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                    NUCLEAR POWER CONTENTS
 
 1  Groups Warn of Calamity if A-Plants Are Attacked 
 2  Radioactive Italian mushrooms recalled - 
 3  Nuclear reactor closed after steam leak - 
 4  NRC Names New Resident Inspector at Perry Nuclear Power Plant
 5  Indian nukes open to theft, sabotage
 6  Ireland starts legal action on Sellafield 
 7  Britain broke law over MOX plant, court hears 
 8  In the crosshairs - Yucca Mountain after 9/11
 9  Group Seeks Cancellation Of Atomic Waste Shipments
10  Deterring and Prosecuting Castor Protestors Is An Uphill Battle
11  15,000 German policemen to guard nuclear convoy
12  Greens sue Britain over nuclear fuel plant
13  British Energy interested in Czech nuclear plants
14  EBRD head backs loan for Ukraine nuclear plants
15  Dublin files case against atomic fuel recycling plant
16  Spent nuclear fuel arrived at Zheleznogorsk  
17  Russian prime minister allows to violate Water Code  
18  County finds money for D.C. YMP lobbying trips
19  Irish start legal action over Sellafield
20  Yucca Mountain suggestions made by international team
21  Nuclear waste expert to be nominee to lead DOE branch
22  Indian nukes open to theft, sabotage
23  No space for waste
24  Nuclear Waste Comes To Russia From Bulgaria
25  China: Law to protect workers
26  Nuclear threats 
27  Officials briefed on Zion security 
28  IAEA Daily Press Review     Date 2001-11-09 Number 215  
29  Britain imposes no-fly zones over nuclear power plants
30  NRC Staff Proposes $3,000 Fine Against Wisconsin Company for Loss 
31  Train with spent nuclear fuel from Bulgaria unloaded
32  Joint venture starts manufacturing nuclear fuel
33  FOE PR on Sellafield legal battle
34  Ontario in running for $12-billion research project
35  Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission: Notice of Public Hearings
36  Hitachi,Ltd. and AECL team up for development of the Next Generation CANDU
37  Mandate for Securing America’s Electricity Supply
38  Nuclear inactivity Plant security issues of cost, responsibility 
39  Group urges closing of Indian Point plant 
40  anti-Millstone lawyer disbarred
41  National and Local Citizen Organizations Call for Major Changes 
42  Price-Anderson Act Facts
43  Officials briefed on Zion security

                    NUCLEAR WEAPONS CONTENTS
 
 1  Americans believe going nuclear will end terrorism 
 2  Terror threat ignored as ferry delivers plutonium 
 3  Scientists fear nuclear terror dangers
 4  Race to find mafia's uranium bars
 5  Press Briefing by Condoleeza Rice
 6  Safety concern halts K-25 work
 7  Bush Decides on Nuclear Weapons
 8  Rice Downplays Hope for Russia Pact
 9  Prince: Saudis Monitored Weapon Claims
10  U.S., Russia Seek to Cut Nuke Arms
11  Abraham orders cleanup review
12  DOE to extend Battelle's PNNL contract
13  Cold War Research Baby Teeth Found
14  INEEL trims number of layoffs expected this month
15  White House Softpedals Nuke Deal With Russia
16  Homes near IAAP get water connected 
17  Mayors warn Bill C-27 puts fox in charge of the nuclear chicken coop
18  Don't rule out nuclear option in Afghanistan
19  Nuke Compensation Panel Questioned
20  Radioactive sources found in Chechnya to be decontaminated
21  UK Government: Future storage of redundant nuclear submarines 
22  Nuclear attack: Now anything seems possible - 
23  ASUC Calls on UC Regents to End Nuclear Weapons Research at Labs
24  Agency finds SRS discrimination 
25  DOE doesn't allow OS man to attend medical clinic review 
26  K-25 uranium work halted 
27  National Laboratory Gets Cleanup Program Grant
28  UT chancellor wants to bid to operate Sandia Labs

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                     NUCLEAR POWER ARTICLES
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 1 Groups Warn of Calamity if A-Plants Are Attacked 

November 9, 2001
By ROBERT WORTH

Environmentalists and public officials, including three members 
of Congress and nine members of the State Legislature, presented 
a petition to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission yesterday, 
warning that the Indian Point nuclear plants, 35 miles north of 
Midtown Manhattan on the Hudson River, are vulnerable to 
terrorist attack and should be shut down until they can be made 
safe.

A group of those who signed the petition, including Andrew M. 
Cuomo, the former secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and 
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the chief prosecuting attorney for 
Riverkeeper, an environmental group in Garrison, N.Y., gathered 
on the steps of New York's City Hall to stress their position. 

"If the American Airlines Flight 11 that flew down the Hudson 
River had, instead of hitting the twin towers in New York, banked 
left and hit the twin towers of Indian Point, we would have a 
much more dire situation than we're facing now," Mr. Kennedy 
said.

Security has been high at the plants since Sept. 11, with 
National Guard troops standing guard and Coast Guard cutters 
running round- the-clock patrols on the Hudson River. Federal 
officials say that there is no need to close the plants and that 
safety improvements have been made since Sept. 11.

But the petitioners, who included two members of the City Council 
and more than two dozen state and local officials from the area 
around the plants, said those measures were not enough. They said 
a terrorist attack could cause a disastrous release of radiation 
at Indian Point, whose two reactors are in the most densely 
populated area around any nuclear plant in the country. About 20 
million people live within a 50-mile radius of the plants.

Jim Steets, a spokesman for Entergy, the company that owns the 
plant, said that closing it would accomplish nothing, and that it 
would be far harder for a jet to hit the plants than a large 
target like the World Trade Center. He added that even a direct 
hit would not necessarily cause a meltdown that would result in a 
wide release of radiation. 

"The evacuation plan does consider a worst-case scenario, and 
even then you would have 8 to 10 hours to evacuate," Mr. Steets 
said. The evacuation plan, which is reviewed every two years by 
the federal government and is based on the removal of people 
within a 10-mile radius of the plants, has come under fire in 
recent weeks, with many local officials saying publicly that they 
do not believe it is practical. 

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, in reviewing safety measures 
after the Sept. 11 attack, is trying to determine what would 
happen if a large aircraft were to hit a nuclear plant like 
Indian Point, said Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the agency.

But Mr. Kennedy and others said yesterday that federal regulators 
had never tested the security of the spent fuel at the plant, 
which contains far more radioactive material than the reactors 
themselves but is not protected by a containment structure, as 
the reactors are. 

Those concerns have been echoed at plants elsewhere in the 
country in recent weeks. On Nov. 1, the House Energy and Commerce 
Committee voted to require the N.R.C. to review the potential for 
attacks on nuclear plants. Several speakers at City Hall 
yesterday emphasized that although safety was a concern at all of 
the nation's nuclear plants, it made sense to shut down Indian 
Point because of its proximity to the New York metropolitan area 
and because use of the plants is less necessary during the 
winter, when energy is not as likely to be in short supply. 

Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company | Privacy Information  
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 2  Radioactive Italian mushrooms recalled - 

Japan News - News - 

Friday, November 9, 2001 at 09:30 JST

TOKYO 


The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare said Thursday 36.1 
kilograms of porcini mushrooms imported from Italy through Narita 
airport contained levels of cesium 134 and cesium 137 radiation 
above the government-set level.

 
Radiation leaked from the former Soviet nuclear plant at 
Chernobyl, which suffered one of the worst nuclear accidents on 
record in 1986, may have polluted the mushrooms. 







(Kyodo News)
*****************************************************************
 3  Nuclear reactor closed after steam leak - 

Japan Today Japan News - 

 November 9, 2001 at 09:30 JST

TOKYO A Japanese nuclear power reactor operated by Chubu Electric 
Power Co Inc remained closed on Thursday after a steam leak was 
confirmed, a company official said.

Chubu Electric shut down the 540,000 kilowatt No. 1 reactor at 
its Hamaoka nuclear plant in Shizuoka prefecture, central Japan, 
after emergency alarms sounded at around 5:02 p.m. on Wednesday. 
A spokesman for Chubu Electric said the leaked steam contained a 
small amount of radiation, but that none had leaked into the 
outside environment.

He added that there were no injuries and no workers were exposed 
to radiation.

The Ministry of International Trade and Industry (METI) has 
tentatively classified the accident "Level one" on the 
International Nuclear Event Scale.

The scale, introduced in 1992 to classify nuclear accidents, goes 
from zero to seven, with seven being the most severe. An official 
at the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, an arm of METI, said 
this was the first Level one designation for an accident at a 
Japanese nuclear facility since July 1999, when coolant water 
leaked at nuclear power plant in Fukui prefecture, 320 km west of 
Tokyo.

Japan's worst nuclear accident, which occurred in September 1999 
at a uranium processing plant in Tokaimura, northeast of Tokyo, 
was designated "Level four."

Hundreds of Tokaimura residents, plant workers and emergency 
personnel were exposed to radiation when an uncontrolled nuclear 
chain reaction was triggered at the plant. Two workers later 
died. The spokesman said Chubu had detected the steam leak from a 
crack in a pipe. It was investigating the reasons for the 
accident and could not say when the reactor would be operational 
again.

Japan, heavily reliant on nuclear power, has seen a number of 
accidents over the past decade that have undermined public 
support for its nuclear programme, which meets a third of the 
country's electricity needs. (Reuters News)

© Reuters 2001    
*****************************************************************
 4  NRC Names New Resident Inspector at Perry Nuclear Power Plant
 
 Region III -- 2001 - 051 -- 

UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, REGION III
801 Warrenville Road, Lisle IL 60532   

  No. III-01-051     November 9, 2001   

  CONTACT:     Jan Strasma (630)829-9663/e-mail: rjs2@nrc.gov [rjs2@nrc.gov] 
Pam Alloway-Mueller (630)829-9662/e-mail: pla@nrc.gov [pla@nrc.gov]    

 Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials in Lisle, Illinois, have 
announced the assignment of John Ellegood as the agency's 
Resident Inspector at the Perry Nuclear Power Plant in Perry, 
Ohio. The plant is operated by the FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating 
Company. Ellegood replaces Renee Vogt-Lowell who had been the 
Resident Inspector at Perry since August 1999. Vogt-Lowell 
accepted a trainer's position at the NRC's Technical Training 
Center in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
 
Ellegood, who began his duties at the Perry plant in mid-August, 
joined the NRC in mid-June as a reactor engineer in the Lisle 
regional office. Prior to working for the NRC, Ellegood was an 
engineer for Kaiser-Hill L.L.C. in Golden, Colorado, at the Rocky 
Flats Environmental Technology Site. He also served in the U.S. 
Navy for over five years.
 
Ellegood earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry from the U.S. 
Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, and a master's degree from 
the University of Colorado-Boulder in engineering management. 
Ellegood, his wife, and two children live in Perry, Ohio.
 
Ellegood joins Acting Senior Resident Inspector Steve Sanchez at 
the Perry plant. They can be reached at (440) 259-3610.
 
*****************************************************************
 5  Indian nukes open to theft, sabotage

The Frontier Post From Peshawar Pakistan

Naveed Miraj
Updated on 11/9/2001 12:17:20 PM
             
ISLAMABAD: India could become the first country to give concrete 
form to the threat of nuclear terrorism, as its assets are prone 
to become accessible to terrorists, suggest a study carried out 
by Institute of Strategic Studies in Islamabad. 

The study carried out by the Institute’s chairman Dr Shireen 
Mazari and researcher Maria Sultan take into account a number of 
factors that play a role in making nuclear assets unsafe and 
prone to falling in the hands of terrorists. 

Study says that although terrorism has become an increasing 
concern within international society but so far there has been 
less focus on one particular aspect of the problem - that is 
nuclear terrorism. Yet, within the context of South Asia this is 
of special significance, given the number of insurgencies and 
freedom struggles with trans-national linkages, and the 
nuclearisation of this region since 1998. 

Of all the South Asian states, India’s nuclear facilities are 
perhaps the most vulnerable to nuclear terrorism, given India’s 
expansive nuclear programme, much of it not subject to IAEA 
safeguards. 

In addition, the vulnerability of India’s nuclear facilities is 
further aggravated by its thriving underworld and over a dozen 
insurgencies going on within the Indian states, as well as the 
freedom struggle in Indian Occupied Kashmir. 

To examine the case of India within these parameters, the study 
identified three dimensions to it: One, nuclear theft; two, 
leakage at nuclear facilities; three, hazards prevailing at the 
base of the nuclear cycle, e.g. 

uranium mining. 

The study reveals that India’s nuclear programme has developed 
too quickly and without being assimilated within proper 
safeguards. The problem has been further aggravated because of 
India’s rejection of the International Atomic Energy Agency 
(IAEA) safeguards. Other than a total lack of accountability, the 
wide dispersal of un-safeguarded nuclear facilities within India 
exposes that many population centres to the hazards arising out 
of radiation leakage from faulty structures and mechanisms, in 
addition to the wilful misuse of stolen nuclear material and 
crudely made nuclear devices, for sabotage purposes. 

The lack of safety features In the uranium mining ventures has 
endangered a whole chunk of Indian citizens. 

The fact that they happen to be Dalits is highly destabilizing 
within the Indian political context. 

Again, the lure of financial rewards seems to have allowed some 
in the nuclear scientific community to be led astray - hence the 
threat of saleable expertise in India, to any group or country 
willing to pay the price, has become acute. 

Given the on-going insurgencies within the Indian state - 
especially in the northeast - and the political violence in 
states like Bihar, the nuclear cycle components in these regions 
become prone to becoming accessible to terrorists - not only as 
sources of theft of radioactive materials but also as targets of 
sabotage. 

The study suggests that India really needs to go in for IAEA 
safeguards on its civilian facilities. 

It also needs to take stock of the prevailing problems in has 
faced in its nuclear installations and mining enterprises, so 
that a more viable system of protection from terrorism is put in 
place, before it embarks on future ventures. 

The study finally concludes that, it is also becoming 
increasingly evident that the existing international conventions 
on nuclear safety do not deal with problems of safety, of the 
design of reactors, of minimum safety conditions to govern mining 
of radioactive substances, and the possibility of nuclear theft. 
Yet it is these issues that may add to the threat of 
international terrorism becoming ever more lethal. 

In the case of India, the danger to the region from its unstable, 
un-safeguarded nuclear facilities makes the nuclear threat more 
acute -not only in terms of a nuclear exchange between Pakistan 
and India, but also in terms of nuclear terrorism from national 
or trans-national groups based in India and relying on 
clandestine material stolen from these Indian facilities. 

of this region since 1998. 

Of all the South Asian states, India’s nuclear facilities are 
perhaps the most vulnerable to nuclear terrorism, given India’s 
expansive nuclear programme, much of it not subject to IAEA 
safeguards. 

In addition, the vulnerability of India’s nuclear facilities is 
further aggravated by its thriving underworld and over a dozen 
insurgencies going on within the Indian states, as well as the 
freedom struggle in Indian Occupied Kashmir. 

To examine the case of India within these parameters, the study 
identified three dimensions to it: One, nuclear theft; two, 
leakage at nuclear facilities; three, hazards prevailing at the 
base of the nuclear cycle, e.g. 

uranium mining. 

The study reveals that India’s nuclear programme has developed 
too quickly and without being assimilated within proper 
safeguards. The problem has been further aggravated because of 
India’s rejection of the International Atomic Energy Agency 
(IAEA) safeguards. 

Other than a total lack of accountability, the wide dispersal of 
un-safeguarded nuclear facilities within India exposes that many 
population centres to the hazards arising out of radiation 
leakage from faulty structures and mechanisms, in addition to the 
wilful misuse of stolen nuclear material and crudely made nuclear 
devices, for sabotage purposes. 

The lack of safety features In the uranium mining ventures has 
endangered a whole chunk of Indian citizens. The fact that they 
happen to be Dalits is highly destabilizing within the Indian 
political context. 

Again, the lure of financial rewards seems to have allowed some 
in the nuclear scientific community to be led astray - hence the 
threat of saleable expertise in India, to any group or country 
willing to pay the price, has become acute. 

Given the on-going insurgencies within the Indian state - 
especially in the northeast - and the political violence in 
states like Bihar, the nuclear cycle components in these regions 
become prone to becoming accessible to terrorists - not only as 
sources of theft of radioactive materials but also as targets of 
sabotage. 

The study suggests that India really needs to go in for IAEA 
safeguards on its civilian facilities. 

It also needs to take stock of the prevailing problems in has 
faced in its nuclear installations and mining enterprises, so 
that a more viable system of protection from terrorism is put in 
place, before it embarks on future ventures. 

The study finally concludes that, it is also becoming 
increasingly evident that the existing international conventions 
on nuclear safety do not deal with problems of safety, of the 
design of reactors, of minimum safety conditions to govern mining 
of radioactive substances, and the possibility of nuclear theft. 
Yet it is these issues that may add to the threat of 
international terrorism becoming ever more lethal. 

In the case of India, the danger to the region from its unstable, 
un-safeguarded nuclear facilities makes the nuclear threat more 
acute -not only in terms of a nuclear exchange between Pakistan 
and India, but also in terms of nuclear terrorism from national 
or trans-national groups based in India and relying on 
clandestine material stolen from these Indian facilities. 

© Copyright 2001 The Frontier Post 
*****************************************************************
 6  Ireland starts legal action on Sellafield 

online.ie 09 Nov 2001 

The Government was today launching legal action against the 
United Kingdom over plans for a controversial new reprocessing 
plant at Sellafield.

Ireland has long been concerned over the environmental impact of 
the Cumbria plant on the Irish Sea, and its worries have been 
heightened by the fear of terrorist attack since the September 11 
strikes in the United States.

The Republic was further infuriated by the UK government's 
October 3 decision to allow the construction of the mixed 
plutonium and uranium oxide (MOX) plant.

Today's legal action was taking place under the United Nations 
Convention on the Law of the Sea and the Ospar Convention on the 
Marine Environment.

Deirdre Clune, environment spokesman for opposition party Fine 
Gael, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "We are delighted to 
see our Government taking this kind of action.

"This is something that is of concern to everybody on this side 
of the Irish Sea.

"Our chief worry prior to September 11 has always been 
environmental pollution, the threat of radioactivity being 
released into the Irish Sea, and we have had evidence of it 
sweeping across to our coasts. "Since September 11, the anxiety 
has heightened and there is a genuine fear of terrorist attack on 
Sellafield right now.

"The British government's announcement of the go-ahead for the 
MOX site created much anger."

Similar nuclear plants in France had been equipped with 
ground-to-air missiles and armed guards since the terror attacks 
on the US, said Ms Clune.

She added: "We don't see any evidence of additional security 
provided around Sellafield following September 11.

"BNFL tell us they are reviewing security. It is a matter for the 
UK government, if they believe there is a risk of terrorist 
attack on Sellafield, to review security at the plant."

*****************************************************************
 7  Britain broke law over MOX plant, court hears 

online.ie : News

The Irish Examiner 09 Nov 2001 

By Fionnán Sheahan, Political Reporter

THE British government broke the law in granting approval for the 
MOX nuclear reprocessing plant at Sellafield, the British High 
Court heard yesterday.

The plant is scheduled to begin operations on November 23. 
Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth are taking a legal challenge 
to stop it going ahead. Their legal team argued the economic 
justification for MOX is flawed.

A second legal assault on the MOX facility takes place today when 
the Irish Government begins a challenge under United Nations law. 
The deadline for the British government to voluntarily suspend 
the operation of the MOX (Mixed Oxide Fuel) facility passes this 
evening.

The government will lodge papers with the International Tribunal 
for the Law of the Sea to order an immediate suspension of the 
authorisation of the MOX plant and international transports of 
material.

Based in Hamburg, the International Tribunal has the legal power 
to order an injunction. The government will ask the tribunal to 
hold oral hearings and order provisional measures before the MOX 
plant becomes operational.

Timing is crucial at this stage as it is believed the MOX plant 
will become operational as early as November 23.

The government's legal team will argue that in taking steps to 
authorise the MOX plant, Britain has violated numerous provisions 
of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea 
(UNCLOS) which are intended to protect the marine environment. 

The legal argument will also hinge on allegations that Britain 
has failed to co-operate with Ireland on numerous grounds:

* By withholding information on the MOX plant; 

* That the British government failed to carry out a proper 
environmental impact assessment of the MOX plant and of 
transports of radioactive materials;

* By permitting new discharges of radioactive materials into the 
Irish Sea, Britain would violate its obligations to protect the 
marine environment.

The Government's legal action follows a British High Court case 
by environmentalists yesterday where it was argued that 
Sellafield's operators, British Nuclear Fuels, have not justified 
their new MOX plant on economic grounds. The company is obliged 
to provide the economic criteria under European Law, the 
environmental groups said.

Counsel for the groups told the judge, Mr Justice Collins, that 
the bottom line of any economic cost benefit analysis would have 
to be positive. But he said in the case of MOX, there was no net 
economic benefit. As of last June, he said, the capital costs of 
building and setting up the MOX plant were £470m, while 
consultants had estimated the net value at only £216m.
*****************************************************************
 8  In the crosshairs - Yucca Mountain after 9/11

Pahrump Valley Times  

By: HENRY BREAN, Managing EditorNovember 09, 2001

"I mentally prepare myself for the body cavity search."

She is maybe 40 years old -5-6, glasses, somebody's mom - and 
it's obvious that if I try anything funny, she will shoot me 
dead.

I stand at Gate 510 of the Nevada Test Site. She wears desert 
camouflage fatigues, cradles an assault rifle and searches my 
car.

Weird thing about watching a heavily armed security guard search 
your car: It's hard to know where to stand or what to do with 
your hands.

I stand there like a statue I imagine in a museum somewhere, 
something called "Casual, Non-threatening Man Who Never Moves." I 
begin to think about all the strange and incriminating things she 
might find in my car. In the glove compartment, a pocketknife and 
one of those multi-tool Leathermans. On the floor behind the 
backseat, a plastic Simpsons Halloween toy from Burger King.

I mentally prepare myself for the body cavity search, but there 
isn't one. I'm not even frisked. All I have to do is park my car 
off to the side - it was searched even though it wasn't going 
onto the test site - and wait for the media bus from Las Vegas to 
pick me up.

This is my Saturday - another long tour of Yucca Mountain, 
another exhaustive look at a place you really only need to see 
once to believe.

Other buses full of test-site tourists roll up as I wait. I make 
passable small talk with the woman guard and her giant male 
counterparts, but the chitchat stops every time a bus rolls up. 

At one point, the woman covers one of her partners as he looks 
through the baggage compartments on one of the buses. Suddenly, 
she turns to me and motions with her hand. She wants me to move 
away from them, but when I do she points and says, "No, not 
behind me; I want you in my peripheral vision." The small-talk 
tone is long gone.

A bit later, I climb aboard the media bus and ride it to the 
south portal of the five-mile-long tunnel that has been gouged 
through the middle of Yucca Mountain. At the gate leading to the 
site, there is a man in fatigues with an assault rifle.

Me and my media cohorts walk around the giant tunnel-boring 
machine for a while - it's for sale you know; low, low APR on 
approved credit; call the U.S. Department of Energy to schedule a 
test drive! - then put on hardhats, safety glasses and earplugs 
for the trip into the tunnel. We sling utility belts around our 
waists with flashlights and emergency breathers in case of a fire 
or a gas leak. We try to remain casual and composed, but there is 
no mistaking it: This is pretty cool.

We are herded onto a small, diesel-driven train for the four-mile 
ride down into Yucca Mountain. The tunnel swallows the bright, 
warm day, and we ride the rails with our eyes wide.

But not everyone is impressed. On the ride down into the tunnel, 
I sit next to Keith Dennison, an underground foreman who joined 
the Yucca Mountain Project seven years ago, back when the tunnel 
was about 100 feet long. As the rest of us swivel our heads 
around, snapping pictures, Dennison lowers his chin to his chest, 
and with diesel exhaust blowing in his face, grabs a quick nap.

Endless hours later there is lunch - and more guards with assault 
rifles - before we are loaded into vans for the trip to the crest 
of Yucca Mountain, 4,946 feet above sea level. If it weren't for 
the Panamints and the high Sierras, you might just be able to 
spot sea level on a clear day.

The view is spectacular, but not quite good enough for my 
purposes. After getting permission - a wave of the hand, really - 
from the DOE spokesman leading the tour, I wander down the road a 
bit in hopes of snapping a picture of Amargosa Valley from the 
top of what seems destined to become that town's nuclear waste 
dump next door.

I get maybe 300 yards before I hear the whistling. I look back to 
see, trotting down the road behind me, a man in fatigues carrying 
an assault rifle. He tells I'm not allowed to wander so far away 
from the group. He is a good sport about it, but he still escorts 
me back to the top of the ridge. At the center of his smile is 
something cool and business-like, and I can tell that if I do 
anything funny, he will shoot me dead. When I rejoin the group, 
the DOE spokesman looks at me, shrugs apologetically and says, "I 
guess not."

The sun is going down as I roll back into Pahrump. It has been a 
full day of boredom, wonder and almost getting shot. At the time, 
I'm not sure what I will write about all of this or what exactly 
I have learned about the Yucca Mountain Project and our 
heightened level of national security. But I'm pretty sure it 
might make a pretty good column.

It's not until much later that I realize I was wrong.

o o o

Now for some current events ...

Those who believe that term limits are a good idea, meet your new 
poster boy: He is an old, white Republican named Michael 
Bloomberg, and he is the freshly minted mayor-elect of New York 
City.

Bloomberg edged Democrat Mark Green on Tuesday in one of the 
biggest races of this off-year election. It was something of a 
political miracle, considering Bloomberg won the biggest job in 
the biggest city despite the fact that everyone really wanted to 
vote for someone else.

Trust me, I have heard all of the arguments for term limits. I 
even agree with a few of them. For example, I believe it is 
unhealthy for any nation to foster the existence of something 
called a "career politician."

Heck, I might even be convinced to vote in favor of term limits 
under the right circumstances. Like if you caught me just before 
I entered the voting booth and you whispered the following two 
words into my ear: Strom Thurmond.

There's just one small problem. On Tuesday, an election was held 
in the largest city in America, and the one guy everyone wanted 
to elect just happened to be the one guy who wasn't allowed to 
run. Sorry, friends, but that isn't democracy. That's stupidity. 

©Pahrump Valley Times 2001 
*****************************************************************
 9  Group Seeks Cancellation Of Atomic Waste Shipments

F.A.Z. - English Version 

F.A.Z. BERLIN. Germany's Alliance for Environment and Nature 
Protection called on Thursday for the indefinite postponement of 
Castor nuclear waste transports, saying they are too high a 
security risk in the current political climate.

An alliance study said the steel out of which the containers were 
made could not withstand anti-tank weapons. The group's expert on 
atomic energy, Helmut Hirsch, also said a high level of nuclear 
contamination could be released if an airplane were to crash into 
a waste-storage facility. Alliance spokeswoman Renate Backhaus 
called for a ban on the use of nuclear energy in Germany, saying 
that "we cannot use a form of energy that requires military 
protection."

But the police union said postponing transports was senseless. 
"The security situation will not improve," union chairman Konrad 
Freiberg said, adding that cancellation would waste the DM20 
million ($9.2 million) spent to prepare for next week's shipment. 
The waste will be shipped on Monday from the La Hague 
reprocessing plant in France and is expected to reach a storage 
site in Gorleben, a town in Lower Saxony, at mid-week. 

Nov. 8, 2001

      © Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 2000
*****************************************************************
 10  Deterring and Prosecuting Castor Protestors Is An Uphill Battle

F.A.Z. - English Version 


By Stefan Dietrich 

LÜNEBURG. Sending a container of radioactive waste from France's 
La Hague nuclear reprocessing plant to the Gorleben storage 
facility, near this northern Lower Saxony city, is an expensive 
trip. Each of the four transports so far completed has cost 
taxpayers sums in the range of DM2 million ($920,000).

In contrast, blocking a transport of Castor containers loaded 
with nuclear waste is very cheap.

