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                    NUCLEAR POWER CONTENTS
 
 1  Audit turns up imprecise nuclear records
 2  Letters - Just the Facts About Nuclear Power 
 3  Radioactive landfill plans still divide community
 4  Lawrence attorney fights proposed waste dump
 5  Millstone activist lawyer disbarred
 6  OPPD seeks to leave lawsuit 
 7  Briefing set for officials on nuclear plant safety
 8  Letters - Just the Facts About Nuclear Power 
 9  Japan: Nuclear reactor closed after steam leak 
10  Russia to begin supplying equipment for Indian nuclear plant 
11  Anti-Sellafield court case opens in Britain 
12  Nuclear disaster rehearsal proves to be no match for the big game 
13  Legal challenge mounted to Sellafield 
14  Call for Sellafield no-fly zone by FG 
15  Sellafield 'wide open' to terror attacks 
16  Report estimates cost of withdrawal from nuclear power at 
17  Slovene premier tells Croatia nuclear plant, border accords go 
18  Czechs will not shut down disputed nuclear power plant, says 
19  'We'll quit UK' warns British Energy 
20  Armenian science academy urges monitoring of most polluted areas 
21  Reliance on government support undermines BE   
22  Russia receives first nuclear waste imports from Bulgaria - 
23  Propaganda on nuke safety lamented -
24  Nevada congresswoman asks probe of Yucca Mountain law firm
25  Nuclear plant gets $25 million upgrade
26  Nuclear plant gets waiver on sales tax
27  Q: Sellafield's Mox plant
28  Nuclear plant tests were 'distorted'
29  Irvine's nuclear reactor may be forced to close
30  GOVERNMENT FORCED TO DEFEND ITSELF IN HIGH COURT OVER SELLAFIELD 
31  Police Gear Up for N-Shipment
32  Nuclear Plants: Are They Safe? 
33  Nevada congresswoman asks probe of Yucca Mountain law firm
34  Association of Nuclear Host Communities (ANHC)
35  Closed air space sought for Maine Yankee area
36  Hodges satisfied with plant safety
37  Hodges voices security concerns, seeks aid 
38  National nuclear plan to get a trial on Saturday 
39  Australian anti-nuclear activists' US trial delayed 
40  Maine Yankee to save up to $2.75 million with sales tax waiver 
41  Propaganda on nuke safety lamented -
42  National Guard troops sought at Maine Yankee
43  BE fears nuclear industry decline   
44  Japan: Nuclear reactor closed after steam leak 
45  Sellafield Security Review over Air Attack
46  Groups Fight MOX Together
47  No-fly order extended to Maine Yankee site
48  Constellation Energy Group Completes Purchase of Nine Mile Point 
49  Hazardous chemicals dumped at Camp Verde
50  the Environment Agency has set new limits on radioactive 
51  Bingaman asked to freeze out uranium mining                   

                    NUCLEAR WEAPONS CONTENTS
 
 1  SEPT. 11 DU QUERY,ARE PEOPLE, WATER, LAND, FOOD & AIR BEING IRRADIATED ?
 2  Depleted Uranium Toxicity in Afghanistan
 3  CONFERENCE ON DU - PRAGUE - INVITATION - INFORMATION - DEADLINE
 4  Osama's nuclear bomb     
 5  Do the terrorists have nukes? 
 6  Israel accuses Russia of providing nuclear weapons technology to 
 7  Secret decree nullified  
 8  Millions of dollars needed to salvage Russian nuclear submarines 
 9  Flats radiates pride over safer technology
10  Bush Decides on Nuclear Weapons
11  Adviser: Bush to Scrap Some Nukes
12  OPINION: EDITORIAL: Cleaning up the test site?
13  Energy secretary: Let's speed Hanford cleanup
14  Energy Dept. Pulls Online Nuke Info 
15  Cancer isotope proposal on hold 
16  Y-12's manager completes first year
17  Buses transport Y-12 employees to work
18  A Twentieth-Century Journey in Science and Politics By Edward Teller 
19  Abraham Designates INEEL S.T.A.R. Fusion Facility A "National User Facility"
20  U.S., IAEA see risks from disused Russian subs 
21  Did nuclear fallout cause thyroid problem

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                     NUCLEAR POWER ARTICLES
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 1 Audit turns up imprecise nuclear records
 
Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2001 07:50:51 -0600 (CST)

 
Audit turns up imprecise nuclear records

By JOHN HEILPRIN, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (November 6, 2001 4:40 p.m. EST) - The Energy Department
and Nuclear Regulatory Commission are not keeping an accurate
inventory of nuclear materials loaned out for domestic research,
government investigators report.

An audit by the Energy Department's inspector general between April
and August found that 119 locations handling government-owned
enriched uranium, plutonium and other nuclear materials had returned
more to the department than had been loaned out or leased.

While finding no evidence of nuclear materials being diverted or
misused, the government's inaccurate records could undermine its
ability to detect stolen or lost materials, said Gregory H. Friedman,
the department's inspector general.

The records entered into a federal electronic database run by the
Energy Department and the NRC "are not logical and almost certainly
incorrect,"

said Friedman in the Oct. 26 report, released this week.

He warned that a proper inventory must be done if the government
is to keep "the strictest possible control over materials that
could, in the wrong hands, threaten national security."

The report showed an excess of 4.2 million kilograms of depleted
uranium, 1.3 million grams of enriched uranium and 2,500 grams of
plutonium in the department's inventory.

Some of the record-keeping problems were found as early as 1994
but the department did not try to correct them until this year,
the audit says.

"The department did not provide adequate oversight of the system,"
Friedman said in his report to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham.
He added that the department should not assume that the public is
protected until all records have been explained and corrected.

Security officials within the department also told auditors that
it was "unlikely" more material had been returned than was loaned
or leased, the audit says. Those officials said a more probable
explanation was that the wrong ownership codes were entered into
the records when the radioactive materials were transferred to
another location.

Other inaccuracies included records showing "a significant quantity"
of plutonium existed at two facilities, despite NRC officials saying
those facilities had not held plutonium for years. Officials said
one facility had not housed plutonium since 1996 and the other
facility likewise had no plutonium since its license had expired
in 1993.

To its credit, the Energy Department had accounted for all 2,500
grams of plutonium by September, five months after being notified
of a problem, the audit says. Security officials believe the
plutonium was washed away during decontamination and decommissioning
of the facilities, the audit says, though there was no documentation
at the time of the audit to show what happened to the material.

The department's security and emergency operations director, Joseph
S.

Mahaley, said he had met with NRC officials in mid-October to begin
accounting for all the loaned or leased inventories of department-owned
nuclear materials. The NRC licenses the research institutions.

*****************************************************************
 2  Letters - Just the Facts About Nuclear Power 

The Providence Journal ( November 08, 2001 ) 

Having recently toured the Visitor Center of the Seabrook (N.H.) 
nuclear-power plant, I was intrigued by Seth Kaplan's letter 
("Don't even think about nukes for power," Aug. 16). 

His assertion that nuclear power is uneconomic [and] 
environmentally and socially suicidal is quite contrary to the 
impression one gets in the Seabrook presentation and a further 
review of the facts. According to the Nuclear Energy Institute, 
100 nuclear power plants account for 20 percent of the 
electricity generated in the country. 

Critics often cite the accident at Three Mile Island as proof 
that nuclear power is unsafe. However, redundant safety systems, 
engineered into the design, construction, and operation of all 
U.S. nuclear plants contained the damage. 

Studies by Columbia University scientists and the National Cancer 
Institute concluded that the accident caused no public-health 
hazard. 

Radioactive waste, a byproduct of nuclear energy, has been safely 
and responsibly stored for more than 25 years. Plans for a 
central repository of waste material in Nevada, complete with 
protocol for safe transport, are near completion under the 
auspices of no less than five federal regulatory agencies. The 
evidence suggests that nuclear power, already a significant 
source of U.S. energy, is, in fact, environmentally safe, 
efficient, and viable. Like Mr. Kaplan, foes often feed public 
ignorance with alarmist rhetoric as a substitute for scientific 
evidence. 

Anyone with objective curiosity might find the drive to Seabrook 
enlightening. At the very least, it will provide a foundation of 
knowledge to separate fact from unfounded hyperbole. 

 MARC R. BEAUSOLEIL Cumberland

 (C) 2001 The Providence Journal. via ProQuest Information and 
*****************************************************************
 3  Radioactive landfill plans still divide community

Lawrence Journal-World: 

Nov 8, 2001   9:52 pm  

By Scott Bauer, Associated Press Writer 

Butte, Neb. — Just outside town, a few miles from the South 
Dakota border, lies a field not unlike surrounding farm and ranch 
land.
              
AP Photo

A faded billboard reading "There Will Be No Dump" used to stand 
across the road from the site of a planned low-level nuclear 
waste dump site in Butte, Neb. But the sign in this July 16 file 
photo recently was cut down by vandals. The desolate 110 acres of 
prairie grass, proposed site of the nuclear dump, has been at the 
center of a political, personal and legal battle for the past 12 
years. 

To the unknowing eye, it appears peaceful. Yet this desolate, 110 
acres of prairie grass has been at the center of political, 
personal and legal battles for 12 years.

It is the planned site of a low-level nuclear waste dump. While a 
five-state commission, including Kansas, decided in 1989 to build 
the dump here, not a shovel of dirt has been overturned.

Arguments over the dump has split the community. The state of 
Nebraska has waged multimillion-dollar lawsuits to block the 
dump's development. More than $100 million has been spent 
preparing for its construction.

"It's just like a dud bomb that's all primed, and anything will 
set it off," said Duane Pavel, the sheriff for surrounding Boyd 
County from 1992 to 1998.

Outward anger over the proposed dump has prompted vandalism of 
signs around the site and once required a police presence at 
public meetings. Just a few weeks ago, a roadside billboard 
across from the site saying "There Will Be No Dump" was cut down 
by vandals.

Some of the local tension died down three years ago when the 
state refused to issue a license for the dump's construction over 
concerns about a high water table and potential pollution.

That doesn't mean people's attitudes changed. The five-state 
commission is fighting Nebraska's decision in court while the 
dump's proponents argue it can be built safely and will boost the 
area economy.

"Everybody feels the same as they always did. People have gotten 
used to living with the enemy," said Craig Zeisler, a dump 
opponent who farms 4 1/2 miles from the dump site.

Ken Reiser, who leads a pro-dump group called "People for 
Progress," says it is hard to ignore the division that the issue 
has created in the area. "It's kind of like if you had a hail 
storm 10 years ago," he said. "You remember it, but your life 
goes on."

The proposed dump would be a reinforced-concrete bunker that 
could hold used filters from nuclear generators and resins, 
contaminated tools and clothing, and materials from nuclear 
utilities, industries, academic research centers and hospitals.

The dump's history

The dump's genesis was in 1980 when Congress passed legislation 
encouraging states to work together to store low-level 
radioactive waste. In response, Nebraska joined Louisiana, 
Arkansas, Kansas and Oklahoma to form the Central Interstate 
Low-Level Radioactive Waste Compact.

The compact in 1987 chose to build its dump in Nebraska. Two 
years later, the site near Butte in northeast Nebraska was 
selected after considering other proposals in Nuckolls and Nemaha 
counties.

Loren Sieh, who runs a gas station in nearby Naper, believes Boyd 
County was chosen for its remoteness. Only 2,400 people live in 
the county nearly 200 miles from Omaha, the nearest major 
metropolitan area. The site is as far away as possible from the 
four other compact states.

"If it's such a great deal and it's so safe, Boyd County would 
never have gotten it. It would be along Interstate 80," said 
Sieh, who leads a local committee that serves as a liaison to the 
waste compact.

While area residents remain steadfast in their opinions, the 
legal battle continues.

Nuclear waste generators and the waste compact are suing 
Nebraska, alleging that it has acted in bad faith. A trial is set 
to start next summer and the case likely will take years to 
resolve.

Increasing costs

The dump initially was expected to cost $35 million and open in 
1993. To date, more than $100 million has been spent and 
construction has not started. The state is spending more than 
$9,000 per day — more than $3.2 million per year — on legal fees. 
No one even mentions a possible opening date any more.

For Zeisler, Nebraska's alternate representative on the 
five-state waste compact, the issue comes down to the potential 
for any pollution to quickly enter a water source. The site is 
near the Niobrara River, and an aquifer is close to the surface.

"All of the hoopla isn't going to change the geology of this 
site," he said. "I wouldn't build a calving barn where they're 
building this thing." No matter how the issue is resolved, life 
will not be the same in Boyd County.

"It tore up a whole bunch of friendships," Zeisler said. "There's 
a whole bunch of people who don't speak any more who used to do 
things together."

Sieh admits the fight over the dump has changed his circle of 
friends.

"A lot of friendships were made in those 12 years," he said. "A 
lot were broken, but even more were made. ... I lost some 
friendships I thought were good friends, but you just keep 
going."

Copyright © 2001, the Lawrence Journal-World. All rights 
*****************************************************************
 4  Lawrence attorney fights proposed waste dump

Lawrence Journal-World: 

 Nov 8, 2001   9:53 pm  

By Scott Rothschild, Journal-World Staff Writer 

Topeka — Lawrence resident Robert Eye is a longtime warrior in 
the fight over whether to bury radioactive waste on a piece of 
land 450 miles away. In the 1980s and '90s, Eye, an attorney who 
practices in Topeka, helped represent the Save Boyd County Assn., 
a group of farmers, ranchers and business people who fought the 
proposed waste dump in Nebraska near the South Dakota border.

"It was a remarkable experience to work with them," said Eye, who 
has worked frequently with groups opposing nuclear dumps. "It was 
one of the most rewarding experiences I have ever had as a 
lawyer."

Eye said he was inspired by the commitment and dedication of 
those opposed to the waste dump. "For them, it was life and 
death. I found out the real environmentalists are not in 
Greenpeace," he said.

The association and other groups fought for years in court and 
the Nebraska Statehouse to dump the dump site.

Eye said the land was just not suitable because it was drenched 
with water much of the time.

"People used to canoe through it," he said. "It was unbelievable 
that they thought that site could get a license."

Eye said the opponents were relentless in lobbying lawmakers and 
attending hearings of the waste compact. He said while most 
opponents were law-abiding, some were willing to go further.

"I certainly feared that (if the site were approved) there would 
be an organized opposition to allowing tractor-trailers to come 
into that county. They were willing to go to some pretty drastic 
measures," he said. But, so far it hasn't come to that.

The state of Nebraska has rejected the license for the facility, 
and now the issue is expected to be tied up in legal challenges 
for years. Eye said he expects the proposal eventually will fail 
and that generators of nuclear waste simply will have to find 
other alternatives or store the waste on site, as they have been 
doing.

Copyright © 2001, the Lawrence Journal-World. All rights 
*****************************************************************
 5  Millstone activist lawyer disbarred

TheDay.com: 

Published on 11/08/2001  

Nancy Burton

Nancy Burton, an attorney known locally for filing numerous legal 
actions against Millstone Nuclear Power Station, has been 
disbarred from practicing law in Connecticut for five years by 
Bridgeport Superior Court Judge A. William Mottolese. The judge 
issued a stay of his order to give Burton time to obtain a lawyer 
and pursue an appeal. 

Burton said she would use every appeal available to challenge 
what she called “an affront to due process, to justice and to the 
people of Connecticut.” She has already filed a federal court 
action against Mottolese, claiming he was biased against her.

Burton said she was uncertain how the order would affect current 
cases she is pursuing involving Millstone. She is challenging 
plans to add more spent nuclear fuel to the storage pool at the 
Millstone 3 nuclear plant. Burton is also contesting the nuclear 
station's water discharge permits. The Connecticut Coalition 
Against Millstone and other anti-nuclear groups are named as 
plaintiffs in the cases.

If Burton is unable to practice law it would be a significant 
blow to anti-nuclear groups that have raised numerous objections 
about operations at Millstone station in Waterford. Burton has 
taken the cases without compensation.

Mottolese took the extraordinary and harsh action of disbarring 
Burton after concluding in July that she had intentionally misled 
a group of Monroe residents in a legal battle to block a housing 
development project in that town called Hammertown Estates.

Attorney Michael Simko said his client, Katherine Finch, was 
among about two dozen individuals who were asked to sign what 
they thought was a petition opposing the project. Without their 
knowledge or consent, Burton then named those individuals as 
plaintiffs in the case seeking to block the development, Simko 
said. 

The matter came to a head, Simko said, when Burton lost the case 
and the court ordered the plaintiffs to pay attorney fees and 
penalties for filing a frivolous action.

Simko said a complaint was brought to the court, leading to the 
judge's decision. The order was unusual in that the complaint did 
not follow the typical process of going through the Statewide 
Grievance Committee.

“Though not expressly conferred upon the court, there is no good 
reason to believe that such sanctions are unavailable to the 
court pursuant to its inherent powers,” wrote Judge Motolese.

An aggressive attorney with a passion for environmental issues, 
Burton is known for challenging judges, questioning the conduct 
of opposing attorneys and pursuing her causes with a relentless 
vigor.

In the Bridgeport judicial district her approach has brought 
Burton into direct conflict with the judges and the system. In 
one legal action she filed a federal lawsuit against Connecticut 
Judge Howard J. Moraghan for bringing his dog to the courthouse 
in Danbury. Burton charged that the “large, aggressive dog” 
embarrassed women lawyers and other women in the courthouse by 
sniffing various parts of their bodies and lifting skirts with 
his snout.

While the federal court ultimately rejected the complaint, it 
created a lot of news media attention. 

In a December 1995 letter to then state Supreme Court Chief 
Justice Ellen A. Peters, Burton charged that Moraghan and two 
other judges in the same courthouse intentionally treated her and 
her clients unfairly and were guilty of “the stark appearance of 
judicial corruption.”

The Statewide Grievance Committee ended up issuing a reprimand 
against Burton, concluding she had no evidence to file the 
allegations against the judges.

Burton said the latest decision disbarring her is more evidence 
that the judicial system is out to get her. She likened her 
situation to nuclear workers who have been harassed, disciplined 
and even fired for blowing the whistle on safety and performance 
problems at nuclear plants.

In his decision, Motolese makes reference to nine grievance 
proceedings having been filed against Burton since 1989. In this 
latest case, he found, she “acted out of selfish and dishonest 
motives.”

“Her complete refusal to recognize the wrongfulness of her 
conduct establishes a clear and resolute pattern of misconduct,” 
the judge found. “She has continued to misrepresent the facts 
even to the end.” Instead of remorse, said Motolese, Burton has 
chosen the course of “hostile defiance.”

Clients who have been represented by Burton locally in the cases 
against Millstone said she has always been forthright with them 
and presented their cases aggressively.

“I'm 100 percent behind her,” said Joe Besade of Waterford, 
adding he was shocked to learn of the judge's order. “She has 
been tops with us.”

Rosemary Bassilakis of Haddam, a member of the Citizens Awareness 
Network, said Burton has been a strong advocate for the 
anti-nuclear movement in the state.

“She has been working very hard in a volunteer fashion to bring 
the serious issues regarding nuclear power to the courts,” 
Bassilakis said. “I've never experienced anything of the nature 
of the allegations” contained in the court's decision. 

In his decision, the judge attached several conditions to 
Burton's return to the practice of law after her five-year 
penalty. 

She must complete courses in Connecticut civil practice and legal 
ethics, pass a professional responsibility examination 
administered by the Connecticut Bar, and demonstrate that she 
will conduct herself appropriately.

Burton was admitted to the Connecticut Bar in 1985. She lives in 
Redding.   

© 1998-2001 The Day Publishing Co. 
*****************************************************************
 6  OPPD seeks to leave lawsuit 

Journalstar.com: Nebraska

Thursday, Nov. 8, 2001 

The Associated Press 


The Omaha Public Power District filed a motion Wednesday in 
federal court to withdraw from a lawsuit against the state for 
refusing to license a nuclear waste dump near Butte. 

OPPD President Fred Peterson said in a statement that recent 
court rulings have made it clear that the five-state nuclear 
waste compact is the lead party in the lawsuit. 

The lawsuit, filed in 1998 by OPPD and four other low-level 
nuclear waste generators, accused the state of not acting in good 
faith during the licensing process and allowed "political 
interference with the licensing review thereby tainting it 
illegally." It is scheduled to be heard in June. 

The member states of the compact joined the lawsuit later. The 
other compact states are Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana and 
Oklahoma. 

U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf ruled in August that the 
utilities could not sue Nebraska for more than $100 million spent 
on the licensing process. 

His ruling did not address whether the compact could sue. The 
five-state compact is well-positioned to recover the money, 
Peterson said. 

The compact wants to build a bunker in Boyd County near the South 
Dakota border to hold such things as contaminated tools and 
clothing from nuclear power plants, hospitals and research 
centers in the five compact states. 

Waste generators that sued Nebraska in addition to OPPD were 
Entergy Arkansas, Entergy Gulf States, Entergy Louisiana and Wolf 
Creek Nuclear Operation Corp. of Delaware. 

No other waste generators have made motions to withdraw from the 
lawsuit, said OPPD spokesman Jeff Hanson. 
 

Copyright © 2001, Lincoln Journal Star. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 7  Briefing set for officials on nuclear plant safety

Chicago Tribune | 

November 8, 2001

Exelon to explain Zion precautions

By Susan Kuczka, Tribune staff reporter. Tribune Washington correspondent 
      Mike Dorning contributed to this report

As Lake County residents pepper local officials with questions 
about the shuttered nuclear plant in Zion, its owner has invited 
the officials to a private briefing Thursday on security measures 
implemented since Sept. 11.

"I get asked all the time, `What happens if it gets hit by a 
plane?'" said Lake County Board Chairwoman Suzi Schmidt (R-Lake 
Villa). "It's a scary time for people, and it's been a common 
question lately. I want to get myself educated and see for myself 
what security measures have been taken."

Schmidt and state Rep. Susan Garrett (D-Lake Forest) said 
Wednesday that they plan to attend the meeting.

Garrett said, "I have serious concerns about what we're doing to 
protect our citizens and our communities from any kind of attack, 
and I want to ensure that we are doing everything possible to 
ensure that we don't have a terrorist attack on a nuclear power 
plant in northern Illinois."

Exelon Nuclear, a division of Exelon Corp., runs the Zion plant.

The company has held meetings with government officials near the 
company's other Illinois power plants in Braidwood, Byron, 
Dresden, LaSalle, Clinton and the Quad Cities, said Ann Mary 
Carley, company spokeswoman.

"We have continued since Sept. 11 to make sure that every time 
something changes, that we give them a buzz," Carley said.

Thursday's meeting will be at the Power House Museum next to the 
plant on Shiloh Boulevard. Exelon officials wouldn't discuss why 
the meeting is not public or whom they invited. Carley said fewer 
than 10 people were invited.

Although the Zion plant was closed for decommissioning in 1998, 
security has always been an issue because an estimated 2.7 
million pounds of spent nuclear fuel rods are stored on site, 
about 120 yards from Lake Michigan.

Tighter security

Security got tighter at Zion and the six nuclear power plants 
operating in Illinois after the Nuclear Regulatory Commission 
ordered the plants placed on high alert after the September 
attacks, NRC spokeswoman Pam Alloway-Mueller said.

Last week, Gov. George Ryan ordered the Illinois National Guard 
to send troops to protect all of the state's nuclear plants, 
including Zion, after the Justice Department issued a terrorist 
alert for the entire nation.

The FAA also ordered a weeklong flying ban over the nation's 
nuclear power sites after the Justice Department issued its 
alert. The ban ended at 11 p.m. Tuesday, but the FAA immediately 
put a "special notice" into effect Wednesday, ordering small 
planes not to "loiter or circle" over nuclear power plants.

Meanwhile in Washington, some congressmen, including U.S. Rep. 
Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), whose 10th District includes Zion, said the 
threat of terrorism highlights the need to move spent fuel at 
decommissioned plants such as Zion to a permanent storage 
facility.

"This totally underscores the need for making a decision on a 
permanent storage facility and giving us a vision of the future 
120 years from now when we do not have nuclear material next to 
Lake Michigan," Kirk said last week.

Moving spent fuel

Congress has been considering moving all of the nation's spent 
fuel to a single storage site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. 
Opposition to the proposal has been growing.

The Energy Department is studying the site, which is about 100 
miles from Las Vegas. The department could make a recommendation 
to Congress as early as December, Kirk said.

"[The spent fuel] can be left on-site much more safely and 
securely than by putting it on truck beds and railway cars, where 
all sorts of mischief and mayhem could keep it from reaching its 
final destination," said Nathan Naylor, a spokesman for Senate 
Majority Whip Harry Reid (D-Nev.).

If a single repository is approved soon, experts say it would 
take at least until 2010 to begin moving the spent rods because 
of preparation work that needs to be done.


Copyright © 2001, Chicago Tribune 
*****************************************************************
 8  Letters - Just the Facts About Nuclear Power 

The Providence Journal ( November 08, 2001 ) 

Having recently toured the Visitor Center of the Seabrook (N.H.) 
nuclear-power plant, I was intrigued by Seth Kaplan's letter 
("Don't even think about nukes for power," Aug. 16). 

      His assertion that nuclear power is uneconomic [and] 
environmentally and socially suicidal is quite contrary to the 
impression one gets in the Seabrook presentation and a further 
review of the facts. According to the Nuclear Energy Institute, 
100 nuclear power plants account for 20 percent of the 
electricity generated in the country. 

      Critics often cite the accident at Three Mile Island as 
proof that nuclear power is unsafe. However, redundant safety 
systems, engineered into the design, construction, and operation 
of all U.S. nuclear plants contained the damage. 

      Studies by Columbia University scientists and the National 
Cancer Institute concluded that the accident caused no 
public-health hazard. 

      Radioactive waste, a byproduct of nuclear energy, has been 
safely and responsibly stored for more than 25 years. Plans for a 
central repository of waste material in Nevada, complete with 
protocol for safe transport, are near completion under the 
auspices of no less than five federal regulatory agencies. The 
evidence suggests that nuclear power, already a significant 
source of U.S. energy, is, in fact, environmentally safe, 
efficient, and viable. Like Mr. Kaplan, foes often feed public 
ignorance with alarmist rhetoric as a substitute for scientific 
evidence. 

