***************************************************************** 11/12/01 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 9.267 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER CONTENTS 1 Chechnya Site Leaking Radiation 2 OFT threat in nuclear reprocessing dispute 3 Nuclear reactor safety reviewed 4 Protesters held on nuclear train route 5 German nuclear waste train resumes journey after police disperse protesters 6 Zion nuclear plant could start up again 7 IAEA Daily Press Review Date 2001-11-12 Number 216 8 Braving PR fallout of nuclear plan fiasco 9 EDITORIAL : Obsolescent reactors call for special scrutiny 10 McGrady calls for closure of Sellafield 11 Tarapur: Russian help is part of long-term nuclear co-operation 12 N-energy will get priority: Panel Chief 13 Thousands Protest Castor Transport 14 Leader of Czech opposition coalition backs future quitting of 15 Two Tigers: Preparing the Public for a Nuclear Emergency 16 EU's Prodi on Temelin dispute, EU foreign policy, leadership NUCLEAR WEAPONS CONTENTS 1 Lax Nuclear Security in Russia Is Cited as Way for bin Laden to Get Arms 2 ORNL lends staff to national security effort 3 Laden and the nuke 4 DOE needs to get on the ball at the test site 5 USA To Join Hands For More Safety In Nuclear Testing Grounds: 6 Russia Warns Against 'slightest Possibility Of Nuclear Blackmail' 7 Scientists Say They Met bin Laden 8 Russians Acknowledge Nuclear Security Breaches 9 Coalition Disputes Bin Laden's Claim Of Possessing Nuclear Weapons 10 If Muslim Extremists Control Pakistan's Nukes, What Will U.S. Do? 11 U.S. skips UN's nuclear talks 12 Rocky Flats Closes Web Site Over Security Concerns 13 Ratification of nuclear-test ban urged 14 Pakistan repulses Indian attack - **************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 Chechnya Site Leaking Radiation Monday, Nov. 12, 2001. Page 3 By Yuri Bagrov The Associated Press VLADIKAVKAZ, North Ossetia -- Officials said Friday that a site for burial of radioactive waste in the separatist region of Chechnya emits radiation strong enough to kill a person within days. Radiation at the site near Chiri-Yurt is about 3,000 micro roentgens per hour -- more than 100 times safe levels, NTV reported. The report didn't give the size of the contaminated area. Radioactive waste had been delivered to the site from across the former Caucasus republics of the Soviet Union from 1965 to 1992, the year when Chechnya started to claim more independence from Russia, NTV said. The site, home to a radioactive waste treatment plant and waste storage facilities, has apparently suffered damage in the ensuing 1994-96 war and the current war that started in 1999. The facilities hadn't been guarded until recently, allowing theft of radioactive items, Abdul Khamadov, director of Chechnya's radioactive safety center, told NTV. An elderly Chechen was installed to watch the site a month ago. The Chechen minister for emergencies, Ruslan Aytayev, said the site would be decontaminated "as soon as adequate funds are received," and that a contract for the work has already been signed, Itar-Tass reported. Earlier, NTV reported that the commander of Russian troops in Chechnya, Lieutenant General Vladimir Moltenskoi, requested Chechnya's Emergency Situations Ministry to clean up the site, but the ministry said the plant itself should tackle it. www.themoscowtimes.com ***************************************************************** 2 OFT threat in nuclear reprocessing dispute Guardian Unlimited Observer | Business | Oliver Morgan, industrial editor Sunday November 11, 2001 The Observer Nuclear generator British Energy plans to take atomic services group British Nuclear Fuels to the Office of Fair Trading in a dispute over £300-million-a-year reprocessing contracts. The companies have been wrangling over the contracts for the past year; they involve BE paying BNFL upfront for future costs of reprocessing spent uranium fuel from its eight UK nuclear power stations in the Thorp plant at Sellafield in Cumbria. Executive Chairman Robin Jeffrey told The Observer that BE saw reprocessing the fuel as unnecessary, and that the system used in the US, where fuel is stored in readiness for disposal in a purpose-built site, would be a cheaper, more suitable option for the UK. Such a move would be fatal to BNFL's reprocessing operations. BE is among its major customers, but its victory would have a knock-on effect on others, particularly in Japan, where confidence in BNFL was damaged after a scandal over falsification of quality-control records on reprocessed plutonium fuel. Under the US system, nuclear generators pay the US government a fixed charge - $1 for every megawatt hour of electricity they produce - and this money is used to fund the construction of a long-term storage facility. Jeffrey calculates that such a system in Britain would save his company £250m a year and convert its lossmaking position into profit. Last week BE unveiled a half-year loss of £110m on its UK operations, due mainly to the fall in wholesale electricity prices. Jeffrey said BE had raised the issue of the US alternative with BNFL in negotiations over the current contracts, which date back to when BE was privatised in 1996. He said: 'BNFL are not interested in negotiation. [OFT referral] would be a last resort, but it is something we would be forced to do. We would go to the OFT and ask why we should have to pay these huge costs when there is an alternative approach?' BE is hoping that measures to restructure the contracts will be addressed in the Government's energy review. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2001 ***************************************************************** 3 Nuclear reactor safety reviewed news.com.au - [12nov01] From AAP THE nation's nuclear safety monitor has ordered a security review of the proposed new national nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights amid heightened terrorism concerns. The Australian Radiation Protection and Safety Authority (ARPANSA) ordered the Australian Nuclear Safety and Technology Organisation, which is seeking permits for a new reactor, to hold the review. It must now provide an assessment of potential sabotage and terrorist targets within the facility and the consequences of any attacks. The review must also include the effects of a large commercial jet crash into the facility, in light of the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States. ARPANSA chief executive John Loy has released a two-page physical protection and security statement for the reactor, set to be built in southern Sydney. "The site assessment will be fully reviewed by ARPANSA," Dr Loy said in a statement. He said he would check on the health and safety risks to people and the environment when determining whether or not to approve the licence. Argentinian company INVAP has been contracted to build the reactor in 2002 - to replace the existing installation - once official safety approvals are in place. The International Atomic Energy Agency recently called the US terrorist attacks a wake-up call and admitted that no nuclear reactor could be protected from a September 11-style attack. ***************************************************************** 4 Protesters held on nuclear train route BBC News | EUROPE | 12 November, 2001, [Protester carried away by police after chaining herself to signal box, AP] Protesters have chained themselves to trees and signal boxes At least 100 anti-nuclear protesters have been detained by police for trying to block the progress of a train carrying nuclear waste. The train is taking waste from a reprocessing plant in La Hague in northern France, to be stored at a special site in Gorleben, Germany. [Police behind barbed wire] Thousands of police are now guarding the line Protesters trying to stop the shipment have staged action at a number of points along the 600-kilometre (375-mile) route. Up to 20,000 German police officers are trying to protect the train. Activists have attempted to breach security at a number of places along the route, and by early afternoon on Monday, police said more than 100 people had been detained. Most were later freed without charged. At the town of Woerth on the French-German border, dozens of people were reported to be trying to get on to the tracks, but the train crossed into Germany without incident early on Monday afternoon. A police official said border guards also found loosened bolts on the rails in a number of locations in Germany, including 64 near the French border. Some of the arrested protesters had chained themselves in trees above the route, said police. [Protester sitting on track] Some demonstrators have reached the tracks The train, carrying six containers of waste, is due to arrive in the German town of Dannenberg, before finishing its journey to Gorleben by road. At one site near the town, about 400 protesters were reported to have broken through police lines and run across open fields, trying to reach the railway line. They were eventually driven back, and a number detained. Dannenberg itself has already been hit by protests. On Sunday, about 60 tractors blocked the main road. Dozens of other tractors were also used to block roads in the region. Police also say some activists could turn their protests into a demonstration against the war in Afghanistan. The last train to make the journey, in March, was beset by protests and was delayed for 16 hours. Protesters say the 11 September attacks have demonstrated the dangers of nuclear power, after fears that terrorists could seek to fly planes into plants. The German authorities have restricted low-level flights over the last stretch of the route, but insist that the move is routine. ***************************************************************** 5 German nuclear waste train resumes journey after police disperse protesters November 13, 2001 German nuclear waste train resumes journey after police disperse protesters DANNENBERG, Germany (AP) -- Police used batons and dogs to remove anti-nuclear activists from a railroad Tuesday, enabling a much-delayed train carrying 80 tonnes of radioactive waste to finish its trip across Germany.  Small groups of demonstrators held back by police blew whistles as the train inched into the terminal at Danneberg, where the shipment was to be loaded onto trucks for the final 20 kilometres to a storage site.  The six large containers were expected to arrive Wednesday at an above-ground warehouse near the village of Gorleben, focus of Germany's well-organized anti-nuclear lobby.  "These shipments just can't be done securely," said Jan-Boris Ingerowski, 21, a law student from Hamburg. "Gorleben is about as safe as a potato shed."  Similar demonstrations across Germany slowed the train, even though 15,000 security forces were deployed along the route. The 1,400-kilometre trip began in La Hague, France, the site of a facility that reprocesses waste from nuclear plants in Germany and elsewhere. The six containers held about 80 tonnes in all.  The shipments are to end by 2005 under an agreement between the German government and the country's nuclear plants, which are to shut down within 20 years. The protesters say the shipments aren't safe and want them halted sooner. They pointed to the Sept. 11 terror attacks in the United States as more evidence of the danger posed by nuclear power and radioactive waste.  Police repeatedly had to remove groups of demonstrators, some of them chained to the tracks, hundreds of others sitting on the rails.  In one stretch, two members of the environmental group Greenpeace climbed trees and unfurled a banner across the tracks denouncing the country's main power companies.  Near the end of the line police used batons and dogs to clear 200 demonstrators from the tracks, a police spokesman said. Several demonstrators were bitten.  Similar tactics during the last shipment in March delayed the train by almost a day.  