***************************************************************** 11/19/01 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 9.273 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER CONTENTS 1 [smygo] Thousands Protest Shipment of Nuclear Waste 2 What if the World Trade Centre had been a nuclear power station? 3 Gov't to urge utilities to ensure nuclear plant safety 4 Mayor reports opposition to nuclear plant to assembly chief 5 Mie town votes against urging firm build nuclear plant 6 Japan town residents vote against nuclear plant 7 Feds Downplayed Threat Posed by U.S. Nuclear Plants: 8 State to seek MOX ban at UN tribunal 9 Irish resume bid to block Sellafield plant 10 Attack on Sellafield begins today 11 State's last-ditch bid to stop MOX plant 12 Liquid nuclear waste processing unit commissioned in Russian Far 13 Russia ships nuclear reactor shell to Iran 14 Russia to start assembling Iran reactor by year's end 15 Energy diversification would aid in security 16 DOE offers us more evidence Yucca Mt. process is political 17 Nuclear plants trouble neighbors 18 Guinn appoints energy panel 19 LV area chambers may leave U.S. group over Yucca 20 Indo-US meeting on nuclear issues in Dec 21 Irish application on MOX plant starts today 22 Dublin makes Sellafield plea to UN tribunal 23 Mie town says `no' to nuke plant 24 Antidote to radiation poisoning is largely unavailable to public 25 The Probability and Consequences of a Nuclear Accident 26 Putting a Timeline on Nuclear Waste 27 FEATURE - Utah battles proposed nuclear dump 28 Senate Democrats plan US nuclear plant safety bill NUCLEAR WEAPONS CONTENTS 1 [southnews] Ha'aretz on US nuclear weapons sent to Afghanistan 2 State reassessing fallout shelters after Sept. 11 3 The Nuclear Threat Can't Be Ignored 4 The Specter of Nuclear Terror 5 Nuclear terrorism is very near: Experts 6 Kazakh nuclear firm to spend 16m dollars on protecting 7 Russia: Nuclear reactor of Kursk to be disposed of in regular way 8 UNITED NATIONS COURT OPENS IRISH PLUTONIUM CASE AGAINST BRITISH GOVERNMENT 9 Editorial: Cutting ties does make sense 10 Depleted Uranium Toxicity in Afghanistan 11 Antiterrorism money is spread thinly in state 12 IAEA Daily Press Review Date 2001-11-19 Number 220 13 Muslim Moderate Kabbani Firm on Terrorist Nuclear Threat 14 Nuclear Notebook | The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 15 This is not a test 16 Roberson visits OR cleanup projects 17 doe: Newly Published Documents 18 Missing records delay payments for deaths of uranium workers 19 It's the Plutonium, Stupid **************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 [smygo] Thousands Protest Shipment of Nuclear Waste Date: Sun, 18 Nov 2001 22:50:53 -0600 (CST) http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo Thousands protest shipment of nuclear waste to disputed north German dump CLAUS-PETER TIEMANN, Associated Press Writer Saturday, November 10, 2001 (11-10) 15:29 PST LUENEBURG, Germany (AP) Demonstrators gathered Saturday along the route of a large nuclear waste shipment headed to a long-disputed dump in northern Germany. It was the start of a week of protests that police say may turn violent. German power companies and the government agreed this year to phase out nuclear power, but the shutdown will take about 20 years -- too slow for Germany's well-organized anti-nuclear activists. About 5,000 people marched through Lueneburg, 40 miles west of the Gorleben waste storage site in a peaceful protest Saturday. Bur police warn some activists are becoming more radical and that anarchist groups could make it a focus of their protest against the war in Afghanistan. Thousands of officers are on duty in a bid to prevent any repeat of similar protests in March, when environmentalists delayed the shipments for 16 hours by chaining themselves to train tracks. Police used water cannon against protesters who pelted them with bottles. Last month, the rail bridge was damaged by a bonfire of tires and straw lit beneath it. Engineers are working frantically to complete the repairs so that the six containers with about 80 tons of waste from a French reprocessing plant can pass. "Let's see how long the train takes this time," Jochen Stay, a spokesman for one of the groups organizing the protests, told the rally Saturday. A court has banned gatherings within 50 yards of the shipment's route. The organizers insisted another protest Sunday along the route would go ahead. -- Dan Clore mailto:clore@columbia-center.org Now available: _The Unspeakable and Others_ http://www.wildsidepress.com/index2.htm http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1587154838/thedanclorenecro Lord Werdgliffe: http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9879/ Necronomicon Page: http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9879/necpage.htm News for Anarchists & Activists: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo "It's a political statement -- or, rather, an *anti*-political statement. The symbol for *anarchy*!" -- Batman, explaining the circle-A graffiti, in _Detective Comics_ #608 ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Universal Inkjet Refill Kit $29.95 Refill any ink cartridge for less! Includes black and color ink. http://us.click.yahoo.com/bAmslD/MkNDAA/ySSFAA/2bSolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: smygo-unsubscribe@egroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ***************************************************************** 2 What if the World Trade Centre had been a nuclear power station? The Ecologist - HOT TOPIC "I can't believe what I'm reading - every page grabs my attention. Every article is relevant. You've done a tremendous job in making accessible some of the most censored stories in the British media. I want to congratulate you from the bottom of my heart on the content, style, design and relevancy." Anita Roddick Terrorists don’t need nuclear weapons when there are ready-made Atomic bombs awaiting detonation by a hijacked aircraft loaded with fuel. Peter Bunyard examines the facts. In early September, on BBC Radio 4’s Commission programme, Matthew Taylor of the Institute of Public Policy Research asked Nuclear Forum representative, Adrian Ham, whether the electricity supply industry had taken fully into account the implications of a plane loaded with explosives being crashed purposefully into a reactor. Ham reassured Taylor that the reinforced concrete containment dome over a reactor such as the Sizewell B station in Suffolk, would withstand such an onslaught. Moreover, he stated, if nuclear weapons were involved, why bother to go for a relatively difficult target, such as a reactor, when death and destruction could be more easily wreaked elsewhere? A few days later, the twin towers of Manhattan’s World Trade Centre were destroyed by an explosive force in the region of 1 kilotonne of TNT, equivalent to setting off a small nuclear device. A week after the attack, nuclear installation giant COGEMA affirmed on its website that, ‘the crashing of an airliner on the reprocessing plant at la Hague is highly improbable’. Moreover, it recalled, ‘it is forbidden to fly over the area at low altitude’. Forbidden? Well, that’s alright then. British Nuclear Fuels Limited (BNFL) was perhaps a little more realistic: ‘The plants are designed to withstand collisions with light aircraft or military planes, but not a commercial jet loaded with aviation fuel. The consequences could be unthinkable.’ Well, we should try to think about them. There’s too much at stake not to. At Hiroshima and Nagasaki, several hundred thousand died in the initial blast, and many others succumbed shortly after as a result of infectious diseases to which they had little resistance. Yet, were a reactor to explode, the consequences could far exceed in the long term those resulting from an atomic bomb. A reactor contains the equivalent of several thousand times the amount of material required to set off a nuclear chain reaction and accumulates in its core all the fission products from the time of start-up. Compare the consequences of Chernobyl with either Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Chernobyl released some 3 per cent of its radioactive material and, apart from contaminating a large swathe of the countryside around the reactor, it sent its various plumes across Europe and the Atlantic. Cumbria will feel the consequences of Chernobyl for a long time to come, as will certain regions in France, Italy, Bavaria, Greece and Corsica which were heavily doused in radioactive fallout. In sharp contrast, neither Hiroshima nor Nagasaki were ever wholly evacuated. On the contrary, both remained lived in and their reconstruction soon followed. Even so, reprocessing plants such as Sellafield in Cumbria and Cap de la Hague in Normandy are far more vulnerable to attack than nuclear reactors, with consequent destruction several orders of magnitude worse than a Chernobyl. The fission product caesium-137, which emits a powerful gamma rays, and which contaminated Cumbria in the Chernobyl fallout in May 1986, would have a devastating impact on both Britain and France, as well as northern Europe, were it to escape in the atmosphere from either of the two plants. At both sites, BNFL and COGEMA respectively have imported vast quantities of spent fuel. At la Hague, for example, 7,500 tonnes of spent fuel are stored prior to reprocessing, in actively-cooled storage ponds. Each tonne of spent fuel contains approximately 1kg of radioactive caesium, in addition to other fission products such as radio-iodine, strontium and cobalt. A recent study by nuclear consultants for WISE, the World Information Service on Energy, indicates that were just one of the four storage ponds at la Hague to release all its caesium, the quantity would be 66.7 times greater than the 27kg released from Chernobyl, with the collective radiation dose likely to lead to a minimum of 1.5 million cancer deaths, plus untold neonatal deaths. Were all storage ponds to fail, then releases of caesium could total 287 times the total that escaped from the stricken Chernobyl reactor in 1986. Such a catastrophe could occur if the cooling ponds were breached and all back-up systems destroyed, as would undoubtedly happen following the explosion and fireball from the crashing of a large jet laden with fuel. But the ponds are by no means the only threat. High-level radioactive waste, a product of the reprocessing of spent fuel, is also stored as a liquid in special tanks that must be actively cooled and stirred to counter the fierce temperatures generated by radioactive decay. The 1,300m3 of liquid high-level waste, currently stored at Sellafield in 21 above-ground steel tanks, contains more than 2 tonnes of caesium, almost 80 times the amount released from Chernobyl. The destruction of just one tank, and with it the cooling systems of the other tanks, combined with lethal radioactive contamination of the surroundings, could lead to all tanks boiling dry, with the emission of volatiles such as caesium. ‘The initial event could lead ultimately to an atmospheric release from every tank that contains liquid,’ says Gordon Thompson, consultant to WISE-Paris. Such speculation is not idle. An accident every bit as catastrophic as Chernobyl occurred at a Soviet military reprocessing plant in Kyshtym in the Urals in late 1957. A high-level waste tank dried out and exploded, releasing a plume of radioactive fission products. Some 30 villages had to be evacuated and a wide swathe of land cleared of residents. Many died, although the precise number has never been revealed. At the time, and for many years after, the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) denied the accident had occurred for fear of a backlash against plans to develop the Windscale site into a massive reprocessing complex. Only after scientists at the US Oak Ridge Laboratory confirmed the nature of the Kyshtym accident were UKAEA scientists, including the then director, Sir John Hill, forced to change their tune. Both British and French reprocessing plants are storing around 80 tonnes of plutonium isolated from spent nuclear fuel. BNFL is now seeking authorisation to start up its mixed oxide fuel (MOX) fabrication plant, which will use some of the plutonium in lieu of enriched uranium. The running of such a plant adds new risks to the use of nuclear power, since it provides a dangerous justification for reprocessing spent fuel and extracting pure plutonium. Tied in with the use of MOX fuel is the transportation, presumably globally, of fissile material in the form of plutonium, with all its attendant dangers in terms of terrorism and hijacking. And what of nuclear reactors, with their reinforced concrete containment structures and, in the case of advanced gas reactors (AGRs), 7m-thick pressure vessels. Are they less vulnerable? Unfortunately, the integrity of all reactors, and indeed of the spent fuel in their on-site cooling ponds, depends essentially on their having at all times a source of externally-generated electricity to operate their safety systems, including the release of their control rods to shut off the reactor in an emergency. Following the accident at Chernobyl, Lord Marshall, then chairman of the Central Electricity Generating Board, confidently asserted that an accident at a nuclear power station on the scale of Chernobyl ‘could never happen here’. In response to that claim, Greenpeace reviewed different reactor systems being used in the West, including UK gas-cooled reactors, which had been dubbed ‘benign’ in terms of their operation. At the instigation of Greenpeace, Richard Webb, a nuclear engineer, who was employed by Admiral Rickover for the construction of the Shippingport pressurised-water reactor in 1958 in Pennsylvania, reviewed the safety of AGRs. On applying fundamental neutron-transport equations to the structure and design of the AGR, and asking what would happen were the gas circulators to fail simultaneously as a failure of the reactor to shut down automatically, he discovered the potential for a massive nuclear explosion. As Webb points out, ‘a near full release into the atmosphere of radiation from just one AGR could potentially result in: (a) evacuation and semi-permanent abandonment of about 120,000 sq km of land (more than half the size of Great Britain) due to gamma radiation alone from the nuclear fall-out; (b) permanent abandonment of 120,000 sq km due to plutonium dust fall-out; (c) ruin of food-producing agriculture over 750,000 sq km for about 100 years due to strontium-90 and caesium-137 fall-out; (e) abandonment of 200,000 sq km or more due to the combination of all forms of radiation exposure. A catastrophe which destroyed all the reactors on site and caused the release of volatile radionuclides from spent fuel would compound the disaster several-fold and, conceivably, would put millions of lives at risk, both from acute radiation and from the insidious development of leukaemia and cancer. In the event of the power to the gas circulators being suddenly cut off, as through the destruction of the electricity supply to the reactor, then the fuel rods would rapidly overheat. The ceramic-oxide fuel melts at a temperature about 1,000 °C higher than that of the stainless steel cladding. Consequently, within 30 to 40 seconds of the event, the steel would begin to melt and drain off from the hot fuel, a process which leads to a surge in the number of neutrons available to bring about the fissioning of uranium. With the reaction taking off exponentially, fuel vaporises, leading, according to Webb’s calculations, to an even greater surge, as indeed happened during the accident at Chernobyl. The net result would be a massive atomic explosion within the reactor core that would in all probability breach and destroy the pressure vessel. Any reactor system has its particular vulnerabilities, especially in the face of an explosion such as that which brought down the World Trade Centre. How disturbing, therefore, that the talk in Britain should still be of establishing new nuclear power programmes to replace reactors that will have reached the end of their operational lives over the next 20 years. And what about the fissile material, such as plutonium or enriched uranium, that is so much part and parcel of any nuclear power programme? That too must be taken into account in considering the risks from well-funded terrorists, or even from hostile governments. Thefts of nuclear material go on apace.Two days before the attacks in the US, the current affairs programme, Wales on Sunday, cited the award-winning--series Y Byd ar Bedwar, in which the trade in nuclear terror is exposed. Filmed in Pakistan and Russia, the producer, Tweli Griffiths, describes how the authorities in former Soviet Georgia have their job cut out to capture smugglers before they have managed to pass on their lethal cargo to terrorists or regimes such as that of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. In recent years, some 140 arrests have been made, the latest in August when four people were arrested with 2kg of uranium-235 in their possession, almost enough for a nuclear bomb. And in Europe, between 1992 and 1998, 173 attempted thefts were reported, some involving potential bomb-making material. Meanwhile, the Italian mafia is now actively involved in the illicit transport of nuclear waste from Eastern Europe, and in 1997 was known to have imported more than 100 truckloads of radioactive scrap metal into the Province of Brescia alone. There, the risk is that the radioactive material is added to recycled metal, so dispersing radioactive material far and wide. In the UK, the government’s Energy Review is expected later this year. It will probably advocate a new programme of reactor construction, albeit with provisos concerning radioactive waste disposal. We know that Tony Blair is something of an enthusiast, even if not on the scale of Margaret Thatcher. His Energy Minister, Brian Wilson, is another nuclear aficionado. Let us hope that neither he nor Blair will be so shortsighted as to commit us to further development of a technology that has the capacity – like no other – to make our island virtually uninhabitable. Peter Bunyard is science editor of The Ecologist. ***************************************************************** 3 Gov't to urge utilities to ensure nuclear plant safety KYODO NEWS TOKYO, Nov. 19, Kyodo - The government will urge power companies to ensure the safety of nuclear power plants as part of its efforts to seek public support for its pro-nuclear energy policy, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda said Monday at a news conference. The top government spokesman was commenting on a Mie Prefecture town's rejection of a proposal to host a nuclear power plant in a referendum Sunday. ''The government will urge power companies to ensure safety and publicize that safety in order to seek a deeper understanding among the public and their cooperation,'' Fukuda said, adding, ''We will continue that effort.'' Residents of Miyama overwhelmingly voted against the idea of having a power company build a nuclear power plant in the region in the first such plebiscite to be held with no pending construction plans at stake. The vote followed rejections in two plebiscites on nuclear power projects -- one in 1996 and another in May this year -- both held in Niigata Prefecture on the Sea of Japan coast. Economy, Trade and Industry Vice Minister Katsusada Hirose separately acknowledged the difficulties faced by the central government in its pursuit of nuclear power and stalled nuclear fuel cycle policies following the spate of rejections. ''I feel the national energy policy issue of nuclear power generation and local people's concerns hardly have a common ground,'' Hirose said. The top bureaucrat of the ministry in charge of energy policy also conceded that the delayed reporting by Chubu Electric Power Co. of a water leakage at its nuclear reactor in the town of Hamaoka, Shizuoka Prefecture, would further undermine the government effort to win public understanding of its nuclear policy. The delay ''itself does not constitute a breach of law, but countermeasures need to be taken as swiftly as possible for the sake of citizens' and national understanding,'' Hirose said. Chubu Electric said Nov. 10 that small amounts of radioactive water have been leaking at least since the day before, when it detected the trouble, following a steam leak incident there Nov. 7 that involved radioactive material. 