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NUCLEAR
Geyser Action Controlled Ancient Natural Nuclear Reactor
Running to help
Hard Weapons for Soft Targets
Uranium pollution in Iraq damaging
Nuclear ties with Iran in 70s
France wants "lasting" halt to Iran's nuclear drive
In major compromise EU softens demand on Iran
Iran offers hope of progress in nuclear talks
Egypt rejects charges IAEA chief helping it with secret nuclear program
Russian Researcher Hands Over Plutonium
Russia spends $600-700m for nuclear reactors upgrade
Putin Eyes Nuclear Terrorism
N. Korea, Iran Respond to Nuclear Agency
U.N. Nuclear Agency Chief Urges Iran to Suspend Activities
Putin Plugs Nuclear Convention
White House takes aim at U.N.'s nuclear chief
Power Increase Is Approved for Indian Pt.
More WIPP Waste Breaks Rules
MILITARY
Abductors Say 3 Hostages in Afghanistan Are Separated
Sudan Denies Surrounding Refugee Camps
China's Advanced Military Missiles Take Centre Stage At Airshow
Suicide theory on female soldier
Lockheed Must Pay for Failed Dump Cleanup
Ethnic Fighting Flares in China
Ethnic strife kills seven in China
Ethnic Clashes Are Confirmed by Beijing; Toll Is Unclear
Germany names 100 army bases to close
Oil Pipeline Blown Up in Iraq; Violence Kills at Least 12
Gunmen kidnap six in Baghdad
Suicide bomber kills three, injures 32
Palestinians Killed by Israelis at 21/2-Year High
Iraqi PM to hold talks with NATO
SEAL says CIA abused prisoner
Marines in Iraq want better gear, exit strategy
National Guard recruit goals fall short
Milosevic Is Allowed To Defend Himself
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
Experts denied chance to testify at military trial
Rehnquist's Illness Forces Absence
Hollinger Reveals Details of Suit
Canadian Government Tries Anew to Decriminalize Marijuana
Drugs complicate Colombia's peace plan
America's railways and ports are vulnerable
Immigrants' Protected Status Extended
French Push Limits in Fight On Terrorism
Bin Laden Lauds Costs Of War to U.S.
Saudi militant says al-Qaeda cell still strong
POLITICS
It Doesn't Matter Who Wins, As Long as He Kicks the Debt Addiction
IRS Disputes Watchdog's Audit Report
Lobbyists Rain Largess on Senate Incumbents
C.I.A. Chief Seeks Change in Inspector's 9/11 Report
National Election Pool:
American Conservative Magazine Endorses Kerry
Early voters out in droves
OTHER
About 65 Families Are Still Evacuated
ACTIVISTS
Eight anti-war protesters arrested downtown
An Open letter to Sec. of Defence Donald Rumsfield
-------- NUCLEAR
Geyser Action Controlled Ancient Natural Nuclear Reactor
sciscoop.com
By rickyjames,
Nov 2nd, 2004
http://www.sciscoop.com/story/2004/11/1/4207/58272
Geology From a Washington Universtiy press release: To operate a nuclear power plant like Three Mile Island, hundreds of highly trained employees must work in concert to generate power from safe fission, all the while containing dangerous nuclear wastes. On the other hand, it's been known for 30 years that Mother Nature once did nuclear chain reactions by her lonesome. Now, Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have analyzed the isotopic structure of noble gases produced in fission in a sample from the only known natural nuclear chain reaction site in the world in Gabon, West Africa, and have found how she does the trick. Picture Old Faithful.
Analyzing a tiny fragment of rock, less than one-eight of an inch, taken from the Gabon site, Alexander Meshik, Ph.D., Washington University senior research scientist in physics, has calculated that the precise isotopic structure of xenon in the sample reveals an operation that worked like a geyser. The reactor, active two billion years ago, worked on a 30-minute reaction cycle, accompanied by a two-and-a-half hour dormant period, or cool down.
In the Oct. 29, 2004 issue of Physical Review Letters, Meshik and his Washington University collaborators write: "This similarity (to a geyser) suggests that a half an hour after the onset of the chain reaction, unbounded water was converted to steam, decreasing the thermal neutron flux and making the reactor sub-critical. It took at least two-and-a-half hours for the reactor to cool down until fission Xe (xenon) began to retain. Then the water returned to the reactor zone, providing neutron moderation and once again establishing a self-sustaining chain."
Prior to this calculation, it was known that the natural nuclear reactor operated two billion years ago for 150 million years at an average power of 100 kilowatts. The Washington University team solved the mystery of how the reactor worked and why it didn't blow up.
Meshik and his collaborators, Charles Hohenberg, Ph.D., Washington University professor of physics, and Olga Pravdivtseva, Ph.D., senior research scientist in physics, used a selective laser combined with sensitive, ion-counting mass spectrometry to concentrate on the sample's moderator, a uranium-free mineral assembly of lanthanum, cerium, strontium and calcium called alumophosphate. The xenon found and analyzed provides the story of this ancient natural nuclear reactor. Meshik and his colleagues inferred from the xenon analysis the mode of operation and also the method of safely storing nuclear wastes, particularly fission xenon and krypton.
"This is very impressive, to think this natural system not only went critical, it also safely stored the waste," said Meshik. "Nature is much smarter than we are. Nature is the first genius. We have all kinds of problems with modern-day nuclear reactors. This reactor is so independent, with no electronics, no models. Just using the fact that water boiled at the reactor site might give contemporary nuclear reactor researchers ideas on how to operate more safely and efficiently."
In 1952, the late Paul Kuroda predicted that if the right conditions existed, a natural nuclear reactor system could go critical. Twenty years later, noticing that uranium ore from the Oklo mine was depleted in 235 Uranium , it was discovered that the site had once been a natural nuclear reaction system.
"The big question we addressed was: When it reached criticality, why didn't it blow up?" Meshik said. "We found the answer in the xenon."
Critical means that a fissionable material has enough mass to sustain a reaction. There were two major theories on how the reactor operated. One held that the system burned up highly neutron-absorbing impurities such as rare earth isotopes or boron, and because of that the system shut down regularly, and different parts of the reactor might have operated at different times. The other involved the role of water acting as a neutron moderator. As the temperature of the reactor went up, water was converted to steam, reducing the neutron thermalisation and shutting down the chain reaction. The chain reaction re-started only when the reactor cooled down and the water increased again.
Analysis of the xenon, the largest concentration of xenon ever found in any natural material, confirmed the water method. It also revealed the role of alumophosphate as the system's waste absorber.
Xenon is extremely rare on earth and very characteristic of the fission process. Chemically inert, the element has nine isotopes and is abundant in many nuclear processes.
"You get a big diagnostic fingerprint with xenon, and it's easy to purify," said Hohenberg, who noted the importance of alumophosphate in the natural nuclear reactor.
"More krypton 85, a major waste from modern nuclear reactors, is getting piped into the atmosphere each year," he said. "Maybe this natural mode can suggest a safer solution."
Can there be a natural nuclear reactor in actual operation today?
"Today even the largest and richest uranium deposit cannot become a reactor because the present concentration of 235 U is too low - only about 0.72 percent," said Meshik. "However, because 235 U decays much faster than 238 U, in the past, 235 U was more abundant. For example, two billion years ago 235 U was five times higher, about three percent, approximately the concentration of enriched uranium used in modern commercial reactors."
Another vital condition for self-sustaining nuclear reaction is the high content of a moderator to slow the neutrons, Meshik said. Water, carbon, most organic compounds, silicon dioxide, calcium oxide and magnesium oxide all are natural neutron moderators. Also, the concentrations of neutron absorbents - iron, potassium, beryllium, and especially gadolinium, samarium, europium, cadmium and boron - should be low.
"Only when all of these requirements are met can a self-sustaining chain reaction occur," Meshik said.
-------- depleted uranium
Running to help
Greeley Tribune
November 2, 2004
Matt Schuman, schuman@greeleytrib.com
http://www.greeleytrib.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041102/SPORTS/111020058
For most of his life, Greeley's Geoff Muntz has been running to help others in their time of need.
Whether as a medic in the first Gulf War helping injured U.S. soldiers in Iraq or as a member of the race committee for the annual Fourth of July Race for the Cure to benefit those with breast cancer, Muntz has always been willing to run to aid others.
Now in his time of need, Muntz is finding out how many people are willing to run to help him in a race to help save his life.
In July, Muntz, 55, was diagnosed with Multiple Myloma, a cancer of the blood where the red and white blood cells in the bone marrow don't reproduce properly.
While he is undergoing treatments now, including IV infusions every four days, he needs a stem cell transfusion in December at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.
So on Sunday, 90 of his friends in the Greeley running community participated in a 5K and 1K race/walk at Bells Running called "Run for Geoff" to help raise money for expenses related to his treatment. While 90 people participated in the race, 130 signed up for the event to help contribute to the cause, which has raised
$4,785 so far to help Muntz.
Muntz, a longtime runner who has participated in every Bolder-Boulder since its inception, was overwhelmed by the support of those who showed up Sunday to help him, even though he was too tired himself to attend.
"I can't say how much -- especially my running friends -- have just stepped forward and said anything you need and anything you want, just let us know and we will take care of it,'" Muntz said. "It has just been incredible to see this whole thing unfold."
It has been a difficult year for Muntz, who was hit hard by the news of his diagnosis after a lifetime of doing all he could to take care of his body as an avid runner.
"It just floors you to think that all these years I've tried to live life the right way in terms of eating, exercise and do all the right things and you still get slammed with something like this," Muntz said.
In September, he nearly died from a bout with pneumonia caused by complications from his illness. Still, he believes being a runner helped save his life.
"I truly believe that if I hadn't been a runner -- if I had been a couch potato kind of guy -- my guess is I would not have survived that," Muntz said.
Muntz began seeing the signs of his illness in the fall of 2003 when his times in races began to slip dramatically and he was having trouble keeping up with those he would run with as part of a group with Bells Running.
Even so, Muntz just chalked it up to getting older, never realizing that something may be wrong with his body.
His friends in the running group thought he would be back to normal any time.
"Nobody thinks you are going to end up with the worst," his friend and running mate Jenny Weber said. "I guess we didn't think it was this bad. You always just have encouragement that, oh, he'll be down for awhile but he will be back running with us in a couple weeks or so."
But the weeks turned into months. That's when even his friends began to realize that Muntz was not himself.
"He would just be beat after (running), so we all knew something was up," Weber said. "We knew that something wasn't right."
Then a year ago in September, Muntz began to realize that something was not right after running a race in Fort Collins. He could barely move the next day and was sore from head to toe. Three days later, he ran another race and experienced the same problems, so he went to his doctor to be checked out and found out his blood wasn't normal. In the spring, he finally went to an oncologist who began to figured out what was wrong.
"You always think, oh, you've got cancer, but I really didn't think that's what the problem was," Muntz said. "I thought it was something different."
What puzzled Muntz even more was how he came down with a form of blood cancer that usually shows up in people after age 70 and after being a health nut his entire life.
So Muntz began to suspect that his time in Iraq may have contributed to his illness since radiation exposure or poisoning could be a cause of Multiple Myloma.
Through research, Muntz learned that both Britain and the U.S. used what was called depleted uranium, a low grade form of uranium in the artillery they shot at opposing missiles and tanks.
Muntz, a flight medic on Huey helicopters with the Army National Guard based out of Cheyenne, believes he inhaled the uranium particles that vaporize and float into the air and on the ground after hitting a target.
"I lived for two months right in the center of the Republican Guard stronghold in southeast Iraq and Northern Kuwait," Muntz said. "All missiles and tanks blown up by depleted uranium."
Muntz hopes the Veterans Administration will agree with his findings and help with his medical expenses. No matter what happens, Muntz is confident that he will beat his cancer and be running again soon.
His goal is to participate in next year's Bolder-Boulder, his 27th in a row, one of only 83 runners to do so.
It's his preparation as a runner that Muntz believes will help him overcome his illness.
"You always have to have that carrot out in front of you and that is where the running comes in," Muntz said. "It has given me the mental approach to know I am going to have to push it hard and work hard to overcome cancer, just like you do training for running. No matter what it takes, you have to push it."
And Muntz knows his friends will be right by his side for support.
