***************************************************************** 12/27/02 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 10.335 ***************************************************************** 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 Uranium rich Niger rebuffed Iraq 2 Russia to export uranium to Japan 3 Is war too easy? - 4 IAEA: N. Korea Situation Very Worrying 5 US: Key Senators Seek Greater N. Korea Effort 6 N. Korea Will Reactivate Plutonium Lab 7 N. Korea Demands Nuclear Inspectors Leave 8 U.S. Denounces North Korea's Expulsion 9 Pyongyang N-games gone too far 10 NK: Assembly Committee Passes Nuclear Resolution 11 N Korea to expel nuclear observers 12 N Korea urged to rethink nuclear plans 13 Tanaka: Tough line not needed for North 14 Defiant N. Korea Orders Inspectors Out 15 Seoul Reluctant to See Nuclear Issue Go to UNSC 16 Russia accuses KEDO of breaking NKorea energy pact 17 'People should be outraged' 18 *IAEA Says Unaware of N.Korea Expulsion Order* 19 *N.Korea to Expel U.N. Nuclear Inspectors* 20 Russians say NK has no infrastructure NUCLEAR REACTORS 21 AU: NK Nuclear reactor 'ready in eight weeks' - 22 Tarnished Tepco tries to say sorry 23 US: Restart support growing 24 US: MY: Containment Building Crane Demolished Safely 25 Russian nuclear power production grows 3.5 per cent in 2002 NUCLEAR SAFETY 26 Vets warn of risks to troops' health 27 US: 3 Mile Island Plaintiffs End Legal Action NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 28 US: Initiative Half-Life 29 US: Army Corps to hold meeting about nuclear waste dump 30 Russian and Iranian n-fuel contract NUCLEAR WEAPONS 31 U.N. Inspectors Mark First Month of Work 32 Analysis: Nuclear brink, or survival 33 Toward the Brink? -- US DEPT. OF ENERGY 34 Sandia Labs to Simulate Nuclear Blasts* * 35 Livermore Labs: Laser test more show than science 36 It's time for a change at troubled Los Alamos OTHER NUCLEAR 37 ROGUE CHIEFS: They believed in the system -- and it failed ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 Uranium rich Niger rebuffed Iraq NEWS.com.au | (December 27, 2002) By Dalatou Mamane in Niamey, Niger IRAQ sought to buy uranium from Niger in the 1980s, but the desert West African nation rebuffed the request, Niger authorities have said in response to US allegations. Niger's announcement follows US charges last week that Iraq under Saddam Hussein had tried to buy uranium from Niger. British intelligence has also levelled accusations that Saddam's weapons programs had sought "significant" amounts of uranium from Africa, but the US State Department on December 20 became the first to specify an African country. Speaking on state TV and radio this week, Niger Prime Minister Hama Hamadou confirmed: "In the 1980s, Iraq had wanted to buy uranium from Niger". However, then-President Seyni Kountche "did not give a favourable reply to this request", Hamadou said. Niger, a landlocked, largely Muslim nation, is the world's third-largest producer of mined uranium. Uranium is the country's leading export. Niger could not sell the ore to whom it pleased because the country is a signatory to international arms conventions, Hamadou said. "Niger can't defy the international conventions," he said. The United States gave no details of its allegation, beyond saying that Iraq had failed to mention the sought-after transaction in its arms declaration to the United Nations. The uranium-industry World Nuclear Association lists Namibia and South Africa as the other leading uranium producers in Africa. Other countries, particularly Congo and Central African Republic, have rich uranium reserves. South Africa, which had a nuclear program during apartheid, is believed the only African nation capable of producing weapons-grade uranium. South Africa in September categorically denied uranium transactions with Saddam. Agence France-Presse ***************************************************************** 2 Russia to export uranium to Japan Business Day MOSCOW - Russia has managed to clinch a deal with Japan on exporting low-grade uranium to Japanese nuclear power stations, Russian export officials say. Russia's nuclear industry had other successes this year to boast of, such as a major contract on low-grade uranium exports to the United States, head of Russia's chief nuclear fuel company Tekhsnabexport Vladimir Smirnov said. Russia also became a member of the World Nuclear Association, a major international group promoting nuclear energy, a move which demonstrated that "Russia has become an important player on the world nuclear market," he added. Tekhsnabexport, with its annual 1.5-billion-dollar turnout, is one of the world’s chief suppliers of nuclear energy goods and resources produced by Russia’s state-owned factories, responsible for nearly a third of uranium fuel used by US, European and Asian companies. Sapa-AFP 28 December 2002 BDFM Publishers 2002 ***************************************************************** 3 Is war too easy? - smh.com.au December 28 2002 When military victory seems certain, there's a new risk: we focus on the result rather than on the morality of the decision to use force, writes Christopher Kremmer. Confronted by the prospect of war in the Hindu battle epic The Mahabharata, the hero Arjuna seeks wise counsel from Krishna, the God of Love. The enemy, a rival family called the Kauravas, are blood relations. Surely there must be a more sensible way of resolving disputes than bloody conflict, Arjuna asks, hoping the blue boy deity will provide a reprieve. But Krishna surprises and dismays Arjuna, delivering instead the grim lecture known as the Bhaghavad Gita, the moral foundation of Hindu scripture for 2000 years. "Those who have joined the forces against justice and righteousness have to perish," he lectures him. "The good must be protected ... arise and do your duty." ");document.write(" advertisement "); } } // --> Today, in these stumbling early years of the 21st century, the ancient dilemma of war and peace confronts us again with its ageless relevance. Dictatorships and democracies, superpowers and basket-cases all confront the same challenge.Violently provoked by Muslim rebels and iconoclasts, our leaders urge us to war. When the barbarian is at the gates, citizens of Western, liberal democracies can be relied upon to rally to the defence of the things they hold dear. We enjoy the fruits of collective membership of an empire greater than Rome or Britain ever knew in terms of its power to create and destroy. We may be a mere outstation office of US imperial hegemony, but our national mission statement is to serve American objectives, which generally we share as our own. But when the threat is amorphous or unclear - as in Iraq - we are as hesitant as Arjuna before the battle of Kurukshetra, or to choose an example closer to home, the camel driver in David Williamson's screenplay for Peter Weir's Gallipoli. At the time of Federation, Australians possessed a naive enthusiasm for war which today seems quite shocking. But a native streak of cynicism has always alloyed the "blood and fire" school of nationalism. Crossing the desert on their way to enlist for what became World War I, Williamson's callow diggers Archy and Frank Dunne meet a camel driver, who is surprised to learn that Australia and Germany are at war: Camel driver: The Australians fightin' already? Archy: In Turkey. CD: Turkey? Why's that? Archy: Because Turkey's a German ally. CD: Can't see what it's got to do with us. Archy: If we can't stop them there, they could end up here. Unmoved by this appeal to his patriotism, the camel driver surveys the vast, useless desert all around them, and replies, "And they're welcome to it!"' The war on terrorism has always been a difficult sell to sceptical Australians. Even in the US, where September 11 has provoked understandable wrath and insecurity, opposition remains significant as the "war" moves rapidly on from Afghanistan towards Iraq. Citizens of the democracies observe with alarm a seamless dovetailing of language and strategy as their elected leaders, with remarkable alacrity, calibrate the political process to facilitate the use of force. They suspect a deliberate obfuscation by their leaders and their propagandists of the real motivations for pursuing national objectives by waging war, when other means are available. Wars are often fought on dubious moral foundations, a fact leaders justify on the grounds of national interest. In the privacy of the cabinet or national security council, the national interest is calculated in hard-headed, hard-hearted terms. The global environment is perceived as inherently threatening, a zero-sum game in which only one nation or alliance can win. Money equals power and resources are scarce. The foundation of foreign policy is the determination never to allow "others" to determine our destiny. To control our environment, we inevitably must control others. In the jargon of foreign policy this is called "realism". "The defining characteristic of realism," wrote foreign affairs commentator Robert Kaplan, "is that international relations are governed by different moral principles than domestic politics." Or as George Kennan, architect of American Cold War policy, put it, in matters of diplomacy "other criteria, sadder, more limited, more practical, must be allowed to prevail". To cynics, such as the late Stanley Kubrick, that's just so much window-dressing in the department store of power. "The great nations have always acted like gangsters, and the small nations like prostitutes," Kubrick said. Sometimes - as in the war against fascism - moral purity and national interest coincide. But even when they don't, when shades of hypocrisy or double-dealing taint our "interests", our approach will be couched in moral terms. Dictatorships and absolute monarchies can articulate grand ambitions based on conquest, but democracies must be sensitive to the delicacies of public opinion. By its very nature this is divided, but tending towards conservatism in all but exceptional circumstances. When most of a democracy's citizens are Christians, pacifism can pose a serious threat to the national interest. Taking Christ's "turn the other cheek" idea literally, the early Christians refused until the 4th century to do military service. But when the Roman emperor Constantine converted, Christian soldiers bolstered his legions. To overcome the dangers of rampant, mindless pacifism in Christian societies, theologians such as St Augustine, and, later, St Thomas Aquinas and Hugo Grotius evolved an elaborate philosophy allowing for "just" wars. Just warriors fight only when attacked, or when their enemies are on the offensive and immune to negotiation. Sanctioned by a legitimate authority - a king or prime minister will do - they use the minimum force needed to vanquish the aggressor, and are satisfied to restore the status quo (minus threat), rather than exploit victory for territorial gain. Like all theories, however, ideas of the "just war" are malleable. On the face of it, regime change doesn't pass muster as an element of a just war. Freeing Iraq from home-grown despotism is supposed to be a job for the Iraqis. Yet if Saddam's regime is judged to be an irredeemable threat, then removing him is "just". St Thomas Aquinas would not have approved duplicitous motives, such as controlling oil reserves, "for it may happen that the war is declared by the legitimate authority for a just cause, and yet be rendered unlawful through a wicked intention". But contemporary theorists argue that ulterior motives are irrelevant, so long as the threat is real and the response remains proportionate to it. Even pre-emptive strikes, like Israel's 1967 Six-Day War, are considered legitimate, if an aggressor's intentions are unmistakeable. As Bertolt Brecht put it, "War always finds a way." Yet formulating a general theory for how democracies go to war is complicated by the fact that every war is unique, to be fought or avoided against a set of circumstances that is changing continually and, often, rapidly. Bill Clinton never took off the gloves in his dealings with Saddam or Osama bin Laden. Memories of Mogadishu were too fresh in the minds of voters to risk American lives in ground combat. Add September 11 and a Republican president, and America's response to anyone who defies its power has become markedly more aggressive. The US Administration - backed by an angry public - is not only responding in kind to terrorism, but is exploiting the opportunities it has created to reshape the world in America's image. It is often said that democracies produce great leaders only when they need them - Churchill's emergence during World War II and defeat at the polls when the war was won being a prime example. In times of peace and prosperity, voters elect the political equivalent of glorified accountants and bailiffs to manage the economy and crack down on crime. America's founding fathers sensed that, in war and peace, democratic leaders were likely to be long on expediency and short on vision. They recognised the temptation presidents might face to distract attention from domestic problems by embarking on endless military adventures abroad. The constitution they framed spreads the risk by giving the final say on declarations of war to the Congress. George Bush snr only narrowly obtained the approval of both houses of Congress for the 1991 Gulf War. Without a powerful, elected president, Australia faces less danger of being hurled into war on the say-so of an individual. Executive decisions are the prerogative of the group of elected members of Parliament who form the cabinet. Yet as a group, the executive enjoys greater leeway to declare war than its American counterpart. It does not require parliamentary approval - or even debate - to do so. The Hawke government sent Australian navy frigates to the Gulf in 1990 without parliamentary discussions, and John Howard has signalled he will do the same if push comes to shove with Iraq this time. Howard has promised there will be a parliamentary debate, but only after cabinet has decided on its course. With Australian forces on their way, room for political discussion about the merits of the cause is severely restricted, as Howard well knows. Also, media strategists plan the timing, volume and intensity of their leaders' statements to ensure that war, when it comes, seems inevitable, rather than shocking, and that we all know who our enemies are. The media, of course, provides a parallel discourse in which competing voices are able to argue the pros and cons of war. But the debate there is dominated by media gurus and defence and foreign policy wonks. It is a no-man's land for pacifists, who are relentlessly marginalised as bleeding hearts, or in extreme cases, as traitors. As insiders increasingly dismiss voices other than those that agree with them, the public's sense of impotence grows. "It is hardly surprising that the electorate is turning its back on conventional politics, even in countries that proclaim democracy as one of their greatest achievements," wrote American academic Noreena Hertz in The Silent Takeover. And it's not just the character and course of war debates that has become as predictable as an Ashes Test match. The outcome of wars seems increasingly pre-determined, imbued with about as much suspense as a turkey shoot, and raising the disturbing question, "Has war become too easy?" "If military action is cost-free," asks Michael Ignatieff, professor of human rights practice at Harvard University, "what democratic restraints will remain on the resort to force?" In the face of George W. Bush's rage towards Iraq, the sole effective restraint on military action has been the United Nations system. With their own interests threatened by untrammelled American power, Russia, France and China exercised their power to counterbalance America's wishes in the UN Security Council. Frustrated, but far from beaten, the US Administration submitted to a new round of weapons inspections in Iraq. A secondary factor is that, in the 21st century, literate Western voters have access to almost as much information as their leaders. The demand that Washington produce evidence that Saddam is lying about his weapons capabilities before any invasion reflects the increasingly mature nature of the public discourse. "Trust me" is no longer a politically viable reply. But the "realist" paradigm continues to drive foreign policy, the same concept that created the scourge of terrorism we now confront. The US Administration chose to secretly arm and train an international force of Muslim extremists in Afghanistan in the '80s, and kept supporting them even after the Soviet invaders had retreated. "Realist" foreign policy without a sincere commitment to defending democracy at home and advancing justice abroad promises only more and deadlier conflicts. "The lesson we have to learn from September 11 is that morality has to play a larger role in international relations," wrote George Soros after the twin towers crumbled. "We have global markets but we do not have global society. And we cannot build a global society without taking into account moral considerations." Or, as Napoleon I put it, "There is no authority without justice." On the threat posed by weapons of mass destruction, Soros notes the Bush Administration's lack of interest in the multilateral approach embodied by international conventions on chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. "Yet it is the only [approach] that has a chance of success," he says. Opinion polls have suggested that not even the Bali atrocity has persuaded Australians of the need for war in Iraq. Yet government ministers say privately there is no possibility of Australia rejecting any US request for military help in the Persian Gulf, whether or not the plan is backed by the UN, or the Australian public. According to some observers, this corporatisation of the West's global strategy - and a reduced role for democratic opposition - will be a feature of future wars. "Such conflict will feature warriors on one side, motivated by grievance and rapine, and an aristocracy of statesmen, military officers, and technocrats on the other, motivated, one hopes, by ancient virtue," wrote Kaplan in Warrior Politics. Aristocracy was ever the enemy of democracy, and as the The New York Times veteran journalist Brooks Atkinson observed in Once Around the Sun, after each war there is a little less democracy to save. Copyright © 2002. The Sydney Morning Herald. ***************************************************************** 4 IAEA: N. Korea Situation Very Worrying Las Vegas SUN: December 26, 2002 By SUSANNA LOOF ASSOCIATED PRESS VIENNA, Austria (AP) - North Korea's recent activity at a nuclear power facility amounts to "nuclear brinkmanship," the director of a U.N. watchdog agency said Thursday. North Korea has defied the International Atomic Energy Agency by removing U.N. monitoring seals and cameras at the country's main nuclear complex in Yongbyon, 50 miles north of the capital, Pyongyang. By Thursday, the country had moved 1,000 fresh fuel rods from a storage house into a power plant that houses a 5-megawatt nuclear reactor at Yongbyon, the agency said. IAEA director Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei said in a statement Thursday that the North was moving to restart a plant that reprocesses spent fuel rods to produce plutonium, which could be used in nuclear weapons. "So the situation is very worrying," he said in an interview with CNN. "Moving toward restarting its nuclear facilities without appropriate safeguards, and toward producing plutonium raises serious nonproliferation concerns and is tantamount to nuclear brinkmanship," ElBaradei said in his statement. North Korea maintains that it only plans to use the reactor to generate electricity, a claim that the United States has scoffed at. ElBaradei said the reprocessing plant is "irrelevant" to producing electricity and said Pyonyang has no "legitimate peaceful use for plutonium." The IAEA has called its board of governors to an extraordinary meeting tentatively planned for Jan. 6. ElBaradei said he plans to tell the board that North Korea's actions have left the agency unable to verify "that there has been no diversion of nuclear material to nuclear weapons or other nuclear devices." The board could then choose to refer the matter to the U.N. Security Council, IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky told The Associated Press. Though no work had been conducted at the reprocessing plant, Gwozdecky said the fact that the U.N. seals had been removed and that the cameras had been disrupted raised concerns that it would be restarted. "They have no use for that plutonium - that is, no civilian use for that plutonium," he said. "It leaves the question begging, if they have no civilian use for that plutonium, are they using it for weapons?" Some countries extract plutonium from spent fuel to mix it with other materials and reuse it in a special kind of reactor to produce more energy. But North Korea has no such reactors, Gwozdecky said. North Korea already has 8,000 spent fuel rods. U.S. and IAEA officials say those rods hold enough weapons-grade plutonium to make several nuclear bombs. So far, those rods have not been moved to the reprocessing plant, Gwozdecky said. In a deal with the United States in 1994, North Korea froze its suspected plutonium-based nuclear weapons program. Earlier this month, it decided to restart it after Washington and its allies halted fuel oil supplies as punishment for revelations in October that it had moved forward with a second nuclear weapons program that used enriched uranium. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 5 Key Senators Seek Greater N. Korea Effort Las Vegas SUN: December 26, 2002 By BARRY SCHWEID ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON (AP) - As North Korea moved closer to building new nuclear weapons, the senior Republican and Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee urged the Bush administration Thursday to join with other nations in trying to work out a solution with Pyongyang. But President Bush is determined not to negotiate with North Korea until it suspends its nuclear weapons program, a senior administration official said as Bush flew to Crawford, Texas, for a two-week vacation after a Christmas break at Camp David. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that while anxious allies and some legislators fretted about a tough line Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld had taken toward Pyongyang, it underscored Bush's stand against negotiations and reminded North Korea not to view a potential war with Iraq as an opportunity to move against South Korea. Both Sen. Richard G. Lugar, an Indiana Republican who will become chairman of the committee next month, and Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, the senior Democrat, said an approach to North Korea should be coordinated with South Korea, Japan and other Asia powers. Lugar said on NBC's Today program that "it would be very inadvisable" to launch a U.S. attack to cripple North Korea's nuclear facilities. "The North Koreans would retaliate most likely by a strike against South Korea that could be devastating in the Seoul area, and quite apart from potential attacks upon Japan which the Japanese fear," he said. The administration is discussing options with a number of countries, but has not publicly outlined a policy of military or diplomatic action as North Korea moves inexorably toward building new nuclear weapons within months. While Secretary of State Colin Powell, taking a diplomatic tack, has dangled the prospect of an improved U.S. relationship if North Korea reverses course, Rumsfeld has warned Pyongyang the United States has the might to counter threats from North Korea and Iraq simultaneously. "We are perfectly capable of doing that which is necessary," Rumsfeld said Monday. Since he leveled that warning, North Korea has moved 1,000 fresh fuel rods to a storage facility at its main nuclear reactor in Yongbyon, and said it was restarting the plant only to generate electricity. Experts say that within months North Korea could produce new nuclear weapons - it is believed to have one or two already - with plutonium from the facility. Raising alarm, Biden said Thursday on the "Today" show, "If they get six or eight more nuclear weapons, who knows what they do with them." Lugar said there was no imminent crisis but a very serious situation. The incoming committee chairman said U.S. strategy must be to engage North Korea in parallel with South Korea, Japan. China, Russia and other nations with similar interests. "Their security is at stake," Lugar said. Biden said the United States must improve its relationship with North Korea and make sure France, Japan, China, Russia and South Korea are included in the approach to Pyongyang. Powell used the telephone again Thursday to keep in touch with other countries. He spoke to Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov. In the past week, he has talked with officials in Britain, France, China, Japan and South Korea. "The United States will not enter into dialogue in response to threats or broken commitments. We will not bargain or offer inducements for North Korea to live up to the treaties and agreements it has signed," Powell said Dec. 16 at a news conference. On taking office, President Bush ordered a reassessment of the Clinton administration's policy that had produced a freeze on a North Korean nuclear program in exchange for energy supplies. In July 2001, Bush offered Pyongyang a "comprehensive dialogue." But last summer, the administration concluded North Korea had started a uranium enrichment program. In October, Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly went to Pyongyang with the message that North Korea must suspend its nuclear program before serious talks could start. Lee Feinstein, a senior adviser to former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, said Thursday, "The administration continues to believe that having a conversation is the same as making a concession, and this, of course, is not true." "What the United States must do is to talk directly with the North Koreans. We cannot rely on the Russians, Japanese, South Koreans or Chinese to communicate for us the very strong message we ought to send," said Feinstein, now with the private Council on Foreign Relations. "We should have carrots ready but we should be very clear that none will be available until North Korea stops its nuclear program," he said. "We should let them hear from us directly how unhappy and unsatisfied we are." All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 6 N. Korea Will Reactivate Plutonium Lab Las Vegas SUN: December 27, 2002 ASSOCIATED PRESS SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea said Friday it will reactivate a nuclear lab where U.N. officials say spent fuel rods can be reprocessed to extract weapons-grade plutonium, South Korea's official news agency reported. In a letter sent to the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, North Korea said it was reactivating the lab to give "safe storage" to spent fuel rods that will come from the reactor it plans to restart, Yonhap said, quoting North Korea's official news agency, KCNA. With its announcement, North Korea appeared to move even closer to reactivating nuclear facilities mothballed in a deal with the United States in 1994. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 7 N. Korea Demands Nuclear Inspectors Leave Las Vegas SUN: December 27, 2002 By SANG-HUN CHOE ASSOCIATED PRESS SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - A defiant North Korea ordered U.N. nuclear inspectors to leave the country and said Friday it would restart a laboratory capable of producing plutonium for nuclear weapons. But the U.N. nuclear watchdog said its inspectors were "staying put" for now. A White House spokesman denounced the expulsions and called on Pyongyang to shut down its nuclear weapons program. U.S. officials said an envoy - possibly Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly - likely will visit the region next month to confer with allies. But there was no indication that Washington would talk with North Korea. "We will not respond to threats or broken commitments," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said from Crawford, Texas. In Seoul, the U.S.-U.N. command said Friday the North violated the truce ending the 1950-1953 Korean War six times over the past two weeks by bringing machine guns into the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas. The North said its actions against inspectors were motivated partly by President Bush's calling it part of an "axis of evil" with Iran and Iraq, and because the country considers itself "the target for the nuclear pre-emptive strike." North Korea's declarations, which came days after it removed U.N. seals and disabled surveillance cameras, means the United Nations no longer would be able to monitor nuclear facilities in the communist country. The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency said Friday it received a letter from North Korea "requesting the immediate removal of IAEA inspectors" from the nuclear complex at Yongbyon, 50 miles north of the capital, Pyongyang. There was no word on when the North wanted the inspectors out, although IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said inspectors "are staying put" and "are on standby." North Korea also said it planned to reactivate a Yongbyon reprocessing laboratory to store spent fuel rods from nuclear reactors, which would generate badly needed electricity for the impoverished nation. North Korea has one 5-megawatt reactor, and said it plans to resume building two larger, unfinished ones. The North declared Dec. 12 it would restart the 5-megawatt reactor, but IAEA and U.S. officials say the reactor can generate only negligible amounts of power. The laboratory can extract plutonium, a component of atomic bombs, from used fuel rods. North Korea already holds 8,000 spent fuel rods, which U.S. officials say contain enough plutonium to make several atomic bombs. Pyongyang said in its letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press, that it decided to reactivate the complex after the United States canceled a fuel oil shipment promised in a 1994 agreement shutting down the facilities. Those shipments were halted after it was revealed that North Korea was covertly developing nuclear weapons in violation of the 1994 agreement. The most immediate fear of the IAEA is that North Korea could begin a weapons-making process that experts believe could yield several bombs within months. "Together with the loss of cameras and seals, the departure of inspectors would practically bring an end to our ability to monitor (North Korea's) nuclear program or assess its nature," IAEA director Mohamed ElBaradei said. "This is one further step away from defusing the crisis." North Korea could take other steps to heighten the conflict, including withdrawing from the international Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. In 1993, it announced its withdrawal from the treaty, though it later suspended the decision. The developments renewed fears that the Korean Peninsula was spiraling into a nuclear crisis similar to one in 1994, during which the U.S. military devised plans to bomb the Yongbyon site. Huge armies, including 37,000 U.S. soldiers in the South, face each other across a border laced with fences, tank traps and mines. The South Korean government said after an emergency National Security Council meeting that the North's decision was "an act that threatens security and peace on the Korean Peninsula and heightens fears of nuclear proliferation in the international community." North Korea told the IAEA there was no reason to keep inspectors in North Korea, now that the reactor was being restarted to compensate for the suspension of the U.S. oil shipment. "Since the freeze on our nuclear facilities was lifted, the mission of IAEA inspectors ... has automatically come to an end," Ri Je Son, director general of the North's General Department of Atomic Energy, wrote. The IAEA normally has two inspectors in North Korea but had three on Friday because of scheduling, Fleming said. North Korea has called for a nonaggression treaty with the United States. But the United States has ruled out talks unless the North abandons nuclear development. North Korea, which is believed to already have one or two nuclear bombs, appears to be escalating the crisis in order to extract concessions at the negotiating table. Pyongyang accused Washington on Friday of using the nuclear issue as a pretext for invasion, according to KCNA, the state-run news agency. It said the U.S. effort to shut down the North's nuclear program "is nothing but a pipe-dream." McClellan, the White House spokesman, said that the Bush administration is not contemplating military action against North Korea. "We seek a peaceful resolution," McClellan said. "For now we need to let the discussions happen between our friends and allies about the next steps." Amid the nuclear tension, the two Koreas on Friday suspended the opening of their first cross-border roads that could take tourists and South Korean investors to North Korea. The U.S.-U.N. Command said Friday an investigation confirmed reports by South Korean soldiers that North Korean troops brought 7.62mm machine guns into the Demilitarized Zone on Dec. 13-20. The weapons were set up 100-400 yards north of the Koreas border, known as the Military Demarcation Line, and removed at the end of each day, a command statement said. The U.N. Security Council, charged with overseeing international peace and security, has not met to discuss the North Korea crisis and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has not publicly addressed the matter. Amid the tensions with Washington, North Korea also has scrapped its reliance on the U.S. dollar as a foreign currency, ordering banks and traders to use European euros instead, according to Dow Jones news service. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 8 U.S. Denounces North Korea's Expulsion Las Vegas SUN: December 27, 2002 By RON FOURNIER ASSOCIATED PRESS CRAWFORD, Texas (AP) - Stung by North Korea's defiance, the White House denounced the expulsion of U.N. nuclear inspectors Friday but said military action was not being contemplated to counter Pyongyang's gathering nuclear ambitions. "We seek a peaceful resolution," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said as President Bush vacationed at his nearby ranch. "I think for now we need to let the discussions happen with our friends and allies about the next steps that we take." An initial step may be to send Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly to the region next month to encourage allies to increase diplomatic pressure on North Korea, U.S. officials said. South Korea's new government, which joined the White House in denouncing Pyongyang on Friday, is a key to Bush's strategy. The administration is also quietly encouraging the U.N. monitoring agency, whose inspectors were expelled by North Korea, to take the crisis to the Security Council. U.S. officials said they were not campaigning for the move overtly because they fear backlash from allies already dubious about Bush's use of the United Nations to pursue a tough line against Iraq's Saddam Hussein. As U.S. officials privately voiced misgivings that the current approach may not be working, Bush's foreign policy team met at the White House to discuss limited options. Democrats stepped up their criticism, with a key senator accusing Bush of ignoring North Korea too long. "What happened in North Korea today is predictable and totally anticipated based on this administration's complete avoidance of a responsible approach to North Korea in over a year and a half," said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., who plans to challenge Bush for re-election. When he came into office, Bush put the brakes on U.S.-North Korean relations because he said Kim Jong Il's government could not be trusted. The relationship spiraled downward when Pyongyang acknowledged in October that it had a secret nuclear weapons program. "It is the absence of diplomacy. It is the absence of common sense ... that has brought this on," Kerry said in a telephone interview. In a provocative challenge of Bush's hard-nose policy, North Korea expelled nuclear inspectors Friday and announced it will reactivate a laboratory that the United States claims can produce enough weapons-grade plutonium for several atomic bombs. The Koreans have said they were restarting the reactor to generate electricity. "These recent actions are not designed to produce electricity, but rather to advance North Korea's nuclear weapons capability," McClellan told reporters. The sentiments were echoed by South Korea's president-elect, Roh Moo-hyun, who said, "Whatever North Korea's rationale is in taking such actions, they are not beneficial to peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and in Northeast Asia, nor are they helpful for its own safety and prosperity." North Korea's action escalated tensions over Pyongyang's plan to unfreeze nuclear facilities shut down in a deal with the United States in 1994. It also underscores dramatically different approaches that Bush has taken with North Korea, Iraq and Iran - the nations he called an "axis of evil." While he is prepared to go to war early next year to disarm Saddam's Iraq, the president is determined to curb North Korea's ambitions through diplomatic pressure, aides said. The strategy reflects that North Korea has not been as hostile as Iraq in recent years, as well as the grim reality that Pyongyang could respond to a U.S. attack with massive force against South Korea and Japan, aides said. In the path of an assault on South Korea would be 37,000 American troops patrolling the truce line from the 1950-53 Korean War. In the White House meeting, Bush's foreign policy advisers debated how far the reclusive Kim's government was willing to go in what the Americans view as an effort to extract concessions from the United States. The Clinton administration gave North Korea fuel oil in exchange for promises in 1994 to end its nuclear program. Ruling out another deal, McClellan said, "Let me make it clear that we will not negotiate in response to threats or broken commitments." Some U.S. officials say they believe North Korea may be bluffing. They point out that the laboratory has not been activated and, more importantly, its spent fuel rods have not been removed in an effort to produce bomb-making material. Even if North Korea takes those two steps, it is unclear whether Bush would consider attacking the laboratory or taking other military action, officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The president already has stopped U.S.