2001 Kyodo News (c) Established 1945. ***************************************************************** 4 Mayor reports opposition to nuclear plant to assembly chief KYODO NEWS MIYAMA, Nov. 19, Kyodo - The mayor of a small town in the western Japan prefecture of Mie reported Monday to the assembly chairman that residents overwhelmingly voted Sunday against the idea of having a power company build a nuclear power plant in the region. Mayor Tatsuo Shiotani told Assembly Chairman Osamu Takimoto the residents voted against the idea in the first such plebiscite to be held with no pending construction plans at stake. Shiotani said, ''In accordance with the results, I would like the assembly to unanimously adopt a petition opposing the construction.'' Takimoto said in response, ''We will make an effort to do so.'' The turnout in Sunday's legally nonbinding plebiscite came to 88.64% in the town with 8,748 eligible voters in the third such plebiscite to be held in Japan on nuclear power plants. Of the 7,754 ballots cast, the votes against the proposal were 5,215, comprising around 60% of eligible voters. Those supporting the proposal numbered 2,512, with 27 invalid votes. Shiotani said there will be no campaign to invite a power company to build a nuclear power plant in the town at a news conference, saying, ''Debate in the town on nuclear power has come to an end.'' Chubu Electric Power Co. first announced a plan in 1963 to build a nuclear power plant with three candidate sites in Mie Prefecture, which included a site in Miyama. But in the face of strong opposition from Miyama residents, Chubu Electric eventually focused on a site bordering the towns of Kisei and Nanto. In February this year, members of Miyama's chamber of commerce and industry, as well as others, submitted a petition to the local assembly to lobby for the construction of the plant in the town. Opponents immediately filed their own petition against the nuclear power plant to the town assembly, which subsequently set up a special panel to examine both petitions. Following nearly six months of deliberation, the panel recommended that the residents' opinions be heard on the project, prompting the assembly to enact an ordinance in late September to hold the plebiscite. The panel is expected to adopt a petition against the plant in a meeting slated for Nov. 28. 2001 Kyodo News (c) Established 1945. ***************************************************************** 5 Mie town votes against urging firm build nuclear plant KYODO NEWS MIYAMA, Nov. 18, Kyodo - Residents of a small town in the western Japan prefecture of Mie on Sunday voted against the idea of having a power company build a nuclear power plant in the region in the first such plebiscite to be held with no pending construction plans at stake. The result of the vote has rendered it unlikely that the town of Miyama will host such a plant as a local government ordinance requires the town mayor to respect the wishes of the majority of voters casting valid ballots. Voters showed a keen interest in the legally non-binding plebiscite, the third held in Japan on nuclear power plants. Turnout came to 88.64% in the town with 8,748 eligible voters. Although there is no specific nuclear power plant at stake, the Miyama vote could signal a setback for the central government's pro-nuclear policy, since it follows rejections in the two previous plebiscites on nuclear power projects -- one in 1996 and another in May this year -- both held in Niigata Prefecture on the Sea of Japan coast. An official at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry had said earlier the result of the vote would not have a direct bearing on nuclear policy, since Miyama is not even a candidate site for construction. Unlike the previous two plebiscites, the latest vote was proposed by nuclear advocates, namely local businesses who want local utility Chubu Electric Power Co. to build a nuclear power plant, hoping it would galvanize the slowing local economy centering on fishery and forestry. Opponents, meanwhile, drew public attention to the potential dangers of such a power plant in the wake of accidents at the Hamaoka Nuclear Power Station run by Chubu Electric, based in Nagoya. The pipe rupture and water leakage at Chubu Electric's Hamaoka station in Shizuoka Prefecture took place just days before the campaign for the plebiscite began Tuesday. Chubu Electric first announced a plan to build a nuclear power plant with three candidate sites in Mie Prefecture back in 1963, which included a site in Miyama. In the face of strong opposition from Miyama residents, however, Chubu Electric eventually focused on a site bordering Kisei and Nanto towns. But the nuclear project generated animosity between residents of the two towns, with a majority in Kisei wanting it and a majority in Nanto rejecting it. In February last year, Mie Gov. Masayasu Kitagawa entirely canceled the project, citing a lack of consensus among local residents. Chubu Electric also subsequently gave up on the project. In February this year, members of the Miyama town's chamber of commerce and industry as well as others submitted a petition, representing 64% of the local residents, to the local assembly to lobby for the construction of the plant in the town. The move, however, was immediately followed by opponents filing their own petition against a nuclear power plant to the town assembly, which subsequently set up a special panel to examine both petitions. Following nearly six months of deliberation, the panel recommended that the residents' opinions be heard about the project, prompting the assembly to enact in late September an ordinance to hold the plebiscite. In August 1996, in the first plebiscite on the construction of a nuclear power plant in Japan, involving Tohoku Electric Power Co., the town of Maki in Niigata Prefecture dealt a blow to the central government's nuclear power policy as a majority voted against it. In May this year, a majority of voters in the town of Kariwa, also in Niigata Prefecture, opposed Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s plan to use recycled nuclear fuel containing plutonium at a local nuclear plant. 2001 Kyodo News (c) Established 1945. ***************************************************************** 6 Japan town residents vote against nuclear plant Planet Ark Environmental News: JAPAN: November 19, 2001 TOKYO - A majority of residents of a small Japanese town voted against having a nuclear power plant built nearby, the latest sign of public distrust in nuclear power on which Japan relies for its electricity. Kyodo news agency said yesterday the plebiscite in Miyama in the western prefecture of Mie was non-binding but makes it unlikely the town will become a host to a nuclear power plant since a local ordinance requires the mayor to respect voters' wishes. Although no specific project was at stake in the area, the vote was yet another sign of voters' allergy to the nuclear power on which Japan relies to supply about one third of its electricity. Earlier this year, residents of a small farming village in northern Japan that is home to the world's largest nuclear power plant voted against the use of the controversial recycled nuclear fuel MOX (plutonium-uranium mixed oxide). Unlike that plebescite and another in 1996, the latest vote was proposed by local businesses who wanted local utility Chubu Electric Power Co to build a nuclear power plant there, hoping it would revitalise the stagnant economy, Kyodo said. Just days before the vote, Chubu Electric, Japan's third largest utility, found a steam leak containing some radiation during an inspection of the 540-megawatt No. 1 reactor at the Hamaoka power plant in Shizuoka Prefecture. It was forced to shut down the reactor and suspend the plant's No. 2 reactor, with a capacity of 840 megawatts, to conduct an inspection. Japan's nuclear industry faces strong anti-nuclear sentiment among the public after a series of accidents including the nation's worst at a uranium processing plant in September 1999, which exposed hundreds of residents, plant workers and emergency personnel to radiation. Two plant workers later died. REUTERS NEWS SERVICE ***************************************************************** 7 Feds Downplayed Threat Posed by U.S. Nuclear Plants: Press Releases: Media Center: Greenpeace USA Report Reveals Nuclear Plants One of the Biggest Threats to Homeland Security WASHINGTON— November 15, 2001 - Although the U.S. government knew that terrorists were targeting nuclear plants, the industry has not addressed the risk of sabotage and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has downplayed security risks to the public and key government agencies, according to a Greenpeace report released earlier today. While the United States was warned of possible attacks on nuclear plants as early as the 1990’s, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission repeatedly attempted to kill the government’s program for testing security. “The United States cannot be on high alert and then ignore the biggest threat sitting within its own borders.” said Jim Riccio, Greenpeace Nuclear Campaign Coordinator. “The only way to secure our nuclear plants from terrorist sabotage or an accident is to immediately implement an emergency phase out plan for all reactors." In its report entitled Risky Business: the Probability and Consequences of a Nuclear Accident, Greenpeace analyzes each of this country’s 103 nuclear reactors and includes detailed maps of the consequences and fall out of the 12 worst reactors including sites in Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Tennessee. According to the government’s own studies, an accident at one of the reactors in the United States would kill or injure tens of thousands of people, costs billions of dollars and render many communities uninhabitable. In addition safety system failures have contributed to the shutdown of several nuclear reactors since the 1990s, including sites in Connecticut, Maine and Michigan. “Ironically now that the risk posed by nuclear power plants is greater than ever, the Bush/Cheney Energy plan is promoting this dangerous industry” continued Riccio. “Nuclear plants now constitute a national security threat and their continued operation is unacceptable.” Based on Greenpeace’s analysis in this report, the international environmental group is calling for the following: + The federal government must phase out nuclear power in the United States, shutting down the reactors that cause the greatest risk first. + The Nuclear Regulatory Commission must not extend the licenses of nuclear reactors and rescind those licenses that have already been renewed + New construction of nuclear reactors in the United States must be prohibited Read the Executive Summary with links to the full report and maps. ***************************************************************** 8 State to seek MOX ban at UN tribunal Irish Newspapers - BRITAIN has failed to reassure the State about the threat of a terrorist attack at Sellafield, an international UN tribunal will be told today. The Irish Independent learned last night that a State legal team led by Attorney General Michael McDowell will tell the Hamburg tribunal that the UK has not satisfied serious government concerns it has carried out a proper assessment of the serious risk of a terrorist attack at the disgraced plant. The Government will also warn it is deeply unhappy at security at the site. The country is the first state in the world ever to mount a legal challenge over nuclear facilities. If the Government succeeds the ramifications for relations with the UK and the nuclear industry will be enormous. It was also learned last night that both Germany and Japan, the biggest customers of the reprocessed nuclear fuel, have been officially told of the concerns. The German ambassador was called in by the Government to be appraised of the concerns while the Irish Ambassador in Tokyo briefed the Japanese government. It was also learned that the UN International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea will be told that the UK will be allowing new radioactive discharges into the Irish sea when the MOX plant opens at Sellafield next month. The UK government has also deliberately "withheld vital information" on the proposed new MOX plant at the disgraced site just 60 miles from the Irish coast, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea will also be told. The British government has violated numerous international legal provisions by witholding this information, the State legal team will tell the tribunal. The Irish Government has also established that British Nuclear Fuels has markets for a tiny amount of the deadly MOX fuel, just 11pc. The plant is due to open on December 20. Treacy Hogan, Environment Correspondent © Copyright Unison Designed and hosted by Internet Ireland ***************************************************************** 9 Irish resume bid to block Sellafield plant online.ie : online.ie 18 Nov 2001 The Government will tomorrow initiate a new bid to force the scrapping of a £470m development at the nuclear waste disposal complex in Sellafield, Cumbria. The latest bid to halt the project will be launched at a United Nations Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, in Germany. Attorney General Michael McDowell is to head his government team at the tribunal. He will call for an immediate suspension of the scheduled commissioning of the new MOX plant at Sellafield on December 20. Inter-governmental representations over the MOX venture have made repeatedly in recent months and have included discussions on the issue between Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern. Concerns centre on the threat of radioactive pollution in the Irish Sea and more recently have centred on the prospect of a terrorist threat on the plant and the possible fall-out effects for Ireland. Last week, however, the Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth movements lost a High Court action in London aimed at stopping the MOX project. Both organisations said they would take their case to the Court of Appeal. ***************************************************************** 10 Attack on Sellafield begins today online.ie: Business Business & Finance 19 Nov 2001 The Irish government will today begin its application to stop the MOX fuel production plant at Sellafield from beginning production next month. Attorney General Michael McDowell will lead a legal team at the International Tribunal to also call for a halt to shipments of radioactive materials associated with the plant in and around the Irish Sea. The legal team will attempt to prove that the British government has failed to take adequate measures to prevent pollution from the plant, which is a breach of the US Convention for the Law of the Sea. The plant at Sellafield, Cumbria, is designed to produce mixed oxide fuel pellets, combining uranium with plutonium, for nuclear reactors. The British government gave Sellafield's owners, BNFL, approval to begin production commencing 20 December. The debate between the two countries hinges on the fact that the plant will produce solid and liquid wastes, some of which would be discharged into the Irish Sea. The British legal team will present its preliminary submission tomorrow. .ie.com.net.org.co.uk.org.uk ***************************************************************** 11 State's last-ditch bid to stop MOX plant online.ie : News The Irish Examiner 19 Nov 2001 By Mary Dundon, Political Reporter THE Government will open its legal bid to block the Sellafield Mixed Oxide Fuel (MOX) nuclear plant at the UN court in Hamburg today. As a radiological expert warned a major accident at Sellafield would destroy our food and agriculture industry, last night Government sources were hopeful a temporary injunction will be granted. This is one of the last-ditch bids to stop MOX plant opening following the failure of Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth to close the plant in the London High Court. Attorney General Michael McDowell will lead 18 lawyers and experts putting Ireland's case to the UN court. Mr McDowell and his team will argue that the MOX plant will contribute to the pollution of the Irish Sea and highlight risks involved in transportation of radioactive material to and from the plant. The preliminary hearing before the 21 judges of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea will last two days. Within two weeks, the tribunal is expected to decide whether or not to grant an interim injunction barring the Mox plant from starting up. If this is granted, then the full case which is being treated as a priorty by the tribunal would be heard next year over a period of months. Energy Minister Joe Jacob and experts from his Department and the Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland (RPII) will also be at the Hamburg hearing. Meanwhile, one of the RPII's top experts has warned that if there is a major accident at Sellafield, the Irish food and agriculture industry would be destroyed for up to 30 years. RPII principal scientific officer Dr Tony Colgan said: "If there is a large release of radioactivity and the winds are coming from the east, our food export markets will be hit immediately and it would have a huge impact on agriculture." Fine Gael Senator Fergus O'Dowd strongly attacked the Government for its failure to spell out the risk to our food and agriculture industries in its latest publicity campaign. The Department of Public Enterprise issued the public notice on the National Emergency Plan for a Nuclear Incident and their spokeswoman last night defended the omission. "This ad was purely a general outline focusing on the safety of people and giving general advice on how to deal with the effects of a nuclear accident - it was not intended to deal with every sector of the economy," the Public Enterprise spokeswoman said. The National Emergency Plan for a Nuclear Incident deals on page 40 with how the agriculture industry and consumers should respond. ***************************************************************** 12 Liquid nuclear waste processing unit commissioned in Russian Far East BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Nov 19, 2001 Text of report in English by Russian AVN Military News Agency web site Bolshoy Kamen, Russian Far East, 19 November: A ceremony commissioning the Landysh PZO-500 liquid nuclear waste processing unit was held at the Zvezda Federal State Unitary Enterprise on 22 November [as received], a spokesman for the plant's management told the Interfax-Military News Agency on Monday [19 November]. The unit was developed as part of the programme for eliminating nuclear weapon stocks. The project is being financed with funds allocated by Japan in 1993. The winner of the international tender was the US company Babcock & Wilcox , and the Zvezda plant is the enterprise operating the unit. The Landysh floating unit satisfies the highest safety standards adopted both in Russia and abroad. The test run of the unit was initiated as far back as late last year, approximately 1,500 cu.m. of liquid nuclear waste having been processed since then. The annual output of the unit is up to 7,000 cu.m. of liquid nuclear waste. This is enough to process all the waste produced through dismantling and scrapping the nuclear submarines in the Russian Far East. The purification level of the waste exceeds standards applied to drinking water. Source: AVN Military News Agency web site, Moscow, in English 0741 gmt 19 Nov 01 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter All ***************************************************************** 13 Russia ships nuclear reactor shell to Iran RUSSIA: November 19, 2001 ST PETERSBURG - Russia began shipping the shell of a nuclear reactor to Iran last week under a deal that has enraged Washington. Moscow signed a $1 billion contract with Tehran to build a nuclear power station at Bushehr in 1995, but the project was slow to get off the ground, in part because of intense U.S. pressure on