***************************************************************** 11/19/02 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 10.300 ***************************************************************** 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 Nuclear legislation not the issue* 2 Unclear energy 3 US: The right to know 4 What is Nato for? 5 Blix bears brunt of hawks'frustration 6 Taiwan President gets flak over reform policy U-turn - 7 US: NRC Considers Amendment Request for Closed Oklahoma Plant; Offer 8 Nuclear-free homeland bill passes Legislature 9 N. Korea Radio Backs Off Nuke Report 10 Commentary - Iraq: Still a big question* 11 Inspectors: We Have a Good Game Plan 12 North Korea Retracts Nuclear Weapons 'Admission' 13 US: Needless exposure to risk -- The Washington Times 14 NZ: Clark rules out lifting nuclear ban 15 US: U.S. official wants review of nuclear test freeze - 16 North Korea revises confusing nuclear report - 17 8 of 10 Koreans Favor Negotiated Settlement of NK Nuclear 18 UK: SSE counts exposure after TXU collapse NUCLEAR REACTORS 19 US: About 900 hired for restart work at Browns Ferry* 20 US: Green group questions safety of VY's quick refueling effort 21 US: VY to ask for uprate, dry cask storage 22 Thailand: Reactor would help studies 23 US: South Carolina regulators approve Duke settlement 24 US: FirstEnergy looks to increase nuclear safety, efficiency - 25 DPRK Clarifies Statement on A-Bomb 26 EU, Bulgaria reach deal on nuclear reactor closure 27 Floating N-plants for Russia 28 US: NRC license amendment: Crystal River 2 NUCLEAR SAFETY 29 US: Agency Overseeing Nuclear Security Orders a Hiring Freeze 30 US: Senate passes Homeland Security bill* 31 Experts to examine 'uranium' in Tanzania 32 US: Schumer seeks to bolster security on Great Lakes 33 Officials play down blast at Indian nuclear facility. NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 34 US: Is the "will of the American voter" to dump RADIOACTIVE waste 35 US: Questions over quantity stall Shpack cleanup* 36 US: NFS, Partner, Pursuing DOE Funding For Uranium Conversion Projec 37 UK energy minister seeks progress on Russian nuclear cleanup 38 Russian nuclear rubbish tip challenges clean-up experts NUCLEAR WEAPONS 39 ROW ERUPTS OVER U$ SMEARS/BLIX BEARS BRUNT OF HAWKS' 40 "We'll go on sounding Trident alarm" say locals 41 IAEA head says Iraq agrees to meet Dec 8 deadline 42 Former Inspectors Talk About Iraq 43 North Korea Clarifies Statement on A-Bomb 44 Nuclear Sub Lies Idle after £153m Refit 45 Activists who boarded nuclear submarine freed in Plymouth* US DEPT. OF ENERGY 46 Investigators Arrive at Lab to Examine Allegations* * 47 Argonne Laboratory Layoffs 48 Check out the big brain in Livermore 49 DOE Rocky Flats Advisory board meeting 12/5 50 Feds delay fast-flux reactor shutdown 51 Lab again No. 1 in computer muscle 52 Statement of MikeTulloh, uranium materials handler - 53 County leaders seek to raise per-acre funds from DOE OTHER NUCLEAR 54 *OP-ED: *The roots of anti-Americanism 55 Zaragoza Bridge tests contraband detector 56 Environmental laws in crosshairs of Republicans 57 One of New Senate's Environment Chairmen Plays Hardball, One Softbal ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 Nuclear legislation not the issue* New Zealand City Ltd *Political analyst says whether we do or don't have an anti-policy will not affect free trade deal with the US* 19 November 2002 A claim our nuclear-free legislation could be changed to make way for a free trade deal with the United States is not finding favour with one expert. Finance Minister Michael Cullen has already revealed our no-nukes policy is a stumbling block to any such agreement. A senior lecturer in political science at Canterbury University thinks it would make little difference if the law is amended. John Henderson says security issues are not relevant in this case. He says the US position on free trade deals, mostly reflects domestic politics in the States. Dr Henderson says it is the US Congress, and especially the farm lobby with congress members from farming states, which will determine how the United States develops its trade policy. He says the only way New Zealand will be included is on the coat-tails of Australia, because the two economies are already intertwined. Dr Henderson says if Australia does manage to strike a deal with the United States, he hopes New Zealand will be taken in with them. © 2002 NZCity, IRN >> *More National News *© 2002 New Zealand City Ltd * ***************************************************************** 2 Unclear energy Guardian Unlimited | Economic dispatch | [David Gow] Analysis The EU is at a crossroads over energy policy, and French and German protectionism is making things worse, argues David Gow Monday November 18, 2002 "Energy dependence is the weakest point of the European economy, now and for decades to come," Fritz Bolkestein, the EU's internal market commissioner, warned recently. Germany - already Europe's softest economy, certain to break its budget deficit ceiling this year and heading for a double-dip recession - may, paradoxically, prove to be the weakest link of all. The paradox is that Germany is home to two of the world's biggest energy groups, RWE and E.on, which have been busily buying up utilities such as Thames Water and Powergen in the UK, and a host of state-owned assets in eastern Europe. To do so, they have exploited the liberalised, competitive nature of such markets, while preserving their dominance by hiding behind a heavily protected domestic base. They are almost, but not quite, on a par with state-owned Electricité de France, another extensive purchaser of European utilities (including London Electricity and Seeboard in the UK). These are effectively semi-state organisations, able to wield much greater financial muscle than their rivals. Indeed, Germany and France are the laggards in the entire process of EU energy market liberalisation. Germany, for instance, has neither independent electricity nor gas regulators, and its domestic and commercial consumers pay disproportionately high prices. Both countries appear to be putting their own security of supply at the forefront of policy, rather than sharing the burden or indeed planning for the future. As Mr Bolkestein pointed out, without real policy change the EU will move from the present 50% reliance on energy imports (mainly from the Middle East and Russia) to 70% by 2030. Germany, which is 31% dependent on nuclear power, decided - in the first term of the Gerhard Schröder administration - to phase out all its atomic power stations by 2021. That would make it even more dependent on imported Russian gas, which could then provide 30% of EU needs by 2030. But there's the rub. Schröder's neighbours, including the UK - whose own indigenous gas supplies are running out - will need free access to Germany's gas transmission network to meet their needs. But current German policy denies them that access. There are ways of resolving these related issues of security of supply and competitiveness - as well as meeting the environmental challenge - even though the UK government has shown how hard that can be, with its travails over British Energy and its difficulties in formulating an overall energy policy. Mr Bolkestein alluded to renewables, although competitive markets, such as the wholly liberalised one operating in the UK, have proved incompatible with the laudable aim of having renewables provide 10% of energy needs by 2010. His preferred solution? Nuclear power. Current use of atomic power, he said, avoids creating 213m tonnes of carbon dioxide, or 7% of all greenhouse gases emitted in the EU - equivalent to the emissions of 75m cars. What's more, it lessens dependence both on Middle Eastern oil and Russian gas. As Mr Bolkestein said, the EU is at a crossroads in energy policy - though his preferred solution is, to say the least, highly contentious. But he has the merit of raising what is, unbeknown to the majority of its citizens and probably most of its political class, a serious issue facing Europe. The EU needs a thorough, open and concerted debate on the future of energy supplies - and it needs France and Germany, the supposed motors of pan-European policy, to drive that debate forward. Alongside the UK, of course... · David Gow is the Guardian's industrial editor david.gow@guardian.co.uk [david.gow@guardian.co.uk] Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002 ***************************************************************** 3 The right to know Brattleboro Reformer Tuesday, November 19, 2002 - 12:33:23 AM MST The Senate is poised to act this week on a measure that could sharply curtail the public's right to know. Legislation creating the Department of Homeland Security already has passed the House, containing draconian language that erects formidable barriers to openness by making it easier for a government agency to deny requests under the Freedom of Information Act. Media and watchdog groups are up in arms with good reason. The White House likes the House version of the bill, which contains FOI exemptions that could, for example, allow a nuclear power plant and its federal regulatory agency to withhold information about a security danger. The bill also mposes sharp penalties against whistleblowers: A federal employee who releases secret information could face up to a year in prison. A spokesman for the ACLU called the House language "a disaster for the public's right to know." On Monday, the Senate was expected to consider an amendment that could strip the bill of language exempting advisory committees from public disclosure rules. Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy was instrumental last summer in working out a compromise on the FOI issue that codified existing law on exemptions for security matters. Both Vermont's senators must remain extra vigilant now, and convince their colleageus to do the same. If the Senate approves language similar to the House version, Congress will be handing the president carte blanche to expand what Sen. Robert Byrd called "the culture of secrecy that now permeates this administration." The Bush administration has shown an extraordinary willingness to compromise and erode American's hard-won civil liberties and our right to access information. While the Homeland Security Act shuts down the public's right to know, other federal agencies are being equipped with sweeping new tools with which to get more information from and about us. Consider just a few news reports of the past week alone: Salon.com reported that the new Transportation Security Administration maintains an air-travel blacklist of 1,000 people considered "threats to aviation" who are not allowed on airplanes under any circumstances. The lists are compiled with information supplied by the FBI, the CIA and the INS, but each agency has its own set of criteria. A separate secret list could include people such as nuns, priests, peace activists and civil libertarians who, although allowed to fly, are subject to strict scrutiny. And from the Washington Post: "A new Pentagon research office has started designing a global computer surveillance system to give U.S. counterterrorism officials access to personal information in government and commercial databases around the world." Even conservative columnist William Safire warned Americans last week that if the Homeland Security Act isn't amended before passage, "Every purchase you make with a credit card, every magazine subscription you buy and medical prescription you fill, every Web site you visit and e-mail you send or receive, every academic grade you receive, every bank deposit you make, every trip you book and every event you attend -- all these transactions and communications will go into what the Defense Department describes as 'a virtual, centralized grand database.' " Information is power. Making information Washington's exclusive province, shutting out the public, puts too much power in the wrong hands. ©1999-2002 by MediaNews Group, Inc. and NENI Newspapers ***************************************************************** 4 What is Nato for? Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Not to be a universal soldier, that's for sure Tuesday November 19, 2002 [http://www.guardian.co.uk] On the eve of Nato's summit in Prague, few people in Europe or the US would disagree that "the gravest danger in the world today is from nuclear, biological and chemical weapons" and that "the likeliest use of these weapons is in terrorist hands". But in an important speech in Washington last week, identifying this threat and proposing a "global partnership against catastrophic terrorism", Sam Nunn, influential former Democratic senator and proliferation expert, made no mention at all of Nato. This omission may be thought significant, in that the Nato meeting will focus primarily not on the long-anticipated decision to admit seven new east European members, but on a Bush administration plan to "transform" Nato, in the words of senior officials, into an alliance tasked with fighting WMD proliferation and terrorism. The main proposal is for a 21,000-strong, US-led Nato response force (NRF) that could strike at "rogue" or "failed" states and at terrorists anywhere in the world, the targets to be determined by the US government. As part of the plan, west European members will agree to buy or lease from the US the transport, refuelling and surveillance aircraft such a force would require, while less well-endowed states will supply specialist "niche capability". Despite surprisingly little public debate, Prague is expected to approve the plan. The main overarching argument in favour is that this rededication of Nato to George Bush's "war on terror" will give it a relevance it has lacked since the cold war's end. Here at last, it is argued, is the new, defined mission for which Nato's long-suffering chief, George Robertson, has striven. Here is a means to take the post-September 11 battle to the enemy. It might be thought that the US hardly needs the help. Nor does it. But it is not hard to see why the Bush administration is so keen on the idea. By enlisting in the "Pentagon's foreign legion", European Nato allies will march to Washington's latest political tune. By imposing streamlined US command, there will be no repeat of the Kosovo "war by committee". By defining required capability and burden-sharing, Europe will both pay more and increasingly be locked into acquiring US-made materiel and weapons systems. By coopting Nato "coalitions of the willing", accusations of US unilateralism will in theory be harder to sustain. But the disadvantages for Europe are serious. A green light in Prague will inevitably be seen as a political endorsement of Mr Bush's aggressive global security strategy, including Iraq-style pre-emptive war, escalating interventionism, harrying of "states of concern" and targeted assassinations (as recently in Yemen). Such free-range militarism may quickly come into conflict with the UN system, collective European interests and, perhaps, European security priorities such as Balkan peacekeeping. It is hard to see, for example, how the mooted EU rapid reaction force could viably coexist with the NRF. US officials patronisingly insist the two can work together since EU troops would handle "lower-end, humanitarian situations". Nor will the NRF plan magically give Nato the meaningful post-Soviet role and relevance it so sorely lacks. The basic, unresolved issue remains a reunited Europe's long-term need to provide for its own defence and security, in concert with the US perhaps, but not under its direction. Nato by its nature cannot be a part of this evolution. By reassigning it to relatively small-scale anti-terror functions, the US also sends a bleak, tacit message about its diminishing overall military utility. More to the point, it will not work. Curbing proliferation in an effective way will require vastly enhanced global cooperation (especially by the US) through treaties, raised international standards, impartial, ubiquitous inspections, a stronger IAEA, and higher funding, says Mr Nunn. Curbing terrorism requires "addressing disparities, conditions and conflicts that breed resentment, hate and humiliation". Having Nato play universal soldier does not begin to meet this challenge and may only intensify the threat. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002 ***************************************************************** 5 Blix bears brunt of hawks'frustration Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Right finds new target after losing argument to fight swift war on Iraq Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington Tuesday November 19, 2002 The Guardian [http://www.guardian.co.uk] The claims by Hans Blix, the chief weapons inspector, that he has been the target of a smear campaign by Pentagon hawks is the culmination of months of tension at the heart of the Bush administration about the UN inspection team. Earlier this year the deputy secretary for defence, Paul Wolfowitz, ordered a CIA report on why Mr Blix, as chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency during the 1980s and 1990s, failed to detect Iraqi nuclear activity. Mr Blix has much more sweeping powers now, but that fact has failed to banish the suspicions of a cluster of hardliners in the administration that includes Mr Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, the under-secretary for defence, and John Bolton, the deputy secretary of state. "There are a whole group of people in this administration who are against multilateral institutions, and also the people that staff them," said Joseph Cirincione, the director of the non-proliferation project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "Hans Blix to some of these people is the embodiment of everything that is wrong with the multilateral approach." The resurrection of UN arms inspections for Iraq is seen as a defeat for the hawkish sections of the administration - both for relatively straightforward nationalists such as the vice-president, Dick Cheney, and the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, as well as for the faction led by Mr Wolfowitz, who have been described by scholars as "democratic imperialists". Mr Wolfowitz, influenced by Richard Perle, chairman of the defence policy board, is believed to view US military action in Iraq as the first step in a larger project of realignment and democratisation of the Middle East. For months, the hardliners pressed home the case for a military strike against Iraq, ratcheting up their arguments to such an extent that intelligence officials complained of intense pressure to cook up information that would support a war. In August, Mr Cheney said Iraq would have nuclear weapons "fairly soon" - in direct contradiction of CIA reports that it would take at least five more years. Mr Rumsfeld, meanwhile, accused Saddam Hussein of providing sanctuary to al-Qaida operatives fleeing Afghanistan - although they had actually travelled to Iraqi Kurdistan, which is outside his control. Until the summer, the hardliners were firmly in the ascendancy. But all their efforts were undone by George Bush's decision to take America's case against Iraq to the UN. "There is no question that a battle was won on September 12 when President Bush went to the UN, and instead of condemning it, praised it and embraced it and promised that the US would work through its administration to disarm Iraq and to resort to military force only as a last resort. That is not the strategy some in the Pentagon had been agitating for for months," said Mr Cirincione. Powell's campaign Mr Bush's decision to work through the UN was a product of a dogged campaign by Mr Powell, detailed at great length in a series of reports in the Washington Post which paint a picture of a highly changeable administration prone to shifts in policy direction on an almost weekly basis. However, Mr Powell had been disturbed for some time at his dwindling influence in the administration - particularly on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - a weakness he sought to remedy by requesting a series of personal chats with Mr Bush. The conversations, which began in August, appeared to have paid off as Mr Powell swayed Mr Bush towards his arguments to work with the UN. Even so, it was not seen as a secure victory. The hardliners continued to believe they could woo the president back to their way of thinking, and the Washington Post reported blistering rows between Mr Cheney, described as "hell-bent for action" against Iraq, and Mr Powell on the wording of the speech. In the end, Mr Powell triumphed. The rhetoric of the speech was scaled down, and he threw himself into the behind the scenes diplomacy that resulted in a unanimous security council resolution on November 8 for sending weapons inspectors to Iraq. But, as Mr Blix noted yesterday, it is virtually certain that the hawks remain determined to return to the ascendancy. "This may be a very low moment for them, but I think they believe in the long run they will have their chance," said Ellen Laitson, president of the Henry Stimson Centre, a Washington-based thinktank. "I think they have done a lot to set up very high expectations, and a very high standard, and they are already preparing for the inspections not to work. If you look at the deployment in the region, and how the bureaucracy is gearing up, they are putting a lot in motion militarily even though there may be this temporary lull of the inspections." Some commentators have predicted the hawks will try to set a trigger date for December 8 - when Iraq is supposed to provide a declaration of its arsenal. Amid expectations of a patently false declaration, the hawks will try hard to get their early war despite Mr Blix. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002 ***************************************************************** 6 Taiwan President gets flak over reform policy U-turn - NOV 20, 2002 --> + U-turn Even fellow party members are infuriated by his decision to postpone risk control measures for local credit cooperatives By Lawrence Chung TAIPEI - Following his policy U-turn on financial reform, President Chen Shui-bian's credibility and administrative capability are once again being questioned, this time even by lawmakers from his own party. FLIP FLOPS: N-power plant A SIMILAR policy U-turn occurred in President Chen Shui-bian's first year of office. He gave the green light for the construction of a controversial fourth nuclear power plant after first deciding against it and then bowing to opposition pressure. That caused a deterioration in the relations between the government and the opposition. Analysts said Mr Chen had a habit of bowing to pressure. In a surprise announcement late on Sunday, the government back-pedalled on the freshly adopted rural financial reform that Mr Chen had earlier vowed to pursue even at the cost of his political power. 'The government has decided to postpone the implementation of the three-tier risk control mechanism over the credit units of local farmers and fishermen's associations,' said Cabinet spokesman Chuang Suo-hang. This would avoid controversy and waste of social resources, he said, referring to a plan by those associations to stage a protest in Taipei on Saturday. Mr Chuang said the President ordered the move after meeting five local county magistrates from southern Taiwan. The magistrates reportedly told Mr Chen about the backlash to his reform programme among farmers, who are concerned that the risk-control mechanism would eventually shut down all the troubled cooperatives, denying them access to easy loans. Created during the Japanese colonial period, the simple credit cooperatives of farmers or fishermen's associations provide easy and low-interest loans. Over the years, alleged corruption and bad debts have plagued these institutions, creating a serious financial problem within the island's monetary system, and prompting the Chen government to introduce the risk-control mechanism to take over the troubled units. Farmers and fishermen have long been the conservative supporters of the government. Former President Lee Teng-hui had warned that they would be infuriated by the takeover and might vote against Mr Chen in his re-election bid in 2004. But Mr Chen vowed to go ahead with the reform. So the policy U-turn on Sunday triggered an angry uproar from the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. A number of them criticised Mr Chen for betraying his pledge and succumbing to pressure. 'How can we tell our voters and supporters that the DPP government is a reform-minded ruling body?' asked lawmaker Yeh Yi-chin. Mr Tuan Yi-kang lashed out at Mr Chen, saying he should not have dragged all the DPP members into such a mess. Yesterday, Mr Chen defended his policy turnaround, saying that the suspension was a response to public demand. 'But we are only adjusting the reform pace, and not the reform move, and I don't think you can call this a policy U-turn,' he said. Noting that it was not the first time that Mr Chen had gone back on his words, analysts said it showed he still had the habit of bowing to pressure, which would only make him a weak leader. 'Mr Chen is measuring every move he makes with votes. Instead of working for the interest of Taiwan, he is working hard to secure his re-election chance. This is why his policies are swaying easily,' said political analyst Chang Ling-chen. ***************************************************************** 7 NRC Considers Amendment Request for Closed Oklahoma Plant; Offers Opportunity to Request a Hearing NRC: News Release - 2002-133 - U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC 20555-0001 E-mail: opa@nrc.gov [opa@nrc.gov] www.nrc.gov No. 02-133 November 18, 2002 Offers Opportunity to Request a Hearing The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is considering a request from Sequoyah Fuels Corp. to amend the license for its former uranium processing plant near Gore, Okla., and is offering an opportunity for affected persons to request a hearing. From 1970 to 1993, the Sequoyah Fuels facility was used to convert uranium oxide (yellowcake) to uranium hexafluoride, a step in the production of nuclear reactor fuel. From 1987 to 1993, the facility was also used to convert depleted uranium hexafluoride to depleted uranium tetrafluoride. During this operational period, Sequoyah Fuels disposed of radioactive material on site in accordance with NRC regulations in effect at the time. Since cessation of operations, the site owner has been interacting with the NRC regarding final cleanup options, and the NRC has held public meetings in Gore to discuss the situation. In response to a request from Sequoyah Fuels the NRC concluded on July 25 of this year that some of the waste at the Sequoyah Fuels site could properly be classified as 11e.