***************************************************************** 09/16/07 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 15.217 ***************************************************************** 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 The Observer: Was Israeli raid a dry run for attack on Iran? 2 North Lake Tahoe Bonanza: The oil problem: Who is really responsible NUCLEAR REACTORS 3 Green Left: APEC fails on climate change, pushes nukes 4 The Hindu: West Bengal still undecided on nuke plant 5 The Press Association: Inspectors threat to nuclear plans 6 US: JOURNAL NEWS: Indian Point's siren vendor fired, sued in Pennsyl 7 US: Burlington Free Press: "Nuclear opponents lose appeal over Vermo 8 Reuters: Italy's debate on alternative energy cranks up 9 US: Boston Globe: Just say 'oui' to nuclear power 10 Thanh Nien Daily: Vietnam plans eight nuclear reactors by 2025 11 US: MHNN: NRC to solicit public comments as part of Indian Point lic 12 US: MySA.com: Commentary: Nuclear is risky; energy conservation is p 13 US: The Citizens Voice: Susquehanna River Basin Commission fines PPL 14 AFP: More countries join US-led nuclear energy programme - NUCLEAR SECURITY 15 Ynetnews: Report: Israel targeted N. Korean nuclear equipment - 16 UPI: Iran, Russia, in nuke fuel talks 17 US: Hays Daily News: NU begins cleanup at former ordnance plant near 18 RussiaToday: Mock terror attack tests Russia's nuclear security NUCLEAR SAFETY 19 US: ReviewJournal.com: Workers say nitrate contamination that killed 20 US: baltimoresun.com: Medication to protect residents from radiation 21 US: St. Petersburg Times: Business: Firm fined over hot gauge 22 US: Columbus Dispatch: County gets help from cities in repairing war 23 US: Bradenton.com: Tallevast residents blame Lockheed for delays NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 24 US: Daily Sentinel: BLM begins study of Whirlwind Mine plans 25 Pahrump Valley Times: Layoffs likely at Yucca, say Bechtel officials 26 US: Times of India: Left standing firm on N-issue - Yechury 27 Times of India: US gets more countries to join in GNEP nuke-energy p 28 Daily Southtown: Protecting the back yard :: Marlene Lang 29 INDIA: PTI: GNEP to discuss peaceful use of N-energy 30 Chillicothe Gazette: USEC: Testing at plant begins 31 US: The Daily News Journal: Dump operator asked to put it in writing 32 Reuters: Worst polluted sites in Russia, China, India 33 Reuters: Nations ink deal to provide safer atomic power 34 Guardian Unlimited: More Nations Back U.S. Nuclear Project PEACE 35 [GATA] French foreign minister warns of war over Iranian nukes 36 Hankyoreh: N.K. diplomat dismisses reports of nuclear ties with Syri 37 Guardian Unlimited: Missile Defense Strains U.S.-Russia Ties 38 Canada News: US military team set to inspect Russian radar in Azerba 39 US: baltimoresun.com: Does the United States really need to build a 40 Interview: ElBaradei says China a valuable partner to IAEA 41 UPI: Report: Israel destroyed Syrian nuke cache 42 Antiwar.com: Beginning-Ending Enduring Relationships - 43 AFP: Iran's Ahmadinejad wants Bush debate, 'global referendum' - 44 AFP: Speculation heats up over what Israel hit in Syria - 45 Guardian Unlimited: US Wary of Syria-North Korea Ties US DEPT. OF ENERGY 46 FirstScience: Solar experts gathering at ORNL for summit ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 The Observer: Was Israeli raid a dry run for attack on Iran? Guardian Unlimited Mystery surrounds last week's air foray into Syrian territory. The Observer's Foreign Affairs Editor attempts to unravel the truth behind Operation Orchard and allegations of nuclear subterfuge Peter Beaumont Sunday September 16, 2007 The Observer The head of Israel's airforce, Major-General Eliezer Shkedi, was visiting a base in the coastal city of Herziliya last week. For the 50-year-old general, also the head of Israel's Iran Command, which would fight a war with Tehran if ordered, it was a morale-boosting affair, a meet-and-greet with pilots and navigators who had flown during last summer's month-long war against Lebanon. The journalists who had turned out in large numbers were there for another reason: to question Shkedi about a mysterious air raid that happened this month, codenamed 'Orchard', carried out deep in Syrian territory by his pilots. Shkedi ignored all questions. It set a pattern for the days to follow as he and Israel's politicians and officials maintained a steely silence, even when the questions came from the visiting French Foreign Minister, Bernard Kouchner. Those journalists who thought of reporting the story were discouraged by the threat of Israel's military censor. But the rumours were in circulation, not just in Israel but in Washington and elsewhere. In the days that followed, the sketchy details of the raid were accompanied by contradictory claims even as US and British officials admitted knowledge of the raid. The New York Times described the target of the raid as a nuclear site being run in collaboration with North Korean technicians. Others reported that the jets had hit either a Hizbollah convoy, a missile facility or a terrorist camp. Amid the confusion there were troubling details that chimed uncomfortably with the known facts. Two detachable tanks from an Israeli fighter were found just over the Turkish border. According to Turkish military sources, they belonged to a Raam F15I - the newest generation of Israeli long-range bomber, which has a combat range of over 2,000km when equipped with the drop tanks. This would enable them to reach targets in Iran, leading to speculation that it was an 'operation rehearsal' for a raid on Tehran's nuclear facilities. Finally, however, at the week's end, the first few tangible details were beginning to emerge about Operation Orchard from a source involved in the Israeli operation. They were sketchy, but one thing was absolutely clear. Far from being a minor incursion, the Israeli overflight of Syrian airspace through its ally, Turkey, was a far more major affair involving as many as eight aircraft, including Israel's most ultra-modern F-15s and F-16s equipped with Maverick missiles and 500lb bombs. Flying among the Israeli fighters at great height, The Observer can reveal, was an ELINT - an electronic intelligence gathering aircraft. What was becoming clear by this weekend amid much scepticism, largely from sources connected with the administration of President George Bush, was the nature of the allegation, if not the facts. In a series of piecemeal leaks from US officials that gave the impression of being co-ordinated, a narrative was laid out that combined nuclear skulduggery and the surviving members of the 'axis of evil': Iran, North Korea and Syria. It also combined a series of neoconservative foreign policy concerns: that North Korea was not being properly monitored in the deal struck for its nuclear disarmament and was off-loading its material to Iran and Syria, both of which in turn were helping to rearm Hizbollah. Underlying all the accusations was a suggestion that recalled the bogus intelligence claims that led to the war against Iraq: that the three countries might be collaborating to supply an unconventional weapon to Hizbollah. It is not only the raid that is odd but also, ironically, the deliberate air of mystery surrounding it, given Israel's past history of bragging about similar raids, including an attack on an Iraqi reactor. It was a secrecy so tight, in fact, that even as the Israeli aircrew climbed into the cockpits of their planes they were not told the nature of the target they were being ordered to attack. According to an intelligence expert quoted in the Washington Post who spoke to aircrew involved in the raid, the target of the attack, revealed only to the pilots while they were in the air, was a northern Syrian facility that was labelled as an agricultural research centre on the Euphrates river, close to the Turkish border. According to this version of events, a North Korean ship, officially carrying a cargo of cement, docked three days before the raid in the Syrian port of Tartus. That ship was also alleged to be carrying nuclear equipment. It is an angle that has been pushed hardest by the neoconservative hawk and former US ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton. But others have entered the fray, among them the US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, who, without mentioning Syria by name, suggested to Fox television that the raid was linked to stopping unconventional weapons proliferation. Most explicit of all was Andrew Semmel, acting deputy assistant Secretary of State for nuclear non-proliferation policy, who, speaking in Rome yesterday, insisted that 'North Koreans were in Syria' and that Damascus may have had contacts with 'secret suppliers' to obtain nuclear equipment. 'There are indicators that they do have something going on there,' he said. 'We do know that there are a number of foreign technicians that have been in Syria. We do know that there may have been contact between Syria and some secret suppliers for nuclear equipment. Whether anything transpired remains to be seen. 'So good foreign policy, good national security policy, would suggest that we pay very close attention to that,' he said. 'We're watching very closely. Obviously, the Israelis were watching very closely.' But despite the heavy inference, no official so far has offered an outright accusation. Instead they have hedged their claims in ifs and buts, assiduously avoiding the term 'weapons of mass destruction'. There has also been deep scepticism about the claims from other officials and former officials familiar with both Syria and North Korea. They have pointed out that an almost bankrupt Syria has neither the economic nor the industrial base to support the kind of nuclear programme described, adding that Syria has long rejected going down the nuclear route. Others have pointed out that North Korea and Syria in any case have also had a long history of close links - making meaningless the claim that the North Koreans are in Syria. The scepticism was reflected by Bruce Reidel, a former intelligence official at the Brookings Institution's Saban Centre, quoted in the Post. 'It was a substantial Israeli operation, but I can't get a good fix on whether the target was a nuclear thing,' adding that there was 'a great deal of scepticism that there's any nuclear angle here' and instead the facility could have been related to chemical or biological weapons. The opaqueness surrounding the nature of what may have been hit in Operation Orchard has been compounded by claims that US knowledge over the alleged 'agricultural site' has come not from its own intelligence and satellite imaging, but from material supplied to Washington from Tel Aviv over the last six months, material that has been restricted to just a few senior officials under the instructions of national security adviser Stephen Hadley, leaving many in the intelligence community uncertain of its veracity. Whatever the truth of the allegations against Syria - and Israel has a long history of employing complex deceptions in its operations - the message being delivered from Tel Aviv is clear: if Syria's ally, Iran, comes close to acquiring a nuclear weapon, and the world fails to prevent it, either through diplomatic or military means, then Israel will stop it on its own. So Operation Orchard can be seen as a dry run, a raid using the same heavily modified long-range aircraft, procured specifically from the US with Iran's nuclear sites in mind. It reminds both Iran and Syria of the supremacy of its aircraft and appears to be designed to deter Syria from getting involved in the event of a raid on Iran - a reminder, if it were required, that if Israel's ground forces were humiliated in the second Lebanese war its airforce remains potent, powerful and unchallenged. And, critically, the raid on Syria has come as speculation about a war against Iran has begun to re-emerge after a relatively quiet summer. With the US keen to push for a third UN Security Council resolution authorising a further tranche of sanctions against Iran, both London and Washington have increased the heat by alleging that they are already fighting 'a proxy war' with Tehran in Iraq. Perhaps more worrying are the well-sourced claims from conservative thinktanks in the US that there have been 'instructions' by the office of Vice-President Dick Cheney to roll out support for a war against Iran. In the end there is no mystery. Only a frightening reminder. In a world of proxy threats and proxy actions, the threat of military action against Iran has far from disappeared from the agenda. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007 ***************************************************************** 2 North Lake Tahoe Bonanza: The oil problem: Who is really responsible? Opinion Sid Bekowich Special to the Bonanza September 16, 2007 The price of gas in our small community is at least as high, if not higher than in most metropolitan areas. And it is only a matter of time before the Lake Tahoe area will suffer, in a big way, from air pollution and the detrimental green house effect which is being brought about by the excessive use of oil. So I trust many Bonanza readers would be interested to know the genesis of the oil problem. Mankind's need for energy was supplied for thousands of years with an abundant and renewable source of energy: wood. But man needed to build a hotter fire than possible from wood, to shape harder and sharper instruments of war and eventually to meet the emerging needs of developing societies. Hence the advent of coal, which is actually a derivative of wood. Thus, at the beginning of the industrial revolution, coal was practically the sole source of energy for power plants, ships, trains and various industrial facilities. Even today, coal, which is a major pollutant, provides about half of America's energy needs. The dramatic shift to oil was not because it was environmentally friendly, rather due to the invention of the internal combustion engine and the discovery of huge oil reserves in the Middle East that offered, at the beginning, very cheap fuel because of concessions there by major American oil companies. To protect their interests and to promote the use of oil, these giant oil cartels wielded tremendous influence. Coincident with the dominance of oil companies, automotive giants, particularly General Motors, did everything in their power to eliminate all existing and potential competitors with the internal combustion engine. However, in spite of all these efforts, an objective observer would conclude that during the early phase of the oil era we would have continued to use oil; simply because it was cheaper and more abundant than other alternatives and the danger to the environment of carbon dioxide and the so called greenhouse effect was not sufficiently evident. When the population of this planet was much smaller and basically agrarian, ecological balance was easily sustainable. Then, there came along "civilized man," Mother Nature's prodigal child with his insatiable appetite for progress. He is now challenging Mother Nature foolishly, but unwittingly in a battle of survival. Should such a battle be allowed to continue, Mother Nature would suffer almost mortal wounds, but eventually would annihilate its prodigal child and would say, "Good riddance." Then it would take a couple hundred years to heal its wounds and cleanse itself from the trappings of "civilized man;" before restarting the eternal cycle of life. Obviously then, what we need to do now is to commit whatever it takes in financial resources and national resolve to wisely develop a fuel that is safe and does not violate nature. Existing nuclear power plants do not produce carbon dioxide; but the public is concerned about thermonuclear accidents and the disposal of radioactive waste - we Nevadans have Yucca Mountain. Also, the cost effectiveness of nuclear power plants is arguable. Nevertheless, 20 percent of the energy supply in the U.S. is produced by nuclear power. That number is 80 percent in France. Fusion is the ultimate and inexhaustible source of a much cleaner and safer energy. Fusion is the process that occurs continually in the sun; whereby two hydrogen atoms fuse together releasing in the process immense amounts of thermonuclear energy in the form of heat. It is that heat which makes life on planet earth possible. We have already replicated the fusion process - we made the hydrogen bomb. What is needed now is to tame fusion to produce energy for our everyday needs. However, it is unlikely this will be achieved in the foreseeable future. In his book, "An Inconvenient Truth," former Vice President Al Gore presents a cogent argument. He proposes the use, along with energy conservation, of a number of "environmentally friendly" sources of energy to supplement our domestic resources of oil and natural gas whereby we would have energy independence and would meet the criteria for clean environment. These supplementary sources include: windmills, solar panels, geothermal wells, waves, hydroelectric projects, cellular ethanol, and coal converted to gas, even to electricity. Most of these alternative fuels require a long-term commitment to research and development. Therefore we need to continually press our Nevada representatives in Congress to appropriate funds for this purpose and to enact more stringent laws to protect the environment. But should we adopt a posture of indolent acquiescence, we Incliners, along with the rest of America, would be the only ones responsible for perpetuating the energy morass, that we allowed ourselves to get into in the first place. Sid Bekowich is an Incline Village resident who is a former Fulbright lecturer at the American Jesuit University in Baghdad. All contents © Copyright 2007 tahoebonanza.com North Lake Tahoe Bonanza - 925 Tahoe Blvd., Suite 206 - Incline Village, NV 89452 ***************************************************************** 3 Green Left: APEC fails on climate change, pushes nukes Zoe Kenny, Sydney 15 September 2007 Despite the media fanfare, the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, held in Sydney on September 8 and 9, achieved next to nothing in combating global warming. The key outcome was the adoption of the ?Sydney Declaration? ? which amounts to little more than a vague statement of aspirational goals, labelled by Greenpeace as the ?Sydney Distraction?. The declaration sets no overall target for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, which could have established a positive framework for the APEC countries to engage in the latest round of Kyoto Protocol negotiations scheduled for December in Bali. Instead, the main goal of the declaration is to reduce ?energy intensity? in APEC countries by 25% by 2030. According to a September 10 Greenpeace statement, most APEC countries are likely to achieve this level of energy efficiency anyway, and this will not stop emissions rising because energy demand is projected to massively increase. Another key goal is to combat illegal logging in Third World countries and to increase forest coverage in the region by 20 million hectares by 2020. Australia has already pledged $10 million to Indonesia for this purpose, and during the summit another agreement was signed between Indonesia and Australia worth $100 million to preserve 70,000 hectares of forest and plant up to 100 million trees in the Indonesian-controlled areas of Borneo. However the achievement of these goals will be undermined by the failure of Australia and other APEC countries to place a ban on the importation of illegal timber, of which about $400 million worth enters into the Australian market each year. Furthermore, the summit agreed on furthering research into biofuels, one of the leading causes of deforestation in Indonesia and other poor APEC countries where forests and food crops are being replaced by large biofuel crop plantations such as palm oil. The US in particular is aggressively pursuing a policy of encouraging poor nations to increase their production of biofuel crops in order to decrease its reliance upon fossil fuels, regardless of the impact on forests and food production. The Sydney Declaration reaffirms that ?Fossil fuels will