***************************************************************** 02/04/02 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 10.30 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POLICY 1 US: Clinton urges legislation, money to protect N-plants 2 US: NRC Announces Availability of FY 2003 Budget 3 Study Puts Finland First, and U.S. 51st, in Environmental Health NUCLEAR REACTORS 4 Romanian nuclear reactor closed because of "minor malfunction" 5 Reactor at Temelin running at full capacity over the weekend 6 Nuclear power facility to close due to crack in reactor NUCLEAR SAFETY 7 'Atomic Warrior' outrage swells W&H 8 US: Sept. 11 victims getting help, so why not Piketon workers? 9 Stray Radioactive Devices Recovered in Georgia 10 US: IAAP study expanded 11 UN agency recovers stray nuclear material NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 12 Town Is Stuck With Dangerous Cargo 13 US: Get going on nuclear dump site 14 Proposed expansion of Sellafield criticised 15 Closure calls grow louder as Sellafield's output to rise 16 Natural Resources HQ site polluted 17 US: Fluoride could lead to corrosion at Yucca, report says 18 US: More money sought to meet Yucca deadline 19 US: Commentary: EPA may have to clean up its own mess - NUCLEAR WEAPONS 20 US: [southnews] Bush Wants $120 Billion Defense Boost Over 5 Years 21 UK: Nuclear sub protest 22 UK: Seven held over Trident sub protest 23 US: Marines to help guard nuclear aircraft carriers 24 US: US loses trillions to 'ghost army' 25 Iran takes verbal hit from Rumsfeld US DEPT. OF ENERGY 26 Shared resources will help address super software needs 27 Tight security blamed for companies wanting out of K-25 Site leases 28 Abraham to announce plan on environmental cleanup 29 'Security' poses threat to public right to know 30 Bush Budget Allots Extra $26M for Lab ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 Clinton urges legislation, money to protect N-plants Buffalo News - NEW YORK (AP) - Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton called Saturday for new legislation and a budget increase to improve security at nuclear power plants. "Time is of the essence," she told reporters, noting the threat of a potential terrorism attack on Indian Point in the New York City suburbs. "There are millions of people that live within 50 miles of the Indian Point power plant. Nowhere in the country do you have the same concentration of people around a nuclear power plant." Friday, Gov. George E. Pataki had asked the federal government to review emergency plans for nuclear power plants and requested a stockpile of potassium iodide, a drug that has been shown to fight some effects of radiation poisoning. Last week, Rep. Nita Lowey, a Democrat who represents Westchester County, called for the decommissioning of the two Indian Point plants, saying they present "an unacceptable risk to the safety and security of the New York metropolitan area." Copyright © 1999 - 2002 The Buffalo NewsTM ***************************************************************** 2 NRC Announces Availability of FY 2003 Budget NRC: Press Release - 2002 - 13 - U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC 20555-001 E-mail: opa@nrc.gov [opa@nrc.gov] www.nrc.gov No. 02-013 February 4, 2002 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is making available its budget to Congress for Fiscal Year 2003, requesting $605.6 million for regulation of the nation's nuclear power plants and nuclear materials to protect public health and safety, to promote the common defense and security, and to protect the environment. Reflected in the budget are a number of challenges now facing the agency, including an increased focus on homeland security as a result of the September 11 terrorist attacks and a renewed interest in building nuclear power plants. The budget includes $29.3 million for NRC's homeland security activities. To keep pace with industry's renewed interest in possible construction of new nuclear power plants, the budget includes $24.8 million for new reactor initiatives including application reviews, improvements to our regulations, and research to support staff's assessment of new technologies. It also includes $16.9 million to review five license renewal applications expected in FY 2002 and five in FY 2003. The FY 2003 budget of $605.6 million represents a $27.1 million (approximately 4.7 percent) increase above the current fiscal year. About half of the increase ($14.8 million) is needed for new reactor licensing activities. The remainder of the increase is for Federal pay raises and increases in benefit and retirement costs; reactor license renewal; key safety research; keeping pace with the Department of Energy's High-Level Waste program; and additional investments in the agency's information technology, human capital, and facilities. Funding for each of the agency's strategic arenas and the Inspector General is as follows: Million Nuclear Reactor Safety $ 286.0 Nuclear Materials Safety $ 64.1 Nuclear Waste Safety $ 71.9 International Nuclear Safety Support $ 5.4 Management and Support $ 171.0 Inspector General $ 7.2 The budget for the nuclear reactor safety arena includes resources for regulatory oversight of the 104 reactors licensed to operate, license renewal and new license activities, and research to ensure that licensees design, construct and operate civilian nuclear reactor facilities in a safe manner. The budget for nuclear materials safety supports oversight of 47 fuel cycle facilities, licensing and inspection of approximately 4,800 nuclear materials licenses, and supporting research to assure safety of facilities and materials. For the nuclear waste safety arena, resources provide for high-level radioactive waste activities, spent fuel storage and transportation, nuclear facility decommissioning, and supporting research which includes studies on spent fuel storage in dry casks. Resources for international nuclear safety support allow the agency to continue working with foreign countries and international organizations to help enhance safe and secure civilian uses of nuclear energy worldwide, and to help deter nuclear nonproliferation. The budget for management and support covers administrative services (including rent and facilities management), personnel services, information technology, financial management, and policy support for the agency. More detailed information on the budget (NUREG 1100, Vol. 18) is available on the web at: http://www.nrc.gov/who-we-are/plans.html or may be purchased from the Government Printing Office, telephone 202-512-1800. A limited number of hard copies are available from NRC's Office of Public Affairs by calling 301-415-8200. All media inquiries should be made to this office. ***************************************************************** 3 Study Puts Finland First, and U.S. 51st, in Environmental Health February 2, 2002 By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE WASHINGTON, Feb. 1 — A new study of 142 countries has found that Finland ranks first in the world for its environmental health and the United Arab Emirates ranks last, with the United States coming in at 51. The top five countries were Finland, Norway, Sweden, Canada and Switzerland. The five worst were Haiti, Iraq, North Korea, Kuwait and the Emirates. The United States ranked behind Botswana (15) and Cuba (47), but ahead of Germany (54), Japan (62) and Britain (98). The study found that although economic wealth does not necessarily correlate with a healthy environment, the level of corruption within a government does. That is, the more corrupt the government, the less likely it is to pay attention to the environment. The study also found considerable variation among countries that were at the same level of industrialization and economic development. And it found that no country got good grades in every category. It was conducted by the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy and the Center for International Earth Science Information Network at Columbia University for the World Economic Forum, being held in New York this week. Much of the commentary in the report focuses on the lack of reliable data in most countries, a challenge to experts in their efforts to set a baseline of information for future evaluations, to be conducted annually. The study took into account 68 variables — including how a country responds to water and air pollution, how it protects land, whether its government is corrupt and how seriously it takes global climate change — to measure environmental "sustainability," or likely environmental quality of life over the next generation. "No country is on a truly sustainable path," the study concluded. "Every country has some issues on which its performance is below average." Daniel Esty, director of the Yale Center, attributed the United States' midlevel ranking to inadequacies in controlling greenhouse gases and reducing waste, offset by great success in controlling water pollution. "It's an interesting question for a country that is so good in some respects, why that global-scale issue has not been given more focus and produced better results," Mr. Esty said. He said the study was intended to help countries become more rigorous in making environmental decisions. "Some in the business community take climate change seriously," he said, "but others fear it's an issue created by a set of extreme environmental groups. If they saw the data and the picture of reality that the data presents, they might be willing to take the problem seriously." He said that Cuba and Botswana ranked higher than the United States because they did not have as much industry and therefore as much stress on their environments. "It's not necessarily better to be in Botswana than it is to be in the United States," he said. "But there are some issues that are more serious in the United States and we can ask if we're taking those as seriously as we need to." Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company | Privacy Information ***************************************************************** 4 Romanian nuclear reactor closed because of "minor malfunction" BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Feb 4, 2002 Text of report in English by Romanian news agency Rompres web site Bucharest, 4 February: Reactor 1 of the nuclear power plant in Cernavoda (southeastern Romania) was stopped in the night of 1-2 February due to a minor malfunction, Curentul daily reports on Monday [4 February]. The malfunction occurred at the pump of the Unit 1 moderation system. The defect was discovered in December when losses of 200 grams of heavy water per hour were registered. The losses recently reached around one litre of heavy water per hour, a fact which made the plant's officials to decide in an operative meeting to shut down the reactor. zThis malfunction does not affect in any way the nuclear security or the national energy system, Lucian Biro, state secretary in the Romanian Ministry of Waters and Environment Protection and president of the National Commission for Control of Nuclear Activities was quoted as saying. A few normal technical inspections will be performed while the reactor is shut down for fixing this small malfunction, Biro added. Source: Rompres web site, Bucharest, in English 1018 gmt 4 Feb 02 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter ***************************************************************** 5 Reactor at Temelin running at full capacity over the weekend Hoover's Online February 3, 2002 10:04pm Source: Czech News Agency, February 03, 2002 TEMELIN, South Bohemia, Feb 3 (CTK) - The reactor of the first block at the nuclear power plant Temelin has been stabilised at 100 pct and the turbo-set was generating some 1,000 MW of electricity at the weekend, spokesman Milan Nebesar told CTK today. Further tests will be launched after the weekend but dynamic tests, which involve sudden changes of output, will not continue because of the ongoing problems with the fittings. "The latest information says that in the middle of the week it could be clear how to remove the problems," said Nebesar. The problems with the fittings in the non-nuclear part of Temelin's first block caused one of the two shutdowns in the current substage of the power start-up with output at up to 100 pct. The stage began on Jan 10 and one day later the reactor reached 100 pct for the first time. Two shutdowns followed, and now the block is running at full capacity for more than two weeks. After the tests in the current substage are over, there will be a three-week shutdown, followed by a six-day operation without interruption and by trial operation. CEZ power utility, Temelin's operator, is gradually handing over to the State Authority for Nuclear Safety SUJB the documents needed for decision on fuel loading at the second block. vr/er Copyright © 2002 Financial Times Limited - All Rights Reserved ***************************************************************** 6 Nuclear power facility to close due to crack in reactor Hoover's Online UK - February 3, 2002 10:07am BC-Netherlands-Nuclear Nuclear power facility to close due to crack in reactor PETTEN, Netherlands (AP) _ The closure of a nuclear energy facility was ordered after a crack in the reactor was found to be expanding, Dutch television reported Sunday. Environment Minister Jan Pronk called for a tightening of safety measures at the site in Petten, Netherlands, in an interview with the current affairs program Buitenhof. In addition to the larger crack in Joint Research Center reactor, a European institute for nuclear energy, employees had also violated safety precautions, Pronk told the program. Pronk said the station had operated without the emergency cooling system, according to the report. The nuclear institute in the seaside town of Petten, 35 kilometers (22 miles) north of Amsterdam, houses several nuclear research facilities and is one of the country's two nuclear power sites. Copyright © 2002 The Associated Press Copyright © 2001,Hoover's Online Europe, Ltd. ***************************************************************** 7 'Atomic Warrior' outrage swells W&H New Zealand News - NZ - 04.02.2002 By BERNARD ORSMAN Opposition is growing in France to a nuclear-sponsored America's Cup entry, nicknamed the Atomic Warrior. Groups opposed to a $33.7 million sponsorship deal with nuclear firm Areva will hold a press conference on Thursday at Vannes on the Brittany coast, where the boat is being built, to outline planned non-violent actions against the French entry. The anti-nuclear group Sortir du Nucleaire, Greenpeace, the Greens and the Breton Democratic Union, which has been fighting plans for nuclear plants in Brittany, are among the opponents. So, too, is Jo Le Guen, a French rower who was forced to abandon an attempt to row solo across the Pacific from Wellington two years ago when he became seriously ill and had to be rescued. Mr Le Guen was trying to raise public awareness about the oceans. Christian Guyonvarc'h, deputy mayor of Lorient where the challenge team have their training base, told the Herald that there would be strong demonstrations in coming weeks unless the French Government dropped Areva as a sponsor. The French Government controls 5.2 per cent of Areva directly, and a further 79 per cent indirectly through the Atomic Energy Commission, which developed France's nuclear arsenal and monitored nuclear testing at Mururoa Atoll in the South Pacific. Areva was formed in 2000 from France's nuclear and fuel power plant industries, and embraces the entire power cycle from uranium mining to power plant decommissioning. It has 50,000 employees and a turnover of about $20.4 billion. Areva's support of the French team is bound to raise hackles and act as a reminder of French agents sinking the Greenpeace vessel Rainbow Warrior in Auckland in 1985, causing the death of a Portuguese photographer who was on board. "We are not against the French entry Defi in the America's Cup in New Zealand," said Mr Guyonvarc'h, who is also president of the Breton Democratic Union. "We just refuse the kidnapping of the sailing competition by the nuclear lobby, because it is clear that Areva wants to use the America's Cup in New Zealand as a big publicity stunt." Mr Guyonvarc'h said it was important "to keep the sea and the America's Cup clean and free". Alain Rivat, from Sortir du Nucleaire, said the group would use all possible non-violent means to block and interrupt the boat when it was launched in May. Greenpeace in New Zealand is also planning protests against the boat, which is due to arrive in the nuclear-free waters of Auckland in mid-August. But Frenchman Bruno Trouble, spokesman for the Louis Vuitton Cup challenger series, told France's Le Monde newspaper that no one in Auckland cared about the nuclear sponsorship deal. He said most of the challenger entries came from countries that used nuclear power. ©Copyright 2002, New Zealand Herald ***************************************************************** 8 Sept. 11 victims getting help, so why not Piketon workers? The Columbus Dispatch Opinions/Letters Saturday, February 2, 2002 Allow me to introduce myself. I am a former electrician from the Department of Energy's Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Piketon, Ohio, which made nuclear-bomb uranium and reactor uranium. I have been fighting for much- needed, job-related-illness compensation for workers and myself because of the department's operations that have harmed workers' health. The terrorism of Sept. 11 was a tragedy to which Americans responded quickly with all appropriate aid. Congress rushed to compensate the families of the victims and the survivors with amounts in the $500,000 to $1.5 million range. It was great to see the support of this great nation. In comparison, thousands of sick, disabled workers and survivors of the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense facilities have fought for decades for compensation that we may never see. The Energy Department and the congressional process for the compensation bill only offered compensation for exposure to radiation, beryllium and silica and sidetracked chemical injuries suffered by gas-diffusion workers. Many people who worked side- by-side with me have the right kind of cancers that qualify in the compensation bill, and some do not. We ask why we are being left out of this bill when we had the same exposures and our bodies reacted differently from those of our co-workers with cancer. We have many other types of problems that are related to toxic chemical exposures. Some materials, such as uranium, pose a heavy-metal risk in addition to the radioactive risk. This is not necessarily a cancer risk but is a health risk that should be compensated. The system is designed not to work. In the past, I was paid workers' compensation for my exposure, only to be taken off in 1987 because doctors were not paid to run a test. The Workers Compensation Bureau took the word of the company's doctors and doctors who review records and didn't run the test because the bureau wouldn't pay for the testing. My doctors did run the test. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health will estimate the radiation dose for workers applying for compensation under the federal portion of the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act. This task will be hampered by the poor quality of past radiation records and monitoring practices. In 1999, the government came to Piketon and many other sites and said: We put you in harm's way, and now it is time that we take care of you. If that is true, why are there so many loopholes that affect the victims? There is a Special Exposure Cohort, which includes anyone who worked at least 250 days at one of the gaseous diffusion plant facilities and any employee who was exposed to underground nuclear testing at Amchitka, Alaska, before 1974. For this group, it is presumed that radiation-related cancers are related to radiation exposure at work, and reconstruction of the received radiation dose is not needed. If this is so, what is the holdup for getting compensation for these victims? All gas-diffusion workers have been exposed to the chemical called uranium hexafluoride, or UF6, that generates very toxic hydrogen fluoride gas from countless releases in the course of a day's work. It is outrageous to these workers that Sept. 11 victims are considered worthy of $500,000 to $1.5 million, compared with the insulting $150,000 that Department of Energy workers might receive.. The staff of former Energy Secretary Bill Richardson visited Portsmouth and all department sites. They said: "We put you all in harm's way. We did not protect you. We lied to you, and still today, workers aren't safe. We exposed you to plutonium and other transuranics.'' Great lip service has been paid in the paper while our government tries to find ways to get around paying these brave workers who helped win the Cold War. Nuclear workers need help. My heart goes out to the victims and families of the September attack, and may God bless them all. Here in my own community, we have raised money and food to help compensate the families and we are very proud to support the victims. It is now time for this great nation to also stand behind Cold War victims in similar fashion. Vina K. Colley McDermott 2002, The Columbus Dispatch. Content may not be republished ***************************************************************** 9 Stray Radioactive Devices Recovered in Georgia Monday, Feb. 4, 2002. Page 4 An international team of experts has recovered two highly radioactive objects that were found near the breakaway western Georgian province of Abkhazia, the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency said Sunday. The discovery of the objects, which turned out to be abandoned Soviet nuclear batteries, sparked off international concern that terrorists might obtain nuclear material to make bombs. "They have the devices and are expected to return late tonight to Tbilisi, where they will transfer them to a safe storage facility," said Melissa Fleming, spokeswoman for the Vienna, Austria-based International Atomic Energy Agency. The batteries, not much larger than a can of string beans, caught the attention of three woodsmen late last year because the snow nearby was melting. The men lugged the surprisingly heavy objects to their campsite for warmth and soon became dizzy and nauseated. A week later, they had radiation burns. All three men are now in a hospital in Tbilisi and one is fighting