***************************************************************** 09/23/01 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 9.225 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER CONTENTS 1 Security at Czech nuclear plant stepped up over attacks on USA 2 Leader's pledge on nuclear power, poverty and services 3 Czech ministry assures Austria disputed nuclear plant 4 Temelin nuclear plant no obstacle to Czech EU bid, EU 5 Sellafield shuts plants as N-waste builds up 6 Deadly terror of A-plant jet raid 7 Nuclear Plants Vulnerable 8 Trading in nuclear enrichment -- 9 Goshutes Appear to Elect Anti-Nuke Officer Slate 10 Power Unit Of Novovoronezhskaya Nuclear Power Plant Being Modernised 11 What's next... Nuclear terrorism 12 Lawmakers question safety at nuclear power plants 13 DOE Extends Public Comment Period on Program to Assist Nuclear 14 Federal Opposition makes no nuclear waste promise to SA 15 Nuclear plant safety at issue 16 Rep. Markey goes after NRC in wake of terrorist attacks 17 Nuclear plant safety at issue 18 Plutonium plans put on hold 19 Public Citizen Denounces Nuclear Regulatory Commission Proposal 20 Browns Ferry may be tempting target: Analyst says nuclear plant 21 US nuclear power plants reconsider their defenses 22 NATIONAL NEWS: Whitehall rift over Mox plant NEWS DIGEST 23 Czech ministry assures Austria disputed nuclear plant problem-free 24 Muscovites urge move of nuclear facilities out of city NUCLEAR WEAPONS CONTENTS 1 Experts ridiculed in Court 2 NEVADA TEST SITE: After months of hints, nuclear tests ruled out 3 IAEA Calls for NK to Honor Nuclear Commitments 4 IAEA calls on N.K. to comply with nuclear inspection 5 Terror In 'Unconventional' Forms -- Nuclear, Biological, And Chemical 6 Weekend security alert set at 'high' 7 PAKISTAN NUKE THREAT 8 Rumsfeld: Nukes Not Considered for Terrorist Retaliation 9 Morocco, USA sign nuclear cooperation agreement 10 Worry and Fear Building in Yemen 11 CIA -- The World Factbook -- Morocco 12 The bomb in the basement 13 Norwegian, Russian radiation experts confident Kursk safe 14 IAEA passes resolution on protecting nuclear resources ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 Security at Czech nuclear plant stepped up over attacks on USA BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Sep 23, 2001 Text of report by Czech Radio on 23 September [Announcer] Security measures have been stepped up at the Dukovany nuclear plant and its immediate vicinity. According to our information, airspace over the plant is being guarded not only by troops from the nearby airbase in Namest nad Oslavou but also by the anti-aircraft regiment based in Zatec. The regiment is thought to have moved in to [the region of] Vysocina this weekend. The troops are expected to give greater protection to the airbase itself, to service NATO aircraft if need be and to protect the nearby Dukovany plant. No-one has so far agreed to officially confirm the dispatch of troop reinforcements in the area, however. Even Prime Minister Milos Zeman, who visited the region this weekend, gave an evasive answer when asked about the matter: [Zeman] Naturally, the Dukovany nuclear plant is safe but we must realize that the danger of terrorist attacks can never be ruled out. In the light of the USA's experience [from 11 September], security measures must be stepped up. Source: Czech Radio-Radiozurnal, Prague, in Czech 1100 gmt 23 Sep 01 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter All Material Subject to ***************************************************************** 2 Leader's pledge on nuclear power, poverty and services The Scotsman Online - Hamish Macdonell Scottish Political Editor SNP leader John Swinney issued a rallying cry for an independent Scotland yesterday with a pledge to keep public services out of private hands. Russell condemns ’racist’ asylum policy A SENIOR Nationalist MSP yesterday accused the government of operating an "institutionally racist" asylum policy. Michael Russell said the voucher system for refugees was creating a new form of apartheid based on social and economic poverty. His comments came on the same day as John Swinney, the SNP leader, visited a mosque in Dundee during his party’s annual conference in the city. Mr Swinney told representatives of the Muslim community that tolerance was at the heart of the SNP’s political beliefs. He went on: "We opened our conference with a motion of condolence for everyone who has been affected by those horrific attacks. "The motion was seconded by Bashir Ahmed, the convener of Scots Asians for Independence, who spoke movingly of Islam as a religion of peace." Mr Swinney added: "Scotland is a nation of many different faiths and communities - we are privileged to have in our country one of the most productive and patriotic Muslim communities. "And we should celebrate that culture and do everything in our power to promote understanding and tackle intolerance." Several senior SNP figures used the Dundee conference to urge tolerance and an end to attacks on innocent Muslim people in the community. Alex Salmond, the former party leader, told delegates those responsible for the race attacks in Britain were "bigots and fools". Speaking yesterday at the Scotland on Sunday/Scots Asians for Independence lecture, Mr Russell hit out at the government’s asylum policies which he claimed prevented refugees obtaining jobs and a high standard of education. He said: "If Scotland is to do well economically it has got to be much more welcoming of asylum seekers who have a contribution to make to the economy." Mr Russell, the SNP’s education spokesman, also slated the government’s lack of planning for the influx of refugees and said the policy of placing so many asylum seekers in Sighthill - one of Glasgow’s poorest housing estates - was "a disaster that was waiting to happen". Making his first conference speech as party leader, Mr Swinney vowed to make Scotland nuclear-free, poverty-free and equipped with public services free from all private sector involvement. And he insisted he would not flinch from making tough decisions - including raising the Tartan Tax if necessary to fund health and education. Mr Swinney was cheered and applauded by party activists in Dundee as he lampooned First Minister Henry McLeish and compared New Labour to the Tory government under Margaret Thatcher. The speech was designed to stamp his authority on the party after his first year in charge. It was an emotional appeal for independence and an explanation of an approach to policy in the Scottish parliament. His message was simple - an SNP administration under devolution would make Scotland better but independence would be best. Mr Swinney made his speech as an opinion poll showed his popularity among the public has improved. An ICM poll for The Scotsman showed 39 per cent of Scots believe he is doing a good job. This is up 10 per cent from February this year but still behind First Minister Henry McLeish who has a 54 per cent approval rating among the electorate. Mr Swinney used yesterday’s setpiece to set out his vision of an independent Scotland. He started by focusing on the treatment of asylum seekers and attacked all those who have turned against them. "We seem to have forgotten that asylum seekers come here to flee terror and to seek a better life. And we must welcome them and embrace them into our community," he said. But it was when he moved on to public services that Mr Swinney made it clear he would lead a radically different administration to New Labour. Launching a series of sustained attacks on plans for more private sector involvement in public services, he said: "In our health and education services I will never, never put private profit before public service." To loud applause, he added: "Chief among the converts to privatisation is Henry McLeish. He says he is committed to pragmatism, not ideology. "But privatising Scotland’s public services is ideology. It’s a Thatcherite ideology that has become a Blairite ideology. It is even a McLeish ideology, if you can imagine such a ridiculous concept." Mr Swinney condemned the extension of private companies into public services as "crazy, uneconomic, anti-Scottish and anti-public service". And to cheers, he stated: "The public purse - a quick win for private profit - and this party will have none of it." The SNP leader, who refused to commit the party to raising tax in this year’s general election campaign, raised the prospect of higher taxes under a future SNP administration. He said: "I may be faced with a choice between asking people to pay more in taxation or asking children to wait long periods for vital hospital treatment. "Let me make it clear today, I will not turn my back on Scotland’s children." Mr Swinney made the eradication of child poverty one of the key points of his address. Some of the loudest cheers were reserved for his pledge to end nuclear power in Scotland. "Be in no doubt, as Scotland’s First Minister, I would not approve plans for any new nuclear power station in Scotland. Not now, not ever," he said. Mr Swinney dealt briefly with the atrocities in the US. He defended his decision to cancel planned debates on NATO and defence and stressed the need to avoid any civilian casualties in any retaliatory raids. "They [the terrorists] must be brought to justice by targeted action, based on dispassionate evidence. But this cannot and must not mean more innocent victims are added to those who were so callously cut down last week." Mr Swinney finished with a passionate and emotive vision of the goal of independence. He invoked the Declaration of Arbroath, William Wallace and Robert Burns, quoting from the anti-nuclear song The freedom come all ye to invoke the image of the "wind of freedom" blowing through "the Great Glen of the world". And he declared: "We must make the breeze of independence blow through the complacency, the arrogance and the incompetence of those who presently govern Scotland." ***************************************************************** 3 Czech ministry assures Austria disputed nuclear plant problem-free BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Sep 22, 2001 Vienna, 22 September: The Czech Foreign Ministry has sent a letter to the Austrian Environment Ministry in which it answers some questions which remained open at a public hearing on the Czech nuclear power plant Temelin in June, the Austrian daily Die Presse writes today. In the letter, however, Prague makes no concessions to Austrian demands concerning Temelin, the paper says. "The Czech side considers the nuclear power station Temelin acceptable from the economic but also energy and environmental points of view," Die Presse cites the letter. The letter also says that the CEZ [power] utility, which is Temelin's operator, is an independent company. Therefore, all issues related to Temelin's economic aspects are controlled by the CEZ and cannot be subject to bilateral talks within the Melk process, the letter says. Under an agreement reached by the Czech and Austrian premiers in Melk, Austria, last December, Temelin was to undergo safety and environmental impact checks by mid-2001. The Czech side submitted the assessment's results earlier this summer but Austria called the documents insufficient and wants them to be completed. Issues of energy policy are "part of trade secret and cannot be discussed with other countries, the less so in a situation where the Czech energy industry's privatization is being planned", the Czech Foreign Ministry's letter says. CEZ is 67 per cent state-owned, Die Presse remarks. The letter reportedly calls the planned volume of Temelin's energy export "temporary". As for Temelin's accident rate, it can be compared with a similar situation at another nuclear power plant near the Austrian border, with a plant in Germany, for example, if its operator provided the necessary data, Die Presse cites the letter... Source: CTK news agency, Prague, in English 1216 gmt 22 Sep 01 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter All Material Subject to ***************************************************************** 4 Temelin nuclear plant no obstacle to Czech EU bid, EU officials tell Klaus BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Sep 21, 2001 Text of report in English by Czech news agency CTK Brussels, 21 September: The Czech-Austrian dispute over the Temelin nuclear power plant and a debate with Austria and Germany about the validity of the Benes Decrees cannot hamper the Czech Republic's admission into the EU, EC Chairman Romano Prodi and EU commissioner Guenter Verheugen told Vaclav Klaus today. "I think that they realize the weight of two unpleasant bilateral things shared with Austria and Germany, which means Temelin and the Benes Decrees. I have been repeatedly assured that in this sense their position is quite firm and clear -- these affairs cannot be linked with enlargement," Klaus, the chairman of the Chamber of Deputies [lower house of parliament] and leader of the Civic Democratic Party (ODS), told journalists. EU Enlargement Commissioner Verheugen assured him that he quite supported the Czech-Austrian Melk process [Czech-Austrian agreement on the assessment of Temelin's impact on environment] about Temelin and that would insist on both parties involved completing it. He told Klaus that because of Temelin he would meet heads of political groups in the European Parliament. Verheugen said that he wanted to tell them that resolutions similar to the one approved about the Czech Republic earlier this month were important. "It should not happen that deputies are influenced by a couple of activists from a political movement or a single country. The affair should not be left to a relatively random vote," said Klaus, who discussed the participation of Czech deputies in the preparation of these documents. The Benes Decrees sanctioned the deportation of 2.5 million Germans from Czechoslovakia after World War Two. Some circles in Austria and Germany want to link their annulment with the Czech Republic's EU bid. Situated some 60km from both the Austrian and German borders, Temelin is opposed by the Austrian and German governments as well as environmentalists in the two countries and in the Czech Republic. They say the plant is not safe because it combines a Soviet design and western fuel and safety technology. Source: CTK news agency, Prague, in English 1459 gmt 21 Sep 01 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter All Material Subject to ***************************************************************** 5 Sellafield shuts plants as N-waste builds up Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Special report: Britain's nuclear industry Paul Brown, environment correspondent Saturday September 22, 2001 The Guardian Both giant nuclear fuel reprocessing plants at Sellafield in Cumbria, which employ more than 4,000 people, were shut down yesterday after it became clear that volumes of high level nuclear waste were reaching unacceptable levels. Government regulators, the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate, have been critical of state-owned British Nuclear Fuels for its failure to deal with heat producing waste, the most dangerous material stored at the plant. Earlier this week, Sellafield was identified as a potential terrorist target following the attack on New York. Despite many attempts to reduce the amount of liquid waste, the plant which turns the waste into more manageable glass blocks, has broken down repeatedly. It has been out of operation most of this year. None of the three production lines in this vitrification plant are currently working and the amount of waste is rising, instead of falling as the regulators have demanded. The two reprocessing works deal with spent fuel from Britain's nuclear reactors and from customers in Japan, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Spain and Italy. Staff will not be laid off, but halting production will seriously damage the profitability of the company. Foreign customers are already angry at Sellafield's failure to deal with their contracts in time. This has caused a 10% increase in costs, running into many millions of pounds, which is passed on to BNFL customers. The company was warned again in August that unless it reduced the amount of waste in holding tanks - currently more than 1,550 cubic metres- by 35 cubic metres for the next 14 years the NII would close the plant. This year the amount of waste held has already increased by more than 100 cubic metres. Yesterday, the company said it had closed both reprocessing plants for maintenance. Reopening of the two plants, which are the main money spinner for BNFL, depends on getting the vitrification plant running properly, something it has not achieved since it opened 11 years ago. It has only achieved 34% of potential production in a decade, leading to such a build-up of dangerous wastes that the Irish government has protested to Britain about the threat to its citizens posed by the highly volatile liquid. Yesterday, a spokesman for BNFL said the company hoped to have two of the three vitrification lines open next month and the third is due to be commissioned by the end of the year. Martin Forwood, from Cumbrians Opposed to Radioactive Environment, said: "It is clear BNFL have jumped before they were pushed and shut the plants down rather than face legal sanction. The company is already years behind on its production schedules and has some very angry customers. This will make matters worse." Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2001 ***************************************************************** 6 Deadly terror of A-plant jet raid Guardian Unlimited Observer | UK News | [UP] War on terrorism - Observer special Guardian Unlimited special: terrorism crisis Robin McKieand and Oliver Morgan Sunday September 23, 2001 The Observer Anti-aircraft batteries should be built at the Sellafield nuclear processing plant as a matter of extreme urgency, the author of a secret EU report on nuclear safety warned last week. The rupturing of the atom plant's tanks of lethally radioactive waste would cause more carnage than any other single act of terrorism could inflict on this country. Last week both main plants at the Cumbrian site were shut down after volumes of nuclear waste reached unacceptably high levels. The Sellafield tanks could spray up to two tonnes of deadly caesium-137 into the atmosphere if struck by a hijacked jumbo jet, states the report by Wise-Paris - the World Information Service on Energy. This compares with the 50lb of caesium released during the Chernobyl reactor blast in 1986. A successful attack on Sellafield could lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and leave large areas of Britain uninhabitable for decades. The director of Wise-Paris, Mycle Schneider, one of the report's authors, said: 'After what happened on 11 September, we know what terrorists are capable of. It is a question of calculating what the impact will be.' Sellafield's owners, British Nuclear Fuels, stressed that their buildings were capable of surviving a plane crash, but a source said: 'The plants are designed to withstand collisions with light aircraft or military planes, but not a commercial jet loaded with aviation fuel. The consequences could be unthinkable.' [UP] Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2001 ***************************************************************** 7 Nuclear Plants Vulnerable NewsMax Wires Friday, Sept. 21, 2001 WASHINGTON --UPI -- A Nuclear Regulatory Commission official says nuclear power plants could successfully be attacked by terrorists flying a hijacked jetliner into a containment building, however other experts say plant construction makes them relatively resistant to such attacks. NRC spokesperson Victor Dricks told United Press International, "At this time we couldn't exclude the possibility that a jetliner flying into a containment (structure) could damage the facility and cause a release of radiation that could have an impact on public health and safety." Dricks said some nuclear power plants built near airports were analyzed to determine the impact of the crash of a fairly large aircraft. "But nobody conceived that a nuclear plant might become a target of a jumbo jet as occurred on Sept. 11," he said. Engineering studies have not been done to determine what would happen if a Boeing 767 crashed into a nuclear reactor. "I know that the staff is looking at this kind of question in light of what occurred last week," he added. Dricks said the extent of potential damage is difficult to predict. The NRC is the federal agency with central responsibility in the event of damage to a nuclear power plant. Mujid S. Kazimi, professor of nuclear engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, said some nuclear plants closer to cities have been engineered to be more resistant, but only "a few" are designed this way. "Some are designed only to withstand the lighter airplane," said Kazimi, who specializes in nuclear systems safety. The containment buildings that house nuclear reactors generally have an outer structure, which for much of the dome is 3-foot-thick concrete containing large amounts of steel rebar. Inside is a steel liner from 1 to 4 inches thick. There are commonly two more concrete walls close to the reactor, each a foot thick and containing steel rebar, but these walls do not completely enclose the top of the reactor. The reactor vessel is about 4 to 6 inches thick and made of high-strength carbon steel. The fuel itself is enclosed in steel jackets. But a plane could penetrate that structure. According to Kazimi: "The penetration in the concrete depends on the mass of the plane that is penetrating and also its velocity and the angle. There are many engineering factors in it. The critical elements, like the nuclear core and so forth, are usually in the middle of the containment so there are other structures in between the containment building and the nuclear core. Fire resulting from jet fuel could cause coolant loss, but nuclear plants are designed to deal with loss of coolant, he added. Kazimi said it is not clear if a plane would break open the reactor vessel, but added the resultant fire could cause damage in terms of nuclear release. "Without having seen an analysis that is my hypothesis about it," he said. No one interviewed by UPI was aware of a study done on the effect of a Boeing 767 crashing into a nuclear power plant. Robert Henry, a mechanical engineer who evaluates severe accidents at nuclear plants told UPI: "Designs that took into account airplane crashes were more likely to be incorporated into plants near airports or military airfields. Some were built with protection against crashing airplanes and some were not." Henry, a senior vice president of Fauske and Associates, which is owned by Westinghouse Electric Corp., said he believes containment structures in general are relatively resistant to being breached by an airplane, due to being over-engineered. A spokesperson for one nuclear power plant, Seabrook Station in New Hampshire, said his facility was built to withstand the impact of a bomber crashing into it. "The unique design of the Seabrook dome is designed, unlike a lot of other plants, to withstand the impact of a bomber-sized aircraft," Alan Griffith said. The proximity of Pease Air Force Base at the time of construction led to the design but Griffith would not specify the type of bomber upon which the design was based. A Boeing B-52 bomber has a maximum weight of 488,000 pounds. A fully loaded Boeing 767-400ER weighs 450,000 pounds at takeoff. Concerns about the more severe scenarios that experts consider possible are causing the Washington-based Nuclear Control Institute to call for immediate security measures. NCI's research director, Steven Dolley, told UPI, "We believe that it's not likely that the containment of these reactors could withstand a direct hit from a very large jetliner such as a 767 or a 747." NCI has called for the placement of anti-aircraft guns at nuclear power plants and the immediate mobilization of the National Guard to protect nuclear power installations. "There are vulnerable elements at nuclear power plants that are not within the containment building," Dolley said. "You wouldn't need to crash an airplane into the containment building to wreak a great deal of havoc. There are some points of vulnerability not within the containment building that if destroyed in an attack could trigger a melt down." Some scenarios show an area the size of Pennsylvania being radioactively contaminated, he added. A number of experts interviewed expressed concern about spent nuclear fuel, which now is stored outside the containment structure in casks. The casks have been subjected to drop tests and fire tests that have been criticized by some as not being rigorous enough. The threat against nuclear power plants is real, according to Yonah Alexander, who has studied terrorism for 40 years and is director of the International Center for Terrorism Studies at the Potomac Institute in Arlington, Va. Alexander said he has talked with dozens of terrorists around the world and they often have spoken about attacking a nuclear facility, though usually with a truck laden with explosives. "There is no end to the imagination of the terrorists and they would be willing to resort to some super-terrorism incident because they do have motivation, they do have the networks, they do have the expertise and the scientists," Alexander told UPI. (Reported by Joe Grossman in Santa Cruz, Calif.) Copyright 2001 by United Press International. ***************************************************************** 8 Trading in nuclear enrichment -- The Washington Times September 23, 2001 Alan Simpson As a former chairman of the Senate Nuclear Regulation Subcommittee, I commend the Bush-Cheney administration for acknowledging in their energy strategy the benefits of clean, safe nuclear energy, and their desire to make it a more favored energy option Unfortunately, a company with one big stake in the future of the industry would seem to be putting its interests ahead of the interests of the American electricity consumers and American utilities. The United States Enrichment Corp. (USEC), a former government entity, was privatized in 1996. USEC controls 70 percent of the U.S. enrichment services market today. Nevertheless, in an attempt to further severely limit competition, USEC filed a petition with the Commerce Department alleging that enrichment services were products, not services, and that USEC's European competitors, Eurodif and Urenco, should be assessed antidumping and countervailing duties for participating in unfair trade practices. The 103 nuclear power plants now operating in the United States require uranium in order to fuel their reactors. These plants currently provide 22 percent of our nation's electricity — with no greenhouse gas emissions. The electricity generated by nuclear power now costs less than electricity from any other source. However, before uranium can be used to generate electricity it must go through a critical process known as "enrichment." USEC's allegation that uranium enrichment is a "product," instead of a "service" is false. In fact, power plant operators buy uranium, which is truly a product, and then separately purchase enrichment services, under long-term services contracts negotiated in highly competitive international markets. Whenever it was previously in its interest to do so, USEC has argued in court that its enrichment contracts are for the sale of services, not for the sale of a product. That was USEC's defense against contract claims by its enrichment customers, and the court agreed. Moreover, in its U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings and its annual reports, USEC has routinely referenced its business as providing "enrichment services" to utilities. Regrettably, the Commerce Department has already issued its preliminary findings in accord with USEC's revised definition of the enrichment services industry, at levels that will only increase the prices of competitive services by more than 30 percent. Since the preliminary determinations were announced, U.S. prices have skyrocketed. Without competition, USEC has been able to dictate terms to its U.S. customers. It is most interesting that enrichment prices in other world markets during this period have not changed at all. U.S. nuclear utilities are basically the hostages of USEC. As a private entity, USEC took over operation of two U.S. government enrichment plants, one in Piketon, Ohio, and the other in Paducah, Ky., under extremely low-cost leases. But the plants are from the 1950s era, and they use old technology which is not competitive with the newer technology of Eurodif and Urenco. In 1993, the U.S. agreed to purchase 500 metric tons of Russian highly enriched uranium (HEU) over a 20-year period. As part this bilateral initiative to reduce stockpiles of weapons-grade nuclear materials, this HEU is being processed for use in commercial nuclear reactors. USEC was made the exclusive broker of the Russian enriched uranium for the first five years of the deal. Since USEC's domestic enrichment facilities are increasingly noncompetitive, and Russian enriched uranium costs less than USEC's production costs, USEC has become increasingly dependent on Russian supplies. Russia now provides about half of USEC's enrichment services. The company is betting its future on maximizing revenue from its role as exclusive broker in the Russian HEU deal and then utilizing trade actions to force its two European competitors to relinquish U.S. market share. However, in an unforeseen development, U.S. utilities, who are outraged by USEC's initiation of the trade action and the wrongful application of U.S. trade law, are vigorously petitioning the government to allow other companies to function as additional or alternative executive agents in competition with USEC. U.S. utilities view USEC's actions as an effort to create a monopoly in the U.S. market. Unfortunately, USEC appears to be succeeding. If Urenco and Eurodif were to be priced out of the market by virtue of these duties, then USEC would be the only game in town for the world's largest nuclear fuel market. USEC's trade case grotesquely manipulates trade law. It is not, as USEC insists, an effort to "level the playing field." Rather, it is an effort to increase the prices utilities pay for their nuclear fuel and the prices consumers will pay for nuclear generated electricity, when they are already burdened with heavy energy costs due to high gasoline and natural gas prices. Furthermore, applying anti-dumping and countervailing duty laws to trade in enrichment services would establish a precedent that could place all U.S. service exporters at risk. A terrible precedent indeed considering that our country is the world's largest exporter of services. The U.S. enrichment services market must remain open in order that European enrichment companies are able to sell their services in the U.S. Our trade policy should be consistent with our energy policy. This administration's desire to enhance the utilization of the American nuclear industry should certainly not be undermined by a trade policy that acts only to increase costs and reduce competition for a service that is absolutely critical to the industry's success. Back to common sense. Alan K. Simpson is a former Republican member of the United States Senate from Wyoming. All site contents copyright © 2001 News World Communications, ***************************************************************** 9 Goshutes Appear to Elect Anti-Nuke Officer Slate The Salt Lake Tribune -- Sunday, September 23, 2001 Locked out of their tribal offices in Tooele County, members of the Skull Valley Band of Goshutes held scheduled elections beneath the sun Saturday, reportedly choosing leaders opposed to a plan to store radioactive waste in Utah's west desert. Just over half of the tribe's 73 adult members took part in the balloting, which saw Mirlinda Moon elected as chairwoman and Sammy Blackbear elected as vice chairman, according to Anne Sward Hansen, who observed the election. Hansen represents the Environmental Justice Foundation, which favored Moon and Blackbear. Independent verification of election results was unavailable Saturday. The newly elected leaders oppose a 1997 plan pushed by ousted Chairman Leon Bear that would allow the storage of up to 40,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel on Goshute land in Skull Valley about 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. The state of Utah strongly opposes the plan, which must be approved by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Bear -- re-elected in 2000 to a four-year term as chairman -- has refused to step down and maintains that his ouster was