continue to play a major role in our regional and global energy needs? and supports the ongoing use of nuclear power. However PM John Howard?s ambitions of using the APEC summit and the Sydney Declaration to help scuttle the next round of Kyoto negotiations suffered a set-back after Chinese President Hu Jintao refused to accept the inclusion of an Australian-pushed clause referring to a ?post-Kyoto framework?. The September 10 Sydney Morning Herald reported that Jintao told Howard the UN Framework on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol were ?the most authoritative, universal and comprehensive international framework? for combating climate change. ?Developed countries should face their historical responsibility and their high per-capita emissions?, he said, and ?strictly abide by their emission reduction targets set forth in the Kyoto Protocol?. Yet US President George Bush is still pushing ahead with a ?big polluters? meeting in Washington this month, in a bid to create a bloc of countries opposed to, or at least sceptical of, Kyoto?s mandatory emission reduction targets in the lead-up to the Bali talks. On September 5, Washington welcomed Australia?s bid to sign up to the US-led Global Nuclear Energy Partnership. The same day, the Wilderness Society (TWS) warned that ?By signing us up to GNEP John Howard is taking the first step towards the imposition of an international nuclear waste dump in Australia?. The TWS statement noted that ?The entire purpose of GNEP is for countries to take back nuclear waste ? The United States desperately needs somewhere to put their nuclear waste after public opposition stopped their proposed dump at Yucca Mountain. The Australian Government has already rushed through legislation that for the first time allows Australia to import radioactive waste from overseas.? As Howard and Bush continue to push for delayed and weak action on climate change, promoting false solutions such as nuclear power, ?clean coal? and biofuels, the world is inching ever closer to climate catastrophe. A new report by the International Institute of Strategic Studies predicts that the global security effects of catastrophic climate change could be akin to that of a nuclear war, as new and exacerbated problems such as freak weather events, large-scale crop failures and dwindling water resources increase conflicts both between and within countries, intensifying inequality and racism and potentially causing more ?failed states?. The report notes: ?Fundamental environmental issues of food, water and energy security ultimately lie behind many present security concerns, and climate change will magnify all three.? The report predicts that by 2100, 65 countries could lose more than 15% of their agricultural output. Authorised by K. Miller, 23 Abercrombie St, Chippendale, NSW. Site by Kiwa Systems ***************************************************************** 4 The Hindu: West Bengal still undecided on nuke plant Sunday, September 16, 2007 : 1720 Hrs Kolkata Kolkata, Sept. 16 (PTI): The West Bengal Government is yet to decide on setting up a nuclear plant to augment power generation in the state, though a Central study team visited the proposed site at Haripur in coastal East Midnapore district recently. Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, today said the government had not taken the decision yet because of divided opinion on it. "Amidst growing threat on environment from conventional power sources, there is a need for replacing them with non-conventional power sources like nuclear power, but I have not yet decided on setting up a nuclear power plant as there is divided opinion on it," Bhattacharjee said while inaugurating a national symposium on Global Warming here. The main Opposition party in the state, Trinamool Congress, had argued that Haripur had high population density and it might also invite attack by foreign powers in times of conflict. Bhattacharjee argues it is high time thermal power was replaced with non-conventional power to prevent environmental pollution, which adds to global warming also. Copyright © 2007, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the ***************************************************************** 5 The Press Association: Inspectors threat to nuclear plans 22 hours ago The prospect of building new nuclear power stations and replacing the Trident nuclear submarines are threatened by a shortage of inspectors, union leaders warned. Prospect, which represents 15,000 scientists, engineers and inspectors in the nuclear industry, said there were not enough staff to meet current inspection requirements. The union claimed there was a "crisis" in the recruitment of inspectors, partly because of pay. Suitable qualified safety inspectors could earn 10% more in other industries, the union claimed. Prospect official Mike Macdonald called on the Government to act on a recent review of salaries in the nuclear industry. "Our members recognise the constraints on public sector pay but the commitment to review salaries of nuclear safety inspectors was agreed as part of the 2005 pay settlement." Copyright © 2007 The Press Association. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 6 JOURNAL NEWS: Indian Point's siren vendor fired, sued in Pennsylvania Sunday, September 16, 2007 By GREG CLARY (Original publication: September 16, 2007) BUCHANAN - Indian Point isn't the only nuclear plant having trouble installing a new emergency siren system. A Pennsylvania power company has fired and is suing Acoustic Technology Inc., the Boston company that Indian Point's owner, Entergy Nuclear, hired to install its 155 new sirens. ATI so far has missed three federal deadlines. The lawsuit filed by PPL Corp., the former Pennsylvania Power and Light, claims ATI failed to install a new alerting system for the PPL Susquehanna Nuclear Power Plant near Wilkes Barre. "It was theirs to deliver and they didn't do that," PPL spokesman Lou Ramos said of ATI. "Hindsight is 100 percent, but we selected a vendor that from the get-go never had the capacity to deliver." ATI officials declined to address specifics of the case, citing the litigation, which was filed Tuesday, but disputed PPL's contention that the system fell short. The one clear difference between the two locations is that federal regulators told Indian Point its new system doesn't pass muster, while PPL didn't present its system to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for approval. "We never got as far as the FEMA tests," Ramos said. "We wanted to make sure they met our testing requirements first." Laura Burns, a vice president of ATI, said her company "went above and beyond what was required" at Susquehanna. She called PPL's demands "a little bit unreasonable." Indian Point spokesman Jim Steets said Entergy has spoken to PPL since ATI was fired. "We expect to continue to work with ATI," Steets said. In what were both very technical installations, the details created most of the headaches for officials from the two power companies and their common vendor. Both carried large-scale replacements of decades-old systems that would continue to be used until the new systems were approved. PPL's 76 sirens totaled about half of Indian Point's, and that part of the installation in each case has been finished. PPL's major obstacle, Ramos said, remains an inability to sound different configurations of sirens based on potential scenarios within its 10-mile emergency planning zone. Indian Point's problems, according to an eight-page letter from FEMA that calls the system "inadequate," center on volume, sustainability of the sirens' sound and overall reliability. One national siren expert pointed to the density of the Lower Hudson's population as a unique difficulty for ATI to overcome. "You have some places there that are over 10,000 people per square mile," said John Fuoto, a siren consultant who has evaluated emergency notification systems for FEMA for about 13 years. "Most nuclear plants are pretty much located in outer boondocks. Indian Point is not a typical location. The more people around, the louder the outside noise is. You have to be louder in volume for high-population areas than in lower population areas." Fuoto said the hilly topography of the area should present no more problems for a siren system than it has in similar locations in California, Pennsylvania and Tennessee. "Topography, all it means is that you would need more sirens to cover a given amount of area to have the same loudness," Fuoto said. "Other nuclear plants have that same and similar type of topography, and they've managed to solve it. Topography may make it harder to do, but it does not make it impossible." Fuoto said a key issue in putting in a new alert system is how close the actual delivered system comes to reaching the original design. FEMA's eight-page analysis letter delivered Tuesday states that what has been delivered so far at Indian Point doesn't meet the design specifications that FEMA originally approved and that nuclear plant officials were "willing to have a system that does not meet its own emphatically stated design objectives, as long as FEMA will allow them to." Entergy Nuclear's chief executive officer, Michael Kansler, released a statement late Friday saying the company would do all that was required to get the system in place and thanked local residents for their patience. "We failed to meet a key communications goal - listening," Kansler said in the statement. "We did not listen to those voices - such as (FEMA) or county emergency planning personnel - when they said the system needs to be louder. We understand the trust you have placed in Entergy Nuclear to safely and securely operate Indian Point. We take this responsibility seriously, and demand nothing less of ourselves than your highest expectations for performance." ATI's Burns said her company is confident that the issues at Indian Point can be resolved. Alan Nelson, the director of emergency preparedness for the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry trade association, said Entergy has been a victim of its own efforts to install a top-flight alert system. "The Indian Point people, to give them credit, were willing to say, 'We're going to put in the world's best system, state of the art,' " Nelson said. "Often when you do that, it's a prototype." He said about a third of the country's 104 nuclear plants have changed their alert systems, but most are not making changes the size of Indian Point's. He said power companies are watching projects like Entergy's closely as more and more look to replace outdated siren systems. "Sirens are not the only way in which people can be notified," Nelson said, noting burgeoning technologies such as reverse telephone calling and other electronic options. The Indian Point installation is making use of those technologies as well, to allow the company flexibility as alerting options move beyond the Cold War practice of blaring sirens. "With any type of prototype, you're going to have your starts and stops and bumps and misses," Nelson said. "I think at the end you're going to have a system that is second to none." Reach Greg Clary at gclary@lohud.com or 914-696-8566. Copyright © 2007 The Journal News, a Gannett Co. Inc. newspaper serving Westchester, Rockland and Putnam Counties in New York. ***************************************************************** 7 Burlington Free Press: "Nuclear opponents lose appeal over Vermont Yankee boost" burlingtonfreepress.com | Burlington, Vermont Posted: Sat Sep 15, 2007 10:35 am The Associated Press MONTPELIER -- An anti-nuclear group on Friday lost its legal challenge to stop a power upgrade at the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vernon. The New England Coalition appealed the 20 percent power increase approved by state and federal officials, arguing that the Vermont Public Service Board did not hold public evidentiary hearings on the proposed power increase. The Vermont Supreme Court dismissed the appeal, saying the nuclear power watchdog group did raise the issue when the proposal was being reviewed by state officials three years ago. "The entire thrust of NEC's appeal -- that various statutes required the Board to conduct an evidentiary hearing before entering its March 3, 2006 order -- was simply not made to the Board," Associate Justice John Dooley III wrote in the ruling. "Because the substance of NEC's appeal is too far removed from what it argued to the Board, it is not appropriate for our review." Raymond Shadis, the New England Coalition's technical adviser, said the Vermont Public Service Board took comments about the scope of a Nuclear Regulatory Commission inspection as evidence and denied the group "the right to cross examine or seek production of documents." "Comments are not, as the Board has said many times, evidence," he said. "We had hoped to force the PSB to a judicial objective review of the evidence." Vermont Yankee increased its power output from 540 to 650 megawatts in May 2006. Yankee officials have said the power increase had nothing to do with the collapse of a water-cooling tower at the plant Aug. 21. The collapse, followed by a power shutdown Aug. 30 caused by a faulty valve, have shaken public confidence in the reactor. Yankee officials have said neither incident was a safety issue. The Vermont Yankee operating license is set to expire in 2012 and it has asked the NRC and the state for a 20-year extension, to 2032. ***************************************************************** 8 Reuters: Italy's debate on alternative energy cranks up Sat Sep 15, 2007 7:19am EDT MILAN (Reuters) - Italian government officials took to newspapers on Saturday to promote alternative energy, including banned nuclear power, as a debate over the country's heavy dependence on power imports cranked up. "We are not giving up on nuclear even if it's not our immediate answer," Economic Development Minister Pierluigi Bersani told La Repubblica newspaper in an interview. "It's important not to miss the technology train ... in the future, there will be smaller plants without the problems of waste. Why reject those now?" he said. Italy, which is heavily dependent on imports for its power needs, rejected nuclear power in a referendum in 1987. Recent years have seen politicians and industry tentatively reopen the debate each year ahead of the winter. Italy needs to diversify energy supplies -- especially for gas where imports total 85 percent of needs. Shortfalls in gas supplies from Russia hit the country in a harsh 2006 winter. Last week, the country's biggest power producer Enel said there could be blackouts this year because Italy did not have the infrastructure for alternative supplies -- a push for reluctant regional administrations to open up to building of gas terminals. In 2008, Italy is due to complete an 8 billion cubic meters offshore terminal for gas imports -- an alternative to its heavy use of pipelines, which Russia's move proved were unreliable. Bersani said his policies for industry focused on innovation, on energy efficiency technology and sustainable transport, adding companies themselves had eagerly turned to photovoltaic energy and ecological buildings. "In the next budget, incentives will be improved and it will be like that for years to come," Bersani said. Cabinet undersecretary Enrico Letta told Il Messaggero newspaper that in rejecting nuclear power in 1987 "we lost a great opportunity." Letta said gas "is the only way to avoid returning to oil," adding that "it is the cleanest (energy) source and the one to use if we want to limit ... oil and not overstretch the use of coal." He said Italy could look at taking stakes in neighboring countries' nuclear power generators, such as France, Slovenia and the Czech Republic. "We have to do it in a way ... that makes them a bit ours too," he said. Enel used to own all nuclear power stations in Italy and has recently started building up its nuclear portfolio outside the country, taking stakes in plants in Slovakia and other central European countries. It will boost nuclear to 15 percent of its total output with its joint purchase of Spain's Endesa. Letta said photovoltaic energy, which has recently been given incentives by the government, was another option, and together with wind and bio-fuels, could be developed in Italy's poorer south. "My idea is to have a deal between the central government and the regions of the south ... taking a big bet on the south becoming a platform for renewable energy production," he said. ***************************************************************** 9 Boston Globe: Just say 'oui' to nuclear power By John Dyson and Matt Bennett | September 16, 2007 WHILE global warming is positioned to be a hot issue in the 2008 presidential election, the candidates must face directly the one large-scale means of providing carbon-free electric power: nuclear energy. Candidates in both parties should swallow hard and confess that the United States must take steps that they find difficult. For Democrats, that means acknowledging that we need more nuclear power and that we must do something with the waste. For Republicans, it's even tougher - they must admit that we should become more like France. Whether or not Democrats like it, the nuclear industry, which was once in decline, is on the brink of substantial growth for the first time in 30 years. Demand is one reason - our growing population, combined with the rise in thirsty electric products, will mean an estimated 45 percent increase in demand for power by 2030. That new iPhone, the always-on lights on the television, the computer monitor displaying a screen-saver - all that takes power, and more such products are on the way. And it's not just consumer demand - one IBM data center in Boulder, Colo., accounts for about half of the electricity use in the entire city. We'll need massive new generating capacity to meet that demand. And while we must do better at conservation and invest in renewable energies, nuclear power is the only mature, large scale source of power that is essentially carbon-free. In 2005, nuclear power produced 19 percent of all US electricity; solar made up one-30th of 1 percent. If we don't build substantial new nuclear capacity, the alternative isn't going to be wind farms and solar arrays - it's going to be fossil-fueled, carbon-spewing plants. Those are the truths facing Democrats, however inconvenient. The real question facing our leaders is how to shape the future of nuclear power to make it as sustainable as possible, both environmentally and economically. And even if it makes Republicans choke on their freedom fries, the answers are there in France, which generates 78 percent of its electricity from nuclear power and makes enough even to export it to other countries. First, we should follow the French model of picking one or two plant designs and sticking with them. One reason that American nuclear construction stalled was inefficiency: Every new plant had its own unique design, leading to a patchwork of reactors across the country. This drove up costs and made operations more difficult, because parts were not interchangeable and personnel had to be retrained for each new plant. By contrast, France used two reactor designs everywhere. Thankfully, the United States has learned that lesson, and it now seems that standardized reactor design will be the way of the future. But on the issue of nuclear waste, the United States is stuck in the past. The Department of Energy has spent 25 years working on a repository at Yucca Mountain, but it is bogged down in a political morass. Senator Hillary Clinton recently confirmed her opposition to Yucca, noting that "it's past time to start exploring alternatives." The other Democratic candidates all agree, while Republicans are largely silent. So what would an alternative look like? Here again, we should follow France. Instead of storing its waste at each nuclear plant (as in the United States) or burying it in containers underground (as we would do if Yucca opens), the French take their waste to a massive plant in Normandy, where spent fuel is recycled. They can reuse 80 percent of the material; the remaining 20 percent is "vitrified" - combined with molten glass and solidified - to immobilize