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                    NUCLEAR POWER CONTENTS
 
 1  Probe: DOE not biased toward Yucca
 2  6 JCO officials plead guilty to negligence charges
 3  Yamaguchi governor agrees on nuclear plant project
 4  JCO plant bosses admit guilt in radiation-leak deaths
 5  Yamaguchi governor stokes nuke project
 6  7 JCO officials apologize for Tokaimura N-accident 
 7  'Long term nuke waste site is years away' 
 8  German Nuclear Waste Shipment Prompts Protest 
 9  Greenpeace Says Secret Transport of Nuclear Fuel Breach of Trust
10  Meet The Press transcripts (nuclear and more)
11  Fuel Consignment Heads for Czech Nuclear Plant; New Glitch 
12  NGOs criticise EBRD lending, environment record 
13  RUSSIAN "GREENS" STRONGLY OBJECT NOT ONLY TO THE IMPORTATION OF 
14  Russian, French ministers discuss spent fuel issue
15  Ukraine to work for West meeting of Chernobyl commitments
16  Don't dump N-waste in Utah
17  Nuclear Power May Be Making A Comeback 
18  USEC Licenses CBC to Manufacture and Market New Uranium 
19  Nuclear reactors don't look so bad 
20  Officials: Guilty in Nuke Accident

                    NUCLEAR WEAPONS CONTENTS
 
 1  Cold War Secrets: Glasgow plans
 2  Glasgow's secret strategy for Russian nuclear attack
 3  Report finds low salaries for Russ weapons workers 
 4  Two naval officers nabbed for selling radioactive goods
 5  Israel said holding nuclear scientist
 6  Workers exposed to radiation losing hope 
 7  A mushroom cloud still haunts us 

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                     NUCLEAR POWER ARTICLES
*****************************************************************
 1 Probe: DOE not biased toward Yucca
 
April 23, 2001 
 
By Jeff German 
<german@lasvegassun.com> and Mary Manning 
<manning@lasvegassun.com>
 LAS VEGAS SUN

 A four-month investigation by the Energy Department's inspector 
general has found no bias on the part of the DOE in the Yucca 
Mountain site selection process.

 Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham issued a statement today, 
saying the inspector general has concluded "that there was no 
evidence to substantiate the concern that bias compromised the 
integrity of the site-selection process."

 In the wake of the inspector general's conclusion, Abraham said 
he remained committed to moving forward with the process in a 
fair manner.

 "Accordingly," he said, "I am today reaffirming our commitment 
to a site suitability evaluation process which is objective, 
unbiased and based on sound science, and conveying that 
reaffirmation of policy to all relevant parties."

 The inspector general's investigation was prompted by a Dec. 1 
Sun story suggesting documents showed the DOE was collaborating 
with the nuclear industry to recommend Yucca Mountain as the site 
of the nation's first high-level nuclear waste repository. Yucca 
Mountain, the only site under study, is 90 miles northwest of Las 
Vegas.

 Federal law prohibits the DOE from taking sides in the selection 
process.

 Abraham said the inspector general absolved the DOE of any 
wrongdoing following more than 200 interviews in the past four 
months.

 He acknowledged that the DOE did not get a total clean bill of 
health.

 The investigation, he said, found that some statements attached 
to DOE documents in the selection process "could be viewed as 
suggesting a premature conclusion regarding suitability of Yucca 
Mountain."

 Those statements were made by a DOE contractor in a two-page 
memo attached to a 60-page draft overview that concludes Yucca 
Mountain is safe to store the deadly radioactive waste even 
though scientific studies of the site aren't complete.

 Abraham said the department had objected to the statements, and 
they were removed from subsequent drafts.

 The memo, obtained by the Sun last year, suggests the overview 
could be used to help nuclear industry officials sell the Yucca 
Mountain Project to Congress.

 Members of Nevada's congressional delegation, who voiced outrage 
over the memo and pushed for the inspector general investigation, 
could not be reached this morning.

 They were expected to be briefed on the investigation today.
 
All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
 2    6 JCO officials plead guilty to negligence charges

 MITO, Japan April 23 Kyodo - Six employees of JCO Co. on Monday 
pleaded guilty to charges of negligence resulting in death over 
Japan's worst nuclear accident in 1999 in the first hearing of 
their cases at the Mito District Court. 

The six, including Kenzo Koshijima, 54, former head of the 
uranium processing plant in Tokaimura, Ibaraki Prefecture, are 
charged with allowing employees to illegally use buckets to make 
a uranium solution in the Sept. 30, 1999, accident at the plant, 
120 kilometers northeast of Tokyo, according to the Mito District 
Public Prosecutors Office. 

Koshijima and other officials allegedly approved the procedures 
at an in-house safety committee in 1995, leading to compilation 
of an unauthorized manual in 1996 that recommended the use of 
buckets to make the solution. 

The five others are former chief of the production department 
Hiromasa Kato, 61, former planning group leader Hiroyuki Ogawa, 
43, and three senior workers -- Hiroshi Watanabe, 49, Kenji 
Takemura, 32, and Yutaka Yokokawa, 56. 

The accident and subsequent nuclear fission chain reaction 
occurred when workers poured an excessive amount of the solution 
into a processing tank using the buckets, bypassing several 
required steps, according to the indictment. 

Two of the workers -- Hisashi Ouchi, 35, and Masato Shinohara, 40 
-- died in December 1999 and April last year, respectively, from 
radiation sickness. Koshijima, Kato, Ogawa and JCO itself are 
also indicted on charges of compiling the manual without 
reporting to the government. 

JCO also pleaded guilty to the charges in the hearing, with JCO 
President Tomoyuki Inami entering the plea on behalf of the 
company. 

Operators of nuclear facilities are required by law to obtain 
approval by the prime minister before changing production 
methods. 

Prosecutors also indicted Koshijima and JCO on charges they 
failed to instruct plant employees in safety, the prosecutors 
said. 

JCO began using illegal methods to process uranium at the plant 
in 1993, the prosecutors said. 

Some 600 people, including more than 200 residents of Tokaimura, 
were exposed to radiation mostly in minor doses as a result of 
the accident. The six workers were arrested in October last year. 

The nuclear-fuel processing firm, JCO, is a subsidiary of 
Sumitomo Metal Mining Co. 
                                       
2001 Kyodo News (c) Established 1945.
*****************************************************************
 3    Yamaguchi governor agrees on nuclear plant project

 YAMAGUCHI, Japan April 23 Kyodo - Yamaguchi Gov. Sekinari Nii 
agreed in principle Monday to a plan to build a nuclear power 
plant in Kaminoseki, Yamaguchi Prefecture, prefectural government 
officials said. 

But Nii suggested strict conditions, such as the drafting of 
safety measures, disaster-prevention measures and measures to 
protect the environment. 

These conditions were included in an opinion paper Vice Gov. 
Shigeji Wataya submitted Monday to the Agency for Natural 
Resources and Energy, which falls under the Ministry of Economy, 
Trade and Industry (METI). 

Nii said that the prefectural government's cooperation with the 
central government plan would depend on the central government's 
responses to the conditions. 

The central government decided to incorporate the power plant 
project into the nation's power development program April 6 and 
had asked for the governor to present his opinion by Wednesday. 

Hirobumi Kawano, chief of the agency, ''Having been able to gain 
the agreement of the governor is a step forward, but we received 
various requests at the same time.'' 

He said the agency would ''respond sincerely'' after reviewing 
the requests seriously. 

Following Nii's approval, an advisory panel for the METI minister 
on power development will discuss in May at the earliest the plan 
by Chugoku Electric Power Co. to build the plant, officials said. 

Nii's conditional approval marks the first sign of a go-ahead for 
the construction of a nuclear power plant since Japan's worst 
nuclear accident in September 1999, which killed two plant 
workers at a uranium-processing plant run by JCO Co. in 
Tokaimura, Ibaraki Prefecture. 

The nuclear power plant is scheduled to be built in Nagashima 
Island in Kaminoseki, facing the Seto Inland Sea. 

Chugoku Electric Power aims to put its No. 1 reactor into 
operation in fiscal 2012, and its No. 2 reactor in fiscal 2015. 
                                       
2001 Kyodo News (c) Established 1945.
*****************************************************************
 4    JCO plant bosses admit guilt in radiation-leak deaths

Mainichi Interactive - Top News
 
MITO -- JCO Co. officials admitted in court on Monday they caused 
two workers' deaths through sloppy practices at the nuclear plant 
when it leaked radiation in 1999.
 
The former manager of the Tokai, Ibaraki Prefecture, plant, Kenzo 
Koshijima, added at the Mito District Court that he was guilty of 
causing the world's second-largest nuclear accident by approving 
the use of a metal bucket to treat radioactive materials.
 
Koshijima and five other officials, as well as JCO as a 
corporation, are accused of causing the deaths through negligence 
of Hisashi Ouchi, 35, and Masato Shinohara, 40, who died after 
the leak.
 
The firm expressed regret over the fatalities. JCO President 
Tomoyuki Inami, representing the company at the court, said, "No 
amount of repentance will be enough if you think about the loss 
of two precious lives."
 
In 1995, Koshijima sanctioned using a metal bucket -- against 
government rules. The following year, he drew up an illegal 
operation manual, prosecutors said. Koshijima and the other five 
plant officials admitted their failure to provide necessary 
safety education and supervision contributed to the two deaths. 
Many workers were only given a 15-minute briefing on safety in 
1992, according to the indictment.
 
Prosecutors revealed that lax procedures were going on at the 
Tokai plant for over a decade.
 
"The possibility of radioactive leak is low, but if one does 
occur, workers will be definitely exposed to radiation," a JCO 
in-house report on its operations admitted as early as in 1992.
 
The nation's biggest nuclear accident occurred on Sept. 30, 1999, 
when Ouchi, Shinohara and Yutaka Yokokawa poured about seven 
times the company-set safety standard of uranium into the 
container solution.
 
Thousands of residents were forced to evacuate or remain in their 
homes as radiation levels dangerously soared in Tokai. Some 667 
people were exposed in the incident.
 
  (c) 2001 The Mainichi Newspapers Co. Under the copyright law of 
*****************************************************************
 5    Yamaguchi governor stokes nuke project

Mainichi Interactive - Top News
 
YAMAGUCHI -- A proposed nuclear power plant for Kaminoseki, 
Yamaguchi Prefecture, got Gov. Sekinari Nii's go-ahead on Monday 
even though land problems threaten the project.
 
In a report the governor submitted to the Natural Resources and 
Energy Agency, Nii claimed that the reactor, which the Chugoku 
Electric Power Co. wants to build, is important to the 
prefecture.
 
"The integration of [the plant] into power-resource development 
plans makes sense," a section of the report read. Nii's support 
for the 19-year-old plan marks the first time since a 1999 fatal 
radioactive leak at a nuclear plant in Tokai, Ibaraki Prefecture, 
that a governor has approved of a new nuclear station. 

But environmental concerns and the failure to buy all the 
required land loom over the project. The report itself firmly 
stated that it wouldn't proceed without the necessary purchase of 
land.
 
"Until the land is obtained, the prefecture cannot possibly 
approve of going ahead with the procedures that Chugoku Electric 
Power needs for the plans," it said.
 
Nii also mentioned the problem, saying there was a chance that 
difficulties with the land purchase could disrupt the planning 
process. "I approve of the plans, but there is a possibility that 
construction of the Kaminoseki nuclear power station won't even 
go ahead," he said.
 
The prefecture has so far purchased all but 33 of the 145 
hectares earmarked for the plant site, but the project has hit a 
snag with a shrine priest's refusal to give up shrine land 
included in the plans. 

Shrine parishioners in favor of the sale have subsequently 
hollered for the priest's resignation, but the holy man has 
resisted, saying he would consider taking the case to court if 
made to step down. 

The National Association of Shinto Shrines is investigating how 
to deal with the issue but says it is "not a problem that can be 
quickly concluded."
 
The World Wildlife Fund, which says the proposed site area is a 
breeding ground for endangered falcons and finless porpoises, is 
also opposing the plan. The organization says Chugoku Electric 
Power has not properly investigated the effects on these species 
in its assessment.
 
Chugoku Electric Power hopes to have construction of the plant 
under way by 2007, and have it up and running by 2012.
 
  (c) 2001 The Mainichi Newspapers Co. Under the copyright law of 
*****************************************************************
 6  7 JCO officials apologize for Tokaimura N-accident 

Daily Yomiuri On-Line

Yomiuri Shimbun 

The seven JCO Co. officials were all apologies at the first 
hearing of the trial on the nuclear accident at JCO's Tokaimura 
plant at the Mito District Court Monday. 

Six JCO employees and the company, represented by its president 
Tomoyuki Inami, were indicted on charges including professional 
negligence resulting in death in connection with the 1999 
Tokaimura nuclear accident in Ibaraki Prefecture. 

All of the accused pleaded guilty pleaded guilty at the hearing, 
indicating that the nation's first criminal case involving a 
nuclear accident is likely to see an early conclusion. 

The accident, which occurred on Sept. 30, 1999, caused the deaths 
of two JCO employees and exposed 664 people to radioactivity. 

A number of local residents attended the court hearing to listen 
to prosecutors give their version of JCO's slipshod operations at 
its nuclear plant. 

Courtroom No. 301, the building's largest, was fitted out with 16 
additional seats for the hearing, bringing the total of local 
residents, reporters and other spectators to 84. 

Each of the accused, including Kenzo Koshijima, 54, who headed 
the uranium-processing plant, entered the courtroom before 10 
a.m. and sat in seats facing the three prosecutors. 

The six officials, who are out on bail, are still employed by 
JCO. Monday was the first time that they saw each other since 
their arrest last October, but they did not speak to one another. 

When their identities had been confirmed by presiding Judge 
Hideyuki Suzuki, they all answered that they were employees of 
the company. 

When the indictments were read, Koshijima put his hands on his 
knees and kept his lips pressed closed. Hiromasa Kato, 61, former 
head of the plant's production department, closed his eyes and 
listened in silence. 

During the arraignment, Inami said, "I am very sorry that not 
only the responsibility of those accused, but also the 
responsibility of the company as a whole has been called into 
question." 

"Nothing is incorrect (in the indictment). I realize the 
responsibility involved and express my apologies from the bottom 
of my heart to the families of the victims and those who were 
involved in the accident," Koshijima said. 

He was indicted on charges of professional negligence that 
included his approving the use of stainless steel buckets for 
transferring uranium solutions.

