities, such as how vulnerable they are to air attacks. The United States recently began asking those questions, she said. Someone wanting to do harm with a small research reactor like McMaster's wouldn't get very far. The plant is in the process of switching to low enriched uranium, which has never been successfully used to make a nuclear bomb. The best someone could do, Simpson said, would be to steal materials and use them as part of a "dirty bomb." "But it's not going to kill more than a maximum 3,000 people in a small area -- maximum. And even then they'd have to be really successful." Ward 1 Councillor Brian McHattie said he hasn't heard any concerns from the community about the renewal of the reactor's operating licence. McHattie said he'll look into the matter to see if the city needs to be involved. dbrown@thespec.com 905-526-4629 Legal Notice: Contents copyright 1991-2006, The Hamilton Spectator. ***************************************************************** 38 Hamilton Spectator: Rumours dog Mac reactor Cathie Coward, the Hamilton Spectator Dave Tucker, senior health physicist, left, and Chris Heysel, director of nuclear operations, stand at the nuclear reactor. 'Not one shred of evidence' terrorists stole uranium, says campus nuclear director By Carmela Fragomeni The Hamilton Spectator (Mar 31, 2007) McMaster University is seeking renewal of the licence for its 48-year-old nuclear reactor against a backdrop of persistent -- but unfounded allegations -- terrorists have stolen uranium from the site. The terrorist accusations have been investigated and repeatedly dismissed by both the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) and McMaster. But the persistent rumour that an al-Qaida operative attended McMaster and smuggled out 180 pounds of nuclear material prompted the CNSC to send McMaster a letter confirming there is no ground for the allegation and that it has never had a report of any nuclear material lost or stolen from the reactor. "It's frustrating, because we're very proud of our facility," said Chris Heysel, director of McMaster's nuclear operations. "It's very hard to make that go away. People can claim anything on the Internet and they don't have the accountability that mainstream journalists have. There's not one shred of evidence. "Everything we've ever handled at this facility is fully documented and accounted for." The renewal applications traditionally garner no public interest, but are scrutinized by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. Staff at the CNSC are recommending approval again and so far, there is no public intervenor to renewing the licence expiring June 30. The CNSC oversees security at the reactor, but it cannot be discussed. "The more you talk about your security provisions, the less effective they become," said Dave Tucker, senior health physicist at Mac. Heysel said reactor officials alerted the CNSC, CSIS, the RCMP and Hamilton police to a suspicious man who identified himself as a reporter and tried to interview security staff in 2003, causing the authorities to swoop in to investigate, but found nothing. The incident preceded a newspaper report from Washington about a week later that an FBI informant said an al-Qaida terrorist posed as a student while trying to get nuclear material for a "dirty bomb," Heysel said. The university supports the international non-proliferation movement, and has, since 1998, been converting the high enriched uranium fuel that powers the reactor to low enriched. The conversion should be completed next month. "It's really hard to make a nuclear bomb from low enriched uranium," said Tucker. "It's never been done." The reactor's power and temperature are low, and along with its simple design of steel piping and concrete and some replacements, it is long outlasting the normal 50-year life of other reactors and should last at least 20 more years. CNSC staff call for several improvements but none of their concerns warrant a licence refusal. "The risks posed to the environment, to the health and safety of persons and to national security, given the measures and safety programs that are in place, are not unreasonable," the report says in recommending the commission approve the operating licence to 2014. McMaster points to an excellent safety record and that the reactor has never been shut down or denied a licence renewal, despite several incidents in almost 50 years of operation. CNSC staff note incidents in the current five-year period are significant enough to require detailed followup or improvements. Among the incidents: Two workers in December 2004 exceeded their quarterly, but not yearly, nuclear doses. The reactor was shut down in July 2005 after a piece of plastic wrapping was seen sitting on top of the reactor core, causing an extensive investigation and more frequent surveillance. In December 2005, iodine gas escaped from a handling station, staff was evacuated and the problem contained within the building and fixed. That was followed by several upgrades. CNSC staff point out that McMaster's reactor has an advantage over many other research reactors because "it has a containment structure capable of containing the majority of the radioactivity in case of a worst-case accident." cfragomeni@thespec.com 905-526-3392 Legal Notice: Contents copyright 1991-2006, The Hamilton Spectator. ***************************************************************** 39 Hamilton Spectator: Mac sues U.S. author over terror allegations By Carmela Fragomeni The Hamilton Spectator (Mar 31, 2007) McMaster University, fed up with accusations of harbouring terrorists and lax security at its nuclear reactor, is suing an American author for $2 million for defamation and libel. The suit alleges Paul Williams, in his 2006 book The Dunces of Doomsday, falsely says McMaster mismanaged university security, leading to the infiltration by terrorist operatives and the theft of nuclear material for bomb-making. It also cites radio interviews where Williams said McMaster's licence was revoked for losing 180 pounds of radioactive material. The allegations have yet to be proven in court. The Canada Nuclear Safety Commission has investigated and states no nuclear material is missing, and says McMaster has never lost its reactor licence. Williams, a journalist from Scranton, Penn., has written books on Islamic terrorism and has started a legal defence fund. His statement of defence claims a moral duty to notify the public and says a Mac student and former student were among 17 suspected terrorists arrested in June. It also says his book is thoroughly researched, including interviews with authorities about Mac's security problems. The lawsuit originally included WND Books/Cumberland House Publishing and its publicist, but that part was settled out of court with a retraction of a media release about the book that was posted on the publisher's website. cfragomeni@thespec.com 905-526-3392 Legal Notice: Contents copyright 1991-2006, The Hamilton Spectator. ***************************************************************** 40 UPI: Analysis: Nuclear-powered oil sands United Press International - Energy - 3/30/2007 9:27:00 PM -0400 By BEN LANDO UPI Energy Correspondent WASHINGTON, March 30 (UPI) -- Nuclear companies and those mining Canada's oil sands are poised to team up to separate crude from deep Earth and pump it to the surface. Reactors are being pushed as a more economical and environmentally friendly alternative to the natural gas now used to fuel oil-sands projects, but the stigma of nuclear energy -- and its ability to do the job -- remain an obstacle. The high price of crude makes oil sands attractive to develop, a process where hydrocarbons mixed with sand, water and clay over millions of years and under the Earth's pressure are extracted, separated, refined to a synthetic oil and sent to market. "It's quite energy intensive," Jeffrey Collins, director of Global Oil for Cambridge Energy Research Associates, told United Press International. "There is still a strong gain positively in terms of the amount of energy you're able to get out of it versus the energy you use." Canada is the world's seventh-largest oil producer at 3.1 million barrels per day and the No. 1 supplier for the United States. Most of Canada's production is from conventional crude, but "the vast majority of Canada's reserves are actually in oil sands" in an area the size of Florida, Collins said. More than 1 million bpd of Canada's oil is from sands. That could triple in 10 years. But as sands production increases, so does its demand for energy, mostly supplied by natural gas. The Energy