***************************************************************** 06/01/02 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 10.139 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POLICY 1 US: U.S. Resumes Making Nuclear Triggers 2 S Korea's oppn raps Japanese remarks on nuclear policy 3 US: Texas may get nuclear program 4 Koizumi Says Japan to Abide By Non-Nuclear Policy, Reports Say NUCLEAR REACTORS 5 Radiant Chernobyl is Ukraine's strange attraction 6 US: Troops Guarding Nuclear Plants With Unloaded Weapons NUCLEAR SAFETY 7 US: Radiation Pills at Indian Point 8 US: Radiation Pills to Be Given Away NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 9 US: N-critics in Utah flay test methods 10 US: Board supports Nye's YMP stance 11 US: Why the country needs Yucca Mountain approval 12 Russia: 20 tons of radioactive wastes by our side 13 US: State agency clears way for CY waste site 14 US: Neb. trial over nuclear waste dump site to start Monday 15 US: Millstone running out of room to store nuke waste 16 US: Nevada nuke dump foes say alternative exists - 17 US: Nuke opponents say N.C. in path for dump 18 US: Yucca Mountain Is Best Option 19 US: Stand Together Against N-Waste 20 US: Peco deal foils plan for Yucca Mountain 21 US: Plants run out of nuclear storage space - 22 US: EDITORIAL: Yucca Mountain debate spawning unfortunate foes 23 US: Waste Tax Would Kill Envirocare 24 US: Nuclear-waste opponents warn of dangers of materials haulage NUCLEAR WEAPONS 25 India Alert as Nuclear War Looms 26 US-Russia Nuke Agreement: Peace Is War 27 US: Whee! It's NOOK-U-LAR War! US Resume Making Triggers 28 Voice of the Wogs: Much Ado about Nuclear Doomsday 29 Conference says nuclear threat is real 30 India: Nuclear Deterrence Is A Pipe Dream 31 "The Kashmir crisis is deepening" 32 Nuclear neighbours teeter on brink of Armageddon 33 Under the nuclear shadow 34 Six arrested, one sought in radioactive 'dirty bomb' plot 35 Nuclear war 'insane' 36 Feds Warn of Nukes in Wrong Hands 37 Nuclear denial pervades India, Pakistan 38 Greater nuclear threat slowly emerges 39 Papers analyse nuclear threat 40 US: The United States Is in a New Nuclear Arms Race With Terrorists 41 In Praise of Nukes (Gulp) 42 India-Pakistan standoff and war on terrorism dominate Asian 43 Official: India-Pakistan Meeting Off 44 US: Give me shelter or give me -- uh, nuclear death? 45 Japan Eyes Damage Control Over Nuclear Remarks 46 Pakistan's President Says Nuclear War Unthinkable 47 On Nuclear Brink In Kashmir 48 Pakistan's President Says Nuclear War Unthinkable* 49 *India-Pakistan standoff and war on terrorism dominate Asian securit US DEPT. OF ENERGY 50 Tri-Valley Herald ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 U.S. Resumes Making Nuclear Triggers Las Vegas SUN May 31, 2002 WASHINGTON- The government plans to resume making plutonium triggers for nuclear warheads and is beginning design work on a manufacturing plant, the Energy Department said Friday. The department halted the production of plutonium "pits," or triggers, for warheads in 1989. The pit is a critical component of a nuclear weapon. "We need to have the capacity to manufacture certified pits to maintain the safety, security and reliability of the U.S. nuclear deterrent into the future," Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said in a statement. The manufacturing plant is expected to cost $2.2 billion to $4.4 billion, depending on the production capacity, said a statement from DOE's National Nuclear Security Administration. The plan would start the new plant's production by 2020. While the plant will be at an existing Energy Department weapons facility, the announcement said no decision has been made on a site. The site-selection process begins in September. Currently the department relies on refurbishing triggers from disassembled warheads when they are needed. That limited production capability at the Pantex facility in Texas cannot meet long-term needs, officials said. The administration's recent nuclear posture review urged construction of a pit-production plant, and some members of both the House and Senate have expressed worry that the lack of such a facility could jeopardize future readiness of the country's nuclear weapons stockpile. The plutonium pit, about the size of a softball, is the trigger that allows modern nuclear weapons to operate properly. They were last produced at the DOE's Rocky Flats facility in Colorado. That facility has been closed and now is in the midst of being cleaned of radioactive waste. The posture review said the ability to produce pits "is important to ensure the future viability of the nation's nuclear stockpile." Members of Congress, the Defense Department and outside advisory groups for some time have urged resumption of pit production. On the Net: National Nuclear Security Administration: http://www.nnsa.doe.gov/ [http://www.nnsa.doe.gov/] All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 2 S Korea's oppn raps Japanese remarks on nuclear policy theage.com.au, Breaking News SEOUL, June 2 AFP|Published: Sunday June 2, 3:36 PM South Korea's opposition party today lashed out at remarks by close aides of Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi that the country may revise its non-nuclear policy. The Grand National Party (GNP) also urged South Korean President Kim Dae-Jung's administration to cope "strongly" with a possible row over Japan's nuclear policy. On Friday, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda said it was possible for Japan to possess nuclear weapons if it "restricts military activity to self-defence". Koizumi has promised to keep to Japan's principles of "not producing, not possessing and not allowing nuclear weapons into the country". But according to reports in the Japanese media, another top government official said: "The principles are just like the constitution. But in the face of calls to amend the constitution, amendment of the principles is also likely." The GNP insisted Fukuda's remarks reflected Japanese ambitions to produce nuclear bombs. "Fukuda's remarks, which came as the two countries are co-hosting the World Cup, revealed Japan's true intentions. We see this as a challenge to global peace," it said in a statement. South Korean officials are hoping the soccer tournament will help overcome lingering animosity over Japan's harsh occupation of the Korean peninsula from 1910 to 1945. Relations between South Korea and Japan have been damaged by Japanese school history text books, which other nations say whitewash Japan's wartime aggression and visits by Japanese leaders to a controversial war shrine. Koizumi has been among the leaders who have been to the Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo which honours some war criminals among Japan's war dead. Rivalry between the two countries also scuppered plans for a single organising committee for the World Cup, which has further increased the difficulty in staging the event. Copyright © 2002 John Fairfax Holdings Ltd. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 3 Texas may get nuclear program statesman.com | 'A' Section | By Mei-Ling Hopgood WASHINGTON BUREAU Saturday, June 1, 2002 WASHINGTON -- The Department of Energy will hold hearings this month on whether it should move a nuclear research program to Texas or Idaho from Ohio. The plant, known as the Mound site, in Miamisburg, Ohio, has developed nuclear energy technology used in all NASA missions to the outer planets for more than 40 years. But energy officials say they are concerned about the cost of providing security post-Sept. 11. Officials are considering moving what is known as the Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator program to the Pantex Plant near Amarillo or to Argonne National Laboratory-West, near Idaho Falls, Idaho, according to a Department of Energy notice published Friday in the Federal Registry. "No decision has made by department whether to move the mission or not," said Tim Frazier, Mound nuclear energy operations manager. The program, which makes the plutonium-fueled heaters and electrical generators for NASA's deep-space probes, will be the only nuclear program on the Mound site after the Energy Department finishes cleaning up the site. Thus the cost to provide special security there will be high, officials say. "These security costs could render the continuation of the program, as currently configured at the Mound site, impractical," the notice published Friday says. At stake are about 40 high-skilled, high-paying jobs, Miamisburg Mayor Dick Church Jr. said. City officials and other Mound boosters, who are trying to redevelop the site as a technology park, say the move would also hurt their efforts. Ohioans said they will try to persuade the department not to move the program. Some said they doubted that costs would be as high as energy officials fear. "Several times in the last decade or so, the Energy Department has considered moving the RTG work from Miamisburg, and each time we have successfully demonstrated that the move was not cost-effective," Rep. Tony Hall, D-Ohio, said. [http://www.statesman.com/feedback] . ***************************************************************** 4 Koizumi Says Japan to Abide By Non-Nuclear Policy, Reports Say Bloomberg.com *06/01 00:35 By Keiko Kambara Seoul, June 1 (Bloomberg) -- Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said his administration will abide by the nation's three non-nuclear principles, following remarks by his aides that they may be revised, Japanese media reported. ``My cabinet will maintain the non-nuclear weapon principles,'' Koizumi said in remarks reported by Kyodo News. ``Japan will not possess a nuclear arsenal because we have the three principles.'' The Asahi, Mainichi and Yomiuri newspapers reported similar remarks from the prime minister, who was in Seoul for the opening of the World Cup soccer tournament. Japan, the only country that has experienced a nuclear attack, has adhered to the three non-nuclear principles since the 1960s. A decision to alter then would be opposed by anti-nuclear and anti-war groups in Japan, and would probably be criticized by Asian neighbors that Japan invaded during World War II. Koizumi made the comments yesterday after an unidentified top government official earlier in the day said Japan may reconsider its principles of not producing, not possessing and not allowing nuclear weapons into the country, the reports said. The official cited calls to amend the Constitution for other reasons could also lead to a change in the war-renouncing article of the document, according to the reports said. Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe said in a lecture on May 13 that Japan could possess nuclear weapons as long as they are small, Kyodo reported. Abe belongs to Koizumi's ruling Liberal Democratic Party. (Kyodo, 6-1; Mainichi 6-1, p. 1; Nihon Keizai 6-1, p.2; Asahi 6-1, p.2; Yomiuri 6-1, p.2) ***************************************************************** 5 Radiant Chernobyl is Ukraine's strange attraction The Seattle Times: Sunday, June 02, 2002, 12:00 a.m. Pacific By Mary Mycio Los Angeles Times CHERNOBYL, Ukraine — Yuri Zayets pointed his binoculars toward a distant copse of birches and shouted excitedly from midway up the fire tower: "They're over there, grazing near the forest." It had taken nearly two hours of driving through the unique radioactive wilderness born of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster to find them, but one of the world's few wild herds of rare Przewalski horses finally came into view. "Stay here," Denis Vishnevsky, a zoologist with the Chernobyl Ecology Center, said after the group of official guides and a journalist piled out of the minibus to see the short but powerful horses, introduced here in 1998 to eat what was supposedly "excess" vegetation in the depopulated area. "They'll come to us." "Chernobyl safaris," mused Rima Kiselytsia, a guide with Chernobylinterinform, the agency that shepherds all visitors to the "Zone of Alienation" around the now-decommissioned reactor, an area that once was home to 135,000 people. "It's a strange idea, but I like it." Chernobyl tourism has been a hot topic in Ukraine since January, when a U.N. report urged Chernobyl communities to learn to live safely with radiation — such as consuming only produce grown outside the zone. The report suggested specialized tourism as one of several possible ways to bring money into a region that has swallowed more than $100 billion in subsidies from Soviet, Ukrainian and international government funds since the nuclear accident 16 years ago. Back in the town of Chernobyl, where the zone's administration manages the Rhode Island-size no-man's land around the destroyed reactor, one official said economic benefits of tourism will never be more than minor. But he doesn't reject the idea outright. "The U.N. is 12 years too late," said Mykola Dmytruk, deputy director of Chernobylinterinform, referring to technicians who have been coming to the zone for that long. "We've been allowing tours since 1994." A few Kiev tourist agencies advertise Chernobyl excursions on their Web sites, but so far the zone administration doesn't actively promote the idea. "A great deal still isn't known," said Dmytruk, "and we warn everyone about the risks, even scientists." The risks, while small, are real. And so is the desolation. But the aftermath of the accident has created a misleading stereotype of the zone as a toxic wasteland, a nuclear desert devoid of life, and certainly not a place a sane person would want to visit. In fact, by ending industrialization, deforestation, cultivation and other human intrusions, radiation has transformed the zone into one of Europe's largest wildlife habitats, a fascinating and at times beautiful wildness teeming with large animals such as moose, wolves, boars and deer. It is home to 270 bird species, 31 of them endangered — making the zone one of the few places in Europe to spot rarities such as black storks and booted eagles. By law, no one can enter the zone without permission. But, except for children under 17, the administration may give permission to pretty much anyone. The vast majority of the nearly 1,000 annual visitors are scientists, journalists, politicians and international nuclear officials, but the zone has hosted a few of what Dmytruk calls "pure" tourists and it can put together customized programs, such as safaris in search of Przewalski horses, which some experts believe are the ancestors of all domestic horses — but are far more aggressive than their domestic counterparts. Of course, Chernobyl isn't Club Med. But more than 15 years after the fourth reactor bloc spewed radiation around the globe, the risks mostly are manageable. About one-quarter of the cesium and strontium have decayed, and 95 percent of the remaining radioactive molecules are no longer in fallout that can get on or inside a visitor, but have sunk to a depth of about five inches in the soil. From there, they have insinuated themselves into the food chain, making the zone's diverse and abundant flora and fauna radioactive indeed. Radioactivity has receded to the background. On an average day, a visitor might receive an extra radiation dose about equivalent to taking a two-hour plane trip, zone officials say. That is, if the visitor follows the strict but simple safety rules: "Don't eat local food, stay on the pavement and go only where your guide takes you," Dmytruk said. Copyright © 2002 The Seattle Times Company ***************************************************************** 6 Troops Guarding Nuclear Plants With Unloaded Weapons TheWGALChannel.com - News - Lawmaker Pushing For Loaded Weapons POSTED: 12:27 p.m. EDT May 31, 2002UPDATED: 1:59 p.m. EDT May 31, 2002 YORK, Pa. -- A state lawmaker said Pennsylvania National Guard troops have been patrolling the state's five nuclear power plants with unloaded weapons. House Minority Whip Mike Veon's comment in Friday's York Daily Record followed statements from guardsmen last week that they were banned from carrying loaded weapons while on patrol at Pennsylvania airports, following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Instead, the soldiers carry ammunition on their belts. The Pennsylvania National Guard won't confirm either report or comment on its staffing. Guard spokesman John Maietta said, "soldiers are armed and fully capable of defending themselves and carrying out their assigned missions." State police also patrol the nuclear plants, and Rep. Bruce Smith said they do carry loaded weapons. Veon said he was trying to get Gov. Mark Schweiker and the guard to change the policy on loaded weapons. Copyright 2002 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Stock Box Copyright © 2002 , Standard & Poor's, ***************************************************************** 7 Radiation Pills at Indian Point newsday.com eppy winner THE ASSOCIATED PRESS June 1, 2002 Potassium iodide pills for use in case of a nuclear radiation emergency will be distributed free to neighbors of the Indian Point power plants. The pills combat thyroid cancer, a common result of radiation exposure. They do not offer overall protection and are not meant as a substitute for evacuation, Westchester County officials said. Besides providing one pill per person for those living within 10 miles of the twin nuclear plants in Buchanan, the county has arranged for 46 drug stores to stock the over-the-counter pills, which cost about $1 each and are commonly sold in packs of 14. Since Sept. 11, Internet outlets have sold thousands of tablets to people fearful of a terrorist attack or other disaster at Indian Point. The free pills, to be distributed beginning June 8, are being provided by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to any state with a nuclear reactor. Vermont and Maryland have already begun distribution. New York is leaving the job to counties near nuclear plants. Only 130-milligram tablets are available, though the Food and Drug Administration recently suggested a dose of 65 milligrams or less for children. The FDA said the guideline is flexible, especially in an emergency, and should not stand in the way of safety. The county plans to stockpile pills at public locations and is also offering to distribute them to schools within 10 miles of the plants. Copyright © 2002, Newsday, Inc. ***************************************************************** 8 Radiation Pills to Be Given Away The New York Times New York June 1, 2002* WHITE PLAINS, May 31 ? Westchester County will begin giving away potassium iodide tablets next week to people living within 10 miles of the Indian Point nuclear power plant to help protect them from possible radiation exposure during an emergency. The tablets, which combat radiation-induced thyroid cancer, have become a popular option since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, which have provoked widespread anxiety over the safety of nuclear power plants. In Westchester, many residents have already rushed out to buy the over-the-counter tablet because of growing concern about Indian Point's two working reactors in Buchanan, about 40 miles north of Midtown Manhattan. Reactor 2 has been plagued by minor leaks and safety lapses, including a February 2000 radiation leak that shut down the reactor for nearly a year. Last month, Westchester officials obtained 340,000 potassium iodide tablets free from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and will begin handing them out ? one per person ? along with a fact sheet on June 8 in Yorktown Heights, June 15 in Ossining and June 29 in Montrose. In addition, county officials have notified schools within 10 miles of the plant of the availability of tablets for their students, and made arrangements to keep a stockpile of tablets for municipal and emergency workers. Companies will also be contacted about providing tablets to employees, county officials said. ***************************************************************** 9 N-critics in Utah flay test methods [deseretnews.com] Saturday, June 1, 2002 By Jerry Spangler Deseret News staff writer Utah officials are questioning why the 175-ton casks that would store high-level nuclear waste on Goshute tribal lands in Tooele County have never been physically tested to determine if they could withstand earthquakes. "This is a radical and unproven plan for something that is supposed to hold material that is hazardous for 10,000 years," said Assistant Attorney General Denise Chancellor. Chancellor plans to raise that issue during public hearings by the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, which is considering an application by a consortium of nuclear power utilities to store 40,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel in above-ground cannisters on lands about 75 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. The hearings have been held for the past two months. The latest round resumes Monday at 9 a.m. at the Sheraton Hotel and continues through Friday, June 8. Chancellor points out that if the license is granted, then most of the nation's inventory of spent nuclear fuel will be sitting in unanchored containers on shallow foundations in an area prone to seismic activity. "Utahns will suffer the ultimate consequence in the event of a design failure," she said. "Why should we be subjected again to an unproven project involving high levels of radioactivity?" Instead of physical testing of the casks, computer models were used to see if the containers would survive an earthquake. Sue Martin, spokeswoman for Private Fuel Storage, said that approach is standard. "They did not subject Salt Palace to an earthquake to make sure it was safe," she said. "Similarly, bridges and other structures are not physically subjected to such forces, but is all done with modeling and simulations and computers. We are not doing anything that is not standard and state-of-the-art in terms of testing and verification of the storage system." The hearings, under the auspices of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, will spend several weeks on the topic of earthquake risks. "The state has the opportunity to prove its point and we have the responsibility to prove ours," she said. "The board will decide." The board is expected to issue its decision in November. mail: [spang@desnews.com] © 2002 Deseret News Publishing Company ***************************************************************** 10 Board supports Nye's YMP stance By DOUG McMURDO, News Reporter May 31, 2002 *Town Board* When the Pahrump Town Board voted 3-0 on Tuesday morning to support a recently approved resolution stating the Nye County Board of Commissioners' neutral position on the Yucca Mountain Project, resident Sally Devlin warned board members that doing so would be "unacceptable." Member Joe Sladek made the motion to support the county, and he received the "wholehearted" support of Chairwoman Mary Wilson, who noted the county "has drafted a very succinct stance" on the controversial government plan to store the nation's 77,000 metric tons of radioactive waste inside Yucca Mountain, located roughly 20 miles north of Amargosa Valley and 20 miles east of Beatty. In a nutshell, the county's stance is diametrically opposed to the official position of the state, which from the governor on down is vehemently opposed to siting the waste in Nevada. In its resolution, the county listed three concerns it wishes the government to address should high-level radioactive waste ever be shipped to Yucca Mountain. Beyond that, the county wants to be recognized as the host site of Yucca Mountain, not Clark County. First, county officials want the right to conduct oversight at YMP, as well as monitor the Department of Energy's site characterization studies. Key to this request is the added caveat the government finances Nye's oversight, and that the funding should not be dependent on annual appropriations, as is he current case. The repository is expected to be in operation from 50 to 300 years, though the earliest any high level waste would be transported is 2010. "Equity in nuclear waste transportation" is another issue, and the county has requested all waste be moved by rail, under "policies that minimize the risks for Nye County communities." The third element of the county's position regards the economy, inasmuch as operations should be headquartered in Nye County, and not Las Vegas, "even as the federal government plans to make an extraordinary future imposition in addition to the extraordinary impositions of the past." From Devlin's perspective, the town board should review the county's resolution and draft its own independent version. "We can't be neutral," she said. Long a Yucca Mountain opponent, Devlin said the push to site the nation's waste in Nevada has been "all public