NucNews - December 30, 2004 -------- NUCLEAR -------- accidents and safety Early refueling will let TVA fix steam leak at nuclear plant December 30, 2004 (AP) http://www.wate.com/Global/story.asp?S=2748151 CHATTANOOGA -- TVA says it will refuel its Watts Bar Nuclear Plant earlier than originally planned next year. That's because a tube as begun leaking in one of the plant's four steam generators. Utility spokesman John Moulton says about two gallons of radioactive water are leaking each day within one of the four steam generators at the plant. The utility will take advantage of having the reactor down for refueling to fix the leak. Moulton says TVA will shut down the plant at Spring City this winter, rather than waiting for spring, as had been planned. Similar leaks have caused utilities nationwide to replace steam generators at more than two dozen nuclear power plants. TVA has scheduled replacement of the steam generators at Watts Bar for the fall of 2006. ---- Adult cancer in Sweden: new Chernobyl effects falsify radiation risk model From: Richard Bramhall Date: Thu Dec 30, 2004 7:56pm A study published by the British Medical Association in November (Tondel 2004) shows an unexpected increase in adult cancers in Sweden after Chernobyl. A preliminary examination shows:- 1) The 849 extra cancers registered in 9 post-accident years 1988 and 1996 (a 30% increase in incidence) are at least 125 times the incidence predicted by ICRP on the basis of Caesium doses. This minimum figure is on the conservative assumption that the effect is transient and that there will be no excess after 1996. This is very unlikely. If the effect is representative of the distribution of risks throughout life, and in this case the increase is more than 600 times greater than expected. If, as the Swedish Radiation Protection Authority is now saying (BBC 2004), "Most cancer cases don't develop until 20, 30 or 50 years later" (compare with the lifetime follow-up of Hiroshima survivors, which shows a consistent upward trend) the excess will worsen and the implied error in ICRP's modelling will be greater than 600. We can see 600 as the central estimate. (We will shortly add a page to www.llrc.org to show the calculation of these figures. Note that SRPA has previously estimated that in 50 years around 300 people in Sweden would be affected by the Chernobyl fallout [BBC 2004]) 2) The dose response trend calculated by Tondel on the basis of the various level of Caesium deposition is biphasic, not linear. In other words it does not conform with the ICRP dogma that dose and effect are always strictly proportional or "linear". The Tondel study does not show twice as much dose causing twice as much cancer. Many observations show non-linear relationships like this - see, for example, the summaries of papers from the Chernobyl affected territories on www.llrc.org/chernobyl.htm. 3) The 30% increase conforms with predictions made by Chris Busby in "Wings of Death" (Busby 1996) on the basis of cancer data in Wales and England following weapons test fallout. Further comment: The doses given by Tondel et al. are calculated from Caesium fallout. This may mean nothing since Caesium is a gamma emitter which means that its energy deposition (in the form of ionisations) is spatially well distributed in tissue. It is, moreover, soluble and does not form particles. Its health effects are therefore likely to conform with the external irradiation models. However, it is well known that north Sweden received a large amount of fallout in the form of Uranium fuel particles. With diameters of less than a few millionths of a metre such particles are highly mobile in the environment and they can be inhaled or swallowed. Once embedded in body tissue they deliver their energy so locally that the few cells immediately next to them are irradiated at very high energies while the rest of the body gets no dose at all. This makes nonsense of the concept of "average dose" - another establishment dogma. Childhood leukaemia after Chernobyl - more evidence falsifying Cerrie. Infant leukaemia increases after Chernobyl, according to the Cerrie Majority Report, did not feed through into incidence beyond the first year of life. We have now obtained data from the whole of Wales and Scotland which shows that this is wrong. Plotting incidence in children up to the age of 9 shows that the cohort born in 1986 - 88 has roughly 50% greater risk of leukaemia compared to the pre-accident period. We are preparing a paper for publication. References BBC News on-line 21st Nov '04 see Chernobyl 'caused Sweden cancers' Busby 1996 "Wings of Death: Nuclear Pollution and Human Health" Green Audit, Aberystwyth 1995 ISBN: 1-897761-03-1 Martin Tondel, Peter Hjalmarsson, Lennart Hardell, Göran Carlsson and Olav Axelson Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 2004;58:1011-1016 "Increase of regional total cancer incidence in north Sweden due to the Chernobyl accident?" (abstract at http://jech.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/abstract/58/12/1011 Richard Bramhall Low Level Radiation Campaign bramhall@llrc.org The Knoll, Montpellier Park Llandrindod Wells, Powys LD1 5LW U.K. +44(0)1597 824771 07887 942043 -------- depleted uranium Butchery by any other name Sleek, hugely expensive and state of the art; they reek of death all the same. Ahmed Abdel-Halim looks at WMBs, or weapons of massive brutality 30 December 2004 - 5 January 2005 Al-Ahram Weekly, Issue No. 723 http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2004/723/sc121.htm The ultimate aim of armaments production is to achieve overwhelming technological superiority. This means a constant struggle to widen as far as possible the gap between the producer nation's weapons systems and that of its potential adversaries. In the case of the US, the focus is currently on laser radars, high-precision long-range communications equipment, satellites and space stations, pilotless aircraft, smart bombs and precision guided missiles, super-sensitive surveillance and detection devices, and a new generation of super computers. The new technology has changed the nature of modern warfare. One of its major aims is to maximise long- distance strike capacity, thereby minimising losses to one's own forces. Towards this end, the US has raced to dominate outer space and exploit the possibilities this offers for various military uses. It is working to enhance its precision-strike capacity using such "intelligent" weapons as the roaming AGM-86 missiles that are fired from B-52 H bombers, and by upgrading its intercontinental ballistic missiles. It has developed a Satellites Geosynchronous System (SGS), a type of Global Positioning System (GPS) which uses only three satellites, to identify the location of enemy targets, as well as a highly specialised Geographical Information System (GIS) that gathers and assesses topographical information and transforms this into clear and dynamic maps of potential operation theatres. These two systems are now linked to one another and the information they yield can be rapidly delivered to combatant forces through encoded communications channels. In short, the US has put into place a comprehensive integrated weapons system that had its first trial run in the Gulf War to liberate Kuwait. It was later refined during the operations in Bosnia and Kosovo, before being deployed again in the wars against Afghanistan and Iraq. It was primarily in the opening phases of the Iraq war that US-British forces mobilised the latest developments in "information warfare", during the so-called "decapitation" operation. Launched before ground forces were mobilised, the aim of this operation was to paralyse the Iraqi command's control over its armed forces and to prepare the ground for the deployment of the rest of the coalition's high-tech arsenal. In this it may have been successful. But viewed in a longer-term perspective, US military and technological superiority seems to have made them less fit, rather than more, to win the battle for hearts and minds. In advance of the war, US political and military leaders boasted of the precision accuracy of their missiles and guidance systems. Still, they admitted that there would be a certain amount of what they euphemistically term "collateral damage". In the actual heat of battle, however, things went much further. What we have seen is not just the "inevitable" destruction of civilian infrastructures and "some" civilian casualties in the areas adjacent to military targets. Rather, it is clear that US forces were not only lax, if not deliberately negligent, in avoiding civilian targets, but that they engaged in outright carpet bombing, wreaking an enormous human and material toll. Nor have the US forces in Iraq today altered their tactics. As so often in the history of warfare, the powerful arsenal illustrated here has caused much pain and death. However, it has been of little use in accomplishing the coalition's declared objective of building a "new Iraq" which can serve as a model for other nations in the region. Aircraft : Keen to demonstrate their superior air power, coalition forces displayed their full arsenal of aircraft during the war on Iraq. Fighter planes, multi-task fighters and heavy bombers included the F-14 Tomcat, the F-15 Eagle, the F-15 Strike Eagle, the F-16, the F-117 Night Hawk (or "Stealth"), the A-10, the "Gag War" and the Tornado, the B and B-1 long-range bombers, the B-2 stealth bomber and the B-52. Helicopters included the MH-53, AH-64 Apache and MH-53/M "Black Hawk". A host of other aircraft were also used for various purposes: transport (C-5, C-130, HC-130 and the C-17 Globemaster); reconnaissance and early warning (E-3 Sentry Awac, E-d and E-2c Hawk Eye); reconnaissance and electronic warfare (RC-135, MC-130, RC-135 VW and U-2); airborne refuelling (the KC-130); ground surveillance (E-8c Joint Stars); search and rescue operations (HC-130 and HC-130n); and psychological intimidation (AC-130 and Spooky-II). Cluster bombs: Among the "irregular weapons" that were routinely deployed in Iraq were "cluster bombs and munitions". The former are fired from the air and the latter from the ground. Both are designed to fragment into hundreds of "submunitions" or "bomblets" that disperse over large stretches of territory. Most of the bomblets explode when they hit the ground, but anything between 5 and 30 per cent fail to detonate, and remain live. Like landmines, these lethal weapons, euphemistically referred to as "duds", continue to imperil lives of inhabitants for years afterwards. During the war to liberate Kuwait more than 50 million such "bomblets" were released by cluster bombs and related munitions. Even today an average of 200 undetonated "duds" are discovered in Kuwait every month. In Afghanistan, the US dropped 1,227 CBU-87 cluster bombs, each releasing 248,056 bomblets. If only seven per cent of these were "duds", that would still leave a tremendous amount of live explosives littered around the country today. The population of Iraq now faces a similar danger, but of even greater proportions. US and British forces released massive quantities of BLU-97.A/B's, RBL-755s and CBU-105s (fired by American B-52s at the Iraqi tanks defending Baghdad), as well as the full gamut of cluster munitions (such as the M864--M483A1 models). An unquantifiably large number of bomblets from these weapons remain undetonated, and clearing operations have barely begun due to the security situation in the country. Depleted uranium: Depleted uranium (DU) was first used in anti-tank missiles during the war to liberate Kuwait. More formally known as uranium 238, DU is a residue from the enrichment of the uranium 237 used in nuclear reactors. After missiles containing DU detonate, around 70 per cent of the radioactive substance is released into the air, where it is spread by the wind over long distances, creating yet another lasting peril to the health of human beings who come into contact with it. DU was responsible for the so-called Gulf War Syndrome that afflicted many American soldiers after they returned home. Ways of preventing the syndrome have since been developed, leaving the US free to deploy it even more extensively in its war against Iraq. DU is also suspected of being one of the components of another "irregular weapon" deployed by US-British forces -- the bunker buster bomb. The 500-pound GBU-28, for example, is designed to penetrate 6 metres of reinforced concrete or 30 metres of ground before exploding. Napalm : This weapon, which is made of a highly combustible chemical, was first tested in WWII and later used extensively by the US in Vietnam. Although internationally banned, the US and British forces are known to have used napalm in Iraq, wreaking heavy civilian casualties. Conventional heavy weaponry: Ground forces were equipped with M1-A1 tanks, Bradley armoured combat vehicles, and field artillery of various calibres. Electronic weapons: "Information warfare" has become a central component of America's military strength over the past decades. By this term, specialists refer to a wide range of techniques, from those used to produce and sustain intelligence superiority for strategy and operations, to methods of disabling enemy intelligence systems, and technologies that can enhance the effectiveness of their own weaponry. This approach is now integral to the design of command and control networks, strategic surveillance and warning systems, and targeting and guidance systems. It is little wonder, then, that the US should have tailored its current production of military technology accordingly. A whole range of "information" weapons were deployed in Iraq. The most common were malignant computer programmes -- viruses, "logic bombs", and worms -- used to undermine and destroy enemy information systems. A second type of electronic weaponry comes in the form of micro-chips or similar miniaturised circuitry. One such chip was designed to self-destruct when it received a certain signal, and numerous examples of these were discovered in Iraqi weapons and guidance equipment that have made their way onto the international arms market since the fall of Saddam's regime. Another type of chip, known as the "back door", helps decipher the encoded signals used to operate the equipment in which it is implanted. A third type of electronic weapon is the electromagnetic pulse device, which emits powerful electromagnetic pulses capable of destroying the electronic components used in communications equipment and