Information Administration, the data arm of the U.S. Energy Department, predicts demand for natural gas in North America alone will increase by 1.1 a year through 2030. Canada's appetite jumped 1.9 percent in 2003. Canada's reserves are the 17th-largest in the world, but the EIA predicts a net decrease in production through 2030. Canada would surpass Saudi Arabian levels if its sands reserves were booked as part of total reserves. Venezuela also has massive amounts of oil sands, though less developed than Canada. Oil from sands could be more competitive with conventional crude if it could be pumped and processed faster. "They use energy to recover the material and to process the material," Collins said, adding future technologies may turn some waste products from today's sands process to an energy feedstock for operations. Nuclear plants, despite being more capital intensive to build, may take natural gas's place. And Canada's nearby uranium reserves, some of the largest and richest in the world, could be processed and be ready fuel. "Nuclear power plants can address several issues," Collins said. "You could try to reduce the amount of (carbon dioxide) emissions because you don't have to burn as much hydrocarbons, i.e., natural gas, to generate the steam and electricity or to create hydrogen that can be used in the upgrading processes. "And you'd have a near zero emitter from a nuclear power plant. So that's the clean-energy side of it." The World Nuclear Association estimates natural gas is 60 percent of an oil-sands facility's operating costs. But the price of natural gas jumped 6 percent in the past week alone, to $7.56 per thousand cubic feet, down from the $8.51 average last year and well above the $2 levels of the 1980s and 1990s. "The natural gas now is freed up," Collins said. "It could be exported to markets in the rest of Canada and even the United States at relatively premium prices." There are still a number of roadblocks to clear, at least before Canadian sands are powered by nuclear reactors. Canada's Alberta province, where nearly all its sands are located, has never had any nuclear power. It would likely need the general approval of the community, including a large indigenous population. The Canadian House of Commons' Committee on Natural Resources issued a report this month entitled, "The Oil Sands: Toward Sustainable Development," in which it put a hold on nuclear energy "until the repercussions of this process are fully known and understood." The report cited worries over the waste produced by nuclear plants and questions about nuclear energy's ability to deliver the needed steam. And the committee was uncomfortable not knowing whether the sands would need one or numerous large reactors to power operations, or an even greater number of smaller models. There are two types of oil-sands operations. The more shallow deposits are harvested in a strip-mining-style, where Earth is peeled back and massive trucks and shovels remove the wanted product. It's then super-heated with water or steam, and the molasses or tar-like bitumen is removed. "Right now mining is the largest component, more than 60 percent of production of oil sands," Collins said. "More than 80 percent of global reserves" are too deep for mining "the low-hanging fruit." Two primary technologies -- called "in situ" (Latin for "in place") -- have been developed for deep extraction. Cyclic Steam Stimulation uses high-pressure steam delivered through pipes to heat up the heavy bitumen, which is brought to the surface. For Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage, a method gaining in popularity, Collins said, two parallel pipes are drilled vertically and then jut in a 90-degree angle. The top pipe injects steam, and the one below collects the bitumen and draws it to the surface. Both in situ and surface mining bitumen needs further intensive processing and upgrading so that it is capable of being refined or sent away in a pipeline. A number of nuclear companies, led by Energy Alberta, which has plans to bring two reactors online to power sands operations by 2017, are looking to provide the energy needed for such projects. -- e-mail: energy@upi.com © Copyright 2007 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 41 Telegraph: Clean power is coming soon, scientists believe Monday 2 April 2007 By Richard Gray, Science Correspondent, Sunday Telegraph British scientists are involved in a Ł500 million project to achieve the "holy grail" of nuclear power research. They hope to produce a clean and almost limitless source of energy by harnessing the same power that drives the sun in a prototype for the world's first nuclear fusion power station. The researchers, at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, near Oxford, are part of a consortium of physicists from 11 European countries who hope to find a safe and reliable solution to the problem of dwindling fossil fuel supplies. They will submit plans for the reactor next month to the European Commission and hope to start work on the project, called the High Powered Laser Research (HiPER) facility, within the next three years. It is expected to provide the stepping stone between the first laboratory fusion experiments and a commercial power station. Scientists hope fusion will replace traditional fission nuclear power stations, which split atoms to produce energy. The Government has already said it will need to build a new generation of nuclear power stations to meet Britain's electricity demands, but has met with opposition from environmentalists who object to the harmful radioactive waste produced by fission. Fusion, by contrast, only produces very small amounts of low-grade radioactive material. It works by forcing two atoms of "heavy" hydrogen, known as deuterium and tritium, to combine into a heavier atom of helium, producing large amounts of heat in the process that can then be used to boil water and power a gas turbine. Since hydrogen can be extracted from sea water, which contains large quantities of deuterium, the resulting energy supply will be almost limitless. Fusion occurs naturally inside the sun, producing heat and light, but scientists have previously only been able to replicate the effect inside hydrogen bombs. Now, however, they believe they are on the verge of achieving controlled fusion in a laboratory for the first time. An experiment at the National Ignition Facility in California is expected to demonstrate the viability of the process by the end of the decade, while the Oxford scientists continue to work on a new reactor to harness its power. "Science is just a couple of years away from demonstrating fusion in a laboratory," said Prof Mike Dunne, director of the central laser facility at the Rutherford Appleton lab. "The promise of fusion is huge. Fusion fuel is plentiful, it produces no carbon emissions and has no long-lived radioactive by-products or risk of meltdown. The energy we get out is about a million times more than from burning coal or oil." © Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2007. ***************************************************************** 42 Business Standard: EU mulls civil nuclear energy cooperation with India Monday,Apr 02,2007 Press Trust Of India / Brussels April 02, 2007 The 27-member European Union was keen to explore possibilities of cooperation in civil nuclear energy with India and would extend an economic assistance of 470 million euros to New Delhi in the next five years, a senior official has said. “We are prepared to explore with India the possibilities of cooperation in civil nuclear energy and it will be done with the concurrence of the International Energy Commission,” Jean Christian Remond, head of India, Nepal and Bhutan department of the EU, told a group of visiting journalists from London. “We are also extending an economic assistance of 470 million euros to India between 2007 and 2013 at an estimated rate of 67 million euros per annum. “One third of this amount will be directed to implementation of joint action plans in the fields of energy and telecommunication and the remaining as direct support in the fields of health and education,” Remond said. Describing relations between India and the European Union as “dynamic and healthy,” he said “India is definitely seen as a major global player”. The EU is seeking greater engagement with India in tackling global challenges of common concern including climate change, UN reform, non-proliferation, promotion of human rights, democracy, regional integration and fight against terrorism. “Basically we see India as a natural interlocutor with common approach, common