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05/22/02 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 10.131
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NUCLEAR POLICY
1 Sir Ken fuels nuclear row
2 Cost of reopening nuclear plant soars
3 Greenpeace in court over plans for Australia's second nuclear
4 Moves in court to stop nuclear reactor
NUCLEAR REACTORS
5 US: NRC, Entergy to Discuss Performance Issues at Indian Point 2
6 US: Plant set to restart by year's end
7 US: Princeton says N.J. nuclear plant needs better security
8 US: Opinions:MOX a never-ending energy source?
9 Cost of reopening nuclear plant soars
NUCLEAR SAFETY
10 US: SECRET FALLOUT: RADIATION FROM HIROSHIMA TO THREE-MILE ISLAND
11 [psy-op] Blocked Media - Radioactive Fallout and Infant
12 US: [OFFTOPIC:1117] Rumsfeld: Terrorists Will Get Nukes
13 US: Rumsfeld says terrorists sure to get nuclear arms --
14 US: Nuke Foes Press for Evacuation Plan
15 US: Dire Nuke Threat Warning
16 US: Fears raised by nuclear coverage unnecessary
17 US: How safe now?
18 US: Security at research N-reactors questioned
NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
19 US: Halfway to Yucca Mountain
20 Assessing the Aboriginal movement
21 Bondevik more optimistic about Sellafield emissions
22 US: Ex-federal transportation safety chief enlisted in Yucca fight
23 Supreme Court Blocks Hungarian Radwaste
24 US: Rep. Hansen fights to protect Utah from nuclear waste
25 US: BLM director visits Red Rock
26 US: At hearing, experts rip safety of waste transport
27 US: Editorial: When will it sink in for them?
28 US: Letter: Nevada always stuck with nukes
29 US: Nuclear waste? Not on my highway
30 US: Rep. Hansen fights to protect Utah from nuclear waste
NUCLEAR WEAPONS
31 Today's Outlook
32 onelove~ AN OPEN LETTER TO VLADIMIR PUTIN - WHY ?
33 Nuclear powers on the brink
34 Fear of nuclear war over Kashmir
35 Jack Straw sent in amid fears of nuclear crisis
36 Russia: Nuclear Arms Deal Finalized
37 US: No acronym for new nuclear-weapons treaty
38 Libya's nuclear aims worry U.S., Israel
39 Russian and US Experts Respond to Summit Arms Reduction Treaty
40 US: Rumsfeld: Terrorists to get doomsday bomb
US DEPT. OF ENERGY
41 Rocky Flats cleanup plagued by problems
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FULL NEWS STORIES
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1 Sir Ken fuels nuclear row
Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian |
Call for more energy plants upsets union members
Terry Macalister
Wednesday May 22, 2002
The Guardian [http://www.guardian.co.uk]
Sir Ken Jackson will today trigger a storm of protest from within
his own ranks by calling on government to give the go ahead to a
new generation of nuclear plants.
The joint leader of Amicus is due to give his union's response to
the government's energy review when speaking to a gathering of
energy industry professionals and shop stewards in London. He
will tell the meeting: "If the government is committed to meeting
its Kyoto targets it must rebuild Britain's nuclear power
industry."
Sir Ken has never hidden his personal support for nuclear power
but his decision to throw the backing of his entire union behind
such plans is highly controversial and will split the
organisation.
Amicus was formed at the start of this year by putting together
Sir Ken's old union, the more conservative AEEU, with the more
left-leaning MSF - run by his co-general secretary Roger Lyons.
Last night former MSF officials inside Amicus were furious when
they heard what Sir Ken was planning to say on their behalf. One
senior figure said he had previously known nothing about any such
policy, adding that "building nuclear power stations is not on
the agenda".
A spokesman for Sir Ken insisted that it was appropriate for him
to speak for all 1.1m members because the AEEU section had always
been the home of most energy workers.
The spokesman seemed unclear about which policymaking forum had
agreed the pro-nuclear stance. Sir Ken himself has previously
shown his commitment to the industry by becoming chairman of
Nirex which advises on nuclear waste disposal.
Sir Ken will argue that nuclear power accounts for 23% of
Britain's energy production - yet by 2023 there will be only one
facility left working.
He will support the idea that more renewable plants are
constructed in Britain but believes they cannot fill the vacuum
quickly enough.
"If we don't invest in nuclear power we will be forced to rely on
unstable oil and gas imports. That could push up prices for
consumers and it will surely mean we are unable to fulfil our
Kyoto obligations," he will say. "If government and industry work
together we can come up with a safety framework that will win the
public's confidence."
Special report Britain's nuclear industry
Interactive guide Nuclear reprocessing
Graphics Nuclear map of Britain US nuclear map
Useful links British Nuclear Fuels Ltd
[http://www.bnfl.co.uk/website.nsf/default.htm] Campaign for
Nuclear Disarmament [http://www.cnduk.org/] HSE nuclear glossary
[http://www.hse.gov.uk/nsd/ilrwglos.htm] UK atomic energy
authority [http://www.ukaea.org.uk/] National Radiological
Protection Board [http://www.nrpb.org.uk/] World Nuclear
Association [http://www.uilondon.org/]
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002
*****************************************************************
2 Cost of reopening nuclear plant soars
globetechnology.com: News
[http://www.globeandmail.com]
MARTIN MITTELSTAEDT
Wednesday, May 22, 2002
Ontario Power Generation says the cost of reopening its Pickering
A nuclear station has soared to about $2-billion, nearly 54 per
cent higher than last year's estimate of $1.3-billion.
The company, which is owned by the provincial government but is
supposed to make investment decisions based on commercial
considerations, says the increase is due to unanticipated delays
in refurbishing the station.
Pickering A is the oldest nuclear plant in the country, and
almost every major part of it, including its turbines and heat
exchangers, is getting a face-lift to bring it to modern
standards. Company officials say they initially underestimated
the time and complexity of completing this work.
The officials also say that the cost overruns won't affect the
commercial viability of the station.
High nuclear expenses are a sensitive topic in the province
because Ontario Hydro, one of the forerunner companies to Ontario
Power, got into a financially weakened state because of big cost
increases and poor performance at its nuclear stations.
"No matter what, every time you look at it, this is by far the
best option for us and the province," Jim Burpee, vice-president
of Pickering A, said of reopening the station, located on Lake
Ontario near Toronto's eastern boundary.
He said the company has no financial difficulty funding the
refurbishment, using cash from current electricity sales.
Reopening the station has been twice delayed, and is now expected
to begin in stages starting later this year or early in 2003.
Because of problems returning the station to service, Ontario
Power's chief nuclear officer, Gene Preston, has made the unusual
decision to take over day-to-day management of the refurbishment
project from the two contractors hired for it.
Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., which is federally owned, has done
the design work. The general contracting was done by a consortium
headed by Stone & Webster, a U.S. engineering firm that bills
itself as one of the world's foremost engineering and
construction companies.
On May 1, the province adopted market pricing for electricity.
Richard Dicerni, Ontario Power's executive vice-president, said
that even with the higher price tag on Pickering A, the station
will be a low-cost and competitive power supplier.
He defended the $2-billion expenditure, saying Ontario Power's
cost of returning Pickering to service is in line with the
$1.8-billion (U.S.) that the Tennessee Valley Authority in the
U.S. is spending to bring its Browns Ferry station back to
service. It's also competitive with other energy sources, such as
gas and coal.
"In that context, the Pickering project still makes commercial
sense," he said.
Ontario Power's top executives will be in Ottawa this week
reporting to federal regulators at the Canadian Nuclear Safety
Commission on the progress of the Pickering refurbishment.
The company has spent about $730-million on the station, and
expects to spend another $230-million to finish the work on the
first reactor to return to service. The cost of each of the
remaining three reactors will be $300-million to $400-million.
They will come back on stream at six-month intervals starting in
mid-2003.
*****************************************************************
3 Greenpeace in court over plans for Australia's second nuclear
reactor
Radio Australia News -
Environment campaigner, Greenpeace, has begun legal action in
Australia, to overturn a decision to grant a licence to construct
a second nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights in Sydney.
Greenpeace will argue in the Federal Court that the Australian
Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency, which issued the
licence, failed to take into account international best practice
in relation to radiation protection and nuclear safety.
Nuclear campaigner Stephen Campbell says the waste generated will
be medium to high level and at this stage there are no facilities
in Australia to deal with it.
"If the Government is hell bent on constructing this reactor,
they at least have to make sure, for the community of Australia,
that they put into place international best practise in relation
to the waste management coming from the reactor."
22/05/2002 16:14:46 | ABC Radio Australia News
*****************************************************************
4 Moves in court to stop nuclear reactor
The World Today - 5/22/2002:
Moves are underway in the courts to stop the building of
Australia's second nuclear reactor. The action began in the
Federal Court this morning with environmentalists claiming that
Australian Nuclear Authorities have no long-term plan to process
or store radio-active waste. Green groups also claim that
Australia does not need radioactive isotopes and that
alternatives can be found for scientific and medical research.
Transcripts on this website are created by an independent
transcription service. The ABC does not warrant the accuracy of
the transcripts. ABC Online users are advised to listen to the
audio provided on this page to verify the accuracy of the
transcripts.
©
2002 ABC [http://www.abc.net.au/common/copyrigh.htm] |
Privacy
Policy [http://www.abc.net.au/privacy.htm]
*****************************************************************
5 NRC, Entergy to Discuss Performance Issues at Indian Point 2
NRC: Press Release Region I - 2002 - 40 -
U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs,
Region I 475 Allendale Road, King of Prussia, Pa. 19406
www.nrc.gov
No. I-02-040 May 22, 2002 CONTACT: Diane Screnci
(610) 337-5330 Neil A. Sheehan (610) 337-5331 E-mail:
opa1@nrc.gov [opa1@nrc.gov]
Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will meet with
representatives of Entergy Nuclear Operations, Inc., on Thursday,
May 30, to discuss performance improvement efforts at the Indian
Point 2 nuclear power plant. Entergy operates the facility, which
is located in Buchanan, N.Y. The meeting is scheduled to begin at
3 p.m. at the Verplanck Fire House, at Broadway and 8th Street
(approximately 200 yards west of Broadway) in Verplanck, N.Y. The
session will be open to the public for observation and the public
will have an opportunity to ask questions of NRC staff before its
conclusion.
The specific topic to be discussed will be Entergy's
"Fundamentals" Improvement Plan for the plant, which covers such
areas as equipment reliability, design and configuration control,
human performance, and problem identification and resolution.
Indian Point 2 is currently designated by the NRC as a plant with
"multiple degraded cornerstones." (Cornerstones are measures of
performance.) This designation is associated principally with
underlying performance issues revealed during an August 1999
reactor trip with electrical distribution system complications
and a February 2000 steam generator tube failure event. As a
consequence of that designation, Indian Point 2 is the subject of
additional NRC scrutiny.
A team of NRC inspectors will visit the plant in late June and
early July to assess progress being made by Entergy in addressing
performance issues.
*****************************************************************
6 Plant set to restart by year's end
- - The Tribune Chronicle -
Your Mahoning Valley News Source
Wednesday, May 22, 2002
[tribune@tribune-chronicle.com]
By JOE MILICIA The Associated Press
AKRON - FirstEnergy Corp. expects to have its Davis-Besse nuclear
plant operating by the end of the year, even if it has to replace
the plant's damaged reactor head, the company's head told
shareholders Tuesday at the company's annual meeting.
The plant has been shut down ever since inspectors found leaks
had allowed boric acid to eat a hole in the 6-inch thick steel
cap that covers the reactor vessel at the plant about 20 miles
east of Toledo.
The corrosion, found while the plant was shut down for refueling
in February, was the most extensive ever found on top of a U.S.
nuclear plant reactor and prompted federal inspectors to order an
industrywide review of U.S. plants with similar designs and
conditions. No other plants reported finding corrosion.
FirstEnergy Chief Executive Pete Burg warned shareholders that
the Davis-Besse plant's restart requires approval from the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The company is deciding whether to repair the reactor head, which
would allow for a September restart, or buy one from a partially
completed reactor in Midland, Mich. Replacing the reactor head
would delay the restart until December.
Burg said that while Davis-Besse is shut down, the company will
pay $10 million to $15 million a month for replacement power.
That cost will increase to $20 million during July and August
when energy costs are higher.
Davis-Besse is one of three nuclear plants owned by FirstEnergy
and accounts for 7 percent of its generating capacity.
Shareholders at the company's lightly attended annual meeting had
little to say about problems at Davis-Besse.
Leon Wilson, 84, of North Canton, said he wants to see the plume
of steam rising out of the plant's cooling tower as soon as
possible because that means money for the company.
''I'd just love to see that Davis-Besse steam flowing out on Lake
Erie,'' he said.
Wilson said after years of owning stock of Centerior Energy,
which merged with Ohio Edison in 1997 to form FirstEnergy, his
938 shares are now making money.
FirstEnergy is coming off a year of record growth and earnings.
Its shares were up 92 cents at $33.99 in afternoon trading
Tuesday on the New York Stock Exchange but down about 10 percent
from an all-time high of $39.12 in March.
Asked about criticism the company has received for overlooking
warning signs of the reactor cap's corrosion, Wilson said,
''That's life.''
Amy Ryder, of the environmental group Ohio Citizen Action, said
the plant should remain shut down because FirstEnergy can't
guarantee its safety.
At the shareholders meeting, she called on Burg to form an
independent commission to examine the plant's safety, including
individuals outside the NRC.
''The people they have overlooking the problem are the same
people who stood by as boric acid corroded the reactor head,''
she said.
Burg said the company already has enough outside parties looking
at safety issues.
An inspector sent by the House Energy and Commerce Committee will
be at Davis-Besse on Wednesday to give the committee a firsthand
account of the damage.
The NRC announced Monday that a group of NRC managers will review
the agency's role in inspecting the plant and whether they should
have found the damage earlier.
Ryder suggested the plant be closed down because FirstEnergy
hasn't proved that it can fix the corroded reactor head and run
the plant reliably.
''We will not return it to service until we are certain it will
operate safely,'' Burg told shareholders.
www.tribune-chronicle.com [http://www.tribune-chronicle.com]
240 Franklin St. S.E. | Warren, Ohio 44482
330.841.1600 (local) | 888.550.TRIB (toll-free)
*****************************************************************
7 Princeton says N.J. nuclear plant needs better security
New Jersey News
Wednesday, May 22, 2002
By TERRENCE DOPP
The Express-Times
TRENTON -- Security upgrades are needed at the Artificial Island
nuclear power plant, according to a Princeton University study
released Tuesday.
The study, performed by undergraduates at the university, found
while security at the Salem County facility is better than most
plants in the nation, there is much to be done.
Particularly troubling is the potential for terrorists to steal
spent nuclear fuel and build a "dirty bomb," or low-tech nuclear
weapon. Dirty bombs consist of nuclear material surrounding
conventional explosives, one anti-nuclear weapons activist said.
"Since Sept. 11, a new danger has emerged. It's actually been
there for a while but now we're more aware of it. That is the
so-called dirty bomb," said Bob Moore, head of the Coalition for
Peace Action. "It's not a general nuclear explosion, but it could
release radiation over a wide area indeed."