for his life. The incident set off a monthlong international hunt through snowy mountains for the devices. Eager to keep them out of the hands of terrorists, the recovery team from the IAEA hauled heavy lead shields into the Georgian woods over the weekend and recovered the radioactive devices Sunday. The fact that the radioactive devices were located near Abkhazia, where Muslim rebels for years have been seeking to break away from Georgia, heightened officials' fears. The radioactive devices were "right on that border," said an IAEA official in Vienna, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "It's a turbulent area.'' The cylinders are filled with strontium-90, which has a half-life of 28 years and binds readily with human bones. "These sources are very powerful,'' Julio Gonzalez, director of the IAEA's division of radiation and waste safety, said last week. "The good news is that the place is so remote, so difficult to reach, even for us. So I believe it is not so easy to reach for terrorists.'' If terrorists tried to take the radioactive cylinders, he added, "they would probably kill themselves.'' The fear was that the old batteries could be turned into radiation or radiological weapons, sometimes known as "dirty nukes.'' The poor cousins of nuclear arms, such weapons use conventional high explosives to scatter highly radioactive materials to poison an area, rather than harness their energy to create an awesome blast. Their effects on people can range from virtually nothing to radiation sickness to slow death. On Thursday and Friday, U.S., French, Russian, Georgian and possibly German officials are planning to meet in Tbilisi to review the recovery effort and discuss ways to tighten safety in Georgia. The two cylinders found in the snowy woods were unshielded, officials said. About 10 centimeters wide and 15 centimeters long, they are the cores of abandoned nuclear batteries that use natural radioactive decay and heat to produce electrical power, rather than actively breaking atoms apart, as nuclear reactors do. During the Cold War, U.S. and Soviet military forces used nuclear batteries to power satellites in space and spy devices and clandestine radio gear on the ground. Fleming said the men made their discovery in early December. Georgian authorities, alarmed by the find and the men's growing sickness, contacted the IAEA on Dec. 24 to ask for help. On Jan. 4, the IAEA sent a medical and recovery team to Tbilisi. The doctors treated the men. Meanwhile, Fleming said, the recovery team linked up with Georgian officials and experts but found themselves unable to reach the radioactive source because of heavy snow. ''The roads are primitive,'' she said last week. "It was impossible to reach the area. Now the weather has improved.'' Each battery contains 40,000 curies of radiation, she said. By comparison, the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant released about 50 million curies. Gonzalez of the IAEA said the strontium-90 in the nuclear batteries was in a ceramic form and thus hard to pulverize into the kind of fine dust needed for the most effective terrorist weapons. Instead, he said, a high explosive would shatter most of it into chunks. IAEA officials said that before Sunday's successful rescue mission, 280 radioactive sources had been recovered in Georgia, most of them low level and only four containing the dangerous strontium-90. Gonzalez said an unknown, small number of the powerful ones are still missing. (Reuters, NYT News in Brief: Putin, Bush Speak Pedophile Suspect Envoys Called In Pasko Release Denied Danilov Trial Chance Shut Down Spanish Prince Visit Avalanche Rescue Inside Russia By Yulia Latynina Global Eye By Chris Floyd Pensioner's Pen By Vladislav Schnitzer Defense Dossier By Pavel Felgenhauer Always a Dissident By Boris Kagarlitsky Between the Lines By Alexei Pankin Tales From the Caucasus By Chloe Arnold The Soothsayer By Frank Caruana Find a job! Add your Resume! CareerCenter.RU [http://www.moscowtimes.ru/cgi-bin/ads/ads_bb_11.cgi?banner=tmtjobs;zone=bb_11] ***************************************************************** 10 IAAP study expanded The Hawk Eye Special: IAAP Sunday, February 3, 2002 [Unknown dangers at IAAP] By Dennis J. Carroll The Hawk Eye · Current workers will be included in latest phase of health study. Public health researchers from the University of Iowa soon will begin assessing the health conditions of former and current Army munitions workers at the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant, project managers said Saturday. The survey will mark a dramatic expansion of the university's current IAAP survey, which has focused only on former nuclear weapons workers. Dr. Laurence Fuortes, director of the study, said his team will meet with Army representatives on Feb. 20 to design procedures for the health study. Workers at the Middletown plant have charged that, over the decades, many of them were exposed to hazardous materials that caused lifelong illnesses and deaths. The U of I team, working under Department of Energy grants, has been tracking down and interviewing hundreds of former workers or their survivors to determine whether certain illnesses may have been caused by exposure to radiation and other hazardous materials while they were assembling and testing components of nuclear weapons for the Atomic Energy Commission. Until now, however, the health of Army conventional munitions workers was not studied. Late last year, Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, drafted legislation that appropriated $1 million for a study of the health of current and former IAAP Army workers. Fuortes said that could include testing the workers for beryllium disease, a lung ailment caused by exposure to the beryllium, a metal that can be dangerous if shavings are inhaled. Fuortes' comments came during a Burlington meeting with Harkin and the U of I's local IAAP health advisory board, which is composed of health workers, former IAAP employees and other community members. Fuortes and the board members called on Harkin, who asked, "What can I do to help?," to create legislation that would expand the number of diseases that could be covered under the Department of Energy's nuclear workers compensation package. Currently, the only diseases covered are those caused by exposure to radiation, beryllium or silica. Fuortes said many workers at the plant may have been exposed to asbestos, a known carcinogen. "There are 400 miles of asebestos-laden pipe" at the plant, Fuortes said. He also urged Harkin to make it easier for IAAP workers to receive compensation without having to establish the extent of their exposure to hazardous material, especially radiation. Fuortes said IAAP worker records often were not complete enough to establish just how much exposure a worker may have received. Board members also said the U of I team also should be allowed to assess the health of people, or their survivors, who lived on the IAAP grounds. Board member Nancy Canavit Harman said her family lived at the plant while her father worked there. She said residents may have been exposed to hazardous materials because they drank from the plant's water supply, grew gardens in the soil and ate plants and animals that were abundant there. The Hawk Eye [http://www.thehawkeye.com] 800 S. Main St., Burlington Iowa 52601 319-754-8461 Front Desk ' ' '| ' ' '319-754-6824 FAX ' ' '| ' ' ' 1-800-397-1708 Outside Burlington [this is a line and that's all that it is] ©' 2000 The Hawk Eye, ***************************************************************** 11 UN agency recovers stray nuclear material By Louis Charbonneau, Reuters, 2/4/2002 VIENNA - The nuclear watchdog agency of the United Nations said yesterday that it had recovered two highly radioactive canisters found by woodsmen in a remote Georgian forest late last year. The discovery of the cylinders, evidently once used in a generator in Georgia's breakaway Abkhazia region, sparked international concern that terrorists might obtain nuclear material to make bombs. Melissa Fleming, spokeswoman for the International Atomic Energy Agency, said its workers ''have the devices and are expected to return late tonight to Tbilisi, where they will transfer them to a safe storage facility.'' About the size of a person's hand, the encased but unshielded canisters contain highly radioactive strontium-90. The three Georgians who found and handled them are suffering from severe radiation sickness, and one is in critical condition. The UN agency sent a medical team to help treat them. The agency said Friday that discarded radioactive sources have been found occasionally in Georgia over the past decade, and believed that others remained ''lost, abandoned, or otherwise outside regulatory control.'' The agency also said it was sending specialists to Georgia this week to help tighten safety in the former Soviet republic. Specialists from the United States, Russia, France, and Germany would be among those meeting with Georgian authorities on Thursday and Friday. The Soviet Union, one of the world's five recognized nuclear powers, broke up in 1991, and nuclear materials have turned up in many of its former republics. Abkhazia, which declared independence from Georgia in 1991, has remained outside the Georgian government's control, and Georgian guerrillas regularly clash with the Abkhazian military. The agency said devices like those found were widely used in the former Soviet Union as heaters, power sources for remote communication systems, and generators. This story ran on page A9 of the Boston Globe on 2/4/2002. © Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company. ***************************************************************** 12 Town Is Stuck With Dangerous Cargo http://www.tmtmetropolis.ru/index.html] Travel Guide Monday, Feb. 4, 2002. Page 4 By Nabi Abdullaev Staff Writer Customs officials said Friday that 346 tons of radioactive material imported from Japan has been stuck in warehouses in the Far Eastern port of Nakhodka since mid-December and local authorities are powerless to expedite the consignment's removal. "We cannot pressure the exporters or threaten them with any legal sanctions," Polina Stetsorenko, spokeswoman for the Far Eastern customs service, said by telephone from Vladivostok. "We do not have the necessary treaties with Japan. It's a legal blank spot." Stetsorenko said the consignment was described in shipping documents as airplane engines and spare parts traveling via Russia en route to China "and, indeed, they looked like engines." But customs officials detected radiation levels between 2,000 and 3,000 microrem per hour -- 100 to 150 times higher than the maximum amount considered safe by the Health Ministry. Stetsorenko said law enforcement agencies ordered the Russian middleman, shipping and logistic company Petra-Vostochny, to return the radioactive shipment to the Japanese company that sent it. She declined to give details about the company. While the Japanese exporter agreed to accept the consignment, the company insisted that Petra-Vostochny pack the 54 engines in special metal containers but provided such containers for only 24 engines. Now Petra-Vostochny and the regional customs service are waiting for 30 more, Stetsorenko said. It was not clear who would pay for the return shipment. The Japanese Embassy in Moscow said Friday that it could not give immediate comments on the situation. Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov began an official visit to Japan on Friday, but his ministry's press office said the issue of radioactive materials was not on the agenda. Stetsorenko said she believed the consignment of engines was part of a Japanese effort to saddle Russia with its radioactive waste. She said 21 shipments from Japan containing radioactive materials were seized by Far Eastern customs officials in 2001. It was not immediately clear, however, what had been done with those shipments. Vladimir Chuprov, a campaigner for Greenpeace Russia, said criminal proceedings could be instituted against Japanese exporters of radioactive materials under Russian legislation on contraband. "Such shipments can be made only within the framework of international treaties and, as there is no such treaty with Japan, this consignment in Nakhodka is contraband," he said. "The Russian Criminal Code provides for up to two years of imprisonment for this." Chuprov said the radiation levels detected by Nakhodka officials could cause serious damage to the human immune and lymphatic systems if exposure were to last for several hours. He added that he suspected the volumes of radioactive materials imported to Russia from various countries are much higher than those registered by customs officials. "Very often customs offices lack the necessary technical equipment to examine all shipments entering Russia and the officers are not well trained to detect radiation," he said. [http://www.moscowtimes.ru ***************************************************************** 13 Get going on nuclear dump site Editorials 02/04/02 From the governor to the casino bosses, Nevadans are fuming over Energy Secre tary Spencer Abraham's recommendation that President George W. Bush choose Yucca Mountain, Nev., as the nation's nuclear dump for the next 10,000 years. Yet Abraham's was a smart decision that was about $6 billion and more than a decade in the making. Bush should accept it. Understand that Bush's approval wouldn't open Yucca Mountain up immediately to the 40,000 tons of waiting radioactive waste. Nevada's Republican governor, Kenny Guinn, says the site, located about a 2½-hour drive from Las Vegas near a nuclear test site, is unacceptable. "We will fight it in the Congress, in the Oval Office, in every regulatory body we can," a statement from his office reads. "We'll take all of our arguments to the courts. This fight is far from over." Congress could override Guinn's veto, although Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle opposes the site. And even if it passes Congress, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission still has the last word. But it is at least time to have the argument. A permanent disposal site is sorely needed. The nation must make sure its growing load of spent nuclear fuel is somewhere safe - and not just because the government promised the nuclear power industry nearly 40 years ago that it would do so. The $50 billion facility proposed for Yucca Mountain eventually would hold as much as 77,000 tons of nuclear waste. Right now, nuclear waste from 103 nuclear plants is piling up in temporary storage facilities scattered hither and yon. Meanwhile, terrorist cells can be presumed to be busy refining their next strikes. A government report is due later this year about the quality of security around nuclear power plants. Don't be surprised if the news isn't reassuring. Yucca Mountain isn't perfect. Questions have arisen about transportation plans for the waste, which would travel by truck or train. There are debates about underground water and fault lines in the repository eventually disturbing the resting place of such dangerous stuff. Some of those questions cannot be answered to anyone's satisfaction. Scientists cannot possibly predict what Yucca Mountain will be like 10,000 years from now. But they should be able to say whether Yucca Mountain can be made as safe as humanly possible for at least the next few lifetimes. Meanwhile, after all of these years, the government needs to stop noodling over Yucca Mountain and let the disposal plan take a few tentative steps toward reality. If it falters, the government must be ready to start planning anew. © 2002 The Plain Dealer. Used with permission. © 2002 cleveland.com. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 14 Proposed expansion of Sellafield criticised online.ie : News online.ie 03 Feb 2002 Irish politicians have reacted angrily to reports that the Sellafield nuclear power station is to increase the amounts of nuclear waste that it processes. The British Nuclear Fuel board says that the new measure is part of a move to clean up their power plant in Dounreay in Scotland. Sellafield will now take the waste that is produced by the Scottish plant and filter it through their own controversial nuclear waste disposal system. The Green Party here has called on the Government to take a strong line against the move. ***************************************************************** 15 Closure calls grow louder as Sellafield's output to rise The Irish Examiner 04 Feb 2002 By Vivion Kilfeather THERE were calls yesterday for the Government to step up pressure for Sellafield's closure after revelations the Cumbria site was receiving more shipments of radioactive material. The new increased stockpile of nuclear waste includes 44 tonnes from a decommissioned reactor in Dounreay in and from the nuclear bomb factory at Aldermaston in Berkshire. The spent fuel rod shipments, worth an estimated €30 billion to the British Government, are believed to contravene UN sea conventions. Labour Party spokesperson Emmet Stagg said it would significantly increase the already unacceptable threat posed by Sellafield to the health and safety of the Irish people and required the strongest possible response from the Irish Government. He said the whole history of Sellafield had been characterised by accidents and cover-ups. "We should make it clear to the British that we regard any increase in the amount of dangerous material going through Sellafield as an unfriendly act". He added that much of this material is likely to be shipped to Sellafield by sea, which posed a further threat to the marine environment and increased the danger of terrorist attack. "We have to make it clear to the British authorities that these developments are unacceptable, and a far more vigorous approach is required from the Irish Government" said Mr Stagg. At least two separate legal actions are being pursued by the Government to bring about the closure of Sellafield. Energy Minster Joe Jacob said the controversial nuclear station did not have the capacity to deal with the existing levels of waste to make them safe. The Government, he said, had repeatedly asked the UK authorities to ensure a significant reduction in the levels of nuclear waste handled at Sellafield, particularly after the September 11 disaster. "Sellafield is not sustainable either economically or environmentally," said Mr Jacob. Environmentalists are already bracing themselves for the large shipments of spent fuel rods from Germany planned for later this year, which is believed to be in contravention of a finding from the UN sea tribunal. This country has already begun to build up diplomatic relations with a number of Nordic countries with a view to exerting further pressure on British Nuclear Fuels in an attempt to secure closure of Sellafield. The new contracts for BNFL are believed to be worth in the region of €30 billion. It is understood the UK Government has acknowledged the added business is likely to lead to a temporary increase in radioactive discharges into the Irish sea. ***************************************************************** 16 Natural Resources HQ site polluted February 4, 2002 Tom Spears Ottawa Citizen The headquarters of Natural Resources Canada is sitting on one of the most contaminated pieces of ground in Ottawa, documents show. It has cost $150,000 just to study, and would need millions more to clean up -- if it is ever cleaned up at all. The Booth Street complex is "highly contaminated" with a blend of many toxins, largely oils and metal-based compounds, as well as some radioactive material. But the department says the contamination is contained, and appears not to be moving sideways and contaminating the property of its neighbours, which would raise new liability issues for Natural Resources. As such, says Diane Orange, director general of real property for Natural Resources, there's no need for a cleanup "at this time." No one's health is in danger, she said. And a cleanup would only be contemplated if the property were to be put to some new use different from the complex of offices and labs there now. An internal document obtained under access to information laws shows the department -- responsible for overseeing other contaminated sites, such as abandoned mines, across Canada -- has been busy inspecting its own back yard. It even had to look underneath its buildings. Copyright © 2002 National Post Online ***************************************************************** 17 Fluoride could lead to corrosion at Yucca, report says Las Vegas SUN February 04, 2002 By Mary Manning The Energy Department has discovered levels of fluoride in water and rock at the proposed Yucca Mountain repository that could cause early corrosion of containers and titanium shields designed to protect buried nuclear waste. DOE scientists said they need to find the source of the fluoride, because corrosion in pits and nicks on the metal surfaces could cause the burial containers to fail in much less time than the 10,000-year life of the repository. Nevada officials, who oppose burying nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, and regulators are keeping a close watch on the DOE's progress, because the fluoride is an issue that could delay a license to allow repository construction. A repository would open by 2010 at the earliest. State officials argue that the mountain cannot keep radiation from escaping into the environment. If containers or drip shields fail, dangerous radioactivity will pollute the water and possibly the air, they argue. The DOE has argued that the mountain combined with containers and shields will contain any radiation for the required 10,000 years. In four water samples collected from Yucca Mountain after April 2001, fluoride content ranged from 5 parts per million to 66 parts per million. In earlier samples, the level was 1 part per million consistently. When fluoride is heated to temperatures as low as 280 degrees Fahrenheit and dissolved in water, it becomes corrosive, the scientists say. One repository design is expected to allow the repository to heat to temperatures above boiling, or 212 degrees Fahrenheit. "This could have the potential to enhance corrosion on the drip shields and waste packages," according to a DOE technical paper written in November. The DOE reported two possible sources for the fluoride. They believe the fluoride leached either from Viton, a material used to pack boreholes in the mountain, or from Teflon-lined tubes that collect samples of air and water in the boreholes. Another possible source "that cannot be ruled out," is fluoride occurring in the mountain's rocks, the DOE report said. Nevada researchers worry that, whether it's brought in or naturally occurring, the fluoride can concentrate in the nooks and crannies on the surfaces of waste packages and cause early erosion, Susan Lynch, a state scientist, said. The state has conducted one study at Catholic University in which a strip of titanium sitting in water from Yucca Mountain at 213 degrees Fahrenheit cracked in less than five months, Lynch said. The water had fluoride in it. "Fluoride is definitely a problem," Lynch said. The heat from buried wastes can intensify fluoride's reaction to the metal drip shields or the containers, she said. The U.S. Geological Survey is trying to date the fluoride in an effort to determine whether it is natural or from materials introduced during 20 years of experiments, project manager Zel Peterman said. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which would license the construction and operation of a repository at Yucca Mountain, is watching the issue closely, Brett Leslie of the NRC said. If the DOE introduced fluoride into the rock during its experiments, it is a major technical issue to solve before the NRC could license a repository, Leslie said. The DOE has to account for how chemicals placed in Yucca's rock and water would affect buried wastes, he said. "It is not a significant threat according to them (DOE scientists)," said William Reamer, NRC's deputy director of the Division of Waste Management, "but we haven't reviewed it yet." All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 18 More money sought to meet Yucca deadline Las Vegas SUN February 04, 2002 By Benjamin Grove WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration is asking Congress for a $152 million increase for Yucca Mountain to push the site forward as the nation's nuclear waste dump. While a decision on the site is still officially pending, the budget proposal sent to Congress this morning calls for spending $527 million in the next fiscal year so Yucca Mountain can open by the 2010 deadline. The request "provides sufficient funding for the Energy Department to prepare a license application to meet that deadline," the budget says. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said he will recommend Yucca Mountain as the nation's nuclear waste repository to President Bush. That recommendation is expected later this month. Department scientists have found no "show stoppers" after decades of studying the site 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. But the General Accounting Office -- the investigative arm of Congress -- and several studies have been critical of Yucca Mountain as a repository. Anti-Yucca activists voiced concern over spending more money to license a project that has not been proven scientifically sound. "This budget seems to indicate full steam ahead from the DOE's perspective," said Lisa Gue, a Yucca Mountain analyst for Public Citizen. "We hope that the legislative process surrounding Yucca Mountain will put a halt on that." Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, an outspoken critic of Yucca Mountain who filed a lawsuit on the city's behalf last month, said the budget increase is "horrendous." "I think it's outrageous," Goodman said, saying the recommendation for Yucca is not based on science but politics. "I think they need an increase for public relations." Bush released his $2.13 trillion budget this morning for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1. The budget, which calls for large increases in defense spending, sets the stage for budget battles with lawmakers this year. Lawmakers typically haggle over the Yucca budget each year. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., who sits on the money-doling Appropriations Committee, is often successful at reducing the amount requested by the Energy Department and the president. Last year Reid negotiated a $70 million reduction to $375 million. Reid may argue that increased Yucca funding would take money from important priorities such as the Army Corps of Engineers, his spokesman, Nathan Naylor, said. "It's worth arguing that we have a limited source of funds and we need to be prudent with it," Naylor said. "And Yucca Mountain is a huge waste of money." Tucked in Bush's 6-inch thick budget is the Energy Department's request for increased spending for its Office of Radioactive Waste Management, which runs the Yucca Mountain project. The project is a federal plan to bury the nation's high-level waste in tunnels 1,000 feet below the surface of the desert ridge. The department has spent roughly $8 billion over 20 years on the project. The project could cost an estimated $58 billion. Energy is shifting focus from a massive scientific study of geography at Yucca to the complex process of obtaining a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to bury waste at the site. That process would take several years. Repository construction has not yet begun. "If the site is designated, the administration will seek additional funding to begin construction of essential transportation facilities and infrastructure within Nevada, and provide a long-term management and financing plan for the entire licensing and construction effort," Bush's budget says. "The administration is committed to ensuring the environmentally sound and safe disposal of the nation's radioactive waste." Energy officials say they want to stick to their timeline of completing the project within eight years, despite a recent GAO report that recommended the project be delayed indefinitely because scientific studies are not complete. The report said the department's 2010 deadline is not realistic. Nevada lawmakers and other observers had just begun to pore over Bush's Yucca Mountain budget this morning. Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., routinely votes against the overall Energy Department budget because it contains money for Yucca Mountain. "Any Yucca Mountain funding is funding we would not support," Gibbons' spokeswoman Amy Spanbauer said today. "We've always wanted that amount zeroed out." Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said the increased Yucca Mountain budget reflects Bush's close relationship with the nuclear industry. The administration "doesn't care at all what the science says," Berkley said. She said she was "dismayed" by the budget. Nuclear industry officials support the president's request, said Mitch Singer, a spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute. The industry strongly supports completing the Yucca project so that waste can be hauled to Nevada from where it is stored onsite at the nation's 103 commercial nuclear reactors. Industry officials consider this year's budget "healthy growth" over last year, Singer said. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 19 Commentary: EPA may have to clean up its own mess - The Register-Guard, Eugene, Oregon, USA February 3, 2002 By MARK HERTSGAARD For The Los Angeles Times SAN FRANCISCO - As the Washington media have occupied themselves looking for conflicts of interest in the Enron scandal, another possible ethical issue - this one involving Environmental Protection Agency head Christie Whitman - has gone largely unnoticed. EPA national ombudsman Robert Martin has accused Whitman of trying to muzzle him at the very time he is challenging an EPA agreement beneficial to a primary backer of Whitman's husband's venture capital company. Congress is likely to hold hearings on the controversy in the coming weeks. In a Jan. 10 lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Martin, the EPA's public interest advocate, complained that Whitman reassigned him in an attempt to eliminate his independence within the agency. Martin alleges that Whitman's action stems from his opposition to a pending agreement regarding a Superfund site in Denver. The site is owned by Citigroup, which in 1995 spun off and today remains a principal investor in John Whitman's company, Sycamore Ventures. Citigroup was also John Whitman's employer from 1972 to 1987, and he and his wife own as much as $250,000 in Citigroup stock. The agreement between the EPA and Citigroup - which was reached before Whitman arrived at the agency - would limit the financial titan's liability for cleaning up the Shattuck Chemical Co. Superfund site to $7.2 million. EPA scientists have estimated the full price at $22 million to $35 million. Martin has separately concluded that a proper cleanup of the Shattuck site, which contains a 15-foot mound of radioactive soil and is located within blocks of homes and parks and within range of the local drinking supply, would cost as much as $100 million. Limiting Citigroup's liability to $7.2 million could therefore transfer up to $93 million of the cleanup's cost to taxpayers. The position of ombudsman was created in 1984 to help mediate community concerns over Superfund sites. The ombudsman does not have decision-making authority but acts as a kind of complaints department - investigating issues raised by citizens, local governments or companies dissatisfied with the EPA bureaucracy and, when appropriate, advocating alternatives. In the Shattuck case, Martin wanted to hold public hearings on the cleanup agreement and testify before the federal judge who must approve or reject it. He was prohibited from traveling to Denver by Gary Johnson, the EPA's assistant inspector general, who would become his boss under the reassignment proposed by Whitman. Lawmakers on Capitol Hill, including Republican Sens. Wayne Allard of Colorado and Michael Crapo and Larry Craig of Idaho, oppose the reassignment, fearing for Martin's independence. The senators, along with a bipartisan group in the House of Representatives, urged Whitman to delay the move until congressional hearings could be held. Instead, she tried to transfer Martin over the Christmas recess. Now the reassignment has been delayed. U.S. District Judge Richard Roberts has issued a temporary restraining order in response to Martin's lawsuit that keeps the ombudsman in his job until Feb. 26 (when a fuller hearing will take place). The additional time gives Senate and House members an opportunity to hold hearings, where Whitman will no doubt be asked to explain her actions. EPA spokesman Joe Martyak denies any wrongdoing: ``The conflict of interest being proposed here simply doesn't exist, because she's been up front about what her involvement is with Citigroup.'' The terms of the EPA-Citigroup deal were first reached in December 2000, before Whitman even took office, says Martyak, and her reassignment of the ombudsman is a ``totally separate decision'' that will actually give him greater independence. ``I would add that she set a very high standard for ethical responsibility in the state of New Jersey,'' says Martyak. ``The way she ran her administration there is just the way she's doing things here at the EPA.'' But that is hardly reassuring. As New Jersey's governor, Whitman abolished the environmental prosecutor's office as well as the public advocate's office. She slashed enforcement budgets in favor of corporate ``self-audits,'' a voluntary approach that lets companies grade their own performance. One company that benefited from that business-friendly climate was Mail.com, an Internet company in which John Whitman held a 10 percent stake and on whose board of directors he served. Mail.com won a $1.6 million grant from the New Jersey Commerce and Economic Growth Commission in November 1999. Gov. Whitman denied having done anything unethical, noting that in the current era of two-career households, such situations were not uncommon. She did, however, acknowledge that the situation ``certainly raises an issue that I think we're going to have to come to grips with.'' Whitman's recent actions suggest she still hasn't ``come to grips'' with the issue, that she has failed to grasp a crucial concept for public officials: It's not just the conflict of interest that matters but the appearance of a conflict. We can't know if Whitman's reassignment of the ombudsman was intended to remove him from the Shattuck case. But the timing is striking: She is muzzling Martin at the moment his actions could interrupt a settlement extremely favorable to Citigroup. The ombudsman has produced no evidence that Whitman intervened in order to benefit the corporation. But the appearance of a conflict should prompt her to stay at arm's length from anything having to do with the settlement - including reassigning the deal's chief critic. Which points to the broader issues raised by Whitman's case. Like top officials in all three branches of government, Whitman is a very wealthy person with financial interests in a range of fields affected by government actions. Unless we want to bar such persons from government service outright, the nation must devise more meaningful protections for the public interest. The federal Office of Government Ethics currently stipulates a two-step process: an official must declare his or her financial interests and shun ``substantial participation'' in decisions affecting them. Whitman has listed her interests, and her spokesman attests that she has also avoided participation in forbidden matters. But she should go further. An official at the Office of Government Ethics points out that a Cabinet secretary who wishes to go beyond the minimum standard can issue a formal recusal letter, directing staff to isolate the secretary from issues of personal financial sensitivity. Even better, said the official, is for a secretary to put all financial holdings into a blind trust, as Vice President Dick Cheney and Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill have done. Whitman has done neither of these things. Meanwhile, how Whitman conducts herself over the next month will help decide whether the Bush administration, already having to distance itself from the Enron scandal, will face a second conflict-of-interest scandal. And both controversies illuminate a larger question: Is ours a government of, by and for the people? Or of, by and for the corporations? Mark Hertsgaard's books include ``On Bended Knee'' and the upcoming ``The Eagle's Shadow: Why America Fascinates and Infuriates the World.'' ***************************************************************** 20 [southnews] Bush Wants $120 Billion Defense Boost Over 5 Years Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2002 19:57:07 -0600 (CST) Get your FREE credit report with a FREE CreditCheck Monitoring Service trial http://us.click.yahoo.com/ACHqaB/bQ8CAA/ySSFAA/7gSolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> United States President George W Bush has urged Congress to endorse big increases in spending on defence and domestic security. In a budget speech, he called for the biggest boost to defence expenditure in 20 years. ---------- Bush Wants $120 Billion Defense Boost Over 5 Years By Charles Aldinger WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In the biggest U.S. military buildup in two decades, President Bush will press Congress on Monday to raise defense spending by $120 billion over the next five years to $451 billion by 2007, senior U.S. officials said on Saturday. Proposed increases over the current $331 billion Pentagon budget would begin with a jump to $379 billion in the coming 2003 financial year beginning next Oct. 1 and steadily rise in the following four years, the officials told Reuters. Next year's defense increase would be part of Bush's proposed $2.1 trillion overall federal budget for 2003. "The budget for 2003 is much more than a tabulation of numbers. It is a plan to fight a war we did not seek, but a war we are determined to win," Bush will say in his budget proposal, according to excerpts obtained by Reuters. "America's military must be strengthened ... so it can act still more effectively to find, pursue, and destroy our enemies." Officials, who asked not to be identified, said they expected lawmakers to approve next year's 12 percent budget increase despite major controversy over Bush's costly plan to build a missile defense system for the United States. "I think it would be hard to dismiss a very large increase after September," said one of the officials referring to the devastating Sept. 11 attacks on America, which Washington blames on the al Qaeda network of Osama bin Laden. Bush has already announced he plans to call for an increase to $379 billion for next year to arm and prepare the U.S. military for war against both "terrorist" groups and nations in the years ahead. The U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, which has toppled that country's ruling hard-line Islamist Taliban movement and battered the Afghan-based al Qaeda, is already costing Washington more than $1 billion a month. BIGGEST BOOST SINCE REAGAN INCREASES Next year's proposed defense spending increase of 12 per cent after allowing for inflation would be the biggest percentage boost in the military budget since then-President Ronald Reagan began a five-year arms build-up 21 years ago that left the Soviet Union broken. Bush and members of Congress have agreed that the world's only superpower military must gird with new arms, technologies and strategies to fight groups such as the anti-Western al Qaeda network, blamed by Washington for the attacks that killed more than 3,000 people in Washington and New York. The New York Times first reported the new five-year budget projection figures on Saturday, quoting congressional and defense industry officials. Much of the 2003 defense budget to be sent to the legislature on Monday would cover better troop pay and benefits. But officials said it would also devote $29 billion to the war on terrorism and $9 billion to unconventional arms ranging from pilotless spy planes carrying missiles to a laser communications system for troops. The budget would resupply the Air Force with thousands of satellite-guided bombs used in Afghanistan and convert four big Cold War submarines built to fire long-range nuclear missiles to instead launch dozens of conventional cruise missiles. Bush's plan reflected Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's call this week for more spending on high-tech weapons and innovative post-Cold War strategy to protect the nation from "the unknown, the uncertain, the unseen and the unexpected." Bush's budget includes $7.8 billion for missile defense, a figure unchanged from the current year. But critics of the testing program to shoot down missiles from "rogue" states are concerned over a Congressional Budget Office estimate this week that it could cost $238 billion over the next 15-25 years. ---------- US-WARY RUSSIA DUSTS AXIS HIGH HOPES FROM PRANAY SHARMA, New Delhi, Feb. 2: http://www.telegraphindia.com/archive/1020203/front_pa.htm#head2 The presence of American troops close to its borders and Indias bonhomie with the US have begun to worry Moscow. A jittery Russia has revived the proposal for a trilateral axis involving Moscow, Delhi and Beijing to give a clear signal to Washington that if need be, the three together could pose a challenge. Russian foreign minister Igor Ivanov is arriving here tomorrow to hold discussions with his Indian counterpart, Jaswant Singh, on the developments in the region with emphasis on Afghanistan and the standoff between the South Asian neighbours. He will also call on Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. India has been invited to participate in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) as an observer in its next meeting at St Petersburg in June. The SCO is an important security forum with China, Russia and four Central Asian countries Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan as its members. Pakistan, which is also keen to get into the forum, has made a formal application. Former Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov had floated the proposal for the trilateral axis three years ago. But it was too close to the May nuclear tests and Indias relations with China were too strained for anything meaningful to come out of the proposal. Now, the Russian leadership has chosen to revive it. Moscows renewed attempt to float the idea comes when the Taliban regime in Afghanistan has been defeated by the US-led coalition. The war has brought American troops into Afghanistan and in the Central Asian republics too close for Russias comfort. The presence of the troops has also become a source of worry for China, another key player in Asia. At this juncture, it suits Beijing to join the Russia-proposed trilateral axis with India as the third country. The issue was also discussed when Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji came here last month. But India will be uncomfortable with the idea. The Vajpayee government has put in a lot of effort to bring Indo-US relations to a level not seen for many years. South Block mandarins say the ties have undergone a paradigm shift, and India will not do anything to jeopardise that relation. India, never too keen on the axis, has argued in the past that while its relations with Russia is time-tested, that with China are still on the mend. [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/ ***************************************************************** 21 UK: Nuclear sub protest The Scotsman Monday, 4th February 2002 POLICE arrested seven people for obstruction yesterday, as more than 300 took part in a march to protest against the arrival of a huge nuclear submarine at a dockyard for refit work. HMS Vanguard is the first submarine of the Trident-carrying class to undergo a long overhaul period at Devonport Naval Base, in Plymouth. To protest against her arrival, a rally and march were organised by local campaigning CANSAR and were supported by other organisations, which included CND, the Socialist Alliance and Friends of the Earth. Nine years ago, the government controversially awarded the contract to refit the giant submarines to Devonport Management Ltd, instead of Rosyth in Fife. ©2002 scotsman.com | contact ***************************************************************** 22 UK: Seven held over Trident sub protest BBC News | ENGLAND | Sunday, 3 February, 2002, 19:31 [HMS Vanguard arrives in Devonport] Vanguard is the first sub of its class to have a refit Police have arrested seven people as they protested against the arrival of the Royal Navy nuclear submarine