values and rule-based international order,” the EU official said. The relations between India and EU have seen a dramatic improvement since the Hague summit in 2004 when the two entered into a strategic partnership, followed by a joint action plan entered into in New Delhi in 2005 and the Helsinki Summit 2006. The two sides are currently exploring possibilities of entering into a trade and investment agreement. The next India-EU Summit is scheduled to be held in New Delhi, in November this year. “We have already started negotiations on the trade and investment agreement,” he said. The two sides have also decided to strengthen relations in five principal areas — fight against terrorism, tackling drug trafficking and organised crime, bringing more and more people and culture together, facilitating visa for some categories, particularly students and researchers to visit each other and fighting illegal migration. He said both India and the EU were keen to see that the Doha development round of the WTO make progress. “At present the prospect of rapid progress is not good,” he said. Annette Grunberg, Administrator, European Commission, said the trade and investment negotiations would commence in a couple of months. Annette said the successful outcome of the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) multilateral trade negotiations remained their foremost trade policy priority and they agreed to ensure that the deepening of bilateral trade relations supported the larger multilateral trading regime. The rapidly growing flows of two-way trade and investment between the EU and India reflected the strengthening of bilateral ties, she said adding the EU and India stood united in facing the scourge of terrorism, which constituted one of the most serious threats to international peace and security. Business Standard Ltd. Copyright & Disclaimer feedback@business-standard.com | Designed and Developed by E Dot ***************************************************************** 43 Decatur Daily: TVA considers letting distributors have stake in plant SUNDAY, APRIL 1, 2007 By Duncan Mansfield Associated Press Writer KNOXVILLE — The Tennessee Valley Authority is exploring ways to share the load with its distributors and ease the load on energy-conscious consumers. Officials at the country’s largest public utility said Friday they are working on a deal that for the first time in TVA’s 74-year history would allow the agency’s 159 distributors to have a stake in a TVA power plant — a gas-fired combustion turbine station in Gleason, about 100 miles west of Nashville. The Tennessee Valley Public Power Association, which represents the distributors, has formed a nonprofit organization to channel investment by its members into TVA power plants. The first deal would involve about $200 million in upgrades to the Gleason station to make it an intermediate power provider for TVA. “It is a great opportunity for making sure we get some equity in the valley,” TVPPA President and CEO Jack Simmons said of his members. It also gives TVA additional capacity without adding to its $25 billion debt. TVA directors also approved a pilot program that will offer “time-of-use” pricing to consumers in five test communities. That means cheaper rates at low-demand periods and higher rates at peak periods. The program will be offered this summer to five distributors with the equipment to adjust thermostats for 250 to 1,000 residential consumers each. Chattanooga’s Electric Power Board is the first to sign up. “I don’t expect any of it to be manual, it is all going to be automated,” TVA customer service executive Ken Breeden said. “And then the key is I want to know how the customer felt about it when it happened.” Both initiatives respond to goals in a draft strategic plan released Friday. TVA will take public comments before adopting the plan May 30. The document will the guide TVA for the next decade on everything from energy reliability to finances to customer satisfaction. “I am very pleased to see a focus on conservation,” TVA director Skila Harris said of the plan. “I know this is a sea change of sorts for TVA because our business model has not been predicated on a conservation ethic. “But I think it is the right thing to do for our customers. Ultimately, a megawatt not built is less expensive typically than a megawatt built.” Stephen Smith, executive director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, urged TVA to strive to become one of the most energy-efficient utilities in the country. “In reality, TVA does lag behind the country in our investment in energy efficiency,” he said. “We have some of the highest consumption rates in the United State for residential customers and that means we are burning more coal and having to build more capacity.” TVA chief nuclear officer announces retirement plans KNOXVILLE (AP) — The top executive in the Tennessee Valley Authority’s nuclear power program announced Friday that he is retiring. Karl Singer, who joined TVA in 1993 after serving in the U.S. Navy, won’t be leaving immediately. He is expected to remain for a few more months, concentrating on the $1.8 billion restart of a mothballed reactor at the Browns Ferry nuclear station near Athens. “This is a decision I have been contemplating over the last year,” Singer said. “The past five years of work on the restoration of Brown’s Ferry Unit 1 have been a rewarding challenge, but I believe with the restart near, this is a good time to announce my retirement.” Browns Ferry Unit 1 is expected to return to service in May for the first time since 1985. It will be the United States’ first “new” nuclear generation of the 21st century. “I appreciate what Karl has done the past few years during this important time in the history of TVAs nuclear program,” TVA President and Chief Executive Officer Tom Kilgore said. Singer, one of TVA’s highest-paid executives, earned nearly $1.3 million last year. Preston Swafford, senior vice president for nuclear services, will assume responsibility for TVA’s five other nuclear reactors while Singer concentrates on Browns Ferry Unit 1. “We expect to name a new chief nuclear officer soon and move to the next stage of our nuclear operation,” Kilgore said. Copyright 2005 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. THE DECATUR DAILY 201 First Ave. S.E. P.O. Box 2213 Decatur, AL 35609 (256) 353-4612 www.decaturdaily.com ***************************************************************** 44 Lancashire Evening Post: 'County must embrace nuclear power' In association with Preston College Fulwood Campus, St Vincents Road, Preston, PR2 8UR, 01772 225002. * Published Date: 01 April 2007 It is "vital" for Lancashire and the North West to stay at the cutting edge of the UK's nuclear industry. That was the message from a nuclear power expert, who added that new power stations would have "major implications" for jobs. Joe Flanagan, sector lead for energy at the North West Development Agency, was speaking at a nuclear debate in Preston. The event, at the Red Rose Hub in Bluebell Way, could help influence a Government consultation into the future of nuclear energy in the UK. The conference was told that currently about 23,000 people work in the nuclear industry in the region and that Heysham 1 and 2 power stations generating 4% of the UK's electricity. Heysham 1 is set to be decommissioned in 2014 with Heysham 2 following in 2023. Mr Flanagan said: "It is vital that we stay at the forefront of the nuclear industry in the UK. "Clearly, a new nuclear build could have major implications for the region in terms of economic development. "There is a great potential for jobs during the construction phase and if stations were built there would be an ongoing employment in the region." The debate on Friday afternoon took place before the Government set out its policy framework, which is expected in a White Paper in May. Speaking at the debate, County Coun Hazel Harding, leader of Lancashire County Council, said: "The North West has a key role to play in the nuclear debate with several potential sites for new-build reactors and waste depositories, and not less than 20,000 people in the region currently employed in the sector across Heysham, Springfield and Sellafield." The North West Regional Assembly, which organised the event, said it presented a timely opportunity for the region's political parties and stakeholders to set out their position. A spokesman for the NWRA said: "Last summer, nuclear power was put back on the British political agenda for the first time in 20 years. "Since the 1990s no new reactors have been built. "However concerns