NucNews - April 29, 2005 -------- NUCLEAR List of Nuclear Reactors Worldwide April 29, 2005 Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_reactors Algeria Es Salam Nur Antarctica McMurdo Station - PM-3A NNPU "Nukey Poo" US Navy power reactor (operational 1962, shut down 1972, fully dismantled 1979) Armenia Metsamor Armenia-1 (shut down) Armenia-2 Australia HIFAR MOATA Austria Austrian Research Centers (http://www.arcs.ac.at) at Seibersdorf - 10 kW ASTRA research reactor (in use 1960-1999) Atomic Institute of the Austrian Universities (http://www.ati.ac.at) in Vienna - 250 kW TRIGA Mark II research reactor (in use since 1962) Bangladesh Dhaka - TRIGA Mark II, Atomic Energy Research Establishment (installed 1986) Belarus Sosny, Minsk IRT research reactor (shut down 1988) "Pamir" - mobile nuclear power reactor test (shut down 1986) Belgium BR-3 - PWR reactor (shut down) Doel - 4 PWR reactors Tihange - 3 PWR reactors Brazil Angra Nuclear Power Plant, Angra dos Reis, Rio de Janeiro - 2 units, PWR Belo Horizonte - TRIGA Mark I, University of Minas Gerais (installed 1960) Bulgaria Kozlodui Sofia - IRT research reactor (shut down 1987) Canada Power station reactors Bruce Nuclear Generating Station (Tiverton, Ontario) Pickering Nuclear Generating Station (Pickering, Ontario) Darlington Nuclear Generating Station (Bowmanville, Ontario) Chalk River Laboratories (Rolphton, Ontario) Gentilly Nuclear Generating Station (Becancour, Quebec) Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station (Point Lepreau, New Brunswick) Research reactors Chalk River Laboratories MMIR-1 - MAPLE class medical isotope production reactor MMIR-2 - MAPLE class medical isotope production reactor NRU - 135 MWth reactor NRX reactor - (1947-????) The first nuclear reactor in Canada ZED-2 - zero-energy reactor ZEEP Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia - SLOWPOKE-2 class reactor Kanata - SLOWPOKE-2 class reactor (shut down) L'Ecole Polytechnique, Montreal - SLOWPOKE-2 class reactor McMaster University - 5 MWth MTR class reactor Royal Military College, Kingston, Ontario - SLOWPOKE-2 class reactor Saskatchewan Research Council Saskatoon) University of Alberta, Edmonton - SLOWPOKE-2 class reactor University of Toronto - SLOWPOKE-2 class reactor (shut down) China This section is incomplete. You can help wikipedia by expanding it. Daya Bay, Guangdong Lingao Qinshan Colombia Bogota - TRIGA, Institute of Nuclear Science (installed 1997) Democratic Republic of the Congo TRICO I - TRIGA reactor, University of Kinshasa (shut down 1970) TRICO II - TRIGA reactor, University of Kinshasa Cuba This section is incomplete. You can help wikipedia by expanding it. Czech Republic Dukovany Temelin Denmark Risø - DR-3 DIDO class reactor (shut down) Egypt Inshas Nuclear Research Center ETTR-1 - 2 MW LWR (supplied by USSR, 1958) ETTR-2 - 22 MW reactor (supplied by Argentina, 1998) Estonia Paldiski - 2 PWR naval training reactors (dismantled) Finland Loviisa Olkiluoto Helsinki - TRIGA Mark II, State Institute for Technical Research (installed 1962) France This section is incomplete. You can help wikipedia by expanding it. Chooz Civaux Fessenheim, the first one in France Superphoenix, Malville ICJT list (http://www.icjt.org/npp/lokacija.php?drzava=8) Germany Biblis with Biblis-A and Biblis-B Brokdorf Brunsbüttel Emsland Grafenrheinfeld Grohnde Gundremmingen with Gundremmingen-B and Grundremmingen-C, A is defunct Isar nuclear plant with Isar-1 and Isar-2 Krümmel Neckarwestheim with Neckarwestheim-1 and Neckarwestheim-2 Obrigheim Philippsburg with Philippsburg-1 and Philippsburg-2 Unterweser Now defunct shut down plants include: Research nuclear plants in Jülich and Karlsruhe Former GDR nuclear plant in Greifswald (Greifswald-1 to Greifswald-4, and the not finished Greifswald-5 reactor) Gundremmingen-A Lingen (research plant?) Mülheim-Kärlich, build and then shut down because of potential hazards Niederaichbach (research plant?) Rheinsberg (research plant?) Stade, shut down in 2003 Würgassen (research plant?) Kalkar, never finished Wyhl, famous nuclear plant that didn't get build because of long-time resistance by the local populace and environmentalists. IJCT list (http://www.icjt.org/npp/lokacija.php?drzava=9&kontinent=1) Greece GRR-1 - 5 MW research reactor at Demokritos National Centre for Scientific Research, Athens Hungary Paks - 4 VVER 430 MWe reactors India Power station reactors Kaiga Atomic Power Station Kakrapar Atomic Power Station (KAPS) Madras Atomic Power Station (MAPS) Narora Atomic Power Station (NAPS) Rajasthan Atomic Power Station (RAPS) Tarapur Atomic Power Station (TAPS) Research reactors Kalpakkam - IGCAR FBTR (Fast Breeder Test Reactor) KAMINI reactor 500 MWe prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (under construction) Indonesia Bandung - TRIGA Mark II (installed 1997) Yogyakarta - TRIGA Mark II (installed 1979) Iran Power station reactors Bushehr Bushehr-1 435MWe Bushehr-2 435MWe Research reactors Isfahan, Nuclear Technology Center MNSR 27 kWt miniature neutron source reactor (MNSR) Light Water Subcritical Reactor (LWSCR) Heavy Water Zero Power Reactor (HWZPR) Graphite Subcritical Reactor (GSCR) Tehran - TRIGA reactor at Tehran Nuclear Research Center (supplied by USA, 1967) Iraq Osiraq / "Tammuz 1" (destroyed by Israeli airstrike, 7 June 1981) Italy Pavia - TRIGA Mark II, University of Pavia Mark II (installed 1965) Rome - TRIGA Mark II, ENEA Cassaccia Research Center (installed 1960) Israel Dimona Jamaica SLOWPOKE-2 reactor - Kingston, Jamaica Japan Power station reactors Fukushima Daiichi (6 BWR reactors) Fukushima Daini (4 BWR reactors) Genkai (4 PWR reactors) Hamaoka (4 BWR + 1 ABWR(Advanced BWR) reactors) Ikata (3 PWR reactors) Ikata-1 Ikata-2 Ikata-3 Kashiwazaki Kariwa (5 BWR reactors + 2 ABWR reactors) Mihama (3 PWR reactors) Mihama-1 Mihama-2 Mihama-3 Ohi (4 PWR reactors) Ohi-1 Ohi-2 Ohi-3 Ohi-4 Onagawa (3 BWR reactors) Onagawa-1 Onagawa-2 Onagawa-3 Sendai (2 PWR reactors) Sendai-1 Sendai-2 Shika (BWR) Shika-1 Shimane (2 BWR reactors) Shimane-1 Shimane-2 Takahama (4 PWR reactors) Takahama-1 Takahama-2 Takahama-3 Takahama-4 Tokai (GCR, shut down) Tokai Daini (BWR) Tomari (2 PWR reactors) Tomari-1 Tomari-2 Tsuruga Tsuruga-1 (BWR) Tsuruga-2 (PWR) Research reactors JAERI(Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute) Reactors Tokai JRR-1(Japan Research Reactor No.1, shut down) Tokai JRR-2 (shut down) Tokai JRR-3 Tokai JRR-4 Tokai JPDR (Japan Power Demonstration Reactor, shut down) Oarai HTTR(High-Temp engineering Test Reactor) Oarai JMTR(Japan Materials Testing Reactor) Naka JT-60 fusion reactor JNC(Japan Nuclear Cycle Development Institute) Reactors Fugen (ATR(Advanced Thermal Reactor), shut down) Jyouyou (FBR) Monju (FBR) Kazakhstan Power station reactors Aktau (Kazakhstan State Corporation for Atomic Power and Industry) BN-350 135 MWe reactor (shut down 1999) Research reactors Alatau, Institute of Nuclear Physics VVR-K 10MWe reactor Kurchatov, National Nuclear Center, Semipalatinsk Test Site IVG-1M 60 MW RA - zirconium hydride moderated reactor (dismantled) IGR (Impulse Graphite Reactor) 50 MW Latvia Riga, Nuclear Research Center, Salaspils 5 MWe research reactor (shut down) Libya Tajura Nuclear Research Center, 10MW research reactor (supplied by USSR) Lithuania Ignalina nuclear power plant Malaysia Kuala Lumpur - TRIGA Mark II, Malaysian Institute for Nuclear Technology (installed 1982) Mexico Laguna Verde Mexico City - TRIGA Mark III, National Insatitute for Nuclear Research Morocco Rabat - TRIGA (under construction) Netherlands Power station reactors Borssele - 452 MWe PWR Dodewaard - 55 MWe BWR (shut down 1997) Research reactors Delft Petten North Korea Power station reactors Shinpo (Simpo) North Korea 1 - PWR 1000 MWe North Korea 2 - PWR 1000 MWe (under construction) Research reactors Yongbyon IRT-2000 - 0.1 MWt heavy-water moderated research reactor (supplied by USSR, 1965) Yongbyon 1 - 5 MWe Magnox reactor (activated 1987) Yongbyon 2 - 50 MWe Magnox reactor (under construction) Taechon Taechon 1 - 200 MWe reactor (under construction) Taechon 2 - ? (under construction) Norway Research reactors Kjeller reactors NORA (activated 1961, shut down 1967) JEEP I (activated 1951, shut down 1967) JEEP II (activated 1966) Halden reactor HBWR - Halden boiling water reactor (activated 1959) Pakistan Chasnupp - 300 MWe PWR Kanupp - 125 MWe PHWR Panama USS Sturgis - floating nuclear power plant for Panama Canal (operating 1966 to 1976) Philippines Quezon City - TRIGA reactor, Philippine Atomic Energy Commission (installed 1988) Puerto Rico Mayaguez - TRIGA reactor (dismantled) Romania Power stations Cernavoda Cernavoda-1 PHWR CANDU reactor 700 MW Cernavoda-2 PHWR CANDU reactor 700 MW (under construction; starts operation in 2006) Research M gurele, near Bucharest (1957-1998) Russia This section is incomplete. You can help wikipedia by expanding it. Power station reactors Balakovo Beloyarsk / Zarechny Bilibino Kalinin / Udomlya Kola / Polyarnye Zori Kursk Leningrad / Sosnovy Bor Novovoronezhskaya Seversk / Tomsk Smolensk Volgodonsk / Rostov Research reactors (There are approximately 109 research reactors in Russia. [1] (http://www.atomsafe.ru/GAN_1_00.htm) ) T-15 fusion reactor at Kurchatov Institute Slovakia Jaslovske Bohunice - 4 408 MWe WWER, Bohunice A-1 - 1 388 MWe WWER (shut down) Mochovce - 2 388 MWe WWER Slovenia Krsko Ljubljana - TRIGA Mark II, Jozef Stefan Nuclear Institute (supplied 1966 by USA to Yugoslavia) Spain Power station reactors Almaraz Almaraz-1 - 1032 MWe Almaraz-2 - 1027 MWe Ascó Ascó-1 - 930 MWe Ascó-2 - 930 MWe Cofrentes - 994 MWe José Cabrera, Almonacid de Zorita - 160 MWe Santa María de Garoña - 460 MWe Trillo - 1.066 MWe Vandellòs GCR, Tarragona Vandellòs-1 (shut down after fire, 1989) Vandellòs-2 - 992 MWe Research reactors Argos 10 kW Argonaut reactor - Polytechnic University, Barcelona (shut down 1992) CORAL-I reactor South Africa Power station reactors Koeberg (near Cape Town) Koeberg-1 920MWe Koeberg-2 920MWe Research reactors Pelindaba - Pelindaba Nuclear Research Center near Pretoria Safari-1 20MW swimming pool reactor Safari-2 (dismantled 1970) South Korea Power station reactors Kori - 4 PWR reactors Kulchin - 4 PWR reactors Wolson - 4 PHWR reactors Yonggwang - 4 PWR reactors Research reactors Aerojet General Nucleonics Model 201 Research Reactor HANARO, MAPLE class reactor TRIGA General Atomics Mark II (TRIGA-Mark II) Research Reactor Syria Miniature neutron source reactor Sweden Barsebäck Forsmark Oskarshamn Ringhals Switzerland Power station reactors Beznau 1 Goesgen Leibstadt Muehleberg Research reactors Lucens (shut down 1969) Taiwan Power station reactors Chin Shan - 2 BWR reactors Kuosheng - 2 BWR reactors Lungmen (under construction) Maanshan - 2 PWR reactors Research reactors Taipei - TRIGA, Tsing Hua University (installed 1977) Thailand Bangkok - TRIGA, Office of Atoms for Peace (installed 1977) Bangkok - TRIGA MPR 10, Ongkharak Nuclear Research Center (under construction) Turkey Istanbul - TRIGA Mark II, Technical University of Istanbul (installed 1979) Ukraine Power station reactors Chernobyl Chernobyl-1 RBMK-1000 LWGR (shut down 1996) Chernobyl-2 RBMK-1000 LWGR (shut down 1991) Chernobyl-3 RBMK-1000 LWGR (shut down 2000) Chernobyl-4 RBMK-1000 LWGR (exploded in Chernobyl accident 1986) Khmelnytskyi - 2 WWER reactors Rivno - 4 WWER reactors South Ukraine, Konstantinovka - 3 PWR reactors Zaporizhzhia - 6 WWER reactors Research reactors Kiev Institute for Nuclear Research (shut down) Sebastopol Institute of Nuclear Energy and Industry (shut down) United Kingdom Power station reactors Berkeley (shut down 1989) Bradwell (shut down 2002) Calder Hall at Sellafield (shut down 2003) 4 Magnox reactors Chapelcross Dounreay DMTR Dounreay fast reactor (shut down 1994) Prototype fast reactor Dungeness Hartlepool Heysham Hinkley Point, Bridgwater Hunterston Oldbury Sizewell Torness Trawsfynydd (shut down 1993) Winfrith - Dorchester, Dorset 9 reactors, shut down 1990 Wylfa Wylfa-1 Wylfa-2 Research reactors Atomic Energy Research Establishment, Harwell GLEEP (shut down 1990) BEPO (shut down 1968) LIDO (shut down 1974) DIDO (shut down 1990) PLUTO (shut down 1990) Billingham - TRIGA Mark I reactor, ICI refinery (installed 1971, shut down 1988) CONSORT reactor, Imperial College London, Silwood Park campus, Ascot, Berkshire Dounreay VULCAN (Rolls-Royce Naval Marine) PWR2 (Rolls-Royce Naval Marine) JASON PWR reactor, Greenwich, London (dismantled 1999) JET fusion reactor, Culham Neptune - Rolls-Royce Naval Marine, Raynesway, Derby Sellafield (named Windscale until 1971) PILE 1 (shut down 1957 after Windscale fire) PILE 2 (shut down 1957) WAGR (shut down 1982) VIPER - Atomic Weapons Establishment, Aldermaston, Berkshire United States of America Power Station Reactors NRC Region One (Northeast) Beaver Vally, Pennsylvania Calvert Cliffs, Maryland Connecticut Yankee, Connecticut (Decommissioned) FitzPatrick, New York Ginna, New York Hope Creek, New Jersey Indian Point, New York Limerick, Pennsylvania Maine Yankee, Maine (Decommissioned) Millstone, Connecticut Nine Mile Point, New York Oyster Creek, New Jersey Peach Bottom, Pennsylvania Pilgrim, Massachusetts Salem, New Jersey Saxton, Pennsylvania (Decommissioned) Seabrook, New Hampshire Shippingport, Pennsylvania Shoreham, New York (Decommissioned) Susquehanna, Tennessee Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania Vermont Yankee, Vermont Yankee Rowe, Massachusetts (Decommissioned) NRC Region Two (South) Bellefonte Nuclear Generating Station, Alabama (Unfinished) Browns Ferry, Alabama Brunswick, North Carolina Catawba, South Carolina Crystal River 3, Florida Farley (Joseph M. Farley), Alabama Hatch (Edwin I. Hatch), Georgia McGuire, North Carolina North Anna, Virgina Oconee, South Carolina H.B. Robinson, South Carolina Sequoyah, Tennessee Shearon Harris, North Carolina Surry, Virginia Turkey Point, Florida Virgil C. Summer (Summer), South Carolina Vogtle, Georgia Watts Bar, Tennessee NRC Region Three (Midwest) Big Rock Point, Michigan (Decommissioned) Braidwood, Illinois Byron, Illinois Clinton, Illinois Davis-Besse, Ohio Donald C. Cook, Michigan Dresden, Illinois Duane Arnold, Iowa Elk River, Minnesota (Decommissioned) Enrico Fermi, Michigan Kewaunee, Wisconsin LaCrosse, Wisconsin (Decommissioned) LaSalle County, Illinois Monticello, Minnesota Palisades, Michigan Perry, Ohio Piqua, Ohio (Decommissioned) Point Beach, Wisconsin Prairie Island, Minnesota Quad Cities, Illinois Zion, Illinois NRC Region Four (West) Arkansas Nuclear One, Arkansas Callaway, Missouri Columbia, Washington Comanche, Texas Cooper, Nebraska Diablo Canyon, California Fort Calhoun, Nebraska Fort Saint Vrain, Colorado (Decommissioned) Grand Gulf, Mississippi Hallam, Nebraska (Decommissioned) Hanford N Reactor, Washington (Retired) Humboldt Bay, California (Decommissioned) Palo Verde, Arizona Pathfinder, South Dakota Rancho Seco, California (Decommissioned) River Bend, Louisiana San Onofre, California South Texas, Texas Trojan, Rainier, Oregon (Decommissioned) Vallecitos, California Waterford, Louisiana Wolf Creek, Kansas Plutonium Production Reactors Hanford Site, Washington B-Reactor (Pile) F-Reactor (Pile) D-Reactor (Pile) H-Reactor (Pile) DR-Reactor (Pile) C-Reactor (Pile) KE-Reactor (Pile) KW-Reactor (Pile) N-Reactor Savannah River Site, South Carolina R-Reactor (Heavy Water?) P-Reactor (Heavy Water?) L-Reactor (Heavy Water?) K-Reactor (Heavy Water?) C-Reactor (Heavy Water?) Research Reactors Idaho National Environmental and Engineering Laboratory, Idaho 52 research and test reactors including... EBR-1 SR-1 Nevada Test Site, Nevada BREN Tower Research and Test Reactors Licensed To Operate Aerotest Operations Inc., San Ramon, CA - TRIGA Mark I Armed Forces Radiobiological Research Institute, Bethesda, MD - TRIGA Mark I Cornell University, Ithaca, NY - TRIGA Mark II Dow Chemical Company, Midland, MI - TRIGA Mark I General Electric Company, Sunol, CA - "Nuclear Test" Idaho State University, Pocatello, ID - AGN-201 #103 Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS - TRIGA Mark I Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA - HWR Reflected National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD - TRIGA Mark I North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC - Pulstar Ohio State University, Columbus, OH - Pool Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR - TRIGA Mark II Penn State University, University Park, PA - TRIGA Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN - Lockheed Reed College, Portland, OR - TRIGA Mark I Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Schenectady, NY - Critical Assembly Rhode Island Atomic Energy Commission, Narrangansett, RI - GE Pool Texas A&M University, College Station, TX (two reactors) - AGN-201M #106, TRIGA Mark I University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ - TRIGA Mark I University of California-Davis, Sacramento, CA - ? University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA - TRIGA Mark I University of Florida, Gainesville, FL - Argonaut University of Maryland, College Park, College Park, MD - TRIGA Mark I University of Massachusetts, Lowell, MA - ? University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI - Pool University of Missouri, Columbia, MO - Tank University of Missouri, Rolla, MO - Pool University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM - AGN-201M $112 University of Texas, Austin, TX - TRIGA Mark II University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT - TRIGA Mark I University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI - TRIGA Mark I U.S. Geological Survey, Denver, CO - TRIGA Mark I U.S. Veterans Administration, Omaha, NE - TRIGA Mark I Washington State University, Pullman, WA - TRIGA Mark I Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA - GE Research and Test Reactors Under Decommission Orders or License Amendments. (These research and test reactors are authorized to decontaminate and dismantle their facility to prepare for final survey and license termination.) CBS Corporation, Waltz Mill, PA General Atomics, San Diego, CA (two reactors) Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA Iowa State University, Ames, IA Manhattan College, Riverdale, NY National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Sandusky, OH (two reactors) Saxton Nuclear Experimental Corporation, Saxton, PA (one power reactor) University of Illinois, Urbana, IL University of Washington, Seattle, WA University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA (two reactors) Research and Test Reactors With Possession-Only Licenses. (These research and test reactors are not authorized to operate the reactor, only to possess the nuclear material on-hand. They are permanently shut down.) Cornell University Zero Power Reactor, Ithaca, NY General Electric Company, Sunol, CA (two research and test reactors, one power reactor) Nuclear Ship Savannah, James River Reserve Fleet, VA (one power reactor) State University of New York, Buffalo, NY This section is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_nuclear_reactors&action=edit). Links DoE list (http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/at_a_glance/reactors/nuke1.html) ICJT list (http://www.icjt.org/npp/lokacija.php?drzava=32)­includes the defunct Uruguay URR reactor Uzbekistan Ulugbek, Tashkent VVER-SM tank reactor (shut down) Venezuela RV-1 reactor Vietnam Da Lat - TRIGA Mark II (supplied by USA 1963, shut down 1975, reactivated by USSR 1984) External links Reactor lists: ICJT lists of Nuclear Power Plants worldwide (http://www.icjt.org/npp/) US DoE commercial nuclear reactors page (http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/nuc_reactors/reactsum.html) List of Canadian nuclear power stations (http://www.icjt.org/npp/lokacija.php?drzava=4) on the ICJT site Reactor news items: CFE Mexico reactor (http://www.cfe.gob.mx/NR/exeres/2955F304-1D53-4A90-B40F-BE1BE30C1110) [2] (http://www.expatica.com/source/site_article.asp?subchannel_id=1&story_id=12294&name=Netherlands+revisits+the+nuclear+taboo) Netherlands reactors Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_reactors" -------- accidents and safety Nuclear Physics - Chernobyl Friday 29th April 2005 SchNews http://www.schnews.org.uk/archive/news495.htm "On the 1 May, me and my parents went to the countryside, to have a nice day together in the sun and gather some dandelions. We walked around, ran in the fields, played, dined on the grass and collected a whole bag of flowers. Happy, tired and covered with dust, we came home. Next evening my father, who worked in the energy sector, came home pale-faced and brought something I’ve never seen before. He said it was a ‘dosimeter’ to measure radiation – a word known to me only from political propaganda of the so-called ‘peace lessons’ in school. He measured the flowers first, and the dosimeter beeped madly. We threw them away, as well as the trainers, clothes we’d been wearing that day. Only at that moment we started to realise what had really happened on 26 April at Chernobyl– the scale of disaster official propaganda was silent about. We hardly knew that it was only the beginning of an endless story, and that we’ll remember the year 1986 forever." Nearly 20 years on, the legacy of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster rarely captures headlines here. But the consequences of the ‘peaceful atom’ (as it was called in official Soviet propaganda) has, according to estimates, affected more than seven million people. Hundreds of people died from direct exposure to the high doses of radiation; many more continue to die from related diseases. So what was learnt? Not much it seems. Nuclear is back on the agenda in many of the former Soviet territories still directly suffering from the accident fall-out - below is a roundup of the situation in three of them. Up And Atom: Ukraine Chernobyl is actually in Ukraine - so you’d think they’d think twice… but, overturning a previous resolution banning new nuclear development, in 1993 the moratorium was cancelled, and nuclear projects were renewed. Despite environmentalists’ protests, the government pressed on, focusing on the unfinished 2nd reactor unit at Khmelnitsky and 4th unit at Rivne nuclear power plants (K2/R4). Ignoring warnings about the danger of continuing with outdated technology, as well as the technical difficulties of ‘crossbreeding’ Soviet projects with Western ones. The government had only one concern; where to get the cash. Thus Chernobyl became a tool of shameless political bargaining. Western governments and international bodies, which insisted on the closure of Chernobyl, were told it would only be possible after receiving the funds needed for K2/R4. Initially the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) promised to cough up but then changed its mind, perhaps realising that nuclear energy is not the best option - especially in a country where a similar amount of energy could be saved by energy conservation programmes, which are practically non-existent. But the government were determined to complete the works, especially once the head of the state nuclear energy company “Energoatom”, Serhiy Tulub, was appointed energy minister! In spite of public opposition and international concern, K2 was launched in August, and R4 in October 2004. In July 2004 EBRD and Euroatom made an unprecedented decision - to provide Ukraine a loan of $125m on the security of K2/R4. The loan is over 18 years, with the payments coming ultimately from people’s taxes. Unhappily, Ukrainian citizens have already paid for the new units due to a special governmental decree in which energy prices were raised to pay for the construction. Regardless of the proclaimed ‘independence’ from Russian oil provided by nuclear power, Ukraine still imports nuclear fuel ... from Russia, and until recently sent back the nuclear waste. To reduce this dependency, two liquid nuclear waste storages were created. In Jan 2005 “Energoatom” announced that work on a new solid waste storage plant will be carried out by US company Holtec International. The new Ukrainian government thinks seeking US cooperation in the construction of its own nuclear fuel-cell capabilities will finally eliminate the dependence from Russia and allow Ukraine to produce even more energy. Thing is, at present Ukraine has no need to produce more - already much of it’s energy is exported to Central and Eastern-European neighbours (last year’s rise was almost 17%). Nice cosy deal: Europe gets cheap energy, the Ukrainian government some cash, Western companies get contracts. The Ukrainian people have the loans and debts to repay, 15 nuclear power stations, three nuclear waste storages and the prospect of a fully complete nuclear industry in their disaster-ravaged country. Russia Some of Russia’s old reactors are of the same type as Chernobyl - RBMK - as well as outdated versions of Soviet-constructed VVER. But the disaster never seriously affected the powerful Russian nuclear lobby. Last December the lives of the oldest reactors were extended and the Russian nuclear energy agency, Rosatom, enthusiastically talks of building new nuclear power stations. Meanwhile in 2001, the Russian parliament, under pressure from the Kremlin and in the face of public opposition, adopted a law allowing the importation of nuclear waste from other countries. Officials painted a picture of huge amounts of cash pouring into Russia’s coffers but this didn’t happen: frightened by the appalling environmental conditions and prospects of technological disaster, no major Western governmen has dealt with them. The only countries that export waste to Russia are Bulgaria and Ukraine. The former tries to use the cheapest option before getting EU membership with its stricter rules, and the latter is busy trying to build its own storage facilities. Experts ironically point out that there is actually a shortage of storage for the waste produced by Russia’s own nuke industry – let alone imports. However, Rosatom carries on with plans to import more. The waste from Bulgaria and Ukraine arrives by long-distance railway but, as revealed this year, the security and disaster prevention measures are either unknown to the local authorities, or labelled “top-secret”. Belarus Chernobyl is situated 7 km from the Ukrainian-Belarus border and so Belarus was hit hard by the disaster. About 23% of the whole territory has been officially recognised as radioactively contaminated. In 1996 MPs adopted a 10-year moratorium on nuclear power. While the moratorium expires next year, it’s unlikely it will be renewed. Belarus’ authoritarian president Aleksandr Lukashenka, started to talk about the prospect of a “Belarus nuclear power plant” a couple of years ago, and now this proposal is talked about openly. In early March, Minsk was visited by French company AREVA, to begin talks on modernising the existing industry; but they’re also nuclear specialists. While building nuclear is still met with mixed feelings by officials and citizens alike, politics moves on. This year it has been announced that many of the contaminated areas will be proclaimed ‘clean’. At the same time, compensation will only be given to selected people - those designated “really harmed” by the disaster. While the impact of radioactivity on human health is still unclear, a government paper claims that the only indicator of harm is cancer of the thyroid gland.The strategy includes the idea that these ‘clean’ territories should now become economically ‘self-sufficient’, develop private business and compete on the global market. Such a change has been met enthusiastically not only by Belarus officials, but also international institutions: the World Bank agreed to provide money to the isolated regime to help implement the project. So, the governments of all three affected states have managed to effectively silence or ignore anti-nuclear opposition and plan openly to revive the industry. Talking about political reasons and economic benefits, none of the interested parties managed to explain what they will ultimately do with the waste, how to avoid repeat disasters or cope if the railway is attacked? Eastern and Western nuclear lobbies, politicians and power companies are all looking to gain from the new dawn of nuclear energy in former USSR, but for the citizens it’s a no-win situation Check: http://www.bankwatch.org & http://www.antiatom.ru -------- depleted uranium After the bombs, illness - and few to care By Paul McGeough, Chief Sydney Morning Herald Correspondent April 29, 2005 http://www.smh.com.au/news/World/After-the-bombs-illness--and-few-to-care/2005/04/28/1114635692332.html?oneclick=true On first meeting, eight-year-old Zahara Rejeb is a shy little thing. But return to the hospital 24 hours later, and she races up with an infectious smile that is hard to reckon with in this Iraqi black hole. A traditional headscarf hides her tufted hair - the give-away that she's having chemotherapy. But Zahara's vivacity makes it hard to accept that she is a "high-risk" leukaemia sufferer who is denied proper treatment. Low-level chemotherapy has failed to check Zahara's condition, so she needs intensive doses, says her doctor, Janan Ghlub Hassan. But the treatment can't proceed because Basra's Mother and Child Hospital doesn't have the ancillary drugs to protect the girl's immune system in what could be a life-or-death new course of treatment. But step back and look around this grim ward. Dr Janan's colleagues are attempting the impossible as they treat 24 other children with cancer who are constantly watched over by their anxious, black-clad mothers. The doctors have little of the equipment and only some of the drugs essential to winning the struggle. Something is terribly wrong. The rest of the world vowed to help Iraq after the ousting of Saddam Hussein. Billions ofdollars have been set aside and because Basra is Iraq's only city by the sea, hundreds of military and civilian supply convoys thunder past its hospitals, heading to Baghdad and other centres as part of a huge military and reconstruction effort. But few trucks stop at these hospitals. A few did pull up outside the Al-Sadr Teaching Hospital a month ago and dumped donated second-hand hospital equipment from Japan in the forecourt. But no one knows how to install it all - so the delivery just gathers dust and its flat surfaces have become an extension of the waiting room for day patients. An Austrian-Arab charity found the money for televisions and playroom furniture for the kids at the Mother and Child Hospital. Some Japanese care groups and other non-government organisations have rounded up some drugs and a bit of equipment. Dr Janan, who heads Mother and Child's department of pediatric oncology, rattles off the figures - before the 1991 war there were 3.2 cancers for every 100,000 in the population. That figure has jumped to 22.4, and birth defects are up in similar proportions. Most of the cancer cases are leukaemia in children aged four months to 15 years. The real situation is probably worse. "Some cases don't get to hospital and others go direct to Baghdad," she says. "In 2003 we had 190 new child cancer cases; last year we had 200." When the Herald interviewed Dr Janan in 2001, the unit had 10 beds. Now it has 22. She details what she desperately needs - big quantities of chemotherapy drugs and antibiotics and immune-protective drugs; more blood separators; an infusion-bomb line for IV lines. Various NGOs maintain an erratic supply of drugs; and other donations have included a single blood separator and some scanning and ultrasound equipment. In 2001, Dr Janan produced a book in which she kept distressing photos and records on all the deformed babies born at the hospital. One of the few changes in her regime now is that she puts that ever expanding record on CDs. She and her colleagues say people in the Basra region are afraid to have children and worry that the slightest ailment might be the onset of cancer. "We are short of everything," she says, raising her voice to be heard over the constant crying of children. "We've had nothing from the new Iraqi Government, except some simple antibiotics; and nothing from the occupying countries." This is another disturbing dimension. The world does know about the frightening jump in cancers and birth defects in and around Basra because the US-led coalition that ousted Saddam from Kuwait dropped an estimated 300 tonnes of depleted uranium munitions in the region as his army retreated. Saddam used the crisis as a propaganda tool against the West during more than a decade of UN sanctions, which included denying Iraq much of the cancer-treating drugs and equipment it needed because they might be used in his weapons program. Saddam is gone now and the mostly American depleted uranium munitions remain the number one suspect for the Basra cancer crisis. But none of the governments that backed either the 1991 or 2003 coalitions - including Australia - has bothered to come and investigate, to help or to care. There can be no certainty depleted uranium is to blame until there has been thorough scientific research. Dr Janan and some of her colleagues are prepared to acknowledge there must be doubt until there is empirical proof. But amid rising anger and cynicism about the ability of Iraq's political leadership to form a functioning government, the failure - domestically and internationally - to establish a professional research program coupled with the bullying of well-meant amateurs who have tried to prove the case against depleted uranium only add to Dr Janan's frustration. In February she met German experts in Amman to draw up a research program but, she says, "It is an expensive exercise and no one will put up the money or help set it up and run it. Our oil goes to the US and other markets now, but we are told there is no money in the Ministry of Finance." Somehow Dr Janan contains her anger. But over at the Al-Sadr Teaching Hospital, Dr Amar Abdul Al-Muhsun is being feisty and difficult - he refuses to talk to the Herald on the grounds that discussing the crisis with outsiders is a waste of time. It is only when he is asked to explain why he won't be interviewed that he lightens up. But the respite is brief before he explodes again: "People come and talk and nothing happens." "We get nothing," he says. "It was like that under Saddam and it's no different now. There was talk of 400 million Iraqi dinars being set aside for an oncology hospital - nothing happened. The Japanese had an idea for a special unit in this hospital - nothing happened. "There has been talk about a World Health Organisation study. I received a piece of paper from Baghdad saying I was to head the study locally, but there seems to be a funding block on that, too - there's no money and there's no plan." Dr Amar, the deputy chief of the teaching hospital's oncology unit, has crossed his arms so tightly that he is in danger of bursting the seams of a small leather purse that is pinched under his right arm. He snaps: "We don't have drugs to treat tumours. I have a patient with tumours who is unconscious and I don't have drugs or a bed in which to treat him. I have two women with advanced ovarian cancer - but I can give them only minimum doses of only some of the drugs they need. "Two or three days ago we had to cancel all surgery because we had no gauze and no anaesthetics. Our wards are like stables for horses - not humans. "We can't properly isolate patients or manage their diets. We don't have proper laboratory facilities. If you are sick don't come to this hospital for treatment. It is collapsing around us ... we're going down in a heap." While he says the incidence of cancers is rising, he is reluctant to blame depleted uranium. Saddam is just as likely to be the culprit as the Americans, he says. "The discharge from his nuclear facilities upstream from Basra might be poisoning us - he hated us so much - just as much as American depleted uranium is. We have to have proof." Dr Amar has had enough - he's off. Over his shoulder he throws a taunt to the global community and what he sees as its lip-service to unambiguous Iraqi suffering: "They should be made to live here for one or two days as Iraqis do and see how this hospital functions - they would be sickened." As if by way of an exclamation mark, a powerful explosion rocks the neighbourhood as he bustles off down a dimly-lit corridor. Within minutes, the whole area is snap-frozen by police, soldiers and emergency services looking for the perpetrators. If depleted uranium is the cause of the Basra cancers, the crisis could become infinitely worse. The 200 tonnes used in the 1991 war pales in comparison to reports that up to 2000 tonnes were used over a significantly wider area in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. It took three to five years for the cancers to begin manifesting after the first Gulf crisis. Dr Janan says in the case of children this was the result of playing in and around wreckage of Iraqi weapons destroyed by depleted uranium munitions. The debate over depleted uranium is muddied and emotional. Its supporters and detractors have been accused of too often dealing in On first meeting, eight-year-old Zahara Rejeb is a shy little thing. But return to the hospital 24 hours later, and she races up with an infectious smile that is hard to reckon with in this Iraqi black hole. A traditional headscarf hides her tufted hair - the give-away that she's having chemotherapy. But Zahara's vivacity makes it hard to accept that she is a "high-risk" leukaemia sufferer who is denied proper treatment. Low-level chemotherapy has failed to check Zahara's condition, so she needs intensive doses, says her doctor, Janan Ghlub Hassan. But the treatment can't proceed because Basra's Mother and Child Hospital doesn't have the ancillary drugs to protect the girl's immune system in what could be a life-or-death new course of treatment. But step back and look around this grim ward. Dr Janan's colleagues are attempting the impossible as they treat 24 other children with cancer who are constantly watched over by their anxious, black-clad mothers. The doctors have little of the equipment and only some of the drugs essential to winning the struggle. Something is terribly wrong. The rest of the world vowed to help Iraq after the ousting of Saddam Hussein. Billions ofdollars have been set aside and because Basra is Iraq's only city by the sea, hundreds of military and civilian supply convoys thunder past its hospitals, heading to Baghdad and other centres as part of a huge military and reconstruction effort. But few trucks stop at these hospitals. A few did pull up outside the Al-Sadr Teaching Hospital a month ago and dumped donated second-hand hospital equipment from Japan in the forecourt. But no one knows how to install it all - so the delivery just gathers dust and its flat surfaces have become an extension of the waiting room for day patients. An Austrian-Arab charity found the money for televisions and playroom furniture for the kids at the Mother and Child Hospital. Some Japanese care groups and other non-government organisations have rounded up some drugs and a bit of equipment. Dr Janan, who heads Mother and Child's department of pediatric oncology, rattles off the figures - before the 1991 war there were 3.2 cancers for every 100,000 in the population. That figure has jumped to 22.4, and birth defects are up in similar proportions. Most of the cancer cases are leukaemia in children aged four months to 15 years. The real situation is probably worse. "Some cases don't get to hospital and others go direct to Baghdad," she says. "In 2003 we had 190 new child cancer cases; last year we had 200." When the Herald interviewed Dr Janan in 2001, the unit had 10 beds. Now it has 22. She