-backed fuel shipments, officials said, and seeking deeper economic sanctions could create a humanitarian crisis in the impoverished nation. Bush's strategy for now is to make it clear to North Korea that he won't budge, and the only way to secure better relations, and eventually economic aid, is to keep its anti-nuclear pledge, officials said. In another sign of tension, the U.S.-U.N. command overseeing the 49-year cease-fire between North and South Korea accused the North Koreans of placing light machine guns inside the demilitarized zone between the two countries six times during the last month. On the Net: CIA's North Korea page: http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/kn.html All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 9 Pyongyang N-games gone too far Daily Yomiuri On-Line Yomiuri Shimbun Pyongyang's reckless actions vis-a-vis its nuclear program have set off alarm bells in the international community. After unsealing its graphite-moderated nuclear reactors in Yongbyong and moving fuel rods to the reactors, North Korea notified the International Atomic Energy Agency that it would restart operations of the nuclear facilities in one or two months. Pyongyang also said it would expel international inspectors from the country. The communist regime unilaterally thawed out its nuclear development program, ignoring a warning from the IAEA. As a result, the U.S.-North Korea Agreed Framework, which stipulates that North Korea freeze its graphite-moderated nuclear reactors and dismantle related facilities, has virtually collapsed. Pyongyang should stop playing with nuclear weapons in its effort to raise the stakes in its brinkmanship diplomacy. It should immediately stop moving fuel rods to the nuclear facilities and cooperate with the IAEA request that it seal the facilities and restore monitoring cameras. North Korea claimed that because the United States had halted crude oil supplies to the country, it had to unseal the graphite-moderated nuclear reactors to generate electricity to make up for the shortfall. === Unconvincing claims This line of reasoning is unconvincing. The reason the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization decided to halt crude oil supplies to North Korea, starting in December, is that Pyongyang planned to use enriched uranium to restart its development of nuclear weapons. Pyongyang must first abandon its nuclear arms development program. As the IAEA has pointed out, North Korea's claim is fallacious in that the unsealed nuclear facilities included depositories for freezing spent nuclear fuel and a radiation chemistry research institute that reprocesses spent nuclear fuel. These facilities are not used to generate electricity. North Korea obviously plans to reprocess spent nuclear fuel, enabling it to produce about 30 kilograms of weapons-grade plutonium. The amount is enough to manufacture six nuclear weapons, resulting in North Korea's nuclear armament. Just eight years ago, when North Korea tried to reprocess spent nuclear fuel, then U.S. President Bill Clinton looked into the possibility of launching an attack on Yongbyong and the U.N. Security Council discussed imposing sanctions on the communist country. The crisis was averted when the late North Korean leader Kim Il Sung told visiting former U.S. President Jimmy Carter that his country would not reprocess spent nuclear fuel and would shut down the nuclear facilities. === Threat of nuclear war North Korea's resumption of reprocessing operations would heighten tension on the Korean Peninsula at one stroke, possibly leading to a nuclear war. It is only right that the United States stand firm without yielding to the threat. As it has done before, North Korea apparently wants to bring Washington to the negotiating table to win more concessions, but its foolish games have dimmed the chances of a dialogue with the United States. The international community should make its utmost efforts to urge North Korea to scrap its nuclear arms development program. The IAEA will hold an emergency board meeting early next year to discuss the North Korea issue, with an eye to referring it to the Security Council. This is also a grave problem for Japan. The government should keep in close contact with the United States, Russia, China and South Korea to prevent Pyongyang from developing nuclear weapons. (From The Yomiuri Shimbun, Dec. 28) Copyright 2002 The Yomiuri Shimbun ***************************************************************** 10 NK: Assembly Committee Passes Nuclear Resolution Digital Chosunilbo (English Edition) : Daily News in English Updated Dec.27,2002 16:42 KST by Kim Min-chul (mckim@chosun.com) The National Assembly's Unification and Foreign Affairs and Trade Committee passed a resolution Friday urging North Korea to abide by the 1994 Geneva Agreed Framework, and cease all nuclear operations and weapons development at Yongbyon. It called on Pyongyang to accept investigations and oversight by the International Atomic Energy Agency, and to solve the issue through peaceful diplomacy. The resolution will be passed on to the Assembly for a vote. The committee also expressed concern over anti-American demonstrations and asked the government to remove nationwide anxiety. Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Choi Sung-hong said the government was of the opinion that North Korea would not cross the "red line," but if it did then a clear response would be given. Jeong Se-hyun, the minister of unification commented that the development of nuclear weapons by the North could not be ruled out, but that its latest move was more likely designed to force negotiations with the United States. Jeong said there had been no secret contacts with Pyongyang, but the government had been talking through various channels and had explained there would be no progress inter-Korean relations without solving the nuclear issue. ***************************************************************** 11 N Korea to expel nuclear observers BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Friday, 27 December, 2002, [IAEA monitoring camera - similar to ones removed by North Koreans from Yongbyon reactor] UN equipment has been removed from a nuclear reactor North Korea has decided to expel UN nuclear inspectors as it moves towards reactivating its nuclear programme, the country's official news agency has declared. A letter to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) - the UN's nuclear watchdog - also said Pyongyang was planning to reopen a reprocessing plant, which could start producing weapons grade plutonium within months. CRISIS CHRONOLOGY [Satellite photo of Yongbyon plant in 2000 by Space Imaging ] 16 Oct: N Korea acknowledges secret nuclear programme, US announces 14 Nov: Fuel shipments to N Korea halted 12 Dec: N Korea threatens to reactivate Yongbyon N-plant 22 Dec: N Korea removes monitoring devices at Yongbyon reactor 26 Dec: UN says 1,000 fuel rods have been moved to the plant 27 Dec: N Korea says it will expel UN nuclear inspectors Timeline of tensions In his response, IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei said North Korea should let the inspectors stay. A 1994 fuel aid deal which had led to the closure of the Yongbyon plant broke down last month when the US suspended shipments - alleging that the North had admitted to restarting a nuclear weapons programme. Observers say Pyongyang's move may be aimed at forcing the United States to sign a non-aggression pact with the North. But a White House spokeswoman repeated on Friday that Washington would not negotiate in response to "threats or broken commitments". Claire Buchan said North Korea should scrap its nuclear weapons programme. "We call on the DPRK to reverse its current course and to take all steps necessary to comply with the IAEA ... to eliminate its nuclear weapons program in a verifiable manner." Inspectors staying The IAEA chief said the presence of inspectors was needed for "the immediate installation of containment and surveillance measures". "This is one further step away from defusing the crisis," Mr ElBaradei said. He said he expected the North Korean Government to inform him immediately, "so that, if necessary, arrangements for the departure of IAEA inspectors can be made". Until the response is received, the IAEA inspectors will stay in the country. "They are on standby," the IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said. Pyongyang has already removed IAEA-installed equipment and seals from Yongbyon - what the agency calls its "eyes and ears" at the plant - in preparation for reactivation. According to Pyongyang, the location would be used to give "safe storage" to spent fuel rods that will come from the controversial Yongbyon nuclear plant being reactivated. "Together with the loss of cameras and seals [on equipment], the departure of inspectors would practically bring to an end our ability to monitor DPRK's nuclear programme or assess its nature," Mr ElBaradei said. Looming 'confrontation' It remains unclear exactly what Pyongyang wants, but observers suggest it may be looking to force the US into signing a non-aggression pact and to secure further aid. The BBC's Charles Scanlon says North Korea is moving rapidly towards provoking a full-scale confrontation over its nuclear programme. International concern has been mounting over the prospect of conflict between North Korea and the US since US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld declared earlier this week that war against Iraq would not stop military action elsewhere. Japan has joined the calls from international community urging Pyongyang to scrap its nuclear arms programme. Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi said there were "grave concerns" about nuclear non-proliferation. And earlier South Korea's President-elect Roh Moo-hyun also weighed into the debate for the first time on Friday. He warned that Pyongyang's moves to reactivate the Yongbyon reactor could severely hamper efforts to rebuild ties between the two countries. UN experts have said the reactor could be operational within two months. NORTH KOREA NUCLEAR PROGRAMME [Map showing North Korea's nuclear sites] Yongbyon: Five-megawatt experimental nuclear power reactor and 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 Kumho: Two 1,000-MWt light water reactors being built under Agreed Framework Analysis: North Korea's nuclear progress © MMII | News Sources | Privacy ***************************************************************** 12 N Korea urged to rethink nuclear plans BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Friday, 27 December, 2002, [North Korean border guard keeps watch] America called on N Korea to abandon its nuclear programme The nuclear watchdog of the United Nations has asked North Korea to reconsider its decision to expel UN inspectors and to reactivate its nuclear programme. CRISIS CHRONOLOGY [Satellite photo of Yongbyon plant in 2000 by Space Imaging ] 16 Oct: N Korea acknowledges secret nuclear programme, US announces 14 Nov: Fuel shipments to N Korea halted 12 Dec: N Korea threatens to reactivate Yongbyon plant 22 Dec: N Korea removes monitoring devices at Yongbyon reactor 26 Dec: UN says 1,000 fuel rods have been moved to the plant 27 Dec: N Korea says it will expel UN nuclear inspectors Timeline of tensions The Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Dr Mohamed ElBaradei said inspectors - at the Yongbyon plant - were needed for "the immediate installation of containment and surveillance measures". Mr ElBaradei said he expected the North Korean Government to respond quickly "so that, if necessary, arrangements for the departure of IAEA inspectors can be made". "This is one further step away from defusing the crisis," he said. The United States rebuked Pyongyang for its decision to reactivate the nuclear plants. "We call on the DPRK to reverse its current course and to take all steps necessary to comply with the IAEA... to eliminate its nuclear weapons program in a verifiable manner," said White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan. Pyongyang says the US is looking for a pretext for invasion since US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld declared earlier this week that war against Iraq would not prevent the US from engaging in military action elsewhere. Mohamed ElBaradei IAEA Director General But another US spokesman, Scott McClellan, rejected such claims, saying that the US was not contemplating military action, and instead wanted to focus on diplomatic moves with allies in the region. US officials also said Washington was contemplating sending an envoy to the region next month to meet allies. The US-UN command overseeing the demilitarised zone between North and South Korea also said on Friday that North Korean border guards had moved banned machine guns into the zone six times in the past month. 'Grave concerns' There were worried calls from North Korea's neighbours as well. Japan urged Pyongyang to scrap its nuclear arms programme. Click here for map of key nuclear sites Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi said there were "grave concerns" about the proliferation of nuclear weapons. And earlier South Korea's President-elect Roh Moo-hyun also weighed into the debate for the first time on Friday. He warned that Pyongyang's moves to reactivate the Yongbyon reactor could severely hamper efforts to rebuild ties between the two countries. Controversial plans A 1994 fuel aid deal which had led to the closure of the Yongbyon plant broke down last month when the US suspended shipments - alleging that the North had admitted to restarting a nuclear weapons programme. North Korea's wrote to the IAEA about its decision to expel UN nuclear inspectors. Pyongyang was planning to reopen a reprocessing plant which could start producing weapons grade plutonium within months. North Korea has already removed IAEA-installed equipment and seals from Yongbyon - what the agency calls its "eyes and ears" at the plant - in preparation for reactivation. NORTH KOREA NUCLEAR PROGRAMME [Map showing North Korea's nuclear sites] Yongbyon: Five-megawatt experimental nuclear power reactor and 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 Kumho: Two 1,000-MWt light water reactors being built under Agreed Framework Analysis: North Korea's nuclear progress © MMII | News Sources | Privacy ***************************************************************** 13 Tanaka: Tough line not needed for North asahi.com : ENGLISH Asahi Shimbun www.asahi.com JAPANESE The Asahi Shimbun Japan should continue to emphasize dialogue in dealing with Pyongyang and not emulate the hard-line stance taken by the United States, according to Hitoshi Tanaka, former director-general of the Foreign Ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau. The contrasting stances of Tokyo and Washington stem from the different roles they play concerning the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea), Tanaka, a central figure in Japan-Pyongyang negotiations, said in an interview Thursday with The Asahi Shimbun. The United States has repeatedly said it would not give in to North Korean threats and return to the negotiating table. Pyongyang's recent resumption of operations at its nuclear power plants has toughened the U.S. approach. ``Since the United States is one party to the Agreed Framework, it is inconceivable that it would reward a nation that went against the provisions of the agreement and enter into negotiations,'' Tanaka said. ``Japan has not rejected dialogue with North Korea. It is the work of diplomacy to define common interests and work toward having North Korea act to achieve those interests.'' Tanaka, who recently was promoted to deputy minister for foreign affairs, was responsible for bringing about the Sept. 17 summit meeting in Pyongyang between Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Kim Jong Il. Immediately after that meeting, government officials felt that diplomatic relations could be established with North Korea by using economic assistance as a bargaining lever. However, differences over the handling of five Japanese abductees who returned to Japan on Oct. 15 have led to a stalemate. Still, Tanaka said the Pyongyang Declaration signed by Koizumi and Kim would serve as a new bargaining lever. ``The Pyongyang Declaration signified the fact that Japan became a party for the establishment of peace and stability of this region,'' Tanaka said. However, he did not offer any specific measures for ending the stalemate. Tanaka also said the decision to keep the five abductees in Japan was the right one. ``We did not have the option of sending them back to North Korea at that time,'' he said. He added that Japan must address issues related to its colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula from 1910 until 1945 before normalization talks can be concluded. ``Just repeating Japan's one-sided arguments will not lead to a resolution of the issue,'' he said.(IHT/Asahi: December 27,2002) (12/27) [Copyright Asahi Shimbun. All rights reserved. No reproduction ***************************************************************** 14 Defiant N. Korea Orders Inspectors Out Fri Dec 27, 4:47 PM ET By SANG-HUN CHOE, Associated Press Writer SEOUL, South Korea - A defiant North Korea (news - web sites) ordered U.N. nuclear inspectors to leave the country and said Friday it would restart a laboratory capable of producing plutonium for nuclear weapons. But the U.N. nuclear watchdog said its inspectors were "staying put" for now. A White House spokesman denounced the expulsions and called on Pyongyang to shut down its nuclear weapons program. U.S. officials said an envoy — possibly Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly — likely will visit the region next month to confer with allies. But there was no indication that Washington would talk with North Korea. "We will not respond to threats or broken commitments," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said from Crawford, Texas. In Seoul, the U.S.