      Anyone with objective curiosity might find the drive to 
Seabrook enlightening. At the very least, it will provide a 
foundation of knowledge to separate fact from unfounded 
hyperbole. 

      MARC R. BEAUSOLEIL Cumberland
      
(C) 2001 The Providence Journal. via ProQuest Information and 
*****************************************************************
 9  Japan: Nuclear reactor closed after steam leak 

BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Nov 8, 2001

Shizuoka, Japan 8 November: Enormous pressure may have suddenly 
cracked a carbon steel pipe Wednesday [7 November] at a nuclear 
reactor in Hamaoka, Shizuoka Prefecture, resulting in a leakage 
of steam and some radioactive material in a pressure-injection 
system, the government said Thursday. 

The leak occurred during testing of a start-up system for a 
high-pressure core injection (HPCI) system at the No. 1 reactor 
unit in Chubu Electric Power Co's Hamaoka nuclear power plant, 
the Nagoya-based utility said. The HPCI system is designed to 
cool the reactor core in the event of an emergency. 

The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency of the Ministry of 
Economy, Trade and Industry said it is the first time for such a 
pipe to crack, and it intends to order similar pipes be inspected 
at other plants in Japan if necessary. The agency dispatched four 
inspectors to the plant and is investigating the cause of the 
incident. 

It said the 1-cm-thick, 15-cm-diameter pipe is made of carbon 
steel. The rupture was found in an elbowed part of the pipe, 
which carries 290 C steam under 70 atmospheres of pressure. The 
company checks the HPCI system every month and conducts annual 
overall inspections to look for leaks, but had found no problems, 
it said. 

The agency also said the accident was provisionally designated 
Level 1, or "anomaly", on the International Nuclear Event Scale 
and was a deviation from operational safety limits. Level 1 is 
the second category on a scale of 8 that begins at zero. It is 
more serious than a Level Zero "deviation" of no safety 
significance and less serious than a Level 2 "incident" that 
involves significant spread of contamination or worker 
overexposure... 

In the latest mishap, Chubu Electric estimated the level of 
radioactive material leaked to be 400 becquerels per cubic cm. It 
added it completely shut down the reactor early Thursday. The 
HPCI system stopped operating around 1700 [local time] Wednesday 
during a test run after smoke alarms in the building went off, it 
said. No fire was reported at the site, and the alarms may have 
been activated by the steam, local government officials said. 

The plant operator immediately began a manual shutdown of the 
reactor to pinpoint the cause of the trouble. The No. 1 unit 
houses a boiling-water reactor capable of generating up to 
540,000 kW of electricity. 

The company is cleaning up radioactive materials remaining in the 
residual heat-removal system. When the removal is completed, 
plant employees will investigate the cause of the rupture, the 
utility said. 

The company reported the accident to the state, Shizuoka 
Prefecture and five towns surrounding the plant. There is no risk 
of the radioactive materials leaking outside the plant and no 
employees were confirmed to have been exposed to the radioactive 
material, it added. 

Source: Kyodo News Service, Tokyo, in English 0751 gmt 8 Nov 01 
/BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter All Material Subject to 
*****************************************************************
 10  Russia to begin supplying equipment for Indian nuclear plant 
in early 2002 

BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Nov 8, 2001

Text of report in English by Russian news agency Interfax Moscow, 
8 November: 

Russia will start supplying equipment for India's Kudankulam 
nuclear power station at the beginning of 2002, Viktor Kozlov, 
the general director of Atomstroyeksport, told Interfax. 

"A total of around 300 Russian companies will make equipment 
supplies for the Indian nuclear power station," he said. These 
companies include the Izhora Works, the Urals Heavy Engineering 
Plant, Elektrosila and LMZ (St Petersburg) and the Podolsk 
Engineering Works (Moscow region). 

"A Russian reactor will be delivered for Kudankulam in three 
years," Kozlov said. Construction of the facility will take 6-8 
years. 

"India has already started constructing the nuclear power station 
and there are Atomstroyeksport representatives in India now." 

Russia and India on 6 October in Moscow signed an agreement on 
the construction of two VVER-1000 [water-cooled, water-moderated] 
reactors for the Kudankulam station. 

The Kudankulam nuclear power station will be constructed through 
a Russian project in accordance with an intergovernmental 
agreement between the former Soviet Union and India from 1998. 
The Kudankulam station will use guarantees provided by the 
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). 

The cost of the reactors that will be built in India is estimated 
at 1.5-2bn dollars. The Kudankulam station is expected to be 
launched in 2008-09. 

Source: Interfax news agency, Moscow, in English 1117 gmt 8 Nov 
01 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter All Material Subject to 
*****************************************************************
 11  Anti-Sellafield court case opens in Britain 

New Zealand HeraldLondon IndependentIOL South Africa 

07:18 Thursday November 8th 2001

A case taken by Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth in an attempt 
to block the expansion of Sellafield opens in the British courts 
today. The two environmental groups are challenging the British 
Government&#8217;s decision to allow a mixed oxide (MOX) fuel 
plant to operate at Sellafield, despite the fact that such a 
plant would make it easier for so-called &#8220;terrorists&#8221; 
to obtain the materials needed for a nuclear attack. The MOX 
plant would also be an attractive target for 
&#8220;terrorists&#8221; and would increase the risk to the 
populations of Ireland, Britain, Scotland and Wales.

Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth will argue that under the 
EURATOM treaty, a new nuclear plant can only be given the green 
light if it can bring proven benefits to the economy. 

The two groups believe British Nuclear Fuels gave no such proof 
to the British Government before the latter decided to grant 
permission for the operation of the MOX plant. The British 
Government&#8217;s decision has also angered politicians on this 
side of the Irish Sea and the Irish Government has launched its 
own legal challenge to the plant. The Labour Party&#8217;s Emmet 
Stagg is in London today to support the environmental challenge 
and he has urged the Government to do likewise.
       
      © Copyright Unison
*****************************************************************
 12  Nuclear disaster rehearsal proves to be no match for the big game 

Irish Newspapers - 

Joe Jacob: Big day 

THE government's test next Saturday of the public's response to 
nuclear fall-out is a closely guarded secret - so secret that not 
even Nuclear Safety Minister Joe Jacob or his officials know 
exactly when it will happen. 

Neither is it known where the nuclear radioactivity is "coming" 
from or how much time emergency services would have if it hit the 
country.

But the public will not be troubled by such matters and be able 
to watch the Ireland-Iran World Cup cliff hanger game as they 
will not be involved at all in the exercise.

A spokesperson for the Department of Public Enterprise, which is 
co-ordinating the exercise, said yesterday they did not have any 
details and did not know what time it would start, but insisted 
"this was as it should be" - otherwise various services would be 
given plenty of time to prepare, which would not happen in a 
real-life situation.

Only a few scientists know when the alarm will be sounded and 
there will be no advance tip-off to the emergency services. Once 
the alarm is sounded and the country is put on red alert, 
scientists and senior officials from the Departments of Health, 
Defence, Environment, Agriculture, Marine, Taoiseach, Foreign 
Affairs under the chairmanship of Public Enterprise will gather 
at the headquarters of the Radiological Protection Institute of 
Ireland (RPII) in Dublin's Clonskeagh.

From there, officials will monitor the progress of the cloud and 
its likely effects on human and animal health and the food chain.

The RPII has warned a terrorist attack or accident at Sellafield 
would cause significant contamination to the country.

And a number of official studies predict there would be 44 times 
more radioactivity than was released at Chernoblyl and up to 
three million cancers as a result of a major disaster arising 
from a terrorist attack or accident in Sellafield. The RPII has 
also revealed the consequences of an accident stemming from the 
storage of high-level radioactive waste have not been properly 
assessed.

The institute also warned the risk associated with the storage of 
liquid in special tanks represents a serious threat for Ireland. 
The greatest threat would be the risk of developing cancers and 
much would depend on wind direction if Sellafield was attacked.

Treacy Hogan Environment Correspondent

© Copyright Unison
*****************************************************************
 13  Legal challenge mounted to Sellafield 

online.ie 08 Nov 2001 

Environmental groups were today taking the British government to 
court in a bid to prevent the opening of a controversial nuclear 
reprocessing plant.

This action is separate from the one threatened by Bertie Ahern, 
who has urged the British government to abandon the MOX scheme. 
Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace were challenging the 
government's decision to give the go-ahead to the mixed oxide 
(MOX) plant at Sellafield in Cumbria.

They believe the plant is dangerous because it could make it 
easier for terrorists to obtain nuclear materials.

The two groups won the right to a judicial review of the 
Government's decision and the case was being heard at the High 
Court in London today.

They will argue that the new plant is unlawful because the 
economic benefits of the scheme have been "distorted" and there 
is insufficient evidence that the plant would attract customers 
such as the Japanese.

Charles Secrett, director of Friends of the Earth, said: "The 
government's decision to allow the MOX plant to open is 
dangerous, uneconomic and perverse.

"The decision makes the world an even more dangerous place. "The 
plant will struggle to find clients and may never make any money. 
We will challenge ministers to justify this foolish decision in 
court."

The plant, which turns "spent" plutonium and uranium into usable 
fuel, was completed by Sellafield's owners BNFL in 1996 and is 
expected to open later this month.
*****************************************************************
 14  Call for Sellafield no-fly zone by FG 

online.ie : News

The Irish Examiner 08 Nov 2001 

By Mary Dundon, Political Reporter

FINE GAEL Environment spokeswoman Deirdre Clune yesterday 
challenged the Taoiseach to demand a no-fly zone around the 
Sellafield nuclear plant in Cumbria.

Deputy Clune said Mr Ahern must demand that security there is on 
a par with other installations around the world as fears of 
terror attacks on nuclear plants increase.

The Fine Gael environment spokeswoman asked why Sellafield had 
not been declared a no-fly zone already. 

The Cap de la Hague nuclear plant in France now has a no fly-zone 
of 10 km around the site and has fighter planes and anti-aircraft 
missiles in position, according to Deputy Clune.

"Why are there no fighter planes and anti-aircraft missiles 
protecting Sellafield? What has to happen before the Taoiseach 
will start to take the safety of the Irish people seriously?" she 
said. British Nuclear Fuels Ltd (BNFL) manages the Sellafield 
plant and their spokesperson said yesterday he could not discuss 
their safety measures because it would compromise the plant's 
security.

But he stressed their safety measures are constantly under review 
and monitored by the Office of Civil Nuclear Security.

A spokesperson for the Taoiseach said they have been assured by 
the BNFL that the most stringent security is in place at 
Sellafield. On Saturday, the Government is having a trial run of 
its emergency plan in the event of a nuclear accident at 
Sellafield.

However, Deputy Clune said while this is a necessary exercise, 
the Taoiseach would be better off getting assurances from the 
British Government that everything possible is being done to 
secure the plant.

Meanwhile, a leading European scientist said yesterday Sellafield 
is a sitting nuclear bomb and all Osama Bin Laden needs is a 
plane to crash into it.

Michael Schneider said there is no need for Bin Laden to acquire 
a nuclear bomb when there are plants like Sellafield and other 
nuclear plants around the world.

"All a terrorist needs is a plane to crash into it - and he would 
not even need to buy the fuel," Mr Schneider told the Marian 
Finucane radio show.

Mr Schneider made this observation in a report to the European 
Parliament, where he also revealed a crash into Sellafield would 
release 100 times more radiation than emitted in the Chernobyl 
disaster.
*****************************************************************
 15  Sellafield 'wide open' to terror attacks 

online.ie : News

The Irish Examiner 08 Nov 2001 

By Mary Dundon, Political Reporter

THE Sellafield nuclear plant is seriously exposed to a terrorist 
rocket attack from the nearby hills, beach and golf course. Fine 
Gael Senator Fergus O'Dowd and a TV news crew this week walked 
the length of the adjoining beach and golf course and drove right 
up to the front gate without being stopped.

On Tuesday, they were denied access to the plant and decided to 
test the security.

"A crowd of nuclear terrorists could play golf or walk the beach 
and mount a sudden and detrimental attack on Sellafield. There is 
more security at the Butlins holiday camp," Senator O'Dowd said.

However, a spokesman for Sellafield management last night said 
they had no reason to believe it was a target despite a 
hard-hitting EU report recently warning of the risk to nuclear 
power plants.

Senator O'Dowd and the Channel 4 team also saw a man who was 
jogging on the beach hop over a railway fence beside the plant in 
view of a police woman who failed to challenge him.

No one stopped Senator O'Dowd and the Channel 4 team climbing the 
highest nearby hill. "We could see no security protecting 
Sellafield and there was no one up there to stop anyone launching 
a rocket if they wanted to," he said. "There was no visible 
military security, all we saw were police with dogs and four or 
five police patrol vans," Senator O'Dowd added.

British Nuclear Fuels Ltd (BNFL) which manages Sellafield 
yesterday refused to comment on these claims of major security 
lapses which will be aired in the coming days in a Channel 4 news 
documentary. "We cannot talk about safety measures at the plant 
because that would compromise our security system," the BNFL 
spokesman said. He stressed the adjoining beach and golf course 
are public areas, but insisted there is no way an outsider could 
get into Sellafield from either of these.

"We have absolutely no reason to believe that Sellafield is a 
terrorist target and the measures we have in place are constantly 
under review by the Office of Civil Nuclear Security," the BNFL 
spokesman said.

Senator O'Dowd last night called on the Irish Government to 
demand an immediate tightening of security at Sellafield. 

But the Taoiseach's spokesman said Mr Ahern had already raised 
security at Sellafield with the British Prime Minister, Tony 
Blair. He added that the Government expected these concerns to be 
heeded by Mr Blair.

*****************************************************************
 16  Report estimates cost of withdrawal from nuclear power at 

30bn-76bn euros (Une etude evalue entre 30 et 76 milliards 
d'euros l'abandon du nucleaire en France) Les Echos - France; Nov 
8, 2001


A report from the French finance ministry shows that abandoning 
nuclear power in 2020 would cost the government between 30.5bn 
and 76bn euros and would have a substantial impact on the 
economy. The report concludes that "prolonging existing power 
stations seems more advisable in terms of the macro- and 
micro-economic situation". 



On the basis of current levels of expertise and need, nuclear 
power stations would have to be replaced by combined cycle gas 
power stations, which are harmful to the ozone layer. 


Abstracted from Les Echos 


All Material Subject to Copyright
*****************************************************************
 17  Slovene premier tells Croatia nuclear plant, border accords go 
hand in hand 

BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Nov 8, 2001


Text of report by Slovene radio on 7 November 

[Announcer] Slovene Prime Minister Janez Drnovsek told the 
Croatian weekly Globus that it would be difficult to sign the 
Krsko nuclear power plant agreement without Zagreb's approval of 
the Slovene-Croatian border agreement. He added that it was 
almost impossible to approve the two agreements separately. 

Drnovsek also said that, by signing the border agreement, we 
could arrive at a quicker solution of the question of debt owed 
to former Croatian savers by the Ljubljanska Banka. 

According to Drnovsek, the uncertainty around the fate of the 
agreement is slowing down the development of good bilateral 
relations. 

Source: Radio Slovenia, Ljubljana, in Slovene 1800 gmt 7 Nov 

01 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter All Material Subject to 
*****************************************************************
 18  Czechs will not shut down disputed nuclear power plant, says 
Austrian daily 

BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Nov 8, 2001

Vienna, 8 November: There is a general opinion in Austria that 
the south Bohemian Temelin nuclear power station can be easily 
switched off, the Austrian daily Der Standard writes today. 
"However, it cannot and not only because the switch is not in 
Austria but because Czechs could do this but they do not want and 
will not do so," the paper says. 

They cannot switch off Temelin because they do not see any other 
alternative at present. Moreover, Czechs do not want to take such 
a step because they are insulted by the form of Austrian 
protests. "They will not close the power station even if the 
energy chapter at their accession talks with the European Union 
will remain open for long months to come," the paper says. 

"Every time we drive a car we expose ourselves to a greater risk 
than that which the operation of Temelin presents," the author 
says. Regardless of the shortcomings faced by the station, the 
probability that damage would be caused by a nuclear catastrophe 
is considerably lower than an injury during a road accident. "All 
of us will have to get used to this risk," the paper says. 

"Czechs know all this better than most Austrians," the paper 
says, adding that most part of discussions between Austrian 
politicians on Temelin consists of mutual accusations that they 
fight against Temelin insufficiently or not at all due to bad 
intentions. This internal dispute also undermines Austria's 
position in the talks on the improvement of Temelin, Der Standard 
concludes... 

Source: CTK news agency, Prague, in English 0841 gmt 8 Nov 01 
/BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter All Material Subject to 
*****************************************************************
 19  'We'll quit UK' warns British Energy 

The Daily Telegraph (UK Abstracts); Nov 8, 2001


British Energy (BE) yesterday announced that unless the UK 
government sanctions the use of nuclear energy in its pending 
energy policy review, the company will be forced to move its 
nuclear energy business to North America. 

BE has also asked the government's Liabilities Management Agency 
to shoulder the GBP3.4bn of decommissioning liabilities and to 
aid it in renegotiating its contract with BNFL. 







Abstracted from: The Daily Telegraph 




Copyright 2000: Financial Times Information. All rights 
*****************************************************************
 20  Armenian science academy urges monitoring of most polluted areas 

BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Nov 8, 2001

Text of report by Armenian news agency Noyan Tapan Yerevan, 7 
November: 

The participants in the session of the presidium of the Armenian 
National Academy of Sciences, which was held on 7 November, spoke 
about the need to monitor the environment in high risk areas. The 
head of the centre for ecosphere research under the National 
Academy of Sciences, Armen Sagatelyan, presented information 
about risk factors in his report. The high risk areas in Armenia 
are primarily around the Armenian Nuclear Power Station, chemical 
enterprises, rivers receiving industrial waste and mountain 
terrain which receives rainfall containing radionuclides. 
According to this report, the radiation levels around the 
Armenian Nuclear Power Station are normal. However, there is also 
information that radionuclides could accumulate, for instance, in 
the eggs of birds here. Specialists say that research to this 
effect should be conducted continuously in order to ensure 
environmental security. 

Another problem is waste from chemical enterprises. As is known, 
specialists of the ecocentre say, chemical enterprises in 
Alaverdi and Vanadzor Districts in many cases began working in 
violation of technological norms after their work was suspended 
and they were privatized. These violations caused the pollution 
of the Debed River, and we can see dead fish on the surface of 
this river now. The Maneks and Valleks company, which produces 
copper, and the Vanadzor chemical factory are still the main 
polluters of the environment, the specialists said. 

The scientists believe that the main problem is that instead of 
coordinating activities to protect the environment, various 
bodies are dealing with [individual] environmental problems. 
There is a need for scientists to take part in making decisions 
on environmental protection, while different bodies actively use 
the research of these scientists free of charge. The deputy head 
of the Armenian National Academy of Sciences, Emil Gabriyelyan, 
suggested that requests for scientific research be registered as 
a state order. 

Source: Noyan Tapan news agency, Yerevan, in Russian 7 Nov 01 
/BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter All Material Subject to 
*****************************************************************
 21    Reliance on government support undermines BE   

The Times

THURSDAY NOVEMBER 08 2001   
    
  TEMPUS BY ROBERT COLE   
    
  THE measures being taken internally at British Energy give good 
reasons for investors to hold the shares. Its dependence on the 
beneficence of the UK Government, however, creates serious 
doubts. 

Business is neither easy or simple for the UK’s nuclear power 
generator. The price of its product, electricity, is falling and 
there is little reason to believe it will improve. The inflexible 
nature of nuclear generation means BE production cannot be easily 
applied to swings in consumer demand. The unexpected outages that 
occurred last year also raise fears that BE plants cannot be 
relied on to deliver. 

Numbers published yesterday suggest that BE is meeting its 
challenges with appreciable skill. But by the company’s own 
admission it is far from enjoying control of its own destiny. It 
says it can do no more than break even in the UK unless the 
Government accepts responsibility for the disposal of waste 
produced while the industry was nationalised. It also says that 
unless the system of waste disposal is reformed to lower costs, 
it will not build a next-generation of nuclear power plants 
because they will not be economically viable. 

In the short term BE’s dependency need not be disastrous. The 
first of BE’s eight nuclear power plants is not due to be 
decommissioned until 2011 and the lives of the other seven 
stretch for up to 30 years. BE also derives an increasing 
proportion of profits from nuclear capacity owned in North 
America. Profits from across the Atlantic should cover UK losses. 

It is also conceivable that British Energy could subsist on only 
non-British assets. Bereft of UK obligations, it could develop 
international operations quite aggressively. But if the shares 
are to flourish, BE needs a profitable home business. And it is a 
brave shareholder who bets the UK Government will act positively 
and decisively in favour of this company. Sell. 

FirstGroup
 
AS WITH British Energy, political risk hangs darkly over 
FirstGroup. Given the exposure to UK railways, the risk is 
probably more apparent. 

At first glance, yesterday’s results from FirstGroup made 
passably comforting reading. Pre-tax profits fell but that was 
because 2000 figures were inflated by profits from the now-sold 
Bristol airport. Profits from continuing operations were flat and 
the contribution from rail rose. 

But normal laws of commerce do not apply here. FirstGroup profits 
from rail did not go up because it carried more passengers or 
charged them more. Profits rose thanks to compensation payments 
made via the arcane regulatory regime. 

Attempts to look through the numbers to see some sort of 
sustainable growth pattern are impossibly obscured. Moreover, the 
investment hopes for FirstGroup shares, in common with peers, 
hinge on what used to be a positive outlook for passenger growth. 

But investors must assume that the Government action against 
Railtrack means infrastructure work will not be competed as 
quickly as was hoped. Rail network capacity improvements and 
FirstGroup’s ability to generate visible earnings depend, at 
least in part, on infrastructure expenditure. 

In light of the Railtrack events, investors in rail operators 
must also question the security of dividend payments. 
FirstGroup’s state subsidy runs at £40 million, about the same 
amount required to fund the dividend paid to investors in this 
firm. There is more to FirstGroup than rail. But the rail 
questions undermine the stock. Sell. 

Carphone
 
THE problems in the mobile phone market are amply demonstrated by 
the Carphone Warehouse share price. Shares in the mobile phone 
retailer have halved in value since its listing in London midway 
through last year. 

The network operators’ decision to cut subsidies on pre-pay 
phones, the main engine behind the market’s astronomical growth 
last year, contributed to a 40 per cent plunge in mobile phone 
sales in the UK between April and September. On top of that, 
investors have become concerned that the market is fast maturing. 
Sporting the latest handset with the wackiest ring tone is not a 
high priority for consumers worried about losing their jobs. 

Carphone, however, seems to be riding out the turmoil relatively 
well. It sold 1.6 million handsets in the first half, 14 per cent 
more than in the first six months of 2000. Like-for-like revenues 
were down 5 per cent, but each store was 2 per cent more 
profitable than last year because Carphone sold more phones on 
contract and contracted deals bring more lucrative commissions 
than pre-paid. Carphone stands to benefit from expanding its 
telecoms services activities, such as handling billing for 
network operators. In time, and as new-generation mobile 
technology comes in, the group may win more business from people 
replacing handsets. 

Having once traded on a multiple of 50, the shares now sit on a 
far more reasonable price/earnings ratio of 23. But this does not 
make them cheap, only less expensive. Avoid.
 
tempus@thetimes.co.uk [tempus@thetimes.co.uk] 
  
  Copyright 2001 Times Newspapers Ltd. This service is provided 
*****************************************************************
 22  Russia receives first nuclear waste imports from Bulgaria - 
Russian TV 

BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Nov 8, 2001

Text of report by Russian TV6 on 8 November 

[Presenter Yelizaveta Listova] One of the main questions to be 
tackled after the investigators finish their inspection of the 
[raised atomic submarine] Kursk is how to extract the spent fuel 
from the submarine's two nuclear reactors. It will be done not 
far from Roslyakovo at the Nerpa Plant in Snezhnogorsk. The fuel 
will most probably be recycled at the Mayak Plant in Chelyabinsk. 

Meanwhile it became known today that nuclear waste from Bulgaria 
has been delivered for the first time to the second largest 
Russian plant that recycles [spent nuclear] fuel in the famous 
closed city of Krasnoyarsk-26. According to unofficial 
information, 41 tonnes of radioactive waste was brought to the 
Krasnoyarsk Mining and Chemical Plant on a train form the nuclear 
power plant in Bulgaria's Kozloduy. Now in Krasnoyarsk-26, which 
was recently renamed Zheleznogorsk, the waste will be buried and 
later recycled. 

All of this is raising concerns among environmentalists, who are 
speaking out publicly against the import of spent nuclear fuel to 
Russia from abroad. But the government hopes that after Bulgaria, 
other countries will start sending waste to Russia, and that this 
will bring in a few billion dollars of revenue. It is said that 
the profits will go partially towards funding the construction of 
new [nuclear waste] storage facilities in Krasnoyarsk. 

Source: TV6, Moscow, in Russian 1200 gmt 8 Nov 01 /BBC 
Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter All Material Subject to 
*****************************************************************
 23  Propaganda on nuke safety lamented -

DAWN - National; 08 November, 2001


KARACHI, Nov 7: The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf has warned that if a 
foreign power under any pretext attacked or tried to "liquidate 
Pakistan's nuclear facilities, it would have to face a joint 
resistance of the armed forces as well as people of Pakistan , 
and a threat of war would spread to all of South Asia. 

"The command and control of our nuclear facilities was in the 
safe hands, which are protected by a specially constituted 
strategic force. The government is not in a danger of being 
overthrown as none of the opposition parties were demanding or 
working for that purpose. Such a scenario was being built up in 
the media which is orchestrated by the US and Zionists", said PTI 
secretary general Mairaj Muhammad Khan. 

Talking to newsmen in Karachi on Wednesday, he maintained that 
the US-Zionist intelligence agencies were behind the propaganda 
being unleased by the western media that Pakistan's nuclear 
weapons were not in safe hands. 

