***************************************************************** 12/25/02 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 10.333 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** Send News Stories to news@energy-net.org with title on subject line and first line of body NUCLEAR POLICY 1 Physicians' group warns massive consequences for Iraq war 2 IAEA Says N.Korea Adding Fresh Fuel at Nuclear Plant* 3 North Korea refuels reactor 4 1994 nuclear crisis 5 North ups the ante once more* 6 Nuclear chill as Pyongyang warns US - 7 Experts: Making nuclear weapon from spent fuel rods not difficult 8 [EDITORIALS]In defense of our interests* 9 IAEA Confirms N. Korea Nuke Reactor Work 10 North Korea needs to restore nuclear status quo 11 US to discuss nuclear crisis with Seoul 12 The actors behind North's bellicosity* 13 Number of IAEA Inspectors to NK Increases to Three 14 Syria rejects claim of hiding Iraqi weapons 15 Brazil: Call to Peace 16 Inspections continue; Report: CIA tried to bribe three senior Iraqi 17 Interviews begin with N-experts 18 What we should know about the impending U.S. war on Iraq 19 IAEA: N. Korea could make plutonium in months NUCLEAR REACTORS 20 North Koreans Enter Disputed Nuke Plant 21 UK not eager to build new nuclear reactors 22 Rumyantsev's Contradictory Comments on Bushehr SNF Fog Minatom's 23 Russia says will speed up building of nuclear reactor in Iran 24 US: Computer shuts down Millstone unit 25 US: Security Doubts at Indian Point NUCLEAR SAFETY 26 US: Water lines for homes with uranium-tainted wells approved 27 US: Pentagon, Energy Department keep information under wraps NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 28 Nuclear waste uproar 29 Columnist Benjamin Grove: Shippers eye share of Yucca windfall 30 NRC Asked To Respond To Motion To Delay Action On Nuclear Fuel 31 US: WIPP DOE says proposal to examine waste flawed NUCLEAR WEAPONS 32 Russia scraps 17 nuke subs 33 Bushehr nuclear site to come on stream in 2003 34 U.N. Searches Iraq Complex for Nuke Clues 35 2 Wars = nukes 36 COMPLEXITY, TRUST, AND TERROR US DEPT. OF ENERGY OTHER NUCLEAR 37 TIME honors itself, and the country laughs ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 Physicians' group warns massive consequences for Iraq war Outlookindia.com : Wired IRAQ-PHYSICIANS WASHINGTON, DEC 24 (PTI) A voluntary group of physicians have warned of massive consequences for a possible US-led invasion of Iraq, which would include tens of thousands of civilian casualties, famine, civil war and epidemics. The Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War have rejected the view of the US Administration that it may be possible to defeat Iraq in a surgical military strike with few casualties among civilians. They say in a report in their magazine "Vital Signs" that a U.S.-led attack on Iraq could kill between 48,000 and 260,000 civilians and combatants in just the first three months of conflict. Post-war health effects could take an additional 200,000 lives. The aftermath of a U.S.-led attack, said Dr. Victor W Sidel, a Professor of Social Medicine in New York City who advised the authors of the report, could include civil war, famine, epidemics, millions of refugees and economic collapse. A "pre-emptive" attack would exacerbate the disastrous levels of death, disease, disability and despair already present in Iraq. At the same time, it would weaken the UN, weaken international law, efforts to reduce terrorism and also the United States itself, the report said. ©Hathway Investments Private Limited 2002, Our Technology Partner : 4Cplus.com ***************************************************************** 2 IAEA Says N.Korea Adding Fresh Fuel at Nuclear Plant* / Wed December 25, 2002 02:24 PM ET / VIENNA (Reuters) - The U.N. nuclear watchdog agency said on Wednesday that North Korea had been adding fresh fuel to a five megawatt nuclear reactor which produces plutonium that can be reprocessed for use in nuclear warheads. "We had noticed yesterday that they were carrying out work at the five megawatt reactor in Yongbyon," International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) spokesman Mark Gwozdecky told Reuters. "And we noticed that they were moving fresh fuel to the reactor." He added that the reclusive Stalinist state had broken most of the seals and disabled U.N. surveillance devices at all four nuclear facilities at Yongbyon. The cameras were monitoring North Korea's compliance with a 1994 shutdown of plants. However, he said no work was being done at the fuel reprocessing plant, which separates plutonium from other substances in the spent fuel. This is the facility the IAEA is most concerned about. The facilities at Yongbyon had been frozen under a 1994 agreement with the United States under which North Korea halted its nuclear arms program in exchange for oil shipments and construction of two atomic reactors that are difficult to use for a secret weapons program. Reuters The Company Products & ***************************************************************** 3 North Korea refuels reactor By Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles 26 December 2002 North Korea has begun moving fresh fuel to the Yongbyon nuclear reactor, the latest indication that it is resuming its nuclear weapons programme in the face of intense international opposition, the United Nation's International Atomic Energy Agency said yesterday. The agency has picked up signs of fuel movements since Tuesday, it said. South Korean officials said they had also heard word of people moving freely in and out of the supposedly dormant reactor in violation of UN rules. The latest moves raised the stakes in an international crisis in which the North Koreans have already accused the United States of "pushing the situation on the Korean Peninsula to the brink of nuclear war" and have warned of an "uncontrollable catastrophe" if Washington refuses to negotiate on North Korea's terms to resume shipments of fuel oil and other day-to-day essentials. After days of intense diplomatic manoeuvring, a Russian deputy foreign minister, Alexander Losyukov, urged the North Koreans not to abandon a 1994 agreement whereby its nuclear weapons programme was put on hold and the country's leaders agreed to work with the agency. The brinkmanship reached new heights earlier this week after the US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, apparently rejected the path to negotiation and said the US was capable of fighting, and winning, two large-scale wars at once. 25 December 2002 07:52 © 2002 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd ***************************************************************** 4 1994 nuclear crisis The Olympian The Olympian, Olympia Washington *Wednesday, December 25, 2002* North Korea's nuclear facilities at Yongbyon were at the center of a crisis in 1994 that some say nearly led to war. The Clinton administration considered bombing the Yongbyon reactor. Conflict was averted when North Korea formally renounced its nuclear weapons program and shut down the reactor in exchange for shipments of fuel oil from the United States and its allies. *©2002 The Olympian * *Return to Front Page section* ***************************************************************** 5 North ups the ante once more* *by Oh Young-hwan, Park Shin-hong * December 26, 2002 Two North Korean engineers entered the nuclear reactor facility in Yeongbyeon, a senior official in Seoul said yesterday, apparently to conduct preliminary inspections and maintenance work to prepare it for reactivation. The report came just after officials in Seoul and at the International Atomic Energy Agency said Tuesday that the North has also disabled surveillance equipment at the nuclear fuel fabrication plant and the unused fuel rod storage facility at the site. That announcement came as the next step in a North Korean progression that started with the disruption of surveillance at the reactor itself, at the storage pond where used nuclear fuel is stored and then at a laboratory at the site where the North's past efforts to extract plutonium from used fuel are believed to have been conducted. All surveillance equipment at the site has now apparently been disabled. Officials here said it would take at least two months before the North could load new fuel and restart the reactor even if the maintenance and repairs to the plant, which has sat idle for the past eight years, go smoothly. Two IAEA inspectors, the official said, have not been blocked from moving around the site; he added that the IAEA may try to dispatch a third inspector to help in efforts to keep track of North Korean activities. While not attempting to hide its alarm, the government is reportedly planning some high-visibility steps to start a dialogue with the North despite more tough rhetoric from Washington over the Christmas holiday. Officials here continue to insist that there is no rift between Seoul and Washington in their strategic views about the North's nuclear program, but another official said he was frustrated at the lack of maneuvering room Seoul has in trying to mediate between the United States and the North. President-elect Roh Moo-hyun met with academic national security experts Tuesday to discuss how to coax Pyeongyang away from its nuclear program while trying to persuade Washington to change its position that it will hold no further talks with the North until it honors its past promises to halt its nuclear program. His spokesman, Lee Nak-yon, said yesterday that U.S. officials and members of Mr. Roh's team will exchange visits next month to discuss North Korea developments. Yoo Jay-kun, a legislator and Mr. Roh's foreign affairs advisor, is said to be the likely leader of the Korean team; he met with Mr. Roh's national security brain trust today. After the meeting, one of the researchers on the team said Seoul must come up with concrete suggestions to back up its general calls for resolving the nuclear issue through dialogue. Mr. Roh was reportedly invited to a meeting of the Blue House's national security team planned for today, but an adviser will probably fill in for him, the Millennium Democratic Party said. About Us <./aboutus/about01.html> | Contact Us ¨Ï 2002 JoongAng Ilbo , Joins.com . All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 6 Nuclear chill as Pyongyang warns US - smh.com.au By David Stout in Washington and Howard French in Seoul December 26 2002 North Korea has accused the United States of risking a nuclear war, while Washington is warning it is "perfectly capable" of taking military action against the communist regime and Iraq at the same time. Vowing to fight the US to the end if provoked, North Korea says the US will be to blame for an "uncontrollable catastrophe" unless it agrees to a negotiated solution to the stand-off over its nuclear energy and weapons program. The US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, said in Washington that North Korea should not feel emboldened because of the US focus on Iraq and the campaign against terrorism. "If they do, it would be a mistake," he said. "We are capable of fighting two major regional conflicts. We're capable of winning decisively in one and swiftly defeating in the case of the other. And let there be no doubt about it." Following Mr Rumsfeld's threat, North Korea accused US hard-liners of pushing the Korean peninsula to the brink of nuclear war, adding that its armed forces were up to the task of beating any enemy. ");document.write(" advertisement "); } } // --> The chill in relations follows North Korea signalling it might be reviving its nuclear reactor program. While Pyongyang insists this is for electricity, a US Government official said the regime could churn out enough plutonium to build up to 50 to 55 nuclear weapons a year if all three of its frozen nuclear reactors entered operation in coming years. US alarm was heightened over the weekend, when North Korea said it had removed monitoring equipment installed more than eight years ago to make sure it did not use plutonium stockpiles to produce nuclear weapons. It also said it was removing monitors from a nuclear reactor, leaving the rest of the world guessing about what is being done with 8000 nuclear fuel containers stored there - enough plutonium to build half a dozen nuclear weapons within several months, arms control experts say. The North Korean Defence Minister, Kim Il-chol, stepped up the anti-US rhetoric. "If they, ignorant of their rival, dare provoke a nuclear war, the army and people of [North Korea] led by Kim Jong-il, the invincible commander, will rise up to mete out determined and merciless punishment to the US imperialist aggressors with the might of single-hearted unity more powerful than an A-bomb," the official Korean Central News Agency quoted him as saying. Mr Rumsfeld had earlier sought to dispel speculation about a possible conflict with North Korea. Asked on Monday whether there was "a military option on the table" for preventing North Korea from manufacturing nuclear weapons, he declined to respond directly, saying the Defence Department prepares for "a whole host of contingencies". He said the Administration views diplomacy as its best response, but stressed it is prepared to wage war. South Korean officials said North Korea had finished removing the last International Atomic Energy Agency equipment at the fuel fabrication plant in Yongbyon. The agency's director-general, Mohammed ElBaradei, told CNN that if the true purpose of the plant is to produce plutonium for weapons, it would be able to do so "in a pretty few months. And that's a pretty disturbing intent." The New York Times, The Washington Post and agencies Copyright © 2002. The Sydney Morning Herald. ***************************************************************** 7 Experts: Making nuclear weapon from spent fuel rods not difficult The Star-Ledger Wednesday, December 25, 2002 KRT NEWS SERVICE WASHINGTON -- It would be relatively easy for North Korea to use the 8,000 rods of spent nuclear fuel it has to make four or five crude nuclear weapons. The process for recycling 100 or so pounds of used fuel from a nuclear power plant into plutonium 239, the key element in a nuclear weapon, is called Purex. It's not secret and it involves more chemistry than physics. First, the used fuel rods are chopped up and dissolved in nitric acid. Then other acids help chemically separate plutonium and uranium from other radioactive materials, said nuclear physicist Edwin Lyman, the president of the Nuclear Control Institute, a Washington, D.C. organization that tries to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. "It's a chemical process that's not terribly difficult," said William Miller, a professor of nuclear engineering at the University of Missouri in Columbia. "It's messy as hell." The sorting has to be done in special "very isolated chambers to protect people from the radiation and plutonium dust," said Peter Pella, a professor of physics at Pennsylvania's Gettysburg College who has worked as an arms control scientist in both the Clinton and the current administrations. If the North Koreans begin this process at their Yongbyon nuclear facility, it will release enough trace elements to alert the United States to what's happening. Turning spent fuel into a nuclear weapon isn't as easy as many people think, Miller said. "The problem is you've got to get this material to implode and concentrate and get a chain reaction going long enough." North Korea performed hundreds of high-explosive tests in the early 1990s to learn the process, Lyman said. The North Koreans reprocessed enough fuel into weapons grade plutonium to make at least two warheads. "Once they have that much plutonium, it shouldn't be that difficult to build a weapon," said Pella. "If they want five of them, they don't have to make it that sophisticated." "It could be converted into a weapon in a matter of weeks," Lyman said. Copyright 2002 The Star-Ledger. Used by NJ.com with permission. © 2002 NJ.com. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 8 [EDITORIALS]In defense of our interests* December 25, 2002 A major clash is looming because of the tension created by North Korea's nuclear ambitions. This is an issue that has gone beyond a diplomatic conflict between North Korea and the United States to become a question of South Korea's survival and well-being. If the North and the United States actually go to war, the South will suffer the most damage of the three. That is the reason why we have to move actively and urgently to resolve the matter. But the administration has displayed an obvious lack of urgency in the two months since the North's ongoing nuclear program was revealed, as if it were somebody else' s business. The sluggishness in coming up with a substantive response is apparently the result of several factors, including miscalculations about Pyeongyang's intentions and Washington's response, the Dec. 19 presidential election in the South and the sharp rise in anti-American sentiment following the accidental deaths of two schoolgirls during a U.S. military training exercise. The upshot is that the North is on the verge of fully restarting its nuclear program and Washington is suggesting the possibility of a military response. Some people here say they think a nuclear capability in the North would be "a national asset." But possession of nuclear weapons by the North would likely trigger rearmament in Japan, which would in turn provoke China. The result would be an escalation of the arms race in East Asia, and South Korea would not be exempt. That scenario would be as unacceptable to the United States as the trigger, a North Korea with nuclear weapons. Military tension in the region would only hurt the Korean Peninsula. The government must show its determination to avoid another nuclear crisis and to work for a nuclear-free peninsula. No option should be left untested in trying to mediate between Washington and Pyeongyang. A nonpartisan response that reflects a national consensus is needed now. Only then could there be hope that Washington and Pyeongyang would stop considering the South as a hostage or a victim to serve their goals. A nonpartisan delegation must go to Washington, Pyeongyang, Beijing and Moscow to talk and talk and talk some more. ¨Ï 2002 JoongAng Ilbo , Joins.com . All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 9 IAEA Confirms N. Korea Nuke Reactor Work Las Vegas SUN: December 24, 2002 By PAUL SHIN ASSOCIATED PRESS SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - South Korea's president-elect appealed to Russia, China and Japan on Tuesday to help find a peaceful solution to a nuclear dispute with North Korea, as the U.N. nuclear watchdog said the North had begun repairing a nuclear reactor. The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency's chief spokesman, Mark Gwozdecky, said North Korea will need "a month or two" to make its 5-megawatt reactor at Yongbyon operational. Earlier Tuesday, a South Korean Foreign Ministry official said the communist nation might be preparing to reactivate the facility. The official also said North Korean technicians had removed U.N. seals and cameras from a fourth nuclear facility, a plant that makes fuel rods. The only nuclear facilities that remain untouched are two unfinished reactors. Over the weekend, North Korea began removing the U.N. seals and surveillance cameras from three Soviet-designed nuclear facilities that could yield weapons within months. Of particular concern is the reopening of a storage area holding 8,000 spent fuel rods that contain enough weapons-grade plutonium to make several atomic bombs. U.S. officials suspect that North already has one or two atomic bombs. Roh Moo-hyun, who won South Korea's presidential vote last week, met with the ambassadors from Japan, Russian and China on Tuesday to discuss the nuclear crisis. "The president-elect requested cooperation from those concerned countries to help resolve the North's nuclear issue peacefully," said Roh's spokesman, Lee Nak-hyun. Lee said the ambassadors - Teymuraz Ramishvili from Russia, Li Bin from China and Terusuke Terada from Japan - all hoped that the nuclear issue would be resolved peacefully. Their governments already have expressed support for a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula. In a separate meeting, Foreign Minister Choi Sung-hong briefed the president-elect on the latest international developments in nuclear tensions with the North, the spokesman said. North Korea issued another dire warning Tuesday, saying Washington's hostile policy toward it would backfire and result in "an uncontrollable catastrophe." The statement by the North's communist party organ, Rodong Sinmun, was carried by the foreign news outlet Korean Central News Agency. The North's defense minister, Kim Il Chol, said in a separate KCNA report that "U.S. hawks" were escalating the situation to "an extremely dangerous phase." Roh takes office in February. He advocates dialogue to resolve nuclear issues with the North, while the United States rules out any talks before the communist state gives up its nuclear ambitions. The North's latest moves raised fears of a crisis on the Korean Peninsula similar to one involving the same facilities in 1994, when there was a heightened possibility of war with North Korea. Conflict was averted when North Korea agreed to freeze the facilities in a deal with the United States. But Pyongyang said on Dec. 12 that it planned to reactivate them to produce electricity because Washington had failed on a pledge to provide fuel oil for needed energy. The United States, which is preparing for a possible war against Iraq, says it wants a peaceful solution to the nuclear problem. But Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld warned Monday that the U.S. military could simultaneously take on both Iraq and North Korea. "We're capable of winning decisively in one and swiftly defeating in the case of the other, and let there be no doubt about it," Rumsfeld said. Rumsfeld said, however, that no military action against North Korea was imminent. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 10 North Korea needs to restore nuclear status quo Mainichi Interactive - Top News Over the last several days, the North Korean government has broken seals at its Yongbyon nuclear reactor and other nuclear facilities and dismantled monitoring equipment in violation of its 1994 agreement with the U.S. Nine days ago, responding to the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization's decision to halt oil shipments, North Korea declared that it would move forward with its nuclear development program. The measures taken by Pyongyang can only be described as reckless unilateral actions which threaten to destroy its framework agreement with the U.S. We strongly urge North Korea to immediately restore the status quo ante by reinstalling the seals and monitoring cameras. North Korea has only itself to blame for the suspension of oil shipments. The current crisis was triggered by North Korea's admission during talks with high-level U.S. officials that it was proceeding with a plan to develop nuclear weapons from enriched uranium. It is clear that its plan violated not only the framework agreement but also the joint declaration on the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula that it issued with South Korea, the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, its accord with the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the Pyongyang declaration that it issued with Japan. North Korea claims that the seals to its nuclear facilities were broken to generate electricity. But North Korea would provoke a major crisis if it were to reopen its reprocessing plant, and begin to reprocess the 8,000 rods of spent nuclear fuel that are capable of yielding plutonium. North Korea's intent may be to ratchet up tensions while dealing its various cards, perhaps including an expulsion of inspectors, and keeping an eye on America's next move. It will be difficult for the U.S., which is preoccupied with its showdown with Iraq, and Japan, which is still dealing with the kidnapping issue, to formulate a response to North Korea. And South Korea has just elected a new president who is committed to continuing the "sunshine policy" toward North Korea. North Korea chose this particular moment to escalate tensions to unnerve president-elect Roh Moo Hyun, and to drive a wedge between Japan, the U.S., and South Korea. But if North Korea believes that it is engaged in a game which affords it the freedom to manipulate crises, it is making a terrible mistake. The United Nations Security Council had ordered the IAEA to shut down North Korea's nuclear facilities by installing seals and monitoring equipment, so the U.N. could also levy sanctions against North Korea. And if North Korea continues to play with fire, isn't it, like Iraq, headed down a path that will turn the rest of the world into its enemy? Japan, the U.S., and South Korea must make a concerted diplomatic effort to bolster their cooperation and solidarity, and to convince North Korea to revert to the framework agreement. Even if North Korea is manufacturing a crisis in order to extract more favorable conditions in negotiations with Japan, the U.S., and South Korea, it stands to gain nothing. It must refrain from taking steps which will lead to its own isolation and destruction, and restore the seals and monitoring devices at its nuclear facilities. (From the Mainichi Shimbun, Dec. 24) © 2002 The Mainichi Newspapers Co. Under the ***************************************************************** 11 US to discuss nuclear crisis with Seoul BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Wednesday, 25 December, 2002, [A South Korean man watches United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency director general, Mohamed ElBaradei, speak about North Korea's nuclear programme] South Koreans are concerned about the North's actions The United States will send an envoy to South Korea next month to discuss the North Korean nuclear crisis, a spokesman for the South Korean president-elect said on Wednesday. The US has not commented on the South Korean statement, but Washington earlier warned Pyongyang it would not give in to nuclear "blackmail" amid reports that the North Korea has started repairing a controversial nuclear reactor. CRISIS CHRONOLOGY [Satellite photo of Yongbyon plant in 2000 by Space Imaging ] 22 Dec: N Korea removes monitoring devices at Yongbyon reactor 12 Dec: N Korea threatens to reactivate Yongbyon N-plant 27 November: N Korea accuses US of fabricating claim about nuclear programme 14 Nov: Fuel shipments to N Korea halted 16 Oct: N Korea acknowledges secret nuclear programme, US announces Detailed timeline of growing tensions The South Korean news agency Yonhap reported on Wednesday that North Koreans were "moving freely in and out of the unsealed nuclear reactor". The United Nations says Pyongyang has dismantled most of the key monitoring equipment at the Yongbyon site, designed to ensure the plant is not used for covert nuclear weapons production. Pyongyang's decision to reactivate the facility is being seen as retaliation for a suspension of oil aid shipments in November - imposed by the US after North Korea reportedly admitted pursuing a new nuclear weapons programme. "We are not anxious to escalate this problem but we are not going to be blackmailed," said State Department spokesman Philip Reeker. Old deal North Korea insists it must restart the Yongbyon reactor to produce electricity because of the termination of the oil aid shipments. [An official of the International Atomic Energy Agency holds a surveillance camera] The cameras monitored compliance with the 1994 American-led deal It said it would try to resolve differences with the US but warned of "merciless punishment" if Washington continued its "provocation". Experts say nuclear bombs could be produced from materials at the site, which was deactivated in a deal to end a 1994 stand-off between Washington and Pyongyang. Under the deal, North Korea was to receive two light water reactors and 500,000 metric tons of fuel oil each year while the reactors were being built in exchange for a freeze on activities at its own nuclear reactors. In return, North Korea was required to allow inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to ensure it has not hidden away any weapons-grade plutonium from the original reactors. Removed The IAEA says most of its equipment at the Yongbyon site has gone, including seals, cameras and sensors. We cannot know whether they are using this material for peaceful purposes or for nuclear weapons Mark Gwozdecky IAEA "Essentially our eyes and ears have been removed from that very large complex," spokesman Mark Gwozdecky told the BBC. Two inspectors remain at Yongbyon but have only low-level contacts. Mr Gwozdecky said the IAEA now considered the situation so dangerous that North Korea was top of its list of priorities, along with the search for nuclear programmes in Iraq. North Korea has "a high level of nuclear capability", he said, and could extract plutonium which could then be used to make nuclear weapons. "Without our safeguard measures in place, we cannot know whether they are using this material for peaceful purposes or for nuclear weapons," he said. There are also concerns that work may be resumed at other dormant plants. The five-megawatt Yongbyon reactor is far smaller than most commercial power plants, which are often around 3,000 megawatts, analysts say. NORTH KOREA NUCLEAR PROGRAMME [Map showing North Korea's nuclear sites] Yongbyon: Five-megawatt experimental nuclear power reactor and a partially completed plutonium extraction facility. Activities at site frozen under 1994 Agreed Framework Taechon: 200-MWt nuclear power reactor - construction halted under Agreed Framework Pyongyang: Laboratory-scale "hot cells" that may have been used to extract small quantities of plutonium © MMII | News Sources | Privacy ***************************************************************** 12 The actors behind North's bellicosity* *by Lee Young-jong * December 26, 2002 North Korea watchers here see tightly orchestrated moves by Pyeongyang behind the escalating intensity of threats over the North's nuclear program. At the center of the coordinated action, they said, are the North's National Defense Commission and its chairman, Kim Jong-il, who is also the nation's leader. This observation was further highlighted yesterday with a Radio Pyeongyang broadcast that their leader had declared "a do-or-die" situation and called for a "fight to the end" immediately following a January statement by U.S. President George W. Bush that the North was a part of the international axis of evil. On the 11th anniversary Tuesday of Kim Jong-il's accession to the chairmanship of the defense commission, the vice chairman of the North's highest decision-making body, Kim Il-chol, said the country's sovereignty and survival is "under the worst threat ever" and the situation cannot be "left unprepared for." The defense commission is the center of the North's decision-making, and propaganda is shared by the country's foreign ministry and state news agency. North Korea experts in the South said the foreign ministry's operation is directed by the first deputy minister, Kang Sok-ju. The country's mouthpieces, the Korea Central News Agency and the Rodong Shinmun, have been intensifying the war of words recently. The Rodong is also at the forefront of internal propaganda. "We may be called to go on a march of adversity," the newspaper said over the weekend. State propaganda has revisited calls for the withdrawal of the American military from the South, demands that had been toned down considerably since the June 2000 summit meeting between South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and the North's leader. A large anti-American protest in Pyeongyang is scheduled for Saturday. An official with the Unification Ministry, which formulates the South's North Korea policy, said yesterday internal propaganda is likely to be stepped up once international sanctions against the North appear imminent. "It may involve an emergency defense posture," he said, "intended to maximize internal tension, also." About Us <./aboutus/about01.html> | Contact Us ¨Ï 2002 JoongAng Ilbo , Joins.com . All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 13 Number of IAEA Inspectors to NK Increases to Three KoreaTimes : Hankooki.com > Korea Times > Nation The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has increased the number of people inspecting North Korea¡¯s nuclear activities from two to three, government officials said yesterday. ``The organization took the step to strengthen eye checks of nuclear facilities since North Korea removed seals and disabled surveillance cameras installed at mothballed nuclear facilities,¡¯¡¯ said an official at the Foreign Affairs-Trade Ministry. The inspectors are conducting daily checks on nuclear facilities without interference from North Korean authorities, said Chon Young-woo, director general of the ministry¡¯s international organizations bureau. He noted there has been no particular indication that the North would attempt to dispel the IAEA inspectors thus far despite its recent moves aimed to reactivate the frozen nuclear facilities. Another official rebuffed the allegation that the North informed the IAEA of its decision to recharge fuel to restart the operation of the nuclear reactor in Yongbyon. ``There has been no such notification from the organization yet,¡¯¡¯ he said. Asahi Shimbun of Japan reported Wednesday the North has unveiled a plan to resume the operation of the reactor by recharging fuel. 12-25-2002 19:07 ***************************************************************** 14 Syria rejects claim of hiding Iraqi weapons Reuters AlertNet - 25 Dec 2002 12:40 By Inal Ersan DAMASCUS, Dec 25 (Reuters) - Syria on Wednesday brushed aside Israeli accusations that it was hiding Iraqi biological and chemical weapons. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said on Tuesday Israel suspected Baghdad was transferring arms to Syria to hide them from United Nations weapons inspectors. "Sharon's allegations that Iraq has transported to Syria chemical and biological weapons are baseless and aim to avert attention from the nuclear, chemical and biological arsenal that Israel owns," the Syrian Foreign Ministry said in a statement made available to Reuters. The statement said the accusation was "ridiculous" as Syria had signed international pacts against nuclear proliferation and had called on countries in the region to keep the Middle East free of all weapons of mass destruction. "The only side that stood and still stands against that call is Israel. Israel with its arsenal of weapons of mass destruction presents a danger not only to the Palestinians, Syria and Lebanon, but to the whole region and to international peace and security," the statement said. Israel is widely believed to have about 300 nuclear warheads but its policy is never to discuss the issue. Sharon, in an interview with Israel's Channel Two television, said: "What we believe, and I say that we have not yet confirmed it conclusively, is that weapons he (Iraqi President Saddam Hussein) wants to hide, chemical and biological weapons, have indeed been sent to Syria." He gave no evidence to support the allegation. U.N. weapons inspectors returned to Iraq last month after a four-year hiatus to resume a hunt for banned weapons of mass destruction -- which Iraq denies possessing -- amid threats by the United States to disarm Iraq by force if it does not obey U.N. resolutions. Syria has told the United States it has no right to attack Iraq and has warned that U.S. support for Israel was fuelling popular anger in the region. Syria is among the countries the United States lists as sponsors of "terrorism", mainly over its support for Lebanon's Hizbollah movement and Palestinian militants opposed to Israeli occupation of Arab territory. ***************************************************************** 15 Brazil: Call to Peace Brazil - Brazilian Foreign Relation - January 2003 January 2003 Look into the eyes of most Brazilians while speaking of Iraq, and you will see a people not fooled by the pretexts spun by the US as justifiable cause for its increased aggression on Iraq. Norman Madarasz Cairo was host to the most important anti-war congress held in the Arab world to date on December 18-19. Organized in haste given the imminent US strike and declared invasion of Iraq, not to mention the utter devastation of Palestinians and Palestinian land by Sharon's army, the Cairo Congress against American Aggression on Iraq aimed at gathering together for an intensive study session intellectuals, journalists, activists, organizers and former-UN workers from Arab and non-Arab countries. Its commitment as a civil society group was stressed and reinforced throughout the Congress. No matter how one defines the current American aggression, the anti-war movement that has emerged explosively in England, Italy, France, the US and elsewhere, is the first such movement to take shape prior to the actual onset of a war. It should surprise no one in the US that the corporate media chose not to report on the event. After all, the million-strong demonstration and study session held in Florence in November