***************************************************************** 11/28/02 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 10.309 ***************************************************************** 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 Atomic agency said ready to criticize Pyeongyang * 2 Instability could make Pak nuclear assets vulnerable: US expert 3 Rainbow warriors fire anti-nuclear salvo 4 BE wins reprieve after loan deal extended 5 CHRONOLOGY-British Energy's road to ruin* 6 UK nuclear firm's rescue plan saddles taxpayer* 7 FACTBOX-British Energy in rescue deal* 8 Schroeder makes u-turn on Iraq 9 British Energy rescue to cost taxpayers £3bn 10 Suave banker chosen to avert nuclear meltdown 11 India RS: Govt. urged to take proactive role in Gulf 12 Iraqi doctors in Tokyo accuse U.S. of Gulf War 'crime' 13 British Energy 'bailout' cleared 14 Investors lose out in British Energy deal 15 Emergency loan extended for British Energy 16 US: British Energy to sell Canadian and U.S. nuclear plants in 17 North Korea accuses US of lying about nuclear programme 18 IAEA to Adopt Statement Urging NK to Give Up Nuke Program 19 Troubled energy firm to be restructured 20 Nuclear-free Taiwan feasible by 2061, says AEC head 21 Nuclear-free Taiwan must wait 22 Exercise in NATO-building -- The Washington Times 23 Geologists accused of revealing state secrets NUCLEAR REACTORS 24 US: Indian Pt. 2 Sets Record for Itself in Refueling Job 25 US: Operator makes plans to test damaged Ohio nuclear plant 26 TEPCO tried to rush nuke reactor checks 27 AU: Lucas Heights seeks a name - 28 Turkish minister says nuclear energy plan revived 29 US: Nuclear plant to undergo testing NUCLEAR SAFETY 30 US: Attorney argues case for sick worker - 31 US: EPA Official Wrongly Accused 32 Studies barely scratch surface of Gulf War's toll on health NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 33 US: Nevada senators seek Yucca Mountain probe 34 US: Yucca: Missing data 'no surprise' 35 US: Former inspector: Yucca Mountain plagued with problems* 36 US: Keep an eye on Repository Development NUCLEAR WEAPONS 37 [southnews] Khadduri: Iraq's Nuclear Non-Capability 38 [smygo] Thai Activists Declare No-Go "Green" Areas 39 See You In Court - Blair to answer legality of war plans* / US DEPT. OF ENERGY 40 Debate Continues Over LANL Firings* * 41 Hanford moves 'nastiest' fuel 42 S Carolina: State gets plutonium deal 43 Cancer claims against Rocketdyne can go to trial 44 Bechtel Jacobs takes it on the chin, again 45 ORNL's Griest to speak at meeting 46 Lab informants say firings were unjust OTHER NUCLEAR 47 IEA chief says energy security favors unconventional resources 48 Court Requires Cheney to Disclose Energy Documents 49 WNA NEWS BRIEFING 02.48 | 20 - 26 November 2002 50 Cheney again told to turn over files - 51 Secrecy News 11/27/02 ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 Atomic agency said ready to criticize Pyeongyang * *by Oh Young-hwan * November 29, 2002 The International Atomic Energy Agency was expected to adopt a statement calling on North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program at a meeting of the international agency's board of governors now under way. Although some observers see the expected move as a new source of pressure on the North, it is not clear what sway the body might have. The IAEA stimulated Pyeongyang to fierce rhetoric during the 1993-94 faceoff over the North's nuclear program when it adopted a resolution telling the North to comply with its nonproliferation commitments and accept inspections of its nuclear facilities. An official in Seoul said the governors of the IAEA were reviewing a statement for a vote. Japan and the United States are represented on the 36-member board this year, but South Korea is not. The board meeting will be the agency's first chance to comment on the revelations in September that the North has conducted a program to enrich uranium since the late 1990s. Another international organization concerned with the North's nuclear issue, the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization, has scheduled a board meeting on Dec. 10 to consider if and how to proceed with its nuclear power plant construction project in the North. ¨Ï 2002 JoongAng Ilbo , Joins.com . All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 2 Instability could make Pak nuclear assets vulnerable: US expert Daily Times /By Khalid Hasan/ Washington: Noted strategic security expert David Albright believes that instability in Pakistan could make its nuclear weapons and stocks of nuclear explosive material dangerously vulnerable to theft. In a recent paper, he argues that if domestic instability leads to the downfall of the Pakistani government, nuclear weapons and the means to make them could fall into the hands of a government hostile to the United States and its allies. He concedes that the precise threat to Pakistan?s stability or its nuclear weapons complex is difficult to judge, adding that during times of relative political and social normalcy, the security of Pakistan?s nuclear arsenal is probably adequate and could be expected to improve consistent with other nuclear programmes worldwide. However, fallout from Pakistan?s decision to cooperate with the United States following the September 11 terrorist attacks may severely test Pakistan?s security system throughout its nuclear weapons complex. Albright, who is the head of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) is of the view that Pakistan is believed to maintain tight control over its nuclear assets, and it may have instituted special steps to deal with the current situation. Nonetheless, the US government and the international community should work to improve security over Pakistan?s nuclear assets, both in the short and long term. The war on terrorism is expected to be long and drawn out. The Pakistani military and intelligence services may retain strong ties to Taliban officials in Afghanistan. Like the Pakistani population, many among the Pakistani military or the nuclear establishment could be sympathetic to fundamentalist causes or hostile to the United States. These sympathies could grow, depending on the course of the war in Afghanistan or elsewhere. Such insider threats could pose one of the most vexing problems in the current crisis. Albright quotes a former Clinton administration official as saying that before September 11 Pakistan had requested some kind of assistance to improve its physical security capabilities. ?Providing assistance to Pakistan, however, is not as straightforward as aiding the former Soviet Union. Direct, substantial assistance could embarrass the Pakistani government and provide ammunition to the government?s political opponents that the United States is attempting to gain direct control over Pakistan?s nuclear weapons. In addition, Pakistan treats the location of its nuclear weapons as highly classified and apparently depends on this secrecy to increase the survivability of its nuclear weapons. Pakistan is unlikely to welcome US assistance that could reveal its nuclear weapons storage sites,? he writes. He points out that in addition, the United States faces a series of constraints that complicate the provision of assistance to Pakistan. Such assistance should not violate US commitments or objectives under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), harm US relations with India, inadvertently encourage nuclear testing or otherwise contribute to advances in Pakistan?s nuclear arsenal, or increase the threat of a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan. Albright notes that during the last 25 years, Pakistan has developed an extensive nuclear weapons complex. Prior to its nuclear tests in May 1998, successive Pakistani governments tried to hide many aspects of its nuclear weapons programme while simultaneously revealing enough to convince India and the rest of the world that it had workable nuclear weapons. A result of this opaqueness is that Pakistan has released little information to the public about its complex of facilities devoted to making nuclear weapons. Typically, these activities include research, development, and testing of nuclear weapons, the production of plutonium and highly enriched uranium (HEU), the manufacture of nuclear weapons, and facilities for mating nuclear weapons to delivery systems, including aircraft and ballistic missiles. He believes that Pakistan has the capability to make both plutonium and highly enriched uranium (HEU), or ?fissile materials,? for nuclear weapons. Albright maintains that Pakistan possesses a capability to make weapon-grade plutonium for nuclear weapons. Albright concludes by examining the possibility of a coup by forces hostile to the United States, noting that it has been proposed by some that in such an event, the US military should be ready to provide security over the nuclear weapons or even to take the weapons out of Pakistan entirely) without the permission of the Pakistani authorities. In addition, writes Albright, removing the nuclear weapons would not be enough. The new government would inherit the facilities to make nuclear weapons. Extensive bombing would thus be required at several nuclear sites, including the relatively large Khushab reactor and New Labs reprocessing plant. Daily Times - All Rights Reserved ***************************************************************** 3 Rainbow warriors fire anti-nuclear salvo Nov 28 2002 By The Journal Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior berthed in the shadow of Hartlepool's nuclear power station yesterday. On board was Greenpeace executive director Stephen Tindale, who addressed campaigners against plans for a second power station in the town. Tonight at 7.30 in the Baltic Suite at Hartlepool Historic Quay, Greenpeace and Nuclear Free Future are to host a public meeting to put forward the case for renewable energy sources. Also tonight, the BBC's Question Time will be broadcast from the Borough Hall on the Headland, Hartlepool. Hartlepool Labour MP Peter Mandelson is expected to be one of the panellists. Rainbow Warrior will be moored at Spiller's Quay, Newcastle, on Saturday and Sunday as part of a three-month research and educational tour sponsored by the Greenpeace Environmental Trust. Visitors will be able to take a free guided tour of the ship, meet the crew and watch footage of the Rainbow Warrior in action from 10am until 4pm both days. *Copyright and Trade Mark Notice* ***************************************************************** 4 BE wins reprieve after loan deal extended Scotsman.com Robin Jeffery outside BE headquaters in East Kilbride. /IAIN DEY BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT/ BRITISH Energy?s £650 million government lifeline was extended yesterday as part of a last-ditch rescue deal, which will leave its shareholders out of pocket. Massive nuclear clean-up costs will be foisted on to the taxpayer as part of the deal, with the government shelling out £150 million to £200 million every year for the next decade to keep the company afloat. The East Kilbride-based company?s under fire chairman and chief executive, Robin Jeffrey, has also been ousted and replaced by Adrian Montague - the deputy chairman of Network Rail and a former adviser to the Treasury. Trade and industry secretary Patricia Hewitt told parliament yesterday that the government had agreed to play its part in allowing British Energy to attempt "solvent restructuring". She added: "We cannot just walk away from them; no responsible government would. This is the reason why the situation with British Energy is different from any other generator." Conservative trade spokes-man Tim Yeo said: "The truth is that the government?s own actions and omissions created problems for British Energy, which would have not otherwise arisen." BE?s loan has been extended until 9 March. If the restructuring deal is not on schedule at that time, the government may still pull the plug and launch insolvency proceedings. As part of the deal, the company will renegotiate fuel reprocessing contracts with its state-owned sister company British Nuclear Fuels - which operates the rest of Britain?s nuclear power plants. But UK taxpayers will be coughing up for British Energy for the next 80 years through a commitment to funding a new Nuclear Liability Fund (NLF) - which will take over responsibility for nuclear decommissioning. In exchange, British Energy must pay £20 million a year to the NLF plus 65 per cent of available cash - estimated by BE at a total of £5.2 billion a year. News of the extra burden on the state comes just a day after Chancellor Gordon Brown admitted that he would have to up the state?s borrowing this year to £20 billion to fund his public expenditure plans. The restructuring also includes a debt-for-equity swap, which will see up to £700 million of new bonds issued to existing bondholders, including £275 million-worth to be passed to the hands of the NLF. The new bonds won?t start paying until 2035. But shareholders are the big losers, with the value of the existing shares set to be "very significantly diluted". BE?s battered shares plunged 60 per cent to a new low of 7.5p, valuing the former blue-chip firm at just £46 million. Malcolm Stacey, who runs sharecrazy.com, which represents some of BE?s 224,000 private investors, said: "Something is better than nothing. Shareholders have lost a lot anyway." One of the company?s bondholders added: "It doesn?t sound too good. But when the alternative is administration I don?t suppose we have much choice other than to say yes." The company insisted its 5,200 employees were not at risk of losing their jobs, but trade union Amicus said it was seeking further reassurances. *BE's reprieve * # Emergency credit line extended until 9 March, 2003, but maintained at current level of £650 million - despite EU permission to hike it above £1 billion. # Nuclear clean-up costs passed to taxpayer through new fund. # Chairman and chief executive Dr Robin Jeffrey ousted. Former Treasury adviser Adrian Montague appointed chairman. # New fuel deal with BNFL. # Debt-for-equity swap leaves shareholders out in the cold. *Related Articles: British Energy * Troubled BE ditches top man in shake-up (29-Nov-02) Cash lifeline for BE (28-Nov-02) No decision from government on BE (26-Nov-02) Loan meltdown looms for BE (20-Nov-02) BE mulls debt-equity swap as crisis deepens (18-Nov-02) More More Articles *Website* British Energy ©2002 scotsman.com | contact ***************************************************************** 5 CHRONOLOGY-British Energy's road to ruin* / Thu November 28, 2002 09:25 AM ET / LONDON, Nov 28 (Reuters) - Stricken nuclear generator British Energy won an extension of emergency state aid on Thursday and unveiled a restructuring plan that saddles the taxpayer with the bill for cleaning up its nuclear liabilities. Following is a chronology tracing the company's history. JULY 1996 - British Energy privatised. It owns eight nuclear power stations in the UK. JUNE 1999 - British Energy buys Swalec retail business from Welsh utility Hyder for 105 million pounds ($163.1 million). AUG 2000 - British Energy sells Swalec to Scottish & Southern Energy for 210 million pounds. British Energy keeps contract to buy power from Teesside power station, which is valued as a 349 million pound liability in its 2002 accounts. MARCH 2001 - New, more competitive electricity trading arrangements start. Prices sink sharply and some coal-fired plants are closed. JUNE 2001 - Peter Hollins resigns as chief executive after a boardroom dispute over his role. Replaced by Robin Jeffrey. MARCH 2002 - Analysts predict company will post losses at least until 2008. MAY 2002 - British Energy starts talks with state-run British Nuclear Fuels about running BNFL's Magnox power stations and possible renegotiation of costly reprocessing contracts. MAY 2002 - British Energy reports a 493 million pound pre-tax loss but surprises analysts by continuing to pay a dividend to shareholders and making no indication it will cut the payout in future. AUG 13, 2002 - The company closes Scottish Torness reactors because of technical problems and slashes its electricity output forecast for the year. Shares fall nearly 30 percent. AUG 14/15, 2002 - Executives tell analysts the company does not face a liquidity crisis. SEPT 5, 2002 - Shares suspended after it says it could face insolvency because of low power prices. Seeks state support. SEPT 7, 2002 - Financial Services Authority starts probe into whether company misled investors about its financial position. SEPT 9, 2002 - Government gives it a 410 million pound loan until September 27. Shares resume trading, fall 65 percent to 28p. SEPT 10, 2002 - Government adviser does not rule out putting company in administration. Company's bonds fall. SEPT 19, 2002 - Government tells British Energy unions it is considering all options, despite speculation group could end up in administration. SEPT 26, 2002 - Government extends its financial lifeline to British Energy until November 29. OCT 1, 2002 - Belgium complains to European Commission over UK aid to British Energy. Commission promises speedy decision. OCT 7, 2002 - Environmental campaigners Greenpeace go to court in effort to overturn state bailout. NOV 13, 2002 - British government announces plan to put state nuclear clean-up costs in a special fund -- a move that could see the fund taking on British Energy's liabilities. NOV 15, 2002 - British Energy says in talks to sell its 82 percent stake in Canada's Bruce Power nuclear project. NOV 22, 2002 - High Court grants Greenpeace right to challenge government aid to British Energy. NOV 27, 2002 - European Commission approves loan on condition that full restructuring is in place by March 9, 2003. NOV 28, 2002 - Company announces rescue plan -- government loan extended to March 9, 2003, taxpayers to underwrite nuclear clean-up liabilities. Chairman Robin Jeffrey goes. Government says administration may be the only option if restructuring fails. Reuters The Company Products & Services ***************************************************************** 6 UK nuclear firm's rescue plan saddles taxpayer* / Thu November 28, 2002 08:44 AM ET / (Adds detail throughout) LONDON, Nov 28 (Reuters) - Stricken nuclear generator British Energy won an extension of emergency state aid on Thursday and unveiled a restructuring plan that gives the government control over 65 percent of its income. The government said the deal in which it underwrites the multi-billion pound nuclear clean-up liabilities of the producer of a fifth of Britain's power will cost the taxpayer between 150 and 200 million pounds a year for the next 10 years. "The government's overriding priorities have always been to ensure nuclear safety and security of electricity supplies," said a statement from the Department of Trade and Industry. "This restructuring package is a pragmatic approach that should ensure that these aims are met." British Energy said it would issue 700 million pounds ($1.1 billion) worth of new bonds and new shares in exchange for existing bonds, a move that it said would "very significantly" dilute the holdings of its existing shareholders. It also announced the departure of Executive Chairman Robin Jeffrey, who shoulders some of the blame for the privatised firm's problems. "Something is better than nothing. At least the company is not going into liquidation. Shareholders have lost a lot any way," said Malcolm Tracey, one of the firm's 224,000 small investors. The battered stock plunged 40 percent to 9.5 pence. British Energy also said it was reshaping costly fuel reprocessing contracts with state-owned nuclear fuels group BNFL, setting up a new contract that ties the price it pays to the price of power to offer it some relief in the hard times. British Energy ran into trouble earlier this year when wholesale power prices tumbled below the cost of production and has been surviving on government money since September. On Thursday, the loan was extended to March 9 next year. Nuclear safety has been an issue for the government, as has the future of BNFL, which counts British Energy as its biggest customer. Ministers are desperate to avoid the debacle that forced privatised rail firm Railtrack into administration last year. But the loan has drawn angry protests and legal action from anti-nuclear groups who says nuclear power is uneconomic and dangerous and that reactors should be shut down. European Commission approval for the loan was granted on Wednesday. Some of British Energy's competitors -- suffering similar pain from low power prices but with no state aid -- are also unhappy. TXU Europe TXU.N was forced to seek protection from creditors this month and Drax, the UK's biggest power station, is struggling to pay its coal bill. Reuters The Company Products & Services ***************************************************************** 7 FACTBOX-British Energy in rescue deal* / Thu November 28, 2002 09:17 AM ET / LONDON, Nov 28 (Reuters) - Britain's biggest electricity generator, nuclear power firm British Energy Plc, won an extension of emergency state aid on Thursday in return for a deep restructuring and at a heavy cost to the taxpayer. Following are key facts about the company: British Energy: - produces more than a fifth of Britain's energy needs. - employs 5,200 people in Britain and 3,000 in Canada. - has eight nuclear reactors in Britain with a combined capacity of 9,600 MW at seven sites. It also owns a 2,000 MW coal-fired plant in Britain. - posted a 518 million pounds loss in 2002 and a 479 million pounds loss in 2001 after a steady slide in profits since privatisation in 1996. - loss-making British plants provide 75 percent of sales. - has no high-margin retail electricity business to make up for low rates in wholesale electricity. - pays 300 million pounds ($466 million) a year to reprocess spent nuclear fuel but is seeking to make savings by having spent fuel stored instead of processed. - was privatised for 1.26 billion pounds but its market capitalisation is now around one hundred million pounds. - its only profit-making operations are in the United States and Canada. It is planning to sell its stake in a U.S. joint venture and is in talks to sell its 82 percent stake in the Canadian nuclear power project, Bruce Power. - in 2001, Bruce Power