illegitimate. He had reportedly locked the offices and barred the windows to the tribal office in Skull Valley, forcing voters to cast ballots outside. © Copyright 2001, The Salt Lake Tribune All material found on ***************************************************************** 10 Power Unit Of Novovoronezhskaya Nuclear Power Plant Being Modernised Pravda.RU 16:45 2001-09-20 The last stage of modernisation of the third unit of the first-generation power-generating units is nearing completion at the Novovoronezhskaya nuclear power plant. Russia's deputy atomic energy minister Bulat Nigmatulin held a conference at the plant the other day to fix the date of launching the power unit after modernisation for late October. According to the deputy minister, the modernisation of the first-generation power units is an important part of the government-adopted programme for developing national atomic energy sector. The unit modernisation is far cheaper than construction of new generating facilities, Nigmatulin noted. At the moment, only one power unit of 1,000 MWt capacity is operating at the Novovoronezhskaya NPP, with the two others being under precautionary repair and modernisation. Power unit No. 3 will be the first to be put into operation. RIA 'Novosti' ***************************************************************** 11 What's next... Nuclear terrorism [Las Vegas Review-Journal] Sunday, September 23, 2001 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal AMERICA ATTACKED: It's not about Israel To the editor: The 101 nuclear generating units located across the nation are vulnerable to terrorist attacks. These facilities produce approximately 20 percent of all electricity generated in our country. At these sites, the storage pools for spent nuclear fuel are rapidly filling and above-ground dry cask storage containers are being used at over one-fifth of the sites. Being above-ground, such units are an easy target for anyone bent on causing significant damage to the environment and human population. Stored deep in Yucca Mountain, the tons of spent fuel building up at these vital plants would reduce the potential for such attacks. Unfortunately, the citizens of Nevada have been misled by their political representatives regarding the safety and the need for a safe geological storage repository for the spent nuclear fuel. Untruths abound about the safety of storing and moving high level radioactive materials which have, in turn, driven the public into an emotional frenzy, as evidenced by the public hearing on Sept. 5. Nevada stepped to the plate during the Cold War and hosted the Nevada Test Site, which helped the economy statewide as well as insured the reliability of nuclear weapons. Now, especially in light of what we have just seen happen in New York City and in the nation's capitol, it is time that we accept the importance of nuclear generated electricity to the well-being of our nation and welcome the Yucca Mountain Project. RICHARD G. TELFER LAS VEGAS This story is located at: http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2001/Sep-23-Sun-2001/opinion/17046774.html ***************************************************************** 12 Lawmakers question safety at nuclear power plants welcome to Korea Herald!!_National http://www.koreaherald.com Lawmakers participating in the National Assembly's annual audit on the government yesterday raised doubts about safety at Korea's nuclear power plants, saying that there is a possibility of the fatal leakage of radioactive materials. "A total of 41 cracks have been reported in steam generator tubes in two nuclear power plants this year," said Rep. Kim Bang-rim of the ruling Millennium Democratic Party (MDP), at the parliamentary inspection on the state-run Korea Hydro &Nuclear Co. Out of the 41 cracks, 31 were found at Yeonggwang Nuclear Unit 4 in Jeolla Province, four at Yeonggwang Unit 2 and three at both Uljin Unit 1 and 2 in Gyeongsang Province, respectively, the lawmaker said. "Even if only one crack defect in those steam generator tubes develps into a rupture, the whole steam turbine system will have to be changed, which will cost about 80 billion won," she said. The legislator stressed that the steam generator tubes at Yeonggwang Unit 4 and Uljin Unit 3, which have larger crack defects, should be repaired immediately. Rep. Shin Yung-kook of the opposition Grand National Party (GNP) also pointed out an increasing number of other defect cases in nuclear power plants. "Last year, a total of 94 defect cases were reported in eight nuclear power plants at Gori in Gyeongsang Province and Yeonggwang, an increase from 89 cases in 1999 and 32 in 1998," the lawmaker said. By the nuclear power plants, the largest number of defect cases, 76, came from Yeonggwang Unit 4, followed by Yeonggwang Unit 3 with 51, Gori Unit 2 with 27 and Yeonggwang Unit 1 with 25 over the period of 1998-2000, the lawmaker added. The defect cases range from corrosion of steam generator tubes, to welding flaws in pipes in steam turbines, to cracks in the concrete foundations of power plants. Meanwhile, a total of 16 nuclear power plants are currently under operation, with four units at Gori, Yeonggwang, and Uljin and Wolseong in Gyeongsang Province, respectively. Four more nuclear power plants are under construction at Yeonggwang and Uljin. (khj@koreaherald.co.kr By Kim Hyung-jin Staff reporter (C) Copyright 2000 Digital Korea Herald. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 13 DOE Extends Public Comment Period on Program to Assist Nuclear Workers NEWS MEDIA CONTACT: Dolline Hatchett, 202/586-5806 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Wednesday, September 19, 2001 Public Meeting Rescheduled for October 10, 2001 WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Department of Energy (DOE) has rescheduled the planned public meeting on the proposed Physician’s Panel rule under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act of 2000. The meeting, originally scheduled for September 24, 2001, will now be held at 9:00 a.m. on October 10, 2001, in the Department of Energy Forrestal Building, 1000 Independence Avenue, S.W., Washington, D.C.. In addition, the department has extended the public comment period an additional 30 days until November 8, 2001. Public comments or requests to speak at the public meeting can be sent to: Ms. Loretta Young, Office of Advocacy, EH-8, U.S. Department of Energy, 1000 Independence Avenue, S.W.,Washington, D.C. 20585, subject line, "PHYSICIAN’S RULE COMMENTS." Those interested can call 202/586-2819, fax 202-586-6010, or email loretta.young@eh.doe.gov for further information. The draft rule is published in the Federal Register. The Notice and additional information on the program can be found on the DOE Office of Advocacy website at http://www.eh.doe.gov/advocacy. ***************************************************************** 14 Federal Opposition makes no nuclear waste promise to SA ABC Politics - 23/09/01 : The Federal Opposition has promised a Labor Government will not build a nuclear waste dump in South Australia. Sites in South Australia are being considered to store low level nuclear waste. The Labor leader, Kim Beazley, says Labor accepts the need for long-term management of nuclear waste that is produced in Australia. However, he has ruled out South Australia, saying it has had more than its share of unsafe and ill-considered nuclear experimentation in the past. © 2001 Australian Broadcasting Corporation ***************************************************************** 15 Nuclear plant safety at issue charlotte.com - - - - - September 22, 2001 Groups opposing license renewal question use of plutonium fuel, vulnerability to attack By BRUCE HENDERSON Groups opposing renewed licenses for the two nuclear power plants near Charlotte say federal regulators should weigh last week's terrorist attacks and a plan to fuel the plants with plutonium. Duke Power wants to extend the licenses for its Catawba and McGuire nuclear plants by 20 years, keeping them in operation until the early 2040s. License renewals focus largely on the effects of age on nuclear plants. Plant operators have to show they can find and fix deteriorating parts before they become potential hazards. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will also do environmental studies of the plants' impacts on fish, water, human health and other issues. At meetings on Tuesday in Huntersville, the NRC will ask for public input on other environmental issues it should consider in deciding whether to renew the licenses. Two anti-nuclear groups, the Nuclear Information and Resource Service and the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League, say Catawba and McGuire deserve added scrutiny. They are separately seeking trial-like hearings on the license renewals. The groups cite, as evidence of aging hazards, the cracks found this year in reactor vessel nozzles at Duke's oldest nuclear plant, Oconee. They challenge the safety of the structures meant to contain radioactive releases at Catawba and McGuire. They question the impact of a reactor accident on the rapidly growing Lake Norman population around McGuire. Both groups cite another issue: Duke's plans to make Catawba and McGuire the first U.S. nuclear plants to use mixed-oxide fuel, which contains surplus weapons plutonium. Duke has asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to assume, for licensing purposes, that the plants continue to run on conventional fuel. The opposing groups believe the plutonium fuel poses new risks to the plants and its neighbors. They say the NRC should consider those risks now. Duke plans to ask for permission to test the new fuel within a year, spokesman Becky McSwain said. The license renewal process is expected to take two years or longer. The NRC says it won't yet decide whether mixed-oxide fuel is a legitimate part of the license issue. Last week's terrorist attacks, meanwhile, may inject another issue into the license debate. Duke's plants remain at the highest security level. The NRC says it is analyzing risks to nuclear plants. "They need to turn their thinking around, from thinking those things are not likely to the point of view of someone who was dedicated to do damage and would keep probing until they find a weakness," said Lou Zeller of the Blue Ridge group. Bruce Henderson: (704) 358-5051; . On the web Nuclear Regulatory Commission: . Duke Power's license renewal application: . Nuclear Information and Resource Service: . Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League: . Tuesday's Meetings The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will hold similar meetings on environmental issues at the McGuire nuclear station at 1:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. Tuesday. They're at the auditorium on the North Campus of Central Piedmont Community College, 11920 Verhoeff Road in Huntersville. ***************************************************************** 16 Rep. Markey goes after NRC in wake of terrorist attacks [The Concord Monitor online edition] Friday, September 21, 2001 WASHINGTON - Rep. Edward Markey, a frequent critic of the nuclear power industry, asked the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Thursday to improve emergency preparedness at the nation's 103 commercial nuclear power plants. "The NRC can no longer dismiss the probability of an airplane crashing into a nuclear power plant as essentially zero," said Markey, D-Mass., a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over the NRC. Nuclear power plants have been on the highest state of alert since terrorist hijackers crashed jets into the World Trade Center and Pentagon on Sept. 11. On that day, the NRC recommended that plants and reactors, and nuclear fuel facilities and gaseous diffusion plants, go to the highest levels of security even though "there has been no credible general or specific threats to any of these facilities." Industry officials have acknowledged that while reactors have numerous levels of protection and the radioactive cores are enclosed in steel and concrete, there may be no defense against the kind of attack that occurred last week. At one plant, New Hampshire's Seabrook Station, officials said the plant would stand up to such an attack because it was designed to repel a direct hit from a bomber plane and has an exceptionally strong containment structure. Overall, the NRC's anti-terrorist strategy has focused on protecting a reactor against truck bombs or guerrilla ground attacks, even small aircraft - but not a threat from a suicide dive by a captured jetliner. Markey wants the agency to conduct a top-to-bottom review of plant security, including planning for scenarios that previously weren't seriously considered. He gave the agency until Oct. 11 to respond to concerns outlined in a six-page letter, and also questioned why the agency issued a recommendation - not an order - on the day of the attacks. Victor Dricks, an NRC spokesman, said the recommendation was "authoritative," and that every plant in the country followed it. Twenty-six nuclear plants are in New England and the Mid-Atlantic region. Markey questioned existing design rules that call for spent fuel casks to withstand fires lasting 15 minutes or less. Also, some fire barriers in plants are rated to withstand fires for either 1 or 3 hours, depending on whether the plant has automatic fire detection and suppression systems. "I am concerned that an airplane fully loaded with jet fuel crashing into a nuclear power plant could support a fire that would last far in excess of these time scales as well as prevent the fire from being easily extinguished," Markey wrote. Markey reiterated complaints about the NRC's move to replace its anti-terrorism program, known as Operational Safeguards Response Evaluations (OSRE), with an industry-proposed plan. The NRC canceled OSRE, but then revoked that decision; the plan is in place pending review of the industry initiative. "Given the events of the past week, I think it's going to be too soon to determine what changes in policy or programs are going to be appropriate," said Dricks. On the Net: Nuclear Regulatory Commission: http://www.nrc.gov Rep. Markey: http://www.house.gov/markey nd New Hampshire Patriot P.O. Box 1177, Concord NH 03302 603-224-5301 ***************************************************************** 17 Nuclear plant safety at issue Charlotte Observer" Sunday September 23 03:03 AM EDT By Bruce Henderson Groups opposing renewed licenses for the two nuclear power plants near Charlotte say federal regulators should weigh last week's terrorist attacks and a plan to fuel the plants with plutonium. Duke Power wants to extend the licenses for its Catawba and McGuire nuclear plants by 20 years, keeping them in operation until the early 2040s. License renewals focus largely on the effects of age on nuclear plants. Plant operators have to show they can find and fix deteriorating parts before they become potential hazards. ***************************************************************** 18 Plutonium plans put on hold Columbia, S.C. Friday, September 21, 2001 Shipments to S.C. are delayed because of terrorist attacks By HENRY EICHEL Knight Ridder Newspapers The truckloads of plutonium headed for South Carolina have hit another speed bump. The U.S. Department of Energy has stopped shipping nuclear material around the country because of security concerns raised by the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, an official said this week. "All of DOE's nuclear-related shipments are on hold until further notice," said spokesman Joe Davis. That means the 55 tons of plutonium that the federal government had planned to ship to South Carolina might not come anytime soon. The material was left over from the manufacture of nuclear weapons. Gov. Jim Hodges has threatened to use state troopers to block the shipments unless federal authorities agree to specify in writing when the plutonium would leave the state. Some would be converted into fuel for nuclear power plants, and the rest rendered useless and buried in Nevada. But the Bush administration has said it is postponing the latter program. Hodges says he fears South Carolina would be stuck forever with the radioactive waste because no other state would want it. Environmentalists say the plutonium would be capable of poisoning soil and water with radioactivity over tens of thousands of years. The terrorist