***************************************************************** 05/04/02 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 10.114 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POLICY 1 India: Atomic Power Generation From Thorium 2 Norway Calls Meeting on Nuclear Disasters NUCLEAR REACTORS 3 US: Specter warns of security risk at Limerick plant 4 US: NRC approves Entergy Arkansas nuke power increase 5 US: Gov. Holden requests federal assistance in cleanup of closed 6 Europe nuke opponents lobby Finnish MPs against reactor 7 Slovak nuclear plant off line over safety overhaul NUCLEAR SAFETY 8 US: NRC Warns of Missing Radioactive Materials 9 Norway Calls Meeting on Nuclear Disasters News Home - 10 US: Pills prescribed for distribution 11 US: NRC: Radioactive Devices Missing 12 US: Missing Radioactive Device Found Near Arrowhead Stadium 13 US: Nuclear expert: Don't rely on pill 14 France: Airport worker affected by radioactivity 15 Serb town still waiting for NATO bombing clean-up NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 16 Aborigine lawmakers make good on threat 17 Taiwan: Aborigine lawmakers make good on threat 18 US: Lobbyists paying for staff to tour Yucca Mountain 19 US: YUCCA MOUNTAIN: List says Nevadans warming to dump 20 US: Yucca: The battle of who could care less 21 Scientists hit UK govt on nuclear waste 22 Britain not doing enough on nuclear waste, say scientists 23 Nesbitt takes 'logical' look at Sellafield NUCLEAR WEAPONS 24 The Sunflower: 5th Year Anniversary Edition 25 Nuclear Deal Called Closer After Powell Meets Russian 26 Russia's nuclear worrier 27 North Korean group to ask Japan to help build A-bomb hospital 28 US, Russia Fall Short of Nuke Pact 29 US: Panel wants to reduce testing preparation time 30 US: N-ambiguities of big powers 31 Pak's nuclear installations under threat: Agha Shahi US DEPT. OF ENERGY 32 Russian public safety officers to train in Oak Ridge 33 New candidates may interview at Lab OTHER NUCLEAR 34 Officials Talk New Energy Sources ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 Atomic Power Generation From Thorium Xinhua News Agency ( May 04, 2002 ) NEW DELHI, May 4, 2002 (Xinhua via COMTEX) -- Indian scientists are developing a new technology to generate cheaper atomic power from thorium, the Press Trust of India quoted Annil Kadodkar, Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission of India as saying Saturday. Kadodkar told reporters at Rawatbhata, north India's Rajasthan state that a project report for generating energy from thorium, instead of Uranium, has already been done. The report will be evaluated for two years to solute any possible problem in it. He said the first commercial unit generating 500 MW power using fast breeder technology will be set up at Tamil Nadu's Kalpakkam, south of India. Under the technology, a new type of raw material for power generation is being created during production of energy from uranium. He said that the atomic power generation capacity in the country would be increased from the present level of 2720 MW to 6700 MW in the next five year. Copyright 2002 XINHUA NEWS AGENCY. ***************************************************************** 2 Norway Calls Meeting on Nuclear Disasters Fri May 3,12:38 PM ET OSLO, Norway (Reuters) - Norway said Friday it would host talks next week with 20 countries -- among them the United States but not Russia -- on how to cooperate in the case of a Chernobyl-style nuclear disaster. Experts are to gather in Oslo May 6-8 to discuss ways to implement conventions on early notification and assistance in nuclear accidents. Finn Ugletveit, a senior adviser at the Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority, said the meeting followed up on a meeting in Vienna last year. "We want a better flow of information between the countries in cases of accidents," Ugletveit told Reuters. He said Oslo also wanted to strengthen the role of the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency in coordinating different countries' accident alert systems. Norway, which borders Russia, helped Moscow to open the wreck of the Russian nuclear submarine Kursk, which sank in the Barents Sea in August 2000, killing all 118 crew. Moscow initially turned down offers of help from Britain and Norway. The Soviet Union was harshly criticized for failing to inform other countries about a 1986 accident at its Chernobyl nuclear plant, now in Ukraine. The world's worst radiation disaster was only discovered when a radioactive cloud blew over Sweden. Russia said it was unable to attend the meeting but was willing to contribute to later work. Countries attending include Germany, France, the Netherlands, Nordic nations, Brazil and Canada. Copyright © 2002 Reuters Limited. ***************************************************************** 3 Specter warns of security risk at Limerick plant mcall.com - From The Morning Call By Frank Devlin Of The Morning Call May 4, 2002 Fresh from a one-hour security briefing and tour of the Limerick nuclear power plant, U.S. Sen Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said Friday that the plant's security is ''up to date'' but ''even state-of-the-art security is not adequate'' to deter a terrorist attack. And now there are concerns, he said, about a planned natural gas-to-electricity plant that would be built 2,000 feet from the Montgomery County nuclear plant and perhaps increase its chances of being targeted. Limerick solicitor Thomas Patrick Halfpenny, who accompanied Specter on the tour, said all it would take is one terrorist to detonate a bomb at the gas-fired plant and ''what you would have is Chernobyl in southeastern Pennsylvania.'' An explosion at the gas-fired plant, which would be used to supplement existing energy supplies during peak periods, he said, could quickly envelop the nuclear plant in a fireball. Halfpenny said security at the gas plant, which is being developed by FPL Energy of Florida, would be nowhere near the level at the nuclear plant, which is patrolled by state police and the Pennsylvania National Guard. Specter said federal officials were looking into the location of the proposed plant. ''Is that something that should be put so close to a nuclear facility? It's something that has to be studied,'' he said. Specter said there aren't any nuclear plants in the country with gas-fired plants for neighbors. FPL spokeswoman Mary Wells disputed Halfpenny's comments. Wells said her company's 500-megawatt plant ''poses no danger to the nuclear plant'' and that natural gas lines were in place near the reactor years before the nuclear plant was built. She said Halfpenny's analogy to Chernobyl was ''like shouting fire' in a crowded movie theater at a time when people's worries are so close to the surface.'' If there were a bomb or a fire at the gas-fired plant, she said, it would automatically shut down and Limerick's nuclear plant would not be affected, she said. The company has received a preliminary air quality permit from the state Department of Environmental Protection, which the township is appealing to the state's Environmental Hearing Board, the solicitor said. The senator was accompanied on the tour by local officials, including a Limerick supervisor and state Sen. Constance H. Williams, but the media was not invited and was restricted to the plant's cafeteria. Specter said Friday's Limerick visit was part of a series of trips he's making to Pennsylvania nuclear plants following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. ''Al-Qaeda has thousands of people all over the world in some 60 countries,'' the senator said. ''If they were to penetrate a nuclear plant, there could be some very serious results.'' He has visited Three Mile Island near Harrisburg and the Beaver Valley Power Station in Beaver County and found them to be similarly well patrolled. But with the United States at war with terrorists, he said, Congress has a responsibility to set the standards of nuclear plant security higher. That could mean federalizing security, which is now handled in Pennsylvania by a mix of state police, National Guard and private security personnel, he said. While the Pennsylvania plants he's visited seem to have tight security, Specter said, there have been breaches at other plants across the country. It could mean installing anti-aircraft systems at plants that could be used to shoot planes down before they crash into reactors. Nuclear experts have expressed differing levels of alarm about the prospect of terrorism by air. Some say reactors are tough to crack because they are protected by several feet of reinforced concrete and steel and are close to the ground. Others say no one really knows what would happen if a jetliner crashed into a reactor. Specter said anti-aircraft systems, which would be run by military units, are ''a big, big issue.'' ''It would be an enormous undertaking but it's something we have to consider,'' he said. ''We are not going to subject the American people to risk.'' frank.devlin@mcall.com 215-529-2614 Copyright © 2002, The Morning Call ***************************************************************** 4 NRC approves Entergy Arkansas nuke power increase USA: May 3, 2002 NEW YORK - The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said it had approved a plan by Entergy Nuclear Southwest to boost generating capacity at the Arkansas nuclear power unit 2 in Arkansas. Generating capacity at Arkansas 2 will be increased by 7.5 percent, or 64 megawatts (MW), to 922 MW, the NRC said in a statement. Entergy Nuclear plans to complete the capacity increase while Arkansas 2 is in its current refueling and maintenance outage, the NRC said. "The NRC staff determined that the licensee could safely increase the power output of the reactor primarily by using new fuel in the core and making certain plant modifications," the NRC said in the statement. Arkansas 2 was shut for scheduled spring refueling in mid-April. The Arkansas plant is located in Russellville, Arkansas. One megawatt is roughly enough to power 1,000 average homes. Entergy Nuclear is a subsidiary of Entergy Corp . REUTERS NEWS SERVICE ***************************************************************** 5 Gov. Holden requests federal assistance in cleanup of closed nuclear fuel plant STLtoday - news BY TIM ROWDEN Of the Post-Dispatch 05/03/2002 10:52 PM The state of Missouri is seeking federal help in cleaning up a former nuclear fuel facility in Jefferson County where weapons-grade uranium was processed during the Cold War. The plant in Hematite, about 35 miles south of St. Louis, is owned by Westinghouse Electric Co. The company is working with state and federal regulators to identify contaminants at the site as part of a cleanup. The plant is now idle. It was opened by Mallinckrodt Chemical Co. in 1956. At first, it processed highly enriched uranium for nuclear submarines and other government contracts. Later, the plant passed through a series of owners and processed nuclear fuel rods for commercial reactors. Ron Kucera, deputy director of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, says each of those owners should help pay for the cleanup. But Kucera says the Department of Energy should also be included in the equation because the raw materials used in the early days of the plant's operation were provided by the federal government, and the enriched uranium produced in Hematite was used by the U.S. armed forces. The private companies involved include Mallinckrodt and Olin Corp., which merged to form United Nuclear in 1959; Gulf Nuclear; Combustion Engineering; a Swiss-based company, ABB Ltd.; and Westhinghouse, which purchased the facility from ABB two years ago. Westinghouse stopped production at the plant last summer to consolidate operations in South Carolina. Missouri Gov. Bob Holden wrote a letter to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham this week asking for his help in providing records about the site and ensuring a timely cleanup of the property. A spokeswoman for Abraham's office in Washington said his department had not received the governor's letter and that he could not comment. In the letter, which Holden also sent to the state's congressional delegation, the governor asked for help in preventing the types of delays that have marked the cleanup of the Weldon Spring site in St. Charles County, where material for nuclear bombs was manufactured in the 1940s and uranium was processed for weapons in the 1950s. Recent testing of drinking wells near the plant site found six that were contaminated with trichloroethylene, tetrachloroethylene and their byproducts. These chemicals were used as cleaning agents at the plant and have been linked to cancer and other health problems. Testing of a sample well on the plant site in the early 1990s also turned up low level amounts of technetium-99, a fission product occurring in uranium that has been irradiated. Although officials at the Department of Energy had previously indicated that the Hematite plant was used only for commercial purposes, Kucera said the presence of technetium-99 in the groundwater clearly indicated the federal government's involvement. Reporter Tim Rowden: E-mail: trowden@post-dispatch.com Phone: 636-931-1017 ***************************************************************** 6 Europe nuke opponents lobby Finnish MPs against reactor Friday, 03-May-2002 8:00AM Story from AFP Copyright 2002 by Agence France-Presse (via ClariNet) HELSINKI, May 3 (AFP) - European nuclear power opponents called on the Finnish government on Friday to vote against the construction of the country's fifth nuclear reactor. About 190 non-governmental organisations, linked up as the European Anti-Nuclear Network, presented their platform in Helsinki to convince MPs to vote against the project. "This decision does not just concern only Finland but equally all of European democracy," the organisation's members said in a statement. "In seven EU countries, politicians have respected public opinion and not constructed additional nuclear reactors," they said. Members of the network include Danish Friends of the Earth, France's "Sortir du Nucleaire" and the Swedish lobby group "No to Nuclear Arms and Energy." The Finnish vote comes as a number of European countries, notably Sweden and Germany, are preparing to phase out their nuclear power. The Finnish proposal was originally put forward in the mid-1980s but was shelved after Russia's 1986 Chernobyl disaster. Finnish experts have in recent years warned of an impending power shortage, as a result of the country's rapid development in the past decade, if no new power plants are built. In a relatively flat country where the primary natural resource is vast forestland, a recent opinion poll found that 57 percent of Finns were in favour of a new nuclear power plant if it would help cut carbon dioxide emissions. ***************************************************************** 7 Slovak nuclear plant off line over safety overhaul BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; May 3, 2002 web site Bratislava, 3 May: An extended overhaul at the second unit of the Mochovce nuclear power station (EMO), a branch of the Slovenske Elektrarne power producer, will last from 4 May to 20 July. EMO spokesman Rastislav Petrech said that the preparations for the overhaul had been completed. Within the regular overhaul which takes place every four years, all nuclear fuel will be removed from the active zone of the reactor in order to perform a standard check of the pressure tank. The plant's steam generator will also undergo checks as well as the heat exchangers of three emergency systems. To lower activity of the refrigerant of the active zone, the overhaul staff will check hermetic fuel cassettes. EMO's second reactor generated 1,118m MWh of electricity in the first quarter of 2002. The first one produced just 739,000 MWh in the given period due to overhaul. The first unit was shut down on 23 February and re-started on 11 April. Results from the check were very good, EMO said. At 5 per cent of tolerated leak, its measured value was only 1.66 per cent. Source: SITA news agency web site, Bratislava, in English 0803 gmt 3 May 02 /© BBC Monitoring ***************************************************************** 8 NRC Warns of Missing Radioactive Materials Date: Sat, 4 May 2002 11:14:13 -0500 (CDT) Published on Saturday, May 4, 2002 in the Washington Post NRC Warns of Missing Radioactive Materials by Joby Warrick U.S. businesses and medical facilities have lost track of nearly 1,500 pieces equipment with radioactive parts since 1996, according to a new federal accounting of radiological material that terrorism experts warn could be used in a "dirty bomb" attack against a U.S. city. The loss of radiological [Image] material, ranging from medical In the past we diagnostic equipment to have been very industrial X-ray machines, has concerned about been viewed with increased 'loose nukes' in concern since the Sept. 11 the former Soviet terrorist attacks and has Union, but it prompted several new measures to looks like we have prevent theft, the Nuclear the same kind of Regulatory Commission said in a problem in this document released yesterday by a country. House member from Massachusetts. The vast majority of the missing US Rep Ed Markey items contain tiny amounts of (D-MA) radioactive material and pose little threat, NRC officials