***************************************************************** 07/08/07 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 15.158 ***************************************************************** 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 YONHAP NEWS: N. Korea says it will shut down Yongbyon upon arrival o 2 IHT: Report: Japan to partially fund IAEA nuclear monitoring in Nort 3 Reuters: IAEA set to approve new nuclear mission to N.Korea 4 YONHAP NEWS: N. Korea denounces Japan saying it is obstructing denuc 5 US: Burlington Free Press: MY TURN: Governor's talk not equal to ene 6 Burlington Free Press: MY TURN: Uprate Vermont homes; override Dougl 7 Rutland Herald Online: Override of energy bill veto unlikely 8 US: Burlington Free Press: MY TURN: Energy bill: Good policy ruined 9 US: Burlington Free Press: EDITORIAL: Energy-efficiency bill worth c 10 US: Opinion: Our View: City should get out of energy business 11 US: www.azstarnet.com: Alternative energy will not save us | 12 WHOSE BOMBS? 13 WHOSE BOMBS? (with references) 14 [NYTr] Back Behind Bars: The Unbreakable Mordechai Vanunu 15 Calgary Sun: Nuke disarmament Gorbachev priority 16 BBC NEWS: UN denies firing 'whistleblower' NUCLEAR REACTORS 17 The Hindu: Orissa N-power plant site identified 18 The Hindu: Discuss nuclear deal in Parliament, says Vajpayee 19 TheStar.com: 2 Pickering reactors out for the summer 20 BBC NEWS: Chernobyl children's Welsh break 21 Manila Mail: RP pays $1.2-B Bataan N-plant - 22 US: Morning Call: Power to the people 23 US: JOURNAL NEWS: Indian Point siren woes raise alarms 24 EBR: UK government says four applications suitable for nuclear pre-l 25 US: Brattleboro Reformer: VY discharge effects questioned 26 US: Pantagraph.com: Nuclear power too costly and too dangerous 27 The Local: Vattenfall slammed for nuclear 'cover-up' 28 antiwar.com: Armitage: Cheney Cabal Scapegoat - 29 AFP: Kazakhstan to buy Westinghouse stake from Toshiba - 30 Telegraph: Germany to stay nuclear in Merkel U-turn 31 US: Citizens Voice: PPL to test 76 sirens near nuclear reactor 32 US: BlueRidgeNow.com: Nuclear power is the answer 33 US: WCAX: State officials grilled as Vermont Yankee hearing goes on 34 Guardian Unlimited: Brown nuclear pledge prompts legal threat 35 US: MyrtleBeachOnline.com: Nuclear power jump-started NUCLEAR SECURITY NUCLEAR SAFETY NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 36 US: Daily News Journal: Call the governor to stop radioactive dumpin 37 US: Boston Globe: Metalworking firm agrees to vacate site - 38 US: Gallup Independent: Senators ask for pipeline promise; 39 Pahrump Valley Times: Nye County envisions Gateway entry to Yucca 40 Pahrump Valley Times: NYE REJECTS DOE OFFER OF $250,000 ANNUAL INCRE PEACE US DEPT. OF ENERGY 41 Tri-City Herald: Hanford saga still sells ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 YONHAP NEWS: N. Korea says it will shut down Yongbyon upon arrival of first aid shipment Politics/Diplomacy 2007/07/06 22:16 KST By Byun Duk-kun SEOUL, July 6 (Yonhap) -- North Korea on Friday vowed to shut down its nuclear facilities at Yongbyon as soon as it starts receiving 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil promised in a six-nation agreement sealed in February.    A spokesman for the North's Foreign Ministry also made it clear that the country will not wait until it receives the entire 50,000 tons.    "Prompted by the desire to facilitate the process of the six-party talks, the DPRK is now earnestly examining even the issue of suspending the operation of its nuclear facilities earlier than expected, that is, from the moment the first shipment of heavy oil equivalent to one-tenth of the total quantity is made," the unidentified spokesman was quoted as saying by his country's Korean Central News Agency.    The DPRK stands for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the North's official name.    The spokesman added the countries involved in six-nation talks over his country's nuclear program have already been informed of Pyongyang's intention, according to the KCNA report.    The remarks followed an earlier announcement by Seoul that the first batch of 6,200 tons of heavy oil will be shipped out of a South Korean port Thursday.    Chun Yung-woo, South Korea's chief negotiator in the North Korea nuclear disarmament talks, said earlier Friday that the shipment will likely take "a couple of days" to reach North Korea.    The nuclear talks involve the two Koreas, the U.S., Japan, China and Russia.    The North Korean official's remarks are apparently a response to a recent call by Japan that the shipment of the promised energy aid should not take place before the communist nation first suspends its operations at Yongbyon.    Yasuhisa Shiozaki, Japan's chief Cabinet secretary, said in a regular press conference Wednesday that the two should "take place simultaneously...not one before the other." The spokesman for the North Korean Foreign Ministry said there are forces displeased with the smooth implementation of the nuclear disarmament pact "still at work," adding such elements are now spreading misinformation about his country.    "The agreement should be honored not only by the DPRK, but by all the countries participating in the six-party talks on the principle 'action for action,'" the spokesman was quoted as saying, referring to the February agreement in which North Korea promised to shut down and later disable the Yongbyon complex in exchange for a total of 1 million tons of heavy fuel oil and other political benefits.    A group of nuclear monitors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is expected to travel to the North next week to verify the shutdown of Yongbyon and seal the complex.    The North Korean diplomat, however, noted the nuclear activities at Yongbyon could restart at any time should the other countries involved in the six-party talks fail to keep their end of the February agreement.    "The DPRK may not trust them if steps are not taken to make political and economic compensation as promised...in that case, the resumption of its nuclear activity will assume legitimate nature," the North Korean said.    bdk@yna.co.kr ***************************************************************** 2 IHT: Report: Japan to partially fund IAEA nuclear monitoring in North Korea - International Herald Tribune The Associated Press Published: July 7, 2007 TOKYO: Japan plans to partially fund international monitoring of North Korea's promised steps to implement its de-nuclearization, a news report said Saturday. Japan is willing to pay part of the estimated 3.9 million (US$5.3 million) that the International Atomic Energy Agency said is needed for a two-year monitoring process beginning later in 2007, the Nikkei business newspaper reported, citing unidentified Foreign Ministry officials. The IAEA gave the figure in a report it distributed to its member nations. The agency was expected to approve ways to oversee the shutdown as early as Monday. The Nikkei said Japan is expected to announce its contribution toward funding at Monday's IAEA meeting. The report did not give the figure. Foreign Ministry officials could not immediately be reached Saturday for comment on the report. Under a Feb. 13 agreement among China, Japan, the two Koreas, Russia and the U.S., the North will receive 950,000 tons of fuel when it irreversibly disables its reactor and declares the status of its nuclear activities. Japan has refused to take part in the energy assistance for North Korea, saying Pyongyang has not made sufficient effort to resolve the issue of its past abductions of Japanese citizens. Tokyo considers the funding for the IAEA monitoring an exception because it is not direct financial support, the Nikkei said. Copyright 2007 the International Herald Tribune All rights reserved ***************************************************************** 3 Reuters: IAEA set to approve new nuclear mission to N.Korea Sun Jul 8, 2007 6:15PM EDT By Mark Heinrich VIENNA (Reuters) - The International Atomic Energy Agency's governing body is expected on Monday to authorize the dispatch of U.N. monitors to North Korea to verify the shutdown of its atomic bomb programme, diplomats said. It would be the first mission by nuclear watchdog personnel in the isolated Stalinist state since it ejected IAEA inspectors in 2002 after the United States presented evidence it said pointed to a clandestine effort to refine nuclear fuel. North Korea cut a deal with five powers in February to mothball the Yongbyon nuclear complex in exchange for fuel oil, and will grant the IAEA team access pending the first 6,200-metric-tonne delivery to energy-starved Pyongyang's main port. South Korea said a ship carrying the fuel would leave on Thursday on a voyage likely to take two days. "The monitors are ready to go in. Exactly when depends on when North Korea says the fuel oil has arrived and (their) inviting in the IAEA team," an agency diplomat said. In Vienna, the IAEA's 35-nation board of governors was poised to approve the mission by consensus in a special session on Monday, 10 days after senior IAEA and North Korean officials agreed ground rules for verifying the Yongbyon shutdown. "It's a no-brainer. Everyone wants this to happen," said a European diplomat on the board, which has been prone to disputes between industrialized and developing nations in the past. Diplomats said a team of about nine monitors would install security cameras and place seals on sensitive infrastructure in Yongbyon, where North Korea has produced plutonium, leading to its first test nuclear explosion last October. Their initial mission is expected to take about two weeks and at least two monitors will stay on site while North Korea and five powers -- the United States, Russia, China, Japan and South Korea -- negotiate further steps towards disarmament. Continued... ***************************************************************** 4 YONHAP NEWS: N. Korea denounces Japan saying it is obstructing denuclearization on Korean Peninsula 2007/07/07 12:07 KST SEOUL, July 7 (Yonhap) -- Japan's involvement in the denuclearization accord on North Korea will only create instability in the process, a pro-Pyongyang newspaper said Saturday.    "The aim sought by Japan to chill the efforts of bringing about progress at the six-party talks designed to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula is eventually to realize its militarization," said an editorial in the Chosun Sinbo, a newspaper run by pro-Pyongyang residents in Japan.    "Japan had been constantly bringing up the abductees issue during the six-party talks in order to bring a deadlock, and now it is trying to block the six-party talks by usurping Chongryon's buildings." Chongryon is the Korean name for the General Association of Korean Residents, a group of pro-North Korean residents in Japan. Founded in 1955, the organization has served as Pyongyang's de-facto diplomatic mission in Tokyo, as they have no diplomatic relations. Chongryon is reportedly on the verge of bankruptcy, after a Japanese court sanctioned the seizure of Chongryon's headquarters last month due to its failure to repay debts. The February agreement involving six nations - two Koreas, the U.S., China, Russia and Japan - grants up to 1 million tons of heavy fuel oil to the energy-starved North in exchange for the shutdown and eventual disablement of the Yongbyon facility.    North Korea has said it will not shut down the Yongbyon compound until it starts receiving the 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil promised in the energy-for-denuclearization pact signed on Feb. 13, South Korean officials have confirmed.    On Friday, the North strongly hinted that it would suspend operations at its main nuclear reactor as soon as it receives an initial shipment of energy aid as promised in the February deal.    South Korea's Vice Unification Minister Shin Un-sang said Thursday that the first batch of 6,200 tons will be heading to North Korea before the end of next week.    ygkim@yna.co.kr (END) ***************************************************************** 5 Burlington Free Press: MY TURN: Governor's talk not equal to energy-efficiency policy Opinion burlingtonfreepress.com | Burlington, Vermont Sunday, July 8, 2007 By Rep. Rachel Weston For several years now, Gov. Jim Douglas has talked about reducing Vermont's carbon footprint. But when it has come time for acti The bill is estimated to save Vermont households $400 a year while also creating new, good-paying jobs in the energy-efficiency sector. States like Texas that have implemented similar measures have seen green technology businesses move in, bringing jobs in manufacturing, research and the trades. The governor vetoed H. 520 and squandered a great opportunity to put real money back into the pockets of Vermonters and significantly reduce our contribution to global warming. There is a disconnect between what Douglas says he supports and how he acts. What should have been an easy political victory for Douglas with both working Vermonters and environmentalists has been turned into one of the most polarizing debates of the year as the governor demonstrates his lack of commitment to environmental leadership. The governor's recent trip to China, touted as "Vermont's best opportunity to impact global environmental challenges," included only two Vermont businesses, when a typical trade mission should include at least 12. Some of the state's leading environmental firms weren't even invited to attend. How does Douglas expect Vermont to continue to be an environmental leader when he vetoes Vermont solutions and then is incapable of bringing interested parties to the table for international solutions? What's worse, when informed that a new study shows Vermont as top in the nation when it comes to addressing energy issues, the governor used that as an excuse to do nothing. Meanwhile, other states will quickly surpass Vermont as leading the nation in addressing our energy challenges. Talking about an issue, even if you do it a lot, is not going to solve the larger problem. The governor waited to deliver his energy plan until more than two weeks after the Legislature left Montpelier. Even high school students can't get away with turning in their assignments two weeks late -- why should the governor? And the proposal the governor came up with is like a maple creemee without the maple or the milk: There's nothing to it. The Douglas plan puts report writing in place of real solutions. It asks Vermonters to tack on debt in order to save money on fuel costs. It virtually ignores developing renewable energy, thereby forcing Vermonters to have fewer choices about where their power will come from. The Legislature made a commitment to Vermonters that we are serious about creating solutions to climate change. Some of the bill's strongest opponents will support H.520 if the most controversial portion of the bill, the part that equalizes Yankee nuclear's taxes with wind generation, is removed. Even under this scenario, the governor has said that he still will not support the core climate change bill. The rejection of this proposal shows a lack of seriousness about the underlying issue of climate change and economic opportunity on the part of the governor. Most Vermonters understand that the cost we pay for our fuel is too high for both our pocketbooks and for the environment. The entire package of climate change solutions is necessary if we are to be truthful in demonstrating to Vermonters that we are serious about saving them money, creating good jobs, reducing our carbon footprint and preparing for a more secure energy future for the state. This is the real Vermont way forward. Rep. Rachel Weston lives in Burlington. Copyright 2007 Burlingtonfreepress.com All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 6 Burlington Free Press: MY TURN: Uprate Vermont homes; override Douglas' veto Opinion burlingtonfreepress.com | Burlington, Vermont Published: Sunday, July 8, 2007 By Arnold Gundersen Since 2003, I have been "following the money" as the only Vermont expert witness on the Vermont Yankee uprate not employed by Ente Now, three years later, why can't Vermont's own Yankee citizens "uprate" the energy efficiency of our aging homes and businesses? We can't do it because our small state has limited funds, and after five full years in office, Gov. Jim Douglas has yet to develop a statewide energy plan. At the same time, Vermont Yankee has convinced the Douglas administration that this plant, one of the oldest operating nuclear plants in the country, deserves special tax concessions. Did you know that during the past 10 years, Vermont Yankee's yearly taxes dropped by almost $1 million? Did your taxes decrease? Mine didn't. Back in 2004, the Douglas administration estimated that Entergy's profits would increase by about $20 million each year due to the extra 110-megawatt power uprate. According to the evidence I reviewed, Entergy's own projections were many times that amount. All the while, Vermont's businesses and taxpayers pay ever-increasing energy costs and a higher percentage of state taxes compared to Vermont Yankee's "special" tax rate. Burdened by high-priced gasoline and heating oil, no statewide mass transit, and homes that are much older and less energy-efficient than the national average, Vermont residents and business owners deserve the opportunity to "uprate" their energy efficiency. This spring, our Legislature created a well-thought-out global warming bill that provides Vermonters with financial incentives to "uprate" the energy efficiency of our homes and businesses. These energy uprate incentives would be paid for by taxing Vermont Yankee like any other energy production business, for example, as if it were a windmill. Gov. Douglas said he vetoed that bill because it wouldn't be fair to Vermont Yankee and its Louisiana-based owner. What about us Yankees living right here in Vermont? Aren't we entitled to the same standards of fairness? What about the energy-efficiency companies trying to start up in Vermont? They bring new jobs, a new tax base, and future growth industries that have more environmentally compatible methods of generating energy. Where is their power "uprate"? I urge you to contact your legislators and ask them to override Gov. Douglas' veto in the July 11 special session. It seems only fair that the citizens of Vermont should stop subsidizing the abnormally low subprime taxation rate of Vermont Yankee. Instead, tax Vermont Yankee as if it were a windmill, and use those funds to create new jobs, uprate the energy-efficiency of our homes and businesses, and save Vermonters real money. Arnold Gundersen of Burlington is a nuclear safety expert witness. Copyright 2007 Burlingtonfreepress.com All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 7 Rutland Herald Online: Override of energy bill veto unlikely July 08, 2007 By Louis Porter Vermont Press Bureau MONTPELIER Even to some supporters, it seems unlikely there will be enough votes in the state House of Representatives to pass the energy bill the most controversial measure of this year's legislative session into law over Gov. James Douglas' veto. But lawmakers are holding out hope that by the time the final gavel falls on Wednesday's special veto session a compromise proposal will make it into law. The wide-ranging energy bill, H.520, includes measures that encourage wind power development and the installation of solar panels. It strengthens standards for energy efficiency in commercial buildings and allows the potential for variable electricity rates to encourage consumers to conserve power. But the heart of the bill and the center of Douglas' objection to it is an efficiency program to reduce the use of heating fuels. Douglas says he opposes the program because it would be funded in part through a tax increase on the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vernon. He also says the structure and scope of the program have not been adequately defined. Lawmakers, led by Senate President Pro Tem Peter Shumlin, D-Windham, have offered to put off a vote on the tax increase until January, provided the state moves forward on setting up the heating program. That program is modeled on Vermont's electricity efficiency program, Efficiency Vermont. No dice, administration officials said. "The tax has to come completely off the table," said Jason Gibbs, a Douglas spokesman. "They have got to take this bureaucracy off the table." The rhetoric from both sides has heated up as the administration and Shumlin have become locked in a public argument over who is more serious about reaching a compromise on the legislation, which is designed to reduce global warming pollution and boost economic development in Vermont. "He is obviously not serious about reaching an agreement," Gibbs said of Shumlin. The head of the Senate, meanwhile, said that Douglas is out of step with Vermonters' values and is unwilling to take the issue seriously. "I fully expect by the time we get up there, the governor will have accepted our proposal for H.520," Shumlin said. Meanwhile, key players on both sides are working to see if there is a way to reach a compromise because even some of the bill's supporters believe a veto override is unlikely. "Having the votes for a veto override is an uphill challenge," said Rep. Robert Dostis, D-Waterbury, chairman of the House Natural Resources and Energy Committee. "I am more interested in finding a bill we can all support and move through the House on that day. "The provisions that are contained in the bill that will help us reduce our use of energy, create jobs and encourage economic development are key," he said. One avenue of escape from the deadlock could be so-called "forward capacity payments" expected to be made to the state's electricity efficiency program by the organization that administers the New England power grid. Those payments are designed to encourage the development of new power sources in the region and will go to Efficiency Vermont because of its role in reducing electricity use, Dostis said. Between 2008 and 2012, those forward capacity payments are expected to be as much as $17 million much more than was originally expected, he added. Using that money to fund "all fuels" heating efficiency would make sense, Dostis said, though he said the Public Service Board, which controls Efficiency Vermont's budget, would have to approve the plan. "It would be a very logical use of those funds given that Efficiency Vermont is already in homes and businesses finding savings in electricity," he said. Rep. Joyce Errecart, R-Shelburne, a member of Dostis' committee and an opponent of the tax on Yankee, said there is a possibility that a compromise on the energy bill will be reached. "I don't know if I would say I am hopeful but I am trying," she said. "There is room to negotiate if we can get past the ugly things that have happened in the last couple months." Not only has each side loudly denounced the other, but there have also been accusations of intentionally derailing compromise talks. "I am sure the veto will be sustained," she said. "Therefore we really should compromise because it is a very bad result to have the Legislature come home without doing anything about energy policy." The issue has come to a head because lawmakers have been building momentum, making progress on energy policy issues in each of the last several years. A real concern is that Vermont is being left behind as states like Connecticut and Delaware pass similar efficiency programs that address the use of heating fuels, said James Moore of the Vermont Public Interest Research Group. "Vermont is missing out on economic opportunities because other states are passing the kind of clean energy legislation that will not only help the environment, but also support business," Moore said. "In Delaware and Connecticut they have put aside partisan concerns and addressed energy costs that consumers are facing. The governor hasn't been willing to do that, even when the Legislature offered a compromise." Advocates for the bill say Vermonters stand to lose because they continue to spend more money on heating fuels, and they are missing business opportunities based on weatherization and energy efficiency efforts. Even if a compromise in broad terms can be reached, crafting a new bill appears unrealistic. The lawmakers are expected to reconvene for only one day, and they have another complicated bill vetoed by Douglas this one on campaign finance rules to deal with that day as well. In any case, overriding a gubernatorial veto is never easy despite the Democrats' wide majorities in both the House and Senate. It takes two-thirds of those present to pass a bill into law without a governor's signature, and the override must pass the House floor first before it even reaches the Senate. Since 1836 there have only been six successful overrides of 127 vetoes. "I don't believe we will have the necessary votes to override," predicted Rep. Tony Klein, D-East Montpelier. Now is the time to consider a compromise, given the importance of doing something soon, Klein said. "Vermonters are going to lose out, and lose out big, if we don't keep moving forward," he said. But "you need two parties to talk to each other to reach a compromise. (Douglas) knows what we are willing to do. We need to know what he is willing to do." Simple, Gibbs said. "The thing to do is allow the Public Service Board to conduct a thorough analysis of how best to achieve the goals, and in the interim, implement the governor's program," he said. And Shumlin and other legislative leaders must agree to jettison the proposed increase in the tax on Vermont Yankee's parent company, Entergy Nuclear. At the end of the legislative session, Douglas proposed an alternative that would have used some state money to reduce the interest rates on private loans for Vermonters who wanted to weatherize their homes or increase the efficiency of their heating systems. "I think he has some very worthy proposals. I wish he had brought them forward during the legislative session, and I will be pleased to consider them in January," Shumlin said. As for giving up on reviewing the taxes paid by the nuclear plant, he will not do that whatever the outcome on Wednesday Shumlin said. That is because although the administration and the company vigorously disagree the plant doesn't pay its share of property taxes, he said. "Regardless of what happens with H.520, this discussion is going to continue," Shumlin said. "We stumbled upon a real inequity." That is because changes made several years ago in how the plant is taxed have resulted in Entergy paying less than it would have based on its value, Shumlin said. According to estimates by the Joint Fiscal Office the financial office for the Legislature Yankee paid $2.8 million into the general fund through the electrical generation tax and $2.2 million into the education fund in 2003. The Joint Fiscal Office estimates that the plant will pay roughly $2.8 million and $2.1 million respectively into those funds annually by 2008. That is too little given the value of the plant especially after recent upgrades made by Yankee, according to advocates for the additional Yankee tax. Yankee officials have said that the changes in tax structure for the plant were made at the request of two governors Democrat Howard Dean and Douglas, his Republican successor to give the state predictability and stability in tax revenue. And the work done on the plant including boosting power output and adding "dry cask" storage for waste were anticipated when the deal was struck and automatically taken into account since the tax is based on kilowatt hour of electricity produced, according to Yankee. Douglas has argued that increasing the tax on Yankee will raise power rates after 2012 and will damage the state's reputation and economic development. "A tax on the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station in Vernon sends a chilling message to our current and prospective employers at the same time we are seeking to support and strengthen job creation," Douglas wrote in his veto message on the energy bill. "In addition, policymakers have an obligation to honor the commitments of previous Legislatures and treat all businesses fairly and honestly." 