computers. Bombs and missilesAmong the projectiles fired by the coalition's artillery, tanks and aircraft, the following deserve mention: the B61/11 tactical nuclear bomb (which was on hand, but not in fact used); Volume Detonation Weapons (VDW); the Tomahawk Cruise missile; the Patriot anti-missile missile; the Brilliant anti-tank missile; assorted radar guided missiles (the JDAM, JASSAM and CBU-96); and the oxygen absorbing Blu-118B. ------- TARNISHING THE DREAM The Bush administration is intensifying its assault on Southern California’s environmental legacy. Here are the 10 worst attacks of 2004 December 30, 2004 L.A. City Beat YEAR IN REVIEW by DEAN KUIPERS http://www.lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=1498&IssueNum=82 President George W. Bush might not like California – give us back the $9 billion Enron et al. looted from us, please – but we can’t take any comfort in not voting for him. His environmental record proves he can do more than irritate California; he can hammer us. Even during the feel-good talk of the 2004 election year, the man mainstream eco-groups have dubbed the “worst environmental president in history” tore at California’s web of environmental protections, for decades the most progressive in the country, as though they barred the door to the church. “He’s relishing his legacy, rather than ashamed of it. Much to our chagrin, and much to industry’s and polluters’ delight,” says Rob Perks, spokesman at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), which puts out the Bush Report monitoring a juggernaut of deregulation that has changed over 350 rules since 2001. “You would think that would change with a second term, that he would be free to stop thinking about the political favors, but he’s worse now. He’s saying, ‘I don’t have to worry about pissing off any of those hunters or fishermen who voted for me, I can just go ahead and please my buddies in industry.’” With a smidge of new power in Congress, we can look forward to new Republican assays against the Endangered Species Act, as well as continued efforts to gut the nation’s top health legislation, the Clean Air and Clean Water acts, plus a slew of anti-environmental judicial appointments. California will weather the deregulation in better shape than most other states in the union. But not because of Bush. To wit, here are the 10 worst federal assaults on Southern California’s environment from 2004: 1. Dented L.A.’s Fleet Rules. L.A.’s South Coast Air Quality Management District made a rule a few years back that the city’s fleet vehicles, like trash trucks and transit buses, must run on clean fuels like natural gas. The Bush administration threw its weight behind big oil and big engine (the Engine Manufacturer’s Association) when they took the SCAQMD all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and won a 2004 ruling saying the rules were illegal in some cases. The rules are still in effect, but this was a big victory for diesel polluters, which one study found to be the source of 71 percent of the region’s cancer risk. 2. Stopped Cleanup of Rocketdyne. The Boeing-owned Rocketdyne facility in the Santa Susana Mountains above Simi Valley is one of the most critically polluted sites in the country, saturated with defense-contractor goo from perchlorate to radionuclides and linked to a high rate of cancer in the surrounding communities. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finally issued cleanup parameters for Rocketdyne under its Superfund program, but Bush’s Department of Energy almost immediately ruled in 2004 that it would protect Boeing and ignore them, forcing L.A. city and county to sue. 3. Limited Critical Habitat. Bush absolutely loathes the Endangered Species Act (ESA), and has not voluntarily listed one species since taking office (Clinton and Bush I listed about 500), wants to delist wolves and grizzlies, besides cutting $10 million of its enforcement funds. In Southern California, Bushies have cut critical habitat – a designated protected zone for ESA-listed species – for local salmon and steelhead runs by 90 percent. Habitats for the arroyo toad, tiger salamander, red-legged frog and other SoCal critters were similarly erased to make way for raw urban sprawl. 4. Unleashed the Military. In 2004, the Pentagon freed the military from having to abide by either the ESA or the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the primary protector of whales, dolphins, etc., out at sea or on the 28 million acres of land under military control, allowing a spate of building and live-fire carnage in places like Camp Pendleton, Fort Irwin, and Point Mugu. Next up for 2005: a military assault on the Clean Air Act and toxic waste disposal rules. Look for more Rocketdyne-like military waste (depleted uranium ammunition, anyone?) in your neighborhood soon. 5. Poisoned the Well. In April 2004, the National Academy of Sciences recommended setting standards for drinking water contamination by perchlorate, pesticides, atrazine, etc. The new EPA quickly snuffed them, saying they’d be reconsidered in 2009 – when Bush is gone. In related news, the Pentagon refused to accept EPA findings that defense contractors were the source of perchlorate and other drinking water contaminants. These toxins are in our drinking water. The Colorado River and L.A. aquifers are suffused with perchlorate. You are drinking it right now. 6. Slashed the Forests. The Bush Department of Agriculture used the suppression of wildfires like those in the Angeles National Forest in 2003 as an excuse to quadruple logging in national forests over the last three years, and pro-timber Ag Undersecretary Mark Rey announced in 2004 the cut would double again, targeting marketable old growth trees over those which would actually reduce wildfire. Bush succeeded in 2004 in killing the Clinton moratorium on building roads into roadless areas of the national forests – which Bush had pledged to uphold. Worst of all, in December the administration announced a complete revamp of forestry rules, relaxing the “look before you log” environmental reviews and wildlife protections added in 1976. These new rules help lock out environmental groups from holding up the cut in court. 7. Exported the Water. Sidestepping environmentalists, both of California’s U.S. senators, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Bush’s federal fisheries managers allegedly ignored biological studies, and in early 2004 cleared massive new exports of water from Northern California to Southern California, threatening salmon and steelhead runs in order to distribute new 25-40-year contracts to agribusiness and city development. 8. Brandished the Drills. In early 2004, the Bushies proposed opening 140,000 acres of the Los Padres National Forest to oil and gas development. On the upside: Two bills pending in Congress would protect the Los Padres, and there is massive resistance to the Bush proposal. 9. Looked at the Oceans – but Only Looked. An early 2004 report by the Pew Oceans Commission was echoed exactly by a report from the Bush-appointed U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy, which read: “The oceans are in trouble. Our coasts are in trouble. Our marine resources are in trouble … all, perhaps, in serious trouble.” In response, Bush signed an executive order in December to launch the Committee on Ocean Policy. He would not, however, fund the committee, and has decided to consult the experts in industry on how to find a market solution. Which sounds like the oceans will be in worse shape by the time he stalls four more years. 10. Pulled EPA off the Job. Wonder why Christie Todd Whitman quit the EPA? During Bush’s first three years, the NRDC reports there was a 75 percent decrease in federal lawsuits against polluters, and a 57 percent decline in civil penalties and fines. Superfund listings ceased altogether. In July 2004, a new report by Knight-Ridder newspapers showed that federal enforcement of air pollution regulations at oil refineries, in particular, had dropped off as much as 50 percent. The South Bay can get ready for dirtier air. Just to make it clear that Bush’s hostility wasn’t only California’s opinion: In February, 63 scientists – including 20 Nobel laureates and 19 recipients of the National Medal of Science – released a statement accusing the Bush administration of “deliberately and systematically” distorting scientific facts and misleading the public in order to further its own partisan political objectives. Welcome to the world of George W. Bush, your environmental president. ---- Latest IOM Gulf War Report Confirms Link Between Lung Cancer and Combustion Products Evidence on Other Health Problems Is Inconclusive Thursday, December 30, 2004 Kansas City InfoZine Staff http://www.infozine.com/news/stories/op/storiesView/sid/5009/ Washington, D.C. - The available evidence is too sparse or of insufficient quality to determine whether the majority of health problems that may be experienced by Gulf War veterans could be associated with exposures to fuels for military vehicles, propellents in Scud missiles, or substances given off by combustion sources such as oil-well fires, exhausts, and tent heaters, according to the latest report on the Gulf War and health from the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies. However, data from studies of occupational and environmental exposures to air pollution, vehicle exhaust, and other combustion products led the committee that wrote the report to conclude that exposure to such substances is associated with an increased risk of lung cancer. "Studies of people exposed to air pollution, vehicle exhaust, and burning of coal or other heating and cooking fuels consistently show that such exposures are linked to an increased risk for developing lung cancer," said committee chair Lynn Goldman, professor, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. "This provides sufficient evidence that exposure to combustion products during the Gulf War could be associated with lung cancer in some veterans." Military personnel may have encountered combustion products from diesel-fueled heaters in poorly ventilated tents, cooking stoves, vehicle exhaust systems, and oil-well fires. "It should be emphasized that smoking is the major culprit for lung cancer, accounting for 80 percent of all cases, according to the American Cancer Society," Goldman added. The committee also found some evidence that exposure to combustion products is linked to asthma and cancers of the nose, mouth, throat, and bladder, as well as to low birth weight and premature births in women exposed while pregnant; the data were weaker in these cases, however. The data on whether the majority of cancers, neurological problems, and other health problems are associated with exposure to fuels, propellants, or combustion products were inadequate to draw conclusions. "While we would like to have more definitive answers to questions about the specific diseases that may be associated with these substances, in most cases the evidence simply is not strong enough or does not exist," Goldman said. Because scant information exists on actual exposure levels experienced by individual service members -- a critical factor when assessing health effects -- the committee could not draw specific conclusions about Gulf War veterans' chances of developing lung cancer or any other health problems as a result of exposures. No systematic monitoring of air contamination from oil-well fires was conducted in the Persian Gulf region until May 1991, and this monitoring did not measure levels of contamination produced by other combustion sources, such as heaters or engines. Moreover, no data are available that would allow comparisons between levels of exposure to air contaminants during the Gulf War and exposures to similar contaminants in civilian occupational and environmental settings. Veterans who have experienced chronic health problems following their service in the Persian Gulf region are asking whether exposure to various chemical, biological, or environmental agents might be responsible. This IOM report is the third in a series that responds to requests from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and Congress to examine the health effects of potentially harmful agents to which Gulf War veterans might have been exposed. The first report focused on potential health effects from depleted uranium, pyridostigmine bromide, sarin, and vaccines; the second centered on insecticides and solvents. These reports did not directly assess whether health effects could occur as a result of service in the Gulf War. For the current report, the committee evaluated the published, peer-reviewed research on exposure to unburned fuels, combustion products, and hydrazines and nitric acid -- components of the propellant used for Scud and other missiles -- for any evidence of links to specific cancers, neurological effects, or other health problems that persist after exposure. More than 600 oil-well fires were ignited in Kuwait by retreating Iraqi troops during the Gulf War conflict, sending up large plumes of smoke that occasionally remained low to the ground. Troops also may have been exposed to combustion products through vehicle exhaust, heaters in poorly ventilated tents, and cooking stoves. Military personnel may have had contact with hydrazines and nitric acid when they disarmed or disposed of Scud missiles or were downwind of a missile explosion. They also may have come into contact with fuels when refueling ground vehicles, aircraft, and equipment. Of the approximately 800 studies reviewed in detail for this report, most involved individuals who were exposed to these agents in occupational settings over long periods of time. Only a small number actually studied veterans who may have been exposed while serving in the Persian Gulf. The committee carefully assessed the quality, limitations, and relevance of each epidemiologic study, and used five categories to describe the strength of the evidence. Sufficient evidence of a causal relationship, the strongest level of evidence, means that many studies have established a clear link between exposure to an agent and a health outcome. Among the other requirements, there must be a plausible biological explanation for the relationship. None of the compounds evaluated in this report met these criteria. Evidence that establishes a link between exposures and a health outcome with reasonable certainty, but fails to meet the higher standard of