The containers are to be transferred from Gorleben to a former salt mine once the mine has been determined suitable for a permanent dump, long a subject of dispute. CNEWS Forums © 2001, Canoe Limited Partnership. ***************************************************************** 6 Zion nuclear plant could start up again November 12, 2001 Power company says it's one of many options under study --> Three years after it started backing out of nuclear power, Exelon Corp. is thinking about restarting one or both nuclear reactors at its shuttered Zion plant as it works on a new reactor design in South Africa that may be safer and more efficient to operate. "This is very, very preliminary. There's not even a timetable for a timetable," said Craig Nesbit, spokesman for Exelon, which owns Commonwealth Edison. "Part of the goal of the company is to increase generation. You look at all the possibilities." ComEd decided in 1998 to close down the two Zion reactors, and crews have begun the long task of dismantling them. Systems that supported the reactors have been shut down and pipes have been drained and removed. The reactors were the largest nuclear plants in the nation when they came online in 1973 and 1974--each one capable of producing 1,000 megawatts. But safety and maintenance problems led the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to put them on its watch list of troubled plants. In announcing the shutdown, Exelon said the reactors had become too expensive to operate. The company figures it will cost nearly $1 billion to demolish them. With the company looking for new sources of power, Nesbit said nothing is being ruled out, including firing one or both reactors back up. "Is it feasible to start up the old reactors? We don't know. There are more than a dozen things we're looking at." Meanwhile, Exelon is helping develop a prototype nuclear plant in South Africa that its backers say will be safer and less costly to operate. The reactor uses a "pebble bed" design, which circulates round uranium fuel pellets through the reactor and generates only about one-tenth as much heat as a conventional reactor. Supporters say it therefore cannot have a meltdown. "We are evaluating a variety of different places we could put a reactor," Nesbit said. "But this is all very early." Daily Southtown Pioneer Press Post-Tribune Star Newspapers Suburban Copyright 2000, Digital Chicago Inc. ***************************************************************** 7 IAEA Daily Press Review Date 2001-11-12 Number 216 1. Non-proliferation While UN SG calls at CTBT conference on Member States to permanently ban all nuclear tests, US stays away. More on upcoming Russian/US summit: President Putin reportedly sees chance for accord on ABM Treaty. Media Resources: (BBC; G; IHT; ITAR; WP - 11/11) CTBT; India; Pakistan; Russian Federation; UN; United States of America 2. IAEA Nuclear Fuel report: "IAEA Tries to Reconcile Safeguards Duties with Zero-real-growth Budget." Media Resources: (NF - 12/11) IAEA 3. Terrorism Report on Austrian population's anxiety over possible terrorist attacks: Government's anti-terror plan includes VIC as potential target. Experts say nuclear threat is real: former Soviet nuclear stockpile seen as likely source of weaponry for terrorists; specialists cite lax security, missing materials and attempted thefts. While Osama Bin Laden tells Pakistani newspaper editor that he possesses chemical and nuclear weapons, UK, Russia and Pakistan dismiss such claims. Pakistan moves nuclear arsenal and tightens control over arms. While chances are remote that terrorists might obtain suitcase-sized nuclear bombs, analysts worry that a crude but deadly device might be fashioned from stolen nuclear material and a few sticks of dynamite. Two retired nuclear scientists who were instrumental in development of Pakistan's atom bomb have reportedly admitted to investigators that they have met Osama bin Laden at least twice this year. Media Resources: (BBC; DAW; HIN; HT; IHT; LAT; NEW; TIME; WP - 7, 11/11) Austria; IAEA; Pakistan; Russian Federation; United Kingdom; United States of America 4. Radwaste, fuel Anti-nuclear activists hold demonstrations in northern Germany to protest against rail shipment of nuclear waste from France. Delivery of spent nuclear fuel from Bulgarian Kozloduy NPP to Russian factory in Krasnoyarsk region completed. Media Resources: (BBC; pra - 11/11) Bulgaria; France; Germany; Russian Federation 5. Energy, environment After four years of negotiations, final details of Kyoto Protocol emerge from climate talks in Marrakesh: many large industrial countries, excepting US, say they are likely to ratify agreement. Media Resources: (IHT; NYT - 12/11) Kyoto Protocol; United States of America 6. Miscellaneous More on dual-use technology: Chinese companies have reportedly become suppliers of advanced communications equipment to nations that Western companies avoid, or are barred from doing business with. Media Resources: (NYT - 12/11) China ***************************************************************** 8 Braving PR fallout of nuclear plan fiasco ireland.com - The Irish Times - IRELAND November 12, 2001 The dry run brought little cause for comfort about our ability to respond to a nuclear accident, writes Joe Humphreys after watching the testing of a national emergency plan Whatever about the merits of Saturday's simulated nuclear accident as regards testing the national nuclear emergency plan, as a public relations exercise it came across as a genuine disaster. Despite the fact Joe Jacob had been given advanced warning of the simulated incident, not to mention some six weeks to prepare his script following his infamous Marian Finucane interview, he remained as vague as ever regarding the advice to give the public in the case of a nuclear emergency. Seven hours after the simulation began with an imaginary earthquake at the Wylfa nuclear power plant in Wales, the Minister of State for energy could offer no more advice than "stay indoors". All other information would be decided upon in the context of the incident, he said. Well, he was asked, what of this incident? What advice would be given, for instance, on food consumption, or the ingestion of iodine? Ah, he replied, "we are talking hypothetically at this point," and he wasn't willing to speak about matters hypothetical. Journalists called to this media "briefing" were left scratching their heads at what the Mr Jacob had described as "an exercise in information management". It seemed advice couldn't be given on a hypothetical situation, even in the context of a hypothetical situation. It didn't quite help to secure what was one of the Minister's stated aims of the day, namely restoring public confidence in the country's "total state of readiness" for a nuclear emergency. The second objective, he said, was to "fine-tune" the National Emergency Plan for Nuclear Accidents, to give it its official title. To meet both goals, the Department of Public Enterprise not only drafted in a team of consultants to evaluate the State's emergency response but also an external PR firm to manage the media's. The exercise began at 5.15 a.m. with a phone call from consultants Environmental Resources Management (ERM) to a duty manager within the Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland (RPII). This triggered a further series of calls, and the Emergency Response Co-Ordinating Committee - comprising representatives of Government Departments, the Garda Síochána and Met Éireann, among other bodies - was scrambled to the RPII's headquarters in Clonskeagh, Dublin. ERM's director, Mr Sean O'Riordain, said relevant personnel were alerted to the day of the exercise, but not the time. While he would not say how good the initial response was, he confirmed the different officials "answered the phones". Adding to the crisis atmosphere was the fact that the press briefing, shortly after noon, was conducted in a cramped front lobby of the RPII building. The media was not allowed upstairs to see the committee at work. Mr Jacob emphasised the exercise was "not a reaction to anything". And just in case minds were turning to his RTÉ radio interview, he added hastily: "it's not a reaction to the events of the 11th of September". He added he expected a report on the exercise to be available within days. Soon after, he said, the public would receive their long-awaited information leaflets on the emergency plan. In the meantime, the public have at least learnt one fact: Wylfa and not Sellafield is the closest nuclear plant to the Republic. So it wasn't a completely wasted exercise then. ***************************************************************** 9 EDITORIAL : Obsolescent reactors call for special scrutiny asahi.com : ENGLISH The test of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency's credibility will be in how it deals with the inquiry into the cause of the latest nuclear accident. Ahigh-pressure steam pipe ruptured during a test of the emergency core cooling system of the No. 1 reactor at Chubu Electric Power Co.'s Hamaoka Nuclear Power Plant in Shizuoka Prefecture on Wednesday. Radioactive steam leaked inside the facility, although no radioactive material got outside the compound. The pipe that burst in the accident is used to forcibly injecting cooling water into the reactor core in the event of a loss of cooling water in the reactor core, where the nuclear fuel is housed. The reactor has five emergency core-cooling systems, and the breakage occurred in the one that is first activated to inject water to the core. The mishap took place in the final stage of the safety system, which is intended to prevent the reactor core from dangerously overheating in the absence of water. It is chilling to imagine what would have happened had the pipe burst not during a test but when the reactor was actually generating electricity. The electric company and the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency should take the accident seriously and conduct a thorough investigation of the cause. What is surprising is that the pipe-which was made of 1.1-centimeter-thick steel, and had an inside diameter of 15 centimeters-broke instantly. Such an accident is without parallel in this country, and even on a worldwide scale, the only similar accident was in 1986, when a pipe measuring 45 centimeters in diameter burst at the Surry, Virginia, nuclear power plant in the United States. Wednesday's accident was tentatively given a seriousness rating of Level 1-the second-lowest level on the International Atomic Energy Agency's eight-point scale of nuclear power plant accidents. Though that assessment may not seem so serious-the agency's measure places great importance on the outside leakage of radioactivity-the gravity of the accident should not be underestimated. The 1995 leakage of sodium at the Monju fast breeder reactor was put at Level 1. The pipe that broke at Hamaoka carries reactor core steam and is constantly exposed to a high pressure of more than 70 atmospheres. Was excessive pressure exerted in the test, or had the pipe been damaged or thinned? And if there actually was damage, why was it not found in a yearly inspection? The No.1 reactor at Hamaoka started operation in 1976. The latest accident has brought to light the danger of obsolescent nuclear reactors. Nuclear reactors provide what is called a ``base'' output of electricity, whose volume does not change much with the season or time of day. For this reason, the greater the operation rate of the reactor, the greater profits the electric power companies make. Because the reactor operation rate has in recent years been generally higher in the United States than in Japan, power companies here have wanted to make the most of their reactors by lengthening the interval between regular inspections or extending the lifespan of the reactor. What must be done before considering the wishes of electric power companies is to make sure that old nuclear reactors are safe. The 1989 white paper on nuclear power safety said that a large number of nuclear facilities would come to the end of their lives from around the end of the 20th century and that efforts must be made to prevent