2007 Rutland Herald ***************************************************************** 8 Burlington Free Press: MY TURN: Energy bill: Good policy ruined by bad politics Opinion burlingtonfreepress.com | Burlington, Vermont Published: Sunday, July 8, 2007 By Rep. Heidi Scheuermann Since the legislative session adjourned and Gov. Jim Douglas vetoed the final energy bill, Vermonters have been closely foll While not revolutionary, the energy bill that passed the Vermont House earlier this year was a good bill designed to increase energy conservation efforts and increase the amount of Vermont's electricity supply generated by renewable sources. Among other things, H.520 as passed in the House: Put into statute our goal to produce 25 percent of our energy from renewable sources by 2025. Encouraged "smart meters" and off-peak rate structures to give Vermonters more control over electricity costs and use. Revised our current net metering law to further encourage small renewable energy systems. Promoted a more efficient permit review process for small-scale hydroelectric projects. This bill was widely endorsed and passed by a vote of 138 -8. Unfortunately, it was put into jeopardy when the Senate created an "all-fuels efficiency" program. The reason given for this new multimillion-dollar bureaucracy, the design and mission of which remain unknown, is to fight global warming. However, rather than looking at what we already have in place to help Vermonters make their homes and businesses more energy efficient, they decided to create a new program out of whole cloth. They only needed to devise a tax to pay for it. Like every Vermonter I know, I want to become less reliant on fossil fuels; want to produce more of our energy locally; and want to be a good steward of our environment. Vermonters are known for our environmental integrity -- with thousands of acres of protected land, some of the cleanest air and water in the country, and most important when discussing this energy legislation, the smallest carbon footprint in the country. A major reason for Vermont's low carbon footprint is that one-third of our power comes from the Entergy Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant. Unlike most energy producers, nuclear power results in zero carbon emissions. Ironically, this source of baseload power is the single entity from which legislative leaders decided to get the millions of dollars to fund the new bureaucracy. The initial proposal to tax Vermont Yankee $37 million on its "unanticipated revenues" failed to garner support, so leaders were forced to come up with a more sellable plan. Thus arrived the $25 million additional generation tax. Contrary to countless claims in the state's newspapers, this tax has nothing to do with Vermont Yankee paying its "fair share." That is merely the rhetoric used to sell the plan to the public. As nuclear power plants draw closer to their license terminations, the assessed value of the plants decreases. It was clear a few years ago that the value of the Vermont Yankee plant was decreasing as its 2012 license expiration approached, resulting in decreasing statewide property tax payments. Under the Dean administration, negotiations began to ensure a steady, consistent tax payment to the state. The negotiations continued under Douglas, and the result was a tax stabilization agreement that would continue through the expiration of the plant's current license in 2012. In 2003, this 0.001 generation tax was put into state statute. The result is more money to the state than would have been, and would continue to be, collected in property tax payments. Tax stabilization agreements are routinely entered into by governments and businesses, as they are critical to economic development activities. This increase in taxes on Vermont Yankee, simply put, breaks a deal. It is a dangerous precedent to set, it sends an incredibly negative message to our business community, and will have a detrimental effect on the state as our utilities negotiate future electric rates. On July 11, the Legislature should pass the consensus energy legislation that passed the House. It would be a shame to lose that good work over political grandstanding. Rep. Heidi Scheuermann lives in Stowe. Copyright 2007 Burlingtonfreepress.com All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 9 Burlington Free Press: EDITORIAL: Energy-efficiency bill worth compromise Opinion burlingtonfreepress.com | Burlington, Vermont Sunday, July 8, 2007 When members of the Legislature return for its veto session Wednesday, the most high-profile business they face will be the governor's veto of the energy-efficiency bill, H.520. The energy bill is worth saving, but not in the form that earned the governor's veto. The problem is the provision unilaterally changes a tax agreement between Vermont Yankee and the state to pay for a new energy-efficiency utility. For all those who believe that climate change is a critical issue facing the state -- a group that includes the legislative leadership and Gov. Jim Douglas -- this is a time for compromise. The Legislature's offer to scrap the tax increase on Vermont Yankee opens a door to a deal that could save the bulk of the legislation that would encourage reducing the state's reliance on fossil fuels. The veto was no surprise. The governor early and often opposed any new tax to pay for the efficiency program, especially one that targets a specific company. Although the language of the bill applies to all large-scale power producers in the state and was originally written with wind farms in mind, the truth is that the only company that would be affected for the foreseeable future is Vermont Yankee owner Entergy. However, the governor's strong objections to a "bloated bureaucracy" that would run the efficiency program is disingenuous. For one, the proposal is to model the utility along the lines of Efficiency Vermont, the electric efficiency utility Douglas has praised for its cost-effectiveness. For another, there is no "bloated bureaucracy," as the utility has yet to be designed. And finally, this became a non-negotiable point only after the end of the session, during which he expressed only a vague unease about an unknown entity. For his part, Senate President Pro Tempore Peter Shumlin, the chief proponent of the efficiency utility and the tax to pay for it, plays politics with an issue that he places at the top of the state's priorities. He deserves credit for his role in offering to drop the Vermont Yankee tax, but his focus on the nuclear power plant as the source to pay for the efficiency utility triggered the veto in the first place and has put in peril the entire climate change bill in service of a political victory. The practical thing to do now is to adopt portions of H.520 that both sides agree on and return to the rest in the next session. The Legislature has taken a big step toward compromise by offering to drop the tax. The legislation can mandate that the Public Service Board report before January with a model for an all-fuels efficiency utility -- something that is already in the bill -- so the debate can be on the merits of the plan. The face-off over H.520 is a political showdown between the Democratic leadership of the Legislature and the Republican governor. It has all the trappings of politicians positioning themselves for their next run at office. It was the 19th-century German politician Otto von Bismarck who said, "Politics is the art of the possible." The maneuvering of both sides leading up to the veto session has shown more artifice than art. The losers are Vermonters who can expect little in the way of meaningful action on a key issue. Copyright 2007 Burlingtonfreepress.com All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 10 Opinion: Our View: City should get out of energy business A better plan Sunday | city, year, power - Gazette.com * Gazette.com July 7, 2007 - 11:04PM With power demands growing, Colorado Springs Utilities must decide soon which course to take, The Gazette reported Thursday. Should the city-owned agency build a coal-fired plant? Buy power from others? Augment traditional sources with wind power? Or all three? Hmmmm. Such dilemmas we face when government strays from its proper role and into realms better left to the private sector. But city leaders refuse to seriously consider privatizing our city-owned utility, so it falls to us to come up with longrange plans for running a nearly $1 billion-a-year business. CSU officials are soliciting public input on the subject, as part of the effort to draw up a 20-year Integrated Resource Plan required by federal law. So lets hear from all you energy industry experts in hiding. Make your preferences known. Where do you think the natural gas market is headed in the next decade or two? How much does it cost, per kilowatt hour, to power a plant with woody biomass? How will a carbon tax impact ratepayers? How will we meet the latest round of renewable energy production quotas, and the round that will inevitably follow? Maybe we should go with nuclear power, assuming they dont kill Yucca Mountain. How many acres of solar panels does it take to replace a coal-fired power plant? For what its worth, we would like to see all those dirty old power plants shut down and the city powered with thousands of rooftop pinwheels. But dont be shy about weighing-in with your ideas. Its our utility, after all, so officials have to take your ruminations seriously. And weve got a bunch of amateurs sitting as the Utilities Board/City Council, so your suggestions are as good as any CSU is likely to get. Whether or not your ideas are connected to reality are cost-effective, technically feasible and make any practical sense at all isnt important. Most of todays energy policy debate takes place in the Surreal World. The important thing is making your feelings known. Actually, we dont know the first thing about drawing up a 20 year energy plan. But were in good company, since the City Council/Utilities Board doesnt know anything about it either. What little they know about these esoteric issues is spoon-fed them by utility insiders, so instead of being a truly independent governing board, they operate as an echo chamber. Which brings us to our alternative to the 20-year Integrated Resource Plan something we call the 3-year Utility Re-evaluation and Privatization Plan, which would take these decisions out of the hands of politicians and put them where they belong: in the hands of private sector energy industry professionals. In year one, City Council commissions an independent study of what CSU is worth and the feasibility of selling it off, in parts or as a whole. In year two, we have a city-wide debate on the pros and cons of privatization, informed by the results of that research, and about how we might steward the windfall that would result from such a sale. In year three we put the issue to a vote of the people and act according to their wishes. Privatization wouldnt be without potential complications. But they would probably pale in comparison to the complications we face now, as the amateur owners of a utility company. The lights would still go on, but making them go on, and keeping them on, would be somebody elses headache. City Council could focus on more appropriate things. Politics wouldnt intrude into utility business decisions. And the citizens of Colorado Springs could turn their attention to other matters such as whether the citys other enterprises might also be privatized. Browns Canyon, taken in context Salida outfitter and hunter Bill Dvorak gets so upset with off-road vehicle riders who venture into Browns Canyon intruding on what he evidently considers his personal hunting preserve that he wants to shoot them, according to Thursdays Gazette. Hes just using rhetoric recklessly, we assume, but this selfish and hostile attitude seems all too typical of those who want the canyon declared a federal wilderness area and placed off limits to those who recreate in ways they dont approve of. Besides selfishness, theres obviously a strong element of self-interest motivating self-styled wilderness advocates. As an outfitter who gets paid for trekking people into the backcountry, Dvorak resents the fact that less-affluent hunters can access the area without his assistance. And heres just one irony in the situation. Dvorak wants to keep the area pristine not because hes a nature worshipper, like many wilderness buffs; he goes there, and takes his clients there, to kill things. Nothing wrong with that. We strongly support the right of hunters all hunters to do their thing in national forests. Its just interested that a guy who kills animals for fun and profit is complaining because some ATV riders, occasionally passing through his happy hunting grounds, scare the deer. Theres nothing wrong with this, either. Even some saints are guided by self-interest. But lets not paint all wilderness backers as high-minded altruists and all wilderness opponents as nature-trampling yahoos. Maintaining the multiple-use mandate on federal lands means balancing competing uses and needs, but one faction in the fight isnt interested in sharing. Some people choose to enjoy their public lands one way; others, in other ways. Of late, however, elite recreationists are joining forces with environmental extremists in an effort to exclude those who dont enjoy the lands in certain recreationally correct ways. The push for more roadless and wilderness areas is part of that effort. This coalition will hold together until most extractive industries and motorized recreationists have been ousted from federal lands and until the hard-core greens turn on their erstwhile allies, on the outfitters and the elite hook-and-bullet clubs, and issue them an eviction notice. * Copyright 2007, The Gazette, a division of Freedom Colorado Information. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 11 www.azstarnet.com: Alternative energy will not save us | Sun, July 08, 2007 NUCLEAR A new generation of nuclear plants could produce almost limitless electricity while solving the waste-fuel storage problems by burning the waste for energy. Ethanol The United States already produces 33 percent of the world's ethanol, yet that equals only a little over 1 percent of the volume of our imported petroleum. BIODIESEL Biodiesel would require farming soybeans on an additional 188 million acres — an area about the size of Texas and Minnesota combined. SOLAR The Energy Information Administration projects that solar will account for only one-half of 1 percent of our energy needs by the year 2030. WIND Windmills would take up more than 530 times the acreage of a 500-megawatt gas-fired power plant to produce the same amount of energy. OIL SHALE The United States' 3.3 trillion tons of oil shale are the largest deposits in the world and are roughly equal to the rest of the world's recoverable oil reserves. COAL Coal-to-liquid fuel plants could turn our vast reserves of coal into clean-burning energy while returning pollutants to the mines from which they came. Opinion by Gerald E. Marsh CHICAGO — If Congress is going to subsidize energy to free us from dependence on foreign oil, it should — at the very least — spend our hard-earned taxpayer dollars on something that will work. The unfortunate truth is that neither ethanol nor any other so-called renewable alternative energy now being discussed on Capitol Hill is likely to make any significant contribution to our energy needs. The United States already produces 33 percent of the world's ethanol, yet that equals only a little over 1 percent of the volume of our imported petroleum. Even at that low level, the increased demand for corn to make ethanol has pushed up prices from about $1.50 per bushel to nearly $4. That, in turn, has increased the cost of almost everything we eat. Some optimists have suggested we simply plant more acres of corn. The burning question is: How many more? To replace just 10 percent of our gasoline needs with ethanol would require plowing up an additional 3.7 million acres, nearly 8 million when you factor in the need to rotate crops. That will never, and should never, happen. Growing straw and other grasses to produce cellulosic ethanol — widely touted by President Bush in his energy plan — would require even more land. Yet many in Washington say they want expanded production of E85, a gasoline blend that is 85 percent ethanol. Ironically, many of these same congressmen also want to require higher mileage standards for cars and trucks. Since alcohol contains less energy than gasoline, E85 gets 30 percent less mileage. Paying more for lower mileage is not likely to sit well with most drivers — nor for that matter, with professors of logic. Yet, with all its shortcomings, ethanol appears to still be the best of the widely discussed alternatives. Biodiesel would require farming soybeans on an additional 188 million acres — an area about the size of Texas and Minnesota combined — just to replace 10 percent of our diesel needs. We farm only 400 million U.S. acres for all crops today. Solar and wind power, the darlings of environmentalists, would eat up even more land. A single conventional gas-fired 500-megawatt power plant typically stands on about 55 acres of land and produces enough electricity to run 500,000 homes. To produce the same power we would need 6,750 acres of solar panels or 29,250 acres of windmills. Of course we would still need the conventional power plants for when the sun doesn't shine or the wind doesn't blow. The space requirements and undependability undoubtedly account for why the Energy Information Administration projects that solar will account for only one-half of 1 percent of our energy needs by the year 2030 and wind just six-tenths of 1 percent. None of this, however, means the United States doesn't have a bright energy future that will give us a measure of control over world markets and reduce the dollars we are currently pouring into hostile regimes that fund terrorists. This country has roughly as much oil as the rest of the world's recoverable reserves locked up in oil shale in a few Western states. It is cleaner burning than any oil now available, and several companies are developing environmentally sound techniques for extracting it. Coal-to-liquid fuel plants could turn our vast reserves of coal into clean-burning energy while returning pollutants to the mines from which they came. A new generation of nuclear plants based on the Integral Fast Reactor developed at Argonne National Laboratory could produce almost limitless electricity while solving the waste-fuel storage problems by burning the waste for energy. While these new sources are being put into place, we can safely tap conventional reserves in Alaska, the Gulf of Mexico, the interior mountains of the western United States and off both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. The best part: None of these energy sources requires subsidies. All they need is relief from the maze of regulatory uncertainties that have mushroomed over the years to the point where they drive away investment. In other words, the federal government just has to — as Ronald Reagan liked to say — get out of the way. Gerald Marsh is a retired physicist and a former consultant to the Department of Defense on strategic nuclear technology and policy in the Reagan, Bush and Clinton administrations. Write to him at gemarsh2005-opeds@yahoo.com. Arizona Daily Star ***************************************************************** 12 WHOSE BOMBS? Date: Sat, 7 Jul 2007 15:12:04 -0500 (CDT) Friday, July 06, 2007 The Cutting Edge www.nafeez.blogspot.com Deep, critical commentary and analysis exposing the causes and consequences of the new "War on Terror"; its imperial origins, its destabilizing dynamic, and its catastrophic global impact in the context of increasingly unstable, overlapping economic, ecological, ideological, political and military crises. --- Friday, July 06, 2007 WHOSE BOMBS? By Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed [The following is an extended deconstructive analysis quoting rather liberally from relevant sources. As far as I'm aware, it's the first of its kind to be published in either mainstream or alternative circles. Therefore, please circulate widely.] How to understand the attempted but largely failed terrorist plots uncovered since last Friday? Police officers on June 29 dismantled two car bombs made from gas canisters, gasoline and nails, parked in central Londons major theatre and shopping districts. A day later, two men rammed a Jeep Cherokee, filled with flammable material, into a terminal entrance at Glasgow airport. The series of attempted attacks follows hot on the heels of an attempted al-Qaeda attack in the United States earlier in June. The chronology requires further probing, and indeed, preliminary analysis raises some unresolved questions. Their Terror And Ours We will start with the UK. First off, we need to consider the way government, police and security services dealt with events. On Friday, official sources immediately told mainstream media that they had successfully defused highly dangerous explosive devices in the cars. The general picture disseminated by government spokesmen was that the bombs could well have killed hundreds of civilians generating a huge and lethal fireball engulfing the surrounding area. Although the two London car bombs were rudimentary, depending on a lethal mixture of petrol, gas canisters and nails, they could still have killed hundreds, wrote Nigel Morris in the Independent: They were intended to be triggered by calls to mobile phones left in the cars. Although the bombers rang the phones several times, the bombs failed to go off. Did the calls fail to create the necessary detonation? The Glasgow attack appears to have been a failed suicide bombing. The Jeep Cherokee that smashed into the citys airport was set alight but the gas canisters inside failed to ignite. Fortunately, there were no casualties. Unfortunately, elsewhere in the world, British and American troops were complicit in acts of terrorism which did result in Afghan and Iraqi civilian casualties far outweighing in scale and horror what was going on in the UK. Some of these were flagged up by American journalist Chris Floyd, but largely ignored in the mainstream media. More than 100 Afghan civilians were killed in a three-hour NATO bombing raid on a village in the British-run district Helmand on Saturday, so reported the Observer citing local officials of the US-backed Afgan government, capping off a month of bloodshed in which over 200 Afghan civilians were killed, a kill ratio far outstripping that of the violent sectarians of the Taliban, observes Floyd. Hapless British commanders involved in the operations arent happy, noting that new NATO commander, US Gen Dan McNeills penchant for massive airpower could be counterproductive. Every civilian dead means five new Taliban said one British Army officer, noting the direct connection between their radicalization and our terrorism. But while UK commanders may have concerns, they have little choice given the decisions made for them by Bush and now Brown. Yet the mainstream media has shown no interest whatsoever in our own terrorism. Why do these people hate us, why do they want to attack us? I was asked repeatedly over the weekend by various media pundits wanting to know the secret of how angry Muslims become so radicalized they want to blow themselves and others up. The usual demands for Muslims the world over to buck up and confront the bin Laden-esque enemy within were trumpeted. Yet there was little soul-searching about a phenomenon of equal concern the creeping radicalization of Western societies, where the slaughter of hundreds of Afghan or Iraqi civilians by Anglo-American military forces is justifiable as a form of collateral damage, regrettable, but an inevitable corollary of trying to smoke em out. Sounds disturbingly similar to al-Qaedas own rhetoric of justification for targeting our civilians. But of course, were the free, civilized world. Theyre wrong, and were right. So lets get quickly back on track to look at the terror attempts in the UK. Whatever those attacks appeared to be, they were clearly planned and conducted by people with absolutely no real idea of what they were doing. Despite official attempts to ratchet up the fear-level by insisting that the police had pre-empted a spectacular bombing plot that could have slaughtered hundreds, a number of experts have pointed out the obvious. Improvised Un-explosive Devices? Larry C. Johnson, a former senior US counterterrorist official for the CIA and State Department who works as a consultant to governments on terrorism issues, described the Friday episode as a crock of crap: gasoline is not a high explosive. If we were talking 50 pounds of Semtex or the Al Qaeda standby, TATP, I would be impressed. Those are real high explosives with a detonation rate in excess of 20,000 feet per second. Gasoline can explode (just ask former owners of a Ford Pinto) but it is first and foremost an incediary. If the initial reports are true, the clown driving the Mercedes was a rank amateur when it comes to constructing an Improvised Explosive Device aka IED. Unlike a Hollywood flick the 50 gallons of gas would not have shredded the Mercedes into lethal chunks of flying shrapnel. His observations on the next days Glasgow incident are even more cutting: Preliminary, unconfirmed reports indicate a nuclear blast has occurred at Glasgows international airport. No one has seen the mushroom cloud or heard the blast, but something by God is happening and it must be terrible. There is smoke and fire. In fact, a car is on fire. It must be Al Qaeda. Only Al Qaeda knows how to set themselves on fire inside a car. Please. Flee to the hills (leave your doors unlocked). Oh the humanity!... we need to stop equating their [religious fanatics] hatred with actual capability. If today's events at Glasgow prove to be linked to the two non-events yesterday in London, then we should heave a sigh of relief. We may be witnessing the implosion of takfiri jihadists religious fanatics who are incredibly inept Propane tanks and petrol (gas for us Americans) can produce a dandy flame and a mighty boom but these are not the tools for making a car bomb along the lines of what we see detonating on a daily basis in Iraq. As Thomas Greene further observed, absent an oxidiser, the devices, if one could call them that, would simply have been unable to detonate. The implication that they could have detonated, then, is precisely state propaganda. No wonder ex-CIA terror expert Johnson described the weekend incidents as non-events. Thus, concluded Peter Lehr, a research fellow at the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence, St. Andrews University: Just using petrol canisters, nuts and bolts and a cell phone to trigger the explosion, the London bombing attempt would probably not have worked. He continued about the Glasgow fiasco: If you take a look at most al Qaeda attacks, they did a lot of work on reconnoitring. Now they got stopped by some bollards. They didnt seem very familiar with the airport, then they would have known that the bollards would have stopped them or they overestimated the thrust