"He would do anything for anybody, so I think he has kind of been shocked now that the tables are turned," Weber said. "He is surprised by all the people that are coming out to help him and he shouldn't be. He has so many friends."
NAME: Geoff Muntz
RESIDENCE: Greeley
AGE: 55
OCCUPATION: Media Specialist for Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins
FAMILY: His wife Lori and 6-year-old son Olzhas, adopted three years ago from Kazikstan
DIAGNOSIS: Multiple Myloma, a cancer of the blood where the red and white blood cells in the bone marrow don't reproduce properly.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS: Avid runner who is a member of the Bolder Boulder Boldest, a group of 83 runners who have participated in all 26 Bolder Boulder races. Retired member of the 1022 Medical Company with the Army National Guard in Cheyenne. Served in the Persian Gulf War as a flight medic in support of the Third Army Division led by retired General Tommy Franks. Member of the race committee the last eight years for the Fourth of July Race for the Cure, to raise money to support those with breast cancer.
DONATIONS: Those wishing to donate money to support Muntz in his battle with Multiple Myloma can do so by calling Bells Running at 356-6964 or sending checks payable to Bells Running, 3620 W. 10th St. Greeley, Co., 80634.
-----
Hard Weapons for Soft Targets
islam-online.net
By Joanne Baker
02/11/2004
http://www.islam-online.net/English/Science/2004/11/article01.shtml
"We cannot under any circumstances acquiesce in the non-utilisation of any weapons which are available to procure a speedy termination of the disorder which prevails on the frontier" - Winston Churchill.
On March 28th 2003, a US A-10 aircraft fired into a convoy of five British vehicles near Basrah in a 'friendly fire' incident. It was reported by the Guardian newspaper that the British troops who retrieved the bodies wore "chemical warfare suits...because of the threat from the depleted uranium used in American weapons".
Two days later, on the morning of March 30th 2003, an Iraqi troop carrier passing through Kibla, a residential suburb of Basrah, broke down and signaled to a second troop carrier to come to its assistance. As the Iraqi soldiers were trying to sort out the mechanical problem, an A-10 fired rounds of depleted uranium ammunition into both vehicles causing instant inferno. At the same time, two young men were entering a nearby house. Thinking they too were soldiers, the pilot targeted the house. The soldiers were incinerated, as were the two boys in the house, Jelaal and Nasir aged 21 and 18. A young cousin sustained severe burns on his leg. The explosive blasts created a plume of uranium oxide dust, some of it so fine that is entered the atmosphere as a gas. The heavier particles landed close to the vehicles and inside the building. Neighbors and family buried the dead; the grieving parents and remaining eight children continued to live in what was left of their home, and dozens of local children played daily in and around the burnt out vehicles. No one warned them of the nature of the bullets that had and would continue to cause so much death and destruction.
Hear No Evil See No Evil
In July 2004, an Iraqi environmental scientist, who was researching DU, happened to be driving through Kibla with his fiancée. They were on the way to church to arrange their wedding. His fiancée mentioned to him that she always got a headache after passing some burnt out vehicles in the area, so a few days later, he went to investigate. His Geiger counter immediately told him that the area was radioactive and later, equipped with full radioactive gear, he cleaned the troop carriers and damaged area of the house to the best of his ability. He then went straight to the British military in Basrah, explained the situation and asked for their help. Apart from some sympathy from an environmental adviser, who has subsequently returned to the UK, the response was very dismissive and no action has been taken. The scientist also notified the World Health Organisation but has had no response at all.
A few weeks after this, photographer Jenny Matthews, Dr Al-Ani and myself happened to be in Basrah and were taken to visit the family in Kibla. We walked around the burnt troop carriers and watched the rising dial of the Geiger counter, as wind whipped up the dust around us. Children were playing all around and were very excited to see us. In the house we spoke to the mother and daughters, two of whom, Ibtehal and Delaal, are suffering from breathing problems and skin rashes, a younger boy, Kemal, who is now thirteen, is losing his night vision, and the burns sustained by their cousin Sa'd are still not healing properly.
Who's Responsible?
Our own enquiries through the British Embassy in Basrah resulted in the following response, "The clean up of DU is the responsibility of the civil administration, with assistance from the international community, after any armed conflict." In this instance the civil administration is the Iraqi Interim Government and, we wonder, which bit of the international community? - Apparently not the US or UK. After the war of 1991, 24 US vehicles caught in DU friendly fire were returned to the United States and it took three years to fully decontaminate them. The clean up of the environment itself is, of course, not possible. Nature excels at recycling. Radioactive particles have already entered Iraq's air, water, soil and vegetation and are working their way through the food chain. Nor do such particles respect 'borders' - the wind, sun and rain will move them endlessly.
DU Is Both Radioactive and Chemically Toxic
DU causes severe disfiguration and genetic damage
During the Gulf War of 1991 the US and Britain used up to 350 tons of DU shells in southern Iraq. They were used mainly on the tanks and trucks returning from Kuwait. Despite the fact that they were used mainly in a desert area, the health problems in Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia have escalated. In Basrah childhood leukaemia has increased 7 fold, overall cancers 10 fold and birth deformities 20 fold. Many allied troops returning from the Gulf and the Balkans have suffered similarly. A German doctor, Dr Siegfried Horst Guenther who studied the rare health effects in Iraq after 1991 also noted severe immunodeficiencies, AIDS-like syndromes, and kidney and liver dysfunction. Other noted symptoms are reactive airway disease, neurological problems, rashes, vision degradation and night vision losses, gum tissue problems, sexual dysfunction and neuro-psychological disorders.
DU is both radioactive and chemically toxic and many doctors and scientists like Dr Guenther are convinced that the inhalation or ingestion of microscopic DU particles does have an adverse effect at a cellular level. Children, because of their fast cell growth, are particularly vulnerable. Dr Alexandra Miller from the US Armed Forces Radiological Research Institute concludes that "DU compounds can transform cells into a state that appears to be able to induce tumors, based on the changes in the physical appearance of the cell, and based on the chemical changes induced in the cells by it, and other tumor-favoring changes". She also states that the radioactive and toxic properties of DU seem to reinforce each other, thus causing more extensive damage.
Depleted uranium has been found in the urine and tissue of sick veterans and civilians many years after the initial exposure, and chromosome testing by Dr Schott in Germany shows not only chromosomal damage to veterans exposed to DU but the same genetic damage in their children. DU is known to enter the sperm and the ovary and can cross the placenta. This not only accounts for the high rise in congenital deformities but indicates that such deformities could be intergenerational. Young women like Ibtehal and Delaal must not only fear for their own health, but that of any children they may bear.
Environmental Effects of DU
To compound the health problem, some of the DU used in munitions comes from the other end of the nuclear fuel cycle and is contaminated with artificial isotopes such as U-236 and plutonium and neptunium. As depleted uranium isotopes decay they become increasingly radioactive. Moreover, according to Dr Dan Bishop, if Neptunium 235 is present, its short half life will spike the radioactivity and will triple "the alpha radiation over natural uranium and double the total alpha, beta and gamma radiation over natural radiation". The environmental and health effect of DU munitions could be far greater than is generally assumed. Samples taken from civilians in Afghanistan by the Uranium Medical Research Center also showed excessive levels of non depleted uranium and one tissue sample from Basrah has shown the presence of enriched uranium.
The British have admitted to the use of 9 tons of uranium in the 2003 war - nine times more than in 1991, but the US refuse to be specific. The estimates range between 200 to 2000 tons. While the US and UK only admit to the use of DU in anti-tank penetrators, there is growing evidence that it is being used in a variety of other weapons. High levels of radioactivity have been found in large bomb craters such as the Ma'moon telephone exchange in Baghdad which was hit by several bunker busting bombs. The missiles cut through six layers of steel before exploding below ground level. This supports the contention that uranium is being used in some guided missiles to enhance the penetration of hard structures and to incinerate them. These large bombs could release significant amounts of uranium oxide into the atmosphere.
Urban and Residential Areas Targeted
The difference between the war of 2003 and previous conflicts is that the use of uranium has been almost exclusively in urban, residential areas. The UK and US military justify this by saying that there are no known health effects from depleted uranium, yet are they really convinced? In fact, the military and governments have known the health risks of depleted uranium for decades. In 1991, a UKAEA report stated "The DU will be spread around the battlefield and target vehicles in varying sizes and quantities from dust particles to full size penetrators...localised contamination of vehicles and soil may exceed permissible limits and these could be hazardous to both clean up teams and the local population". In 1995 the US Army environmental Policy Institute wrote, "If DU enters the body, it has the potential to generate significant medical consequences. The risks associated with DU in the body are both chemical and radiological". All military personnel working with DU in the UK are classified radiation workers and subject to constant monitoring. Hard target testing, which took place in Eskmeals, Cumbria until 1995, was done under very strict conditions and it still costs the British tax payer £360 000 a year to maintain and protect the site. DU rounds were fired at a hard target in a concrete bunker, known as the VJ Butt and in July 2000, the Radioactive Waste Management Advisory Committee (RWMAC) made the following report, "...a well-defined protocol is in place for workers required to enter the VJ Butt after test firing. Before they can do so, allowance is made for a cooling period during which cooling fans with three levels of air filtration are in operation. Members of the butt entry party are required to wear full protective clothing with pureflow hoods and carry personal air samplers."
All well and good, but how can the use of the same material be justified, if it is targeting houses, buses and people in Iraq? While there is acknowledged military advantage in using uranium against hard targets, it is very difficult to understand why it is also being used so liberally on 'soft' targets. In this last war on Iraq, these have included military personnel, cars, trucks, buses and houses. Even the Iraqi troop carriers hardly merited extreme penetrative force. And where in places like Kibla are the air filters and pureflow hoods to be found? When Abdul Zahra Misbal Shindi buried his dead sons he was not, like the British soldiers, provided with a chemical suit.
Kibla is not alone. The same Iraqi scientist has discovered 26 radioactive sites in just one area of Basrah. In parts of Baghdad radiation has been monitored as 1 000 and 1 900 times greater than normal background level and high recordings have been made in towns such as Samawah and Negev.
Child Victims of War
Our mission to Iraq in August was not to measure radiation, but to assess the needs of Iraqi children for our charity Child Victims of War. Basrah Children's Hospital is crying out for even the most basic equipment to treat its ever growing numbers of young leukaemia and cancer patients. Despairing doctors said that this was not really a cancer ward where children were treated, just a place where they came to die. Basrah is in desperate need of an oncology centre. If even a few of the young children we met are dying from the allied use of radiological weapons, then the lack of medicine and pain relief created by the long years of sanctions and now occupation, compounds a most terrible crime.
Joanne Baker is director of Child Victims of War. She has been a frequent visitor to Iraq since 1999 - initially to campaign against the sanctions and to research into the health effects of depleted uranium. She has been to Baghdad twice since the occupation, in June/July 2003 and from 27th March - 22nd April 2004.
Child Victims of War has been set up as a response to the dire situation of children in Iraq since the war. Their particular concern is with the environmental effects of warfare and the effects on children's health and well being. In Iraq, they are promoting research into the health effects of depleted uranium and aiding the rehabilitation of children injured by cluster bombs and other unexploded ordinance. They intend their work to be community based and welcome your support.
You can reach them at: info@childvictimsofwar
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Uranium pollution in Iraq damaging
Depleted uranium in Iraqi soil, air may cause health issues
By Hina Alam
November 2, 2004
Indiana Daily Student
http://www.idsnews.com/story.php?id=25921
If you thought Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, then consider this: the ongoing conflict in Iraq will leave behind a legacy of depleted uranium, which will affect not just the U.S. troops, but also the Iraqi people, maybe over generations, said Diane Henshel, associate professor of public and environmental affairs.
"Isn't that paradoxical? We went there to 'free' those people and we ended up imprisoning them in a lifetime of ill health. And for generations to come," said sophomore Lauren Lindsay, as she examined the evidence of pollution that Henshel put together.
Iraq's pollution levels are beginning to be examined, and Henshel, who studies environmental pollutants, added her expertise to the study in an article published in September's issue of Nature. Examining the overall pollution damage will be the first step on a long road to cleaning up the contaminated country, the article said.
The damage to the environment, and therefore human beings, began in the 1970s, according to the article. This was when the country underwent rapid industrialization with little attention paid to toxic wastes and fumes.