details what she desperately needs - big quantities of chemotherapy drugs and antibiotics and immune-protective drugs; more blood separators; an infusion-bomb line for IV lines. Various NGOs maintain an erratic supply of drugs; and other donations have included a single blood separator and some scanning and ultrasound equipment. In 2001, Dr Janan produced a book in which she kept distressing photos and records on all the deformed babies born at the hospital. One of the few changes in her regime now is that she puts that ever expanding record on CDs. She and her colleagues say people in the Basra region are afraid to have children and worry that the slightest ailment might be the onset of cancer. "We are short of everything," she says, raising her voice to be heard over the constant crying of children. "We've had nothing from the new Iraqi Government, except some simple antibiotics; and nothing from the occupying countries." This is another disturbing dimension. The world does know about the frightening jump in cancers and birth defects in and around Basra because the US-led coalition that ousted Saddam from Kuwait dropped an estimated 300 tonnes of depleted uranium munitions in the region as his army retreated. Saddam used the crisis as a propaganda tool against the West during more than a decade of UN sanctions, which included denying Iraq much of the cancer-treating drugs and equipment it needed because they might be used in his weapons program. Saddam is gone now and the mostly American depleted uranium munitions remain the number one suspect for the Basra cancer crisis. But none of the governments that backed either the 1991 or 2003 coalitions - including Australia - has bothered to come and investigate, to help or to care. There can be no certainty depleted uranium is to blame until there has been thorough scientific research. Dr Janan and some of her colleagues are prepared to acknowledge there must be doubt until there is empirical proof. But amid rising anger and cynicism about the ability of Iraq's political leadership to form a functioning government, the failure - domestically and internationally - to establish a professional research program coupled with the bullying of well-meant amateurs who have tried to prove the case against depleted uranium only add to Dr Janan's frustration. In February she met German experts in Amman to draw up a research program but, she says, "It is an expensive exercise and no one will put up the money or help set it up and run it. Our oil goes to the US and other markets now, but we are told there is no money in the Ministry of Finance." Somehow Dr Janan contains her anger. But over at the Al-Sadr Teaching Hospital, Dr Amar Abdul Al-Muhsun is being feisty and difficult - he refuses to talk to the Herald on the grounds that discussing the crisis with outsiders is a waste of time. It is only when he is asked to explain why he won't be interviewed that he lightens up. But the respite is brief before he explodes again: "People come and talk and nothing happens." "We get nothing," he says. "It was like that under Saddam and it's no different now. There was talk of 400 million Iraqi dinars being set aside for an oncology hospital - nothing happened. The Japanese had an idea for a special unit in this hospital - nothing happened. "There has been talk about a World Health Organisation study. I received a piece of paper from Baghdad saying I was to head the study locally, but there seems to be a funding block on that, too - there's no money and there's no plan." Dr Amar, the deputy chief of the teaching hospital's oncology unit, has crossed his arms so tightly that he is in danger of bursting the seams of a small leather purse that is pinched under his right arm. He snaps: "We don't have drugs to treat tumours. I have a patient with tumours who is unconscious and I don't have drugs or a bed in which to treat him. I have two women with advanced ovarian cancer - but I can give them only minimum doses of only some of the drugs they need. "Two or three days ago we had to cancel all surgery because we had no gauze and no anaesthetics. Our wards are like stables for horses - not humans. "We can't properly isolate patients or manage their diets. We don't have proper laboratory facilities. If you are sick don't come to this hospital for treatment. It is collapsing around us ... we're going down in a heap." While he says the incidence of cancers is rising, he is reluctant to blame depleted uranium. Saddam is just as likely to be the culprit as the Americans, he says. "The discharge from his nuclear facilities upstream from Basra might be poisoning us - he hated us so much - just as much as American depleted uranium is. We have to have proof." Dr Amar has had enough - he's off. Over his shoulder he throws a taunt to the global community and what he sees as its lip-service to unambiguous Iraqi suffering: "They should be made to live here for one or two days as Iraqis do and see how this hospital functions - they would be sickened." As if by way of an exclamation mark, a powerful explosion rocks the neighbourhood as he bustles off down a dimly-lit corridor. Within minutes, the whole area is snap-frozen by police, soldiers and emergency services looking for the perpetrators. If depleted uranium is the cause of the Basra cancers, the crisis could become infinitely worse. The 200 tonnes used in the 1991 war pales in comparison to reports that up to 2000 tonnes were used over a significantly wider area in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. It took three to five years for the cancers to begin manifesting after the first Gulf crisis. Dr Janan says in the case of children this was the result of playing in and around wreckage of Iraqi weapons destroyed by depleted uranium munitions. The debate over depleted uranium is muddied and emotional. Its supporters and detractors have been accused of too often dealing in absolutes in a sea of uncertainty. The US military insists there is no medical basis to claims it has caused the cancers or, more financially disturbing, that it is the key to claims by thousands of US and British service personnel from the first Gulf crisis. These troops say they should be compensated because depleted uranium is responsible for Gulf War syndrome - a series of maladies that is much wider that the narrow Iraqi issue of cancers. The denials come despite a report by the US Environmental Policy Institute which states: "If depleted uranium enters the body, it has the potential to generate significant medical consequences." It notes the 20-year battle fought by US servicemen to extract a Pentagon admission on the use of Agent Orange in Vietnam, saying, "the financial implications of long-term disability payments and health-care costs would be excessive". ---- Horror Of US Depleted Uranium In Iraq Threatens World American Use Of DU is "A crime against humanity which may, in the eyes of historians, rank with the worst atrocities of all time." US Iraq Military Vets "are on DU death row, waiting to die." By James Denver 4-29-5 Rense.com http://www.rense.com/general64/du.htm http://www.vivelecanada.ca/article.php/20050429121615724 "I'm horrified. The people out there - the Iraqis, the media and the troops - risk the most appalling ill health. And the radiation from depleted uranium can travel literally anywhere. It's going to destroy the lives of thousands of children, all over the world. We all know how far radiation can travel. Radiation from Chernobyl reached Wales and in Britain you sometimes get red dust from the Sahara on your car." The speaker is not some alarmist doom-sayer. He is Dr. Chris Busby, the British radiation expert, Fellow of the University of Liverpool in the Faculty of Medicine and UK representative on the European Committee on Radiation Risk, talking about the best-kept secret of this war: the fact that, by illegally using hundreds of tons of depleted uranium (DU) against Iraq, Britain and America have gravely endangered not only the Iraqis but the whole world. For these weapons have released deadly, carcinogenic and mutagenic, radioactive particles in such abundance that-whipped up by sandstorms and carried on trade winds - there is no corner of the globe they cannot penetrate-including Britain. For the wind has no boundaries and time is on their side: the radioactivity persists for over 4,500,000,000 years and can cause cancer, leukemia, brain damage, kidney failure, and extreme birth defects - killing millions of every age for centuries to come. A crime against humanity which may, in the eyes of historians, rank with the worst atrocities of all time. These weapons have released deadly, carcinogenic and mutagenic, radioactive particles in such abundance that there is no corner of the globe they cannot penetrate - including Britain. Yet, officially, no crime has been committed. For this story is a dirty story in which the facts have been concealed from those who needed them most. It is also a story we need to know if the people of Iraq are to get the medical care they desperately need, and if our troops, returning from Iraq, are not to suffer as terribly as the veterans of other conflicts in which depleted uranium was used. A Dirty Tyson 'Depleted' uranium is in many ways a misnomer. For 'depleted' sounds weak. The only weak thing about depleted uranium is its price. It is dirt cheap, toxic, waste from nuclear power plants and bomb production. However, uranium is one of earth's heaviest elements and DU packs a Tyson's punch, smashing through tanks, buildings and bunkers with equal ease, spontaneously catching fire as it does so, and burning people alive. 'Crispy critters' is what US servicemen call those unfortunate enough to be close. And, when John Pilger encountered children killed at a greater distance he wrote: "The children's skin had folded back, like parchment, revealing veins and burnt flesh that seeped blood, while the eyes, intact, stared straight ahead. I vomited." (Daily Mirror) The millions of radioactive uranium oxide particles released when it burns can kill just as surely, but far more terribly. They can even be so tiny they pass through a gas mask, making protection against them impossible. Yet, small is not beautiful. For these invisible killers indiscriminately attack men, women, children and even babies in the womb-and do the gravest harm of all to children and unborn babies. A Terrible Legacy Doctors in Iraq have estimated that birth defects have increased by 2-6 times, and 3-12 times as many children have developed cancer and leukaemia since 1991. Moreover, a report published in The Lancet in 1998 said that as many as 500 children a day are dying from these sequels to war and sanctions and that the death rate for Iraqi children under 5 years of age increased from 23 per 1000 in 1989 to 166 per thousand in 1993. Overall, cases of lymphoblastic leukemia more than quadrupled with other cancers also increasing 'at an alarming rate'. In men, lung, bladder, bronchus, skin, and stomach cancers showed the highest increase. In women, the highest increases were in breast and bladder cancer, and non-Hodgkin lymphoma.1 On hearing that DU had been used in the Gulf in 1991, the UK Atomic Energy Authority sent the Ministry of Defense a special report on the potential damage to health and the environment. It said that it could cause half a million additional cancer deaths in Iraq over 10 years. In that war the authorities only admitted to using 320 tons of DU-although the Dutch charity LAKA estimates the true figure is closer to 800 tons. Many times that may have been spread across Iraq by this year's war. The devastating damage all this DU will do to the health and fertility of the people of Iraq now, and for generations to come, is beyond imagining. The radioactivity persists for over 4,500,000,000 years killing millions of every age for centuries to come. This is a crime against humanity which may rank with the worst atrocities of all time. We must also count the numberless thousands of miscarried babies. Nobody knows how many Iraqis have died in the womb since DU contaminated their world. But it is suggested that troops who were only exposed to DU for the brief period of the war were still excreting uranium in their semen 8 years later and some had 100 times the so-called 'safe limit' of uranium in their urine. The lack of government interest in the plight of veterans of the 1991 war is reflected in a lack of academic research on the impact of DU but informal research has found a high incidence of birth defects in their children and that the wives of men who served in Iraq have three times more miscarriages than the wives of servicemen who did not go there. Since DU darkened the land Iraq has seen birth defects which would break a heart of stone: babies with terribly foreshortened limbs, with their intestines outside their bodies, with huge bulging tumors where their eyes should be, or with a single eye-like Cyclops, or without eyes, or without limbs, and even without heads. Significantly, some of the defects are almost unknown outside textbooks showing the babies born near A-bomb test sites in the Pacific. Doctors report that many women no longer say 'Is it a girl or a boy?' but simply, 'Is it normal, doctor?' Moreover this terrible legacy will not end. The genes of their parents may have been damaged for ever, and the damaging DU dust is ever-present. Blue on Blue What the governments of America and Britain have done to the people of Iraq they have also done to their own soldiers, in both wars. And they have done it knowingly. For the battlefields have been thick with DU and soldiers have had to enter areas heavily contaminated by bombing. Moreover, their bodies have not only been assaulted by DU but also by a vaccination regime which violated normal protocols, experimental vaccines, nerve agent pills, and organophosphate pesticides in their tents. Yet, though the hazards of DU were known, British and American troops were not warned of its dangers. Nor were they given thorough medical checks on their return-even though identifying it quickly might have made it possible to remove some of it from their body. Then, when a growing number became seriously ill, and should have been sent to top experts in radiation damage and neurotoxins, many were sent to a psychiatrist. Over 200,000 US troops who returned from the 1991 war are now invalided out with ailments officially attributed to service in Iraq-that's 1 in 3. In contrast, the British government's failure to fully assess the health of returning troops, or to monitor their health, means no one even knows how many have died or become gravely ill since their return. However, Gulf veterans' associations say that, of 40,000 or so fighting fit men and women who saw active service, at least 572 have died prematurely since coming home and 5000 may be ill. An alarming number are thought to have taken their own lives, unable to bear the torment of the innumerable ailments which have combined to take away their career, their sexuality, their ability to have normal children, and even their ability to breathe or walk normally. As one veteran puts it, they are 'on DU death row, waiting to die'. Whatever other factors there may be, some of their illnesses are strikingly similar to those of Iraqis exposed to DU dust. For example, soldiers have also fathered children without eyes. And, in a group of eight servicemen whose babies lack eyes seven are known to have been directly exposed to DU dust. They too have fathered children with stunted arms, and rare abnormalities classically associated with radiation damage. They too seem prone to cancer and leukemia. Tellingly, so are EU soldiers who served as peacekeepers in the Balkans, where DU was also used. Indeed their leukemia rate has been so high that several EU governments have protested at the use of DU. The Vital Evidence Despite all that evidence of the harm done by DU, governments on both sides of the Atlantic have repeatedly claimed that as it emits only 'low level' radiation DU is harmless. Award-winning scientist, Dr. Rosalie Bertell who has led UN medical commissions, has studied 'low-level' radiation for 30 years. 2 She has found that uranium oxide particles have more than enough power to harm cells, and describes their pulses of radiation as hitting surrounding cells 'like flashes of lightning' again and again in a single second.2 Like many scientists worldwide who have studied this type of radiation, she has found that such 'lightning strikes' can damage DNA and cause cell mutations which lead to cancer. Moreover, these particles can be taken up by body fluids and travel through the body, damaging more than one organ. To compound all that, Dr. Bertell has found that this particular type of radiation can cause the body's communication systems to break down, leading to malfunctions in many vital organs of the body and to many medical problems. A striking fact, since many veterans of the first Gulf war suffer from innumerable, seemingly unrelated, ailments. In addition, recent research by Eric Wright, Professor of Experimental Haematology at Dundee University, and others, have shown two ways in which such radiation can do far more damage than has been thought. The first is that a cell which seems unharmed by radiation can produce cells with diverse mutations several cell generations later. (And mutations are at the root of cancer and birth defects.) This 'radiation-induced genomic instability' is compounded by 'the bystander effect' by which cells mutate in unison with others which have been damaged by radiation-rather as birds swoop and turn in unison. Put together, these two mechanisms can greatly increase the damage done by a single source of radiation, such as a DU particle. Moreover, it is now clear that there are marked genetic differences in the way individuals respond to radiation-with some being far more likely to develop cancer than others. So the fact that some veterans of the first Gulf war seem relatively unharmed by their exposure to DU in no way proves that DU did not damage others. The Price of Truth That the evidence from Iraq and from our troops, and the research findings of such experts, have been ignored may be no accident. A US report, leaked in late 1995, allegedly says, 'The potential for health effects from DU exposure is real; however it must be viewed in perspective... the financial implications of long-term disability payments and healthcare costs would be excessive.'3 Clearly, with hundreds of thousands gravely ill in Iraq and at least a quarter of a million UK and US troops seriously ill, huge disability claims might be made not only against the governments of Britain and America if the harm done by DU were acknowledged. There might also be huge claims against companies making DU weapons and some of their directors are said to be extremely close to the White House. How close they are to Downing Street is a matter for speculation, but arms sales makes a considerable contribution to British trade. So the massive whitewashing of DU over the past 12 years, and the way that governments have failed to test returning troops, seemed to disbelieve them, and washed their hands of them, may be purely to save money. The possibility that financial considerations have led the governments of Britain and America to cynically avoid taking responsibility for the harm they have done not only to the people of Iraq but to their own troops may seem outlandish. Yet DU weapons weren't used by the other side and no other explanation fits the evidence. For, in the days before Britain and America first used DU in war its hazards were no secret.4 One American study in 1990 said DU was 'linked to cancer when exposures are internal, [and to] chemical toxicity-causing kidney damage'. While another openly warned that exposure to these particles under battlefield conditions could lead to cancers of the