against the American aggression was entirely under-reported in the US. Even though al-Jazeera and al-Ahram, two of the most respected sources of news in the Arab world, were present, interviewing both organizers and participants, not one corporate news source showed up from the English-speaking world. France's Le Monde spoke of the event, albeit briefly and almost invisibly, in the December 20-21 issue. Humanité had a correspondent follow the events. The Congress successfully and strikingly brought together a broad range of distinguished speakers, among whom the hero of the Algerian War of Independence and former President, Ahmad Ben Bella, who was the guest of honor. Also invited, but unable to attend due to illness though he did have a letter read out was Edward Said, the Palestinian-American author of Orientalism and Culture and Imperialism. The Congress also featured such distinguished speakers as former US-attorney general Ramsey Clark, former Director of the UN Humanitarian Program for Iraq, Dennis Halliday, and British anti-war MP George Gallaway. Egyptian-American scholar and consultant to the UN, Dr. Soheir Morsy, and Engineer M. Samy drove the Congress within its project, having worked brilliantly in their capacity as co-organizers of the event. The results of the Congress are twofold. First, all participants democratically elaborated the "Cairo Declaration", which is being forwarded to all international political and social bodies. Then, a steering committee was established to undertake action to raise popular awareness to the catastrophic effects a war would have on the Arab world, and to what the broader ambitions of the US and Israel appear to be in the Middle East. Needless to say, under its current government, Israel is indistinguishable from the broader aims of American foreign policy. This bond has worked unceasingly to the detriment of the US's credibility in the Arab world, while being based on a short-term vision peculiar to Sharon's Israel that can only be doomed to fail in the long-term. Consensus was reached for full withdrawal of US forces from Arab countries, which may thereby allow the Arab people to deal with the question of democracy on their own terms and through their own means. As history has shown since ancient Athens, democracy as an export, imposed by force onto a people onto leads to tyranny. There have been no exceptions to this rule in history. The present author was also honored to be invited. I spoke of the anti-war sentiment in Brazil from my perspective of a Canadian intellectual and academic living in Rio de Janeiro and married to a Brazilian. As I was the only representative of either Canada or Brazil, I believe it is appropriate to publish the paper and the views it discusses, which were presented to the Congress on December 19. For a longer report of the Congress, please see Peter Phillips, "A Report from Cairo on the International Campaign Against US Aggression on Iraq", Counterpunch.com, December 23. SECULAR STEPS IN PREPARING A WAR Distinguished participants, I would like first of all to express my gratitude to Dr Soheir Morsy for inviting me and giving me the honor of speaking among you and participating in a Congress that has assembled so many illustrious speakers. Yesterday and this morning's speeches were impressive by the intense, angry and profound solidarity shown toward the Iraqi people and children. In that regard, I can only second the motion put forth by Dr. von Sponeck according to which a clause ought to be devoted in the Cairo Declaration to the effect that Iraqi children must be recognized as having the same right to live as any child in the US, Britain, France or Canada. Following so many passionate speeches, I think it can be affirmed loud and clear that here we find a clear example of people who no longer accept the inactivity of our governments toward the US aggression on Iraq. And that aggression—as well as the ideology supporting it—must be stopped before it exponentially increases the suffering of all in the region. Ladies and gentlemen, I am Canadian, a professor and researcher in philosophy, currently living in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil with my Brazilian wife and son. Soon after the attacks of September 11, I began writing, outside of philosophy and academia, on international political and economic relations for CounterPunch magazine. With such criminal irresponsibility returning home on September 11, it was impossible to keep silent any longer. In the case of Brazil, or Argentina, Iraq and Egypt for that matter, what also engaged me to write was the near impossibility of finding pertinent, unbiased and informative news on the country in the English language corporate press, i.e. what we in North America usually call the "mass media". This state of affairs is simply frustrating. After all, consider for a minute the turbulent and very exciting year Brazil has undergone. By electing the Workers Party (PT) to government, and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva as president last October, Brazil has become one of, if not the most, enthusiastic countries on the planet. It has certainly proved to be the most dynamic democracy existing anywhere today in what is a rapidly shrinking democratic world. In that regard, we cannot really speak of anti-war demonstrations as yet having taken place in the country. The reasons have so very much to do with the population awaiting the investiture of their new president on January 1st, and the hopeful promise of deep social change to combat poverty and the urban violence it gives rise to that is eating away at the fabric of Brazil's largest cities. The gathering at Porto Alegre early next year should mark an important change in condemnation of the aggression. Yet listen to any Brazilian news channel, and especially Globo News, or look into the eyes of most Brazilians while speaking of Iraq, and you will see a people not fooled by the pretexts spun by the US as justifiable cause for its increased aggression on Iraq or for its strategy aided and abetted by Sharon of establishing Israel as the hyper-militarized dominant power in the region, much less for its ambitions set in the rigid stone of globalized shareholder capitalism. In many ways, Brazil has had first-hand experience in being revolted by one of the very secular episodes to preparing the war. This occurred when the Director-General of the UN's Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, Mr. José Bustani, was groundlessly accused of mismanaging the OPCW by Washington, D.C. Bustani just happened to be Brazilian. And the Brazilian mass media covered the events so very closely and with such indignation that all could sense this strong-arm tactic to be a major step for the US to increase the aggression against Iraq. The OPCW ran according to a convention by which member states had to provide data on their chemical weapons programs and were subject to challenges and inspections from other members. In his short tenure, Bustani managed to boost membership from 70 up to 145 nations in the space of two years. He had also been unanimously re-elected for a second four-year term in May 2001. Bustani's mistake, as most probably fabricated by John Bolton, senior neo-con ideologue and sub-secretary of state for arms control, was having wanted to include too many of the wrong types of countries into the folds of the OPCW. After all, these wrong types of countries, or "rogue states", weren't able to comply with international regulations and standards. They weren't because by definition they were rogue states. Worse still, Bustani was involved in high-level talks with Iraq to have it enter the OPCW. His staff had already sent an inspections team to Baghdad to discuss matters with Iraqi authorities. As the US is the main financial backer of the organization, covering roughly 25 percent of its operational budget, it rallied the usual victims to try to oust Bustani through a members' vote. When the democratic process failed, Bolton's people called for an extraordinary closed-door session in The Hague. On April 22, Ambassador Bustani was sacked, and the US would have set a precedence for one nation disrupting the activity of a UN agency had it not, just a week earlier, already lobbied against and replaced Robert Watson as head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Watson, an American scientist and strong supporter of the Kyoto Protocol, had been advocating action against global warming. Just as Washington has shown its true colors by rejecting any form of environmental control over a country that is by far the world's biggest polluter, so also has it dictated to the world that it and it alone knows how to manage budgets and control the non-conventional arms industry. This event had serious implications for Iraq, but not only for that continually bombed country. At the time of the attack on Bustani, you'll recall, new leads were appearing in the investigation into the wave of anthrax terror letters, which used a strain of anthrax allegedly developed by the US military and secretly funded. This received little mention in the North American corporate press, even though it directly contravened the biological and chemical weapons convention and US domestic law. Never mind that to this day, it appears as though an American connected to the military would have been behind the mail attacks. This type of background scenario makes it all the more difficult to accept American self-denials over its imperialist ambitions. Such self-denial is merely a process of refining the ideology of imperial discourse. There's maybe no one more apt and efficient in producing such self-denial in the context of the American aggression than Princeton professor emeritus of Middle East Studies, Bernard Lewis. Typical cases of denial in his writings are that America is not an Empire (like Britain and France were), or that Iraq has been a more brutal user of non-conventional weaponry than the US. (In discussing the "brutality" of Middle East dictators he conveniently elides any mention to the use of napalm and Agent Orange in Viet Nam, chemical weapons in the Korean war, let alone atomic weapons against Japan and depleted uranium in the Gulf War.) When Professor Lewis recently argued in the National Review that the US fails the empire grade, thereby qualifying it as an honest exporter of democracy to countries raked by harsh dictatorial and theocratic rule, he omitted a major historical point. Prior to becoming colonial empires in the Middle and Far East, Britain and France both began by establishing `trade counters'. Just as the English were wheeling-dealing in Calcutta before the Indies became a colony, by corrupting and subjugating one maharaja after another into their horizon of interests, so also had the US secured growing dominance over oil in Riyadh. In fact, regarding American history, we seem merely to be standing on an earlier segment of the colonial timeline. But on it we stand—as everyone here seems to agree—and, we stand on it at a very crucial moment, indeed. This is a moment pointed to with vehemence under other purposes by New York Times right-wing columnist Thomas Friedman when he speaks of a new era when the United Nations Organization will finally be made to move faster—to another beat, as it were. A recent piece, one whose title "'Soddom' Hussein's Iraq" illustrates its lewd rhetoric, was published as if coincidentally just as the UN arms inspectors began tackling their delicate tasks. For Friedman, the UN is part of the problem, but not as our distinguished speakers Denis Halliday and Dr. von Sponeck spoke of yesterday. These honorable gentlemen resigned from their high-level posts in the UN's humanitarian sector in protest over the obvious failures of the Food-for-Oil program and the refusal of the Security Council to lift the embargo that has criminally been strangling the Iraqi people for over ten years. What Friedman intones is that the UN is blocking the rights of Iraqis to democracy. Furthermore, in a typical display of misplaced American arrogance, he has the gall to call upon a people under threat of massive bombardment, further death and starvation, to somehow, through sheer will and sacrifice, overthrow a dictator. And this is why he claims that we must hold the "UN's feet to the fire", as if it and not the Security-Council enforced embargo were behind the plight of the Iraqi people! Such poetic license is, doubtless, of the sort that garnered him the Pulitzer Prize earlier this year. Dear American friends, faced with the terror of 9/11 and its aftermath, you have allowed your federal government to let corporate crooks fly free from indictment after they ripped your pockets off by billions of dollars in the greatest corruption wave to have stricken the US since the Gilded Age. Freedom in the US today means freedom for corporate crooks of the highest and most prestigious pedigree. It no longer means freedom for the common folk. How can you expect Iraqis, then, to rise up when you yourselves can all but insist on government to keep its interest on the economy instead of getting rich from the taxes you pay at great expense from war? But with the UN made immune, to whose ears can we still turn to be listened to at the highest level? As futile and confused as it seems, but with a spirit of keeping possible doors open, it could still be Secretary Colin Powell. If we accept the American self-denial of the imperial-nature of its foreign policy, and that the aggression on Iraq is "not about oil", as Rumsfeld recently claimed, then we can draw out the Western trinity to which the secretary of defense and vice-president are not only devoted servants, but stakeholders and shareholders: oil for sure and don't be fooled; next: the arms industry; finally, much less glamorous but equally lucrative, the military logistics industry that supplies infrastructure to the massive armies as they stretch their claws worldwide. (In cut-throat international competition, heavy industry agrees that future treasure lies in masterful logistics.) As opposed to Messieurs Rumsfeld and Cheney, Secretary Powell seems only marginally connected to the ownership of these sectors. There is a silent reserve in Colin Powell that seems to express wisdom, albeit undercut by professional ambition. Secretary, you have been able to transform your logistics and geostrategic knowledge into intelligent dialogue with the world's youth on MTV. You were behind operations of the 1991 war on Iraq, you have seen the ravages. You are aware of the horrors caused even more in the war's aftermath, which shouldn't be surprising given the post-war sequelae of Viet Nam. The anti-war movement, the movement for international respect for social justice, may grant you laurels if you prove able to move from the man of war that you are, to the leader of peace that you promise to become. But if you do nothing to avert this infernal step into the next segment of the colonial timeline, history will forget you, Sir. Whether his door remains partially open or not, our words must continue to be: all together in solidarity with the Iraqi people and all together in our call to halt the British-Israeli-American aggression on Iraq, on behalf of my Canadian and Brazilian colleagues and loved ones. Norman Madarasz holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from the Université de Paris. His most recent philosophical study is on French philosopher Alain Badiou's mathematical philosophy, forthcoming in Gabriel Riera (editor), Alain Badiou: Philosophy under Conditions, SUNY Press. He welcomes comments at normanmadarasz2@hotmail.com ***************************************************************** 16 Inspections continue; Report: CIA tried to bribe three senior Iraqi military officers Al-Bawaba's Editor* 25-12-2002, 11:37 Inspections Wednesday took U.N. teams to a gas laboratory and a grain storage area in al-Taji, a huge complex that has attracted U.N. attention in the past. The International Atomic Energy Agency has linked al-Taji to Iraq's nuclear weapons program. Iraqi officials said teams from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) began the inspection of at least five sites in central and southern Iraq. Sites visited Wednesday also included the Ibn Al-Haitham Company, identified in a British dossier on Iraq as a chemical weapons site. Other teams were heading to two undisclosed locations south and west of Baghdad, they said. Around two dozen experts who had spent the night in the southern port city of Basra also headed to undisclosed locations in and around the city. One of those teams inspected a paper plant in Basra. Meanwhile, the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) approached three senior Iraqi military officers when they were in New York last June and offered them money to defect, an Arabic newspaper reported Wednesday. General Amer al-Saadi, President Saddam Hussein's science advisor; Jaafar Zia, head of the former Iraqi nuclear program and an expert named Mehdi Labidi were discussing with the United Nations a resumption of arms inspections in Iraq, said the Saudi-owned /Asharq al-Awsat/ daily. During their stay at a New York hotel, the CIA approached them many times, with one saying he had been showed a "suitcase full of dollars," the newspaper said. The report, quoting sources close to the Iraqi delegation, said the Iraqi government had informed the United Nations about the incident, claiming "harrassment." (Albawaba.com) © * 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com) * ***************************************************************** 17 Interviews begin with N-experts Gulf News Online Edition * Dubai:Wednesday, December 25, 2002* United Nations |By Colum Lynch | 25-12-2002 * The United Nation's nuclear arms watchdog has begun conducting private closed-door interviews with Iraq's atomic energy experts, marking a critical new stage in the UN's effort to verify Baghdad's claims that it has destroyed its most lethal weapons of mass destruction, according to a spokesman for the agency. Drawing from a list of hundreds of Iraqi officials linked to Iraq's former nuclear weapons programme, officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) are seeking to determine whether Baghdad has secretly begun to rebuild its former nuclear arms programme since UN inspectors left the country in December 1998 on the eve of a U.S. and British bombing campaign. While IAEA inspectors have routinely questioned Iraqi scientists at former nuclear weapons sites since they resumed inspections last month, this is the first time that they have asserted their right to conduct face-to-face interviews with individuals without the presence of an Iraqi