The conflict in Iraq has only compounded the problem and one of the most pressing issues is that of depleted uranium. It is a dense material used to blow holes in heavily armored vehicles.
And depleted uranium was used in Iraq most extensively by the United States.
"If you go on the Internet and look at depleted uranium and who generates it, we are by far the largest generators of depleted uranium in the world," Henshel said. "Nobody is even close to us. We are close to 90 percent of the depleted uranium that's generated in the world ... United States activity or U.S. companies, I guess. Maybe it is not 90 percent, but we are at, like, 800 tons and the next country down is below a 100. We are ten-fold of the next country down."
Depleted uranium is mainly in two places, she said.
"There are some Abrams tanks which use depleted uranium, and depleted uranium is in the penetrators (the warheads of missiles), which are some of the weapons used out there -- a number of them actually," Henshel explained.
As penetrators, depleted uranium is the lead point. The whole purpose of these weapons, she said, was to be harder and denser than other metals so they penetrate through other metals.
"As they penetrate through the other metals, the description is that they get sharpened," she said.
Think of what happens when sharpening a pencil," she said. "You lose all the fragments that are being pulled away to sharpen it. It's not just that it is being pushed into a sharper point."
The pencil-like shape of the penetrator causes the depleted uranium to scatter, Henshel said.
"When penetrator hits the hard top, a hard surface especially like another metal ... you get some fragmentation and some disintegration at the tip of the penetrator and again some release of depleted uranium into fragments that then essentially becomes the dust in the air," she said.
Heavy metals in general have the potential to interact with and disrupt calcium processes, and calcium helps control signaling in the brain and signaling between the cells and release of hormones and nerve transmitters, she said.
"If you disrupt calcium control signaling, which can happen in a high dose or even moderate dose situations ... tests have shown changes in learning, changes in the ability to remember and changes in reflexes, so there are a host of different things that can happen," Henshel said.
A small cohort from Desert Storm have depleted uranium shrapnel in their bodies, and they've been tracked over time with publications coming out about them every two years or so. The amount of uranium in their bodies has made a difference.
"Behavior in terms of response, based on computer tests, was the first thing to show up," she said.
Within a number of years the amount of depleted uranium was leaking out from shrapnel in their bodies and moving around in their systems. There is depleted uranium showing up, for example, in their urine, Henshel said.
Henshel said she believes that over time, people in Iraq are going to be exposed to increasing concentration in their bodies.
"They will have increased problems with changes in behavior, (and) increasing problems with their kidneys. And at high enough levels you will start to see effects on their sperm count," she said.
Another problem is women who are pregnant or are going to be pregnant in a situation where they are exposed to depleted uranium in the dust on a daily basis. Daily exposure to depleted uranium in the dust means that what is circulating in their blood streams at any given time includes some radioactive uranium, she said, and uranium is a heavy metal that can affect a fetus.
"There are studies that indicate that birth defects are increasing in the areas of high depleted uranium concentration of the Gulf War," Henshel said.
Uranium is part of the environment, but what happens with depleted uranium is that it is being used in such high intensity in one area that there is an increased concentration.
"And that gives rise to a situation where it ends up in dust and can get into people through air and water," she said.
The real concern is that depleted uranium is not intensely radioactive as uranium is used in reactors, Henshel said.
"There is an assumption that A: there is no radioactivity going on which is not true, and B: there is an assumption that this is not the only concern."
The other problem, she said, is that it is not going to be just uranium that is a problem in the war torn area, because it is not just uranium that disintegrates.
"There are other heavy metals that disintegrate -- some of the other heavy metals we have very little toxic information about," she explained.
While a lot is known about titanium and cadmium, there is whole host of heavy metals that are used in weapons in small concentrations, of which not much is know, but they are going to end up in the soil, in the air, in water of the people in any war torn area in Iraq, Henshel said.
As far as the troops are concerned, some of them might have depleted uranium showing up in their bodies -- some show less and some show more. If some of them have high intakes of milk or other sources of calcium, they will be able to eliminate it quickly from their bodies. High calcium levels limit how much uranium replaces calcium in certain parts of the bodies. Other people that, for whatever reasons -- economic or otherwise -- do not consume enough calcium or milk may harbor depleted uranium.
As the knowledge of depleted uranium and its effects on Iraqi people gets out in the world, Lindsay said, it could make the United States look worse.
Political science Professor Michael McGinnis said, "it looks bad in terms of environmental effects, but again, this is nothing new."
World opinion of the U.S. is already at an all-time low, said Dina Spechler, associate professor of political science.
"In the end, people who live in Iraq will manifest the greatest problems. The chemicals accumulate and they stay in people's bodies all the time and increase in concentration over time- and we don't know what we are dealing with," Henshel said.
-- Contact staff writer Hina Alam at halam@indiana.edu.
-------- iran
Nuclear ties with Iran in 70s
IranMania.com
November 02, 2004
http://www.iranmania.com/News/ArticleView/Default.asp?NewsCode=26628&NewsKind=Current%20Affairs
Archived Picture - The United States offered uranium enrichment and reprocessing plant facilities to Iran in the mid-1970s if it bought nuclear power plants from US companies, invested in an enrichment plant in United States and shared a plutonium reprocessing plant with Pakistan, recently declassified US documents reveal.
Archived Picture - Two documents in particular, dated April 22, 1975, and April 20, 1976, show that the United States and Iran held negotiations for cooperation in the peaceful use of nuclear energy and the United States was willing to help Iran by setting up uranium enrichment and fuel reprocessing facilities.
LONDON, Nov 2 (IranMania) - The United States offered uranium enrichment and reprocessing plant facilities to Iran in the mid-1970s if it bought nuclear power plants from US companies, invested in an enrichment plant in United States and shared a plutonium reprocessing plant with Pakistan, recently declassified US documents reveal.
The documents were found on the website of the Gerald R. Ford Library and Museum in Ann Arbor, Michigan, IRNA reported.
Two documents in particular, dated April 22, 1975, and April 20, 1976, show that the United States and Iran held negotiations for cooperation in the peaceful use of nuclear energy and the United States was willing to help Iran by setting up uranium enrichment and fuel reprocessing facilities.
Negotiations started in the wake of the nuclear test by India and at a time when Pakistan was holding negotiations with France for setting up a reprocessing plant, which was opposed by the United States.
The memoranda were written to convey guidelines from then President Gerald Ford to the US negotiating team about the proposed agreement.
Under the proposed arrangement, Iran was to invest in a uranium enrichment plant in the United States to supply fuel or nuclear material for US-supplied reactors and spent fuel was to be reprocessed in an Iranian plant.
The first memorandum, titled "US-Iran nuclear cooperation", said the Iranian share in the enriched uranium fuel should be based on the approximate number of reactors planned to be purchased from US suppliers and proposed investment in the enrichment facility.
The second memorandum, dated April 20, 1976, and written on the eve of Iran-US negotiations on nuclear cooperation, said the US president wanted to convey to the Iranians that the proposed facility "should serve mutual US-GOI (Government of Iran) non-proliferation in the region" by offering Pakistan the possibility of participation in a multinational plant as an alternative to a national reprocessing facility.
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France wants "lasting" halt to Iran's nuclear drive
BRUSSELS (AFP)
Nov 02, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041102180550.iidvevrm.html
French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier called Tuesday for Iran to produce a "lasting" halt to its uranium enrichment activities, as signs emerged of a compromise deal between Iran and the EU.
"We are in an extremely intensive phase of discussions with the Tehran government and we are entering into this final phase of discussions with a certain optimism," Barnier told reporters at a European Union meeting here.
Asked whether the EU could accept an Iranian offer to suspend uranium enrichment only for up to six months, Barnier said the bloc wanted a "lasting" suspension without specifying for how long.
A senior French source said "lasting" meant "for as long as possible".
Officials from EU heavyweights Britain, France and Germany are preparing for a new round of talks with Iran in Paris on Friday.
The EU has been pressing Tehran to renounce uranium enrichment entirely, in return for an assistance package for peaceful nuclear energy.
But diplomats at the UN's nuclear watchdog in Vienna said the EU was no longer explicitly calling for an indefinite suspension to the uranium programme, in a possible compromise ahead of Friday's talks.
Iran is prepared to halt uranium enrichment during its negotiations with the EU trio that "could last up to at most six months, not more", Tehran's top nuclear negotiator Hossein Mousavian Mousavian told AFP Tuesday.
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In major compromise EU softens demand on Iran for uranium enrichment suspension
VIENNA (AFP)
Nov 02, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041102185358.9kijvfu2.html
The European Union is no longer explicitly calling for an indefinite suspension of Iran's uranium enrichment, diplomats said here Tuesday, outlining a compromise proposal ahead of a crucial meeting with the Iranians on their nuclear programme.
The diplomats said ambassadors from Britain, France and Germany were Tuesday to hand over in Tehran the EU's written offer, ahead of a scheduled meeting with Iran in Paris on Friday on Europe's request for Iran to halt uranium enrichment, which can be used to make nuclear weapons.
"This paper fudges the uranium enrichment question by saying suspension needs to hold until the conclusion of negotiations over the long-term status of Iran's program," sais a Western diplomat who requested anonymity.
It is "a very polished linguistic version, so to speak, to bypass that problem (indefinite suspension of enrichment)," another diplomat close to the talks said.
The EU, led by Britain, France and Germany, has until now said Iran must indefinitely suspend uranium enrichment, a key part of the nuclear fuel cycle, but Iran insists that its right to enrichment cannot be called into question, which would be the case in an indefinite suspension.
Top nuclear negotiator Hossein Mousavian said in Tehran that Iran could agree to maintain a suspension of uranium enrichment for half a year.
But he added: "Cessation is rejected, indefinite suspension is rejected, suspension shall be a confidence-building measure and a voluntary decision by Iran and in no way a legal obligation, and this has to be clear in our understanding."
In Brussels, French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier urged Iran to produce a "lasting" halt to its uranium enrichment activities, carefully avoiding the word "indefinite" as signs emerged of a compromise deal between Iran and the
The United States, which is keeping a low profile on the European initiative, wants the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) at a meeting in Vienna on November 25 to take Iran before the UN Security Council for running what it claims is a secret nuclear weapons program.
The Council could then impose punishing sanctions.
The Western diplomat said the United States was "fully in waiting mode, waiting to see how the Iranians react" to the European offer, which is aimed at avoid taking Iran to the Security Council.
Europe's three major powers have vowed to offer nuclear technology, increased trade and help with Iran's regional security concerns if Tehran halts enrichment.
But Iran has said it wants these incentives to be given to it up front, instead of the Islamic Republic having to wait until the end of the negotiating process, diplomats said.
"Iran is willing to consider a suspension but wants to know what it will get in return," a non-aligned diplomat close to the IAEA told AFP Tuesday after a briefing by Iran's IAEA ambassador Pirooz Hosseini.
Mousavian's comments were echoed by President Mohammad Khatami who said: "Our nation must be given the assurance that it will not be stripped of its right (to enrich uranium)."
But of Friday's new round of talks, Khatami told reporters: "I am optimistic... Both sides are showing flexibility."
Moussavian has told the European trio that Iran's national security council is "pretty divided on the issue," a diplomat told AFP in Vienna.
Moussavian said the council has "a small majority in favor of suspension and some opposed to it," the diplomat said.
The diplomat said: "Iran now has the choice -- the Iranians can say yes (to the European offer) and things can move forward or they can say no and they know the consequences."
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Iran offers hope of progress in nuclear talks
Mideast - AFP
Nov 2, 2004
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20041102/wl_mideast_afp/iran_nuclear_041102171753
TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran vowed never to give up its "right" to enrich uranium but offered hope of progress in critical nuclear talks with European countries which want the Islamic Republic to permanently halt the activity.
Top nuclear negotiator Hossein Mousavian said Iran could agree to maintain a suspension of uranium enrichment for half a year, going some way towards meeting the key demand laid out by Europe's three main states.
His comments came as Iran prepared for a new round of talks in Paris on Friday with the European states which want Tehran to renounce uranium enrichment entirely, in return for a assistance package for its nuclear energy activities.
Iran was prepared to halt uranium enrichment during negotiations with Britain, France and Germany that "could last up to at most six months, not more," Mousavian told AFP.
"Cessation is rejected, indefinite suspension is rejected, suspension shall be a confidence-building measure and a voluntary decision by Iran and in no way a legal obligation, and this has to be clear in our understanding," he added.