Hiroshi Watanabe, 49, who oversaw Hisashi Ouchi and Masato 
Shinohara, who were exposed to radiation and later died, 
eulogized them in a short speech. "The two were diligent workers. 
My failure in managing the plant resulted in a terrible accident. 
I sincerely apologize to their families," he said.   

Copyright The Yomiuri Shimbun 
*****************************************************************
 7  'Long term nuke waste site is years away' 

23 April 2001 : 

The Times of India 

 ALIGARH: India is at par with countries like US and France in 
handling radioactive waste generated in the nuclear power plants 
while search is on for a long-term waste repository, according to 
Nuclear Power Corporation (NPCIL) chairman V K Chaturvedi said. 

"Technologically, we are at the same level as US and France in 
handling this waste," he told reporters here on Saturday. 

Waste generated at the sites of nuclear plants is of low 
radioactivity with half life of 30-40 years, Chaturvedi told 
reporters here on Saturday at the release of a report 'Effect of 
Low-Dose Ionising Radiation Among the Employees at the Narora 
Atomic Power station: A cross-sectional study'. 

All the nuclear plants in the country have the facility to bury 
nuclear waste in an underground concrete tank while radioactivity 
in the surroundings is monitored for any leak, he said. 

However, handling of highly reactive wastes coming from 
reprocessing plants, where spent fuel from the nuclear plants is 
reprocessed to obtain plutonium to be used further in second 
stage reactors, is most challenging, he said. 

This reactive waste is to immobilised first so that it does not 
leak out from the storage site. "We have been successful in 
achieving this," he said, adding the solidified waste would be 
put in glass containers, surrounded by steel containers, and 
placed at a long term waste repository. 

However, countries do not have such a site for waste repository 
and it will take about 60-70 years to select it. 

Waste can be stored for thousands of years at such a site, he 
added. (PTI)

*****************************************************************
 8  German Nuclear Waste Shipment Prompts Protest 
                                       
Monday April 23 8:55 AM ET
 
FRANKFURT (Reuters) - German environmental activists chained 
themselves to rail tracks for several hours on Monday hoping to 
stop wagons they said were due to carry a nuclear waste shipment 
to Britain this week for reprocessing. The environmental group 
Greenpeace said a small group of members had been at the Mannheim 
cargo railway station since early morning to protest against the 
planned shipment to Sellafield in northwest England.

By early afternoon, German police said they had ended the protest 
and unchained the demonstrators, who will be charged with 
dangerous interference in rail transport, an offence that could 
mean a fine or a jail sentence of up to five years.

``The managers of the power stations who are sending their 
nuclear waste to Sellafield are unscrupulous. Politicians who 
have approved the nuclear transports to Sellafield are acting 
irresponsibly,'' Greenpeace spokesman Veit Buerger said.

A Greenpeace spokeswoman said 12 members chained themselves to 
the tracks under an empty wagon that she said was due to 
transport nuclear waste to the Sellafield reprocessing plant.

Spent nuclear fuel is due to move from power plants at 
Neckarwestheim and Biblis in southwest Germany to Sellafield late 
on Monday or early on Tuesday in what will be the first shipment 
to Britain in three years.

Anti-nuclear activists clashed with police this month as they 
tried to hold up the first transport in three years of nuclear 
waste from Germany to France. Thousands of demonstrators also 
protested last month when Germany took back the first cargo of 
reprocessed waste from France since the German government banned 
the shipments in 1998 over concerns about radioactive leaks. 

  Copyright © 2001 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. 
*****************************************************************
 9  Greenpeace Says Secret Transport of Nuclear Fuel Breach of Trust

Czech Today on Central Europe Online - Czech Today - 

 
VIENNA, Apr 22, 2001 -- (CTK - Czech News Agency) The Austrian 
environmentalist organization Greenpeace sharply criticized on 
Saturday night the "secret transport" of fuel for the second 
reactor of the nuclear power plant in Temelin, south Bohemia, and 
said the move was a breach of trust.
 
"Secret nuclear transports across Europe run against the 
principles of European cooperation. If no one is informed about 
such actions, there is no possibility to limit the risks posed to 
people and the environment," the Austrian news agency APA quoted 
Greenpeace spokesman Frank Petri as saying.
 
He said the transport was taking place when serious problems at 
the first reactor had not yet been solved and when the plant had 
again to be halted due to technical problems on Saturday.
 
Petri said Greenepace called on Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang 
Schuessel to contact Czech Premier Milos Zeman and demand that 
such steps be never again taken without the knowledge of Austria.
 
Petri said that the procedure followed by Temelin operators was 
at variance with the rules of information supply applied in 
western Europe. *((c) 2001 CTK - Czech News Agency)* <IMG 

*****************************************************************
 10  Meet The Press transcripts (nuclear and more)

Transcript for April 22 

  Read the complete transcript of our Sunday, April 22, program   
    
  PLEASE CREDIT ANY QUOTES OR EXCERPTS FROM THIS NBC
         TELEVISION PROGRAM TO “NBC NEWS’ MEET THE PRESS.”
         
        NBC News 
        
        MEET THE PRESS
         
        Sunday, April 22, 2001
         
        GUESTS: CHRISTINE TODD WHITMAN 
        Administrator, Environmental Protection
         Agency
         
        Governor GARY JOHNSON, (R-N.M.) 
        
        General BARRY McCAFFREY 
        Former Director, National Drug Control
         Policy Office
         
        MICHAEL DEAVER 
        Former Deputy Chief of Staff to
         President Ronald Reagan
         
        HAMILTON JORDAN 
        Former Chief of Staff to 
        President Jimmy Carter
         
        MODERATOR/PANELIST: Tim Russert - NBC News
         
        This is a rush transcript provided
         for the information and convenience of
         the press. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
         In case of doubt, please check with
         
        MEET THE PRESS - NBC NEWS
         (202)885-4598
         (Sundays: (202)885-4200)
        
        MR. TIM RUSSERT: Our issues this Sunday: protests 
continue against the Bush administration’s environmental policies 
on global warming, arsenic levels in drinking water and drilling 
in the arctic. On this 31st annual Earth Day, our guest, the head 
of the Environmental Protection Agency, Christine Todd Whitman. 
Then:
         
       (Excerpt from “Traffic”)
         
       MR. RUSSERT: There is a growing and emotional national 
debate over the so-called war on drugs. Should we consider 
legalizing drugs? Yes, says the Republican governor of New 
Mexico, Gary Johnson. No, says the former drug czar, General 
Barry McCaffrey. Johnson and McCaffrey square off.
         
       And: in our political roundtable, we’re joined by 
President Reagan’s deputy chief of staff, Mike Deaver, author of 
his new book, “A Different Drummer.” He’ll talk about the legacy 
of Ronald Reagan with former Carter chief of staff Hamilton 
Jordan, author of his memoir, “No Such Thing As A Bad Day.”
         
       But first: on this Earth Day, we are joined by the 
administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, Christine 
Todd Whitman. Welcome.
         
       MS. CHRISTINE TODD WHITMAN: It’s a pleasure.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: You are in the center of the storm.
         
       MS. WHITMAN: It’s been busy. Been busy.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: Lots of controversy over George W. Bush and 
some of the decisions he has made. Let’s go right to it. The 
first, the arsenic levels in drinking water.
         
       MS. WHITMAN: Right.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: Before President Clinton left office, he said 
that we should phase in, between now and the year 2006, a 
standard which would lower it from 50 parts per billion to 10 
parts per billion.
         
       MS. WHITMAN: Right.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: You came in and the president came in and you 
said, “No, we’re setting that aside.” Why?
         
       MS. WHITMAN: What we did is we said we wanted to look at 
it a little further, because that standard— unfortunately with 
arsenic, there is no definitive scientific study that says at 10 
you’re safe, at 11 you’re not. There are parts of this country 
where you have naturally occurring arsenic at over 700 parts per 
billion. The cost implications of getting it down to 10—the 
difference between 50 and 20 and 20 and 10 are huge for some very 
small water companies with people who don’t have a whole lot of 
disposable income.
         
       The only thing that I wanted to do—that rule would not 
have gone into effect, been enforceable until 2006—wanted to take 
a little longer to take a look to make sure we had everything in 
place to help those small and midsize water companies so that we 
don’t have people doing what we’ve seen happen. Their water 
company closes—we had this instance, where a company was 
providing water at 90 parts per billion. We told them they had to 
get to 50. They closed down, 30 people had no way to get water, 
sunk their own wells, drinking water at 100 parts per billion.
         
       So what we’re doing now is—I’ve asked the National Academy 
of Science to look at between 3 and 20 parts per billion, see if 
they can’t narrow it. They said 50 is too high, but they didn’t 
say what it should be. And also asking for a better peer review 
of what the costs are so we know what we need to expect on 
impact.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: You have no doubt that arsenic can cause 
cancer.
         
       MS. WHITMAN: Oh, absolutely not, and that at—50 is too 
high. In fact, the range that we’re looking at is the same range 
that was looked at before, between 3 and 20. The problem is that 
the National Academy didn’t say what’s really a safe—they said 
10. Well, they didn’t even say 10. They just said that’s one that 
is out there. But we all know 50 is too high. It’s just a 
question of making sure we have everything in place to be able to 
handle the unintended consequences of whatever the decision we 
make.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: Governor, environmentalists are saying that 
all you’re doing is delaying because, in their words, there’s 
been a, “corporate takeover of the White House.” David Bonior 
said it’s a smorgasbord for polluters. Let me show you—from The 
Wall Street Journal—hardly an organ of the eco-freaks—what it has 
to say:
         
       “In fact, few government decisions could have been more 
thoroughly researched, over so many years, than the EPA’s move to 
slash the allowable content of arsenic in U.S. drinking water by 
80%. The beefed-up standard, to 10 parts per billion from 50 ppb, 
was first proposed by the U.S. Public Health Service back in 
1962. Over the next three decades, regulators weighed dozens of 
studies on the issue, including six reports by the prestigious 
National Research Council, as they struggled to balance the 
health risks of arsenic with the huge costs of extracting the 
metal from drinking water.”
         
       “We know arsenic is carcinogenic in people—not just 
laboratory animals—at exposure levels that aren’t much higher 
than the current U.S. standard,” says Richard Wilson, a Harvard 
University physics professor and former department chair who 
studies health risks. “The science is unequivocal.”’
         
       Professor at the Catholic University in Chile had this to 
say when he saw your announcement. He went on “At the level of 50 
parts per billion [referring to the EPA standard now restored by 
President Bush] arsenic is killing a lot of people in Chile.” We 
had a chance to go through...
         
       MS. WHITMAN: Tim, wait a minute. I just have to say 
something. We didn’t restore 50 parts per billion.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: Let me just go through this. This is your 
department.
         
       MS. WHITMAN: Yeah.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: All studies.
         
       MS. WHITMAN: Right.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: 1999, arsenic in drinking water. This is just 
a sample of over and over...
         
       MS. WHITMAN: No one is denying that 50 parts is too high. 
But even that one quote that you showed said that it’s causing 
cancer at rates slightly above where we are now—it’s got to—which 
is 50 parts per billion, which has been 50. We did not set aside 
50 parts per billion. That’s something everybody has got to 
understand. This...
         
       MR. RUSSERT: President Clinton—Let’s be clear—was going to 
phase it from 50 to 10 between now and 2006.
         
       MS. WHITMAN: He was—no. It was going to be a new—by 2006 
there would have been a regulation in place saying 10 parts per 
billion.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: But you have to gear up for that. And by 
delaying it, you’re avoiding people getting ready.
         
       MS. WHITMAN: We’re not delaying it. No, one thing you’ve 
got to understand, that the usual time for implementation of 
rules, once they’ve gone final, is three years. In this instance, 
they gave the water companies five years. We’re talking about 
taking an extra six months to nine months, if I can get the final 
rule in place, to maybe lower it below 10. Because you know what? 
There have been three subsequent studies on that. Each one has 
shown another problem with arsenic, one that, in fact, it might 
be an endocrine disrupter. So we don’t know. It may be 5, 7, 3. 
We’re looking at the range between 3 and 20. This is not going to 
delay implementation of the rule.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: Here’s the problem. In the United States, 
it’s currently 50.
         
       MS. WHITMAN: Right.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: This is how the LA Times dealt with it: 
“Environmentalists stressed that the science is persuasive about 
the health effects of arsenic in drinking water.”
         
       MS. WHITMAN: Absolutely.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: “A 1999 report”—this one I just held up—”by 
the National Academy of Sciences determined that it causes 
bladder, lung and skin cancer, and may cause kidney and liver 
cancer...Both the European Union and the World Health 
Organization have adopted a 10 parts per billion standard for 
arsenic in drinking water.”
         
       So we have Europe, we have the World Health Organization. 
And I’ll ask you a simple question. What’s the standard in New 
Jersey, your home state?
         
       MS. WHITMAN: It’s 10.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: It’s 10.
         
       MS. WHITMAN: Absolutely.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: Why should people in New Jersey have safer 
drinking water than the rest of the country?
         
       MS. WHITMAN: Everybody should have safe drinking water. 
But you know what, Tim? It was easier for us to go to 10 because 
we don’t have a lot of naturally occurring arsenic. The cost was 
not huge. We didn’t—what good do we do when we drive it to a 
number that when we don’t have any kind of program in place to 
help the small and midsized water companies, they go belly-up or 
they walk away from their clients that they’re serving, and those 
people have no way to get water except sink their own\ wells? We 
have no control over that. And now they’re drinking water at 100 
parts per billion.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: OK, a simple question...
         
       MS. WHITMAN: That’s the question.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: Why not have the standard at 10 across the 
country, and if individual small communities are having a hard 
time, seek a waiver? But have a firm national standard as...
         
       MS. WHITMAN: We do have—we will have...
         
       MR. RUSSERT: ...opposed to delaying it all, giving the 
impression, the impression, that you were gotten to by the mining 
industry.
         
       MS. WHITMAN: Well, you know, the thing that’s really 
interesting about this, I never talked to the White House about 
this one. I never read or talked to any of the industry groups. 
This was purely my decision. In fact, when we told the White 
House we were going with it, they pushed back. They said, “Are 
you sure this is what you want to do? Is it the right thing?”
         
       MR. RUSSERT: You told The Washington Post: “I reached this 
decision after being told by numerous parties that the decision 
to move the rule before the end of the Clinton administration 
precluded sufficient scientific and cost benefit review.” Who did 
you talk to? Who are the numerous parties?
         
       MS. WHITMAN: I didn’t talk to anybody in particular. I 
just knew it. As a governor, I knew the controversy by...
         
       MR. RUSSERT: You said “being told by numerous parties.”
         
       MS. WHITMAN: Well, that was an incorrect statement on my 
part ‘cause I did not...
         