said. But there have been several instances in recent years of lost or stolen hospital equipment that contains potentially lethal amounts of radioactive cobalt or cesium. Such material could be packed around a conventional explosive -- a combination known as a "dirty bomb" -- to scatter radiation over large areas. "The commission is concerned about this potential terrorist threat and has advised its licensees to enhance security," the NRC said in the report, which was requested by Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.). The NRC regulates the commercial use of radioactive material. It acknowledged receiving reports of 1,495 lost or stolen radioactive "sources" between October 1996 and September 2001; about 660 of the missing items -- 44 percent -- were recovered, but the rest remain missing, the agency said. The agency launched enforcement action against 54 companies and institutions involved in the incidents and collected fines from 16 of them. The penalties ranged from a few hundred dollars to $50,000. Markey, a frequent critic of federal nuclear security precautions, said the report highlighted a need for better safeguards measures and stricter enforcement. "Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda have been trying to obtain nuclear material. We know that the creation of a dirty bomb is one of al Qaeda's stated objectives," Markey said. "In the past we have been very concerned about 'loose nukes' in the former Soviet Union, but it looks like we have the same kind of problem in this country." In an interview yesterday, an NRC spokesman stood by the agency's enforcement record and stressed that most of the missing items contained "very, very small" amounts of radioactive material. Still, the agency believes the terrorism risk is significant enough to warrant new safeguards to prevent theft, spokesman Victor Dricks said. "We have taken this matter very seriously," Dricks said. Lost and missing radioactive material has been a chronic, if under-recognized, concern for both the NRC and the Department of Energy for more than a decade. A DOE inventory begun in 1995 determined that "tens of thousands" of the agency's radioactive sources could not be fully accounted for, said Robert Alvarez, a DOE senior adviser during the Clinton administration. Many of the missing items -- including radiotherapy devices that could deliver a lethal dose of radiation within hours or minutes to someone directly exposed to the radioactive core -- ended up in dumps and scrap yards, Alvarez said. Today, radioactive material turns up so frequently in scrap metal that some recycling plants have installed radiation detectors, he said. "If one of these things can end up in a scrap yard, it can end up in the hands of a terrorist," Alvarez said. © 2002 The Washington Post Company ### [Email]Share This Article With Your Friends FAIR USE NOTICE This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. Common Dreams NewsCenter A non-profit news service providing breaking news & views for the progressive community. Home | Newswire | About Us | Donate | Sign-Up © Copyrighted 1997-2001 www.commondreams.org A 'Cookie-Free' Website ***************************************************************** 9 Norway Calls Meeting on Nuclear Disasters News Home - Fri May 3,12:38 PM ET OSLO, Norway (Reuters) - Norway said Friday it would host talks next week with 20 countries -- among them the United States but not Russia -- on how to cooperate in the case of a Chernobyl-style nuclear disaster. Experts are to gather in Oslo May 6-8 to discuss ways to implement conventions on early notification and assistance in nuclear accidents. Finn Ugletveit, a senior adviser at the Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority, said the meeting followed up on a meeting in Vienna last year. "We want a better flow of information between the countries in cases of accidents," Ugletveit told Reuters. He said Oslo also wanted to strengthen the role of the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency in coordinating different countries' accident alert systems. Norway, which borders Russia, helped Moscow to open the wreck of the Russian nuclear submarine Kursk (news - web sites), which sank in the Barents Sea in August 2000, killing all 118 crew. Moscow initially turned down offers of help from Britain and Norway. The Soviet Union was harshly criticized for failing to inform other countries about a 1986 accident at its Chernobyl nuclear plant, now in Ukraine. The world's worst radiation disaster was only discovered when a radioactive cloud blew over Sweden. Russia said it was unable to attend the meeting but was willing to contribute to later work. Countries attending include Germany, France, the Netherlands, Nordic nations, Brazil and Canada. Copyright © 2002 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or ***************************************************************** 10 Pills prescribed for distribution The Phoenix By: TONY ROBERTS, Phoenix Staff WriterMay 04, 2002 PHOENIXVILLE - The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) will distribute potassium iodide (KI) pills to people living within 10 miles of Pennsylvania's nuclear facilities, which includes the Phoenixville area, to take in case of a nuclear emergency. While the NRC and local agencies are still stressing evacuation as the best protection against radiation release, Gov. Mark Schweiker accepted the federal government's offer to supply the pills. "I am accepting the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's offer of KI as an extra layer of protection for our citizens," Schweiker stated. "However, I want to be very clear that our best protection is evacuation, and KI is not a substitute. In the unlikely event of a radioactive release, KI pills only provide temporary protection for the thyroid gland against cancer and hypothyroid conditions, not other types of health problems that may result from exposure to radiation." The NRC offered the service to all states with nuclear facilities in December 2001. Alabama, Arizona and Tennessee already provide the service to residents as part of emergency plans. The pills are to be taken immediately following a nuclear accident that results in radiation exposure. In a release issued by the NRC, the organization said the pills, if taken in time, block the thyroid gland's uptake of radioactive iodine. The pills could help prevent thyroid cancer and other thyroid diseases that might be caused by exposure to radioactive iodine that could be dispersed in a severe nuclear accident. Schweiker accepted the NRC's offer in April, but there is still question as to how and when the pills will be distributed to residents. The governor directed the state Department of Health, Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency (PEMA) to develop a distribution plan. Ron Ruman, an informational specialist with the DEP, said the state has set no timetable for distribution, but would like to do it "as soon as we can." One problem the groups face is giving residents direction on different dosages for children. The NRC is sending two 130-milligram tablets for each resident in the 10-mile radius. Ruman said the recommended dose for children under 18 is half the 130 milligrams and even less for infants. He added that the pills are small and would be difficult to cut in half in case of an emergency. "We still are concerned that the NRC only is providing the pills in adult dosages that are not appropriate for children," Pennsylvania Homeland Security Director Earl Freilino stated. "Children whose thyroid glands are still developing are at the highest risk of thyroid cancer in the event of exposure to radioactive iodine. Even though KI is considered safe and effective, there can be side effects from taking too much. "The administration urges the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the NRC to provide states with KI in child dosages to make it easier for parents to better protect their children." The NCR will also not account for businesses in the area around nuclear facilities when they supply the pills. "What they're giving us is two tablets per resident," Ruman said. Ruman stressed that while the state accepted the NRC's offer, evacuation is still the best way to prevent harm from a nuclear accident. "Our recommendation in this type of situation is that the best thing to do is evacuate," he said, "that hasn't changed." Ruman said that even if residents are able to ingest KI tablets right after an accident, it only protects against thyroid cancer. The escape routes out of the Phoenixville area are south on Route 29 and east on Route 113. According to the Pennsylvania Department of Health, Potassium Iodide is the ingredient added to table salt to make it iodized salt and is approximately 77 percent iodine. It can block or reduce damage to the thyroid caused by radiation exposure by 99 percent, but does not prevent other diseases that may be associated with radiation exposure. Tony Roberts can be reached at troberts@phoenixvillenews.com. ©The Phoenix 2002 ***************************************************************** 11 NRC: Radioactive Devices Missing Las Vegas SUN May 03, 2002 WASHINGTON- The Nuclear Regulatory Commission acknowledges about 1,500 devices containing radioactive material have disappeared around the nation over the past five years, with more than half still missing, a congressman said Friday. Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., called it "inexcusable that we should have so many of these radioactive sources turn up stolen, lost or missing." He suggested the material - if enough were accumulated - could be used to fashion a so-called dirty bomb. An NRC spokesman confirmed the numbers provided to Markey, but said the radioactive devices - used everywhere from hospitals to construction sites to building exit signs - individually contained only very amounts of radioactive material. "We have no reason to believe that somebody is systematically collecting this material," including terrorists, said NRC spokesman Victor Dricks. In an NRC letter released by Markey, commission Chairman Richard Meserve said that each year over the past five years there have been on average of 300 reports of lost, stolen or abandoned devices containing radioactive materials. They totaled 1,495 separate sources, of which 835, or 56 percent, have not been recovered. Meserve said 21 different radioactive isotopes were currently missing. The letter provided no breakdown on the radiation in the various devices. Devices containing small amounts of radioactive material are used in everything from medical diagnostics and research to determining moisture density at construction sites or to illuminate signs. The NRC has said in the past that security involving some of the devices has been lax. Often they are discarded without proper procedures being followed. After the terrorist attacks Sept. 11, the NRC issued a series of advisories to facilities handling large quantities of such devices to tighten access to the material, Dricks said. Still, Markey said he is not convinced that someone might not be accumulating some of the missing material to fashion a crude dirty bomb that could be detonated in a crowded place using conventional explosives. "Clearly they have lost track of sufficient material to permit a very serious problem," said Markey in an interview. In his lengthy letter, responding to a Markey question, Meserve acknowledged that even a small amount of radioactive material - about 1 Curie - if properly milled into fine particles and dispersed by conventional explosives "could spread low-level contamination over an area of up to several city blocks." But Meserve also wrote such a device "would not be an effective weapon" - in the nuclear sense - because it would not cause radiation-related deaths or injuries. "A few people closest to the explosion might inhale enough radioactive material to obtain internal radiation doses exceeding the (100 millirem) NRC annual limit for members of the public, but they would not be expected to experience any prompt or latent health effects as a result," wrote Meserve. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 12 Missing Radioactive Device Found Near Arrowhead Stadium Friday May 03 07:39 PM EDT A radioactive device containing uranium stolen from a bar parking lot Thursday night was found dumped along a road behind Arrowhead Stadium Friday morning, KMBC 9 News' Donna Pitman reported. A Maxim Technologies worker walked into the Wild Stallions Saloon in Independence. When he walked out Thursday night, the Troxler Box in his work truck was gone. The $8,000 piece of equipment contains non-weapons grade uranium and it is radioactive. "The amount of radioactivity that is given off by it isn't much more than the sun. The sun may even be more if you stand there long enough," said Bill Stafford, vice president of Maxim Technologies. Stafford said the theft of the Troxler Box could have resulted in a fine or warning from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Troxler boxes are used at construction sites regularly to measure the density and moisture content of soil. "It gives you compaction percentage ... and moisture content," a construction worker explained. After examining the box, Maxim workers took it back. Company executives said they are glad the worker reported the box missing and said they are still deciding his punishment. A woman saw the story on the news and then saw the box and called police. Investigators are checking the box for fingerprints. If you have information on who took the box, call the TIPS Hotline at (816) 474-TIPS. Copyright © 2002 Yahoo! and ***************************************************************** 13 Nuclear expert: Don't rely on pill PalmBeachPost.com: Martin/St.Lucie |--> Main News | Opinion | South PB County |--> By Deborah Circelli, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer Saturday, May 4, 2002 NAPLES -- The chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Friday that potassium iodide, or KI, pills are a good tool during a nuclear accident to aid against thyroid cancers, but evacuation is preferred. Before his speech at a nuclear conference here Friday, Richard Meserve told The Palm Beach Post that the NRC respects the concerns of some county emergency management officials -- including those in St. Lucie and Martin counties -- that the pills could give residents near the plants a false sense of security. "It is in fact accurate that KI does not provide complete protection and that a better emergency response is not to rely on KI, but to evacuate people," Meserve said. "Nonetheless, it's something that could be a useful supplement, particularly for children." He said the NRC decided to offer the pills to states as an option. States are not required to take them. Florida Department of Health officials disclosed this week that they have "strategically placed" more than 780,000 pills in locations throughout the state so they are available in the event of an emergency. But the state is working with reluctant counties near the state's three nuclear plants -- St. Lucie, Turkey Point and Crystal River -- to decide how the pills would be distributed. At least 95 percent of the residents of St. Lucie County live within a 10-mile radius of that county's plant. deborah_circelli@pbpost.com [deborah_circelli@pbpost.com] Top national/world Business stories ***************************************************************** 14 Airport worker affected by radioactivity -DAWN - International; 04 May, 2002 By Our Correspondent PARIS, May 3: The French Nuclear safety authority ASN (Autorite de surete nucleaire), in a communique issued on Thursday, has revealed that at least one employee of FedEx's Roissy-Charles de Gaulle Airport facility was seriously contaminated with radioactivity on Dec 27 as he handled a package containing radioactive materials that apparently opened accidentally . The employee - and possibly other employees who also had contact with the package - received a dose of 15 millisieverts (mSv), says ASN's vice president Michel Bourguignon, which, he notes, is 15 times superior to the maximum amount of radiation to which a human being should be exposed in an entire year. Although the ASN was made aware of the incident last January 8th, it says it chose to make the matter public only on May 2nd because the blood tests required to correctly diagnose contamination are several in number and have to be conducted over a long period of time. But, indications from the United States would indicate that the reason for the delay concerns US suspicions that the package in question was sabotaged. In all, the package spent five hours at FedEx's Roissy-CDG hub. Today, authorities are not certain whether the package was sabotaged, if it was opened purposely, while at Roissy-CDG airport. © The DAWN Group of Newspapers, 2002 ***************************************************************** 15 Serb town still waiting for NATO bombing clean-up - 5/3/2002 - ENN.com Friday, May 03, 2002 By Fredrik Dahl, Reuters PANCEVO, Yugoslavia — Three years ago, NATO bombed a petrochemical plant and oil refinery at Pancevo near the Danube river, sending a huge black cloud into the sky and releasing more than 2,000 tons of noxious chemicals. The town's 140,000 residents still are waiting for a clean-up — and their fate is reflected elsewhere in poverty-stricken Yugoslavia as it struggles with the poisonous twin legacies of war and dirty socialist-era industry. "This town has a huge ecological problem," said Pancevo Mayor Borislava Kruska. "I'm very, very concerned. We are dealing with toxic, carcinogenic material." She complained that U.N.