Russia to renege on the deal. Iran features on Washington's list of "rogue states" that sponsor terrorism, and it has urged Moscow not to transfer nuclear technology to Tehran. Russia has repeatedly said the contract was for civilian use and complied with its international obligations. But U.S. State Department spokesman Philip Reeker last week repeated allegations that the plant has military applications. "We believe that Iran uses Bushehr as a cover for obtaining sensitive technologies to advance its nuclear weapons program. We think Iran's clandestine effort to acquire weapons-grade material and related production capabilities poses a threat," he told reporters in Washington. A train carrying the body of the reactor shell rolled out of the Izhorskiye Zavody plant in St. Petersburg and was loaded onto a ship bound for Iran, the office of St. Petersburg governor Vladimir Yakovlev said. Russian television showed a crowd of workers burst into cheering and applause as the train left the factory. It said the Bushehr order was the company's biggest in 10 years. Experts from the plant will travel to Iran to help install the reactor shell, which is due to arrive in Bushehr in a month. Itar-Tass news agency quoted an Atomic Energy Ministry official as saying the reactor was due for completion by the end of 2003. Russia has blamed "technical difficulties" for delays to the contract. Iran's President Mohammad Khatami visited Izhorskiye Zavody in March to monitor progress. Moscow has received a tentative order from Tehran for another reactor, also to be built at Bushehr, and detailed negotiations are due to start in December. Officials have said Moscow is considering a separate order for a twin-reactor power station in another part of Iran. Washington has warned Russia it could be hit by sanctions over its nuclear cooperation with Iran. That threat could pour cold water on Russia-U.S. ties that have warmed considerably since Moscow backed President Bush's "war on terrorism" after the Sept. 11 hijack attacks on U.S. landmarks. REUTERS NEWS SERVICE ***************************************************************** 14 Russia to start assembling Iran reactor by year's end BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Nov 19, 2001 Moscow, 16 November: Assembly of the nuclear reactor that the Russian engineering company Izhorskiye Zavody (Izhora Factories) shipped to the Bushehr nuclear plant in Iran today will start in late December, a senior atomic energy official said. Assembly is due to begin soon after the cargo ship carrying the assembly kit arrives in Iran, Viktor Kozlov, general director of the Atomstroyeksport company that reports to the Atomic Energy Ministry, said in an interview with ITAR-TASS. He recalled ... that it had taken Izhora Factories three years to build the reactor... Kozlov admitted that the construction works at Bushehr had taken more time than initially planned. "It was not because of technical problems. The original construction schedule was tighter than actually needed. We wanted to speed up the works this way," he said. Russian and Iranian experts plan to sign a more realistic schedule of construction works in December. It stipulates that the Bushehr nuclear power plant will be commissioned in December 2003... Iran will pay Russia about 1bn dollars for the Bushehr project, Kozlov said. Source: ITAR-TASS news agency, Moscow, in English 1725 gmt 16 Nov 01 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter All Material Subject to ***************************************************************** 15 Energy diversification would aid in security Rocky Mountain News: Opinion Letters to the Editor, November 19 Recent events have put an entirely new spin on the inherent fallibility of our newly enacted national energy strategy. Spending money on building even more fossil fuel power plants and nuclear reactors carries a certain stigma to begin with; in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks this strategy could prove to be downright dangerous. Russian security services have already warned the U.S. that the next terrorist target could very well be a nuclear reactor. While most reactors have been designed to withstand the crash of a small aircraft, they certainly aren't prepared for misguided righteousness sitting in the cockpit of a jumbo jet. Such an event wouldn't cause a nuclear explosion, but a deadly cloud of radioactivity could be released with the potential to cover an area the size of Pennsylvania The potential power output of wind, solar, and geothermal resources in the U.S. is many times greater than our total electricity consumption, and such energy sources are far less likely to become a threat to the safety of the American public. A gradual diversification of our energy sources would also decrease our overall dependence on fossil fuels (including imported oil), and create countless jobs. Call me crazy, but it seems like the quickest, cheapest and cleanest way to save energy and improve national security might be something we want to look into. Jamie Rockwell Denver November 19, 2001 2001 © The E.W. Scripps Co. Privacy Policy and User Agreement ***************************************************************** 16 DOE offers us more evidence Yucca Mt. process is political Reno Gazette-Journal Monday November 19th, 2001 Opponents looking for ammunition to head off the nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain couldn’t have asked for much more than was provided last week by the Department of Energy’s own inspector general. The inspector general’s report, released on Thursday, confirmed earlier press reports that the law firm representing the DOE’s Yucca Mountain project had close ties to the nuclear-energy industry, providing further evidence — hardly needed — that the plan to store the industry’s waste in Nevada is all about politics and not science. That has been clear ever since Congress voted to eliminate other contenders for the underground repository and concentrate on Yucca Mountain, even before scientific studies were completed. Now, according to the inspector general, it turns out that Winston &Strawn, hired to give the government “impartial advice” in the licensing process, lobbied for the Nuclear Energy Institute in its DOE application. The IG also said that employees who billed the DOE for work on Yucca Mountain also did work for the institute, and that the firm represented other groups with nuclear-waste business before the DOE. Proponents of storing the waste at Yucca Mountain have long maintained that the science should be allowed to proceed and that opposition in Nevada is purely political. It’s the industry that’s been playing politics, however. For proof, no one need look further than the DOE’s own report. © Reno Gazette-Journal ***************************************************************** 17 Nuclear plants trouble neighbors -- The Washington Times November 19, 2001 THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Nuclear power plants have been generating more than electricity since the September 11 strikes have left some neighbors worrying they could become the next victims of a terrorist attack. Virginia has two nuclear plants — in Louisa and Surry counties. Nearby residents wonder what would happen if their nuclear neighbors became the next target. Rita Steele's 16-year-old grandson recently offered to build her an underground fallout shelter. "Before, he would have never thought about it," said Mrs. Steele, 50, who owns a shop in Mineral near the Louisa plant. "Now, it even affects the kids, because they hear so much about it. It's scary." Arms folded over a T-shirt that says, "Wherever I go, God goes with me," Mrs. Steele said she has not given a lot of thought to what she would do, except get in a car and drive. She worries that radiation would spread too fast anyway. "I'd probably try to get my nine dogs into the car. We probably wouldn't make it," she said. Her neighbors are suddenly paying attention to calendars mailed out by Dominion Virginia Power, the company that owns the plant, that include detailed instructions on what to do in a crisis. The calendar lists evacuation centers, school evacuation procedures, escape routes and placards that residents can prop in their windows to show that they have left their home or need assistance to leave. "I've been reading that, too, and this is the first year I've ever paid attention," said Pat Martin, who runs the Country Roads Cafe in Mineral, about 100 miles from the Washington Monument. On the shore of man-made Lake Anna, the North Anna plant has a capacity of 1,842 megawatts — enough electricity to light a city the size of Albuquerque. The Surry nuclear power plant, with a 1,625-megawatt capacity, is on the James River across from historic Jamestown. Both are operated by Richmond-based Dominion, which serves more than 2 million customers in Virginia and North Carolina. There are 103 commercial nuclear power plants operating in 31 states. The day of the attacks on New York and the Pentagon, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission urged all to go to Level III, its highest security level. The NRC also assured the public that nuclear power plants are built to withstand extreme events such as hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes. But in a Sept. 21 news release, the agency also acknowledged that it had not contemplated attacks by airliners as big as the ones that slammed into the twin towers. Virginia Gov. James S. Gilmore III directed the National Guard and state police to defend both nuclear plants. The Marine Resources Commission and the Game and Inland Fisheries Department are guarding waterways around the plants. Dominion intensified security before the NRC asked, said spokesman Richard Zuercher. Officials have conducted additional background checks on some employees, stopped media visits and public tours. But the plants, ringed by razor wire, concrete barriers to thwart truck bombs and armed security guards, were safe even before September 11, Mr. Zuercher said. The reactors and their cooling systems are below ground and encased in hardened structures, including a three-eighth-inch carbon steel liner. The domes — whose shape is intended to minimize the impact from an aircraft crash — are 21/2- to 3-foot-thick concrete reinforced with eight layers of steel bars. For many neighbors, worry is an acceptable trade-off for facilities that provide more jobs than any other local business and pay at least 20 percent of the county's taxes. Others are simply fatalistic. "If it blows up, it blows up," said Joseph Boggs Sr., whose home sits about a half-mile across Lake Anna from the plant. ***************************************************************** 18 Guinn appoints energy panel Las Vegas SUN November 19, 2001 Guinn appoints energy panel By Cy Ryan SUN CAPITAL BUREAU CARSON CITY -- Gov. Kenny Guinn has appointed a nine-member energy task force to focus on wind, solar and other alternative power plans. The task force has been given a $250,000 fund for such things as energy conservation, weatherization and energy efficiency. The money may also be used to match federal funds for pilot programs in solar and wind energy, said state Consumer Advocate Tim Hay, who is a member of the group. Hay said the first meeting is tentatively set for Dec. 4, probably in Reno. The group will select a chairman then. The governor named to the group Mark Russell, vice president and general counsel for MGM MIRAGE to represent gaming interests, and Tim Carlson, president of Carlson and Associates, to represent the wind energy industry. Carlson's firm is a partner in a venture to develop and construct a 260 megawatt wind-generating farm at the Nevada Test Site. Russ Fields, president of the Nevada Mining Association, was appointed by Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, to represent that industry. Raggio also named Sam Routson, chief executive of Winnemucca Farms Inc., to serve as the biomass representative. The company has been investigating potential biomass and wind applications on its site. Jane Long, dean of the Mackay School of Mines at the University of Nevada, Reno, was chosen by Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins, D-Henderson, to serve as the geothermal representative. Perkins also appointed Steve Schur of the Sierra Club in Las Vegas as the environmental representative. Rose McKinney James, president of the public relations firm of Brown and Associates in Las Vegas, was named to the panel by Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas. James is recognized as a solar energy advocate and was the first president of the Corporation for Sustainable Technology and Renewable Resources. Robert Balzar, director of energy efficiency and conservation of Sierra Pacific Co. and Nevada Power Co., was selected by Assembly Minority Leader Lynn Hettrick, R-Minden, as the public utilities representative. "Taking advantage of Nevada's substantial renewable resource wealth will diversify our energy mix, which will reduce our reliance on imported energy and thus enhance our energy security," Guinn said. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 19 LV area chambers may leave U.S. group over Yucca Las Vegas SUN November 19, 2001 By Erin Neff Last week's decision by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to back a nuclear waste repository in Nevada could lead local chambers of commerce to pull out of the group and encourage their counterparts nationwide to follow their lead. Henderson Chamber of Commerce President Ron Meek met Friday with other chamber representatives and discussed the possibility that "we should all notify all the chambers about the transportation of waste through their areas." Meek said the Henderson chamber had just renewed its membership and sent dues when he picked up the newspaper Friday to learn of the national group's decision. "We're very, very disturbed about it," Meek said. "We're definitely part of what will probably be a group of chambers here that will withdraw" from the national group. The Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce -- the third biggest in the nation -- has sent a letter to U.S. Chamber President Thomas Donohue to discuss its displeasure over the decision to back a repository at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The group's board of directors will wait for a response before voting to withdraw membership, said Kami Dempsey, government affairs director for the Las Vegas Chamber. Meek said he would like local chambers to encourage their counterparts outside Nevada to withdraw from the national group to widen the blow any loss of membership would cause the U.S. Chamber. The U.S. Chamber's Donohue said Thursday that his group runs the risk of losing members over such tough decisions. Boulder City Chamber of Commerce Director Beth Walker has plenty she would like to say about the chamber's decision but cannot issue any statements without first gauging the mood of the roughly 250 to 300 businesses that belong to her group. "First I'll have to take things up with our membership," Walker said. The North Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce said it does not belong to the national chamber. Meek and Las Vegas Restaurant Association President Van Heffner are trying to make the best of the decision by working to alter it. Heffner said that for the time being he would remain a member of the U.S. Chamber's Alliance on Energy and Economic Growth to try to "work within the system to change it." Meek believes building momentum against the decision by enlisting other chambers is the way to go -- a move similar to the tactics employed by Nevada's congressional delegation. Sens. John Ensign, R-Nev., and Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Reps. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., and Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., have been highlighting the route that 77,000 tons of nuclear waste would likely travel through the nation. They hope to persuade officials along the route that transporting the material could be as dangerous as storing it. "Nobody wants it in their back yard," Meek said. "We should ask if they want it in their back yard." All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 20 Indo-US meeting on nuclear issues in Dec Hindustantimes.com Monday, November 19, 2001 HT Correspondent (New Delhi, November 18) The United States has given India de facto recognition as a nuclear power by agreeing to have a Defence Policy Group (DPG) meeting in New Delhi next month. The agenda will include prospects of transfer of dual use technology to India apart from an exchange of views on nuclear issues. Washington is keen to involve India in the dialogue process it already has with Britain, France and Russia on nuclear systems. There already exists a separate channel for discussions on missile defence, nuclear reduction, non-proliferation and counter-proliferation. The Vajpayee-Bush Joint Statement, adopted earlier this month, had welcomed the resumption of the bilateral DPG. It also explicitly stated that the question of India buying US defence equipment will also figure in the talks. The next few weeks will see the chief of the Pacific Command, Admiral Dennis Blair, making a highly significant visit here. Sources said that a specific roadmap to implementing US-India bilateral ties will be hammered out during Blair's talks with Defence Ministry officials. Shortly afterwards, the Under Secretary for Defence, Douglas Feith, will be here. He is believed to be the third most important official in the Pentagon and had accompanied Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld during his trip here early November. Recently, US Ambassador to India, Robert Blackwill, talked of a "big future" for bilateral military relations. The lifting of post-Pokhran sanctions has cleared the only obstacle towards this end. Send your feedback at feedback@hindustantimes.com ***************************************************************** 21 Irish application on MOX plant starts today ireland.com - The Irish Times - IRELAND Monday, November 19, 2001 From Derek Scally, in Berlin The Attorney General, Mr Michael McDowell, will lead the Government's legal team today in an application for an injunction to prevent the MOX fuel production plant at Sellafield from going into operation next month. At the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in Hamburg, the team will also call for a stop to shipments in and around the Irish Sea of radioactive materials associated with the MOX plant. The team will accuse the British government of failing to take adequate measures to prevent pollution from the plant, thereby breaching provisions of the UN Convention for the Law of the Sea. The 17-part convention establishes a legal framework to regulate all ocean space and related disputes. A five-member tribunal will consider a Government request for an injunction to prevent the plant from starting operations. This injunction would be binding until a full hearing, not expected to reach a conclusion until the end of next year at the earliest. The MOX plant is designed to produce mixed oxide fuel pellets for nuclear reactors by combining uranium with plutonium. Built in 1996, the plant was last month given British government permission to go into operation on December 20th. It will produce both solid and liquid wastes, some of which would be discharged into the Irish Sea. Central to the case is likely to be article 194 of the convention which deals with "the release of toxic, harmful or noxious substances" into the sea from "land-based sources". It obliges states to ensure that pollution arising from activities under their control "does not spread beyond the areas where they exercise sovereign rights". Article 210 of the convention establishes the right of states to "permit, regulate and control" dumping of waste into the sea, but this must be done "after due consideration of the matter with other states which, by reason of their geographical situation, may be adversely affected thereby". In its submission today, the Irish legal team will also accuse Britain of not properly assessing the risk of terrorist attack on the Sellafield plant. The Government will call for a British-Irish strategy to prevent terrorist attacks or to respond to any terrorist attacks. The British government will present its preliminary submission tomorrow. ***************************************************************** 22 Dublin makes Sellafield plea to UN tribunal news.telegraph.co.uk - (Filed: 19/11/2001) THE Irish government will initiate a new attempt tomorrow to force the scrapping of a development at the nuclear waste disposal complex in Sellafield, Cumbria. The Irish Attorney General, Michael McDowell, will lead a government team at a United Nations tribunal for the law of the sea being held in Germany. Mr McDowell will call for an immediate suspension of the scheduled commissioning of the new MOX plant at Sellafield on Dec 20. Inter-governmental representations over the MOX venture have been made in recent months and have included discussions involving Tony Blair and his Irish counterpart, Bertie Ahern. Dublin concerns centre of the threat of radioactive pollution in the Irish Sea and more recently have centred on the prospect of a terrorist threat on the plant and the possible effects for Ireland. Last week, the Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth movements lost a High Court action in London aimed at stopping the MOX project. 