(2) material under the Atomic Energy Act. On September 30, Sequoyah Fuels requested that its license be amended to permit possession of 11e.(2) material. Any person whose interest may be affected by the application for an amendment may file a request for a hearing. It should be filed by December 16 (30 days after publication of a Federal Register notice on this subject on November 14) with the Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, Attention: Docketing and Services Branch. Because of continuing disruptions in the delivery of mail to U.S. Government offices, requests for a hearing should also be transmitted to the Secretary either by fax to: 301/415-1101, or by email to: hearingdocket@nrc.gov . The Federal Register notice lists other organizations that must receive copies of the request and provides details on what must be included in any request for a hearing. Copies of the application for an amendment and related documentation are available from the NRC Public Document Room, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Md. 20555, telephone: 301/415-4737 or 1/800-397-4209, or on the NRC web site at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm.html. Help in using the web site reading room is available from the Public Document Room at the above phone numbers. Tuesday, November 19, 2002 ***************************************************************** 8 Nuclear-free homeland bill passes Legislature [http://www.etaiwannews.com/] 2002-11-20 / Taiwan News, Staff Writer / The Legislative Yuan yesterday passed the Environmental Basic Law, which requires the government to fulfill its goal of turning Taiwan into a homeland free of nuclear energy, and give priority to environmental protection in formulating policies for economic, social, and technological development. Described as Taiwan's constitution for environmental protection, the law also designates June 5 as "Environmental Protection Day." Under the law, city and county governments are obliged to work out effective measures to control emissions of carbon dioxide and to help alleviate "greenhouse gas effects." The law also specifies that environmental resources shall be shared by all people. According to the Enviromental Basic Law, the central government will assess fines on those who have caused pollution or damaged the environment, and use the money collected to improve or revitalize the environment. The central government is also required to set up an environmental evaluation system in order to prevent or reduce the impact of its development policies and projects on the environment. Meanwhile, it shall also invite officials, scholars, and representatives of civic bodies to organize a committee to study how to protect and perpetuate Taiwan as an island known for its natural beauty. Commenting on the law, Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Lai Chin-lin said the law fully represents Taiwan's views on all environmental issues, while Lai's Democratic Progressive Party colleague, Chao Yung-ching (»¯¥Ã²M), said he hopes the legislation will remind people of the importance of environmental protection to Taiwan's future development. Legislator Lai Ching-teh from the Democratic Progressive Party said he hopes that the government would abide by the law. He added he expected the government would take concrete measures to fulfill the common wish of the people to see Taiwan become a beautiful island free of nuclear energy. © 2001-2002 Taiwan News. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 9 N. Korea Radio Backs Off Nuke Report Las Vegas SUN: November 18, 2002 By PAUL SHIN ASSOCIATED PRESS SEOUL, South Korea- North Korea's state-run radio backed away Monday from a report that the communist state has nuclear weapons, South Korean officials said. State-run Pyongyang Radio reported Sunday that the North "has come to have nuclear and other strong military weapons due to nuclear threats by U.S. imperialists," said South Korea's Yonhap news agency, which monitors broadcasts from the North. But late Monday, another North Korean state-run radio station, Central, carried a slightly altered version of the report, reverting to the North's obscure stand on whether the country has nuclear weapons, Yonhap said. In its version, Central Radio said North Korea "is entitled to have nuclear and other strong military weapons due to nuclear threats by U.S. imperialists" - a phrase the country's leadership has used since acknowledging in October that it had a covert program to make nuclear weapons with enriched uranium. Some had interpreted Sunday's Korean-language report as the North's first confirmation that it had nuclear weapons, but South Korean officials questioned the claim. The only change between the two reports was the tense of the Korean verb meaning "become or come to," from the past to the future. Yonhap said the new report appears to reflect the "burden" North Korea's leadership may feel about widespread international reports that gave the impression that it has admitted having nuclear weapons. Yonhap and others played down the significance of Sunday's report, saying it could have been a mistake by the news anchor. "In North Korea, such a report should follow an official government statement or policy announcement or comments by a top official," said Choi Young-joon, a chief analyst at South Korea's Unification Ministry. Under a 1994 deal with the United States, North Korea agreed to freeze its plutonium facilities suspected of being used to develop nuclear weapons. Pyongyang has said it will resolve its nuclear issue if the United States offers a nonaggression pact. Washington has rejected any such talks unless the North scraps its nuclear ambitions "in a prompt and verifiable manner." All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 10 Commentary - Iraq: Still a big question* Opinion/Column* *By Patricio P. Diaz** * GENERAL SANTOS CITY ? If reports from the wire services ? Reuters, Associated Press (AP), and Agence France Presse (AFP) ? have to be believed, Iraq has fully accepted the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441, so all will be well concerning the Iraq question. But the western press, as seen in the wire news services, must have presumed Iraq?s full acceptance of SCR 1441, although Reuters reported that Iraq?s parliament ?may reject? the resolution. However, the same report said that President Saddam Hussein has the last say. This was reported last November 13 and there has been no follow-up. Reservation SCR 1441, passed unanimously by the 15-man UN Security Council last November 8, imposes new requirements for Iraq to comply regarding arms inspection by the United National in addition to the requirements of SCR 687. SCR 1441 mandates disarmament. In reply, Iraq, through its Foreign Minister Naji Sabri Ahmed, reaffirmed its full cooperation for the return of the UN arms inspectors under SCR 687 but expressed serious reservation on what it considers objectionable provisions of SCR 1441. ?I intend to forward another letter to you on a later date, in which I shall state our observation (on) the measures and procedures contained in SCR 1441 that are contrary to international law, U.N. Charter, the facts already established and the measures contained in previous relevant resolutions of the Security Council,? said Iraq?s foreign minister beforeconcluding his letter to UN Secretary general Kofi Annan. As gleaned from an AP report in the Philippine Daily Inquirer last November 16, the letter was received by the UN Secretary General last Wednesday, November 13 and considered as Iraq?s acceptance of SCR 1441, the full meaning of which must be viewed against full text of the letter and the ?later letter? expected not later than November 15. The reservation expressed in the letter of Iraqi Foreign Affairs Minister Naji Sabri, its anti-US invective and the skepticism of the US President and the UN Secretary General still cast a big question mark over the Iraq question. Deplored SCR 1441 mentions 11 resolutions from August 2, 1991 to November 29, 2001 which Iraq failed to comply with in the judgment of the Council. SCR 1441, the 12th, requires full compliance to all previous resolutions and imposes new requirements and sanctions. In particular, SCR 1441 deplores Iraq?s failure to fully comply with SCR 687 of April 3, 1991, as follows: (1) ?Iraq has not provided (the Council) an accurate, full, final and complete disclosure of all aspects of its programs to develop weapons of mass destructions and ballistic missiles with a range greater than 150 km. and of all holdings of such weapons, their components and production facilities and locations, as well as all the other nuclear programs, including any which it claims are for purposes not related to nuclear-weapon-usable materials.? SCR 441 requires Iraq to fully comply with the same requirement within 30 days from November 8, or not later than December 8, 2002, as well as with other conditions and requirements of SCR 687. (2) ?Iraq repeatedly obstructed immediate, unconditional and unrestricted access to sites designated by the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), failed to cooperate fully and unconditionally with UNSCOM and IAEA weapons inspectors ... and ultimately ceased all cooperation ... in 1998.? 3. SCR 1284 of December 17, 1999 embodied the ?Council?s repeated demands that Iraq provide immediate, unconditional and unrestricted access to the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) . the successor of UNSCOM, and the IAEA.? This was not complied with. 4. ?Iraq has failed to comply with its commitments pursuant to resolution 687 with regard to terrorism, pursuant to resolution 688 (1991) to end repression of civilian population and to provide access by international humanitarian organizations to all those in need of assistance in Iraq, and pursuant to resolution 686 (1991), 687, and 1284 to return or cooperate in accounting for Kuwait and third country nationals wrongly detained by Iraq, or to return Kuwaiti property wrongfully seized in Iraq.? This portion of SCR 1441 implies that the resolutions Iraq has been required to comply with covered obligations other than those concerning disarmament of weapons of mass destruction. Revised or New SCR 1441 has provided UNMOVIC and IAEA with ?revised or additional authorities, which shall be binding upon Iraq ?to facilitate their work in Iraq?: ?? UNMOVIC and IAEA shall determine the composition of their inspection teams and to ensure that these teams are composed of the most qualified and experienced experts available. ?? UNMOVIC and IAEA personnel shall enjoy the privileges and immunities provided in the Convention on Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations and the Agreement on the Privileges and Immunities of the IAEA. ?? UNMOVIC and the IAEA have unrestricted rights of entry into and out of Iraq, the right to free, unrestricted and immediate movement to and from inspection sites, and the right to inspect any sites and buildings, including immediate, unimpeded, unconditional, and unrestricted access to Presidential Sites equal to that at other sites, notwithstanding the provisions of resolution 1154 (1998). ?? UNMOVIC and IAEA shall have the right to be provided by Iraq the names of all personnel currently and formerly associated with Iraq?s chemical, biological, nuclear, and ballistic missile programs and the associated research, development and production facilities. ?? Security of UNMOVIC and IAEA facilities shall be ensured by sufficient U.N. security guards. ?? UNMOVIC and the IAEA shall have the right to declare, for purposes of freezing, a site to be inspected, exclusion zones, including surrounding areas and transit corridors, in which Iraq will suspend ground and aerial movements so that nothing is changed in or taken out of a site being inspected. ?? UNMOVIC and the IAEA shall have the free and unrestricted use and landing of fixed- and rotary-winged aircraft, including manned and unmanned reconnaissance vehicles. ?? UNMOVIC and the IAEA shall have the right at their sole discretion verifiably to remove, destroy, or render harmless all prohibited weapons, subsystems, components, records, materials, and other related items, and the right to impound or close any facilities or equipment for the production thereof.? ?? UNMOVIC and the IAEA shall have the right to free import and use of equipment or materials for inspection and to seize and export any equipment, materials, or documents taken during inspections, without search of UNMOVIC or IAEA personnel or official or personal baggage.? SCR 1441 also provides that ?UNMOVIC and the IAEA may at their discretion conduct interviews inside or outside of Iraq, may facilitate the travel of those interviewed and family members outside of Iraq, and that at the sole discretion of UNMOVIC and IAEA, such interviews may occur without the presence of observers from the Iraq government ... .? All the foregoing suggest the restrictions, interference, and harassment the UN arms inspectors had been subjected to by the Iraqi government until they were forced to leave in December 1998. SCR 1441 warns Iraq of ?serious consequences? for its ?continued violations of its obligations.? (Next: Iraq?s Letter) Copyright 2002. Mindanao Times Corporation. All Rights Reserved UMBN Building Ponciano Reyes St., Davao City, Philippines Tel. 227-3252, 221-5714, 225-0309 & 300-08-54 Email Us : timesmen@mozcom.com The Mindanao ***************************************************************** 11 Inspectors: We Have a Good Game Plan Las Vegas SUN: November 18, 2002 By CHARLES J. HANLEY ASSOCIATED PRESS AMMAN, Jordan- Big things - war and peace - hang in the balance as U.N. weapons teams take up the hunt again in Iraq. But it may be small things - the gauge of a metal tube, the soft beep of a detector, a telltale whiff of chlorine - that will tip the balance in the end. The inspectors, who began arriving in Baghdad on Monday, may face months of painstaking analysis to try to answer a core question: Has Iraq, in four years without international inspections, secretly continued to develop doomsday weapons? The Iraqi government says flatly it has not. To test the truth of that, the U.N. experts are equipped with satellite photos and defectors' accounts, inventories of Iraqi equipment purchases and the latest in high-tech detection gear. They have a confidential list of 700 to 800 potential inspection targets - sites possibly associated with nuclear, chemical or biological weapons. They know, from the previous U.N. inspectors' experience, they'll work long days that often will begin with surprise pre-dawn calls on remote sites and end with hours at the computer or the laboratory table. Before landing in Baghdad, the chief U.N. weapons inspector, Hans Blix, said the specialists - eventually numbering hundreds - would try to check out sketchy reports of Iraqi "mobile labs" for biological weapons, and of new underground storage sites. Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency that seeks out nuclear weapons, said he had leads to conduct a thorough search. "We have lots of information about where to go," he said. "We have a very good game plan." Teams from ElBaradei's agency were the most clearly successful in the inspectors' previous stay. They uncovered and demolished extensive facilities built in the 1980s to develop atomic bombs, including a prize find 20 miles south of Baghdad, a complex where gas centrifuges were tested - machines that "enrich" uranium as bomb material. New satellite photos show rebuilding at that site, Al Furat, since U.N. inspectors pulled out of Iraq in December 1998. In addition, the CIA says the Iraqis have tried to import aluminum tubes of a strength and dimensions that might be used in centrifuges. The inspectors undoubtedly will revisit Al Furat, although they question whether they'll find any sophisticated enrichment capacity after only a four-year absence. As for the metal tubes, some experts believe they were intended for non-nuclear uses. ElBaradei says his agency is waiting for more solid information from U.S. authorities. The U.N. teams hunting for longer-range missiles in the 1990s also were relatively successful, reporting they could account for destruction of all but two of Iraq's 819 missiles capable of reaching beyond 90 miles, a limit set by the U.N. Security Council after Iraq's defeat in the 1991 Gulf War. A recent U.S. intelligence report speculated the Iraqis may actually have a dozen or so of these old models, assembled from odd, unaccounted-for parts. The U.S. report also suggests they may have resumed developing new longer-range missiles, since reconnaissance photos show rebuilding at a plant - destroyed by U.N. teams - that was to produce solid propellant for such missiles, and a new engine test facility at another site. Such fresh construction is an invitation for an early visit by the inspectors. Satellite pictures may also lead U.N. chemical weapons experts to a former military production site at Fallujah, 30 miles west of Baghdad, where a chlorine and phenol plant has been rebuilt. Chlorine, which has many civilian uses, also was used in some of the deadliest gas compounds manufactured in the 1980s by Iraq. The U.N. teams reported that by 1998 they had destroyed tons of deadly chemical agents. Much of what they missed probably has deteriorated into harmlessness. But the inspectors will be interested in signs of VX - a lethal nerve agent. In the 1990s they couldn't account for about one-fifth of the hundreds of tons of VX precursors - the weapon's base chemicals - obtained by Iraq. Developing biological weapons from such deadly components as the anthrax microbe can be a relatively small, hard-to-detect enterprise. Thanks to an Iraqi general's defection, however, U.N. inspectors in the 1990s found and demolished Iraq's main facility for bioweapons research and production. They also disabled related equipment elsewhere, such as at the Al Dawrah animal vaccine plant outside Baghdad. Recent renovation at Al Dawrah, ostensibly to make vaccine for foot-and-mouth disease, might be tied to biological weapons, the U.S. intelligence dossier suggested. Such suspicions are enough to send inspectors back for a look. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 12 North Korea Retracts Nuclear Weapons 'Admission' Patrick Goodenough Pacific Rim Bureau Chief Pacific Rim Bureau (CNSNews.com) - North Korea has backed away from a statement that was thought to be a first-ever admission that it has nuclear weapons, but concerns about the communist state's capabilities and intentions endure. Official media Monday issued a statement appearing to retract or correct an earlier one, which had initially been translated as saying North Korea had "come to have" nuclear weapons." In the new statement, the Korean Central Broadcasting Station reverted to a stock phrase it has used in recent weeks - that Pyongyang was "entitled" to have nuclear weapons in the face of what it called U.S. aggression. The question of North Korea's weapons of mass destruction ambitions returned to the public spotlight last month when the State Department said North Korea admitted to visiting U.S. diplomats that it had a program to enrich uranium, a process used in the development of nuclear weapons. [http://ads.oneplace.com/accipiter/adclick/site=CROSSWALK/area=NE WS.INDEX/POSITION=CONTENT/AAMSZ=250x250/PAGEID=59448953/ACC_RANDO M=903134596347?] The clandestine program was a clear violation of a 1994 deal called the Agreed Framework, aimed at ending the North's nuclear threat. Sunday's statement caused a stir, although officials in Seoul and South Korea's official news agency did warn that the "admission" could either be an attempt to cause confusion or a misinterpretation by translators. Whatever the case, concerns about North Korea's activities remain real and pressing, experts said Monday. Washington and its international partners last week decided to withhold U.S. heavy fuel shipments to Pyongyang because of the crisis. The shipping of 500,000 tons of fuel oil every year was part of the Agreed Framework deal. It was negotiated in a bid to defuse a crisis precipitated by the North's threat to withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in 1993 and failure to cooperate with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors. In return for an undertaking to freeze its nuclear weapons program, Pyongyang was to get two civilian nuclear power reactors, whose byproducts cannot easily be used to develop weapons. The fuel shipments were to be an interim measure until the safe reactors were on line. 'One or two bombs' Two materials have been used in the core of fission (atomic) bombs of the type dropped on Japan in 1945 - plutonium and highly enriched uranium. By the early 1990s, North Korea was actively pursuing a plutonium-based program. At that time of the 1994 crisis, the CIA said it estimated that the North had possibly already produced enough reprocessed plutonium for one or two nuclear weapons. (Whether one or two is understood to depend on the design of the bomb, and the efficiency of the reprocessing technicians.) That assessment was repeated in an unclassified CIA report to Congress last January. Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Monday North Korea may have up to three nuclear warheads, and expressed grave concern about its flouting of the Agreed Framework. After the 1994 agreement, Pyongyang began work on the secret scheme that came to light last month - this one based on weapons-grade highly enriched uranium. With Pyongyang now having been caught out, experts are troubled both about the admitted uranium-enrichment program, and about whether the original plutonium-based program is indeed permanently shut down. Plutonium dangers Experts at the Monterey Institute Center for Nonproliferation Studies don't believe North Korea has yet actually developed weapons grade highly enriched uranium. According to the Center's Leonard S. Spector, the plutonium program is of more immediate concern because North Korea has in storage sufficient plutonium for four or five bombs - apart from any plutonium weapons it may have built before 1994. The plutonium is contained in spent nuclear fuel from a reactor next to a now-shut-down facility at a place called Yongbyon, used to separate plutonium for the first weapons. The only factors stopping the North from seizing the material and building more weapons, Spector said, was its 1994 pledges, and the presence at Yongbyon of IAEA inspectors. Daniel Pinkston, a senior research associate at the Center's Proliferation Research and Analysis Program, agreed Monday that the frozen plutonium program posed a greater danger, as he had seen no compelling evidence that North Korea had already produced enough weapon-grade highly enriched uranium for a bomb. "There are about 8,000 spent fuel rods sitting in a cooling pond in Yongbyon, and those fuel rods can be removed and quickly reprocessed into weapon-grade plutonium for about five bombs," he said. From North Korea's point of view, development of both types of fission bombs have advantages and disadvantages. Pinkston explained that a plutonium bomb would need to be tested before any plan to use it. "On the other hand, in the case of a uranium bomb, they could be confident without testing it." A downside to uranium bombs, though, is that they are more bulky and thus more difficult to deliver. According to Spector, uranium-based programs are much easier to hide, as they don't require large facilities needed by plutonium programs. Because of this, the North may reveal one laboratory as if coming clean, but then resume the work elsewhere, in secret, he pointed out. Pinkston said he believed the nuclear issue was an extremely serious one, and the U.S. should explore all diplomatic options to resolve the problem. He conceded that the question of the credibility of any commitments by Pyongyang would be a key issue to any agreement that may be reached. North Korea has said in recent weeks it will resolve the issue if the U.S. agrees to a non-aggression pact. Washington has demanded that the North scrap its programs immediately and verifiably before any dialogue resumes. Send a Letter to the Editor about this article. © Copyright 2002, Crosswalk.com. All rights reserved. Terms ***************************************************************** 13 Needless exposure to risk -- The Washington Times November 19, 2002 Ted Galen Carpenter      North Korea's dramatic announcement that it has pursued a covert nuclear weapons program in violation of the agreement it signed in 1994 underscores the gravity of the security burdens and risks the United States continues to bear in Northeast Asia. In a normal international system, the nations that would be most concerned about a possible North Korean nuclear weapons capability would be Pyongyang's immediate neighbors: South Korea, Japan, China and Russia. They also would logically take the lead in formulating policies to deal with the crisis.      But thanks to more than a half-century of U.S. smothering behavior, there is nothing normal about the situation in Northeast Asia. Japan and South Korea continue to rely heavily on the United States for their defense needs, and given the ingrained pattern of dependence, they look to Washington to resolve the looming problem posed by North Korea's nuclear ambitions. Even China and Russia expect the United States, as the principal military power in the region, to assume the lead role in that frustrating and probably unrewarding mission.      If it were not for the 37,000 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea and the nearly 50,000 stationed in Japan, the United States could afford to view the prospect of a nuclear North Korea with relative detachment. U.S. officials regard those troops as crucial military assets in the region. But if Pyongyang cannot be dissuaded from building a nuclear arsenal — and one dare not be optimistic on that score — those troops are no longer assets. They are nuclear hostages.      