NucNews - March 6, 2005 -------- NUCLEAR -------- accidents and safety MoD study reveals potential impact of nuclear sub accident By Rob Edwards Environment Editor Sunday Herald - 06 March 2005 http://www.sundayherald.com/48111 THOUSANDS of people could be contaminated with radio activity in breach of safe limits if there was an accident on a nuclear submarine at the Faslane naval base on the Clyde, an assessment by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) reveals. A leaking submarine reactor could give everyone within two kilometres a radiation dose that would increase their cancer risk. In some scenarios the contamination could spread wider and cause “more significant consequences”, the MoD admits. The same risks are also faced by people living near six other sites in Scotland where nuclear submarines can berth. Three of them are around the Clyde, and three are in the Highlands. The MoD stresses accidents are “highly unlikely” and great care is taken to ensure safety. But some experts accuse the MoD of playing down the dangers, and say people up to 30km away could be contaminated. In response to a request from the Sunday Herald, the Royal Navy last week released the MoD’s new assessment of the accident risks at Faslane. This Hazard Identification and Risk Evaluation, as it is called, was conducted under the government’s Radiation (Emergency Preparedness and Public Information) Regulations (REPPIR). For submarine reactors, the assessment “identified a number of scenarios that could lead to an offsite release of radioactive material”. These would trigger a “radiation emergency” which could last “several hours”, the MoD concludes. Members of the public within two kilometres of the accident could be exposed to more than five millisieverts of radiation, it says. The internationally recommended safety limit is one millisievert a year. The assessment shows there are 1000 to 1600 people living within two kilometres of nine potential accident sites at Faslane. In addition, there are more than 3000 workers on the base at any one time. It is “very unlikely” anyone outside the two-kilometre zone would get a radiation dose above five millisieverts, the assessment argues. “However a small number of low-probability scenarios have been identified with more significant consequences.” However, the MoD does point out: “For a significant release to occur it is necessary for there to be a plant failure followed by a breach of multiple containment barriers.” The potential accidents analysed by the MoD include a loss of coolant from the submarine reactor and runaway chain reactions. Emergency measures in the event of an accident include evacuation and advising people to take shelter to minimise radiation exposure. People will also be asked to take iodine tablets, which can reduce the risk of thyroid cancer. But these plans are dismissed by independent nuclear consultant John Large as “totally inadequate”. He says that under the worst scenario conceived by the MoD, radioactive contamination could reach high levels as far as 30km from an accident. If its cooling system failed, a reactor could melt down, explode and rip open a submarine hull in 20 minutes, Large claims. “This would be a very bad accident and it would cause chaos. The risks from a naval reactor are significantly higher than the risks predicted for civilian reactors. It’s a whole different kettle of fish.” The navy says there are three other places around the Clyde where nuclear submarines can berth. They are the explosives handling jetty at Coulport on Loch Long, an anchorage known as B4 between Gourock and Dunoon, and Loch Goil. There are also two berths in Loch Ewe off Wester Ross. According to the MoD, one is a buoy within two kilometres of the 150 people living in Mellon Charles, and the other is a jetty close to 350 people in Aultbea. The MoD assessment of the other berth – at Broadford Bay off Skye – suggests 526 people are at risk of radioactive contamination from an accident. The nuclear submarine, HMS Trenchant, has been moored there since Friday, as part of an attempt to reassure locals. However, anti-nuclear campaigners dismissed the visit as a “charm offensive” that will not allay fears. This in turn is denied by the navy, which points out that its nuclear monitoring team had been in Broadford before the vessel arrived. Navy spokesman Neil Smith warned that taking the MoD report out of context would be misleading. “It’s all about continuous improvement and avoiding complacency. And it’s against a background of a pretty good safety record. The navy has had 60 operating years of nuclear submarines and there hasn’t been a nuclear accident.” The assessments are carried out under the radiation regulations and made available to local authorities to help their emergency planning, he added. “We will do anything we can to make things as safe as possible.” The navy admits that many local residents are at risk from a minor nuclear accident, says John Ainslie, co-ordinator of the Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. “But they put their heads in the sand and refuse to prepare for a serious accident which could affect large parts of Scotland.” Although the MoD report on Faslane concludes that a submarine reactor accident could lead to a radiation emergency, it claims this couldn’t happen with the nuclear bombs on Trident submarines. “It is not reasonably foreseeable that a radiation emergency can result from this activity,” it says. -------- britain Dounreay waste claims dismissed Radioactive particles have been found close to Dounreay (BBC) Sunday, 6 March, 2005 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/4323265.stm Claims that the Dounreay nuclear plant in Caithness was being run with a "reckless" disregard for public health have been dismissed by its operators. Herbie Lyall, a former safety officer, has said that high level waste was washed down drains and a radioactive particle discovery was covered up. Dounreay is facing prosecution for releasing particles into the open. Site operators, the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority said there was no record of the particle find. But it did concede that practices in previous decades were not as stringent as they are now. Speaking to The Sunday Times, Mr Lyall a health physics surveyor at the north coast plant for 30 years, branded his former employees "nuclear cowboys". In the last two decades more than 50 radioactive particles have been recovered from Sandside beach, two miles west of the plant. Lat month the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) lodged a report with the procurator fiscal into the release of fragments of spent nuclear fuel from the reprocessing plant into the environment in the 1960s and 1970s. Mr Lyall accused Dounreay bosses of covering up the discovery of a radioactive particle on Sandside beach, near the facility, in 1984. Health concern He claimed high-level nuclear waste was washed down drains intended for low-level waste and that radioactive materials were handled without appropriate protection. Mr Lyall, who was at Dounreay from 1960 to 1989, also alleged that effluent samples were collected for analysis using a Wellington boot on a piece of string because sampling machinery was "a heap of rust". The UKAEA insisted that the discovery of a particle on Sandside was made public in 1984 and they could find no record to substantiate claims about a second find that year. Monitoring of radioactive particles has been stepped up However, Mr Lyall said he was a member of a survey team which found a particle on Sandside which was not reported. Mr Lyall had intended that his account should come to light after his death, but said continuing concerns about the health risks to the public had persuaded him to speak now. "There have been so many lies said to con the public about Dounreay that I fell I must put the record straight," he told the paper. "This contamination is a legacy being left for my children's children. It is an absolute disaster. "They are talking about prosecuting these people. They deserve execution, not prosecution. The question in our minds is why Mr Lyall took 20 years after retiring to complain UKAEA spokesman "This was people's lives they were playing with. They were acting like nuclear cowboys." A UKAEA spokesman said the company had already spoken to Mr Lyall about his concerns. He said: "It is absolutely true to say that, as with any industry, not all of the processes which were in place in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s would be acceptable by today's much more stringent standards. "The question in our minds is why Mr Lyall took 20 years after retiring to complain." He added: "However, as regards the particle find in 1984, one was discovered that year, it was reported to the Scottish Office and the regulators and made public. "We spoke to former employees involved in surveying beaches at the time but found no information or record to substantiate claims of a further find that year." ---- Nuclear waste dumped on Britain's beaches Sun Mar 6, 2005 12:00 PM ET (AFP) http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...ar_050306170001 LONDON - Highly radioactive waste has been dumped in Britain's seas and washed ashore, and nuclear research station workers covered up the pollution, The Sunday Times quoting a former safety officer as saying. The newspaper said the owner of the Dounreay nuclear plant in Caithness, in Scotland, faced a criminal prosecution over a series of leaks, which have sent more than 50 radioactive particles onto a nearby public beach. Herbie Lyalls, a health physics surveyor at the plant from 1960 to 1989, gave the paper a dossier that describes high-level radioactive waste washed down drains intended for low-level waste, and later flushed out into the sea. It also claimed that radioactive materials were handled inappropriately, and may have led to at least two deaths from cancer. The Sunday Times said Lyalls had spoken out about the pollution despite facing prosecution under the Official Secrets Act. "There have been so many lies told to con the public about Dounreay that I feel I must put the record straight," Lyall said. He said he was part of a survey team in 1984 that covered up health risks on a local beach where a highly radioactive particle was found. Tourists continued to visit the beach for 13 years after that, until new concerns were raised, the paper said. The UK Atomic Energy Authority, which owns the plant, said safety standards were not as stringent previously as they are now. Sandy McWhirter, a project manager at Dounreay, said he could not confirm Lyall's claims but added that the former surveyor "may not have been in a position to fully understand" proceedings there. The UK Atomic Energy Authority has admitted that "at least several hundreds of thousands" of particles of plutonium and uranium, about the size of a grain of sand, had been released