over climate change, coupled with soaring oil and gas prices and the reliance on their supply from foreign – often politically unstable – nations, have resurrected the debate." Last Updated: 31 March 2007 All rights reserved ©2007 Johnston Press Digital Publishing ***************************************************************** 45 Times of India: Arrest of two Indians may hurt nuke deal Indrani Bagchi & Srinivas Laxman [ 1 Apr, 2007 0215hrs ISTTIMES NEWS NETWORK ] NEW DELHI/MUMBAI: On March 23, when Indian and US officials were getting ready to negotiate the 123 Agreement to allow India access to US nuclear and dual-use technology, two Indians were arrested in the US for supplying high-tech components to India’s strategic establishments in violation of US Arms Export Control Act. This latest twist to the Indian nuclear story could have a very damaging impact on the Indian nuclear deal. Questioned about it on Saturday, foreign secretary Shiv Shankar Menon only said, "We are looking into the allegations." Over the past week, both governments have been trying to resolve the hot potato that has been handed to them. After FBI arrested Parthasarathy Sudarshan, founder of Cirrus Electronics in Singapore, and Mythili Gopal, head of Cirrus (USA), the US shared the details of the case with India. Interestingly, the arrests are not yet public knowledge because the US Department of Justice is yet to post the news of the arrests on its website. Sources in the government said the case would be "fully investigated." The news of the arrests could not have come at a worse time. After initial reports of progress on the 123 negotiations, the US top nuclear negotiator with India, Nick Burns, openly asked India to honour its commitments, asking it to do some of the heavy lifting on the deal. "We were hopeful we would be able to make progress to close out all of the issues on the 123 (Agreement) talks. Some progress was made but in our view, not enough," Burns was quoted as saying. "The US has done its part. We’ve met every commitment we said we would meet... Right now, I would say the ball is in India’s court," he said. However, head of the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre director, B N Sureesh, told TOI from Thiruvananthapuram, "We do not bluff." He said whenever his organisation imports items, it always provides an end-user certificate. "So there is no question of us trying to obtain items by stating one purpose and quietly using it for another." According to FBI, the VSSC imported static RAM computer chips manufactured by a Phoenix-based company which are designed to withstand extreme changes in temperature and have applications in missile-guided systems. Isro officials declined to comment, but only said their procedures were "transparent." "This case will be an embarrassment for both sides, though in and of itself it will not derail the deal. In the non-proliferation business, given the variety of actors and the inherent challenge of controlling for WMD uses in an age when more and more technology is dual-use in nature, there are no absolutes," said nuclear analyst Anupam Srivastava. "These defence-electronic items are not always precursors to a WMD programme. The problem in this case arises from the fact they were supplied to a dedicated Indian weapons complex." Sources in the government said that while dealing with the case of unlawful transfers with private entities is not very difficult, what has put India in a spot is that two Indian government officials have been mentioned as "co-conspirators," which puts an entirely different spin on the case. The government officials, said sources familiar with the case, will remain unnamed, because neither US nor India want it to come out in the open, but one of them was reportedly an official in the Indian mission in the US during 2002 and 2005 when the transfers allegedly took place but no longer serves there. The other, says reports, is an official from the Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE). According to the Department of Justice indictment, the Indians’ company Cirrus Electronics was supplying critical components to the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Aeronautical Development Establishment and Bharat Dynamics Ltd. This is readymade ammunition for the hate-lobby in the US, who is ready and willing to kill the deal. This is not merely the non-proliferation lobby, but all the Congressmen who have publicly expressed their opposition to the deal. They will only harden their positions, making the passage of the completed 123 text that much difficult. Copyright ©2007Times Internet Limited. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 46 Boston Globe: NRC asked to consider terrorism risk - By Robert Knox, Globe Correspondent | April 1, 2007 The state's congressional delegation, along with several legislators and seven attorneys general from other states, are backing Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley's attempt to include the risk of terrorism among the factors considered in extending a nuclear power plant's license. The possibility of a terrorist attack on the spent nuclear fuel stored inside a plant, or any catastrophic accident involving that storage area, warrant concern and examination, Coakley argues in her attempt to get the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission to change its rules to take those risks in to account. At immediate issue is the storage of spent fuel at the Pilgrim nuclear plant, which is seeking to extend operations by two decades. Under Nuclear Regulatory Commission rules, spent fuel issues are not included in the licensing process, but are part of the agency's ongoing regulation of the nation's nuclear reactors. Letters signed by all 12 members of the Massachusetts congressional delegation, state lawmakers, and seven other attorneys general echo Coakley's view , as expressed in her petition to the NRC. "The NRC should amend its rules to ensure that the risks of severe accidents involving spent fuel storage pools caused by terrorist attacks and other events are adequately addressed," Coakley stated. NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said agency staff will review the letters along with the comments and supporting material offered on the petition -- a review that can take up to a year. The five-member presidentially appointed commission that oversees the NRC "can ask the staff to accelerate its review if it deems that to be necessary," Sheehan said. Officials from towns near Pilgrim have also attacked the NRC's unwillingness to examine potential threats to the nuclear waste stored in Pilgrim. Terrorism was not a concern when the plant opened 35 years ago, they say, but it is today. Duxbury Selectman Andre Martecchini said last month it was imperative that rules be changed so that the safety of spent fuel storage be fully reviewed in relicensing. Critics of the current system say that while the pool of water in which the spent fuel rods are stored lies within the plant's outer shell, it is not as well protected as the core reactor. Some analysts have identified nuclear plants as inviting targets for a 9/11-scale terrorist attack. In response, the NRC has pointed to its efforts to increase security measures at nuclear plants. Pilgrim's owner, Entergy Corp., has argued that the Atomic Policy Act gives the NRC the authority to determine the scope of environmental impact statements in licensing reviews, and that Coakley's attempts are misdirected. NRC staff and lawyers for Entergy have also opposed the attorney general's effort to change the rule on grounds that courts have already backed the idea that spent fuel issues are not part of the relicensing process. But nuclear critics point to a federal court in California that earlier this year ruled that spent fuel storage must be reviewed in license proceedings for a new nuclear plant built in that state, giving the issue new momentum. Along with asking the NRC for the change, Coakley is proceeding on a parallel track in federal court. Last month she asked a judge to review the NRC's rejection of the state's earlier motions to force regulators to consider spent fuel in the Pilgrim relicensing process. She made the same review request for the Vermont Yankee reactor in southern Vermont, given its proximity to Massachusetts. Local nuclear critics cheered the appeal, saying that placing the Pilgrim case in the hands of a court will bring a quicker decision on the spent fuel issue. "It's great to get into court sooner," said Mary Lampert of Pilgrim Watch , the regional citizens group that has also sought a review