There is no need to expose American military personnel to such risks. During the early decades of the Cold War, there was a respectable rationale for keeping troops in the region and giving security guarantees to Japan and South Korea. Washington understandably wanted to keep both countries out of the orbit of a rapaciously expansionist Soviet Union or a hostile and volatile China. For many years, Japan and South Korea were also too weak to provide for their own defense.      Today's security environment bears no resemblance to that earlier era. The Soviet Union has been replaced by a weak, non-communist Russia. China's relations with the United States, while tense at times, are dramatically better than they were when America made its security commitments to Northeast Asia.      Even more important, Japan and South Korea are vastly more capable than they were when they became Washington's security dependents. South Korea now has twice the population of North Korea and an economy some 40 times as large. If Seoul spent even a respectable amount on defense, it could easily outpace its decrepit communist neighbor. But it chooses to spend a smaller percentage of its gross domestic product on the military than does the United States — even though North Korea is on its border, not America's.      Japan's timidity on security matters is even more indefensible. Despite the decade-long recession that has plagued its economy, Japan still has the second-largest economy in the world. It also has a population 6 times larger than North Korea's. It is pathetic to see a country with those characteristics — one of the world's great powers — rely on another country to resolve a security issue that so clearly impinges on Japan's vital interests.      Washington should begin to reduce its discretionary security risks in Northeast Asia. It is time — indeed, it is well past time — to tell Japan and South Korea they must provide for their own defense and take responsibility for dealing with security problems in their region. The continuing reliance of those two countries on the United States is not healthy for them — and it certainly is not healthy for America. Japan and South Korea, together with China and Russia, should bear the burden of dealing with a dangerous and unpredictable North Korea.            • Ted Galen Carpenter is vice president for defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute and is the author or editor of 14 books on international affairs including "Peace & Freedom: Foreign Policy for a Constitutional Republic" (Cato Institute, 2002). ***************************************************************** 14 NZ: Clark rules out lifting nuclear ban Financial Review - A S I A Nov 19 AP New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark yesterday ruled out scrapping the country's 17-year-old policy banning nuclear-powered ships from its ports and territorial waters. Ms Clark's comments scotched rumours that the ban could be lifted after United States officials told Deputy Prime Minister Michael Cullen that the policy barring nuclear-ship visits was hindering negotiations over a free trade pact. Mr Cullen said that during his visit to Washington in September, senior US officials suggested the anti-nuclear policy was a hindrance to a free trade agreement, although not an insurmountable obstacle. After imposing the nuclear ban in 1985, New Zealand was excluded from the Anzus military alliance linking it with the US and Australia. No US warships have called at New Zealand ports in the 17 years since the policy became law, because the US refuses to confirm or deny whether its navy vessels are carrying nuclear weapons. Ms Clark said opposition parties "may well be delaying the negotiating and settlement of a free trade agreement" with the US by raising the possibility of scrapping the anti-nuclear policy. She said her government already had made progress towards a free trade deal with the US. US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick said on Thursday that he would propose to the US Congress that a free trade agreement be negotiated with New Zealand, but he did not say when. ***************************************************************** 15 U.S. official wants review of nuclear test freeze - 11/19/2002 - ENN.com Tuesday, November 19, 2002 By Jonathan Wright, Reuters WASHINGTON — A senior U.S. military official has recommended the United States consider resuming nuclear tests, which were suspended in 1992, according to a memorandum made available Monday. In the Oct. 21 memo to members of the Nuclear Weapons Council, Defense Undersecretary Edward Aldridge said, "It would ... be desirable to assess the potential benefits that could be obtained from a return to nuclear testing with regard to weapon safety, security, and reliability." A leading arms control specialist, Daryl Kimball, said the memo was another sign the Bush administration is moving toward a resumption of nuclear weapons tests, a step that would probably generate an international outcry. When the tests ended, the United States said it was confident it could manage and maintain its stockpile of thousands of nuclear warheads through computer simulations and "sub-critical" tests that do not produce nuclear explosions. Aldridge, who is undersecretary of defense for acquisition, logistics, and technology, argued in the memo that the United States faces "major challenges" in maintaining the reliability of its nuclear arsenal and deterrent. "We will need to refurbish several aging weapon systems, but the limitations of the nuclear weapon complex will not permit us to perfectly replicate the original designs. We must also be prepared to respond to new nuclear weapon requirements in the future," Aldridge added. He did not specify any new requirements, but in a review of nuclear policy in 2001, the administration said it was assessing the need for weapons to penetrate bunkers and nuclear warheads that reduce collateral damage. OVERCONFIDENT Aldridge appeared to be preparing the groundwork for new tests by saying that nuclear experts may have been overconfident about their ability to assess weapon components. Aldridge made a series of recommendations for reviewing the system of stockpile management that began when the United States gave up testing. One suggestion was the nuclear weapons laboratories "readdress the value of a low-yield testing program." Kimball, who is executive director of the Arms Control Association in Washington, said, "I think this is yet another sign that some in the Pentagon are trying to move the White House toward a resumption of testing. He is saying two things: that the labs need to be prepared to respond to new nuclear weapons requirements in the future and that maintaining confidence in the existing arsenal will be very challenging." The Bush administration has asked Congress for money to improve the readiness of the nuclear test sites and to explore the idea of bunker-busting weapons. U.S. officials say the administration has not made any decision to resume nuclear tests. But the administration has abandoned its predecessor's commitment to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which would ban all nuclear tests in perpetuity. Copyright 2002, Reuters ***************************************************************** 16 North Korea revises confusing nuclear report - 11/19/2002 - ENN.com Tuesday, November 19, 2002 By Paul Eckert, Reuters SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea on Monday retracted a controversial weekend radio broadcast that confused and alarmed its neighbors by appearing to confirm for the first time the reclusive communist state has nuclear weapons. The rare North Korean amendment followed its threat to restart missile tests, highlighting another of the world's worries about the isolated country and its crumbling economy. On Sunday, the official Pyongyang Radio caused confusion with a statement that appeared to declare that Pyongyang had nuclear arms, a development that would sharply raise the stakes in allied efforts to pre-empt a Korean peninsula nuclear crisis. But on Monday, the Korean Central Broadcasting Station (KCBS) stated that North Korea believed it was "entitled" to have nuclear arms, a revision that was likely to ease some concern but nonetheless puts Pyongyang at odds with the United States and allies Japan and South Korea. The initial statement said the country "has come to have nuclear and other strong military weapons to deal with increased nuclear threats by the U.S. imperialists." Following statements by analysts in Seoul and Tokyo that the report was probably misinterpreted, KCBS issued a new version of the report which said, "To safeguard our sovereignty and right to exist we are entitled to have powerful military countermeasures, including nuclear weapons." OIL CRUNCH, FOOD SHORTFALLS The world's last Cold War flashpoint went from reconciliation to crisis prevention last month, when U.S. officials said North Korea had admitted pursuing a nuclear arms development program, violating a landmark 1994 agreement with Washington. Washington and its allies decided last week to stop vital fuel oil aid to penalize Pyongyang for breaking a slew of nonproliferation pledges. The cuts will hit North Korea just ahead of winter, which brings sub-freezing temperatures. Underscoring the depth of Pyongyang's humanitarian woes, the U.N. food aid chief visited Seoul on Monday and appealed for help to make up a shortfall which threatens 6.4 million North Koreans who have been fed by the United Nations in recent years. James Morris, executive director of the U.N. World Food Program, said the WFP needs 130,000 tons of grain to avoid steep cuts in feeding programs in North Korea for infants, schoolchildren, and pregnant and nursing mothers. North Korea has not yet responded to the decision to cut the fuel shipments, a move Pyongyang envoys have said would be viewed as a hostile act and could prompt the isolated state to end its already tenuous cooperation with the U.N. nuclear watchdog. MISSILE THREAT Since Oct. 25, Pyongyang has asserted that it was entitled to have nuclear weapons in the face of a U.S. government that has branded North Korea part of an "axis of evil" with Iran and Iraq and talked of preemptive military strikes against hostile states. But it had always been ambiguous about its arsenal, taking what one recent U.S. visitor called a "neither confirm nor deny" stance about the extent of its nuclear program. Mohamed ElBaradei, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said world governments would have to respond if North Korea did indeed admit to having nuclear arms despite being a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. "If they now come and make it clear that they have weapons, this is original sin," he said in televised remarks from Baghdad, where his agency is involved in U.N. arms inspections. "This runs contrary to the whole very purpose of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and if that's true, obviously the international community would have to react." South Korean analysts and officials said the North Korean broadcast may have confused listeners with a Northern accent that obscured the one-syllable difference between the Korean expression for "is entitled to have" and "has come to have." U.S. officials have said they do not know how far North Korea has got with its highly enriched uranium scheme. In 1994, at the height of an earlier North Korean nuclear crisis that was defused by the Agreed Framework, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) made public an estimate that North Korea had possibly already produced one or two nuclear weapons. Under the 1994 Agreed Framework, the North promised to freeze its nuclear weapons program in return for fuel oil, paid for by Washington, and two light water reactors that cannot easily be converted to produce atomic weapons material. On Monday, North Korea reiterated a threat to resume flight tests of ballistic missiles, saying it may end a three-year-old test moratorium if Tokyo goes ahead with developing a missile defence shield with the United States. In the third threat issued by the North this month to resume missile testing, the official Rodong Sinmun newspaper criticized comments by Japanese Defence Minister Shigeru Ishiba suggesting Tokyo step up missile shield research. Japan decided to conduct joint research with the United States on developing a missile defense program following North Korea's test firing of a missile which flew over Japan in 1998. Copyright 2002, Reuters ***************************************************************** 17 8 of 10 Koreans Favor Negotiated Settlement of NK Nuclear Standoff KoreaTimes : Nearly eight out of every 10 Koreans believe that dialogue should be the tool for resolving the current international standoff triggered by North Korea¡¯s self-confessed nuclear program. In a survey of 445 people conducted by the Advisory Council on Democratic and Peaceful Unification last month, 77 percent of those surveyed said that all problems related to North Korea should be settled through dialogue. Only 22 percent expressed support for Pyongyang¡¯s unilateral renunciation of its nuclear program as a precondition to the start of dialogue. Regarding the government¡¯s humanitarian assistance to the North, 66 percent said that they supported it, while 33 percent said it should be halted immediately. The poll was conducted through the Internet for two weeks ending on Oct. 30. Twenty-six percent said that the North¡¯s nuclear program was a grave concern. oh@koreatimes.co.kr ÀԷ½ð£ 2002/11/19 17:46 [webmaster@hankooki.com] ***************************************************************** 18 UK: SSE counts exposure after TXU collapse Scotsman.com /Brian Gorman/ PERTH-BASED utility Scottish & Southern Energy was last night assessing how much of a £175 million exposure it could recover after a court put struggling energy company TXU Europe into administration. TXU Europe and five of its subsidiaries are the latest corporate collapse in the UK?s troubled electricity industry. Prices have fallen 25 per cent since a more competitive trading market was launched last year. Administration protects a company in financial distress from creditors and gives it breathing space for reorganisation. "Some things have happened that make this the best way of preserving value for all creditors," said a TXU spokesman. Scottish & Southern Energy said earlier this month it stands to lose £175 million of post-tax profits in net present terms from contracts to sell electricity to TXU Europe, which would now be at risk. Chief executive Ian Marchant said he felt the company could recover about half of this. Yesterday, an SSE spokesman said: "We?ll play our part in the administration process. But we?re primarily a dividend company and, even in the worst case scenario of no recovery from TXU, this won?t affect our commitment to grow our dividend by 4 per cent in real terms." SSE shares closed unchanged at 655p. ScottishPower said its exposure to TXU was negligible. The court appointed two administrators - Ernst & Young and KPMG. Alan Bloom, head of corporate restructuring at Ernst & Young, said TXU Europe owes its banks £780 million and bondholders more than £2 billion. The crisis in energy prices has seen East Kilbride-based nuclear generator British Energy brought to the brink of collapse, and it has needed an injection of funding from the government to keep afloat. TXU Europe, once one of the largest power and gas traders in the UK, has been in talks with AES, the owners of the UK?s largest power station, Drax, to end its contract to buy electricity from the plant. Under the 15-year contract, TXU Europe buys 60 per cent of Drax?s output at prices above current spot market levels. Gas traders who deal with TXU said they also stood to lose money. ©2002 scotsman.com | contact ***************************************************************** 19 About 900 hired for restart work at Browns Ferry* November 19, 2002 The Associated Press About 900 new workers have been hired at Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant, where the Unit 1 reactor is being readied for service after more than 20 years in mothballs. Tennessee Valley Authority spokesman Gil Francis said the total workforce is expected to at least double when recovery work and construction hits its peak. The federal utility wants to restart the reactor in August 2007. The cost of refurbishing Unit 1 is estimated at $1.7 billion, Francis said. TVA shut down Unit 1, the agency's oldest reactor, in March 1985 because of concerns over whether it was safe. TVA directors decided earlier this year to restart the 29-year-old reactor. The Unit 1 and Unit 3 reactors were restarted in the 1990s. ***************************************************************** 20 Green group questions safety of VY's quick refueling effort Brattleboro Reformer Tuesday, November 19, 2002 - 12:35:32 AM MST By EESHA WILLIAMS Reformer Staff BRATTLEBORO -- An environmental group on Monday called Vermont Yankee's shortest-ever refueling last month risky, and cited a federal study to back the position. The plant's owner denied the charge. "The (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) study showed that shortening the outage does increase the risk," said David Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer with the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington. "The study showed that plant owners generally reduce the outage time by increasing workers' shifts. After two or three weeks of 12-hour shifts, people get tired and the human error rate goes up." The 2000 NRC study was called "Refueling Outage Risk -- An Operational Perspective." On Oct. 27, Vermont Yankee was restarted after a 22-day refueling shutdown -- the shortest in the plant's history, according to officials. Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee (ENVY) spokesman Rob Williams said there was no greater risk last month than in previous refueling outages. "The work isn't done faster, it's done smarter," Williams said Monday. NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan agreed, the study notwithstanding. "There is a greater emphasis on pre-planning and efficiency during the outages," he said. "It doesn't increase the risk." During the outage, which began Oct. 5, one-third of the plant's fuel was replaced and "virtually every system and component was inspected and tested after maintenance," Williams said after the plant re-opened. The refueling and other maintenance work done during the shutdown involved 900 contract workers, in addition to the plant's 460 full-time employees, Williams said. Many nuclear plants have recently begun shortening their refueling outages, according to an article in the Oct. 10 edition of an industry newsletter, Platts Nucleonics Week. The average outage time at a nuclear plant so far this year was 32 days, down from 41 days last year, the article said. That average did not include the Davis-Besse plant in Ohio, which has not reopened since March when a hole was found in the 150-ton steel lid over the plant's high pressure reactor. Repairing the hole is expected to cost $400 million, according to Reuters. For economic reasons, plant owners began competing for the fastest refueling times in the early 1990s, the Nucleonics article said. ©1999-2002 by MediaNews Group, Inc. and NENI Newspapers ***************************************************************** 21 VY to ask for uprate, dry cask storage Brattleboro Reformer Tuesday, November 19, 2002 - 12:31:15 AM MST By EESHA WILLIAMS Reformer Staff BRATTLEBORO -- With the years-long battle over the sale of the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant to Entergy Corp. behind them, anti-nuclear activists at a public forum in Brattleboro last week said they were gearing up for a fight to close Vermont Yankee when its operating license expires in 2012. The federal agency that issued Yankee's 40-year license in 1972, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, has set a 2007 deadline for Entergy to apply for a new license of up to 20 years. "But many plant owners choose not to wait for the deadline to apply for relicensing," said NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan. Entergy has not decided when it will apply, said spokesman Rob Williams, but the company will go before the NRC in 2003 for another application. "We will be applying for a 20 percent power uprate next year," he said. At least one anti-nuclear group will not oppose Entergy's request to squeeze more electricity out of the 30-year-old plant. "Yes, it increases the risk, and yes, it will produce 10 to 15 percent more nuclear waste, but it's like applying to use lead paint on a hand grenade," said David Lochbaum of the Union of Concerned Scientists. "We've got more urgent safety concerns to focus on. "Foremost among those is Yankee's overcrowded spent fuel pool, Lochbaum said. Jay Thayer, the Entergy vice president in charge of Vermont Yankee, said Nov. 8 his company next year would begin moving some of Yankee's nuclear waste out of its crowded water-filled pool and into NRC-approved metal "dry casks." That move does not require NRC approval, and the Union of Concerned Scientists agrees it will increase safety, Lochbaum said. "We would prefer it if they would space the casks 50 feet apart, instead of the 10-foot spacing most plants have used, and we'd like them to use earth berms to protect them from terrorist attack, instead of leaving them sitting out in the open, but this is still a step in the right direction," Lochbaum said. The first dry cask was used for waste storage at a U.S. nuclear reactor in 1986; now there are approximately 200 casks in use, Lochbaum said. It would take about 50 casks -- each of which weighs 100 tons when loaded and is about 20 feet high and 10 feet in diameter -- to hold the waste from Vermont Yankee's 30 years of operation, all of which is now in the plant's seven-story-high pool, he said. Sheehan said the NRC will hold public meetings in Brattleboro when Entergy applies to extend Yankee's operating license, but not when it applies to crank up its production of electricity. "But anyone who has concerns can petition us for a hearing by going to [http://www.nrc.gov] and following the directions for a 2.206 petition," Sheehan said. Lochbaum said the NRC grants a hearing to about one out of every four people who petition for one. The agency has never granted a petition for a public hearing in any of the 10 plants whose licenses it has renewed, Sheehan said, and the agency has never rejected a relicensing application. According to Lochbaum, groups have petitioned three time for a hearing in a relicensing case. "(A petition) is almost always done with a lawyer," he said. "Otherwise you can get lost in the legalese." State Nuclear Engineer William Sherman said Entergy has agreed to seek the permission of the Vermont Public Service Board (PSB) as well as the NRC to operate beyond 2012. "Just because all license renewal applications have gone through doesn't mean this one will here," he said. PSB Chairman Michael Dworkin told the Reformer in August that, in its decision on whether to allow the sale of Yankee, his board was legally prohibited from considering the multi-billion-dollar cost to taxpayers of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump in Nevada, where Entergy has said it hopes to send Yankee's waste by 2010. But Sherman said on Monday it was possible the PSB would take that cost into account when it considers Yankee's license renewal application. Williams said Entergy will seek the board's approval by the end of February of its plan to increase its power output. The board would only have a say in that request if the change would require physical changes to the plant, Dworkin said in August. Such changes are likely, Sheehan said Monday. The NRC will send a team to inspect Yankee for safety and environmental impact before approving a "power uprate" or a license extension, Sheehan said. "Twenty percent is the maximum power increase plant owners can apply for," he added. "Apparently, that's what Vermont Yankee is going for." Twenty years is the longest a license can be renewed for, he said. ©1999-2002 by MediaNews Group, Inc. and NENI Newspapers ***************************************************************** 22 Thailand: Reactor would help studies Bangkok Post Wednesday 20 November 2002 - Thai knowledge `still at elementary level' Ranjana Wangvipula Thailand's nuclear development is at an elementary level and could be boosted by the proposed 10-megawatt nuclear research reactor at Ongkharak district in Nakhon Nayok, a nuclear scientist said yesterday. With a single two-megawatt reactor now in use and little research under way, the country's nuclear development was still elementary, said Vitit Keshagupta, a board member of the Nuclear Society of Thailand. Nuclear technology had many potential uses and further development was in prospect. ``We need to think about passing on knowledge of nuclear technology to our children,'' he said. Reactor-based development could be explored in fields such as radioactive fuel and metallurgy, Mr Vitit said. Thai children could also learn ways to protect themselves and others against radioactivity. Mr Vitit was speaking after a seminar on his experiences with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), part of a week-long exhibition marking the 40th anniversary of the Office of Atomic Energy for Peace. Mr Vitit worked with the IAEA for more than 19 years, inspecting uranium and plutonium fuel in nuclear plants. He first learned of plans to build the Ongkharak nuclear research reactor when he worked in the IAEA head office in Vienna. However, the project has seen little progress so far. The government took five years for a review of the reactor's safety analysis report, prepared by the San Diego-based company General Atomic, which won a 3.3-billion-baht contract in 1997 to build the country's largest nuclear research reactor. The atomic energy office has been running a two-megawatt reactor on Vibhavadi Rangsit road for nearly 30 years and expects to use it for at least five more years. Front page [http://www.bangkokpost.com] ***************************************************************** 23 South Carolina regulators approve Duke settlement AP Wire | 11/19/2002 | [thestate.com - The thestate home page] PAMELA HAMILTON Associated Press COLUMBIA, S.C. - South Carolina utility regulators have agreed to a $25 million settlement with Duke Power Co. after an independent audit found the utility underreported profits to keep from cutting electricity rates. The Public Service Commission approved the settlement Tuesday in a 6-1 vote. Duke Power will pay $6.25 million to South Carolina's 500,000 customers. "What we agreed to do was to give each customer a Happy Meal," said Commissioner James Atkins, who voted against approval. "That doesn't go that far." North Carolina utility regulators unanimously approved the settlement with the Charlotte, N.C.