from Dounreay, the paper said. -------- depleted uranium Protecting A Regime With Blood On Its Hands By John Pilger Mar 6, 2005, 11:26 New Statesman http://www.newstatesman.co.uk http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_16111.shtml March 6, 2005 -- Almost eight years ago, the choir of British liberalism celebrated a new age. Tony Blair, wrote the liberal thinker Hugo Young, "wants to create a world none of us have known", a world which "ideology has surrendered entirely to 'values' [and where] there are no sacred cows . . . no fossilised limits to the ground over which the mind might range in search of a better Britain". Besotted minds ranged far. In a Tonier-than-thou piece for the Guardian, Martin Kettle hilariously declared Blair an honorary Australian. "He is not in awe of the past," he wrote. "He is not intimidated by class. He is a meritocrat, a doer... He is simply happy making his own history.... It would be nice to think that one day these would be thought of as British characteristics, too." Former Labour Party deputy leader Roy Hattersley described one of the most ideological regimes in modern British history as "untainted by dogma"; Blair was "taking the politics out of politics"."Goodbye, xenophobia," was the Observer's post-election front page, and "The Foreign Office says, Hello world, remember us?". The Blair government, said the paper, would push for "new worldwide rules on human rights" and implement "tough new limits on arms sales". Lets pause to consider the truth. When Blair demonstrably lied about weapons of mass destruction in order to help an extremist regime launch an unprovoked attack on Iraq, a defenceless country, the Foreign Office's deputy legal adviser Elizabeth Wilmshurst resigned, calling it, correctly, a "crime of aggression". The blood shed by more than 100,000 civilians killed and 300,000 injured is her and our witness. Now consider the "tough new limits on arms sales". A study by ActionAid reveals that the Blair government has sold weapons to 14 impoverished African countries where there is internal conflict. The people of Aceh, stricken by last year's tsunami, have been terrorised by British-supplied Hawk fighter jets, machine-guns and ammunition. Britain is a world leader in the export of small arms, even depleted uranium. Almost everything about a Blair regime was known before it was elected. Blair's Vichy-like devotion to Washington was known: read his speeches about a new order led by America. His devotion to Rupert Murdoch, who flew him and Cherie Booth around the world first class, was known. His devotion to an extreme neoliberal Thatcherite economics was known, spelled out in Peter Mandelson's and Roger Liddle's The Blair Revolution: can new Labour deliver?, in which Britain's "economic strengths" are listed as multinational corporations, the "aerospace" (arms) industry and "the pre-eminence of the City of London". His class contempt for the poor was known; his pre-election attacks on single mothers passed quickly into law, assisted by the majority of his new, opportunistic female MPs. Those trying to cover for Blair and "move on" from Iraq refer to the reduction of poverty as one of his "achievements". In fact, relative poverty in childless households in the UK has reached record levels under Blair, up to 13 per cent - and a greater number than under Margaret Thatcher or John Major. A certain PC-ism, such as the sound and fury over dropping the gay age of consent, adds to the illusion of a Labour government that, had it not fallen in with the awful Bush, would be celebrated as "progressive". Tell that to the people of a faraway country, more than half of whom are children, whose lives have been devastated by the fanatical Blair and his court of apologists. Read the robotic Hoon's statement on the use of cluster bombs - how Iraqi mothers would one day be "grateful" for the use of weapons that killed their children - and Ministry of Defence letters to the public that lie about depleted uranium and its Hiroshima effect. The silence of those who regard themselves as commissars of this country's and Europe's respectable, moral, liberal class is quite disgusting. In a superb piece in the Guardian (24 February), Victoria Brittain asked: "How can it be that not one mainstream public figure in Europe has denounced [Bush's systematic torture regime]?" She points out that The Torture Papers - more than 1,200 pages of government memos and reports, edited at New York University - shows systematic torture, approved and directed from on high. Such is the regime of a man with whom Blair "shares values". I thought of this when I noted the current debate in the Church of England about the "rift" caused by the "issue" of gay marriage. Compare that with the "issue" of the slaughter of tens of thousands of innocent people, about which not a word is heard from those who claim moral courage as a deity. Read the searing account of Dr Salam Ismael, who took aid to Fallujah in January. He describes the ordeal of a 17-year-old girl, Hudda Fawzi. Her father opened the door to US marines who shot him and a friend dead, then shot her elder sister, having beaten her senseless, then destroyed the family's furniture. Wounded people were dragged from their homes and run over by tanks; a clinic was destroyed by missiles. "It became clear to us," Ismael wrote, "that we were witnessing the aftermath of a massacre, the cold-blooded butchery of helpless and defenceless civilians." It is not surprising that the Blair government has refused Ismael fresh permission to visit and speak out in Britain. His testimony, and that of many other reliable witnesses, is known and feared. Last April, the US command agreed that it may well have slaughtered as many as 600 people in Fallujah. When a listener asked Judy Swallow, presenter of the BBC World Service Newshour programme, why the BBC continued to suppress this truth, Swallow sent this email to a colleague: "Oh god Mike - do you take care of these sorts of things, or do we ignore them?" On the BBC website, she describes Newshour as "exposing injustice and challenging lies". The silence is almost never broken by those paid to "expose injustice and challenge lies", let alone set the record straight. On Channel 5, a member of the public, Neil Coppendale from Shoreham-by-Sea, confronted Blair with this question: "Bearing in mind that tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children have died as a result of the invasion of Iraq, how do you sleep at night, Mr Blair?" When did a journalist, one with privileged access to Blair, ever ask that? For their part, the BBC's Downing Street man Andrew Marr (apparently together with his wife) and his colleague from the Today programme James Naughtie have been over to the Prime Minister's country home, Chequers, to sup with the killer Blair. It was Marr who, at the fall of Baghdad, told viewers that Blair had "said they would be able to take Baghdad without a bloodbath, and in the end the Iraqis would be celebrating, and on both these points he has been proved conclusively right". And it is Naughtie who has played a leading role in the British American Project, set up by Ronald Reagan to find a "successor generation" to those who propagated the cold war on America's behalf. If shame has no place in what is called "public life", then the rest of us should break their silence for them. The Guardian says the electorate is "cross" with Blair. Cross? Such a genteel word. Supporting Blair, in his propaganda and his contemptuous need for another term of office, is supporting mass murder. ---- Daily Press picks up 17 VPA awards for '04 work HAMPTON ROADS, VA DAILY PRESS Published March 6, 2005 http://www.dailypress.com/news/local/dp-77445sy0mar06,0,2754612.story?coll=dp-news-local-final NORFOLK -- Five firsts from the Virginia Press Association went to individual members and the staff as a group. ... Investigative editor Bob Evans' investigation of "Danger Dismissed: How the Pentagon downplays the risks of depleted uranium weapons" was the top in-depth project in the state. Judges said the "thoroughly researched series raises shocking questions about whether Gulf War uranium use may be linked to illness of veterans decades later." The judges cited Evans' research and said tales of affected people "lifted this series beyond those of bigger newspapers." ---- Superfund site cleanup likely to begin this year Depleted uranium barrels to be moved By Davis Bushnell, Boston Globe Correspondent | March 6, 2005 http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2005/03/06/superfund_site_cleanup_likely_to_begin_this_year/ One of the major fronts in the cleanup of the Starmet Corp. Superfund site in West Concord -- the removal of more than 3,700 barrels of depleted uranium -- is expected to get underway by year's end, according to environmental officials. Last Wednesday was the deadline for bids to be submitted to the state Department of Environmental Protection for this work, which could take a year or more to complete. The contractor is expected to be selected March 22 or 23, said Ed Coletta, a department spokesman. In late spring, Coletta said, the contractor will begin evaluating and inventorying the barrels, which contain small amounts of radioactive material. They are being stored in Starmet buildings on the 46-acre property off Route 62. The US Army, one of five parties cited by the US Environmental Protection Agency in 2003 for contaminating the site, has agreed to pay for the disposal of the barrels. Starmet's predecessor company, Nuclear Metals Inc., made uranium-tipped bullets for the Army from 1970 to 1999. An investigation of how to clean up the property is continuing, directed by De Maximis Inc. of Weatogue, Conn., which is conducting its research for the Army and the other culpable parties. Next Wednesday, Bruce Thompson, De Maximis project director, will give highlights of his firm's work so far to two Concord groups, Citizens Research and Environmental Watch and the 2229 Main St. Committee. (The Starmet property is located at 2229 Main St.) James West of Concord, a technical assistance coordinator for Citizens Research and Environmental Watch, said De Maximis has been studying all the appropriate site data, but ''the issue will be what they've found." The citizens research group has a $50,000 technical assistance grant from the EPA, which is holding the Wednesday meeting at Concord town offices. The meeting will not be open to the public. Most of the samples taken late last year of metal debris and remnants of some 60 underground drums have now been analyzed by General Engineering Laboratory of Charleston, S.C., Thompson said in a telephone interview last week. ''We'll present the latest interpretations of those analyses" at this week's meeting, Thompson said, declining to give details before the meeting. ''We'll also discuss potential contaminants other than uranium," he added. Thompson reiterated