Nationally, security needs to be bolstered to prevent a terrorist
attack on a nuclear reactor, according to the report.
"It varies from power plant to power plant," said Nina Sen, a
junior who evaluated security issues for the report. "Nationally
speaking, security is a huge concern."
In terms of Salem, the plant had a better-than-average record.
The Salem I, Salem II and Hope Creek reactors all sit on the one
site in Lower Alloways Township. Combined, the three reactors
compose the second largest nuclear generating facility in the
country.
Plant officials have said security was bolstered in the wake of
attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
"Our Salem plant is in compliance with all Nuclear Regulatory
Commission requirements and all federal regulations," Public
Service Enterprise Group spokesman Paul Rosengren said.
Rosengren said he is prohibited from going in depth about
security measures in the wake of the attacks.
But PSEG Nuclear, the subsidiary that runs the plant, has taken
precautions, he said.
"Our nuclear power plant is a heck of a lot more secure than a
host of other targets that would be easier and more damaging ...
It would not be easy. It's not totally impossible; I can't make
that assurance."
Recommendations in the report included increased and more
realistic simulations of attacks on the facility run more often
and so-called dry cask storage to prevent an attack on vulnerable
cooling pools.
Increasing security workers' pay, training and mandated
background checks are also key, according to the report.
Arming pilots and increased airport security is the only way to
prevent an attack from the air, a possibility many fear, John
Paul Chou, a physics major at the university, said.
Such an attack could penetrate the three feet of steel-reinforced
concrete that forms the reactor's wall, according to Chou.
"Those, as I see it, are the only feasible methods of protecting
against the hijacking of an airplane," he said.
Security at the site has taken on significance for many since the
Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and a report U.S. forces found plans
of the site while sweeping an Al-Qaida cave this fall.
Anti-nuclear activists, including the UNPLUG Salem coalition,
greeted the report favorably.
"I think it has a lot of credibility ... Much more than if it
came from a group that was just saying to shut the plant down,"
said Norm Cohen, UNPLUG Salem director.
Cohen said his group would like to see the facility shuttered,
but until that becomes a reality will push for higher security in
the area.
Frank Von Hippel, a Princeton professor and adviser on the
project, said he found no flaws with the group's research.
Among other issues found in the report were the need for
officials to pass out potassium iodide to residents surrounding
the area.
Presently, plans exist to present the chemical, which is designed
to slow the absorption of radiation into the body, to those in a
10-mile radius in the event of an attack.
The group recommended mailing or distributing the drug to anyone
within a 50-mile radius of the plant before the attack.
According to researchers, distributing the pills in the chaos
after a potential attack would prove unrealistic.
Copyright 2002 The Express-Times. Used with permission.
© 2002 NJ.com. All Rights Reserved.
*****************************************************************
8 Opinions:MOX a never-ending energy source?
Augusta Georgia:
Web posted Wednesday, May 22, 2002
Letter to the Editor
Joan O. King of Sautee, Ga., seems to have discovered a
never-ending energy source according to her May 17 letter, "Still
opposes SRS' MOX mission."
If using plutonium in MOX fuel produces more plutonium, then we
could use that plutonium to fuel more reactors, and so on. This
is the kind of misinformation that delays noble projects like
MOX. Anyone who even took high school physics could tell you that
such nonsense is impossible. You can't get fuel from nothing.
It is true that some of the uranium in the fuel mixture will be
activated to form plutonium, but the net amount of plutonium will
always go down. If it made more plutonium, then you would never
have to refuel.
If you want to test this theory, then build just one test
reactor with MOX fuel and see if it does not someday need a new
supply of fuel or if, instead, it needs to have the plutonium
surplus periodically removed, as Ms. King would have you believe.
Kirby Coggin, Windsor, S.C.
[http://augusta.com] .
*****************************************************************
9 Cost of reopening nuclear plant soars
globetechnology.com: News
MARTIN MITTELSTAEDT
Wednesday, May 22, 2002
Ontario Power Generation says the cost of reopening its Pickering
A nuclear station has soared to about $2-billion, nearly 54 per
cent higher than last year's estimate of $1.3-billion.
The company, which is owned by the provincial government but is
supposed to make investment decisions based on commercial
considerations, says the increase is due to unanticipated delays
in refurbishing the station.
Pickering A is the oldest nuclear plant in the country, and
almost every major part of it, including its turbines and heat
exchangers, is getting a face-lift to bring it to modern
standards. Company officials say they initially underestimated
the time and complexity of completing this work.
The officials also say that the cost overruns won't affect the
commercial viability of the station.
High nuclear expenses are a sensitive topic in the province
because Ontario Hydro, one of the forerunner companies to Ontario
Power, got into a financially weakened state because of big cost
increases and poor performance at its nuclear stations.
"No matter what, every time you look at it, this is by far the
best option for us and the province," Jim Burpee, vice-president
of Pickering A, said of reopening the station, located on Lake
Ontario near Toronto's eastern boundary.
He said the company has no financial difficulty funding the
refurbishment, using cash from current electricity sales.
Reopening the station has been twice delayed, and is now expected
to begin in stages starting later this year or early in 2003.
Because of problems returning the station to service, Ontario
Power's chief nuclear officer, Gene Preston, has made the unusual
decision to take over day-to-day management of the refurbishment
project from the two contractors hired for it.
Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., which is federally owned, has done
the design work. The general contracting was done by a consortium
headed by Stone & Webster, a U.S. engineering firm that bills
itself as one of the world's foremost engineering and
construction companies.
On May 1, the province adopted market pricing for electricity.
Richard Dicerni, Ontario Power's executive vice-president, said
that even with the higher price tag on Pickering A, the station
will be a low-cost and competitive power supplier.
He defended the $2-billion expenditure, saying Ontario Power's
cost of returning Pickering to service is in line with the
$1.8-billion (U.S.) that the Tennessee Valley Authority in the
U.S. is spending to bring its Browns Ferry station back to
service. It's also competitive with other energy sources, such as
gas and coal.
"In that context, the Pickering project still makes commercial
sense," he said.
Ontario Power's top executives will be in Ottawa this week
reporting to federal regulators at the Canadian Nuclear Safety
Commission on the progress of the Pickering refurbishment.
The company has spent about $730-million on the station, and
expects to spend another $230-million to finish the work on the
first reactor to return to service. The cost of each of the
remaining three reactors will be $300-million to $400-million.
They will come back on stream at six-month intervals starting in
mid-2003.
© 2002 Bell Globemedia Interactive In
*****************************************************************
10 SECRET FALLOUT: RADIATION FROM HIROSHIMA TO THREE-MILE ISLAND
Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 23:05:28 -0500 (CDT)
http://www.ki4u.com/Secret_Fallout/SF.html
Dr. Ernest Sternglass is Professor of Radiology, specializing in
radiological physics, at the University of Pittsburgh Medical
School, as well as Adjunct Professor in the Department of History
and Philosophy of Science at Indiana University, Bloomington. He
is past president of the Pittsburgh Chapter of the Federation of
American Scientists, a Fellow of the American Physical Society, a
member of the Radiological Society of North America and the American
Association of Physicists in Medicine. He has testified on low-level
radiation before the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy and many
other groups both here and abroad.
Dr. George Wald, Nobel Laureate in Physiology and Medicine, is
Professor of Biology at Harvard.
The duty to endure gives us the right to know. -JEAN ROSTAND
Contents
Acknowledgments
Preface
Introduction
1.Thunderstorm in Troy
2.The Unheeded Warning
3.A Small Error in the Assumptions
4.A Ray of Hope
5.The Evidence Begins to Emerge
6.The Hidden Tragedy of Hiroshima
7.Death before Birth
8.The Crucial Test
9.Both Young and Old
10.The Clouds of Trinity
11.The Battle for Publication
12.Counterattack at Hanford
13.The Public's Right to Know
14.The Price of Secrecy
15.Fallout at Shippingport
16.The Minds of the Children
17.Incident at Three Mile Island
18.Too Little Information Too Late
19.The Present Danger
Bibliography
Glossary
Index
*****************************************************************
11 [psy-op] Blocked Media - Radioactive Fallout and Infant
Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 23:25:59 -0500 (CDT)
From: kvan100951@aol.com=20
To: Health_and_Healing@yahoogroups.com=20
Sent: Wednesday, May 22, 2002 9:28 AM
Subject: [Health_and_Healing] Reports of Fallout and Infant Mortality
http://www.llrc.org/reading/sutcliffe51.htm
In the opinion of Tucker (1986), only about 10% of the expected number of
UK government research papers on radiation risks have been published.
He argued that publication of some 90% of such research reports
has been blocked or delayed.
Whilst an article by Sternglass on the connection between fallout
and infant mortality was published in an academic journal in April
1969, the journals' managing editor later informed Sternglass (1981,
page 97) that both before and after publication of the article the
editor had received pressure from Washington not to publish. A
study of the effects of fallout on infant and adult mortality by
Lester Lave, Samuel Leinhardt and Martin Kaye in 1971 was finally
accepted for publication in an academic journal. However, just
before publication Sternglass (1981, page 138) reports that the
editors received objections from highly placed government officials,
and the plates were destroyed. The article has never been published.
More at URL
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12 [OFFTOPIC:1117] Rumsfeld: Terrorists Will Get Nukes
Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 00:23:47 -0500 (CDT)
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020521/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe
/attacks_warnings_22
Rumsfeld: Terrorists Will Get Nukes
Tue May 21,12:56 PM ET
By JOHN J. LUMPKIN, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Terrorists are sure to eventually acquire nuclear,
chemical and biological weapons, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told
senators Tuesday.
Audio/Video
Powell: Terror Fight Has Many Fronts (AP)
Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya and North Korea (news - web sites) are developing
such weapons of mass destruction and will supply them to terrorists to which
they already are linked, Rumsfeld said.
"They (terrorists) inevitably will get their hands on them and they will not
hesitate to use them," Rumsfeld told a Senate Appropriations subcommittee.
Meantime, Tom Ridge, who heads the White House office of domestic security,
said new terror warnings have not prompted U.S. officials to raise the
nationwide alert status because the intelligence on possible attacks is too
vague.
Rumsfeld declined to discuss specific terrorist threats, saying the
government sees hundreds a day and as many as 90 percent of them are
designed to test the government's response.
"They jerk us around, try to jerk us around, and test us," Rumsfeld said.
Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that while
the war on terror has hurt al-Qaida, the terrorist network remains a threat.
"Just like a wounded animal is the most dangerous, they (al-Qaida) still
pose a threat to our armed forces," Myers said.
At his White House briefing, press secretary Ari Fleischer (news - web
sites) said he hadn't heard Rumsfeld's exact words, but that "the secretary
knows what the president knows and that is that we're in the middle of a war
to protect the country and diminish the ability of people who would do us
harm from getting their hands on such weapons."
Ridge said predictions that terrorists may target unnamed apartment
buildings, for example, were not enough to change the nation's security
alert from "yellow" - the third-highest of five stages - and retain the
system's credibility.
"It wasn't actionable in the sense that we're going to change a national
level of awareness, but it was informational," Ridge told the World Economic
Forum (news - web sites) at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (news - web sites).
Faced with criticism for belatedly releasing terrorist information it had
before the Sept. 11 attacks, the administration may routinely release
intelligence information, he added.
"We have two choices: You can either keep it to yourselves or you can share
it," Ridge said. "And under the circumstances, depending on the source and
the specificity and a few other circumstances and conditions, we may share
it."
Ridge was the latest member of the Bush administration to predict that more
terror attacks on Americans are "not a matter of 'if', but 'when.'"
The predictions are based in part on new intelligence suggesting plotting by
Osama bin Laden (news - web sites)'s al-Qaida network has been on the rise
over the past few weeks, said a senior U.S. official, speaking on condition
of anonymity.
But this sort of increase in volume has happened several times before - even
since Sept. 11.
The official portrayed the intelligence as a new peak in a high-and-low
cycle of terrorist threats that counterterrorism authorities have tracked
for years. The last peak was in March, when al-Qaida financial activity and
communications stepped up. That was linked to al-Qaida leader Abu Zubaydah,
who was subsequently captured in Pakistan.
Another peak in threat reporting took place last summer and is now regarded
as evidence of al-Qaida's preparations for the Sept. 11 attacks on New York
City and Washington. Other peaks have come and gone, and no attack has taken
place.
Publicly, officials are making sobering warnings.
"There will be another terrorist attack. We will not be able to stop it,"
FBI (news - web sites) Director Robert Mueller told a meeting of the
National Association of District Attorneys on Monday. "It's something we all
live with."
He said suicide bombers like those who have attacked Israeli buses and
restaurants are inevitable in the United States. His words - "I wish I could
be more optimistic" - came one day after Vice President Dick Cheney (news -
web sites) said it was almost a certainty the United States would be
attacked again by terrorists.
The blunt new warnings are designed to give Americans better notice and
protect Bush against second guessing in the event of another attack, said a
senior administration official with knowledge of U.S. intelligence and White
House strategy.
Under fire for its handling of terrorism intelligence before the September
attacks, the administration is fighting Democratic-led efforts to have an
independent commission rather than existing congressional intelligence
committees study its performance.
Democrats last week pointed to the disclosure of a July 10 memo from a
Phoenix FBI agent who was concerned about a large number of Arabs seeking
pilot, security and airport operations training at at least one U.S. flight
school, along with the disclosure that Bush had been told in an Aug. 6
intelligence briefing that al-Qaida might attempt a hijacking aimed at
Americans. The administration has said the information was not specific
enough for it to take concrete action.
The Justice Department (news - web sites) said Monday that Attorney General
John Ashcroft (news - web sites) did not learn until weeks ago of the
Phoenix memorandum.
FBI agent Kenneth Williams, who wrote the Phoenix memo, and Mueller arranged
to brief the Senate Judiciary Commmittee on the memo later Tuesday.
The New York Times in Tuesday's editions reported that Ashcroft and Mueller
were told a few days after Sept. 11 about the Phoenix memo. The newspaper
said neither Ashcroft nor Mueller briefed Bush and his national security
staff until recently about the contents of the memo.
Fleischer said it immediately became known in the moments after the Sept. 11
attacks that the hijackers had been trained at American flight schools.
In fact, just hours after the hijackers' identities were determined,
government officials had tracked their paths through the flight schools and
sent FBI agents to them.
Fleischer repeatedly refused to criticize the FBI or Justice Department for
not telling Bush until recently about the Phoenix memo and said that Bush
will not make judgments about the agencies based on "the snippet of the
day."
___
Associated Press writer Ron Fournier contributed to this report.
*****************************************************************
13 Rumsfeld says terrorists sure to get nuclear arms --
The Washington Times
May 22, 2002
By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld yesterday raised the
potential of nuclear attack in America, saying
terrorist-sponsoring countries "inevitably" would acquire weapons
of mass destruction and "would not hesitate one minute in using
them."
But he expressed optimism about the main front in the ongoing war
on global terrorism. He told a Senate panel that the U.S.-led
coalition was making progress in permanently moving Afghanistan
from a haven for al Qaeda terrorists to a more stable nation with
its own police and armed forces.
Mr. Rumsfeld's stark comments on nuclear, biological and chemical
terror comes in the same week that other senior Bush
administration officials have warned of future attacks, perhaps
similar to those of September 11.