"These forces are opposed to Pakistan's nuclear programme and are 
trying to give an impression that the government is threatened 
with civil strife and is likely to be replaced by extremist 
religious elements". 

According to Mairaj Muhammad Khan, the US would like to use such 
a "smokescreen" to attack and liquidate Pakistan's nuclear 
facilities or at least put pressure to ensure joint US-Pakistan 
control of "our strategic assets". 

He contended that the US had proved to be what he called "a very 
unreliable friend". 

He demanded that first, the government should closely monitor the 
activities of US forces based in Pakistan; secondly the US should 
not be allowed to use any airbase near our nuclear installations 
and thirdly, the US forces be asked to leave Pakistani soil at 
the earliest.-PPI 

© The DAWN Group of Newspapers, 2001
*****************************************************************
 24  Nevada congresswoman asks probe of Yucca Mountain law firm
 
Las Vegas SUN
 
November 07, 2001 
 
LAS VEGAS (AP) - A Nevada congresswoman is asking the District of 
Columbia Bar to step up a conflict-of-interest investigation of a 
law firm working on a proposal for a nuclear waste dump near Las 
Vegas. 

U.S. Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., made public a letter seeking 
the inquiry into Winston &Strawn, a Chicago-based firm with a 
$16.5 million contract to advise the federal Energy Department on 
license preparations for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste 
repository. 

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said last week it was 
investigating accusations that a confidential commission document 
had been leaked to Winston &Strawn and distributed to officials 
at the Energy Department's Yucca Mountain program office in Las 
Vegas. 

The Energy Department is the applicant and the Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission would be the licensing agency if the nation's 77,000 
tons of radioactive waste is entombed beneath a volcanic ridge at 
the western edge of the Nevada Test Site, about 90 miles 
northwest of Las Vegas. 

Nevada's top official working against the Yucca Mountain proposal 
compared the leak to distributing the answers to a test ahead of 
time. 

Berkley said in a letter to the District of Columbia bar that if 
the document was released, it corrupted the Yucca Mountain 
project licensing process. "Apparently, the law firm provided the 
draft document to its client, the DOE, in violation of federal 
law," she said. 

Charles Connor, a Winston &Strawn attorney and spokesman, told 
the Las Vegas Review-Journal that he had not seen the Berkley 
letter and wouldn't comment on it. 

A spokeswoman for the Washington, D.C., bar said Berkley's letter 
will be forwarded to the bar counsel, which fields complaints and 
conducts hearings into allegations of wrongdoing against lawyers 
licensed to work in the nation's capital. 

Berkley filed an Oct. 12 complaint against Winston &Strawn based 
on reports that the firm had been performing work on the nuclear 
waste program while it was registered to lobby Congress on behalf 
of the Nuclear Energy Institute, which favors a repository at 
Yucca Mountain. 

The Energy Department's inspector general also is investigating 
possible conflicts of interest by the law firm. 

Information from: Las Vegas Review-Journal 

All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
 25  Nuclear plant gets $25 million upgrade

DesMoinesRegister.com | News
 		 			 			 			 			 			 			 			 			 		 
'This is very, very good for customers,' an Alliant manager says 
of the project. By S.P. DINNEN 
[dinnens@news.dmreg.com?Subject=Online: Nuclear plant gets $25 
million upgrade] 

Register Business Writer 11/08/2001

 A $25 million upgrade at Iowa's lone nuclear power plant should 
result in enough new energy production to serve 36,000 homes.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission gave approval to Nuclear 
Management Co. to initially add an extra 45 megawatts of 
electricity production to the Duane Arnold nuclear plant near 
Palo.

Hudson, Wis.-based Nuclear Management runs the 535-megawatt plant 
on behalf of Alliant Energy, Central Iowa Power Co. and Corn Belt 
Power Cooperative.

Bruce Lacy, manager of nuclear business for Alliant, said the 
yearlong, multimillion-dollar project involved enhancing the 
ability of nuclear fuel inside the reactor to produce more steam. 
That in turn is sent to turbines, which also were upgraded to 
produce more electricity.

"This is very, very good for customers," said Lacy, who noted 
that the project was relatively cheap, quick and did not require 
building more power plants or transmission lines.

Federal regulators gave Nuclear Management authority to boost 
power output by a total of 80 megawatts.

Lacy said that once the plant operators are comfortable with the 
45-megawatt increase, they may look to expand capacity by the 
entire approved amount.

Alliant serves 460,000 Iowa customers.                 <img 

Copyright © 2001, The Des Moines Register.
*****************************************************************
 26  Nuclear plant gets waiver on sales tax

 Undergoing decommissioning, Maine Yankee will save millions of 
dollars in construction costs for a radioactive waste storage 
facility. --> 

[http://www.mainetoday.com]     
      
Thursday, November 8, 2001
 
By , Associated Press

 ©Copyright 2001 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This 
  
Maine Yankee has been granted a sales tax waiver that will save 
up to $2.75 million on construction materials for storage of 
high-level radioactive waste materials in Wiscasset. The dry cask 
storage system is meant to be a temporary solution while owners 
of the shuttered nuclear power plant wait for the federal 
government to deliver on its promise of a long-term storage 
facility.
 
The 1,432 spent fuel assemblies will be stored in containers made 
of concrete and steel designed to last at least 22 years.
 
Eric Howes, a spokesman for Maine Yankee, said the 64 containers 
will consist of stainless steel canisters placed inside concrete 
casks. Each will be about 18 feet tall and will rest on a 
concrete pad.
 
The cost is estimated to be $40 million to $55 million. The 5 
percent sales tax amounts to $2 million to $2.75 million.
 
For more than 25 years, owners of Maine's paper mills have 
routinely received sales tax exemptions on equipment purchases 
that reduce pollution, said Bryce Sproul of the Maine Department 
of Environmental Protection.
 
The Board of Environmental Protection's decision on the sales tax 
waiver did not go as far as Maine Yankee had hoped.
 
The plant's owners had hoped to get a sales tax waiver on 
purchases beyond the dry cask storage system. Its application for 
an air-pollution waiver called for sales-tax exemptions on 
temperature monitoring systems, lifting jacks, welding equipment 
and security equipment.
 
During its Nov. 1 meeting, the board followed the DEP staff 
recommendations that scaled down the number of exemptions.
 
Nonetheless, Maine Yankee was pleased with the outcome.
 
"Electric customers will realize a significant savings," Howes 
said. The plant is owned by Central Maine Power and nine other 
utility companies which are paying decommissioning costs that 
could total $637 million.
 
*****************************************************************
 27  Q: Sellafield's Mox plant

BBC News | UK | 

With a series of legal challenges under way over the UK's 
decision to allow the Mox plant at Sellafield to open, BBC News 
Online looks at the issues at stake. What is Mox? Mox (mixed 
oxide) is a way of re-using otherwise useless plutonium - a small 
part of what is left over when waste nuclear fuel is reprocessed. 
	 		 			
The plutonium can be combined with uranium and turned into a fuel 
known as Mox. 

This source of electricity is extremely powerful. Each six-gramme 
pellet holds the same energy as a tonne of coal. 

British Nuclear Fuel (BNFL) - the government-controlled firm that 
runs the Sellafield plant - says three pellets can provide a 
family's needs for an entire year, and the process also reduces 
the amount of highly toxic radioactive waste that must be stored. 

Where is Mox produced? 

Not at Sellafield - yet. The Mox plant there was completed in 
1996, but has yet to start work, mired as it is in controversy. 

The first consultation process began in February 1997. Another 
was launched in 1998 and it was not until the following year that 
the government announced the £470m plant could start work. 

But BNFL was then caught up in controversy over its safety 
culture and the embarrassing falsification of documents for a 
shipment to Japan. Fresh doubts over the reputation and economic 
potential of Sellafield put Mox back on hold. 

In October 2001 Environment Secretary Margaret Beckett finally 
gave the go-ahead for the plant, a decision which was immediately 
subject to calls for a judicial review. 

Who is against the plant? 

Environmental groups Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth have 
joined forces to challenge the government's decision in the High 
Court. 

They say the plant is unnecessary, not economically viable, and 
could make it easier for terrorists to obtain nuclear materials. 

They are against the increase in nuclear power, arguing for 
sustainable and environmentally friendly alternatives. 

The Irish Government is also against the plant, arguing that 
building it in Cumbria on the Irish Sea coast broke international 
laws on sea pollution. Ireland intends to ask the International 
Tribunal for the Law of the Sea to order an immediate suspension 
of the plant's authorisation. 

Norway is also reported to be considering legal action, again 
citing water pollution. 

Could terrorists get hold of Mox fuel? 

Mox fuel would be transported all over the world, but theft or 
sabotage is almost impossible, says BNFL. The guards used to 
escort Mox shipments are heavily armed with rifles, gas masks and 
grenades. 

The ships have double hulls to guard against being rammed or 
running aground, and there are even naval cannons on the deck. 

But the fear, heightened by the recent terror attacks in the US, 
is that terrorists could get hold of Mox and extract the 
plutonium - though there are conflicting opinions about the ease 
with which this could be done. 

The plutonium could be used in nuclear weapons or in "dirty 
bombs" - conventional devices containing the substance. These do 
not explode like a nuclear bomb, but can spread radiation over a 
large area. 

Charles Secrett, director of Friends of the Earth, says: "The 
decision makes the world an even more dangerous place." 

Would the Mox plant make money? 

Greenpeace argues there is insufficient evidence the plant would 
attract enough customers, and the plant would never pay for 
itself. 

Consultants say the plant's operation will be worth £150m to the 
UK over its lifetime, but Greenpeace says this profit is 
distorted because the huge cost of building the plant has already 
been written off. 

Also economic powers such as Japan - BNFL customers since the 
1960s - would play a major role in making the plant a success, 
and Greenpeace says they have an effective moratorium on orders 
from Sellafield following last year's falsification incident. 

But BNFL says it has customers who already use its reprocessing 
facilities that want Mox fuel. It says it has a bulging order 
book. 

It also says the plant will directly support more than 300 jobs 
and indirectly benefit hundreds more in a part of west Cumbria 
highly dependant on BNFL for jobs. Local unions have already 
given their backing. 

*****************************************************************
 28  Nuclear plant tests were 'distorted'

BBC News | UK | 

8 November, 2001, 20:43 GMT       

[Sellafield ]                   

Unions have welcomed the Sellafield decision

Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth (FoE) have begun their court 
action to block the government's go-ahead for a controversial 
nuclear reprocessing plant. They are asking London's High Court 
to declare unlawful the government's decision on the mixed 
plutonium and uranium oxide (mox) plant at Sellafield in Cumbria. 
Lawyers for the groups argue that a flawed and distorted approach 
to crucial economic tests allowed the decision. 
  
They seek to dilute the [economic] test into something rubbery 
and elusive

Lord Lester QC                            

As well as the tests necessary for EU law, they say there was 
insufficient evidence that the plant would attract customers such 
as the Japanese to make it viable. Construction costs of £470m 
had been "disregarded" in assessing whether the scheme could be 
economically justified, Lord Lester QC argued. If they had been 
properly taken into account the scheme would show an overall 
financial loss. Lord Lester told Mr Justice Collins: "They seek 
to dilute the [economic] test into something rubbery and elusive 
which doesn't amount to an effective test at all." 

'Irreversible implementation' 

The environmental groups also believe the plant is dangerous 
because it could make it easier for terrorists to obtain nuclear 
materials. Lord Lester said the case was urgent because British 
Nuclear Fuels Ltd (BNFL) wished to take "irreversible 
implementation steps" for the MOX plant as early as 20 December 
this year. Philip Sales, appearing for the secretaries of state 
for environment and health, said if the court ruled against the 
government, the mox scheme would have to be reconsidered. 
	 		 			
[Nuclear transport ship   ] 

Environmentalists believe terrorists could get hold of nuclear 
materials

Mr Justice Collins asked him: "Even if they (the environmental 
groups) win it is not necessarily the end of mox?" Mr Sales 
replied: "No". 

The judge was told that mox was also coming under challenge by 
the Irish government in Europe. 

Lord Lester said at the heart of the case was the EU Basic Safety 
Standards Directive. The directive imposes a duty on national 
governments to apply a test on all new types of exposure to 
ionizing radiation. 

Radiation-producing practice 

It rules they must be justified because their economic, social or other
benefits outweighed the health detriments they might cause. 
If there was no "net benefit", then the radiation-producing practice was not to
be adopted. 

Government ministers were arguing that the scheme was justified 
because it would provide "significant economic benefits" and had 
a "net present value of £216 million". 

But the capital cost of building the mox plant, which amounted to 
£470 million in June this year, had been disregarded, even though 
the cost was plainly relevant to assessing the benefits. 

'Net benefit' 

Lord Lester argued the point "matters enormously". 

The "net benefit" claimed by the government for mox would 
"disappear" if the the £470 million were included. Overall, the 
costs outweighed the benefit "very substantially". The mox plant, 
which turns "spent" plutonium and uranium into usable fuel, was 
completed by Sellafield's owners BNFL in 1996. Mr Sales argued 
that the exclusion of the £470m "sunk" construction costs when 
assessing the generic benefits of mox was "perfectly normal and 
rational". 

'Open-textured' directive 

It was not only sunk costs which had been left out of account, 
but also potential benefits for BNFL's businesses "likely to run 
into hundreds of millions of pounds". 

Mr Sales said the EU directive applied a test of economic 
justification which was "extremely open-textured". 

Government ministers concluded that the radiological 
disadvantages were "very small". They believed mox manufacture 
could be carried out within limits which would effectively 
protect human health, the safety of the food chain and the 
environment generally. Mox production involved lower security 
risks than transporting plutonium already at Sellafield back to 
customers or third countries. The hearing was adjourned until 
Friday. 
*****************************************************************
 29  Irvine's nuclear reactor may be forced to close

  SignOnSanDiego > News > State/The Region -- 

  ASSOCIATED PRESS 
November 7, 2001 

IRVINE  A declining interest in radiochemistry may force the 
University of California, Irvine to shutter its 250-kilowatt 
nuclear reactor. 

Campus officials are considering the closure of the reactor that 
has been used to study the bullets which killed President John F. 
Kennedy and rock samples brought back from the moon. 

The reactor operated 98 hours during the last fiscal year  less 
than a third of the hours it worked annually during the 1970s. 
However, the 32-year-old reactor has been used by researchers 
from other universities. 

"If we could find a couple of faculty members to build a research 
group around the reactor, it'd probably be worth keeping it in 
operation. But so far, we don't have any likely candidates," said 
F. Sherwood Rowland, a UCI chemist and Nobel laureate. 

Fewer people are studying radiochemistry, a field that uses 
radioactive material to study chemical reactions and identify 
materials. The university's faculty also isn't using the facility 
enough. 

The reactor has a historic past. UCI chemist Vince Guinn studied 
the so-called "magic bullet" that passed through the bodies of 
Texas Gov. John Connelly and President Kennedy in 1963. Kennedy 
was killed by assassin Lee Harvey Oswald and Connelly survived. 

The research showed that the bullet lost only 1 percent of its 
lead, despite hitting two people. Many people believed at the 
time that such small degradation was not possible. 

The reactor also was tapped to determine if a bullet that killed 
Donald DeFreeze, leader of the Symbionese Liberation Army, came 
from a gun belonging to a SWAT team member. DeFreeze was killed 
during a 1974 shootout with Los Angeles police but some 
supporters of the radical group believed DeFreeze committed 
suicide before he was shot by police. 

University officials said closing the reactor would cost about $1 
million. 
  
© Copyright 2001 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.
*****************************************************************
 30  GOVERNMENT FORCED TO DEFEND ITSELF IN HIGH COURT OVER SELLAFIELD 
PLUTONIUM PLANT
 
8 November 2001

 London - The Government goes to court today (10.30 am 8/11/01) 
to defend itself in a joint legal action by Greenpeace and 
Friends of the Earth to prevent the controversial new Sellafield 
plutonium plant from being opened. High Court Judge Mr Justice 
Collins will judicially review the Government’s recent decision 
to allow British Nuclear Fuels Ltd (BNFL) to begin operation of 
the mixed plutonium and uranium oxide or 'MOX' fuel plant at 
Sellafield. The Irish Government has recently launched a separate 
legal challenge to the plant and Norway is also considering legal 
moves. (1) 

Lawyers representing Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace will say 
that Government’s decision is unlawful because state-owned BNFL 
cannot demonstrate an economic justification for the plant and 
there is insufficient evidence that potential customers, such as 
the Japanese, will materialise. Under EU law, the Government must 
be able to show - amongst other things - that the economic 
benefits of the plant outweigh the health and environmental 
detriments. Greenpeace Executive Director Stephen Tindale said, 

"The MOX plant is not only an environmental threat and a 
potential terrorist target but simply does not make business 
sense. Taxpayers will have to bear the brunt of any failure to 
secure customers for a nuclear fuel that is more expensive and 
dangerous to use than the alternatives. BNFL is already set to 
lose £260 million on the building costs of this plant alone – to 
waste any more public money would be frankly obscene." 

Executive Director of Friends of the Earth, Charles Secrett said 
"The Government has fiddled the figures to try and justify giving 
the go-ahead to this nuclear monstrosity. The MOX plant doesn’t 
make economic or environmental sense. It should be consigned to 
the dustbin of history where it belongs. Instead of putting its 
weight behind outdated and expensive technology, the Government 
should champion the cause of safe, clean and green renewable 
energy." 

The MOX plant, completed in 1996, is intended to turn plutonium 
and uranium into usable fuel for overseas nuclear reactors, with 
potential clients including Japan, Sweden, Germany and 
Switzerland, but has not begun operations. The commercial 
go-ahead for the plant was withheld following both financial 
concerns, and a scandal in 1999 in which BNFL workers falsified 
safety data for the new MOX fuel pellets. BNFL’s reputation was 
damaged world-wide, especially in Japan which was about to load a 
trial batch of the fuel into a reactor.

Japanese utilities have so far refused to sign any MOX contracts 
with BNFL. An assessment conducted for the Government this spring 
by consultants prior to its decision to give the go-ahead 
forecast that the MOX plant would earn £200 million. However, 
Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace lawyers will argue that as 
the cost of building the plant was £470 million, this would mean 
an overall financial loss. In addition, this predicted £200m 
income relies on customers that do not exist. BNFL only has 
contracts for less than 10% of the business it hopes to attract 
and the company has also promoted contracts as 'firm' that are 
far from definite (2). The lack of any Japanese contracts is 
striking because BNFL’s Executive Director Norman Askew said in 
an interview last year that "Without Japanese orders we cannot 
justify opening the MOX plant." (3) 

Beyond the legal issues raised in the judicial review 
proceedings, Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth also believe 
that the Government’s decision is dangerously irresponsible and 
could put terrorists closer to obtaining nuclear materials. The 
MOX plant will produce fuel for export, with potentially 50 to 80 
nuclear fuel shipments over the next ten years to Europe and 
Japan. Not only is there a risk of an accident, which would be 
devastating for many of the small island states en-route, who are 
heavily dependent on tourism, agriculture and fishing, but there 
are also concerns over attacks on shipments. There has been 
widespread opposition to previous nuclear shipments by countries 
in the Caribbean, Latin America, Africa and the Pacific. 

Plutonium, which makes up part of the MOX fuel is one of the most 
dangerous materials in the world. As little as 4kg is required to 
make a nuclear bomb. Far less is required to make a ‘dirty bomb’ 
– conventional explosive added to plutonium so it causes 
widespread contamination on detonation. Sellafield itself may 
also be a terrorist target because of the large quantities of 
plutonium stored there. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:
 
- Greenpeace Press Office on 0207 865 8255 or Friends of the 
Earth Press Office on +44 207 566 1649. Media Briefing on the 
Sellafield MOX plant available from the Greenpeace Press Office 
or at www.greenpeace.org.uk [http://www.greenpeace.org.uk] 

Visit www.britishnuclearfuels.com 
[http://www.britishnuclearfuels.com] for more information. 

Notes: 

(1) The Irish Government is arguing that the MOX plant will 
breach international laws on sea pollution. Ireland will ask the 
International Law of the Sea Tribunal in Hamburg to order an 
immediate suspension of the plant’s authorisation and 
international transports pending the Tribunal’s decision. Norway 
is considering legal action. Norway already suffers radioactive 
pollution of its fish shellfish and lobsters. Both countries are 
also concerned about any potential terrorist threat. 

(2) BNFL described an agreement with a Swedish nuclear utility as 
a "contract" in a press release of 8th May 2001, yet the reactor 
in question doesn’t even have Government authority to use MOX. 
The Government’s own figures put contracts at only 11%. A "Head’s 
of Agreement" with a German utility is also used to justify 
BNFL’s claims that the MOX has a further 14% of business and is 
now at break even point, but these are not firm contracts. 

(3) Interview with the Guardian, 15th November 2000. Full quote: 
"Without Japanese orders we cannot justify opening the MOX plant. 
We have no time to finesse this: we have until about next January 
or February (2001), otherwise we will have to abandon the 
project." 
*****************************************************************
 31  Police Gear Up for N-Shipment
 
IHT: 
 	 	 	 	 	 	 	
The Daily Star, FAZ, Ha'aretz, Italy Daily, JAI and Kathimerini           
   	 		  
Reuters Reuters Thursday, November 8, 2001              
 	    
BERLIN The German police said Wednesday that they would provide 
15,000 officers to ensure the safe transport next week of nuclear 
waste from France to a storage site in northern Germany.

A shipment of six containers carrying German nuclear waste 
reprocessed in France is due to return by rail to the site in the 
northern town of Gorleben.

Earlier this year, anti-nuclear activists briefly held up 
shipments of waste from reprocessing in France by chaining 
themselves to the tracks.

Protesters have vowed to disturb the passage of the rail convoy, 
which is due to leave La Hague in northern France on Monday and 
will reach an unloading station in Germany on Tuesday evening.  

Copyright © 2001 the International Herald Tribune All Rights 
Reserved
*****************************************************************
 32  Nuclear Plants: Are They Safe? 
                                        
Local - WISN - updated 9:39 PM ET Nov 8   
WISN TheMilwaukeeChannel.com     

 U.S. nuclear power plants are still on their highest alert since 
the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

At Wisconsin's two nuclear facilities, Kewaunee and Point Beach, 
sheriff deputies are on guard. Just across the border there is 
another plant in Zion, Ill.

After Sept. 11, the agency that oversees nuclear plants said 
their facilities could withstand a plane crash. In a 12 News 
Investigation Ben Tracy found that they have known for years 
their plants are not as secure as they said. The town of Two 
Rivers, population 13,000, has almost as many stories. "It's the 
coolest spot in Wisconsin they claim, and it's the home of the 
ice cream sundae and we do have a celebrity from Hollywood who 
married a girl from

Two Rivers, Charlton Heston," Bob Muldowney said.

The scariest thing around there is usually Halloween decorations, 
but something has changed, Tracy reported.

"Just kind of apprehensive you know," one resident said A few 
miles up the lake on an ominous road, the wide-open space is now 
confined. The people around there live in the shadow of not one, 
but two nuclear power plants, Point Beach and Kewaunee.

"I thought it would be kind of dangerous to be so close to 
something like that," Elaine Specht said.

Since Sept. 11 both sites have been on high alert.

"Last time we were at this level of security was during the Gulf 
War ( 
[http://rd.yahoo.com/DailyNews/manual/*http://search.news.yahoo.com/search/news?
p=%22Gulf%20War%22&c=&n=20&yn=c&c=news&cs=nw]  - 
[http://rd.yahoo.com/DailyNews/manual/*http://search.yahoo.com/bin/search?p=Gulf
%20War] )," Mark Reddeman of the Kewaunee nuclear plant said. 
Everything coming in is stopped and searched. The public is no 
longer allowed on the property. WISN 12 News had to do its 
interview across the street. "Security is a very important piece 
of insuring that our neighbors and our employees are safe, and we 
take that very seriously," Reddeman said.

Terrorism is a concern but even now they do not train to handle a 
plane crashing into the plant. Their terrorist scenario is 
different. "Being able to repel a paramilitary group that is 
armed with automatic weapons and explosives and has the benefit 
of an insider," Reddeman said. Nuclear power plants are sturdy. 
Three to five feet of steel-reinforced concrete surround two more 
steel chambers that hold the reactor. That's why the Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission, which oversees the nation's plants, 
believed a plane was not a threat, Tracy reported.

In 1982, the NRC did a test crash into five feet of concrete. The 
plane hardly made a dent, leading NRC officials to believe that 
nuclear plants were safe. But the plane used in the test was an 
F-4 fighter jet, much smaller than a commercial airliner.

"If a plane is not a threat to nuclear power plants then it was 
not a threat to the World Trade Center, period," Michael Kohn of 
National Whistleblowers Organization said.

Kohn represents the National Whistleblowers Organization which is 
suing the NRC. In the suit they accuse regulators of lying to the 
public after Sept. 11 about the durability of nuclear plants.

"For the industry to say that the plants are safe from air 
assault is an outright falsehood being predicated on the American 
people to give them a false sense of security. It is no different 
than the tobacco industry saying smoking won't cause cancer," 
Kohn said.

For two decades the NRC has had an energy department report 
saying a larger plane could cause damage, and if it breached the 
plant's concrete barriers that could be tantamount to a release 
of radioactivity.

"It could blow the entire containment structure apart. It could 
turn the containment structure itself into a bomb," Kohn said. 
The NRC may have unknowingly provided terrorists with that 
information. The longitude/latitude coordinates of U.S. nuclear 
plants were posted on NRC Web sites and still available to anyone 
weeks after Sept. 11.

The Energy Department informatin was in their public reading 
room. It detailed the speed at which a plane could breach a 
plant. It also noted just 1 percent of a jet's fuel igniting 
could cause an explosion equal to 1,000 pounds of dynamite. It 
said the NRC underestimated the damage a plane could cause. The 
NRC denied a 12 News interview request. It is now recanting its 
statement that plants can handle a major plane crash. They now 
say 'nuclear power plants were not designed to handle such 
crashes.' The people in Two Rivers don't like to think about 
that.