attacks "make us even more anxious," said Hodges spokeswoman Cortney Owings. South Carolina had an agreement with the federal government to bring the plutonium from now-closed nuclear weapons plants in Colorado, Texas and elsewhere to the Savannah River Site near Aiken. During the Cold War, the site manufactured weapons-grade plutonium; later, it became a repository for spent fuel rods from nuclear power plants. The plan to immobilize plutonium by encasing it in highly radioactive glass was drafted in the mid-1990s to reduce the risk that terrorists or rogue nations could steal it and turn it into weapons. But the program has run into trouble because of the cost, and also because Nevada is balking at being the permanent burial site. A meeting between Hodges aides and DOE officials had been scheduled for Sept. 14. It has been rescheduled for this afternoon, Owings said. She said the impact of DOE's delay may be discussed at the meeting. DOE spokesman Davis said that workers at the former Rocky Flats weapons plant near Denver are still packing the plutonium pellets and metal scraps into special shipping containers. The first tractor-trailer load of plutonium will be ready to go by mid-October, Davis said, "if and when we decide to lift the moratorium on shipments." The government has been shipping plutonium to the Savannah River complex by truck and rail for the past 50 years. Armed federal agents accompany the unmarked trucks, which use the Interstate highway system. DOE won't disclose what additional security measures it might take, Davis said. "We've always kept a close eye on monitoring and protecting shipments; that's not going to change, other than maybe to be enhanced." © Copyright 2001 The State-Record Company ***************************************************************** 19 Public Citizen Denounces Nuclear Regulatory Commission Proposal to "Streamline" Reactor Licensing Hearings Sept. 21, 2001 Public Would Lose Right to Formal Proceedings WASHINGTON, D.C. – A proposal by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is unacceptable because it would severely limit or eliminate the public's ability to conduct formal, trial-type hearings to oppose NRC reactor license applications, Public Citizen has told the agency. In comments submitted to the NRC last week, Public Citizen was sharply critical of a rule being considered by the agency. Under the rule, informal hearings – with no opportunity for the public to conduct document discovery (the compelled disclosure of documents) or to cross-examine witnesses – would become the default proceeding for virtually all licensing issues, including initial reactor licensing, license extensions and license amendments for aging reactors. Currently, formal meetings give the public an opportunity to question issues of design, safety, radioactive waste, health and environmental impacts, routine radioactive releases, and emergency preparedness of nuclear reactors that are proposed, under construction or already built. Informal hearings limit the amount of information the public can obtain and curtail their ability to get key documents about the issues at hand. Under the new rule, citizens wishing to contest the license renewal of a local nuclear reactor would have almost no time to request a formal hearing. Currently, groups wishing to intervene in the licensing process (such as citizen groups, and state and local governments) are given only a month to review the license application and formulate "contentions" that describe and provide documentation for the concerns they wish to contest. The new rule would require intervening parties to submit their contentions almost immediately after the hearing notice is published; the number of days depends on the kind of hearing. It would be unlikely that most intervenors would have the staff or resources to adequately respond in such a short time. In sharp contrast to the commission's proposal to squelch public opposition for reactor licensing, industry enforcement hearings (held when a violation has occurred at a plant and penalties are determined) will be maintained as formal proceedings, allowing the industry to use the process to contest enforcement proceedings. The NRC's discriminatory treatment between public and industry hearings on this aspect of the rule change is unjust because it preserves due process for the industry but eliminates it for the public, Public Citizen said. This attempt to "streamline" the licensing process would further compromise the commission's reputation and ability to be an effective regulator, and the proposed rule would "eliminate meaningful public participation and intervention in the licensing hearing process to the exclusive benefit of the nuclear power industry," Public Citizen said in its comments. The NRC's proposed actions are "blatant promotional activity" for the nuclear industry, Public Citizen said. "Rather than fulfilling their mandate to build public confidence in the licensing process, and protect public health and safety, the NRC is rolling over and treating the nuclear industry as though it has a 'right' to any and all licenses," said Wenonah Hauter, director of Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program. "The recent tragic events have shown that America's nuclear plants could very well provide 103 deadly targets to terrorists. The public really should have a right to formal hearings to contest the licensing of any one of those radioactive targets." The group's letter cited a 1987 report to the House Subcommittee on General Oversight and Investigations, entitled "NRC Coziness with Industry: Nuclear Regulatory Commission Fails to Maintain Arms Length Relationship with the Nuclear Industry." The subcommittee identified five significant instances in which the NRC failed to maintain a proper regulatory distance from the industry. "This is just another example of the commission paving the way for the current administration's nuclear 'relapse.' The more barriers they can remove in the licensing process, the faster they can build new reactors and re-license the decaying ones," said David Ritter, Public Citizen policy analyst. "This would be a serious blow to democratic processes within the agency, and if this proposal is not rejected in its entirety, I would propose that the NRC drop any pretense of being a 'regulatory' commission, and remove the word 'regulatory' from its name." The NRC is expected to make a decision within a few months. Public Citizen ***************************************************************** 20 Browns Ferry may be tempting target: Analyst says nuclear plant more likely than NASA or Redstone SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 2001 By Clay Redden DAILY Staff Writer credden@decaturdaily.com MONTGOMERY -- A senior analyst for a Washington think tank says the Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant is a more tempting target for terrorists than Redstone Arsenal or the Marshall Space Flight Center. U.S. Rep. Bud Cramer, D-Huntsville, said last week that Browns Ferry and Redstone Arsenal put the Huntsville-Decatur area at a higher risk than other parts of the state. Chris Hellman of the Center for Defense Information, a nonpartisan, nonprofit independent research organization, said there's been much speculation about what targets would be likely ones if another attack or wave of attacks occurs. "It's only reasonable to assume that if I were a terrorist there would be several places I would be looking at, and nuclear power plants would be one of them," he said. Hellman said, however, that nuclear plants in densely populated areas pose more tempting targets. According to the Center for Defense Information, several factors are used when terrorists target their attacks: + A high degree of surprise causing panic and paralysis. + Drama of the attack causing awe and fixation. + Availability of media to publicize the attack. + Magnitude of the attack causing inflation of the terrorists' power. + The ability to repeat the attacks causing endemic insecurity. Hellman said that increased security at U.S. military bases -- such as Redstone -- has made them difficult targets to hit. As for attacking Marshall, he said terrorists would draw more attention if they tried to attack a space shuttle sitting on the launch pad in Florida. While those are the likely considerations, Hellman said terrorists might move away from attacking symbolic high profile targets and decide to strike at what he calls "Anywhere USA." "Uncertainty is one of the things that terrorists are attempting to generate," said Hellman. Until Sept. 11, combating terrorism wasn't at the forefront of government action and, to a greater degree, the public mind. The center's Web site said the reason for that is simple. It's a matter of numbers. Between 1995 and 2000 only 77 U.S. citizens were killed by international terrorism. There were 10 deaths in 1995; 25 in 1996; six in 1997; 12 in 1998; five in 1999, and 19 in 2000. That changed with the Sept. 11 attacks. It appears the death toll from the Trade Center and Pentagon attacks along with airline hijackings associated with them will be more than 6,000. Lee Helms, acting director of the Alabama Emergency Management Agency, said that his department has received funding for several years to develop a terrorism preparedness plan for the state. Helms said funds from Federal Emergency Management Ag-ency, Department of Justice and Department of Defense have paid for training, equipment and planning. "We've done some pretty extensive terrorism planning and we've got a plan of action," said Helms. "We're at the point where we have trained and recruited regional team members who can be mobilized and sent to the scene or used in the preparedness arena if we receive a credible threat." Helms declined to provide details of the state's terrorism planning but said, "We're as prepared as you can be." There are ways for area citizens to prepare if terrorists strike at food shipments and water supplies, which are also considered likely targets. "It's basically common sense and thinking about situations," said Eddie Hicks, director of the Morgan County Emergency Management Agency. Preparing for threat Hicks said households can prepare for a terrorist threat much as they would for severe weather such as a winter storm. At a minimum, keep at least a two-week supply of non-perishable food items in the house as well as a two-week supply of water. There should be one gallon of water per person, per day. Hicks said his office has a booklet available that has detailed preparedness measures the public can take. Copyright 2001 THE DECATUR DAILY. All rights reserved. AP contributed to this report. --> Copyright 2001 Associated Press. All rights THE DECATUR DAILY 201 1st Ave. SE P.O. Box 2213 Decatur, Ala. 35609 (256) 353-4612 webmaster@decaturdaily.com www.decaturdaily.com ***************************************************************** 21 US nuclear power plants reconsider their defenses By Ross Kerber, Globe Staff, 9/23/2001 The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 left the country's 103 nuclear power plants with a jolting realization: None was designed to survive a direct hit by a hijacked airliner. Operators of all the plants, including five in New England, have scrambled since the attacks to beef up defenses and are considering the use of military assets, such as antiaircraft guns. But security had already been a hot topic at many plants, following a series of mock raids in which private guard forces failed to stop intruders. Those failures, coupled with new fears of airborne threats, have a top security official at the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission concerned that protections fall short overall. ''I'm not satisfied,'' said the official, David Orrik. The Sept. 11 attacks, he said, ''should be seen like a cattle prod to get us to do more.'' US Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Malden, called for broad security reviews at the plants. ''We need a much higher security standard in place than industry wants to provide,'' said Markey, a longtime critic of nuclear plants. The NRC urged all the plants to go on high alert after Sept. 11 and is discussing additional defenses with military leaders. No one could have foreseen a need to defend against hijacked jets, said commission spokesman Victor Dricks. But now some say it wouldn't be far-fetched to find reactors on terrorist hit lists, particularly if attackers have been able to infiltrate plants to learn their operating procedures. An explosion or reactor breach could put thousands of people at risk. ''All our previous calculations and assumptions about what terrorists are capable of, technically and morally, have to be revised,'' said Ed Lyman, scientific director of the Nuclear Control Institute in Washington, D.C. Nuclear stations aren't the only industrial facilities that seem vulnerable. But few industries operate under as many safety regulations as nuclear power, which accounts for about 20 percent of the domestic electric supply. Most nuclear facilities seem to be well defended. They are built with reinforced concrete to survive tornadoes and hurricanes and are surrounded by barbed wire and monitored with video cameras to detect intruders. Visitors must undergo background checks and pass through a series of X-ray machines and biometric-scanning devices. Reactors are designed to shut down automatically in case of trouble, and all plants went to their highest state of readiness following the attacks. The plants have vulnerabilities, however. They require a constant electric supply to cool their radioactive fuel. Some facilities store radioactive waste in less-secure areas. A few plants, such as New Hampshire's Seabrook Station, were reinforced against the crash of airplanes from nearby airports. But no engineering study suggests that they could survive the impact of a loaded Boeing 767. It's hard to say exactly what havoc might result from such an attack, beyond the NRC's description of ''a release of radiation that could impact public health and safety.'' An analogy might be the accidental fire at the Chernobyl facility in the Ukraine in 1986. Estimates of the exact death toll vary. Some groups, including Ukrainian government officials, put the figure around 30,000 fatalities, mainly from increased cancer rates. Other scientists say there is only direct evidence of around 50 deaths directly attributable to the fire and the resulting spread of radiation. In any case, the resulting fallout of radioactive material uprooted tens of thousands and left wide swaths of territory unusable. Improving security at nuclear plants isn't a new topic. Shortly before last year's Olympics, for instance, New Zealand police discovered a criminal cell that had kept detailed information on a reactor in Sydney, including a map marked to show entry points to the site. (Charges filed in the case related only to smuggling.) The mock raids conducted by Orrik, a former Navy SEAL, have also drawn much attention. For his security tests, Orrik usually rounds up several officers from nearby police departments and sends them to try to sneak through a plant's perimeter defenses. Their goal is to shut down or simulate damage to electrical circuits or cooling pipes that, if real, would cause the reactor's core of radioactive fuel rods to begin to melt. Left unchecked, such damage could lead to the release of toxic amounts of radiation. All too often, Orrik's teams succeed, simulating core damage in about half the 68 exercises he has staged since 1991, Orrik said. Since 2000, his teams got through in six of 11 exercises. Orrik is barred from discussing exactly what weaknesses the teams found, but details are available in a public report of his review of the Waterford 3 reactor in Louisiana in March 2000. According to the report, Orrik's team found shortcomings including ''defensive positions, armed responder staffing levels, response time calculations, operations /|security interface, ... command and control, guidance on the use of protective masks by the armed responders, response weapon proficiency, and administrative controls to ensure that plant conditions are evaluated to ensure protective strategy assumptions remain valid.'' Further details were kept classified. The NRC says that flaws were immediately addressed. Why did the plant fare so poorly? ''It's a hard question to answer,'' said Diane Park, spokeswoman