       MR. RUSSERT: So no one talked to you?
         
       MS. WHITMAN: No, I did not talk to anybody in the mining 
industry, anybody in the water industry, anybody at the White 
House. This was one where I sat down with staff. Don’t forget, we 
were left with a whole load of last-minute regulations. In fact, 
on the arsenic, the Clinton administration had agreed to go into 
a year-long review of the cost benefits. And then at the end of 
the day, they sped the whole thing up in order to get it out. And 
it got out just before the end of the administration was about to 
go final. And I just felt that we could take the time because the 
rule wasn’t going to go into effect in 2006. We will still have 
an enforceable rule in 2006 that is going to be dramatically 
lower than 50 parts per billion, where it ends up between the 3 
to 20 range. I’m asking the National Academy to give us a better 
idea.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: But if Europe has 10 and the World Health 
Organization has 10 and New Jersey has 10, how could you possibly 
recommend anything higher than 10 for the rest of the country?
         
       MS. WHITMAN: I don’t know that we will.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: And when will we have a decision?
         
       MS. WHITMAN: But again there is no definitive science that 
tells us that at 11 you’re unhealthier than you were at 10. 
That’s the problem here when we make the decision.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: Well, after reading the ’99 study from the 
National Academy of Sciences, the Clinton administration first 
proposed 5 because...
         
       MS. WHITMAN: Well, there could be. They could go...
         
       MR. RUSSERT: ...they think the risk is that high.
         
       MS. WHITMAN: And there are those who say it’s linear and 
so that means there is no level at which you could have arsenic 
anywhere.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: When do you think you will have a decision?
         
       MS. WHITMAN: Well, the National Academy of Science—I’ve 
gotten them to agree to do their review in four months which is 
the fastest they’ve ever done anything. I will have the peer 
review done in two, so I should be able—we know where we’re going 
by then. We’ll get a new rule in place in nine months. And that’s 
not going to change that 2006 date at all.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: Let me turn to the issue of global warming.
         
       MS. WHITMAN: Sure.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: Does President Bush believe that the 
greenhouse effect, that global warming, is a serious problem?
         
       MS. WHITMAN: Yes.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: Let me show you what Time magazine wrote 
about it so I can frame the issue for our viewers: “As an 
authoritative report issued a few weeks ago by the U.N.-sponsored 
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change makes plain, the trend 
toward a warmer world has unquestionably begun. ...the 1990’s 
were the hottest decade on record. ...Even at the low end, the 
changes [in temperature] could be problematic enough, with storms 
getting more frequent and intense, droughts more pronounced, 
coastal areas ever more severely eroded by rising seas, rainfall 
scarcer on agricultural land and ecosystems thrown out of 
balance.
         
       
        But if the rise is significantly larger, the result could 
be disastrous. With seas rising as much as 3 ft., enormous areas 
of densely populated land—coastal Florida, much of Louisiana 
...would become uninhabitable. Entire climatic zones might shift 
dramatically, making... Georgia more like Guatemala. Agriculture 
would be thrown into turmoil. Hundreds of millions of people 
would have to migrate out of unlivable regions.” You agree with 
all that?
         
       MS. WHITMAN: No.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: You don’t?
         
       MS. WHITMAN: Well, I don’t agree ‘cause the science can’t 
tell you where those things are going to happen. But we do 
absolutely agree that global climate change is a significant 
issue. There’s no question about that. We need to deal with it 
with the international community. And the only reason I say no on 
that is because while science is very clear on what the potential 
impacts could be, they can’t tell you where or when these are 
going to happen and how bad it is going to be. And what we need 
to do is make sure that we’re focusing on the right greenhouse 
gas emissions, that we’re taking the right steps, that we’re 
investing our money in the right place. But we absolutely believe 
we’ve got to deal with greenhouses gas and global climate change.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: Here’s again the problem. Back in the 
campaign, the president in September made this speech. “We will 
require all power plants to meet clean air standards in order to 
reduce emissions of sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, mercury and 
carbon dioxide within a reasonable period of time.” “Require.” 
Then Christine Todd Whitman just two months ago, said, quote, 
“George Bush was very clear during the course of the campaign 
that he believed in a multi-pollutant strategy, and that includes 
CO2.” Suddenly the president said, “Changing my mind,” pulled the 
rug out from under you and said, “Guess what? We have an energy 
crisis. We’re changing our mind.” That created a firestorm across 
the world.
         
       Let me show you what The New York Times said happened in 
Europe. “European leaders frequently bristle about American 
behavior, but President Bush’s abrupt decision to abandon a 
treaty on global warming has provoked even more than the usual 
level of anger and frustration. ‘Irresponsible,’ ‘arrogant,’ even 
‘sabotage’ are just a few of the charges that Europeans have 
leveled at Mr. Bush since he announced his refusal to follow 
through on the treaty.”
         
       Germany called it a “frighteningly isolationist course.” 
France Le Monde said “irresponsible.” Great Britain said, “Bush 
has shown he’s neither willing nor able to lead the global 
community. Europe will have to take the lead on climate change.”
         
       MS. WHITMAN: There’re two different things you’re talking 
about here. One is CO2 and the mandatory capping of CO2 
emissions. And the other is the Kyoto protocol. This president 
has been very clear since day one that he didn’t support the 
Kyoto protocol. The United States Senate voted 95-to-nothing when 
they were given the parameters of what it would be against the 
Kyoto protocol. Congress...
         
       MR. RUSSERT: CO2 contributes to greenhouse effect.
         
       MS. WHITMAN: Yes, but it’s only one part. It’s 
only—listen. There are two things going on here. When President 
Bush said he was not going to support the Kyoto protocol, and 
that’s what that—all those articles were about. He was—there were 
54 countries that ratified—that, excuse me, signed the Kyoto 
protocol. One, Romania, has ratified it because all of the 
nations have problems with the particulars within the Kyoto 
protocol.
         
       On carbon dioxide, what the president said—he did reverse 
himself. And he stood up and he said to the American people, 
“Look, I called for a mandatory cap on this, but now that I’m in 
office I am looking at an energy crisis that is severe and very 
real. If we start discussing mandatory caps on CO2 at this point 
in time, what we’re going to be doing is potentially driving up 
the cost of electricity and power. And two, we are going to be 
discouraging people who need to make investment now in things 
like clean coal technology from making that investment.”
         
       Coal is 51 percent of our energy mix now. It is always 
going to be a part of the energy mix. He felt from that 
perspective it was better not to talk about a mandatory cap on 
CO2. Move forward with a multi-emissions bill on the Hill that 
captures SO2, NOX and mercury, which will be, by the way, more 
than anyone else has been able to get. We know that it would be 
dead on arrival with mandatory CO2 caps. And it’s not a partisan 
thing, believe me. There are a lot of Democrats that would be 
very much against that because they come from coal-producing 
states. But the reality here is that he was willing to stand up 
and say, “The circumstances are different. The energy crisis is 
real. I don’t want to drive coal out—I can’t afford, in 
responsible reaction to the issues that we face, to not have coal 
part of the mix.”
         
       MR. RUSSERT: But the rest of the world said, “Excuse me, 
Mr. President, the United States is the world’s largest polluter, 
25 percent of all emissions. And you’re only 5 percent of the 
world’s population. And by not reducing CO2, you’re only going to 
add to that.”
         
       Greg Esterbrook in The New Republic, in a very favorable 
article to the president, says this week that the Europeans set 
us up. They knew that they couldn’t even go along with...
         
       MS. WHITMAN: Oh, yeah.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: Do you believe we were set up by the 
Europeans?
         
       MS. WHITMAN: I don’t think we were set up. But they 
know—they were...
         
       MR. RUSSERT: Made to look like the bad guy.
         
       MS. WHITMAN: They’re delighted that we’re taking the heat 
on something that they hadn’t been able to ratify because it’s 
going to give them a little more wiggle room to make changes 
here.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: Will there be an agreement, a worldwide 
treaty on the reduction of the greenhouse effect?
         
       MS. WHITMAN: I know that we are going to be—I can’t say 
that because I just don’t know whether others will sign on or 
what the final form will take. I’m part of the Cabinet-level 
review on global climate change. We’ll be making a recommendation 
to the president by the end of May. He then will decide how he 
wants to go forward and re-engage in the world community—or 
engage the world community on a discussion of that. Whether at 
the end of the day we can come up with something that can be 
signed—I think we all agree that we need to have everyone on 
board. And part of our concern with Kyoto is that we need to have 
the developing nations—China, India, nations that are going to—by 
the way, China will surpass us in greenhouse gas emissions in a 
very short order. To allow them—or to not have them involved, not 
be able to provide market-based incentives, cap in trade, 
technology transfer-all those things need to be part of a 
solution.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: As you know, Republicans have been quite 
upset by some of these decisions—not just Democrats, Republicans. 
This is just a sampling. Susan Collins, Republican of Maine: 
“disappointed.” Marge Roukema: “health and safety first,” 
“reconsider your decision.” Lincoln Chafee, Republican from Rhode 
Island: “more conservative elements of the party are calling some 
important shots.” Sherry Boehlert up in upstate New York: “we’re 
‘profoundly disappointed”... “ignoring conservation. Charlie 
Bass, New Hampshire: “made a mistake.”
         
       And this was particularly revealing because there’s been a 
real initiative this week by the Bush administration to get 
control of this issue politically. This is The New York Times: 
“Representative Christopher Shays, Republican of Connecticut, 
said that in the meeting of moderates with Mr. Cheney, the 
lawmakers told the vice president: ‘The environment is the one 
area you aren’t handling well.’ Mr. Shays said Mr. Cheney agreed. 
‘They didn’t argue with us,’ Mr. Shays said. ‘What they are 
changing now is their presentation.’”
         
       Is this a public relations problem?
         
       MS. WHITMAN: Well, it certainly is. I mean, obviously the 
president’s taken a lot of what I would call unfair hits on the 
environment, because if you look at the actual decisions, they’re 
not that dramatic in that we’re still going to have a new arsenic 
standard well below 50 by 2006. It may even be below the 10. We 
don’t know. But we’re wanting to take a look at it. And it’s 
still not going to change the time frame. On Kyoto—he’s been 
absolutely consistent on Kyoto. The one place where he changed 
was on CO2, mandatory CO2, and that’s something that we can 
continue to argue about. That’s a fair enough argument that 
people want to have. But I believe the president was right in 
looking at the broad perspective.
         
       But I’ve seen a lot saying, “Hey, this week—this is all 
about Earth Day and it’s nothing more than that.” First of all, 
the decisions we’ve made have real consequences—the lead rule. By 
the way, the diesel sulfur rule was the first rule that I moved 
forward.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: But can you get that treaty confirmed by the 
Republican Senate...
         
       MS. WHITMAN: What—which treaty? What treaty?
         
       MR. RUSSERT: ...by Jesse Helms?
         
       MS. WHITMAN: We don’t have a—oh, you mean the lead?
         
       MR. RUSSERT: Yeah.
         
       MS. WHITMAN: The lead regulation is going through. That’s 
a regulation.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: But in terms of worldwide treaty involving 
those kinds of issues, can you get the Republican Senate to go 
along with you?
         
       MS. WHITMAN: Well, until I have something that I know what 
I’m talking about and we don’t have a treaty on lead at the 
moment. But I think we could get something through. There’s not 
much question about the concerns we have. But the important thing 
is we’re taking steps ourselves. The very first action I took 
when I came into office was to go along with a regulation 
promulgated initially by the Clinton administration on cleaner 
diesel fuel, lower sulfur content, really pushing the parameters 
and really pushing the auto industry and the refiners. This 
is—that’s all forgotten. Then we went ahead with something—really 
a consent decree on a suit that had been brought against the 
Clinton administration on ensuring that we have a timely review 
of pesticides. Went forward with that, something that farmers 
weren’t terribly happy about. Those things—it’s amazing how they 
get forgotten when there are things that could potentially be 
controversial, and those are the things that somehow define the 
administration.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: One issue still being debated is drilling in 
the Arctic Wildlife Refuge. Time magazine reports today that Karl 
Rove, top advisor to the president, said, “We’re not going to 
push for this.” Eight Republican senators are against it. Is that 
pretty much dead?
         
       MS. WHITMAN: I think what you’ll see in the energy task 
force—and again, I’m part of that—is a broad spectrum of options 
here. The problem that we have is that we have seen...
         
       MR. RUSSERT: But it’s pretty much dead politically.
         
       MS. WHITMAN: It has to go through the Congress in order to 
happen.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: And that’s not going to happen?
         
       MS. WHITMAN: And I—it’s going to be very difficult to do 
that.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: What about nuclear power?
         
       MS. WHITMAN: That’s something that needs to be discussed. 
I mean, we need to understand we’re in the 21st century now. And 
the 21st century has brought us—and the end of the 20th 
century-brought us a lot of new technology that allows us to do 
some of these things in a much safer manner and will be much more 
protective of the environment. Our problem is that our demands 
for energy are far outstripping our ability to provide and our 
identification of new power sources in this country. And we’re 
over 50 percent dependent on foreign oil coming in. And from an 
environmental point of view, that’s where you see most of your 
oil spills, is from the tankers.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: The concern that some have about nuclear 
power is nuclear waste. And this is what Congressman Spratt, 
Democrat from South Carolina, had to say the other day:
         
       (Videotape, April 9):
         
       REP. JOHN SPRATT, (D-SC): If you look through this budget, 
the other curiosity is that every account that deals with the 
environment is cut. EPA is cut, Interior is cut, and, low and 
behold, the Department of Energy’s programs for the cleanup of 
nuclear waste, which concerns me because it affects my state, is 
cut by $458 million.
         
       (End videotape)
         
       MR. RUSSERT: If we’re cutting the budget in terms of 
cleaning up nuclear waste, how can we go forward with more 
nuclear power?
         
       MS. WHITMAN: Well, first of all, there are other parts of 
the budget that take up the slack in cleaning up nuclear waste. 
And we have a part of that, too. And, by the way, our budget was 
not cut. I mean, we backed out the $500 million in congressional 
add-ons, but this budget is the second-highest operating budget 
ever proposed, $56 million higher than the last administration 
proposed, their last budget so...
         
       MR. RUSSERT: Democrats disagree in terms of real dollars, 
but that’s another debate.
         
       MS. WHITMAN: Well, but that’s what they added on, their 
special—everybody’s special projects, some of which are, you 
know, very good. I’m not saying they’re not good. But you back 
them out because they’re not priorities of the administration. So 
the real issue here, though, is going to come down to: Can we 
find a single spot for the storage of spent rods? And...
         