relations rather than science. If you support it," she said," you sound like the Republicans. This resolution is unacceptable." "What position do you want us to take?" asked member Tim Leavitt. "Are you pro or con?" "One-hundred percent con," Devlin replied. "There is nothing to protect us." Leavitt assumed the stance offered by his peers when he said, "I don't know where all of these polls are coming from, but everybody I've talked to seems to accept that if we're going to fornicate with the government we ought to be paid for it." Leavitt did agree that "strong oversight" would be needed once and if YMP goes on line. /©Pahrump Valley Times 2002/ Copyright © 1995 - 2002 PowerOne Media, Inc. ***************************************************************** 11 Why the country needs Yucca Mountain approval The Seattle Times: Editorials &Opinion Sunday, June 02, 2002, 12:00 a.m. Pacific The federal government already is four years behind on its responsibility to start taking the nation's spent commercial nuclear fuel for permanent disposal. Nuclear-plant operators, such as Richland's Energy Northwest, are having to invest in temporary, above-ground storage as waste-fuel assemblies stack up. That's why the U.S. Senate should vote to override the Nevada governor's veto of Yucca Mountain as a permanent waste repository and move the project ahead so it can aim to start taking the waste in 2010 — a dozen years late. The House already voted 306-117 to do so. Nevada officials and some environmental groups — such as the Sierra Club — have raised questions about the suitability of Yucca Mountain for long-term disposal of 77,000 tons of waste and the safety of shipping waste from 131 sites in 39 states. Unfortunately, opponents offer no other alternative to the potential hazards of leaving the spent fuel stacking up around the nation. Besides, users of nuclear energy — which constitutes about one-fifth of the nation's power — already have paid about $17 billion to finance the repository through a surcharge on nuclear-produced energy. Of that, Northwest ratepayers who have used the nuclear power generated by Energy Northwest's Richland plant have paid about $100 million. Energy Northwest is investing another $40 million to establish above-ground storage outside its plant. Based on 15 years and $4 billion of study, including extensive site characterization, Yucca at least appears to be a good candidate for the job. President Bush concurred with his energy secretary's recommendation that the studies warranted the Yucca Mountain Project proceeding to the next level. But Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn vetoed the order, a move that will stand if Congress doesn't act within 90 days. Senate approval would not constitute a slam-dunk for the project, which still must satisfy all questions of suitability and safety with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission before a license is issued. Passage by the Senate would merely permit the project to proceed toward securing a construction permit and licensing. There still would be, and should be, ample opportunity for congressional oversight of the project. About 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, Yucca Mountain is in a remote, uninhabited area with low chance of earthquakes or volcanic activity, little precipitation and sits over an isolated hydrological basin. The waste would be buried 1,000 feet below desolate scrubland, minimizing the chance any surface disruption would affect it. As for shipping concerns, nuclear waste already is on the roads, rails and barges. Out of about 2,700 shipments of waste fuel in the last 30 years, eight accidents have occurred. Not one resulted in a fatality or harmful release of radiation. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission-approved containers are designed to be virtually indestructible with standards much higher than those for other hazardous materials. The government has run diesel engines into them, dropped them onto cement, and burned them in aviation fuel for 90 minutes. Not once has a container failed. Additionally, the U.S. Department of Transportation must review and approve all shipment routes and practices. The Energy Department estimates about 175 shipments a year — which is just a little more than one quarter of the 675 shipments made in France each year through denser populations. If the Senate doesn't follow the House's lead, the Energy Department must start over. The agency might look again at the other finalists — Deaf County, Texas, or Washington's own Hanford nuclear reservation, which abuts the Columbia River and the newly declared Hanford Reach National Monument. And, since the Energy Department must take the fuel or face lawsuits, the solution might be to consolidate the spent fuel in above-ground storage at a few nuclear sites. In that case, the fuel still would be on the roads and rails headed toward still temporary — and vulnerable — storage. The nation would be no closer to a permanent solution for a problem that is not going away. Copyright © 2002 The Seattle Times Company ***************************************************************** 12 20 tons of radioactive wastes by our side Pravda.RU May, 31 2002 Last year Russia made a resolve that shook the world, it allowed import of spent nuclear fuel from other countries. The Atomic Ministry presented really very convincing arguments that excluded any possible objections from the State Duma, Federation Council or Russian President himself as concerning the problem. The Ministry was really very convincing, but it is not always easy to realize words in practice, this article is another confirmation of the fact. Saving melting I knew about a unique technology for radioactive metal melting ten years ago from one of the technology’s authors, former director of the Sosnoby Bor department of the All-Russian research and design institute of energy technologies Yeugeny Konstantinov. He told me then: “Amount of radioactive wastes stored in the country is extremely great. But they are in the dead weight, not processed and consequently, require more and more financing for maintenance. It is an awful black hole for the economy! We suggest melting as a new way of nuclear wastes processing.” In Konstantinov’s words, melting of metal radioactive wastes is very much like a revolution. First of all, after melting nuclear wastes are expected to reduce several times and consequently require less radioactive wastes disposals, that are extremely expensive. Second, bars of melted radioactive wastes are less dangerous for storage, as radionuclids are inside the metal in this case. So, melting is a really good way to prevent radioactive wastes from leakage because of poor storage conditions. And finally, Russian scientists discovered a know-how: if special fusing agents are added to melting furnace, not active but pure metal can be received as a result. Several years later, on September 1, 1995, Russia’s Government adopted a target program “Processing and utilization of metal radioactive wastes” based on the melting technology. Substitution A new white two-storied building was built on the premises of the Leningrad nuclear power plant within two years. A unique enterprise, ZAO Ecomet-S is the owner of the building. It is Russia’s first private company working with radiation technologies. The Ministry of Atomic Energy target program rates the company the leader in melting of radioactive metals. What is really very important here is that the company managed to attract great investment in the construction, for example, Gazprom’s credit made up over $10 million. Direction of the Leningrad nuclear power plant stated, it was ready to supply electricity, water, heat and security to the private company, because it understood importance of the problem. On October 13, 2000 Deputy Minister of Atomic Energy Valentin Ivanov signed a resolution #319-P and recommended directors of the Ministry’s enterprises to transport radioactive metal to Sosnovy Bor. The Siberian chemical enterprise, Angara electrochemical plant and several others were given the instruction. Head of the Sosnovy Bor ecological and environmental protection department Natalya Malevannaya says: “The instruction was rather unexpected for us at that moment, as we thought it was not right to be in command of the city’s fate without previous coordination with the local authorities. Indeed, problem of spent nuclear fuel at the Leningrad nuclear plant is really pressing enough. Over 30,000 burnt fuel installations have piled up at the Gulf of Finland shores. When construction of the nuclear plant was still in the process, it was supposed that spent nuclear fuel would be removed from the area for processing. But within 25 years since that time no technology for spent fuel processing has been developed by the Ministry of Atomic Energy. The Leningrad nuclear power plant stores its spent fuel itself and very likely to do it in the future. Depositaries of liquid and firm radioactive wastes are filled up at the nuclear power plant. Besides, there are three nuclear test plants in Sosnovy Bor. And despite the unfavorable situation in the area, the Ministry decided to deliver spent nuclear fuel right to that place. Then the Ministry of Atomic Energy suggests that ZAO Ecomet-S can also “process nuclear submarines, ships and other vessels of the Russian Navy.” The problem was also discussed at a Leningrad regional government session on January 17, 2002. And the local authorities, once again, seem to be quite unaware of the plans.” Natalya Malevannaya also adds, the Ministry violates RF legislation and interests of local population. Radioactive smuggling Last autumn, October 16, the green movement of Sosnovy Bor kicked up a row when a railway car with 20 tons of radioactive wastes was discovered at the railway station of Kulische. It was an event that could hardly be imagined several years ago. The radiation made up 15,000 microroentgen an hour, that was 1,000 times more than the natural radiation level. There was no special marking on the car, and passengers boarded on suburb trains quite nearby. Oleg Bodrov, chairman of the Green World public charitable organization says: “We found out that the dangerous car was delivered to Ecomet-S from Udmurtia with violation of norms, without escorting and necessary documents. The Ministry of Atomic Energy took up radioactive smuggling.” In Bodrov’s words, freight of a similar kind was delivered to Sosnovy Bor five times already; and Ecomet-S melted about 160 tons of spent nuclear fuel taken to the city from other places. Metalists So, the reasonable suggestion of scientists turned out to be a great evil. Why did people agree to process dangerous wastes? Some experts say, this is because of pure metal that the enterprise gets as a result of processing. Capacity of the processing line is over 8,000 tons of metal bars a year; supply of spent nuclear wastes in Russia is estimated at 600,000 tons. Great part of the wastes is made up by precious metals of high refinement degree, like copper, titanium, nickel, high-alloy steel, aluminum. The mentioned above target program of the Ministry provides for handing of “metal radioactive wastes in ownership of processing enterprises with following burial of secondary wastes.” Thus, the technology promises unbelievable profits for the private company, tens of millions of dollars every year. Over the past year Ecomet-S melted about 1,500 tons of wastes, at the time when reserves of the Leningrad nuclear power plant make up 25,000 tons. A scandal between Ecomet and Leningrad special enterprise Radon, where wastes of the Leningrad nuclear power plant are stored as well, broke out 1,5 years ago. The scandal is about opening of Canyon 24 at the building 668 B2 that had been preserved ten years ago. There are German silver pipes in the canyon. With its plan to open the canyon Ecomet-S is concerned more about non-ferrous metals, not radiation safety, director of the enterprise Radon, Mikhail Yakushev says. The governmental target program directs Ecomet-S at production of melting plants and their installation at the enterprises of the Ministry of Atomic Energy. Over the period of 1998 – 2002 four plants of this kind are to be produced for processing of up to 35,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel per year, as provided by the Program. This is the way to solve the problem of Russia’s radiation safety. As of today, not a single plant has been produced by ZAO Ecomet-S. Citizens of Sosnovy Bor doubt that the unique technology will be useful for security. Ecomet-S started construction and test melting against the legislation, without authorization of an ecological expertise. As concerning the methods with which the Ministry of Atomic Energy realizes the target program, it is hardly believed that officials resorted to improper actions. Citizens of Sosnovy Bor say, they do not object to Ecomet-S and its technologies, but the people are against radioactive smuggling and import of spent nuclear wastes from other places to the Baltic shores. The target program is to be realized legally, they think. Lina Zernova St.Petersburg Courrier Especially for PRAVDA.Ru In the photo: Radioactive wastes are not sorted, just stored in polyethylene bags. It resulted in fires at Radon enterprise twice (1976 and 1979) Translated by Maria Gousseva Copyright ©1999 by "Pravda.RU [http://www.pravda.ru/] ". When ***************************************************************** 13 State agency clears way for CY waste site Geoff Hausman /Heirs argued site had archaeological significance / By Paul Choiniere Published on 06/01/2002 *East Haddam* ? Efforts to block construction of a nuclear waste storage site on land near the closed Connecticut Yankee have been dealt another blow with the Connecticut Historical Commission's conclusion that the property has no archaeological value. A historian and an eighth-generation descendant of 18th century slave-turned-businessman Venture Smith have filed a lawsuit seeking to block construction of the nuclear waste storage facility, claiming it would defile Smith's ancestral home. Smith descendant David Warmsley of Middletown and Douglas R. Jones of Essex, a self-taught historian, note in legal papers that the site for the project is either the same place Smith once operated as a 100-acre family farm, or close to it. Historical researchers have not pinpointed the exact boundaries. Smith died in 1805 and the property passed from the family in 1843. The Connecticut Yankee Atomic Power Co. now owns it. A Superior Court judge has refused to block construction of the nuclear waste storage project, already under way. Now the state's top agency for assessing the historical significance of property has concluded there is no reason to stop it. While ?a diffuse scatter of prehistoric and historic archaeological artifacts have been found? the site ?lacks ... scientific integrity and represents isolated finds that will not provide substantive information ... on the project area. ?We expect that the proposed undertaking will have no effect upon the state's archaeological heritage,? states the letter, signed by John Shannahan, director and state historic preservation officer. The letter, sent to Connecticut Yankee officials and released by the company, reaches the same conclusion as a private archaeological review paid for by the company. Attorney Nancy Burton, who represents the plaintiffs, said local historians will present their case for protecting the site to the Haddam Board of Selectmen at 7 p.m. on Wednesday. It was that same board that approved a court settlement, clearing the way for construction of the facility. Called an Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation, the fenced-in concrete pad about the size of a football field would serve as the resting place for 43 steel and concrete casks filled with highly radioactive nuclear waste. The waste is now contained in a storage pool within the plant, which is being slowly dismantled. The project has generated much controversy in Haddam and surrounding towns. It was cleared for construction in January when the Haddam selectmen, on a 2-1 vote, agreed to settle a dispute over its location. Opponents have challenged the settlement in federal court, so far unsuccessfully. The latest lawsuit, filed in state Superior Court in Middletown, seeks a temporary and permanent injunction to prevent further construction activities pending completion of a ?satisfactory archeological survey? of the property. Smith was an African prince who was kidnapped and sold into slavery. He eventually bought his freedom and that of his wife and three children. Despite the lack of a formal education, Smith prospered by farming the land and trading, and he eventually acquired a fleet of 20 ships and boats, according to historians. /p.choiniere@theday.com/ * * * * 1998-2002 The Day Publishing Co. ***************************************************************** 14 Neb. trial over nuclear waste dump site to start Monday The Wichita Eagle | 06/02/2002 | BY KEVIN O'HANLON Associated Press LINCOLN, Neb. - The main event in a 14-year legal slugfest over putting nuclear waste in Nebraska is about to begin. At stake for taxpayers is $200 million -- the high-end estimate on what Nebraska could be ordered to pay if it loses the federal court trial scheduled to open Monday afternoon. The lawsuit initially was filed in 1998 by utilities that generate radioactive waste. Four other states slated to use the dump later joined that lawsuit. They claim that Nebraska acted in bad faith when it declined to issue a license to build a regional storage site for low-level waste near Butte, Neb., along the South Dakota border. U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf will preside over what is expected to be a seven-week trial. The case involves nearly 2 million documents, dozens of lawyers and scores of witnesses, among them U.S. Sen. Ben Nelson, who was governor when Nebraska refused to license the site. The case, pitting states' rights against the federal government's power to dictate what they do, could end up in the U.S. Supreme Court, analysts say. The battle has its genesis in 1970, when Nevada, South Carolina and Washington grew tired of accepting low-level radioactive waste from the rest of the country. Congress told states in 1980 to build their own dumps or join regional groups to dispose of the waste, which includes contaminated tools and clothing from nuclear power plants, hospitals and research centers. Nebraska joined with Kansas, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Louisiana in 1983 to form the Central Interstate Low-Level Radioactive Waste Compact. The other states voted in 1987 to locate the dump in Nebraska. The fight began soon after, with both sides wrestling in court on several issues. Nebraska has not enjoyed much success in the pretrial wrangling. State officials said they denied the license because of concerns over possible pollution and a high-water table near the proposed site. The lawsuit alleges that Nebraska officials, including Nelson, allowed "political interference" to taint the licensing process. In April 2000, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said that there appeared to be evidence that Nebraska officials might have tried to thwart plans to build the storage site. "There is sufficient evidence... of interference in the licensing process by Nebraska's executive branch," Judge Diane Murphy wrote. Waste generators that sued Nebraska were the Omaha Public Power District, Entergy Arkansas, Entergy Gulf States, Entergy Louisiana, and Wolf Creek Nuclear Operation Corp. of Delaware. Nebraska, which is withdrawing from the compact, has spent more than $14 million -- $9,500 a day -- over the past four years to defend itself in the lawsuit. Chris Peterson, spokesman for Republican Gov. Mike Johanns, used the upcoming trial to take a swipe at Nelson, a Democrat. "The Johanns administration is in the unique position of having to defend the state of Nebraska in a trial centered around the actions of the administration of former Gov. Ben Nelson," he said. "Nonetheless, the state is aggressively defending itself based upon the facts of the case." ***************************************************************** 15 Millstone running out of room to store nuke waste NorwichBulletin.com Friday, May 31, 2002 PART OF NATIONWIDE PROBLEM By ERIN KELLY and, DOUG ABRAHMS Norwich Bulletin WASHINGTON -- The Millstone Power Station will run out of room to store nuclear waste from one of its two reactors before a long-promised national dump is to be built by the federal government. The Waterford-based complex will run out of room between 2005 and 2009 in the pool it uses to cool and store its spent-fuel rods from its Unit 2 reactor, spokesman Pete Hyde said. But the earliest, most optimistic date that a proposed national nuclear waste dump could open at Yucca Mountain, Nev., is 2010, Department of Energy officials say. And most experts predict the project -- approved by the House and expected to be approved this summer in the Senate -- will take far longer. Millstone already has begun planning to build temporary dry-storage facilities at the plant site by 2005, Hyde said. Among the possibilities being studied: 19-foot-tall storage casks that house radioactive waste inside a steel canister placed inside a vault of steel-reinforced concrete. "We believe very strongly that the time is now to open a national repository for spent fuel for a number of reasons: safety, security and because we believe it's the best long-term solution to the storage of spent fuel," Hyde said. "But we obviously realize that we need storage on-site in the interim." Millstone is not alone. From New York to Arizona, nuclear power plants are being forced to build new storage facilities as they run out of room in their storage pools. By 2004, about 30 power plants across the nation will run out of storage space, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry trade group. And the vast majority of the nation's 104 commercialatomic reactors -- including Millstone -- will face the same problem by 2010. Plant officials throughout the nation say they are angry that the federal government has not lived up to a commitment to create a national nuclear waste repository and start taking waste away from plants by 1998. It has taken until this year for Congress and the White House to come close to approving the controversial Yucca Mountain site. Higher electric bills? Millstone officials have not yet calculated how much the new storage units at its plant will cost or whether the expense will result in an increase in utility bills for ratepayers, Hyde said. "The important thing here is that the fuel be safely stored," Hyde said. "And that's what we intend to do until we can find the best long-term solution. We're hopeful that Yucca Mountain will move forward. However, we will take the steps necessary to ensure the fuel is safely stored as long as necessary." Only one of Millstone's three reactor units will run out of room in its storage pool in the near future. Unit 1 has been decommissioned and, although its pool is full, it won't be adding any new waste. Unit 3, the newest reactor, is not expected to fill its storage pool until 2036, Hyde said. Unit 2 is licensed until 2015 and Unit 3 until 2025. Millstone officials are considering applying in 2004 for 20-year extensions to those existing licenses, Hyde said. Today, most of the 50,000 tons of used nuclear fuel rods nationwidesit in ponds next to power plants, with water cooling the uranium before the material eventually gets carted away. Nuclear waste is safer sitting in the cooling ponds than it would be on trains and trucks headed for Yucca Mountain. But, ultimately, it would be safest after it is placed in the long-term repository beneath the mountain. A big argument for building the Yucca Mountain repository is that the used fuel rods are piling up at power plants across the country. But Nevada representatives are flipping around that argument: Since most power plants will run out of storage long before Yucca Mountain can open, why not leave the nuclear waste in place next to the power plants until a better long-term solution is developed? Scientists are looking at possibilities to reprocess the uranium that could be workable in 10 or 20 years, Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said "We're already doing (on-site storage of nuclear waste)," Ensign said. "There's no risk to this." But the Department of Energy and most electric companies disagree. "Connecticut ratepayers have already paid more than $750 million into the fund for this national repository," Hyde said. "That's a significant amount. We feel it's time to get this facility up and running. It's time to open the doors." Millstone Power Station in Waterford won't have room to store spent nuclear fuel by 2009. A Nevada storage facility won't be ready until 2010 at the earliest. Copyright © 2002 Norwich Bulletin. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 16 Nevada nuke dump foes say alternative exists - NorwichBulletin.com Friday, May 31, 2002 By DOUG ABRAHMS Norwich Bulletin WASHINGTON -- An alternative to building a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain does exist, Nevada representatives say, but the Department of Energy doesn't want to talk about it. In 2000, the department signed an agreement with Peco Energy of Philadelphia that will turn over control of the utility's nuclear waste at its Peach Bottom power plant in Pennsylvania to the federal government. Peco would store its nuclear waste on-site in casks and manage the facility, but the Energy Department takes ownership of the radioactive material. The utility gets the nuclear waste off its hands while the Energy Department can rid itself of a mounting liability for missing its 1998 deadline to start removing used fuel from commercial reactors, said Joe Egan, a lawyer working for the state of Nevada. Several utilities have sued the Energy Department for not living up to its agreement to take control of the spent nuclear fuel from commercial reactors. "It solves all these problems and avoids the transportation of this stuff to a site that no one knows ... will be suitable for deep geologic disposal," said Egan, a former nuclear engineer who is working to stop Yucca Mountain. Not in report But the Energy Department failed to mention this agreement in its massive environmental impact report on Yucca Mountain filed in February, he said. The agreement with Peco, a subsidiary of Excelon Co., is not a long-term solution to the buildup of high-level nuclear waste across the nation, said Joe Davis, an Energy Department spokesman. The department considered the Peco option but found leaving the material at U.S. reactors would cost more in the long term than building Yucca Mountain. The agency did not mention this contract by name in its final report to Congress. Part of the Peco deal allows the Peach Bottom plant to skip paying into the nuclear waste fund, which is supposed to cover the cost of Yucca Mountain. Nuclear power plants pay 0.1 cent per kilowatt-hour generated into the fund, which has collected about $17 billion to date. Because of this financing issue, electric companies and many state utility commissions generally oppose the Peco agreement and say it could derail plans to build a national nuclear waste dump. Several power companies sued the Energy Department in 2000 in federal appeals court seeking to overturn the deal, and the court is expected to make a decision this summer. "If all utilities were to enter into similar settlements, there would be no revenue flowing to the (fund) and the repository could never be built," Laura Chappelle, chairwoman of the Michigan Public Service Commission, said at a House hearing on Yucca Mountain in April. But Robert Loux, executive director of Nevada's Agency of Nuclear Projects, said the Energy Department does not want to highlight this option to Congress or public because the department wants to build Yucca Mountain. "It's a deliberate strategy to make sure there's no alternative to Yucca Mountain," he said. Copyright © 2002 Norwich Bulletin. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 17 Nuke opponents say N.C. in path for dump heraldsun.com: By ESTES THOMPSON : Associated Press Writer May 31, 2002 : 3:52 pm ET RALEIGH, N.C. -- Opponents of nuclear-waste storage in Nevada said Friday that North Carolina's citizens could be in danger because the spent material will be hauled through this state once the site opens. The opponents also said they were worried that North Carolina could become a storage site once the Yucca Mountain site fills up. Utility spokesmen said the waste can be shipped safely, pointing to a 35-year track record of waste shipments between plants without any mishaps. In a letter to Gov. Mike Easley, the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League asked Easley to reconsider his support of the Nevada site. The letter was made public during a news conference Friday held by the defense league and NC WARN outside the state legislative building. They displayed a replica of a nuclear waste shipment cask resembling a huge concrete bar bell at the conference. Waste from the three nuclear power plants in North Carolina -- Duke Power's McGuire nuclear plant north of Charlotte and two owned by Carolina Power & Light Co. -- has been stored at those plants and would be shipped by rail to Nevada. Utilities have paid the U.S. Department of Energy for 20 years to help cover the development costs of Yucca Mountain, said Duke spokesman Tom Shiel. "The industry has been shipping for 35 years, mostly by rail, without a single accident," said CP&L spokesman Keith Poston, adding that the shipping casks were designed to protect the contents from any accident or assault. Lou Zeller of the defense league said in his letter to Easley that transporting the waste "would put millions of people at risk from accidents, sabotage and routine exposures." "A fully loaded nuclear waste truck cask can weigh 26 tons, an overweight truck under normal standards. The result: hundreds of nuclear transport accidents will occur if waste shipments to Nevada are permitted." The groups worry North Carolina will become a target for a waste dump once Yucca Mountain is filled, Zeller said. The federal government selected 12 waste disposal sites in the East after the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act was approved. Two sites in North Carolina could be reactivated if they are needed by the federal Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, Zeller said. One site is a rock formation under Franklin, Wake and Johnston counties, and the other is a formation under Buncombe, Madison and Haywood counties. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said last week it will conduct full-scale tests of nuclear waste shipping canisters as part of the licensing review for Yucca Mountain. Opponents of the project have expressed concern about the testing of canisters because the NRC relies on computer modeling and tests on small-scale versions of containers to assure they can withstand an accident. Copyright 2002 Associated Press. ***************************************************************** 18 Yucca Mountain Is Best Option The Salt Lake Tribune -- Sunday, June 2, 2002 BY BRIAN O'CONNELL Your May 21 editorial ("Delay Yucca Mountain") has an "if . . ., then" linkage that seems puzzling and appears to overlook some of the realities of the substitute nuclear waste disposal strategy you favor. You state that Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham has acknowledged that Yucca Mountain is not the permanent answer for nuclear waste it was billed to be? Huh? That is not his conclusion in the site recommendation he made to the president in February. I attended his congressional hearing before the House and listened to the one in the Senate last week and I did not hear him make such an acknowledgement then. He did say that approval of Yucca Mountain is not the final decision on whether the repository gets built there because that will be decided later if the Nuclear Regulatory Commission issues a license. But there will be no license application unless Congress approves the site selection. You beat the drum for reprocessing as an alternative and, unlike many others who propose that as a better approach, you acknowledge that there would still be a need to dispose of some waste byproduct, albeit for a lesser quantity and for less than the 10,000 years or more that the Yucca Mountain would be designed for. Setting aside the not-unimportant issue of nonproliferation, which was the reason President Carter put the kibosh on earlier plans to reprocess in the 1970s, do you think all the opponents to Yucca Mountain are ready to embrace reprocessing? The Department of Energy provided a report to Congress in 1999 addressing accelerator transmutation of waste, which is one form of reprocessing. For the expected quantity of waste to be reprocessed, DOE figures there would need to be $280 billion to transmutate 87,000 tons of commercial spent fuel over a 117-year period using accelerators at eight regional sites. Siting a nuclear facility that would operate that long poses the same siting challenges as building a nuclear power plant. Any volunteers come to mind? And, guess how the waste gets from present storage sites to the reprocessing sites? Perhaps reprocessing proponents had a simplistic expectation that it would be economic to reprocess at each of 77 storage sites. But, if there is going to be continued opposition to waste transportation, reprocessing would seem to be almost as unattractive as building the Yucca repository at about $60 billion. DOE's plan for Yucca Mountain has the flexibility that it can retrieve the waste for reprocessing for decades after emplacement, should the balance of engineering, economic, international security and environmental factors make reprocessing attractive. In short, why store waste at 131 sites never intended for indefinite storage when it can be stored at a more secure central facility designed and built for that purpose? Last, "delay" of Yucca Mountain is not one of the choices before Congress in the resolution specified in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. The question is whether to accept the disapproval of the governor of Nevada of the Yucca site or to override that disapproval. A "yes" vote to override allows the DOE to continue to the next step of seeking a license from the NRC. A "no" vote kills the repository program and puts the burden on Congress to issue new waste policy direction. We can only speculate how long it would take Congress to select a new course and bring it to the point where high-level radioactive waste at government and commercial sites is removed and transported. Brian O'Connell is director of the Nuclear Waste Program Office of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners. © Copyright 2002, The Salt Lake Tribune ***************************************************************** 19 Stand Together Against N-Waste The Salt Lake Tribune -- Sunday, June 2, 2002 BY NICOLE SMITH Forty metric tons of nuclear waste will be stored in Skull Valley, and what can we do to stop it? Private Fuel Storage, an LLC company, wants to ship 40 metric tons of nuclear waste to the state. This waste will remain hot for 10,000 years. The nuclear waste consists of uranium rods used in nuclear power plants. These rods are the means of supplying the nuclear energy, and have to be changed every 18 months. The plants are running out of space to store the rods on the plant site, which is the reason that they signed a contract to ship the waste here to Utah. The nuclear waste will be coming from states dotting the eastern United States. The nuclear waste will be stored just 40 miles away from the Wasatch Front, where the majority of the state's population resides. The band of Goshute Indians signed a contract with Private Fuel Storage allowing them to store the nuclear waste on their reservation land in Skull Valley. The Goshutes stand as a sovereign nation, whose sovereignty was granted by Abraham Lincoln in 1863. Legally, the Goshute Tribe can allow the nuclear waste to be stored on its tribal lands, but what effects will that have on us? Will we be safe? Private Fuel Storage claims that the nuclear waste will only be stored in Skull Valley temporarily, disclosing that it could stay in Skull Valley for up to 40 years. It claims that the risks are little to none. Forty metric tons of nuclear waste 40 miles away and claims of low risk don't seem to go together. These rods can't touch each other of due to the reaction and outcome of immense heat. If the rods touch, there will be a very dangerous situation. Normally there wouldn't be a problem with the safety of the storage site, but Salt Lake City lies on a fault line that will go anytime. I ask again, are we safe? What can we do as citizens to prevent the nuclear waste from coming here? We need to get involved and fight this so that Utah doesn't become a national dumping ground for nuclear waste and other toxic chemicals. How can we fight this? We need to contact our congressmen and let them know how we feel about having nuclear waste in our back yard. Also we can educate ourselves in this area, allowing knowledge to set us free from the acts of those who chose to bind us. Our voices will be heard if we use them. Those who never speak can't be heard; instead they go unnoticed by the community. Keeping Utah clean, safe, and healthy is our responsibility. Let us stand up to our duty. Gov. Mike Leavitt said, "We didn't make it, we don't use it and we won't store it for those who do." I support Leavitt's stand on nuclear waste. We need to stand up for our freedom from this waste. Let those who made it stand accountable to store it. Utah doesn't have any nuclear power plants, therefore we shouldn't have to store it here and risk our safety and the safety of our children to store it for those who do. Let us stand together in our cause for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Nicole Smith lives in Logan. © Copyright 2002, The Salt Lake Tribune ***************************************************************** 20 Peco deal foils plan for Yucca Mountain - 06/02/02 The Detroit News. Energy Dept. to store waste at Pa. plant; dump critics fired up By Doug Abrahms / Gannett News Service WASHINGTON -- An alternative to building a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain does exist, Nevada representatives say, but the Department of Energy doesn't want to talk about it. In 2000 the department signed an agreement with Peco Energy of Philadelphia that will turn over control of the utility's nuclear waste at its Peach Bottom power plant in Pennsylvania to the federal government. Peco would store its nuclear waste on site in casks and manage the facility, but the Energy Department takes ownership of the radioactive material. The utility gets the nuclear waste off its hands while the Energy Department can rid itself of a mounting liability for missing its 1998 deadline to start removing used fuel from commercial reactors, said Joe Egan, a lawyer working for the state of Nevada. Several utilities have sued the Energy Department for not living up to its agreement to take control of the spent nuclear fuel from commercial reactors. "It solves all these problems and avoids the transportation of this stuff to a site that no one knows ... will be suitable for deep geologic disposal," said Egan, a former nuclear engineer who is working to stop Yucca Mountain. But the Energy Department failed to mention this agreement in its massive environmental impact report on Yucca Mountain filed in February, he said. The agreement with Peco, a subsidiary of Excelon Co., is not a long-term solution to the buildup of high-level nuclear waste across the nation, said Joe Davis, an Energy Department spokesman. The department considered the Peco option but found leaving the material at U.S. reactors would cost more in the long term than building Yucca Mountain. The agency did not mention this contract by name in its final report to Congress. Part of the Peco deal allows the Peach Bottom plant to skip paying into the nuclear waste fund, which is supposed to cover the cost of Yucca Mountain. Nuclear power plants pay 0.1 cent per kilowatt-hour generated into the fund, which has collected about $17 billion to date. ***************************************************************** 21 Plants run out of nuclear storage space - 06/02/02 Sunday, June 2, 2002 The Detroit News. Ponds used to cool, store used fuel are filling up By Doug Abrahms / Gannett News Service WASHINGTON -- From New York to Arizona, nuclear power plants are running out of room in the spent-fuel pool. By 2004, about 30 power plants across the nation will run out of storage space in the ponds used to cool and store used nuclear fuel, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry trade group. And the vast majority of the nation's 104 commercial atomic reactors will hit this same problem by 2010 -- the earliest date that the proposed nuclear waste facility at Yucca Mountain, Nev., could open. "We begin running out of space at the end in 2003," said Sheri Foote, a spokeswoman for Arizona Public Service Co. The company owns the Palo Verde nuclear plant about 45 miles outside of Phoenix. "Our hope is the government will ultimately be taking this stuff from us." Until then, U.S. power plants are busy planning and building above-ground storage sites next to their nuclear plants to keep radioactive material for decades. Workers at the Palo Verde plant are pouring concrete for the first of possibly several pads that will house spent nuclear rods for more than a decade, Foote said. Today, most of the 50,000 tons of used nuclear fuel rods nationwide sit in ponds next to power plants, with water cooling the uranium before the material eventually gets carted away. Nuclear waste is safer sitting in the cooling ponds than it would be transporting it to Yucca Mountain but it would ultimately be the safest after it is placed in the long-term repository. But since a high-level nuclear waste dump never has been built, the cooling ponds have turned into longer-term storage that are reaching their maximum. "The pools were basically built for about 20 years storage," said Rick Kimble, a spokesman for Southern Co. The utility, which operates six nuclear plants at three sites in Georgia and Alabama, has started the process to build dry-cask storage for its nuclear waste. The radioactive material is pulled out of the ponds and stored it in what looks like large soda cans about 16 feet tall. These cylinders are made of several inches of steel and concrete, and sit upright on concrete pads at least 3 inches thick. A big argument for building Yucca Mountain is that the used fuel rods are piling up at power plants across the country and a national waste dump must be built so fuel too weak for nuclear reactors can be shipped out. The Senate is set to vote on Yucca Mountain within the next two months, and its approval would allow the Energy Department to file an application for the nuclear waste dump with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. But Nevada representatives are flipping around that argument: Since most power plants will run out of storage long before Yucca Mountain can open, why not leave the nuclear waste in place next to the power plants until a better long-term solution is developed? Scientists are looking at possibilities to reprocess the uranium that could be workable in 10 or 20 years, said Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev. That solution could eliminate the huge costs of building Yucca Mountain and the high risks of accidents or terrorist attacks while transporting the nuclear waste to Nevada, he said "We're already doing (on-site storage of nuclear waste)," Ensign said. "There's no risk to this." But the Department of Energy and most electric companies disagree. Nothing prohibits the Energy Department from removing the nuclear waste from Yucca Mountain in later years if scientists figure out a better way to handle the material, said Kimble of the Southern Co. "All they're doing is storing it underground," he said. "It make sense to have a central repository." Prairie Island nuclear plant in Red Wing, Minn., is in a unique time crunch. A state law has limited the amount of nuclear waste it can store on-site, and the power plant will reach its maximum in 2007, said Scott Northard, director of nuclear asset management for Xcel Energy. Xcel, which owns the plant, is one of several power companies trying to build a nuclear waste dump on the Skull Valley Goshute reservation in Utah to serve as temporary storage until Yucca Mountain is finished. If Xcel cannot start shipping its spent nuclear rods by 2007 or get the state government to push back its deadline, the company may be forced to shut down Prairie Island, which provides 20 percent of the electricity in the region, Northard said. Because Prairie Island's future is so uncertain, the utility is getting bids from companies to replace electricity that would be lost if plant were forced to close, he said. Vermont Yankee nuclear plant about 10 miles from Brattleboro, Vt., will run out of room in 2008 and no decision has been made about what to do with the waste after that, spokesman Rob Williams said. "All of those issues could be avoided if (the Department of Energy) lives up to its obligation as charged by Congress to identify a site for disposal, which they have done, and begin removing fuel from the country's nuclear power plants," he said. "(If the agency doesn't), it puts a burden on the utilities whose main focus is producing electricity." ***************************************************************** 22 EDITORIAL: Yucca Mountain debate spawning unfortunate foes Las Vegas Business Press As Nevada's political heavyweights posture in Washington over the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump, a new target for their wrath has emerged. Jeff Taguchi is now in the cross hairs. There's just one problem. Taguchi, chairman of the Nye County Commission, is one of our own. That hasn't stopped Sens. Harry Reid and John Ensign from criticizing Taguchi's presence in the nation's capital. The Nye County commissioner has been lobbying against the Yucca Mountain project, but Reid and Ensign are offended that Taguchi has had the nerve to discuss compensation for putting the dump in his county should the facility become a reality. Our esteemed state leaders have decided that talking compensation would be admitting defeat. Apparently, those leaders have yet to noticed that Yucca Mountain is racing toward approval. With that in mind, Taguchi is doing everything he can to secure the future of his county. According to recent reports, Nye County is asking for a host of federal incentives to encourage private development and increase the tax roles. While the stance is appalling to some, it would seem to make solid political sense. Recent reports have shown that many Southern Nevada business owners and executives, while not thrilled with the idea of a nuclear dump down the road, are much more concerned with issues related to our tourism slump and educational shortcomings. Southern Nevada has been longing for a spark to generate some sort of economic development. Yucca Mountain could be a beginning. Discussing that future does not mean supporting the nuclear dump. What it means is considering a very real possibility and discussing rationally a future that we may otherwise be powerless to control. Copyright 2002 Las Vegas Business Press ***************************************************************** 23 Waste Tax Would Kill Envirocare The Salt Lake Tribune -- Utah's Statewide Newspaper BY KEN ALKEMA I enjoyed reading The Tribune 's editorial (May 22) which urged Envirocare to "show Utahns the money" so they could make an informed decision on the tax initiative being promoted by Doug Foxley and Frank Pignanelli. "Utahns may oppose unfair taxes," The Tribune opined, "provided the taxes are truly unfair." To facilitate this, The Tribune called on Envirocare to "open its books." But, as with any privately held business, Envirocare's financial statements are proprietary blueprints for how we do business and have been developed by trial and error over many years of operation. Privately held businesses as a rule don't allow this type of information to become available to their competitors. Certainly The Tribune does not propose that taxes for privately held businesses in Utah should be set on a company-by-company basis by publication of each company's balance sheets in the daily newspapers, followed by a popular vote of the electorate to set the tax rates! Such a process would be unfair, unconstitutional and just plain un-American, whether you're talking about Utah's privately held fruit stands, car dealerships, waste handlers or multinational chemical corporations. To determine whether the proposed taxes are unfair does not require Envirocare to "open its books" as The Tribune suggested. Plenty of independently verifiable market information is available to meet the need The Tribune identified, namely, "evidence that the initiative would actually harm [Envirocare's] financial health." For example, more than 50 percent of the waste received by Envirocare is low-activity Class A bulk waste and Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material (NORM) bulk waste from government