proof needed for causality, is characterized as sufficient evidence of an association. The evidence for an association between lung cancer and combustion products falls into this category. When a limited number of studies suggest that a link exists, but without reasonable certainty, the evidence is said to be limited or suggestive of an association. This category describes the evidence for links between combustion products and nasal, oral, laryngeal, and bladder cancers; asthma; and low birth weight and preterm births by women exposed while pregnant. Likewise, the evidence for an association between hydrazine exposure and lung cancer fits this definition. If several studies of adequate quality consistently fail to show a positive association at any level of exposure, the evidence is described as limited or suggestive of no association. And evidence that lacks sufficient quality, consistency, or statistical power to draw any conclusion is judged to be inadequate or insufficient to determine whether an association exists. The majority of the evidence on fuels, combustion products, and propellants falls into this final category. The study was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. The Institute of Medicine is a private, nonprofit institution that provides health policy advice under a congressional charter granted to the National Academy of Sciences. -------- india / pakistan Indian nuclear power plant in Tamil Nadu to resume operation NEW DELHI (AFP) Dec 30, 2004 http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041230183059.ivavc8xl.html A nuclear power plant in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu which was battered by the massive tsunami in the Indian Ocean will resume operations, a report said Friday. Authorities said on Sunday they shut down the Indira Gandhi Atomic Energy Centre in Kalpakkam, 80 kilometres (50 miles) south of Tamil Nadu capital, Madras, as a precaution. Tamil Nadu was the worst hit state on the mainland in India with 6,170 people dead. Five senior members inspected the nuclear power reactors and other facilities at Kalpakkam Wednesday to assess the status of the plant in view of the tsunami hitting the east coast on December 26, Press Trust of India said, citing a statement from the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board. The team inspected all the important areas of the plant, including the reactor building, the control room, turbine building, pump house and firewater pump house and all structures were found to be in good condition, the statement said. Water seeped into the facility located on the coast after the tsunami hit, officials said. There are 2,290 scientists and engineers working at the nuclear power facility in Kalpakkam. -------- iran Iranian nuclear negotiator mulls presidential bid Thu Dec 30, 8:59 AM ET (AFP) http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20041230/wl_mideast_afp/iranvoterowhani_041230135911 TEHRAN - Iran top national security official and nuclear negotiator Hassan Rowhani confirmed that he was considering joining a fast growing list of candidates for next year's presidential election. "I have not yet decided and I am reviewing the issues... it depends on many conditions," the mid-ranking cleric, seen as a pragmatic conservative, told the official news agency IRNA. "One of the issues I would like to know before applying for candidacy is the list of the other candidates," he said, adding he had already received numerous calls to stand in the poll scheduled for May 2005. Rowhani, 56, currently heads Iran's Supreme National Security Council. He has also been responsible for international negotiations centered on concerns the country is seeking nuclear weapons, during which he has steered a course of cooperation with the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency. Several prominent conservative politicians have already entered the race to replace incumbent reformist President Mohammad Khatami (news - web sites), who has served two consecutive terms as president and is barred by the constitution from standing again. Long-serving former foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayati, now a top advisor to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has announced he intends to stand for president, as has Mohsen Rezai, a former head of the Revolutionary Guards and Ali Larijani, the longtime boss of Iran's state broadcast media. Influential former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani has also been openly mulling a comeback as president but has yet to declare his intentions. On the reformist side, former higher education minister Mostafa Moin has been nominated as the candidate of the Islamic republic's main reform party, the Participation Front (IIPF), while incumbent Vice President Mohsen Mehr-Alizadeh has also stepped in. Another potential reformist candidate, former parliament speaker Mehdi Karoubi, has yet to state whether he will stand. -------- korea Palace drama unfolding in North Korea amid nuclear crisis TOKYO (AFP) Dec 30, 2004 http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041230013824.hqd6fwhf.html North Korea, which is challenging the rest of the world with its nuclear arms ambitions, also faces simmering trouble at home over the choice of its absolute leader Kim Jong-Il's successor, analysts say. His eldest son Jong-Nam, 33, who is kept under wraps in the secretive Stalinist state, has burst into the overseas spotlight by allegedly sending New Year's greetings to Japanese journalists who had encountered him by chance. The surprise messages by e-mail in early December were followed by rumors that the well-travelled presumed heir escaped an assassination plot by a group close to his younger half-brothers when he visited Austria last month. The developments show North Korea at a crossroads as the administration of re-elected US President George W. Bush looks for ways to transform Kim Jong-Il's regime, which is refusing to return to talks on its nuclear program. "The Austrian government told North Korean Ambassador Kim Kwang-Sop to help halt the assassination plot which it had come to be aware of," said foreign affairs analyst Masayuki Koike, a former Japanese diplomat. Koike, a professor at the Japanese Red Cross College of Nursing, told AFP that he had learned of the warning through an Austrian diplomatic contact. "I think there is a move to eliminate Kim Jong-Nam." Japan's national intelligence agency said last week a "feud or confrontation" may be arising in the course of selecting an heir to Kim Jong-Il, who took over the reign from his father and the country's founder Kim Il-Sung who died in 1994. Speculation about a power struggle has been rife particularly after Kim Jong-Il's latest wife Ko Yong-Hui reportedly died last May after a battle with cancer. Ko had allegedly campaigned to have one of her two sons groomed as heir apparent rather than Jong-Nam. She was the mother of Kim Jong-Il's second son Jong-Chul, 23, and third son Jong-Woon, 21. South Korea's intelligence agency said last month that Jang Song-Taek, a brother-in-law of Kim Jong-Il, was stripped of power early this year after he was accused of creating his own faction within the military. Waseda University professor Toshimitsu Shigemura said Jong-Nam was suspected at home of being connected to US intelligence. His family is reported to have defected to the United States, he added. "The suspicion may possibly have led to the alleged assassination plot," the prominent Pyongyang watcher said, adding Jong-Nam's message to Japanese journalists might be aimed at "cultivating relations with media just in case." South Korea's Yonhap news agency, quoting an unnamed government source, last week became the first to report about the attempt on Jong-Nam's life. In Vienna, the interior ministry spokesman, Rudolg Gollia, denied the conspiracy. But he admitted that the heir made a private visit to Austria at the beginning of December and was afforded "standard" security at the request of the North Korean embassy. A rare North Korean foreign exchange bank is located in Vienna and Kim Jong-Nam, believed to be charged with the communist state's information-technology development, has frequently visited there. Pyon Jin-Il, the editor of the Tokyo newsletter Korea Report, said the Yonhap report could be based on "disinformation from an anti-Kim Jong-Il group in Seoul to shake his regime by a psychological operation." But he added that Kim Jong-Il, 62, would be forced to choose his successor in 2005 to "prevent the succession struggle from aggravating." In one of his e-mails with Japanese reporters, the man who claimed to be Kim Jong-Nam said: "My father has the absolute say (over succession). It is unknown what idea he may have." The man ran into the journalists and spoke on camera at Beijing airport in September when the reporters were waiting for the arrival of a North Korean delegation to talks with Japan. He was given business cards from a handful of reporters who received the seasonal greetings from him on December 3. Photo comparisons showed that he was identical to Kim Jong-Nam -- up to several moles on his face -- who was paraded before Japanese media when he was deported from in May 2001 for trying to enter Japan with a forged passport, allegedly with the intention of visiting Tokyo Disneyland. The man halted on-line exchanges with the reporters four days later after they tried to verify his identity with intrusive questions. ---- N. Korea 'told of danger line' Takao Hishinuma / Yomiuri Shimbun Correspondent Thursday, December 30, 2004 http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/newse/20041230wo42.htm Charles Pritchard, former special U.S. envoy on peace of the Korean Peninsula, in an interview with The Yomiuri Shimbun, discussed the current situation vis-a-vis the secretive nation. He said he had warned North Korean officials, telling them the United States would not tolerate any moves by North Korea to transfer nuclear materials to a third party. Pritchard is currently a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institute. Following are excerpts from the interview: The Yomiuri Shimbun: We are now pretty sure that North Korea has fissile material. Do you think the United States is willing to accept a nuclear North Korea, provided it keeps its nuclear material inside the country? Pritchard: The problem that we have is that if the peaceful manner in which to resolve the six-party talks fails, and the United States does not have a consensus with South Korea, first, China second, Japan third, and finally Russia, fourth, on how to, in a more confrontational method, force North Korea to give up, through United Nations sanctions and a more constricting economic isolation of North Korea. North Korea, if they are smart, and they do not react negatively, if they simply tell China, Japan, South Korea, and Russia, "We have no desire to export nuclear material. We only have a limited--a deterrent against the United States--and we are shutting down future production of nuclear weapons, and we're going to contain only what we have here," then it becomes very difficult for the United States, because other nations won't like it, but very well could accept a limited nuclear North Korea, because there's no other alternative. I heard from sources at the U.S. State Department in August 2003 that when you were still in the State Department you informed North Korea that there was a real red line--that if North Korea exports certain materials to rogue states or into the hands of terrorists, that would be a real red line. The U.S. government, as a matter of policy, has never given the North Koreans that message. I, personally, have said that to the North Koreans, but not as part of U.S. policy. And, most forcefully, after I left government, as well, and when I talk to the North Koreans. But North Korea is constantly improving its nuclear competence. Yes. And ability. And now it is assumed to have eight nuclear weapons. Is it trying U.S. patience? What is the point at which the United States will move away from diplomatic negotiations and resort to harsher methods? For example, if North Korea had 100 nuclear bombs, would the United States take some robust action? Is there a set red line, such as the number of nuclear weapons--10, 20? Well, let's go to the facts. The fact. One, the North Koreans' plutonium program is limited by its five megawatt reactor. We believe that the maximum that the North Koreans have, as a judgment, before 1994, one or two. So, we'll say two. When they reprocessed the 8,000 rods, maybe six more. So they have maybe eight. Inside the reactor, the five megawatt reactor, there is currently, as of January next year, next month, two more bombs' worth of plutonium, in the rods that are there. And, every year one more. So, one per year. That's the most that they can make. So, they're never going to get to a hundred. Okay? It's only going to be one per year. So, it's going to be 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, until Kim Jong Il dies and North Korea collapses. But, it's never going to be very large. Now, the other possibilities are the uranium program--and we don't know the status of that. My own instinct is, because of the public spotlight on it, the North Koreans are probably going to find it very difficult to have a complete program, to be able to produce large amounts of enriched uranium. So, the North Koreans' nuclear program, either by uranium enrichment or plutonium extraction, it's going to be limited. How do you see the difference of opinion working out in the second U.S. President George W. Bush administration? Maybe more coherent? Very much more coherent, yes. The departure of Secretary (of State) Colin Powell, (Deputy Secretary of State Richard) Armitage, (Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs James) Kelly, and others, and the appointment of (national security adviser Condoleezza) Rice as secretary of state, what that means is that the administration is not entertaining alternative views, and Dr. Rice will not be encouraging people in the State Department to provide a second opinion or a second option. She will be looking for them to do their very best to implement the decision. So it will be, as you suggest, very much more cohesive in this. It might not be a good policy, but it will be cohesive, more cohesive. Was that a very serious difference when you were in the State Department? It is extraordinarily different, for a number of