       MR. RUSSERT: And it looks like Nevada.
         
       MS. WHITMAN: Nevada is what’s in play right at the moment. 
Yuka Mountain is the one that is being most heavily discussed.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: But you’re comfortable that you can, in fact, 
store nuclear waste safely?
         
       MS. WHITMAN: Everything that I have seen—and, of course, 
obviously, this is more the Department of Energy’s problem than 
ours, except that we have to guarantee the drinking water for 
100,000 years out, which is a challenge for anybody to do it. You 
have to guarantee the water—not necessarily drinking standards, 
but just the water for 100,000 years out. But we’re getting good 
feedback that this can be done.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: Here’s Saturday’s New York Times. “Tiny bits 
of soot tied to illnesses. EPA finds the strongest link yet to 
recovering restrictions.” Soot in the air. Are you going to have 
standards which will bring that down dramatically?
         
       MS. WHITMAN: We already have, actually, in fine 
particulate matter, and we’re looking at further standards. These 
are real concerns. Low-level smog is a problem. And a lot of it 
is with that. And that’s one of the reasons, you know, I’d like 
to get a multi-emission bill through that captured SO2 and NOX 
because NOX, particularly, is a contributor to this.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: But you’re going to deal with the soot 
problem?
         
       MS. WHITMAN: We’re dealing with all of those. We get them 
all.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: Is there any chance that the foot-and-mouth 
disease in Europe with cattle could come here? Because it’s a 
huge environmental problem over there when they have to burn the 
carcasses.
         
       MS. WHITMAN: It’s a huge problem. And Ann Venemen in 
Agriculture has been extremely proactive in working with the 
other parts of government, and particularly immigration and 
naturalization, to do everything that we can to keep it from 
coming into this country. The problem is that it is so easily 
transportable. It even can come in the lungs of people. It 
doesn’t—you don’t get sick from it, but you can actually be a 
carrier for up to 11 days.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: So there’s a real chance it could come here?
         
       MS. WHITMAN: There’s a chance. And there’s a real concern. 
And that’s why we’ve been so proactive. The administration has 
taken every kind of possible step to make sure that, A, it 
doesn’t get here, and, that, B, if it does, that we’re ready to 
deal with it.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: Governor Whitman, we thank you for your 
views. Happy Earth Day.
         
       MS. WHITMAN: A pleasure. Thank you.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: Coming next: Governor Gary Johnson, former 
drug czar Barry McCaffrey, a no-holds-barred debate on the 
legalization of drugs.
         
       Then: former presidential advisers-turned-authors Mike 
Deaver—He worked for Ronald Reagan; Hamilton Jordan—He worked for 
Jimmy Carter. They’ll talk about the legacy of Ronald Wilson 
Reagan, all coming up right here on MEET THE PRESS.
        
        MR. RUSSERT: And we are back. Gentlemen, welcome both. 
General McCaffrey, let me start with you just to get your 
reaction to a couple of things. First, John Walter is being 
nominated to be the president’s new drug czar. Do you know him?
         
       GEN. BARRY McCAFFREY: I do.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: Do you approve of that nomination?
         
       GEN. McCAFFREY: Well, I think—I’m going to watch this very 
carefully. He had opposed the media campaign, which I was 
concerned about. I think he’s focused too much on interdiction. I 
hope he educates himself very carefully on prevention and 
treatment as an essential part of the strategy. But there’s good 
people in government. And I’m sure they’ll come around. A 
Republican Congress gave me a 55-percent increase in prevention 
funding. So they’re going to have to take into account the views 
of Rob Portman and people of that nature.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: Yesterday, a Peruvian plane shot down a plane 
with missionaries in it; American woman and her child were 
killed. U.S. surveillance was part of that operation. It was 
thought to be a drug plane. Your reaction?
         
       GEN. McCAFFREY: Terrible tragedy. Beautiful people helping 
the Peruvian poor along the Amazon River. They’ve got to look 
into it and get the facts. But remember, the Peruvians have 
reduced coca cultivation by 65 percent in the last five years. 
Huge reductions. This problem kills 52,000 people a year in the 
United States. We ought to be judicious and find out what 
happened first and correct it. 
        
       MR. RUSSERT: Let me turn to the discussion at hand. 
Governor Johnson, welcome. What do you think of the so-called war 
on drugs?
         
       GOV. GARY JOHNSON, (R-NM): Well, I think I’m going to echo 
what most people in this country believe and that is that it’s a 
failure. Seventy-four percent of the people in this country 
believe that it’s a failure. I think there’s one message that the 
general and I can agree on, and I’ll say this numerous times on 
this show. Don’t do drugs. All right? Don’t do drugs. Don’t 
drink. I’m somebody who’s dedicated myself to physical fitness. I 
haven’t had a drink in 13 years. Been a great choice. And 
certainly don’t smoke tobacco.
         
       But can we continue to arrest 1.6 million people a year in 
this country on drug-related crime? I don’t think so. I think 
that we need to legalize marijuana. We need to adopt harm 
reduction strategies on all these other drugs. We have to look at 
the situation and determine if you’re smoking marijuana in the 
confines of your own home, doing no harm to anyone arguably other 
than yourself, do you fundamentally belong in jail for that? I 
say no, you don’t and that we need to draw a line of distinction 
when it comes to marijuana use. We need to move away from a 
criminal model on these other drugs to a medical model. We need 
to move to a situation where you do drugs, you smoke marijuana 
and you do harm, that ought to be criminal. Similar to having a 
drink, having too many drinks in a bar, acceptable behavior. 
Walking out in the parking lot, getting in your car, driving your 
car. You’ve just crossed over the line. That should be criminal.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: Do you believe that smoking marijuana is 
addictive?
         
       GOV. JOHNSON: I do not believe that it’s addictive. I have 
smoked marijuana, and it is not addictive.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: General McCaffery.
         
       GEN. McCAFFREY: You know, Everybody is entitled to their 
own opinions. And I certainly respect the governor for forcefully 
expressing his. You’re not entitled to your own facts. And 
getting ready for a show like this, you want to know what’s going 
on in drug abuse, you’ve got to go to the National Institute of 
Drug Abuse. People like Dr. Alan Leshner, Joe Califano, Herb 
Cleaver, Columbia University. You’ve got to go to the drug 
enforcement administration, Donny Marshal. Now, I think the facts 
of the matter are what we’re trying to deal with—and by the way, 
you ask people in New Mexico like Congresswoman Heather Wilson, a 
Rhodes scholar and mother, and Senator Pete Domenici, who 
couldn’t disagree more with the governor on this. His package 
failed in his own state. He needs to listen to New Mexico law 
enforcement and health professionals, and in my judgment, the 
problem is 25 years ago, 15 years ago when the governor was using 
cocaine, he escaped its effects. And I’m proud of him and happy 
for him. But today, we’ve got five million chronic addicts in 
America. So, you know, we might agree on sentencing and reform. 
I’m going to go up to New York on Tuesday and testify in favor of 
reform of the Rockefeller laws. But we don’t agree that heroine, 
which he’s called to be legalized—New Mexico is one of the 
highest per-capita death rates of heroin in the country.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: Governor, what would the United States of 
America look like if marijuana was legal, cocaine was legal, 
heroin was legal?
         
       GOV. JOHNSON: Well, first off, I’ve never advocated the 
legalization of cocaine. I do advocate the legalization of 
marijuana. And we could...
         
       MR. RUSSERT: And how about heroin?
         
       GOV. JOHNSON: Well, let’s look at—let’s look at the 
European experience. Holland, which in my opinion has rational 
drug policy, which has effectively decriminalized the use of all 
drugs, has 60 percent the drug use as that of the United States. 
So there’s a case to be made that use would not go up. They have 
60 percent the use. That’s among adults and kids. That’s for 
marijuana and hard drugs. 
        
       And then going to Zurich, Switzerland. All right, Zurich, 
Switzerland, has a heroin maintenance program. Now, you have to 
be a heroin addict. You get a prescription from a doctor to get 
free heroin. You go to a clinic. You ingest the heroin at the 
clinic. The idea was that death, disease and crime associated 
with heroin was going to decrease. I met with the chief of police 
from Zurich in Albuquerque about five months ago. He said, “I was 
law enforcement. We could not have been more opposed to what they 
were proposing to do in Zurich. I, along with everyone else in 
law enforcement. We implemented this program.” He said Zurich is 
a much better place to live today. There is less crime. 
       
        There is less death. There is less disease from the use 
of heroin. Is that a better situation? 
        
       MR. RUSSERT: General.
         
       GEN. McCAFFREY: You know, again—at one point I had my guys 
call the governor’s office and say, “Where are these assertions 
coming from?” The answer was Rolling Stone. What I believe is, 
what the DEA will tell you, is that heroin use in the Netherlands 
tripled since they changed their laws, and drug use doubled. And 
in our country, unlike what the governor is asserting, drug abuse 
has gone down by 50 percent since 1979; casual use of cocaine, 
down by 70 percent; adolescent drug use in the last two years 
alone by 21 percent. It’s grossly unfair to the people, the 5,000 
community anti-drug coalitions around America where health 
professionals, business leaders and others have actually reduced 
drug abuse. I would not want to model myself after the Swiss 
experiment, Needle Platz Park. It was a disaster. It’s disgusting 
what they’ve done.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: Governor, go ahead.
         
       GOV. JOHNSON: Well, this is where the press can play a 
huge role in this. I went through this in New Mexico, the whole 
debating over the facts. And what I said in New Mexico is, “Come 
on, press, do your job here. Is what I’m saying correct or not?” 
And basically what they’ve done is they’ve stepped in and they’ve 
said, “Yes,” that the facts that I am quoting are correct. And 
this is the—you know, this is the age of the Internet. So 
everybody out there that’s watching this morning, you can get on 
the Internet, this information is available. Find out what the 
facts are. And again, clearly the facts are what they are. And 
it’s very misleading to—the U.S. government is...
         
       MR. RUSSERT: The DEA says that the amount of people who 
are using drugs now as opposed to 20 years ago has been cut in 
half. They say that only 5 percent of the people in prison, in 
the federal system, are there for possession, and only 27 percent 
of the people in state prison. All the other people involved with 
drugs are dealers, or more serious crimes.
         
       GEN. McCAFFREY: Seventy percent of them.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: Is that—do you agree with that?
         
       GEN. McCAFFREY: Twenty-five percent violent criminals.
         
       GOV. JOHNSON: Well, no, I don’t agree with the fact that 
drug use has been cut in half. And, Tim, just for a second, 
they’re talking about 12 million, 14 million drug users in the 
country. We’re arresting 1.6 million a year. I reject that we’re 
arresting 1 out of 8 drug users in this country. I absolutely 
reject it.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: General, U.S. has 6 percent of the world’s 
population and we’re using about 60 percent of the world’s drugs.
         
       GEN. McCAFFREY: By the way, even that fact is completely 
nonsensical. I don’t know what the real answer is. I would 
suspect we’re using 3 percent of the world’s heroin. There’s 
around a million of us who are chronically using heroin in 
America, probably around 15 metric tons. The facts of the matter, 
the world produces around 500 metric tons. This is not a U.S. 
problem; it’s a worldwide problem. And the solution is parents, 
health professionals, coaches, people that understand the issue 
like Denny Hastert in the House of Representatives and Elijah 
Cummings and Heather Wilson, who say, “Let’s focus on prevention, 
treatment, local law enforcement, stand behind our law 
enforcement professionals, and we’ll work our way out of it.”
         
       MR. RUSSERT: How does it say, however, when former 
President Clinton pardons a lawyer for the cocaine cartel—the 
Cali coke cartel in Colombia?
         
       GEN. McCAFFREY: What a sad tragedy. What a signal to the 
black population that has suffered so intently under this 
problem. And by the way, young African-Americans 30 and under 
have lower rates of drug abuse in America by far than the general 
population. They’ve seen the tragedy of drug abuse and are 
tending to walk away from it. This is a problem that affects all 
the viewers of this show and their children and grandchildren.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: So you think the so-called war on drugs has 
worked?
         
       GEN. McCAFFREY: Well, I don’t think—we’ve substituted the 
metaphor of a cancer affecting American communities. If you start 
talking in that terms, you understand prevention, treatment, a 
holistic approach, five-year survival rates. We’ve increased drug 
treatment funding in the federal government by more than a third. 
We gave more than 600 million bucks to the National Institute of 
Drug Abuse. So we think we’ve got a rational strategy and it’s 
paying off for America.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: Governor.
         
       GOV. JOHNSON: Well, one of the fundamental beliefs by the 
U.S. government, by the Drug Enforcement Administration, with our 
laws—the fundamental belief is, is that if you smoke marijuana, 
you fundamentally belong in rehabilitation, and that is just not 
correct. Eighty million Americans have smoked marijuana. They 
don’t all belong in rehabilitation. The majority of them smoke 
marijuana like others have drinks, have cocktails in the evening. 
And let’s not forget that at one point in this country’s history 
it was criminal to manufacture and distribute alcohol. We’ve gone 
through that. And these laws are terribly discriminatory. I 
talked about 1.6 million arrests every year in the United States 
on drug-related crime, 800,000 of those arrests are for 
marijuana. Half those arrests, 400,000 of those marijuana 
arrests, are Hispanic. Tell me that half the users of marijuana 
in this country are Hispanic. And I believe you’re seven times 
more likely to go to jail if you’re black and arrested than if 
you’re white. So these laws are not being administered 
proportionately. There’s an hypocrisy about the law. 
        
       MR. RUSSERT: General.
         
       GEN. McCAFFREY: A couple of people who are worth knowing 
about in America: Dr. Mitch Rosenthal at the Phoenix House, the 
biggest non-profit drug treatment center in the country, all over 
New York, California, Texas; Dr. David Smith, Haight-Ashbury Free 
Clinic. Ask them about marijuana use in children. The governor’s 
message is playing well to the college sophomores of America, and 
it’s unfortunate. They will assert that one of the primary causes 
for admission to drug treatment in this country for adolescents 
is marijuana. It is not a benign substance, in particular for 
adolescents. When you find a 12-year-old smoking pot on weekends 
and binge-drinking beer and smoking cigarettes, you’re looking at 
someone who’s 85 percent more likely—85 times more likely to use 
cocaine. This is not behavior that we want our young people 
doing.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: Governor, politically speaking, is there any 
chance that your program, your platform of decriminalizing 
marijuana and heroin, would ever, ever be accepted in the United 
States of America? 
        