In fact, with the first four transports -- in 1995, 1996, 1997 
and 2001 -- it cost protesters who delayed the controversial 
transports almost nothing to commit acts of sabotage, attack the 
police and disregard government regulations. 

There is little reason to believe that things will be different 
for the fifth transport, scheduled for next week.

Although several hundred demonstrators have been detained by 
police and required to present their personal data each time, 
none has ever been required to cover even a symbolic part of the 
immense material cost caused by acts of what under German law is 
civil disobedience. Even where prosecutors have sought to bring 
charges of duress, property damage, disturbing the peace or 
interfering with railroad traffic, only a few individual cases 
have led to fines -- never to claims for damages.

This led the Hamburg lawyer Dieter Magsam to tell the Internet 
magazine Wendland.net, with unmistakable professional pride, that 
there had never been jail sentences, "not even probation." It is 
a statement that Ulrike Wolff-Gebhardt, the president of the 
Lüneburg administrative district, can only confirm: The state 
government regularly assigns the responsibility for carrying out 
radioactive waste transports to her district administration. 

The administration, in turn, begins planning police measures 
months in advance and has plenty of work left even after the 
atomic freight reaches its destination. The winding-up phase -- 
especially the processing of legal proceedings -- takes officials 
months. Ms. Wolff-Gebhardt tells a sad story about her efforts to 
deal in the courts with "peaceful resistance." 

"The usual result of court proceedings is not exactly motivating 
for officers," she says, citing a since-retired policeman who 
once commented that the courts seemed to be demanding 
"three-armed police officers." Such a cop, he said, could hold on 
to the culprit with one arm, telephone for help with another, and 
document the incident on video with a third.

Rightly, a person can be convicted only upon proof that he or she 
has committed a specific crime, but testimony from individual 
police officers is often not enough with protesters, since the 
other side can usually come up with twice as many witnesses 
offering a different take on things. But even troublemakers 
clearly identified on video have often been able to avoid 
conviction. 

One reason is that there are a number of rules officials need to 
adhere to: Did the police, in the heat of the moment, neglect to 
point out repeatedly to the demonstrators that what they were 
doing was forbidden? Did they follow the required procedures to 
the letter when asking demonstrators to leave? During arrest, 
were any civil rights violated? Only if proper responses in all 
these areas are fully documented does a conviction have any 
chance of standing up through the various appeals.

That brings up the somewhat paradoxical situation that a car 
driver who is caught parking against the direction of traffic on 
a residential street cannot escape a fine, but violent 
demonstrators who attack the state, abusing the right to 
demonstrate and causing damages and huge expenditure, are at 
almost no risk of being convicted.

Little surprise, then, that on its Internet information page the 
antinuclear protest group X-tausendmalquer taunts officials with: 
"The bigger the blockade, the lower the probability of having 
one's personal data taken down," before advising, "the closer the 
transport date, the lower the likelihood of personal data being 
recorded (the police no longer have time for this). That means 
there is little prospect of a fine or criminal trial." 

And in fact, the court has yet to be found that would punish such 
unmistakable "advice" as incitement to crime. Instead, 
X-tausendmalquer spokesman Jochen Stay recently celebrated a 
victory over the Lüneburg regional court, which had ordered that 
he be taken into custody before the most recent transport: Mr. 
Stay took the case to a regional appeals court in Celle, which 
found a formal error in the order and dismissed the charge.

These are the sort of cases that make Hans Reime, the police 
director in the Lüneburg administrative district, put on a 
resigned face. As the responsible officer for the next 
radioactive waste transport, he is required to give higher 
priority to preventing potential dangers than to pursuing 
perpetrators. The 18,000 officers under his supervision are 
likely to have their hands full keeping the route open, fighting 
off attacks on the convoy, and bringing the hazardous freight to 
the interim storage facility as quickly as possible. 

Under circumstances like that, it is impossible to think about 
gathering irrefutable proof. During the last transport, in March, 
the personal data of more than 1,000 people was recorded, but 
only about 400 specific crimes or misdemeanors could be 
attributed to individuals in a manner permitting fines to be 
levied or investigations launched. Mr. Reime predicts that 
criminal proceedings will ensue in a dozen cases at most, and 
will not speculate on their chances for success.

This year, the district administration has resorted to a method 
used for years by the state of Baden-Württemberg: To reduce the 
element of "fun" -- a frequent motivator of blockade activities 
-- 311 arrested people were issued fee notifications, which 
require a lower burden of proof. Protesters are charged, for 
example, for the cost of transporting demonstrators out of the 
off-limits zone or for the costs of accommodation in police 
custody. 

But even this measure has not been overly successful. "Some pay, 
some file objections, most just play dead," says Mr. Reime. And 
collecting these fees, ranging from DM38 to DM108, demands 
administrative efforts that offset the revenues received. The 
deterrent effect is probably correspondingly low.

Before next week's planned transport, as in the past, the 
district administration has issued a ban on public assembly 
within a certain distance of the railroad and rail route. In a 
fast-track hearing in March, the Federal Constitutional Court 
dismissed two suits against restrictions on the right to 
assembly, a decision that put the police leadership on firm legal 
footing.

Yet officials in Lüneburg have still hesitated to punish 
violations of such an order with draconian fines.

Nov. 8, 2001

      © Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 2000
*****************************************************************
 11  15,000 German policemen to guard nuclear convoy

Planet Ark Environmental News: 

GERMANY: November 8, 2001

BERLIN - German police said yesterday they will 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.

Activists have already 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 this week 
evening. From there, the cargo is to be taken by road for the 
final 20 kilometres (12 miles) to Gorleben.

Two weeks ago, a fire in trailers under an iron bridge on the 
transport route damaged parts of the rails. The fire, believed to 
have been caused by anti-nuclear activists, caused a million 
marks ($460,000) worth of damage.

The waste shipments were stopped for several years due to safety 
concerns but were resumed after a deal was reached gradually to 
phase out nuclear power in Germany over the next two decades. 

REUTERS NEWS SERVICE 
*****************************************************************
 12  Greens sue Britain over nuclear fuel plant

Planet Ark Environmental News: 

UK: November 9, 2001

LONDON - Two environmental groups began a legal challenge in 
London's High Court yesterday against Britain's decision to give 
the go-ahead for a controversial plant to begin manufacturing 
nuclear fuel. 

A six-metre (20 ft) high model of a nuclear missile accompanied 
Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth as their lawyers argued that 
the government had acted unlawfully in October when it decided to 
allow state-owned British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) to launch the 
Sellafield MOX Plant in Cumbria, northwest England.

"The MOX plant is not only an environmental threat and a 
potential terrorist target, but simply does not make business 
sense," 

Greenpeace executive director Stephen Tiddle told reporters 
outside the court.

The green lawyers said the government had not showed sufficient 
economic justification for the plant, as required by tEU law, 
because its 470 million pound ($690 million) cost was not taken 
into account when assessing its commercial viability.

It was also argued there was insufficient evidence there would be 
enough customers for the fuel - a mixture of highly-toxic 
plutonium and uranium oxides.

Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth say launching the plant would 
lead to more plutonium production at Sellafield.

Some nuclear experts believe it would be relatively easy to 
extract plutonium, which could be used in a nuclear device, from 
MOX fuel rods.

BNFL said it was awaiting the outcome of the judicial review 
before the plant.

BENEFITS V COSTS

A government-commissioned study, conducted by consulting firm 
Arthur D. Little and published in July, said the plant would 
deliver net financial benefits of 216 million pounds.

The report also said the cost of not opening the plant could run 
into hundreds of millions of pounds largely due to potential loss 
of future contracts for THORP, BNFL's nuclear reprocessing plant. 
The Sellafield MOX Plant has lain idle since 1996 because 
regulatory approval to start-up was repeatedly withheld over 
fears it would not make any money.

BNFL says the MOX plant can be profitable and that it already 
boasts a healthy order book from overseas customers. The group 
also dismisses suggestions it would be easy to extract plutonium 
from MOX to make a nuclear device.

More legal battles face BNFL, which had its partial privatisation 
shelved in 2000 after a scandal erupted when it was discovered 
staff had falsified data on pilot batches of MOX fuel sent to 
customers.

On Friday, the Irish government will ask the Hamburg-based 
International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, to order an 
immediate suspension of the MOX's plant's authorisation and to 
stop the international movement of radioactive material 
associated with the plant in and around the Irish Sea. 

Story by Matthew Jones 

REUTERS NEWS SERVICE 
*****************************************************************
 13  British Energy interested in Czech nuclear plants

Planet Ark Environmental News: 

UK: November 8, 2001

LONDON - Nuclear power group British Energy said yesterday it is 
interested in the nuclear assets of Czech state-owned power 
producer CEZ, which is up for privatisation. 

"We are interested in the CEZ nuclear plants," British Energy's 
executive chairman Robin Jeffrey told a news briefing in London 
after the release of interim results.

But he said the Czech government so far had reacted negatively to 
British Energy's interest, which covers the CEZ nuclear plants 
but not the other assets the government wants to sell.

The Czech government is selling off CEZ in a package of 
generation, transmission and distribution assets.

CEZ owns the 2,000 megawatt Temelin nuclear power station and the 
1,600 megawatt Dukovany nuclear plant.

Electricite de France (EdF) is widely viewed as the front runner 
in the tender.

"EdF is the head and shoulders front runner for CEZ," said 
Jeffrey. Other shortlisted bidders are a tie-up of Italy's Enel 
and Spain's Iberdrola; and a group combining U.S.-based NRG 
Energy and Britain's International Power.

Belgium's Electrabel last month pulled out of the tender citing a 
lack of transparency in the sale process. 

REUTERS NEWS SERVICE 
*****************************************************************
 14  EBRD head backs loan for Ukraine nuclear plants

Planet Ark Environmental News: 

UKRAINE: November 8, 2001

KIEV - Ukraine edged closer yesterday to securing vital funding 
for its troubled nuclear power industry after the head of the 
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development backed proposals 
for a $215 million loan. 

"Today the president of the EBRD (Jean Lemierre) recommended to 
the board to confirm its decision to give a credit to complete 
two nuclear reactors as all four conditions for the loan had been 
met," the EBRD said in a statement.

The EBRD said that if the board confirmed Lemierre's 
recommendation, the credit agreement could be signed next month.

The EBRD last year approved the loan in principle to finance 
completion of two new reactors in western Ukraine being built to 
replace the ill-fated Chernobyl nuclear power plant, closed last 
December.

But the bank attached tough conditions to the loan, including a 
resumption of aid from the International Monetary Fund - approved 
two months ago - and improving safety at the ex-Soviet state's 
nuclear stations.

The project stirred controversy as environmentalists insisted the 
two plants were the wrong option for the country which suffered 
from the world's worst civil nuclear disaster in 1986 after a 
reactor exploded at Chernobyl.

But officials said completion of the two reactors was vital for 
the country's ailing energy sector, which lost about four percent 
of its generating capacity after the Chernobyl closure.

Power outages are common in the country of 49 million people, 
which does not have sufficient energy resources to fully meet 
demand and depends heavily on energy imports. 

REUTERS NEWS SERVICE 
*****************************************************************
 15  Dublin files case against atomic fuel recycling plant

By Matthew Jones
Published: November 9 2001 12:00 | Last Updated: November 9 2001 
14:55
 
The Irish Government on Friday filed its first case against the 
UK's controversial atomic fuel recycling plant, signalling the 
start of its legal attempts to prevent the plant from opening. 

The move came as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, the 
environmental campaign groups, began the second day of their High 
Court challenge to the plant, located in Cumbria, northwest 
England and owned by British Nuclear Fuels, the state-owned 
atomic energy group. 

Dublin is furious at the British government's decision last month 
to proceed with atomic fuel recycling. It claims the process will 
pollute the seas around Ireland and will provide a target for 
terrorists trying to procure plutonium for nuclear weapons. 

The case was filed in Hamburg under the United Nations Convention 
of the Law of the Sea. Separate legal proceedings were initiated 
by Dublin in June under the Ospar Convention, which seeks to 
protect marine life in the North Atlantic. 

Environmentalists believe the UK government broke European law 
requiring economic justification for the fuel recycling project 
by treating its £470m ($683.6m) build cost as a sunk investment. 
Vital Japanese contracts for the recycled fuel, known as 
mixed-oxide fuel, have not been signed following a data 
falsification scandal that damaged BNFL's reputation in 1999. 

The Greenpeace and FoE judicial review has been fast-tracked due 
to plans by BNFL to start commissioning the plant with plutonium 
next month. Once it is contaminated it would cost hundreds of 
millions of pounds more to abandon. 

The High Court hearing is continuing on Friday. 
*****************************************************************
 16  Spent nuclear fuel arrived at Zheleznogorsk  

The Mining and Chemical Combine in Zheleznogorsk still operates 
one of its three plutonium-producing reactors. This section also 
delivers information on spent nuclear fuel handling and the 
incomplete reprocessing plant RT-2. 

Rashid Alimov, 2001-11-09 17:49

A large batch of spent nuclear fuel from Bulgaria delivered for 
storage at the Mining and Chemical Combine (MCC) in Zheleznogorsk 
near Krasnoyarsk. 

The Combine representatives say, the special train brought 96 
fuel element assemblies from the Kozloduy nuclear plant in 
Bulgaria, built by the Soviet Union. On November 8th, the MCC 
workers began unloading the train and placing the assemblies in 
the storage pool. Accident at TransSib

Throughout Russia, the train went without any incident, the MCC 
representatives claim.

But at the same day it was reported that in midnight between 
November 7th and 8th an accident had occurred at the 
Trans-Siberian railway, where the nuclear train was to pass. 
Between the Krasnoyarsk and Kemerovo counties, 14 tank-wagons 
came off the tracks. One kilometre long railway was damaged, the 
railway traffic was halted for 12.5 hours.

"We tried to find out, where the nuclear train was last night and 
whether it had been damaged as a result of the accident at the 
TransSib, - Vladimir Slivyak, co-chairman of Ecodefence! 
envirogroup, said on Thursday, - but the authorities said they 
have no information about that. The train could be in Kemerovo 
county, where the train crash happened, or could have been 
delayed at the frontier for the paper work.” 

In Mr Slivyak’s opinion, secrecy and lack of coordination 
between the official departments makes railway transportation of 
nuclear materials even more serious. The Ecodefence! 
representatives insist, Russian authorities must adopt the 
Western experience of informing people about hot cargos passing - 
people have right to know, what danger they are exposed to. 

Earlier, on October 24th, envirogroups of six towns, situated 
along the TransSib, carried out protest actions against spent 
nuclear fuel imports, saying that safety of Russian railroads is 
poor. 

The nuclear bills

The MCC representatives stress, the spent fuel deliveries 
“have no relation” with the laws, approved by the 
State Duma in June, regulating spent nuclear fuel imports to 
Russia from foreign NPPs. On June 6th, the State Duma approved in 
the third reading the bills, which legalised and structured the 
proceedings for storage of foreign nuclear waste in Russia. But 
even these laws require environmental evaluation for each such 
shipment. The laws do not say a word about special sister-country 
status of Bulgarian spent fuel. But no evaluation was carried 
out. No licence was acquired - in the mid-October the State 
Nuclear Regulatory harshly told the Ministry for Nuclear Energy 
(Minatom) that an official licence is required to carry out such 
activity. 

Minatom has no legal foundation for this import from Bulgaria, it 
has only a desire to get $25.5m for 41 tonnes of spent fuel. By 
the way, these figures disclaim Minatom’s promises of huge 
revenues on the import operations (amounting to $20bn). It can be 
calculated that Bulgaria paid $620 for one kilogram of spent 
nuclear fuel. Minatom used to say it would take not less than 
$1000 per kilo.

Spent fuel import 

The federal bill On amending art. 50 in the Russia's 
Environmental Protection Law says: 4. Imports of spent fuel 
assemblies from the foreign states to Russia for interim storage 
or for reprocessing are allowed if the state environmental 
evaluation has been carried out. Also another evaluations of the 
corresponding project, required by the Russian legislation, are 
necessary. The project must prove final radiation risk decrease 
and growth of environmental safety, after the project is 
implemented. 


Now Minatom negotiates with Bulgaria two more trains bringing 
spent fuel from Kozloduy next year. And at the same time, the 
ministry admits, no reprocessing is planned for the next 30 
years: radioactive waste is taken for storage. 

Bulgaria's electricity is generated from the following sources: 
thermal power plants account for 48 percent; 32 percent by the 
Kozloduy nuclear power plant; 14 percent by independent 
suppliers; and, 6 percent by hydroelectric plants. 

Zheleznogorsk

Zheleznogorsk, also known as "Iron City", is situated 
approximately 50km north of Krasnoyarsk on the eastern side of 
the River Yenisey in Krasnoyarsk county, Siberia. The city has a 
population of 90,000 and was known by its code name 
Krasnoyarsk-26 until 1994. 

The Mining and Chemical Combine with its three plutonium 
producing reactors and a radiochemical plant are well shielded 
250m to 300m underground. The first reactor was shut down on June 
30th 1992, and the second followed on September 29th the same 
year and the third (AD-2) has been in operation since 1964. 

In 1985, a facility to store spent nuclear fuel from the 
VVER-1000 reactors (third generation of Russian light water 
reactors) was taken into use. This storage facility is right next 
to the half-completed RT-2 reprocessing plant. At present the 
facility stores a total of 3,000 tonnes of spent fuel while it 
has a capacity of 6,000 tonnes.

In june, 2001 Krasnoyarsk Biophysics Institute proved that 
Zheleznogorsk Mining and Chemical Combine suffered at least two 
serious accidents 30 and 20 years ago. The MCC representatives 
admitted that after decades of secrecy, adding the Combine 
influence can be traced by spots with high level of cesium-137 
content down to Igarka town in the Russian Arctic. According to 
scientists, Yenisey River is polluted with radionuclides for the 
length of 1,500 km, down to the Arctic Ocean. 

The bear trapped in atomic ring

The first shipment of spent nuclear fuel after President Putin 
signed the bills, allowing nuclear waste imports shows that no 
laws are followed by Minatom. Even those, passed under pressure 
of Minatom itself. President, who said in summer, that he would 
personally control each spent nuclear fuel import contract, seems 
to have heard nothing about the nuclear waste coming from 
Bulgaria. Minatom has legalised its corporative business, which 
is under no independent control. The revenues of this business 
will be diverted to support post Soviet vast nuclear weaponry 
complex, which has been mostly useless after the cold war was 
over. Whereas the future generations will enjoy taking care of 
the hazardous waste for the coming thousands of years. 

Zheleznogorsk, where radioactive waste will be stored at least 
during the next 30-50 years, has a shocking emblem. It’s 
the Russian bear, encircled in nuclear orbits. The orbits seem to 
be tightening. Would the bear manage to get out from the atomic 
rings?


      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
*****************************************************************
 17  Russian prime minister allows to violate Water Code  

Reprocessing at Seversk

The Siberian Chemical Combine in Seversk still has two 
plutonium-producing reactors in operation. The reprocessing 
facility and storage of radioactive waste and nuclear warheads 
are also covered in this section.

Russian prime minister allows to violate Water Code (St. 
Petersburg :) Tomsk Chemical Combine will continue dumping liquid 
radioactive waste underground, increasing at the same time its 
export. Seversk (former Tomsk-7) lives behind the barbed wire, 
produces weapon-grade plutonium, exports products, and enormous 
quantity of radioactive waste. photo: Thomas Nilsen 

Rashid Alimov, 2001-11-08 17:36

In late October, Russian prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov signed a 
decree, granting the Siberian Group of Chemical Enterprises 
(SGCE, also known as Siberian Chemical Combine) right for dumping 
liquid radioactive waste in water-bearing horizons at its sites 
18 and 18a. 

This governmental decree no.1392-p dated 23.10.2001 makes a 
reference to a proposal made by the Ministry for Natural 
Resources, submitted to the approval of Tomsk county 
administration. 

On July 19th, 2001, the Russian Nuclear State Regulatory granted 
SGCE a license for this environmentally dubious activity. 
Representatives of the Tomsk Environmental Law Centre already 
have lodged a complaint, demanding repeal of the licence. The 
claimant says, the large-scale dumping in the underground 
water-bearing horizons of between 280 to 400 meters deep, 
contradicts with the Russian legislation. 

"But the legal foot-dragging generally exceeds period of validity 
of the licence in question," Konstantin Lebedev, a representative 
of the Environmental Law Centre says. 

Legal foot-dragging 

Before July 19th, 2001, SGCE did not have a Nuclear State 
Regulatory licence for underground dumping of liquid radioactive 
waste and based its activity on a licence for 'using the natural 
resources'. Validity of that licence expired in March 2001. 

Since 1996 the lawyers of the Environmental Law Centre had been 
trying to prove that the licence does not stipulate the liquid 
radioactive waste dumping. At the end of 1998, the case was heard 
at the Tomsk county court and then appealed to the Supreme Court. 
In 1999, the Tomsk county court again refused to fulfil the 
requirements of the environmentalists, and in March, 2000, the 
panel of judges of the Supreme Court sent the case back for a new 
trial. 

Complaint by the Tomsk environmentalists 

The complaint, composed by the Ecological Law Centre, mentions 
that Article 104 of the Russian Water Code bans dumping and 
disposal of radioactive and toxic substances into water bodies. 
The Water Code clarifies that the underground water bodies 
comprise water-bearing horizons and groundwater basins. 

Moreover, Article 54, part 3 of the Law “On Environmental 
Protection” also prohibits dumping activities of the 
combine. The State Committee for Environmental Protection of the 
Tomsk county has many times officially mentioned the dangerous 
character of SGCE activities: "A considerable risk is represented 
by the large-scale underground dumping of liquid radioactive 
waste. The total activity of the waste exceeds 37bn GBq. Dumping 
into water bearing horizons at between 280 to 400 meters deep, 
has been carried out for 30 years. The fissile materials are 
absorbed by sandy-argillaceous rocks, and accumulated in the 
wellheads. Water being used as moderator of neutrons, critical 
mass, sufficient for self-sustaining chain reaction, may be 
accumulated."

Gorgievka inhabitants vs. SGCE 

Ceasing to dump liquid radioactive waste into underground 
geological formations was one of the demands at the trial of 
Georgievka inhabitants against SGCE. 

Georgievka, situated in Tomsk county, western Siberia, suffered 
from the accident at a SGCE plant on April 6th 1993, which caused 
radioactive contamination of the area. During the court hearings 
14 of the 26 claimants died. In the writ, the claimants said the 
radiation release of April 6th 1993 did not have the most 
significant impact on the radioactive and chemical contamination 
of the area. The accident only partly lifted the veil of secrecy, 
surrounding the SGCE activities. 

The court rejected the demand for ceasing of liquid radioactive 
waste dumping, referring to opinion of the experts committee of, 
saying the environmental impact is permissible. The experts said, 
the underground depositories may be used till 2015, and the waste 
buried doesn't influence upon the environment beyond the 
determined bounds.The court ascertained that liquid waste dumping 
has been carried out by SGCE since 1963.

            More about Seversk 

The Siberian Chemical Combine (Sibkhimkombinat, SGCE) consists of 
five military production reactors, a chemical separation plant, a 
reprocessing facility for uranium and plutonium, a uranium 
enrichment plant, and storage facilities for radioactive waste. 
There is also a facility to store retired warheads. Read more 
more in Bellona WP no 4:1995, chapter 2 

Inadequate position 

The papers which ground the prolongation of the operation terms 
of the liquid waste underground repositories provide different 
hypothetical situations. One of them is drilling in the reservoir 
bed containing the waste, during a boring operation. It is 
written in the paper: "such situation would have the most 
significant consequences, but its probability is rather low and 
can not be calculated, because it is based on an assumption 
concerning inadequate behaviour of people (e.g. mass insanity)." 

In March 2001, during a discussion on the future dangerous 
activities of SGCE, Konstantin Lebedev said he hoped that the 
behaviour of people would be adequate while deciding on the 
question of liquid waste dumping, at least they should follow 
environmental laws. 

The government seems to have its own approach to the question. 
Siberian Chemical Combine – history 

The Siberian Chemical Combine site was the next nuclear materials 
production reactor and reprocessing site built in the former 
Soviet Union after the Mayak reprocessing plant. The site 
construction began in 1948 at a location 25 km north-northwest of 
the city of Tomsk (about 500,000 population) on the Tom River. 
Tomsk city is located now 10km to 12km from the main production 
facility of SGCE in Seversk (Tomsk-7). The world’s largest 
discharges of radioactive wastes to the environment have occurred 
here – the combination of underground injections and 
discharges to surface waters. The two remaining 
plutonium-producing reactors ADE-4 and ADE-6 in operation provide 
350 MW of electricity and 600 Gcal/hr of heat. 

This meets the needs for the Combine, the associated city of 
Seversk, and 40% of Tomsk. In consent with intergovernmental 
agreement between Russian and the United States, these two 
reactors were to be converted by 2000 thus halting the production 
of plutonium. But the deadline was overridden and now the date is 
said to be December 31st, 2005. 

Other major facilities are the uranium-enrichment plant (closed 
in 1990), isotope separation plant, sublimate, radiochemical, and 
metallurgical plants, research and design institutes. 

During the 50 years that the Siberian Group of Chemical 
Enterprises has been in operation, the production of weapons 
grade plutonium and the enrichment of uranium have resulted in 
large amounts of radioactive waste. Solid and liquid waste are 
either stored or placed into permanent repositories at various 
sites within the enclosed areas of the Combine. There are 50 
different storage areas within the borders of SGCE that receive 
solid and liquid waste generated by the plant's activities. The 
two forms of waste together have a total activity of 4,6m TBq 
(125 MCi). 

There have been about 30 accidents during the Combine’s 
50-year history, four of them were rated third level of the 
International Atomic Energy Agency scale. The last major accident 
happened on June 14th 1999, when an operator’s fault caused 
contamination of the plant, and two workers were exposed to a 
radiation dose exceeding the annual radiation tolerance three 
times. 

SGCE increases export 

The main source of income for SGCE has been export of enriched 
uranium hexafluoride. During the eight years passed, Siberian 
Group of Chemical Enterprises has pushed up its export ten times. 
The Combine's export comprises also natural uranium hexafluoride, 
enriched uranium metal, anhydrous hydrogen fluoride, stable 
isotopes, lithium and high-energy magnets. 

SGCE maintains relations with 21 countries, including UK, 
Germany, France, Finland, Belgium, Sweden, Chile etc. Export to 
the US is carried out on the basis of the HEU-LEU contract (high 
enriched uranium – low enriched uranium). 

In 2001, the Combine won a tender, held by KNHP (South Korea), 
making two contracts for uranium hexafluoride supplies for South 
Korean nuclear power plants. 

In the second half of the year 2002, Siberian Group of Chemical 
Enterprises plans international ISO-9001 certification of its 
quality control. 

and keeps on radiation releases 

The direct releases to the Tom River from the combine, and 
possibly from migration from reservoirs and natural ponds lead to 
the higher levels of radioactivity in the Kara Sea in Arctic. 

In November, 2000 scientists from organisation Siberian 
Scientists for Global Responsibility and the US watchdog, the 
Government Accountability Project, charged that the degree of 
radioactive contamination measured in the Tom and the Romashka 
Rivers is the highest in the world. Caesium and strontium-90 
vastly exceeding safety levels were found in the rivers. The 
scientists registered phosphorus-32, which decays within a couple 
of weeks, meaning that the discharge was of very recent origin. 
Fish purchased in a Tomsk market had radiation levels 20 times 
higher than normal. The Combine admitted neptunium-239 releases, 
which lives only 2.35 days and after decay transfers into 
plutonium-239 with life-time of 24,119 years, meaning that 
plutonium has been accumulating in the river sediments all the 
decades the Combine has been in operation. 

According to Environmental Law Centre information, under normal 
operation the Combine releases ten grams of plutonium into the 
atmosphere annually, whereas one millionth of a gram may cause 
serious diseases if consumed by humans. The soils and waters 
contain chemicals, and the level of beta-activity in the 
atmosphere is four to ten times higher than the natural level. 

