***************************************************************** 11/06/02 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 10.287 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** Send News Stories to news@energy-net.org with title on subject line and first line of body NUCLEAR POLICY 1 Ex-U.S. Envoy: N.Korea Fears Attack 2 Tokyo Reaffirms Commitment to KEDO Project 3 Plan for nuclear submarine return 4 Nuclear risk: Make 'em pay 5 EU mulls future of fund for N.Korea nuclear energy 6 Country in Turmoil, and It Has the Bomb 7 Anti-Nuclear Week in UCD!! - lend a hand!* 8 SA: ANC calls for support against Iraq war 9 Graham watered down landmark speech on Iraq 10 Headline: Osama is alive, says German official -- Detail Story* 11 US has arrogant disregard for UN, says ANC 12 U.S. may halt N-reactors, oil supply to N. Korea 13 Hopes raised for N Korea nuclear accord 14 Part 3: The false triangle 15 Yoichi Funabashi: Japan may join hands with the devil, but how? 16 EU mulls future of fund for N.Korea nuclear energy 17 Scottish energy groups plan £13bn alliance 18 China's Guangdong nuclear plant to issue bonds 19 NK Countering US Offensives against Nuke Program 20 ROK, Russia Fail to Agree on Debt-Repayment Terms 21 Straw rejects Israeli call for attack on Iran 22 S.Korea, US Reaffirm Peaceful Resolution to NK Nuclear Project 23 Seoul Braces for Possibility of No Deal With US 24 Seoul, Washington reaffirm peaceful solution to nuke issue 25 Pyongyang ready to act in concert with Washington over nuke issue 26 US secures deal on new Iraq weapons resolution NUCLEAR REACTORS 27 Taiwan: Legislators blast N-plant vulnerability to quakes 28 Mounties protecting Lepreau 'burnt out'* 29 Japan: Agency begins inspections at TEPCO N-plants NUCLEAR SAFETY 30 US: NRC must be clear, resolute about D-B safety - 31 US: U.S. backs off plan to cut Paducah cleanup workers 32 US: RADIATION EXPOSURE COMPENSATION PROGRAM IS AMENDED NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 33 US: NRC to Develop Proposed Regulation on Control of Slightly 34 US: Yucca Mountain to dominate new attorney general's term 35 US: Voters Bury Initiative on Radioactive Waste 36 US: INITIATIVES: N-Waste and Leases Sink; Museum Sails 37 US: County Resident Urges Hearing On Nuclear Fuel Services? Plans * 38 US: State Planner Quits Uranium Plant Project* 39 Radioactive waste to be dumped near Dimitrovgrad's water wells 40 US: Proposed tax on nuclear waste industry defeated 41 US: Berkley to focus on Yucca Mountain 42 US: No layoffs pledged at recycle plant (US Ecology) 43 Taiwan: Radioactive-waste bunkers `unsafe' NUCLEAR WEAPONS 44 [southnews] Archbishop warns West of nuclear conflict over Iraq 45 EU's atomic relic rises again 46 US: PBS Online NewsHour: Nuclear Weapons -- 47 UK: Nuclear submarine runs aground US DEPT. OF ENERGY 48 Lab Rat Ground zero for technology transfer 49 Hanford Nuclear Plant Feels Effects of Alaska Quake; Escapes 50 Richardson defends Energy Dept. record OTHER NUCLEAR 51 Russia's Poison Gases 52 Policy issues not found on ballots -- 53 White House Briefing Transcript 54 US warns of Iraq's smallpox stockpile ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 Ex-U.S. Envoy: N.Korea Fears Attack Las Vegas SUN: November 06, 2002 By SOO-JEONG LEE ASSOCIATED PRESS SEOUL, South Korea- North Korean officials say they fear a U.S. attack and that they support a 1994 nuclear pact with Washington that they described as "hanging by a thread," a former U.S. ambassador to South Korea said Wednesday after a visit to the North. Donald Gregg, who arrived in Seoul on Tuesday from the North, held nearly 10 hours of talks with top officials in the communist country, whose recently disclosed nuclear weapons program has raised tension with the United States. Gregg, who traveled as a private citizen to Pyongyang at the invitation of the North Koreans, said he detected a possible softening of the North Korean position on how to resolve the nuclear dispute. In their conversations, the North Koreans said Washington should take the first step to resolve the impasse, but later said simultaneous actions could be taken, said Gregg, who was accompanied by Don Oberdorfer, a Korea expert at Johns Hopkins University. "This we regarded as possibly a step toward progress," Gregg said. In talks with Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly last month, North Korea admitted it had a uranium enrichment program in violation of nuclear pacts, including a 1994 deal in which it agreed to freeze a plutonium-based nuclear program in return for two light-water nuclear reactors. Construction of the reactors is years behind schedule. Kelly said the North Koreans told him that they considered the 1994 Agreed Framework to be dead. But Gregg said First Vice Foreign Minister Kang Sok Ju told him that the deal '"is hanging by a thread,' meaning that it was in a very tenuous state but that the North Koreans were still supporting it." North Korea has said it will alleviate U.S. security concerns if Washington signs a nonaggression pact. U.S. officials, however, say the North must first scrap its nuclear program before any talks can take place. "I think they would like the United States to give them some assurances that we do not intend to blow them out of the water," said Gregg, who also met Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan and Lt. Gen. Ri Chan Bok, chief military liaison officer at the Demilitarized Zone on the border with South Korea. Gregg said the North Koreans felt degraded by "insulting rhetoric" and a "lack of trust" from the United States. He said Ri pointed out that North Korea has pursued better relations with its neighbors, including South Korea, Japan, China and Russia. "His bottom line to us was essentially, 'What's the matter with you Americans? Why don't you join the procession of countries that are making a better relationship with North Korea?'" Gregg said. He said North Korean officials would neither confirm nor deny that they have a nuclear weapons program, "although some comments that we heard were very close to admissions that they had such a program underway." Also Wednesday, U.S. Undersecretary of Defense Doug Feith discussed North Korea's nuclear program with top South Korean officials and U.S. military commanders. Feith arrived in Seoul late Tuesday. The visit comes as the United States tries to muster international support for its campaign to pressure North Korea to give up its nuclear ambitions. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 2 Tokyo Reaffirms Commitment to KEDO Project Digital Chosunilbo (English Edition) : Daily News in English About Korea Updated Nov.6,2002 16:06 KST As officials from South Korea, Japan and the United States prepare to meet for a three-way meeting, with North Korea high on the agenda later this week in Tokyo, Japanese officials reportedly plan to urge Washington to keep the 1994 Agreed Framework intact in light of security concerns on the Korean peninsula. In addition Tokyo is voicing the need to maintain the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization, or KEDO project, amid signs Washington may officially dissolve the 1994 Geneva Agreed Framework signed between the United States and North Korea. The framework led the Stalinist state to freeze its nuclear weapons program in exchange for the construction of two safe light-water reactors, as well as an annual shipment of 500,000 tons of fuel oil for heating and electricity production from the US. South Korea, Japan and the European Union are also part of the US-led consortium established to head the multi-billion dollar task. However, the North's recent revelation of its enriched uranium program and its bold stance on the issue, has both the US and the EU reviewing their involvement in the project. In an interview with Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun earlier in the week, a senior US State Department official expressed the likelihood of a complete halt in the KEDO project, and in U.S. supply of crude oil for the impoverished country. Given these circumstances, Tokyo plans to call on Washington to keep the 1994 accord valid in line with efforts to seek a peaceful resolution based on dialogue with regard to Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions. The remarks are to be made during the two-day Trilateral Coordination and Oversight Group meeting in the Japanese capital from Friday, and also at trilateral foreign ministerial talks scheduled for November 11 in Seoul. (Arirang TV) ***************************************************************** 3 Plan for nuclear submarine return BBC NEWS | UK | England | Tuesday, 5 November, 2002, 19:20 GMT [HMS Tireless grounded in Gibraltar] The submarines would use a berth in Southampton Nuclear submarines could be returning to Southampton docks under proposals put forward by the Royal Navy. Defence leaders want to restore the docks as a berth for the submarines after an 18-month absence. Southampton City Council had forced the navy to remove nuclear submarines from the dock's Z berth after pressure from local residents. However one nuclear submarine expert has criticised the proposals because the yard is so near a major city. It is ridiculous to sail a submarine with a nuclear reactor system into a major city of 200,000 souls Dr John Large Residents met Southampton councillors on Monday to ask them to block the new plan. If the go-ahead is given any of the Royal Navy's 15 Trafalgar-class or Swiftsure-class submarines could visit Southampton - as well as foreign submarines carrying nuclear weapons. Dr John Large, a nuclear expert who has advised the Royal Navy and helped Russia raise the Kursk submarine, called the proposal "sheer lunacy". He said: "It is ridiculous to sail a submarine with a nuclear reactor system into a major city of 200,000 souls. "Nothing makes the Royal Navy immune from mistakes. Chernobyl wasn't designed to blow up and the Kursk wasn't designed to sink. "It should be for the people of Southampton to make a decision about whether they want to bear this risk." It is also feared the docks could become a terrorist target. Di McDonald, of peace campaigners Nuclear Information Service, said: "This is nothing but a PR exercise by the Navy to try to recruit young people. "There are plenty of military bases they could use instead. 'Safety upgraded' "If there was an accident in one of the reactors thousands of people could inhale radioactive dust that causes cancer." But a Royal Navy spokesman argued the chance of an accident was very remote. He said: "Our safety measures are continually reviewed and upgraded. "People in Portsmouth are used to British and American nuclear submarines coming in and out of the naval base there." © MMII | News Sources | Privacy ***************************************************************** 4 Nuclear risk: Make 'em pay [A part of canada.com] [NATIONAL POST] Wednesday » November 6 » 2002 Lawrence Solomon National Post Nuclear power is absolutely safe, the nuclear industry is fond of saying. Only scaremongers, the ignorant and fools think otherwise, it maintains. Canadian governments have fallen for the nuclear industry's assurances but, thankfully, Canada's private sector lenders haven't. Knowing that the risk of nuclear contamination is real, and that they could be on the financial hook in the event of radioactive contamination, banks and other private financiers have refused to back nuclear facilities. Soon that will change, the nuclear industry believes, thanks to an innovation designed to make investments in nuclear power safe enough for banks. The innovation is not a tightened safety technology, but a weakened Nuclear Safety and Control Act. With the passage of Bill C-4, which is now wending its way through Parliament, banks and other lenders will be absolved of worrisome liabilities in the event of a mishap. To make nuclear power safe for other nervous Nellies -- such as General Electric, Westinghouse, and other nuclear reactor manufacturers -- the federal government took other measures. In the nuclear industry's early days, GE et al. were worried sick that something small could go wrong -- a broken valve, a malfunctioning alarm -- and the consequences could be big. One meltdown could lay waste an entire city, the manufacturers explained, adversely affecting them and their shareholders. Legislators in Canada took the manufacturers' concerns to heart, and took steps to ensure that a simple meltdown that inadvertently took out Toronto wouldn't also take out a nuclear manufacturer. Canada passed the Nuclear Liability Act in the 1970s to guarantee that no harm whatsoever could come to a GE should any of its nuclear parts fail. To further ease the manufacturers' nuclear paranoia, the legislation protects them even if an accident results from defective products that they had knowingly shipped, or safety documents that they had knowingly falsified. The government failed to allay the fears of insurance company executives, who didn't accept the claim that nuclear plants were virtually risk-free. As a result, insurance policies do not cover our homes and property in the event of a nuclear accident. The risk of a worst-case accident -- which some U.S. studies have estimated at more than $400-billion -- is just too calamitous to the bottom line for any insurer to contemplate. Everyone is now reasonably safe in Canada -- the lenders, the operators, the manufacturers, the insurers. Everyone, that is, except members of the public, who can neither insure themselves beforehand nor sue for compensation afterwards. Despite these protections, the worldwide nuclear industry wants more. Although private nuclear companies feel safe at home, they worry that a meltdown in one country would expose them to liability laws in neighbouring lands. As would exports of nuclear goods, should an accident occur during shipping. In the belief that you can never be too safe, the industry is lobbying to make the world a Nuclear-Liability-Free Zone. The industry's goal is an international protocol, governing all countries, that eliminates any untoward risk to private companies in the nuclear industry. The state-run portion of the nuclear industry has no great liability concerns. Not so the nuclear industry's private-sector players. Their concerns were voiced at an international symposium hosted by the Uranium Institute in 1999 by Washington lawyer Omer F. Brown, a member of the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency Contact Group on Liability and the counsel to two major nuclear industry groups: the Contractors International Group on Nuclear Liability and the Energy Contractors Price-Anderson Group. "It is important to reiterate the fundamental factor that underlies the concerns of privately owned contractors and suppliers: Private -- as distinguished from state-owned -- companies have a fundamental obligation to protect the assets of their shareholders," he explained. "Private companies are exposed to tort and other liabilities to the full extent of their assets. The greater the assets of a private company, the greater its liability concerns are. Private companies ordinarily do not enjoy the immunities that governments and state-owned entities do. Company directors and officers even can be sued by shareholders for imprudent business decisions." To the relief of Mr. Brown and his clients, serious efforts are now underway to create the Nuclear-Liability-Free Zone that they wish. Various states are passing legislation that would further an international protocol, and the OECD's Nuclear Energy Agency has taken up the cause of establishing a Nuclear-Liability-Free Zone. The logic of the Kyoto Protocol also gives governments a reason to lessen the nuclear industry's international liability, just as it gives Canada's Natural Resources Minister, Herb Dhaliwal, a rationale for weakened domestic safety legislation. Solving the nuclear industry's remaining liability concerns gives governments a warm feeling of accomplishment, and it makes the nuclear industry feel better. But it will leave the public out in the cold, should the accidents everyone in the industry expects but denies come to pass. Lawrence Solomon is executive director of Urban Renaissance Institute, a division of Energy Probe Research Foundation. E-mail: LawrenceSolomon@nextcity.com © Copyright 2002 National Post ***************************************************************** 5 EU mulls future of fund for N.Korea nuclear energy AlertNet 06 Nov 2002 21:10 By Marie-Louise Moller BRUSSELS, Nov 6 (Reuters) - The EU's top energy official said on Wednesday the bloc was still deciding what to do with its funding for North Korean atomic power plants after revelations of a nuclear arms programme in the Communist state. North Korea made a shock confession to the United States last month that it was enriching uranium to support a nuclear weapons programme, breaching a 1994 deal with Washington under which North Korea agreed to freeze nuclear arms production. In return for signing the pact, the United States, European Union and others in an international group agreed to help fund and build safer reactors and provide fuel for North Korea. "We must work in concert with our friends and allies in persuading North Korea to honour its commitments in terms of non-proliferation," Energy Commissioner Loyola De Palacio told the European Parliament. Some lawmakers said the Union should stop contributing to the $4.3 billion programme, known as KEDO. South Korea provides the bulk of the money at more than $3 billion. Japan gives $1 billion and the United States has given $400 million for heavy fuel oil. The EU contribution was 95 million euros ($94 million) between 1997 and 2001 and it will provide a further 20 million euros a year until the end of 2005. Members of the EU assembly wanted North Korea to disarm and dismantle its nuclear arms programme. "If North Korea does not agree to reverse its nuclear policy and disarm, then the whole KEDO contribution by the EU should be terminated," British Conservative member of the parliament, Charles Tannock, said in a statement. "The EU is consulting closely with its main partners...in order to see how we can achieve our main objective of preventing North Korea from obtaining nuclear weapons," Palacio said. ***************************************************************** 6 Country in Turmoil, and It Has the Bomb The New York Times November 6, 2002* *BOOKS OF THE TIMES | 'PAKISTAN'* *By RICHARD BERNSTEIN* In 1987, while touring the remote, feudal, strategically situated Pakistani province Baluchistan, Mary Anne Weaver had dinner with Akbar Khan Bugti, the nawab-sardar, or traditional chief, of the Bugti tribe. The dinner was in Quetta, the provincial capital, where one of the two foreign diplomatic missions belonged to Iran, and Ms. Weaver asked the sardar what that particular consulate was doing there. " `Buying Stingers,' he answered matter-of-factly," Ms. Weaver writes, referring to the hand-held heat-seeking missiles that were devastatingly effective against Soviet helicopters during the Afghan war. "He then told me that it was in Quetta in June of 1987 that the mujahedeen had sold their first large consignment of Stingers to Iran." That is a fascinating and important revelation. It illustrates the missing-arms aspect of the larger phenomenon that came to be called "blowback," the ways in which American money and guns for the anti-Soviet mujahedeen in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989 generated evil winds that blew back on the United States. The anecdote also illustrates the knowing and sophisticated quality of Ms. Weaver's new book, "Pakistan." A reporter for The New Yorker, Ms. Weaver has spent much of the last two decades roaming the Islamic world, and her book shows the fruits of those journeys. "Pakistan" is a valuable and information-rich, if also ramshackle and meandering, portrait of a poor and deeply divided country that, she says, could very well become the next of the world's failed states ? like Egypt, the subject of her previous book. The main thrust of Ms. Weaver's account, as her subtitle suggests, is to illustrate the ways in which Pakistan has been changed by the decade-long war fought against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and the rise of the militant Islamic groups fighting jihad, or holy war, Osama bin Laden's Qaeda and the recently deposed Afghan Taliban among them. Ms. Weaver's findings are not surprising, but they are worthy of attention because of Pakistan's special circumstances. Like Egypt, Pakistan is poor, politically divided and ruled by an authoritarian government; like Egypt also, it contains an Islamic fundamentalist movement that has become more menacing and powerful since the Afghan jihad. But unlike Egypt, Pakistan is engaged in a bitter conflict with a neighbor, India, and it possesses nuclear weapons. In other words, Pakistan is a poverty-racked, deeply divided country where drug and arms cultures are rife, where central government control is diminished by a chaos of tribal loyalties, where war with India threatens constantly and where ferociously anti-Western and anti-American Islamists are vying for political power ? and it has the bomb. Ms. Weaver illustrates this point tellingly, even if her book is at times like one of those drafty museums you find in South Asia, containing plenty of interesting treasures but badly organized and sometimes poorly lighted, a place that needs a tidier and more selective curator. She begins, strangely, with a seemingly hasty introduction that has some careless mistakes. She says, for example, that Mohamed Atta, the ringleader of the Sept. 11 attacks, "passed quietly . . . in and out of Pakistan and Afghanistan during the jihad years," when there is no information indicating that Atta went either to Pakistan or Afghanistan before 1999. In this same introduction, Ms. Weaver gets the takeoff time of the hijacked American Airlines Flight 11 wrong ? it was 7:59 a.m., not 7:45 ? as well as the amount of time that passed before it hit the north tower of the World Trade Center: 47 minutes, not 1 hour 3 minutes. These are minor factual errors, and Ms. Weaver, an experienced and normally reliable reporter, quickly regains her footing as her examination of Pakistan gets going in earnest. But her book has no footnotes, and some factual assertions are unsubstantiated: for example that more than 7,000 madrasas, or Islamic schools, "quickly sprang up" during the Afghan jihad years in Baluchistan alone. Other sources, including the Pakistani newspaper Jang (as reported by Stephen Schwartz in his book "The Two Faces of Islam") indicate that as of 2000 there were 6,761 madrasas in all of Pakistan. Clearly there are a lot of schools, and they are the centers for recruiting young men to the fundamentalist cause, but you want to have confidence that your author is getting the small things right as well as the big. The biggest thing, and Ms. Weaver does get it right, is that Pakistan is an afflicted, complex, utterly fascinating country, and despite her wobbly beginning, she provides an intimate portrait of the place. Over the years, she has talked to everybody from the current leader, Pervez Musharraf, to former leaders like Zia al-Haq and Benazir Bhutto, and she offers compelling portraits of all three, along with accounts of their eventful careers. She fills in the deeper background of the terrible conflict with India over Kashmir. She details the rise of Islamic militancy, at one point visiting the al-Haqqania madrasa, one of the biggest of the Islamic schools and one of the closest to Afghan's now deposed ruler, Mullah Omar. "What do you think of Osama bin Laden?" Ms. Weaver asked Sami ul-Haq, the madrasa's leader. "What do you think of Abraham Lincoln?" he replied. Along the way, and very disturbingly, Ms. Weaver unfavorably analyzes American policy toward Pakistan, finding it inconsistent, careless, heedless at times and a major contributor to the rise in popularity of the very Islamist forces that pose the most direct threat to American interests. Despite its faults, Ms. Weaver's book is full of acute observation, telling detail and clear insight. Given that Pakistan, as it faces its uncertain future, is going to become more important, not less, we can be thankful that Ms. Weaver has been paying close attention. Copyright The New York Times Company ***************************************************************** 7 Anti-Nuclear Week in UCD!! - lend a hand!