for Entergy, the plant's operator. ''There were different areas of our capabilities that weren't up to expectations.'' Entergy also owns Pilgrim Station in Plymouth. A spokesman there said that the plant received excellent reviews from Orrik's team in 1998 and earlier this year. The Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's trade group in Washington, said that no plant was fined after the mock raids and that plants have ample margins of safety. Institute spokesman Steve Kerekes wouldn't discuss Orrik's findings specifically, but said, ''If the implication is that these are failures that mean a plant isn't meeting the regulatory requirements, then that's not correct.'' Following the Sept. 11 attacks, the NRC recommended that all plants be put on high alert. ''While there has been no credible general or specific threats to any of these facilities, the recommendation was considered prudent,'' the commission said in a statement. Lyman of the Nuclear Control Institute said the NRC should have simply ordered the alerts, as rules allow. But the NRC's Dricks said such an order wasn't necessary, because the commission's requests ''are authoritative.'' Lyman and Markey say that new NRC rules could water down Orrik's tests and make them easier to pass. ''The prevailing attitude remains one of complacency and overconfidence,'' Lyman said. Connecticut's Millstone nuclear power plant went to high alert even before the government warning, said Jim Norvelle, spokesman for the plant's operator, Dominion Resources of Richmond, Va. ''Anyone who watched television thought, `My God, lock down the plants,''' Norvelle said. Ross Kerber can be reached by e-mail at kerber@globe.com. This story ran on page A8 of the Boston Globe on 9/23/2001. © Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company. ***************************************************************** 22 NATIONAL NEWS: Whitehall rift over Mox plant NEWS DIGEST Financial Times; Sep 22, 2001 By ROBERT SHRIMSLEY Whitehall rift over Mox plant The future of British Nuclear Fuel's Sellafield mixed oxide fuel plant is provoking renewed and growing tension between the Department of Trade and Industry and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. BNFL executives, Whitehall officials and ministers have twice been told to expect an announcement that Defra has finally given the go-ahead for the Mox plant to open. But the announcement has been delayed and Defra has refused to say when it will be made. The industry department wants a rapid decision. It is understood that because Michael Meacher, the environment minister, is unhappy at having had to approve the plant, he is delaying the announcement of his decision. Robert Shrimsley Copyright: The Financial Times Limited ***************************************************************** 23 Czech ministry assures Austria disputed nuclear plant problem-free BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Sep 22, 2001 Vienna, 22 September: The Czech Foreign Ministry has sent a letter to the Austrian Environment Ministry in which it answers some questions which remained open at a public hearing on the Czech nuclear power plant Temelin in June, the Austrian daily Die Presse writes today. In the letter, however, Prague makes no concessions to Austrian demands concerning Temelin, the paper says. "The Czech side considers the nuclear power station Temelin acceptable from the economic but also energy and environmental points of view," Die Presse cites the letter. The letter also says that the CEZ [power] utility, which is Temelin's operator, is an independent company. Therefore, all issues related to Temelin's economic aspects are controlled by the CEZ and cannot be subject to bilateral talks within the Melk process, the letter says. Under an agreement reached by the Czech and Austrian premiers in Melk, Austria, last December, Temelin was to undergo safety and environmental impact checks by mid-2001. The Czech side submitted the assessment's results earlier this summer but Austria called the documents insufficient and wants them to be completed. Issues of energy policy are "part of trade secret and cannot be discussed with other countries, the less so in a situation where the Czech energy industry's privatization is being planned", the Czech Foreign Ministry's letter says. CEZ is 67 per cent state-owned, Die Presse remarks. The letter reportedly calls the planned volume of Temelin's energy export "temporary". As for Temelin's accident rate, it can be compared with a similar situation at another nuclear power plant near the Austrian border, with a plant in Germany, for example, if its operator provided the necessary data, Die Presse cites the letter... Source: CTK news agency, Prague, in English 1216 gmt 22 Sep 01 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter All Material Subject to ***************************************************************** 24 Muscovites urge move of nuclear facilities out of city boundaries - video BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Sep 23, 2001 [Presenter] Our next report is from a rather unique military unit, the main task of which is to combat terrorism. There have never been and they never will be conscripts serving in that unit because it is only done by regulars who are responsible for the security of the most important nuclear facilities. [Correspondent] Officers and regular servicemen used to describe their unique military special-purpose unit among themselves as a unit of hat-wearing people. That is because in the old days they used to wear hats, foreign-made suits and Finnish coats instead of uniforms... The USA and Russia are now united in their understanding of the real danger presented by nuclear terrorism. [Vladimir Kadyshevskiy, director of the joint institute of nuclear studies in the town of Dubna] The US Department of State has allocated special funds to equip the joint institute with the most-up-to-date methods of protecting nuclear materials and with the most-up-to-date ways of ensuring nuclear security. [Correspondent] We have managed to put the dollars to use in no time at all. Special-purpose servicemen have been put on special alert. Still scholars cannot but worry about the situation which has arisen at nuclear facilities. [Yuriy Oganesyan, captioned as vice-chairman of the same institute] You cannot expect a certain private company or a certain tycoon to wake up one day thinking responsible for the country's future. This is the state's duty and this is the state's main duty. [Correspondent] In a private conversation one of the senior officers of the special-purpose brigade stressed that it is the role of his people to guard the area they are in charge of and to understand its political importance as well. The Muscovites have repeatedly and quite justifiably demanded that the leaders of nuclear facilities take their dangerous facilities outside the city limits. The scholars, in turn, have appealed to the governments of Moscow and Russia, to the Atomic Energy Ministry for help in this. But nothing has changed and reactors and hundred of tonnes of nuclear waste are still in the capital. However, the Muscovites can be certain of one thing. [Vladimir Anisimov, captioned as commander of the special-purpose brigade] The servicemen of this unit are serving at a time when terrorist acts are being carried out even in Moscow. I would like to warn anyone, who is even contemplating the idea of carrying out a terrorist act at the facilities guarded by the unit, against that. They will be dealt with. [Correspondent] Moreover nuclear scientists are now working on the creation of the next-generation nuclear reactors. Even if they are bombed, there will still be no nuclear contamination. I am sure that quite a few of the world scientists will be gallant enough to take off their hats as a sign of gratitude to the nuclear special-purpose servicemen and the hat-wearing unit. Source: Russian Public TV (ORT), Moscow, in Russian 0410 gmt 23 Sep 01 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter All Material ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 Experts ridiculed in Court The Pasko Case Gregory Pasko, an investigative journalist who worked for the Pacific Fleet's newspaper, was arrested on 20 November 1997 by the FSB and charged with high treason for his writing about the nuclear safety issues in the Russian Pacific Fleet. Throughout the interrogations of the state secret experts in the Pacific Fleet Court, Pasko's defence-team managed to disclose the narrow-minded idiocy of the experts. Jon Gauslaa, 2001-09-21 19:28 Before the start of the expert interrogations, defence attorney Ivan Pavlov promised that he would go hard on the experts. - Their conclusions are the work of narrow-minded idiots, and my intention is to disclose that before the eyes of the judges, he said. At the end of the interrogations, his tactics seems like a success. -- We need our own lawyer While the prosecutor only used 20 minutes on the experts, since his tactics seem to be to fall back on the indictment and pray that the Court will not evaluate its content under a critical light, the defence made the experts subjects to heavy cross-examination. In court sessions that have lasted almost 12 hours each day, the defence has questioned both the competence and the methods of the experts. This seems to have taken them by complete surprise. At the end of the second day of interrogations one of the experts, Mr. Poryadny, threatened Ivan Pavlov physically. One of the more meek experts seemed to be content with getting himself a lawyer, so that he could 'defend the stance of the experts in Court'. Judge Dmitry Kuvchennikov had to explain him that since they are experts, they are not supposed to have lawyers. Thus, the defence's point that the experts have no competence in carrying out the kind of legal evaluations as they actually have carried out, could hardly have been better illustrated. The lawyer and the expert One of the highlights of Pavlov's examination was when he read the first sentence of the expert's evaluation, where it is stated that the evaluation is based on the Russian Constitution. Pavlov asked which articles of the Constitution the experts had used. The question lead to the following exchange of words between the lawyer and the 'expert': -- We used paragraph 3 of Article 15. -- But still the main legal instrument for your evaluation is decree No. 55 of the Ministry of Defence? -- Yes. -- Well, read Article 15 (3) of the Constitution. The decree was supposed to be published. -- The decree was published (at this stage, the expert held up a red covered booklet). -- But, did you read the second part of Article 15 (3)? The part of it that states that normative acts have to be published for general knowledge if they are to be used as basis for filing criminal charges. Is the booklet you are holding in your hand published for general knowledge? -- No. It is classified as a state secret. -- I have no further questions, your honour… -- We classified vacuum The above-referred episode was quite representative for the course of the interrogations. On September 20, one of the experts quoted the following sentence from their conclusion: "The defence team has [previously] said that we have classified air. The air, it contains some elements, though. What we did, was to classify vacuum" [sic.]. The quotation is related to a questionnaire that Pasko used when interviewing various navy officers. It was confiscated at his flat and sent over to the experts for evaluation. Both the previous and the present experts concludes that if concrete and detailed answers are given to the questions brought up in the questionnaire, state secrets could be disclosed. However, the case files are not even close to indicate that any such detailed and concrete answers actually were given, and they do not discuss who would have disclosed the secrets if that had been the case. Thus, much can be said about the experts, but one has to give it to them: They are quite right when they say that they have classified vacuum… More to come The interrogations of the experts were concluded on September 21. Next week the Court will carry out various obligatory exercises. It is then expected to take a break until October 15, when the experts who have evaluated whether it is Pasko who talks on the FSB's tape recordings of his telephone conversations or not. Although Pasko says that it is him who does the talking, an expert evaluation of tapes is still needed according to the Russian Criminal Procedure Code. If not the Court's examination of the case would be incomplete. --- Grigory Pasko was arrested in November 1997 on charges of espionage on behalf of the Japanese TV-station 'NHK'. He was acquitted of espionage in July 1999, but convicted of abuse of official authority and freed under a general amnesty. Seeking a full acquittal, Pasko appealed, but so did the prosecution, insisting he was a spy. The Military Collegium of the Russian Supreme Court cancelled the verdict in November 2000, and sent the case back to Vladivostok for a re-trial. The re-trial started on July 11, 2001, and may continue until the far end of October. Publisher: Bellona Foundation, President: Frederic Hauge Information: info@bellona.no, Technical contact: webmaster@bellona.no Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62 * P.O.Box 2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway Menu system java script courtesy of Peter Belesis at the Dynamic HTML lab. ***************************************************************** 2 NEVADA TEST SITE: After months of hints, nuclear tests ruled out [Las Vegas Review-Journal] Saturday, September 22, 2001 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal Officials say Bush didn't plan to end nine-year moratorium By TONY BATT DONREY WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- Before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the Bush administration appeared to be moving toward resuming nuclear tests at the Nevada Test Site. But, instead of adding momentum to a push for new nuclear tests, the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington seem to have had the opposite effect. Government officials repeated their insistence this week that there never was a plan to end a nine-year moratorium on nuclear testing. "We have to maintain readiness to test within 24 to 36 months, and we have not heard anything from the (Bush administration) to suggest we should be doing anything differently," test site spokesman Darwin Morgan said. A source in the Washington office of the National Nuclear Security Administration, which runs the test site, also said there are no plans to resume nuclear detonations at the test site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Between 1951 and 1992, the government conducted 100 atmospheric and 828 underground tests at the test site. The last test, Divider, occurred Sept. 23, 1992. "Resuming nuclear testing would only hurt our efforts to gain the full cooperation of countries in the non-rogue world to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of Osama Bin Laden." the prime suspect behind the Sept. 11 attacks, said Robert Sherman, director of the strategic security project at the Federation of American Scientists. Even conservatives such as Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., a veteran of the Vietnam and Persian Gulf wars, are skeptical that new nuclear tests would be useful. "Quite honestly, I don't think testing at the (Nevada Test) site will influence a terrorist group like al Qaeda," Gibbons said. "The terrorists are so isolated and spread out that the use of nuclear weapons against them might prove expensive and ineffective." Nevertheless, there were signals earlier this year that the Bush administration might be interested in reviving nuclear testing. At the end of June, the administration ordered scientists at national laboratories to determine if the preparation for nuclear tests in Nevada could be reduced to six to nine months from the current range of two to three years. Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have said the safety and reliability of the nuclear weapons stockpile can be assured only by periodic tests. While President Bush has said he does not intend to resume nuclear testing, he has not sent the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty to the Senate for ratification. As a presidential candidate, Bush agreed when the Senate rejected ratification of the treaty in 1999, citing the difficulty of verifying a permanent ban on testing. Stephen Schwartz, publisher of Bulletin Of The Atomic Scientists, an arms control journal, said the Bush administration is not leading the charge for more nuclear testing. "I think it's mostly the weapons labs that are pushing this," Schwartz said. "This has never been driven by urgent political or military needs. (The scientists) simply desire to do the tests more quickly if the need arises." Susan Houten, deputy director of public affairs at the Livermore National Laboratory in California, said the labs are doing what they've been told. "We were officially asked by the Department of Energy to examine our state of readiness if U.S. policy changes to resume testing," Houten said. "We don't have an opinion either way." The test site would need 18 to 24 months to prepare for a nuclear test if U.S. policy changes, Morgan said. After a nine-year moratorium, there is a question whether the test site would have enough experienced employees to conduct a nuclear test. "We are constantly looking at personnel who would be needed if tests resumed, and that might include recent retirees," Morgan said. Before the moratorium, the test site employed as many as 11,000 workers. The work force now is 1,472, according to test site spokeswoman Nancy Harkess. Nevada lawmakers no longer view nuclear testing as a viable job source. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., has become a champion of subcritical experiments, which began at the test site in July 1997. Subcritical experiments check the safety and reliability of weapons without causing nuclear explosions and "have done a good job of making sure our stockpile is safe and reliable," Reid said. This story is located at: http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2001/Sep-22-Sat-2001/news/17058474.html ***************************************************************** 3 IAEA Calls for NK to Honor Nuclear Commitments Digital Chosunilbo (English Edition) : Daily News in English About Korea 09/23(Sun)17:51 The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade announced Sunday that the International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA) adopted a resolution pressing North Korea to abide by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty at its 45th general conference held in Vienna, Austria from September 17 to 21. Having been adopted for three consecutive years since 1999, the resolution raises concern about the North failing in its responsibilities related to nuclear issues and urges the country to accept IAEA safeguards including verification of facilities in the North. According to the resolution, the IAEA is continuing to monitor the "freeze"on facilities under the 1994 Agreed Framework between the United States and the North, but remains unable to verify fully the situation there, adding that it strongly encourages the North to respond positively. (Heo Yong-beum, heo@chosun.com) Copyright (c)1995-2001, DIGITAL CHOSUN All rights reserved. Contact letters@chosun.com for more information. ***************************************************************** 4 IAEA calls on N.K. to comply with nuclear inspection welcome to Korea Herald!!_National http://www.koreaherald.com The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) called on North Korea to cooperate with plans for an international inspection of its nuclear activities during its annual general conference last week. The U.N. nuclear watchdog adopted a resolution without vote, "strongly encouraging the DPRK (North Korea) to respond positively" to the IAEA's proposal earlier this year that North Korea take the first "concrete steps" required for the verification process without delay. "The IAEA is continuing to monitor the 'freeze' on facilities under the 1994 Agreed Framework between the United States and DPRK, but it remains unable to verify fully the DPRK's initial 1992 declaration of its nuclear program," the resolution said. The IAEA meeting will be held in Vienna, Austria, from Sep. 17-21. The nuclear agency has lodged similar demands every year since the crisis involving North Korea's suspected nuclear weapons programs erupted in 1994. Under a 1994 deal with Washington, the North froze its nuclear weapons programs in exchange for receiving two safer light water nuclear reactors (LWRs) from a U.S.-led international consortium. The agreement, known as the Agreed Framework, requires Pyongyang to allow a full inspection by the IAEA before major reactor components arrive in the North. The IAEA has demanded that the North allow the inspection to begin next year because verification may take two to three years. North Korea rejected the demand because the completion of the reactors is likely to be delayed several years behind the target year of 2003. Pyongyang said that it will allow an inspection only when most of the reactor project has been completed. (jjhwang@koreaherald.co.kr) By Hwang Jang-jin Staff reporter (C) Copyright 2000 Digital Korea Herald. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 5 Terror In 'Unconventional' Forms -- Nuclear, Biological, And Chemical By Breffni O'Rourke The devastating terrorist attacks on New York and Washington have changed forever the way we see terrorism. What was previously brushed aside as being in the realm of nightmare must now be viewed as a definite risk: nothing can be ruled out. RFE/RL correspondent Breffni O'Rourke talks to experts to assess the risks of extremists using nuclear, biological or chemical warfare in what might be called the new era of terrorism and counter-terrorism. Prague, 20 September 2001 (RFE/RL) -- The scale and ingenuity of the terrorist attacks in the United States are leading to increased awareness of society's vulnerability. There is a sense of dread that acts once considered unthinkable now fall within the scope of reality. The vivid scenes of aircraft crashing into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York are branded into the world's consciousness. What would be the effects of a fully laden airliner crashing into the containment building around a nuclear reactor? David Kyd, the chief spokesman of the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna, sketches the resulting scenario: "The combined impact [of the plane] plus the detonation of the fuel would likely rupture the containment, and the [question would be] -- depending on whether it was a real direct hit or an indirect hit -- would the cooling system rupture, would the back-up cooling system function or not, would the operators of the plant survive and be able to react? If all of those things are not so, then what would happen is that you would have a fuel meltdown and a radioactive release." Kyd says that the extent of the radiation released depends on various factors, like the type of the reactor and the rate at which it was running at the time of the hit: "If you assume it was running at a hundred percent, producing electricity as it would be most of the time, then you would be talking, indeed, something on the scale of Chornobyl." Chornobyl, history's worst nuclear accident, occurred in Ukraine in April 1986, when there was a fire and explosion in the fourth reactor. A radioactive cloud spread over Scandinavia and both Eastern and Western Europe, and caused a higher level of ambient radioactivity as far away as Australia. In the West, nuclear power plants are surrounded by containment structures typically designed to withstand earthquake shocks and light plane crashes and keep radiation from being released into the atmosphere. But across Central and Eastern Europe, as in Russia, the older type Soviet-era reactors like Chornobyl lack proper containment structures, making them still more vulnerable to attack. Kyd acknowledges this vulnerability: "Yes, yes, yes, they are, but so is everything else -- so are oil refineries, airports, all the infrastructure of a modern industrialized state. These things are not made to withstand attack from a wide-bodied jet full of fuel. It's as simple as that. So we are now in a new and much more precarious situation. Coupled with the possibility of attacks on nuclear power plants is the threat that terrorist groups might gain -- or already have -- possession of a nuclear bomb. That's been a theme that has been around in the movies for decades. But according to Leonard Spector, a senior member of the Monterey Institute -- a Washington-based think-tank -- the reality is more complicated: "The difficulty of acquiring materials for nuclear weapons and crafting a nuclear device itself is extremely high. Now, I will caveat that in a moment, but broadly speaking this is seen as too far beyond the skills of virtually any kind of an organization, except a nation, and even then it would have to be a pretty capable nation." Spector says it would take any country between five and 10 years to produce ingredients for nuclear weapons, and would involve using extremely complicated facilities. Then, or course, such materials would have to come into the hands of terrorists. It's an unlikely scenario, Spector says, but one that is aided by the collapse of a former nuclear superpower: "The one problem is that there is this danger of leakage of nuclear material for weapons from the former Soviet Union, especially Russia. The United States has been working very actively with Russia to secure nuclear materials. We have not seen cases of leakage, but that is the one unknown. And if a terrorist organization were to acquire nuclear materials, it might be able to either perpetrate a hoax, claiming to have a nuclear device, or conceivably actually design something which would explode." So the risk of terrorism by nuclear bomb exists, although it does not appear to pose an immediate threat to society because of the great technical difficulties involved. And what of the other weapons of mass destruction, namely biological and chemical weapons? Would they be easier for terrorists to employ than a nuclear device? A London-based expert with Jane's military publishing group, John Eldridge, says in contrast to nuclear materials, biological warfare materials are not difficult to obtain: "Well, there are loads of different materials they can use. The classic material that people quote at the moment is anthrax, and the reason that appears to be a weapon of choice is because it can be created in conditions which make it extremely robust and resistant to the things which normally kill viruses and bacteria." Eldridge goes on to say that the impact of a successful terrorist attack using a biological agent like deadly anthrax -- an acute infectious disease -- would take time to become evident because of the incubation period involved. But a release of anthrax spores could have a national or even international impact because of the way the wind and human travelers would spread the infection. An attempt to use biological warfare for terrorist purposes, Eldridge says, has already reputedly taken place: "The Aum Shinrikyo terrorists in Japan had certainly made and refined anthrax, and had used it, but it was fairly poor quality and the reports indicated that it never actually worked." By contrast, the same Japanese group, the Aum Shinrikyo, has certainly used gas successfully. In a terrorist attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995 using the invisible nerve gas sarin, the group killed 12 people and injured hundreds of others. Eldridge says that the impact of gas warfare is more localized than that of biological materials, since the logistics of moving around very large containers of gas make it less suitable for terrorist attacks on a mass scale. So it's clear that any consideration of international terrorism must factor in modern weapons of mass destruction -- whether nuclear, biological or chemical. But does this mean we must expect terrorist attacks on these fronts now? Not necessarily, some experts say. Amy Smithson of the Henry L. Stimson Center for security issues in Washington puts it this way: "When one examines the history of terrorist activities, what is clear is that they use the weapons they know the most. That is bombs of various types: pipe bombs, truck bombs, boat bombs, and now we've seen airliners turned into bombs." In London, expert Eldridge agrees with that idea. He notes that the basic weapons apparently used in the U.S. terrorist incidents were not the latest high-tech gadgets but simple knives. Smithson emphasizes this theme: "When the statistics are examined for what terrorists have been doing with chemical and biological substances, most of their activities by far have involved hoaxes, plots and pranks, and this is true around the world. On the rare occasions when they have used these substances, their intention has not been to cause mass casualties, but rather they have used these substances in an attempt to assassinate individuals or opponents." Further, Smithson cites the technical difficulties involved, even when resources are plentiful: "In Aum Shinrikyo's case -- this was a terror group which specifically recruited scientists and technically skilled people, for the purpose of trying to improve its chemical and biological weapons programs. They were very, very wealthy [and] they had a lot of technical resources to put into their chemical and biological weapons programs. But their bio-weapons program was a flop, from start to finish." So it seems the world does not face imminent terrorist threats stemming from nuclear, biological or chemical warfare. That, of course, can change in time. And the threats to nuclear power stations should be considered as real potential dangers. © 1995-2001 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc., All Rights Reserved. http://www.rferl.org ***************************************************************** 6 Weekend security alert set at 'high' Saturday, September 22, 2001 SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER STAFF AND NEWS SERVICES Despite rumors that today could be a day targeted for a second wave of terrorist attacks, officials across Washington state said they had received no specific threats. Still, they kept security high at potential targets. "We've got constant checks," said Department of Energy spokesman Guy Schein at the 560-square-mile Hanford Nuclear Reservation, site of the region's only nuclear power plant. "It's just a different intensity than what it was before." Seattle police were helping patrol Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. The Seattle Fire Department created a new full-time position of deputy chief for disaster planning and response and put deputy chiefs on duty around the clock. The Space Needle, Seattle's most famous landmark, was keeping its back door locked, carefully inspecting all packages and making sure its employees had photo identifications. Sept. 22 emerged as an important date in the days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, D.C. Authorities said at least four people targeted by the investigation were booked on flights today leaving San Antonio. Sea-Tac spokesman Bob Parker said the airport had heard nothing about a potential attack today. But vehicles with tinted windows and sport utility vehicles were prohibited from parking in the area of the garage nearest the airport. Vans and SUVs with tinted windows were searched if they stopped on curbside drives, Parker said. And passengers were asked to leave sharp instruments and sharp wit at home. In one incident yesterday, a woman responded to a security question by saying sarcastically, "Oh, I'm dangerous." She wasn't allowed to board her flight, Parker said. [Seattle Post-Intelligencer] 101 Elliott Ave. W. Seattle, WA 98119 (206) 448-8000 Send comments to newmedia@seattle-pi.com ©1999-2001 Seattle Post-Intelligencer ***************************************************************** 7 PAKISTAN NUKE THREAT By ALLI JOSEPH NYPOST.COM World News: September 23, 2001 -- With the United States poised to strike against terrorists following the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, Pakistan's nuclear arsenal is now a major concern. The Karachi government has pledged to support U.S. military action against terror mastermind Osama bin Laden, believed to be hiding across the border in Afghanistan. But if the government, opposed by a sizable segment of the population, was to be toppled, its