-based company last month, despite criticism from customers who said the settlement was not enough. Besides the settlement money, Duke has agreed to shift $50 million back to a nuclear insurance reserve fund. More than $80 million of Duke's underreporting involved money in the fund. South Carolina's commission last month postponed a vote on the settlement, and some commissioners said then they would reopen negotiations with the company. Commissioner Nick Theodore, who earlier this month said he'd like to modify the proposal, said Tuesday consumers may have been left with nothing if the settlement had not been approved. "It's either this or no settlement at all," he said. "Half a loaf is better than no loaf at all." An independent auditor determined that a change in Duke's accounting method resulted in not reporting $124 million in profits between 1998 and 2001. Duke admits it failed to adequately explain significant changes to its accounting practices, but denies intentional wrongdoing. Duke says that an accounting firm it hired disagreed with the findings from Boston accounting firm Grant Thornton LLP. About TheState.com | ***************************************************************** 24 FirstEnergy looks to increase nuclear safety, efficiency - 2002-11-19 - Pittsburgh Business Times FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Co., owner of the Beaver Valley nuclear power plant, said it reorganized its services and engineering groups to increase safety, reliability and efficiency. The reorganization, which the company described Tuesday, follows a discovery last summer that a reactor head had degraded at the company's Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station near Oak Harbor, Ohio. The restructuring centralizes functions previously under the purview of individual plants, improves the establishment of common processes and procedures and allows for better sharing of resources, according to Robert Saunders, president of FirstEnergy Nuclear, which is based in Akron, Ohio. The company's nuclear plants include Beaver Valley, in Shippingport, Davis-Besse and another in Perry, Ohio. FirstEnergy Nuclear is a subsidiary of FirstEnergy Corp., also of Akron. © 2002 American City Business Journals Inc. ***************************************************************** 25 DPRK Clarifies Statement on A-Bomb Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, November 19, 2002 DPRK Monday clarified a statement made in a weekend radio broadcast that appeared to claim publicly, for the first time, that the country possesses nuclear weapons. DPRK Monday clarified a statement made in a weekend radio broadcast that appeared to claim publicly, for the first time, that the country possesses nuclear weapons. The unusual move followed a flurry of statements of concern in this region over the radio commentary, which was interpreted by some as saying the country "has come to have nuclear and other strong military weapons to deal with increased nuclear threats by the U.S. imperialists." But in a commentary broadcast on Monday by the official Korean Central Broadcasting Station, instead of saying it had come to have such weapons, the government said more clearly that it was "entitled" to have nuclear arms because of what it said were continuing threats from the United States. "To safeguard our sovereignty and right to exist, we are entitled to have powerful military countermeasures, including nuclear weapons," the passage read in its entirety. The difference in the language between the Sunday and Monday messages hung on as little as a single syllable in the Korean language, a nuance attributable by some to regional differences in pronunciation, which led to drastically different interpretations of the initial commentary. The first reports by foreign news organizations of Sunday's commentary came from the South Korean news agency Yonhap, which suggested that DPRK had made an affirmative statement that it possessed nuclear weapons. Japanese and British broadcasting monitoring services, though, interpreted the Sunday commentary along much the same lines as Monday's clarification. With the differing interpretations of the broadcasts, experts emphasized that it was impossible to understand with any certainty the DPRK government's intentions. A possible interpretation that was widely discussed in the region is that North Korea was engaging in a bit of deliberate ambiguity to warn its neighbors Japan and South Korea as well as the United States while maintaining a scrap of deniability. Source: Agencies Copyright by People's Daily Online, all rights reserved ***************************************************************** 26 EU, Bulgaria reach deal on nuclear reactor closure 18 Nov 2002 20:55 BRUSSELS, Nov 18 (Reuters) - Bulgaria agreed on Monday to close two reactors at its Soviet-designed nuclear plant Kozloduy, removing a key obstacle to the Balkan country's efforts to join the European Union in 2007. Bulgaria, which along with Romania has been left out of the EU's first wave of eastern enlargement in 2004, committed itself to closing the plant's number three and four reactors by 2006 but secured a last-chance "peer review" inspection from the EU to determine if they really are unsafe. "We have ended this hard fight and secured the best possible terms," Bulgarian Foreign Minister Solomon Passy told a news conference after a round of accession talks in Brussels. The closure of Kozloduy is very sensitive in Bulgaria as the plant produces about 40 percent of the country's electricity. Sofia will close Kozloduy's first two units this year. The more modern reactors five and six will be allowed to stay open. By agreeing to shut the third and fourth reactors, Bulgaria was able to conclude talks on energy, one of 30 policy areas, or negotiating chapters, which need to be agreed with the EU before any country can join. The deal, which increased the number of chapters completed for Bulgaria to 23, augurs well for the country's plans to conclude accession talks next year and to join by January 1, 2007, at the latest, Passy said. EU aid for closing the reactors still needs to be negotiated, he added. Passy spoke after EU foreign ministers debated plans of the European Commission, the bloc's executive arm, to boost aid for Bulgaria and Romania to support their membership drive. EU leaders are to make a final decision on the aid package at a Copenhagen summit in mid-December. The Commission proposes that the two Balkan countries should see their shared pre-accession aid rise by 20 percent to 1.23 billion euros in 2004 over 2003. The assistance -- to modernise transport infrastructure, clean up the environment, overhaul the farm sector and implement free market reforms -- would grow to 1.33 billion euros in 2005 and 1.43 billion euros in 2006. ***************************************************************** 27 Floating N-plants for Russia NEWS.com.au | (November 19, 2002) By Viktoria Loginova in Moscow, Russia November 19, 2002 RUSSIA is to launch the construction of the world's first floating nuclear power plants, a unique project which should supply much-needed energy to its remotest regions but has aroused concern among environment protection groups. The plan, unveiled by Russian scientists earlier this year, should see work begin in 2003 at the Sevmash plant at Severodvinsk in northwestern Russia which normally turns out nuclear submarine engines, said Yevgeny Kuzin, the head of the Malaya Energetika company developing the project. While the first floating plant will not be ready for at least five years, three Arctic and Far Eastern regions, Arkhangelsk, Chukotka and Kamchatka, have already declared an interest and signed letters of intent with Malaya Energetika, Kuzin added. With winter temperatures as low as minus 40 degrees Celsius, these regions are desperate for energy to supply their residents with power and heating. They lack the financial resources to purchase sufficient amounts of fuel or coal, and building full-scale nuclear power plants in such remote areas is not a realistic option. The idea instead is to tow floating nuclear "micro-power plants" off their coasts where they will operate, providing power and heating via cables linking them to the mainland for a planned duration of 40 years. Each floating plant, which will be similar to the nuclear-powered ice-breakers Russia has been operating in the polar north for several years already, will be manned by 60 technicians and will use a 70 megawatt KLT-40C reactor of the kind used in the ice-breakers. The first floating plant should start operating off the port of Severodvinsk, near Arkhangelsk, providing the region with energy. While each plant will cost $US150 million ($267.33 million), Kuzin said this option was much more economical than building a full-scale nuclear plant and added that construction would also take less time. "It is much faster and costs four times less than building a nuclear power plant generating the same amount of energy on land," he said. Not everybody has been won over by the idea, however. Environmentalist groups such as Greenpeace and the Norwegian organisation Bellona have said the floating plants represent a danger for the environment and have questioned the project's economic viability, as have several Russian nuclear experts. Greenpeace and Bellona also believe the plants could represent a potential target for terrorist groups. The Russian atomic energy ministry gave the go-ahead for the floating plants earlier this month and Kuzin said the natural resources ministry had assessed the project and found it ecologically sound. Rosenergoatom, the public institution which manages all Russian nuclear powerplants, is to decide early next year on whether to finance the development of the floating plants. In addition to supplying Russia's polar north with comparatively cheap energy, floating plants could be put to a quite different use in warmer latitudes, Kuzin said. The same nuclear energy used to provide power could also help desalinate sea-water if a project currently being developed by Malaya Energetika and Canadian company Candesal reaches fruition. This would involve attaching a special desalination platform to the floating plants. The desalination plants could be exported to "countries with a large coastline, like Indonesia, India or China," Kuzin said. The nuclear fuel used for the desalination process would be modified to include a smaller proportion of enriched uranium so that Russia would not be in breach of agreements on nuclear non-proliferation. Agence France-Presse ***************************************************************** 28 NRC license amendment: Crystal River 2 FR Doc 02-29327 [Federal Register: November 19, 2002 (Volume 67, Number 223)] [Notices] [Page 69769] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr19no02-121] [[Page 69769]] NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION [Docket No. 50-302] Florida Power Corporation; Notice of Withdrawal of Application for Amendment to Facility Operating License The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (the Commission) has granted the request of Florida Power Corporation (the licensee) to withdraw its August 14, 2002, application for proposed amendment to Facility Operating License No. DPR-72 for Crystal River, Unit No. 2, located in Citrus County, Florida. The proposed amendment would have revised the Technical Specifications pertaining to two inoperable control complex chillers. The Commission had previously issued a Notice of Consideration of Issuance of Amendment published in the Federal Register on September 6, 2002 (67 FR 57042). However, by letter dated October 24, 2002, the licensee withdrew the proposed change. For further details with respect to this action, see the application for amendment dated August 14, 2002, and the licensee's letter dated October 24, 2002, which withdrew the application for license amendment. Documents may be examined, and/or copied for a fee, at the NRC's Public Document Room (PDR), located at One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville, Maryland. Publicly available records will be accessible electronically from the Agencywide Documents Access and Management Systems (ADAMS) Public Electronic Reading Room on the internet at the NRC Web site, [http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams/html] . Persons who do not have access to ADAMS or who encounter problems in accessing the documents located in ADAMS, should contact the NRC PDR Reference staff by telephone at 1- 800-397-4209, or 301-415-4737 or by e-mail to [pdr@nrc.gov] . Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 12th day of November 2002. For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Ram Subbaratnam, Project Manager, Section 2, Project Directorate II, Division of Licensing Project Management, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. [FR Doc. 02-29327 Filed 11-18-02; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P ***************************************************************** 29 Agency Overseeing Nuclear Security Orders a Hiring Freeze The New York Times November 19, 2002* *By PHILIP SHENON* WASHINGTON, Nov. 18 ? The federal agency that oversees security for the nation's nuclear stockpile and its weapons laboratories has imposed a hiring freeze, in part because of budgetary constraints, less than a week after the F.B.I. issued a dire terrorist alert that warned that nuclear facilities were at special risk of attack by Al Qaeda. In a memorandum to his deputies last Friday, the acting administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, Linton F. Brooks, ordered "an immediate freeze on most categories of personnel actions, as well as a freeze on interim organization changes." Mr. Brooks said that he had ordered the freeze with "the greatest of reluctance" and that "I am taking this action for two primary reasons: budget and re-engineering." A copy of the memorandum was made available by Congressional officials on condition that they not be identified. Officials at the agency, which is part of the Energy Department and which oversees several weapons laboratories and nuclear storage sites around the country, insisted today that the hiring freeze was aimed at managers and administrative staff and that it would have no effect on security. Its facilities include the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. The officials said that overall security at the agency's nuclear sites had been greatly expanded since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and that the security staff would not be cut, despite the hiring freeze, since exemptions were allowed. "Security is first and foremost, and we would not do anything that would compromise it in any way," said Anson Franklin, the agency's chief spokesman, noting that the Office of Transportation Safeguards, which is responsible for the safe transport of nuclear weapons and other nuclear material, was specifically exempted from the freeze. Last Wednesday, the Federal Bureau of Investigation issued a vague but alarming terrorism alert to state and local law enforcement agencies, suggesting that the Qaeda terror network might be planning "spectacular attacks" on American soil and that "the highest-priority targets remain within the aviation, petroleum and nuclear sectors." The decision only two days later to announce a hiring freeze at the nuclear security agency prompted Democratic Congressional aides to step up their criticism of the Bush administration and what they call its failure to provide adequate resources for counterterrorism. They said that any reduction in staffing, whether among administrators or security guards, could damage an agency that has direct responsibility for nuclear safety. "In front of the cameras, George Bush pretends he's a big shot on homeland security, but behind the scenes, he has repeatedly denied funding for critical security," said David Sirota, the spokesman for Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee. The White House has asked for more money for the security administration for the new fiscal year ? an increase of about $400 million, raising its budget to $8 billion. But the agency's budget has been caught up in the larger, partisan fight on Capitol Hill over spending bills for the federal government. According to figures provided by Congressional officials, the Republican-controlled House approved an appropriation of $7.9 billion for the nuclear agency, about $100 million below the administration's request, while the Democratic-controlled Senate appropriated about $8.3 billion, about $250 million more than the administration sought. The agency's final appropriation must still be worked out in a House-Senate conference committee. While the White House has blamed recalcitrant Senate Democrats for the larger appropriations stalemate, Democrats have charged that the administration is manipulating the process to block spending increases, even for vital national security projects. In his memorandum, Mr. Brooks said he was imposing the hiring freeze in part because "the outcome is uncertain" in the appropriations process and "we must do all we can now to ensure that we don't overspend the financial resources that will eventually be available to us." He said he also wanted to freeze hiring because the agency was on the verge of an "organizational transformation" that, aides said, was expected to cut overall staffing by nearly 20 percent over five years. "I am compelled to freeze personnel actions and organizational changes as much for re-engineering reasons as for budgetary reasons," Mr. Brooks wrote. "I do not want to compound the difficulty of successfully standing up N.N.S.A.'s new operating model by hiring new employees and promoting others into new assignments." He said he would permit exceptions to the hiring freeze, but added, "I will personally review each request for an exemption to this freeze, and I expect to approve very few." ***************************************************************** 30 Senate passes Homeland Security bill* United Press International By Sharon Otterman From the Washington Politics & Policy Desk Published 11/19/2002 8:53 PM WASHINGTON, Nov. 19 (UPI) -- Thirteen months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks made Americans keenly aware of their nation's vulnerabilities, the Senate voted overwhelmingly to create a Cabinet-level Homeland Security Department late Tuesday, kicking into motion the largest government reorganization in more than 50 years. Though debate over the bill was marked by heated differences between Democrats and Republicans -- particularly on the issue of collective bargaining rights for the 170,000 employees who will work in the department -- the final vote to create the Cabinet-level department drew strong bipartisan support. The vote was 90-9, with Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., leading the tide of Democrats voting yes. Both legislators had led a failed, last-ditch effort Tuesday to remove a series of provisions in the bill that they said catered to special corporate interests. "It took a little longer that we hoped, but here we are, together in support of this bill," Lieberman said after his effort to modify the legislation failed. "It accomplishes in the end most of the priorities of what the American people wanted us to do. This is a substantive accomplishment. In the new age of insecurity, this should give the American people some of the security they are asking for." Daschle, who will be the minority leader in the Republican-led Senate next year, was tougher in his remarks. "I will vote for this bill because there is no doubt that we need to create a Department of Homeland Security. But we must be honest with the American people. Passing this bill does not solve the problem of terrorism on American soil." "Creating a new Department of Homeland Security is only one part of the solution. A much greater and far more comprehensive effort is still needed to prevent future terrorist attacks," Daschle said. The bill will now move to the White House, where President George W. Bush is expected to sign the legislation shortly after his return from a European trip Saturday, White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said. The president will quickly appoint the new Secretary of Homeland Security and present a reorganization plan detailing how 22 federal agencies-- including the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Coast Guard, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and the Customs Service -- will be melded into a single, smoothly functioning department, Johndroe said. "I want to thank you all for working hard," Bush said Tuesday in an afternoon conference call from Air Force I with Republican Senate leaders. "We're making great progress in the war on terror, and part of that progress will be the ability for us to protect the American people at home." Bush lobbied hard for the new department in recent months, and the final text of the 484-page bill -- which passed the Republican-led House last Wednesday by a vote of 299-121 -- largely reflects the White House vision for the new agency. It gives the secretary of the new Cabinet-level department significant flexibility in personnel matters, permitting him to create policies for hiring, firing, and promotion within the workforce. In a blow to organized labor, it also allows the president to ban unions in the department if he determines that they adversely impact on homeland security. "This bill is characterized...by the end of collective bargaining rights for workers and the end of the right of workers to defend themselves against politically motivated hiring or firing," said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney in a statement. The legislation creates a department organized into four main areas of responsibility, each of which will be headed by a powerful undersecretary. The information and infrastructure protection division will provide a clearinghouse for intelligence information related to terrorist and other threats on American soil, according to a White House description of the new agency. The border and transportation security will monitor U.S. borders and immigration and improve the security of train, air, and other internal transportation. The emergency preparedness and response division will plan ways to react to and minimize the damage from attacks that may occur. The chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear countermeasure division will ensure the security nuclear and other high-risk facilities and plan specific responses to terrorism involving weapons of mass destruction. The new department includes only a fraction of the 100-plus federal agencies involved in some way with homeland security, and does not give the new secretary the ability to give orders to the FBI or CIA. The legislation creating the department does not provide a mechanism for funding, and critics say that it does not sufficiently emphasize the role of "first-responders" -- the local fire, police, and emergency workers around the country. "There are many details left out...We really haven't dealt with the appropriations process, to make sure that first responders have the resources to do their job. We're moving the bill down the field, but it is unfortunate that we have done this in my view in a half hearted way," said Sen. John Corizine, D-N.J. Drawing fire Tuesday were seven provisions in the bill that Democrats charged were placed at the last minute in the bill by House Republicans cater to special interests. An amendement by Sens. Daschle and Lieberman to remove the provisions failed in the Senate Tuesday morning by a vote of 47-52, with Sens. Mary Landrieu, D-La., Zell Miller, D-Ga., and Bill Nelson, D-Neb. voting with Republicans. As written, the bill extends liability protections to the makers of vaccine additives and retroactively limits the ability of people to sue companies that make them. It allows the new department to contract with American companies that have moved off-shore to avoid paying taxes. And it contains language that Democrats say earmarks a new research center for Texas A & M University. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., was the sole Republican to vote to remove the provisions. "I'm too old to vote for this crap," he told reporters after the amendment failed. "It's special deals for special interests. It sets a very dangerous precedent for next year when the appropriations bills come flooding in." The bill gives the president one year to create the new department. But even proponents of the bill said that creating a functioning department would likely take years. "This is just the first step in a long journey," said Sen. Fred Thompson, R-Miss. who along with Sen. Phil Graham, R-Tx. sponsored the bill. Both men are retiring, and they said they took special pleasure in the bill's final victory. "This was not a consensus easy to come by," said Graham. "There were strong feelings about this bill and how it should be done. In the end, it took an election to push it through. Elections have consequences. The American people spoke, and in the end, they wanted this to be done." Voting against the bill were Sens. Robert Byrd, D-W.V.; Russell Feingold, D-Wis.; Sen. Ernest Hollings, D-S.C.; Carl Levin, D-Mich; Paul Sarbanes, D-Md.; Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.; and James Jeffords, I-Vt. Copyright © 2002 United Press International ***************************************************************** 31 Experts to examine 'uranium' in Tanzania News24 South Africa 19/11/2002 10:33 - (SA) Dar es Salaam - The International Atomic Energy Agency is sending a team of experts to Tanzania to examine material police suspect to be uranium, an IAEA spokesperson said on Monday. The three-member team, which includes safety and trafficking experts, is expected to arrive in the East African nation either Wednesday or Thursday, said Melissa Fleming. The Vienna-based agency is sending the experts at the request of the government days after police arrested five people for allegedly trying to sell the suspected uranium. The suspects - four Tanzanians and a Congolese - were found with four canisters of the material weighing a total of 110kg, police said. Fleming said the heavily shield canisters were labeled "U238" and it is assumed they contain a radioactive source, but not weapons-grade uranium. "The government is convinced it's uranium. I don't think we would go there unless there was a very good reason," Fleming said. "In any case, we are always concerned that these things are trying to be bought and sold." She said there have a number of cases in other places, most recently Turkey, where a container was labeled with something potentially dangerous, but its contents turned out to be "something completely innocuous". Police have said they do not believe the suspects arrested last week are linked to terrorism. In September, British Prime Minister Tony Blair released a dossier of evidence against Iraq which alleged that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's regime tried to acquire "significant quantities" of uranium from Africa. Uranium in Africa is found in Niger, South Africa, the Central Africa Republic and war-ravaged Congo. The material is being kept at the government-run National Radiation Commission in the northern town of Arusha. - Sapa-AP About News24 - all rights reserved ***************************************************************** 32 Schumer seeks to bolster security on Great Lakes Democrat &Chronicle: [Rochester, NY] [Rochester, NY] By Corydon Ireland Democrat and Chronicle JAMIE GERMANO Coast Guard Chief William Mosgrober, center, and Lt. John Priebe give U.S. Sen. Charles E. Schumer a perspective of the Genesee River and Lake Ontario. Schumer says Great Lakes cities like Rochester are not protected as well as cities along the U.S. ocean coastline and hes seeking additional funding for security. [Day in Photos [http://cf.democratandchronicle.com/photo/day.cfm] ] (November 19, 2002)  Great Lakes cities are not protected as well as cities along the U.S. ocean coastline -- and it will take $600 million next year to fix the problem. Thats according to Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y. With Lake Ontario and the Genesee River as a backdrop Monday morning, he presented a plan to shore up Great Lakes security in Americas new fight against terror. In January, Schumer and other senators from the eight Great Lakes states intend to introduce a bill that would create a database for cross-lake boat traffic and add more U.S. Customs and Coast Guard personnel. It would also require high-tech ship-tracking satellites and radar and create a Great Lakes security task force. Security on the Great Lakes is sorely lacking, said Schumer at the U.S. Coast Guard Station Rochester on St. Paul Boulevard, where the river empties into the lake. Last year, he said, only 10 percent of boaters crossing Lake Ontario from Canada to New York reported to U.S. Customs on a special 800-number, as required by law. Thats 1,866 boaters out of an estimated 18,000. But all car, truck, train and plane traffic across the U.S.-Canadian border is subject to direct inspection by U.S. Customs. I welcome any opportunity to share more resources, said M. Frances Holmes, district director of the Buffalo regional office of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. She was not at Schumers briefing and had not studied Schumers proposals; she declined to comment on specifics. There are already joint task forces in place in the Great Lakes region that address terrorism, Holmes said. And the INS has a seasonal program that allows Canadian boaters to register at the beginning of the summer, then travel freely, she said. About 3,000 registered this year. Schumer said that the Rochester area is particularly vulnerable to attack because of the lakeside presence of the Ginna nuclear power station in Ontario, Wayne County. He imagined nightmare scenarios, including a radiation dirty bomb smuggled across the lake from Canada -- or a ship packed with explosives making a beeline for Ginnas reactor. The U.S. Coast Guard, the primary federal law enforcement presence on the lakes, operates 12 patrol craft at six Lake Ontario stations, including Rochesters. During the summer, two inflatable boats are added -- one each at Sodus Point, Wayne County and Sackets Harbor, Jefferson County. That is not enough, said Schumer. Lt. John Priebe, the Buffalo-based regional spokesman for the Coast Guard, declined to comment on Schumers characterization of Great Lakes terror protections. In the Rochester area, the Monroe County Sheriffs Office runs five patrol boats from May through Oct. 15. Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the boats operate on two shifts, not one, and quit at midnight instead of 8 p.m., said Chief Deputy Douglas Nordquist. Federal agencies are hobbled by low staffing, said Schumer. U.S. Customs only employs four agents in the Rochester area, he said. They not only monitor cross-lake boat traffic but also inspect thousands of trucks a year, 1,200 private aircraft arriving annually and three commercial U.S.-Canadian flights daily. Neither Customs nor the INS operates patrol craft on the Great Lakes, though the U.S. Border Patrol does. A tripling of Customs and INS personnel was approved last year in the USA Patriot Act -- but were still waiting for the money, said Schumer. Pending homeland security legislation does not include any provision for additional spending, by White House request. Schumer called it a government reorganization bill that will do little to enhance security in the Great Lakes. The cost of adding Great Lakes terror protections -- $600 million -- is not much when compared with the $400 billion earmarked for homeland security, he said. Protecting the lakes, Schumer added, protects 75 percent of the trade between the United States and Canada. E-mail address: cireland@DemocratandChronicle.com [cireland@DemocratandChronicle.com] ***************************************************************** 33 Officials play down blast at Indian nuclear facility. 18/11/2002. ABC News Online Australian Broadcasting Corporation Online"> [http://abc.net.au/] Indian nuclear energy officials have launched a probe into an explosion at a nuclear facility in the southern city of Hyderabad. Officials said the blast, which happened on Sunday morning, had not caused any leakage of radioactive materials as it occurred away from the processing unit. "There is nothing to panic about. It was a minor incident," T.V Nagendra, public relations officer for the Nuclear Fuel Complex in Hyderabad, was quoted as saying by the Hindu newspaper. The facility is used for processing nuclear fuels. Officials at the complex refused to divulge details about the incident, but sources at the plant said the blast was probably triggered by a chemical reaction. The explosion occurred at an ammonia nitrate purification plant within the complex. Officials said no one was injured in the blast. © 2002 Australian Broadcasting Corporation ***************************************************************** 34 Is the "will of the American voter" to dump RADIOACTIVE waste Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2002 00:05:26 -0600 (CST) For Immediate Release: Contact: David Ritter (202) 454-5176 Nov. 8, 2002 Erica Hartman (202) 454-5174 Nuclear Regulatory Commission Preparing to Dump More Radioactive Waste on American Public Stating Preference to Release and Recycle Nuclear Waste, Agency Betrays Public Trust to Support Nuclear Corporations WASHINGTON, D.C. - The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) recently stated preference to release and recycle radioactive wastes strongly indicates that it is more concerned with assisting the nuclear industry than protecting the public, Public Citizen said today. In a news release issued Wednesday, the NRC announced that it will press ahead in a rulemaking that could dramatically increase the volume of radioactive waste material that is dumped in unlicensed landfills and recycled into consumer goods. The NRC's current policy allows all materials (metal, concrete, soil, etc.) to be released or recycled on a case-by-case basis. The agency is exploring allowing widespread recycling of contaminated solid materials into consumer products. While the NRC's preference to allow the nuclear industry to disperse much of its waste has been made clear by its actions for many years, the agency is now stating it openly. In written comments submitted with his vote approving the rulemaking procedure, NRC Chairman Richard Meserve discouraged agency staff from trying to "mask the Commission's continuing support for the release" of the waste. While the NRC's news release attempts to put a friendly face on the process, vowing that "NRC staff will seek broad public participation and engage diverse viewpoints," Meserve's guidance in his written comments that public "(w)orkshops are resource-intensive and expensive*and additional workshops should be limited" was not mentioned in the release and will likely compromise the public's ability to voice objections to the plan. Additionally, Public Citizen said, it is distressing to see how dismissive the NRC has been regarding the National Academies' March 2002 report on this issue, done at the NRC's request. This report, while not recommending that the NRC immediately halt the radioactive waste recycling program, did suggest that it take a very cautionary approach and seriously address public concerns on the issue, in part to overcome a "legacy of distrust." Instead of beginning a broad, deliberative process, as suggested by the Academies' report, the NRC is opting to proceed with a rulemaking and ignore public concerns. "The Academies' report emphasized that the NRC not prescribe an outcome on the issue and that real consideration of public input was essential," said Public Citizen President Joan Claybrook. "But in limiting public workshops and stating their preference from the get-go, it looks like they've already made a decision. The upcoming 'process' will most likely be a public relations maneuver and sham." The NRC claims on its Web site that its "primary mission is to protect the public health and safety, and the environment from the effects of radiation from nuclear reactors, materials, and waste facilities." The agency also agrees with the firmly established scientific tenet that "any amount of radiation may pose some risk for causing cancer and hereditary effect." With this in mind, it is particularly alarming to note NRC Commissioner Jeffrey Merrifield's observation in his written comments on the rulemaking that "(r)ecycled solid material is different in that there is a potential that the radioactive component may be concentrated in the recycling process or that the material will be recycled in a form resulting in more actual contact with the general public." Incredibly, Merrifield goes on to say that "(it) would be nice to have a separate industry devoted to the recycling of radioactive material." "One can only assume that the NRC is not concerned about abdicating its regulatory role to protect the public and making cynical calculations of how many additional cancer deaths are 'acceptable,' " said David Ritter, policy analyst with Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program. "The agency knows that this dumping can lead to radioactive consumer products like bicycles and belt buckles. It knows that this practice is wholly unnecessary and its sole beneficiary is the nuclear industry." Both the NRC and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) are addressing the issue of nuclear waste release and recycling. The NRC has jurisdiction over commercial nuclear reactors, while the DOE oversees waste from nuclear weapons facilities and energy research facilities. The DOE also allows case-by-case release or recycle of all materials, except metals. "The American public has spoken loudly and clearly on this issue before, and that's why Congress banned the 'Below Regulatory Concern' policy in 1992, conceding that radiation is always a concern," Ritter said. "So now, industry and the so-called regulators are trying to come in the back door via word-play, public relations marketing and outright lies. The industry refuses to accept responsibility for proper handling and disposal of its deadly waste. The only responsible action for it to take is isolate and contain it, not try to 'dilute' it by dispersing it across the country in recycled products." The NRC is scheduled to complete its rulemaking within three years. ### Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit www.citizen.org. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE ONLY THINGS MORE DANGEROUS THAN THE IGNORANT VOTER ARE IGNORANT POLITICIANS AND IGNORANT CORPORATIONS! WAKE UP! ***************************************************************** 35 Questions over quantity stall Shpack cleanup* KEVIN SALEEBA, Gazette Staff Writer November 19, 2002 *NORTON -- After three months of discussion, the town and the Army Corps of Engineers still have not agreed on a method for cleanup of the radiological contaminants (uranium) at the Shpack Landfill site.* Last week, Scott Acone, project manager for the Army Corps of Engineers, told the Shpack Landfill Committee they expect to hire a contractor to clean up the site by Fall 2003. The Corps expects to limit the removal of the uranium and to cap the site. This process could begin by Spring 2004. He said the decision to limit the cleanup was based on the current data taken from soil, groundwater, surface water and sediment samples in the area. Acone said the highest levels of uranium contamination have been detected in a few "discreet" locations, mostly one to three feet from the surface of the landfill. These finding have led the Corps "to propose a limited removal action and capping," he said. Heather Graf, coordinator for the Citizens Advisory Shpack Team said the Corps? decision to cap the site is premature. She said the town needs more clear-cut information on the amount of contamination at the site before the Corps decides on a method to clean up the site. "I still have a problem with the term ?capping.? While trying to remove some of the toxic waste, factors such as heavy rains and erosion could cause the contaminants to spread beyond the existing parameters," Graf said. "There really was not a lot of new specific information with regard to the contaminants at Shpack," she said. "With all due respect to the presenters (the Army Corps representatives) at the Nov. 12 meeting, the information given to the public seems somewhat vague and superficial." The Shpack Landfill committee, which is made up of local residents and environmental experts, will meet again in April as it tries to decide what exactly is the best for the land. The Shpack Landfill operated from 1946 to 1965. It left radioactive waste (uranium) on the site. Local residents want the site cleaned up because they are concerned about potentially hazardous material. /©The Taunton Gazette 2002/ ***************************************************************** 36 NFS, Partner, Pursuing DOE Funding For Uranium Conversion Project* *125 West Summer Street - Greeneville, TN - (423) 798-0545* * By: /By BILL JONES/Staff Writer/ Source:/ The Greeneville Sun / 11-18-2002 Erwin-based Nuclear Fuel Services Inc. confirmed on Friday that it is exploring, with a joint-venture partner and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the possibility of converting low-enriched, off-specification uranium materials into commercially usable (nuclear) feed stock. Word of the proposed project first became public on Thursday when NFS?s joint-venture partner, International Uranium Corporation (IUC), announced it in a news release. In that release, IUC said it also had formed a new company called Urizon Recovery Systems, LLC, to pursue the uranium-conversion project. A news release sent to The Greeneville Sun on Friday by NFS after a reporter contacted that company for comment stated that the proposed project involves conversion of ?limited quantities of off-specification uranium material . . . from a uranium-235 enrichment of less than five percent (most will be less than one percent) to 0.71 percent.? NFS spokesman Tony Treadway said that an enrichment level of 0.71 percent uranium-235 is the same as the level of naturally occurring uranium. In a subsequent telephone interview Treadway downplayed the newly disclosed uranium conversion project and maintained that it cannot go forward without funding that is being sought from the U.S. Department of Energy for development of a ?small-scale? feasibility test of the conversion process. No funding decision from the DOE is expected before sometime next year, according to Treadway. ?No processing activities are expected until funding for the pilot-scale testing is secured from DOE,? Treadway said. Millions Of Pounds Possible However, the news release issued Thursday by NFS?s joint-venture partner, International Uranium Corporation, indicated that, if successful, the new uranium conversion process could result in that company?s Utah mill?s producing ?two [million] to three million pounds? of uranium concentrate (called yellowcake) per year ?over at least a six-year period.? The news release indicates that the USM Ore? Program that Urizon plans to pursue also involves the development of a process and construction of a plant at the NFS facility in Erwin ?for the blending of contaminated low-enriched uranium with depleted uranium to produce a natural uranium ore.? The IUC news release stated that ?assuming the receipt of regulatory approvals,? construction of a pilot plant in Erwin could be completed by late 2004. Once converted at the NFS plant in Erwin, Treadway said, the uranium material would then be shipped to IUC?s White Mesa uranium mill in Utah for recovery of the contained uranium. The resulting product would be sold as feed stock in the commercial uranium marketplace, according to the NFS news release. ?The venture would reduce DOE-stockpiled low-enriched (uranium) material and provide a recycle alternative other than continued storage or burial of the stored DOE material,? according to Frank Hahne, NFS vice president of New Business Development, in the NFS news release. NFS spokesman Treadway was quick to say during a Friday telephone interview that the proposed uranium conversion effort will be a ?dry process? that won?t produce any liquid residue. Differnt From Project BLEU He also maintained that the proposed conversion process differs from another uranium conversion process, called Project BLEU (for blended low-enriched uranium), which NFS currently is working to implement. Project BLEU, he said, involves the ?downblending? of highly enriched uranium from DOE stockpiles into low-enriched uranium suitable for processing into fuel for Tennessee Valley Authority nuclear-power reactors. The newly announced project, meanwhile, would begin with low-enriched uranium and decreases the level of enrichment even further. NFS currently is seeking approval from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission of its nuclear materials license to allow implementation of the BLEU project to go forward. Several individuals and environmental groups have objected to the license amendment, and a number of petitions seeking the holding of a public hearing on the project are pending before the NRC. A privately owned corporation with operations based in Erwin NFS has, since 1957, NFS has been a leader in the process development and production of specialty nuclear fuels for commercial power, research reactors and naval reactors, according to the company?s news release. NFS is the supplier of highly enriched uranium fuel materials for the U.S. Navy's fleet of nuclear-powered submarines and aircraft carriers. NFS also has developed and implemented the process for recycling highly enriched uranium material into lower commercial enrichments. ?This process supports the U.S government?s program for downblending surplus material from the weapons program into fuel for nuclear power reactors,? the IUC news release stated. Never Before Done Blending low-enriched uranium with depleted uranium to make a reconstituted natural uranium ore that can be returned to the nuclear fuel cycle as yellowcake (uranium concentrate) has never been accomplished before, said Ron Hochstein, president and CEO of International Uranium Corporation, in that company?s news release. ?This program will allow DOE to deal with its orphaned low-enriched uranium and depleted uranium in a cost-effective manner, while providing for the recovery of valuable energy resources that would be lost through direct disposal of the materials, and, at the same time providing a long term source of alternate feed materials for the company's White Mesa Mill,? Hochstein was quoted as saying. The news release also quoted an NFS official as saying he thinks the proposed process could recycle large amounts of so-called ?orphan? nuclear material. A DOE report issued in 2000 indicated that there were 4,700 metric tons of surplus low-enriched uranium at 28 sites around the country controlled by the U.S. Department of Energy, according to the news release. Those sites would yield approximately 15 million pounds of uranium concentrate as well as other sources of materials suitable for the program, the IUC news release stated. Steps In Process The first phase of the project is the preparation and submission of a request for approvals from the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and certain other agencies, according to the IUC news release. ?This critical phase is under way,? the IUC news release stated. The operation of the pilot facility and processing of the USM Ore? at the IUC?s White Mesa Mill is expected to last for a year and will result in some production of commercially saleable yellowcake, according to the company?s news release. ?Upon successful completion of the pilot test and a positive feasibility study, the pilot facility will be converted to a commercial facility,? the IUC news release stated. ?Commercial production is expected to last six to ten years, or longer, depending on the amount of DOE materials that are available.? The IUC news release indicated that application testing funded by DOE has been ongoing for the past two years. NFS spokesman Treadway described that testing as having been at ?the laboratory beaker stage.? © 2002 East Tennessee Network - R.A.I.D. (Regionalized Access ***************************************************************** 37 UK energy minister seeks progress on Russian nuclear cleanup Breaking news Last update 06:05:01 GMT LONDON (AFX) - UK Energy Minister Brian Wilson has called for more progress on the nuclear cleanup in states of the former Soviet Union. Wilson is attending the Baltic Conference of Energy Ministers in Vilnius and said the government has committed 700,000 stg to improve the security systems on two nuclear-powered icebreakers in the Russian Northern civilian fleet. "In the current international climate nuclear security must be given the utmost priority and I am committed to making the improvements wherever necessary," he said. The money is part of an 84 mln stg aid package promised by the UK in 2000. Wilson said he is "anxious to make progress on the terms under which this money will be released". "My visit to Vilnius includes a meeting with the Russian Energy Ministry at which I hope to advance this agenda," he said. Work needed to be done includes the dismantling of up to 100 nuclear submarines in NorthWest Russia, the safe storage of large amounts of spent nuclear fuel at a former naval base in Andreeva Bay and the secure disposition of a stockpile of Russian weapons grade plutonium, Wilson said. The spent nuclear fuel in Andreeva Bay has caused serious concern in the west as scientists discovered radiation levels tens of thousands of times above normal. Fuel has been stored in containers left outside where they are rusting and contaminated storage boxes are leaking into the sea, the Financial Times reported. fp/slm/ Copyright 2001 AFX News [http://www.afxnews.com] ***************************************************************** 38 Russian nuclear rubbish tip challenges clean-up experts FT.com Monday Nov 18 2002. All times are London time. By Andrew Jack A communist slogan that promised to bring "atomic energy to every house" in the Soviet Union has dangerous echoes in the Kola peninsula of Russia's far north. At a site 35 miles from the Norwegian border, above the Arctic Circle, the Russian navy guards 93 reactor cores with 35 tons of fuel in conditions so bad foreigners have only in the past few months been allowed to witness them. Scientists visiting Andreyeva Bay report radiation levels tens of thousands of times normal. They have seen rusting containers of nuclear waste in the open air, exposed to the extreme climate, and contaminated storage boxes leaking water into the ground and sea. The Kola peninsula is among the toughest challenges in the former Soviet Union for nuclear clean-up experts - and Andreyeva is probably the most dangerous place of all. "There is no other place in the world where such large amounts of spent nuclear fuel are so improperly stored as at the Kola naval bases," says Bellona, a Norwegian environmental group whose analyses are used by both Russia's officials and its critics. The region became a nuclear archipelago in Soviet times as home to a substantial part of the nuclear-powered submarine fleet, the civilian nuclear-powered ice-breaker fleet, and four nuclear power stations. After a decade of sharp decline in state funding for military and non-military purposes and bureaucratic fighting between the government and foreign donors, many long-term problems of fuel reprocessing and storage remain unresolved. The worst fears have not been realised. The adjacent resource-rich Barents Sea remains one of the cleanest in the world. But potential dangers are enormous - not least after representatives of the rebel Chechen government of Aslan Maskhadov last month warned that Chechen terrorists might seize nuclear materials within Russia. Only last week, Yuri Vishnevsky, head of the state nuclear energy inspectorate, admitted that several kilogrammes of uranium, including several grammes of weapons-grade material, had gone missing over the past 10 years. In that time, says the PIR Centre, a Moscow-based non-proliferation agency, while many alleged cases of theft have proved untrue, there have been at least 52 incidents of illegal nuclear trafficking involving Russia. At a time of heightened attention towards prevention, debate is increasingly focused on the inadequacy of security measures. Mr Vishnevsky conceded that the physical