the radioactive material. It can then go into long-term storage with much less risk of leaching into the groundwater. Recycling does create separated plutonium, which theoretically could be used in a nuclear weapon. But the likelihood of it falling into the wrong hands is infinitesimal - the United States has well-proven systems to safeguard nuclear material. Moreover, the plutonium that comes out of this reprocessing system would be difficult for terrorists to handle without advanced training and laboratory equipment. Recycling waste is expensive - a plant would cost $15 billion. But not recycling is even more costly. By law, the US government was supposed to begin taking spent fuel from commercial reactors in 1998, but it has defaulted and is now running up a tab that could total $56 billion. What's more, even if Yucca Mountain were to open its doors tomorrow, it would soon be at capacity with the waste that already has accumulated. Many who remember the Three Mile Island incident in 1979 still object to nuclear power on fears about safety. They are unfounded. Dozens of studies on the impact of TMI have found that the worst nuclear accident in American history resulted in no injuries or deaths. Moreover, plant design and operations have improved radically in the decades since TMI, and the nuclear industry is now one of the safest in our country, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. (Full disclosure: Our organization, Third Way, receives some donations - less than 1 percent of our budget - from the nuclear industry.) Indeed, much greater danger is looming. Humanity faces an existential threat from global warming, and America faces an array of economic and security threats relating to energy. Are Democrats ready to put aside outmoded fears and embrace a proven, carbon-free technology to help us meet those threats? Are Republicans ready to ask the French, who have 40 years of experience, for their help and expertise? As the United States enters its nuclear renaissance, real leadership is required from both sides. John Dyson, a board member of the group Third Way, is a former chairman of the New York State Power Authority. Matt Bennett is vice president for public affairs of Third Way. But on the issue of nuclear waste, the United States is stuck in the past. The Department of Energy has spent 25 years working on a repository at Yucca Mountain, but it is bogged down in a political morass. Senator Hillary Clinton recently confirmed her opposition to Yucca, noting that "it's past time to start exploring alternatives." The other Democratic candidates all agree, while Republicans are largely silent. So what would an alternative look like? Here again, we should follow France. Instead of storing its waste at each nuclear plant (as in the United States) or burying it in containers underground (as we would do if Yucca opens), the French take their waste to a massive plant in Normandy, where spent fuel is recycled. They can reuse 80 percent of the material; the remaining 20 percent is "vitrified" - combined with molten glass and solidified - to immobilize the radioactive material. It can then go into long-term storage with much less risk of leaching into the groundwater. Recycling does create separated plutonium, which theoretically could be used in a nuclear weapon. But the likelihood of it falling into the wrong hands is infinitesimal - the United States has well-proven systems to safeguard nuclear material. Moreover, the plutonium that comes out of this reprocessing system would be difficult for terrorists to handle without advanced training and laboratory equipment. Recycling waste is expensive - a plant would cost $15 billion. But not recycling is even more costly. By law, the US government was supposed to begin taking spent fuel from commercial reactors in 1998, but it has defaulted and is now running up a tab that could total $56 billion. What's more, even if Yucca Mountain were to open its doors tomorrow, it would soon be at capacity with the waste that already has accumulated. Many who remember the Three Mile Island incident in 1979 still object to nuclear power on fears about safety. They are unfounded. Dozens of studies on the impact of TMI have found that the worst nuclear accident in American history resulted in no injuries or deaths. Moreover, plant design and operations have improved radically in the decades since TMI, and the nuclear industry is now one of the safest in our country, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. (Full disclosure: Our organization, Third Way, receives some donations - less than 1 percent of our budget - from the nuclear industry.) Indeed, much greater danger is looming. Humanity faces an existential threat from global warming, and America faces an array of economic and security threats relating to energy. Are Democrats ready to put aside outmoded fears and embrace a proven, carbon-free technology to help us meet those threats? Are Republicans ready to ask the French, who have 40 years of experience, for their help and expertise? As the United States enters its nuclear renaissance, real leadership is required from both sides. John Dyson, a board member of the group Third Way, is a former chairman of the New York State Power Authority. Matt Bennett is vice president for public affairs of Third Way. © Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company. ***************************************************************** 10 Thanh Nien Daily: Vietnam plans eight nuclear reactors by 2025 Editor-in-Chief: Nguyen Cong Khe 248 Cong Quynh St . , Distr. 1, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Tel: 84 8 8 394 046 Fax: 84 8 8 322 025 Thanh Nien is the tribune of Vietnam’s Youth Association Publication permit No. 14/GP-BC, granted by Press Department, Vietnam Ministry of Culture and Information. Vietnam has plans to build up to eight nuclear reactors by 2025 to meet rising energy demands in the fast-growing country, an official said Friday. The country also this week agreed with former battlefield enemy the United States to share information on nuclear science. "Vietnam and the US have agreed on nuclear safety exchanges," said Vuong Huu Tan, director of the Nuclear Energy Institute of Vietnam. "This will be part of the framework for the construction and operation of nuclear power plants in the future," he said. The planned eight nuclear plants would cost some US$16 billion but would provide 8,000 megawatts of power for Vietnam, Tan said. Vietnam's electricity demand is growing at more than 15 percent per year and the country's master energy plan calls for shifting from reliance on hydropower to a mix of coal, nuclear and hydropower for electricity. There have been reports that Vietnam would import nuclear reactors from US company Westinghouse, but Tan said Friday it was not clear where the reactors would come from. The country's first nuclear power plant, a 2,000-MW generator, is slated to be put into operation by 2017. Vietnam, a signatory to the UN Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, has opened its nuclear program up to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Source: EARTHtimes.org Copyright © 2004 Privacy policy ***************************************************************** 11 MHNN: NRC to solicit public comments as part of Indian Point license renewal application review September 16, 2007 Copyright © 2007 Mid-Hudson News Network, a division of Statewide Buchanan – Public comments on potential environmental impacts from a license renewal for the Indian Point nuclear power plant will be accepted by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff at two meetings on Wednesday, September 19. The meetings, at 1:30 p.m. and 7 p.m., will be at the Colonial Terrace catering facility at 119 Oregon Road in Cortlandt Manor. Entergy, which operates the plants in Buchanan, applied to the NRC on April 30 to extend the operating licenses for the two-reactor plant by 20 years each. The current application for Indian Point 2 expires on September 28, 2013 and for Indian Point 3 on December 12, 2015. HEAR today's news on MidHudsonRadio.com, the Hudson Valley's only Internet radio news report. ***************************************************************** 12 MySA.com: Commentary: Nuclear is risky; energy conservation is proven Web Posted: 09/15/2007 07:00 PM CDT Loretta Van Coppenolle From a limited perspective, it may appear that additional energy generation from nuclear power is necessary because of San Antonio's burgeoning population. Coal is in disfavor because it greatly contributes to climate imbalance; nuclear, on the surface, seems a cleaner answer to our city's energy needs. However, as studies and experience have shown, expanded nuclear does not have to be part of CPS' and San Antonio's energy future. A 2007 study by Optimal Energy Inc. concludes that efficiency and other demand-reduction measures can replace the construction of new power plants in Texas. "Over the next 15 years," says the study, "boosting markets for more efficient products, lighting, cooling, heating and industrial processes can eliminate over 80 percent of forecast growth in electricity demand, while lowering consumers' energy bills." Another study, done by the American Solar Energy Society, has found that "renewable energy has the potential to provide approximately 40 percent of the U.S. electric need projected for 2030 by the Energy Information Administration." That percentage jumps to 50 when energy-efficiency measures are also employed. And we must never forget that Texas is well positioned to be No. 1 in solar, biomass, geothermal and wind energy. Across the United States, efficiency and conservation have had tangible benefits for cities. Audits and retrofits of 15 million square feet of public buildings in Chicago have resulted in $6 million in savings annually. Energy-efficiency measures in Seattle resulted in net benefits, after only three years, of $2.5 million. The rate of return for the city was 14 percent. Other benefits of conservation and efficiency are reduced greenhouse gas emissions, a healthier population and jobs and financing kept in the community, all critical to San Antonio's viability. While nuclear appears not to contribute to greenhouse emissions, the technology involves uranium mining and enrichment, accomplished in the United States by two large old coal plants that emit great quantities of carbon dioxide. The availability of high-grade uranium ores is declining, and more fossil fuel will be needed to remove uranium from low-grade ones. Nuclear plants routinely emit carcinogenic radioactive elements into air and water. Many peer-reviewed medical studies have shown higher rates of malignancies in areas surrounding U.S. nuclear reactors. The question of nuclear waste disposal remains unresolved, though radioactive wastes have been accumulating for decades in pools at the nation's 103 nuclear plants. The current U.S. plan to reprocess spent nuclear fuel to power a new generation of reactors is seriously flawed and makes the spent fuel more vulnerable by theft by terrorists. Nuclear plants themselves are, of course, vulnerable to attack. Even after 9-11, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has not upgraded security at nuclear plants to protect against attacks from the air. Unexpected events such as the recent discharge of radioactive material into the sea from the world's largest nuclear plant during an earthquake in Japan are also a hazard. From a strictly financial viewpoint, nuclear is a poor and costly investment. The average price for a new nuclear facility is about $4 billion; a small fraction of that amount could be invested in efficiency measures to obviate the need for nuclear. The payback period from efficiency investment is much shorter than for nuclear-generated electricity. It takes about a decade to build a nuclear plant, barring unforeseen glitches, while the return on energy-efficiency and conservation measures can begin immediately. Before making any new commitment to nuclear, CPS needs to scrutinize its drawbacks, as well as the benefits of efficiency, conservation and renewables. CPS should use as its model and inspiration its sister agency, SAWS, which has, with creative actions, reduced city water usage 1 percent per capita, despite the exponential growth of the population. CPS is on the right track with its Windtricity and rebate programs; it needs to enhance both and commit even more to replacing fossil fuel use with conservation, efficiency and renewables. Loretta Van Coppenolle is a longtime conservationist and member of the Sierra Club. Portions © 2007 KENS 5 and the San Antonio Express-News. ***************************************************************** 13 The Citizens Voice: Susquehanna River Basin Commission fines PPL Corp. $500,000 Wilkes-Barre, PA BY COULTER JONES STAFF WRITER 09/15/2007 The Susquehanna River Basin Commission docked PPL Corp. $500,000 Wednesday for a six-year-old transgression and approved the utility's plans to increase output at its nuclear plant in Salem Township. The fine is related to a 2001 production increase at the nuclear plant causing an increase in water consumption from the Susquehanna River that was never approved by the commission. "It's really a settlement between the PPL and SRBC," PPL spokesman George Lewis said. "Our view was that additional amount of water we'd be using to complete that project didn't require us to get approval. SRBC felt otherwise." The $500,000 fine will go toward water management projects sponsored by the commission. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is reviewing PPL's plans to increase electric production at its existing facility. The two nuclear reactors produce enough energy to power about 2 million homes, with the increase the plant could power an additional 160,000 homes. PPL is also trying to add a third nuclear generator at the plant, to increase production by more than 50 percent. That, too, is pending several approvals. Groundbreaking of the third tower wouldn't begin until 2011 at the earliest. At its Wednesday meeting, the SRBC finalized its water consumption agreement with PPL for its pending electric output increase. PPL is able to draw up 66 million gallons of surface water from the Susquehanna River daily and up to 125,000 gallons of groundwater daily. The plant has a maximum daily peak consumption, the amount of water pulled from the water and not returned to the river, of up to 48 million gallons. Eric Epstein, president of Three Mile Alert, a Harrisburg-based advocacy group that monitors nuclear plants along the Susquehanna River, has been a vocal advocate for PPL to be fined since he found out about the 2001 upgrade a year ago. PPL upgraded its electric output in 1994, too, Epstein said, but followed the approval process with SRBC then. "We did not oppose them getting an upgrade," he said. "We just opposed them subverting the law." Epstein said he hopes this fine will deter other companies from avoiding the approval process that is in place. "The bottom line for me is this is the price you pay for flaunting federal law," he said. "Water's a precious commodity that we have to be judicious with and here's a company blatantly disregarding that ... It makes you wonder how many other companies are pulling from the river and not getting approval. cjones@citizensvoice.com, 570-821-2110 ©The Citizens Voice 2007 ***************************************************************** 14 AFP: More countries join US-led nuclear energy programme - by Michael Adler Sun Sep 16, 4:44 PM ET VIENNA (AFP) - Eleven countries joined Sunday a US-led initiative to spread atomic power but not technology which can be used to make nuclear weapons. Australia, Bulgaria, Ghana, Hungary, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovenia and Ukraine signed in Vienna a statement of principles for the programme, the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP). It called for the "the expansion of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes worldwide in a safe and secure manner." GNEP seeks to help states get nuclear fuel, such as uranium, so they do not produce it themselves. It also aims to promote the use of nuclear reactors that do not present proliferation risks, such as producing plutonium, and to recycle spent nuclear fuel so that plutonium can not be separated out. Enriched uranium and plutonium can be fuel for reactors but also can be used to make nuclear weapons. The GNEP started as a US initiative in February 2006 and had its first meeting in May this year in Washington when the United States hosted fellow members China, France, Japan and Russia. Nuclear power is seen by many as crucial in a world where energy demand is booming since it makes electricity without adding to the greenhouse gases which cause global warming. The United States is seeking to promote nuclear power while guarding against the danger of the spread of nuclear weapons which arises when states like Iran develop strategic technologies such as uranium enrichment, which makes nuclear reactor fuel but also atom bomb material. The United States wants GNEP to organize countries that have secure, advanced nuclear capabilities to provide fuel to other nations which agree to use nuclear energy just for power generation. Their compliance would be monitored by the UN watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). US Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said Sunday that GNEP had no specific projects yet. "Our task today is to formally commit to the principles espoused by GNEP and to begin discussions with like-minded countries that seek to develop civilian nuclear power in a safe and secure manner and who, not coincidentally, have been reaching out to us," Bodman said in a speech at the GNEP meeting, which also included 22 candidate partner and observer countries. Bodman later told reporters that GNEP is "not committed to any (one particular technology)" but is "looking at everything that is available." "What we are attempting to do is to start looking long-term . . . how we should go about developing nuclear power on a safe and affordable basis" while protecting "against proliferation," Bodman said. "We have a lot to do here just to get ourselves organized," he added. Asked if the GNEP initiative was coming too late, with Iran for instance already enriching uranium, Bodman said: "It may have been better to do this 10 years ago and not now." But "we're trying to do the best we can given the set of circumstances that confront us," Bodman said. Joining GNEP does not entail obligations, such as giving up the right to enrich uranium, the US energy secretary said. Dennis Spurgeon, assistant secretary for nuclear energy, said "the idea behind GNEP is countries voluntarily coming together for a common good." GNEP is "not supplanting the IAEA in terms of safeguards. We'll need them more than ever," Spurgeon said. IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei told the GNEP meeting that the program is "a major initiative that is badly needed and is very timely." "We need energy because again without development there is misery, there is conflict, there is war," ElBaradei said. Some of the new countries, like Lithuania and Poland, a strong coal user, do not yet have nuclear power but want to develop it. Polish Economy Minister Piotr Wozniak said his nation wanted to "change our energy mix." Copyright © 2007 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 15 Ynetnews: Report: Israel targeted N. Korean nuclear equipment - Israel News, Sunday Times quotes Israeli officials as saying airstrike in Syria 10 days ago was planned in late spring after Mossad obtained evidence that Syria was seeking nuclear equipment. Meanwhile, North Korean official describes as 'groundless' reports that his country was giving nuclear expertise to Damascus Ynet and Reuters Latest Update: 09.16.07, 12:07 / Israel News Israel had been mulling an airstrike against Syrian targets since late spring, after Mossad chief Meir Dagan presented Prime Minister Ehud Olmert with evidence that Damascus was seeking to buy a nuclear device from North Korea, the London Sunday Times reported. An Israeli official told the newspaper that the spy chief feared