* imc ireland coverage of Irish life, politics and protest Protest.net (Ireland) www.indymedia.org by Marianne - Global Action UCD /Tue, Nov 5 2002, 8:31pm/ phone: 0863097013 Mixiepix@yahoo.com Global action society UCD are having an anti nuclear week next week (11th-15th Nov). Any help with street theatre style stuff would be really helpful. We need any boiler-suits, gasmasks, you have but mainly the GR towers and all that they used for the mock meltdown. Everyone should come along if you're in UCD or not. It's gonna be fun, Meltdowns/ die ins every lunchtime, Tuesday til Friday hopefully, lots of other events too, debates, videos and all the rest. Next week, 11th- 15th November is anti-nuclear week here in UCD. We're trying to build for a trip to Sellafield or to the BNFL headquarters with Gluaiseacht whenever they decide to go. Our plan is to have lots of street-theatre style goings-on all week. We're getting boiler suits and gasmasks, dustmasks and smokebombs and anything else we can to have a mock fallout on campus, visiting all the faculties we can, not just the Arts block. We will be having a talk on thursday 14th @ 5 on ways of shutting down Sellafield with differing views of Fianna Fail, Earthwatch and direct action activists. We also have a gig on wednesday night in the old bar with The Immediate, Violent Sky and a drumming group. I know Globalise Resistance did a mock meltdown a while back so if anyone from GR or anyone who has been involved in similar things would have any stuff we could borrow it would be really helpful. Are those tower things still around? Any spare boiler suits or costumes of any kind? If there are any drummers/street theatre people/jugglers etc. out there who want to join in next week (mainly tuesday-friday lunchtimes) it would be great, any other colleges who want to get involved? We have quite a few people here but are still a small society and dont have much money so any help is appreciated. If anyone has any Anti-Nuclear information, leaflets or whatever they want us to hand out, or anyone who is willing to lend a hand, please get in touch, ring me or e-mail me at the above contacts. I hope some of you will come along coz I reckon it will be really good fun. Many thanks Marianne ***************************************************************** 8 SA: ANC calls for support against Iraq war [http://www.news24.com] 06/11/2002 11:12 - (SA) Cape Town - Weapons of mass destruction were abominations, and the world would be a better place without them, senior African National Congress MP Pallo Jordan said on Tuesday. "This applies whether such weapons are in the hands of Britain, China, France, India, Iraq, Israel, Pakistan or the United States of America," he said during a special debate on South Africa's position in the event of an attack on Iraq. South Africa was the only country that had possessed such weapons, and had unilaterally destroyed them all, Jordan said. "We on this side of the House remain totally committed to nuclear disarmament and the eradication of weapons of mass destruction." Jordan, who chairs the National Assembly's foreign affairs committee, said like any other member state of the United Nations, Iraq should be expected to abide by Security Council resolutions. Since 1991, Iraq had been in violation of numerous UN resolutions, but unfortunately this applied to other governments as well. Jordan said that criticism of US foreign policy should not be read as support for undemocratic regimes, tyranny or dictators, nor construed as anti-Americanism. The US was an open society, with freedom of speech, conscience and information. It was a law-governed society with a written Constitution and free and fair elections most of the time. "In that respect the political arrangements in the US are infinitely better than those in a host of countries, including Iraq." Naked display of force However, US President George W Bush had abandoned the strategies of containment and deterrence of a previous era, in preference for one of pre-emptive action. "For this first time in decades the naked display of force is being explicitly advocated. Those among US foreign policy-makers who are still shy about this speak of 'a benign American hegemony'," Jordan said. There were many traditions from 20th century US history that would serve the world better in this age, rather than former president Woodrow Wilson, who had a deep contempt for other cultures and social orders. Among these were the traditions of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who had inspired many of the institutions the world community adopted to secure an enduring peace after World War II. The challenge was to translate these into contemporary terms, including the promotion of genuine multilateralism, based on the recognition and strengthening of the UN and all its agencies, Jordan said. He urged parliament to unite behind President Thabo Mbeki and his efforts to ensure that war was avoided, and that the stand-off between the US and Iraq was resolved. About News24 - all rights reserved ***************************************************************** 9 Graham watered down landmark speech on Iraq [A part of canada.com] [NATIONAL POST] Wednesday » November 6 » 2002 References to nuclear, chemical weapons removed Stewart Bell National Post Canada was poised to side with the United States and Britain last month in accusing Saddam Hussein of developing weapons of mass destruction but backed off after the matter went to Bill Graham, Minister of Foreign Affairs, newly released documents suggest. Internal government records obtained yesterday by the National Post show that the landmark speech in which Mr. Graham outlined Canada's official policy on Iraqi weapons was heavily watered down before it was delivered in the House of Commons. Foreign Affairs staff had prepared a speech that repeatedly condemned Iraq for continuing to develop chemical, biological and nuclear weapons -- but the accusations were all cut by Mr. Graham's office the day before the Minister's Oct. 1 address. And while the original draft asked "is it any wonder that Saddam Hussein's government is viewed as a threat to international peace and security?" the final speech made no such mention, although it singled out the dangers posed by unilateral U.S. military action. The contrast between the original text prepared by government staff and the Minister's final speech hints at a behind-the-scenes struggle in Ottawa over whether Canada should side with the United States and U.K. or take a more conciliatory approach in dealing with the Iraqi dictator. Since George W. Bush, the U.S. President, began threatening war against Iraq last year over the country's alleged secret weapons program, Ottawa has struggled to come up with a policy on the matter. A so-called "take-note" debate in the Commons last month was billed as the government's opportunity to spell out its Iraq policy once and for all, and Mr. Graham was tagged to make the keynote address. The parliamentary affairs division of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade sent a draft of the speech to the Minister's office on Sept. 30. But Mr. Graham's office then made several significant changes -- most notably the removal of any direct accusation that Iraq had an ongoing program to develop weapons of mass destruction. "Instead of complying with its international obligations, Iraq has continued its programs of research and development of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons," read the original text, released under the Access to Information Act. "Iraq has developed weapons of mass destruction and missile delivery programs. Is it any wonder that Saddam Hussein's government is viewed as a threat to international peace and security?" The draft speech, written by a Middle East desk officer at Foreign Affairs, also made specific mention of "one of Iraq's other goals -- the development of nuclear weapons." Those statements were excised from the final address, as was every other mention of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. Mr. Graham's speech said only that the work of United Nations arms inspectors "was never completed" and that Iraq has refused to comply with the UN resolutions." The U.S. and U.K. have both released intelligence dossiers they say prove that Saddam is flouting UN resolutions by continuing to develop weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles, but the Liberal government has yet to make such an assertion. Isabelle Savard, Mr. Graham's director of communications, said yesterday she could not comment on the specifics of the speech but said it was standard procedure for ministers to revise the drafts prepared by their departments. "I could say that he worked on this speech more than I've seen him work on other speeches," she said. "Is it a sign that the draft wasn't convenient for him or is it because it was more important? I don't know but I know for a fact that he worked himself a lot on it that afternoon and it was a serious day for him." The original text cited Iraq's "consistently aggressive behaviour" and warned of "serious consequences" should Iraq fail to allow unfettered arms inspections, while in his final speech Mr. Graham threatened only "inevitable consequences." The original speech appears to borrow heavily from Canadian Security Intelligence Service reports, which have warned that Iraq has been working to build weapons of mass destruction that threaten Canadians and their allies. Yesterday, the U.S. was preparing to present what was likely to be the final version of its draft resolution on Iraq to the UN Security Council. WHAT GRAHAM DIDN'T SAY: What Bill Graham, Minister of Foreign Affairs, was scripted to say but didn't during the Oct. 1 House of Commons debate on Iraq: "I am pleased that the House has decided to hold a take-note debate on the question of Iraq, and I am honoured to lead off this debate .... Instead of complying with its international obligations, Iraq has continued its program of research and development of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons .... Iraq has developed weapons of mass destruction and missile delivery programs. Is it any wonder that Saddam Hussein's government is viewed as a threat to international peace and security? The resolutions Iraq is violating aim to end Iraq's development of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons and the missile systems needed to deliver them .... The only way forward for Iraq is to comply unconditionally: to admit UN weapons inspectors, to let them do their job without restriction, and to abide by their findings. Based on Iraq's consistently aggressive behaviour, anything less leaves reasonable grounds for concern that Iraq may well be rebuilding its arsenal of chemical and biological arms. It also leaves open too many serious questions regarding the eventual achievement of one of Iraq's other goals -- the development of nuclear weapons .... Iraq will face serious consequences should it choose to ignore the legitimate decisions expressed by the Security Council." Source: From a draft speech prepared for Mr. Graham and released by the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade under the Access to Information Act. sbell@nationalpost.com © Copyright 2002 National Post ***************************************************************** 10 Headline: Osama is alive, says German official -- Detail Story* *Urdu News MAINZ* Nov 5: Germany's top intelligence official has told the second television network ZDF that Osama bin Laden is still alive and that Al Qaeda may soon try to carry out another major attack. ZDF, in a preview of a programme to be aired later on Tuesday, cited August Hanning, president of the German intelligence agency BND, as saying that Germany itself faces a "higher danger" from a possible Al Qaeda attack. "Osama bin Laden is not only alive, but he is also operating," Hanning said in the ZDF programme "Frontal 21" to be aired in the evening. The Al Qaeda leader and his deputies were believed to be in moving about in the remote and difficult terrain of the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan. "He has many helpers. He is operating in regions which are very difficult to reach," Hanning said about Osama. "He also changes the places where he stays, making it very difficult to determine his situation and position." It was now believed that Osama was organising guerrilla war in Afghanistan and that there are indications that there will possibly be attacks on western ISAF forces in the country. While western intelligence security did not believe that Al Qaeda was capable of "using nuclear weapons", it could "not be excluded that they have developed so-called 'dirty bombs'," Hanning said, referring to devices triggering high radioactive contamination.-dpa Copyright 1996-2002 . Hi Pakistan. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 11 US has arrogant disregard for UN, says ANC November 06 2002 at 05:58AM Cape Times By Jeremy Michaels The African National Congress on Tuesday launched a scathing attack on United States foreign policy, lambasting the world's only superpower for its arrogant approach to world affairs. ANC MP Mewa Ramgobin, speaking during a special debate on Iraq in the national assembly, said US foreign policy was characterised by "hypocrisy, deceit and media manipulation in the service of one super-power hegemony". "Its arrogance in interfering with the sovereignty of Iraq, with total disregard for the United Nations, and its unambiguous support for and creation of the Mobutus, Savimbis, Yah Yah Khans and the Sauds, is the highest form of hypocrisy," said Ramgobin. ANC MP Pallo Jordan emphasised that this criticism should not be read as "anti-Americanism". *'They have brought hardship to the people of Iraq'* "Criticism of US foreign policy, now or in the future, should neither be read as support for undemocratic gains, tyranny or dictators - whomever they might be, nor construed as anti-Americanism." Jordan said weapons of mass destruction were "an abomination, and the world would be a better place without them". "This applies whether such weapons are in the hands of Britain, China, France, India, Iraq, Israel, Pakistan or the United States of America." South Africa was the only country that had possessed such weapons and had unilaterally destroyed them all, Jordan said, adding that the ANC remained "totally committed to nuclear disarmament and the eradication of weapons of mass destruction". Opening the fiery debate, Democratic Alliance MP Colin Eglin called for sanctions against Iraq to be lifted and urged the South African government to use its influence "to persuade the Iraqi government to comply with the relevant UN resolutions". *'A threat to world peace is a war-mongering George Bush'* Eglin said UN sanctions on Baghdad for its failure to comply with Security Council resolutions had not succeeded. "They have brought hardship to the people of Iraq, but have not brought about a change of behaviour on the part of the Iraqi government." United Democratic Movement MP Salamuddi Abram commended South Africa's "correct stand" that any action against Iraq should be UN-sponsored. "In no way do we see, in the current climate, the Iraqi government as being a threat to world peace," said Abram. "A threat to world peace is a war-mongering George Bush, who is willing and prepared to cast aside the charter of the United Nations to satisfy his personal ego," he said. - Political Bureau * This article was originally published on page 1 of The Cape Times on 06 November 2002 ©2002. to read the user agreement. Write to feedback@iol.co.za Tel: +27 21 481 6200, Fax: +27 21 481 ***************************************************************** 12 U.S. may halt N-reactors, oil supply to N. Korea Daily Yomiuri On-Line Takao Hishinuma Yomiuri Shimbun Correspondent In a move to toughen its policy against North Korea, the United States is likely to dissolve the 1994 Agreed Framework between Pyongyang and Washington, halting the construction of light-water reactors in North Korea and discontinuing the supply of crude oil to that nation, a senior U.S. State Department official said Monday. Both the reactors and the oil were agreed to under the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO). The United States will explain its new policy, which is intended to force Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear weapons development program, during department chief-level talks with Japan and South Korea on Saturday in Tokyo and foreign minister-level meetings in Seoul on Monday, the official told The Yomiuri Shimbun. Observers said Japan and South Korea have called for a dialogue in handling the issue of North Korea's nuclear weapons program and now are expected to face difficulties in talks with Pyongyang. Although the United States has not yet officially nullified the 1994 agreement that put a freeze on Pyongyang's nuclear weapons development program, the U.S. official said Washington realizes the accord has lost its effectiveness. Referring to the supply of crude oil to North Korea, the U.S. official said some people within U.S. President George W. Bush's administration have called for pressure to be applied to Pyongyang by temporarily stopping supplies. However, the official said the crude oil supply likely would be halted permanently, rather than temporarily, as there is currently no prospect of the U.S. Congress approving a KEDO-related budget in the next fiscal year and European countries are urging a freeze on the crude oil supply. The official said once the United States freezes the oil supply, resuming it would be very difficult. The official also said the light-water reactors would not be constructed in North Korea. Asked about possible U.S. military action against North Korea if Pyongyang refuses to scrap its nuclear weapons program even under pressure from Washington, once the United States dissolves the 1994 agreement, the official said Washington was not now considering the use of force, but would discuss further measures, including imposing economic sanctions on the country. Copyright 2002 The Yomiuri Shimbun ***************************************************************** 13 Hopes raised for N Korea nuclear accord BBC NEWS | World | Asia-Pacific | Wednesday, 6 November, 2002, 10:33 North Korean Taepodong 1 missile ] The North has threatened to renew missile tests A former US ambassador to Seoul says that a senior North Korean official has told him a nuclear accord with the United States is "hanging by a thread" but is not null and void. I think they want the US to give them some assurance that we don't want to blow them out of the water US diplomat Donald Gregg The 1994 accord has been in doubt since Washington said North Korea had admitted in October to having a nuclear weapons programme. But Donald Gregg, who has just returned from a private trip to Pyongyang, said he interpreted comments from North Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Kang Sok-ju as evidence the hermit state "still supported" the agreement. Under the accord, North Korea said it would suspend its suspected nuclear weapons programme in return for two foreign-built nuclear reactors and fuel oil until they were built. In a hint that the US hopes the accord can be salvaged, the November shipment of fuel oil has begun to be loaded onto a ship in Singapore. The US claim that North Korea had broken the deal has sent shock waves across Japan and South Korea, which had been hoping to improve ties with the North. Mr Gregg's comments come a day after North Korea threatened to reconsider its moratorium on missile tests if talks on normalising diplomatic relations with Japan fail to make progress. Seeking reassurance Mr Gregg, who now heads the Korea Society in New York, said that during "frank and far-reaching" talks in Pyongyang he detected positive signals coming from North Korea. He said the North Koreans seemed to "truly fear a US attack" and were looking for assurances - through a non-aggression pact - that Washington did not intend any military strike. "I think they want the US to give them some assurance that we don't want to blow them out of the water," he said. He said that Pyongyang was coy regarding its alleged weapons programme. "The North Koreans said they adopted an NCND - neither confirm nor deny - policy toward the highly enriched uranium issue, although some comments that we heard were very close to admission that they had such a programme under way." 'Keep talking' Mr Gregg said he believed further dialogue between officials from the United States and North Korea, rather than pressure alone, was the only way out of the current stalemate. North Korea has repeatedly called for talks with the US on the nuclear issue, but the White House on Sunday rejected any discussion until Pyongyang takes action to shut down the programme. Mr Gregg's comments come as the US is trying to co-ordinate regional support for its efforts to pressure North Korea to give up its nuclear ambitions. US Under-Secretary of Defence Douglas Feith is currently in South Korea for talks with senior government officials about security issues on the peninsula. Japan has tried to persuade North Korea to give assurances that it will not pursue a nuclear programme. But North Korea has said it will not even discuss the issue until relations with Japan have been normalised. Tokyo for its part says security issues and the permanent repatriation of five Japanese kidnapped by North Korea in 1978 are a precursor to forging ties. + Map shows range of Taepodong 1 missile, flown over Japan in 1998 + Evidence that North Korea ready to flight test Taepodong 2 with range of up to 8,000 km (could reach western US) © MMII | News Sources | Privacy ***************************************************************** 14 Part 3: The false triangle Asia Times LAND IN THE MIDDLE By Tang Shiping and Cao Xiaoyang + Part 1: Another China: The awakened giant + Part 2: America's journey to holy war In the traditional security realm, the interrelations between the big states to a large extent determine the peace and stability of the world. Consequently, how to deal properly with China's relations with the United States, Japan, Russia and India affects not only the vital interest of China but also the broader peace and security in the Asia-Pacific region, Eurasia and even the whole world. This article will tackle the trilateral relationship among China, the United States and Japan, which is of ultimate importance to China. The international community has, of course, no centralized government; in other words, international cooperation, the one thing that can bolster mutual security, is rather difficult, though nations have been increasingly aware of the advantages of cooperation. In many cases, it is not uncommon that an ad hoc cooperation or compromise between nations can resolve a crisis but fail to establish a flexible mutual security cooperation between nations. This established cooperation is extremely fragile if there are no bases for mutual security between two given countries, although all nations are willing to seek mutual security. The issues of the geographic environment, as well as internal development and reciprocity, are among the most important affecting the policies of state security and the security environment, because they are at the roots of mutual security between nations. In this case Chinese relations with Japan can be understood only in light of some kind of triangular relation involving the United States as well. Therefore, here we will mainly focus on the effects of the two variables on the trilateral relations among China, the United States and Japan to deal with the issue of the basic points of mutual security among the three countries. In terms of the internal development and the reciprocity of a country, the stress will be placed on the effects of the domestic disputes about state security in the three countries on the basic points of the mutual security. The three countries' understanding of mutual security and the attitudes toward state security, as well as the ideas and manners of the three countries in seeking state security, are more important to mutual security when less suspicion is placed on their national strengths. China-US-Japan relations not triangular Normal triangular relations entail a possibility that two of the states might unite against the third. However, in politics as well as security, there is no possibility that China and Japan will unite against the US, or China and the US against Japan. That is to say, in the affairs of politics and security, it is impossible for China to unite with either of them against the other, except for tactical coordination on some concrete issues. Hence, the relations between them are of an alliance (the US and Japan) versus another country (China). Of course, we are not denying the possibility of an economic cooperation of any two of them against the other. Between the United States and Japan, the No 1 and No 2 economic powers with extensive and in-depth dependence on each other, numerous economic disputes are inevitable. Since the end of the Cold War, free of any definite foreign threats, the two countries have been relatively free to pursue their competing economic interests, and this has sharpened economic disputes. These nonetheless cannot really endanger the alliance in politics and security, and once an external threat is detected, attempts will be made to alleviate the economic divergence. Therefore, in the realm of politics and security, the relations among the three countries are in fact bilateral: on one side, the United States and Japan, on the other, China. Thus, conflicts of interests and contradictions between the United States and Japan are the normal manifestation of intra-alliance politics. The most essential problem of intra-alliance politics is the contradiction between abandonment and entrapment. More specifically, the most essential contradictions in the US-Japan alliance are, on the one hand, Japan's fears that the United States might abandon Japan and the United States' fears that Japan might deviate from the alliance and go its own way. On the other hand, the United States fears being dragged into a quagmire of local conflicts by Japan, while Japan fears being involved in large conflicts for the sake of maintaining the alliance with the United States. Moreover, the US-Japan alliance is a non-reciprocal relationship, which greatly differs from the increasingly reciprocal relations in the US-Europe alliance. In non-reciprocal relations, another feature arises in intra-alliance politics: the contradiction between those who lead and the ones who are being led. Thus, we have a situation where: 1) as the weak party, Japan hopes to attain a more equal position, while the United States will try to maintain its leadership; 2) in order to maintain the alliance, under certain circumstances, the United States will allow Japan to acquire independence and freedom to a certain extent so as to pacify Japan and keep it in its place. Intra-alliance politics is also a continuous bargaining process (strictly between the allied countries). In the bargaining, the United States is the leader of the alliance and knows clearly that there is very little possibility for Japan to detach itself from the alliance, and thus Japan's position in the negotiation will be at a big disadvantage. In this situation, on many major issues, the United States will be the final winner. Japan has to follow the United States in the end, even after opposing it in the beginning. Sometimes Japan wants to adopt some independent maneuvers, but has to give in to the United States in the end because of its weak position in the negotiation. This was more the case during the Cold War, when the US-Japan alliance confronted more conspicuous outer threats; it is simply that most of the time during the Cold War, the United States would not make a fuss about it, for it needed Japan to antagonize the Soviet Union. For some time after the Cold War (approximately between 1990 and 1995-96), because of the removal of the powerful outer pressure, the United States became more intransigent toward Japan, while Japan no longer followed the United States blindly. As a result, divergence and disputes in the economic field became more acute and frequent. In the late 