       GOV. JOHNSON: There’s no question that this is going to 
happen. The question is: Is it going to take 80 years? And, 
hopefully, it’s not going to take 80 years. Hopefully, we can 
start to recognize, and, hopefully, at a minimum, we can put a 
stop to getting tougher on drugs. It doesn’t work. It just 
doesn’t work.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: When’s the soonest you think people would 
come to this conclusion?
         
       GOV. JOHNSON: You know, I think—again, I appreciate being 
able to be here on this show today. I think as people begin to 
understand this problem and understand that there might be a 
distinction between use and abuse, use and doing harm, that they 
might be able to equate this to alcohol, and draw distinctions 
that, again, are much more humane than what we’re currently 
doing. We can’t continue to arrest and incarcerate this country.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: General, do you see any political possibility 
that Governor Johnson’s platform will be enacted?
         
       GEN. McCAFFREY: No, none at all. His own legislator 
rejected it. While he was vetoing drug treatment money, we were 
increasing drug treatment funding dramatically. He’s got to 
listen to the people in his own state. His own prosecuting 
attorneys denounced him on this issue. The Legislature turned 
down eight of his nine bills. It’s simply not going to happen. 
The innate good judgment of the American people understands, “We 
don’t want our employees and our children using drugs. It’s a 
disaster for us.”
         
       MR. RUSSERT: To be continued. Governor Gary Johnson, 
General McCaffrey, thank you very much for a very civilized 
debate.
         
       GOV. JOHNSON: Thanks.
        
        GEN. McCAFFREY: Thanks.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: Coming next, in 1980, Ronald Reagan defeated 
Jimmy Carter for the presidency. Reagan aide Mike Deaver and 
Jimmy Carter advisor Hamilton Jordan; they’ll give us their 
political insights from then and now, coming up right here on 
MEET THE PRESS. 
        
        (Announcements)
         
       MR. RUSSERT: The legacy of Ronald Reagan. Mike Deaver and 
Hamilton Jordan are next.
         
        (Announcements)
         
       MR. RUSSERT: And we are back, joined by Mike Deaver. He 
has a new book, “A Different Drummer: My 30 Years with Ronald 
Reagan.” A lot of interesting insights into our former president. 
Probably the most graphic, the most haunting for me is your 
description of the assassination attempt back in 1981. I want to 
roll that footage again for you and our viewers and give you a 
chance to talk about it.
         
       (Videotape, March 30, 1981)
         
       MR. RUSSERT: And there’s Mike Deaver. What a day.
         
       MR. DEAVER: Terrifying.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: In your book, you write that although Ronald 
Reagan walked into the hospital, once he got behind the closed 
doors, he collapsed. And, in fact, was much more seriously 
wounded and closer to death than we ever thought.
         
       MR. DEAVER: Yeah. He was pretty sick. You know, it was 
some time before the doctors found out. And I think the 
real—first of all, that bullet was very close—and the lung but 
very close to the heart. But the next day, when he got the staph 
infection was when I think the doctors were really concerned. 
        
       MR. RUSSERT: Edmond Morris, in his biography “Dutch,” had 
a theory that the president was given cold blood in the 
transfusion and that changed Ronald Reagan for the rest of his 
term as president and the rest of his life. You debunk that 
theory.
         
       MR. DEAVER: Well, I was there. I just never saw it. And 
the doctors, of course, have written that that wasn’t true. The 
only thing that I saw change in Ronald Reagan after the shooting 
was a stubbornness and determination to follow his own instincts. 
But there was no physical change, other than he got stronger.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: And almost a born-again quality to his 
religion, saying that “I rededicate myself to Him,” with a 
capital H.
         
       MR. DEAVER: Absolutely, but that had always been there. I 
mean, this was a man who had a huge, strong physical—excuse me, 
spiritual foundation.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: From a political standpoint, the fact that 
“Dutch” took a bullet and survived, did that help him govern as 
president?
         
       MR. DEAVER: Oh, I think from the standpoint that, you 
know, it’s so hard to reach in and touch some of our political 
leaders, that that 24-hour period of Reagan’s when he had all the 
one-liners and we got to see inside that grace and humor, I 
think, yes, that made it change.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: Hamilton Jordan, let me bring you in here. 
1976, Jimmy Carter elected president of the United States. In 
1980, I remember a lot of Clinton political folks saying, “We 
hope we get Ronald Reagan as our opponent because he’s an extreme 
conservative and we’ll beat him good.” What do you think?
         
       MR. JORDAN: Governor Reagan was underestimated in 
California and he was continually underestimated running for 
president and serving for president. That stood him in good 
stead. And by the way, Mike has written a marvelous book and an 
important contribution to history and to understanding President 
Reagan. I liked it so much, Mike, I almost forgot the shellacking 
you guys gave us in that 1980 campaign.
         
       MR. DEAVER: Well, thank you.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: Hamilton Jordan, when you look back at the 
style of Jimmy Carter, as opposed to the style of Ronald Reagan, 
the presence of both men, how do you see it now in hindsight, in 
terms of their presence and their ability to lead?
         
       MR. JORDAN: Well, President Reagan had some unusual gifts. 
He made complicated things look very simple. But as we learned 
from Mike’s book, behind that was often shrewdness and hard work. 
I particularly enjoyed the story about him throwing the baseball 
out to open the season in 1984 and throwing a perfect strike. And 
people marveled at that. But Mike tells us that he had practiced 
at Camp David for three or four weeks. But when the time came, 
the Gipper delivered. So he had a gift for the symbolism of the 
presidents that I think is unmatched by any modern president.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: Gift of symbolism, very well said by Hamilton 
Jordan. I’m going to show you two different speeches. One was by 
President Carter back in ’79 and then by President Reagan at the 
Berlin Wall. Here’s first President Carter.
         
       (Excerpt from videotape):
         
       PRES. JIMMY CARTER: I want to talk to you right now about 
a fundamental threat to American democracy. The threat is nearly 
invisible in ordinary ways. It is a crisis of confidence. It is a 
crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our 
national will. We can see this crisis in the growing doubt about 
the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of 
purpose for our nation. 
        
       (End excerpt)
         
       MR. RUSSERT: The so-called Malaise Speech. Now, contrast 
that with Ronald Reagan at the Berlin Wall and you’ll see two 
different men and two different styles.
         
       (Excerpt from videotape):
         
       PRES. RONALD REAGAN: Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.
         
       (End excerpt)
         
       MR. RUSSERT: The president had often said—President 
Reagan—that you can’t be a good president without being a good 
actor. He took it as a compliment.
         
       MR. DEAVER: Yes. I mean, I think he understood the 
importance and the symbolism. One of the interesting things about 
those two that I did remark about in my book is that you never 
saw Reagan moving his hands or his arms. There was never any 
pounding of the desk. It was all done above the shoulders.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: It’s quite interesting in going back and 
revisiting Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter. When Jimmy Carter came 
to office after Watergate, there was an attempt to be the common 
man. Almost a healing process. Demystify the presidency. 
Deimperialize the presidency. Here’s Ronald Reagan coming down 
Air Force—Marine One, excuse me, a helicopter and saluting. We 
can see that. The arched shoulders, snapping the hand. I won’t 
tell you how Mike Deaver describes how he learned to do that in 
the book, because a little graphic. But there’s Jimmy Carter in 
the sweater by the fireside chat almost. Mr. Rogers almost. 
Hamilton Jordan, it was a different time, but truly, two 
different styles between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan.
         
       MR. JORDAN: Well, you work with what you have. President 
Reagan had the gift of being a big man and a deep voice. 
President Carter had different skills. President Carter was very 
powerful in a room or before a small audience. In these sometimes 
kind of artificial settings of the presidency, sitting in front 
of a television camera, like we’re doing here this morning, 
President Carter was not nearly as good as Ronald Reagan. And 
President Carter would be the first to admit this. President 
Reagan benefited, I think, greatly from his years in the movies. 
And he—this gift of communication was at the core of his assets 
and his success as president.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: Mike Deaver, you write in “A Different 
Drummer,” “I never heard him,” speaking of Ronald Reagan, “say he 
regretted one of his major decisions.” Does that include Iran 
Contra? 
        
       MR. DEAVER: Well, I—first of all, I think he didn’t—he 
wouldn’t say today that he or then that he knew about Iran 
Contra, so I’m not sure that’s one of his decisions. But he never 
was a guy who looked back. He made decisions, went on to the next 
job and never mulled, “Oh, gosh, did I do the right thing here? 
Should I have done it that way?” That just wasn’t part of his 
nature. 
        
       MR. RUSSERT: He had a sense of humor, as we saw exhibited 
in 1984. He was running for re-election and you write about it in 
your book. And age had become an issue. Was the Gipper up to 
another term? 
        
       MR. DEAVER: Right.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: This was how he dealt with it in his debate 
with Walter Mondale.
         
       (Videotape, October 21, 1984):
         
       PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN: I will not make age an issue of 
this campaign. I am not going to exploit for political purposes, 
my opponent’s youth and inexperience.
         
       (End of videotape)
         
       MR. RUSSERT: Who scripted that line?
         
       MR. DEAVER: Well, I can’t remember, but I wouldn’t be a 
bit surprised if it wasn’t Ronald Reagan himself. He was pretty 
good at that.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: Hamilton Jordan, when you’re watching a 
debate like that and you hear one of the candidates unload with a 
line like that and he’s not your candidate, how do you react? 
        
       MR. JORDAN: With pain. I remember watching that debate. 
And I remember Vice President Mondale, there was not much—not 
much he could say but sit there and laugh at President Reagan’s 
joke. 
        
       MR. RUSSERT: Mike Deaver, you saw Ronald Reagan a few 
years ago for your last and farewell visit. 
        
       MR. DEAVER: Yes.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: He’s suffering from Alzheimer’s. How is he 
doing?
         
       MR. DEAVER: Well, he’s 90 years old, and he’s got a 
disease that’s not going to ever get better. 
        
       MR. RUSSERT: Physically?
         
       MR. DEAVER: Physically, I think he’s doing reasonably 
well, considering he had the hip fracture. But it’s very sad. And 
it’s very sad for Nancy. There’s just no—all of us can remember, 
as I have done in these books and share those memories with my 
wife and my family, but there’s no sharing there now. 
        
       MR. RUSSERT: I want to show you a photograph of Nancy 
Reagan and Ronald Reagan. And you write passionately about their 
passion and their romance, saying that you have never observed 
two people more intertwined, if you will, emotionally.
         
       MR. DEAVER: No. And you know, I always said that if Ronald 
Reagan had owned a shoe store, Nancy would have been pushing 
shoes. I mean, that’s her life.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: Does he ever get upset with her? I mean, when 
it came out that she was using astrological charts to help plan 
his schedules and things like that, did he ever lose his temper?
         
       MR. DEAVER: No. No. No. I never saw that. Never.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: Never?
         
       MR. DEAVER: Never. I saw him lose temper occasionally with 
me, but I never same him lose it with her.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: For good reason.
         
       MR. DEAVER: Yeah. Right.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: How will Ronald Reagan be remembered?
         
       MR. DEAVER: I think he’ll be remembered obviously for 
bringing the Cold War to an end, but I think he’ll also be 
remembered as a president who helped America believe in itself 
again.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: Hamilton Jordan, how will Ronald Reagan be 
remembered?
         
       MR. JORDAN: I can’t disagree with Mike. I think he’ll be 
remembered as a very effective president and a very popular 
president.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: Hamilton Jordan, your book “No Such Thing As 
A Bad Day,” about your heroic struggle with cancer, not once, but 
three times. A very excellent read. And Michael Deaver, “A 
Different Drummer: My 30 Years With Ronald Reagan.” We thank you 
both for joining us.
         
       MR. DEAVER: Thank you.
         
       MR. JORDAN: Thank you, Tim.
         
       MR. RUSSERT: And we’ll be right back right after this.
         
        (Announcements)
         
       MR. RUSSERT: Start your day tomorrow on “Today” with Katie 
and Matt, then the “NBC Nightly News” with Tom Brokaw. That’s all 
for today. We’ll be back next week. If it’s Sunday, it’s MEET THE 
PRESS.   

*****************************************************************
 11  Fuel Consignment Heads for Czech Nuclear Plant; New Glitch 
Reported

Central Europe Online - 

WARSAW, Apr 22, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) A train carrying 
nuclear fuel for a problem-hit Czech nuclear power plant was 
headed across Poland on Saturday, media reports said.
 
The report coincided with the latest in a series of breakdowns 
that cut output at the Temelin plant, which has sparked strong 
opposition in nearby Austria.
 
Poland's private television station TVN said the consignment of 
uranium oxide -- which Polish officials say poses no risk for the 
population -- had arrived at the port of Szczecin and been loaded 
onto rail cars.
 
TVN said the consignment was headed for the Czech Rebublic under 
tight security after arriving in Poland from the United States on 
the cargo ship Andromea.
 
The Polish news agency PAP said three different itineraries had 
been prepared for the train as a security measure, since 
environmental groups had vowed to try and shop shipments crossing 
the country.
 
At least two other shipments of nuclear fuel for the Temelin 
plant are expected to be sent from Poland in the coming months.
 
Separately, the director at Temelin said a new fault forced 
technicians to urgently reduce its output to three percent of 
capacity Saturday.
 
The "small fault" on the steam pipe in a secondary, non-nuclear, 
system would be fixed on Monday, said the director, Frantisek 
Hezoucky.
 
It is the latest in a long series of technical problems at the 
plant since it was first powered up in October last year.
 
The plant was last shut down on April 2 following an oil leak, 
and was hooked up to the national electricity grid again on 
Wednesday, with output at 55 percent of capacity.
 
The complex, which will include two VVER-type 1,000-megawatt 
reactors when completed, was originally conceived in the Soviet 
era but has since been updated with Western technology.
 
Anti-nuclear protestors in Austria -- which voted against atomic 
power in a 1978 referendum -- believe that the Temelin plant is 
unsafe. They have staged several border protests over the plant, 
which is located some 60 kilometers (35 miles) from the Austrian 
border. *((c) 2001 Agence France Presse)* <IMG 
*****************************************************************
 12  NGOs criticise EBRD lending, environment record 
					   				 				
UK : April 23, 2001
                                                                                        
LONDON - Two non-governmental organisations on Friday criticised 
the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development's record on 
lending to eastern Europe, saying its 10 years of operation were 
years of missed opportunity.                                            
                                                                                        
"There has never been a strategic vision that grounded the bank 
from day one," Jim Barnes, counsellor to Friends of the Earth 
told a press conference in London.

The London-based EBRD is the largest investor in the private 
sector in eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union and will 
hold its annual meeting here starting Yesterday.