accidents by exacting care and early detection of weakened materials. Fresh checks will have to be made to make sure such warnings are being heeded by workers and their supervisors at nuclear power plants. The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency was established in January as part of the reshuffle of government ministries. We expressed our misgivings at the time about the fact the body is part of the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy, which is in a position to promote nuclear power development, even though the safety agency is supposed to be an independent regulatory body. The test of the agency's credibility will be in how it deals with the inquiry into the cause of the latest nuclear accident and what steps it will take to prevent similar accidents. (The Asahi Shimbun, Nov. 9) (11/10) [Copyright Asahi Shimbun. ***************************************************************** 10 McGrady calls for closure of Sellafield ireland.com - The Irish Times - IRELAND November 12, 2001 By Gerry Moriarty, Northern Editor The global terrorist threat arising from the attacks on the World Trade Centre has illustrated how vulnerable Sellafield is to attack, the SDLP chief whip, Mr Eddie McGrady, warned. The South Down MP again called for the closure of the nuclear plant. He said the area around Sellafield was as heavily contaminated with radioactivity as the zone around Chernobyl. "The recent decision by the British government to commission the mixed oxide plant at Sellafield not only defies prevailing scientific and economic arguments but compounds the situation that this plant now has the highest inventory of radioactivity in Europe," he added. Scientific studies had shown that a nuclear accident at Sellafield or an act of malice "including an air crash or act of sabotage" could create a disaster much greater that Chernobyl. Mr McGrady pointed to the dangers of terrorist attack. "With the advent of retributive attacks by the American and British administration against the Taliban in Afghanistan the vulnerability of Sellafield to attack from terrorist organisa-tions is now brought more clearly into focus. "No more so than the allegation this week from the American administration that the Taliban in Afghanistan is attempting to develop deadly nuclear weapons." Failure to close Sellafield would be not only "foolhardy but totally unacceptable" as well, Mr McGrady told the conference. During the agriculture debate the Minister, Ms Bríd Rodgers, criticised the chairman of the Assembly agriculture committee, the Rev Ian Paisley, leader of the DUP. She said it was sad and ironic that Dr Paisley and others in the anti-Belfast Agreement bloc claimed "on the one hand to be concerned about the plight of our industry whilst they make every effort to bring down the very institutions whi ch they know to have been so crucial to the well being of Northern Ireland agriculture". Ms Rodgers said that without devolution Northern Ireland could not have banned the importation of susceptible animals, and it was this factor primarily which allowed the North escape the ravages of foot-and-mouth disease. Through the North-South Ministerial Council there was great scope for agricultural co-operation that would be to the benefit of all the people of the island. "Over the past year I have become convinced that in the area of fisheries our co mmon interest is not with the rest of the UK, but with the rest of this island," added Ms Rodgers. ***************************************************************** 11 Tarapur: Russian help is part of long-term nuclear co-operation The Indian Express : [http://www.expressindia.com Thursday, November 08, 2001 The first official supplies of LEU were received in two lots in January and February by the Nuclear Fuel Complex in Hyderabad, the facility that fabricates fuel for nuclear-power reactors in India. This was confirmed by top sources both in Russia and India. The supplies, costing about Rs 117.5 crore, are meant for Tarapur and sources say the fuel is sufficient to last ‘‘five to six years,’’ before India shifts to the indigenously fabricated MOX (mixed oxide) fuel. Sources in the Department of Atomic Energy told The Indian Express that the latest consignment is exclusively for use in Tarapur’s boiling water reactors. Originally supplied by General Electric of USA in 1969 at a rated capacity of 210 MW each, these reactors—the oldest in the world—now run at a re-rated capacity of 170 MW. Following Pokharan I and subsequent sanctions, the US reneged on its commitment to supply the fuel. However, after an agreement between the US and India during the Reagan Administration, France stepped in. But France, too, stopped supplies in 1992. The French fuel lasted till about 1995 when India was forced to negotiate with China. So till date, according to a highly placed source, the Tarapur units are running on Chinese fuel. Beijing is said to have supplied approximately 60 tonnes. The Russian fuel, sources said, is to be loaded in the next cycle. When asked whether China refused to supply additional fuel to Tarapur prompting India to seek Russian fuel, an official said: ‘‘It’s a matter of market economics. We would have bought the fuel from any source that would have supplied it cheap. Russian LEU was cheaper than that of the Chinese, hence we took the fuel from them.’’ However, sources said, the price difference is marginal and the real value of the deal is towards long-term Indo-Russian nuclear co-operation. India is a major buyer in the nuclear energy market and Russia, obviously, doesn’t want to be left out. Especially when China is emerging as a key supplier of nuclear fissile material amid reports that it has ‘‘defied’’ restrictions to supply to Pakistan. The Russians also want to make the point that when it comes to nuclear energy deals, they can’t be dictated by the United States, which they see as pursuing its own ‘‘selective’’ non-proliferation goals. Though Moscow has committed itself not to have any nuclear co-operation with a nation that doesn’t accept full-scope safeguards, the official position is that it is merely fulfilling its commitments made to India during the visit of former President Mikhail Gorbachev in 1988. This position takes advantage of the revised Warsaw guidelines of April 1992 with respect to export of nuclear materials by members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group. Under these guidelines, an exception was made to agreements and contracts drawn before April 3, 1992. It is this clause that Russia cites to defend its nuclear exports to India despite strident US objections. The current deal, sources said, went through normal business channels by opening a letter of credit with a bank and the subsequent release of 90% cent of the contracted amount. Observers link the Tarapur supplies to the agreement signed yesterday in Moscow for technical and financial assistance from Russia for the construction of two 1000 MW Russian VVERs (light water reactors) at Kudankulam in Tamil Nadu. Under the deal, worth an estimated $3 billion, construction is to begin by next June and is expected to be completed by the year 2007. © 2001: Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) L ***************************************************************** 12 N-energy will get priority: Panel Chief The Times of India; Nov 12, 2001 PANAJI: Production of nuclear energy will be given priority over hydel and thermal power production, said Santosh Mohandev, MP and chairman of sub-committee on nuclear energy at Kaiga. He said hydel power would lead to submersion of vast areas and rehabilitation problems. Similarly, thermal power station would lead to serious environmental pollution. Therefore, nuclear power was safer and would be given preference in future. Production of nuclear power under joint venture in collaboration with private companies, was being actively considered, he stated. The sub-committee will recommend improving the infrastructure facilities around Kaiga. Meanwhile, the union government has accorded financial sanction for the third and fourth units of the Kaiga Nuclear Power Project at a cost of Rs 4,213 crore. The third and fourth units will become operational commercially in October 2008 and 2009, respectively. World Reporter All Material Subject to Copyright ***************************************************************** 13 Thousands Protest Castor Transport F.A.Z. - English Version DANNENBERG. Anti-nuclear protesters staged tractor blockades on Sunday along the route a shipment of Castor transports of nuclear waste will take this week to a long-disputed dump in northern Germany, while police pushed back demonstrators who tried to reach the road. Carrying banners such as "Chernobyl on tour," about 60 tractors blocked the main street in Dannenberg, the site of a rail terminal from which the waste will be taken by road to the dump at Gorleben, long a focus of Germany's anti-nuclear movement. About 150 more tractors staged other blockades in the region. On Saturday, about 5,000 people protested peacefully in Lüneburg, west of Gorleben. Power companies and the government agreed in summer 2000 to phase out nuclear power. But the anti-nuclear lobby feels the 20-year phase-out period is too slow. Police have warned some activists are becoming more radical and that anarchist groups could make it a focus of their protest against the war in Afghanistan. (AP)Nov. 11, 2001 © Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 2000 ***************************************************************** 14 Leader of Czech opposition coalition backs future quitting of nuclear power BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Nov 12, 2001 Vienna, 12 November: The Quad-Coalition (4K) leader Karel Kuehnl said in an Austrian television night discussion programme today he supported launching a discussion on abandoning the usage of nuclear energy in the Czech Republic in the long run. "I wish we would launch a discussion on the eventual abandoning of nuclear energy in the Czech Republic. It has not happened yet," Kuehnl said. Concurrently he said he would welcome a government or parliament decree saying that no new nuclear power plants would be built. Kuehnl called on Austrian politicians not to campaign only for the decommissioning of the nuclear power plant in Temelin, south Bohemia. "If decommissioning or not putting Temelin into operation were to be the only alternatives, then there would in fact be nothing to talk about," Kuehnl said, adding he considered it better to negotiate about improving Temelin's security. Nevertheless, he said he did not agree with the fact that the nuclear energy issue focuses only on Temelin and not on quitting nuclear energy in the whole of Europe. "The most important thing is how we can jointly create a long term plan of quitting nuclear energy," Kuehnl said. He also pointed to nonexisting binding rules for nuclear energy in Europe. "I am absolutely sure that the nuclear power plant (Temelin) would definitely comply with minimum standards," Kuehnl said. He said he refused the idea of rebuilding Temelin into a steam-gas power plant as some environmentalists suggest. "Such investment must finance itself," he said, adding that 100bn korunas had been invested in the plant so far and a change in the project would require further investment and a postponement of its putting into operation. Kuehnl said he thought the Czech Republic had provided Austria with much more information than it is usual on the international level within the Melk process. The Melk process provides for safety and environment impact assessment of the nuclear power plant in Temelin, south Bohemia, which Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel and Czech Prime Minister Milos Zeman signed in Melk, Austria, last December. Kuehnl also warned against creating the image of an enemy on both sides. "We are and we will remain neighbour countries with Temelin or without it," he said... (One dollar equals 37.47 korunas) Source: CTK news agency, Prague, in English 