Currently, according to the SGCE data from the early November, 
2001, radioactive releases of the Combine, amount to 0,1 - 0,3% 
of the maximum permissible release rate, prescribed by the 
Ministry for Natural Resources. In the same time, radionuclides 
of induced activity natrium-24, phosphorus-32 and neptunium-239 
are registered in Combine's manufacturing waters. The releases 
amount to 12, 45 and 5% of the Ministry for Natural Resources 
norms.

      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
*****************************************************************
 18  County finds money for D.C. YMP lobbying trips

Pahrump Valley Times  

By:November 09, 2001

TONOPAH -

Nye County will fund Yucca Mountain Project lobbying trips to 
Washington, D.C., with money previously set aside for consultant 
Steve Bradhurst to do the same thing.

Bradhurst has taken another position and can no longer lobby on 
behalf of the county, Commissioner Henry Neth said. Further, Neth 
said the county can't afford to let something as vital as Yucca 
Mountain lobbying be limited to just phone calls, which he said 
isn't as effective as face to face contact.

With the county in the midst of a budget crisis, and not able to 
use YMP oversight funds for lobbying, Neth said the thing to do 
was take money set aside but not earned by Bradhurst and use it 
for trips to Washington.

That amounts to about $18,000.

Chairman Jeff Taguchi was quick to endorse the proposal. Site 
recommendation for the YMP could occur as early as next spring, 
he said, and the county needed a presence in Washington. Earlier 
in the meeting Taguchi had lauded Neth for his lobbying on behalf 
of the county. Neth and Taguchi were in Washington last week.

Prior to the 5-0 vote to approve the proposal, Treasurer Pat 
Foster asked how much Bradhurst was being paid.

"Too much," Commissioner Cameron McRae said. 

©Pahrump Valley Times 2001 
*****************************************************************
 19  Irish start legal action over Sellafield

BBC News | UK | 

9 November, 2001, 18:57 GMT       

[Sellafield]                    

Spent nuclear fuel is reprocessed at Sellafield

The Irish Government began legal action on Friday to stop the 
operation of a new reprocessing plant at the Sellafield nuclear 
power station. The action against the UK follows concern by 
Ireland at the environmental impact of the Cumbria plant on the 
Irish Sea. 

Norway - which shares Ireland's concerns - has given its backing 
to the campaign and indicated it would be prepared to join it in 
the courts as a "last resort". 

At London's High Court, action by Greenpeace and Friends of the 
Earth (FoE) to declare the government's decision to allow the new 
plant as unlawful, was due to finish on Friday. 

Judgement in the case is expected to be reserved. 

'Concern to everyone' 

The Irish Government's worries over the new plant were increased 
by fear of more terrorist attacks after the 11 September strikes 
in the US. Dublin was infuriated by the UK Government's decision 
last month to allow the plant. 

This is something that is of concern to everybody on this side of 
the Irish Sea.
   	 		
Deirdre Clune, Fine Gael                          

Its action is being brought under the United Nations Convention 
on the Law of the Sea and the Ospar Convention on the Marine 
Environment. 

Deirdre Clune, environment spokesman for the Irish opposition 
party Fine Gael, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "We are 
delighted to see our government taking this kind of action. 

"This is something that is of concern to everybody on this side 
of the Irish Sea." 

"Our chief worry... has always been environmental pollution, the 
threat of radioactivity being released into the Irish Sea, and we 
have had evidence of it sweeping across to our coasts." 

"Since 11 September, the anxiety has heightened and there is a 
genuine fear of terrorist attack on Sellafield right now," Ms 
Clune said. 

Norway has also been worried about pollutants flowing into its 
own waters. "We have already expressed our support, both morally 
and politically, for the process started by the Irish and we 
understand fully the worries they feel as they are the same 
worries we feel in relation to our own coastal areas," the leader 
of Norway's parliamentary energy and environment committee, Bror 
Yngve Rahm, told Reuters. 

He said that if Norway also found grounds for a legal challenge 
it would use the courts as "a last resort". 

Environmental campaign 

Lawyers for Greenpeace and Friends Of The Earth argued in court 
in London on Thursday that a flawed and distorted approach to 
crucial economic tests had allowed the decision to operate the 
plant to go ahead. 
	 		 			
[Protest] Campaigners have protested at Sellafield
                                                         
British Nuclear Fuels Ltd (BNFL) wants to take steps towards the 
operation of the plant, which would process mixed plutonium and 
uranium oxide (Mox), by 20 December. 

As well as the tests necessary for EU law, the environmentalists 
said there was insufficient evidence the plant would attract 
customers such as the Japanese to make it viable. 

Lord Lester QC, for the environmental groups, argued that 
construction costs of £470m had been "disregarded" in assessing 
whether the scheme could be economically justified. 

The environmental groups also believe the plant is dangerous 
because it could make it easier for terrorists to obtain nuclear 
materials. 

Government ministers have argued that the scheme was justified 
because it would provide "significant economic benefits" and had 
a "net present value of £216m". The mox plant, which turns 
"spent" plutonium and uranium into usable fuel, was completed by 
Sellafield's owners BNFL in 1996. 

 UN Page - Oceans and Law of the Sea 
[http://www.un.org/Depts/los/index.htm] Greenpeace 
[http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/contentlookup.cfm?SiteKeyParam=HOME1]
FoE [http://www.foe.co.uk/] BNFL 
[http://www.bnfl.com/website.nsf/index.htm] 

*****************************************************************
 20  Yucca Mountain suggestions made by international team

LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL: NEWS: 

Friday, November 09, 2001
 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal 
 
Report says improvements should be made to DOE's assessment 

By KEITH ROGERS 
REVIEW-JOURNAL 

An appraisal of how a maze of tunnels and barriers in Yucca 
Mountain would contain highly radioactive waste for 10,000 years 
is adequate, an international review team has told the Energy 
Department in documents released Thursday. 

But the appraisal said improvements should be made to the Energy 
Department's assessment on how a nuclear waste repository would 
perform if one is built in the mountain, 100 miles northwest of 
Las Vegas. 

That's according to the joint review panel from the International 
Atomic Energy Agency and the Nuclear Energy Agency of the 
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. 

The 10-member review team found that the department's Total 
System Performance Assessment, which was issued nearly a year 
ago, is sufficient for Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham to use 
along with other Yucca Mountain Project documents in a few months 
to decide whether to recommend the site for construction of a 
repository. 

The review team said the performance assessment is "soundly 
based," and "provides an adequate basis for supporting a 
statement on likely compliance with the regulatory period of 
10,000 years, and accordingly for the site recommendation 
decision." 

The summary of the team's report, however, says greater emphasis 
should have been put on the geology of the mountain to contain 
the waste aside from man-made barriers, such as metals used in 
waste canisters and shields to deflect corrosive water away from 
the containers -- parts of the engineered system that are crucial 
to the repository's design. 

The team also suggested that project scientists develop a "safety 
case" strategy that is separate from the strategy they are using 
to demonstrate that the repository would comply with radiation 
safety standards that were set this year by the Environmental 
Protection Agency. 

In addition, Yucca Mountain Project scientists should refine 
calculations on how engineered-barrier materials will hold up and 
how natural events such as a volcanic intrusion of molten rock 
could affect the 77,000 tons of waste -- most of it spent fuel 
from nuclear power reactors -- that the government wants to 
entomb in the mountain. 

"The reduction of uncertainty should be a major goal of the Yucca 
Mountain Project, focusing attention on obtaining good laboratory 
and field data in those areas where uncertainty has the greatest 
effect," according to the team's executive summary. The summary 
was attached to a Nov. 2 letter to Lake Barrett, acting director 
of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management for the 
Energy Department. 

Nevada Nuclear Projects Agency chief Bob Loux said he hasn't 
reviewed the team's report but the summary appears to mirror 
concerns expressed by other federal panels, such as the Nuclear 
Waste Technical Review Board. 

"Those issues need to be resolved before the site recommendation 
is made. I don't think they ought to be able to do that after the 
site recommendation," Loux said in a telephone interview as he 
was boarding a plane to return to Nevada from meetings in 
Washington, D.C.
 
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2001
*****************************************************************
 21  Nuclear waste expert to be nominee to lead DOE branch

Friday, November 09, 2001
 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal 
 
Position requires oversight of proposal for Yucca Mountain repository 

By STEVE TETREAULT 
DONREY WASHINGTON BUREAU 

WASHINGTON -- A national laboratory program manager who has 
worked for more than 20 years on nuclear waste issues is being 
tapped by President Bush to head the office that is considering 
Yucca Mountain in Nevada as a repository for spent nuclear fuel. 

The White House announced Thursday that the president intends to 
nominate Margaret S.Y. Chu to head the Office of Civilian 
Radioactive Waste Management, a branch of the Department of 
Energy. 

Les Shephard, a spokesman for Sandia National Laboratories, said 
Chu until recently was director of the Nuclear Waste Management 
Program Center at the Albuquerque, N.M., labs. She presently is 
on assignment in Washington for Sandia, he said. 

Sandia's nuclear waste management program is a 160-person office 
that has conducted research on Yucca Mountain; the Waste 
Isolation Pilot Project in New Mexico; nuclear waste programs at 
the Hanford reservation in Washington; and repository programs in 
Japan, Korea, Sweden, Germany and Switzerland. 

Chu, who has a doctorate in physical chemistry, has worked at 
Sandia since 1980, the White House said. Her jobs have included 
deputy manager of the Waste Isolation Pilot Project, and manager 
of the Environmental Risk Assessment and Waste Management 
Department. She was involved in the certification of WIPP, and 
development of various nuclear waste disposal regulations. 

Efforts to reach Chu Thursday night were not successful. 

Once Bush follows through with a nomination, Chu will be 
considered by the Senate for the job. The post has been vacant 
since Bush took office in January. The office's most recent 
director was Ivan Itkin, a Clinton appointee. Lake Barrett, a 
veteran DOE manager, has been serving as acting director. 

If confirmed, Chu will take over what is viewed as one of the 
most challenging projects in the government: exploring the 
development of an underground repository that could contain 
radioactivity from 77,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel for 10,000 
years. Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is the 
only site being studied. 

Chu would oversee 160 federal employees in Washington and Nevada, 
and 1,500 government contract workers. The budget for the program 
is $375 million, some $70 million less than the Energy Department 
requested from Congress. 

Nevada officials said they know little about Chu. 

"Her big job is going to be how to deal with a restricted budget 
and to try to get all the work done that they've committed to the 
Nuclear Regulatory Commission. It will be a big balancing act," 
said Steve Frishman, technical policy coordinator for the Nevada 
Nuclear Projects Agency.
 
webmaster@lvrj.com Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 
*****************************************************************
 22  Indian nukes open to theft, sabotage

The Frontier Post From Peshawar Pakistan
 
  Naveed Miraj  
   Updated on 11/9/2001 12:17:20 PM  

ISLAMABAD: India could become the first country to give concrete 
form to the threat of nuclear terrorism, as its assets are prone 
to become accessible to terrorists, suggest a study carried out 
by Institute of Strategic Studies in Islamabad. 

The study carried out by the Institute’s chairman Dr Shireen 
Mazari and researcher Maria Sultan take into account a number of 
factors that play a role in making nuclear assets unsafe and 
prone to falling in the hands of terrorists. 

Study says that although terrorism has become an increasing 
concern within international society but so far there has been 
less focus on one particular aspect of the problem - that is 
nuclear terrorism. 

Yet, within the context of South Asia this is of special 
significance, given the number of insurgencies and freedom 
struggles with trans-national linkages, and the nuclearisation of 
this region since 1998. 

Of all the South Asian states, India’s nuclear facilities are 
perhaps the most vulnerable to nuclear terrorism, given India’s 
expansive nuclear programme, much of it not subject to IAEA 
safeguards. 

In addition, the vulnerability of India’s nuclear facilities is 
further aggravated by its thriving underworld and over a dozen 
insurgencies going on within the Indian states, as well as the 
freedom struggle in Indian Occupied Kashmir. 

To examine the case of India within these parameters, the study 
identified three dimensions to it: One, nuclear theft; two, 
leakage at nuclear facilities; three, hazards prevailing at the 
base of the nuclear cycle, e.g. uranium mining. 

The study reveals that India’s nuclear programme has developed 
too quickly and without being assimilated within proper 
safeguards. 

The problem has been further aggravated because of India’s 
rejection of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) 
safeguards. 

Other than a total lack of accountability, the wide dispersal of 
un-safeguarded nuclear facilities within India exposes that many 
population centres to the hazards arising out of radiation 
leakage from faulty structures and mechanisms, in addition to the 
wilful misuse of stolen nuclear material and crudely made nuclear 
devices, for sabotage purposes. 

The lack of safety features In the uranium mining ventures has 
endangered a whole chunk of Indian citizens. 

The fact that they happen to be Dalits is highly destabilizing 
within the Indian political context. 

Again, the lure of financial rewards seems to have allowed some 
in the nuclear scientific community to be led astray - hence the 
threat of saleable expertise in India, to any group or country 
willing to pay the price, has become acute. Given the on-going 
insurgencies within the Indian state - especially in the 
northeast - and the political violence in states like Bihar, the 
nuclear cycle components in these regions become prone to 
becoming accessible to terrorists - not only as sources of theft 
of radioactive materials but also as targets of sabotage. 

The study suggests that India really needs to go in for IAEA 
safeguards on its civilian facilities. 

It also needs to take stock of the prevailing problems in has 
faced in its nuclear installations and mining enterprises, so 
that a more viable system of protection from terrorism is put in 
place, before it embarks on future ventures. 

The study finally concludes that, it is also becoming 
increasingly evident that the existing international conventions 
on nuclear safety do not deal with problems of safety, of the 
design of reactors, of minimum safety conditions to govern mining 
of radioactive substances, and the possibility of nuclear theft. 
Yet it is these issues that may add to the threat of 
international terrorism becoming ever more lethal. 

In the case of India, the danger to the region from its unstable, 
un-safeguarded nuclear facilities makes the nuclear threat more 
acute -not only in terms of a nuclear exchange between Pakistan 
and India, but also in terms of nuclear terrorism from national 
or trans-national groups based in India and relying on 
clandestine material stolen from these Indian facilities. of this 
region since 1998. 

Of all the South Asian states, India’s nuclear facilities are 
perhaps the most vulnerable to nuclear terrorism, given India’s 
expansive nuclear programme, much of it not subject to IAEA 
safeguards. 

In addition, the vulnerability of India’s nuclear facilities is 
further aggravated by its thriving underworld and over a dozen 
insurgencies going on within the Indian states, as well as the 
freedom struggle in Indian Occupied Kashmir. 

To examine the case of India within these parameters, the study 
identified three dimensions to it: One, nuclear theft; two, 
leakage at nuclear facilities; three, hazards prevailing at the 
base of the nuclear cycle, e.g. uranium mining. 

The study reveals that India’s nuclear programme has developed 
too quickly and without being assimilated within proper 
safeguards. 

The problem has been further aggravated because of India’s 
rejection of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) 
safeguards. 

Other than a total lack of accountability, the wide dispersal of 
un-safeguarded nuclear facilities within India exposes that many 
population centres to the hazards arising out of radiation 
leakage from faulty structures and mechanisms, in addition to the 
wilful misuse of stolen nuclear material and crudely made nuclear 
devices, for sabotage purposes. 

The lack of safety features In the uranium mining ventures has 
endangered a whole chunk of Indian citizens. 

The fact that they happen to be Dalits is highly destabilizing 
within the Indian political context. 

Again, the lure of financial rewards seems to have allowed some 
in the nuclear scientific community to be led astray - hence the 
threat of saleable expertise in India, to any group or country 
willing to pay the price, has become acute. Given the on-going 
insurgencies within the Indian state - especially in the 
northeast - and the political violence in states like Bihar, the 
nuclear cycle components in these regions become prone to 
becoming accessible to terrorists - not only as sources of theft 
of radioactive materials but also as targets of sabotage. 

The study suggests that India really needs to go in for IAEA 
safeguards on its civilian facilities. 

It also needs to take stock of the prevailing problems in has 
faced in its nuclear installations and mining enterprises, so 
that a more viable system of protection from terrorism is put in 
place, before it embarks on future ventures. 

The study finally concludes that, it is also becoming 
increasingly evident that the existing international conventions 
on nuclear safety do not deal with problems of safety, of the 
design of reactors, of minimum safety conditions to govern mining 
of radioactive substances, and the possibility of nuclear theft. 
Yet it is these issues that may add to the threat of 
international terrorism becoming ever more lethal. 

In the case of India, the danger to the region from its unstable, 
un-safeguarded nuclear facilities makes the nuclear threat more 
acute -not only in terms of a nuclear exchange between Pakistan 
and India, but also in terms of nuclear terrorism from national 
or trans-national groups based in India and relying on 
clandestine material stolen from these Indian facilities. 

© Copyright 2001 The Frontier Post 
*****************************************************************
 23  No space for waste

Pahrump Valley Times  

By:November 07, 2001

I really must comment on the letter from Ron Bourgoin from Rocky 
Mount, NC. 

The utilities are running out of space to store spent nuclear 
fuel because they were designed with a federal storage facility 
in mind. The fuel would be held on site for a number of years to 
"cool down" and then be shipped to the federal site for storage 
or reprocessing. They have been giving millions of dollars to the 
federal government toward the construction of a storage site and 
the cost of storage. One of many reasons nuclear power isn't as 
cheap as many hoped. 

He obviously has little idea of the multiple regulations 
controlling the shipment and receipt of spent nuclear fuel. Who 
can ship it, who can receive it, how it's shipped, how it's 
stored, there are dozens of 3 inch ring binders controlling every 
facet of this process. He talks about moving a few truck loads of 
spent fuel from one facility to another to ease storage problems, 
(but) each truck carries 2 to 4 spent fuel rods (and) each 
reactor changes out about 100 rods every 12 to 18 months. A few 
truck loads aren't gonna do it. 

As far as the land some utilities may have bought for the storage 
of nuclear waste, I'm sure that would be for the storage of low 
level nuclear waste, in case the dumps in South Carolina, 
Washington and I believe Arizona are closed.

I'm not sure who made the original statement about utilities 
running out of storage space but I couldn't allow Mr. Bourgoin's 
statements go unchallenged.

Oscar R. Fick Jr. 

©Pahrump Valley Times 2001 
*****************************************************************
 24  Nuclear Waste Comes To Russia From Bulgaria

Pravda.RU 

Nov, 08 2001   

 A big load of waste nuclear fuel has been transported from 
Bulgaria to a mining and chemical plant based in Zheleznogorsk 
near Krasnoyarsk, East Siberia. 

A plant spokesman said a special train delivered ninety six tanks 
of waste elements from the Soviet-built nuclear power plant 
Kozlodui in Bulgaria. The press service of the Russian Nuclear 
Energy Ministry remarked that the delivery was carried out in 
line with an agreement concluded when the nuclear power plant was 
being built in Bulgaria. 

Nuclear waste from other countries where Soviet-made reactors are 
operating - Slovakia, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Lithuania - 
is also transported to Russia.


RIA 'Novosti'

*****************************************************************
 25  China: Law to protect workers

China Daily HK Edition
 
November 05, 2001                       

 11/05/2001 
(XIN DINGDING)               
                                
A new law protecting workers from occupational health hazards was 
passed last week and will take effect starting May 1. 
Occupational diseases, usually caused by industrial dust, 
radioactive matter and toxic chemicals in work sites, are harming 
the health of more and more workers, according to recent 
statistics from the Ministry of Health. "The increase mainly 
comes from joint ventures and township enterprises," said Zhou 
Anshou, an occupational disease expert. 

Zhou said some overseas investors omit necessary preventive 
safety measures when building workshops on the mainland to cut 
production costs and do not inform their workers of the possible 
dangers to their health. He said mainland labourers, who often 
are not equipped with proper safety gear, are exposed to toxic 
chemicals. 

A ministry survey found that the amount of people suffering acute 
poisoning in joint ventures in South China's Guangdong Province 
last year increased by 43.8 per cent from 1999. 

Small-scale township enterprises which usually operate at low 
technical levels are putting their employees at risk too. 

A ministry survey conducted in the 1990s showed that 60 per cent 
of township enterprises did not take any preventive measures, and 
nearly 30 per cent of their workers were exposed to industrial 
dust and toxic materials. Workers in some shoe factories handle 
glue containing Benzene, which can cause leukaemia, without 
wearing gloves, and those in cement factories only wear gauze 
masks to protect against dust that may cause pneumoconiosis, the 
survey discovered. 

Also, manuals and warning signs written in Chinese often do not 
accompany the hazardous facilities and raw materials that many of 
these enterprises import. "If we do not take effective measures, 
large numbers of occupational disease patients will appear in the 
next 10 years and may cause social problems," said Zhou. 

The new law states that factories must take necessary preventive 
safety measures. Violators will be punished and even shut down 
according to the law, said Zhao Tonggang, an official with the 
ministry. "Preventive measures must be emphasized because many 
occupational diseases are hard to cure but can be prevented," he 
said. 

| Copyright 2000 By China Daily Hong Kong Edition. All rights
*****************************************************************
 26  Nuclear threats 

Lawrence Journal-World: Nuclear threats

J-W Editorials 

Friday, November 9, 2001 

Terrorist talk about atomic weapons could trigger even more 
support for American efforts to seek, strike and destroy 
criminals.
 
No doubt terrorists such as Osama bin Laden are gleeful about the 
fact their rhetoric and behavior have many gravely concerned 
about the prospect they might use nuclear weapons to further 
their cause. They certainly had hoped to create such a concern.
 
And such offerings cannot be ignored since the likes of bin Laden 
and his cohorts have been found to possess the wherewithal for 
widespread destruction. Consider what they managed in New York, 
Washington and Pennsylvania with "conventional" equipment and 
material.
 
But unless bin Laden and his close associates are truly dedicated 
to dying for their cause, something they have not personally 
demonstrated to date, they need to consider just what they are 
dealing with.
 
If nuclear devices are to be turned against innocent people, the 
al-Qaida and their ilk can expect response in kind — only more 
so. This should be kept in mind by nations such as Iraq, Egypt, 
Iran and Saudi Arabia, which maintain relationships with 
terrorists that are troubling even if they do claim to be 
"allied" with America. The people of Europe and Asia also have 
high stakes in this. A few wind shifts at the right time can put 
them in terrible peril as societies.
 
America and its environs would, indeed, suffer if nuclear 
treachery occurred. But we would not be alone, and it is well for 
all those in the general region of the Taliban terror and the bin 
Laden cadre to contemplate this.
 
Little wonder, then, that so many nations are taking a stand 
against the terrorist style of operation and are eager to bring 
it under control. Unlikely sources of support for America and 
Great Britain are surfacing, and each day it seems that huge 
reward funds against bin Laden and Co. continue to grow.
 
In something of a surprise to many, Italy has voted "to go to 
war," confirming a pledge to supply an aircraft carrier and up to 
2,700 troops to the American campaign against Afghanistan.
 
For some time, few were taking Italy seriously in its talk about 
helping combat terrorism. Prime minister Silvio Berlusconi and 
aides tired of that image, faced reality and are now trying to 
join others on the world stage to combat dangerous criminals.
 
Italy first offered the United States military help in October, 
but Washington did not reply until recently, when a U.S. diplomat 
arrived at Berlusconi's Palazzo Chigi offices with a request for 
Italy's help. Now there is a positive response, further evidence 
that more and more nations understand what is at stake for them 
as well as America.
 
Rumors about terrorist use of nuclear weapons are likely to bring 
others out of the closet in the effort to combat the bin Ladens 
of our world. If such weapons are employed in any way, there will 
be absolutely no global hiding place, including in the infamous 
caves of Afghanistan.
 
 •Lawrence Journal-World
*****************************************************************
 27  Officials briefed on Zion security 

Chicago Tribune | 

By Susan Kuczka
Tribune staff reporter
Published November 9, 2001
 
Owners of the closed Zion nuclear power plant were put on the hot 
seat Thursday night by some Lake County politicians during a 
private meeting about new security measures undertaken since the 
Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

 State Rep. Susan Garrett (D-Lake Forest) said she believes 
Exelon Nuclear, which runs the plant, needs to come up with a 
better plan for coordinating information among plant officials, 
Zion and nearby Waukegan Regional Airport in the event of an 
emergency.

"We still don't exactly know what kinds of security precautions 
are in place at the airport in relation to what happens here, 
knowing that planes are being used as weapons," Garrett said 
after the hourlong meeting.

 Lake County Board Chairman Suzi Schmidt (R-Lake Villa) said 
Exelon should have opened the meeting to the public and news 
media. About a dozen government and elected officials attended 
the meeting at the Power House Museum, next to the power plant.

 "I said this puts a cloud over what you're doing here when you 
don't invite the public and the press," Schmidt said. "I already 
have 22 other County Board members who want to know what's going 
on."

 Not everyone believed the meeting fell short of expectations.

 "I'm confident they're capable of handling the situation," said 
state Rep. Timothy Osmond (R-Antioch), whose district includes 
the plant.

 "I can't say that if an asteroid falls out of the sky and lands 
on the building everything will be taken care of, but I do 
believe they're on top of it."

 "I feel they're really moving to do something," said Sen. 
Adeline Geo-Karis (R-Zion), who contacted the Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission and found that extra security was being put in place 
at the Zion facility.

 Exelon spokeswoman Ann Mary Carley said the company decided to 
hold a private meeting with the local leaders to give them a 
chance to ask questions about security procedures. But she said 
the company was open to making a presentation on security to the 
public at a County Board meeting.

 Carley also said the company has been coordinating information 
with local law-enforcement agencies and the FAA since Sept. 11. 
More details will be provided to public officials, she said.

 The Zion plant was closed in 1998 but remains the storage site 
for more than 2,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel produced by the 
twin nuclear reactors over a 20-year period.

 Although security has always been tight, it was heightened after 
Sept. 11 when the NRC ordered the facilities placed on high 
alert.

 In addition, last week Gov. George Ryan ordered Illinois 
National Guard troops to be stationed at Zion and the state's six 
operational nuclear power plants in Braidwood, Byron, Dresden, 
LaSalle, Clinton and the Quad Cities.

 Excelon officials held informational meetings about upgraded 
security measures with officials from communities near the other 
plants.

 Besides an intricate security system inside the plants, the Zion 
facility also had concrete barriers placed outside its entrance, 
which is guarded by an Illinois state trooper.

 A fence is to be erected on the beach next to the plant soon, 
company officials said.
 	
Copyright © 2001, Chicago Tribune       
*****************************************************************
 28  IAEA Daily Press Review     Date 2001-11-09 Number 215  

  1. Non-proliferation
Bush administration official claims DPRK is still trying to sell 
missiles to countries in Asia and Middle East. Russian      
President states that US plans to develop defence system against 
missiles might be possible under 1972 ABM Treaty. Media 
Resources: (BBC; G - 8/11) Dem. P.R. of Korea; Russian 
Federation; United States of        
 
  2. IAEA
 Transcript [rush] of CNN interview with IAEA's DG. Media 
Resources: (CNN - 8/11) IAEA 

  3. Illicit trafficking
 Italian police launch hunt for seven uranium fuel rods 
reportedly smuggled previously from Kinshasa. Media Resources: 
(BBC; G - 9/11) Italy 

  4. Terrorism
 Numerous reports on threat of nuclear terrorism; CNN report: 
"Nuclear attack: Now anything seems possible."   Group of senior 
Russian and US scientists specialising in nuclear safety 
criticise decision of White House to block new spending designed 
to reduce risk of Russia's military arsenal falling into hands of 
terrorists. Media Resources: (CNN; FT; MOS - 9/11) United States 
of America; WORLDWIDE     
 
  5. Nuclear power
 More on Czech/Austrian dispute over Temelin NPP: Czechs will not 
shut down disputed plant, says Austrian daily. Media Resources: 
(R - 9/11) Austria; Czech Republic         
 
  6. Nuclear safety
 Report on inadequate safety conditions of research reactor in 
Kinshasa. NPP's test sirens not heard in vicinity of US Calvert 
Cliffs NPP. More steam leak at Japanese NPP: enormous pressure 
may have suddenly cracked carbon 
steel pipe.
							
