***************************************************************** 05/29/02 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 10.136 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POLICY 1 US: *City Council May Back Case Against Berkeley Lab* 2 Faslane to win nuclear order 3 N.B. nuclear upgrade to be scrapped if NB Power is privatized 4 Chief of U.S.-led consortium to visit Koreas to discuss nuclear NUCLEAR REACTORS 6 US: Alabama employees get set for TVA work 7 US: Nuclear power plant tries solar approach 8 Temelin nuclear plant to start 18-month test run of first unit 9 Hamaoka N-plant pipe not fully checked 10 US: Cops: Nuke plant worker was stockpiling weapons 11 Temelin nuclear plant to start 18-month test run of first unit * NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 12 US: Ex-chief suing Envirocare, owner 13 US: Rail accident: Michigan Town Ordered to Stay Away 14 US: Trains Collide in Texas Panhandle 15 US: Nevada, Utah politicians unite against nuclear waste 16 US: YUCCA MOUNTAIN OPPOSITION: Mayor courts Utah support 17 US: Second City Heights soil cleanup is under way 18 US: SLC mayor fights against Yucca Mountain 19 US: Yucca delegation to keep watch on Utah senators 20 US: Nev. Senator Caught Between a Rock And a Waste Dump 21 US: Nuclear waste plan challenged 22 US: Nevada Leaders Bring N-Waste Alert 23 US: Nevadans blast Yucca plans NUCLEAR WEAPONS 24 UK: Henry Porter: it's time to take more notice of Kashmir 25 Treaty: Still Some Way to Go 26 Impact of a nuclear strike 27 Russia: Officials To Draft New Safeguards 28 South Asia?s nuclear winter* 29 Computer maps S. Asia's nuclear holocaust US DEPT. OF ENERGY 30 DOE: Preserving a 'national treasure': Atomic artifacts 31 Livermore Editorial: Employment Inequities: Stats Show Need for Prob ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 *City Council May Back Case Against Berkeley Lab* The Daily Californian Lawsuit Asks Lab to Finish Tritium Treatment *By MIKE MEYERS* Daily Cal Staff Writer Tuesday, May 28, 2002 The Berkeley City Council may provide $15,000 tonight to support a lawsuit demanding that the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory complete its treatment of radioactive tritium. The Committee to Minimize Toxic Waste, a Berkeley activist group, initiated the lawsuit against the lab. Council members Dona Spring and Kriss Worthington are asking the city to support the underfunded group's efforts. "Without that piece of funding, (the committee's lawsuit) is pretty much dead, and the message goes out to the community that the fox is guarding the henhouse," Spring said. A division of the lab, the National Tritium Labeling Facility, lost funding from the National Institutes of Health and ceased operation in December 2001. In a letter to the council, the lab's Safety Director David McGraw said the lab is conducting a "safe and orderly closure" of the facility. But the committee has said the tritium cleanup is not safe and presents a grave danger to the surrounding community. "Tritium is extremely dangerous for unborn children and very hazardous for adults," said Berkeley Environmental Commissioner Leuren Moret. Tritium is an unstable isotope of hydrogen that can replace stable hydrogen in a water molecule. Scientists can use this property to track water molecules in the body and "label" experimental drugs. Beginning in 1982, scientists conducted this type of biomedical research at the National Tritium Labeling Facility. Despite Berkeley activists' claims to the contrary, many scientists agree that tritium presents little if any danger to humans. "(Tritium) is relatively innocuous because it has a very low energy emission," said UC Berkeley nuclear chemistry professor Darleane Hoffman. Tritium occurs naturally, Hoffman added, created by cosmic rays. Small dissolved quantities exist in nearly all the Earth's air and water, she said. But the alleged dangers of tritium are not the only issue, said some lawsuit supporters. At the Feb. 5, 2002 City Council meeting, the lab's attorney Nancy Shepard told the council that the lab would complete the cleanup by April 1. But the lab is still treating tritium. McGraw has written that this is a temporarily delay, but many are doubtful. "The lab has transmorphed into a waste treatment facility," Spring said. "They're still using tritium; they're still using hazardous waste." Spring and Worthington's funding request faces a tough fight with council centrist and often swing vote Linda Maio opposed. "Given that they're so far along on the treatment, I just don't see what a lawsuit would do," Maio said. Maio said she will reserve final judgment on the issue until she hears testimony from city staffer and toxic expert Nabil Al-Hadithy, whom she called a "neutral third party." Even if Al-Hadithy testifies the lab presents a threat, Maio said she would prefer to put direct pressure on the lab rather than using a lawsuit. "(The lab) certainly would not want to get off on a bad footing with the city," she said. The city's Peace and Justice Commission has thrown its support behind the lawsuit, issuing a statement calling for all radioactive waste treatment to take place away from densely populated and earthquake- and firestorm-prone Berkeley. Some council members questioned the logic of providing funding for someone else's lawsuit. "It's taxpayers' money," said Councilmember Miriam Hawley. "If the city feels we need to sue the lab, we should do it ourselves." (c) 2002 Berkeley, California Email: dailycal@dailycal.org ***************************************************************** 2 Faslane to win nuclear order Scotsman.com Tue 28 May 2002 /Jason Beattie/ THE Ministry of Defence is set to confirm the new Astute class nuclear submarines will be based at Faslane on the Clyde, securing hundreds of jobs at the naval base. The expected announcement of the Scottish base as home to the Astute ?hunter killer? submarines, due to come into service in 2005, will infuriate peace campaigners. Faslane, currently home to the Swiftsure and Vanguard class submarines, has been locked in fierce competition with Devonport, Plymouth, over which will be the permanent base for the state-of-the-art Astutes. However, the MoD announced last week it was shelving a planned £40 million weapons jetty in Devonport which had been ordered specifically for loading missiles and torpedoes on to nuclear submarines. The decision to scrap the ?remote ammunitioning? jetty, which is designed to give the port the capability to arm the submarines ?round the clock?, almost certainly means the Astutes will go to Faslane, which employs 7,000. Three Astute submarines, armed with Tomahawk cruise missiles, were ordered by the MoD in 1997 at the cost of £750 million each to replace the Swiftsure class already based at Faslane. The first, HMS Astute, is due to come into service in three years? time, with a second tranche of two, possibly three, submarines expected to follow. A spokesman for the MoD refused to confirm Faslane had been chosen, but admitted that the base?s experience in handling nuclear submarines and the ?cost-effectiveness? of Faslane would feature in the final decision. In a major vote of confidence for the base, the MoD announced last September it would be building a £300 million centre at the base to train crew for the Astutes. John McFall, the Labour back-bencher whose Dumbarton constituency includes the Faslane base, said he had been lobbying hard for the dockyard to win the Astute order. ?I would be very happy for the Astute class to come here,? he said. Stephen Saunders, the editor of Jane?s Fighting Ships, said it would be ?consistent? of the navy to base the Astutes at Faslane given its experience handling the Swiftsure class. He said: ?Devonport and Faslane have been the two nuclear submarine bases for many years. In Faslane, they are close to the north Atlantic. It is a very important base. ?The Astutes are going to replace the Swiftsure class, which is based in Faslane so it would be a logical step. I?m not aware a decision has been taken, but it would be consistent if they choose Faslane.? A spokesman for the MoD said the ?base porting? assessment had been completed, but that no final decision had been made. He indicated it was unlikely the new fleet would be split between Devonport and Faslane and it would be ?logical? for the submarines to be based in Scotland. He said: ?There is a problem of duplicating operations between two bases. This would clearly be a consideration in deciding the most cost-effective operation. Clearly, balancing the investment criteria is going to be significant in determining where they will go.? But John Ainslie, of the protest group Scottish CND, said the decision to base the submarines at Faslane would continue the nuclear presence in Scotland for a least another 25 years. ?The last thing we want is more nuclear submarines on the Clyde,? he said. Anti-nuclear protesters have been demonstrating outside Faslane since 1982, when the then Conservative government decided to base submarines equipped with nuclear weapons in Scotland. Opponents, who have consistently questioned the safety of the nuclear depot, claimed the choice of Faslane ? just 30 minutes from the centre of Glasgow ? was politically motivated. Since