protection of nuclear plants "does not, to put it mildly, quite measure up to the rules". The Russian American Nuclear Security Advisory Council warned last week that, despite considerable efforts - notably from the US Department of Energy - about half Russia's weapons-grade material was inadequately secured. Measures to protect thousands of lower-grade radioactive stocks, which could form the basis for "dirty" bombs, were weaker still. Nevertheless, there are signs of hope, reflecting fresh threats of terrorism and the greater willingness of other countries to provide extra resources in response, including a $20bn (£13bn) decade-long commitment by the G8 nations to address the issue globally. Torbjorn Norendal, the Norwegian ambassador at large for nuclear issues, says long-stalled discussions on a multilateral inter-governmental agreement with Russia to ease the work of foreign nuclear clean-up are close to resolution. The stumbling block, a willingness by Russia to waive civil liability for foreign contractors in the event of an accident during clean-up, was removed in principle by negotiators a few weeks ago. Pro-Russian observers put some of the blame for slow progress on poor co-ordination among donors, bureaucracy, tough political demands and the lack of close personal relationships. Bellona has been active in highlighting for a decade "the Arctic nuclear challenge" around Kola. Andrei Zolotkov, one of its activists and a former Soviet parliamentarian and nuclear engineer, risked serious trouble 10 years ago when he denounced the then Soviet Union's violation of international agreements banning the dumping of nuclear waste at sea. Bellona was frozen out by Russian officials during the second half of the 1990s as it fought an ultimately successful battle in the courts to clear Alexander Nikitin, another activist, naval officer and journalist, of espionage charges for reporting on nuclear abuses. Yet today, the organisation has an office in Murmansk, and Mr Zolotkov is set to participate in the next stage of dismantling the Kursk nuclear submarine after it was lifted from the Barents Sea last year. Frederic Hauge, Bellona's president, says: "Compared with the size of the problem, there has not been too much progress. But we are not standing still. Whoever said it was going to be easy?" © Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2002. "FT" ***************************************************************** 39 ROW ERUPTS OVER U$ SMEARS/BLIX BEARS BRUNT OF HAWKS' Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2002 23:26:49 -0600 (CST) http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,842944,00.html The Guardian (London) Tuesday November 19, 2002 Helena Smith in Larnaca and Ewen MacAskill TEAM LEADER SAYS ATTACKS BY HAWKS 'UNHELPFUL' The United Nations chief weapons inspector, Hans Blix, yesterday accused hawks in Washington, who are bent on going to war with Iraq, of conducting a smear campaign against him. The extent of the tension between Mr Blix and elements of the US administration burst into the open on the day that he led UN weapons inspectors back to Baghdad for the first time in four years to renew their search for chemical, biological and nuclear-related weapons. Key figures in the Bush administration have criticised Mr Blix in recent weeks, claiming he is too weak to stand up to the Iraqi president, Saddam Hussein, and that he may fail to find the weapons that the CIA claims have been hidden by the Iraqis. In an interview with the Guardian in Cyprus, the last staging post before his flight to Baghdad, Mr Blix rounded on his critics. Asked whether he thought US hawks were behind the smear campaign, Mr Blix said: "You can say there's some truth in that judgment." Mr Blix and the head of the International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA), Mohammed el-Baradei, who will join the inspections, later arrived in Baghdad aboard a cargo plane with the black letters of the UN painted on its side. Amid chaotic scenes at the airport, Iraqi and Arab journalists pressed the inspectors on whether they expected friction with the US. The inspectors insisted they did not expect it. Mr Blix's report, which will be presented to the UN security council early next year, could be the deciding factor in whether or not there is war in Iraq. The US whispering campaign against Mr Blix, a former Swedish diplomat, may be designed to undercut any report that is favourable to Iraq. The US vice-president, Dick Cheney, and the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, have both said they do not believe the inspectors will succeed in disarming president Saddam, and their aides have anonomously briefed against Mr Blix who failed to detect Iraq's nuclear programme in the 1980s when he was head of the IAEA. Richard Perle, a Pentagon adviser and an associate of Mr Rumsfeld, said in London last week: "If it were up to me, on the strength of his previous record, I wouldn't have chosen Hans Blix." In his first response, Mr Blix said yesterday: "I haven't seen the criticism myself but I have heard about it. I don't see the point of criticising inspections that have not taken place... it's not very meaningful." He described the accusations that he was not up to job as "not very meaningful, and certainly unhelpful." One of his team also dismissed the criticism, rejecting the allegation that Mr Blix had failed to find evidence of the nuclear programme."That's absolutely wrong. Back then inspectors were only allowed to visit sites that were declared," the inspector said. He added that the powers now available to the inspectors, such as the ability to visit sites without prior notice, did not apply before the 1991 Gulf war. Washington's alarm over Mr Blix intensified after a recent speech in which he said he favoured cooperation with the Iraqis rather than confrontation. His colleagues said Mr Blix was acutely aware of the animosity aroused by the last team of inspectors who were accused by Iraq of abrasive behaviour and of spying for the US. The inspectors, who sought and destroyed Iraqi biological, chemical and nuclear-related weapons after the Gulf war, abandoned Baghdad in December 1998, claiming Iraqis were obstructing their work. Mr Blix, 72, who came back from retirement to take over the job, has done much to change the culture of how inspectors work. The 26-strong UN team was formally welcomed at the airport by General Hosam Amin, head of the Iraqi monitoring directorate, a group of scientists, engineers and military personnel. Mr Blix and Mr el-Baradei held talks with Gen Amin and his officials last night. Mr Blix and Mr el-Baradei are due to leave Iraq tomorrow after talks with Iraqi officials. The advance team that arrived with them will prepare the office, accommodation and communications for the arrival of the inspectors next week. Mr Blix said preliminary inspections could resume next Wednesday, with full-scale checks starting after Iraq files a declaration of banned weapons programmes, if any, by December 8. The arrival of the UN team coincided with air attacks on Iraqi defensive positions. The Iraqis fired back, a move the US insists contravenes the UN resolution passed this month. =================== http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,842958,00.html US RIGHT FINDS NEW TARGET AFTER LOSING ARGUMENT TO FIGHT SWIFT WAR ON IRAQ The Guardian (London) Tuesday November 19, 2002 Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington The claims by Hans Blix, the chief weapons inspector, that he has been the target of a smear campaign by Pentagon hawks is the culmination of months of tension at the heart of the Bush administration about the UN inspection team. Earlier this year the deputy secretary for defence, Paul Wolfowitz, ordered a CIA report on why Mr Blix, as chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency during the 1980s and 1990s, failed to detect Iraqi nuclear activity. Mr Blix has much more sweeping powers now, but that fact has failed to banish the suspicions of a cluster of hardliners in the administration that includes Mr Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, the under-secretary for defence, and John Bolton, the deputy secretary of state. "There are a whole group of people in this administration who are against multilateral institutions, and also the people that staff them," said Joseph Cirincione, the director of the non-proliferation project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "Hans Blix to some of these people is the embodiment of everything that is wrong with the multilateral approach." The resurrection of UN arms inspections for Iraq is seen as a defeat for the hawkish sections of the administration - both for relatively straightforward nationalists such as the vice-president, Dick Cheney, and the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, as well as for the faction led by Mr Wolfowitz, who have been described by scholars as "democratic imperialists". Mr Wolfowitz, influenced by Richard Perle, chairman of the defence policy board, is believed to view US military action in Iraq as the first step in a larger project of realignment and democratisation of the Middle East. For months, the hardliners pressed home the case for a military strike against Iraq, ratcheting up their arguments to such an extent that intelligence officials complained of intense pressure to cook up information that would support a war. In August, Mr Cheney said Iraq would have nuclear weapons "fairly soon" - in direct contradiction of CIA reports that it would take at least five more years. Mr Rumsfeld, meanwhile, accused Saddam Hussein of providing sanctuary to al-Qaida operatives fleeing Afghanistan - although they had actually travelled to Iraqi Kurdistan, which is outside his control. Until the summer, the hardliners were firmly in the ascendancy. But all their efforts were undone by George Bush's decision to take America's case against Iraq to the UN. "There is no question that a battle was won on September 12 when President Bush went to the UN, and instead of condemning it, praised it and embraced it and promised that the US would work through its administration to disarm Iraq and to resort to military force only as a last resort. That is not the strategy some in the Pentagon had been agitating for for months," said Mr Cirincione. POWELL'S CAMPAIGN Mr Bush's decision to work through the UN was a product of a dogged campaign by Mr Powell, detailed at great length in a series of reports in the Washington Post which paint a picture of a highly changeable administration prone to shifts in policy direction on an almost weekly basis. However, Mr Powell had been disturbed for some time at his dwindling influence in the administration - particularly on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - a weakness he sought to remedy by requesting a series of personal chats with Mr Bush. The conversations, which began in August, appeared to have paid off as Mr Powell swayed Mr Bush towards his arguments to work with the UN. Even so, it was not seen as a secure victory. The hardliners continued to believe they could woo the president back to their way of thinking, and the Washington Post reported blistering rows between Mr Cheney, described as "hell-bent for action" against Iraq, and Mr Powell on the wording of the speech. In the end, Mr Powell triumphed. The rhetoric of the speech was scaled down, and he threw himself into the behind the scenes diplomacy that resulted in a unanimous security council resolution on November 8 for sending weapons inspectors to Iraq. But, as Mr Blix noted yesterday, it is virtually certain that the hawks remain determined to return to the ascendancy. "This may be a very low moment for them, but I think they believe in the long run they will have their chance," said Ellen Laitson, president of the Henry Stimson Centre, a Washington-based thinktank. "I think they have done a lot to set up very high expectations, and a very high standard, and they are already preparing for the inspections not to work. If you look at the deployment in the region, and how the bureaucracy is gearing up, they are putting a lot in motion militarily even though there may be this temporary lull of the inspections." Some commentators have predicted the hawks will try to set a trigger date for December 8 - when Iraq is supposed to provide a declaration of its arsenal. Amid expectations of a patently false declaration, the hawks will try hard to get their early war despite Mr Blix. ====================== *** NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Feel free to distribute widely but PLEASE acknowledge the original source. *** ***************************************************************** 40 "We'll go on sounding Trident alarm" say locals Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2002 17:01:46 -0600 (CST) TRIDENT PLOUGHSHARES [UK] Press Release: Tuesday 19/11/02 11am "WELL GO ON SOUNDING TRIDENT ALARM" SAY LOCALS Today, as Trident Ploughshares takes down its disarmament camp at Devonport , locals who organised the weekends events vowed to continue the campaign for as long as Trident is on their doorstep. Claire Devereaux, a local Trident Ploughshares pledger, said "It has been tremendous fun highlighting a very serious issue. Local people have been supported by peace campaigners from all over Europe. However, I am very angry at local MP David Jamieson suggesting that our campaign will take away peoples jobs. If the millions being spent on Trident each day was invested locally it would greatly ease the poverty in Plymouth and create many more opportunities for employment." Jamiesons comments were in strong contrast to the positive support the campaigners met locally, on the streets of Plymouth, at the blockade yesterday and from Catholic Bishop Christopher Budd, whose message of support for Trident Ploughshares is copied below. In the immediate future the campaign will focus on supporting those arrested at the weekend during their forthcoming court processes. In addition to ongoing affinity group actions there will be another disarmament camp at Devonport in 2003. Message to the Trident Ploughshares Inter-faith Service from Catholic Bishop Christopher Budd 8th November 2002 Trident Ploughshares Peace Campaign "Unfortunately I will not be able to join you for this prayer service. However, I wish to express my solidarity with you in your endeavour to get nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction banned from our planet. May I ask two sensitivities of you:- please always pursue your objectives with peaceful means; and in whatever you do please keep in mind you are touching peoples means of employment, a most important matter. I pray that nuclear and other weapons will be eventually removed from our world and that peoples employment will cease to be dependent on the production and management of such weapons. May I be bold and finish with a quote from the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Every act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants is a crime against God and man, which merits firm and unequivocal condemnation. A danger of modern warfare is that it provides the opportunity to those who posses modern scientific weapons especially atomic, biological or chemical weapons to commit such crimes. All good wishes", Bishop Christopher Budd Press Contact: Marcus Armstrong 07905 917532 or 07967 819514 www.tridentploughshares.org ***************************************************************** 41 IAEA head says Iraq agrees to meet Dec 8 deadline AlertNet 19 Nov 2002 19:11 BAGHDAD, Nov 19 (Reuters) - Iraqi officials have agreed to produce a full account of the country's weapons programme by December 8, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency Mohamed ElBaradei said on Tuesday. "They are working on that declaration and they will produce it by December 8," ElBaradei said after meeting Iraqi officials in Baghdad. Under a U.N. Security Council resolution adopted on November 8, the first big test is a December 8 deadline for Iraq to submit a full account of all banned weapons programmes. By January 27 the inspectors must have given their first report to the Security Council. ElBaradei said Iraqi officials had agreed to produce a declaration covering biological, nuclear and chemical weapons. ElBaradei, chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix and an advance team of 30 experts returned to Baghdad on Monday after a four-year break to search for weapons of mass destruction that Iraq may have. ***************************************************************** 42 Former Inspectors Talk About Iraq Guardian Unlimited | World Latest | From the Associated Press Tuesday November 19, 2002 7:30 AM WASHINGTON (AP) - Iraqis have locked doors, fired gunshots and used mobs to thwart past U.N. weapons inspections - tricks not likely to work when the searches resume later this month, former inspectors say. This time, the U.N. inspectors' work will be constantly shadowed by the threat of a U.S.-led war on Iraq if Saddam Hussein's government does not comply with demands to end nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs. Even that threat won't be enough to stop deception, predicted former inspector Dr. Raymond Zilinskas. ``I think they're going to try to do it but they're going to have to be very careful this time,'' thanks to a tough U.N. Security Council resolution, said Zilinskas, a biological weapons expert at the private Monterey Institute for International Studies, which is assisting the new U.N. inspectors. ``It has to be much more subtle and sophisticated than before.'' Former inspectors say Iraq used many ploys during the first round of U.N. inspections, from 1991 to 1998. Although Iraq destroyed much of its nuclear, chemical and biological weapons equipment and long-range missiles, U.N. inspection reports said Iraq didn't account for everything. Iraqis fired guns to get inspectors to leave sites, kept them out of buildings while angry mobs attacked them in a parking lot, and were seen taking equipment and records out the back door of facilities when inspectors arrived at the front door. Iraqi declarations of weapons programs to the U.N. were riddled with omissions, half-truths and outright lies, former inspectors say. For example, Iraq denied having a biological weapons program until 1995, when inspectors forced Iraq to admit the program after providing evidence of it. Iraq admitted having more after the former head of the program, Saddam's son-in-law Hussein Kamel, defected and gave more details of Iraq's germ weapons. Saddam later persuaded Kamel to return to Iraq, where he was executed. Inspectors eventually declared that Iraq had not fully accounted for tons of chemical weapons agents, gallons of germ weapons agents and at least two Scud missiles. Most Iraqi excuses, former chief inspector Richard Butler said, were of the ``dog ate my homework'' variety. The inspectors left in December 1998, unable to get the access they wanted to Saddam's presidential palaces and offices of his most elite security forces, the Special Republican Guard, among other sensitive sites. The United States and Britain unleashed four days of airstrikes after the inspectors were gone. Few expect Iraq to be so aggressive as to shoot at the new inspectors, because that would probably draw a swift U.S. military response. American and U.N. inspectors are watchful for more subtle tactics than were used before to thwart their work. ``I've never tried to predict what (Saddam) might do, but one thing I know he better not do, and that is play games,'' White House spokesman Scott McClellan said last week. During previous inspections, those tactics took several forms, former inspectors say. Often, inspectors would find a locked door and be told the only man with the key was unavailable, ``visiting his mother in Basra,'' Zilinskas said. Inspectors later made Iraqis break down locked doors. Another ploy was for Iraqi ``minders'' accompanying the inspectors to jump in with answers to questions before weapons workers could speak, said Richard Spertzel, a former chief U.N. weapons inspector. ``That's hard to identify as noncooperation, but that's what it amounts to,'' Spertzel said. Minders also maneuvered their vehicles in inspectors' convoys to slow them down, Spertzel said. ``They did this at the risk of knocking people off the road.'' Iraqi officials also ordered their weapons scientists to give a series of cover stories when interviewed by the U.N. experts, Zilinskas said. ``It's a very, very difficult process for the U.N. inspectors to interview these people,'' Zilinskas said, ``because they were lying all the time and you had to very patiently break down the barriers, and then go to the next barrier.'' Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002 ***************************************************************** 43 North Korea Clarifies Statement on A-Bomb The New York Times November 19, 2002* *By HOWARD W. FRENCH* TOKYO, Nov. 18 ? North Korea today clarified a statement made in a weekend radio broadcast that appeared to claim publicly, for the first time, that the country possesses nuclear weapons. The unusual move followed a flurry of statements of concern in this region over the radio commentary, which was interpreted by some as saying the country "has come to have nuclear and other strong military weapons to deal with increased nuclear threats by the U.S. imperialists." But in a commentary broadcast on Monday by the official Korean Central Broadcasting Station, instead of saying it had come to have such weapons, the government said more clearly that it was "entitled" to have nuclear arms because of what it said were continuing threats from the United States. "To safeguard our sovereignty and right to exist, we are entitled to have powerful military countermeasures, including nuclear weapons," the passage read in its entirety. The difference in the language between the Sunday and Monday messages hung on as little as a single syllable in the Korean language ? a nuance attributable by some to regional differences in pronunciation ? which led to drastically different interpretations of the initial commentary. The first reports by foreign news organizations of Sunday's commentary came from the South Korean news agency Yonhap, which suggested that North Korea had made an affirmative statement that it possessed nuclear weapons. Japanese and British broadcasting monitoring services, though, interpreted the Sunday commentary along much the same lines as today's clarification. With the differing interpretations of the broadcasts, experts emphasized that it was impossible to understand with any certainty the North Korean government's intentions. "It was either a broadcaster's mistake in North Korea, a mistake in transcription or translation, or a distortion by Yonhap, which is pretty well known for propagating rumors, especially by hard-line elements in South Korea," said Peter Hayes, director of the Nautilus Institute, a California-based nonprofit research organization for international security and conflict resolution. He noted that "in the same breath, the announcer was saying they want to continue to negotiate nuclear agreements." A possible interpretation that was widely discussed in the region is that North Korea was engaging in a bit of deliberate ambiguity to warn its neighbors Japan and South Korea as well as the United States while maintaining a scrap of deniability. Since 1994, American intelligence estimates have said North Korea probably possesses enough plutonium to make as many as two nuclear warheads. Recent estimates from China have reportedly placed the number as high as five. North Korea is also a producer and exporter of rudimentary but operational intermediate-range ballistic missiles, which are based on the shorter-range Scud missiles developed by the Soviet Union. North Korea shocked Japan in 1998 when it launched an unannounced test flight of a Taepodong missile over Japanese airspace. Today North Korea threatened to resume flight tests of ballistic missiles, saying it might end a three-year-old test moratorium if Japan went ahead with developing a missile defense shield with the United States. Tensions have risen sharply in East Asia since early October, when visiting American diplomats confronted the North Korea government with intelligence evidence showing that North Korea had a secret nuclear weapons development program in violation of a 1994 arms control agreement. North Korean officials reportedly acknowledged the program and warned the American diplomats that they possessed a variety of other dangerous weapons. ***************************************************************** 44 Nuclear Sub Lies Idle after £153m Refit Scotsman.com Tue 19 Nov 2002 / By Katherine Haddon, PA News/ A nuclear submarine is lying idle in a dockyard more than two years after undergoing a £153 million refit, it was revealed today. HMS Sceptre has been docked at the Royal Navy?s Rosyth base in Fife since the work was completed in June 2000, despite being recommissioned into the fleet days afterwards. Meanwhile her 116 crew have been taking part in training courses and manning Green Goddesses during the recent firefighters? strike. Shadow defence secretary Bernard Jenkin condemned the situation as ?scandalous? and called on ministers to make a statement to the House of Commons. He said: ?Here is stark evidence of the armed forces in the grip of a funding crisis. ?Why else would recently modernised submarines be lying idle when there is so much for them to do at a time of international crisis?? Work on the submarine has been completed within the last three months and a spokesman for the Royal Navy said the vessel should be back at sea by the middle of next year. He added that although a fault around Sceptre?s nuclear engine had been identified in 1998, it had been impossible to rectify the problem until the refit was completed two years later. The spokesman said: ?There were a number of cracks identified in the cladding around the reactor pressure vessel. ?We felt it presented a problem so we had to look at it and it does take a long time to satisfy our extremely stringent safety standards.? He added that work on the cracks had been further delayed after a fault was found on HMS Tireless in 2000, prompting extensive checks on several classes of vessel in the fleet. He said: ?That took around 18 months to sort out and we don?t have the resources to throw about willy-nilly. ?Experts and technicians had to be targeted and this was felt to be