"They have a good plan in order and I guess we have to count on 
them," a Two Rivers resident said.

The NRC's Web site and reading room have now been cleared of any 
sensitive information. As for increased protection on the ground 
at plants, the Pentagon ( 
[http://rd.yahoo.com/DailyNews/manual/*http://search.news.yahoo.com/search/news?
p=%22Pentagon%22&c=&n=20&yn=c&c=news&cs=nw]  - 
[http://rd.yahoo.com/DailyNews/manual/*http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=Pentagon
&h=c] ) is considering installing Patriot missile batteries or 
other air-defense weapons at U.S. nuclear plants, Tracy reported.
 
*****************************************************************
 33  Nevada congresswoman asks probe of Yucca Mountain law firm

ASSOCIATED PRESS
November 8th, 2001

LAS VEGAS — A Nevada congresswoman has asked the District of 
Columbia Bar to step up a conflict-of-interest investigation of a 
law firm working on a proposal for a nuclear waste dump near Las 
Vegas.

U.S. Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., made public a letter seeking 
the inquiry into Winston & Strawn, a Chicago-based firm with a 
$16.5 million contract to advise the federal Energy Department on 
license preparations for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste 
repository.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said last week it was 
investigating accusations that a confidential commission document 
had been leaked to Winston & Strawn and distributed to officials 
at the Energy Department’s Yucca Mountain program office in Las 
Vegas.

The Energy Department is the applicant and the Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission would be the licensing agency if the nation’s 77,000 
tons of radioactive waste is entombed beneath a volcanic ridge at 
the western edge of the Nevada Test Site, about 90 miles 
northwest of Las Vegas.

Nevada’s top official working against the Yucca Mountain proposal 
compared the leak to distributing the answers to a test ahead of 
time.

Berkley said in a letter to the District of Columbia bar that if 
the document was released, it corrupted the Yucca Mountain 
project licensing process.

“Apparently, the law firm provided the draft document to its 
client, the DOE, in violation of federal law,” she said.

Charles Connor, a Winston & Strawn attorney and spokesman, told 
the Las Vegas Review-Journal that he had not seen the Berkley 
letter and wouldn’t comment on it.

A spokeswoman for the Washington, D.C., bar said Berkley’s letter 
will be forwarded to the bar counsel, which fields complaints and 
conducts hearings into allegations of wrongdoing against lawyers 
licensed to work in the nation’s capital.

Berkley filed an Oct. 12 complaint against Winston & Strawn based 
on reports that the firm had been performing work on the nuclear 
waste program while it was registered to lobby Congress on behalf 
of the Nuclear Energy Institute, which favors a repository at 
Yucca Mountain.

The Energy Department’s inspector general also is investigating 
possible conflicts of interest by the law firm.

© 2001 Reno Gazette-Journal
*****************************************************************
 34  Association of Nuclear Host Communities (ANHC)

Media Advisory - 

Canada NewsWire       

Attention News/Assignment Editors: 
 
    TORONTO, Nov. 7 /CNW/ - Appearing Thursday, November 8, 2001 
before the Committee holding hearings on Bill C-27, the Nuclear 
Fuel Waste Act, the Steering Committee for the Association of 
Nuclear Host Communities (ANHC) represented by the Municipality 
of Kincardine, the Municipality of Clarington, and the City of 
Pickering, warns that the draft legislation needs significant 
changes to ensure that a final, long term nuclear waste disposal 
option is finally pinpointed.

    What: The Steering Committee for the Association of Nuclear 
Host Communities (ANHC) is speaking to the Standing Committee on 
Aboriginal Affairs, Northern Development and Natural Resources 
regarding Bill C-27, the Nuclear Fuel Waste Act.

    Where:         Ottawa West Block Room 308

    When:          Thursday, November 8, 2001 12:00 p.m. to 12:30 
p.m.

    Who:           The Mayor of Kincardine Larry Kraemer -30-
 
For further information: Nicole Des Roches, (416) 642-8582
 
*****************************************************************
 35  Closed air space sought for Maine Yankee area
 
  Nov 08, 2001     "Serving Maine and Lincoln County for Over a 
Century" Vol. 126-No. 45   

Greg Foster
 
Lincoln County Sheriff's Department was scheduled to meet with 
Maine Yankee officials on Tuesday to clarify the department's 
role in security plans there, Maj. Dan Bradford told county 
commmissioners board. 

"The kinds of things we're dealing with are evolving, and all of 
the criteria have changed," he said. "Now a new plan is in the 
process of evolving." 

The Maine State Police and various response teams are in place, 
but during the time it takes to have them at the scene, Maine 
Yankee will be relying on the local police and sheriff's 
department, according to Bradford. "We're trying to fine tune our 
initial response," he said. 

Sheriff William Carter said there seems to be a lack of 
definition. "We're a little vague on what our part is," he said. 
"It's time we did this." 

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission establishes the criteria, and 
the lead agency for the state is the Maine State Police, 
according to Carter. "They have fairly complex plans as to how 
things go inside. They are looking to us and the local police for 
things outside the perimeter," he said. 

Bradford told the board that he is going to push for a closed air 
space for civilian traffic in the vicinity of Maine Yankee. He 
explained that it would be different from the no-fly zone order, 
which went into effect last Thursday over Maine Yankee and will 
be in effect until midnight Nov. 7, according to the initial 
order. A closed air space order would give authorities control 
over the air space and give them some clout to have unwanted 
aircraft stay away from the area at any time, he said. 

"That's the logical thing to do," he said. "It would certainly 
not be an overburdensome regulation." 

Bradford also reported that all of suspicious white powder 
findings people notified the department about turned out to be 
negative. The investigations include the samples transported to 
the state labs, he said. 

Editor@LCNews.Maine.Com [Editor@LCNews.Maine.Com] Lincoln County 
News    PO Box 36,    Damariscotta, ME    04543    Tel:
*****************************************************************
 36  Hodges satisfied with plant safety
 
  [charlotte.com]       

Published Thursday, November 8, 2001 

 S.C. governor inspects Catawba nuclear facility
 
By JENNIFER TALHELM 

LAKE WYLIE -- Duke Power's Catawba nuclear plant "is an absolute 
fortress," S.C. Gov. Jim Hodges declared Wednesday, after touring 
the facility on Lake Wylie.

 But S.C. Transport Police might need some help from the state so 
the agency can safely and effectively inspect trucks carrying 
hazardous materials on the highway, Hodges said during a visit to 
an Interstate 77 weigh station later in the day.

 Hodges was in York County to check out safety measures at 
Catawba and on the interstate.

 He said he is evaluating security steps that will help keep 
dangerous substances out of the hands of terrorists, and he 
wanted to see how the state can help Duke Power and other 
agencies. He visited Duke's Oconee nuclear power plant Monday.

 After his 45-minute tour of Catawba, Hodges said he was 
impressed with the security force and the slew of barriers that 
exist to keep unauthorized people away from the nuclear plant. He 
has no plans to assign National Guard troops to Catawba.

 "This is an incredibly safe place," he said during a press 
conference by the nuclear station's butterfly garden overlooking 
the cooling towers. "This spot's a fortress - you couldn't get to 
it to do any damage."

 Many residents and anti-nuclear groups have raised concerns 
about the safety of nuclear power plants since the Sept. 11 
terrorist attacks.

 Nuclear facilities have operated under heightened security since 
the attacks. Last week, they increased security another notch, 
preventing private planes from flying overhead and adding police 
patrols at fences and more guards at checkpoints. The flying ban 
was lifted Wednesday.

 Government officials last week also warned about truck bombs. 
Hodges said one of his biggest fears is that someone will hijack 
a truck full of dangerous chemicals and release it into the air 
or water. He praised the transport police Wednesday as they 
demonstrated how they inspect trucks hauling hazardous materials 
on the highways. 

Police told Hodges they could be more effective if they had more 
officers to inspect trucks - North Carolina and Georgia employ 
three times as many as South Carolina. Police also want a "safe 
haven" to store hazardous materials when a truck is stopped for 
being out of compliance with regulations.

 Hodges said North Carolina and Georgia have more officers partly 
because they are much larger than South Carolina. But he said his 
new homeland security director is compiling a list of extra 
security steps the state can take, and both concerns may be 
added.

 Hodges visited both sites in a caravan that included state 
transport police and York County Sheriff's officers. At the weigh 
station not far from Paramount's Carowinds, the governor donned a 
State Transport Police cap as television cameras and other media 
trailed after him, watching police demonstrating a truck 
inspection.

 Reporters were not allowed to accompany Hodges on his tour of 
Catawba. At the press conference afterward, he said the facility 
can withstand an attack by land or water. Sharpshooters guard the 
perimeter of the plant, which also is protected by security 
cameras, sensors and fences. And if a plane crashed into the 
plant, it would not cause a "nuclear incident," he said.

 Hodges also said people should not worry about spent nuclear 
fuel stored at the plant. 

"They have a very adequate security plan," he said. "I won't say 
any more details. The worst way to deal with terrorism is to blab 
all the security measures."
 
Jennifer Talhelm: (803) 327-8507; jtalhelm@charlotteobserver.com 
[jtalhelm@charlotteobserver.com] Hodges "The worst way to deal 
with terrorism is to blab all the security measures." 

Jim Hodges S.C. governor 
*****************************************************************
 37  Hodges voices security concerns, seeks aid 

By MICHELLE R. DAVIS   Washington Bureau 

WASHINGTON -- Gov. Jim Hodges traveled to the nation's capitol 
Tuesday to outline state security concerns and seek federal money 
to help with costs, which could be more than $25 million.

 In a meeting with former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, now head 
of Homeland Security, Hodges outlined South Carolina's areas of 
concern, including the Savannah River Site nuclear facility, 
other nuclear power plants and ports.

 He also briefed Ridge on the dispute with the Department of 
Energy over shipping plutonium into the state. S.C. politicians 
have objected to such shipments entering the state while a 
program to process the nuclear material at SRS remains in 
jeopardy. Earlier this year, he threatened to call out state 
troopers to block plutonium from crossing into South Carolina.

 Hodges said Ridge was not familiar with the dispute.

 "I wanted to bring it to Gov. Ridge's attention as a national 
security matter. We simply don't need to be shipping plutonium 
thousands of miles in this type of climate." 

Hodges, along with state homeland security director Steve 
Siegfried and SLED Chief Robert Stewart, also sought to open the 
lines of communication from the federal to the state level.

 "If there's a threat to our state that we need to know about 
then we need to be entrusted to get that information so that we 
can appropriately respond," he said.

 Hodges later met with several members of South Carolina's 
congressional delegation, urging them to seek ways for the state 
to recoup some of the money it will spend on security and dealing 
with the anthrax scare.

 A proposed list by state agencies estimates the security cost 
could be as high as $50 million, but Hodges said many of the 
protection proposals might be overlapping and have not been 
evaluated. He estimated the security costs would likely be more 
than $25 million.

 Members of South Carolina's delegation said they would seek to 
find ways to get federal money to the state, particularly when 
state security concerns overlap with federal ones, for example at 
the federal SRS site.

 "The delegation will be watching very closely whatever 
legislation moves through, and this meeting today has given us a 
tremendous eye opener for the kinds of things the state needs ... 
so when we see those things coming we have a better understanding 
of what we should be asking for," said U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, a 
Columbia Democrat. 

 © Copyright 2001 The State-Record Company 	       
*****************************************************************
 38  National nuclear plan to get a trial on Saturday 

ireland.com - The Irish Times - IRELAND
 
Thursday, November 8, 2001                      

By Alison O'Connor, Political Reporter 

The notorious National Emergency Plan for Nuclear Accidents is to 
be given a dry run this weekend.

 The plan, which caused controversy when Minister of State Mr Joe 
Jacob spoke about it on RTÉ radio recently, will be put into 
action on Saturday when all those involved will gather at a 
location in Dublin. 

A spokeswoman for the Department of Public Enterprise said for 
obvious reasons the exact nature of the nuclear accident and the 
timing would not be revealed until Saturday. The simulation will 
take place at the headquarters of the Radiological Protection 
Institute of Ireland (RPII) in Clonskeagh. 

According to the spokeswoman the purpose of the exercise is to 
fine-tune the recently updated emergency plan. She said it was 
due to be published shortly but may be altered as a result of 
experiences on Saturday. It was not possible to give a more 
definite timescale for its publication, she said.

 The exercise will be overseen by the Emergency Response 
Co-ordination Committee which is under the control of the 
Department of Public Enterprise. Its role in a nuclear accident 
with the potential to affect Ireland would be to consider the 
RPII's technical assessment of the risk and their advice on what 
counter measures should be taken to minimise radiation exposure 
to the public.

 The committee would also provide advice to the various Ministers 
with responsibility for the implications and practical issues 
concerned with RPII recommendations. 

The other Departments involved are Health; Defence, Foreign 
Affairs, Agriculture, Environment, Marine and the Taoiseach. 
Other agencies include Met Éireann, the Garda, fire authorities, 
Civil Defence, and the Food Safety Authority of Ireland. 
Committee chairwoman Ms Renee Dempsey, principal officer in the 
Department of Public Enterprise, may also call on other experts. 

Asked how the success or otherwise of the exercise would be 
measured, or if there would be outside assessment, the 
spokeswoman said: "They are all experts in their field and they 
will evaluate it." She said a fact sheet on a potential nuclear 
incident or accident would be delivered shortly to every 
household in the country. 

Fine Gael spokeswoman on the environment, Ms Deirdre Clune,said 
that although the trial run was a necessary exercise, the 
Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, would be better off getting assurances from 
the British government that everything possible is being done to 
secure the Sellafield nuclear plant.

 "Important questions remained unanswered. Why has a no-fly zone 
not been imposed on Sellafield? The Cap de la Hague nuclear plant 
in France now has a no-fly zone of 10 km around the site. Why are 
their no fighter planes and anti-aircraft missiles protecting 
Sellafield? Cap de la Hague has all of these security measures in 
place."

 She asked what made Sellafield so different from other nuclear 
plants that it does not require protection from terrorist attack? 
"What has to happen before the Taoiseach will start to take the 
safety of the Irish people seriously?" 

[http://www.ireland.com
*****************************************************************
 39  Australian anti-nuclear activists' US trial delayed 

ABC Sci-Tech - 08/11/01 : 

Australian anti-nuclear activists Stuart Lennox and Nick Clyde 
have had their US trial postponed.

Mr Lennox, from Tasmania, and Mr Clyde from Sydney, were part of 
a group of 17 arrested off the Californian coast in July.
 
They were allegedly attempting to stop US missile defence tests.
 
They have pleaded not guilty to charges of trespass and violating 
a safety zone. 

Lawyers had argued the atmosphere in the United States following 
the September 11 terrorist attacks was not conducive to a fair 
trial.
 
The trial was due to start on November 20.
 
Mr Lennox has welcomed the extra preparation time for the trial, 
which will now be held on January 8.
 
"A spokesperson from the jury pool... advised the court that this 
was not a good time for us to go to trial in light of what's 
happened in the United States," Mr Lennox said.
 
"Of course the Attorneys were wanting to go with that and now the 
court has decided perhaps not the length of time they may have 
wanted but at least it's not now."
 
© 2001 Australian Broadcasting Corporation
*****************************************************************
 40    Maine Yankee to save up to $2.75 million with sales tax waiver 

By Associated Press, 11/7/2001 13:49 

AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) Maine Yankee has been granted a sales tax 
waiver that will save between $2 million and $3 million on 
construction materials for storage of high-level radioactive 
waste materials in Wiscasset. 

The dry cask storage system is meant to be a temporary solution 
while owners of the shuttered nuclear power plant wait for the 
federal government to deliver on its promise of a long-term 
storage facility. 

The 1,432 spent fuel assemblies will be stored in containers made 
of concrete and steel designed to last at least 22 years. 

Maine Yankee spokesman Eric Howes said the 64 containers will 
consist of stainless steel canisters placed inside concrete 
casks. Each will be about 18 feet tall and will rest on a 
concrete pad. 

The cost is estimated to be $40 million to $55 million. The 5 
percent sales tax amounts to $2 million to $2.75 million. 

For more than 25 years, owners of Maine's paper mills have 
routinely received sales tax exemptions on equipment purchases 
that reduce pollution, said Bryce Sproul of the Maine Department 
of Environmental Protection. 

The Board of Environmental Protection's decision on the sales tax 
waiver did not go as far as Maine Yankee had hoped. 

The plant's owners had hoped to get a sales tax waiver on 
purchases beyond the dry cask storage system. Its application for 
an air-pollution waiver called for sales-tax exemptions on 
temperature monitoring systems, lifting jacks, welding equipment 
and security equipment. 

During its Nov. 1 meeting, the board followed the DEP staff 
recommendations that scaled down the number of exemptions. 

Nonetheless, Maine Yankee was pleased with the outcome. 

''Electric customers will realize a significant savings,'' Howes 
said. The plant is owned by Central Maine Power and nine other 
utility companies which are paying decommissioning costs that 
could total $637 million. 
*****************************************************************
 41  Propaganda on nuke safety lamented -

DAWN - National; 08 November, 2001
 
KARACHI, Nov 7: The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf has warned that if a 
foreign power under any pretext attacked or tried to "liquidate 
Pakistan's nuclear facilities, it would have to face a joint 
resistance of the armed forces as well as people of Pakistan , 
and a threat of war would spread to all of South Asia. 

"The command and control of our nuclear facilities was in the 
safe hands, which are protected by a specially constituted 
strategic force. The government is not in a danger of being 
overthrown as none of the opposition parties were demanding or 
working for that purpose. Such a scenario was being built up in 
the media which is orchestrated by the US and Zionists", said PTI 
secretary general Mairaj Muhammad Khan. 

Talking to newsmen in Karachi on Wednesday, he maintained that 
the US-Zionist intelligence agencies were behind the propaganda 
being unleased by the western media that Pakistan's nuclear 
weapons were not in safe hands. 

"These forces are opposed to Pakistan's nuclear programme and are 
trying to give an impression that the government is threatened 
with civil strife and is likely to be replaced by extremist 
religious elements". 

According to Mairaj Muhammad Khan, the US would like to use such 
a "smokescreen" to attack and liquidate Pakistan's nuclear 
facilities or at least put pressure to ensure joint US-Pakistan 
control of "our strategic assets". 

He contended that the US had proved to be what he called "a very 
unreliable friend". 

He demanded that first, the government should closely monitor the 
activities of US forces based in Pakistan; secondly the US should 
not be allowed to use any airbase near our nuclear installations 
and thirdly, the US forces be asked to leave Pakistani soil at 
the earliest.-PPI 

DAWN Group of Newspapers, 2001
*****************************************************************
 42  National Guard troops sought at Maine Yankee
 
[Online Edition]     [The Lincoln County News - Online Edition]   

  Nov 08, 2001     "Serving Maine and Lincoln County for Over a Century"    
Vol. 126-No. 45   

Greg Foster
 
Friends of the Coast circulated a petition Tuesday at the polls 
in the area requesting that Gov. King agree to a National Guard 
presence at Maine Yankee in Wiscasset. If King goes along with 
it, Maine will be the 14th state to deploy its National Guardsmen 
for military protection of nuclear power plants against 
terrorism. "This is the kick-off for a much more ambitious 
petition drive aimed at waking up Gov. King," said Ray Shadis of 
Edgecomb, spokesman for Friends of the Coast. "Thirteen states 
have now deployed the National Guard at their nuclear 
facilities." 

Shadis explained why the activist group, an official intervenor 
in the decommissioning process at Maine Yankee, would like Gov. 
King to deploy Maine's National Guardsmen there. "Our theme is 
that it is too much to expect a private company to defend against 
the kind of terrorist threat we saw on Sept. 11," he said. "A 
military threat calls for a military response." 

Gov. King has publicly stated that the National Guard is not 
necessary at Maine Yankee at this time. He inspected Maine Yankee 
himself a couple of weeks ago. The Maine State Police and the 
Maine National Guard also inspected the facility for security a 
couple of weeks ago, Maine Yankee spokesman Eric Howes noted. He 
said that Gov. King and the others seemed to be satisfied with 
the security measures now in place, including the company's own 
armed security personnel, as well as enhancements. "Maine Yankee 
is indifferent to it," Howes said. "The decision about the Guard 
rests with the Governor. It's not our decision." 

Shadis argued that the current security is far from adequate, 
even though he is not aware of what exactly that is since it is 
supposed to be confidential. "What is stored at Maine Yankee is 
so deadly that nothing but the most absolute security will do," 
Shadis said. "The site does not have a strong outer defense line 
and the Maine National Guard should be brought in to establish 
one." The Guard's presence at Maine Yankee would do more than 
just improve the public's perception, which Maine Yankee has said 
would be the main benefit, according to Shadis. "It would also be 
for potential intruders and terrorists perceptions that you have 
to go through federal troops to get to Maine Yankee," he said. 

Shadis argued that an outer defense perimeter would slow down 
intruders, provide an early warning of intruders, and show 
intruders that the site is defended "like the flash of a skunk's 
tail or the rattle of a rattlesnake that says don't mess w'me." 

He admits that from what he has seen, Maine Yankee has made quite 
a few improvements in security. "Some improvements are in direct 
response to specific criticism we gave them," he said. 

Friends of the Coast plans to discuss the issue at a public forum 
on nuclear fuel storage and safeguards next Tuesday at Wiscasset 
Middle School at 7 p.m. On the panel will be nuclear safety 
engineer David Lochbaum of the Union of Concerned Scientists, 
nuclear engineer and nuclear worker-concerns consultant Paul 
Blanch for Dominion Power (Millstone), Indian Point Nuclear 
Station, and Maine Yankee, and nuclear physicist Gordon Thompson 
of the Institute for Security and Resources Studies in Cambridge, 
Mass. 

     Lincoln County News    PO Box 36,    Damariscotta, ME    
04543    Tel: 207.563.3171    
*****************************************************************
 43    BE fears nuclear industry decline   

The Times

  THURSDAY NOVEMBER 08 2001   
    
  BY ANGELA JAMESON   
    
  THE head of Britain’s only nuclear power generator yesterday 
reiterated warnings that the industry would become unviable 
without intervention from the Government. 

Robin Jeffrey, chairman of British Energy, urged ministers to 
approve the development of new nuclear power stations at sites 
where existing facilities are due to become obsolete. He also 
called on the Government to take on responsibility for 
reprocessing spent fuel. 

Mr Jeffrey, speaking as he reported losses of £17 million for the 
six months to September 30, reduced from losses of £56 million 
over the previous period, said that unless Whitehall responded to 
his calls, the industry faced serious decline. “Nuclear power is 
the only large-scale generation option that does not contribute 
to global warming whilst delivering security of energy supply,” 
he said. 

Group turnover fell from £1,084 million to £929 million. An 
interim dividend of 2.7p will be paid. 

British Energy said that, by the end of the year, electricity 
prices would have fallen by about 10 per cent because of a 
tighter regulatory regime. The company, facing strike action over 
pay, said that the outlook for the UK business remained 
“challenging”. 
  
  Copyright 2001 Times Newspapers Ltd. This service is provided 
*****************************************************************
 44    Japan: Nuclear reactor closed after steam leak 

BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Nov 8, 2001

Shizuoka, Japan 8 November: Enormous pressure may have suddenly 
cracked a carbon steel pipe Wednesday [7 November] at a nuclear 
reactor in Hamaoka, Shizuoka Prefecture, resulting in a leakage 
of steam and some radioactive material in a pressure-injection 
system, the government said Thursday. 

The leak occurred during testing of a start-up system for a 
high-pressure core injection (HPCI) system at the No. 1 reactor 
unit in Chubu Electric Power Co's Hamaoka nuclear power plant, 
the Nagoya-based utility said. The HPCI system is designed to 
cool the reactor core in the event of an emergency. 

The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency of the Ministry of 
Economy, Trade and Industry said it is the first time for such a 
pipe to crack, and it intends to order similar pipes be inspected 
at other plants in Japan if necessary. The agency dispatched four 
inspectors to the plant and is investigating the cause of the 
incident. 

It said the 1-cm-thick, 15-cm-diameter pipe is made of carbon 
steel. The rupture was found in an elbowed part of the pipe, 
which carries 290 C steam under 70 atmospheres of pressure. The 
company checks the HPCI system every month and conducts annual 
overall inspections to look for leaks, but had found no problems, 
it said. 

The agency also said the accident was provisionally designated 
Level 1, or "anomaly", on the International Nuclear Event Scale 
and was a deviation from operational safety limits. 

Level 1 is the second category on a scale of 8 that begins at 
zero. It is more serious than a Level Zero "deviation" of no 
safety significance and less serious than a Level 2 "incident" 
that involves significant spread of contamination or worker 
overexposure... 

In the latest mishap, Chubu Electric estimated the level of 
radioactive material leaked to be 400 becquerels per cubic cm. It 
added it completely shut down the reactor early Thursday. 

The HPCI system stopped operating around 1700 [local time] 
Wednesday during a test run after smoke alarms in the building 
went off, it said. No fire was reported at the site, and the 
alarms may have been activated by the steam, local government 
officials said. 

The plant operator immediately began a manual shutdown of the 
reactor to pinpoint the cause of the trouble. The No. 1 unit 
houses a boiling-water reactor capable of generating up to 
540,000 kW of electricity. The company is cleaning up radioactive 
materials remaining in the residual heat-removal system. When the 
removal is completed, plant employees will investigate the cause 
of the rupture, the utility said. 

The company reported the accident to the state, Shizuoka 
Prefecture and five towns surrounding the plant. There is no risk 
of the radioactive materials leaking outside the plant and no 
employees were confirmed to have been exposed to the radioactive 
material, it added. 

Source: Kyodo News Service, Tokyo, in English 0751 gmt 8 Nov 01 
/BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter All Material Subject to 
*****************************************************************
 45  Sellafield Security Review over Air Attack
 
THE WHITEHAVEN NEWS
 
Thursday, November 08, 2001
 
By Alan Irving
 
Even more intensive security measures for Sellafield could 
include a missile firing base to combat the possibility of an air 
attack by terrorists on the nuclear site.
 