nuclear weapons could fall into anti-American hands. Experts believe Pakistan, one of only eight countries known to possess nukes, has as many as 40 atomic bombs and a smattering of short- and medium-range missiles. They warn that those small but mobile weapons pose a huge threat. "Pakistan has been building up arms since the early 1980s, and they have had the capability to put a weapon on an aircraft very crudely for some time," said Robert Pfaltzgraff, a professor of international security studies at Tufts University. The bombs themselves, like those deployed by other nuclear powers, are made from enriched uranium, rather than plutonium, the main component in the Hiroshima bomb that the United States dropped on Japan in 1945. Pakistan has long squabbled with the U.S. over its nuclear program, which it launched in the 1980s as a response to the stockpile of atomic weapons by rival neighbor India. On Oct. 6, 1990, the U.S. slapped an arms embargo on Pakistan because of nuclear testing, sanctions that the Karachi government has asked to be lifted in recent days. In addition to the bombs, weapons manufacturing sites in Pakistan are a source of worry, according to Robert S. Norris, a senior analyst with the nuclear program at the National Resources Defense Council. "Some of the facilities where [Pakistan's] bombs are made could be targets for attacks by terrorists, like the plant where the uranium is enriched, or worse, the power reactor in Pakistan," he said. "All of them are of high concern to all of us." He also warned that Pakistan's bomb-making expertise could be stolen and used by fanatics in the Middle East. "This is a new day here," Norris said. "It's forcing our imaginations to consider things we couldn't conceive of a just a few weeks ago." It's unclear how powerful Pakistan's devices are. The best way to gauge that is to look at the payload capacity of its missiles. The country has two main missiles, the Ghauri I and Ghauri II, which are derivatives of the North Korean Nodong missile and have a maximum payload of 2,200 pounds - and a range of up to 1,200 miles. Depending on its level of sophistication, a 2,200-pound nuclear warhead could produce an 80-kiloton explosion, equal to the power of 80,000 tons of TNT. The Hiroshima bomb was only 20 kilotons - and it devastated 4 square miles of the Japanese city, killed 66,000 people and injured 69,000 more. The two Ghauris are not the only missiles in Pakistan's arsenal. A third Ghauri was test-launched last August and has an unknown payload. It's believed to have a range of up to 1,800 miles. NEW YORK POST ***************************************************************** 8 Rumsfeld: Nukes Not Considered for Terrorist Retaliation NewsMax.com: Inside Cover Story Friday, Sept. 21, 2001 8:59 a.m. EDT Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld denied Friday morning that the Pentagon is considering using tactical nuclear weapons in retaliation for last week's terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, contradicting several reports that the nuclear option was being actively reviewed. Appearing on Fox News Channel's "Fox and Friends" morning show, Rumsfeld clarified the Pentagon's position on a nuclear response to FNC's Tony Snow. SNOW: There are reports that we are considering the use of tactical nuclear weapons. Just for those not familiar with the jargon, those are smaller grade nuclear weapons that can be used on tactical targets rather than strategic targets such as large cities. RUMSFELD: We've not given consideration nor discussion to that particular issue. You're going to hear so many different things about what the United States may or may not do with respect to financial matters or covert matters or military matters. And I suspect that most of the people that are offering those suggestions are people that don't know much about what's going on. (End of Excerpt) Citing "diplomatic sources," the Japan Times Online reported Thursday that the Pentagon "has recommended to President George W. Bush the use of tactical nuclear weapons as a military option to retaliate for last week's terrorist attacks in the United States." Last Sunday, Rumsfeld gave rise to speculation that the U.S. was considering a nuclear option when he dodged a question about that possiblity on ABC's "This Week." "The answer [to that question] was that that we ought to be very proud of the record of humanity that we have not used those weapons for 55 years. And we have to find as many ways as possible to deal with this serious problem of terrorism," Rumsfeld said, without expressly addressing the nuclear option. ***************************************************************** 9 Morocco, USA sign nuclear cooperation agreement BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Sep 21, 2001 Text of report in English by Moroccan news agency MAP web site Rabat, 21 September: Morocco and the United States signed here on Thursday [20 September] an agreement on the use of nuclear techniques for peaceful ends. US company General Atomics will complete the construction in Morocco of the first nuclear reactor that will make it possible to conduct advanced research on materials, nuclear medicine and other farming and industrial applications. Morocco will join 23 other countries which use reactors for general atomic scientific research, said US ambassador Margaret Tutwiller who signed the agreement with industry, trade, energy and mining minister, Mustapha Mansouri. Source: MAP news agency web site, Rabat, in English 21 Sep 01 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter All Material Subject to ***************************************************************** 10 Worry and Fear Building in Yemen Saturday September 22 2:49 PM ET By WARD PINCUS, Associated Press Writer SAN'A, Yemen (AP) - At the staging ground for a deadly bombing on an American warship that U.S. officials suspect was organized by Osama bin Laden (news - web sites), worry and fear were building Saturday over how the United States will respond to the devastating attacks it suffered Sept. 11. Citizens in Yemen - where an explosive-laden skiff piloted by suicide bombers blew up next to the USS Cole (news - web sites) in Aden harbor last October, killing 17 U.S. sailors - said they fear the United States will strike blindly, and hard, at Islamic targets. ``Is America sure? Does America have strong evidence to accuse bin Laden?'' asked Abdul-Wakeel al-Gasimi, a 32-year-old school vice principal who was walking across a square in the capital, San'a, with a bundle of papers under his arm. The United States has identified bin Laden as the prime suspect in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon (news - web sites) and has threatened military action in Afghanistan (news - web sites), whose rulers shelter the Saudi exile and his aides. Washington is building up forces in the Persian Gulf. In a rare public appearance at the wedding of his son in Afghanistan in February, bin Laden praised the Yemen suicide attack at length, saying, ``The pieces of the bodies of infidels were flying like dust particles. If you had seen it with your own eyes ... your heart would have been filled with joy.'' Yemen's government has been under pressure at home to set a trial date for suspects in the Cole bombing, some of whom have been held as long as 11 months. FBI (news - web sites) agents and other U.S. investigators probing the blast left Yemen after the Sept. 11 attacks, for reasons the United States has not disclosed. Ahmed Allaw was doing brisk business at his newsstand Saturday, as passers-by snapped up newspapers and magazines looking for developments or just speculation - which is running wild as the United States prepares its response. ``There is talk of attacks on Yemen, and fears of nuclear attacks in Afghanistan, hurting us with the radioactive fallout,'' Allaw said. Some feared Yemen could be targeted because of the reported presence of Arabs who fought with armed Islamic groups during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s. Hatem Muhammad Qayid, a university administrator, said Yemen and other Arab states should join a coalition against terrorism, but ``not if just Muslims are targeted as terrorists.'' Qayid said the United States should respond to the Sept. 11 attacks ``based on proof and reason and not revenge'' - proving the culprits' guilt to the world before taking action. Like many Muslims, Qayid was concerned by President Bush (news - web sites)'s use of the word ``crusade'' last week to describe the U.S. campaign against terrorism. The White House has apologized for the term, which to many Muslims evokes medieval Christian armies attacking Islamic lands. Sympathy in Yemen for the United States - after the Cole bombing and the Sept. 11 attacks - has been dampened by the perception of an American bias toward Israel during a year of Israeli-Palestinian fighting. It has also been tempered by reports of ethnic-based bias attacks in the United States following the terror attacks. ``When a problem comes, they (Americans) react like any primitive group,'' said Muhammad Ali al-Saqqaf, a lawyer. ``They see one not of the tribe as the enemy. The tribal mentality takes over.'' Copyright © 2001 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 11 CIA -- The World Factbook -- Morocco Morocco Introduction Top of Page Background: Morocco's long struggle for independence from France ended in 1956. The internationalized city of Tangier was turned over to the new country that same year. Morocco virtually annexed Western Sahara during the late 1970s, but final resolution on the status of the territory remains unresolved. Gradual political reforms in the 1990s resulted in the establishment of a bicameral legislature in 1997. Morocco Geography Top of Page Location: Northern Africa, bordering the North Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, between Algeria and Western Sahara Geographic coordinates: 32 00 N, 5 00 W Map references: Africa Area: total: 446,550 sq km land: 446,300 sq km water: 250 sq km Area - comparative: slightly larger than California Land boundaries: total: 2,017.9 km border countries: Algeria 1,559 km, Western Sahara 443 km, Spain (Ceuta) 6.3 km, Spain (Melilla) 9.6 km Coastline: 1,835 km Maritime claims: contiguous zone: 24 NM continental shelf: 200-m depth or to the depth of exploitation exclusive economic zone: 200 NM territorial sea: 12 NM Climate: Mediterranean, becoming more extreme in the interior Terrain: northern coast and interior are mountainous with large areas of bordering plateaus, intermontane valleys, and rich coastal plains Elevation extremes: lowest point: Sebkha Tah -55 m highest point: Jbel Toubkal 4,165 m Natural resources: phosphates, iron ore, manganese, lead, zinc, fish, salt Land use: arable land: 21% permanent crops: 1% permanent pastures: 47% forests and woodland: 20% other: 11% (1993 est.) Irrigated land: 12,580 sq km (1993 est.) Natural hazards: northern mountains geologically unstable and subject to earthquakes; periodic droughts Environment - current issues: land degradation/desertification (soil erosion resulting from farming of marginal areas, overgrazing, destruction of vegetation); water supplies contaminated by raw sewage; siltation of reservoirs; oil pollution of coastal waters Environment - international agreements: party to: Biodiversity, Climate Change, Desertification, Endangered Species, Hazardous Wastes, Marine Dumping, Nuclear Test Ban, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution, Wetlands, Whaling signed, but not ratified: Environmental Modification, Law of the Sea Geography - note: strategic location along Strait of Gibraltar Morocco People Top of Page Population: 30,645,305 (July 2001 est.) Age structure: 0-14 years: 34.39% (male 5,368,784; female 5,170,891) 15-64 years: 60.93% (male 9,270,095; female 9,402,561) 65 years and over: 4.68% (male 646,567; female 786,407) (2001 est.) Population growth rate: 1.71% (2001 est.) Birth rate: 24.16 births/1,000 population (2001 est.) Death rate: 5.94 deaths/1,000 population (2001 est.) Net migration rate: -1.15 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2001 est.) Sex ratio: at birth: 1.05 male(s)/female under 15 years: 1.04 male(s)/female 15-64 years: 0.99 male(s)/female 65 years and over: 0.82 male(s)/female total population: 1 male(s)/female (2001 est.) Infant mortality rate: 48.11 deaths/1,000 live births (2001 est.) Life expectancy at birth: total population: 69.43 years male: 67.2 years female: 71.76 years (2001 est.) Total fertility rate: 3.05 children born/woman (2001 est.) HIV/AIDS - adult prevalence rate: 0.03% (1999 est.) HIV/AIDS - people living with HIV/AIDS: NA HIV/AIDS - deaths: NA Nationality: noun: Moroccan(s) adjective: Moroccan Ethnic groups: Arab-Berber 99.1%, other 0.7%, Jewish 0.2% Religions: Muslim 98.7%, Christian 1.1%, Jewish 0.2% Languages: Arabic (official), Berber dialects, French often the language of business, government, and diplomacy Literacy: definition: age 15 and over can read and write total population: 43.7% male: 56.6% female: 31% (1995 est.) Morocco Government Top of Page Country name: conventional long form: Kingdom of Morocco conventional short form: Morocco local long form: Al Mamlakah al Maghribiyah local short form: Al Maghrib Government type: constitutional monarchy Capital: Rabat Administrative divisions: 37 provinces and 2 wilayas*; Agadir, Al Hoceima, Azilal, Beni Mellal, Ben Slimane, Boulemane, Casablanca*, Chaouen, El Jadida, El Kelaa des Srarhna, Er Rachidia, Essaouira, Fes, Figuig, Guelmim, Ifrane, Kenitra, Khemisset, Khenifra, Khouribga, Laayoune, Larache, Marrakech, Meknes, Nador, Ouarzazate, Oujda, Rabat-Sale*, Safi, Settat, Sidi Kacem, Tanger, Tan-Tan, Taounate, Taroudannt, Tata, Taza, Tetouan, Tiznit note: three additional provinces of Ad Dakhla (Oued Eddahab), Boujdour, and Es Smara as well as parts of Tan-Tan and Laayoune fall within Moroccan-claimed Western Sahara; decentralization/regionalization law passed by the legislature in March 1997 creating many new provinces/regions; specific details and scope of the reorganization not yet available Independence: 2 March 1956 (from France) National holiday: Throne Day (accession of King MOHAMED VI to the throne), 30 July (1999) Constitution: 10 March 1972, revised 4 September 1992, amended (to create bicameral legislature) September 1996 Legal system: based on Islamic law and French and Spanish civil law system; judicial review of legislative acts in Constitutional Chamber of Supreme Court Suffrage: 21 years of age; universal Executive branch: chief of state: King MOHAMED VI (since 23 July 1999) head of government: Prime Minister Abderrahmane YOUSSOUFI (since 14 March 1998) cabinet: Council of Ministers appointed by the monarch elections: none; the monarch is hereditary; prime minister appointed by the monarch following legislative elections Legislative branch: bicameral Parliament consists of an upper house or Chamber of Counselors (270 seats; members elected indirectly by local councils, professional organizations, and labor syndicates for nine-year terms; one-third of the members are renewed every three years) and a lower house or Chamber of Representatives (325 seats; members elected by popular vote for five-year terms) elections: Chamber of Counselors - last held 15 September 2000 (next to be held NA 2002); Chamber of Representatives - last held 14 November 1997 (next to be held NA November 2002) election results: Chamber of Counselors - percent of vote by party - NA%; seats by party - NA; Chamber of Representatives - percent of vote by party - NA%; seats by party - USFP 57, UC 50, RNI 46, MP 40, MDS 32, IP 32, MNP 19, PND 10, MPCD 9, PPS 9, FFD 9, PSD 5, OADP 4, PA 2, PDI 1 note: CDT, UTM, UGTM, UNMT are all labor unions listed under Political pressure groups and leaders; see explanation in the description of Parliament Judicial branch: Supreme Court (judges are appointed on the recommendation of the Supreme Council of the Judiciary, presided over by the monarch) Political parties and leaders: Action Party or PA [Muhammad IDRISS]; Constitutional Union or UC [leader NA]; Democratic Forces Front or FFD [Thami KHIARI]; Democratic Socialist Party or PSD [Issa OUARDIGHI]; Democratic Party for Independence or PDI [Thami EL-OUAZZANI, Said BOUACHRINE]; Istiqlal Party or IP [Abbas El-FASSI]; Labor Party or UT [leader NA]; National Democratic Party or PND [Mohamed Arsalane EL-JADIDI]; National Popular