lung and bone, kidney damage, non-malignant lung disease, neuro-cognitive disorders, chromosomal damage and birth defects.5 A Culture of Denial In 1996 and 1997 UN Human Rights Tribunals condemned DU weapons for illegally breaking the Geneva Convention and classed them as 'weapons of mass destruction' 'incompatible with international humanitarian and human rights law'. Since then, following leukemia in European peacekeeping troops in the Balkans and Afghanistan (where DU was also used), the EU has twice called for DU weapons to be banned. Yet, far from banning DU, America and Britain stepped up their denials of the harm from this radioactive dust as more and more troops from the first Gulf war and from action and peacekeeping in the Balkans and Afghanistan have become seriously ill. This is no coincidence. In 1997, while citing experiments, by others, in which 84 percent of dogs exposed to inhaled uranium died of cancer of the lungs, Dr. Asaf Durakovic, then Professor of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine at Georgetown University in Washington was quoted as saying, 'The [US government's] Veterans Administration asked me to lie about the risks of incorporating depleted uranium in the human body.' He concluded, 'uranium does cause cancer, uranium does cause mutation, and uranium does kill. If we continue with the irresponsible contamination of the biosphere, and denial of the fact that human life is endangered by the deadly isotope uranium, then we are doing disservice to ourselves, disservice to the truth, disservice to God and to all generations who follow.' Not what the authorities wanted to hear and his research was suddenly blocked. During 12 years of ever-growing British whitewash the authorities have abolished military hospitals, where there could have been specialized research on the effects of DU and where expertise in treating DU victims could have built up. And, not content with the insult of suggesting the gravely disabling symptoms of Gulf veterans are imaginary they have refused full pensions to many. For, despite all the evidence to the contrary, the current House of Commons briefing paper on DU hazards says 'it is judged that any radiation effects from possible exposures are extremely unlikely to be a contributory factor to the illnesses currently being experienced by some Gulf war veterans.' Note how over a quarter of a million sick and dying US and UK vets are called 'some'. The Way Ahead Britain and America not only used DU in this year's Iraq war, they dramatically increased its use-from a minimum of 320 tons in the previous war to at minimum of 1500 tons in this one. And this time the use of DU wasn't limited to anti-tank weapons-as it had largely been in the previous Gulf war-but was extended to the guided missiles, large bunker busters and big 2000-pound bombs used in Iraq's cities. This means that Iraq's cities have been blanketed in lethal particles-any one of which can cause cancer or deform a child. In addition, the use of DU in huge bombs which throw the deadly particles higher and wider in huge plumes of smoke means that billions of deadly particles have been carried high into the air-again and again and again as the bombs rained down-ready to be swept worldwide by the winds. The Royal Society has suggested the solution is massive decontamination in Iraq. That could only scratch the surface. For decontamination is hugely expensive and, though it may reduce the risks in some of the worst areas, it cannot fully remove them. For DU is too widespread on land and water. How do you clean up every nook and cranny of a city the size of Baghdad? How can they decontaminate a whole country in which microscopic particles, which cannot be detected with a normal geiger counter, are spread from border to border? And how can they clean up all the countries downwind of Iraq-and, indeed, the world? So there are only two things we can do to mitigate this crime against humanity. The first is to provide the best possible medical care for the people of Iraq, for our returning troops and for those who served in the last Gulf war and, through that, minimize their suffering. The second is to relegate war, and the production and sale of weapons, to the scrap heap of history-along with slavery and genocide. Then, and only then, will this crime against humanity be expunged, and the tragic deaths from this war truly bring freedom to the people of Iraq, and of the world. References 1. The Lancet volume 351, issue 9103, 28 February 1998. 2. Rosalie Bertell's book Planet Earth the Latest Weapon of War was reviewed in Caduceus issue 51, page 28. 3. http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/du_ii/du_ii_tabl1 . htm#TAB L_Research Report Summaries 4. www.wagingpeace.org/articles/02.01/020117moret.htm The secret official memorandum to Brigadier General L.R.Groves from Drs Conant, Compton and Urey of War Department Manhattan district dated October 1943 is available at the website www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2003/Leuren-Moret-Gen-Grove s21feb03.htm 5. http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/du_iitab11. htm#tab L_research report summaries Further information The Low Level Radiation Campaign hopes to be able to arrange a limited number of private urine tests for those returning from the latest Gulf war. It can be contacted at: The Knoll, Montpelier Park, Llandrindod Wells, LD1 5LW. 01597 824771. Web: www.llrc.org James Denver writes and broadcasts internationally on science and technology. ---- A deadly dusting April 29, 2005 Sydney Morning Herald by Paul McGeough http://www.smh.com.au/news/World/A-deadly-dusting/2005/04/28/1114635692382.html WHAT IT IS A dense, toxic and radioactive by-product of the manufacture of nuclear weapons and reactor fuel. The US and Britain use it in armour-piercing shells and bullets. WHAT IT DOES Its toxic ingredient is the U-238 isotope, which has a half-life of about 4.5 billion years. As it gradually breaks down, the isotope produces protactinium-234, the radiation which can cause cancer and, possibly, birth defects. HOW IT SPREADS When a depleted-uranium round hammers into a target, up to 70 per cent of the projectile can burn on impact, creating an explosion of particles. The residue is a fine dust of insoluble uranium that may become part of the food chain as it is carried on the wind, or absorbed into the human body, or into plants and animals. Once in the soil it can increase uranium levels in ground water by a factor of 100, the United Nations Environmental Program says. ---- Driven into the firing line April 29, 2005 Sydney Morning Herald http://www.smh.com.au/news/World/Driven-into-the-firing-line/2005/04/28/1114635692373.html?oneclick=true Radiation levels and armoured vehicles are hot topics for Australians, writes Paul McGeough. Australian Colonel Andrew Nikolic ticks off the boxes with the supreme confidence of a man who in time will be proved right - or, as can often be the case in Iraq, not. Anxiety among Australian soldiers serving in Iraq - and their families back home - could be forgiven in the wake of the continuing debate on depleted uranium. Much of the scientific and medical case against depleted uranium has been countered with stonewalling by military authorities in the US and Britain - instead of reasoned or detailed scientific research, if it exists. The same goes for reports about the lack of armoured protection for American soldiers in Humvees which are so badly protected that the soldiers scavenge for scrap metal to better shield themselves and their vehicles. As Australian representative on the Al-Muthanna Task Group in Iraq, Nikolic is stationed at the US-led coalition's southern headquarters in Basra, from which it commands the country's four southernmost provinces. Asked about Australian Defence Force preparations to ensure peace of mind for the 450 diggers now assembling at Camp Smitty, a four-hour drive north-west of Basra, Nikolic said radiation by depleted uranium contamination and the safety of the ASLAV (Australian light armoured vehicle) troop carriers in which they will go on patrol had been dealt with. An Australian hazardous materials team had examined Camp Smitty, just south of the town of Samawa, and given it a clean bill of health, "except for the flies", he said. The research team had access to reports on depleted uranium testing in the area which had revealed nothing more than "normal background" levels of radiation, Australian military sources say. Though there were reported depleted uranium strikes in Al-Muthanna province during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the military emphasises that the problematic areas were closer to Basra. Placing his confidence in Australian firepower, mobility and the troop carriers' armour, Nikolic argued that all were commensurate with the level of threat faced by the troops. "I don't want to downplay the level of the threat, but in terms of violence in Iraq, you need to note that only 2 per cent of incidents have occurred in the southern four provinces and most of those have been in the eastern areas; we're in the west," he said. "The ASLAV is different to the Humvee. Ours is a six-wheeled, medium-recognisance vehicle with a high level of force protection." The Australians in Al-Muthanna have two key tasks: to provide security for Japanese forces engaging in reconstruction work and to train new Iraqi military units. The Japanese are expected to continue to provide their own "close-in" security and the Australian forces will be expected to roam at greater distances in the sparsely populated desert region, operating as a quick reaction force to deal with - and hopefully prevent - insurgency strikes. Two of the Dutch contingent from which the Australians are taking over died in such attacks and a series of mortars have been lobbed into the Japanese main compound. If the insurgency gives greater attention to Al-Muthanna than it has in the past, those long-range patrols could expose the Australians to the roadside bombing and other tactics which have been used incessantly against American and Iraqi forces. The positioning of Australian trainers in Iraqi military training camps also is likely to expose them to greater risks than the Dutch faced. Working with the British, the Australians will be setting up a regional training centre for the Iraqi military - again, that is the sort of establishment that might prove irresistible to the insurgents, especially if they were squeezed out of their current areas of operation and forced to find new turf. But for now the Australian commander at Camp Smitty, Lieutenant-Colonel Roger Noble, appears to be more concerned about how local people, rather than insurgency raiding parties, perceive the new troops in their midst. Speaking to the Herald after Monday's Anzac Day dawn service at the camp, he said he was considering removing a heavy-steel protective shield added to the troop carriers for the Iraq mission. The grille-like frames are attached to all four sides of the machines. But while they might thwart projectiles thrown or fired at them, they also send an implicit message of distrust to the entire community that Noble said he wanted his men to befriend in a "hearts and minds" campaign. ---- US: Radioactive War Crimes by Stephanie Hiller Friday, April 29, 2005 Navhind Times http://www.navhindtimes.com/stories.php?part=news&Story_ID=04291 MOST of the world knows of the horrors of depleted uranium (DU), especially the people of Bosnia, Serbia, Afghanistan and Iraq, who have all experienced first hand the eerie blaze, the charred remains of incinerated soldiers, the cancers, the gruesome birth defects.Yet the Pentagon continues to insist that DU is “only slightly radioactive”, the mainstream media has buried the story, and Americans remain largely unaware of the pernicious damage of this sophisticated weaponry. Thousands of sick war veterans tell a different story. Thanks to determined activists and alternative periodicals, the truth is coming out, and peace organisations are beginning to take a stand. On February 11, 2005, Ms Melissa Sterry, a war veteran from the second Gulf-War, testified at a hearing before Connecticut legislators that her crippling symptoms are due to radiation from depleted uranium weapons. Under consideration is a bill that would require that Connecticut National Guard troops now serving in Iraq and Afghanistan be properly screened and treated for depleted uranium contamination. Like most war veterans suffering from the devastating symptoms of so-called “Gulf War Syndrome,” Ms Sterry stated that she has received no help from the department of veterans affairs, because the government insists that its studies show depleted uranium “won’t cause any long-term health risks”. More than half the veterans from the first Gulf War are disabled; Ms Sterry testified that exposure during the second war was even worse. Depleted uranium or U-238 is a waste product from the uranium enrichment process used to extract the tiny amount of highly radioactive U-235 used in nuclear reactors from natural uranium. U-238 is at least 60 per cent as radioactive as the raw uranium. But DU is pyroforic, which means it ignites spontaneously, releasing a cloud of radioactive alpha particles in a 25-mile radius. The particles have a half-life of 4.5 billion years. When a highly charged alpha particle enters the body through inhalation or ingestion, it behaves like a tiny bomb lodged in the tissues. DU is also chemically toxic, causing kidney damage. DU is used in shells, tanks, armor, and some warheads. Its value to the Pentagon lies in its superior penetration capability. According to unofficial estimates, between 1,000 and 4,000 tonne DU has been used since the first Gulf War. ---- Depleted-uranium test proposed Louisiana Panel supports testing veterans By MARK BALLARD mballard@theadvocate.com Capitol news bureau April 29, 2005 http://www.2theadvocate.com/stories/042905/pol_testing001.shtml A House panel endorsed legislation Thursday that would require Louisiana veterans returning from Iraq to be tested for depleted uranium exposure, which some experts say they think is a primary cause of Gulf War syndrome. House Bill 570 would allow any Louisiana soldier who believes he or she was exposed to depleted uranium in a combat zone to get a more aggressive test than is offered by the military, said Rep. Juan LaFonta, D-New Orleans, the measure's sponsor. The wording of the proposed law does not specifically spell out who would give or pay for the test. But LaFonta said the measure would give Louisiana soldiers more leverage to demand the tests from the federal Veterans Administration. After the hearing before the House Judiciary Committee, LaFonta acknowledged that a state law would have little effect on the federal agency. But the legislation's chief witness, Robert Smith of New Orleans, said the legislation would allow Gov. Kathleen Blanco to order the state's military department chief, Maj. Gen. Bennett Landreneau, to include the more-expansive testing as part of its annual funding request to the U.S. Department of Defense. Landreneau's press aides did not return three calls seeking comment. Depleted uranium is used nuclear power plant fuel. Because the metal is very dense, the military uses it in bullets, bombs and missiles to help penetrate armor protection. It also is used as counter-weights in fighter jets and as protective armor on Abrams tanks. The United Nations World Health Organization found that very low radiation can still harm people who inhale dust, drink water or eat food that had been contaminated. "It looks more and more like what's causing Gulf War syndrome, primarily, is depleted uranium exposure," said Smith, a retired Green Beret who has worked helping injured veterans rejoin civilian society. Gulf War syndrome is a constellation of symptoms, such as weak joints, headaches, fatigue, shortness of breath, nausea, dizziness, muscle pain, sleep disturbances and unusually frequent urination. "You don't get those symptoms in 20-year-olds," said Joyce Riley of Versailles, Mo. The former Air Force captain is spokeswoman for the American Gulf War Veterans Association. "I'm getting calls all day long from parents who are asking me, 'Why is my child sick?' " Riley said Wednesday. "Depleted uranium is one of the reasons these troops are coming home sick." Riley said that, while the U.S. Department of Defense screens for depleted uranium, it refuses to do adequate tests. Telephone inquiries for comment to the Department of Defense were not returned. A spokesman with the Veterans Administration said the agency does not comment on pending legislation. Members of the Louisiana House Committee on Judiciary asked few questions of Smith and LaFonta. One member, Rep. Mike Powell, R-Shreveport, gave a short speech commending veterans and asked for the privilege of making the motion to refer the bill favorably. But before that motion could be made, LaFonta was asked to explain why the bill's financial note indicates that the state would pay for those tests if the Veterans Administration finds that a test is not warranted. LaFonta said that was a mistake. The legislation would not cost the state anything because the Veterans Administration would handle the testing, he said. The state's Military Department estimated the cost of the tests at $170 each. LaFonta said at least four other states are considering filing a similar bill. Legislative committees of the Connecticut General Assembly approved similar legislation earlier this month. The Louisiana bill now goes to the full House for consideration. --- Notes and quotes from the Louisiana Legislature 4/28/2005, 3:59 p.m. CT The Associated Press http://www.nola.com/newsflash/louisiana/index.ssf?/base/news-15/111471712689320.xml&storylist=louisiana Members of the military or veterans who believe they were at risk for exposure to depleted uranium, a radioactive material that is used in nuclear weapons, should be able to get a free health screening test, a House committee decided Thursday. A bill (House Bill 570) by Rep. Juan LaFonta, D-New Orleans, would establish the right to the screening test. The House Judiciary Committee unanimously sent the measure to the full House for debate. LaFonta was accompanied by two veterans for the committee hearing. "Everybody's there for the parade when veterans come home," but people need to pay attention to taking care of any afflictions they may have from their service, said Rep. Mike Powell, R-Shreveport. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs would cover the $170 cost per test, according to LaFonta. -------- iran Rafsanjani: Iran to Pursue Nuclear Fuel Cycle By REUTERS April 29, 2005 Filed at 8:09 a.m. ET http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-nuclear-iran-rafsanjani.html?pagewanted=print&position= TEHRAN (Reuters) - Uranium enrichment is a right that Iran will never give up, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the influential former president who is preparing to run again, said on Friday. Iran's suspension of uranium enrichment activities, which can produce bomb-grade fuel, will not last long, he said. Iran suspended the activities as a goodwill gesture in the run-up to its talks with European Union nations. France, Britain and Germany, who share the U.S. view Iran may be planning to build nuclear weapons, have been in talks since last year to try to convince Iran to drop its nuclear fuel making in return for economic incentives such as trade deals. A new round of talks is due to be held in London on Friday. But Rafsanjani, who is preparing for a June 17 presidential vote, said: ``Iran is determined to have all branches of nuclear technology, including uranium enrichment.'' ``And we will have it at any cost,'' he told worshippers at Friday prayers in Tehran. Rafsanjani, head of the Expediency Council policy-making body, said Iran ``is strong enough not to let Europeans impose indefinite uranium enrichment suspension.'' Washington accuses Tehran of pursuing atomic weapons and has refused to rule out any option, including force, to stop it acquiring them. Rafsanjani said Iran was ready to confront U.S. threats. TALKS TO CONTINUE Rafsanjani said Iran would pursue talks with the European Union to give assurances Iran was not pursuing nuclear weapons. ``We have enough patience to continue talks and convince the globe about the peaceful nature of our activities,'' he said. ``But I tell the Europeans that this kind of attitude, under America's pressure, will not bring about the desired outcome,'' he added in comments broadcast live on state radio. Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said on Thursday Iran would resume its enrichment program if the London talks failed. Rafsanjani, who told USA Today newspaper he was capable of solving Tehran's problems with arch-foe Washington, expressed Iran's readiness to work out a diplomatic solution to settle the nuclear dispute with the European Union. ``I am telling Americans and Europeans that instead of pressuring Iran, we can remove ambiguities through talks,'' Rafsanjani said. ``We do not want challenges and adventures.'' He urged Iranians to use their votes in the presidential election to prevent the United States from weakening the Islamic state through a low turnout. ``Everybody should vote to defuse America's threats against Iran.'' ---- Iran nuclear dispute talks fail Friday, April 29, 2005 Posted: 11:51 PM EDT (0351 GMT) http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/04/29/iran.nuclear.reut/index.html LONDON, England (Reuters) -- The European Union's so-called "Big Three" and Iran have failed to reach agreement over Tehran's nuclear program but decided to hold more talks in the future. Iran had threatened before the five-hour meeting on Friday to resume sensitive atomic activities unless France, Britain and Germany agreed to allow it to carry out small-scale uranium enrichment. "The informal talks have concluded. No conclusions were reached and both sides, the EU Three and Iran, have agreed to go away and reflect on what was discussed and to continue the discussions in future," said a British Foreign Office spokesman. No immediate comment was available from Iran, accused by the United States of having a secret agenda to develop nuclear weapons. Tehran denies the U.S. charge, saying its nuclear program is solely for the generation of power. The EU's three biggest powers, which share Washington's concerns, are spearheading talks aimed at persuading Iran to scrap its atomic fuel program in exchange for economic and political incentives. Tehran has so far refused. The latest proposal from Tehran suggests it be allowed to build up its uranium enrichment program in stages, beginning with a small "pilot" enrichment plant and ending with a commercial-scale complex. Hard negotiations The EU powers hope to leave the hard negotiations on Tehran's atomic ambitions until after Iran's June 17 presidential elections on grounds that campaigning for the ballot could produce heightened tensions. "We don't want to break things up now and have a row. We want to continue the negotiating process after the Iranian election," said a European diplomat, declining to be identified. But a senior Iranian official, Sirus Naseri, said before the London meeting he wanted agreement soon. "The foundation for agreement is in place," said Naseri. "We think it is unreasonable to avoid agreement," he added, insisting he was not putting "undue pressure" on the EU powers. Iran has suspended its enrichment program under international pressure, but four months of talks with the Europeans have yielded no breakthrough and Iran says the program must resume. "If there is no agreement and the Europeans insist on further time ... we may have to readjust the situation so it will be a more balanced position. It will not be balanced if the suspension will remain," said Naseri, in an apparent threat to resume enrichment unilaterally. He later told Iran's official news agency IRNA: "In case of not reaching an agreement in London, Iran might be obliged to resume part of its uranium enrichment program, but in that case it will still continue the talks." Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, an influential former Iranian president preparing to run again in June, said Tehran was determined to embark on uranium enrichment and other branches of nuclear technology. "And we will have it at any cost," he told worshippers in Tehran. Washington warned Tehran not to leave the negotiating table or resume any parts of its enrichment program. It also reminded the EU of its pledge to help refer Iran's case to the U.N. Security Council, which could lead to economic sanctions, if Tehran followed through on its latest threats. "If Iran chooses to walk away from talks with the EU Three and end its current suspension ... the EU Three have already made clear to Iran that they would work with us and others to report Iran's nuclear program to the U.N. Security Council," a U.S. official in Vienna told Reuters on condition of anonymity. EU diplomats say Tehran knows the idea of "pilot" enrichment is unacceptable to them and to Washington, which takes a harder line than the Europeans despite last month giving its backing to the diplomatic initiative. ---- Stirring the ethnic pot By Iason Athanasiadis Apr 29, 2005 Asia Times http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GD29Ak01.html TEHRAN - Today's Iran is the latest manifestation of a great and endlessly undermined Persian empire that once stretched from Iraq to Afghanistan, embracing a multitude of ethnicities along the way. The Islamic republic that came into being a generation ago is a microcosm of its imperial past, with Arabs, Azeris, Bakhtiaris, Balochis, Kurds, Turkmens and Lurs co-existing alongside the majority Persian population. But as this month's riots by ethnic Arabs in the southern province of Khuzestan demonstrated, Iran's multicultural milieu could also be its Achilles' heel, an open door for foreign opportunists seeking to infiltrate this fledgling nuclear power. Iran is particularly vulnerable to foreign penetration in that non-Persian, non-Shi'ite ethnic minorities inhabit its extremities. Aside from Khuzestan's Shi'ite Arabs, there are Sunni Balochis in the southeast, Sunni Kurds and Shi'ite Azeris in the northwest and Sunni Turkmens in the northeast. All these areas adjoin countries that are either hostile to Iran's ruling clerics or contain US troops. The United States has dramatically expanded its presence in the region post-September 11, 2001, even as it has raised the level of its anti-Tehran rhetoric. US troops and advisers currently reside in Iraq, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Turkey and Pakistan. At the same time, Tehran maintains ambiguous relations with neighbors Pakistan, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Turkey and Iraq, although it is currently on a regional charm offensive and a pro-Iranian government seems poised to come to power in Baghdad. Tensions rising in Balochistan While Iraq is already a proxy battleground between Tehran and regional powers Saudi Arabia and Israel, flashpoint areas for ethnic and other trouble appear along Iran's edges, too. In the arid southeastern province of Sistan-Balochistan, the Iranian army has been fighting for years a bloody campaign against organized drug-smuggling networks that run heavily defended convoys along the heroin route from Afghanistan to Europe. The province is particularly crucial for Iran's national security in that it borders Sunni Pakistan and US-occupied Afghanistan. Moreover, its Balochi inhabitants complain that, as a Sunni minority, they face institutionalized bias by the Shi'ite state. In addition, they complain of discrimination in the education they are given, the jobs they can get, and the forms of cultural expression they are allowed. Sections of the population claim that a systematic plan has been set in motion by the authorities over the past two years to pacify the region by changing the ethnic balance in major Balochi cities such as Zahedan, Iran-Shahr, Chabahar and Khash. Similar allegations sparked the rioting in Khuzestan this month, after a letter purportedly signed by Iranian Vice President Mohammad Ali Abtahi advising that the Arab element in the province be diluted was circulated in Balochistan, and that US special forces teams have allegedly fanned out into Iran from Afghanistan. Though the claim has been strenuously denied by Tehran as much as Washington, it remains that, three years after the US-backed ousting of the Taliban, the US military is digging into Afghanistan for a long stay. Furthermore, Tehran has long been suspicious of a US military presence in the Pakistani port of Gwadar, fearing that the deepwater facility could be used as a launching pad for US espionage in Iran and the sponsoring of separatist meddling in Balochistan. All this is against the backdrop of a simmering Baloch insurgency against Islamabad on the Pakistani side of the border, which local officials blame Tehran for inciting. The construction of a military base housing an army battalion with heavy weapons, including tanks, on the Pakistani side of the border has sharpened tensions. It has also been reported that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence set up a unit in the provincial capital, Quetta, last year to monitor suspected Iranian activity in Balochistan. A former Pakistani interior minister was also quoted by the Daily Telegraph as saying that Tehran's state-controlled radio had launched a propaganda campaign against Islamabad. "Radio Tehran broadcasts between 90 and 100 minutes of programs every day which carry propaganda against the Pakistan government," the former minister said. He added that Iran was suspected of providing financial, logistical and moral backing for the insurgency. United Press International also recently quoted unnamed US officials claiming that Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf had granted the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK) organization permission to operate from Pakistani Balochistan. If true, this is sure to escalate tensions between Islamabad and Tehran over the controversial Marxist-Islamist group that has assassinated several top Iranian government figures since 1979 and enjoyed Saddam Hussein's protection until 2003. The MEK are reportedly in talks with Washington, while their fighters are under US protection in Camp Ashraf in Iraq. An American spy visits Iran When Reuel Marc Gerecht climbed into the back of a truck a decade ago at the start of a secret trip to Iran, he was embarking on a long-cherished journey into a country that he had spent his entire life until then studying, but could never visit. He was also rebelling against a career of often numbing tedium in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), mostly spent at headquarters or sitting in the US Consulate in Istanbul sifting through Iranian visa applicants in his search for well-connected intelligence recruits to run inside Iran. In his book Know Thine Enemy, Gerecht penetrates Iran with the help of an Azeri-Iranian accomplice as he mulls over ways to destabilize its clerical regime. From cultivating high-ranking Azeris to inciting separatist Kurds to fostering divisive clerical rivalry between the holy Shi'ite cities of Najaf in Iraq and Qom in Iran, Gerecht constantly mentally prods methods of destabilizing the Islamic republic. In the process, he sheds valuable light on how an intelligence professional might approach the dismemberment of a hostile country. "I continuously scripted possible covert action mischief in my mind. Iranian Azerbaijan was rich in possibilities. Accessible through Turkey and ex-Soviet Azerbaijan, eyed already by nationalists in Baku, more Westward-looking than most of Iran, and economically going nowhere, Iran's richest agricultural province was an ideal covert action theater." Worried that he would be revealed as an American infiltrator, Gerecht never made it to Tehran. But his book is a fascinating introduction into the psychological warfare that intelligence operatives wage. Examining opportunities for exploiting the ethnic distinction between the Azeris and the Persians, he looks for "a weak link between Azeris and 'proper' Persians" that would allow "a case officer [to] slice a man's soul, the regime and conceivably the country apart". Gerecht wistfully comments that "a well-constructed program, even if it failed, could still unnerve the mullahs. Here, covert action needs only to scare - to let the mullahs know the Great Satan is toying with the idea of tearing Iran apart. Even the hardcore Iranians know they will lose if the United States really takes aim. Worldwide Islamic revolution, terrorism or assassination wouldn't look so appealing if the price were Azerbaijan." Last week, as violent riots raged in Iran's southern province of Khuzestan between ethnic Arabs and government forces, another powerful extract from Gerecht's book came to mind: "An independent or autonomous Shi'ite state in southern Iraq would have re-energized Iraq's Shi'ites, long docile under ferocious Sunni rule. The age-old clerical rivalry between Najaf and Qom would have been reborn. Hostile to the clerical hubris of [ayatollah Ruhollah] Khomeini's Iran, Najaf's Arabic-speaking mullahs would loudly have debated the fundamentals of Khomeini's theocratic rule. Dissident senior Iranian clerics disgusted with Tehran could have repaired to Najaf, as the ayatollah once did under the Shah. A network of anti-regime clerics could have formed. At minimal cost to the United States, Washington could have encouraged a Shi'ite civil war." What Gerecht did not explore were the effects that a burgeoning rivalry between Najaf and Qom - coupled with the coming to power of a Shi'ite-majority government in neighboring Iraq - might have on Iran's Shi'ites, especially the ethnic Arabs living in the southern province of Khuzestan. This month's riots gave a tantalizing indication of what a US-backed covert operation in Iran might look like. After several days of civil chaos, between five and 31 people were dead with hundreds injured or imprisoned. Iran's defense minister and the highest-ranking ethnic Arab in government, Rear Admiral Ali Shamkhani, arrived in Ahwaz to declare that "Iranian Arabs enjoy a high status in the Islamic Republic of Iran, and I assure you any other type of political system but the Islamic Republic would have sought ways for uprooting them, just as the ousted Shah's regime moved in that direction". Under the Shah, who was thrown out in the revolution of 1979, ethnic minorities were largely ignored and their languages banned as part of a national policy of stressing the Persian character of the state. In line with the Shah's anti-Arab policy, Khuzestanis were marginalized and their province was the only territory not to be named after its ethnic minority, unlike Kurdestan, Azerbaijan and Balochistan. But the Arabs were not the only ones to be discriminated against. The Kurds were portrayed as being wild and untrustworthy, an official position that largely contributed to their taking up arms just five months after the proclamation of an Islamic republic and at a time when the country was domestically weak and fragmented. The revolution arrived on a tide of rhetoric about the reinstatement of justice and equality for the oppressed Iranian people. Encouraged by the new approach, the country's ethnic minorities banded together to form a 30-member committee and went to Tehran to negotiate with the newly formed Supreme Revolutionary Council for more rights and even regional autonomy. The government's reaction to their demands was to stress that there are no nationalistic boundaries within Islam. Talks broke down. When Saddam Hussein invaded Iran in September 1980 and transformed Khuzestan into a bloody battleground, the Kurds seized the opportunity to rebel in the north. Ayatollah Khomeini demanded a "saintly war" against them and the insurgency was quashed after two years of fighting. In the south, the main theater of the Iran-Iraq War, several cities in the oil-rich province were laid waste, with the blasted ruins of Khorramshahr becoming Iran's Stalingrad and a turning point in the eight-year war of the 1980s. Khuzestan's inhabitants fought bravely during the war and proved their allegiance to Iran, but today, more than 15 years after the end of hostilities, many feel poorly rewarded, and parts of their province's infrastructure remain shattered. They protest that the central government shows no concern for their economic plight and that the huge profits generated by the province's oil industry and agricultural sectors are not trickling into the local economy. "We're talking about the repressed complaints of the [Khuzestani] people," a high-ranking Iranian official with Arab roots told the Asia Times Online. "After the end of the war, the government did not carry out reconstruction in Khuzestan as it did in other provinces. If the government wants to end this situation now, it can. It can change the governor and invest money in the region." Although there is little proof of external interference in the recent riots - aside from the standard rhetoric about "paid agents" emanating from Tehran - a failure to address local grievances could allow conservative Persian Gulf governments to seize a foothold in the region. Already worried over the prospect of the developing of a Shi'ite arc that stretches from Tehran to Baghdad, Damascus and Beirut, Saudi Arabia and the conservative Sunni sheikhdoms around it are consulting with Washington on how best to contain Iran. According to one well-connected ethnic-Arab consultant who spoke to Asia Times Online, Saudi-funded Khuzestanis are now active in the province, converting locals to Sunni Islam. "You have right now Saudis penetrating into this region and for the first time we're speaking about people converting from Shi'ism to Sunnism because of the money they're being offered and a lack of hope," he said, citing recent talks with the head of an Arab tribe. While Saudi agents have been carrying out such a program in Baghdad's Shi'ite neighborhoods (Qadhimmieh is one example), this latest development marks an attempt by Riyadh to extend its activities into Iran. The efforts to import Arab and Sunni nationalism into Iran are a reply to former attempts by Tehran to export the Shi'ite Islamic revolution to Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Yemen. "I doubt that you can destabilize the Iranian regime with Arab discontent in Khuzestan, there are just not enough of them," said Gregory Gause, director of the Middle East studies program at the University of Vermont. Arab discontent "is a problem, but not a regime-threatening one. The Gulf Arabs could supply money, but little else." Despite fears in Tehran that outgoing Iraqi premier Iyad Allawi's US occupation-aligned interim government may have smuggled weapons into Khuzestan across its long common border, no reports of weapons being used surfaced during the recent disturbances. "It's a war on two sides," the ethnic-Arab consultant told Asia Times Online. "Just as there's a Shi'ite community in northern Saudi, so are the Saudis now trying to find some footholds inside Iran. Khuzestan is an obvious choice. At the moment, it's very small scale. They enter with the appeal to pan-Arabism and slowly they put more pressure on people to convert to Sunni Islam. In the end, they convert because of political and economic dissatisfaction - it's not a religious thing yet." The province is also potentially vulnerable for its mixture of vast oil supplies and an Arab-Persian demographic imbalance that bears a striking similarity to Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province, where an Arab Shi'ite majority sits atop most of the kingdom's oil supplies and is correspondingly viewed with suspicion by the Sunni royal family. So sensitive is the Eastern Province that the Pentagon's military planners drew up contingency plans in the 1970s to invade it and seize its oilfields in the event that serious unrest or a Soviet invasion should threaten the integrity of the Saudi monarchy. Saudi Arabia's Arab Shi'ite minority rioted from November to February 1980 in the Eastern Province, where they form the majority, a sensitive issue in the Sunni Wahhabi kingdom. Coming in the aftermath of the seizure of Mecca's Great Mosque, in the same year, by Sunni fundamentalists and a siege that lasted 15 days, the Shi'ite riots demoralized the Saudi royal family. The tension was finally defused after the then-Saudi deputy minister of the interior, Amir Ahmad ibn Abd al-Aziz, drew up a comprehensive plan to improve the standard of living in Shi'ite areas. While his recommendations were immediately accepted, plans for an extensive electrification project, swamp drainage, the construction of schools and a hospital and other infrastructure projects have only partially been implemented. At present, Khuzestan and Kurdestan remain Tehran's greatest ethnic separatist challenge. The province's Arabs are among Iran's least-integrated ethnic minorities and lack a national hero of the stature of Sattar Khan and Bagher Khan, who, as Iranian legends of Azeri extraction, played a key role in the Constitutionalist Revolution of 1906 and in incorporating their communities into the national body. The coming to power of an Arab Shi'ite and Kurdish Sunni government in Baghdad caught the imagination of Iran's ethnic Arabs and Kurds. In Iran's Kurdestan province, civil disturbances erupted this month when Kurdish celebrations over Jalal Talabani's appointment to the Iraqi presidency turned violent. With Israeli military and intelligence personnel widely reported to be active in Iraq's Kurdish areas, training Kurdish militias and allegedly infiltrating Iran for intelligence-gathering, Tehran will have to be extremely careful in policing the mountainous territory between the Iranian, Iraqi and Turkish borders. "The external factor has always had a crucial impact on Iran's ethnic movements," said Kayhan Barzegar, a professor of Iranian foreign policy at Tehran's School of International Relations. "Under the new circumstances in Iraq some people along the boundaries feel that now is the time to try. The Kurds considered the [Iraqi] electoral success a great victory. In Sanandaj they're saying that this is a great era, that they must express themselves." Iran's government is anxious that there is no repeat of the foreign-sponsored, ethnic-centered republics of Mahabad and Azerbaijan (Kurdish and Azeri, respectively). Both republics were Russian-backed and short-lived and remain embedded in Iran's collective memory as unpleasant historical precedents of a foreign superpower meddling in domestic affairs. Ultimately, the Islamic Republic is a far more robust country today than when it took its first faltering steps in the early 1980s. Even were the minorities to be whipped up against the central government, the Persian majority is unlikely to be won over by a minority agenda. The removal of a strong Iraqi government took away the only regional actor that could realistically inspire Iran's Arabs to revolt or mount covert operations against Tehran. As long as Iraq remains a weak state, Khuzestan's Arabs will not be tempted to betray their country and throw their lot in with Baghdad. At the end of his trip to Iran, Gerecht speculates about the possible effects of a US-backed covert action operation in Iran. "Would we be playing with fire, tempting a geographic implosion of the Muslim world," he wonders. "Perhaps. But nation-states don't take shape unless there is a popular will for them. A lavishly funded CIA covert-action program to tear Brittany from France wouldn't work. Bretons may hate Paris, but they're French. The same may be true for Azeris and the Islamic Republic. Still, a little CIA mischief would help the two make up their minds - while convincingly reminding the mullahs of US omniscience and power." -------- korea Pentagon: North Korea could be able to build long-range nuclear missile 4/29/2005 Associated Press http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-04-29-us-nkorea_x.htm WASHINGTON (AP) — North Korea theoretically can mount a nuclear weapon on a long-range missile, a Pentagon spokesman said late Friday, providing more details than congressional testimony delivered a day earlier by a top intelligence official. Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman said the military has no evidence that the communist nation has actually put such a warhead atop a missile that could travel many thousands of miles. If it can, it would mark a significant advance in Pyongyang's ability to threaten the United States at a time when the two countries are at a standoff over U.S. efforts to curtail North Korea's nuclear program. On Thursday, Defense Intelligence Agency chief Vice Adm. Lowell Jacoby told a Senate committee that North Korea can arm a missile with a nuclear device. He had left unclear, however, whether he was referring to a short- or long-range missile, nor did he specify whether he believed North Korea had already done so. The Pentagon statement, issued Friday evening, marked its latest attempt to explain and in part soften Jacoby's testimony. It pointedly used the term "theoretical capability" to describe North Korea's capacity to produce a nuclear-armed missile. On Thursday, Jacoby had said he believed "they have the capability to do that." "North Korea has a theoretical capability to produce a warhead and mate it with a missile, but we have no information to suggest they have done so," said the statement. The finding is "based upon the fact that information concerning weapons design has been readily available for decades in unclassified literature, that North Korea has access to nuclear material and an assessment that North Korea has the capability to engineer a weapon based on those designs," the statement continued. The U.S. intelligence community believes North Korea has one or more nuclear weapons, and has untested two- and three-stage missiles capable of reaching U.S. soil. But it has been unclear whether Pyongyang has yet developed the technology to miniaturize a nuclear weapon so it fits on a missile, and provide it with the guidance systems so it can hit a target. Pressed on the matter Friday, Lawrence Di Rita, the chief spokesman for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, said the United States does not know whether the North Koreans have a nuclear warhead small enough to be carried by a missile that could reach U.S. territory. The Pentagon also said Jacoby's statement marked no new assessment, but simply restated remarks he made in March. Jacoby's previous statements, however, left unclear whether the U.S. believes the North Koreans had developed the necessary warhead technology. Two defense officials said they believe it will be several years before North Korea can deploy an intercontinental ballistic missile with a nuclear warhead. They discussed the intelligence analysis Thursday on the condition of anonymity. In the exchange Thursday, Jacoby was asked by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., whether "North Korea has the ability to arm a missile with a nuclear device?" Jacoby answered, "My assessment is that they have the capability to do that." Clinton called Jacoby's testimony "troubling beyond words." U.S. intelligence believes a two-stage North Korean Taepo Dong 2 missile could hit Alaska, Hawaii and perhaps parts of the West Coast. North Korea also has shorter-range missiles which, some officials have said, may be able to carry a nuclear warhead as far as Japan. ---- Pentagon: No New North Korean Nuclear Weapon Capability By Al Pessin Pentagon 29 April 2005 Voice of America http://www.voanews.com/english/2005-04-29-voa75.cfm The U.S. Defense Department says a statement Thursday by its intelligence chief was not a new assessment indicating an increased nuclear weapons capability by North Korea. The spokesman was attempting to clarify comments made Thursday by the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency in testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee. It was this exchange Thursday between Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and Vice-admiral Lowell Jacoby that made headlines. CLINTON: "Admiral, let me ask you, do you assess that North Korea has the ability to arm a missile with a nuclear device?” JACBOY: "The assessment is that they have the capability to do that, yes ma'am.” CLINTON: "And do you assess that North Korea has the ability to deploy a two-stage inter-continental missile, a nuclear missile, that could successfully hit U.S. territory?” JACOBY: "Yes. The assessment on a two-stage missile would give, be able to reach portions of U.S. territory, and the projection on a three-stage missile would be that it would be able to reach most of the continental United States. That still is a theoretical capability in the sense that those missiles have not been tested.” CLINTON: "With all due respect, it is troubling beyond words that we have testimony like that at this time." But on Friday, the Pentagon's chief spokesman, Lawrence Di Rita called an unexpected news briefing and offered this explanation of what Admiral Jacoby had said. "He was not making a new assessment,” said Mr. Di Rita. “There is no new assessment of North Korea's capability in this regard. And in fact, he was speaking about a theoretical capability to combine missile types and a warhead, such that you could have a theoretical ability to reach the United States, as he described." Mr. Di Rita says Admiral Jacoby had said something similar a month earlier, and was only rephrasing his assessment, not offering new information. The key apparently new point was when Admiral Jacoby said North Korea is believed to have the ability to put a nuclear warhead on one of its inter-continental missiles. But Mr. Di Rita contradicted the admiral on that point. "I don't believe we know that and I don't believe that that's part of the assessment," said Mr. Di Rita. Still, Mr. Di Rita said North Korea's military capability is a threat to the international community, and must be dealt with. He said for now, the United States believes the most important thing is for North Korea to agree to return to talks that also include China, Russia, South Korea and Japan. He said "further steps" could be taken in the future, but he would not say what or when. Earlier Friday in Seoul, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said the North Korea nuclear situation "grows with a sense of urgency." Mr. Di Rita would not use that phrasing. But at a news conference on Thursday President Bush indicated he is concerned about North Korea's suspected nuclear weapons capability, even though it has not been tested or confirmed. "Look, Kim Jong-il is a dangerous person,” said Mr. Bush. “He's a man who starves his people. He's got huge concentration camps. And there is concern about his capacity to deliver a nuclear weapon. We don't know if he can or not, but I think it's best when you're dealing with a tyrant like Kim Jong-il to assume he can." North Korea claims it does have a nuclear weapons capability, and in an interview last week, North Korea's Ambassador to the United Nations, Han Song Ryol, said it was developed to counter what he called hostility from the United States. He said the nuclear issue can be solved only if the United States changes its policy. "If the United States gives up the hostile policy and respects our sovereignty and has the policy to coexist with the DPRK, we are in a position to solve the nuclear issue through dialogue," he said. North Korea wants bilateral talks with the United States. The United States says that approach failed in the past, and the nuclear issue must be solved in conjunction with the other countries in the six-party talks. But some critics, like Senator Clinton, believe that approach is not working and should be changed in order to use all possible means to avoid moving to the unspecified "further steps" that Mr. Di Rita mentioned. President Bush said on Thursday he will work with the other countries in the process to determine when the approach must be changed. ---- North Korea capable of firing nuclear-armed missile at US: US official WASHINGTON (AFP) Apr 29, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/050429030424.swqhwail.html North Korea is able to mount a nuclear warhead on missiles that could hit the United States, a senior US defense official said Thursday in a startling assessment of the hardline communist state's military capability. Vice Admiral Lowell Jacoby, the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, gave the assessment while answering questions during a Congressional hearing. Asked by Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton whether North Korea had the ability to arm a missile with a nuclear device, Jacoby said: "The assessment is that they have the capability to do that, yes, ma'am." He said that North Korea also had the ability to deploy a two-stage intercontinental missile that could successfully hit US territory. "Assessed to be within their capacity, yes," Jacoby told Clinton when asked if a two-stage intercontinental missile strike was "already within their operational capacity." Questioned on the possible target range of the missiles and whether they could reach the West Coast of the United States, Jacoby said he needed to look at the range arcs but added: "It's certainly Alaska and Hawaii, and I believe a portion of the Northwest." It is believed to be the first time a US government official is publicly saying that North Korea has the technology to add a nuclear device to a missile. His remarks at the hearing on the defense intelligence budget of the US Senate Armed Services Committee alarmed the wife of former President Clinton. "It is troubling beyond words that we have testimony like that at this time," said the Democratic Senator from New York as she suggested that the Bush administration's policy on ending North Korea's nuclear weapons drive does not seem to be working. "There is that old saying, you know, if you're in a hole, quit digging. And this administration just keeps getting bigger shovels, and it bothers me greatly," Clinton said. President George W. Bush admitted Thursday "there is concern" about North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il's capacity "to deliver a nuclear weapon." "We don't know if he can or not, but I think it is best when you're dealing with a tyrant like Kim Jong-Il to assume he can," he told a news conference. Bush said however that negotiations were still the best way to rein in North Korea's nuclear arms program and tougher action would require consensus among regional allies. He signaled he would have to consult with other partners to the talks -- China, Japan, South Korea and Russia -- before mulling tougher measures such as taking the matter to the UN Security Council. Bush said that the North Korean threat was among reasons for the US move to establish a missile defense system. "Perhaps Kim Jong-Il has the capacity to launch a weapon and wouldn't it be nice to shoot it down?" he said. "And so we got a comprehensive strategy in dealing with him." North Korea announced in February that it possessed nuclear arms. Earlier this month, Pyongyang said it had shut down its nuclear power plant at Yongbyon and was preparing to reprocess the plant's spent fuel, a move that could result in the production of enough plutonium to build up to six more nuclear bombs. A US official was quoted saying last week that the United States believed North Korea was planning to test a nuclear weapon and has asked China to intervene. ---- N. Korea May Carry Out Nuclear Test by June - Kyodo By REUTERS April 29, 2005 Filed at 10:11 p.m. ET http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-korea-north-test.html?pagewanted=print&position= TOKYO (Reuters) - The United States has warned the International Atomic Energy Agency that North Korea has been preparing to carry out an underground nuclear test since March and could go ahead as early as June, Kyodo news agency said on Saturday. The report, which quoted diplomatic sources in Vienna, came a day after the chief U.S. negotiator to stalled talks on Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions said Washington believed North Korea might be trying to harvest material for a nuclear bomb from a shut-down reactor. According to the sources, who said the information was obtained by satellite photos and from within North Korea, Pyongyang was preparing to test a small-scale plutonium device. The United States had called on China to urge North Korea to halt its preparations, but there were no signs that Beijing had done so, the sources said. Japanese officials were unavailable for comment. Last week, following a similar report, a senior U.S. administration official said that Washington had seen no evidence that North Korea was preparing for a nuclear weapons test, although it had seen ``lots of stuff suggesting interesting activity.'' On Friday, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill told reporters in Seoul that a North Korean plutonium reactor at Yongbyon had been shut down for close to three weeks and there could be an operation under way to reprocess nuclear material. The shutdown and the possibility of a nuclear test were of great concern to nations trying to persuade Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear programs through six-party talks, he added. In February, North Korea said it possessed nuclear weapons and was withdrawing from the talks, in which the United States, Japan, Russia, China and the two Koreas have taken part. The last round took place in June 2004, and repeated efforts to restart the talks have failed. -------- mideast Putin, Palestinian leaders meet 4/29/2005 4:42 AM (AP) http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-04-29-putin-mideast_x.htm RAMALLAH, West Bank — Russian President Vladimir Putin promised Friday to give equipment and training to Palestinian security forces and offered help to rebuild the crumbling infrastructure in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Putin met for about two hours with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank city of Ramallah on the third day of his historic visit to the region. The two leaders focused on the Middle East peace process and Russian aid to Palestinians. The Palestinians and Moscow have a long history of political and cultural cooperation dating to the Cold War, when the Soviet Union backed Arab states and the Palestinians in their fight against the U.S.