-U.N. command said Friday the North violated the truce ending the 1950-1953 Korean War six times over the past two weeks by bringing machine guns into the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas. The North said its actions against inspectors were motivated partly by President Bush (news - web sites)'s calling it part of an "axis of evil" with Iran and Iraq, and because the country considers itself "the target for the nuclear pre-emptive strike." North Korea's declarations, which came days after it removed U.N. seals and disabled surveillance cameras, means the United Nations (news - web sites) no longer would be able to monitor nuclear facilities in the communist country. The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency said Friday it received a letter from North Korea "requesting the immediate removal of IAEA inspectors" from the nuclear complex at Yongbyon, 50 miles north of the capital, Pyongyang. There was no word on when the North wanted the inspectors out, although IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said inspectors "are staying put" and "are on standby." North Korea also said it planned to reactivate a Yongbyon reprocessing laboratory to store spent fuel rods from nuclear reactors, which would generate badly needed electricity for the impoverished nation. North Korea has one 5-megawatt reactor, and said it plans to resume building two larger, unfinished ones. The North declared Dec. 12 it would restart the 5-megawatt reactor, but IAEA and U.S. officials say the reactor can generate only negligible amounts of power. The laboratory can extract plutonium, a component of atomic bombs, from used fuel rods. North Korea already holds 8,000 spent fuel rods, which U.S. officials say contain enough plutonium to make several atomic bombs. Pyongyang said in its letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press, that it decided to reactivate the complex after the United States canceled a fuel oil shipment promised in a 1994 agreement shutting down the facilities. Those shipments were halted after it was revealed that North Korea was covertly developing nuclear weapons in violation of the 1994 agreement. The most immediate fear of the IAEA is that North Korea could begin a weapons-making process that experts believe could yield several bombs within months. "Together with the loss of cameras and seals, the departure of inspectors would practically bring an end to our ability to monitor (North Korea's) nuclear program or assess its nature," IAEA director Mohamed ElBaradei said. "This is one further step away from defusing the crisis." North Korea could take other steps to heighten the conflict, including withdrawing from the international Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. In 1993, it announced its withdrawal from the treaty, though it later suspended the decision. The developments renewed fears that the Korean Peninsula was spiraling into a nuclear crisis similar to one in 1994, during which the U.S. military devised plans to bomb the Yongbyon site. Huge armies, including 37,000 U.S. soldiers in the South, face each other across a border laced with fences, tank traps and mines. The South Korean government said after an emergency National Security Council meeting that the North's decision was "an act that threatens security and peace on the Korean Peninsula and heightens fears of nuclear proliferation in the international community." North Korea told the IAEA there was no reason to keep inspectors in North Korea, now that the reactor was being restarted to compensate for the suspension of the U.S. oil shipment. "Since the freeze on our nuclear facilities was lifted, the mission of IAEA inspectors ... has automatically come to an end," Ri Je Son, director general of the North's General Department of Atomic Energy, wrote. The IAEA normally has two inspectors in North Korea but had three on Friday because of scheduling, Fleming said. North Korea has called for a nonaggression treaty with the United States. But the United States has ruled out talks unless the North abandons nuclear development. North Korea, which is believed to already have one or two nuclear bombs, appears to be escalating the crisis in order to extract concessions at the negotiating table. Pyongyang accused Washington on Friday of using the nuclear issue as a pretext for invasion, according to KCNA, the state-run news agency. It said the U.S. effort to shut down the North's nuclear program "is nothing but a pipe-dream." McClellan, the White House spokesman, said that the Bush administration is not contemplating military action against North Korea. "We seek a peaceful resolution," McClellan said. "For now we need to let the discussions happen between our friends and allies about the next steps." Amid the nuclear tension, the two Koreas on Friday suspended the opening of their first cross-border roads that would take tourists and South Korean investors to North Korea. The U.S.-U.N. Command said Friday an investigation confirmed reports by South Korean soldiers that North Korean troops brought 7.62mm machine guns into the Demilitarized Zone on Dec. 13-20. The weapons were set up 100-400 yards north of the Koreas border, known as the Military Demarcation Line, and removed at the end of each day, a command statement said. The U.N. Security Council, charged with overseeing international peace and security, has not met to discuss the North Korea crisis and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan (news - web sites) has not publicly addressed the matter. Amid the tensions with Washington, North Korea also has scrapped its reliance on the U.S. dollar as a foreign currency, ordering banks and traders to use European euros instead, according to Dow Jones news service. Copyright © 2002 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 15 Seoul Reluctant to See Nuclear Issue Go to UNSC KoreaTimes : Hankooki.com > Korea Times > Nation South Korea is reluctant to have North KoreaˇŻs nuclear challenge dealt with at the UN Security Council, because it will not only mean a prolonged standoff but also reduce its say in resolving a looming crisis, government officials say. ``If the UNSC stepped in, it would mean the situation will drag on,ˇŻˇŻ one government official said. ``That scenario runs counter to our wish to see the NorthˇŻs nuclear program resolved peacefully and as soon as possible.ˇŻˇŻ Another official said the involvement of UNSCˇŻs five permanent members _ the United States, China, Russia, France and Britain _ would likely leave little room for Seoul to influence the handling of PyongyangˇŻs nuclear program. An internal memo by the South Korean Foreign Ministry, however, expected the NorthˇŻs nuclear challenge would be forwarded for deliberation at the UNSC by the end of January. UNSC is empowered to take a wide range of actions, from the issuance of a resolution to placing trade embargos and authorizing military action. Seoul is worried it will be shut out from the process of handling the North Korean situation. On Thursday, President Kim Dae-jung said Seoul should take a leading role in the peaceful resolution of the issue, a message government officials say is intended both for Pyongyang, which only looks to the U.S. for dialogue, and for the Bush administration, which insists on its policy of isolating the North. ``We will never make the same mistake of paying billions of dollars for a deal we didnˇŻt participate in,ˇŻˇŻ Kim was quoted as saying during a function Monday, referring to the 1994 agreement Pyongyang and Washington struck to defuse a nuclear crisis. Under the 1994 Geneva Agreed Framework, the government is obliged to pay more than $3 billion, about 70 percent of the cost of building two light-water reactors for the North, in exchange for its promise to freeze its uranium-based nuclear program. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN-affiliated anti-proliferation watchdog, has repeatedly told the North not to restart its mothballed nuclear program. The IAEA has reportedly planned to convene an emergency executive board meeting in early January. The IAEA may forward the NorthˇŻs nuclear issue to the UNSC, if it decides it can no longer deal with it. In the nuclear crisis in the early 1990s, the UNSC intervened but the crisis was defused before it could take serious action through a deal between Washington and Pyongyang. By Oh Young-jin Staff Reporter 12-27-2002 17:28 ***************************************************************** 16 Russia accuses KEDO of breaking NKorea energy pact Reuters AlertNet - 27 Dec 2002 11:58 MOSCOW, Dec 27 (Reuters) - Russia on Friday accused the U.S.-led international consortium in charge of energy projects in North Korea of triggering the nuclear inspection crisis by breaking an agreement with Pyongyang on energy supplies. KEDO, grouping the United States, the European Union, Japan and South Korea, was set up under a 1994 agreement which promised North Korea fuel oil and nuclear power stations in return for a freeze on a plutonium-based nuclear arms programme. "The main conflict here is linked to the fact that KEDO countries have not fulfilled duties they promised to fulfil," Atomic Energy Minister Alexander Rumyantsev told reporters. "No construction work has been carried out in Korea for the past 10 years. As a result, Korea has been left without energy... And it has become clear that this situation is a crisis." North Korea, branded by the United States as part of an "axis of evil" with Iraq and Iran, set alarm bells ringing last week by removing U.N. monitoring equipment at a nuclear reactor capable of yielding weapons-grade plutonium. The United States, which has denounced the programme and halted shipments of fuel oil to North Korea, has said Pyongyang had the potential to make dozens of nuclear bombs a year. Rumyantsev was sceptical: "The industrial creation of military nuclear materials is a complicated process, and (North) Korea so far cannot afford it." Washington has expressed confidence that diplomacy can defuse the crisis and has been pressing Russia and China, which is the North's chief ally, to use their influence on Pyongyang. One U.S. official however has accused China and Russia of dragging their feet over the crisis. ***************************************************************** 17 'People should be outraged' Al-Ahram Weekly | Special | [Al-Ahram Weekly Online] 26 Dec. 2002 - 1 Jan. 2003 Issue No. 618 Special Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 Rasha Saad talks to two guests of the Cairo conference, Ramsey Clark and Saad Qassem Hammoudy, about US manipulation of the UN and the consequences of another war on Iraq "If the Iraqis want a change they'd like it to happen peacefully because they do not know who will be killed in the event there is a war. Who is going to get bombed this time?" Ramsey Clark, US attorney-general in the administration of former President Lyndon Johnson, has long supported the lifting of the 12-year embargo on Iraq and has been a vocal critic of plans for war against the country. His several visits there since the 1991 Gulf War were the basis of several of his books depicting US policies towards Iraq as genocide and crimes against humanity. The US's insistence on obtaining a copy of Iraq's Weapons Declaration before any of the Security Council members could see it has been cited as yet another example of the US's manipulation of the UN. What do you think? If you step back, you see that the US commitment to the United Nations is not very great. One of the concerns that a person like Kofi Annan or any UN secretary-general has to have is how to keep the US paying its dues and keep it from withdrawing. Then, as you said, they manipulate and coerce country by country with respect to resolutions that are not convenient for them. If you look at their positions in treaties, which are far more tenacious than UN resolutions, you see that they withdrew from the non-proliferation treaty. On something like landmines, they won't sign a treaty. On the convention on the child, they won't adopt a resolution that you cannot use children under the age of 18 [in war], in the face of what we saw in the Iraq-Iran war, what you see in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Cote d'Ivoire and southern Sudan. All the children that have been killed and have been taught to kill, can you believe it? They also won't join the International Criminal Court; they create their own special courts to prosecute their enemies: Serbs, Hutus. They won't submit themselves to a court and they disregard the law. They did it in their last attack on Iraq, they used all kind of weapons in violation of international law: they used explosives, they used depleted uranium and they used cluster bombs. Why don't other international powers stand up to this behaviour, especially when many of them complain that the US disregards "multilateral world governance"? Because they fear the price of standing up individually. The military, political and economic powers of the United States are so great that they [other countries] are unwilling to do it. Speaking of standing up, why does Germany still permit divisions of US troops on its soil; no country that has a foreign military presence is completely free. Why Japan? The same thing. Think of all the power, think of the economic wealth. They submit because they do not want to face the consequences, because the US organises its power to punish people. If you look at some of the countries that stood up they are part of what is called the axis of evil. So we have not found a country with the will -- when they know they are right -- to stand up and say no. Then the Arabs should not be blamed for taking a mild stance against US policies... Yes, this is true, in general. The Arab world was divided long ago by Europeans in ways that make it difficult for Arabs to organise and achieve unity, sovereignty and independence. That division is used to break them -- they are set against each other. At the beginning of the Iraq-Iran war, one of the great tragedies of our time, [Henry] Kissinger said, "I hope they kill each other." What he meant is our real policy: that they kill each other. The new fear is Muslim peoples. So if you get them to fight each other, you can step back and you can get the pipelines and you can get the wealth and you can pick up the jewellery off the bodies. But, anyhow, when you see the European Union expanding -- its population is twice that of the United States -- there may be an opportunity for the Arab peoples to unite and say, "We are in solidarity on the issue, even if not on other issues: There must be no foreign aggression on Iraq." Are you optimistic that a strike on Iraq can be averted? I am always an optimist. It is in my genes. If you do not believe something is possible you are helpless. [You can avoid war on Iraq] by the feet of people out in the streets, by demonstrations in various places. Former US President [Lyndon] Johnson wanted desperately to be the president of the US and worked for it all his life; he wanted to run for re-election, but he saw from the people that he could not run for re-election because he would have torn the country apart. He might have won the elections, but what would have been left? Because people were coming onto the stage and they were desperately angry. [Ferdinand] Marcos in the Philippines, totally backed by the US government and a professional army, a man who knew how to control, [was subsequently ousted by the people]. So when you talk about regime change people should be outraged. You have been to Iraq recently, how would you describe conditions after nearly 11 years of sanctions? September was the last time I visited Iraq. I went to Iraq many times back in the 1980s and went there in October 1990 to urge that every possible action be taken to avert an attack. I went there during the bombing, and spent two weeks there in February 1991. We saw devastating harm to civilians and civilian deaths. Conditions in the last two or three years have improved marginally. There is more food, there is more medicine, four years ago when you went to a hospital -- and I always go to some 15 hospitals when I go to Iraq, so I know all the hospitals and I know some of the doctors -- you saw babies dying and all sorts of miserable things. When you went to the pharmacies they would be empty; there would be a crowd outside with prescriptions, hoping that medicine would come in and that they would get some. Today, you go in and there is quite a bit of medicine on the shelves, but if you need chemotherapy, you are probably out of luck. The doctors have to decide which patients should have chemotherapy. For instance they would have about 50 needing chemotherapy, but only enough medicine for 10. You try to save 20 by half doses, but how do you choose? Do you choose younger people? What criteria you should you use to choose? Those who are likely to be saved? Today Iraq is very tense about being attacked again. Tension is so great. It is terrible for a country to be placed under the tension of an [impending] attack. What do you think the consequences will be if there is a war on Iraq? Devastating in many ways. You cannot predict what will happen because chance determines history, but the probability is that thousands will die; we have people saying that you [the US] forget that people will die. The Americans are saying that the Iraqis will welcome such an action when the war is over. Let me guarantee, using common sense, that if they [the Iraqis] want a change they'd like it to happen peacefully because they do not know who will be killed in the event there is a war. Who is going to get bombed this time? Last time [during the 1991 Gulf War] we [the coalition] destroyed every facility that is essential for life. They [the coalition] destroyed the reservoirs by destroying the dam. It is hard to do, you really have to hit it with a lot of bombs. They destroyed the pipelines bringing water down from the north. They destroyed the pumping stations, they destroyed the filtration plants; there was no clean drinking water anywhere in Iraq for two weeks after the attack other than with people who had their own wells. It is also clear to me that if the attack is carried out on Iraq, Israel will attack Palestine. It is an extremely dangerous moment for Palestine. I met with [Yasser] Arafat on Sunday [15 December], he has been living in the rubble of the Palestinian Authority (PA) office and he cannot leave. He knows he can be attacked and killed at any time. He knows if he leaves he might not be able to come back. Dennis Halliday, Scott Ritter and you have often been accused of being recruited by Saddam Hussein to campaign against sanctions. How do you respond to those accusations? Well, I think Dennis Halliday [former UN humanitarian aid co-ordinator