of the spent fuel issue. The attorney general office's spokeswoman, Amie Breton, said her office does not know when the court would take up the appeal. Robert Knox can be contacted at rc.knox@gmail.com. © Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company. © The New York Times Company ***************************************************************** 47 LVN: Local students impressed by safety of nuclear repository after site visit Lahontan Valley News Submitted photo Members of Steve Johnson's advanced placement chemistry class from Churchill County High School toured the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository earlier this month. MARLENE GARCIA, mgarcia@lahontanvalleynews.com March 31, 2007 Print Email Ask Churchill County High School science students what they think of storing nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain and they will explain how safeguards make the proposal a good idea. A group of advanced placement chemistry pupils in Steve Johnson's class visited the planned nuclear waste repository earlier this month, along with the Nevada Test Site and the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in California. A stop at Hoover Dam taught the students about hydroelectric power. What the teens learned on the trip convinced them that nuclear power is a vital energy source, and that storing radioactive waste in Nevada is not a big deal. Alex Belbin, 16, said this was his second trip to Yucca Mountain but his first to San Onofre. "Not only do they have all these guards, they have a backup in case the systems fail," he said about the power plant. "It's really, really, really safe. That impressed me." Submitted photo Local students also visited the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in California. Browse and Buy Lahontan Valley News Photos After touring Yucca Mountain, Belbin said geologists explained how the waste would be protected via natural features of the area, such as volcanic rock. "It's really safe. Nothing is going to happen," he said about a potential disaster. Belbin plans to attend the Naval Academy and eventually work in engineering. He enjoys chemistry and all sciences. The junior has lived in Fallon most of his life after being born in England where his mother was stationed with the Navy. "I like the concepts and doing things with chemicals. Explosions are always nice, too," he joked. Shane Groover said experts at Yucca Mountain explained how nuclear waste would be stored in an unbiased way to allow students to form their own opinions. "The Yucca Mountain trip reinforced my opinion that it is a good place to store nuclear waste," he said. "We have to store it somewhere. If we don't, the nuclear industry is going to collapse." He hopes to be a nuclear engineering someday. Groover, 17, said he would love to be a pilot but he suffers from motion sickness that might hamper that goal. His father retired this week after 23 years with the Navy. Pam White said she doesn't understand why Nevada officials oppose storing nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain. "Of all the places to store it, I see Nevada as the best place," said White, 17. "There's a very small chance it would get into our water table. Our government has some good ideas, and we're very good about planning for the future." She hopes her future holds a job she enjoys, that is creative and also contributes to society. Misty Moyle said visiting a museum at the Nevada Test Site brought to life the public's reaction to atomic testing beginning in the 1950s and continuing for four decades until a moratorium was enacted in 1992. "It was interesting to see a visual of how destructive the bombs were," she said. Moyle, 17, joins her classmates in the belief that Yucca Mountain is completely safe for storing nuclear waste. "Everything about the whole process is so safe. They have taken every precaution to the Nth degree," she said. "To me, it's a beautiful piece of land, and I love Nevada, but it's so safe nothing could happen." She believes nuclear waste will be recycled and reused in the future. Moyle is fascinated by how hormones work in the body and hopes to become an endocrinologist. She lives in Fallon during the school year and in Eureka to work on the family farm during summers. The U.S. Department of Energy had set at 2017 deadline to open the nuclear repository in Southern Nevada, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The date was pushed back to 2020 or 2021 on Wednesday because it could take longer to get approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Litigation has also delayed the project. Yucca Mountain would be the country's first national repository for nuclear waste with the capacity to store at least 77,000 tons of the material. There is currently about 50,000 tons of radioactive waste sitting at reactor sites in various states. Johnson said he has been taking students to the Nevada Test Site and Yucca Mountain for about 10 years. "The Nevada Test Site has played a major role in the Cold War years. It's important for Nevada residents to know we played a part," he said. With AP reports All contents © Copyright 2007 lahontanvalleynews.com Lahontan Valley News and Fallon Eagle Standard - 562 North Maine Street - Fallon, NV 89406 ***************************************************************** 48 Sydney Morning Herald: Howard to visit Olympic Dam uranium mine - www.smh.com.au April 1, 2007 Prime Minister John Howard will fly to Roxby Downs for a personal briefing on plans to expand the massive Olympic Dam uranium and copper mine. BHP Billiton chiefs will brief Mr Howard on their $6 billion plan to more than double production at the mine, 560 km north of Adelaide. Olympic Dam has the world's largest uranium deposit and fourth-largest copper deposit, and produces more gold and silver than most other mines in Australia. The nearby township of Roxby Downs would more than double in size from a population of 4,000 to 10,000. The expansion will need approval from both the state and federal governments, and has the support of South Australian Labor Premier Mike Rann. The visit comes as federal Labor leader Kevin Rudd prepares to push for a change to his party's 25-year-old no new uranium mines policy at the ALP's national conference later this month. But the minor parties have urged Labor not to change its policy. © 2007 AAP When news happens: send photos, videos & tip-offs to 0424 SMS SMH (+61 424 767 764), or us. Copyright © 2007. The Sydney Morning Herald. ***************************************************************** 49 Pahrump Valley Times: County OKs Yucca Mtn. study pact Mar. 30, 2007 By MARK WAITE PVT A new five-year agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy has only been proposed, but Nye County commissioners last week felt confident enough to approve 16 contracts worth $1.26 million for the Independent Scientific Investigation Program of the Yucca Mountain project for the next year. Nye County officials signed a five-year agreement with the DOE in April 2002 to fund the program. The Nuclear Waste Repository Project Office has $1.5 million in carry-over funds for the program, until the proposed $2.5 million in new funding is available. The new five-year proposal is meant to reduce uncertainty in defining pathways of contaminants that may occur from Yucca Mountain and travel times in the ground water from the proposed repository to Amargosa Valley. The knowledge will help in planning mitigation measures to protect human health, safety and the environment, interim Nuclear Waste Repository Project Office Director Dave Swanson said in a memo to commissioners. "It is proposed to award these professional service contracts without competition," Swanson wrote. The awards will be based on previous experience. Swanson said that, on average, these contractors have worked for Nye County at least seven years each. "These contractors provide a very valuable service to Nye County and it would be damaging to the program to lose their services," he wrote. The swarm of contractors, their duties and their allotted amounts include: John Campanella, Norwest Corp., will receive up to $170,000 for tracer tests, which include supervising test wells to refine a conceptual model of the hydro-geologic system downslope from Yucca Mountain; Tom Buqo, a hydro-geologist, will receive up to $150,000. Buqo was the principal investigator for water-level monitoring, including identifying trends in groundwater levels in Amargosa Valley and Pahrump Valley; TerraSpectra Geomatics will produce maps and maintain the Web site and the license support network