Depending on the level of purification, enriched uranium can be used either as fuel for a civilian reactor or as the explosive core of a nuclear bomb. Iran insists it only wants to generate electricity, rejecting US allegations it is seeking nuclear weapons.
Mousavian's comments were echoed by President Mohammad Khatami (news - web sites) who said: "Our nation must be given the assurance that it will not be stripped of its right (to enrich uranium)."
But of Friday's new round of talks, Khatami told reporters: "I am optimistic... Both sides are showing flexibility."
"Neither the government nor the nation will allow us to renounce our national right, which is also a matter of national pride. Any suspension that might take place will be voluntary."
Washington charges that Iran is using its nuclear programme as a cover for efforts to develop a nuclear bomb, allegations vehemently denied by Tehran which points out it has the right under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes.
The European Union (news - web sites), represented by Britain, France and Germany, is trying to work out a deal to keep the UN's atomic agency, which meets in Vienna on November 25, from deciding to take the dossier to the Security Council.
In return for full suspension of uranium enrichment by Iran, the EU is offering peaceful nuclear technology, including nuclear fuel, as well as trade advantages and support on security issues.
Mousavian said the European trio would have to offer more in the package if Tehran was to agree to a deal. "We have explained to them that the package can not be accepted as it is, it is completely unbalanced," he said.
He predicted that chances of a deal in the talks was "50-50".
The conciliatory comments came after Iranian lawmakers in the conservative-dominated parliament passed a bill on Sunday backing the resumption of uranium enrichment, a key phase in the nuclear fuel cycle.
Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the UN nuclear watchdog who has set a November 25 deadline for Iran to meet international demands on its nuclear programme, called Monday for the suspension to remain in place.
Meanwhile, European Union foreign ministers gathered Tuesday in Brussels ahead of an EU leaders' summit this week to tackle aid for Iraq (news - web sites) but also Iran's nuclear drive.
German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said the international community should accept Iran's "legitimate right to use nuclear power for peaceful purposes according to the international agreements".
But on the other hand, Iran must "stop the (uranium) fuel cycle", Fischer told reporters. "If we find a way I would be very happy. If not, we are moving forward in a very serious situation."
-------- mideast
Egypt rejects charges IAEA chief helping it with secret nuclear program
VIENNA (AFP)
Nov 02, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041102140304.zr85qe23.html
Egypt's ambassador to the UN atomic agency blasted as "totally baseless" a French newspaper report Tuesday that the Egyptian head of the agency Mohamed ElBaradei was helping Cairo hide a secret nuclear program.
"There is no clandestine program and therefore there is no dossier," ambassador Ramzy Ezzeldin Ramzy told AFP.
"The issue of a connection between Egypt and Tripoli in the nuclear field is totally baseless," Ramzy said.
He was reacting to a report in the French newspaper Liberation, citing unnamed Western diplomats, that the now dismantled Libyan nuclear program "had Egyptian links."
The United States and Britain struck a deal in December for Libya to abandon its programs to develop weapons of mass destruction and Libya followed through on the deal, with the evacuation of nuclear equipment supervised by ElBaradei's Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Libya had in its nuclear program "worked not only for itself but also, secretly, for the Egyptians," Liberation said.
Liberation said the charges "by ricochet now are reaching Mohamed ElBaradei, accused by some diplomatic missions of using his influence as the head of the IAEA to put the brakes on the agency truly plunging into this dossier."
IAEA officials were not immediately available for comment.
Ramzy said the IAEA "is pursuing the clandestine market (that supplied Libya with nuclear technology) and absolutely no link to Egypt has been found."
"All our nuclear activities are subject, according to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to the total supervision of the agency (IAEA) and we always come out with a clean bill of health so there is no problem," Ramzy said.
He said he thought the Liberation report was coming out "for reasons of a political agenda," an apparent reference to the United States.
ElBaradei last week reported to the UN Security Council about explosives that have disappeared from Iraq since the US invasion, setting off a scandal that embarrassed US President George W. Bush while he campaigns for re-election, with the United States voting Tuesday.
ElBaradei is seeking to be re-elected as IAEA chief for what would be a third term in office but Washington opposes this, saying international civil servants should only serve two terms.
The Liberation story said there were charges circulating in diplomatic circles that ElBaradei is "a key element in Egyptian strategic policy, with a mission to favor Cairo in getting nuclear technology and information transfers."
Ramzy said that ElBaradei was, as other Egyptians have been, an impartial international civil servant.
He said Egypt was "proud of the impartial way ElBaradei and others have conducted themselves," referring also to Egyptian former UN secretary general Boutros Boutros-Ghali.
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Russian Researcher Hands Over Plutonium
November 2, 2004
By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV
Associated Press Writer
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/R/RUSSIA_NUCLEAR_SECURITY?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
MOSCOW (AP) -- A former Russian nuclear physicist turned over 14 ounces of plutonium he found in a dump and then kept in his garage, a news agency said Tuesday. Now he finds himself facing possible criminal charges.
Leonid Grigorov said he had written several letters to authorities urging them to properly secure the eight containers of dangerous material that he said he found discarded near a mining factory in Zmeinogorsk in southern Siberia, the ITAR-Tass news agency said.
When the letters went unanswered, he placed the material in a leaden case in his garage. Each container held 1.75 ounces of plutonium.
"As an expert, I felt obliged to do that to avoid danger," he said, according to ITAR-Tass.
Grigorov turned the plutonium over to police after seeing a police notice inviting people to surrender weapons in exchange for a cash prize. But instead of giving him a prize, police opened a criminal investigation against Grigorov on charges of illegal possession of radioactive materials.
Nikolai Shingaryov, a spokesman for Russia's Federal Atomic Energy Agency, said that plutonium-238 is widely used in industries but could not be used to build an atomic bomb.
He would not comment on the ITAR-Tass report but said it appeared unlikely that containers in Grigorov's possession could hold such a large amount of plutonium.
Russia's nuclear chief, Alexander Rumyantsev, has said that authorities have been negligent in disposing of obsolete equipment involving lethal radioactive isotopes during the post-Soviet industrial collapse. Such equipment used for cancer treatment in clinics and in manufacturing industries has been carelessly dumped across Russia.
Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, concerns have grown that terrorists might be trying to acquire material for a dirty bomb - a device that uses conventional explosives to spread low-level radiation.
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Russia spends $600-700m for nuclear reactors upgrade and construction annually One half of the sum goes for the construction of the new units, another half on the upgrade and lifetime extension of the existing reactors.
2004-11-02
Bellona Foundation
http://193.71.199.52/en/international/russia/npps/35853.html
The first deputy director of the Rosenergoatom concern Alexander Polushkin told ITAR-TASS that despite the fact the Rosenergoatom's investments would reduce in the coming years, the part for the construction and modernisation should remain. "The annual input into construction and modernisation of the Russian nuclear power plants is $600-700m. One half goes for the construction of the new units, another half on the upgrade and lifetime extension of the existing reactors" Polushkin said.
On October 12, the Federal Agency on atomic energy was supposed to determine the place for the new reactor unit construction in Russia. According to Polushkin, it could be unit no.2 at the Rostov NPP or unit no.5 at the Kursk NPP.
"In the recent years the new unit was completed at the Rostov NPP and unit no.3 is about to be put in operation at the Kalinin NPP. At present, 30 reactor units are in operation at the 10 Russian NPPs" Polushkin said to ITAR-TASS.
-------- terrorism
Putin Eyes Nuclear Terrorism
The Moscow Times
02 November 2004
http://putinru.com/news/item/32791.html
President Vladimir Putin on Monday pushed for passing a United Nations convention on combating nuclear terrorism, saying the document should help coordinate global efforts to prevent mass destruction weapons from falling into terrorists' hands.
Putin voiced hope that the current session of the UN General Assembly would consider Russia's draft of the convention.
"It must create conditions for averting any attempts by terrorists to get hold of nuclear weapons or any other nuclear materials," Putin said in a letter to Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, excerpts of which were released by the Kremlin.
Since the Sept. 11 attacks, concerns have grown that terrorists might try to acquire material for a dirty bomb -- a device that uses conventional explosives to scatter low-level radioactive material over city blocks. It has no atomic chain reaction and requires no highly enriched uranium or plutonium which are kept under tight security and difficult to obtain. Instead, the radioactive component is of lower-grade isotopes, such as those used in medicine or research. The International Atomic Energy Agency estimates as many as 110 countries do not have adequate controls over radioactive devices that could be used to build a dirty bomb.
-------- u.n.
N. Korea, Iran Respond to Nuclear Agency
November 2, 2004
EDITH M. LEDERER
Associated Press Writer
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/UN_NUCLEAR_AGENCY?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- Challenged by the U.N. nuclear chief to prove their atomic programs are peaceful, North Korea said it would scrap its "nuclear deterrence" if the United States ended its hostile policy and Iran said negotiations with three European countries may "bring fruit."
But North Korea's deputy U.N. ambassador Kim Chang Guk on Monday totally rejected the International Atomic Energy Agency, calling it "a political tool of the superpower." He also accused Japan of allowing U.S. nuclear weapons on its soil and South Korea of nuclear ambitions - allegations both countries vehemently denied.
Iran's deputy U.N. ambassador Mehdi Danesh-Yazdi was less strident, but stressed that Tehran "is determined to pursue its inalienable rights to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes." He also criticized the international community for targeting Iran's nuclear program while saying nothing about Israel's.
IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei challenged both countries in his annual report to the U.N. General Assembly, urging Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment program "as a confidence building measure" and North Korea to dismantle its nuclear weapons program or at least allow inspections to ensure it is "exclusively peaceful."
He expressed hope that Iran will decide to suspend enrichment before the IAEA board meets in Vienna, Austria on Nov. 25. Britain, Germany and France have warned that most European countries would back the United States' call to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council - where it could face possible sanctions - if the Iranian government does not abandon all enrichment activities before the board meeting.
Uranium enriched to a low level can be used to produce nuclear fuel for electricity-generating plants, but if enriched further can be used to make atomic weapons. Iran is not prohibited from enriching uranium under its obligations to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, but is barred from arms-related work.
Danesh-Yazdi said Iran has a right "to develop, research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes." But he told the General Assembly Tehran has voluntarily suspended enrichment activities since last November.
"Iran is also currently engaged in negotiations with France, Germany and Britain to reach mutual objective assurances on nuclear cooperation, transparency and non-diversion" of nuclear material, he said. "These negotiations will bring fruit if mutual understanding, political will and good faith prevail."
Iranian President Mohammad Khatami delivered the same message Tuesday in Tehran, telling reporters it was possible Iran would continue suspension of uranium enrichment and that he was hopeful of a compromise with Europe over its nuclear program.
"Both sides have shown essential flexibility and I am not pessimistic over the continuation of talks and achieving a result," Khatami said after a parliament session.
The talks with the Europeans aim at averting a standoff over Iran's nuclear weapons program at the Nov. 25 meeting of the U.N. nuclear watchdog. The third round of talks is to be held on Friday. The Europeans have offered Iran a trade deal and peaceful nuclear technology in return for assurances Iran would indefinitely stop enriching uranium.
At the moment, there aren't any negotiations taking place on North Korea's program - and the IAEA hasn't conducted any inspections in the country since December 2002.
ElBaradei said he was frustrated that six-nation talks involving the United States, China, Russia, Japan and the two Koreas were not moving faster.
The goal is to negotiate a deal for the communist regime to dismantle its nuclear weapons programs in exchange for economic help and security guarantees. But the process is at a standstill because North Korea refused to show up for talks scheduled for September.
"I'm telling the North Koreans again that the international community is ready to look into your security concerns, ready to look into your economic and humanitarian needs," ElBaradei told reporters. "But a prerequisite is for them to commit themselves to full, verifiable, dismantlement of their weapons program - as they say they have a weapons program."
But North Korea's Kim blamed the United States for the nuclear problem on the Korean peninsula, dismissed the IAEA, and said "it is a political military question to be settled" between Pyongyang and Washington.
North Korea has made it clear that if the United States "renounces its hostile policy ... including (its) nuclear threat, (North Korea) is willing to scrap its nuclear deterrence accordingly," Kim said, stressing his country's commitment "to the ultimate goal of denuclearization of the Korean peninsula."