Citing a series of investments from proposed funding of two 
nuclear reactors in Ukraine to replace Chernobyl, the site of the 
world's worst nuclear accident, to losses incurred in the Russian 
financial crisis of 1998, Barnes said the EBRD had failed to meet 
the needs of eastern Europe after communism. "We see a decade of 
missed opportunities," he said.

The EBRD has attracted criticism for nuclear funding, with some 
saying the project is not justified on environmental or banking 
grounds.

"Projects such as the funding of two nuclear reactors in Ukraine 
also clearly show that the EBRD is incompetent as a bank, since 
the project is uneconomic," said Peter Hlobl of CEE Bankwatch, an 
organisation which monitors the activities of the EBRD in eastern 
Europe.

The NGOs cited other projects, mainly in the energy and natural 
resources sector as examples of negative impact, where the bank 
had failed to use its position to encourage renewable energy use.

Hlobl said the EBRD was also guilty of not adequately consulting 
the public in countries concerned about its projects, which means 
that the bank does not meet the requirement in its mandate on 
encouraging democracy.                                           
 					   				 				 				 				
Story by REUTERS NEWS SERVICE                                                    
*****************************************************************
 13   RUSSIAN "GREENS" STRONGLY OBJECT NOT ONLY TO THE IMPORTATION OF 
WASTE NUCLEAR FUEL INTO RUSSIA, BUT ALSO TO ATOMIC ENERGY IN 
GENERAL
 
 [A&G Information Services] 

Story Filed: Monday, April 23, 2001 9:59 AM EST 

ST.PETERSBURG, RUSSIA, Π(A News via COMTEX) -- "Greens" estimate 
the situation with nuclear waste accumulated in Russia as close 
to catastrophe. According to Greenpeace, the total volume of 
nuclear waste accumulated in Russia amounts to 1,5 billion curie. 
This exceeds the level of curie after the Chernobyl catastrophe 
(50 million-curie) more than 100 times. Greens suggest that 
Russia must reject atomic energy completely. They consider that 
it is possible to replace all the APSs with Biological reactors. 
Russia produces 350 million tons of organic waste, which might 
produce 95 billion cubic meters of biological gas, which could 
produce energy 1,5 times more than APSs. 

URL: http://www.aginform.com

Copyright (C) 2001, A Information Services, all rights reserved 
*****************************************************************
 14  Russian, French ministers discuss spent fuel issue
 
Story Filed: Monday, April 23, 2001 9:52 AM EST 

MOSCOW, Apr 23, 2001 (Itar-Tass via COMTEX) -- Russian Nuclear 
Power Minister Alexander Rumyantsev met visiting French Minister 
for Scientific Research Roger-Gegard Schwartzenberg on Monday. 

They discussed two major nuclear energy issues, or treatment of 
so-called irradiated nuclear fuel and the building of the world's 
first thermonuclear reactor, the Nuclear Power Ministry's press 
service told Itar-Tass. 

Rumyantsev informed the French minister about the planned change 
of Russian legislation which is to allow import of spent nuclear 
fuel from Western nuclear power plants for temporary storage and 
reprocessing in Russia. 

Rumyantsev and Schwarzenberg also discussed the international 
thermonuclear reactor project which in particular involves 
European Union countries, Japan, Canada and Kazakhstan. 

The sides are considering a country in which the reactor will be 
located. Japan, Canada and France are being discussed as options. 
Russia does not object to the reactor's being built in France, 
Rumyantsev said. The building is to start in 2003. 

By Veronika Voskoboinikova (c) 1996-2001 ITAR-TASS. All rights 
reserved. 
*****************************************************************
 15  Ukraine to work for West meeting of Chernobyl commitments
 
Story Filed: Friday, April 20, 2001 3:15 PM EST 

KIEV, Apr 20, 2001 (Itar-Tass via COMTEX) -- The Ukrainian 
delegation should have an energetic tactics in the Chernobyl 
issue to be discussed by the Council of Europe Parliamentary 
Assembly (PACE), member of the Ukrainian delegation to the 
Assembly Anatoly Rakhansky has said. 

Now that Ukraine has shut down the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, 
Ukraine meets mutual commitments with the West unilaterally, he 
noted. "Ukraine has shut down the power plant without having 
alternative sources of energy, meanwhile the European community 
is not in a hurry to finance the construction of units of the 
Rovno and Khmelnitsky nuclear power plants," he said. 

The Assembly will gather on April 26 to discuss the EBRD 
financing of the Shelter object over the fourth unit of the 
Chernobyl power plant and the construction of Rovne and 
Khmelnitsky units, which are due to compensate the energy loss. 

By Raisa Stetsyura (c) 1996-2001 ITAR-TASS. All rights reserved. 
*****************************************************************
 16  Don't dump N-waste in Utah
 
[deseretnews.com] 

April 23, 2001

Deseret News editorial

       Utah should not have to be a dumping ground for nuclear 
waste that is generated in other states.

       This page has emphasized that position a lot lately due to 
the efforts of Private Fuel Storage, a consortium that represents 
various nuclear power plants in the East and Midwest, to ship 
nuclear waste to the Goshute Indian Reservation in Utah's western 
desert.

       This page likewise supports legal efforts to prevent that 
from happening. During the past legislative session, state 
lawmakers passed a measure that requires Private Fuel Storage 
(PFS) to put up $150 billion as insurance against any accidents. 
According to the governor's office, the cost of a rail accident 
involving such waste could range from $9 billion to $200 billion.

       Representatives of the Goshute Indian Reservation and PFS 
have filed suit against several state officials, including Gov. 
Mike Leavitt, in an effort to ease restrictions on the shipping 
of nuclear waste. They charge that the recent legislation and 
five other Utah laws designed to derail the nuclear storage plan 
violate the U.S. Constitution.

       PFS wants to ship 10.4 million spent nuclear fuel rods 
from the East and Midwest to the reservation in Tooele County for 
"temporary" storage. According to the PFS scenario, the rods 
would be stored there until a permanent facility is established 
and then shipped to that permanent facility.

       However, the way the lease is structured, temporary means 
up to 50 years. Utah officials, such as Dianne Nielson, executive 
director of the Department of Environmental Quality, who, like 
Leavitt, is named in the suit, feel the temporary designation 
could turn into a permanent one once the rods have been shipped 
to the western desert.

       Yucca Mountain in Nevada has been the permanent site most 
often discussed. Not surprisingly, lawmakers there are fighting 
attempts to move the nation's nuclear refuse to Nevada.

       Given the nature of the cargo and the time involved in 
transporting it, it makes little sense to ship 40,000 tons of 
high-level nuclear waste to a temporary site in Utah only to have 
to ship it all to a permanent site later.

       Regardless of the outcome of the legal challenge, what 
should be done is to leave the nuclear waste at the sites where 
it's generated until a permanent site is made available to 
receive it.
 
 © 2001 Deseret News Publishing Company 
*****************************************************************
 17  Nuclear Power May Be Making A Comeback 

*By Peter Behr*
 Washington Post Staff Writer
 Monday, April 23, 2001; Page A01 

The owners of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant on the 
Connecticut River were about to sell their 27-year-old facility 
last year when something remarkable happened -- remarkable at 
least for that long-shunned industry.

 A new bidder for the plant showed up, ready to double the 
purchase price, followed by another bidder, and another. Vermont 
officials halted the sale and have now put the plant up for 
auction.

 Only recently the nuclear industry seemed dead in this country. 
No new U.S. nuclear power plant has been built since the 1979 
accident at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania and the Chernobyl 
disaster 15 years ago had left a cloud of public fear over the 
industry.

 But with the escalation of competitive energy prices and a 
friendlier regulatory environment, the U.S. nuclear option has 
awakened, underscored by the outburst of bidding for generating 
plants like Vermont Yankee.

 U.S. nuclear plants have increased their overall output by 25 
percent over the past 10 years by reducing accident rates and 
shutdowns. The plants now deliver 20 percent of the nation's 
electricity and do so without discharges of greenhouse gases or 
air pollution, industry officials say.

 Just a few years ago, industry analysts predicted that many 
nuclear plant owners would not renew operating licenses, choosing 
instead to shut down the facilities in favor of more economic 
natural gas-fired plants. Now, about 40 percent of the plants 
have announced plans to seek renewed licenses and twice that may 
apply, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

 "We have even seen the first stirring of interest in the 
possibility of new [nuclear plant] construction in the United 
States -- a thought that would have been unthinkable even a year 
ago," Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Richard A. Meserve 
said last month.

 The revival of the nuclear power industry has set the stage for 
a critical debate about energy policies that will hold the key to 
its future. The Bush administration said nuclear power should be 
one of the cornerstones of the new national energy plan the White 
House is preparing. 

Industry opponents, led by the Union of Concerned Scientists, 
said that the advancing age of U.S. plants and the difficulty in 
recruiting skilled operators create constant issues of 
operational safety. Control of nuclear plants is passing from 
traditional utilities to competitive generating companies, 
creating a risk that corners will be cut to boost profits, 
critics contend.

 But a re-energized nuclear industry says its safety record since 
Three Mile Island speaks for itself. It sees an opportunity and 
now is pressing the administration for tax incentives and 
regulatory help that would make old plants more profitable and 
future construction easier.

 White House officials would not disclose what nuclear power 
initiatives will be adopted by the task force headed by Vice 
President Cheney.

 But industry leaders expect the Bush administration to give a 
go-ahead late this year to a long-delayed, politically charged 
proposal to store hazardous radioactive wastes permanently in an 
underground site at Yucca Mountain, Nev. The project, widely 
opposed in the state, could be authorized by Congress over 
Nevada's objections.

 The administration would support renewal of the Price Anderson 
Act, which limits generators' liability from nuclear accidents, 
industry executives believe. The federal law is to expire next 
year.

 The industry also is asking that nuclear plants receive valuable 
financial credit for not emitting the kind of greenhouse gases 
discharged by fossil fuel plants.

 The shift in fortunes for nuclear power has several causes, most 
importantly, the sudden escalation of natural gas prices last 
year. In the late 1990s, gas had become the fuel of choice for 
new power plant projects because it burns much more cleanly than 
coal or oil and its low price made it the first choice on 
economic grounds, too.

 But shortages of the fuel caused wholesale gas prices to rise 
more than $10 per 1,000 cubic feet at the beginning of winter, 
triple the levels of a year ago. Prices have since eased to about 
$5, but that still make gas-fired electricity pricey enough for 
nuclear plants to compete with, said Angelina Howard, executive 
vice president of the Nuclear Energy Institute.

 "We're very economically competitive," added Corbin McNeill, 
chairman of Chicago-based Exelon Corp., the nation's largest 
operator of nuclear plants. "And the more natural gas prices go 
up, the more competitive we'll be." 

The industry's prospects have also been helped by what Howard 
calls a more "predictable" and "effective" oversight by the 
Nuclear Regulatory Commission over the last year and a half.

 The NRC has sped up procedures for relicensing existing nuclear 
power plants and last year, granted a renewed, 20-year license to 
the Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant in Calvert County operated 
by Baltimore Gas and Electric Co., taking a relatively short two 
years. The NRC process was upheld last year in the U.S. Court of 
Appeals for the District.

 The impact of higher gas prices and improved regulatory 
environment is apparent in the run-up in nuclear power plant 
prices that so surprised Vermont Yankee's owners.

 Two years ago, buyers were paying about $100 per megawatt to buy 
nuclear power plants, said Paul Dabbar, vice president of J.P. 
Morgan &Co., which is handling the Vermont Yankee auction. 

In March, Dominion Resources Inc., the Richmond-based energy 
conglomerate, paid $1.3 billion to buy the Millstone Nuclear 
Power plant from Northeast Utilities in Connecticut. The price 
for one of the Millstone units hit $791 per megawatt, eight times 
the average of just a few years before, Dabbar said.

 Dominion and Constellation Energy Group Inc., BG's parent, both 
have indicated an interest in bidding on the Vermont Yankee 
plant.

 "Power companies are beginning to see that nuclear plants 
provide a good source of diversity to mitigate the natural gas 
price risk," Dabbar said. Increasingly stiff air-quality 
regulations lie ahead for conventional power plants. "Nuclear 
power doesn't have to worry about that."

 If nuclear industry is willing to bet on a longer, more 
profitable future for existing plants, a bigger question remains 
unanswered: Will the industry attempt to build new plants?

 The NRC has streamlined consideration of new nuclear projects, 
creating separate reviews for plant designs and sites. Several 
plant designs have been pre-approved and if a generator adopts 
one of these designs, it does not have to cross that regulatory 
hurdle again.

 The most likely scenario for a new project would be to add a 
unit, using an approved design, on an existing power plant site, 
said James Lake, president of the American Nuclear Society. 
"There is quite a lot of interest" in new projects, he said, 
among companies such as Exelon and Duke Energy, with existing or 
new designs. 

Critics charge that under the new NRC approach, activists lose a 
lot of opportunities to challenge a project, especially if a 
proposed plant is to be sited next to an existing nuclear power 
plant. If the NRC goes forward with a proposal that could limit 
activists' access to confidential company data, "the public can 
jump up and down, but there would be no leverage for meaningful 
dialogue," said David Lochbaum, a nuclear safety engineer with 
the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington.

 Industry executives said the financial risks of building new 
nuclear plants have been markedly reduced and the odds would 
improve even more if the Bush administration and Congress approve 
changes in environmental policy sought by the industry.

 Nuclear companies want to receive valuable financial credit for 
generating power without the discharges of carbon dioxide 
greenhouse gases and pollutants that come from conventional oil, 
coal and natural gas plants.

 Such a proposal would prompt a battle with many environmental 
advocates and nuclear power critics. Rather than support a new 
round of nuclear plant construction, Lochbaum said, Congress and 
the administration should be promoting an increase in energy from 
solar, wind and other renewable sources.

 "The existing fleet of reactors, if operated safely, help serve 
as bridge to energy technologies of the futures -- fuel cells, 
solar, biomass," Lochbaum said. "We don't think that new nuclear 
plants should be part of that answer."

 Although the administration has not committed to endorsing a 
pollution credit for nuclear, Cheney said earlier this month: "If 
you want to do something about carbon dioxide emissions, then you 
ought to build nuclear power plants."

 The Bush administration also is being asked by the industry to 
help fund the development of new plant technologies. 

One of those technologies, based on 1950s German designs, the 
"pebble bed" technology uses uranium fuel packed in individually 
shielded canisters the size of tennis balls. In the case of a 
plant accident, the reactor would come to a standstill, gradually 
releasing heat but not radiation, Exelon officials said. The 
design does not require an emergency cooling system, the 
officials said.