government minder. It sets the UN's nuclear sleuths ahead of their counterparts at the UN Monitoring Verification and Inspection Commission (Unmovic), who have yet to conduct confidential interviews with Iraq's biological, chemical weapons and ballistic missile experts. "We are moving from an information gathering phase to a more probing, investigative phase," the IAEA's chief spokesman Mark Gwozdecki said in a telephone interview from the agency's Vienna headquarters. "We can't talk about who, how or how many" individuals inspectors are speaking to. The Bush administration has stepped up pressure on Mohammed El Baradei, the Egyptian director general of the IAEA, and Hans Blix, the Swedish executive chairman of Unmovic, to speed the pace of inspections and to exercise their authority to question some Iraqi specialists outside the country, where they can speak freely without the fear of reprisals. El Baradei said in a recent interview that he would interview Iraqi scientists abroad if he received assurances from Washington that they could obtain political asylum or return safely to Iraq. © Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service © Al Nisr Publishing LLC ***************************************************************** 18 What we should know about the impending U.S. war on Iraq ABS-CBN.COM /abs-cbnNEWS.com/ ***************************************************************** 19 IAEA: N. Korea could make plutonium in months Daily Yomiuri On-Line Yomiuri Shimbun Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said Monday that North Korea would be able to produce weapons-grade plutonium in a few months if it restarts operations at its nuclear facilities. In an interview on CNN television, ElBaradei expressed concern over Pyongyang's removal of seals at its radiochemical laboratory, a nuclear reprocessing facility located in Yongbyon. ElBaradei said Pyongyang would be able to restart its nuclear weapons program and make plutonium in a few months if it took equipment from the spent fuel and reprocessing plant. ElBaradei urged the U.N. Security Council to discuss responses to North Korea's nuclear development program if the IAEA could not adequately monitor the site because of Pyongyang's actions. The director general of the U.N. nuclear watchdog said it would then be up to the U.N. Security Council and members of the agency to take measures to bring North Korea back into compliance with its nonproliferation obligation. ElBaradei also said the agency's inspectors were still on site, but that their monitoring abilities were "rather limited" without the cameras and seals. About 8,000 spent fuel rods taken from a 5,000-kilowatt graphite-moderate reactor are currently stored at the Yongbyon site. It is believed enough plutonium can be extracted from the rods to make six nuclear bombs. On Saturday, North Korea began removing the seals and disconnecting the IAEA's monitoring cameras at the facilities. The North Korean Central News Agency said the move was necessary for normal reactor operations to produce electricity. Copyright 2002 The Yomiuri Shimbun ***************************************************************** 20 North Koreans Enter Disputed Nuke Plant Las Vegas SUN: December 25, 2002 By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA ASSOCIATED PRESS SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Koreans are moving freely in and out of a nuclear power plant since removing seals installed by foreign monitors, a South Korean news agency reported Wednesday in the latest sign the North is preparing to restart the reactor. The United States fears the plant could be used to make nuclear weapons, and has told the North not to revive it. On Tuesday, North Korea issued a fiery warning that U.S. policy was leading the region to the "brink of nuclear war." Though there were no new activities at a reprocessing lab or a fuel rod factory early Wednesday, the South Korean news agency Yonhap said "North Koreans are freely moving in and out of the unsealed nuclear reactor" at Yongbyon. It cited an unidentified South Korean government official. Yonhap said Wednesday the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency had increased the number of its inspectors at the North Korean facilities from two to three. The report could not be immediately confirmed. Under a 1994 agreement, the North Koreans are supposed to ask the U.N. agency's permission before entering the power plant. The North's comments on Tuesday were stronger than its usual anti-American rhetoric, and U.S. officials said they suspected Pyongyang was trying to goad Washington back to the negotiating table after President Bush cut off oil shipments to the energy-starved nation. American officials have demanded that North Korea immediately end its atomic weapons program. The North's defense minister, Kim Il Chol, said in a report on KCNA, the North Korean news agency, that "U.S. hawks" were "pushing the situation on the Korean Peninsula to the brink of a nuclear war." In a separate report on KCNA, North Korea said Washington's hostile policy toward it would backfire and result in "an uncontrollable catastrophe." The statement was in the North's communist party newspaper, Rodong Sinmun. Alarming U.S. officials, North Korea has swiftly taken steps toward a possible reactivation of nuclear facilities that experts believe were used to make one or two weapons in the 1990s. North Korea had agreed to freeze the facilities in the 1994 deal with the United States that brought Pyongyang economic benefits. North Korean officials removed U.N. seals from more nuclear facilities and began repair work at a reactor that had been frozen since 1994, a U.N. agency said. The North Koreans will need "a month or two" to make their Soviet-designed, 5-megawatt reactor at Yongbyon operational, said Mark Gwozdecky, chief spokesman at the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. On Tuesday, North Korea removed U.N. seals and surveillance cameras from a fourth nuclear facility, including a reprocessing facility that produces weapons-grade plutonium. The move disturbed U.S. officials who say North Korea has no use for plutonium other than trying to build a nuclear bomb. There are 8,000 spent fuel rods at the facility, enough to make several atomic bombs within months. Gwozdecky said it did not appear that the North Koreans had removed any rods from the facility. North Korea, which has accused the United States of plotting an invasion, has said it is willing to settle the nuclear issue if Washington signs a nonaggression treaty. Bush and South Korea's president-elect Roh Moo-hyun will exchange special envoys next month to discuss North Korea, Roh's chief spokesman, Lee Nak-yon, said Wednesday. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly is likely to visit South Korea, and Roh's envoy will return the visit, he said. The White House sought to project an air of calm as North Korea issued its strongest statement since it began to restart its nuclear facilities last weekend. Britain's Foreign Office minister Bill Rammell said North Korea's moves to restart its suspended nuclear program were "very worrying." "I think it is probably a fairly ham-fisted attempt to gain international leverage, but our best analysis at the moment is that this is not a regime that is hell-bent on confrontation," he told British Broadcasting Corp. radio. In the past few days, North Korea has cut U.N. seals and impeded surveillance equipment at the Yongbyon reactor and its spent fuel pond, a fuel rod fabrication plant and a reprocessing facility, said IAEA director Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei. "This rapidly deteriorating situation in the DPRK raises grave nonproliferation concerns," ElBaradei said in a statement. DPRK stands for Democratic People's Republic of Korea. The North's nuclear facilities at Yongbyon were at the center of a crisis in 1994 that some say nearly led to war. Conflict was averted when North Korea agreed to freeze the facilities in a deal with the United States. But Pyongyang said on Dec. 12 that it planned to reactivate them to produce electricity because Washington had failed on a pledge to provide energy sources. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 21 UK not eager to build new nuclear reactors Nuclear power and radioactivity No CO2 emissions, but nuclear power is fraught with its own environmental problems. The British government has decided to avoid making any commitments to building new nuclear power stations in draft legislation due early 2003, reported a source close to the Labour Party December 19th. Richart Hauglin/ Natur og Samfunn Zackary Moss, 2002-12-24 16:28 In the run up to the British government’s release of an energy white paper in spring 2003, ministers have decided against endorsing a new generation of nuclear power stations, although they will keep the option under review. This is welcome news to the anti-nuclear lobby, which has been fighting to reduce the role of nuclear energy in the UK. While nuclear energy provides 25% of the UK’s energy supply, it faces domestic criticism due to the costs it has imposed on the taxpayer, as well as the environmental degradation it causes. Ireland and Norway, backed by Bellona, oppose Sellafield’s discharges of Tc-99 into the Irish Sea, which then travels northwards to the Norwegian Sea. Yet the British government has realised that nuclear energy — and the environmental degradation is causes — is an emotive issue at home as well as abroad. Trade and Industry Secretary Patricia Hewitt said privately on December 18th that a commitment to build new operations at this stage would be "crazy", the source close to the Labour Party said. Mrs Hewitt was careful not to rule out the possibility that some new power stations could be given the go-ahead at a later date, however. “The idea that we should, on the one hand stop all nuclear power stations, or on the other hand, build a whole new raft of new power stations, is not the solution”, she said. “What we need is something far more considered.” Old reactors to close There are 31 nuclear reactors in the UK, which provide 25% of the UK’s electricity supply. Nuclear power generates 50% of electricity in Scotland. These reactors are approaching the end of the service lives and will be decommissioned. The last of Britain’s nuclear reactors is due to close by 2024. As such, the decision on whether or not to replace the UK’s ageing nuclear power plants split the British Cabinet and given the cost of building new plants, HM Treasury is deeply sceptical about the benefits of building more plants. Energy Minister Brain Wilson has even admitted that ministers had “different views, there’s no secret about that”. Nevertheless, because of the conflicting positions in the Cabinet, Mrs Hewitt has decided to defer a decision on building new plants when she publishes a white paper. Supports of nuclear power — including Energy Minister Brain Wilson — argue that a decision cannot be delayed for too long because only Sizewell B will be operating in 2024, however. They follow the “proceed to build now” approach. Indeed, Mr Wilson is lobbying for the “review” option, which will leave the nuclear industry with hopes for new plants. “The white paper’s not going to say ‘go out and build nuclear power stations tomorrow’ and I doubt if it’s going to say ‘never build a nuclear power station again’. The area of debate is somewhere in between,” he said. The white paper, expected in February or March 2003, is expected to address three main issues: safety and security and supply, costs to customers and environmental issues. Supporters of nuclear power say it is crucial for security of supply, and that its zero carbon emissions make up for the environmental hazard it poses. While some nuclear reactors are likely to be necessary to meet Kyoto targets on carbon dioxide omissions, Mrs Hewitt is concerned that any nuclear go-ahead would stop investment in other non-carbon energy forms. Publisher: Bellona Foundation, President: Frederic Hauge 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 ***************************************************************** 22 Rumyantsev's Contradictory Comments on Bushehr SNF Fog Minatom's Intentions International Co-operation Section on Russia's nuclear industry international co-operation and exports of Russian nuclear technology. BOSTON - Russia's Atomic Energy Minister Alexander Rumyantsev arrived Sunday in Tehran for inspections of the controversial Bushehr reactor that Iran is building with Russia's help, but it remained unclear whether he would be collecting a long promised contract obligating Iran to return spent nuclear fuel (SNF) Russia once the plant goes on line. Charles Digges, 2002-12-24 16:38 What is clear is that Rumyantsev intends during his 4-day-visit to discuss quickening the tempo of construction of the $800m, 1,000 megawatt reactor so that it comes on line fully by 2004, as well as to lay groundwork for the construction of up to five more Russian constructed reactors — a plan the Russian Atomic Energy Ministry, or Minatom, announced over the summer, but appeared to back away from in the face of harsh criticism from US Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham. It is also clear that Rumyantsev will not be inspecting two new nuclear sites in the Iranian cities of Nantanz and Arak, which were revealed by commercial satellite photos last week, and which American intelligence community has alleged are facilities for the production of nuclear weapons that were built, according to a US Department of Defence official, with the aid of the Russians. Tehran has denied the new sites serve weapons purposes and Russia has denied it had a hand in helping build them. On Friday, previous to Rumyantsev's departure, he told the Nuclear.ru website — which, according several Russian media watch-dogs, is one of several websites with close ties to Minatom — that the long delayed signing of an agreement on the 100 percent return of Bushehr's SNF, which Rumyantsev himself said early last week was scheduled for this trip, was nothing more than "conjecture of the press." On Sunday, however, after his arrival in Iran, he was quoted by the Associated Press, Tehran Radio and United Press International as saying "the main purpose of my visit is to expedite the completion of the Bushehr nuclear power plant and to finalize an agreement on the [spent] nuclear fuel for storage and processing in Russia." The AP and UPI articles went on to report that Rumyantsev would, in fact sign, the deal on the return of the SNF, as Rumyantsev and other nuclear officials in Russia have been promising since this summer, when a leak of internal government documents to Greenpeace revealed that no such provision existed in the 7-year-old construction contract. Should the SNF remain in the hands of the Iranians — a scenario that gives Washington cold sweats — it could possibly be reprocessed for plutonium, a path toward the creation of a nuclear weapon. But despite nearly a dozen public statements Rumyantsev has made promising to secure the return of the fuel, and dozens more statements from Moscow and Tehran that their nuclear cooperation is entirely peaceful, Minatom, according to environmental groups — and even some sources within Minatom — has adopted a foot-dragging policy toward inking the necessary guarantees that the fuel will be returned. A spokesman for the Minatom press office on Monday refused to discuss the contradiction between Rumyantsev's statements to Nuclear.ru and those that appeared in Western press agencies, and said the Minister himself would be holding a press conference on Dec. 27 "that would clear everything up." But another Russian government official who is knowledgeable about Minatom's attempts to forge an agreement about the Bushehr SNF told Bellona Web confidentially on Monday that he "would not expect the Minister [Rumyantsev] to have made any more progress than we have observed since this summer." The official added that Rumyantsev's current approach to the SNF agreement "generally does not correspond with his earlier promises." Earlier this fall, Rumyantsev pledged that the Bushehr plant would not go into service until he had a "legally binding" contract that Iran would return the spent fuel to Russia. "Now, Rumyantsev has gone to Iran to examine ways to speed up the completion of Bushehr, and has made two completely contradictory statements about whether the SNF contract will be signed," the official said. "This confusion, obviously, has undermined his commitment to that earlier promise." This sluggishness and vagueness, coupled with the satellite photographs showing a heavy-water reactor, which would be critical for producing plutonium, in Arak, and a separate facility in Nantanz for the production of bomb usable highly enriched uranium, appears to fly in the face of Moscow and Tehran's denials that Russia is assisting Iran in the creation of a nuclear weapons program. Still more evidence to that effect was revealed earlier this week by the Washington Post, which reported that, over the past five years, Iran has used a web of phoney trading companies to obscure its increasingly sophisticated drive to secretly build large facilities that could produce the materials needed for nuclear weapons. This was underscored in a recent interview with Ivan Blokov, campaign director of Greenpeace Moscow, which has closely monitored Russia's nuclear assistance to Iran. "If Iran is allowed to keep even some of the SNF from Bushehr, they could easily obtain equipment necessary for reprocessing it to get plutonium as well as any other equipment they would need to develop a nuclear weapons programme," he told Bellona Web. A spokesman with the US Department of State, who spoke on the condition of anonymity with Bellona Web on Monday, agreed. "Our position has always been that Russia should cease all assistance to the Bushehr project, but recent developments point out that even that may not be enough — at this stage they are far along the road to a [nuclear] weapons programme," the official said. Just how far Iran has come will presumably be revealed when Mohamed Elbaradei, head of the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, visits the two sites shown in last week's satellite imagery, an IAEA spokesman wrote in an email interview. Elbaradei will be accompanied by specialists who plan to set up "safeguards" at the sites to ensure no material is diverted for use in weapons programs. Another official at the Vienna-based agency told AP Thursday that the satellite photos of the Nantanz uranium enrichment site show it is partially covered by concrete and earthworks. But the official said that did not necessarily mean