1990s (especially since the Taiwan Strait crisis in 1996), however, the United States (and also Japan) gradually identified China as the enemy or the potential enemy. Japan's fear of China also became intense, which resulted in a closer US-Japan security alliance. The constant economic disputes between the United States and Japan during the early period after the Cold War brought many to think that the alliance had weakened, and relations among the three countries tended to become more like a triangle (or at least a triangle with unequal sides). This view not only is false (because the United States and Japan are still in an alliance) but also hinders our further understanding of the complexity of the relations among the three countries. Some errors have arisen in Chinese policies toward Japan because of inadequate consideration of the political rules in the US-Japan alliance. One of the causes of these mistakes is the idea of seeking a balanced development in the relations among China, the United States and Japan. To seek a balanced development in the relations among China, the United States and Japan would virtually mean that the United States had to place both Japan and China on equal positions, which is simply impossible. Worse than that, the United States and Japan even more so would think that China meant to wedge itself between them, in which case suspicion would ensue and more efforts would be made to maintain the alliance. In time of grave crisis, the alliance will face a severe test. As far as the US-Japan alliance is concerned, the worst crisis is a possible conflict across the Taiwan Strait. In that scenario, the United States is sure to interfere, while Japan will face the most difficult choice. On the one hand, if Japan gets involved in the crisis, considering its geographic location as the frontline state in the alliance, it will have to confront a possible retaliatory strike much worse than the one that could be feared by the United States. Therefore, Japan is not willing to be involved in a crisis across the Strait. On the other hand, if Japan does not support the United States when the latter gets involved in the crisis, the US-Japan alliance will be on the brink of a breakdown, which is not an acceptable outcome for Japan. Facing this dilemma, Japan really hopes to avoid the crisis, while for the United States either war or peace is an acceptable outcome. In order to deter the crisis, Japan deems that it has to give more support to the United States. Seeking the basic points of mutual security The geographical environment. In terms of geographical factors, the United States and Japan are obviously maritime powers, while China is generally a continental country, or a complex one with continental and marine features. Japan is the most vulnerable among the three. Its homeland is small and narrow, the main strategic resources have to be imported, and the seaways by which energy sources are imported have to go through very few important routes. Japan, as a country closer to the Asian continent and China than the United States is (just as Britain is closer to the European continent than its ally the US is), is more sensitive to pressure from China. Hence, from Japan's point of view, the role of the US-Japan alliance is to protect Japan's maritime lifeline, dispel any potential attempt by China to control the Pacific Ocean or Japan's lifeline, and also preempt any chance of a Sino-US unity to strike and suppress Japan. From another point of view, however, compared with the United States, Japan is more unlikely to expect a real Sino-US confrontation, or a direct war, because in that case, siding with the United States would mean that Japan would turn from an important neighbor into a long-term enemy. The experiences of most countries have shown that making enemies with neighboring countries (especially important countries) will exclusively result in harm to the long-term interests of the country. As a country with both continental and maritime features, China faces extremely complicated geographical environments with more than a dozen neighboring countries, including three big states, namely Japan, Russia and India, in addition to the United States. Like China, all these big states form their own spheres of influence, which sometimes result in conflicts. In facing the United States and Japan, two maritime powers, the extensive inland areas of China obviously provide great strategic depth. Twenty years of reform and opening-up have established an economic system centered on the coastal areas, which cannot be changed overnight, even though China has launched a "Program for Western Development", for the development of the inland regions. This means that China will be more sensitive and vulnerable to threats from the sea. Nonetheless, if Taiwan were to declare its independence, China would have no alternative but to risk a war against the United States to accomplish the nation's reunification. Thus, while China tries its best to persuade the United States to stop Taiwan's drive for independence, it has to acquire weapon systems powerful enough to deter the military involvement of the United States and Japan. These weapon systems are not designed to challenge the maritime dominance of the United States and Japan, but to tell the US-Japan alliance to respect the vital interests of China. In contrast, the geographical location of the United States is the most advantageous among the three countries (indeed, among all the countries of the Asia-Pacific region). The security surplus it possesses in a traditional sense is unparalleled in the world. Considering the relations among the three countries, the US mainland is the least likely to suffer a military strike due to the long distance from possible crisis areas. In addition, as the only superpower, its operations seldom meet constraints under the present international structure and, as a result, it is the one enjoying the largest freedom of action. This promotes its mentality of carrying out a risky policy, counting too much on its advantages in terms of security surplus. The other issue is plain geography. Asia is not like the European continent, where most of the countries are allies of the United States. The most important factor in Asia is that, after a long period of suspicion and confrontation between China and Russia, a strategic understanding has finally been reached, which, more or less, arises from the consideration to counter pressure from the United States. If China and Russia can maintain the established strategic arrangement on the Asian continent, things could be totally different from those on the European continent. An Asian continent where China and Russia maintain cooperation could be an area beyond the exclusive domination of the US-Japan alliance. Thus, on the Asian continent, either the United States and Japan jointly maintain the peace and stability of this area with China and Russia or practice something like an offshore balancing strategy. Either choice is acceptable to China and Russia. Another thing that is totally different from Europe is that in Asia (East Asia in particular), along the edge of the continent there is an almost complete island chain whose strategic depth depends on its varying distance from the continent. This makes it possible for the United States (and Japan), a maritime power, to construct a strong strategic defense by virtue of its navy. In this case, the United States will be able to control the situation if no power is strong enough to challenge its maritime hegemony. The sense of security in the United States might conduce to a certain strategic understanding to be reached between China and the United States. The security concepts of the three countries We can roughly say that there are three main theories about state security: offensive realism, defensive realism and neoliberalism. They have different meanings for the three countries concerned. Japan. After the Cold War, a great debate broke out in Japan about the country's future strategy. Compared with that in other countries, this debate in Japan is more closely related to the nation's future orientation. By and large, the different factions in Japan have a common goal, that is, Japan ought to hold a higher international position, have a louder voice in international affairs and contribute more to the international community. The divergence between them is largely on what kind of position to hold and how to attain it. The views of the different groups often overlap with each other and might all call for Japan to take the same action, but from different starting points. Japan's offensive realists primarily consist of some radicals of the "Asian International Group" and right-wing nationalists. They think that Japan has set up a new mode of capitalist development that is superior to that in Europe and the United States. Therefore, Japan should not only call upon the developing countries (Asian countries in particular) to learn from it, but also require Europe and the United States to show respect. Many Japanese offensive realists also think that Japan should once again become an independent military power. Ultimately, these people hope for the return of the time when big powers contended for hegemony, and want Japan to be one of them. In terms of history, these people think that the Japanese invasion of Asia was a necessity in the context of the competition among big countries. Some even think it was a step to "liberate Asia", and as a result, there can be no question of facing the country's historic guilt. In addition, they stress the necessity of containing China. The defensive realists in Japan are by and large "rational nationalists" pursuing a "normal nation". These people believe that international politics has moved into a civilized era, leaving the barbaric era of territorialization; thus, security can be ensured even though Japan is not a big military power. The existence of the US-Japan alliance further decreases the need to expand Japan's military forces. But Japan should become a "normal nation" and the fait accompli (such as Japan's own troops and the collective right to self-defense) should be explicitly defined. Most of these people do not deny the history of wartime Japan, but are loath to concentrate on historical problems, and simply hope that the Asian countries will let the matter slide. Their attitudes toward China are quite pragmatic. They agree that there are still a lot of uncertainties in the future orientation of China, but do not support measures to "contain" China, for this would drive China back into isolation, which would be disadvantageous to Asia. Those in the neoliberal group basically think that Japan should acquire a powerful political influence, play a greater role in the international community and assume more responsibilities by virtue of its strong economy and unique civilization rather than by military might. Most of them are opposed to the revision of the peace constitution, hope that Japan can face its wartime history, as only by doing so can Japan acquire the understanding and support from other Asian countries, which would then allow Japan to play a bigger role. Therefore, on the policies toward China, these people all hope that China will be included in a regional system rather than excluded. Though they do not think that Japan should break away from the US-Japan alliance, they oppose excessively tough measures of the United States against China. As far as the present situation is concerned, although all kinds of ideas are competing against one another, because of existing constraints the diplomatic policies of the Japanese government tend toward the "defensive realist" ideas. Different sectors of the government might absorb some ideas from neoliberalism or offensive realism (the administration of Keizo Obuchi was influenced by some neoliberal ideas, while the administration of Junichiro Koizumi is tainted with offensive realism), the key policies are defensive realist. The Japanese diplomatic strategy guided by defensive realism is mainly to acquire a louder voice and more international influence while not expecting to take too much risk (such as breaking away from the US-Japan alliance and becoming a big military power). The United States. The offensive realists in the United States think their country is the only moral nation in the world, and consequently the country must maintain its present international standing at all costs. An unpublished US national defense program points out that the core strategic goal of the United States is to prevent the appearance of any potential global contender. This offensive realist idea existed during the administration of George Bush Sr, and was accepted by Dick Cheney, the defense secretary at that time. The current administration of George Bush Jr has basically inherited the offensive realist policies. In dealing with China, the offensive realists think that China is certain to become the enemy of the United States; therefore, the US must be prepared for a war against China while trying by all means to check its development. Fortunately for China, in the US diplomatic debate defensive realism is the mainstream. Though the defensive realists, too, think that the present US international standing should be maintained, they also realize that the evolution of international order is an inevitable historical fact. Moreover, the United States cannot, nor should, act as it wants everywhere, despite its superpower status. Therefore, the United States should not behave too recklessly, but exert its influence selectively. They do not think that China is going to become the enemy of the United States, and that the worst US strategy would be to make China an enemy while the future orientation of the country is still in doubt. The neoliberals think that with a greater interdependence between China and the world, China will gradually become a responsible member of the international community, accept more and more the constraints of international rules and mechanisms and, as a result, will not attempt to overthrow the present international order by force. They think that China's reform and opening-up have driven it into the present economic and political world system, and that the United States should, on the basis of the soft policy of defensive realism toward China, cooperate with China to construct a just international order in politics and economics. This will help shape China into a supporter of the order instead of a destroyer. Compared with the administration of president Bill Clinton, whose security policies, to a great extent, adopted the basic points of defensive realism but with a considerable neoliberal flavor, the present policies of the Bush administration are on the track of offensive realism. China. Offensive realists in China think that the fact that China is becoming stronger has aroused the increasingly sensitive vigilance of the United States, which will adopt all means to limit China's development and is even likely to strike China preemptively. As a result, conflicts between the two countries are inevitable. In such a situation, China has to give up some immediate interests and develop its military forces as soon as possible in order to compete with the United States. These people have more evidence to support their ideas after the bombing of China's embassy in Yugoslavia, the incident of the Sino-US aircraft collision and the strong promotion of the national missile defense (NMD) system. Consequently, they maintain that China should give up the idea of "peaceful development". The Chinese defensive realists admit that the vigilance of the United States is increasingly sensitive, but they do not think the United States will take the initiative of considering China as its enemy. Therefore there is the possibility of strategic understanding and cooperation. However, they also realize that it will be a long and arduous course to reach understanding and cooperation. Therefore, they stress that China should continue to keep a low profile and not expand its military forces too much, but must have sufficient deterrent power. Defensive realism represents the mainstream in the debate on China's security strategy, perhaps due to the influence of "self-control" in Chinese history. Neoliberals in China think that the United States bears no hostility against China and the US vigilance toward China is mainly due to China's political system and ideology. Therefore, the attitude of the United States toward China will be more friendly if China steadily pushes forward economic and political reform and melts into the US-centered political and economic global system. Because these factors are prone to be considered part of the "theory of democratic peace", much of the Chinese elite is dubious about the neoliberals' intentions, which are thus unlikely to become a mainstream voice in the debate. On the whole, the view of offensive realism is thought to be unreasonable in the debate about China's strategic ideas, and the neoliberal view is thought too idealistic. Therefore, the mainstream opinion is defensive realist with the guideline of "keeping a low profile" added to the strategy of multilateral cooperation. Strategies for mutual security: The ideal vs reality Threat assessment and strategic selection. Besides the overall concept of security, another important variable in deciding national security strategy is the "threat assessment" of a state. To a certain extent, of course, the threat assessments of different people are closely related to their basic security ideas. Considering the threat assessments of the three countries and the three internal security ideas collectively, a matrix can be produced to reflect the different security strategies. The grand strategies of two of the three countries, China and the United States, are comparatively simple, because each has placed much attention on the other's strategic intent; meanwhile Japan's is relatively complicated, because it has two different strategic considerations. The ideal of a mutual strategic pledge. The core of the security policies of defensive realism lies in the awareness of the existence of the need for security, the clear elaboration of the state's strategic goals and a mutual security pledge: neither will threaten the other's critical interests. In light of the threat assessments of the three countries, the most badly needed security pledges can be obtained. In the first place, Japan most badly needs security pledges from other countries. After World War II, the United States became its main security provider. Recently, because of the growth of China's national strength coupled with the long-term recession of the Japanese economy, Japan began to feel pressure from China. Therefore, Japan requires a security pledge from China. The security pledge that China can make to Japan is along the following lines: 1) On the Taiwan issue, the reunification of China will not threaten Japan's interests and China will not attempt to control Japan's maritime lifeline by taking advantage of Taiwan's geographic location. China's nuclear weapons will not target Japan since it is free of nuclear weapons. 2) China may help Japan become a "normal nation". In an era of increasing interdependence in the present international community, however, Japan can become a "normal nation" only if it loves peace and faces its history squarely. This way it could better assume responsibility in maintaining international and regional peace. 3) In the "normal nation" frame, China supports Japan's Self-Defense Forces participating in United Nations peacekeeping operations. The Japanese troops, however, have to restrain themselves and act cautiously within the range of each operation. Once Japan has faced its wartime history and its behavior has been tested for some time, China will support Japan's bid to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council. 4) China is interested in establishing a regional multilateral cooperative mechanism while the Japanese economy is still in the leading position in Asia. China understands Japan's maintenance of its alliance with the United States because of its security needs, but hopes that ultimately the security of the Asia-Pacific region will be established on the basis of multilateral security cooperation between all the big powers rather than on the basis of two camps confronting each other. The objective of East Asian integration is not to repel the US presence in East Asia or impair Japan's security. The security pledge that China can make to the United States is along the following lines: 1) China does not wish to repel the US presence in the Asia-Pacific region, but opposes any malicious blockade of the United States against China. China hopes that the United States will gradually realize that the outcome of two big-power groups harboring suspicion toward each other is a situation resembling that on the European continent in World War I: the alliance became closer, while the regional situation became increasingly unstable. 2) The means for China to seek a multipolar world is peaceful and China will not actively attempt to breach the structure of the global system. 3) On the Taiwan issue, what China pursues is its legal interest in reunifying the country and not any illegal expansive interests, and the reunification of China will not threaten the maritime dominance of the United States. As a comparatively weak country, the strategic security pledges that China needs are also various. The strategic security pledges that the United States and Japan, as an alliance, can provide should at least include the following: 1) The reunification of the Chinese mainland and Taiwan. This is a life-and-death security interest of China, and therefore the United States and Japan must explicitly express their support for and acceptance of a reunified China. They must be aware that a separated China will always be an uncertain factor in the Asia-Pacific region, and only a reunified China will have the will and responsibility to jointly maintain peace and security with the United States and Japan (and also Russia) in this region. China is more content than anybody else to become a status quo country, which, however, can only happen after the reunification. 2) The US-Japan alliance does not take the initiative of threatening China's security interests, especially China's minimal deterrent capability. Any of the missile defense systems that the United States and Japan develop to deal with so-called "rogue states" will have to be limited; the defense system currently being planned could trigger a new arms race. 3) The United States should not further consolidate the US-centered bilateral security alliance system, and instead should work for a multilateral security cooperative mechanism. To relieve China from the anxiety that the United States and its allies are jointly working against China, the multilateral security mechanism must also embrace the countries close to China. 4) Japan pledges not to abjure the peace constitution. Any of Japan's overseas military actions can only be carried out in the context of UN peacekeeping operations. 