of the Jeep Cherokee. For those tracking the recent round of terror plots against the US and Britain, the dire lack of expertise is a familiar pattern. On the August 2006 liquid bomb plot, similarly discredited as simply unworkable, former British Army intelligence officer Lt. Col. (ret.) Nigel Wylde pointed out: Not al-Qaeda for sure. It would not work. Bin Laden is interested in success not deterrence by failure. The Propaganda War Rather than reassuring the public of these facts and implications, the government did the opposite. The UK terror alert was raised to critical, and the citizens were urged to remain alert and vigilant. If it moves to critical, you should worry, a senior Whitehall source told the BBC when asked to explain the alert level system. Rachel North, a survivor of the July 7th 2005 London bombings, comments: Oh for heavens sake. We should worry. Thats the suggestion is it? The official advice is: to be afraid and stay afraid? And what pray, does being told to worry do to help aid the fight against terrorism? Terrorism being of course designed to worry, nay, terrify and terrorise people, using terror: the state of being afraid? ..What is the critical - attack imminent stuff then, if not intimidating, and likely to make people anxious and therefore stop them getting on with their lives? like most of the new anti-terror intitiatives, all it does is sound scary and ramp up the fear without actually doing anything practical to tackle the situation We didn't have this during the IRA campaign or during the Blitz, so I don't see why turning the adrenalin dial up to eleven is going to help now. We can all see the news, thank you. We don't need to have our strings pulled like this. So we have established that there is, indeed, a sharp disparity between the reality of these plots as utterly amateur cock-ups by people with no idea whatsoever of how to actually pull off a terrorist attack, and the official propaganda from the state that these attacks could have killed hundreds which they simply could not have done. Perhaps it is cynical to recognize that these doomed-to-fail plots coincided with the British governments new counter-terrorism proposals. Days before these incidents, on 27th June, the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee announced it was planning to hold a short inquiry into the new proposals for extended anti-terror powers, originally set out on 7th June by the Home Secretary. Ironically, the Home Secretarys announcement for new anti-terror legislation followed hot on the heels of revelations that a purported spectacular al-Qaeda terrorist plot unearthed in the United States may well have been nothing more than Bush administration propaganda. Such was the accusation from Keith Olbermann on MSNBCs Countdown show The Nexus of Politics & Terror, who further noted that this was consistent with a history of such pronouncements: The abstract, hypothetical terror plot at JFK: It sounds ominous until you ask the experts. Blow up part of the jet fuel pipeline and you still stand zero chance of blowing up the airport We will truth squad the plot and update the Nexus of Politics and Terror, the now 13 times officials in this country have revealed so-called terror plots at times that were just coincidentally to their political benefit, no matter how preposterous the actual schemes might have been, including the plot against Fort Dix where pizza delivery men were supposed to kill at will at an Army base full of soldiers with guns. But perhaps most disturbingly, Olbermann references the extraordinary public statement by the newly-elected Chairman of the Republican Party in Arkansas, to the effect that more 9/11's are needed to galvanise support for the Bush administration. The full statement, made in an interview with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette by Chairman Dennis Milligan, is reported in Raw Story as follows: In his first interview as the chairman of the Arkansas Republican Party, Dennis Milligan told a reporter that America needs to be attacked by terrorists so that people will appreciate the work that President Bush has done to protect the country. At the end of the day, I believe fully the president is doing the right thing, and I think all we need is some attacks on American soil like we had on [Sept. 11, 2001], Milligan said to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, and the naysayers will come around very quickly to appreciate not only the commitment for President Bush, but the sacrifice that has been made by men and women to protect this country. With all due respect: what kind of closet Stalinist thinks that we need another terrorist attack like 9/11, in order that popular dissent might come around in favour of Bush and his policies of domestic and international militarization, mirrored faithfully here in the UK, originally by Blair, and now it seems by his heir Brown? To those who have researched the development of neo-conservative ideology and geopolitical strategies behind the rise of the Bush administration, this is actually a startlingly familiar sentiment among elements of the American policymaking establishment. Recall the exhortations of Bushs home-grown think-tank, the Project for a New American Century in its September 2000 report Rebuilding Americas Defenses; or three years earlier, the carefully-crafted expansionist geostrategy charted by former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski in his Council on Foreign Relations study, The Grand Chessboard all looking to a spectacular Pearl Harbour-type event as a useful tool for the control of public opinion at home, and thus the legitimization of military interventionism abroad. More closet Stalinists to add to the collection? And some of them are now in charge of the most powerful state in the world. Warnings, Warnings Further questions arise in view of the emerging evidence of several warnings of the plots received by British and American intelligence services. Now the existence of these warnings ought to be contrasted with the official line expressed at the outset, that there was no intelligence chatter, no prior intelligence, and no specific warning about what was going to happen. That stance has now been pretty much discredited. Warnings were issued three months ago [in April 2007] about the threat of a terrorist campaign to mark the end of Tony Blair's premiership, security sources have revealed. Two major agencies, the Centre for the Protection of the National Infrastructure, which reports to MI5, and the National Counter Terrorism Security Office, which reports to chief police officers warned in April about the possibility of a renewed campaign. One senior security source told the Guardian: The Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre [JTAC] assessed that a group of individuals, it is not known how many, clearly had the capability and the intent to carry out attacks on the UK. Therefore there was a strong likelihood of further attacks. But officials insisted that there had been no specific information about the events of Friday and Saturday. Further details came from the Sunday Times which obtained a leaked copy of the JTAC assessment. The newspaper cites Patrick Mercer MP, former homeland security spokesman, asking: If they had a JTAC document saying there was a high risk of an attack to mark the end of the Blair administration, why didnt they raise the threat level and why werent people warned? An alleged al-Qaeda-Taliban video, shot on 9th June in Pakistan by a Pakistani journalist invited for the occasion, was aired by CNN and ABC in that month purportedly displaying a suicide bomber graduation ceremony. The video claimed that suicide bombers were supposedly sent off on their missions in the United States, Canada, Great Britain and Germany. The video included images of Taliban military commander Mansoor Dadullah, his brother was killed last month by US forces. On the tape, the leader of the British team speaking of the mission in broken English said Let me say something about why we are going along with my team to tell a suicide attack in Britain. The video at the time sent a chilling note across the security services with warnings that attacks in the UK were more than likely this summer. For those with an eye for detail, the connection between our no doubt utterly justifiable June slaughter of Afghans and this particular warning from Pakistan of an imminent strike on Britain is notable. Yes, it is by no means the whole story, but it is undeniably a significant component. Meanwhile, British officials are falling over themselves to insist that there is no discernable connection to Pakistan of course our ardent ally in the War on Terror. Also worth noting is, as the report above continues, the perpetrators of these particular attacks: foreign trainee doctors are being held as suspects, having passed their security checks and been provided with official approval to practice in the UK. Dirty Skins They were not clean skins, police officials are happy to admit, noting that MI5 had logged several of them in its surveillance database of desirable targets, thus allowing them to be quickly identified and apprehended. What a resounding success. Several doctors arrested over the London and Glasgow car bomb plot were on the files of MI5, reported the Telegraph, including one on a Home Office watch list after being identified by security services - meaning their travel in and out of Britain was monitored by immigration officers. Others were found to be on the MI5 database, which contains an estimated 2,000 suspected jihadists or supporters of terrorism. Whitehall sources said they had not been involved in previous plots, but were people who knew people who were under observation But British security sources insisted there was no intelligence that al-Qaeda commanders plotted to infiltrate the NHS Most of the alleged cell members arrived in this country after 2004 to take up NHS jobs. Desirable targets are individuals directly associated with known al-Qaeda operatives actively engaged in terrorist activity, and/or those involved in fundraising for terrorist activity. But there are slight problems here. For one thing, American intelligence sources suggested yesterday that some cell members were recruited by al-Qa'eda in Iraq up to three years ago. Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, an insurgency leader, was said to have been ordered to find young men to blend into Western society before staging an attack. So the Americans knew about them. What about the British? In fact, who exactly were these doctors associated with? The Americans had more to tell. The Telegraph noted that: reports from the US that the three men had been identified and known to be an associate of Dhiren Barot [convicted last year of a transatlantic terror plan involving nightclubs, car bombs, and other plots], a suspected terrorist who had planned to set off bombs across London, were dismissed by government officials. British officials are denying what the Americans are confirming. But the Americans do not merely share all their intelligence with the British as a matter of routine; their intelligence operations are fundamentally inter-coordinated, and have been increasingly so after 9/11. There are more problems. How on earth did foreign trainee doctors logged by MI5 as al-Qaeda associates manage to pass their security checks to receive official approval to practice in the UK? MI5 already had these individuals logged, yet MI5 did nothing while these individuals predictably applied to join the NHS, the very reason they had arrived in the UK after 2004. The official insistence from British officials that they had no idea these people were trying to infiltrate the NHS is difficult to make sense of. What else would al-Qaeda associates with medical degrees arriving in the UK for the specific purpose of joining the NHS be trying to do?. [Just on a side note, the 7/7 bombers (at least Mohammed Sidique Khan and Shahzad Tanweer), it has been admitted, were also logged by MI5 as desirable targets. Note how in this case police were happy to admit that the MI5 information was specific enough to quickly identify and track the alleged suspects. The 7/7 bombers will have been, similarly, identified along with other relevant background data, as al-Qaeda associates, at the very least. They will have had files open on them, just as with these desirable targets.] And More Warnings More embarrassing information from the Americans has continued to appear. A senior US official told ABC News that they had received intelligence reports two weeks ago which warned of a possible terror attack in Glasgow against airport infrastructure or aircraft... This was actionable intelligence, as it did indeed lead to action: except not in Glasgow. The official confirmed that the intelligence led to the assignment of Federal Air Marshals to flights into and out of both Glasgow and Prague in the Czech Republic. What did Britain know? US Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff declined to comment on the report, but on Monday told ABC News that everything that we get is shared virtually instantaneously with our counterparts in Britain and vice versa. It should not surprise anyone by now that the Brits are once again denying everything. There was no prior intelligence about the Glasgow attack, said Strathclyde police chief constable Willie Rae. No of course there wasnt. American intelligence officials are no doubt hallucinating. Yet another official Foreign Office denial came regarding a separate warning from British priest Canon Andrew White, head of the Baghdad-based head of the Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East, who said hed been warned by an al-Qaeda figure of an attack. The unnamed al-Qaeda leader from Syria told him on the sidelines of a religious summit in the Jordania capital, Amman about how they were going to destroy British and Americans. He told me that the plans were already made and they would soon be destroying the British. He said the people who cure you would kill you. The figure added that the plans would be carried out in the coming weeks, and would target the British first. Canon Andrew White, a British cleric working in Baghdad, claimed that he met an al-Qaida leader in Amman who had warned him about the imminent attack, saying those who cure you will kill you. Canon White said he passed the message to the Foreign Office. However a Foreign Office spokesman said there is no record of such a warning being given. In any case, White points out that he did not mention the medical angle. But it looks like the Foreign Office has got itself into a bit of a tiz. Although issuing repeated denials to various foreign press, insisting that no record of the warning existed and that no recollection of the conversation could be unearthed, Bloomberg was able to report an admission: The Foreign Office today acknowledged receiving information from White about the Amman meeting, adding that it was considered at the time to be too vague to merit further analysis. Whites information has since been passed on to police investigating the Glasgow and London incidents, a Foreign Office spokesman said. Ah yes, too vague, although it cohered with all the other intelligence of plans to strike the UK being received just around that time. It certainly also cohered with the previous evidence of an origin for the attacks in al-Qaeda in Iraq; as well as in Pakistan. The official British government position is not tenable. Credible sources confirm that multiple warnings were indeed received. Repeated official denials contradict the evidence and are internally-inconsistent. In this context, the response of the authorities is telling. The denials eclipse the connections of this obviously untrained group of amateurs to an international al-Qaeda-affiliated network in Iraq and Pakistan. Al-Qaeda or Not? And the Strategy of Tension The al-Qaeda or not question, however, is not a black or white case. The pattern of terror plots particularly in the UK over the last few years since after 7/7 has invariably involved rather inept cells with quite questionable expertise in explosives and other terrorist techniques. Many of these cells while purportedly home-grown, are nevertheless associated with international networks in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere, where reside senior al-Qaeda operatives with real terrorist expertise. In the UK, USA and Western Europe, one group responsible for mediating communication and movement between these two domestic and international arenas is formerly known as al-Muhajiroun, purportedly banned by the British government, but still intact and still run by self-described cleric Omar Bakri Mohammed from Lebanon, where he was exiled by the British government. It is this that appears to produce a mismatch of actual expertise. Omar Bakris protigi, Anjem Choudray, continues to run around the UK on Omar Bakris behalf (and with his regular guidance) attempting to mentor a new generation of Islamist extremists. It was former Justice Department prosecutor John Loftus who confirmed that Omar Bakri and his al-Muhajiroun network had been first hired by MI6 in the late 1990s to recruit British Muslims to fight in Kosovo. His UK underlings even continue to maintain a website for him which curiously remains devoid of his hundreds of most inflammatory statements supporting al-Qaeda terrorism. Despite exiling him to Lebanon, authorities have done nothing to curb his ongoing influence over his UK network, except to protect him from official investigation in connection with the radicalization of that very network. Al-Muhajiroun incubated those involved with Dhiren Barots grand plan to bomb targets in the US and Britain, with which the fertilizer and 7/7 plotters were also intimately linked. Further questions arise when we probe the plausible al-Qaeda connections to these incidents from Iraq and Pakistan. We may remind ourselves that the alleged perpetrators of the latest crimes are mostly of Middle Eastern origin. In September 2005, I had already documented evidence from a number of credible sources suggesting that the United States was covertly supplying arms to Iraqi insurgents described as former Baath party loyalists now joining with al-Qaeda in Iraq. The proxy for this funnel of weaponry was Pakistani military intelligence, according to a Pakistani defence source cited by the Asia Times. The next year, an outraged British colonel complained that Pakistan was sheltering al-Qaeda and the Taliban. But nevermind him, Bush says Pakistans our "major non-NATO ally", and the British government officially agrees. This strategy of tension in Iraq was, it appears, extended to other key states in the region, namely Lebanon, by late 2006. On CNN, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh summarized his latest exclusive. Hershs critical discovery was that the Bush administration is actively sponsoring al-Qaeda affiliated groups across the entire Middle East, with a focus on Lebanon, to counter regional Shiite Iranian influence. Moreover, much of the finances for these covert operations are being funnelled by Saudi Arabia through Iraq: This administration has made a policy change, a decision that they are going to put all of the pressure they can on the Shiites, that is the Shiite regime in Iran, the Shiite - and they are also doing everything they can to stop Hezbollah - which is Shiite, the Hezbollah organization from getting any control or any more of a political foothold in Lebanon. we are interested in recreating what is happening in Iraq in Lebanon, that is Sunni versus Shia we have been pumping money, a great deal of money, without congressional authority, without any congressional oversight, Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia is putting up some of this money, for covert operations in many areas of the Middle East where we think that the - we want to stop the Shiite spread or the Shiite influence. They call it the Shiite Crescent. And a lot of this money has gotten into the hands - among other places, in Lebanon, into the hands of three - at least three jihadist groups. There are three Sunni jihadist groups whose main claim to fame inside Lebanon right now is that they are very tough. These are people connected to al Qaeda who want to take on Hezbollah My government, which arrests al Qaeda every place it can find them is sitting back while the Lebanese government we support, the government of Prime Minister Siniora, is providing arms and sustenance to three jihadist groups whose sole function, seems to me and to the people that talk to me in our government, to be there in case there is a real shoot-em-up with Hezbollah So America, my country, without telling Congress, using funds not appropriated, I don't know where, by my sources believe much of the money obviously came from Iraq where there is all kinds of piles of loose money, pools of cash that could be used for covert operations We are simply in a situation where this president is really taking his notion of executive privilege to the absolute limit here, running covert operations, using money that was not authorized by Congress, supporting groups indirectly that are involved with the same people that did 9/11, and we should be arresting these people rather than looking the other way... Dij` vu? An unholy triangle, the US at the helm, Saudi Arabia providing the funds, Pakistan providing military intelligence support, but this time not into Afghanistan as during the Cold War, but into Iraq and thereby throughout the Middle East. It seems, al-Qaeda is still a useful mercenary outfit for our covert regional geostrategy, except yet again the theatre of war has shifted. In March 2007, Hersh firmed up this conclusion in the New Yorker magazine, citing White House insiders and other US government officials, all confirming in perhaps the clearest terms that the US was deliberately attempting to control al-Qaeda terrorist activity through Saudi Arabia (among others) to be re-directed against Iran: The redirection, as some inside the White House have called the new strategy, has brought the United States closer to an open confrontation with Iran and, in parts of the region, propelled it into a widening sectarian conflict between Shiite and Sunni Muslims. To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has covperated with Saudi Arabias government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda. .. The clandestine operations have been kept secret, in some cases, by leaving the execution or the funding to the Saudis, or by finding other ways to work around the normal congressional appropriations process, current and former officials close to the Administration said. .. Flynt Leverett, a former Bush Administration National Security Council official, told me that there is nothing coincidental or ironic about the new strategy with regard to Iraq. The Administration is trying to make a case that Iran is more dangerous and more provocative than the [al-Qaeda] Sunni insurgents to American interests in Iraq, whenif you look at the actual casualty numbersthe punishment inflicted on America by the Sunnis is greater by an order of magnitude, Leverett said. This is all part of the campaign of provocative steps to increase the pressure on Iran. The idea is that at some point the Iranians will respond and then the Administration will have an open door to strike at them. This time, the U.S. government consultant told me, Bandar and other Saudis have assured the White House that they will keep a very close eye on the religious fundamentalists. Their message to us was Weve created this movement, and we can control it. Its not that we dont want the Salafis to throw bombs; its who they throw them atHezbollah, Moqtada al-Sadr, Iran, and at the Syrians, if they continue to work with Hezbollah and Iran. So, we know the al-Qaeda salafis will throw bombs. But apart from trying to blow up American, British and other civilians (and perhaps themselves if theyve got that vibe), funnelling them arms, funds and logistical assistance will allow us to control them sufficiently to make life difficult for the Iranians (or even the Palestinians), perhaps even provoke them into a response that will legitimize an Anglo-American strike at them. Notice that national security, I mean real national security in terms of the protection of the lives of the Western publics, is not an operative factor calculated into this strategy. Whose bombs indeed. There is a term for this kind of covert sponsorship of terror networks. Its called complicity, if the Modern Law Review is anything to go by. Thus, by law, the Bush administration, and perhaps now Browns also, is aiding and abetting al-Qaeda. They cannot be absolved of culpability in the fall-out. So why Iran and why now? Nothing to do with oil, of course. It is merely a coincidence that in late June, a former White House energy consultant and NATO energy delegate Dr. Roger Bezdek, annoyed the Bush administration by demanding that it must immediately and rigorously assess the looming impact of peak oil. He said: .. it may already be too late to avoid serious problems. Dr. Bezdeks warning came shortly after the publication of British Petroleums influential Statistical Review of World Energy which claimed optimistically that sufficient oil reserves remain to meet current demand for the next 40 years. BPs report, which echoes that of other American and British giant oil corporations, was refuted by leading independent oil industry experts including Dr Colin Campbell, a former chief geologist and vice-chairman at several major oil companies, who noted that on the contrary, the latest data shows oil is set to peak within the next four years. Indeed, Chris Skrebowski, a former chief planner for BP and now editor of Petroleum Review, observes: I was extremely sceptical to start with. We have enough capacity coming online for the next two-and-a-half years. After that the situation deteriorates. Bush administration officials have long been aware of the impending oil crisis. Indeed, it was a key factor in Vice-President Dick Cheneys formulation of the strategy in Iraq only five months prior to 9/11. Reports like that of BP are designed to misinform, steering public attention away from the real cause of the problem. If ever there was a resource-driven strategy of tension, this is it; and the fear being ratcheted up in the US and UK is its direct corollary. While the British police and intelligence services are congratulating themselves on having rounded up the terrorists and thus quelled the threat for now, the US government is actively fostering the source of the threat in the Middle East because of its antipathy toward Iran. Given Britains close alliance with the US in the War on Terror, the question must be asked, how precisely involved is the British government in this self-defeating strategy that consciously compromises civilian life? You want to fight the terror Mr Brown? Perhaps you can start by fighting your new boss, Mr Bush. Somehow, I dont see it happening. [Postscript: If you've read this far and found this article at least nominally useful, then you'll be interested to take a look at the new website for our think-tank, the Institute for Policy Research & Development. Check it out and spread the word.] posted by Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed ======== http://nafeez.blogspot.com/2007/07/whose-bombs.html ======== ***************************************************************** 13 WHOSE BOMBS? (with references) Date: Sat, 7 Jul 2007 16:34:04 -0500 (CDT) http://nafeez.blogspot.com/2007/07/whose-bombs.html #[1]The Cutting Edge - Atom [2]The Cutting Edge - RSS [3]The Cutting Edge - Atom IFRAME: [4]http://www.blogger.com/navbar.g?targetBlogID=17440892&blogName=The+ Cutting+Edge&publishMode=PUBLISH_MODE_BLOGSPOT&navbarType=BLACK&layout Type=CLASSIC&homepageUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fnafeez.blogspot.com%2F&searchRoo t=http%3A%2F%2Fnafeez.blogspot.com%2Fsearch [5]The Cutting Edge Deep, critical commentary and analysis exposing the causes and consequences of the new "War on Terror"; its imperial origins, its destabilizing dynamic, and its catastrophic global impact in the context of increasingly unstable, overlapping economic, ecological, ideological, political and military crises. Friday, July 06, 2007 WHOSE BOMBS? [The following is an extended deconstructive analysis quoting rather liberally from relevant sources. As far as I'm aware, it's the first of its kind to be published in either mainstream or alternative circles. Therefore, please circulate widely.] How to understand the attempted but largely failed terrorist plots uncovered since last Friday? Police officers on June 29 dismantled two car bombs made from gas canisters, gasoline and nails, parked in central London's major theatre and shopping districts. A day later, two men rammed a Jeep Cherokee, filled with flammable material, into a terminal entrance at Glasgow airport. The series of attempted attacks follows hot on the heels of an attempted al-Qaeda attack in the United States earlier in June. The chronology requires further probing, and indeed, preliminary analysis raises some unresolved questions. Their Terror... And Ours We will start with the UK. First off, we need to consider the way government, police and security services dealt with events. On Friday, official sources immediately told mainstream media that they had successfully defused highly dangerous explosive devices in the cars. The general picture disseminated by government spokesmen was that the bombs could well have killed hundreds of civilians generating a huge and lethal fireball engulfing the surrounding area. "Although the two London car bombs were rudimentary, depending on a lethal mixture of petrol, gas canisters and nails, they could still have killed hundreds", wrote Nigel Morris in the [6]Independent: "They were intended to be triggered by calls to mobile phones left in the cars. Although the bombers rang the phones several times, the bombs failed to go off. Did the calls fail to create the necessary detonation? The Glasgow attack appears to have been a failed suicide bombing. The Jeep Cherokee that smashed into the city's airport was set alight but the gas canisters inside failed to ignite." Fortunately, there were no casualties. Unfortunately, elsewhere in the world, British and American troops were complicit in acts of terrorism which did result in Afghan and Iraqi civilian casualties far outweighing in scale and horror what was going on in the UK. Some of these were flagged up by American journalist [7]Chris Floyd, but largely ignored in the mainstream media. More than 100 Afghan [8]civilians were killed in a three-hour NATO bombing raid on a village in the British-run district Helmand on Saturday, so reported the Observer citing [9]local officials of the US-backed Afgan government, capping off a month of bloodshed in which over 200 Afghan civilians were killed, "a kill ratio far outstripping that of the violent sectarians of the Taliban", observes Floyd. Hapless British commanders involved in the operations aren't happy, noting that new NATO commander, US Gen Dan McNeill's penchant for massive airpower could be "counterproductive." "Every civilian dead means five new Taliban" said one British Army officer, noting the direct connection between their radicalization and our terrorism. But while UK commanders may have concerns, they have little choice given the decisions made for them by Bush and now Brown. Yet the mainstream media has shown no interest whatsoever in our own terrorism. "Why do these people hate us, why do they want to attack us?" I was asked repeatedly over the weekend by various media pundits wanting to know the secret of how angry Muslims become so radicalized they want to blow themselves and others up. The usual demands for Muslims the world over to buck up and confront the bin Laden-esque "enemy within" were trumpeted. Yet there was little soul-searching about a phenomenon of equal concern - the creeping radicalization of Western societies, where the slaughter of hundreds of Afghan or Iraqi civilians by Anglo-American military forces is justifiable as a form of "collateral damage", regrettable, but an inevitable corollary of trying to "smoke `em out". Sounds disturbingly similar to al-Qaeda's own rhetoric of justification for targeting our civilians. But of course, we're the free, civilized world. They're wrong, and we're right. So let's get quickly back on track to look at the terror attempts in the UK. Whatever those attacks "appeared" to be, they were clearly planned and conducted by people with absolutely no real idea of what they were doing. Despite official attempts to ratchet up the fear-level by insisting that the police had pre-empted a spectacular bombing plot that could have slaughtered hundreds, a number of experts have pointed out the obvious. Improvised Un-explosive Devices? Larry C. Johnson, a former senior US counterterrorist official for the CIA and State Department who works as a consultant to governments on terrorism issues, described the Friday episode as a "[10]crock of crap": "... gasoline is not a high explosive. If we were talking 50 pounds of Semtex or the Al Qaeda standby, TATP, I would be impressed. Those are real high explosives with a detonation rate in excess of 20,000 feet per second. Gasoline can explode (just ask former owners of a Ford Pinto) but it is first and foremost an incediary. If the initial reports are true, the clown driving the Mercedes was a rank amateur when it comes to constructing an Improvised Explosive Device aka IED. Unlike a Hollywood flick the 50 gallons of gas would not have shredded the Mercedes into lethal chunks of flying shrapnel." His observations on the next day's [11]Glasgow incident are even more cutting: "Preliminary, unconfirmed reports indicate a nuclear blast has occurred at Glasgow's international airport. No one has seen the mushroom cloud or heard the blast, but something by God is happening and it must be terrible. There is smoke and fire. In fact, a car is on fire. It must be Al Qaeda. Only Al Qaeda knows how to set themselves on fire inside a car. Please. Flee to the hills (leave your doors unlocked). Oh the humanity!... ... we need to stop equating their [religious fanatics'] hatred with actual capability. If today's events at Glasgow prove to be linked to the two non-events yesterday in London, then we should heave a sigh of relief. We may be witnessing the implosion of takfiri jihadists -- religious fanatics who are incredibly inept... Propane tanks and petrol (gas for us Americans) can produce a dandy flame and a mighty boom but these are not the tools for making a car bomb along the lines of what we see detonating on a daily basis in Iraq." As Thomas Greene further observed, absent an oxidiser, the devices, if one could call them that, would simply have been [12]unable to detonate. The implication that they could have detonated, then, is precisely state propaganda. No wonder ex-CIA terror expert Johnson described the weekend incidents as "non-events." Thus, concluded Peter Lehr, a research fellow at the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence, St. Andrews University: "Just using petrol canisters, nuts and bolts and a cell phone to trigger the explosion, the London bombing attempt would probably [13]not have worked." He continued about the Glasgow fiasco: "If you take a look at most al Qaeda attacks, they did a lot of work on reconnoitring. Now they got stopped by some bollards. They didn't seem very familiar with the airport, then they would have known that the bollards would have stopped them or they overestimated the thrust of the Jeep Cherokee." For those tracking the recent round of terror plots against the US and Britain, the dire lack of expertise is a familiar pattern. On the August 2006 "liquid bomb plot", similarly discredited as simply unworkable, former British Army intelligence officer Lt. Col. (ret.) Nigel Wylde pointed out: "[14]Not al-Qaeda for sure. It would not work. Bin Laden is interested in success not deterrence by failure." The Propaganda War Rather than reassuring the public of these facts and implications, the government did the opposite. The UK terror alert was raised to "critical", and the citizens were urged to remain "alert" and "vigilant". "If it moves to critical, [15]you should worry", a senior Whitehall source told the BBC when asked to explain the alert level system. Rachel North, a survivor of the July 7th 2005 London bombings, comments: "Oh for heaven's sake. We `should worry'. That's the suggestion is it? The official advice is: [16]to be afraid and stay afraid? And what pray, does being told `to worry' do to help aid the fight against terrorism? Terrorism being of course designed to worry, nay, terrify and terrorise people, using terror: the state of being afraid? ...What is the `critical - attack imminent' stuff then, if not intimidating, and likely to make people anxious and therefore stop them getting on with their lives? ... like most of the new anti-terror intitiatives, all it does is sound scary and ramp up the fear without actually doing anything practical to tackle the situation... We didn't have this during the IRA campaign or during the Blitz, so I don't see why turning the adrenalin dial up to eleven is going to help now. We can all see the news, thank you. We don't need to have our strings pulled like this." So we have established that there is, indeed, a sharp disparity between the reality of these plots as utterly amateur cock-ups by people with no idea whatsoever of how to actually pull off a terrorist attack, and the official propaganda from the state that these attacks could have killed hundreds - which they simply could not have done. Perhaps it is cynical to recognize that these doomed-to-fail plots coincided with the British government's new counter-terrorism proposals. Days before these incidents, on 27th June, the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee announced it was planning to hold a short inquiry into the new proposals for [17]extended anti-terror powers, originally set out on 7th June by the Home Secretary. Ironically, the Home Secretary's announcement for new anti-terror legislation followed hot on the heels of revelations that a purported spectacular al-Qaeda terrorist plot unearthed in the United States may well have been nothing more than Bush administration propaganda. Such was the accusation from Keith Olbermann on MSNBC's Countdown show `[18]The Nexus of Politics & Terror', who further noted that this was consistent with a [19]history of such pronouncements: "The abstract, hypothetical terror plot at JFK: It sounds ominous until you ask the experts. Blow up part of the jet fuel pipeline and you still stand zero chance of blowing up the airport... We will truth squad the plot and update the `Nexus of Politics and Terror,' the now 13 times officials in this country have revealed so-called terror plots at times that were just coincidentally to their political benefit, no matter how preposterous the actual schemes might have been, including the plot against Fort Dix where pizza delivery men were supposed to kill at will at an Army base full of soldiers with guns." But perhaps most disturbingly, Olbermann references the extraordinary public statement by the newly-elected Chairman of the Republican Party in Arkansas, to the effect that more 9/11's are needed to galvanise support for the Bush administration. The full statement, made in an interview with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette by Chairman Dennis Milligan, is reported in [20]Raw Story as follows: "In his first interview as the chairman of the Arkansas Republican Party, Dennis Milligan told a reporter that America needs to be attacked by terrorists so that people will appreciate the work that President Bush has done to protect the country. `At the end of the day, I believe fully the president is doing the right thing, and I think all we need is some attacks on American soil like we had on [Sept. 11, 2001],' Milligan said to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, `and the naysayers will come around very quickly to appreciate not only the commitment for President Bush, but the sacrifice that has been made by men and women to protect this country'." With all due respect: what kind of closet Stalinist thinks that "we need" another terrorist attack "like" 9/11, in order that popular dissent might "come around" in favour of Bush and his policies of domestic and international militarization, mirrored faithfully here in the UK, originally by Blair, and now it seems by his heir Brown? To those who have researched the development of neo-conservative ideology and geopolitical strategies behind the rise of the Bush administration, this is actually a startlingly familiar sentiment among elements of the American policymaking establishment. Recall the [21]exhortations of Bush's home-grown think-tank, the [22]Project for a New American Century in its September 2000 report "Rebuilding America's Defenses"; or three years earlier, the carefully-crafted expansionist [23]geostrategy charted by former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski in his Council on Foreign Relations study, The Grand Chessboard - all looking to a spectacular Pearl Harbour-type event as a useful tool for the control of public opinion at home, and thus the legitimization of military interventionism abroad. More closet Stalinists to add to the collection? And some of them are now in charge of the most powerful state in the world. Warnings, Warnings Further questions arise in view of the emerging evidence of several warnings of the plots received by British and American intelligence services. Now the existence of these warnings ought to be contrasted with the official line expressed at the outset, that there was no intelligence chatter, no prior intelligence, and no specific warning about what was going to happen. That stance has now been pretty much discredited. "[24]Warnings were issued three months ago [in April 2007] about the threat of a terrorist campaign to mark the end of Tony Blair's premiership, security sources have revealed". Two major agencies, the Centre for the Protection of the National Infrastructure, which reports to MI5, and the National Counter Terrorism Security Office, which reports to chief police officers "warned in April about the possibility of a renewed campaign". One senior security source told the Guardian: "The Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre [JTAC] assessed that a group of individuals, it is not known how many, clearly had the capability and the intent to carry out attacks on the UK. Therefore there was a strong likelihood of further attacks." But officials insisted that there had been "no specific" information about the events of Friday and Saturday. Further details came from the Sunday Times which obtained a leaked copy of the JTAC assessment. The newspaper cites Patrick Mercer MP, former homeland security spokesman, asking: "If they had a JTAC document saying there was a [25]high risk of an attack to mark the end of the Blair administration, why didn't they raise the threat level and why weren't people warned?" An alleged [26]al-Qaeda-Taliban video, shot on 9th June in Pakistan by a Pakistani journalist invited for the occasion, was aired by CNN and ABC in that month purportedly displaying a suicide bomber "graduation ceremony". The video claimed that "suicide bombers were supposedly sent off on their missions in the United States, Canada, Great Britain and Germany." The video included "... images of Taliban military commander Mansoor Dadullah, his brother was killed last month by US forces. On the tape, the leader of the British team speaking of the mission in broken English said `Let me say something about why we are going along with my team to tell a suicide attack in Britain.' The video at the time sent a chilling note across the security services with warnings that attacks in the UK were more than likely this summer...." For those with an eye for detail, the connection between our no doubt utterly justifiable June slaughter of Afghans and this particular warning from Pakistan of an imminent strike on Britain is [27]notable. Yes, it is by no means the whole story, but it is undeniably a significant component. Meanwhile, British officials are falling over themselves to insist that there is no discernable connection to Pakistan - of course our ardent ally in the `War on Terror'. Also worth noting is, as the report above continues, the perpetrators of these particular attacks: foreign "trainee doctors are being held as suspects, having passed their security checks and been provided with official approval to practice in the UK." Dirty Skins They were not clean skins, police officials are happy to admit, noting that MI5 had logged several of them in its surveillance database of "desirable" targets, thus allowing them to be quickly identified and apprehended. What a resounding success. "Several doctors arrested over the London and Glasgow car bomb plot were [28]on the files of MI5", reported the Telegraph, including one "... on a Home Office watch list after being identified by security services - meaning their travel in and out of Britain was monitored by immigration officers. Others were found to be on the MI5 database, which contains an estimated 2,000 suspected jihadists or supporters of terrorism. Whitehall sources said they had not been involved in previous plots, but were `people who knew people' who were under observation... But British security sources insisted there was no intelligence that al-Qa'eda commanders plotted to infiltrate the NHS... Most of the alleged cell members arrived in this country after 2004 to take up NHS jobs." Desirable targets are individuals directly associated with known al-Qaeda operatives actively engaged in terrorist activity, and/or those involved in fundraising for terrorist activity. But there are slight problems here. For one thing, "American intelligence sources suggested yesterday that some cell members were recruited by al-Qa'eda in Iraq up to three years ago. Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, an insurgency leader, was said to have been ordered to find young men to blend into Western society before staging an attack." So the Americans knew about them. What about the British? In fact, who exactly were these doctors associated with? The Americans had more to tell. The Telegraph noted that: "... reports from the US that the three men had been identified and known to be [29]an associate of Dhiren Barot [convicted last year of a transatlantic terror plan involving nightclubs, car bombs, and other plots], a suspected terrorist who had planned to set off bombs across London, were dismissed by government officials." British officials are denying what the Americans are confirming. But the Americans do not merely share all their intelligence with the British as a matter of routine; their intelligence operations are fundamentally inter-coordinated, and have been increasingly so after 9/11. There are more problems. How on earth did foreign trainee doctors logged by MI5 as al-Qaeda associates manage to pass "their security checks" to receive "official approval to practice in the UK"? MI5 already had these individuals logged, yet MI5 did nothing while these individuals predictably applied to join the NHS, the very reason they had arrived in the UK after 2004. The official insistence from British officials that they had no idea these people were trying to infiltrate the NHS is difficult to make sense of. What else would al-Qaeda associates with medical degrees arriving in the UK for the specific purpose of joining the NHS be trying to do?. [Just on a side note, the 7/7 bombers (at least Mohammed Sidique Khan and Shahzad Tanweer), it has been admitted, were also logged by MI5 as "desirable" targets. Note how in this case police were happy to admit that the MI5 information was specific enough to quickly identify and track the alleged suspects. The 7/7 bombers will have been, similarly, identified along with other relevant background data, as al-Qaeda associates, at the very least. They will have had files open on them, just as with these "desirable" targets.] And More Warnings More embarrassing information from the Americans has continued to appear. A senior US official told ABC News that they had "received intelligence reports two weeks ago which [30]warned of a possible terror attack in Glasgow against `airport infrastructure or aircraft'..." This was actionable intelligence, as it did indeed lead to action: except not in Glasgow. The official confirmed that "the intelligence led to the assignment of Federal Air Marshals to flights into and out of both Glasgow and Prague in the Czech Republic." What did Britain know? "US Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff declined to comment on the report, but on Monday told ABC News that `everything that we get is shared virtually instantaneously with our counterparts in Britain and vice versa'." It should not surprise anyone by now that the Brits are once again denying everything. "There was [31]no prior intelligence" about the Glasgow attack, said Strathclyde police chief constable Willie Rae. No of course there wasn't. American intelligence officials are no doubt hallucinating. Yet another official Foreign Office denial came regarding a separate warning from British priest Canon Andrew White, head of the Baghdad-based head of the Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East, who said he'd been warned by an al-Qaeda figure of an attack. The unnamed al-Qaeda leader from Syria told him on the sidelines of a religious summit in the Jordania capital, Amman "about how they were going to destroy British and Americans. He told me that the plans were already made and they would soon be destroying the British. He said the people who cure you would kill you." The figure added that the plans "would be carried out in the coming weeks, and would target the British first." "Canon Andrew White, a British cleric working in Baghdad, claimed that he met an al-Qa'ida leader in Amman who had warned him about the imminent attack, saying `those who [32]cure you will kill you'. Canon White said he passed the message to the Foreign Office. However a Foreign Office spokesman said there is no record of such a warning being given." In any case, White points out that he did not mention the medical angle. But it looks like the Foreign Office has got itself into a bit of a tiz. Although issuing repeated denials to various foreign press, insisting that no record of the warning existed and that no recollection of the conversation could be unearthed, Bloomberg was able to report [33]an admission: "The Foreign Office today acknowledged receiving information from White about the Amman meeting, adding that it was considered at the time to be too vague to merit further analysis. White's information has since been passed on to police investigating the Glasgow and London incidents, a Foreign Office spokesman said." Ah yes, too vague, although it cohered with all the other intelligence of plans to strike the UK being received just around that time. It certainly also cohered with the previous evidence of an origin for the attacks in al-Qaeda in Iraq; as well as in Pakistan. The official British government position is not tenable. Credible sources confirm that multiple warnings were indeed received. Repeated official denials contradict the evidence and are internally-inconsistent. In this context, the response of the authorities is telling. The denials eclipse the connections of this obviously untrained group of amateurs to an international al-Qaeda-affiliated network in Iraq and Pakistan. Al-Qaeda or Not? And the Strategy of Tension The "al-Qaeda or not" question, however, is not a black or white case. The pattern of terror plots particularly in the UK over the last few years since after 7/7 has invariably involved rather inept cells with quite questionable expertise in explosives and other terrorist techniques. Many of these cells while purportedly `home-grown', are nevertheless associated with international networks in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere, where reside senior al-Qaeda operatives with real terrorist expertise. In the UK, USA and Western Europe, one group responsible for mediating communication and movement between these two domestic and international arenas is formerly known as al-Muhajiroun, purportedly banned by the British government, but still intact and still run by self-described cleric Omar Bakri Mohammed from Lebanon, where he was exiled by the British government. It is this that appears to produce a mismatch of actual expertise. Omar Bakri's protigi, [34]Anjem Choudray, continues to run around the UK on Omar Bakri's behalf (and with his regular guidance) attempting to mentor a new generation of Islamist extremists. It was former Justice Department prosecutor John Loftus who confirmed that Omar Bakri and his al-Muhajiroun network had been first [35]hired by MI6 in the late 1990s to recruit British Muslims to fight in Kosovo. His UK underlings even continue to maintain a [36]website for him which curiously remains devoid of his hundreds of most inflammatory statements supporting al-Qaeda terrorism. Despite exiling him to Lebanon, authorities have done nothing to curb his ongoing influence over his UK network, except to protect him from official investigation in connection with the radicalization of that very network. Al-Muhajiroun [37]incubated those involved with Dhiren Barot's grand plan to bomb targets in the US and Britain, with which the fertilizer and 7/7 plotters were also [38]intimately linked. Further questions arise when we probe the plausible al-Qaeda connections to these incidents from Iraq and Pakistan. We may remind ourselves that the alleged perpetrators of the latest crimes are mostly of Middle Eastern origin. In September 2005, I had already [39]documented evidence from a number of credible sources suggesting that the United States was covertly supplying arms to Iraqi insurgents described as "former Ba'ath party" loyalists now joining with "al-Qaeda in Iraq". The proxy for this funnel of weaponry was Pakistani military intelligence, according to a Pakistani defence source cited by the Asia Times. The next year, an outraged British colonel complained that Pakistan was [40]sheltering al-Qaeda and the Taliban. But nevermind him, Bush says Pakistan's our "[41]major non-NATO ally", and the British government [42]officially agrees. This strategy of tension in Iraq was, it appears, extended to other key states in the region, namely Lebanon, by late 2006. On [43]CNN, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh summarized his latest exclusive. Hersh's critical discovery was that the Bush administration is actively sponsoring al-Qaeda affiliated groups across the entire Middle East, with a focus on Lebanon, to counter regional Shi'ite Iranian influence. Moreover, much of the finances for these covert operations are being funnelled by Saudi Arabia through Iraq: "This administration has made a policy change, a decision that they are going to put all of the pressure they can on the Shiites, that is the Shiite regime in Iran, the Shiite - and they are also doing everything they can to stop Hezbollah - which is Shiite, the Hezbollah organization from getting any control or any more of a political foothold in