HMS Vanguard in Plymouth for its first major refit. The 150-metre-long submarine, a part of the UK's nuclear deterrent, was accompanied by four tugs, police boats and Royal Marines in inflatable boats. Hundreds of people, some cheering, lined the shore to greet the submarine on Sunday morning. A few hours later, an estimated 300 environmental and anti-nuclear campaigners held a protest in Devonport Park to oppose the refit. Trident missiles "It is a criminal weapon and it can only be used to threaten and massacre combatants and non-combatants and that is against international law," one protestor said. "It is sad to think all that technology is being wasted and is threatening world peace," another woman said. Police moved in when one group held a sit down protest outside the main Drake gate at Devonport naval base. Seven were arrested for the wilful obstruction of the highway, although police said the demonstration had been peaceful and otherwise without incident. The submarine's arrival suffered only a minor hitch when the front tug lost a line due to heavy swell, but another tug quickly took over. A special dock, capable of withstanding earthquakes, has been constructed at Devonport naval base for the refit. [Aerial view of Devonport] Devonport beat Rosyth in Scotland to win the refit The Vanguard-class submarines normally carry 16 Trident missiles, but all of HMS Vanguard's nuclear weapons were removed prior to her arrival in Devonport. She is the first of the four submarines in her class to undergo a refit. The submarine's arrival signals the start of work on nuclear submarine refits for Devonport, which controversially beat Rosyth in Scotland to win the contract nine years ago. The protesters made it clear that they do not want the nuclear-powered submarines in Devonport, which is surrounded by heavily-populated areas. Police presence Trident Ploughshares, Greenpeace, CND and CANSAR (Campaign Against Nuclear Storage and Radiation) joined forces to hold the protest rally and march. March organiser Ian Avent said people had travelled from Scotland and Southampton for the protest. He told the rally his concern was for the effect of radioactive discharges into the environment. "What is happening here today is wrong and dumping stuff into the environment is wrong." Around 300 police officers were on duty in the city to maintain public safety and ensure the protests were peaceful. Commodore Ric Cheadle, commander of Devonport naval base, said the arrival of the submarine had gone "fantastically well". He said the Vanguard contract had brought more than £1bn into the local economy and guaranteed employment for hundreds of people for a decade. [http://www.bbc.co.uk/devon] ***************************************************************** 23 Marines to help guard nuclear aircraft carriers Buffalo News - NORFOLK, Va. (AP) - About 50 Marines will be stationed at the Northrop Grumman Newport News shipyard to help protect two nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, officials said. The yard is the nation's only builder of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, and it also builds nuclear submarines. The Marines will provide enhanced security during work on the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and USS Ronald Reagan, said Fred Lash, a spokesman for the Naval Sea Systems Command, which designs and procures ships and submarines. He did not know when they would start. The shipyard is building the Reagan, which is expected to join the Navy's fleet in 2003. The Eisenhower arrived at the shipyard in May to begin a three-year overhaul and refueling. Copyright © 1999 - 2002 The Buffalo NewsTM ***************************************************************** 24 US loses trillions to 'ghost army' The Herald (United Kingdom); Feb 4, 2002 THE US Defence Department has lost track of military equipment worth 10 times its (pounds) 270bn annual budget in the past year, according to the General Accounting Office, the government's congressional watchdog. The (pounds) 27 trillion worth of misplaced kit represents (pounds) 5700 a head for every man, woman and child in America, or 100 times more than the UK's total defence spending on its army, navy, air force and strategic nuclear deterrent submarine force for 2001-2002. The revelation comes at a time when George W Bush, the US president, has just approved an additional emergency (pounds) 34bn funding package to help the armed services tackle global terrorism in the midst of economic recession. A new ''war against waste'' is about to be launched to run parallel with the war against terrorism, with the GAO ordered to crack down on the Pentagon's careless handling of everything from classified guided missile parts to payments for part-time national guard units which continue to claim for ''ghost'' soldiers who have resigned or are dead. Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, was about to wield the accounting axe when September 11 intervened to change immediate priorities. Now he has returned to bringing to book the defence establishment, which has not passed a government audit in a decade. ''This is a matter of life and death. The adversary's closer to home than Afghanistan. It's the Pentagon bureaucracy,'' he said. The army does not know the whereabouts of (pounds) 640m worth of equipment and stores which left depots in one area and have not been logged at their destinations. A GAO source said last night: ''A lot of big-ticket equipment is rusting quietly in railway sidings in Tennessee or Dakota, or has actually reached its intended recipient and been shunted into a warehouse without paperwork to track its movement. No-one knows it's there. ''The national mood is understandably patriotic right now and no-one really wants to hear the harsh truth. If the Pentagon was Microsoft, it would be bankrupt and people in charge would be fired for gross incompetence.'' The latest shock has come from 40 national guard whistleblowers who told investigators that many units in the linchpin of homeland defence are up to 20% short of their declared complement of soldiers. ***************************************************************** 25 Iran takes verbal hit from Rumsfeld 02/03/2002 - Updated 11:18 AM ET WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on Sunday accused Iran of letting some Taliban and al-Qaeda members escape from Afghanistan. "There isn't any doubt in my mind that the porous border between Iran and Afghanistan has been used for al-Qaeda and Taliban to move into Iran and find refuge," he said. Rumsfeld also said the United States "has any number of reports" that Iran has been contributing to instability inside Afghanistan by arming various Afghan factions. President Bush last week called Iran, Iraq and North Korea an "axis of evil" countries that might give terrorist groups chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. Iranian officials have denounced Bush's comments and denied giving any help to the Taliban or Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terrorist network. Iran's government had opposed the Taliban regime in neighboring Afghanistan before the Taliban's collapse late last year. "We hated each other and we never had any commonalities," the head of Iran's powerful Guardian Council, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, said Friday. Part of the reason was that until the Sept. 11 attacks, the Taliban regime was backed by Pakistan, a regional rival of Iran. Pakistan has strongly supported the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan, and Rumsfeld on Sunday criticized Iran for not taking similar actions. "The Iranians have not done what the Pakistan government has done — put troops along the border to prevent terrorists from escaping out of Afghanistan into their country," Rumsfeld said, acknowledging that some terrorist fighters probably have slipped into Pakistan despite the blockade. "We have any number of reports that Iran has been permissive and allowed transit through their country of al-Qaeda," the secretary said on ABC's This Week. Asked if the United States planned any response to Iran's actions, Rumsfeld said, "We don't announce things we're going to do before we do them." Bush warned Iranian officials in January not to harbor al-Qaeda fighters and not to try to destabilize Afghanistan's new government. If the warning were ignored, Bush said the United States would deal with Iran "in diplomatic ways, initially." The president's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, said the United States also was concerned about possible "Iranian attempts to surreptitiously influence Afghan politics at a very delicate time." The relationship between those neighbors, she said on Fox News Sunday should be above board, it should be transparent." Copyright 2002 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This ***************************************************************** 26 Shared resources will help address super software needs Monday, Feb 4 By Frank Munger News-Sentinel senior writer Oak Ridge National Laboratory is one of the nation's premier supercomputing centers, boasting a new IBM machine (nicknamed The Cheetah) that soon will be capable of 4 trillion calculations per second, a level known in the computer world as 4 teraflops. But when ORNL and other research institutions receive these rare or, in some instances, one-of-a-kind supercomputers, they don't receive all the software necessary to run them effectively. Typically, the laboratories come up with their own "homegrown" software to deal with such things as scheduling research projects on the computers and monitoring their operations. "Those things are usually site-specific," said Al Geist, who works on ORNL's advanced computing initiatives. Providing tailored software is really not a priority for the computer manufacturers, who make their business living on mid-range systems, Web servers and database farms, he said. "They're probably only making five or six of these (supercomputers) per year, and they're selling them to people who expect to get the software for free," Geist said. So the supercomputer centers are left to fend for themselves on time-consuming and increasingly complex software needs. Now, however, ORNL and a team of other national labs and universities have pooled their minds and money for a five-year, $15 million project called the Scalable Systems Software Center. Together they will share ideas and address mutual problems in managing the bigger terascale machines. The effort was launched last fall, and progress is already apparent, Geist said. Besides ORNL, other national labs participating are Argonne, Ames, Lawrence Berkeley, Los Alamos, Pacific Northwest and Sandia. Also, the National Center for Supercomputer Applications, representing dozens of universities, is involved. Geist said the computer manufacturers, such as IBM and Compaq, also have been attending the meetings. "Even Intel has been represented," he said. "They're interested because of their involvement in PC clusters." The expectation is that the collected expertise will come up with some standardized software solutions, such as the interfaces between system components. Different institutions have different specialties, and so various