***************************************************************** 12/01/02 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 10.311 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** Send News Stories to news@energy-net.org with title on subject line and first line of body NUCLEAR POLICY 1 U$ nominated strange inspector to be weapons inspector 2 Russia opens doors of top nuclear institute for Indians 3 Energy woes hide rare promise 4 Monitors give Pyongyang arms deadline 5 Bush, Koizumi talks detailed policy on N. Korea 6 President justifies India’s nuclear programme 7 AES criticises £650m bail-out 8 India: N-proliferation must be halted: Kalam 9 TCOG, KEDO Meetings Likely to Be Postponed Until After Election 10 U.N. Agency Demands North Korea End Atomic Program 11 Beijing's offer exposes real threat NUCLEAR REACTORS 12 US: Fear of a nuclear plant attack hits close to home 13 US: Hidden in plain view 14 Japan orders nuclear reactor closed for false data NUCLEAR SAFETY 15 Fire on nuclear submarine of Pacific Fleet extinguished 16 US: [radiation-survivors] If You Poison Us : BOOK 17 US: [radiation-survivors] Dr. Rosalie Bertell 16 Million Radiation 18 US: Toxic Munitions And Deadly Vaccines 19 GULF WAR VETERAN WHO BATTLED GOVERNMENT FOR BENEFITS DIES 20 UK: WORK GOES ON WITH REFITTING CONTRACT 21 UK: Dispute over new government cancer study 22 UK: 90 MIN SHOWDOWN (wep-test victim showdown) 23 Kiwi war vets set to join nuclear fallout class action 24 German authorities foil attempts to buy switches suitable for NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 25 US: Uranium mill remains hot issue 26 Novaya Zemlya repository plan scrapped 27 US: OP: SC spent fuel transit proposal 28 US: Lawmakers Line Up to Change Utah's Initiative Process 29 US: A 4th Term for Leavitt? Voters Vary 30 US: Nevada says DOE must get state hazardous waste permit* 31 AU: 'Do not bring waste inland'* 32 Nuclear waste activists draw promise NUCLEAR WEAPONS 33 [southnews] Australians rally nation-wide for peace 34 Rapporteur Visits Moscow on Pasko Fact-Finding Mission 35 UK: DANGER OF THE ANORAKS' BIBLE 36 British considered A-bombing Nazis -- The Washington Times 37 Russian concern over Pakistan 38 US: U.S. News: Einstein's pacifism did not stop him from urging 39 No Iraq atomic evidence yet, still early days-IAEA 40 New fears Chechens may seek nukes 41 TERRORIST GUIDE TO TRAINSPOTTING US DEPT. OF ENERGY 42 [radiation-survivors] Hanford downwinder files appeal over 43 DOE capping underground waste wells 44 Lab working with virtual nuts, bolts 45 State Mandates Cleanup at Lab* * 46 EPA could affect plant cleanup 47 Pantex brings jobs, anxiety to Panhandle OTHER NUCLEAR 48 Bush Makes a Perilous NATO Pledge 49 Some in GOP see another 'axis of evil'; analysts encourage engagemen 50 Ridge Tackles Toughest Merger Since Caesar and Cleopatra ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 U$ nominated strange inspector to be weapons inspector Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2002 03:03:50 -0600 (CST) This is a remarkable aspect of information warfare - where nothing is what is seems to be. There will be a Hollywood movie depicting the "life of an ex-Marine in Babylonia." Cheers MichaelP ========================== http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=35673 Independent (London) 29 November 2002 14:36 GMT By Kim Sengupta in Baghdad UN struggles to explain away presence of weapons inspector with S&M fetish The United Nations inspection mission in Iraq has been fully prepared for controversy over chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. Instead, the first crisis it faces concerns sado-masochism, pansexuality and leather fetishes. Senior officials were trying to explain yesterday how such a crucial mission came to include an American former Secret Service officer who has no specialised degree in any of the relevant sciences, but considerable expertise in unusual sexual practices. Harvey John "Jack" McGeorge was nominated for the mission by the United States government. The revelation of his personal details has also led to the disclosure that no background checks have been made on any of the monitors. Mr McGeorge, who once served in the US Marines, is waiting in New York to join the Unmovic (UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission) in Baghdad. He runs a business offering seminars on "weaponisation of chemical and biological agents" at $595 a session, and advertises his services as a "certified United Nations inspector". An internet search has also revealed that Mr McGeorge offers training seminars of a different kind involving "various acts conducted with knives and ropes". This relates to his role as co-founder of Black Rose, a "pansexual S&M group" based in Washington, and also as a founder of Leather Leadership Conference IN, which "produces training sessions for current and potential leaders of the sadomasochistic/ leather/fetish community". Mr McGeorge said a State Department official invited him to apply for a job with the UN team, and neither the Americans nor the United Nations asked about his S&M background. He was interviewed by Hans Blix, the chief inspector, and trained with Unmovic in February 2001. He told The Washington Post: "I have been very upfront with people in the past about what I do, and it has never prevented me from getting a job or doing a service. I am who I am. I am not ashamed of who I am P not one bit." He added that he was now considering resigning his UN post. Iraqi officials, who have always claimed that American members of the team may not be what they seem, were still digesting the news. A Foreign Ministry official said: "It is very disturbing that the Americans have put forward someone like this. Apart from his strange sexual life, he does not have the academic qualification for these complex issues. And he is also a former member of their Secret Service. How many other of these types are they getting into the UN mission?" A UN official said in Baghdad: "It is very difficult. We are hoping the man will now resign, and we can draw a veil over this." Ewen Buchanan, an Unmovic spokesman, said: "As the UN, with people applying from many countries, we do not have the capacity to carry out background checks. I believe Mr McGeorge is technically very competent. He knows his subject, which is weapons." A State Department official confirmed that Mr McGeorge was recommended to Unmovic, and that no background checks were made. The Bush administration has been accused of undermining the Iraq mission, and US officials have claimed that Mr Blix had chosen an inexperienced team, leaving out inspectors with previous experience of working in Iraq who were deemed to be too aggressive in pursuing their task. There have also been complaints from Washington that not enough American and British personnel were chosen for the teams. ====================== *** NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Feel free to distribute widely but PLEASE acknowledge the original source. *** ***************************************************************** 2 Russia opens doors of top nuclear institute for Indians INDO-RUSSIA MOSCOW, DEC 1 (PTI) In a major decision ahead of the Indo-Russian summit, Russia has decided to open the doors of its top nuclear research institute to Indian scientists. The United Nuclear Research Institute (UNRI) situated in the town of Dubna near Moscow, closed so far for Indian scientists has decided to grant Indians the status of an "associated member" its Director Vladimir Kadyshevsky told reporters yesterday. Closer cooperation in tapping the energy of atom would be one of the key issues during summit meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee beginning Tuesday in New Delhi. An Indian delegation is arriving here shortly to discuss modalities for India's participation in advanced nuclear research in UNRI. UNRI was established in 1956 as a joint nuclear research institute for the Eastern Bloc countries and China, which was also its member till 1965. Currently 18 countries including some former Soviet allies in East and central Europe are its members. However, India did not have access to its research facilities so far, as New Delhi is not a signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT). About half of the total Soviet inventions in nuclear physics were born at this institute. Kadyshevsky said China, which surrendered its membership in 1965 due to political reasons, had also applied for restoration of membership, while the United States is also likely to join as an associate member. ©Hathway Investments Private Limited 2002 ***************************************************************** 3 Energy woes hide rare promise Times Online November 30, 2002 Tempus by Angela Jameson PERMANENTLY low prices for an essential commodity such as electricity sounds like a vote winner. But the Labour Party’s 1997 manifesto commitment to stamp out what it considered to be a rigged market in electricity has left generators squealing. In the past month TXU Europe has gone into administration and British Energy, the nuclear generator that supplies a fifth of the country’s power, only avoided the same fate by the grace of a government bailout. AES, the American energy group that owns Drax, the biggest coal-fired power station in the country, is also on the brink and entered into standstill agreements with bondholders this week. British Energy’s executives must now persuade its creditors to accept a financial restructuring that will see them lose about two thirds of their money. Shareholders have already lost just about everything and will hold only a tiny element of the company if the deal is accepted. Thursday’s announcement suggests there is very little reason to expect that British Energy shares will deliver much, if any, upside in the near term. If creditors do not accept the restructuring, shareholders could be left with nothing. But since it is quite possible that small shareholders will find it costs them more to sell their stock than their investments are worth, they have little option but to hold on in hope. But what of the other players? Does the Government’s rescue plan for British Energy signal the end of its zeal for low prices and economic regulation? For reasons of safety and security of supply, British Energy’s plants have to be kept running — whether it is the administrator or Adrian Montague in charge. The Government also now realises it must find a tool to act alongside the new electricity trading arrangements (Neta) that encourage investors to stick with this market in the long term. At the moment only renewable energy sources are financially encouraged, and even they are getting cold feet. The point of Neta, the trading arrangement that flushed out many of the electricity industry’s problems, was to squeeze out excess capacity and reduce prices. With wholesale prices down 35 per cent in the past two years, the latter has been achieved very successfully, but observers believe there is still 22 per cent to 25 per cent of excess capacity. The theory is that the prolonged pain of low prices will force the most inefficient or overgeared generators out of business, so reducing capacity naturally. But the events of recent weeks suggest that this process could take some time to complete. Since TXU’s demise, there has been considerable volatility in available capacity, but no one player has actually mothballed plant. Given the continuing uncertainty, generators are reluctant to take plant off-line and the suggestions are that the National Grid, which recently put out a notice for extra capacity, would not want to see that happen. Yet prices, although off the bottom, still remain unfeasibly low at between £16 and £17 per megawatt hour, compared with the cost to produce of £18 for gas-fired plant and £23 for nuclear plant. And there is no sign of an immediate recovery. The only likely triggers are the introduction of sulphur emissions standards in 2005, which could prompt the closure of coal-fired stations and the beginning of the Magnox nuclear reactor closure programme, in 2008. Despite this bleak scenario, individual companies have demonstrated that there is still money to be made in power. Investors who have been with the sector since privatisation have done nicely out of the European utilities’ desire to snap up UK market expertise. Innogy and Powergen have fallen to RWE and E.ON respectively. And in recent months the sector has outperformed the rest of the FTSE, primarily because of its defensive qualities and good yields. One exception is International Power, the overseas power station developer whose shares have underperformed since it was demerged from National Power in 2000. A takeover remains unlikely. Moreover, profit increases have been generated by adding new plant, but that programme has ended and the current pricing environment, coupled with increasing concern over greenfield developments, does not encourage confidence. That leaves just two independent integrated electricity companies, Scottish &Southern and ScottishPower, remaining in the sector. Scottish &Southern’s track record for cost cutting is second to none and, despite exposure to TXU, the efficiency of its plant will help it through the current price environment. ScottishPower’s problems in the US appear to be behind it and that part of the business is starting to motor. Both are worth buying. tempus@thetimes.co.uk [tempus@thetimes.co.uk] Sunday Times. ***************************************************************** 4 Monitors give Pyongyang arms deadline Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Full arsenal declaration by March Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington Saturday November 30, 2002 [http://www.guardian.co.uk] America's diplomatic effort to defuse the nuclear standoff with North Korea gathered pace yesterday as the UN added to pressure on Pyongyang to dismantle its weapons programme. A resolution from the UN's nuclear monitoring agency in Vienna urged North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons programme, and to submit its facilities for verification. It gave Pyongyang, which has refused to admit inspectors, until March to submit a declaration on its arsenal. "I think the message is clear: North Korea should cooperate," the atomic energy agency's director, Mohammed el-Baradei, told reporters. He said the agency could decide to take the matter to the UN security council in March, after North Korea responds to the resolution. Mr el-Baradei spoke after several weeks of concentrated activity by the US aimed at forging a single-track approach with Washington's main allies in the region, Japan and South Korea, on how best to apply economic and diplomatic pressure against Pyongyang. "We have been very successful in bringing the Japanese, the Chinese, and, I would say, the Russians, also, and the South Koreans together on the strategy," the secretary of state, Colin Powell, said recently. "So, the North Koreans now know that, as long as they are participating in this kind of activity, they are not going to be able to solve their economic problems." Mr Powell's comments indicate a shift in US policy. Officially, Washington refuses to negotiate with Pyongyang until it unilaterally dismantles its uranium enrichment programme. However, it has sent signals that America has no intention of war, and that North Korea could expect economic benefits if it scraps its programme. Yesterday Japan lent its support to Mr el-Baradei's appeal. "The government of Japan strongly hopes that North Korea will reflect on this resolution seriously and take concrete action promptly to dismantle its nuclear programme," the foreign ministry said in a statement. Despite occasionally bellicose rhetoric, Washington appears anxious to avoid a military showdown with North Korea even though its nuclear weapons programme is more advanced than Iraq's and despite its status as the eastern end of what President George Bush calls an "axis of evil". In October, North Korea startled visiting US diplomats with the frank admission that it had continued to develop nuclear weapons in defiance of a 1994 agreement. Since then, the US has tried to construct a united front with Japan and South Korea to apply pressure on Pyongyang to give up its weapons. Its two allies have at times been reluctant to jeopardise their own policies in the region, which have focused on re-engagement with Pyongyang. But two weeks ago, Washington secured their agreement to cut off fuel shipments to North Korea. There were indications this week that North Korea was just as eager to negotiate its way out of the standoff. Officials said it was willing to give up its weapons programme in return for a non-aggression pact with Washington. Useful links [http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/] [http://www.kcna.co.jp] [http://www.tcsaz.com/koreanwar.html] [http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/kn.html] [http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/ks.html] [UP] Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002 ***************************************************************** 5 Bush, Koizumi talks detailed policy on N. Korea Mainichi Interactive - Top News WASHINGTON -- U.S. President George W. Bush told Japan's prime minister in September that he would support Tokyo's move to normalize relations with North Korea only if Pyongyang abandoned its nuclear weapons program, sources said. Details of the sensitive talks between Bush and Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in New York on Sept. 12 were not disclosed to the press when officials accompanying Koizumi met with reporters. A top U.S. government official has told the Mainichi that Bush conveyed his support for Koizumi's visit to North Korea during a telephone conversation between the two leaders in early September. But Bush added that he had something "important" to tell the prime minister that couldn't be disclose over the telephone, the American official said on condition of anonymity. It wasn't until Koizumi visited New York that Bush told him about North Korea's suspected nuclear weapons program. As evidence of North Korea's covert nuclear weapons program, Bush cited documents Washington obtained showing that Pyongyang had purchased a machine to enrich uranium from Pakistan. Then Bush asked Koizumi to convey a message to North Korean leader Kim Jong Il that the international community would never tolerate such a program. Bush also told Koizumi that if he clearly expressed Washington's firm stance on Pyongyang's nuclear program to Kim, America would support Japan's diplomatic normalization with North Korea. When Koizumi asked whether Washington would allow him to discuss details of uranium enrichment with Kim, Bush said it would be a job for American officials such as James Kelly, U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, the official said. (Mainichi Shimbun, Nov. 30, 2002) Related stories: Tough talks with N. Korea end in stalemate [http://mdn.mainichi.co.jp/news/archive/200210/30/index.html] Koizumi urges Bush gain int'l support before attacking Iraq [http://mdn.mainichi.co.jp/news/archive/200209/13/20020913p2a00m0 dm007000c.html] © 2002 The Mainichi Newspapers Co. Under the ***************************************************************** 6 President justifies India’s nuclear programme IndiaExpress.Com 16.55 IST 01st Dec 2002 By IndiaExpress Bureau President A P J Abdul Kalam justified the country’s nuclear programme saying that nobody can sit idle when the neighbor is developing nuclear bombs. Asserting that only ‘strength respects strength', Mr. Kalam defended the expenditure on Defence matters. 'The economic and political freedom of the nation is very important,' stressed Mr. Kalam. The President was interacting with the students of the Coast Guard Public School in Daman after presenting 'colors' to the sentinels of the Indian maritime force. 