that monitors installed around the property's perimeter are indicating that no contaminants have been released into the air. Next month, he said, groundwater sampling will be done around the 99 monitoring wells, and near 3 to 4 acres of bogs and a cooling-water pond. A second round of sampling will be conducted six months later, he said. An assessment of risks to human health posed by the site could begin later this year, following the final water sampling, Thompson said. Besides the Army, the other responsible parties are the US Department of Energy; Whittaker Corp. of Simi Valley, Calif. ; Textron Inc. of Providence; and MONY Life Insurance. Co. of New York City. The Starmet site went on the EPA's Superfund list in June 2001. The list designates severely contaminated sites, which are being cleaned up under federal supervision. -------- iran Iran says it had no choice but to keep nuclear program secret TEHRAN, Iran (AP) 3/6/2005 http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-03-06-iran-nuclear_x.htm Iran on Sunday blamed American sanctions and European restrictions for denying Tehran access to advanced civilian nuclear technology, forcing it to keep the program secret in its early days and driving the country to the black market for needed materials. Despite the initial secrecy, Iran now openly admits that it has already achieved proficiency in the full range of activities involved in enriching uranium — a technology that can be used to produce fuel for nuclear reactors or atomic bombs. Washington has accused Tehran of using its civilian nuclear program as a cover to build a nuclear bomb. Iran denies the charge, claiming its nuclear program is designed to generate electricity. "True. There was secrecy," said former president Hashemi Rafsanjani. "But secrecy was necessary to buy equipment for a peaceful nuclear program." "If sanctions had not been imposed on us, we would have declared everything publicly, but we had problems buying metal. Nobody sold us anything in the market," he said. Rafsanjani was speaking at the closing session of a two-day international conference on nuclear technology in Tehran, attended by more than 50 international nuclear scientists. President from 1989-97, Rafsanjani also is chairman of the Expediency Council, a powerful body that arbitrates between the parliament and another council that approves proposed legislation. He is believed to have a great influence over Iran's nuclear program. Since last year, Iran has publicly acknowledged that it once bought nuclear equipment from middlemen in south Asia, lending credence to reports that Abdul Qadeer Khan, father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb, was one of the suppliers. Rafsanjani said Iran resorted to the black market because of political "injustice" by the U.S. and Europe. He said Washington and the Europeans had approved the building of 20 nuclear power plants in Iran and provide advanced nuclear technology when Tehran was under the pro-Western shah in the 1970s. But they reversed course after the 1979 Islamic revolution which toppled the shah and brought the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to power. "If the Shah is in Iran, you would give him nuclear technology, but if Imam (Khomeini) is in Iran, you can't do that ... the history of nuclear energy in Iran is a lesson in contradictions in Western policy toward Iran," he said. But Rafsanjani said Iran has been very transparent since 2002 when aspects of its nuclear activities were revealed. He said the country had cooperated with the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, to dispel suspicions that it was seeking nuclear weapons. He said Iran would never agree to a permanent halt on enriching uranium, a technology he says Tehran is entitled to under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Iran suspended its uranium enrichment activities last year to create confidence and avoid U.N. Security Council sanctions. But Tehran says maintaining the voluntary freeze depends on progress in ongoing talks with Britain, Germany and France, who are negotiating on behalf of the European Union. "Definitely we can't stop our nuclear program and won't stop it. You can't take technology away from a country already possessing it," Rafsanjani said. -------- korea Former envoy for North Korea defends nuclear program Sees declaration as effort to gain 'equal footing' By Barbara Demick, Los Angeles Times | March 6, 2005 http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2005/03/06/former_envoy_for_north_korea_defends_nuclear_program?mode=PF BEIJING -- He arrived at the entrance to a restaurant and karaoke club owned by the North Korean government in the capital of China with a handshake and a request. ''Call me Mr. Anonymous," he said in English. This North Korean, an affable man in his late 50s who spent much of his career as a diplomat in Europe, is now tasked with helping his communist country attract foreign investment. With the United States and other countries protesting about everything from North Korea's nuclear weapons to its human rights record, it is a difficult challenge, he acknowledged. ''There's never been a positive article about North Korea, not one," he said. ''We're portrayed as monsters, inhuman, Dracula . . . with horns on our heads." Hoping to clear up misunderstandings, he expounded on the North Korean view of the world in two informal conversations. The North Korean described himself as a ''businessman" with ''close" ties to the government but said he did not want to be named because his views are personal, not official. But because North Koreans seldom talk to the US media, his comments provide rare insight into how things look from the other side. He said better relations with the United States are key to turning around his nation's economy, which has nearly ground to a halt over the past decade amid famine, the collapse of industry, and severe electricity shortages. ''For basic life, we can live without America, but we can live better with" it, he said. Still, he expressed strong enthusiasm over North Korea's recent announcement that it had developed nuclear weapons. The declaration was not intended as a threat, he said, but as a way to advance negotiations. ''Now that we are members of the nuclear club, we can start talking on an equal footing," he said. ''In the past, the US tried to whip us, as though they were saying, 'Little boy, don't play with dangerous things.' " A colleague, a 55-year-old visiting from North Korea, nodded. ''This was the right thing to do, to declare ourselves a nuclear power. The US had been talking not only about economic sanctions, but regime change," the businessman said. ''We can't just sit there waiting for them to do something. We have the right to protect ourselves." The North Koreans said they paid close attention to the language used by Bush administration officials with regard to their country. They were relieved that in the State of the Union address this year President Bush did not characterize North Korea as part of an ''axis of evil," as he did in 2002. But they were offended that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called North Korea an ''outpost of tyranny" during her confirmation hearings. He said Americans have a wrongheaded notion that North Koreans are unhappy with the system of government under leader Kim Jong Il. ''We Asians are traditional people," he said. ''We prefer to have a benevolent father leader." He also said US criticism of North Korea's record on human rights was unfair and hypocritical. The State Department in its annual human rights report characterized North Korea's record as ''extremely poor." It said that 150,000 to 200,000 people are in detention camps for political reasons and that there continued to be reports of extrajudicial killings and disappearances. ''Is there any country where there is a 100 percent guarantee of human rights? Certainly not the United States," he said. ''There is a question of what is a political prisoner. Maybe these people are not political prisoners, but social agitators." While Westerners tend to emphasize the rights of the individual, he said: ''We have chosen collective human rights as a nation. . . . We should have food, shelter, security, rather than chaos and vandalism. The question of our survival as a nation is dangling." The North Korean acknowledged that ''it is no secret that we have economic problems," and he said North Koreans were themselves in large part to blame because they let their industry become too dependent on the socialist bloc countries. After the Soviet Union broke apart in 1991, trade fell sharply. But he faulted the United States for the collapse of a 1994 pact under which North Korea was supposed to receive energy assistance in return for freezing its nuclear program. The agreement fell apart after Washington accused North Korea in 2002 of cheating on the deal, and the United States and its allies suspended deliveries of fuel oil. ''Electricity is a real problem. We have only six hours a day," said the North Korean, who lives in an apartment in a choice neighborhood of Pyongyang, the capital. ''When you are watching a movie on TV, there might be a nice love scene and then suddenly the power is out. People blame the Americans. They blame Bush." The most important point the North Korean said he wanted to convey was that his nation is a place just like any other. ''There is love. There is hate. There is fighting. There is charity. . . . People marry. They divorce. They make children," he said. ''People are just trying to live a normal life." -------- mideast Push for Nuclear-Free Middle East Resurfaces Arab Nations Seek Answers About Israel By Walter Pincus Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, March 6, 2005; Page A24 http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A10418-2005Mar5?language=printer Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and several Arab countries have said they plan to push discussion of creating a nuclear-free Middle East at the May conference of nations that have signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty. For Arab nations, it is a way of highlighting their complaint that Israel's possession of nuclear weapons has been a major factor behind any proliferation in the region, and that the United States employs a double standard in demanding no nuclear weapons programs from Iran and Arab states. In a speech last month, former Iranian president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said his country had been subjected to "bullying" by the IAEA "despite the fact that Tehran opened all doors to the inspections by the U.N. nuclear watchdog." Allegations that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons were being made, he added, "when Israel has stockpiled banned nuclear weapons without any protest or opposition from the IAEA." The Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud Faisal, brought up the same issue recently. "Iran is always mentioned but no one mentions Israel, which has [nuclear] weapons already," he said in an interview with Newsweek. "We wish the international community would enforce the movement to make the Middle East a nuclear-free zone." ElBaradei, an Egyptian, has been sensitive to the issue. In 2003, the Arab League unsuccessfully sought a resolution from the previous general conference that called on Israel to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and to open its nuclear program to inspection. Last year, in an article in the Financial Times, ElBaradei wrote that Israel's refusal to discuss its purported nuclear stockpile "served as an incentive for countries to arm themselves with equal or similar weapons capacity." Israel refuses to confirm its possession of nuclear weapons, with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon saying last year, "Our policy of ambiguity on nuclear arms has proved its worth and it will continue." However, U.S. intelligence has reported to Congress that Israel has had a stockpile since the 1970s that is estimated to include between 200 and 300 bombs and missiles. Most recently, Israel has tested a nuclear-capable cruise missile launchable from a submarine, according to U.S. intelligence sources. Last July, ElBaradei visited Israel and got an agreement from Sharon for the holding of a forum with Israel and Arab states on issues involved in creating a nuclear-free zone. The session was originally planned for January this year but has been postponed because of technical problems. The Egyptians, negotiating for the Arab countries, believe the focus should be on Israel's nuclear capability. For the Israelis, the issue to be addressed first is the need for peace and democracy in the region. As one Western diplomat put it, "For now it [the forum] is dead. They didn't need to commit to anything. . . . But it shows how difficult things really are if they won't even talk about it from a technical point of view." Meanwhile, ElBaradei has said the May NPT conference would discuss Middle East security as part of the Arab-Israeli peace process as it has in years past. "One goal of this dialogue," he said, "would be to make the Middle East a nuclear-weapons-free zone." Israeli Ambassador Daniel Ayalon said last week that the idea of a nuclear-free zone is something to be discussed. But he described his country as being small and surrounded by 22 Arab countries, "many of them hostile." Therefore, he added during an appearance on John McLaughlin's "One on One" program, a Middle East nuclear-free zone "will be viewed very favorably by Israel once we have a comprehensive peace in the area and there are no dangers of attacks or delegitimization by any other country." Israeli officials argue that their nuclear weapons do not represent a threat to other nations, only a deterrent to protect their country from invasion by larger neighbors. But they say that if Iran had such weapons they would be a threat. While U.S. policy has been to support the concept of a nuclear-free Middle East, administration officials almost never acknowledge publicly that Israel's possession of such weapons may be a factor in the actions of other regional powers, such as Iran, Syria, Egypt or Saudi Arabia. The CIA regularly omits mention of Israel's nuclear weapons in its six-month reports to Congress on weapons of mass destruction. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, in a report Thursday, called for the United States and other nuclear powers "to intensify efforts to create of a zone free of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons in the Middle East." Citing the conflicts and rivalries that abound in the region, the report says, "This knot of real and exaggerated security threats and status seeking is pulled tighter still by Israel's undeclared possession of nuclear weapons, and by its continuing conflict with the Palestinians and with neighboring Arab states that do not recognize its existence." George Perkovich, one of the study's authors, said one starting point for the region could be to have Israel halt its production of fissile materials, the same thing that is being asked of Iran. "Our aim should be to create a security environment, and you can't do that if you don't recognize publicly that Israel has nuclear weapons," he said. Staff writer Dafna Linzer contributed to this report. -------- pacific Tsunami bomb NZ's devastating war secret 30.06.2000 New Zealand Herald By Eugene Bingham http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?ObjectID=14727 Top-secret wartime experiments were conducted off the coast of Auckland to perfect a tidal wave bomb, declassified files reveal. An Auckland University professor seconded to the Army set off a series of underwater explosions triggering mini-tidal waves at Whangaparaoa in 1944 and 1945. Professor Thomas Leech's work was considered so significant that United States defence chiefs said that if the project had been completed before the end of the war it could have played a role as effective as that of the atom bomb. Details of the tsunami bomb, known as Project Seal, are contained in 53-year-old documents released by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Papers stamped "top secret" show the US and British military were eager for Seal to be developed in the post-war years too. They even considered sending Professor Leech to Bikini Atoll to view the US nuclear tests and see if they had any application to his work. He did not make the visit, although a member of the US board of assessors of atomic tests, Dr Karl Compton, was sent to New Zealand. "Dr Compton is impressed with Professor Leech's deductions on the Seal project and is prepared to recommend to the Joint Chiefs of Staff that all technical data from the test relevant to the Seal project should be made available to the New Zealand Government for further study by Professor Leech," said a July 1946 letter from Washington to Wellington. Professor Leech, who died in his native Australia in 1973, was the university's dean of engineering from 1940 to 1950. News of his being awarded a CBE in 1947 for research on a weapon led to speculation in newspapers around the world about what was being developed. Though high-ranking New Zealand and US officers spoke out in support of the research, no details of it were released because the work was on-going. A former colleague of Professor Leech, Neil Kirton, told the Weekend Herald that the experiments involved laying a pattern of explosives underwater to create a tsunami. Small-scale explosions were carried out in the Pacific and off Whangaparaoa, which at the time was controlled by the Army. It is unclear what happened to Project Seal once the final report was forwarded to Wellington Defence Headquarters late in the 1940s. The bomb was never tested on a full scale, and Mr Kirton doubts that Aucklanders would have noticed the trials. "Whether it could ever be resurrected ... Under some circumstances I think it could be devastating." -------- u.s. nuc weapons A Destabilizing Bit of Research March 6, 2005 NY TIMES EDITORIAL http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/06/opinion/06sun3.html?pagewanted=print&position= The Bush administration's regressive plan to develop powerful "bunker busting" nuclear weapons was held in check last year only after Congress failed to come up with research money. Ominously, lawmakers from both parties see a strong chance the money will be found this year because of concern over rogue nuclear states like North Korea. Fears of a new nuclear arms race had kept this and a companion plan for smaller weapons bottled up for years under a Congressional ban. But the administration overcame Capitol resistance two years ago, insisting research was needed on more precise nuclear weapons to use against mobile and underground targets. If anything, the events of the past two years - particularly the faulty to nonexistent intelligence on Iraq - provide further caution against providing Pentagon planners with new nuclear options for hit-and-miss stratagems. Even underground nuclear explosions would spew masses of radioactive material into the sky. These days, merely hypothesizing their use against suspected targets in an unstable place like North Korea feeds anxiety about proliferation and threatens to end the "nuclear taboo" that has kept the world free of nuclear warfare since World War II. One approving lawmaker told CQ Today that an opening appropriation of $8.5 million would serve as an "attention getter" for North Korea. Right, and for the rest of the world too - undermining the administration's calls for nuclear restraint. Although Congress has only authorized research, everyone knows the military procurement tap is hard to wrench closed once the research money flows. A safer bet for the world would be to invest the money in improving precision-guided bombs and missiles with conventional warheads. ---- NUCLEAR EXCHANGE A-Bomb Museum Sterilizes History By Robert C. Koehler Tribune Media Services, March 6, 2005 http://www.tmsfeatures.com/tmsfeatures/subcategory.jsp?custid=67&catid=1824 From the point of view of the ones with fallout-related cancers, or who lost parents, spouses or children to such illnesses, this was a bad idea - kind of like creating a "happy" museum at Auschwitz. Linton Brooks, undersecretary of energy for nuclear security, who gave the keynote speech at the dedication of Las Vegas' brand-new Atomic Testing Museum on Feb. 19, summed up the stakes involved in this $4.5 million public-private endeavor with dead-on accuracy: "We need to preserve the past so it can point the way to the future." Problem is, the future Brooks envisions is a United States with an updated, modernized arsenal of "usable" nuclear weapons and, no doubt, a resumption of the dress rehearsals for Armageddon that were ongoing at the Nevada Test Site from 1951 to 1992. So what past do you preserve? Do you preserve the past that begins with the famous utterance of Manhattan Project director J. Robert Oppenheimer, upon witnessing the first atomic explosion in 1945, "I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds" (quoting the Bhagavad-Gita); that continues through 1953's fallout-spewing "Dirty Harry" blast and the decades of lies and deceptions of the Atomic Energy Commission about the safety of nuclear testing; and culminates, perhaps, in the anguished efforts of the "downwinders" many years later to get government compensation for their various radiation-related illnesses, as well as straight answers and an apology? Or do you preserve a past where nuclear weapons are safe, patriotic and just plain fun? ".the history of testing, as told here, is largely the history of its justification," Edward Rothstein wrote recently in the New York Times, reviewing the glitzy new museum, which was partially funded by such military-industrial-complex