Britain's security services are looking at what extra measures 
may be needed to protect the country's nuclear installations. 
Sellafield, with its huge plutonium stockpile and its storage of 
high-level liquid waste in tanks, is seen to be most vulnerable. 

The French government has already installed surface-to-air 
missiles around its equivalent of Sellafield - the Cap La Hague 
reprocessing plant near the Channel port of Cherbourg - and fears 
of an aerial attack on Sellafield have heightened since two 
Tornado fighters flew to the site 12 days ago in response to an 
alert. It was a false alarm. 

Yesterday the Ministry of Defence confirmed that a new security 
review was under way. Asked whether it could result in similar 
missile protection for Sellafield, a spokesman said: "Everything 
is possible. Things are in the melting pot as the review is some 
way from being completed."
 
Community leaders in Copeland have been told that the threat of 
terrorists attacking Sellafield from the sea has been taken 
account of.
 
Now the British government is understood to be considering 
whether to use the Territorial Army - a 40,000 strong force of 
part-time soldiers - to reinforce security at nuclear and 
chemical plants - as well as surface-to-air missiles which could 
shoot down a terrorist aircraft before it got within striking 
range of Sellafield.
 
Councillors with leading roles in the Sellafield Local Liaison 
Committee - the site's independent health and safety watchdog - 
say that serious consideration should be given to missile 
protection.
 
"What the French have done might scare people living around here 
but having this level of security would send a clear message to 
terrorists that there is no way into Sellafield," said David 
Moore, the SLLC's chairman.
 
Mr Moore, who lives at Seascale, went on: "I have been briefed 
with others on what security BNFL are responsible for. I am 
satisfied with the arrangements but I am not privy to what the 
government are doing."
 
After the false alarm scare, David Moore said he expected to see 
Sellafield's air exclusion zone widened to give earlier warning 
of a possible attack.
 
At the present exclusion of two miles it would take 14 seconds 
for an aircraft to enter and hit the site whereas it took more 
than 10 minutes for the Tornados to reach Sellafield.
 
John Henney, emergency planning sub committee for the SLLC, said: 
"Without doubt, surface-to-missile protection is worth 
considering. The only concern I have is that missiles should be 
put as far away from the site as possible in the event of a place 
having to be shot down. It seems ridiculous to talk like this but 
this is the reality and we have to prepare for it."
 
At a Sellafield security briefing giving to Copeland community 
leaders including church representatives, Mr Henney asked about 
the possibility of a terrorist attack by sea. "We were told they 
were paying attention to this and it would be covered." 

"General security of the site is being beefed up and things are 
being looked at in a new light," he added.
 
Ironically, Sellafield this week dropped its security status from 
Amber to Black Special, next to the lowest of the four 
categories, on the Home Secretary's advice.
 
"It doesn't mean that things are being taken lightly, anything 
but," said Mr Henney. "It is to keep people on their toes, the 
status can be switched up and down at a moment's notice."
 
Under Black Special, all BNFL workers are having their site 
passes checked on entering the site and all contractors vehicles 
are being searched.
 
Copeland MP Jack Cunningham said: "I think the French reaction is 
over the top but if ministers, given the information they have, 
think such a deployment is necessary here then they should do 
it." 

The MP said he worried about "outrageous anti-nuclear 
scaremongering." There was no evidence, he said, that Sellafield 
was on a terrorist hit list or that nuclear plants were under any 
more or less threat than chemical installations and oil 
refineries. 
*****************************************************************
 46  Groups Fight MOX Together
 
   [http://www.whitehaven-news.co.uk/] 
THE WHITEHAVEN NEWS
 
 
Thursday, November 08, 2001
 
Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth are sharing the costs of a 
legal challenge to the government over a possible start-up for 
the Mox plant at Sellafield.
 
The judicial review will be held at the High Court in London.
 
The environmental groups will be claiming the government acted 
illegally in granting a start because they claim the nuclear 
plant cannot commercially justify its operation
 
  





*****************************************************************
 47  No-fly order extended to Maine Yankee site
 
  Nov 08, 2001     "Serving Maine and Lincoln County for Over a 
Century" Vol. 126-No. 45   

Greg Foster
 
When the Federal Aviation Administration first sent out its 
advisory Oct. 30, Maine Yankee in Wiscasset was absent from its 
list of nuclear power plants with an 11 mile radius no-fly zone 
around them. However, by Thursday, the FAA included Maine Yankee 
and other non-operational facilities under the federal order, 
according to Wiscasset Airport management. 

In effect from 5 p.m. on Friday until midnight Nov. 7, the local 
airport remained closed to all air traffic, but it rerouted 
planes to Augusta or Rockland, Co-manager Ann Walko said. The 
airport is less than a mile from the Maine Yankee site where more 
than 1400 rod assemblies of high level radioactive spent fuel is 
stored.    

The inclusion of Maine Yankee in the order followed a Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission review of the list at the behest of public 
officials, who complained that places like Maine Yankee are just 
as vulnerable and possibly more vulnerable than operating plants. 

"When the safety of citizens in Maine or elsewhere around the 
country is at stake, we need to err on the side of caution, so I 
am very pleased the NRC has taken this step to include Maine 
Yankee and other non-operational facilities in the federal 
`no-fly' order,'' U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe said. 

U.S. Rep. John Baldacci has also been in contact with the NRC 
citing concerns state and local officials have about the current 
and future security needs for Maine Yankee and the storage of 
spent fuel there. "While the waste may be sufficiently secure at 
this moment, questions have been raised about what will happen 
when the plant is fully decommissioned and different security 
standards are applied," he said. 

Snowe said she contacted federal officials and raised concerns 
about the security of the plant last week after learning that the 
federal order omitted Maine Yankee. 

"Given that many of these facilities continue to house 
significant supplies of spent fuel rods on-site, I am concerned 
that this omission could inadvertently leave plants in the 
process of decommissioning even more vulnerable than those that 
are fully-operational," Snowe said. 

After looking into the issue more thoroughly, the NRC told Snowe 
of its decision to add Maine Yankee and other facilities that 
store spent fuel to the list of those deserving protection. 

"It is imperative that citizens in Maine and living adjacent to 
other decommissioned plants around the country understand the 
level of security at nearby nuclear plants and know their safety 
is being kept as a paramount concern," she said. 

In a letter to NRC Chairman Richard Meserve, Baldacci said that 
the federal government has a responsibility to ensure that Maine 
Yankee remains secure. "I believe that until the waste can be 
transported to a permanent disposal facility, the federal 
government has an obligaton to absorb the costs incurred by Maine 
Yankee or Maine to reinforcing and protecting areas where spent 
fuel is stored at Maine Yankee," he said. "In addition, I believe 
the NRC should license an existing federal central center of 
spent fuel management, rather than support leaving spent fuel and 
high level nuclear waste at Maine Yankee." 

Current plans at Maine Yankee call for the removal of the spent 
nuclear fuel from the spent fuel pool to transportable dry casks 
for temporary storage at the new multi-million dollar 
installation on site. In light of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, 
people have raised questions about how safe the storage area, 
once thought secure, is now with its steel-lined concrete silos 
looming visibly above the earthen berm around it. 

On Nov. 5, at 7:59 p.m., Wiscasset Police officer Kim Westrich 
responded to a call from Maine Yankee that an aircraft was seen 
in the "no fly zone". Westrich went to Wiscasset Airport and met 
with the pilot, Timothy Pydyck of Massachusetts. He indicated he 
was unaware of the "no fly zone". Westrich contacted the FAA in 
Boston who then instructed Pydyck to leave the airport, which he 
did. The matter was turned over to the FBI. 

Editor@LCNews.Maine.Com [Editor@LCNews.Maine.Com] 

     Lincoln County News    PO Box 36,    Damariscotta, ME    
04543    Tel: 207.563.3171    
*****************************************************************
 48   Constellation Energy Group Completes Purchase of Nine Mile Point 
Nuclear Station
                                        
Wednesday November 7, 4:29 pm Eastern Time
Press Release
SOURCE: Constellation Energy Group
 
BALTIMORE, Nov. 7 /PRNewswire/ -- Constellation Energy Group 
(NYSE: [http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=ceg&d=t] - news) today 
announced that it has completed its purchase of the Nine Mile 
Point Nuclear Station in New York. Constellation Energy Group now 
owns 100 percent of Nine Mile Point Unit 1 and 82 percent of Unit 
2 -- 1,550 megawatts of Nine Mile Point's 1,757 megawatts of 
total generating capacity. The purchase is Constellation Energy 
Group's largest addition to its diversified fleet of merchant 
power plants and contributes significantly to its growth 
strategy.

The purchase price, net of fuel, was $675 million, or $435 per 
kilowatt of generating capacity, which compares favorably with 
other recent nuclear plant acquisitions. The total purchase 
price, including fuel, was approximately $762 million. The 
sellers transferred their decommissioning funds to Constellation 
at closing. Constellation will sell 90 percent of its share of 
Nine Mile Point's output back to the sellers at fixed prices for 
approximately 10 years under power purchase agreements.

Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation was the sole owner of Nine Mile 
Point Unit 1. The co-owners of Unit 2 who sold their interests to 
Constellation are: Niagara Mohawk (41 percent), New York State 
Electric and Gas (18 percent), Rochester Gas & Electric 
Corporation (14 percent) and Central Hudson Gas & Electric 
Corporation (9 percent). The Long Island Power Authority will 
continue to own 18 percent of Unit 2.

Christian H. Poindexter, Chairman of the Board of Constellation 
Energy Group, said the sale benefits both the company and 
consumers. ``Nine Mile Point gives us an important supply 
resource in New York and fits well with the growth of our 
merchant energy business in the Northeast,'' he said. ``Consumers 
will benefit from the stable electricity prices provided for in 
our power purchase agreements and from the entry of an 
established generating company in the competitive power 
marketplace.''

``Nine Mile Point joins a company recognized for its experience 
in nuclear plant operations,'' said Robert E. Denton, President 
and Chief Executive Officer of Constellation Nuclear, the 
Constellation Energy Group subsidiary that will own and operate 
Nine Mile Point Nuclear Station LLC, which is the operating 
company that owns Unit 1 and 82 percent of Unit 2. ``Together, 
Nine Mile Point and the Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant-one of the 
nation's best performers, and the first to receive renewed 
operating licenses-further strengthen the corporation's 
diversified fuel mix. Our pledge is to operate Nine Mile Point 
safely, reliably and efficiently.''

``Constellation is committed to corporate citizenship in the 
areas in which it does business,'' said Constellation Nuclear 
Vice President Raymond L. Wenderlich. ``We expect to become 
involved in communities around Nine Mile Point and support 
economic development initiatives, educational opportunities, and 
environmental programs.'' Mr. Wenderlich led the transition team 
for Nine Mile Point and will continue as the senior Constellation 
Nuclear executive responsible for the station. He will report to 
Mr. Denton. John Conway, formerly Niagara Mohawk Vice President 
of Nuclear Generation, has been named Site Vice President with 
responsibility for daily operations. Larry Hopkins will be Unit 1 
Plant General Manager. Mike Peckham will be Unit 2 Plant General 
Manager.

Constellation Nuclear has offered employment to all Nine Mile 
Point employees and has a five-year labor agreement in place with 
the members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical 
Workers Local 97.

The Nine Mile Point station consists of two boiling-water 
reactors. Unit 1 is a 609-megawatt reactor that entered service 
in 1969. Unit 2 is a 1,148- megawatt reactor that began operation 
in 1988. The station is located outside of Syracuse, New York.

Constellation was advised on the transaction by Barrington Energy 
Partners. Constellation Energy Group owns energy-related 
businesses, including a North American wholesale power marketing 
and merchant generation company and the Baltimore Gas and 
Electric Company (BGE), a regulated energy delivery company in 
Central Maryland. BGE provides service to more than 1.1 million 
electric customers and approximately 600,000 natural gas 
customers in Central Maryland. Constellation Energy Group had 
$3.9 billion in revenues in 2000 and assets of $12.4 billion as 
of December 31, 2000. SOURCE: Constellation Energy Group 
                                        
  More Quotes and News:    Constellation Energy Group Inc 
(Holding Company)
*****************************************************************
 49  Hazardous chemicals dumped at Camp Verde
 		 			 			 		 		 			 			 			 			 			 			 			 		 
 The Associated Press
 Nov. 7, 2001

PRESCOTT - Authorities were investigating hazardous materials 
dumped on federal land within the town of Camp Verde.

Items found yesterday included radioactive materials, mercury, 
explosives, acids and biohazards, said Prescott National Forest 
spokesman Devin Wanner.

Thirty to 40, 45-gallon barrels containing various chemicals were 
found at one site, along with discarded uranium, said Dugger 
Hughes, another official with the forest. More than 300 
containers of chemicals were found at a second, nearby site.

Some chemicals were deemed too volatile to move, so the state 
Department of Public Safety was called in to blow up containers.

It doesn't appear as if any of the chemicals leaked into the 
ground, but cleaning the sites could cost up to $100,000, Hughes 
said.

Authorities are working to find the people responsible, he said.
 	 		 
Copyright © 2001 Tucson Citizen
*****************************************************************
 50  the Environment Agency has set new limits on radioactive 
discharges from Devonport Dockyard
 
BBC - Devon - News - 

  Wednesday 7 November 2001
 New conditions on dockyard discharges   
  
  [Trident submarine]   
  One of the Trident submarines due to be refitted at Devonport   

  Devonport Dockyard in Plymouth has been given permission to 
increase some radioactive discharges into the River Tamar. 

The dockyard company, DML, has been told by the Environment 
Agency it can increase discharges of radioactive tritium into the 
River Tamar by 600%. But it must reduce other radioactive 
discharges. 

The yard made the application as part of its new work to refit 
Trident nuclear submarines. Opponents have described the decision 
as "terrible".
 
The limit for tritium discharges will rise from 120 radioactive 
units a year to 700. But the limit for cobalt discharges will 
fall from 6 units to just under 1. The restrictions are both 
tighter than DML had wanted. 

  [Protest march] Protesters marched across the Tamar Bridge   

Cobalt is radioactively stronger than tritium, so the Environment 
Agency says overall, there will be a decrease in the radioactive 
discharges. 


DML's plan was controversial, with local people forming 
opposition groups and holding protest marches. 

"My reaction is one of disappointment," said Dr Sandy Matthews 
from the Campaign Against Nuclear Storage and Radiation. "The 
scientists tell us Tritium is a poison and it means that the 
Tamar will be more polluted in the future."
 
In reaching its decision, the Agency concluded the radiation 
doses from the discharges would be extremely low and well within 
national and international limits set to protect both people and 
the environment. The levels will also be much lower than the 
doses from natural background radiation. 



  [Trident dock] The new Trident dock at Devonport Dockyard   


"We have examined the application very carefully, taken expert 
advice and considered all the points raised during the public 
consultation," said Anil Koshti for the Environment Agency. 

"We are satisfied that the health risks from DML's discharges at 
our proposed limits are not significant in radiological terms. 
The new authorisation will see an overall improvement for the 
environment and in addition the agency will be seeking further 
reductions in radioactive discharges."
 
The Environment Agency's decision is provisional and now goes to 
the Government for approval. The first submarine refit is planned 
for next year. 

*****************************************************************
 51  Bingaman asked to freeze out uranium mining                   

Albuquerque Tribune Online

By Amanda Iacone<P>
 [iaconea@shns.com / ] 

Tribune Reporter

 WASHINGTON - Three Crownpoint residents have appealed to Sen. 
Jeff Bingaman in an attempt to keep uranium mining provisions out 
of his version of an energy bill.

 Rep. Heather Wilson, an Albuquerque Republican, included $30 
million in funding for uranium mining research and cleanup in the 
energy bill (HR 4) she introduced this summer.

 Sen. Pete Domenici, also an Albuquerque Republican, included 
similar provisions in his Nuclear Energy Electricity Assurance 
Act.

 But several groups are working to prevent future leach mining in 
the Crownpoint area. About 15,000 people drink water from the 
Westwater Canyon aquifer - the source of an estimated 1 million 
pounds of uranium. "Our people could be wiped out," said Lynnea 
Smith, a 17-year-old senior at Crownpoint High School.

 Smith said she and other students are worried about future 
generations and if they would have to leave the area because of 
contaminated drinking water.

 Abandoned mines already litter the countryside, said Chris 
Toledo, a speech therapist from Crownpoint. She said fumes can be 
seen escaping the old mines during the summer, and several 
families have seen the effects of long-term uranium exposure - 
children born with mental and physical disabilities.

 "We already live with this stuff, why do we need more?" Toledo 
said.

 To obtain the uranium, mining companies pump liquid oxygen into 
the aquifer along with sodium bicarbonate to flush uranium 
molecules out of the surrounding bedrock, said Chris Shuey, an 
environmental health specialist working in conjunction with 
opposition groups.

 Other hard metals like arsenic flow into the groundwater along 
with the uranium 226.

 The sudden change in the groundwater's chemical composition 
turns the water into "toxic soup," Shuey said. The Westwater 
Canyon aquifer is the principle water source for Crownpoint, 
Church Rock and smaller outlying Navajo communities.

 Chee Smith, chapter president for Whitehorse Lake, said 
residents in his area travel 30 miles daily to get water for 
cooking and drinking from the aquifer.

 Lynnea Smith said she does not understand why Wilson would 
support funding that she says would encourage uranium mining. 

"It's going to be a slap in the face if Congress approves this," 
she said.

 The three Navajo delegates were in Washington on Tuesday to 
visit Bingaman, request grant money from the Public Welfare 
Foundation and testify before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

 Bingaman, chairman of the Senate Energy Committee, met with the 
delegates and told them the provision would not be included in 
the comprehensive energy bill that he and Majority Leader Tom 
Daschle, a South Dakota Democrat, are working on. 

Jude McCartin, a Bingaman spokesperson, said if an amendment were 
offered on the floor, Bingaman would not support it either. 

Domenici spokesman Chris Gallegos said it is too early to say if 
the senator will offer an amendment to Bingaman's energy bill. 
Gallegos said Domenici does not believe the funding would 
necessarily mean a new mining site at Crownpoint. 

"(Domenici) wants a coordinated plan to ensure that nuclear 
energy remains viable in the United States in the near and 
long-term future," Gallegos said. Wilson also supports nuclear 
energy use and sees a need for more uranium. "Nuclear energy is 
somewhere our nation is headed and needs to become part of our 
balance long-term energy plan," said Enrique Knell, a Wilson 
spokesperson.

 Knell said Wilson's bill included a provision that disqualifies 
the Crownpoint and Church Rock sites. Only mines operating as of 
July 1998 could receive some of the funding. 

But Shuey said Uranium Resources, Inc., based in Texas, would 
qualify to mine in Crownpoint or Church Rock. And its subsidiary 
company Hydro Resources, Inc. already has a permit to mine 
uranium but needs approval from the NRC to do so.

 In a two-front battle against new uranium mining, Congress is 
the newest front the Navajos have fought. 

For two years, opposition groups from the eastern Navajo Nation 
and elsewhere have tried to keep the NRC from allowing companies 
to mine uranium out of the Westwater Canyon Aquifer.

 The same delegation will testify at an NRC hearing Thursday in 
Rockville, Md., on Thursday, said Lisa Magnino a spokesperson for 
the opposition groups.
 
© The Albuquerque Tribune. 
*****************************************************************
*****************************************************************
                     NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARTICLES
*****************************************************************
 1 SEPT. 11 DU QUERY,ARE PEOPLE, WATER, LAND, FOOD & AIR BEING IRRADIATED ?
 
Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 19:32:02 -0500

 
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2919.6700
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2919.6700


  Has anyone done and/or is anyone interested in
getting out their Radalert or other rad monitoring
device and measuring and testing radiation levels
at:

1. Near The Former World Trade Center[In Manhattan
or any of the other 4 NYC boroughs]
2. Near The Pentagon
3. At or Near Shanksville, Pennsylvania where
Flight 93 crashed?


On Sept. 11, I called a medical doctor
who
lives 7 miles from the Pentagon and warned her
that DU
could have burned in the hijacked jets that
crashed
(up to 3000 pounds were used in 747's).  She
turned on
her gamma meter - radiation levels were 8 times
higher
than normal inside her house.  She informed the
Nuclear
 Information ResourceService in
Washington DC,
and the EPA, FBI, HazMat and other emergency
response agencies went to the Pentagon to
investigate.
 A pile of rubble from the crash was radioactive,
but
the EPA rep said "oh... it's probably depleted
uranium... it's not a health hazard unless you
breathe
it".  Firefighters, Pentagon personel, and
communities
nearby DID BREATHE IT.  There was no followup
investigation, and what about the World Trade
Center
in NY?  Radiation almost never gets into
mainstream
media.  It is a taboo subject.


Date: Sat, 20 Oct 2001 13:49:40 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Leuren Moret" <leurenmoret@yahoo.com> |
Block
Address  | Add to Address Book
Subject: The Toxicity of Weapons and War
To: leurenmoret@yahoo.com




Subject: The Toxicity of Weapons and War
Date: Sat, 20 Oct 2001 13:20:44 -0700


To the Mayor and City Council Members of Berkeley,

Margo Shafer is right - the bombing of Afghanistan
by
US government forces IS our problem.  I commend
Dona
Spring for bringing this forward for debate.  It
is
NOT TRUE that it is happening "over there" so that
it
DOESN'T AFFECT us "over here".  Citizens must be
informed with good information in order to make
good
decisions and participate fully to ensure a
democratic
government.  We are part of a global community,
and
should be informed and interested in government
policy
which does not directly affect us in our local
community.

The United States has hundreds of thousands of
tons of
depleted uranium piled in heaps outdoors at DOE
facilities.  It is 99.5% of what is left when the
most
fissionable isotope (one of three) is extracted
from
naturally occurring uranium.  The extracted
uranium is
used in nuclear weapons or nuclear fuel for
nuclear
reactors.  The 99.5% that is discarded cannot be
put
back into the mines it came out of because, after
crushing and processing, the volume is greater
than
before it was removed from the mines.

The Dept. of Defense got the bright idea of using
DU
in weapons because (1) it is very dense which
gives it
greater penetrating power to destroy tanks etc.
(2) it
is pyrophoric which means upon impact, it explodes
into fire and smoke creating submicroscopic
radioactive particles which travel great distances
and
can remain suspended until it is "rained out" of
the
atmosphere, (3) it is radioactive and will
continue
acting internally long after the battlefield has
been
cleared - with delayed effects which continue
acting
on soldiers and civilians THE REST OF THEIR LIVES
(4)
it is cheap and passes the responsibility for
disposal
from DOE on to civilians (that means US) and the
environment.  The half life of uranium is 4.5
billion
years - in ten half lives radioactivity becomes an
insignificant amount.  In 45 billion years it will
no
longer be a danger.  In other words - it's "fun"
for
the DOD, it's "cheap" for the arms manufacturers
(at
good profits), and "good riddance" says DOE.

The US has manufactured, used, tested DU in 39
states.
 The cleanup bill - just for the DU - at the
Jefferson
Proving Ground in Indiana would be $7.8 billion...
it
has not been cleaned up, but DOD has closed it.
Communities living near these test ranges will
continue to be exposed and suffer health problems.
The Sierra Army Depot in California, for 40 years,
has
burned millions of tons of old munitions -
including
20 times more DU than was used in the Gulf War.
The
radioactive ash full of heavy metals, phosgene gas
and
dioxins contaminated local communities as well as
many
Native American communities that were downwind -
especially the Pyramid Lake Paiute reservation.
The
health problems in those communities has been
horrendous.  The Sierra Army depot burned old
munitions in OPEN PITS - and was the single
largest
contributor to air pollution in California -
17-23%.
Did anyone in this city know that, or do anything
to
inform the citizens?  I doubt that anyone was
aware or
informed.  Several months ago I made a short
presentation to the Peace and Justice Commission,
and
they were willing to consider the problem in order
to
take some action.  Norman Harry, former Pyramid
Lake
Tribal Chairman, and Senator Harry Reid worked
with
others to shut it down.  Less than a month ago
Lassen
County refused to renew the burn permit for the
Sierra
Army Depot - finally.

The United States has used DU weaponry in the Gulf
War, Kosovo, Serbia, Vieques Island, Torishima
Island
near Okinawa, Japan, and sold it to at least 23
countries.  Israel uses it nearly daily on the
Palestinians.  It is in the arsenal the US is
using on
Afghanistan.

The DU which contaminates the Gulf States can be
detected on gamma meters in Greece and Bulgaria on
windy days.  It's the weapon that "keeps
giving"...
and keeps moving.

DU is also used as ballast in commercial and
military
planes.  On Sept. 11, I called a medical doctor
who
lives 7 miles from the Pentagon and warned her
that DU
could have burned in the hijacked jets that
crashed
(up to 3000 pounds were used in 747's).  She
turned on
her gamma meter - radiation levels were 8 times
higher
than normal inside her house.  She informed the
National Radiation Information Service in
Washington
DC, and the EPA, FBI, HazMat and other emergency
response agencies went to the Pentagon to
investigate.
 A pile of rubble from the crash was radioactive,
but
the EPA rep said "oh... it's probably depleted
uranium... it's not a health hazard unless you
breathe
it".  Firefighters, Pentagon personel, and
communities
nearby DID BREATHE IT.  There was no followup
investigation, and what about the World Trade
Center
in NY?  Radiation almost never gets into
mainstream
media.  It is a taboo subject.

Karen Parker, International Human Rights Attorney,
is
calling for a UN resulution to ban DU
internationally.
 Marion Fulk, retired Livermore Lab scientist who
has
worked on the tritium facility issue, and I are
writing the science portion of the UN resolution
banning DU.  This problem is an issue we should
all be
concerned with: act locally, think globally.