'We spent fraction of an amount on Defence compared to our neighbors.' Praising the role of the Coast Guard in protecting the country's seas, the President said "500 years ago Daman was taken by foreigners, who came by sea route, because of our weakness, dis-unity and many issues of smaller kingdom". The architect of Pokhran II tests of 1998, Mr. Kalam parried questions on nuclear non-proliferation stating 'India is now a nuclear weapon state.' India's nuclear weapon programme, the President said, was for peace, adding that disarmament was possible only if all developed nations dismantle their nuclear arsenals. The President, whose vision is to make India a superpower by 2020, urged the students to think big. "Young minds ignited with mission is the most powerful of country's resources". The President, who on his arrival mingled with the boys and girls, told them to have a "role model" in life. Taking keen interest in the questions posed by students, the cheerful President praised the boys for giving "fantastic answers". Stating that children are like scientists, Kalam asked them to question the marvel of the universe. "Science comes out of questions", he said and listed scientists like Einstein, C V Raman, Chandrashekhar Subramaniam saying "they made it big because they asked questions." The students rendered 'my mother' a poem penned by the President. The President also recited his own poem 'song of youth' which says that 'I will work and sweat for a great vision to transform India into a developed nation powered by economic strength and value system.' ***************************************************************** 7 AES criticises £650m bail-out [http://www.ft.com] By Andrew Taylor Published: November 30 2002 4:00 | Last Updated: November 30 2002 4:00 The US owner of Britain's largest power station has attacked the government for bailing out ailing rival generator British Energy. AES, the owner of Drax power station in Yorkshire, which is also struggling to avoid administration, criticised ministers for extending a £650m emergency loan to British Energy as part of a longer term restructuring plan. It said: "The UK government's support for British Energy distorts the wholesale electricity market and adversely affects the trading position of other electricity producers." Under the rescue package, the government would pay £150m-£200m a year over the next decade to help meet British Energy's nuclear decommissioning liabilities. Drax has agreed "in principle" a standstill agreement with banks and bondholders which would protect its finances, in the case of a default, for the next six months. Andrew Taylor FT.com ***************************************************************** 8 India: N-proliferation must be halted: Kalam THE TIMES OF INDIA CITIES: MUMBAI INDIATIMES TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ SUNDAY, DECEMBER 01, 2002 11:22:25 PM ] DAMAN: India cannot afford to sit idle when her neighbours are developing nuclear weapons, President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam told students of the Coast Guard public school on Sunday. “Remember strength respects strength,’’ he said. He was answering schoolchildren who asked him why India was producing nuclear arms despite preaching non-violence. “All nuclear states should collectively reduce their nuclear arsenal and only one country shouldn’t be singled out for this,’’ he added. Earlier in the day, Mr Kalam presented the ‘President’s Colours’ to the Coast Guard at a ceremony held at the local air station for completing 25 years in the defence services. A host of dignitaries, including Union defence minister George Fernandes, were present at the ceremony. Deputy Commandant Sandip Sofaya received the ‘colours’ on behalf of the Coast Guard, which was inducted in the defence services in February 1977. Earlier,Mr Kalam inspected the guard of honour and was given a 21-gun salute. Congratulating the Coast Guard on its meritorious service in the last 25 years, Mr Kalam said that India lost its independence 500 years ago to the French, Portuguese, Dutch and the British because its coast was unguarded. “It was our weakness once upon a time, but now it is strengthened, thanks to the efforts of the Coast Guard,’’ Mr Kalam said. “Every one of us has to ensure that India does not lose its political and economic independence once again,’’Mr Kalam said.He urged the Coast Guard to go ahead with its duties. “The blessings of the entire nation are with you,’’ he added. After the ceremony,Mr Kalam visited the Coast Guard public school to meet the children.Mr Kalam,who is known for his affection for children, once again showered his love on the schoolchildren from Daman. Mr Kalam faced a barrage of questions from the young brains who asked him questions about India’s nuclear programme, the nonproliferation treaty, his favourite sport and his hair style. The soft-spoken Kalam urged the kids to ‘dream’. “You will succeed in life only if you have a vision,’’ Mr Kalam said. The President preferred an interactive session with the kids and encouraged them to ask questions. A little girl asked him about his peculiar hair-style, “I cut it, but it grows back, I cannot help it,’’ he said. When a student asked whether he liked cricket, Mr Kalam said he used to play badminton and volleyball. Asserting that a scientist never retires, Mr Kalam said he was continuing his guidance to two students on brain research even after assuming the post of the President. Talking about his role models, he said three persons who had influenced his life were Vikram Sarabhai, Prof Satish Dhawan and Prof Prem Prakash.Mr Kalam said while Mr Sarabhai inspired him, Mr Dhawan taught him how to face failures in life and from Mr Prakash he learnt management and administration. The school children, as a mark of respect to Mr Kalam, recited a poem written by him on his mother. Copyright � 2002 Times Internet Limited. ***************************************************************** 9 TCOG, KEDO Meetings Likely to Be Postponed Until After Election KoreaTimes : Hankooki.com > Korea Times > Nation By Shim Jae-yun Staff Reporter A three-way meeting between South Korea, the United States and Japan for discussion of North Korea¡¯s nuclear issue is likely to be put off until after the Dec. 19 presidential election, according to Seoul officials yesterday. ``The exact date has yet to be fixed for the next round of the Trilateral Coordination and Oversight Group (TCOG) meeting. But it seems unlikely before the election,¡¯¡¯ a senior official at the Foreign Affairs-Trade Ministry said. Originally, the three nations agreed on the need to hold the TCOG meeting before the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO) Executive Board reconvenes around mid-December. But the prospect has become dim as KEDO board member nations _ South Korea, Japan, the U.S. and European Union _ have yet to determine the exact date for the meeting although they tentatively decided to hold it Dec. 11. The KEDO meeting has been drawing increasing attention in connection with the supply of heavy fuel oil to North Korea under the 1994 Agreed Framework. The previous meeting of the consortium, convened in New York in October, decided to halt the shipment of the November batch of heavy oil in response to the North¡¯s startling confession to operating the secret nuclear development program. Earlier, the Kyodo Agency, quoting sources in Japan, reported KEDO was considering postponing the meeting at the request of the Korean government for fear of its possible impact on the presidential election. The government declined the allegation, rebuffing the possibility of domestic political factors affecting the KEDO project. The Foreign Affairs-Trade Ministry official noted that ranking officials from South Korea and the United States are set to hold the annual Security Consultative Meeting (SCM) Dec. 5 in Washington to discuss security issues on the Korean peninsula and Northeast Asia. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage also plans to visit Seoul next week to discuss ways to cope with the escalating tension since North Korea admitted it has been running a clandestine nuclear weapons program. Before coming here, Armitage will visit Japan from Dec. 8 to coordinate policy on North Korea. jayshim@koreatimes.co.kr 12-01-2002 17:16 ***************************************************************** 10 U.N. Agency Demands North Korea End Atomic Program The New York Times *November 30, 2002* *NUCLEAR FEARS* *By SERGE SCHMEMANN* UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 29 ? The International Atomic Energy Agency called on North Korea today to abandon any nuclear weapons program it had and to accept international inspections. The demand by the agency, the nuclear-monitoring arm of the United Nations, was issued in a resolution of its full 35-member board. It was the board's first meeting since North Korea admitted to an American envoy in October that it was conducting a clandestine program to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons. Since then, North Korea has defied requests from the agency and from other groups and governments for more information. Instead, North Korea declared last month that "to safeguard our sovereignty and right to exist," it regarded itself entitled to have "powerful military countermeasures, including nuclear weapons." Although the agency has issued previous calls for North Korea to accept its inspections, the resolution today was apparently the first time it has explicitly demanded that North Korea scrap its entire nuclear weapons program. But the agency has no enforcement powers beyond reporting violations to the Security Council, and the resolution set no deadline. The statement declared that North Korea's claim that it was entitled to nuclear weapons violated its agreements under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and it urged North Korea "to give up any nuclear weapons program, expeditiously and in a verifiable manner." At a news conference in Vienna, the Atomic Energy Agency's director, Mohamed ElBaradei, said the agency wanted North Korea to "accept without delay" the dispatch of a senior team of inspectors to North Korea. He said the resolution of the board of directors was a "clear message from the international community that North Korea has to honor its international obligations." North Korea pursued an aggressive nuclear weapons program in the 1980's and 1990's, which led to a major confrontation with the Clinton administration. Tensions were defused through an "agreed framework" negotiated in 1994, under which North Korea agreed to halt the program in exchange for the supply of fuel oil and nuclear generators of a kind less prone to nuclear proliferation from the United States, Japan and South Korea. That agreement has now been suspended. Early in October, confronted by American intelligence evidence indicating that a secret project was under way, North Korea abruptly acknowledged the program. Why the North Koreans made the admission remains unclear, but one line of speculation is that they hope to use the nuclear capability as a bargaining lever, as they did in 1994. Although President Bush has included North Korea in an "axis of evil" along with Iraq and Iran, his administration has made no concrete steps so far to compel North Korea to dismantle its nuclear program. The United Nations nuclear agency's inspections inside North Korea have been restricted by the country since 1993, when inspectors reported evidence of noncompliance with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. North Korea withdrew from the agency, which is charged with policing the treaty, although the country remains bound by the treaty. Since then, the agency has been limited to monitoring North Korea's graphite-moderated reactor as part of the 1994 agreed framework. Copyright The New York Times Company ***************************************************************** 11 Beijing's offer exposes real threat [http://www.taipeitimes.com] Sun, Dec 01, 2002 By the Liberty Times editorial `China has repeatedly condemned the US for selling arms to Taiwan, conveniently forgetting that China started all this. China is the one consistently trying to use military threats to create bargaining chips, to force concessions from the US and Taiwan... Anyone in Taiwan who is thinking about echoing Jiang's proposal should first think about what Taiwan will use to neutralize the threat posed by Chinese nuclear missiles and submarines.' Taiwan's representative to the US Chen Chien-jen (µ{«Ø¤H) said recently that while China's policy toward the US has been increasingly flexible and soft, its basic policy toward Taiwan remains unchanged. He also said that during the recent meeting between US President George W. Bush and Chinese President Jiang Zemin (¦¿¿A¥Á), Jiang took the initiative in proposing that China withdraw missiles deployed along its southeast coast in exchange for a US reduction in arms sales to Taiwan. Reportedly, the two leaders did not pursue the issue any further. Bush is said to have told Jiang, "You [Chinese] are not naive, and neither are they [Taiwan.]" Jiang had quite evidently been indulging in wishful thinking. The exchange at least proves, however, that China has indeed deployed a large number of missiles along its coast, aimed at Taiwan. Pentagon reports had said that this was the case. Now we know from the mouth of the Chinese leader himself that the missile threat is genuine. One recalls that when President Chen Shui-bian (³¯¤ô«ó) asked China to withdraw the missiles, Chinese officials pretended that they knew nothing of them. Foreign Minister Qian Qichen (¿ú¨äµ`) also forwarded a claim through Taiwan's pro-unification media that China's national defense deployments were carried out in accordance with the needs of the country. It was not a matter for discussion, he said. His words suggest that Jiang's proposition to Bush was entirely misleading. China has more than 400 missiles aimed at Taiwan, and the number increases by 50 each year. This is well-known in the international community. Recently, various parliaments including the European Parliament have passed resolutions, demanding that China withdraw these missiles. The US has also long indicated that it will not take China's military threats to Taiwan, including the missile threat, lying down. So while China's missiles threaten Taiwan, China must weather strong condemnation from the international community. As a result, the question of how to alleviate pressure from the international community on the one hand -- and on the other hand still maintain the threat -- has become an important issue for China. Jiang probably made the proposal to Bush to avoid being put on the spot again and for propaganda purposes. Actually, before the summit meeting between the two, pro-China experts in the US had openly suggested that Jiang would use the opportunity to announce the withdrawal of missiles targeting Taiwan in exchange for a freeze on US arm sales to Taiwan. As anyone can tell, if that deal had come off, China would have emerged a big winner. Why? Obviously, the military threat that China poses to Taiwan consists of much more than just the 400 or so missiles. China has been speeding up the modernization of its naval and air offensive capabilities. Some Americans have frankly pointed out that the arms sales to Taiwan are being made in consideration of the collective threats faced by Taiwan, not just the missiles. In addition, arm sales to Taiwan are mandated by the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA). The issue cannot be simplified into a formula of "fewer arms sales for fewer missiles." All else aside, withdrawal of the missiles won't eliminate the military threat posed to Taiwan. After all, once the missiles had been removed, China could move them back again at any time. According to a Washington Times news report, China has been conducting missile tests in the Bo Hai Gulf (´ñ®üÆW). Its missile range has exceeded US estimates, to the US government's considerable surprise. The report went on to say that around the time of the meeting of the 16th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), JH-7 fighter jets flying out of the Bo Hai Gulf fired a YJ-83 anti-ship cruise missile, with a range of 250km. The SM-2 surface-to-air missile that will come with the Kidd-class destroyers that the US is planning to sell to Taiwan, will obviously be no match for the YJ-83. This one example demonstrates that Jiang's proposal was not at all what it sounded like. The people of Taiwan would be naive to consider it a welcome development. President Chen called on China during his speech on this year's Double Ten Day to withdraw the missiles immediately and to publicly denounce the use of force against Taiwan. Chen is absolutely right to highlight the missile threat while giving equal weight to other military deployments that China may use to attack Taiwan. This is the only way to avoid entrapment by the so-called " withdrawal of missiles in exchange for a reduction in arm sales." By contrast, although opposition lawmakers also voted for the passage of a resolution near the end of October, calling on China to withdraw the missiles, they continue to lack an understanding of the nature and the level of the military threats posed by China. In fact, they began to pressure the government to open up direct transport links and visited China to negotiate direct charter flights before China had even responded to the resolution for missile withdrawal. Such conduct hardly demonstrates that they have the welfare and the safety of Taiwan and its 23 million people at heart. Jiang's proposal to Bush was either empty words or some sort of trick disguised as a concession. Isn't it precisely due to China's refusal to renounce the use of force against Taiwan that the US is selling defensive arms to Taiwan? The cross-strait military situation exists because China has deployed large amounts of offensive arms, forcing Taiwan to strengthen its defensive capabilities. China poses a severe military threat to Taiwan, while Taiwan couldn't possibly launch an offensive against China with the defensive arms it has purchased. The two side's military capabilities are completely different in nature. China has repeatedly condemned the US for selling arms to Taiwan, conveniently forgetting that China started all this. China is the one consistently trying to use military threats to create bargaining chips, to force concessions from the US and Taiwan. These are the tactics of "rogue diplomacy." Anyone in Taiwan who is thinking about echoing Jiang's proposal should first think about what Taiwan will use to neutralize the threat posed by Chinese nuclear missiles and submarines. Not long after Jiang made the proposition to Bush, he reiterated during the meeting of the CCP's 16th Central Committee that, "We will never promise to refrain from the use of force." It isn't hard to figure out what Jiang has in mind. It is nevertheless a great thing that Jiang made the proposition to Bush, but the good in it lies not in the proposed deal but in its implicit admission that China has indeed deployed war heads targeting Taiwan. It goes without saying that what is at stake here is peace in the Taiwan Strait. So China should stop trying to haggle with the US and Taiwan, withdraw its missiles, openly renounce the use of force, and allow the UN to intercede to help the two sides of the Taiwan Strait to resolve their differences. Such a resolution would truly be consistent with the common interests of the international community. This story has been viewed 467 times. Copyright © 1999-2002 The Taipei Times. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 12 Fear of a nuclear plant attack hits close to home *HAMPTON ROADS, VIRGINIA * * Published December 1 2002 Carol Capo In this new world, are nuclear plants safe? Like the monster under the bed, the threat that spooks Americans has taken on terrifying new shapes in the last year. We're familiar with the outlines of dangers that once seemed remote. We have learned too well that a commercial jet can be an assault weapon, that anthrax can travel though the mail, that the government is stockpiling smallpox vaccine. If you live within range of the Surry nuclear plant - and chances are good that you do if you're reading this - there's something else to consider. Terrorists with a taste for the dramatic understand that nuclear plants can be stunningly effective targets in their quest to broadcast fear and death among Americans. The terrorists who bombed the World Trade Center in 1993 went to the trouble to write to The New York Times about their intention of deploying 150 suicide bombers against nuclear targets. Diagrams of American power plants were found among al-Qaida materials in Afghanistan, and al-Qaida training manuals list them among the best targets for spreading terror in America. Is nuclear plant design like the Maginot line - superior fortifications against the enemy of the last war, inadequate in a new era? Our nuclear plants are built to withstand hurricanes and earthquakes and commando-style attacks. But the monster under the bed has morphed into new forms and could strike from new directions. The truth is, experts don't know how a reactor would fare under assault by a jumbo jet. The containment building may be fortress-strong, but what of the area where tens of thousands of pounds of nuclear waste are stored? There's really no way to know how well protected we are. For obvious reasons, Dominion Power can't release specifics about its security measures. Even if it could, are we competent to judge whether they're adequate? And what would be adequate? The question that looms large in the middle of the night is obvious: Are there barriers, weapons, surveillance systems - some massive bulwark of homeland security - that could assure the security we crave? Dominion Power assures us, "People should feel safe" about security at Surry: It was stringent before Sept. 11 and it's stronger now. But any time you live near thousands of pounds of nuclear material, it's natural to want more than the reassurances of the plant owner. It's natural to contemplate questions like whether the Virginia Marine Resources Commission - an agency dedicated primarily to fisheries regulation - is the best choice to guard the plant's vital water intake. Trust us, say nuclear plant operators. Verify, say our skeptical instincts. But who will verify? The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, that's who. An agency that, critics say, hit the snooze button on nuclear plant safety following Sept. 11. How much comfort you derive from their assurances that they're on top of this depends on whether "I'm from the government, and I'm here to keep you safe" quiets the monsters under your bed. This is, after all, the same government whose intelligence apparatus failed to discern and respond to a threat that was taking shape right under American noses. It's the same government that failed to track the movements of known al-Qaida associates who showed a great interest in learning to fly commercial jets. It's the same government that's supposed to safeguard our air and water quality, but is working hard to let big energy companies sidestep air quality standards. Closer to home, it's the same government so disinterested in protecting us from the obvious environmental danger of the James River ghost fleet. So while the monster under the bed contemplates new forms to take, the federal government's puny little night light isn't doing much to make me sleep better. Because the government is telling me one thing I probably should believe: That another attack is a certainty. And nuclear plants might be a target. This fall, as he announced credible new threats around the anniversary of Sept. 11, Attorney General John Ashcroft singled out energy and transportation as attractive targets, because they are so symbolic of and vital to the American way of life. As I read this, I looked out over the James River Bridge, Surry off in the distance. Trains rattled past on a major rail line, headed to a massive port operation. Is there an analogy with airport security? We used to be assured that airport security was good enough in the hands of the private sector. Now we know better. On this front, government manpower has tightened our defenses. Given the potential of nuclear plants to unleash destruction on an awesome scale, should we escalate nuclear security to a national level? Some critics think so and have called for posting troops and anti-aircraft weapons at nuclear plants. Is this one of those cases where we need to learn our lesson before the enemy slips through? Carol Capó is associate editor of the editorial page. She can be reached at 247-2837 or at ccapo@dailypess.com
ccapo@dailypess.com> Copyright © 2002, Daily Press ***************************************************************** 13 Hidden in plain view » Will U.N. inspections in Iraq be successful? The Plain Dealer 12/01/02 John Mangels and John Funk Plain Dealer Reporters As stark as a morgue photo, the picture from FirstEnergy Corp.'s files captures a reactor in distress. Something is hemorrhaging atop the massive steel lid that covers the radioactive core of the Davis-Besse nuclear plant near Toledo. The vivid color print, taken in April 2000, shows rust trails the hue of dried blood spilling from inspection ports on the reactor's sloping dome. The corrosion stains end in piles of white-brown debris at the lid's edge. The loose clumps of dried acid are trapped there like fallen leaves against a fence by the ring of huge bolts that locks the 80-ton cap in place. Anyone who saw the image that has come to be known as the "red photo" would have to question whether the lid - a vital safety barrier - was damaged. "I would have concluded that a serious corrosion problem probably existed" on the lid, said Digby Macdonald, an international corrosion expert who directs Pennsylvania State University's Center for Advanced Materials. But federal regulators never got that chance. FirstEnergy's nuclear division didn't share the 2-year-old photo with senior Nuclear Regulatory Commission staffers last fall. It wasn't in the batch of images the company provided the NRC in November 2001 as part of FirstEnergy's successful campaign to convince the agency the lid was OK, and to justify postponing a costly shutdown to inspect it. The photo didn't surface until April, on page 93 of a thick FirstEnergy report. The document attempts to explain in hindsight how the company had allowed boric acid sludge left behind by leaking reactor coolant to chew a pineapple-size hole all the way through the 6.5-inch-thick lid. The unprecedented hole, found a month earlier, jeopardized the plant's safety, rocked the nuclear industry and is expected to cost the company nearly $400 million in repairs and replacement power purchases. The omitted photo is just one example of what regulatory officials say are FirstEnergy's multiple failures over almost a decade to accurately document and communicate what the company knew to be the worsening condition of Davis-Besse's reactor lid. Those misrepresentations - especially during the crucial NRC review last autumn - are the subject of an agency criminal probe. They also are the subject of a new allegation by a watchdog group, the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, which is calling for Davis-Besse's license to be revoked. The NRC is reviewing that claim and may address it in its ongoing investigation. The NRC already has determined that FirstEnergy's nuclear division violated agency rules requiring that information be accurate and complete. The company insists, without further explanation, that it did nothing criminal. But if the inquiry under way by the NRC's criminal unit, the Office of Investigations, verifies intentional wrongdoing, plant personnel and FirstEnergy managers could find themselves answering to a federal grand jury, or facing hefty civil fines. The findings also could affect the NRC's decision on whether or when to allow Davis-Besse to resume making electricity. Neither the government nor FirstEnergy has been willing to say much publicly about the records issue because of the investigations. In the last few weeks, however, a picture of the evidence in the case and the company's defense has emerged from newly released NRC reports as well as a Plain Dealer review of thousands of pages of inspection documents, meeting transcripts and briefing materials. While not contesting that their records were inaccurate and incomplete, FirstEnergy officials have sought to portray the documentation problems as benign miscommunications or misinterpretations rather than deliberate attempts to deceive. They have said that evidence such as the "red photo" that gave a more detailed indication of the lid's condition was available if the NRC had looked hard enough. "It was there for the asking," said company spokesman Todd Schneider. "Being our regulator, the NRC has full access to the plant, to our documents, to just about every part of our operation." But that rationale sidesteps the key legal issue of why material in FirstEnergy's files sharply differs from the rosy picture the company painted for the NRC late last year to justify the reactor's continued operation. "I think that's a little bit disingenuous," Brian Sheron, the agency's associate director for project licensing and technical analysis, said. "We were asking them to provide us with all the information to support their argument to operate beyond Dec. 31. Apparently, we did not get everything." The NRC itself is under fire from critics, including some members of Congress, for allowing the plant to delay its lid inspection last fall. Angry and embarrassed agency staffers say they made the right call based on the information they had. "If we knew they had three or four inches of [acid] caked on top of the head . . . that would have started the chain" of more intense questioning, Sheron said. Had FirstEnergy disclosed that its inspections dating at least to 1998 had consistently found red, rusty lumps of acid on the lid - increasingly large deposits that weren't fully cleaned off so the surface underneath could be checked - "we would have challenged the licensee then and there to explain what we were seeing," Sheron said. "If we didn't get a reasonable explanation, we probably would have taken action to try to force them to shut down." String of inaccuracies The string of inaccurate and incomplete Davis-Besse records that the NRC has identified began in 1993. At that time, managers at the plant and at FirstEnergy's predecessor, Toledo Edison Co., were debating whether to modify a platform that sits atop the reactor lid. The structure helps support the dozens of control rods that pass in and out of the reactor's core through sleeves, or nozzles, in the lid to regulate the nuclear reaction. It also holds insulation to contain the reactor's fierce heat. The problem with the service structure, though, was its close fit. At the top of the lid, there was only a 2-inch gap between the lid's metal surface and the insulation, making inspection of that area extremely difficult. To check the lid's condition every two years during the plant's refueling shutdown, inspectors attached a video camera to a pole and poked it through one of the 16 small "mouse holes" that ring the service structure's base. But it was hard to get the camera all the way to the top of the lid. Davis-Besse's sister plants had begun cutting larger ports in the structure to allow for better inspection and cleaning. In March 1990, a Davis-Besse engineer recommended that the plant do the same after finding boric acid residue from leaking coolant in several places on the lid. He reminded his bosses of the acid's potential for harm. Managers finally decided in September 1993 that the modification wasn't needed. The reason, according to the cancellation notice signed by four high-level managers, was because "cleaning of the reactor vessel head [lid] during last three outages [in 1990, '91 and '93] was completed successfully without requiring access ports." That statement wasn't accurate, the NRC has determined. Agency inspectors who reviewed Davis-Besse records from the 1991 and '93 refueling shutdowns found that workers had allowed acid deposits to remain on the lid each time the reactor was restarted. FirstEnergy's own review this year notes that there are no records indicating the lid was inspected at all in 1990. The FirstEnergy report doesn't say what, if anything, the 1991 records show, but acknowledges the company can't verify the effectiveness of the lid-cleaning done in 1993. The record-keeping flaws at Davis-Besse continued in 1998. Plant documents from that year stated that workers had cleaned acid buildup from the lid, even though the company noted as an aside that its reactor's manufacturer, Babcock & Wilcox, considered such deposits harmless. Plant records also said inspections had shown the lid surface was free of "any" corrosion damage. All three statements were incorrect, the NRC has found. A videotape of the 1998 inspection showed fist-sized clumps of red, rusty acid on parts of the reactor lid, and Davis-Besse workers again allowed some of them to remain, especially on the hard-to-reach top of the dome. That precluded plant personnel from knowing, as they claimed to, that the underlying metal was OK. In fact, the hole in the lid had started its rapid growth that year, FirstEnergy surmises, in the very area workers had left uncleaned. Also, none of the nine Babcock & Wilcox reports the NRC examined contained the reassuring statement FirstEnergy had quoted: that acid residue left on the lid wouldn't cause corrosion. There were multiple inaccuracies in Davis-Besse documents from 2000, the NRC has found, most having to do with claims that the reactor lid was rigorously cleaned and that inspection showed it to be unblemished. "Work performed without deviation," noted an April 25, 2000, order signed by the reactor coolant system engineer detailing the lid-cleaning activities. "Engineering displayed noteworthy persistence in ensuring boric acid accumulation from the reactor head was thoroughly cleaned," trumpeted a July 7, 2000, report by the plant's quality assurance unit. None of it was true. As FirstEnergy acknowledged in reports to the NRC this year, Davis-Besse personnel were under intense pressure to stay on the tight work schedule during the refueling outage so the plant could resume making electricity - and money - as soon as possible. Workers examining the lid at the start of the 2000 outage found rock-hard, "lava-like" piles of acid that clogged some of the mouse holes and hindered the video camera's path. They did some cleaning, but with time running out, managers decided to stop, leaving some acid clumps in place and part of the lid unchecked. Contrary to policy, they didn't do a written evaluation to justify their actions. Eighteen months later, when FirstEnergy officials were pressing the NRC to postpone the mandatory lid inspections that most other plants were doing to look for possible nozzle cracks, they assured the agency their lid was in good shape. But as the NRC would later discover, the evidence the company provided was selective and misleading. In letters and in-person briefings to the NRC staff at the agency's Rockville, Md., headquarters, company officials mentioned having found "some" boric acid in past inspections. But they didn't reveal the alarmingly rusty characteristics and amount of the acid residue - by this time nearing 900 pounds, they later found out - that had been accumulating for years. In one meeting, for example, FirstEnergy nuclear division president Robert Saunders "said he knew there was some light dusting of boron in certain spots. But he said he was not concerned that was from major leakage," recalled the NRC's Sheron. And in an Oct. 17, 2001, letter, FirstEnergy nuclear division support services director L.W. Worley told NRC staffers that the lid was cleaned in 1996. He added that re-reviews of the videotapes from that inspection and ones in 1998 and 2000 "did not identify any leakage in the . . . nozzle-to-head areas that could be inspected." When NRC staffers continued to push for a shutdown by Dec. 31, FirstEnergy officials volunteered to fly to Rockville with the inspection videotapes so NRC staffers could see for themselves. But the company didn't show any tapes that depicted the masses of rusty acid accumulated at the center of the lid, according to the NRC's subsequent interviews with staffers who attended the meeting. "The NRC staff members recollected that they were shown freeze-frame video images that depicted inspectable nozzles, i.e. free of significant deposits," an NRC task force reported last month. "The nature and extent of boric acid deposits remaining on the [lid] . . . were not disclosed." The NRC has always been heavily dependent on the candor of the utilities it regulates. There are 103 commercial nuclear reactors in the United States, each a highly complex machine with dozens of operational issues per day that require attention and generate thousands of pages of paperwork. Even in the best of times, the agency has only a dozen or so people monitoring the day-to-day operations of an individual plant - two or three on-site inspectors and the rest at regional offices or at headquarters. Because of its staffing level, "the NRC doesn't count every thread on every bolt; we focus on things that are safety-significant," the agency's Sheron said. "We poke, we probe, we ask questions. But for the most part, we rely on the licensee. Our whole regulatory process is based on trust." The agency's oversight of Davis-Besse was particularly vulnerable at the exact time the hole in the reactor's lid was forming and growing, in the late 1990s. The resident inspector's post at the plant was vacant for a year; the job of senior project engineer for Davis-Besse at the NRC's Midwest regional office was left empty for 20 months. And there were serious problems at other area reactors that required attention, so the amount of time the agency spent on inspections at Davis-Besse plummeted to an eight-year low. However, the NRC's own shortcomings don't explain FirstEnergy's repeated failures to disclose what it knew. Legal review After news of the NRC's probe of possible criminal wrongdoing leaked this spring, FirstEnergy asked one of its law firms to review staff activities at the plant during the past decade. The company won't discuss or release the findings, but an executive told stock analysts in September that while Davis-Besse managers had made poor decisions in operating the reactor and dealing with federal regulators, the law firm found no behavior "which would rise to criminal." Instead, in numerous filings and meetings with the NRC to explain itself, FirstEnergy has depicted former Davis-Besse managers as production-obsessed and out of touch with the plant, and workers as being naive about the potential for boric acid deposits to harm the reactor lid if left in place. Only wet boric acid posed a corrosion threat, and plant personnel wrongly thought that, once the steel lid's searing heat instantly dried the leaking coolant, the acid deposits left behind couldn't get wet again. But if Davis-Besse personnel truly believed the acid buildup was harmless, why not acknowledge its presence? Why say or imply that it had been fully cleaned away when it hadn't? "That is one of the standards problems we're trying to correct at the plant - that cleaning the head back then meant cleaning as much as you could, not the entire head," said FirstEnergy's Schneider. "That's about all I can say on that. Those issues will come out in the investigation." FirstEnergy has fired, transferred or reprimanded some senior