 Exelon is supporting construction of a pebble bed reactor in 
South Africa, which it hopes will be a model for plants in this 
country.

 "It answers every criticism but long-term waste disposal. There 
is no conceivable way you get a Three Mile Island accident out of 
that design," Exelon's McNeill said.

 Opposition to the pebble bed reactor has not formed because the 
venture is so new, Lochbaum said. "Our concerns are early at this 
stage. The designs are still evolving . . . you can't really do a 
plus and minus analysis."

 The level of public concern about nuclear power, a generation 
after the accident at Three Mile Island, would be hard to judge 
until new projects are proposed. And in the case of pebble-bed 
technology, that may be at least five years away.

© 2001 The Washington Post Company
*****************************************************************
 18   USEC Licenses CBC to Manufacture and Market New Uranium 
Hexafluoride Shipping Container
                                       
April 23, 1:08 pm Eastern Time

Press Release
 
BETHESDA, Md.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 23, 2001--USEC Inc. 
(NYSE:USU - news) announced today that it has signed an exclusive 
licensing agreement with the Columbiana Boiler Company (CBC) for 
the manufacture and worldwide marketing of the MED 2000 overpack 
- a USEC-designed, U.S. government-certified protective packaging 
for transporting sample cylinders of uranium hexafluoride (UF6). 

``The MED 2000 is the first and only package that fully complies 
with the International Atomic Energy Agency's new requirements 
for UF6 shipments,'' said Dr. M. Elizabeth Darrough, USEC 
Director of Transportation Programs. Dr. Darrough led USEC's 
effort to develop the MED 2000 in response to recent changes in 
IAEA regulations for the transport of radioactive material. 

CBC is currently producing the MED 2000 for USEC's operations, 
including the Megatons to Megawatts nonproliferation program with 
Russia. 

As part of the licensing agreement, CBC will be responsible for 
the production and sale of the MED 2000 on a worldwide basis. 
USEC will receive a license fee from CBC for each sale. All 
production will take place at CBC's facilities in Columbiana, 
Ohio. 

USEC successfully tested a prototype of the MED 2000 last year, 
proving that the package meets the latest IAEA transport 
regulations (TS-R-1). The U.S. Department of Transportation 
approved the Safety Analysis Report and certified the package for 
international use on January 19, 2001. CBC participated in the 
development phase as the prototype manufacturer. 

The MED 2000 is currently approved for use with American National 
Standards Institute N14.1-certified 1S sample cylinders. CBC 
Senior Vice President Trevor Rummel said, ``CBC will adapt the 
MED 2000 for use with other types of sample cylinders to 
accommodate the needs of European and Asian customers.'' USEC 
Inc., a global energy company, is the world's leading supplier of 
enriched uranium fuel for commercial nuclear power plants. 

CBC and its Hi Tech subsidiary are leading manufacturers of fuel 
cycle packaging, including products for UF6, uranium dioxide, 
fuel assembly packages, as well as spent fuel dry storage 
canisters and related equipment. 

*Contact:* USEC Inc., Bethesda Elizabeth Stuckle, 301/564-3399 M. 
Elizabeth Darrough, 301/564-3422 or CBC Trevor Rummel, 
330/482-3373 Jennifer Jones, 330/482-3373
 

*****************************************************************
 19  Nuclear reactors don't look so bad 

 Montreal Gazette - Monday 23 April 2001 - 

 Letter to the Editor
 
I do not necessarily believe that nuclear power is the "panacea 
to meet the world's clean-energy needs." However I think W. Wayne 
Franks (Letters, April 18) needs to get some facts straight. 

The average life for a nuclear reactor in North America is 
approximately 25 years (25 years is an average based on the eight 
reactors that have been decommissioned since 1965). Don't bother 
counting the other 102 reactors still up and running, because 
most of them have scheduled off-line dates representing closer to 
a 40-year life span. 

On safety, most people can only recall one North American 
accident, at Three Mile Island, at the hundreds of reactors 
running today. Is that because accidents are well covered up, or 
very rare? Nobody was hurt or killed at Three Mile. The radiation 
dose received by anyone nearby was six times less than a full 
chest X-ray. 

Solar power is so expensive that it barely pays for itself. This 
is not to mention the sheer quantity of space you would have to 
cover with solar panels to equal the output of one nuclear 
reactor. Also, talk about your landscaping horrors. Fuel-cell 
technology makes solar look like a bargain as far as price goes. 

Geothermal plants have to apply for air permits because they emit 
sulfur dioxide and hydrogen sulfide into the atmosphere. Wind 
power is also very expensive, and don't forget about the 
thousands of birds that get massacred in windmill blades every 
year. 

We are going to have to choose our evils; there is no escaping 
them. There is no free, clean energy for the masses. In light of 
these facts, nuclear reactors don't look so bad. 

Ryan Ellis Sacramento, Calif. 

                                       
  Copyright © 2001 CanWest Interactive and The Montreal Gazette 
Group Inc., a contact P. Beaulieu in writing at The Gazette, 250 
St. Antoine W., Montreal, Quebec, H2Y 3R7. 
                                       
*****************************************************************
 20   Officials: Guilty in Nuke Accident
 
April 22, 2001 
 
TOKYO (AP) - Six former top officials at a nuclear 
fuel-reprocessing plant pleaded guilty Monday to charges of 
negligence resulting in death in Japan's worst nuclear accident, 
a court spokesman said. 

Also, current JCO Co. president Tomoyuki Inami admitted to a 
charge that the company violated the nation's nuclear regulations 
law, said Mito District Court spokesman Michiru Sakurai. 

The six, including the plant's general manager Kenzo Koshijima, 
each face a maximum penalty of one year in prison and a fine of 
500,000 yen ($4,098). Inami was answering a charge made against 
the company itself and doesn't face any individual penalty. 

JCO was accused of systematic security violations. The accident 
happened at the company's Tokai plant, 70 miles northeast of 
Tokyo, on Sept. 30, 1999. Two workers tried to save time by 
mixing excessive amounts of uranium in buckets instead of using 
special mechanized tanks. 

The mix set off an uncontrolled nuclear reaction, exposing the 
two to massive doses of radiation from which they later died. A 
third worker, who was also hospitalized in critical condition, 
was later discharged from the hospital. It was Japan's most 
serious nuclear accident. Authorities ordered 161 people 
evacuated from their homes, and another 310,000 were advised to 
stay indoors for 18 hours as a precaution. In all, 439 people 
were exposed to radiation. The company was stripped of its 
license to operate the processing plant in March of last year. 

The company has also agreed to pay $103.7 million in compensation 
to settle 6,875 complaints over the accident. 

All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
*****************************************************************
                     NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARTICLES
*****************************************************************
 1 Cold War Secrets: Glasgow plans

A NUCLEAR attack on Glasgow would have left 40,000 dead and 
injured and led to a mass evacuation of the devastated city, 
according to newly-released government papers.

 At the height of the Cold War with the former Soviet Union, a 
series of contingency plans were drawn up to deal with any attack 
on the industrial heart of Scotland.

 The assumption was that an atom bomb as powerful as the one used 
on Nagasaki to end the Second World War could be detonated 2000ft 
over Princes Dock.

 In the papers released by the public records office in London, 
the plans speak of the equivalent of 20,000 tons of TNT causing 
"a searing flame in the sky for about 10 seconds, so intense that 
it may set fire to combustible materials up to a range of one 
mile and cause severe burns well beyond".

 A terrifying picture of fire and devastation is painted - but, 
curiously, the papers indicate that suburbs like Giffnock would 
escape unscathed and would be used to house thousands of 
refugees.

 The papers predict the chain of events after an attack: "The 
blast wave spreads rapidly outward accompanied by a brief, 
intense wind. The initial shock front travels at 700mph, the 
speed of sound. It is this which does most of the damage."

 The casualties were assumed to be in tenement blocks surrounding 
the docks, which would be reduced to rubble. They would be 
surrounded by a ring of fire that would die out before reaching 
the bungalows and semis in the suburbs.

 Bridges were expected to be destroyed for up to 400 yards in all 
directions and severe structural damage to extend more than 800 
yards. Telephone poles would be knocked down three quarters of a 
mile away, yet the Clyde would still be fully navigable to the 
west and by small boats to the east.

 It was assumed that sufficient warning would be given for most 
children and many adults to be evacuated beforehand, leaving 
fewer than 800,000 people in the city.

 Radiation was considered only a brief, passing hazard, with 
rescue teams able to work safely and unprotected at the heart of 
the devastation within an hour.

 The problem for Sir Victor Warren, civil defence controller, 
would have been what to do with nearly 300,000 refugees, most of 
whom were assumed to be heading towards Renfrewshire, while the 
rest, without gas and electricity, had to find ways of cooking 
their dinner on the kerbside.

 Fortunately, civil servants expected trains to be running 
outside the main stations and they were assured that up to 4500 
buses could be found to ferry people to safety.

 A policy of "ruthless billeting" was to be enforced, with 
refugees obliged to sleep six to a garage among the houses and 
bungalows of Giffnock; 5000 taken in by the people of Barrhead 
and surrounding villages; and 63,000 left to find open air 
shelter around Thornliebank.

 The school meals service was expected to provide most of the 
meals from food stockpiled in advance.

 When DH Jackson, the London civil servant responsible for 
organising contingency plans across Britain, arrived for a 
planning exercise in October 1952, he was less than impressed. 

The Ministry of Food official noted: "I got the impression that 
planning was very far behind in Scotland. I am sorry to say that 
I regard this study as very largely a waste of time."

 He was mollified six months later when Glasgow demonstrated that 
it could muster cottage pie and soup as emergency rations for 
6000 civil defence volunteers at Kelvin Hall.

 He described this as "beautifully produced and undoubtedly a 
howling success", although it had to be acknowledged that all the 
"victims" had eaten a hearty Sunday breakfast beforehand.

 Even then, nothing had been left to chance, as a frantic 
exchange of telegrams shortly beforehand reveals.

 Mr Rich in Glasgow to Mr Lewis in London: "Emergency feeding 
pamphlet mentions spread as part of first emergency meal. In past 
exercises in Scotland, we have interpreted spread to include meat 
paste. The commodity table on p108 of your pamphlet refers only 
to jam, marmalade or syrup. Grateful for your reply by return 
whether spread should include meat paste."

 Lewis replied immediately: "Spread means anything available, 
including margarine, jam, canned corn beef, fish or meat paste 
etc - anything in fact which can be spread and can be got."

 *-April 23rd*
 
*****************************************************************
 2  Glasgow's secret strategy for Russian nuclear attack

The Scotsman Online - Scotland's best selling quality national newspaper
 						 						 						 						
Peter Day 						 						 						 					 				 						

Secret government papers have revealed for the first time how 
Josef Stalin cast a dark shadow over the Clyde.
 
In 1952, as Britain recovered from World War II, Cold War 
emergency planners carried out exercises to see how Scotland's 
largest city would cope if Stalin launched a nuclear onslaught.
 
Their grim expectation was that the Kremlin would send a lone 
bomber carrying a weapon to be detonated 2,000ft over Princes 
Dock.
 
Within seconds the city below would cease to exist, its shops and 
offices would evaporate in the firestorm, tenements would be 
reduced to rubble and factories swept away by a 700mph nuclear 
wind.
 
In those same few moments, 40,000 souls would be lost and a vast 
army of tormented survivors would be left, maimed and 
psychologically shattered, to flee the wreckage.
 
The emergency plans, details of which have just been released at 
the Public Records Office at Kew in London, assume a weapon of 
the same power as that which destroyed Nagasaki in Japan.
 
Despite this apocalyptic vision, the plans show a chilling 
naiveté about the levels of destruction and what would happen in 
its aftermath.
 
There was so little understanding of the effects of radiation 
that they thought rescue workers would be able to safely get to 
work close to the heart of the blast within an hour.
 
And while the scene which greeted them would be one in which 
every bridge would have been demolished within 400 yards of the 
epicentre, and most buildings wiped out for 800 yards, they 
imagined it would be possible to get the trains running again in 
short order.
 
The authorities predicted that the firestorm would stop before it 
reached the suburbs, allowing for the "ruthless billeting" of 
survivors, sleeping six to a garage among the houses and 
bungalows of Giffnock.
 
Another 5,000 would be taken in by the people of Barrhead and 
surrounding villages, leaving 63,000 to find open-air shelter 
around Thornliebank.
 
The problem for civil defence controller Sir Victor Warren was 
what to do with nearly 300,000 refugees, most of whom were 
assumed to be heading north to what was then Renfrewshire. 
Fortunately, civil servants expected 4,500 buses could be found 
to ferry people to safety.
 
However London civil servant D. H. Jackson was less than 
impressed when he reviewed the city's preparations in October 
1952. The Ministry of Food official noted: "I got the impression 
that planning was very far behind in Scotland."
 
Recognising that the refugees streaming out of the city would 
have no cooking facilities, one of his main concerns was how they 
would be fed. He was mollified six months later when he visited 
again and Glasgow demonstrated that it could muster cottage pie 
and soup for 6,000 civil defence volunteers at Kelvin Hall.
 
Even then nothing had been left to chance, as a frantic exchange 
of telegrams shortly beforehand reveals.
 
A Mr Rich in Glasgow sent a message to a Mr Lewis in London 
saying: "Emergency feeding pamphlet mentions spread as part of 
first emergency meal. "The commodity table on page 108 of your 
pamphlet refers only to jam, marmalade or syrup. Grateful for 
your reply by return whether spread should include meat paste."
 
Mr Lewis replied immediately: "Spread means anything available, 
including margarine, corn beef, fish or meat paste etc – anything 
in fact which can be spread and can be got."
 
The scene was set for Armageddon. 	 	 		 						 						

*****************************************************************
 3  Report finds low salaries for Russ weapons workers 

Some wish to leave, others moonlight to make ends meet 
*April 22, 2001*
 By Glenn Roberts Jr.
STAFF WRITER

 About 14 percent of surveyed Russian nuclear weapons workers are 
willing to work abroad, and about 60 percent are moonlighting to 
supplement their meager salaries, a study concludes. 

Prepared by the Non-Proliferation Project of the Carnegie 
Endowment for International Peace, the survey was conducted in 
1999 and included the responses of about 740 workers at Russian 
nuclear weapons research cities and missile sites. 

About 100 workers from Snezhinsk, a nuclear city that is a sister 
city to Livermore, participated in the study. The existence of 
Snezhinsk, an isolated research city in the Ural Mountains, about 
1,200 miles east of Moscow, was a Russian-kept secret until the 
close of the Cold War. 