An excellent and new book on DU is online in
Hiroshima
Japan - in English.  I wrote the Foreword and have
copies available if anyone would like to read it,
or
if you would like to invite me as a speaker.  You
can
read, email, download, pass on any of the 40+
interviews and photos in the US, UK, Gulf, Kosovo:
http://www.chugoku-np.co.jp/abom/uran/index_e.html

The Foreword is below.

The true partiots in this country are two women:
Barbara Lee for saying "no" to needless further
devastation in an already war torn country, and
Dona
Spring who brought the issue to the table in
Berkeley.
 I am proud to serve as Dona's representative on
the
CEAC and to support her important resolution.  I
hope
the information I have provided will add to the
discussion.  And thank you Margo for bringing up
the
radioactive weaponry.

Best wishes,
Leuren Moret
Commissioner - CEAC
President Scientists for Indigenous People
--------------------------------------------------
----
"DISCOUNTED CASUALTIES - THE HUMAN COST OF DELETED
URANIUM"  (June 2001)

Foreword
I met Akira Tashiro last summer in Hiroshima, when
I
was invited by Gensuikin to speak about Yucca
Mountain
and high-level nuclear waste at the Plenary
Session of
the 2000 World Conference Against Atomic &
Hydrogen
Bombs.  The citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
live
with the aftermath of the horrific power and
annihilation of nuclear bombs dropped on a
civilian
population, and the extreme cruelty of the
lifelong
effects of exposure to flash external gamma rays
and
internal low-level radiation from fallout. This
reality has changed the lives of all those who
have
visited Hiroshima and Nagasaki and learned not
only
about the hibakusha (survivors) of Japan, but of
those
around the world in Kazakhstan, the Pacific
Islanders,
and the Western United States.  Radiation respects
no
borders.  It is a slow, silent, global mutilator
of
all life.
In the 1970's I worked as an earth scientist at
the
Lawrence Berkeley Lab.  There the transuranium
elements were discovered for the bombs dropped on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, and the use of
depleted uranium (DU) on the battlefield was first
discussed.  Later I worked at the Lawrence
Livermore
Lab, where the design of nuclear weapons
continues.
Radiation and nuclear weapons are seldom mentioned
in
a climate of secrecy and denial.  Many scientists
work
in isolation and are only dimly aware of the
larger
project.
In the moment that I stood in the Hiroshima Peace
Museum on the anniversary of the bombing looking
up at
"Little Boy," I was overwhelmed as a scientist.  I
realized that engineering and technology had built
devices, through the misapplication of science,
that
could destroy all life on earth.  I saw photos of
women with vacant stares nursing dead babies.  As
a
mother and giver of life I wondered how, without
conscience, man could destroy 4.5 billion years of
life evolving on this earth.  The unbelievably
dangerous powers of nuclear weapons have been
developed by divorcing science from ethics, a
Western
phenomenon.
The Chugoku Shimbun, Hiroshima's newspaper, has
published two award-winning series on exposure to
radiation.  The first book, EXPOSURE: Victims of
Radiation Speak Out, is a powerful message about
the
detrimental effects that radioactive substances
from
nuclear testing and "peaceful uses" of nuclear
energy
have had on people and the environment.  In this
second book, Discounted Casualties, personal
stories
about DU reveal the unbelievable immorality and
cruelty of this new radioactive weapon.
Radioactive waste from nuclear weapons
development,
mixed with high-level waste from nuclear reactors,
becomes a lethal cocktail in DU ammunition.  In
recent
reports the U.S. Department of Energy has admitted
that military reactor waste has been mixed with
DU.
The waste contains plutonium, uranium-236,
neptunium
and other isotopes thousands of times more
radioactive
than DU.  Disposing of dangerous waste at a profit
benefits U.S. government agencies and the military
industrial complex, while passing the liability
for
disposal and the biological and environmental
damage
to citizens around the world.
Tungsten is a biologically and environmentally
safer
alternative with greater density and penetrating
power. DU bullets are pyrophoric and ignite on
impact,
producing a smoke that poisons life and travels
great
distances.  The bullet fragments and dust left in
the
bodies of soldiers cause extended suffering, and
cruel
and inhumane deaths years after the war has ended.
DU
is radioactive, it is a toxic metal, and the
toxicity
is greatly increased when combined with chemicals.
It
disproportionately affects women and children.
DU munitions are illegal under international human
rights and humanitarian law.  Nevertheless, the
US,
the self-proclaimed "International Champion of
Human
Rights," has used this inhumane weapon on the
battlefield, exposing its own soldiers, its
allies,
civilian populations, and future generations.  DU
testing in the U.S. continues to expose
unsuspecting
citizens and the environment.  Pilots at Fallon
Naval
Air Station in Nevada trained on nearby bombing
and
gunnery ranges for the Gulf War.  Now, the "don't
look, don't find policy" of the military has
concealed
the cause of a recent leukemia cluster in children
in
Fallon.  Overseas, the use of radioactive trash in
weapons has turned Gulf countries, the Balkans,
Vieques Island, and Okinawa into dumpsites for the
US
government and the radiation industry.  A single
miscroscopic particle can cause a lethal disease.
DU
will continue to poison life from the dust and
soils
of the battlefields and testing grounds. In ten
half-lives, or 45 billion years, the radioactivity
will become an insignificant amount.
Which is worse, flash annihilation by nuclear
explosions, or slow mutilation from low-level
radiation, the result of radioactive contamination
of
the air, water and earth essential to life?
Globally,
we have been deceived about the health effects of
radiation, by bureaucratized governments informed
by
the military industrial complex and scientific
power.
In the past half-century, 1.3 billion people have
been
killed, maimed, and diseased by nuclear weapons
and
nuclear power. Millions more will be killed,
maimed
and diseased unless the citizens of the world
demand
an end to the proliferation of nuclear weapons,
nuclear power, nuclear waste, and the new
radiological
weapons.
As the bell tolls, we must honor and respect the
hibakusha around the world, who are living
reminders
that we are pulling the rope of our own death
knell.
Let us thank the citizens of Japan, The Chugoku
Shimbun, and Akira Tashiro, for making us aware of
the
most important issue of this century.  And thanks
to
the veterans, whose stories make it clear that
democracies as well as living bodies can develop
malignancies.

Leuren Moret

     Berkeley, California
President, Scientists for Indigenous People
                                             June
2001
Past President, Association for Women
Geoscientists








*****************************************************************
 2  [southnews] Depleted Uranium Toxicity in Afghanistan
 
Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 22:46:04 -0600 (CST)

 

Depleted Uranium Toxicity in Afghanistan

by Richard S. Ehrlich http://www.zolatimes.com/V5.44/afghan_uranium.html

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan   American warplanes are  attacking Afghanistan
with  depleted uranium   weapons   which  could   poison combatants
and  civilians,   especially children, according to U.S. officials.

The   possibility  of  radioactive   dust storms  sweeping  across
Afghanistan  and polluting  rivers  has meanwhile  sparked fears
in Pakistan.

"The  radioactive  dust  released by  the impact  of these  weapons
can easily  get into the  food chain and the water supply through
the Kabul  River in  Afghanistan and thus  into Pakistan's Indus
[River],"

reported Dawn newspaper.

"There   are    simply   no   contingency measures  to brace people
against  such a disastrous  humanitarian  fallout,"  Dawn added.

The  narrow Kabul River cuts  through the center  of the heavily
bombed, mile-high Afghan  capital   and  provides  drinking water
for the people who dwell there.

After  meandering east along  the highway past   Jalalabad  and
other   U.S.  bomb targets,  the  Kabul  River crosses  into Pakistan
and feeds the Indus  River, the country's  biggest  waterway.  The
Indus provides  much of the  liquid nourishment to Pakistan's
farms and people along its route south to the Arabian Sea.

Pakistani  Dr.  Ali  Rind  warned  Dawn's readers:  "All flying
bombs   Tomahawk, JDAM etc.   are made of depleted uranium metal."

Many   experts  insist  the   dangers  of depleted uranium are
often exaggerated.

Dr.  Michael  H. Repacholi  of the  World Health  Organization,
however, said  in a January report:  "DU [deleted uranium] is
released  from fired weapons in  the form of  small particles that
may  be inhaled, ingested or remain in the environment."

Dr.   Repacholi    said,   "For   smaller particles,   a   larger
fraction   will deposit  in  the  lungs, where  they  may remain
for months or years,  unless they dissolve.  Very   small  amounts
may  be retained  in  the  lymphatic  system  for longer."

He     added,    "Breathing    ultra-fine particles  could  lead
to a  theoretical risk of cancer.

"In arid  regions, most DU remains on the surface  as  dust.  It
is  dispersed  in [non-arid] soil more easily, particularly  in
the  areas  of  higher rainfall."

Dr. Repacholi  stressed, "Children rather than adults  may be
considered to be more at risk  of DU exposure when returning to
normal  activities   within  a  war  zone through  contaminated
food  and  water, since  typical hand-to-mouth activity  of
inquisitive  play could  lead to high  DU ingestion from contaminated
soil."

Depleted  uranium  is  "used  in  several types of  munitions, but
primarily in two types:  it's used in  120-millimeter tank rounds
and  it's  used in  30-millimeter rounds   fired  by  the   A-10,"
Defense Department spokesperson  Kenneth H. Bacon told a newsconference
in January.

The   dreaded  A-10   "Wart  Hog"  is   a so-called a "tank killing"
aircraft.

Every 30-millimeter  round it fires has a 0.3-kilogram, depleted
uranium "penetrator"   to  bust  through   armor, according to
military reports.

Depleted   uranium   is  "primarily   for anti-armor,   and  those
are   its  main uses," Mr. Bacon said.

"We obviously  put out instructions about avoiding   depleted
uranium  dust,"   he added.

"Troops  are instructed to wear  masks if they're  around what they
consider  to be atomized    or   particle-ized   depleted uranium
that is if  rounds have struck tanks,  there could  be depleted
uranium dust around.

"So  if   they  were  working  around  an [enemy] tank  that had
been disabled by a depleted  uranium  round,  they would  be
instructed  to wear some sort  of mask to prevent  breathing   in
particles,"  Mr.

Bacon said.

"All  our  studies  show  that  in  cases where   there  is   dust,
it   [depleted uranium] is  washed away and nullified by the first
heavy rain.

"But  there aren't a  lot of  heavy rains in  the  desert,  so
obviously,  when  we were  advising our  soldiers how to  deal with
depleted  uranium damage, or damaged vehicles  in the desert, we
were careful to  point   out  that  they  should  wear masks."

Depleted uranium  is described as uranium that is  40 percent less
radioactive than natural   uranium,   though  it   retains identical
chemical properties.

Natural  uranium  is  found  in  everyday air, water  and soil and,
as a result, is also in each person's body.

Depleted   uranium,    however,   has   a half-life of 4.5 billion
years.

In  1998, the  Pentagon noted:  "Depleted uranium  is the  most
effective  material for  [military] uses because of  its high
density and  the metallic properties that allow   it   to
'self-sharpen'  as   it penetrates armor.

"Armor  containing  depleted  uranium  is very  effective   at
blunting  anti-tank weapons," the Pentagon added.

"The  major   health  concerns  about  DU relate  to its  chemical
properties as  a heavy metal rather than to its radioactivity,
which is very low."

Shrapnel   from    a   depleted   uranium weapon's explosion  can
pepper a victim's body much like a shotgun blast.

If  the  shrapnel remains  embedded in  a person,   then   the
radiation   "isn't eliminated," an  expert said at a Defense
Department briefing.

"By  accumulation,  is the  [radioactive] dose  increasing with
time? Yes,  it is,"

the expert added.

Dr.   Ross   Anthony,   from   the   Rand Corporation, told  the
Defense Department briefing,  "The kidney  is the part  that is
the most susceptible."

In  experiments  with  animals,  however, "there   seem  to   be
no  real   highly negative  effects until  you get a  very, very
high dose," Dr. Anthony said.

In  1999,  Steve  Fetter  and  Frank  von Hippel  wrote  in  the
Bulletin  of  the Atomic  Scientists: "Radiation doses  for soldiers
with  embedded  fragments   of depleted uranium may be troublesome.

"Apart   from  radiation,  however,   the risks   related    to
the   heavy-metal toxicity of  uranium inhaled and ingested by
soldiers  in  direct and  unprotected contact  with  vehicles
struck  with  DU munitions could be significant.

"Primarily at  risk are those who were in vehicles when  they were
struck, or their rescuers,  as  well as  those who  worked for
extended periods in  cleanup efforts inside  the   vehicles  without
adequate respiratory protection," they added.

"Very   prolonged    exposure   to   high concentrations  of
depleted  uranium  is required   to    give   radiation   doses
significantly  above [normal] background"

levels.

"Pieces   and   particles   of   depleted uranium  lying about
would be  sources of most  of  the  external  radiation  dose,
which    would   come   primarily    from penetrating gamma rays.

"Inhalation  of  DU-contaminated  dust either  directly  or  after
resuspension [in  the air]   would  be the source  of most  of the
internal dose, which  would be primarily  from very short-range
alpha particles."

Referring  to  desert  dust  storms,  the bulletin said, "The ground
the DU-contaminated plumes  passed over would be  coated with a
thin layer  of DU dust, some  of which would  be later  kicked up
by wind and human activity.

"The  munitions could deposit a  layer of [depleted  uranium]  dust
on crops  that could  be eaten directly by  humans or by animals
later consumed by humans.

"However,  rough  estimates suggest  that the  cancer   risk  from
consumption  of contaminated  produce would be  less than from
inhalation."

As  a result of  the U.S.-Gulf  War, "the number  of Iraqi  soldiers
with  embedded DU fragments  could be in the thousands,"

the bulletin said.

"Natural   curiosity    may   also   lead children    and   other
passersby    to investigate  the  interiors of  destroyed tanks
and  other vehicles...which  would subject them  to danger from DU
dust," it warned.

"Such vehicles should be made inaccessible,  perhaps  by  being
buried and then pumped full of concrete."

Critics   have  expressed  concern   over depleted    uranium
contamination    on battlefields   which   do   not   receive
environmental clean-ups.

Some critics  claimed birth defects among babies born  in Iraq
after the Gulf War including  headless  victims  and  others with
deformed limbs   may be  linked to the U.S. use of depleted uranium.

-----------------------------------------

Richard  S.  Ehrlich  lives  in  Bangkok, Thailand.  His  web page
is  located at http://members.tripod.com/ehrlich,    and he may be
reached by email at animists@yahoo.com.

from The Laissez Faire City Times, Vol 5, No 44, October 29, 2001

-------------------------------------- Interactive Forum Depleted
Uranium Toxicity in Afghanistan

----------

DEPLETED URANIUM: Contamination Found In Four Yugoslav Sites

U.N. experts have discovered depleted uranium contamination in four
of six Yugoslav sites targeted during the 1999 Kosovo conflict by
weapons containing the material, the U.N.

Environment Program said Sunday.

Wrapping up a weeklong visit to Serbia and Montenegro, a UNEP team
said that, despite its report, there is no widespread contamination.
"The work that has been carried out by the authorities of the
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and of Montenegro to avoid any
environmental or health risks at the targeted areas has been very
professional," said Pekka Haavisto, chairman of the assessment
team.  "The areas are clearly posted, there are fences to limit
public access and decontamination has already been done in most of
the areas" (UNEP release, Nov. 4).

The team, which included specialists from Greece, Italy, Norway,
Russia, Sweden, Switzerland, the United States and the International
Atomic Energy Agency, took more than 200 air, water, soil and
bioindicator samples, UNEP said.  The team also visited the Vinca
laboratory near Belgrade, where previously removed depleted uranium
material is stored, taking samples from a military vehicle hit by
the ammunition

U.N. First Committee Calls On Annan To Compile U.N., Other Views

The U.N. General Assembly's First Committee, which handles disarmament
and international security, yesterday narrowly approved a resolution
calling on U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan to compile the views
of U.N. members and international organizations on the health and
environmental effects of depleted uranium.  The report will be
delivered to the General Assembly next year.

The resolution passed by a vote of 49-45 with 39 abstentions.  The
United States, the United Kingdom and France voted against the
resolution.

Iraqi representative Matook Matook spoke for the resolution, saying
depleted uranium is a kind of nuclear weapon and has caused blood
cancers and other dangerous diseases.   Depleted uranium emits
radioactive material into the soil and lasts millions of years, he
said.  The European Parliament has issued a resolution about the
growing concern over depleted uranium, Matook said, and the use of
depleted uranium must be eliminated.

The committee's U.S. representative said the IAEA and the World
Health Organization have concluded that depleted uranium has no
noticeable effect on human beings or the environment, adding that
the resolution's implication that depleted uranium weapons are
weapons of mass destruction should not be taken seriously

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*****************************************************************
 3  CONFERENCE ON DU - PRAGUE - INVITATION - INFORMATION - DEADLINE
 
Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2001 16:19:21 -0600 (CST)

 
Res publica, association for information Prague, Czech Republic

Facts on Depleted Uranium On 24th and 25th November 2001

We are sending you last information and official invitation to the
conference dedicated to the problems of Depleted Uranium.

A) WHERE IT WILL TAKE PLACE Conference Facts on depleted Uranium
is to take place in the rooms of Technicians Club (Klub techniku),
Novotnho lvka 5, Prague 1, several meters from the Charles bridge

B) CONFERENCE TIMES SCHEDULE Conference is to proceed according to
the following time schedule

Saturday 10.00 am presentation, information of accommodation, from
10.30 am a brief seeing of the Old City will be arranged in case
of your interest 12.00 lunches

13.00 pm conference opening 13.15 - 18.00 pm contributions of
participants and following discussions 16.15 coffee break 18.00
closing the first day, 18.30 pm dinner, r, possibility of social
meeting, sightseeing Prague, in case of cultural program interest

Sunday

10.00 am opening of the second day of the conference, continuation
of participants presentations and discussion

14.30 pm topics, appreciations and conclusions of the conference
15.30 lunch

C) TRAVEL AND ACCOMMODATION This conference organizer will provide
free of charget accommodation to participants from 24th to 25th
November, in extraordinary cases from time reasons of the travel
it is possible to book the accommodation from 23rd November.
Participants of the Conference are expected to cover their own
travel expenses. We beg you to send the application form and
information on your arrival and departure, so that we would be able
to organize you receival in Prague and accommodation.

D) PARTICIPATION In this moment there are about 30 participants
registered from abroad and we take into account the participation
of about 10 persons from the Czech Republic. We anticipate still
more registrations.

E) CONTRIBUTIONS The conference is being conducted in English
language. The scope of the contribution will take about 20 minutes.
We would appreciate if the contribution would be sent to us prior
the conference opening or handed over to us at the presentation
before the conference opening. We would like to hand over all
contributions still in this form to participants at this conference.

F) SUMMARY CONFERENCE VOLUME Considering the facts that some of
the participants have already notified their discussion contributions,
eventually their themes or even sent already theses of contributions,
we are already now firmly decided that the conference results are
to be published in the form of a conference summary volume. Each
of the attendants will receive for their needs gratis ten copies.
As we have given in the first information, the conference results
will be handed over also to the president Vaclav Havel.

G) EMERGENCY CALL In case of emergency call no. +420+2+83850402 or
+420+0723570859 (GSM) - Mr. Stanislav Patejdl.

Reply slip

I would like to participate in the Conference Facts on Depleted
Uranium, Prague, Czech Republic, November 24.-25. 2001

Name ..........................

Surname ..........................

Date of birth Sex (man, woman) Address (City, State)
..........................

E-mail..............

Web site..............

Arrival ..........................

Departure ..........................

I would like to submit a paper on..........................................

Deadline for registration: November 14, 2001

Please complete this slip and return it to the Res publica,
association for information, Prague, Czech Republic: du@publica.cz,
post@publica.cz

Invitation

Res publica, association for information and partners are organising
an international conference on the theme

FACTS ON DEPLETED URANIUM 24th and 25th November 2001

Prague - Czech Republic Novotniho lavka 5, Praha 1 Klub techniky
(Technicians Club)

Saturday 24th November 10.00 am presentation, accommodation, touring
the Old City of Prague, 12.00 lunches 13.00 pm conference opening
- Prof Jiri Matousek from the Institute of Environmental Chemistry
and Technology Faculty of Chemistry, Brno University of Technology
from the Czech Republic, expert moderator at this Conference 13.15
- 18.00 pm coming up of conference participants in the discussion
to individual appearances 18.30 pm dinner, afterwards the possibility
of seeing the city, a visit to cultural program

Sunday 25th November 10.00 am opening of the second day of the
conference, appearances of participants and continuations of the
discussion 14.30 pm topics, appreciations and conclusions of the
conference 15.30 lunch

By means of this conference we endeavour to contribute to an expert
appreciation of the problem of the depleted uranium deployment.

This necessity was pointed out by the Czech president V. Havel in
his answer to letter of vice-chairman of the Res publica PhDr Jiri
Horak, who directed the attention to the problematic nature in
using arms with DU. Consequently all contributions presented at
this conference will be provided to Mr. Vaclav Havel.

We believe that also you by your participation and contribution
delivered at this conference will help to meet its purpose, to
judge expertly the not negligible problem of depleted uranium
deployment.

We are looking forward to meet you.

Stanislav Kliment Association chairman Jiri  Horak, Ph. D.

Association vice-chairman

Reply slip

I would like to participate in the Conference Facts on Depleted
Uranium, Prague, Czech Republic, November 24.-25. 2001

Name ..........................

Surname ..........................

Date of birth Sex (man, woman) Address (City, State)
..........................

E-mail..............

Web site..............

Arrival ..........................

Departure ..........................

I would like to submit a paper on..........................................

Deadline for registration: November 14, 2001

Please complete this slip and return it to the Res publica,
association for information, Prague, Czech Republic: du@publica.cz,
post@publica.cz
*****************************************************************
 4  Osama's nuclear bomb     

WorldNetDaily: 

NOVEMBER 8 2001  
       
Does Osama bin Laden possess the ultimate weapon – a nuclear bomb 
– in one form or another? Amid the heightened terrorist alert in 
the United States and elsewhere, examination of this radiating 
topic reverberates around the halls of Western governments, 
security services and in the international press. 

Meanwhile, I continue to be haunted by the words of an FBI agent, 
spoken to me when I was visiting Washington, D.C., in 1995. He 
revealed that federal officials had uncovered "substantial 
evidence" that bin Laden's al-Qaida terrorist network had 
smuggled several Soviet-built nuclear suitcase bombs into the 
United States. Although the ultimate proof of this contention 
would be an explosion that no one but America's worst enemies 
wants to take place, the circumstantial evidence is apparently 
compelling enough to keep sending Vice President Dick Cheney to 
his "undisclosed location." 

The fact that the Kremlin built such weapons is accepted by most 
Western spy agencies, even if one of the first persons to 
publicly reveal it was the controversial Russian General 
Alexander Lebed. He claimed in 1996 that negligent post-Soviet 
Russian officials had lost track of an astounding 134 of these 
deadly mini devices, thought to be capable of completely leveling 
everything within a couple miles of ground zero – not to mention 
covering an even wider area with carcinogenic nuclear poisons. 
Even if just a few of the suitcase nukes are unaccounted for, it 
would be a few too many. 

Reports continue to circulate that some of these field nuclear 
devices ended up in the hands of Chechen Muslim groups, who 
passed them along (for a substantial price) to bin Laden. While 
this has not been concretely proved as far as I can tell, it is 
clear to Western security agencies that Chechen rebels have close 
connections to al-Qaida and its notorious leader. That bin Laden 
desperately desires to acquire nuclear bombs is also quite 
evident, given that he has publicly said so. 

On top of the strong possibility that the Arabian terrorist 
leader has gotten his jihad hands on KGB-built portable-luggage 
bombs, it is clear that he has strong supporters in the Pakistani 
nuclear scientific community. Pakistan's chief nuclear engineer, 
Bashiruddin Mahmoud, has not hidden his glowing affection for the 
turbaned desert warrior. Still, it is thought to be extremely 
unlikely that he might have been able to arrange a nuclear 
weapons transfer to al-Qaida operatives. Yet his advice would be 
invaluable if bin Laden succeeded in getting the material needed 
to build a nuclear device from elsewhere, as many experts fear he 
has probably done. 

The contention that bin Laden would have no moral qualms about 
using such a hideous weapon on his perceived infidel enemies, 
even if most were civilians, is self evident. After all, it was 
not the recently revealed CIA office near the World Trade Center 
that was his main target on Sept. 11. The Saudi dissident 
realized that the twin towers would be full on a Tuesday morning 
with civilian workers going about their daily jobs. If 5,000 
infidel lives are good to take, surely 500,000 are much better. 

Chemical strike on New York 

Seemingly confirming that mass slaughter is the ultimate goal of 
some Islamic terrorist militants, I was told by another American 
security official while visiting the Midwest a few years ago that 
the original World Trade Center attack in 1993 had a 
non-conventional chemical component. He further revealed that 
this fact was concealed from the public on orders of senior 
officials in the Clinton administration, although he did not 
impute them with evil motives in doing so. He opined that the 
administration apparently did not want to "worry" the general 
public with such frightening details. 

According to my source, deadly nerve agents were placed amid the 
explosives that blew up in the parking garage underneath the WTC. 
The Arab terrorists – whom he thought were probably linked to 
Saddam Hussein – apparently hoped that the debilitating chemicals 
would be widely dispersed by the truck bomb explosion, killing 
thousands of people in nearby portions of lower Manhattan. In the 
actual event, the heat of the intense fire that followed the 
powerful blast quickly destroyed all but a few traces of the 
chemical agents, said my source. 

There is substantial circumstantial evidence that this same "look 
the other way" attitude carried the day after the TWA Flight 800 
explosion in the skies off of Long Island a few years later. 
After all, why spoil the "feel good" '90s with the reality that 
despite the collapse of the dreaded Soviet Union, America still 
had real enemies out there plotting to reduce her to ashes? 

Some who see darker motives behind such apparent government 
complacency might wonder if the secular humanist propensity to 
totally ignore the Islamic fundamentalist terrorist threat until 
forced to do otherwise on Sept. 11 does not reveal something far 
more sinister. Indeed, there is apparent room to wonder if some 
Western secular-humanist leaders – especially those who openly 
disdain their fellow humans who choose to look to the heavens for 
Divine guidance – have not long viewed the growing Islamic 
terrorist menace as a powerful tool to further their ultimate 
goal of ushering in a New World Order. 