employees in connection with the hole in the lid. But it is mum on whether those moves, which included the departure of nuclear division Vice Presidents Guy Campbell and Howard Bergendahl and engineering director John Wood, were because of the record-keeping inaccuracies. The NRC's Sheron said FirstEnergy nuclear division President Robert Saunders told him the disciplinary steps were a consequence of its law firm's review. "I don't think a company would fire somebody if it concluded they hadn't done anything wrong," Sheron said. FirstEnergy's Schneider has said the company expects to be fined for its overall lapses, but that the management changes and renewed focus on safety should be enough to regain the trust of the NRC and the public. A national nuclear watchdog group disagrees. Concerned that the NRC will accept superficial changes at Davis-Besse and not push for fundamental reforms, the Nuclear Information and Resource Service recently filed a complaint with the NRC. It alleges that FirstEnergy records contained false and inaccurate statements about the Davis-Besse reactor lid, and that the company's analyses of the event have failed to explain why. The NRC has assigned the allegation to a review board, and, if it's deemed serious enough, it could be incorporated into the Office of Investigation's ongoing work. Davis-Besse "should have its operating license revoked," said Paul Gunter, director of NIRS' reactor watchdog project and the author of the complaint. "Our concern remains that the NRC is going to go along with this plan to just replace managers at Davis-Besse as the solution to underlying problems with the management culture that places production over safety." With Davis-Besse aiming to finish its repair work by late January or February, it's possible the NRC may have to decide whether to let the plant resume operating before the agency's criminal inquiry is complete. Although it may not have the final report in hand before restart, the special NRC panel overseeing Davis-Besse's rehabilitation will have a good idea of what the findings will be, said its chairman, Jack Grobe. The decision will hinge on whether FirstEnergy has corrected whatever deficiencies the probe finds. "We'll have to have confidence in the plant personnel" before letting Davis-Besse power up again, Grobe said. "This is a critical element." For full coverage of Davis-Besse, go to www.cleveland.com/davisbesse/ To reach these Plain Dealer reporters: jmangels@plaind.com, 216-999-4842 jfunk@plaind.com, 216-999-4842 © 2002 The Plain Dealer. Used with permission. ***************************************************************** 14 Japan orders nuclear reactor closed for false data Planet Ark : JAPAN: December 2, 2002 TOKYO - Japan's Trade Ministry will order a one-year suspension of a nuclear reactor operated by the nation's largest power utility, Tokyo Electric Power Co Inc (TEPCO) (9501.T), last week to punish it for falsifying data. An official at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said a notice was being sent to TEPCO last week afternoon ordering it to shut down the 460 megawatt nuclear reactor until November 28, 2003. It is the first time the government has ordered a nuclear reactor to be closed because of a safety violation since 1997. TEPCO admitted last month that staff had manipulated the air pressure of a container holding the reactor at a plant in Fukushima in northern Japan. The heavy penalty underscored the view that METI sees the breach as even more serious than TEPCO's earlier admission that it had continued to operate nuclear power plants despite suspecting there were cracks in the reactors' shrouds. The shroud is a stainless steel cylinder that helps regulate the flow of coolant. The METI official said it was highly unlikely that the length of the suspension would be shortened. "The order is that the reactor stop operating for one year," he said. TEPCO suspended operation of the plant on October 26. Nine of TEPCO's 17 nuclear reactors are currently closed, accounting for about half of the Tokyo-based utility's nuclear generation capacity. Following the safety scandals, TEPCO plans to bring forward regular maintenance checks at other nuclear reactors. A further four will be shut down early next year, and two more may be added to that list, which would bring the total to 15. The power utility has had to turn to thermal power plants to cover the shortfall in supplying electricity. A TEPCO spokesman said last week no timetable had been set for the resumption of its closed nuclear reactors. TEPCO shares ended morning trade on the Tokyo stock market flat at 2,075 yen. The key Nikkei average rose 0.43 percent. REUTERS NEWS SERVICE [http://www.reuters.com] ***************************************************************** 15 Fire on nuclear submarine of Pacific Fleet extinguished Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2002 21:13:21 -0800 style="FONT-SIZE: 18px; FONT-FAMILY: Times New Roman"> Fire on nuclear submarine of Pacific Fleet extinguished Fire was extinguished on board a nuclear submarine of the Pacific Fleet which is based in Strelok Bay, RIA Novosti was told in the press service of the Pacific Fleet on Friday. According to the press service's information, fire emerged on the nuclear submarine the night before because of a malfunction of an electrical heating appliance. By the information RIA Novosti obtained from informed sources, the 4th and 5th compartments were ablaze. A fire-fighting motorboat, a tugboat and two tank trucks participated in putting out the fire. It was extinguished only at day-time on Thursday.

According to the press service of the Pacific Fleet, the submarine has been phased out of the Fleet, and its nuclear arms have been dismantled. The reactor was reliably blocked. href="http://pravda.ru ***************************************************************** 16 [radiation-survivors] If You Poison Us : BOOK Date: Sun, 1 Dec 2002 09:40:33 -0600 (CST) Hardcover - 263 pages 1 Ed edition (September 1994) Red Crane Books; ISBN: 1878610406 ; Dimensions (in inches): 1.03 x 9.35 x 6.29 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Editorial Reviews From Book News, Inc. , May 1, 1995 This examination by a longtime reporter for the Santa Fe New Mexican effectively combines scientific, political, business, and tribal history, sketching the history and devastating results of uranium mining on Navajo lands in the Southwest. A cogent, powerful report on how America's frantic entry into the nuclear age injured--and continues to impact--Native Americans and their communities. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or. Midwest Book Review The supply of uranium that fueled the Cold War came largely from the Four Corners area of the Colorado Plateau. Some of the richest deposits were found on the Navajo Reservation, where about one-fourth of the miners and millers were Native Americans. For nearly three decades in the face of growing evidence that uranium mining was dangerous, state and federal agencies avoided responsibility for warning the miners or imposing safety measures in the mines. Hundreds of Native american miners and... From Booklist , August 19, 1994 This examination by a longtime reporter for the Santa Fe New Mexican of the devastating consequences that the nation's love affair with the atom had for Native Americans in the Southwest provides further support for the grim story that Stewart Udall tells in The Myths of August (BKL Je 1 94). (Eichstaedt acknowledges Udall, a major player in Navajo uranium miners' long battle for compensation, as a source of both documents and "moral and spiritual guidance.") If You Poison Us effectively... Synopsis Award-winning reporter Peter Eichstaedt chronicles how the U.S. government's frantic entry into the nuclear age injured--and continues to impact--Native Americans and their communities. From the first uranium mining to the full-scale nuclear build-up, Eichstaedt details the deadly legacy of America's desire to build an atomic industry at any cost. Synopsis More than eighty vivid photographs demonstrate how America's entry into the nuclear age has endangered Native American uranium mine workers who have unwittingly exposed themselves to extremely dangerous levels of radiation. 15,000 first printing. Tour. IP. Were you radiated as a baby? See health links. http://tahomagirl.com -------- The truth that makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to hear. -- Herbert Agar --------- Looking for computer help? http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ComputersForSeniors/ ***************************************************************** 17 [radiation-survivors] Dr. Rosalie Bertell 16 Million Radiation Date: Sun, 1 Dec 2002 09:41:54 -0600 (CST) Excerpt. http://www.ratical.org/radiation/inetSeries/RB89.html very dumb place to build it in other words. If you look over on Lake Michigan, in December of 1970 they opened two reactors there. Those are each five hundred megawatt. You can see that area of Green Bay is about five percent above the state rate. And this is what it's been for the twenty years that they've kept the records. It's been four to five percent above the state rate. This is a highly industrialized area. Next. Now this is the full-blown nuclear age. If you look at Green Bay, the reactors there, this is the first five years of brand new state-of-the-art reactors with no accident. The area there at Green Bay is now twenty-eight percent above the state rate. This is statistically significant. The death rate has increased whereas all over the United States generally, the rates are coming down. The same thing happened in Eau Clair which was downwind of Minnesota. That's the Monticello plant up at the top. I don't know if you noticed that on the U.S. map earlier, but that one's on there too. That's a dirty plant that Monticello one. And then there are two down there at Red Wing. Those are each five hundred megawatt and the wind is from the west and it's going right to Eau Clair which is a rural area. And Genoa there at La Crosse--that's now up to eight percent above the state rate. These six reactors are each five hundred megawatt. The Genoa one is a fifty megawatt. What happened here in Wisconsin in these first five years of brand new operating plants was that there were over a hundred excess infant deaths. These are over and above the number you would expect based on the state record. We checked out all kinds of things: the fossil-fuel plants, the wood-and-pulp industry which is in Wassau mostly, the coal-fired power plants, the chemical industry, the maternal child health care, the availability of special infant care units, of distance to the hospital, and so on. We looked at measles epidemics. We looked at anything anybody mentioned that could have brought about such an effect. But the only thing it correlates with are the routine, permissible gaseous releases from the power plant. Next. [demime 0.98e removed an attachment of type application/octet-stream which had a name of Dr. Rosalie Bertell 16 Million Radiation Deaths and Counting, 1989.url] ***************************************************************** 18 Toxic Munitions And Deadly Vaccines TOMPAINE.com - American Soldiers Endangered By Their Own Instruments Of War Conn Hallinan is provost at the University of California at Santa Cruz and a foreign policy analyst for Foreign Policy In Focus [http://www.fpif.org] Every time I hear the likes of Vice-President Cheney, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, or Sen. Lieberman go on about war with Iraq, it reminds me of a history lesson. Congress should keep in mind when it begins its debate over Iraq: Wars are waged with the bodies of the young, and they always come home. The 1991 Gulf War is a case in point. As wars go, it was a slam-dunk for the United States side. While Iraqi casualties were somewhere between 85,000 to 100,000, the United States lost 148 soldiers in combat, the majority of those the victims of so-called "friendly fire." Gulf War II is likely to be a repeat. The United States is better armed than it was 11 years ago, while a decade of sanctions and bombings -- more tonnage has been dropped on Iraq since the end of Gulf War I than was dropped on Yugoslavia during the war over Kosovo -- has reduced the Iraqi military to a shadow of its former self. I suspect we will take Baghdad in less than a week. But that's when the real trouble starts. Out of 700,000 U.S. soldiers who served in Gulf War I, 118,000 are suffering from chronic fatigue, headaches, muscle spasms, joint pains, anxiety, memory loss and balance problems. Gulf vets are twice as likely to develop Lou Gehrig’s Disease, and two to three times more likely to have children with birth defects. War has always been a toxic business, but it is much more so today than it was 50 years ago. Modern battlefields are saturated with Depleted Uranium Ammunition (DUA), and other chemicals, and soldiers are pumped full of untested vaccines and antidotes. In the last Gulf go-around, the United States fired 860,590 DUA munitions. While the military keeps claiming DUAs are harmless, tank crews protected by DUA armor get the equivalent of a chest x-ray every 20 to 30 hours. Ask your doctor if that is a good idea. The Army's own Chemical Command concluded back in 1991 that troops exposed to DUA should wear protective masks, respirators and clothes, "at a minimum." Fighting in such gear is almost impossible, which means it is unlikely to be used much, and probably only if chemical or biological weapons are used. One major suspect in Gulf War Syndrome is the experimental anthrax vaccine required for all military personal. That requirement has caused an exodus from the Air Force. According to the Associated Press, the vaccine is a leading reason for aircrews and pilots resigning from the National Guard and Air Force Reserve units, and 86 percent of those who take the vaccine report local or system-wide reactions. The effect of another war on Iraqis, of course, will be horrendous. The Pentagon projects a minimum of 10,000 Iraqi civilian deaths for Gulf II. If Congress and the American pubic don’t bring a halt to all this, we are going to kill and maim tens of thousands of innocent people, goad angry young Muslims to commit more terrorism against American civilians, and create yet another round of deadly Gulf War Syndrome for our troops. Young men pressed into the service of empire have always paid for it with their lives. Rudyard Kipling's epitaph for them still resonates today: "If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied." Published: Nov 27 2002 [http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/6808] ***************************************************************** 19 GULF WAR VETERAN WHO BATTLED GOVERNMENT FOR BENEFITS DIES By: KERI KIRBY, Staff Writer November 30, 2002 BULLARD - Joey Sims could have complained. He could have been angry and everyone would have understood. But throughout his years of suffering, missing out on his children's activities and confinement to his bed, the Gulf War veteran always had a smile on his face - and that's something his family will greatly miss. "That was one thing about him," said his brother, Sam Sims. "He never stopped smiling." After battling the debilitating Lou Gehrig's disease for several years, Joey Sims died quietly in his home Saturday at the age of 35. "He was a die-hard patriot and a die-hard American," Sam Sims said. "If anything, he was apologetic because he didn't want to be a burden on everyone. He was always smiling and he always liked to laugh." An infantry soldier in the Army for 10 years, Joey Sims returned from the Gulf War in 1992 with a skin rash and memory problems, but Veterans Affairs nurses repeatedly told him it was allergies and stress. Convinced his brain disease was a result of exposure to nerve gas, anthrax and depleted uranium during his time in the Saudi Arabian desert, Joey Sims fought to get the VA to recognize the link between his exposure and his disease - and won. "I think he helped several people," Sam Sims said. "We know of at least 10 other people who sent e-mails that they got their benefits too." A few days after receiving his back pay, Joey Sims decided to take his wife, Nathalie, and children on a trip to Walt Disney World. He wanted to give his twins, 13-year-old Dusty and Misty, something to remember. "That was the last time he really got to go out with his family," Sam Sims said. "After that he was pretty much bed-ridden." Even as his disease forced him into a wheelchair and finally completely into bed, Joey Sims enjoyed life. "The last time I took him duck hunting, we put him into a wheelchair and wheeled him into the slew area," Sam Sims said. "We brought out a recliner that was green and put it in the pasture and put him right in it. Then we covered him with ponchos and the ducks flew right over his head. The recliner's still out there. We laughed about it every time we talked about it." Joey Sims loved the outdoors and being forced to stay in bed was tough, but he found diversions. "For him to have to stay inside - I think that hurt him more than the disease did," Sam Sims said. "But he's got a DVD collection you wouldn't believe. He watched all the movies that came out on DVD. "Pure Country" or "8 Seconds" were his favorites; they reminded him of when he was in the rodeo." With his death, the lives of his family will never be the same, but it's through Joey Sims' life that all who knew him are forever changed. "He showed us that no matter what comes up, life is precious," Sam Sims said. "No matter what happens, you have to deal with it and make the best of it - that's what Joey did." / Keri Kirby covers Southern Smith and Anderson counties. She can be reached at 903.596.6266. e-mail: news@tylerpaper.com / /©Tyler Morning Telegraph 2002/ ***************************************************************** 20 UK: WORK GOES ON WITH REFITTING CONTRACT 09:41 - 29 November 2002 Tritiated water is pumped into the River Tamar as a by-product of work to refit nuclear-powered submarines at Devonport Dockyard. The practice has long been a source of controversy and attracted much opposition, but operators and the Government insist that it presents no health or environmental dangers. Some campaigners believe that there is evidence to suggest the radioactive substance can cause genetic mutation. In November last year, the Environment Agency approved an increase of 500 per cent in tritium discharges into the Tamar, to enable Devonport Management Ltd to carry out the Vanguard submarine refitting contract. Peter Whitehouse, spokesman for DML, explained yesterday how the leak from HMS Vanguard had occurred a fortnight ago. He said: "During a routine operation to transfer primary coolant from the submarine to a drain tank a small amount of the coolant, highly diluted with de-mineralised water, leaked from a valve as the operation was started. "This coolant is the material that after processing is eventually discharged via the outfall to the Hamoaze. This was noticed promptly by the trained operators and the process was stopped. The volume involved was approximately ten litres, half of which was contained in the bund designed for this purpose, from which it was recovered and processed as planned. "Some five litres was on the concrete floor adjacent to the process plant in the bottom of the dock. In accordance with specified procedures the water was removed and subsequent tests confirmed that the area of the spill, an adjacent gulley and the immediate area were clear of any contamination. "There was no release of material to the external environment, as confirmed by the Environment Agency at the meeting. "The incident was the subject of a report and a subsequent investigation that is likely to confirm revised arrangements to the bund, as well as a range of other measures, many of which have already been implemented." 