16 November 2001: Greenpeace lose nuclear plant court challenge 4 October 2001: Nuclear fuel plant approved despite fears over terrorism 13 September 2001: Nuclear waste plan is still five years off 26 June 2001: Sellafield emissions predicted to rise 25 May 2001: Nuclear fuel review plea © Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited ***************************************************************** 23 Mie town says `no' to nuke plant asahi.com : ENGLISH The Asahi Shimbun MIYAMA, Mie Prefecture-Residents on Sunday voted against any plan to build a nuclear power plant in their fishing and forestry town. Voter turnout in the referendum was 88.64 percent. Although Sunday's vote was not legally binding, a town ordinance stipulates that the assembly and administration must value the will of the majority of residents expressed in the referendum. The outcome is also another setback for the nation's policy to rely more on nuclear power. Miyama, a town of 8,748 eligible voters, became the third municipal government to hold a referendum concerning a nuclear power plant. In August 1996, the town of Maki, Niigata Prefecture, voted against plans to build a plant. In May this year, the opposition also won a referendum over plans to use plutonium-uranium mixed oxide fuel at the Kariwa nuclear power plant. But Miyama's referendum was the first conducted before a power company had actually come forward with plans to build a plant. Troubled Chubu Electric Power Co. had expressed an interest in building a nuclear plant in the area. Initially, many residents apparently wanted a nuclear power plant in their town as a means to jump-start an economy hit by depopulation. Residents submitted to the town assembly in February a petition with the signatures of 64 percent of eligible voters in favor of having a nuclear plant in their neighborhood. But opponents reacted immediately and waged a campaign to convince residents the invitation would be a bad move. They said the central government's subsidies for nuclear plants would only provide a temporary lift for the economy. They also stressed the nation's far-from-spotless record on nuclear safety. The opponents' efforts paid off Sunday. Nagoya-based Chubu Electric Power had considered Miyama as a potential site for a plant in 1963. The company also viewed a neighboring area. Sunday's referendum in Miyama was held amid renewed concerns about nuclear safety, following accidents earlier this month at the Hamaoka nuclear power plant in Shizuoka Prefecture, also run by Chubu Electric. Observers say the referendum in Miyama will likely end the company's plans to build any nuclear facilities in Mie Prefecture. (11/19) [Copyright Asahi Shimbun. All rights reserved. No reproduction or ***************************************************************** 24 Antidote to radiation poisoning is largely unavailable to public JS Online: JS Online By MARILYNN MARCHIONE of the Journal Sentinel staff Last Updated: Nov. 18, 2001 As a nuclear accident raged at Three Mile Island in 1979, a federal official made a frantic midnight call to a drug company seeking potassium iodide, the lone antidote to radiation poisoning. Potassium iodide, marketed here as Rad Block, is being called the Cipro for radiation exposure. The Drug What: Potassium iodide, or KI. Role: Treats people exposed to nuclear radiation. How it works: Keeps radioactive iodine, released in a blast or accident, from attaching to thyroid and triggering cancer. The issue: Should U.S. government stockpile it? Nuclear regulators say that could make people reluctant to evacuate when they must. Critics see this as protecting nuclear power industry. Can you get it? Yes, without prescription. But it's hard to find. What's next? Some states are stockpiling it. Wisconsin is considering it. Lacking time to make pills, the company opened its plant at 3 a.m., mixed powdered chemical with water, enlisted a bottle dropper manufacturer because it couldn't find containers with matching lids, and sent 237,013 vials of the stuff to Pennsylvania. It was already breaking down by the time it arrived, more than three days after the accident began. Afterward, a presidential commission urged the government to stockpile shelf-stable pills of potassium iodide, known as KI, to protect the public. But today, amid growing fear that terrorists could unleash a nuclear weapon or power plant disaster, there still are no such stockpiles in the United States like there are in Europe, Japan and Canada. Bioterrorism is getting lots of attention - officials have bought antibiotics and vaccines and taken other steps to fight germs - but fewer steps have been taken so far to prepare for the medical consequences of radiation exposure. Critics say there's a simple reason why the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and other federal agencies have resisted stockpiling KI in the past: It might make nuclear power look unsafe. "The nuclear industry fought this for a long time because they think it's bad PR," said Peter Crane, a recently retired longtime NRC lawyer who has been lobbying for stockpiling because he developed thyroid cancer from radiation exposure as a child. The NRC somewhat concedes the point. "Our job is to protect the public health and safety. We wouldn't allow a plant to operate if it wasn't safe," said NRC spokeswoman Beth Hayden. If the agency were to recommend that people or states stock KI, "are they going to ask, 'Are these plants not safe?' " A more serious concern, she said, is that people might not evacuate - the main plan for dealing with a nuclear event. "You don't want people to think this is the magic pill or the Cipro against radiation," she said, referring to the drug of choice to treat anthrax. "The Cipro for nuclear exposure" is exactly what Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) called KI at a hearing Thursday. May be added to stockpile U.S. Health Secretary Tommy Thompson, who agreed with the characterization, said the administration's budget proposal includes "$47 million for chemical antidotes that also includes potassium iodide." He said officials were considering adding it to the National Pharmaceutical Stockpile, prepackaged drugs and medical supplies designed to reach any American city within eight hours of an emergency, though others say a more localized system is needed to get it out fast enough to do any good. Officials also are considering adding more supplies to treat radiation burns and experimental drugs to treat radiation sickness, said Tom Sinks of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Environmental Health, which maintains the stockpile. "Since September 11 we've been relooking at these issues," he said. "This is a moving target." Potassium iodide would seem an easy place to start. It's an additive to common table salt, though it would be impossible to consume enough salt to get enough KI to protect against radiation, experts say. On a government contract, KI pills would cost pennies or at least dimes apiece, last for five to seven years, and not turn into a harmful substance when expired. KI doesn't work against all forms of radiation, but it does prevent radioactive iodine, one of the main elements that would be released, from attaching to the thyroid gland if taken within 12 hours of exposure; to do the most good, within four hours. Thyroid cancer is a well-known danger of radiation exposure, especially in children whose thyroid cells are rapidly dividing. After the Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986, thousands of children later developed thyroid cancer. But in Poland, where children were given KI, no excess cancer rates have occurred. "In Poland there was absolutely none. It protected them. Where it was not given out, thyroid cancer is epidemic," said Alan Morris, president of Anbex Inc., a small Florida company that is one of two approved by the Food and Drug Administration to make KI pills. Remembers Three Mile Island Like Crane, Morris was motivated by personal circumstances. "In 1979 I had a 2-year-old and was living in New York City" when Three Mile Island happened, he said. Fearing a radioactive plume could head his way, "I tried to get potassium iodide and was told it wasn't available." Since Sept. 11, orders for the pills have increased at his company, as they have for Rad Block, a potassium iodide product sold by the American Civil Defense Association, a survivalist group in Starke, Fla., and supplied by another such group, the U.S. Disaster Preparedness Institute of Denver. Government officials "are doing what they can and they can't do it all," said civil defense association spokesman Alex Coleman. "People need to realize that and take reasonable actions to do the best they can themselves. That way they don't have to depend on the government to take care of them." Some see risk in people buying their own KI pills, which can be obtained from pharmacies without a prescription. A spot check showed that Milwaukee pharmacies generally do not stock KI pills. "The concern is, will people under those kind of circumstances treat it like a drug and take the appropriate amount or will it be 'If a little is good, I'll take more?' " said Henry Anderson, Wisconsin's epidemiologist for environmental health. He also said any pills carry the danger that children will eat them, thinking they're candy, and overdose. Others think KI pills are not nearly as likely to be misused by the public as antibiotics would be because they're only used to treat radiation exposure, and people would know for certain if such an event occurred, as opposed to hearing a rumor about anthrax. "In general, that's a much safer thing to do," G. Richard Olds, professor and chairman of medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin, said of people stocking KI pills as opposed to antibiotics. NRC health physicist Patricia Milligan said KI pills could give people a false sense of security and make them less likely to evacuate. She downplayed suggestions by Crane and others that evacuating huge populations in a panicky situation would be difficult. "In this country every year we routinely evacuate hundreds or thousands of people at the drop of a hat" when chemical spills or natural disasters occur, she said. "The issue is not whether evacuation is better than KI," Crane said in testimony last year before a Pennsylvania panel considering establishing a stockpile in that state. Both should be part of an emergency plan, and KI pills can make evacuation or sheltering in place safer by minimizing radiation damage, he contends. Morris agreed. The NRC and other emergency management agencies actually talk about KI in their response plans, he notes. "They've got a whole plan. They've got radio announcements telling people to take KI. Unfortunately, nobody's got the KI" because a government supply doesn't exist, Morris said. States take action Absent any federal move to stockpile KI, some states have chosen to act. Tennessee, Arizona and Alabama have supplies as part of their emergency plans, and New Hampshire has requested pharmacies to have it available for people who want it to buy. Maine in 1996 adopted a stockpile, but its lone nuclear reactor plant has since shut down. In Wisconsin, "the state is reconsidering the use of KI as a protective measure for the general public," said Paul Schmidt, chief of radiation protection for the Wisconsin Department of Health and Family Services. But he stressed, "the strategy here has been to focus all our efforts on evacuation." Early this year, the NRC reversed its years of opposition to stockpiling KI and said it would make a total of $800,000 available over two years to states that want to start their own stockpiles of KI pills. © Copyright 2001, Journal Sentinel Inc. All rights reserved. Produced by Journal Interactive [http://www.journalinteractive.com] | ***************************************************************** 25 The Probability and Consequences of a Nuclear Accident Nuclear Power: Nuclear Disarmament: Greenpeace USA Risky Business: (Greenpeace report by Jim Riccio released November 14, 2001) Executive Summary Each nuclear reactor has the potential to devastate the region in which it operates. As the events of September 11th tragically demonstrated, the risk of a nuclear reactor meltdown must encompass not only the potential for an accident but also the possibility of sabotage. The U.S. government has known since at least the mid- 1990's that terrorists were targeting nuclear power plants. Despite the known threat and an abysmal security record, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff repeatedly attempted to kill the government's program for testing security at nuclear reactors. Rather than addressing the nuclear industry's inability to protect itself from mock terrorists, the NRC has moved to allow the nuclear industry to test itself. According to the government's own studies, the consequences of an accident at one of the 103 nuclear reactors throughout the U.S. would be devastating. If a meltdown were to occur in either the reactor or the spent fuel pool, the accident could kill and injure tens of thousands of people, cost billions of dollars in damages and leave large regions uninhabitable. The NRC originally attempted to down play the most damaging results. The regulators used the lowest probability figures for largest radioactive releases studied. The consequences of a nuclear accident are projected to occur from a core melt accident in which all installed safety equipment fails and the reactor containment is breached directly to the atmosphere. This scenario is not unthinkable when you realize that none of the containment structures at U.S. reactors were designed to withstand a core melt accident. Nor is it not unimaginable that safety equipment at U.S. reactors would fail. In fact, the failure of safety systems to perform their function has contributed to the shutdown of several nuclear reactors since the mid 1990s including Big Rock Point, Haddam Neck, Maine Yankee and Millstone 1. The risk posed by nuclear power plants was significant before September 11th. When we take into consideration the terrorist threat to nuclear power plants their continued operation is unacceptable. Greenpeace has provided the public and the media with the government's own data on the probability and the consequences of a nuclear accident. We believe that the public has a right to know the threat posed by each of the nuclear power plants operating in their midst. Nuclear reactors are not merely an expensive and complicated way to boil water but also constitute a national security threat. The federal government should immediately take steps to reduce the risk posed by the nuclear industry. Toward this end, Greenpeace makes the following recommendations: + The federal government should phase out nuclear power in the U.S. Those reactors that pose the greatest risk should be shut down first. + The Nuclear Regulatory Commission should not extend the licenses of nuclear reactors and should rescind those licenses that have already been renewed. + New construction of any nuclear reactors in the United States should be prohibited. + Catawba, South Carolina + Dresden, Illinois + Indian Point, New York + Millstone, Connecticut + Sequoyah, Tennessee + Eastern Pennsylvania + Salem and Hope Creek, New Jersey + Surry, Virginia + Turkey Point, Florida + Waterford, Lousiana [ align=] Appendix A: United States Nuclear Reactor Locations, Ownership and Licensing (22 kb) [ align=] Appendix B: Consequences of a Nuclear Accident for US Nuclear Power Plants (17 kb) ***************************************************************** 26 Putting a Timeline on Nuclear Waste November 18, 2001 Talk about itE-mail storyPrint I am closely involved with the planning for the high-level nuclear waste repository that may be developed at Yucca Mountain, Nev. ("Hot Asphalt," by Matthew Heller, Oct. 28). We may wish it were otherwise, but, so far, the U.S. Department of Energy has not determined routes for shipment of nuclear waste from the 77 existing waste storage sites to Yucca Mountain. Indeed, the department has not even indicated whether shipments might be by rail or highway, although a preference for rail can be sensed in some of their plans and reports. Your timeline of route designation in 2006 seems too late, and the possibility of shipments as early as 2007 seems most unlikely according to present plans. I think the states will put pressure on the department to begin the planning sooner, and there are many complicated reasons why waste is unlikely to move much sooner than 2010. Brian O'Connell Via the Internet For information about reprinting this article, go to http://www.lats.com/rights/register.htm Copyright 2001 Los Angeles Times ***************************************************************** 27 FEATURE - Utah battles proposed nuclear dump USA: November 19, 2001 SAN FRANCISCO - The State of Utah is battling a group of energy companies that plans to build a dumping ground for radioactive nuclear waste on an American Indian reservation about an hour's drive from Salt Lake City. The fight is but the latest skirmish in the continuing dilemma of where to stash the thousands of tonnes of waste fuel piling up at the nation's 103 atomic reactors. Despite 20 years of scientific and environmental studies, a final decision has yet to be made on whether to build a permanent federal underground storage site at Yucca Mountain in the Nevada desert about 90 miles (144 km) from Las Vegas. The Utah project - Private Fuel Storage LLC, led by utility holding company Xcel Energy of Minneapolis - aims to store up to 40,000 metric tonnes of waste fuel for up to 20 years on 820 leased acres of reservation land belonging to the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians. The plan also carries a 20-year extension. Waste fuel, packed in 175-tonne steel and concrete canisters called dry casks, would be shipped by rail from nuclear power plants to Utah, to sit on thick concrete above-ground pads until Congress approved Yucca Mountain for permanent storage. Utah officials, led by Governor Mike Leavitt, insist Xcel and other utilities should keep their waste fuel at home. Utah has no nuclear power stations of its own and has even passed legislation banning in-state nuclear waste storage. KEEP OUT "Skull Valley is a legal and environmental farce," said Monte Stewart, appointed by Leavitt in May as lead attorney to keep the waste out of Utah. Stewart said the 1982 federal Nuclear Waste Policy Act bars private waste storage outside nuclear power plants. But Indian reservations, because of their special status as semi-sovereign land, might be able to skirt the federal law. "American Indians control their lands, so utilities can exploit that and try to avoid the democratic process. The utilities go to tribes because they know the states are going to fight them. They only have to deal with the tribe," Larry Jensen, Utah's deputy attorney general, said. The Utah project is the latest bid to store waste fuel on an