Expert warrior 

Although Osama bin Laden and his mainly Middle East henchmen 
might appear to come from the Middle Ages to most folks in the 
West, he is clearly a very clever man. This is demonstrated by 
his carefully crafted video sermons, designed to pull every 
possible chain to stir up the Muslim masses in support of his 
self-declared holy war. This guy knows what he is after, and 
probably has a long-range game plan of how to get there. It may 
well include a nuclear explosion at an appropriate moment. 

If you have been following this potential hair-splitting aspect 
of the unfolding terrorist story in recent weeks, you might know 
that many nuclear experts doubt that the alleged missing Soviet 
devices are still able to perform their intended task. Such 
scientists assure us that the tritium triggers needed to detonate 
the portable bombs have undoubtedly decayed by now, rendering the 
devices useless. However, some note that it is possible to 
recharge the triggers for someone who knows his way around such 
technical concerns, which might include the Pakistani scientist 
Mahmoud. 

At any rate, it is relatively easy to produce a so-called "dirty 
bomb" comprised of regular explosives laced with nuclear waste 
materials. Although the kill ratio would be relatively modest 
from such a blast, it would still act as a powerful psychological 
weapon in a terrorist war currently focused on the threat of more 
anthrax attacks. 

I have not been able to secure any official comment about recent 
media reports that alert Israeli security forces intercepted a 
Palestinian terrorist trying to smuggle such a bomb into the Tel 
Aviv area a couple weeks ago. It seems that government leaders 
here think that the public is stressed out enough as it is, which 
is surely the case. 

However, such an interception might help explain why Prime 
Minister Ariel Sharon felt compelled to cancel his important trip 
to the United States this week for "security reasons." After all, 
he is no longer too upset with the Bush administration for 
attempting to force Israeli troops out of Yasser Arafat's towns. 
Sharon is instead quite pleased that U.S. officials have now 
officially placed the groups that were the main targets of his 
recent army incursion – known activists belonging to the Popular 
Front PLO splinter group, Hamas and the Islamic Jihad group – on 
the administration's official terrorist list. He would be happier 
still if U.S. officials formally recognized that members of 
Arafat's own Palestinian Authority have engaged in terror strikes 
over the past year, but he knows that would be asking way too 
much. 

Why wait? 

If Osama and gang have anything nuclear hidden up their flowing 
sleeves, why haven't they revealed this by launching an attack 
before now? After all, al-Qaida and Taliban forces are being 
pummeled by American aircraft in Afghanistan day after day, with 
no dramatic terrorist response so far in the West other than 
possibly a few anthrax spores in some mailed envelopes. 

The answer could be that recent U.S. government warnings and 
stepped up security have thwarted such an attack, at least for 
now. Or perhaps the terrorists have been deliberately giving out 
false information to wear down weary American security forces and 
the general public, waiting for a later day to act when the 
overall guard has dropped a little bit. 

My guess is that the wily bin Laden is not suffering all that 
badly at present, despite the massive American bombing campaign. 
He knows that support for the counter-terrorism war is already 
waning in the West, especially in Europe where hand wringing over 
relatively modest civilian casualties is reaching fever pitch 
(when will all realize that this is not a game of virtual war?). 
Meanwhile additional jihad warriors are crossing over porous 
Afghan borders everyday, some coming from as far away as England 
and Indonesia. 

Without wishing to add to the terrorist problem by further 
alarming any reader who is already having trouble sleeping at 
night, I suggest that the Arabian "Robin Hood" may be waiting to 
unleash his nuclear genii until he can achieve the maximum 
emotional Islamic response to such a dastardly attack. 

As a longtime friend and observer of many Arabs belonging to the 
growing worldwide population of Mohammad's faithful followers, I 
would nominate the holy month of Ramadan as the ideal time to 
strike. It is always a period of heightened religious fervor in 
the Muslim world, as I have witnessed many times firsthand. This 
year, Ramadan begins on Nov. 17. Such an audacious terrorist 
assault would really get Osama's jihad struggle off the ground – 
off the ground of the new Ground Zero.

A newly revised edition of David Dolan's latest book, "Israel In 
Crisis: What Lies Ahead," has just been published. Also available 
is his end-time novel, "The End Of Days," and his first book, an 
acclaimed history of Israel titled "Israel At The Crossroads." 
These books may be ordered by phoning 1-888-890-6938 in North 
America. You may also e-mail your request or visit David's 
website. 

David Dolan is a Jerusalem-based author and journalist who has 
lived in Israel since 1980. He reported for CBS radio for over 12 
years.

© 2001 WorldNetDaily.com, Inc. 
*****************************************************************
 5  Do the terrorists have nukes? 

The Wall Street Journal - US Abstracts; Nov 8, 2001

Moscow-based independent defense analyst Pavel Felgenhauer writes 
that there are great concerns that Osama bin Laden may have 
obtained nuclear weapons, and the events of September 11 show 
that he is not afraid to wreak devastation. News from Russia that 
unnamed "terrorists" have tried twice to access "S-Shelter" 
nuclear storage facilities in the country, the location of which 
are top secret, adds to the worry. A statement by retired Gen. 
Alexander Lebed in 1997 that Moscow had mislaid over 100 portable 
nuclear weapons, although this was denied by the Russian 
military, could indicate that bin Laden already holds nuclear 
arms. However, these weapons would be virtually impossible for 
outsiders to use, as they require securities codes to operate 
them. If bin Laden has obtained a usable device, the most likely 
place would be from Pakistan, which has more unsophisticated 
weapons, resembling the U.S. bomb dropped on Hiroshima. U.S. 
authorities are assuming that bin Laden does not yet have a 
usable nuclear weapon, but the International Atomic Energy Agency 
has expressed more concern that he might have a radioactive bomb, 
capable of spreading radiation over a large area without the need 
for a nuclear explosion. It would have been much more easy for 
bin Laden to acquire radioactive material from the former Soviet 
republics. This kind of bomb, which would cause widespread 
terror, could be more devastating than a biological weapon. 

Abstracted from: The Wall St Journal Copyright © Financial Times 
*****************************************************************
 6  Israel accuses Russia of providing nuclear weapons technology to 
Iran 

Zawya.com | 

WASHINGTON, Nov 07, 2001 (The Canadian Press via COMTEX) -- Iran 
is the biggest terrorist threat in the Middle East and receives 
critical support from Russia for its nuclear weapons program, an 
Israeli cabinet minister said Wednesday. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin insisted in an American 
television interview taped Monday in the Kremlin that Russia was 
not providing dangerous weapons technology to Iran. He called 
such suspicions a "legend," or fable. 

But Ephraim Sneh, a former Israeli general and now transportation 
minister, said he was certain "the central support for the 
Iranian nuclear project is provided by Russia." 

Sneh told reporters that Israel was on friendly terms with 
Russia. But, he said: "We don't sweep things under the rug." 

Informed that Putin was denying the link in an interview on 
ABC-TV's 20/20, Sneh said "it doesn't change the situation." He 
said Israel had advised Russia that its support for Iran was 
damaging Israel's security. 

Sneh, in Washington for a meeting with Condoleezza Rice, 
President George W. Bush's national security adviser, said he did 
not want to tell the United States how to organize its campaign 
against terrorism in Afghanistan. 

"We understand there is an American need and we feel our 
obligation to help" by not interfering, Sneh said. 

But he said Iran and Syria, which the Bush administration has 
solicited for its anti-Taliban coalition, are countries that 
support terrorism. 

"We believe they cannot be considered as countries that fight 
terrorism," Sneh said. "If someone forgets that we are willing to 
remind them." 

The ex-general said Iran has deployed thousands of missiles in 
southern Lebanon, across Israel's northern border. The missiles 
have a range of 65 to 75 kilometres, he said. 

Hezbollah, a militant group branded a terrorist organization by 
the State Department, has attacked Israel from southern Lebanon. 
Its arms are provided by Iran and transit through Syria, Sneh 
said. "Iran stands in first place as a sponsor of terrorism," he 
said. Kuwait's acting prime minister, Sabah Al Hamad, called on 
Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell on Wednesday to reaffirm 
the Persian Gulf country's support for the U.S.-led campaign. 
Bush told Al Hamad that the United States was committed to 
"helping and protecting" Kuwait, particularly where neighbouring 
Iraq is concerned, White House press secretary Ari Fleischer 
said. 

In the Persian Gulf War a decade ago, U.S. troops forced back the 
Iraqi invasion of oil-rich Kuwait. 

Al-Hamad told reporters the Kuwaiti legislature is tightening 
controls on charitable groups to make sure their assets are not 
used by terrorist organizations. "We are allied to the United 
States. We will remain allied. And we are proud of that," he said 
in Arabic. 

With Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, Israeli Foreign 
Minister Shimon Peres and Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk Al 
Sharaa all due in New York this weekend for the United Nations 
General Assembly session, Powell said he hopes to make some 
progress in Arab-Israeli peacemaking. 

Powell did not say whether he would meet with Arafat, who has yet 
to see Bush, who also will be in New York for the special UN 
session. Powell also said he is pleased Israel had withdrawn its 
forces from Ramallah, the main Palestinian town on the West Bank, 
and said he hopes for prompt pullbacks from other Palestinian 
towns, as well. 

Sneh said they should be concluded within a few weeks. 

The online source for news sports entertainment finance and 
business news in Canada 

Copyright (C) 2001 The Canadian Press (CP), All rights reserved 

Copyright © 2001 Zawya.com Ltd. All rights reserved. Please read 
*****************************************************************
 7  Secret decree nullified  

      The Nikitin case - all about the process against Aleksandr 
Nikitin starting from October 1995 and until today. Jump to 

(Moscow-Oslo:) The Appeal Collegium of the Russian Supreme Court 
has confirmed a previous decision by the Court's Military 
Collegium, which means that the end is near for the Defence 
Ministry's infamous secret decree 055:96.

Rashid Alimov, Jon Gauslaa, , 2001-11-07 18:14

November 6, 2001 was not only the eve of the 84th anniversary of 
the October revolution, but also the date of another fight that 
might turn out to have historical significance for Russia. The 
venue of the latter fight was not St. Petersburg's winter palace, 
but the Supreme Court building in Moscow. And the participants 
were not the defenders of Kerensky's provisional Government and 
Trotsky's Red Guards, but the attorneys of the Ministry of 
Defence and human rights lawyers Yury Schmidt and Mikhail 
Matinov. 

Nikitin wins again

At the end of the day, the Appeal Collegium of the Supreme Court 
ruled that the secret decree 055:96, regarding the "the list of 
classified information in the Russian Armed Forces", is invalid. 
The decree was issued in August 1996, and has been the legal 
basis for a number of criminal cases, including the case of 
Aleksandr Nikitin, who after five years of prosecution was 
acquitted of espionage and disclosure of state secrets by the 
Presidium of the Supreme Court on September 13, 2000. 

It was Nikitin himself who launched the complaint against the 
decree, claiming that it had extended the list of state secrets 
way beyond the limits drawn in the Federal Law of State Secrets. 
His complaint also focused on the fact that the use of an 
unpublished decree as basis for criminal charges violates Article 
15 (3) of the Russian Constitution. 

On September 12, 2001 the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court 
ruled in Nikitin's favour. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) appealed 
the decision, but the Appeal Collegium concluded that the former 
ruling was "correct and in accordance with the law". Its decision 
is final and can not be further appealed. 

A success

The direct effect of the decision is that ten provisions of 
decree 055:96 have lost their legal force. The general effect of 
the ruling is however, much wider, said Nikitin's attorney Yuri 
Schmidt after the announcement of the verdict. 

-- It is a success. Although the ruling, for procedural reasons 
was limited to ten provisions, the grounds of the judgment states 
that the whole decree has been invalid since the moment it was 
created, Schmidt said. The ruling will therefore without doubt 
affect other cases, like for instance the ongoing case against 
Grigory Pasko in Vladivostok. 

The prominent lawyer explained that the MoD would have to prepare 
a brand new list of state secrets. -- This list have to be of a 
considerably lesser size than the present one. According to 
decree 055:96 almost any kind of information pertains to state 
secrets, and on top of everything, the decree itself is a secret. 
This situation has to be changed, he said. 

-- We'll meet again

During the court session on November 6, the MoD-attorneys 
informed the Court that a new list of classified information in 
the Russian Armed Forces already is being prepared. Yuri Schmidt 
then asked whether the new list was going to be published or not. 
When the attorneys answered that no such plans existed, Schmidt 
made Vera Lynn's words his own: 

-- In that case, gentlemen, we'll meet again? 

Unlike Ms. Lynn, who neither knew where nor when the next meeting 
would take place, Schmidt knows very well where he will meet the 
MoD-attorneys again; at the Constitutional Court in Moscow - 
probably some time next year. 

He also has reason to be optimistic on the outcome of that case. 
Although secret decrees are still being used as normative acts in 
Russian criminal cases, Article 15 (3) of the Constitution states 
that no normative acts that affects the rights and freedoms of 
the citizens, can be applied unless they have been officially 
published for general knowledge. 

Thus, it may only be a question of time before not only decree 
055:96, but the whole system where each Russian ministry is 
allowed to make its own secret lists over secret information 
which later are used as basis for criminal cases, is thrown at 
the scrap heap of history. 

      Publisher: Bellona Foundation, President: Frederic Hauge 
Information: info@bellona.no, Technical contact: 
webmaster@bellona.no Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 
38 38 62  * P.O.Box 2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway Menu 
*****************************************************************
 8  Millions of dollars needed to salvage Russian nuclear submarines 

BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Nov 8, 2001


Stockholm, 8 November: The salvage of 109 Russian nuclear-powered 
submarines on the Kola peninsula and the restoration of all 
facilities where they were docked will cost several hundred 
million dollars, Atomic Energy Deputy Minister Valeriy Lebedev 
told ITAR-TASS on Wednesday [7 November]. Lebedev noted that the 
construction of a long-storage facility for empty reactors at 
Shayga bay alone is estimated at up to 100m dollars. 


In addition, first it is necessary to unload the waste nuclear 
fuel and to deliver it to the Mayak chemical processing plant. 


Lebedev represented Russia at the Contact Expert Group's 
three-day session on Russian nuclear waste, which ended on 
Thursday in Oskarshamn... 

Source: ITAR-TASS news agency, Moscow, in English 0431 gmt 8 Nov 
01 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter All Material Subject to 
*****************************************************************
 9  Flats radiates pride over safer technology

Rocky Mountain News: Local

'Liquid fire' cuts worker exposure to radiation as it slices through steel

By Berny Morson, News Staff Writer

Security was loosened briefly Wednesday at Rocky Flats so 
officials could show off a new tool they say reduces workers' 
exposure to radiation. Highly guarded since the Sept. 11 
terrorist attacks, Rocky Flats welcomed media and other observers 
for the demonstration, but then ratcheted security back up. The 
technology, dubbed "liquid fire," is used inside Building 771 to 
cut up contaminated steel equipment. The building once was called 
the most dangerous building in America because of contamination 
released by accidents during nuclear weapons production. The site 
is mostly empty now. 

The cutting process, technically known as plasma-arc technology, 
uses a stream of electricity to cut though the discarded 
equipment. 

The equipment is placed inside a metal chamber containing inert 
gas instead of air. Workers operate the cutter from outside the 
chamber. 

"The benefit of the plasma arc is that it takes the workers away 
from the hazard," said Jennifer Thompson, spokeswoman for 
Kaiser-Hill, the company coordinating the Rocky Flats cleanup. 

Workers in flameproof suits will cut up about 40 highly 
contaminated glove boxes with the liquid fire. Plutonium bomb 
parts were processed in the boxes. Also getting the liquid fire 
treatment will be 50 tanks that once contained dangerous 
chemicals. 

After the equipment is cut up, it will be shipped to burial sites 
in New Mexico and Nevada. 

Elsewhere at the complex, work resumed Wednesday at Building 707, 
which had been evacuated Tuesday after nine workers complained of 
respiratory problems. Four workers were taken to area hospitals. 
One was suffering an allergic reaction, but no cause was found 
for the others' complaints, Thompson said. 

November 8, 2001  

  2001 © The E.W. Scripps Co.
*****************************************************************
 10  Bush Decides on Nuclear Weapons
 
Las Vegas SUN
 
Today: November 08, 2001 at 8:20:15 PST 

WASHINGTON- President Bush says he has decided on a new, lower 
level of nuclear armaments for the United States and will take up 
his decision next week with Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

Bush said he could make a substantial cut in the American arsenal 
whatever happens in the talks in Washington on Tuesday and 
Wednesday and Thursday at Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas. 

"We don't need an arms control agreement to convince us to reduce 
our nuclear weapons down substantially, and I'm going to do it," 
Bush said at a joint news conference with visiting British Prime 
Minister Tony Blair. 

The president said he could not reveal the new and lower ceiling 
before meeting with Putin. Other U.S. officials have said the 
Bush administration anticipates a range of 1,750 to 2,250 
warheads - a deep cutback from the current level of about 6,000 
warheads on each side. 

"I am not going to tell you until I tell him," Bush said. 

U.S. officials earlier played down the probability of signing a 
major agreement during Putin's stay in the United States. Three 
officials said the United States and Russia were making progress, 
but an agreement may not be completed when the leaders meet. 

"I have reached a decision, and I spent time thinking about the 
issue," Bush said. "The United States will move to reduce our 
offensive weapons to a level commensurate with being able to keep 
the peace." 

On his quest for a missile defense system, Bush said he was going 
into the talks with Putin still convinced that a 1972 treaty 
banning national defenses is outdated. 

The war on terrorism underscores the need for a defense, Bush 
said. If Putin has "interesting suggestions" on how to go ahead 
despite the treaty, he said was willing to listen. 

The U.S. officials, who held a news briefing on condition of 
anonymity, said the two leaders were unlikely to impose either 
equal or precise limits on U.S. and Russian warheads. 

They are more inclined to set ranges far below the current 
totals, possibly with different ranges for the United States and 
Russia, the officials said. High-level meetings in Washington and 
Moscow already have produced substantial progress toward an 
agreement, they said. Parts of the 1991 Strategic Arms Limitation 
treaty that set up verification procedures to guard against 
cheating may be adapted to any new pact. 

Putin has shifted his position on Bush's plan for an anti-missile 
shield, they said. They described his change as a startling 
turnabout. 

Last winter, Putin was predicting the unraveling of arms control 
accords with the United States if Bush went ahead with tests that 
conflicted with the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. 

Now the Russian leader acknowledges that the United States has a 
right to withdraw from the treaty, and Bush will have to do it to 
proceed with his program, the official said. 

The meeting will be the fourth held by Bush and Putin. Their 
relationship was on the upswing before the Sept. 11 terrorist 
attacks on the United States. That trend accelerated with 
Russia's cooperation in the U.S. campaign against terrorism, the 
officials said. 

On a sensitive subject, Bush will take up with Putin the Russian 
technological assistance that the administration is convinced 
Iran has used in its nuclear weapons program, the official said. 

Putin insisted in an American television interview taped Monday 
in the Kremlin that Russia was not providing dangerous weapons 
technology to Iran. 

But Ephraim Sneh, a former Israeli general now that country's 
transportation minister, said Wednesday he was certain "the 
central support for the Iranian nuclear project is provided by 
Russia." 

On the Net: State Department's arms control desk: 
http://www.state.gov/t/ [http://www.state.gov/t/] 

All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
 11  Adviser: Bush to Scrap Some Nukes

Las Vegas SUN
 
Today: November 08, 2001 at 13:05:21 PST 
 
WASHINGTON- President Bush's national security adviser said 
Thursday that Bush intends to scrap unneeded U.S. nuclear weapons 
whatever the outcome of his meetings next week with Russian 
President Vladimir Putin. The cuts could be as deep as 
two-thirds, a senior official said. 

Condoleezza Rice played down prospects for an accord calling for 
mutual cutbacks and a green light for Bush's anti-missile defense 
program. "Not every meeting has to be accompanied like the old 
summits were with the Soviet Union by arms control agreements," 
she said. 

"This is a normal relationship that's moving forward 
progressively," Rice said. It is not a question whether the level 
of warheads Bush has decided upon is acceptable to the Russians, 
Rice said. 

"His desire to cut offensive nuclear forces comes from his 
belief, which has now been confirmed by a study by the Joint 
Chiefs of Staff ... that the number of weapons in the U.S. 
arsenal exceeds the number of nuclear weapons needed for 
America's deterrent needs in this particular time," she said. 

A senior Bush administration official said the president was 
willing to agree with Putin to reduce both the U.S. and Russian 
stockpiles to fewer than 2,000 - a reduction of two-thirds of the 
current level of 6,000 warheads apiece. For his part, the Russian 
leader is flexible about Bush's plan for a defense against 
missile attack, said the official, speaking on condition of 
anonymity. Russia has suggested a level as low as 1,500. 

"We could reach quite quickly mutual agreements," Putin said in 
an ABC interview Monday at the Kremlin. He also said the Russian 
position on a missile shield "is quite flexible." But he also 
cautioned that a settlement "can only be found as a result of 
very intense negotiations." 

A longtime Russia analyst, Dimitri Simes, said he did not think 
there would be a formal agreement next week. 

"There is a good chance that essentially will allow the United 
States to proceed with whatever the administration wants and is 
feasible and also provides Russia with some specifics of the 
nature of offensive cuts," said Simes, president of the Nixon 
Center, in an interview. 

Rice said relations with Russia have advanced to a point that a 
major arms control agreement is not expected at every summit, as 
was the case during the Cold War. 

On anti-missile defenses, Rice said she would not expect "any 
particular arrangement to come out of any particular meeting." 

Last winter, Putin warned that the entire fabric of arms control 
could unravel if Bush went ahead with a nationwide anti-missile 
shield in violation of a 1972 U.S.-Soviet treaty. Putin has since 
muted his opposition, leading to speculation he could be 
agreeable to a limited defense not banned by the treaty. 

But senior administration officials said this week at the White 
House that Bush inevitably would have to exercise a right to 
withdraw from the accord in order to go ahead with its testing 
program. 

"He is not prepared to permit the treaty to get in the way of 
doing that robust testing," Rice said. 

Her admonition that expectations for an agreement were too high 
is traditional before U.S.-Russian summits, even during the Cold 
War. But Rice was emphatic about it. 

"One should not expect one defining moment," she said. 

She said the two leaders would work on a new strategic framework 
for a number of years. 

Bush said Wednesday he was prepared to make a substantial cut in 
the American arsenal whatever happens in the talks in Washington 
on Tuesday and at his Texas ranch on Wednesday and Thursday. 

"We don't need an arms control agreement to convince us to reduce 
our nuclear weapons down substantially, and I'm going to do it," 
Bush said at a joint news conference with British Prime Minister 
Tony Blair. 

Secretary of State Colin Powell and Russian Foreign Minister Ivan 
Ivanov planned to meet Saturday in New York, on the sidelines of 
a U.N. General Assembly session, to help prepare for next week's 
talks, the Russian Mission to the United Nations said. 

All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
 12  OPINION: EDITORIAL: Cleaning up the test site?

LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL: 
 
Rep. Berkley: Her proposal not realistic

Thursday, November 08, 2001
 
Rep. Berkley's suggestion simply isn't feasible 

In the never-ending search for ways to block or stall the final 
siting of the nation's high-level nuclear waste dump at Yucca 
Mountain, U.S. Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., has come up with 
what appears to be a new twist. 

You can't put a nuclear waste dump there ... because the area is 
already contaminated with nuclear waste, Rep. Berkley now argues. 
The congresswoman fired off letters to EPA administrator 
Christine Todd Whitman and Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham on 
Monday, asking that the Nevada Test Site (where more than 800 
nuclear weapons were tested after World War II) be designated a 
"Superfund" environmental cleanup area. 

If that status were to be awarded, the contamination levels at 
the site -- north and east of Yucca Mountain, and 65 miles 
northwest of Las Vegas -- would immediately move it to the top of 
the federal "cleanup" list. 

And that's precisely why it's not likely to happen. 

Joe Davis, a spokesman for Secretary Abraham, sounded as if he 
were taking the congresswoman's request with a grain of salt 
Monday, replying the department had received her letter "and will 
be considering it and getting back to the congresswoman in some 
way, shape or form." 

Now, on one level, Rep. Berkley's objection is not as silly as it 
might sound. There is still a case to be made that any proposed 
"repository" for spent commercial fuel rods should never be 
permanently sealed -- that future developments in reprocessing 
technology might make that spent fuel a valuable resource, to 
which some kind of access should be maintained. 

If the repository is looked at in that light -- as a potential 
future work site -- then radioactive contamination of area 
groundwater from another, nearby source could indeed be of 
concern ... and might even "violate the EPA radiation safety 
standard," as Ms. Berkley contends. 

However, her proposed remedy -- "cleaning up" the desolate 
wastelands chosen for the nation's atomic tests, rather than 
merely allowing them to sit and "cool" until the tritium 
degrades, a thousand years hence -- would be laughable, were it 
not so potentially deadly. 

A 1997 analysis by the National Nuclear Security Administration 
found the most effective way to achieve that would be through 
open-pit mining of the test cavities -- a $7.2 trillion project 
in which workers would receive in just one hour the maximum 
radioactive exposure which safety regulations permit for an 
entire year. 

The existing program to monitor contamination of the Test Site's 
water table -- contamination which has not yet migrated to Yucca 
Mountain -- is certainly called for and must be done 
aggressively. 

And realistically, right now, that's about all that can be done.
 
*****************************************************************
 13  Energy secretary: Let's speed Hanford cleanup
 
Thursday, November 8, 2001
 
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
 
SPOKANE -- Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said yesterday he 
wants to dramatically cut the time and cost of cleaning up the 
Hanford Nuclear Reservation.
 
In his first visit to the former nuclear weapons production site, 
Abraham also said he believed security for radioactive materials 
there was adequate.
 