the arrival of the Vanguard class, equipped with the Trident ballistic missiles, more than 1,700 activists have been arrested during frequent clashes with the base?s security staff. Last year, both George Galloway, the Glasgow Hillhead MP, and Tommy Sheridan, the leader of the Scottish Socialist Party, were arrested for taking part in a protest. Anti-Trident campaigners also interrupted First Minister?s question time last year by attaching themselves to the railings at Holyrood, a protest which was controversially cheered on by some MSPs from the floor. ©2002 scotsman.com News > Metro -- Toxic lead levels found near homes By Kristen Green UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER May 28, 2002 Workers dressed in protective clothing began bulldozing toxic soils from 13 properties in City Heights last week. They continued working through the weekend, digging out an area three feet deep of contaminated soil around homes and replacing it with clean dirt. The city of San Diego is managing the $3.2 million project with help from the federal Environmental Protection Agency. The cleanup at 38th and Quince streets is starting just 18 months after the EPA completed a similar soil removal project a block away at Redwood Street. Both areas were once public dumping grounds where trash was routinely burned, a process that leaves behind heavy metals. Samples of soil revealed toxic levels of lead, which can impair children's mental development. This latest cleanup is expected to take seven to 10 weeks. City officials describe it as more complicated than the Redwood cleanup because they must dig around water and electrical lines. So far, they've finished work around one residence. Workers first seal the houses' windows and doors. Then they use an excavator to dig the soil from around the home, line the excavated area with felt material and cover it with clean fill. The Redwood cleanup, which took six weeks, removed waste from nine parcels. The properties were also contaminated with lead, but several contained radioactive waste. Strontium 90, a potent radioactive isotope that can cause cancer, was found at that site. EPA officials say they're also screening soil from the cleanup at 38th and Quince streets for radioactive waste. The Redwood cleanup has cost about $3 million, including the cost of purchasing two houses and reimbursing five homeowners for diminished property values. The city contributed $1.1 million; the federal government provided $1.2 million; and the state paid $718,000. The estimate for the Quince cleanup, which involves four more properties than Redwood, is $3.2 million, including an estimated $1.2 million to purchase six homes. The state approved a $750,000 matching grant to help pay the bill. The city had hoped to cut project costs by disposing of the estimated 7,200 tons of contaminated fill at the Miramar landfill, rather than trucking it out of the county. During the Redwood cleanup, the soil was shipped to a hazardous waste dump site near Bakersfield. But this time, it's being trucked more cheaply to a landfill in Arizona, where the fill isn't considered hazardous waste. To date, the city has made offers to buy six of the Quince Street-area homes, but only one homeowner has expressed interest in selling, said Sylvia Castillo, a senior civil engineer for the city. Maria Guerrero said she doesn't think she'd be able to find anything comparable to the four bedroom, two bath house she bought 32 years ago. "I looked at a lot of houses but it's too expensive," she said. But Guerrero said she plans to stay in a hotel when her property is cleaned. The city has offered to relocate residents during the cleanup to protect them from the dangerous lead-laden dust that is stirred up by the digging. Kristen Green: (619) 542-4576; kristen.green@uniontrib.com © Copyright 2002 Union-Tribune Publishing Co. ***************************************************************** 18 SLC mayor fights against Yucca Mountain BYU NewsNet - By [Jacob@newsroom.byu.edu] NewsNet Staff Writer 28 May 2002 Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson joined political leaders from Nevada, Tuesday, May 28, to oppose nuclear waste storage at Yucca Mountain. The Yucca Mountain Repository Site Approval Act, recently passed by a vote of 306-117 in the U.S. House of Representatives, is now awaiting Senate approval. "We will not be the radioactive dumping ground of this country any longer," Anderson said. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said his state supported Utah in fighting against making Skull Valley, Tooele County, a nuclear waste site and he wanted to know why the support had not been returned in the Nevada fight. "I am dumbfounded that my friend, the governor of Utah, has not supported us," he said. Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman said transporting the nuclear waste is a national problem. To transport the spent fuel, the shipments would travel through 43 states and 106 cities, he said. "We need the American people to know that somebody is trying to pull the wool over their eyes and we're not going to let it happen. We're not going to let them get away with it. We're going to expose them," Goodman said. The risks are too high to transport the spent fuel, Reid said. Containing the nuclear waste would be impossible if there were an accident while transporting it, he said. "A truckload of nuclear waste has 240 times the radioactivity of the bomb that dropped on Hiroshima," he said. Reid said he has talked to Utah's senators and is hopeful they will oppose transportation of nuclear waste through the Utah. "I'm hopeful and confident they'll do the right thing," he said. Contrary to what Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, has said, approving the Yucca Mountain location increases the likelihood of bringing the waste to Skull Valley, Anderson said. "I think that our job now is to demonstrate that Yucca Mountain means, ultimately, permanent storage at the Skull Valley facility," he said. Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, the only Utah representative to vote against the bill, said the waste should remain in the East, where the fuel is manufactured. "This is about the East coast dumping their waste on the West; whether it's in Nevada, whether it's in Utah, it's the same thing," he said. Copyright ©2002 BYU NewsNet ***************************************************************** 19 Yucca delegation to keep watch on Utah senators Las Vegas SUN May 29, 2002 By Diana Sahagun Nevada leaders say the success of their trip to Utah this week to warn of the dangers of hauling nuclear waste across the country will be measured by the votes of Sens. Orrin Hatch and Robert Bennett. If the two Republican senators change their minds and vote with Nevada on the Yucca Mountain plan, Councilman Gary Reese said he will know the trip to Salt Lake City made an impact. "We're going to watch what Hatch and Bennett do," Reese said. "If they change their votes, the trip was a success." The Senate is expected to vote in July on the proposal to store the nation's high-level nuclear waste in a repository at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The Yucca plan has been approved by the House of Representatives. Fresh from their trip to Salt Lake City and back Tuesday, Reese and Mayor Oscar Goodman said they were optimistic that Utah's media had picked up their message and would have some bearing on elected officials. The trip came in the midst of a major public relations campaign by Nevada that includes television commercials in Utah. Goodman said the intent was to put pressure on Hatch and Bennett to vote with Nevada when the issue comes before the Senate. Goodman said the Nevada delegation -- which included Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev. -- talked to more than 40 members of the print and television media about the dangers of transporting nuclear waste across the country. Much of the waste would pass through Utah. "We're trying to get the media to tell the truth ... and alert people as to what the situation is," Goodman said. "Then (the residents) go to their politicians and tell they don't want this poison coming through their streets. "Politicians like to get re-elected, and if the politicians don't do what the people want, then the people aren't going to vote for them." The Nevada officials were joined by Rep. Jim Matheson, R-Utah, and Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson, who oppose Yucca Mountain. Goodman used some of his familiar antics in sending his message, flashing a badge to the media and warning that he would arrest any driver who brought nuclear waste through Nevada. "They started to shiver, and they began to shake," Goodman said, laughing. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 20 Nev. Senator Caught Between a Rock And a Waste Dump (washingtonpost.com) Ensign Bucks Party Line on Unpopular Project By Helen Dewar Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, May 29, 2002; Page A15 Normally, freshman senators have a year or two to adjust to their new jobs before they face career-threatening challenges like a nuclear waste dump in their own back yard. Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) has not had that luxury. According to polls and every other available indicator, the people of Nevada are solidly against the long-pending plan, recently embraced by President Bush, to locate a huge repository for storing nuclear waste beneath Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. As a result, it is a political imperative of the highest order that Nevada's politicians of both parties fight to the point of exhaustion to stop the project. But for Ensign, who is halfway into his second year in the Senate, the job of defending his home state on the issue is considerably more complicated than it is for Democrats from Nevada, including Sen. Harry M. Reid, the Senate majority whip, a leader for years in the fight against the repository. While a majority of Democrats oppose the project, Ensign finds himself at odds on the issue with his president and his party's leaders from both houses of Congress, along with a majority of his new Senate GOP colleagues. Moreover, he won his Senate seat after arguing that Nevada would benefit from having a Republican voice at the table. Now Ensign has to demonstrate that he was right. Serious and earnest in demeanor, the 44-year-old lawmaker -- a conservative and party loyalist on most issues -- shrugs off the notion that he's in a political pickle. Everyone understands his situation and knows he's doing his best, he says. "It's not awkward because they know from experience where I'm coming from . . . and that I won't back down," Ensign said in a recent interview. The issue is not a partisan one in Nevada, he said. "As long as we get to 51 votes, I don't care how many Harry [Reid] gets and how many I get. The bottom line is winning." But he faces formidable odds and a difficult summer. The House overwhelmingly votedearlier this month to override the veto of the project by Nevada's Republican governor, Kenny Guinn. A vote by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee may come as early as next week, and under a procedure stipulated by law, the full Senate will vote sometime this summer and it will take only a majority vote -- not the 60 votes usually required on controversial issues -- to remove the last major obstacle to final approval of the project. Democrats say they expect to have between 30 and 35 votes to sustain the Nevada veto, leaving Ensign to come up with 15 to 20 votes on the Republican side of the aisle. So far there are only two Republicans who are publicly committed against the project: Colorado Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell and Ensign. A recent survey of Senate offices by the Las Vegas Review-Journal showed at least 44 senators willing to go on record in support of the project, including more than twice as many Republicans as Democrats, putting its proponents within striking range of winning. Twenty senators were against the project. The rest, including 15 Republicans, were uncommitted or failed to respond. To win over these and other Republicans, Ensign settled into an unusual routine while the Senate was in session: For weeks, sometimes several times a day, Ensign and a senior aide, Pam Thiessen, trudged off to the offices of Republican colleagues for half-hour tutorials on the dangers and costs of the project. Ensign brought with him an inch-thick binder packed with information about the plan, including a projected tally of rail and truck shipments through the colleague's state and a map of the likely routes. He argues that moving the waste across country is dangerous and that it can be safely stored on site for up to 100 years, at a fraction of the cost, while new technologies to reprocess the waste are developed. The administration contends that the project is safe and essential to national security and the future of nuclear power in the country. Ensign has had sit-down talks with 34 of the 49 Republicans so far, not including more casual chats during Senate business, according to aides. He refuses to give his own vote count but contends "we've had good success moving people to the undecided category and at least remaining open on the issue." Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), who met with Ensign recently, had voted earlier to support the Yucca Mountain site and may do so again but told Ensign he'd look at the facts he presented and ask the nuclear power industry about them. "He presented a good case, very factual," said Brownback, whose state includes a nuclear plant. Ensign is also working closely with Reid, whom he nearly unseated in 1998 before winning an open seat in 2000. Putting aside any grievances from their campaign clash, they have become friends who work well together on Nevada issues, while disagreeing on many national issues with partisan implications. "He's opposing the president he likes; the pressure is really on him," Reid said about Ensign. "I think he's doing very well." While some analysts have suggested Ensign could be hurt in Nevada by his party's stand on the waste dump site, others are not so sure. "He's got four years [before his next election] to mend fences, although this is not something people are likely to forget," said Ted G. Jelen, chairman of the political science department at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. "The average Nevadan figures the [Senate] vote will go against Nevada but thinks its representatives are putting up a good fight," said Eric Herzik, a political science professor at the university's Reno campus. © 2002 The Washington Post Company ***************************************************************** 21 Nuclear waste plan challenged Posted on Wed, May. 29, 2002 Associated Press WASHINGTON - Exelon Corp. and three other utility companies lost a $2.2 billion legal challenge to the federal government's nuclear-waste cleanup plan yesterday. In 1992, Congress ordered utility companies that used government uranium-enrichment services to pay one-third of the cleanup bill. The U.S. Supreme Court said yesterday that it would not hear appeals from the companies that argue that the assessments are unconstitutional. The Bush administration had urged the court not to intervene. "Whether some other approach would have been wiser is not a question of constitutional dimension, but is rather a policy question for Congress, not the courts," Solicitor General Theodore Olson wrote in a court filing. The federal government had sold uranium-enrichment services to utilities that used nuclear power as an alternative fuel source for generating electricity. Under the 1992 cleanup law, the companies that used the services have to pay about $150 million a year over a 15-year period. Exelon, the parent of Philadelphia's Peco Energy Co., said it already had paid $140 million and ultimately would have to pay more than $235 million. Exelon's subsidiary in Chicago, Commonwealth Edison, used the enrichment services. The other utilities involved are Maine Yankee Atomic Power Co., Omaha Public Power District, and Sacramento Municipal Utility District. The companies said they might have bought the services from other suppliers had they known that they would have to pay cleanup charges. The utilities also said much of the contamination predated their entry into the nuclear power business. © 2001 philly and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved. http://www.philly.com ***************************************************************** 22 Nevada Leaders Bring N-Waste Alert The Salt Lake Tribune -- Utah's Statewide Newspaper Wednesday, May 29, 2002 BY JUDY FAHYS THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE The mayor of Sin City warned Utahns on Tuesday not to gamble with their future by opting out of the fight against nuclear-waste disposal at Yucca Mountain, since about 90 percent of the deadly waste will get to the proposed Nevada repository over Utah roads and tracks. "It's impossible," said Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, attacking the notion 96,000 cask shipments can be free of accidents. "The odds just make it impossible that it can be safe." Goodman and Nevada Democratic Sen. Harry Reid joined Utah Democrats and civic leaders in a news conference on the edge of Union Pacific railroad tracks in downtown Salt Lake City to criticize the U.S. Department of Energy's plans for transporting the nation's nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain. Reid, the assistant Senate majority leader, hopes to persuade Utah Republican Sens. Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett to change their minds about Yucca Mountain and vote against it in July. But if the Senate approves the site as the House of Representatives has done, then waste could begin rolling through Utah to Yucca Mountain in eight years. "The problem of nuclear waste is not a Nevada problem," Reid said. "It is a problem of the Crossroads of the West." The opponents said Yucca Mountain is related to a separate proposal by nuclear utilities to store high-level nuclear waste aboveground at the Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation in Utah. Utilities see it as a solution for nuclear plants that are running out of storage space and need a place to park waste until Yucca Mountain is ready. Speakers at the news conference also raised the specter that the Skull Valley storage, which is 45 miles from Salt Lake City, could become permanent because Yucca Mountain is too small for all the waste the industry expects to generate in the next 40 years. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Agency is expected to decide on a license for the facility by the end of the year. Reid jabbed at Utah Republicans who have touted fast-tracking Yucca as the best way for Utah to deflect the storage-site proposal. He pointed out that Nevadans of both parties have opposed the Goshute storage facility. "I do not understand why this help has not been reciprocated," he said, blaming the Bush administration's reliance on energy-industry campaign funds. "I hope they will do the right thing." U.S. Rep. Jim Matheson said Utahns already have "paid the price" for U.S. nuclear policy, alluding to uranium industry workers and downwinders like his father, the late Gov. Scott Mattheson, who had cancer and other ailments. The Utah Democrat said neither science nor common sense supports relocating the waste. "It's about the East Coast dumping its waste on the West," Matheson said. Huntsman Cancer Institute Director Stephen M. Prescott, who told a Senate panel last week that waste spilled in a shipping accident probably would mean more cancer, challenged those who believe government assurances that the waste poses little danger. He recalled the story of a current cancer patient who told him about using a radiation meter to locate the "hot" areas of the neighborhood after weapons testing the government deemed safe. "There are decades of medical proof and research that radiation causes cancer," Prescott said. Also on hand for the news conference were Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson, who testified in Washington last week, and state Sens. Gene Davis of Salt Lake City and Ed Mayne of West Valley City as well as Democratic candidates from the 1st and 3rd Congressional Districts, Donald Dunn and Nancy Woodside. Anderson and Goodman pointed out that mayors in 43 states and more than 100 metropolitan areas will be forced to deal with the potential dangers of nuclear transportation, including lower real estate values, higher security needs and aggressive emergency response preparation. "This is a problem that calls out for a permanent solution," said Anderson. "Shipping the waste to Yucca Mountain is not a permanent solution." © Copyright 2002, The Salt Lake Tribune ***************************************************************** 23 Nevadans blast Yucca plans [deseretnews.com] Wednesday, May 29, 2002 By Diane Urbani Deseret News staff writer In remote Frisco, Beaver County, 10-year-old Gary Reese rushed outside to watch an explosion, to see "the most awesome sight": the mushroom cloud over a nuclear test bomb detonated in neighboring Nevada. He'd been told these "shots" were safe, so he wasn't scared in the least. "The whole sky lit up. You could feel the rumble," Reese remembered. Fifty years and untold federal compensation dollars later, Reese challenges another government reassurance, one he says gravely endangers Utahns. Some 3,000 tons of nuclear waste will be transported through the Salt Lake Valley en route to Yucca Mountain, Nev., if the U.S. Senate approves Yucca as a storage site. And while the Department of Energy says moving the planned 96,000 shipments is safe, opponents such as Reese are urging Utahns to not take a chance. Now a Las Vegas City Council member, Reese came with Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman this week to meet with Salt Lake officials at a reception hosted by Mayor Rocky Anderson. Turnout at the reception was small — Anderson's own staffers made up the largest contingent — but Goodman and Reese's passions weren't deflated. Mishaps are all too likely along the nuclear-waste routes, Goodman said, just as "John Stockton has never made 96,000 shots" through any basketball hoop. "The way I do things is through humor," he added. "But I came up here to talk to you about a very dangerous situation." An accident involving radioactive nuclear waste would cause incalculable loss of life, and the U.S. Senate must vote this summer to stop Yucca — or any other place in the West — from becoming the nation's waste dump, Goodman said. "You need to put pressure on your politicians to do the right thing," he added, referring to Sens. Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett, the two Utah Republicans who say they are re-evaluating their previous support for Yucca as a storage site. Salt Lake City Councilman Eric Jergensen and a representative from the Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce attended Tuesday's event, but other Utah leaders, including Gov. Mike Leavitt, were absent. "We have a primary focus in this office," said Leavitt spokeswoman Natalie Gochnour. That focus is preventing Tooele County's Skull Valley from becoming a nuclear-waste storage site. "Its construction, its approval and the beginnings of transportation of nuclear waste" to Skull Valley "would be before Yucca Mountain's license is even submitted. There's an urgency . . . that has commanded the full attention of the governor's office." That's short-sighted and narrow-minded, according to Stephen Erickson of the Citizens Education Project, a group seeking to raise awareness about Yucca-related risks. "That is a refusal to look at nuclear-waste disposal in a broader context," he said, at a time when the Senate is poised to open a storage site that would necessitate waste transport through Utah's capital. If Yucca is approved, some 131 sites in 39 states will ship waste our way, said Lisa Romney, Anderson's environmental adviser. She added that an accident along the route could contaminate the Salt Lake Valley's water supply. Even if no accidents occur, "what are the lost real-estate values, the lost tourism from the perception that this is the crossroads of nuclear waste?" asked Erickson. Anderson has taken a characteristically pugnacious stand against Yucca, flying to Washington, D.C., last week to denounce waste transport and nuclear plants in general before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Nevadans and Utahns — and other cities along the nationwide transportation routes — "have no idea what's about to happen to them," Goodman added. "It takes just one spill and Salt Lake City becomes America's Chernobyl." E-mail: durbani@desnews.com [durbani@desnews.com] © 2002 Deseret News Publishing Company ***************************************************************** 24 UK: Henry Porter: it's time to take more notice of Kashmir Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Wake-up call For the first time since the Cuban missile crisis, nuclear war is not a distant threat but a real possibility and the lives of 12 million people are at risk. But you may not have realised - perhaps because the rest of the world doesn't seem too bothered, or because India and Pakistan are a long way away. Or maybe you just don't want it to spoil your World Cup. Henry Porter says it's time to take notice Wednesday May 29, 2002 [http://www.guardian.co.uk] We always knew it would be something like this - two peoples myopically locked in ancestral loathing and equipped with nuclear weapons rush to war before the rest of the world has time to prevent the disaster. Deterrence may just work this time. We must pray that it does but meanwhile it is imperative to realise how the world came to the point where a nuclear exchange became an admissible rather than an unthinkable possibility. Since September 11 the world has changed dramatically and in ways that we have so far yet to understand. If India and Pakistan had come to this pass last summer there would have been a far greater diplomatic effort to bring the nations to their senses. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan would have been shuttling between Islamabad and Delhi or standing on the border in Kashmir (which incidentally is where I believe he should be now), and America would have been galvanised by the crisis, putting its full might into making sure that these two countries understood that the nuclear option is unacceptable to the whole of humanity. But since 9/11 the processes of conflict resolution have been diminished and the norms of international behaviour have been degraded. Al-Qaida's attacks not only terrorised the west, they also coarsened us and narrowed our ability to engage in a pro bono diplomacy. While Pakistan and India were mobilising these past few days, the Bush administration has been completely diverted by the president's tour of Russia and Europe and the continuing agenda of how to respond to the threat of al-Qaida. Every emergency and every event is now passed through a new and dangerously egotistical filter that was erected by the Americans last autumn and is designed to see events exclusively in the context of American security and peace of mind. We have, to some degree, been converted to this process, for American security does matter to us all even if we don't like to admit it - but it means that situations which do not appear to have an immediate bearing on US concerns fade from our attention. Kashmir, although just under 500 miles from the theatre of war in Afghanistan, has been almost completely neglected