Tehran had something to hide. "Given what the Israeli's did to the Iraqi reactor, I might consider hardening my facility as well, even for peaceful purposes" the offical said, according to AP. Israeli air strikes destroyed Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981. The IAEA official also said the satellite imagery of Nantanz and Arak indicated they could produce heavy water and be used for the enrichment of nuclear fuel, procedures applicable for a weapons program. But, according to AP, the official noted that "Iran has the right to have such facilities as long as at the appropriate time it declares them to us [the IAEA] and puts them under safeguards, and Iran has declared to us that they will do so." Publisher: , President: Information: , Technical contact: Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62 * P.O.Box 2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway ***************************************************************** 23 Russia says will speed up building of nuclear reactor in Iran Back Home Last update - 20:02 25/12/2002 By Reuters TEHRAN - Russia brushed aside strong U.S. criticism on Wednesday and said it had agreed with Tehran to speed up building of a $800 million nuclear reactor in Iran and to consider constructing another. The United States, which has branded Iran part of an "axis of evil" for allegedly developing weapons of mass destruction, fiercely opposes the Islamic Republic's nuclear program. Russian Atomic Energy Minister Alexander Rumyantsev said Washington had failed to show that Iran had broken any international regulations over the nuclear program. "We always tell our American colleagues that all Iran-Russia cooperation is in accordance with international regulations and the resolutions of the International Atomic Energy Agency )IAEA(," Rumyantsev told a news conference. Moscow's continued participation in the project to build a nuclear reactor near the southwestern port of Bushehr had depended on Iranian assurances that all spent fuel would be returned to Russia - a demand advanced by U.S. experts. *Washington questions Iranian motives* Iran insists the Bushehr reactor is for purely civilian power production, but U.S. officials question why Iran, the second biggest oil producer in OPEC and with the second biggest gas reserves in the world, would need it. Russia says it would be difficult for the civilian reactor to be adapted to produce nuclear weapons, a stance disputed by Washington. U.S. officials earlier this month also charged that two other nuclear sites being built in central Iran were of a type that could be used for manufacturing nuclear warheads. The Bushehr reactor, due to come on stream at the end of 2003, is under the supervision of the IAEA, while the other two plants are not due to be inspected by the agency until late February. "We agreed to speed up the completion process of the Bushehr power plant," Gholamreza Aqazadeh, Iranian Vice-President and head of the country's Atomic Energy Organisation, said after finalizing details with Rumyantsev. "A second subject we have agreed upon is to carry out feasibility studies for a second power generation unit. We hope to start a joint study in the next few months," Aqazadeh said. U.S. President George W. Bush has named North Korea and Iraq as the other "axis of evil" countries. North Korea set alarm bells ringing in the West last week by removing UN monitoring equipment at a nuclear reactor capable of yielding weapons-grade plutonium. It agreed to the surveillance in 1994. Washington has cautioned North Korea against using the world's current focus on Iraq to indulge in nuclear brinkmanship, saying the United States could fight and win two wars at once. © Copyright 2002 Ha`aretz. All rights reserved ***************************************************************** 24 Computer shuts down Millstone unit Associated Press December 25, 2002 WATERFORD, Conn. -- A computer shut down a nuclear reactor at Millstone Power Station early Monday, and the reactor remained off-line Tuesday as officials try to figure out what happened. Pete Hyde, spokesman for the power plant, and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission say the shutdown of Unit 3, which occurred at about 2 a.m. Monday, was not an emergency. "The system is designed to monitor itself," Hyde said. "It was an entirely safe evolution." No radioactivity was released, he said. The cause was "an anomaly in the generator," Hyde told The Day of New London, which reported the incident Wednesday. Crews are examining the generator to determine what triggered an automatic computer command to shut down the reactor. An opponent of Millstone's efforts to build a storage facility for spent nuclear fuel said the shutdown should prompt concern. "They always tend to downplay these events," said Nancy Burton of the Connecticut Coalition Against Millstone. "Anytime the reactor goes from 100 percent power to zero in a second that's a big thing." Millstone, which is operated by Dominion Nuclear Connecticut Inc., notified the Nuclear Regulatory Commission within an hour of the automatic shutdown of the 1,150-megawatt reactor. The federal agency characterized the incident as a "nonemergency" and reported the plant as stable. Hyde could not say when the reactor would be back on line. "The important thing is to find out what happened and bring the unit back online safely," he said. Millstone 2, the other operating reactor at the Waterford power station, was forced off-line in August by a pinhole-sized leak in a pump that supplies water to cool the reactor. It also shut down for refueling last February, ending a record 283-day run in which both units operated without interruption. Millstone 1, the oldest power plant at the station, was shut down in the 1990s and is being decommissioned. Copyright © 2002, The Associated Press © 2002, Southern Connecticut Newspapers, Inc. ***************************************************************** 25 Security Doubts at Indian Point The New York Times *December 25, 2002* The Nuclear Regulatory Commission needs to subject New York's Indian Point nuclear plant to a stringent test of its ability to cope with a terrorist attack as soon as possible. There is no other way to determine whether the plant's security forces are blessed with Rambo-like powers, as the industry claims, or are more like the Keystone Kops, as an assessment from some of the guards themselves suggests. The ads on nuclear plant security that the industry ran earlier this year depicted tough-looking men with big guns protecting unidentified nuclear plants. "Meet Steve Yancey, formerly of the 82nd Airborne and the U.S. Marine Corps," one ad said. It described Steve and his colleagues as highly committed, exactingly trained and physically fit and as expert marksmen with an array of weaponry. Too bad the guards at Indian Point, some 35 miles north of Times Square, do not quite fit that image. According to a leaked report submitted to the plant's owners early this year, only 19 percent of the guards, who are supplied by the Wackenhut Corporation, felt that they could adequately defend the plant. Some guards estimated that half the force might not be physically able to meet the demands. As for marksmanship, some guards require multiple tries to pass their annual tests. These revelations were contained in a report prepared by a former N.R.C. investigator who interviewed more than 50 guards at the plant. In follow-up interviews, Richard Pérez-Peña of The Times reported, guards told of minimal training, of some guards' reporting to duty drunk and having to be sent home, and of fatigue from working 70 to 80 hours a week or more. Entergy, the company that owns and operates Indian Point, says that most of the guards' concerns have been addressed. A new fence, barriers and security cameras have been installed, for example, and 30 new guards will report in January to help protect both Unit 2, where the survey was done, and the adjacent Unit 3. National Guardsmen and state police provide additional protection. Entergy remains convinced that Indian Point's defenses are robust and that they could pass any test. Security at Indian Point has passed muster with both the N.R.C., which considers the site well protected against terrorists, and Gov. George Pataki's own Office of Public Security. But the guards' assessment is so jarringly at odds with those judgments, and with the industry's tough-guy reassurances, that a closer look is needed. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton has urged both Entergy and the N.R.C. to schedule a mock terrorist attack at Indian Point early next year to see whether the security force can handle it. Entergy says it is willing. The drill should use realistic assumptions about the size of an attacking force and the likelihood that it would strike without warning. If the regulators cannot ensure that the private guards are competent and ready, it may be time to federalize the security force at nuclear plants. Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company ***************************************************************** 26 Water lines for homes with uranium-tainted wells approved GreenvilleOnline.com - News Posted Tuesday, December 24, 2002 - 6:52 pm By Bob Montgomery ENVIRONMENTAL WRITER The Greenville Commission of Public Works this week approved construction of water lines to homes in the McKittrick Bridge Road area west of Simpsonville where elevated levels of uranium have been found in private wells. But the money for the project is still somewhere in the pipeline between here and Washington. The Greenville Water System is waiting for $1.94 million in federal funds that was due here this month to finish installing public water lines for the area. General manager Lynn Stovall said engineering plans for the McKittrick Bridge Road area lines are completed, and that construction on the project can begin as soon as the check comes from the federal government. Lines were laid several months ago in the Jenkins Bridge Road area and the Harrison Hills subdivision, he said, with county and state funds totaling $650,000. High levels of the radioactive metal were first discovered in January 2001 in three private wells along Jenkins Bridge Road. Hundreds more private wells were then tested by state officials, and several were found to have elevated levels of uranium, a naturally occurring metal that can damage the kidneys. The water system agreed to provide public water along several roads in the area, as long as it was paid for with public funds. In addition to the state and county funds, U.S. Rep. Jim DeMint, R-Greenville, secured a commitment of $1.94 million in federal funds to help pay for 19 miles of lines. That's the money that hasn't arrived, Stovall said. "The holdup hasn't been with what's come from the county and state," Stovall said. Stovall said he will try to see if he can obtain the money in January. Water lines will be laid along McKittrick Bridge Road, Woodside Road, McElvey Road, South Harrison Bridge Road, Fairview Road, State 418 and Neely Ferry Road, he said. DHEC officials have said many people with contaminated wells have been drinking bottled water but continue to use well water for washing clothes, cooking and bathing. DHEC health evaluation director Robert Marino earlier this year found elevated levels of uranium in urine samples in 71 of 79 people tested. He said any effects on the kidneys can be reversible once the exposure ceases. Bob Montgomery covers the environment and can be reached at 298-4295. Latest news: Anderson man, toddler killed in Copyright 2001 The Greenville News. ***************************************************************** 27 Pentagon, Energy Department keep information under wraps [DesMoinesRegister.com] By LAURIE MANSFIELD Register Staff Writer 12/24/2002 Much of the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant"s toxic history is still considered secret, although the Department of Energy is painstakingly releasing some employment documents for former nuclear-weapons workers. Earlier this year, the department released to a University of Iowa research team thousands of pages of radiation monitor readings and health and safety reports. The Department of Defense has made public no records pertaining to its workers. Although Congress demanded that the Pentagon file several reports detailing risks to workers, the Pentagon missed deadlines of May 2001 and April 2002. In August, the Pentagon produced a four-page report that Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin said was "woefully short on information about possible radioactive and toxic exposures at the plant." The report said that 38,500 current or former workers might have been exposed to "silica, beryllium, solvents, explosives, epoxies and heavy metals," and it acknowledges that Army employees sometimes crossed over to the Department of Energy's nuclear work. On July 2, 2001, The Des Moines Register requested access to the Iowa plant's employment and health documents, citing the state's open-records law. The records have yet to be released. Army and Energy Department officials have declined since July 2001 to reply to Register questions about the workers and their health problems. Copyright © 2002, The Des Moines Register. ***************************************************************** 28 Nuclear waste uproar Townsville Bulletin: Nuclear waste uproar [ 23dec02 ] 23 December 2002 THE NATION This story is from our news.com.au network Source: AAP ANY attempt by the Federal Government to override the states in allowing nuclear waste to travel through rural Australia would end up in the High Court, an environment group said today. A report in the Fairfax media today indicated the Federal Government would use constitutional powers to override any state government objections to the transportation and storage of radioactive nuclear waste. Senior Department of Education, Science and Training officials told a Senate hearing that states would not be consulted until short-listed dump sites were announced next year, the report said. Opposition science spokesman Kim Carr said the selection process for the new storage facility site for intermediate level radioactive nuclear waste should be open and transparent. Friends of the Earth (FoE) campaigner Loretta O'Brien said community concern along the proposed transport route for waste from the Lucas Heights reactor in southern Sydney would have clear political consequences. "While legal positioning remains uncertain, any attempt to dump waste on unwilling communities may end in the High Court as both South Australia and Western Australia move to legislate against nuclear disposal," Ms O'Brien said in a statement. She said a federal government plan to dispose of low-level and short-lived, intermediate level radioactive waste at a dump site in South Australia was well advanced. The plan involved road transport across NSW and the subsequent shallow burial of wastes near Woomera. The first stage of the plan would produce more than 130 truckloads of radioactive waste passing through rural communities next year. Radioactive waste transports would then continue for a further 40 years. "Any movement of radioactive waste would place significant demands on the planning, resources and response capacity of regional emergency services," Ms O'Brien said. "The transportation and dumping of nuclear waste presents a real risk of radioactive exposure to people, agricultural land and the broader environment." Senator Carr said the states would not even be consulted before the Government announced its preferred sites for the plant, which will hold about 550 cubic metres of nuclear waste. "We are calling on the Government to make it an open process, and announce the preferred sites as soon as possible," Senator Carr said. "The announcement has already been delayed from 2002 to 2003 ... it is going to take longer to choose the site than it is to build it." privacy policy © The North Queensland Newspaper Company ***************************************************************** 29 Columnist Benjamin Grove: Shippers eye share of Yucca windfall Las Vegas SUN: December 20, 2002 Benjamin Grove covers Washington, D.C., for the Sun. He can be reached at or (202) 662-7245. EVERYONE knows the high-profile players in the ongoing saga over Yucca Mountain are focusing a lot of attention on how all that nuclear waste would get to Nevada. The Energy Department is asking Congress for millions of dollars to develop its shipping plan. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is reviewing its role in testing and certifying the giant steel containers used to ship waste. And Nevada officials are banging a familiar drum: Shipping waste is not safe. But there's another, less visible player here: the waste-shipping industry. It appears the shippers have been busy, too -- whispering in the Energy Department's ear as the department drafts waste-hauling plans that could make them rich. In September the Energy Department quietly posted its waste-shipping plan in the form of a 26-page "Statement of Work," a draft outline designed to give potential contractors an idea of what would be involved in shipping 77,000 tons of nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain. The department asked for feedback on the document, and about 600 comments poured in from roughly 40 organizations, including the state of Nevada. The Energy Department won't say who else submitted comments, but sources say the waste shippers were well represented. And it's a reasonable guess they had a lot to tell the department about how to better tailor the contracts to benefit the waste-hauling industry. For example, Jack Edlow, president of Edlow International, a Washington-based shipping company, said he objected to the department's apparent preference for hiring a single transportation contractor to manage the whole campaign, as opposed to hiring a number of regional contractors. "As a small business, my comment was that I thought there should be some preference for small businesses," Edlow said. Then, last week, this curious item: the trade publication Energy Daily reported that the Energy Department is now planning a "substantially" new transportation plan. Had the department rewritten its plans to appease the shippers? Department officials say no. Yucca spokesman Allen Benson said the department is still reviewing reams of comments, and he denied the department made "substantial" changes to its plans. Final decisions about shipping contracts have not been made, Benson said. But the question remains: With so many stakeholders, who will the department rely on most for feedback as it crafts its complex transportation plans and contracts in the next few years? Yucca watchdogs, including the state of Nevada, should keep a close eye on the relationship between the department and the shippers. The department should craft its transportation plans and contracts based on what's best for public safety, not what's best for the train and trucking companies that stand to make a fortune hauling waste to Nevada. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 30 NRC Asked To Respond To Motion To Delay Action On Nuclear Fuel Service?s Request To Amend License * Technical Support: 888-323-1142 *125 West Summer Street - Greeneville, TN - (423) 798-0545* Source:/ The Greeneville Sun / 12-23-2002 A U.S. Atomic Safety and Licensing Board administrative judge has asked the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission?s staff to file a memorandum by Jan. 6. The NRC is being asked in the memorandum to state its position on a motion to delay action on petitions seeking a public hearing on an Erwin industry?s request to amend its special nuclear-materials license. Alan S. Rosenthal, an Atomic Safety and Licensing Board administrative judge, made the request in a Dec. 17 order. The order also gives citizens and environmental groups until Jan. 6 to comment on a Dec. 13 response by Nuclear Fuel Services, Inc., to the groups? earlier comments on NFS?s inital special nuclear materials license amendment request. Rosenthal was appointed by the NRC earlier this year to review petions filed by citizens and environmental groups who want the NRC to hold a public hearing on Nuclear Fuel Services, Inc.?s request to amend its special nuclear materials license. NFS has indicated that it plans to seek a total of three license amendment requests that, if granted, will allow it to implement a process in which surplus highly-enriched uranium from the U.S. nuclear weapons program can be down-blended to a low-enriched state for use as fuel for TVA nuclear-power reactors. NFS for decades has manufactured fuel for the U.S. Navy?s nuclear-powered submarines and aircraft carriers at its Erwin plant, but is apparently attempting to broaden its commercial nuclear business. First Request Filed In Feb. The first NFS license-amendment request was filed with the NRC in February. The request became the subject of petitions filed by environmentalists seeking a public hearing after an opportunity-for-hearing notice was published in the U.S. Federal Register in July. The initial special nuclear materials license amendment application filed by NFS sought ?authorization to store low-enriched uranium materials at the Uranyl Nitrate Building . . . at the NFS facility in Erwin, Tennessee,? according to the NRC. The original public notice related to that application indicated that the NRC staff had determined that the NFS Blended Low-Enriched Uranium (BLEU) project would have no significant impact on the environment. However, environmentalists have said they are concerned about the ?cumulative effect? that discharges from the project?s operations into the air and the Nolichucky River might have on the environment. NFS maintains that the project will have no adverse effects on the environment. A modified opportunity-for-comment notice concerning the first amendment request was published in the Federal Register in October after Judge Rosenthal found the first notice to have been inadequate. Additional Requests A second license amendment request was filed in October, while a third is expected to be filed during the first quarter of 2003, an NRC spokesman said earlier this month. ?The (second) license amendment request is for the approval of some changes to the company?s process for down-blending uranium,? said an NFS press release issued earlier this month. ?The NRC will review the request and perform a safety review in addition to its previous environmental assessment for the project.? The release also quoted NFS spokesman Tony Treadway as saying, ?The most important thing to remember is that the BLEU project will pose no significant impact to the environment or the public.? A notice giving the public an opportunity to comment on the second NFS license-amendment request has not yet been published in the Federal Register. Postponement Asked An attorney for environmentalists opposed to the BLEU project has filed a motion asking that action in the case be postponed until after all three NFS license-amendment applications are filed. ?On Dec. 13,? Rosenthal?s Dec. 17 order stated, ?Licensee Nuclear Fuel Services, Inc., filed oppositions to the several hearing requests that were submitted in response to the revised notice of opportunity for hearing that was published in the Federal Register on Oct. 30.? ?Simultaneously, the Licensee (NFS) filed an opposition to the pending motion of Friends of the Nolichucky River Valley, et. al., asking that the proceeding be held in abeyance,? according to Judge Rosenthal?s order. ?If so inclined, those hearing requestors responding to the Oct. 30 notice may reply to the Licensee?s filings. (All of those hearing requestors may address the Licensee?s opposition to holding the proceeding in abeyance as well as the opposition to the hearing request.) ?Because of the approaching holiday season, the deadline for the filing and service of any such replies by both electronic and U.S. mail will be Monday, Jan. 6, 2003.? NRC Asked To Respond In addition, the NRC Staff is asked by Judge Rosenthal to file by the same Jan. 6 deadline a memorandum addressed to the environmental group?s pending motion that the proceeding be held in abeyance. The judge made the request of the NRC staff even though the NRC had indicated in a Dec. 6, 2002, letter a continuing intent not to participate in the proceeding. ?Without elaboration, (NRC) Staff counsel stated in that letter that the Staff agreed with the movants that ?it would be more expeditious to postpone this proceeding until all three related license amendment applications have been received and noticed,?? Judge Rosenthal wrote in his Dec. 17 order. ?Copies of this order were sent this date by e-mail transmission to the counsel or other representative of each of the participants in the proceeding, as well as to counsel for the NRC staff. ?Judge Cole and I are interested in determining whether the Staff remains of that view notwithstanding the Licensee?s strong opposition to such a postponement and, if so, what might be the Staff?s response to the assertions contained in that opposition.? In November, an NRC staff attorney had written a memorandum indicating that the NRC?s staff felt any hearing to be held in the NFS case should focus only on information included in the first license-amendment request. ?It is the Staff?s position that the scope of the hearing is limited to areas of concern related to the Feb. 28, 2002, license amendment application and cannot extend to areas of concern that relate to future license amendment applications,? Jennifer Euchner, counsel to the NRC staff, wrote in a Nov. 18 memorandum. In the conclusion of that memo, Euchner wrote: ?The (NRC) staff disagrees with the position of NFS that all areas of concern related to the environmental assessment (EA) be litigated during this proceeding (an as-yet-unscheduled hearing on the first NFS license-amendment request). ?Therefore, the (NRC) staff requests that the presiding officer (Rosenthal) determine that the scope of this proceeding is limited to those of safety and environmental areas of concernt that directly related to the Feb. 28, 2002, license amendment application and that the petitions are not required to raise all concerns related to the environmental assessment in this proceeding.? Comments about our site © 2002 East Tennessee Network - R.A.I.D. (Regionalized Access ***************************************************************** 31 WIPP DOE says proposal to examine waste flawed The Current Argus Tuesday, December 24, 2002 - 5:02:11 PM MST By The Associated Press SANTA FE - An Energy Department proposal to build a center for examining the contents of nuclear waste drums stored at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant is flawed and should be dropped, the agency's Office of Inspector General said. The proposal "is unlikely to expedite the removal of waste or save costs to the extent of management's estimates," the office said in a report released Dec. 18. It said of 26 smaller sites that handle waste for Carlsbad plant, "the vast majority would not benefit from the centralized capability." The report also indicates that the department never performed a complete analysis demonstrating the project's use. "Without such an analysis, the department risks investing time and resources in an unnecessary capability, ultimately delaying cleanup, increasing costs, and creating new health and safety concerns," the report said. WIPP, which opened in 1999, accepts only certain types of nuclear waste, such as clothing, gloves, and tools contaminated with small amounts of radioactive elements. Current rules require the Energy Department to characterize it - that is, describe exactly what elements it contains - before burying it. The Energy Department proposed a central facility to handle the waste characterization in June 2001, saying it would expedite the removal of waste from the temporary storage sites and minimize total costs of disposal of up to $100 million. The New Mexico Environment Department denied the agency's initial request to modify its waste permit but gave the DOE until January to address various "deficiencies" in its application. The DOE report concluded that after surveying 20 of the smaller waste sites, it found that 16 of them would not benefit from the centralized facility. Several were already using mobile characterization units, others were heading in that direction, and five had no defense waste that would go to WIPP in the first place. "If 16 of 20 sites do not use the capability, at least $80 million of the projected $100 million in savings appears unattainable," the report said. The DOE hasn't completely given up on the project, though. Ines Triay, manager of the DOE's Carlsbad Field Office, said the department plans to move forward with a complete cost analysis. She maintained that the proposal remains valid, since smaller facilities with nuclear waste would use WIPP's capacity for characterizing waste if it were available. "Essentially, the concept is very simple. One is more cost effective than three, and three is more cost effective than 20," she said. "And I believe the cost analysis is going to show that." Don Hancock of the Southwest Research and Information Center has opposed the idea from the outset, citing both safety and logistical problems. "This whole idea of characterizing waste at WIPP is a dumb idea," he said. "It's a dangerous idea, and now the (inspector general) is saying it's not even a financially viable idea." © 1999-2002 MediaNews Group, Inc. ***************************************************************** 32 Russia scraps 17 nuke subs The Australian: [December 26, 2002] Source: AP RUSSIA disposed of 17 decommissioned nuclear submarines in 2002 and removed the nuclear fuel from 14 others, the Nuclear Power Ministry said today. Russia has been making slow progress dismantling its rusting fleet of nuclear submarines, which have languished in ports and pose an increasing environmental hazard. In August, it opened a US-funded facility in the Arctic port of Severodvinsk to unload spent nuclear fuel from the reactors of four Delta and two Typhoon submarines each year. This year, fuel was removed from 14 submarines, the ministry's press service said. It said the shells of 17 submarines, from which the fuel was removed last year, were disposed of. Seventeen trainloads of removed fuel were shipped to the Mayak disposal facility in the Urals Mountains, it said. About 100 submarines have been scrapped in previous years, Nuclear Power Minister Alexander Rumyantsev said on Monday, according to Interfax-Military News Agency. About the same number of subs remain to be dealt with, he said. © The Australian ***************************************************************** 33 Bushehr nuclear site to come on stream in 2003 Islamic Republic News Agency ( I R N A )HeadLines News Tehran, Dec 26, IRNA -- Iran's Bushehr nuclear site is to come on stream by the end of 2003 after Russia declared it was preparing o adjust the Bushehr site's equipment. Taking part in a joint press conference Wednesday, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Romyantsov and head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Gholam-Reza Aqazadeh responded to questions raised by reporters on the various aspects of the Bushehr nuclear site. Once operational in 2003, the site could produce about 1000 mega watt electricity, said the Russian official. Gholam-Reza Aqazadeh stressed that Romyantsov visited Iran to observe and give a push to the construction work on the plant which the Islamic Republic is building with Russian help. Commenting on the US allegations against Iran regarding its clear program, Aqazadeh said the Bushehr site is supervised by the International Atomic Energy Agency on a regular basis. He advised the American officials to act based on the internationally accepted rules and regulations. He said the IAEA is well aware of and satisfied with Iran's nuclear activities. The Russian minister said there is nothing wrong with the continuation of the Iran-Russia nuclear cooperation on the Bushehr site. He said Russia is interested to get involved in Iran's projects to build six other nuclear sites adding that Moscow has already tabled the issue with the Vienna -based IAEA officials. He said Russia is well determined to go ahead with its nuclear cooperation with Iran despite pressures on Russia to stop its cooperation with Tehran. Romyantsov and Aqazadeh earlier today signed a protocol for peaceful cooperation on nuclear energy. In the protocol, the two sides reiterated the need for 'speeding up the completion of Bushehr plant' and agreed on forming a joint commission to carry out feasibility studies for the construction of another nuclear energy plant in Iran. One of the articles of the protocol highlights Russia's obligation to finish the plant according to schedule. Romyantsov arrived here Sunday for a four-day visit and met several Iranian officials, including Parliament Speaker Mehdi Karroubi and Vice-President Mohammad-Reza Aref. He also travelled to Bushehr in southern Iran to observe the construction work on the plant which the Islamic Republic is building with Russian help. Discussing the issue of transferring nuclear fuel waste from Iran to Russia, he reiterated that nuclear cooperation between Tehran and Moscow was 'strictly peaceful' and did not violate international conventions on nuclear energy activities. Under the one-billion-dollar deal, Russia had initially undertaken to finish the Bushehr plant in 2005, but the country later announced it could be completed by the end of 2003. Washington has been claiming that Iran may use Bushehr plant for developing nuclear arms. Both Iran and Russia have rejected these allegations. US officials were also cited recently as alleging that American satellites had spotted two Iranian sites, one in the central city of Arak and the other in Natanz in the central province of Isfahan, which suggested they could be used for making nuclear weapons. Iran strongly rejected the allegations and reiterated that the two plants were intended to generate electricity. Tehran later invited the International Atomic Energy Agency to travel to Iran to inspect both the facilities, which has been accepted. HB/JB ©2000 Islamic Republic News Agency ( IRNA). All rights reserved ***************************************************************** 34 U.N. Searches Iraq Complex for Nuke Clues Las Vegas SUN: December 25, 2002 By NADIA ABOU EL MAGD ASSOCIATED PRESS BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Saddam Hussein welcomed Christmas with an angry speech saying Iraqis were ready for "martyrdom," while U.N. inspectors spent the holiday trying to determine whether the Iraqi president is hiding nuclear, chemical or biological weapons. Inspections Wednesday took U.N. teams to a gas laboratory and a grain storage area in al-Taji, a vast complex that has attracted U.N. attention in the past. The International Atomic Energy Agency has linked al-Taji to Iraq's nuclear weapons program. In an address read by a state television announcer to mark Christmas Eve, Saddam again rejected U.S. and British claims that his regime possesses weapons of mass destruction. He also said he wanted to cooperate with U.N. weapons inspectors. "We are confident that the outcome of the inspection operations will be a big shock to the United States and will expose all the American lies if things remain on a technical and professional course with no hidden agendas," he said. Saddam said the world was entering a new year "under unique circumstances ... which have been manufactured by the forces of evil and darkness in order to create a situation of instability, chaos and tension." Saddam said the United States and its Zionist ally - meaning Israel - were bent on waging war against Iraq in a first step to spread their "hegemony ... across the world and control fortunes and future" of other countries. "As much as Iraq loves life, its people are ready for martyrdom in the defense of its land and air space, its sanctities and future," Saddam's statement said. "The road to deter the injustice, aggression and wickedness of the evil-minded is the road of jihad (holy war) and struggle," the statement said. While Saddam spoke of war, about 120 people, including Iraqi Christians and American peace activists, prayed for peace at St. Rafael's Catholic Church in downtown Baghdad on Christmas Eve. With fears building that America will wage war on Iraq, members of the U.S. and British-based Iraq Peace Team have traveled to Baghdad to call for a peaceful solution to the crisis and the lifting of harsh economic sanctions imposed on Iraq since the 1991 Gulf War. "Of course I'm afraid, but I'll pray for peace," 12-year-old Zeina Shamuel told The Associated Press at St. Rafael's as worshippers sang in Arabic: "The people living in the night, will see the long awaited light." Christians represent about 5 percent of Iraq's 22 million population and live mainly in Baghdad and the north. Iraq is predominantly Muslim and officially secular. The United States and Britain have threatened war to rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction. Iraq's most comprehensive attempt to rebut claims it has nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, a declaration to the United Nations earlier this month, has been dismissed as pages of lies by London and Washington. The top U.N. inspector has said it is largely a rehash of old information. An Iraqi scientist interviewed by U.N. inspectors Tuesday said Baghdad is not hiding any weapons of mass destruction. Sabah Abdel-Nour, who worked in a nuclear program Iraq says is now closed down, refused to be quizzed in private, telling U.N. inspectors that he wanted Iraqi officials present during the interview. Speaking to reporters later at Baghdad's University of Technology, where he is a professor, Abdel-Nour said the U.N. inspectors were objective and friendly and their "questions were mainly about what has been done or any progress which has been achieved in Iraq since 1998." Wednesday, inspectors were back at al-Taji, which they have visited at least twice earlier this month. On Dec. 16, a team examining Iraq's ballistic missile capabilities went to the al-Taji fiberglass production plant, which has become part of the Thaat Al Sawary plant. On Dec. 19, inspectors went to al-Hareth in al-Taji, a site that Iraq maintains is a food warehouse but U.S. officials have claimed may be a biological weapons facility. In its report on inspections in Iraq in the 1990s, the International Atomic Energy Agency said al-Taji was the planned site of a gas centrifuge program used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons. The previous round of U.N. inspections in the 1990s led to destruction of tons of Iraqi chemical and biological weapons, and to dismantlement of Iraq's program to try to build atomic bombs. That monitoring regime broke down in 1998 amid U.N.