-led efforts to clear the hazard had moved too slowly but acknowledged that the dilapidated complex already was an environmental headache before the Kosovo war. Pancevo's pollution woes show that the reformers who ousted Slobodan Milosevic as Yugoslav leader in 2000 have their work cut out for them to improve environmental standards, which until now largely have been ignored. They need to redress years of neglect and under-investment in new technology as well as the impact of sanctions and air strikes against Milosevic's Yugoslavia, which left traces of depleted uranium munitions at several locations. "We are facing a very big task," said Andjelka Mihajlov, who heads the environmental protection unit of the health ministry of Serbia, Yugoslavia's dominant republic. BELGRADE NO WHITE CITY Beograd (Belgrade) means White City in Serbian, although these days that name belies its familiar grime-encrusted concrete. A Western consulting firm recently ranked it among the dirtiest cities in the world, an indication of the scope of the challenge to narrow the environmental gap with the European Union, the wealthy Western bloc it hopes to join around 2010. "Belgrade has never been so dirty," said Bane, a 31-year-old born in the city of 2 million people. "It has become a lot worse in the past 10 years." Like others in eastern Europe in the Cold War, old socialist Yugoslavia focused on industrial growth, paying little attention to environmental issues in comparison to Western countries. But its environmental standards were still higher than in the Soviet bloc. During the Milosevic era, when Yugoslavia plunged into poverty, the over-riding priority for many Serbs was staying alive, not keeping rivers and forests clean. "Environmental issues were sleeping during these eight to nine years," Mihajlov said. "Some things were put on paper but not implemented." Eleven weeks of NATO bombing caused more damage, especially in Pancevo, just a few miles up the road from Belgrade, and three other "hot spots" that a U.N. expert mission identified as in need of urgent action after the war. U.N. scientists said in March they had also found widespread traces of depleted uranium from NATO munitions at five other sites in Serbia and the coastal republic of Montenegro. They said the level of contamination posed no immediate health threat but still urged precautionary measures. Mihajlov said the government was stepping up its environmental efforts with plans to create a dedicated ministry. It also has drafted a protection law with the help of Western experts. But Serbia faces a tricky balancing act with so many pressing priorities. Most factories would have to close if strict standards were introduced overnight, a social disaster in a country with a jobless rate of at least 30 percent. "The environment is a high priority for the government of Serbia but not the first priority," Mihajlov said. SEWAGE IN THE DANUBE In its quality-of-life survey published in March, Mercer Human Resource Consulting said Belgrade scored an environmental rating of only 53 points, based on the level of air pollution and the efficiency of waste disposal and sewage systems. It came nowhere near the cleanest city, Calgary in Canada, which received a score of 166, and was also below other eastern European cities. That will come as no surprise for visitors to Belgrade, a run-down city where battered old cars spew out fumes and sewage is dumped into the rivers. "Air pollution is worse than it was before," Mihajlov said. "No city in Serbia has a waste-water treatment plant. Everything goes into the Danube." In Pancevo, Mayor Kruska suggested that the bombed industrial complex should not have been built on the edge of the town in the first place, even if the jobs were needed. "We all knew it was dangerous ... that it was attacking our lungs ... our health." Nothing was invested in the plants during sanctions, leaving them "rotten, old, and neglected," she said. Then NATO struck, causing a huge spill of oil, mercury, and other toxic substances. A U.N. team sent to Yugoslavia after the conflict urged the immediate cleaning up of pollution caused by the bombing in four "hot spots": Pancevo, the central town of Kragujevac, Novi Sad in the north, and the Bor mining center in eastern Serbia. The U.N. Environmental Program identified 27 priority projects, estimating the cost at $20 million, of which just more than half has been raised. Pancevo was the worst affected, and clean-up work there is lagging behind the others. NATO insisted that such industries were legitimate targets in its campaign to end Serbian repression of Kosovo's Albanian majority. Kruska said it should now foot the bill for causing an "ecological catastrophe." U.N. project coordinator Dennis Bruhn painted a more nuanced picture, saying the bombing's short-term impact was limited. "The long-term damage could be huge. We don't know about that yet." Visiting the war-scarred petrochemical plant in Pancevo, he said good progress had been made but suggested not everything could be removed unless donors gave more money. "You wouldn't have enough funds to go all the way," he said. Copyright 2002, Reuters ***************************************************************** 16 Aborigine lawmakers make good on threat The Taipei Times Online: 2002-05-04Saturday, May 4th, 2002 HALTING THE SESSION: Aborigine legislators took the floor yesterday to express their anger at the government for failing to remove radioactive waste from Orchid Island By Crystal Hsu STAFF REPORTER Making good on their threat, Aborigine lawmakers yesterday staged a protest on the floor of the legislature to express their wrath at the government's failure to remove nuclear waste from Orchid Island. The protest, though halting the interpellation session for an hour and a half, drew sympathy from Premier Yu Shyi-kun, who said he would take similar measures if he were a resident of the outlying island. "Stop lying to the Aborigines! Remove the nuclear waste," chanted eight Aborigine legislators at 9am. They urged President Chen Shui-bian (³¯¤ô«ó) to honor an earlier pledge to remove some 98,000 barrels of radioactive waste from Orchid Island and demanded an unambiguous plan toward that aim. Independent lawmaker May Chin (°ªª÷¯À±ö) revealed on the group's behalf that the state-run Taiwan Power Company is seeking to extend an agreement with the islanders that would allow the waste to stay for another nine years. "That means Taipower has no intention of relocating the waste by the end of this year as it has promised," Chin said. The lawmakers also called on Minister of Economic Affairs Lin Yi-fu (ªL¸q¤Ò) to step down, accusing him of ineptitude for his handling of the issue. Opposition lawmakers Shen Chih-hwei (¨H´¼¼z), Lee Ching-hau (§õ¼yµØ) and Huang Chou-shun (¶À¬L¶¶) lent their support to the protest, while DPP lawmaker Lee Ming-hsien (§õ©ú¾Ë) denounced it as a political stunt. "Where were you when we sought to stop work on the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant," Lee said. Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (¤ýª÷¥­) called for a break and invited the protesters and Cabinet officials to closed-door negotiations. Walis Pelin (¥Ë¾ú´µ¨©ªL), another independent legislator, said the premier has instructed the economics minister to visit Orchid Island today and apologize to its residents on the government's behalf. At 10:20am, the lawmaking body was finally able to begin the day's business. Yu later told the legislature he could understand the discontent of Aborigine lawmakers. "I would take the same action, if I were in their place," the premier said. "Taipower should have been more transparent when dealing with the environmental dispute." Asked to comment on suggestions the nuclear waste could be shipped across the Strait, Yu said he welcomed any offer of help from private sectors but doubted such a venture could materialize. Taiwan Technical Consultants Inc (¥xÆW§Þ³N °ÈªÀ), a non-profit organization, has said that it can help move the nuclear waste to China's Guandong Province if necessary. "The Cabinet has been told of the proposal and has authorized the economics ministry to look into its feasibility," the premier said. "But there are many uncertainties in light of the delicate ties between Taipei and Beijing." Also, he ordered authorities to probe into any negligence of duty in connection to the shifting of funds earmarked for dismantling nuclear power plants when they are due to retire. The Cabinet, under the stewardship of Chang Chun-hsiung (±i«T¶¯), took NT$9.1 billion from the fund and loaned it to the cash-strapped China Shipbuilding Corp. This story has been viewed 184 times. URL=[http://www.taipeitimes.com/news/2002/05/04/story/0000134521] Copyright © 1999-2002 The Taipei Times. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 17 Taiwan: Aborigine lawmakers make good on threat The Taipei Times Online: 2002-05-04 Saturday, May 4th, 2002 HALTING THE SESSION: Aborigine legislators took the floor yesterday to express their anger at the government for failing to remove radioactive waste from Orchid Island By Crystal Hsu STAFF REPORTER Making good on their threat, Aborigine lawmakers yesterday staged a protest on the floor of the legislature to express their wrath at the government's failure to remove nuclear waste from Orchid Island. The protest, though halting the interpellation session for an hour and a half, drew sympathy from Premier Yu Shyi-kun, who said he would take similar measures if he were a resident of the outlying island. "Stop lying to the Aborigines! Remove the nuclear waste," chanted eight Aborigine legislators at 9am. They urged President Chen Shui-bian (³¯¤ô«ó) to honor an earlier pledge to remove some 98,000 barrels of radioactive waste from Orchid Island and demanded an unambiguous plan toward that aim. Independent lawmaker May Chin (°ªª÷¯À±ö) revealed on the group's behalf that the state-run Taiwan Power Company is seeking to extend an agreement with the islanders that would allow the waste to stay for another nine years. "That means Taipower has no intention of relocating the waste by the end of this year as it has promised," Chin said. The lawmakers also called on Minister of Economic Affairs Lin Yi-fu (ªL¸q¤Ò) to step down, accusing him of ineptitude for his handling of the issue. Opposition lawmakers Shen Chih-hwei (¨H´¼¼z), Lee Ching-hau (§õ¼yµØ) and Huang Chou-shun (¶À¬L¶¶) lent their support to the protest, while DPP lawmaker Lee Ming-hsien (§õ©ú¾Ë) denounced it as a political stunt. "Where were you when we sought to stop work on the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant," Lee said. Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (¤ýª÷¥­) called for a break and invited the protesters and Cabinet officials to closed-door negotiations. Walis Pelin (¥Ë¾ú´µ¨©ªL), another independent legislator, said the premier has instructed the economics minister to visit Orchid Island today and apologize to its residents on the government's behalf. At 10:20am, the lawmaking body was finally able to begin the day's business. Yu later told the legislature he could understand the discontent of Aborigine lawmakers. "I would take the same action, if I were in their place," the premier said. "Taipower should have been more transparent when dealing with the environmental dispute." Asked to comment on suggestions the nuclear waste could be shipped across the Strait, Yu said he welcomed any offer of help from private sectors but doubted such a venture could materialize. Taiwan Technical Consultants Inc (¥xÆW§Þ³N °ÈªÀ), a non-profit organization, has said that it can help move the nuclear waste to China's Guandong Province if necessary. "The Cabinet has been told of the proposal and has authorized the economics ministry to look into its feasibility," the premier said. "But there are many uncertainties in light of the delicate ties between Taipei and Beijing." Also, he ordered authorities to probe into any negligence of duty in connection to the shifting of funds earmarked for dismantling nuclear power plants when they are due to retire. The Cabinet, under the stewardship of Chang Chun-hsiung (±i«T¶¯), took NT$9.1 billion from the fund and loaned it to the cash-strapped China Shipbuilding Corp. This story has been viewed 185 times. URL=[http://www.taipeitimes.com/news/2002/05/04/story/0000134521] Copyright © 1999-2002 The Taipei Times. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 18 Lobbyists paying for staff to tour Yucca Mountain Saturday, May 04, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- Pushing until the very end, lobbyists for the nuclear energy industry are paying for congressional staff members to fly to Las Vegas and tour Yucca Mountain two days before the House will vote on the nuclear waste project next week. The travelers will arrive in Las Vegas on Sunday, stay at the Four Seasons hotel and tour the proposed repository site on Monday morning with free time scheduled for the afternoon back in the city. The House is scheduled to vote on Wednesday. An itinerary was sent to 22 House staffers, but several had canceled when there appeared a chance the Yucca Mountain vote might occur earlier in the week. "If you wish you reconsider your cancellation, your airline ticket is still good and I would be happy to rebook your hotel reservation," the tour director for the sponsoring Nuclear Energy Institute wrote in an itinerary obtained by the Review-Journal. A NEI spokeswoman said the trip was scheduled weeks before the vote was set and there was nothing unusual in the itinerary from the dozens of other Nevada trips the lobbying group has sponsored. Since 1999, at least 168 congressional aides and seven House members have gone on NEI trips to Yucca Mountain, the Associated Press has reported. Staffers on the latest trip represent both Republicans and Democrat lawmakers, most of them from states with nuclear power plants. Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., said most of the lawmakers represented already plan to vote to approve Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, as the burial spot for 77,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel and government nuclear waste. Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002 ***************************************************************** 19 YUCCA MOUNTAIN: List says Nevadans warming to dump Robert List Saturday, May 04, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal Lobbyist makes comments to nuclear industry group By STEVE TETREAULT STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- Nevadans are beginning to accept the idea of a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain despite the continued opposition of most state leaders, former Gov. Robert List told nuclear industry executives at a conference Friday. List has worked since August as a paid lobbyist for the Nuclear Energy Institute, the major organization advocating the radioactive waste disposal project 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. He reported to the group's annual conference in Naples, Fla., that "with the help of NEI, we've been able to soften the beaches out there" by "setting the record straight and telling the truth" about Yucca Mountain and the opportunities the project presents for education and technology advancement. As a result, he said, "a growing and widespread feeling has emerged" among Nevadans that they "should turn lemons onto lemonade" and begin considering benefits for hosting a nuclear waste repository. "There's been a mood swing in Nevada over the last two or three months in particular," he said. "The message has been clear to the people of Nevada that we are outnumbered in Washington, D.C., and that safety can be managed and that if Nevada takes a constructive approach, we can get something out of it." A recording of List's presentation was made available by NEI officials. List, a Republican who was governor from 1979 to 1983, said in an interview afterward that his opinion was based in part on the reluctance of state legislators to convene a special session to approve Gov. Kenny Guinn's request for $10 million to launch a large ad campaign against the Yucca Mountain Project. He also noted the Clark County Commission's 5-2 split last month to add $1.5 million to the state's Yucca Mountain Protection Fund. But as well, List said, he has noticed a "change in mood" in his talks to community groups in the past 10 months. "Every place I go, every business group, every labor group, every service club, what I'm hearing now is an undercurrent that is much more visible" and accepting of the repository, he said. Richard Bryan, a former governor and U.S. senator who has led opposition to the Yucca Mountain Project, said List is fooling himself. "I don't believe that Nevadans have shifted one iota in their strong opposition to siting high level nuclear waste in Nevada," Bryan said. "What the nuclear power industry has tried to do is sow the seed of doubt and that's been their strategy for 15 years. "If Yucca Mountain is inevitable, why would the industry hire Governor List and other highly compensated lobbyists?" Bryan said. "The industry is fearful this could slip away from them." List said it's that sort of thinking that is preventing Nevada from reaping millions in benefits. "There are opportunities for jobs and economic diversification," he said. "These are things that, on the one hand, people want for at the moment, that public officials are reluctant to ask for. It's a Catch-22." List told the industry leaders NEI polls show high approval ratings among Nevadans for Guinn and Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and John Ensign, R-Nev. He said Nevadans grant the highest approval rating, at 75 percent, for President Bush, who recommended Yucca Mountain for a repository on Feb. 15. "The message from that is that people from Nevada are maybe a little smarter than some of our public officials give them credit for," List said. "They're not putting (Yucca Mountain) at Bush's feet." Bryan scoffed, saying the president's popularity stems from the war on terrorism and not from Yucca Mountain. He observed no Republican candidates in Nevada have asked the president to campaign with them. "The proof is in the pudding," Bryan said. "If Bush is so wildly popular then let him come to Nevada." List said after his speech the nuclear industry is strongly supportive of granting aid to Nevada for Yucca Mountain, and he sees his job as advocating for the state. "It may come as a surprise but the industry does care how Nevada feels," he said. Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002 ***************************************************************** 20 Yucca: The battle of who could care less Las Vegas City Life Paul Knittle is probably still waiting for someone to show up at Sunset Park, where he organized an anti-Yucca Mountain meeting that never quite came together. By Matt O'Brien Twenty minutes into a public meeting he organized in hopes of forming an anti-Yucca Mountain Project faction, Paul Knittle seemed resigned to the fact that no one was going to show up. Dressed in a bright-yellow vest with a black nuclear hazard symbol sewn to its back, a long-sleeve oxford shirt and black jeans tucked into dusty, tan cowboy boots - he certainly looked like an activist - Knittle sat stoically at a picnic table in Sunset Park. He leaned over a graph paper notepad and bore down on a pen. Then he lifted the pad, squinted and proudly read his new public announcement. "All right all you green people," Knittle started, "be here or I'll whip all your butts. ..." About 20 yards from Knittle stood a wobbly card table. It was covered with a blue blanket and topped with nuclear awareness literature, voter registration applications and a composition book that served as a sign-in sheet. The first page of the book was headed "Nuclear Meeting 27 April 02." It contained one name: "Paul Knittle." A camera and a tape recorder atop the table served as paperweights. "These are the two things every protester needs," noted Knittle, coming across as the Don Quixote of activists on this carefree and quiet morning, "because if confronted by the police, they are your best defense." A yellow balloon was taped to the side of the table. And a few feet away, on the lawn, lay a jar full of pretzels and a bucket brimming with ice and soda cans. z "I'm disappointed," admitted the 39-year-old Knittle, who works in the Aladdin hotel-casino's housekeeping department. "It would have been nice to have some people show up, so we could at least get the group started. It's another week that I've lost. It's another week that we've lost in the battle to stop [nuclear waste from being stored in] Yucca Mountain." When Knittle's overnight shift ended on the morning of April 22, he returned to his apartment and sifted through the morning paper. Finding nary a notice of Earth Day events, he trekked to a local library and surfed the Net. Again, he came up empty. "I couldn't find one Earth Day event," Knittle recalled incredulously. "In a county of 3 million people [sic], that's simply unacceptable. "So I finally thought, 'I'll show them what protesting is all about and stop Yucca Mountain myself.'" Knittle, who served in the Navy's Nuclear Power Program from 1981-1987, posted 20 or so fliers in the university district and placed a public announcement in the daily papers. He then notified the governor's office, the mayor's office and the Clark County Commission's main office of the meeting. After clocking out at the Aladdin on the morning of April 27, Knittle scampered to Sunset Park and set up his station - lining nearby curbs with yellow balloons as specified in the announcement. Two days before Knittle's one-man meeting, the House of Representatives' Energy and Commerce Committee voted 41-6 to override Gov. Kenny Guinn's veto of President Bush's Yucca Mountain repository recommendation. In the next two weeks, the full House is expected to vote on - and gladly pass - the resolution. It will then likely go before the Senate this summer, where the vote is expected to be much more balanced. Nonetheless, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham didn't seem particularly worried following the Energy and Commerce Committee hearing. "Congress must now decide whether or not to reject the state of Nevada's disapproval," Abraham said in a news release. "I believe they should. By doing so, the independent experts at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission would be allowed to make the final determination on whether or not Yucca Mountain meets the stringent regulatory requirements to serve as the nation's first nuclear waste repository. I believe it does and I believe the NRC will approve Yucca Mountain." But on this cloudy and shockingly cold April morning, only one person at Sunset Park seemed concerned about geologic faults, transportation routes and the effects of radiation. Little Leaguers pitched, batted and fielded on an adjacent baseball diamond; elderly men teetered on the edge of the park's pond, baiting hooks; and groups of disk golfers battled the driving wind. Knittle rose from the picnic table and surveyed his surroundings. "People are apathetic and think they can't make a difference," he observed. "That's simply not true. One person can do quite a bit. "I guess I need to do what it says [on my notepad]: start threatening people," he continued. "Maybe I need to say, 'Hey all you green people, I'm going to whip your butt if you don't show up.' They're here. I know they are. Someone just has to get them activated. ... And if nobody else is going to do it, I will." Knittle vowed to distribute more fliers and return to Sunset Park on May 11 for a second meeting. He'll need some company. Those interested in attending should contact Knittle at pukaman2000@yahoo.com. Copyright 2002 Las Vegas City Life ***************************************************************** 21 Scientists hit UK govt on nuclear waste By Al Webb United Press International From the Science & Technology Desk Published 5/3/2002 5:42 PM LONDON, May 3 (UPI) -- Britain's Royal Society of Scientists called Friday for an urgent safety review of the "serious and urgent problem" of disposing the nation's growing pile of nuclear waste, saying it has gotten so bad that it may cost more than $120 billion to clean up. In a scathing report, the society said Britain already has accumulated more than 10,000 tons of useless -- but still dangerous -- nuclear material and the situation is destined to get 50 times worse as existing nuclear power plants are decommissioned. "There is a serious and urgent problem of how to manage and dispose of the legacy of 50 years of nuclear waste production by the nuclear weapons program and the civilian nuclear industry," said Professor Geoffrey Boulton, an Edinburgh University geologist who headed the society's inquiry. "There are now more than 10,000 tons of waste mainly stored at Sellafield in Cumbria (northern England) but also at Dounreay in Scotland," Boulton said. "Even if there is no further construction of nuclear power generation plants, the decommissioning of existing plants would produce a fifty-fold increase in waste over the next few decades. So the issue is serious -- and it is large." In an interview with British Broadcasting Corp. radio, the professor also said the growing threat of terrorism around the world makes taking steps to safely store away any nuclear material of utmost importance. "With the events of Sept. 11, 2001, in mind," he said, "we (scientists of the Royal Society) advocate an urgent safety review, which should take into account the possibility of extreme terrorist intervention." The report by the Royal Society, which is made up of Britain's top scientists, said the problem is far worse than had been thought and is now so large that in Britain alone, the report estimates, it could cost $124 billion to rectify. Although the report was prepared for the government's Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, it blamed DEFRA itself for "not thinking radically enough" about what to do with the growing mountain of nuclear waste. It said government after government in Britain had put off dealing with the pile of high-level and medium-level waste -- some of which can remain radioactive for centuries -- that has been mounting since the start of the U.K. nuclear program in the early 1950s. For the last three decades, Boulton said in releasing the report Friday, "the U.K. has singularly failed to create a publicly acceptable policy for the management and ultimate disposal of these potentially harmful wastes. It is time we broke out of the weary merry-go-round." At present, Britain stores about 90 percent of its nuclear waste in tanks above ground. Scientists are urging that the stuff be sealed in glass or ceramic blocks and buried deep underground. Boulton said the nuclear industry itself "seems to have regarded treatment of waste as of secondary importance, and to have focused its efforts on countering what it saw as unfounded hostile public opinion, and on economic concerns." Copyright © 2002 United Press International ***************************************************************** 22 Britain not doing enough on nuclear waste, say scientists online.ie : News The Irish Examiner 04 May 2002 By John von Radowitz A GROUP of British scientists says its government is not doing enough to properly dispose of nuclear waste from plants such as Sellafield. The Royal Society, which represents some of Britain's most eminent scientists, wants the establishment of independent bodies to deal with the storage and long-term disposal of radioactive material. Prof Geoffrey Boulton, chairman of the Royal Society's radioactive waste working group, said: "The UK has lost much of its expertise in the areas of research needed to find solutions for the storage and disposal of waste. There has been a failure to recognise that the management, decommissioning and clean-up of radioactive waste require the same focus on research and technological innovation as the original programme to develop the nuclear industry." The society pointed out that industry and the British Government had concentrated on fighting public hostility to the nuclear industry and not placed enough emphasis on improving the storage of waste. Ali Hewson's anti-Sellafield campaign last week persuaded people from Ireland to send more than one million protest postcards to British Prime Minister Tony Blair in an effort to shut the nuclear power plant. The Royal Society has recommended the creation of an independent Waste Management Commission to find out how the public would like to see waste disposed of in future, and to provide technical advice to the British Government. A separate waste management executive was also proposed to implement radioactive waste policies. The report warns the British Government not to leave tackling the disposal problem until after a decision has been made about whether to build a new nuclear power plant. Prof Boulton said: "Decisions about new nuclear power generation need not necessarily be delayed until acceptable ways have been found for the long-term management of existing waste. "However, any proposals for building new nuclear power stations would need to be accompanied by acceptable plans for both the short-term storage and long-term disposal of the waste that will be produced." ***************************************************************** 23 Nesbitt takes 'logical' look at Sellafield Belfast Telegraph Publication Date: 03 May 2002 By David Gordon ULSTER Environment Minister Dermot Nesbitt is to make a fact-finding trip to the controversial Sellafield plant next month, it was revealed today. Mr Nesbitt requested the visit, having pressed the British Government to do more to address concerns on the nuclear reprocessing operation in Cumbria. UK Environment Minister Michael Meacher has pledged to bring forward a strategy document on reducing radioactive emissions from Sellafield. "I raised the issue with Mr Meacher at a British Irish Council meeting and he is committed to bringing forward the strategy in May/June," Mr Nesbitt said. "I will be visiting Sellafield to see it for myself. We will then have a further British Irish Council conference in October, also to be attended by the Irish and Isle of Man governments who brought forward a paper of concern." Mr Nesbitt said scientists had stated that Sellafield posed a minimal risk. But he added that he had held talks with the environmental group Friends of the Earth and invited it to challenge this evidence. "I'm trying to approach the issue of Sellafield in a sequenced logical way. Let's analyse the problem. Let's see where there's evidence. Let's see what we can conclude and agree on the evidence and let's see what we can do about it systematically," he added. Source: Belfast Telegraph ©2002 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd. | Terms & conditions | Privacy ***************************************************************** 24 [sunflower] The Sunflower: 5th Year Anniversary Edition Date: Sat, 4 May 2002 10:06:10 -0500 (CDT) The Sunflower 5th Year Anniversary Edition Online monthly newsletter of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation May 2002 (No. 60) The Sunflower is a monthly e-newsletter providing educational information on nuclear weapons abolition and other issues relating to global security. Back issues are available at http://www.wagingpeace.org/sf/backissues.html I N T H I S I S S U E PERSPECTIVE NPT PREP COM 2002 MISSILE DEFENSE NUCLEAR MATTERS NUCLEAR WASTE NUCLEAR INSANITY INTERNATIONAL SECURITY NAPF HAPPENINGS RESOURCES ************ PERSPECTIVE ************ Take Action on ABM Withdrawal By David Krieger On June 13, 2002 the United States will become the first major power to withdraw from an established nuclear arms control treaty, the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. In doing so, the president of the United States is demonstrating his leadership for international anarchy, for unilateral executive action that disregards the Congress on critical foreign policy decisions, and for placing the law of force over the force of law in international relations. The president is seeking to disavow a 30-year-old treaty with Russia in order to pursue increased testing and deployment of missile defenses and to move lethal military weapons into outer space. These actions will undoubtedly lead to new nuclear arms races with Russia and China, which in turn will trigger nuclear arms races between India and Pakistan. The president is pursuing a path of US dominance that will increase the likelihood of nuclear war. But where are the voices in the US Senate challenging the president in his foolish unilateral action. The silence from the Senate is overwhelming. As Martin Luther King, Jr. pointed out, "A time comes when silence is betrayal." People in the US need to wake up our Senators and let them know that we will not tolerate their silence. We will not watch our country withdraw from this treaty and move closer to nuclear war. Please make your voice heard. If you live outside the US, please take action by writing your head of government asking them to urge President Bush not to withdraw from the ABM Treaty. For a sample letter you can write or email to your Senator, please visit: http://www.napf.org/new/getinvolved/020429abmletter.htm ***************** NPT PREP COM 2002 ***************** "The nuclear disarmament issue remains for the most part buried under the welter of countless global problems -- the most recent being terrorism, but the very prospect of the terrorist use of nuclear weapons must be a wake-up call to us all to return to the commitment to eliminate nuclear weapons." -Jayantha Dhanapala UN Undersecretary General for Disarmament Taking Stock of the Non-Proliferation Regime By Carah Ong From 8-19 April 2002, States parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) met at the United Nations in New York for the first Preparatory Committee (Prep Com) meeting to the 2005 review conference of the treaty. This was the first meeting of the States parties to the NPT since the 2000 Review Conference at which the Thirteen Practical Steps to Implement Article VI Obligations of the Non-Proliferation Treaty were adopted. While the NPT is the most universal arms control regime, there are