Media Resources: (JAP; SDZ; WP - 9/11) Congo; Japan; United 
States of America  
 
  7. Radiation, health
 According to report, radiation threatens to contaminate waters 
of Volga river in central Russia. Popular arthritis    drug, 
Vioxx, may enhance effects of radiation against cancer. Media 
Resources: (R; SD - 8, 9/11) Russian Federation; United States of 
America    
 
  8. Radwaste, fuel
 US Energy Secretary plans to overhaul DoE's nationwide nuclear 
cleanup programme to make it faster and         cheaper. More on 
Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth (FoE) beginning court action 
to block UK Government's     go-ahead for Sellafield. Media 
Resources: (R - 9/11) United Kingdom; United States of America 

  9. Energy, environment
 Climate change talks in Morocco aimed at enacting Kyoto Protocol 
headed into final sprint last night, with   negotiators 
reportedly haggling over few important details. Media Resources: 
(NYT - 9/11) Morocco         
 
  10. R
 Scientists invent transistor made of one molecule. Media 
Resources: (CNN - 9/11) United States of America        
 
  11. UN
 As fifty-sixth UNGA Session begins, Osama bin Laden's latest 
message to the world provokes profound new     security concerns 
for UN and its global work force. Media Resources: (NYT - 9/11) 
UN; United States of America                             
*****************************************************************
 29  Britain imposes no-fly zones over nuclear power plants
 

[M2 Communications Ltd.]   
  

Story Filed: Friday, November 09, 2001 5:27 AM EST 

Nov 09, 2001 (AIRLINE INDUSTRY INFORMATION via COMTEX) -- 
Following a similar move by the USA, Britain has imposed no-fly 
zones over major nuclear power stations in the UK due to possible 
terrorist threats. 

A spokesperson for the Department of Trade and Industry indicated 
that no-fly zones have been imposed around 11 nuclear plants, 
while seven installations are already covered by long-standing 
bans. The restrictions mean that aircraft cannot fly within two 
miles (3.2 kilometres) of a nuclear plant or below 2,000 feet 
(600 metres), Reuters reported. 

Copyright 1997-2001 M2 COMMUNICATIONS LTD 

Copyright © 2001, M2 Communications Ltd., all rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 30  NRC Staff Proposes $3,000 Fine Against Wisconsin Company for Loss 
of Nuclear Gauge
 
  Region III -- 2001 - 050 -- 


UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, REGION III
801 Warrenville Road, Lisle IL 60532   

  No. III-01-050     November 9, 2001   

  CONTACT:     Jan Strasma (630)829-9663/e-mail: rjs2@nrc.gov [rjs2@nrc.gov] 
Pam Alloway-Mueller (630)829-9662/e-mail: pla@nrc.gov [pla@nrc.gov]    

 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff has proposed a $3,000 
fine against Mathy Construction Company of Onalaska, Wisconsin, 
for violating NRC requirements associated with the loss of a 
portable moisture density gauge containing two sealed radioactive 
sources. The gauge, which is used to measure soil conditions at 
road and building sites, was later recovered. The gauge was not 
damaged in the incident and consequently there was no immediate 
health or safety concern.
 
On July 18, the company notified the NRC that a portable moisture 
density gauge had been stolen from the back of a pickup truck 
parked at a gas station. While the gauge case was secured to the 
truck bed, the key had been left in the case lock and the gauge 
itself was not locked. A member of the public found the gauge 
shortly after its theft, and it was returned to the company.
 
The gauge contained 8 millicuries of cesium-137 and 40 
millicuries of americium-241 in two sealed sources. It was being 
used at a temporary job site in Baraboo, Wisconsin.
 
The NRC staff identified two violations involving the incident 
including the failure to adequately secure and limit access to 
the gauge, and the failure to lock the gauge or the transport 
case when it was not under the direct surveillance of an 
authorized user.
 
In notifying the company of the proposed fine, NRC Regional 
Administrator James E. Dyer noted that Mathy Construction Company 
had taken corrective actions to prevent a reoccurrence of the 
situation, including additional training for employees. However, 
he said, a newly adopted enforcement policy provides that a fine 
be proposed to reflect the significance of the violation and 
emphasize the importance of maintaining control of licensed 
material. The specified fines included in the enforcement policy 
were developed to correspond to roughly three times the cost of 
proper disposal of a gauge.
 
Mathy Construction Company has 30 days to pay the fine or protest 
it. If the fine is protested and subsequently imposed by the NRC 
staff, the company may request a hearing.
 
*****************************************************************
 31  Train with spent nuclear fuel from Bulgaria unloaded

[ITAR/TASS News Agency]   
  
Story Filed: Thursday, November 08, 2001 9:33 AM EST 

KRASNOYARSK, Nov 08, 2001 (Itar-Tass via COMTEX) -- A first train 
with spent nuclear fuel from Bulgaria started being unloaded on 
Thursday at the Krasnoyarsk mining and chemical complex, Tass 
learnt from the press service of the enterprise. 

The trainload that set out of Kozlodui safely travelled over the 
Russian territory, the press service reported. Nuclear fuel from 
Ukrainian power plants just arrived in Krasnoyarsk for storage 
and reprocessing. 

Negotiations with Bulgaria are now underway about accepting next 
year too more trainloads with spent nuclear fuel from the 
Kozlodui nuclear station built with the Soviet Union's 
assistance. 

By Yuri Khots 

(c) 1996-2001 ITAR-TASS. All rights reserved. 

*****************************************************************
 32  Joint venture starts manufacturing nuclear fuel
 
[ITAR/TASS News Agency]   
  
Story Filed: Thursday, November 08, 2001 9:34 AM EST 

KIEV, Nov 08, 2001 (Itar-Tass via COMTEX) -- The closed-stock 
Ukrainian- Kazakh-Russian company for the manufacture of nuclear 
fuel whose creation was negotiated for several years went into 
operation, Tass learnt from a well-informed source. The company's 
regulations were registered by the Podolsk district 
administration of Kiev on October 31. 

The company was founded by the Ukrainian state property 
foundation, the Kazakhstan Kazatomprom national nuclear company 
and the Russian joint-stock company Tvel, who all have an equal 
number of shares. 

The new enterprise will manufacture nuclear fuel for reactors of 
Ukrainian nuclear power plants. At the expense of the fund for 
the production of nuclear fuel Ukraine now organises the 
manufacture of zirconium blanks, rolled stock and parts. 

The Kazakhstan-Ukrainian intergovernmental commission for 
economic cooperation at its meeting on September 24 - September 
25 in Astana instructed Kazakhstan's ministries of energy and 
mineral resources, and the Ukrainian ministry of fuel and power, 
to ensure, jointly with the Russian side, that the trilateral 
intergovernmental agreement on assistance to the company's 
functioning be signed before the end of the year. 

By Vitaly Matarykin (c) 1996-2001 ITAR-TASS. All rights reserved. 

*****************************************************************
 33  FOE PR on Sellafield legal battle

  FRIENDS OF THE EARTH: Government forced to defend itself in 
high court over Sellafield plutonium plant -- Friends of the 
Earth and Greenpeace argue plant is not economically viable
 

[M2 Communications Ltd.]   
  
Story Filed: Thursday, November 08, 2001 10:25 AM EST 

Nov 08, 2001 (M2 PRESSWIRE via COMTEX) -- 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. 

Friends of the Earth's Executive Director 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." 

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 GBP260 
million on the building costs of this plant alone - to waste any 
more public money would be frankly obscene." 

The MOX plant, completed in 1996, is intended to turn plutonium 
and uranium into usable fuel for overseas nuclear reactors 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 GBP200 million.However, Friends of 
the Earth and Greenpeace lawyers will argue that as the cost of 
building the plant was GBP470 million, this would mean an overall 
financial loss. In addition,this predicted GBP200m 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, which will mean that the 
material will have to be transported in ships or even planes to 
reach its final destination. 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. 

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. 

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 2001. Full quote: 
"Without Japanese order 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." 

CONTACT: Friends of the Earth Tel: +44 (0)20 7490 1555 Fax: +44 
(0)20 7490 0881

e-mail: info@foe.co.uk WWW: http://www.foe.co.uk 
[http://www.foe.co.uk] 
*****************************************************************
 34  Ontario in running for $12-billion research project
 
[Canada Newswire]   
  
Story Filed: Thursday, November 08, 2001 2:04 PM EST 

TORONTO, Nov 08, 2001 (Canada NewsWire via COMTEX) -- Ontario is 
ready to host Iter, one of the largest collaborative 
international research projects ever undertaken - second only to 
the international space station - Energy, Science and Technology 
Minister Jim Wilson announced today. Delegates from Canada, the 
European Union, the Russian Federation and Japan are meeting in 
Toronto this week to begin formal negotiations to select a host 
country for the project. 

Iter is a co-operative effort among leading industrial nations to 
build an experimental fusion development centre and to explore 
the potential of fusion as a clean, safe, sustainable source of 
electric power. Canada has submitted a bid to host the project. 
If this bid succeeds, Iter would be located adjacent to the 
Darlington nuclear power station in Clarington, Ontario. 

"These discussions represent a major step toward making the Iter 
project a reality," said Wilson. "The four international 
participants are now ready to proceed with the negotiations, and 
the meetings being held here in Ontario this week are the crucial 
next step in this process. Ontario is recognized as a global 
leader in research, development and innovation, and this makes 
the province a perfect location for the Iter project." 

Iter Canada, the non-profit agency working to secure the project 
for Canada, estimates that Iter would: 

    -  directly and indirectly create about 68,000 person years 
of employment over its lifespan;

    -  bring to Ontario 250 of the brightest minds in nuclear 
energy science;

    -  create a cluster of high-tech companies with related 
leading-edge technologies;

    -  stimulate further research in this field; and

    -  inject billions of dollars into the provincial economy.
 
"The support of the province of Ontario has been outstanding from 
day one", said Iter Canada Chairman and Chief Executive Officer 
Peter Barnard. "Ontario recognizes the economic, technological 
and longer-term environmental benefits associated with Iter, and 
has been committed to helping us win the bid for this $12 billion 
project." 

Disponible en francais. 

For more information visit www.est.gov.on.ca 
[http://www.est.gov.on.ca] VIEW ADDITIONAL COMPANY-SPECIFIC 
INFORMATION: News release via Canada NewsWire, Toronto 
416-863-9350 -GPOE- 
*****************************************************************
 35  Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission: Notice of Public Hearings
 
[Canadian Corporate News]   
  
Story Filed: Thursday, November 08, 2001 2:15 PM EST 

OTTAWA, ONTARIO, NOVEMBER 8, 2001 (CCN Newswire via COMTEX) -- 
The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) announces a one-day 
public hearing on an application by Atomic Energy of Canada 
Limited , Mississauga, Ontario, to resume low power commissioning 
of the MAPLE 1 reactor, to load fuel in the MAPLE 2 reactor and 
to begin active commissioning of the New Processing Facility. 

One-Day Hearing: December 13, 2001 Place: CNSC Public Hearing 
Room, 14th floor, 280 Slater Street, Ottawa, Ontario 

Public hearings begin at 8:30 am and follow the order listed in 
the agenda published prior to the hearing dates. 

The public is invited to participate either by oral presentation 
or written submission. Requests to participate and text of oral 
presentations or written submissions must be filed with the 
Secretary of the Commission by November 29, 2001. 

c/o Carmen Ellyson Commission Operations Officer Canadian Nuclear 
Safety Commission Tel.: (613) 996-2026 or 1-800-668-5284 280 
Slater St., P.O. Box 1046 Fax: (613) 995-5086 Ottawa, Ontario K1P 
5S9 E-mail: interventions@cnsc-ccsn.gc.ca 

Members of the public are welcome to observe public hearings. For 
current agendas and information on the hearing process, visit the 
CNSC web site: www.nuclearsafety.gc.ca 
[http://www.nuclearsafety.gc.ca] (Ref. 2001-H-20) CONTACT:          
Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission Carmen Ellyson Commission 
Operations Officer (613) 996-2026 or 1-800-668-5284 (613) 
995-5086  (FAX) Email: interventions@cnsc-ccsn.gc.ca
 
Copyright (C) 2001, Canadian Corporate News. All rights reserved. 
*****************************************************************
 36  Hitachi,Ltd. and AECL team up for development of the Next Generation CANDU
 
[Canada Newswire]   
  
Story Filed: Friday, November 09, 2001 3:51 PM EST 

TOKYO, Nov 09, 2001 (Canada NewsWire via COMTEX) -- Hitachi, Ltd. 
and Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) have signed a 
Memorandum of Agreement on November 7 to work together in the 
further development of the Next Generation (NG) CANDU nuclear 
product. 

The two companies, which are currently collaborating in the 
construction of two 700 MW CANDU plants in Qinshan, China, will 
each be responsible for specific areas in the development and 
marketing of the NG CANDU product. 

Under the agreement, both parties agreed to specifically focus on 
areas of cooperation and partnership in the development and 
marketing of the NG CANDU product. Hitachi Ltd. will concentrate 
on details of project's turbine generator system, while AECL's 
involvement will focus primarily on the nuclear steam plant. 

Among its diverse corporate activities, Hitachi, Ltd. has 
developed extensive expertise in researching, developing and 
constructing advanced boiling water type nuclear power plants and 
related products. Atomic Energy of Canada Limited is involved in 
the research, design and construction of CANDU nuclear power 
plants and related technologies and services. 

The Next Generation (NG) CANDU product is a medium-sized nuclear 
power plant. It retains proven elements of the CANDU design, but 
features a number of significant innovations, including a more 
compact reactor core design, improved thermal efficiency, and 
extended fuel life. 

Copyright (C) 2001 CNW, All rights reserved 
*****************************************************************
 37  Mandate for Securing America’s Electricity Supply

Letter to President George W. Bush
 		 	 		
THE SAFE ENERGY COMMUNICATION COUNCIL
 		
Learn More about SECC [http://www.safeenergy.com/about.htm] 
 		
November 1, 2001

President George W. Bush
The White House 
Washington, D.C.
 			
Dear President Bush, 
			
As national, regional and local environmental and public interest 
organizations, we wish to express our profound sympathy for those 
affected by the terrible events of the past month. Now is the 
time for our country to put aside narrow and divisive interests 
and focus on protecting the safety of all who live in the United 
States.
 			
Specifically, we recognize that nuclear power reactors pose an 
unacceptable threat to the security of the United States. 
Commercial reactors are extremely vulnerable to attack from both 
foreign and domestic terrorists. The sobering reality is that 
security of nuclear power facilities can be neither completely 
guaranteed nor perfectly realized.
 			
Current security at U.S. nuclear reactors is unacceptable. 
Significant weaknesses in security were found at nearly one-half 
(47%) of U.S. commercial reactors tested in recent years. 
"‘Significant’ here means that a real attack would have put the 
nuclear reactor in jeopardy with the potential for core damage 
and a radiological release, i.e., an American Chernobyl," 
according to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) 
security test program director. 
			
Structurally, no commercial nuclear reactor is designed to 
withstand the impact that destroyed the World Trade Center 
buildings, according to the NRC and the International Atomic 
Energy Commission. Indeed, a 1981 study by Argonne National 
Laboratory determined that the impact of a large jet crashing 
into a nuclear power plant would likely penetrate the containment 
vessel. An attack on a reactor facility by truck bomb or aerial 
assault, or any number of other scenarios could spread lethal 
radiation, rendering uninhabitable an area the size of 
Pennsylvania, according to an analysis by the Atomic Energy 
Commission (now the NRC).
 			
Therefore, we call upon you to direct the appropriate authorities 
to undertake the actions outlined in the attached document. While 
many of these initiatives, if fully implemented, will reduce the 
vulnerability of our families, communities and environment to a 
potential terrorist strike against a nuclear power plant, our 
society will still not be safe and never will truly safe be as 
long as nuclear reactors operate and radioactive waste is 
created.
 			
Ultimately, we believe that our country must either shift from 
our use of nuclear power to a new era of sustainable electricity 
production, or we will remain vulnerable to inherently dangerous 
reactors and, very possibly, pay an unthinkable price. We can and 
must do better for our country, our freedom and the planet.

Sincerely,
 			
Scott Denman                                             
Executive Director Safe Energy Communication Council                
NW, Suite 106         1424 16th Street, NW, Suite 404 

Washington, 
D.C. 20036                           

Washington, D.C. 20036
 					
Michael Mariotte Executive Director                                       
Nuclear Information & Resource Service 1717 Massachusetts Avenue, 

[On behalf of the more than 130 national, state and local organizational
signatories.]

Copies sent to:

Secretary of Defense
Honorable Donald H. Rumsfield
1000 Defense, The Pentagon
Washington, DC 20301
 			
Secretary of Energy
Honorable Spencer Abraham
Washington, DC 20585
1000 Independence Ave., SW
 			
Secretary of Interior
Honorable Gale A. Norton
1849 C St., NW
Washington, DC 20240
 			
Attorney General
Honorable John Ashcroft
950 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20530
 			
Secretary of Transportation
Honorable Norm Mineta
400 7th St., SW
Washington, DC 20590
 			
Director of Homeland Defense
Tom Ridge
 			
Federal Emergency Management Agency
Honorable Joe M. Allbaugh
500 C Street, SW 
Washington, D.C. 20472 
			
Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Richard Meserve, Chairman
11555 Rockville Pike
Rockville, MD 20852
 			
Senator Jim M. Jeffords
Chair
Environment and Public Works Committee
728 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
 				
Senator Robert C. Smith
Ranking Member 
Senate Environment and Public Works Committee
307 Senate Dirksen Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
 				
Senator Harry Reid
Chair, Transportation, Infrastructure and Nuclear Safety
Senate Environment and Public Works Committee
528 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
 				
Senator James M. Inhofe
Ranking Member, Transportation, Infrastructure and Nuclear Safety
Senate Environment and Public Works Committee
453 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
 				
Senator Jeff Bingaman
Chair
Energy and Natural Resources Committee
703 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
 			
Senator Frank Murkowski
Ranking Member
Energy and Natural Resources Committee
322 Hart Senate office Building
Washington, DC 20510

Senator Bob Graham
Chair, Energy Subcommittee
Energy and Natural Resources Committee
524 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

Senator Don Nickles
Ranking Member, Energy Subcommittee
Energy and Natural Resources Committee
133 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

Representative John D. Dingell
Ranking Member
Energy and Commerce Committee
2328 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

Representative W.J. "Billy" Tauzin
Chair
Energy and Commerce Committee
2183 Rayburn house Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

Representative Joe Barton
Chair, Energy and Air Quality Subcommittee
Energy and Commerce Committee
2264 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

Representative Rick Boucher
Ranking Member, Energy and Air Quality
Energy and Commerce Committee
2187 Rayburn Hose Office Builing
Washington, DC 20510
*****************************************************************
 38  Nuclear inactivity Plant security issues of cost, responsibility 
still unresolved

 By Ross Kerber, Globe Staff, 11/9/2001 

Protecting the nation's nuclear power plants became a top 
security priority in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist 
attacks. But two months later, questions of how much security is 
needed, who should be responsible, and who should pay for it 
still haven't been resolved. 

As a result, security measures vary from plant to plant. 
Massachusetts and some other states have beefed up security by 
putting National Guard troops on patrol outside nuclear sites, 
while most governors say the guardsmen aren't necessary. Coast 
Guard patrols have begun near oceanfront reactors, but they don't 
extend to shuttered plants like Maine Yankee, which still stores 
tons of radioactive waste. 

US Representative Edward Markey, a Malden Democrat who is pushing 
a counterterrorism bill amendment tightening nuclear plant 
security, calls the current defensive patchwork ''an absurd 
situation.'' He and other nuclear industry critics want the 
nation's 86 most sensitive nuclear sites protected with military 
assets, perhaps including Patriot antiaircraft missiles. The 
Pentagon is studying the possibility, though it may be weeks 
before various agencies can agree on what's needed. 

Whatever decision emerges, the questions over nuclear security 
show the challenges facing the Bush administration as it tries to 
coordinate the new homeland security mission with the businesses 
that operate most of the country's sensitive utility 
infrastructure. Executives at some plants like Pilgrim in 
Plymouth, initially didn't want the National Guard, while in 
Connecticut, executives at the Millstone facility asked for the 
troops but were at first turned down. 

Absent a formal declaration of war, Richard Meserve, chairman of 
the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, says it is still deciding 
how to divide the security tasks between the public and private 
sectors. Under federal rules, nuclear power companies aren't 
required to protect against offensive military actions by foreign 
governments, which ''as a practical matter, may be beyond the 
defensive capability of private organizations,'' Meserve wrote in 
a letter to Markey. 

But he added that utility companies must still ''protect against 
violent actions by well-trained and well-equipped persons, even 
those who are supported by a foreign government.'' It's not yet 
clear which case applies, he wrote. ''Our interactions with the 
newly established Office of Homeland Security and other agencies 
should help to further clarify where the lines between the 
industry's responsibilities and the national government's should 
be drawn,'' Meserve wrote. The head of the new office, Tom Ridge, 
hasn't said much on the issue, nor did President Bush in his 
prime-time speech last night. 

Any guidance might help resolve questions facing the owners of 
other sensitive infrastructure like oil pipelines, chemical 
plants, and water systems. In Boston, Mayor Thomas M. Menino and 
the Distrigas unit of Belgium's Tractabel SA have clashed over 
protections for the firm's natural-gas shipping terminal in 
Everett, and who should pay for these measures. Questions of cost 
and responsibility were also heard in the debate over aviation 
security. 

Industrial sectors are watching the nuclear industry for signals, 
said Robert Housman, a Washington attorney who represents several 
energy firms.

Infrastructure operators should get at least some military 
assistance, he said, since ''we don't expect private companies to 
have their own air defenses or foreign-intelligence operations.'' 

Without more assistance, he noted, industries would have to pass 
along higher security costs to customers in the form of higher 
prices. On the other hand, Housman noted the 1878 Posse Comitatus 
Act, which prohibits the use of military personnel for domestic 
police work. For Ridge, ''it's a balancing act,'' Housman said. 

Nuclear-plant safety is a priority because few other industries 
pose public safety risks as large as the country's 103 operating 
reactors, which provide a fifth of America's electric supply. 
These installations already boast defenses such as heavily armed 
security forces and thick concrete domes, and some counterrorism 
experts say an attack is more likely on softer targets. 

Yet none of the domes were designed to withstand the crash of a 
loaded jetliner, an event that a 1980 analysis by the Argonne 
National Laboratory said ''may result in multiple 
failure-initiating events.'' Moreover, many nuclear plants store 
tons of radioactive uranium fuel rods in more lightly defended 
cooling pools outside the domes themselves. 

Some fear the biggest risk from a terrorist attack on nuclear 
plants isn't an explosion, but a release of radiation that could 
leave hundreds of square miles uninhabitable. 

In the days after Sept. 11, all sides seemed to be moving in a 
similar direction. The NRC recommended that plants go to their 
highest levels of alert and took down much of the data on the 
agency's Web site, in case any of it might compromise security. 
Steps to stockpile pills that protect against radiation poisoning 
also picked up speed. On Oct. 30, the Federal Aviation 
Administration created no-fly zones around major nuclear sites. 
But the no-fly zones expired Wednesday after congressmen 
complained they shut down too many local airports. 

Some nuclear executives say they don't need much help. In 
Plymouth, for instance, Pilgrim Station owner Entergy Corp. 
initially turned down National Guardsmen offered by acting 
Governor Jane M. Swift, partly to avoid having to integrate them 
with the plant's existing security plans. But even after they 
were dispatched on Oct. 22, federal rules barred the soldiers 
from entering Pilgrim, limiting the military mission to perimeter 
security. 

Meanwhile, other plants couldn't get troops as fast as they 
wished. Dominion Resources, owner of the Millstone nuclear 
complex in Waterford, Conn., asked Governor John G. Rowland to 
send guardsmen shortly after Sept. 11, but was rebuffed because 
the company hadn't created a specific mission for the troops, 
said Dean Pagini, a spokesman for Rowland. 

Rowland changed his mind after a conference call with Ridge on 
Oct. 29, the day Ridge and Attorney General John Ashcroft warned 
an unspecified terrorist act might be imminent. 

The presence of National Guardsmen is no guarantee of safety, of 
course, and sites like the Seabrook reactor in New Hampshire have 
boosted security with state troopers instead. 

Edward McGaffigan Jr., a member of the NRC, said security at all 
facilities is high, regardless of what forces they have called 
upon. He's more worried about attacks on industrial targets like 
oil refineries, whose security plans receive less scrutiny. 

''We're never going to give the public perfect assurance, but 
compared to other infrastructure I believe we've given the public 
a very high level of assurance,'' McGaffigan said. 

Still undecided is who will pay for the extra security steps, or 
whether these costs can be passed on to ratepayers. Even 
nuclear-industry critics say they don't know the answers. In 
Plymouth, Pilgrim spokesman David Tarantino said it hasn't been 
told to expect a bill and that, realistically, the military ought 
to provide some services without charge. 

''I assume that's why we pay taxes,'' Tarantino said. 

Some local activists have complained that the plants' utility 
owners didn't provide enough security at first. Near the Maine 
Yankee facility in Wiscasset, two local residents say they 
weren't challenged when, as a test in late September, they drove 
a pickup truck onto the plant's property and to within 100 feet 
of a building housing tons of radioactive spent fuel. 

''Nobody came and stopped us, nobody cared,'' said one of the 
visitors, Stanley Lane, a selectman in the neighboring town of 
Westport, Maine. A spokesman for Maine Yankee said the site has 
since beefed up its perimeter. The nuclear industry's trade 
association, the Nuclear Energy Institute, says security is 
robust in general. 

Ralph Beedle, the group's senior vice president, has also raised 
some of the industry's own security concerns. In early October, 
he asked regulators to relax a rule imposed after Sept. 11 that 
required all nuclear plant workers to pass complete background 
checks before they could enter sensitive areas. The trade group 
sought a return to the practice of allowing workers access to the 
plants for a few days while their background checks were 
processed, to speed up refueling work. 

''It's a management issue,'' Beedle said of the request. 

The Union of Concerned Scientists, a Washington lobbying group, 
didn't see it that way. In an Oct. 3 letter to regulators, David 
Lochbaum, the group's nuclear safety engineer, wrote: ''It is 
almost unbelievable that the nuclear industry, which so often 
claims to have safety as its chief priority, would call for 
reduced security at the same time that governors across the 
United States are calling out National Guard troops to provide 
extra security at airports.'' 

Ultimately, regulators turned down Beedle's request. 

Ross Kerber can be reached by e-mail at kerber@globe.com 
[kerber@globe.com] . 

This story ran on page C1 of the Boston Globe on 11/9/2001. © 
Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company. 
*****************************************************************
 39  Group urges closing of Indian Point plant 
                                       	
Friday, November 9, 2001

By KAREN MATTHEWS
The Associated Press

 NEW YORK -- The environmental group Riverkeeper petitioned the 
Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Thursday to close the Indian 
Point nuclear power plant pending a review of security measures.

 Riverkeeper staff attorney Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Indian 
Point could not withstand an assault like the terrorist attacks 
on the World Trade Center.

 "Indian Point nuclear power plant is really a nuclear bomb 30 
miles north of New York City," Kennedy said.

 "If the American Airlines Flight 11 that flew down the Hudson 
River had, instead of hitting the Twin Towers in New York, banked 
left and instead hit the twin towers of Indian Point, we would 
have a much more dire situation than we're facing now. . . . If 
the wind positions had been right that day, we would find that 
New York City would be permanently uninhabitable."

 A spokesman for Entergy Corp., which purchased the Indian Point 
2 and Indian Point 3 reactors from Consolidated Edison, did not 
immediately return a call seeking comment.