After about 20 speeches, the General Assembly voted on a resolution supporting the IAEA's "indispensable role" in promoting the peaceful uses of atomic energy "and in nuclear safety, verification and security." The vote was 123-1, with only North Korea opposing the resolution.
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U.N. Nuclear Agency Chief Urges Iran to Suspend Activities
By Colum Lynch and Dafna Linzer
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, November 2, 2004; Page A14
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17060-2004Nov1.html
UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 1 -- The chief of the United Nations' nuclear agency appealed to Iran Monday to suspend its nuclear activities and expressed concern that efforts to halt the spread of atomic weapons have been undercut by North Korea's refusal to allow inspections and by a black market in nuclear materials.
Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, offered a sobering assessment of nonproliferation efforts in an annual address to the 191-member General Assembly of the United Nations. Speaking one day after Iran's parliament voted to affirm the country's right to enrich uranium, ElBaradei urged Iran "to build confidence" by suspending those activities as part of a "comprehensive settlement" to end a nuclear standoff.
France, Britain and Germany offered Iran a deal last month to end its enrichment work in exchange for political and economic incentives, including a guarantee that Iran would not be referred to the Security Council, where the United States could press for sanctions. U.S. diplomats have said they expect negotiations between Iran and the three European countries to result in a deal. But they expressed concern that any agreement could be written in a way that gives the Islamic state wiggle room to continue nuclear experiments that could enhance its bombmaking capabilities.
ElBaradei made only an indirect reference on Monday to the loss of nuclear-related equipment in Iraq, including the disappearance of 377 tons of high explosives that became a central issue in the final week of the U.S. presidential campaign. He defended the agency's prewar record in Iraq, saying that U.N. inspections had succeeded and that he had "been validated" in concluding that Saddam Hussein had not revived his nuclear weapons program.
"The Iraq experience demonstrated that inspections -- while requiring time and patience -- can be effective when the country under inspection is providing less than active cooperation," ElBaradei said.
ElBaradei's address came in an eventful year in which Libya foreswore its nuclear arms program, a Pakistan-based marketplace in nuclear weapons components was unmasked, and North Korea continued for a second year to pursue its nuclear program beyond the view of international monitors.
The U.N. nuclear chief said he cannot "provide any level of assurance" that Pyongyang is not diverting nuclear material to a weapons program. "North Korea continues to pose a serious challenge to the nuclear nonproliferation regime," he said, noting that IAEA inspectors have been barred from the country since 2002.
ElBaradei cited Libya as a great success story, since Moammar Gaddafi agreed to give up his government's nuclear weapons program. ElBaradei cautioned that further investigation is required to verify how completely Libya disclosed its nuclear activities.
On Iran, ElBaradei provided a mixed review of that country's actions. He described Tehran's "failure over an extended period of time to meet many of its obligations" to the nuclear agency, but noted that its cooperation "has improved appreciably." Still, he said, Iran's response to information requests in some cases "has continued to be slow."
"Perhaps the most disturbing lesson to emerge from our work in Iran and Libya is the existence of an extensive illicit market for the supply of nuclear items, which clearly thrived on demand," he said, referring to trade in nuclear equipment by a network headed by Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.
There have been heightened tensions in the past year between ElBaradei and the Bush administration, which opposes the former Egyptian diplomat's bid for a third term in June. Administration opposition to ElBaradei has grown steadily since the run-up to the Iraq war, when he pronounced, in defiance of the White House, that Iraq no longer had a nuclear weapons program.
Since the war, the administration has kept the agency from inspecting materials in Iraq, and IAEA officials say the administration has refused to respond to its concerns over missing equipment there.
Months before ElBaradei announced he would seek a third term, the State Department began floating names of possible replacements for him. They included Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, two Japanese diplomats and a South Korean official whose name was dropped from the list after Seoul admitted that scientists had conducted covert nuclear experiments.
ElBaradei announced in September that he will stay on if the IAEA board wants him to. "I was asked by just about everybody to stay because there are a lot of issues that are still open and important: Iraq, Iran, the threat of proliferation," he said in an interview Friday. "I made it clear that I am happy to continue public service, which is a personal sacrifice, but I'm happy to improve my golf handicap."
ElBaradei has encouraged Iran and the three European countries to strike a deal before the IAEA Board of Governors meets on Nov. 27 to consider whether to refer Iran's case to the Security Council.
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Putin Plugs Nuclear Convention
November 2, 2004
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.sptimes.ru/archive/times/1017/news/n_14044.htm
MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin on Monday pushed for passing a United Nations convention on combating nuclear terrorism, saying the document should help coordinate global efforts to prevent mass destruction weapons from falling into terrorists' hands.
Putin voiced hope that the current session of the UN General Assembly would consider Russia's draft of the convention.
"It must create conditions for averting any attempts by terrorists to get hold of nuclear weapons or any other nuclear materials," Putin said in a letter to Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, excerpts of which were released by the Kremlin.
Since the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, concerns have grown that terrorists might try to acquire material for a dirty bomb - a device that uses conventional explosives to scatter low-level radioactive material over city blocks.
It has no atomic chain reaction and requires no highly enriched uranium or plutonium which are kept under tight security and difficult to obtain. Instead, the radioactive component is of lower-grade isotopes, such as those used in medicine or research.
The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency - the UN nuclear watchdog - estimates as many as 110 countries do not have adequate controls over radioactive devices that could be used to build a dirty bomb.
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White House takes aim at U.N.'s nuclear chief
Some in Bush camp say ElBaradei trying to help elect Kerry
San Francisco Chronicle
Robert Collier
November 2, 2004
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/11/02/MNGVT9KBTQ1.DTL
While President Bush and Sen. John Kerry were arguing last week over the looting of high explosives in Iraq, a parallel fight was being waged in the shadows, one that could bedevil U.S. foreign policy long after today's election.
The White House was locked in combat with an old adversary -- Mohamed ElBaradei, chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency -- whose cooperation the United States needs to prevent nations such as Iran and North Korea from developing nuclear weapons.
Some administration supporters accuse ElBaradei of orchestrating the scandal over 377 tons of missing explosives at the Al Qaqaa military base to help Kerry defeat Bush, and they suggest the case will deepen distrust between Washington and the United Nations.
"ElBaradei would like nothing better than to see President Bush lose ..., " said Clifford May, president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy, a conservative-leaning Washington think tank.
After the explosives story broke last week, Bush administration officials said they would oppose ElBaradei's bid for a third term as head of the agency when it comes up for renewal next year. Although the United States does not have veto power on the IAEA's 35-member board, opposition from Washington would carry considerable weight, and some analysts say the administration is determined to oust him.
"The people I've talked to in the administration are absolutely convinced that ElBaradei is trying to defeat Bush, and what happened (last) week means they will do anything it takes to make sure that he doesn't get another term," said David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington.
ElBaradei, in an Oct. 1 letter to the U.N. Security Council, said that widespread looting of weapons in Iraq had occurred. Responding to ElBaradei's request for more information on the subject, Mohammed Abbas, an official of the Iraqi Ministry of Science and Technology, reported that explosives at Al Qaqaa were lost after the U.S. takeover because of "theft and looting of the governmental installations due to lack of security."
The issue caught fire on the campaign trail after the letter was leaked to the New York Times. Kerry accused Bush of "incompetence" for not keeping the caches of explosives under control, and administration defenders suggested that ElBaradei might have coaxed Abbas to complain to the IAEA.
"Did ElBaradei in some way persuade the Iraqi official that this letter was needed at this time because of the election?" asked May. "This fuels the suspicion that ElBaradei is attempting to manipulate an American election by spreading false information."
ElBaradei called the accusations "total junk."
"The timing probably is unfortunate, but there is a world out there other than the American election," he said Friday.
"It's unfortunate that it's taking a political spin," he said in a separate interview. "That's not ours."
The Bush administration's differences with ElBaradei began before the Iraq war, when U.N. arms inspectors led by Hans Blix fanned out across Iraq searching for weapons of mass destruction. The administration constantly criticized their efforts as being too weak. Relations became further strained when ElBaradei reported to the Security Council that contrary to U.S. assertions, Iraq did not appear to have an active nuclear weapons program.
At the time, Vice President Dick Cheney called ElBaradei "wrong" and said he "consistently underestimated or missed what it was Saddam Hussein was doing. "
After the war, U.S. weapons inspection groups in Iraq determined that ElBaradei's findings had been correct.
The Egyptian soon took the offensive on other sensitive issues, criticizing the Bush administration's plans to develop so-called bunker-buster nuclear weapons.
"The U.S. government demands that other nations not possess nuclear weapons," ElBaradei said in August 2003. "Meanwhile, it is arming itself. If we do not stop applying double standards, we will end up with more nuclear weapons."
The Bush administration, meanwhile, refused to allow U.N. inspectors to return to postwar Iraq to complete their weapons searches, despite pleas from both ElBaradei and Blix. Some analysts see the administration's animus toward ElBaradei as part of a broader distrust of the United Nations.
"There are personal issues with ElBaradei, but it also is more fundamental, with the Bush administration opposed to any fundamental role for the United Nations," said Lee Feinstein, a senior fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations who was an official in the Pentagon and State departments under the Clinton administration.
One former Pentagon official in the Bush administration said the distrust extended to much of the information that came from U.N. arms inspectors when formulating strategy before and during the war.
U.N. intelligence "was generally not used," said Marc Garlasco, a former Defense Intelligence Agency official who headed the Joint Chiefs of Staff's team directing high-value missile targeting. Instead, he said in an interview, U.S. war planners were focused on killing Saddam Hussein and his top aides. "Arms stashes were just not a priority," he said. "But when you're talking about potential WMD, it boggles the mind why Al Qaqaa wasn't higher on the list," he said.
Administration officials, looking to curtail the influence of the IAEA, note that the agency's 1957 charter tasks it primarily with promoting the nuclear energy industry and ensuring that uranium and plutonium are not taken out of nuclear power plants. The charter does not specifically authorize the IAEA's current role of investigating and enforcing nuclear nonproliferation accords, they say, and the IAEA should defer all weapons-related controversies to the U.N. Security Council.
"This goes to a fairly fundamental question here: whether the IAEA's board recognizes that it is not the responsible agency for the conduct of the affairs involving international peace and security, but that the Security Council is, " said John Bolton, the State Department's chief arms-control official, in a speech in September. The administration has been ratcheting up pressure on Iran over its alleged nuclear weapons program, and it is expected to make a big push later this month urging the IAEA to pass the issue to the Security Council for possible sanctions against Tehran's Islamic government.
"That's what we think, and that's why we've been pressing for it," Bolton said. "That's why we're going to continue to press for it in November."
E-mail Robert Collier at rcollier@sfchronicle.com.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- new york
Power Increase Is Approved for Indian Pt.
November 2, 2004
By KIRK SEMPLE
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/02/nyregion/02nuclear.html
WHITE PLAINS, Oct. 29 - The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has granted permission to the owners of the Indian Point nuclear power complex to increase output at one of its reactors by 3.3 percent.
The agency, which approved the increase in capacity, or "uprate," on Thursday, based its decision on a determination that the plant could safely increase output primarily by upgrading minor components, a commission spokesman said on Friday.
The agency had published a notice about the uprate application in the Federal Register, inviting opponents of the plant to request a hearing or file a comment challenging an increase, but no one intervened, said the spokesman, Neil Sheehan.
Alex Matthiessen, the executive director of Riverkeeper, an environmental group that has sought to shut down Indian Point's two operational reactors, said he chose not to protest the application. "We didn't have the staff time to devote to it," he said Friday. "You have to pick your battles."
Safety experts have questioned the nuclear industry's use of uprates to increase capacity at existing plants. In the past two decades, total output nationally has been increased by the equivalent of three large reactors without building any new plants.
Mr. Sheehan said that since 1977, the commission had approved 101 power upgrades of between 1 and 20 percent at nuclear power plants in the United States.
They have been granted with almost no opposition, though critics contend that the uprates, on top of extensions of operating licenses, could imperil safety.
The Indian Point 2 reactor, the one that received uprate approval last week, had three unplanned shutdowns in September because of equipment malfunctions, said a spokesman for Entergy Nuclear Northeast, the plant's owner.
"When you increase capacity to these plants, you are no doubt adding pressure on the existing facility," Mr. Matthiessen said.