biggies as Bechtel and Lockheed Martin. Rothstein describes the theme-park-like feel of the museum, which includes a Sensurround theater, complete with air cannons and subwoofers, where visitors can experience the simulated (fallout-free) vibes of a real nuclear test; as well as a photo display of such '50s pop-culture kitsch as "atomic hairdos" and Miss Atomic Blast of Council Bluffs. "This is a museum that celebrates WMDs!" Mary Dickson, one of the downwinders and a survivor of thyroid cancer, exclaimed to me with bitter irony. And a press release put out by Downwinders Opposed to Nuclear Testing - or DONT - described the museum as "nothing more than a monument to propaganda." The release quoted Arizona downwinder Eleanore Fanire: "The government doesn't want to acknowledge downwinders in the museum because they'd have to admit to America that they used their own citizens for guinea pigs." Another downwinder, Valerie Brown of Idaho, said that a message she had left on the museum's electronic message board (www.ntshf.org) was removed because "Political messages will not be posted." My God, a publicly funded nuclear smiley-face museum and censorship to boot? I was appalled enough to look into the matter. What I found is that maybe the museum's doors aren't completely air-locked against dissent and a complex view of our nuclear legacy. I hope this is the case. Troy Wade, who is president of the Nevada Test Site Historical Foundation and the driving force behind the museum, told me, "I worked at the test site since 1958 and had a lot of friends who died." He defended the museum's fairness, noting that nuclear-testing critic Dina Titus, author of "Bombs in the Backyard," is featured on an eight-minute tape loop in the theater. And he acknowledged that the removal of Brown's posting from the message board was a mistake that won't happen again. This isn't much, maybe - not in the context of cancer, Armageddon and Linton Brooks' savvy comment about the future of the nation and the human race. But Wade also said, "I would welcome a conversation with any of the downwinders." Well, let the dialogue begin! I think the downwinders, enlisting the help of Nevada's Sen. Harry Reid, whose spokesman told me their story must be part of any comprehensive history of the Test Site, should ask for a chance to present, in their own way, the ghastly human cost of America's nuclear weapons program. I don't think they should settle for less than their own wing - perhaps in the part of the museum financed with public money. (Robert Koehler, an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist, is an editor at Tribune Media Services and nationally syndicated writer. You can respond to this column at bkoehler@tribune.com.) -------- u.s. nuc facilities -------- nevada Yucca Mountain nuclear dump isn't 'inevitable' Guy W. Farmer March 6, 2005 Nevada Appeal http://www.nevadaappeal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050306/OPINION/103060018&template=printart Even though former Gov. Bob List and other highly paid shills for the nuclear energy industry keep telling us that the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository is "inevitable," it is now clear that this fatally flawed project is in serious trouble in Washington, D.C., and here in Nevada. In an appearance before the State Senate Finance Committee late last month, Attorney General Brian Sandoval predicted that the toxic waste dump will never open. Sandoval accurately described the Yucca Mountain site 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas as "a volcano that sits on an earthquake fault above an aquifer, next to the Nevada Test Site, next to one of the nation's largest organic farms, next to the state's largest dairy, adjacent to ... (America's) fastest-growing metropolitan area (and) next to one of the busiest Air Force bases in the country." "If you could choose a worse place to store nuclear waste, I really challenge you to do so," he added. "It's just a matter of time before this project fails." Well said, Mr. Attorney General. As a high-profile Republican, Sandoval's strong opposition to the waste dump is in direct contrast to the position of the Nevada Republican Party, which endorsed the Yucca Mountain project last year and urged state officials to make a deal with the Feds and the nuclear industry. "No way!" responded GOP elected office-holders Sandoval, Gov. Kenny Guinn, Sen. John Ensign and Congressman Jim Gibbons. I admire them for holding the line against their party's sell-outs, who are willing to mortgage the future of our children and grandchildren for federal dollars. Yucca Mountain proponents have already acknowledged that the waste dump won't open by the 2010 target date and thanks to efforts by Nevada's congressional delegation, led by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, the project's budget was cut by 35 percent, from $880 million down to $572 million, in the current fiscal year. And that's only the beginning as more and more design and safety flaws are revealed. "The (Bush) administration is still pushing the project," said Sen. Reid, "and still wasting millions of dollars on it, but the lower budget request also indicates they realize there are significant hurdles ahead." Are there ever! And the more the better. Former Gov. List, who opposed the Yucca Mountain project while he was in office, is still trying to convince us that we should allow the federal government to dump 77,000 tons of the nation's most deadly radioactive waste on our state. List told the Senate Judiciary Committee last month that "the likelihood of this project is greater than it has ever been." And according to the Reno News & Review, the nuclear energy industry is promoting a new coalition of money-grubbing businessmen and lobbyists dubbed "For a Better Nevada," which - in the words of the RN&R - "seeks to exploit the dump as a cash cow for Nevada." This group's phony name reminds me of that "Nevadans for Better Law Enforcement" outfit that tried to legalize drugs in our state. We saw through that scam, however, and will do the same for the nuclear dump advocates. Rep. Gibbons and Attorney General Sandoval, among others, have asked why the federal government isn't studying nuclear recycling technology as an alternative to Yucca Mountain. "I can't think of a more primitive way to deal with this waste ... than to dig a hole in the ground and cover it up," Sandoval told state lawmakers. A Gibbons spokesperson opined that "we should be spending (taxpayer) money on 21st century technology to deal with the problem," in view of the fact that nuclear waste recycling is currently operating in France and other countries. Just prior to the start of this year's legislative session, the Nevada Nuclear Projects Commission delivered a report to Gov. Guinn declaring that the Yucca Mountain project is "on the verge of collapse" as it "limps along" toward its eventual demise. But a U.S. Energy Department spokesman said Yucca Mountain is moving forward despite all of the obstacles in its path including a Nuclear Regulatory Commission requirement that all project documents be part of an electronic database and a federal court decision ordering the EPA to re-draft safety standards and the NRC to change its licensing rules. That looks like an uphill battle to me, and it couldn't happen to more deserving folks. Another possible solution to this toxic problem would be to dump the radioactive waste in Skull Valley, Utah, where the Goshute Indians are campaigning for a nuclear waste repository on tribal lands about 50 miles west of Salt Lake City. Although that site would be uncomfortably close to Elko and Wendover, it's a better alternative than Yucca Mountain. Ironically, the state of Utah and environmental groups argue that the Skull Valley site is dangerously close to a major population center, too dependent on the movement of highly dangerous waste by rail, and too vulnerable to terrorists. Do those arguments sound familiar? Following the "NIMBY" rule, however, the Utah congressional delegation always votes to dump the nuclear waste in Nevada. Now it's their turn to fight against a dump site in their own state. As far as I'm concerned, when it comes to nuclear waste, turnabout is fair play. So I hope the Bush administration and the Energy Department fall flat on their collective faces as they attempt to move the Yucca Mountain project forward in the face of overwhelming opposition - more than 70 percent - from the citizens of our state. This is progress? An officer of the local builders association thinks a tacky hillbilly hotel with a flaming oil derrick would be good for historic Carson City, and he wants to cover our Sierra hillsides with tract housing. That's not my definition of "progress." How about you? Guy W. Farmer, a semi-retired journalist and former U.S. diplomat, resides in Carson City. -------- washington Slowdown in Program to Clean Up Nuclear Waste in Washington State Is Drawing Criticism By MATTHEW L. WALD March 6, 2005 NY Times http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/06/politics/06waste.html?pagewanted=print&position= ASHINGTON, March 5 - The Energy Department is drawing increasing criticism for its plan to slow down its cleanup of radioactive waste in tanks at the Hanford nuclear reservation in Washington State. The energy secretary, Samuel W. Bodman, told the Senate Energy Committee on Thursday that there are issues "where we do have differences of opinion" on how thoroughly the underground tanks should be emptied. "We have slowed the spending down there, in order to take on those things where we are in agreement," Mr. Bodman said. The tanks are filled with waste from decades of atomic bomb manufacture. Most of the material is high-level waste, which by law must be stabilized and buried. But in recent years the department has defined some of the material as "waste incidental to reprocessing," which does not require deep burial, and said it wants to cover it with grout and leave it in the tanks. An environmental group, the Natural Resources Defense Council, sued to keep the department from making its own definitions for the waste, and won the first round last year in Federal District Court in Idaho. But then the department reached agreement with South Carolina and Idaho, which have similar tanks, and got Congress to approve the agreement. The department also appealed the court decision, and an appeals court ruled that it was too soon to resolve the issue. In Washington, some of the tanks date from the program to develop nuclear weapons in World War II. Many of the tanks have leaked, and some of their contents have reached the Columbia River, officials have said. The department had planned to pump the contents of the tanks to a vitrification plant that would embed the worst of the wastes in glass. But it has slowed work on the plant too, after discovering that the area may be more vulnerable to earthquakes than first thought. The vitrification process is expensive, and the department's proposed burial site, at Yucca Mountain, near Las Vegas, is too small for all the glass that would be needed. President Bush's budget cuts the Energy Department's overall budget by about 2 percent. The budget for environmental management, including waste cleanup, was set at $6.5 billion, down from $7.05 billion this year. Of the reduction across the country, nearly half is at the Hanford site. Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon and a member of the energy committee, complained that Mr. Bodman had been widely quoted as saying that cleanup money was being cut because so much had been completed. But at Hanford, Mr. Wyden said, "none of the waste from the tanks has been processed, and the vitrification plant has not been built." Many others have complained about the budget. Representative Jay Inslee, Democrat of Washington, said when the budget was released that it represented "budgetary blackmail," an effort to make Washington agree to a less-thorough cleanup. Another representative from Washington, Doc Hastings, a Republican, said that he strongly objected to the department's trying to use uncertainty created by the court cases "as an excuse to slow or halt work." On Tuesday, the National Academy of Science went further, arguing in a study that the department itself had requested that it should not be making these decisions. "A formal, well-structured exemption process is needed regardless of the outcome of the various lawsuits and appeals," the report said. The tanks are old and frail, and the report said that emptying them completely might create greater risks than leaving residue alone. But the Energy Department has an "apparent conflict of interest" in deciding for itself how thorough a job it should do, the science panel said. Geoffrey H. Fettus, the lawyer at the environmental group that brought the original suit, said that with this "most dangerous and toxic of all wastes, a neutral third party should decide." At the hearing on Thursday, Senator Maria Cantwell, Democrat of Washington, referred to the study and asked Mr. Bodman if he would work with the committee to establish a third-party regulator. Mr. Bodman, who was confirmed by the Senate for his new job on Jan. 30, said that he had not read the report and that he thought his department had the authority to make the determinations, but that he would take that into account, along with the wishes of the state. -------- MILITARY -------- arms Arms embargo against Somalia must be tightened, UN report says /noticias.info/ Domingo 6 de marzo de 2005 http://www.noticias.info/asp/aspComunicados.asp?nid=50329&src=0 With sporadic fighting continuing in Somalia and preventing the implementation of United Nations programmes in large areas of the country, Secretary-General Kofi Annan is calling for a tighter arms embargo against the Horn of Africa country, especially for heavy weapons. "Greater efforts should be made to enforce the arms embargo in Somalia….Reports indicate large-scale violations of the arms embargo, not only by extremist groups and militias, but also some Members of Parliament," he says in a report to the Security Council on the situation in the country. "The importation of explosives and heavy weapons is especially worrisome. Small arms proliferation is a major concern that needs to be addressed in the longer term, but the presence of large quantities of heavy weapons (tanks, artillery, anti-aircraft guns, multi-barrelled rocket launchers and heavy mortars) poses a more immediate problem." A long-term solution to the confrontation between the pro-secessionist Somali areas called "Somaliland" and "Puntland" over the control of the Sool and Sanaag regions is not yet in sight and the two sides continue to deploy troops in those areas, the report says. There were few clashes until last November when several men were killed in a clash near Las Anod. In the Bay and Bakool regions internal disputes among members of the Rahanwein Resistance Army have led to a proliferation of checkpoints which limit the movements of UN and other aid agencies, it says. The UN Development Programme (UNDP) is working closely with the Transitional Federal Parliament in arranging the Government's phased move from Kenya to Somalia and will train 5,000 policemen in the south-central area of the country. In a new move for Somalia, 13 female cadets from across the country have been recruited for the Mandera Police Academy, it says, and they have been given allowances to visit their families periodically to relieve any anxieties about their well-being. A new initiative is underway in Hargeysa to use land ownership data to increase municipal revenues, help urban planning, develop postal systems and name roads. The initiative will take place next in Burco and Boroma, the report says. The World Bank's Low Income Countries under Stress (LICUS) programme and UNDP, in cooperation with the provincial ministries of education and three universities, have launched a distance-learning project for Somali students and faculties. In addition, a study of Arabic language schools has been completed with a view to working out a common curriculum and common public examinations, the report says, and it calls on Arab League countries to increase their aid to the country. -------- mideast U.S. Rejects Syria's Withdrawal Plan for Lebanon Citing U.N. Resolution, Washington Says Troop Pullout Must Be Quick By Robin Wright Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, March 6, 2005; Page A24 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10419-2005Mar5.html The United States yesterday rejected Syria's announcement of a gradual withdrawal of its troops from Lebanon as inadequate and charged that Damascus is defying a U.N. resolution, as well as demands from the international community and its own Middle East allies. In unusually sharp language, the White House said President Bashar Assad's "half measures" were "not enough." Rather than make a phased pullout with a vague timeline, Damascus must withdraw "completely and immediately" all its military forces and intelligence agents, White House spokeswoman Erin Healy said. The Bush administration also warned that Syria will have to account for its actions. "The world is watching the situation in Lebanon, particularly in Beirut, very closely," Healy said. "The world will hold the governments of Lebanon and Syria directly accountable for any intimidation, confrontation or violence directed against the people of Lebanon, and we have made this clear to both governments. The United States and the world stand with the people of Lebanon at this critical moment," she added. Washington is increasingly concerned that the showdown over Syria's 30-year military presence in Lebanon, triggered by the assassination last month of former prime minister Rafiq Hariri, will spark new violence in an effort by Damascus or its allies to divert attention -- or to try to prove the need for Syrian troops. Syria first deployed forces there in 1976 in an unsuccessful bid to end Lebanon's civil war. It has refused to pull out despite a 1990 peace pact that included a call for Syria to leave. A senior State Department official said the Syrian leader is again only toying with the international community. "Our experience with Assad is that he does the minimum, and this time he seems to be trying to get away with the minimum," he said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of ongoing diplomacy. Assad's pledge to coordinate with the government in Beirut has no credibility because Syria "appointed or manipulated into power" Lebanon's government, he added. "That doesn't build confidence." The White House made clear that Syrian troops must be out of Lebanon before the country holds national elections this spring. The as-yet-unscheduled poll must be "free, fair and credible . . . and monitored and guaranteed by international observers," Healy said. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, who is sending special envoy Terje Roed-Larson to Syria and Lebanon later this week, has said he hopes Syria will pull out by April, when he will next report to the U.N. Security Council on Syria's compliance with Resolution 1559. In his Saturday radio address, President Bush lauded the tens of thousands of Lebanese who have joined street protests against the murder of Hariri and 17 others. He also assailed Syria for its occupation of Lebanon, its support of terrorism and for being a "key obstacle" to a broader Middle East peace. Noting the unity between Europe and the United States, Bush said the world is now "speaking with one voice to ensure that democracy and freedom are given a chance to flourish in Lebanon." His remarks were taped on Friday and released before Assad's speech, but U.S. officials had already predicted that Damascus would not fulfill its obligations under the U.N. resolution passed last fall. Other nations initially were not as tough, however. France, which co-sponsored the resolution with the United States, said in a foreign ministry statement that Paris expects a pullout "as soon as possible," but Britain, Russia and the European Union said Assad's speech was a positive if incomplete first step. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has formed a task force on Lebanon to monitor the situation, a State Department official said. In the meantime, the administration is exploring how to support Lebanon's crucial elections with international observers, possibly including American and European experts. "The Syrian and Lebanese governments need to respect the will of the Lebanese people," Healy said. "And the Lebanese must be able to express themselves free from intimidation and the threat of violence." -------- spies U.S. targets spy services abroad By Bill Gertz THE WASHINGTON TIMES March 06, 2005 http://www.washtimes.com/national/20050305-111738-8027r.htm COLLEGE STATION, Texas -- The Bush administration has adopted a new counterintelligence strategy that calls for "attacking" foreign spy services and the spy components of terrorist groups before they can strike, a senior U.S. intelligence official said yesterday. National Counterintelligence Executive Michelle Van Cleave said in a speech here that the past policy of waiting for intelligence threats to emerge "ceded the initiative to the adversary." "No longer will we wait until taking action," Miss Van Cleave said during a conference hosted by the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University. "To meet the threat, U.S. counterintelligence needs to go on the offensive, which will require major but achievable changes in the way we do business." The new mission for counterintelligence is to identify foreign spies and terrorist threats, and then develop "a counterintelligence doctrine of attacking foreign intelligence services systematically via strategic counterintelligence