sources, mostly EPA, DOE or Army Corps of Engineers projects similar to the Vitro tailings cleanup in Salt Lake County in the 1980s. The market rate for disposal of this type of waste is around $4 to $6 per cubic foot, depending on volume. Don't take our word for it -- these figures are verifiable from government contracts and published reports. If the Foxley initiative passes, this type of waste would be taxed at a rate of $20 per cubic foot. See section 13 of Radioactive Waste Restrictions Act initiative, amending Utah Code 59-24 103(2)(e) and (i) on pages 32 and 33 of the 53-page initiative, available online at http://governor.state.ut.us/lt_gover/radioactivewaste.PDF. Thus, the Foxley initiative places a $20 tax on a $5 product. The tax alone would be four times higher than the current market rate for disposal of that type of waste. This tax cannot be "passed on" to the customer because the customer will go somewhere else. The federal agencies won't send this waste to Envirocare when the going rate is around $5. They have other options and they will use them. Competitors such as Waste Control Specialists in Texas, U.S. Ecology-Idaho, (both commercial facilities), and the DOE Nevada Test Site compete against Envirocare for these contracts. If the market would bear higher fees for this type of disposal, we and our competitors would be charging at higher levels. Instead, the Foxley initiative's $20 tax will price Envirocare out of that market, and the millions of dollars of tax revenues now generated by that activity will be lost to the state and Tooele County. Many people aren't aware that the Utah Legislature enacted a substantial tax increase on Envirocare in 2001. This tax regime is already making it difficult for us to be competitive in government bids. For example, a contract was recently awarded on the cleanup of the Shattuck Chemical Company plant in Denver. This is an EPA Superfund site. Envirocare was one of eight bidders for disposal of the waste. The EPA awarded the contract to U.S. Ecology-Idaho, whose bid was 5 percent lower than Envirocare's. This $20 million disposal contract would have netted well over $1 million in state and local tax revenues for Utah. Instead, the contract went to a commercial facility in Idaho that is subject to no special taxes at all. Over the coming weeks, we will be providing more information on the competitive marketplace in which Envirocare operates. But the bottom line, understandable to anyone with business sense, is that the taxes proposed by Foxley's initiative will price Envirocare out of the market. There will be no new contracts and no tax revenues generated for the homeless, the schools or anybody else. Four hundred Envirocare employees will lose their jobs and the state and county will lose millions of dollars of future tax revenues. In short, Foxley's enticement of hundreds of millions for the schools and the homeless is simply a pot of fool's gold. We appreciate the opportunity to provide accurate, verifiable information on this important policy decision and congratulate The Tribune for providing the forum. Ken Alkema is president of Envirocare of Utah Inc. © Copyright 2002, The Salt Lake Tribune ***************************************************************** 24 Nuclear-waste opponents warn of dangers of materials haulage The Winston Salem Journal - Journal Now Sat, Jun 1, 2002 Group worries about chances of accidents during rail shipping THE ASSOCIATED PRESS RALEIGH Opponents of nuclear-waste storage in Nevada said yesterday that North Carolina's citizens could be in danger because the spent material will be hauled through this state once the site opens. The opponents also said they were worried that North Carolina could become a storage site once the Yucca Mountain site has been filled. Utility spokesmen said that the waste can be shipped safely, pointing to a 35-year track record of waste shipments between plants without mishaps. In a letter to Gov. Mike Easley, the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League asked Easley to reconsider his support of the Nevada site. The letter was made public during a news conference yesterday held by the defense league and NC WARN outside the state legislative building. They displayed a replica of a nuclear-waste shipment cask resembling a huge concrete barbell at the conference. Waste from the three nuclear power plants in North Carolina - Duke Power's McGuire nuclear plant north of Charlotte and two owned by Carolina Power & Light Co. - has been stored at those plants and would be shipped by rail to Nevada. Utilities have paid the U.S. Department of Energy for 20 years to help cover the development costs of Yucca Mountain, said Duke spokesman Tom Shiel. "The industry has been shipping for 35 years, mostly by rail, without a single accident," said CP&L spokesman Keith Poston, adding that the shipping casks were designed to protect the contents from any accident or assault. Lou Zeller of the defense league said in his letter to Easley that transporting the waste "would put millions of people at risk from accidents, sabotage and routine exposures." "A fully loaded nuclear-waste truck cask can weigh 26 tons, an overweight truck under normal standards. The result: hundreds of nuclear-transport accidents will occur if waste shipments to Nevada are permitted." The groups worry that North Carolina will become a target for a waste dump once Yucca Mountain is filled, Zeller said. The federal government selected 12 waste-disposal sites in the East after the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act was approved. Two sites in North Carolina could be reactivated if they are needed by the federal Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, Zeller said. One site is a rock formation under Franklin, Wake and Johnston counties, and the other is a formation under Buncombe, Madison and Haywood counties. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said last week that it will conduct full-scale tests of nuclear-waste shipping canisters as part of the licensing review for Yucca Mountain. Opponents of the project have expressed concern about the testing of canisters because the NRC relies on computer modeling and tests on small-scale versions of containers to assure that they can withstand an accident. © 2002 Winston-Salem Journal. The Winston-Salem Journal is a ***************************************************************** 25 India Alert as Nuclear War Looms Date: Sat, 1 Jun 2002 09:26:25 -0500 (CDT) Published on Saturday, June 1, 2002 in the Guardian of London India Alert as Nuclear War Looms by Luke Harding in New Delhi, and Richard Norton-Taylor The foreign secretary Jack Straw last night urged Britons to leave India immediately because of its "dangerous" military stand-off with its nuclear rival Pakistan and advised all nationals against traveling to the region. The decision was taken after western intelligence assessments warned that a new terrorist attack in India or the Indian-controlled part of Kashmir could spark war between the two countries, leading to a nuclear exchange. "The situation is extraordinarily serious. It could very rapidly lead to nuclear war," a well-placed source said last night."This is a credible scenario, millions of people would be killed and untold damage be done to the infrastructure." Diplomatic sources insisted that such a doomsday scenario was "very real". Neither the Indian nor Pakistani government had grasped the seriousness of the situation and the leaders of both countries would find it very difficult for domestic political reasons to back down, the sources said. Mr Straw's announcement came shortly after the US state department said all non-essential US diplomats would be pulling out of India and urged the 60,000 Americans living in the country to leave. Whitehall fears that a major terrorist incident by extremists based in Pakistan or Pakistani-controlled Kashmir would provoke a massive Indian attack. The Indians, according to intelligence assessments, are prepared for a nuclear response by Pakistan, which has fewer conventional forces and, unlike India, has not declared a "no first use" policy. Diplomatic sources said last night that, unlike the sides in the cold war, India and Pakistan did not appreciate the dangers of a conflict escalating into a nuclear exchange and their leaders had no experience of personal "hotline" communications. They said the situation had markedly deteriorated over the past week despite frantic diplomatic efforts, including a visit by Mr Straw to the region. President George Bush is sending his defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, to the region next week to pile further pressure on the Pakistani leader, General Pervez Musharraf. Mr Straw said that the families of British government staff in New Delhi, together with officials in nonessential positions, and in British consulates, would be offered the chance to return home. The advice to Britons to leave India was voluntary because the government did not want to appear alarmist, diplomatic sources said. Mr Straw described his move as a "precautionary measure" but it is likely to spark chaos in India, where the government estimates more than 20,000 British nationals live. Any evacuation over the next few weeks is likely to be fraught. Restrictions on airline travel to Delhi by the Indian government mean getting a ticket out of the country at short notice is virtually impossible. The US deputy defense secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, yesterday warned that conflict between India and Pakistan would be "somewhere between terrible and catastrophic". Speaking in Singapore Mr Wolfowitz hinted that the US would withdraw aid to Pakistan unless Gen Musharraf delivered on his promise to end "cross-border terrorism". Pakistan and India continue to exchange fire on the border, where a million men are dug in. Indian officials said a soldier was killed by Pakistani shelling in Kashmir. Pakistan said a person was killed in the Pukhlian area by Indian shelling. (c) Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002 ***************************************************************** 26 US-Russia Nuke Agreement: Peace Is War Date: Sat, 1 Jun 2002 14:00:17 -0500 (CDT) US-Russia Nuke Agreement: Peace Is War Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit ------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the June 6, 2002 issue of Workers World newspaper ------------------------- PEACE IT'S NOT: U.S.-RUSSIA NUKE AGREEMENT FREES PENTAGON FOR MORE WAR By Fred Goldstein A new act in the post-Sept. 11 ascendancy of U.S. imperialism has just been played out on the stage of NATO. Announcing Russia's new junior membership, President George W. Bush triumphantly declared that "two former foes are now joined as partners." In fact, this new step marks a further stage in the subordination of the Russian capitalist government to U.S. imperialism. The step of including Russia was only possible because Washington sponsored it, with the consent of the Pentagon. So-called membership is crafted so that Russia will be given a "consultative role in forging NATO strategy on nuclear nonproliferation, crisis management, missile defense and counter-terrorism," according to the New York Times of May 28. However, continued the Times article, "Moscow will not have a role in NATO's core military alliance, in which all members pledge to protect the others from attack. Nor will Russia have a veto over NATO decisions or a vote in the expansion of its membership, including NATO's plans to invite new nations to a Prague meeting in November." Bush came to the NATO meeting in Rome after having signed an agreement with President Vladimir Putin on the reduction of nuclear arms. This agreement was a defeat for Russia and a victory for the most militaristic forces in the Bush administration. AGREEMENT ON NUCLEAR WARHEADS Under the agreement, Washington got everything it wanted and the Russians got almost nothing, save to be allowed to sit at the table of the imperialist powers in NATO. The document, which was 475 words long, gives legal force to verbal agreements made by the two leaders for each side to reduce their stockpile of nuclear warheads from a level of 6,000 to somewhere between 1,700 and 2,200 within the next 10 years. It was basically a codification of U.S. government demands. The Russians wanted verification. Bush said no. The Russians wanted the warheads to be destroyed. Bush said no. The agreement, such as it is, allows both sides to decide what their nuclear forces will be. Either side can pull out at any time after 90 days'notification-meaning Washington only recognizes the weakest ties to the agreement. This comes on the heels of Russia yielding and accepting the U.S. pullout from the ABM treaty. Furthermore, Russia not only gave up its opposition to the Pentagon's plans for a Missile Defense System, but is going to collaborate in it. Putin also gave up his opposition to the expansion of NATO into the former Soviet republics that border Russia. And he left the Moscow meetings without any economic concessions, such as a timetable to bring Russia into the World Trade Organization, where it could avoid trade discrimination by the imperialists. Putin also swallowed the fact that the 1974 Jackson-Vanik law directed against the USSR, which restricts normal trade with the U.S., is still on the books despite Bush's suggestions that he would get it removed a long time ago. Bush rubbed it in after the meeting in Rome. According to the New York Times of May 28, he said, "I see no reason why any future Russian leader with a state that is only roughly 55 percent of the size of the Soviet Union would find it in its interests in any way to act in an aggressive manner." Of course, Bush left out the fact that the antagonism between socialism and capitalism has been eradicated--that the power of the USSR, a much poorer country than the U.S., was largely based on its centralized planning and socialist economic foundation, and that Russia has been reduced to the status of a satellite of the capitalist West. A GIFT TO THE PENTAGON It would be illusory to think that President Bush signed the nuclear reduction agreement in Moscow out of any desire to reduce the threat of nuclear weapons or to reduce world military tensions. The fact is that the nuclear agreement, should it ever be implemented, is fully in accord with the general designs of the Bush administration's plan for military "transformation." The USSR collapsed under the pressure of world imperialism. This pressure had caused drastic distortions in socialist construction and led to internal degeneration of the Soviet leadership. Since then a section of the U.S. military planning establishment has pressed very hard for a revamping of the U.S. arsenal and strategic planning in accordance with the new world relationship of forces. Such a transformation is calculated to serve monopoly capitalism's worldwide domination over oppressed peoples everywhere who do not confront imperialism with massive conventional or nuclear forces. The significant obstacles to imperialism abroad come from smaller states struggling to maintain their national independence, such as Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), Cuba and Vietnam. To these will undoubtedly be added states in the future that attempt to break with imperialism. Challenges also come from liberation movements, which rely on mass organization, rural and urban guerrilla warfare, small-scale conventional warfare and various forms of people's war. Some current examples are the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia battling the U.S.-backed death squads of the Colombian military; the New People's Army in the Philippines fighting the U.S. puppet government in Manila; the Palestinian national movement battling Israeli occupation. As exploitation by the transnational corporations expands on a global scale along with the expansion of the Pentagon, the CIA and other counter-revolutionary forces, the growth of national resistance is inevitable--and Washington knows it. That is what is behind the so-called drive for military "transformation." The massive nuclear forces capable of destroying the USSR are not only unnecessary when waging war against popular mobilizations for national liberation and small independent states struggling to maintain their sovereignty and independence. They are also difficult to use and very costly. The Moscow agreement signed by Bush and Putin allows Washington to redeploy funds tied up in maintaining an excessive nuclear stockpile into the further high-tech modernization of its conventional forces and the development of smaller, more "usable" nuclear weapons now on the Pentagon's drawing board. Putin had nothing to say about this. The agreement leaves the Pentagon with a still massive arsenal of nuclear weapons fully capable of large-scale nuclear attack if Washington deems it necessary--for example, to threaten the People's Republic of China. It insures that the only nuclear power that has been on a par with the U.S. will bring down its own nuclear arms level, and it gives the U.S. the right to tear up the whole thing whenever it sees fit. The Moscow agreement will actually contribute to the advancement of the U.S. imperialist military machine, including the development and eventually the testing of small-scale nuclear weapons. The Moscow agreement makes no mention of the Pentagon's recent Nuclear Posture Review leaked to the capitalist press in March. The NPR, as it is known, "proposes lowering the overall number of nuclear warheads, but widens the circumstances thought to justify possible nuclear response and expands the list of countries considered potential nuclear targets." (New York Times, March 12) These include Iraq, the DPRK and Iran. Nor was there any discussion of the NPR proposals to integrate smaller nuclear weapons with conventional weapons, including cruise missiles and nuclear "bunker busters." This agreement is no more a peace move than the decision by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to cancel the $11- billion Crusader tank project. The Crusader would be the most modern tank in the world, with a killing range of 30 miles and all the modern technology available. But it weighs 70 tons and as such is not deemed suitable to the task of mobile, high-speed deployment in difficult terrain, which is essential to the post-Soviet struggle against small states and liberation movements. NATO: TOOL OF U.S. COLONIZATION It is also clear that bringing Russia into NATO was in no way a military concession by Washington. Not only does Russia have no access to the inner military circles; not only does it not have a vote; but, in addition, the U.S. has relegated NATO itself to a completely subordinate role in its plans for global rule. The basis of the NATO alliance, founded in 1949 under U.S. auspices, was the need for a military, political and economic united front in the struggle against the Soviet Union, socialism in general, and the European working class. Once the USSR collapsed and the U.S. made enormous strides in military development, the basis for concessions by the superpower to its imperialist rivals dissolved. Their relations were reduced to undiluted domination. Washington has waged its war against Afghanistan and spread its forces all over Central Asia and fanned out elsewhere without so much as asking for one word of approval from NATO. After Sept. 11 the Pentagon almost refused to accept the invocation of the mutual defense provision in the NATO charter, by which the European members of NATO sought to express their solidarity with U.S. imperialism in a time of crisis. Rumsfeld and his cohorts did not want any gesture of solidarity that might require them to consult with NATO and thereby act as a restraint on the U.S. military. They only relented and accepted the gesture after they were convinced that NATO would not interfere. The New York Times wrote on May 19 that, "Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld is said to have been unimpressed with the alliance when he served as ambassador to NATO in 1973-74. Douglas J. Feith, the under secretary of defense for policy, has joked about NATO, the myth alive!'" Thus Russia has become a member without rights in an organization that has been reduced to a peripheral servant of its U.S. master. Washington is now putting a new emphasis on NATO as an arena to strengthen the colonization of the former Soviet republics and Eastern European countries. It is planning to go right to the Russian borders with a November meeting in Prague at which time Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Romania and possibly Albania and Macedonia will be incorporated. They will all become training grounds and markets for the U.S. military and serve as forward bases to the east. The kind of colonial subservience that has developed is illustrated by the case of Hungary. "Hungary's officers were so eager to work with the United States," wrote the Washington Post of May 28, "that they even blasted a huge crater in the tarmac of the base [a former Soviet base in Kecskemet in central Hungary--F.G.] so U.S. Army combat engineers could practice patching it with earth-moving equipment dropped from a C-141 Starlifter. " 'Look at the access they've given us,' said Army Maj. Gen. Robert W. Wagner, who jumped in with the troops and took command of the exercise. 'They blew a hole for us to fix. I can't think of anywhere else you'd be given permission to do that sort of thing.' ... " 'It's the Eastern European countries that are desperate to have a relationship with the United States,' said retired U.S. Army Gen. Wesley Clark, the former supreme allied commander in Europe. 'They understand how difficult it is for the [Western] Europeans to do anything. They know it is the Americans that make things happen. They trust us.'" To be sure, the Eastern European counter-revolutionary capitalist governments know that it was the U.S. ruling class, its military and CIA that overthrew socialism and allowed the bourgeoisie to come back and establish capitalist exploitation. They are rushing to become military satellites and cash in on the largesse of the U.S. military- industrial complex. This is why Washington is not so quick to drop NATO altogether. - END - Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011 e-mail: ww@wwpublish.com Subscribe: wwnews-on@wwpublish.com. ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytcov-05.30.02-09:27:23-22397 ***************************************************************** 27 Whee! It's NOOK-U-LAR War! US Resume Making Triggers Date: Sat, 1 Jun 2002 13:35:56 -0500 (CDT) Whee! It's NOOK-U-LAR War! US Resume Making Triggers Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit And it's one-two-three, what are we fightin' for? Profits!! War Contracts! Plutonium triggers! Radioactive OIL! It's NOOK-u-lar War! AP via Times of India - June 1, 2002 http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow.asp?art_Id=11632244 US to make triggers for nuclear warheads WASHINGTON, June 1 (AP)--The US government plans to resume making plutonium triggers for nuclear warheads and is beginning design work on a manufacturing plant, the Energy Department has said. The department halted the production of plutonium "pits," or triggers, for warheads in 1989. The pit is a critical component of a nuclear weapon. "We need to have the capacity to manufacture certified pits to maintain the safety, security and reliability of the US nuclear deterrent into the future," Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said in a statement. The manufacturing plant is expected to cost $2.2 billion to $4.4 billion, depending on the production capacity, said a statement from DOE's National Nuclear Security Administration. The plan would start the new plant's production by 2020. While the plant will be at an existing Energy Department weapons facility, the announcement said no decision has been made on a site. The site-selection process begins in September. Currently the department relies on refurbishing triggers from disassembled warheads when they are needed. That limited production capability at the Pantex facility in Texas cannot meet long-term needs, officials said. The plutonium pit, about the size of a softball, is the trigger that allows modern nuclear weapons to operate properly. They were last produced at the DOE's Rocky Flats facility in Colorado. That facility has been closed and now is in the midst of being cleaned of radioactive waste. ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytcov-06.01.02-07:11:16-16001 ***************************************************************** 28 Voice of the Wogs: Much Ado about Nuclear Doomsday Date: Sat, 1 Jun 2002 23:19:16 -0500 (CDT) Voice of the Wogs: Much Ado about Nuclear Doomsday Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit [The authentic voice of the Wogs -- resentfully whistling past the graveyard, justifiably angry at the Big White Bullies who are wagging their fingers, and quite accurately pointing out the US "zeal for doomsday scenarios." But it doesn't comfort much -- the fact that "jittery Americans," as the Brit Independent calls them, are flocking to watch a nuclear doomsday fantasy in their movie theaters only means that they are being prepared for it in their future, and not just in their nightmares. With unconscious irony Rajghatta, from the Jewel in the Crown colony of The Empire, chooses a corruption of a Shakespearean title -- "Much Ado about *Nothing* -- to describe nuclear devastation. We hope he's right, and that the wogs of the world have more sense than the white boys, despite their desire to play with their toys.] The Times of india - June 1, 2002 http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow.asp?art_id=11698407 Much ado about nuclear doomsday CHIDANAND RAJGHATTA WASHINGTON, June 1--There is an apocryphal story about a nuclear war drill in the United States. The sirens go off and Americans dash to their cars, load them up with wife, kids, dog, cat, fishing gear, baseball bats, beach towels, mother-in-law, and drive out frantically...into a traffic snarl. Contrast that with India, where despite the Americans sounding every single bell and whistle about impending apocalyptic doom in the region, people are loading up their cars with wife, kids, dog, cricket ball, bat, wickets, mother-in-law, bahadur, and driving out leisurely... into a traffic jam, of course. Really, you ought to be here to get sense of the hysteria being made. To hear it from Bush administration officials, nuclear war is almost upon the sub-continent. Irresponsible brown folk will vapourise millions in a frenzy of irrational behaviour. Washington has already issued the May Day call and Americans better get the hell out of the region before they are reduced to putty. Television and radio stations are full of the most fearful stories about how many people will die in a nuclear exchange and the long-term effect of radioactive fall-out. They are even digging up passages from the Rig Veda. All this from a country which is the only one in history to press the nuclear button. And which was far more eyeball-to-eyeball with the former Soviet Union than Pakistan is with India today, and who, between them, stacked up a trifling 30,000 or so nuclear weapons -- enough to decimate the world many times over (where could the rest of the world have evacuated then?) And a country where there's a greater likelihood of dirty nuclear weapons going off in New York or Washington than anything bursting over Karachi or Mumbai. None of this is to detract or dilute from the seriousness of the situation in the sub-continent. But there is something unsettling about the readiness with the way Americans embrace the doomsday scenario. Just as there is something unnerving about the way Indians deny the same scenario. A billion people are going about their everyday business with karmic calm. Some of the quotes from Indians (in the American media) are unsurpassed for their sang froid. "God will protect us in our fight against Pakistan," one book vendor told the paper, rejecting the idea that he even needed a shelter against nuclear fall-out. While the Pentagon is making preparations to airlift and ship out American nationals from India, The Washington Post reported over the weekend, Indians were more worried about the monsoon clouds than the mushroom cloud. Amid all this, Americans have once again succumbed to their boundless zeal for doomsday scenarios with the release of The Sum of All Fears, a potential blockbuster based on the Tom Clancy novel of the same name. In the movie, Jack Ryan (played by Harrison Ford in other sequels but replaced by the stud-ly Ben Affleck here) is a greenhorn CIA analyst whose specialty is Russian political history. When an unknown character named Nemerov unexpectedly becomes president of that Russia, the CIA decides that he is a nuclear hawk, especially after it's discovered that a Russian nuclear warhead is missing. But Ryan/Affleck knows otherwise, even as the warhead is making its way toward the United States to spark off WW III; the Russians are now good guys and the real villains are Arab terrorists. Who could have guessed? But after the India-Pakistan spat it's a safe bet who will be the new villains. Already, stories are tumbling out of the closet. According to one account that has surfaced during the current episode (flash back!), India had decided to "take out" the Pakistan's Kahuta nuclear reactor in 1984. Pakistan then sent an explicit message to then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi that if India attacked Kahuta, the Pakistan would strike as many nuclear installations as they could in India, especially the Bhabha Atomic Research Center. But how could they do it? -- the F-16s had no range and the Pakistan did not have refuelling capacity they were asked. Simple, the Pakistanis replied. Their pilots would drop the bombs and then crash their jets into the reactors in a suicide mission. The India-Pakistan crisis may end in a whimper, but Hollywood is certainly going to get many a buck for the bang that hopefully will never be. ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytcov-06.01.02-19:33:31-24265 ***************************************************************** 29 Conference says nuclear threat is real /online.ie 02 Jun 2002/ World experts warn of nuclear peril. Defence experts at a conference in Asia have said that there is a very real threat that terrorists might use dangerous weapons. US Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz insisted that the events of September 11th should make people more concerned. Experts warned at the meeting in Singapore that there was more danger from terrorists rather than nuclear proliferation among nations. The conference called for governments to put in place more shipment controls to stop the transport of mass destruction weapons by terrorists. ONLINE.IE ***************************************************************** 30 India: Nuclear Deterrence Is A Pipe Dream LETTERS TO THE EDITOR June 2, 2002 As India and Pakistan are on the brink of what is perceived to be a nuclear war, it exposes the shallow philosophy of nuclear deterrence: an argument put forth by countries in their quest for acquisition of nuclear weapons. The fact that it worked at all during the Cold War has to be considered a miracle, and was probably aided by geography and parity of conventional forces between the foes. Pakistan has not renounced the first use of a nuclear strike, as India's conventional forces are vastly superior to those of Pakistan, creating this explosive situation. A mistake by either country can result in a calamity of huge proportions, the likes of which the world has never seen. By some estimates, 12 million people will die. The United States and the rest of the world should do everything in their powers to diffuse the current crisis, and should also take note of what this portends for the future. It is easier to imagine a similar situation in the Middle East if Iraq were to acquire nuclear weapons. It is ironic that China and Russia, two countries aiding in the proliferation of nuclear weapons technology, are acting statesmanlike in this current tension. There will be no peace on Earth if proliferation of nuclear weapons is allowed to continue in the name of nuclear deterrence. Ravi Chandran Rocky Hill ctnow.com is Copyright © 2002 by The Hartford Courant ***************************************************************** 31 "The Kashmir crisis is deepening" Opinion & Editorials - BBC (Jun 1, 2002) *Official: India-Pakistan Meeting Off * /By DIRK BEVERIDGE, Associated Press Writer/ As the Indian and Pakistani leaders headed to a summit where they are unlikely to talk peace ? or even talk at all ? India's defense minister said Sunday that his nation won't be "impulsive" and sought to ease fears of a nuclear war. Indian Defense Minister George Fernandes, in a tearful speech at a security conference in Singapore, assured the world his country "will not be impulsive" despite what he called heavy public pressure for military action against Pakistan, which India accuses of responsibility for attacks on its soil. "We don't see the makings of any kind of an escalation that takes one to the extreme," said Fernandes, who reiterated India's pledge to avoid first use of nuclear weapons. "There is no way India will ever use a nuclear weapon other than as a deterrent," he said. Pakistan, which has a smaller military, has not ruled out a first strike, but Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, in an interview with CNN on Saturday, said that no "sane individual" would let tensions between the two nations escalate into a nuclear war. Musharraf made no public comment as he left Islamabad on Sunday for the regional summit to be held in Almaty, Kazakhstan, from Monday through Wednesday. He stopped overnight in Tajikistan. Musharraf has said for months he wants dialogue with Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, but Vajpayee says he will not hold talks until Pakistan ends cross-border attacks by Islamic militants based in Pakistan. Fernandes said a meeting between Musharraf and Vajpayee at the summit is not possible. "I do not see that possibility at all, because if there is to be any kind of talking then the cross-border terrorism has to stop forthwith," he said in an interview with The Associated Press. Most of the cross-border attacks are in Kashmir, a divided Himalayan province claimed in its entirety by both India and Pakistan. The disputed region has been the flashpoint of two of the three wars India and Pakistan have fought since independence 55 years ago. More than 60,000 civilians, Indian troops and guerrillas have been killed in the Indian-ruled portion of Kashmir ? Hindu-majority India's only mostly Muslim state ? since Islamic separatists launched an insurgency in 1989. Under pressure from the United States and India, Musharraf pledged in January to crack down on Islamic militants and said Pakistan must not be used as a base for terrorism attacks anywhere. But India says cross-border attacks have continued. "There is no plan for talks," Vajpayee said as he left New Delhi for the summit. "If we see the result on the ground of Gen. Musharraf's statement, we shall certainly give it a serious consideration." Vajpayee said he would meet in Almaty with President Jiang Zemin of China, which controls 19 percent of Kashmir ? a principality whose sovereignty was not settled by British partition of the subcontinent in 1947. India controls 46 percent and Pakistan controls 35 percent. Although India says Islamic militants crossing the border from Pakistan have carried out terror attacks, including a deadly assault on the Indian Parliament in December that led to the current military standoff, Musharraf has insisted he is cracking down. Musharraf disputes India's contention that Pakistan actively helps the militants, saying his military government provides only moral and diplomatic support for Kashmiri separatists who want either independence or a merger with Islamic Pakistan. Pakistan will send envoys to the United States, Europe, the Middle East and Asia on a diplomatic offensive to relay Islamabad's position on the crisis with India, the government announced Sunday. The emissaries will carry letters from Musharraf stating that Pakistan is ready to negotiate but that India does not want to talk. This week, the United States is separately dispatching Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage to the region to try to ease tensions. Meanwhile, hundreds of people have fled their homes in border areas, with some on the Pakistani side loading up their household goods Sunday on wagons and trolleys. "We are living in a very dangerous situation," said 65-year-old shoemaker Mohammed Sadiq. "The Indians shelled this area overnight, cutting off electricity and communication. They fired for about an hour. It's very difficult for us to stay here." In Singapore, Fernandes wept as he talked about violence in Kashmir, a region whose bloodied past and uncertain future raise strong emotions on both sides of the border. "I'm sorry for the difficulty I have every time I think of this," he said. "The country is angry and anguished. The pressure on our prime minister ... to launch an attack is intense." Since the raid on India's parliament, which killed 14 people, India and Pakistan have amassed a million troops along their border and the Line of Control that divides Kashmir. The forces have traded artillery and small arms fire almost daily, killing dozens of people and forcing thousands in Kashmir to flee their homes. Copyright © 2002 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 32 Nuclear neighbours teeter on brink of Armageddon Guardian Unlimited Observer | Observer site | India and Pakistan could be just hours away from a fight feared by the entire planet Jason Burke and Peter Beaumont Sunday June 2, 2002 The Observer [http://www.observer.co.uk] Tonight, in the forests of Kashmir, figures will be moving in the darkness. They are fighters using terrorism to overthrow Indian rule in the disputed state. New Delhi says these militants take their orders directly from Islamabad. The Pakistanis say they are independent. Neither claim, according to inquiries by The Observer, is accurate. And it is through the gap between these stories that 1.25 billion people could fall into a nuclear nightmare. This weekend tens of thousands of soldiers, hundreds of tanks, armoured vehicles and artillery pieces are being readied for war. The Pakistanis have withdrawn troops from their western frontier, where they were deployed against al-Qaeda, and sent them to face the Indians. Artillery duels rage along the length of the line of control that splits Kashmir, the only state with a Muslim majority in predomi nantly Hindu India. American officials say the situation is as dangerous as the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. The world watches in fear. Indian military planners know that if war comes, a crushing victory is essential. 'War is one game that you cannot lose or draw, especially if you are the bigger country,' retired General Ved Prakash Malik, the former Indian army chief of staff, said. The Indian options, however, are limited. Air strikes against militant training bases or headquarters in Pakistan have been ruled out. In previous conflicts the Pakistanis have picked off India's warplanes and, as one Indian defence analyst, said, 'such strikes would only have symbolic value... these camps are ramshackle structures ... and can be rebuilt easily.' Commando raids to destroy the militants' Pakistan-based infrastructure are out too. There is no guarantee of success, and casualties could be prohibitively high. Instead India is considering two options. The first is a 'salami slice offensive'. After a 48-hour bombardment Indian jets would try to establish air superiority before troops attacked along a 100 miles of frontier between the city of Muzaffarabad and Mirpur. The aim: to secure high ground and mountain passes that allow militants to cross into India. The territory could be used as bargaining chips in any negotiations. Both sides have been preparing for such an operation since the last full-blown war between India and Pakistan 30 years ago. Instead, says retired Air Marshal Kapil Kak, an Indian defence analyst, something 'unexpected, innovative, inconceivable which pays fast dividends' is more likely. Speed is of the essence. Indian planners reckon they have only 72 hours before a Pakistani leader, his defences collapsing, reaches for the nuclear button. So the second option is far more ambitious and dangerous: to teach Pakistan a short, sharp lesson and then move swiftly to negotiations. After an artillery bombardment and air strikes, Indian paratroops would seize points on a long salient stretching deep into Pakistan from the border near to the northern Indian town of Kargil. Ground troops would push down valleys to link the seized positions up to 50 miles into Pakistan. Talks could then start from a position of strength. The world now wants to know: will war happen? And if it does, how fast could it go nuclear? In the past seven days the sense of impending catastrophe has deepened exponentially in London and Washington, driven by Pentagon alarm over 'unusual Indian troop movements' which US Defence Intelligence Agency analysts believe signal that Indian forces are all now in position for an imminent assault. Sources in London said concern within Whitehall was 'white hot'. In recent days Cabinet ministers have met in the 'Cobra' war room beneath Whitehall - reserved for wars and national emergencies - as a chilling realisation dawned that despite a threatened nuclear 'cataclysm', Indian may still risk waging war against Pakistan. 'Dates for a possible Indian attack have been mentioned,' said one Foreign Office source. 'The time of greatest risk has been assessed as the beginning of the second week of June. You cannot believe the level of concern.' Senior officials of MI6, the Defence Ministry, the Foreign Office and the Department for International Development and MI6 'are working 18-hour days', said one civil service source. 'They are working flat out right through the jubilee weekend.' The MoD and the Foreign Office officials are drawing up a contingency plan for an 'ordered' emergency evacuation of British citizens, using British Airways jets. 'We are talking about the risk of war breaking out not within weeks but days,' said one senior diplomatic source. 'Anything could trigger it now. When you have a million and a half men under arms, you have a tinder box.' 'It's like the First World War, with both sides mobilising on automatic,' said retired Marine General Anthony Zinni, who frequently dealt with Pakistan when he headed the US Central Command in the late Nineties. 'When they see an action on one side, there is a pre-programmed counter-reaction.' Most chilling of all is the verdict of intelligence analysis from Washington and other European capitals that any Indian attack over the line separating Indian and Pakistani forces in Kashmir could rapidly escalate into a nuclear exchange. 'We do not think you could talk of a limited conventional war here,' said a senior Foreign Office source last week. 'India's two-to-one military superiority in ground and air forces would rapidly lead to Pakistan being very tempted to use nuclear weapons.' Western intelligence analysis suggests India has factored this into its calculations. 'The Indians believe they can absorb whatever pain is inflicted on them by Pakistan in any coming war and win, including a Pakistani first use of nuclear weapons,' said one source. 'They know millions will die but they believe India will still be there afterwards.' The Indian agenda, say diplomatic sources, is driven by its generals' belief that this may be their last chance finally to secure Kashmir. 'Indian intelligence believes that although Pakistan has viable nuclear devices it does not have a properly weaponised ballistic system to deliver them. The judgment is that Pakistan is at least 12 months away from having missiles which can reliably carry nuclear weapons. 'At best, India believes, Pakistan can field a fairly crude air-delivered device. The judgment is that if it is to do anything about Kashmir, it has to do it now.' Yet what alarms seasoned observers of South Asia most is a belief that both sides are now psychologically committed to conflict. 'There is an incredible sense of imminence,' said one Foreign Office source last week. 'They have both entered a war mindset. Neither can see any sense. This makes the risk so cataclysmic.' The experts are alarmed too about how either side would respond to a real nuclear threat. There is no hotline warning system between them and, worse, neither has clear rules for using the weapons. They are equally vague about how a conventional war might turn into a nuclear one. If one side suspects a first use of nuclear weapons, there is little time for manoeuvre or margin for error. Unlike the United States and the Soviet Union, which had as much as 30 minutes to react between a suspected missile launch and impact in the Cold War, India and Pakistan are so close geographically that they would have less than eight minutes. Thoughts are now turning to the unthinkable: how the world would deal with the aftermath of a nuclear catastrophe. The US Defence Intelligence Agency calculates that the first hour of a full-scale nuclear exchange could kill as many as 12 million people and leave up to seven million injured. Millions more would die in other fighting or from starvation and disease. In Britain government experts calculate that all Pakistan's water and food would be contaminated by even a limited exchange, with large areas of India rendered practically uninhabitable. 'We don't even know where to start in thinking about how to deal with a humanitarian crisis on this scale,' said one source. 'There are simply no models for it. We don't even know how we would get aid in in the immediate aftermath. No one has any experience of a humanitarian operation on this scale on a nuclear battlefield, and India and Pakistan have no mechanisms for coping with this.' And it is not simply the fate of the combatant nations that frightens the planners. 'In a worst-case scenario,' said a senior Foreign Office source, 'we would be looking at contamination affecting Nepal, Afghanistan, Bangladesh even China.' The fear is global but the problem - and any solution - is local. The critical factor is the militants. A major attack by them could start a war. A genuine end to their activity could be enough for peace. But, in all the brinkmanship and sabre-rattling, it is very difficult to tell what is really happening. Sources close to Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, the main militant group, told The Observer last week they had been ordered by Musharraf to cease all cross-border activity immediately at least three days before the Pakistani President made a bellicose speech last Sunday that enraged the Indians . 'Concessions on the ground by Pakistan tend to be matched by strong rhetoric on the Kashmir issue,' said Alexander Evans, a Kashmir analyst at Centre for Defensive Studies, London. 