But plant owners and regulators contend that they are modernizing in a way that improves safety.
Entergy plans to put the increase into effect after the plant's fall refueling operation, which is currently under way, Mr. Sheehan said.
The last uprate at Indian Point 2, of 1.4 percent, was in 2003; its sister reactor, Indian Point 3, received an uprate of 1.4 percent in 2002. An application to increase the capacity of Indian Point 3 by 4.85 percent is being reviewed. Indian Point 1 closed in the 1970's.
-------- us nuc waste
More WIPP Waste Breaks Rules
Albuquerque Journal
By John Fleck
November 2, 2004
http://www.abqjournal.com/news/state/251745nm11-02-04.htm
The Department of Energy shipped at least 602 drums of plutonium waste to New Mexico in violation of Environmental Protection Agency rules, according to documents obtained by the Journal.
As a result, federal regulators are considering a shutdown of radioactive waste shipments from Washington state to New Mexico.
The shipments, from the DOE's Hanford nuclear reservation to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, violated an EPA directive issued in August 2003. The directive said the waste should not be shipped because of questions about whether it had been properly tested.
Officials with the EPA, which has legal responsibility for environmental safety at WIPP, refused Monday to answer questions. EPA spokesman Dave Ryan issued a statement saying the agency is conducting "a full technical review" of the waste in question and gathering information to see what further action may be required.
DOE officials also refused to talk about the issue.
An internal EPA document obtained by the Journal says one option under consideration is a complete shutdown of all shipments from Hanford to WIPP.
It is the second such incident this year and the fourth since WIPP opened in 1999, a string of failures that threatens public confidence in WIPP, according to the document, an internal EPA review.
"EPA and DOE need to demonstrate that the violation is being taken seriously, and that changes will be made to ensure that it does not happen again," the EPA review concluded.
New Mexico Environment Secretary Ron Curry called the problem "mismanagement at the highest level."
Curry's department is in negotiations with DOE over a fine that could be as high as $2.4 million as a result of the most recent similar incident at WIPP.
In that incident, more than 100 drums of plutonium-contaminated waste were shipped from the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory to WIPP earlier this year without proper testing.
The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant is a mine dug 2,150 feet beneath the southeast New Mexico desert for the disposal of plutonium-contaminated nuclear weapons waste.
As the first facility of its kind, WIPP operates under rules intended to ensure that some dangerous materials- such as waste that contains explosives or is more radioactive than WIPP was designed to hold- are not inadvertently buried.
In each of the four cases, the DOE and EPA made an after-the-fact determination that no prohibited waste ended up underground, according to the EPA review.
"Although we do not believe this waste (already placed underground) will adversely affect WIPP's performance or affect protection of public health and the environment, a serious and thorough response to these problems is necessary to maintain public confidence in the WIPP's performance and EPA's oversight process," the EPA internal review concluded.
In the most recent case, Hanford had set up a testing program for the waste, but the EPA had not yet approved it as sufficient, WIPP manager Paul Detwiler wrote in an Oct. 18 letter to the EPA.
While that EPA review was under way, the environmental agency had explicitly directed DOE not to ship any of the questionable waste, according to Detwiler's letter. Detwiler admitted the mistake and promised a number of actions to try to ensure it does not happen again.
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
MILITANTS
Abductors Say 3 Hostages in Afghanistan Are Separated
November 2, 2004
By CARLOTTA GALL
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/02/international/asia/02afghan.html
KABUL, Afghanistan, Nov. 1 - Militants claiming responsibility for the kidnapping of three foreign United Nations election workers said Monday that they had separated the hostages to prevent their rescue by international and Afghan security forces.
In telephone calls to Reuters and The Associated Press, Mullah Es Haq Manzoor, a spokesman who describes himself as the military commander of the group, Jaish-e-Muslimeen, repeated his threat that the hostages would be killed if a rescue attempt was made.
"We have separated the three hostages and are keeping them far from each other so that in case one is discovered by the authorities, we have the chance to kill the other two," Reuters quoted Mr. Manzoor as saying.
An American soldier was also killed and two were wounded Monday in an attack in southeastern Afghanistan, where the United States has a base close to the Pakistani border, The A.P. reported, quoting an American military spokesman, Maj. Mark McCann.
The three hostages were abducted in Kabul on Thursday. Jaish-e-Muslimeen, or Army of Muslims, claimed responsibility very quickly and has made repeated calls to news agencies in the days since to lay out conditions.
On Sunday, the leader of the group, Akbar Agha, said the three would be killed if his demands - that United Nations and foreign military forces withdraw from Afghanistan, and that the hostages' home countries denounce the presence of the foreign troops - were not met by Wednesday.
The three hostages - a British-Irish woman, Annetta Flanigan; a Kosovo Albanian woman, Shqipe Habibi; and a Filipino diplomat working for the United Nations, Angelito Nayan - were shown on a video released to the Arab network Al Jazeera on Sunday. The three were sitting together on the floor against a wall, watched by a guard whose head and face were hidden by a checkered scarf.
Mr. Manzoor also said his group was in contact with the Afghan government and the United Nations through a businessman acting as a mediator, Reuters reported.
A government official said the first tentative leads to make contact with the hostage takers were coming together. Officials are hoping to use tribal, religious and factional contacts to try to reach the kidnappers, who are thought to be a local gang with connections inside Kabul, and who may be separate from the men making the phone calls.
-------- africa
Sudan Denies Surrounding Refugee Camps
Associated Press
By MOHAMED OSMAN
November 2, 2004
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4590617,00.html
KHARTOUM, Sudan (AP) - The Sudanese army and police have surrounded several refugee camps in the war-torn region of Darfur and denied access to humanitarian groups, the United Nations said Tuesday. The Sudanese government denied its security forces closed off the camps but said angry Arab tribesmen have gathered in the area.
The U.N. World Food Program said three camps were surrounded - apparently in retaliation for the abduction of 18 Arabs by Darfur rebels - and that it was forced to pull 88 relief workers from those areas.
The WFP fears the government may start forcing people from the camps back to their home villages, where there is less protection from government-backed militias known as Janjaweed that have been attacking towns, said spokeswoman Christiane Berthiaume.
The camps were cut off ``at 3 a.m. without any warning,'' she said. ``Agencies have been denied access to these camps since this morning.''
At least 160,000 refugees in western Darfur cannot be reached by road ``because of insecurity,'' Berthiaume said.
The aid workers - most working for independent aid groups - were pulled from the Golu, Zaleinge and Nertetie camps. The agency still has three employees in Zaleinge and Nertetie but may evacuate them as well, Berthiaume said.
Sudan, however, denied any army or police forces were surrounding the camps. ``There is no siege,'' Humanitarian Affairs minister Ibrahim Hamid told The Associated Press in Khartoum. ``It is not true that the government was telling organizations to pull out of the area, and the areas are not besieged.''
Hamid said that angry Arab tribesmen gathered in the area after the kidnapping of 18 of their men by Darfur rebels. ``The African Union has been alerted and they said they would bring those abducted out of the mountainous areas of Zaleinge,'' he said.
Sudan's government is accused of backing the Janjaweed in a campaign of violence - including rapes, killings and the burning of villages - to help put down a 19-month rebellion by non-Arab African groups. The government denies backing the Janjaweed.
Attacks have uprooted 1.5 million of Darfur's people, and at least 70,000 have died, mostly through disease and hunger, according to the U.N. The United Nations and aid groups have called Darfur the world's worst humanitarian crisis.
The United Nations has suspended all field missions by international organizations because of the kidnapping and violence in Darfur, Ron Redmond, spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, said.
``Along with other international organizations, we have had to cancel missions to the field planned for this week,'' he said.
Hamid said that rebels near Zaleinge stopped buses and lorries Thursday and Friday, forcing people of Arab origin to dismount, then took a group into the mountains. Most of those abducted were students, he said, and three managed to escape and get word to their tribes.
The Sudanese government has accused the rebel Sudan Liberation Army of the kidnappings, while rebels claimed Janjaweed ordered 30 ethnic Africans from a bus on Sunday and shot them to death.
An African Union spokesman in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, told AP in Kenya that his organization had not received any information that Sudanese army and police have surrounded the camps.
``I don't have that information from our military observers, so I can't comment on that,'' said Assane Ba.
The 53-member AU has about 80 military observers monitoring a shaky cease-fire in Darfur. It currently is beefing up its mission in Darfur, with Rwandan and Nigerian peacekeepers being flown in.
-------- arms
China's Advanced Military Missiles Take Centre Stage At Airshow
(AFP)
Nov 02, 2004
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/china-04zzy.html
Zhuhai, China - Chinese military missiles took centre stage at the Zhuhai airshow Tuesday with the debut showing of some 100 weapons and aerospace products, showcasing the country's economic and military might.
It marked the first time China has openly sold missiles at the China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition, the only airshow in the country and now in its fifth year, military commentators said.
"This is the first time the Chinese are displaying surface-to-surface missiles. Surface-to-surface missile technology is very sensitive in the international market," said Andrei Pinkov, who writes for Jane's Defense Weekly.
"China sold that kind of technology to Pakistan at the end of 1980s and the US opposed this," he told AFP.
"For a long time, China didn't display this kind of missile system but now they want to show the international society that they want to return to the missile market."
Pinkov said the exhibition showed China had the economic power to develop highly-advanced weapon systems.
"Russia has built a lot of things but they never complete them and when you ask them why, they always say they don't have the money to finish it. But you would never get that answer from China," he said.
"The exhibition shows they have the economic power."
The highlight of the exhibition held in Zhuhai city in southern China's Guangdong province was the B611, a short-range surface-to-surface missile weapon system with a range of 150 kilometers (about 95 miles).
Its showing would rattle leaders in Taiwan, he said.
Tensions between Taiwan and China have been growing since the re-election of President Chen Shui-bian from the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party earlier this year.
China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has threatened to invade the island should it formally declare independence.
"Missiles pose a big threat to Taiwan because there are 600 missiles aiming at them and the range of this missile system means that it can cover part of the outside islands of Taiwan and so I think Taiwan is more and more sensitive on this system," he said.
Another highlight of the exhibition was a new FLG-1S missile-gun integrated weapon system, for use in modern air combat.
The missile, developed by China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp, was primarily made for field air defence and can be used against low-flying helicopters, ground-attack aircraft, unmanned aircraft and sub-sonic cruise missiles.
The Chinese government-owned aerospace company was also displaying a range of short-range air defence missiles and surface-to-air missiles, as well as small civilian communications satellites.
-------- britain
Suicide theory on female soldier
The Guardian
Richard Norton-Taylor
Tuesday November 2, 2004
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1341469,00.html
A senior military policewoman found dead in Basra and named last night by the Ministry of Defence is understood to have killed herself.
Staff Sergeant Denise Rose of the Royal Military Police's special investigation branch was found dead from a gunshot wound at the army base in the Shatt-al-Arab hotel on Sunday, the MoD said.
It added that the death was being investigated but was "not thought to have been the result of hostile action".
Staff Sgt Rose, who had been in Iraq for barely a month, was 34 and came from Liverpool. She is the first British female soldier to die in Iraq since the invasion last year.
The military police in Basra have been investigating a series of incidents involving British soldiers and Iraqi civilians, including a number which have led to fatalities.
Her death brings to 70 the number of British service personnel who have died in the Iraq conflict since the start of hostilities in March 2003. Fewer than half were the result of hostile fire. Six military policemen were killed by Iraqis near Basra last year in an incident yet to be fully explained.
Denise Rose joined the military police in 1989, and trained as an special investigator in 1995, the MoD said.
It added that she was deployed as a volunteer to Iraq on September 27, as part of a small team of specialist investigators "to provide security for the people of Iraq and assist in the rebuilding of the country through the provision of a well-trained police force".
Lt Col Robert Silk , commanding officer of her parent unit, based in Germany, described her death as a "terrible shock". He said she had "a multitude of friends, being universally popular, intelligent and ever cheerful".
-------- business
Lockheed Must Pay for Failed Dump Cleanup
Firm to Take $110 Million Charge
By Renae Merle
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 2, 2004; Page E02
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17091-2004Nov1.html
Lockheed Martin Corp. said yesterday it will take a $110 million charge in the fourth quarter after losing a six-year court battle over a failed contract with the Energy Department for cleanup of a radioactive-waste dump in Idaho.