0835 gmt 12 Nov 01 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter ***************************************************************** 15 Two Tigers: Preparing the Public for a Nuclear Emergency Business Wire; Nov 12, 2001 CARY, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE FEATURES)--Nov. 12, 2001-- While the President warns the world of the threat of nuclear terrorism, a small North Carolina firm is leading the way on preparing the public For over 20 years, dozens of state and federal agencies have debated the subject of stockpiling a national supply of potassium iodide (KI) to prevent widespread thyroid cancer in the event of a nuclear emergency. Even as the Bush administration warns of a serious threat of nuclear terrorism, the debate over KI continues while only limited solid action is being taken. Many Eastern U.S. residents, on edge from the terrorist acts of the last two months, are proactively turning to the website of a small North Carolina company, Two Tigers (www.twotigersonline.com), to learn how to protect themselves and their families from the horror of radioiodine poisoning. There, one of the most comprehensive collections of information on the subject of nuclear emergency preparedness is provided, including potassium iodide sources, official public safety guidelines and plans, applications for mapping fallout patterns and a host of other tools and guides. "Following a nuclear incident, one of the greatest threats to the human population downwind from the location of the event is radioiodine poisoning of the thyroid gland," says Steve Aukstakalnis, Managing Director of Two Tigers. Radioiodine (radioactive Iodine, Iodine-131), is a major component of nuclear power plant accidents and nuclear explosions. Carried many miles downwind by prevailing weather patterns, radioiodine is absorbed and retained by the thyroid gland. Even in trace amounts, radioiodine can be devastating, particularly in children. Loss of thyroid function and cancer are just two of the range of abnormalities that can result. This danger was very apparent following the nuclear emergencies at Tokaimura, Japan, Chernobyl and Three Mile Island. "The government has put the nation on notice that nuclear terrorism is a serious, viable threat. And the simple fact is that the public is now realizing that they must take protective measures themselves while the government sorts out logistics," says Aukstakalnis. Visitors to the www.twotigersonline.com website are provided with access to one of the most comprehensive knowledge bases on nuclear emergency preparedness available. "The key issues are timing and knowledge. The thyroid must be saturated with safe iodine prior to exposure to radioiodine. If you are immediately downwind from a nuclear event, terrorist or otherwise, and think that the state and federal government will rapidly distribute the pills in time to offer protection, you and your family are taking an unthinkable risk, particularly in heavily populated areas. Wind moves much faster than civil defense organizations," says Aukstakalnis. Potassium iodide, approved for over-the-counter sale by the FDA in 1978, offers protection by saturating the thyroid with a safe, stable form of iodine, thus preventing the uptake of radioactive iodine. The result is the removal of excess iodine of any kind via the kidneys. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization all back the use of Potassium Iodide for radioiodine protection. CONTACT: Two Tigers Steven Aukstakalnis (Awk-Sta-Call-Niss), 919/522-7002 steve@twotigersonline.com http://www.twotigersonline.com 07:32 EST NOVEMBER 12, 2001 World Reporter ***************************************************************** 16 EU's Prodi on Temelin dispute, EU foreign policy, leadership BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Nov 11, 2001 EU Commission President Romano Prodi has said the Czech-Austrian dispute over the Temelin nuclear power plant will not be widened into an EU-wide one. Asked about last weekend's meeting in London of the British, French and German leaders, he said he had no objection to this, because it was not an EU-based meeting. He rejected recent criticisms that he has shown weak leadership. The following is the text of an interview with Prodi, by Joerg Wohahn, "We cannot make this into a multilateral problem" in the Austrian newspaper Der Standard on 10 November: The Temelin dispute primarily concerns the Czech Republic and Austria, according to Romano Prodi. The EU Commission president, who is having to defend himself more and more frequently against accusations of weak leadership, was interviewed by Joerg Wojahn on the occasion of the "1,000 Cities for Europe" congress in Innsbruck. [Wojahn] During his recent visit to Brussels, Federal Chancellor Schuessel proposed making nuclear safety standards a component of the entry treaties of EU candidates, particularly in the case of the Czech Republic. Are you considering this? [Prodi] I think Europe-wide discipline over nuclear safety is now easier to achieve than before. Regarding Temelin, I believe that the Melk Process [a safety and environmental impact assessment agreed on by the Czech prime minister and the Austrian Chancellor in December 2000] , which was initiated by the commission, has already yielded favourable results. But this is primarily a bilateral problem between Austria and the Czech Republic - though I do urge the two countries to find a solution as soon as possible. But we cannot make a bilateral problem into a multilateral one. [Wojahn] But wouldn't countries such as France in any case oppose Europe-wide regulation of nuclear safety? [Prodi] I would be lying if I were to give you a definite answer. But I do believe that there is now interest in EU-wide regulation. Just think of the particularly intensive efforts on the part of the largest European country possessing nuclear power stations to show that its safety standards are so high. But we are of course still at the planning stage. [Wojahn] You have promised Federal Chancellor Schuessel that you will drive forward a solution for Alpine transit traffic. So what is the Commission going to do? [Prodi] We are going to find a regulation to replace the ecopoints system. Obviously, it will then be far easier for the member states to accept an extension if the solution is based on a system that is suitable for the whole of Europe, and has been agreed between all European states. The ecopoints system does have some weaknesses, but it has at least had benefits in terms of reducing pollution. [Wojahn] One problem at present appears to be that of commonality over EU foreign policy. You strongly criticized the German-French-British meeting immediately prior to the EU summit in Gent. But you had nothing to say about the second meeting last Sunday, in London. Why? [Prodi] I protested over the Gent meeting because I was annoyed, and for good reasons: the meeting took place in connection with the EU summit, and also served to divert the attention of the media away from it. I did not protest over the meeting in London, for, if three, four or five states wish to talk to each other, they are free to do so. But we need to say very clearly: London was not a meeting within the EU framework. [Wojahn] But the incumbent EU Council President Guy Verhofstadt and Javier Solana, the EU's High Commissioner for Foreign Policy, also ended up attending in London. This did give a very pronounced European impression. [Prodi] This was a borderline case. But I tell you, Tony Blair rang me up. And I said: "I take it you're glad I didn't call you", to which Blair replied: "You were probably the only one who didn't." You see, I think the basic rules have to be observed even in this case, and for us they are clear: it is the role of the commission to protect both the so-called smaller and larger states in equal measure. This means there are no smaller and larger states. There are only states. So if a dialogue takes place between a group of countries, this is entirely in order. But if it amounts to concealed greater cooperation, then it is not. [Wojahn] As president of the commission, you have incurred frequent criticism recently over lack of leadership. How do you react to this? [Prodi] The commission is made up of strong politicians, and is working well. So you may interpret this in terms of the president's being weak. Maybe. But have you ever seen a soccer team that won the World Cup with strong players, but a weak coach? I haven't. Look, we have got through two out of the five years of our term of office, and have already achieved a great deal. At the end of our term of office, you will be able to see the results of what the commission has achieved. Of course, we are not a sexy commission, as the commissioners don't go around attacking and insulting each other. When I hear people saying the Austrian commissioner is strong, this makes me proud - for having young and politically strong commissioners is something I have been fighting for. Source: Der Standard, Vienna, in German 10 Nov 01 p 3 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 Lax Nuclear Security in Russia Is Cited as Way for bin Laden to Get Arms November 12, 2001 ATOMIC ENERGY By STEVEN ERLANGER VIENNA, Nov. 10 — In the last year, there have been dozens of violations of nuclear security rules in Russia and at least one loss of fissile material; Taliban emissaries have tried to recruit Russian scientists, and terrorists have tried to stake out a Russian nuclear storage site at least twice, say senior officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency and Western governments. The officials detailed the incidents, citing conversations with Russian officials and verified news reports. Despite significant improvements in Russian nuclear security in the 1990's — some of it with American money and advice — up to half of ex-Soviet civilian and military nuclear stockpiles with weapons-grade material are not well protected. Officials of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations body for monitoring nuclear programs, are deeply skeptical of Osama bin Laden's claim, in an interview published in Pakistan on Friday, that he possesses nuclear weapons. On the other hand, given the vulnerability of material in the former Soviet Union, the increasing professionalism of nuclear smuggling and the relative ease of fabricating a primitive weapon, they cannot rule it out. In the Kazakh port of Aktau on the Caspian shore, one ton of plutonium and two tons of highly enriched uranium sit near a now closed breeder reactor. Ukraine, with 17 nuclear reactors and one research reactor, is considered a country of "serious concern" by officials because of its climate of government corruption and crime. Enough highly enriched uranium to make a bomb remains at a research reactor just outside Belgrade throughout the 1999 Kosovo war. Just last week, Turkey announced it had broken up a gang of smugglers who tried to sell 2.2 pounds of what appeared to be highly enriched uranium for $750,000 to undercover police officers, material they said they had bought several months ago from a Russian of Azeri origin. Officials are increasingly concerned that terrorists willing to die could create a "dirty bomb," wrapping more easily stolen radioactive materials used in medicine and industry around a conventional explosive, like dynamite, to try to make a significant area of a city uninhabitable for many years. Russian officials say their fissile nuclear material is under strict and improving controls. But only 10 days ago, in a discussion with officials at the United Nations agency here, Yuri G. Volodin, chief of safeguards for the Russian nuclear regulatory agency, revealed that in the last year, there were dozens of violations of Russia's regulations for securing and accounting for nuclear material. Mr. Volodin noted one loss of nuclear material, which he called of the "highest consequence." He said he could not be more specific about the type of material or the size of the loss. Last month, Col.