as an important issue because the US and Europe were primarily concerned about President Musharraf's assistance in toppling the Taliban. In other words, the understanding of an entire region, its complexities and competing needs, has been swept aside in the pursuit of one western priority. As important as this is, it is remarkable how little we have seen of Annan and how powerless and negligible his contributions have seemed in respect of the wars on Afghanistan and in the Middle East. In these times of crisis he has turned out not to be the statesman that we were all certain lay beneath that collected exterior of his, but a rather slight and inoffensive figure. Admittedly his influence has been in part reduced by the sheer force of American unilateralist military action. The arguments for retaliation were compelling last year, at least to the US and British governments, and the UN more or less went along with them. But the UN has since failed to rise above the shock of September 11 and provide vision in this new era of disorder. For example, although the security council has voted 14-1 against possible military action in Iraq, there is no sense that this features in American calculations, no sense that Annan has any power to impress upon America the importance of the vote. If America's perception of the world's needs has been subsumed by its own powerful sense of injury and outrage, then it was for Annan to develop a rhetoric which goes beyond one nation's interests. That is what he and the UN are for. As Malcolm Rifkind said on Monday's Newsnight, it is astonishing that the security council is not in permanent session. It is also remarkable that there is not a greater sense of international alarm at a situation which approaches the Cuban missile crisis in its gravity. Annan should be in the subcontinent conveying a compelling message to the Indian and Pakistani people which is that the world will not contemplate such vast destruction and pain. Instead he talks to the leaders by phone and issues weak statements from UN headquarters which nobody takes the slightest notice of. How different things would be if America had not got itself into a muddle with Pakistan - on one border an ally of US's war against terrorism and on another a sponsor of Islamist insurgency. It could then back Annan with all its conviction and might. American intelligence estimates put the toll in the event of a full exchange of the two nuclear arsenals at 12 million dead with maybe seven million wounded - an instant slaughter unprecedented in the history of mankind. But despite the movement of missiles yesterday and the tests which took place in Pakistan over the weekend, the possibility of nuclear warfare still strikes the west as either remote or not really very important. British newspapers carried these figures on their inside pages, if at all, and the general impression is that India and Pakistan have got a nerve to distract us from the exciting run-up to the World Cup. Possibly that is summarising things a bit flippantly but there is, I think, a failure to understand the scale of the threat . We admit this terrible possibility and allow the contemplation of the figures and the crossing of a threshold where this horror becomes part of our record. Why are we guilty of such drift, of such apathy? Have we forgotten how the second world war ended in Japan, or is there maybe something more sinister at work, a voice which is saying, "If there is a going to be nuclear war to remind us all of the utter horror, it might as well be in south Asia?" Or is it simply part of our collective nature to expect these large-scale exterminations once every couple of generations? If similar hostilities menaced Europe the concern would be a great deal sharper. Few of us would be able to concentrate on our lives, let alone on the World Cup. But as it is this stand-off is taking place many thousands of miles away and one has to consider the possibility that there is a racist element in our thinking which quietly suggests the two countries could easily afford to suffer 19 million casualties. I hope not, but how else do we explain our own disengagement? One columnist, writing in the Daily Mail, raised the issue that it might be racist to have reservations about Indian and Pakistan controlling nuclear weapons because they cannot be trusted. This is to miss the point profoundly because the objections to these two countries developing weapons of mass destruction was because they have gone to war three times since partition in 1947 and their relations are characterised by congenital mistrust. The second and perhaps more subtle reason is the differential that exists between the capabilities and understanding of the Indian and Pakistani masses and the regimes which have acquired these weapons. It is plain, at least in Pakistan where up to two thirds of people are thought to be near illiterate, that there is very little understanding of the consequences of a nuclear exchange. In effect it would be the end of their nation. Clearly Musharraf and the Pakistani elite see that, but under a military dictatorship all that stands between the people of Pakistan and catastrophe is the balance of one man's mind. It is hardly racist to observe that neighbouring countries with convulsive politics and deep loathing should be discouraged from the development of these weapons. This is important because there must be much greater international efforts against nuclear proliferation. It is all very well America and Russia agreeing over the weekend to reduce their arsenals, but their pact makes no difference whatsoever to the security of the very large amounts of highly enriched uranium (HEU) and plutonium that is available in Russia. In 1998, for example, Russia's federal security service foiled an attempt to steal 18 kilograms of HEU - nearly enough for a bomb - from a weapons laboratory in the Urals. In 2001, six grams of plutonium were found hidden in a ship in a Latvian port. In the past six years rods, pellets and plates of radioactive material have been smuggled out of the former Soviet Union. This requires our concentration and the focus of international effort. But what did the Bush administration do when it arrived in our lives? It proposed a cut in the non-proliferation budget of the energy department of $41m (£28m). The fact is that material is out there, both illicitly and with legitimate regimes, and the west continues to endorse this situation by trading in components and conventional weapons. As Jack Straw pleads with both sides to see reason in Kashmir his case is eroded by the history of British arms sales to the subcontinent. We are anything but pure in this matter and some time soon we have to grasp that the trade in arms with these countries is no way to effect peace. If the two sides withdraw and we are able to get on with life, the thing that we must take away from the situation was the failure of the international community, of American diplomacy and of Europe's cohesion. The dispute developed right under our noses, yet only this week was anything like a response produced, and that was well below par. I suppose in the end what we are talking about is lack of leadership and vision in the UN, US and Europe, but there has also been a failure of imagination. Opinion counts for something in these matters and we are at least equipped with the knowledge to form those opinions and express them. Our disengagement up to now has been regrettable. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002 ***************************************************************** 25 Treaty: Still Some Way to Go Opinion / Comment [http://www.moscowtimes.ru Tuesday, May. 28, 2002. Page 12 By Lilia Shevtsova The U.S.-Russia summit has been a success, especially given the point of departure. Remember the cold shower U.S. President George W. Bush gave Russia when he came to the White House at the beginning of 2001? The Bush team seemed to be demanding a cold-turkey renunciation by Moscow of its superpower ambitions and acceptance of the reality of "asymmetry." The message to Russia was: "We're putting you on hold. We'll call you when we need you." Now Bush has met President Vladimir Putin halfway. He made a present to Putin by signing a treaty on nuclear cuts that he long had no intention of signing, thus helping Putin to deal with critics at home who accuse the president of selling out Russia. Moreover, at least rhetorically, Bush is behaving as if Russia were a major U.S. ally. The summit's success is even more evident if one looks at how Bush was received in Europe, where thousands protested against U.S. unilateralism. And Putin delivered his share of the success story. Putin and Bush have something more substantial to support their personal chemistry: They are the only world leaders who look at the world through the prism of "war on terrorism." Both are wartime presidents, consolidating their nations on the basis of a struggle against the same enemy. But the fact that this war is gluing the new U.S.