Access to Snezhinsk and other Russian nuclear cities is strictly 
limited, though cooperative programs launched by the United 
States have sought to lift some of the restrictions and provide 
new jobs for weapons scientists and new safety measures for 
nuclear materials. 

Workers from Lawrence Livermore Laboratory and community 
representatives from the city of Livermore have worked to create 
new industries in Snezhinsk to steer Russian workers away from 
weapons research and keep them from leaving the country. 

Jon Wolfsthal, an associate for the Carnegie Non-Proliferation 
Project, said that the impetus for the study, released in late 
March, was the lack of solid data on the risk of Russian 
scientists fleeing the country to assist other nations in 
developing nuclear capabilities. 

"Unless we understand what the situation is, we can't design 
programs to try to address it," Wolfsthal said. 

Titled "Russia's Nuclear and Missile Complex: The Human Factor in 
Proliferation," the report concludes that the qualifications of 
nuclear specialists has declined at Russian nuclear cities, and 
their pay has remained relatively level for the past decade while 
the cost of living "has risen considerably." 

"Without the needed investment in facilities, education and 
living standards, Russia might face serious problems with the 
safety and reliability of its nuclear arsenal in the years 
ahead," the report states. 

Valentin Tikhonov, a Russian sociologist specializing in 
migration issues, conducted the study for the Carnegie endowment. 
Carnegie maintains a center in Moscow, Russia. 

Wolfsthal said that proposals by the United States to greatly 
reduce support for nonproliferation programs with Russia could 
heighten the risk that Russian weapons expertise and materials 
could leak out to foreign nations. 

"At a time when the situation is getting worse, the Bush 
administration is proposing essentially that we walk away," he 
said. The Carnegie endowment, a nonprofit organization, provides 
information and analyses of efforts to curb the spread of weapons 
of mass destruction. 

Wolfsthal also said the survey seems to suggest that the working 
conditions in nuclear cities and missile sites are "rapidly 
deteriorating." 

"It's a picture that you or I would never want to live in. These 
are the cream of the Russian crop -- the crown jewels -- and they 
make less than janitors in the United States. And they know that 
they make less than janitors," he said. The survey found that 
about 60 percent of surveyed weapons specialists receive monthly 
pay that is equivalent to less than $50 in the United States, and 
only 3 percent receive the equivalent of $100-$125. 

"Regular pay has ceased to be the main source of livelihood, 
giving way to money made by moonlight. In most cases incomes 
earned through outside work are either comparable to or higher 
than regular pay," the survey concludes. 

That entrepreneurial spirit could be either a positive sign or a 
warning: weapons workers appear eager to find other occupations 
in industry, though it could also represent a danger that they 
might be willing to take their expertise elsewhere if the price 
is right, he said. 

Even so, the study found that there is a shrinking number of 
Russian weapons workers who are willing to emigrate to other 
countries. 

, and most of the emigration in the past decade has been to 
Israel, Germany and the United States. 

And workers were most opposed to working in Iraq, Pakistan, 
Libya, Iran and North Korea, in that order, the study found, and 
the number of nuclear employees who want to work abroad is about 
one-fifth to one-sixth the level in 1992.
 
The report is available on the Web at: www.ceip.org.     <IMG
*****************************************************************
 4  Two naval officers nabbed for selling radioactive goods
 
Story Filed: Monday, April 23, 2001 7:37 AM EST 

PETROPAVLOVSK-KAMCHATSKY, Russian Far East, Apr 23, 2001 
(Itar-Tass via COMTEX) -- Two naval officers were detained in 
Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky in an attempt to sell articles, 
containing radioactive substances. 

According to a report by military prosecutor of the 
Petropoavlovsk-Kamchatsky garrison Yuri Sazonov, the officers 
supposedly tried to sell components of a nuclear power plant of a 
N-submarine. 

The radioactive goods, seized as a result of a joint operation by 
the Kamchatka Region police department, the regional branch of 
the Russian Federal Security Service and the military 
prosecutor's office, were handed over for an examination. A 
criminal case will be instituted by its results. 

According to Sazonov, the trend for committing crimes of this 
kind by servicemen is traced from the start of 2000. This is the 
fifth attempt in Kamchatka by soldiers, sailors and officers to 
improve their material position by trading military property. 

By Alexander Arkhipov (c) 1996-2001 ITAR-TASS. All rights 
reserved. 
*****************************************************************
 5  Israel said holding nuclear scientist

Haaretz Daily Newspaper - English Internet Edition
                                       
April 22, 2001*

*By Sharon Sadeh*
*Ha'aretz Correspondent*

A retired senior Israeli officer, who participated in the initial 
stages of Israel's nuclear program, has been held under arrest in 
Jerusalem since March 28, according to a report being published 
today in the British weekly, The Sunday Times.

 The weekly reports that Yitzhak Yaakov, 75, a retired brigadier 
general and former head of the Israel Defense Force's weapons 
development program, was arrested in connection with his 
relationship with a Russian woman who allegedly had access to his 
work.

 According to the report, Israeli authorities have issued a gag 
order on the proceedings which are being carried out against 
Yaakov, who also holds U.S. citizenship.

 Yaakov lived in the United States where he served, until seven 
months ago, as the chairman of Constellation 3D Inc., a New 
York-based company that develops computer hardware for storing 
data in its laboratories in Israel and Russia.

 Friends described Yaakov as "a naive old man," who may have 
behaved impulsively but would not have betrayed his country 
intentionally.

 A State Department spokesman said that Yaakov is entitled to 
consular support from U.S. representatives in Israel, but he has 
not yet made such a request.

 Yaakov's friends described the affair to the British weekly as 
"Kafkaesque" and reflecting the levels of paranoia in Israel.

 Since 1986, when Mordechai Vanunu leaked to The Sunday Times 
details about Israel's nuclear program, significant efforts have 
been made to prevent any form of discussion about the nuclear 
issue.

 According to the report, Yaakov was highly involved in Israel's 
nuclear program, both as a leading scientist at the Ministry of 
Trade and Industry, and as an officer in the IDF.

 Nonetheless, his friends note that Yaakov retired from the IDF 
some 25 years ago.

 The report also adds that it is unclear when Yaakov met the 
Russian woman, whose identity is not known, and it is unclear why 
Israeli authorities have been so interested in her.

 Yaakov has been divorced from an Israeli woman for many years.

 A source close to the company from which Yaakov retired said 
that his arrest is not at all linked with the technology which 
the company develops.

 The Sunday Times writes that very little information about 
Israel's nuclear program has been released since the Vanunu 
affair. The report does note, however, that a book by Dr. Avner 
Cohen, "Israel and the Bomb," was banned by Israeli censorship, 
even though its author maintains that the material in the book is 
from non-classified sources.

 Cohen returned to Israel recently and told reporters that he was 
questioned by Israeli security officials for 50 hours since he 
came back.

 The report says that it is not clear whether there is a link 
between Yaakov's arrest and Cohen's book.

 According to the newspaper, Yaakov's friends find it difficult 
to comprehend why a 75-year-old man could constitute a threat to 
national security in matters to which he has had no involvement 
since the 1970s. 
     
[ vspace=5] © copyright 2001 Ha'aretz. All Rights Reserved 

*****************************************************************
 6   Workers exposed to radiation losing hope 

StandardNET®
 
*Monday, April 23, 2001*

The Associated Press 

MOAB -- Many of the elderly residents here are hoping for -- but 
not expecting -- government checks intended to compensate them 
for the havoc visited on their families by the federal nuclear 
weapons program. 

Many of them first applied for money through the Radiation 
Exposure Compensation Act when the fund was created in 1990. Some 
reapplied after the program expanded last year to include a 
broader range of people exposed to radiation and a longer list of 
illnesses qualifying for the payments. 

The U.S. Energy Department originally identified 317 sites in 37 
states where people worked on nuclear-program projects that might 
have made them sick. A total of 9,342 claims, worth $271 million, 
have been approved so far -- some of them in southeastern Utah, 
where Navajo Indians and residents of Blanding, Monticello and 
Moab helped mine and process uranium. 

A number here were employed by nearby uranium mines, or are kin 
to those who were, and their family histories are riddled with 
cancer, lung disease and other health damage from radiation 
exposure. 

About 255 of the people approved for payments under the act have 
received IOUs because the fund is about $85 million short. Money 
will come as soon as Congress appropriates it, letters said. 

Neither John Clements, a uranium worker for 31 years, nor his 
wife, Vesta, a mill maintenance worker, expects to see a check 
anytime soon. 

"Somebody will get use out of it, I guess," says John, 80, his 
heirs in mind. Members of Congress from the Four Corners states 
have stepped up efforts to secure those promised payments. Utah 
Sen. Orrin Hatch, a Republican, and Rep. Jim Matheson, a 
Democrat, have signed on to bills that would make future 
radiation compensation payments an automatic part of the federal 
budget each year. 

U.S. senators passed a budget resolution earlier this month that 
would make the payments routine and would provide the fund with 
$710 million for the next 10 years. And President Bush included 
money to pay off the IOUs in his April 9 budget proposal. 

For people like Esther Every, any little bit helps. Her husband 
was a uranium worker who died of lung cancer in 1987, but her 
prescriptions cost more than $300 a month. 

Compensation payments come in denominations of $50,000, $75,000 
or $100,000, depending on how a recipient was exposed. Some 
recipients also will have their medical bills paid. 

Every says she has no idea where in the pipeline her application 
might be. "They just don't respond," she says, referring to the 
U.S. Justice Department workers who screen applications. 

Lori Goodman, an advocate for 225,000 Navajo tribal members in 
Colorado, said many of the Navajos awaiting checks also are old 
and ill. They come to her with hearing aids and oxygen tanks from 
homes that have no electricity or telephone or running water. 

"There's a push (in Washington) not to carry out justice," she 
says. "The thought is: 'These are old folks out in the West. Just 
let them die.'...The people have lost hope. It is such a shame." 

Hatch and Matheson hope to solve the problems by shifting the 
program from the Justice Department to the U.S. Department of 
Labor, which already handles a similar program for coal miners. 

State Rep. Max Young, D- Moab, is frustrated by the delays. He 
said one woman told him she needs the money, which was to 
compensate her deceased husband, to help a son. 

"She was really pleading, 'Max, can you do something?' and I 
can't," says Young. "It's a terrible thing. We can do better than 
that." 

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 7    A mushroom cloud still haunts us 

By Ellen Goodman, 4/22/2001 


AND YOU ALWAYS thought it wasn't easy being green. It took 
President Bush less than a week to change into a costume colorful 
enough for a St. Patrick's parade and an Earth Day charade.
 
Early in this administration's growing season, the Bush folk had 
shocked environmentalists right down to their grass roots. He 
rejected the global warming treaty, lusted after the Arctic 
refuge and chose arsenic as his favorite beverage. Carbon Dioxide 
'R Us became his motto.
 
Now, faster than a sprouting bean, the administration has taken 
its hands off the regulations for toxic lead and wetlands, and 
retreated on arsenic. On Thursday, the president even held a 
ceremony in the environmentally correct Rose Garden to sign a 
treaty reducing pesticides and industrial chemicals.
 
Frankly, I am happy to see any hint of celadon in Bush country. 
But in the Earth Day flourish of attention, how did we manage to 
overlook the greatest environmental danger of all - the mushroom 
cloud over the green space?
 
Did you miss the small news report revealing that the Defense 
Department is mulling over the development of mini-nukes? These 
are what supporters describe so benignly as ''precise,'' 
''clean,'' low-yield,'' and ''usable.'' They are little nuclear 
bombs designed to strike deeply buried targets.
 
The story went through a news cycle and into oblivion. It's proof 
that we don't (like to) think much these days about that instant 
global warming, the conflagration that preoccupied the Cold War 
psyche.
 
I share this reluctance. Like everyone in my duck-and-cover 
generation, I breathed a sigh of relief at the end of the Cold 
War, thinking we needn't worry about nuclear weapons anymore. But 
now every day brings another blast from the past.
 
We've already seen how the White House deals with Russia. Today, 
says Joe Cirincione, director at Carnegie's Non-Proliferation 
Project, ''The No. 1 concern is still Russia. Not because it's 
strong, but because it's weak.'' In its post-Cold War chaos, 
Russia not only has the most nuclear missiles and materials but 
also a crop of broke and alienated nuclear scientists. Nearly 14 
percent of them, a Carnegie survey shows, are ready to work for a 
foreign country. Perhaps nearby Iraq or Iran?
 
Our biggest security bang for the buck - or should I say 
''non-bang'' for the buck - has been the $500 million targeted to 
dismantle and secure Russian nuclear weapons and materials as 
well as to help their scientists find jobs. But the Bush budget 
would cut $100 million out of that piece of self-protection.
 
Instead, the same budget substitutes self-defense by fantasy. 
Funding for the Star Wars project would go up to $5.5 billion. 
The only practical success from the son-of-Reagan's shield would 
be to unravel international treaties.
 
And those chic little mini-nukes? If you think a heavenly missile 
defense over America is a flight of science fiction, try an 
underground attack warhead.
 
In an imaginary world, mini-nukes, operating with ''pinpoint 
accuracy,'' could ''take out'' Saddam's bunker without taking out 
Baghdad. Well, let's not even talk about pinpoint accuracy. 
(Remember the 1999 bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade?) 
Even if it hit the spot, a Federation of American Scientists 
report predicts, the so-called earth-penetrating warheads could 
only go 20 feet down, spreading radiation hundreds of miles wide.
 
Mini-nukes can't ''safely'' hit the bull's-eye of, say, a 
chemical warfare lab. But they could do lethal damage to such 
ancillary targets as treaties against nuclear testing and 
proliferation. After all, if the United States needs such 
tactical weapons, why doesn't every other country?
 
But most importantly, minis would loosen the taboo, and erase the 
bright line between nuclear and other weapons.
 
In many ways, the attitude of this White House toward new weapons 
is remarkably similar to its environmental policy. At stake are 
two philosophies. As Carnegie's Cirincione describes them: ''Do 
we have to protect ourselves *from *the world? Or do we protect 
ourselves *in *the world?''
 
Whether making policy around energy or bombs, our new leaders 
seem to prefer acting alone. Yet, if there is anything that 
tribes and nations have in common, it's self-preservation. In 
fact, two great threats - environmental pollution and nuclear war 
- make us understand we are one world.
 
Here, we share both a planet and the capacity to destroy it. Even 
after Earth Day, peace is also colored green and humans are still 
the most endangered species.
 
Ellen Goodman's e-mail address is .
 
This story ran on page 7 of the Boston Globe on 4/22/2001. © 
Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company. 
  


    
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