The FBI yesterday issued an alert of potential terrorist attacks
aimed at New York City landmarks, including the Statute of
Liberty and Brooklyn Bridge.
The warning, based on intelligence data obtained during
interviews with Taliban and al Qaeda detainees, was forwarded to
New York authorities by the FBI's joint terrorism task force.
Authorities said the information was unconfirmed.
Security was increased around the city's major monuments and
landmarks.
Although Mr. Rumsfeld did not single out Iraq in his testimony
yesterday before the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on
defense, he painted a scenario that matched Saddam Hussein's
regime.
"We have to recognize that terrorist networks have relationships
with terrorist states that have weapons of mass destruction," he
testified, "and that they inevitably are going to get their hands
on them and they would not hesitate one minute in using them.
That's the world we live in."
The administration is contemplating options for removing Saddam.
The justification would be that he continues to violate his
agreement with the United Nations to destroy his weapons-making
materials. The administration's belief is that Baghdad eventually
will share weapons of mass destruction with terror groups such as
al Qaeda who would unleash them on America and the rest of the
Western world.
"The problem I see, and it's a very serious one, is that there
has been a proliferation of weapons of mass destruction," Mr.
Rumsfeld said. "The terrorist networks have close linkages with
terrorist states, the states that are on the worldwide known
terrorist list — Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria, North Korea."
In Afghanistan, about 7,000 U.S. troops are battling al Qaeda and
Taliban remnants, while working to stabilize the country. Some
Democrats have begun to criticize this phase of the war, claiming
Afghanistan is falling into chaos as various warlords vie for
power.
"I'm concerned about the reports that there is deterioration in
the stability of the establishment of a new government," said
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, California Democrat.
"I'm concerned by the skirmishes that are now taking place, which
indicate to me a real resiliency on the part of the Taliban and
al Qaeda, that they will in fact try to come back if in fact they
can come back."
Mr. Rumsfeld responded that Afghanistan has nearly always been a
place of instability, crime, warlords and tribal civil war.
Now, he said, "there is a persuasive indicator that things are
more stable there than they were, because refugees are returning.
It is nowhere near as stable as here, but it is vastly better
place than it was."
On expanding a Kabul-based peacekeeping force to other parts of
the country, Mr. Rumsfeld said no country wants the job. "The
problem is there's no one stepping up and wanting to do it," he
said.
Hours after Mr. Rumsfeld testified, his Afghanistan commander,
Army Gen. Tommy Franks, told reporters he wants an initial Afghan
national army of 2,000 to 3,000 soldiers put in place in six
months to do some missions now conducted by coalition forces.
U.S. Army Green Berets are now training Afghan recruits to form
individual units of 600 troops.
"I will not be a 'little Johnny Sunshine' on this thing," Gen.
Franks said. "I think we need to be realistic. The desire in
building and training an Afghan national army will be to have
representation from a great many of these ethnic and tribal
groupings in locations in Afghanistan."
Overall, the four-star general said, "There are many signs of
positive momentum in the western side of Afghanistan, as there
are also up in the north, as well as down in the southwest."
Jerry Seper contributed to this report.
*****************************************************************
14 Nuke Foes Press for Evacuation Plan
New York Daily News Online | News and Views | City Beat |
Wednesday, May 22, 2002
By DEBBIE TUMA
Special to The News
coalition of activists and celebrities is pushing for the
government to develop evacuations plans for Queens and Long
Island in the event of a terrorist attack on nearby nuclear
power plants.
[nuke_protest.JPG (13586 bytes)]
Model Christie Brinkley, husband Peter Cooke and former
federal energy official Robert Alvarez at anti-nuclear rally
last weekend.
Robert Alvarez, formerly senior policy adviser to the federal
Department of Energy, urged those attending a recent meeting of
Standing For Truth About Radiation, an East Hampton-based
anti-nuclear group, to sign petitions in support of the Nuclear
Security Act of 2002.
This act would require the federal government to improve security
at nuclear plants and be responsible for evacuating people in the
area.
It also would require local hospitals to stockpile potassium
iodine tablets, which help protect people from radiation.
Of concern to activists are the nuclear plants at Indian Point in
Buchanan, N.Y., and Millstone in Connecticut.
"We need to do everything we can to keep our nuclear plants from
becoming weapons of destruction," said Alvarez. "We need to
organize a meeting soon with local government officials to get
this act passed."
Dan Andrews, a spokesman for Queens Borough President Helen
Marshall, said there has been no discussion so far of an
evacuation plan for the borough.
Mike Marzano, a Hampton Bays fireman, said his department has
received no evacuation plan in case of a nuclear attack.
"I wouldn't know what to do," he said.
State Funding Needed
Tim Ryan, a spokesman for Suffolk County Executive Bob Gaffney,
said that Gaffney signed legislation in 1999, calling for the
preparation of an emergency evacuation plan, but that the
Legislature did not provide funding for it.
"But since Sept. 11, Suffolk County's Department of Fire, Rescue
and Emergency Services has been working on an emergency
evacuation plan, in coordination with Nassau County, and they are
asking for state funding to provide a Long Island-wide plan," he
said.
The threat of nuclear power plants being used as weapons of mass
destruction has turned supermodel Christie Brinkley into an
anti-terror activist.
"I called many local fire and police departments out here, asking
what kind of emergency plan we have, and I was treated like a
heckler," said Brinkley, one of the board of directors of
Standing For Truth About Radiation.
Brinkley said she has trouble sleeping at night because she
doesn't know how she or her family would be notified in case of
an attack at Millstone.
"We are all sitting ducks," she said. "That famous 'Big Duck' on
the Montauk Highway in Riverhead is really symbolic of Long
Island right now, because that's us."
*****************************************************************
15 Dire Nuke Threat Warning
New York Daily News Online | News and Views | Beyond the City |
[Daily News Online Edition]
Wednesday, May 22, 2002
By RICHARD SISK
Daily News Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON errorists backed by rogue states will "inevitably" get
nuclear weapons and try to use them against the U.S., Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld warned yesterday.
"We have to recognize that terrorist networks have relationships
with terrorist states that have weapons of mass destruction," he
told the Senate Appropriations Committee. "They inevitably are
going to get their hands on them, and they would not hesitate one
minute in using them. That's the world we live in."
Rumsfeld's ominous warning — part of a pitch for his record $393
billion defense budget — came as Democrats urged the
administration to tone down the rhetoric.
"It's important for us to be cognizant of the anxiety we create
with each new report," said Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle
(D-S.D.).
Rumsfeld's remarks followed similar warnings from Vice President
Cheney and FBI Director Robert Mueller on U.S. vulnerability.
President Bush echoed the theme in an interview with the Italian
RAI TV network. Asked if the U.S. was "crying wolf," he said the
warnings were meant to convey "a general threat."
"Al Qaeda still exists, they still hate America and any other
country which loves freedom, and they want to hurt us," Bush
said. "They're nothing but a bunch of cold-blooded killers."
Dems: Lower Volume
But Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), a member of the House
Intelligence Committee, joined the Democratic chorus for putting
the warnings in context.
"It's not enough just to get everybody panicky," she said.
Harman joined House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.) in
pushing legislation to give Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge
cabinet status, an independent budget and authority to coordinate
intelligence from all sources. That's now the job of national
security adviser Condoleezza Rice.
"Ridge needs a real job," Harman said. Gephardt added: "We've got
to put this responsibility in one place, and we've got to get a
strategy in front of the Congress to deal with it."
Kenneth Williams — an FBI agent in Phoenix who wrote a July memo
warning about Middle Eastern men taking flight lessons — told a
closed-door session of the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday
that he did not believe at the time the information in the memo
was significant and specific enough to warrant action such as
arrests.
The memo's intent, he told the session, was to show a need to
screen Middle Easterners who came to study U.S. airport
operations, the sources said.
However, the suggestion was rejected by the FBI within weeks
because the bureau was too busy with other matters, one source
said.
*****************************************************************
16 Fears raised by nuclear coverage unnecessary
[St. Petersburg Times Online: Citrus County news ]
[http://www.tampabay.com/]
A dry run for disaster, May 5 Times:"> [printer version]
Letters to the Editors
© St. Petersburg Times
published May 22, 2002
Editor: Re: A dry run for disaster, May 5 Times: I truly do not
know why you continue to raise bogey men concerning nuclear
power, other than to unnecessarily frighten people. I was away
when apparently you raised alarms concerning transportation of
spent fuel elements and I applaud the writers of the factual
responses you received and published in the paper on May 13.
Perhaps if the editors of the paper and your editorial writers
would read these responses, you might learn something.
In the same issue, you carried an opinion column by Citrus Times
editor Greg Hamilton, Key people omitted from drills: the public.
His column made it appear that:
The evacuation drill was planned because of an immediate and
impending risk to the public near the Crystal River nuclear
facility. This was misleading. Every nuclear plant in the country
is required to carry out these drills periodically. It had
nothing to do with the Sept. 11 incidents.
That nuclear incidents had occurred frequently and the public was
unprepared. The only specifically nuclear incident the writer
could find after, I am sure what was exhaustive research,
occurred in Japan at a fuel reprocessing plant. Spent nuclear
fuel is not reprocessed in this country; hence, there are no fuel
reprocessing plants.
The only incident that has occurred here at a commercial nuclear
plant was at Three Mile Island, and after intensive, thorough
coverage, the media had to confess that the only damage had been
psychosomatic due to the hysteria caused by the media reporting.
No one was injured otherwise.
Perhaps you remember the chaos caused by the premature warnings a
year or so ago for the inhabitants of Florida's East Coast to
evacuate because of the approach of a hurricane that never came.
The writer is correct in one sense, that evacuation planning is
poor and does need to improve. But, for God's sake, plan for
emergencies that may occur, not for ones that exist only in the
minds of those frightened by nuclear power.
I challenge the Times writers to find any industry of comparable
size that has a measurable safety record 1 percent as safe, or as
environmentally friendly, as the nuclear power industry.
-- Dr. A. Keith Furr, Brooksville, former director Environmental
Health and Safety, Virginia Polytechnic Institute
*****************************************************************
17 How safe now?
CNN.com -
- May 20, 2002
By Romesh Ratnesar
Reported by Melissa August, Sally Donnelly, Andrew Goldstein, Mark Thompson and Adam Zagorin/Washington">
2002-05-20 13:31:20">
How safe now?
In March, a TIME investigation found that U.S. agencies were
running into obstacles as they struggled to shore up our homeland
defenses. An update: the system is still broken, and much is left
undone
By Romesh Ratnesar
Reported by Melissa
August, Sally Donnelly, Andrew Goldstein, Mark Thompson
and Adam Zagorin/Washington
THE HUNT
The U.S.-led military campaign has devastated al-Qaeda's
training infrastructure, destroyed its sanctuary and scattered
its forces. But thousands of al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters
survived the war, and some are regrouping at the
Afghanistan-Pakistan border. The latest fighting is taking place
on the border in Paktia province, where some 1,000 allied troops
are hunting down about 100 al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters. "That
is where most of these guys have gone to ground," a Central
Command officer says.
But no one knows whether the most prized targets--Osama bin
Laden; his top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri; and Taliban leader
Mullah Omar--are among them. Last week a London-based Arab
newspaper carried a purported interview with Omar in which he
claimed that bin Laden is alive, warned that "we don't consider
the battle has ended" and vowed to bring "fire and hell and total
defeat" on the U.S.
Bin Laden's ability to plan more attacks has been degraded,
but the danger he poses will mount the longer he stays at large.
Intelligence officials say they continue to pick up "chatter"
from al-Qaeda operatives vowing to strike another huge blow. Last
Friday Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said he hasn't seen
"good, hard information" on the fate of bin Laden and Omar since
December. "We continue to see scraps," he said. "But none of it
seems to prove out."
PLUGGING HOLES
After Sept. 11, the Bush Administration tried to bolster the
federal counterterror effort by creating the Office of Homeland
Security under Tom Ridge. The office is responsible for plugging
holes in the bureaucracy and coordinating some 70 federal
agencies and thousands of local government organizations--but
Ridge wields little clout over any of them. Bush gave him no
authority over Cabinet departments; as a result, many of Ridge's
proposals have stalled. Now the Administration is studying ways
to give Ridg e's office the power he needs to get the job done.
The redesign will be unveiled in July.
The CIA and the FBI, taking blame for failing to share
information with each other and Administration officials about
the hijacking threat, are trying to make up for their mistakes.
The staff of the CIA's Counterterrorism Center, where FBI and CIA
agents work side by side, has doubled to 1,000 since Sept. 11.
Analysts from both agencies have worked closely to investigate
al-Qaeda materials recovered by the military in Afghanistan for
clues to possible terror plots. Bush now receives reports from
both ag enci es in a single daily briefing. But the intelligence
community is still struggling to get up to speed. Last week FBI
Director Robert Mueller announced plans to create a "supersquad"
of Washington-based agents to handle terrorism investigations. It
will require the bureau to hire almost 2,000 new agents in the
next 18 months.
AIRPORT SECURITY
Random screenings and camouflaged soldiers in airports have
not made flying more secure. Sensible proposals long sought by
aviation experts--such as requiring carriers to match all bags to
passengers on connecting flights--have not been adopted. The
congressional mandate to install 2,200 explosive-detection
devices in all 429 airports by the end of the year has been
scaled down; the new Transportation Security Administration does
plan to buy almost 5,000 trace-detection devices. The TSA is
having troubl e re cruiting more than 40,000 new screeners. So
far, government-trained screeners have taken up positions in
exactly one airport.
Some experts say the U.S.'s haphazard security procedures may
only invite terrorists to try their luck. Because airports,
carriers and the government haven't yet implemented a methodical
system for identifying potential terrorists, everyone from pilots
to grandmothers is subject to random screening. In the long run,
that can work in the enemy's favor. "The U.S. has the bad guys
celebrating this inefficient use of resources," says Lior
Zoucker, who heads an aviation-security firm. "Terrorists like a
syst em t hat treats everyone the same."
DOMESTIC TARGETS
The greatest challenge in fighting terrorism is not to
prevent terrorists from repeating their last attack but to
anticipate where and how they will strike next. U.S. officials
have picked up intelligence about threats to targets ranging from
the electric-power grid to the water supply. Last week two Muslim
men not connected to al-Qaeda were indicted in South Florida for
conspiring to blow up two electric-power stations. The
Administration dismissed as unreliable a tip that terrorists may
be planning to hit a U.S. nuclear plant on July 4. But that was a
reminder of the vulnerability of U.S. nuclear facilities. Staged
terrorist attacks on commercial power plants succeed about half
the time. After 9/11, the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission
ordered a review of security at the U.S.'s 103 nuclear plants.
But the agency has yet to close glaring security holes. On Nov. 7
the government lifted a temporary ban on the use of airspace over
nuclear plants, and officials say they don't plan to equi p them
with antiair craft weapons, as the French do. Danielle Brian,
executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, says,
"The agencies responsible...have not increased the security
requirements to adequately match the threat we all know exists."