completed the proposed lease transaction of the Bruce nuclear power plant for 17 years in south western Ontario. - of the 408 million pounds in British Energy bonds, 110 million pounds are repayable in 2003. - its website is www.british-energy.com. Reuters The Company ***************************************************************** 8 Schroeder makes u-turn on Iraq Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Chancellor will allow US to use German bases in event of war Jeevan Vasagar in Berlin Thursday November 28, 2002 The Guardian [http://www.guardian.co.uk] Germany will guarantee US military forces unrestricted overflights and use of their bases on its soil in the event of a war with Iraq, Gerhard Schröder said yesterday in his most concerted effort yet to heal relations with Washington. The chancellor also confirmed that Germany will provide Israel with Patriot air defence missile systems to defend against the threat of Iraqi Scud missile attacks. Mr Schröder was flanked by his foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, and defence minister, Peter Struck, who told a press conference in Berlin that Germany could send two Patriot batteries. The German leadership's show of good faith came as international arms monitors searched a military missile-testing range and a possible nuclear site outside Baghdad, starting a new round of inspections that could determine the prospects for war. Mr Schröder, who angered the US but delighted voters with his firm anti-war stand during his re-election campaign, said it remained "clear as glass" that Germany would stay out of a conflict in Iraq. The gesture towards Israel both pleases the US and guards the weakest spot in Mr Schröder's anti-war stance; the threat of a lethal attack on the Jewish state which Germany did nothing to prevent. Germany has "moral and historic reasons" to stand by Israel and Patriot missiles are "purely defensive systems", Mr Schröder said. The chancellor's strategy to woo back the US has been to make it clear that Germany will back the war on terror in other ways, such as extending peacekeeping troop commitments, without breaking its election promise. But when news leaked out in the German press at the weekend of the missile offer to Israel - reportedly under pressure from Washington - Mr Schröder was accused of making secret deals to escape his sticky predicament. The liberal Süddeutsche Zeitung, which reflects opinion among Mr Schröder's middle-class voters, said in its editorial yesterday the government was being "evasive". "If the government meets the US request [to help protect Israel], the categorical 'no' to Iraq war from the election campaign will collapse and the government will snub its voters. If it does not, it will snub the US. There is no in-between." Mr Schröder said Israel also expressed interest in German armoured personnel carriers of the type stationed in Kuwait, but said it had not specified how many of the vehicles it wanted or in what circumstances. "In principle, we have no objection to providing them," he said. Mr Schröder's guarantees about German bases and airspace came in response to the US asking what support it could give to a military campaign against Iraq. The Bush administration has sent similar requests to about 50 other countries as it marshals the planet for war. However, Mr Schröder said that his government would not allow a German army unit stationed in Kuwait that specialises in detecting nuclear, poison-gas and germ warfare to be deployed outside its mandate of aiding in the war on terrorism. Germany says a war with Iraq falls outside that mandate. "They are available in the context of (Operation) Enduring Freedom, not for anything else," Mr Schröder said. Useful links Arab Gateway: Iraq briefing [http://www.al-bab.com/arab/countries/iraq.htm] Middle East Daily [http://www.middleeastdaily.com/] Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq [http://www.cam.ac.uk/societies/casi/] Iraq sanctions - UN security council [http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/sanction/indexone.htm] UN special commission on Iraq [http://www.un.org/Depts/unscom/index.html] Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002 ***************************************************************** 9 British Energy rescue to cost taxpayers £3bn Independent.co.uk By Michael Harrison, Business Editor British Energy, the stricken nuclear electricity generator, is to be bailed out at a cost to the taxpayer of more than £3bn, the Government announced yesterday. The rescue deal could also mean the privatised company being taken back into public ownership. British Energy, which produces a fifth of the country's electricity, was sold by the Conservatives for £2.1bn in 1996. It is now worth £46m. Patricia Hewitt, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, told the Commons the Government had agreed to shoulder £2bn of British Energy's liabilities for reprocessing spent fuel. But the taxpayer will also be liable for a further £1.4bn in decommissioning liabilities if British Energy is unable to pay into a new nuclear liabilities fund announced yesterday. Environmental campaigners have attacked the bail-out. The rescue deal will reduce shareholders' stake in the company to less than 10 per cent and will also leave bondholders and banks out of pocket by £800m. British Energy and the Government have only until mid-February to reach agreement with creditors for the deal otherwise the company will be declared insolvent, putting in doubt the future of its eight nuclear reactors. Robin Jeffrey, the chairman of British Energy, was replaced by Adrian Montague, an investment banker who helped to set up the public-private partnership for London Underground and is deputy chairman of Network Rail. By Michael Harrison Adrian Montague, the new British Energy chairman, is getting used to rescuing failed privatisations from the scrapheap. He is already deputy chairman of Network Rail, the government-backed body that replaced Railtrack. Now he has the task of preventing the meltdown of Britain's nuclear industry. In terms of background and style, Mr Montague could scarcely be more different from the ousted British Energy chairman, Robin Jeffrey, who was unceremoniously decommissioned yesterday. Whereas the Scottish-born Mr Jeffrey was a nuclear man to the core, Mr Montague is the model of the urbane, Home Counties lawyer turned corporate financier. He began his career with the London law firm Linklaters & Paines until leaving in 1994 to join Dresdner Kleinwort Benson, the investment bank from which the Government picked Callum McCarthy, the energy regulator. Since 1997 Mr Montague has been the businessman the Government has relied upon most heavily to make its private finance initiative work. He was chief executive of the Treasury Taskforce and deputy chairman of its successor body, Partnerships US. Crucially, he was also the man who negotiated the controversial public private partnership for London Underground. At British Energy, his financing and deal-making skills will be tested to the limit. The company only has until mid-February to persuade its banks and bondholders to swallow the rescue deal announced yesterday otherwise it will be put into insolvency. As for Mr Jeffrey, it looks like there are lean times ahead as well. Although he is contractually entitled to a £350,000 pay-off, the Government served notice that it would look very poorly at any "reward for failure" for nuclear's yesterday man. Korea Times > Nation TOKYO (Yonhap) _ The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) plans to adopt a statement urging North Korea to scrap its nuclear weapons program and accept inspections, the Tokyo Shimbun reported Thursday citing government sources. Japan has lobbied IAEA member countries to adopt such a statement when the agency convenes a board of governors meeting at its headquarters in Vienna Thursday local time, the report said. The IAEA has issued calls for the North to accept its inspections, but should the statement be adopted, it will be the first time the agency will have demanded Pyongyang give up its nuclear weapons program, the report said. Pyongyang admitted last month that it was developing nuclear weapons in violation of a 1994 arms control agreement. Under the accord, Pyongyang pledged to freeze its nuclear program in return for the construction by an international consortium of two light-water reactors and the delivery of 500,000 tons of heavy fuel oil a year. In response to the violation, the consortium building the reactors decided to suspend fuel oil deliveries from December until the North agrees to dismantle its nuclear program. 11-28-2002 17:34 ***************************************************************** 19 Troubled energy firm to be restructured Ananova - The country's biggest electricity generator is to be restructured. The terms of the government's bailout include a renegotiation of the generator's contract with the state-run British Nuclear Fuels. Additionally, the group will issue bonds to the value of £700 million and shares to what it terms as significant creditors. It will also have a Government loan facility extended to next year in a bid to tackle its financial problems. British Energy will not be given any money above emergency aid of £650 million already given, but the facility will now be extended to next March. Under the changes, Adrian Montague becomes the new chairman to replace Dr Robin Jeffrey. Creditors, who are owed more than £1 billion, will be asked to compromise their claims which will lead to "very significant dilution" of existing shareholders. The Government says it's supporting the restructuring plan and will contribute "significantly" to the company's £2.1 billion nuclear fuel liabilities. This will cost the Government between £150 million and £200 million a year for the next 10 years. British Energy will continue to pay into a fund for decommissioning its power stations but the Government will underwrite this to ensure safety and environmental protection. The nuclear generator will have to secure an agreement with its major financial creditors to a temporary freeze on payments and a significant write-down in the value of what they are owed. It will also have to complete the sale of its North American operations and implement a new trading strategy, said a statement from the Government. "If British Energy's plan is not delivered, then its directors may decide that administration is the only option," the statement added. "The Government has planned for this contingency and will act to protect its key objectives of nuclear safety and security of supply." Story filed: 13:33 Thursday 28th November 2002 Contact Ananova - ***************************************************************** 20 Nuclear-free Taiwan feasible by 2061, says AEC head [http://www.etaiwannews.com/] 2002-11-28 / Central News Agency / Atomic Energy Council Chairman Ou Yang Min-sheng said yesterday that the government's dream of making Taiwan nuclear-free will be possible by 2061. Ou Yang made the remarks while fielding questions from lawmakers in a legislative interpellation session. Basing his prediction of the premise that the fourth nuclear power plant cannot be decommissioned before that time, Ou Yang said complementary measures, including energy saving, diversification and replacement, must be adopted at the same time to help achieve the goal of building Taiwan into a nuclear-free homeland. Regarding the problem of how to handle the decommissioned nuclear plants, he said that plant complexes can be used to build parks or for other civic purposes as is done in the United States. So far, more than 10 nuclear power plants have been dismantled around the world, he noted. As to the question of whether the regular security inspections and maintenance for nuclear power plants should be increased, he said that such practices are routine, including a 10 year review. © 2001-2002 Taiwan News. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 21 Nuclear-free Taiwan must wait [http://www.taipeitimes.com] LONG HALF-LIFE: The head of the AEC says the country won't wean itself from atomic energy for about 60 years, when the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant is decommissioned By Chiu Yu-Tzu STAFF REPORTER Taiwan won't become nuclear-free until 2061, the head of the Atomic Energy Council (AEC) announced yesterday. AEC Chairman Ouyang Min-shen (¼Ú¶§±Ó²±) told the legislature's Science and Technology Committee that the date he gave was based on the earliest time that the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant -- which is now under construction -- could be decommissioned. Ouyang made the comments in response to a question from DPP lawmaker Mark Chen (³¯­ð¤s). "Since turning Taiwan into a nuclear-free country is a national policy, I wonder when it will be nuclear-free?" Chen asked. In response, Ouyang said that if the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant begins operating in July 2006 as planned, it would have a roughly 40-year lifespan, followed by a period of decommissioning. "I roughly estimate that Taiwan won't become nuclear-free until 2061," Ouyang said. To fulfill the Cabinet's promise of making Taiwan nuclear-free, Ouyang said, it was reviewing policies on bringing forward the decommissioning of nuclear power plants and the promotion of energy conservation. Addressing concerns that Taiwan has no experience in decommissioning power plants, Ouyang said his agency had learned from the experience of advanced countries, such as the US, which have already decommissioned several nuclear plants. "After nuclear plants are decommissioned, the sites can be turned into parks or residential areas," Ouyang said. Other lawmakers, however, criticized the AEC for its supervision of the Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, ¥x¹q), which has so far failed to find a suitable site for building a final repository for its low-level radioactive waste. According to lawmakers, Taipower has spent NT$700 million evaluating a site in Wuchiu (¯QËú), Kinmen County, during the past five years. Because of the delay, the government still has no place to relocate 98,000 barrels stored temporarily on Orchid Island, Taitung County. Ouyang said that laws being drawn up would soon provide a legal basis for the government to select a proper site for the final repository. The AEC chief was speaking a day before thousands of residents from townships near the two nuclear power plants plan to demonstrate in front of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, which also supervises state-run Taipower. This would be the latest protest held by the residents over the past few months either in Taipei or at nuclear power plants to express their anger at the way Taipower handles radioactive waste. Residents suspect that two warehouses under construction at the two plants, which can jointly store up 80,000 barrels of low-level radioactive waste, are actually permanent repositories rather than temporary sites. In addition, residents criticized the government's inability to deal with high-level radioactive waste. The residents said that the two nuclear power plants, which have been in operation for more than 20 years, are now home to 1,657 tonnes of spent fuel rods. Tomorrow, demonstrators plan to ask for reasonable compensation, the construction of roads for emergency evacuation and a halt to the construction of the warehouses. This story has been viewed 445 times. Copyright © 1999-2002 The Taipei Times. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 22 Exercise in NATO-building -- The Washington Times November 28, 2002 Borut Grgic      Last week in Prague, NATO opened its doors to seven formerly communist countries — Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia — as well as reconfirmed its partnership with Russia and another 20 countries, some of which lie far removed from the Old Continent.      But apart from the big-bang enlargement, the Prague summit ended with much left unanswered. Particularly, how NATO at 26 plans to do what NATO at 19 couldn't — build security in the 21st century.      The Cold War made the task of agreeing simple. There was an overarching menace which threatened Europe and the United States alike: The Soviet Union. Even then there was occasional disagreement over approach. Under Gen. Charles de Gaulle, France for example, left the alliance in preference of developing its own nuclear deterrent and pursing policies of rapprochement with the Soviets.      But overall, a general agreement prevailed amongst the allies that the Soviet power had to be checked on all fronts.      However, with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, unprecedented disagreement over new security needs and priorities has emerged. September 11 has only further exposed the deep underlining strategic differences in the European vs. the American approaches to security-building.      While Europe has long been skeptical of military professed solutions to what often are complex problems, Americans are more likely to trust the virtues of power. Nor do Europeans like the idea of fixing problems. They much prefer problem management; keeping the dogs quiet for as long as possible.      Under the Cold War arrangement, America took upon its shoulders the responsibility of protecting Europe while simultaneously containing the spread of communism on a grand scale. America focused on force projection, which, by necessity, emphasized force sustainability far afield, military flexibility, and force lethality. For its part, Europe was preoccupied with defending against a Soviet invasion, and became increasingly inward looking in its security arrangement.      Today, Europeans continue to project an irritatingly narrow-minded security outlook. As Dominique Moisi, the deputy director of the Institute of International Relations in Paris, points out, "Most Europeans dream of turning their continent into what would amount to a large Switzerland — a rich, selfish, boring and largely irrelevant place."      Europe's refusal to stretch its focus beyond the Continent is straining the alliance and raising concerns in Washington over whether Europe's and America's security interests overlap at all. In general, the Europeans feel secure — apart for occasional al Qaeda scares — and see little need for projecting power in distant regions such as Central Asia. Americans couldn't disagree more.      Apart from Britain and France, both of which have considerable experience with force projection, Europeans today are strikingly foreign to the concept of engagement far afield. They neither possess the military capacity to engage in missions such as the recent American-led war in Afghanistan, nor do they possess the kind of mind frame necessary to support such actions. European constituencies by and large are at a loss try to comprehend the need to engage in the Central Asian security theater.      The increasingly isolationist Germans for example, equated American efforts at building long-term stability in Central Asia and the Middle East with over-simplistic "adventures," while the Czech and the Hungarians twisted under mounting domestic pressure during the Kosovo campaign.      As for the seven invitees, none carry considerable experience with force projection. Let alone possess strategic cultures similar to that of the U.S. A keen awareness for internationalism is missing from their elite circles, while the overall Eastern European mindset is inconveniently narrow. It is this very mindset that is today the source of exhausting provincialism and ignorance epitomized in both the NATO and EU debates in postcommunist Europe.      For example, in Slovenia, NATO popularity has struggled to break 40 percent. The Slovene government has yet to convincingly defeat the opposition, which continues to effectively oppose NATO with arguments mounted on anti-Americanism and naive pacifism.      Slovakia for its part is doing no better. While the government has managed to sell the majority of Slovaks on joining NATO, the threshold remains low. In Bulgaria too, the NATO camp has been loosing ground.      So what initially looked like an enlargement of convenience by way of which Washington was looking to strengthen the pro-American voice of NATO, now smells a bit rotten. Given the vastly different strategic cultures, NATO at 26 may find it harder still to strike common ground. Already, many dismiss the alliance as a political club, and in Prague, the U.S. once again stopped short of requesting actual military support from the alliance in case Saddam thwarts the U.N. inspection regime.      But if Washington and Europe are at all serious about revitalizing the alliance, they will have to do more than rely on enlargement and capabilities alone. An effective system that can keep NATO allies' strategic cultures on the same page is indispensable. In the medium run, this means introducing a system of probation for nations that are slacking in their individual public outreach, and that are failing at keeping strong NATO support in the court of public opinion. In the long run, the alliance should develop a way for dismissing members altogether if their individual strategic culture is found to be fundamentally inconsistent with the priorities and needs of the alliance.      Simply hoping that enlarging the alliance into oblivion and beyond, without first ironing out the incongruities caused by different strategic cultures of individual members (and soon to be members), will solve NATO's growing identity problem is shortsighted.      Not to mention that enlargement alone stands to make today's quarrels look like peanuts in face of tomorrow's altercations.            