tasks are being farmed out, such as development of monitoring software. A problem solved at one supercomputer center can be leveraged to help others facing similar difficulties. Not only will the effort make the high-performance supercomputers more functional, but it should save money as well, Geist said. He noted: "As these machines get bigger and bigger (10,000 processors, in many cases), you don't want to have to increase the number of people it takes to run them. If it takes 10 people to run a one-teraflop machine, you don't want to have to hire 100 when you go to 10 teraflops." Copyright 2002 The Knoxville News-Sentinel Co. ***************************************************************** 27 Tight security blamed for companies wanting out of K-25 Site leases By Bob Fowler, Anderson County editor Beefed-up security at the former K-25 Site is one of several reasons why some of the private firms there want to get out of leases, a member of the Community Reuse Organization of East Tennessee says. Those increased precautions at the K-25 Site, an abandoned uranium enrichment facility that's been renamed East Tennessee Technology Park, have made entry into the complex more difficult, said CROET member Joe Lenhard. The heightened security precautions came in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. CROET is the regional nonprofit organization given the task of finding new uses for old U.S. Department of Energy facilities. CROET has signed lease agreements with more than three dozen private firms to occupy some of the huge buildings on the K-25 Site, and more than 400 people are now employed by those businesses. But CROET board members on Jan. 29 considered requests from four firms to end lease agreements and debated whether severing existing pacts would set precedents for other companies. "We're being very careful, very specific in regards to the rationale for recommendations (regarding leases)," said CROET President Lawrence Young. "You don't want to open the gates to everybody," said new board chairman David Coffey. "It is a bit of tough times, but everybody went through Sept. 11." CROET official Jeff Deardorff said there were a "number of business circumstances" which led tenants to want out of their leases. A request from Alpine Environment and Safety to be released from the remaining two years of its lease of two small offices was left to CROET management to handle. Young said CROET had offered to market actively that 400 square feet for sublease to another tenant but was now unwilling to sever the existing pact with Alpine. A one-woman company called Housewerks that designs custom bookshelves didn't pursue an extension on its six-month lease of 3,000 square feet. An employment services firm named Work Force 2000 had its lease terminated because CROET can use the firm's offices for a consolidation of its staff, Young said. Also approved due to medical reasons involving an executive of the company was the termination of the lease to a firm called BioSterile. Young said only a handful of employees were affected by the lease changes and that the "vast majority" of current tenants is satisfied with their locations at K-25. "Inevitably, in an economic downturn some companies will experience difficulties," Young said. Deardorff said four prospective new tenants are in final negotiations with CROET on leasing space at K-25, and announcements of those firms' plans are expected soon. Copyright 2002 The Knoxville News-Sentinel Co. ***************************************************************** 28 Abraham to announce plan on environmental cleanup Las Vegas SUN February 04, 2002 By Mary Manning Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham is expected to announce today an accelerated approach to environmental cleanup that is expected to save time and money at former nuclear weapons facilities such as the Nevada Test Site. Abraham gave a preview of the expedited plan on Thursday, when he visited the Energy Department's Fernald, Ohio, project. The environmental management plan creates a new $800 million account to be used by sites to speed cleanup. By moving faster on cleanup projects, the DOE expects to save money in the long run, Abraham said. The new fund is part of the overall department request for $6.7 billion for basic cleanup to be used by all 109 sites. The DOE plan is expected to be released today with the 2003 budget. The Nevada Test Site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is one of the federal facilities that receives cleanup funds. From 1951 until 1992, the Test Site was the proving ground for 928 above- and below-ground nuclear experiments. For the past seven years the Test Site has received $70 million to $90 million annually for environmental cleanup. However, it is not in line for the accelerated cleanup funds this year. Former nuclear weapons facilities at Rocky Flats, Colo., near Denver, and Hanford, Wash., are first in line for the new program. With the accelerated plan, the energy secretary noted, Rocky Flats, which had been contaminated with plutonium and expected to take 65 years at a cost of more than $36 billion to clean, will take about 10 years to complete, costing about $7 billion. Last year the department's Cold War nuclear sites had a timetable of 70 years to complete cleanup at an estimated cost of $300 billion, Abraham said. "That is not good enough for me," he said, "and I doubt it is good enough for anyone who lives near these sites." The new proposal set three goals: eliminate significant health and safety risks as soon as possible, review remaining risks on a case-by-case basis while working with state and local officials to develop cleanup strategies, and streamline cleanup so funds go beyond routine maintenance and other non-related projects. The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, a group of community organizations near DOE sites, worried that the fast-track cleanup plan could result in a lowering of cleanup standards, spokesman Bob Schaeffer said. In August 2000 the National Academy of Sciences released a report that said the Test Site would never be clean enough to allow public access to the land. Academy scientists also warned that rapid growth in the Las Vegas Valley may one day cause local officials to search for more water around the site, where the extent of radioactive contamination is unknown. The DOE is studying ways to monitor ground water for radiation. Two independent reviews said the department failed to provide proper monitoring methods. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 29 'Security' poses threat to public right to know 02/04/02 OPINIONS Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 11:25 a.m. on Monday, February 4, 2002 Other's View: 'Security' poses threat to public right to know An editorial from the Leaf-Chronicle (Clarksville) Before the State Legislature approves a measure that could potentially diminish the strength of Tennessee's open meetings and open records laws in the name of fighting terrorism, it needs to ensure that government power will not go unchecked. As written, the law would allow "any governing body" -- including the Legislature, city council and county commission -- to meet in private if that body says public safety and security may be jeopardized. The bill also would allow those materials generated or prepared by the Legislature in connection with security measures to stay secret and not accessible to the public. Open-government advocates are concerned with the broad language of the bill. Of course, everyone is worried about terrorism threats, and no one wants to inform potential terrorists about sensitive data. On the other hand, if every public body is able to close a meeting in the name of public safety, the potential for abuse of the law is there. A public body could extend such a broad blanket to public safety and security, that doors would close to the public when they never should. Let's take a good long look at this bill to ensure that the proper balance is struck between protecting public safety and keeping the citizens informed about the activities of their government. All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** 30 Bush Budget Allots Extra $26M for Lab Newsday.com - By Ellen Yan WASHINGTON BUREAU February 4, 2002 Washington - Brookhaven National Laboratory would get a $26-million increase for two key projects, an ion collider in international demand and a national security program, according to Rep. Felix Grucci (R-East Patchogue) in a preview of today's release of President George W. Bush's proposed budget. The lab's nonproliferation and national security programs, part of which help Russia reduce the chances of weapons-grade nuclear material being stolen, would receive $16 million more, for a total of $49.1 million, in the president's proposal. The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, which tries to recreate conditions in the universe a few millionths of a second after its birth, would get $10.3 million more, or about $149 million. "The value of basic science seems to be more appreciated than last year," said Peter Paul, the lab's interim director. The funding is a change from just a year ago, when Bush outlined cuts for Energy Department research centers. Back then, he wanted to scrimp on dollars for Brookhaven lab's toxic cleanup, and while lab officials had sought millions more for its ion collider, the president proposed just a $1-million increase. But this year, Bush's spending plan for the lab is also expected to cover the full $35.6 million for accelerated cleanup of the radioactive leak in the pool holding spent fuel from the nuclear reactor. Paul and Grucci believe three factors shaped Bush's change in tone. First, Bush had more time this year to draft his budget than last year, when his transition period was shortened because of disputes over who won the election. Then, he hired a science adviser, John Marburger, who left his job as head of Brookhaven Lab to take the post. Last, the post-Sept. 11 terrorism fears have prompted the administration to funnel more money to homeland protection. "Brookhaven possesses all the component parts to fight this war on terrorism," Grucci said. "Until America focused on the need for answers, it was difficult to break through" on calls for increased funding. Paul hopes some of the money will allow the lab to move forward on discussions about safeguarding New York City's harbor by analyzing risks and creating ways to detect hazardous materials being smuggled in. Some of the dollars also could be spent as part of the lab's contract with the Energy Department in helping Russia consolidate and secure its nuclear material so it doesn't fall into the hands of arms merchants and terrorists. The ion collider, so named because it smashed electron-stripped atoms, started up in 2000 and has a list of hundreds of scientists around the world waiting to use it for their experiments. The machine can be run for 37 weeks, but last year, it was in operation for less than 18 weeks because of funding cuts. Copyright © 2002, Newsday, Inc. ***************************************************************** 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: *****************************************************************