Movement or MNP [Mahjoubi AHERDANE]; National Rally of Independents or RNI [Ahmed OSMAN]; Organization of Democratic and Popular Action or OADP [Mohamed BEN SAID ait Idder]; Party of Progress and Socialism or PPS [Moulay Ismail ALAOUI]; Popular Constitutional and Democratic Movement or MPCD (has become Party of Justice and Development or PJD) [Dr. Abdelkarim KHATIB]; Popular Movement or MP [Mohamed LAENSER]; Social Democratic Movement or MDS [Mahmoud ARCHANE]; Socialist Union of Popular Forces or USFP [Abd ar-Rahman EL-YOUSSOUFI] Political pressure groups and leaders: Association of Popular Trade Unions or ADP [leader NA]; Democratic Confederation of Labor or CDT [Noubir AMAOUI]; Democratic National Trade Union or USND [leader NA]; Democratic Trade Union or SD [leader NA]; General Union of Moroccan Workers or UGTM [Abderrazzak AFILAL]; Labor Union Commissions or CS [leader NA]; Moroccan National Workers Union or UNMT [leader NA]; Moroccan Union of Workers or UTM [Mahjoub BENSEDIQ]; Party of Shura and Istiqla [Abdelwaheb MAASH] International organization participation: ABEDA, ACCT (associate), AfDB, AFESD, AL, AMF, AMU, CCC, EBRD, ECA, FAO, G-77, IAEA, IBRD, ICAO, ICC, ICFTU, ICRM, IDA, IDB, IFAD, IFC, IFRCS, IHO, ILO, IMF, IMO, Intelsat, Interpol, IOC, IOM, ISO, ITU, MONUC, NAM, OAS (observer), OIC, OPCW, OSCE (partner), UN, UNCTAD, UNESCO, UNHCR, UNIDO, UPU, WCL, WHO, WIPO, WMO, WToO, WTrO Diplomatic representation in the US: chief of mission: Ambassador Abdullah MAAROUFI chancery: 1601 21st Street NW, Washington, DC 20009 telephone: [1] (202) 462-7979 through 7982 FAX: [1] (202) 265-0161 consulate(s) general: New York Diplomatic representation from the US: chief of mission: Ambassador Edward M. GABRIEL embassy: 2 Avenue de Mohamed El Fassi, Rabat mailing address: PSC 74, Box 3, APO AE 90718 telephone: [212] (37) 76 22 65 FAX: [212] (37) 76 56 61 consulate(s) general: Casablanca Flag description: red with a green pentacle (five-pointed, linear star) known as Solomon's seal in the center of the flag; green is the traditional color of Islam Morocco Economy Top of Page Economy - overview: Morocco faces the problems typical of developing countries - restraining government spending, reducing constraints on private activity and foreign trade, and achieving sustainable economic growth. Following structural adjustment programs supported by the IMF, World Bank, and the Paris Club, the dirham is now fully convertible for current account transactions, and reforms of the financial sector have been implemented. Drought conditions depressed activity in the key agricultural sector and contributed to a stagnant economy in 1999 and 2000. During that time, however, Morocco reported large foreign exchange inflows from the sale of a mobile telephone license and partial privatization of the state-owned telecommunications company. Favorable rainfalls have led Morocco to predict a growth of 1% for 2001. Formidable long-term challenges include: servicing the external debt; preparing the economy for freer trade with the EU; and improving education and attracting foreign investment to boost living standards and job prospects for Morocco's youthful population. GDP: purchasing power parity - $105 billion (2000 est.) GDP - real growth rate: 0.8% (2000 est.) GDP - per capita: purchasing power parity - $3,500 (2000 est.) GDP - composition by sector: agriculture: 15% industry: 33% services: 52% (1999 est.) Population below poverty line: 19% (1999 est.) Household income or consumption by percentage share: lowest 10%: 2.6% highest 10%: 30.9% (1998-99) Inflation rate (consumer prices): 2% (2000 est.) Labor force: 11 million (1997 est.) Labor force - by occupation: agriculture 50%, services 35%, industry 15% (1999 est.) Unemployment rate: 23% (1999 est.) Budget: revenues: $9.6 billion expenditures: $8.6 billion, including capital expenditures of $2.1 billion (2001 est.) Industries: phosphate rock mining and processing, food processing, leather goods, textiles, construction, tourism Industrial production growth rate: 0.5% (1999 est.) Electricity - production: 13.695 billion kWh (1999) Electricity - production by source: fossil fuel: 89.19% hydro: 10.81% nuclear: 0% other: 0% (1999) Electricity - consumption: 13.441 billion kWh (1999) Electricity - exports: 0 kWh (1999) Electricity - imports: 705 million kWh (1999) Agriculture - products: barley, wheat, citrus, wine, vegetables, olives; livestock Exports: $7.6 billion (f.o.b., 2000 est.) Exports - commodities: phosphates and fertilizers, food and beverages, minerals Exports - partners: France 35%, Spain 9%, UK 8%, Germany 7%, US 5% (1999) Imports: $12.2 billion (f.o.b., 1999 est.) Imports - commodities: semiprocessed goods, machinery and equipment, food and beverages, consumer goods, fuel Imports - partners: France 32%, Spain 12%, Italy 7%, Germany 6%, UK 6% (1999) Debt - external: $18.4 billion (2000 est.) Economic aid - recipient: $565.6 million (1995) Currency: Moroccan dirham (MAD) Currency code: MAD Exchange rates: Moroccan dirhams per US dollar - 10.590 (January 2001), 10.626 (2000), 9.804 (1999), 9.604 (1998), 9.527 (1997), 8.716 (1996) Fiscal year: calendar year Morocco Communications Top of Page Telephones - main lines in use: 1.391 million (1998) Telephones - mobile cellular: 116,645 (1998) Telephone system: general assessment: modern system with all important capabilities; however density is low with only 4.6 main lines available for each 100 persons domestic: good system composed of open-wire lines, cables, and microwave radio relay links; Internet available but expensive; principal switching centers are Casablanca and Rabat; national network nearly 100% digital using fiber-optic links; improved rural service employs microwave radio relay international: 7 submarine cables; satellite earth stations - 2 Intelsat (Atlantic Ocean) and 1 Arabsat; microwave radio relay to Gibraltar, Spain, and Western Sahara; coaxial cable and microwave radio relay to Algeria; participant in Medarabtel; fiber-optic cable link from Agadir to Algeria and Tunisia (1998) Radio broadcast stations: AM 27, FM 25, shortwave 6 (1998) Radios: 6.64 million (1997) Television broadcast stations: 35 (plus 66 repeaters) (1995) Televisions: 3.1 million (1997) Internet country code: .ma Internet Service Providers (ISPs): 8 (2000) Internet users: 120,000 (1999) Morocco Transportation Top of Page Railways: total: 1,907 km standard gauge: 1,907 km 1.435-m gauge (1,003 km electrified; 540 km double track) Highways: total: 57,847 km paved: 30,254 km (including 327 km of expressways) unpaved: 27,593 km (1998) Waterways: none Pipelines: crude oil 362 km; petroleum products 491 km (abandoned); natural gas 241 km Ports and harbors: Agadir, El Jadida, Casablanca, El Jorf Lasfar, Kenitra, Mohammedia, Nador, Rabat, Safi, Tangier; also Spanish-controlled Ceuta and Melilla Merchant marine: total: 41 ships (1,000 GRT or over) totaling 223,052 GRT/272,786 DWT ships by type: cargo 9, chemical tanker 6, container 5, petroleum tanker 3, refrigerated cargo 9, roll on/roll off 8, short-sea passenger 1 (2000 est.) Airports: 69 (2000 est.) Airports - with paved runways: total: 26 over 3,047 m: 10 2,438 to 3,047 m: 5 1,524 to 2,437 m: 9 914 to 1,523 m: 1 under 914 m: 1 (2000 est.) Airports - with unpaved runways: total: 43 2,438 to 3,047 m: 1 1,524 to 2,437 m: 11 914 to 1,523 m: 20 under 914 m: 11 (2000 est.) Heliports: 1 (2000 est.) Morocco Military Top of Page Military branches: Royal Armed Forces (includes Army, Navy, Air Force), Gendarmerie, Auxiliary Forces Military manpower - military age: 18 years of age Military manpower - availability: males age 15-49: 8,182,073 (2001 est.) Military manpower - fit for military service: males age 15-49: 5,160,374 (2001 est.) Military manpower - reaching military age annually: males: 348,380 (2001 est.) Military expenditures - dollar figure: $1.4 billion (FY99/00) Military expenditures - percent of GDP: 4% (FY99/00) Morocco Transnational Issues Top of Page Disputes - international: claims and administers Western Sahara, but sovereignty is unresolved and the UN is attempting to hold a referendum on the issue; the UN-administered cease-fire has been in effect since September 1991; Spain controls five places of sovereignty (plazas de soberania) on and off the coast of Morocco - the coastal enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla which Morocco contests, as well as the islands of Penon de Alhucemas, Penon de Velez de la Gomera, and Islas Chafarinas Illicit drugs: illicit producer of hashish; trafficking on the increase for both domestic and international drug markets; shipments of hashish mostly directed to Western Europe; transit point for cocaine from South America destined for Western Europe ***************************************************************** 12 The bomb in the basement The Jerusalem Post Newspaper : Online News From Israel - Opinion Article 6 Tishri 5762 14:27Sunday September 23, 2001 By Louis Rene Beres (September 23) - Former prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu has sharply questioned Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's declared continuation of "deliberate ambiguity" in Israel's strategic doctrine. Although ambiguity on Israel's nuclear status essentially ended a week after prime minister Yitzhak Rabin's assassination - when prime minister Shimon Peres announced that he would "gladly give up the atom for peace" - no really purposeful disclosure of this status has ever been undertaken. What is required now, immediately, in a region approaching anarchy and possibly even war, is a calculated and limited clarification of Israel's nuclear doctrine. Netanyahu is correct. The issue is not, as the former prime minister knows, a simple "yes" or "no" on Israel's nuclear posture, but rather the extent of subtlety and detail with which Israel should now communicate this posture to enemy states. The issue is not simply an "End of the Third Temple" option, but rather a very complex and nuanced disclosure of doctrine, deployment, weapons, deterrence, and defense. To protect against enemy attack, possibly with unconventional weapons, Israel must exploit its still-latent nuclear assets. The success of Israel's efforts will depend not only upon its particular configuration of "counterforce" (warfighting) and "countervalue" (assured destruction) operations, but also upon the extent to which this configuration is made known in advance. Before an enemy state is deterred from striking first, or before it can be deterred from launching retaliatory strikes following an Israeli preemption, it will not be enough that it "knows" Israel has nuclear weapons. It will also need to recognize that these Israeli weapons are sufficiently invulnerable to attack and/or that these weapons are targeted at their own pertinent weapons and command-control systems. Israel must now strengthen its nuclear deterrence so that an enemy state will always reason a first-strike attack would be irrational. To accomplish this important objective, Israel must convince would-be attackers that it maintains both the willingness and the capacity to retaliate with nuclear weapons. Where an enemy state considering an attack upon Israel would be unconvinced about either one or both of these elements, it might choose to strike first. This would depend in part upon the particular value it places upon the expected consequences of such an attack. Regarding willingness: Even if Israel were prepared to respond to certain attacks with nuclear reprisals, an enemy failure to recognize such preparedness could provoke an attack. Here, misperception or errors in information could immobilize Israeli nuclear deterrence. It is also plausible that Israel would, in fact, lack willingness to retaliate, and that this lack was recognized by enemy leaders. In this case, Israeli nuclear deterrence would be immobilized, not because of confused signals, but because of signals that had not been properly confused. About capacity: Even if Israel maintains a substantial arsenal of nuclear weapons, it is essential that enemy states believe these weapons to be usable. This means that if a first-strike attack is believed capable of destroying Israel's arsenal, the Jewish state's nuclear deterrent will be immobilized. Even if Israel's nuclear weapons were configured so that they could not be destroyed by an enemy first-strike, enemy misperceptions about Israel's vulnerability could cause a failure of nuclear deterrence. The importance of usable nuclear weapons must also be examined from the standpoint of probable harms. Should Israel's nuclear weapons be seen by an enemy state as very high-yield, "city-busting" weapons, rather than minimal yield "warfighting" weapons, they might not deter. Enemy states must understand that Israel not only has secure second-strike nuclear forces, but also forces that could be used credibly in war. All this brings to mind the connections between disclosure, doctrine, and deterrence. To the extent that Israel's strategic doctrine identifies graduated forms of reprisal, the disclosure of such a doctrine in its broadest and most nonspecific contours would enhance Israel's nuclear deterrence. Without such disclosure, Israel's enemies will be kept guessing about Jerusalem's probable responses, a condition of extended uncertainty that could serve Israel's security for a while longer, but - at one time or another in the future - might fail altogether. Israel's survival depends on its nuclear weapons and doctrine. Both Netanyahu and Sharon recognize this. But Netanyahu's call for reduced nuclear ambiguity is the right one. It should be studied and appropriately implemented as quickly as possible. (The writer is professor of international law at Purdue University.) ; 1995-2001, The Jerusalem Post - All rights reserved ***************************************************************** 13 Norwegian, Russian radiation experts confident Kursk safe BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Sep 23, 2001 Text of report in English by Russian news agency Interfax Murmansk, 23 September: Experts of the Norwegian state atomic inspection service have no doubts about the safety of the operation to salvage the sunken submarine Kursk. "We have no reasons not to believe the information provided by our Russian colleagues. Even more so since the monitoring conducted by Norwegian experts confirms it," a representative of the Norwegian radiation protection agency, Ingar Amundsen, told Interfax today. A spokesman for the Russian Northern Fleet's chemical and radiation safety service in turn told Interfax that "the impact of the explosion which destroyed the nuclear submarine was below the strength the reactor and the sixth compartment could withstand". "The reactors and their foundations were not damaged and have not lost their safety characteristics," he said. He said at the same time that the Northern Fleet's services "are prepared for any emergencies, however small their possibility may be". Source: Interfax news agency, Moscow, in English 1044 gmt 23 Sep 01 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter All Material Subject to ***************************************************************** 14 IAEA passes resolution on protecting nuclear resources KYODO NEWS Japanese Chinese Members Subscribe 2001/09/24 updated VIENNA, Sept. 21, Kyodo - The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) passed a resolution Friday to safeguard plutonium and other nuclear materials, as well as nuclear production sites, in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States. ''The tragic terrorist attacks on the United States were a wake-up call to us all. We cannot be complacent,'' said IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei in a press release issued on the last day of the IAEA General Conference. ''We have to and will increase our efforts on all fronts -- from combating illicit trafficking to ensuring the protection of nuclear materials -- from nuclear installation design to withstand attacks to improving how we respond to nuclear emergencies,'' ElBaradei said. The five-day conference received a message from U.S. President George W. Bush urging that the agency fight the threat posed by nuclear proliferation. 2001 Kyodo News (c) Established 1945. ***************************************************************** NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: *****************************************************************