BORDERS
The first lines of defense against terrorism are the
country's borders and shores. But the U.S.'s perimeter is long
and porous. The government still lacks a system for determining
whether immigrants who enter legally overstay their visas, as two
9/11 hijackers did. The Immigration and Naturalization Service's
new budget request includes money to hire 570 more border-patrol
agents by next year, but experts think the U.S. needs to add at
least twice that number. The border-security act that Bush signed
la st w eek aims to modernize the country's system of tracking
those who want to enter the country. The ins has more than a
dozen computer programs for processing visas and green-card
applications; it should have just one.
Security experts warn that terrorist groups could use
container ships to sneak explosives, weapons of mass destruction
and even operatives into the U.S. Since 9/11, Coast Guard
officers have boarded 10,000 vessels; in the nine months before
9/11, they boarded just 200. But the U.S. still inspects only 2%
of incoming seaborne cargo.
BIOTERRORISM
Last fall's anthrax attacks sent public-health officials
racing to upgrade the U.S.'s bioterrorism defenses. Federal
spending on programs to combat bioterrorism has increased
10-fold, to $2.9 billion, and is scheduled to rise to $4 billion
next year. How much security does that buy? According to Health
and Human Services official Jerome Hauer, the number of
emergency-supply caches ready to be deployed to U.S. cities in
the event of an attack has increased from eight to 12; by the end
of the year, the go vern ment expects to have enough doses of the
smallpox vaccine to supply every American in the event of an
outbreak; and the U.S. is producing new supplies of the anthrax
vaccine.
But the U.S. is far from safe. Because many deadly agents can
spread quickly and cut a wide swath of destruction, the
responsibility for coping with the consequences of a possible
attack will rest with the country's nearly 7,000 local health
departments, which still must train hospitals and physicians in
how to spot and treat the symptoms of bioterrorism. "We haven't
really gotten stuff done yet," says Tara O'Toole, a biodefense
expert at Johns Hopkins University. Government researchers are
also playing cat ch-up: a recent Defense Department analysis
found that the U.S. has countermeasures against only a third of
the most likely bioterror pathogens. And like Osama bin Laden,
those responsible for the anthrax terror remain at large.
*****************************************************************
18 Security at research N-reactors questioned
Wednesday, May 22, 2002
By H. Josef Hebert
Associated Press writer
WASHINGTON — As Russia and the United States step up
security of their nuclear materials, a new report raises concerns
about inadequate safeguards of uranium used at hundreds of
civilian research reactors in 58 countries.
The report released this week urges the United States and
Russia to launch a global effort to end the use of highly
enriched, or weapons-grade, uranium at these research facilities.
In most cases the uranium was provided by either the United
States or Russia.
"There is a great recognition that this is not just a
Russia problem but that this is really a global problem," said
Matthew Bunn, one of the authors of the report produced by a
group of researchers at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.
The report said there are 345 operating or idle research
reactors in 58 countries that have highly enriched uranium that
could be converted for use in a weapon by terrorists if they were
to obtain the material.
"Security at these hundreds of buildings varies widely from
excellent to appalling," said the report. "In some cases security
is provided by a single sleepy watchman and a chain-link fence."
The report said that despite the heightened awareness since
the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, "the U.S. and global response to
the threat of nuclear terrorism are not remotely commensurate
with the threat."
The authors urged that President Bush and Russian President
Vladimir Putin, who will have a summit this week on nuclear arms
reduction, also agree to accelerate efforts to secure and account
for nuclear materials worldwide.
Bunn said the technology exists to better account for
nuclear materials in all countries and keep them secure.
"Terrorists are racing to get weapons of mass destruction.
We should be racing to stop them," said former Democratic Sen.
Sam Nunn, co-chairman of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a
Washington-based nuclear nonproliferation group that helped
produce the report.
While the report called for increased spending and a new
commitment to safeguarding Russia's nuclear materials, it also
warned of the threats posed by the highly enriched uranium
located around the globe in research reactors in 57 other
countries.
It cited a closed reactor near Belgrade, Yugoslavia; a
reactor in Ukraine that has 75 kilograms of highly enriched
uranium; and a reactor in Belarus with 300 kilograms of
similar-grade uranium. All three reactors were described as
"impoverished," with no money to tighten security.
The authors urged a $50 million-a-year program to fund a
uranium "take-back" and get research institutions to switch to
using low-enriched uranium that does not pose a weapons threat.
Most of these reactors use highly enriched uranium supplied
by the United States or Russia under agreements that require
certain security measures. But the report said monitoring and
spot checks by both countries have been shoddy and infrequent.
Even if problems are found, there is no money for security
improvements, said the report.
"Vulnerable nuclear material anywhere could be stolen and
made into a terrorist bomb that would be a threat to everyone,
everywhere," said the report, calling for "a globalized approach"
aimed at securing these materials.
The report, "Securing Nuclear Weapons and Materials: Seven
Steps for Immediate Action," was written by Matthew Bunn, John
Holdren and Anthony Wier and published by Harvard's Project on
Managing the Atom and the Nuclear Threat Institute.
On the Net: Nuclear Threat Initiative: www.nti.org<
© 2002 Deseret News Publishing Company
*****************************************************************
19 Halfway to Yucca Mountain
AlterNet Gets 2002 Webby
J.A. Savage, AlterNet
May 20, 2002
Utah's Skull Valley is already a busy place. All arround it, the
Air Force makes practice blasts in its Hill Bombing Range. Dugway
Proving Grounds tests chemical and biological weapons. There's a
Safety Kleen hazardous waste incinerator and landfill. The
Deseret Chemical Depot stores weapons and the Tooele Chemical
Demilitarization Facility burns 'em.
If the Department of Energy gets its way, Skull Valley will also
be the home to so-called "temporary" high level radioactive waste
on its way to the permanent waste dump in Yucca Mountain, Nevada.
With the Senate set to vote June 5 to override Nevada's veto of
the Yucca Mountain facility -- the House already voted
overwhelmingly to ignore Nevada's preference -- the people who
live in Skull Valley are getting increasingly nervous.
The fate of Yucca Mountain has grabbed all the headlines. The
fate of Skull Valley is barely a blip on the national radar. No
matter whether you think the Nevada site is a good or bad place
to store waste, at least it has big plans to use the best
technology available, bury the waste deep underground and monitor
it. Skull Valley doesn't.
At Skull Valley, waste would be shipped by rail in containers and
set above ground next to the bombing range. The technology would
consist of some concrete and steel and a chain link fence. The
plan calls for the area to hold -- for 20 years with a 20-year
extension -- enough nuclear waste to accommodate all the spent
fuel for every reactor in the nation.
"If there's enough focus on Yucca, they can sneak Skull Valley in
there and buy Yucca 40 more years," said Sammy Blackbear, a
Goshute Indian opposing the storage site.
The only way the Department of Energy could get a lease for this
halfway-to-Yucca storage site so quietly and efficiently is
because it is owned by Native Americans -- the Goshute Tribe,
whose Skull Valley members number about 130. Of that, 70 are
voting members with authority over 18,000 acres. Fifteen have
filed litigation to stop the proposed radioactive dump.
Native Americans' governments are sovereign unto themselves. As
such, they don't have all those pesky laws that the State of
Nevada, for instance, and even the Department of Energy and
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, have for environmental protection
and public process. None of that applies to the Goshutes.
The legal complaints allege federal support for a Tribal Council
of three whose chairman was recalled by the tribe, but returned
to power by the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1994. The chairman,
Leon Bear, convenes an "illegitimate regime," according to
filings, which "remains in power through bribery and corruption."
However, when pressed for specifics, Blackbear said he couldn't
release the material due to the current court battle.
Tribal chairman Leon Bear cited in a statement the potential flow
of money from nuclear waste storage to the Goshute, which
everyone involved agrees is impoverished.
"For a long time the tribe has been pretty much distressed over
revenues that they don't have, lack of infrastructure of the
tribal government. And we were looking for economic benefits or
development for the tribe."
Those revenues would be provided by Private Fuel Storage, a
consortium of reactor-owning companies (Consolidate Edison
Company of New York; GPU Nuclear, New Jersey; Genoa FuelTech,
Wisconsin; Florida Power & Light; Indiana-Michigan Power, also
known as American Electric Power; Xcel, Minnesota; Southern
California Edison; and Southern Nuclear Operating Company,
Alabama). Private Fuel Storage has applied for a federal license
to run the facility.
Private Fuel Storage is impatient about Yucca Mountain.
"There are nuclear plants that will run out of on-site storage
before Yucca Mountain could open. Those plants are faced with the
difficult decision to shut down their reactors prematurely,
severely limiting their ability to meet the electricity needs of
their customers," noted the consortium.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is considering granting a
license for the facility. A Final Environmental Impact Statement
released by the NRC at the beginning of the year "concluded
environmental impacts would be small or small-to-moderate and
that the proposed Private Fuel Storage facility is the best
alternative of those considered," according to the company.
It appears that no matter what happens with the Senate vote to
override the State of Nevada's Yucca Mountain veto, the potential
for a far less protected nuclear waste dump in the so-aptly named
Skull Valley will remain.
J.A. Savage is a senior correspondent for California Energy
Markets newsletter.
© 2002 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
20 Assessing the Aboriginal movement
The Taipei Times Online: 2002-05-22Wednesday, May 22nd, 2002
By Chang Chih-wei ±i§Ó°¶
I never realized that May Chin (ª÷¯À±ö) was an Aborigine until
she participated in last year's legislative elections. Only then
did I find out that the woman whom I saw on TV when I was a
little boy and always thought of as a Han Chinese was really an
Aborigine. Nor did I know that Orchid Island is the home of the
Yami (Tao) tribe. I have only recently learned a little bit about
Aborigines through reports about the anti-nuclear-waste protests.
But I'd like to say that the rediscovery of Aborigines by the Han
majority, or even by the Aborigines themselves, may not be
something worth celebrating. `The attitude that
`Aborigines are really pitiful, we should take a good look at
their problems' is not any different from calling them `mountain
compatriots that should be helped.''
Perhaps these are only my own ignorant musings, but this kind of
renewed recognition of Aborigines may be the result of the
gradual maturation of the "Aboriginal niche" in cultural and
political circles.
Aboriginal culture has been deemed to have the potential for
consumption both by the Han majority and by Aborigines
themselves. Through the recent protests, Aborigines have, under
the focus of the media, come to symbolize something that can be
consumed constantly. It may be consumption based on sympathy for
the disadvantaged, a kind of humanitarian consumption where the
people in front of the camera seem innocent and pure but find
themselves in a miserable situation.
The attitude that "Aborigines are really pitiful, we should take
a good look at their problems" is not any different from calling
them "mountain compatriots that should be helped." Through such
humanitarian attitudes we can ease our consciences, but in our
hearts we hide an unmentionable cynicism and hypocrisy.
This kind of consumption may be a case of hunting for cultural
curiosities -- it has also produced a diversified choice of
products. We will always find our way to the Ginmond Temple to
eat tofu soup if we go to Kyoto, or buy Chingshui porcelain if we
go to Tungshan. It feels as if products for cultural consumption
lead us to the core of that culture, satisfying the urban middle
class' cultural conceptions about "others." At the very least, we
are allowed to try the flavors that culture should possess, just
as the TV news anchor excitedly describes to the audience the
traditional dress that members of the Yami tribe wear during
their protests.
Cultural consumption can immediately and effectively satisfy our
desires and needs, but at the same time it is fleeting and
one-sided in the same way as souvenirs make us feel as if we have
obtained something significant, even though the souvenirs will
end up just gathering dust. To a certain extent, the same
conditions seem to apply to the current anti-nuclear-waste
protests, or at least to the media reports from these protests.
It is not necessarily appropriate to overly emphasize the
differences between the Han majority and Aborigines when it comes
to these protests. If we don't consider the most fundamental
rights a person or citizen should enjoy, but make the ethnic
perspective our only outlook, then we will still have fallen for
the presupposed Han-centric logic.
When the residents of Orchid Island started their intense
protests, they finally shook the nation's technocrats, and they
also brought the disputed policy of storing nuclear waste
"outside the nation's borders" back to the table. North Korea,
China and Southeast Asian nations are all countries that we see
as backwards, countries which we do our best to belittle and
ridicule. Now we turn around and want them to take our nuclear
waste.
This shows us a typical Han-centric hierarchy -- Han people,
Aborigines, other backward Asian countries. Given this behavior,
what rights do we have to accuse Western multinational
corporations of bringing pollution and damage to Taiwan now that
we are behaving in the same authoritarian and colonial ways
towards "backwards countries?"
Politically, we also have to consider to what extent the
rediscovery and renewed recognition of Aborigines relate to
Taiwanese nationalism. When we say that Aborigines are Taiwanese
or talk about the so-called "four great ethnic groups," can the
term "Aborigine" maintain its subjectivity? The implication is
that the differences between Aborigines and the Han majority may
have been ignored and exaggerated for political reasons.
When policies for foreign workers are being determined, the
impact on Aborigines is not considered, but during elections one
always hears theories about the percentages of blood relations
between different ethnic groups in Taiwan. I wish with all my
heart that those politicians with complicated blood ties will not
start quarreling because the red blood cells in their bodies
belong to different ethnic groups.
Even the "Aborigine" concept eliminates cultural and
anthropological differences and characteristics between each
tribe. The elimination of such distinctions is very convenient to
Han nationalists. The simplification of ethnic groups by saying
that "they are all Aborigines" is a necessary move in any
nationalist mobilization, and it is even more convenient for
promoting the political consumption of "them."
For the Aboriginal movement, the maturity of the Aboriginal
sector of the cultural and political consumer markets may be
beneficial in the short term, especially in the new economic era
that stresses the attainment of huge short-term benefits. In
terms of public relations, the Aboriginal sector can bring media
attention, while in terms of political competition it may lead to
a piece of the pie in the form of more votes.
But how much benefit will it bring Aboriginal culture? Will it
really bring substantial improvements to Aboriginal education and
the economic situation of Aborigines? Isn't it time to review the
Aboriginal movement and what its goals are? What does the word
"Aborigine" really mean to the Han majority and to the
Aborigines? At a time when Aborigines are becoming the new pet of
cultural consumption and an indicator of political correctness,
it seems that the concept is becoming gradually blurred.
Chang Chih-wei is a PhD at the Social Research Institute of
Tunghai University. Translated by Perry Svensson
This story has been viewed 289 times.
URL=[http://www.taipeitimes.com/news/2002/05/22/story/0000137126]
Copyright © 1999-2002 The Taipei Times. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
21 Bondevik more optimistic about Sellafield emissions
The Norway Post - Doorway to Norway
Monday, 27.5.2002
The radioactive emissions from the Sellafield nuclear
repossession plant was a key topic during talks between Norwegian
Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik and his British counterpart
Tony Blair in London on Tuesday.
Blair appreciates Norway's concern over the emissions to the sea
from the plant, Bondevik says.
He said the British government is still evaluating the
possibilities for storing the nuclear waste on land, but that
Blair made no promises.
-However, I am a bit more optimistic now, Bondevik said to NRK TV
after the talks.
Both Norway and Ireland have expressed strong opposition to
Britain's allowing the radioactive waste from the Sellafield
plant to be released directly to the sea.