in Iraq who resigned in 1998] is a real hero. I think he did what a decent person has to do, but very few do. Very few have the courage to resign and tell the truth. I don't know if he has ever met Saddam Hussein. If he did, it was perhaps in an official capacity and certainly he did not accept anything of value from him. Scott Ritter [former UN weapons inspector, resigned in 1998] is a personality, he operates from different motives. He is a former marine and he is a tough guy, but he is telling the truth and it is extremely helpful to hear that truth from someone who was at the front-line of inspections. © Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved ***************************************************************** 18 *IAEA Says Unaware of N.Korea Expulsion Order* / Fri December 27, 2002 07:29 AM ET / VIENNA (Reuters) - The U.N.'s nuclear watchdog said on Friday its staff in North Korea had received no notice they were to be expelled as South Korean media had reported. South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted North Korea as saying it would expel the two International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors monitoring the communist state's facilities. "We just spoke to our inspectors a little while ago, and this was news to them," a spokeswoman for the agency said at its Vienna headquarters. "They have not received any information that they were being expelled from North Korea." Yonhap quoted North Korean reports of a letter sent by Pyongyang to the IAEA, saying "the mission of IAEA inspectors has naturally drawn to an end" as the freeze on the North's nuclear facilities had been lifted. The IAEA said on Thursday it had "serious non-proliferation concerns" after North Korea said it planned to restart a small nuclear reactor whose use was frozen in 1994 after a crisis over Pyongyang's nuclear arms ambitions. Reuters The Company ***************************************************************** 19 *N.Korea to Expel U.N. Nuclear Inspectors* / Fri December 27, 2002 08:12 AM ET / By Paul Eckert SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea announced on Friday it would expel U.N. nuclear inspectors monitoring a reactor capable of producing plutonium for nuclear weapons. But the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, said its staff in North Korea had received no notice they were to be expelled. North Korea's state news agency, which earlier accused the United States of seeking to overthrow the isolated and impoverished communist state's political system, said the inspectors were no longer needed. "As our freeze on nuclear facilities has been lifted, the mission of IAEA inspectors, who have been in Yongbyon under the (1994) Agreed Framework between North Korea and the U.S., has naturally drawn to an end," the North's news agency said, quoting a letter to IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei. "In a situation where there is no longer justification for the inspectors to stay in our country, our government has decided to send them out," it said of a move that would escalate the North's two-month showdown with the international community. The North's Korea Central News Agency (KCNA) also said North Korea would reactivate a nuclear laboratory for the storage of fuel rods. "We will be completing construction on nuclear power plants and will start operating a radioactive chemical laboratory as part of preparation for the safe storage of used fuel rods that will be produced by the power plants when the plants begin operation," it said. But the IAEA said its staff in North Korea knew nothing of any North Korean letter saying they would have to leave. "We just spoke to our inspectors a little while ago, and this was news to them," a spokeswoman for the agency said at its Vienna headquarters. "They have not received any information that they were being expelled from North Korea." "DANGEROUS CONFRONTATION" Earlier, the KCNA said a U.S. demand that North Korea scrap its nuclear program as a condition for talks was a prelude to a surprise U.S. attack. "(The United States) is rushing headlong into extremely dangerous confrontation with the DPRK (North Korea), saying that it would neither have dialogue with the DPRK nor rule out a war against it," KCNA said. "The U.S. much-publicized assertion that North Korea should scrap its nuclear program first is nothing but a pipe-dream as it calls for disarming the DPRK under the absurd pretext of its 'nuclear program' and then launching a surprise attack on it to overthrow its political system," it said. The IAEA has said a plan by the North to restart a five-megawatt reactor mothballed in 1994 raised "serious non-proliferation concerns." The reactor and three related facilities at Yongbyon, 90 km (55 miles) north of Pyongyang, were taken out of commission in return for oil and a promise of safer reactors. The United States said in October the North had admitted operating a secret weapons program using highly enriched uranium. In response, the United States, South Korea and other allies suspended fuel oil shipments to the North in December. Britain, Washington's closest ally, denounced North Korea's recent conduct as "very worrying, dangerous and unacceptable." China, North Korea's chief ally, and Russia both dismissed U.S. suggestions that they were dragging their feet and called for dialogue between Washington and Pyongyang to defuse the crisis -- a course the United States is resisting. North Korea says it is reactivating the plant to produce electricity to make up for lost fuel oil supplies. Repeating a North Korean demand for a non-aggression pact, KCNA said remarks by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other officials showed Washington wanted to topple North Korea rather than hold discussions to defuse the nuclear row. Rumsfeld said earlier this week the United States, which is focusing on ridding Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, could fight two wars at once and win and North Korea would be mistaken to assume Washington was distracted by the standoff with Baghdad. "This situation compels the DPRK to cope with it with highest revolutionary vigilance," KCNA said. It added: "The Korean People's Army is fully combat-ready and closely following the U.S. moves to start a nuclear war." Seoul's financial markets were ruffled on Friday by rumors that the South Korean army was on high alert. Army authorities said the talk was groundless, but North Korea fears helped drive Seoul's index to close at a six-week low. ROH SPEAKS OUT As Washington pushed for more international pressure on the North, South Korean President-elect Roh Moo-hyun delivered his strongest message yet on Pyongyang's nuclear intentions. "North Korea must withdraw the nuclear measures it has taken and restore facilities and equipment to their original state," said Roh, who won a December 19 presidential election on a platform of aiding and engaging the North. Roh, who takes office on February 25, told the North its defiance of world opinion was undermining support in South Korea for his approach of using aid and dialogue to resolve the nuclear dispute and end Pyongyang's diplomatic isolation. Isolated since the end of the U.S.-Soviet Cold War, the pariah state led by Kim Jong-il has suffered economic decline and grave food shortages that have killed two million and left about a third of its 22 million people dependent on foreign food aid. U.S. officials describe the standoff as a ploy by the North to force Washington into talks on normalizing relations. They say Washington, which suspects North Korea has two nuclear bombs, is looking toward a January 6 meeting of the IAEA board of governors, who are expected to move the North's breach of its obligations to the U.N. Security Council. Reuters The Company ***************************************************************** 20 Russians say NK has no infrastructure | About Hoover's UK Moscow, 27 December: North Korea does not have [the] serious preconditions needed to develop a nuclear military programme, said Aleksandr Rumyantsev, Russia's minister of atomic energy. "The industrial creation of military nuclear materials is a complicated process and [North] Korea so far cannot afford it," Rumyantsev said at a Friday [27 December] press conference in Moscow, noting that North Korea is industrially underdeveloped. "Russia has not maintained any contacts with North Korea in the nuclear field for over 10 years," the minister said. Rumyantsev recalled that North Korea has repeatedly pledged to abandon its national nuclear programme if an international consortium implements a project to build the KEDO [Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization, a US-led international consortium] nuclear reactor. However, the international consortium has still not started building this structure, he said. When asked whether Russia could cooperate with North Korea in the nuclear field in the future, Rumyantsev noted that "Russia is always interested in expanding its presence on the world market". Source: Interfax news agency, Moscow, in English 0946 gmt 27 Dec 02 /© BBC Monitoring Copyright 2002. All Rights Reserved. Financial Times Information Limited - Asia Africa Intelligence Wire ***************************************************************** 21 AU: NK Nuclear reactor 'ready in eight weeks' - theage.com.au December 28 2002 Washington North Korea plans to restart within two months a reactor that could produce plutonium for nuclear weapons, the United Nations' nuclear watchdog said yesterday. And a Bush administration official said Russia and China had yet to show interest in curbing Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions. The White House was yesterday considering its next move after Pyongyang's decision to move new fuel into a nuclear reactor in defiance of the UN and the West. American officials dismissed North Korea's denial that its intention was to build nuclear weapons. But the officials admitted there was no obvious diplomatic or military solution to the growing crisis over the North's nuclear ambitions. The state-run Radio Pyongyang said: "Our measure has nothing to do with plans to develop nuclear weapons . . . Our republic constantly maintains an anti-nuclear, peace-loving position." South Korea rejected this, saying it would not tolerate Pyongyang's activities after it emerged that 1000 fuel rods had been moved to the five-megawatt reactor at the North's main nuclear plant at Yongbyon, 80 kilometres north of its capital. President Kim Jong-il's increasingly provocative actions are causing deep concern at the Pentagon as its military planners prepare for a war with Iraq. The potential for American action is limited by the fact that Pyongyang already has nuclear weapons and has threatened to turn the South into a "sea of flames" if attacked. US Secretary of State Colin Powell has been pressing Russia, China and others to head off resumption of the North's nuclear program, frozen since 1994 in a oil-for-compliance deal. "So far there are very few signs that either of them is doing what we had hoped," a Bush administration official said about Moscow and Beijing. Normally, Russia and China make it clear when they are working with US policy makers. "The fact that we're not hearing very much is pretty telling evidence," he said. "If there's anybody who can get North Korea to stop this, it would be Russia and China" working together. Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said the North's moves were "very worrying". Dr ElBaradei said in a statement: "Moving toward restarting its nuclear facilities without appropriate safeguards, and toward producing plutonium, raises serious non-proliferation concerns and is tantamount to nuclear brinkmanship." Although the reactor produces little power, it has yielded about 8000 spent fuel rods, stored in an adjacent pool. Experts say they contain enough plutonium to produce five nuclear weapons. Dr ElBaradei pilloried the North's explanation that the reactor's purpose was to generate electricity. He said the Yongbyon reactor was irrelevant to electricity production and that the North had "no current legitimate peaceful use for plutonium". Washington is now looking towards a meeting on January 6 of the board of governors of the IAEA, which is responsible for monitoring Pyongyang's compliance with nuclear safeguard treaties. The meeting was expected to move the North's breach of its obligations to the UN Security Council, the official said. Asked what would happen without a diplomatic solution, he said: "I don't think this is going to end up with North Korea reprocessing more spent fuel to get more nuclear weapons." The latest stand-off came after the US said in October that the North had admitted operating a secret nuclear weapons program using highly enriched uranium. The US, South Korea and others suspended fuel oil shipments in December. - Telegraph, Los Angeles Times, Reuters ***************************************************************** 22 Tarnished Tepco tries to say sorry FT.com Thursday Dec 26 2002. All times are London time. By Bayan Rahman Teruaki Masumoto spends a great deal of time travelling around Japan, apologising on behalf of his company, which faces the worst crisis in its 51-year history. Mr Masumoto is vice-president of Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), the Japanese utility involved in falsifying safety data on nuclear reactors. "All I do these days is bow in apology," Mr Masumoto says. "I have to count how long the bow takes. It's important to get it right." The care Mr Masumoto takes over the apology ritual when visiting communities furious with the company's slipshod safety controls is a reflection of the delicate task he has been set. His mission is to win back public confidence over nuclear power at a time when the industry's reputation for safety is tarnished and the company's credibility as a supplier of electricity is at stake. Last month, Tepco warned that the 40m residents of Tokyo and neighbouring prefectures it covers could face blackouts next summer, almost unheard of since the 1950s. Last week Tepco launched an advertising campaign to encourage electricity conservation, the first such campaign in winter for more than 30 years. Furthermore, more than 3,000 members of the public have called on public prosecutors to charge Tepco officials with faking the safety reports. Tepco's woes began in August when the company and the nuclear industry regulator publicised allegations made by a whistleblower two years ago that Tepco staff had, for well over a decade, doctored in-house safety records before they were submitted to the regulator. Initially, the data falsification on in-house inspections highlighted the grey areas in Japan's nuclear safety rules and Japan's unrealistic nuclear safety standards, which stipulate that reactor equipment should be in brand-new condition, leaving no room for normal wear and tear even when it poses no risk to safety. But it later emerged that staff had also interfered with equipment in order to pass regulatory checks. Making misleading logs for company checks is not illegal, but tampering with regulatory checks is. As a result of the safety scandal, several reactors have been closed for re-inspection. But local communities have insisted that Tepco shut down all reactors for safety checks. The real crisis could come after April when all 17 of Tepco's reactors could be closed for inspection and the company may face a shortage of electricity during peak demand in Tokyo's sweltering summer. But unless Tepco wins the approval of communities living near its three nuclear power plants, which house the 17 reactors providing 42 per cent of total power generation capacity, it will not be able to restart them. Hence Mr Masumoto's visits to local communities and the company's effort to investigate the misdemeanours and take responsibility. "If we were to have the same rolling power cuts as California in Tokyo, our executives would be fired," says Mr Masumoto. Mr Masumoto believes the government will not give up on its plan to increase the number of nuclear power plants in Japan, although he concedes that its plan for 13 new plants over the next 10 years may not be fully achieved. "About half of the 13 units are under construction, but it's possible that the others will be delayed," he says. The company says that the impact on earnings will be Y140bn ($1.2bn). This takes into account higher fuel costs from running thermal power plants and buying electricity from other utilities. Tepco last month reported a fall in interim earnings and forecast a 36.6 per cent plunge in net profits to Y128bn for the year to March. But analysts remain upbeat about the outlook for Tepco's earnings, despite the impact of the nuclear safety scandal and further price cuts Tepco may make next year as part of the ongoing deregulation of the electricity market. "Relative to the scale of Tepco's business, we do not expect these various events to have a serious impact on the company's earnings," says Toshinori Ito of UBS Warburg. Mr Ito points out that the company has cut costs and become more competitive in the energy industry by lowering charges and providing a range of service options. Even though, for now, the financial risk to Tepco from the scandal seems small, the company has no illusions about the difficult task of turning around public opinion. "It will take five to 10 years for Tepco to regain the public's trust in our company," Mr Masumoto says. © Copyright The Financial Times ***************************************************************** 23 Restart support growing portclintonnewsherald.com Friday, December 27, 2002 Associated Press OAK HARBOR -- Bob Cook remembers watching the concrete cooling tower at the Davis-Besse nuclear plant rise above the farmfields. He remembers promises of cheap electricity. And he remembers that before Davis-Besse, the high school had to close one winter in the mid-1970s because it couldn't afford to pay for heat. Now there's a new school with a swimming pool and an auditorium with theater-style seats. All thanks to tax revenue generated by the nuclear plant. "It's been a great asset to the economy and the school," Cook said. Despite concern over the damage found inside the plant's reactor that has kept it closed much of the year, most folks living in the shadows of Davis-Besse want it to stay. "I haven't talked to anybody who wants it shut down," said Paula Mackey, who lives about two miles from the nuclear plant. "It's a little bit scary, but it's something you can't think about too much." Support for the plant also has come from public officials in recent weeks after FirstEnergy Corp. Chief Executive Officer Peter Burg suggested that one option for the plant includes closing it down. Davis-Besse won't become a "a black hole for FirstEnergy," he said during a conference call with industry analysts. The Akron-based company already expects to spend more than $200 million to repair the plant. But further repairs already have pushed back the company's plans to open it this year. Now the hope is to open early in 2003. The plant near Toledo along Lake Erie has been shut down since February. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission began investigating after leaking acid nearly ate a hole through a 6-inch thick steel cap covering the plant's reactor vessel. The leaks were discovered in March, during a maintenance shutdown. It was the most extensive corrosion ever at a U.S. nuclear reactor and led to a nationwide review of all 69 similar plants. "Most everybody is still in support of the plant, but they want the repairs done right," Cook said. "I think that's the general consensus. "If they were to close, it would be devastating to the economy." Davis-Besse generates about $6 million a year in property tax and $3.5 in payroll tax. Most of its 870 employees are natives to the area. The plant also paid for emergency warning sirens that blanket the county and are used to warn of threatening weather. Originally published Friday, December 27, 2002 ***************************************************************** 24 MY: Containment Building Crane Demolished Safely [The Boothbay Register - Online Edition] Dec 26, 2002 "Serving The Communities of Boothbay, Boothbay Harbor, Southport, Edgecomb" Vol. 125-No. 50 Maine Yankee's 330-ton containment building polar crane was safely removed at 4 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 19 through the use of controlled explosives, according to a press release issued by the company. Closed in 1997, the state's only nuclear power plant is in the process of being dismantled. Explosive charges severed the steel beams supporting the crane, dropping the structure onto the upper floor of the containment building. Controlled Demolitions, Inc, of Maryland performed the blasting with support from the Maine Yankee organization and demolition contractor Manafort Brothers. "Removing the crane using explosives was the safest, most efficient method for demolishing it," said Maine Yankee Spokesman Eric Howes. "This significant project was accomplished safely through meticulous pre-job planning, team work, and careful execution," he said. Workers will now begin the task of cutting the crane into manageable pieces for rail shipment from the site. Containment demolition, cleanup, and debris removal will be ongoing into the fall of 2004. Interior demolition of the building will be completed first, followed by the exterior shell. Maine Yankee's decommissioning began in 1997 and is scheduled to be finished in 2005. The project is slightly more than 70 percent complete. Boothbay Register Boothbay Harbor, ME Tel: 207.633.4620 MaineStreethttp://boothbayregister.maine.com/2002-12-26/containme ***************************************************************** 25 Russian nuclear power production grows 3.5 per cent in 2002 | About Hoover's UK December 27, 2002 7:38am Moscow, 27 December: Russia's nuclear power plants will increase production 3.5 per cent year-on-year to amount to 141.2bn kWh in 2002. This information is contained in material distributed during a press conference held by Atomic Energy Minister Aleksandr Rumyantsev in Moscow on Friday [27 December]. The Atomic Energy Ministry said that this year work was completed to increase the life span of the fourth power-producing unit at Novovoronezh Nuclear Power Plant. Work was also carried out at the first power-producing unit at Kursk Nuclear Power Plant to increase its capacity to 1,000 MW. The Atomic Energy Ministry forecasts that in 2003 industrial production will increase 4 per cent, with investment up 37 per cent and exports up 24 per cent. Rumyantsev noted at the press conference that next year the ministry would again pay special attention to antiterrorist programmes and to improving security systems and control and inventory of fissile materials. The minister said that at the moment Interior Ministry forces provide security at nuclear installations and that special equipment is also used. "Remote bomb searching equipment is currently being developed," he noted, stressing that the Atomic [Energy] Ministry is spending significant funds on these programmes. Source: Interfax news agency, Moscow, in English 1000 gmt 27 Dec ***************************************************************** 26 Vets warn of risks to troops' health Published on: 2002-12-27 By Todd Leskanic Staff writer Steve Robinson's phone rings all the time these days. Usually, the callers are soldiers who want to know what they should do to prepare for chemical or biological attacks if there is a war with Iraq. He tells them to pay close attention to their surroundings, to note any medications they're given and to keep careful medical records. Robinson is a veteran of the Gulf War who spent 20 years in the Army. He retired last year but is now an advocate for Gulf War vets as the executive director of the National Gulf War Resource Center in Maryland. Robinson gives his advice from experience. He has seen and heard many stories about Gulf War illness, the unexplained health problems that struck hundreds of soldiers following their return from Desert Storm in 1991. But the symptoms of the illnesses of Gulf War veterans are so varied that some have been unable to demonstrate that the disorder is connected to their military service. With another possible war with Iraq looming, Robinson fears that mistakes will be repeated from the first war. "The guys who fight the next gulf war, they're going to be just as unprepared as we were," Robinson said. Department of Defense officials could not be reached for comment. Robinson said the military's equipment for fending off chemical agents wasn't effective in the Gulf War and will not work in another war. "Nobody's talking about it because it's going to affect morale," he said. "I know I would have a morale problem if I were in the military and my equipment didn't work. I don't know what to tell guys now that don't have the proper equipment." Robinson's opinion is echoed by other other veterans advocates and people have fallen ill since their services in the Gulf War. "I'm not sure there's any good protection against biological or chemical warfare," said retired Maj. Gloria Nickerson, a Gulf War veteran who lives in Hoke County. "It's pretty hard to test. You wouldn't want to be the subject." Nickerson, who is 50, said she is one of the victims of Gulf War illness. She spent six weeks in Saudi Arabia in 1991. She was healthy then. But since her return she has been diagnosed with diabetes and Hepatitis C. The illnesses have kept her out of work, but she receives no compensation from the Department of Defense. "It's very depressing," she said. "I don't feel enthusiasm for pursuing the disability claims. It's kind of hard to expect sick people to fight for themselves." Medical mystery Nearly 700,000 men and women were sent to the Middle East as a part of Operation Desert Storm. Many were afflicted with various maladies after they returned home. Doctors are still at a loss to explain the sicknesses, which range from rashes and headaches to chronic fatigue and immune system problems. Sick soldiers, their families and veterans advocates have suspected that exposure to chemical weapons, oil field fires or depleted uranium caused the mysterious illnesses. Medications and vaccines that were supposed to protect them could also be the cause, they said. Many are people like retired Air Force Staff Sgt. Richard Wadzinski Jr. Wadzinski's military records show he was vaccinated before his deployment against a host of diseases and infectious agents, including anthrax and botulism. He also took many pills the military provided as protection against nerve gas. By the time he got home, however, Wadzinski had recurring rashes on his arms, chest and legs. Later, the headaches began, followed by chronic fatigue, and joint and muscle aches. Some doctors told him his problems were in his head, he said. He took early retirement in 1994 after 18 years of service. He took a job as an emergency services worker. Then, in December 1997, he learned his liver was failing. A transplant saved his life, but he says he lives in constant pain. He has advice for the next wave of troops that could be headed to Iraq: "Have a good gas mask that's in good working order, and know how to use it. And every time something happens, put it on. There is no such thing as a false alarm." The federal government has spent $213 million on 224 projects investigating the cause of the illnesses. In October, the Department of Veterans Affairs announced it will spend $20 million for research in fiscal 2004. Compensation fight For people like Sarah Overdorff, it's too late. Overdorff's son, John O'Brien, died in 1998 at the age of 31. O'Brien was in the Navy reserves and spent six months in the Middle East in 1990 and 1991. But he began having health problems almost as soon as he returned home to Mars Hill. His hands and legs would go numb, she said. He also had psychological and memory problems. He died of a bacterial infection, something Overdorff said showed that her son's immune system was compromised. Overdorff said she and O'Brien's widow are still fighting for compensation. Another war with Iraq should be a cause for concern, Overdorff said. "We all agreed that if they have to do it, OK," she said. "But as far as we're concerned, they're nowhere near ready because the gear is not ready and the training isn't ready. If they had done their homework and had followed up on it, they would be ready." According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, 11,783 claims for undiagnosed illnesses have been filed by Gulf War veterans since the war, but only 3,129 claims - about 26 percent - have been approved. Soldiers are taxed with the job of proving their illnesses are connected to their service in the Middle East. Robinson advises soldiers who might go off to another war to keep detailed medical records and to pay attention to their surroundings at all times, something he said isn't easy. "The problem is they put the burden of the proof on the soldiers," he said. "A soldier can't be a journalist and an epidemiologist while he's fighting a war and shooting bullets downrange." David Autry, a spokesman for Disabled Veterans of America, said the Department of Defense needs to recognize the sick veterans. He said another wave of sickness from another war could tax a military health-care system that's already strained. "Historically, it seems to be a recurring problem that troops are exposed to something and then don't find out about it until years later," he said. "We hope things are different now. We hope the Department of Defense has learned that lesson." Staff writer Todd Leskanic can be reached at leskanict@fayettevillenc.com or 486-3572. Copyright 2002 The Fayetteville (N.C.) Observer Contact Us ***************************************************************** 27 3 Mile Island Plaintiffs End Legal Action Las Vegas SUN: December 27, 2002 ASSOCIATED PRESS HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - Attorneys for 1,990 plaintiffs who claimed their health was damaged by the 1979 reactor meltdown at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant say their legal action is over. Earlier this month, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refused to hear an appeal of a lower-court decision granting summary dismissal of the claims against former TMI owner General Public Utilities Corp. and related defendants. "There's nothing more that can be done to proceed with them, essentially," said attorney Lee C. Swartz. "We doubt the U.S. Supreme Court would agree to hear the case." No other major litigation remains from the 1979 accident at TMI, the nation's worst commercial nuclear accident. The plaintiffs said their health was harmed by radiation that escaped from the damaged TMI-2 plant for several days before the reactor was brought under control. An estimated 100,000 people fled the region during the crisis. GPU and Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials have maintained not enough radiation was released to cause adverse health effects, but some doctors as well as anti-nuclear activists argued that was unclear. "It just seemed to me there was scant, if not zero, evidence of a true corollary between the radiation and the illnesses," former GPU president and chief operating officer Herman M. Dieckamp said Thursday. "So it was probably the right thing for them to do." In 1990, a Columbia University study concluded the reported exposure levels were too low to have caused increased lung cancer and leukemia cases near the plant, which is on the Susquehanna River, about 10 miles south of Harrisburg. But a later study by Dr. Stephen Wing and others at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill School of Public Health used the same data and concluded "downwind" areas during the accident had increased cancer rates. Wing conceded his study did not prove more potent radiation releases, but said there was little else that would explain the higher cancer rates. A spokesman for a watchdog group that monitors Three Mile Island vowed Thursday the group "will continue to pursue and track radiogenic cancers. "While this is a setback, I believe we'll endure and prevail, probably when I'm a very old man," TMI Alert spokesman Eric Epstein. Two of the plaintiffs were Terry L. Koller and his wife, Joanne, who was pregnant when the TMI radiation plume drifted across the Susquehanna River. Their daughter, Abigayle, was born with deformed feet Aug. 12, 1979, and they filed suit in 1986. Koller said he and his wife have known the case was "dead in the water." Their daughter, who underwent two operations as a child, played basketball in high school and college and now does mission work. "We have moved on with our life," he said. "She has moved on with hers. We're not thinking about the past. The Lord gave her abilities in other ways." On the Net: Three Mile Island Alert: http://www.tmia.com Pennsylvania Department of Health: http://www.health.state.pa.us All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 28 Initiative Half-Life Salt Lake City Weekly - City Beat - December 26, 2002 Despite the failed initiative, activists are still on guard. If its true that failure is the best medicine for future success, Utah activists vigilant about the activities of Envirocare Corp. havent stopped even long enough to recite the maxim. Initiative 1 was a stab in the dark of sorts. What might have been an effort precision-crafted to keep higher-level radioactive Class B and C wastes from crossing state lines and entering into Envirocares storage facility in Clive, Utah, was instead an overly long, awkward initiative also attempting to tax the companys lower-level Class A wastes and funnel the windfall toward the states beleaguered educational system. Or so said critics. Both sides of the debate worried that voters might confuse the initiative with Skull Valley Goshute plans to store nuclear fuel rods on their land, a matter completely out of state hands. No one knows what exactly voters thought. All anyone really needed to know was that the ballot initiative met a crushing defeat. But the initiative was merely a new bottle for some pretty old wine, and the bitter dialogue between activists and Envirocare still flowseven more when your timeline is a month before the next legislative session. Now is a good time to get the core provisions of the initiative on the books, said Jason Groenewold, director of Families Against Incinerator Risk. That is: a ban on the hotter radioactive waste, regulatory reform and a fair tax on the wastes currently dumped in Utah. Depending on whom you ask, Envirocare is either on a behind-the-scenes track to put the finishing touches on its permit to store the hotter B and C wastes, or in the process of pulling back. Here are the facts: Envirocares application to store B and C wastes was approved in July 2001 by the Utah Division of Radiation Control, despite the companys lack of any emergency-response plan should an accident happen during transportation of the waste to Utah. In November of 2002, the Radiation Control Board, consisting of gubernatorial appointees, upheld that decision. Families Against Incinerator Risk appealed the license approval, but Envirocare has four more years to complete its licensing process. Ultimately, the company will have to get the approval of the governor and Legislature before any waste is shipped, and it still has to fulfill a few requirements of the Utah Radiation Control Board. Utah Legislative Watch President Claire Geddes believes the best way to manage the debate over these hotter wastes, which originate from nuclear power plants and medical byproducts, is to follow the example of the only other states accepting similar radioactive materials. Both South Carolina and Washington regulate these wastes by way of their public service commissions, which impose a set rate of return tax upon accepting them for storage. Other state legislatures debate the merits of accepting such wastes even before allowing companies onto the licensing track. Geddes quotes proudly from a 1992 performance audit by Utahs Department of Environmental Quality when stating that Envirocares license has evolved without either legislative or board direction. The process we have is just backwards. In other states, they start a debate even before a companys application process, Geddes said. We have seen [Envirocares license] go from norm waste to mixed waste, to Class A and now containerized Class A waste without ever so much as a vote from the Legislature. This is a license thats been amended and amended. The goal, as Geddes and others see it, is to stop further amendments to that license. Envirocare is, for now at least, adamant that its not even pursuing the addition of Class B and C wastes to its license. Envirocare vice president of marketing Julie Blake keeps her comments plain, and close to the vest. Not only is the company not seeking permission to store or dispose of B and C wastes at this time, she said. Envirocare isnt even creating a new emergency-response plan that would allow them to store such wastes. We are not continuing that process, Blake said. Were not going to complete the plan and take it back to the Radiation Control Board. For critics such as Groenewold and Geddes, whats telling is that the company has made amendments to its old emergency-response plan. Groenewold likened Envirocares insistence that its not pursuing storage of B and C wastes to the old saw of the scorpion who promises not to attack the frog who carries him across the lake, only to feel the sting once they arrive on shore. The scorpion explains its deception by saying it couldnt help itself, because thats what scorpions do. Utahs going to get bit if we buy into that, Groenewold said. Theyre trying to lull the public to sleep so that, at the 11th