operations," Miss Van Cleave said. The offensive counterintelligence strategy is part of the Bush administration's policy of pre-empting strategic threats. It is also part of President Bush's announced plan to promote democracy and freedom and undermine global tyranny, she said. In the past, counterintelligence often was limited to "catching spies." Previously captured spies, including CIA turncoat Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen, a Russian mole in the FBI, "caused stunning losses," Miss Van Cleave said. In the battle against terrorists, new counterintelligence activities will target the intelligence services of state sponsors of terrorism, such as Syria and Iran. "The intelligence services of state sponsors may represent the key links in the global terrorist-support network," Miss Van Cleave said. "Terrorist groups perform traditional intelligence activities in the way they gather information, recruit sources and use assets." Under the new strategy, U.S. intelligence agencies will more aggressively work to disrupt terrorist operations by targeting their intelligence links. The strategy was approved March 1 by the president, and formal guidance to the CIA, FBI and other security agencies involved in counterintelligence work will be issued in the next several weeks, a U.S. intelligence official said. A formal report on the strategy also will be made public and sent to Congress, perhaps as early as this month. The national counterintelligence executive is a White House-level office that was placed under the control of the new director of national intelligence as part of the recently enacted intelligence-reform legislation. Miss Van Cleave's comments came as FBI and CIA officials at the conference said the threat from foreign intelligence services -- specifically, Russia and China -- is growing. Barry Royden, a veteran CIA official, said Russian intelligence services are targeting U.S. troops in the Middle East for recruitment as agents, as well as seeking recruits among Americans in Russia. Russian intelligence officers are using "very aggressive actions and operations," including blackmail, extortion and entrapment "to try to get people to commit espionage," Mr. Royden said. He also said the Russians are conducting "very aggressive operations against our troops in the Middle East." He did not elaborate. "We get continued reporting about very aggressive actions and operations against Americans of all types and stripes" in Russia and other parts of the world, Mr. Royden said. Tim Bereznay, a senior FBI counterintelligence official, said Chinese intelligence activities are a major threat -- specifically, Beijing's covert targeting of U.S. weapons technology. Counterintelligence against Chinese spying "is our main priority," Mr. Bereznay. He said he fears his 4-year-old grandson might one day have to go to war in the Taiwan Strait against a Chinese military armed with stolen U.S. weapons technology. "I would hate for my grandson to be killed with U.S. technology," Mr. Bereznay said. Lisa Bronson, a Pentagon technology security director, told the conference that China's government conducts large-scale activities aimed at gathering American high-technology secrets through front companies. "China has somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 front companies in the U.S., and their sole reason for existing is to steal, exploit U.S. technology," Miss Bronson said. It is difficult to assess what technologies China already has obtained illicitly from the United States, she said. China has "an aggressive military modernization program and we're concerned about that aggressive military modernization program, and that's probably going to be one of the biggest challenges in the combination of the counterintelligence and technology security world in the next five or 10 years," Miss Bronson said. -------- us Indian Head Vulnerable to Base Closure By Joshua Partlow Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, March 6, 2005; Page C04 Inside the gates of the Naval Surface Warfare Center's Indian Head Division in Charles County, cell phones are required to be turned off because the material manufactured at the center is so sensitive that a wireless call could trigger an explosion. Ominous signs line the road to the torpedo fuel plant: "Nitroglycerin Crossing," "Danger Nitrating: Keep Out." In a small room deep in an earthen bunker, foreman Kenny Grimes watches the acids and polyols slosh through the stainless steel reactor. "That's a very high explosive," he said. "Very, very unstable." With another round of military base closures fast approaching, a sense of instability hovers over everything at Indian Head, a former gunpowder factory perched on a 3,400-acre wooded peninsula along the Potomac River in Southern Maryland. The base is the largest employer in the county, providing 3,800 jobs -- many of them to high-paid chemists and engineers -- and driving about 20 percent of the county's economy. But it is also emerging as perhaps the most vulnerable of Maryland's major military installations in the base realignment and closure process known as "BRAC." Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has set a goal of slashing up to a quarter of the military's infrastructure to save $7 billion annually. The list of affected bases comes out in mid-May. "In earlier BRACs, everything that's easy to close has been closed," said John Bloom, president of the Indian Head Defense Alliance, a group fighting to protect the base. "All the low-hanging fruit has been picked." Other larger bases can make an easier claim of military necessity, Bloom said. Fort Detrick in Frederick County, for example, is on the cutting edge of a growing biochemical defense industry. Without Andrews Air Force Base in Prince George's County, "the president would have to find someplace else to land," he said. "If you rank them, guess which one is the most vulnerable?" he said. "And that's because there are other places that covet what Indian Head does." Primarily, what Indian Head does involves working with propellants and explosives. Along with adjacent Stump Neck Annex, it develops the thermobaric bombs used in caves in Afghanistan, blasters that eject pilots from jet cockpits and gadgets used to dismantle homemade bombs planted along roads in Iraq. Local officials fear the Pentagon could consolidate explosives programs at other bases, primarily the China Lake Navy Base in California. "We cannot underestimate the threat of China Lake," Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.) said at a "BRAC-proofing" strategy session in Waldorf last month. "This is a big deal." During the last round of base closures in 1995, the Navy initially put Indian Head on the closure list, but it was taken off by the time the Defense Department's official recommendations came out, several local officials said. Some attribute this partially to the lobbying and personal relationship between Rep. Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) and then-Navy Secretary John H. Dalton. Others say it was too costly to move Indian Head's facilities and repair the environmental impact of decades of chemical work. "It became clear that it was too expensive to close Indian Head then, and it will likely remain too expensive to close today," Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) said in a letter to Rumsfeld last year, in an effort to save the base. In neighboring St. Mary's County, where the Patuxent River Naval Air Station accounts for more than 20,000 jobs and 80 percent of the economy, officials worry that a piece of their operation, such as a test pilot school, could be plucked off and moved to another area. Fort Monroe, an Army base in Virginia that has a 19th century moat and stone wall on its grounds, also has been a source of worry. Experts say other potential cost-cutting victims include Bolling Air Force Base in the District and the Naval Surface Warfare Center's Dahlgren Division in Virginia, across the Potomac River from Indian Head. In this year's round, predicted to be larger than the four previous rounds combined, Rumsfeld will present the list of bases by May 16 to a nine-member base realignment and closure commission. After that, bases can be moved on or off the list only with a vote from the commission. President Bush has until late September to approve or reject the list. If approved, the last step is congressional approval. The list "is going to be the mother of all base closures," said Loren Thompson, a defense analyst with the Lexington Institute. "People in Washington tend to assume that base closures and military efficiencies happen somewhere else. It's not going to be like that this time around." -------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE -------- homeland security / national intelligence U.S. Adopts Preemptive Counterintelligence Strategy By David Morgan Reuters Sunday, March 6, 2005; Page A07 http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A10397-2005Mar5?language=printer COLLEGE STATION, Tex., March 5 -- The Bush administration has adopted a new counterintelligence strategy that calls for preemptive action against foreign intelligence services viewed as threats to national security, officials said Saturday. The first national U.S. counterintelligence strategy, which President Bush approved on Tuesday, aims to combat intelligence services from countries hungry for U.S. military and nuclear secrets, such as China and Iran, both at home and abroad, counterintelligence officials said. Officials at a counterintelligence conference at Texas A&M University described the strategy as an extension of the post-Sept. 11 foreign policy initiative known as the Bush doctrine, which calls for preemptive action against nations and extremist groups perceived as threats to the United States. "The United States has become the number one target for the intelligence collection of other nations," said John Quattrocki, a senior U.S. counterintelligence official. "What we'd like to do with the counterintelligence program is what we've done with counterterrorism, which is take the fight to other guy's back yard and exploit and interdict where we can, and at home, interdict where we must." The strategy is scheduled to be released to the public as an unclassified document in coming days. Officials said the plan aims to protect U.S. intelligence and information systems from foreign agents, including al Qaeda, by integrating counterintelligence through the new Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive. Counterintelligence efforts are currently dispersed across the 15 agencies that make up the intelligence community. "We have a great deal of bilateral cooperation between agencies. But we need strategically orchestrated operations directed against prioritized foreign intelligence threats," said national counterintelligence executive Michelle Van Cleave, who will oversee the