Borut Grgic is a political analyst based in D.C. and a recent graduate from the Department of International Relations at Stanford University. ***************************************************************** 23 Geologists accused of revealing state secrets November 28, 2002 MOSCOW (AFP) - Two Russian state-employed geologists face charges of revealing state secrets to an environmental group in Siberia whose offices were raided last week by the FSB intelligence service, ecologists said Wednesday. Baikal Environmental Wave, based in the city of Irkutsk, was accused by the FSB, chief successor to the KGB, of possessing maps of radioactive pollution in the area surrounding a chemical plant that contained state secrets. Although the Russian authorities decided to drop its criminal investigation into the organisation itself, they are pursuing two employees of the Sosnovgeos geological institute who prepared the maps at Baikal Enviromental Wave's request. Yulia Zhilina, a co-chair of the organisation, denied that the maps were secret, explaining that they were sent in February together with a report to various state bodies and no complaints were made. These included the regional administrations in Irkutsk and Angarsk, where the chemical plant is located, the state nuclear watchdog Gosatomnadzor, the meteorological bureau, the regional radioecological service and local health services. "There was nothing secret in these maps, the geologists took measures to ensure any secret coordinates were removed," Zhilina told AFP, speaking by telephone from Irkutsk. Copyright © 2002 Brunei Press Sdn Bhd [http://www.bruneipress.com.bn] . All right reserved. ***************************************************************** 24 Indian Pt. 2 Sets Record for Itself in Refueling Job The New York Times *November 28, 2002* *By WINNIE HU* BUCHANAN, N.Y., Nov. 27 ? The Indian Point 2 nuclear plant started producing power this evening after shutting down last month for a routine replacement of more than one-third of the uranium fuel rods in the reactor core. Indian Point workers completed the refueling, as well as other scheduled maintenance and upgrades, in 32 days, by far the shortest time ever for the plant, which has been plagued in recent years by mishaps and safety lapses, including a radioactive leak in February 2000 that closed the plant for nearly a year. Before, the shortest shutdown for refueling at the plant had been 72 days, in late 1997 and early 1998. While fuel replacement normally takes place every two years, it came under particular scrutiny and suffered calls for its permanent shutdown this year because of heightened safety concerns since the Sept. 11 attacks and the opposition by local officials and residents. The refueling shutdown at Indian Point 2 was the first under the plant's current owner, the Entergy Corporation, which took over the plant in September 2001. "They had a very challenging outage," said Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. "We knew going in that they had a lot on their plate. In general, the outage appeared to go well, but our inspectors are still assessing a number of issues." Copyright The New York Times Company ***************************************************************** 25 Operator makes plans to test damaged Ohio nuclear plant Las Vegas SUN: November 27, 2002 ASSOCIATED PRESS OAK HARBOR, Ohio (AP) - The operator of a nuclear plant damaged by an acid leak wants to begin tests by February to determine when the plant can begin supplying power again. FirstEnergy Corp. told the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Tuesday that it will conduct tests for leaks in late January or early February. If tests show that more repairs are necessary, the restart of the Davis-Besse plant would have to wait. Initially, the company had hoped to restart plant by the end of this year and then pushed that back to January. "We don't believe that we have leakage, but we've got to be sure," said Gary Leidich, executive vice president of FirstEnergy Nuclear Corp. The plant along Lake Erie, near Toledo, has been shut down since February. The NRC began investigating after leaks allowed boric acid to eat a hole almost through the 6-inch thick steel cap that covers 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. A second, smaller hole was found later at Davis-Besse, which is near Toledo. Concerns have come up recently about possible leaks in nozzles and corrosion near the bottom of the plant's reactor vessel. Davis-Besse operators think the corrosion was caused by residue coming from the original leak and not by new leaks. "If you find a new leaking penetration, to me that opens up a whole new can of worms," said Brian Sheron, the NRC's associate director for licensing and technical analysis. Leaks could lead to a dangerous loss of the cooling water that prevents the reactor from a meltdown. Bob Schrauder, director of support services at Davis-Besse, said attempts to resolve concern about the nozzles have produced inconclusive results. FirstEnergy's only option is to heat and pressurize the reactor vessel to mirror conditions during routine operation, he said. Technicians will use cameras to inspect the nozzles for leaks. The plant would be at normal operating conditions for seven days during the test. NRC officials said the testing plan had no unusual risks. "This is a key element in their being able to restart the plant," said Anthony Mendiola, an official in the NRC's Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. FirstEnergy is paying about $200 million to repair the plant, install a new lid and buy replacement power until Davis-Besse is restarted. A new reactor should be installed by early December. On the Net: Nuclear Regulatory Commission: www.nrc.gov FirstEnergy Corp.: http://www.firstenergycorp.com [http://www.firstenergycorp.com] All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 26 TEPCO tried to rush nuke reactor checks asahi.com : ENGLISH Asahi Shimbun www.asahi.com [http://www.asahi.com/] The Asahi Shimbun TEPCO was so anxious to hasten inspections of its nuclear power plants that it paid 3.7 billion yen to firms subcontracted by the utility to ensure it received a clean bill of health. Revelations about the periodic inspections since April 1997 surfaced Wednesday during testimony given in the Lower House's Committee on Economy, Trade and Industry by Masayoshi Yoshino, a Lower House member with the Liberal Democratic Party. Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Takeo Hiranuma suggested TEPCO's haste could have laid the foundation for the cover-up and false reports of cracks at nuclear power plants. Officials of the ministry's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency plan to question Tokyo Electric Power Co. to ascertain whether the company sacrificed safety for the sake of efficiency. Electric power companies are required by law to conduct periodic inspections about once a year. Nuclear reactors are shut down and checked for damage. Experts have estimated that shutting down a 1 million-kilowatt reactor for a day costs an electric power firm about 100 million yen. For that reason, power firms have been trying to reduce the time it takes to complete an inspection. Currently, a comparatively quick inspection takes about a month. Internal regulations at TEPCO set the standard period for inspections at between 50 and 65 days. Since April 1997, TEPCO has been paying money to subcontractors based on the number of days that can be saved in the 28 periodic inspections that have been conducted.(IHT/Asahi: November 28,2002) (11/28) [Copyright Asahi Shimbun. All rights reserved. No reproduction ***************************************************************** 27 AU: Lucas Heights seeks a name - smh.com.au By Richard Macey November 28 2002 Some of the neighbours say it will be our doom - a radioactive white elephant only good as a target for suicide terrorists piloting jumbo jets. The owners insist it will bring Australian science into the 21st century, producing the medicine and technology needed to make our lives worth living. But what should it be called? A campaign to find a name for what may be Australia's most controversial project, the new $320 million nuclear research reactor being built at Lucas Heights, was launched yesterday. Helen Garnett, the executive director of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), which runs Lucas Heights, said she wanted high school students across the country to name the new centre, now tagged the Replacement Research Reactor. The entry that best reflected what the new reactor is about would win a prize valued at $10,000, while their school would win a $10,000 flat-screen TV. Stunned opponents of the project almost choked on the news, accusing the nuclear organisation of mounting a propaganda campaign to brainwash children. Sutherland Council's Genevieve Rankin said there were 15 schools with 9000 children within five kilometres of the reactor. "They have no real emergency procedure in case of an accident," she said, adding that the competition money would be better spent on an awareness campaign to tell teachers and students what to do if there was a nuclear disaster. Cr Rankin dismissed the competition as "just a way of silencing teachers and getting them over to their side". She complained that Sutherland Council had spent more than $10,000 on Freedom of Information applications to get details about the new reactor released. "We still have some requests outstanding," she said. The nuclear campaigner at Greenpeace, James Courtney, dismissed the competition as "a desperate public relations stunt" designed to get the "pro-nuclear spin into our high schools". Professor Garnett said students were entitled to name the new reactor, to be finished in 2005, because their generation would benefit from its work. Entries close in March. Copyright © 2002. The Sydney Morning Herald. advertise ***************************************************************** 28 Turkish minister says nuclear energy plan revived Planet Ark : TURKEY: November 29, 2002 ISTANBUL - Turkey plans to revive a project to build a nuclear power plant to diversify energy sources and help cut green house gas emissions, trade and industry minister Ali Coskun said this week. Turkey's last government froze plans to build a multi-billion-dollar nuclear power plant in mid-2000, saying Turkey needed to wait for the country's finances to stabilise and improved technology. A tender to build a nuclear plant on the Mediterranean coast near Akkuyu had been many years on the books, but it faced environmental opposition focused on concerns it would be built too close to active earthquake faultlines. Coskun told reporters after a speech to the Istanbul Chamber of Industry that the new Justice and Development Party (AKP) government planned to push ahead with plans for nuclear power generation as well as more environmentally friendly methods such as wind and hydroelectric power. Coskun gave no further details of timing or specific plans for nuclear power generation. The AKP won a landslide election victory on November 3 to form Turkey's first single-party government in 15 years. It has pledged to stick to the main planks of a $16 billion IMF rescue programme aimed at overcoming a devastating financial crisis last year that led to the worst recession since 1945. Turkey is currently expanding its electricity production from natural gas in order to make use of excess imports already contracted in previous years. Turkish electricity consumption was 126.8 billion kWh in 2001, down one percent from 2000 as the economy contracted following the crisis. A projected recovery this year is expected to raise consumption by four percent to 132 billion kWh. REUTERS NEWS SERVICE ***************************************************************** 29 Nuclear plant to undergo testing [enquirer.com] Thursday, November 28, 2002 The Associated Press OAK HARBOR, Ohio - The operator of a nuclear plant damaged by an acid leak wants to begin tests by February to determine when the plant can begin supplying power again. FirstEnergy Corp. told the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Tuesday that it will conduct tests for leaks in late January or early February. If tests show that more repairs are necessary, the restart of the Davis-Besse plant would have to wait. Initially, the company had hoped to restart plant by the end of this year and then pushed that back to January. "We don't believe that we have leakage, but we've got to be sure," said Gary Leidich, executive vice president of FirstEnergy Nuclear Corp. The plant, along Lake Erie near Toledo, has been shut down since February. The NRC began investigating after leaks allowed boric acid to eat a hole almost through the 6-inch thick steel cap that covers 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. A second, smaller hole was found later at Davis-Besse. Concerns have come up recently about possible leaks in nozzles and corrosion near the bottom of the plant's reactor vessel. Davis-Besse operators think the corrosion was caused by residue coming from the original leak and not by new leaks. "If you find a new leaking penetration, to me that opens up a whole new can of worms," said Brian Sheron, the NRC's associate director for licensing and technical analysis. Leaks could lead to a dangerous loss of the cooling water that prevents the reactor from a meltdown. Bob Schrauder, director of support services at Davis-Besse, said attempts to resolve concern about the nozzles have produced inconclusive results. FirstEnergy's only option is to heat and pressurize the reactor vessel to mirror conditions during routine operation, he said. Technicians will use cameras to inspect the nozzles for leaks. The plant would be at normal operating conditions for seven days during the test. NRC officials said the testing plan had no unusual risks. "This is a key element in their being able to restart the plant," said Anthony Mendiola, an official in the NRC's Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. FirstEnergy is paying about $200 million to repair the plant, install a new lid and buy replacement power until Davis-Besse is restarted. A new reactor should be installed by early December. Cincinnati Enquirer [http://enquirer.com] , a Gannett Co. Inc. ***************************************************************** 30 Attorney argues case for sick worker - chillicothegazette.com Thursday, November 28, 2002 Widow hopes trial will help others By KIRRAN SYED Gazette Staff Writer PIKETON -- "He was a sniffer." Loren Miller, a maintenance mechanic at the Piketon plant who died from lung cancer in 1988, was a sniffer, said his widow. He spent his time at the plant literally sniffing out dangerous substances. "He would go around and sniff around to see if there was anything leaking. He would crawl around on his hands and knees," said Ethel Miller. She said she only learned the details of what her husband did after he died. Making the case Her attorney, Philip Fulton, argued Monday before the Ohio Industrial Commission, that Miller is entitled to workers' compensation, despite the fact that she filed the claim after the two year statute of limitations, which began at the time of death, passed. In April 2000, he said, the Department of Energy admitted it had exposed thousands of employees at nuclear defense sites to radiation and other harmful substances. Later that year, Congress passed legislation to create a federal award and to permit people to file for workers' compensation benefits based on their exposures at the nuclear sites. By 2000, however, many of the people had gotten sick because of work-related conditions were dead. Those still living and the legally eligible widows of many of the deceased employees began filing for workers' compensation benefits, Fulton said. When does time start? "The problem with Ohio workers' compensation is that there is a statute of limitations that says that in order for the widow to file for workers' compensation benefits, they must file within two years of death," he said. "Unfortunately, most of their husbands died in the 80s and 90s of cancer without knowing that the Department of Energy had exposed them," he said. "We believe it is very unfair for the bureau to apply a technicality to deny them their workers' compensation benefits." "All these widows who didn't know that their spouse's cause of death was because of exposure at work, according to the Bureau of Workers' Compensation, are out of luck," Fulton said. As a result, they are arguing the two-year time limit should have started after the Department of Energy admitted to exposing workers to hazardous substances and to hiding exposure records from employees. Waiting, watching "The hearing officer did not make a decision. She wanted to consider my arguments and think about it," he said. "Usually, their decisions are made quickly. I think (the delay) is probably good in one sense because they are seriously considering the argument." If the decision is in Miller's favor, according to workers' compensation policy, she will be entitled to weekly benefits for life in the amount of about 66 percent of her husband's average weekly earnings. If the spouse has remarried, they receive a two-year dowry payment, Fulton said. If the decision is not in her favor, Fulton said, they will appeal. "Fairness and justice would demand that this statute of limitations wouldn't start running until someone tells these people (the probable cause of illness)." Working the process This is the second such case Fulton has argued. The first took place on Nov. 6 and he is still waiting for a decision. The Paper-Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers International Union Local 5-689 asked for Fulton's assistance, which he offers at a reduced rate, after several other attorneys had given up. The first attorney Ethel Miller hired returned the medical records she gave him, she said. The attorney said no doctors would talk about the situation because it was related to the government, she said. Miller said she will not be in financially vulnerable position if she does not receive the compensation because she has few medical bills and her husband paid off their house and car. "I'll get by somehow." However, she said, she is pursuing this claim because many other widows, whose husbands died under similar circumstances, do need the money. (Syed can be reached at 772-9364 or via e-mail at [ksyed@nncogannett.com] Originally published Thursday, November 28, 2002 [http://www.chillicothegazette.com/index.html] | ***************************************************************** 31 EPA Official Wrongly Accused The Salt Lake Tribune -- Thursday, November 28, 2002 BY LINDA FANTIN Court papers unsealed last week mistakenly accused a federal environmental official of accepting money from Utah's toxic waste king, Khosrow Semnani, lawyers who drafted the documents say. The admission, however, comes a little late for John Frisco, the Environmental Protection Agency employee who now finds himself at the center of an internal ethics investigation. "I'm going on my 30th year and there has never been a hint of impropriety on my part," Frisco said Wednesday from his New York office. "It's so far-fetched, it's almost amusing, or at least that's what I thought before I spent the day with our attorneys." The blunder is contained in a wrongful termination lawsuit filed in 3rd District Court last spring by Charles Judd, former president of Semnani's Tooele County radioactive waste dump, Envirocare of Utah. In the latest version of the suit, attorney Bruce Wycoff wrote that Semnani used company profits to make payments to Frisco, who oversees environmental cleanup projects that send waste to Envirocare. "Semnani had previously promised Judd that Semnani would not deduct the payments to Frisco from the Envirocare profits on which Judd's commission was calculated because the payments were Semnani's personal favor to Frisco," Wycoff wrote. But on Tuesday, two days after the allegations appeared in a Salt Lake Tribune story, Judd's other attorney said the court filing is wrong. James Lowrie said the suit should have alleged that Semnani gave "concessions" to the federal government on certain waste disposal contracts, thereby reducing Envirocare's profits. He blamed the error on a misinterpretation of information provided by Judd and said the error would be corrected as the case wends its way through 3rd District Court. "We don't have any reason to believe there was any direct payment to Mr. Frisco," Lowrie said. "I wish that we had been a little more accurate." So does Frisco, the EPA's point man for Superfund sites in New York and New Jersey. Frisco said Wednesday that he had been pulled off all Envirocare-related projects while the EPA investigates. In addition to an internal probe, his bosses also were required to alert the Investigator General's Office and the Department of Justice. "It will definitely be a tough few months," Frisco said. "It would be very nice if [Judd's attorneys] would issue a retraction." As for the revised allegations that he negotiated concessions on EPA contracts, Frisco said he has nothing to do with analyzing waste disposal costs. That work is left entirely to the Army Corps of Engineers, an assertion that was backed up by the corps. "Even if that were true and I were able to get the government a better deal, no one would criticize me for saving the taxpayers money," Frisco said. "But I didn't even do that." Envirocare attorney Max Wheeler could not be reached for comment. He has said previously that there were no "personal agreements" between Frisco and Semnani and that the two men were only casually acquainted. Frisco concurred, saying his few encounters with Semnani were brief and all business. He added that his colleagues chuckled at the thought of him taking money from the Utah millionaire. "I drive a 15-year-old car and buy my clothes at Kmart," he said. "So they were just flabbergasted." © Copyright 2002, The Salt Lake Tribune All material found on ***************************************************************** 32 Studies barely scratch surface of Gulf War's toll on health billingsgazette.com - version 5.0 Last modified November 27, 2002 - 9:41 pm By John Simerman Knight Ridder News WALNUT CREEK, Calif. - James Taylor of Pacheco, Calif., can't say just what turned him from an ultra-fit Marine combat swim instructor to a disabled asthmatic with chronic bronchitis whose severe attacks prompt frequent scrambles to the emergency room. Whatever it was, Taylor traces it to the Persian Gulf, where he served before returning home in 1991 with breathing problems and horrible coughing fits. "When we got there we didn't have biological equipment. We had second-rate gas masks, no chem or bio suits," said Taylor, now 35. "You throw that in with botulism shots, pills for nerve agents and blood agents, anthrax I'm not a scientist. I can't say for sure." Like many veterans who have been denied