'There is a nationalist cage in both countries within which Kashmir policy can rattle around but no political leader on either side would risk the wrath of public opinion by unlocking the door.' There are other pressures on Musharraf. He needs support within the army, and many senior generals are hawkish. Some see helping the Muslim Kashmiris as a religious duty. Musharraf even faces assassination. And, as India points out, his own sympathies are unclear. He, after all, orchestrated the 1999 'Kargil' operation in which 1,000 Pakistani troops occupied a tactical ridge inside Indian Kashmir. Hundreds died in the fighting. And there are militant groups that even Musharraf cannot control. The aggressive Jaish-e-Mohammed (the Army of Mohammed) is unlikely to obey his orders to cease fire. Other, 'home-grown' Kashmiri militants have stockpiles of weapons and funds independent of Pakistani support. One man with a Kalashnikov and some dynamite could set off a blast that will make the entire world tremble. India Nuclear warheads: 100 to 150, including up to 20 nuclear bombs that could be dropped from Jaguar or Mirage 2000 aircraft. The rest could be fitted to Agni or Prithvi missiles. Pakistan Nuclear warheads: 25 to 50, including up to 20 bombs deliverable by F-16 fighter jets. Remainder could be fitted to Shaheen, Ghauri or Hatf missiles. [UP] Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002 ***************************************************************** 33 Under the nuclear shadow Guardian Unlimited Observer | Observer site | Arundhati Roy, Booker prize-winning author, looks at the conflict over Kashmir from her home in New Delhi Observer Worldview [http://www.observer.co.uk/worldview] Sunday June 2, 2002 The Observer [http://www.observer.co.uk] This week as diplomats' families and tourists quickly disappeared, journalists from Europe and America arrived in droves. Most of them stay at the Imperial Hotel in Delhi. Many of them call me. Why are you still here, they ask, why haven't you left the city? Isn't nuclear war a real possibility? It is, but where shall I go? If I go away and everything and every one, every friend, every tree, every home, every dog, squirrel and bird that I have known and loved is incinerated, how shall I live on? Who shall I love, and who will love me back? Which society will welcome me and allow me to be the hooligan I am, here, at home? We've decided we're all staying. We've huddled together, we realise how much we love each other and we think what a shame it would be to die now. Life's normal, only because the macabre has become normal. While we wait for rain, for football, for justice, on TV the old generals and the eager boy anchors talk of first strike and second strike capability, as though they're discussing a family board game. My friends and I discuss Prophecy, the film of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the dead bodies choking the river, the living stripped of their skin and hair, we remember especially the man who just melted into the steps of the building and we imagine ourselves like that, as stains on staircases. My husband's writing a book about trees. He has a section on how figs are pollinated, each fig by its own specialised fig wasp. There are nearly 1,000 different species of fig wasps. All the fig wasps will be nuked, and my husband and his book. A dear friend, who is an activist in the anti-dam movement in the Narmanda Valley, is on indefinite hunger strike. Today is the twelfth day of her fast. She and the others fasting with her are weakening quickly. They are protesting because the government is bulldozing schools, felling forests, uprooting handpumps, forcing people from their villages. What an act of faith and hope. But to a government comfortable with the notion of a wasted world, what's a wasted value? Terrorists have the power to trigger a nuclear war. Non-violence is treated with contempt. Displacement, dispossession, starvation, poverty, disease, these are all just funny comic strip items now. Meanwhile, emissaries of the coalition against terror come and go preaching restraint. Tony Blair arrives to preach peace - and on the side, to sell weapons to both India and Pakistan. The last question every visiting journalist always asks me: 'Are you writing another book?' That question mocks me. Another book? Right now when it looks as though all the music, the art, the architecture, the literature, the whole of human civilisation means nothing to the monsters who run the world. What kind of book should I write? For now, just for now, for just a while pointlessness is my biggest enemy. That's what nuclear bombs do, whether they're used or not. They violate everything that is humane, they alter the meaning of life. Why do we tolerate them? Why do we tolerate the men who use nuclear weapons to blackmail the entire human race? · This was first broadcast on Radio 4's Today programme. Kashmir crisis Observer Worldview 02.06.2002: Britain in war zone rescue mission 02.06.2002: Nuclear neighbours teeter on brink of Armageddon 02.06.2002: Luke Harding in Delhi: The only question: when do you leave? 02.06.2002: Arundhati Roy: Under the nuclear shadow 02.06.2002: Leader: Madmen think the unthinkable 26.05.2002: 'If it kicks off, we will see fighting in Britain'. View from Kashmir 10.02.2002: Muzamil Jaleel: My lost country 12.05.2002: The regional crisis: War at the top of the world What the papers say 26.05.2002: World press: on the brink of war? The weblog: more Kashmir comment Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002 ***************************************************************** 34 Six arrested, one sought in radioactive 'dirty bomb' plot Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Nick Paton Walsh in Moscow Saturday June 1, 2002 The Guardian [http://www.guardian.co.uk] European investigators are looking for a German national suspected of trying to buy radioactive material in Lithuania, which they fear may have been sold to terrorists wanting to make an unsophisticated "dirty" nuclear bomb. Six Lithuanian nationals were arrested in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, in a raid on Thursday, during which a large amount of the radioac tive metal, caesium-137, was confiscated. US officials have warned that terrorists might try to obtain some of the radioactive material that has become available on the black market since the break-up of the Soviet Union. This could be detonated with conventional explosives as a "dirty bomb" which would spew out radioactive particles. The caesium-137 was obtained by the Lithuanian suspects, unemployed men in their 30s, from another unspecified country in the former Soviet Union. They took the metal, weighing a kilogram, to the Lithuanian Institute of Physics in Vilnius, to have its value and content verified. A sale to a German national, believed to have connections with organised crime, was then arranged. But shortly after the visit to the institute, the police became aware of the plot, and arrested the six Lithuanians, who were known to them as traders in illegal metal. The German national fled. Investigators think he wanted to sell the metal, valued at $125,000 (£90,000), on the western black market. They doubt that the kilogram of metal is pure caesium-137; that much radioactive material would need to be kept in protective casing. "There are now close contacts between German and Lithuanian organised criminals," a Vilnius police spokeswoman said. 'This is the first time we have found such metals on sale here. This sort of metal is sold on the black market mostly for weapons, and we presume it came from Russia or Belarus.' International atomic security experts are very concerned about the consequences a "dirty bomb" and about the availability of such radioactive metals. "This is the same metal that Chechen rebels left in Izmailovo park in Moscow in 1996 to prove they could detonate a dirty bomb if they wanted to," said Melissa Fleming, spokeswoman for the International Atomic Energy Authority. The Moscow device was a deadly mixture of caesium-137, one of the by-products of nuclear fission, strapped to sticks of dynamite. Security analysts have calculated that if a similar device were detonated in Manhattan during rush hour, 2,000 people would die, and many thousands more contaminated. A top-ranking al-Qaida leader, in US custody, Abu-Zubaydah, told investigators that Bin Laden was seeking material to make a dirty bomb, or radioactive dispersal device as it is often known. The CIA have also warned of the threat. The incident marks the latest in a long line of incidents in which the security of military installations in the former Soviet Union has been called into question, and restricted materials have been found in the wrong hands. In the past eight years, there are reported to have been 175 instances in which radioactive materials suitable for a dirty bomb have been smuggled out of the former Soviet Union. Bin Laden operatives reportedly also tried to buy enriched uranium in South Africa in 1993. But black market activity has not been limited to dirty bomb materials. In July last year, police in Paris, arrested three men and confiscated several grams of highly enriched uranium, a key component in a nuclear bomb. [UP] Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002 ***************************************************************** 35 Nuclear war 'insane' [02jun02] news.com.au - From Paul Alexander in Islamabad 02jun02 PAKISTAN'S president, stopping short of matching India's pledge not to use nuclear weapons first, said "any sane individual" would not allow tensions between the two nations to escalate into a nuclear war. However, the growing fear of a wider conflict between the nations prompted the United Nations to tell its staffers in the region to send their families home. France, Israel and South Korea also joined the list of nations advising their citizens to leave the region as the South Asian neighbors continued shelling each other along their border, killing at least eight people. In an interview with CNN, Pakistani President Gen Pervez Musharraf said nuclear conflict was unthinkable. He also restated his willingness to negotiate with India. Russian President Vladimir Putin has offered to mediate during next week's regional summit in Kazakhstan to be attended by Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. India's defense minister said there was no sign of a reconciliation with Pakistan. India has demanded that Pakistan first stop cross-border incursions by Islamic militants blamed by New Delhi for two major terrorist attacks over the last six months. Musharraf told CNN that Pakistan had called for a no-war pact with India and the denuclearization of South Asia. He was asked about the possibility that the current situation could escalate into nuclear war. "I don't think either side is that irresponsible to go to that limit," Musharraf said. "I would even go to the extent of saying one shouldn't even be discussing these things, because any sane individual cannot even think of going into this unconventional war, whatever the pressures." Concern about Pakistan using nuclear weapons stems from the fact that Pakistan has a much smaller military than India. India has a policy of not using nuclear weapons first in a conflict. But concern still mounted about a broader military conflict as neither country offered a diplomatic solution to end their long dispute over Kashmir, the spark for two of their three wars. "There is still no coming closer in sight," Indian Defense Minister George Fernandes said while attending a regional security conference in Singapore. Asked if military officials of the two countries might meet, he said: "I don't think there is any such possibility." The recent terror attacks ratcheted up tensions over Kashmir and has led to the deployment of more than 1 million troops along the border. Cross-border shelling killed three civilians in India and two in Pakistan overnight, according to official reports. A grenade attack by suspected Islamic militants also killed a 14-year-old boy and injured 16 people, including two soldiers, in Srinagar, the summer capital of India's Jammu-Kashmir state, while a gunfight between Indian paramilitary forces and guerrillas in Nihalpora, some 35 kilometres to the north, killed one militant and a teen-age boy caught in the cross fire, Indian officials said. The United Nations said its Pakistan and India staffs have been ordered to send their families home in the next few days. The order covers 260 dependents in India and several hundred more in Pakistan. "This is not a product of any assessment that the situation is getting more dangerous by the minute, but an attempt to deal with the potential situation before it develops," UN spokesman Feodor Starcevik said in New Delhi. The nations that previously advised their citizens to leave India include the United States and Britain. "The fact that both of these countries possess nuclear weapons is part of our thinking," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said in Washington. Pakistan and India routinely trade tit-for-tat charges and actions and accuse each other of spying. Yesterday, Pakistan detained an Indian High Commission - or embassy - worker for receiving sensitive documents. A day earlier, India detained a Pakistani High Commission employee for allegedly taking classified defense documents from a retired Indian air force official. Pakistan has denied reports that Musharraf ordered his troops in Kashmir to halt the cross-border infiltration of militants. "We can't say first we are doing this thing and now we are not," Musharraf spokesman Gen Rashid Quereshi said. "What we are saying simply is that ... Musharraf in his January 12 speech made it clear that Pakistan will not allow its territory to be used for export of terrorism and extremism." In that speech, Musharraf condemned terrorism and pledged to halt terrorists operating from Pakistani territory. He arrested thousands of suspected Islamic extremists and banned several militant groups. However, many of those arrested are believed to have since been released. Secretary of State Colin Powell said Friday Pakistan may have ordered a halt to extremists' incursions into India-controlled Kashmir, but it was too early to say those infiltrations had ended. India accuses Pakistan of supporting Islamic militant groups waging a 12-year insurgency in Indian Kashmir, demanding the independence or merger with Pakistan of India's only Muslim-majority state. At least 60,000 people have died in Kashmir since 1989. Pakistan says it offers only moral and diplomatic support for the insurgents and does not back terrorist attacks. Last week, Musharraf claimed cross-border incursions by Pakistan-based Islamic militants had ended. He told CNN his country was "against militancy" and "will fight militancy in any form" but said Kashmiri separatists are engaged in "a genuine freedom struggle" to force the implementation of a UN resolution calling for the right of self-determination. The Indian army said 21 Kashmiri militants of the Hezb-ul Mujahedeen, or Party of Holy Warriors, surrendered in a growing split between Kashmiri and Pakistani members of the group. The Pakistan-based group's commander in Indian Kashmir, Abdul Majid Dar, was ousted after saying he favored negotiations with India. Pakistan has moved some troops away from the Afghan border, where they are helping US forces in the campaign to flush out al-Qaida and Taliban militants. Islamabad is considering redeploying the soldiers to the Indian frontier. The Associated Press ***************************************************************** 36 Feds Warn of Nukes in Wrong Hands Las Vegas SUN June 01, 2002 SINGAPORE- Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said Sunday that the prospect of terrorists developing nuclear capabilities is "more frightening and dangerous" than nuclear proliferation among nation states. At a regional security conference in Singapore, Wolfowitz said the concern that "nuclear weapons or scientists with nuclear expertise (could) fall into the hands of rogue regimes or terrorist groups is a very, very real one." "The events of Sept. 11 if anything ought to intensify our concerns about it," he said. Robert Einhorn, a former assistant secretary of state and a nuclear proliferation expert, said Southeast Asian ports in particular need to beef up security to help stem nuclear proliferation. "Governments should put in place strong shipment and transshipment controls to reduce the likelihood that their countries will become conduits for the ingredients of weapons of mass destruction programs worldwide," Einhorn said. The discussion on nuclear proliferation was one of a several seminars at a two-day conference, which was organized by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies and attended by more than 150 defense officials. Maj. Gen. Kim Kook-hun, head of the South Korean defense ministry's arms disarmament bureau, said his government is deeply concerned about North Korea's acquisition of weapons of mass destruction. President Bush has singled out North Korea as part of an "axis of evil" nations that sponsor terrorism or seek to develop weapons of mass destruction. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 37 Nuclear denial pervades India, Pakistan The Seattle Times: Sunday, June 02, 2002, 12:00 a.m. Pacific By Celia W. Dugger The New York Times NEW DELHI, India — As India and Pakistan, fledgling nuclear powers, ratchet up the rhetoric, the rest of the world looks on aghast at a possible nuclear exchange that could kill millions of people. British and U.S. envoys are rushing to the region in last-ditch efforts to avert catastrophe. On Friday, the U.S. government urged tens of thousands of Americans living in India to leave and the United Nations yesterday decided to move its employees' families out of both nations. But here in India's capital — a plausible bull's-eye — there has been no panic. The sweltering city moves to its usual somnolent summer rhythm. At a recent seminar titled "Preparing to Survive," the subject was earthquakes and cyclones, not nuclear firestorms and radiation sickness. And that is in large measure because India's ruling elite and many of its leading strategic thinkers are in nuclear denial. Though Pakistan's leaders have spoken openly about the possibility of using the country's nuclear weapons, India has seen this as loose talk, as evidence of Pakistan's bluffing and blackmail. K. Santhanam, a physicist who helped organize India's 1998 nuclear tests and now heads the government-financed Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses, said the risk of nuclear war is "overdramatized." "The probability of occurrence is very low, extremely low, vanishingly low," he said. Pakistan's leaders and thinkers, too, are living their own form of nuclear denial — that of the smaller, militarily weaker nation. They believe Pakistan's conventional military prowess, combined with its credible nuclear threat, will deter the region's dominant power, India, from daring to attack Pakistan. "There will be no war, conventional or nuclear," said Gen. Mirza Aslam Beg, retired chief of Pakistan's armed forces. "This military buildup is to pressurize Pakistan to stop the liberation movement in Kashmir." Yesterday, Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf said nuclear conflict was unthinkable, claiming no "sane individual" would allow tensions between the two nations to escalate into a nuclear war. False complacency? India's and Pakistan's mirrored denials of the nuclear dangers are part of the treacherous dynamic that could lead to war, military analysts and South Asia experts say. As they intensify their rhetorical belligerence and military preparations, each expects the other to back down. But they may just fall into the nuclear abyss. "There's a complacency that the weapons won't be used, which I find baffling," said a senior Western diplomat here. "It's like the early days of the Cold War. People here haven't understood what these weapons can do. I don't think most people here have ever heard of Hiroshima and Nagasaki." While many Indians and Pakistanis say there will be no nuclear war, they often paradoxically acknowledge the possibility in the next breath, exhibiting also the unspoken assumption that the two hugely populous nations — India has 1 billion people and Pakistan 150 million — would survive. Santhanam, the Indian physicist, said his hunch is that a war would remain conventional, but he also said, "If we're hit, we'll know how to handle it. If there's a nuclear attack, India's policy is severe retaliation." Asked at a public meeting in Islamabad last week if there could be a nuclear catastrophe, Beg, the former Pakistani army chief, said more people died in the Allied bombing of Dresden than in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and that millions have been killed by small-arms fire. "Look," he said, "I don't know what you're worried about. You can die crossing the street, hit by a car, or you could die in a nuclear war. You've got to die someday anyway." After the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962, which surprised and frightened the United States and the Soviet Union at how quickly they could unintentionally slide toward a nuclear exchange, the superpowers shifted to engaging each other indirectly through proxy wars in the Third World rather than in direct conflicts. They also began an arms-control process to regulate nuclear competition. In contrast, India and Pakistan each have hundreds of thousands of troops poised for war along their border who have been engaged in fierce artillery duels for two weeks. And their senior leaders are not talking. India has withdrawn its ambassador to Pakistan and expelled Pakistan's envoy to Delhi. A part of this may be due to the sheer power of disbelief that military planning could go so awry that nuclear arms would come into play. Strategists and Indian officials, including Defense Minister George Fernandes, have argued that India can wage a limited conventional war. They say Pakistan would not hit India with nuclear weapons and risk devastation in reprisal. They say they know Pakistan's trip wires and have no desire to conquer or vanquish Pakistan. But what if a provoked India aggressively counterattacked across the border and Pakistan responded more effectively than anticipated? If that opened the way toward a general war, at what point would Pakistan's military rulers feel so endangered they would consider firing a nuclear weapon? Pakistani leader Musharraf recently said that if Pakistan's survival as a nation were threatened, "then it would be a case of: in extreme emergency, even the atomic bomb." Miscalculations Miscalculation is, after all, at the heart of virtually all the nightmare visions of how any nuclear exchange would start. India's external affairs minister, Jaswant Singh, said recently that India and Pakistan were of the same womb — suggesting they therefore understood each other. But their history is littered with deadly misunderstandings, scholars say. Often, Pakistan underestimates India's military determination and democratic resilience, while India underestimates the depth of Pakistan's suspicion that India is out to vivisect it. Their misjudgments could be catastrophic. Musharraf openly threatened last week to take the war into "the enemy's territory" if India stepped even an inch across the Line of Control that divides Kashmir between them. This is complicated by the fact that the countries, unlike the United States or the Soviet Union, have no experience of the horrors of modern total war, waged against whole cities with the very intention of leveling them. Americans, while their own cities were left untouched during World War II, dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Soviets saw vast parts of their homeland devastated by the Germans. Indians and Pakistanis have a legacy of deep, intimate mistrust. They are neighbors born in a moment of cataclysmic religious violence. They have a blood feud that features deep personal bitterness between the most senior leaders of the two countries. And they have large cities so close to each other that a nuclear missile could hit its target in minutes. Musharraf born in India Musharraf was born here in India's capital. But his Muslim family fled to Pakistan, the newly created Islamic nation hacked from the British Indian empire in 1947 at the same hour as independent India. His parents later told their children that they had escaped on the last train to leave India safely — and that Hindus and Sikhs had massacred the Muslims on the trains that came after. As a boy, the general was taught to deeply mistrust the Hindus who are predominant in India, his brother Naved said. India's leaders mistrust Musharraf, whom they believe betrayed India by plotting to sneak army regulars into the Kargil region of Indian-controlled Kashmir in 1999. His troops took mountain peaks overlooking an Indian supply route even as India's prime minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, was on a peace mission to Pakistan. Many believed Pakistan was emboldened to act so recklessly because the army assumed its nuclear arsenal would deter an Indian counterattack. At the time, India heeded U.S. pleas that, to avoid the possibility of an escalating war, it not cross into Pakistan-administered Kashmir. But after Kargil, frustrated Indian officials talked more about the feasibility of a limited war that involved striking into Pakistani territory. During the Kargil dispute, which ended with Pakistan's ignominious withdrawal, U.S. intelligence officials concluded that Pakistan had taken steps to prepare its nuclear weapons for possible use, according to an essay by Bruce Riedel, a special assistant to President Clinton. Festering Kashmir The current crisis is another incarnation of the struggle for Kashmir that began in 1947. Pakistan has long backed Islamic extremists who have committed atrocities against civilians as they battle Indian rule. Now, inspired in part by President Bush's post-Sept. 11 policy of zero tolerance for terrorists, India has warned it will take military action unless Pakistan stops sheltering and arming them. Human-rights monitors say Indian forces have committed gross violations in battling the insurgency, which Musharraf never fails to describe as an indigenous freedom struggle. Two weeks ago, he effectively cast the battle as a Hindu-Muslim conflict, an inflammatory step in the nuclear context: "If war is imposed, a Muslim is not afraid and does not retreat, but with the cry of Allah o-Akbar he jumps into the war to fight." U.S. officials worry that India and Pakistan, if they use nuclear arms, could become a model for the likes of Iraq and North Korea. "Once you use it," one official said, "that almost mystical taboo is removed." Copyright © 2002 The Seattle Times Company ***************************************************************** 38 Greater nuclear threat slowly emerges El Paso Times Online Opinion Saturday, June 