the priority, rather than the Sceptre.? end ©2002 scotsman.com | contact ***************************************************************** 45 Activists who boarded nuclear submarine freed in Plymouth* HELSINGIN SANOMAT international Foreign - Tuesday 19.11.2002 The Finnish-Swedish peace activist duo who illegally boarded a British nuclear submarine on Friday were released on Monday in Plymouth. * Elisa Silvennoinen* and *Peter Joelsson*, who belong to the campaign group Trident Ploughshares, which opposes the British Trident nuclear submarines, will most likely be charged with criminal damage some time next year. *To get to the Devonport Naval Base* the couple cut a hole through the perimeter fence. Fixing the fence will cost approximately EUR 300. By all accounts, the duo did not have any great difficulty penetrating the defences of the nuclear sub /HMS Vanguard/ in Dock No. 9, where the vessel is undergoing a refit, but they simply walked aboard unchallenged. After waiting around for some minutes, they announced their presence to the sleeping vessel by setting off the fire alarm. According to Silvennoinen and Joelsson, the British nuclear weapons programme is illegal. They claim Great Britain is breaking international law, which bans the use of and threatening with weapons of mass destruction. Silvennoinen says one of the four Trident submarines equipped with nuclear weapons is constantly on patrol in international waters. "That alone can be considered threatening", she argues. *Devonport is the largest naval base* in Western Europe, covering more than 650 acres. It houses 15 dry docks and embraces four miles of waterfront. It is also the home to seven /Trafalgar/-class nuclear submarines. Earlier this year, the Devonport establishment received a warning on nuclear safety standards from the British health and safety executive's Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII). Helsingin Sanomat ***************************************************************** 46 Investigators Arrive at Lab to Examine Allegations* * November 18, 2002 By DEBORAH BAKER | The New Mexican 11/19/2002 * Investigators from the Department of Energy's Office of Inspector General arrived at Los Alamos National Laboratory on Monday to look into allegations of wrongdoing and cover-ups. * The visit comes on the heels of a published report on Sunday that nearly $3 million worth of lab-owned items disappeared or were reported missing over a three-year period. A spokeswoman said lab officials requested the inquiry several weeks ago because of anonymous allegations reported by some media outlets. "In order to address those in a very forthright manner, we requested the inspector general's presence," Linn Tytler said. "We look forward to their findings." She said lab Director John Browne asked for the inquiry, and it was endorsed by Linton Brooks, acting administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, who made the request of the inspector general. Tytler was unable to say how many investigators were at the lab, how they would proceed or how long they would stay. The anonymous charges were made in a letter that was purported to be from people in "high level positions" at the lab. The authors alleged "corruption, mismanagement and crime" at the lab that was affecting national security, the letter said. The authors alleged that lab leaders were trying to hide the activities from the Department of Energy, the public, federal law-enforcement agencies and political oversight groups. The letter contained allegations that specific, named employees were involved in credit card, purchasing and voucher fraud. The lab in August announced that it had put an employee and a contractor employee on investigative leave because of apparent irregularities in the use of lab-issued purchase cards that totaled $2,500. The lab said it would have a special team - including representatives from the University of California's external auditors, PricewaterhouseCoopers - audit past purchase card transactions and review policies and controls. That should be ready by the end of the month, Tytler said. The University of California operates the lab for the Department of Energy. The FBI at the end of October got warrants to search the homes and other property of two lab employees. Court documents alleged that a purchaser for a lab-building repair-and-maintenance unit, and the unit's team leader, used their positions to illegally buy at least $50,000 in merchandise - including hunting equipment and truck parts - between July 2001 and October 2002. Lab officials haven't commented on that investigation. The Albuquerque Journal in a copyright story in Sunday's edition quoted an internal lab document as stating that nearly $3 million worth of items - ranging from computers to a fork lift - disappeared or were reported missing between 1999 and 2001. "Nothing that I have even approaches that number," Tytler said. She said the lab is subject to rigorous inventory checks, and provided copies of memos that said the depreciated value of "unlocated items" for the 2001 budget year was less than $182,000 and for the 2002 budget year less than $70,000. Pete Stockton of the Project on Government Oversight, a government watchdog group, and a former security official under former DOE Secretary Bill Richardson - now New Mexico's governor-elect - said a primary concern is whether security information was compromised because of the possibility of missing computers. "If those were computers that were used in the lab and there were 63 of them, who knows what was on them?" he said, but added that there is no way to know yet what information the computers contained. Santa Fe New Mexican ***************************************************************** 47 Argonne Laboratory Layoffs HOME November 17, 2002 Idaho Falls - Argonne is aiming to reduce 40 people between there Illinois and Idaho facilities. The layoffs are intended to position the company for anticipated future demands. As we look to the future of nuclear power, the issues center more around fuel recycling issues and that points toward a different skill mix for our employees and so were taking this opportunity to prepare ourselves for that says Argonne Public Relations Director, Paul Pugmire. Argonne is gearing up for the next generation of nuclear power systems and a new phase of research. They need to be prepared for that time and in order to prepare for that we need to make sure that we have the right people in place doing the research now to prepare us for that time. The cuts are voluntary and come with a financial incentive package. In order to qualify, the employee must be at least 55-years old and worked for Argonne continuously for the last 10-years. Locally, officials say 110 employees qualify and their response has been positive. The few individuals I've spoken with who are qualified for this are either looking at it closely or one gentlement that I spoke with over the weekend has already determined Yes absolutely he wants to do this and he feels very good about it says Pugmire. Officials say the staff reduction is temporary and is not the result of rough economic times. In fact, new employment outlook numbers published by Manpower Incorporated...show three percent of local businees's plan on increasing their staff.[ Across the national average Idaho Falls is 19 percent above the national average in employers intentions to stay to remain steady says Manpower Media Relations Director, Julie Raymond. The survey found that locally, 17 percent of business's project staff reductions and 80 percent expect no change during the winter months. Most every employer is planning to remain steady...the changes that are planned a specifically reductions look to be mostly seasonly related. As for the Argonne layoffs...employees have two weeks to decide to participate.. *KIDK TV Idaho Falls* 1255 East 17th St. Idaho Falls, ID 83404 Phone: 208-522-5100 Fax: 208-522-5103 *KIDK TV Pocatello* 214 East Center Pocatello, ID 83201 Phone: 208-233-3333 Fax: 208-233-3337 ***************************************************************** 48 Check out the big brain in Livermore Tri-Valley Herald Online Article Last Updated: Tuesday, November 19, 2002 - Livermore teraflops past competition By Ian Hoffman, STAFF WRITER A brace of new, record-shattering IBM supercomputers will offer Lawrence Livermore lab scientists a clearer window inside virtual nuclear blasts and, for per- haps the first time, put even greater power in the hands of nondefense scientists. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham was to announce the $290 million joint purchases today in Baltimore, at the Supercomputing 2002 conference. Livermore computing chief Michel G. "Mike" McCoy called the first computer -- a boxy workhorse for weaponeers -- "in some sense, the beginning of the end" for the $1 billion drive to simulate weapons in three dimensions. McCoy called the other "a radical design that you use to explore the bleeding edge." Together, the two new machines -- ASCI Purple and, in 2005, the wildly experimental Blue Gene/L -- would boast peak speed of 460 teraflops or trillion floating point operations a second. That's as if every man, woman and child on the planet took up a calculator and each performed more than 7,000 calculations a second. Put another way, garner the power of the world's leading 500 machines, then add half again. It's the kind of statistic that impresses even jaded aficionados of the Big Iron. They grew excited Monday at the prospect of the United States knocking Japan out of the No. 1 slot. NEC's custom-made Earth Simulator this summer blazed past Livermore's current machine, ASCI White. By 2004, the less powerful of the two new Livermore computers -- bureaucratically dubbed ASCI Purple -- will triple the speed of the Japanese machine. "For years, things were in a doldrum. Now there seems to be a buzz," said University of Tennessee computer science professor Jack Dongarra, co-keeper of the Top 500 ranking of world supercomputers. "In a sense," Dongarra said, "it's the U.S. reclaiming the lead in high-performance computing." IBM and Livermore executives huddled over designs three years ago. Some wince at the techno-jingoism. "This goes quite far back before the Earth Simulator," said IBM's David Turek, vice president in charge of Deep Computing. "Our motivation was not to achieve a political goal or to achieve some nationalist fervor, but to meet our research agreement with the De-partment of Energy. If a consequence is to get to the top of the list, that's great. But we all know sitting at the top of the list is a recipe for one day not being at the top of the list." Aswirl in superlatives and limelight, a few IBM and Energy Department officials gushed that ASCI Purple by itself was closing in on the human brain. In theory, a human brain runs at 100 teraflops, same as IBM's machine, they contended. They hastened to add that ASCI Purple crunches numbers, and humans process information and think. Purple will inhabit 197 refrigerator-sized cabinets, each weighing a ton. Beyond silicon and steel, its guts are 120 miles of glass pipe for light messages and dozens more of copper. The power to run it could supply4,000 homes. Weighing in at 3.3 pounds, a human brain runs on the energy of a dim light bulb. Livermore's McCoy finds the brain-computer analogies annoying. "I basically said, 'Stop making these comparisons because they're fundamentally idiotic.'" On that note, he's planning a name change for both computers. Three colleagues all came up with a Roman "C" for ASCI Purple's 100 teraflop's peak power. McCoy is resisting taking a shine to the name; he'll have to pay off the contestants with three bottles of burgundy from his basement reserves. Blue Gene/L will take more care than a name change. McCoy isn't sure where to put it. He'll have room in the new Terascale Simulation Facility, now under construction to house ASCI Purple. But it's classified, and he wants the powerful new machine to stand in the open, where uncleared scientists can have access via the Internet. In Blue Gene, IBM and Livermore aim to jump the speed barriers posed by classic, server-based supercomputers such as ASCI Purple. To keep power-consumption down and reliability up, Blue Gene/L is full of cheap, commercial grade chips like those found in automobiles. The result: It gets more than three times the power of ASCI Purple at a fifth of the electrical consumption and price. It is designed to keep running, juggling tasks, even if a chip fries. McCoy said scientists need to put the machine through its paces before knowing whether it holds the future, however. ©1999-2002 by MediaNews Group, Inc. and ANG Newspapers ***************************************************************** 49 DOE Rocky Flats Advisory board meeting 12/5 FR Doc 02-29306 [Federal Register: November 19, 2002 (Volume 67, Number 223)] [Notices] [Page 69729] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr19no02-47] DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY Environmental Management Site-Specific Advisory Board, Rocky Flats; Meeting AGENCY: Department of Energy. ACTION: Notice of open meeting. SUMMARY: This notice announces a meeting of the Environmental Management Site-Specific Advisory Board (EM SSAB), Rocky Flats. The Federal Advisory Committee Act (Pub. L. 92-463, 86 Stat. 770) requires that public notice of these meeting be announced in the Federal Register. DATES: Thursday, December 5, 2002; 6 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. ADDRESSES: Double Tree Hotel, 8773 Yates Drive, Westminster, CO. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Ken Korkia, Board/Staff Coordinator, Rocky Flats Citizens Advisory Board, 9035 North Wadsworth Parkway, Suite 2250, Westminster, CO, 80021; telephone (303) 420-7855; fax (303) 420-7579. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Purpose of the Board: The purpose of the Board is to make recommendations to DOE and its regulators in the areas of environmental restoration, waste management, and related activities. Tentative Agenda: 1. Update on Rocky Flats site closure progress 2. Review and finalize draft end-state recommendation language 3. Other Board business may be conducted as necessary. Public Participation: The meeting is open to the public. Written statements may be filed with the Board either before or after the meeting. Individuals who wish to make oral statements pertaining to agenda items should contact Ken Korkia at the address or telephone number listed above. Requests must be received at least five days prior to the meeting and reasonable provisions will be made to include the presentation in the agenda. The Deputy Designated Federal Officer is empowered to conduct the meeting in a fashion that will facilitate the orderly conduct of business. Each individual wishing to make public comment will be provided a maximum of five minutes to present their comments. Minutes: The minutes of this meeting will be available for public review and copying at the Public Reading Room located at the Office of the Rocky Flats Citizens Advisory Board, 9035 North Wadsworth Parkway, Suite 2250, Westminister, CO 80021; telephone (303) 420-7855. Hours of operations for the Public Reading Room are 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday-Friday, except Federal holidays. Minutes will also be made available by writing or calling Deb French at the address or telephone number listed above. Board meeting minutes are posted on RFCAB's Web site within one month following each meeting at: http://www.rfcab.org/ Minutes.HTML [http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.rfcab.org/Minutes.HTML] . Issued at Washington, DC, on November 13, 2002. Belinda G. Hood, Acting Deputy Advisory Committee Management Officer. [FR Doc. 02-29306 Filed 11-18-02; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 6450-01-P ***************************************************************** 50 Feds delay fast-flux reactor shutdown The Oregonian Clark County News 11/19/02 RICHLAND, Wash. -- The federal government has agreed to postpone until March further shutdown work at the Fast Flux Test Facility at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. The delay will give supporters more time to try to persuade the U.S. Department of Energy not to dismantle the surplus reactor, which advocates want to see the private sector use to make medical isotopes. The Energy Department had planned to begin draining sodium from the experimental reactor's secondary cooling loops this month. That's generally considered the point of no return in deactivation. Benton County sued the Energy Department Nov. 8 to block the shutdown work, and lawyers for the federal government initially agreed to a two-week delay. That has been extended until March 12. The county's lawsuit contends the Energy Department failed to conduct an adequate environmental review for the reactor deactivation. "If they thought they had a winner, they wouldn't be asking for four months to defend against it," said John Bolliger, a Pasco lawyer representing the county. No one from the Energy Department was immediately available for comment Monday. Advocates for the reactor have been buoyed in recent weeks by a letter from Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, citing concerns about the domestic supply of radioisotopes for diagnosing and treating disease. The United States imports about 90 percent of its isotopes for nuclear medicine, primarily from Canada. A radioisotope is a form of a radioactive element. So far, no one has come forward publicly with money or a plan to operate the prototype reactor, but the Community Re-Use Agency, a local government coalition in the Tri-Cities, says at least five parties are interested. The reactor, the Energy Department's newest, operated from 1982 until 1992. It was used for research, to produce medical and industrial isotopes and to make tritium. In January 2001, the Clinton administration ordered the reactor dismantled. When the Bush administration took office, it also tried and failed to come up with a purpose for the reactor and in December 2001 likewise ordered it shut down. New estimates suggest it could take another 10 years to shut down and entomb the reactor, at a cost of as much as $620 million. It has cost $30 million to $40 million a year to maintain the reactor on standby. © 2002 OregonLive.com. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 51 Lab again No. 1 in computer muscle Contra Costa Times | 11/19/2002 | Two new machines will process 460 trillion calculations per second By Andrea Widener CONTRA COSTA TIMES Lawrence Livermore Laboratory will once again be home to the world's largest computer under a new agreement to purchase two massive supercomputers from IBM, the Secretary of Energy will announce today. For the first time, the largest of those computers will be available for unrestricted research on biology, materials and climate at a laboratory where the largest computers have traditionally been used for weapons science. The two computers, one for classified research and one for open science, will have a combined speed of 460 trillion calculations per second, more than the current top 500 computers combined. That is 20 times larger than the lab's current monster computers and hundreds of thousands of times faster than a top-of-the-line desktop. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham is expected to unveil the $290 million agreement with IBM in Baltimore this morning at the annual Supercomputing 2002 conference. This purchase will be the most recent in a series of agreements that bring the world's fastest computers to the Energy Department's weapons and basic science researchers. "It becomes a national resource and an intellectual resource," said Michel McCoy, acting director of the Advanced Simulation and Computing Initiative at Lawrence Livermore. "We want the best minds working on these machines." After years of supercomputing supremacy, some experts were concerned about the U.S. retaining its dominance following Japan's development of the Earth Simulator, now the world's largest computer, which runs at 36 trillion calculations per second. But IBM's Michael R. Nelson said the strategy of using off-the-shelf parts to build these machines, named ASCI Purple and Blue Gene/L, make them affordable for research and more practical than the specially designed Earth Simulator. These long-term lab contracts have allowed IBM to focus on creating a system that can help these massive computers identify and fix its own breakdowns. "I think people will be very impressed when this machine is deployed," said Nelson, director for Internet technology and strategy. Lawrence Livermore has been home to some of the world's fastest computers for most of its 50 years. Recently, increasing computer speeds have been driven by the end of nuclear weapons testing. Scientists say they now need massive computers to run immense computer models that allow weapons scientists to simulate nuclear weapons from construction to mushroom cloud. In 1998, Lawrence Livermore was home to Blue Pacific, which ran at 3 trillion operations per second. In 2001, it switched on ASCI White, a behemoth that runs 12 trillion operations per second. At the time, both were the fastest in the world. In a comprehensive list of the world's fastest computers released last week, White was ranked fourth, after Earth Simulator and twin machines at sister Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico. The fifth largest machine is also a Lawrence Livermore computer that does unclassified research. The new computers take that quest to a new level. The classified ASCI Purple will run at 100 trillion calculations per second on 12,544 computer chips. It should allow the country's weapons scientists to, for the first time, model both a nuclear weapon's fusion and fission explosions in three dimensions in less than eight weeks. IBM will begin delivering it next year. ASCI Purple "is like buying a high-quality automobile that has been road-tested and you know it is going to work," McCoy said. The unclassified Blue Gene/L machine is a more experimental machine that should be capable of 360 trillion calculations per second, far faster than anything before. It would use 130,000 different computer chips and memory distributed in smaller bits throughout the computers. "It is a system that you use to explore the limits. You can do things (equivalent to breaking) the sound barrier on it because it is so much faster than the other machines," McCoy said. While that machine is still several years off, scientists are very interested in having the extra computing power, said Lawrence Livermore climate researcher Phil Duffy. "There is definitely a progression to these very big unclassified systems," said Duffy, who hopes to run his high-resolution climate models on the Blue Gene/L machine. "That is very tremendous for us." Reach Andrea Widener at 925-847-2158 or awidener@cctimes.com [awidener@cctimes.com] . ***************************************************************** 52 Statement of MikeTulloh, uranium materials handler - Portsmouth Plant November 15, 2002 Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant Piketon, Ohio I was a uranium materials handler for ten years at the Portsmouth Plant. It was in our department that we transfered and sampled UF6 into customer and government cylinders. This included 97% enriched weapons grade material. The contamination and radiation problems were so bad, that the contractor removed radiation monitoring devices that notified workers of unacceptable levels of radiation and contamination. This was testified to by Jack Crawford, Superintendant of Operations in my intentional tort trial in 1992. I was also a member of the emergency respose team on March 13, 1978 when a heated cylinder was dropped and over 22,000 lbs of material enveloped into a mushroom cloud. No surrounding residents were notified, no surrounding towns or cities were ever notified. Now we know that this material contained more than just uranium hexaflouride. I could go on and on about the atrocities I witnessed during my employment; the twelve tumors that were removed from me, the death of co-workers, and the actions of the contractors that can be only be described as criminal. When you expose workers to deadly materials on a daily basis without their knowledge, deny them benefits when they become sick, lie about working conditions, and then pass half-assed legislation that just a few workers might qualify for, then what you have in legal terms is an "intentional tort." After waiting seven years to get into court with several causes of action, that is all I had left after Judge Wray Bevens dismissed my case twice until he was ordered by the Ohio Supreme Court to hear the case. In the legal arena when you are up against defendants with no souls and an endless supply of money, there is no action quite like "class action." That is what clearly needs to happen. There has been no action taken on behalf of nuclear workers because there has been no media attention. That is the sad reality. I read most all the information posted on this site, written by intelligent people, but nothing will change until there is organization. With organization, goals are defined, strategy is decided, and a plan of action is initiated. This comes from an employee who has spent eleven years of litigation involving two cases against D.O.E. contractors and won jury decisions both cases. Let us learn from our past mistakes or we are doomed to repeat them. Mike Tulloh, Portsmouth Plant, 1975-1986 Michael Tulloh 1314 North Snapper Lane Fernandina Beach, Fl 32034 ***************************************************************** 53 County leaders seek to raise per-acre funds from DOE The Oak Ridger Online -- Area News -- p.m. on Tuesday, November 19, 2002 by Donna Smith Oak Ridger staff CLINTON -- Anderson County Attorney David Clark will explain to county commissioners next month how they can impose a tax on Department of Energy contractors. Clark's comment was but one of the many made by county officials at Monday night's Anderson County Commission meeting concerning getting more money from key Oak Ridge-landholder DOE. Oak Ridge, Anderson County and Roane County leaders are asking DOE for a leap in the in-lieu-of-tax payments it makes to local governments ­ from the current $5,327-per-acre rate to $7,000 per acre. It's not as much as the $10,400 per acre they wanted to ask DOE for, Anderson County Executive Rex Lynch told commissioners at the Anderson County