a recognized link between their unexplained symptoms and service in the Persian Gulf, Taylor wonders if U.S. military leaders will take the war's lessons to heart as the Bush administration readies a new attack on Iraq. Pentagon officials say they have. Missteps during the gulf war have prompted a renewed focus on soldier health, as military leaders contemplate a new kind of warfare, and an Iraqi government armed with untold chemical and biological weapons. Among the lapses of 11 years ago, federal officials acknowledge inadequate protective gear, excessive false readings from chemical sensors, mismanagement of medical records and poor administration of a stew of vaccines and inoculations. Vaccine shortages left many soldiers without, while others took far too much. Some received the anthrax vaccine without knowing. Who and how many is unknown because of bad record-keeping. "We didn't know what we were going up against," Taylor said. "They really don't have an excuse this time." Concerns from the gulf war drove the Pentagon to launch a major "Force Health Protection" initiative to safeguard soldiers. Congress in 1997 weighed in with a law demanding that soldiers undergo health screenings before, during and after they deploy. The Defense Department now has better gas masks and protective suits, decontamination units and chemical detection equipment, and the services have developed better training to prevent chemical, biological and radiation exposure. Yet problems persist. The General Accounting Office, while acknowledging advances since the gulf war, recently found that the Pentagon lost track of as many as 250,000 defective chemical-warfare suits and that defense officials have no solid strategy for low-level exposures to chemical agents. Medical panels and a presidential committee on gulf war illnesses recommended several measures to protect the health of soldiers. But a report two years ago by the Institute of Medicine found the response lacking. "The most important recommendations remain unimplemented despite the compelling rationale for urgent action," the report found. A major problem is tracking soldier movement and maintaining health records that can be accessible to military and private doctors when soldiers return home. Earlier this year, the Department of Defense created a new directorate to oversee those efforts. "We've made some good strides, but we really need to do a much better job of keeping medical records, making sure vaccinations are given before we get into theater," said Dr. Michael Kilpatrick, deputy director of the Defense Department's Deployment Health Support Directorate. Kilpatrick said the Pentagon now sends advance teams to sample air, water and ground before operations move into an area. In Afghanistan, Special Forces use Palm Pilots to keep medical records, he said. During the gulf war, many paper records disappeared. Gulf war veterans groups remain skeptical. They have spent years fighting for health care, battling the Pentagon for information and demanding recognition and funding of research that seeks to explain why some soldiers fell ill, while others who fought alongside them remained healthy. Gulf war veterans are divided over a new foray into Iraq, said Steve Robinson, executive director of the National Gulf War Resource Center. "Those who aren't sick say 'Let's go back and finish the job,' " said Robinson, a former Army Ranger. "If they know someone who is sick or are sick themselves, they are very leery of going back to fight what will certainly be a chemical and biological war." The federal government has spent more than $120 million studying possible causes of the mysterious conditions reported by gulf war veterans, including fatigue, muscle pain, memory loss, sleep disorders, respiratory trouble and other chronic illnesses. Gulf war veterans complain of symptoms at more than twice the rate as those who did not serve there, defense officials say. But they have reported only one scientific link - a recent finding that veterans who served in the Persian Gulf region are at greater risk for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease, a rare and fatal neurological illness. The reason is unclear. On Oct. 31, the Department of Veterans' Affairs said it would more than double research funding for gulf war illnesses. The announcement came after a British study, funded by the U.S. Department of Defense, found that gulf war illnesses were not stress-related psychiatric disorders. Some research points to neurological damage. An advisory committee in June estimated that between 25 percent and 30 percent of the 700,000 U.S. veterans who served in the gulf war are now ill. More than 8,000 have died. By comparison, 148 troops were killed in action, and fewer than 500 were wounded in the Persian Gulf region during the war. "It was the anti-Vietnam War. It was the clean victory. The problem was, you could be injured from more than bullets and bombs," said Robinson. "Science is just now catching up." Veterans point to a host of possible causes for their illnesses. Among them are smoke from oil fires set by the Iraqis; depleted uranium used in U.S. ammunition; vaccines and inoculations, including an anthrax vaccine and an experimental botulism vaccine; and sarin nerve gas exposure from the destruction of weapons at an Iraqi munitions depot. "To have so many possibilities on the table is just medically not a tenable situation," Kilpatrick said. "We need to have that baseline information, to say what we can rule out, even if we're not able to diagnose a disease and recognize symptoms." More difficult, he said, is changing a culture in which military planning trumps health care. "The biggest obstacle clearly is the demands of the battlefield. We have to find a happy medium." The task is more urgent, with Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's apparent readiness to deploy chemical or biological agents in battle, regardless of the impact on his own fighters, said Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., chairman of the House Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans Affairs and International Relations. Shays, who led congressional hearings on gulf war illnesses, has criticized the Pentagon's insistence that hazardous exposure levels were not enough to sicken the troops. "The military's the military. When they go into battle, they don't always keep the best medical records and so on," he said. "But there's no illusion about the environment we're sending our soldiers in. Battlefields are always toxic. In this case, beyond toxic, you may have chemical and biological agents." One of the biggest problems during the gulf war were false alarms from tightly calibrated chemical sensors. Soldiers didn't know what was real, said Dr. Bernard Rostker, the Pentagon's top official for gulf war illnesses during the Clinton administration. "They were basically useless," said Rostker of the sensors. "There are new sets of alarms, much more sensitive." Rostker, who said he spent four years "trying the damnedest to pin (gulf war veterans' illnesses) to something," said the changes hold promise. "We're better prepared than we were, and we're much more sensitive to the fact, 'Pay me now or pay me later,' " Rostker said. "Whether you learn enough, God knows. I hope we don't have to prove it." Copyright © 2002 Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Copyright © The Billings Gazette, a division of Lee Enterprises [http://www.leeenterprises.com] . ***************************************************************** 33 Nevada senators seek Yucca Mountain probe Date: Thu, 28 Nov 2002 07:06:33 -0600 (CST) Planet Ark : Nevada senators seek Yucca Mountain probeUSA: November 28, 2002 WASHINGTON - Nevada's U.S. senators yesterday demanded a federal investigation into the treatment of whistle-blowers who have raised questions about quality assurance problems within the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump site project. Citing safety concerns, Senate Democratic Whip Harry Reid and Republican John Ensign - along with officials from the state - have vehemently opposed the Bush administration's plan to put a permanent nuclear waste repository in the Nevada desert, 90 miles (150 km) northwest of Las Vegas. In a letter to the General Accounting Office, Reid and Ensign urged congressional investigators to look into reports of alleged mistreatment of quality assurance contractors who questioned the integrity of the scientific process in the Yucca Mountain project. A spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Energy had no immediate comment. The senators cited a recent Las Vegas Review-Journal newspaper report which said two workers were removed from their jobs because they had been aggressive in identifying technical deficiencies in the project. "Once they came forward and identified defects with the science, they were either terminated or relocated," Reid said and in a joint statement with Ensign. "Apparently, these employees were used as an example - 'keep your mouth shut or you'll be removed.'" Ensign added: "We have project workers who are trying to warn the public about the possible dangers at Yucca Mountain. Now it appears that someone at the Department of Energy may be trying to silence those voices." Reid and Ensign also asked the GAO to investigate claims made in an anonymous whistle-blower letter they received of a significant loss of scientific data that would be needed to make a licensing determination for the project. The Energy Department won legislative approval in July to apply to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to license the $58 billion Yucca Mountain repository. The facility is scheduled to open in 2010 and hold 77,000 tons (70,000 metric tonnes) of radioactive material that the Environmental Protection Agency says must be isolated for 10,000 years. U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham contends that $4 billion in studies over the past 20 years have found Yucca Mountain, which would receive shipments of waste from around the country, would be a safe site. Backers of the project contend it would be safer to have the waste in one place rather than scattered at facilities nationwide. But Nevada has refused to concede in an ongoing fight to prevent development of the nuclear waste dump and is pursing three legal challenges. Story by JoAnne Allen REUTERS NEWS SERVICE ENVIRONMENTAL NEWS SEARCH Enter your keywords to search our news archive by subject. Type "Greenpeace", for example, into the box below and you will be given a listing of all Planet Ark's news and images relating to Greenpeace. Sort by relevance Sort by date Alternatively, why not check out our news archive on an issue by issue basis? Select a topic from the list below to learn everything you need to know about the topics contained within this search engine. 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TODAY'S ENVIRONMENT NEWS AUSTRALIA: Australia PM promises help for drought-hit farmers CHINA: Fire dies down on tanker stranded in Chinese waters RUSSIA: Russia Greens say security service oppressing them SPAIN: France, Spain invoke powers to inspect oil tankers UK: UK research lab prompts new animal rights row UK: BP stops lobbying to drill Alaskan refuge UK: Britain seen doubling cost of dumping waste UK: UK court sends airports plan back to drawing board USA: Los Alamos nuclear lab warns of radioactive trees USA: FEATURE - Wildlife champion Goodall embraces American cougar USA: Alaska gives oil pipeline new 30-year lease USA: North Dakota Farm Bureau eases opposition to biotech wheat USA: Allow longer CRP haying, grazing, NFU asks USDA USA: NYC receives water filter waiver, saving billions USA: Bush Pacific NW timber plan draws fire from greens USA: Nevada senators seek Yucca Mountain probe USA: Asarco hit by $29.4 million lawsuit, battles debt previous day This site developed by Frontline, and managed by Planet Ark using RPM-NT. Site designed by Jon Dee @ Planet Ark. ***************************************************************** 34 Yucca: Missing data 'no surprise' reviewjournal.com -- News: Thursday, November 28, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal Former site inspector poses concerns about quality assurance By KEITH ROGERS Bill Belke, former senior Nuclear Regulatory Commission inspector for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project, discusses documents Wednesday at his Las Vegas home that describe problems with the project's quality assurance program involving personnel and concerns they raised. Much of the data about how the repository would perform has been reported to be lost. Photo by Amy Beth Bennett. By KEITH ROGERS © 2002, LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL Bill Belke says he's not surprised that half the data that serves as the foundation for the Department of Energy decision to recommend Yucca Mountain for burying the nation's deadliest nuclear waste could be lost as claimed in an anonymous letter to Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev. For seven years Belke, as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's senior on-site representative for the Yucca Mountain Project, watched over the shoulders of DOE and contract workers as they tried to troubleshoot problems with verifying the validity and accuracy of two decades of data that scientists gathered. It was this data about potential earthquake hazards, volcanic activity and groundwater paths that government scientists plugged into models and designs of how the planned repository would perform. "That does not surprise me based on prior history," he said in an interview Wednesday at his Las Vegas home when shown a copy of the letter to Reid. That letter states, "Currently as much as 50 percent of the data used to support the site recommendation of the Yucca Mountain Project is lost -- NRC is aware of this." Belke said he can't verify that claim, "but I know with the problems I've seen, there's been a lot of problems with data. And the data, if it's going into a license, has got to be of a high pedigree quality to support their licensing activities. "They've got to make a case that this data is accurate and qualified," he noted, saying later, "I felt the management that I had when I left NRC was not as supportive as it could have been for issues that we had raised." In the last years of the Yucca Mountain studies, when quality assurance problems were raised with project officials, Belke said "they would try to defend them as opposed to fixing them. ... What I've seen with the program, it's like the old dam story, you fix the leak, then you have another one and another one. "My biggest fault with DOE and the contractor process is lack of accountability. No one seems to be held resposnible for their actions," he said. Although scientists found nothing at the site, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, that would preclude building a maze of tunnels to hold 77,000 tons of spent fuel and highly radioactive defense waste, Belke said, DOE faces "quite a challenge" in convincing NRC license reviewers that the paper trail is accurate and gap-proof. For example, he said, core samples about the mountain's geology and volcanic activity at known depths must be documented and DOE must show that the people who collected and analyzed the data were qualified and the equipment they used was calibrated to national standards. Some data about the site collected during the 1980s is probably not adequate to meet current quality assurance standards and to back it with a paper-trail of evidence will be very costly, he said. "Right now there's nothing to say no (don't put the waste there) but you add all these up, what confidence does this give you that it's going to be done in an acceptable manner. DOE has a very difficult task to make their case," Belke said. DOE officials have said they have confidence in the data and integrity of the studies and any corrective actions, should they be needed, will be dealt with appropriately before a license application is submitted to the NRC in late 2004. On Monday, Reid and Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., asked the investigative arm of Congress -- the General Accounting Office -- to probe the issues mentioned in the anonymous letter and those raised Sunday in a Review-Journal story about whistle-blowers who reported defects with the project but were fired or transferred after making their claims known to project officials. Now Belke, whose 28-year career with the NRC was capped with a Nov. 5, 2001, reprimand memo from William Reamer, chief of the NRC's High-Level Waste Branch, is among a growing list of government workers, former government workers and contract workers who alerted DOE and NRC managers to what they say are shortcomings in the process that led this year to congressional and presidential approval of constructing a repository in Yucca Mountain. From 1995 until January, when he retired, Belke said he fielded at least 25 concerns from project employees, mostly dealing with data collection and software complications. In reports he filed with the NRC as recently as two years ago, "there were significant problems." Quality assurance workers, he said, "had to fight to get those things written up and once they finally got written up they had to have a big corrective action program to fix them," he said. In his analysis, he said he found problems with qualifications of some workers who handled the project's technical issues. And, "three times I had written up suppliers," he said referring to companies that provide calibration services for the scientists studies. "I found problems with their product. They've got a list of 50 suppliers and I had 10 of those 50 with repetitive occurrences and that's unacceptable," he said, noting that DOE "did initiate corrective actions and fixed the problems, but it took awhile." In Sunday's Review-Journal story, the project's former director of quality assurance for the DOE, Robert Clark, said he urged corrective measures but was transferred to another assignment and told by one of his superiors to "take one for the project." His associate, former contract employee Jim Mattimoe, who managed a staff that audited the project's science and engineering, was fired after he claimed that the program for addressing concerns raised by project workers was corrupt. He based this on evidence he said had been withheld in at least one case in which statements had been attributed to people who had never been interviewed about concerns. This raised questions about the credibility of all probes in the concerns program going back 10 years, Mattimoe has said. The concerns program was instituted in the 1990 at Belke's urging. A Labor Department investigation in Mattimoe's firing concluded Mattimoe was wrongfully terminated and ordered he be reinstated and compensated for his costs. His former employer, Navarro Research and Engineering, has appealed. Records obtained by the Review-Journal show the Department of Energy's Office of Inspector General was alerted to no avail to the circumstances surrounding Mattimoe's firing and Clark's transfer. They show that Belke became caught in the fray when a DOE employee alleged she was mistreated by Mattimoe. "In a strange turn of events, (the DOE employee) decided to deny that she ever alleged to Mr. Belke that Mr. Mattimoe had threatened her. She then made an allegation against Mr. Belke that he was harassing and intimidating her," according to a Dec. 6, 2001, letter addressed to the attention of the Inspector General's hot line by another project worker who was a contract emplyee. In the interview Wednesday, Belke said the DOE employee "lied to me and I was very insulted by that. They (NRC) sent two people out to investigate me." Eventually, the NRC Inspector General's office substantiated that Belke had documented the DOE employee's concerns in writing and that he followed the proper procedures for reporting it. Nevertheless, in the Nov. 5, 2001, reprimand to Belke, titled a "counseling memorandum," Reamer wrote, "It is incumbent that you refrain from any further communication on this matter, without first informing me or our management for the remainder of your service in your present position. "This memorandum will serve as a warning that you may be subject to disciplinary action if you have any further communications on this matter without discussing them first with me or our management," the memo states.YUCCA MOUNTAIN Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002 ***************************************************************** 35 Former inspector: Yucca Mountain plagued with problems* RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL Associated Press 11/28/2002 02:40 pm A former senior government inspector at Yucca Mountain said the project was riddled with potential problems and will have a hard time getting a federal license to store nuclear waste if crucial safety data cannot be documented. Bill Belke, who lives in Las Vegas, said he was the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's senior on-site representative at the project for seven years. During that time, Belke said, he watched over the shoulders of Department of Energy and contract workers as they tried to troubleshoot problems involving two decades of data that scientists gathered. Belke said some of the information involved earthquake hazards, volcanic activity and groundwater paths that government scientists plugged into models and designs to figure out if the planned nuclear waste dump could stand the test of time. "I know with the problems I've seen, there's been a lot of problems with data,"Belke told the Las Vegas Review-Journal in a copyrighted story published Thursday. "And the data, if it's going into a license, has got to be of a high pedigree quality to support their licensing activities. They've got to make a case that this data is accurate and qualified." Belke's comments follow reports that two men who worked at the project as quality assurance specialists were fired or transferred after voicing concerns about the site. Nevada's U.S. senators want a congressional investigation of management at Yucca Mountain. Democrat Harry Reid and Republican John Ensign have alleged"fraud and abuse"in the firing of the two workers. DOE officials said they have confidence