-Russian friendship is a disturbing sign. History has proven that alliances based on a common enemy end when that enemy ceases to exist. Some observers herald the fact that the security agenda dominated the summit and that nuclear parity has been preserved. But this is exactly what should provoke concern. Why do Russia and the United States need nuclear parity if we are no longer enemies? Five hundred or even 100 nukes should be sufficient to neutralize potential threats from third countries. However, the whole obsession with counting nukes clearly demonstrates a sad truth: We have failed to go beyond the paradigm of U.S.-Russian relations based on security threats and mutually assured destruction. Both presidents are hostages of their foreign policy and security establishments that were formed in the old days and are incapable of new kinds of cooperation. The security challenges faced by Russia and the United States, though, are now different -- the threat of nuclear proliferation is currently atop the U.S. agenda. And discussion of the Iran issue shows the existence of serious disagreements. Two more issues will soon become priorities in the relationship: tactical nuclear arsenals and the safety of 1,000 tons of Russian highly enriched uranium and plutonium. The summit failed to touch upon prospects for cooperation in creating a missile defense shield. And this is where today's security agenda lies. So much time and energy has been spent on carving a niche for the Russia-NATO Council, but can this effort be productive given that NATO itself is in search of a new mission? The dominance of security issues only proves that U.S.-Russian relations are still based more on irritants than on an assessment of mutual benefits. Unfortunately, the summit failed to transform Putin's foreign policy revolution -- his shift toward the West -- into a strategy of integration with the West. Ironically it seems both Putin and Bush are trapped: Upgrading the relationship that both presidents evidently want inevitably leads to security shoptalk simply because there is not much impetus for shifting to the economic agenda. Even discussion of energy cooperation yielded nothing substantial. That U.S. relations with Russia are now apparently better than U.S. relations with some U.S. allies also provides food for thought, particularly regarding the nature and longevity of Faustian bargains -- that is, ones based on a limited coincidence of interests but not on common values. Both presidents seem sincere in their attempt to open a new page in relations between their countries, but they have been unable to get rid of the legacy of the previous era. So far, in both capitals we are seeing a lack of political will, courage and vision, as well as a lack of readiness to think big about Russia and the United States in the new century. However, both countries face challenges that cannot be handled in the traditional manner -- one of them being the need for U.S.-Russian cooperation in Central Asia and the Caucasus. And not just military cooperation, but also joint efforts to assist in building viable democratic states. The danger of nuclear proliferation forces us to consider more radical measures, such as Soviet debt swaps as an incentive for Russia to rethink its policy toward Iran and Iraq (an idea being widely discussed in Washington). The Russian Far East and Siberia could become areas of economic cooperation between Russia and the West, in which the United States might play a leading role. Finally, there is need to make the U.S.-Russian relations more productive for ordinary people. Thus, an ambitious program of student exchanges and U.S. help in developing Russia's health system and fighting AIDS should be encouraged. Otherwise, relations will be limited to those between the leaders only. In order to move toward a more constructive partnership, Russia will have to consolidate a real, functioning democracy, not simply the facade of one; and the United States will have to define its role as the advantaged partner within a relationship of "benevolent asymmetry." If Russia moves further toward the West and becomes a "normal country," the United States may lose interest in the country -- that will mean an end to summits and the real close of the Cold War chapter. But it will open prospects for a new type of alliance between United States, Europe and Russia, in which the latter, due to the presence of Europe, should be able to feel itself a more viable and needed partner. Lilia Shevtsova, a senior associate of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, contributed this comment to The Moscow Times. [http://www.moscowtimes.ru ***************************************************************** 26 Impact of a nuclear strike BBC News | SOUTH ASIA | Wednesday, 29 May, 2002, [Map showing population centres in India and Pakistan] Everyone can agree that the death toll would be huge if a nuclear conflict broke out between India and Pakistan. [Graphic showing effects of nuclear fallout] The scale of devastation depends on a bomb's size and detonation But it is impossible to predict the scale of devastation on human life, cities and the environment if either of the South Asian nuclear powers decided to use their weapons in anger. Some analysts have come up with hypothetical death tolls of three million or 12 million - with millions more injured - should there be a nuclear exchange. With just two examples of nuclear bomb explosions in cities - the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki more than 50 years ago - the basic mechanics of what happens are known, but it is hard to transpose the models of 1945 onto other cities. But the prospect of such a disaster even led Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee to compose a poem reflecting on the cost of "the ultimate weapon". Click here to read the Indian prime minister's poem Firestorms and fallout First, the blast of the bomb creates intense heat and pressure. [Mushroom cloud from nuclear explosion] A single bomb could kill millions of city-dwellers Everything is immediately vaporised amid temperatures of up to 300 million degrees Celsius. People are also killed by burns and the massive changes in pressure which can burst a person's lungs. Heading outwards from the epicentre, people will suffer burns, injuries from flying debris and acute exposure to ionising radiation. Even if those injuries would not normally be life-threatening, many people would die as local infrastructure and medical services would have been destroyed and unable to cope with the sheer numbers of casualties. Firestorms would develop and a cloud of radioactive fallout is spread with the wind. Radioactive fallout particles enter the water supply and are inhaled and ingested, affecting communities perhaps thousands of miles from the blast. In Hiroshima in 1945, shockwaves had destroyed everything within a four-kilometre (2.5-mile) radius 10 seconds after the bomb exploded 567 metres above the ground. Three days later a bomb nearly twice as large was detonated 500 metres above Nagasaki and total destruction spread about 1km. The different effects of the two bombs blown up over Japan show how a myriad of factors determine the destructiveness of a nuclear weapon. 'Unthinkable' [Map showing range of India's and Pakistan's nuclear weapons] India: + Agni II intermediate-range missile + Tested 1999 + 200 kiloton nuclear warhead Pakistan: + Shaheen II intermediate-range missile + Tested 1999 + 35 kiloton nuclear warhead [ ] South Asia's nuclear stakes Dr Keith Baverstock, a regional adviser on ionising radiation and public health for the World Health Organisation, said death tolls would depend on the height at which the bomb exploded, the geography of the area, the strength of buildings, population density and many other factors. "Even the use of one weapon if it's on a city would have a massive effect - it's unthinkable," he said. "There would be months in which people lead the most terrible life." The impact of a bomb would spread far outside India and Pakistan, Dr Baverstock warned - not simply in terms of the passage of the radioactive cloud but in people's response to the war. "There should be no effort spared to stop this," Dr Baverstock said. Mr Vajpayee's poem Sometimes at night, Suddenly, sleep deserts me, My eyes open, I begin to ponder Those scientists who invented nuclear weapons, On hearing the gruesome human destruction, Of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, How did they ever sleep at night Those whose invention, Created the ultimate weapon... Do they even for a moment, Feel what was inflicted by them, Was monstrous? If they do then time will not put them in the dock, But if they don't, Then history will never, Ever forgive them. ***************************************************************** 27 Russia: Officials To Draft New Safeguards - The St. Petersburg Times. General news from St.Petersburg and Russia #772, Tuesday, May 28, 2002 By Vladimir Isachenkov THE ASSOCIATED PRESS MOSCOW - Worried about the apocalyptic prospect of international terrorists obtaining nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, U.S. and Russian officials and analysts met Monday to help draft possible new safeguards. Former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn and Richard Lugar, a U.S. senator from Indiana - who together launched the decade-old U.S. effort to help contain the threat of weapons of mass destruction in the former Soviet