serious problems facing its survival as the cornerstone for nuclear disarmament. The time leading up to the 2005 NPT Review Conference is critical. NGOs bear great responsibility to raise awareness in civil society about the issues facing the survival of the non-proliferation regime and efforts towards eliminating nuclear weapons. NGOs also must transform the discussion of nuclear abolition into a dynamic of action by urging individuals everywhere and non-nuclear weapons States to put pressure on the nuclear weapons States to fulfill their obligations of verifiable and irreversible nuclear disarmament. Read the full report online at: http://www.wagingpeace.org/articles/02.05/0501ongtakingstock.htm Other resources on the 2002 NPT Prep Com: Chairman's Factual Summary of the NPT 2002 Prep Com http://www.nuclearfiles.org/articles/2002/020424ongchairman.htm Report from Senator Doug Roche, O.C., of Canada http://www.nuclearfiles.org/prolif/npt2002/Roche_on_NPT_2002.rtf "Low Key NPT Meeting masks deep disagreements over Treaty implementation especially on Nuclear Disarmament," by Rebecca Johnson http://www.acronym.org.uk/npt/2002rej2.htm New Agenda Coalition Position Paper http://www.napf.org/articles/02.03/0301newagendapaper.htm NGO Presentations at the NPT Prep Com http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/npt/ngostate2002.html Reaching Critical Will NGO Shadow Report to the Prep Com http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/npt/shadowreport/ngoshadrepindex.html Nuclear Age Peace Foundation Briefing Book on the Status of Nuclear Disarmament http://www.wagingpeace.org/new/programs/index.htm A Western States Legal Foundation Report issued at the NPT Prep Com, "The Shape of Things to Come: The Nuclear Posture Review, Missile Defense, and the Dangers of a New Arms Race," now is available to download online if pdf format at: http://www.wslfweb.org/docs/shape.pdf The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and its Importance to Disarmament Efforts http://www.nuclearfiles.org/prolif/index.html Thirteen Practical Steps to Implement Article VI Obligations of the Non-Proliferation Treaty http://www.nuclearfiles.org/docs/2000/0713nptsteps.html ************************** MISSILES & MISSILE DEFENSE ************************** India Missile Test Sparks Concern On 28 April, India tested the Brahmos supersonic cruise missile, jointly developed with Russia, despite an on-going standoff since 13 December with nuclear rival Pakistan. Pakistan immediately voiced concern about the missile test. Pakistan claimed that Russia violated its obligations under the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) in the joint development of the Brahmos missile. The missile has a range of some 175 miles and Pakistan feels that the introduction of a new weapon system will further aggravate the existing imbalance in the region. Since December, India and Pakistan have mobilized nearly one million troops along their common border, deepening international concerns that a miscalculation or accident could trigger the world's first nuclear weapons exchange. India and Pakistan have fought three full-scale wars since their independence from Britain in 1947, two of which were over the disputed Himalayan region of Jammu and Kashmir. On 7 April, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf stated in an interview, "The use of nuclear weapons is only the last resort for us. We are acting responsibly." He said that Pakistan would only use nuclear weapons against India if the country is "in danger of vanishing off the map." For more information about India, Pakistan and nuclear weapons, read Bombing Bombay, written by M.V. Ramana and published by the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War. The briefing book is a report on the effects of nuclear weapons and a case study of a hypothetical explosion. To read more about the report and obtain a copy, visit http://www.ippnw.org and click on "Books and Research Studies." (source: Reuters, 29 April 2002; AP, 7 April 2002) Russia Fires Faulty Missile Landing in Kazakh Territory A Russian bomber on a training exercise launched a cruise missile that crashed near a remote village in Kazakhstan. According to Russian Air Force Spokesman Alexander Drobyshevsky, the missile was fired from a TU-22M3 Backfire strategic bomber and the missile's control system malfunctioned soon after being launched. The missile was not carrying a warhead and crashed into a sparsely populated area. No injuries or damages were reported, however, Russia has launched at least five missiles that have fallen onto Kazakh territory over the last few years. The most recent incident further demonstrates Russia's deteriorating forces. Russia and Kazakhstan will jointly investigate this most recent incident. (source: Interfax News Agency; 26 April 2002) Nuclear-tipped Interceptors? Responding to reports that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has encouraged defense scientists to begin exploring the idea of nuclear-tipped interceptors in a national missile defense system, Air Force Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish, director of the Missile Defense Agency, says his agency has no plans to use nuclear weapons. Kadish told a Senate Appropriations subcommittee that while "we have no part of our program that involves nuclear-tipped interceptors," he acknowledged that "some people are thinking about it." The Pentagon first experimented with the idea of using nuclear-tipped interceptors in an anti-missile system in the 1950s and 1960s and then again in the mid-1970s. Because it has traditionally been technically problematic and politically unacceptable, the Pentagon has primarily focussed on developing "hit-to-kill" technology. Many scientists have claimed that it would be technologically impossible to use intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) to intercept incoming ICBMs because it would require extremely accurate sensors that would allow the interceptor to find the warhead and distinguish it from decoys. Using nuclear-tipped interceptors would make destroying an incoming ICBM much easier as the blast would obliterate everything within a wide area. However, in addition to radioactive fallout, a nuclear blast in space could destroy civilian and military satellites and create an electromagnetic pulse that would wreak havoc on computers and other electronic devices over an area as large as a continent. Senator Diane Feinstein (D-California) and Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), who sit on the panel, objected to the idea and said that nuclear explosives in anti-missile systems would be unacceptable. Senator Feinstein stated, "I find it absolutely inexplicable how we might explore the use of nuclear-tipped missiles, given what they could do with radiological fallout." (source: AP; 17 April 2002) Ground Clearing At Alaska Missile Defense Site Halted Ground clearing for the ground-based midcourse missile defense system interceptors at the Ft. Greely, Alaska site was halted on 8 April when workers dug up barrels holding what might be aged remains of dangerous chemicals. Ft. Greely housed an experimental nuclear reactor from 1962 to 1972 and was the site where biological and chemical weapons were tested in the 1950s and 1960s. According to the Army, some 20 barrels, labeled "USCWS," which stands for US Chemical Warfare Service, have been found and more barrels may be unearthed. (source: Reuters; 12 April 2002) PAC-3 Intercepts One of Two Targets An operational flight test conducted on 25 April of the Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) missile defense system only hit one of its two target missiles. The test was the third of four operational flight tests for the PAC-3 system, which is designed to intercept and destroy tactical ballistic missiles. According to the Army, "the first PAC-3 missile failed to launch and the missile system launched the second missile," which successfully intercepted its target. The cause of the launch failure is not known. (source: AFP; 25 April 2002) ******************* NUCLEAR MATTERS ******************* India To Set Up Nuclear Command Structure India announced on 2 May that the government has approved a plan to give the military the ability to put in place a strategic force to take command of the country's nuclear arsenal. P.K. Bandhopadhaya, a spokesman for the Defense Ministry, stated, "The command-and-control will encompass the core element of aerospace power, items of strategic missiles, ballistic systems and space-based communication and reconnaissance systems." The composition, size and chain of command for the nuclear arsenals of India and Pakistan are unclear. However, until now it was known that India's nuclear button lay in the hands of the Prime Minister, although a cabinet committee on security, which includes defense and foreign ministers would have presumably been consulted before a nuclear weapon was fired. An analysis of the nuclear forces of India and Pakistan is available online from the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists at http://www.thebulletin.org/issues/nukenotes/nukenote.html. (source: AP; 2 May 2002) **************** NUCLEAR ENERGY **************** 16th Anniversary of Chernobyl 2002 marked the 16th anniversary of worst nuclear power plant accident in history. On April 26, 1986 at 1:23 am technicians at the Chernobyl Power Plant in the Ukraine allowed the power in the fourth reactor to fall to low levels as part of a "controlled" experiment. The reactor overheated causing a meltdown of the core. Two explosions blew the top off the reactor building releasing clouds of deadly radioactive material in the atmosphere for over ten days. People living near Chernobyl were exposed to radioactivity 100 times greater than the Hiroshima bomb. People in other parts of the world were also exposed to radioactive material blown northward by the wind. Seventy percent of the radiation is estimated to have fallen on Belarus. Ten years after the accident, babies were still being born with no arms, no eyes, or only stumps for limbs. Some 15 million people have been victims of the disaster in some way. More than 600,000 people were involved with the cleanup, many of whom are now sick or dead. The Chernobyl Plant is made up of four graphite reactors; Number 4 exploded in 1986, Number 2 was shut down due to a fire in 1991. Remembering the 16th anniversary of Chernobyl, Ecodefense! and the Youth Human Rights Movement in Russia organized a demonstration in front of the Kremlin. Activists from 30 Russian cities gathered to speak out against the government's intention to import nuclear waste into Russia and against the country's plan to develop nuclear energy. Dressed in white jumpsuits with radiation symbols on the front, many activists experienced violence from police, and both activists and journalists alike were arrested at the demonstration. Many individuals and organizations oppose the plans of the Russian Ministry of Atomic Power (MINATOM) to import spent nuclear fuel from other countries, plans that were approved by both the Russian Parliament and President Vladimir Putin in 2001. Environmentalists say their country cannot even handle its own nuclear waste safely, and until problems with Russian waste are solved, waste from anywhere else should not be imported. (source: Environmental News Service; 26 April) In London, Irish protesters commemorated the 16th anniversary of Chernobyl by bombarding Prime Minister Tony Blair and Prince Charles with postcards demanding the closure of Britain's Sellafield nuclear plant. Ali Hewson, the wife of Irish rock star Bono of the band U2 stated, "Sellafield has the potential to be 80 times the size of the Chernobyl accident." More than 1.2 million postcards reading "Tony, look me in the eye and tell me I'm safe," were sent from Irish households for delivery on 26 April. Sellafield, which houses some 75 tons of plutonium, has been an ongoing source of tension between Ireland and Britain because it is a source of pollution on the Irish coast and prone to accident. From 6-8 May, Norway will host talks with 20 countries on how to cooperate in the case of a Chernobyl-style nuclear disaster. Experts discuss ways to implement conventions on early notification and assistance in nuclear accidents. Countries attending include Brazil, Canada, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Nordic nations, the US. Russia has said it is unable to attend but is willing to contribute to later work. Resources on Chernobyl: Graph of Chernobyl Fallout: http://www.nea.fr/html/rp/chernobyl/c02.html Chernobyl Children's Project http://www.adiccp.org/ Chernobyl: Ten Years On Radiological and Health Impact http://www.nea.fr/html/rp/chernobyl/welcome.html Chernobyl radiation disaster information (Chornobyl) http://www.chernobyl.com/ Think nuclear reactors are a safe source of energy? Read below and think again. Czech Republic The disputed Temelin plant on the Austrian border was restarted on 24 April after being shut down for exactly two months. The plant was initially shut down for a planned technical inspection, but faulty turbine valves were found and replaced. The plant's entry into commercial operation has been repeatedly delayed by technical and political problems. Austrian politicians are calling for the plant to be closed saying it is unsafe. Despite the protests from Austria, the Czech Republic is moving forward with opening a second reactor at Temelin. (source: AP; 24 April 2002) European Union The European Commission issued a warning to EU candidate countries on 23 April not to delay in the shutdown of nuclear power plants that are deemed unsafe. EU Transport and Energy Commissioner Loyola de Palcio explained the reasoning behind calling for the nuclear power plants to be closed. He stated in a speech before the European Parliament's industry and energy committee that the current state of nuclear safety in Europe was "insufficient" to the point that regulations for swimming beaches were tougher than those for nuclear power stations. The EU has demanded that Lithuania shut down its Chernobyl-type Ingalinia nuclear power plant by 2009. However, Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus said it would not be possible as the plant produces 70 per cent of the country's energy. The EU is also recommending that Bulgaria shut down four aging nuclear reactors at its one nuclear plant at Kozloduy by 2006. Although not a candidate country, the EU is also recommending that Armenia should close down its aging Metzamor nuclear power plant by 2004 because there are serious concerns about its operational safety. (source: AFP; 23 April 2002) Japan The Fugen 165,00-kilowatt thermal nuclear reactor in western Japan was shut down on 9 April due to a leakage of steam containing radiation. On the same day, the Japanese government issued a White Paper on Nuclear Safety stating that the country's nuclear safety record improved last year. The report focuses on the safe use of plutonium, which Japan is trying to recycle and blend with Uranium to use at some nuclear power plants as fuel. Japan has fallen behind in its schedule to begin using the Mixed Oxide (MOX) fuel due to public opposition. The shut-down also came one day after operations at the plant resumed following an 11-month break. The Fugen reactor was closed last May when a tritium leak was detected between the outside reactor container and the concrete wall surrounding the facility. (source: Reuters; 9 April 2002) On 24 April, Chubu Electric Company, which runs a nuclear reactor in Hamaoka, Japan, released results of an investigation stating that a radioactive steam leak at the plant on 7 November was caused by an accumulation of hydrogen in a pipe with a structural flaw. The investigation also concluded that defective welding in a separate part of the reactor caused a small leakage of radioactive water two days later. (source: AP; 24 April 2002) Russia Russia's newest nuclear reactor at the Rostov Nuclear Power Plant in the southern part of the country shut down automatically on 10 April after a malfunction occurred in a steam valve. It was the reactor's second shut down since it went online last year, and it is the only new nuclear reactor that has been opened in Russia since the 1986 explosion at the Soviet plant at Chernobyl, the world's worst nuclear accident. On 18 April, Russia announced that it plans to build 10 nuclear reactors in foreign countries over the next decade. (source: AP; 10 & 18 April 2002) Ukraine Reactor No. 3 at Ukraine's Rivne nuclear power plant was shut down on 14 April because of a leak in the generator's cooling system. Five days later, Reactor No. 3 was shut down again after a short-circuit occurred in electricity lines. Rivne's Reactor No. 1 is also currently shut down for repairs and Reactor No. 6 at Zaporoshye nuclear power plant is also undergoing repairs. The country has thirteen nuclear reactors at four plants. (source: AP; 14 &19 April 2002) US A Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) report issued on 7 April stated that an electrician's mistake caused an accident on 26 March at the Browns Ferry nuclear power plant located in northern Alabama that seriously burned four workers. The TVA and state emergency management officials stated that there was no danger of a release of radioactivity from the