Web site. The company will receive up to $150,000; Jamie Walker, of Jamieson Geological Inc., a managing geologist, trained geologists and technicians for the project, served as a support geologist in drilling and sampling, as well as helping plan new bore holes and wells. He will be paid up to $145,000; Frank D'Agnese, of Earth Knowledge LLC, data management systems, former principal investigator of the Death Valley Regional Groundwater Flow System, will receive up to $100,000. He evaluated groundwater modeling supervised by Buqo and made recommendations in defining the hydro-geologic framework. George Danko, a professor at the University of Nevada, Reno, Mackay School of Mines, performed ventilation models showing the beneficial cooling and drying effects of natural ventilation at Yucca Mountain. He will receive $90,000 to continue studying air flows; Bob Wilcoxon, geologist III, provided logging support for the Early Warning Drilling Program, performed technical oversight on geologic samples and developed water level monitoring networks. He will receive up to $90,000; Mary Ellen Giampaoli, in charge of environmental compliance, has obtained the necessary permits and documentation for well construction, testing and surface excavation, as well as site reclamation. She helped prepare a health and safety plan. Giampaoli will receive up to $70,000; Arturo Woocay and Aline James, University of Texas, El Paso, geochemistry graduate students, will help in groundwater chemistry sampling, for a fee of up to $66,000. Woocay used statistical models to analyze ion water chemistry data near Yucca Mountain and identify groundwater flow pathways that effect Amargosa Valley; John Walton, chairman of the environmental science and engineering program at the University of Texas, El Paso, helped develop a water chemistry model for the repository barrier system that demonstrated the potential for corrosive brine development. He will be paid up to $55,000; James Foster, a lab technician who conducted hydrologic tests on core samples, will receive up to $50,000; Sarah Morealli, University of Pittsburgh a structural geology graduate student, will be paid up to $42,000 for structural geology support. Thomas Anderson, a University of Pittsburgh professor of geology, will be paid up to $40,000. Anderson investigated geologic characteristics and identified potential fast pathways for groundwater flow of contaminants to the Amargosa Desert area. Ed Huskinson, a geologist III, provided geologic logging support for the Early Warning Drilling Program, characterizing minerals. He will receive up to $30,000. Ken Hooks, of Caruthers and Associates Inc., a former Nuclear Regulatory Commission quality assurance engineer, will continue revising the quality assurance documents and will be paid up to $10,000. William Belke, a former Nuclear Regulatory Commission quality engineer, will continue monitoring the quality assurance plan and will be paid up to $10,000; webmaster@pahrumpvalleytimes.com Copyright © Pahrump Valley Times, 1997 - ***************************************************************** 50 AU ABC: Beattie surprised by 'confusion' on uranium position ABC Queensland (ACDT)Sunday, 1 April 2007. 18:30 (AWDT) Queensland Premier Peter beattie says he has not changed his position on uranium mining. The mining industry yesterday called on Mr Beattie to clarify his position on uranium exploration in the state. Mr Beattie returned to Brisbane last night after an overseas trade mission. He says he supports Labor leader Kevin Rudd's push to relax the party's "no new uranium mines" policy, but concedes he may not have the power to make an independent decision. "The issue remains as to whether the national conference resolution enables the states to have desecration or not," he said. "If it does then we will maintain our current position. It's really simple, it's not complicated. The Premier says he is surprised there is confusion about his position on uranium mining. "In terms of how I will vote at the national conference to change the existing, limited number of mines that exist in Australia - I will vote with Kevin Rudd to change that," he said. "The advice out of my department was to determine how I voted on that, and I made that clear. "However, if that is not a nationally binding policy on the states, then we will maintain our current position." ***************************************************************** 51 Las Vegas SUN: Reid in lead, Senate stands up to Bush WEEK IN REVIEW: D.C. Today: April 01, 2007 at 7:32:50 PDT By Lisa Mascaro Las Vegas Sun WASHINGTON - The Senate surprised Washington last week when 50 senators voted for a timetable for withdrawing troops from Iraq, setting up a showdown with President Bush, who has vowed to veto the legislation. After Tuesday night's historic vote, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid returned to his Capitol offices and uttered the understatement of the year. "That was a tough vote," he said, according to an aide who was there. The closest he got to a victory lap was a little spring in his step. Reid had tried twice since becoming majority leader to get the Senate to stand up to the Bush administration's Iraq policy. He kept senators in session on a Saturday over the President s Day weekend to vote against the troop surge, only to fall four votes shy. He tried again in mid-March to push back against the war, but saw his own Democrats sidestep. Tuesday night he brought one Democrat back into the fold. Two Republicans joined the Democrats to defeat a Republican-led amendment that would have stripped the withdrawal timeline from the Iraq spending bill. Even though the final bill didn't pass until two days later , the die was cast. Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi held a news conference Wednesday afternoon to tell Bush that the ball was in his court. By the time the Senate passed the bill Thursday morning, it was old news. Bush called together Republican members of the House that morning, including Nevada Rep. Dean Heller, as a show of support for his own Iraq plan. Nevada's other Republican representative, Jon Porter, couldn't make the meeting. Nothing philosophical, Porter spokesman Matt Leffingwell said. The congressman supports Bush's efforts in Iraq; he just had other work piled high as Congress prepared to adjourn for a one-week recess, Leffingwell said. Porter and Rep. Shelley Berkley set aside their differences last week in an attempt to win permission for a floor vote on zeroing out Bush's proposed $494.5 million request for Yucca Mountain in next year's budget. They failed, but Leffingwell said their efforts are helping to alter the debate about the proposed nuclear waste repository. "There is a change in strategy here," he said. "Most of the history of Yucca has been the not-in-my-back-yard approach. They're going after this as wasteful, reckless spending." Berkley had her own turn in the spotlight last week when Pelosi passed her the gavel. For the first time in her five-term career, Berkley is in the majority party, and she got to take a turn leading the House from the speaker's podium, as members in the majority do. By Friday the town was essentially deserted as members fled to their districts for the recess. Nevada's congressmen also returned home, and Heller and Porter will deliver speeches this week to the state Legislature. Reid will be back in the state, too. But he took Friday off. Lisa Mascaro can be reached at (202) 662-7436 or at lisa.mascaro@lasvegassun.com. Read our policy on privacy and cookies. All contents © 1996 - 2007 Las Vegas Sun, Inc. ***************************************************************** 52 Carlsbad Current-Argus: DOE extends GNEP public comment period to June 4 By Kyle Marksteiner Article Launched: 03/30/2007 09:25:23 PM MDT CARLSBAD ? The period for submitting comments on the scope of the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership's programmatic environmental impact statement has been extended by 60 days, according to the Department of Energy's Web page. The DOE intends to make the official announcement of the extension next week, according to information posted at www.gnep.energy.gov. The final date for public comment will be pushed back from April 4 to June 4. The public scoping process is used by the Energy Department to assist with determining reasonable alternatives and issues for analysis, according to its Web page. The meetings provide the opportunity to present comments, ask questions and discuss issues. As part of the process, a series of public meetings were held around the country near locations