A U.S. District Court in Idaho ruled Bethesda-based Lockheed owes the government $110 million after its contract to clean up Pit 9, a one-acre site in Idaho Falls, fell years behind schedule and millions of dollars over budget. The field contained 55-gallon drums filled with radioactive waste, including rags, gloves and sludge used in making nuclear weapons.
The ruling was a stinging defeat for Lockheed, which claimed it spent nearly $300 million on the cleanup, though it was paid only $54 million. Lockheed had planned to use the project as a catapult to capture billions of work in nuclear waste cleanup, according to the court decision.
Chief Judge B. Lynn Winmill said in a 100-page decision that Lockheed "had failed to progress with the work, failed to give adequate assurances that it would perform in the future, and failed to adequately explain its failure to progress, justifying the termination for default."
Lockheed said the $110 million charge includes 12 percent interest on the $54 million the company was paid and $11 million to dispose of a facility the company built to do the work. "We are extremely disappointed with the court's decision," company spokesman Thomas Jurkowsky said.
Asked if the company would appeal, spokesman Jeff Adams said, "We're still reviewing the documents."
The decision ends a nearly 10-year saga that began with a $179 million fixed-price contract in 1994 that the Energy Department expected to use as a model for hiring private companies to clean up nuclear waste dumps. The waste consisted primarily of plutonium and americium, which "posed a serious heath threat," according to the court decision. Some of it was dumped into the pit between 1967 and 1969 and came from the Rocky Flats Plant in Colorado.
Lockheed fell behind schedule, claiming the field included larger pieces of nuclear waste and waste of different compositions than originally expected. In 1997, Lockheed slowed down work on the project while it attempted to negotiate a higher price. The next year the department canceled the contract as the estimated cost of completing the work tripled to $600 million and the General Accounting Office, now the Government Accountability Office, called the program "clearly a failure."
"We are pleased with the ruling," said Thomas Welch, a spokesman for the Energy Department.
-------- china
Ethnic Fighting Flares in China
Authorities Declare Martial Law in Rural Henan Province
By Philip P. Pan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, November 2, 2004; Page A18
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15032-2004Nov1.html
BEIJING, Nov. 1 -- Government authorities declared martial law in a rural section of central China's Henan province last week after four days of ethnic clashes there involving thousands of villagers left as many as a dozen people dead and many more injured, witnesses said Monday.
The fighting occurred between farmers of the country's ethnic Han majority and the Muslim Hui minority living in neighboring villages, and between members from both groups and thousands of military police sent in to restore order. The incidents appeared to be among the worst ethnic violence known to have taken place in China in recent years.
The unrest was the latest reminder of the varied tensions tearing at this vast nation as it undergoes a difficult transition from socialism to capitalism while maintaining the ruling Communist Party's rigid political system. Hundreds of police fired rubber bullets at peasants protesting land seizures in a nearby village this summer, and thousands angry about corruption participated in riots in the western city of Chongqing two weeks ago.
In another incident, police in western Sichuan province clashed with demonstrators at the site of a proposed dam Friday, beating one man to death and injuring several others, residents said. More than 50,000 villagers participated in the protests, disbanding over the weekend only after officials promised to suspend construction and discuss compensation for farmland to be flooded.
In Henan, an official at a local mosque, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the ethnic violence began Wednesday after a traffic dispute involving Hui truck drivers and Han villagers in Weitan, a corn- and wheat-growing hamlet located about 400 miles southwest of Beijing outside Kaifeng, the ancient Song Dynasty capital of China.
The fighting soon spread to several nearby villages, where witnesses reached by phone described mobs looting, burning down homes and beating people in alternating raids by members of the two ethnic groups. As many as 10,000 anti-riot and military police began pouring into the area beginning Friday, but villagers clashed with them, too, swinging iron bars and throwing bricks and stones, witnesses said.
State-run media reported nothing about the unrest for their domestic audience, complying with a news blackout ordered by propaganda authorities to avoid further inflaming ethnic tensions, reporters said. But the world service of the official New China News Agency carried a brief report saying seven people were killed and 42 injured in "fighting" between Wednesday and Sunday. The report said 18 people had been arrested.
The clashes appeared to have been exacerbated by the arrival of hundreds of Muslim Hui from other parts of the country who rushed to the region to support their ethnic brethren. Military police set up checkpoints and, with the help of local imams, persuaded many of the outsiders to go home, the official at the mosque said. But residents said some eluded police and joined the clashes.
China formally recognizes 56 ethnic groups, with the Han making up over 90 percent of the country's population of 1.3 billion. Numbering about 10 million, the Hui are one of the largest minorities and consider themselves descendants of Han who converted to Islam and of intermarriages between Han and Arabs who migrated to China centuries ago.
Hui warlords were among the last rulers to put up strong resistance to the Communists before Mao Zedong took power in 1949. The government remains nervous about relations with the Hui, and outbreaks of unrest sometimes erupt after minor provocations.
The initial clash in Henan involved seven Hui truck drivers and a small group of Han villagers blocking a road, the mosque official said. He said other Han came to the defense of the villagers, beat the drivers and set fire to their trucks. The next day, the villagers stopped two buses, forced the mostly Hui passengers to disembark and set fire to the buses, he said.
Rumors spread quickly, and Han and Hui soon began launching attacks on each other's communities, residents said. Provincial officials arrived Friday with more than 2,000 military police but were unable to contain the clashes until Sunday, after thousands of reinforcements arrived.
One local journalist, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said a government source told him nearly 150 people were killed in the rampages, including several police officers, but he was unwilling to provide details and local officials denied the account. Several residents, including village doctors who treated the wounded, said they knew of only about a dozen fatalities.
The party chief of one of the Hui villages involved in the violence, who gave only his surname, Ma, said about 10 people died in the clashes. "Under the concern of upper-level officials, people in our village are calm now," he added.
But both Hui and Han residents said the atmosphere remained tense. Residents reported being ordered to cook round the clock to feed the large numbers of troops deployed to the region.
Du Pingfang, 40, a Hui doctor in Nanren village, said his neighbors remained frightened because the Han had threatened kill all Hui over the age of 3. "More than 5,000 soldiers have surrounded our village to protect us, but we're still worried that the Han will launch a surprise attack," he said.
Han residents also expressed fear, alleging that Hui were continuing to arrive in the region from across China. "Many police have been sent here to control the situation," said an elderly schoolteacher in Xilang village who fled and hid in the fields during much of the violence, "but they can't stop the Hui from coming."
--------
Ethnic strife kills seven in China
November 02, 2004
By Audra Ang
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20041101-104314-9950r.htm
LANGCHENGGANG, China - Police by the thousands patrolled this central Chinese town yesterday and residents hunkered down in their homes after deadly street fights between members of the country's main ethnic group and a Muslim minority left at least seven persons dead.
Yesterday, minivans with loudspeakers strapped to their roofs drove through the dirt roads of Langchenggang and neighboring villages in Henan province, broadcasting appeals for calm.
As many as 5,000 people fought with sticks and burned several houses over the weekend in violence between Hui Muslims and members of the Han ethnic majority, according to Langchenggang residents interviewed by phone.
The fighting killed seven persons and injured 42, according to residents and the government. Langchenggang residents could not confirm a New York Times report that 148 persons, including 18 police officers, were killed.
Authorities imposed martial law on the area in Zhongmou County, near the city of Zhengzhou, residents said.
Eighteen persons were arrested, the government said late yesterday in its first official word on the fighting. The statement, carried by the Xinhua news agency, didn't mention the ethnicities of the rioters.
The government said the violence began after members of two families from separate villages fought over a traffic dispute. A spokesman for the county government said the dispute involved a collision between two farm vehicles, one driven by a Han and the other by a Hui.
Yesterday, police officers lined the roads into Langchenggang beginning 6 miles from town. They stopped cars at checkpoints and turned some away. At least four foreign reporters who visited the area were detained.
Residents sat outside shabby brick homes beside piles of drying corn and watched silently as trucks and tour buses full of police officers roared through the main road that runs through the villages.
Today's Hui are descended from ethnic Chinese who converted to Islam generations ago. Han Chinese make up more than 90 percent of China's 1.3 billion people. China has 55 officially recognized ethnic groups.
--------
Ethnic Clashes Are Confirmed by Beijing; Toll Is Unclear
November 2, 2004
By JOSEPH KAHN
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/02/international/asia/02china.html?pagewanted=all
BEIJING, Nov. 1 - Riots in the central Chinese province of Henan resulted in 7 deaths and 42 injuries and were quelled after authorities imposed martial law, the New China News Agency said Monday, offering the first official bulletin on unrest that began late last week.
The brief dispatch did not describe the reasons for the riots, which local residents said involved sustained clashes between Hui Muslims and Han Chinese after a traffic accident. It gave a much lower death toll than some residents reported.
One person told about an internal account of the riots, prepared for higher authorities in Beijing, that said the police had counted 148 deaths, including 18 police officers. Western news agencies reported varying death tolls, quoting local residents as saying that as many as 30 people were killed.
The police prevented access to the county of Zhengmou, situated between Kaifeng and Zhengzhou in Henan Province, where much of the violence occurred. Reporters and photographers entering the area were detained and expelled. It was difficult to reach residents because phone connections appeared to have been blocked.
The incident is the latest challenge for the authorities in a society that has become markedly prone to social unrest. A growing wealth gap and persistent corruption and backwardness in rural areas have fueled riots in the countryside and in secondary cities. Large-scale demonstrations, some violent, are no longer rare.
Ethnic violence is less common. Hui Muslims, one of the country's 56 official ethnic groups, trace their origins to Central Asia. But they resemble Han Chinese, who make up about 90 percent of the population, and are considered well integrated into Chinese society.
The details of the Henan incident remain sketchy and the number of casualties is in dispute. But it appears to have been one of the largest and most sustained ethnic clashes in many years.
The violence erupted Friday after a traffic dispute pitted mostly Han residents of one village against Hui Muslims from a neighboring village. Local residents said tempers first flared after a Hui taxi driver ran over and killed a young Han girl.
Relatives and fellow villagers of the girl descended on the Hui village to demand compensation. Fighting erupted, and scores of local peasants took up farm implements to battle one another.
As word of the confrontation spread, Han and Hui in adjoining areas joined the fray. Several reports said as many as 500 people were involved in fighting over the weekend.
Officers from the paramilitary People's Armed Police were deployed in the region and put it under martial law. Residents estimated that thousands of police officers had been deployed. The New China News Agency did not specify the number of police officers involved.
A related incident may have occurred in neighboring Qi County when the police intercepted a convoy of vehicles carrying other Hui Muslims to the area. Estimates by local residents of the number of outsiders trying to join the fray were as high as several hundred. Residents described to Western news agencies a violent standoff between the Hui outsiders and police officers who stopped the convoy, with some additional deaths.
An imam at a mosque inside the barricaded zone, who spoke by mobile phone, said that order had been restored but that Hui residents feared that local Han planned to continue fighting.
"The battles were intense and broke out in several places," the man said. "I know of several people who died in my village and of about 10 people in another village."
The most recent clash between Hui and other Chinese occurred in 2002, when a struggle broke out between Hui and Tibetans in western Qinghai Province. A large number of injuries were reported, but like many such incidents the matter was ignored or played down by the state-controlled media.
-------- europe
Germany names 100 army bases to close
BERLIN (AFP)
Nov 02, 2004
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041102130942.1rq0qnl9.html
German Defence Minister Peter Struck on Tuesday named more than one hundred military bases that are to close across the country in a wide-ranging overhaul of the armed forces.
Nine bases with more than 1,000 personnel and 28 bases with between 500 and 1,000 staff would be axed, Struck said. More than half of the total 105 bases to close are smaller, with up to 100 personnel.
The overwhelming majority of the bases are in the western states of the country.
"The plan for the changes in bases will begin immediately and be completed by 2010 at the latest," Struck told the Bundestag lower house of parliament.
The closures are designed to save 26 billion euros (33 billion dollars) by 2010 and will see the army's strength reduced from its current level of 285,000 soldiers to 250,000 over the same period.
Struck said that in the post-Cold War era, the German army's deployment in overseas missions required different organisational structures.