1, 2002 Charlie Edgren Not for quite a while has the specter of a full-blown nuclear war hung over the world. It's hard for someone in my generation to forget the almost unbearable tension that accompanied the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, just as it's hard for someone not of that generation to comprehend just how close we came to trading nukes with Krushchev's crew. That's generally acknowledged as the closest we've ever come to nuclear war. Before that, in the nascent years of the Cold War, we used to practice crouching under our desks in health class. Mr. Harvison used to say, even more seriously than usual, "If you see a bright flash out the window, yell 'Duck' and get under the desk and cover up. If you're right, it could save everyone's life. If you're wrong, no one's gonna laugh at you." No one tested that theory, because Mr. Harvison was tough and serious and we were not particularly eager to try the depths of his humor. As fairly naive young students, and not having a clear idea of the effects of a nuclear (atomic, back then) blast, we thought "ducking and covering" somehow would confer immunity from the explosion. Later, my generation, which had emerged just after atomic bombs ended the war against Japan, put its faith in MAD -- Mutually Assured Destruction. The U.S. and Soviets each had so many nuclear weapons that total destruction was assured if someone pushed the first button. It seems to have worked. But now a possibly greater threat comes from two unlikely sources, India and Pakistan. Both are nuclear powers, with experts estimating that each side has several dozen nuclear warheads either on missiles or on plane-borne bombs. Some experts dismiss this, saying that their nukes are only as powerful as the Hiroshima bomb. Only? The posturing and saber-rattling and fighting in the Kashmir region has suddenly drawn the attention of a world mesmerized by Middle East violence. Crass as it might sound, it's not necessarily a nuclear exchange itself that would be so bad, though millions probably would die. It's what the rest of the world might do. For starters, thousands of American civilians -- 60,000 in India -- and military personnel are in danger in India, Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan. They're in danger, and Friday U.S. civilians were being urged to leave India. Both India and Pakistan border China, a nuclear power that has been chillingly silent during the expanding India-Pakistan confrontation. What might China decide to do? What if rogue nations such as Iraq, Iran and others decided to jump on the bandwagon and get a piece of the action? Israel would inevitably be drawn in, and an almost unstoppable juggernaut of destruction would have begun. And then, how long could the U.S. and its allies stay out of it? Would either India or Pakistan have the guts to start a nuclear exchange? Well, it doesn't take guts, just desperation. India's troops outnumber Pakistan's, its navy is bigger and its air force more modern. Pakistan might see a pre-emptive nuclear strike as its best and only hope. The Bush administration is sending some heavy hitters to the region to try and talk sense into the warring factions. The world better hope they're heavy enough. Charlie Edgren is an editorial writer for the El Paso Times. E-mail address: opinion@elpasotimes.com [opinion@elpasotimes.com] ***************************************************************** 39 Papers analyse nuclear threat BBC News | UK | Saturday, 1 June, 2002 The government's advice to British citizens to leave India prompts more talk in the papers about whether or not a war with Pakistan would involve the use of nuclear weapons. The Guardian says western intelligence experts have warned that a new terrorist attack on India, or Indian-administered Kashmir, could trigger a conflict. A source - described by the paper as "well-placed" - is quoted as saying that a nuclear exchange is a credible scenario. According to The Times, there is concern that the leaders of India and Pakistan do not appear to be visualising the disaster that would overwhelm their countries. On a more optimistic note, The Independent reports that both sides appear to be edging back from the brink. The Financial Times notes that the international foreboding contrasts sharply with the mood in India and Pakistan - where war is seen as a distant prospect. © MMII | News Sources | Privacy ***************************************************************** 40 The United States Is in a New Nuclear Arms Race With Terrorists The Salt Lake Tribune -- Saturday, June 1, 2002 BY COKIE AND STEVE ROBERTS UNITED FEATURES SYNDICATE We saw these words on the side of a bus in Washington: "27,000 nuclear missiles. One is missing." It is a poster advertising a new summer movie, the Tom Clancy thriller "The Sum of All Fears." But it also describes the real-life nightmares troubling some of the most thoughtful analysts of foreign affairs. The treaty signed in Moscow last week, which commits Russia and the United States to sharp reductions in their nuclear arsenals, is certainly a useful document. But it looks backward not forward, and deals with old threats not new ones. The danger of a Russian attack against America ended long ago. Clancy's movie might be more relevant to today's issues than all those solemn speeches made by George Bush and Vladimir Putin about finally burying the Cold War. As former Sen. Sam Nunn, R-Ga., and two co-authors wrote in The Washington Post: "The most likely, most immediate, most potentially devastating threat America faces is the threat of nuclear terrorism. This puts us in a new nuclear arms race -- between terrorist efforts to acquire nuclear weapons and our efforts to stop them." Bush and Putin pay lip service to this new arms race, declaring that their "highest priority" is preventing terrorists from obtaining weapons of mass destruction. But they have not put their best efforts or resources behind this priority. Bush demanded that the weapons taken out of service by the new treaty be deactivated but not destroyed. Putin refused to cancel Russia's plans for selling atomic power plants to Iran. Both decisions raise the level of anxiety about nuclear terrorism instead of reducing it. Unfortunately, Nunn got it right when he said that there is still a "very big gap" between the size of the terrorist threat and the way the two leaders have responded to it. The picture is not all gloomy. In 1991, Nunn and Sen. Richard Lugar, an Indiana Republican, co-authored legislation that has provided more than $8 billion to pay for the removal of Russian weapons and the employment of Russian scientists. Nearly 6,000 warheads have been taken out of service, and the level of cooperation between scientists and soldiers in both countries has improved considerably. But a great deal more needs to be done. For one thing, the level of funding for the Nunn-Lugar program is woefully inadequate, about $400 million a year. Compare that to the obscene farm bill just passed by Congress and signed by Bush that will funnel billions of dollars annually into the pockets of corporate agribusiness. A dollar spent destroying a Russian warhead will do a whole lot more for national security than a dollar spent propping up the price of American peanuts. In a speech delivered in Moscow this week, Lugar pointed out that only 40 percent of Russia's nuclear storage sites have received American help in upgrading their security, and only 20 percent are totally safe. Many are only protected by "an underpaid guard sitting inside a chain-link fence," said Nunn, so additional funds are desperately needed. At current rates it would take 27 more years to guarantee security at all the Russian sites. But protecting Russia's nuclear stockpile is only one front in the battle to keep dangerous weapons out of the wrong hands. Lugar makes several other useful suggestions: * Expand Nunn-Lugar to cover the dismantling of conventional submarines, not just those armed with nuclear missiles. Conventional subs "carry cruise missiles which could prove valuable to rogue nation missile programs," he said, and are often powered by enriched nuclear fuel that "could pose serious proliferation risks if unsecured." * Pass legislation authorizing a deal: The United States will forgive a portion of the bilateral debt owed by Moscow if that money is used to reduce nuclear risks. Other creditors should be encouraged to offer the same deal. * Include tactical nuclear weapons, as well as large intercontinental missiles, in the arms reduction program. Battlefield nukes can't reach America on their own, but they can be stolen by terrorists and transported here by ship or plane. * While Russia is the most serious source of nuclear weapons and material, it is not the only one. A recent Harvard study identified 57 other countries that store bomb-grade plutonium and uranium at power plants or research reactors. That argues for expanding the Nunn-Lugar program, now focused on Russia, into a worldwide effort to win the new arms race. Just imagine if that movie poster turned into a newspaper headline, and a nuclear missile, or just a few pounds of plutonium, really was missing. © Copyright 2002, The Salt Lake Tribune ***************************************************************** 41 In Praise of Nukes (Gulp) Contrary to media hysteria, nuclear weapons have actually had a sobering effect on India and Pakistan. But that can’t last forever FRUSTRATED THOUGH IT IS, India will be deterred from launching a military offensive by two things—nuclear weapons and American soldiers. Contrary to much of the media hysteria, nuclear weapons have actually had a sobering effect on both India and Pakistan. In the first 30 years of their independence (pre-nukes) they fought three wars; in the second 30 (post-nukes) they have fought none. To put it another way, if neither side had nuclear weapons, they would be at war right now. Nuclear deterrence is not pretty—remember the Cuban missile crisis—but it usually works. Second, India knows it wouldn’t be easy to fight now because many of Pakistan’s prime targets—its air bases, for example—are swarming with American troops. For its part, Washington has a huge incentive to put out the flames. If there is a war, its operation against Al Qaeda will collapse as Pakistan’s troops abandon the Afghan border to fight Indian forces. There’s a final reason why India won’t go to war. Its current strategy is working. What you have been watching for the last three weeks might look like a frenzied move toward war. In fact it is a well-thought-out attempt by India to end Pakistan’s support for terrorism in Kashmir. New Delhi has decided that in order to get Pakistan’s—and Washington’s—attention, it has to make threats that are utterly believable. As one of India’s best columnists, Shekhar Gupta, wrote last week, “To be convincing to others [the strategy] had to be so real that even we believe that we are heading for war.” Washington has moved fast, bearing down on President Musharraf to halt the terrorist traffic into Kashmir. This week’s trips by Richard Armitage and Donald Rumsfeld will emphasize that message. But then what? Having solved this month’s crisis, Washington and the world will breathe a sigh of relief and go home—and there lies the danger. Both India and Pakistan are reaching a point of no return on Kashmir. Kicking the can down the road will only ensure another crisis later. And that one will not be so easily defused. The most likely scenario is that Pakistan, under pressure, will put a stop to terrorist crossings for a couple of months—as it did after the last blowup in January—but then allow them to slowly resume. When, inevitably, another major terrorist attack takes place in Kashmir, India will face its own crisis of credibility. It has made too many threats over the last six months to stay quiet. Musharraf has also made his own threats to “give a fitting reply” to any Indian attack, making clear that if India launches a limited operation—say only into Pakistan-occupied Kashmir—he will not keep his response limited to that area but might go into Indian territory. The war on the ground has been low-level; the war of words is already nuclear. Neither side wants war. Their threats are really deterrents. But as the arms-control scholar Thomas Schelling once noted, two things are very expensive in international life: promises when they succeed and threats when they fail. There is a real danger that by ratcheting up the rhetoric, each side will have to act if those threats fail. Will nuclear deterrence work time after time? If the United States and the Soviet Union had had a Cuban missile crisis every three months, at some point they could have gotten unlucky. There is no permanent solution to the Kashmir problem, at least none in sight. But there is a solution to the current crisis. Pakistan must end its support for cross-border terrorism. It could support the Kashmiri groups who rebel against India politically and diplomatically. But it must end its 13-year policy of bleeding India through state-sponsored terrorism. More than anything else, a shift in this policy would move the region off the eternal brink of war. For Musharraf, this means new risks. Ending Pakistan’s support for the Taliban and confronting Islamic militants at home was easier; he had the vast majority of Pakistan on his side. But Kashmir is a cause with which every Pakistani identifies. If Musharraf is going to back down on it, he will need something in return. Enter Washington. The United States should keep pressing Musharraf relentlessly but also make clear that if he does abandon terrorism permanently, Pakistan will reap rewards. Politically that means helping to restart talks between India and Pakistan on Kashmir. (It is even conceivable that New Delhi would agree to some quiet American mediation, one of Pakistan’s long-standing hopes.) Economically it would mean aid, trade and a permanent push from Washington to help Pakistan emerge as a modern, moderate Muslim nation. In other words, the best outcome for South Asia would be if India’s threats against Pakistan succeed—and so do Washington’s promises. © 2002 Newsweek, Inc. ***************************************************************** 42 India-Pakistan standoff and war on terrorism dominate Asian security conference Sun Jun 2, 7:15 AM ET By STEVEN GUTKIN, Associated Press Writer SINGAPORE - The United States touted its anti-terrorism agenda. India's defense minister assured the world his country would not act impulsively in its standoff with Pakistan. Experts warned of nuclear weapons falling into the wrong hands. During a two-day regional security conference that ended Sunday in Singapore, senior defense officials from around the Asia-Pacific region and elsewhere discussed strategies to fight terrorism and ensure security in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States. U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told the conference that the authors of those attacks "have Asia in their sights" and are seeking to impose "a medieval, intolerant and tyrannical way of life." The nations of Southeast Asia — where an al-Qaida linked terrorist network has been discovered — called for more financial aid from the West, a shared intelligence database between neighboring nations, joint war games and a fund to help countries recover from any future terrorist attacks. Lee Kuan Yew, the founding father of modern Singapore, opened the conference with a plea to the United States to re-establish military links with Indonesia — the world's most populous Muslim nation. Those links were severed in 1999 to punish the Indonesian military for human rights abuses in East Timor, a former Indonesian territory which recently gained independence. "If the U.S. does not re-engage the (Indonesian military) and help it reform itself, a young, newly elected government will not have an effective institution to support its policies. The stability of Indonesia is crucial to the future of the region and the strategic balance in East Asia," he said. Yet the conference's main talking points — regional security, terrorism and arms proliferation — were largely overshadowed by the standoff between nuclear rivals India and Pakistan. The countries have deployed more than a million troops on their border in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir, raising fears of a war. Pakistan did not send a delegation to the Singapore conference. But Indian Defense Minister George Fernandes was here — and he wept while speaking to the delegates about attacks by Islamic militants on India. "The country is angry and anguished," he said. "The pressure on our prime minister ... to launch an attack is intense." Fernandes told The Associated Press Sunday that a proposed meeting between the leaders of India and Pakistan at a regional summit in Kazakhstan this week is not possible. "I do not see that possibility at all, because if there is to be any kind of talking then the cross-border terrorism has to stop forthwith," he said, adding that Pakistan must also hand over 14 alleged Indian terrorists if there is to be a meeting. India is demanding that Pakistan halt cross-border infiltration into the Indian-controlled part of Kashmir and crack down on Islamic militants believed responsible for terrorist attacks in India. Kashmir, claimed by both India and Pakistan, is at the heart of the current conflict. It was also the cause of two of the three wars fought between India and Pakistan. Fernandes told the defense conference that his country will not be "impulsive" in its standoff with Pakistan, but will be steadfast in the fight against terrorism. Later, Fernandes played down concerns that the current conflict could spin out of control. "We don't see the makings of any kind of an escalation that takes one to the extreme," he said. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf told CNN Saturday that "any sane individual cannot even think of" using nuclear weapons, "whatever the pressures." Responding to those comments in his interview with the AP, Fernandes said, "I'm very happy that he (Musharraf) has realized that only the insane would go for a bomb." During one panel discussion Sunday, U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Wolfowitz said that the prospect of terrorists developing nuclear capabilities is "more frightening and dangerous" than nuclear proliferation nation-states. He said the concern that "nuclear weapons or scientists with nuclear expertise (could) fall into the hands of rogue regimes or terrorist groups is a very, very real one." The Singapore conference was organized by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies and attended by more than 150 defense officials. In Asia, gatherings of foreign ministers and heads of state are relatively common, but similar meetings among defense ministers are rare. U.S. Senator Chuck Hagel, a Republican from Nebraska and a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the conference was a useful forum for devising common security strategies. "No one nation is strong enough, powerful enough, independent enough to deal with these things by themselves," Hagel said. "This conference dealt with these issues and it was important because it connected our interests." Copyright © 2002 The Associated Press. ***************************************************************** 43 Official: India-Pakistan Meeting Off Sun Jun 2, 8:50 AM ET By DIRK BEVERIDGE, Associated Press Writer As the Indian and Pakistani leaders headed to a summit where they are unlikely to talk peace — or even talk at all — India's defense minister said Sunday that his nation won't be "impulsive" and sought to ease fears of a nuclear war. The United Nations has ordered its staffers in India and Pakistan to send their families home, and the United States and other countries have advised their citizens to leave amid fears over the standoff, marked by daily shelling and gunfire across the line that divides Kashmir Indian Defense Minister George Fernandes, in a tearful speech at a security conference in Singapore, assured the world his country "will not be impulsive" despite what he called heavy public pressure for military action against Pakistan, which India accuses of responsibility for attacks on its soil. "We don't see the makings of any kind of an escalation that takes one to the extreme," said Fernandes, who reiterated India's pledge to avoid first use of nuclear weapons. "There is no way India will ever use a nuclear weapon other than as a deterrent," he said. Pakistan, which has a smaller military, has not ruled out a first strike, but Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, in an interview with CNN on Saturday, said that no "sane individual" would let tensions between the two nations escalate into a nuclear war. Musharraf made no public comment as he left Islamabad on Sunday for the regional summit to be held in Almaty, Kazakhstan, from Monday through Wednesday. He stopped overnight in Tajikistan. Musharraf has said for months he wants dialogue with Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, but Vajpayee says he will not hold talks until Pakistan ends cross-border attacks by Islamic militants based in Pakistan. Fernandes said a meeting between Musharraf and Vajpayee at the summit is not possible. "I do not see that possibility at all, because if there is to be any kind of talking then the cross-border terrorism has to stop forthwith," he said in an interview with The Associated Press. Most of the cross-border attacks are in Kashmir, a divided Himalayan province claimed in its entirety by both India and Pakistan. The disputed region has been the flashpoint of two of the three wars India and Pakistan have fought since independence 55 years ago. More than 60,000 civilians, Indian troops and guerrillas have been killed in the Indian-ruled portion of Kashmir — Hindu-majority India's only mostly Muslim state — since Islamic separatists launched an insurgency in 1989. Under pressure from the United States and India, Musharraf pledged in January to crack down on Islamic militants and said Pakistan must not be used as a base for terrorism attacks anywhere. But India says cross-border attacks have continued. "There is no plan for talks," Vajpayee said as he left New Delhi for the summit. "If we see the result on the ground of Gen. Musharraf's statement, we shall certainly give it a serious consideration." Vajpayee said he would meet in Almaty with President Jiang Zemin of China, which controls 19 percent of Kashmir — a principality whose sovereignty was not settled by British partition of the subcontinent in 1947. India controls 46 percent and Pakistan controls 35 percent. Although India says Islamic militants crossing the border from Pakistan have carried out terror attacks, including a deadly assault on the Indian Parliament in December that led to the current military standoff, Musharraf has insisted he is cracking down. Musharraf disputes India's contention that Pakistan actively helps the militants, saying his military government provides only moral and diplomatic support for Kashmiri separatists who want either independence or a merger with Islamic Pakistan. Pakistan will send envoys to the United States, Europe, the Middle East and Asia on a diplomatic offensive to relay Islamabad's position on the crisis with India, the government announced Sunday. The emissaries will carry letters from Musharraf stating that Pakistan is ready to negotiate but that India does not want to talk. This week, the United States is separately dispatching Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage to the region to try to ease tensions. Meanwhile, hundreds of people have fled their homes in border areas, with some on the Pakistani side loading up their household goods Sunday on wagons and trolleys. "We are living in a very dangerous situation," said 65-year-old shoemaker Mohammed Sadiq. "The Indians shelled this area overnight, cutting off electricity and communication. They fired for about an hour. It's very difficult for us to stay here." In Singapore, Fernandes wept as he talked about violence in Kashmir, a region whose bloodied past and uncertain future raise strong emotions on both sides of the border. "I'm sorry for the difficulty I have every time I think of this," he said. "The country is angry and anguished. The pressure on our prime minister ... to launch an attack is intense." Since the raid on India's parliament, which killed 14 people, India and Pakistan have amassed a million troops along their border and the Line of Control that divides Kashmir. The forces have traded artillery and small arms fire almost daily, killing dozens of people and forcing thousands in Kashmir to flee their homes. Copyright © 2002 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 44 