plan. Former intelligence officials described the strategy as an attempt to revitalize counterintelligence after years of neglect and demoralization after espionage cases involving CIA agent Aldrich H. Ames and FBI agent Robert P. Hanssen, who were both caught spying for the former Soviet Union. "Today we are at war, and the potential harm to this country from intelligence losses is far more immediate," Van Cleave said. The strategy marks a departure from a longstanding counterintelligence practice of waiting for foreign-sponsored agents to act against intelligence and law enforcement agencies before responding. "Instead of being willing to take a punch and be damaged, we in fact take the skills of counterintelligence and . . . impose damage on other intelligence services," Quattrocki, a top aide to Van Cleave, said. He declined to identify countries seen as potential targets. But other officials cited China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba and Libya as nations that have tried to collect U.S. secrets through spy techniques, including cyber espionage. -------- POLITICS -------- us politics Congressman says Syria nuclear bomb comment was a joke 3/6/2005 (AP) http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-03-06-nuclear-joke_x.htm DALLAS — A congressman who raised eyebrows with recent remarks about personally wanting to drop a nuclear bomb on Syria now says he was joking. The Feb. 19 remarks by Rep. Sam Johnson, R-Texas, at a church pancake breakfast were first reported this week in Roll Call. The Capitol Hill newspaper reported it had heard a recording of the talk made by someone in attendance. According to Roll Call, Johnson said he was talking with President Bush and GOP Rep. Kay Granger at the White House about weapons of mass destruction that troops failed to find in Iraq. According to Roll Call, Johnson said he told the president: "Syria is the problem. Syria is where those weapons of mass destruction are, in my view. You know, I can fly an F-15, put two nukes on 'em and I'll make one pass. We won't have to worry about Syria anymore." Johnson, 74, is a former Air Force combat pilot who served in Korea and Vietnam, where he was shot down and spent 7 1/2 years as a prisoner of war. Johnson did not respond to a request for comment by The Associated Press on Friday. However, he told The Dallas Morning News that he was surprised anyone took his comments seriously and has never advocated a nuclear strike on Syria. "I was kind of joking — you know, we were talking between veterans," he said. He added that President Bush knew he was joking. -------- ENERGY -------- alternative energy Executive forced to stop ‘green’ fuel schemes By Rob Edwards 06 March 2005 UK Sunday Herald http://www.sundayherald.com/48108 THE Scottish Executive is being forced to suspend schemes encouraging motorists to convert to less polluting fuels because it has fallen foul of European rules on state aid. Over the past three years the Executive has given £2.84 million to three projects. CleanUp gave grants to cut emissions from lorries and buses, PowerShift helped convert or buy cars with cleaner fuels like electricity, and Autogas helped convert or buy cars to run on liquefied petroleum gas (LPG). But all three schemes are to be halted at the end of March while approval is sought from the European Commission for new schemes that don’t break state aid rules. This is expected to take at least a few months. The withdrawal of the schemes has drawn fierce criticism from the SNP’s shadow energy and environment minister, Richard Lochhead MSP. He pointed out that fewer than 2000 vehicles had been converted under the schemes since 2002, out of about a quarter of a million vehicles on the roads. “How on earth can the European Commission talk seriously about wanting to tackle climate change but call a halt to even the pathetically small schemes that exist to convert the traffic on our roads to cleaner fuels?” he added. European rules put strict limits on the level of grants member states are allowed to provide for environmental purposes. The Executive confirmed that the schemes were being reconsidered as part of a move to encourage cleaner cars. -------- OTHER -------- health Court KOs Schwarzenegger plan Associated Press March 06, 2005 http://www.washtimes.com/national/20050305-111738-5015r.htm SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) -- In a significant blow to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a judge has ruled that he acted illegally when he delayed implementation of a state law requiring hospitals to have at least one nurse for every five patients. Administration officials promised to appeal Friday's ruling by Superior Court Judge Judy Holzer Hersher, who issued a preliminary injunction canceling the emergency delay imposed by Mr. Schwarzenegger on Nov. 4. The attorney general's office and California Hospital Association (CHA) argued that invalidating the governor's action endangers public health as well as hospital finances. Hospitals have been required to have one nurse for each six patients in medical and surgical wings and one nurse for each four patients in emergency rooms, but a 1999 law required a new one-to-five ratio by Jan. 1. Mr. Schwarzenegger's emergency order delayed that ratio until 2008 while the state Department of Health Services conducted new studies. His action also gave hospitals flexibility to temporarily override emergency room patient ratios during sudden, unexpected arrivals of patients. The 60,000-member California Nurses Association (CNA) sued Mr. Schwarzenegger on Dec. 21. CNA attorney James Eggleston told the judge Friday that the association had sought the one-in-five ratio -- the nation's first -- to combat "the managed care philosophy of staffing, to make it so lean it becomes dangerous." The state has about 300,000 nurses, the hospital association says. Hospital officials have argued the requirements would force California's 400 hospitals to turn away patients during crises and boost their staffs by an estimated 4,000 nurses -- a feat they claim will be nearly impossible as the state already has 14,000 hospital nursing vacancies. The hospital industry says thousands of nurses have left the state, and the state estimates California will need 42,000 more nurses within five years. Deputy Attorney General Janie Daigle and CHA attorney Robert Leventhal said problems arose almost immediately after implementation of the one-in-six ratios in 2004 and hospitals require more time than originally expected before beginning the tougher requirements. "We thought one year would be enough, but almost immediately upon implementation [in 2004], reports started coming in," Mr. Daigle told the judge. Hospitals were turning away patients because of nursing shortages, and some hospitals even closed because the one-in-six ratio damaged their financial conditions, the attorneys said. The judge, however, held that the hospitals' financial state didn't give the state the right to delay the law, saying its intent was to improve patient safety. The administration "strongly rejects" the ruling, said Kim Belshe, Mr. Schwarzenegger's secretary of health and human services. "We're confident in our actions, and we're not backing down." ---- High schools try to rid mercury from science labs Associated Press 3/6/2005 http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-03-06-mercury-schools_x.htm WASHINGTON (AP) — As mercury spills in schools disrupt classes, teachers and environmental groups want to rid student labs of the versatile but dangerous metal. In recent weeks, mercury was found in stairwells and corridors of a high school in the nation's capital. The building had to be closed twice for decontamination. Although the spills get headlines, the use of mercury in schools actually is declining, said Ken Roy, a physics teachers in Glastonbury, Conn., and co-chairman of the National Science Teachers Association's safety advisory board. "The awareness is so high now that I would say a good part of it (mercury) is gone from schools," Roy said. "The problem comes when a teacher retires, and someone new comes in and finds a horde of it in a cabinet in a chemical storeroom. You've got to dig for it." In its elemental form, mercury is shiny, silver and odorless. It is the only metal on earth that is liquid at room temperature. In schools, mercury is found in fever thermometers, electronic light switches and other basic equipment. It is most common in science labs, where mercury-filled instructional tools have been used for decades. But the fascination with small beads of mercury has given way to talk of their potential risks. Mercury turns into a problem when it is spilled and evaporates into airborne vapors, which can be absorbed into the body through breathing. Exposure to high levels of metallic mercury can damage the brain, kidneys and lungs. Prolonged exposure to lower levels can cause problems with sleep, sight, hearing and memory, according to the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. The Environmental Protection Agency has encouraged schools to remove mercury compounds and mercury-containing equipment. The agency is helping schools get rid of those materials. At least nine states have created programs to speed up the removal of mercury from schools through lab clean-outs and educational outreach to teachers, the EPA says. Schools are finding safe alternatives, such as electronic thermometers in place of mercury ones, and generally have not reduced their science labs, Roy said. "If anything, more lab activities are being done," he said. "Professional safety training is the key here." Mercury is required to be safely secured as a hazardous material, Roy said. But some students have taken possession of it at school or at home and caused a health scare. No firm statistics on all mercury spills at schools are available, federal officials say. But the number of reported spills in schools is on the rise, according to the EPA. The agency responded to 12 emergency removals in 2004, with cleanup costs as high as $200,000. Since late February, mercury has been detected twice at Cardozo Senior High School in the District of Columbia, forcing the closing of the building for decontamination. In 2003, mercury stolen from a science lab ended up being spread throughout Ballou High School, also in the capital. The school was closed for 35 days, with cleanup costs of $1.5 million, the EPA said. Since then, the city's school system has banned mercury from its buildings. Over the past few years, reports of mercury spills have come from schools in Arizona, Kentucky, Michigan, Massachusetts, Mississippi and Nevada. "I don't think there was the general knowledge of the health hazards of mercury that we have today," said John Risher, mercury chemical manager for the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. "A lot of information was there, it just wasn't widely disseminated."