in the site studies, and any problems at the project will be dealt with appropriately before a license application is submitted to the NRC in late 2004 or early 2005. Reid was also sent an anonymous letter earlier this week claiming that critical documents involving site studies at Yucca were lost. The letter stated:"Currently as much as 50 percent of the data used to support the site recommendation of the Yucca Mountain Project is lost _ NRC is aware of this." Reid wants the allegation probed. Belke isn't surprised by the letter. He said that in the last years of the Yucca Mountain studies, quality assurance problems noted by project officials were frequent. "They would try to defend them as opposed to fixing them,"Belke said."What I've seen with the program, it's like the old dam story, you fix the leak, then you have another one and another one." So far, scientists have found nothing at the site, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, that would preclude building a maze of tunnels to hold 77,000 tons of spent fuel and highly radioactive waste. But Belke said that the DOE faces"quite a challenge"in convincing NRC license reviewers that the paper trail is accurate and gap-proof. He said core samples about the mountain's geology and volcanic activity must be documented. The DOE must show that the people who collected and analyzed the data were qualified and the equipment they used was calibrated to national standards, Belke said. Some data about the site collected during the 1980s is probably not adequate to meet current quality assurance standards, and to back it with a paper-trail of evidence, will be very costly, he said. "You add all these up, what confidence does this give you that it's going to be done in an acceptable manner?"Belke asked."DOE has a very difficult task to make their case." Until he retired in January, Belke said he fielded at least 25 concerns from project employees, mostly dealing with data collection and software complications. In reports he filed with the NRC as recently as two years ago, he recalled"there were significant problems." Quality assurance workers, he said,"had to fight to get those things written up and once they finally got written up they had to have a big corrective action program to fix them." Information from: Las Vegas Review-Journal ***************************************************************** 36 Keep an eye on Repository Development Nevada Appeal November 28, 2002 Appeal editorial Thank goodness Nevada's congressional delegation isn't quite as cynical as we are when it comes to the Yucca Mountain Project, now officially known as the Office of Repository Development. Sens. Harry Reid and John Ensign and Reps. Jim Gibbons and Shelley Berkley demand to know why Yucca Mountain workers who raise doubts about the integrity of the work being done there are summarily fired or transferred out of quality control. They're seeking investigations by the General Accounting Office and Department of Energy after the Las Vegas Review-Journal brought the whistleblowers' plight to the public eye earlier this week. The sense of inevitability about the whole thing does, sometimes, overwhelm us. We predict the GAO will issue a report critical of the handling of the two workers. We also predict the report will be ignored everywhere but Nevada. As for the DOE, we are cynical enough to assume the response is already being drafted before anyone even begins to ask the tough questions. That's because we've seen it all before. Reid, Ensign, Gibbons and Berkley have seen it all before, too. But we elected representatives to do their best to make the DOE play fair, so we're heartened to see they still have the fight in them. The DOE, by the way, is celebrating its 25 birthday this month. And a GAO estimate says there is still another 18 years before the first nuclear waste is deposited in the repository we will continue to call Yucca Mountain. In between are a court battle and a licensing application before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. So it's not over yet. Missteps like firing whistleblowers and allegedly losing critical data, another matter the lawmakers want investigated, can only help Nevada's cause in those forums. Perhaps there are reasons to keep our heads up, after all. /Copyright Nevada Appeal. Materials contained within this site ***************************************************************** 37 [southnews] Khadduri: Iraq's Nuclear Non-Capability Date: Thu, 28 Nov 2002 01:20:58 -0600 (CST) until 1998 ---------- Iraq's Nuclear Non-Capability By Imad Khadduri YellowTimes.org Column (YellowTimes.org) As the war storm against Iraq swirls and gathers momentum, seeded by the efforts of the American and British governments, serious doubts arise as to the credibility of their intelligence sources, particularly the issue of Iraq's nuclear capability. It has been often noted that reliable intelligence on this matter is not immediately forthcoming. Moreover, such intelligence as has been presented is spurious and often contradictory. Perhaps it is not too late to rectify this misinformation campaign. I worked with the Iraqi nuclear program from 1968 until my departure from Iraq in late 1998. Having been closely involved in most of the major nuclear activities of that program, from the Russian research reactor in the late sixties to the French research reactors in the late seventies, the Russian nuclear power program in the early eighties, the nuclear weapons program during the eighties and finally the confrontations with U.N. inspection teams in the nineties, it behooves me to admit that I find present allegations about Iraq's nuclear capability, as continuously advanced by the Americans and the British, to be ridiculous. Let us go back to 1991. A week before the cessation of two-month saturation bombings on the target-rich Iraq, the Americans realized that a certain complex of buildings in Tarmiah, that had just been carpet bombed for lack of any other remaining prominent targets, exhibited unusual swarming activity by rescuers the next morning. When they compared the photographs of that complex with other standing structures in Iraq, they were surprised to find an exact replica of that complex in the north of Iraq, near Sharqat, which was nearing completion. They directed their bombers to demolish the northern complex a few days before the end of hostilities. My family, along with the families of most prominent Iraqi nuclear scientists and the top management of the northern complex, were residing in the housing complex. The Tarmiah and Sharqat complexes were designed for housing the Calutron separators, similar to those used by the American Manhattan Project to develop the first atomic bombs that were dropped by the Americans on Japan. At the end of 1991, after that infamous U.N. inspector, David Kay, got hold of many of the nuclear weapons program's reports (reports whose maintenance and security I had been in charge of), the Americans realized that their saturation bombing had missed a most important complex of buildings: that complex at Al-Atheer, which was the center for the design and assembly of the nuclear bomb. A lone, single bomb, thermally guided, had hit the electric substation outside the perimeter of the complex, causing little damage. The glaring and revealing detail about these two events is the utter lack of any intelligence about these building complexes -- information that should have caused the repository of American and British intelligence to overflow. That is to say American and British intelligence had no idea of the programs that those buildings harbored -- programs that had been ongoing at full steam for the previous ten years! What really happened to Iraq's nuclear weapon program after the 1991 war? Immediately after the cessation of hostilities, the entire organization that was responsible for the nuclear weapons project turned its attention to the reconstruction of the heavily damaged oil refineries, electric power stations, and telephone exchange buildings. The combined expertise of the several thousand scientific, engineering, and technical cadres manifested itself in the restoration of the oil, electric and communication infrastructure in a matter of months -- an impressive accomplishment, by any measure. Then the U.N. inspectors were ushered in. The senior scientists and engineers among the nuclear cadre were instructed many times on how to cooperate with the inspectors. We were also asked to hand in to our own officials any reports or incriminating evidence, with heavy penalties (up to the death penalty, in some cases) for failing to do so. In the first few months, the "clean sheets" were hung up for all to see. As the scientific questioning mounted, our scientists began to redirect the questioners to the actual technical documents themselves that had been amassed during the ten years of activity. These documents had been traveling up and down and throughout Iraq in a welded train car. Then the order was issued to return the project's documents to their original location. At that point, David Kay pounced on them in the early morning hours of September 1991. Among the documents were those of Al-Atheer and the bomb specifics. In the following few years, the nuclear weapons project organization was slowly disbanded. By 1994, its various departments were either elevated to independent civilian industrial enterprises, or absorbed within the Military Industrial Authority under Hussain Kamil, who later escaped to Jordan in 1996 and then returned to Baghdad where he was murdered. Meanwhile, the brinkmanship with the U.N. inspectors continued. At one heated encounter, an American inspector remarked that the nuclear scientists and engineers were still around, and hinted accusingly that those scientists and engineers may be readily used for a rejuvenated nuclear program. The retort was, "What do you want us to do to satisfy you? Ask them to commit suicide?" In 1994, a report surfaced claiming that Iraq was still manufacturing a nuclear bomb and had been working on it since 1991. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors brought the report to Baghdad, demanding a full explanation. The inspectors requested my opinion on the authenticity of the report, inasmuch as I was the responsible agent for the proper issuance and archiving of all scientific and engineering documents for the nuclear weapons project during the eighties. It was my opinion that the report was well done, and most probably had been written by someone who had detailed knowledge of the established documentation procedures. However, as we pointed out to the IAEA inspectors, certain words used in the report would not normally be used by us but rather by Iranians and we supplied an Arabic-Iranian dictionary to verify our findings. The IAEA inspectors never referred back to that report. During these years, crushing economic inflation was growing. It would spell the end for most of the Iraqi nuclear scientists' and engineers' careers in the following years. In 1996, Hussain Kamil, who was in charge of the entire range of chemical, biological and nuclear programs, announced from his self-imposed exile in Amman that there were hidden caches of important documentation on his farm in Iraq. (Apparently, he had had his security entourage stealthily salvage what they thought were the most important pieces of information and documentation in these programs.) The U.N. inspectors pounced on this and a renewed string of confrontations occurred, until the inspectors were asked to leave Iraq in 1998. In the last few years of the nineties, we did our utmost to produce a satisfying report to the IAEA inspectors concerning the entire gamut of Iraq's nuclear activities. The IAEA finally issued its report in October 1997, mapping these activities in great detail. The inspectors raised vague, "politically correct" queries which seemed obligatory in their intent. In the meantime, and this is the gist of my discourse, the economic standing of the Iraqi nuclear scientists and engineers (along with the rest of the civil servants and the professional middle class) has been pathetically reduced to poverty level. Even with occasional salary inducements and some insubstantial benefits, many of those highly-educated persons have been forced to sell their possessions just to keep their families alive. Needless to say, their spirits are very low and their cynicism is high. Relatively few have managed to leave Iraq. The majority are too gripped by poverty, family needs, and fear of the brutal retaliation of the security apparatus to even consider a plan of escape. Their former determination and drive, profoundly evident in the eighties, has been crushed by harsh economic realities; their knowledge and experience grow rusty with the passage of time; their skills atrophy from lack of activity in their fields. Since my departure from Iraq in late 1998, one cannot help but notice the mien of those former nuclear scientists and engineers as being but a wispy phantom of a once elite cadre representing the zenith of scientific and technical thought in Iraq. Pathetic shadows of their former selves, the overwhelming fear that haunts them is the fear of retirement, with a whopping pension that equates to about $2 a month. Yet, the American and British intelligence community, obviously influenced by the war agenda, vainly attempts to continue to provide disinformation. For example, a consignment of aluminum pipes (the intelligence experts opine) might conceivably be used in the construction of highly advanced, "kilometers long" centrifugal spinners. The consideration that there are no remaining Iraqi personnel qualified to implement and maintain these supposed spinners seems to have eluded the intelligence agencies' reports. Last month, a group of journalists was taken on a guided tour of a "possible" uranium extraction plant in Akashat in western Iraq. The Iraqi guide pointed to the obviously demolished buildings and asked tongue-in-cheek, "Who would make any use of these ruins? Maybe your experts would tell us how." It is true that the Iraqi nuclear scientists and engineers did not commit suicide. But for all the remaining capability they possess to rebuild a nuclear weapons program, they may as well have. Bush and Blair are leading their public by the nose, attempting to cloak shoddy and erroneous intelligence data with hollow patriotic urgings and cajolery. But the two parading emperors have no clothes. - [Imad Khadduri has a MSc in Physics from the University of Michigan (United States) and a PhD in Nuclear Reactor Technology from the University of Birmingham (United Kingdom). Khadduri worked with the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission from 1968 until 1998. He was able to leave Iraq in late 1998 with his family. He now teaches and works as a network administrator in Toronto, Canada.] Imad Khadduri encourages your comments: imad.khadduri@rogers.com ---------- Think-tank downplays Saddam threat November 28 2002 A federal government-funded security think-tank today downplayed Iraq's potential role in providing weapons of mass destruction (WMD) to terrorists. However, the Australian Security Policy Institute said it still supported military action to enforce UN resolutions against Iraq. Prime Minister John Howard has said his support for the United States' stand on Iraq is based in part on the fear that weapons of mass destruction from Saddam Hussein's arsenal will fall into the hands of terrorists such as al-Qaeda. However, ASPI said terrorists were more likely to get such weapons from other sources. "Saddam Hussein is not the most likely source of WMD for terrorists," the institute said in its annual strategic review. "They are more likely to acquire WMD by theft from the arsenals of WMD proliferators like Pakistan, or from Russia or other parts of the old Soviet Union. "And Iraq's WMD are more likely to find their way into al-Qaeda's hands in the chaos that might follow a US invasion, than under Saddam Hussein's closely-controlled regime." Mr Howard, as recently as Sunday, said one of the world's greatest fears was that Iraqi WMD would end up in the hands of terrorists. The institute said Iraq's role in the war on terror was ambiguous. "Iraq supports terrorist groups in the Middle East, but evidence of substantial links to the al-Qaeda network is scant," it said. But the institute supported Australian government action against Iraq. "Iraq's WMD program does pose an important problem for international security, because of its implications for security in the Middle East, the durability of the global non-proliferation regime, and the authority of the United Nations," it said. "Australia is warranted in supporting international action, including military action, to enforce the UN resolutions regarding Iraq." Al-Qaeda is the global terrorist network responsible for the September 11 attacks in the United States in 2001. WMD refers to nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. AAP This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/11/28/1038386247016.html [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: southnews-unsubscribe@egroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ***************************************************************** 38 [smygo] Thai Activists Declare No-Go "Green" Areas Date: Thu, 28 Nov 2002 01:11:09 -0600 (CST) http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo The Bangkok Post GENERAL NEWS - Monday 25 November 2002 ENVIRONMENT No-go 'green' areas declared by activists Academics call for rethink on pipeline Supapan Danthaola Grassroots and community-based groups yesterday declared 74 "green areas" countrywide to be free of socially and environmentally-harmful projects as part of a campaign against the Thai-Malaysian gas pipeline. The green areas demonstrated the solidarity of networks of community groups that had been affected by state projects, said Narumol Tabchumpol, a Chulalongkorn University lecturer. There are 38 areas in the South, 25 in the North, six in the Central Plains and five in the Northeast. They include Pak Moon dam in Ubon Ratchathani, and Chana district in Songkhla where the pipeline is planned. "These people's green areas define the areas of respect for the law and constitution and development with public participation as well as violence-free zones," said Kasien Techapeera, a Thammasat University lecturer. Both lecturers are among the nearly 1,400 academics and intellectuals throughout the country who signed a statement calling on the government to review its decision to go ahead with the pipeline. Among them are social advocate Prawase Wasi, Akin Rapipat of the Crown Property Bureau, Nithi Iewsriwong of Midnight University, Chaiwat Satha-anan of Thammasat University, and Pasuk Pongpaijit of Chulalongkorn University. Organisers yesterday held simultaneous press conferences in Chiang Mai, Nakhon Ratchasima, Songkhla and Bangkok. Mr Kasien said the signed statement was an appeal to society for justice. "This is not meant for the government because we believe the government will not listen to us. We are appealing to society to pressure the government to halt actions which are contrary to the law and to renew the process that complies with the law and constitution." Campaign organisers have argued that the pipeline project was approved even though its environmental impact assessment was incomplete. Wanwipha Burusratanaphand, a social expert on the panel scrutinising the EIA, said the Office of Environmental Policy and Planning violated civil and environmental laws because it lacked the authority to approve the EIA. M.L. Wanwipha has held out her approval to the section on social impact assessments. By law the expert panel must give its consent before the study is approved. However, organisers said villagers opposing the project had decided against filing a complaint with the Administrative Court because they have no trust in the state. "The government gave the project the go-ahead even though it once promised to review it," said Penchom Tang, an activist with the Campaign for Alternative Industrial Network. Witoon Permpongsacharoen, secretary-general of Toward Ecological Recovery and Regional Alliance, said intellectuals nationwide were showing solidarity, which should convince the government to pay more attention to promoting public participation in public projects. -- Dan Clore Now available: _The Unspeakable and Others_ All my fiction through 2001 and more. Intro by S.T. Joshi. http://www.wildsidepress.com/index2.htm http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1587154838/thedanclorenecro Lord Werdgliffe and Necronomicon Page: http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9879/ News for Anarchists & Activists: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo Said Smygo, the iconoclast of Zothique: "Bear a hammer with thee always, and break down any terminus on which is written: 'So far shalt thou pass, but no further go.'" --Clark Ashton Smith To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: smygo-unsubscribe@egroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ***************************************************************** 39 See You In Court - Blair to answer legality of war plans* / / blair & flag Narrated Abu Huraira: Allah’s Messenger said, “There will be three types of people whom Allah will neither speak to them on the Day of Resurrection nor will purify them from sins, and they will have a painful punishment: They are, (1) a man possessed superfluous water (more than he needs) on a way and he withheld it from the travelers. (2) a man who gives a pledge of allegiance to an Imam (ruler) and gives it only for worldly benefits, if the Imam gives him what he wants, he abides by his pledge, otherwise he does not fulfill his pledge; (3) and a man who sells something to another man after the ‘Asr prayer and swears by Allah (a false oath) that he has been offered so much for it whereupon the buyer believes him and buys it although in fact, the seller has not been offered such a price.” (See Hadith No. 838, Vol. 3) - See Hadith No. 838, Vol. 3 uploaded 28 Nov 2002 Parliament might have been denied its debate and the Cabinet might have been silenced, but there are other means of holding the government to account. If, by 4pm today, his lawyers have failed to agree that he will not attack Iraq without a new UN resolution, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament will take the Prime Minister to court. For the first time in history, the British government may be forced to defend the legality of its war plans in front of a judge. The case, hatched by the comedian Mark Thomas, looks straightforward. The United Kingdom and the United States are preparing to invade, whether or not they receive permission from the United Nations. Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, has stated that the UK will "reserve our right to take military action, if that is required, within the existing body of UN Security Council resolutions". But no UN resolution grants such a right. Last week, Matrix Chambers, the legal practice founded by the Prime Minister's wife, prepared a legal opinion for CND. Its findings were unequivocal: "the UK would be in breach of international law if it were to use force against Iraq ... without a further Security Council resolution." The judge might decide that the courts don't have the authority to rule on military matters, but if she does agree to hear the case, the chances of winning are high. If CND wins, its lawyers believe it is "inconceivable" that the British government would go to war without a new resolution, as it would lose its remaining moral authority. Activists in the US are hoping to launch a similar case. If these suits did force our governments to return to the UN, they might not prevent a war with Iraq, as the Security Council could grant them the resolution they want. But this would not mean that the exercise was wasted. If the most powerful countries are permitted to wipe their feet on the UN charter with impunity, then the world will swiftly come to be governed by unmediated brute force. This is the factor which many of those liberals who support the invasion of Iraq have failed to grasp. If a war is to be accounted just, it must meet a number of conditions. Not only must it reduce the sum total of violence in the world, and improve the lives of the oppressed, but it must also be shown not to replace one form of oppression with another. It is not hard to conceive of a just war against Iraq. We know that it is governed by one of the world's most bestial regimes, and that the lives of its people would be immeasurably improved if that regime was replaced by a democratic government. If this was indeed the purpose of an attack, if less violent means of achieving the same result had been exhausted, if it was legal and if the attacker was a nation with no recent record of expansionism and foreign aggression, which had no special interest in Iraq's resources, and whose political class was not talking of creating a "new imperium", we should support it. But none of these conditions have been met. It is plain that the US government's decision to go to war came first, its chosen target second, and its reason for attacking that country third. Everyone seems to have forgotten that the original plan, after the bombing of Afghanistan, was to attack Somalia. Iraq's weapons and the brutality of its government are the excuses used to justify the expanding "war on terror" which keeps the hawks in Washington in business. Iraq was substituted for Somalia partly because of its oil supplies and partly because it presents a more plausible target. It is also clear that there is little enthusiasm in Washington either for democracy in Iraq or for Kurdish independence. Turkey, a key western ally, is fiercely opposed to Kurdish separatism. For the past six months, the US government has been questioning the legitimacy of the Iraqi opposition movement and hinting that it might replace Saddam with another military leader. We should not, of course, ignore the possibility that the US may change its mind about the future governance of Iraq, or that a democratic revolution might be an accidental outcome of an invasion of that country. Nor should we forget that some of Iraq's oppressed peoples would welcome a war against Saddam, whoever waged it and for whatever purpose. But against their understandable enthusiasm must be weighed the global consequences of this war. Victory in Afghanistan greatly empowered the hawks in Washington, and their hunger to attack the next target could be seen as a direct consequence. If we permit the US to march into Iraq, we open the door to an overt form of world domination, backed by force of arms. It might seem callous to balance the fate of the Kurds and the Shiites against these concerns. But just because we do not favour an attack of the kind the US proposes does not mean that we cannot support attempts by other nations, whose record is unsullied and whose motives are unmixed, to destabilise or overthrow the regime, if their action is legal and if we know that this is the limit of their ambitions. Indeed, if we do succeed in preventing an attack by the US, we surely have a responsibility to lobby for a just means of helping the Iraqi people to depose Saddam, led by nations with no imperial ambitions. And we may find that this requires military force. But even this, more legitimate warfare might not be necessary. Troy Davis of the World Citizen Foundation has been sketching out an ingenious means of pulling the rug from beneath Saddam's feet. The United Nations, he proposes, should help the opposition groups based abroad and in Iraq's no-fly zones to establish a democratically-elected government in exile. This government is then given the world's Iraqi embassies and the nation's frozen assets. It gradually takes control of the no-fly zones and the oil-for-food programme. Saddam Hussein would find himself both isolated diplomatically and confronted by a legitimate alternative government. It is not hard to see how his authority over his own people would be undermined, permitting him to be toppled more easily. This plan also ensures that democracy is less likely to be frustrated by the installation of a puppet regime. But if this option is tried and fails, and if war turns out to be the only means of removing Saddam, then let us support a war whose sole and incontestable purpose is that and only that; which will not stop until the people of Iraq are running their country themselves, but will stop the moment that this happens; and whose purpose is not to seize the oil wells, to support the ambitions of some of the most ruthless and dangerous people in the western world or to overturn the norms of international law. But there will be neither a just war nor a just peace unless we stop the injust war from being waged. Taking the government to court may be the best chance we have. *Source: *Guardian search khilafah.com ***************************************************************** 40 Debate Continues Over LANL Firings* * November 27, 2002 By JEFF TOLLEFSON | The New Mexican 11/28/2002 * While officials at Los Alamos National Laboratory say two employees fired this week were simply unable to build "working relationships" with people in other divisions, one of the employees says he had no choice: People in these "other divisions" often appeared to be covering up problems under investigation. * In particular, former Office of Security Inquiries staff member Steven Doran says one employee in the Audits and Assessments Division is under investigation for accepting gifts from Peter Bussolini, one of two employees who allegedly bought more than $50,000 worth of private goods on a lab-purchase card. Audits and Assessments is one place employees go to report fraud and abuse like that under investigation, said Doran, who was investigating lost and stolen equipment as well as problems with the lab's purchase-card program before being fired. "We did send reports to upper management regarding those issues. On more than one occasion, we indicated that we didn't want Audits and Assessments involved because people in the division were possible suspects," he said Wednesday. "We brought that back to the management and said, 'We've got to keep these people out of the loop.' And of course they didn't." Doran was fired along with his supervisor, Office of Security Inquiries Leader Glenn Walp, on Monday because they weren't "suitable fits" for their positions, LANL said. Doran and Walp say they believe they were fired for doing their job too well and uncovering problems that the lab didn't want uncovered. Since Walp and Doran were both probationary employees, hired this year, the lab says it doesn't need to explain why they were fired. No reason was given in the firing papers, but lab officials now say Walp and Doran simply lost the confidence of people in the Audits and Assessments and other divisions, including Human Resources. "The loss of confidence has essentially made it so they don't have effective working relationships with these various groups that they need to have effective working relationships in order to successfully do their work," Phil Kruger, deputy division leader for the Human Resources, said Wednesday. Kruger also said agencies outside the lab lost confidence in the two employees, although he would not say which ones. Doran says he and Walp received excellent reviews from both the lab and officials with the FBI prior to their termination. Besides, he said, to investigate problems he often had to remain independent of people in Human Resources and Audits and Assessments. People in Audits and Assessments often notified potential suspects about allegations against them, making further investigation more difficult, he noted. Moreover, Doran said, he and Walp were ordered to halt all communications with the FBI several weeks ago, just as that agency was preparing to execute search warrants at the properties of Bussolini and Alexander. Queried on the matter Wednesday, lab officials did not explain why Doran and Walp were pulled off the case. Doran and Walp discussed their concerns last week with the DOE inspector general, which is investigating allegations into management problems and alleged cover-ups at the laboratory. Doran said they recommended the Safeguards and Security Division be removed from the lab and transferred directly to DOE or the Department of Justice so investigators would be independent of lab management -and consequently would not have to worry about getting fired for doing their jobs. Kruger said Walp and Doran were not fired for any professional opinions they might have, nor were they fired for cooperating with the Inspector General or the FBI. The lab refused to identify three employees who have been placed on "investigative leave" pending results from current inquiries and investigations. (These employees continue to receive their paychecks). The lab also refused to identify a "contract employee" who has been fired. In addition to Bussolini and Anderson, a letter from the House Energy and Commerce Committee identifies three other possible suspects in the ongoing inquiry into the lab's purchase-card programs. Dated Nov. 15 and addressed to University of California President Richard Atkinson, the letter requests "all records relating to the alleged illegal purchases made or misuses of government funds by" these individuals. Spokesman Jim Danneskiold could not confirm inquiries into any of the possible suspects. He said the lab would disclose the results of all current inquiries, as allowed by privacy policies, when they are completed. Get Copyright Clearance Want to use this article? Click here for options! Copyright 2002 Santa Fe New Mexican *Reader Opinions* Post your opinion and share your thoughts with other readers! *Name: Ed Campbell* *Date: Nov, 28 2002* I hear you, Don. Sounds more like someone had the title of ombudsman -- without the power. My friend worked for a Fortune 50 corporation which also happened to have a stellar CEO -- who wouldn't stand for the crap UC gets away with at the labs. That's why he appointed the Ombudsman in the first place. You know, they shouldn't even be able to get away with the "national security" dodge. There are plenty of Fortune 50 companies doing as much heavy-duty military R&D. *Name: Don Nickell* *Date: Nov, 28 2002* Eideard, "they" do get what they deserve, according to them. They get their pension from UC of $3K to $5K a month!!! I'd hate to even speculate what Agnew and Heckler receive!!! I don't deny that they are brilliant men, but that's not what's being discussed here. In 1986 the ombudsman was on the LANL payroll. I also discussed the matter with the LANL "shrink" who later became a Division Leader. I wonder what, of our discussions, got to the powers that be? There's nothing more powerful than a college president and his staff, especially if you are a working grunt without a degree, especially a PhD in Physics. If you don't believe me, just ask one. ***************************************************************** 41 Hanford moves 'nastiest' fuel The Seattle Times: Local News: Thursday, November 28, 2002 - 12:00 a.m. Pacific By Linda Ashton The Associated Press YAKIMA — The U.S. Department of Energy and its contractors have started moving fragile, corroded, spent nuclear fuel from the Hanford nuclear reservation's K East Basin to its K West Basin for processing. "K East constitutes our nastiest fuel," Keith Klein, the Energy Department's Hanford manager, said yesterday. About 2,100 metric tons of spent fuel, including 4 tons of plutonium, have been stored underwater in the K Basins, two big indoor pools built in the 1950s with a planned use life of 20 years. K East Basin has leaked radioactive water and sludge into the soil, threatening the Columbia River — just 400 yards away. Most of the highly radioactive fuel rods came from the N Reactor, which was used to make plutonium for nuclear weapons during the Cold War. The irradiated uranium fuel in the K Basins represents about 80 percent of the nation's remaining inventory of spent nuclear fuel. Contractor Fluor Hanford has been cleaning, drying and packaging spent fuel from the K West Basin since December 2000, a job that is now about two-thirds finished and supposed to be completed by the end of this year under the Tri-Party Agreement, the legal pact governing cleanup at Hanford. "That deadline is still within reach," said Dave Van Leuven, a Fluor vice president. But "it will be a tremendous challenge to meet that deadline." Cleanup work at K East was considered the more difficult task because the fuel rods there are crumbling and in open-ended containers, while the K West fuel is intact and in closed containers. The fuel transfer from K East to K West began late Tuesday, a few days ahead of the Saturday deadline under the Tri-Party Agreement. Now, spent fuel from both basins will be processed simultaneously at the K West Basin. All 105,000 fuel rods must be out of the two basins by July 2004. The fuel is loaded underwater into special containers for storage in a big underground vault in the central part of the 560-square-mile reservation. Eventually, the canisters will be transferred out of state to a national waste repository. Congress has approved building the repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, but several lawsuits have been filed to block the project. Moving the fuel out of the basins, away from the river and to the central plateau is a significant reduction of environmental and health risk. "This is a risk that's been at Hanford for decades," Van Leuven said. [http://www.seattletimescompany.com/] ***************************************************************** 42 S Carolina: State gets plutonium deal GreenvilleOnline.com - News Posted Monday, November 25, 2002 - 1:56 am e-mail The U.S. House has given South Carolina legal assurances that SRS will not become a permanent plutonium dump. South Carolina is well on its way to getting a guarantee the state will not become a permanent dumping ground for plutonium. The U.S. House of Representatives recently approved a bill that would award South Carolina hefty financial compensation if the federal government fails in its plan to reprocess and remove plutonium from the state. The successful House vote represents a victory for U.S. Sen.-elect Lindsey Graham, who sponsored the legislation. The bill now goes on to the Senate. Thirty-four tons of surplus weapons-grade plutonium from the U.S. nuclear arsenal is currently being shipped to the Savannah River Site, where it will be converted into fuel for commercial nuclear reactors to produce electricity or treated to be disposed of outside the state. For some time, state officials have been justifiably concerned the federal government would renege on its plan to process the plutonium once it had been delivered to the state. The fear was that SRS would become the final resting place for the deadly nuclear material. But the legislation approved by the House legally binds the federal government to process the plutonium or face substantial fines. If the program is not successfully converting the plutonium to reactor fuel on schedule (by 2009), the federal Department of Energy must within two years produce one ton of the fuel or remove one ton of plutonium from the state. A failure to meet this requirement results in a $1 million per day fee -- up to $100 million per year -- until the requirement is met. Other deadlines apply to make sure the program is running successfully in a decade and continues to operate. By 2017, if the program is not successfully operating, all remaining plutonium must be removed immediately -- or the federal government will again have to pay significant fees to the state. The plutonium conversion plan will provide hundreds of jobs for South Carolinians, and it's an important component in an arms-control agreement with Russia. It will help ensure that terrorists or rogue nations do not get their hands on weapons-grade plutonium in Russia. Gov. Hodges this year sued the federal government to try to halt the plutonium shipments, but now that federal legislation is making its way through Congress, Hodges or Gov.-elect Mark Sanford should drop the suit. Graham's legislation clearly offers the protections the state needed to ensure South Carolina won't become a permanent destination for the nation's surplus plutonium. Copyright 2001 The Greenville News. Use of this site signifies ***************************************************************** 43 Cancer claims against Rocketdyne can go to trial L.A. Daily News Los Angeles, CA Wednesday, November 27, 2002 - Lab cases revived By Lisa Mascaro Staff Writer Eighteen San Fernando Valley-area residents may proceed to trial with claims the Rocketdyne Santa Susana Field Lab caused their cancer and other illnesses, a federal appellate panel ruled Wednesday. The U.S. 9th District Court of Appeal overturned a lower court's finding that the plaintiffs failed to file their cases in time under the statute of limitations and should have suspected the lab in their illnesses. However, it upheld the lower court's dismissal of 34 of 52 claims. "It's a big victory for all the people in the community," said Troy A. Thielemann, an attorney for the Santa Barbara-based firm Cappello &McCann, which represents 300 people who have filed various other suits against the company. "There are other people sitting in the wings in other cases this will affect," he said. "We think it's a tremendous win. It's a case that's going to be very important to future cases, as well, in the toxic tort arena." A spokesman for Boeing Rocketdyne said the company believes the case has no merit, and said a jury could still uphold the statute of limitations. "We still stand by what we said before. The plaintiffs have offered no scientific evidence to this point. The case is of no merit. Ultimately it will be decided that we're not at fault," said Boeing spokesman Dan Beck. The plaintiffs filed suit in 1997 claiming hazardous radioactive and other substances released from Rocketdyne caused their illnesses, which include cancers and other problems. The original suit involved six plaintiffs, but was amended several times adding new plaintiffs and claims. Seven of the 52 plaintiffs are estates of people who died, according to the court. The plaintiffs live or have lived in the San Fernando or Simi valleys, where Rocketdyne for decades conducted nuclear energy and rocket testing at its lab in the hills in between the two valleys. The Daily News in 1989 reported that nuclear and chemical contamination had been found on the site, and a pair of UCLA studies in 1997 and 1999 found higher cancer mortality rates among workers in certain jobs at the site. Nuclear testing was shut down and the site is now under a federally funded, $186-million environmental cleanup that is slated to be complete in coming years. The lower court threw out most of the claims in March 2000, saying the statute of limitations required that plaintiffs needed to have filed their personal injury claims within one year of knowing about their problems. Five of the cases were reinstated later that year. The lower court said that "past publicity about releases of potentially hazardous substances from the Rocketdyne facilities should have led" many of the plaintiffs to suspect that the defendants caused their injuries prior to the first UCLA study being released, according to Wednesday's ruling. But the appeals court disagreed in a 2-1 decision released Wednesday. "We reverse the district court's ruling that ... publicity about the Rocketdyne facilities was sufficient for a reasonable plaintiff to know that Defendants' actions were the cause of his or her injury," the appeals court wrote. "Summary judgment was improper because factual disputes remain over whether Plaintiffs knew or should have known of their claims more than a year before they filed them." The 18 plaintiffs who filed after the 1997 UCLA study was released were allowed by the appeals court to go forward with their claims. The appeals court upheld the lower court's dismissal of 34 of the plaintiffs who filed before the UCLA study was released. It said they failed to offer evidence "regarding how and when they discovered their claims." The case, O'Connor vs. Boeing, was among the first personal injury cases filed after concerns were raised about contamination from the field lab, Thielemann said. A class-action suit by the same law firm that would have involved potentially thousands of healthy residents across the two valleys and set up medical monitoring for them