12/1/2002 02:10 pm Nevada officials say the Department of Energy acted improperly when it failed to obtain a hazardous waste permit for tons of dangerous metals proposed for storage at the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump. Bob Loux, Nevada's Nuclear Projects Agency chief, said the state would make that argument in legal papers it plans to file Monday with the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. State officials maintain an estimated 190 million pounds of metal known as Alloy-22, containing chromium, nickel and vanadium, require a state-issued permit for disposal. Another 310 million pounds of stainless steel, which contains chromium and nickel, also would require DOE to obtain a permit from Nevada environmental officials, they said. Earlier this year, President Bush and Congress approved the storage of highly radioactive spent fuel rods at Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. But state officials contend the bill they approved over Nevada's strong objections does not cover the metals government scientists are relying on to hold this fuel. The first shipment of nuclear waste could arrive in 2010. State officials say the final environmental impact statement also lacks an adequate analysis of how spent fuel will be transported across more than 40 states to Yucca Mountain and ignores the metal dangers. In the state's view, Loux said, the final impact statement is legally defective. "We had to focus on the major defects,"he said."We could have written 200 to 300 pages of defects." Monday's filing will be the latest move by the state to determine whether the DOE followed proper procedures in deciding to build a repository in Nevada. A ruling in Nevada's favor could delay the project or force Congress to revisit the project considering the hazardous waste issues. Clark County and the city of Las Vegas are co-petitioners with the state in the appeals case. The case is a consolidation of three lawsuits Nevada has filed challenging the final impact statement, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham's recommendation of the site and guidelines for locating at Yucca. President Bush adopted the recommendation to build Yucca Mountain in February, and the House and Senate approved it over the veto of Gov. Kenny Guinn in May and July. Information from: Las Vegas Review-Journal © Copyright Reno Gazette-Journal , a Gannett Co. Inc. ***************************************************************** 31 AU: 'Do not bring waste inland'* www.yourguide.com.au By Mark Filmer Monday, 2 December 2002 IT WAS totally inappropriate for the Federal Government to transport nuclear waste through Orange or any other country town, Member for Orange Russell Turner said yesterday. Mr Turner was responding to revelations the Commonwealth was planning to transport radioactive waste from Sydney's Lucas Heights reactor to Woomera in outback South Australia, via the Central West centres of Bathurst, Orange and Dubbo. If implemented, the plan would involve 130 truck movements in the first year of what would be a 40-year project. An environmental impact study is being prepared for the proposal. "Until I am convinced that there is no other way, I am against the inland transportation (of radioactive waste) to anywhere within Australia,? Mr Turner said. His comments come in the lead-up to a mobile protest and education campaign being planned for Orange on Wednesday. The Friends of the Earth-organised event, part of its Nuclear FreeWays campaign, aims to highlight to the community the dangers of radioactive waste production, transportation and dumping. Mr Turner said he would meet Friends of the Earth representatives on Wednesday to talk about the issue. However, he said "on the surface? he couldn't see any justification for the proposal. "I acknowledge the benefits of the nuclear isotopes that come to Orange Base Hospital every day,? he said. "I support the reactor down there (at Lucas Heights). "But until I am convinced that there is no other way I am against the inland transportation to anywhere within Australia, unless it meant the closure of Lucas Heights. Then we would need to look at the safest way possible. "We haven't done this (transported waste inland) in the past and I question why we need to do it now.? Orange City Council's Local Emergency Management Committee chairman Dave Shearing said he would fight the proposal to make sure it did not become a reality. He said emergency services in the region were not geared up to handle an emergency involving radioactive material. The Friends of the Earth campaign is making its way from Adelaide to Sydney, via the proposed transport route. Spokesman for the group, Bruce Thompson, said the plan was "a crude attempt to solve a complex problem?. "Transportation and dumping of nuclear waste presents a real risk of radioactive exposure to people, agricultural land and the broader environment,? he said. The mobile protest will also visit Broken Hill, Cobar, Dubbo, Wellington, Bathurst, Lithgow and Katoomba, before arriving at Lucas Heights on December 9. Federal Member for Calare Peter Andren said he was researching the pros and cons of the proposal and would be able to comment at the end of the week. ***************************************************************** 32 Nuclear waste activists draw promise [http://www.taipeitimes.com] Sat, Nov 30, 2002 ANGRY DEMANDS: A residents' consortium protested in Taipei before heading to a meeting with government and power company officials to state their case in full By Angelia Chen STAFF REPORTER WITH CNA "We don't rule out coming back to protest again if our requests are not met." Tsai Chang-ming, president of protesters' resident's association The Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) promised yesterday to propose that residents of the areas around Taiwan's nuclear power plants be invited to help draw up a timetable to remove nuclear waste. It also restated a promise made earlier this week to introduce a bill on selection of a final deposit site for low-level radioactive waste within one month. "Within a month the Cabinet will present the bill to the Legislative Yuan for review and suggest that the Cabinet invite local representatives to form a national committee to map out a timetable for the handling of low-level radioactive waste," said MOEA Vice Minister Steve Chen (³¯·ç¶©). MOEA officials made the promise after an hour-long meeting with representatives of the state-owned power company Taipower and protesters from the northern coast of Taiwan. Some 2,500 protesters from Chinshan, Shihmen, Wanli and Sanchih townships on Taipei County's northern coast had gathered at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei before parading to the MOEA building shouting, "Nuclear waste out." Tsai Chang-ming (½²»a©ú), president of the residents' association against the nuclear waste, said that residents of the townships have long tolerated the first and second nuclear power plants, in Shihmen and Wanli, respectively. But, he added, they have asked Taipower to stop storing nuclear waste at the plants and to halt construction of additional waste storage tanks. He added that the association now had no option but to resort to demonstrating. The protesters demanded to be allowed to participate in the drawing up of a detailed schedule for the relocation of the waste and that the government should allocate NT$38 million -- the equivalent of 1 percent of the NT$3.8 billion budget for the new storage facilities -- to develop local infrastructure. Taipower officials promised to report to the ministry within one month. The protesters dispersed around 2pm, but Tsai said that they will continue to negotiate with Taipower and the ministry and warned, "We don't rule out coming back to protest again if our requests are not met." A Taipower official later told the Taipei Times that the company had not made concessions on the issue today because "each resident already gets NT$30 to NT$200 compensation for each barrel of waste." Chen said he could not promise to halt the construction of new storage facilities but that Taipower chairman Lin Neng-pai (ªL¯à¥Õ) has been seeking a permanent storage site for nuclear waste since assuming his post and claimed that he had "already made initial progress." He did not elaborate. In 1996 Taipower promised to find a site to store nuclear waste by August this year to relocate all waste. "But so far, a final deposit site has not materialized and, instead, Taipower has started to build new storage facilities at these plants," said Tsai. Taiwan, with three operational nuclear plants and one under construction, has produced 180,000 barrels of nuclear waste, 97,000 of which are stored on Orchid Island off Taiwan's southeastern coast. The remainder are stored at the plants. This story has been viewed 137 times. Copyright © 1999-2002 The Taipei Times. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 33 [southnews] Australians rally nation-wide for peace Date: Sun, 1 Dec 2002 00:10:27 -0600 (CST) Australians rally nation-wide for peace http://www.abc.net.au/news/australia/2002/12/item20021201000121_1.htm Sun, Dec 1 2002 9:14 AM AEDT Author and filmmaker John Pilger has told a huge rally in Sydney that the Australian Government is "extremist" in its pro-US stance on Iraq. The anti-war rally was one of several held across Australia yesterday. An estimated 15,000 people gathered in the Domain after marching through city streets to protest against Australia becoming involved in any US-led pre-emptive strike on Baghdad. The crowd heard from leaders of religious, union and community groups. Mr Pilger told the crowd their stance marked them as moderates. But he says the Government's enforcement of sanctions against Iraq and its willingness to join a war against Baghdad make them extremists. "They have to be extreme to attack, unprovoked, a country that offers no threat to Australia, with whom Australia trades," he said. "A whole people held hostage to a medieval embargo, as well as to their own dictator." The Auxillary Catholic Bishop of Canberra and Goulburn, Pat Power, was one of many speakers to denounce both the US and Australian governments for linking the war against terrorism to Iraq and possible weapons of mass destruction. "All it has done is widen the divide between 'them and us' and produced a climate of war," he said. Award-winning actor Judy Davis told the crowd the Howard Government could not be justified in getting involved. "Mr Howard, you haven't presented us with a single compelling reason for the further slaughter of innocent people and we will not ever support your war on Iraq," she said. Adelaide rally Organisers Adelaide's peace protest say Australia will have to send troops into Iraq before greater sections of the community will oppose war. About 1,500 people marched through the city centre, calling for no war against Iraq. The protest was twice the size of a rally held earlier this month and included grandparents, children and families. But organiser Mike Khizam says opinions will not polarise until if and when war breaks out. "There's greater confusion about the issues and I do know the issue is no longer top of the agenda on news reports," Mr Khizam said. "Unless there is a sense of crisis or a war breaks out, it is unlikely we'll see very large numbers on the street." Tasmanian rally In Tasmania, more than 400 people demonstrated their opposition to a US-led attack on Iraq. They marched through the streets of central Hobart calling for peace, the fourth demonstration of its kind in the past three months. Australian Greens Senator Bob Brown addressed the crowd, calling on world leaders to remember the lessons learnt during World War II and strive for peace. "How much better if instead of war they remembered back that half century and brought in a Marshall Plan, not for reconstructing Europe but reconstructing our planet to bring fairness, education, opportunity, food, shelter to the dispossessed millions of people who are our brothers and sisters on this planet," he said. ) ABC 2002 | privacy ---------- Pilger labels Govt 'extremist' over Iraq stance http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s738160.htm Saturday, November 30, 2002. Posted: 17:31:01 (AEDT) Author and filmmaker John Pilger has told a huge rally in Sydney that the Australian Government is "extremist" in its pro-US stance on Iraq. An estimated 15,000 people gathered in the Domain after marching through city streets to protest against Australia becoming involved in any US-led pre-emptive strike on Baghdad. Mr Pilger told the crowd their stance marked them as moderates. But he said the Government's enforcement of sanctions against Iraq and its willingness to join a war against Bagdad, made them extremists. "They have to be extreme to attack, unprovoked, a country that offers no threat to Australia, with whom Australia trades," he said. "A whole people held hostage to a medieval embargo as well as to their own dictator." ) ABC 2002 | privacy ---------- [Image] [Image] Print this article | [Image] Close this window Actors leads huge supporting cast in protest By Andrew West and Frank Walker December 1 2002 A crowd estimated by police to be more than 15,000, led by high-profile actors and activists, marched through central Sydney yesterday to protest against any Australian participation in a US-led strike on Iraq. Actors John Howard and Judy Davis and author John Pilger addressed The Walk Against War rally, after the huge crowd left Town Hall at noon and surged to the Domain. "What has Iraq done to Australia apart from buying a great deal of our wheat ?" Howard asked. "What is our fight with the Iraqi people? What is our fight with Iraqi children? "We are partly responsible for the deaths of half a million Iraqi children because we are part of the blockade of that country that is denying them medicines and equipment." Mary Boland, from Forest Lodge in Sydney's inner west, said she was determined that Prime Minister John Howard should know that middle Australia was opposed to any pre-emptive strike against Iraq. "I think I'm a pretty typical middle-class Australian and I just wanted to have my say," she said, adding that a war on Iraq was "absolutely separate" to the war on terrorism. ACTU president Sharan Burrow said that while every Australian opposed terrorism and the taking of innocent life, there was increasing opposition to making Iraq a target. The rally attracted hundreds of community groups, unions and political parties including the Catholic Sisters of St Joseph, the Public Service Association and Labor for Refugees. This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/11/30/1038386361365.html [Image] [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: southnews-unsubscribe@egroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ***************************************************************** 34 Rapporteur Visits Moscow on Pasko Fact-Finding Mission The Pasko Case Gregory Pasko, an investigative journalist who worked for the Pacific Fleet's newspaper, was arrested on 20 November 1997 by the FSB and charged with high treason for his writing about the nuclear safety issues in the Russian Pacific Fleet. European inquiry into case to put Russia on notice about human rights MOSCOW - As the parole hearing to free imprisoned journalist Grigory Pasko approaches, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), has this week sent a fact-finding rapporteur to examine the case, which has generated international outrage. Rudolf Bindig during the meeting with Pasko's lawyers and human rights activists in Moscow(from left: Rudolf Bindig,deputy secretary Raphaëlle Mathey, Alexey Simonov) Charles Digges, 2002-11-30 11:06 While here on a trip that began on Monday, and included other agenda items besides the Pasko case, Rudolf Bindig, a German delegate to PACE, met with the head of the Military Collegium of the Russian Supreme Court, Nikolai Petukhov; Justice Minister Yury Chaika; staff members from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; deputies to Federal Security Service’s, or FSB’s, chief Nikolai Patrushev, officials in the Prosecutor General’s office – as well as Duma Deputy Alexander Shishlov, Bellona representatives and human rights activists. Bindig, however, opted not to fly to Vladivostok to meet with Pasko in person – or speak with Far East officials of Russia’s state corrections department, known by the acronym GUIN – saying he would make such a trip this spring if Pasko was still incarcerated. Indeed, Bindig’s packed, four-day agenda in Moscow left him only one day for matters concerning Pasko. According to Pasko’s supporters, Bindig’s authority is more symbolic than judicial at this point, but the fact that PACE would a send rapporteur is a strong statement from the Council of Europe that gross violations of justice are suspected in the Pasko case, which will be recorded in a report that Bindig will prepare for PACE in Strasbourg. Opening doors “Bindig’s visit opened certain doors that we could not open ourselves,” said Pasko’s lawyer Ivan Pavlov in an interview Wednesday. “As a member of PACE he can go ask questions of the minister of justice and others, and they can’t really refuse him.” “The most important thing is that Bindig is here,” said Boris Pustyntsev, chairman of the St. Petersburg-based human rights watchdog Citizens’ Watch, in an interview with Bellona Web. “The [Russian] government understands there is a time bomb that it won’t be able to defuse, and if doesn’t explode here, then it will explode in Strasbourg.” By far the most important of Bindig’s visits was to the chairman of the Military Collegium of Russia’s Supreme Court, Nikolai Petukhov. Petukhov was standing in for Supreme Court Presidium Chairman Vyacheslav Lebedev, who was said to be on vacation during Bindig’s visit. Lebedev’s secretary confirmed Wednesday that the presidium chairman was “unavailable” but declined to say whether he was on vacation. At issue during the discussion, on which Bindig later briefed Bellona Web by telephone, though he refused to be quoted directly, were the progress of the so-called supervisory appeal filed by Pasko's defence – a document requesting that the Supreme Court’s Presidium review trial documents based on arguments that the case was previously mishandled and render a verdict. It is still unknown whether the presidium will take the supervisory appeal for consideration. Petukhov, as chief military justice and Lebedev’s deputy, is a member of the Supreme Court’s fifteen-judge presidium – meaning he is directly involved, and will have a vote in, Pasko’s supervisory appeal hearing if it takes place. One possible result, when the presidium convenes under Lebedev’s chairmanship, is that the judges will find that no laws were violated by Pasko, the case will be thrown out and Pasko will walk free. Another is that the presidium comes to a different opinion than the lower justices of the Supreme Court about the qualification of the crime and the gravity of the case and Pasko will be given a lighter sentence. The third outcome, as relayed by Petukhov to Bindig, is that the presidium judges decide that the original case was handled according to Russian law, thus leaving the present verdict to stand. Petukhov told Bindig he believed the second option could be a possible outcome. Despite several phone calls and faxes, Petukhov could not be reached for further comment. Lawyer Ivan Pavlov showes photos of Pasko in the labour camp. Contestation of verdict What was revealing about Petukhov’s comments, said Pavlov, was that the judge openly discussed the hypothetical outcomes of – and even offered his own prediction about – the supervisory appeal procedure, prior to Petukhov’s own filing of a so-called contestation of verdict, or protest of sentence. The filing of this document is key to the supervisory appeal process because, in it, the supervising judge – in this case, Petukhov – himself