plant. (source: AP; 7 April 2002) The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission released a report on 5 April stating that an acid leak that ate through a steel cap over a reactor at the Davis-Besse nuclear plant in Ohio should have been spotted as long as four years ago. The problem was not discovered until the plant was shut down for refueling in February of this year. According to the NRC it is the most extensive corrosion ever found on top of a US nuclear reactor. The damage will keep the plant, located along Lake Erie, shut until at least June. The NRC said the damage did not pose a safety threat, however it has ordered operators of all 69 pressurized water reactors in the US to submit information on the structural integrity of their plant's reactor heads. (source: AP; 5 April 2002) Although no accident resulted, nuclear regulators are investigating a safety violation that could have caused bursts of potentially fatal radiation at the Washington State Framatome Advanced Nuclear Power Plant that makes fuel assemblies for nuclear reactors. According to site manager Bob Link, an employee poured radioactive uranium oxide powder into a 45-gallon barrel that was missing a safety device to prevent an uncontrolled nuclear reaction and releases of potentially deadly radiation. After realizing the mistake, the employee reported it. (source: AP; 18 April 2002) **************** NUCLEAR WASTE **************** South Carolina Governor Files Suit Against DoE Over Plutonium Shipments South Carolina Governor Jim Hodges filed a lawsuit against the US Department of Energy (DoE) on 1 May to block shipments of weapons-grade plutonium that are scheduled to arrive in the state later this month. Governor Hodges has already ordered law officers to practice blocking the plutonium shipments because there has been no agreement with the DoE as to when the material will leave the state. According to DoE officials, shipments from the Rocky Flats facility in Colorado could begin as early as 15 May. The plutonium will be transported to the Savannah River Site in South Carolina to be processed into fuel for nuclear power plants. Hodges claims in the lawsuit filed against Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham and the DoE that the DoE failed to file environmental impact statements. Conducting the environmental impact statements could take six months to one year, providing a significant delay if the lawsuit is successful. Hodges filed the suit because he fears the program to convert the plutonium to fuel will never be funded and the nuclear material will stay in South Carolina indefinitely. In the meantime, Hodges will continue negotiating with the DoE to try to reach an agreement. (source: AP; 2 May 2002) ******************* NUCLEAR INSANITY ******************* Nevada Offers Nuclear License Plates As state officials oppose the idea of Nevada becoming the national repository for US nuclear waste, authorities there are offering a fund-raising license plate to honor Nevada's atomic past. The brown and purple license plates depict a mushroom cloud, the nucleus-and-atom logo for nuclear energy and Albert Einstein's formula for the theory of relativity. Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus sponsored the bill for the license plates and state lawmakers approved it last year. According to Titus, "This is an important part of Nevada history, and national and international history. I think Nevadans think testing is patriotic. It was done for the good of the country during the Cold War." However, Kalynda Tilges of Citizen's Alert calls the license plates an "abomination." She stated, "If they're talking about the legacy of the [Nevada] Test Site, I don't think they should use a mushroom cloud unless they show what it did to the people who live here and worked out there." More than 100,00 workers helped develop the nation's nuclear arsenal in Nevada. Full scale above- and below-ground nuclear tests were conducted at the Nevada Test Site from 1952 to 1992. Subcritical nuclear tests, which are not considered full nuclear tests because they do not achieve a self-sustained nuclear reaction, are still conducted at the site. The new license plates are certainly inappropriate and ironic given that the Bush administration is considering ending a ten-year moratorium to resume full-scale nuclear testing and the controversy over the proposed radioactive waste dump site at Yucca Mountain. (source: AP; 26 April 2002) Taiwan Declassifies Secret Plan to Fire Nuclear Shells at China in 1950s Taiwan's military declassified documents in April revealing secret plans to retake the Chinese mainland in the 1950s. The documents included a plan to fire nuclear artillery shells at a Chinese port. According to a spokesman for Taiwan's Defense Ministry, the documents were released for use by researchers and academics, but not for the public. Hoping the US would provide it nuclear weapons technology, the Taiwanese army devised a plan in 1958 to fire nuclear shells at Xiamen, a southern port on mainland China. According to reports, the US military first worked on the plan with the Taiwanese army. The US later dropped the plan fearing that it could cause a heavy death toll in China and prompt it to seek nuclear weapons technology from the USSR. (source: AP Asia; 14 April 2002) Declassified Documents Reveal That a Soviet Nuclear Attack on Britain Would Mean a Loss of One Third of the Population In March 1955, a top secret official assessment was made of whether Britain could survive a thermonuclear attack from the USSR. The assessment served as the basis of civil defense planning throughout the late 1950s and 1960s. The document was made public on 25 April 2002. According to the document, a successful Soviet night attack on main population centers using 10 hydrogen bombs each containing a 10-megaton nuclear warhead would kill 12 million people and seriously injure or disable 4 million others. The report states, "This would mean a loss of nearly one-third of the population. Blast and heat would be the dominant hazard, accounting for more than nine million fatal casualties, against less than three million from radiation. Four of the 16 million casualties would be caused by a single bomb on London." Sir William Strath authored the report and was head of the Cabinet Office Central War Plans Secretariat. He said that after the initial phase of the attack there would be a critical period in which the surviving population would be struggling "against disease, starvation and unimaginable psychological effects of nuclear bombardment." Strath's report concluded that if the population could get through the initial critical period, it would be possible for Britain to make a slow recovery despite the destruction of half of its industrial capacity. According to the report, "The standard of living of the reduced population, although substantially lower than at present, would still be well above that of the greater part of the world. The country would be left with sufficient resources for a slow recovery." In response to Strath's report, the British military devised emergency plans that would allow them to take over control from regional and local authorities and "dispense justice through special military war zone courts." A top secret underground bunker was also built in the Cotswolds to shelter the cabinet and selected military, civil service and intelligence figures. Detailed plans to evacuate more than 15 million people from the target areas were also drawn up, but they would have taken at least nine days to implement. However, war planners could only count on a very short warning of up to one hour that Soviet bombers were on their way. If the Russians risked a low-level approach to avoid radar, the warning would be as short as three minutes. (source: Guardian Unlimited; 26 April 2002) ************************ INTERNATIONAL SECURITY ************************ International Criminal Court Enters Into Force On 11 April, the international community took a giant leap forward when ten countries ratified the Rome Statute, surpassing the number of ratifications needed to adopt a treaty creating the world's first independent and permanent International Criminal Court. The International Criminal Court (ICC) will be able to investigate and prosecute those individuals accused of crimes against humanity, genocide, and crimes of war. The ICC will complement existing national judicial systems and step in only if national courts are unwilling or unable to investigate or prosecute such crimes. The ICC will also help defend the rights of those, such as women and children, who have often had little recourse to justice. The Statute outlining the creation of the court was adopted at an international conference in Rome on July 17, 1998. After 5 weeks of intense negotiations, 120 countries voted to adopt the treaty. Only seven countries voted against it (China, Israel, Iraq, Libya, Qatar, the US, and Yemen) and 21 abstained. Before the Court could be set up, 60 countries were needed to ratify the treaty. 139 states signed the treaty by the 31 December 2000 deadline. As of April 11, 2002, 66 countries have ratified it. The tribunal will enter into force on July 1, 2002. On 18 October 2002, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation will honor architects of the ICC, including Arthur N.R. Robinson, President of Trinidad and Tobogo, and Ben Ferencz, a former Nuremberg prosecutor. President Robinson played a key role in the creation of an International Criminal Court (ICC). In 1989, as Prime Minister, he reintroduced the proposal to establish an ICC to the United Nations General Assembly. His initiation of this process led to the signing of the Rome Statute of the ICC in 1998. At the Plenary of the Preparatory Commission of the ICC, held immediately following the ratification ceremony, the Honorable Emma Bonino, member of the European Union, stated "Had it not been for President Robinson in 1989, none of us would have had the courage to continue [working for an ICC]. I thank you on behalf of all of us. I thank you on behalf of the world." If you are interested in attending or you would like more information about the 2002 Annual Distinguished Peace Leadership Award, please contact Chris Pizzinat, Deputy Director of the Foundation, at cpizzinat@napf.org. Human Rights Commission or Human Rights Offender's Solidarity Club? The US regained its seat on the UN Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) from which it was ousted last year. After Italy and Spain were forced to withdraw their candidacy, mostly under US pressure, the US joined Germany, Ireland and Australia to claim four seats without contest for the Western European Group on 29 April. Other new members voted to the UNHRC include Argentina, Brasil, Burkina Faso, China, Gabon, Japan, Paraguay, Sri Lanka, Swaziland and Ukraine. The New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) noted that there are a growing number of countries with very poor human rights records on the UNHRC, which may deepen the crisis in which the Commission finds itself. HRW has named several countries with disturbing human rights records that command a significant bloc of votes on the Commission, including Algeria, Burundi, China, Cuba, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Indonesia, Kenya, Libya, Malaysia, Nigeria, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Togo and Vietnam. The US "election" to the UNHRC comes at a time when there is serious international concern, if not condemnation, over the US war on terrorism and its treatment of prisoners of war. The Bush administration has also been criticized for violating the civil liberties of hundreds of thousands of US residents of Middle East origin and for detaining some 1200 Arab Americans, almost all without charge or trial, in the aftermath of 11 September. (source: Inter Press Service; 30 April 2002) *************** NAPF HAPPENINGS *************** Attention High School Students and Educators! The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is seeking entries for its 2002 Swackhamer Peace Essay Contest. This year the topic coincides with the US High School Debate topic. While the question focuses on US policy, international students are encouraged to contribute their views on US policies. The topic this year is: "What policies should the US government establish to significantly limit and end the use of weapons of mass destruction?" All essays must be submitted by June 1, 2002. The contest is open to all high school students. First Prize will receive $1500, Second Prize $1000, Third Prize $500. To read complete contest rules, please visit: http://www.wagingpeace.org/awards/swackrules.html Send entries to: Nuclear Age Peace Foundation Swackhamer Peace Essay Contest PMB 121 1187 Coast Village Road, Suite 1 Santa Barbara, California 93108-2794 No e-mail or fax entries. Calling All Poets! In 1995 the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation established an annual series of awards to encourage poets to explore and illuminate positive visions of peace and the human spirit. The Barbara Mandigo Kelly Poetry Awards are offered in three categories: adults, youth 13 to 18, and children 12 and under. Each year a committee of talented poets meets to select the winning poems. The deadline to submit 2002 entries is July 1st. To find out more about the Barbara Mandigo Kelly Peace Poetry Contest and to obtain the 2002 guidelines, please visit the website at: http://www.wagingpeace.org/awards/poetryaward.html ************ RESOURCES ************ Visit the ever-evolving website of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation at Http://www.wagingpeace.org Moving Beyond Missile Defense is a joint project of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and the International Network of Engineers and Scientists Against Proliferation. Visit the MBMD website at http://www.mbmd.org. Take a journey through the Nuclear Age. Visit the Nuclear Files at Http://www.nuclearfiles.org "Beyond Missile Defense," A briefing paper by Andrew M. Lichterman, Zia Mian, M.V. Ramana, and Juergen Scheffran, published in January, 2002 can be downloaded in pdf format from the Moving Beyond Missile Defense website at http://www.mbmd.org A new report by IEER and LCNP entitled, "Rule of Power or Rule of Law? An Assessment of U.S. Policies and Actions Regarding Security-Related Treaties" can be downloaded in pdf format at http://www.lcnp.org "Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space," prepared by Merav Datan of IPPNW and PSR for an address by the Honorable Lloyd Axworthy, published by the Liu Centre for Global Studies is available online to download in pdf format at: http://www.mbmd.org/SpaceWeaponsBan/index.html "Hiroshima and Nagasaki for Physics Teachers" information about the workshop being held in July 2002 and hosted by the Physics Department, Illinois Wesleyan University, is available at: http://titan.iwu.edu/~physics/Hiroshima/ New article on World Plutonium Inventories and the status of the US-Russian Federation Trilateral Initiative available at: http://www.nuclearfiles.org/articles/plutoniuminventories.htm "8 Reasons Why Yucca Mt. Is A Bad Idea" http://www.h-o-m-e.org/Yucca%20Docs/yucca_wrong.htm "To End a Treaty: Congress and courts must not let Bush kill missile pact," by Peter Weiss, Legal Times, April 8, 20002, can be accessed under Points Of View at: http://www5.law.com/dc/pointsofview.shtml "Nuclear Bunker Busters: Unusable, Costly and Dangerous," a report from the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation is available online at: http://www.clw.org/control/nukebbusters.html "Toxic Tugs-Public Poisons," is now available on the Nuclear Files at: http://www.nuclearfiles.org/ethics/articles/toxictugs.htm ********** EDITORS ********** Carah Ong David Krieger -- Carah Lynn Ong Director of Research and Publications The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation PMB 121, 1187 Coast Village Road, Suite 1 Santa Barbara, California 93108-2794 USA Tel: +1 805-965-3443 Fax: +1 805-568-0466 Cell: +1 805-453-0255 Http://www.wagingpeace.org Http://www.nuclearfiles.org http://www.mbmd.org "He aha te nui mea o te ao? He tangata, he tangata, he tangata." (A Maori Saying) "What is the most important thing in the world? It is the people, the people, the people." To become a free on-line participating member of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, click here: https://www.sbwh.com/wagingpeace/mbrshp.html. ***************************************************************** 25 Nuclear Deal Called Closer After Powell Meets Russian May 4, 2002 By JAMES DAO WASHINGTON, May 3 — Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and Foreign Minister Igor S. Ivanov of Russia said today that they had made substantial headway toward negotiating an agreement on reducing nuclear weapons that could be signed by President Bush and President Vladimir V. Putin at a summit meeting in Russia in three weeks. After a day of meetings at the White House and the State Department, the two men acknowledged that differences remained, though they declined to offer details. But the tenor of their remarks left little doubt that there was growing optimism on both sides that a pact could be hammered out in time for the meeting, on May 23. "We've made progress on all areas," Secretary Powell said in a brief news conference outside the State Department. "But what I'd rather not do is single out where the remaining differences are. I'm encouraged by the progress we made." Mr. Ivanov said: "Today we had very constructive negotiations, and on many issues we achieved substantial progress. A number of questions remain to be agreed before the time of President Bush's visit to Russia. We hope to have them agreed, to ensure that by the time of the visit we have a very solid package of important documents." Mr. Ivanov's session with Secretary Powell at the State Department had been scheduled to end at 3:45 p.m., but the two men emerged nearly an hour early. Asked why, a senior administration official said so much progress had been made so quickly that there had been no reason to continue. "Compared to where we were 24 hours ago, there's light at the end of the tunnel," the official said. "It was a big meeting today." The two nations have been pushing to codify oral pledges by both presidents to slash their arsenals of deployed nuclear weapons to between 1,700 and 2,200 warheads over the coming decade. The talks have been stalled on the central issue of what would happen to the approximately 4,000 warheads that each country would remove from its deployed forces. The Bush administration has said that rather than destroying or dismantling all those weapons, it wants to keep many in what it calls a "responsive force," available to be returned to submarines, bombers or missiles in case of national emergencies. The Russians, who are struggling to pay the costs of maintaining a large nuclear arsenal, have called for dismantling or destroying those warheads. The senior American official said that a new Russian proposal presented last month to the chief American negotiator, Under Secretary of State John Bolton, had paved the way for today's progress. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld told Russian officials in Moscow last Monday that the United States considered the new draft encouraging, but also offered changes. The new Russian approach tries to sidestep the thorny issue of whether reductions in warheads must be irreversible, and whether launch platforms like submarines, missiles and bombers must be destroyed, the American official said. The two sides have also disagreed over how to verify that cuts are being made and what format the agreement should take: either a treaty, as the Russians want, or possibly something less formal, but still legally binding, as some American officials advocate. The senior American official said the two sides had agreed that the Russians would handle the final agreement like a treaty, submitting it to their Parliament for ratification. But Mr. Bush has not decided whether to handle an agreement as a treaty, which would require a two-thirds majority in the Senate for ratification, or an executive-legislative agreement, which would require a majority vote in both houses. Either way, the administration does intend to present an agreement to Congress for approval, senior officials have said. Verifying reductions in nuclear weapons remains a sticking point, officials said. The Russians want a formal system in place that could include inspections of weapons sites. The Americans have argued for something less elaborate. Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company | Privacy Information ***************************************************************** 26 Russia's nuclear worrier NEWS.scotsman.com - Features - Sat 4 May 2002 Sakharov: A Biography by Richard Lourie Brandeis University Press Review by Richard Lourie Just as some tennis players, poets and computer nerds peak early, so do some physicists. Andrei Sakharov was just 32 years old when, in 1953, he watched the first test explosion in Kazakhstan of the thermonuclear device which he, primarily , had designed. What a terrible beauty was born - "A swiftly expanding white ball lit up the whole horizon," its father recorded. "I could see a stupendous cloud trailing streamers of purple dust. The cloud turned grey, quickly separated from the ground and swirled upward, shimmering with gleams of orange." Almost immediately afterwards Sakharov and a colleague walked across "a fused black crust that crunched underfoot like glass" to the epicentre of the explosion. Sakharov some weeks later went down with an undiagnosed illness. His colleague later died of leukaemia. What to do, when at 32 you have made possible the nuclear defence of the Soviet Union, brought about the consequent Cold War and played a larger part than anybody else in the possible Mutually Assured Destruction of the world? Andrei Sakharov could, like so many others, have relaxed into a comfortably rewarded life, commuting between his dacha, his installations and laboratories and the Soviet Academy of Sciences. As his friend, the translator into English of Sakharov’s Memoirs, Richard Lourie makes clear in this nicely paced, informed and most readable of biographies, that would not only have been the easy option - it may in the Soviet 1950s have seemed the only option. For Sakharov, born in 1921, was not only a child of the revolution, he was a committed and privileged Soviet citizen. When his famous renunciation came he was rebelling not against the Stalinist purges and terrors of his youth and early manhood, but against the USSR of Khruschev’s "thaw". It was as if his social conscience, arriving relatively late in life, was all the more uncompromising for that, and he spent the rest of his life devoting to it the same adamantine commitment which had previously been requisitioned by his invention of the H-bomb. There may have been an element of guilt in his astonishing volte-face. When Sakharov delivered the blueprint of a 100-megaton giant atomic torpedo pretty much guaranteed to blast every living thing out of the North Atlantic, to a Soviet admiral he rejected it out of hand, disgusted and outraged by the "idea of merciless mass slaughter". Sakharov was shocked. And the early dissidents, the beat generation of the Soviet Union, were largely an appealing crowd. Andrei Sinyavsky, who had been a pallbearer at Boris Pasternak’s funeral, penned a wonderful satire of the Marxist thesis-antithesis-synthesis dialectic: "So that all prisons should vanish forever, we built new prisons ... So that not one drop of blood be shed any more, we killed and killed and killed … Sometimes we felt that only one final sacrifice was needed for the triumph of communism - the renunciation of communism.". So, Sakharov, torn by doubt but convinced that the Soviet Union had followed a series of false trails towards disaster, joined the world of samizdat ("self-publishing" - as in: "I write it myself, censor it myself, print and disseminate it myself, and then I do time in prison for it myself"). Except that, as one of the world’s most respected scientists, Andrei Sakharov had no need to depend on the secret roneograph. For him, the New York Times was waiting. In 1968 his first trumpet-blast echoed across the Atlantic, and there can have been no more fitting a year. The New York Times devoted its front page to his lengthy ruminations titled Reflections on Progress. They were, in fact, fairly bathetic even by the standards of 1968 - had it been by-lined Andrew Sugarson rather than Andrei Sakharov, Reflections would have been rejected by the Village Voice, let alone the New York Times. It called for hugely increased (by 20 per cent) developed-world taxes to bring the Third World up to parity within a decade and a World government before 2000 AD. (It is almost sad to say, but when Reflections was finally reviewed by the Soviet Literary Review in 1973, its criticism of Sakharov as a naïve utopian who perceived as feasible and desirable united administration for "collective farmers and Texas oil barons … American Black Panthers and racists from the John Birch Society", Literary Review was talking better sense than its subject.) The point is, of course, that Andrei Sakharov and his second wife Elena Bonner had the right to spout nonsense as well as sense without being bullied by the KGB, sent into internal exile or forced on to hunger strike. At times both Sakharov and Bonner were clearly willing to die for that right. Almost anybody else would have been permitted such an escape: it was the 20-year game of bluff and double-bluff between them and the revolving-door authorities, who were not prepared to have a hero of the Soviet Union commit martyrdom on their watch, which elevated this husband and wife team into international icons. Luckily they both lived long enough for Gorbachev and a large degree of reconciliation to arrive. She is still alive: he died in 1989, at the time of glasnost and perestroika but before the collapse of communism. He would not have danced on its grave: if Lourie’s book makes one thing clear it is that Andrei Sakharov was just too nice a man for that. Too nice, in fact, to be a saint. scotsman.com | contact ***************************************************************** 27 North Korean group to ask Japan to help build A-bomb hospital BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; May 4, 2002 Pyongyang, 4 May: A North Korean group representing survivors of the 1945 US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on Saturday [4 May] said it will ask Japan for help building a hospital to treat them. Jon Jong-hyok, secretary general of the Korean Atomic Bomb Victims Association for Anti-Nuclear Peace, told Kyodo News the association will ask Japan to help set up a hospital in North Korea to treat Koreans who were in the cities in August 1945. Jon also said the organization will urge Japan to provide Korean victims the same assistance that Japanese survivors receive under Japanese law, establish a memorial monument for Koreans killed in the attacks and release related documents. It also wants a public apology from Tokyo for forcibly taking people from its colony on the Korean Peninsula to perform labour in Japan, where some were in the Hiroshima and Nagasaki attacks. Asked about a Japanese government plan to help survivors in North Korea receive treatment in Japan, Jon said Tokyo had similar measures for survivors in South Korea, but they did not produce significant results. The plan would not be appropriate for ageing sufferers in North Korea, which has no diplomatic relations with Japan, Jon added. Tokyo has refused to pay medical allowances to survivors of the bombings who live outside Japan. Jon also said the association had confirmed 1,953 A-bomb victims in North Korea as of the end of February. The figure includes those who have already died. A Japanese government mission did research on the health of victims in North Korea in March 2001 and said it confirmed 1,353 victims, of whom 928 were living as of late 2000. Around 100,000 Koreans were exposed to radiation in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and around half are believed to have died, according to an association of South Korean A-bomb victims. North Korea postponed unofficial health ministerial talks with Japan scheduled for late March that would have taken up the issue of providing aid to survivors in the North. Source: Kyodo News Service, Tokyo, in English 0839 gmt 4 May 02 /© BBC Monitoring ***************************************************************** 28 US, Russia Fall Short of Nuke Pact Las Vegas SUN May 03, 2002 WASHINGTON- The United States and Russia fell short Friday of wrapping up an agreement to cut their arsenals of long-range nuclear weapons, though both sides said they made substantial progress. Secretary of State Colin Powell said he was encouraged and "we are going to have a successful summit" between President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin in three weeks in Moscow. Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said after calling on Bush earlier that there was a "very high probability" of securing the nuclear arms reduction agreement in time for the summit. "Remaining differences are there, and we need to spend more time working on them and discussing them to see if we can resolve them in time for the Moscow summit," Powell said. "If we can, fine," he said. "And if we are unable to, the work will continue, but I am encouraged." A key sticking point is whether the discarded warheads are to be stored or disposed of, a senior U.S. official told The Associated Press. On the other hand, substantial progress was made on how to verify that the reductions in arsenals of long-range nuclear warheads are being carried out, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity. There was progress on other "core issues," as well, he said, but some small items remained unsettled. Both sides were upbeat, offering assurances a pact was steadily emerging. Powell and Ivanov are due to meet again at the spring session of the NATO alliance in Iceland May 14-16. And Undersecretary of State John Bolton will meet in Moscow that week with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Georgy Mamedov. "There are outstanding issues we have to agree on," Powell said, while declining at a joint news conference with Ivanov to identify any problems. He did say no decision had been made on whether the accord would be in the form of a treaty or an executive agreement. In any event, Powell said, the cutbacks to a maximum of 1,700 to 2,200 long-range warheads apiece within a decade, would be legally binding. Ivanov said, "We achieved progress." But he, too, provided no details. Earlier, the Russian minister said there was a "very high probability" of securing the nuclear arms reduction agreement in time for the summit. The Bush administration, by contrast, played it closer to the vest. "There are good signs, but the work needs to be done ... and the president remains hopeful," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said. Bush and Putin are committed to reducing U.S. and Russian arsenals of long-range warheads to no more than 1,700 to 2,200 each within 10 years. But the Russians want to make sure the dismantled warheads are destroyed, not stored. Determined to proceed with an elaborate anti-missile shield, Bush opted out of a 1972 treaty that outlawed national defenses against missile attack. Russia objected, but has muted its criticism on the point. Still, the Russians wanted to include in the agreement an opening for negotiations over missile defenses, but the United States said no and that debate is over, the senior U.S. official said. The Bush administration long ago deferred to Russia's insistence on a formal agreement. Powell has said it could be a treaty or an executive order, about five or six pages long. A treaty would require approval of two-thirds of the Senate. An executive order would need the approval of a majority of the House and Senate. "Any codification of this type has a lot of t's to be crossed and i's to be dotted. And that's what the lawyers and negotiators are working on now," Fleischer said. Aides to Bush and Putin are making plans for a signing ceremony in Moscow. An administration official said bargaining could continue right up to the eve of the May 23 summit. Bush has said he intends to reduce the U.S. long-range nuclear arsenal regardless of whether Russia reciprocates. Putin has said Moscow would be willing to cut the Russian arsenal even deeper - to 1,500 warheads. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 29 Panel wants to reduce testing preparation time Saturday, May 04, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal Bill: Test site should be ready within one year instead of two or three By TONY BATT STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- If U.S. nuclear testing ever resumes, the Nevada Test Site should be ready to go within one year instead of two to three years as currently planned, according to a new defense bill approved this week by the House Armed Services Committee. The one-year timetable is also less than the 18 months suggested earlier this year by an official with the National Nuclear Security Administration, which runs the test site. An executive summary of the defense authorization bill, which the committee passed Wednesday 57-1, said long lead times "do not make resuming testing a realistic option." The $383 billion defense authorization bill does not break down the cost of making the test site ready to resume nuclear tests. Instead, the committee directed the secretary of energy to consult with the head of the National Nuclear Security Administration in preparing a budget for fiscal year 2004 that would achieve a one-year readiness posture at the test site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas. John Harvey, a policy officer for the National Nuclear Security Administration, estimated in January that it would take $45 million over three years to make the test site ready for underground blasts within 18 months. Spokeswoman Lisa Cutler said her agency and the Bush administration agree with the committee's view that two to three years is too long to wait. But she stopped short of saying the administration would support a one-year test readiness deadline. "We are already conducting a study that looks at a range of options and seeks to determine what the test readiness posture should be and what the costs are associated with various options," Cutler said. The study is expected to be released this spring, Cutler said. Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said he supports the one-year test readiness deadline, but noted the committee is not recommending a resumption of nuclear tests. "There are other provisions in the bill that require the notification of Congress before another test could take place," he said. The United States had not conducted a nuclear test in Nevada since September 1992. Underground tests may be required in the future to assure the safety and reliability of the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile, Gibbons said. In addition, Gibbons said, a new bomb called a "bunker buster" is being developed for possible use in the war on terrorism. Although the weapon won't be completed for another year or two, Gibbons said the bunker buster may need to be tested at the test site. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., also has supported the notion of testing the bunker buster at the test site. As chairman of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on energy and water, Reid oversees the test site's annual budget. But Reid spokeswoman Tessa Hafen said the senator does not support a resumption of nuclear tests at the test site. She said Reid has seen nothing to convince him that nuclear testing readiness should be accelerated to one year. "(Reid) supports (National Nuclear Security Administration chief John) Gordon's assessment that an 18-month to two-year readiness time is a prudent time frame," Hafen said.optional cut ends here Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002 ***************************************************************** 30 N-ambiguities of big powers -DAWN - International; 04 May, 2002 By Daniel Schorr WASHINGTON: We live with nuclear perils of several kinds. Russia and the United States agree on reducing nuclear stockpiles, but disagree on whether to destroy them or store them, as the Bush administration proposes to do. Many observers say that Iraq may be on its way to developing a nuclear bomb, and periodic leaks from the Bush administration suggest military intervention to abort it. A captured 'terrorist' leader says that Al Qaeda is close to having a crude nuclear device that could be smuggled into the United States. We are told that one dirty bomb - nuclear fuel wrapped around a conventional detonator - could affect half of Manhattan. Even peaceful nuclear energy can set people on edge. April 16 happened to be the 16th anniversary of the Chernobyl atomic-energy-plant explosion in Ukraine. And today, children are being born with genetic mutations. Half a world away, people in south Nevada battle against depositing nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain. A Brookings Institution report says that a successful attack on a nuclear power plant could result in 10,000 fatalities. The Bush administration has a peculiarly ambivalent attitude about the nuclear danger. On the one hand, the president is devoting his energies to protecting us against the "axis of evil" and weapons of mass destruction. On the other hand, his administration is moving closer to the edge of the nuclear abyss. The most recent Nuclear Posture Review called for developing a small hydrogen bomb - an "advanced-concept nuclear weapon." To that en end, initial studies are already in progress on something called the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator that could reach deeply buried targets. The administration seems unconcerned about possibly becoming the first since Hiroshima and Nagasaki to explode a nuclear weapon in anger. But the most mystifying of all is the way the White House is skimping on protection from nuclear danger. According to The New York Times, the Energy Department complained that budget director Mitchell Daniels cut 93 per cent of the money that Secretary Spencer Abraham had wanted for nuclear security. The 380 million dollars request was part of a 27 billion dollars emergency bill, and it covered such items as security for weapons storage and cleanup, security for nuclear science facilities, and a National Center for Combating Terrorism. Administration officials are quoted as saying that nuclear security is at a high level and adequate to meet the nuclear threat. Well, maybe, but you would think that an administration spending billions for tanks that the military doesn't want might put a little extra effort into nuclear protection.-Dawn/The Christian Science Monitor News Service. ***************************************************************** 31 Pak's nuclear installations under threat: Agha Shahi Updated on 2002-05-04 09:47:58 RAWALPINDI, May 04 (PNS): Underlining the need for taking more effective measures for protection and safety of country's nuclear installations and assets, Former Foreign Minister Agha Shahi has cautioned that they were under serious threat. He was speaking at a seminar held here Friday titled Launching of terrorism by US, Israel and India against Kashmir, Palestine and Afghanistan and miserable condition of Muslim Ummah". Former Chief of ISI, Hamid Gul, President AJK PPP, Sardar Khalid Ibrahim, President of High Court Bar Association, Muhammad Ikram Chaudhry and General Secretary Raja Imran Aziz also addressed the seminar. Agha Shahi said that after the end to the cold war and absolute disintegration of USSR, the US has emerged as sole super power in the world. It is now engaged in arbitrary show of power in every region by dint of this factor and is dreaming of dismemberment of Muslim States, he added. It is apprehended that US will soon launch attack on Iraq and destroy its civil and military installations. Criticising Pakistan Afghan policy, he said on both the occasions in 1980 and recently in coalition forces war against Afghanistan, Pakistan policies were wrong. In 1982 we had shaken hands with US and this time we embraced this super power, he observed. After fragmentation of USSR, the balance of power has gone upset and the Muslim countries particularly Arab world has been rendered as vulnerable and weak nations. Arab world is not in a position to use oil as weapon now, he remarked. Focusing on the brutalities being perpetrated by Israel on Palestinian Muslims, he said that the rein of terror let loose by Israel on Palestinians has given way to uncertain and unstable situation. Deploring the apathy of human rights organisations against the Muslims carnage in India, he said that not a single organisation championing the cause of human rights has raised voice against the barbarity only for the reason that India is emerging as third power being ally of US. He pointed out that US is keeping Pakistan under pressure on the pretext of Taliban and Al-Qaeda and is not allowing it to spend money to meet its strategic needs. He stressed that supremacy of constitution should be ensured in order to stabilise the country politically. Expressing optimism for glorification of Islam and resurgence of Islamic movement in the world, former chief of ISI, Lt Gen (Retd), Hamid Gul said that the day is not far off when Islam will emerge as dominating power. The offences being launched against the Muslim world in every part of the world reflect the fear the western world is beset with the emergence of Islam, he indicated. The main cause for launching propaganda blitz by the US and western world against Islam is that they feel threatened by the renaissance of Islam, he maintained. He went on to say that Islam does not only serve as beacon light for the Muslims only but for the whole world. Terming Mulla Omar as hero of Muslim world he said that when Pakistan decided to side with US, Mulla Omar refused to surrender. He pointed out that Afghanistan was not the real agenda of US but it is Pakistan. Entering into Afghanistan was a mere pretext, he added. Pakistani rulers have held the country hostage, he alleged. Talking of referendum, he pointed out that when General Zia referendum in 1980 he was a general and since then he is feeling ashamed over holding of this exercise by Zia. I feel regret on my being in service at that time, he noted. He was of view that the present referendum is a futile exercise adding that the real problem of the country is lack of leadership. " We need now a strong and unflinching leadership who can not be cowed down by the enemy", he asserted. He said that Hindu is browbeating us despite being a nuclear power. "This is because of our weak leadership", he indicated. Describing the freedom struggle of Kashmiris as democratic struggle AJK PPP President Sardar Ibrahim Khalid said that only democratically elected leaders could advance this movement. The steps taken by General Pervez Musharraf particularly holding of referendum has weakened the freedom movement, he noted. There is dire need of elected government through democratic process to be at the helm of affairs in Pakistan, he maintained. President of Lahore High Court Bar Association, Muhammad Ikram Chaudhry said that after September 11 event UN is left with no role to play in the world. The super powers have changed their postures and the Muslim massacre is on the rise across the world. The Muslim Ummah and its leadership has to play their role in these wretched hours, he emphasised. Ends ***************************************************************** 32 Russian public safety officers to train in Oak Ridge thedailytimes.com - 2002-05-03 by Thomas Fraser of The Daily Times Staff Nine Russian public safety specialists will be in Blount County and Oak Ridge through Monday receiving course work in disaster response and emergency preparedness. ``Developing Municipal Emergency Responses'' is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State and will be administered locally by the Blount County/Zheleznogorsk Sister City program. One member of the group, Anatoliy Shatov, is the head of the Department for Civil Defense and Emergency Situations at the nuclear facility in Zheleznogorsk. The team, which will represent cities and regions throughout Russia, will tour area facilities such as the Blount County Fire Department and Alcoa Public Safety Building. The men will be introduced to basic concepts of American firefighting, policing and disaster response. The emphasis of the entire two-week American trip, which will take the Russian team from Washington, D.C. to Oklahoma City to New York City, is on cultivating emergency response skills in Russia, where some safety agencies lack even a single defibrillator. In Oklahoma City and New York City, the team will be exposed to the basics of response to terrorist attack. In Washington, D.C., the first stop on the two-week trip, the Russians were introduced to the basic systems of federal-level disaster response. In East Tennessee, the group will gain experience in more ``nuts and bolts'' issues, such as the use of defibrillators, breathing apparatus, communications and emergency medical response. Blount County is the second stop on the tour. ``We feel very proud to be in that position,'' said Blount County/Zheleznogorsk Sister City Chairman and Oak Ridge National Laboratory employee John Randolph. Randolph said Blount County and surrounding counties ``have two things to offer'' Russians seeking more advanced emergency training. He said Blount County and its cities enjoy solid working relationships with the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency and have in place ``very well-organized'' emergency response teams. All county agencies are ``up to date on issues for responses to chemical, biological and radiological accidents and terrorism,'' Randolph said. At the federal ORNL, emergency workers are ``always current'' on the most modern disaster response techniques and issues, Randolph said. The Russians also will meet with civic leaders in the county and its cities. While this visit may be fairly rudimentary in nature, Randolph said, he hopes it will further a ``Train the trainer'' public safety mission the Sister City organization would like to undertake. Randolph said that following the visit the Sister City group and ORNL will pursue funding to launch a ``full-blown public safety training course'' that would not only train Russian emergency workers in the latest rescue and disaster response techniques, but qualify them to teach similar courses in their home country. 2002 Horvitz Newspapers. The Daily Times 307 East Harper Ave. Maryville, TN 37801 or PO Box 9740, 37802-9740 Phone: 865-981-1100 Fax: 865-981-1175 ***************************************************************** 33 New candidates may interview at Lab Tri-Valley Herald Friday, May 03, 2002 - 2:57:13 AM MST Director position search on an indefinite schedule FROM STAFF REPORTS University of California officials said Thursday that new candidates may be interviewed and considered in the continuing selection process for a new director at Lawrence Livermore Lab. Michael Reese, UC spokesman, said, "I can't say absolutely, but in the course of any search, new names of qualified candidates can and often are added at any point in the process." Livermore Lab, a nuclear weapons research lab, is managed by the UC system for the Energy Department. No meeting dates or interview dates have been set for either the 14-member advisory committee or the 13-member selection committee, Reese said. Both committees were formed by UC officials to assist in the selection process. The advisory committee has held three meetings, including a March 4 meeting near Livermore Lab that included a one-hour public comment period, a March 27 meeting, and an April 19 meeting to conduct candidate interviews. The screening committee held one meeting March 15 to narrow the list of candidates. A decision on a new director had been expected April 26, but UC President Richard C. Atkinson canceled a special UC Board of Regents meeting just minutes before the board was expected to approve Atkinson's selection for a new director. Reese said it is unknown when the selection process will be completed. "We'll be driven not by a specific date on a calendar but by how long it takes to find the best candidate," he said. Raymond J. Juzaitis, a weapons physics programs leader at Los Alamos Laboratory, was the UC choice to fill the director position, though questions raised about his work history stalled the selection process, and Juzaitis on Wednesday withdrew himself. Reese said that there are some unresolved issues in the selection process "and they are being worked out." ©1999-2001 by MediaNews Group, Inc. and ANG Newspapers ***************************************************************** 34 Officials Talk New Energy Sources Las Vegas SUN May 03, 2002 DETROIT- Top officials from eight of the world's richest countries closed a two-day energy summit Friday saying that new energy sources must be tapped to meet world demand. Huge amounts of money must be invested to finance efforts to develop the sources and new energy technology, delegates of the Group of Eight Nations said. "Everyone who participated here recognizes there are vast reserves around the world that could potentially be developed, but it needs private investments," U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said. During the two-day forum, representatives from the G-8 nations talked about the future of the world's energy needs, touching on themes of energy security, development and protection of the environment. The summit was the first G-8 gathering to focus on energy since a Moscow meeting in 1998. The event was billed as a major goal of President Bush's national energy policy proposal unveiled a year ago. Participating in the summit were representatives from the United States, Canada, Russia, Great Britain, Germany, Japan, Italy and France. Abraham and Herb Dhaliwal, Canada's minister of natural resources, said that increasing energy efficiency and using a mix of sources - including nuclear power - improves energy security, economic growth and environmental protection. Research and development of new energy technology is crucial to "diversifying the energy mix and reducing the environmental impacts of energy production and use," they said in a statement after Friday's session. The discussions were held behind closed doors, but Abraham and Dhaliwal said delegates agreed significant investment in energy production are needed to meet the world's energy needs. Loyola de Palacio, vice president of the European Commission, said there was a general agreement on the importance of renewable energy for sustainable development, supply diversification, environmental preservation and energy security. Abraham said delegates also stressed that oil-consuming countries must maintain emergency stocks - especially during volatile times. Palacio said the world's increasing dependence on road transportation and the need to develop alternative fuels and technologies have become major concerns. "In the majority of industrialized countries, we cannot simply drill our way out of oil dependency," Palacio said. Two panel sessions on fuel cell vehicles were held Thursday, and Abraham announced that his department will host an International Conference on the Future of Energy Transportation Technologies in Detroit this fall. The development of hydrogen as a primary fuel for vehicles will be one of the topics. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, 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: *****************************************************************