5) Japanese statesmen must face history squarely and make efforts for the country to reach the correct consensus about its wartime history. On the basis of the above mutually made strategic security pledges, the three countries (and Russia) should also accept some common security ideas. Only in this way can a multilateral security cooperation among big countries, or "big-state coordination", in the Asia-Pacific region be established. The ideas can generally be summarized as "self-control" and "acceptance of constraints". First, every big state should be aware that defensive realism means that all countries must jointly accept that security is relative, so they should "control themselves". For instance, to a certain extent, China understands some of Japan's uneasiness and the need to maintain the US-Japan security alliance. But since the alliance is more than enough to prevent a lot of sudden incidents, it is unnecessary for the two members to become closer. The US-Japan alliance has, to a certain extent, made China and Russia come closer, so the vicious circle of the security challenge has become very obvious. Therefore, the United States and Japan should restrain themselves in their alliance policies, and over time this alliance should ultimately be replaced by a multilateral security coordinative mechanism among big states. Second, the freedom of action of the big states, to a certain extent, must be limited by other states. This is the only way to gain the right to require other countries to exercise self-restraint, also requiring less pressure diplomacy. In a word, the security policies of defensive realism must fully embody the understanding of the security challenge so that even without external pressure, the policies of a state can to a certain extent maintain self-control and accept reasonable limitations on the freedom of action. The disparities in reality: Short- and long-term problems The short-term problems. As far as current policies are concerned, the security policies pursued by the Chinese and Japanese governments are generally defensive realist. Unfortunately, in the US, from the time when Bush took power to September 11 2001, the administration had a policy closer to offensive realism. This caused a big setback in the Sino-US strategic understanding reached in the late period of the Clinton administration, and made it more difficult for the two countries to reach mutual security. When a country adopts the offensive realist strategy, it will be very difficult for other countries to reach compromises. In this period of time, a state adopting offensive realism is more like a rogue or predator state and international politics becomes more dangerous than ever. Since September 11, 2001, the Bush administration has markedly softened the offensive overtones in its policy, which has made it possible for its allies as well as China and Russia to reposition their mutual relations. The shift might have been only temporary, due to the present predicament, although the possibility of a fundamental change in the attitude of some American elites should not be neglected. In the present policy debates in the United States, no trace of major changes in thought has been detected, and the former hardliners and the moderates are still the same. Therefore, we have to be cautious in judging whether the attitudinal change of Bush himself will last long. Fortunately, defensive realism still holds the mainstream in the debates among the American elites. As a country characterized by sudden turns and political cycles, any of the different doctrines might become central to important segments of the government in the United States. Therefore, Chinese strategy ought to be "tit-for-tat", but within a certain range without adding a last straw, on the basis of trying peaceful measures first. Contrary to the intuition of most, making concessions blindly when facing harsh policies cannot soften the opponent, but will rather make the hardliners take a more forceful position in the domestic debates. In this case the US hardliners might make use of the expected effects achieved by their harsh positions (ie, China's concession) as proof to continue with the harsh policies toward China. In fact, quite a number of Americans have reached this conclusion. What is left for China is, if Bush switches back to the offensive realist policies after the anti-terrorism war, to try to prevent the United States from encroaching upon China's interests and to force the US back on to the track of defensive realism. The result that China would hope to gain in that case would be to make Bush's policies unpopular, both internationally and domestically. The president either would give up his original security idea, or lose his ability power to shape US security policies. In confronting the administration of president Ronald Reagan, China did not budge even at the cost of setting back relations. When Clinton was stubborn, China did not hesitate to face a military confrontation, which at last made the US government go back to more pragmatic policies and enabled China to reach its goals. Recently, in the face of the numerous criticisms of US policies from the international community and domestic public opinion, the Bush administration realized that it cannot do as it likes, and began to show some traces of tactical retreat on some issues. This has also confirmed the feasibility of the aforementioned "tit-for-tat" policy. In terms of Sino-Japanese relations, Japan's attitude to history and domestic nationalist sentiments make it hard for the two countries to achieve reconciliation in the short term. Because of historical issues, in particular, the distrust between the two countries seems hard to bridge. The long-term issues. Evidently, even if both the United States and Japan fully adopted defensive realist security policies, it is still not an easy thing for the US-Japan alliance, and the United States in particular, to make a strategic security pledge to China. The United States is a country that tends to see the world in black and white. It is accustomed to providing strategic security pledges to its allies, but not to China, which is likely to become its rival. Historically, in the past 50 years, the United States only made strategic security pledges to China under the terms of its strategic alliance with China during the Cold War. After that, in a sense, the United States has always asked China to give, but never promised China any practical returns. The negotiating strategy it has adopted is a roguish but effective one: first impose sanctions against a country, then ask the country to make a big concession, while the only award it gets is to go back to where it was before the sanctions. Another reason behind the difficulties in reaching a strategic understanding with the United States is that, as the only superpower in the world, the United States has a larger degree of freedom compared with other countries. It cannot resist the temptation of offensive realism, nor has it the patience to seek security cooperation, and the last thing it hopes for is to see its security policies being constrained by others, even if this constraint does good to all, including the United States itself. As leader of the political and economic order of the present world, the United States is used to going its own way. In Japan, those who maintain that the US-Japan military alliance should ultimately be replaced by a multilateral cooperative mechanism between the big states are still the minority. The majority thinks that the US-Japan security alliance is the cornerstone of Japan's security strategy and is suspicious of any thoughts that are likely to shake the cornerstone. The debate about Japan's future orientation seems to remain on the level of "off Asia and into Europe", "off Europe and into Asia" and "into Europe and into Asia". However, even the idea proposed by those who are for "into Europe and into Asia" for Japan to become the bridge between Europe-US and the East Asian region is doubtlessly one that would marginalize Japan. High-ranking Asian figures are now present in a few important economic bodies, they know well about the United States and Western Europe, and hence, Japan is no longer needed as a bridge. Thus, Japan has to follow the strategy of "into Europe as part of Asia". The present 10+3 frame has provided Japan with a mechanism and place to melt into Asia and especially learn and cooperate with China. Only when Japan really melts into the East Asian region can it be free of worries about Asia's suspicion toward it, then it can "enter Europe" more confidently, further play more constructive and important roles in the world and attain the international standing it has been seeking. The discussion about how Japan should face history and where it should go in the future obviously touches the most essential ideas of Japanese nationalism, which entails a deep domestic debate to change it. Consequently, Japan's future orientation rests with the domestic debates in the country. For this purpose, China, South Korea and other Asian countries should encourage the debates in Japan about becoming a "normal nation", or at least quietly keep an eye on them. Ultimately, only an idea of Japan as a "normal nation" based on a strong public consensus can be the root of Japan's future stability. At the same time, if the tendency should be detected in the debate for Japan to revert to the perilous militarist track, China and other Asian countries bear the responsibility and obligation to unite with the whole international community to warn Japan and prevent it from getting on the same old disastrous road, in the interest of Asia and the world as well as Japan itself. In a word, Japan's uncertainty about its future role and the contradictory mentality about historical issues have jointly limited its new security mentality. Conclusion The United States and Japan have not realized that Taiwan is a life-and-death issue for China, and not for the United States and Japan - it is not even important to their interests. Therefore, conflicts between the US-Japan alliance and China are possible. Prior to the solution of the Taiwan issue, any strategic understandings reached among the three countries are bound to be fragile, and it will be impossible to reach a strategic understanding in the whole Asia-Pacific region: the Sino-US reconciliation of 1997-98 proved to be short-lived and unstable. Therefore, establishing some relative security among China, the United States and Japan (and Russia) will be a long and zigzag course. China must have enough patience and preparation to carry out a long-term strategy, which is not to break up the US-Japan security alliance to isolate Japan and drive the United States out of Asia, but substitute a multilateral security cooperative mechanism for the US-Japan alliance. This will eliminate the possibility of two camps in mutual confrontation in the Asia-Pacific region. What China must do is, on the one hand, resist the US-Japan alliance and, on the other, not give up the possibility of cooperating with the United States, Japan and Russia. To this end, full imagination should be brought into play. When the US government comes back to defensive realism, China and Russia ought to attempt to reach a more extensive strategic understanding and seek a multilateral security cooperative mechanism to safeguard the peace and stability of the Asia-Pacific region. To take the first step in this cooperative mechanism among the big states, China must play a more active and imaginative role in the evolution on the Korean Peninsula. On the affairs of the peninsula and the political orientation after reunification, China may and should make use of the historic opportunity to promote the strategic understanding of China, the United States, Japan and Russia in the Northeast Asian region to lay the foundation for the future broader strategic cooperation among the big states. (© Heartland. Translated by Yao Ximing. This version has been edited by Asia Times Online.To subscribe to Heartland, please email cassanpress@sina.com) form without written permission. Copyright Asia Times Online, 6306 The Center, Queen’s Road, Central, Hong Kong. ***************************************************************** 15 Yoichi Funabashi: Japan may join hands with the devil, but how? asahi.com : ENGLISH Asahi Shimbun www.asahi.com [http://www.asahi.com/] JAPANESE During the normalization talks, Ambassador Jong Thae Hwa described North Korea's determination for survival with the phrase ``no one is stronger than a person who is prepared to die.'' There is no guarantee that North Korea, which is driving itself to play such a ghastly game for survival, would not explode any time. Ambassador Jong Thae Hwa, who represented the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) at the Japan-North Korea normalization talks in Kuala Lumpur, had firmly maintained in past sessions that the abduction issue was a fabrication. As it turned out, he was telling a big lie. Despite recent developments, however, Jong did not speak any words of ``remorse'' this time. Properly speaking, his failure to express such sentiment made him a poor negotiator. The Japanese side should have clearly pointed it out at the negotiation table. However, his Japanese counterpart, Ambassador Katsunari Suzuki, appeared nonchalant, perhaps because he stands by the belief that ``if necessary, professional diplomats must not hesitate to join hands with the devil.'' Furthermore, Jong, who has a military background, may be thinking that the job of diplomats is to ``lie for their country.'' Of course, Ambassador Jong is no devil. In past sessions, he was known to hit the table in a fit of fury, but this time, it seems he neither walked out of the room in a rage nor abused the Japanese side. In a press briefing, a Foreign Ministry official spoke about the North Korean attitude concerning the Pyongyang declaration signed at the Japan-North Korean summit and said: ``We felt that they have a strong bearing to sincerely abide by it because it was signed by whom they refer to as `Dear Leader.''' Since when has the Foreign Ministry begun to call General Secretary of the Korean Workers Party Kim Jong Il ``Dear Leader'' (even with the notation ``whom they refer to as'')? I heard that the Japanese side has even used that title during negotiations. Is it because the Japanese side thinks it is more practical to ``join hands with the devil''? Or was it intended as sarcasm that everything the North Koreans do is to please their ``Dear Leader''? The two-day normalization talks in Kuala Lumpur ended without any progress on the abduction and nuclear and missile development issues. The North Korean side remained rigid. With regard to the abduction issue, Jong said, ``We think that on the whole, it has been resolved.'' Suzuki countered the statement, saying: ``We urge you to think why it happened in the first place. Please remember that it all started with abduction, an act of crime.'' That is true. However, from North Korea's point of view, it appears it cannot help but remind Japan how it violated the human rights of the Korean people during its colonial rule. Ambassador Jong referred to ``36 years of rule by Imperial Japan'' and said, ``My father was beaten to death by a Japanese soldier.'' (According to one account, during past negotiations, Jong said his father was nearly beaten to death.) Human rights and humanitarian issues both need to be addressed in a long-term, historical context. When the Japanese side strategically deepens it historical recognition, it makes it all the more difficult for North Korea to tactically turn ``the past'' into a diplomatic card. Under the 1994 U.S.-North Korea framework agreement, North Korea promised not to develop nuclear weapons. Based on that promise, international society centering on Japan, the United States and the Republic of Korea (South Korea) has been promoting the construction of light-water reactors as a way to provide North Korea with energy supply. North Korea broke the promise and has been secretly developing nuclear weapons. Once the cat was out of the bag, it assumed a defiant attitude and turned on the United States, putting the blame on its ``hostile policy'' against North Korea. It refused to immediately give up nuclear development and pressed the United States to resume dialogue if that is what it wants. This time, too, North Korea said it would discuss the nuclear issue with Japan but repeatedly stressed that it is a strategic issue to be resolved between the United States and North Korea. North Korea is making a big mistake. It lacks the awareness of how the agreed framework is a framework of utmost importance for peace and stability also for North Korea. To begin with, the agreement emerged after great difficulties. When the nuclear issue was first discussed between the United States and North Korea, the North Korean side demanded out of the blue that the United States provide it with two light-water reactors if it wants North Korea to give up development of nuclear weapons. Kenneth Quinones, a U.S. diplomat who took part in the meeting, later recounted the exchange in his book ``The North Korean Nuclear Threat-Off the Record Memories'' (Japanese translation published by Chuokoron-Shinsha Inc.). He says when the U.S. delegation first heard the demand, they laughed and said the North Koreans must be joking. At the same time, he says, they felt strong tension and asked themselves how they could report such a ridiculous idea to Washington. Because North Korea broke its promise, the governments of Japan, the United States and South Korea are finding it more difficult to continue a policy of engagement toward it. If North Korea resorts to such brinkmanship to get the United States to resume negotiations, there would be growing calls in Japan, the United States and South Korea to demand a ``changeover'' of the North Korean regime. During the normalization talks, Ambassador Jong described North Korea's determination for survival with the phrase ``no one is stronger than a person who is prepared to die.'' Perhaps he was just bluffing as usual. However, there is no guarantee that North Korea, which is driving itself to play such a ghastly game for survival, would not explode any time. ``The North could resort to a banzai charge in the end. It may not be a country that would close the curtain quietly. It appeared to be taking the situation to heart very seriously,'' said a member of the Japanese delegation. Japan may ``join hands with the devil.'' The question is, how to go about it. The author is an Asahi Shimbun senior staff writer and foreign affairs columnist.(IHT/Asahi: November 5,2002) (11/05) [Copyright Asahi Shimbun. All rights reserved. No reproduction ***************************************************************** 16 EU mulls future of fund for N.Korea nuclear energy Reuters AlertNet - 06 Nov 2002 21:10 By Marie-Louise Moller BRUSSELS, Nov 6 (Reuters) - The EU's top energy official said on Wednesday the bloc was still deciding what to do with its funding for North Korean atomic power plants after revelations of a nuclear arms programme in the Communist state. North Korea made a shock confession to the United States last month that it was enriching uranium to support a nuclear weapons programme, breaching a 1994 deal with Washington under which North Korea agreed to freeze nuclear arms production. In return for signing the pact, the United States, European Union and others in an international group agreed to help fund and build safer reactors and provide fuel for North Korea. "We must work in concert with our friends and allies in persuading North Korea to honour its commitments in terms of non-proliferation," Energy Commissioner Loyola De Palacio told the European Parliament. Some lawmakers said the Union should stop contributing to the $4.3 billion programme, known as KEDO. South Korea provides the bulk of the money at more than $3 billion. Japan gives $1 billion and the United States has given $400 million for heavy fuel oil. The EU contribution was 95 million euros ($94 million) between 1997 and 2001 and it will provide a further 20 million euros a year until the end of 2005. Members of the EU assembly wanted North Korea to disarm and dismantle its nuclear arms programme. "If North Korea does not agree to reverse its nuclear policy and disarm, then the whole KEDO contribution by the EU should be terminated," British Conservative member of the parliament, Charles Tannock, said in a statement. "The EU is consulting closely with its main partners...in order to see how we can achieve our main objective of preventing North Korea from obtaining nuclear weapons," Palacio said. ***************************************************************** 17 Scottish energy groups plan £13bn alliance Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | David Gow Wednesday November 6, 2002 The Guardian [http://www.guardian.co.uk] Scotland's two dominant energy groups, Scottish Power and Scottish & Southern Energy, are considering a £13bn merger to fend off a takeover from bigger European rivals. Yesterday Ian Russell, Scottish Power's chief executive, expressed an unexpected warmth for the benefits of a merger as he announced a sharp leap in first-half pre-tax profits from £59.8m to £336.6m. Mr Russell, previously lukewarm about merger prospects, said: "Putting the two businesses together would clearly give us greater scale, particularly in UK generation and customer base and the two would have synergies in wires as well. There would be quite significant cost-savings from that." Scottish Power has 3.5m customers while SSE has 4.8m, both substantially short of those served by British Gas, Powergen, Innogy and London Electricity. SSE, with a new chief executive in place for only five weeks, is less enamoured and Mr Russell said any merger could run into regulatory difficulties. The combined group would run the entire power transmission and distribution network, produce the bulk of power and serve two-thirds of customers in Scotland, raising competition issues. Mr Russell, in regular contact with SSE colleagues, conceded that Scottish Power had been priced out of recent auctions for power suppliers, including the current bid battle for Midlands Electricity. He said the group was winning a net 15,000 new customers a month. "We would like to add to the number of customers - provided we can also add to our generation. The key issue is not size but balance." Mr Russell strongly backed long-term contracts set at a premium above spot power prices as a way out of nuclear operator British Energy's crisis. His group, which takes 75% of BE's Scottish output, and SSE recently signed a revised deal giving BE £1.65 a megawatt/hour above market rates. The deal, due to be approved by energy regulator Ofgem to day and likely to save Scottish Power £25m a year, was presented by Mr Russell as a model for Britain as a whole, where his group expects wholesale prices to remain low for at least five more years. Scottish Power, meanwhile, said it was on track to meet its target of doubling operating profits at PacifiCorp, its US subsidiary, to $1bn by 2005. The unit now accounts for two-thirds of group profits and assets. [UP] Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002 ***************************************************************** 18 China's Guangdong nuclear plant to issue bonds Planet Ark : CHINA: November 7, 2002 SHANGHAI - China's Guangdong Nuclear Power Holding Co Ltd will begin issuing four billion yuan ($483 million) in 15-year corporate bonds next Monday, a company official said yesterday. The central bank had approved an annual interest coupon of 4.5 percent on the domestic bonds, the official said. "Everything is ready now for the issue," he said. The company said in a statement last week it would issue the bonds to domestic institutional and retail investors but it did not give a timetable for the launch. Proceeds would be used to expand the Ling Ao nuclear power station based in the southern province of Guangdong, the announcement said. The State Development Bank is the lead underwriter, it said. The company issued 2.5 billion yuan in seven-year bonds last year for the construction of the Ling Ao station. The official said the first generator started operation in May with an installed capacity of 984,000 kilowatt-hours and a second generator with the same capacity was scheduled to start in March 2003. The Ling Ao nuclear power station is Guangdong's second after the Daya nuclear station. Construction of the Ling Ao plant began in 1997. Guangdong Nuclear Power Holding Co, with registered capital of 10.2 billion yuan, specialises in building, operating and making research in nuclear power stations. The company had a net profit of 1.89 billion yuan in 2001 verses 1.85 billion yuan a year earlier and had assets of 49.86 billion yuan at the end of 2001. REUTERS NEWS SERVICE ***************************************************************** 19 NK Countering US Offensives against Nuke Program [KoreaTimes National] HONG KONG (Yonhap) _ North Korean diplomats in various foreign countries have been holding news conferences or interviews with media companies in an apparent bid to counter the United States' offensive against Pyongyang's program to develop uranium-based nuclear weapons. Ri To-sop, consul general in Hong Kong, in an interview with the Ming Pao newspaper on Tuesday, said if Washington abandoned its arrogant attitude and wanted to dialogue with Pyongyang on an equal footing, North Korea would be willing to talk with the United States. ``Although people and press reports said recently we had not given up the nuclear weapons development program, it is not true,¡¯¡¯ Ri said. He added the North's position is that nuclear weapons should be removed, as they are weapons of mass destruction. On Oct. 31, Ambassador to Russia Pak Ui-chun also said during an interview with a local media company that North Korea had the right to develop weapons of mass destruction to counter the United States' infringement of its sovereignty. Ambassador to China Choe Jin-su told an emergency news conference with some 80 foreign correspondents in Beijing on Nov. 1 that Pyongyang and Washington should sign a non-aggression pact to resolve their security concerns. At an interview with The New York Times Nov. 3, Han Song-ryol, vice ambassador in the North's representative office to the United Nations said, should the United States have the intent to end its hostile policy toward North Korea, the latter could consider allowing international inspection of its uranium enrichment facilities. Ambassador to Germany Pak Hyon-bo said in an interview with Neues Deutschland, Monday, that Washington's claim that Pyongyang is pushing for a plan to develop nuclear weapons was groundless. He also called upon the United States to make a non-aggression agreement with North Korea. During U.S. Presidential Envoy James Kelly's landmark visit to Pyongyang Oct. 3-5, North Korea surprisingly admitted that it has a program to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons. Since then the North has been under mounting international pressure over the nuclear program. ÀԷ½ð£ 2002/11/05 17:46 [webmaster@hankooki.com] ***************************************************************** 20 ROK, Russia Fail to Agree on Debt-Repayment Terms KoreaTimes : By Park Yoon-bae Staff Reporter Seoul and Moscow have failed to make progress in negotiations on the repayment of $1.95 billion in loans extended to the Soviet Union in 1991. South Korean delegates, led by Kim Sung-jin, director general of the economic cooperation bureau at the Ministry of Finance and Economy, held talks in Moscow on Monday and Tuesday with their Russian counterparts. A ministry official said yesterday the two sides failed to resolve differences during the two-day talks over terms of repayment of the overdue loans. He said that South Korean delegates proposed that Russia repay the debt with cash and raw materials, including crude oil and natural gas. They also proposed that part of the debt be offset by payment for fishing rights by South Korean fishermen in Russian waters. But the Russian side repeatedly demanded that South Korea lower interest rates on the loans and extend maturity of the debt to help ease payment burdens. South Korea extended $1.47 billion in loans to the Soviet Union in 1991, as part of an economic cooperation package granted following normalization of diplomatic relations between Seoul and Moscow in September 1990. The government had originally promised to extend a total of $3 billion in loans to the socialist country. But it opted not to provide the remaining $1.53 billion in late 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed. The debt has increased to $1.95 billion as Russia, successor to the Soviet Union¡¯s foreign debt, has been unable to pay interest or principal. Russia has repaid just $370 million of the loans, by providing military equipment, including helicopters, and such raw materials as aluminum and uranium. ÀԷ½ð£ 2002/11/06 17:56 [webmaster@hankooki.com] ***************************************************************** 21 Straw rejects Israeli call for attack on Iran [Guardian Unlimited] Sarah Left Guardian Unlimited Tuesday November 5, 2002 The foreign secretary, Jack Straw, today dismissed an Israeli call to attack Iran immediately following a strike on Iraq, and called a war on Iran "the gravest possible error". In an interview in today's Times, the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, identified Iran as a "centre of world terror". Mr Sharon advocated a military strike against the country as soon as the US and Britain had completed their proposed attack on Iraq. "Iran makes every effort to possess weapons of mass destruction, on the one hand, and ballistic missiles," he told the paper. "That is a danger to the Middle East, to Israel, and a danger to Europe." But on hearing Mr Sharon's comments, Mr Straw told BBC radio: "I profoundly disagree with him. I think the way to ensure proper progress with Iran is not by that kind of hostile threat, but by the process of constructive and critical engagement that we are involved in." Mr Straw has made three trips to Iran in the last 14 months to maintain diplomatic relations with elected leaders in Tehran. The British position contrasts with the stance of the US president, George Bush, who branded Iran part of an "axis of evil" alongside Iraq and North Korea. Mr Sharon's comments come as the US and Britain try to push a tough new resolution, allowing for military action against Iraq if weapons inspections fail, through the UN security council. He also suggested a possible escalation of an attack on Iraq. Unlike the 1991 Gulf War, when the US persuaded Israel not to launch a counter-attack as Iraqi Scud missiles hit Israeli cities, Mr Sharon hinted he would retaliate if Iraq fired chemical or biological weapons against Israel. Mr Straw was also forced to respond to criticism by the archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, of the government's support for a strike on Iraq. Mr Williams warned in an article in today's Telegraph that military action to force out the Iraqi president, Saddam Hussein, could "rapidly and uncontrollably spiral down into chaos". He said the conflict could lead to a nuclear war, and would turn Arab opinion against the British. Mr Straw told BBC radio that diplomatic efforts to have President Saddam allow weapons inspectors back into the country had to be backed up by a military threat. The US and Britain have refused to rule out acting without the backing of the UN. "We have to maintain our options in the event, which I do not believe will happen, that the United Nations fails to meet its responsibilities to deal effectively with the defiance by Saddam Hussein of international law," Mr Straw said today. "Our overwhelming preference, as is that of the United States, I am certain, is for there to be a new, tough resolution, or resolutions, before the United Nations so that this can be resolved within the immediate framework of the United Nations." Security council members China, France and Russia have all opposed a resolution that would give the US a military mandate before waiting to see whether weapons inspections work. [UP] Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002 ***************************************************************** 22 S.Korea, US Reaffirm Peaceful Resolution to NK Nuclear Project [KoreaTimes National] By Seo Soo-min Staff Reporter South Korea and the United States yesterday reaffirmed their stance to seek an end to the North's nuclear program by peaceful means. Defense Minister Lee Jun met with U.S. Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith, the highest American military official to visit Korea since the inauguration of the Bush administration. ``The two sides shared views on resolving the North Korean nuclear issue, and reaffirmed that the solution must be a peaceful one using swift and verifiable means, according to the framework agreed upon by the heads of South Korea, the U.S., and Japan during the APEC summit on Oct. 26,'' Defense Ministry spokesman Brig. Gen. Hwang Young-soo said. Lee explained the recent goings-on between the two Koreas, including the road and railway reconnection programs, and the two sides concurred on the need for ``genuine tension relief and trust-building'' between Seoul and Pyongyang in the future. Undersecretary Feith, however, is also said to have stressed that North Korea clearly violated international accords to freeze its nuclear program. He reportedly asked that Seoul strongly raise the nuclear issue at the inter-Korean defense ministers' meeting South Korea has proposed to hold soon. The two sides set Dec. 5 as the date for the 34th Security Consultative Meeting, which will be held in Washington D. C. instead of Seoul. During the meeting, the two sides also lauded the new Korea-U.S. Land Partnership Plan (LPP) as an ``epochal effort'' in the Korea-U.S. alliance, and vowed to make efforts to implement it successfully. The LPP was approved on Oct. 23 by the National Assembly. Feith met with Foreign Affairs-Trade Minister Choi Sung-hong in the afternoon and also visited the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). He is to depart for Japan today. ssm@koreatimes.co.kr ÀԷ½ð£ 2002/11/06 18:02 [webmaster@hankooki.com] ***************************************************************** 23 Seoul Braces for Possibility of No Deal With US [KoreaTimes National] By Oh Young-jin Staff Reporter Seoul officials yesterday didn¡¯t exclude the possibility that they might not be able to reach consensus with Washington as to what next steps would be taken regarding North Korea¡¯s nuclear program during the upcoming consultative meeting. ``We are ready to brace for such a contingency as no decision being made any time soon,¡¯¡¯ a Seoul diplomat said. Officials from Seoul, Washington and Tokyo are scheduled to meet in Tokyo this week to finalize their joint stance regarding Pyongyang¡¯s self-confessed nuke program. ``We neither expect nor rule out anything,¡¯¡¯ the official said. The official¡¯s remarks came amid reported differences between Seoul and Washington in their approach to the issue. President Kim Dae-jung repeatedly warned against scuttling the Agreed Framework, the eight-year-old U.S.-North Korea agreement in which Washington promised to build two light-water nuclear reactors and provide heavy fuel oil to the North in return for a freeze on the North Korean nuclear activities. The United States, however, made no secret of its willingness to reconsider the Agreed Framework, more specifically terminating oil deliveries to Pyongyang, arguing that the North violated the spirit of the nuclear pact and that it was the first to declare it null and void. Their different views were highlighted in the Seoul-Washington-Tokyo summit in Los Cabos, Mexico, last month, when the three leaders failed to come up with punitive measures against Pyongyang. ``No decision has been made about the Agreed Framework,¡¯¡¯ the Seoul official said. Seoul has reportedly resisted the permanent termination of oil supplies to the North but could settle for a temporary suspension as a way of applying pressure on Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons program and observe related international obligations. Meanwhile, a senior South Korean official at the U.S.-led international consortium that is responsible for building nuclear plants for the North commented that the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO) operates on consensus among its key sponsors but may resort to a vote. ``We will hold an executive directors¡¯ meeting in New York next week, which may make a decision by vote in the event that they fail to reach consensus,¡¯¡¯ the official said. Representatives of South Korea, the U.S., Japan and the European Union, KEDO executive directors are expected to decide whether to proceed with oil shipments to the North. The official said that the KEDO is authorized to continue sending oil shipments to the North until January. The deliveries for November were departing Singapore, heading for the North. The EU recently decided to put on hold $20 million in contributions to the KEDO, money that, according to the official, was intended to supplement U.S. payment for the oil. The KEDO¡¯s oil supplies, 500,000 tons per year, account for 30 percent of the North¡¯s total energy consumption. For eight years since 1994 when the Agreed Framework was signed, the KEDO has sent 3.52 million tons of oil to the North, worth nearly $500 million. Under the KEDO deal, Korea and Japan are footing the bulk of the $4 billion bill for the construction of the reactors, which are one fifth completed. oh@koreatimes.co.kr ÀԷ½ð£ 2002/11/06 18:03 [webmaster@hankooki.com] ***************************************************************** 24 Seoul, Washington reaffirm peaceful solution to nuke issue welcome to Korea Herald!!_National http://www.koreaherald.com South Korea and the United States reaffirmed that security issues centering on North Korea's nuclear program should be resolved peacefully when their high-level defense officials met in Seoul yesterday, officials here said. Defense Minister Lee Jun discussed with visiting U.S. Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith the North's nuclear arms program and other bilateral security concerns. "The two sides reaffirmed that the North's nuclear development program must not be condoned and that the issue must be resolved in a swift and verifiable manner," said Cha Young-Koo, director general of the ministry's policy planning bureau. Cha said Feith called on Lee to broach the nuclear issue when South and North Korea hold ministerial talks. The senior Pentagon official arrived in Seoul late Tuesday for a two-day stay, which will be followed by a trip to Tokyo. Feith's visits to the two countries mark the first official contacts between defense officials of Washington, Seoul and Tokyo since the North admitted to harboring a secrete uranium enrichment scheme for atomic bombs when a U.S. envoy traveled to Pyongyang Oct. 3-5. "They agreed that their militaries will keep close consultations over the North's nuclear issue and that the United States, Japan and South Korea seek diplomatic solutions to the matter," Cha said. He said Feith and Lee also fine-tuned the agenda for the annual Security Consultation Meeting (SCM), which will be held in Washington Dec. 5. The U.S. defense official later met with Foreign Minister Choi Sung-hong to address recent tensions on the peninsula arising from Pyongyang's newly disclosed nuclear weapons program. U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Monday that Feith "will confer on the full range of security issues affecting our respective countries, including the war on terrorism, the ongoing effort in Afghanistan and the threat posed by North Korea's weapons of mass destruction." Before heading to Japan today, Feith will visit the Demilitarized Zone, the buffer zone that separates the two Koreas. (shj@koreaherald.co.kr) By Seo Hyun-jin Staff reporter 2002.11.07 (C) Copyright 2000 Digital Korea Herald. All rights reserved. *125 West Summer Street - Greeneville, TN - (423) 798-0545* By: /By BILL JONES/Staff Writer/ Source:/ The Greeneville Sun / 11-05-2002 Trudy Wallack, a West Allens Bridge Road resident who earlier this year filed a petition seeking a public hearing on an Erwin nuclear industry facility?s request to amend its nuclear materials license, says she remains concerned about possible negative environmental effects that granting the license amendment could have. ?Nuclear Fuel Services Inc. (NFS) has a history of noncompliance and contamination of the environment,? Wallack said. ?With that type of history, NFS should not be allowed to build and operate a new nuclear facility without a thorough environmental review.? As part of that review, Wallack said, she would like to see the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) order that an environmental impact statement be completed before NFS is granted an amendment to its nuclear materials license. However, the NRC, in a notice published last week in the U.S. Federal Register, indicated that it does not plan to order that an environmental impact statement be prepared. The NRC public notice published last week was a revised version of one published in July that an Atomic Safety and Licensing Board administrative judge later found to be incomplete. Anyone seeking to request the holding of a public hearing on the NFS license amendment request must do so in writing to the NRC before Nov. 30, according to the NRC. Sees ?No Significant Impact? In the notice published in the Federal Register on Oct. 30, the NRC said it had concluded that the Blended Low Enriched Uranium (BLEU) project at the Erwin NFS site ?will not result in significant impact to human health or the environment. ?The Commission has prepared an Environmental Assessment . . . related to the amendment of Special Nuclear Material License SNM-124. On the basis of the assessment, the Commission (NRC) has concluded that environmental impacts associated with the proposed action would not be significant and do not warrant the preparation of an environmental impact statement. ?Accordingly, it has been determined that a ?Finding of No Significant Impact? is appropriate.? But Wallack said she remains unconvinced and would like to see the NRC hold a public hearing at which members of the public may ask questions. For its part, NFS maintains that a public hearing or Environmental Impact Statement are not warranted because of extensive state and federal investigations that have already been completed. NFS Defends Project In a Sept. 23 press release, NFS spokesman Tony Treadway said the BLEU project will be ?good? for the region. ?Six years and millions of dollars in studies, analyses, public hearings and reviews by the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, the Tennessee Historic Commission and an independent environmental firm all agree that the project does not pose a significant risk,? Treadway said. NFS, according to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), is seeking to amend its special nuclear materials license so that it can begin a new production process in which highly enriched uranium will be down-blended to make it suitable for conversion into fuel for commercial nuclear power reactors. The firm already manufactures fuel for U.S. nuclear-powered submarines and surface ships at its Erwin facility and has done so since the late 1950s. The Blended Low Enriched Uranium (BLEU) project is part of a Department of Energy (DOE) program to reduce stockpiles of surplus high-enriched uranium (HEU) through reuse or disposal as radioactive waste, according to the notice published last Wednesday by the NRC in the U.S. Federal Register. ?Reuse as low enriched uranium (LEU) is considered the favorable option by the DOE because: (1) weapons-grade material is converted to a form unsuitable for nuclear weapons (addressing a proliferation concern); (2) the product can be used for peaceful purposes; and (3) the commercial value of the surplus material can be recovered,? the Federal Register notice states, adding that ?An additional benefit of reuse is avoidance of unnecessary use of limited radioactive waste disposal space.? Wallack Concerned However, Wallack, who along with a number of other Northeast Tennessee residents and environmental groups who filed petitions asking the NRC to hold a public hearing before granting the NFS license amendment request, said this week that she remains concerned about the company?s past environmental record at its Erwin facility. ?When it comes to the issue of our clean air and clean water, we ? not only as a community of Greene Countians but as Americans ? share in the responsibility to ask questions and insist on answers,? she said. ?The sole purpose and intent of my petition was to do just that. I understand that the down-blending of highly enriched uranium to low enriched uranium is a good thing for world peace. But let?s not forget to protect the local community and the local environment.? Public Education Needed Wallack also said she feels public education on the issue is of paramount importance and that at least one environmental group is attempting to mount an educational effort. ?Currently, Friends of the Nolichucky River Valley are discussing holding an educational workshop for those interested,? she said. ?Unfortunately, due to the deadline date of Nov. 30, it will be extremely difficult to provide this platform within that 30-day period.? Wallack said individuals and groups who previously filed petitions with the NRC seeking a public hearing on the NFS license amendment request do not have to file new requests, but will be allowed to modify their existing petitions if they desire to do so. © 2002 East Tennessee Network - R.A.I.D. (Regionalized Access Internet ***************************************************************** 38 State Planner Quits Uranium Plant Project* November 5, 2002 NASHVILLE (AP) -- A state employee who was working under contract on zoning plans for a uranium processing plant project has resigned from the job. Jim Lech of the Economic and Community Development Department asked Friday to leave the assignment for the Trousdale County project. The request came after zoning negotiations that involved Louisiana Energy Services. Lech had said earlier he wasn't pleased with the amount of information the company was providing local officials. The consortium of energy companies plans to build a $1 billion processing plant on a site near Hartsville where TVA once started to build a four-unit nuclear power plant. The location is about 40 miles northeast of Nashville. Company spokeswoman Nan Kilkeary said the consortium doesn't have any hidden agendas. (Copyright 2002 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.) All content © Copyright 2000 - 2002 WorldNow ***************************************************************** 39 Radioactive waste to be dumped near Dimitrovgrad's water wells Section on handling and storing of radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel in Russia. ST. PETERSBURG - Dimitrovgrad city court found nothing illegal in the planned underground dumping of radioactive waste only two kilometres away from the city's water wells. Nuclear Reactors Institute in Dimitrovgrad. www.niiar.ru Rashid Alimov, 2002-11-06 14:01 Dimitrovgrad is a city in Ulyanovsk county, its population amounts to 50,000. Nuclear Reactors Institute (NRI), situated there, is one of the biggest Russia's nuclear centres, operating seven reactors, radiochemical laboratories and plants, producing assemblies of plutonium mixed fuel for fast breeder reactors. Defending the right for favourable environment, Mikhail Piskunov, the head of Dimitrovgrad Centre for Assistance on Citizens’ Initiatives, filed a claim against local nuclear industry. On October 28 the court rejected the claim. The Centre for Assistance reports, radioactive waste was brought to the Nuclear Reactors Institute from the Institute of Plant Biological Protection, situated in Krasnodar. They researched effect of high radiation doses on trees, shrubs, and herbs in case of a nuclear war. When the research was halted, the ionisation sources were transformed into radioactive waste, and it was planned to dump the waste at a polygon of the Radon combine in Rostov county. But when the Institute of Plant Biological Protection got money to dump the waste, nuclear specialists from Dimitrovgrad came forward to offer their service. The waste was transported to Ulyanovsk county for dumping on the territory of Dimitrovgrad. Dimitrovgrad's Science Centre of Russian Academy of Technical Sciences acted as a mediator in transportation of the waste. "Some of the managers of the Nuclear Reactors Institute's work in this Science Center", - say the Dimitorvgrad environmentalists. The Centre for Assistance accused the managers of an illegal deal, and named the sum, about one million roubles (ca. $35,000), received by the mediator. Institute of Biological Shielding, Science Center and NRI were arraigned as defendants. Mikhail Piskunov, the head of Dimitrovgrad Centre for Assistance on Citizens’ Initiatives. Victor Tereshkin/ERC Bellona Solid or liquid? First, 147 vials of liquid waste were planned to be dumped in a polygon of the Rostov's Radon Combine in a solidified form. But Nuclear Reactors Institute proposed another way to handle the waste, rather dangerous one – pump it underground. The Institute's director Alexey Grachev said it would be an experiment, in which scientists would study, how radioactive substances, including cesium-137 and strontium-90, dissociate in water-bearing horizons. The license granted to the NRI, which the Dimitrovgrad environmentalists tried to appeal earlier, permits dumping only of the low and medium active waste generated by the Institute. The radioactive waste sent from Krasnodar is high-active. NRI is going to pump radioactive substances underground only two or three kilometers away from the city's water wells. The Ulyanovsk inter-regional ecological prosecutor supported claim, filed by Mikhail Piskunov, who demanded a ban on radioactive waste dumping. Mikhail Piskunov and the deputy ecological prosecutor Oleg Petrov mentioned a number of facts, demonstrating that nuclear companies violated the terms of the licences, granted to them by the State Nuclear Regulatory. "We're sure, radioactive waste was brought to Ulyanovsk county with the only goal: to dump it underground to get money," – the plaintiffs say. Before the trial, Ulyanovsk county administration's Committee on Natural Resource checked NRI's activities and banned pumping of the Krasnodar waste underground. Its official letter stipulated such operation requires environmental impact study, Ulyanovsk health service's approval, and a special one-time license. But the court turned out to be thinking differently. In its opinion to pump the waste underground, NRI needs no additional documents. Michail Piskunov is very upset of the court's decision: - And now, if the court's decision is carried into effect, it will clear the way to radioactive waste transportations to Ulyanovsk county. And here will be dumped the waste, including ionization sources out of use from different Russia's regions. So big amounts of this filth are accumulated in our country, that it's simply unknown, what to do with it. By the way, the world's trend is to dump radioactive waste only in solid form. But we here have quite the contrary practice. Are we going to drink contaminated water? Mikhail Piskunov and Ulyanovsk inter-regional ecological prosecutor are going to appeal the court's decision. Publisher: Bellona Foundation [bellona@bellona.no] , President: Frederic Hauge [frederic@bellona.no] Information: info@bellona.no [info@bellona.no] , Technical contact: webmaster@bellona.no [webmaster@bellona.no] Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62 * P.O.Box 2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway ***************************************************************** 40 Proposed tax on nuclear waste industry defeated [deseretnews.com] Wednesday, November 6, 2002 Associated Press The Radioactive Waste Restrictions Act lost big Tuesday, its backers unable to overcome a well-funded opponent in the most expensive citizen initiative race in state history. With all but a couple of precincts counted, Initiative 1 was defeated 68 percent to 32 percent. The measure would have imposed ethical requirements on those who regulate radioactive waste disposal, raised taxes on the waste industry and spent the money on education and social needs. Hugh Matheson, who led the opposition effort, called the measure's defeat "a resounding 'no' to corporate warfare by initiative. "People don't like the idea of taxing one company by initiative," he said. "There's just something inherently unfair about that." Initiative 1 proposed higher taxes on companies sending waste to Utah, with revenues earmarked for schools and social services. The initiative's creators, Frank Pignanelli and Doug Foxley, drew support from the Utah Educational Association and the nonprofit agency Crusade for the Homeless by earmarking new tax money for their causes, said Mickey Gallivan. Gallivan, whose family runs the Crusade for the Homeless, said he and his father, former Salt Lake Tribune publisher Jack Gallivan, felt lawmakers have failed to pay proper attention to the waste industry's effects on the state's quality of life. The initiative's clear target is Envirocare, Utah's only high-level radioactive waste disposal company. Envirocare currently pays the state about $10 million per year in taxes. The measure would raise that to as much as $200 million. Critics and Utahns Against Unfair Taxes, an Envirocare-funded opposition group, claimed the measure targeted a single industry for higher taxes and would put Envirocare out of business. Envirocare of Utah operates a dump in Tooele County for low-level radioactive waste. It has applied for a license to take in more radioactive material, but the citizen measure would block that. Only two other states, Washington and South Carolina, have facilities that accept the type of low-level radioactive waste that Envirocare handles. Both states charge more than Envirocare for the same type of waste. Election officials say the more than $3 million spent for and against the measure made it the most expensive ballot proposition in Utah history. The voter pamphlet's analysis said the measure included three provisions that raised constitutional questions: — Former environmental regulatory employees and members of the Radiation Control Board would not be allowed to lobby on behalf of associated industries for three years after leaving their positions. That could violate First Amendment protections. — Giving the measure's proposed Endowment Authority the power to spend taxpayer money could be an illegal end-run around the Legislature. — Restrictions on legislative spending, including a prohibition on cutting education or social services spending, could conflict with the Legislature's constitutional power to appropriate state funds. © 2002 Deseret News Publishing Company ***************************************************************** 41 Berkley to focus on Yucca Mountain Las Vegas SUN November 06, 2002 By Benjamin Grove WASHINGTON -- Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., today said she is concerned the new Republican-controlled Congress will approve a temporary nuclear waste storage facility near Yucca Mountain, so that waste can be shipped before the permanent dump project is complete. Berkley said pro-Yucca GOP lawmakers were quietly discussing pushing for an interim dump before Congress recessed for a pre-election break. She said the proposal would be tougher to stop now that the GOP controls the Senate. "This has very serious implications for the state of Nevada," Berkley said. "That is going to be a major, major battle." But Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., said he was not aware of a movement afoot to establish a temporary dump. He said it was "equally difficult" to fight such a proposal now as it was before the GOP took control of both chambers of Congress. "That is something that we'll continue to fight," Gibbons said. "It always ends up that Nevada is on the short end of the stick." Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said no GOP senators are discussing interim storage. He pointed to a 1999 vote by a Senate panel to reject an interim storage plan. "We killed that when we were in the majority," Ensign said. "This is a dead issue." Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said it's not clear whether an interim dump fight looms. "We'll just have to see what they (Republicans) want to do," Reid said today. "They control everything now." One nuclear industry spokesman said industry lobbyists in the new Congress will be first focused on securing more federal funding for the nuclear waste dump project, not an interim site. "It's way too early to make assessments on anything beyond funding at this point," said Steve Kerekes, spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's top trade group. The Energy Department aims to establish a dump for the nation's most radioactive high-level waste at Yucca by 2010, assuming it receives Nuclear Regulatory Commission approval. But some lawmakers, and some nuclear industry officials, have said they would like waste shipped sooner to Nevada, where it could be stored above ground until the tunnels under Yucca Mountain are constructed. "Certainly I would expect the industry to push for interim legislation sooner or later given the inevitable delays of the Yucca Mountain project," said Lisa Gue, who tracks Yucca issues for Public Citizen, which opposes the dump. "The real question becomes: Does the new make-up of the Congress significantly increase the chances of the legislation passing?" All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 42 No layoffs pledged at recycle plant (US Ecology) The Oak Ridger Online -- Feature: Business -- Tuesday, November 5, 2002 by Agatha Bardoel for the Oak Ridger The 90 employees of American Ecology Recycle Center Inc. in Oak Ridge, were assured by parent company executives last week that no layoffs are planned while a new buyer for the waste processing facility is sought. The Oak Ridge plant, located at 109 Flint Rd., is a subsidiary of Boise-based American Ecology Corp., which announced plans recently to sell the Oak Ridge operation. American Ecology bought the Oak Ridge waste processing and recycling plant, formerly Quadrex Processing Facility, in 1994. Latest published earnings report the parent company, based in Boise, ID, posted a $1 million profit for its third quarter, despite a $1.6 million operating loss from the Oak Ridge plant. The company specializes in low-level radioactive and hazardous waste processing and disposal. Steve Romano, chief executive officer of American Ecology Corp., and Jim Baumgartner, chief financial officer, were at the Oak Ridge plant last week, to show the facility to potential buyers and to reassure employees. Romano told the Oak Ridger that "there are up to 10 potential buyers at this time." Romano declined to name any of them, but said he expected the sale to be completed in the next six months. "We've been in meetings here and we have provided tours to some of the prospective buyers here in town," Romano said. "And we also wanted to meet personally with employees, to tell them about our plans and to assure them that we will keep them informed of every stage of the process and of how it will affect them," he said. "We told them that no layoffs are planned" while the company is going through the sale process, Romano said. "We believe American Ecology Recycling is a good business, we believe there is value here and that it is a great opportunity for the right buyer," Romano said. "We want to assist in the transition as much as we can." In earlier published reports, Romano was quoted as saying the Oak Ridge operation no longer fit the company´s business model because the waste processed at Oak Ridge is not appropriate for the company´s current hazardous waste landfills and must be shipped to landfills operated by other companies. General manager of the Oak Ridge facility is Tom Hayes. [http://www.oakridger.com] All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** 43 Taiwan: Radioactive-waste bunkers `unsafe' w.taipeitimes.com/News/archives/2002/11/06/0000178485 [http://www.taipeitimes.com] EXPOSED: Local residents claim that two warehouses being built in Taipei County to store radioactive waste could crumble if a big earthquake was to strike the area By Chiu Yu-Tzu STAFF REPORTER Taipei County's PFP Legislator Lee Hung-chun yesterday voiced the concerns of residents in Wanli and Chinshan townships in Taipei County regarding the vulnerability to earthquakes of two warehouses that will be built in their area to store low-level radioactive waste. PHOTO: CHIANG YING-YING, TAIPEI TIMES Legislators slammed Taiwan Power Company (Taipower) yesterday for adopting unsatisfactory levels of earthquake resistance at two warehouses being built to store low-level radioactive waste in Taipei County. The warehouses will be used to hold waste generated by two nuclear plants in the area. Each can store up to 40,000 barrels of waste and are expected to open in 2004, according to Taipower. The construction work, however, is worrying nearby Chinshan (ª÷¤s) and Wanli (¸U¨½) townships and residents have accused the company of plotting to turn the two sites into final repositories for radioactive waste. Yesterday, Taipei County PFP Legislator Lee Hung-chun (§õÂE¶v) spoke up for residents, saying Taipower has set the levels of seismic resistance too low "The two warehouses for low-level radioactive waste are regarded by Taipower as special buildings, which are required to meet less strict building codes than nuclear plants do," Lee said. Lee said that Taipower has ignored safety considerations because the warehouses were designed to meet the seismic coefficient standard of 0.23g for special buildings in Taipei County. In addition, Lee said, coefficients adopted by Taiwan's four nuclear power plants, which were between 0.3g and 0.4g, would fail to ensure public safety if a quake similar to the 921 earthquake, which registered 7.3 on the Richter scale and claimed more than 2,400 lives. To be able to withstand an earthquake of that magnitude, Lee said, seismic coefficients should be increased to between 0.6g and 0.9g. PFP Legislator Liu Wen-hsiung (¼B¤å¶¯) from Keelung said that the government should not have allowed Taipower to build the warehouses. "Obviously, the government did not learn any lessons from the 921 earthquake," he said. Responding to the accusations, Taipower officials said that the warehouses' seismic coefficient of 0.24g would definitely ensure public safety. "The warehouses will be home to stabilized low-level radioactive waste. We don't think they will pose any danger to residents," said the head of Taipower's public affairs department Huang Hui-yu (¶À´f¤©). According to Taipower, about 35,000 barrels of low-level radioactive waste are stored at the First Nuclear Power Plant and 38,000 barrels at the Second Nuclear Power Plant. Each nuclear plant generates about 600 barrels of low-level radioactive waste annually. Environmentalists with the anti-nuclear Green Citizen Action Alliance told the Taipei Times yesterday that the nuclear plants should not have been built in Taiwan, a populous island sitting in an earthquake-prone zone. Copyright © 1999-2002 The Taipei Times. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 44 [southnews] Archbishop warns West of nuclear conflict over Iraq Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2002 09:45:56 -0600 (CST) lives of hundreds of thousands of people in the Middle East, Dr Rowan Williams, the next Archbishop of Canterbury, warned today. In his strongest criticism yet of military action, Dr Williams says that a pre-emptive strike against Saddam Hussein could "rapidly and uncontrollably spiral down into chaos." Dr Rowan Williams: asks 'whether the West is the best judge of the needs of the region' In an UK article in The Telegraph, he adds that to ignore the fears of people in the area would leave the West open to the criticism that it was behaving like a colonial power. ---------- Don't call us appeasers for hesitating at war with Iraq By Rowan Williams http://www.opinion.telegraph.co.uk/ The new word for those who have expressed misgivings about military action against Iraq seems to be "appeasers". The ghosts of the 1930s are raised: we have been here before, and we are rightly ashamed about what happened in 1938. We faced an aggressive foreign power, apparently indifferent to international agreements, pursuing horrific domestic policies, making open threats against neighbours and building up a massive arsenal. Belatedly, we found our collective soul and acted (and suffered) for justice. It is, prima facie, a strong point, which ought to give some pause to critics of the military option. However, it reveals a twofold problem. One part is straightforwardly political and strategic, the other also involves a deeper moral matter. On the first aspect: the conflict that we undertook (rightly, I believe) in 1939 belonged to a world in which wars were still fought between clearly defined sovereign states struggling over the control of territory. Both sides could (and did) inflict the tactics of terror on the other by aerial bombardment; but whether in France or Russia or the Western Desert, the heart of the conflict was about promoting or resisting territorial advance. The fact that the war was finally won in the East by tactics that had nothing to do with this (the atomic bomb) doesn't alter the circumstances in which the war began. It might, though, make us think about why things since 1945 have been so different. Hiroshima was the start of a process leading to the development of weaponry that made territorial struggles irrelevant. The long-distance delivery of weapons of mass destruction altered the character of war itself. Strategy reorganised itself around a balance of terror, Mutually Assured Destruction. The post-Cold War period may have seen the dissolution of this strategic assumption; but it has not taken us back to the age when nation states fought territorial campaigns. Thus initiating military action against Iraq is not a simple matter of honouring clear treaty obligations (as in 1939; the case can be made, though with some awkwardness, for the first Gulf conflict), nor of rebutting direct aggression, territorial or economic or whatever, against ourselves. It is a pre-emptive containment of a regime that is manifestly brutal and violent, at home and with its neighbours, and that is the enemy of some of our friends and the friend of some of our enemies (though the al-Qa'eda link obstinately eludes intelligence gathering). Apart from the potential destabilising effect of pre-emptive action on the whole ethos of the society of states - a serious enough matter, if you think of some other localised conflicts, from Jerusalem to Kashmir - the exact calculation of what weaponry might be employed by a cornered Saddam Hussein is uncertain; and so is the retaliation that might then be provoked in the region from its sole nuclear power, Israel. Hesitation about this scenario is manifestly different from nervous collusion with a threatening local power. The military option sends a destabilising message in a seriously unclear international situation; it invites a cavalier attitude to some of the principles of international law in respect of the justification of armed force. In 1939, we risked our own lives and safety in resisting a tyranny. In this instance we are more likely to risk the lives of hundreds of thousands in a region that could rapidly spiral down into chaos. We also jeopardise any authority we might have to appeal for restraint in other situations on the basis of international law. To register concern for the stable future of neighbouring countries with Islamist groups poised to move into any power vacuums, or for the survival of the state of Israel as a real participant in the region's political maturation, or for the possibility of retaining some moral and diplomatic leverage in global security is something that can only be described as appeasement by ignoring the history of the past 55 years. Some of the moral ground for hesitation already appears in the question of whose lives we risk. And this turns our attention to another difference from 1939. It is true that the Iraqi people are hideously oppressed and that the regime's domestic methods are as abhorrent as those of the Third Reich in the 1930s. But we went to war to honour the needs of those with whom we were bound by treaty. What is not clear at the present is how far the Iraqi people are clamouring for our intervention. Far clearer is the regional fear - panic would not be too strong a word - at the prospect of war. Our ally Jordan has suffered intensely from the pressures built up over the years since the first Gulf war; Syria and Egypt have cause to be anxious about radical threat from within in an East-West collision; even in Israel, hawkishness about the immediate situation does not translate into anything like unanimity about attacking Iraq. The moral issue is whether we can properly say that our account of what the region needs takes precedence over what its inhabitants overall seem to say. If the answer is that it does, there is the classic moral challenge to colonialism of various kinds: we are not the best arbiters of the interests of others when we have interests of our own at stake (we are keenly aware of the matter of oil). This is not academic; I have had several conversations in recent months with friends from minorities, especially Christian minorities, in the Middle East. None has expressed any tolerance for Saddam Hussein nor any visceral anti-Americanism; all have expressed, with differing degrees of fatalism, their expectation of being recipients of yet more violence from extremists in the wake of any military action. In 1939, we acted for the sake of those helpless before a military colossus, for the sake of Germany's neighbours. To suggest that we should approach military action with hesitation in the present context is to try to honour those who would be most helpless in a regional conflagration in the Middle East - minorities, refugees, ultimately the ordinary citizens of many states. We need, God knows, ways of pressurising Iraq towards justice for its own citizens, but the military option could be appallingly costly for them too. Talk of "appeasement" is facile point-scoring. Dr Williams is Archbishop of Wales ---------- Support in UK for Iraq war reaches lowest point AFP TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 05, LONDON: Public support in Britain for military action against Iraq is at its lowest since Prime Minister Tony Blair first raised the prospect of war in August, according to a poll in the Guardian newspaper on Tuesday. The ICM survey for the left-leaning daily showed just 32 per cent of Britons approved of strikes on Baghdad, six points lower than a week ago. Outright opposition to a war has increased slightly over the past week b up one point to 41 per cent. The poll appeared to show that Blair b the staunchest military ally of the United States b would have a struggle on his hands in convincing voters to get behind a deployment of British troops to Iraq. In the survey, those who replied that they "don't know" whether military action was justified was up from 21 per cent to 27 per cent. ICM interviewed 1,003 adults between November 1 and 3. Blair said on Monday that the United Nations was close to adopting a new resolution on Iraqi weapons inspections, without specifying a timetable. "We are reaching the point of closure," Blair told a London press conference."I don't want to prejudge negotiations but they are proceeding reasonably satisfactorily." [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: southnews-unsubscribe@egroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ***************************************************************** 45 EU's atomic relic rises again Greenpeace International Greenpeace International Taxpayer money must go to clean energy, not nuclear expansion Tue 05 November 2002 BELGIUM/Brussels A major new EU proposal could be used to try to breathe new life into a nuclear industry that cannot die soon enough. Springing from an outdated relic of a treaty, Euratom, the proposal is an attempt to create a "survival package" for the declining European nuclear industry under the guise of funding "safety measures." Nuclear safety, de Palacio style Tomorrow (November 6) the European Commission is expected to agree proposals for new nuclear legislation promoted by EU energy commissioner Loyola de Palacio as "safety measures". De Palacio is a strident pro-nuclear advocate. Throwing good money after bad A major part of the new package is a proposal to boost Euratom nuclear loans from four to six billion Euros, a move which could inject new cash into a dangerous and polluting nuclear industry. Euratom's mandate is to promote nuclear power and to provide support for the nuclear industry. The money would be better spent in investing in renewable energy. Fighting a positive trend With this hefty loan extension on the table, commissioners must think hard about how the Euros and atoms will connect. They should remind themselves that Euratom money allocated to Eastern Europe for safety is being used instead to expand the nuclear industry there -- a clear violation of its intended purpose. A number of EU member states including Germany and Austria have already expressed concern about the loan extension, and its misuse to expand the nuclear industry. With the exception of Finland's highly controversial decision this year to build a new nuclear reactor, no new reactors have been commissioned in Western Europe since 1991. De Palacio justifies her goal of expanded nuclear power as a solution to climate change. But this is a ridiculous proposal that would simply increase the risks of nuclear disasters, without addressing either problem. Directives must be dissected Also in the new proposed package are several other proposals for nuclear directives. To date, few details of the nuclear survival package have been made public. However, Greenpeace believes these proposals, also promoted by de Palacio as safety measures, are simply more "life support systems" for the European nuclear industry. EU commissioners must scrutinise every element of the package. They must reject measures geared to prop up nuclear power, and accept only those which solve the very real and dangerous problems the nuclear industry presents to Europeans. The key test for acceptability for these new directives is whether they speed up closure of nuclear reactors, create more stringent safety standards, and remove hidden subsidies that sustain the uneconomic nuclear industry. Radioactive relic The Euratom treaty has remained largely unchanged since it was signed in Rome in 1957. It is based on assumptions about nuclear power that are nearly 50 years old and are simply incorrect. There is little democratic control under Euratom. For example, the European Parliament has next to no control over decisions made and money given for nuclear power under Euratom. It has no place in a 21st century-sustainable Europe. The original purpose of Euratom loans was to promote investment in nuclear power but it is outrageous that they continue to do so today when Europeans have overwhelmingly rejected this technology. Unfortunately this is the case in Romania, where Euratom funds are being used to complete the Canadian-designed Cernavoda 2 reactor. If European taxpayers are to spend more money on energy, it must go to clean, renewable energy instead of risky and uneconomic nuclear projects. "The Commission must come clean," said Greenpeace campaigner Arjette Stevens. "Instead of planning for the revival of a dying industry it should engage its considerable resources to research, develop and promote a 100 percent clean renewable energy future for an enlarged EU." EU must put Euratom where it belongs: in the nuclear graveyard. Proposed legislation to expand nuclear power must be rejected! EU must put Euratom where it belongs: in the nuclear graveyard. Proposed legislation to expand nuclear power must be rejected! ***************************************************************** 46 PBS Online NewsHour: Nuclear Weapons -- November 5, 2002 [a NewsHour with Jim Lehrer Transcript] Asst. Sec. of State James Kelly discusses the U.S. response to North Korea's secret nuclear weapons program. U.S. State Department's Background Notes on North Korea [http://www.state.gov/p/eap/ci/kn/] MARGARET WARNER: One month ago, the Bush administration confronted North Korean leaders with intelligence that Pyongyang was pursuing a secret uranium-based nuclear weapons program. Perhaps more surprisingly, North Korea admitted that was true. The U.S. government says this violates a 1994 deal called "The Agreed Framework." Since the revelation, the Administration has demanded North Korea dismantle the new nuclear program, and mounted a diplomatic effort to isolate Pyongyang. North Korea says it wants to negotiate. Joining us is the U.S. official who confronted North Korea: Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian Affairs James Kelly -- in his first on-the-record interview since then. He joins us from the State Department. And, welcome, Secretary Kelly. JAMES KELLY: Thank you very much. An overview of the current situation in N. Korea MARGARET WARNER: Tell us about these meetings you had one month ago in North Korea. JAMES KELLY: Well, for more than a year, ever since the President's review of Korea policy had been finished, we had agreed to go to North Korea and speak to the North Koreans on an "any time, any place, no pre-conditions" basis. But last summer we got the information about this covert uranium enrichment program that you mentioned. So when I went in early October with a group of people from the U.S. government, we went there with a pre-condition. And the precondition was to speak quietly to the North Koreans and tell them that they had this program and that they just had to stop it, or it was going to be very difficult to do business with us. We went and we had four meetings in a period of a couple of days in Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea. The first two, which were quite lengthy meetings, my counterpart angrily denied these and said that this point we were making was a fabrication. But in the very last meeting, a more senior official made it very clear in a series of references that he admitted that they had this program and, in his characterization, said we had made them do it. MARGARET WARNER: Were you surprised that they admitted it? Why do you think they admitted it? JAMES KELLY: Well, I don't really know why they admitted it. Yes, I was a bit surprised, especially after the earlier meetings, that this gentleman became so clear on the matter. But I reminded him that, with respect to his argument that the U.S. administration had compelled this action on their part, that our information showed that it had been going on for several years during which all kinds of contacts had been taking place, some of which we had pretty high hopes for. MARGARET WARNER: In other words, they were arguing that the... when the Bush administration came in and it cut off contact and adopted what they felt was a hostile attitude toward North Korea. JAMES KELLY: Yes, he did argue that and he said that "The Agreed Framework" had, in fact, been nullified by our actions. And if he says it's nullified, I think it probably is nullified. MARGARET WARNER: Now many Korea experts said they believe... including some in South Korea-- that this was a bid on North Korea's part to get the Bush administration to reengage or to engage and to negotiate with them on some things they want. JAMES KELLY: Well, they're asking for negotiations. They're asking for some kind of a non-aggression treaty, but some eight years ago there were extensive negotiations that had the goal of resolving the issue of nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula. So here years later we have another separate, different kind of an approach to have nuclear weapons. And so now we're asked to undertake some negotiations anew and resolve it. We're happy to undertake the negotiations, but first North Korea really has to dismantle, and do so rather promptly, this program they have, which is in clear violation of the previous agreements we've had in some three other international agreements. MARGARET WARNER: So you are flatly rejecting the North Koreans' suggestion that all this be part of a negotiation, that they're willing to give up all the programs-- old and new-- and accept verification if the U.S. will have a negotiation, sign a nonaggression pact, promise never to threaten or use nuclear weapons against North Korea? JAMES KELLY: What we're seeing is a repeat of what North Korea worked in 1993 and 1994, in which they're caught with a nuclear weapons program that they had earlier agreed not to do, and then after extensive negotiations, some kind of formula is found in which they will presumably stop doing it. This has worked once before as Secretary Powell made it. We bought that horse one time before. Now, this is not an unsolvable problem but it is clearly one that there's really nothing to negotiate, at least at this time. International reaction MARGARET WARNER: Other administration officials have said... Condi Rice, the NSC adviser -- and others -- that you all believe that economic leverage, trying to get South Korea, Japan and Russia as part of this, to pressure North Korea, threaten to isolate it, that that will work. What makes you think that will work and do you really have those three countries on board for this kind of tough approach? JAMES KELLY: One of the reassuring things since I came back -- and on the way back I stopped in both Seoul and in Tokyo to brief these governments very clearly on what was going on is the degree of support we've had from the Republic of Korea and from Japan