Union - described the threat of "catastrophic terrorism" as possibly the gravest challenge to global security. "We are in a new arms race," Nunn said at a conference organized by the Nuclear Threat Initiative foundation that he co-chairs with CNN founder Ted Turner. "Terrorists and certain states are racing to acquire weapons of mass destruction, and we ought to be racing together to stop them." The Nunn-Lugar program has helped Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus become nuclear-free nations and provided assistance to Russia in costly efforts to dismantle its nuclear weapons, secure nuclear and chemical stockpiles and find civilian jobs for ex-weapons scientists. Lugar noted that much remained undone: Only 40 percent of nuclear storage sites in Russia have received U.S. assistance to upgrade security, and only 20 percent had received complete security systems. Despite the program's success, Lugar said it faced some opposition in the U.S. Congress because of Russia's failure to provide full information about its activities with chemical and biological weapons - including Moscow's refusal to allow monitors into four biological laboratories run by the Defense Ministry. The joint threat-reduction program was launched in December 1991 and has been promoted through more than two dozen projects. About $8.5 billion has been earmarked for the program through 2003. Nunn said the threat of weapons of mass destruction falling into the wrong hands "extends well beyond Russia and the former Soviet Union," pointing at some 20 tons of highly enriched uranium piled up at 345 civilian research facilities in 58 countries. "Some of it is secured by nothing more than an underpaid guard sitting inside a chain-link fence," he said. [http://www.sptimesrussia.com ***************************************************************** 28 South Asia?s nuclear winter* Economist.com May 28th 2002 From The Economist Global Agenda *India and Pakistan do not have vast nuclear arsenals, but if a conflict over Kashmir did spiral out of control, the destruction from even a limited nuclear exchange could be enormous. Millions would die instantly, and millions more as services collapse and disease and famine spread. All of Asia would be affected* THREE months ago, the directors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the minute hand of their ?Doomsday Clock? from nine minutes to midnight to just seven minutes to, in order to reflect the increased threat of nuclear war. The group, which was founded by scientists who had worked on the first atomic bombs in the second world war, listed the continuing crisis between India and Pakistan over the disputed region of Kashmir as one of their concerns. While all experts agree that the risk of nuclear war has increased in the subcontinent, there is little consensus about what the exact effects would be?except that it would reach nightmare proportions. Publicly, at least, there are few firm figures on the numbers of nuclear weapons which India and Pakistan can deploy, let alone their capabilities. The atomic scientists estimate that India has about 30-35 nuclear warheads, which is fewer than Pakistan. Some estimates have put the numbers higher: up to 200-250 warheads in India and around 150 in Pakistan. Some American experts say India has around 60 nuclear warheads and Pakistan about 40. Apart from secrecy, one reason why the estimates of the nuclear arsenals vary so much is that some of the weapons may not be fully assembled. There are reports that India has enough material stockpiled to make 50-100 more nuclear weapons. Most of the warheads are thought to be below 20 kilotons, equivalent to 20,000 tons of TNT. This means they are comparable to the nuclear bombs detonated by the United States over Hiroshima in 1945. Both sides have short and medium-range ballistic missiles which could deliver nuclear warheads. But the majority of the warheads owned by India and Pakistan are thought to be designed to be dropped as bombs by aircraft. India can arm two types of aircraft to do this: the MiG-27 Flogger, which was made by the old Soviet Union, and the Jaguar, which was used in a nuclear role by the British and French air forces. Pakistan has American-built F-16s. Pakistan?s air defences may be better than India?s, even though its armed forces are heavily outnumbered. Estimates of the level of destruction that could be wrought by a nuclear war between India and Pakistan vary even more than trying to count warheads. Much would depend on the target, the yield of the bomb, the weather and the altitude at which it is exploded. However, the /New York Times/ has reported that a recent intelligence assessment carried out by America?s Defence Department predicted a frightening number of casualties. It says that in a full-scale nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan, up to 12m people could be killed immediately and up to 7m injured. This would have further cataclysmic consequences, overwhelming hospitals across Asia, and requiring a vast amount of foreign assistance to deal with radioactive contamination and famine and disease. Even if both sides tried to limit the use of nuclear weapons the destruction would be terrible. At least 3m people would be killed and 1.5m seriously injured if both sides exploded just one in ten of their likely number of nuclear warheads over big cities, according to a study reported in /New Scientist/. Further deaths would come from the loss of homes, hospitals, water and energy supplies. Then there would be an unknown number of deaths from cancers that would develop in future years. If the bombs exploded on the ground, rather than in the air, radioactive dust could spread across hundreds of square kilometres. As the prevailing winds are from the west, India risks being the biggest victim of radioactive fall-out in any exchange of nuclear weapons. Although the casualty figures are horrific, India and Pakistan do not possess enough nuclear weapons for their ?mutually assured destruction?, a doctrine which helped to prevent the superpowers from entering into nuclear conflict during the Cold War. It is possible that military planners in India and Pakistan believe that a limited nuclear exchange could provide them with a victory. While the immediate death tolls would be huge, both countries have large populations: more than 1 billion Indians and 140m Pakistanis. The big causes of concern are that conventional military strikes by one side or another could quickly spiral out of control. No one is sure that the unwritten rules which have contained the military conflict to the Kashmir region hold any more. In recent days, as in previous times of tension, the two sides have exchanged heavy machine-gun fire and mortar rounds across the Line of Control, which marks the unofficial border in Kashmir. But the first country to send a missile, even a non-nuclear one, could trigger a tit-for-tat set of reprisals that both sides could find hard to stop. © The Economist Newspaper Limited 2002. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 29 Computer maps S. Asia's nuclear holocaust United Press International WASHINGTON, May 28 (UPI) -- Computer simulations of a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan show that even in the simplest scenarios, thousands of people would die instantly and hundreds of thousands would be exposed to potentially lethal levels of radiation. The study, released Tuesday by The Washington Times, covers the effect of limited strikes on single cities but leaves out the bleakest scenario of both countries declaring an all-out nuclear war and targeting major urban centers. The simulations employ software models developed for the Pentagon. Last week, a reporter and a graphic artist from The Times used a computerized Consequences Assessment Tool Set, called CATS, to attempt to gauge the extent of damage if nuclear war were to break out in South Asia. The system, provided to The Times by the Heritage Foundation's Center for Media and Public Policy, was said to be comparable to one used by the Pentagon's Defense Threat Reduction Agency for assessing the effects of a nuclear, chemical or biological attack. The newspaper report said the detonation of a 43-kiloton thermonuclear hydrogen bomb -- believed to be the largest in New Delhi's arsenal --- on the Pakistani capital of Islamabad would result in "at least 107,000 deaths from the initial impact." Nearly 40,000 more people would be subject to the resulting radiation. Islamabad has less than a million people and is about 60 miles from the Indian border. "A single 10-kiloton Pakistani strike on Amritsar, a leading city in the Indian border province of Punjab, would produce a 1.68-mile blast zone and result in a projected 112,280 immediate deaths, with tens of thousands more exposed to high levels of lethal radiation," the report said. The study showed that a 12-kiloton Indian strike against Lahore, Pakistan's second-largest city, with more than 5 million people and a critical link between the northern and southern parts of the country, would be even more devastating. In the 1.75-mile blast area, more than 122,000 people would be killed. The most dangerous area of radiation fallout would be a zone roughly a mile wide and 6.3 miles