Give me shelter or give me -- uh, nuclear death? Rob Morse [rmorse@sfchronicle.com] Friday, May 31, 2002 If you're in the open and see the "brilliant nuclear flash," take cover immediately behind a wall, under a car or in a ditch. "Curl up in a ball, cover up your head and eyes until the heat and blast passes, then go to the nearest shelter." Those are the basics of ducking and covering, as recorded in a Civil Defense Radio spot from the 1950s collected on the Web site www.civildefensemuseum.com [http://www.civildefensemuseum.com] by Dallas resident Eric Green. The sad fact is that you can learn more about what to do in case of nuclear attack by terrorists in Green's semiwacky Civil Defense Museum than you can from the U.S. Office of Homeland Defense. All I found were speeches. "The Homeland Defense Web site is just a set of links leading nowhere," says Tucson physician Jane M. Orient, head of Doctors for Disaster Preparedness. And good luck finding a public shelter after an al Qaeda blast. They were closed in the '90s, and now the only people with shelters are high public officials. Although the nuclear threat isn't as huge as it was in the Cold War, it may be coming to a neighborhood theater of war near you. And what can you do? Put your head between your legs and kiss your keister goodbye, as we used to say in the days of Mutually Assured Destruction -- which doesn't seem as mad as its acronym, when you compare Soviets vs. Americans to who-knows-who vs. Americans. Yes, even though my formative movie was "Dr. Strangelove," I'm feeling nostalgic for the Cold War. We never learned to stop worrying and love the bomb, but at least our military knew where they were located, down to the last Soviet missile submarine on our global sonar net. Now there could be a bomb in cargo on the docks. Who knows? The Customs Service said this week it is equipping all inspectors with pocket-size radiation detectors. I am not reassured, because there are only 4, 000 customs inspectors and they examine only 2 percent of the cargo containers entering the country. None of us should be reassured about anything. As shown by its recent mixed messages about terrorist threats, the White House doesn't know anything. If the FBI knows anything, it's in a memo buried on some bureaucrat's desk. We're on our own, and that's a good thing to keep in mind in an age of renewed interest in fallout shelters and panic rooms. The fallout shelter was an uncomfortable joke when I was a kid in the '50s. Hardly anyone had one (besides high government officials, of course), despite the academic Cold War revival, which sees shelters as the archetypal architecture of the time. UC Santa Barbara even had a design show recently called "Nuclear Families: The California Home Fallout Shelter Movement, 1959- 1969." Get ready for a new movement, Fallout Shelter Revival. Shelter stalwarts such as Dr. Orient are being heard from again. After Sept. 11, she wrote an article called "Civil Defense: the Forgotten Defense" in which she said the government could find buildings to use as shelters and stock them with food, water and, to protect thyroid glands, potassium iodide. Orient says the Swiss building code mandates shelters to protect against chemical, biological and nuclear attack, but she thinks our government won't help us. So what can we do? "First, buy a copy of 'Nuclear War Survival Skills' by Cresson Kearny," Orient says. "It's based on research by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and it even has instructions on how to build a functional radiation meter. The government doesn't have them. They've all been sold or trashed." You can find the 1987 edition of "Nuclear War Survival Skills" at www.oism.org/nwss [http://www.oism.org/nwss] . It was written with the Reagan-era Soviet threat in mind, but it has a chapter on dangers of transpacific fallout that is highly applicable at a time when India and Pakistan are threatening a nuclear exchange. Small nuclear blasts in Asia are particularly dangerous to us because the fallout is lower in the atmosphere and deposited in the first pass around the world when it is most radioactive. The 1987 edition of the book also comes with a foreword by Dr. Edward Teller, who wrote that "with relatively inexpensive governmental guidance and supplies, an educated American public could defend itself." Teller, the "father of the H-bomb" and one of the models for Dr. Strangelove, was writing at a time of huge nuclear threat. Now we face smaller Doomsday Machines, but we're not getting governmental guidance. You might want to learn how to duck and cover. Rob Morse's column appears Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. His e-mail address is rmorse@sfchronicle.com [rmorse@sfchronicle.com] . San Francisco Chronicle] ***************************************************************** 45 Japan Eyes Damage Control Over Nuclear Remarks Teruaki Ueno Jun. 02, 2002 03:27 TOKYO - Japan, the only country ever to suffer an atomic bomb attack, will ensure worried Asian neighbors that the world's second largest economy will never arm itself with nuclear weapons, Japanese officials said Sunday. Japan was scrambling to contain the fallout from remarks by a senior official who suggested the country could abandon a decades-old ban on nuclear weapons. ``The Japanese government will do whatever it take to explain to the countries of the world, especially Asian neighbors, that Japan will never possess nuclear weapons,'' a Japanese government official told Reuters. On Saturday, Japanese media quoted a unidentified senior government official as saying Tokyo could review its self-imposed ``three principles'' which ban the possession, production and import of nuclear arms. ``The principles are just like the constitution. But in the face of calls to amend the constitution, the amendment of the principles is also likely,'' Kyodo news agency quoted the official as saying. The Asahi Shimbun newspaper on Sunday quoted the official as saying he did not mean to say Tokyo could go nuclear. ``That was not what I really meant to say... It is not true that the current government is considering changing or reviewing the three non-nuclear principles,'' the official said. Mindful of a possible backlash from Asian neighbors such as China and South Korea, Koizumi moved quickly to deny that his government would break with the nuclear taboo. On Sunday, the official came under fire from both the ruling and opposition parties for his ``careless'' remarks. ``It was a careless statement we must not forgive,'' Nobutaka Machimura, Deputy Secretary General of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), said. ``No one in the LDP believes Japan should possess nuclear weapons.'' Opposition legislators said they would grill the official as well as Koizumi in parliament this week. ``Japan should argue for the abolition of nuclear weapons at the time when India and Pakistan, both of which have nuclear weapons, are in a dangerous situation,'' said Naoto Kan, Secretary General of the main opposition Democratic Party. ``But to the contrary, he mentioned the possibility of possessing nuclear weapons. I can't believe it.'' ENDLESS GAME The controversial statement was the latest in a series of hawkish remarks by officials and politicians seeking to challenge Japan's postwar pacifism. Ichiro Ozawa, leader of Japan's second-biggest opposition party, drew a sharp response from China in April when he said Japan could easily make nuclear weapons and surpass China's military might. On Friday, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda expressed what he called his personal view that it was not be against the law for Japan to possess nuclear weapons. ``Japan does not have offensive arms because it restricts military activity to self-defense,'' he said. He went on to say that Japan could have intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) even under its security policy that is specified as being exclusively for self-defense. Koizumi, known for his nationalistic tinge, has repeatedly vowed to press for a more active role for Japan's military in international peace-keeping with a view to revising the 1947 pacifist constitution. Calls have mounted from both ruling and opposition party politicians for changes to Japan's U.S.-drafted constitution, which renounces war as a sovereign right, in a clear break with the traditional taboo on debating revisions. Tokyo's ties with Asian neighbors have been strained by Koizumi's visits to a shrine honoring Japan's war dead -- the most recent in April -- and by Japan's approval of a history textbook that critics say whitewashes its wartime aggression. Asian neighbors, particularly China and South Korea which suffered most from Tokyo's wartime aggression, regard visits to the Shinto shrine by Japanese officials as signs of a revival of militarism. Copyright 2002, azcentral.com. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 46 Pakistan's President Says Nuclear War Unthinkable Sat Jun 1, 9:14 AM ET ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf tried to allay growing world fears of a nuclear war with India, saying in a television interview on Saturday no sane person could imagine such a conflict. "I don't think either side is that irresponsible to go to that limit," Musharraf told CNN. "I would even go to the extent of saying one shouldn't even be discussing these things, because any sane individual cannot even think of going into this unconventional war, whatever the pressures." A million troops are facing each other across the India-Pakistan border, where armies have kept up a steady exchange of mortar and machinegun fire that has left dozens dead and displaced thousands of villagers over the past fortnight. A number of Western nations urged their citizens to leave the region on Friday, fearing an escalation that could lead to nuclear war, while the United Nations said on Saturday it was preparing to evacuate families of its staff from Pakistan. India has said it will not be the first to strike with nuclear weapons. Musharraf said he would go beyond that. "We've called for a no-war pact (with India), that there shouldn't be any war," he said. "We've called for denuclearization of South Asia, so we've called for a reduction of forces." The troop build-up between the nuclear rivals was triggered by a December attack on the Indian Parliament that New Delhi blamed on Pakistani-based militants. Tensions flared again after a raid on an Indian army camp in the disputed region of Kashmir on May 14 that left 34 people dead, including the gunmen. India accuses Pakistan of arming and sending militants across the border into Indian Kashmir, the flashpoint that has brought India and Pakistan to war twice. There are fears that if violent attacks continue India will respond with military action that could spiral into all-out conflict. Musharraf told the cable network Pakistan "will fight militancy in any form," a key demand by India and world leaders trying to defuse the crisis. India wants to see words matched with deeds. "There has to be some movement forward," he said. "And the movement forward is certainly the issue of addressing, initiating the process of dialogue, and squarely addressing the dispute of Kashmir." India has been fighting a 12-year-old revolt against its rule in Jammu and Kashmir state in which tens of thousands of people have died. New Delhi blames Pakistan for stoking the rebellion. Musharraf said Kashmiri separatists are engaged in "a genuine freedom struggle" for self-determination. Pakistan has steadfastly denied it gives anything other than political support to what it calls freedom fighters. But Kashmir is a popular cause in Pakistan, and militants already based in the Indian-ruled part of the territory are capable of violence at any time. India controls 45 percent of Kashmir, Pakistan about 35 percent and China the rest. Copyright © 2002 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 47 On Nuclear Brink In Kashmir EDITORIALS May 31, 2002 War has a momentum independent of sound judgment. None of the European powers was said to have wanted war in 1914, but it happened anyway. An assassination was the spark that lit a conflagration that consumed a continent. Hostility is now thick in the air in South Asia. One million Pakistani and Indian troops face each other across the "line of control" in the Kashmir region that each nation claims as its own. One more terrorist attack on Indian territory by Islamic militants from Pakistan or a provocation from India could be the key that turns the engine of nuclear war. How quickly a battle of words could turn into death for millions. In recent days a chorus of world leaders has urged calm and negotiations. They should turn up the volume and use all the diplomatic and economic leverage at their disposal to keep these two neighbors from fighting. History is not encouraging. India and Pakistan have gone to war against one another three times since the 1947 partition of their subcontinent. Each government possesses nuclear warheads that can be delivered by airplane or missile. A U.S. intelligence assessment warns that a full-scale nuclear exchange between the two rivals could immediately kill 7 million to 12 million people and injure up to 7 million more. This count does not include those who would die later of radiation and other war-related conditions not only in the two countries but also in other nearby countries. Such a catastrophe would require massive humanitarian aid and perhaps military intervention from around the world. Surely most Pakistanis and Indians don't want a nuclear war. But President Pervez Musharraf in Islamabad apparently feels the need to rattle the sabers to appease religious extremists and militant elements in his armed forces. India's nationalist government is hardline in its response. Mr. Musharraf must redouble his efforts to stop fanatics from crossing the border into Indian Kashmir and attacking civilian as well as military targets. He pledged to do that in January, but the attacks have continued. He so vowed again this week. The general must carry out his promised crackdown on Islamic militants, both those with designs on Kashmir and those - the Taliban and al Qaeda - who use Pakistan as a sanctuary from which to plan more mischief in Afghanistan. In the long run, India and Pakistan must cultivate an environment that would allow a referendum in which the residents of Kashmir can choose their own destiny. ctnow.com is Copyright © 2002 by The Hartford Courant ***************************************************************** 48 Pakistan's President Says Nuclear War Unthinkable* /Sat Jun 1, 9:14 AM ET/ ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf tried to allay growing world fears of a nuclear war with India, saying in a television interview on Saturday no sane person could imagine such a conflict. "I don't think either side is that irresponsible to go to that limit," Musharraf told CNN. "I would even go to the extent of saying one shouldn't even be discussing these things, because any sane individual cannot even think of going into this unconventional war, whatever the pressures." A million troops are facing each other across the India-Pakistan border, where armies have kept up a steady exchange of mortar and machinegun fire that has left dozens dead and displaced thousands of villagers over the past fortnight. A number of Western nations urged their citizens to leave the region on Friday, fearing an escalation that could lead to nuclear war, while the United Nations said on Saturday it was preparing to evacuate families of its staff from Pakistan. India has said it will not be the first to strike with nuclear weapons. Musharraf said he would go beyond that. "We've called for a no-war pact (with India), that there shouldn't be any war," he said. "We've called for denuclearization of South Asia, so we've called for a reduction of forces." The troop build-up between the nuclear rivals was triggered by a December attack on the Indian Parliament that New Delhi blamed on Pakistani-based militants. Tensions flared again after a raid on an Indian army camp in the disputed region of Kashmir on May 14 that left 34 people dead, including the gunmen. India accuses Pakistan of arming and sending militants across the border into Indian Kashmir, the flashpoint that has brought India and Pakistan to war twice. There are fears that if violent attacks continue India will respond with military action that could spiral into all-out conflict. Musharraf told the cable network Pakistan "will fight militancy in any form," a key demand by India and world leaders trying to defuse the crisis. India wants to see words matched with deeds. "There has to be some movement forward," he said. "And the movement forward is certainly the issue of addressing, initiating the process of dialogue, and squarely addressing the dispute of Kashmir." India has been fighting a 12-year-old revolt against its rule in Jammu and Kashmir state in which tens of thousands of people have died. New Delhi blames Pakistan for stoking the rebellion. Musharraf said Kashmiri separatists are engaged in "a genuine freedom struggle" for self-determination. Pakistan has steadfastly denied it gives anything other than political support to what it calls freedom fighters. But Kashmir is a popular cause in Pakistan, and militants already based in the Indian-ruled part of the territory are capable of violence at any time. India controls 45 percent of Kashmir, Pakistan about 35 percent and China the rest. Copyright © 2002 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or ***************************************************************** 49 *India-Pakistan standoff and war on terrorism dominate Asian security conference * /Sun Jun 2, 7:15 AM ET/ /By STEVEN GUTKIN, Associated Press Writer/ SINGAPORE - The United States touted its anti-terrorism agenda. India's defense minister assured the world his country would not act impulsively in its standoff with Pakistan. Experts warned of nuclear weapons falling into the wrong hands. During a two-day regional security conference that ended Sunday in Singapore, senior defense officials from around the Asia-Pacific region and elsewhere discussed strategies to fight terrorism and ensure security in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States. U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told the conference that the authors of those attacks "have Asia in their sights" and are seeking to impose "a medieval, intolerant and tyrannical way of life." The nations of Southeast Asia ? where an al-Qaida linked terrorist network has been discovered ? called for more financial aid from the West, a shared intelligence database between neighboring nations, joint war games and a fund to help countries recover from any future terrorist attacks. Lee Kuan Yew, the founding father of modern Singapore, opened the conference with a plea to the United States to re-establish military links with Indonesia ? the world's most populous Muslim nation. Those links were severed in 1999 to punish the Indonesian military for human rights abuses in East Timor, a former Indonesian territory which recently gained independence. "If the U.S. does not re-engage the (Indonesian military) and help it reform itself, a young, newly elected government will not have an effective institution to support its policies. The stability of Indonesia is crucial to the future of the region and the strategic balance in East Asia," he said. Yet the conference's main talking points ? regional security, terrorism and arms proliferation ? were largely overshadowed by the standoff between nuclear rivals India and Pakistan. The countries have deployed more than a million troops on their border in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir mir, raising fears of a war. Pakistan did not send a delegation to the Singapore conference. But Indian Defense Minister George Fernandes was here ? and he wept while speaking to the delegates about attacks by Islamic militants on India. "The country is angry and anguished," he said. "The pressure on our prime minister ... to launch an attack is intense." Fernandes told The Associated Press Sunday that a proposed meeting between the leaders of India and Pakistan at a regional summit in Kazakhstan this week is not possible. "I do not see that possibility at all, because if there is to be any kind of talking then the cross-border terrorism has to stop forthwith," he said, adding that Pakistan must also hand over 14 alleged Indian terrorists if there is to be a meeting. India is demanding that Pakistan halt cross-border infiltration into the Indian-controlled part of Kashmir and crack down on Islamic militants believed responsible for terrorist attacks in India. Kashmir, claimed by both India and Pakistan, is at the heart of the current conflict. It was also the cause of two of the three wars fought between India and Pakistan. Fernandes told the defense conference that his country will not be "impulsive" in its standoff with Pakistan, but will be steadfast in the fight against terrorism. Later, Fernandes played down concerns that the current conflict could spin out of control. "We don't see the makings of any kind of an escalation that takes one to the extreme," he said. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf told CNN Saturday that "any sane individual cannot even think of" using nuclear weapons, "whatever the pressures." Responding to those comments in his interview with the AP, Fernandes said, "I'm very happy that he (Musharraf) has realized that only the insane would go for a bomb." During one panel discussion Sunday, U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Wolfowitz said that the prospect of terrorists developing nuclear capabilities is "more frightening and dangerous" than nuclear proliferation nation-states. He said the concern that "nuclear weapons or scientists with nuclear expertise (could) fall into the hands of rogue regimes or terrorist groups is a very, very real one." The Singapore conference was organized by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies and attended by more than 150 defense officials. In Asia, gatherings of foreign ministers and heads of state are relatively common, but similar meetings among defense ministers are rare. U.S. Senator Chuck Hagel, a Republican from Nebraska and a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the conference was a useful forum for devising common security strategies. "No one nation is strong enough, powerful enough, independent enough to deal with these things by themselves," Hagel said. "This conference dealt with these issues and it was important because it connected our interests." Copyright © 2002 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 50 Tri-Valley Herald June 01, 2002 - 3:07:28 AM MST DOE plans new facility to make nuclear 'pits' FROM STAFF REPORTS A modern facility for manufacturing the radioactive spheres -- called plutonium pits -- that trigger thermonuclear weapons explosions will begin operating by 2020, Energy Department officials announced Friday. While an interim pit production facility at Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico is expected to produce new pits for nuclear warheads in the next budget year, that facility "cannot support long-term stockpile needs," officials said. It will, though, allow the Energy Department's nuclear security agency "to meet its current manufacturing requirements and provide valuable information for the design of the new pit facility," the announcement states. Scientists at Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos labs are responsible for designing the explosive components in nuclear weapons. The United States is the only nuclear power that does not have an operating pit production facility, Energy Department officials said. The pits, which are designed to implode and trigger hydrogen bomb blasts, were formerly produced at Rocky Flats, an Energy Department facility in Colorado. That site, which ceased operations in 1989, is now in the midst of a major cleanup, and much of the remaining plutonium parts there are expected to be moved to Savannah River Site, a nuclear weapons production site in South Carolina. Savannah River Site is reportedly under consideration as a potential home for the new pit manufacturing facility. "The new facility will reestablish the capability to manufacture all pit types in the nation's current nuclear stockpile and meet any future requirements in an environmentally compliant manner," Energy Department officials said. ©1999-2001 by MediaNews Group, Inc. and ANG Newspapers ***************************************************************** 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: *****************************************************************