was thrown out in 2000. Now Cappello &McCann is handling 10 Rocketdyne-related cases involving 300 personal injury and wrongful death plaintiffs. Thielemann said Wednesday's ruling has the potential to affect many of the other Rocketdyne-related cases his firm is handling, as well as those in other communities with environmental suits that deal with the statute of limitations issues. Copyright © 2002 Los Angeles Daily News ***************************************************************** 44 Bechtel Jacobs takes it on the chin, again The Oak Ridger Online -- Area News -- p.m. on Wednesday, November 27, 2002 R. Cathey Daniels Oak Ridger staff Bechtel Jacobs continues to take it on the chin for its fixed price contracting plan. The Oak Ridge Reservation Local Oversight Committee on Tuesday voted to send a letter to the Department of Energy criticizing the process of fixing the price of complex environmental cleanup projects. Bechtel Jacobs is the Department of Energy's cleanup contractor for the Oak Ridge Operations. The LOC advises DOE on reservation environmental matters. Several members of the LOC board expressed concern that British Nuclear Fuels Limited, considered the most experienced cleanup company for the K-25 site work, has refused to bid on further fixed price remediation where the "scope of work" can't be fixed. LOC member Barbara Sonnenberg asked whether "we should be concerned" with BNFL's action, and whether other companies would bid on the upcoming cleanup of buildings K-25 and K-27. "Bechtel Jacobs will get bids," said Executive Director Susan Gawarecki. "The question is what will the work look like in the long run and will it be done safely." Gawarecki noted that historically DOE "has had a very difficult time scoping its environmental cleanup work," and that inexperienced subcontractors who submit "unrealistically low bids only get DOE into trouble in the long run." She said there had been safety concerns in the past and also noted that one company seemingly ill-equipped to perform the cleanup work in Building K-1420 went bankrupt. Bechtel Jacobs President Steve Liedle has stressed that cleanup companies cannot make solid business decisions until they see the upcoming request for proposals on work at the East Tennessee Technology Park, where the former gaseous diffusion plant resides. In addition, Liedle has noted that the company has carefully considered the fixed price scenario and carefully scoped the work for the upcoming decommissioning of the K-25 and K-27 buildings. Ellen Smith, LOC representative, drafted the letter at the meeting. The letter stated the concern that "similarly qualified" companies, like BNFL, might not bid on the projects under the fixed price scenario. Smith wrote that while the LOC supports DOE's efforts to reduce the cost of cleanup, the board is concerned that driving the cost down significantly under the fixed price scenario might imperil the work or the workforce. The LOC also recently passed a resolution opposing the newest form of fixed price contracting, reverse auction. Originally Bechtel Jacobs had considered bidding the K-25 and K-27 buildings cleanup by reverse auction, but reversed course and decided to go with paper bids. Bechtel Jacobs is currently attempting to persuade the DOE to extend its contract through the accelerated cleanup program which runs until 2008. The DOE has said it is preparing a re-bid of the cleanup work, set to go in January, should negotiations fall through with Bechtel Jacobs. Part of the negotiations is whether to keep the Paducah and Portsmouth sites in the Oak Ridge Operations contract. R. Cathey Daniels can be contacted at (865) 220-5515 or danielsrcd@oakridger.com [danielsrcd@oakridger.com] . All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** 45 ORNL's Griest to speak at meeting The Oak Ridger Online -- Area News -- p.m. on Wednesday, November 27, 2002 The next meeting of the East Tennessee Chapter of the Society for Risk Analysis will be at 11:30 a.m. Thursday, Dec. 5, in the Social Room of the Oak Ridge Civic Center. The speaker will be Wayne Griest of the Chemical Sciences Division of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He has been a research staff member at ORNL for 28 years, and for the past six years he has been project director of the Block II Chemical Biological Mass Spectrometer Program. As such, he has been associated with development of a sensor that can rapidly identify chemical and biological agents in a battlefield situation. Griest will talk about the range of chemical and biological agents, from traditional nerve and blister agents, to pathogenic organisms. Current methods for detecting and identifying chemical and biological agents will be described with advantages and drawbacks of each. The public is invited. Light refreshments will be served. For more information, call Sylvia Talmage at 576-7758. border="0"> [http://www.oakridger.com] All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** 46 Lab informants say firings were unjust Albuquerque Tribune Online By Sue Vorenberg [svorenberg@abqtrib.com] Tribune Reporter Two investigators fired Monday by Los Alamos National Laboratory say they informed Department of Energy whistle-blowers in September that their work might be getting them into trouble. Now, Glenn Walp and Steven Doran say they plan to file a complaint with the DOE and consult with lawyers about what to do next. Walp and Doran's contracts with the lab were terminated Monday. The two were deemed "not a suitable fit for the requirements of your position," according to a letter to each of them from Stanley L. Busboom, director of security at the lab. Walp and Doran say they were hired to investigate purchasing fraud at the lab. But when they found it - several million dollars worth - the lab made its best efforts to stall their investigation, both men said. "Based on events and comments that were made to me in the last couple months, being fired wasn't a total surprise," Walp said. Lab spokesman Jim Danneskiold said the two men were still in the probationary phase of their employment, which lasts one year, so the lab doesn't need to give a reason for their dismissal. Walp was hired Jan. 22 and Doran was hired July 15. "Neither of these individuals were terminated for retaliatory reasons," Danneskiold said. But Doran, 39, questioned the firing. "Glenn and I received the highest marks on our last review that you could possibly get," Doran said. "We've never had any disciplinary action taken against us. We've never been reprimanded." Walp, 61, who was in charge of the lab's inquiry division, said he was hired with a mandate to "do whatever it takes to professionalize the office." Walp, a former chief of capitol police in Arizona and police commissioner for the Pennsylvania State Police, said he found corruption almost immediately. As a result of his investigation, he said, two lab employees, Peter Bussolini and Scott Alexander, have been suspended and are under investigation by the FBI. A third unnamed employee was accused of credit card and purchase order fraud. Walp submitted a report in March detailing what he had found. The report became widespread knowledge at the lab and eventually became the subject of news stories. "I brought up the idea to my immediate supervisor to bring in an FBI task force," Walp said. "I was rejected because of the Wen Ho Lee case and other cases, which left a bad taste in the mouth of LANL." The three accused employees were given 60 days of administrative leave while the charges are investigated - a stark contrast to the immediate firings of the investigators, Walp said. "There's an irony to it," Walp said. "I know Bussolini and Alexander are still getting their checks. Steve and I went in and did our jobs and brought justice, and we were escorted out by protective forces. I was told I had a half-hour to get out of there and our pay goes until Dec. 10, and then we're done. It doesn't seem right." Doran, who worked with Walp on the investigation, said the lab started to micromanage their efforts to uncover further information. "In the mid-part of September basically I was told that I had to take on more of a corporate, or UC (University of California, which manages the labs) mindset, or it could affect my position," Doran said. "At that point Glenn and myself both filed a report with the Department of Energy whistle-blowers saying there could be trouble." On Nov. 18, the two met with the lab's inspector general and were told by supervisors to fully cooperate with him, Doran said. "We were doing our job," Doran said. "We answered their questions truthfully and honestly and on Monday we were terminated." Doran said he'll be looking for work immediately. Walp also plans to look for a new job, but suspects his fight against termination at Los Alamos may take up a lot of his time in the near future. "Right now I'm getting acclimated to not working anymore," Walp said. "I'm preparing for the holidays. I've got a few feelers out, but I've got a feeling the recent events may take up a lot of my time." Print this [http://www.abqtrib.com/print/index.cfm] © The Albuquerque Tribune. ***************************************************************** 47 IEA chief says energy security favors unconventional resources *By an OGJ correspondent* *HOUSTON, Nov. 26* -- Because of oil price fluctuations and terrorist threats, the issue of energy security is back on the public agenda with renewed focus on unconventional sources, said Robert Priddle, executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), Monday. Priddle told a Calgary, Alta., conference on the outlook for nonconventional oil (NCO) that there is a need to evaluate the potential of that resource in the current situation. NCO includes heavy oil, extra heavy oil, bitumen, and oil shale. Large deposits of such resources are located in a number of areas, including the oil sands of northern Alberta, the Orinoco Belt in Venezuela and oil shales in Australia. The IEA head said there is concern among consuming nations that they will grow more dependent on the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries for oil after 2020 as other sources such as the North Sea decline. He said NCO has not been widely exploited, and the potential reserves are large and widely distributed outside of OPEC. Priddle noted that there was good reason for consumer concern about oil supplies in the 1970s because some producing countries used oil then as a political weapon. He said governments were less interventionist in the 1990s and less concerned about security of energy supplies because it was taken for granted. However, Priddle said, there is growing interest now in the availability of other energy sources, such as NCO and coal, at reasonable prices. Issues facing NCO development include environmental obstacles and the scale of capital investment required for large projects. In Alberta, for example, $24 billion already has been invested in development of unconventional energy resources, and an Alberta official said projects announced to date would require additional capital of $84 billion. Priddle said it is important to evaluate whether NCO can meet the environmental and cost challenges of development. He suggested that NCO production could play a future role in placing a price cap on conventional oil. Dr. Faith Birol, IEA's chief economist and head of its economic analysis division, said development of NCO reserves could be crucial to meeting supply needs over the longer term. IEA forecasts over the next 30 years are based on the assumption that countries would not radically change current energy policies. That means oil will remain the dominant energy source and meet about 40% of world energy needs, Birol said. However, natural gas will take a larger share of the energy pie, he said, and there will be more coal development in nations such as China and India, which will account for about two-thirds of increased coal use. He said there will not be much change in the use of nuclear power; alternative sources, such as biomass and solar, will increase but not substantially. Birol said two thirds of the growth in oil demand over the next 30 years will come from Asia, particularly China, with the transportation sector as the driving factor. By 2030, the IEA economist said, OPEC's share of world oil production will increase to 55% from 38% currently, while production from the North Sea and the US will have declined. NCO, which is concentrated outside the Middle East, could be making a significant contribution of 8 million b/d to world oil supplies by 2030, similar to the current production of Saudi Arabia, Birol said. He said barriers to NCO development include social impact issues, technology, and market development. Therefore, governments may need to become more active in developing markets, he said. Copyright © 2002 -PennWell Corporation. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 48 Court Requires Cheney to Disclose Energy Documents Court Requires Cheney to Disclose Energy Documents WASHINGTON, DC, November 27, 2002 (ENS) - In a setback to the Bush administration's efforts to avoid handing over key Energy Task Force information, a federal judge Tuesday rejected an attempt by Vice President Dick Cheney to appeal a court order to release the documents. The White House has been resisting disclosure of the documents for months, but the court's earlier order requiring that the documents be produced by December 9 remains in effect. Judge Emmet Sullivan of the Washington, DC Federal District Court ordered that The White House produce "non-privileged documents" in response to a lawsuit by Judicial Watch and the Sierra Club. [Cheney] Vice President Dick Cheney (Photo courtesy U.S. Defense Department) The defendants are Vice-President Dick Cheney; the National Energy Policy Development Group (NEPDG); Andrew Lundquist, executive director of the National Energy Policy Development Office; Joshua Bolten, assistant to the President and deputy chief of staff for policy; and Larry Lindsay, President George W. Bush's economic advisor. The defendants are also directed to produce "a privilege log" specifying which documents or categories of documents are being withheld pursuant to an asserted privilege, as well as the grounds on which they are being withheld. The Sierra Club and Judicial Watch assert in their lawsuit that by refusing to tell the public about the influence energy industries had in crafting the National Energy Policy, the Cheney Energy Task Force violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA). The plaintiff groups are asking the court to require Vice President Cheney and other defendants "to disclose to the American people what went on behind closed doors in the creation of the National Energy Policy," the Sierra Club said in a statement today. [Lundquist] Andrew Lundquist, executive director of the White House National Energy Policy Development Group) (Photo courtesy [http://www.aaspo.com/] ) The National Energy Policy issued by the Bush administration on May 17, 2001 relies heavily on oil, coal and nuclear energy, and calls for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and on other public lands. While renewable sources of energy are provided for in the policy, they are not emphasized. "Today's decision brings the American people one step closer to finding out just who the Vice President's energy task force met with in drafting its dirty, dangerous energy plan," said David Bookbinder, senior attorney with the Sierra Club. "The Vice President should take this as a sign that the game is up, and come clean." The defendants argued that Judge Sullivan's Orders reflect "clear error," and urged the Court of Appeals to order the lower court to dismiss Vice President Cheney from the action, and to decide the case on the basis of the administrative record alone, without further discovery. [Sullivan] Judge Emmet Sullivan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (Photo courtesy [http://www.dcd.uscourts.gov/] ) But Judge Sullivan did not agree. He wrote that "once again the defendants have misrepresented precedent," in Tuesday's ruling. He admonished the Justice Department for "mischaracterizing the intent and effect of this court's orders." The judge reinforced his earlier decision that more information is needed to satisfy the questions raised by the plaintiff groups. "This Court has already concluded that, in light of the delicate balancing of constitutional concerns required of the Court in this case, more information than is contained in the scant administrative record currently available, which consists in its entirety of the President's memorandum to the Vice-President establishing the NEPDG, the NEPDG's final report, and the affidavit of the NEPDG's former Deputy Director, is necessary to resolve the question of whether and how FACA is applicable to the NEPDG." The Bush administration has presented the National Energy Policy as providing for "reliable, affordable, and environmentally sound energy for America's future." But the plaintiff groups take issue with the environmentally sound portion of that characterization. "The energy policy that came out of the administration has serious impacts on the health and safety of American communities," said Bookbinder. "The public deserves to know who drafted that policy." The Sierra Club and Judicial Watch are asking for a full accounting of what happened behind the closed doors of the Cheney Energy Task Force. They want to know who was in the room, what proposals did the energy industry executives and lobbyists make, what documents the energy industry submitted, and what Task Force documents they reviewed. The National Energy Policy is online at: [http://www.whitehouse.gov/energy/] [editor@ens-news.com] for details. Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2002. All Rights ***************************************************************** 49 WNA NEWS BRIEFING 02.48 | 20 - 26 November 2002 World Nuclear Association | News Briefings | A weekly summary of international news relevant to the nuclear energy industry. [NB02.48-1] Bulgaria has agreed to close the Kozloduy-3 and -4 nuclear power reactors by 2006 in order to secure its entry into the European Union (EU) in 2007. However, the European Commission (EC) agreed to first conduct a peer review of the units to determine whether the reactors really are unsafe. Bulgaria had previously refused to close the reactors unless the EU sent independent inspectors to examine the units' safety. An earlier inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) concluded that Bulgaria had addressed all safety issues and that the reactors are safe. If the EU inspectors determine that the reactors are safe, they will be allowed to operate past 2006. Bulgaria believes the units can be operated safely until 2010 and 2012. Kozloduy-1 and -2 are scheduled to close by the end of 2002. (SpentFUEL, 25 November, p1; NucNet News, 360/02, 20 November; Ux Weekly, 25 November, p4; see also News Briefing 02.41-1) [NB02.48-2] UK: The European Commission (EC) is expected to support the 650 million UK pound (US$1022 million) loan from the UK government to keep British Energy (BE) solvent. The government may even be permitted to lend more than the amount already granted. The EC is expected to force the UK to stagger the payments and impose tough conditions on each installment to ensure BE uses the funds only to prevent bankruptcy. European law provides that rescue aid can be paid only for an initial period of six months and must be restricted to the amount needed to keep the company in business. After that time, the government would be required to present a restructuring plan for the company to the EC. BE is expected to tell the government that it will be able to restructure its finances and can be rescued through a combination of lower nuclear fuel bills, debt for equity swaps and disposals. Greenpeace will press ahead with a legal challenge to the government's emergency loan to BE. The case will be heard in late January. (Nuclear Market Review, 22 November, p3; BBC News Online, 22 November; Financial Times, 22 November, p2; Guardian, 23 November, p27; see also News Briefing 02.45-3) Meanwhile, BNFL has offered to renegotiate its reprocessing contracts with BE - an offer that could be worth more than US$160 million to BE. The new offer links the price of reprocessing to the market price of electricity. BE's emergency loan from the government runs out on 29 November. (FreshFUEL, 25 November, p3; SpentFUEL, 25 November, p3; see also News Briefing 02.44-1) [NB02.48-3] Ukraine: The finance committee of the parliament has recommended that the country ratifies a US$44 million loan agreement with Russia for the supply of equipment for completion of the Khelmnitski-2 and Rovno-4 (K2/R4) nuclear power reactors. The announcement follows the signing of a loan agreement - worth US$144 million - between Ukraine and Russia for completion of the two reactors earlier in 2002. (NucNet News, 359/02, 20 November) The Ukrainian parliament ratified the loan deal, with more than two-thirds of members of parliament (314 out of 400) voting in favour of the new agreement. (NucNet Business News, 88/02, 22 November; Ux Weekly, 25 November, p4; see also News Briefing 02.27-4) [NB02.48-4] China: Qinshan-4 - unit one of Qinshan phase three - was connected to the East China power grid on 19 November. The 665 MWe PHWR - the first of two identical CANDU-type units at the site - was constructed in 53 months and was 90% funded by Canada, the USA and Japan. The second PHWR unit (Qinshan-5) is expected to come online in August 2003. It was also announced that unit two of Qinshan phase two (Qinshan-3), which was expected to enter into commercial production soon, would not now be connected to the grid until mid-2003. (Nuclear Market Review, 22 November, p4; NucNet News, 361/02, 21 November; Ux Weekly, 25 November, p5; see also News Briefings 02.40-2 and 02.07-2) [NB02.48-5] The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) is forecasting a slight growth in US nuclear power capacity up to 2025. In its 'Annual Energy Outlook 2003', the EIA projects total nuclear capacity will increase from 98.2 GWe in 2001 to a high of 100.4 GWe by 2006 resulting from capacity uprates. Then, total nuclear capacity is expected to decline slightly to 99.6 GWe by 2025. In the 