and as well from China, from Russia, and from many other countries. There's really not anyone -- outside of the leadership group in North Korea that wants to see nuclear weapons there on that peninsula. MARGARET WARNER: But when the president -- President Bush -- met in Mexico about ten days ago with the Presidents, the leaders of all three of those countries, he did not get the tough statement that U.S. officials had said you all hoped to get threatening economic isolation of North Korea if it didn't dismantle this program. So how is North Korea going to read that? Japan is still continuing talks also with North Korea. JAMES KELLY: Well, I think there must be some misunderstanding. We got an excellent statement. We got the full statement that we in fact sought from the South Koreans and Japanese. And we got an equally strong statement from the entire APEC group at Los Cabos. We're not trying to do this all in one leap. We have, in fact, encouraged this variety of contexts that the South Koreans and the Japanese and others have with North Korea. It very much complicates and enlarges the opportunities in which we can try to convince the North Koreans that this is a serious problem not just with us but with the world community as well. Is the U.S. government acting accordingly? MARGARET WARNER: Could taking the hard line backfire? As you know, today North Korea publicly threatened to resume their missile testing program if Japan held back on normalization over this nuclear issue. JAMES KELLY: Well, there's always the prospect and possibility of surprises from the North Koreans, but I'm not sure that what the policy we're taking is such a hard line. We're really, in fact, quite open to all kinds of ways. It's just that North Korea has repeatedly promised in writing to not develop nuclear weapons, and they just simply have to start honoring their own word. MARGARET WARNER: Does the U.S. consider North Korea still bound by the rest of that '94 agreement -- most of which concerned actually their plutonium-based program? JAMES KELLY: Yes, it did most of it, as you say. But the object of the agreed framework was to end nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula. And the North Koreans have said that it was nullified and we guess it probably is nullified. In any event, it's going to be something that's going to be very difficult for us to continue. But the elements of the program-- MARGARET WARNER: I'm sorry... JAMES KELLY: ... and there are quite a few... are not yet decided and there may be some things in there that are worth saving in one form or another. MARGARET WARNER: I guess what I'm asking is do you think there's much of a danger that if the agreement is nullified in Pyongyang's view that it could then go back and get the spent fuel that has been in storage and make plutonium bombs out of it? JAMES KELLY: Well, we hope they wouldn't do that. That might be one of the things that they might choose, but that's one of the efforts of our diplomacy, to try to convince North Korea that that's really not in its interest to try to prompt some kind of crisis of that sort. The U.S.'s current relationship with N. Korea MARGARET WARNER: Will North Korea in the meantime continue to receive the fuel oil shipments that, in return, the U.S. and this U.S. led consortium had promised to give them under the '94 agreement? There was a report today that the next shipment was in fact going to, what, set sail today. JAMES KELLY: Well, the shipments have been on a monthly basis. And it's not clear when the last one or whether the last one has already occurred. This is something I'm going to be heading on off to Japan and Korea. There's a board meeting next Monday that's going to decide whether that one goes ahead. For next year though or for very much beyond the present, I see very little support in the U.S. Congress to continue providing these fuel shipments. MARGARET WARNER: How would you explain the fact that the U.S. is willing to deal with this situation diplomatically rather than threatening military action in the case with Iraq? JAMES KELLY: Well, Iraq is a country that has used weapons of mass destruction on its own people and on its neighbors. It has actively within recent years invaded its neighbors. It's striving hard to obtain nuclear weapons soon. And there's a strong reality that it might choose to use these either against the U.S. or one of our allies. The situation on the Korean Peninsula is tense but there is a kind of a stability over the last 50 years or almost 50 years since the armistice occurred. North Korea is almost broke. And it's begun engaging much more broadly with other countries so the situation is really quite different. MARGARET WARNER: Can I ask you a quick final question: Can you confirm the report in the "Washington Post" today that U.S. intelligence believes North Korea has smallpox stocks? JAMES KELLY: I'm not able to confirm that report. There is indication and information that several countries have retained smallpox virus samples in violation of the World Health Organization resolutions. All the smallpox viruses are supposed to be in two locations in the world, but I'm not able to go into any detail about whether North Korea has this - MARGARET WARNER: All right. JAMES KELLY: -- although there have been reports to that effect. MARGARET WARNER: Secretary Kelly, thanks very much. JAMES KELLY: You're welcome. Copyright © 2002 MacNeil/Lehrer Productions. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 47 UK: Nuclear submarine runs aground Ananova - A nuclear submarine has run aground while taking part in a military exercise. The Ministry of Defence says two crew members on board HMS Trafalgar sustained minor injuries following the incident on the north-west coast of the Isle of Skye. An MoD spokeswoman said: "There is no damage to the pressure hull and a core integrity assessment of the nuclear reactor has been conducted. "There is no risk to the public or crew." The spokeswoman added: "An investigation into this incident is under way. "Until the findings of that investigation are known it is unhelpful to speculate on the circumstances surrounding this incident." The submarine was taking part in a joint maritime training exercise and surfaced immediately after the incident. One of the crewmen suffered a broken nose and the other strained his back. HMS Trafalgar, which was commissioned in 1983, is making its way back to the Faslane naval base on the Clyde, where the damage will be assessed fully. Story filed: 21:47 Wednesday 6th November 2002 Ananova ***************************************************************** 48 Lab Rat Ground zero for technology transfer Ground zero for technology transfer [Lee Bruno] The Los Alamos National Laboratory helps scientists to move from the world of government research into the realm of private enterprise. by Lee Bruno [lee.bruno@redherring.com] November 6, 2002 On July 16, 1945, a brilliant flash of light in the New Mexico desert changed the course of human history, forever transforming world culture and geopolitics. Since the invention of the atomic bomb, the Los Alamos National Laboratory [http://www.lanl.gov/] has come up with plenty of significant innovations, some of which found their way into commercial use. In the early 1990s, with the Cold War over, government research labs like LANL were forced to rethink their role and consider how they might become incubators for new technologies for commercial purposes, not just military. As late as the 1980s, LANL, which is operated by the University of California for the National Nuclear Security Administration of the U.S. Department of Energy, had no coöperative research and fostered no relationships with outside corporations. In 1989, Senator Pete Domenici of New Mexico successfully sponsored a bill designed to promote technology transfer from the national laboratories to the private sector. In response, LANL formed an Industrial Business Development [http://www.lanl.gov/partnerships/] division. The strategic thrust of IBD was to create portfolios of commercially viable technologies developed at LANL, as well as promote industrial interactions and strategic alliances with companies. On the list of interesting technologies to emerge from LANL is complexity science. Over a span of 30 years after the Latin America debt crisis, LANL researchers developed complexity science techniques to help financial institutions predict a future event of the same kind. Several software companies use it to grapple with business problems such as forecasting lumber prices two months ahead or assisting the insurance industry to better understand risk. The laboratory was also where a semiconductor process called supercritical carbon dioxide resist removal (Scorr, for short) was invented. It is an effective and environmentally friendly process for creating high-density microchips. The research leading to SCORR was launched in 1998 with research development support from a division of Hewlett-Packard (later spun out into Agilent Technologies [http://www.agilent.com/] ). SC Fluids [http://www.scfluids.com/] of Nashua, N.H., which is working in partnership with IBM, now licenses the technology from the lab. Another recent technology to come out of LANL is Genetic Imagery Exploitation, or Genie, which uses evolution theory to create more effective algorithms for detecting features in digital images. Genie is extremely useful in remote-sensing applications. Lately the Los Alamos National Laboratory's IBD division has developed small workshops to help researchers and scientists bring their ideas out of the lab. Two-day training workshops team up scientists with a mentor who has a strong business background and understands the business issues involved in starting a new company. The program is gaining attention among scientists and researchers with an interest in forming a new company based on technology developed in the labs. Licensing income for LANL has risen from $256,000 in 1997 to $1.6 million in 2001. Since 1997, technology spun out of LANL has been the catalyst for the founding of about 68 new companies. Currently, LANL has 18 employees on entrepreneurial leave, according to the IBD. "It is much more entrepreneurial than it was," says Dave Foster, program manager for technology commercialization at LANL. Last spring, Los Alamos Commerce and Development Corporation, a 20 year old 501c3 nonprofit, opened the Los Alamos Research Park [http://www.la-rp.org/] on 44 acres of land leased from the Department of Energy. Motorola was one of the first major tenants in the research facility. In October 2001, the federal government gave LANL an award to acknowledge its work on technology transfer and the new research park. Clearly, technology transfer at LANL has made significant progress. Copyright 2002 RHC Media, Inc. www.redherring.com [http://www.redherring.com] ***************************************************************** 49 Hanford Nuclear Plant Feels Effects of Alaska Quake; Escapes Damage 7.9 quake one of the strongest ever in the U.S.; effects felt thousands of miles away. TRI-CITIES, WA, Nov. 4 - Despite reports of water sloshing about, the Hanford nuclear power plant in the Tri-Cities escaped damage in Sunday's 7.9 magnitude earthquake in Alaska. The Trans Alaska oil pipeline wasn't as fortunate. It was shut down by Sunday afternoon's massive quake which occured at approximately 2:30 p.m. in a remote area of interior Alaska, 90 miles south of Fairbanks. Some highways now have six-foot-wide cracks. There were no serious injuries reported. Officials were expected to reveal sometime on Monday how long the pipeline will be down. The effects of the quake were felt throughout the U.S. On Seattle's Lake Union, more than 1,400 miles south of the epicenter, waves shook some houseboats loose from their moorings and slammed them into docks. At least one boat sustained thousands of dollars in damage. The quake's awesome power was also felt on farms in Minnesota and Oklahoma, and as far away as New Orleans, Louisiana, more than 3,000 miles away, where water in ponds, bayous and pools sloshed about. In Mandeville, Louisiana, one woman saw boats bouncing on the water. She even witnessed one man even fall off his sailboat. The magnitude seven-point-nine quake is one of the strongest ever recorded in the U-S. of a Bellevue swimming pool and jostled houseboats on Lake Union yesterday afternoon. Waves about six to eight inches high rippled through the water at the Pro Sports Club, leaving three people suddenly swimming in ocean conditions. Waves on Lake Union shook houseboats loose from their moorings. Some houseboats slammed into docks, causing minor damage. One houseboat lost power. The magnitude 7-point-9 quake was centered 90 miles south of Fairbanks, more than 14-hundred miles from Seattle. It hit at 2:13 p-m Pacific time. MSNBC Terms, Conditions and Privacy © 2002 ***************************************************************** 50 Richardson defends Energy Dept. record The Oak Ridger Online -- State News -- Tuesday, November 5, 2002 The Associated Press ALBUQUERQUE -- Former U.S. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson came under attack during the final televised debate of the New Mexico gubernatorial race, defending his oversight of nuclear laboratories and saying the labs are the safer for his tenure. Republican John Sanchez contended during a segment in which candidates posed questions to each other that Richardson, the Democratic nominee, had dodged a confrontation with Congress over energy issues during the Clinton administration. And Sanchez alleged Richardson had been responsible for "mismanagement and security lapses" at the labs. "I appeared before the Congress and took the heat for decades of mismanagement at the Department of Energy. ... I appeared before the Congress whenever they asked me to appear," Richardson replied, and "testified hundreds of times before congressional committees, and I believe we reformed the security system at the national laboratories." He said he had 100,000 employees. "Sometimes you take heat, and I made mistakes, too," he said, "but I take full responsibility for everything I did." He said he felt he enhanced lab management during his tenure. When Sanchez recalled that Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., criticized Richardson's administration at DOE, the Democratic candidate replied that Byrd and he had settled their differences and that Byrd subsequently said that Richardson "would make a good governor of New Mexico." Sanchez, saying that he himself favored a nuclear waste site near Carlsbad, asked Green Party nominee David Bacon what he would do about nuclear waste. Bacon attacked the nuclear industry and the DOE and said activities that generate nuclear waste have to be slowed down. "Right now in Los Alamos we have an area called Area G. It is the largest nuclear waste dump in the world. Area G has been operating without a state license since 1984," Bacon said. "Seventy million cubic feet of nuclear waste are due there in the next 60 years. Area G is a hazard. It's a disaster waiting to happen. Area G is simply taking mixed waste, putting it in unlined pits, covering it with three feet of dirt. ... "There are 2,000 waste sites in Los Alamos that haven't been dealt with," Bacon said. He accused the DOE of deliberately overriding science in approving the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad and said the state was unprepared to deal with waste that would come through New Mexico en route to storage elsewhere. Los Alamos lab spokesman James Rickman said LANL disagrees with Bacon's characterization. The lab, he said, maintains there is no immediate danger from Area G, and that lab officials are carefully monitoring it to make sure it remains safe. Rickman said there are not 2,000 undealt-with sites. More than 1,000 have been characterized as needing no remediation, and the two-dozen top-priority sites will be cleaned up by 2008. Lower-priority sites should be cleaned up by 2015, he said. After the debate, after being asked about Bacon's comments, Richardson spokesman Billy Sparks said: "Richardson will be the first governor who truly understands the labs and will work for a stronger partnership with the state of New Mexico, particularly in attracting higher-paying jobs and technology transfers." [http://www.oakridger.com] All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** 51 Russia's Poison Gases The New York Times *October 30, 2002* *By CHRISTOPHER CHYBA* STANFORD, Calif. ? More than 100 hostages are dead after Russian authorities used an unidentified gas to incapacitate terrorists holding 750 people in a Moscow theater. Nearly all of the deaths were due to the gas, which Russian authorities have so far refused to identify. Press coverage has rightly emphasized grief and the question of why antidotes were not immediately available. It has then focused on whether the Russians' use of gas was a violation of the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention. But this focus, while important, risks overlooking the big picture when it comes to Russian chemical weapons. The Chemical Weapons Convention is a global treaty with more than 170 signatory nations. It bans the production, acquisition, stockpiling, transfer and use of chemical weapons ? the first arms-control treaty to outlaw an entire class of so-called weapons of mass destruction. It also requires its signatories to declare and destroy, by certain deadlines, the chemical weapons they possess. Since the 1925 Geneva Protocol prohibiting the use of chemical and biological weapons in war ? a reaction to gas attacks in World War I ? the world has struggled to ban these weapons. In part, this is because of their indiscriminate nature. After Sept. 11, 2001, it seems all the more important to eliminate stocks of such weapons because access to them could confer such power to terrorists. In a world with 70,000 metric tons of chemical weapons agents, some of which may be vulnerable to terrorist theft, the verified elimination of these weapons will be a step toward greater security for all. This is true despite the disturbing fact that Iraq, North Korea and certain other nations are not parties to the convention. The weapons convention permits the production and use of riot-control agents for law enforcement purposes. Until the Russians inform us of the agent used, whether they were in violation of the convention will remain uncertain. But renewed attention to Russian chemical agents should focus on a more important issue. Russia retains some 40,000 tons of chemical warfare blister agents and nerve gas. It is required by the convention to destroy them, and the United States and European nations have agreed to help. But American efforts under the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program are stalled in Congress. The Cooperative Threat Reduction program began in 1992. It provides expertise and funding to help the former Soviet Union secure and destroy nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and materials. Progress with chemical and biological weapons has been especially slow, and the Russians have too often been less than forthcoming. Of particular concern has been the Russian stockpile at Shchuch'ye, a town near the southern border with Kazakhstan. The Shchuch'ye stockpile contains nearly two million artillery shells ? and hundreds of missile warheads ? filled with nerve gas or other chemical weapons. Although stockpile security has been upgraded with help from American financing, the threat of insider theft remains real. Many of the shells are in working condition, and they are small and easily transportable. Cooperative Threat Reduction funds have paid to design a plant for construction at Shchuch'ye to destroy these weapons securely and safely. The Pentagon wants $130 million for construction in the new fiscal year. Russia, its economy still weak, won't do this without American assistance. But the program is currently stalled in a Congressional conference committee due to a disagreement over granting the president authority to proceed with the project. The Bush administration's new national security strategy has emphasized the destruction of weapons of mass destruction by pre-emptive strikes if necessary. But at Shchuch'ye alone, the United States could destroy over 5,000 tons of ready-to-use weapons of mass destruction through a different kind of pre-emptive strike ? action by a Congressional committee. /Christopher Chyba, codirector of Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation, served on the National Security Council staff in the Clinton administration./ Copyright The New York Times Company ***************************************************************** 52 Policy issues not found on ballots -- The Washington Times November 6, 2002 Harlan Ullman      When Americans voted yesterday, ballots were filled with candidates' names as well as a range of initiatives and motions to be selected or rejected. Absent on each ballot, however, was the chance to register any opinion on what may be the most important foreign policy issue facing the nation: whether the United States is better or worse off if it continues to alienate and provoke much of the rest of the world.      Everyone knows power corrupts, possibly absolutely. But Americans believe the basic values and goodness of the United States are self-evident, that this country by and large has been extraordinarily generous and courageous in defending the rights of others along with our own, and that territorial conquest beyond our borders is not on the national agenda. Hence, at a time of unrivalled American power and authority, what is the problem?      The recent meeting of the Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) conference in Mexico and the deliberations of the U.N. Security Council show exactly what is wrong. For many reasons, the external perception of U.S. unilateral power, inflamed by what are seen as hypocritical political positions taken by the White House or imposed by Congress (from protectionist trade policies to unflagging support of Israel at the expense of Palestine), has galvanized animosity against the United States. This animosity is currently manifested in the refusal of states to go along with the United States in its proposals for dealing with two members of the "axis of evil," Iraq and North Korea, and their nuclear ambitions.      At the APEC meeting, Japan, South Korea and China did not completely share the U.S. sense of danger about North Korea's revelations regarding its nuclear programs. The U.N. Security Council, for reasons most Americans do not understand, will not authorize force to disarm Saddam Hussein absent a casus belli. Can it be everyone else knows something we do not? Or have they got it wrong?      The Bush administration has been widely castigated overseas for "unilateral" actions rejecting or abrogating treaties perceived as useful or necessary by much of the rest of the world. The Kyoto Treaty on global warming, the International Criminal Court and the antiballistic missile treaty are the poster children for this condemnation. Yet, there is a deeply seeded and largely invisible issue here. It is America's position on nonproliferation that membership in the nuclear club should be prevented or made prohibitively expensive to the "wannabe" — a position taken by virtually every administration and Congress.      Many Americans are not old enough to recall the Cold War and the strong stand of the United States against the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Indeed, critics such as India and China frequently asked in the 1960s while the nonproliferation treaty (NPT) was being negotiated, what gave the United States the exclusive right to nuclear weapons and what right precluded other states from obtaining them.      In those days, the answer was the Soviet Union. Two competing nuclear superpowers ironically kept the peace. The threat of nuclear annihilation, the great paradox of mutual deterrence actually worked. Or at least it made both sides realize that before proceeding too far in provoking the other, logic and rational thought were essential if the outcome of compromise or negotiation was preferable to nuclear war. The end of the Soviet Union diminished the basis for America's near monopoly on nuclear weapons. And American retaliation against certain proliferators, Pakistan being the most obvious target, and not against others — read Israel — reinforced the claim of U.S. hypocrisy by critics abroad.      Despite America's prestige of being the "world's sole remaining superpower," many states are increasingly uncomfortable with that situation and what are seen as American double standards. For example, because the NPT requires nuclear states to reduce those armaments, non-nuclear states are quietly asking why the United States has not moved more quickly to conform with its treaty obligations.      Iraq and North Korea armed with nuclear weapons are a real danger. But so are Pakistan, India and Israel. Yet, many states see those ambitions and realities as further checks on the sole remaining superpower and its influence. Iran could well be the next test case.      None of this was on the ballot box. People worry about possible war with Iraq. But mostly they are worried about issues such as the economy, job and retirement security, health care and education that directly affect them. If Americans do not increasingly come to understand that this nation is at risk because of the international animosity and disdain building against us, then, ultimately, those reactions and conditions are likely to reach back and do further damage to the domestic issues that so dominate politics.      