-backed Israelis. About 15,000 Palestinians — including Abbas — studied in Russian universities. In recent years, however, Russian ties with Israel have warmed. Putin's trip — the first by a Kremlin leader to Israel and the occupied territories — was seen as an effort to burnish Russia's credentials as a key Mideast mediator and a player on the world stage. Standing alongside Abbas beneath a portrait of late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, the Russian leader told a joint news conference he would provide the Palestinians with helicopters and training for their security services. "We will provide the Palestinian leadership with technical help, supplies of equipment and training," Putin said. "We want the cooperation to be completely open and not cause concern on the Israeli side, and we will resolve this together." Palestinian Foreign Minister Nasser al-Kidwa said Russia would provide the Palestinians with two helicopters, which would be used to transport Abbas. Israel destroyed the Palestinian Authority's presidential helicopters as part of its campaign to limit the movement of Arafat. Talks on providing the Palestinians with armored vehicles will continue, al-Kidwa said. Putin had been expected to offer the Palestinian police 50 armored patrol vehicles, but Israel had objected, questioning the need for such vehicles and leaving the plan in limbo. "If we expect chairman Abbas to fight terrorism effectively, he can't do it with slingshots and stones. We must understand this," Putin said. In addition to the security aid, Putin said Russia could help rebuild the Palestinian infrastructure in the West Bank and Gaza, which was badly damaged in more than four years of fighting with Israel. Israel plans to pull out of the impoverished Gaza Strip this summer. Putin was greeted Friday morning at the Palestinian headquarters by an honor guard. A military band played a halting version of Russia's national anthem and the Palestinian anthem as the Russian leader and Abbas stood side by side. Security officers then placed a wreath, with a banner reading "from the president of the Russian Federation," before the tomb of Arafat. Putin approached, bowed his head, stood silently at attention for a few seconds, bowed again and walked away. Putin's meeting with Abbas followed talks Thursday with Israeli leaders, where he discussed Russia's cooperation with Syria and Iran — two of Israel's bitterest enemies — and the growing problem of anti-Semitism in Russia. A day after soothing his Israeli hosts with a stern call for Iran to do more to show it's not building an atomic bomb, Putin reiterated in Ramallah that Russia had no intention of halting its nuclear-related cooperation with Tehran. However, he said his country remained committed to nuclear nonproliferation. "Nuclear weapon proliferation is dangerous in general, and in such an explosive region as the Middle East it is very dangerous. From a military standpoint it is illogical, and from a humanitarian standpoint it is unacceptable," Putin said. Russia is building a nuclear power plant in Iran, and Israeli officials have expressed concern to Putin that Tehran would use the technology to further its suspected nuclear weapons program. Putin said the nuclear components did not threaten Israel's security. "We intend to fulfill our programs with Iran, which are linked with — and I stress this — peaceful atomic energy," he said Friday. Iran maintains that its nuclear program is peaceful, but the United States and others believe it is trying to develop atomic weapons. On Thursday, Putin also defended a deal to sell anti-aircraft missiles to Israel's foe Syria, a plan that has clouded improving Russian-Israeli relations and has loomed over the historic visit. Putin arrived in the region promoting a fall Mideast peace conference in Moscow, and Palestinians responded enthusiastically. But the idea dropped off the table during Wednesday's talks in Jerusalem after Israel and the U.S. expressed reservations. Putin said Friday he was still committed to an international gathering, adding that it would not be a summit, but a meeting of high-level experts. Russia is one of the four co-sponsors of the "road map" peace plan, along with the U.S., U.N. and the European Union, but the Americans have taken the lead. -------- russia RUSSIA TO DELIVER UP TO 80 TONS OF NUCLEAR FUEL TO IRAN April 29, 2005 (RIA Novosti) http://en.rian.ru/business/20050429/39761519.html MOSCOW, April 29 (RIA Novosti) - Russia will supply up to 80 tons of nuclear fuel to the Iranian nuclear power plant in Bushehr, a source in Rosatom told RIA Novosti. "The amount of fuel will be about 80 tons of low-enriched uranium," the source noted. According to him, "fuel will be supplied to Iran when it will be technologically necessary." "The time has been agreed upon with the Iranian side, no problems with the forthcoming supplies are foreseen," the source stressed. Vice-president of TVEL corporation Konstantin Sokolov earlier said that OAO TVEL plans in 2005 or early 2006 to start supplying nuclear fuel for the Bushehr nuclear power plant in Iran. Russia is completing the construction of the first power-generating unit with a capacity of 1,000 megawatt of the Bushehr nuclear power plant. The plant is slated to be put into service in 2006. The necessary equipment is now being installed at the nuclear power plant. ---- Short circuit sets off false alarm at Russian nuclear plant VLADIVOSTOK, Russia (AFP) Apr 29, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/050429040220.hr9czn6r.html A short circuit occurred late Thursday in the engine room of a nuclear power plant in Russia's polar north-eastern region, but caused no casualties or damages, an emergencies ministry official said. The short circuit set off a fire alarm at the Bilibin plant, which initially led firemen to rush to the facilities thinking they were ablaze, but there was in fact no fire, the official said Friday. The Bilibin nuclear power plant, located in the far-eastern Chukotka region, lies well beyond the polar circle. It was built between 1974 and 1976 and is scheduled to remain operational for another 14 years. -------- treaties U.S., Others Haggle Over Nuclear Agenda By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS April 29, 2005 Filed at 7:30 p.m. ET http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-UN-Nuclear-Treaty.html?pagewanted=print&position= UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- With just three days to go, nuclear-armed and non-nuclear states were still searching for agreement Friday on an agenda for a critical conference to reassess the ''eroding'' Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. The United States has sought to make Iran's alleged weapons plans the focus of the monthlong treaty review. But others want an equal emphasis on what they see as the softening commitment by Washington and other nuclear powers to eventually scrap their weapons, as the treaty requires. Conference president Sergio de Queiroz Duarte, mediating the dispute, told reporters Friday many delegates ''keep their cards close to their chest until they have to take a decision. I expect in the next couple of days there will be movement.'' If not, and the sessions begin Monday with an incomplete agenda, ''it would be an unfortunate situation,'' the Brazilian diplomat said. He said he would steer the conference to ''noncontentious points'' while backroom talks continue. The contentious points are piling up: --North Korea's withdrawal from the treaty and declaration it has built nuclear weapons. --Iran's secretive, yearslong program to enrich uranium, a potential step toward a bomb. --U.S. interest in developing new nuclear arms, and rejection of some arms-control pacts. --The threat of nuclear terrorism. Because of such developments, ''parties are concerned about the erosion of confidence in the treaty,'' Duarte said. The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which is formally reviewed every five years, is essentially a global bargain: States without nuclear weapons pledge not to pursue them, and five with the weapons -- the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China -- pledge to move toward eliminating them. A third keystone of the 188-nation treaty is a guarantee that countries without atom bombs will have access to nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. Iran says its uranium enrichment is meant solely for civilian energy. Although India, Pakistan and Israel, treaty nonmembers, have developed atomic weapons, the treaty is credited with having prevented a wider nuclear free-for-all. But the treaty's flaws, such as North Korea's 2003 withdrawal without sanction, have become more apparent in recent years. Duarte indicated the conference may not focus heavily on North Korea itself, so that on-and-off six-party negotiations have time to draw the North Koreans back into the treaty. But he said treaty members might discuss the subject of withdrawal; some propose procedural changes to subject future North Koreas to possible penalties. Participants generally agree the ''nuclear fuel cycle'' issue -- as seen in the Iran case -- must be confronted. But the questions of restricting nations' access to such dual-use technology are too complex to be settled by the time the conference ends May 27, experts say. The agenda dispute might foreshadow an eventual failure by the conference to adopt a consensus document taking positions on major issues, Canadian arms control advocate Douglas Roche said. The former disarmament negotiator said that instead delegates might seek agreement on an individual item or two. He suggested, for example, they endorse negotiation of a treaty ending production of fissile material for nuclear bombs, while agreeing to a new U.S. stipulation that it not include inspections or other verification. Verification could then be negotiated separately, he said. -------- u.s. nuc weapons U.S. Panel: Open Door to Radiation Claims By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS April 29, 2005 Filed at 12:54 a.m. ET http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Radiation-Exposure.html?pagewanted=print&position= SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- A panel of experts is recommending the government open the door to hearing cancer claims from people in all states who think they were affected by nuclear fallout from 1950s weapons tests in Nevada. However, those cancer victims would have to prove it was the nuclear fallout that caused their illness, and making that case would be very difficult. The recommendation was released Thursday by a panel under the National Research Council, the chief operating arm of the National Academy of Sciences. The panel's finding is a nod to scientific data that wasn't available in 1990 when the government initially apologized to cancer victims with a law that set up a compensation fund. Whether the proposal will have any practical effect seems questionable. The data suggest people from as far away as the East Coast could have been exposed to radiation carried from the Nevada test sites by wind and weather patterns. Previously, only people who worked with uranium and residents of certain counties in the region were eligible for the $50,000 to $100,000 lump-sum payments. However, the Board on Radiation Effects Research was also quick to point out the recommended expansion would likely benefit few additional people, because it would require Congress to redraw its criteria for eligibility. U.S. Rep. Jim Matheson, a Utah Democrat and longtime advocate for compensation, said it's not immediately clear when or how Congress would act on the recommendation. Currently, anyone who has one of 19 kinds of cancer and who was a child in the 1950s living in one of the designated areas downwind of the Nevada test site is eligible for money. But if the program were expanded to include all 50 states and U.S. territories, as the board suggests, victims would have to prove to at least some degree their cancer was caused by radioactive fallout. ''In most cases it is unlikely that exposure to radiation from fallout was a substantial contributing cause to developing cancer,'' the board writes in a nearly 390-page report. ''The problem faced by the legal system is that no specific form of cancer is caused only by radiation.'' The review was ordered after complaints that the compensation bill shortsightedly included only certain counties in Utah, Arizona and Nevada -- ignoring others that were as polluted or worse than eligible regions. A scientific model in the board's report showed people in unprotected counties in Idaho, Montana, Arizona, Nebraska, Tennessee, Vermont and New York could have absorbed higher levels of radiation to the thyroid than people in at least one of the Utah counties eligible for compensation. So far, the federal government has paid more than $700 million to more than 11,000 radiation victims and their families affected by radioactive exposure between 1945 and 1971. The board was asked to recommend improvements for the program, be it covering more diseases or wider geographic areas. Board members intentionally ignored the question of cost, instead preferring to let Congress make those calculations, said R. Julian Preston, an EPA researcher who worked on the recommendation. The board also didn't weigh in on how Congress should refine eligibility requirements with the gates open to everyone across the country. Instead, Preston said, the board was charged with evaluating whether the government's standards for eligibility were fair in light of new information. Jonathan Moreno, head of the University of Virginia's Biomedical Ethics program and one of several academics who peer-reviewed the study, said the board's conclusion is based on science, regardless of whether that satisfies seriously ill people who blame the tests for their suffering. ''The fact that terrible things have happened to people can't necessarily be traceable to a specific event,'' he said. ''So it's awful to have to tell someone that you can't help them. But I think often that's the honest answer in many of these instances.'' -------- u.s. nuc facilities -------- south carolina Special Fuel Arrives at Nuclear Power Plant By JULIE HALENAR The Associated Press Friday, April 29, 2005; 9:40 PM COLUMBIA, S.C. -- A shipment of nuclear power plant fuel made from weapons-grade plutonium has been delivered to a South Carolina power station that will be the first in the United States to use it, officials said Friday. The MOX fuel, a mixture of plutonium oxide and uranium oxide, was converted at a nuclear plant in France and shipped back to the Charleston Naval Weapons Station earlier this month. It was then transported to the Catawba Nuclear Station on Lake Wylie, about 20 miles south of Charlotte, N.C., where it will be tested, officials said. The plan is part of a 2000 U.S.-Russia disarmament accord under which both countries promised to destroy 34 tons of military plutonium each. "We're going to use this and actually look at how it performs," said Duke Energy spokeswoman Rita Sipe. Activists have argued that the MOX shipment posed environmental and terrorist threats. The environmental organization Greenpeace also opposes the use of MOX to run reactors, saying it becomes hotter and more radioactive than the enriched uranium used to fuel most reactors. However, Sipe said the nuclear station is meeting all Nuclear Regulatory Commission security requirements. "It's an opportunity for us to help out not only our country, but the world," she said. "We feel good that we are making a contribution to ridding the world of this surplus plutonium for weapons." After this first test run, U.S. officials plan to build a MOX conversion facility with French help at the Savannah River nuclear site, near Aiken, to dispose of the rest of the plutonium the United States has agreed to destroy. Another conversion facility would be built in Russia. No U.S. plant is capable of making MOX, which is produced only in France and Britain. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/04/29/AR2005042901575_pf.html http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-MOX-Fuel.html?pagewanted=print&position= ---- Fuel made from plutonium arrives at Catawba Nuclear Station By JULIE HALENAR : Associated Press Writer Apr 29, 2005 : 5:27 pm ET http://www.heraldsun.com/state/6-602554.html COLUMBIA, S.C. -- A shipment of nuclear power plant fuel made from weapons-grade plutonium has completed its long journey to the Catawba Nuclear Station for testing, Duke Energy said Friday. The company and the U.S. Energy Department would not say when the mixed-oxide fuel arrived at the nuclear station on Lake Wylie, which is about 20 miles south of Charlotte, N.C. The MOX fuel, a mixture of plutonium oxide and uranium oxide, had been converted at a nuclear plant in France and then shipped back to the Charleston Naval Weapons Station last month. Now, it will be tested at Catawba as part of a U.S.-Russian agreement to convert 34 metric tons of surplus plutonium. "We're going to use this and actually look at how it performs," said Duke Energy spokeswoman Rita Sipe. It will be tested to demonstrate the safe and efficient performance of the fuel made from surplus plutonium that has been used safely for decades in European reactors, she said. Despite protests from activists who said the shipment posed environmental and terrorist threats, Sipe said the nuclear station has implemented measures to meet all Nuclear Regulatory Commission security requirements. Tom Clements of Greenpeace International said he was worried about the security of the fuel shipment because Duke Power took "quite awhile" to agree to raise its standards. "They really drug their feet in upgrading the security conditions," he said. "But I would hope they fully complied with the order by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission." Clements, who believes plutonium should be managed as nuclear waste, also was concerned with transporting the nuclear fuel across great distances. "It is the handling and processing and shipment of the material that is the most vulnerable to theft and attack," he said. "This shipment and others, which will increase if the program goes forward, are what really presents the risk to the public." The Energy Department shipped the batch of plutonium to France for conversion into MOX because there isn't a plant in the United States that can do it. Officials want to build a conversion facility at the Savannah River Site near Aiken, but construction has been delayed. Sipe said Duke Energy was confident it could handle the testing program. "It's an opportunity for us to help out not only our country, but the world," Sipe said. "We feel good that we are making a contribution to ridding the world of this surplus plutonium for weapons." -------- texas Nuclear waste is headed to W. Texas Shipments are start of big expansion; U.S. says state oversight lax 07:10 AM CDT on Friday, April 29, 2005 By RANDY LEE LOFTIS / The Dallas Morning News http://www.dallasnews.com/s/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/042905dnmetnukewaste.58905481.html West Texas on Thursday became the destination for some of the nation's most troublesome Cold War-era nuclear waste. But the announcement that 3,500 truckloads of uranium waste will head to Texas from a closed nuclear bomb materials plant in Ohio is just the start of a dramatic expansion of Texas' importation of radioactive leftovers. The decision to send the waste to Dallas-based Waste Control Specialists' facility in Andrews County came just one day after federal officials threatened to put the state's radiation control program on probation. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, meanwhile, is expected within two weeks to approve a Northeastern utility's request to send Waste Control Specialists 84 million pounds of radioactive demolition debris from a closed nuclear power plant in Massachusetts. Texas environmental officials strongly objected this week, challenging the NRC's authority to allow the shipments. But even more shipments of nuclear plant debris are possible. The owner of another closed nuclear power plant in Connecticut has asked the NRC to let it ship 100 million pounds of similar material to the West Texas facility. And as more of the nation's first-generation nuclear plants from the 1950s and 1960s close, they also could be dismantled and shipped to the facility if the NRC prevails. Other types of radioactive shipments to Waste Control Specialists are likely as nuclear operations open and existing waste facilities stop accepting shipments. Nebraska, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Kansas have asked about shipping some of their radioactive waste to Texas. Any of those shipments could travel through Dallas and Fort Worth on Interstate 20, a designated hazardous materials route. 