reasons. One is, what I am concerned about is, when you fail to have smart people providing alternative views and just tell you something's wrong, you're capable of continuing, as we did in Iraq. You make a mistake and nobody is telling you differently. So, the opportunity for making mistakes in Asia will be compounded under the next administration. It's a possibility. I hope they don't. I hope they get it right. But you're not going to have people saying, "Let's look at different possibilities." -------- russia Tanks, missiles on Russian military's shopping list for 2005 MOSCOW (AFP) Dec 30, 2004 http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041230122338.df18hy3e.html The Russian military will receive more than 90 new T-90 tanks, seven fighter jets and new nuclear missiles next year, Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov said Thursday as he unveiled a 6.9-billion-dollar military budget for 2005. "The positive trend in recent years of increasing budget spending on state defence has been preserved and enhanced," the minister said according to Interfax news agency. The shopping list included three battalions of BTR-80 armored personnel carriers, one squad of Iskander-M missile launchers, two warships, seven modernized Su-27SM fighters, nine defense satellites as well as nuclear and non-nuclear air-to-ground missiles, the minister said. In addition, some 300 research and development projects would be completed in 2005 and the armed forces would receive the finished products, Ivanov said. More than 62 billion rubles (2.3 billion dollars) would be spent on research and development, 112 billion rubles on purchases of military hardware and armaments, and 11.8 billion rubles on repairs. The army would receive the lion's share or about 40 percent of the budget for purchases of new hardware and armaments, while the Air Force and the Navy would get about 20 percent each. Part of the buget would go toward development of the new Topol-M mobile inter-continental nuclear missile, which Moscow claims will be able to penetrate anti-missile shields. "The range of the system's use in combat has been broadened. The targeting precision has been nearly doubled and the precision ... has been increased... The probability of detecting a flying missile is now much smaller," Ivanov said. ---- Some Progress Made in Halting Spread of Nuclear Materials in Russia, say Analysts By Bill Gasperini VOA News Dec 30, 2004 http://english.epochtimes.com/news/4-12-30/25334.html MOSCOW - The security of nuclear material has long been an issue of concern in Russia and other former Soviet republics. For 10 years the United States has funded a program dealing with the problem, and experts say progress is being made. Nonetheless the potential proliferation of some kinds of "loose nukes" remains a serious concern. Earlier this year a man was arrested in central Russia after police found several canisters in his backyard that contained nuclear waste. The man said he found the canisters at a local dump and decided to move them to his yard "for safekeeping." The case is still under investigation. This was one recent example of what some call "loose nukes," material which is unlikely to be suitable in making a nuclear bomb. However if packed together with conventional explosives, it could be used in a so-called "dirty bomb" with potentially serious consequences. Preventing such material from falling into the hands of terrorist groups or rogue states has been a concern since the end of the Cold War. And much of the focus for this has been on Russia and other former Soviet republics, which have many nuclear installations ranging from power plants to laboratories. In the northwestern Murmansk region near the border with Norway, dozens of Soviet-era nuclear submarines sit in a bay waiting to be dismantled. An old ship serves as a waste dump, posing not just a nuclear threat but an environmental one as well. Military officials themselves say that tons of nuclear material sit out in the open, and have called for more funding to deal with the problem. While most installations have security guards and surveillance cameras, experts say this is no guarantee that radioactive material is secure. Yevgeny Volk, an analyst with the Heritage Foundation in Moscow, says that low salaries and low morale in the Russian military add to the problem. "Due to the increased level of corruption, the increased level of mismanagement and fraud in the armed forces and in general in defense-related industries, the risk of nuclear proliferation is surely high," he said. Mr. Volk adds the threat is not limited to nuclear materials, but also to the scientists, bomb experts and others with nuclear know-how. He says many Russian nuclear experts have gone abroad to places like Iran, where a Russian nuclear power plant has been under construction for many years. Both Iran and Russia insist the project is exclusively for peaceful purposes. But others are not so sure, and the issue has been a sore point in relations between Moscow and the United States for the past decade. However cooperation with Russia has provided a genuine success story concerning "fissile" nuclear material, which is used to make bombs. In 1993 Russia and the United States started the "Megatons to Megawatts" program to convert highly-enriched uranium from Soviet nuclear warheads into low-grade nuclear fuel for use in American power plants. So far 225 metric tons of material, enough to make 9000 nuclear warheads, has been turned into fuel; the goal is to reach 500 tons within the next decade. Charles Yurlish is a senior official with the global energy company USEC, which is carrying out the program. He says nuclear material from what were once Soviet warheads now provides 10 percent of all electric power in the United States. "There's an exquisite symmetry to the fact that Soviet missiles with nuclear warheads that were once aimed at American cities are now providing light and power to those very same cities," he said. Mr. Yurlish adds that the "Megatons to Megawatts" program is the largest nuclear disarmament program in history, and can serve as a model for other programs in some of the world's other nuclear powers. -------- terrorism Bin Laden got OK to use nuke In 2003, Saudi cleric told al-Qaida's leader he could employ bomb against U.S., CIA says. By Dafna Linzer The Washington Post December 30, 2004 http://www.indystar.com/articles/5/205760-2385-010.html WASHINGTON -- Of all the clues that Osama bin Laden is after a nuclear weapon, perhaps the most significant came in intelligence reports indicating he received fresh approval last year from a Saudi cleric for the use of a doomsday bomb against the United States. For bin Laden, the religious ruling was a milestone in a long quest for an atomic weapon. For U.S. officials and others, it was a frightening reminder of what many consider the ultimate mass-casualty threat posed by modern terrorists. Even a small nuclear weapon detonated in a major American population center would be among history's most lethal acts of war, potentially rivaling the atomic destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. Despite the gravity of the threat, however, counterterrorism and nuclear experts say they consider the danger more distant than immediate. They point to enormous technical and logistical obstacles confronting would-be nuclear terrorists and to the fact that neither al-Qaida nor any other group has come close to demonstrating the means to overcome them. So difficult are the challenges that senior officials on President Bush's national security team believe al-Qaida has shifted its attention to other efforts, at least for now. "I would say that from the perspective of terrorism, the overwhelming bulk of the evidence we have is that their efforts are focused on biological and chemical" weapons, said John R. Bolton, undersecretary of state for arms control and international security. "Not to say there aren't any dealings with radiological materials, but the technology for bio and chem is comparatively so much easier that that's where their efforts are concentrating." Still, the sheer magnitude of the danger posed by a nuclear weapon in terrorist hands -- and classified intelligence assessments that deem such a scenario plausible -- has spurred intelligence and military operations to combat a threat once dismissed as all but nonexistent. The effort includes billions of dollars spent on attempts to secure borders, retrain weapons scientists in other countries and lock up dangerous materials and stockpiles. Without sophisticated labs, expensive technology and years of scientific experience, al-Qaida has two primary options for getting a bomb, experts say, both of which rely on theft -- either of a weapon or one of its key ingredients, plutonium or highly enriched uranium. Nuclear scientists tend to believe the most plausible route for terrorists would be to build a crude device using stolen uranium from the former Soviet Union. Counterterrorism officials think bin Laden would prefer to buy a ready-made weapon stolen in Russia or Pakistan, and to obtain inside help in detonating it. Last month, Michael Scheuer, who ran the CIA's bin Laden unit, disclosed in an interview on CBS' "60 Minutes" that bin Laden's nuclear efforts had been blessed by the Saudi cleric in May 2003, a statement other sources later corroborated. As early as 1998, bin Laden had publicly labeled acquisition of nuclear or chemical weapons a "religious duty." -------- u.n. Global Relief Needed From United Nations Americas Amber Alert News Center (United Nations New York USA) TAA Thursday, December 30, 2004 http://www.teamamberalert.net/Oklahoma/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=112 The United Nations as a whole is a good and sound venture started by the United States and their partners around the world. Recent history has had any number of representative and member bureaucrats that are Anti-life and Anti-USA. Together these members and individuals have not always reflected the views or policies for there own governments. Those recent remarkable individules who spoke out of turn and malicious over the relief efforts in the Indian Ocean Nations should be sent home to be reasigned. This was not a matter of translation errors but rather a twisted press conference calculated with malice to present misrepresentation of the facts known at the time.It is time for those involved to be called back to their respective countries. United Nations needs reform to preserve their role in the world. To fail in this is to then ask the question why do we need the UN to harbor malcontents and evil doers? If the UN is to be a viable and truly humanitarian organization the UN must give up its socialist roots and sense of supremacy. This singular problem today will threaten the peace in the years to come. The Leaders of the Free World and the Peoples of the Free World will not accept further fraud and misinformation from so called noble organization as the UN. Harboring genocide and hiding great crimes of global scales as in the food for oil deception will topple the mongers of greed and death at the UN. At this point in history the UN poses the greatest hope and the greatest threat to World Peace. Lets end the land mines for all time. Princess Di was right this is a global failure at root in the UN to allow the land mines to continue. The same is true of so called nuclear energy production. Most of the so called program only provide some scale of monitoring the sale of technology. Todate the UN has been the singular means to spread or allow the spread of Nuclear Threat around the World. All nations are at risk now to any terror group who wishes to monger hate with glow in the dark make my day arsenals. From as small as a test tube to the size of a 767 nuclear threats are spreading. Satelites can track the neutron signatures from space this is only a secret to the global masses that do not know what the UN is doing. Our own State Department has failed to keep news media up todate in these matters or to educate the public. This policy should change soon. The Public has a need to know. Especially the US public as many of these weapons are being targeted at the USA. Contact your federal and state representative to demand changes. Contact the media to complain about the UN actions. Dont be an arm chair follower read the news ... check it out for yourselves. Dont take our word for it alone. Get informed. Kofi Annan and others are more than just well paid bag men. They are global criminals in a fashion of John Gotti bold and fearless to the end. It is time to take them down and lock them up. The UN can never be more than its weakest link. Ethical and legal behavior is not merely enough. They need to be brave and bold for peace for all not just a few who can steal it for a decade or two or sell the peace for oil or weapon proliferation. More nuclear proliferation took place under Kofi's term of office than any other in history. Time for his resignation, There is no vote of confidence here in the USA for him or his UN cronnies. MAD mutually assured distruction policies abandoned by the USSR and the USA during the late 1980s is still in practice at the UN as the smaller nations are all now creating a new generation of weapons based on plutonium and heavy water. Industrialist since 1967 have profited trillions in the sale of nuclear secrets to clients states in the UN. From retired inteligence operatives to global corporate leaders this lead to India's first nuclear bomb then to Pakistan. The Big Apple can use a few less bad apples at the UN. Speak out. IM or Email or write your media representatives and the polictical leaders that your know. Lets clean the UN up now. Please make bumper stickers up sell them and give the money for the victims in need around the world. Do not support The UN relief agencies. Much of that money will only be misused and not in the interest of peace. Find churches and organizations in the countries affected. If your church has related church in the affected countries they will know best how to direct the relief locally. Regardless of religion your church is the best target for giving in the relief over seas. -------- u.s. nuc facilities -------- illinois NRC renews GE license for spent nuclear fuel site Thursday December 30, 03:58 PM http://uk.biz.yahoo.com/041230/323/f9eu1.html WASHINGTON (AFX) -- The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Thursday a General Electric Co. storage