American Indian reservation. In the 1990s a group of 33 utilities explored a dump on a Mescalero Apache reservation in New Mexico, but the project was never built. The Goshute Indians would get lease revenues from the dump which could fund housing, healthcare and education at the Skull Valley Reservation, Sue Martin, a spokeswoman for the project, said. Nuclear power opponents say transport accidents and leaks or other damage in storing highly radioactive waste fuel pose a huge environmental risk. Supporters of the Utah project argue that cask storage has been proven safe in the United States and at overseas nuclear plants. "Private Fuel Storage is an excellent alternative fuel management strategy until Yucca Mountain is developed," said Rod McCullum, a senior project manager at the Nuclear Energy Institute, a Washington-based nuclear trade group. LOSING SPACE Nuclear plants, which supply a fifth of the nation's electricity, are running out of waste storage room in fuel pools and many are shifting to dry casks, McCullum said. About 44,000 tons of spent fuel rods now are stored in U.S. fuel pools and casks - enough to cover a football field 15 feet (4.6 meters) deep - and reactors produce another 2,000 tons each year. Xcel is pushing the Utah project because waste storage at its twin-reactor Prairie Island nuclear plant in Minnesota is filling up. The Minnesota legislature capped storage at the plant at 17 casks while the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved 48, said Scott Northard, Xcel's director of nuclear asset management. The utility has not challenged the state's storage cap but said this week it was working on a back-up plan to buy electricity from other generators if a lack of waste storage space forced it to shut Prairie Island before the plant's operating licenses expire in 2013 and 2014. The way things are going, Prairie Island would reach its waste storage limit in 2007, Northard said. Story by Leonard Anderson REUTERS NEWS SERVICE ***************************************************************** 28 Senate Democrats plan US nuclear plant safety bill USA: November 19, 2001 WASHINGTON - Two Democratic senators said last week they plan to soon introduce legislation that would station federal agents at the nation's 103 nuclear power plants to guard against security threats. Assistant Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York said they would offer the bill when Congress returns from its Thanksgiving holiday. Details about the number of federal planned bill were not immediately available. Current security measures are handled by individual plant operators, who have been on high alert since the deadly Sept. 11 attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center. A few state governors have assigned National Guard units to nuclear power plants as an extra precaution. After passing an airline safety bill last week, the Senate should "focus the same energy to improve safety at nuclear power plants," Reid said in a statement. "If professional law enforcement agents are the right answer for America's airports, then surely they are also the answer for guarding America's nuclear reactors," he said. New York has six nuclear plants, including the Indian Point-2 plant, within close proximity to New York City. "We cannot continue with a piecemeal approach of no-fly zones and Coast Guard patrols that are here one day and gone the next," Clinton said. Both senators serve on the Environment and Public Works Committee, which has jurisdiction over the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the commercial nuclear power industry. REUTERS NEWS SERVICE ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 [southnews] Ha'aretz on US nuclear weapons sent to Afghanistan Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2001 23:08:05 -0600 (CST) Monday, November 19, 2001 Kislev 4, 5762 Israel Time: 11:13 (GMT+2) Report: U.S. nuclear weapons sent to Afghanistan as 'last resort' By Daniel Sobelman, Ha'aretz Correspondent The London-based Arabic daily Al Hayat reported Thursday that part of the American forces deployed to the Afghanistan area in advance of a planned military strike is equipped with tactical nuclear warheads. The report, that was published as the main headline in the paper, is based on Western sources. According to the newspapers, use of these weapons, with a power of from 2 to 10 kilotons, is considered a "last resort." In addition, it was reported Wednesday from Moscow that Iranian Defense Secretary Ali Shamakhani will visit Russia next Monday. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said Monday that Shamakhani is supposed to sign a weapons deal that will include the acquisition of the S-300 anti-aircraft defense system and tanks. Ivanov stressed that Russia is interested in developing the "military, economic and scientific relations with its neighbor Iran," but pointed out that the amount of weaponry Russia would sell to Iran "will not be large." Russian News Agencies reported that Iran is interested in acquiring the S-300 system in order to defend its nuclear reactor in the city of Boshar. Copyright 2001 Ha`aretz. All rights reserved SEE: http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=78070&contrassID=1&subContrassID=5&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y ________________________________________________________________________ [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: southnews-unsubscribe@egroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ***************************************************************** 2 State reassessing fallout shelters after Sept. 11 al.com: NewsFlash The Associated Press 11/19/01 1:24 AM FLORENCE, Ala. (AP) -- Not long ago, the familiar yellow and black signs on basement doors in public buildings that designate fallout shelters were a nostalgic reminder of an era gone by. They conjured images of duck-and-cover exercises and the threat of nuclear war. Now, the Alabama Emergency Management Agency is reassessing the use and condition of the shelters. There are more than 5,200 of them in the state. They are in public buildings, churches schools and even caves. "Sept. 11 definitely has stirred interest," Lee Helms, director of the state EMA, told the TimesDaily of Florence. "Our country is under attack, and we need to go back to civil protection." The emergency management association's emphasis has been on natural disasters since the Cold War officially ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union. The state once kept a close accounting of all the shelters, but that fell off in the early 1990s, Helms said. Now, a new inventory is being undertaken and plans are being developed on how they could best be used. "There is still a large part of the old civil defense system still intact, and we are going to revitalize it," Helms said. Part of the revitalization will include reactivating a volunteers network that will act as civil defense officers and help manage the shelters, he said. The shelters and the signs with the triangular symbols indicating radiation can be found almost everywhere. George Grabryan, director of the Lauderdale County emergency management agency, said many churches, city halls and libraries throughout the county are designated shelters. Rogers Department Store, which is closing soon, is a shelter. So is Key Cave on the Tennessee River, which is now a national wildlife refuge where two endangered species are protected. Originally, the shelters were selected based on structural features that could shield people from radioactive fallout from a nuclear weapon, Grabryan said. "Many older buildings had basements, which is why they were selected," he said. No one has clear responsibility for maintaining the shelters now, said Joe Clark of the state EMA. He once was the point man for shelter information. He will fill that role again during the reassessment. "It had been a partnership of state, county and federal, but that ended in 1992 with the end of the Cold War," he said. "The federal and state governments felt they were not required any more." Public interest in the shelters has grown since the World Trade Center was destroyed and the Pentagon was attacked two months ago. "Since Sept. 11, we've had a number of people calling, wanting to know where their shelters were," Grabryan said. ***************************************************************** 3 The Nuclear Threat Can't Be Ignored Newsday.com - By Lester Paldy Lester Paldy, professor of technology and society at SUNY Stony Brook, has served on U.S. arms control delegations in Geneva and at the UN. November 19, 2001 'DO YOU THINK well-financed terrorists could build a nuclear weapon?" We posed the question to the soft-spoken, white-haired man sitting next to us at a meeting in Moscow in 1991, days before the demise of the Soviet Union. He thought for a few moments and said, "It would be very difficult, but if terrorists managed to obtain the necessary uranium or plutonium, the right team of physicists, metallurgists, chemists, engineers, explosives experts and machinists might be able to do it." Carson Mark was a genuine expert. He had headed the Theoretical Division at Los Alamos National Laboratory for many years and was a U.S. authority on the design of nuclear weapons. We were in Moscow to discuss ways to help the Soviets safeguard and dispose of surplus plutonium and uranium, to keep these bomb materials from falling into the wrong hands. Now the hands reaching for these weapons are those of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida. No one doubts that bin Laden would use nuclear weapons if he could obtain them. Documents discovered last week in Afghanistan show an interest in nuclear weapons among al-Qaida members, though news reports suggested that at least some of the notes were extremely superficial, at the level of an undergraduate copying from a textbook. An al-Qaida member testified in a federal trial earlier this year that bin Laden had attempted to purchase uranium in Sudan in 1994. A Pakistani reporter recently quoted bin Laden as saying "We have the weapons as deterrent." Pakistan detained for questioning several scientists formerly associated with its nuclear weapons program and alleged to have connections with the Taliban and bin Laden. After the Gulf War, we learned that Iraq had a stockpile of uranium that would have been more than enough to make a nuclear weapon. We have no reason to believe that the Iraqis did not conceal even more. The alleged leader of the Sept. 11 hijackers was reported to have met with an Iraqi intelligence officer. The Russians have tons of plutonium and uranium metal taken from dismantled nuclear weapons stored in their deteriorating and underprotected nuclear weapons facilities. Demoralized Russian workers have access to weapons material, and the threat of insider theft or bribery is all too real. But it is not only nuclear weapons complexes that might provide material for a bomb. Any nation with a nuclear power industry or research reactors is a potential source of plutonium or uranium. A weapon built with reactor-grade materials would be large and difficult to deliver, but any major U.S. harbor receives thousands of shipping containers every day that could conceal such a device. What about the team needed to design and build a weapon? Carson Mark believed that a small group of skilled scientists and engineers with enough time might, by trial and error, master the dangerous technologies needed to design and build a crude, relatively low-yield bomb. With any luck (from our point of view), they might kill themselves in the process, but the detonation in a city of a nuclear weapon with only one-tenth the power of the bombs used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki would kill tens of thousands of people. Would specialists with such highly developed skills be motivated to work for terrorists? The contact between Pakistani nuclear scientists and bin Laden or the Taliban suggests possibly yes. Another route for the terrorists would be to try to obtain an operable nuclear weapon through theft or bribery. Weapons from most nuclear powers with extensive security experience are probably safe, but there are still reasons for concern. In 1998, a former Russian security official testified in Congress that 43 "suitcase- sized" nuclear weapons were missing from the Russian arsenal. His testimony has never been confirmed but is still worrisome. Pakistani officials assure us that their small nuclear stockpile is well protected, but there are reports of fundamentalist sympathizers in their scientific and intelligence communities. What can we do to reduce the threat? First, we should help Russia strengthen its protection of nuclear materials and enable its weapons scientists to convert to civilian work. We can help Pakistan develop technology needed to guard against the theft or unauthorized use of its nuclear weapons. Second, the U.S. administration should recommit itself to multinational efforts to control and limit the spread of nuclear weapons. It should seize the opportunity provided by last week's tentative agreement between Presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin and move quickly to reduce U.S. and Russian stockpiles of nuclear warheads. The administration should also re-submit the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty for Senate ratification. These actions will make it more difficult for terrorists to obtain materials and expertise. International cooperation is the key. None of this will be easy or cheap, but the potential human and economic costs of inaction are far too terrible to ignore. Copyright © 2001, Newsday, Inc. ***************************************************************** 4 The Specter of Nuclear Terror November 19, 2001 For most Americans there is no more frightening threat than terrorists with nuclear weapons. Assuming Osama bin Laden does not already have them — the assumption most experts make — everything possible must be done to prevent him or other terrorists from obtaining them. The starting point is Russia, where poorly protected nuclear bombs and materials remain vulnerable to theft. It is not enough that President Bush and Vladimir Putin, Russia's president, have agreed to greatly reduce the number of nuclear missiles in each country's arsenal. The two leaders must also do more to safeguard the remaining weapons and any vulnerable nuclear materials in Russia that could be used to make bombs if stolen. Russia insists that it is guarding its weapons carefully. But a Russian general raised concern recently when he revealed that terrorists have twice this year conducted surveillance at a Russian nuclear arms storage facility, presumably with an eye to storming it. Another Russian general created alarm four years ago by asserting that many of Russia's small, portable nuclear bombs could not be accounted for. That was emphatically denied at the time, and was denied again just recently. An alternative path to nuclear capability is for terrorists to make a weapon themselves. That would be extremely difficult for most terrorist groups — far harder than making a chemical or biological weapon — but it can't be ruled out entirely. The primary barrier has always been the difficulty of obtaining or producing the highly enriched uranium or the plutonium that would be needed to make a bomb. Unfortunately, the opportunities for theft have multiplied in recent years as the political and economic disintegration of the former Soviet Union has left many sites only loosely guarded, and their nuclear experts impoverished and vulnerable to bribes. With enough plutonium or highly enriched uranium in hand, a terrorist group with three or four specialists in its ranks, a machine shop and sufficient time could probably make a crude nuclear weapon, weighing more than a ton. That, at least, was the alarming verdict of five American nuclear weapons experts who examined the question a few years ago. Even terrorist groups that were short on expertise and had only low-grade radioactive materials from medicine or industry could make a "dirty bomb" in which radioactive materials are placed around conventional explosives, with the goal of contaminating a large area. With so much nuclear material in the former Soviet Union potentially vulnerable, it would seem imperative to swiftly safeguard the warheads and fissile materials not yet adequately protected. Farsighted cooperative programs begun a decade ago have done much to upgrade security at Russian nuclear facilities and to retain Russian scientists who might be tempted to sell their expertise. But the effort is proceeding at too lackadaisical a pace, and the Bush administration seems inclined to let it creep along. A task force led by former Senator Howard Baker and Lloyd Cutler, a former White House counsel, called early this year for a huge increase in financing. Yet Congress has approved less than $200 million for such programs in the 2002 fiscal year, a small fraction of what the panel recommended, and the Bush administration has rebuffed attempts to boost the supplemental terrorism package to provide more. One way or another more money should be found. Even more important, Presidents Bush and Putin need to summon the political will to brush aside all obstacles that have slowed the program. Otherwise, the growing sophistication of terrorist groups will eventually overtake the lagging efforts to keep nuclear weapons out of their reach. Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company | Privacy Information ***************************************************************** 5 Nuclear terrorism is very near: Experts Sunday, November 18, 2001 (New Delhi): Recovery of papers on what looked like the Taliban's nuclear programme from its abandoned offices and Mullah Omar's warning of a "bigger attack on America to destroy it" could mean that nuclear terrorism is very near, say experts. "The chaotic breakup of USSR in 1991 had left what later came to be known as 'loose nukes' in places like Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhistan... at least some amount of this enriched uranium and nuclear weapons may have reached Al-Qaeda, through Russian Mafia or other terrorist and criminal organisations," says Arpit Rajain of the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, New Delhi. 