Hanford for four decades made plutonium for nuclear weapons, and 
the nation's largest collection of radioactive wastes is stored 
at various locations on the 560-square-mile site.
 
There have been concerns that terrorists might try to spew that 
waste into the environment.
 
[Seattle Post-Intelligencer] 101 Elliott Ave. W. Seattle, WA 
98119 (206) 448-8000

 Send comments to newmedia@seattle-pi.com 
[newmedia@seattle-pi.com] ©1999-2001 Seattle Post-Intelligencer 
*****************************************************************
 14  Energy Dept. Pulls Online Nuke Info 
                                        
 ABCNEWS.com - updated 10:39 PM ET Nov 8     

 By ABCNEWS.com

 The Energy Department stopped access to some of its Web sites 
containing nuclear site information, citing concern over 
unusually heavy traffic.
 
The Department of Energy (news 
[http://rd.yahoo.com/DailyNews/manual/*http://search.news.yahoo.com/search/news?
p=%22Department%20of%20Energy%22&c=&n=20&yn=c&c=news&cs=nw]  - 
web sites 
[http://rd.yahoo.com/DailyNews/manual/*http://dir.yahoo.com/Government/U_S__Gove
rnment/Executive_Branch/Departments_and_Agencies/Department_of_Energy__DOE_/]
 
) has shut down access to some of its public Web sites, citing 
concern over unusually heavy traffic to online information about 
U.S. nuclear sites. Federal officials shut down the sites on 
Monday to try to protect information that had been available to 
the public but could be used by terrorists to launch an attack on 
U.S. nuclear facilities.

 "We were very concerned by the [nuclear Web site] traffic 
patterns we observed over the past few days," a government 
official told ABCNEWS. "And we decided we weren't going to help 
anyone that might want to attack nuclear sites by providing the 
information to them, courtesy of the U.S. government."

 The move by the Energy Department follows similar Web 
self-censorship steps that have been taken by other 
security-conscious government agencies. Other Sensitive Info 
Pulled From Web Sites 

Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, U.S. military-run Web sites 
have removed pages regarding ship and troop information. Other 
once-public information, such as chemical plant hazards and maps 
of national pipelines, have been removed from the Environmental 
Protection Agency and Department of Transportation Web sites. 

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission removed online information 
regarding the nation's 103 operating nuclear power plants last 
month.

 Included in the sites shut down Monday are ones operated by the 
National Nuclear Security Administration, a semi-autonomous 
agency created in the aftermath of last year's debacle in which 
nuclear secrets might have been leaked from the Los Alamos 
National Laboratory in New Mexico.

 The government official who confirmed to ABCNEWS the recent site 
shutdowns acknowledged the move might not prevent individuals 
from accessing that same information elsewhere. 

"If someone wants this information, it's out there." 

*****************************************************************
 15  Cancer isotope proposal on hold 

Oak Ridger Online --> 

Story last updated at 10:23 a.m. on Thursday, November 8, 2001

by Paul Parson 
Oak Ridger staff 

The Department of Energy has put on hold a final request for 
proposals for a private company to convert a stockpile of Oak 
Ridge nuclear material into a weapon against cancer.

 DOE headquarters sent out a press release Friday afternoon 
stating the request had been issued. The private-sector company 
would have worked with the Energy Department to provide a 
long-term supply of bismuth-213, which has shown promise as a 
tool for treating cancer.

 However, come Monday morning, no one within DOE could verify 
whether the press release was for real or if it had been 
prematurely issued.

 That question was partly answered Wednesday when DOE 
headquarters issued a "correction" notice indicating the request 
for proposals was on hold, pending submission of a detailed 
project plan to Congress. This plan was requested in the 
conference report for the fiscal year 2002 energy and water 
appropriations bill, which has been passed by Congress and is 
awaiting presidential approval.

 In addition, Hope Williams, a spokeswoman for DOE headquarters, 
confirmed this morning that the press release issued Friday was 
sent out prematurely.

 For the past two years, DOE has provided bismuth-213 for 
clinical trials at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New 
York City for the treatment of acute myelogenous leukemia, and it 
is also being explored in the treatment of lung, pancreatic and 
kidney cancer.

 Bismuth-213 is a decay product of uranium-233. Oak Ridge 
National Laboratory stores around 1.5 metric tons of uranium, 
containing 450 kilograms of U-233, that was originally produced 
at DOE's nuclear defense production plants.

All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger 
*****************************************************************
 16  Y-12's manager completes first year

Oak Ridger Online --> 

Story last updated at 10:31 a.m. on Thursday, November 8, 2001

by Paul Parson 
Oak Ridger staff 

BWXT Y-12's chief says the company has made "an awful lot of 
progress" during its first year as manager of the Y-12 National 
Security Complex.

 Y-12 is moving forward on the right path due largely to tough 
but essential decisions and changes made by BWXT Y-12, according 
to John Mitchell, the company's president.

 However, some Y-12 employees have voiced concern to The Oak 
Ridger that BWXT Y-12 has made too many changes too fast to 
programs, including contracts and health benefits.

 Mitchell disagrees.

 "We knew a large number of changes needed to be made," Mitchell 
said, adding that he told employees in the beginning that change 
was coming. "I've never found value in waiting."

 BWXT Y-12 -- an alliance between Bechtel National Inc. and BWX 
Technologies Inc. -- was awarded a five-year, $2.5 billion 
contract Aug. 31, 2000, to manage and operate Y-12 for the 
Department of Energy. Three other entities were vying for the 
contract: Oak Ridge Defense Systems (a partnership among Duke 
Engineering and Services, TENERA and Lockheed Martin Energy 
Systems, the plant's former contractor); Westinghouse Government 
Services; and Defense Operations of East Tennessee LLC (a 
partnership among EG Technical Services Inc., Brown &Root 
Services, M.H. Chew and Associates Inc., Informatics Corp. and 
Arthur D. Little).

 Following a two month transition period, BWXT Y-12 officially 
took over as Y-12's manager on Nov. 1, 2000. At the same time, 
the facility's name was changed from the Oak Ridge Y-12 Plant to 
the Y-12 National Security Complex to reflect changes in its 
missions and those of the National Nuclear Security 
Administration, the quasi-independent agency within DOE that 
oversees the nuclear weapons complex.

 No sooner had BWXT Y-12 taken over than the company was faced 
with a very emotional issue: DOE contractor retirees seeking 
pension increases. The responsibility for administering the 
pension fund was part of the Y-12 contract.

 BWXT Y-12 and the retirees were able to reach an agreement this 
March. Retired employees from Oak Ridge National Laboratory and 
Y-12, in addition to those who retired from the Oak Ridge K-25 
site prior to April 1, 1998, received an increase in their 
pension checks of 4 percent to 23 percent, depending on date of 
retirement.

 Another tough issue BWXT Y-12 has dealt with is layoffs.

 Originally, the plan was to reduce Y-12's workforce by "up to or 
as much as 200 people" by mid-2002, Mitchell said. He indicated 
this week that number may be significantly lower.

 From the get-go, Mitchell says BWXT Y-12 has placed a strong 
emphasis on safety.

 Actions BWXT Y-12 has taken to emphasize the importance of 
safety include posting signs at the plant and implementing the 
usage of a "stop work" card. The card allows workers to halt work 
they believe is unsafe until it can be investigated.

 In June, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board urged DOE 
to make safety improvements at Y-12. The independent federal 
agency indicated inadequate attention had been paid to the 
storage of hazardous materials, maintenance needs and fire 
prevention.

 Mitchell said that was an accurate statement of how things were 
in the past, but added that BWXT Y-12 has made "rapid progress" 
in remedying those problems.

 In fact, BWXT Y-12 closed out its first year as Y-12's manager 
with back-to-back major safety-related inspections, one of which 
is still going on.

 First up was last month's "Inspection and Evaluation," which is 
a comprehensive DOE headquarters audit aimed at determining if 
Y-12 is a secure facility, safeguarding national interests and 
responsive to emergencies.

 Mitchell said it could be December before the findings are 
available. The Y-12 chief added he doesn't know if the results 
will be made available to the press since the audit could 
pinpoint weaknesses within Y-12.

 This month, Y-12's Integrated Safety Management System is under 
review by DOE headquarters. The system is a process that 
incorporates safety into management and work practices at all 
levels, addressing all types of work and all types of hazards, to 
ensure safety for the workers, the public and the environment.

 Y-12, like all other DOE facilities, quickly implemented 
heightened security measures following the Sept. 11 events and 
the warning that more terrorist attacks are possible. This 
included restricting travel access on Bear Creek Road.

 Mitchell said that although there was "a little bit of an 
inconvenience" at first, things are running smoothly. He credits 
DOE's full-scale emergency response exercise earlier this year 
for Y-12's being on its toes.

 Mitchell also said the current heightened security status will 
help determine future security needs.

 Speaking of the future, one of the biggest projects BWXT Y-12 
has been involved with is the planned modernization of Y-12.

 "This is a very long-term, sustained development," Mitchell 
said.

 The modernization effort, which is stretched out over a number 
of years, includes the construction and operation of the 
following facilities:
 
  + Highly enriched uranium facility --It will serve as a storage 
area for assembled weapons secondaries and other forms of highly 
enriched uranium. The preferred site for this facility would be 
in the West Portal parking lot, just north of Portal 16.
 
  + Special materials complex -- It will be used for the 
production of unspecified "special materials." The preferred site 
for this facility is on 20 acres on the north side of Bear Creek 
Road, situated on the drainage divide of the East Fork Poplar 
Creek and Bear Creek watersheds.

 The decision to upgrade Y-12 has received support from a host of 
elected officials, including Tennessee Gov. Don Sundquist, U.S. 
Sen. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., and U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, R-3rd 
District.

 "The support from everybody feels good," Mitchell said.

All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger 
*****************************************************************
 17  -Buses transport Y-12 employees to work
 
Oak Ridger Online --> 

Story last updated at 10:15 a.m. on Thursday, November 8, 2001

by Paul Parson 
Oak Ridger staff 

Why walk when you can ride?

 Here lately, that question could be going through the minds of 
workers at the Y-12 National Security Complex given the recent 
implementation of a shuttle bus service at the facility.

 "Parking is at a premium at Y-12 right now," said Bill Wilburn, 
a spokesman for Y-12. "It (the shuttle service) is a way to help 
employees who are having to walk greater distances now because of 
parking limitations."

 The limited parking is due to heightened security measures 
implemented at Y-12 in light of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks 
and warnings that more strikes could occur.

 There are other safety factors to consider.

 "With the end of daylight-saving time, it's dark when perhaps a 
majority of employees arrive and as winter comes on there is 
always the chance -- really, the likelihood -- of inclement 
weather," Wilburn said. "So the shuttle bus is a way to help 
employees get to their workplaces quickly and safely."

 Separate shuttles are serving the east end of Y-12 and inside 
the plant's protected area. The hours of this service are 6 to 8 
a.m. and 3 to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.

 There used to be a shuttle bus service at Y-12 but that was 
discontinued a few years ago.

All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger 
*****************************************************************
 18  A Twentieth-Century Journey in Science and Politics By Edward Teller 

csmonitor.com
 
  [The Nation Magazine]                      
    
from the November 08, 2001 edition 	
 
MEMOIRS: 

with Judith Shoolery Perseus Publishing 628 pp., $35 
      	 
 World War II shaped America's most controversial scientist
 By Robert C. Cowen 

Edward Teller - widely known as the "father" of the American 
hydrogen bomb - has been a controversial guy. To his detractors, 
he represents the archetypal Dr. Strangelove, with an unnatural 
passion for nuclear weapons and "star wars" antimissile systems. 
His fans see a champion of US national defense who punctures 
arms-control hype. Forget those stereotypes. Dr. Teller's best 
critic is Teller himself. He long

ago warned us to take his defense policy advocacy with a grain of 
salt. Its wisdom has been colored by a passionate determination 
to ensure that what Nazis and Communists did to his native 
Hungary will not happen to America. Now, he has given us the 
whole salt shaker in this fascinating, introspective memoir.
		 	 	
 			 
Teller's account of growing up in a culture that was rough on 
Jews, of surviving hardships after the arbitrary partition of 
Hungary after World War I, and of losing friends and family to 
Nazi and Communist oppression explains his passion to protect the 
freedom he found in the United States. Those challenges stiffened 
his backbone when his vision of an adequate defense clashed with 
what many arms-control-oriented colleagues considered 
appropriate. Add to that his self-confessed penchant for speaking 
bluntly, and it's understandable that the heated policy debates 
that ensued turned even some of his friends into adversaries.
 
Teller regrets the acrimony, but makes no apology for his 
convictions. Cherished colleagues felt the destructiveness of a 
hydrogen bomb made it "an evil thing considered in any light," to 
quote a report of atomic scientists who opposed the weapon. How 
would you answer Teller's counter-question: Would it have been 
better for humanity if the United States had held back while the 
Soviet Union proceeded?
 
The case of J. Robert Oppenheimer is different. Oppenheimer, the 
brilliant World War II leader of the Los Alamos atomic bomb lab, 
was challenged as a security risk in the mid-1950s. Old communist 
associations were revisited, even though the government had 
overlooked them during the war. More important, opponents to 
Oppenheimer's positions on weapons policy claimed that he gave 
dangerously bad advice.
 
Hearings were held to decide whether to continue Oppenheimer's 
security clearance. Teller was a key witness. He testified that 
he had no doubt about Oppenheimer's loyalty, but was ambivalent 
as to the trustworthiness of Oppenheimer's advice. When 
Oppenheimer's clearance was revoked, many American physicists 
blamed Teller. He felt ostracized for a time by his own 
scientific community, and some of his colleagues from those days 
may have yet to fully forgive him. It's obvious from Teller's 
retrospective account that he still feels the pain of that 
episode and has yet to make peace with it himself.
 
There's much more to this memoir than policy battles. In the 
1930s, Teller studied at the feet of the creators of modern 
quantum mechanics. His vignettes of those scientists are 
delightful. He worked under Heisenberg, one of the greatest 
physicists. The question of whether Heisenberg supported the Nazi 
atom bomb project or just gave lip service and dragged his feet 
lingers. Teller says that, given his knowledge of the man, he 
can't believe Heisenberg would have willingly served Hitler. But 
he admits that is speculation.
 
The memoir also gives vignettes of Teller the family man, Teller 
the musician - never far from his piano - and Teller the wannabe 
academic research scientist. He shares some of the enthusiasm of 
being caught up in the creation of quantum physics - his "most 
satisfying years." He laments that he couldn't get back into the 
game after the war. Whenever he tried to settle down to an 
academic career, he was pulled back into the world of 
weapons-making and research administration. While he became an 
outstanding scientist, he never achieved scientific greatness.
 
Teller has done posterity an invaluable service in publishing his 
memoirs. Objective historians and living participants in the 
recorded events may pick bones with them. But there is one 
assertion I think we can take at face value. Teller says that, 
while he could sometimes have been more gracious, he always tried 
to speak his mind honestly even when it made him unpopular with 
friends. It's hard to hate a guy like that.
 
• Robert C. Cowen writes about science for the Monitor.
 	 

  For further information:   
    
  •     Memoirs: A Twentieth Century Journey In Science And 
Politics 
[http://www.perseuspublishing.com/focus5.asp?ISBN1=073820532x] 
Perseus   
    
  Please Note: The Monitor does not endorse the sites behind 
these links. We offer them for your additional research. 
Following these links will open a new browser window.   
    
  Copyright © 2001 The Christian Science Monitor. All rights 
*****************************************************************
 19    Abraham Designates INEEL S.T.A.R. Fusion Facility A "National User Facility"

energy.gov - Headquarters' Press Release

RELEASE DATE: November 8, 2001                                                  [Print Friendly Version]
 
Releases $1.5 Million in Environmental Management Research Grants 
Idaho Falls, Idaho - Visiting the Department of Energy's Idaho 
National Engineering and Environmental Lab (INEEL) today, U.S. 
Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham declared the Safety and 
Tritium Applied Research (STAR) facility a "national user 
facility," opening the facility's resources to increased 
scientific research from around the world. 

"By designating STAR a national user facility, the department is 
increasing accessing to this important research facility for 
scientists and researchers across the world," Secretary Abraham 
said. "INEEL has a reputation of being an outstanding research 
facility in the area of fusion safety and I am pleased to open 
this facility to new and different research. Supporting fusion 
safety research is another example of the way the INEEL applies 
technical expertise to support DOE's major missions in science, 
energy and environment." 

The STAR facility houses specialized systems for investigating 
the consequences of accidents in fusion reactors. Scientists 
believe fusion can be an almost infinite source of energy, but 
learning to safely harness the reaction is a tremendous 
challenge. The facility is designed to host a number of 
experiments to determine how tritium, the "fuel" in a fusion 
reaction, interacts with other materials used to produce a fusion 
reaction. Currently, the STAR facility is hosting a collaboration 
between the United States and Japan to explore a number of fusion 
safety research initiatives. 

Announces $1.5 Million for Environmental Management Research 

In addition, Abraham said that the department's Environmental 
Management Science Program has awarded INEEL $1.5 million in 
grant funding over the next three years for research to support 
the department's Environmental Management cleanup program. 

The grants, to fund research initiatives to develop new 
approaches to dealing with the disposition of high level waste 
and the deactivation and decontamination of facilities, are part 
of 45 research grants totaling $39 million. 

Media Contact: Joe Davis, 202-586-4940 Tim Jackson, 208-526-8484 
Release No. R-01-190 

*****************************************************************
 20  U.S., IAEA see risks from disused Russian subs 

- 11/8/2001 - ENN.com
 
Thursday, November 08, 2001 By Eva Sohlman, Reuters 

STOCKHOLM — The United States and the International Atomic Energy 
Agency (IAEA) said Wednesday that a floating cemetery of nuclear 
submarines off Russia could be a target for terrorists seeking 
parts for nuclear bombs. 

Moscow played down the risks, saying it had stepped up security 
around the submarines off the northwestern Kola peninsula. And it 
said the nuclear waste could be cleaned up within a decade with 
about $200 million. 

"Of course it's possible that a terrorist could make a 'dirty 
nuclear bomb' from the nuclear fuel on board the submarines," 
said Michael Bell, head of the IAEA's waste technology section, 
at a conference in the southwestern Swedish city of Oskarshamn. 

Dieter Rudolph from the U.S. Defense Department, who was also 
attending the conference, agreed there were risks but said they 
were small. "In theory it is possible, but it would be a tough 
and heavy task to handle the radioactive fuel," he said. 

The three-day conference, ending Thursday, is about Russia's 
problems with treating nuclear fuel waste and missiles aboard a 
fleet of some 150 disused submarines around the Kola peninsula. 

Rudolph said that there were easier ways to find nuclear material 
to build a 'dirty bomb' from radioactive material. Such a crude 
bomb could cause serious damage — although not as extensive as a 
properly built atomic bomb. 

Last week, the IAEA warned the world that the threat of attacks 
on nuclear power plants had increased and urged countries with 
such stations to boost security. It said the risk of airplane 
attacks and theft of nuclear material had increased in the 
aftermath of the Sept. 11 suicide hijacker attacks on the United 
States. 

RUSSIA CRACKS DOWN 

"Russia has taken emergency security measures because we know 
there is a real threat from international terrorism,'' Russia's 
deputy Atomic Energy Minister Valery Lebedev said. 

He also played down fears of leaks from the aging submarines. "At 
the moment there's not much leakage going on. What we are looking 
for is help to handle and reprocess the solid radioactive waste 
and spent fuel from the atomic submarines," he said. "It will 
take about 10 years and cost about $200 million to remove and 
secure the waste," he said. 

Rudolph said that Washington was most concerned about the nuclear 
missiles aboard the submarines. "The U.S. focus is to pay the 
Russians to dismantle weapons of mass destruction but also to 
help remove, store, and reprocess the radioactive nuclear fuel on 
the peninsula," he said. 

The United States is planning to assist Russia in improving the 
capacity at a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in the city of 
Mayak and to clean up buildings around the plant which are 
believed to be radioactive. It will also assist in removing 
weapons and fuel from several submarines at a former military 
base in Andrejeva Bay. 

But Rudolph and Bell agreed that, although the submarines posed a 
threat to the environment, should they sink and leak, the worst 
case scenario could never compare with that of the Chernobyl 
nuclear accident in 1986. 

Copyright 2001, Reuters
*****************************************************************
 21  Did nuclear fallout cause thyroid problem

The Dickinson Press  

Thursday 8 November, 2001 

By: James Spainhower, The Dickinson PressNovember 06, 2001

It's now known that North Dakota was the unwitting recipient of 
nuclear fallout during a time when both the United States and 
Soviet Union were furiously conducting open air testing of 
nuclear bombs. In view of several studies conducted by government 
and private research agencies, such as the North Dakota State 
Department of Health and the National Cancer Institute, data 
suggest there are health implications to these exposures over the 
long-term.

The jury's out, however, as to the causal link between the 
occurrence of hypothyroidism among native North Dakotans and this 
long-term exposure. And definitive data on the frequency of the 
disease in North Dakota is difficult to come by.

Hypothyroidism, or thyroiditis, is defined as an inflammation of 
the thyroid gland resulting in the glandular secretion of 
lower-than-normal levels of hormones.

Symptoms of this lack of thyroid hormones may vary from mild to 
severe and from nonspecific to markedly specific, according to 
medical data. Generally speaking, all metabolic processes slow 
down leaving those afflicted suffering with fatigue, depressed, 
expressing decreased intellectual functioning, and rarely, 
exhibiting psychotic symptoms.

As for radioactive fallout from open-air testing, this much is 
known. North Dakota received substantial fallout, higher than 
most other states, during two separate time periods: from 1957 to 
1960 and from the early and mid-1960s, according to data 
collected in 1994 by a North Dakota Health Department study, 
"Downwind in North Dakota: An Uncertain Legacy," prepared by 
Stephen L. McDonough. Endocrinologist McDonough, at the time the 
chief of the preventative health section of the North Dakota 
State Department of Health, undertook the exhaustive demographic 
study in which he and other researchers reviewed several decades 
of cancer and childhood leukemia mortality statistics. Although 
he didn't track adult cases of hypothyroidism, per se, the cancer 
results were telling and McDonough believes there is a link.

Results revealed that the average North Dakotan during the two 
historical periods was exposed to "six rads" of radiation to the 
thyroid gland as a result of the radioactive fallout from the 
Nevada Test Site (NTS) explosions.

The Random House Dictionary defines a "rad" as a "unit of 
absorbed radiation dose." Conversely, "the average annual 
external background radiation dose to the thyroid gland is 0.1 
rads," according to the study.

The study continued: "Over the period of 60 years a person is 
exposed to approximately six rads to the thyroid gland. Thus the 
average North Dakotan received the equivalent of a lifetime dose 
to the thyroid gland from NTS fallout."

Infants, on the other hand, received "two to three times the 
lifetime radioactive dose," the study added. Evan Douple, 
director of the Radiation Research Board of the National Academy 
of Sciences, an independent, Washington-based think-tank, said he 
believed there was a "possible association between radiation 
exposure and hypothyroidism," but cautions that additional 
research is needed before accurate conclusions can be drawn. He 
referred to two studies within the last two years that attempted 
to link radiation exposure to hypothyroidism. The first study, 
"Exposure of the American People to Iodine-131 from Nevada 
Nuclear-Bomb Tests," a two-year study undertaken by the National 
Cancer Institute released in 1999, offered frequently open-ended, 
often contradictory conclusions based on collected data. 
"Overall, data clearly indicates that hypothyroidism results with 
higher doses of ionizing radiation ... but it is also evident 
that this risk could extend down into the range of doses below 
100 rads." The study then asserted that hypothyroidism "would be 
unlikely at doses below 10-20 rads." 

Conversely, the same study found that a 1993 study of Utah 
"downwinders" exposed to fallout after birth receiving a maximum 
of 460 rads showed no excess of non-malignant (thyroid) disease. 

Cryptically, the study said that data was inconclusive in the 
(rad) range that most people were exposed to fallout. Similar 
scientific inquiries, such as the "Review of the Hanford Thyroid 
Disease Study Draft Final Report," released in 2000, supported 
previous findings that a lack of evidence existed between 
low-level radiation exposure and hypothyroid disease. But, the 
study couldn't "rule out - or support - the possibility that 
there's a weak association" between hypothyroid disease and 
low-level radiation exposure, especially for those "predisposed 
to (thyroid disease) by genetic factors." 

Proponents of the hypothyroid/exposure link claim that the upper 
Midwest region of the United States is unique both 
topographically and meteorologically. North Dakota, for instance, 
is situated such that prevailing winds coupled with the timing of 
thunderstorms afforded unusually high deposition of radioactive 
fallout during testing years. "The prevailing winds at the NTS 
... and the interchange between the troposphere and stratosphere 
(resulted in) heavier fallout than other areas during the 1950s," 
McDonough states in "Downwind in North Dakota." Compounding this 
deadly radioactive rain was the steady supply of dirty debris 
from not only the NTS, but the Marshall Island hydrogen bomb 
tests and those conducted by the Soviet Union during the 1950s 
and 1960s, he concluded. "(NTS) fallout accounted for 
three-fourths of the radioactive fallout in the 1950s," the study 
said. As for nuclear fallout contributing to North Dakota's 
higher-than-average ratio of folks suffering from hypothyroidism, 
at least one researcher thinks there's little dispute. Ken 
Wangler, who manages the radiation control program at the North 
Dakota Health Department, said that "radiation fallout is linked 
to higher-than-normal incidences of hypothyroidism in North 
Dakota," although he could produce no statistics to support his 
contention. Bismarck's Medcenter One Health Systems 
endocrinologist Samuel Abbate, who has also studied the incidence 
of hypothyroidism, agrees with Wangler by saying there is a link 
between the disease and increased exposure to radiation. 
Moreover, Abbate said there's a greater chance women will develop 
the disease. "In general, in North Dakota as in the rest of the 
country, ladies are more prone to thyroid problems such as 
hypothyroidism and hyperthyroidism, than men," said Abbate. 

©The Dickinson Press 2001 

    
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