-------- iraq
Oil Pipeline Blown Up in Iraq; Violence Kills at Least 12
November 2, 2004
By EDWARD WONG
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/02/international/middleeast/02cnd-iraq.html?pagewanted=all&position=
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Nov. 2 - Insurgents blew up a northern oil export pipeline today, dealing a severe blow to the national economy, even as car bombs and gun battles across the country left at least 12 Iraqis dead, Iraqi officials said.
The sabotage of the northern oil pipeline forced a shutdown of crude oil exports to a port in Turkey, Iraqi officials said. The pipeline pumps out 400,000 barrels a day of crude oil and is the frequent target of sabotage. Hours after the explosion, firefighters were still battling a pipeline blaze near the city of Kirkuk, where pipelines run from oil fields west to the country's largest refinery in Bayji and north to Turkey.
The attacks on oil pipelines, both near Kirkuk and around Basra in the south, where the oil fields are much more extensive, have had a devastating effect on the national economy. An Iraqi oil official in Baghdad told The Associated Press that the amount of crude oil in storage at the port of Ceyhan in Turkey was down to four million barrels, half of the port's eight-million-barrel storage capacity. American and Iraqi officials are relying on steady oil exports to help revive the stagnant economy in a country where the unemployment rate hovers at 60 percent.
In the morning, insurgents drove a car bomb up to the Ministry of Education headquarters in northwestern Baghdad, killing at least six people and injuring dozens more, said Col. Adnan Abdul-Rahman, an Interior Ministry spokesman. The blast took place in the neighborhood of Adhamiya, a Sunni-dominated area generally hostile to the Americans.
People at the scene said two ministry guards in the parking lot, a father and his son, died immediately in the blast. Iraqi police and National Guardsmen began blocking off the area as crowds gathered. Ambulances rushed the wounded over to nearby Numan Hospital.
There, a policeman stood outside the emergency room, his light-blue uniform drenched in blood. He gave his name as Ahmed and said he had brought three of his friends here. Two had died already, he said, and the third was in intensive care.
In the volatile northern city of Mosul, a car bomb aimed at a military convoy near the police academy killed one person and injured at least seven security officers, hospital officials said. The target appeared to be Maj. Gen. Rashid Flayeh, the commander of a special Iraqi security force who had just arrived in the city days ago to assist the local police. He emerged unscathed from the blast, police officials said.
At 1 p.m., another car bomb exploded by a convoy of Iraqi National Guardsmen, killing two civilians and injuring seven others, hospital officials said. Armed clashes in the Al Widha neighborhood between insurgents and Iraqi guardsmen left three civilians dead, the officials said.
The latest attacks came about halfway through the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan, a popular time for suicide attacks by insurgents. The number of attacks a day has spiked by 30 percent, and suicide car bombs appear to be an increasingly common weapon, American military officials say. Even before Ramadan began, insurgents had already stepped up the use of such bombs; at least 40 exploded across Iraq in September alone, the highest of any month until then.
Since last April, when a two-front uprising convulsed the country, American-led forces have been unable to dampen what appears to be a growing insurgency, much of it led by disenfranchised Sunni Arabs ousted from power with the toppling of Saddam Hussein. In recent weeks, American military officials have been gathering their troops for a planned invasion of the insurgent stronghold of Falluja, 35 miles west of the capital, in the hopes that crushing that sanctuary will break the back of the guerillas. Thousands of insurgents are believed to have dug into positions in Falluja, and a battle for control of the city could turn out to be the bloodiest since the invasion of Iraq itself.
Prime Minister Ayad Allawi has said he is ready to call for a sweeping offensive in order to bring Falluja under control before elections scheduled for January. President Sheik Ghazi al-Yawar, a leader of one of the largest Sunni tribes in the country, said in an interview with a Kuwaiti newspaper on Monday that he absolutely opposed any military action. The break between the two strong-willed men suggests there could be enormous political fallout in the country if an invasion led by the American marines were to go forward.
Marines are now engaged in some of the most intense urban combat in the country in the provincial capital of Ramadi, just 30 miles west of Falluja. There, insurgents have been ambushing marine convoys that race daily through the downtown area. On Monday, a freelance cameraman working for Reuters, Dhia Najim, was shot in the head while covering fighting and killed.
The American military released a statement on Tuesday saying Mr. Najim was killed during a battle between marines and insurgents.
"Marines from the 1st Marine Division of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force engaged several insurgents in a brief small arms firefight that killed an individual who was carrying a video camera earlier Monday morning," the military said.
Military officials said in interviews that the cameraman was killed by the marines as they took fire from the insurgents. One official said marines had inspected Mr. Najim's camera after the battle and found footage that showed insurgents attacking convoys. By Tuesday night, the Marines Corps had opened an investigation, the official said.
"We did kill him," he said. "He was out with the bad guys. He was there with them, they attacked and we fired back and hit him."
Reuters reported that its global managing editor, David Schlesinger, was strongly urging the American military to conduct a proper investigation and was dissatisfied with the statement put out by the Marines.
"We reject the clear implication in the Marines' statement that Dhia was part of an insurgent group," Mr. Schlesinger said.
Mr. Najim's death brought to 36 the number of journalists who have been killed in this war, at least eight by American fire, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, based in New York. Nineteen have died from insurgent actions. The rate of death for reporters here is the highest of any conflict in recent memory.
Late Tuesday, a spokesman for Al Jazeera, the Arab satellite network, told The Associated Press that the network had received a videotape of Margaret Hassan, the British-Iraqi aid worker who was kidnapped at gunpoint last month. The network was not showing the tape because it was too intense, the spokesman said. The Irish prime minister, Bertie Ahern, told the Irish parliament that he had read a text of the video and that it appeared "distressing."
As in two previous videos, Ms. Hassan, 59, was shown pleading for her life before fainting, he said, according to the Press Association, a British news agency. A bucket of water is then thrown over her head, and she gets up and begins crying. No group has claimed responsibility for the abduction of Ms. Hassan, who is a long-time resident of Iraq and directs the Baghdad office of CARE International.
News agencies reported Tuesday that two Iraqi guards kidnapped from an office on Monday in the affluent Baghdad neighborhood of Mansour were released. Still missing are an unidentified American, a Nepalese and two other Iraqi guards, said Col. Abdul-Rahman, the Interior Ministry spokesman. The two Iraqi guards who were released were from the Falluja area, The Associated Press reported.
The foreigners work for the Saudi Arabian Trading and Construction Company, a food supply company that has been operating in Iraq for about a year. More than 160 foreigners have been kidnapped this year in Iraq, most by bandits seeking ransom. More than 30 have been killed, some in grisly videotaped beheadings posted on the Internet.
The militant group led by Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi posted such a video on Tuesday showing the decapitation of Shosei Koda, a 24-year-old Japanese backpacker whose body was discovered in Baghdad on Saturday. Mr. Koda's body was wrapped in an American flag, and the video showed insurgents shoving him down on that flag and slicing off his head. In a separate Internet statement, the group, Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, said the Japanese government had offered a ransom of "millions of dollars" but had refused to withdraw its 550 troops in Iraq, prompting the group to kill Mr. Koda.
Also on Tuesday, a supervisor in the Iraqi electoral commission, Adel al-Lami, said voter registration lists had been distributed on Monday in parts of several cities, including Baghdad, Amara and Basra. Though Monday was the first day that Iraqis collecting their food rations could receive their voter registration lists, the distribution of such lists apparently did not take place at all 540 or so food centers around the country, Mr. Lami said. The commission still has until the end of November to complete its voter registration rolls.
Richard A. Oppel Jr. contributed reporting from Ramadi, and Iraqi employees of The New York Times from Baghdad and Mosul.
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Gunmen kidnap six in Baghdad
November 02, 2004
By Mariam Fam
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20041101-104308-1926r.htm
BAGHDAD - Gunmen stormed the compound of a Saudi company in a fashionable Baghdad neighborhood yesterday, seizing an American, a Nepalese and four Iraqis after a gunbattle in which a guard and one of the assailants were killed, police said.
The American, who was not identified, was the 12th U.S. citizen reported kidnapped or missing in Iraq. He was grabbed about 500 yards from the house where two Americans and a Briton were kidnapped last month. All three were beheaded.
The dramatic abduction occurred two days after the decapitated body of Japanese backpacker Shosei Koda was found in western Baghdad. The al Qaeda-affiliated movement of Abu Musab Zarqawi claimed responsibility for his kidnapping.
Elsewhere, gunmen assassinated the deputy governor of Baghdad, while to the west of the capital U.S. troops clashed with Sunni insurgents in Ramadi, killing an Iraqi freelance television camera operator. American artillery pounded suspected insurgent positions in Fallujah, and residents reported fresh air and artillery attacks there late yesterday.
A few Iraqis showed up for the first day of voter registration in central Baghdad. They refused to allow TV cameras to videotape them, for fear of retaliation.
Police Lt. Col. Maan Khalaf said the heavily armed kidnappers arrived in three cars around iftar, the traditional sunset meal that Muslims eat to break their daily fast during the holy month of Ramadan.
The kidnappers stormed the two-story house, which is surrounded by an outer wall with iron bars, in a hail of gunfire, and forced the victims to leave with them. There were conflicting reports on the number taken, but Interior Ministry spokesman Col. Adnan Abdul-Rahman said they were one American, a Nepalese and four Iraqis.
More than 160 foreigners have been abducted this year by militants with political demands or by criminals seeking ransom. At least 33 captives have been killed - several of them by Zarqawi's group, which is believed to have headquarters in Fallujah.
Early yesterday, gunmen opened fire on a car carrying Baghdad province's deputy governor, Hatim Kamil, killing him and wounding his two bodyguards, officials said. A militant group, the Ansar al-Sunnah army, claimed responsibility for the attack in southeastern Baghdad.
Heavy clashes between U.S. forces and insurgents continued in Ramadi, an insurgent stronghold 70 miles west of Baghdad. A bomb Sunday killed one Marine and wounded four there, the military said.
Yesterday, a woman was killed and her two children injured, hospital officials in Ramadi said. Also killed was an Iraqi freelance television cameraman, Diaa Najm, who provided material to Associated Press Television News - believed to be the 24th journalist killed in Iraq this year.
The latest violence occurred as American troops gear up for a major offensive against Fallujah, located about 40 miles west of the capital. It is the strongest bastion of Sunni insurgents.
Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, a Shi'ite Muslim, faces strong opposition to such an attack within the Sunni minority. In an interview to the Kuwaiti daily Al-Qabas, interim President Ghazi Mashal Ajil al-Yawer, a Sunni, said he disagreed "with those who believe a military attack is necessary."
"The way the coalition is managing the crisis is wrong," Mr. al-Yawer said. "It is as if someone shot his horse in the head to kill a fly that landed on it. The fly flies away and the horse dies."
Mr. Allawi has given no deadline for an attack on Fallujah but has insisted that the city hand over foreign fighters and permit government forces to assume responsibility for law and order.
-------- israel / palestine
Suicide bomber kills three, injures 32
November 02, 2004
By Joshua Mitnick
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20041101-104315-9337r.htm
TEL AVIV - An explosion triggered by a Palestinian suicide bomber struck a bustling outdoor market in central Tel Aviv yesterday morning, leaving four dead - three Israelis and the bomber - and 32 injured.
The attack worsened fears of instability and increased violence that have followed news of the mysterious illness of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who condemned the bombing from his hospital bed in Paris.
The explosion occurred at about 11:15 a.m. at the entrance to Shamai Cheeses, a popular shop in the Carmel Market, an open-air strip of fruit and vegetable stalls, butchers and discount apparel retailers.
The blast overturned produce counters, splattered blood on storefronts across the narrow walkway and shattered the glass sign of a nearby stall selling fresh Middle Eastern salads.
"I was cutting a schnitzel, and then lifted my head and saw the explosion," said Avi Chayo, a 28 year-old butcher who described seeing a fireball. "Everything was filled with smoke. And there was one person with a leg nearly severed."
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine claimed responsibility for the attack, the first suicide bombing in central Tel Aviv in nearly a year and a half. The bomber was identified as 16-year-old Amar al Faer, from a refugee camp near Nablus.
Arafat spokesman Nabil Abu Rdeneh said he had received a cell-phone call from Paris in which Mr. Arafat's wife, Suha, relayed a statement from Mr. Arafat appealing to all Palestinian factions "to commit to avoid harming all Israeli civilians," the Associated Press reported.
Mr. Arafat took the phone from his wife and a