 Jim Steets, a spokesman for New Orleans-based Entergy, which 
purchased the Indian Point 2 and Indian Point 3 reactors from 
Consolidated Edison, dismissed the petition as being "riddled 
with misinformation."

 The petition asks the NRC to:

 Require a permanent no-fly zone in the airspace within 10 
nautical miles of Indian Point.

 Order Indian Point and Westchester County to revise their 
emergency response plans "in order to account and prepare for 
possible terrorist attacks."

 Order Indian Point to convert its spent fuel storage technology 
from a water-cooled system to a less vulnerable dry-cask system 
in a bunkered structure.

 The petition charges that Indian Point's containment structures, 
reactor vessels, spent fuel storage areas, control rooms, and 
switching equipment all are vulnerable to terrorist attack.

 "A successful attack on these structures would have a 
catastrophic effect on the region's human population, 
environment, and economy," the petition says. "Based on this 
threat, petitioners are requesting . . . that the United States 
Nuclear Regulatory Commission suspend the operating licenses for 
all units until such time as the licensee can demonstrate that 
the facility is protected against plausible attack scenarios."

 Kennedy said that while New York City probably does need energy 
from Indian Point during the summer months, the power is not 
needed during the winter.

 The petition was joined by elected officials including U.S. 
Reps. Eliot Engel, Maurice Hinchey, and Jerrold Nadler, several 
Democratic members of the state Legislature, the Greenburgh Town 
Board, and Rockland County Executive Scott Vanderhoef, a 
Republican.

 Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, who joined Kennedy and other 
officials at a news conference in front of City Hall, said: 
"Indian Point sits there like a huge bull's-eye for any criminal 
mind to understand that not only can they have the normal awful, 
horrendous impact of a terrorist attack, but you can't clean it 
up."

 The nation's nuclear power plants -- 103 reactors at 64 sites in 
31 states -- have been under heightened alert since the Sept. 11 
terrorist attacks. National Guard troops were assigned by Gov. 
George Pataki to nuclear power plants across the state to provide 
additional assistance. The National Guard also has been deployed 
to reactors in other states.
 
	
   Copyright © 2001 North Jersey Media Group Inc.
*****************************************************************
 40  anti-Millstone lawyer disbarred

TheDay.com: 

Published on 11/08/2001  

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. 
*****************************************************************
 41  National and Local Citizen Organizations Call for Major Changes 
in Nuclear Power Security and for Replacing Inherently Vulnerable 
Reactors With Sustainable Options 

Press Release 11/01/01
 	 		
For Immediate Release: Contact: Thursday, November 1, 2001 Linda 
Gunter, (202) 483-8491, ext. 13
 						   					 				 			
(Washington, D.C.) More than 125 national, regional and local 
environmental, consumer, energy, health and public interest 
organizations today petitioned President Bush, Congressional 
leaders and other authorities to make specific and significant 
security upgrades at U.S. nuclear power reactors to ensure that 
reactors can withstand a broad range of potential terrorist 
attacks. Recognizing that the "sobering reality is that security 
of nuclear power facilities can be neither completely guaranteed 
nor perfectly realized," the signatories called for a shift from 
reliance on nuclear power to reliance on abundant and affordable 
energy efficiency and renewable energy resources. The document 
and complete list of signatories is available at 
www.safeenergy.org and www.nirs.org.
 			
"U.S. nuclear reactors pose an unacceptable level of 
vulnerability and risk to our society and environment," said 
Scott Denman, executive director of the Safe Energy Communication 
Council. "Even the director of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission (NRC) mock terrorist assault program found that 
security flaws at nearly one-half (47%) of U.S. commercial 
reactors could have resulted in ‘core damage and a radiological 
release, i.e., an American Chernobyl,’ had the attacks been real. 
Now, more than ever, we must shift to sustainable energy 
sources," he said.
 			
"Structurally, no commercial nuclear reactor is designed to 
withstand the impact that destroyed the World Trade Center 
buildings, according to the NRC and the International Atomic 
Energy Commission," said Michael Mariotte, executive director of 
the Nuclear Information and Resource Service. Indeed, a 1981 
study by Argonne National Laboratory determined that the impact 
of a large commercial jet crashing into a nuclear power plant 
would likely penetrate the containment. An attack on these 
facilities by truck bomb or aerial assault, or any number of 
other scenarios could spread lethal radiation, rendering 
uninhabitable an area the size of Pennsylvania, according to an 
analysis by the Atomic Energy Commission (now the NRC) in 1964, 
Mariotte observed.
 			
"Since the September 11 attacks, some special interests are 
pushing for swift passage of legislation that would spend 
hard-earned tax dollars to promote still more dangerous nuclear 
reactors," said Anna Aurilio, Legislative Director for the U.S. 
Public Interest Research Group (U.S. PIRG). "Instead Congress 
should increase energy security by promoting aggressive energy 
efficiency programs and a shift to clean renewable energy such as 
solar and wind," she added.
 			
"As terrible as the terrorist attack was, it could have been far 
worse if one of the hijacked jets had hit one of the 103 
operating reactors in the U.S.," said Dr. Brent Blackwelder, 
President of Friends of the Earth. "In order to adequately 
safeguard our country, we must phase out existing reactors and 
establish a fast-track program to exploit our vast efficiency and 
renewable energy resources," he remarked.
 			
"In light of the tragic events of September 11, federal 
regulators, industry representatives and consumer advocates alike 
have publicly acknowledged that the safety of nuclear power 
facilities cannot be guaranteed," said Wenonah Hauter, director 
of Public Citizen’s Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program. 
"We must therefore stop subsidizing this risky industry and 
instead begin the transition to real energy security by investing 
in conservation, efficiency, and renewable energy options," she 
concluded.
 			
Specifically, the organizations call for the following actions to 
be taken by the appropriate authorities:
 			
#1. All NRC licensees must demonstrate that their nuclear 
facilities are protected against radiological sabotage by meeting 
a significantly more comprehensive Design Basis Threat (DBT). A 
revised DBT must both encompass currently analyzed threats from 
ground-based assault, and be broadened to include truck bombs and 
aerial and waterborne attacks. All permanent and temporary 
radioactive waste storage, disposal, treatment and transfer sites 
must meet the strengthened DBT to protect against such attacks 
that could have disastrous consequences.
 			
#2. Congress must reject reauthorization of the Price-Anderson 
Act, which limits the liability of the commercial nuclear 
industry.
 			
#3. Congress must indefinitely extend the moratorium on nuclear 
transport and expand it to cover all highly radioactive and 
radiotoxic waste and materials, including commercial shipments.
 			
#4. Congress must indefinitely shelve current proposals for 
centralized storage of nuclear waste. Such storage would 
establish additional nuclear targets without meaningfully 
reducing the risk at operating nuclear power plants.
 			
#5. Congress must mandate that utility-funded security operations 
be increased at existing nuclear reactors and maintained 
throughout plant life and the on-site storage of irradiated 
nuclear fuel.
 			
#6. Potassium iodide must be immediately stockpiled with state 
health departments within a 50 mile radius around all nuclear 
reactors. 
			
#7. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) must require the 
same or comparable security for general and commercial aviation 
and determine the practicality of instituting permanent, 
effective no-fly-zones over commercial nuclear power plants.
 			
#8. All NRC licensees must provide a risk assessment of the 
survivability from terrorist attack on radiation containment and 
critical safety systems. 
			
#9. The NRC must take significant federal enforcement action, 
including the suspension or revocation of operating licenses, 
when repeated licensee failure of upgraded NRC-led security 
performance evaluations occurs. 
			
#10. All branches of government must ensure that the terrorist 
attacks do not result in the erosion of fundamental civil 
liberties. 
			
#11. The mixed oxide nuclear fuel (MOX) program must be 
eliminated immediately. Giving the green light to a proposed 
commercial plutonium fuel fabrication plant in South Carolina 
fosters the creation of a plutonium economy and increases the 
likelihood of a terrorist-created catastrophe. 
			
#12. The U.S. must initiate an expedited phase-out of nuclear 
power, improve energy efficiency in all sectors of our economy 
and initiate a rapid transition to renewable electricity sources.

In conclusion, the organizations believe that these policy and 
program steps are imperative and represent the direction our 
country must now take: "We will either shift from our use of 
nuclear power to a new era of sustainable electricity production 
for our country, or we will remain at risk due to vulnerable 
reactors and, very possibly, pay an unthinkable price. We can and 
must do better for our families, our country, our freedom and the 
planet," the co-signed organizations stated.
 			
 		 		
Founded in 1980, the Safe Energy Communication Council (SECC) is 
an energy policy watchdog coalition of 10 national energy, 
environmental and public interest media organizations working 
together to increase public awareness of the ability of energy 
efficiency and renewable energy sources to meet an increasing 
share of our nation's energy needs and the serious economic and 
environmental liabilities of nuclear power. Contact SECC at: 1717 
Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Suite 106, Washington, DC 20036, Tel: 
(202) 483-8491, Fax (202) 234-9194, or visit our web site at 
www.safeenergy.org.
*****************************************************************
 42  Price-Anderson Act Facts
 
THE SAFE ENERGY COMMUNICATION COUNCIL
 
Price-Anderson Act Basics
 			
Price-Anderson Act Fact Sheet
[http://www.safeenergy.org/PriceAndersonFactSheet.pdf] 
 			
Five Arguments against the Price-Anderson Reauthorization Act of 2001
[http://www.safeenergy.org/PAArguments.pdf] 
 			
Text of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 (SEC. 170) as amended
[http://epw.senate.gov/atomic54.pdf] 
 			
Code of Federal Regulations Applicable to Price-Anderson (10CFR140)
[http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_01/10cfr140_01.html] 
 			
Overview of H.R. 2983, the Price-Anderson Reauthorization Act of 2001
 			
On October 31, the House Energy and Commerce Committee marked-up 
H.R. 2983, the Price-Anderson Reauthorization Act of 2001. This 
deeply flawed legislation, which limits the nuclear industry’s 
liability in the event of an accident, is crucial to the 
expansion of nuclear power. H.R. 2983 reauthorizes Price-Anderson 
for 15 years with only minor changes to the existing law. 
Chairmen Tauzin has indicated his desire to fast track the bill 
for consideration on the House floor. 
				
The legislation passed out of committee contains specific 
provisions intended to facilitate the construction of the Pebble 
Bed Modular Reactor, a design that features no protective 
secondary containment structure.
 				
Representative Edward Markey (D-MA) successfully attached an 
amendment that would require the President to conduct a study 
assessing the threats to nuclear power facilities and require the 
Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to update the design basis 
threat, which determines the threats licensees must prepare to 
guard against. While these measures are long overdue, they will 
not guarantee the safety of nuclear facilities. Moreover, these 
measures do not require licensees to demonstrate that they can 
successfully meet the requirements of the revised design basis 
threat before receiving liability protection under 
Price-Anderson. Nearly half of all nuclear power plants have 
failed to demonstrate that they can meet the requirements of the 
existing design basis threat in force-on-force exercises 
administered by the NRC.
 			
 			
SECC's sumary of H.R. 2983 [http://www.safeenergy.org/H.R.2983Summary.htm] 
 			
SECC Letter to the House Energy and Commerce Committee
[http://www.safeenergy.org/EnergyandCommerce.pdf] 
 			
Text of the bill as reported by the Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality
[http://energycommerce.house.gov/107/markups/10312001/HR2983Print.pdf] 
 			
Markey amendment on nuclear terrorism
[http://energycommerce.house.gov/107/markups/10312001/amendment2.pdf] 
 			
Waxman amendment on unreasonable risk consultation
[http://energycommerce.house.gov/107/markups/10312001/amendment6.pdf] 
 			
Dingell/Tauzin amendment on DOE contractors
[http://energycommerce.house.gov/107/markups/10312001/amendment7.pdf] 
 			
Strickland amendment on safety regulations for DOE nuclear facilities
[http://energycommerce.house.gov/107/markups/10312001/amendment3.pdf] 
 			
home [http://www.safeenergy.org/index.htm] 
*****************************************************************
 43  Officials briefed on Zion security

Chicago Tribune | 

Closed meeting draws complaints

By Susan Kuczka Tribune staff reporter Published November 9, 2001


Owners of the closed Zion nuclear power plant were put on the hot 
seat Thursday night by some Lake County politicians during a 
private meeting about new security measures undertaken since the 
Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

State Rep. Susan Garrett (D-Lake Forest) said she believes Exelon 
Nuclear, which runs the plant, needs to come up with a better 
plan for coordinating information among plant officials, Zion and 
nearby Waukegan Regional Airport in the event of an emergency.

"We still don't exactly know what kinds of security precautions 
are in place at the airport in relation to what happens here, 
knowing that planes are being used as weapons," Garrett said 
after the hourlong meeting.

Lake County Board Chairman Suzi Schmidt (R-Lake Villa) said 
Exelon should have opened the meeting to the public and news 
media. About a dozen government and elected officials attended 
the meeting at the Power House Museum, next to the power plant.

"I said this puts a cloud over what you're doing here when you 
don't invite the public and the press," Schmidt said. "I already 
have 22 other County Board members who want to know what's going 
on."

Not everyone believed the meeting fell short of expectations.

"I'm confident they're capable of handling the situation," said 
state Rep. Timothy Osmond (R-Antioch), whose district includes 
the plant.

"I can't say that if an asteroid falls out of the sky and lands 
on the building everything will be taken care of, but I do 
believe they're on top of it."

"I feel they're really moving to do something," said Sen. Adeline 
Geo-Karis (R-Zion), who contacted the Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission and found that extra security was being put in place 
at the Zion facility.

Exelon spokeswoman Ann Mary Carley said the company decided to 
hold a private meeting with the local leaders to give them a 
chance to ask questions about security procedures. But she said 
the company was open to making a presentation on security to the 
public at a County Board meeting.

Carley also said the company has been coordinating information 
with local law-enforcement agencies and the FAA since Sept. 11. 
More details will be provided to public officials, she said.

The Zion plant was closed in 1998 but remains the storage site 
for more than 2,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel produced by the 
twin nuclear reactors over a 20-year period.

Although security has always been tight, it was heightened after 
Sept. 11 when the NRC ordered the facilities placed on high 
alert.

In addition, last week Gov. George Ryan ordered Illinois National 
Guard troops to be stationed at Zion and the state's six 
operational nuclear power plants in Braidwood, Byron, Dresden, 
LaSalle, Clinton and the Quad Cities.

Excelon officials held informational meetings about upgraded 
security measures with officials from communities near the other 
plants.

Besides an intricate security system inside the plants, the Zion 
facility also had concrete barriers placed outside its entrance, 
which is guarded by an Illinois state trooper.

A fence is to be erected on the beach next to the plant soon, 
company officials said.


Copyright © 2001, Chicago Tribune 
*****************************************************************
*****************************************************************
                     NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARTICLES
*****************************************************************
 1 Americans believe going nuclear will end terrorism 

AP-Wire | Opinion 

The Star Online > News > World 

Friday, November 9, 2001

WASHINGTON: More than half of Americans believe nuclear strikes 
would be an effective tool against terrorism and are not willing 
to settle for anything less than the death or capture of Osama 
bin Laden, according to opinion polls released yesterday. 

But while revealing a general hardening of attitudes towards 
terrorists and those who harbour them, one of the surveys also 
showed that Americans were growing wary of the prospect of 
getting bogged down in a large-scale ground war in Afghanistan 
with heavy US casualties. 

A total of 54% think using weapons from the US strategic nuclear 
arsenal would be effective in the war against terrorism declared 
by President George W. Bush in the wake of the Sept 11 attacks, a 
poll by Zogby International revealed. 

A third of respondents said nuclear strikes against targets in 
Afghanistan and other countries would be “very effective.” 

The poll was the first strong indication of the public’s 
readiness to entertain the nuclear option in the anti-terrorism 
campaign. Following a long-standing US policy, Defence Secretary 
Donald Rumsfeld has repeatedly refused to rule out the use of 
nuclear weapons in the conflict. 

The Zogby survey also revealed that 90% of Americans were 
confident US air strikes and operations by special forces would 
be effective in defeating Osama’s terror network blamed for the 
attacks on New York and Washington. 

ABC News and The Washington Post registered an even higher level 
of support for the on-going US military campaign in Afghanistan 
in a poll. 

Ninety-four per cent of respondents in that survey backed 
Operation Enduring Freedom aimed at destroying terrorist assets 
and ousting the ruling Taliban regime. 

As many as 71% backed the idea of sending a significant number of 
ground troops to Afghanistan, according to the ABC 
News/Washington Post poll. 

But 64 said success or failure of the campaign will be determined 
by the US forces’ ability to capture or kill Osama. Only 30% said 
victory could be declared if the head of al-Qaeda continued to 
roam free. — AFP 

© 1995-2001 Star Publications (Malaysia) Bhd (Co No 10894-D)
*****************************************************************
 2  Terror threat ignored as ferry delivers plutonium 

Irish Newspapers - 

 Irish Independent > National NewsIssue 
Date: Fri November 9th 01

A CARGO containing plutonium was brought to Sellafield this week 
on a former passenger ferry, the Irish Independent learned last 
night. 

And it was also learned that operators of the disgraced 
Sellafield plant regarded the odds of an aircraft attack on its 
facilities as "less than one-in-a-million", and decided such a 
threat did not require special safety measures. Last night 
British Nuclear Fuels fuel's shipment did not pass through the 
Irish Sea.

But it confirmed that the cargo on board the MV Arneb, a 
converted passenger ferry, was brought from Europe to the east 
coast of England and transported by rail from Hull to Sellafield.

Green Party leader Trevor Sargent said it was outrageous that 
plutonium was being transported in a converted car carrier in the 
present climate of international terrorism and reports of nuclear 
reactors and shipments being exposed to terrorist attacks.

Last night a BNFL spokesman confirmed that spent MOX pellets 
containing plutonium were brought to Sellafield this week on the 
Arneb but inisted that the boat had been specially adapted.

The Irish Independent also learned last night the 
"one-in-a-million" aircraft attack odds were made in official 
documentation 11 months ago. Last night politicians demanded to 
know if the same assessment still applied after the September 11 
atrocities.

It was learned that the British Nuclear Fuels' Continued 
Operation Safety Report (COSR) for Sellafield stated up to 
recently that only a heavy commercial or military aircraft could 
inflict a catastrophic release of radiation at the high activity 
storage tanks.

But the company's safety report maintained that this was below a 
level at which special safety measures were required. This took 
into account no-fly restrictions around Sellafield. The 
Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland had called for a new 
assessment by the UK authorities of the radiological consequences 
of "very low probability high consequence accidents".

The disclosure last night angered leading anti-Sellafield 
campaigner, Senator Fergus O'Dowd (FG), who claimed that BNFL had 
misled the public at a meeting in Drogheda by stating that their 
safety report was adequate as it did not take account of the real 
threat of a plane attack.

"I'm absolutely shocked by this disclosure . BNFL are totally 
misleading people," he added.

Sen O'Dowd said he was also shocked by what he claimed was the 
absence of any visible sign of security at Sellafield during a 
recent visit to the site. He insisted the site appeared to be 
completely unprotected.

Treacy Hogan, Environment Correspondent

© Copyright Unison
*****************************************************************
 3  Scientists fear nuclear terror dangers

By Andrew Jack in Moscow

Published: November 8 2001 21:28 | Last Updated: November 8 2001 
22:56

A group of senior Russian and US scientists specialising in 
nuclear safety on Thursday sharply criticised the decision of the 
White House to block new spending designed to reduce the risk of 
Russia's military arsenal falling into the hands of terrorists. 

Ransac, the Russian American Nuclear Security Advisory Council, 
which includes academics from both countries who have long been 
working in the field, expressed concern that no additional 
efforts were being made to secure Russia's nuclear, chemical and 
biological weapons. 

Their comments came after US President George W. Bush on 
Wednesday threatened to block the $40bn appropriations bill 
launched in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks if 
extra allocations were added. 

A group of senior US politicians had been calling for further 
spending in order to include items on enhanced security in 
Russia, seen as a potential source given the size of the Soviet 
Union's military programmes, reported failures in the past and 
the temptations for many scientists as well as guards working on 
low wages. 

Ransac had called, in particular, for an acceleration in aUS 
Department of Energy programme to improve security at military 
installations, fresh funding for the Nuclear Cities programme 
designed to assist defence conversion activities in Russia's ten 
centres involved in its nuclear weapons development, and extra 
support for mea-sures to help tighten the country's border and 
export controls. 

Bill Hoehn, head of Ransac's Washington, DC, office, said: "This 
is a total fiasco. It is atrocious that officials don't see 
non-proliferation programmes as valuable. The President's 
wielding of his veto is really gross. Nothing is being done to 
tackle the source of the problems." 

He said the decision was particularly upsetting given Mr Bush's 
statements earlier this week that Osama bin Laden and his 
al-Qaeda network were attempting to obtain nuclear weapons, and 
the Atomic Energy Authority's calls for rapid increases in 
nuclear security worldwide. 

Until September 11, he said that Mr Bush's administration had "if 
not slowed down, certainly not accelerated" efforts to finance 
and assist programes aimed at reducing Russia's military 
stockpiles, and the risks associated with them. 

A Department of Energy official stressed yesterday the urgency of 
continuing and increasing his agency's programmes, which have so 
far improved security at Russian installations representing a 
third of the total estimated stored nuclear materials. 

US experts have long highlighted reports of military materials 
smuggled out of Russia, scientists cooperating with potential 
"rogue states", and the poor conditions in which stockpiles are 
guarded. 
*****************************************************************
 4  Race to find mafia's uranium bars

Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | 

Police fear terrorists may get ingredients for 'dirty bomb'            
 		
Philip Willan in Rome
Friday November 9, 2001
The Guardian [http://www.guardian.co.uk]  		

Italian police have launched a hunt for seven bars of enriched 
uranium believed to be in the hands of the mafia and which they 
fear could have been sold to Islamist terrorists. 

The bars of enriched uranium 235 and 238 were part of a stock of 
eight kilos of uranium sold to the government of Zaire by an 
American company, General Atomic of San Diego, in 1971, La 
Repubblica reported. 

They were sold as part of the "atoms for peace" programme and 
were intended for use in an experimental reactor in Kinshasa. But 
the uranium went missing four years ago, following the collapse 
of the Mobutu regime. 

The bars re-emerged in Europe in 1997, when a group of 
traffickers were involved in a shoot-out with police in France, 
and came to light again in the hands of an underworld group in 
Italy the following spring. 

Police learned that they were in the hands of an organised crime 
group made up of mafiosi from Sicily and Calabria, and members of 
a Rome underworld gang known as the Magliana band. 

A finance police officer was given a false identity and false 
criminal record for handling stolen property and approached the 
group with an offer to purchase all eight bars on behalf of an 
unidentified Arab country. 

The undercover officer, posing as "the accountant", offered to 
pay 20bn lire (£6.4m) into a Swiss bank account for all eight 
bars - half the figure originally sought by the mafiosi. 

The transaction took place on March 20 1998, but the sellers 
brought only one bar, code numbered 6910 GA. It contained 40 
grams of uranium 235, 150 grams of uranium 138 which was 20% 
enriched, and was contained in a 90 cen timetre steel-encased 
cylinder. Investigators determined that the bar was not 
sufficiently enriched to be used in the manufacture of a nuclear 
bomb, but could be used with conventional explosives, or even a 
gas canister, to create a "dirty bomb". 

"If terrorists exploded a dirty bomb in Villa Borghese Gardens, 
they would create little more than a large hole in the ground, 
but the centre of Rome would be contaminated for a century," 
Captain Roberto Ferroni, of the finance police, told La 
Repubblica. 

Thirteen suspects were arrested and last month a court in the 
Sicilian city of Catania sentenced them to prison terms ranging 
from two years to four years and six months. New anti-terrorism 
laws could not be invoked and they were convicted merely of 
"attempting to export dual use material". Police have no idea 
what has become of the other uranium bars and do not know whether 
they are still in Italy. 

"It's as though they had vanished into thin air," Capt Ferroni 
told La Repubblica. "We had some indications of their presence 
here in Rome. Measurements were made [with a geiger counter] and 
certain zones showed anomalous peaks of radiation." 

Capt Ferroni said the investigators could not say whether the 
bars had found their way into the hands of al-Qaida. 

"Unfortunately we don't know," he said. "But I can say that when 
we carried out the undercover operation, our man, "the 
accountant", introduced himself as an intermediary for an Arab 
country. And our sellers certainly didn't seem upset. On the 
contrary, the credibility of the Arab world, which has always 
been hunting for nuclear material, convinced them that the 
"accountant" was not a trap." 

Investigators believe one of the convicted uranium traffickers, 
Domenico Stilitano, could provide a lead on the fate of the 
nuclear material. But he has refused to talk and as he has a 
sentence of only four years and six months to serve, the 
authorities have little leverage with which to convince him. 
	
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2001
*****************************************************************
 5  Press Briefing by Condoleeza Rice
   
Press Briefing by Condoleeza Rice 
U.S. Newswire 
1 Nov 13:49 

Press Briefing By National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice To: 
National Desk Contact: White House Press Office, 202-456-2580 

WASHINGTON, Nov. 1 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The following is a 
transcript of today's press briefing by National Security Advisor 
Dr. Condoleezza Rice: The James S. Brady Press Briefing Room 
11:47 a.m. EST 

DR. RICE: Good morning, everyone. I would like to take a few 
minutes just to talk a little bit about the President's 
activities over the next week, including a series of speeches 
that he will make updating the American people and our coalition 
allies on the progress on the war on terrorism. And then, of 
course, I'll be happy to take your questions. 

The President thinks it's vitally important to make certain that 
the American people are kept informed about the nature of the 
threat that we face, and the progress of our response. I'm going 
to leave the timing and logistics of the exact timing of the 
President's speeches and briefings to Ari, but let me just give 
you a sense of what he plans to do. 

Next week, the President will address the American people about 
homeland defense and security, and our status and progress on 
this front, the home front, on the war on terrorism. He will 
speak to the American people about the ways in which our everyday 
lives have changed necessarily since the horrific events of 
September 11th, and his optimism and resolve that, despite these 
changes, American values are constant and impermeable. The 
President will also take an opportunity next week to announce new 
progress on the financial front against terrorism. 

Concerning the war abroad, the President will consult with the 
members of the coalition. He does this regularly in phone calls 
each morning, but he'll have a couple of special opportunities 
next week. He will speak to a gathering in Warsaw, Poland of 
Central European states that have gathered to talk about how they 
can best support the war on terrorism. And he wants very much to 
thank the Polish government for arranging this gathering. He will 
talk about the importance of world leaders and coalition allies, 
he will define the nature of the global response to terrorism, 
and update the progress on the war on terrorism, talking about 
the responsibilities of those who have joined the coalition. 

The President will also have several heads of state here next 
week. He will visit with Prime Minister Blair of Great Britain 
who will come here; with President Chirac of France; with Prime 
Minister Vajpayee of India. He will also meet with President 
Cardoso of Brazil and Ahern of Ireland. And also, of Algeria -- 
Bouteflika from Algeria. 

Finally, the President will deliver his first speech to the 
United Nations General Assembly on Saturday. So it's going to be 
a very busy week, both in talking about the home front and in 
talking with members of the coalition about the progress in the 
war on terrorism. And now I'd be glad to take your questions. 
Ron. Q Just a follow up to the homeland defense speech. Are you 
saying -- is that a prime-time or an Oval Office or a 
Congressional address? DR. RICE: I'm going to let Ari address the 
logistics with you. But the President is going to take an 
opportunity next week to update the American people on homeland 
defense. 

Q I'm assuming Poland is a satellite speech, by satellite? 

DR. RICE: That's right. He's not going to Poland. That's right, 
he's going to be on satellite. 

Q Is there a tentative agreement on missile defense? 

DR. RICE: The President has been very consistent, going all the 
way back to the time that he was elected, that he had certain 
principles that he believes should guide us as we've thought 
about the new environment in which we find ourselves with Russia, 
at the end of the Cold War. 