Courthouse. But at this time, he, Roane County Executive Ken Yager and Oak Ridge Mayor David Bradshaw don't think DOE would pay that amount. The $10,400 rate was recommended by the law firm Baker, Donelson, Bearman &Caldwell, which the city of Oak Ridge hired as a lobbyist to get more money from DOE. Now Bradshaw, Lynch and Yager are awaiting word back from DOE within the next 30 to 45 days on whether it will pay $7,000 an acre, Lynch said. DOE possesses about 33,300 acres in Oak Ridge. Commissioner David Bolling said the proposed rate is better than the current rate but it's still "peanuts." Citing the amounts of money that DOE pays to cities and counties elsewhere in the nation -- such as $5 million to the Indian tribes and others at Yucca Mountain in Nevada and $64 million in South Carolina -- Bolling said he's not willing to "tiptoe around" DOE officials because Anderson and Roane counties and Oak Ridge are being shortchanged. Bolling, who as county executive verbally battled DOE for years over these payments, said he's willing to take whatever action is necessary to get additional funds. Clark told commissioners that the county can, via the state, enact a tax against DOE contractors. He said he had been studying this issue and would provide them with more details next month. In a related matter, the commission approved members to the new "DOE Committee" that will look for ways to get more money from DOE for the county. Elected were Commissioners Bolling, Kathy Moore, Harold Jernigan, Larry Dickens, Jerry Creasey and Jerry White, along with ex-officio member Lynch. Donna Smith can be contacted at (865) 220-5502 or dsmith2@oakridger.com. All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** 54 *OP-ED: *The roots of anti-Americanism Daily Times /Ahmad Faruqui In the eyes of the ordinary American, the US should be the most admired nation in the Muslim world. After all, it wants to bring the good things of life to the Muslim world: democracy, peace and economic growth/ Americans are bewildered at the extent of anti-Americanism in the Muslim world. In their view, Iraq?s neighbours should be rallying around the US for seeking to make the Middle East a safer place by removing the ?local baddie? Saddam Hussain from power. Instead, the Arab League, while supporting UN Resolution 1441, declared that any attack on Iraq would be viewed as an attack on the entire Arab world. Americans are disturbed that religious parties have made major electoral gains in Pakistan on an anti-American platform and that a Muslim party has swept the polls in Turkey. They are confused why Indonesians would protest the arrest of a Muslim cleric in connection with the bombings in Bali. In the eyes of the ordinary American, the US should be the most admired nation in the Muslim world. After all, it wants to bring the good things of life to the Muslim world: democracy, peace and economic growth. While the US strategy toward the Muslim world is indeed founded on these ideals, what has led to rampant anti-Americanism is the series of double standards that have attended its implementation. There is a double standard in removing weapons of mass destruction. The US has not questioned Israel?s right to have them, because in its view, Israel would only use them in justifiable self-defence. There is a double standard in following UN Security Council resolutions. There is no pressure on Israel to implement Resolution 242 of 1967. The US had implicitly legitimised Israel?s illegal 35-year old occupation of the Golan Heights, West Bank, and Gaza, since such it has a right to have safe and secure borders. Other nations that invade their neighbours have to withdraw immediately. Within a few months of occupying Kuwait, Iraq was attacked by a coalition of forces led by the US. But Israel spent 18 years in Lebanon without inviting much American rebuke. When the Israeli Air Force attacked an Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981, Tel Aviv got by with the equivalent of a slap on the wrist. There is a double standard in promoting democracy. Most of the repressive regimes in the Muslim world ? the Gulf Kingdoms, Egypt and Jordan ? are propped up by the US. In the early nineties, when the FIS Islamist party in Algeria won the national elections, it was banned because the US suspected that it would hold no further elections. A few years ago, an Islamist Prime Minister in Turkey was removed from office and his party banned by the US-backed Turkish military. The democratically elected government in Teheran is viewed with suspicion because it pursues an independent foreign policy. US policy toward the Muslim world resurrects the posture of imperial Rome toward all other nations: if you toe our line, you will handsomely rewarded ? regardless of whether you are a democracy, possess weapons of mass destruction, or follow UN resolutions. If you don?t toe our line, you will be attacked and eliminated. Americans of all political persuasions have now resigned themselves to the inevitability of a US-led invasion of Iraq. When attempts to link Saddam Hussain with the terrorist attacks of September 11 failed, the pundits in Washington began to talk about the need to prevent him from arming Al Qaeda with a nuclear bomb, a weapon he does not even have in his arsenal. Arab apologists such as Fouad Ajami acknowledge that even though there is no ideological affinity between the secular Saddam Hussain and the Wahabian Osama bin Laden, they share a common goal: the destruction of America. That is sufficient cause for seeking their elimination. Playing on this psychology of fear, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has argued that there is no need to wait for a smoking gun connecting Saddam with Osama, since one is morally bound to ?connect the dots before something happens.? If the UN inspectors do not find something in Iraq, it is because Saddam has outwitted them. If they do find something, he is a liar. In either eventually, he is culpable and should be removed from power. Very much aware that should the UN not authorise military action, the US would be happy to disarm Saddam unilaterally, Kofi Annan has chided the US for having ?a lower threshold? for going to war in Iraq than other members of the Security Council. Rumsfeld has said that no decision has yet been taken for proceeding with an attack on Iraq. This is a significant change in the Pentagon?s rhetoric. Just a few months ago, the official line was that the president had no war plans on his desk. General Tommy Franks has now presented a war plan involving about 250,000 US troops, according to the New York Times, with hostilities to commence in February. In a widely read political cartoon script, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer is asked whether Iraq really poses a serious threat to the US. After all, it has not been able to shoot down a single US warplane after 11 years of around-the-clock practise. While he waits to respond, one of the members of the press corps chimes in: ?maybe we should ask one of our fliers to fly slower.? Another chimes in: ?yea, let?s ask him to cut off his engines.? Finally, a third one says: ?That?s right. Then we will have our provocation.? Conservative activist Pat Buchanan cites an account of a disturbing conversation between Congressman Tom Lantos, ranking Democrat on the House International Affairs Committee, and Colette Avital, a visiting Knesset member. Lantos gave this assurance to Avital: ?My dear Colette, don?t worry. You won?t have any problem with Saddam. We?ll be rid of the b___d soon enough. And in his place we?ll install a pro-Western dictator, who will be good for you and good for us.? This ?pro-Western dictator,? said Lantos, will rule for ?five or six years,? and ?after America gets rid of all the regimes of evil, it will go straight to Syria and tell young Assad that?s what will happen to him if he doesn?t stop supporting terrorism.? Secretary Rumsfeld has discounted concerns that the war with Iraq would lead to the third world war, by saying it would take no longer than ?five days, five weeks or five months.? However, many analysts fear that the war could easily become a great war. Washington would be well advised to heed the worlds of British historian A. J. P. Taylor, ?Though the object of being a Great Power is to be able to fight a Great War, the only way of remaining a Great Power is not to fight one.? /Dr Faruqui is a fellow of the American Institute of International Studies, based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is the author of ?Rethinking the National Security of Pakistan,? Ashgate Publishing, forthcoming January 2003/ Daily Times - All Rights Reserved Site developed and hosted by WorldCALL Internet Solutions ***************************************************************** 55 Zaragoza Bridge tests contraband detector El Paso Times Online Borderland Tuesday, November 19, 2002 Diana Washington Valdez El Paso Times Victor Calzada / El Paso Times A U.S. customs inspector balances himself as he searches the interior of a trailer at the Zaragoza Bridge. How it works + The system will be housed in a building 220 feet by 60 feet. During inspection, a vehicle will be diverted to the test facility entrance. The driver will leave it there and walk to a waiting area. + A self-powered towing machine will pull the vehicle through the facility past the scanning device. After safety checks, the vehicle will be scanned. + A pulsed beam will move up and down as the vehicle slowly passes by to ensure that all contents are inspected. Some of the neutrons hit individual atoms, giving off the gamma ray of a specific frequency of a chemical element. + Sensors along the walls of the corridor detect quantities of the specific gamma ray frequencies for the short period of time of each pulse of neutrons. + A monitor tells readers exactly what's in the container without having to open it. A new high-technology system that uses fast moving subatomic particles to detect contraband, ranging from illegal drugs to explosives, will be in place by summer at the Zaragoza Bridge. "It is called Fast Pulsed Neutron Analysis, and it will be used to counter terrorism and drug trafficking at the border," said Bill Snow, the project's program manager for Veridian Information Solutions in Falls Church, Va. The Defense Department, in conjunction with the U.S. Customs Service and Transportation Security Administration, is spearheading the project. As much as $15 million was budgeted for the system, and experts say it can thoroughly check the contents of a tractor-trailer within three minutes. El Paso is the only city along the U.S.-Mexico border that will test the one-of-a-kind system. Once a six-month trial is complete, its success will be evaluated by various agencies and it will be up to Congress to appropriate further funding. "There are different kinds of technologies out there, but this is the newest," said Snow, whose company is developing the environmental assessment for the project. "Sometime soon, we will be holding a public hearing in El Paso to address concerns and answer questions." The advanced inspection system will mean good news for transnational companies that ship products or components in trucks across the border each day. Delays stemming from detailed cargo inspections add to the cost of doing business because most border companies operate on tight customer deadlines. "We're very interested in technologies that would speed up the service and deliveries to our customers in a safe environment," said Michael Hissam, spokesman for Delphi Automotive Systems. "We're also very supportive of efforts to improve transborder security." Delphi operates more than 15 plants and a technical center in Juárez. As the U.S. economy rebounds, orders are expected to pick up, making the timing of the company's deliveries more crucial. U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, has pushed for the fast-pulsed neutron technology, partly in response to border security concerns, as well as complaints from businesses about long waiting times at the international bridges. The sheer volume of commercial traffic contributes to the longer waiting times. The number of 20-foot containers entering U.S. border crossings and seaports doubled between 1990 and 2000 -- to 30.3 million from 15.2 million -- but inspection staffs and facilities have not kept up with the growth. "The key to winning any war against terrorism is to have the necessary means to find hidden contraband and explosives that escape traditional detection methods," said Patrick Shea, chief of operations for Ancore, the Fast Pulsed Neutron Analysis manufacturer in Santa Clara, Calif. "It's an exciting concept," said P.T. Wright, operations chief for the U.S. Customs Service in El Paso. "For 5,000 years, customs inspectors had to see it, touch it, and feel it, but this enables them to inspect something without ever having to open a container." He noted that El Paso was among the first customs districts to use the Vehicle and Cargo Inspection System. The mobile VACIS X-ray machines help inspectors check a truck in about seven minutes by providing an X-ray image of the density and shape of objects that are inside. The district's antiterror arsenal also includes portable Radiation Detection Pagers, which can detect "dirty bombs," explosive devices attached to radioactive materials. Unlike the existing X-ray systems, which only tell if a container is empty or has a load, the new technology uses gamma rays that can read the chemical composition of contents. "Using the known 'gamma ray fingerprints' of contraband materials, (the system) can detect their presence and location within a vehicle," Snow said. "For the chemical makeup of specific explosives and narcotics, the computers automatically alert operators for the presence of these substances." Another drawback of X-ray systems is their 45 percent to 50 percent error rate, compared with the gamma ray system's error rate of less than 1 percent, said Peter Kant, governmental relations vice president for the Jefferson Consulting Group, which is working with Ancore. Whenever a U.S. Customs Service inspector needs to take apart a cargo load for further checking, it can take up to 15 man hours, Kant said, "only to find, as they showed on a recent '60 Minutes' segment, a load of cookies." "This is an automatic, material-specific identification system that needs no human interpretation. It can tell you if something is sarin gas, cocaine or something else," he said. Roy Vera, corporate development director for Brown, Alcantar &Brown Inc., said businesses such as his customs brokerage firm are pressed to find new ways to expedite cross-border transportation. He agreed that advanced technology is an important way the El Paso-Juárez area can become more efficient and attractive to the border-crossing transportation industry. Snow said officials chose the Zaragoza border crossing for the six-month pilot program because it has enough space to accommodate the new structure and a high volume of commercial traffic. Diana Washington Valdez may be reached at dvaldez@elpasotimes.com [dvaldez@elpasotimes.com] ***************************************************************** 56 Environmental laws in crosshairs of Republicans Bush proposals back on agenda [chronfeedback@sfchronicle.com] Tuesday, November 19, 2002 --> Washington -- Suddenly, President Bush's proposals to drill for oil in an Alaskan wilderness, boost energy exploration in the Rockies and consider changes to some major environmental laws are back in play, following the Republicans' resounding success in last week's congressional elections. Nothing illustrates the shift in environmental politics more vividly than the leadership changes about to occur on two key Senate committees. The environment committee's chairmanship is switching from James Jeffords, independent-Vt., a hero to many environmentalists, to James Inhofe, R-Okla., one of their least-liked lawmakers. The Energy and Natural Resources Committee, meanwhile, will be headed by Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., who supports drilling for oil and gas in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The question of whether to drill in the refuge holds almost iconic status for conservatives and conservationists alike, and Democrats no longer have the Senate or White House control that helped them hold off the proposal for years. Domenici says he plans to vigorously promote energy exploration on federal lands -- including the wildlife refuge -- after he replaces Democrat Jeff Bingaman, N.M., as committee chairman. "Absolutely," Domenici said in a recent interview, the Arctic wildlife refuge has "got to be looked at." Energy exploration isn't the only issue the new Republican-controlled Congress will revisit. GOP leaders say they will challenge or review a handful of key environmental laws that govern power-plant emissions, water quality, endangered species, mining and other subjects. Those laws sometimes pose unnecessary impediments to production, Bush administration officials have said. The administration has tried to win many of these changes in the past 18 months through regulatory reform, executive orders and legislation. But it encountered stiff resistance from the Democratic-controlled Senate and from environmentalists who went to court to block drilling, mining and logging on government land. With many moderate Republicans sympathetic to green causes, few expect a repeat of the assault on bedrock environmental laws waged by then-Speaker Newt Gingrich and House Republicans in 1995, which triggered a voter backlash and contributed to Gingrich's political demise. Instead, Democrats and environmentalists say, the changes are likely to be achieved in more subtle ways, through riders to spending bills and tweaking of budgets for enforcing environmental regulations. "The real question for the Republicans and the White House is will they overplay their hand again?" said Philip Clapp, president of the National Environmental Trust. One of the most dramatic signs of the new order is Inhofe's replacement of Jeffords as chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee. Jeffords, whose defection from the GOP enabled Democrats to claim control of the Senate 17 months ago, has been a staunch ally of environmentalists and sharp critic of Bush's policies. Inhofe is a conservative and vigorous critic of the Clean Air Act and other environmental laws. Inhofe, 67, has frequently accused the Environmental Protection Agency of exceeding its powers in regulating industry. Last week, he said he would press government agencies to apply cost-benefit standards and "sound science" to proposed environmental rule making, an approach strongly favored by the White House budget office and libertarian groups that favor reducing government regulations. He also pledged to provide "strong oversight" and review of the enforcement of clean air laws and other environmental measures. Some environmentalists see that as code for seeking to weaken or gut the laws. Meanwhile, Domenici intends to increase spending on nuclear energy facilities, according to aides. New Mexico is home to the Department of Energy's Los Alamos and Sandia National laboratories. Domenici is a champion of nuclear energy research and production. Domenici, 70, also would like to restrict environmentalists' ability to go to court to block mining, drilling, logging and grazing on federal lands, saying those decisions should be left to Congress and federal agencies. ©2002 San Francisco Chronicle.   Page A - 4 ***************************************************************** 57 One of New Senate's Environment Chairmen Plays Hardball, One Softball [Newhouse News Service] [http://www.religionnews.com] By JIM BARNETT c.2002 Newhouse News Service WASHINGTON - When Republicans retake control of the Senate in January, the two new chairmen of committees on natural resources and the environment are likely to have contrasting personal styles that reflect competing pressures within the ascendant party. Sens. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., and Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., will oversee such pressing issues as water-quality regulation, forest management, endangered species recovery and hydropower production. Both have amassed staunchly conservative voting records. But while Domenici, a former Budget Committee chairman, regularly deals across party lines, Inhofe prefers to confront his opponents with inflammatory rhetoric and hardball tactics. Neither yet has offered a detailed agenda in the wake of the Nov. 5 midterm election. But several activists and lobbyists said Domenici's skill at compromise could make him better suited to succeed in a Senate controlled by a slender Republican majority. "I think it's fair to say they both will be major threats to the environment," said Frank O'Donnell, executive director of the Clean Air Trust. "But Domenici has been more pragmatic. Inhofe has been more doctrinaire." As chairmen, both are likely to feel pressure from the White House to avert controversy. Administration officials concede privately that environmental issues could be a liability in the 2004 election, and many think Republicans can help consolidate their hold on power by resisting conservative calls to roll back environmental laws. "My sense is that there will not be any overreaching by this Republican majority," said Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore. "There will be a genuine effort to work on the fields of the possible." For Domenici, incoming chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, getting along with Democrats should be a relatively easy assignment. Despite a notorious temper, he maintains an avuncular, low-key demeanor in legislative dealings. Among the highlights of his 30-year career is the landmark 1997 Balanced Budget Act, which he negotiated with the White House during the Clinton administration. And with the late Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., he co-sponsored a law requiring insurance companies to treat mental and medical disorders equally. On the energy committee, Domenici is best known as a defender of the nuclear power industry and his state's Los Alamos National Laboratory. "I think he's going to be a very constructive and bipartisan chairman," Smith said. "That's his nature, and that's his history, and that will continue." Inhofe, incoming chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, often takes direct aim at water and air regulations, as well as the Endangered Species Act. As a junior member of the committee, Inhofe vented his frustration with the law in September 1997. He contrasted painstaking government protection of animals and plants with a public policy of tolerance for late-term abortions. "America has adopted an attitude that places more value on the life of a critter than on a human being," Inhofe said. "We want to protect the Arkansas River shiner, a bait fish in Oklahoma, yet we will allow unborn babies to have their brains sucked out in a partial-birth abortion. Mr. Chairman, we need to do something." Inhofe has backed up his tough talk with hardball tactics that on occasion have rankled Republican Party leaders. As the Senate prepared to vote on fast-track trade authority for Clinton in November 1997, Inhofe waited for a lull in the debate. When no Democrats were on the floor, he asked for unanimous consent on an amendment to stall new air-quality rules proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency. It passed. Democrats, then in the minority, claimed that the maneuver violated a gentlemen's agreement between the parties. Then-Sen. Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., asked Inhofe to agree to debate the issue another time and canceled the voice vote, an unusual step. Lott will again be majority leader in the new Senate. Though Inhofe relented, he said the tactic advanced his cause. Speaking to a farm group later that month in Oklahoma City, he likened then-EPA Administrator Carol Browner to "Tokyo Rose," the World War II defector who tried to sweet-talk U.S. soldiers into quitting the war against Japan. The next day, the editorial page of Inhofe's hometown newspaper, the Tulsa World, labeled him "Sen. Overkill." "Even when he's right, U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe detracts from his position because he so vilifies and demonizes those who disagree with him," the newspaper said. Sen. James Jeffords, I-Vt., remains chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee until the Senate reorganizes in January. Jeffords, who will serve as ranking minority member, said he and Inhofe have been friendly. But "our philosophies are very much different on most things." Inhofe has a 5 percent lifetime rating from the League of Conservation Voters and was second only to Sen.-elect John Cornyn, R-Texas, in contributions from oil and gas companies in the 2002 election cycle. But Inhofe has said "continuing strong environmental protections" would be a top priority, and he has pledged to cooperate with Democrats. "I want to work in a bipartisan fashion to create fiscally responsible policies that are based on sound science and cost-benefit analyses." Despite what they regard as poor records compiled by Inhofe and Domenici, environmental advocates don't expect the same kind of aggressive challenges to environmental laws that Republicans mounted after gaining control of the House in 1995. Republican leaders in Congress instead appear to be taking their cues from the White House, where top aides to President Bush want to keep a lid on environmental controversies as the 2004 election nears, they said. "I think this White House is too savvy to open up the floodgates on environmental progress over the past three decades," said Scott Stoermer, a spokesman for the League of Conservation Voters. "They know there is strong bipartisan support for those laws." But Senate moderates aren't necessarily expecting calm on the environmental front. They say the Senate and many of its committees continue to be dominated by partisans and ideologues, despite predictions that moderates will hold the balance of power. "It remains to be seen," said Sen. Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I. "Every year, we're optimistic. But depending on the issue, people get pulled in different directions." ***************************************************************** NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: *****************************************************************