spells out the basis for reviewing the verdict of the original case, which is then considered by the presidium as it decide whether or not to grant the supervisory appeal. The very revelation would be good news for the defence team because it would mean that the supervisory appeal was not thrown out to begin with. Nonetheless, the appeal’s fate still depends on what phrasing the judge will choose while writing the contestation of verdict. Furthermore, it is irregular that the defence would find out that a supervisory appeal was underway second-hand, and not directly from the judge as he files the contestation of verdict. That Petukhov would tilt his hand to reveal what he thought the outcome of the supervisory appeal would be – before the protest of sentence had been filed – led Pustyntsev to believe that the state apparatus arrayed against Pasko was getting uncomfortable. “Petukhov is giving hope for a better outcome [than that Pasko simply remains in jail] because it means they are getting worried,” Pustyntsev said. Pavlov also said it was good news. Ironically, Pasko’s parole hearing could come as soon as Dec. 25, while the Supreme Court could still be reviewing the supervisory appeal. But according to Bindig’s impression of what he was told by Petukhov, the presidium will decide what to do with the appeal prior to that date. Pavlov also underscored that the parole hearing and the supervisory appeal are two entirely separate matters. If, for instance, Pasko is paroled but the presidium’s deliberations lead it to support the verdict of the court that sentenced Pasko, he nonetheless remains free. Pavlov, however, would not comment on what he thought the possible outcomes for Pasko might be. Petukhov’s sympathies exposed While visiting Petukhov, Bindig said that the judge showed him what was allegedly an incriminating piece of evidence in the Pasko case – a sheet of notes which according to Petukhov, contain information on highly developed technology for locating submarines. The notes were taken by Pasko while at a meeting of Pacific Fleet naval brass on Sep. 11, 1997, where he, as a reporter for the Pacific Fleet’s Boyevaya Vakhta newspaper, was authorized to be. It was later insinuated by the FSB that Pasko intended to pass these notes to a Japanese journalist. However, throughout the ten weeks Pasko possessed the notes – during which time he phoned his Japanese counterpart, Tadishi Okano, dozens of times – not once, according to transcripts of Pasko’s bugged telephone, did Pasko mention the notes in question. According to the indictment against and conviction of Pasko, the notes contain no secret information on any technology for locating submarines, but nothing more than the reporter’s scrawl regarding communication failures during Pacific Fleet naval exercises in early September 1997, said Bellona’s Jon Gauslaa. Pasko was nonetheless convicted and sentenced for “intending” to pass this information on to Okano. Because of these notes, Petukhov told Bindig he thought that the court is dealing with an espionage case, not a case of freedom of expression or ecological safety. Bindig said, however, that Petukhov was willing to study the notes again. But Pustyntsev of Citizens’ Watch maintained that Petukhov was a bit player in the Pasko drama and been foisted on stage to deal with Bindig because Lebedev did not want to speak with the Council of Europe about the case. In the matter of Pasko’s fate, Pustyntsev said of Petukhov: “It’s obvious he doesn’t decide anything for himself. His decision will be what Lebedev tells him to say.” Poor planning One meeting that, in Pustyntsev’s assessment, might have been crucial, but that Bindig missed out on, was a meeting with Federation Council Speaker Sergei Mironov – a powerful figure in President Vladimir Putin’s St. Petersburg political clique – who, even prior to Pasko’s conviction, which came in December last year, expressed his sympathy for the reporter. Mironov has remained a staunch critic of the verdict, and has been instrumental trying to drum up government support for Pasko’s freedom. Pustyntsev, at Bindig’s behest, undertook to arrange a meeting between the two men. In the end, however, Bindig took a meeting with Oleg Mironov instead – not through any error caused by the last names, but because the latter Mironov is Russia’s elected human rights ombudsman – a figure with far less political clout than his namesake and far more to answer for because of his waffling stance on crucial human rights issues like the Kremlin’s bloody war in Chechnya, its stifling of the press, its troubling tendencies to persecution of scientists, environmentalists and writers, and battle on the rights of ethnic minorities. “[PACE’s] mistake was that they chose the wrong Mironov for their meeting. Oleg Mironov is a lame duck who is fading into the shadows and will not be elected again,” said Pustyntsev. As Pustyntsev said, “he’s already looking for a new job, the authorities don’t want him anymore, and he is getting less and less active” in the issues he was elected to promote. Parole hearing In coming to Russia on his fact-finding mission, Bindig stressed that it was PACE’s intention to impart on the Russians that it was watching the proceedings in the case very closely. He also wanted to underscore that PACE would be ready for Pasko and his defenders to turn to them and help sue for damages Pasko suffered while in custody, regardless of the outcome of the case. Back in Ussuryisk, Pasko’s prison colony holds parole hearings on the second and fourth Monday of every month, meaning, under these rules, Pasko would be before the parole board Dec. 25. The problem, however, is that Pasko, like any other inmate, will be expected by the parole board to admit his guilt and declare he is reformed – something in all honesty Pasko cannot do, being innocent of the charges he was imprisoned for. He and Pavlov have therefore devised a rhetorical strategy that will both allow Pasko to speak with a clear conscience and get his walking papers stamped. “We are law-abiding citizens,” Pavlov has urged his client to say. “We respect the law, and we have to make peace with the verdict that has come into legal force, but we will only go along with it until the minute it is annulled.” Publisher: Bellona Foundation [bellona@bellona.no] , President: Frederic Hauge [frederic@bellona.no] Information: info@bellona.no [info@bellona.no] , Technical contact: webmaster@bellona.no [webmaster@bellona.no] Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62 * P.O.Box 2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway ***************************************************************** 35 UK: DANGER OF THE ANORAKS' BIBLE AROUND 12,000 copies of Freightmaster are sold every year to trainspotters, councils and environmental groups. The guide costs £11.75 and is updated every three months to provide detailed schedules of nuclear and chemical loads and military movements. British Transport Police say they can do nothing to halt the book and the MoD have been forced to beef up their security measures. Last night, Martin Buch, of publishers Freightmaster, said he had received no complaints about the book from any of the authorities. He said: "These trains travel quite openly on the rail network for all to see and we are not giving away any state secrets." ***************************************************************** 36 British considered A-bombing Nazis -- The Washington Times December 1, 2002 By Chris Hastings and Fiona Govan LONDON SUNDAY TELEGRAPH      LONDON — Britain considered using the atom bomb against Germany in retaliation for Hitler's deployment of V2 rockets against London, according to newly declassified documents.      The diaries of Guy Liddell, the head of the espionage "B" Branch of MI5 between 1939-1945, reveal that concern about the Nazis' V2 program was so great that the possibility of using the nuclear bomb as a deterrent was discussed with Prime Minister Winston Churchill.      It was even suggested that Churchill would raise the idea of using the bomb, which had been in development in the United States since 1942, with President Franklin D. Roosevelt.      The proposal was discussed in August 1944, when British agents were reporting that Hitler was poised to launch the supersonic V2 rockets, armed with 2,000-pound warheads, at London.      Britain had no effective countermeasures against the 46-foot-long rocket-propelled V2s, and because they traveled faster than the speed of sound, they detonated without warning.      An alarmed Mr. Liddell asked Stewart Menzies, the head of MI6, if a nuclear threat could be used against Hitler. Mr. Liddell and Mr. Menzies — referred to as "C" — were among the few people in Britain who knew that the Allies were developing an atomic weapon.      "I saw 'C' today about the uranium bomb and put to him the suggestion that it should be used as a threat of retaliation to the Germans if they used V2," Mr. Liddell recorded in his diary. "He felt that there was nothing to be lost and said that he would put the suggestion to the [prime minister], who might take it up on his visit to Roosevelt, which is to take place early next month. On the other hand, he might decide to act more quickly."      Less than two weeks later, on Sept. 7, 1944, Hitler began Operation Penguin, raining hundreds of V2 rockets down on Britain. During the seven months leading up to the end of the war in Europe, more than 3,000 were launched, killing 2,274 persons in London alone.      The documents do not record the result of Mr. Menzie's discussion with Churchill; however, the suggestion came at a time when Britain was already engaged in a campaign of destruction — "area bombing" — against German cities. The campaign was so devastating that some German historians now argue that Churchill should be seen as a war criminal.      Churchill also stoutly defended the Americans' use of the atom bomb against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, supporting its deployment on military, political and moral grounds. On Aug. 10, the day after the Nagasaki bombing, Churchill argued that the horrific death toll was militarily justified if it helped to bring the war to an early close. He also reportedly complained to a friend that the Americans had failed to make sufficient political use of their new-found power, saying he would have threatened Russia with the device to make Stalin "behave reasonably and decently in Europe."      Andrew Roberts, a military historian, agreed that Mr. Liddell's suggestion would have been taken seriously due to the scale of the threat posed to Britain by the V2.      "I think the way contemporaries felt about the V2 was not that different from the way they felt about nuclear weapons: the V2 rocket was Hitler's deadliest weapon," he said.      He said that if the Allies had had the nuclear bomb a year earlier, "the war in Europe would have ended there and then."      The Manhattan Project — established in 1942 in response to warnings that the Nazis were trying to develop a nuclear weapon — was far from complete.      The first successful test of an atomic device would not take place until almost a year later at Los Alamos, N.M., on July 16, 1945 — after the war in Europe had ended.      The first use of the atom bomb was at Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, when 200,000 Japanese were killed. A second bomb of a different type was exploded above Nagasaki on Aug. 9. Five days later the Japanese surrendered. ***************************************************************** 37 Russian concern over Pakistan BBC NEWS | South Asia | Sunday, 1 December, 2002, The Russian President, Vladimir Putin, has expressed concern about the risk of Pakistan's weapons of mass destruction falling into the hands of terrorists. In an interview with an Indian newspaper The Hindu ahead of a three-day visit to India this week, he said there was also the threat that extremists could get hold of sensitive information on producing weapons with a destructive potential. He said Russia remained anxious about the problem in spite of Pakistan's efforts to deal with it. Pakistan rejected any concerns about the security of its nuclear assets, saying Russia should pay attention to safeguarding its own fissile material. Elsewhere in the interview, President Putin called for greater economic cooperation with India, saying commercial trade was inadmissibly low. Russia remains India's main defence supplier, but trade in other areas has dropped since Soviet times. (From the newsroom of BBC World Service) © MMII | News Sources | Privacy ***************************************************************** 38 U.S. News: Einstein's pacifism did not stop him from urging research on the atomic bomb (12/9/02) [usnews.com] SUNDAY MAIL INVESTIGATES: Dec 1 2002 *Book reveals timetable of nuclear and military trips* Norman Silvester Exclusive TRAINSPOTTERS are risking national security after revealing secret movements of deadly nuclear and military convoys across Scotland. A £12 handbook sold over the counter tells rail enthusiasts the exact times when freight trains carrying radioactive fuel and military munitions cross the country. The Freightmaster guide even provides maps pinpointing "hotspots" where spotters can wait for the secret trains to pass. Horrified security expert Professor Tim Ripley said yesterday: "This guide would give a terrorist a head start on where to look for these trains." The professor, a security analyst with Lancaster University's defence studies centre, added: "Trains could be turned into a dirty bomb by being derailed and the material released into the atmosphere, contaminating land for miles around. It would be a really nasty event." The Ministry of Defence and British Nuclear Fuels Ltd have both launched investigations into the book amid fears it could provide a timetable for terrorists. And BNFL have been forced to change the times of the waste trains for fear of a terrorist attack. The Sunday Mail has chosen not to reveal the sensitive routes but among the movements detailed in the book are trains carrying nuclear waste from nuclear power stations at Hunterston, Ayrshire, and Torness, East Lothian, to Sellafield for reprocessing. The book also gives details of MoD trains' daily routes and times including detailed information about Glen Douglas station near Britain's nuclear submarine base at Faslane. Glen Douglas, which is closed to the public, contains Britain's entire nuclear arsenal of Trident missiles and is one of NATO's largest munitions dumps. The Freightmaster guide also details the movements of toxic chemical loads from the BP plant at Grangemouth and Royal Mail trains - again with handy maps. Experts fear that terrorists could use the information to steal nuclear and chemical contents to make bombs. Or criminals could use the information to rob mail trains, which often carry large amounts of cash. Trainspotters even post their photos on the internet, including pictures of the nuclear convoys with their deadly loads. Yesterday, the MoD confirmed it had taken action after learning of the detail contained in the book. Faslane spokeswoman Shaline Groves said: "All the munitions are carried in sealed containers which have been crash-tested. "We are aware that information on train routes is available in this book and have taken appropriate security measures." British Transport Police admit trains carrying radioactive waste are a potential terrorist target but they say there is little they can do to stop the book's publication. A spokesman added: "There is tight security governing the movement of nuclear flasks by rail and elsewhere, which we and others are responsible for policing. "Since September 11, we have increased the number of patrols in train stations." The Freightmaster book is compiled specially for trainspotters by a company of the same name and is updated every three months. It lists the dates and times of every freight train in Britain, including those carrying less risky cargoes such as steel, coal and cars. Our revelations follow Tony Blair's speech on terrorism last month in which he warned that extremists might use trains to attack the West. One of the latest FBI warnings suggested that the al-Qaeda terror network may be plotting to hijack trains in America. Every week 20 convoys of nuclear waste are taken from power stations across Britain by rail for reprocessing at Sellafield. Four of these consignments travel from Hunterston and Torness to the Cumbrian coast. The nuclear trains are instantly recognisable by their blue and yellow colours. Before leaving the power stations the waste is placed in heavily shielded, purpose- built giant flasks constructed from forged steel more than a foot thick. Each flask weighs more than 50 tonnes and is housed under a locked cover fastened to the rail wagon for transportation. The nuclear train services are run by Direct Rail Services, the transport arm of state-owned BNFL. Daniel Gould, of DRS, said yesterday: "We operate within stringent safety and security regulations that are continuously monitored, ensuring the risk of any incident is minimised at all times. "All DRS employees have been briefed, explaining the need for increased vigilance." Environmental group Friends of the Earth say they are pleased that this information has been made public. Spokesman Dan Barlow said: "This is yet another example of why reprocessing of nuclear fuel should be stopped. "Spent fuel should be stored until we can discover a safe way of disposing of it." Transportation of spent nuclear fuel has long caused controversy. The US government has stopped all movements of nuclear materials since the September 11 atrocities. Campaigners have expressed concerns about such material being moved through heavily built-up areas. The fuel from the Torness power station passes through the Morningside and Slateford areas of Edinburgh en route to Sellafield. The spent fuel from Hunterston passes through Ayrshire and Dumfries and Galloway. ***************************************************************** 42 [radiation-survivors] Hanford downwinder files appeal over Date: Sun, 1 Dec 2002 09:40:53 -0600 (CST) http://www.tri-cityherald.com/news/1999/0602.html#anchor596920 Hanford downwinder files appeal over releases By Annette Cary Herald staff writer Hanford downwinders are trying again to force the Department of Energy to pay for medical monitoring of people exposed to Cold War radiation releases. On Tuesday, Trisha Pritikin filed a notice of appeal in U.S. District Court in Yakima over a decision by Judge Edward Shea. Pritikin, a Berkeley, Calif., attorney, believes exposure to radiation when she was growing up in Richland damaged her thyroid gland. Her father, a Hanford scientist, died of thyroid cancer. In late April, Shea agreed with federal attorneys who said a private citizen does not have the right to require DOE to pay for medical monitoring under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act or CERCLA. He dismissed Pritikin's suit. Her attorney, Tom Foulds of Spokane, said CERCLA has many interlocking provisions and part of it is written so poorly the provisions are inconsistent. "The true intent of Congress was to get human remedy as well as physical remedy," Foulds said. "DOE has agreed to pay for physical (environmental) cleanup but has refused to provide funds for human (medical) cleanup." If Shea is correct and Pritikin or another person who lived downwind from radiation releases can't sue DOE, there is no way to make DOE pay for medical monitoring, Foulds said. "I'm going to court and saying this is not the intent of Congress," he said. He expects a decision in about a year. If he wins, medical monitoring would be available not just to Pritikin but also to other Hanford downwinders. The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry decided in 1997 that a program was needed to monitor the thyroids of 14,000 people who lived downwind