facility for radioactive nuclear waste in Illinois will be permitted to continue operating for an additional 20 years until 2022. The original license for the GE Morris storage site expired in May 2002 but the commission allowed the site to stay open while it considered the company's request to renew the license. The fuel at the site has been cooling in pools for more than 20 years and the new license does not permit GE to receive additional spent fuel for storage at the site. This story was supplied by CBSMarketWatch. For further information see http://www.cbsmarketwatch.com. -------- MILITARY -------- africa Highlights of the main peace agreement between Khartoum and SPLM/A NAIROBI (AFP) Dec 30, 2004 http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041230020653.7auv15kc.html The Khartoum government and southern rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) are expected to reach an agreement by December 31 that would include a series of protocols to settle sticky issues that spurred the conflict in 1983. Here are the highlights: PROTOCOL ON THE SOUTH'S RIGHT OF SELF DETERMINATION: According to the protocol on the right of self-determination (popularly known as a Machakos Protocol) signed in July 2002, the south will hold a referendum after a six-year transition period to determine whether the region will secede or be part of Sudan. During the interim period, which starts after six months from the day a final deal is signed, the areas in the south will be exempted from Islamic Sharia law. PROTOCOL ON POWER-SHARING: According to the power-sharing protocol signed in May 2004, SPLM/A and the current government in Khartoum will form a government of national unity with a decentralised system of administration. SPLM/A will also set up a separate semi-autonomous administration in the south. Garang will hold the post of first vice president in the national government and general elections at all levels of government will be held at the end of the third year. English and Arabic will be the official languages in the country and people from south Sudan will make up 30 percent of the country's post conflict civil service. PROTOCOLS ON THE ADMINISTRATION OF NUBA MOUNTAINS AND SOUTHERN BLUE NILE STATE: According to the two protocols, which were signed in May 2004, disputed regions of Nuba Mountains and Southern Blue Nile will each have their own government headed by a governor directly appointed by registered voters. An official from either SPLM/A or Khartoum will hold the governor's post on a rotational basis until elections are held at the end of the third year. The states will express their views in a "popular consultation" on the final peace deal through their respective elected parliaments. Any disagreement will be addressed by the national government, while representation in their two assemblies will be: Ruling National Congress Party (55 percent) and SPLM/A (45 percent). PROTOCOL ON ABYEI STATE: According to the protocol on Abyei, signed in May 2004, this oil-rich state, currently part of western Kordofan, will be accorded special status under the presidency. Its residents will be citizens of both Western Kordofan in northern Sudan and Bahr el Ghazal state in southern Sudan and will be administered by a local executive council elected by the residents of Abyei. International monitors will be deployed to monitor implementation of these agreements in Abyei, while its residents will hold a separate referendum, simultaneous with one in southern Sudan, to determine whether it maintains its special status in the north or will be part of Bahr el Ghazal in the south. PROTOCOL ON WEALTH-SHARING: According to the Wealth-Sharing Protocol, which was signed in January 2004, national wealth, notably on revenue from some 250,000 to 300,000 barrels of oil a day produced in southern Sudan, will be shared equally. Oil revenue from wells in the south, where most exploited petroleum is located, is to be split on a 50-50 basis between the southern and national governments, after at least two percent is given to the states where the oil is produced. Communities in areas of oil production, which are mostly found in the south, will have a say in extraction contracts. A National Petroleum Commission, comprising officials from both governments, is to be set up to formulate policy and negotiate exploitation contracts. Half of the non-oil revenue, essentially taxes and levies, collected in the south by the national government is to be allocated to the national government, monitored by a joint commission. A dual banking system is to be set up, an Islamic one in the north, where charging interest is forbidden, and a conventional one in the south, where a special branch of the central bank will be established. The central bank is to issue a new currency with a design reflecting Sudan's cultural diversity. PROTOCOL ON SECURITY ARRANGEMENTS: According to Security Arrangements Protocol, which was signed in September 2003, more than 100,000 government troops in southern Sudan and SPLM/A troops deployed in Nuba Mountains and Southern Blue Nile will withdraw under international monitoring, while respecting the north-south boundary drawn in Coordination between and command of the two forces will be assumed by a new Joint Defence Board made up of top officers from both sides. Both the government army and the SPLA will remain separate and shall be considered and treated equally as Sudan's National Armed Forces (SNAF). During the interim period, the two forces will contribute an equal number of troops to form Joint Integrated Units (JIU) to be deployed on both sides of the border. The deployment of JIU will be as follows: 24,000 troops in southern Sudan, 6,000 in Nuba Mountains, 6,000 in Southern Blue Nile and 3,000 in the capital, Khartoum. -------- business Some Defense Programs Face Cuts No Decisions Yet, but Raptor Fighter Program Could Be Reduced By Renae Merle Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, December 30, 2004; Page E05 http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A35285-2004Dec29?language=printer The Pentagon is considering cutting some of its largest programs, including the F/A-22 Raptor, to help bring down the budget deficit during the next few years and offset Iraq war costs, according to congressional and industry sources. The proposals are considered tentative and have not been approved by the Office of Management and Budget or Congress, where they could face substantial resistance. The Pentagon is not scheduled to release its fiscal 2006 budget proposal until February. The proposal is also expected to include significant cuts to the Navy's shipbuilding budget. "No service is getting away scot-free," said a Senate aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the process is in its early stages. The cuts would confirm Wall Street and industry concerns that the Pentagon's hefty budget would eventually have to be tempered to offset the cost of the war and the budget deficit. In an interview last week, James F. Albaugh, president of Boeing Co.'s defense unit, said budget pressure was the chief obstacle facing the industry next year. "The big programs are all going to be looked at, just because of their size," Albaugh said. Defense Department spokesman Eric Ruff said that nothing is final until the budget is submitted and that the 2006 budget is likely to include an overall increase. "Throughout this budget process we have focused on military capabilities: agility, speed, precision and flexibility," Ruff said. Ruff declined to specify any programs but acknowledged that changes to the tactical air programs were being discussed. "It's only fair that we look back at the programs that were begun two or three decades ago to meet Cold War challenges," Ruff said. "The services have been reviewing their priorities given today's world, and they are making decisions about where to make their investments." In the past week, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has spoken with John W. Warner (R-Va.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, about "some of the targets that he plans to put forward in the budget to meet the president's own budget," said John Ullyot, a committee spokesman. The Defense Department "is going to play a part in the overall budget cuts that the president and his team are putting forward this year," he said. Rumsfeld and Warner did not discuss specific programs and Warner considers it too early to discuss the budget because it has not been released, Ullyot said. The Navy's budget proposal already includes several program reductions, including building only four ships in fiscal 2006, compared with nine planned for the current fiscal year, and delaying production of a new generation of destroyers, defense and industry sources have said. The Army has already put off parts of its modernization program -- known as the Future Combat System and managed jointly by Boeing Co. and Science Applications International Corp. -- to spend more time testing the technology. The Army in February canceled development of its Comanche helicopter, which was no longer deemed essential. Under the current Pentagon budget proposal, Lockheed Martin Corp.'s F/A-22 fighter jet would remain fully funded through 2008 with the company building 24 to 26 of the planes a year, according to the sources. But funding for the program could stop or dwindle after 2008, the sources said. The cuts would mean Lockheed would produce 160 to 170 of the aircraft instead of the 277 the Air Force currently projects, the sources said. "While we have not been notified of any changes to the F/A-22 program, if in fact these cuts do occur, they would not take place for several years and we believe the aircraft will prove its value and we would hope to see the number of aircraft restored," said Dennis R. Boxx, a Lockheed spokesman. Any cuts to the Raptor are expected to be resisted by supporters in Congress, who have fought off previous attempts to cut back or cancel the program. Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said through a spokeswoman that he remains dedicated to the program. ---- Poll: War Bad for Business by Jim Lobe, December 30, 2004 Antiwar.com http://www.antiwar.com/lobe/?articleid=4235 The Bush administration's foreign policy may be costing U.S. corporations business overseas, according to a new survey of 8,000 international consumers released this week by the Seattle-based Global Market Insite (GMI) Inc. Brands closely identified with the U.S., such as Marlboro cigarettes, America Online (AOL), McDonald's, American Airlines, and Exxon-Mobil, are particularly at risk. GMI, an independent market research company, conducted the survey in eight countries Dec. 10-12 with consumers over the Internet. One-third of all consumers in Canada, China, France, Germany, Japan, Russia, and the United Kingdom said that U.S. foreign policy, particularly the "war on terror" and the occupation of Iraq, constituted their strongest impression of the United States. Twenty percent of respondents in Europe and Canada said they consciously avoided buying U.S. products as a protest against those policies. That finding was consistent with a similar poll carried out by GMI three weeks after Bush's November election victory. "Unfortunately, current American foreign policy is viewed by international consumers as a significant negative, when it used to be a positive," according to Dr. Mitchell Eggers, GMI's chief operating officer and chief pollster. "Some American brands become closely connected to their country of origin and are quintessentially American," he added. "They represent the American lifestyle, innovation, power, leadership, and foreign policy." Whether the U.S. foreign policy under Bush is affecting the sales of U.S. corporations overseas is being hotly debated by advertising and public relations firms, as well as the companies themselves. Last month, Kevin Roberts, chief executive of advertising giant Saatchi & Saatchi, told the Financial Times that he believed consumers in Europe and Asia are becoming increasingly resistant to having "brand America rammed down their throats." Simon Anholt, author of Brand America, has also predicted a consumer backlash against U.S. foreign policy. He recently told the British trade magazine Marketing Week that four more years of Bush's foreign policy could have grave consequences for U.S. companies' international market share. "There have already been casual protest brands, such as Mecca Cola, which are primarily political," he told the weekly. "But things are now moving beyond that. For instances, German restaurants are beginning to refuse American Express cards. This is new territory." Other analysts have been skeptical, arguing that recent declines in sales in France and Germany by McDonald's, Coca-Cola, and Marlboro were due far more to other factors, including flagging economies in both countries or a simple failure by companies to adapt rapidly enough to consumer tastes. But the new survey, as well as the one taken by GMI last month, suggests that the unpopularity of U.S. foreign policy may indeed be playing a role, at least for companies that are either strongly identified with the United States or are perceived as having similar characteristics as its foreign policy. "American companies are accused of aggressiveness and arrogance because they insist on imposing the American way of doing things on their international markets; they are inflexible," according to Allyson Stewart-Allen, co-author of Working With Americans, a business bestseller published by Prentice Hall in 2002. She argued that the more U.S. companies distance themselves from their U.S. identity, the better they will survive in the international marketplace. "U.S. companies abroad now need to focus on adding yet more value and repositioning their brands to consumers in the intensely competitive global village in which they compete." "The more aligned they are with those customers – regardless of their U.S.-created DNA – they'll win." American companies need to focus on alignment with international markets and embrace their market differences and idiosyncrasies. The survey cited 40 U.S.