'Loose nukes refer to any nuclear material or device that was lost without account. It is not a weapon in itself,' he added. US intelligence estimates say that Bin laden's operatives already have a small nuclear weapon called 'suitase nuke' obtained from a former Soviet-bloc nation, or can assemble a suitcase nuke on their own. "Suitcase bombs are convenient devices left over from Soviet days which need only the appropriate code for activation, says Rajain. Gen Alexander Lebed, the former director of Russian National Security Council had estimated that around 125 suitcase bombs had vanished from the Russian arsenal, says a former research official with the Institute of Defence Studies and Analysis (IDSA), New Delhi. Suitcase bombs, thought to weigh some 60 pounds are the size of a small freezer and can be carried as a back-pack. They have the explosive power of a conventional bomb, but can spread deadly radiation for miles. However, he feels that even if Taliban or Al-Qaeda had acquired the suitcase bombs, it would be difficult to detonate them. "Because the trigger of the bomb, made of tritium, deteriorates rapidly in four to five years time, and it has to be checked and replaced, which is impossible. The specific codes known as Permissive Action Link have to be broken to detonate the bomb. So even if the deterioration is checked, it will be difficult to activate the suitcase bombs," he says. However, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) feels that after the September 11 attacks, it has become "far more likely that terrorists could target nuclear facilities, nuclear material and radioactive sources worldwide." IAEA Director General Mohammed Elbaradei says that the "willingness of terrorists to commit suicide to achieve their evil aims makes the nuclear terrorism threat far more likely than it was before September 11." According to a testimony in a US federal trial by an Al-Qaeda operative, Osama bin Laden did manage to buy a canister of urainum from Sudan. There are also reports that he tried to buy nuclear weapons from the Russian mafia after the September 11 attacks. While analysts estimate that bomb-grade fissile material like highly enriched uranium or plutonium is relatively heavily guarded in most nuclear weapon states, they also feel that sophisticated terrorists can fairly readily design and fabricate a workable atomic bomb if they get the ingredients. (PTI) ***************************************************************** 6 Kazakh nuclear firm to spend 16m dollars on protecting environment in 2001-2005 BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Nov 19, 2001 Almaty, 19 November: Kazakhstan's Kazatomprom [Kazakh atomic industry] national nuclear company has earmarked 2,385,834,000 tenge (the current exchange rate is 148.55 tenge to the dollar) for environmental protection measures to be carried out at its enterprises in 2001-2005, the company's press service has told the Interfax-Kazakhstan news agency. According to the press service, the environmental protection measures to be carried out will enable the company to meet its environmental protection obligations to the people living close to the company's enterprises, and to carry out work to scrap and bury its own production waste. [Passage to end omitted: background on radioactive waste in Kazakhstan] Source: Interfax-Kazakhstan news agency, Almaty, in Russian 0707 gmt 19 Nov 01 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter All Material ***************************************************************** 7 Russia: Nuclear reactor of Kursk to be disposed of in regular way BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Nov 18, 2001 Text of report in English by Russian news agency ITAR-TASS Murmansk, 18 November: The disposal of the Kursk nuclear reactor is likely to be done in the regular way, but there are some other options as well, the commander of the Northern Fleet, Adm Vyacheslav Popov, told the press in Murmansk on Sunday [18 November]. The job is not new for the fleet. Fuel will be unloaded from the reactor, and the sixth compartment will be isolated. The Kursk reactor has been put into the safe storing mode, Popov noted. Source: ITAR-TASS news agency, Moscow, in English 1441 gmt 18 Nov 01 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter All Material Subject to ***************************************************************** 8 UNITED NATIONS COURT OPENS IRISH PLUTONIUM CASE AGAINST BRITISH GOVERNMENT 19 November 2001 Hamburg - An historic legal case will open here today where the Government of Ireland is seeking to prevent the British government from opening a new plutonium fuel facility. The case is to be heard at the United Nations International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, in Hamburg, November 19-20th. Greenpeace has described the case as a major challenge to the plans of the UK to ship tens of thousands of kilograms of weapons-usable plutonium around the world. The Sellafield nuclear reprocessing site has been at the centre of controversy between the UK and Ireland for decades due to daily releases of radioactive waste into the Irish Sea, resultant contamination of marine life, and concerns over the impact on the health of people in Ireland. Ireland, along with countries around the world, has been particularly concerned with the dangerous nuclear transports of waste and plutonium to and from Sellafield. Ireland has asked the Tribunal to issue provisional measures, a form of injunction, that would suspend the license for the British Nuclear Fuels Ltd. (BNFL) plutonium fuel manufacturing facility, SMP (Sellafield MOX Plant). They have also asked that the Tribunal instructs the UK government to not permit any nuclear transports into or out of the UK associated with the operation of the SMP. The UK government issued a license to operate the controversial SMP on October 3rd, despite strong opposition from Ireland, governments in the Nordic region and environmental groups. "Coastal states around the world are watching this case closely," said Greenpeace International lawyer Duncan Currie. "This case shows that shipping states can be held to account for risks to the environment caused by their activities, and States concerned about increased risks of terrorism have a means of redress." Ireland has stated that terrorist attacks of September 11 warrant a review of security surrounding the MOX facility and international nuclear transports. Greenpeace has long claimed that security of nuclear transports is inadequate. Ireland has filed for a full hearing before an arbitral tribunal under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which would not begin until 2002. "Sellafield currently holds a stock of plutonium of over 70,000 kilograms. BNFL, fully backed by the UK government, would like to proliferate this plutonium around the planet by shipping MOX fuel to as many clients as possible. The UN Tribunal needs to act now to prevent these shipments before catastrophe strikes," said Shaun Burnie, nuclear campaigner of Greenpeace International. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT: - Shaun Burnie +31 629 00 11 33, Duncan Currie +64 21 632 335. Visit www.britishnuclearfuels.com [http://www.britishnuclearfuels.com] ***************************************************************** 9 Editorial: Cutting ties does make sense Las Vegas SUN November 19, 2001 Last week was a busy one with respect to Yucca Mountain. It started with the Department of Energy's acknowledgement that it wouldn't consider in its suitability study the potential impact of terrorism on the transportation and the storage of high-level nuclear waste, a decision that makes no sense -- especially after Sept. 11. A couple of days later the DOE's inspector general reported that a law firm working for the Yucca Mountain Project had failed to disclose to the DOE that it simultaneously was lobbying for a nuclear power industry trade group. The DOE has long been accused of being in bed with the nuclear power industry, but even this conflict of interest was shocking. As if there wasn't plenty already to give Nevadans heartburn, last week ended with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's announcement that it would put on a full-court press to try to get a nuclear waste dump built in Nevada. In response, the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce -- the third largest chamber in the nation -- is exploring the possibility of ending its membership with the parent organization. The Henderson and Boulder City chambers could end their ties, too (the North Las Vegas chamber isn't affiliated with the national group). A withdrawal certainly is warranted, and it should be noted that Henderson chamber President Ron Meek wants to contact local chambers elsewhere in the nation about the possibility of their withdrawal. Don't forget that dozens of cities are located near the rail and road routes over which the nuclear waste would have to travel to get here. Since the federal government is planning on storing 77,000 tons of nuclear waste here, that means there could be thousands of opportunities for accidents or even acts of terrorism. This isn't just a Nevada issue, it's one that would endanger residents of cities that happen to be in the path of major rail routes and highways. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce's support of the Yucca Mountain Project is part of a larger agenda by business groups to weaken environmental protections and promote polluting industries. They believe the Bush White House is more hospitable to their ideas than the Clinton administration was, a situation that has emboldened them to advocate ideas that place a premium on the interests of industry -- no matter how damaging it might be for the environment or public safety. The U.S. chamber's simple-minded promotion of industry at any cost is one that the overwhelming majority of Americans have rejected -- and we hope that the Bush administration has the good sense to ignore the U.S. chamber's endorsement of the Yucca Mountain Project. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 10 Depleted Uranium Toxicity in Afghanistan , by Richard S. Ehrlich by Richard S. Ehrlich ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — American warplanes are attacking Afghanistan with depleted uranium weapons which could poison combatants and civilians, especially children, according to U.S. officials. The possibility of radioactive dust storms sweeping across Afghanistan and polluting rivers has meanwhile sparked fears in Pakistan. "The radioactive dust released by the impact of these weapons can easily get into the food chain and the water supply through the Kabul River in Afghanistan and thus into Pakistan's Indus [River]," reported Dawn newspaper. "There are simply no contingency measures to brace people against such a disastrous humanitarian fallout," Dawn added. The narrow Kabul River cuts through the center of the heavily bombed, mile-high Afghan capital and provides drinking water for the people who dwell there. After meandering east along the highway past Jalalabad and other U.S. bomb targets, the Kabul River crosses into Pakistan and feeds the Indus River, the country's biggest waterway. The Indus provides much of the liquid nourishment to Pakistan's farms and people along its route south to the Arabian Sea. Pakistani Dr. Ali Rind warned Dawn's readers: "All flying bombs — Tomahawk, JDAM etc. — are made of depleted uranium metal." Many experts insist the dangers of depleted uranium are often exaggerated. Dr. Michael H. Repacholi of the World Health Organization, however, said in a January report: "DU [deleted uranium] is released from fired weapons in the form of small particles that may be inhaled, ingested or remain in the environment." Dr. Repacholi said, "For smaller particles, a larger fraction will deposit in the lungs, where they may remain for months or years, unless they dissolve. Very small amounts may be retained in the lymphatic system for longer." He added, "Breathing ultra-fine particles could lead to a theoretical risk of cancer. "In arid regions, most DU remains on the surface as dust. It is dispersed in [non-arid] soil more easily, particularly in the areas of higher rainfall." Dr. Repacholi stressed, "Children rather than adults may be considered to be more at risk of DU exposure when returning to normal activities within a war zone through contaminated food and water, since typical hand-to-mouth activity of inquisitive play could lead to high DU ingestion from contaminated soil." Depleted uranium is "used in several types of munitions, but primarily in two types: it's used in 120-millimeter tank rounds and it's used in 30-millimeter rounds fired by the A-10," Defense Department spokesperson Kenneth H. Bacon told a newsconference in January. The dreaded A-10 "Wart Hog" is a so-called a "tank killing" aircraft. Every 30-millimeter round it fires has a 0.3-kilogram, depleted uranium "penetrator" to bust through armor, according to military reports. Depleted uranium is "primarily for anti-armor, and those are its main uses," Mr. Bacon said. "We obviously put out instructions about avoiding depleted uranium dust," he added. "Troops are instructed to wear masks if they're around what they consider to be atomized or particle-ized depleted uranium — that is if rounds have struck tanks, there could be depleted uranium dust around. "So if they were working around an [enemy] tank that had been disabled by a depleted uranium round, they would be instructed to wear some sort of mask to prevent breathing in particles," Mr. Bacon said. "All our studies show that in cases where there is dust, it [depleted uranium] is washed away and nullified by the first heavy rain. "But there aren't a lot of heavy rains in the desert, so obviously, when we were advising our soldiers how to deal with depleted uranium damage, or damaged vehicles in the desert, we were careful to point out that they should wear masks." Depleted uranium is described as uranium that is 40 percent less radioactive than natural uranium, though it retains identical chemical properties. Natural uranium is found in everyday air, water and soil and, as a result, is also in each person's body. Depleted uranium, however, has a half-life of 4.5 billion years. In 1998, the Pentagon noted: "Depleted uranium is the most effective material for [military] uses because of its high density and the metallic properties that allow it to 'self-sharpen' as it penetrates armor. "Armor containing depleted uranium is very effective at blunting anti-tank weapons," the Pentagon added. "The major health concerns about DU relate to its chemical properties as a heavy metal rather than to its radioactivity, which is very low." Shrapnel from a depleted uranium weapon's explosion can pepper a victim's body much like a shotgun blast. If the shrapnel remains embedded in a person, then the radiation "isn't eliminated," an expert said at a Defense Department briefing. "By accumulation, is the [radioactive] dose increasing with time? Yes, it is," the expert added. Dr. Ross Anthony, from the Rand Corporation, told the Defense Department briefing, "The kidney is the part that is the most susceptible." In experiments with animals, however, "there seem to be no real highly negative effects until you get a very, very high dose," Dr. Anthony said. In 1999, Steve Fetter and Frank von Hippel wrote in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: "Radiation doses for soldiers with embedded fragments of depleted uranium may be troublesome. "Apart from radiation, however, the risks related to the heavy-metal toxicity of uranium inhaled and ingested by soldiers in direct and unprotected contact with vehicles struck with DU munitions could be significant. "Primarily at risk are those who were in vehicles when they were struck, or their rescuers, as well as those who worked for extended periods in cleanup efforts inside the vehicles without adequate respiratory protection," they added. "Very prolonged exposure to high concentrations of depleted uranium is required to give radiation doses significantly above [normal] background" levels. "Pieces and particles of depleted uranium lying about would be sources of most of the external radiation dose, which would come primarily from penetrating gamma rays. "Inhalation of DU-contaminated dust — either directly or after resuspension [in the air] — would be the source of most of the internal dose, which would be primarily from very short-range alpha particles." Referring to desert dust storms, the bulletin said, "The ground the DU-contaminated plumes passed over would be coated with a thin layer of DU dust, some of which would be later kicked up by wind and human activity. "The munitions could deposit a layer of [depleted uranium] dust on crops that could be eaten directly by humans or by animals later consumed by humans. "However, rough estimates suggest that the cancer risk from consumption of contaminated produce would be less than from inhalation." As a result of the U.S.-Gulf War, "the number of Iraqi soldiers with embedded DU fragments could be in the thousands," the bulletin said. "Natural curiosity may also lead children and other passersby to investigate the interiors of destroyed tanks and other vehicles...which would subject them to danger from DU dust," it warned. "Such vehicles should be made inaccessible, perhaps by being buried and then pumped full of concrete." Critics have expressed concern over depleted uranium contamination on battlefields which do not receive environmental clean-ups. Some critics claimed birth defects among babies born in Iraq after the Gulf War — including headless victims and others with deformed limbs — may be linked to the U.S. use of depleted uranium. Richard S. Ehrlich lives in Bangkok, Thailand. His web page is located at http://members.tripod.com/ehrlich, [http://members.tripod.com/ehrlich] and he may be reached by email at animists@yahoo.com [animists@yahoo.com] . from The Laissez Faire City Times, Vol 5, No 44, October 29, 2001 ***************************************************************** 11 Antiterrorism money is spread thinly in state Local - Detroit Free Press Sunday November 18 06:37 AM EST BY DAVID ZEMAN, FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER Michigan has been awarded more than $10 million from Washington to combat terrorism since 1997 with little federal oversight of whether the state's most vulnerable areas are sufficiently protected, according to government records and interviews. In one case involving a $1.4-million grant, local emergency officials -- from Escanaba to Lansing -- were given identical amounts, regardless of the likelihood of attack in their areas. Yet three of the four counties with nuclear power plants got nothing. Local officials who received money -- rarely experts in counterterrorism -- were often left on their own to read manuals and watch videos as they figured out what equipment they should buy. Full story at Detroit Free Press ***************************************************************** 12 IAEA Daily Press Review Date 2001-11-19 Number 220 1. Non-proliferation More on recent US/Russia summit: no agreement reached on how to structure new framework for strategic arms that would bind both countries well beyond their presidents' terms of office. Media Resources: (CNN; I; IHT; NYT - 17/11) Russian Federation; United States of America 2. Terrorism Various reports on Al Qaida documents and manuals found in Kabul reportedly revealing desire to construct nuclear weapons. Articles on possibility of terrorist nuclear attack: NYT editorial: "The Specter of Nuclear Terror;" IHT Op-Ed: "Could [Al] Qaida Set Off 'Dirty' Bomb?"; and Newsweek report: "Gunning for Bin Laden." Media Resources: (CNN; I; IHT; NWK; NYT; WP - 16/11) Afghanistan; United States of America 3. Nuclear power European Parliament reportedly approves resolution underlining need to keep nuclear at heart of Europe's energy mix. Russia begins shipping key components of nuclear reactor to Iran under deal that reportedly upset Washington. Media Resources: (CNN; NUC - 16/11) European Union; Iran, Islamic Republic of; Russian Federation 4. Nuclear safety Water leak from Japanese Hamaoka NPP No. 1 boiling-water reactor could reportedly have gone unnoticed for months power firm states; town residents vote against having NPP built nearby; Japanese Government urges power companies to ensure safety of NPPs as part of its efforts to seek public support for its energy programme. Media Resources: (BBC; JAP - 16/11) Japan 5. Radiation, health Management of Ukrainian Rovno NPP confirms contamination of local river Styr by transformer oil that leaked from reactor 1. Microscopic cancer "smart bomb" powered by single radioactive atom able to find and kill tumor cells in laboratory experiments: researchers hope to test technique on human patients next year. Media Resources: (CNN; R - 15/11) Ukraine; United States of America 6. Radwaste, fuel Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth lose their High Court bid to prevent new Sellafield facilityfrom opening in Cumbria. Media Resources: (FT - 19/11) United Kingdom 7. Miscellaneous Article on disposal of "Kursk's" nuclear reactor. Media Resources: (BBC - 16/11) Russian Federation ***************************************************************** 13 Muslim Moderate Kabbani Firm on Terrorist Nuclear Threat NewsMax.com Monday, Nov. 19, 2001 Shaykh Hisham Kabbani, founder of the Islamic Supreme Council of America (ISCA), stands by and renews his 1999 warning that brainwashed Islamic extremists have infiltrated mosques and Muslim student and community groups, and have bought more than 20 nuclear warheads carried in suitcases. In his infamous January 1999 address to the U.S. Department of State, Kabbani cautioned officials about imminent danger to America posed by nuclear-armed Islamic extremists. He further described 5,000 suicide bombers being trained by bin Laden in Afghanistan ready to move to any part of the world. In a recent pronouncement, ISCA said: "Shaykh Hisham Kabbani warned of the dangers of mass terrorism to American cities, and he was brushed aside as a dangerous alarmist. Muslim organizations are no doubt