Lebanon. ... we are interested in recreating what is happening in Iraq in Lebanon, that is Sunni versus Shia... we have been pumping money, a great deal of money, without congressional authority, without any congressional oversight, Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia is putting up some of this money, for covert operations in many areas of the Middle East where we think that the - we want to stop the Shiite spread or the Shiite influence. They call it the `Shiite Crescent.' And a lot of this money... has gotten into the hands - among other places, in Lebanon, into the hands of three - at least three jihadist groups. There are three Sunni jihadist groups whose main claim to fame inside Lebanon right now is that they are very tough. These are people connected to al Qaeda who want to take on Hezbollah... My government, which arrests al Qaeda every place it can find them... is sitting back while the Lebanese government we support, the government of Prime Minister Siniora, is providing arms and sustenance to three jihadist groups whose sole function, seems to me and to the people that talk to me in our government, to be there in case there is a real shoot-`em-up with Hezbollah... ... So America, my country, without telling Congress, using funds not appropriated, I don't know where, by my sources believe much of the money obviously came from Iraq where there is all kinds of piles of loose money, pools of cash that could be used for covert operations... We are simply in a situation where this president is really taking his notion of executive privilege to the absolute limit here, running covert operations, using money that was not authorized by Congress, supporting groups indirectly that are involved with the same people that did 9/11, and we should be arresting these people rather than looking the other way..." Dij` vu? An unholy triangle, the US at the helm, Saudi Arabia providing the funds, Pakistan providing military intelligence support, but this time not into Afghanistan as during the Cold War, but into Iraq and thereby throughout the Middle East. It seems, al-Qaeda is still a useful mercenary outfit for our covert regional geostrategy, except yet again the theatre of war has shifted. In March 2007, Hersh firmed up this conclusion in the New Yorker magazine, citing White House insiders and other US government officials, all confirming in perhaps the clearest terms that the US was deliberately attempting to control al-Qaeda terrorist activity through Saudi Arabia (among others) to be re-directed against Iran: "The `redirection,' as some inside the White House have called the new strategy, has brought the United States closer to an open confrontation with Iran and, in parts of the region, propelled it into a widening sectarian conflict between Shiite and Sunni Muslims. To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has covperated with Saudi Arabia's government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda. ... The clandestine operations have been kept secret, in some cases, by leaving the execution or the funding to the Saudis, or by finding other ways to work around the normal congressional appropriations process, current and former officials close to the Administration said. ... Flynt Leverett, a former Bush Administration National Security Council official, told me that `there is nothing coincidental or ironic' about the new strategy with regard to Iraq. `The Administration is trying to make a case that Iran is more dangerous and more provocative than the [al-Qaeda] Sunni insurgents to American interests in Iraq, when--if you look at the actual casualty numbers--the punishment inflicted on America by the Sunnis is greater by an order of magnitude,' Leverett said. `This is all part of the campaign of provocative steps to increase the pressure on Iran. The idea is that at some point the Iranians will respond and then the Administration will have an open door to strike at them.' ... This time, the U.S. government consultant told me, Bandar and other Saudis have assured the White House that `they will keep a very close eye on the religious fundamentalists. Their message to us was `We've created this movement, and we can control it.' It's not that we don't want the Salafis to throw bombs; it's who they throw them at--Hezbollah, Moqtada al-Sadr, Iran, and at the Syrians, if they continue to work with Hezbollah and Iran'." So, we know the al-Qaeda salafis will throw bombs. But apart from trying to blow up American, British and other civilians (and perhaps themselves if they've got that vibe), funnelling them arms, funds and logistical assistance will allow us to "control" them sufficiently to make life difficult for the Iranians (or [44]even the Palestinians), perhaps even provoke them into a response that will legitimize an Anglo-American "strike at them." Notice that national security, I mean real national security in terms of the protection of the lives of the Western publics, is not an operative factor calculated into this strategy. Whose bombs indeed. There is a term for this kind of covert sponsorship of terror networks. It's called "[45]complicity," if the Modern Law Review is anything to go by. Thus, by law, the Bush administration, and perhaps now Brown's also, is aiding and abetting al-Qaeda. They cannot be absolved of culpability in the fall-out. So why Iran and why now? Nothing to do with oil, of course. It is merely a coincidence that in late June, a former White House energy consultant and NATO energy delegate Dr. Roger Bezdek, annoyed the Bush administration by [46]demanding that it "must immediately and rigorously assess the looming impact of peak oil." He said: "... it may already be too late to avoid serious problems." Dr. Bezdek's warning came shortly after the publication of British Petroleum's influential Statistical Review of World Energy which claimed optimistically that sufficient oil reserves remain to meet current demand for the next 40 years. BP's report, which echoes that of other American and British giant oil corporations, was [47]refuted by leading independent oil industry experts including Dr Colin Campbell, a former chief geologist and vice-chairman at several major oil companies, who noted that on the contrary, the latest data shows oil is set to peak within the next four years. Indeed, Chris Skrebowski, a former chief planner for BP and now editor of Petroleum Review, observes: "I was extremely sceptical to start with. We have enough capacity coming online for the next two-and-a-half years. After that the situation deteriorates." Bush administration officials have [48]long been aware of the impending oil crisis. Indeed, it was a key factor in Vice-President Dick Cheney's formulation of the [49]strategy in Iraq only five months prior to 9/11. Reports like that of BP are designed to misinform, steering public attention away from the real cause of the problem. If ever there was a resource-driven [50]strategy of tension, this is it; and the fear being ratcheted up in the US and UK is its direct corollary. While the British police and intelligence services are congratulating themselves on having rounded up the terrorists and thus quelled the threat for now, the US government is actively fostering the source of the threat in the Middle East because of its antipathy toward Iran. Given Britain's close alliance with the US in the `War on Terror', the question must be asked, how precisely involved is the British government in this self-defeating strategy that consciously compromises civilian life? You want to fight the terror Mr Brown? Perhaps you can start by fighting your new boss, Mr Bush. Somehow, I don't see it happening. [Postscript: If you've read this far and found this article at least nominally useful, then you'll be interested to take a look at the new website for our think-tank, the [51]Institute for Policy Research & Development. Check it out and spread the word.] posted by Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed at [52]5:41 PM 0 Comments: [53]Post a Comment Links to this post: [54]See links to this post [55]<$BlogBacklinkTitle$> <$BlogBacklinkSnippet$> posted by <$BlogBacklinkAuthor$> @ <$BlogBacklinkDateTime$> [56]Create a Link [57]<< Home About Me [58]My Photo Name: Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed Location: London, GB I'm the author of The London Bombings: An Independent Inquiry (www.independentinquiry.co.uk) and The War on Truth: 9/11, Disinformation and the Anatomy of Terrorism (Arris, Olive Branch, 2005). I teach undergraduate courses at the Department of International Relations, University of Sussex, Brighton, where I'm currently a PhD candidate. My research is about the relationship between European imperialism since the 15th century, and Western practices of violence and genocide. I'm also director of the Institute for Policy Research & Development, based in central London. My first book, The War on Freedom: How & Why America was Attacked, September 11, 2001, was an instant bestseller in the US, Germany and Italy, and won the latter's Naples Prize. My 2nd book, Behind the War on Terror: Western Secret Strategy and the Struggle for Iraq, examines the role of energy in the pattern of Western interventionism in the Middle East since the collapse of the Ottomon Empire. My third book, The War on Truth, is my magnus opus on international terrorism. Shortly after its publication, I was fortunate enough to testify as an expert witness in US Congress about my research. [59]View my complete profile Previous Posts * [60]Widening the net lets the bombers slip through * [61]The Strategy of Tension * [62]Blair's Legacy... and the "Struggle Against Violen... * [63]Inside the Crevice: 7/7 and the Security Debacle * [64]7/7 Survivors Call for Independent Public Inquiry * [65]Peering through the crevice.... * [66]Whose War on Whose Terror? Reclaiming Our Rights * [67]International Terrorism: The Secret History Since ... * [68]Apologies * [69]Source Reveals CIA Electro-Shock Torture in Secret... [70]Powered by Blogger _________________________________________________________________ References Visible links 1. http://nafeez.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default 2. http://nafeez.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss 3. http://nafeez.blogspot.com/feeds/1353441791276728913/comments/default 4. http://www.blogger.com/navbar.g?targetBlogID=17440892&blogName=The+Cutting+Edge&publishMode=PUBLISH_MODE_BLOGSPOT&navbarType=BLACK&layoutType=CLASSIC&homepageUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fnafeez.blogspot.com%2F&searchRoot=http%3A%2F%2Fnafeez.blogspot.com%2Fsearch 5. http://nafeez.blogspot.com/ 6. http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article2730499.ece 7. http://www.chris-floyd.com/Articles/Articles/Liberate_With_Extreme_Prejudice%3A_Another_Civilian_Slaughter_in_Afghanistan/ 8. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/30/AR2007063000537_pf.html 9. http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2115846,00.html 10. http://www.atlanticfreepress.com/content/view/1904/81 11. http://www.atlanticfreepress.com/content/view/1914/81/ 12. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06/29/more_fear_biscuits_please/ 13. http://www.abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=3339093&page=1 14. http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Sources_August_Terror_Plot_Fiction_Underscoring_0918.html 15. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4778967.stm 16. http://rachelnorthlondon.blogspot.com/2007/06/ha-ha.html 17. http://www.parliament.uk/parliamentary_committees/home_affairs_committee/hacpn070627no33.cfm 18. http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Olbermann_The_Nexus_of_politics_and_0815.html 19. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19055859/ 20. http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Arkansas_GOP_head_We_need_more_0603.html 21. http://pnac.info/index.php/2003/debating-empire-prior-to-911/ 22. http://www.crisispapers.org/Editorials/PNAC-Primer.htm 23. http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/zbig.html 24. http://politics.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2116321,00.html 25. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article2010136.ece 26. http://www.gibfocus.gi/details_todaysnews.php?id=2533 27. http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/06/car-bomb-found-.html 28. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/07/03/nterror104.xml 29. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/07/01/nterr101.xml 30. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uklatest/story/0,,-6753880,00.html 31. http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2117352,00.html 32. http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article2737136.ece 33. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601081&sid=aiACG6ri0lTw&refer=australia 34. http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=56469 35. http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=CHO20050801&articleId=782 36. http://www.omarbakri.info/ 37. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article547466.ece 38. http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/LondonBlasts/story?id=940198&page=1 39. http://rawstory.com/news/2005/CAUGHT_RED__0923.html 40. http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,,1778443,00.html 41. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3814013.stm. 42. http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/09/28/blair.leaders/index.html 43. http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022607A.shtml 44. http://www.globalcrisis.org.uk/NAEC/The%20CIA%20and%20Fatah;%20Spies,%20Quislings%20and%20the%20Palestinian%20Authority.html 45. http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0026-7961(197905)42%3A3%3C315%3ATEOCC%3E2.0.CO%3B2-S 46. http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/US-expert-calls-for-peal-oil-study/2007/06/26/1182623886838.html 47. http://news.independent.co.uk/sci_tech/article2656034.ece 48. http://www.sundayherald.com/28224 49. http://www.cfr.org/content/publications/attachments/Energy%20TaskForce.pdf 50. http://nafeez.blogspot.com/2007/05/strategy-of-tension.html 51. http://www.globalcrisis.org.uk/ 52. http://nafeez.blogspot.com/2007/07/whose-bombs.html 53. http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=17440892&postID=1353441791276728913 54. http://blogsearch.google.com/?ui=blg&q=link%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fnafeez.blogspot.com%2F2007%2F07%2Fwhose-bombs.html 55. http://nafeez.blogspot.com/2007/07/<$BlogBacklinkURL$> 56. javascript:BlogThis(); 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They were words of courage and defiance, uttered by a man who embodied both. Mordechai Vanunu spent 18 years in jail, a full 11 of them in solitary confinement, for revealing Israel's yet undeclared nuclear capability to the world. He had emerged from Shikma with arms outstretched, repeatedly flashing the victory sign ­ or was it peace? ­ and refused to answer questions posed to him in Hebrew from the awaiting media. "I am proud and happy to do what I did," he unabashedly stated. And what he has done since will now land him back behind bars. An Israeli court has just sentenced Vanunu to six months in jail for violating the terms of his parole, which prohibit him from having any contact with foreigners or visiting the West Bank. As in all matters, he was fearless in doing both. It thus behooves us to retell this man's remarkable story, lest we forget what a person of conscience can achieve. Mordechai Vanunu was the first to expose Israel's dirty little secret: it was a major atomic power. He worked as a technician at the Dimona nuclear plant in the Negev desert from 1976 - 1985. Then, in a 1986 interview with London's Sunday Times, he disclosed pictures that not only proved Israel had the capacity to produce nuclear weapons, but was actually in possession of them. Just prior to the publication of his interview on October 5, events unfolded as if they came straight off the pages of a Robert Ludlum thriller. On September 30, Vanunu was lured by a female Mossad agent from London to Rome, where he was captured and scurried off to Israel. Behind closed doors he stood trial for treason, was quickly convicted and sentenced to an 18-year term. If the Israeli government had hoped he would quietly and contritely fade away, they were sadly mistaken. Vanunu vociferously renewed his call for Israel to come clean regarding its nuclear arsenal (reportedly the world's fifth largest) and open the Dimona reactor to international inspection. Israel still remains the only country in the Middle East to be a non-signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and has likewise barred entry to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) personnel. Israeli politicians, from left, right and center, roundly heaped scorn on Vanunu after his release, whom they dubbed a "traitor." Conditions of his parole included prohibition of traveling abroad for one year or possessing a passport, limitation of his movement within the country, speaking with non-Israeli citizens, and discussing anything related to his former work at Dimona. These restrictions were condemned by Amnesty International who demanded their rescindment, citing Article 12 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which permit a citizen to move freely about or leave the country of their citizenship. Although the term "whistleblower" is often used to describe Vanunu, it is a rather weak and understated characterization. He was a siren, alerting the world that nuclear weapons had found their way into the Middle East, shattering Israel's official policy of nuclear ambiguity. Born in Morocco, Vanunu converted to Christianity before being imprisoned. He felt both his religious and political views (a staunch advocate of Palestinian rights) led to the harsh treatment he received while incarcerated, which he described as "cruel and barbaric." Despite interrogation by the world's most ruthless intelligence agencies and imprisonment in what could have only been unforgiving conditions, Vanunu endured, saying: "I am a symbol of the will of freedom, that you cannot break the human spirit." A Nobel Peace Prize recipient in waiting and a true hero of our time no less. [Rannie Amiri is an independent commentator on issues dealing with the Arab and Islamic worlds. He may be reached at: rbamiri@yahoo.com. ] * ================================================================ .NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems . Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us . .339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org .List Archives: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ .Subscribe: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ================================================================ ***************************************************************** 15 Calgary Sun: Nuke disarmament Gorbachev priority Sun, July 8, 2007 Maritimes meeting highlights issue By MELANIE PATTEN, CP PUGWASH, N.S. -- Fifty years after scientists first converged on this tiny Nova Scotia village to discuss the threat of nuclear weapons, Mikhail Gorbachev says there is more work to be done in the fight against a nuclear arms race. Discussions like those at the Pugwash Conference on Science and World Affairs are a good start, the last leader of the Soviet Union said in a statement to organizers. "It is good to know that the (conference) is an ongoing, vibrant project that continues to bring together concerned scientists who fully understand the responsibility to humankind," Gorbachev said. Experts from around the world first met in Pugwash in 1957 when a local philanthropist suggested his summer home would serve as a quiet and private place to discuss the threat of nuclear arms. Hundreds of meetings have since taken place throughout the world, and the so-called Pugwash movement was honoured with the Nobel Peace Prize in 1995. The latest conference, which was to end today, attracted two dozen international delegates, including Tadatoshi Akiba, the mayor of Hiroshima, Japan. Akiba, Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay, Liberal Sen. Romeo Dallaire and Nova Scotia Premier Rodney MacDonald were expected to address delegates last night. Gorbachev, who did not attend the conference, negotiated an arms-reduction treaty with U.S. President Ronald Reagan in 1987. Twenty years later, Gorbachev acknowledged the work of the experts who gathered in Pugwash. "(We need to) build an intellectual foundation for agreements that would dramatically cut the arsenals of nuclear weapons on their way to their elimination and prevent an arms race in space," he said. Copyright 2006, Canoe Inc. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 16 BBC NEWS: UN denies firing 'whistleblower' Last Updated: Saturday, 7 July 2007, 11:41 GMT 12:41 UK The UNDP has been accused of giving money to Pyongyang A UN agency has denied firing an employee after the man questioned alleged financial irregularities at its North Korean operations. Artjon Shkurtaj asked for protection as a whistleblower after losing his job in the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in North Korea. Mr Shkurtaj said he found fake US bills in an office safe and local staff were paid in euros, and not local currency. UN audit The agency has been accused by the US administration of handing over cash to the North Korean regime without proper accounting or paperwork, the BBC's Laura Trevelyan said from New York. The implication is the UN allowed millions of dollars to go to the North Korean government instead of going to programmes to help people in poverty, our correspondent said. The UN carried out an audit in June and said that while there had been breaches of rules, there had been no systematic diversion of UN money to North Korean authorities. "UNDP has invited the individual to submit all relevant information to the UNDP office charged with undertaking internal inquiries, but he has so far declined to do so," a spokesman from the agency said. * BBC Copyright Notice ***************************************************************** 17 The Hindu: Orissa N-power plant site identified Saturday, July 7, 2007 : 1920 Hrs Bhubaneswar, July 7 (PTI): The Centre has identified a site in Orissa's Ganjam district for setting up of a 6000 MW nuclear power plant, Energy Minister Suryanarayan Patro informed the state assembly today. The Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL) has identified Pati Sonapur under Chikiti block where the plant can be established, he told Trinath Behera (Cong) during question hour. Official sources said if the NPCIL's proposal of setting up the nuclear power plant materialised, it would be the largest such generation unit in the country. Though there are 17 nuclear power plants operating in the country, none matches the capacity of the proposed project. While a total of 4120 mw of power is being generated by all units, the proposed plant alone would produce 6000 mw of power. Sources said the 17 nuclear power stations are located in six states. While four units each are located in Maharastra and Rajasthan, three are in Karnataka. Two units each are in Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat. The minister said the NPCIL has already proposed drilling six borewells to reconfirm suitability for the project. The state government was also considering the proposal, he said. Copyright 2007, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the ***************************************************************** 18 The Hindu: Discuss nuclear deal in Parliament, says Vajpayee Saturday, Jul 07, 2007 Neena Vyas NEW DELHI: The former Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, has demanded an assurance from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that no bilateral Indo-United States agreement on nuclear cooperation would take place without a thorough discussion in Parliament. In a two-page statement released here on Friday by two of his former Cabinet colleagues, Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie, Mr. Vajpayee has expressed his apprehension that the nuclear deal would be concluded before the end of this year and it would conform to highly objectionable provisions of the Hyde Act. Seeking assurances that the Government will not do anything beyond what was spelt out by the Prime Minister in Parliament when the issue was discussed at length, Mr. Vajpayee said he was apprehensive that India was about to change our long-held policies on these [nuclear-related] issues so that they conform to the Hyde Act [passed by the U.S. Congress in December 2006] which is to govern the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal. He said that he feared the Government of India had set up a task force about a month ago precisely to reverse our stated nuclear policies with a view to bringing them in conformity with the Hyde Act. Mr. Sinha, who presented to the media the Bharatiya Janata Partys case on the subject, said that the task force was to come up with a creative approach and he suspected that the idea was to change Indias nuclear policy after presenting this as a result of suggestions of the task force not on prompting by the U.S. Mr. Sinha said the Government would conform to the Hyde Act provisions but pretend that this had been done as a result of internal policy making. The two points in the Hyde Act that Mr. Vajpayee was strongly opposed to were banning of further nuclear tests by India and working actively with the U.S. for an early conclusion of a multilateral Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty (FMCT). On the first point, Mr. Sinha agreed, in response to questions, that Mr. Vajpayee had himself offered to sign the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (provided other countries, including those of the region like Pakistan and China also sign it) to convert his public declaration of a voluntary moratorium on nuclear testing to a legally binding international obligation. That was a different situation as it would mean other nuclear states would also be bound by the CTBT. But now, once the Indo-U.S. deal is through and the Hyde Act comes into effect, India will lose its option of conducting a nuclear test even if another country were to test. Earlier Mr. Shourie had said Mr. Vajpayee had kept Indias nuclear testing option open even when he declared a moratorium immediately after Pokhran II in May 1998. On the second issue the FMCT the Vajpayee said it would be most unfortunate if we agree to verification by national technical means as that would effectively put the U.S. in the drivers seat rather than an international and effective certification system that would function in a non-discriminatory and transparent manner and enable India to have a place at the high table in the functioning of the FMCT. However, experts dealing with the subject point out that so far there were no signs that India was about to cave in on this. As recently as June 18, at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, India had reiterated its stand that the FMCT should be an internationally verifiable treaty. Mr. Sinha and Mr. Shourie were asked whether Mr. Vajpayee statement was tilting at windmills. To this Mr. Sinhas response was that the setting up of the task force, the confidence expressed by U.S. Secretary of State that the Indo-U.S. nuclear cooperation agreement would be concluded by the year-end, and the quick visits by Indian delegations to the U.S. had aroused their suspicions. After all, after the Hyde Act was passed he did not see how the two countries could reconcile their conflicting positions. The