the device could be fitted on Scud-C missiles and used in future military conflicts with Israel. Mideast Crisis Report: Overflight was 'rehearsal' for attack on Iran / Ynet Israeli violation of Syrian airspace through its ally, Turkey, involved as many as eight aircraft, including Israel's most ultra-modern F-15s and F-16s equipped with Maverick missiles and 500lb bombs, The Observer reports "This was supposed to be a devastating Syrian surprise for Israel,” said the Israeli official. “We’ve known for a long time that Syria has deadly chemical warheads on its Scuds, but Israel can’t live with a nuclear warhead.” On September 7, Syria said Israeli aircraft entered its airspace a day earlier and dropped munitions near the border with Turkey. The Washington Post quoted Saturday a US official as saying that Israel had targeted suspicious material labeled as cement that arrived from North Korea three days before the airstrike. The Washington Post identified the target as an agricultural research centre on the Euphrates river that Israel had been monitoring for some time, fearing that it was being used to extract uranium from phosphates. The Sunday Times said Israel Air Force commandos positioned themselves near the facility a day before the raid, ready to direct laser beams at the target for the approaching jets. The newspaper said eight F15I jets and a UAV carried out the airstrike 50 miles from the Iraqi border. An Israeli air force official told the Times that the Israeli satellite Ofek 7, launched in June, was diverted from Iran to Syria. It sent out high-quality images of a northeastern area every 90 minutes, making it easy for air force specialists to spot the facility, the Times wrote. The newspaper said that Sergei Kirpichenko, Russia's ambassador to Syria, warned President Bashar Assad last month that Israel was planning an attack against Syria, but hinted that the target was the Golan Heights. N. Korea denies nuclear ties with Syria Meanwhile, A senior North Korean official denied a report that Pyongyang was giving nuclear expertise to Syria, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported on Sunday. "They often say things that are groundless," Yonhap quoted Kim Myong-gil, deputy chief of the North Korean mission to the United Nations, as saying. Kim said he had nothing more to say and hung up the phone when asked to elaborate, Yonhap said. North Korea is widely thought to sell conventional weapons to Syria though analysts say its armaments trade in general has been hit hard by tough sanctions since the reclusive state nearly a year ago tested its first nuclear device. Pyongyang agreed earlier this year to start dismantling its nuclear facilities, and source of weapons-grade plutonium, in return for massive aid. More recently, the United States has held out the possibility of normalising ties if the ostracised North completely scraps its nuclear weapons programme. The Syria reports have angered US conservatives who believe North Korea cannot be trusted to keep its word and that talks on nuclear disarmament with regional powers, expected to resume next week, the six-party talks, are bound to fail. On Friday, the lead US negotiator with North Korea declined to confirm the Syria reports but said they underscored the need for Pyongyang to give up its nuclear programs. First Published: 09.16.07, 10:18 Copyright © Yedioth Internet. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 16 UPI: Iran, Russia, in nuke fuel talks United Press International - Published: 16, 2007 at 8:02 AM TEHRAN, 16 (UPI) -- Iran and Russia are progressing toward fueling Iran's nuclear power plant in Bushehr, Alalam Satellite TV reported Sunday. "The nuclear fuel for the Bushehr plant is ready," Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki was quoted as saying. "This fuel has been inspected and sealed by the International Atomic Energy Agency's inspectors." Mottaki spoke at a news conference in Tehran Saturday after returning from talks in Moscow, where he met with Sergei Kiriyenko, chief of the Russian atomic energy agency Rosatom, Alalam reported. Completion of the Bushehr plant is behind schedule, which has created tension between Russian and Iranian leaders, Alalam reported.  Iran insists it plans to use the Bushehr plant to generate power, despite Western claims that Iran aims to produce nuclear weapons.   © Copyright United Press International. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 17 Hays Daily News: NU begins cleanup at former ordnance plant near Mead HDNews.net 9/16/2007 LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) -- The University of Nebraska has begun an eight- to 12-week project to clean up hazardous waste buried at the former Nebraska Ordnance Plant near Mead. Trucks and backhoes are being used to remove chemical, biological and radioactive waste from around four trenches near the bomb-loading lines at the old munitions plant, which operated during World War II and the Korean War. The material will be sealed in drums and other containers and sent elsewhere for proper disposal, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said. The site is now the Agricultural Research and Development Center for the university, which bought the land in 1964. The university used some of the property in the 1970s and '80s as a disposal site for hazardous wastes including radioactive medical waste, solvents, pesticides and radioactive animal carcasses. Such practices were permissible at the time, but since have been banned. An estimated 1,500 cubic yards of soil -- 150 dump truck loads -- will be removed, officials said. Workers will wear protective gear, and the university will monitor the site to ensure that they are not exposed to hazardous substances. Plans for the cleanup began in 2002, when the U.S. Justice Department sued the university to force it to decontaminate part of the ordnance plant. Other areas, including contaminated groundwater, are being cleaned up by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. In 2006, university officials said they did not have the money to pay for the cleanup, estimated at that time at about $6 million, and asked the Legislature for help. Lawmakers appropriated about $4.17 million from the general fund and transferred $2.76 million from the Nebraska Environmental Trust. EPA project manager Scott Marquess said there may be cleanup work required after the initial phase is finished. It's possible there is some soil and groundwater contamination near an old landfill south of a small natural resources district reservoir. Joel Pedersen, associate general counsel for the university, said NU would be vigilant in making sure the job is done right. He estimated the project cost could go higher than $6 million if much work is necessary to clean up the landfill area. Mead is 31 miles north of Lincoln. ------ On the Net: University of Nebraska: http://www.nebraska.edu ***************************************************************** 18 RussiaToday: Mock terror attack tests Russia's nuclear security September 15, 2007, 22:15 Russia's security and emergency services have been involved in a weeks-long training exercise designed to test security at the country's nuclear facilities. A daring lifelike scenario was enacted in Chelyabinsk region in the Urals, involving a range of services from elite FSB forces and medical teams to civil authorities. The aim of Forpost 2007 was to see how secure Russia's nuclear sites really are. Playing the part of terrorists, members of FSB's Special Forces penetrated a secret nuclear site in the city of Trechgorny. The region is home to one of the Russian Nuclear Agency's restricted areas. The scenario involved the taking of hostages at the facility. The 'terrorists' also planted a bomb, threatening widescale nuclear contamination. The exercise required a high level of co-ordination between various agencies and services. Railway, aviation, interior troops, emergency units, the centre for medical catastrophes as well as the administrations of ten other cities near Trechgorny were involved. A hydro cannon was used to destroy the planted bomb During the exercises, the ‘terrorists’ had some success. They captured a train carriage with nuclear components and took several hostages. At the peak of the staged crisis, they planted explosives at the nuclear site and attempted to flee using their captives as human shields. FSB Special Forces stormed the moving train, while military engineers destroyed a bomb left behind using a robot equipped with with a hydro cannon. Once the Special Forces secured the train, the contamination units moved in - just in case its nuclear load was damaged. A field hospital was set up on the outskirts of Trechgorny, and all those taking part in the training were disinfected in the nearby chemical laboratory. Although it was just an exercise, the security forces will learn a lot about how to react in the event of a real terrorist attack on a nuclear facility. Lieut. Gen. Aleksandr Krivyakov, Chief of the FSB administration for the Chelyabinsk region, summed up the importance of the event: “They’ve succeeded at something and so have we. But our goal is not to define who won and who lost. Our goal is to determine the weak spots so that we can work on them,” he said. Post this story to del.icio.us Copyright © Autonomous Nonprofit Organization "TV-Novosti" 2007, all rights reserved ***************************************************************** 19 ReviewJournal.com: Workers say nitrate contamination that killed 71 horses came from Nellis complex Sep. 16, 2007 Workers say nitrate contamination that killed 71 horses came from Nellis complex By KEITH ROGERS REVIEW-JOURNAL Lori Marie Fox, 78, says environmental controls at the Tonopah Test Range were lacking and that toxic chemicals were routinely dumped illegally. Seventy-one horses turned up dead on the range in July. Photos by Clint Karlsen. While investigators from state and federal agencies are trying to pinpoint the source of nitrate contamination that killed 71 wild horses at the Tonopah Test Range, a woman who worked there says it's no mystery to her. The comments made last week by Lorie Marie Fox echo those of two other former workers in the Nellis Range Complex who say environmental controls at the sites were lacking and that toxic chemicals were routinely dumped illegally there. Fox said it was common knowledge among contractor and Air Force employees that tanker trucks filled with urea de-icing solutions, high in nitrogen content, were routinely flushed near a dry lake bed where the horses drank water. "I don't know how often they washed out their trucks, but they washed them out in the watering hole," Fox said Friday as she sat in the living room of her Las Vegas home, tethered to an oxygen tank and wearing a sweater depicting wild horses like the two she boards in her backyard. The 78-year-old Fox worked for a contractor at the test range, 210 miles northwest of Las Vegas. She held several jobs when she worked there from 1987 to 1993, including keeping logs of chemical inventories, launching weather balloons and drafting floor plans of buildings. Fox also held a position in the Tonopah Test Range security department. "It takes a lot of stuff to de-ice the runway. There's a lot of snow days," she said, referring to the high desert airfield where F-117A Nighthawk stealth fighter jets were once based. Other military aircraft used the range to conduct logistical tests with dummy bombs. "They've been doing this for years, this urea stuff," said Fox, whose last name was Christie when she worked there. Over the years, she saw many dead wild horses, including some that she said security guards claimed to have shot. Wild horses overpopulated the range and often died of thirst or starvation, she said. "We had thousands of them up there," Fox said. She later worked as a volunteer in the wild horse adoption program for the Bureau of Land Management, one of the agencies that's investigating the 71 horses that veterinarians confirmed died in July of acute nitrate poisoning. Other sources who worked at the Tonopah Test Range or the classified Air Force installation along the dry Groom Lake bed, known as Area 51, have said wild horses were considered a nuisance because they would sometimes wander onto airfields or get struck by vehicles at night. But Fox said she doesn't think personnel at the Tonopah range killed the animals out of hatred. "Some people do things for the hell of it," she said. For example, after de-icing fluids had been dumped near their watering hole, wagers were made by some security guards on how many would die, Fox said. "The guards had a big poster that showed where each of them were taking bets," she said. For 14 years until Friday, Fox had not spoken openly about her knowledge of the horses' deaths while she's been embroiled in a worker's compensation case over her bout with lung disease that she says is linked exposure to toxic substances at the Tonopah Test Range. A Sept. 5 letter from a doctor at The Lung Center of Nevada describes her illness as "occupational lung disease with scarring and emphysema caused by exposure to asbestos, radioactive sands, and other toxic materials when she worked at the Tonopah Test Range." Her story about de-icing compounds parallels that of former Area 51 worker Fred Dunham and former Air Force Tech Sgt. Kevin Dye, who worked at the Tonopah Test Range from 1990 to 1998. Both have said in recent interviews that urea in solid or fluid form was widely used at their work locations and allowed to run off into the desert uncontrolled or hauled to remote areas and dumped. On Thursday, Dye said he had no knowledge of guards taking bets on how many horses would die. Airmen risked punishment under the Uniform Code of Military Justice if they killed a wild horse, he said. But, he said, there is history of environmental non-compliance at the test range, where safeguards followed by civilian airports to prevent contamination from de-icing chemicals were not in place. Such safeguards would include gutters to capture pollutants and facilities to treat and dispose of them. Every time it snowed or rained at near freezing temperatures, urea would be sprayed on the airstrip, Dye said. "We put de-icing chemicals on the ground," he said. "It just ran onto the ground and there it went." At least once a year in July or August, a de-icing truck would be driven to "an inconspicuous place where nobody could see it" and rinsed out before being refilled in preparation for the winter, Dye said. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev, wrote letters Aug. 24 to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne and Defense Secretary Robert Gates asking their agencies to investigate the probable link of the horse deaths to "high levels of nitrate toxicity in the water." "In light of this unfortunate event, I believe that this is also an appropriate time to take a close look at the land and wildlife management practices used on the larger Nellis Air Force Range," Reid wrote. "While the Air Force holds the primary position in the operations that take place on this land, the same area remains under the purview of the Bureau of Land Management." None of the three whistle-blowers has been contacted by investigators probing the horse deaths. BLM spokeswoman Kirsten Cannon said Thursday that the BLM is in the process of contracting with the Desert Research Institute to test soil and water in the area where the dead horses were found "We're doing tests of water samples of the pond in the playa and other sources of water for the horses," she said. An Aug. 10 statement from the BLM noted that "high levels of nitrates were found in some water samples taken from a pond the horses used for drinking on a dry lake bed." The levels were at least 66 times in excess of safe drinking standards for humans and 30 times in excess of acceptable levels for livestock. The Nevada Division of Environmental Protection has authority delegated from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to enforce federal hazardous waste laws and the Clean Water Act. Last month, division spokesman Dante Pistone said representatives from the division's Bureau of Water Pollution Control made a trip to the place where the horses died, and their preliminary findings "seem to eliminate the airstrip or de-icing materials as possible sources of the nitrates." That's because the de-icing agents currently used by the Air Force don't contain nitrogen compounds, and the pond near where the horses died is uphill from the airfield, some five miles away, Pistone wrote in an e-mail. Last week, officials with the Nevada Bureau of Water Pollution Control couldn't tell the Review-Journal the elevations of the watering hole and the airstrip and the distances between them. "My initial feeling is the pond is lower in elevation than the airfield," said Jon Palm, chief of the pollution control bureau. He said a team from the bureau is going back to the Tonopah Test Range this week. He said the investigation "just started," but he couldn't say when it started. "It's going to take us a while to try to get to the bottom of this," Palm said. Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2007 Stephens Media, LLC Privacy Statement ***************************************************************** 20 baltimoresun.com: Medication to protect residents from radiation available -- September 16, 2007 Residents who live or work within 10 miles of the Peach Bottom nuclear power plant can acquire potassium iodide to keep at their home or business by attending either of two sessions planned by the Harford County Health Department. The sessions will be held from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday and Oct. 6 at North Harford Middle School, 112 Pylesville Road, Pylesville. After those dates, potassium iodide may be obtained by calling 410-638-8476. Potassium iodide helps protect the thyroid gland from radioactive iodine, which might be released in the event of a radiation emergency. With the proper dosage administered at the proper time, potassium iodide can saturate the thyroid gland so radioactive iodine cannot accumulate there, helping to protect the gland from the effects from radiation exposure. The use of potassium iodide is indicated only in such emergencies and to be most effective should be taken before or shortly after exposure to radioactive iodine. In addition, potassium iodide will be distributed to schools within 10 miles of Peach Bottom. Schools in the area include: Darlington, Dublin, North Bend and North Harford elementary schools; North Harford Middle; North Harford High; and Harford Christian Academy. Potassium iodide also will be distributed to Broadcreek Boy Scout Camp and Hart Heritage Assisted Living Estate. Potassium iodide that was distributed in 2002 has expired. Those with old potassium iodide should discard the medication. It should be discarded with household trash for removal to the local landfill. It should not be flushed down the toilet or washed down the drain. Information: 410-638-8476 or 410-838-1500. * About The Baltimore Sun | ***************************************************************** 21 St. Petersburg Times: Business: Firm fined over hot gauge A Tampa company faces fines for using and losing a nuclear gauge on a reservation. By ASJYLYN LODER, Times Staff Writer Published September 15, 2007 TAMPA - A Tampa engineering company is facing federal fines over the theft of a nuclear gauge that contains radioactive material, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Friday. The portable nuclear gauge, which is used to measure moisture at construction sites, was stolen in early March, the commission said. The commission was notified on March 7 that the device, owned by Tampa-based MC2, was missing from a job site on a Seminole Indian reservation in Clewiston. A member of the public later found it on the side of the road, and kept it until May 11, when it was retrieved by the company. No one was injured, and the device wasn't damaged, said commission spokeswoman Diane Screnci. Messages left with MC2, which has headquarters in Atlanta and an office on Hillsborough Avenue, were not returned Friday. The commission proposed a fine of $3,250 for two violations: failing to properly secure the device, and failing to notify the commission that it was using the gauge at the reservation, which falls under commission jurisdiction. The company has since notified the commission that it has taken measures to secure the gauge, and obtained the proper licenses, the commission said. Screnci explained that it is important to protect the public from accidental exposure to radiation. "We don't want somebody finding it on the side of the road and inadvertently exposing themselves to the radiation," she said. People who aren't aware that a piece of equipment is radioactive can suffer burns if they hold or touch it for a long period of time. The gauge contains Americium-241 and Cesium-137, Screnci said. About 50 of the gauges, which are typically used at construction sites, are reported missing every year around the country; about half are recovered. MC2 has 30 days to pay the fine, or appeal. Asjylyn Loder can be reached at 813 225-3117 or asjylyn@hotmail.com. [Last modified September 15, 2007, 00:21:15] © 2007 · All Rights Reserved · St. Petersburg Times 490 First Avenue South · St. Petersburg, FL 33701 · 727-893-8111 ***************************************************************** 22 Columbus Dispatch: County gets help from cities in repairing warning sirens Saturday, September 15, 2007 3:28 AM By Jim Woods THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH Additional crews are being brought in today to help repair Franklin County's crippled tornado-siren system. The Franklin County Emergency Management Agency reported yesterday that it has made progress with the 146-siren system. Fourteen crews will be repairing sirens today, up from three yesterday, said Robert Crockett, an agency spokesman. The county now has 44 sirens that are fully operational, the agency reported. Thirty-seven sirens aren't working and 65 are considered too weak. On Thursday, county commissioners called for a review of mechanical and management failures after a report revealed that only 33 of the county's 146 tornado sirens were working properly. Gary Holland, director of the Franklin County Emergency Management Agency, said that 64 of the sirens had been damaged when they were left on too long and overheated during a tornado warning on Aug. 25. Commissioner Mary Jo Kilroy expressed frustration Thursday that the county was receiving different reports daily about the number of broken sirens. Kilroy said yesterday in a news release that the agency appears to be "making substantial progress" because of help provided by crews from Bexley, Columbus, Dublin and Westerville. It is hoped that the job can be completed by noon Wednesday, when the system is tested countywide, Crockett said. Holland said it's likely that the fixes will cost more than $200,000. jwoods@dispatch.com ©2007, The Columbus Dispatch, Reproduction prohibited ***************************************************************** 23 Bradenton.com: Tallevast residents blame Lockheed for delays 09/15/2007 | Expert says cleanup plan falls short By DONNA WRIGHT dwright@bradenton.com TALLEVAST -- Lockheed Martin Corp.'s request for a year's time to turn in a revised cleanup plan for pollution under the Tallevast community wouldn't be necessary if the company had properly investigated the plume in the first place, an environmental scientist and community leaders say. "It's interesting that Lockheed is now scheduling a number of work tasks that should have been performed prior to and the results incorporated into the remedial action plan submitted May 4," states an e-mail by Wilma Subra, a nationally known environmentalist who reviewed Lockheed's request for the Herald. The plan was originally due Oct. 1. This week, Lockheed asked for an extension until Sept. 1, 2008. Leaders of FOCUS, a Tallevast residents advocacy group, agree with Subra that the proposed delay could have been avoided if Lockheed had addressed residents' concerns earlier. "What they are proposing is what the community asked for in 2004," said Wanda Washington, vice president of FOCUS. "What we need is more testing to get to the truth about the plume, but they are just getting to it now." Lockheed Martin spokeswoman Gail Rymer defended the company's investigation, pointing out that its last site assessment was approved by the state. "We are now in the remedial action planning phase," Rymer wrote in an e-mail. "Additional data to finalize a remediation action plan is to be expected in any cleanup of this nature." Rymer said Lockheed will continue to work with the state and the community to implement the most effective cleanup plan. "In the meantime, we are addressing the contamination through interim actions including the continued operations of the groundwater treatment system and source-reduction actions," she said. But one year ago, Subra and other independent consultants warned that Lockheed's final site assessment did not adequately define the plume when the state gave the defense giant permission to move into the cleanup phase. Subra and Tallevast's technical advisers Tim Varney and Michael Graves said Lockheed's investigation failed to adequately define how the contamination was moving through the subsoil. Lockheed's data failed to support its conclusion that the contaminated private wells in the northwest corner of Tallevast were polluted by a source other than the plume stemming from the old beryllium plant, the three scientists said. Those issues are among the 130 problems identified by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection that Lockheed must address in its revised plan. Lockheed's extension request is under review, a DEP spokeswoman said, and the agency plans to meet with company and community representatives before making a decision. A meeting has been scheduled for Sept. 27. "The delay is a catch-22," Washington said. "They need to do a thorough job, but their deadline request means we have to live on top of the plume for another year without having the answers." Collaboration between DEP, Lockheed and the community is essential to move the project forward, Subra said. "The Lockheed schedule lists several interim submittals and meetings with the DEP," she said. "It is critically important that communication occur between the community, DEP and Lockheed to insure agreement and facilitate a fast path forward to eliminate future delays." Donna Wright, health and social services reporter, can be reached at 745-7049. ***************************************************************** 24 Daily Sentinel: BLM begins study of Whirlwind Mine plans Sunday, September 16, 2007 By SENTINEL STAFF Public scoping is under way for a proposed uranium-mining operation on public lands west of Gateway. Energy Fuels Resources, headquartered in Lakewood, is proposing to reopen two reclaimed underground mines, the Urantah Decline and Packrat mines, both on unpatented claims in Mesa County and Grand County, Utah. They would be combined into a single operation called the Whirlwind Mine. Energy Fuels is allowed to conduct underground bulk sampling within the existing mines,” said David Lehmann, supervisory minerals lead for the Bureau of Land Management office in Grand Junction. An environmental assessment, however, is required before ore extraction at the mine could begin full-scale production,” Lehmann said. The public is encouraged to participate by submitting written comments or by attending a public scoping meeting from 7 to 9 p.m. Sept. 28 at the Gateway Community Center. The mine’s plan of operations is available for public review at the Grand Junction Field Office of the BLM, 2815 H Road, and the permit application required by the Division of Reclamation, Minerals & Safety for the project has been filed with the Mesa County Recorder’s Office. Informational materials on the proposed project are available for mailing to all interested parties. These materials will be made available for review online at www.co.blm.gov/gjra/gjra.html. The BLM’s decision on the proposed project is anticipated in the first quarter of 2008. Written comments may be submitted at the public scoping meeting or mailed to BLM, attn: Karmen King, c/o Gault Group Inc., 36 W. Main St., Cortez 81321. The public may also e-mail comments to kking@aquatox.us. Public comments need to be received by Oct. 14. For more information, contact Lehmann at 244-3021 or Scott Gerwe at 244-3077. To be added to the project mailing list, contact Karmen King at 565-1222. Copyright 2007 Grand Junction Newspapers, Inc. All rights reserved. - The Daily Sentinel - Our Partners ***************************************************************** 25 Pahrump Valley Times: Layoffs likely at Yucca, say Bechtel officials Nye County's Largest Newspaper Circulation Sep. 14, 2007 By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS LAS VEGAS -- Contractors on the Yucca Mountain Project are preparing to lay off 60 to 80 workers in anticipation of budget cuts from Congress, officials said. Notices were expected to be distributed in the next few days to employees of Bechtel SAIC, the chief management company of the Energy Department nuclear waste program based in Las Vegas. People working in accounting, finance, human resources and other business support departments were being considered for job cuts, company spokesman Jason Bohne said. Bechtel SAIC employs roughly 1,000 people. Yucca officials confirmed the cutbacks a day after National Security Technologies, a contractor at the adjoining Nevada Test Site, disclosed that at least 200 workers could be laid off in the coming weeks. In both cases, executives attributed the job threats to uncertainty when or whether Congress will pass a budget this year for the Energy Department. Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., applauded the cutbacks for Yucca Mountain program, which is politically unpopular in the state. "The proposed layoffs at Yucca Mountain are a welcomed sign that the repository is losing momentum," Porter said. With a new fiscal year starting Oct. 1, the House has passed an Energy Department spending bill, but the Senate is not likely to pass it by the end of the month. Without the certainty, Energy officials are telling contractors to tighten up. In the case of Yucca Mountain, Energy officials expect cuts as large as $100 million below what the project is spending this year, spokesman Allen Benson said. This would be the second round of layoffs at Bechtel SAIC this year, as three dozen people were terminated in March. Bechtel SAIC laid off about 150 people two years ago. webmaster@pahrumpvalleytimes.com Copyright © Pahrump Valley Times, 1997 - ***************************************************************** 26 Times of India: Left standing firm on N-issue - Yechury 15 Sep 2007, 1931 hrs IST,PTI SHIMLA: The CPM on Saturday dismissed Gallup poll projections that it would lose in the event of a mid-term general election on the nuclear deal issue and said the Left parties would not "backtrack on their stand". The UPA had to "decide its future course of action" and would be responsible for the consequences of going ahead with the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal by overruling the Left's objections, CPM politburo member Sitaram Yechury told reporters here. He said the Left was "standing firm" on its objections and had "told the government and Prime Minister in clear-cut terms to press the pause button". Yechuri disagreed with the recent opinion poll that the Left would recieve a drubbing if the country went for a mid-term election on the nuclear issue and said "time and again such surveys have been proved wrong. They are not true indicators of things". The CPM leader said the government's attitude was "positive" and that the next UPA-Left Committee "would help us move ahead". It had "honoured the Left's objections and did not proceed with engaging us" on the visit to Vienna for the IAEA meet, which "is a healthy sign", he said. Asked if the Left would withdraw support to the UPA if it went ahead on the nuclear deal, he said "the responsibility for continuation of government rests on them. Our position is clear". Yechuri also referred to the resignation of Britain's Tony Blair and Japan's Shizno Abe from the post of Prime Minister for toeing pro-US lines. "We do not want Manmohan Singh to face the same situation." Copyright © 2007 Times Internet Limited. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 27 Times of India: US gets more countries to join in GNEP nuke-energy programme- 16 Sep 2007, 1714 hrs IST,AFP VIENNA: Eleven countries joined the United States and four other key nuclear fuel nations on Sunday in an effort to promote nuclear power as an energy solution through a Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP). The 11 signed a statement of principles which described GNEP as "cooperation of those states that share the common vision of the necessity of the expansion of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes worldwide in a safe and secure manner." Nuclear energy is increasingly seen as a key technology since it makes electricity without adding to the greenhouse gases which cause global warming. GNEP started as a US initiative in February 2006 and had its first meeting in May this year in Washington when the United States hosted fellow members China, France, Japan and Russia. The United States is seeking to promote nuclear power while guarding against the danger of spreading nuclear weapons that arises when states like Iran develop key technologies, such as uranium enrichment, on their own. The key to GNP is supplying states with nuclear fuel, such as uranium, and helping them get nuclear reactors that do not present proliferation risks. The United States wants GNEP to organize countries that have secure, advanced nuclear capabilities to provide fuel to other nations who agree to use nuclear energy just for power generation under the auspices of the Vienna-based UN nuclear watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). US Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said Sunday that GNEP had no specific projects yet. "Our task today is to formally commit to the principles espoused by GNEP and to begin discussions with like-minded countries that seek to develop civilian nuclear power in a safe and secure manner and who, not coincidentally, have been reaching out to us," Bodman said in a speech at the GNEP meeting, which also included 22 candidate partner and observer countries. The 11 countries which signed on Sunday to join GNEP were Australia, Bulgaria, Ghana, Hungary, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovenia and Ukraine. Copyright © 2007 Times Internet Limited. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 28 Daily Southtown: Protecting the back yard :: Marlene Lang September 16, 2007 The quintessential NIMBY (not in my back yard) story is unfolding even as we speak, in a drama pitting state's rights against federal powers, with water as the weapon of choice. The state of Nevada and a federal judge stood up to Department of Energy bullies whose mission is to make Nevada's Yucca Mountain the nation's radioactive waste dump. Well, not just the nation's dump; government documents discuss the mucho-bucks to be made by bringing in the radioactive spent fuel of nations willing to pay any price to get the poison out of their own back yards. As "Nuclear Illinois," runs its air conditioners on that "clean, reliable and safe" nuclear power, the fray waxes hot in Nevada about where Southlanders -and everyone else - will dump their dirty leftovers. U.S. District Judge David Hunt recently denied a federal request to tie the hands of the state; Nevada stridently refused to provide the millions of gallons of water needed to lubricate and cool drill bits as workers collected rock samples. Testing of the site's geology continues, five years after deadline, in efforts to show the site is safe for long-term nuclear waste disposal. Pause and think: Is any place on Earth safe for radioactive waste that will take 10,000 years to detox to safe levels? We are witnessing an epic battle between state's and federal government's rights. Work crews tarried, awaiting the OK to drill, after a judicially backed cease-and-desist order came down from the state engineer. They were given the nod, while the U.S. Justice Department accused Nevada of using water as a weapon. Damn straight. State officials, in turn, accused the DOE of having gained initial approval for the dump site by presenting fudged facts, which they say it is now trying to fudge afresh. Here's the skinny, for readers who have not followed my previous reports: The desperate DOE faces a growing heap of breach-of-contract lawsuits - some 60 to date - from nuclear power providers. The fed failed to provide a permanent nuke dump by 1998, as required in 1982 legislation. Billions are at stake, even as radioactive spent fuel piles up in about 100 temporary tanks around the country. And as Nevada fights for Yucca Mountain, half a billion was allotted in the most recent federal budget to continue the project. Could it be desperation driving the bullish DOE claim that certain drilling was exempt from the orders of the engineer and judge? The DOE filed a motion to block Hunt's order, and one official stated flatly in court that the state had no power to shut down a federal government project. It's a familiar form of audacity. Nevada is calling it contempt of court and bad faith. And to be fair, the state's refusal to accept a dump at Yucca Mountain is based on science that says it's not a good bet, with an underground fault line and all. Whatever we call it, the matter demands our attention, and now. Judge Hunt will revisit the case Sept. 20. Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Nevada is waiting until Bush is out of office to completely defeat the project. If Nevada succeeds in getting the dump out of its back yard, the waste will have to find another home. Maybe a cornfield outside of Springfield. Daily Southtown columnist Marlene Lang can be reached at blackbirdlang@yahoo.com © Copyright 2007 Sun-Times News Group | Terms of Use • Privacy ***************************************************************** 29 INDIA: PTI: GNEP to discuss peaceful use of N-energy Lalitha Vaidyanathan Vienna, Sep 15 (PTI) Civil nuclear cooperation will come up for discussion at the second ministerial meeting of the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) chaired here by the United States. Partner countries China, France, Japan, and Russia will take part in the meeting to be co-chaired by US Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman which begins tomorrow, a day ahead of the General Conference of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN nuclear watchdog. India is not a partner to GNEP, however, the ultimate aim could be to bring it into the fold once the Indo-US civil nuclear deal is signed, experts said here. A brainchild of US President George W Bush, GNEP aims at forging an alliance to reprocess spent nuclear fuel for peaceful use and not for nuclear weapons. Some new countries are expected to attend the ministerial and sign the GNEP Statement of Principles, which establishes broad guidelines for participation and provides a framework for all future involvement in the initiative. On May 21, the first ministerial brought together some of the leading nuclear fuel cycle states -- China, France, Japan, Russia and the United States which discussed th GNEP and issued a joint statement in support of nuclear energy cooperation. Through GNEP, the US wants to work with other nations possessing advanced nuclear technologies to develop new proliferation-resistant recycling technologies in order to produce more energy, reduce waste and minimise proliferation concerns. PTI © Copyright PTI 2007 ***************************************************************** 30 Chillicothe Gazette: USEC: Testing at plant begins www.chillicothegazette.com - Chillicothe, OH Saturday, September 15, 2007 Initial testing shows facility can make enriched uranium at desired levels PIKETON (AP) - The nation's only company that enriches uranium for nuclear power plants said Friday it has begun testing a key process at its demonstration facility in southern Ohio. USEC Inc., based in Bethesda, Md., is developing the American Centrifuge Plant to enrich uranium using centrifugal force, considered to be much more efficient than the 1950s-developed gaseous diffusion method. Initial tests of the centrifuge technology, which began in late August, showed the process can make enriched uranium at levels desired by power plants, a USEC statement said. USEC shares fell 97 cents, or about 7.3 percent, to $12.17 in trading Friday afternoon. The company Friday morning filed a document with the Securities and Exchange Commission saying it would sell some of its stock to raise cash for the plant, which could explain the drop in share price, spokeswoman Elizabeth Stuckle said. Shares have traded between $9.53 and $25.65 in the past year. USEC is trying to line up investors for the $2.3 billion commercial plant, part of a 3,714-acre site about 65 miles south of Columbus, where a gaseous diffusion plant closed in 2001. The company expects the plant will begin operation in late 2009, and will have 11,500 centrifuge machines, each about 40 feet tall, running in 2012. Tests will continue to determine whether the centrifuge machines can produce uranium in a reliable and cost- effective manner, the company said. The project, which has about 140 employees, could create up to 400 permanent jobs in the next few years in an area that typically has one of the state's highest unemployment rates. USEC purchased a license to use the centrifuge process from the Department of Energy, which owns the technology, Stuckle said. Data from the testing also will help the company meet the federal government's requirement the plant show it is capable of using the technology to produce enriched uranium usable by power plants. The demonstration project is about two years behind schedule. The new plant is expected to use about 5 percent of the electricity needed for gaseous diffusion, USEC said. "With today's electricity prices, that's very important," Stuckle said. Originally published September 15, 2007 Copyright ©2007 Chillicothe Gazette ***************************************************************** 31 The Daily News Journal: Dump operator asked to put it in writing Murfreesboro and Rutherford County, Tennessee news from DNJ staff reports The Rutherford County Commission wants more than just the word of Middle Point Landfill's owners that radioactive waste won't be dumped there any more. The commission approved a resolution Thursday asking Allied Waste to make permanent and legally binding its discontinuation of the Bulk Survey for Release Program, under which low-level radioactive materials have been deposited in Middle Point Landfill. On Aug. 20 Allied Waste, owners of the landfill on East Jefferson Pike in Walter Hill, announced it would voluntarily discontinue the BSFR program because of public concern over the program. Allied's announcement came after the state Legislature passed a moratorium on the program in Rutherford County and a series of public hearings and meetings on the program's safety held by the Tennessee Solid Waste Advisory Committee. The committee ultimately concluded the program was safe and should continue with only minor modifications. The committee had also recommended the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation establish a public liaison for the program to address public awareness and concerns. The program continues at four other landfills in Shelby, Anderson and Hawkins counties. Public concern was first raised in the spring when the watchdog group Nuclear Information and Resource Service put out a report criticizing the program. n In other business Thursday, the county commission also approved a plan for the county to share the cost of a smoking cessation plan with employees who are quitting. Smokers who voluntarily enroll in the program would pay $150 of the estimated $450 cost of the program per individual, and the county would pick up the rest of the cost. Originally published September 15, 2007 Copyright ©2007 The Daily News Journal. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 32 Reuters: Worst polluted sites in Russia, China, India Sat Sep 15, 2007 7:00pm IST By Timothy Gardner NEW YORK (Reuters) - Four of the world's 10 most polluted places are in Russia and two former Soviet republics, an independent environmental group said in a report released on Wednesday. Encompassing seven countries, the top 10 sites may cause some 12 million people to suffer health problems ranging from asthma and other respiratory ailments to birth defects and premature death, the New York-based Blacksmith Institute said. "These places are sapping the strength of the populations around them, and it's not rocket science to fix them," Richard Fuller, the nonprofit group's founder and director told reporters on a conference call. He said simple engineering projects could make many of the places safe, but that funds, political will, and technical ability were often lacking. Concern about polluted places is growing as the world's population swells and people in developing countries like China and India buy more cars and electronics -- habits that had been limited mainly to rich countries like the United States. The polluted sites in Russia and the former Soviet republics include Dzerzhinsk, Russia, which until the end of the Cold War was one of the country's major chemical weapons centers, and Chernobyl, Ukraine, where the world's worst nuclear accident occurred in 1986, Blacksmith said its second annual report. China and India each has two sites in the top 10. Linfen, China, is in Shanxi Province, the heart of country's expanding coal industry, while Tianying is one of the country's largest lead production bases. In Tianying, residents, particularly children, suffer lead poisoning symptoms such as learning disabilities, brain damage and kidney malfunction. REMOTE LOCATIONS In La Oroya, Peru, another top 10 site, heavy metal mining has left 99 percent of children with higher than acceptable levels of lead in their blood, the report said. In Kabwe, Zambia, children who play in the soil near heavy metal mining operations and young men who scavenge the metal, have lead poisoning levels close to those regarded as potentially fatal, Blacksmith said. The institute, which worked on the report with Green Cross Switzerland, did not rank the top sites because the quality of health information from each country varies. The polluted sites are often in remote mountain areas, especially those linked to mining, which can complicate the gathering of health data, the report said. Blacksmith has amassed data over the last seven years on 400 sites to come up with the list that can be seen at www.worstpolluted.com. This year, the institute also listed the "Dirty 30," which includes the top 10 sites. In the expanded list, Russia and former Soviet republics have 10 sites, and China six. No U.S. sites were in the group's top 10 because pollution laws there have led to the cleanup of heavily polluted areas since the 1970s. Consumers in rich countries could be indirectly responsible for some of the pollution, however. "Much of the nickel in U.S. cars and lead in car batteries may have come from these places," Fuller said. The annual list was compiled with help from specialists at Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, Hunter College in New York, India's ITT, the University of Idaho, Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York and others. ***************************************************************** 33 Reuters: Nations ink deal to provide safer atomic power Sun Sep 16, 2007 2:55pm EDT By Mark Heinrich VIENNA (Reuters) - Sixteen nations signed a U.S.-initiated pact on Sunday to help meet soaring world energy demand over coming decades by developing nuclear technology less prone to diversion into atomic bomb-making. Eleven nations joined the five nuclear fuel-producing powers -- the United States, Russia, China, France and Japan -- which formed the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership in a GNEP statement of principles at a ministerial ceremony in Vienna. GNEP aims to launch proliferation-resistant nuclear reactors supplied by a global fuel bank meant to discourage nations from building sensitive fuel enrichment facilities on their own soil. That technological threshold will probably take many years to reach, diplomats and analysts say. It was given impetus by Iran's quest to enrich uranium despite U.N. resolutions ordering a halt over suspicions Tehran is trying to build bombs, not generate electricity as it says, and by North Korea's stealthy "break-out" to weapons capability. "We may be late doing this. It certainly would have been better to do this 10 years ago than now," U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman told reporters. "But I don't know that the proliferation genie is out of the bottle yet." GNEP proponents say global demand for nuclear energy will almost double by 2030, propelled by high oil and gas prices and alarm about climate change linked to burning of fossil fuels. NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY CONCERNS The U.N. nuclear watchdog chief welcomed GNEP in part because it did not seem to undermine national sovereignty on energy, a concern that has hurt various proposals for a more secure multilateral system of atomic energy supply in the past. "This has been one of the issues that has created a lot of anxiety. So this is very much an improvement and should encourage more countries to join (up)," said Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency. The statement of principles said partner states "would not give up any rights." But concern still simmers in developing states, and even in some industrialized nations, that they might lose some sovereignty on atomic energy options. South Africa is considering reviving a former uranium enrichment program, while Argentina, Canada and Australia have suggested they might start their own as well. In a closed session after the ceremony, ministers agreed to set up working groups on creating reliable nuclear fuel services and infrastructure to support new technology, and decided to admit new members by consensus only, an official present said. GNEP, which will be debated at a 144-nation IAEA conference starting on Monday, faces technological, financial and political cooperation hurdles before it brings tangible results. Among major challenges will be developing affordable nuclear plants with fuel-reprocessing technology that would not yield separated plutonium, the commonest ingredient in atom bombs. "GNEP is based on unproven technologies. It will take many years for the promise to be fulfilled," said Mark Fitzpatrick of the International Institute for Strategic Studies. New GNEP partners ranged from Australia to Kazakhstan and Jordan. Twenty-one nations were present as observers including Canada, Egypt, Libya, Argentina, Brazil and major EU countries. ***************************************************************** 34 Guardian Unlimited: More Nations Back U.S. Nuclear Project Sunday September 16, 2007 7:46 PM By GEORGE JAHN Associated Press Writer VIENNA, Austria (AP) - A U.S.-initiated project that aims to reduce the dangers of nuclear proliferation and control radioactive waste gained support Sunday, as 11 more nations signed on with original members Russia, China, France and Japan. Under the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, a limited number of countries including the U.S. and Russia would provide uranium fuel to other nations for powering reactors to generate electricity, and then retrieve the fuel for reprocessing. This would deprive those nations of their own nuclear fuel enrichment programs, which can be used to make atomic arms. The dangers of uranium enrichment have come into sharp focus over the past four years because of the international standoff with Iran, which has defied a U.N. Security Council demand that it freeze development of the activity. The Iranian government says it seeks to use enrichment only for generating energy, and there is general recognition that nations should have access to low-enriched uranium for such peaceful uses. But Iran's refusal to scrap its enrichment program, coupled with suspicious past nuclear activities, have led to two sets of U.N. Security Council sanctions because of concerns that it wants to make atomic weapons. Iran, North Korea and other proliferation dangers past and present have played a role in the U.S. concept - and GNEP will also be discussed at a 144-nation International Atomic Energy Agency conference opening Monday. One suggested solution to the controversy over Iran's program is for it to abandon its efforts to enrich uranium and just buy the necessary fuel from Russia. In Tehran Sunday, state television quoted Iranian Foreign Minister Mouchehr Mottaki as saying enriched uranium fuel is ready to be shipped from Russia to Iran's first nuclear power plant. But Russia's RIA-Novosti news agency quoted an unidentified Russian diplomat as saying that was not so. It is fears that indigenous enrichment programs like Iran's could be misused for weapons that have led to attempts to create global fuel banks, guaranteeing supplies of energy-capable enriched uranium. Such plans could indirectly hasten the nuclear arms race, however, by encouraging countries to start or revive past programs before any global plan is in place. Already, Argentina and South Africa have said they plan to revive enrichment activities, while Australia plans to start from scratch. While no one suggests they want a weapons program, their examples could embolden other nations in less stable regions. Additionally, critics of the initiative say resuming reprocessing - or recycling spent fuel to gain new fuel, a process the U.S. abandoned in the 1970s over proliferation concerns - can make it easier for terrorists or enemy states to obtain weapons-usable plutonium. And although the program envisions reprocessing through a technique where pure plutonium is not separated, that technology is commonly said to be decades away. But senior U.S. officials played down concerns Sunday as they hosted a signing ceremony for the GNEP ``Statement of Principles'' - a nonbinding document that basically expresses support for ``the common vision of the necessity of the expansion of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes worldwide in a safe and secure manner.'' Iran is ``not something we have really thought about'' at Sunday's Vienna meeting, said U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman. He denied suggestions that the project was meant in part to ``identify some countries that are out to develop nuclear weapons'' by casting the spotlight on nations that refused to join the plan and opted instead to develop their own enrichment program. IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei praised the GNEP concept Sunday, saying it could ``help the international community with some of the greatest international challenges we are facing - which are development and security.'' The 11 countries that signed for the first time Sunday were: Australia, Bulgaria, Ghana, Hungary, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovenia and Ukraine. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007 ***************************************************************** 35 [GATA] French foreign minister warns of war over Iranian nukes Resent-Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2007 00:10:46 -0500 (CDT) 05:38PM ET Sunday, September 16, 2007 French foreign minister warns of war over Iranian nukes From Agence France-Presse via Yahoo News Sunday, September 16, 2007 http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070916/wl_afp/franceirannuclear_070916193617;_ylt=Ar96lpUXof2Ld8K1nA9eV4qs0NUE PARIS -- The world should brace for a possible war over the Iranian nuclear crisis, but seeking a solution through talks should take priority, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said on Sunday. "We have to prepare for the worst, and the worst is war," he said in an interview broadcast on French television and radio. "We must negotiate right to the end," with Iran, he said, but underlined that if Tehran possessed an atomic weapon, it would represent "a real danger for the whole world." Calling the nuclear standoff "the greatest crisis" of present times, the minister said: "We will not accept that the bomb is manufactured," and hinted that military plans were on the way. "We are trying to put in place plans which are the privilege of chiefs of staff and that is not for tomorrow," he said but stressed that although any attack on Iran was far from taking place, "It is normal for us to plan" for any eventuality. In Washington, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates took a more muted approach on Sunday. "I will tell you that I think the administration believes at this point that continuing to try and deal with the Iranian threat ... through diplomatic and economic means is by far the preferable approach," he said. Kouchner meanwhile said France wanted the European Union to prepare sanctions against Iran, outside the ambit of the UN Security Council, to force Tehran to forsake its nuclear ambitions. "We have decided that while negotiations are continuing ... to prepare eventual sanctions outside the ambit of UN sanctions. Our good friends, the Germans, suggested that," he said. The foreign minister also said leading French companies such as Total and Gaz de France had been urged not to undertake new work or contracts in Iran. Tehran vehemently denies Western allegations it is seeking an atomic weapon, saying its nuclear drive is aimed at providing electricity for a growing population whose fossil fuels will one day run out. The five permanent Security Council members -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States -- plus Germany are due to meet to discuss a new draft UN resolution on sanctions against Iran on September 21 in Washington. In the free-wheeling interview, Kouchner also touched upon the criteria for new members aspiring to join the European Union such as Turkey, saying French President Nicolas Sarkozy favoured the scrapping of a mandatory referendum on future adhesions. "I do not fear revealing this secret. I think the president wants this as well," he said. France has put the brakes on Turkey's membership talks but Sarkozy has said he would not block the discussions if a group of "wise men" was established by 2009 to debate the goals and ambitions of the EU over the next two decades. Turkey began EU accession negotiations in October 2005 but it has only managed to open four of the 35 chapters, or policy areas, that all candidates must complete to join. Croatia, which began talks the same day, has opened 12. Turkey's talks are expected to last at least a decade, with no guarantee of membership at the end of it all. The process has been hampered by Ankara's refusal to open its ports and airports to Greek Cypriot ships and planes. * * * Join GATA at these conferences: The Silver Summit Thursday-Friday, September 20-21, 2007 Coeur d'Alene, Idaho http://thesilversummit.com New Orleans Investment Conference Sunday-Thursday, October 21-25, 2007 New Orleans, Louisiana http://www.neworleansconference.com * * * Help Keep GATA Going GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at http://www.gata.org/. GATA is grateful for financial contributions, which are federally tax-deductible in the United States. Read more at http://www.gata.org/node/5509 --------------------------------------------------------------------- You are subscribed to the GATA Dispatch mailing list. You can instantly unsubscribe from these emails by emailing dispatch-unsubscribe@lists.gata.org Copyright B) 1999-2006 All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 36 Hankyoreh: N.K. diplomat dismisses reports of nuclear ties with Syria as groundless A senior North Korean diplomat on Saturday denied continuing allegations of his country's nuclear cooperation with Syria. "They often say things that are groundless," Kim Myong-gil, deputy chief of North Korean mission to the United Nations, told Yonhap over the phone, the first comment by a Pyongyang official on fresh allegations that broke out this week. When asked to elaborate, he answered that he had nothing more to say and hung up the phone. As six nations get ready to start critical talks on denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula, suspicions were raised that Pyongyang may be working with Damascus on nuclear programs, following an unexplained Israeli air raid on Syria on Sept. 6. Press reports said the raid may have targeted a facility where nuclear cooperation taking place. The Washington Post, citing a U.S. expert who talked to Israeli officials, said Saturday that the attack appears to be linked to the arrival of a ship carrying material from North Korea labeled as cement. Washington has yet to confirm or deny the reports. Christopher Hill, top U.S. nuclear envoy, evaded all questions about the new suspicions and said the six-nation negotiations should provide the answers. Under a deal struck in February by the six parties -- South and North Korea, the U.S., China, Russia and Japan -- Pyongyang is required to disable its nuclear facilities and declare all of its nuclear programs. In a briefing Friday, Hill said the involved countries "need to know what all of their (North Korean) programs are, and obviously any proliferation. "So at the end of all this, we would expect to have a pretty clear idea of whether they've engaged in proliferation in other countries." WASHINGTON, Sept. 15 (Yonhap) Posted on : Sep.16,2007 18:36 KST © 2006 The Hankyoreh Media Company. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 37 Guardian Unlimited: Missile Defense Strains U.S.-Russia Ties Sunday September 16, 2007 3:16 PM By DESMOND BUTLER Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - Two rounds of talks on a Russian proposal for missile defense cooperation with the U.S. have failed to narrow differences that have strained relations, officials from both countries say. The U.S. hopes technical experts who plan to visit a Russian-operated radar in Azerbaijan on Tuesday can help jump-start the talks with new ideas for cooperation. Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, has suggested the countries could share the mammoth installation and a second radar under construction in southern Russia as part of U.S. efforts to defend against the potential threat from Iranian missiles. Putin surprised the U.S. with the proposal in June. It followed months of criticism of U.S. negotiations to install 10 missile interceptors in Poland and a radar in the Czech Republic, both former Soviet satellites. The disagreement over missile defense has become a high-priority issue raised repeatedly in direct talks between Putin and President Bush. The United States says the European system is intended to counter Iranian missiles that could be aimed at Europe or U.S. territory. Russia contends the system also could be used against Russian missiles and threatens its nuclear deterrence. To explore ways of resolving the differences, Bush and Putin agreed to a series of talks led by Assistant Secretary of State John Rood and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Kislyak. The two sides met in Washington in July and again in Paris last week. The talks have made little progress (ATTRIBUTION?). The U.S. says it hopes Russia will contribute to U.S. plans to build a missile shield in Europe that would include the Czech and Polish bases. Russia says it will not help the U.S. counter an Iranian threat unless the European plans are canceled. Following the Paris talks, Rood said the U.S. had offered proposals on how the two sides could work together. Those ideas, however, did not deal with the disagreement over the terms of cooperation, said a U.S. official who works on missile defense issues and spoke on condition of anonymity. ``I think we are both in the same place as we were before,'' said the official, who was not authorized to speak for attribution. A Russian official, who also requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press, agreed that the two sides were far apart. ``Nothing has changed in the U.S. position during the talks,'' said the official. ``There is still a completely different understanding of the substance of President Putin's proposal.'' The U.S. hopes Tuesday's meeting at the Azerbaijan radar site will spark ideas for a third round of talks to be held in Moscow next month. The Bush administration is interested in the radars that Putin has offered, but as an additional asset for the system planned for Central Europe, not as a substitute. The radar in Gabala, Azerbaijan, is of a type that could not perform the same function as the one planned for the Czech Republic. The U.S.-built radar would track a missile after it had been detected by other means. The missile defense system also would need other radars to detect missile launches. While the U.S. has some of those capabilities, the Gabala facility's proximity to Iran could help the system identify missile trajectories earlier. ``What the Gabala radar would help you do is acquire targets,'' said Theodore Postol, a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Putin has proposed a different idea: using the radars as a way of monitoring the development of Iran's missile program. While the U.S. estimates Iran could become capable of launching an intercontinental missile by about 2015, Russia believes Iran is decades away. According to Glen Howard, president of the Jamestown Foundation, a national security policy institute in Washington, the Gabala facility has eavesdropping capabilities beyond its massive radar. ``The radar is Russia's eyes and ears in the Middle East,'' he said. But the U.S. says it will not consider delaying its European plans while the two sides monitor what the administration consider a clear threat from Iran. ``The United States is saying `Sure, we will talk to you, but we are going to continue building while we talk,''' said retired Army Lt. Gen. Robert Gard, a military fellow at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. ``That is not a position that will lead to much progress.'' Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007 ***************************************************************** 38 Canada News: US military team set to inspect Russian radar in Azerbaijan Sun Sep 16, 12:25 AM BAKU (AFP) - A US military team will visit ex-Soviet Azerbaijan on Tuesday to inspect Russia's Gabala radar station, touted by Moscow as a potential alternative to controversial missile defence sites in central Europe. The Pentagon delegation will visit the station, about 200 kilometres (125 miles) from the Azerbaijani capital Baku, in the company of Azerbaijani and Russian military experts. Brigadier General Patrick O'Reilly, deputy director of the US Missile Defence Agency, will head the six-person team, said a US official in Baku speaking on condition of anonymity. "What we'll be looking at is to what extent this facility can be part of a future missile defence system," the US official said. "The idea is definitely being taken seriously." Major General Alexander Yakushin, the deputy head of Russia's space forces, said on Saturday that three-way consultations will also be held on Tuesday between Azerbaijani, Russian and US officials in Baku. "Our main goal in these consultations is to suspend the expansion of the missile defence system into eastern Europe," he told journalists in Moscow. But the US official said no formal talks were planned. "These are not negotiations," he said. "It is basically a technical visit to get a tour of the facility." Russia's ambassador to Azerbaijan, Vasily Istratov, told a briefing in Baku that the visit will be followed by missile defence talks between top Russian and US officials at a meeting tentatively set for October. Russian President Vladimir Putin has proposed using the Gabala radar station as an alternative host for elements of a US missile defence system planned for central Europe. Moscow says the US plan to build a radar in the Czech Republic and anti-missile interceptors in Poland threatens Russian security. It has accused Washington of building a "new Berlin Wall" and threatened to re-deploy nuclear missiles if the US forges ahead with the plan. Azerbaijan borders Iran, one of the countries that Washington says it needs to protect itself against. However, Russia is only offering Gabala's radar facility and has never said it could host missile interceptors. Numerous US officials have expressed skepticism about using the Gabala station, including Henry Obering, the chief of the Missile Defence Agency, who said last month that it is too close to Iran to be effective. But experts saw the upcoming visit as a sign that Washington isn't dismissing the offer out of hand. "I was surprised to hear about the visit," said Philip Coyle, a missile defence expert at the Washington-based Centre for Defence Information. "They're at least going through the motions of considering it." Coyle said the US military may be considering alternatives to building facilities in eastern Europe in the wake of US Congress votes to reduce missile defence funding and growing public opposition to the plan in the Czech Republic. The fact that US President George W. Bush, who has pushed hard for the missile defence sites in central Europe, is leaving office next year may be another factor, he said. "(The US military) may be hedging its bets," Coyle said. "The next president may want to try to reach a deal with the Russians." A hulking 16-storey concrete slab set in the mountains of northern Azerbaijan, the Gabala station was put into operation in 1984 as one of the most powerful radars in the Soviet Union's missile attack early warning system. Gabala feeds a steady stream of information to installations in Moscow and has a range of 6,000 kilometres (3,700 miles), capable of monitoring the Middle East, Asia and parts of Africa. Following the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, the Azerbaijani government agreed to lease the station to Russia until 2012. Experts have raised doubts that the station's Soviet-era technology could work with any US missile defense systems, but Yakushin said the Russian military would be willing to upgrade the facility. "If there is a political decision on sharing the Gabala radar station, we are ready to modernize it to fit the needs of our American partners," he said. Copyright © 2007 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 39 baltimoresun.com: Does the United States really need to build a new nuclear weapon? -- By Bennett Ramberg September 16, 2007 As the Bush administration attempts to beat back the nuclear weapons ambitions of Iran and North Korea, it recently raised the specter that the United States has become perilously close to neutering its own atomic capacity. The alarmist forecast emerges in "National Security and Nuclear Weapons: Maintaining Deterrence in the 21st Century," a July statement by the secretaries of defense, state and energy. According to the secretaries, the "aging" and "hazardous" Cold War stockpile puts at risk "the long-term ability of the United States to sustain its strategy of deterrence [and] meet its security commitments to allies." The secretaries have called upon Congress this month to fund continued development of a new thermonuclear weapon, the Reliable Replacement Warhead, or RRW. Touted as safe, easy to maintain and regenerate, economical, politically sensible and, by definition, more reliable than the current arsenal, the RRW promotes the nonproliferation treaty's disarmament objective by promising to reduce the number of nuclear spares in the stockpile. At first blush, the RRW makes sense. But like many sales pitches, this one is too good to be true. The premise - that old nukes make the country less secure - is patently false, and Congress should reject it. Washington plans to reduce its Cold War inventory of several thousand nuclear weapons to between 1,700 and 2,200 warheads by 2012 in compliance with the 2002 Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty. Without the RRW, will this be an increasingly hollow arsenal, as the administration forecasts? Hardly. Since the Cold War ended, the weapons establishment has aggressively implemented safeguards to ensure the bombs are in working order. Given the 1992 cessation of nuclear testing and the retirement of nuclear designers with detonation experience, the Clinton administration inaugurated the stockpile stewardship program in 1993 to "ensure the preservation of the core intellectual competencies of the Untied States in nuclear weapons, including weapons design, system integration, manufacturing, security, use control reliability assessment in certification." Now, tens of billions of dollars later, the Department of Energy has built an impressive laboratory capability that can "virtually" replicate and test the current stockpile to suggest fixes in the event problems emerge. Mindful that detonation components could wear out with age, scientists evaluated the risks. In 2006, government scientists concluded that the stockpile's plutonium cores will last at least 100 years. Under the Life Extension program, deteriorating nonnuclear components have been found and replaced. Keep in mind that new nuclear weapons would require nuclear explosive tests. Although engineers intend to craft the RRW based on a once-tested but never deployed 1980s weapon with new plutonium cores and nonnuclear components, the RRW would not be an exact replica. Why would the secretaries even contemplate such a course when the Department of Energy has a plethora of certified "legacy" weapons in the active and inactive arsenal? Absent compelling evidence that the RRW would offer more than a marginal improvement in safety, security and arsenal regeneration - or that it would reassure allies and better restrain adversaries or promote the nuclear disarmament envisioned in the nonproliferation treaty - the answer appears to lie in the bounty the new weapon would provide to nuclear weapons laboratories. The end of the Cold War marked a difficult transition for Los Alamos, Livermore and Sandia. The labs pressed for funding what they did best: new weapons design. Proposals emerged for mini-nukes and the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator that could destroy hardened bunkers. But Congress balked at those notions, and many in Congress remain dubious that a $155 billion, 30-year RRW program would make the country safer. On Aug. 1, the Nuclear Policy and Posture Review Act was introduced in the Senate. Paralleling House proposals, it seeks to scotch the RRW, at least until the president and secretary of defense comprehensively re-evaluate the "role nuclear weapons will play in national security." The reports would guide the next administration. Considering that under the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty, Moscow and Washington - now "former" adversaries - can continue pointing thousands of warheads at each other, such a re-examination is long overdue. The current stockpile is robust, and the time for yet another nuclear weapon has long passed. Bennett Ramberg served in the State Department's Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs during the administration of George H. W. Bush. His e-mail is bennettramberg@aol.com. ***************************************************************** 40 Interview: ElBaradei says China a valuable partner to IAEA www.chinaview.cn 2007-09-16 05:33:44 VIENNA, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- UN atomic watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei said in an interview with Xinhua that China has been offering "valuable support" to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). China is playing an increasingly important role globally, also notably in IAEA, ElBaradei told Xinhua after a meeting of IAEA governing board that was closed earlier this week. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Mohamed ElBaradei (File Photo) Photo Gallery>>> As a fast growing economy with a vast need for energy, China has become increasingly reliable on nuclear power, which is expected to grow five-folds by 2020. Nuclear power will not entail grave impact on climate and can secure a country's energy independence, he said. The agency is working very closely with China, he said, noting that the two sides have built a joint training center in China where nuclear security experts are being trained. "China is not only a recipient, but a contributor," he said. The director general said he has received a congratulatory letter this week from Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao who pledged China's continued commitment to work with IAEA in promoting peaceful use of nuclear energy and preventing nuclear proliferation. "Development and security are the key challenges we are facing," he said. ElBaradei noted that globally 2 billion people are still living under two dollars a day and 1.6 million people still have no access to electricity. "Energy is the engine to development," he said. Peaceful use of nuclear energy can help alleviate poverty, and the agency is expected to expand programs in this respect, he said. However, nuclear material can potentially be used to make nuclear weapons, therefore the agency is committed to enforce nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. "The IAEA is fully aware of its responsibility ... Still we need to address these concerns through diplomatic means," he said. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) is a good example when it comes to negotiations, said Elbaradei. There have been "positive results" after the six-party talks in which China has been playing a very important role, he said. The director general called for continued dialogue with Iran over its controversial nuclear program which he considered of vital importance to the security in the Middle East. "We should not add oil to the fire," he said. Meanwhile, ElBaradei called on Iran to observe the UN Security Council resolution, which requires Iran to suspend uranium enrichment immediately, to build global trust and confidence. "We are not yet in a position to declare Iran's programs are exclusively for peaceful purpose ... but we are moving forward," he said. Iran has, for the first time in five years, agreed in late August with IAEA to clarify outstanding issues with its nuclear program. "We will be in a much better position" if Iran would fully cooperate, he said. On the other hand, said the IAEA chief, "we have not seen any undeclared nuclear facilities operating ... We have not seen concrete evidence that Iran's program has been weaponized." Iranian leaders have said Tehran would not bow to western pressure to suspend uranium enrichment, which Iran repeatedly claims will only be used for peaceful means such as generating power. Western countries have been pushing for UN sanctions to stop Iran's nuclear program, a potential pathway to nuclear weapons. Editor: Mu Xuequan ***************************************************************** 41 UPI: Report: Israel destroyed Syrian nuke cache United Press International - NewsTrack - Top News - Published: 16, 2007 at 9:33 AM LONDON, 16 (UPI) -- Israeli jets entered Syria earlier this month to destroy a shipment of nuclear material supplied by North Korea, Western intelligence sources said. The Sept. 6 air raid about 50 miles from the Iraqi border reportedly destroyed a cache of nuclear material that had arrived days earlier by ship from North Korea marked as a cargo of cement, The Times of London reported Sunday. Preparations for the raid began in late spring when Israeli intelligence received information Syria was trying to buy a nuclear device from North Korea, The Times reported. No news of the raid emerged until Syria complained Israeli jets had violated its airspace, dropping fuel tanks to lighten their load as Syrian air defense chased them back across the border. Syrian leaders have revealed no further details, except to say they are considering "responses" to the air invasion. Israel's government declined to comment on the raid beyond saying Israeli soldiers demonstrated unusual courage in acting against Syria, The Times reported. © Copyright United Press International. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 42 Antiwar.com: Beginning-Ending Enduring Relationships - by Gordon Prather September 15, 2007 President Bush wants to establish an "enduring relationship" with Iraq, similar – he has reportedly said – to the one we have with South Korea. Weird, because only last week the South Koreans again signaled they would like very much to end their relationship with us, which has – in their opinion – endured far, far too long for the good it may have done. Shortly after declaring war on Japan – said declaration perhaps not unrelated to President Truman’s decision to nuke Hiroshima and Nagasaki – the Soviet Union "liberated" Korea. Before withdrawing, in 1948, the Soviets established the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in the North. But, that same year, Truman got the United Nations to recognize the US-established Republic of Korea to be the sole legal government of Korea. So, two years later, the DPRK regime attempted to supplant the ROK regime. Whereupon, Truman got the Security Council to recommend that "Members of the United Nations furnish such assistance to the Republic of Korea as may be necessary to repel the armed attack and to restore international peace and security in the area." When US-led armed forces not only repelled the armed attack on the South, but attempted to eliminate the DPRK regime in the North, "hordes" of "volunteers" from the People’s Republic of China – also not recognized by the UN – poured across the Yalu River. A military stalemate eventually ensued and in 1953 an armistice was signed, making the 38th Parallel the dividing line between the still unrecognized DPRK and the ROK. Fifty-four years later, tens of thousands of US troops are still garrisoned in South Korea, exercising, twice-yearly, a "contingency plan" for countering another attempt by the DPRK regime to supplant the ROK regime. On Sept. 27, 1991, President G.H.W. Bush, leader of the UN coalition that had just ejected the Iraqi invaders from Kuwait, announced that the United States would unilaterally withdraw all land-based tactical nuclear weapons from overseas bases and all of its sea-based tactical nuclear weapons from US ships and submarines. Until then, approximately 100 US nuclear weapons had been based in South Korea, presumably to implement, if necessary, the "contingency plan." On Dec. 31, 1991 – as a direct result of President Bush's decision to withdraw U.S. nukes from South Korea and from warships offshore – President Roh TaeWoo and Premier Kim Il-Sung signed the South-North Join Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. Under the declaration, both countries agreed not to "test, manufacture, produce, receive, possess, store, deploy, or use nuclear weapons" or even to "possess nuclear-reprocessing and uranium-enrichment facilities." But, in 1994, in part because of those twice-yearly exercises, which may once again, under President Clinton, have involved the possible use of nukes, the North Koreans threatened to withdraw from the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, to be free to develop nukes of their own. There resulted the Clinton-negotiated Agreed Framework of 1994, under which North Korea agreed to not only remain a NPT-signatory, but to "freeze" its plutonium-producing reactors and related facilities and to "eventually dismantle these reactors and related facilities." What did the DPRK want in return? "The US will provide formal assurances to the DPRK, against the threat or use of nuclear weapons by the US." Furthermore; "1) Within three months of the date of this Document, both sides will reduce barriers to trade and investment, including restrictions on telecommunications services and financial transactions. "2) Each side will open a liaison office in the other’s capital following resolution of consular and other technical issues through expert level discussions. "3) As progress is made on issues of concern to each side, the U.S. and the DPRK will upgrade bilateral relations to the Ambassadorial level." But then Bush the Younger became President and almost immediately repudiated Clinton’s efforts to implement the Agreed Framework, telling South Korea’s president and North Korean emissaries he had no intentions of normalizing relations with North Korea. Then in September 2002, months after we now know Bush the Younger had already decided to provoke a war with Iraq, Bush unilaterally abrogated the Agreed Framework, charging that North Korea had a secret enriched-uranium nuke program. Well, Bush couldn’t provoke Iraq’s dictator, but on the eve of Bush’s war of aggression against Iraq, DPRK’s dictator did withdraw from the NPT and restarted his weapons-grade plutonium-producing reactor. There resulted the so-called Six-Party (China, Russia, Japan, South Korea, North Korea and United States) talks. The Third Round of the Fifth Six-Party talks recently concluded with the parties agreeing, inter alia, that "The DPRK and the U.S. will start bilateral talks aimed at resolving bilateral issues and moving toward full diplomatic relations." Fantastic! Diplomatic recognition of the DPRK! Finally, peace talks between North and South Korea can begin. But then, at the Asia-Pacific summit in Australia, recently, Bush emerged from talks with current South Korean president – Roh Moo-hyun – to announce progress made in the talks on the issue of DPRK’s "nuclear program." Roh, who apparently does not understand English very well, said "I think I did not hear President Bush mention the declaration to end the Korean War just now… If you could be a little bit clearer in your message, that would be very much appreciated". To which Bush replied: "I can't make it any more clear, Mr. President. We look forward to the day when we can end the Korean War. That will happen when Kim Jong-il verifiably gets rid of his weapons programs and his weapons." There you have it. A Korean War Peace Treaty – which is what all Koreans want most – may well lead to North-South reunification and would certainly mean an end to the "enduring relationship" and the abandonment of US garrisons in South Korea, with a concomitant loss of US influence in the region. But none of that can occur until the DPRK proves it does not have the secret enriched-uranium nuke program Bush accused the DPRK and Iraq and Iran of having back in 2002, which resulted in the DPRK proceeding to develop and test the plutonium nukes they had agreed not to develop under the South-North Agreement and under the Agreed Framework and under the NPT. Of course, the Koreans now know it proved impossible for the Iraqis or Iranians to prove to Bush that they don’t have the secret nuke programs he claims they have. So, Peace Treaty first, then dismantlement of actual nuclear programs. But Bush should look on the bright side; since he’s determined to establish an "enduring relationship" with Iraq, with garrisons on the Iranian border, the Koreans have just told him where he can get the necessary troops. 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 ***************************************************************** 43 AFP: Iran's Ahmadinejad wants Bush debate, 'global referendum' - by Siavosh Ghazi Sun Sep 16, 6:03 PM ET TEHRAN (AFP) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday proposed holding a public debate with his US counterpart George W. Bush at the United Nations this month and a "global referendum" to decide who was right. Ahmadinejad confirmed in an interview with Iranian television he would be visiting Iran's arch enemy the United States for the third time to take part in the General Assembly next week. "I proposed it last year. I will go to New York. Let's sit down and talk. But not behind closed doors. "I propose discussing international questions at the UN General Assembly in order to solve them," he added. "Our aim is to solve global problems," he continued. "He (Bush) gives his position and I give mine. The representatives of 200 countries meet there and they can judge," he said. Ahmadinejad offered Bush a public debate before he travelled to the United Nations last year, a proposal that was spurned by the White House which said the suggestion was not serious. In the interview with Iran's international Jam-e Jam Farsi language channel, Ahmadinejad also went one step further by mooting a "global referendum" to see who out of Iran and the United States had the better ideas. "We will propose our solutions to solve the world questions and they (the Americans) can propose their solutions. We will organise a global referendum and the people can vote," he said. "The solution that wins the most votes will be applied." Ahmadinejad's offers come at a moment of increasing tension between Iran and the United States, which accuses the Islamic republic of seeking nuclear weapons. The United States has never ruled out using military strikes to punish Iran for its defiance and Defence Secretary Robert Gates said Sunday that "all options are on the table." French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner also said in a television interview Sunday: "We have to prepare for the worst, and the worst is war." Iran vehemently denies the allegations it is seeking an atomic weapon, saying its nuclear drive is aimed at providing electricity for a growing population whose fossil fuels will one day run out. Washington is also at loggerheads with Iran over its role in Iraq, accusing Tehran of shipping bombs for attacks on US troops and aiding Shiite militias, allegations vehemently denied by the Islamic republic. Despite his enthusiasm for a public debate with Bush, Ahmadinejad nonetheless ruled out the possibility of bilateral negotiations with the United States. "This does not mean we want to negotiate with the United States. They want to say that Iran is under pressure and needs the United States. But it's not like that. We do not need anyone." Ties between Washington and Tehran have remained frozen since the United States severed relations during the siege of its embassy in Tehran by Islamist students in 1980. Copyright © 2007 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 44 AFP: Speculation heats up over what Israel hit in Syria - by Jitendra Joshi Sun Sep 16, 3:39 PM ET WASHINGTON (AFP) - Speculation over the target of an Israeli air strike in Syria has deepened with weekend press reports highlighting a possible North Korean nuclear connection, or a "dry run" for an attack on Iran. New accounts in US and British newspapers of the September 6 raid went much further than initial claims by US Pentagon officials, that the attack was a warning to Syria against rearming the extremist Hezbollah group in Lebanon. The Washington Post quoted an unidentified US expert on the Middle East as saying the target was a northern Syrian facility officially described as an agricultural research center on the Euphrates River, near the Turkish border. After interviewing Israeli participants in the mysterious raid, the expert "reported that the attack appears to have been linked to the arrival three days earlier of a ship carrying material from North Korea labeled as cement." "The expert said it is not clear what the ship was carrying, but the emerging consensus in Israel was that it delivered nuclear equipment," the Post said Saturday. Interviewed on Fox News Sunday, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates refused to comment on the raid. Neither would he confirm the veracity of leaked intelligence reports suggesting that North Korea may be helping Syria build a nuclear weapons facility. "But all I will say is we are watching the North Koreans very carefully. We watch the Syrians very carefully," he said. If North Korea were flouting its UN obligations to disarm its nuclear program and Syria were pursuing weapons of mass destruction, "I think it would be a real problem," Gates added. Syria angrily denied as US "lies" suggestions that it was receiving nuclear material from North Korea, while the Stalinist state for its part said the reports were "groundless." In London, the Sunday Times quoted an Israeli source as saying the raid destroyed what could have been a "devastating Syrian surprise for Israel." "We've known for a long time that Syria has deadly chemical warheads on its Scuds (missiles), but Israel can't live with a nuclear warhead," the source told the newspaper. The New York Times, citing a US administration official, reported that Israel had recently carried out reconnaissance flights over Syria to take pictures of possible nuclear installations staffed by North Korean engineers. "The Israelis think North Korea is selling to Iran and Syria what little they have left," the official said last week, according to the report. North Korea could either be trying to evade UN inspections of its nuclear weapons program, or the material could be bound for Iran, the Sunday Times said. Another British paper, the Observer, headlined its account Sunday: "Was Israeli raid a dry run for attack on Iran?" It said the attack involved a flight through the airspace of Israel's ally Turkey by up to eight aircraft, including cutting-edge F-15s and F-16s equipped with 500-pound (227-kilogram) bombs and Maverick missiles. Israel had shown that "if Syria's ally, Iran, comes close to acquiring a nuclear weapon, and the world fails to prevent it, either through diplomatic or military means, then Israel will stop it on its own," the Observer said. In keeping with an official wall of silence on the event, Israel's military intelligence chief Amos Yadlin told lawmakers Sunday he would not address the incident directly. But he said the Jewish state had now recovered its "deterrent capability" following the 2006 war against Hezbollah, Israeli public radio reported. Copyright © 2007 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 45 Guardian Unlimited: US Wary of Syria-North Korea Ties From the Associated Press Sunday September 16, 2007 4:46 PM WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S. is keeping close watch on Syria and North Korea, the Pentagon chief said Sunday, amid suspicions the Koreans are possibly cooperating with Syria on a nuclear facility. ``I think it would be a real problem,'' Defense Secretary Robert Gates said when asked how the Bush administration would view such an effort. A senior U.S. nuclear official said Friday that North Koreans were in Syria and that Syria may have had contacts with ``secret suppliers'' to obtain nuclear equipment. Andrew Semmel, acting deputy assistant secretary of state for nuclear nonproliferation policy, did not identify the suppliers, but said North Koreans were in Syria and that he could not exclude that the network run by the disgraced Pakistan nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan may have been involved. Gates was asked in a broadcast interview whether Syria was involved in a covert nuclear program with North Korea's assistance. ``I'm not going to get into things that may involve intelligence matters, but all I will say is we are watching the North Koreans very carefully. We watch the Syrians very carefully,'' Gates said. He added, ``If such an activity were taking place, it would be a matter of great concern because the president has put down a very strong marker with the North Koreans about further proliferation efforts. And obviously, any effort by the Syrians to pursue weapons of mass destruction would be a concern for us.'' A state-run newspaper in Syria said in an editorial Sunday that ``the magnitude of these false accusations might be a prelude to a new aggression against Syria.'' Al-Thawra said suggestion of such nuclear cooperation was ``a flagrant lie.'' North Korea's minister to the country's U.N. mission in New York, Kim Myong Gil, has dismissed the Syria allegation as ``groundless,'' South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted Kim as saying. This week, negotiators from six nations plan to meet in Beijing to discuss ways to disable North Korea's nuclear reactor. North Korea agreed in a February accord to scrap its nuclear programs in return for political concessions and aid. The North has shut down its Yongbyon nuclear facility and negotiators are now discussing the next phase of the agreement: disclosing and disabling all nuclear facilities, which the North recently agreed to do by the end of the year. Gates spoke on ``Fox News Sunday.'' Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007 ***************************************************************** 46 FirstScience: Solar experts gathering at ORNL for summit - 14 Sep 2007 By DOE/Oak Ridge National Laboratory OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Sept. 14, 2007 -- Solar energy will be in the spotlight as researchers, engineers, architects and other renewable energy experts from the region convene at Oak Ridge National Laboratory Oct. 24-25 for the first Southeast Solar Summit. Among the displays will be an Arizona Public Service 5-kilowatt photovoltaic solar array that will be providing electricity to one of the laboratory buildings. The array uses Memphis-based Sharp Solar’s photovoltaic modules. A concentrator photovoltaic system from JX Crystals will also be on display. Others participating include Lakeland Electric, Georgia Institute of Technology, Solar Energy Industries Association, Solar Electric Power Association, Lightwave Solar Electric, Sterling Planet, Tennessee Valley Authority, North Carolina Solar Center and Florida Solar Energy Center. The event is co-hosted by Southern Alliance for Clean Energy and co-sponsored by the Department of Energy, TVA, the state of Tennessee and Solar Energy Industries Association. While the desert Southwest is often associated with an abundance of sunshine and potential solar energy, Melissa Lapsa, manager of ORNL’s solar technologies program, noted that solar energy use is increasing worldwide. In fact, Germany is the fastest growing market for solar cells producing photovoltaic energy, adding significantly more electricity to its electric grid than what has been added in the United States. “In the Southeast, the average amount of sunlight available for producing electricity is twice that available in Germany,” said Lapsa, who noted that the time is ripe for a solar summit. “Within a few hundred miles of each other we have some of the nation’s best and brightest in the area of solar energy and photovoltaics,” Lapsa said. “This summit will bring those people and their organizations together to focus on new opportunities to promote collaborative solar research and development and market transformation in the Southeast.” Attendees will include energy managers, policy advocates, executives from industry, utilities and the public sector; educators, researchers, economic development specialists, community action agencies, builders, legislators, students and community planners. One of the highlights will be an address by Chris O'Brien, chairman of the board of Solar Energy Industries Association and vice president of Strategy and Government Relations for Sharp Solar. Sessions will focus on all aspects of solar research and development and strategies to bring technologies to the market. Tours of the near-zero energy homes in Lenoir City, the Buffalo Mountain Wind Farm near Oliver Springs and the Spallation Neutron Source will be offered. The near-zero energy Habitat for Humanity homes boast electric bills as low as 41 cents per day while the wind farm features 15 1.8-megawatt turbines atop Windrock. A workshop on hybrid solar lighting will also be offered. Also scheduled is the unveiling of ORNL's Center for Advanced Thin Film Solar Cells, a new user center consisting of four adjacent laboratories that will be focused on photovoltaics research and development and will include a variety of diagnostic capabilities. Solid-state lighting research will also be conducted in the facility, dubbed CATS. ### Registration and additional information about the summit is available at http://www.ornl.gov/solarsummit/. UT-Battelle manages Oak Ridge National Laboratory for the Department of Energy. NOTE TO EDITORS: You may read other press releases from Oak Ridge National Laboratory or learn more about the lab at http://www.ornl.gov/news. © 1995-2007 All rights reserved ***************************************************************** NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: *****************************************************************