Harlan Ullman is a columnist for The Washington Times and a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. ***************************************************************** 53 White House Briefing Transcript News from the Washington File [International Information Programs] Washington File [Washington File] 05 November 2002 (President's schedule, Abu Ali/Predator attack, Iraq/U.N. resolution, U.S. elections, smallpox, Israel, Iran, North Korea, Harvey Pitt) (4360) White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer briefed reporters on Air Force One November 5 as President Bush returned to Washington following several days of campaigning across the nation for Republican candidates in the November 5 midterm state and local elections. Bush returned to Washington from his home state of Texas, where he spent the night at his ranch, and where he voted early November 5. Following is the White House transcript. (begin transcript) WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary November 5, 2002 PRESS GAGGLE BY ARI FLEISCHER Aboard Air Force One En Route Andrews Air Force Base MR. FLEISCHER: All right, you are aware of what the President did this morning. When we get back to the White House the President will relax in the afternoon. In the evening the President looks forward to having over for early dinner speaker of the House, the minority leader of the Senate, Tom Davis, the head of the National Republican Congressional Committee, and Senator Frist, the head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, along with Chairman Racicot of the RNC. They'll have an early dinner, along with their spouses. And the President will be kept up to date on election results. He and Mrs. Bush of course are celebrating their anniversary, and they'll also be receiving the election results into the evening. And that is it, as far as any type of report on the President's day. I'm happy to take your questions. Q: Sorry, just go back over it. So it's Hastert, Lott, who else? Frist? MR. FLEISCHER: Frist, Davis, Racicot and spouses. Q: Can you talk logistics tonight, in terms of what we might hear from you guys, how you intend to communicate with us about what you're hearing? MR. FLEISCHER: I do not anticipate any statement from the President tonight at all. In terms of on staff, we have made no decisions yet about whether or not there will be any type of staff announcements, et cetera. I'll be available through the usual ways. I will probably be out of my office, and spending most of the night with Ken Mehlman, so I can just stay as close to results as possible. Q: So how do we keep in touch with you and come talk to you guys? How do we -- what's the best way to -- MR. FLEISCHER: Call the office, and I'm just going to be in constant communication with my office, if I'm not physically there. I'll probably be shuttling back and forth. Q: Any clue how late you plan to stay and Bartlett and other -- MR. FLEISCHER: I haven't figured it out yet. Actually, if you have suggestions on how I can be helpful tonight, let me know. I don't know if we're going to have a statement by the press secretary, if I'll just be there. I think it's like a typical election night. We're going to be, in effect, monitoring the results and seeing what they are and making any determinations as necessary. Q: One thing that might be helpful is if when you guys are planning to sort of decamp, I mean, you've decided that for the night you've got what you're going to get, or at least things are too close to call, and you're going to go home, it might be helpful to let us know that you guys are doing that, so we don't just sit around sort of wondering who is still around. MR. FLEISCHER: Good point, good point. Q: Is the President actually going to watch TV, or is Karl just going to call him with updates, or how is he -- MR. FLEISCHER: He'll watch TV. He'll observe the results, get the updates from Karl, and see where it goes. Q: Does he ever tap into the Internet and look at the polls? Remember during 2000, his brother was obsessed with kind of looking at the ongoing -- he's not -- MR. FLEISCHER: I don't anticipate that tonight. Q: What did you say, he would be watching with Karl, or -- MR. FLEISCHER: No, I think he's going to get updates from Karl over the phone. Q: And the dinner, the officials who are planning to dinner then go home. In other words, he's not going to hang out and watch it with them, is he? MR. FLEISCHER: It's an early dinner. Q: So, other topics. Abu Ali, did the President sign off on the Predator attack? MR. FLEISCHER: I'm not going to comment at any level of specificity about this one event, other than to say that the President has made very plain to the American people that the war on terrorism is not a traditional war, it's not a -- it's not traditional in the sense that there is one known battlefield or one known nation or one known region. The President has made clear that we will fight the war on terrorism wherever we need to fight the war on terrorism. The terrorists don't recognize any borders or nations. And the United States will be dedicated to protecting the American people. Q: Does that statement mean that you are supporting what happened or that the White House actually signed off on it and was involved in making it happen? MR. FLEISCHER: I am not going to address the specifics of any one event. I am making clear, however, that the President has said to the American people that this is a different kind of war, with a different kind of battlefield, where known political boundaries, which previously existed in traditional wars do not exist in the war on terrorism. The President has talked about a shadowy war where terrorists are going to try to hide, and terrorists will try to -- when they emerge, we're going to be on the lookout for them when they emerge. The President has been very up-front about that. The President has also made clear to the American people that one of the best ways to fight the war on terror is political, diplomatic, military, and that sometimes the best course is a good offense. Q: Now, the President was obviously pleased that Bin al Sheeb was picked up. He uses it in his speeches all the time. How was he feeling about this particular operation involving a guy who was said to be heavily involved in the bombing of the Cole? MR. FLEISCHER: Well, Abu Ali has ties to al Qaeda. And the President has made clear that in this war on terrorism it is important to bring the leaders of al Qaeda to justice. Q: When was he notified about this episode? MR. FLEISCHER: Again, I'm not going to make any comments at all about any one specific event. My comments are general, I'm not going to comment on the specifics of this one event. Q: So let me ask you about that. By not addressing the specifics, are you saying that the United States will engage in shadowy war, that there will be killings around the world using military equipment and personnel in the name of the American people that the American people will not be told about? MR. FLEISCHER: The President has made very plain to the American people that the United States is going to bring to justice the terrorists, al Qaeda terrorists particularly, as our way of protecting our country. Q: Secretly, if necessary. MR. FLEISCHER: And the President has said very plainly to the American people that this is a war in which there will sometimes be visible moments and sometimes there are going to be long lulls. And there are going to be things that are done that the American people may never know about. That is the very nature of the war of terror. And the President makes no bones about it, he will protect the American people in this war. Q: Ari, shouldn't justice involve a judge, a jury, a prosecution, a defense? MR. FLEISCHER: Absolutely, when it's a case of American citizens and when it's a case of anything covered under America's laws and our -- America's Constitutional protections for America's citizens. When it comes to terrorists who seek to kill us, the President will defend and protect America. Q: On the U.N. resolution, I understand that revised language from the State Department is going up to New York today. Are you planning to present today to the Security Council or tomorrow? And how did you fudge the language in material breach to get the French to agree to it? MR. FLEISCHER: Fudge, question mark, question mark, question mark? Q: Yes, fudge. MR. FLEISCHER: Well, the President began this course on September 12th, and this course is almost at its final day. The President believed that it was important to go the United Nations and test the United Nations to see if the international community could act in a way that was strong, effective and in a way that results in inspectors having the tools they need to do their jobs, to disarm Saddam Hussein. The President chose a multilateral path. And we will ultimately see now, shortly, whether or not the U.N. will be successful. It didn't have to be this way. The President could have chosen to act, probably with the support of the American people, in a different way, but he laid out this course. We are very close. I cannot tell you at this moment whether or not something will be tabled today, tomorrow or the next day. But a productive two weeks are becoming even more productive. But there are no assurances about what will happen next, still. Q: Okay, then on the fudge question, how did you work the question in, I guess -- MR. FLEISCHER: John, I think what I'd like to do is, until a motion is tabled, I'm not going to describe any of the language. There still are conversations going on with the members of the Security Council about the exact language. Q: But you know what the French wanted, they wanted the Security Council to decide what constituted a further material breach. MR. FLEISCHER: Let me just say that this has been a very dedicated effort by America's diplomats, and a very important one. The diplomats have worked very hard to work with our friends and allies to find agreement on language. It's a reflection of the path that the President committed to. It's a reflection of the efforts made by the U.N. officials, by the State Department officials, by others in our government, to bring this to a point where we could keep the United Nations Security Council together. This has been a test of the Security Council. We still have a final stage to go through with the Security Council. But I'm not going to characterize any of the specific word changes at this moment. I think that will all come out shortly, I'm just not prepared to do so at 11:30 a.m. central time. Q: But I take it, though, that this isn't a game of brinkmanship. You work the language and you work with friends and Russia to the point where everybody is comfortable with it. You're not about to lay down something that will draw a veto? MR. FLEISCHER: It's been a very healthy dose of good, solid diplomacy, backed up by a clear understanding that President Bush was determined to take action if the United Nations did not, and that he would do so in a multi-lateral way. Q: How confident are you that there will be a vote this week? MR. FLEISCHER: Again, I'm not prepared to make any specific guesses about whether these will be tabled today, tomorrow or whatever day. That's something that the diplomats will make a final determination of. Q: And if it doesn't happen this week, when will the clock that you've said all along is ticking, when will it run out? MR. FLEISCHER: I'm just not prepared to make any guesses on the final timetable. But it's abundantly clear that we are reaching the point of finality. Q: Has he made any phone calls on this today? MR. FLEISCHER: I'll let you know if he does. I don't anticipate any. Q: And so far, has he been heartened or disheartened by the process at the U.N.? MR. FLEISCHER: The President will make his final judgment after a vote is cast. This has been a slow process, but an important one. The President committed to this process. One of the ironies of this entire debate is the phony charge against President Bush that he would engage in unilateralism. What President Bush has done is demonstrated strength and determination, which has given multilaterialsm a chance. Unilateralism was the way of the '90s, because the multilateral organization known as the Security Council was slumbering, and the unilateralist was Saddam Hussein. Thanks to the President's strength and leadership by going up to New York and saying, this is your chance, the United Nations, to be relevant, the President changed the equation of what it means to be unilateral and what it means to be multilateral. The fact of the matter is it was the President's black and white language, the President's moral standing and moral clarity that gave impetus to the multilateral United Nations to finally wake up and look at the Iraq situation seriously. We'll see ultimately what the outcome is. That still is a question mark. We'll see. Q: On today's election, can your ground campaign to get out the vote beat the Democrat's ground campaign? That's one of their real strengths. MR. FLEISCHER: That's a classic question, and it's an unknown. In 2000, you felt very good going into the election, and then we were surprised by the strength of the Democrat's ground game. It's now in the voter's hands. We'll see. Q: How does the President feel going into this? He's had a very rigorous campaign swing over the last couple days. MR. FLEISCHER: He feels good. He's pleased that he was able to go out and help as many candidates as he has. The President hopes that it makes a difference in these close races. He feels very good about it. But he also understands now it has passed from the hands of the elected officials and candidates to the hands of the voters, which is what our democracy is all about. Q: -- reveal details about birthday and anniversary gifts? MR. FLEISCHER: I am not, other than to say they were exchanged. Q: So in some of these tight races, that are within the margin of error, even in states like South Dakota that show a small edge for Mondale, do you think the ground game might be able to turn it in your favor? MR. FLEISCHER: Just I think that at this point, everybody looks at these last polls and they recognize polls may or may not be right. In several states there are conflicting polls, some showing Republicans are up, some showing Republicans are down. But it's an interesting election. This is one of the closest ones we've seen. It's also interesting because there seem to be so many Senate races in play. Typically there just aren't this many Senate races in play. This cycle appears to be different. Q: So what are your predictions for tonight? MR. FLEISCHER: My predictions are to have a nice dinner, to have a little camaraderie. Q: Are you still thinking you're going to pick up seats in the House? MR. FLEISCHER: I've made no predictions. The only prediction that the White House is making is that the historical trend that runs against first-term incumbents looks like it will be broken tonight. The only question is, will Republicans be able to gain seats, will the Democrats be able to keep the Senate. It's possible the Democrats will, it's possible Republicans will pick it up. Those are the unknowns that will get settled in a number of hours. Q: And you think that this is going to turn on the President's popularity, or is it going to be local issues? MR. FLEISCHER: I think it's going to be a combination of the two. And in fairness, the only way to really judge is to pour through the exit polling data and to study what the voters say. Q: I have a question. What does the President think is the basis for the 50-50 nation? What is the country divided about? MR. FLEISCHER: I think that there's always a sifting sand of the American mood. And we are in an era right now, at least -- and have been for the last couple years, where the American people seem to look at the government in a 50-50 manner. Will that get broken tonight, perhaps. Will there be a trend that gets established tonight? We'll see. But certainly judging from the 2000 election, which is really the only data we can safely draw any conclusions from, the country was evenly divided. Now having said that, a very evenly divided country has swung very strongly in terms of giving President Bush a strong, favorable job approval. That's a shift and that's a swing. Whether that means anything to the off-year elections or not, we'll see, although it already has shown -- I think you can safely conclude that one of the reasons the historical trend has been broken is because of the President's popularity. That's a national factor. Q: Has he ever reflected on the cultural divide between the red and blue states? Since 2000, which we saw so pronounced in his Presidential election, we still see reflected today. Has he ever talked about the divide -- MR. FLEISCHER: I really don't hear the President dwell on these issues. The President views this as dealing with the hands that he's been given, that he believes that whether he has strong support from the American people, or it's a 50-50 nation, his job is to speak with moral clarity, take strong stands, believe in what he believes and make his case. He believes that if he makes a good case, the American people will listen and follow. If he makes a wishy-washy case, he'll get what he deserves. He believes in taking strong stands. Q: Any reason to believe at this point that Dean Barkley is going to vote with Republicans in a lame-duck session? MR. FLEISCHER: I have not heard. Q: Ari, when are we going to see the President? We haven't seen him in quite some time. MR. FLEISCHER: You've seen him every day in different states. Q: We haven't had Q with him in -- going back to -- Q: -- qualifies as a Q? MR. FLEISCHER: -- strong lead toward that thumb. Q: Seriously, when are we going to see him? We haven't seen him in a long time, there are no crisis that we're aware of. We're not getting even the rudimentary -- MR. FLEISCHER: Suffice it to say, I'm always pushing. And I will make no predictions. But I understand your points well. Q: I think we -- the pool speak for our colleagues on this point. There's been a lot of grousing about it lately. Some of it I'm sure you've heard. Like this record of this -- Q: The entire White House press corps. Q: -- pool or gaggle to reflect that a lot of people are getting pretty upset about it. I mean, there's a lot going on, there's a lot of issues we'd like to ask him about, and we're not getting a chance. Why is that? MR. FLEISCHER: Message received. I think a lot of it is because of the logistics of this final swing. You know how available and accessible the President is to taking a couple questions on pool sprays. He hasn't exactly been meeting with a lot of foreign leaders in the Oval Office as he's on this last campaign swing. That's often been a way of getting the questions asked. Similarly, meetings in the Cabinet Room with members, et cetera. So some of it deals with logistics. But the bottom line is, message received. Q: Send him back for five minutes. Q: Yes, we're here, he's up there. What's he doing? MR. FLEISCHER: Well, we don't see any of you armed with little mini-cameras for Journeys with George, part two. Q: We can remedy that. Q: A couple of quick ones. The Washington Post report about Iraq, U.S. officials saying that they believe Iraq has some smallpox stored and may have given it to al Qaeda. MR. FLEISCHER: We don't know about Iraq. We do not think it's likely that al Qaeda has smallpox. But this general issue of smallpox does remain a concern that has been focused on and continues to be the focus of the President, along with the Centers for Disease Control and the Department of Health and Human Services, as well as others in homeland security. Q: And a quick one on the Israeli -- Prime Minister Sharon's decision to hold quick elections. Do you think that's a good thing, helps peace, hurts peace? MR. FLEISCHER: As always, this is an internal issue. Israel is a democracy, and Israel handles its democratic decisions as any good democracy should. These are internal Israeli issues. Q: One other thing on Sharon. He said in an interview that after any war against Iraq that the U.S. should start leaning on Iran, one of the other members of the axis of evil. MR. FLEISCHER: The President's views on Iran are well known. I would refer you to the statement that the President made about the people of Iran, the citizens of Iran deserve freedom and opportunity. Q: But does he agree with Sharon, that we should start leaning on Iran after we're done with Iraq? MR. FLEISCHER: Well, I'm not sure what lean on means, so I'll leave it expressing it as the President has expressed it. Q: Moving to the third member of the axis of evil, the New York Times reports in a story buried fairly deep that KEDO plans to go ahead with the next shipment of fuel oil to North Korea. One, is that true, that they -- that KEDO plans to go ahead with the next shipment, and two, why should that not be regarded as simply rewarding North Korea for bad behavior? MR. FLEISCHER: Two points. One, the United States is heartened to note that there was a recent meeting in Cambodia involving the leaders of the Asian community, including China, Japan, South Korea, where they again called on North Korea to dismantle its nuclear program. That was not a meeting in which the United States participated. This was action taken by the neighbors themselves. That meeting was just concluded in Cambodia. Two, Secretary Powell will leave toward the end of this week to visit with the allies in the area, to discuss what concrete steps to take, vis a vis North Korea. And we look forward to having the Secretary go on that visit. I note the timing of this delivery does not take place for approximately 12 days to two weeks. Q: So it might not happen? MR. FLEISCHER: It's impossible to predict the future. Q: You're not saying whether it's going to happen or not? For now, is it going to happen? MR. FLEISCHER: It's impossible to make any predictions about the future. Q: So I remember being on this aircraft not too long ago, where a senior administration official said, if North Korea came to us and said they were willing to dismantle their uranium enrichment program in a way that was verifiable, we wouldn't shut the door on them. They made that offer the other day. Where are we with that? MR. FLEISCHER: We are at the point where the allies are continuing to talk to them about it. The Secretary will go to the region. I'm not sure that you can characterize what North Korea said as a verifiable action to dismantle. We need them to take action. Q: But do we not shut the door on that? I read some comment saying they've got to dismantle first. MR. FLEISCHER: If you took a look at the transcript of what I said, vis a vis North Korea, and then there was a recent newspaper account. The newspaper account was a little bit at variance with what I said. I said what's important is for Iraq to dismantle. Q: North Korea. MR. FLEISCHER: I'm sorry, what was important, is for North Korea to dismantle its nuclear weapons program. I made no statement one way or another about the ultimate -- whether or not there will be talks. But the story indicated there would not be talks. Q: I've read some other officials who have said the dismantlement process has to happen first. MR. FLEISCHER: There's no question that North Korea must dismantle. Anything else? Q: Can I get a question in on Harvey Pitt? Given the accusations from the accounting firm against Mr. Webster, doesn't the White House think that it would have been smarter for Pitt, instead of withholding information about Mr. Webster, perhaps even looking into them further, sharing them more widely, trying to get the bottom of it. Weren't his actions kind of opposite of where he should be going in the tenor that he should be -- MR. FLEISCHER: The IG is looking into this now, and I'm not going to go beyond that. All right, don't forget to vote, everybody. Do you your duties. Q: So let me ask you this, just before you go. MR. FLEISCHER: Are we done? Q: Has Pitt become a liability for this White House? MR. FLEISCHER: The Inspector General is taking a look at this, and I'm not going to go any beyond that. Q: Are you willing to restate the President's confident in him? MR. FLEISCHER: I have no new answers to anything we've talked about on this topic. MR. DICKENS: I'll stay behind and talk. MR. FLEISCHER: That was former low level White House official. (end transcript) (Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov) ***************************************************************** 54 US warns of Iraq's smallpox stockpile [Guardian Unlimited] David Teather in New York Guardian Wednesday November 6, 2002 The White House expressed fears yesterday that secret stocks of the smallpox virus are being hoarded by several countries, including two members of President Bush's "axis of evil", Iraq and North Korea. US intelligence officials also believe that Russia and France possess hidden supplies and that al-Qaida has sought samples of the virus to use as a weapon. Concerns about smallpox, which was officially eradicated in 1980, being released as a weapon have caused the Bush administration to consider vaccinating the American population in case of an outbreak. Smallpox is more virulent than other biological weapons such as anthrax and can be passed from person to person. The officials, cited in the Washington Post, said evidence had been uncovered in Afghanistan suggesting Osama bin Laden had an interest in obtaining stocks of the disease. The White House spokesman, Ari Fleischer, said: "The general issue of smallpox does remain a concern." But he said that al-Qaida was not believed to have the capability to mount an attack using the virus. The quantities held by Iraq and North Korea are also believed to be small but the US administration is worried that they could develop deadly biological weapons. The Pentagon has been criticised for making slow progress in protecting troops heading for the middle-east against possible germ warfare. Officials are also alive to the possibility that lax security in Russia may allow rogue states to obtain the virus for use as a weapon, much in the same way that the former Soviet nation has sparked fears over the proliferation of nuclear materials. France is thought to have small amounts of the virus for use in programmes aimed at researching and mounting a defence to an outbreak of the disease. According to World Health Organisation rules, smallpox virus stocks should be restricted to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta or the Russian city of Vector. But the Russian stockpile is believed to be far bigger than the international agreements allow. Before being expelled, UN weapons inspectors found limited evidence of a smallpox programme in Iraq. The Iraqis were also said to be experimenting with a similar disease that afflicts camels. [UP] Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002 ***************************************************************** 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. 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