-based companies and asked consumers who said they were trying to avoid buying U.S. brands to rate each one of them by how closely they were identified with being "American," and whether or not they deliberately avoided buying their products. The survey then plotted each company's position on a quadrant divided into "safe" and "insulated" squares at the bottom and "at risk" and "problem squares" at the top. Those deemed "safe" or "insulated" generally were either not seen as particularly "American" (Visa, Kodak, Kleenex, or Gillette), or they apparently lacked real competition (Microsoft, Heinz, and Disney). Visa was the single best performer: only 17 percent of consumers identified as intending to avoid U.S. brands thought that it was "extremely American," and only 15 percent said they intended to boycott it. Fifty-four percent said they had used Visa at least once in the previous month. "Problem" companies, on the other hand, included those that more than a third of boycotting consumers said they intended to avoid, and more than 40 percent of consumers said they considered to be "extremely American." On that scale, Marlboro was found to be the most problematic. Sixty percent of respondents said they avoided the product, while two-thirds said they considered it to be "extremely American." Only McDonald's had a higher "American" score, at 73 percent, but only 42 percent of respondents said they avoided the Golden Arches. In contrast to Visa's performance, 48 percent of boycotting consumers said they would definitely avoid using American Express; 64 percent said they thought the company was "extremely American," and only two percent reported using it during the previous month. Other problem brands included Exxon-Mobil, AOL, American, Chevron Texaco, United Airlines, Budweiser, Chrysler, Barbie Doll, Starbucks, and General Motors. The latest poll found that more than two-thirds of European and Canadian consumers have had a negative change in their view of the United States as a result of U.S. foreign policy over the last three years. Nearly half believed that the war in Iraq was motivated by a desire to control oil supplies, while only 15 percent believed it was related to terrorism. Nearly two-thirds of European and Canadian consumers also said they believed U.S. foreign policy is guided primarily by self-interest and empire-building, while only 17 percent believed that the defense of freedom and democracy is its guiding principle. Half of the entire sample said they distrusted U.S. companies, at least in part because of U.S. foreign policy. Seventy-nine percent said they distrusted the U.S. government for the same reason, while 39 percent said they distrusted the American public. Fully 87 percent of German, 84 percent of French, and 71 percent of British respondents had negative feelings toward Bush himself. Moreover, British, French, and German consumers all felt that the cultural values of the other two countries were closer to their own than "American values." -------- iraq Numbers show deadly year in Iraq has grown worse By Associated Press, 12/30/2004 20:01 http://www.boston.com/dailynews/365/wash/Summary_Box_Numbers_show_deadl:.shtml THE FIGURES: Measuring by the number of insurgent attacks and U.S. dead and wounded, the situation for American forces in Iraq has worsened since summer. THE TOLL: The U.S. military suffered at least 348 deaths in Iraq over the final four months of the year, more than in any other similar period since the invasion in March 2003. THE ATTACKS: The number of attacks on U.S. and allied troops grew from an estimated 1,400 in September to 1,600 in October and 1,950 in November. A year earlier, attacks numbered 649 in September, 896 in October and 864 in November. -------- prisoners of war Two Detainees Refuse Guantanamo Hearing Thu Dec 30, 2004 9:26 PM ET By ALEXANDRA OLSON, Associated Press Writer http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=589&ncid=734&e=5&u=/ap/20041231/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/guantanamo_review_tribunals SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - Two prisoners with alleged ties to the al-Qaida terrorist network refused Thursday to appear before U.S. military review tribunals in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, while a third detainee did attend. A 26-year-old prisoner accused of traveling to Afghanistan with the help of an al-Qaida facilitator did not attend his hearing, said Lt. Cmdr. Daryl Borgquist, a spokesman for the Combatant Status Review Tribunals. In his home country, the prisoner attended a mosque "believed to be a major transit point for Islamic fundamentalists volunteering for combat operations," Borgquist said. The detainee's home country was not disclosed. The unclassified allegations against the prisoner did not specify whether he engaged in combat in Afghanistan, saying only that he was arrested with 30 others trying to cross the border into Pakistan. A 36-year-old man who was arrested while living in a suspected al-Qaida safe house also did not attend his hearing, Borgquist said. The military did not say why the two did not appear. A 24-year-old accused of joining a terrorist organization with links to al-Qaida attended his tribunal and called another detainee as a witness, Borgquist said. No details of the testimonies were released, and no press attended the tribunal. The prisoner was recruited by the HIG terrorist organization while living at the Shamshato refugee camp in Pakistan, Borgquist said. He allegedly received military training in Pakistan, including learning to make bombs from parts of disassembled land mines. The review tribunals are intended to determine whether 550 detainees from more than 40 countries at the U.S. naval base are properly held as "enemy combatants" or should be released. The U.S. government considers anyone who supported al-Qaida or the Taliban an "enemy combatant," a classification that human rights groups complain is vague and confers fewer legal protections than prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions. Prisoners are not allowed to have attorneys present at the tribunals and are only told unclassified portions of the allegations against them. The government has released no transcripts of testimonies. The Associated Press filed a Freedom of Information Act request more than a month ago to obtain transcripts. The tribunals are nearly done, with only about 30 cases left to be heard. They have ordered two prisoners released and another 226 to remain in custody. All the detainees are accused of links to al-Qaida or the Taliban. Many have been held for nearly three years without charge. -------- russia / chechnya Russia's Defense Ministry will keep overseas prevention anti-terror operations in secret. Moscow, 30 December-RIA "Novosti" http://www.rian.ru/rian/intro.cfm?nws_id=775367 Russia's Defense Ministry will keep overseas prevention anti-terror operations in secret. "Preparing such offences will not be announced as airing this info it is nonsense", stated a Defense Minister, Mr. Sergey Ivanov, on media briefing on Thursday. According to Minister, preventive strikes are not "Russian invention" and not synonymous to using a military force en masse. Responding to journalists' questions of eventual preventive targets, he have said "There are targets always". -------- us Iraq War Dead Thursday, December 30, 2004 Washington Post; Page A14 http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A35574-2004Dec29?language=printer Total number of U.S. military deaths and names of the U.S. troops killed in the Iraq war as announced by the Pentagon yesterday: 1,326 Fatalities in hostile actions: 1,041 In non-hostile actions: 285 Staff Sgt. Jason A. Lehto, 31, of Mount Clemens, Mich.; Marine Forces Reserve's Marine Wing Support Group 47, 4th Marine Aircraft Wing, based at Mount Clemens. Died Dec. 28 in a non-hostile incident in Anbar province. Spec. Jose A. Rivera-Serrano, 26, of Mayaguez, Puerto Rico; 2nd Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, based at Fort Hood, Tex. Died Dec. 27 in Baghdad of wounds from a roadside bomb. Total fatalities include three civilian employees of the Defense Department. A full list of casualties is available online at www.washingtonpost.com/nation SOURCE: Defense Department's www.defenselink.mil/news ---- Pentagon mulls cutbacks to include F-22 fighter, Navy carrier 12/30/2004 5:58 PM (AP) http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-12-30-pentagon_x.htm WASHINGTON — The Navy would retire one of its 12 aircraft carriers and the Air Force would reduce its buy of F-22 stealth fighters under budget proposals being discussed in the Pentagon, officials said Thursday. Eric Ruff, a Pentagon spokesman, said he could not discuss specifics of the 2006 fiscal year defense budget to be submitted by President Bush for consideration by Congress early next year. "The budget is not decided," he said, adding that it would be unwise to speculate on final decisions. Other officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because proposals are still being weighed, said it appeared likely that for cost-saving reasons the Navy would retire one of its 12 carriers. The New York Times reported in its Thursday editions that, under a Pentagon proposal, the Navy would retire the USS John F. Kennedy carrier next year and reduce the number of new LPD-17 San Antonio-class amphibious landing ships being built at a cost of about $1.2 billion apiece by Northrop Grumman. The Kennedy is home-ported at Mayport Naval Station near Jacksonville, Fla. A Navy spokesman, Cmdr. Danny Hernandez, said he could not comment on proposed program changes. In a conference call with reporters in Florida on Thursday, members of the state's congressional delegation and Gov. Jeb Bush said they each had received a phone call from Navy Secretary Gordon England last week telling them that Kennedy could be decommissioned for budget savings. The Kennedy is currently scheduled to be retired in 2018. It has been in the carrier fleet since 1968 and is the third oldest of the 12 active carriers. Only the USS Enterprise and USS Kitty Hawk are older. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., said retiring the Kennedy early would be a mistake. "When we are at war, it is not a time to reduce carriers," he said. "We need 12 carriers. It is the wrong process of allowing the budget to drive our national security policy." The Times on Wednesday was first to report that the Pentagon plans to curtail the F-22 fighter program. It said Pentagon officials had already informed the White House and members of Congress, and that the plan reflects an effort by the Bush administration to find savings that can help offset the unexpectedly high cost of U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Pentagon is spending more than $4 billion a month in Iraq and about $1 billion a month in Afghanistan. All of the military services are expecting to absorb program cuts for 2006, and officials said the Air Force is likely to achieve savings in the F-22 program by buying fewer than originally planned. It already has invested about $40 billion in research, development and early production. Scaling back the F-22 program would not be a surprise, given that it has been discussed as a possibility almost from the start of Donald H. Rumsfeld's tenure as secretary of defense in 2001. Rumsfeld stresses that modernization of the military should be measured in terms of capabilities, not numbers of planes, ships and tanks, as was generally the yardstick used during the Cold War. The Air Force's current plan calls for buying 277 F-22s, although some have suggested the total might be dropped as low as 120. There also has been talk of scaling back another fighter program, the so-called Joint Strike Fighter that is intended for use by the Navy, Marines and Air Force. Ruff, while declining to discuss specifics about the F-22 program, indicated it is not being canceled. "We're going to ensure that the F-22 will remain healthy," he said. Ruff also said, without providing numbers, that the overall defense budget for 2006 is expected to be higher than 2005's $420 billion. Others said that while it may be higher, the rate of growth will be lower than in previous years. ---- US to take billions of dollars off defense budget: report WASHINGTON (AFP) Dec 30, 2004 http://www.spacewar.com/2004/041230161209.9tbjfdk2.html The US Defense Department wants to take some 60 billion dollars off its budget over the next six years, marking the first slowdown in US military spending since the September 11, 2001 attacks, The New York Times reported Thursday. Under the plan -- which would require congressional approval -- the Pentagon would retire one of the Navy's dozen aircraft carriers, purchase fewer amphibious landing ships for the Marines and delay the creation of an expensive army combat system featuring high-tech weapons, among other measures, the Times said. The planned cuts are in response to White House demands for all federal agencies to trim spending requests for the 2006 fiscal year, which are to be presented to lawmakers in early 2005, the daily noted. The White House has come under increasing pressure to stem growing deficits while continuing to fund the costly military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, which now cost more than five billion dollars a month combined. Pentagon spending has ballooned since the September 11 attacks, surging 41 percent to around 420 billion dollars this year, the Times said. The plan would cut up to 10 billion dollars from the Pentagon's 2006 budget alone. ---- Humvees linked to 1 in 5 U.S. deaths in Iraq By LISA HOFFMAN Scripps Howard News Service December 30, 2004 http://shns.abc15.com/shns/story.cfm?pk=HUMVEES-12-30-04&cat=II In the earliest days of the war in Iraq, an enemy grenade destroyed the Humvee carrying Army Pfc. Jessica Lynch and four other soldiers caught in an ambush in Nasiriyah. Though Lynch was spared, the others died. Last week, nearly two years later, Army 1st Lt. Christopher Barnett, 32, of Baton Rouge, La., was killed on a patrol mission in the outskirts of Baghdad when a roadside bomb eviscerated his Humvee. Throughout the 21-month war, no other piece of military materiel has been associated with so many U.S. fatalities. According to a Scripps Howard News Service study, at least 1 in 5 of the 1,320 fallen American troops has died in incidents involving the ubiquitous vehicles. Hundreds more have been wounded in them. No other piece of war equipment has been the focus of as much criticism, as well. When Congress returns in January, high on its agenda will be hearings into what some lawmakers, frustrated troops and anxious families say have been the needless deaths and maimings of GIs - particularly early in the war - while traveling in vehicles unduly vulnerable to bombs and other attacks. Based on official Pentagon casualty reports, news accounts and interviews, the Scripps Howard study found at least 275 troop deaths have been associated with Humvees. By far, most of those fatalities came when a Humvee crossed paths with a roadside bomb planted by insurgents and often detonated by remote control. On Dec. 3, for instance, that was the fate of Army Staff Sgt. Henry Irizarry, 38, of the Bronx, a father of five who was killed by an explosion that blew him out the right side of his Humvee in Taji. Others, such as Army Pfc. George Harrison of Knoxville, Tenn., were killed in their Humvees by snipers or insurgents shooting rifles and machine guns. Harrison, 22, was shot Dec. 2 in Mosul while on a joint U.S.