beginning to regret their treatment of him." Part of that strident alarm sounded by Kabbani in 1999: "We want to tell people to be careful, that something major might hit quickly because they [Islamic extremists] were able to buy more than 20 atomic nuclear [war]heads from some of the mafia in the ex-Soviet Union. ... "Through the universities, there will be the most danger. If the nuclear atomic warheads reach these universities, you don’t know what these students are going to do, because their way of thinking is brainwashed, limited and narrow-minded." Kabbani, an American citizen of Lebanese descent, holds a degree in Islamic jurisprudence, which authorizes him to give legal rulings. He has written several papers and reports on Jihad, the history and evolution of extremism, and radical Islamic groups. His stock has risen considerably since Sept. 11. He has been appearing regularly on TV and doing high-level briefings. Last month he briefed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff on Uzbekistan. ISCA, which features the entirety of the 1999 speech on its Web site as a sort of Gettysburg Address, regularly culls the news for any and all clippings that vindicate or corroborate Kabbani’s dire warnings. A recent case in point: the State Department's rigorous new screening of Arab and Muslim men seeking student visas. More obvious: Osama bin Laden's recent boast that he controls chemical and nuclear weapons. Hallmarked by a long flowing beard, robe and headdress, Kabbani is a heavyset man with intense eyes set in a friendly face that is often smiling. He admits being hurt by the alienation he has suffered since 1999 at the hands of Muslim groups, including the Council on American Islamic Relations and Muslim Students Association. At one point he received FBI protection. However, years after his controversial warning speech, Kabbani's resolve remains and he continues to speak out in ways sometimes unpopular with some fellow Muslims. An example is his recent plea to Muslims to inform on those who might have any knowledge of extremist cells and activities that would help investigators: "I urge all our members of the Islamic Supreme Council of America and many Muslims, that I know in the United States and abroad, to come with every tip they have, with every information that they have, in order to tell the different agencies about it, and inform them as soon as possible, in order to avoid any harassment for the Muslim community." An under-fire Kabbani explained in 1999 exactly what he meant when he told the State Department that 80 percent of American mosques had been taken over by extremists. His point, he said, was that a "few extremists" were taking over leadership posts, despite a "majority of moderate Muslims," thus "influencing 80 percent of the mosques." Today, he sticks even closer to his guns and adds embellishing data: Kabbani visited 114 mosques in the United States. "Ninety of them were mostly exposed, and I say exposed, to extreme or radical ideology," he said. Kabbani bases his exposure conclusion on speeches, board members and materials published. One telltale sign of an extremist mosque, said Kabbani, was an unhealthy focus on the Palestinian struggle. When not embroiled in the never-ending fallout from his speech, Kabbani fights what he likes to style his personal "holy war" or "jihad.' Following ancient teachings, he divides jihad into four kinds: "jihad by the heart, jihad by the tongue, jihad by the hand and jihad by the sword." Kabbani's jihad by the tongue: "Removing all misconceptions and stereotypes in clarifying the image of Islam held by non-Muslims, building a trusting relationship and working with them in ways that accord with their way of thinking, are all primary forms of jihad." He added: "Islam doesn’t teach terrorism, or allow you to kill anyone. Islam tells you to toss a flower on your enemy in order to bring him to your side, not to fight with him." Kabbani wants to be a voice against terrorism and ideological extremists who use Muslims in America as a vehicle for exploiting foreign political causes. All this is tough on a quiet scholar who typically goes into seclusion for 40 days each year. "When I was younger, I used to do it for six or nine months at a stretch. That's training your spiritual power and your energy." NewsMax.com Privacy Statement ***************************************************************** 14 Nuclear Notebook | The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Novemember/Decmber 2001 Vol. 57, No. 6, pp. 78–79 British Nuclear Forces, 2001 In July 1998, Britain's Labour government announced several changes to its nuclear force resulting from its Strategic Defence Review: + Only one British submarine will patrol at any given time, and that boat will carry a reduced load of 48 warheads--half the number the Conservative government had planned. + The submarine will patrol at a reduced state of alert, its missiles de-targeted. It will be capable of firing its missiles within several days, not minutes as during the Cold War. It will also carry out a range of secondary tasks. + Britain will maintain fewer than 200 operationally available warheads, a one-third reduction from the Conservative plan. + Britain will purchase a total of 58 rather than 65 Trident II D-5 missiles from the United States. When these decisions are fully implemented, the total explosive power of Britain's operationally available weapons will have been reduced by more than 70 percent since the end of the Cold War. The explosive power of each Trident submarine will be one-third less than that of the Chevaline-armed Polaris submarines, the last of which was retired in 1996. British warheads are designed at Aldermaston, a 670-acre site in Berkshire. Final assembly takes place at Burghfield, a 270-acre site seven miles to the east. In February 1997, the component manufacturing facility at Cardiff closed after 36 years; its functions were transferred to Aldermaston and Burghfield, where about 3,600 people are employed. Warhead maintenance and disassembly takes place at Burghfield, where the last of the Chevaline warheads are scheduled to be dismantled by March 2002. The Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) is now managed by an industrial consortium consisting of Lockheed Martin, Serco Limited, and British Nuclear Fuels, which took over in April 2000, under a 10-year, $3.6 billion contract. On April 1, 1999, the Chief of Defence Logistics assumed overall responsibility for the routine movement of nuclear weapons within Britain. Day-to-day duties are being transferred from Royal Air Force (RAF) personnel to the Ministry of Defence Police, with support from AWE civilians and the Royal Marines. The process will be completed by March 31, 2002. Bombers. The RAF once operated eight squadrons of dual-capable Tornado GR.1/1A aircraft. But with the withdrawal of the last remaining WE177 bombs from operational service in March 1998, the Tornados' nuclear role was terminated, bringing to an end a four-decade history of RAF aircraft carrying nuclear weapons. By the end of August 1998, all remaining WE177 bombs had been dismantled. Before the year is out, the RAF base in Bruggen, Germany, is scheduled to close, and the Tornados there will be reassigned to bases in Lossiemouth, Scotland, and Marham, England. Nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs). The first submarine of Britain's new Vanguard class began its first patrol in December 1994. The second submarine, Victorious, entered service a year later. The third, Vigilant, was launched in October 1995 and entered service in fall 1998. The fourth and final submarine of the class, Vengeance, was launched September 19, 1998, and commissioned on November 27, 1999, at the Marconi-Marine Shipyard in Barrow-in-Furness. The Royal Navy announced in February 2001 that the Vengeance entered operational service with the First Submarine Squadron and has begun patrols. The submarine has a total complement of 205 men, which includes a ship's company of 130 men while on patrol. The current estimated cost of the program is $19.8 billion. Each Vanguard-class SSBN carries 16 U.S.-made Trident II (D-5) submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs). The United States and Britain share a pool of SLBMs kept at the Strategic Weapons Facility Atlantic, Kings Bay Submarine Base, Georgia. Although Britain has title to 58 SLBMs, technically it does not own them. A missile deployed on a U.S. SSBN may at a later date be deployed on a British sub, or vice versa. British submarines conduct their missile flight tests at the U.S. Eastern Test Range off Florida. The Vanguard conducted two successful Demonstration and Shakedown Operations (DASO) in May and June 1994, launching two missiles. The Victorious fired two missiles during its DASOs in July and August in 1995. In October 1997, the Vigilant also launched two missiles during two DASOs. On September 21, 2000, the Vengeance launched a Trident II D-5 during a DASO exercise. One of the four subs is normally on patrol. Two others are training in port or in local waters and can be deployed on relatively short notice. The fourth submarine is undergoing repair and maintenance and would require significantly longer preparation for deployment. Each SSBN is protected by one or two hunter-killer submarines (SSNs) while en route to and from its patrol area. In fall 2000, the Royal Navy briefly withdrew all attack subs from service after the Tireless suffered a reactor malfunction. While other British subs were being checked for similar reactor problems, anti-submarine warfare assets (frigates, helicopters, and maritime patrol aircraft) were used to guard and survey transit areas around the shallow waters of the Irish Sea. British SSBN patrols are believed to be coordinated with the operations of French SSBNs. British SLBMs are thought to carry a variation of the U.S. W76 warhead designed for Trident I C4 and Trident II D-5 missiles, enclosed in a U.S. Mk-4 re-entry vehicle (RV). Reducing the number of RVs can extend the range of a missile. In its "substrategic" configuration, for example, a missile carrying a single warhead would have a range of more than 6,000 miles. Several factors will determine the number of warheads in Britain's future stockpile. We assume that Britain will produce only enough warheads for three boatloads of missiles, a practice it followed with Polaris. As stated in the Strategic Defense Review, there will be "fewer than 200 operationally available warheads" in the stockpile, and no more than 48 warheads per SSBN. If all four SSBNs were fully loaded (MIRVed with three warheads) that would total 192. A further consideration is the "substrategic mission." A Ministry of Defence official has described a substrategic strike as "the limited and highly selective use of nuclear weapons in a manner that fell demonstrably short of a strategic strike, but with a sufficient level of violence to convince an aggressor who had already miscalculated our resolve and attacked us that he should halt his aggression and withdraw or face the prospect of a devastating strategic strike." The substrategic mission began with Victorious and "will become fully robust when Vigilant enters service," according to the 1996 White Paper. Vigilant achieved operational availability on February 1, 1998. Assuming this policy was implemented, some Trident II SLBMs already have a single warhead and are assigned targets once covered by WE177 gravity bombs. This means that when Vigilant is on patrol, 10, 12, or 14 of its missiles may carry as many as three warheads, while the other two, four, or six may be armed with only one warhead. There is some flexibility in the choice of yield of the Trident warhead. (For instance, choosing to detonate only the unboosted primary could produce a yield of 1 kiloton or less. Or choosing to detonate the boosted primary could produce a yield of a few kilotons.) With dual missions, an SSBN would have approximately 36-44 warheads on board during patrol. We estimate that the future British stockpile for the SSBN fleet will be around 160 warheads. With an additional 15 percent for spares, we estimate the total stockpile will be approximately 185 warheads. About 15 other warheads are probably in some stage of maintenance and not operationally available. Nuclear Notebook is prepared by Robert S. Norris and William M. Arkin of the Natural Resources Defense Council, Hans M. Kristensen of the Nautilus Institute, and Joshua Handler. Inquiries should be directed to NRDC, 1200 New York Avenue, N.W., Suite 400, Washington, D.C., 20005; 202-289-6868. ©2001 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists ***************************************************************** 15 This is not a test | The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists November/December 2001 Vol. 57, No. 6, pp. 50-51 This is not a test By Stephen I. Schwartz In the immediate aftermath of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the U.S. government implemented emergency plans that until then had been envisioned for use only in the event of an all-out nuclear war. The most dramatic of these was the decision by the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and the Federal Aviation Administration to ground all non-military aircraft in U.S. airspace (or in transit to the United States). At 9:25 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time, all aircraft nationwide not already in the air were grounded, and those in the air were ordered to return to where the flight originated or to land at a nearby airport. By 2:07 p.m., all domestic aircraft were on the ground and by 5:30 p.m., all international flights were either on U.S. or Canadian soil. All commercial flights remained grounded until September 13, and significant restrictions on small, general aviation aircraft remained in place at the time this issue went to press. The plan under which this order was implemented is known as Security Control of Air Traffic and Navigation Aids, or Scatana. Developed in the 1960s, Scatana was originally intended to clear the skies following confirmed warnings of an attack by the Soviet Union. This would have provided unrestricted airspace for U.S. bomber aircraft and missiles, as well as air defense interceptor aircraft, emergency airborne command posts, and associated support aircraft like refueling tankers. Until September 11, 2001, Scatana had never been fully implemented, although it was partially activated by accident during a 1979 false alarm at NORAD. According to Defense Week, NORAD issued a "notice to airmen" implementing a modified version of Scatana approximately five hours after American Airlines Flight 11 slammed into the north tower of the World Trade Center. Although all civilian aircraft were grounded, ground navigation aids were not turned off (as they would have been during a nuclear attack), allowing airliners to safely navigate to their new and unexpected destinations. Also activated in full for the first time on September 11 were plans for ensuring "Continuity of Government," or CoG. Shortly after watching the attacks in New York City on a television in his White House office, Vice President Dick Cheney was evacuated by the Secret Service to the Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC), a hardened bunker buried beneath the East Wing of the White House. Once there (along with National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta, and a few other staff members), Cheney used a secure telephone to contact President George W. Bush, who was in Sarasota, Florida, visiting a school. As Cheney told Tim Russert on NBC’s Meet the Press on September 16, in his conversation with the president he "strongly urge[d] him to delay his return" because of fears that Washington, D.C. was going to be attacked (those fears were compounded by a telephone call to the Secret Service indicating that Air Force One was an intended target). Bush subsequently boarded Air Force One and took to the air as officials scrambled to ascertain what was happening. At one point, the Secret Service considered sending him to NORAD’s headquarters inside Cheyenne Mountain near Colorado Springs, Colorado. After touching down briefly at Barksdale Air Force Base near Bossier City, Louisiana (site of the U.S. Strategic Command’s alternate underground command post), to deliver a hastily prepared statement, the president headed to Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha, Nebraska, communicating with Cheney, military leaders, and the National Security Council via secure teleconference and videoconference links from Stratcom’s primary underground command post, before eventually returning to Washington, D.C. in the evening. It is probable that Stratcom’s fleet of airborne command posts, including those based near Omaha nicknamed "Looking Glass," were placed under increased security and that preparations were made to make them airborne. It is also likely that the president’s specially shielded and outfitted airborne command post, known as the National Airborne Operations Center or NAOC (code-named "Night Watch"), was also readied (it is normally kept on 15-minute ground alert). Indeed, the president’s diversion to Omaha suggests that officials were at least contemplating moving him from Air Force One to NAOC where he could, if necessary, remain aloft for as long as 72 hours while directing a military response. From the White House bunker, Cheney ordered the evacuation of everyone designated as a successor to the president, including the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Cong. Dennis Hastert, Republican of Illinois; the president pro tempore of the Senate, Robert C. Byrd, Democrat of West Virginia; and the entire Cabinet (except Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who remained at the Pentagon), as well as the rest of the congressional leadership. The Secret Service tried at least twice to convince Cheney to evacuate as well, "but I didn’t want to leave the node that we’d established there in terms of having all this capability tied together by communications . . . and if I’d left . . . all of that would have been broken down . . . so I thought it was appropriate for me to stay there in the White House." Hastert, and presumably most if not all the others who were in the Washington, D.C. area, were picked up at designated assembly points by Marine Corps helicopters kept ready for that purpose. They were transported to "a secure facility," most likely the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s bunker known as the High Point Special Facility, inside Mount Weather near Berryville, Virginia, 48 miles (approximately 20 minutes by air) from Washington. (Senior officials who happened to be away from Washington would have been taken to one or more of the many emergency relocation sites located throughout the country. According to a former official from the White House Military Office, by 1980 there were reportedly more than 75 such facilities.) The underground complex at Mount Weather, which was built over four years at a cost of more than $1 billion and opened in 1958, contains an estimated 600,000 square feet of floor space. The facility, which was designed to accommodate several thousand people, includes a hospital, dining and recreation areas, sleeping quarters, an emergency power plant, a radio and television studio, a direct link to the White House, storage tanks capable of holding 500,000 gallons of water, and a crematorium. The only previous time High Point was fully activated was November 9, 1965, during a major power blackout across much of the northeast United States. Alternatively, some or all of these officials may have been sent to Site R, officially known as the Alternate Joint Communications Center. Since 1953, Site R has served as the backup Pentagon, with more than 700,000 square feet of floor space, sophisticated computer and communications equipment, and room for more than 3,000 people. Located inside Raven Rock Mountain about six miles north of Camp David on the Pennsylvania-Maryland border, Site R continued to operate as a major CoG facility even as other facilities were mothballed in the 1990s. As recently as 1997, it had more than 500 military and civilian personnel reportedly working there (although not on round-the-clock shifts, which ended in February 1992). During the Cold War, every federal agency had its own emergency relocation site for use during and after a nuclear war. Senior officials at the Treasury Department apparently worked from their site on September 11 and it is likely officials from other departments did as well. Fear and uncertainty about the terrorists’ plans, the whereabouts of any accomplices, and ongoing concerns about the safety of the president in Washington, D.C., led Vice President Cheney to spend his evenings and perhaps some days of the remainder of that week at the presidential retreat at Camp David, where there is also a secure, if rather austere, underground shelter. At least one television report suggested Cheney was also spending time at Site R during this tense period, a wholly plausible scenario. Even as late as September 20, when President Bush ventured to Capitol Hill to address the nation, security concerns kept Cheney away, reportedly the first time a vice president has not appeared with a president before a joint session of Congress (Senator Byrd took his seat on the dais). House majority leader Richard Armey, Republican of Texas, also skipped the event at the request of security officials. How well all of this worked is as yet unknown and is, in any event, highly classified. While there are still regular emergency evacuation drills for designated senior officials, and although the White House Communications Agency and FEMA still track the location of each duly designated presidential successor, there were almost certainly a few problems locating everyone and getting all the equipment and communications links up and running. While the CoG plans evidently worked well, the mass evacuations of all federal government buildings and many private office buildings in New York City, Washington, D.C., Chicago, and elsewhere created massive traffic jams, bringing traffic in some areas to a standstill for hours. This demonstrated once and for all the utter unreality and futility of civil defense plans devised by government officials, who from the 1950s through the 1980s promoted orderly citywide evacuations to the countryside as the best means of defense against a nuclear attack. Stephen I. Schwartz is publisher of the Bulletin and executive director of the Educational Foundation for Nuclear Science. He is the editor and co-author of Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Since 1940 (1998). ©2001 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists ***************************************************************** 16 Roberson visits OR cleanup projects Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 12:06 p.m. on Monday, November 19, 2001 by Paul Parson Oak Ridger staff Maybe it was the lack of notice on her part, but Jessie Roberson, assistant secretary for the Department of Energy's Environmental Management Program, slipped into Oak Ridge last week without the typical hoopla that accompanies most officials when they visit town. Roberson's visit is only fitting due to all the safety- and budget-related issues reported over the past several months concerning local cleanup efforts at DOE facilities. Steven Wyatt, spokesman for DOE's Oak Ridge Operations office, confirmed this morning that Roberson visited town Tuesday, after notifying the local field office last Monday that she was coming. Her visit consisted of meetings with DOE officials, a driving tour of the Oak Ridge K-25 site -- home to major cleanup efforts -- and a visit to Building K-33, part of BNFL Inc.'s three-building cleanup project. Wyatt said Roberson's visit was "indirectly tied" to recent safety issues arising at K-25. Roberson recently revoked the Oak Ridge Operations office's authority to approve safety plans and, two weeks ago, DOE halted cleanup activities involving uranium at K-25 because of deficiencies in several key safety documents. Norman Hammitt, spokesman for BNFL Inc., said Roberson spent about two hours visiting the company and getting a firsthand look at its cleanup project. "It was an impromptu thing," Hammitt said. "She had never been out here to see what we do. It was purely informational." DOE and BNFL signed a $238 million, six-year, fixed-price contract on Aug. 25, 1997, to decontaminate and decommission three buildings at K-25. Those buildings included K-33, which totals 2.8 million square feet; K-29, 586,880 square feet; and K-31, 1.4 million square feet. [http://www.oakridger.com/contact/index.html] All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** 17 doe: Newly Published Documents Department of Energy"> [http://www.energy.gov/] [About the Project] You can quickly locate newly published documents by browsing this segment. As new documents are released for online publication, a link to that document is placed on this page. However, links to older documents are periodically removed to keep this list short and user friendly as well as to accommodate the regular release of new documents. All documents, including those currently or previously listed in this section, can be found in our online alphabetical technical document listing or by using our online search engine. Remember, you may order a document online at any time, if you're unable to locate it using the available online tools. The documents, listed below, are in the in order of the day they were added to the web site, and not in order of the date they were published. Added Title of New Document 11/13/01 Total System Performance Assessment - Analyses for Disposal of Commercial and DOE Waste Inventories at Yucca Mountain - Input to Final Environmental Impact Statement and Site Suitability Evaluation - A brief Introduction Technical Update Impact Letter Report - A brief Introduction Total System Performance Assessment Sensitivity Analyses for Final Nuclear Regulatory Commission Regulations - A brief Introduction Additional Information: [check mark] OCRWM Calendar of Events [http://www.rw.doe.gov/search/cal-intr/cal-intr.htm] [check mark] Top Topics [check mark] Upcoming Events [check mark] Contact Us ***************************************************************** 18 Missing records delay payments for deaths of uranium workers STLtoday - news BY VIRGINIA BALDWIN GILBERT Of the Post-Dispatch 11/18/2001 08:12 PM Delores Tamme One woman's quest for justice may result in thousands of local "warriors of the Cold War" or their survivors getting $150,000 compensation checks for work-related illnesses and deaths. Delores Tamme of Ellisville watched her young husband die a swift, painful death from cancer in 1966. For years afterward, she wondered if the workplace accidents that exposed him to uranium radiation had anything to do with his death. When Tamme read about a federal compensation program for uranium workers, she called the hot line and asked for the forms. Four months later, the regional claims office in Denver is just beginning to process her claim, asking her for medical records that were destroyed decades ago. Of the 13,500 claims filed, 310 checks have been sent. Many claims have been waiting for supporting medical evidence. Meantime, neither Tamme nor the claims workers knew that another government agency had the records all along for many employees. A Labor Department official promised Friday to get to the bottom of the matter and make the records available. Congress established the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program last fall to pay for workers who sickened or died from exposure to radiation or beryllium while working for private contractors making nuclear weapons for the U.S. government. About 2,500 of those employees worked for what was then Mallinckrodt Chemical Co. in St. Louis or Weldon Spring. From 1942 to 1966, they processed uranium for atomic bombs. When Congress set up the compensation program, the workers were called "warriors of the Cold War" whose contributions and suffering should be recognized. But the two Cabinet departments charged with implementing the program have erected barrier after barrier, Tamme said. "It sure has been a hassle to try to get any information," said Tamme, whose husband worked for Mallinckrodt. "For every avenue we've gone down, we've come to a roadblock." The Department of Energy is the successor to the federal agency that hired the workers or their employers. It has a database of medical records and exposure measurements for every Mallinckrodt uranium worker and others who worked for the Atomic Energy Commission in the 1950s and '60s. In fact their exposure records - and cancer and death rates - helped establish occupational exposure limits the government uses today. But the Department of Labor is processing the claims and has put the burden of medical proof on the claimants. Peter Turcic, director of the compensation program, said Friday that he was unaware of the records. He declined to comment on why the Department of Energy did not make that information available. A spokeswoman for the Department of Energy did not comment. "I plan to discuss it with the (Energy) Department," Turcic said. "I will find out how we could get the information from them and pass it on to our claims people." Meantime, Turcic said, people with claims for Mallinckrodt workers and others in the database should send a letter to their Department of Labor regional claims office authorizing the release of medical records by the Comprehensive Epidemiologic Database Resource. In essence, the burden of establishing communication between the two departments is on the people seeking compensation. "I apologize for that," Turcic said. "This is a new program. Everybody has been hired new. We provide training. As time goes on, I hope that things would improve." A painful death at 33 Tamme said she was pleased to get the apology and the information on how to proceed. It has been a long time coming. She has cancer now, and she feels an urgency to get the claim settled, not so much for the money as for the recognition of what her family lost. Her husband, James Adam Soukup, started working at Mallinckrodt Chemical Co.'s Broadway plant in 1949, right after he graduated from St. Louis Central High School. He went to night school at Harris Teachers College and Washington University and earned a chemical engineering degree. He moved with the operation to Weldon Spring in 1958 and was promoted in 1963 to supervisor of the unit that processed "scrap" uranium. Soukup occasionally came home from work talking about a "close call" when he was sprayed with uranium-laden chemicals and had to shower off at the plant, Tamme said. Shortly after the U.S. government closed the Weldon Spring plant in 1966, a biopsy showed that the painful lump under Soukup's arm was melanoma - a fast-growing, deadly skin cancer that already had spread to his lymph system. It soon showed up in his lungs and brain. The last few weeks of his life, Soukup lost his sight and coughed up bloody pieces of lung, Tamme said. He died five weeks after the diagnosis. He was 33. His widow, then 32, was left with two sons, ages 8 and 11. She remarried two years later. Her second husband, Richard Tamme, died last year. "We've had a good life," she said. "But this (claim) is for my boys." And there's the question of justice, of Soukup's employer and his government coming clean on what they knew or suspected. "They said it was not job-related," Tamme said, "but we always wondered." In fact, the government had been collecting data on uranium workers almost from the beginning of the work on the first atomic bomb. Each uranium worker got an annual physical exam. Each worker wore a badge to measure daily radiation exposure. Those records were maintained by the Atomic Energy Commission, then by the Department of Energy. In 1979, government researchers began a cohort study of the collected records. Researchers recorded the names, medical histories and exposure measurements for 2,542 white men who worked with uranium from 1942 to 1966. The study excluded women and nonwhite men. Of those who were studied, 837 had died by 1979. The study continued to record causes of death through 1988. Researchers estimated that workers were exposed to "200 times the contemporary maximum permissible concentration" of radioactive material. A description of the records and the study is available online at cedr.lbl.gov, but details are not. A "typical" worker was 30 years old and worked at Mallinckrodt for slightly more than five years. The study found "increases in a variety of cancers, particularly in those of the digestive and respiratory systems and prostate and brain cancer." Privacy regulations prevent the government from releasing individual records, Turcic said. There might be a way for an individual to retrieve those records from the Web site, but the database manager at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif., could not be reached for comment last week. Reporter Virginia Baldwin Gilbert: E-mail: vgilbert@post-dispatch.com Phone: 314-340-8345 ***************************************************************** 19 It's the Plutonium, Stupid November 18, 2001 Talk about itE-mail storyPrint By GRAHAM ALLISON, Graham Allison is director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard's Kennedy School. A portion of this piece originally appeared in The Economist CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Osama bin Laden gave them the perfect opening. Just before President Bush welcomed Russian President Vladimir V. Putin to the White House for last week's summit, a Pakistani newspaper quoted the Al Qaeda leader claiming to have "chemical and nuclear weapons" and "the right to use them." The specter of a nuclear-armed Al Qaeda should have caused the Russian and American presidents to focus intensely on the single most urgent unmet threat to the civilized community of nations. But As we applaud the success of Putin and Bush in cutting strategic nuclear forces, we must express bewilderment at their failure to take comparable steps to reduce the threat of nuclear terrorism. No one can seriously doubt that Bin Laden wants to acquire nuclear weapons, has been seeking nuclear weapons and would not hesitate to carry out a nuclear assault were he capable of doing so. On Thursday, Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge confirmed that nuclear weapons-related documents were found in an Al Qaeda safe house in Afghanistan. Last year, the CIA intercepted a message in which a member of the Al Qaeda group boasted of plans for a "Hiroshima" against America. According to the Justice Department indictment for the 1998 bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, "At various times from at least as early as 1992, Osama bin Laden and others, known and unknown, made efforts to obtain the components of nuclear weapons." Additional evidence from a former member of Al Qaeda describes attempts to buy uranium of South African origin, repeated travels to three Central Asian states to try to buy a complete warhead or weapons-useable material and discussions with Chechens in which money and drugs were offered for nuclear weapons. While it is by no means certain that Bin Laden has acquired nuclear material, he has declared that acquiring nuclear weapons is a "religious duty." "If I have indeed acquired [nuclear] weapons," he once said, "then I thank God for enabling me to do so." But the danger of nuclear terror is by no means limited to Bin Laden or Al Qaeda. As Bush took office in January, a bipartisan task force, chaired by former Senate Majority Leader Howard H. Baker Jr. (now ambassador to Japan) and Lloyd N. Cutler, former counsel to presidents Carter and Clinton, presented a report card on nonproliferation programs with Russia. The principal finding of the task force is that "the most urgent unmet national security threat to the United States today is the danger that weapons of mass destruction or weapons-usable material in Russia could be stolen, sold to terrorists or hostile nation states and used against American troops abroad or citizens at home." Without immediate action, the threat of nuclear terrorism is high. The question is whether the horror of Sept. 11 can now motivate the United States, Russia and other governments to act urgently--not only against Al Qaeda, but also in taking meaningful, fast action to minimize the risk of nuclear terrorism. So far, the answer must be no. Of the six joint statements issued by Presidents Bush and Putin on Nov. 13, none focused on cooperation to reduce the threat of nuclear terrorism. A single sentence in one joint statement mentioned the need to secure nuclear weapons and prevent their theft. Post-Cold War relations should begin with shared vital national interests that require cooperation for their fulfillment. The urgency and importance of one such interest was made vivid on Sept. 11: to minimize dangers of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction terrorism. As the inventors and builders of 99% of the world's weapons-of-mass-destruction, Russia and the U.S. have a special responsibility to exercise leadership in this arena. A new alliance against nuclear terrorism would have multiple dimensions, including defenses against ballistic missile threats from rogue states. But to focus on that more distant threat to the neglect of the larger and more urgent danger would be a grave strategic blunder. The surest way to prevent nuclear assaults on Russia, America and the world is to prevent terrorists from gaining control of these weapons and the materials to make them. The readiest source of such weapons and materials is the vast arsenals and stockpiles Russia and America accumulated over four decades of Cold War competition. America and Russia should act now to assure each other that their own houses are in order by securing or neutralizing all nuclear weapons and weapons-usable material to agreed international security standards on the fastest timetable technically feasible. An ambitious program of action to achieve this objective should be jointly funded by the U.S., Russia and other members of the international coalition against terrorism. The starting points for a high-priority program of specific actions to this end have already been stated by the two presidents. In his major foreign policy campaign address at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, presidential candidate George W. Bush called for "Congress to increase substantially our assistance to dismantle as many of Russia's weapons as possible, as quickly as possible." In his September 2000 address to the U.N.'s Millennium Summit, President Putin proposed that "the world must find ways to block the spread of nuclear weapons by excluding use of enriched uranium and plutonium in global atomic energy production." The Baker-Cutler task force report outlines a specific program for minimizing the danger of nuclear terrorism. Initiatives should concentrate weapons and materials at the fewest possible sites, secure them by the most technically advanced means and neutralize highly enriched uranium by blending it down for subsequent use in civilian nuclear power plants. This program could essentially eliminate the risk that nuclear weapons could be stolen, sold to terrorists and used to attack America or other countries. Further elements of this campaign must include a U.S.-Russian-led international coalition to cause all other nuclear-weapons states--including Pakistan--to secure weapons and weapons material within their borders. A complementary international effort to prevent proliferation of nuclear weapons to additional states should focus on North Korea, Iran and Iraq through joint political efforts to reinvent more robust nonproliferation controls on sale and export of weapons of mass destruction and missile technologies. After Sept. 11, a nuclear terrorist attack can no longer be dismissed as an analyst's fantasy. No one can doubt Bin Laden's aspirations to acquire nuclear weapons, which he has called a "religious duty." Skeptics' claims that he would not be willing to use a nuclear weapon have also been discredited. As the international noose tightens around Al Qaeda's neck, the group will become more desperate and audacious. Let's move quickly to put the ultimate threat out of his reach. 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