(NRK)
Rolleiv Solholm
*****************************************************************
22 Ex-federal transportation safety chief enlisted in Yucca fight
Jim Hall
Headed National Transportation Safety Board from 1994 to 2001
Wednesday, May 22, 2002
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
Senate urged to delay vote until cask safety demonstrated
By STEVE TETREAULT
STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON -- Nevada leaders have enlisted the former head of the
National Transportation Safety Board to amplify a message that
the government should not move forward on the Yucca Mountain
Project.
Jim Hall, a Tennessean who headed the NTSB from 1994 to 2001,
agreed to become chairman of a Nevada-organized "transportation
safety coalition" that is calling attention to what the state
says are unacceptable risks in plans to ship spent nuclear fuel
to a proposed repository 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
Hall sent a letter to senators Tuesday calling on them to
withhold voting on Yucca Mountain legislation until full-scale
tests can demonstrate the safety of truck and rail casks that
would carry high-level nuclear waste through 44 states to Nevada.
He will deliver the message in person when he testifies Thursday
before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
Hall also said he plans to speak to editorial boards, service
groups and others around the country.
A coalition organizer said Hall might appear in key communities
along proposed transportation routes, and in states where U.S.
senators are targeted for lobbying in the days before the Yucca
Mountain vote, which is expected midsummer.
Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear
Projects, said Hall is being paid $100,000 by the state through
the end of July to work on transportation matters.
The NTSB is an independent federal agency that investigates and
makes safety recommendations after every civilian aircraft
accident, and significant highway, railroad, marine and pipeline
disasters.
After leading the agency, Hall is now a transportation safety,
security and crisis management consultant.
Hall said Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., called him a month ago and
asked him to review the Energy Department's transportation
proposals and associated safety and security issues.
"I'm not an anti-nuclear person," Hall said in a meeting with
reporters Tuesday, adding he has no opinion on a Yucca Mountain
repository. But he said he was struck that there is not yet a
nuclear waste transportation plan nor a risk assessment
considering possible terrorist threats to waste shipments.
"In light of September 11, this lack of a comprehensive,
well-thought-out plan is in a word, appalling," he said in his
letter to senators.
"This is the biggest transportation safety decision and planning
endeavor this country will face in the 21st century," Hall said
Tuesday.
Hall questioned whether the Energy Department can develop an
objective transport plan when it already has invested about $8
billion into determining whether Yucca Mountain can safely
contain radiation for 10,000 years from 77,000 tons of decaying
and highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel.
"My experience with dealing with federal agencies is that many
times when there is a dual mandate, there is no focus, and safety
gets dealt out in the process," he said.
"Opponents of Yucca Mountain paid for that opinion, I'm sure they
are happy with it," DOE spokesman Joe Davis responded.
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002
*****************************************************************
23 Supreme Court Blocks Hungarian Radwaste
The Mayak plant (South Urals) reprocesses fuel deriving from
civilian and naval PWR type reactors. Jump to section [The
Arctic Nuclear Challenge]
MOSCOW - In landmark decision for environmentalists, the Russian
Supreme Court today upheld its 1998 decree ruling blocking a
377-tonne-shipment of Hungarian spent nuclear fuel which had been
granted passage into the country by a governmental decree, and
paving the way for possible legal action against Russia's Nuclear
Energy Ministry, Minatom.
The radioactively contaminated village of Muslumovo near the
Mayak reprocessing plant. Photo: Thomas Nilsen
Charles Digges, 2002-05-21 17:31
The decision represented an upset for Minatom, who arranged the
import deal. When the original shipment was stopped, the federal
government intervened with an appeal on Minatom's behalf, and in
recent weeks, Minatom representatives had been predicting
victory.
When then Russian PM signed the decree on Oct. 1998 — which
predated Russia's 2001 legislation that legalized the import of
radioactive waste — it provided for the importation and
reprocessing of 400 tonnes of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) from the
Paks nuclear power plant in Hungary to the Mayak reprocessing
facility near the Urals city of Chelyabinsk.
Alarm was raised when the first 23 tonnes of SNF arrived at Mayak
and a number of Chelyabinsk environmental groups, as well as
"Greenpeace," stopped the remainder of the shipment with a suit
in the Supreme Court. The federal government, however, intervened
with an appeal.
Appearing this Tuesday for the federal government were attorneys,
Olga Chernikova and Yevgeny Drozhko, whose principle line of
argument concerned the standing of Natalya Mironova of
Chelyabinsk's Movement for Nuclear Safety to argue on behalf of
the health of the entire 1.5 million citizens of the Chelyabinsk
region.
But after less than 20 minutes of deliberation this Tuesday,
Supreme Court Judge Alexander Fedin returned with a verdict
upholding the court's earlier ruling.
Chernikova and Drozhko hurriedly left the courtroom after the
verdict was read, commenting only that the government would
appeal the case in the presidium of the Supreme Court.
Yabloko Duma Deputy Sergei Mitrokhin — whose party has long
campaigned against the imports of SNF — applauded the decision
and said in an interview with Bellona Web that the case was
important "mainly because it shows citizens can, even thought
Russia's legal system, overcome the obstacles Minatom places in
the way of the environmental movement."
"The court's verdict was correct and it sets a precedent for
future cases, where perhaps some of Minatom's shadier dealings
can be dealt with," he said.
Although Hungary has already refused to take back the waste,
generated during reprocessing of 23 tonnes of SNF, supporters of
the Chelyabinsk plaintiffs applauded jubilantly as the verdict
was read and characterized it in interviews as an unprecedented
victory in the fight to keep radioactive imports out of a country
they say can barely manage to handle its own catastrophic
pile-up.
The plaintiffs also said the verdict emboldened Russia's
ecological lobby, which is still smarting from the dubious
passage of last year's legislation allowing radioactive waste
imports, as well as the apparent scuttling by the government of a
nation-wide referendum that would likely have killed the import
initiative.
"We have demonstrated the possibility of the influence of society
on the forging of the nuclear policy of Russia," said Natalya
Mironova of Chelyabinsk's Movement for Nuclear Safety after the
verdict was announced.
"The global weakness of Russia at the moment poses a real threat
that the dirtiest technology… will be dumped on Russia, and
Minatom is aiding and abetting this process. Minatom is standing
against Russia's national interests."
Indeed, following the verdict, Mironova's lawyer, Andrei Talevlin
said he intended to approach the office of the Prosecutor General
and demand an investigation of Minatom's part in the deal with
the Paks plant.
"The government position was weak and this was an easy case to
win because it involved a clear violation of the law — the
actions of Minatom fell well outside of the field of legal play
and we will hear about it in court," said Talevlin.
"Those who made this decision [to broker the import deal] broke
criminal laws."
Talevlin added that the Prosecutor General will likely take up
the case without his intervention.
"An odious practice exists in the way spent nuclear fuel is dealt
with," he said.
Minatom — whose opacity, Soviet truculence and almost complete
lack of oversight from other government bodies — is being ever
more criticized in the western press and environmental lobbies as
a Cold War relic in the run-up to this week's summit between
presidents George Bush and Vladimir Putin.
"We greet today's decision, but we consider it an exception to
the usual practices of the Russian judicial system," said
Vladimir Chuprov, of "Greenpeice," one of the plaintiffs in the
case.
"Minatom conducts itself like a state within a state — it could
care less about the wishes of the citizens and even less for
legislation. The verdict may set a good precedent, but history
tells a different story," he said in an interview with Bellona
Web.
But Minatom officials Tuesday had little to say about either the
verdict or the threats of legal action from the environmental
community.
"The decision of the court has been handed down, and we will
fulfil it," said assistant to Deputy Nuclear Energy Minister,
Nikolai Shingaryov, in a telephone interview with Bellona Web
Tuesday. "As for legal action, well, the governmental decree
issued in 1998 is about as legal as you can hope for."
1995-09-19 Reproccessing plants in Siberia Ozersk
Publisher: [bellona@bellona.no] , President:
[frederic@bellona.no] Information: [info@bellona.no] , Technical
contact: [webmaster@bellona.no] Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00
Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62 * P.O.Box 2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo,
Norway
*****************************************************************
24 Rep. Hansen fights to protect Utah from nuclear waste
BYU NewsNet
courtesy of www.house.government
Rep. Jim Hensen R-Utah fights to protect Utah against nuclear
waste.
By Chris Wilkinson [cgw@email.byu.edu]
NewsNet Staff Writer
5/21/2002
The Defense Authorization Act is running a furious debate between
the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance and Rep. Jim Hansen,
R-Utah.
The bill would give Hill Air Force Base future funding,
protecting it from closure. It would also turn 500,000 acres of
land now controlled by the Bureau of Land Management over to the
Department of Defense.
Included in the 500,000 acres of land is Utah's Skull
Valley, future proposed region of a temporary nuclear waste
storage site.
The proposed bill's intent is to protect Utah from
temporarily receiving 44,000 tons of nuclear waste from 103
reactors in the United States. The bill would also prevent
shipment of spent fuel rods through Utah.
The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance says that if the
legislators want to keep nuclear waste out of Utah, then they
should pass a true wilderness bill.
It also believes turning over thousands of acres of land
to the military would be detrimental to Utah and the environment.
"I'm positive people out there don't know what this means
for public land," said Larry Young, executive director of
Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.
The Defense Authorization Act would give the Department
of Defense complete control over future plans for the 500,00
acres of land.
"It's a bureaucratic state pet trick," said Southern Utah
Wilderness Alliance lobbyist Chip Ward.
The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance claims the bill
also contains confusing language that would allow military
development on current Bureau of Land Management land.
"Unrestricted development is not what Utah needs to
protect its wilderness," Ward said.
In addition to development, the wilderness area would
have specific protections to allow continued military flight over
the land.
The area would be known as the Utah Test and Training
Range.
"It undermines the very concept of wilderness," Young
said. "It would be the worst piece of legislation ever enacted by
Congress."
Ward said Rep. Hansen shouldn't go through the military
to protect the environment.
"Hansen should stop playing games with the military,"
Ward said. "It's hard enough to keep Utah from becoming a nuclear
dump."
While environmental groups are upset that BLM land might
soon be used as a site for the Utah Test and Training Range, the
act is another security effort against closing Hill Air Force
Base, Hansen said.
"Anyone who opposes the bill or the section pertaining
to the Utah Test and Training Range is voting for nuclear waste
in Utah and against proper training of our pilots," Hansen
stated. "While there is no such thing as a guarantee, this is as
close to base closure proof as Hill Air Force Base is going to
get."
Bill Johnson, Hansen's press secretary, said the Defense
Authorization Act is a measure for increased national security,
but Private Fuel Storage spokeswoman Sue Martin believes that it
is targeted toward nuclear waste.
"It was a last minute sneak-in," Martin said. "If the
bill went through all the proper legislation, it would have never
been passed."
Even though the House has passed the bill, the Senate
will have the final decision in July.
"Hopefully the citizens of Utah are as smart as Hansen is
tricky," Ward said.
Copyright ©2002 BYU NewsNet
*****************************************************************
25 BLM director visits Red Rock
Las Vegas SUN:
Photo: Kathleen Clarke speaks
May 21, 2002
By Mary Manning
From the Red Rock Canyon Visitor Center to a proposed Yucca
Mountain nuclear waste repository, Bureau of Land Management
National Director Kathleen Clarke said she is determined to bring
local residents into decisions affecting public lands.
The BLM manages 262 million acres of land in 12 western states,
46 million acres of it in Nevada.
The Red Rock Visitor Center turned 20 years old Monday and BLM
officials are already planning for a new one that can handle the
more than 1 million visitors a year, BLM Las Vegas spokesman Phil
Guerrero said.
Clarke said one of her goals is to make sure that "multiple use
doesn't become multiple abuse" in growing areas such as Las
Vegas.
Clarke said that local officials, individuals and citizen groups
should be involved in setting the BLM's multiple-use philosophy.
"I truly believe that public lands don't belong to the agencies,
but to the people," she said.
The Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act, now four years
old, is unique because it allows Nevada officials to protect
sensitive lands through funds raised from land auctions while
opening federal tracts to development, she said. Millions have
been raised to protect fragile wetlands in the Las Vegas Wash,
build campgrounds in Red Rock and improve facilities.
"I'm impressed that it is a good tool," Clarke said.
After a helicopter flight over the Las Vegas Valley on Monday
morning, Clarke prepared to attend the BLM's National Partnership
conference at the Lake Las Vegas Hyatt Regency Hotel today. "It's
the enormity of the job," she said after the air tour.
Her immediate concern is the danger of forest fires across the
West. Flames have burned thousands of acres of wildlands and
threatened homes near Prescott, Ariz. Flames consumed 300 acres
of the Las Vegas Wash in March.
"Across the West we are looking at a dreadful situation," Clarke
said. The BLM, the Forest Service, the Bureau of Reclamation and
the National Park Service are ready to fight summer fires, she
said. Federal firefighters have been doubled.
Photo: Kathleen Clarke speaks Las Vegas SUN main page
All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
26 At hearing, experts rip safety of waste transport
Las Vegas SUN:
May 22, 2002
By Benjamin Grove
WASHINGTON -- Nevada assembled six experts who testified in the
Senate today against a Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository,
mostly arguing that the plan posed grave transportation risks.
In the second Senate committee hearing on Yucca Mountain since
Gov. Kenny Guinn vetoed the project last month, Nevada leaders
put together a panel of witnesses that attacked the safety of
transporting high-level nuclear waste to the proposed dump 90
miles northwest of Las Vegas.
The hearing followed one last week in which Energy Secretary
Spencer Abraham urged approval of the waste dump.
Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson, whose city lies on the
transportation route, testified today that more waste would
travel through his town than any city besides Las Vegas.
"Without adequate research as to the safety of transporting this
waste, without details of where and how it will travel, the
American public, our representatives in Congress, and our federal
regulatory agencies are being asked to sign off on one of the
most expensive projects, and perhaps the most dangerous project,
in the history of the United States," Anderson said.
The hearing in front of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources
Committee was a disappointment to two of the Senate's leading
Yucca Mountain advocates, they said.
The hearing was designed to allow Nevada officials to air their
objections to Yucca Mountain. Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, and
Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, said they wanted to hear from
Nevadans.
Instead, they heard from the state's panel of experts from
around the country who mostly argued that waste shipping was
dangerous.
That argument is "not pertinent" as the Senate ponders the
narrow question whether to simply proceed with Yucca Mountain,
Murkowski said.
"I was looking forward to hearing from the governor and the
Legislature about the reasons for the state's veto as well as
from any other Nevadans who may be opposed," Murkowski said. "One
could easily assume, as I have implied, that the state does not
have a problem with the site selection."
Nevada officials, who have loudly opposed the project throughout
its 20-year history, flatly denied that.
Later in the hearing, Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the state
opted to assemble experts who could offer fresh perspectives.
"People would like this to be people from Nevada complaining. We
could do that, and we've done it for years," Reid said.
Reid said he was disappointed that only a few senators on the
22-member committee bothered to show up. Aside from Murkowski and
Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, only two other senators made brief
appearances. Murkowski and Craig left before the hearing's end.
"I'm disappointed they didn't stay for the hearing, they may
have learned something," Reid said.
While senators often miss hearings due to conflicts in their
schedules, Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said this hearing should
have been a priority.
"It really is a shame the rest of the senators were not here to
hear this," Ensign said. "It's such an important issue."
Committee chairman Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., allowed Reid and
Ensign to sit on the committee and ask the panelists questions.