-Gen. Igor Volynkin, head of nuclear security for Russia's military, said that twice this year Russian forces discovered stakeouts by terrorists of a secret nuclear arms storage facility, although he did not say where. Also last month, an official of the Russian Security Council, Raisa Vdovichenko, told Russian journalists that emissaries of the Taliban had asked an employee of "an institution related to nuclear technologies to go to their country to work there in this field." There is continuing evidence of efforts to traffic in nuclear material that give many officials deep concern. In April 2000, the police in Georgia seized, in Batumi, several hundred fast-reactor fuel pellets, containing 920 grams — nearly a kilogram — of highly enriched uranium; in September, at Tbilisi airport, the police confiscated half a gram of plutonium. The Russians say they thwarted an effort, at the very end of 1998, by an organized gang to steal 18.5 kilograms — more than 40 pounds — of highly enriched uranium from a military weapons facility near Chelyabinsk in the Urals. Still, senior officials here and in Washington do not believe that Mr. bin Laden or even any state interested in a shortcut to a bomb — from Syria and Iran to Iraq and Libya — has been able to obtain the roughly 25 kilograms (55 pounds) of highly enriched uranium required to make a simple bomb, or the roughly 8 kilograms (17.6 pounds) of plutonium, a much more difficult material with which to work. But they also admit that they cannot possibly know for sure. The atomic energy agency has built a database of incidents of nuclear trafficking since 1993 — only counting incidents confirmed by the states involved. Of the 175 cases of trafficking in nuclear material and 201 cases of trafficking in medical and industrial radioactive materials, only some 18 cases involved even small amounts of the fissionable material needed for a nuclear bomb — plutonium or highly enriched uranium (enriched by 20 percent or more). Altogether in all these cases, agency officials say, there have been seizures of about 400 grams (nearly one pound) of plutonium and an additional 12 kilograms (26.4 pounds) of uranium at varying levels of enrichment, equivalent to only some 6 kilograms of uranium 235. The most serious cases, involving large amounts of material, took place in 1993 and 1994, when Russian, German and Czech police officers made large seizures of very highly enriched nuclear material manufactured in the former Soviet Union, usually at nuclear-fuel fabrication plants. In March 1993, in St. Petersburg, nearly three kilograms (6.6 pounds) of 90 percent enriched uranium-238 were seized; in August 1994, in Munich, the police seized about 360 grams of Russian-made plutonium; in December 1994, 2.7 kilograms (just over 5 pounds) of 80 percent enriched uranium-235 were seized, part of a shipment that showed up in smaller amounts in other places — and which officials hope was not part of an even larger shipment, apparently stolen from the Russian nuclear research center in Obninsk, about an hour's drive southwest of Moscow. For context, officials point out, Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had made only 1.5 kilograms (3.3 pounds) of bomb-capable uranium before the gulf war broke out. But in fact the atomic energy agency's database is only a guide, and perhaps not even a good one. "Are we seeing half the iceberg or only the tip?" said one official, noting that the police consider seizures of drugs, a commodity far easier to secure, to represent only some 10 to 20 percent of what is shipped. Nor does the agency, devoted to civilian nuclear energy, know much about the military programs of states with nuclear weapons. Friedrich Steinhäusler, a physics professor at Stanford University and co-director of a Stanford center on the physical protection of nuclear materials, said, "It's clear that we're seeing a typical move toward professionalism in this smuggling business, with increasingly fewer incidents of significance, but of greater significance, as professionals are probing the market." He noted that traffickers increasingly are going south, over traditional smuggling routes through Turkey, the Caucasus and especially central Asia, closer to Afghanistan, where borders are extremely long and lax. Matthew Bunn, assistant director of the science, technology and public policy program at Harvard University's Kennedy School, was a Clinton White House adviser. The main source of loose nuclear material remains the former Soviet Union, he says, with some 600 tons of weapons- grade nuclear material stored there outside of warheads. The key question, he says, is to improve the security around military and especially civilian nuclear installations. In as many as half, he said, there are no automatic detectors that sound an alarm if material is smuggled out, and no security cameras where material is stored. "For all the work we've done with Russia, after seven years, we still have most of the job to do," Mr. Bunn said. "This is a serious threat, and we know how to fix it," he said, urging that President Bush agree with Russia at the this week's summit meeting to account for and secure all nuclear material. Some safeguards put in place by the Americans in the former Soviet Union no longer function, agency officials said — spare parts are expensive and available only from the United States, and sometimes guards do not bother to use the equipment. The Vienna agency is also looking for a 10 percent increase in its own budget of some $320 million, said Graham Andrew, the special assistant for Scientific and Technical Affairs, to upgrade security standards around the world. He and other officials regard a terrorist nuclear bomb to be "highly unlikely." But the likelihood of terrorists compiling the radioactive materials necessary to make a dirty bomb with immense economic and psychological impact is much higher, the officials say. The dirty bomb is an almost ideal instrument of terror, Mr. Bunn said. It would not kill many people, but it would terrify, and make a large area unsafe to work or live in, possibly for decades or longer. One official said: "Imagine a dirty bomb on the Washington mall. Do you abandon the White House?" Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company | Privacy Information ***************************************************************** 2 ORNL lends staff to national security effort By Frank Munger, News-Sentinel Senior writer Frank Akers, who heads the national security directorate at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, is on special assignment to Washington working on Homeland Security. Akers reportedly is working in the office of John Gordon, director of the National Nuclear Security Administration, and he's expected to remain there for three or four months. ORNL Director Bill Madia said the laboratory was asked for help and volunteered the services of Akers. "He passed with flying colors," Madia said. Other than that, everything is hush-hush. "I cannot discuss his assignment," lab communications chief Billy Stair said. Akers, it appears, would be qualified for many missions. Besides being an associate director of ORNL and coordinating the Oak Ridge work for the Department of Defense, he has headed the advanced technologies effort at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant (managed by BWXT). He is a retired brigadier general in the U.S Army, having held prominent posts - such as chief of staff for the XVIII Airborne Corps at Fort Bragg and assistant division commander for the 25th Infantry Division at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii. He commanded a rifle company in Vietnam. Among his assignments in a varied military career: serving as instructor in the Ranger Department at the U.S. Army Infantry School and the Department of History at the U.S. Military Academy, West Point. Besides his military education, Akers holds a Ph.D. from Duke University. While Akers is in Washington, Harvey Gray is acting chief of national security programs at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Meanwhile, the laboratory has provided the U.S. Department of Energy with a rather lengthy list of technologies that may be of help in the war against terrorism. Multiple staff meetings were held in October to discuss concepts and research projects of potential use to the campaign. "Several pages of ideas came forward," Madia said. Some of those ideas were submitted to DOE's Office of Science and others went to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham. "Those are lists of technologies that are capable of dealing with some of the concerns - be that rapid detection of anthrax to better tracking of individuals around the country," Madia said. * * * Based on the U.S. Senate-House conference report that emerged recently on Energy and Water appropriations, Oak Ridge National Laboratory finally has a "reasonable picture" of its budget for fiscal 2002 (which began Oct. 1), the lab director said. Interestingly, one area of uncertainty is the lab's work on Homeland Security because that funding won't come from the Energy and Water bill. That money will come from an emergency appropriation of $40 billion (half of which is devoted to New York City, the rest to better prepare the country after the Sept. 11 attacks). Overall, the Oak Ridge research budget is positive, according to Madia. "It's got some very good news and some OK news," he said. The best news, of course, is full funding ($291 million) for the Spallation Neutron Source - the lab's No. 1 priority - under construction on nearby Chestnut Ridge. Fiscal 2002 is the peak funding year for the $1.4 billion project, which is due for completion in 2006. "To me, that solidifies the future of the project," Madia said. "Not that we don't worry about the next three years, but we'll need successively less year after year until we start operating, and that's always an easier tack." Oak Ridge officials are anxiously awaiting an upcoming report on SNS from DOE's Inspector General. The report is expected soon and is expected to be critical, reportedly raising questions about the availability of funding to purchase all the necessary instrumentation for the project - the biggest science endeavor under way in the United States. Another big plus was accelerated funding for a new Mouse House, which will be constructed on the west end of the ORNL campus. A groundbreaking for the new facility will be held this week. The Mouse House, as evidenced by its name, will house thousands of mutated mice used in genetics experiments. ORNL expects to be a big player in the next phase of the genomic research program in which scientists begin to better understand the function of genes and how they work. The mice currently are maintained in aging quarters at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant, a dozen miles from the main laboratory campus. ORNL plans to consolidate all of the biology research activities over the next couple of years. Madia said laboratory officials had been concerned about funding for the Oak Ridge environmental management program, but that looks OK now and most work will continue as planned. Delays in the ORNL cleanup effort could hamper the ongoing modernization of facilities and the stated goal of creating a more open atmosphere. Several areas in the central part of the research complex are still off-limits because of the legacy of radioactive contamination from nuclear work in the 1940s, '50s and '60s. Funding for most research programs is relatively flat, but there are lingering concerns about ORNL's energy research programs, partly because so much of the appropriated research money has been earmarked for specific institutions. "That essentially reduces the available (funding) for competitive research," Madia said. Senior writer Frank Munger can be reached at 482-9213 or by e-mail at twig1@knoxnews.infi.net. This weekly column on science and technology also is available on our Web site at http://www.knoxnews.com/science/munger/. News-Sentinel