hour, they can come in and get approval. If theyre not pursuing this, then why did they oppose an attempt to ban B and C wastes from being dumped in Utah? Theyve got it in their pocket, and theyre holding onto it until they feel the time is right to get legislative and gubernatorial approval. story search [SXSW 2003 application, right- [Best of Utah] Salt Lake City Weekly and slweekly.com ©1996-2002 Copperfield Publishing, Inc.. All rights reserved. offices: 60 W. 400 South Salt Lake City, Utah 84101 801-575-7003 ***************************************************************** 29 Army Corps to hold meeting about nuclear waste dump PittsburghLIVE.com - [Valley News Dispatch] By The Valley News Dispatch Friday, December 27, 2002 PARKS: The Army Corps of Engineers will hold special public meetings about the nuclear waste dump along Route 66 on Jan. 13, 14, and 15, at the township community building, 26 Jackson St. The Army Corps wants to speak to residents and former workers on a one-on-one basis for historical information about the activities at the nuclear burial grounds, which was established in 1960. Residents must make an appointment to speak with Corps officials during the meeting. To request an interview time, contact Ron Wazenegger at 412-395-7221 or by e-mail, Ronald.W.Wazenegger@lrp.usace.army.milor write to Wazenegger at the U.S. Army Engineer District, Pittsburgh; 2038 William S. Moorhead Federal Building; 1000 Liberty Ave.; Pittsburgh, PA 15222-4186. The nuclear burial grounds, officially known as the "Parks Township Shallow Land Disposal Area," was a dumping ground for nuclear and chemical waste during the 1960s and early 1970s by NUMEC. Subsequent owners, the Atlantic-Richfield Co. and Babcock &Wilcox, have worked on plans for about 15 years without an approved plan from the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). About two years ago, U.S. Rep. John Murtha, D-Johnstown, through the federal defense budget, changed oversight of the cleanup from the NRC to the Army Corps. Murtha and local activist Patty Ameno of Leechburg pushed for new government oversight for the removal of more than 3 tons of contaminated materials at the Parks site. Before the Corps stepped in, the companies proposed keeping the waste on site. Across the Valley Port Authority Transit will add bus and rail service for Tuesday's First Night Pittsburgh celebration. PAT will operate light rail services beginning at 9 a.m. and extra buses beginning at 10 a.m. The buses will operate on the most heavily used routes as needed. First Night activities mean street closings downtown that will create detours for most downtown routes. The closures include: + Liberty Avenue to Stanwix Street: Noon, Dec. 31 to 3 a.m. Jan. 1 + Sixth Street from Liberty Avenue to Penn Avenue: 4 p.m. Dec. 31 through 1 a.m. Jan. 1 + Forbes Avenue from Wood Street to Stanwix Street: 4 p.m. Dec. 31 through 1 a.m. Jan.1 + Fifth Avenue from Wood Street to Liberty Avenue 4 p.m. Dec. 31 through 1 a.m. Jan 1 + Fifth Avenue extension from Fifth Avenue Place parking garage to Liberty Avenue 4 p.m. Dec. 31 through 1 a.m. Jan 1 + Del Ray Street from Forbes Avenue to Liberty Avenue 12 p.m. Dec. 31 through 3 a.m. Jan. 1 + New Liberty and Penn Avenues between Stanwix Street and parking garage turnaround: 6 p.m. Dec. 31 through 1 a.m. Jan. 1 Brochures providing details on all detours and temporary stops will be available at all affected stops. On Dec. 31 from 4 p.m. until the end of service, children aged 6 -12 wearing a First Night 2003 button, when accompanied by an adult, wearing the same button can ride the PAT system for free. For more information, contact PAT at 412-442-2000, or 412-231-7007 for speech- and hearing-impaired individuals. Submit drug questions Elaine Gohn and Roberta Lojak, whose daughters died from heroin, will write a question-and-answer column about illicit drugs from a mother's perspective. They aren't experts and don't claim to be. Instead, the women, who have immersed themselves in anti-drug literature, pass on information for parents and others who have questions. Submit questions in care of the Valley News Dispatch, Anti-drug column, 210 Fourth Ave., Tarentum, PA, 15084 or by e-mail to vndcity@tribweb.com. Today's meeting: + Butler County Commissioners, agenda meeting, 9 a.m., County Government Center, public meeting room, 1st floor, 124 West Diamond St., Butler. ***************************************************************** 30 Russian and Iranian n-fuel contract December 26, 2002 Associated Press 12/27/2002 ALBUQUERQUE ? Sandia National Laboratories may soon be in the business of simulating nuclear explosions using small amounts of electrically charged plutonium. The experiments, which could start next summer, would mark the first time the lab uses the radioactive lead-like metal in its massive nuclear fusion machines. Sandia's gymnasium-sized "Z" and Saturn machines are normally used to create tiny but intense bursts of radiation for fusion research. The Department of Energy wants to use the machines to fire a small piece of metal against a plutonium target. Instruments would then measure the plutonium's response. Jeff Quintenz, head of Sandia's Pulsed Power Center, said the experiments would simulate the intense pressures found in a detonating nuclear bomb. Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore laboratories will make sealed target chambers containing the plutonium. Sandia will not handle the material directly. Quintenz said the amount of plutonium in the experiments will not be enough to initiate a nuclear chain reaction. Even so, he said Sandia is taking steps to ensure there are no leaks and has already conducted three test shots without the radioactive material to make sure the steel vessels are airtight. Three more tests are planned. A recent DOE study on the planned experiments cited only an "extremely unlikely" risk of accidental plutonium releases. The study, which was released this week, concluded the biggest risk for researchers was not the experiment but the possibility of a plane crashing into the area where the plutonium will be stored or a fire in the building. The study of plutonium and how it behaves under tremendous pressures ? similar to those of an exploding bomb ? are at the heart of modern nuclear research. The United States halted nuclear testing a decade ago and now relies on computer simulations to collect data. Several years ago, researchers realized that Sandia's nuclear fusion machines would be a cost-effective way of collecting the data, Quintenz said. Each machine ? the size of a basketball gym ? is shaped like a bicycle wheel, with enormous electrical capacitors at the outer edge of each spoke storing large electrical charges. The capacitors are triggered simultaneously, sending a charge down the spokes toward a target at the wheel's center. For the plutonium experiments, the target will be a small piece of titanium or other metal, Quintenz said. /©Santa Fe New Mexican 2002/ ***************************************************************** 35 Livermore Labs: Laser test more show than science Tri-Valley Herald Online December 27, 2002 - 3:17:20 AM MST Beams flashy, but not strong enough to simulate explosions, former lab scientist says By Ian Hoffman, STAFF WRITER In a whir of pre-holiday press, federal nuclear-weapons executives gush- ed over a four-barreled blaze of light inside Lawrence Livermore Lab's National Ignition Facility. For five-billionths of a second, the nation's biggest -- and at $4 billion, most expensive -- science project flickered to light a year or more ahead of schedule, creating four laser beams at 10 times the power generated by the entire country. "It will help us model and simulate nuclear explosions to ensure the safety and reliability of our nuclear weapons without underground nuclear testing," said Linton Brooks, acting National Nuclear Security Administration chief. In reality, to come close to simulating nuclear explosions, NIF will need to produce laser beams of a much longer pulse and higher energy, then tripled in frequency and focused down to a tiny fraction of a hair's breadth. In fact, former Livermore laser scientist Stephen Bodner wonders if there's a reason NIF managers didn't push the beams closer to what's necessary for fusion ignition, the driving rationale for the project. "I don't think they can model nuclear explosions with that kind of capability," said Bodner, a Princeton-trained plasma physicist who is retired chief of laser fusion research at the Naval Research Laboratory. Accolades to NIF's designers are in order, though, Bodner said. Since lasers are enormously inefficient, the project must hoard energy in capacitors and thick slabs of pink laser glass to turn less than 1 percent of incoming electrical energy into coherent light. And after three years of grim news about budget overruns and overshot schedules, Livermore and its government overseers deserve to crow a little for delivering beams ahead of time. Still, what Livermore managed was an easy proof of an early success in building a large laser, much as the lab has built for more than 30 years, Bodner said. Running a five nanosecond pulse is inherently easy, he said, because it doesn't allow time for problems to develop in the beam. The beams pass through pinhole "spatial filters" to remove errant light. The longer the pulse, the greater the risk that the edges of the pinholes will vaporize and scatter the beams. "They ran at too short a pulse length to test the spatial filters," Bodner said. "Their energy's too low, and their pulse length's wrong." "You'd be very excited to get anything out at all, because you spent all that money. But the fact they announced that performance level is very worrisome," he said. "It suggests they may not have addressed the problems they had in the front part of the laser," he said. NIF executives declined to respond to these critiques. Sources inside the project say nonetheless that the experiments showed a better-than-expected energy for each of the four beams and surprisingly consistent quality among them. It was prudent, they said, to stop shy of full power so scientists could examine the laser for damage before it becomes major. The four beams ended in a set of measuring instruments, short of the final lenses and target chamber where NIF's greatest technical challenges lie. The laser won't make "first light" in the chamber, the business end of NIF, for a few months. To have a shot at success, all 192 beams will have to undergo a frequency tripling -- a conversion from infrared to green to ultraviolet light -- and eventually be focused on superfrozen hydrogen targets that are the size of rice grains and devilishly hard to manufacture. Each of these issues -- pulse length, frequency, focus and target design -- are critical to assessing NIF's likelihood of ignition, its reason for being, defined as getting more energy out of the target than the lasers pour into it. "No one doubts that Livermore can build a big laser," said Marylia Kelley, executive director of Tri-Valley CAREs, a lab watchdog group. "The question is, can you make it do anything?" "So the proof of NIF is whether you can focus the beam, design the right target and deliver light at the right frequency and energy without blowing up the optics. In all three of those areas, there are still significant technical and scientific difficulties," she said. While the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Academy of Sciences have convened panels to study NIF, the General Accounting Office found that the project never has had a credible, independent review. A federal judge agreed this fall, ruling that most of NIF's latest reviews violated federal law requiring openness and balance. Contact Ian Hoffman at ihoffman@angnewspapers.com. About ANG Newspapers| Privacy Policy| Contact Us ***************************************************************** 36 It's time for a change at troubled Los Alamos Albuquerque Tribune Online TAGS BETWEEN PARAGRAPHS AS SHOWN --> It's time to look not only for a new approach to running Los Alamos National Laboratory, but also for a new manager and new leadership. The University of California, which manages Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory east of San Francisco, has failed to meet the modern, post-Cold War challenges of operating these national security labs in the national interest. The university has managed Los Alamos since the lab's inception during the World War II Manhattan Project, which created the first atomic bomb. It has managed Livermore since the lab was established in 1952. The university provided exemplary service during the project and through the Cold War decades. But for the better part of the last 10 years, UC has been muffing it and, frankly, muffing it badly. With each incident, it has promised reforms - but here we are again. The most recent Los Alamos snafu involves allegations of procurement abuses, theft of lab property, fraud and an embarrassing cover-up that has included the firing of the two investigators hired to look independently into the mess. These have escalated into inquiries or investigations by the FBI, the Department of Energy inspector general and House and Senate committees. Previously, Los Alamos' reputation as one of the world's premier scientific laboratories had been sullied by a series of security breaches, including: the incredible Wen Ho Lee affair; missing computer hard drives that contained critical nuclear weapons data; poor performance and public accountability during the catastrophic Cerro Grande Fire; and fuzzy leadership in the critical realm of managing the nation's nuclear weapons stockpiles using a science-based stewardship program. Los Alamos Lab Director John Browne last week promised personnel changes and said he plans now to run the lab more like a business. Browne, whose directorship has been less than reassuring, is behind the curve and likely part of the problem. What's needed isn't more window dressing, but a comprehensive management shakeup and a new lab corporate contract manager who will be accountable for critical national security programs and a billion-dollar-plus annual budget at Los Alamos. Ditto for Livermore. The academic-management approach seemed to work well in the early years at Los Alamos and Livermore, but UC is failing miserably and should bow out as gracefully as possible. It's not just about how the university has mismanaged Los Alamos, either. The university looked the other way while Livermore completely bungled the nation's biggest science project, the $4.5 billion National Ignition Facility, a nuclear bomb-blast simulator that uses a laser. This month, Livermore finally conducted its first test on NIF. While the National Nuclear Security Administration reported the successful test was 1 years ahead of a revised schedule, the entire project is years late and billions over budget. It's clear Los Alamos and Livermore need the kind of tough, business-minded, accountable management that has been exhibited routinely at their sibling nuclear weapons laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque. Sandia, not incidentally, has been managed by a corporation - not a university - since President Harry Truman created it in 1949. Operating on a business model that views government and corporate research contractors as customers, Sandia has managed - unlike Los Alamos and Livermore - to keep its nose clean. But beyond that, insiders will tell you Sandia has become the model national laboratory, adapting to the difficult post-Cold War environment - indeed, prospering in it - by out-competing and out-serving big-hitter rivals Los Alamos and Livermore. Whether it's high-speed supercomputing or relevant contributions to nuclear stockpile stewardship, the engineering-based Sandia Labs seems to be running rings around its stuffy scientific brethren. The secretary of Energy recently announced renewal of Lockheed Martin's contract to manage Sandia. He and Congress need look no further for a solution to the woes that besiege Los Alamos and Livermore. It's time to ask UC to step aside, put its management contract up for competitive bid and see if corporate America can hold these two labs, their managements and their employees accountable. © The Albuquerque Tribune. ***************************************************************** 37 ROGUE CHIEFS: They believed in the system -- and it failed Al-Ahram Weekly | Special | Scylla and Charybdis [Al-Ahram Weekly Online] 26 Dec. 2002 - 1 Jan. 2003 Issue No. 618 Special Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 ROGUE CHIEFS: They believed in the system -- and it failed them. On the fringes of last week's conference, Nyier Abdou catches up with former UN humanitarian co-ordinators for Iraq Hans von Sponeck and Denis Halliday to talk about warmongering, doublespeak and life after the UN Scylla and Charybdis Denis Halliday navigates dangerous waters between a cruel system and a brutal regime "My best bet is that the Arab leaders and the European leaders, [should] have the guts, have the courage to stand up and defend the rights of the Palestinians, and the Iraqis, and, I would say, the whole Arab world, from further hegemonic interference by what is a new empire arising in the West -- a new colonial regime being implemented, or planned to be implemented by the United States. It's quite bizarre. It's quite obscene." Denis Halliday In the vast machinery of the behemoth that is the United Nations, even a high-level figure is just a worker bee. Or so it seems after talking to Denis Halliday, who four years after resigning his post as chief UN relief co-ordinator for Iraq still seems to relish the liberty to speak freely about the notorious failings of the sanctions regime. Upholding a sense of justice, keeping one's faith in the various conventions that make up the body of international law -- these are not the purview of humanitarian leaders working under the umbrella of the blue flag. As for the colony, even the secretary-general is not the queen bee. In an interview with Al-Ahram Weekly, Halliday described the limitations on his autonomy during his tenure as the UN assistant secretary-general as those of an "international civil servant". "I mean, I was contracted; I was subordinate to the secretary-general and I was not in a position to criticise the work of the Security Council, the member states -- they were my bosses. The secretary-general is a servant of the council. I was the servant's servant." Halliday's formal demeanour and fluent expression of indignation mask a dry wit and fiery zeal with respect to the failure of sanctions in Iraq and the disproportionate influence of the US in the functions of the UN. Candid, thoughtful and instinctively precise, Halliday has been a standard-bearer of international efforts to end sanctions in Iraq. More recently, he has been a prominent figure opposing another war in Iraq. Noting that his efforts to expose the