"The evidence is so clear against Yucca Mountain it is amazing
to me people still want to go forward with it," Ensign said in
his concluding remarks.
The Senate committee will hold its last Yucca hearing on
Thursday when more technical experts are expected to testify. The
committee likely will vote June 5 on whether to recommend Yucca
Mountain as a nuclear waste repository. A full vote of the Senate
is expected by early July. The House approved Yucca May 8.
Craig, a vocal Yucca Mountain supporter, accused the panelists
of fear mongering and exaggerating the potential for danger in
waste shipping.
But the Nevada senators -- and their assembled panelists -- said
the threat was real considering potential accidents and terrorist
acts.
"We have evil people in this country today who are looking for
targets," Reid said. "If there is fear generating today, it's the
right thing to do."
Craig said he understood the politics of that and said the state
was "really in the business of trying to generate as much fear as
possible."
Mayor Anderson said that's a mischaracterization of the
anti-Yucca argument.
"We are attempting to point out some of the massive terrorist
risks," Anderson said.
The panel included Robert Halstead, the state's transportation
consultant; Grand Valley State University (Michigan) Professor
James Ballard, a terrorism expert and Nevada consultant; Victor
Gilinsky, former member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and
consultant; Michael Ervin, a former truck driver and police
officer in Pomona, Calif.; and Stephen Prescott, director of the
Huntsman Cancer Institute in Utah.
Ballard said terrorists are drawn to nuclear targets, especially
targets that are part of a federal project. An accident could
stigmatize a city and devastate its economy, he said.
Prescott testified about the potential for people to get cancer
from a nuclear waste accident.
Prescott's institute still treats people from Western states
whose cancers they likely developed from exposure to the fallout
of nuclear tests at the Nevada Test Site, he said.
"Now the citizens of the same region are being asked to assume
the risk of a (another) round of radiation exposure," he said.
"We are told, again, that the risk will be low. But will an
anticipated accident during the transportation cause my neighbors
to develop lung cancer? Leukemia? Bone tumors?"
Ervin said he had seen many truck crashes as a driver and cop.
He told senators that truckers face challenges that would create
waste-shipping risks, including fatigue, weather, careless
drivers and truck failures.
"I think of a tractor-trailer rig as a missile," Ervin said.
"The question is, is it under control or out of control?"
Nuclear industry and DOE officials assert that truck shipments
would be closely monitored, satellite-tracked, and driven by
fresh, alert drivers.
After the hearing, Energy Department spokesman Joe Davis
dismissed much of the testimony.
"This panel is bought and paid for by the state of Nevada
today," he said.
Davis said that the Energy Department and the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission were working together to assure that transportation is
safe and that all federal rules are followed.
"If they want to improve or expand the rules or make them
tougher, we will comply," Davis said.
All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
27 Editorial: When will it sink in for them?
Las Vegas SUN
May 22, 2002
Yucca Mountain's geology alone -- it sits in an active earthquake
zone -- should rule it out as a dumpsite for high-level nuclear
waste. But 49 other states don't want 77,000 tons of high-level
nuclear waste, so the harm posed by burying the waste in Nevada
often is ignored. Nevada's elected officials know, however, that
the dangers of cross-country transportation of nuclear waste
might swing votes their way.
This week Nevada received a boost in its uphill battle against
Yucca Mountain. Jim Hall, chairman of the National Transportation
Safety Board during the Clinton administration, says the Senate
shouldn't decide Yucca Mountain's fate until nuclear waste
shipping containers are adequately tested. Hall, a paid
consultant for the state of Nevada, says it was irresponsible for
the Energy Department to seek congressional approval for Yucca
Mountain without detailed plans on how the waste would be
shipped, including emergency preparedness plans in the event of
an accident or terrorist attack. Hall isn't the only
transportation expert to have weighed in on the transportation
risks. Joan Claybrook, president of the advocacy group Public
Citizen and former head of the National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration, also has come out against Yucca Mountain.
What is inexplicable is that Nevada has to work so hard to get
the attention of the other states' senators about shipping
nuclear waste. The Senate should listen to experienced,
well-regarded transportation safety experts such as Hall and
Claybrook. In the wake of Sept. 11, the U.S. government contends
it is doing all that it can to ward off future terrorist attacks,
but approving the cross-country shipping of man's deadliest waste
would fly in the face of those efforts.
All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
28 Letter: Nevada always stuck with nukes
Las Vegas SUN
May 22, 2002
Once again, Nevada receives a blow to the nose by the federal
government. It appears that Washington, D.C., will not be happy
until the entire state of Nevada is made radioactive by others'
nuclear waste.
I suspect many health problems will appear in Nevada residents
in future years. Have we forgotten the many health problems
caused by the nuclear testing years ago? The wind carried fallout
that far exceeded Nevada's borders. Also, Nevada can look forward
to a major drop in its tourist trade if this dumping is allowed.
Wouldn't it be better to utilize a dump more centrally located
in the United States than to chance hauling this stuff almost
across the United States from the East Coast?
No doubt, the future will bring a major disaster somewhere along
the way. Perhaps a much better location for the dump would be on
some land near Crawford, Texas.
JOHN REGAN Fayetteville, Ga.
All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
29 Nuclear waste? Not on my highway
The Herald-Zeitung
Contact The Herald-Zeitung at (830) 625-9144.
By Jim C. Looby
The Herald-Zeitung
Published May 21, 2002
Nuclear waste?
Not on my highway
Corpus Christi Caller-Times on nuclear waste:
By a vote of 306-117, the House has voted its support for
shipping nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain in Nevada, but the
opposition keeps voicing two main objections that zigzag all over
the map in an apparent effort to avoid common sense.
Objection One: There is not yet proof that this site will be
safe, and there is no reason to rush things. Absolute proof?
Nothing like that is even possible. But $7 billion has been spent
over the past 24 years studying this area, and reputable panels
of scientists have found it sound.
The alternative to moving the waste to Nevada is not that it will
somehow disappear. The alternative is to continue leaving it at
131 locations that are reasonably safe but not nearly as safe as
this site will be. The government had pledged to move the waste
by 1998, and some of these other sites are beginning to run out
of storage space. Under the best of circumstances, the Yucca site
will not now be open until 2010. Postponing the date longer is
much riskier than moving ahead with a process that has been
extremely cautious and will not cease being cautious in the years
ahead.
Objection Two: When the trucks and trains start rolling, they
will have to make thousands of trips carrying thousands of tons
of this radioactive material, and they will put millions of
unsuspecting Americans in frightful danger as they pass by or
through the cities in which they live.
Fact one is that there is nothing new about transporting
radioactive materials in the United States. There have been
thousands of such shipments since the 1960s, with no one ever
being hurt by the materials and next to no prospect that anyone
would be. Fact two is that millions more people live close to the
materials now than will be close to the materials during
shipment. Fact three is that, sooner or later, the nuclear waste
must be and will be shipped. It cannot just sit where it is
forever.
Like the House, the Senate will likely vote to back the president
in his determination to move the waste to Nevada, which happens
to be suitable because of its geological and climatic
characteristics and sparse population. The sooner the vote comes,
the better for common sense and reasonable public policy.
SERVICES
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*****************************************************************
30 Rep. Hansen fights to protect Utah from nuclear waste
BYU NewsNet
courtesy of www.house.government
By Chris Wilkinson
NewsNet Staff Writer
5/21/2002
The Defense Authorization Act is running a furious debate between
the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance and Rep. Jim Hansen,
R-Utah. The bill would give Hill Air Force Base future funding,
protecting it from closure. It would also turn 500,000 acres of
land now controlled by the Bureau of Land Management over to the
Department of Defense.
Included in the 500,000 acres of land is Utah's Skull Valley,
future proposed region of a temporary nuclear waste storage site.
The proposed bill's intent is to protect Utah from temporarily
receiving 44,000 tons of nuclear waste from 103 reactors in the
United States. The bill would also prevent shipment of spent fuel
rods through Utah.
The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance says that if the
legislators want to keep nuclear waste out of Utah, then they
should pass a true wilderness bill.
It also believes turning over thousands of acres of land to the
military would be detrimental to Utah and the environment. "I'm
positive people out there don't know what this means for public
land," said Larry Young, executive director of Southern Utah
Wilderness Alliance.
The Defense Authorization Act would give the Department of
Defense complete control over future plans for the 500,00 acres
of land. "It's a bureaucratic state pet trick," said Southern
Utah Wilderness Alliance lobbyist Chip Ward.
The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance claims the bill also
contains confusing language that would allow military development
on current Bureau of Land Management land.
"Unrestricted development is not what Utah needs to protect its
wilderness," Ward said.
In addition to development, the wilderness area would have
specific protections to allow continued military flight over the
land. The area would be known as the Utah Test and Training
Range.
"It undermines the very concept of wilderness," Young said. "It
would be the worst piece of legislation ever enacted by
Congress." Ward said Rep. Hansen shouldn't go through the
military to protect the environment.
"Hansen should stop playing games with the military," Ward said.
"It's hard enough to keep Utah from becoming a nuclear dump."
While environmental groups are upset that BLM land might soon be
used as a site for the Utah Test and Training Range, the act is
another security effort against closing Hill Air Force Base,
Hansen said.
"Anyone who opposes the bill or the section pertaining to the
Utah Test and Training Range is voting for nuclear waste in Utah
and against proper training of our pilots," Hansen stated. "While
there is no such thing as a guarantee, this is as close to base
closure proof as Hill Air Force Base is going to get."
Bill Johnson, Hansen's press secretary, said the Defense
Authorization Act is a measure for increased national security,
but Private Fuel Storage spokeswoman Sue Martin believes that it
is targeted toward nuclear waste.
"It was a last minute sneak-in," Martin said. "If the bill went
through all the proper legislation, it would have never been
passed."
Even though the House has passed the bill, the Senate will have
the final decision in July.
"Hopefully the citizens of Utah are as smart as Hansen is
tricky," Ward said.
Copyright ©2002 BYU NewsNet
*****************************************************************
31 Today's Outlook
Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 00:24:09 -0500 (CDT)
Today's Outlook
Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit
TODAY'S OUTLOOK:
Paranoia Index: 8.9
High-pressure Arab-bashing systems moving
across the great plains
12.7% chance of mid-afternoon thermonuclear bombardment
Scattered evening media-fueled bioterror panics
Be vigilant! The enemy is all around.
Americans observing any of the following are
hereby commanded to contact the FBI immediately:
- Brown-skinned persons conversing in heated jibberish
- Turban-wearing persons demonstrating emotions other
than all-American bliss and contentment
- Sidewalk falafel vendors of ambiguous ethnicity
who are unwilling to make change for a fifty
- Arabic store owners or cab drivers who have not
begun prominently displaying at least 3 American flags
- Middle Eastern persons who become visibly uncomfortable
and/or upset when confronted with your suspicious and
hostile stares
- Burka-clad transvestites
- Any and all individuals not gushing boundless praise
for the current administration
Courtesy of: JosePertierra@aol.com
[An appropriate report for a day on which Resident Smirk has
been attempting to un-do his Bad Week by ratcheting up the
paranoia index with claims of "uncorroborated reports" from
one alleged al Qaeda captive who that there were threats
to "NYC landmarks, including the Statue of Liberty and the
Brooklyn Bridge." As if al Qaeda would tell... We're also going
to be shown tomorow that The Resident is Protecting Amerikkka
with a Drill to see how well the city can cope with biological
warfare. (Formerly a Top-Secret drill known only to a few
thousand volunteers, but which is now being ballyhooed on
the Evening Nooz as part of "Operation Tripod." And so it goes.]
=================================================================
NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems
Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us
339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012
http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org
=================================================================
nytcov-05.22.02-00:42:58-6345
*****************************************************************
32 onelove~ AN OPEN LETTER TO VLADIMIR PUTIN - WHY ?
Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 11:41:27 -0500 (CDT)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE ICIS: http://www.peaceinspace.com
CONTACT: USA - Dr. Carol Rosin (805) 641-1999/ rosin@west.net
Canada b Alfred Webre, JD, MEd (604) 733-8134/
info@peaceinspace.com
AN OPEN LETTER TO VLADIMIR PUTIN - WHY ?
F.H. Knelman, Ph.D.
The Russian agreement to the U.S.-initiated agreement to cut their
strategic nuclear forces by two-thirds is astounding, given that this
is playing directly into U.S. plans for global supremacy. For one
thing, the U.S. is not going to actually destroy but only shelve the
above cuts, at any time able to retrieve them from storage. The
Russian nuclear military regime, on the other hand, is in shambles.
Retrieval for them will be more difficult. At the same time, the
Russians are actually requesting U.S. assistance to rationalize
their nuclear regime, providing the U.S. with important intelligence
data, such as the stored missile site.
But even worse, the basic motive of the U.S. in initiating these
strategic missile cuts is to improve the effectiveness of their anti-
ballistic missile defences, radically reducing the number of targets
comprising a Russian attack on the U.S. Given the U.S. basic
counterforce strategy, we are moving into a time when mutual
assured destruction between the two major nuclear powers is
becoming an American monopoly, altering the mutual to the
unilateral. Do the Russians really believe that the land-based
missile defences being constructed in Alaska and the new
Northern Command are directed to an attack by Iraq?
The only possible rationale for the Russian position is that they are
confident they can develop a variety of penetrating aids for their
strategic missiles which will distract, confuse and overcome U.S.
missile defences. We would then be entering a new dynamic of the
nuclear arms race between anti-missiles and anti-anti-missiles.
Given the disarray of the Russian nuclear regime and their general
economic problems, the
latter may be a vain hope.
Thus we are left to conclude that the Russian position is
inexplicable. They had the opportunity to tie strategic missile
reductions in exchange for the U.S. to uphold the Anti-Ballistic
Missile (ABM) Treaty. Could it just have been the mighty U.S.
dollar that denied them this option? For example, we know they
desperately require assistance to clean up their vast nuclear
reserves consisting of huge amounts of radioactive waste, large
numbers of tactical weapons and stockpiles of weapons grade
nuclear materials comprising an open invitation for accidents or
acts of malice of one kind or another. Also we are witnessing an
increasing U.S. presence in the former Soviet republics that
surround Russia, at some future time representing a direct threat.
And finally, we cannot understand Russiabs lack of response at
being identified as one of the seven enemy states to be targeted
with nuclear weapons in the U.S. 2002 Nuclear Posture Review, let
alone the existing U.S. Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP),
a nuclear hit list against Russian targets of value. And surely they
are aware of the U.S. first disarming strike policy.
Putin can still recoup a major diplomatic victory by supporting the
forthcoming Space Preservation Treaty. Both Russia and China
have expressed their opposition to the U.S. abrogation of the Anti-
Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty of 1972. Together Canada, Russia
and China could have a very positive impact on the success of the
Treaty. The Space Preservation Treaty, initiated by Congressman
Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), is being circulated to every nation-state
leader. It can be immediately signed and sent to the U.N.
Secretary Generalbs office as Treaty Depositary, and ratified
quickly.