-Iraqi patrol. Accidents in Humvees - which are used for transporting troops, guarding convoys, evacuating the wounded and patrolling - have also claimed the lives of dozens of troops. In December alone, five troops died that way, including Marine Cpl. Bryan Wilson, 22, of Otterbein, Ind. The married father of a 20-month-old daughter, Wilson died of internal injuries after his Humvee overturned in the Fallujah area. Even troops in Humvees that have been equipped with armor are not immune from deadly strikes. Two New York National Guardsmen were killed Nov. 29 in Baghdad when a bomb destroyed their armored Humvee. One of the two, Sgt. Christian Engeldrum, 30, was a Bronx firefighter who helped raise the first American flag at Ground Zero after the 2001 World Trade Center terror attacks. Never designed to withstand direct bomb attacks or serve as combat vehicles, Humvees instead were envisioned to provide transport behind the lines. As a result, only 2,000 of the 10,000 Humvees initially deployed to Iraq was armed with steel protection and bulletproof glass. Instead, most were constructed with fiberglass and aluminum, and equipped with "soft sides" and fabric roofs. Since an enemy insurgency wielding improvised bombs took root in mid-2003, the Pentagon has scrambled to buy thousands more hardened Humvees and upgrade thousands more with steel plates and other protection. Even so, some U.S. troops continue to use vehicles with less to shield them against bombs and bullets than the average family sedan. They also complain that even hardened Humvees leave the vehicles' floors insufficiently protected. But military officials say that an impenetrable Humvee is neither possible nor desirable. Too much steel can make a Humvee unwieldy and dangerously heavy. And even mighty M1A1 Abrams tanks can be felled by a rocket-propelled grenade. Instead, the Humvee armoring is designed to deflect much of an explosive blast and to give troops precious seconds to bail out or take cover, they say. But after a National Guardsman complained in December to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that his unit had to scrounge in Kuwaiti junkyards to find material to reinforce their Humvees - triggering a firestorm of criticism on Capitol Hill and elsewhere - the Army announced a $4 billion program to armor all its vehicles, including trucks. The Pentagon now says that about 75 percent of the approximately 19,000 Humvees in Iraq have been armored in one way or another. Officials said they expect 98 percent to be hardened by March. By June, the trucks will be completed, Maj. Gen. Stephen Speakes told reporters. Asked about the armoring controversy during his press conference Wednesday, President Bush said he is satisfied that the problem is being worked on. "What I know is ... that the Defense Department is working expeditiously with private contractors and with our military to get these vehicles armed up." (E-mail Lisa Hoffman at HoffmanL@shns.com .) ---- Pentagon ousts official who tied Russia, Iraq arms December 30, 2004 By Bill Gertz THE WASHINGTON TIMES http://www.washtimes.com/national/20041229-113041-1647r.htm A Pentagon official who publicly disclosed information showing Russian involvement in moving Iraqi weapons out of that country has been dismissed. John A. Shaw, the deputy undersecretary of defense for international technology security and formerly an aide to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, was forced to leave his position Dec. 10 as the result of a "reorganization" that eliminated his job, defense officials said. Mr. Shaw said he had been asked to resign for "exceeding his authority" in disclosing the information, a charge he called "specious." In October, Mr. Shaw told The Washington Times that he had received foreign intelligence data showing that Russian special forces units were involved in an effort to remove Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction in the weeks before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq began in March 2003. In a letter to Mr. Rumsfeld, Mr. Shaw said that information about the covert Russian role in moving Iraqi arms to Syria, Lebanon and possibly Iran was discussed during a meeting that included retired Air Force Lt. Gen. James Clapper, head of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency; the head of Britain's MI6 intelligence service; and the head of a foreign intelligence service that he did not name. The Pentagon office was conducting "research focused on analyzing Russian documents to determine the pattern of acquisition and dispersal of weaponry in the pre-war period," Mr. Shaw said in the Dec. 3 letter. A copy was obtained by The Washington Times. The Defense Intelligence Agency has been fully briefed on the Russian covert arms removal, and Mr. Shaw expected additional information from foreign sources to produce more details, he wrote to Mr. Rumsfeld. Reports of the Russian role in dispersing Iraqi arms made news during the final days of the presidential election campaign, at a time when the Bush administration was being criticized for failing to secure tons of Iraqi high explosives that could be used in developing nuclear arms. Mr. Shaw went public to counter a political "October surprise" campaign designed to "crucify the president" over the missing explosives, he wrote to Mr. Rumsfeld. "The Kerry media-driven October surprise attack on us and the president stopped within hours," Mr. Shaw wrote. "If I had not had the openly hostile environment in [Pentagon public affairs], I would have moved the story differently. Getting the truth out instantly was more important than process." After Mr. Shaw's disclosures, the Pentagon released spy satellite photographs of Iraqi weapons facilities that showed truck convoys at the plants, apparently in preparation to move materials. Further corroborating Mr. Shaw's account, a Russian newspaper reported that two retired Russian generals had received awards from Saddam's government 10 days before the coalition assault on Iraq began. Mr. Shaw directed a Pentagon program called the Iraq Technology Transfer List that identified foreign weapons and technology discovered in Iraq after the March 2003 invasion. In his December letter to Mr. Rumsfeld, Mr. Shaw complained that he had been targeted by "senior members" in the secretary's office. "I cannot in good conscience resign at this time," Mr. Shaw stated. "I cannot submit my resignation to you until it is clear that this well-orchestrated campaign to obstruct justice and suppress the findings of my office has been properly addressed and stopped." Mr. Shaw singled out Mr. Rumsfeld's chief of staff, Larry DiRita, and other officials for attempting to "suborn the office of the inspector general" after Mr. Shaw uncovered "a major [Coalition Provisional Authority] fraud and corruption case involving various [Department of Defense] figures." Mr. DiRita called Mr. Shaw's charges "absurd and without any foundation." "He has been directed on several occasions to produce evidence of his wide-ranging and fantastic charges and provide it to the DoD inspector general," Mr. DiRita said in an interview. "To my knowledge, he has not done so." Mr. DiRita declined to comment on specific accusations made by Mr. Shaw. -------- homeland security / national intelligence Top Officials Call for Homeland Security Jurisdiction to Track Armed Services Committee Model Thursday, December 30, 2004 USHR Homeland Security Committee Contact: Jennifer Page 202-226-9600 http://hsc.house.gov/release.cfm?id=290 Washington, DC – Contending that “Congress must not let its homeland security efforts remain unfocused and dispersed,” the George Washington University Homeland Security Policy Institute released a comprehensive white paper mapping out the legislative jurisdiction that should be granted to the House Homeland Security Committee in the 109th Congress. The white paper, issued December 29, 2004, by the GW Homeland Security Policy Institute Steering Committee, asserts that while the Executive Branch has taken a unified approach to homeland security by creating the Department of Homeland Security, Congress has failed to act with the same consolidated strategy, leaving homeland security oversight fragmented over 79 congressional panels. The white paper specifically endorses the Homeland Security Committee’s September 30, 2004 recommendation to make the committee permanent, reduce the membership of the committee, and grant the committee “primary jurisdiction over all matters related to DHS.” The white paper also highlights that “the Armed Services Committee has primary jurisdiction over the Department of Defense” and stresses that “so too should the Homeland Security Committee have jurisdiction over the Department of Homeland Security,” with the exception of non-homeland security matters. This recommendation tracks the 9/11 Commission recommendations. Just as separate organizations within the Department of Defense have maintained their mission-focused identities over the years while working together to protect national security from threats abroad, organizations within the Department of Homeland Security must do the same in order to most effectively defend ports and borders, stop terrorists, and reduce the potential damage terrorists can cause. The George Washington University Homeland Security Policy Institute Steering Committee includes top homeland security officials such as Former National Security Advisor Richard Allen, Former Virginia Governor James Gilmore, Former Federal Bureau of Investigation Director William Sessions, Former Central Intelligence Agency James Woolsey, Former U.S. Army Chief of Staff General Edward Meyer and Former Federal Emergency Management Agency Director James Lee Witt. The full report and list of Steering Committee members is available at http://hsc.house.gov/files/gwureport.pdf -------- POLITICS -------- us politics A state of chaos George Bush has purged the last of his father's senior advisers, handing over control to his neocon allies Sidney Blumenthal Thursday December 30, 2004 The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1380713,00.html The transition to President Bush's second term, filled with backstage betrayals, plots and pathologies, would make for an excellent chapter of I, Claudius. To begin with, Bush has unceremoniously and without public acknowledgement dumped Brent Scowcroft, his father's closest associate and friend, as chairman of the foreign intelligence advisory board. The elder Bush's national security adviser was the last remnant of traditional Republican realism permitted to exist within the administration. At the same time the vice president, Dick Cheney, has imposed his authority over secretary of state designate Condoleezza Rice, in order to blackball Arnold Kanter, former under secretary of state to James Baker and partner in the Scowcroft Group, as a candidate for deputy secretary of state. "Words like 'incoherent' come to mind," one top state department official told me about Rice's effort to organise her office. She is unable to assert herself against Cheney, her wobbliness a sign that the state department will mostly be sidelined as a power centre for the next four years. Rice may have wanted to appoint as a deputy her old friend Robert Blackwill, whom she had put in charge of Iraq at the NSC. But Blackwill, a mercurial personality, allegedly assaulted a female US foreign service officer in Kuwait, and was forced to resign in November. Secretary of state Colin Powell and his deputy, Richard Armitage, presented the evidence against Blackwill to Rice. "Condi only dismissed him after Powell and Armitage threatened to go public," a state department source said. Meanwhile, key senior state department professionals, such as Marc Grossman, assistant secretary of state for European affairs, have abruptly resigned. According to colleagues who have chosen to remain (at least for now), they foresee the damage that will be done as Rice is charged with whipping the state department into line with the White House and Pentagon neocons. Rice has pleaded with Armitage to stay on, but "he colourfully said he would not", a state department official told me. Rice's radio silence when her former mentor, Scowcroft, was defenestrated was taken by the state department professionals as a sign of things to come. Bush has long resented his father's alter ego. Scowcroft privately rebuked him for his Iraq follies more than a year ago - an incident that has not previously been reported. Bush "did not receive it well", said a friend of Scowcroft. In A World Transformed, the elder Bush's 1998 memoir, co-authored with Scowcroft, they explained why Baghdad was not seized in the first Gulf war: "Had we gone the invasion route, the US could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land." In the run-up to the Iraq war, Scowcroft again warned of the danger. Bush's conservative biographers Peter and Rachel Schweizer, quoted the president as responding: "Scowcroft has become a pain in the ass in his old age." And they wrote: "Although he never went public with them, the president's own father shared many of Scowcroft's concerns." The rejection of Kanter is a compound rejection of Scowcroft and of James Baker - the tough, results-oriented operator who as White House chief of staff saved the Reagan presidency from its ideologues, managed the elder Bush's campaign in 1988, and was summoned in 2000 to rescue Junior in Florida. In his 1995 memoir, Baker observed that the administration's "overriding strategic concern in the [first] Gulf war was to avoid what we often referred to as the Lebanonisation of Iraq, which we believed would create a geopolitical nightmare." In private, Baker is scathing about the