Co. ***************************************************************** 3 Laden and the nuke Nuclear blackmail by outlaw groups had been the stuff of many best selling fictions. A novel by Ian Flaming written in the sixties portrays a terrorist group threatening to rain down nuclear bomb on England. The popular authorial pair Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre wrote in the eighties a novel The Fifth Horseman which tells the story of a few Palestinians, after pressing into service a fellow Palestinian scientist who was working in a French nuclear facility, were able to put together a nuclear bomb with encouragement from Libya’s Gadaffi and were threatening the government of Jimmy Carter. These are fictions but quite conceivable in a world where both bombs and terrorists proliferate. Osama bin Laden’s threat to use nuclear bomb against the US if attacked may be an empty boast but this will not set at rest the world’s anxieties in this regard. A nuclear bomb in possession of Laden’s Al Qaida, or any other terrorist group, may be highly improbable but not impossible. Reports have appeared that Laden had purchased or was trying to purchase enriched uranium. Even if he did not or could not purchase the material, the very fact that he could harbour such an ambition should sensitise all the security systems of the world. Whether Laden, or any terrorist has obtained nuclear material and how has it been obtained is a subject which should be thoroughly investigated. Nuclear bomb making technology is no longer a recondite specialisation. Specially after the dismemberment of the Soviet Union centralised control over many nuclear facilities disappeared. It is common knowledge that nuclear scientists of former Soviet republics were available on hire by anyone who could pay handsomely. It is learnt that nuclear waste which has always presented disposal problem, can be recycled to produce crude explosive. A crude nuclear device is all the more dangerous because its targeting will be imprecise. The war against terrorism in Afghanistan may end in victory of the US-led coalition and Laden and his Al Qaida may be routed; but that will not be the end of terrorism. It is an unjust world that breeds terrorism. The new world order which emerged after the end of the Cold War runs short of being a just world order. The war against terrorism is alright but the deeper causes of terrorism cannot be removed by war alone. ***************************************************************** 4 DOE needs to get on the ball at the test site [Las Vegas Review-Journal] Monday, November 12, 2001 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal To the editor: Re: the Nov. 8 editorial on cleaning up the test site: Rep. Shelley Berkley may be putting a new twist on the repository issue, but it's a real one and it's based on science. Her letter calls for characterization of the radioactivity beneath the test site to find out if it may contribute to leaked contamination from the repository in the future. Many of us think it's about time such action is taken by the Department of Energy. Most would agree that $7.2 trillion should not be spent to clean up the 130 million curies of radiation in the groundwater beneath the Nevada Test Site, but the alternative is not to just allow them to sit and "cool" because they don't just sit and they probably aren't just tritium. They migrate, and many of the 260 radioactive plumes that are migrating have been underway for about 40 years. The problem is that the DOE knows almost nothing about their speed, flow paths, constituents, shapes and concentrations, despite 20 years and hundreds of millions of dollars spent to study them. The reason for the lack of knowledge is unclear, but an examination of the work the DOE has performed gives a hint. Its groundwater program has produced two costly products, a regional groundwater model and a study of the Frenchman Flat contamination. Both were peer reviewed and both were given poor marks. Looking at the DOE's efforts to protect the public (the DOE's primary mission) by monitoring groundwater is also scary. There is very little chance that it would detect contamination, even if it were at Oasis Valley's doorstep. The editorial is correct in stressing aggressive monitoring of the groundwater, which could create an effective early-warning system. Perhaps Rep. Berkley's action will help convince the DOE to get that task started. SUSANNE FORESTIERI LAS VEGAS This story is located at: [http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2001/Nov-12-Mon-2001/opinion/17409261.html] ***************************************************************** 5 USA To Join Hands For More Safety In Nuclear Testing Grounds: Ex-defence Minister Pravda.RU Russia, Nov, 11 2001 Confidence-building measures must increase after the CTBT, comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty, enters into force. In this context, Russia intends to call other countries, primarily the USA, to analyse opportunities for enhanced nuclear testing ground safety, which will overstep treaty demands. Such measures might include exchanges of geological information, certain test and experiment results, and increasing the number of gauges, Marshal Igor Sergeyev, President Vladimir Putin's strategic stability adviser and recent Defence Minister, said to a second conference on promoting the CTBT entry into force. Strategic stability depends not only on nuclear disarmament. Mass destruction weapon and vehicle proliferation, and other new challenges largely determine global security. Russia is well aware of that. There is another appalling danger--international terrorism. Suffice it to mention unprecedentedly cruel terror acts in New York City and Washington, D.C. The American tragedy of September 11 showed that the world is facing an unflinching and uncompromising struggle, and nuclear nonproliferation efforts are an essential part of that struggle, said Marshal Sergeyev. An available system of international treaties in that field is sufficient for today, though it requires further improvement, remarked the marshal as he called for the utmost circumspection in the use of force against terrorism. He pointed out the necessity to see the importance of preventive measures. Some of these base on increased efficiency of implementing the acting international treaties, of which the CTBT is prominent. RIA 'Novosti' ***************************************************************** 6 Russia Warns Against 'slightest Possibility Of Nuclear Blackmail' Pravda.RU Nov, 11 2001 The international community must not allow a slightest possibility of nuclear blackmail and must spare no effort to strengthen the nuclear nonproliferation regime, the strategic stability aide to the Russian President, Marshal Igor Sergeyev, told the second United Nations conference on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) in New York on Sunday. Sergeyev stressed that "the implementation of the CTBT will be a crucial step toward" a more robust nonproliferation regime. He reaffirmed Russia's enduring commitment to the treaty and its prompt implementation. Sergeyev said that the five years after the treaty was opened to signing have shown that not only has it failed to enter into force, but also dangerous tendencies have emerged for the treaty to unravel. The Kremlin aide believes such a development "would pave the way for the crisis of the regime founded on the Nonproliferation Treaty and for an uncontrolled spread of nuclear weapons." He insisted that "the consequences of the breakdown" of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty would include the proliferation of missiles capable of delivering weapons of mass destruction. The marshal called it "a very alarming signal" in that, among other things, "the vector of securing strategic stability could be reoriented anew to the nuclear sphere." By ratifying the CTBT, the START-II Treaty, and the ABM Treaty package, and by making, despite its own difficult situation, far-reaching initiatives on further deep cuts in the strategic nuclear stockpiles and on limitations of delivery vehicle's of weapons of mass destruction, Russia has "demonstrated its genuine determination to carry on reduction of nuclear weapons and disarmament," Sergeyev said. Pravda.RU:Main ***************************************************************** 7 Scientists Say They Met bin Laden Las Vegas SUN November 11, 2001 ISLAMABAD, Pakistan- Two retired nuclear scientists who were recently arrested and questioned have acknowledged that they met terror suspect Osama bin Laden at least twice this year, Pakistani investigators said Sunday. Sultan Bashir-ud-Din Mehmood and Abdul Majid left their senior positions at the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission about two years ago and established a relief organization in Afghanistan. The men said they met bin Laden at least twice during visits to Afghanistan's southern city of Kandahar in connection with the construction of a flour mill, according to a Pakistani official who spoke on condition of anonymity. Mehmood heads Tameer-e-Ummah, or the Nation Building, a private group involved in rehabilitating war-ravaged Afghanistan. Majid also worked for the aid group. The scientists were arrested Oct. 23 and questioned about their work in Afghanistan. They were released after a few days in detention, only to be arrested again a couple of days later. They were questioned by both Pakistani and U.S. investigators, the Pakistani official said. Neither man has been charged with any offense, and Pakistani officials said there was nothing to suggest that the men passed on nuclear information or materials to anyone in Afghanistan. In a newspaper interview published Saturday, bin Laden claimed he had acquired nuclear and chemical weapons and would unleash them if the United States used such weapons against him. U.S. officials have said that bin Laden has attempted to acquire weapons of mass destruction but that they have no information to suggest he has been successful. Pakistan has nuclear weapons, and until the Sept. 11 terror attacks, supported Afghanistan's ruling Taliban movement. The Taliban have harbored bin Laden and his al-Qaida network, suspected in the attacks on New York and Washington. But Pakistan insists it has not leaked nuclear information or material, and that its nuclear weapons remain well protected. "Pakistan is fully alive to the responsibilities of its nuclear status," President Pervez Musharraf said Saturday at the United Nations in New York. "Let me assure you all that our strategic assets are well guarded and are in safe hands." Musharraf is a key partner in the U.S.-led military campaign to root out bin Laden and al-Qaida and defeat the Taliban. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 8 Russians Acknowledge Nuclear Security Breaches IHT: Steven Erlanger New York Times Service Monday, November 12, 2001 VIENNA Russian officials have privately acknowledged that in the last year there have been dozens of violations of their own rules regarding nuclear security, that there has been at least one loss of fissile material, that Taliban emissaries have tried to recruit Russian scientists and that there have been at least two efforts by terrorists to stake out a secret Russian nuclear storage facility, according to senior officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency and Western governments. Despite significant improvements in Russian nuclear security in the last few years, some of it with American money and advice, up to half of Russia's civilian and military nuclear stockpiles with weapons-grade material are not well protected. In Aktau, on the Kazakh coast, one ton of plutonium and two tons of highly enriched uranium sit near a now-closed breeder reactor. Ukraine, with 17 nuclear reactors and one research reactor, is considered a country of "serious concern" by officials because of its climate of government corruption and crime. Enough highly enriched uranium to make a bomb sat at a research reactor just outside Belgrade throughout the 1999 Kosovo war. Just last week, Turkey announced it had broken up a gang of smugglers who tried to sell 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds) of what appeared to be highly enriched uranium for $750,000 to undercover police, material they said they had bought several months ago from a Russian of Azeri origin. Officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency here in Vienna are deeply skeptical of Osama bin Laden's claim, in an interview published in Pakistan on Friday, that he possessed nuclear weapons. On the other hand, given the vulnerability of material in the former Soviet Union, the increasing professionalism of nuclear smuggling and the relative ease of fabricating a primitive weapon, they cannot rule it out. And they are increasingly concerned that terrorists willing to die could create a "dirty bomb," wrapping more easily stolen radioactive materials used in medicine and industry around a conventional explosive, like dynamite, to try to make a significant area of a city uninhabitable for many years. Russian officials say that their fissile nuclear material is under strict and improving controls. But only 10 days ago, in a discussion with officials of this UN agency, which monitors nuclear programs, Yuri Volodin, chief of safeguards for the Russian nuclear regulatory agency, revealed that in the last year, there were dozens of violations of regulations for securing and accounting for nuclear material, including one loss of nuclear material, an extraordinary admission, which Mr. Volodin described as of the 'highest consequence.'" Mr. Volodin said he could not be more specific about the type of material or the size of the loss. Last month, Colonel General Igor Volynkin, head of nuclear security for Russia's military, said that twice this year Russian forces discovered stakeouts by terrorists of a secret nuclear arms storage facility, although he did not say where. Also last month, an official of the Russian Security Council, Raisa Vdovichenko, said that emissaries of the Taliban had asked "a collaborator of an institution related to nuclear technologies to go to their country and work there in this field." Three of his colleagues have already moved abroad, but he was not sure where, Miss Vdovichenko said. There is continuing evidence of efforts to traffic nuclear material that give many officials deep concern. For example, in January, Greek police found more than 200 industrial radioactive sources buried in a forest by criminals trying to find a buyer. Altogether, the plates contained about 3 grams of plutonium. In April 2000, police in Georgia seized, in Batumi, several hundred fast-reactor fuel pellets, containing 920 grams, nearly a kilo, of highly enriched uranium; in September, at Tbilisi airport, police confiscated half a gram of plutonium. At the end of 1998, the Russians say they thwarted an effort by an organized gang to steal 18.5 kilos, more than 40 pounds, of highly enriched uranium from a military weapons facility in the Chelyabinsk oblast. Still, senior officials in Vienna and in Washington, speaking on background, do not believe that Osama bin Laden or even any state interested in a shortcut to a bomb - from Syria and Iran to Iraq and Libya - have been able to obtain the roughly 25 kilos of highly enriched uranium required to make a simple bomb, or the roughly 8 kilos of 3D20 plutonium, a much more difficult material with which to work. But they also admit that they cannot know for sure. The International Atomic Energy Agency has built a database of incidents of nuclear trafficking since 1993, only counting incidents confirmed by the states involved. Of the 175 cases of trafficking in nuclear material and 201 cases of trafficking in medical and industrial radioactive materials, only some 18 cases involved even small amounts of the fissionable material needed for a nuclear bomb: plutonium or highly enriched uranium (enriched by 20 percent or more). Altogether in all these cases, agency officials say, there have been seizures of about 400 grams of plutonium and another 12 kilos of uranium at varying levels of enrichment, equivalent to only some 6 kilos of uranium-235. Given the variety of incidents, sources and traffickers, these numbers are somewhat reassuring, officials say. And they point out that the most serious cases, involving large amounts of material, took place in 1993 and 1994, when Russian, German and Czech police made large seizures of very highly enriched nuclear material manufactured in the former Soviet Union, usually at nuclear-fuel fabrication plants. Copyright © 2001 the International Herald Tribune All Rights Reserved ***************************************************************** 9 Coalition Disputes Bin Laden's Claim Of Possessing Nuclear Weapons Rumsfeld Says Deadly Germs, Chemicals Are a Real Prospect By Peter Slevin Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, November 12, 2001; Page A19 Despite his boasts to the contrary, no credible evidence exists that Osama bin Laden possesses nuclear weapons, according to Bush administration officials who also said yesterday that the Saudi exile's terror network has not shown the ability to turn biological or chemical components into effective weapons. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said it is "reasonable to assume" that bin Laden has access to deadly germs or dangerous chemicals. He said the prospect worries him, but added that delivering the poisons is difficult. "We have a lot of information that they have the first step," Rumsfeld said on CBS's "Face the Nation." "We have less information with respect to the second step." Bin Laden, the suspected terrorist believed to have sponsored the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, told a Pakistani newspaper last week that he possesses chemical and nuclear weapons. He said he considered them a "deterrent" and would use them if coalition forces used similar weapons against him. Bin Laden and his al Qaeda terrorist organization have been harbored in Afghanistan by that country's ruling Taliban Islamic movement since 1996. Although bin Laden has been identified as a prime target of U.S. military action, his whereabouts are unknown and there have been no reports that U.S. attacks have come close to hitting him. Condoleezza Rice, national security adviser to President Bush, told CNN's "Late Edition": "We have no credible evidence that he has [nuclear weapons] at this point in time, but we're not going to take any chances. Our entire strategy is to go after al Qaeda, to go after the Taliban, because these are very, very bad people and if they acquire anything, we have no doubt that they would try and use it." Britain's defense secretary, Geoff Hoon, told the BBC yesterday that there might be an element of truth to bin Laden's claims. "We are certainly aware that he has some material that could contribute to a nuclear weapon," Hoon said. "We are not convinced at this stage that he is capable of producing a nuclear bomb." Hoon added: "But certainly we have to be very careful. This is a thoroughly dangerous man." On a day when Taliban forces continued to suffer defeats at the hands of opposition forces in northern Afghanistan, Rumsfeld and other Cabinet members said opposition commanders are being told not to turn their attention south and attempt to seize Kabul, the Afghan capital, until a political foundation has been laid for a post-Taliban government. U.S. policymakers and members of the U.S.-led coalition believe the arrival of the Northern Alliance in Kabul before a multi-ethnic provisional government is created could further divide the country, weaken the war effort and harm chances for peace. They say they believe the poorly-organized -- and perhaps vengeful -- opposition is not equipped to govern or to manage the growing humanitarian crisis. Given that the alliance has depended on American air power to make its gains in the north, Rumsfeld said the United States likely has some influence over the rebels' actions. But he said the Americans lack sure control over alliance commanders, some of whom hunger to take the capital they once ruled. "They're going to attack and take Kabul when they feel like it, and when they think they're capable of doing it, and when they think they're capable of feeding the people," Rumsfeld told CBS. He said efforts to establish a workable temporary post-Taliban Afghanistan government will take time. "This is not clockwork," Rumsfeld said. "This is rough, dirty stuff." Ideally, administration officials believe, there would be no alliance takeover before the creation of a coalition that included Pashtuns -- who compose 40 percent of Afghanistan's population -- and the establishment of an international humanitarian aid pipeline. "The big fear is the Northern Alliance commanders move in and there is some sort of horrific massacre, they engage in some kind of cleansing of their opponents. Already many in the U.S. government and human rights groups are nervous," said Fiona Hill, a Brookings Institution scholar who specializes in the region. "That's going to undermine any support within the broader population for a broader government that may be backed by the United States and the United Nations," Hill said. © 2001 The Washington Post Company ***************************************************************** 10 If Muslim Extremists Control Pakistan's Nukes, What Will U.S. Do? The Salt Lake Tribune -- Utah's Statewide Newspaper November 12, 2001 GWYNNE DYER "Let me say that all our nuclear weapons are in very, very safe hands," said Pakistan's dictator, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, recently on CNN's "Larry King Live." But Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Sunday that he is "concerned" about Pakistan's stability and the safety of its nuclear arsenal. The Indian government said nothing at all, but you can guess what it is thinking. It is thinking that if Pakistan should fall into the hands of Islamic fundamentalists as the result of a revolt against Musharraf, most probably from within his own armed forces, then it will have to "preempt" -- destroy Pakistan's nuclear weapons on the ground before it can launch them -- within the first hours after a new regime comes to power in Islamabad. And Washington, of course, is thinking exactly the same thing. Seymour Hersh has just published a report in New Yorker magazine, strenuously denied by the Pentagon (but then it would deny it, wouldn't it?), that the Pentagon already has a secret plan to destroy Pakistan's nuclear weapons immediately if they seem likely to fall into fundamentalist hands. It could end up as a race between the Indians and Americans to see who can destroy the Pakistani nuclear arsenal first -- and Hersh even alleges that a third party, Israeli intelligence's top-secret Unit 262, is collaborating with the U.S. in this contingency plan. This is insanely dangerous stuff even if it is true, as everybody assumes, that the preemptive attack would be carried out using only conventional, not nuclear weapons. Pakistanis in all walks of life would certainly resist, regardless of their attitudes toward Islamic fundamentalists, for they see their nuclear weapons as their last and maybe their only safeguard against far more powerful India. Even a successful preemption that destroyed all of Pakistan's nuclear weapons (not an outcome you could count on) would be disastrous, for at the end of it there would be many dead Pakistani soldiers, and an enraged and terrified country of 140 million people would be solidly behind the new fundamentalist regime. India almost certainly would get drawn into a ground war with Pakistan, and a Pakistani military intervention in Afghanistan in support of the Taliban would also be on the cards. How real is the danger? It's not so much the civilian fundamentalists demonstrating against the West in the streets who pose the danger, but the generation of fundamentalist officers, brought into the armed forces by the late Gen. (and President) Zia ul-Haq in the 1980s, who have