The Space Preservation Treaty is an international companion to
legislation introduced by Kucinich in the U.S. House of
Representatives, H.R. 3616, the Space Preservation Act of 2002, in
January, 2002. Both the Treaty and the bill ban all space-based
weapons and the use of weapons designed to destroy any object in
space that is in orbit. It also immediately terminates research,
development, testing, manufacturing, and deployment of all space-
based weapons, but does not prohibit space exploration, R&D,
testing, production, manufacturing and deployment of any civil,
commercial or defense activities in space that are not related to
space-based weapons, thus reserving space for the benefit of all
living things on our small planet. This Treaty will also be verifiable.
It requires that an outer space peacekeeping agency be
established to monitor and enforce the ban.
The momentum of getting this Treaty supported and passed into
law has begun, and this ban on space-based weapons can become
reality in 2002. This world treaty will fill the legal void left by the
abrogation of the ABM Treaty. It will replace the ABM Treaty.
With the support of Canada, Russia and China a large majority of
members of the United Nations would likely sign on to the Treaty,
as most nation-state leaders have already expressed support for
preserving space for weapons-free peaceful, cooperative purposes.
The European Union (with the exception of Britain) are likely
signatories. isolating the United States and exposing its
unilateralism and contempt for the rest of the world is, in itself, a
lofty goal. A possible change in the balance of power in the U.S.
Congress at the end of 2002 and a strong contender for a president
in 2004 devoted to strength through peace rather than the reverse,
who could establish this Treaty as Universal Law and save the
world from an inevitable nuclear catastrophe.
In conclusion, the Space Preservation Treaty is one of the most
important initiatives of our time! It is truly worthy of our support. Let
us all begin by moving Canada to be an early signatory.
For detailed information on the Space Preservation Treaty, contact
the Institute for Cooperation in Space (ICIS) at
www.peaceinspace.com, c/o Dr. Carol Rosin : e-mail:
rosin@west.net or call 805-641-1999 (in the U.S.) or Alfred Webre
JD MEd at info@peaceinspace.com or call 604-733-8134 (in
Canada).
Author of above article: Award winning F.H. Knelman, PHD., Is
author of over 500 articles, papers, books and studies on common
security, environment, energy, science and technology: Email:
f.knelman@shaw.ca
BRIEF BIOGRAPHY
F.H. Knelman, Ph.D.
F.H. Knelman received his doctorate in Engineering at the Imperial
College of Science, University of London, U.K. He has enjoyed a
long teaching career, having taught Liberal Studies of Science,
York University, 1962-1967 and Director and Full Professor of
Science & Human Affairs, Concordia University, 1967-1987. Dr.
Knelman also taught Peace Studies at the Grindstone Island
Peace School, Santa Barbara College, Langara College and Simon
Fraser University. As well, he taught Environmental Studies at UC
Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz and the University of Victoria. He is
the author of over 500 articles, papers and studies on the subjects
of common security, environment, energy and the social relations
of science and technology, as well as many technical papers and
numerous keynote addresses.
Among his books are 1984 and All That, Wadsworth Publishing;
Nuclear Energy: The Unforgiving Technology, Hurtig Publishers
(1975); Anti-Nation: Transition to Sustainability, Mosaic Press
(1979); Reagan, God and the Bomb, Prometheus Books (1985);
America, God and the Bomb: The Legacy of Ronald Reagan, New
Star Books (1987) and Every Life is a Story: The Social Relations
of Science, Peace and Ecology, Black Rose Books (1999).
He is the recipient of many awards, among which are the World
Wildlife Fund Prize, 1967, the World Federalists Peace Essay
Prize (1970), the White Owl Conservation Prize (1972 - as
Canada's outstanding environmentalist), the Ben Gurion University
Medal of Merit, 1983, the United Nations Association Special
Achievement Award (Montreal) and a special award for meritorious
service to the cause of common security by the Canadian Peace
Research and Education Association in 1987. Dr. Knelman was
awarded the Queen's 1992Commemorative Medal and, in 1994 the
World Federalists of Canada "World Peace Prize." In 1996 he was
awarded the Environmental Lifetime Achievement Award by The
Skies Above Foundation. He is also a lifetime member of the 500
Club of Rome.
Professor Knelman has a long history of involvement in
environmental issues, spanning some forty years. He is associated
with the founding of the earliest environmental Non-Government
Organizations (ENGOs) in Canada, as well as being the founder of
Scientists for Social Responsibility, Canada's first scientific group
concerned with environmental issues (1964). He is currently Vice-
President and Founding Director of the Whistler Foundation for a
Sustainable Environment. Dr. Knelman was attached to the
Science Council of Canada on a major energy conservation study
(Background Study #33). He is on the Advisory Board of the
Nuclear Age Peace Foundation in Santa Barbara, CA and past
Editor of The Health Guardian, a Journal of Alternative Medicine.
Dr. Knelman has conducted extensive research in
energy/environment policy. He has been the keynote speaker at
some twenty-five national and international conferences on these
themes. In 1981 he was the special adviser on energy/environment
to the State of California and an early consultant to the Federal
Department of Environment, Ottawa, in the 1970's. He was one of
forty scientists in the world invited to a parallel conference at the
U.N. Conference on the Human Environment, Stockholm, 1972. He
co-authored a Nobel Prize Winner Declaration submitted to the
1992 U.N. Conference on Environment and Development in Rio.
Dr. Knelman is a founding member of the Canadian Peace and
Education Association and writes a regular monthly column, "Our
Nuclear Age" for the Vancouver-based journal "Outlook" and is a
frequent contributor to several other journals.
___________________________________
ICIS - Institute for Cooperation in Space
http://www.peaceinspace.com alw@peaceinspace.com
ICIS (USA): Dr. Carol Rosin rosin@peaceinspace.com
PO Box 25040, Ventura, CA 93001
ICIS (Canada): Alfred Lambremont Webre, JD, MEd
2225 West 41 Avenue, PO Box 18153
Vancouver, BC V6M4L3
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33 Nuclear powers on the brink
NZOOM - ONE News - World
[http://www.nzoomail.com/]
An Indian soldier stands guard over fallen comrades
RELATED LINKS
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A Kashmiri separatist leader has been gunned down in Indian
Kashmir in the latest incident in a spiral of violence which is
pushing India and Pakistan to the brink of war.
The two nuclear-capable countries also exchanged heavy fire
across their border in disputed Kashmir for the fifth day as
Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee began a visit to the
region, where a raid on an army camp last week revived tensions.
Separatist leader Abdul Gani Lone was shot by two unidentified
gunmen during a meeting in Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu
and Kashmir state, witnesses said.
"He fell down and started reciting Koranic verses. When the
gunmen realised that he was still alive they fired again and he
died," Lone's driver, Abdul Rashid, said.
Lone, 70, was seen as a moderate in the All Parties Hurriyat
(Freedom) Conference, a disparate alliance of separatists whose
aspirations range from greater autonomy for Kashmir to joining
Pakistan.
He was one of the key players India had hoped to persuade to take
part in elections later this year to help end a 12-year revolt
against New Delhi's rule in Kashmir, India's only Muslim-majority
state.
Britain's Foreign Secretary Jack Straw is to travel to the region
early next week. "The possibility of war between India and
Pakistan is real and very disturbing," he told reporters in
London. "This is a crisis the world cannot ignore."
"It (Lone's killing) is a setback to peace in Kashmir," said
political analyst Mahesh Rangarajan. "He had expressed revulsion
against the killing of innocents in Kashmir. The efforts to
normalise the situation, widen the political process, have
received a setback."
Pakistan's Foreign Ministry issued a statement condemning what it
called "cold-blooded murder" and said it was "yet another
incident in the continuing reign of terror unleashed by the
occupying forces in Indian-held Kashmir."
Working for peace
Vajpayee, whose first stop was in Jammu in the south of the
state, said Lone was killed because he was working for peace.
"It will have an impact but it should not hurt peace moves.
Stronger efforts should be made to bring peace," he told
reporters at the start of his three-day visit.
Vajpayee's visit followed a bloody raid on an army camp in Jammu
and Kashmir last week that intensified a stand-off with Pakistan
dating back to an attack on India's parliament in December. India
blames both raids on Pakistan-based Islamic militants.
Close to a million troops were mobilised on the border after the
parliament attack.
Earlier on Tuesday, Indian and Pakistani forces exchanged heavy
machine gun and mortar fire across the border. Authorities on the
two sides reported seven deaths, including civilians. Both sides
blamed the other for starting the firing.
In a further sign of tension, India said troops deployed in
western Gujarat state to quell violence between Hindus and
Muslims would return to the border with Pakistan.
New Delhi has long accused Pakistan of stoking revolt against
Indian rule in Kashmir, the cause of two of their three wars
since independence from Britain.
Pakistan has denied the charge and in January Pakistani President
Pervez Musharraf promised to prevent anyone using his country as
a base for militant attacks on targets abroad.
But after last week's army camp attack in which 34 died, some
Indian politicians have accused Musharraf of betraying that
promise and said India should strike back at Pakistan.
Analysts now expect an intense effort by the international
community, led by Washington, to get both sides to stand down.
"It's looking very serious," said South Asia defence analyst
Brian Cloughley. "It is up to the world's heavyweights now...to
stop war in the subcontinent."
US urges restraint
The United States, for whom Pakistan is a key ally in its war on
terror, has urged both sides to show restraint and said it would
send Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage to the region
soon.
Pakistan appealed on Monday to other countries to "convince India
to see reason" and hold talks to avert a war. India has refused
to hold talks until the militant attacks stop.
But while India has said it expects action from Musharraf,
analysts say there may be little he can do to curb Islamic
militants, who have also hit targets in Pakistan, including a
bomb attack in the port city of Karachi earlier this month.
"The Pakistanis are now well and truly prepared for war, but are
determined not to strike the first blow. What they fear is an
'incident' that would give India apparent justification to try to
invade," said Cloughley, who is based in Britain.
Worries about a conflict sent Indian shares tumbling. India's
main equity index ended down 2.93% to hit its lowest close since
December.
In Pakistan, the benchmark Karachi Stock Exchange's key 100-share
index closed down 2.98%, after plummeting 7.4% on Monday, its
second-biggest drop ever.
© Reuters
May 22, 2002
ONE News sourced from TVNZ, RNZ,
Reuters and ['Bridge']
*****************************************************************
34 Fear of nuclear war over Kashmir
Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian |
Straw to visit Pakistan and India in bid to avert conflict
Ewen MacAskill, diplomatic editor
Wednesday May 22, 2002
[http://www.guardian.co.uk]
Britain sounded a warning yesterday about the "real and very
disturbing" possibility of nuclear war between India and
Pakistan.
The foreign secretary, Jack Straw, is to fly to Delhi and
Islamabad next week to try to avert the region sliding into a
conflict "with potentially devastating consequences". "This is a
crisis the world cannot ignore," he said yesterday.
The murder yesterday of a moderate Kashmiri separatist leader
plunged the region into further turmoil. Abdul Ghani Lone was
killed in Srinagar, increasing the tension along the
Pakistan-India border, where a million troops are stationed.
Fresh clashes were reported yesterday.
The US and the EU are also to send envoys to India and Pakistan
next week.
Whitehall is anxious primarily because India and Pakistan are
both nuclear powers. There is a fear that, unlike the US and
Russia during the cold war, they do not have mechanisms such as
hotlines in place for defusing a crisis.
Indian and Pakistani forces have been trading fire for months
along the line that divides Kashmir. Diplomats fear the melting
of winter snow in the high passes over the next few weeks could
bring an increase in military activity.
Pakistan's ambassador to Britain, Abdul Kader Jaffer, said the
two were "very close" to war. A Foreign Office source said:
"Militarily, it is on a hair-trigger. With a click of the
fingers, it could just go."
A Whitehall source sketched a scenario in which India might
attack Pakistani positions, be beaten back, respond with an even
bigger force and find Pakistan retaliating with nuclear
weapons.The sudden surge in diplomatic activity by the west is
aimed at trying to reduce tension before such a scenario begins.
Mr Straw said: "This country has long seen itself as a good
friend of both India and Pakistan, as do I. Fundamentally this is
an issue that can only be resolved by the parties concerned. The
international community's task is to assist in that direction.
But for the avoidance of doubt, I am not going to the region with
any pre-cooked peace plan."
The US deputy secretary of state, Richard Armitage, will also go
to the region and Chris Patten, the EU commissioner for external
affairs, is scheduled to visit this week.
Mr Straw said: "India and Pakistan both have nuclear weapons and
the capacity to use them, and have talked publicly about a
possible nuclear exchange. It is a conflict with potentially
devastating consequences for the peoples of both countries, and
is of profound concern to the whole international community."
The Indian and Pakistani armies have exchanged heavy mortar and
machine gun fire across their border in Kashmir since last
Friday, forcing hundreds of villagers living on the frontier to
move to safety.
The troop buildup entered a crucial phase with the onset of
summer and Indian allegations that there was no drop in the
infiltration of Muslim guerrillas from Pakistani Kashmir into
Indian Kashmir.
Authorities on the two sides reported nine deaths yesterday,
including civilians, and both blamed the other for starting the
fighting.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the death of
Lone, a pragmatist who sought dialogue with India and opposed
violence in the separatist struggle. He was shot dead at a
cemetery during a service marking the assassination of another
independence leader 12 years ago.
Since last week's attack on an Indian army camp, in which mostly
wives and children of soldiers were killed, New Delhi has vowed
to take "appropriate action" in response and expelled Pakistan's
envoy to India.
Special reports Kashmir Pakistan War in Afghanistan
Interactive guide Kashmir: a history
Analysis 22.01.2002: A guide to Kashmir peace plans
Useful links [http://www.un.int/pakistan/00home04.htm]
[http://www.pak.gov.pk/public/kashmir/kashmir.htm]
[http://jammukashmir.nic.in/] [http://www.timesofindia.com/]
[http://www.kashmir-information.com/]
[http://www.hindustantimes.com/] [http://www.paktoday.com/]
[http://www.syberwurx.com/nation/daily/today/main/index.htm]
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002
*****************************************************************
35 Jack Straw sent in amid fears of nuclear crisis
Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian |
Ewen MacAskill, diplomatic editor
Wednesday May 22, 2002
The Guardian [http://www.guardian.co.uk]
Britain, the US and the EU are to send envoys to India and
Pakistan over the next week amid fears that the Indian-Pakistani
tension over Kashmir is about to spill over into war.
The foreign secretary, Jack Straw, who is to visit the region
next week, said yesterday: "The possibility of war between India
and Pakistan is real and very disturbing."
The sense of anxiety in Whitehall is primarily because India and
Pakistan are both nuclear powers. There is a fear that, unlike
the US and Russia during the cold war, they do not have adequate
mechanisms such as hotlines in place for defusing a crisis.
Indian and Pakistani forces have for months been trading fire
along the line that divides Kashmir. Diplomats fear the melting
of winter snow in the high passes over the next few weeks could
see an increase in military activity.
Pakistan's ambassador to Britain, Abdul Kader Jaffer, said the
two were "very close" to war. A Foreign Office source echoed
this: "Militarily, it is on a hair-trigger. With a click of the
fingers, it could just go."
A Whitehall source sketched a scenario in which India might
attack Pakistani positions, be beaten back, respond with an even
bigger force and find Pakistan retaliating with nuclear weapons.