Those principles have not changed. First of all, he's said that 
he believes very strongly that the United States ought to do a 
strategic nuclear review, a review of its offensive forces, and 
bring those forces to a level consistent with our own deterrence 
needs, not as a matter of negotiation, but as a matter of 
restructuring our nuclear forces. 

Secondly, the President has made clear that he believes that 
we're going to have to move beyond the ABM Treaty for two 
reasons: first of all because it constrains our ability to fully 
explore the possibilities for missile defense, and secondly 
because he believes that it is not representative of the kind of 
relationship that we have with the Russians. 

Now, obviously, we've been talking with the Russians at the head 
of state level, at the ministerial level, and at the expert level 
for a number of months now. We believe that we are understanding 
each other better, that we're making progress. But I would 
caution against expecting any particular deal at any particular 
time. 

We have a series of meetings that we have been having with the 
Russian President -- Ljubljana, Genoa, the recent meeting in 
Shanghai. And as you know, President Putin will be here shortly. 
So I would caution against expecting any particular deal at any 
particular time. But we do believe that we and the Russians are 
making progress on redefining our new relationship. 

Q Are you denying -- are you denying that there has been a 
tentative agreement on the range of nuclear reductions? 

DR. RICE: I am just saying, Ron, that I would caution against 
expecting any particular deal at any particular time. As I said 
to you many, many times, let's not try to keep score, that it's 
1-0 or 2-0, or that it's the ninth inning. We are building this 
relationship over a long period of time with the Russians, and we 
are making steady progress. 

Q Can I follow on that, Dr. Rice? There was a sense out of one of 
the meetings that Secretary Powell had while he was in Shanghai, 
that the Russians had indicated to us that there's a lot more 
that we can do in terms of testing within the framework of the 
ABM Treaty than we think we can do. Did this sort of notion of -- 
not an agreement, but some sort of understanding, fall out of 
those conversations? 

DR. RICE: Well, I think that we are getting to understand each 
other better over this long period of time. I think that the 
expert discussions have really told the Russians precisely the 
kinds of things that we are thinking about doing. We have said 
that we are going to be transparent in our testing program; we 
have said that the Russians should know precisely what we are 
doing to move toward limited defenses. And so I don't think it 
should be surprising to anyone that there is a better 
understanding, and perhaps more comfort, with how we are going to 
move forward. But I am not going to put words in the Russians' 
mouths as to precisely what they think of our testing program. We 
will see how the discussions go over the next several months. 

Q Can you at least say, or perhaps explain, that it's acceptable 
to lower the overall number of warheads? 

DR. RICE: Oh, the President has said from the very beginning -- 
in fact, he said during the campaign -- that he believed that 
American offensive nuclear force levels were probably too high 
for the task of post-Cold War deterrence. And he launched, upon 
becoming President, a strategic nuclear review. That review is 
moving toward conclusion. And the President's also made very 
clear that he believes the restructuring of American nuclear 
forces and numbers that are consistent with the deterrent mission 
is a matter of military planning; it's not a matter of 
negotiation. And so, sooner or later, those talks will be done 
internally. 

Q But just to explain to the American people, I mean, you 
apparently are exploring going below 2000 -- 

DR. RICE: What we're doing is looking at the level -- and this is 
an internal review; this is not a review with the Russians that 
says we have to match warhead for warhead. We really believe the 
old arms control agreements in which you had to match warhead for 
warhead, system for system, ignoring geography, ignoring history, 
ignoring the threats around you, was the old way of thinking 
about this. 

We think that the best way to do this -- and the President said 
it several times -- is to ask the Pentagon to review America's 
needs for deterrence and move America's forces to a level that is 
appropriate to our deterrent needs. And we would expect that the 
Russians would do the same. 

Q Dr. Rice, it seems to me that your phraseology of moving beyond 
the ABM Treaty has been purposely vague all along. Are you 
willing to accept amending the ABM Treaty, or are you determined 
to scrap it entirely? 

DR. RICE: Look, we have said all along that we need to find a way 
to achieve two goals. One is to give ourselves maximum 
flexibility for exploring the technologies that might give us the 
chance of an effective limit to defense. The ABM Treaty is 
constraining. The President's also made clear that he does not 
believe that this treaty is appropriate to this period of time, 
and that we need a new strategic framework with the Russians that 
is appropriate to this time. This was a treaty with the Soviet 
Union, signed in 1972. Now, we are working with the Russians and 
trying with the Russians to come to a better understanding of 
what that might mean, how it is we move beyond the ABM Treaty. 
But that's what's going on here. The President's views have not 
changed. 

Q So you could accept either amending it or scrapping it, and 
that's still under negotiation? 

DR. RICE: I've said that -- it's not a matter of negotiation, 
it's a matter of principle -- that there are two reasons that the 
ABM Treaty is problematic. One has to do with testing, the other 
has to do, however, with the nature of the relationship. And I 
think that both Presidents have made clear that they want to come 
to agreement, that they want to move forward together, but we 
haven't come to an agreement on what the form of that should be. 

Q Condi, pursuing that same point, say, if you take your two 
different issues, one of them is an immediate one; the testing 
one, you need to move forward with the testing in a relatively 
short period of time if you're going to meet your own schedules. 
The new strategic framework is a longer-term issue. Could you 
foresee a situation in which you had a two-phase agreement, in 
which the first phase has to do with testing, but keeps in place 
the ABM Treaty, the second phase deals with the ultimate 
disposition of the ABM Treaty, and your framework? 

DR. RICE: David, I think we just have to continue to explore with 
the Russians how we meet these two goals that the President set 
out sometime ago. I do think that all of the time that we've 
spent in discussions with the Russians, all of the time that 
they've spent with us, that we are understanding better each 
other, and what our own constraints and demands are. But I would 
not jump to any conclusions about precisely how this is all going 
to come out, or when there's going to be an agreement. I think 
that would be a mistake. 

Q Dr. Rice, the administration has said the military campaign on 
Afghanistan is going according to plan; yet some in Afghanistan, 
some in Pakistan, some even in Europe are confused as to what the 
plan is; why hasn't more been achieved through the air campaign, 
when is the ground campaign going to begin in earnest? And there 
is some concern that this isn't going as well as the 
administration had originally advertised, or led the American 
people to believe. It's even caused anxiety in the stock market, 
causing, in some cases, share prices to go down. 

What can you tell the American people about the plan, why it's 
going so well, and deal with those skeptical voices, not only in 
the region, but among some of our European allies? 

DR. RICE: I would say several things. The first is that the 
military portion of this -- and I want to be very clear that the 
President made very clear early on that military power was only 
one element on the war on terrorism -- and in fact this is a 
different kind of war, he said, don't expect this to look like 
the Gulf War. This is going to take time to achieve the 
objectives that he laid out. 

Those objectives are to make certain that the al Qaeda 
organization and its leadership are not capable of carrying out 
the kind of training, financing of terrorists that they've been 
carrying out for the last several years, to root them out, to 
root them out wherever they might be, to make certain that 
secondly, Afghanistan, which has been a country that they 
hijacked for their own purposes, to harbor terrorism, that 
Afghanistan can no longer be a sanctuary for terrorism, and that 
the Taliban understands that it made the wrong choice in 
continuing to harbor terrorists -- and thirdly, that we have to 
think about there's a broader war on terrorism. You can't be in 
favor of one set of terrorists and continue to harbor other 
terrorists. 

Now, on all of those fronts the President believes that we are 
making progress. On the front of making certain that a Qaeda 
can't train, we have gone after and destroyed many, many al Qaeda 
training sites. They are not going to have the kind of access to 
those training sites that they have had in the past. We have made 
great -- good progress against the Taliban's military assets, and 
we have made good progress against the goal of making certain 
that Afghanistan, when this is over, is not going to be a place 
that you can harbor terrorism. 

But let me be very clear: The military campaign is only one part 
of this. Every time you see people being arrested and rooted out 
in countries all over the world, you are seeing cells that are 
potentially being broken up, that are perhaps out there waiting 
to commit terrorist acts. That's extremely important. 

This is the first time in international history that you have had 
the kind of concentration of intelligence assets, law enforcement 
assets from around the world, on a network like this. They are 
not going to be able to hide, because the scrutiny and the 
pressure from the international community, from law enforcement, 
and from intelligence around the world is not going to let them 
hide. They are not going to be able to get significant financing, 
because we are shutting down their financial networks. 

So, as the President said, this can't be thought of as just a war 
of military power, although our military power is having good 
effect. You have to look at the total picture here, and we think 
we are making tremendous progress on all of these goals. 

Q Can I follow up just for a second? So are you telling the 
American public that actually deterrence is the first goal, and 
it may -- the public and the European allies and the coalition 
powers may have to wait longer than they ever imagined to 
actually get the Taliban out of power? 

DR. RICE: The President said this is going to be a long war. And 
he made clear that his standard is that we have made certain that 
the Taliban can't -- I'm sorry, that the al Qaeda cannot do what 
it has been doing, that we've made certain that they can't be 
harbored, and that we've made certain that other countries that 
might be considering harboring terrorists, or might be harboring 
them, understand that there is a significant price to pay for 
harboring them. But he made clear, he said, this may be one year, 
it may be several years, it may be more than one administration. 
He's been very clear about that from the beginning, and that is 
what we are seeing. This is going to take some time. 

Q Two quick questions. First of all, in your internal review of 
the arsenal, nuclear arsenal, has the administration reached a 
decision in and of itself as to what number it wants to bring 
that arsenal down to? 

DR. RICE: The review is very near completion. But I want to 
caution that this is not just about a number. This is to 
structure American forces in a way that they can meet deterrent 
needs. The President has also been concerned, for instance, about 
the infrastructure for our nuclear weapons, about making certain 
that we can keep them safe and reliable. 

All of this has been discussed in this review. And to the degree 
that as you come down in numbers, you also want to make sure that 
you're more safe and reliable. We spend equal time worrying about 
that as to any specific number. But I want to caution that a 
specific number, rather than a draw-down over time, is not 
exactly the right way to think about it. 

Q Can I try you on this? 

Q Just one other question on the -- do you -- there is a report 
that Pakistan is giving ammunition and assistance and working 
that into Afghanistan to help the Taliban. Can you comment on 
that? 

DR. RICE: We believe that we're getting very good cooperation 
from the Pakistani government. We are in constant discussion with 
them. In fact, they've had a number of high-level visitors 
lately. They will have more high-level visitors very shortly. We 
believe we are getting good cooperation with the Pakistanis, and 
that they are doing what they can to avoid the situation that you 
are talking about. 

Q While you're exploring with the Russians, are you talking 
numbers? Are you talking specific numbers? Are you talking about 
the two sides proceeding -- oh, if the Russians care to, but 
certainly we care to -- test? After all, you've cancelled the 
suspended parts of tests that violate the treaty. I'm trying to 
get to today's event. You say, exploring, exploring, exploring. 
Are you talking numbers to them? You know where they want to go. 
You know we have too many. Are you talking to them about a range 
of numbers, and are you talking about it linked -- linked however 
you mean -- to going ahead with tests? 

DR. RICE: First of all, the "linkage" was made sometime ago by 
the President, that he believed this had to be both about 
offensive forces, lower numbers of offensive forces, and about 
beginning to incorporate defensive forces in, too. We have, in 
the now considerable consultations that we've been having with 
the Russians, talked a great deal about all of these things. 

Now, I want to repeat, about the offensive forces. This is not an 
arms control negotiation, in which we and the Russians need to 
try to match warhead for warhead how many we have or how many we 
don't have. What we want to talk to the Russians about is how we 
see our deterrent needs, in terms of levels, in terms of the 
period of draw-down, in terms of on how they're structured. But 
we consider this not a matter of negotiation, but a matter of how 
American forces ought to be structured. And we expect the 
Russians to have the same concerns. 

Q I asked about a range, not matching warhead to warhead, a very 
wide range of possibly 500 warheads. Are you talking specific 
numbers? Is Mr. Powell talking specific numbers? Will Rumsfeld 
talk specific numbers? 

DR. RICE: There is going to be a completion of the review that 
the President -- that review is nearing completion. I think that 
the Secretaries will be talking to their counterparts about some 
of the findings of that review. But I just want to reemphasize, 
this is not an arms control negotiation in which we try to 
equalize the numbers. 

Q What evidence does the United States have right now that -- 
specific evidence that Osama bin Laden is somehow displaced or 
disrupted in his activities? 

DR. RICE: Well, first of all, David, I don't want to comment on 
what we are or are not seeing. And I think you'll understand 
that. But I will say this: when you look at what has happened in 
Afghanistan, when you look at what has happened to al Qaeda camps 
and to al Qaeda strongholds, when you look at the scrutiny that 
al Qaeda cells are under all over the world, it is very hard to 
make a case that they are operating like they were on September 
10th. And that is the purpose of what we're doing. Our purpose 
here is to disrupt, is to make it harder for them to do what they 
were doing on September 10th, and to eventually make it not 
possible for them to do it. 

Now, I want to warn -- you know, the President, and I think 
Attorney General Ashcroft, has made clear that we don't think 
that we are out of the woods in terms of potential attacks 
against the United States. But every time we round up in some 
country -- thanks to intelligence-sharing, thanks to law 
enforcement efforts -- a group that might have been planning 
something, or a piece of a cell that might have been planning 
something, we are accomplishing precisely what we need to 
accomplish. 

Q Can I follow up in a different area? Why is it that the United 
States is now prepared to engage the Germ Warfare Treaty in a 
different way, and why does the U.S. not think it's salvageable? 

DR. RICE: Well, first of all, the United States has been a strong 
adherent of the BWC Convention since its inception. And we made 
clear early on that we thought it was important to try and 
strengthen the convention. We just thought that the particular 
protocol that was being discussed was not addressing the problems 
that biological weapons pose. 

For instance, we have not believed that the kind of inspection 
regime that was there under the Biological Weapons Convention 
made sense. Now, we thought that -- we have been in these 
discussions with our allies and friends for sometime. A meeting 
was coming up; we thought it was important now to put some 
proposals on the table. But I can tell you that the proposals 
have been developed, were being developed all the way back into 
the summer. 

We now think that if we can move toward a system of strengthening 
the Convention that focuses on criminal activity and underground 
activity that can make more effective the kinds of things that 
we're doing, that that's really what we want to do. So we are 
establishing procedures for compliance concerns, talking about 
criminalizing acts that might -- much, in the way, by the way 
that we're doing with terrorist conventions -- making states 
responsible for dealing with scientists and others who might 
engage in this kind of activity. We want to have strong national 
oversight mechanisms. 

There is a lot going on here. I can say, too, David, I think that 
there has been a positive reception to a lot of these ideas, and 
we just think that it's time to move on with this. 

Q Dr. Rice, I want to ask you two questions about the coalition. 
The first one has to do with Ramadan. If the military action 
continues after the start of Ramadan, how will this affect how 
Muslim allies -- members of the coalition and the Middle East 
situation, the violence hasn't stopped -- how is that affecting 
our coalition with the Arab and Muslim nations? 

DR. RICE: Well, we've been on a track on the Arab-Israeli issues 
-- or the Palestinian-Israeli issues for quite a long time now. 
And we continue to believe that there are things that both sides 
can do to make possible entry into the Mitchell Process. And we 
work that every day. And I think that nobody has been more 
dedicated to that than the President and Secretary Powell. But we 
do not see the Israeli-Palestinian issue as a part of the 
coalition effort. 

I would just point you to what Yasser Arafat said about Osama bin 
Laden trying to hijack the Palestinian issue. Where was he for 30 
years, and all of a sudden the Palestinian issue is al Qaeda's 
issue? I think that we need to be very careful not to link these 
in our own minds, and -- but we work the Israeli Palestinian 
issues in their own right, because we think they are important to 
security in the region. In terms of the Afghanistan -- I'm sorry, 
you asked about -- 

Q Ramadan. 

DR. RICE: Yes, Ramadan. We think that the best thing that we can 
do for the world, for all of the allies in the coalition, whether 
they are Muslim or not, is to make certain that this war on 
terrorism succeeds. And that means we have to finish the mission. 

We do not believe that al Qaeda or the Taliban or any of their 
kind are likely to be ones that are going to be observant of any 
kind of rules of civilization. They've never demonstrated that 
they were observant of any kind of rules of civilization before. 

This is an enemy that has to be taken on, and taken on 
aggressively, and pressed to the end. And we're going to continue 
to do that. We have to continue the military action. I just want 
to remind everybody, this is an action in self-defense. The 
United States was attacked on September 11th with incredible 
brutality. We continue to be concerned about further attacks. We 
have no choice but to try to go both to the source of this in 
Afghanistan, and to try to root these organizations out wherever 
we can. And we have to get about that business; we can't afford 
to have a pause. 

Q The coalition has involved the United States working very 
closely with some countries that are very different from our own. 
You've been at the center of what must be some unimaginably 
excruciating decisions in the last six weeks about how to 
structure that coalition. Can you tell us: Will the United States 
work with any country that's willing to offer help, or are there 
some countries whose past practices or habits are so abhorrent to 
American values that they're just somehow considered to be on the 
tail? And can you help us in how you're guided in making those 
decisions? 

DR. RICE: It's a very important question, because what the United 
States is not prepared to do is to sacrifice either long-term 
interest or values in short-term goals. We do recognize that we 
need help. The way that we were attacked on September 11th, if 
the President of the United States did not do absolutely 
everything that he can to try and root out these terrorists, to 
try to make it not possible to use Afghanistan, he would simply 
be shirking on his first responsibility, which is to protect and 
defend the United States. 

So we have to do whatever we can to deal with that. And we are 
willing to accept help from all comers concerning al Qaeda. What 
we have been very clear, though, is that it is not enough to say 
you want to help us on al Qaeda, and hug other terrorists. That's 
not appropriate. And so whenever we talk to countries that have a 
past, so to speak, and maybe even a present in harboring 
terrorism, we are very clear that it's fine that you want to help 
with al Qaeda, but to really be a part of this coalition, the 
responsibility to deal with all terrorism is a part of the 
responsibility of this coalition. 

We also have tried to be very clear that we believe that in the 
long run, the countries that are both best going to deal with 
these issues will be countries that respect the rights of their 
own people, that respect their own people, that respect religious 
and ethnic minorities, and don't willy-nilly turn them into 
terrorists in order to hide certain kinds of activities under the 
terrorist banner. So I believe that we have been in exactly the 
right place here, which is to be, as the President said in the 
speech that first night to the Congress, if you continue to 
support terrorism, you are making the wrong choice. We've never 
wavered from the point of view that you cannot be on both sides 
of this. We've never wavered from the point of view that there 
are no good terrorists and bad terrorists. And that's been our 
guiding principle. 

The President is doing everything that he can to try and achieve 
these goals, so that the United States, in self defense, can 
protect itself from the kind of thing that happened to us on 
September 11th. Thank you. Got to go. END 12:14 p.m. EST 
  
Copyright 2001, U.S. Newswire 
*****************************************************************
 6  Safety concern halts K-25 work

Uranium-involved projects put on hiatus by DOE

By Frank Munger, News-Sentinel senior writer

OAK RIDGE - The U.S. Department of Energy has halted most work 
involving uranium at the K-25 site because of deficiencies 
discovered in a sitewide safety document. 

"We consider it a safety issue,'' Robert Brown, a manager in 
DOE's Oak Ridge field office, said late Thursday. 

DOE and contractor officials were not specific about the problems 
but acknowledged the situation could affect hundreds of jobs - 
particularly at BNFL Inc.'s nuclear cleanup project - if the 
issues aren't resolved soon. 

BNFL, the U.S. subsidiary of British Nuclear Fuels, holds a $238 
million contract to remove equipment from three huge buildings 
once used to process uranium for nuclear fuel and atomic weapons. 
More than 900 people are working on the project. 

"We want, by all means to avoid anybody being sent home,'' Brown 
said. "What we're looking for is the possibility of interim work 
until we get over this issue.'' 

Norman Hammitt, a BNFL spokesman, said workers were initially 
told Thursday that work had been suspended until further notice. 
However, that notice was later retracted and workers on the night 
shift were given the go-ahead to report, he said. 

Hammitt said workers will be involved in training, housekeeping 
and general activities around the site on today and Monday. He 
said it is hoped the safety issues will be resolved soon after 
DOE returns to work on Tuesday (Monday is Veterans Day, a federal 
holiday). 

The problems were identified recently during a review of the 
Technical Safety Requirements for the K-25 site, a former 
uranium-enrichment plant also known as East Tennessee Technology 
Park. The review was prompted by some rules changes ordered by 
DOE headquarters in Washington, D.C. 

Some of the same issues were identified earlier when BNFL added a 
supercompactor to its cleanup operation, but at the time federal 
officials in Oak Ridge did not consider it to be a safety 
concern. That attitude reportedly changed when the document 
review reached Washington. 

DOE this week issued a directive halting all "fissile work'' at 
the site. Fissile materials are those capable of nuclear fission, 
and at K-25 that translates into enriched uranium. All three of 
the buildings being cleaned up by BNFL - K-33, K-31 and K-29 - 
are classified as fissile facilities. 

The safety document is the responsibility of Bechtel Jacobs Co., 
DOE's environmental manager in Oak Ridge, but a company spokesman 
said the stop-work order would not immediately affect any of its 
cleanup activities at K-25. 

Frank Munger can be reached at 865-482-9213 or 
twig1@knoxnews.infi.net. 

Copyright 2001 The Knoxville News-Sentinel Co. Click for 
permission to reprint
*****************************************************************
 7  Bush Decides on Nuclear Weapons
 
Las Vegas SUN
 
November 08, 2001 

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.
*****************************************************************
 8  Rice Downplays Hope for Russia Pact
 
Las Vegas SUN
 
November 08, 2001 

WASHINGTON- President Bush's national security adviser, playing 
down prospects of a new arms control agreement with Russian 
President Vladimir Putin, said Thursday that Bush would move 
independently to reduce the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal and to 
clear the way for an anti-missile shield. 

It is not a question of whether the level of warheads Bush has 
decided upon is acceptable to the Russians, Condoleezza 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." 

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. 

Rice told reporters at the White House that relations with Russia 
have advanced to a point that a major agreement is not expected 
from every summit, as occurred during the Cold War. 

"Not every meeting has to be accompanied by arms-control 
agreements," she said. On plans to erect a missile defense 
system, Rice also said she would not expect "any particular 
arrangement to come out of any particular meeting." 

"One should not expect one defining moment," the White House 
official said. 

She said the two leaders would work on a new strategic framework 
for a number of years, and "we all have to get out of a 
particular frame of mind" that the two sides match weapons 
cutbacks exactly. 

Bush said Wednesday he could make a substantial cut in the 
American arsenal regardless of what happens in the talks in 
Washington on Tuesday and at Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas 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 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 cut from the current level of about 6,000 
warheads on each side. 

"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." 

Regarding his quest for the 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, Bush said, he is 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 arms control:  
[http://www.state.gov/t/] 

All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
 9  Prince: Saudis Monitored Weapon Claims
 
Las Vegas SUN
 
November 08, 2001 
 
MANAMA, Bahrain (AP) - Saudi intelligence heard reports, but 
never had evidence, that Osama bin Laden may have acquired 
weapons of mass destruction, the kingdom's former intelligence 
chief said in remarks published Thursday. Prince Turki, head of 
the Saudi secret service from 1977 until last August, ruled out 
the possibility bin Laden's al-Qaida organization might have 
amassed such weapons, according to the English-language Arab 
News. 

"We monitored all these claims - not only those related to 
al-Qaida, but regarding other organizations as well," Prince 
Turki was quoted as saying. "There were reports that several 
individuals and organizations had acquired or (were) about to 
acquire such weapons, but we have not received strong evidence to 
back that up." 

Bin Laden, who is bitterly critical of the Saudi royal family, 
was stripped of his Saudi citizenship and disowned by his family 
in the early 1990s. He is the main suspect in the Sept. 11 terror 
attacks on the United States. Prince Turki's comments came in an 
unusual in-depth interview conducted last week with two 
Saudi-based media, the Arab News and MBC television. The 
newspaper has been publishing a series of articles this week 
based on the interview. 

What sort of weapons the prince referred to wasn't clear. 
However, President Bush said this week that bin Laden is trying 
to acquire chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. 

U.S. officials say they believe bin Laden's al-Qaida network has 
access to crude chemical weapons such as chlorine and phosgene 
poison gases, but not more complex weapons such as Sarin nerve 
gas. They say evidence exists al-Qaida sought nuclear material. 

Witnesses in the New York trial of suspects in the 1998 bombings 
of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania testified bin Laden had 
sent people to Sudan to buy uranium. The trial transcript is 
unclear on whether the purchase was made. Counter-terrorism 
officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The 
Associated Press in Amman, Jordan, on Thursday that they were 
reviewing reports that bin Laden agents tried to acquire 
non-conventional weapons from sources in former Soviet republics. 

But the officials said they had no confirmation that bin Laden 
had managed to acquire weapons of mass destruction. 

Jean Pascal Zanders of the Stockholm International Peace Research 
Institute said it took Iraq, with the advantages of state 
support, 10 to 15 years to mass produce biological and chemical 
agents. 

Saudi intelligence, Prince Turki said in the Arab News interview, 
also monitored bin Laden's efforts to build Islamic militias in 
Sudan in the mid-1990s. 

The prince said Saudi intelligence monitored bin Laden 
"recruiting persons from different parts of the Islamic world, 
from Algeria to Egypt, from East Asia to Somalia, to get them 
trained at these camps." 

Bin Laden left Sudan in 1996. He returned to Afghanistan, where 
he was welcomed because of his years there battling Soviet forces 
in the 1980s. Prince Turki also was quoted as saying Saudi 
intelligence estimated bin Laden's wealth at between "$40 million 
and $50 million at most." Other estimates have run into the 
hundreds of millions of dollars. 

All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
 10   U.S., Russia Seek to Cut Nuke Arms
 
Las Vegas SUN
 
November 08, 2001 

WASHINGTON- Less than a week before their summit, President Bush 
and President Vladimir Putin are moving closer to an 
understanding that would meet Russia's desires for deep cuts in 
nuclear arsenals and give the United States more leeway to test 
missile defenses. 

Two-thirds of the American nuclear arsenal would be consigned to 
the scrap heap, a senior U.S. official said Thursday. Russia has 
said it wants to do the same, as well, with its storehouse of 
long-range warheads. 

Even if there is no formal accord, Bush intends to get rid of 
hundreds of weapons the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff have concluded 
are superfluous, said Condoleezza Rice, the president's national 
security adviser. 

Seizing on a post-Cold War relationship in which the United 
States and Russia do not eye each other warily as adversaries, 
Bush is approaching his talks with Putin with a strategy that 
bypasses the formal and tedious negotiations of the past. 

Based on the Pentagon review, Bush has concluded how many 
warheads the United States should retain, and Putin has taken a 
more agreeable stance on a U.S. anti-missile defense. 

Even if the Russian leader backtracks on a shield against missile 
attack, Bush intends to go ahead without letting a 1972 ban on 
nationwide defenses get in his way, senior U.S. officials said 
this week. 

The cuts in U.S. offensive arms on both sides could be as deep as 
two-thirds. The United States and Russian now have about 6,000 
warheads each in their arsenals. 

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." 

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. 

Secretary of State Colin Powell and Russian Foreign Minister Igor 
Ivanov planned to meet Saturday in New York, on the sidelines of 
a U.N. General Assembly session, to help prepare for the talks, 
the Russian Mission to the United Nations said. 

All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
 11  Abraham orders cleanup review
 
This story was published Thu, Nov 8, 2001

 By John Stang and Annette Cary Herald staff writers 

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham plans to overhaul the Department 
of Energy's nationwide nuclear cleanup program to make it faster 
and cheaper.
 
How?
 
The answer to that question has not been figured out yet, Abraham 
indicated on his first trip to Hanford on Wednesday.
 
That unanswered question also covers Hanford's future cleanup 
efforts.
 