long, where the mortality-risk rate is around 90 percent. The first simulation attempted by The Times involved Pakistan exploding a nuclear device on its own territory to stop an advance by troops from India, which has a 2-to-1 advantage in conventional military forces. It involved Pakistan exploding a 10-kiloton atomic bomb to stop an Indian advance on Muzaffarabad, the capital of the section of Kashmir controlled by Pakistan. (The Hiroshima bomb produced an estimated yield of 18 kilotons.) Muzaffarabad is not a major urban center, but, based on 1998 population data, the CATS program forecast that the explosion would instantly result in more than 3,400 civilian deaths from the local population. The city was selected because Indian intelligence reports have charged that Muzaffarabad was the site of a training and supply base for Islamic militants. Tensions have been rising between the two South Asian rivals since an attack in December on the Indian Parliament that New Delhi blamed on Pakistani-backed Islamic militants. More than a million troops have been mobilized along the 2,000-mile border, and Indian officials have openly talked of war because of an attack earlier this month that killed 33 in the disputed Indian province of Kashmir. In its simulation, The Times found that a simple tit-for-tat exchange targeting a city in each country would dramatically increase the carnage. Such calculations are based on the partial details offered by Indian and Pakistani military officials and information that U.S. sources have uncovered. The uncertainty about the size and power of the two countries' nuclear arsenals adds another element of danger to the confrontation over Kashmir. For example, estimates by the authoritative London-based Jane's Strategic Weapon Systems on Pakistan's nuclear arsenal put the number of warheads at 25 to 50. Both sides have left confusing hints about the kinds of nuclear bombs they have developed, and civilian control of nuclear arsenals -- particularly in Pakistan -- is in serious question. Samar Mobarik Mand, head of Pakistan's nuclear-test program, said the five tests his country conducted in late May 1998 produced 40 to 45 kilotons, but Indian sources say the yield was in the 10- to 15-kiloton range. The largest Pakistani nuclear explosion confirmed by U.S. intelligence data is about 6 kilotons. Copyright © 2002 United Press International ***************************************************************** 30 DOE: Preserving a 'national treasure': Atomic artifacts The Oak Ridger Online -- Feature: Business -- 05/29/02 Three visitors to the K-25 building last week examine a control panel to a piece of equipment at the former gaseous diffusion facility. A dozen or so local officials journeyed into the building to identify artifacts worth preserving before the building is demolished. They had to dress in protective clothing due to significant amounts of mold and dust. -- Photo by Lynn Freeney /DOE Preserving a 'national treasure' by Paul Parson Oak Ridger staff Susan Gawarecki repeatedly used words like "interesting, amazing and fascinating" to describe her recent trek into the historic K-25 building. "It's a national treasure," she said of the building that was erected as part of the Manhattan Project during World War II. Gawarecki, executive director of the Oak Ridge Reservation Local Oversight Committee, was one of a dozen local officials who journeyed into K-25 last week to identify artifacts worth preserving before the building is demolished. The LOC chief said she realizes the Department of Energy's mission isn't historic preservation, but she added that the federal agency shouldn't turn its back on the significance of K-25. It was the original gaseous diffusion facility at the Oak Ridge K-25 site, which enriched uranium for use in nuclear weapons. "It's the sort of thing people would pay to see," Gawarecki said of the massive, U-shaped structure. "Oak Ridge is sitting on a gold mine, and they're about to throw it away." However, since the K-25 building is classified as one of the "signature facilities" of the Manhattan Project, the National Historic Preservation Act calls for an inventory of the building and requires that DOE consider the impacts of demolishing it. During the three-day trip into K-25 last week, the group of local officials identified a variety of items to be salvaged, including telephones, tool carts, hauling equipment and bicycles, which workers used to move from one part of the building to another. These items will be removed from the building at a later date once a storage site is determined. "We were looking for things that would capture the 1940s era," said Gary Hartman, a cultural resources official with DOE's Oak Ridge Operations office. "There were some items that we had hoped to see, but didn't" Those elusive items included the stools that female workers used to sit on while monitoring operational equipment panels, according to Hartman. In addition, there's continued talk of salvaging a piece of operating equipment referred to as the Roosevelt Cell, which was spruced up for a planned visit by President Franklin D. Roosevelt that never occurred. The K-25 explorers weren't allowed to go into every area of the 4.5-million-square-foot, three level building due to security issues and because Duratek Federal Services was in the midst of removing asbestos and other hazardous materials from the facility. Although the explorers were dressed in fitted dust masks, lab coats, hard hats, gloves and shoe coverings to protect them from dust and mold, they would have required a higher level of protection to venture into the areas with asbestos work, according to Gawarecki, whose organization closely monitors DOE's environmental activities. Hartman said another reconnaissance mission into K-25 will take place in the coming weeks. Once Duratek's hazardous materials work is completed, equipment will be removed from K-25 and the building will eventually be demolished, according to Dennis Hill, a spokesman for Bechtel Jacobs Co., DOE's cleanup manager in Oak Ridge. Paul Parson can be contacted at (865) 220-5533 or [pparson@oakridger.com] . All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** 31 Livermore Editorial: Employment Inequities: Stats Show Need for Probe* The Daily Californian Tuesday, May 28, 2002 Inequities in employment at two UC-run national nuclear laboratories, coupled with allegations of discrimination, demand serious investigation. A recent report indicating pay, promotion and hiring inequities at the nation's nuclear laboratories requires a probe into possible discriminatory employment practices, which if true, cannot be overlooked. The spy hunt that first accused, then imprisoned, and finally exonerated scientist Wen Ho Lee two years ago has focused attention on possible discriminatory employment practices at the labs, two of which are the UC-run Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore national laboratories. In 2000, UC Berkeley Ethnic Studies Chair L. Ling-chi Wang helped lead Asian Americans in boycotting the labs, and two members of Congress requested an investigation by the General Accounting Office. The recently-released results of this investigation add statistics to the pile of racial and sexual discrimination allegations that have piled up over the last few years. The evidence is troubling enough to warrant a full probe into employment at the labs. According to the report, white male lab employees generally earn more than white women and minorities of both sexes. White men also hold a greater percentage of managerial and professional jobs at the lab than their representation in the workforce. These statistics are, of course, not proof of discrimination, as they could be results of disparities in the many levels of education needed to reach these high posts. But coupled with the numerous allegations of discrimination at the labs, the statistics may be an indication of a grave problem. Though the employee roster should not have to precisely mirror the workforce, gross inequities in hiring are suspect, especially when submerged in a swamp of allegations and boycotts alleging discrimination. Pay inequities are more alarming still. There can be no excuses for evidence that a white man earns more than an equally qualified and experienced woman or minority colleague. Employment inequity is broad and deeply rooted. White men in California constitute 28 percent of the workforce but hold nearly 50 percent of the managerial and official posts. Minorities of both sexes make up 50 percent of the workforce in the state, but hold only 27 percent of those posts. Such inequity in employment surely bears some element of discrimination in hiring, salary and promotion, but also on America's deep economic and educational disparities. A problem so rooted in the social fabric cannot be solved fully at the highest level of scientific research, but this in no way excuses the employment inequities at the UC-run nuclear labs. A full probe must be conducted. (c) 2002 Berkeley, California Email: dailycal@dailycal.org ***************************************************************** 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: *****************************************************************