that are being considered for GNEP facilities ? a nuclear fuel recycling center, an advanced recycling reactor or an advanced fuel cycle research facility. The Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance has submitted a proposed site as a potential location for the recycling center and reactor. A public meeting was held in Carlsbad in February. Residents can also make comments to the DOE via telephone, e-mail, fax or mail. A number of environmental groups around the country, including New Mexico's Southwest Research and Information Center, recently sent a letter to the DOE asking for the public comment period to be extended by 60 days. The period, the groups argued, should be extended to allow reasonable opportunity to read and scrutinize site reports that are being prepared at prospective locations. Having the comment period's due date before the site studies are completed, the groups argued, could constrain the level of understanding of the issue. The DOE posted its intention to extend the public comment period Friday, said Don Hancock, with Albuquerque's Southwest Research and Information Center. "We're pleased that the comment period was extended," Hancock said. "One of the things that this means is that people will have the opportunity to review the May 1 detailed site report and make additional comments. I think that's the right decision." Another GNEP meeting took place in Carlsbad this week. The Wednesday evening meeting was hosted by the Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance and was soliciting public input for the alliance's developing suitability study. Comments ultimately go to the DOE as part of the alliance's meeting summary and site report. The February meeting, however, was directly hosted by the DOE and is part of the Energy Department's overall scoping process. "There are kind of two separate processes going on," Hancock said. "Our concern was that could be very confusing for the average citizen." The DOE held its last public scoping meeting in Oregon last week, Hancock said. "It's possible that the DOE will do more meetings, but as far as I know there haven't been any more scheduled," he said. "We encourage people to e-mail, fax, mail or call." The comment period for GNEP now ends June 4. Comments can be made by mailing them to Timothy A. Frazier at the Office of Nuclear Energy, U.S. D.O.E, 1000 Independence Ave, SW., Washington D.C. 20585. Comments can also be e-mailed to GNEP-PEIS@nuclear.energy.gov, by calling 866-645-7803 or by faxing (866) 645-7807. Copyright © 2005 Carlsbad Current Argus, a MediaNews Group ***************************************************************** 53 Seattle Times Newspaper: Broken pump delays Hanford project Saturday, March 31, 2007 - Page updated at 02:01 AM By The Associated Press RICHLAND — A broken pump has made it impossible to meet a deadline for emptying a troublesome radioactive-waste tank at the Hanford nuclear reservation, officials said. Today is the deadline for getting the S-102 tank 99 percent emptied, but a pump being used in the process recently broke down with 9 percent of the radioactive and hazardous chemical waste remaining inside, officials said this week. Meanwhile, a new president was named for the main Energy Department contractor at the site, Fluor Hanford, following the assignment of Ronald G. Gallagher to a new strategy and marketing position with Fluor, the parent company. Gallagher, who held the post for 3 ˝ years, will be succeeded April 9 by Cornelius "Con" Murphy, former president of Fluor Fernald, which directed the cleanup of a former uranium-processing complex near Cincinnati until that work was completed about two months ago. Tank S-102, one of 149 single-shell underground tanks that were filled with waste from the separation of plutonium from irradiated fuel in the process of making nuclear warheads, contained 464,000 gallons when the effort to empty it began in December 2004. The potentially lethal sludge is being transferred into newer double-shell tanks to await processing and disposal. Workers are trying to determine whether enough waste has been emptied from Tank S-112 for the state to be satisfied that retrieval is complete. Tank S-112, which would be the seventh of the 149 tanks to be emptied, has been used for technology demonstrations and was not under a legal deadline. "S-102 was thought by many to be the hardest in the tank farm," said Victor Pizzuto, vice president of closure operations for CH2M Hill Hanford Group, which worked on that part of the cleanup. The gunk in Tank S-102 contains phosphates, which when heated and cooled turn gelatinous and clog the plumbing. First the contractor used a high-pressure water spray to dissolve the waste so it could be removed by a pump at the center of the tank, but a cavity soon formed and little waste reached the pump. Next, workers used a "pump on a string," a flexible hose with a cable and winch to suspend the pump in the liquids above the thick layer of sludge to prevent it from clogging, and got the tank about half emptied. At that point CH2M Hill deployed a high-pressure mixing tool called a viper, a rotating spray system mounted on a long shaft that is inserted directly into the waste and rotates slowly while injecting water at a pressure of 32,000 pounds per square inch at a flow rate of six to 12 gallons a minute. That device enabled workers to boost the retrieval rate to 71 percent, and after two more vipers were added, the hardened heel of the waste 91 percent was gone. Then the central pump broke. Experts are trying to decide whether to install a new pump or try another new technology to dislodge and remove the remaining waste. But the 99 percent removal level won't be reached by the deadline of today under a tri-party agreement among the Energy Department, the Environmental Protection Agency and the state, said Ken Wade, the Energy Department's project director for single-shell tank retrievals. In the switch of top executives at Fluor Hanford, Gallagher was named to a position in a new corporate-strategy organization and emerging-markets team that was formed within Fluor last month, Fluor Hanford spokeswoman Judy Connell said. Gallagher's "integrity, professionalism and personal commitment to safety have earned him the respect of the work force and his DOE customers," said Keith Klein, Hanford operations manager for the Energy Department. "We will miss him." Copyright © 2007 The Seattle Times Company ***************************************************************** 54 ScrippsNews: Emergency training at Hanford to get boost washington By LES BLUMENTHAL Saturday, March 31, 2007 An agreement signed Friday by the departments of Energy and Homeland Security is expected to provide a major boost for an emergency training center at the Hanford nuclear reservation. The agreement will mean advanced-level classes for federal, state and local law enforcement officials in terrorism, counterterrorism, weapons of mass destruction and critical infrastructure protection will be offered at the "as real as it gets" Volpentest Hazardous Materials Management and Emergency Response (HAMMER) facility. Up until now, much of the training at HAMMER has focused on Hanford-related activities, with some National Guard units and other agencies using the center. With the signing of the agreement, HAMMER is expected to emerge as the region's leading law-enforcement training center involving the war on terror. "We are very excited," said Connie Patrick, director of the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security and offers training classes for 82 federal agencies. FLETC provides both basic and advanced training for 50,000 officers a year. But Patrick said its two existing training facilities, in New Mexico and South Carolina, are at maximum capacity. "This makes perfect sense," Patrick said of the agreement to use the Hanford training center. "This will save money because we don't have to build a new facility." Patrick said FLETC and HAMMER officials have been talking for several years about an agreement. She said she expected her agency's use of the Hanford facility will grow in coming years. "This is a significant document and it established a formal relationship," said Jim Spracklen, a senior program adviser for the Energy Department. "We've been friends for several years. Now, it's like being engaged. We've made some commitments." The agreement was signed during a meeting in Washington, D.C., of the 50-member HAMMER steering committee. Spracklen said FLETC has been "overwhelmed" since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the agreement should