devastating impact of sanctions on the people of Iraq shook the ground under the UN establishment -- and, by extension, his job -- Halliday has no regrets. "Of course, that's when the pressure came for my removal, and when I decided that I had made some changes; I'd made some difference in Iraq, and maybe I could do better by leaving the organisation." With liberation from the fetters of UN diplomacy came the freedom to "go public, go worldwide with the crimes being committed in Iraq". Those crimes, he says, have their bedrock in the sanctions regime, but they are also derivatives of what Halliday clearly identifies as "war crimes" committed by the US during the Gulf War. Among these, he singles out the purposeful destruction of water systems, which, despite being a contravention of the laws of war, "very deliberately kill the children of Iraq". The escalating calamities that have proliferated under sanctions, Halliday suggests, can be traced to a combination of direct war damage, the use of depleted uranium and "chronic and acute malnutrition". It is striking that with such high-profile defections as that of Halliday and his successor, Hans von Sponeck, not to mention the persistent struggle of former UNSCOM inspector Scott Ritter to debunk US and British half-truths about the threat from Iraq, the sanctions regime remains in place. In Cairo last week for a conference launching the International Campaign against US Aggression on Iraq (ICAA), both Halliday and von Sponeck condemned the crippling of the Iraqi economy, the prevention of health care and soaring infant and child mortality rates in Iraq as nothing short of genocide perpetrated by the very organisation founded to protect the humanity and sovereignty of its member nations. "Genocide" is a strong word; and one that, it could be argued, is used too freely. But Halliday does not shy away from every implication the term carries: from the institutional methodology, to the systematic execution, to the racial hatred. In his address to the conference last Wednesday, Halliday defined sanctions as "warfare" and "consistent with war crimes". Speaking of US President George W Bush's determination to invade Iraq, Halliday denounced the administration's war plans as "obscene". "It's criminal," he said, "and I believe it's indictable." Once a relatively wealthy nation, Iraq was full of imported goods; today, few can afford the most basic supplies While Halliday maintains that sanctions -- provided for in the UN charter -- are a legitimate device to force the hand of leaderships, he is pointed about the punitive nature of sanctions in Iraq, noting that he thinks given its experience in Iraq, the United Nations "is rethinking, and hopefully will never use open-ended, comprehensive sanctions again". But he adds that the mistakes made in applying sanctions in Iraq have been well acknowledged, justified, compounded and sustained. "The fact is, the UN Security Council has allowed these sanctions on Iraq to drag on for 12 years, and this is not happenstance; this is deliberate decision-making. That's why I've determined it to be a genocide." Asked if there are sanctions "smart" enough to be defensible in Iraq today, Halliday says we are too late in the game. "I think at this late date, after 12 years, that is collective punishment; that is, as I said, genocidal. That's unacceptable. That's got to come to an end," he says. "We've got to get the economy back on its feet, get people back into their jobs, restore health care, education -- I mean, give Iraqi people back their lives. That's the least we can do. Give them their economic and social rights back." The question that emerges out of this call is whether we can, or should, reinstate systems that meet those needs under the leadership of Saddam Hussein. Within this question nests the dilemma all anti-war and anti-sanctions activists must labour under: can we defend the people of Iraq without defending Saddam Hussein? Does fighting for the end of sanctions and the sovereignty of Iraq carry with it the necessary consequence of propping up Hussein's regime? "That's a decision for the people of Iraq," says Halliday. "I don't believe in regime change, or assassination. I believe if the Iraqis had their economy, had their lives back and had their way of life restored, they would take care of the form of governance that they want, that they believe is suitable for their country." Pointing to the model of Indonesia, where a "largely bloodless" revolt started by students managed to oust a "genuine dictator" like Suharto, Halliday argues that Iraqis "are certainly capable of doing the same thing. We've got to give them the opportunity." Far from crippling Hussein's regime, sanctions have in fact strengthened Hussein's hold on power. Meanwhile, notes Halliday, sanctions have "weakened the very people who think about democracy or think about multi-party systems, or think about change of government or governance". The end result is that "we have sustained a regime that apparently we don't like, and we've denied the opportunities for change. The US and Britain, says Halliday, are well aware of damning reports by the secretary-general that spell genocide. "This is a tragedy for the United Nations. Of course, there's a much bigger tragedy for the people of Iraq. And we're all responsible. The United Nations is us, and we are bound by the resolutions of the Security Council." How bound? It's a tricky question. Can one argue that a resolution of the Security Council goes against international law, when it is the Security Council itself that codifies international law? Halliday has raised this predicament before, asking whether we are expected to swallow a resolution that is incompatible with the UN charter and the declaration of human rights. The answer, he feels, is obviously no. "The Security Council is out of control," he says. "There's no device in the UN structure to oversee the work of the council, to monitor its decisions, to monitor the impact of those decisions, and their compatibility, or otherwise, with other aspects of international law. There's no Supreme Court. There's no review, it's part of the reform discussion that many of us carry out." Numerous reports have condemned the sanctions regime as institutionalising the Iraqi people's dependence on aid. Though the Oil-for Food (OfF) programme, authorised by UN Resolution 986 in 1995, has brought some moderate improvement, it did not do the job of eliminating Iraq's humanitarian crisis -- mainly because it was never designed to be a substitute for a normally functioning economy. OfF can only salve the most egregious suffering caused by sanctions, but it cannot possibly address the long-term impact on health standards, infrastructure and social life. It does not help Iraqis help themselves. Asked if he thought sanctions were ever meant as a method of bringing Iraq back into the international fold, Halliday is evidently unconvinced. "No, I think the Gulf War, the invasion of Kuwait -- which was supported by the United States, and encouraged by the United States -- was all part of a plan to crush Saddam Hussein, and crush Iraq -- perhaps the only country showing leadership potential in the Arab world," he says. Sanctions, he argues, were part of this. They built on the destruction of the war -- the use of depleted uranium, the bombing of civilian targets, the destruction of water systems and electric power. It was "horrific" back in 1991, says Halliday, "and, I think, we have very deliberately been genocidal in our endeavours since then until today." The loudest condemnation of US war plans is of course that US policy on Iraq is solely determined by oil. "Well it's certainly not about weapons, because there's no threat from Iraq," responds Halliday. "We know that in this neighbourhood, and the Americans know it perfectly well. It's a game being played by Mr Bush, a very dangerous, nasty game." Halliday notes that the CIA and the Pentagon have indicated to Bush that there is in fact no military threat from Iraq. "So it's about oil. But it's also about oil and Israel, Israel's position, Israel's representation of American interests in the Middle East. I think that's certainly got to be part of the problem." "But I think it's also about this desire for influence and power and presence throughout the world, including the Middle East," he adds. "And it gets back again and again to the need to control oil resources, which are of such importance to the survival of the economy of the United States. And I think that Washington is very insecure in its relationship with Saudi Arabia; they're not at all sure what's going to happen in the years ahead, and they want a reserve tank. And the reserve tank, unfortunately, is called Iraq. It's sitting on a 120 billion barrels, it's cheap and easy to obtain, and all it needs is a friendly regime in Baghdad that will cow tow to American interests and American demands, and I think that's the name of the game of the attack, the war, the bombing, the invasion, [and] the occupation of Iraq that Mr Bush clearly has in mind. It's part of a strategy to dominate world affairs, world economy, to dominate world globalisation that is designed to support and enhance the lifestyle of Americans." In the West, however, knowledge of the human face of sanctions is poor, and it grows poorer the further West you travel, suggests Halliday. "I think in Europe and Britain there's much more knowledge and understanding and empathy for the Arab world, Arab peoples; there's more travel to and from this part of the world, there's more visitors from the Middle East. There's awareness. But there isn't, I think, a real understanding of the impact of sanctions on people, on their families, of social consequences. On women, on professional women, on all the daily concerns of life, of education, of health care, of elderly parents, the complete collapse of the high standards of human values that Iraq enjoyed -- the introduction of corruption, all of this. The isolation, intellectual and otherwise, all of this is not well understood in Europe, or in Britain." In the United States, where Halliday lives part of the year, "it's much worse". "There's almost total ignorance there," he says. "The media is not very helpful. The Americans themselves don't read, or don't look outwards; they're focused more on domestic issues -- inward-looking people, unfortunately. Of course there are many exceptions to that, but the great majority of Americans really don't know what's happening in Iraq, they're not aware of their foreign policy, [and] they're certainly not aware of their responsibility for the foreign policy in Washington." It has been argued by the US and Britain that the money brought in by OfF has been misused by Hussein and that this accounts for the continuing humanitarian difficulties in the country. But Halliday maintains that no money coming from OfF ever made it into the hands of the Iraqi government. Proceeds went from UN accounts to contractors assembled by the ministries of trade and health to provide the basic supplies allowed under the sanctions regime. "There may have been some kickbacks on contracts, who knows?" concedes Halliday. "But it's very small money in a country of 23 million people being fed every day by this programme. This is a hugely dependent society." As to illegal trade, Halliday says that everyone knows that there's been trade across the Turkish and Jordanian borders, and perhaps with Iran and Syria as well. "This has brought in additional money," he admits. "This money has been used perhaps unwisely or wisely, I don't quite know, but it's legitimate as far as I'm concerned. The only weapon that Iraq has is oil and its revenues. They're entitled to use that weapon any way they can see fit, whether it's through Syria or into Turkey, or whatever. We can't deny them that; they have a right to defend themselves." Calling on Iraq's sovereignty, Halliday adds that Iraq also has a right to keep weapons of defence as well. "There's no right for the United States of America to bomb this country as it does under this no-fly zone rubbish -- for which there is no resolution of the United Nations. Iraq has a right to defend its people and its territory, and they should do so." Predicting a heavy loss of life in the event of another war in Iraq, Halliday warns that there could be a total breakdown of civil society already considerably weakened by years of sanctions. "I think, and perhaps I even hope, that there will be a huge outrage in the Arab world," he adds. "That the people will convince their governments that this is grossly unacceptable." Ideally, he says, that decision would be taken now. "We really need to see Arab governments refusing to collaborate with the United States of America in its war to crush the people of Iraq. This is criminal, you know, this is hypocrisy." Halliday was keen to make the same point in talks last Tuesday between himself, von Sponeck and Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa. While Halliday praised the moves made by Moussa within the network of the Arab League, he implored him to do more. Halliday stressed the importance of co-ordinating a unified Arab stance on a governmental level, noting that there is a big gap between Arab opposition at the popular level and at the level of government. Along with von Sponeck, Halliday impressed upon the secretary-general that there cannot be any kind of resolution to the conflict in the Middle East should the US decide to attack Iraq. Comparing the US stance to that of British colonialism in the last century, the two identified the role of the Arab League as crucial to the Iraq debate. "That, to me, is part of the tragedy for all of us," Halliday told the Weekly. "That we look at the Arab world, we see the potential, we see the history -- the great, great history of this part of the world ... And we're standing back and allowing the United States to totally demolish this potential. It doesn't serve anybody, and the Arab governments, above all, should see it and should do something about it, and have the courage to do so. And we Europeans who are gutless, should support you, should support the Arab leadership." Pausing to insert a sly jab, he added, "We think Mr Bush is a moron -- like the Canadians. We know he's dangerous." While there is no panacea for Iraq, Halliday certainly has a clear picture of what could be done to set the country on the road to recovery. "The first thing to do is to end the economic embargo, to allow the economy to be rebuilt, to get people back to employment, housing, education, health care, agriculture, water systems -- I mean, all the things that have been damaged, broken down, through the 12 years." Next, and perhaps most important in terms of regional stability, Halliday calls for the implementation of paragraph 14 of UN resolution 687, calling for the removal of all WMD from the entire region. "That of course means stripping Israel of its nuclear weapons -- that would ease a lot of tension, I believe, and it might be a move in the right direction for ultimate, I would say, world disarmament." He adds: "We've got to sanction the arms producers. The five permanent members of the Security Council alone produce 80-plus per cent of the weapons sold in the world today. We need to stop the availability of cheap weapons." Finally, Halliday says that we will have to ask Baghdad to address some of its own issues, "particularly, I think, the ethnic rights of the Kurds, and their role in the greater Iraq". Human rights, as well as civil and political rights, will also have to be on the agenda. "They need to work with their neighbours and restore full relations with the Kuwaitis and the Saudis, work within the Arab League and begin to use their great resources," says Halliday. But his vision doesn't end there. Once Iraq has fixed its oil production capacity and rebuilt its infrastructure, its social and economic participation, then Iraq should start to look outwards -- "to use its great wealth to improve and enhance the other peoples of the Arab world who don't share this sort of income. Income distribution needs to be looked at in the Arab world, and I hope an Iraqi example of generosity and investment in the Arab peoples where oil wealth is not present might encourage the other wealthy countries, like the Saudis and Kuwaitis and others, to take their money out of Wall Street and put it in the Arab world." UN RESOLUTION 661 issued on 6 August 1990, placed Iraq under comprehensive economic sanctions. These sanctions remain today. Although the United Nations has instituted a number of reforms regarding sanctions, the Office of the Iraq Programme (OIP) has been deliberately separated from the Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) such that sanctions reforms over the last five years do not apply in the case of Iraq. In 1996, the introduction of the Oil-for-Food programme was intended to help alleviate the unintentional suffering of the Iraqi populace. But even with the modifications made in May of this year, the effects of the sanctions regime remain devastating. -- An average of 250 people die every day in Iraq due to the direct effects of sanctions (UNICEF, 1998). -- According to the UNDP, 49 per cent of families do not earn enough money to meet their basic needs. -- Iraq's ranking in UNDP's Human Development Index fell from 96 in 1990, to 126 in 2000. -- In October, the UN's Office of the Iraq Programme found that 1,528 approved humanitarian supply contracts, worth about $2.84 billion, are without available funds. -- For every seven children in Iraq, one dies before the age of five -- an estimated 5,000 excess child deaths every month above the mortality rate in 1989, before sanctions were imposed (UNICEF, 1999). -- Of children under five, 32 per cent (some 960,000 children) are chronically malnourished -- a rise of 72 per cent since 1991. Almost one quarter (23 per cent) are underweight -- twice as high as the levels found in neighbouring Jordan or Turkey (UNICEF, 1997). -- The total value allocated to each person in Iraq under the UN Oil-for-Food programme amounts to less than 49 cents per day. -- An estimated 110,000 Iraqi civilians died in 1991 from the direct health effects of the Gulf War (Greenpeace, 1991) -- In September 1989, 123 children died from diarrhoea. In September 2001, the number was 2,932 -- an increase of 2,284 per cent. -- It will take an estimated $7 billion to bring Iraq's power sector back to its 1990 capacity country-wide (UNDP). -- In July of 1995, average shop prices of essential commodities were 850 times July 1990 levels (March 1999 UN report). -- And estimated 14-16 million Iraqis -- some two-thirds of the population -- are solely dependent on food rations for their survival (UN Office of the Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq -- UNOHCI). By Nyier Abdou © Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. 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