During his 412-hour visit to Hanford and Pacific Northwest 
National Laboratory, Abraham repeatedly said that when he took 
over DOE last January, he was shocked to find that the agency 
expected to take 70 years and $300 billion to clean up all of 
DOE's Cold War contaminated production sites.
 
Consequently, he ordered a review of all of DOE's cleanup 
programs to see how they could become faster and more efficient.
 
Also Wednesday, Abraham was noncommittal about whether the 
dormant Fast Flux Test Facility should be revived or shut down. 
However, FFTF supporters became more optimistic after listening 
to Abraham.
 
Abraham toured the FFTF, a tank farm and PNNL's Environmental 
Molecular Sciences Laboratory, where he also held a news 
conference. He also gave a 25-minute speech in the Federal 
Building on DOE refocusing its defense, science and energy 
missions. The speech included five minutes of generic support for 
nuclear cleanup with no new details.
 
Abraham's statements Wednesday about faster and cheaper cleanup 
were not new.
 
He first publicly voiced shock at the 70-year, $300 billion 
estimate April 9 -- the same day he ordered the review to see how 
to speed up cleanup nationwide.
 
However, on that same day, DOE also told Congress that it wanted 
less nationwide cleanup money in 2002 than it spent in 2001, that 
it wanted to trim Hanford's funding for 2002 and that it wanted 
to allocate $500 million to Hanford's top-priority tank waste 
glassification project in 2002 even though DOE's calculations 
said $690 million would be needed to keep it on schedule.
 
On Wednesday, Abraham contended that the original $500 million 
glassification request did not translate to slowing the project 
enough that it would miss its 2007 legal deadline to begin 
converting wastes into glass.
 
He declined to say specifically how cutting $190 million from a 
project trying to meet a 2007 deadline would help trim DOE's 
70-year master cleanup schedule.
 
Instead, Abraham addressed the topic in general terms. He said he 
inherited a nationwide nuclear cleanup program from the Clinton 
administration and did not want to lock irreversibly into any 
major project before all of DOE's cleanup programs are reviewed.
 
Harry Boston, manager of DOE's Office of River Protection said 
2002's trimmed $190 million could have been added on top of the 
glassification project's 2003 budget to catch up.
 
But the state of Washington has disagreed strongly with Abraham's 
contention that $500 million in 2002 would not further slow down 
construction of the glassification plants, which already are 16 
months behind schedule. So since last spring, the state has 
threatened to sue DOE if the 2002 glassification budget ends up 
underfunded.
 
Despite that threat, Abraham and the Bush administration in May 
and June opposed increasing the $500 million to $690 million.
 
However, Congress ignored those objections and recently increased 
DOE's nationwide cleanup budget above the administration's 
request. That included bumping Hanford's overall budget from 
DOE's original request of $1.4 billion to slightly more than $1.8 
billion, which fills all the site's legal 2002 obligations 
including $690 million for glassification.
 
That congressional action appears likely to eliminate the state's 
lawsuit threat.
 
Meanwhile, DOE expects to finish its nuclear cleanup review by 
Dec. 31.
 
Abraham said it is unknown whether the review will lead to 
changes in Hanford's cleanup efforts or funding plans.
 
And he declined to comment on the possibility that DOE's review's 
conclusions might not fit with the Tri-Party Agreement, the legal 
pact that governs Hanford's cleanup, or if DOE might use the 
review to seek changes in the Tri-Party Agreement.
 
Instead, Abraham emphasized that DOE wants to work closely with 
the state and the Environmental Protection Agency to hammer out 
speedier and cheaper cleanup plans for Hanford.
 
The review's conclusions are due two months before the Bush 
administration is scheduled to send its fiscal 2003 federal 
budget request to Congress in late February. That request will 
include a proposed 2003 DOE budget. Until last year, that request 
also included a detailed breakdown of Hanford's spending plans 
for the upcoming year.
 
Last year's switch in presidents led to DOE's overall figures for 
fiscal 2002 going to Congress last February with details on 
Hanford being unveiled last April.
 
Abraham's press aide Joe Davis said some, but unlikely all, of 
the review's recommendations might make it into next February's 
DOE fiscal 2003 budget request to Congress.
 
Also Wednesday, Abraham toured the FFTF with former U.S. Sen. 
Slade Gorton, R-Wash., but said he would not be rushed on making 
a decision on the reactor's future.
 
However, supporters of restarting the reactor liked what Abraham 
had to say about DOE's overall goals, saying the Hanford reactor 
could play a role.
 
Last January the Clinton administration ordered the reactor 
permanently shut down. But the Bush administration is considering 
a proposal to lease the reactor for commercial production of 
isotopes for medicine.
 
"Obviously, a huge investment has been made in FFTF -- a 
long-term one that's already expended," Abraham said. Before 
dismantling the FFTF, it's prudent for DOE to look at any 
possible uses for it, he said.
 
Gorton said before the tour that the nation's new security issues 
since Sept. 11 may make a restart of the reactor more likely.
 
The reactor could be used to make isotopes able to kill anthrax 
or other bioterrorism agents in mail or food. It also would make 
the nation less dependent on foreign sources of isotopes for 
nuclear medicine.
 
"What's more important to national security than making sure 
there is no shortage of medical isotopes?" asked Bob Schenter, a 
regional officer of the National Association for Cancer Patients.
 
Abraham also discussed the Bush administration's energy policy, 
which includes a push for more nuclear energy.
 
"In the national energy policy, all roads lead to FFTF," said 
Benton County Commissioner Claude Oliver. The reactor could be 
used for research on the next generation of nuclear power 
reactors in addition to producing medical isotopes.
  
        Copyright 2001 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This 
*****************************************************************
 12  DOE to extend Battelle's PNNL contract
 
This story was published Thu, Nov 8, 2001
 By Annette Cary Herald staff writer 

The Department of Energy will extend Battelle's contract to 
operate Pacific Northwest National Laboratory for another five 
years, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham announced Wednesday after 
getting a look at some of the research there.
 
"Battelle has done an extraordinary job operating PNNL over the 
years," Abraham said.
 
More than 40 percent of the work at the Richland lab is related 
to national security. It's work that's critical to the nation 
since Sept. 11, Abraham said.
 
Technology being developed at the lab includes an automated 
system to isolate bacteria from soil, water and air samples, 
which the lab demonstrated to the Energy secretary during his 
tour of the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory there.
 
Biodetection Enabling Analyte Delivery System, or BEADS, can 
clean samples so micro-organisms can be identified in places such 
as food processing lines and water treatment plants. It also can 
be coupled with a detector to identify agents of biological 
warfare without requiring samples to be manually purified for 
identification.
 
Battelle Memorial Institute has held the contract to operate the 
laboratory since 1965. The lab now employs about 3,500 people and 
has an annual budget of about $540 million.
 
Abraham could have requested proposals from other corporations to 
operate the lab. However, citing three years of "outstanding" 
ratings of the national laboratory, Abraham authorized DOE's 
Richland office to start contract negotiations with Battelle.
 
In addition, the Richland lab was the first DOE Office of Science 
to win Gold Star status in DOE's voluntary Protection Program, 
lab Director Lura Powell pointed out.
 
The laboratory also has signed three major partnerships to 
collaborate with universities. That included an alliance formed 
in September with researchers at public and private universities 
across Washington.
 
Powell said she was pleased with the strides the laboratory has 
made in three initiatives, she said. Those include computational 
science and engineering, nanoscience and technology and 
biomolecular networks, which include research of cell behavior 
that advanced knowledge gained from the mapping of the human 
genome.
 
Abraham also used his visit to Hanford to announce DOE grants of 
$8.4 million for another research focus of the laboratory, 
cleanup of nuclear sites such as Hanford.
 
DOE is awarding $39.6 million over three years to universities, 
national laboratories and other research institutions for 45 
research projects to solve complex environmental cleanup 
challenges.
 
The Richland lab won grants to lead 11 of the projects and 
collaborate on five others.
 
Projects include developing technology to remove plutonium from 
steel and concrete surfaces and to better predict consequences of 
various scenarios in handling high-level waste in Hanford's 
tanks.
 
Such research could help the nation speed up cleanup of its 
nuclear sites, possibly at less cost, Abraham said. Copyright 

2001 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This material may not 
*****************************************************************
 13   Cold War Research Baby Teeth Found
 
Las Vegas SUN
 
November 09, 2001 
 
ST. LOUIS (AP) - About 85,000 baby teeth collected from 1959 to 
1970 and only discovered recently could help pinpoint whether 
fallout from Cold War nuclear bomb tests caused cancer and other 
health problems years later, researchers say. 

The teeth from the St. Louis Baby Tooth Survey determined that 
children were absorbing radioactive fallout from nuclear bomb 
tests by the United States and the Soviet Union. The study 
received international attention and helped persuade the nation 
to adopt a 1963 treaty banning atmospheric bomb tests. 

The teeth were found in May in hundreds of boxes by Washington 
University officials cleaning out a school bunker where they'd 
been stored since the 1970s. They were in small envelopes 
fastened by rusty paper clips to cards with details about the 
children who gave the teeth to science instead of the tooth 
fairy. 

"We flipped out when we heard about the 85,000 teeth," Joseph 
Mangano, national coordinator with the independent, nonprofit 
Radiation and Public Health Project research group, told the St. 
Louis Post-Dispatch for a story Friday. "It was like an early 
Christmas present." 

Now, researchers in New York are hoping to find the owners of the 
teeth and determine whether they've experienced health problems, 
such as thyroid cancer, in the decades since. 

Mangano wants anyone born and living in St. Louis from the late 
1940s through the 1960s - especially if they believe they 
submitted teeth - to contact his group. If matched with any of 
the baby teeth, the person would be mailed a health 
questionnaire. 

"I see no reason not to join in a study like that, to be part of 
history," said Eric Pickles, given that his is include among the 
baby teeth. Pickles, 43, said he hasn't had health problems. 

After World War II, the U.S. government set off about 100 nuclear 
bombs in aboveground tests in the West. Public concern about 
radioactive fallout rose as scientists began to find it in the 
environment and milk supply downwind from the explosions. 

The survey, which began in late 1958, became so well-known that 
letters addressed simply "Tooth Fairy, St. Louis" got to the 
committee's office. By the time it ended in 1970, the project had 
collected nearly 300,000 baby teeth, mostly within a 150-mile 
radius of St. Louis. 

All seemed forgotten until this spring, when the teeth were 
found. The new study has no funding. The study's results will be 
published in peer-reviewed medical journals, Mangano said. 

On the Net: Washington University, http://www.wustl.edu 
[http://www.wustl.edu] Radiation and Public Health Project, 
http://www.radiation.org [http://www.radiation.org] 

All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
 14  INEEL trims number of layoffs expected this month

IdahoStatesman.com
 
November 8, 2001   

The Associated Press 

IDAHO FALLS -- There will be fewer layoffs than expected this 
month at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental 
Laboratory, officials said Wednesday. 

Because the U.S. Department of Energy site has cleanup goals to 
meet, fewer than 200 people will be laid off in November, Bechtel 
BWXT Idaho President Bill Shipp said. A second round of layoffs 
next June or July will affect 200 to 400 more employees, 
depending on the final appropriation for the current federal 
budget year and the number of people who leave on their own, he 
said. Earlier this year, then-Bechtel BWXT President Bernie Myers 
said the site's managing contractor was preparing a restructuring 
plan that would call for a workforce reduction of nearly 1,200 
employees. 

That plan was based on the prospect of flat funding in the 
environmental management budget, he said. 

Last spring, 440 people opted for early retirement, and 178 
accepted a voluntary separation offer this summer. 

Compromise legislation signed by President Bush on Monday 
provides $19.5 billion for the Energy Department, an increase of 
$877.2 million over last year and $1.39 billion more than the 
president requested. 

The measure includes $123 million more than Bush requested to 
finance the Energy Department's efforts to meet terms of its 1995 
agreement with then-Gov. Phil Batt to remove most radioactive 
waste from Idaho by 2036. 

Total employment at the site, including Energy Department and 
Argonne National Laboratory personnel, is 7,662 this week -- the 
lowest number in 25 years. INEEL employment peaked at 12,800 in 
1992.
*****************************************************************
 15  White House Softpedals Nuke Deal With Russia
 
NewsMax.com Wires

Friday, Nov. 9, 2001 WASHINGTON – Though the White House dampened 
expectations Thursday for a formal arms control agreement at next 
week's Bush-Putin summit meeting, sources within the 
administration and in the arms control arena do not rule out 
"informal" agreements that could cut offensive nuclear weapons 
and allow the U.S. to test a missile defense system.

 On arms control, both sides could "unilaterally" reduce their 
arsenals of strategic nuclear weapons without an arms control 
agreement, which would end run the vast arms control 
bureaucracies in both capitals, said Ivo H. Daalder, a former 
member of the National Security Counsel under the Clinton 
administration.

 It would give Russian President Vladimir Putin something to 
bring home to Russia; to be able to say that he won a reduction 
in the U.S. nuclear arsenal. The Russian arsenal has degenerated 
and is costly to maintain, and the Russians have long sought a 
reduction. Regarding the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the 
two leaders could agree to "reinterpret" the treaty, Daalder 
said, to allow testing of President Bush's missile defense system 
without formally violating the agreement or without formally 
amending it. He said the 29-year-old agreement has been 
"interpreted" by the parties on several occasions.

 Over the past two days, the Bush administration has presented 
detailed briefings to the news media outlining the summit between 
President Bush and President Putin, who arrives in Washington 
Monday.

 The administration officials in the briefings did not predict a 
formal agreement, but another key administration source said this 
should not be construed as ruling out informal agreements as 
envisioned by Daalder. He refused to comment further and declined 
to be identified by name or title.

 On Tuesday, the two presidents will have conferences in 
Washington, and on Wednesday Putin will fly to Houston, where he 
will deliver a speech at Rice University, and then continue on to 
the president's ranch in Crawford, Texas. They will have 
continued discussions in Texas. Putin will also visit "ground 
zero," the scene of the attack that destroyed the World Trade 
Center.

 Asked if this summit would produce an agreement on strategic 
weapons issues, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice argued 
Thursday that "this is a different relationship" than the ones 
between American presidents and Soviet leaders during the Cold 
War.

 At those meetings, Rice said, "the key moment was when the two 
sides signed an agreement that said we don't want to destroy each 
other." She described the Washington-Crawford summit as part of a 
continuing process between the two countries, which flowered 
after the terrorist attacks in September.

 Though the two presidents will be discussing counter-terrorism, 
economic ties and non-proliferation issues, the world's eyes 
during the Washington-Crawford summit will be on whether the vast 
arsenals of strategic nuclear weapons in the two countries can be 
reduced.

 The second major issue is the Bush administration's plan to 
build a missile defense system for the United States. This plan, 
which has become a core issue in the president's foreign policy, 
would violate the ABM Treaty, signed with the now-defunct Soviet 
Union.

 When the president first proposed abandoning the ABM Treaty, 
Moscow responded as did many domestic critics that this would 
result in a return to the arms race and destabilize the nuclear 
peace that the world has enjoyed. But earlier this week, Putin 
said that Russia was "flexible" on the ABM Treaty.

 The Bush administration has said repeatedly that the 
relationship between the two governments since the terrorist 
attacks has grown closer.

 Daalder and others believe that a reinterpretation procedure 
written into the treaty in 1972 and used several times over the 
years could allow the missile shield tests to go forward with a 
treaty violation.

 Bush has also said that the U.S. nuclear arsenal is too large to 
be useful and last spring he ordered a study by the Department of 
Defense to find what number of warheads would provide defense and 
stability. Late Wednesday, the president said at a news 
conference that he had concluded what number of missiles would 
provide the U.S. security.

 He and the White House have refused to release the number, but 
one senior official said it was likely to be a "range of 
numbers." Unconfirmed reports indicate that Bush might halve the 
arsenal to 1,500 - 1,800 weapons.

 The two countries could make unilateral cuts without an 
agreement. This would be relatively quick and not require a 
lengthy renegotiation of arms control agreements, but without 
agreements either country could begin rearming.

 Daalder said that Bush's father and the Soviet Union made 
unilateral cuts of tactical nuclear weapons in the early 1990s. 
Tactical weapons are the type used by ground forces in combat 
including artillery shells, short-range missiles and backpack 
nuclear devices.

 After that reduction, the United States destroyed the weapons 
they cut, Daalder said, but the Russians retained them in 
warehouses. How secure these 10,000 weapons are has been the 
subject of enormous speculation. Putin has said they are 
accounted for, but reports said some have been sold and some may 
have found their way into the hands of terrorists.

 United Press International's Richard Sale reported recently that 
the Bush administration is fearful that some of the backpack 
nukes might be used in attacks here.

 Copyright 2001 by United Press International. All Rights 
Reserved © NewsMax.com
*****************************************************************
 16  Homes near IAAP get water connected 

The Hawk Eye Special: IAAP
 
[The Hawk Eye Special Edition] Thursday, November 8, 2001 
[Unknown dangers at IAAP]   


The Hawk Eye 

The Army has completed connecting 30 homes southeast of the Iowa 
Army Ammunition Plant to the Rathbun Regional Water System, 
officials said Wednesday. 

The homeowners are the same residents who declined or did not 
respond to the Army's 1993 offer of Rathbun hookups. 

Over the decades, explosives materials used in the production of 
conventional weapons leached off the plant site and into the 
groundwater south of the facility. 

At a cost that had been estimated at about $2,700 per home, the 
Army began the hookups Sept. 10. They included connection from 
the water main to a meter pit, and from the pit to the Rathbun 
system. 

The Army paid for the membership fees in the Rathbun system, but 
will not pay for monthly water bills or maintenance. 

Connections were provided for primary drinking water sources, but 
not for commercial or agricultural water sources. 

                   The Hawk Eye [http://www.thehawkeye.com] 800 
S. Main St., Burlington Iowa 52601 319-754-8461 Front Desk ' ' '| 
' ' '319-754-6824 FAX ' ' '| ' ' ' 1-800-397-1708 Outside 
Burlington [this is a line and that's all that it is] 
*****************************************************************
 17  Mayors warn Bill C-27 puts fox in charge of the nuclear chicken coop
 
Canada NewsWire       

    Nuclear industry to have all seats on WMO Board, according to 
proposed legislation

    OTTAWA, Nov. 8 /CNW/ - Appearing today before the Committee 
holding hearings on Bill C-27 (Nuclear Fuel Waste Act), the 
Steering Committee for the Association of Nuclear Host 
Communities (ANHC) warned that the draft legislation needs 
significant changes to ensure community representation and to 
guarantee that a final, long-term nuclear waste disposal option 
is finally pinpointed.

    The Steering Committee was represented by the Mayors Larry 
Kraemer (Municipality of Kincardine), John Mutton (Municipality 
of Clarington), and Wayne Arthurs (City of Pickering).

    The Mayors raised concerns about the lack of community 
representation on the proposed Waste Management Organization. "I 
question whether it is advisable to place the fox in charge of 
the nuclear chicken coop," said Mayor Kraemer. "The nuclear 
industry has historically been less than sensitive to the 
concerns of host communities. I feel strongly that the WMO must 
have a strong voice for communities, in order to be effective."

    "After more than two decades searching for a solution to the 
management of nuclear waste, we are no closer today than we were 
at the beginning," said Mayor Arthurs. "Bill C-27 fails to 
adequately acknowledge the important role of host municipalities 
in the decision making process."

    "The Federal Government needs to recognize the important 
stake that nuclear host municipalities have in this legislation," 
said Clarington Mayor John Mutton.

    "Kincardine has been host to nuclear waste for 40 years," 
said Kraemer. "They've just expanded their waste disposal site 
again. We're a hospitable community... but we question the 
ability and commitment of the nuclear industry to solve this 
important issue."

    Backgrounder

    ------------

    As proposed, Bill C-27 does not guarantee a timely, final 
decision on how Canada will manage (long-term) its nuclear fuel 
waste:

    -  There is no time limit on how long the Government can take 
before it decides whether to approve the waste disposal approach 
recommended by the Waste Management Organization ("WMO") in its 
three-year report.

    -  Once an approach is selected, if the WMO is technically 
unable to implement that approach, the WMO can recommend a new 
disposal approach. There is no time limit on how long the 
Government can take before it decides whether to approve this new 
approach.

    -  Alternatively, if a new technological advance is made 
after the government's initial selection, the WMO can recommend 
that the new advance be implemented. Again, there is no time 
limit on how long the Government can take before it decides 
whether to approve this new approach.

    -  Further, the proposed legislation does not provide any 
timelines for when implementation of a selected approach must be 
completed and a final waste disposal site commissioned.

    Thus, although on its face it would seem to establish a 
process for reaching a final decision on Canada's long-term 
management of nuclear waste within three years, a final decision 
could likely be much further away.

    The money to pay for the implementation of any selected 
approach will come from the members of the WMO. Upon passage of 
Bill C-27, a trust fund will be established and capitalized as 
follows:

    -  From OPG: an initial $500 million and $100 million 
annually

    -  From Hydro-Québec, an initial $20 million, and $4 million 
annually

    -  From NB Power, an initial $20 million, and $4 million 
annually

    -  From AECL, an initial $10 million, and $2 million annually

    Only the WMO may withdraw the trust funds, solely for 
implementing the method for managing the waste that is chosen by 
the federal government.

    To view presentation notes by the Mayors of the Municipality 
of

    Kincardine, the City of Pickering and the Municipality of 
Clarington, please visit: 
http://files.newswire.ca/186/claringtonnotes.doc -30-

 
For further information: contact: Nicole Des Roches, (416) 
642-8582
 
STEERING COMMITTEE FOR THE ASSOCIATION OF NUCLEAR HOST 
COMMUNITIES has 1 releases in this database. 
                                        
© 2001 Canada NewsWire Ltd. All rights reserved.      
*****************************************************************
 18  Don't rule out nuclear option in Afghanistan
 
[charlotte.com]       

Published Friday, November 9, 2001 

 If this is war, why pull any punches? Consider what defeated 
Japan
 
By CAL THOMAS

Tribune Media Services 

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz recently told The London 
Telegraph that Britain and the United States should expect a 
large-scale chemical and biological weapons assault on civilian 
targets by Osama bin Laden's terrorist group. The objective, said 
Wolfowitz, is to cause tens of thousands of casualties.

 If such a forecast is based on sound intelligence, President 
Bush should consider emulating his predecessor, Harry Truman, and 
employ the use of at least tactical nuclear weapons against the 
Taliban should it be concluded that such a weapon might produce 
better results than the current bombing campaign. If this is war, 
why pull any punches?

 There are similarities between Japan in 1945 - the first and 
only time any nation has employed nuclear weapons in warfare - 
and Afghanistan now. Then, Japanese troops frequently hid in 
caves and pillboxes and fought with a religious fervor inspired 
by their emperor, in whom they vested divine power. Now, the 
Taliban use caves as protective cover and are inspired by 
religious zeal.

 Gen. George Marshall recounted Japanese resistance and the 
willingness of Japanese soldiers to fight to the death during 
World War II. "We had one hundred thousand people killed in Tokyo 
in one night of bombs, and it had seemingly no effect 
whatsoever," Marshall is quoted in "Truman," David McCullough's 
1992 biography of the president. "It destroyed the Japanese 
cities, yes, but their morale was affected, so far as we could 
tell, not at all. So it seemed quite necessary, if we could, to 
shock them into action. We had to end the war; we had to save 
American lives."

 That was Truman's main concern - saving American lives. As 
recounted in McCullough's book, the president took no delight in 
wiping out entire cities and thousands of civilians, but Japan, 
like the Taliban today, had started the war and would not give 
up. The Japanese, like the Taliban, promised more American dead, 
and Truman's first obligation, like that of President Bush, was 
to protect America and Americans. "It occurred to me," McCullough 
quotes Truman, "that a quarter of a million of the flower of our 
young manhood were worth a couple of Japanese cities, and I still 
think they were and are."

 "Remember Pearl Harbor" served as a rallying cry for a previous 
generation that taught warmongers the consequences of attacking 
the United States. "Remember the World Trade Center and the 
Pentagon" should serve as a contemporary rallying cry. The 
Taliban fight with the weapons of terror, determined to kill 
every man, woman and child they can. The United States should 
spare no effort in wiping out the Taliban and all terrorists who 
would follow in their sandal-steps. If there is collateral 
civilian damage, that's war.

 America's willingness to use nuclear weapons during World War II 
preserved the peace and struck fear into the hearts of our 
adversaries. It's time for another demonstration of our resolve. 
Perhaps nothing short of nuclear weapons will deter for another 
generation the enemies of freedom. Like the fanatical Japanese of 
Truman's day, the fanatical Taliban will not be dissuaded from 
murdering as many Americans as they can. This is not a time for 
diplomatic or political niceties. It is a time to wipe them out 
before they wipe any more of us out.

 Harry Truman was not afraid to use the power he had to save 
America and the lives of its citizens. As David McCullough 
writes, "Japan had some 2.5 million regular troops on the home 
islands, but every male between the ages of 15 and 60; every 
female from 17 to 45, was being conscripted and armed with 
everything from ancient brass cannon to bamboo spears, taught to 
strap explosives to their bodies and throw themselves at 
advancing tanks."

 That's the kind of fanaticism the United States faces in 
Afghanistan and in countries like Iraq. If we show them that our 
sword is bigger than theirs and, more importantly, that we will 
not shrink from using it to defend our people and our values, the 
likelihood we will have to do so again in the near future will be 
diminished.

 There is a psychological and political downside to deploying 
even tactical nuclear weapons. But there's a bigger downside 
should Wolfowitz's forecast come true. Americans and Britons who 
would die in such a terrorist attack - and their loved ones - 
deserve to know that their countries are doing all they can to 
defend them.
 
Cal Thomas is a syndicated columnist. Write him c/o Tribune Media 
Services, 435 N. Michigan Ave. Suite 1400, Chicago, IL 60611.
 
*****************************************************************
 19  Nuke Compensation Panel Questioned
 
[AP Online]   
  
Story Filed: Friday, November 09, 2001 4:25 PM EST 

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Labor advocates want more workers on a panel 
advising on compensation for people who were made sick building 
the nation's nuclear weapons arsenal. They also say the panel is 
too closely tied to the Energy Department. 

Unless changes are made, the advocates fear not enough people 
will get compensated. 

Carl ``Bubba'' Scarbrough, president of the Atomic Trades and 
Labor Council at the government's nuclear facility in Oak Ridge, 
Tenn., said workers can best understand -- and therefore convey 
-- the risks and working conditions of their jobs. 

``We should be advisers,'' he said. ``For one thing, our heart 
would be in the right place.'' 

A law passed by Congress last year required the White House to 
appoint a panel that reflected ``a balance of scientific, medical 
and worker perspectives.'' Ten people were selected, including 
scientists, doctors and engineers. Only one rank-and-file worker, 
Richard Espinosa, a metal shop steward at the Los Alamos lab in 
New Mexico, was named. 

Espinosa said he feels a sense of responsibility as the only 
laborer on the panel. 

``In ways I feel, maybe not burdened, I feel really proud that I 
got on the board,'' Espinosa said. 

White House spokeswoman Anne Womack defended the makeup of the 
board. 

``We think it's pretty balanced,'' she said. Womack added that 
one of the doctors on the panel, James Melius, works for a union 
in New York. 

After decades of denials, the government acknowledged two years 
ago that many workers who helped the Energy Department and its 
vendors build nuclear weapons during the Cold War probably got 
sick because of on-the-job exposure. Congress subsequently passed 
a law providing medical care and payments of $150,000 to sick 
workers or their families for exposure to cancer-causing 
radiation, or silica and beryllium, which cause lung disease. 

Many medical records are missing or incomplete, so the panel's 
primary task is to help determine how much radiation workers were 
exposed to on the job. If doses can't be estimated, the panel 
will help decide whether certain workers should be given the 
benefit of the doubt. 