provide the Hanford training center with a "major new business line." "We want to grow HAMMER past our Hanford mission," Spracklen said. "Hanford will still be our priority, but we want to expand." FLETC will pay to use the Hanford facility and will provide its own curriculum and instructors. The Energy Department will provide the HAMMER site and support services, Spracklen said. Spracklen said it was too early to tell how many more people will be taught at HAMMER as a result of the agreement, but there was no question the number would be going up. The 80-acre HAMMER site opened nearly 10 years ago, and now roughly 1,000 classes a year are offered. The center offers classroom instruction along with hands-on training involving life-sized props in realistic settings. The facility is named for Sam Volpentest, who was a leading advocate for HAMMER and other Hanford projects and programs until he died at age 101 in 2005. Fluor Hanford operates HAMMER for the Energy Department. All materials copyright 2006 Scripps Media Center and Scripps Howard ***************************************************************** 55 KnoxNews: Nuclear terror risks result in return of lab OR facility can assess level of harm by examining human chromosomes By FRANK MUNGER, munger@knews.com March 31, 2007 OAK RIDGE - Fear factor. Fear of nuclear terrorism has prompted the government to reopen a lab here that evaluates human radiation exposures based on chromosome damage. In the event of a mass-casualty event, the Oak Ridge facility could help guide the emergency response. "We all know that the threat of attack has become more credible," Robert Brown, the U.S. Department of Energy's chief operating officer in Oak Ridge, said Friday at a dedication ceremony. The Cytogenetic Biodosimetry Lab is a part of the Radiation Emergency Assistance Center/Training Site, which is managed by Oak Ridge Associated Universities for the federal government. The lab is a new facility, but it offers a well-established analytical capability that was pioneered by researchers in Oak Ridge. Adm. Joseph Krol, who heads emergency operations for DOE's National Nuclear Security Administration, said the government made a dumb mistake when it shut down the Oak Ridge research lab in 1998. "It should have never gone away," Krol said Friday. He said it was embarrassing when the United States had to seek foreign help for science developed here. Now that the $1 million lab is operable again, with new and better equipment, Krol pledged that the NNSA would continue funding. "We've done the right thing," he said. Cytogenetics is a technique that analyzes the way chromosomes are damaged and reassembled following significant doses of radiation. The number and type of chromosome aberrations can be correlated to the amount of radiation absorbed in the body. In case of a nuclear attack or radiation emergency, blood samples would be taken from victims and rushed to Oak Ridge. The lymphocytes, or white blood cells, would be cultured and analyzed under a microscope. With updated technology and new software, the system is mostly automated. About 80 samples can be analyzed overnight. Gordon Livingston, who holds a Ph.D. in genetics from the University of Washington, directs the cytogenetics lab. The lab is housed in a brick complex on land once occupied by the Comparative Animal Research Laboratory, where radiation experiments with animals were conducted in the 1950s and 60s. The Oak Ridge facility is one of only two cytogenetic facilities in the United States and the only civilian one. The other lab is at the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute at Bethesda, Md. Nuclear workers typically wear badges at work to provide information on their radiation exposures. But cytogenetics is important when people are exposed to radioactive materials without warning, such as in an accident or terrorist attack. "The person you're working on can be alive or deceased, but the data you get from this activity can allow you to go back (to the scene) and make some basic decisions," Krol said. "Because one of the things you have in a radiological accident is that everybody in a 300-mile radius is going to show up at the hospital and say they've been exposed. Knowing the exposure can give you a clue as to what you should be doing." Senior writer Frank Munger may be reached at 865-342-6329. Copyright 2007, Knoxville News Sentinel Co. © 2007 - Knoxville News Sentinel ***************************************************************** 56 lamonitor.com: News Audit flags former director's reassignment The Online News Source for Los Alamos ROGER SNODGRASS Monitor Assistant Editor When former laboratory Director G. Peter Nanos gave a week's notice and disappeared from Los Alamos in May 2005, tongues clucked and blogs blabbed. Two year's later, a federal auditor with the Department of Energy filled in a little more of the story in a report this week on the department's reassignment policies. Without naming names the Inspector General cited an example of DOE's failure to ensure the cost-effective use of contractor Intergovernmental Personnel Act (IPA). The lab, wrote IG Gregory H. Friedman in a memorandum for the Energy Secretary, "agreed to pay 100 percent of the estimated $289,000 in costs for an IPA assignment that appeared designed to simply resolve a challenging personnel decision." By mentioning the reassignment to the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, the salary and the circumstances, the case in point implicated Nanos. A University of California spokesperson defended the decision this morning. "We disagree with the IG's interpretation that this was done as a personnel matter," said Chris Harrington from Washington. He said UC recognized the need for a change of leadership at the laboratory during the transition to a new team. "We felt that Bob Kukus was the right person to lead the lab through that transition, and everyone agrees that it was a successful transition." UC's special treatment for Nanos also came up in a PricewaterhouseCoopers audit for the board of regents that found a series of questionable pay and benefit arrangements had been made with 64 past and present senior management employees. The audit said Nanos had received a "signing bonus" of $25,000 for coming to work at the lab in 2002. As part of his separation agreement, the university agreed to compensate him for as much as $200,000 on a loss from the sale of his home and gave him an additional $26,462 relocation payment. In a memo to employees at the laboratory, Nanos wrote, "I believe it is now time for my path and the laboratory's path to diverge." He said he was stepping down to pursue a new opportunity with the Department of Defense in Washington. But the path did not diverge completely, as LANL continued to pay his salary for the first year of reassignment and UC assumed his salary since May 31, 2006, Harrington said. He said the Departments of Energy and Defense, UC and LANL have all benefited by having Nanos at the Defense Threat Reduction Agency because of his expertise at DOD and intimate knowledge of Los Alamos. "The American taxpayer can see the value of having these types of arrangements where an individual may have a certain level of knowledge and expertise about a particular agency or institution," he said. "We're going through the process of closing this out, as part of closing out the contract," he added. The IG audit focused on six of DOE's national laboratories, but found most of the problems at the three nuclear weapons labs. The audit found a total of about $11.3 million had been spent on assignments that were too long, resulted in excessive costs or were not appropriately cost shared with agency where the employee worked. Only 77 of 250 assignments were given a detailed review; and of those 31 had "questionable components," the IG stated. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, with $5.4 million in assignment costs was responsible for nearly half the total. LANL was second with about $3.2 million. Sandia had about $2.8 million. Nearly half of Livermore's total assignment costs can be ascribed to one employee who has been on loan to a foreign research facility since June 1998, and at least through June 2006. The laboratory has paid for house or cost of living adjustments, furniture rental, renter's insurance, car allowance, private school for a dependent and foreign language lessons for a spouse. - originally printed in the Monitor on March 31, 2007. © 2003 Los Alamos Monitor All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. 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