of Hanford in Eastern Washington and Oregon in the 1940s and 1950s. Airborne radiation was released during tests and by production of plutonium at Hanford during those years. The releases were primarily radioactive iodine, which collects in the thyroid gland and can be particularly harmful to children. ATSDR had proposed checking the thyroid glands of people exposed to the highest doses of radioactive iodine for damage. However, it's since scaled back its proposal to focus on providing information and education to eligible downwinders and doctors. They would assess the risk of thyroid disease, and those who still wanted thyroid exams would be given them. The program, as initially proposed, could have cost nearly $50 million. The scaled-back program should cost considerably less, with cost estimates still being considered. The change in the program came in part because of the Hanford Thyroid Disease Study, which in draft form failed to find an increase in thyroid disease among those with the most exposure to airborne radiation. ATSDR and DOE have discussed money for the medical monitoring program since 1997 but have not reached an agreement. [demime 0.98e removed an attachment of type application/octet-stream which had a name of Top Mid-Columbia stories for June 2, 1999.url] ***************************************************************** 43 DOE capping underground waste wells No radioactive wastes dumped in 15+ years By Frank Munger, News-Sentinel senior writer. December 1, 2002 OAK RIDGE - The U.S. Department of Energy is eliminating its ties to the nuclear underworld. More than 15 years after DOE stopped pumping nuclear wastes into underground rock formations, the agency's contractors are plugging injection wells with concrete and sealing dozens of other wells used to monitor the possible migration of the deep-lying contamination. "We hope to have the last well done by next September," said Greg Eidam of Bechtel Jacobs Co., DOE's environmental cleanup manager in Oak Ridge. The $45 million project, which includes the demolition of storage and mixing facilities, will close the book on a once-popular waste technology called hydrofracture. Beginning in the early 1960s, Oak Ridge National Laboratory used the deep-well injections to dispose of some of its most hazardous wastes. Highly radioactive liquids were mixed with concrete-based grout and pumped into shale formations about 1,000 feet underground. The radioactive mixtures were supposed to spread out in pancake-like sheets and harden, forming a burial package far from drinking water supplies and potential human exposure. The work was halted in 1986 because of questions about a series of rapid injections and concerns that some waste mixtures weren't solidifying as intended. The use of hydrofracture never resumed in Oak Ridge, and DOE and environmental regulators spent years studying the potential impacts of the waste injections and deciding what - if anything - needed to be done to protect future generations from the underground waste deposits. More than 1 million curies of radioactivity were contained in the waste mixtures buried in the geologic cavities - created initially by cracking the shale with high-pressure water injections. The wastes included radioactive strontium-90, cesium-137 and cobalt-60. Eidam said recent studies have suggested the underground situation is stable and safe. It appears unlikely that the deep-seated contamination could reach usable groundwater closer to the surface, he said. "The migration is minimal to none," Eidam said, citing information from monitoring wells in the area. Even if there were problems underground, there are few options available for environmental restoration. Pumping contamination to the surface would run the risk of exposing workers and possibly make matters worse. Tetratec is the lead contractor on the project, with the field work being performed by Texas World Oil. More than half of the wells already have been plugged. About a half-dozen wells will be cleaned and maintained for future monitoring of environmental conditions underground, the Bechtel Jacobs official said. Frank Munger may be reached at 865-482-9213 or twig1@knoxnews.infi.net. The Knoxville News-Sentinel Co. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 44 Lab working with virtual nuts, bolts Tri-Valley Herald Online [http://www.trivalleyherald.com/] December 01, 2002 - 3:03:44 AM MST New software helps Sandia construct weapons for computer simulation more quickly By Ian Hoffman A master modeling database is evolving for the world's most powerful weapons, and scientists say it one day could figure in the design of cars, airplanes and other complex machinery. For years, U.S. nuclear weaponeers relied on handwritten notes and floppy disks to track changes and relationships among thousands of bomb parts. With the end of explosive testing and the emergence of powerful new computers, this antiquated system was due for an overhaul. Just pulling together the digital pieces for a computer simulation of a weapon detonating or crashing into a wall or arcing through frigid space could take months. Last week at a Baltimore conference, Sandia National Laboratories/California unveiled a new software tool for assembling complicated parts into whole machines for the kind of virtual experiments that are routine for weapons maintenance and refurbishment. The faster assembly speeds up the dozens of computer analyses that scientists use, for example, to judge whether a replacement part could snap loose in a fall and make a weapon more vulnerable to accidental detonation. "Now it may take weeks instead of months," said Sandia computer scientist Robert Mariano. As a side benefit, Sandia's software -- called SIMBA or Simulation Manager and Builder for Analysts -- records the origins of every computerized part and its connection to the whole. That helps solve two pressing problems for those responsible for the nation's nuclear arsenal. One is retirement of the most seasoned bomb designers, those who cratered the Pacific and the Nevada with their inventions before the first President Bush suspended explosive testing in 1992. Often the best of these recorded their detailed knowledge sparingly, which is the second problem. Older designers already are teaching their skills to a new generation, both in person and in CD-ROM tutorials. Beyond this massive archiving project, weapons scientists always have access to the "pinks," the full, documented blueprints for every weapon down to the nuts-and-bolts level. But weaponeers still had no software to capture and record changes to the computer files that are a cornerstone of keeping decades-old weapons operable without making or testing entirely new ones. SIMBA does that. "We were told by our analysts that when they're doing their calculations, they have Post-It notes all over the place and floppies and now Zip disks in their drawer, and it takes a long time to put all of this together," said Ken Washington, Sandia's chief of distributed information systems. He said, "With this tool, you can take a part built by someone else at another time and another place, and hook it into your part that you need to analyze. It gives you the full pedigree for every part. And it goes everywhere the part does." Even with the nation's fastest computers, scientists only recently got access to enough processing power to simulate accidents with detailed, full weapons in three dimensions. They slipped past that mark in the late 1990s when each of the nation's three weapons labs gained computers capable of performing more than a trillion calculations per second. With SIMBA, scientists can make sure the computerized parts fit together realistically and more easily run simulations that, for example, predict whether a part will be crushed or a screw will shear apart in an accident, said Jay Dike, a Sandia weapons analyst. SIMBA is designed for classified weapons research, to let scientists perform their work without breaching need-to-know barriers. But similar unclassified software, they said, could prove valuable for civilian manufacturers as they increasingly turn to 3-D computer simulations for designing new cars, plans and other complicated machinery. Contact Ian Hoffman at [ihoffman@angnewspapers.com] ©1999-2002 by MediaNews Group, Inc. and ANG Newspapers ***************************************************************** 45 State Mandates Cleanup at Lab* * By JEFF TOLLEFSON | The New Mexican 12/01/2002 * The New Mexico Environment Department last week issued an order that commits Los Alamos National Laboratory to a schedule for investigation and remediation activities throughout the 43-square-mile facility. The lab faces penalties and lawsuits if it doesn't comply. * Until now, the lab has essentially run its own cleanup program, occasionally prodded by state regulators. With this move, state officials say, New Mexico is following in the footsteps of other states that have placed legally binding cleanup orders on nuclear facilities. At least one nuclear watchdog group is hailing the Environment Department for finally stepping up to the plate and asserting its authority over the nuclear weapons laboratory - and doing it while defending a lawsuit brought by the lab in federal court challenging state authority to mandate cleanup. "We salute the Environment Department for having the guts to issue this final order in the face of the Los Alamos lawsuit," said Jay Coghlan, who heads Nuclear Watch. "They definitely stuck to their guns." The Environment Department has encountered charges that the 300-page order is heavy on investigation and light on actual cleanup activities, but Coghlan said such criticism is unwarranted. The establishment of a strict, enforceable schedule will make the Environment Department and the lab accountable to the public, he said. Laboratory officials call the order duplicative and unnecessary, saying they will continue their own "accelerated" cleanup plan while continuing to fight the draft state order in federal court. "As part of our ongoing commitment to environmental stewardship, the laboratory believes it is more appropriate to use funding to clean up areas contaminated by Cold War and earlier operations than to focus those resources on duplicative studies," Jim Holt, associate director for operations, said in a prepared statement this week. Laboratory officials could not be reached for further comment. Coghlan called the lab's position "a bunch of hooey." Environmental activists have long criticized the lab for spending millions (about $700 million since the program began more than a decade ago) largely on investigations and not on cleaning up pollution. And unless an outside regulatory agency gets involved, critics argue, no one can make the lab accountable for anything. They note that the lab created its current accelerated cleanup proposal with no public input whatsoever. "It's imperative that state government enforce cleanup at Los Alamos," Coghlan said. He called on Bill Richardson, governor elect and former Energy secretary, to support the Environment Department in what will surely be a prolonged fight with the lab. "We trust this will lead to actual cleanup at the laboratory, and that Richardson will back up the department." Despite continued protests from the laboratory, the state did not withdraw its finding from the draft cleanup order that pollution at the laboratory might pose an "imminent and substantial endangerment" to public health and the environment. This statement has been a significant bone of contention with the lab, which maintains that it is false and misleading. In additional to challenging the state's finding of "substantial endangerment," the lawsuit argues that the Environment Department has no authority to regulate everything from nuclear waste dumps - containing both hazardous and nuclear materials - to groundwater, canyon bottoms, explosives sites and such toxins as polychlorinated biphenyls. While management of all nuclear materials is reserved for the federal government, the state of New Mexico has control over hazardous materials. State and federal officials have been arguing for years about "mixed wastes" - those that contain radioactive and hazardous materials. The Environment Department's order asserts indirect authority over various nuclear waste sites. Coghlan notes that the order requires the lab to have an investigation work plan in place by the end of January for one old nuclear waste dump. Such a plan is required for Area G, the lab's current radioactive waste-disposal area, by spring, he noted. "We'll actually see this order becoming real pretty quick," Coghlan said. James Bearzi, chief of the department's Hazardous Waste Bureau, said the state's cleanup order remains largely the same as the initial draft, with the exception of a few tweaks in response to public comments. "There really aren't any major changes," Bearzi said. "We still find that there may be imminent and substantial endangerment up there, and they still need to do stuff to change it. The final order, as well as the Environment Department's response to public comments, can be viewed in Santa Fe at the Hazardous Waste Bureau, 2905 Rodeo Park Drive East, Building 1 or on the Internet at (www.nmenv.state.nm.us/HWB/pubnotice.html). Santa Fe New Mexican ***************************************************************** 46 EPA could affect plant cleanup [http://www.paducahsun.com/] The Paducah Sun Paducah, Kentucky Saturday, November 30, 2002 A Dec. 17 decision could remove intermediate deadlines. Critics say that would let the Department of Energy drag its feet. By Bill Bartleman bbartleman@paducahsun.com--270.575.8650 Whether the U.S. Department of Energy can be forced to keep its schedule to complete cleanup work at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant by 2010 could depend on a decision expected to be made Dec. 17 in Washington. DOE wants to amend its cleanup agreement with environmental regulators to remove a provision that requires it to set dates for completing each segment of the cleanup work, such as the removal of contamination in the north-south drainage ditch, removal of contaminated storage areas and removal of thousands of tons of contaminated scrap metal. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials at the regional headquarters in Atlanta and the Kentucky Natural Resources Cabinet use milestone dates for each project as a means of keeping DOE on schedule. DOE wants the only enforceable date to be the one that requires all the work be completed by the end of the decade, according to Hank List, who last month became secretary of the Natural Resources cabinet, replacing the late James Bickford. Without those milestones, List said there is no way to monitor the progress and force DOE to get the work done on time. DOE, however, contends it spends a lot of time and money preparing paperwork related to the deadlines. Removing that paperwork from the bureaucracy would mean more money spent on actual cleanup work, DOE argues. Removing the completion dates also would allow DOE to follow what it calls an accelerated cleanup plan, which also has been rejected by regulators because it would require less cleanup work than is required under an agreement signed four years ago. After state and federal EPA officials rejected DOE's request for a change in the cleanup agreement, DOE filed an appeal with Christy Todd Whitman, secretary of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. She is to rule on the appeal by Dec. 17, List said. "We are trying to schedule a meeting with her to explain our side of the dispute," he said. "They (DOE) already are two years behind in the work they promised to have done. What would make anyone think they'd get the work done any faster if they don't have the milestones?" As a last resort, List said the state would sue DOE seeking to enforce the 1998 cleanup agreement. Dick Green, an EPA special adviser to the regional director in Atlanta, said requiring dates to complete each project helps facilitate planning to complete the work. Without deadlines, he's concerned DOE would continue to put off work. "They only want to establish beginning dates for work, but no end dates," Green said. He said that even under the current work schedule, it will be difficult for DOE to complete the cleanup work on time. "2010 is a target date, but it may not be a realistic date," he said. The cleanup involves elimination of groundwater contamination, removal of contaminated material from landfills and removal of contaminated scrap metal. ***************************************************************** 47 Pantex brings jobs, anxiety to Panhandle Star Telegram | 12/01/2002 | [startelegram.com - The startelegram home page] By Jack Douglas Jr. and Bill Hanna Star-Telegram Staff Writers PANHANDLE - When the sun goes down, rows of security lights fire up, casting an orange glow over the Texas Panhandle's wheat fields, cow pastures and America's only known assembly plant for nuclear weapons. If not for the large number of "Danger" and "No Trespassing" signs tacked to the fence, and one stretch that warns of a "small arms impact area," there is little to distinguish Pantex from the beef processing plant up the highway. But a closer look reveals the mounds of earth that cover the bunkers where plutonium is stored and the 13 white-domed buildings, believed to be where nuclear warheads are fine-tuned into even more powerful weapons of mass destruction. Work is in high gear at the nuclear warhead plant, and it is scheduled to get even busier, a Pantex supervisor says. That is due in large part to new initiatives by the Bush administration, which considers nuclear weapons a "key element of U.S. national security," proving its "steadiness of purpose" against potential enemies, according to congressional testimony. Many in the Panhandle see the weapons plant, with its 3,500 employees, as an economic engine, providing jobs and income to nearby towns even as other rural communities dry up. Ten miles from the plant, in a small community named Panhandle, 10 homes have been built in the past two years. That's considered a growth spurt in the town of 2,589. "Every town in the Panhandle is dying out except for this one," said Tom Stamp, owner of Fat Tony's, a bar and grill where many of the weapons plant employees hang out after their shifts. "If people were so afraid of Pantex, they wouldn't be moving here in droves." The weapons builders, who come from both the government and private sector, are no strangers to the farmers and ranchers who live nearby. Pantex opened in 1942 as a conventional weapons assembly plant and closed after World War II. The government reopened it in 1951 as a nuclear-weapons facility. Even the threat of terrorism doesn't shake the residents of Panhandle, where parents watch their children play outside the Dairy Queen. Some, such as Jerry Horton, are even comforted by living so close to the plant, believing its eagle-eyed security forces will also protect them in an emergency. Recently, winds whipped his dog's small rubber pool across the road and up against the Pantex's barbed-wire fence, Horton said. Shortly after he retrieved the pool, Horton said, "I had all kinds of security over here, asking what I was doing by the fence. "They're real nice and friendly people." Other residents see a bright spot in the event of catastrophe, rationalizing that death would be quick and painless. "If a bomb ever hit that plant, probably everything for 200 miles would blow up," said Rex Young, 35, as he watched his young son play. "We'd never feel it ... [so] you wouldn't have to worry about it." A few residents, however, say bluntly that Pantex, and its stepped-up pace of production, is a disaster waiting to happen. "Our contention has been all along that we're sitting on a powder keg," said Doris Smith, a third-generation farm owner whose 2,500 acres adjoin the Pantex property. Smith says she