-Iraqi disputes and the inspectors now in Iraq are the first to work here in four years. Sites visited Wednesday also included the Ibn Al-Haitham Company, identified in a British dossier on Iraq as a chemical weapons site. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 35 2 Wars = nukes AMERICA could only fight simultaneous wars against Iraq and North Korea by being prepared for early use battlefield nuclear weapons to compensate for shortages of conventional forces, according to rear-admiral Jeremy Taylor, a former US attack pilot and aircraft carrier commander. Commenting on a policy statement by Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, that it would be possible to occupy Iraq and still "swiftly defeat" North Korea if the communist state persisted in trying to build an arsenal of nuclear weapons, Admiral Taylor described the two-front strategy as "ludicrous". "The Bush administration knows it cannot fight two major conventional conflicts at the same time. That is why it recently issued a statement threatening to use nuclear firepower to deter attacks from enemies that possess weapons of mass destruction," he said. "For secretary Rumsfeld to say we can handle two regional conflicts is ludicrous to the point where even the bad guys of the world - our adversaries - don't believe us. "We had 2.1m men and women under arms in 1990. Now we have just 1.4m to cope with a global war against terrorism, peacekeeping in the Balkans and the Gulf and confrontation with Iraq." Colonel Ken Allard, a military analyst, said: "We lack the means, manpower and strategy to fight on two fronts. "The North Koreans have one million men massed on or near the border. The US has a tripwire force of just 37,000 to deter them." Pentagon planners calculate air power may be used, if necessary, to smash Pyongyang's bid to restart its nuclear weapons' programme while US and allied forces completed the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Critics say North Korea's response would be an immediate mass invasion of the south in overwhelming force. A White House spokesman said US diplomats were consulting Japan, Russia, China and South Korea to achieve a peaceful solution to the crisis. Pyongyang is kick-starting its weapons' programme, abandoned in exchange for foreign food and energy aid in 1994. - Dec 26th ***************************************************************** 36 COMPLEXITY, TRUST, AND TERROR [Democratizing the production and consumption of information] Fair Use Statement TerrorSpeak Source: NetFuture.org COMPLEXITY, TRUST, AND TERROR By Langdon Winner The beguiling but ultimately mistaken notion that technologies are "merely tools" -- things we pick up, use and then easily put away -- poses a major barrier for understanding how we live today. Missing in the tool/use perspective is acknowledgment of a basic fact about people's relationship to the technological realm: our utter dependence upon the large, complex,artificial systems that surround us on every side, giving structure to everything we do. For countries in the North, such dependence is welcomed with open arms because it seems crucial to prosperity and freedom. Large-scale, geographically extensive technologies enable us to move about as we wish, to communicate freely and to be released from the urgent demands of day-to-day survival that confronted previous generations and that still vex the less prosperous nations around the globe. But now another, more troubling dimension of technological complexity demands attention. Dependence on complex technological systems looms as a source of vulnerability. If any major component in the systems that support modern life ceases to function for a significant period of time,our prosperity, freedom and comfortable lives are threatened. This was a major concern in 1999, you'll recall, as people agonized about the possibility of disastrous system collapse caused by Y2K programming. There were widespread fears that the energy grid, airline transportation, banking system, and other systems would be disrupted by computer malfunctions, plunging society into chaos. It turned out that, despite minor glitches here and there, the predicted Y2K chaos never arrived. But during the last months of 1999, the perception of vulnerability bordered on mass hysteria. Responses to Vulnerability -------------------------- There are several ways that our society routinely deals with the specter of vulnerability. One strategy is to ensure that technical devices and systems are well-engineered and protected from calamitous failure. Engineers and systems designers make sure that structural parts can hold an increment more than the normal loads they must support. Redundancies are also built into many systems so that if one part fails, another part takes over. But good engineering is only part of the story. In free, democratic societies there is another way in which ordinary people have managed their relationship to vulnerability: they embrace an attitude of trust, holding on to the reasonable expectation that key technologies will always work reliably and not break down in ways that jeopardize our health, safety and comfort. This relationship is reciprocal; trust also informs the structure and operation of technological systems themselves. Many key components are built in ways that leave them open to the possibility of inadvertent or deliberate interference. Electrical power lines, phone lines, gas pipelines, dams, aqueducts, railroads, airplanes, elaborate works of architecture, and the like are often more or less naked to the world, open to view, minimally guarded from the kinds of interference that could render them inoperable. For many decades a common but largely unspoken expectation has been that people in prosperous industrial societies can be trusted not to disrupt or destroy the workings of the key parts of the global technological order. Most people accept the presence of major complex technologies because their well-being hinges on them, because there's no good reason to act destructively and, of course, because the law punishes overt acts of sabotage. Exceptions include occasional bombings by anarchists in the early twentieth century, acts of destruction by the Weathermen and political extremists in more recent times, Timothy McVeigh and the Unabomber, among others. But for the most part, the relationship of openness and trust between individuals and complex systems has proven fairly resilient. A much different understanding of how to manage large, complex systems characterizes closed, guarded, totalitarian societies such as the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin and Kim Il Sung's North Korea. Regimes of this stripe have hardened the design of their technologies and installed vast systems of policing and surveillance because they did not trust their own people. For any society that adopts strategies of this kind -- pervasive suspicion and obsessive protection of core technologies -- an inevitable consequence is the destruction of civil freedom. What would happen to our own society if the long-standing conventions of openness and trust were suddenly afflicted by a pervasive sense of vulnerability and dread? Would our rights, liberties and democratic institutions survive? Vehicles for Destruction ------------------------ In the aftermath of the attacks upon the World Trade Center and Pentagon, along with the subsequent anthrax scares, such questions have renewed urgency. Americans are now profoundly aware of their vulnerability. Dams, reservoirs, bridges, power plants, chemical plants, aqueducts,electrical transmission lines, liquid natural gas tankers -- even the daily mail and systems of food supply -- all seem wide open to attack. As far as I can tell, both planes that left Boston on September 11 on the way to the twin towers of the World Trade Center flew right over my house in The Hudson River Valley. If the pilots had wanted to do maximum damage to the region, a far better target would have been the nuclear reactors at the Indian Point electrical power plant about sixty miles south. Since these facilities were not designed to withstand a direct hit by an airliner, targeting them might have caused catastrophic failure, and possibly a core meltdown as the fuel sank into the mud and water of the Hudson River. The resulting plume of radioactive steam and debris would have killed thousands of people very quickly and rendered much of the Northeast permanently uninhabitable. Perhaps we are lucky that the al Qaeda terrorists were so obsessed with the symbolic value of the World Trade Center that they neglected what may have been more destructive targets, America's 103 nuclear power plants. Within the collection of infrastructures upon which we depend, there are many others that are essentially wide open, loosely protected. The nation's containerized cargo system provides a good example. Each year some six million sealed containers arrive from all around the world. At present, only two percent of these are ever inspected (although a new international program aims to boost the level to 5-10 percent). If anyone had the ability to make or purchase a nuclear device or dirty bomb, a convenient way to deliver it would be to ship it by containerized freighter and at the appointed moment, set it off. A recurring nightmare: One morning we turn on our televisions to find that San Francisco, San Pedro or New York has been leveled by a nuclear blast from a weapon hidden in one of those large steel crates. There are many other horrifying scenarios, of course. If anyone had the desire to use it, a readily available, flexible delivery system for maximum destruction is the automobile, a fact all-too-clear in Ireland, England and the Middle East in recent decades. There are now some 230 million registered cars and trucks in the USA. The Oklahoma City bombing demonstrated how easy it is in an open society to fill a rental vehicle with explosives made of readily available chemical fertilizers and set it off in the middle of town. Just as we previously had not thought about commercial airliners as flying bombs, Americans do not regard their beloved automobiles as flexible, ubiquitous instruments of destruction, although they sometimes serve that role in the Middle East and other troubled regions of the world. Recognition of the vulnerability of open, complex, geographically extended, technological systems is by no means new. In 537 A.D. the Gothic chieftain Vitiges and his forces laid siege to Rome. A crucial part of Vitiges' strategy was to cut the aqueducts leading to the city, forcing the Romans to rely on the inadequate stream of water from the Tiber River. As a result, the population fled Rome in droves, as much in response to water shortage as to flee the sack of the city. Scholars have long debated the various developments that caused the fall of the Roman empire. But as geographer Gray Brechin observes in *Imperial San Francisco*, "the destruction of the aqueducts conclusively ended the rule of a city that had once boasted of itself as the caput mundi -- the world's capital." The Withdrawal of Trust ----------------------- Following the atrocities of September 11, the world's current caput mundi, the United States, has struggled to find ways to confront revelations of its own vulnerability. To this point most of the emphasis has centered on a rapid shift from trust to mistrust, installing muscular sociotechnical fixes that promise security against terrorism and place our whole population under suspicion. We cannot know the specific intentions of the September 11 terrorists. But if one of their aims was to render our way of life much less open and free, they have surely succeeded. At present Americans are restricting freedom of travel, limiting access to information, narrowing the boundaries of political speech, and learning to live with an increasingly secretive government. In addition to the ominous provisions of the USA-PATRIOT law, we now confront the apparatus of the Homeland Security Act which institutes a host of Orwellian measures including the "Directorate for Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection" authorized to collect and analyze an unlimited range data from government, corporate and personal records, including one's email and Internet browsing. Also established by the Act is the Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency that promises to advance the state of the art in paranoid technological innovation to unprecedented levels. A forerunner of this operation is already at work in the Pentagon, the Total Information Awareness System that deliberately seeks to construct the all-seeing electronic Panopticon long feared by lovers of human freedom. In charge of the Total(-itarian?) Awarenss Information System is none other than retired admiral John Poindexter, shadowy figure who destroyed official documents, obstructed Congressional inquiries and was convicted of a five felonies (later overturned on appeal) during the Iran-Contra scandal. Thus, in little more than a year and with astonishingly little debate, the Bush Administration and a supine Congress and have modified our way of life in ways that define people as suspects rather than citizens. In all deliberations about public policy and public funding (regardless of topic) terrorism and security have now become the overriding concerns. Other steps in this vein include changes in America's immigration rules that allow the Attorney General to keep foreigners in detention even though an immigration judge orders them released. President Bush issued an executive order aimed at creating special military tribunals for foreign nationals suspected of terrorist acts, courts that lack many of the protections afforded by our laws and Constitution. Along this path hundreds of Muslim and Arab persons have been detained before being charged with a crime or breach of immigration status, in direct contradiction to the U.S. Constitution. Even now, more than a year after the attack, it is difficult to obtain accurate accounting of who is being held and for what reason. As the shadow of secrecy and suspicion has fallen across the land, useful government information about the nation's technological infrastructure -- web sites on water systems, nuclear power plants, chemical plants and the like -- have been removed or are severely restricted in content. For scholars, it is now much more difficult to study what used to be regarded as a perfectly mundane question: the structure and operation of technological systems. What used to be public information freely available to citizens, is now regarded as crucial national "intelligence" to be shielded from the grasp of spies and saboteurs. The wave of new federal legislation and regulation is now mirrored in a host of anti-terrorist laws passed by state legislatures, ones that feature strengthening the power of police to monitor the activities of citizens who for one reason or another must be watched. In this new mood, the definition of terrorist activity is sometimes so broad and vague that it casts a shadow over a wide range of political activities -- organizing public protest marches, for example. Civil liberties groups are concerned that ordinary forms of political protest could be defined as terrorist and suppressed. This might include, for instance, the public gatherings to protest globalization like those in Seattle and other cities in recent years. Unfortunately, episodes of political repression during times of civic distress -- the Palmer raids after World War I, the incarceration of American citizens of Japanese decent during World War II, the malicious persecution of dissidents during the McCarthy era of the 1950s, and so on -- are all too common in American history. When the nation feels threatened, freedom takes a beating. A Public Chill -------------- On radio and television talk shows and in newspaper editorials since the 9/11 attack there has been a strong tendency to define terrorism in broad,loose, inflammatory terms. The same penchant also afflicts lawmakers at all levels. Last spring the Maryland House of Delegates passed an anti-terrorism law extensive in its sweep. Dana Lee Dembrow of the Maryland House of Delegates remarked, "I realize that this bill basically says you can tap someone's phone for jaywalking, and normally I would say, 'No way,' ... But after what happened on September 11, I say screw 'em." The nation's obsession with security now casts a chill upon public life and the only question is "How cold will it get?" For example, since the 1960s there has been a lively debate about privacy and personal liberty in the age of electronic data. A rough consensus formed that citizens ought to be free from the snooping of government, corporations, and private individuals. That consensus has now been demolished by the belief that widespread surveillance is necessary and that ingenious systems like the FBI's Carnivore (which can monitor everyone's email and Internet activities) are exactly what is needed to defend the country. Within post-9/11 security measures, protections of the U.S. Constitution have been seriously