Richard Miller, an analyst for the Government Accountability 
Project, a Washington-based watchdog group, said he's concerned 
by the fact that three members of the panel are tied to the 
Energy Department. He said he is not worried about Espinosa's 
independence from the agency, since he is protected by a union. 

Miller said lawmakers called for an ``independent review 
process'' and recognized Energy Department officials would have a 
conflict of interest. The legislation prohibited them from 
writing dose reconstruction guidelines. ``I want people who have 
absolutely no connection to the Department of Energy on this 
committee,'' he said. 

Panelist Antonio Andrade, who is a radiation health expert at the 
Energy Department's Los Alamos lab, disagreed. He said people who 
are familiar with agency facilities are needed on the panel. 

``If anything, we bring truth, experience and knowledge about 
specific situations to the table,'' he said. 

Several lawmakers have asked the administration to add Mark 
Griffon, a health physicist who evaluates risks at nuclear 
facilities. 

``He would have an inclination to be quite supportive of people 
who have been exposed but also continue to use a scientific basis 
for making decisions,'' said Rep. Ed Whitfield, R-Ky., who made 
his case in a letter to White House Personnel Director Clay 
Johnson. 

Griffon said he received a call from the White House Friday 
asking him to submit an application. 

On the Net: National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health 
compensation office: http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/ocas/default.html 
[http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/ocas/default.html] 

Copyright © 2001 Associated Press Information Services, all 
*****************************************************************
 20  Radioactive sources found in Chechnya to be decontaminated
 
[ITAR/TASS News Agency]   
  
Story Filed: Friday, November 09, 2001 9:21 AM EST 

MOSCOW, Nov 09, 2001 (Itar-Tass via COMTEX) -- Radioactive 
sources, found in the village of Chiri-Yurt, Shali district, will 
be decontaminated in the near future, Tass learned on Friday from 
Chechen Minister for Emergencies Ruslan Avtayev. 

According to the minister, the Chechen government decided to 
carry out decontamination work and already concluded an 
appropriate contract. "As soon as adequate funds are received, we 
and our colleagues from the Rodon production amalgamation will 
start decontaminating those sources," Avtayev confirmed. 

The minister noted that six sources of ionizing radiation with an 
aggregate intensity of more than 15,000 micro-roentgen per hour 
were found back last September on the grounds of the cement 
plant. Authorities also pinpointed a place of another source of 
radiation whose intensity amounted to 860 micro-roentgen per 
hour. 

"The dangerous territory was marked with special signs, and 
guards were put up at the place. Population was informed of the 
radioactive sources," Avtayev noted. 

Radiation sources were repeatedly found in Chechnya. Last 
February, 16 radioactive sources with a high intensity, including 
two industrial containers, weighing 55 kilos each, were 
decontaminated at the chemical mills, the Krasny Molot factory 
and at secondary school No.38 in Grozny. 

All of them were brought to a special burial place for 
radioactive waste, located eight kilometres from the village of 
Tolstoi-Yurt. 

By Grigory Dubovitsky 

(c) 1996-2001 ITAR-TASS. All rights reserved. 
*****************************************************************
 21    UK Government: Future storage of redundant nuclear submarines 
-- the public have their say
 
[M2 Communications Ltd.]   
  
Story Filed: Friday, November 09, 2001 11:39 AM EST 

Nov 09, 2001 (M2 PRESSWIRE via COMTEX) -- An independent report 
from Lancaster University has set out the issues the public wants 
the Ministry of Defence to take into account in finding the best 
option for future land storage of redundant nuclear submarines. 

Defence Minister Dr Lewis Moonie said: "We have been open and 
consultative from the start as we have carried forward this 
important project, and I welcome the work Lancaster University 
had done on our behalf in identifying issues the public wishes to 
see taken into account. The report makes over 60 recommendations, 
which we will consider carefully. 

"I note that some consultees want an end to building new nuclear 
submarines until we have a long term disposal solution. We are 
tackling the issue of disposal, but we cannot ignore the fact 
that nuclear powered submarines are a key component of our 
defence. We have had a dramatic reminder of this only recently 
with our submarines involved shoulder to shoulder with the US 
Forces right from the start of the war against terrorism. 

"I can put to rest any concern raised by the public that profit 
will be the driving force for the involvement of industry in this 
project. 

The safety of our nuclear submarines in operation has always 
relied heavily on the manufacturing skills of private industry 
and the support from the privatised dockyards. Safety is the 
driver, not cost. But there is no reason to exclude from this 
work the expertise of companies, including those who have helped 
build and safely maintain the submarines." The Centre for the 
Study of Environmental Change at Lancaster University conducted 
its work - known as "Front End Consultation" between January and 
July this year. The consultation involved eight separate 
discussion groups, four stakeholder workshops, as well as a 
citizens' panel, made up of a random group from the public like a 
jury.

The university also hosted a dedicated web site, which remains 
available to provide information and give the public the chance 
to feed in further views. The report notes that the public 
considered the consultative exercise a positive step, but were 
concerned that involving private industry would mean the decision 
was driven by profit, and wanted the MOD to do more to engender 
trust and understanding. There was public support for storing the 
submarines on land rather than afloat, with a preference for 
storing the intact reactor compartments, rather than further 
dismantling. Some members of the public also wanted a halt to 
construction of nuclear submarines until a long term disposal 
route had been established. 

The MOD will give detailed consideration to the report and 
publish its response to the recommendations. 

NOTES TO EDITORS 

1. An MOD study concluded last year that the current practice of 
storing submarines afloat at Devonport and Rosyth remained safe, 
but the lack of alternative afloat sites meant that storing the 
radioactive components on land was the best option for the longer 
term. Industry was invited to submit proposals, and a public 
consultation exercise was launched. No sites have been selected 
for land storage, and it will not be until industry comes forward 
with proposals, expected later next year, that potential sites 
will begin to emerge. 

CONTACT: WWW: http://www.nucsubs.org.uk 
[http://www.nucsubs.org.uk] 
*****************************************************************
 22  Nuclear attack: Now anything seems possible - 

CNN.com - 

November 9, 2001
 	 	
By Jamie Allen 
 				 
(CNN) -- Not since the height of the Cold War have Americans 
seriously considered they could come under nuclear attack. 
				 
But when President Bush said Tuesday that Osama bin Laden's al 
Qaeda terrorist network is likely seeking weapons of mass 
destruction, including nuclear bombs, the possibility that the 
unthinkable could happen suddenly seemed less remote. 
				 
How plausible is that threat? Right now, that's all it appears to 
be -- a threat. Terrorists might want nuclear weapons, but no 
credible evidence has emerged to suggest that any terrorist group 
possesses such weapons, according to the latest intelligence made 
public. 
				 
Still, post-September 11, the potential can't be dismissed. At an 
October 30 press conference in Vienna, Austria, Mohamed 
ElBaradei, the director general of the International Atomic 
Energy Agency, identified a shifting of strategy in the "fight 
against terrorism." 
				 
"The willingness of terrorists to sacrifice their lives to 
achieve their evil aims creates a new dimension in the fight 
against terrorism," ElBaradei said. 
				 
"We are not just dealing with the possibility of governments 
diverting nuclear materials into clandestine weapons programs," 
he said. "Now we have been alerted to the potential of terrorists 
targeting nuclear facilities or using radioactive sources to 
incite panic, contaminate property, and even cause injury or 
death among civilian populations." Nuclear attack scenarios
 				 
Imagined scenarios of nuclear attacks by terrorists generally 
fall into two categories. One: Terrorists unleash a nuclear or 
"dirty bomb," a conventional bomb loaded with radioactive junk. 
Two: They ram the United States' own nuclear facilities with a 
hijacked jetliner or truck bomb, causing toxic chemicals to 
disperse into the air. 
				 
One source of fears is the former Soviet Union. When it 
collapsed, some of its nuclear weapons -- including those that 
apparently could be carried in a suitcase or briefcase -- went 
unaccounted for in subsequent inventories, according to Bruce 
Blair, president of the Center for Defense Information, an 
independent military research organization. 
				 
Gen. Alexander Lebed, the Russian national security chief under 
President Boris Yeltsin, completed an inventory that "came up 
short by something between 50 and 100 suitcases," Blair said. "No 
one has really, persuasively explained the discrepancy between 
Lebed's count and what the Russian government said, which was, 
'Don't worry, nothing's missing.'" 
				 
John Lepingwell, a nuclear expert with the Monterey Institute of 
International Studies, doesn't give any credence to a 
suitcase-bomb threat. 
				 
"There is no good evidence that any rebel group or terrorist has 
these," he told Time magazine. 
				 
Lepingwell also dismissed the possibility of terrorists building 
or getting their hands on a nuclear bomb and setting it off in 
the United States. "This threat is quite unlikely," he said. 
				 
Terrorists, he said, would have to surmount serious obstacles to 
carry off a nuclear- related attack. Among them: 
				 
-- Obtaining plutonium or highly-enriched uranium, the 
fissionable material of nuclear bombs. They'd have to buy it, 
steal it or produce it, and each case poses its own difficulties. 
				 
-- Building a bomb. "While creating a design may be possible, 
turning a design into a functioning weapon is not easy and would 
require time and substantial effort," Lepingwell said. 
				 
-- Delivering the bomb. "They would have to get it to the U.S. 
from wherever they built it," Lepingwell said. "Sending it 
airfreight or by sea would take time, and would require a string 
of contacts and checks that might be detected by intelligence 
agencies." 
				 
And the dirty bombs? The Center for Defense Information's Blair 
seems to think it's possible. He recalled how, in 1995, Chechen 
separatists put a canister in a Moscow park containing a highly 
radioactive byproduct of nuclear fission. It was a stunt, 
performed apparently to show how vulnerable Moscow was, Blair 
said. The United States, said Blair, is just as vulnerable. 
				 
"So with a dirty bomb, which could be a relatively small canister 
of nuclear waste that's exploded with dynamite in a city, the 
major problem probably would be the widespread evacuation and 
panic that would ensue," he said. Nuclear powers
 				 
Another source of concern: so-called rogue nations could supply 
terrorists with nuclear weapons. 
				 
Former United Nations chief weapons inspector Richard Butler and 
his team went into Iraq to shut down Saddam Hussein's efforts to 
build a nuclear bomb at the dawn of the Persian Gulf war. Just in 
time, he said. 
				 
"I know with utter certainty that Iraq was months away from 
having nuclear weapons when we stopped them in 1990-'91," Butler 
said. "One of the key defectors from Iraq to the West, a man who 
was in charge of elements of Saddam Hussein's bomb program, 
actually said that he's already made one -- that Saddam has 
already put together a crude nuclear weapon." 
				 
But even if Hussein has a crude bomb, that doesn't guarantee he'd 
be willing to hand it over to terrorists; or, as Lepingwell 
noted, that terrorists would be able to transport it undetected 
to their desired location. 
				 
Another country watched closely by U.S. officials is the nuclear 
power Pakistan, according to Joseph Cirincione, nonproliferation 
project director for the Carnegie Endowment for International 
Peace, a nonprofit organization that promotes U.S. interests in 
international relations. 
				 
Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf has let U.S.-led forces 
use bases in Pakistan in support of the war on terrorists in 
Afghanistan. Cirincione fears backlash in Pakistan against the 
Musharraf government and the United States could lead to a coup 
by Muslim extremists sympathetic with the Taliban; if they 
succeeded in overthrowing Musharraf's government, that would put 
nuclear weapons in their hands. 
				 
Shirin Tahir-Kheli, delegate to the United Nations Commission on 
Human Rights, however, said that's not happening any time soon. 
				 
"If the state begins to unravel, it'll have to unravel very 
fundamentally before that becomes a reality," she said. "And I 
don't see that sort of nightmare scenario." Attacking nuclear 
facilities
 				 
If nuclear weapons cannot be built or found, U.S. homeland 
security officials acknowledge terrorists could possibly attack 
U.S. nuclear plants using a hijacked plane or a large truck bomb. 
				 
"This is far more likely, although the consequences are likely to 
be far lower," said Lepingwell, who said that an attack on a 
nuclear facility does not guarantee a meltdown -- the perceived 
goal of such an effort. "The terror dimension may turn out to be 
greater than the actual destruction in such a case." 
				 
Victor Dricks, spokesman for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission, said steps have been taken since September 11 to 
increase security around nuclear facilities. 
				 
The facilities are on "highest alert," he said. 
				 
"In addition, we've issued more than half a dozen advisories in 
the last six weeks suggesting additional steps they could take to 
further increase security," Dricks said. "We also have sent 
letters to the governors of 40 states urging them to establish 
channels of communication with National Guard units in the event 
they feel the need to call upon them for assistance. 
				 
"And our emergency operation center has been manned 
around-the-clock for the past six weeks by people who remain in 
constant communication with law enforcement agencies, the 
intelligence community, state and local governments and the 
military," he said. 
				 
Not enough, said Paul Leventhal, a critic of nuclear 
proliferation who worked on Senate legislation to establish the 
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 1974 and now serves as 
president of the Nuclear Control Institute. 
				 
He believes more needs to be done to protect nuclear facilities, 
including National Guard troops guarding every plant. Leventhal 
also recommends installing "anti-aircraft weapons like 
surface-to-air missile batteries" that could intercept a hijacked 
plane about to crash into a plant. 
				 
September 11 was "a wakeup call and let's just hope it's not too 
late," Leventhal said. "It's been very frustrating getting 
politicians and the public to pay attention to the dangers of 
nuclear proliferation." 
				 
Ultimately, the attacks of September 11 that shook the United 
States awoke Americans to grave possibilities. 
				 
Sam Nunn, chairman of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, said no 
matter how minuscule the chance of nuclear attack, there's work 
to be done. 
				 
"I don't think it is likely to happen, but if the odds against 
that were 1,000-to-one, we want to make them 10,000-to-one," he 
told CNN. "If they are 10,000-to-one against it happening we want 
to make it a million-to-one." 
				 				
CNN National Security Correspondent David Ensor contributed to 
this report.
 	 
*****************************************************************
 23  ASUC Calls on UC Regents to End Nuclear Weapons Research at Labs

The Daily Californian - 

By WENDY LEE
Contributing Writer
Friday, November 9, 2001 

The ASUC Senate voted Wednesday to ask the UC Board of Regents to 
stop nuclear weapons research at the nation's two largest nuclear 
weapons research laboratories, which are run by UC. 

In an 11-5 vote, the ASUC Senate approved a bill to send a letter 
to the regents requesting that they renegotiate their contracts 
"as a matter of highest priority" with Lawrence Livermore 
National Laboratory and Los Alamos National Laboratory and end 
nuclear weapons research there. The labs are contracted to UC by 
the U.S. Department of Energy. 

"There's a problem of silence on the UC regents. They aren't 
explaining what's going on," said ASUC Senator Jessica Quindel, 
who co-authored the bill. "They are simply doing things, and it 
is not understood why they are maintaining these contracts." 

Valerie Kao, a UC Berkeley junior who pitched the idea of the 
bill to senators, said students generally do not know that UC 
runs nuclear weapons labs. Kao said she learned about that fact 
earlier this year. 

But UC spokesperson Jeff Garberson said it is clearly open 
knowledge that the two labs have been conducting nuclear weapons 
research. The UC regents have been contracted by the U.S. 
government to manage nuclear testing facilities since the 1940s. 

"I would take strong issue that it is secret," said Garberson, 
who had not read the senate bill. 

The labs have been prominent in the media over recent 
controversies involving their research in nuclear weapons 
technology. The Los Alamos lab came under heavy scrutiny recently 
after a series of high-profile security breaches. 

The security lapses led to the indictment of Wen Ho Lee, a Los 
Alamos scientist who later pleaded guilty to downloading nuclear 
secrets on an unsecured hard drive. Federal investigators failed 
to prove their initial charges that Lee was a spy for China. 
There has also been ongoing controversy at the Livermore lab over 
construction of the National Ignition Facility, a multibillion 
dollar laser that will simulate the conditions of a nuclear 
reaction. 

Garberson said the regents are open and willing to discuss the 
labs' contracts in a public forum, such as at a regents' meeting. 
"In both cases (of the labs), the government asked them to do it, 
and the university has always been motivated by a sense of public 
service and patriotism to help when it reasonably could," 
Garberson said. 

The labs no longer design new nuclear weapons as part of a 
comprehensive test ban treaty signed by President Clinton in 
1996. It was never ratified by the Senate. 

The treaty allocated the weapons labs more money and resources to 
maintain and safeguard old nuclear weapons. While Garberson said 
it is possible for the university not to be involved in nuclear 
research, it would cause the research to be less effective 
because the quality of scientists and engineers would not be as 
high. 

Earlier this year the regents extended the contract period for 
both nuclear weapons research labs, so it is unlikely there will 
be a re-evaluation of the contracts soon. The current contracts 
expire in 2005. 

If the regents do not renegotiate their contract, the ASUC Senate 
will request that the regents write a letter "providing explicit 
evidence" as to "what interests are being served by their 
management of these labs, why UC cannot or will not renegotiate 
their contracts until expiration and how maintenance of the labs 
will safeguard UC Berkeley students, faculty, staff and community 
members from future attacks." 

"This is about public information," Quindel said. "We need to 
understand why they are managing these labs. (The public) needs 
to know what the UC is involved in." 

The ASUC bill alleges that "by managing the development of the 
U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal, the University of California is 
associating higher education with the creation of nuclear weapons 
that are immoral and illegal in accordance with international 
law." Kao said she wrote the bill in light of the Sept. 11 
terrorist attacks, saying nuclear weapons should not be used for 
a nation's defense. She added that she will present the same 
resolution to the faculty. 

Opponents of the bill said they were unconvinced that it would 
affect how nuclear weapons research is conducted. 

"If we stop (nuclear weapons research) here, it's going to go 
somewhere else," said ASUC Senator Jesse Gabriel. 

Julian Borrill, a scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National 
Laboratory, which does not conduct nuclear weapons research, said 
such research is a violation of the comprehensive test ban treaty 
that banned nuclear testing and held nuclear states for "good 
faith" disarmament. 

"These projects are being sold to the public as necessary to 
maintain nuclear weapons. But in reality, (the projects) are 
actually being used to make new weapons," Borrill said. 
Supporters of the bill also maintain that UC has misled some of 
its employees into believing that their work is not being used 
for nuclear weapons research. 

Livermore lab spokesperson Gordon Yano said it is unlikely that 
employees would not understand what their research is being used 
for. "I can't imagine that a new applicant here is unaware of the 
various kinds of research that is going on," he said. Yano said 
the labs are not developing new weapons and that a nuclear weapon 
has never been on site. 

E-mail: dailycal@dailycal.org 
*****************************************************************
 24  Agency finds SRS discrimination 

Augusta Georgia: Metro:

Web posted Friday, November 9, 2001
 
By  [bhaddock@augustachronicle.com] 
Staff Writer 

A federal agency has found that four Savannah River Site 
contractors discriminated against black employees at the federal 
nuclear-weapons site.

 In a "letter of determination" issued Oct. 24, the Equal 
Employment Opportunity Commission found that "a racially hostile 
work environment" existed at the site.

 "I have determined there is sufficient evidence to establish 
reasonable cause to believe that a pattern and practice of 
discrimination against African Americans has occurred," wrote 
Patricia Fuller, the director of the commission's office in 
Greenville, S.C.

 The charges stem from complaints filed by 93 black SRS employees 
against the site's top contractor, Westinghouse Savannah River 
Co., and subcontractors Bechtel Savannah River Inc., BWXT 
Savannah River Co. and British Nuclear Fuels Ltd. Savannah River 
Corp.

 The complainants are among 99 SRS employees who have filed 
federal racial-discrimination lawsuits against the contractors.

 The employees initially sought a class-action lawsuit 
representing all current and former black employees of the 
companies, but U.S. District Court Judge Cameron M. Currie denied 
class-action status.
 
A Westinghouse spokesman said his company disagrees with the 
EEOC's finding.

 "We have submitted hundreds of thousands of pages of documents 
to the EEOC to demonstrate the inaccuracy of these charges," Will 
Callicott said. "We will continue to appeal to the EEOC to 
conduct the same careful review of the record that Judge Currie 
has done.

 "We are not sure why the EEOC is taking this action at this 
time, since we have been discussing resolution of these cases 
with individual plaintiffs for more than a year. When the EEOC 
looks at all the evidence, it may wish to reconsider."

 Attorneys for the plaintiffs did not return telephone calls to 
their offices. Reach Brandon Haddock at (706) 823-3409 or  
[bhaddock@augustachronicle.com] .
 
1996 - 2001 The Augusta Chronicle. All rights reserved. Read our 
*****************************************************************
 25  DOE doesn't allow OS man to attend medical clinic review 

Oak Ridger Online --> 

Story last updated at 11:40 a.m. on Friday, November 9, 2001

Lester Raby says agency broke its promise 

by Paul Parson 
Oak Ridger staff 

A Roane County man who's been pushing for changes in the 
Department of Energy's Occupational Medicine program now says he 
feels betrayed by the federal agency he has tried to work with 
for almost seven years.

 Raby said DOE officials informed him in 1999 that he could 
attend an accreditation survey of Oak Ridge National Laboratory's 
medical clinic when it occurred. The Accreditation Association 
for Ambulatory Health Care Inc., which is headquartered in 
Illinois, finally conducted the survey this September, but Lester 
Raby was excluded from it.

 "It's wrong," said Raby, who started seeking changes in the 
medical program following his wife's death in 1994. The Oak 
Ridger first reported on his efforts in June.

 DOE headquarters officials involved with the survey declined to 
talk with The Oak Ridger. As is customary, the federal agency had 
a public affairs representative field the questions.
 
"Because of confidentiality agreements between patients and 
doctors Š we can't allow someone that's not officially part of 
DOE or the accrediting agency to be in the room," said Joe Davis, 
a headquarters spokesman. Davis did say DOE will make available 
to Raby a copy of the survey report when it's finished.

 "We will continue to listen to his comments," Davis said. "We'll 
talk to him anytime he wants to talk with us."

 Raby doesn't buy DOE's excuse.

 The Roane County man said he never wanted to look at patients' 
records. He said he wanted to talk with the surveyors about 
several things that could easily be overlooked during the review.

 One of the things Raby wanted to point out is that the clinic 
should not allow long periods of time to pass between different 
phases of an exam. He said there were occasions when either 97 or 
119 days passed between the phases of his wife's exams.

 Furthermore, Raby contends the survey is "tainted" because DOE 
headquarters officials were not present while it was conducted. 
Davis said two headquarters representatives arrived in Oak Ridge 
for the survey, but he could not confirm whether they were 
actually present when it was conducted.

 DOE funds the survey by the Accreditation Association for 
Ambulatory Health Care Inc.

 Despite this latest incident, Raby says he isn't giving up on 
his quest to get changes made to DOE's Occupational Medicine 
program. He said he believes the program is worse now than when 
his wife, Mary Raby, was working for DOE.

 Mary Raby, who died of cancer on Feb. 22, 1994, worked as a 
secretary in the Safeguards and Security Division at DOE's Oak 
Ridge Operations office. Her death, according to her husband, 
might have been prevented had she received "adequate care" at 
ORNL's medical clinic, where her annual physical examinations 
were conducted.

 Despite significant decreases in his wife's red blood cell and 
platelet counts between 1986 to 1990, Lester Raby said the staff 
at ORNL's medical clinic did not inform his wife that something 
might be wrong until 1991. She then went to Methodist Medical 
Center of Oak Ridge and was diagnosed with refractory multiple 
myeloma, a cancer of the bone marrow, on March 25, 1991.

 Lester Raby says he's still trying to get DOE to implement his 
14 recommendations for improving the Occupational Medicine 
program. The recommendations, which have been sent to the federal 
agency, include the following:
 
* To avoid all conflicts of interest, do not allow the same 
contractor to operate the plants and the medical program.
 
* All DOE sites should have access to specialists in the fields 
of toxicology, epidemiology, immunology, hematology, 
endocrinology and industrial hygiene as well as any other 
disciplines central to occupational medicine that would apply to 
the types of chemicals and hazardous materials with which the 
employees work.

All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger 
*****************************************************************
 26  K-25 uranium work halted 

Oak Ridger Online --> 

Story last updated at 12:02 p.m. on Friday, November 9, 2001

Citing the discovery of deficiencies in a safety document, the 
Department of Energy halted for the time being most of the work 
pertaining to uranium at the Oak Ridge K-25 site.

 DOE spokesman Frank Juan said this morning that multiple 
deficiencies were discovered in a site-wide safety document 
called "Technical Safety Requirements."

 "They don't know how long it's going to take to resolve the 
safety issues," Juan said.

 K-25 is a Superfund, or contaminated, site, which was formerly 
used to separate uranium-235 from uranium-238 through a gaseous 
diffusion process.


All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger 
                                        
*****************************************************************
 27  National Laboratory Gets Cleanup Program Grant
 
AmeriScan: November 8, 2001
 
RICHLAND, Washington, November 8, 2001 (ENS) - The Department of 
Energy (DOE) has awarded the Pacific Northwest National 
Laboratory (PNNL) $8.4 million in grant funding for research to 
support the department's Environmental Management cleanup 
program. 

The grants, which fund research initiatives to develop new 
approaches for dealing with the disposal of high level waste and 
the decontamination of facilities, are part of 45 research grants 
totaling $39 million. 

PNNL is a multiprogram laboratory that conducts basic and applied 
research to solve problems in the environmental, energy, health 
and national security areas. The lab employs about 3,500 people 
and has an estimated annual budget of about $540 million. 

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said the DOE plans to extend its 
contract with the Battelle Memorial Institute to manage and 
operate the PNNL for an additional five years. 

"Battelle has done an extraordinary job operating PNNL over the 
years," Abraham said. "The Department of Energy and Battelle will 
be negotiating the details over the next several months, but we 
look forward to a continued partnership that will lead to further 
scientific advances benefiting our country." 

Abraham authorized the DOE's Richland Operations Office to begin 
negotiations with Battelle. DOE decided to extend the contract 
with Battelle after evaluating several factors, including past 
performance and potential impacts from a change in the 
contractor. 

Battelle has received "Outstanding" ratings for the past three 
years from the DOE. The current contract expires in September 
2002. 

© Environment News Service (ENS) 2001. All Rights Reserved.
*****************************************************************
 28  UT chancellor wants to bid to operate Sandia Labs
  
Friday, November 9, 2001
 
By SUSAN PARROTT Associated Press Writer
 
TYLER, Texas (AP) - UT Chancellor Dan Burck told regents Thursday 
the system should team with an industrial company and bid for 
operating the Sandia National Laboratories.
 
Managing the nuclear weapons labs, based in Albuquerque, N.M., 
would enhance the University of Texas System's research 
capabilities and national reputation, Burck said. The contract is 
up for bid next year.
 
Lockheed Martin currently manages the labs but its contract ends 
in 2003. The Department of Energy could reopen the contract to 
bidding next year.
 
Burck told regents meeting in East Texas that the university 
system's engineering and technology sciences are "ideally 
positioned to manage a complex research facility of this type."
 
An industrial partner, not yet identified, would handle 
day-to-day management of the labs, which include the Pantex plant 
in Amarillo, and facilities in Nevada, Hawaii and California.
 
"We believe this is the model the Department of Energy is most 
interested in today," Burck said.
 
University oversight of a nuclear plant is not unprecedented, he 
said. The University of California manages several nuclear 
laboratories, including Los Alamos.
 
The chancellor plans to put together an exploratory committee to 
study the bid possibility. Pursuing the contract could cost the 
university system more than $3 million, he said.
 
The University of Texas System has 15 campuses and a budget of 
$6.5 billion.
 
Lockheed Martin spokesman Don Carson said his company wants to 
continue managing Sandia. "We are committed to the contract. We 
are committed to the community. We have a proven track record," 
he said.
 
Copyright ©2001, Abilene Reporter-News / Texnews / E.W. Scripps 
    
*****************************************************************

NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this 
material is distributed without profit or payment to those who 
have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for 
non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more 
information go to: 
<http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml> 
    
*****************************************************************