BJP came to the conclusion that India was about to cave in. Copyright 2007, The Hindu. ***************************************************************** 19 TheStar.com: 2 Pickering reactors out for the summer Loss of 1,000 megawatts hitting OPG just as electricity demand nears its peak Jul 07, 2007 04:30 AM Tyler Hamilton Energy Reporter Hot days ahead and a desire to keep cool could spell trouble for the province's electricity system. Ontario Power Generation said yesterday its two Pickering A nuclear units, which have been down for unplanned maintenance for a month, will now be out of service for most of the summer. The lengthy outage means the province will be short 1,000 megawatts of domestic power generation just as southern Ontario enters its hottest weekend of the year so far, with little relief expected as we pass through the muggy months of July and August – typically a period of high electricity demand because of increased dependence on air conditioning. "What it does is increase the need for imports, particularly during hot and humid weather," said Terry Young, spokesperson for the Independent Electricity System Operator, which manages demand and supply on Ontario's electricity system. One megawatt powers about 1,000 homes in Ontario. Young said Ontario has the capacity to import up to 4,000 megawatts of electricity from Quebec and the United States, though such power can often come at a cost premium and from coal-based generators that spew pollution across the border. "Beyond that, there are other measures to maintain reliability," said Young, adding that a public appeal to reduce energy consumption would come first, complemented by demand-response programs and power line voltage reductions if necessary. Nobody is using the word blackout just yet, but industry officials concede that the risk increases with any long-term loss of generation. In addition to such a risk, some observers say the timing of the Pickering A outages calls into question whether Ontario ratepayers are getting value from more than $2 billion worth of refurbishments to the facility's two remaining Candu reactors. "The rest of the summer? This is a real blow to OPG, and it represents a very serious challenge for the government's reputation," said Tom Adams, an Energy Probe analyst. Reactor unit 1 was put back into service in September 2005 after being idle for seven years, while unit 4's refurbishment was completed in September 2003. The government decided to mothball units 2 and 3 in 2005, calling their restoration economically unviable. Adams said the same argument should have been applied to units 1 and 4. He called refurbishment of the units a "terrible financial mistake" and said their track record has been "very poor" since coming back into service. "Unplanned outages are not a good sign, and being caught by surprise is a harsh verdict. They should have been able to predict the production cycle more accurately." OPG took the units offline on June 5 to do work on a backup electrical system, with the expectation that the reactors would be back in operation by mid-June, in advance of any steamy summer weather. "We found it's going to take longer to do the modification," said OPG spokesperson Jacquie McInnes, adding that the units will remain out of service for several weeks. Pickering A has had a rough ride in recent years, particularly unit 4, which has been shut down several times since early 2005 – in one case for three months. OPG recently reported that Pickering A's capacity has plunged from 91 per cent in the first quarter of 2006 to 63.5 per cent during the same period this year. But Steven Erwin, a spokesperson for Energy Minister Dwight Duncan, defended the decision to refurbish the Pickering A units, pointing out that it's the backup system – not the reactors – that are the problem. "It's not like they can't operate," said Erwin, adding that the maintenance is just a precaution. "Should it have been caught earlier? We wish we could have caught it earlier. But the units themselves are operating just fine." Copyright Toronto Star 1996-2007 | ***************************************************************** 20 BBC NEWS: Chernobyl children's Welsh break Last Updated: Sunday, 8 July 2007, 08:22 GMT 09:22 UK The children will travel from Goytre Wharf to Llanover A group of 18 children suffering the effects of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster are enjoying a Welsh holiday. The group, from Chernihiv, 30km from the site of the Ukraine explosion, are in remission from cancer or other life-threatening illnesses. They are spending Sunday on the Brecon and Monmouthshire canal, followed by a barbecue and music laid on by locals. The children, aged seven to 14, grew up in the shadow of the world's worst nuclear catastrophe, although it happened years before any of them were born. Official UN figures predicted up to 9,000 Chernobyl-related cancer deaths, although the environmental group Greenpeace has claimed that the actual number would be 93,000. Greenpeace has also argued that other illnesses could take the toll to 200,000. They are very timid when they first come here but become more positive and more confident David Chatfield, of Camps for Children of Chernobyl The holiday is organised every year by the charity Camps for Children of Chernobyl and a doctor and interpreter have to travel with the group at all times. The areas where the children live are very deprived and highly contaminated, explained Dave Chatfield, executive director of the charity. Passports have to be arranged for every child as none would have ever expected to leave their small village. Bringing them to the UK, even for a short break, helps boost their immune systems, he said. When they first arrive, they spend a week doing team-building activities such as assault courses, canoeing and rafting to build their confidence. A child photographed by Laurence Squires on a visit to Chernobyl "After the seventh day they are full of confidence and back up to full strength. It changes their thoughts around totally," he said. "They are more positive in everything that they do. "You see a real difference... they are very timid when they first come here but become more positive and more confident." All the activities on the itinerary are made possible by donations from members of public, including the owners of the four narrow boats who will transport the children for the trip along the canal on Sunday before a visit to a traditional pub and a concert. Mr Chatfield said the trip on the canal was a time for the children to "relax and enjoy themselves." Two days later the children will fly to Caernarfon for a behind-the-scenes look at the home of the air ambulance. "They will be going around the museum at Caernarfon airfield and going down to the beach then if the weather is good to have a paddle. They will be flying back over the top of Snowdonia," explained Mr Chatfield. * BBC Copyright Notice ***************************************************************** 21 Manila Mail: RP pays $1.2-B Bataan N-plant - Philippine News - ManilaMailDC.Net Sun Jul 08, 2007 The Philippine government has finally paid off the Bataan nuclear power plant almost 32 years after work began on what became the country’s biggest white elephant that never produced a single watt of electricity, a government official said. “The final payment of $15 million was settled in April,” Filemon Condino, head of the fiscal planning and assessment division of the Bureau of the Treasury, said. One of the pet projects of late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, the controversial power plant cost the Filipino taxpayer a total of P21.2 billion ($460 million at today’s exchange rate) on a debt of $1.06 billion. A Marcos crony, Herminio Disini, is claimed to have earned $18 million for brokering the deal that awarded the contract to build the plant to Westinghouse Electric Corp. His $4-M frozen deposit in a Swiss bank was recently freed due to the failure of PCGG to pursue the case against him. The nuclear power plant, located in Bataan province west of Manila, was a knee-jerk reaction by Marcos to the energy crisis of the early 1970s. Philippine News: RP pays $1.2-B Bataan N-plant Posted on Friday, July 06 @ 08:06:55 CDT by news_keeper Most read story about Vol. XVI, No. 16: The Manila Mail Web Enter your search terms Submit search form ***************************************************************** 22 Morning Call: Power to the people mcall.com Google July 8, 2007 Citizens' group files concerns about PPL plan to expand Susquehanna nuclear plant. By Sam Kennedy Of The Morning Call THREE MILE ISLAND ALERT What: A watchdog group based in Harrisburg. It monitors the three nuclear power plants on the Susquehanna River. Founded: 1977 Membership: about 500 Web site: http://www.tmia.com Chairman: Eric Epstein, 47, Harrisburg ''We view our role as making sure that nuclear plants are operated safely, are adequately staffed and pay their fair share of taxes,'' Epstein said. ''We are pro-community. The plants are going to be part of the community for the indefinite future. We understand that's the reality.'' A third nuclear reactor threatens to leave a legacy of radioactive waste, suck up too much river water and depress the local economy, according to the first substantive response to PPL Corp.'s proposal to expand its Susquehanna plant. Last month, the Allentown energy company sent a letter informing the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission it might apply for a license for a third reactor about 75 miles northwest of the Lehigh Valley. Such an application would be the first from Pennsylvania since the state became, with the meltdown of a reactor at the Three Mile Island power plant in 1979, the place where the nation's rapid nuclear expansion came to a sudden halt. News of PPL's Susquehanna proposal was met immediately by opposition from several environmental and watchdog groups. One, Three Mile Island Alert, which is based in Harrisburg and monitors the three nuclear power plants on the Susquehanna river, has now put its concerns into writing. A paper titled ''Why Susquehanna 3 Is a Bad Idea'' opens with the very question that has flummoxed the federal government for decades: What to do with radioactive waste? ''The plant currently generates 60 metric tons of nuclear waste annually,'' writes Eric Epstein, longtime chairman of 500-member TMI Alert. ''It's anybody's guess what the final cleanup tab will be or if the nuclear garbage will even have a forwarding address.'' PPL's Susquehanna plant is in Salem Township, Luzerne County, near Berwick. The Lehigh Valley is outside the 50-mile radius considered most at risk to radioactive contamination in the event of an accident. In its current two-reactor configuration, the plant is already PPL's biggest generator. It puts out 2,360 megawatts -- enough to power 2 million homes -- of PPL's 11,000 megawatts of capacity nationwide. For its part, the government has agreed to bury all the nation's nuclear waste under a 13-million-year-old volcanic ridge, called Yucca Mountain, in Nevada. But the plan has been stymied by a host of environmental concerns, as well as fierce opposition from people who live in the vicinity of the mountain. The impasse has left nuclear plants with no alternative but storing their radioactive waste on-site. Since 1999, the Susquehanna plant's used uranium has been kept in huge steel containers, which are locked inside concrete bunkers. In a written rebuttal to TMI Alert, PPL says, ''PPL operates the Susquehanna plant safely and within all local, state and federal regulations.'' A company spokesman later elaborated on the nuclear waste issue. ''It's not like we don't have a plan, because we certainly do,'' PPL Susquehanna community relations manager Lou Ramos said. The plan he was referring to is Yucca Mountain. He said PPL, along with other nuclear power plant operators, have a contract with the government. They've contributed a total of $27 billion to the project since 1981, he said. ''There's no reason why it can't work,'' Ramos said. ''You gotta believe -- and we certainly do -- that Yucca Mountain will be opened.'' A third reactor could also magnify the cost of cleaning up the Susquehanna plant after it closes sometime in the future, according to the TMI Alert paper. In it, Epstein says that the projected costs of decommissioning the plant have increased ''wildly,'' from as little as $135 million in 1981 to $936 million in 2005. PPL says that decommissioning funds have been set aside in a trustee account. Currently, there is $550,000, which is expected to grow to more than $1 billion by 2024, according to the company. Mobile News | Subscribe Online | Order Reprints Lehigh Valley Local Links Additional funds would be set aside for a third reactor, PPL says. Water consumption is another major focus of TMI Alert's paper. According to Epstein, the Susquehanna plant takes 30 million gallons from the Susquehanna River every day. ''Last year, despite the fact that Columbia County was 3.6 inches below normal precipitation and Luzerne County was 3.2 inches under . SSES continued to gobble up water,'' he writes, using the acronym for the plant's formal name, Susquehanna Steam Electric Station. ''SSES is a large industrial consumer of a valuable and limited commodity.'' PPL gives a much different account: ''As a good neighbor, SSES took . voluntary steps to conserve water during the recent droughts.'' In its rebuttal, the company argues that the plant's water consumption is regulated by the Susquehanna River Basin Commission, and that the amount of water it uses represents a tiny fraction of the river's flow. It puts the figure at six-tenths of 1 percent of the average daily flow. PPL also says that the plant uses water from the Cowaneque Lake Reservoir to augment river flow, and that it has an 8-acre, 25-million-gallon pond that serves as the main source of water for the plant's safety systems. TMI Alert's paper also raises questions about the potential economic impact a third reactor would have on the economy, particularly on Luzerne County's aging population. The general thrust of Epstein's argument is that the Susquehanna plant has had a negative effect on the surrounding region's property values and tax base. He also suggests that PPL, along with other nuclear power plant operators in the state, have played accounting tricks. With deregulation of the energy industry, he writes, ''they claimed that their generating stations had depreciated overnight and were only worth a fraction of pre-deregulation estimates.'' PPL maintains that ''the company pays its taxes on fair valuation,'' and that ''the local taxing jurisdictions are collecting more property tax on the Susquehanna plant than they did prior to deregulation.'' ''The continued operation of SSES thus benefits both taxpayers and ratepayers,'' the company's rebuttal concludes. PPL is not alone in its interest to build a nuclear reactor. In recent years, as the price of fossil fuel has risen and the full extent of its environmental costs has become clear, there has been a resurgence of support for nuclear energy, especially within the energy industry itself. Nuclear energy, unlike oil, natural gas and coal, doesn't release global-warming pollutants into the atmosphere. The letter the PPL sent to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission last month was the 20th such notification of nuclear plans the agency has received since 2005. Like the Susquehanna proposal, most of those involve building reactors at existing nuclear plants. The letter does not mean PPL has actually decided to build another reactor, according to the company. Rather, it is a move to preserve that option for the future. The earliest a new reactor could come online, after regulatory review and con struction, is 2015. sam.kennedy@mcall.com Copyright 2007, The Morning Call ***************************************************************** 23 JOURNAL NEWS: Indian Point siren woes raise alarms Sunday, July 8, 2007 By GREG CLARY The installation of new emergency sirens for Indian Point will be the topic of a public meeting tomorrow night in Cortlandt when nuclear plant officials update federal regulators on a $15 million project that has missed two deadlines this year and is losing the confidence of local emergency planners. "They have a better chance communicating with the space shuttle than they do with their sirens," Rockland County Deputy County Fire Coordinator Dan Greeley said of Entergy Nuclear Northeast, which owns the nuclear plants. "If they don't meet this next deadline, they need to look at re-engineering the entire system. The way it's going now isn't cutting it." Greeley and his counterparts from the other counties in the 10-mile evacuation zone around the nuclear plants say that residents have complained during a series of test soundings that they can't hear the sirens, noting that the old system would rattle the windows in some areas. The emergency planners say the weak link is the radio-frequency trigger used in the sophisticated system, which is required by law to be effective 94 percent of the time in case a power outage brings down the Internet-based portion. Anthony Sutton, Westchester County's top emergency planning official, said he's also concerned that the continuing tests have desensitized the public's response to the sirens. "The longer this takes, the less confidence we have in the system," Sutton said. "My outside perception is that they're struggling to put together a string of successful tests and then they're going to raise their hands and say, 'Don't touch anything.' It's like the old days of tuning a television with rabbit-ear antennas." Entergy spokesman Jim Steets said the company agrees with the counties and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that it needs to get the system to the point that local officials are comfortable with the 150 new sirens. He said the daily score-keeping of which sirens work and which don't may create too much of a focus on details and not on the bigger picture. "We understand the counties' concerns," Steets said. "I think their concerns have grown from the multiplicity of tests that we've done over the past few months, but ultimately we believe those sirens will meet their requirements." He said company officials were still confident they could get the system installed by Aug. 24, the latest deadline set by the NRC. Entergy missed a Jan. 30 deadline that regulators and company officials had agreed was ambitious, but then missed an April 15 deadline that cost the company $130,000 in fines. NRC officials have said they would review the situation if another deadline is missed, but have not ruled out further financial and other sanctions. Reach Greg Clary at gclary@lohud.com or 914-696-8566. A public meeting about the emergency sirens starts at 6:30 p.m. tomorrow at the Colonial Terrace, 119 Oregon Road, Cortlandt. Directions are at www.colonialterracecaterers.com/directions.htm. People planning to attend are advised that parking may be hard to find. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will staff informational tables an hour before the meeting starts. Emergency siren meeting Copyright 2007 The Journal News, a Gannett Co. Inc. newspaper serving Westchester, Rockland and Putnam Counties in New York. ***************************************************************** 24 EBR: UK government says four applications suitable for nuclear pre-licensing - Energy Business Review 6th July 2007 By Clare Watson The UK government has confirmed that all four of the applications received regarding nuclear reactor designs for generic design assessment, or pre-licensing, have met its eligibility criteria. The designs were received from AECL, Areva, GE-Hitachi and Toshiba-Westinghouse. The government said that, as these designs are eligible for the first stage of the pre-licensing process, they will be taken forward by the joint program office, comprising of the Office for Civil Nuclear Security, the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate and the Environment Agency. The applications from vendors of nuclear reactor designs for generic design assessment (GDA) were invited by the government's nuclear consultation document, which was published alongside its energy white paper in May 2007. The paper also set out the criteria for designs to be eligible for the pre-licensing process. The government said that, if successful in phase one, which includes an assessment of the safety case for each reactor design, a design may be able to progress to phase two of the GDA, where the designs will be assessed in more detail. It is likely that the number of designs to be considered during phase two will be reduced from four to three. Phase two is subject to the outcome of the nuclear consultation. In a press release confirming that the applications have been successful, the government restated its view that nuclear power will play an important role in tackling climate change and ensuring the security of energy supply in the UK. The government believes that it is in the public interest to give companies the option of investing in new nuclear power stations and the consultation is designed to assess public response to this view. The initial stages of pre-licensing are being carried out on a contingent basis alongside, and subject to, the outcome of the nuclear consultation. However, the government said that starting the first steps in the detailed and lengthy GDA process is a prudent step, alongside the nuclear consultation, to keeping open the option of new nuclear power stations. 2007 Business Review ***************************************************************** 25 Brattleboro Reformer: VY discharge effects questioned BRATTLEBORO, VT By PAUL H. HEINTZ, Reformer Staff Friday, July 6 NEWFANE -- Entergy Vermont Yankee's chief environmental consultant spent Thursday arguing that years of Connecticut River studies prove changes in water temperature caused by the Vernon power plant do no measurable harm to key species. Day four in the Vermont Environmental Court's summer-long hearings to determine whether Entergy can further raise water temperatures from May through October focused on those studies and the scientist charged with interpreting them. Aquatic ecologist Mark Mattson, a project manager for Normandeau Associates, spent the day on the stand trumpeting Entergy's efforts to understand its impact on the river. The consulting company has monitored the area upstream and downstream from the plant since 1996 in what Mattson called one of the most "comprehensive and extensive" studies of its kind. But lawyers from the Connecticut River Watershed Council and the New England Coalition on Nuclear Pollution -- both of whom oppose the water temperature increase -- worked to poke holes in Mattson's interpretation, questioning whether the Normandeau studies were extensive and comprehensive enough. They argued the company focused on too narrow a stretch of river and too short a period of time. Judge Meredith Wright is tasked with deciding whether to uphold a permit issued to Entergy by the Agency of Natural Resources in 2004, allowing it to increase the river's temperature an additional 1 degree Fahrenheit from May 16 through Oct. 14 each year. Entergy argues that making greater use of the river to cool the plant saves energy. It can already raise the temperature during that time period up to 5 degrees. Opponents of the change, however, have argued throughout the trial that vulnerable fish species -- particularly American shad and Atlantic salmon -- cannot cope with the higher temperatures. They contend the plant has been largely responsible for the failure to revive those two species in the river. According to Mattson, the company used 33 years of annual data, as well as 84 special studies requested by Entergy's Environmental Advisory Committee in order to predict the effect of a 1 degree increase. "Based on the quality and quantity of data, this is one of the top, if not the top, demonstrations in terms of the availability of data and the confidence we can have in it," he said. Mattson's 396-page Demonstration Report, which is required by the Clean Water Act, formed a large part of Entergy's 2004 permit request. Throughout the morning, Elise Zoli, a lawyer for Entergy, prompted Mattson to explain the methodology of the report, which he said was unmatched. She also asked him to compare Vermont Yankee to other, similar plants. "Vermont Yankee has the most restrictive thermal discharge criteria of any facility I've ever seen," Mattson said. He argued that salmon mostly swim in the river's tributaries during the summer months, and that they and shad could swim under or around higher temperatures regardless. CRWC lawyer Patrick Parenteau, on the other hand, wasn't buying any of it. During cross-examination, he questioned why Mattson's study focused on just several miles above and below the plant, rather than from Bellows Falls to Turners Falls, Mass. Similarly, he asked why the study focused on individual data sets rather than the combined effects of temperature increases during the plant's lifetime. "Given the amount of heat Vermont Yankee is already discharging into the Connecticut River year-round, isn't it difficult to detect the effect of a further 1 degree increase?" he asked. But Mattson said it was not. In fact, he said, that was the entire point of the Demonstration Report. The effects of the temperature increase begin to dissipate four miles downstream of the Vernon Dam as atmospheric effects take over, he argued. Parenteau pointed to several other areas he said Mattson failed to study. He questioned why salmon were not given special consideration, why the impact on predator species was not studied, and why there was not daily thermal monitoring of the area. Likewise, Entergy's hypothesis that shad and salmon declines are attributable to problems with the Turners Falls dam came under question. Mattson said that while he was not an expert on the subject, he believed that changes in the dam's fish ladder and its operation could be the problem. Parenteau, however, asserted that even if the dam played a role, water temperature did not help. New England Coalition lawyer Evan Mullholland began his cross-examination of Mattson late in the afternoon but made it only halfway through his line of questioning. His questioning will resume this morning. In the time he had, Mullholland pointed out that the ecologist worked for Entergy, though Mattson vigorously defended his objectivity. When Mullholland asked several questions pertaining to aspects of the plant's operation, Mattson joked that his role was to be "in the river, looking up their pipes." "I have an understanding of what goes in and what goes out, but not what goes on inside." The hearings in Newfane will continue today at 9 a.m. Paul Heintz can be reached at pheintz@reformer.com or 802-254-2311, ext. 275. Privacy Policy | MNG Corporate Site Map | Copyright ***************************************************************** 26 Pantagraph.com: Nuclear power too costly and too dangerous Bloomington-Normal, Illinois Letters to the EditorFriday, July 6, 2007 10:02 PM CDT Let’s say your neighbor decides to kennel 100 dogs in his backyard. You ask how he’s going to handle all the dog poo-poo. He replies, “Oh, I’m sure I’ll work that out.” Let’s say city ordinances don’t protect you, and the bank loans him money trusting he’ll handle the feces responsibly. Preposterous, you say? Of course. Unfortunately, nuclear power is allowed to operate like this fictional neighbor. On July 29 the Pantagraph reported Exelon’s desire to participate in the nuclear industry “resurgence.” So did the Tribune and U.S. papers that dutifully ran nuclear lobbyist propaganda. While Exelon’s President John Rowe maintains he’ll not build another reactor until the “waste handling” problem is solved, understand the possible hidden meaning here: Rowe wants to build new reactors, the current federal government wants that too, and everyone involved is saying not so subtly, “People, we’ve got to concoct some way to describe and plan for waste handling so it looks like we’ve solved the problem.” Unfortunately, nuclear waste, as it piles up year after year, is insoluble. Radioactive waste won’t melt in the rain, like stinky dog poo will. Instead, plutonium, strontium and cesium will poison our planet for thousands of years and the technology does not exist that can safely and permanently sequester this stuff. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. The other problem? Uranium supplies. Energy Biz Insider reports MIT as saying that preferred supplies of uranium are running out, poorer grade uranium uses more energy than it provides and effective fuel reprocessing technology is 20 years away. Fuel reprocessing sites are also notorious for the poisonous wastes they produce and their poor safety records. Nuclear is too slow, too expensive and too dangerous to solve global warming. Our precious time and resources need to focus on conservation and alternative energy. Sandra Lindberg Bloomington Lee Illinois Regional Newspapers: Carbondale | Charleston-Mattoon | Decatur | DeKalb Copyright 2007, Pantagraph Publishing Co. and Lee Enterprises. All ***************************************************************** 27 The Local: Vattenfall slammed for nuclear 'cover-up' 9th July 2007 Published: 8th July 2007 20:00 CET Online: http://www.thelocal.se/7828/ German authorities on Sunday slammed Swedish energy giant Vattenfall Europe for waiting several days to declare problems at a nuclear power plant in northern Germany. The Brunsbttel plant in the state of Schleswig-Holstein had to be temporarily shut down on June 28th because its capacity was overloaded. Though this was reported, the company failed to inform government authorities that problems occurred when the plant was restarted two days later, a spokesman for the social affairs ministry in Schleswig-Holstein, which is responsible for the region's power plants, said on Sunday. The ministry called the Brunsbttel plant on July 1st to ask whether the operation went smoothly and was not informed of any irregularities "though these must have manifested themselves by then," the spokesman said. He said the ministry was finally informed "at the last moment" on July 6th that the water purification system at the nuclear reactor cooler cut out twice as technicians restarted the reactor. Vattenfall has also been accused of failing to reveal the full extent of a fire at another nuclear power plant in Schleswig-Holstein on June 28th, just hours after the closure of the Brunsbttel plant. The blaze at the Krmmel power plant in Geesthacht, 30 kilometres (20 miles) southeast of Hamburg started when coolant in a large electric power transformer substation ignited due to a short circuit. It was initially reported that the fire had been isolated from the plant's atomic reactor, but the social affairs ministry said the flames reached the building housing the reactor. A spokesman for Vattenfall denied a cover-up, insisting: "We kept the public and the authorities fully informed from the very beginning." The German branch of Friends of the Earth, BUND, has demanded the immediate closure of both plants while the environmentalist Green party has said Vattenfall should lose its licence to operate nuclear power plants in Germany. AFP (news@thelocal.se ***************************************************************** 28 antiwar.com: Armitage: Cheney Cabal Scapegoat - by Gordon Prather July 7, 2007 Members of the Cheney Cabal in and outside government and their media sycophants are charging that then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage played the initial and key role in the exposure of CIA covert agent Valerie Plame and of her "cover," Brewster-Jennings & Associates. And even though that charge is evidently false, they illogically claim that if it were true it would somehow "exonerate" Scooter Libby, found guilty of committing the crimes of perjury and obstruction of justice. Because of that obstruction, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was unable to determine whether there was evidence of a criminal conspiracy to silence those in and outside government attempting to expose the Cheney Cabal's "fixing of intelligence" to support the upcoming war of aggression against Iraq. There is little doubt that there was such a conspiracy. And, as it happens, Ambassador Joseph Wilson IV was neither the first nor most important debunker of the Cheney Cabal's manipulated "intelligence." Earlier, and more important, debunkers included David Albright, an internationally recognized authority on fissile-material inventories and production capabilities. The earlier, and more important, manipulated "intelligence" Albright et al. debunked beginning almost a year before the official launch of the Bush-Cheney war of aggression concerned aluminum tubes. "The story of the tubes broke publicly on Sunday, September 8, 2002, when the New York Times published a story giving the administration's view that the aluminum tubes 'were intended as components of centrifuges to enrich uranium.' The U.S. couldn't wait 'until analysts have found hard evidence that Mr. Hussein has acquired a nuclear weapon. The first sign of a "smoking gun," they argue, may be a mushroom cloud.' "That day the New York Times article was published, senior administration officials, including Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, and Condoleezza Rice, made the rounds on the Sunday talk shows to bolster the case that Iraq posed an imminent threat to the U.S. "On NBC's Meet the Press, Dick Cheney said that intelligence showed that Saddam Hussein 'has reconstituted his nuclear program to develop a nuclear weapon,' and that 'he now is trying, through his illicit procurement network, to acquire the equipment he needs to be able to enrich uranium to make the bombs. Specifically aluminum tubes.' He made reference to the leak to Times, saying, 'I don't want to talk about, obviously, specific intelligence sources, but it's now public that, in fact, he has been seeking to acquire the kinds of tubes that are necessary to build a centrifuge.' According to Cheney, 'we do know, with absolute certainty, that he is using his procurement system to acquire the equipment he needs in order to enrich uranium to build a nuclear weapon.' When asked to confirm that Iraq did not then have a nuclear weapon, Cheney responded 'I can't say that.' In other words, Cheney implied that Iraq may have already obtained a nuclear weapon. "Condoleezza Rice went on CNN and stated 'We do know that he is actively pursuing a nuclear weapon. We do know that there have been shipments going into Iraq, for instance, of aluminum tubes that are only really suited for nuclear weapons programs, centrifuge programs.' She added that 'we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.' "On September 12, President Bush spoke before the United Nations General Assembly, saying 'Iraq has made several attempts to buy high-strength aluminum tubes used to enrich uranium for a nuclear weapon.'" This propaganda campaign highlighting "aluminum tubes" which were allegedly "only suited for nuclear weapons programs" was orchestrated by the White House Iraq Group, which had been created in August 2002 to "market" the (bogus) nuke threat posed by Saddam Hussein. WHIG was founded by Bush's chief of staff, Andrew Card, and operated out of the vice president's office. WHIG was not only responsible for selling the Iraq war using the "slam dunk" National Intelligence Estimate that George Tenet had hurriedly produced for Congress but took great pains to discredit anyone who attempted to debunk that NIE. According to Truthout.org reporter Jason Leopold, National Security Council and CIA officials told grand juries investigating the "outing" of Valerie Plame that Cheney had visited CIA headquarters several times and had asked several CIA officials "to dig up dirt on Albright" and to put together a dossier that would discredit his work that could be distributed to the media. We also now know that the two-hour meeting Libby had at the direction of Vice President Cheney with Cheney Cabal media sycophant Judith Miller on June 22, 2003, was to provide her with additional manipulated "intelligence" about aluminum tubes contained in the 2002 NIE on Iraq. At that meeting Libby referred to Valerie Plame. (Miller wrote "Flame" in her notes introduced at Libby's trial.) This Valerie "Flame" disclosure by Libby came weeks before Novak's column of July 14, 2003, "outing" Valerie Plame as "a CIA operative." How did the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame come up in a meeting whose purpose was to leak "classified" misinformation about aluminum tubes? According to David Corn and Michael Isikoff, "A shipment of the tubes was seized in Jordan under an operation headed by Valerie Plame Wilson. She oversaw the operation that intercepted these tubes that were then shipped back to the CIA. "She actually was chief of operations for the Joint Task on Iraq. It's part of the counter-proliferation division, which is part of the super-secret Operations Directorate. So she was actually in charge of overseeing and running operations for two years prior to the invasion that were designed to find evidence of Iraq's WMDs." Alas, to her reported dismay, experts in and out of government concluded that the aluminum tubes she intercepted were ill-suited for use in gas centrifuges. Now according to the CIA, Valerie Wilson only became a CIA employee on Jan. 1, 2002. So how could she have overseen the operation in 2001 that intercepted, confiscated, and sent these tubes "back to the CIA"? Well, as we now know thanks to Robert Novak and his treasonous "sources" in 2001 and for many years before, she was Valerie Plame, an employee of Brewster-Jennings & Associates, and Plame has W-2 forms to prove it. Which gets us back to Rich Armitage. Bob Woodward's taped interview with Armitage of June 13, 2003, for a book Woodward was writing, was introduced into evidence by the prosecution at Scooter Libby's trial. In passing, Armitage tells Woodward that "Wilson's wife" works at the CIA, that she "is an analyst or something out there." What's wrong with his saying that? Physicist James Gordon Prather has served as a policy implementing official for national security-related technical matters in the Federal Energy Agency, the Energy Research and Development Administration, the Department of Energy, the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Department of the Army. Dr. Prather also served as legislative assistant for national security affairs to U.S. Sen. Henry Bellmon, R-Okla. -- ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee and member of the Senate Energy Committee and Appropriations Committee. Dr. Prather had earlier worked as a nuclear weapons physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico. Copyright 2007 Antiwar.com ***************************************************************** 29 AFP: Kazakhstan to buy Westinghouse stake from Toshiba - Sat Jul 7, 1:46 AM ET TOKYO (AFP) - Kazakhstan is to pay 486.3 million dollars to buy a stake in US nuclear reactor firm Westinghouse from its majority owner Toshiba, news reports said Saturday. The Japanese giant will sign an agreement this month to sell a 10-percent stake in Westinghouse to state-run uranium firm Kazatomprom for slightly more than 60 billion yen, the Nikkei newspaper said. By forging ties with uranium-rich Kazakhstan Toshiba, which holds a 77-percent stake in Westinghouse, aims to secure stable supplies of the resource used by power plants, Jiji Press said. Toshiba expects to win more orders to build power facilities from power companies in the United States and elsewhere by having Kazatomprom in its alliance and securing a long-term supply of uranium, the Nikkei added. The tie-up will also help Kazatomprom expand its sales channels worldwide and accelerate mining projects, the Nikkei said. Toshiba and Westinghouse are also expected to transfer uranium-processing technology to Kazatomprom, it said. International energy firms are competing to secure nuclear fuel amid growing energy demand, particularly in emerging economies such as China and India. Japan now procures uranium mainly from Australia and Canada. Toshiba president Atsutoshi Nishida visited Kazakhstan in April with Japanese minister of economy, trade and industry Akira Amari, the Asahi Shimbun newspaper said. Japan and Kazakhstan have agreed to cooperate in uranium-processing technology and trade. US government approval is required for transactions in which a foreign entity takes a stake in an American business possessing nuclear technology, the Nikkei said. US officials have indicated that the deal poses no problems, the newspaper added. Copyright 2007 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 30 Telegraph: Germany to stay nuclear in Merkel U-turn By Tony Paterson in Berlin, Sunday Telegraph Last Updated: 12:15am BST 08/07/2007 Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, is preparing to perform a major U-turn by scrapping plans to abandon nuclear power. The move would bring Berlin into line with many of its European neighbours, who are investing heavily in new and existing sources of atomic energy, but puts Mrs Merkel on a collision course with the country's powerful green lobby and her coalition partners. Nuclear U-turn: Angela Merkel Mrs Merkel's dramatic change of heart surfaced at an energy summit attended by government and industry heads in Berlin last week, when it became clear that her ruling grand coalition's aim of closing Germany's 17 nuclear power plants by the early 2020s were at odds with targets for the reduction of CO2 emissions. A government-commissioned study unveiled at the summit showed that Mrs Merkel's targets were not feasible without nuclear power. Germany's first woman leader is passionately concerned about climate change and her decision to ditch her coalition's anti-nuclear policies stems directly from her own ambitious plans to protect the environment. "We cannot just continue as if it's business as usual," she said last week in defence of her climate control agenda. advertisement However, it will bring her into direct conflict with the influential green lobby, which pioneered environmental politics in Europe in the Seventies, and will also strain relations with her coalition partners, the Social Democrats, who favour sticking to the original policy. Her plans to stick with nuclear power are unlikely to be finalised until after a general election in 2009, but the issue could nonetheless dominate the contest. Sigmar Gabriel, Germany's Social Democrat Environment Minister, remains adamant that his party's commitment to abandoning nuclear power should not be undermined. "The plan to finish with nuclear power will go ahead," he insisted. There is also opposition from fellow conservatives within Mrs Merkel's own Christian Democratic Union party. Klaus Toepfer, a leading conservative and former German environment minister, who until last year headed the United Nations Environment Programme, said: "We need a future without nuclear power and we must do everything to develop renewable energy sources and increase energy efficiency to achieve this." Under Germany's recent European Presidency, Mrs Merkel set the target of a 20 per cent reduction of CO2 emissions within the EU by 2020. For Germany, she has set a 40 per cent target. The new study showed that Germany would need to maintain its use of nuclear power if it was to hit those targets. Germany is already surrounded by European neighbours whose commitment to nuclear power is growing. With 59 reactors, France is the EU's leading nuclear energy supplier, and Finland and Britain have launched plans to extend their use of the atom. The EU's new eastern European members have also embarked on ambitious atomic energy projects, which involve replacing outdated and potentially dangerous former Soviet-built reactors installed before the collapse of Communism. Germany, Sweden and Belgium are the only EU member states with plans to phase out nuclear power. © Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2007. | ***************************************************************** 31 Citizens Voice: PPL to test 76 sirens near nuclear reactor Wilkes-Barre, PA 07/07/2007 Final tests will begin Monday for 76 sirens that have replaced older emergency sirens serving communities within a 10-mile radius of PPL?s Susquehanna nuclear plant near Berwick. Following completion of all tests, a full-scale test for the Federal Emergency Management Agency is scheduled for Aug. 21. The FEMA test could be postponed if additional work is necessary on the sirens. The old sirens will remain in service until the testing is successfully completed for the new system. The Citizens Voice 2007 Copyright 1995 - 2007 Townnews.com All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 32 BlueRidgeNow.com: Nuclear power is the answer North Carolina | Published Saturday, July 7, 2007 Wharton Nelson Don't be misled! No one has a fault-free solution to the complex problem of reducing worldwide climate warming due to carbon dioxide. Some 80 percent of the world's energy comes from burning carbonaceous fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas. The U.S. and China are among the important sources of CO2. Coal, the dirtiest and cheapest fuel available, produces the lowest cost electricity. Unfortunately, its flue gases contains acidic, smog-forming sulfur and nitrogen-containing gases. Coal ash has traces of poisonous mercury compounds also not removed efficiently by older power plant equipment. The compounds can contaminate soil and water and fish near the plants. The high proportion of CO2 in flue gases is not removed by any commercial process now available. The only current proven large-scale method of continuous power generation which creates no CO2 or ash is the use of atomic reactors. They burn no carbon-containing fuels. They have now been used successfully in large-scale power plants for years without personnel injury or atmospheric impairment. France, in commercial government-run plants, now generates 80 percent of its electricity with nuclear reactors versus 20 percent for the U.S. The Exelon power company centered in Chicago operates 31 nuclear power reactors, including the rebuilt Three Mile Island one. The Southeastern U.S. has about 33 commercial reactors. So an important beginning has been made in our part of the U.S. A persistent criticism about nuclear power is the current lack of a safe disposal method for still-radioactive spent nuclear fuel rods. Now they are stored underwater near each power plant. This procedure awaits the long-delayed completion of the Yucca Mountain safe storage cave in Nevada. The delay has been extended by the concern of Nevada residents. Recently, an international partnership has been proposed to obviate the long delay. In it, the U.S. will reprocess spent nuclear fuel rods from all over the world, as described by Clay Sell of the Global Nuclear Partnership. This would replace long storage for nuclear decay in an underground repository like Yucca Mountain. The substitution of nuclear power for burning fossil fuels to generate electricity is well under way. Sen. Lamar Alexander puts it succinctly, "If you care about global warming and clean air, it is hard not to be for nuclear power." Wharton Nelson is a semi-retired chemical engineer who has spent 32 years researching and recommending solutions to boiler problems. * BlueRidgeNow ***************************************************************** 33 WCAX: State officials grilled as Vermont Yankee hearing goes on Associated Press - July 7, 2007 7:55 AM ET NEWFANE (AP) - Two state Agency of Natural Resources employees found themselves answering for the permit they issued allowing Vermont Yankee to increase the temperature of the Connecticut River by discharging warmer water into it. In a hearing yesterday in Newfane, wastewater permits official Carol Carpenter and ANR biologist Doug Burnham took the stand to talk about the permit request by Vermont Yankee, which was approved in 2004 but has been in limbo since. It would allowe Vermont Yankee's owners to boost the river's temperature an additional one degree from May through October. The Vernon nuclear plant already has the OK to boost the river's temperature by 5 degrees during those months. The Connecticut River Watershed Council and the New England Coalition on Nuclear Pollution are appealing the granting of the permit, saying Vermont Yankee's data was insufficient or biased. Vermont Environmental Court judge Merideth Wright will rule on the case late this summer. All content Copyright 2001 - 2007 WorldNow and WCAX. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 34 Guardian Unlimited: Brown nuclear pledge prompts legal threat Juliette Jowit and Oliver Morgan Sunday July 8, 2007 The government's energy policy appears to be in disarray again after the Prime Minister gave his unreserved support for nuclear power, despite promises of a full public consultation. Ministers had to make an embarrassing climbdown earlier this year and launch a second consultation on whether to replace Britain's ageing nuclear power stations, after a high court judge ruled the first consultation was 'seriously flawed' and 'misleading'. Last night Greenpeace, which brought the first successful case, warned it could act again after Gordon Brown told MPs, 'we have made the decision to continue with nuclear power' before the end of the consultation - started by the Department of Trade and Industry and taken over by the new Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform. The government website set up to handle the review states: 'We will consider carefully the responses we get and this will enable us to take a decision on nuclear power later in the year.' John Sauven, director of Greenpeace, said the organisation had written to the Prime Minister demanding he withdraw the government's decision or it would consider further legal action. Its case would be based on lawyers' advice that 'a consultation cannot be lawful if the decision which it is intended to inform has already been taken,' says the letter. Sauven said: 'I think it's quite likely we'll see him back in the High Court. But we have given him until Friday to respond to the letter.' Greenpeace is also demanding that, if Brown withdraws the comment made in his first Prime Minister's questions last Wednesday, the consultation should be restarted - which would also cause more delay to the energy white paper, published in May. 'People engaged in this process already felt the government was going through [with this] because it was told to do it by a high court judge,' said Sauven. 'Coming from a Prime Minister who said he was going to listen to the people, this is quite shocking.' Number 10 Downing Street issued a statement saying: 'The government has decided in principle that businesses should be able to build new nuclear power stations and is now consulting on this. The final decision will be made after consultation.' The Confederation of British Industry, which is in favour of nuclear power, said business would be 'very concerned' about any further delay. CBI director of business environment Michael Roberts said: 'A third of our generating capacity is due to go out of service in the next 15 years and it needs to be replaced.' Useful link Government's report on the energy review Have your say Email your comments for publication to: politics.editor@guardianunlimited.co.uk Guardian Unlimited Guardian News and Media Limited 2007 ***************************************************************** 35 MyrtleBeachOnline.com: Nuclear power jump-started 07/08/2007 | Costs present main problem for new plants By Jay Lindsay - The Associated Press BOSTON -- Thanks to global warming, nuclear energy is hot again. Its promise of abundant, carbon emission-free power is being pushed by the president and newly considered by environmentalists. But any expansion won't come cheap or easy. The enormous obstacles facing nuclear power are the same as they were in 1996, when the nation's last new nuclear plant opened near the Watts Bar reservoir in Tennessee after 22 years of construction and $7 billion in costs. Waste disposal, safe operation and security remain major concerns, but economics may be the biggest deterrent. Huge capital costs combine into an enormous price tag for would-be investors. There is also fervent anti-nuke opposition waiting to be re-stoked. Jim Riccio of Greenpeace said nuclear advocates are exploiting global warming fears to try to revive an industry that's too risky to fool with. "You have better ways to boil water," Riccio said. But environmentalists aren't in lockstep on the issue. Bill Chameides, chief scientist for Environmental Defense, said anything that helps alleviate global warming must be an energy option. "I think it's somewhat disingenuous that folks who agree that global warming is such a serious issue could sort of dismiss it out of hand," he said. "It's got to be at least considered." The U.S. has 104 commercial reactors that supply about 20 percent of the country's power. The Department of Energy projects a 45 percent growth in electricity demand by 2030, meaning 35 to 50 new nuclear plants will be needed by then just to maintain nuclear's share of the energy market, said Scott Peterson of the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's chief lobbyist. That growing demand, not global warming, "has been the single biggest factor in companies looking at building large nuclear plants again," Peterson said. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been notified that several companies will pursue licenses for up to 33 new reactors, with the first one online in seven years at the earliest. Earlier this year, projects at existing plants in Illinois and Mississippi received permits for their proposed sites, but it's no guarantee they'll be the first projects completed. Many of the new plants are proposed in areas that already have existing plants where there is more acceptance of nuclear energy. President Bush visited one of those spots recently when he promoted nuclear energy at the Browns Ferry's Unit 1 reactor in Alabama. But any major expansion will require selling nuclear in new places, where local opposition may be intense and winning approval may be costly. "This isn't just a bunch of environmentalists who think this is a bad idea," Riccio said. "It's most people who aren't being paid to think otherwise." Nuclear power is produced when neutrons split the nucleus of uranium atoms, releasing heat that is used to boil water and produce the steam that drives a plant's turbines. The process is emission-free, and the radioactive waste is contained inside the plant. The waste is stored at individual plants, awaiting permanent transfer to the national Yucca Mountain Repository in Nevada. But Yucca Mountain has faced stiff opposition and won't open until the early 2020s at the earliest. By then, it will be too small to hold the waste produced nationally. Recycling used fuel, which contains 90 percent of its original energy after one use, can reduce waste. "Reprocessing" also produces a plutonium that's nearer to weapons grade, raising fears that widespread reprocessing could increase the risks of nuclear proliferation. Nuclear energy critics also see the plants themselves as devastating terrorist targets - "predeployed nuclear weapons," as Paul Gunter of the anti-nuclear Nuclear Information and Resource Service calls them. While opponents fear catastrophe, money may be what kills a nuclear revival. Peterson estimates each new plant will cost about $3 billion, but the industry has a history of construction delays and cost overruns. The 2005 energy bill passed by Congress provides subsidies for the first six plants, which the industry sees as a one-time "jump start," Peterson said. "If we can't be competitive after those first few reactors, then companies will stop building them," he said. "No one is building nuclear plants because they have a religious belief in nuclear." The industry hopes new standardized plant designs will help control costs by taking advantage of cheaper, offsite modular construction. Standardization could also allow plants to share parts and work crews, Peterson said. He said the new designs are also safer because they incorporate the lessons of Three Mile Island, which had a partial meltdown in 1979 after workers misread a valve and mistakenly thought cooling water was getting into the reactor. The new systems have fewer valves and less piping, relying primarily on gravity to deliver cooling water to the reactor. Peterson said the industry has proven it can safely store its waste, and will be able to do so until Yucca Mountain is open. Nuclear plants also have elaborate security, including heavily armed guards trained to deal with various attack scenarios, including multiple truck bombings and suicide attack by wide-bodied airplane, similar to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Peterson said. Patrick Moore, a Greenpeace co-founder who's become a fervent nuclear energy advocate and industry consultant, said the industry needs to prepare for such worst-case scenarios, but those shouldn't drive the debate over nuclear energy. Moore said his former environmentalist allies, some of whom now deride him as a corporate shill, are stuck in a Cold War mentality that lumps together the benefits and dangers of nuclear technology. "You don't ban the beneficial uses of a technology just because that same technology can be used for evil," he said. "Otherwise we would never have harnessed fire." Chameides of Environmental Defense said he thinks nuclear power is safe and that the waste problem has a technical solution, but he needs convincing to endorse a nuclear resurgence. He's waiting to see the industry move aggressively to address concerns about waste and security. He's also skeptical the nuclear industry can survive without continued subsidies, which he opposes. "I'm a scientist, not an economist," Chameides added. "I'm willing to possibly be wrong." * About MyrtleBeachOnline.com | ***************************************************************** 36 Daily News Journal: Call the governor to stop radioactive dumping www.dnj.com - To the editor, The radioactive waste dumping ... Ah yes, the schmoozing begins! By schmoozing I mean glossing it over, watering it down, making it mild and acceptable. Do they think we are complete idiots, or just country bumpkins? Fact: Tennessee is the No. 1 dumping ground for nuclear waste in the USA. We take nuclear waste from as far away as California, Michigan and Washington state. The stuff they don't want in their own back yard. If it is not dangerous, why didn't they keep it in their own state? I guess that means we Tennesseans are disposable people. It must be OK if we have a high level of cancer and birth defects like cleft palate, two of the common side effects of the same level of radiation they want us to just hush up and politely accept into our back yard. Wake up my fellow citizens. It's time to raise our voices and say "NO!" The most effective (and easy) thing we can do right now is to call Gov. Bredesen's office at (615) 741-2001 and tell him to make the moratorium on radioactive dumping here in Rutherford permanent. He is the only one with the power to stop it now. If we don't, Allied Waste, the owners of the dumping facility, will let radioactive dumpers start giving us their slow-acting poison again this August. We can stop this if every person just makes one phone call to the governor's office. Oh, and sign the Petition Against Nuclear Dumping, too. It is up to us to protect ourselves! Jan Rawls Shagbark Trail Copyright 2007 The Daily News Journal. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 37 Boston Globe: Metalworking firm agrees to vacate site - Superfund parcel will be studied By Davis Bushnell, Globe Correspondent | July 8, 2007 Small metalworking operations at Starmet Corp.'s Superfund site in West Concord will vacate buildings on the 46-acre property no later than Oct. 31, according to a recently signed consent agreement between the state Department of Public Health and Starmet. Don Nagle, a Plymouth lawyer representing Starmet, said affiliated operations of Starmet, called Advanced Specialty Metals, will relocate to North Andover at some point before the deadline. He said he does not know how many people work in the Starmet buildings. Starmet's predecessor company, Nuclear Metals Inc., made uranium-tipped bullets for the US Army from 1970 to 1999. The property off Route 62 was placed on the US Environmental Protection Agency's list of the nation's most contaminated sites in June 2001. The agreement to shut down the metalworking enterprise was hailed by state and federal environmental officials and Concord residents monitoring the Starmet site. They all said they are looking forward to when investigators will be able to fully determine the amount of radioactive material in five interconnected buildings and five other structures. In late 2005 and early 2006, contractors removed 3,846 drums of depleted uranium and 322 tons of depleted uranium metal from the site. "We now need to get in those buildings and get on with remediation," said Suzanne Condon, director of the Department of Public Health's Bureau of Environmental Health. Last fall, the department's radiation control section conducted a three-day inspection of the building's interiors. The results showed varying levels of radioactivity in the buildings, Condon said. These levels do not pose a threat to Concord residents, Condon and others emphasized. "However, we have to move forward with a disposition of those buildings," said Melissa Taylor, the EPA's project manager for the Starmet property. Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company. ***************************************************************** 38 Gallup Independent: Senators ask for pipeline promise; July 6, 2007: Legislators request details of water plan By Kathy Helms Din Bureau WINDOW ROCK ? U.S. Sens. Jeff Bingaman and Pete Domenici want some assurances from the city of Gallup and the Navajo Nation that they will be able to meet their obligations if the Navajo Nation water rights settlement and Navajo-Gallup Water Supply Project are approved by Congress. Following last week's testimony before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, Bingaman, chairman of the committee, and Domenici, ranking Republican, had some tough questions for Navajo-Gallup steering committee Chairwoman Patricia Lundstrom and Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley Jr. "Are you confident the city of Gallup can afford the 25 percent cost share that is called for in this legislation if we are able to pass this bill?" Bingaman asked Lundstrom, who also serves as a member of the New Mexico House of Representatives and executive director of the Northwest New Mexico Council of Governments. "I believe that the city stands behind the 25 percent cost share," she said. The cost share is one of the provisions contained in Senate Bill 1171, known as The Northwestern New Mexico Rural Water Projects Act. The act would resolve the Navajo Nation's water rights claims in the San Juan River Basin in New Mexico and authorize the construction and rehabilitation of water infrastructure in Northwestern New Mexico. "We've already started talk about innovative financing and I believe, Mr. Chairman and Sen. Domenici, that between innovative city financing and the State of New Mexico's Water Trust Fund and our Indian Water Rights Fund that we set up through the New Mexico Legislature, that we will be able to come up with that cost share," Lundstrom said. MOU Problems Bingaman told Shirley that one of his and Domenici's objectives from the beginning was to try to provide some type of sustainable water supply for the city of Gallup in addition to meeting the water needs of the Navajo people. "I know there was recently something in the newspaper there in Gallup reporting that one of the committees of the Navajo Council had rejected a Memorandum of Understanding with Gallup and with the Jicarilla Nation that's related to this," Bingaman said. "Are we confident that we can work out any disagreements between the Navajo Nation and the Jicarillas and the city of Gallup so that we don't have problems if we're able to pass this legislation, in getting everyone's water needs addressed?" he asked Shirley. "I'm very confident that we can work things out between the Navajo Nation, the city of Gallup and the Jicarilla Apache Nation," Shirley said. "I have two honorable legislators from the Navajo Nation Council, one sitting on the Budget & Finance Committee, Chairman LoRenzo Bates, he's here with me; and the Honorable Mr. George Arthur who is Chairman of the Resources Committee. "These are the two gentlemen who are sitting on the Intergovernmental Relations Committee who have redrafted the MOU. This calls for our working together to get a water supply for the city of Gallup and I'm sure that working together, like we have been, we'll get there I'm very confident," the president said. Bingaman said the committee appreciated his reassurance. "I would certainly hate for us to go through this effort and pass legislation and find that there's still a need out there that hasn't been adequately addressed. That would certainly not be ideal," he said. Lundstrom said she has been in communication with the city of Gallup that it was her understanding that the Memorandum of Understanding is moving forward. Domenici told Bingaman, "You hit the nail right on the head. It will serve very little for us to pass this and then find that the Gallup arrangement didn't take place." Pipe dreams? Domenici also expressed his concern to Shirley that the Navajo-Gallup pipeline, "the big one, will be there, but we won't have any construction to deliver it." "This project and its dream was to put the big pipeline down so that where you have thousands of acres with no water, you would have major trunk lines. But that won't serve the Navajo people if there are not watering facilities, if there are not the 'little pipelines'" in place to hook onto the main laterals. "I personally want to know, Mr. President, does the Navajo Nation plan to proceed with a plan to make available a delivery system so the Navajo people won't be hauling water from these big pipes, but rather, that the water will get delivered in the normal way, through little pipes like we do in all cities, with infrastructure. Is that going to happen?" Shirley said that is the plan. "It wouldn't do my people any good to just have that big water line with no water going to the communities. So, that's the intention," he said. Shirley did not elaborate on just how those lines tap into the main laterals, nor does the Navajo-Gallup Water Supply Project Draft Environmental Impact Statement spell out how water would be conveyed to communities not already serviced by a water distribution system. Domenici requested that the Navajo Nation submit to them its plan showing how this will be done. "I would like to see some evidence of what you're going to do and where you're going to get the money to provide water," he said. "You don't have to provide it to every single acre, but somehow the Navajo Nation has to think through, where are you going to get the resources? Are you going to charge the people for water? I think we ought to know that. "That's the big one, because the water is useless if that isn't done. I'm not critical. I just have been there, and I know you can wait and fight for 10 years over issues like this, and that's not what we want," he said. the Gallup Independent. Please send the Gallup Independent comments to gallpind@cia-g.com ***************************************************************** 39 Pahrump Valley Times: Nye County envisions Gateway entry to Yucca Jul. 06, 2007 SEVEN PHASES By MARK WAITE PVT A design of the Gateway project proposed for the the entrance to Yucca Mountain. The Gateway Center, a conceptual, multi-phased plan for encouraging industrial and commercial development at the entrance to the proposed Yucca Mountain Project was unveiled last month. The seven-phase concept, taking in nine sections of land, is intended to serve as a planning guide for Nye County and the U.S. Department of Energy. It includes proposed office parks, research parks, a 435-acre contractors lay down yard, warehousing space, visitors center, a renewable energy park and 1,375 acres of development reserves at the southernmost part that are excluded from residential development. Nye County consultant Mary Ellen Giampaoli states the Gateway plan is consistent with the Nuclear Waste Policy, as mitigation for the expected impacts of Yucca Mountain. The industrial development would help ensure ancillary areas are protected from transporting vast quantities of construction materials and after completion, the safe movement of converging nuclear waste shipments. The business opportunities can mitigate impacts of the expanding population and improve schools, medical facilities, recreation opportunities even entertainment venues, the report states. "Nye County believes that a number of industrial and commercial opportunities will emerge as a result of repository development and that a certain percentage of people working either directly or indirectly on the YMP will choose to live in the surrounding area," Giampaoli states in summarizing the Gateway Area concept. The Gateway concept plan envisions widening Highway 95 to four lanes from Mercury north to Beatty, a 64 mile segment. The Gate 510 road would be upgraded and rerouted to the east to align with Highway 373, which would be the main entrance from Highway 95 to the Yucca Mountain repository, the plan states. The Gateway would represent about nine square miles south of the Gate 510 entrance to the Nevada Test Site at Lathrop Wells. It includes a three mile segment of Highway 95 as well as 41 acres privately-owned, which includes two truck stops, a brothel, an RV park, private residence and material lay-down yard leased by the Nye County nuclear waste repository project office. Giampaoli notes as southern Nye County communities grow in relation to increased activities at Yucca Mountain, the county will work to expand infrastructure at Amargosa Valley and Beatty, providing a framework to develop commerce and industry for community life that will be attractive to new and existing Yucca Mountain employees. A natural gas line would have to be extended 87 miles from Las Vegas to the site, the report states. She added while Southwest Gas expressed little interest previously in extending a natural gas pipeline to Pahrump, a revised proposal from Nye County could request transmitting natural gas from the Kern River pipeline to the Gateway area via Pahrump. The Nye County School District has preliminary plans to construct a new three-building campus near Anvil Road and School Lane in Amargosa Valley, with separate buildings for elementary and high school students, a mile east of the existing school, the report states. A Nye County emergency services group, including law enforcement, fire department and medical services, has been proposed to the U.S. Department of Energy. The fire station, medical facilities, law enforcement facilities and other buildings for this group would be constructed in the Gateway Area. Giampaoli states Nye County is negotiating with the DOE for a fire department staffed with nine full-time firefighters to be stationed in the Gateway Area to respond to any fire emergencies and hazardous material incidents. The report adds, "Nye County proposed to DOE to establish a jointly-operated, integrated medical facility in the Gateway Area." It would be located near Gate 510. A wellness clinic could include fitness and swimming facilities and child day care. Traffic being routed to the repository would be separated from Highway 95 by a bypass, the project envisions. A shuttle bus could provide transportation for employees from Amargosa Valley, Beatty and Pahrump. A visitors center would provide tourists with an orientation of the nation's nuclear waste program. "The Gateway Area offers an efficient, attractive and interactive working environment for YMP employees and related business entities," the report states. It adds, "Because of its proximity to the site, it also offers enhanced adjunct opportunities in waste management research, science and monitoring, visitor learning and commercial business expansion." DOE can create a more inclusive community of managers, scientists, engineers, technicians and administrators at the site, Giampaoli notes. The relocation of existing DOE contractors and corporate offices from Las Vegas would provide a high quality, near-site working environment for day-to-day management and administration of Yucca Mountain project activities, she said. A solar research center and renewable energy demonstration park could include wind turbines and solar panels to supplement on-site power requirements, Giampaoli suggested. An area to the north could house interactive science and research facilities over the Yucca Mountain performance and other aspects of the waste management program, she said. A commercial area, south of Highway 95, could include automobile service facilities, RV parks, hotels, dining and retail shops. The ideal situation would be for Nye County to become the landowner, but Giampaoli notes the BLM disposal land isn't likely to be conveyed to Nye County via congressional action. The county could adopt a zoning ordinance to review land management under the Amargosa Valley master plan. Congressional legislation passed in 1999 allowed Nye County the exclusive right to purchase 354 acres at the entrance to Yucca Mountain at fair market value and 470 acres at special government prices that would be used for a museum, research center and renewable energy project. Nye County purchased the first 61 acres in 2002 to establish the Amargosa Valley Science and Technology Park. webmaster@pahrumpvalleytimes.com Copyright Pahrump Valley Times, 1997 - ***************************************************************** 40 Pahrump Valley Times: NYE REJECTS DOE OFFER OF $250,000 ANNUAL INCREASES Jul. 06, 2007 PETT peeve By MARK WAITE PVT TONOPAH -- Nye County commissioners Tuesday turned down a U.S. Department of Energy offer to increase the annual Payments Equal to Taxes by $250,000 during each of the next five years. Commissioners had hired consultant Steve Bradhurst in February for up to $40,000 to lead negotiations with the DOE for the PETT funds for the years 2009-2013. Nye County received $11.25 million for this year. Nye County, in its original request, requested much larger PETT payments ranging from $23 million in 2009 up to $29 million in 2013. DOE countered with an offer to give Nye County $11.5 million in PETT payments in 2009, increasing to $12.5 million in PETT by 2013. Bradhurst said he called negotiators from DOE last Friday to see if there was any flexibility. DOE emailed back that the offer for $250,000 annual increases would not be changed. Three approaches are normally used in appraisals: market, cost and income. The cost approach is the way to appraise this property, Bradhurst said. A market approach isn't possible since they're not selling nuclear waste repositories. The income approach isn't usable since the DOE isn't making money on it, he said. "As you start to develop the cost of the repository, it's unique. Nobody's ever done it before. But it is standard to take a project and look at the cost of the project," Bradhurst said. "It looks like this is something similar to a utility under construction, like a power plant under construction. If you were to start to build a power plant, all the value of that power plant includes the cost of finding the site and all the studies that go into the site.". Merlino assessed the property at $31.7 million in 1992, but Bradhurst noted since then the DOE spent close to $6 billion on the site. "For sure, the appraisal would be higher for FY 2009," he said. "A request for $20 million for FY '09 would seem to be reasonable. It represents a compromise for the time being, it would be a stipulated agreement bridging the gap." A letter from Nye County Commission Chairman Gary Hollis, initiating the negotiating sessions, stated the county should be paid at least $17.4 million in 2009 due to the rising land values in Amargosa Valley, unadjusted since 2001. Then there are additional improvements like the proposed railroad, construction, underground shafts, ventilation systems and infrastructure. Hollis estimated 147,000 acres of public land had been withdrawn for the project, including the rail line. The request for $23 million would be only 5 percent of the $444 million budget approved for the Yucca Mountain Project this year, Bradhurst said. "We have an impasse at the worker bee level but we need to get to the policy level and talk about it," he said. Prior PETT agreements provided $30 million for a five-year period from 1999 through 2003, followed by $38 million from 2004 through 2008. webmaster@pahrumpvalleytimes.com Copyright Pahrump Valley Times, 1997 - ***************************************************************** 41 Tri-City Herald: Hanford saga still sells Published Sunday, July 8th, 2007 ANNETTE CARY HERALD STAFF WRITER As Michele Gerber began writing the history of Hanford nearly two decades ago, she was told the subject would have some interest for a few years but little lasting appeal. She's proved that wrong. On the Home Front -- The Cold War Legacy of the Hanford Nuclear Site has been released in its fourth edition this summer, or the third in the current paperback form. "It's a testament to the continuing importance of Hanford," she said. To understand the 20th century, one must understand the Cold War, she writes in her book, "And one cannot understand the Cold War without knowing the Hanford site." The Hanford nuclear reservation was created as part of the Manhattan Project during World War II as the nation raced to produce the world's first atomic bomb. At Hanford, the plutonium was produced for the first atomic bomb exploded in the New Mexico desert and for the bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan. Activity only increased at Hanford, the nation's largest production site, as it manufactured the majority of the plutonium for the nation's nuclear weapons during the arms race of the Cold War. But Gerber had no idea of that when she arrived in the Tri-Cities in 1987 with a doctorate in history from the University of New York, Albany. Her specialty was 20th century America. She found little work available in the community for a historian, but her timing was good. Weapons-related work at the nuclear reservation had been done in a climate of secrecy for more than four decades. Then, in 1986, DOE began to declassify thousands of pages of documents about the nuclear reservation, giving the first real public look inside the Hanford fence. "Historians love an untold story," Gerber told the Herald in 1989, midway through writing the first edition of the book. Two years earlier, with regional interest in the site growing as declassified documents began to reveal its secrets and dangers, she had become a regular at 7-Eleven. She'd buy copies of the Tri-City Herald, Spokane and Seattle papers, fascinated by the vastly different takes each had on Hanford news and history. That led to her own research and work as a consultant, including helping the U.S. Centers for Disease Control find people who might have been exposed to airborne radioactive iodine releases from Hanford in its early years. She also started writing articles. But as more of Hanford's history was revealed, her research grew beyond the occasional historical piece. The technical documents being declassified did not readily tell the site's story. "It was daunting," Gerber said. "It was fascinating, but intimidating. I'm not a scientist." The documents were so confusing that she enrolled in chemistry and statistics classes at Columbia Basin College to make sure she didn't make any errors as she worked to understand what she was reading. Her work resulted in a comprehensive look at the Hanford site, tracking its history from a 1942 scouting trip for possible sites for plutonium production through the nuclear reservation's Cold War years as it released contamination into the air, land and Columbia River. The site produced not only plutonium, but massive amounts of chemical and radiological waste. Hanford was pivotal in the changes that occurred in the 20th century, Gerber said. It played a role in changing the global balance of power. Before World War II, Great Britain dominated the world with its far-flung empire. But once the atomic bomb was developed, power shifted to those nations with a nuclear arsenal, she said. The development of the atomic bomb propelled the United States from a fairly isolationist nation to a world power, she said. Hanford also gives an early look at the societal changes that would shape the nation during the last half of the 20th century, at home and in the workplace. A facility as large and complex as B Reactor, the world's first production-scale reactor, brought together a large community of scientists and engineers to work cooperatively. The nuclear reservation also drew workers who built a community in the Eastern Washington desert, an early outpost of what would become an increasingly mobile society. "Richland became a town without grandparents, a town of newcomers," Gerber said. "Later that may have seemed sort of normal. It was absolutely unique then." The site continues to be important as every taxpayer pays for its legacy of waste and contamination, she said. The nation spends about $2 billion annually on cleanup of the 586-square-mile site. It also poses a potential threat to the health and safety of the Northwest if cleanup does not proceed, she said. In the latest edition of the book, she includes an epilogue covering the first 17 years of cleanup of the site, finding successes and problems. Unlike the site's earlier history, the cleanup is being done in cooperation with other agencies and with public scrutiny. "I think that's the way to get the best answers, to involve many viewpoints," she said. After finishing the first edition of her book, she found work at Hanford and currently works as a senior communications specialist at Fluor Hanford. As part of her job, she occasionally leads the popular Hanford site tours. The site remains closed to the public and when infrequent tours are offered, Internet registration fills seats on the tours within minutes of opening. On a tour this spring, she asked participants what drew them to Hanford. When she mentioned history, nearly everyone on the bus raised a hand. "The history has enduring value," she said. "I think it still has lessons to teach." © 2007 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press & Other Wire Services ***************************************************************** NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: *****************************************************************