weakened. Thus, the fourth amendment insists, "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." But under provisions of the USA-PATRIOT Act, authorities can now search everywhere, indefinitely, online and off, with one general warrant. There is, alas, widespread spillover of these measures into civil society as a whole. Hoping to deflect suspicion, many Americans have become guarded and self-censoring. How often in recent weeks have I heard people say, "No, I don't worry about anti-terrorist legislation. I'd never do anything the authorities would be interested in anyway." Evidently,patriotism requires us to be compliant and predictable. Typical of the mood of panic just after the 9/11 attacks, there was a news segment on NPR that asked security experts about everyday vigilance against terrorism. What should ordinary folks watch out for? Look for any signs of "unusual behavior," one expert advised. This would include people wearing clothing that seems out of place, or saying things or making gestures that were not appropriate for a particular place or occasion. As I listened to the story, it struck me that what was identified as dangerous "unusual behavior" were simply varieties of freedom -- wearing what we like, saying what comes to mind, acting freely in public. When Stable Structures Dissolve ------------------------------- We cannot know the specific intentions of the September 11 terrorists. But if one of their aims was to render our way of life much less open and free, they have surely succeeded. At present Americans are restricting freedom of travel, limiting access to information, and narrowing the boundaries of political speech. In programs like the Justice Department's "Terrorist Information Protection System" (TIPS) we are modifying social life in ways that define people as suspects rather than citizens. In all deliberations about public policy (regardless of topic) terrorism and security have become the overriding concerns. Just as sixth-century Romans abandoned their city when the aqueducts were cut, Americans seem to be abandoning essential parts of the democratic civic culture that developed during the past two centuries. This appalling turn of events is certainly evident in the material features of public buildings and grounds. A visit to Washington, D.C., shows the place transformed by ever-present ugly cement barriers, recurring security searches and ubiquitous surveillance cameras. The city has been redefined as capital of Homeland, a strange new country where once-cherished freedoms of thought, expression and movement are regarded as luxuries too dangerous to afford. (Citizens should ask: Is Homeland governed by same constitution as the old U.S.A.?) In the current mood, people view terror as something that has suddenly arrived from outside, inflicted upon an otherwise contented, harmonious society by "evil doers" from distant parts of the world. Obviously, there's much truth in that view. There are malevolent actors out there prepared to inflict death and destruction. But seen from another vantage point, the terror we experience -- the dread that now afflicts everyday life -- resides in the very systems we have so ingeniously built during the past century. Modern, complex technologies succeed by wresting enormous stores of power from the natural realm, seeking to direct these powers in ways that are controllable and useful. An unhappy possibility can never be entirely eliminated, however: the prospect that these enormous forces will somehow be unleashed uncontrollably from systems and infrastructures originally built to contain them. In recent years, fears of this kind have focused on rare technological accidents -- the explosion of the Challenger space shuttle, for instance. Such misgivings also underscore contemporary evidence about environmental ills, including global warming. Our technology's controlled use of fossil fuels over many decades has generated uncontrollable, highly destructive shifts in climate. Following the 9/11 attack, the horizons of catastrophe have shifted. The accomplishment of a jet airline is to contain and direct the high energy fuel whose combustion enables rapid flight; the achievement in the engineering of skyscrapers is to defy gravity by ingeniously stacking tons upon tons of steel and other materials in high structures so that -- despite their obviously precarious position -- they will not fall down. But what if the physical potential in these achievements were suddenly released in ways not part of the original blueprint? The horror of the World Trade Center attack was that the power of two wonders of modern technology -- the skyscraper and the jet airliner -- came crashing together causing the carefully contained power of both systems to be released in catastrophic explosion, inferno and collapse. In this light, the ingenuity of the terrorists is to trigger processes that cause stable structures to dissolve. Deeply buried in our experience of modern technology is the elementary terror that powers we sought to control will escape our command and come back to injure or destroy us. Perceptions of this kind have surfaced in countless science fiction novels and cinema of the past century, turning our worst fears into mass entertainment. But beyond the paperbacks and movie screens an urgent question now sounds. How many systems of megatechnical might can one introduce before they begin to overwhelm the culture of democracy? As we construct complex, tightly coupled, geographically extended, powerful, but ultimately precarious systems, one result is a world filled with ticking time bombs waiting to go off. A Fortress Mentality -------------------- America's knee-jerk response to this terror at present is the familiar strategy of hardening systems to prevent disruption. We are building new barriers around crucial systems and strengthening their internal components, surrounding them with elaborate methods of policing and surveillance. If it continues, this strategy of hardening technological systems will be a major drain on our economic resources and a hazard to both freedom and civility. But for the time being Americans and their leaders seem prepared to pay these costs, even though they will rapidly degrade our institutions -- further starving schools of funds and commitment, for example -- and weaken the fabric of democratic sociability. Unfortunately, it is far from clear that the new measures will succeed. A study by the Department of Transportation released last spring found that in attempts to smuggle weapons through newly bolstered airport security gates, thirty percent of the guns and seventy percent of the knives got past the guards and scanning devices. Similar tests of security at nuclear power plants also produced disappointing results; breaching the barriers around these facilities seems to be fairly easy. The human demands of policing complex systems are, over long periods of time, probably beyond people's ability to bear. You may recall an episode just after 9/11 when the Golden Gate Bridge was rumored to be a terrorist target. Passage was closed for a while and then national guard troops were brought in to screen the traffic. But television coverage showed exactly what you'd expect, guardsmen standing around, bored, shooting the breeze, not paying attention to the vehicles going by. And this was a nationwide terrorism alert at the highest level! Faced with shortcomings of this kind there are calls to redouble our efforts by spending even more money, installing more sophisticated equipment, hiring more security personnel, subjecting the public to spiraling levels of hassle, search, surveillance and mistrust. An impartial observer looking at us from afar might be puzzled by how quickly and thoroughly these initiatives have begun to modify the American way of life. Why didn't the nation explore more fruitful ways of responding to the terror people feel? Why didn't Americans try harder to preserve their traditions of openness, trust and freedom? In quest of security the nation is now preparing to go to war with a large nation said to belong to an "axis of evil." Again, this conveniently defines terror as something "out there" rather than acknowledging some of its foundations "in here," within the very frameworks that support high-tech ways of living. Toward Safer Systems -------------------- In my view, there are far better ways of responding to 9/11 than the kinds of knee-jerk militarism, Orwellian surveillance and pre-emptive strikes on human rights that our leaders currently prefer. Urgently needed are measures that would address sources of insecurity and terror found at the very roots of modern civilization. Hence, it seems wise to design technical systems that are loosely coupled and forgiving, structured in ways that make disruptions easily borne, quickly repaired. Certainly it makes sense to rely upon locally available, renewable energy and material resources, rather than foster dependency on global supplies always at risk. It seems sane to rely on technologies operated by people in local communities whom we get to know in a variety of roles and settings, not just as technical functionaries. It also seems high time to begin reducing our dependence upon overwhelming, risk-laden powers wrested from nature. Now we know: these powers may destroy not only fragile ecosystems, but the habitats of freedom as well. Fortunately, the richness of human knowledge includes workable systems alternative to today's complex, power-centered, globally extended, increasingly war-hungry dinosaurs. The construction of more peaceful, resilient systems can be accomplished through imaginative efforts (many of them well underway) aimed at living lightly on the earth with justice and compassion. Moving steadily along this path could also help eliminate grievances in the world's population that now serve as spawning grounds for terrorist attacks. As the present atmosphere of hysteria, acquiescence and political opportunism subsides -- and I believe it will -- we must renew efforts to build institutions that merit our trust rather than fuel our fears. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * (This essay is adapted from an article that appeared in NetFuture, a newsletter on technology and human responsibility, #137, October 22, 2002: http://www.netfuture.org/. You may redistribute this article in its entirety for noncommercial purposes, provided the NetFuture url and this paragraph are attached.) TerrorSpeak Featured Air Pollution Induces Heritable DNA Mutations. Scientists call for investigation of the genetic hazards associated with air pollution. Worst Case Scenarios: Terrorism &industrial chemicals. Community Hazard- scapes: Learn about potential toxic &nuclear risks where you live, work and play. Find Your Best Place -- Relocation Resources. TerrorSpeak -- News and views on homeland security, freedom, liberty, privacy and democracy. GreenWash.com-- Perspectives on right- wing think-tanks, free- market and "common- sense" environmentalists, and their corporate sponsors. Right-To-Know Atlas of the U.S. CD -- census, west nile virus, hazards, transportation and much more. Toxic Release Maps: Map your geography of risk. Free tutorial and GIS program. Federal Lands GIS Map Layers include Forest Service, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Department of Defense, National Park Service and more. Free GIS Tutorial &Atlas: Learn to create digital maps. Empowering Innova- tions: Food for thought, catalyst for action. Discussion Lists - Join in or just get the news. Developed and Maintained by Michael R. Meuser, meuser@mapcruzin.com Questions, Comments or Suggestions? Send A Message Layout and Graphic Design by Aran C. Meuser, aran@silentforest.net Copyright © 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002 Michael R. Meuser ***************************************************************** 37 TIME honors itself, and the country laughs WorldNetDaily Posted: December 25, 2002 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2002 WorldNetDaily.com On this Christmas morning, I am hoping that someone found a way to give the editors at TIME and their colleagues throughout the land of formerly elite media a present of wisdom and perspective. Even as the laughter continues unabated at TIME's declaration of "whistleblowers of the year," those who know and value the role of the press are scratching their collective heads at the rush to irrelevance by a once formidable institution like TIME. 2003 is about to open ? a year that could easily see war on two continents, the use of weapons of mass destruction and threats to the existence of the state of Israel. Governments across the globe are wobbly, whether in nuclear states like Pakistan or oil-rich democracies like Venezuela, and AIDS is sweeping the African and Asian lands. But the "reporters" at major news organizations seem obsessed with the flotsam and jetsam of the American carnival of finance and politics. Enron and Worldcom were significant business stories, of course, and Trent Lott's and Patty Murray's cases of foot-in-mouth disease are certainly interesting, but these stories and those like them are decidedly third-tier issues against the backdrop of a world boiling over with life and death controversies. The last period of unrest and upheaval comparable to what we have entered was from 1937 to 1945. The TIME of those years named the following as "Men of the Year": General and Mme. Chiang Kai-Shek, Hitler, Stalin, Churchill, FDR, Stalin, George Marshall, Ike and Truman. TIME Magazine was a serious news publication then. Now it is not. Newsrooms across the country are packed full with small-minded partisans who genuinely believe that the abortion and affirmative-action debates are the central debates of our time. They literally have been raised to believe that NOW and NARAL, the People for the American Way and the NAACP are significant players in the world, and that the debates which interest these groups interest the world. This world view is so insular that it genuinely believes that whistle-blowers are the real item when it comes to courage, and that "clinic defenses" rank with Oscar Schindler on the admiration index. Because journalists have come to believe in their own crucial importance, they have also embraced the idea that the causes they care about are the most important causes in the world. They are more and more participants in politics, and their agenda-journalism long ago left objectivity behind. TIME has led the way in this descent. To focus on the wars ahead, and on the fearsome weapons on which they will turn, is to quickly dismiss as irrelevant the people and the causes so dear to the heart of journalism's new self-image and mission. For newspapers and magazines and television anchors are of literally no use whatsoever on the front line of a war. Yes, they do relay information to the home-front, but that information has no impact on who lives and dies, and whether the home-front is more or less safe at the end of the day. The free press matters a lot in peacetime, but when the world straps on its guns, the bravado of reporters in bars shrinks into near-nothingness in comparison to the real deeds of courage and sacrifice on battlefields. So why did TIME try so pathetically to turn a trio of whistle-blowers into the most important news story of the year? It is true that the TIME crowd loathes President Bush and gladly put aside integrity rather than recognize his central role in the year just past. But it is also more ? one sort of blindness combined with an awesome self-absorption. When you honor whistle-blowers, you are of course honoring the press. Journalists know this, and nod at each other when whistle-blowers take bows. TIME gave itself an award this year ? a year in which one of the real, though second-tier, stories was the collapse of the news oligarchy in the face of blogging, talk radio and the rise of the Fox News Channel. TIME's choice is a Sunset Boulevard moment for big media ? a desperate "look at me" moment even as 99 percent of the world is focused elsewhere, on important stories. That bizarre self-absorption is more amusing than offensive, of course, like an old lady dressed up to try and attract the attention of young suitors. But there is a genuinely offensive aspect to TIME's choice as well, for it is revealing in who it did not honor or even mention as a runner-up. Although President Bush could easily have been the man selected in 2002 by any fair jury, there were other candidates that would have given the Bush-haters a way out, but which could not occur to the scribblers because of their myopia and their agenda. In 1950, TIME honored "The American Fighting Man," and the article was a moving salute to the men deployed to Korea, fighting for their lives and the lives of innocents. It was a "police action," of course, and not the most popular of wars, led at home by a president who was not the most popular of presidents. But the TIME editorial staff of 1950 had a lick of common sense and some measure of perspective. On this Christmas, on the eve of such a momentous year, we can only pray that as America's fighting men and women again fulfill the noblest calling of them all, that someone in the brave world of the newsroom will notice. It was Margaret Carlson of TIME who memorably dismissed the men and women of the military as tax dodgers just two years ago this month as the debate over their ballots raged in Florida. She apologized then. But the editors of her magazine have displayed a contempt as complete as hers in their casual refusal to place the conflicts of 2002 and those that lie ahead in 2003 before the public, or even to note that their very livelihood depends upon these warriors. TIME is headquartered in the city of New York, for goodness sake. Think about the choice of the editors in that context, and marvel at their values. Last year, they selected Rudy Giuliani ? a choice designed to insulate themselves from criticism over their priorities. This year, however, their desperation not to honor what Americans overwhelmingly honor, and not to recognize what the world ? including our enemies ? sees, is simply sad; a commentary on nothing and no one except themselves. There was a time when to work at TIME was to work at an institution of stature and influence ? one that represented America throughout much of the world. Now it represents only envy and a desire for an influence it can never achieve because it lacks the values the country admires. © 2002 WorldNetDaily.com, Inc. ***************************************************************** NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: *****************************************************************