current occupant of the White House. Now the one indispensable creator of the Bush family political fortunes is repudiated. Republican elders who warned of endless war are purged. Those who advised Bush that Saddam was building nuclear weapons, that with a light military force the operation would be a "cakewalk", and that capturing Baghdad was "mission accomplished", are rewarded. The outgoing secretary of state, fighting his last battle, is leaking stories to the Washington Post about how his advice went unheeded. Secretary of defence Donald Rumsfeld, whose heart beats with the compassion of a crocodile, clings to his job by staging Florence Nightingale-like tableaux of hand-holding of the wounded while declaiming into the desert wind about "victory". Since the election, 203 US soldiers have been killed and 1,674 wounded. · Sidney Blumenthal, a former senior adviser to President Clinton, is Washington bureau chief of salon.com sidney_blumenthal@yahoo.com ---- Bush signs order to raise fed workers' pay 12/30/2004 9:24 PM (AP) http://www.usatoday.com/money/workplace/2004-12-30-bush-pay-raise_x.htm CRAWFORD, Texas — President Bush spelled out in greater detail Thursday the pay raise that takes effect Jan. 1 for federal workers, members of Congress, judges — even Vice President Dick Cheney. Congress passed the pay raises earlier this year, but Bush was required to sign an executive order detailing the pay hikes before the end of the year. He did so Thursday. The president's annual salary of $400,000 is not affected by the legislation. The cost-of-living raise lifts salaries for members of the House and Senate from $158,000 this year to $162,100 in 2005. The measure provides civil servants with 3.5% raises — the same that nilitary personnel will receive next year. Under a complicated formula, that translates to 2.5% for members of Congress. The 2.5% pay hike also applies to the vice president — who is president of the Senate — congressional leaders and Supreme Court justices. Cheney, House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Chief Justice William Rehnquist will go from $203,000 to $208,100. Associate justices move from $194,300 to $199,200 and House and Senate party leaders go up from $175,700 to $180,100. -------- ENERGY -------- alternative energy Lodi, California Winery to Be Solar-Powered December 30, 2004 — By Bruce Spence, The Record http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=6835 LODI, Calif. — Since grapevines are solar-powered, The Lucas Winery should be no less, owner David Lucas concluded. As of this week it will be, with a business investment of $166,000, about half of which he will recoup through rebates over five years. Even though it is a bottom-line issue for the winery, which like many small operations is fighting to compete and survive over the long haul, it's more than that to Lucas He says it's about social responsibility and doing your part to try to protect the environment, he said. Using less power lowers the need for power plants, which means less pollution, which is better for the environment, especially the ocean. So ultimately, it's about better surfing, laughed Lucas, Los Angeles-born and raised and still an avid surfer at age 62. "The ocean is the canary for the environment," he said. The basic concept here is to install a big enough system to produce enough power on sunny days to cover business needs, plus excess power that feeds back into the Pacific Gas & Electric Co. power grid. In that case, the dials on the power meter are spinning backward. The utility doesn't pay the solar-power system owner for that excess power, though it does keep a tally, giving the owner a credit for later power use, say at night or on cloudy days, when solar-panel systems can't run at capacity. Lucas is aiming for a system where the excess power credits will basically cover the power costs for his 3,000-square-foot winery, tasting room and casks room by year's end. In the case of The Lucas Winery, the aim is to cut the power bill from $6,000 to $8,000 each year to about $30 to $40. There might even be a bit of a marketing niche to help with sales, perhaps enticing people with a green bent to buy his wines over others, he thinks. "I know it sounds like a bumper sticker," he said, "but it came down to just being the right thing to do." Lucas isn't the only greenie in the local wine grape and vintner network. Several growers have tapped the sun's power, including the head of the Lodi-Woodbridge Winegrape Commission. Mark Chandler, the commission's executive director, last spring installed a solar system to power the water pump at his 40-acre Lockeford vineyard. As a result, his power bill dropped from $3,000 a year to $40 or $50, and so far, the system has run great, he said. "More people aren't doing it, because it is expensive," Chandler said. "Mine cost $50,000." But he's getting about $20,000 in tax credits and figures his power savings will pay for the system in about seven years. That's on a system guaranteed for 20 years, Chandler said, "so it's very worthwhile." Renewable Technologies Inc., a 10-year-old Sutter Creek startup, is installing the system at The Lucas Winery. Company founder and president Darryl Conklin said the solar-power industry has been growing in leaps. His own business has doubled year to year in the past few years, he said. It's gone from an enterprise operating "outside my bedroom door," he said, to a multimillion-dollar company with 43 employees, including seven engineers and a 12,500-square-foot warehouse in Sutter Creek. "It's the gift of the energy crisis," he said. "Prior to that, people weren't sure how you could turn sunshine into electricity. ... In 2004, this thing just ripped open." PG&E administers a rebate program for businesses that invest in renewable energy systems, including wind turbines and photovoltaic, or PV, systems, popularly known as solar-panel power. The Self Generation Incentive Program was created in the summer of 2002 out of the storm of California's electricity crisis when the state Public Utility Commission ordered utilities to offer incentives for investments in renewable energy sources. PG&E spokeswoman Emily Barnett said the utility offers businesses cash rebates covering up to half the cost of a PV system. Such a system would have to be in the 30-kilowatt-hour to 1.5-megawatt-hour range. Since June 2002, the utility has paid out more than $45 million in rebates for PV systems installed by businesses. In San Joaquin County, $1.2 million in rebates have been applied to five projects, she said. Source: Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News -------- OTHER -------- environment Quake May Have Made Earth Wobble - US Scientists REUTERS USA: December 30, 2004 http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/28737/story.htm LOS ANGELES - The deadly Asian earthquake may have permanently accelerated the Earth's rotation -- shortening days by a fraction of a second -- and caused the planet to wobble on its axis, US scientists said on Tuesday. Richard Gross, a geophysicist with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, theorized that a shift of mass toward the Earth's center during the quake on Sunday caused the planet to spin 3 microseconds, or one millionth of a second, faster and to tilt about an inch (2.5 cm) on its axis. When one huge tectonic plate beneath the Indian Ocean was forced below the edge of another "it had the effect of making the Earth more compact and spinning faster," Gross said. Gross said changes predicted by his model probably are too minuscule to be detected by a global positioning satellite network that routinely measures changes in Earth's spin, but said the data may reveal a slight wobble. The Earth's poles travel a circular path that normally varies by about 33 feet (10 metres), so an added wobble of an inch (2.5 cm) is unlikely to cause long-term effects, he said. "That continual motion is just used to changing," Gross said. "The rotation is not actually that precise. The Earth does slow down and change its rate of rotation." When those tiny variations accumulate, planetary scientists must add a "leap second" to the end of a year, something that has not been done in many years, Gross said. Scientists have long theorized that changes on the Earth's surface such as tide and groundwater shifts and weather could affect its spin but they have not had precise measurements to prove it, Caltech seismologist Hiroo Kanamori said. "Even for a very large event, the effect is very small," Kanamori said. "It's very difficult to change the rotation rate substantially." ---- Peru Offers U.S.-Based Metals Producer More Time to Clean Up Toxic Contamination December 30, 2004 — By Rick Vecchio, Associated Press http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=6833 LIMA, Peru — The Peruvian government on Wednesday published a decree that could give U.S.-based Doe Run Co. more time to clean up toxic emissions from a metallurgical plant that has contaminated La Oroya, a bleak, smoke-choked town high in the central Andes. The decree, published in El Peruano, the official gazette, will allow companies to modify their environmental clean-up programs for "exceptional reasons," and receive specific project extensions for three years, with the possibility of an additional year. Doe Run Peru, owned by the St. Louis-based Doe Run Co., has threatened to close its operations if the government does not grant a five-year extension to complete an environmental upgrade that includes construction of a US$100 million (euro73.5 million) sulfuric acid plant by 2007. The privately held company is the largest integrated lead producer in North America. The company says sales from its Peru operation totaled US$423.7 million (euro338 million) in 2003. Company officials were not immediately available for comment Wednesday, but Doe Run Executive President Jeffrey Zelms last week said he was unhappy with the terms of the decree, which had been published in a draft form earlier in the month. The decree calls for the deposit of a financial guarantee equivalent to 20 percent of the amount remaining to be invested in mandated environmental programs. In Doe Run's case, that would be "more than US$20 million (euro14.7 million)," Zelms told leading newspaper El Comercio in an interview published Friday. Zelms said that Doe Run was being squeezed by competition from China and that the company would not be asking for a five-year extension "if we did not have money problems." "The possibility of taking US$20 million (euro14.7 million) and placing it as part of a guarantee that cannot be touched is totally counterproductive," he said. "You can't spend what you don't have, and you can't get blood from a stone." Doe Run extension request has been widely supported by the inhabitants of La Oroya and workers at the complex, who earlier this month blocked highways and clashed with police in protests supporting the company's demands. La Oroya is a town of 30,000 people, wedged into a narrow gorge 12,300 feet (3,750 meters) high in the thin air of the Andes, 140 kilometers (90 miles) east of Lima. Doe Run's facility produces copper, lead, zinc and smaller amounts of gold, silver and other metals. The company agreed to a clean-up program when it purchased the 82-year-old smelter in 1997 from state-owned Centromin, which ran the facility from 1974. In a 2000-01 study, the company found that average lead levels in the blood of 1,198 residents tested were 2.5 times above World Health Organization limits. In 1999, Peru's Health Ministry determined that 99 percent of the children in the area suffered from lead poisoning, with nearly 20 percent in need of urgent hospitalization. Lead poisoning can cause behavior disorders, slow growth, impaired learning, anemia and kidney damage. All ages are susceptible, but children tend to be hit harder because they play outside in contaminated dust. -------- ACTIVISTS New Year Message from Nobel Peace Laureate, Professor Sir Joseph Rotblat December 30, 2004 Nuclear Age Peace Foundation http://www.wagingpeace.org/articles/2004/12/30_rotblat_new-year-message.htm In November 2004 the world's NOBEL PEACE LAUREATES came together to issue a Statement. It began: "Two decades ago, the world was swept with a wave of hope. Inspired by the popular movements for peace, freedom, democracy and solidarity, the nations of the world worked together to end the Cold War. Yet the opportunities opened up by that historic change are slipping away. We are gravely concerned with the resurgent nuclear and conventional arms race, disrespect for international law and the failure of the world's governments to address adequately the challenges of poverty and environmental degradation." Today in the aftermath of the terrible devastation following the Indian Ocean tsunami we see that yet again, in times of desperate need, the world's nations can act together. I believe that the challenges that face the world today, of security, poverty and environmental crisis, as well as the new threat of terrorism, can only be met successfully through a united world working through the United Nations. One of the greatest challenges that will face the world in the next decade is the proliferation of nuclear weapons. At the United Nations in New York next May we can act together again to work towards the systematic elimination of these terrible weapons of mass destruction by undertaking to implement fully the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and create a nuclear-weapon-free world for future generations. In recognition of the importance of this event the Nobel Peace Laureates gave an undertaking: "As an immediate specific task, we commit to work for preserving and strengthening the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. We reject double standards and emphasize the legal responsibility of nuclear weapons states to work to eliminate nuclear weapons. We are gravely alarmed by the creation of new, usable nuclear weapons and call for rejection of doctrines that view nuclear weapons as legitimate means of war-fighting and threat pre-emption." It is my belief, and that of the Nobel Peace Laureates, that the nations of the world must work together again and with a strong civil society. This is the way toward a globalization with a human face and a new international order that rejects brute force, respects ethnic, cultural and political diversity and affirms justice, compassion and human solidarity. © Nuclear Age Peace Foundation 1998 - 2005