Mr Straw said: "Fundamentally this is an issue that can only be
resolved by the parties concerned. The international community's
task is to assist in that direction. But for the avoidance of
doubt, I am not going to the region with any pre-cooked peace
plan."
The US deputy secretary of state, Richard Armitage, will also go
to the region and Chris Patten, the EU commissioner for external
affairs, is scheduled to visit this week.
Mr Straw said: "India and Pakistan both have nuclear weapons and
the capacity to use them, and have talked publicly about a
possible nuclear exchange.
"It is a conflict with potentially devastating consequences for
the peoples of both countries, and is of profound concern to the
whole international community."
Special reports Kashmir Pakistan War in Afghanistan
Interactive guide Kashmir: a history
Analysis 22.01.2002: A guide to Kashmir peace plans
Useful links UN resolutions on Kashmir
[http://www.un.int/pakistan/00home04.htm] Pakistan government's
site on Kashmir
[http://www.pak.gov.pk/public/kashmir/kashmir.htm] Jammu and
Kashmir government website [http://jammukashmir.nic.in/] Kashmir
Information Network [http://www.kashmir-information.com/] Times
of India [http://www.timesofindia.com/] Hindustan Times
[http://www.hindustantimes.com/] Pakistan Today
[http://www.paktoday.com/] The Nation (Pakistani)
[http://www.syberwurx.com/nation/daily/today/main/index.htm]
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002
*****************************************************************
36 Russia: Nuclear Arms Deal Finalized
Las Vegas SUN
May 22, 2002
MOSCOW- A landmark U.S.-Russian agreement slashing each nation's
nuclear arsenals by two-thirds has been finalized, the Russian
Foreign Ministry said Wednesday, a day ahead of President Bush's
arrival in Moscow to sign it.
"The text ... is fully ready for signing," the Foreign Ministry
said in a statement, following meetings in Moscow between U.S.
Undersecretary of State John Bolton and Russian Deputy Foreign
Minister Georgy Mamedov. No details of the final agreement were
announced.
Bush announced last week that the deal had been reached after
months of tense negotiations, but U.S. and Russian officials have
been scrambling to work out final details in recent days.
Bush arrives in Moscow on Thursday. On Friday, he and Putin are
to sign the deal, which foresees cuts in each country's arsenal
to 1,700 to 2,200 warheads from the current 6,000 each is
allowed.
U.S. officials have said that the deal could be the last arms
reduction agreement between the two countries, which are
increasingly working as partners rather than foes. But Russian
officials say the 30-year-old U.S.-Russian arms control efforts
should continue.
"I'm convinced that we will continue to work with the American
side, including preparation of additional agreements on
increasing ... transparency" of nuclear weapons cuts, Mikhail
Lysenko, head of the Russian Foreign Ministry's security and
disarmament department, said Wednesday.
A second accord to be signed by the two presidents on Friday, a
declaration on shared political and security priorities, is still
being negotiated, said a high-ranking Russian diplomat who spoke
on condition of anonymity. That document will include a meaty
section on cooperation in the missile defense field, including
early missile warning systems and other measures to increase
"predictability and trust," the diplomat said. No joint work on a
missile defense system is foreseen at this point, the diplomat
said.
The Treaty on Strategic Offensive Reductions is the centerpiece
of this week's summit. Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander
Yakovenko said the deal covers warheads and delivery vehicles,
"and everything connected to reducing strategic offensive
weapons," according to the Interfax news agency. U.S. officials
have said the agreement would only address warheads.
Russia remains concerned about the Pentagon's plan to stockpile
some of the decommissioned weapons rather than destroy them. Bush
hailed the agreement in an interview with Russia's ITAR-Tass news
agency and ORT television released Wednesday.
"That's going to be important to show the world that we're no
longer enemies, we no longer have stockpiles of these horrible
weapons," Bush was quoted as saying.
Bush praised his relationship with Putin, saying, "If there was
no personal chemistry, or the chemistry were bad," the two
wouldn't have met four times over the past year.
U.S.-Russian relations had been strained before the two
presidents' first meeting last June, largely over Washington's
missile defense plans and Russia's nuclear cooperation with Iran.
The two countries had also engaged in a tit-for-tat expulsion of
about 50 diplomats for alleged spying. Ties improved dramatically
with Putin's backing for the U.S.-led anti-terrorism campaign. --
All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
37 No acronym for new nuclear-weapons treaty
The Seattle Times:
Wednesday, May 22, 2002, 12:00 a.m. Pacific
By Ron Hutcheson
Knight Ridder Newspapers
WASHINGTON — Now that the United States and Russia have struck a
deal limiting nuclear weapons, some of the best minds in the Bush
administration are trying to figure out what to call it. Only one
thing is certain: No new acronyms.
Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin plan to sign an
agreement Friday to pull two-thirds of their deployed nuclear
weapons out of service. In a move intended to symbolize President
Bush's willingness to break with Cold War thinking,
administration officials want to avoid the alphabet soup of past
nuclear-weapons treaties.
Long ago there was SALT, the strategic arms limitation talks.
SALT begat the ABM Treaty to curb anti-ballistic missiles. Later
came START I and its unfinished sequels, START II and START III.
All were strategic arms-reduction treaties, but only START I went
into effect.
So what to call the latest deal? For now, it's "A Treaty Between
the United States of America and the Russian Federation on
Strategic Offensive Reductions."
One contender is the simpler "Treaty of Moscow."
"We've been trying to come up with a snappy label," one senior
administration official said, "but haven't had any luck."
Copyright © 2002 The Seattle Times Company
*****************************************************************
38 Libya's nuclear aims worry U.S., Israel
Ha'aretz - Article
By Aluf Benn
Libya's efforts to attain nuclear weapons increasingly worry
Israeli and American officials. The Libyan threat was discussed
in a round of strategic talks between the two countries held last
week in Washington. Officials decided to step up monitoring of
Libya's nuclear-related activities.
Though Libya was not formally included among countries in the
"axis of evil" cited by U.S. President George Bush early in the
year, American officials consider it a "threshold" state which is
making efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction.
The U.S. government's concerns about Libyan efforts were outlined
early in May in a speech delivered by Under Secretary of State
for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton. "There
is no doubt," Bolton declared, that Libya persists in its
years-long campaign to develop nuclear arms. American officials
suspect that the lifting of international sanctions on Libya
three years ago made it easier for the country to attain nuclear
technology that can be adapted for civilian and military
purposes.
Libya will need considerable outside help to complete a nuclear
program, Bolton noted. However, he added, the Libyans continue to
build up an infrastructure suitable for a nuclear weapons
program; and these efforts, he said, are worrisome.
U.S. officials also believe that the Libyans are continuing with
a chemical weapons program. The Libyans closed a chemical plant
in Rabta after international media reports disclosed that it
manufactured 100 tons of threatening materials a day. The
facility was recently reopened as a medicine factory; Bolton said
the possibility of the plant's renewed use as a chemical weapons
facility cannot be ruled out.
© Copyright 2002 Ha`aretz. All rights reserved
*****************************************************************
39 Russian and US Experts Respond to Summit Arms Reduction Treaty
IEER | Russian and US Experts Respond to Summit
[http://www.ieer.org/index.html] |
[http://www.ieer.org/webindex.html]
For release on May 21, 2002
P R E S S R E L E A S E
Treaty a Step Forward But Nuclear Dangers Remain:
"Reductions" in Nuclear Warheads are Reversible US/Russian
Weapons Still on High-alert Status
Moscow: Russian experts from Institute for World Economy and
International Relations (IMEMO) of the Russian Academy of Science
and the Ecological Center and Back From the Brink, a coalition of
U.S. arms control groups, today urged Presidents Putin and Bush
to go further to reduce the threat of nuclear proliferation and
nuclear war.
Vladimir Belous, retired Major-General, senior scientist at the
Institute for World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO)
of the Russian Academy of Science
Alla Yaroshinskaya, president of the Ecological Center
Michele Boyd, scientist at the Institute for Energy and
Environmental Research, Board member of Back From the Brink
coalition
Presidents Putin and Bush will meet this week in Russia to sign
an arms reduction treaty. President Bush has said "The treaty
will liquidate the legacy of the Cold War," but the agreement
falls short of this claim.
The treaty calls for both nations to reduce their nuclear forces
from 6,000 warheads to between 1,700 and 2,200 each, over the
next ten years.
In addition, instead of dismantling the warheads under the arms
reduction agreement, the US wants to keep many in storage where
they can be redeployed in the future. This kind of agreement
would, of course, allow Russia to do the same with its weapons.
"The U.S. and Russia should move to reduce the alert status of
all warheads as soon as technically possible and move
progressively to complete de-alerted status by verified removal
of all nuclear warheads from their delivery system," said Michele
Boyd, of the Back From the Brink campaign. "This would help set a
Global Zero Alert standard: No nuclear weapons poised for quick
launch."
"The probability of an accidental nuclear war can be reduced if
nuclear weapons are taken off high alert," said Major-General
Vladimir Belous (ret).
"Moreover, proliferation dangers can be reduced if warheads
removed from launchers are placed in secure storage, gradually
dismantled, and the nuclear materials rendered unusable," said
Alla Yaroshinskaya.
In addition, the treaty does nothing to change the Cold War
policy that has both sides continuing to threaten each other with
thousands of nuclear weapons on high-alert status - ready for
immediate launch. This continues the danger that nuclear war
could start by mistake or miscalculation.
The Russian and US experts support the following goals:
+ U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons slated for elimination
should be taken off line, warheads should be removed from
missiles and stored, secured and verified. + Nuclear weapons
slated for reduction should be dismantled as part of a legally
binding treaty, so that reductions in nuclear arsenals are
irreversible. + The U.S. and Russia should commit to removing
their nuclear weapons from high-alert status and to ending the
policy of Launch-on Warning. This would lead to the elimination
of the threat of a catastrophic launch of nuclear weapons due to
a breakdown in early warning systems, and also reduce the threat
of accidental or illegal activities. -30-
Also available:
+ [http://www.ieer.org/comments/dsmt/summitmb.html]
+ [http://www.ieer.org/russian/summitpr.html] Additional
resources:
+ [http://www.ieer.org/russian/pubs/dlrtbk-e.html] , a report by
the Institute of International Economy and Foreign Relations of
the Russian Academy of Sciences, 2001 +
[http://www.ieer.org/russian/dltstmte.html] , signed by 20
Russian NGOs, November 2001 +
[http://www.ieer.org/ensec/no-6/index.html] , (Science for
Democratic Action vol. 6 no. 4/vol. 7 no. 1 double issue, October
1998) + [http://www.ieer.org/latest/de-alert.html] , 1998 +
[http://www.ieer.org/latest/npt02ag.html] , IEER Conference at
the United Nations, April 2002
Institute for Energy and Environmental Research Comments to
[ieer@ieer.org] Takoma Park, Maryland, USA Posted May 21, 2002
*****************************************************************
40 Rumsfeld: Terrorists to get doomsday bomb
United Press International:
By Mark Benjamin
From the Washington Politics & Policy Desk
Published 5/21/2002 6:47 PM
WASHINGTON, May 21 (UPI) -- Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
told a Senate panel Tuesday it is a matter of when, not if,
terrorist states develop the capability to attack the United
States with weapons of mass destruction.
"Let there be no doubt, it is only a matter of time before
terrorist states, armed with weapons of mass destruction, develop
the capability to deliver those weapons to U.S. cities, giving
them the ability to try to hold America hostage to nuclear
blackmail," Rumsfeld told a Senate appropriations subcommittee.
Rumsfeld said Congress should restore a possible $800 million
reduction to President Bush's budget request for missile defense.
The defense secretary traveled to the Hill to defend a massive
budget for the Pentagon next year -- the Pentagon wants $379
billion for next fiscal year, which is $48 billion more than this
fiscal year. And for this year, the Pentagon wants a
"supplemental" $14 billion to fight the war. Rumsfeld said $19.4
billion of the Pentagon's funding request increase for next year
would go to the war against terrorism.
Lawmakers expressed general support for the budget request, but
questioned Rumsfeld's decision to cut the Crusader Artillery
System -- over the objections of some Army officials.
"It is a system that is wanted by a number of people, including
the Army," Rumsfeld said. But he argued that the Crusader must be
sacrificed to make budget room for more promising military
technologies.
Copyright © 2002 United Press International. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
41 Rocky Flats cleanup plagued by problems
[deseretnews.com]
Wednesday, May 22, 2002
Firm packaging plutonium falls behind schedule
Associated Press
GOLDEN, Colo. — South Carolina's refusal to accept
plutonium shipments from Rocky Flats is not the only problem
threatening the 2006 deadline for cleaning up the former nuclear
weapons factory.
A federal audit found the company packaging Rocky Flats'
weapons-grade plutonium into containers is struggling to meet
production schedules.
Kaiser-Hill was scheduled to have packaged 9,800
kilograms, nearly 11 tons, of highly radioactive plutonium metals
and oxides into about 1,900 containers by this month, according
to the Office of the Inspector General. Less than half the work
has been done.
The new report expressed doubt about Kaiser-Hill's ability
to increase the speed of packaging, given persisting technical
problems.
"We remain concerned that the current target of 140
containers per month may not be realistic," it says.
It also recommends Kaiser-Hill develop a contingency plan
for packaging the plutonium in the event of a "catastrophic
failure" of the current system.
Kaiser-Hill spokesman John Corsi remained confident the
company can package the remaining containers by early next year.
"The machine's working," he said, "and it's going to get
us to 2006."
A federal official announced last week that plans to use
45-gallon shipping containers had been dropped.
A California environmental group challenged them in court
last February.
Assistant Energy Secretary for Environmental Management
Jessie Roberson said the government decided to use smaller, but
fully approved, containers to avoid the expense and time of
litigation.
© 2002 Deseret News Publishing Company
*****************************************************************
42 Rocky Flats cleanup plagued by problems
Wednesday, May 22, 2002
Firm packaging plutonium falls behind schedule
Associated Press
GOLDEN, Colo. — South Carolina's refusal to accept
plutonium shipments from Rocky Flats is not the only problem
threatening the 2006 deadline for cleaning up the former nuclear
weapons factory.
A federal audit found the company packaging Rocky Flats'
weapons-grade plutonium into containers is struggling to meet
production schedules.
Kaiser-Hill was scheduled to have packaged 9,800 kilograms,
nearly 11 tons, of highly radioactive plutonium metals and oxides
into about 1,900 containers by this month, according to the
Office of the Inspector General. Less than half the work has been
done.
The new report expressed doubt about Kaiser-Hill's ability
to increase the speed of packaging, given persisting technical
problems.
"We remain concerned that the current target of 140
containers per month may not be realistic," it says.
It also recommends Kaiser-Hill develop a contingency plan
for packaging the plutonium in the event of a "catastrophic
failure" of the current system.
Kaiser-Hill spokesman John Corsi remained confident the
company can package the remaining containers by early next year.
"The machine's working," he said, "and it's going to get us
to 2006."
A federal official announced last week that plans to use
45-gallon shipping containers had been dropped.
A California environmental group challenged them in court
last February.
Assistant Energy Secretary for Environmental Management
Jessie Roberson said the government decided to use smaller, but
fully approved, containers to avoid the expense and time of
litigation.
© 2002 Deseret News Publishing Company
*****************************************************************
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