2001-2025 period, uprates of 4.2 GWe are offset by retirements of 2.8 GWe. However, the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) suggests that 10 GWe of new capacity can be added from uprates and restarts of reactors previously shut down, and this can be done much more quickly than the 4.2 GWe forecast by the EIA. (Nuclear Energy Overview, 25 November, p6; Ux Weekly, 25 November, p2; see also News Briefing 01.47-4) [NB02.48-6] US: Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is planning to replace the steam generators at two reactors at the Sequoyah and Watts Bar nuclear power plants. The replacements are expected to cost over US$300 million. Replacing the four generators at each reactor will help the units operate more efficiently. The steam generators at Sequoyah-1 are scheduled for replacement in spring 2003, while those of the Watts Bar reactor will be replaced sometime in 2006. (Ux Weekly, 25 November, p3; see also News Briefing 02.31-13) [NB02.48-7] US: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has approved a request to increase generating capacity at Exelon's Peach Bottom nuclear power plant by 1.62%. The uprate will raise the generating capacity of both of the plant's BWRs from 1093 MWe to 1110 MWe. Exelon will implement the power uprate immediately. (Ux Weekly, 25 November, p4; see also News Briefing 01.27-9) [NB02.48-8] Japan: Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) has submitted an interim report about 'comprehensive checks on the appropriateness of inspections' conducted at its nuclear power plants. The report was submitted to the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) on 15 November. A final report is due to be submitted in March 2003. (NucNet News, 362/02, 21 November) TEPCO said it would shut down four further reactors for maintenance in January and February 2003. The announcement means that as many as 15 of TEPCO's 17 reactors could be out of service at the beginning of next year. If power demand is especially high during the winter, the company may be unable to satisfy power demand in the Tokyo area. TEPCO has restarted some of its mothballed thermal power plants to make up for some of the lost nuclear capacity. (Nuclear Market Review, 15 November, p2; Ux Weekly, 25 November, p5; see also News Briefing 02.45-6) [NB02.48-9] North Korea said that the 1994 Agreed Framework agreement - intended to prevent it from producing nuclear weapons - had collapsed, following the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organisation (KEDO) decision to suspend shipments of heavy fuel oil to North Korea. Under the agreement, KEDO was to supply 500 000 tonnes per year of fuel oil to North Korea until construction of two LWRs in the country was completed in exchange for North Korea abandoning its nuclear weapons programme. North Korea's crude oil imports total just over 2 million tonnes per year. (FreshFUEL, 25 November, p3; International Herald Tribune, 22 November, p3; see also News Briefing 02.47-1) [NB02.48-10] UK: A parliamentary committee has given its formal response to proposals to establish a nuclear Liabilities Management Authority (LMA) to oversee the clean-up of the UK's nuclear legacy. The trade and industry committee said that if proposals for establishing the LMA are to be fully effective, it is essential that 'the assets and liabilities to be transferred from BNFL are correctly identified'. The committee noted the government's objective to bring a 'much sharper and stronger strategic focus to bear on nuclear clean-up and to drive work forward' and that legislation would be introduced at the 'first available opportunity'. A Liabilities Management Unit has been established within the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) to 'prepare the ground' for the LMA. (NucNet News, 365/02, 26 November; see also News Briefing 02.47-11) [NB02.48-11] Kazakhstan is considering the import and storage of foreign low- and intermediate-level waste (LLW/ILW) to help raise funds for a national waste disposal scheme and an environmental clean-up of its nuclear legacy. Kazatomprom - the state nuclear company - says that the proposal was launched in June 2001 as a result of limited available funds to pay for radioactive waste storage, and restoration of areas contaminated by Soviet-era uranium mining and nuclear weapons testing. Mukhtar Dzakishev, president of Kazatomprom, says that cleaning up the country's own stockpile of more than 220 million tonnes of nuclear waste will cost US$1.1 billion. He believes importing waste could earn the country US$30-40 billion over the next 30 years. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) would be asked to oversee the package, transportation, storage and burial as part of the proposed international waste storage initiative. The initiative is currently being considered by the Kazakh government. (BBC News Online, 21 November; NucNet News, 363/02, 22 November; Nuclear Market Review, 22 November, p3; see also News Briefing 01.30-13) [NB02.48-12] Germany: RWE has obtained approval to operate an on-site interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel at its Emsland nuclear power plant. The approval is the first of 12 sites that will house Germany's nuclear waste for up to 40 years prior to disposition at a permanent repository. Construction of the 25 million euro (US$25 million) facility, which can hold 130 containers, took 18 months. Other interim sites will likely be completed by 2005, according to RWE. (Nuclear Market Review, 15 November, p2; see also News Briefing 00.02-8) [NB02.48-13] Russia: BNFL has opened an office in Moscow to continue to build links with Russian officials and nuclear organizations. The company has been working in Russia for some time on a wide range of projects relating to decommissioning, clean-up and environmental remediation. (BNFL, 22 November; see also News Briefing 02.32-12) Previous News Briefing NB02.47 ***************************************************************** 50 Cheney again told to turn over files - smh.com.au By Richard Serrano in Washington A federal judge has ruled that the United States Vice-President, Dick Cheney, must turn over documents detailing whom he met last year in forming the Bush Administration's energy policy. The ruling backs groups that say the energy industry heavily influenced plans for more oil and gas drilling and a revived nuclear power program. US District Judge Emmet Sullivan gave Mr Cheney two weeks to release the documents or explain why they should be withheld from public inspection. A spokeswoman for Mr Cheney said his office had no comment on the ruling and referred the matter to the Justice Department, where no one could be reached for comment. The Bush Administration is expected to appeal against the ruling. The lawsuit was filed by the Sierra Club and Judicial Watch, urging full disclosure of who met Mr Cheney and how they may have influenced his secretive energy task force early last year. A lawyer for the Sierra Club, David Bookbinder, said the decision "brings the American people one step closer to finding out just who the Vice-President's energy task force met in drafting its dirty, dangerous energy plan". Soon after the Bush Administration took office, Mr Cheney was chosen to convene the National Energy Policy Development Group and search for new ways to make the US less dependent on foreign energy sources. In May last year the group released a policy paper that said oil and gas drilling should be increased and that the nation should take another look at doing more with nuclear power. Environmental groups complained that they were shut out of the group's work. When they asked for an accounting of which large energy companies were involved, Mr Cheney refused to release that information. Last month Judge Sullivan ordered the White House to turn over the documents or produce a detailed explanation about what paperwork it still wanted to withhold from the public. The Administration asked permission to appeal against the order immediately rather than wait for the lawsuit to be resolved. But the judge denied that request in his order released on Wednesday, directing the Administration to comply with his order last month for release of the documents within two weeks. Judge Sullivan said Mr Cheney and the White House "have simply failed to establish the factual and legal predicates justifying" an appeal at this time. He added that "once again the defendants have misrepresented precedent" in arguing that the work of the energy task force was an extraordinary event that called for executive privilege by the White House. Mr Bookbinder said the Administration's energy policy had serious implications for the health and safety of Americans. In a separate lawsuit still pending, the General Accounting Office, a congressional watchdog agency, is asking Mr Cheney to reveal whom he met when the energy policy was taking shape. Los Angeles Times Copyright © 2002. The Sydney Morning Herald. ***************************************************************** 51 Secrecy News 11/27/02 SECRECY NEWS from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy Volume 2002, Issue No. 118 November 27, 2002 + KISSINGER NAMED HEAD OF 9/11 COMMISSION + "TOTAL INFORMATION AWARENESS" CONTROVERSY UNFOLDS + "SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED" BECOMES LAW + RUMSFELD: "STRATEGIC INFLUENCE" LIVES ON + NATIONAL SECURITY LAW CASEBOOK + INADVERTENT DISCLOSURES OF CLASSIFIED INFORMATION + PUBLIC INFO ON INTELLIGENCE POSES A THREAT, STAFFER SAYS + THE ENDURING SIGNIFICANCE OF JOHN RAWLS + WRITE THE CLASSIFIED HISTORY OF THE WAR ON TERRORISM KISSINGER NAMED HEAD OF 9/11 COMMISSION In an astonishing move that heralds stark limits on the scope of the investigation of the September 11 terrorist attacks, President Bush today named former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to be head of the congressionally mandated Commission that will conduct the next phase of the investigation. "Dr. Kissinger will bring broad experience, clear thinking and careful judgment to this important task," the President said in signing the 2003 Intelligence Authorization Act. But Kissinger is not distinguished as an impartial judge of government misconduct, to put it mildly. To the contrary, he is an investigatee, not an investigator, and one who has stubbornly resisted the disclosure of official information to members of Congress, courts of law, private researchers, and others. With his appointment, it becomes hard to imagine, for example, that the new Commission would ever subpoena the White House for access to the President's Daily Brief that reportedly warned of the potential for terrorism in August 2001. "TOTAL INFORMATION AWARENESS" CONTROVERSY UNFOLDS New information about the scope and budget of the Pentagon's Total Information Awareness (TIA) initiative has emerged, as the controversial program to develop a vast transactional database of personal information for hunting terrorists continued to draw bipartisan criticism. Though the Pentagon said last week that the TIA budget was a mere $10 million, a close analysis by the Electronic Privacy Information Center found that total spending for all TIA component programs was closer to $245 million during FY 2001-03. See materials from a November 25 EPIC press briefing on TIA here: http://www.epic.org/events/tia_briefing/ [http://www.epic.org/events/tia_briefing/] Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the incoming Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, questioned "why DoD resources are being spent on research for domestic law enforcement," and asked the Pentagon Inspector General to "conduct a complete and thorough review of the TIA program." See Sen. Grassley's November 22 letter here: http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2002/11/gr112202.html [http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2002/11/gr112202.html] Meanwhile, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) told ABC News This Week on November 24 that he had asked Defense Secretary Rumsfeld to fire Adm. John Poindexter, the head of the DARPA Information Awareness Office, because of Poindexter's record of having lied to Congress. Questioned about the whole matter on November 18, Secretary Rumsfeld told Americans not to worry. "I haven't been briefed on it [TIA]; I'm not knowledgeable about it. Anyone who is concerned ought not be. Anyone with any concern ought to be able to sleep well tonight. Nothing terrible is going to happen." See: http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2002/11/dod111802.html [http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2002/11/dod111802.html] See also "A One-Way Information Highway: The homeland security bill shows a government that wants to learn more and divulge less" by James Kuhnhenn and Drew Brown, Philadelphia Inquirer, November 24: http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/nation/4589307.htm [http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/nation/4589307.htm] "Lawmakers, privacy advocates and civil libertarians are criticizing a controversial Defense Department research project as an invasion of personal privacy, and are questioning whether it should be scrapped," writes Shane Harris in Government Executive, November 25: http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/1102/112502h1.htm [http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/1102/112502h1.htm] "Big Brother Will Be Watching America," according to the headline of a story by Suzanne Goldenberg in the Guardian, November 23: http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,845777,00.ht ml [http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,845777,00.h tml] Author and security analyst George Smith notes that the Total Information Awareness program bears a spooky resemblance to a system conceived by the Polish science fiction writer Stanislaw Lem in one of his dystopic tales. See Smith's article "When Washington Mimics Sci-Fi" in Security Focus, November 24: http://online.securityfocus.com/columnists/126 [http://online.securityfocus.com/columnists/126] "SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED" BECOMES LAW In an open-ended congressional invitation to increase official secrecy, the new Homeland Security Act instructs the President to "identify and safeguard homeland security information that is sensitive but unclassified" (Section 892). http://www.fas.org/sgp/congress/2002/hr5710-111302.html#hsi [http://www.fas.org/sgp/congress/2002/hr5710-111302.html#hsi] Because the new law provides no formal definition of the word "sensitive," this provision could be used to justify expansive new restrictions on the disclosure of unclassified information. While "sensitive" information has been referenced in a number of laws such as the Computer Security Act of 1987, this is apparently the first time that the problematic category of "sensitive but unclassified" information has appeared in a federal statute. RUMSFELD: "STRATEGIC INFLUENCE" LIVES ON Defense Secretary Rumsfeld last week likened the brewing controversy over the Total Information Awareness program to an earlier dispute over the Pentagon's Office of Strategic Influence, which critics asserted -- erroneously, according to the Pentagon -- was created to engage in disinformation. As a result of all of the negative publicity, the Office of Strategic Influence was shut down. Or maybe it wasn't. Rumsfeld said last week that only the name has been abandoned. The Office's intended functions are being carried out. "And then there was the Office of Strategic Influence," Rumsfeld reminisced on November 18. "You may recall that. And 'oh my goodness gracious isn't that terrible, Henny Penny the sky is going to fall.' I went down that next day and said fine, if you want to savage this thing, fine, I'll give you the corpse. There's the name. You can have the name, but I'm gonna keep doing every single thing that needs to be done and I have." See excerpts from Rumsfeld's November 18 media availability: http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2002/11/dod111802.html [http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2002/11/dod111802.html] NATIONAL SECURITY LAW CASEBOOK The study of national security law is not only intrinsically important, it can also be very interesting. The premier casebook for students of the subject is "National Security Law" by professors Stephen Dycus, Arthur L. Berney, William C. Banks, and Peter Raven-Hansen. The third edition of the book has just been published with a timely new section on "Fighting Terrorists and International Criminals." The book offers an excellent selection of key statutes and rulings, along with interpretive commentary, questions for discussion, and further references. For further information search "National Security Law" on the publisher's web site: http://www.aspenpublishers.com/ [http://www.aspenpublishers.com/] INADVERTENT DISCLOSURES OF CLASSIFIED INFORMATION In an ongoing review of previously declassified public records at the National Archives, Energy Department reviewers found 47 pages of classified nuclear weapons information that was inadvertently disclosed out of approximately two million pages that they reviewed earlier this year. An assessment of the damage, if any, that might have resulted from the disclosures was said to be underway. The inadvertent disclosures were described in a classified report to Congress dated May 2002 that was published in declassified form by the Department of Energy this week. While some of the disclosures apparently involved sensitive nuclear weapons design information, the most common accidental disclosures concerned historical "nuclear weapons storage locations" from decades ago that, while formally classified, are no longer sensitive, some Energy Department officials privately acknowledge. At a meeting with Energy Department and National Archives officials last week, a working group of non-governmental historians resolved to press for a revision of classification policy so that historical nuclear weapons locations would no longer be considered classified. A copy of the DOE latest Report to Congress on Inadvertent Releases of Restricted Data and Formerly Restricted Data is posted here: http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/doe/inadvertent7.html [http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/doe/inadvertent7.html] PUBLIC INFO ON INTELLIGENCE POSES A THREAT, STAFFER SAYS The performance of U.S. intelligence is degraded by the public availability of information about intelligence, according to a congressional staffer, and non-governmental organizations that publish such information, such as the Federation of American Scientists, are part of the problem, he said. "Too many people in the world today know how we go about our business," said Timothy R. Sample, staff director of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, speaking November 22 at an American Bar Association conference on "National Security Law In A Changing World" in Arlington, Virginia. "I would argue that what I will call intelligence oversight 'hobby shopping' by individuals who get a kick out of just supplying information -- especially when it's for no real cause; but in the name of 'openness' -- have absolutely no idea what the impact of their information is, and how damaging it can be," Mr. Sample said. "And I would take, for example -- though I may pay for it later -- I would take, for example, if you go to some of the things that have been released by the American Federation of Science [sic]. There is a web site that has information on it. And I can't say whether it's good information, bad information -- it's a lot of information. And it is for no particular purpose. Other than, hey, look what I found out, and I'm going to put it out." "That, to me, is a specific area that nobody wants to talk about too much. And that, to me, is something we also have to put into the equation," he said. Limiting publication of intelligence information to that which has an approved "purpose" would not be a sensible way to navigate between competing and sometimes conflicting interests in security and public disclosure. It does, however, help to explain why Mr. Sample's Committee's web site is practically barren and devoid of interest: http://intelligence.house.gov/ [http://intelligence.house.gov/] THE ENDURING SIGNIFICANCE OF JOHN RAWLS "The Enduring Significance of John Rawls" is an appreciation of the work of political philosopher John Rawls, who died November 24. It was written by Martha Nussbaum and appeared in the Chronicle of Higher Education on July 20, 2001. See: http://chronicle.com/free/v47/i45/45b00701.htm [http://chronicle.com/free/v47/i45/45b00701.htm] WRITE THE CLASSIFIED HISTORY OF THE WAR ON TERRORISM The Defense Department is looking for a historian to research and write a classified history of the role of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) in the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT). "The contractor shall research and write a volume that will provide a narrative account of the CJCS/Joint Staff and JCS involvement in the development of national security/counter-terrorism policy and counter-terrorist operations for the GWOT during the eighteen months following the attacks of 11 September 2001." (Thanks to WMA.) See: http://www.eps.gov/spg/USA/DSS-W/DASW01/DASW01-03-R-0002/Synopsis P.html [http://www.eps.gov/spg/USA/DSS-W/DASW01/DASW01-03-R-0002/Synopsi sP.html] Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the Federation of American Scientists. To SUBSCRIBE to Secrecy News, send an email message to secrecy_news-request@lists.fas.org [secrecy_news-request@lists.fas.org] with "subscribe" (without quotes) in the body of the message. To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a blank email message to secrecy_news-remove@lists.fas.org [secrecy_news-remove@lists.fas.org] . OR email your request to saftergood@fas.org [saftergood@fas.org] Secrecy News is archived at: http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/index.html [http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/index.html] ***************************************************************** NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: *****************************************************************