now risen to command key army formations. Together with many senior officers of Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI), the military intelligence agency that basically created the Taliban as a proxy force through which Pakistan could control Afghanistan, they comprise a large fundamentalist presence inside the only Pakistani institution that really works. If they were to overthrow Musharraf (who has fired or demoted several senior officers in recent weeks in an attempt to forestall a coup), then that entire institution, including its dozen or so nuclear weapons, would be at their service. They would doubtless issue instant declarations that they wished no war and would never use nuclear weapons first, but neither Indians nor Americans would be willing to take the chance of believing them. In would go the airstrikes and/or the special forces, and the fat would truly be in the fire. Pakistan doesn't deserve this fate, in the sense that the whole nuclear madness that has brought the subcontinent to within hailing distance of a real calamity is not Pakistan's fault. It was India that prompted the nuclear race by testing a "peaceful nuclear explosive" three decades ago. In terms of India's long-term strategic interests, it was madness. India has seven times Pakistan's population and an even bigger edge in money and resources, so the only kind of war with Pakistan that India could ever lose is a nuclear one. The Indian government's main motive for taking the nuclear lead, on both occasions, was to gain a quick burst of domestic popularity by decking the country out with the symbols of a great power, with little thought to the strategic consequences. But it is having to think hard about them now. Of all the countries in the regions where the attacks on the United States on Sept. 11 might set in motion the Islamic fundamentalist takeovers that Osama bin Laden craves, Pakistan is by far the most dangerous. It is an almost-failed state teetering on the brink of a cliff, and one good shove could send it over the edge. When bin Laden addressed a special appeal to the Pakistani people to overthrow their government in his most recent video-cassette message, he knew exactly what he was talking about. © Copyright 2001, The Salt Lake Tribune All material found on ***************************************************************** 11 U.S. skips UN's nuclear talks November 12, 2001 BY GERALD NADLER Test ban treaty was rejected in 1999; 12 others also oppose --> UNITED NATIONS--A United Nations conference on speeding ratification of the comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty opened Sunday--without the United States, which reiterated last week that it did not support the pact. The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, signed by 161 nations and ratified by 84 of them, cannot take effect until all 44 countries that possess nuclear weapons or have nuclear power programs have signed or ratified the treaty. Only 31 such nations, including Britain, France and Russia, have ratified the 1996 accord that bans nuclear tests in any environment. The United States is among 13 non-ratifiers. Washington had signed the pact five years ago, but the Senate rejected the treaty in 1999. Opponents of the treaty say it is unenforceable. The United States forced a vote last week in the UN Committee on Disarmament and Security to demonstrate its opposition to the test ban accord. At that session, the United States was the only nation to vote against the accord, while India and Pakistan--both new nuclear nations that have not yet signed the treaty--joined Russia, China, Britain and France in voting in its favor. The United States was invited to attend Sunday's conference as an observer but decided not to go, State Department spokeswoman Eliza Koch said. ''The purpose of the conference is to promote ratifications of the treaty, and the administration has made clear that it has no plans to ask the Senate to reconsider its 1999 vote on this issue,'' she said. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan opened the three-day conference Sunday by urging nations who haven't ratified to approve the pact. In a pointed allusion to the United States, Annan said some nations withholding ratification ''are states which themselves worked hard to conclude the treaty.'' ''Now it is within their power to bring it into force,'' Annan said. ''I implore them to do so.'' Annan also stressed that the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks show more than ever that the treaty is needed. ''Those events should have made it clear to everyone that we cannot afford further proliferation of nuclear weapons,'' he said. AP Daily Southtown Pioneer Press Post-Tribune Star Newspapers Suburban Copyright 2000, Digital Chicago Inc. ***************************************************************** 12 Rocky Flats Closes Web Site Over Security Concerns The Denver Channel - Rocky Flats Closes Web Site Over Security Concerns Photos, Info Still Available Elsewhere On The Internet Posted: 10:13 a.m. MST November 9, 2001 The former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant shut down the remaining portions of its Web site over concerns that it could provide information to terrorists seeking bomb components. Portions of the Web site were closed to public view since shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Late last month, the Department of Energy, which oversees the cleanup operation at the plant west of Denver, advised all its site managers to take a second look at information on their Web sites. "We do have a quantity of plutonium that remains here secured in hardened vaults within hardened buildings protected by a highly trained and heavily armed security force," Rocky Flats spokesman Pat Etchart said. He said all information on the Web site, www.rfets.gov, had been reviewed to eliminate classified information before it was posted. Officials are reviewing that information again, and the site should be reopened to public view later this month. Additional documents will be added as they are cleared, Etchart said. "Some operational information which may be available through Internet Web sites and other venues could be used by those who target our sites, facilities and activities for terrorist attacks," Deputy Energy Secretary Francis Blake wrote in an Oct. 26 memo to all department facilities. The memo specifically told facilities to remove site maps, photographs, safety reports and other information. A seach of the Internet showed that pages from the site could still be viewed on Google.com, however, which stores "snapshots" of all pages it accesses. In addition, photos from Rocky Flats that were removed from the government Web site could still be seen in reduced form on Google. Etchart said public knowledge of the cleanup effort, scheduled to end in 2006, has been essential, and officials hope to have the site running again soon. All weapons components were removed from Rocky Flats, and most of the highly enriched uranium and 14.2 tons of plutonium that was there when it closed in the 1990s has been shipped to storage sites elsewhere, Etchart said. Remaining plutonium is being stored at Rocky Flats in preparation for shipment. Copyright 2001 by TheDenverChannel.com [dennews@thedenverchannel.com] . The ***************************************************************** 13 Ratification of nuclear-test ban urged -- Philly.com By Carol Giacomo REUTERS UNITED NATIONS - Russia, the European Union and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan pleaded yesterday for nations to ratify a global ban on nuclear testing, but U.S. opposition poses a major obstacle to the pact's future. In strong comments to a U.N. conference that was boycotted by the Americans, Russia challenged U.S. objections and warned that disrupting the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty could lead to "crisis" and the "uncontained spread of nuclear weapons." Moscow dismissed U.S. concerns that the pact would threaten the safety of U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals and offered to work on new verification measures beyond treaty requirements. Annan called the treaty a "crucial element" in the fight to keep nuclear weapons from terrorists - a key U.S. goal since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. "The longer we delay its entry into force, the greater the risk that nuclear testing will resume - and that in turn would make nonproliferation much harder to sustain," he said. The United States did not attend the conference, which took place on the fringes of the U.N. General Assembly annual meeting and drew many foreign ministers. The Bush administration has not formally explained its decision to stay away. The Pentagon, hoping to hasten the treaty's death, pressed for months for the United States to sit out the meeting. The aim of the conference is to review progress toward ratification of the treaty, which would ban all nuclear blasts, whether in the atmosphere, in space or underground. The pact was opened for signature in 1996. Since then, 161 states have signed it and 85 of those have ratified it. The treaty has not yet entered into force because it needs ratification by 44 specific states deemed nuclear arms-capable. To date, 31 of those 44 countries, including nuclear powers France, Russia and Britain, have signed and ratified the pact. Of the rest, India, Pakistan and North Korea have neither signed nor ratified the treaty, while the United States, China and eight others have signed but not ratified. Former President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, was the first world leader to sign the treaty. The Senate, then under Republican control, rejected it last year. In one Russian statement, President Vladimir V. Putin said Moscow considered the treaty a "most important instrument" in limiting nuclear weapons and preserving strategic stability. He expressed concern the pact had not yet taken effect and urged its quick ratification by the United States and others. Putin said Moscow would stand by its nonproliferation commitments and that was why it ratified the pact promptly. Another senior Russian official, Igor Sergeyev, said: "There are dangerous trends toward disrupting [the pact]. This may result in a crisis of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty regime and an uncontained spread of the nuclear weapons." Some Bush aides say it is impossible to ensure the reliability and safety of nuclear weapons without testing. Sergeyev said Russia was convinced computer simulators and other modern technology could satisfy that concern. ***************************************************************** 14 Pakistan repulses Indian attack - DAWN - ISLAMABAD, Nov 12: Pakistan army on Sunday night effectively repulsed an unprovoked Indian attack in the Gyong sector, Siachen. According to the Inter-Service Public Relations on Monday, approximately a company strength of Indian army supported by heavy artillery and mortar fire attacked a Pakistani post situated in Gyong in a bid to occupy it. The Pakistani soldiers manning the post detected the Indian move and repulsed the attack, inflicting heavy casualties upon the Indian troops. The bodies of three soldiers were still lying abandoned near the post, the ISPR said. In another incident along the Line of Control the same night, Indian forces resorted to indiscriminate mortar and small arm firing on innocent civilians in Hajipir area of the Bagh sector and Eftikharabad area of the Chamb sector. As a result, Mohammad Yaqub, a resident of the Khawaja Bandi village, died. Most recently, Indians have stepped up firing across the LoC due to which on Nov 7, Shafiq, 12, a resident of the Authmuqam Valley, and Ashraf, 16, a resident of the Khawaja Bandi village, were injured due to splinters, the ISPR added.-APP © The DAWN Group of Newspapers, 2001 ***************************************************************** NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. 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