worries that the plutonium-filled bunkers are too easy a target for terrorists. In addition, she said, weapons shouldn't be built next to land tilled to grow food. "It's a real dichotomy. As part of the farming community, we view ourselves as stewards of the soil. We want it to be wholesome," Smith said. "But right across the barbed-wire fence, they're building bombs to kill people." The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and President Bush's enthusiasm for nuclear defense strategies have caused a "Cold War mentality" to return to Pantex, Smith contends. Now, she said, plant officials won't disclose the quantity of radioactive materials at the facility, saying that to do so "might give terrorists ideas about where things are." But most residents in this part of the state say they are comfortable with the national push for nuclear-backed defense strategies, much of it centered at Pantex. At the 16,000-acre facility 17 miles northeast of Amarillo, nuclear warheads are put together, others are disassembled and still others have their radioactive components, plutonium and uranium, removed for storage in heavily guarded areas of the plant. The place is well guarded, everyone agrees. But, those leery of Pantex quickly add, so were the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. "I really try not to think about it a lot," said Dawn Tucker, standing with her 8-year-old daughter, Taren, outside a school near the plant. Tucker said she wouldn't want the facility moved, "because then it would be next to someone else." Taren, smiling, said she had a solution to ease her mother's concerns: "I'd rather it be out of this world." That is not likely to happen, at least any time soon. The Bush administration has made it clear that a modernized stockpile of nuclear warheads, while smaller, is the backbone of homeland security. The government "must press ahead with its efforts to reverse the deterioration of its nuclear weapons infrastructure, restore lost production capabilities, and modernize others," John Gordon, director of the National Nuclear Security Administration, told a congressional committee in February. Gordon told members of Congress in June that the government, in again making "nuclear deterrence" the "cornerstone of our national defense strategy," will make the stockpile of warheads meaner and leaner, retiring as many as 4,300 missiles while refurbishing some of the 1,700 that remain active. The "Pantex plant will serve as the central point for all assembly and disassembly operations in support of the refurbishment work," said Gordon, who has since been transferred to the National Security Council. The refurbishment might well include turning an existing nuclear warhead into a ground-burrowing, hard-rock-smashing bomb that the government, in a $15.5 million study, has nicknamed the "Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator." Dan Glenn, the Department of Energy's operations director at Pantex, said security has been strengthened at the plant since the terrorist attacks. But he did not suggest that the installation is impenetrable. "We do our best to protect the materials we have, but certainly we wouldn't want to see an aircraft crash anywhere near our area," he said. Such an incident, Glenn added, could result in "some plutonium dispersal. That's obviously something none of us would want to occur." Amarillo Mayor Trent Sisemore said his city of 175,000 is "blessed" to have Pantex so close. The plant is no more a target for terrorism than other high-security installations around the country, including the Comanche Peak nuclear power plant near Fort Worth and the Houston Ship Channel, Sisemore said. "We, as a community, can't be fearful and selfish; we still must have our nation's best interest at heart," Sisemore said. Mavis Belisle, director of the Peace Farm, a nonprofit organization that opposes nuclear proliferation, said people living near Pantex might talk big, but they have nagging, and often unspoken, concerns. "They realize that an accident is not all that they have to worry about," she said. That was never more obvious than after the terrorist attacks, when rumors spread about a fifth hijacked plane heading toward Pantex. That triggered frantic calls from worried parents to Highland Park School, five miles from the weapons plant. Principal Blair Brown says teachers and students no longer take evacuation drills lightly. "Before 9-11, I think we were just kind of going through the motions," Blair said of the drills. "But after that day, we realized, 'Hey, we really need to be aware.' " Jack Douglas Jr., (817) 390-7700 jld@star-telegram.com [jld@star-telegram.com] ***************************************************************** 48 Bush Makes a Perilous NATO Pledge [The Cato Institute] [http://www.cato.org/25th/index.html] November 30, 2002 by Ted Galen Carpenter Ted Galen Carpenter is vice president for defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute and the author or editor of 14 books on international affairs including "Peace &Freedom: Foreign Policy for a Constitutional Republic" (Cato Institute, 2002). In a rousing speech to an enthusiastic crowd in Lithuania -- one of the seven countries NATO leaders have invited to join the alliance -- George Bush affirmed a commitment that may come back to haunt a future U.S. president. "Our alliance has made a solemn pledge of protection, and anyone who would choose Lithuania as an enemy has also made an enemy of the United States." There is no doubt to whom his message was directed. There is only one conceivable source of coercion against Lithuania and the other Baltic republics now or at any point in the future: Russia. For all the talk of cooperative relations between the United States and Russia, Bush's speech was a harsh reminder to Russian President Vladimir Putin that the Baltic states are now allies-or more accurately, clients-of the United States and will never again be part of even an informal Russian sphere of influence. Bush's pledge underscores a crucial point. Most proponents of NATO's expansion eastward act as though the alliance is now little more than a political honor society. Their logic is that, because the nations of Central and Eastern Europe have become capitalist democracies, they deserve to become members of the West's most prominent club. And because NATO is now a political body, so the argument goes, Russia has no reason to fear or oppose its expansion. But as Bush's promise to the Lithuanians should remind us, NATO is much more than a political club. It is still a military alliance with serious obligations for the United States. Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty proclaims that an attack on one member is an attack on all. That means the United States is obligated to defend every member-no matter how small, how militarily and economically insignificant, or how strategically exposed that member might be. And those obligations go on forever. Therein lies the danger. True, there is little risk of a clash with Russia in the near-term. Russia's military is in no condition to challenge the United States even in Moscow's geopolitical backyard. Moreover, Putin has adopted a surprisingly accommodating policy in an effort to secure economic and political benefits from the United States and its allies. But who knows what Putin's successor's successor might be like? Who would dare predict the political environment in Russia a decade or a generation from now? All that would be required to trigger a crisis is a Russian president who tires of the Baltic republics' continuing treatment of their Russian inhabitants as second class citizens and decides that Moscow should rectify that situation by force if necessary. Indeed, a crisis could be triggered if a future Russian president concludes that a Western military presence in the Baltic region is an intolerable intrusion into what should rightfully be Moscow's sphere of influence. That is why permanent U.S. security obligations are so unwise. The commitments may make sense-or at least be innocuous-under one set of conditions, but they can become disastrous liabilities when conditions change. When permanent commitments are made to strategically and economically irrelevant clients, the folly is compounded. The security pledges to Lithuania and the other Baltic republics are a case in point. If the U.S. commitment is ever challenged, Washington would face a choice between a bad outcome and a worse one. The United States could renege on its commitment, which would devastate U.S. credibility and create doubts about all other U.S. security commitments and statements elsewhere in the world. That would be a very bad outcome. But matters would be worse if Washington endeavored to carry out its pledge. Such a move could easily lead to a clash with a nuclear-armed great power. That degree of risk should never be incurred except in the defense of America's most vital security interests. The security of three tiny nations on Russia's border doesn't even come close to meeting that test. President Bush probably believes that his pledge to the Lithuanians is an exercise in harmless (and popular) political symbolism. But it is much more serious. One of Bush's successors, as well as the American people, may have reason to regret his impetuous and ill-advised commitment. 1000 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W. Washington D.C. 20001-5403 Phone (202) 842-0200 Fax (202) 842-3490 All Rights Reserved © 2002 Cato Institute ***************************************************************** 49 Some in GOP see another 'axis of evil'; analysts encourage engagement instead By Letta Tayler LATIN AMERICA CORRESPONDENT December 1, 2002 Mexico City - Sixteen years ago, President Ronald Reagan sounded the alarm against the then-leftist government in Nicaragua, declaring it aimed to become "a launching pad for revolutions ... just two days' driving time from Harlingen, Texas." Acting on that fear, Reagan launched a massive campaign that helped quash leftist movements in Latin America, continuing a century of American involvement in regimes south of the border that Washington considered threatening to its interests. But a recent string of electoral victories in the region has renewed concern in Washington of a leftist resurgence, particularly after the triumphs of a former hard-line socialist in Brazil and an ex-coup leader in Ecuador. Some Republicans, including House International Relations Committee Chairman Henry Hyde of Illinois, have charged that the newly ascendant leftists could join with Venezuela's populist President Hugo Chavez and Cuba's Fidel Castro to forge a Latin American "axis of evil." An array of political analysts in both North and South America counter that Washington has little to fear, noting the new leaders and lawmakers have pledged moderation and cooperation with the United States. The prudent response, they argue, is engagement. "This is not another Cold War or radical '60s movement," said Benjamin Ortiz, a political analyst in Ecuador. "It's a reaction to the failures of the established political parties to solve the economic crises in the region. Washington's preoccupation should be the poverty and misery that prompted these votes, not the candidates themselves." Many of the region's economies are in shambles and nearly 44 percent of Latin Americans live below the poverty line, up from 40.5 percent in 1980, according to the United Nations. For the moment, President George W. Bush has pledged to work with the new leaders; he meets Dec. 10 with Brazilian President-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Nevertheless, there is widespread belief that the leftist lurch has prompted consternation in the Bush administration, which includes several architects of Reagan's campaigns against Latin American leftists. Da Silva, a fiery critic of free trade, won the presidency five weeks ago with the largest electoral margin in Brazilian history. Weeks later, leftists swept Peruvian legislative and municipal races. Last Sunday, Lucio Gutierrez, an ex-colonel whose supporters include hard-line Marxists, was elected president of Ecuador, an important oil supplier to the United States. The most powerful opposition figure in Bolivia is Evo Morales, a Marxist who wanted to halt U.S. counternarcotics programs in his Andean nation. Morales, who leads an association of growers of coca, the leaf used to make cocaine, lost the presidency in August by 1.5 percent. Leftists also have a shot at winning the presidency this spring in economically ravaged Argentina. Despite these showings, the majority of Latin American countries has remained politically centrist or edged to the right since 1996, according to a survey conducted last spring by the Chilean polling firm Latinobarometro. In Colombia, war-weary voters last spring elected right-winger Alvaro Uribe as president because of his pledge to end corruption and quash leftist guerrillas who've battled government forces for nearly four decades, noted Marta Lagos, Latinobarometro's director. And in Venezuela, populist Chavez is fighting for his political life. More than leftists or rightists, "voters want somebody who represents a break from corruption and economic problems of the past," Lagos said. Gutierrez and Morales, she noted, are dark-skinned candidates who made direct appeals to indigenous and mixed-race voters. Gutierrez, a former colonel, led an indigenous uprising three years ago against a president whose administration had plunged Ecuador into recession. Gutierrez's rival in the presidential race was banana tycoon Alvaro Noboa, whom human rights groups have accused of using child laborers on his plantations. Halfway through his campaign, Gutierrez traded his fake army uniform - he'd been ejected from the military after the coup - for a suit, and promised he'd honor foreign debts and negotiate a new accord with the International Monetary Fund. He has vowed to keep the U.S. dollar as the nation's currency and has softened his opposition to the U.S. military presence in Ecuador. "I am not a communist. I am a profoundly Christian man who respects private property and human rights," Gutierrez said during his campaign. Brazil's da Silva has made similar promises. However, both da Silva and Gutierrez are critical of an Americas-wide free-trade agreement pushed by Washington, saying it will favor U.S. imports. Although they are unlikely to foment revolution, the new leaders may try to push Washington to re-evaluate free-market policies it imposed on Latin America in the 1990s that often failed to bring promised economic growth and social reform, political observers say. Leftist governments also may attempt to nudge Washington toward detente with Cuba. Whether they could succeed is unclear. Both da Silva and Gutierrez will contend with an opposition majority in their legislatures. And with almost no money in their coffers, most Latin American regimes can't afford to openly antagonize Washington. "These nations will need to work from the center because they need foreign investment capital," said Peter Hakim, president of the Washington-based Inter-American Dialogue. "Latin America hasn't saved enough to grow on its own." Washington threatened to halt desperately needed aid to Bolivia if Morales were elected. Though the tone has been far more cordial toward winners in Brazil, Ecuador and Peru, tensions are surfacing. Last month, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick said if Brazil didn't sign a free-trade deal with the United States, it could "trade with Antarctica." U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill warned he would be watching da Silva closely to make sure the Brazilian leader "is not a crazy person." Former Brazilian President Itamar Franco, a da Silva supporter, retorted that O'Neill is a "psychopath." Hyde and other hard-line U.S. lawmakers also have suggested da Silva wants to revive Brazil's nuclear program, an accusation the president-elect and an array of international experts dismiss. Eric Farnsworth, a Latin America policy director in the Clinton administration, cautions that Washington must be careful not to fulfill its worst prophecies. "We don't want to assume that we will see another Chavez and take steps that encourage these leaders to become that," Farnsworth said. "That's where the nuance has to come in." Copyright © 2002, Newsday, Inc. ***************************************************************** 50 Ridge Tackles Toughest Merger Since Caesar and Cleopatra The Salt Lake Tribune -- Sunday, December 1, 2002 BY DAVID S. BRODER WASHINGTON POST WRITERS GROUP WASHINGTON -- The front-page picture of Nov. 26 is one to keep. It shows Tom Ridge, a wide grin splitting his prizefighter's face, accepting congratulations from a circle of well-wishers on being named the first secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, moments after President Bush signed the legislation creating the new Cabinet department. Today, that department is little more than a gleam in the eye of Bush, Ridge and the main sponsors of the bill, Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Republican Rep. Dick Armey of Texas. The department has no headquarters building, only three appointed officials -- Ridge and two deputies -- and 170,000 prospective employees now scattered among 22 agencies and wary of what the merger will mean for them. In the weeks and months ahead, there will be many occasions to look at that picture and wonder, "What the heck was he smiling about?'' Among those almost certain to ask that question is Ridge himself. According to friends, he was anything but eager for the appointment and would have preferred to stay as the White House director of homeland security, coordinating the work of the new department with old-line agencies, rather than presiding over this vast new bureaucracy himself. Aides insist that the only issue was whether Ridge would make his stay in Washington longer and move his family here from Pennsylvania. In any case, Ridge answered the president's summons, just as he did more than a year ago when he gave up his job as governor of Pennsylvania to join the White House staff. In the past year, Ridge has gained the trust and earned the respect of members of Congress, and state and local officials with whom he has worked. But the task ahead is a huge one. Paul Light, the Brookings Institution and New York University expert on government organization and personnel, says it's "the most difficult bureaucratic reorganization since the Roman Empire tried to take over the administration of Egypt.'' That one ended badly for both Caesar and Cleopatra. The more pertinent and contemporary example is the creation in 1977 of the Department of Energy out of a mix of separate regulatory and operating agencies. "That one has never jelled,'' Light said. "The windmill types are still fighting with the nuclear power folks and the conservation people still argue with everybody.'' Ridge confronted one challenge immediately, by meeting with the heads of federal employee unions in an effort to smooth over the dispute on union representation rights that had delayed Senate passage of the legislation. But great tension remains about changes of assignments and shifts of responsibility for both senior managers and front-line workers. The Department of Defense offers a cautionary tale. More than 40 years after Harry Truman called it into being, Congress found it had to pass major legislation to correct structural problems that made it difficult to resolve disputes among the military services. This new department, too, will have Tom Ridge grimacing, rather than grinning, before it finally is whipped into shape. © Copyright 2002, The Salt Lake Tribune All material found on ***************************************************************** 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: *****************************************************************