'Heightened oversight' As the state's role in taking nuclear materials grows, however, a recent federal review found that Texas radiation regulators couldn't handle many of the tasks they have now. Many inspections were overdue, staff experts had quit and vacancies went unfilled for months, NRC officials found after a check of Texas Department of State Health Services files in March. In addition, they said many incidents involving radioactive materials weren't reported until long after notification deadlines. As a result, the NRC notified Texas on Wednesday that the state is "in jeopardy of not being able to fulfill its responsibility to protect public health and safety." In a letter to the state obtained by The Dallas Morning News, the NRC placed the state program on "heightened oversight," a step the commission said could lead to probation or suspension of the state's authority to regulate radiation. Still, Waste Control Specialists president George E. Dials promised that the company's facility, Texas' only radioactive waste site, would protect the public from risk. "WCS has an excellent safety record and experience in handling and storing similar types of materials at its Andrews County facility," Mr. Dials said. But state Rep. Pete Gallego, D-Alpine, said the state needs to consider its nuclear future more carefully. He has filed a resolution to create a legislative study committee to weigh the risks of an expanded radioactive waste industry in Texas. "In light of all these changes, it's pretty irresponsible to move forward at this point," Mr. Gallego said Thursday. Legislative debate The House Energy Resources Committee heard testimony on the resolution Wednesday but took no action. Environmental group lobbyists backed the measure, but Waste Control Specialists lawyer Michael Woodward testified that another study would only postpone action needed to manage waste safely. "It is a reality in our country, and we can't just bury our heads in the sand and expect this material to take care of itself," Mr. Woodward said. However, Tom "Smitty" Smith, Texas director of Public Citizen, said the state is headed down a dangerous path paved by politics. "The Pandora's box has been opened, just as we all feared," he said. The Fernald, Ohio, waste is expected to start heading to Texas in late May. The material, which Nevada and Utah rejected, was left after the plant processed high-grade uranium ore into fuel for reactors that made plutonium for bombs. A contractor, Fluor Fernald, is dismantling and decontaminating the plant for the U.S. Energy Department. The $7.5 million contract announced Thursday lets Waste Control Specialists treat the waste and store it until the company gets a state health department license to dispose of it at the Andrews County site. Health department regulators say that license could come in October. If that happens, Waste Control Specialists would earn more money for disposing of the waste. Without a disposal license, the facility could keep the waste for only two years. The company is also seeking a license to dispose of low-level radioactive waste – mostly contaminated tools, equipment, clothing and other items from nuclear power plants, oil companies, hospitals and other sources. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality is processing that application, with a decision expected in 2007. Needed change? The split of radiation oversight duties between the health department and the environmental agency reflects one of the numerous shifts the Legislature has made. Now a bill filed by Sen. Robert Duncan, R-Lubbock, would move all oversight to the environmental agency. Mr. Duncan maintains that the recent NRC review of the health department's performance, which occurred since he filed his bill, reinforces the need to change. That bill, which also would put new taxes on radioactive waste, is due for debate in the full Senate today. Alice Rogers, inspections unit manager with the state health department, said the problems that the NRC found resulted from budget shortfalls, noncompetitive salaries and a 2003 legislative reorganization of the department. She said the department hopes the 2005 Legislature will fix those problems. High-priority inspections of facilities such as Waste Control Specialists site haven't been delayed, she added. None of those factors directly affects the efforts of the two Northeastern power companies to ship their dismantled and demolished nuclear power plants to Texas. That's because the NRC is exempting such debris from regulation as radioactive waste, meaning it could be disposed of in Waste Control Specialists' already approved hazardous waste disposal landfill. The NRC expects to approve the request for the Yankee Rowe plant in Massachusetts within two weeks, commission spokesman David McIntyre said. The other request, for the Connecticut Yankee plant in Connecticut, is pending, but the commission has approved an alternative plan to let Connecticut Yankee ship its debris to a facility in Idaho. Both plants still have extremely hazardous spent nuclear fuel on their sites, but no spent fuel would be sent to the Waste Control Specialists site. Also, the most highly contaminated debris would go to other facilities. Texas objects In a three-page letter dated Tuesday, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality told the NRC that nothing in Texas law or in Waste Control Specialists' permits would allow the disposal of nuclear plant demolition debris without state approval. Among the state agency's questions: If the material is just routine hazardous waste, why ship it 2,000 miles to West Texas, passing hundreds of other facilities approved to take it? The NRC has not yet responded. Neither plant owner has made a final decision to send its debris to Texas, said Kelley Smith, a spokeswoman for both plants. A separate company owns each plant, but the companies have several investor-owners in common. "Both companies are looking at all possible options," Ms. Smith said. Email rloftis@dallasnews.com ---- Nuclear regulators place Texas on 'heightened oversight' By BETSY BLANEY Associated Press Writer April 29, 2005 - 5:00 p.m. http://www.dailysentinel.com/news/content/gen/ap/TX_Radiation_Inspections.html Federal officials threatened probation this week for a Texas state agency that regulates nuclear issues, citing concerns over late radiation inspections and reporting due to staff shortages and jobs left vacant for months. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission placed the Texas Department of State Health Services on "heightened oversight" and gave it 30 days to submit an improvement plan, according to a letter to the department dated Wednesday. The "heightened oversight" status is one grade above probation, NRC spokesman David McIntyre said. Since August 2001 when it got the best possible rating, the department failed to notify the commission of 37 of 160 reportable incidents involving radioactive materials until long after required deadlines, and 22 others needed additional follow-up information, NRC documents indicate. Lack of staffing was cited by state health officials for the late reporting and incomplete data, documents show. The NRC believes the department's program can still "provide adequate protection" to the public from radiation hazards, McIntyre said Friday. Texas has had a strong history in its radiation protection program, he said. "However, we have identified several areas of concern that if left uncorrected could seriously degrade the program's ability to protect the public's health and safety,"Ratliff said. Richard Ratliff, the department's radiation program officer, said steps related to NRC's concerns were being taken before the letter arrived. The problems stem from staffing shortages in health physicist positions because salaries have not been in line with the industry, he said. But state auditors have recommended adding a new pay classification for health physicists that would put those positions within 5 percent of the industry standard, Ratliff said. Legislators now must approve the classification, he said. The amount needed is about $350,000, he said. "That in itself ... will be the greatest remedy to the issues that the NRC has," Ratliff said. The department is short seven positions, he said. "The major part of it is we can't attract new qualified people and retain the staff that we train that we have here already," Ratliff said. Eight health physicists have actually taken jobs at the NRC's Arlington office, Ratliff said. "The department has expressed a commitment to resolving the problems as soon as possible," McIntyre said. The letter came a day before Dallas-based Waste Control Specialists won a $7.5 million, two-year contract to store tons of radioactive waste from an abandoned uranium processing plant in Ohio in far west Andrews County, near the New Mexico border. The department will regulate the waste's storage. In February, the department granted the company a license amendment to expand capacity, which made it eligible to take the Ohio waste. Texas is one of 33 states that has an agreement with the commission to monitor radiation issues pertaining to industrial and medical uses. Some of the institutions and industries over which the department has oversight include Texas A&M University, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, the University of Texas System, Texas Tech University and Halliburton. In all, there are 1,600 radiation materials licensees at 2,200 sites across the state. Additionally, there are 16,000 X-ray sites in Texas that the department inspects. -------- MILITARY -------- arms Sale of 'bunker busters' seen as warning to Iran April 29, 2005 By Abraham Rabinovich THE WASHINGTON TIMES http://www.washtimes.com/world/20050428-105543-9139r.htm JERUSALEM — An Israeli arms specialist suggested yesterday that the proposed sale by the U.S. to Israel of 100 bunker-busting bombs, announced in Washington this week, was intended primarily as a warning to Iran because Israel already produces such bombs. Yitzhak Ben-Israel of Tel Aviv University, a retired general who formerly led the Israel Defense Ministry's research and development branch, told Israel Radio that the purchase of the bombs had no operational significance because Israel manufactured very similar bombs. 'Perhaps there was a symbolic reason for the sale, perhaps a signal to Iran,? he said on Israel Radio. 'We already have the capability.'? Mr. Ben-Israel did not suggest whether the signal might have been initiated by Israel or the U.S. The Pentagon notified Congress on Tuesday of a proposed sale to Israel of 100 laser-guided GBU-28 bombs that are capable of penetrating 90 feet below ground and destroying a bunker encased in 30 feet of concrete. The 2-ton weapon could be carried on the U.S.-built F-15 aircraft in Israel's possession. The conventional bunker buster, which is not nuclear, was first used in the first Persian Gulf War in 1991. The Pentagon's Defense Security Cooperation Agency said Israel had requested the purchase of the bombs from the Lockheed Martin Corp. for $30 million. There has been considerable speculation in the U.S. that Israel might attempt to destroy Iran's nuclear plants the way it had bombed Iraq's nuclear reactor in 1981. Vice President Dick Cheney suggested the possibility in a television interview in January. To some viewers, it sounded more like a hope than a warning. Unlike Iraq, Iran has scattered its nuclear plants and reportedly placed many of them deep underground. On Wednesday, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld made a plea to Congress to refund research on bunker-busting nuclear bombs, noting that key military assets — including chemical, biological and nuclear facilities — increasingly are placed underground. However, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon repeatedly has said that it is up to the international community, not Israel alone, to prevent Iran from achieving nuclear capability. 'It's not for Israel to provide the answer to the international problem,' he told Fox News earlier this month. ---- Putin tells Israel sale of anti-aircraft missiles to Syria will go ahead 29.04.05 By Donald Macintyre INDEPENDENT http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10122966 Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday made clear his determination to go ahead with the sale of anti-aircraft missiles to Syria despite strong pressure from Israeli leaders to revoke it. Neither Russia nor Israel made any effort to disguise the open disagreement on this and other issues in talks which both Mr Putin and the Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, nevertheless went out of their way to depict as cementing improved relations between the two countries. In civilities that went beyond the routinely diplomatic, Mr Sharon, whose parents were born in Russia, yesterday greeted Mr Putin in Russian and told him "he should feel among brothers" on his visit to Israel. Mr Putin reflected that he was glad to be visiting at the time of the Passover and the Orthodox Christian Easter and declared: "I would like to wish the Jewish People well with all my heart; I wish joy for the entire Jewish family." But on arms for Syria, on the best way of securing peace in the Middle East, and on Russia's help for Iran's nuclear programme - help which the Russian President insisted was confined to peaceful uses - the talks did little to remove the sharp differences which remain between the two governments. Mr Putin strongly defended his decision to sell SA-18 missiles to Syria and disclosed in talks with the Israeli President Katsav for the first time that he had vetoed a contract also to sell longer range -185 mile-Iskander missiles to Damascus on the grounds that Israel would not be able to intercept them. By contrast, the anti-aircraft missiles being sold "cannot reach Israeli territory," he said, adding: "To come within their range, you have to attack Syria. Do you want to do that?" Responding to Israeli complaints that the weapons could fall into the hands of Hizbollah, Mr Putin said the missiles could not be shoulder-fired and would not work if uncoupled from the jeeps on which they were mounted. Mr Putin did not mention yesterday that Israeli warplanes did indeed bomb alleged militant training bases outside Damascus on Oct. 5, 2003 and have since "buzzed" one of Syrian President Bashar Assad's palaces. Instead the Russian President compared Russia's $500m sales of weapons to the Middle East with what he said was a total of about $6.8bn in arms sales by the US to the region. At his news conference yesterday Mr Putin did not publicly repeat his call-made the previous day in Cairo-for a Middle East summit in Moscow, which has received short shrift from Israel and the US, along with a distinctly tepid response from the European foreign Affairs Commissioner, Javier Solana. Israel has also made clear its opposition to current Russian proposals to provide Armoured Personnel Carriers and other equipment to Palestinian security forces. But the Russian President, who will hold talks today with the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas went out of way to warn both sides not to take actions which would prejudice final status talks. This appeared to be a way of emphasising what is also the US official position-namely that Israel should not be pre-empting a final peace deal by settlement expansion, including steps that could prejudice the chances of East Jerusalem being a future Palestinian capital. On Iran, Mr Putin was somewhat more emollient in his language, saying he accepted that current steps to prevent Iran developing nuclear weapons were "not enough" and that Iran had to be persuaded to accept nuclear weapons inspections. But Ehud Olmert, Israel's Deputy Prime Minister, insisted yesterday that Russia was itself selling Iran components which could be used for non-conventional weapons. Although Mr Sharon has said that Israel does not intend any attack on Iran, the United States said this week it wanted to authorise the sale of as many as 100 large bunker-buster bombs to Israel, which has been widely seen as a warning to Iran about its nuclear ambitions. -------- asia Nepal's king lifts state of emergency 4/29/2005 Associated Press http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-04-29-nepal_x.htm KATMANDU, Nepal (AP) — Nepal's King Gyanendra on Saturday lifted a state of emergency he imposed after seizing power in February, apparently bowing to strong international pressure to restore democracy in the Himalayan nation. Gyanendra imposed emergency rule on Feb. 1. after firing the government, taking absolute power and suspending civil liberties in a move widely condemned both at home and abroad. He said the ousted leaders had failed to quell a communist insurgency or hold parliamentary elections. "His Majesty in accordance with the constitution has lifted the order of the state of emergency," a brief palace statement said Saturday. The announcement did not elaborate, but legal experts said all the suspended rights have been restored including freedom of press, right to information, assemble peacefully, freedom of movement and constitutional protection against preventive detention. The surprise decision came after the king's return on Friday from visits to China, Indonesia and Singapore, where leaders pressed him to restore democracy in Nepal. Gyanendra met several leaders on the sidelines of an African-Asian Summit in Indonesia last week, including Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan. The meeting with Singh was crucial, because India — a key source of arms for Nepal's fight against a communist insurgency — suspended aid to Nepal after Gyanendra's power grab. Since the royalist takeover, hundreds of politicians have been jailed and protests against the king and his royal government have been banned. After dismissing the government, Gyanendra accused its leaders of failing to conduct parliamentary elections and being unable quell the insurgency, which has raged since 1996. The king quickly formed a government under his chairman and hand-picked his close supporters as ministers. He said he would maintain direct rule for three years. Nepal has been in turmoil since Gyanendra, 55, suddenly assumed the crown in 2001 after his brother, King Birendra, was gunned down in a palace massacre apparently committed by Birendra's son, the crown prince, who also died. Ten members of the royal family were killed. The rebels, who draw inspiration from the late Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong, have been trying to overthrow the government and establish a socialist state. More than 11,500 people have died since the fighting began. In a second announcement by the palace, the king gave continuation to the Royal Commission on Corruption Control which he had formed after taking over power. The commission was first formed under emergency provisions but since emergency is over, the king had to make this technical adjustment. -------- us The Splendid Failure of Occupation Part 32: From Alexander Hamilton and Iroquois to George Bush and Iraqis April 29, 2005, By B. J. Sabri Online Journal Contributing Writer http://onlinejournal.com/iraq/042905Sabri-32/042905sabri-32.html “ . . . The deeper origins of the War on Terror lie more in the events of July 4, 1776, than in those of September 11, 2001. They lie more in a provision in the Declaration of Independence collectively criminalizing the "merciless Indian savages" than in the commercial airplane attacks on the Pentagon and the Twin Towers. This provision in perhaps the most consequential political manifesto ever issued began a trend in 1776 that is only now reaching the full potential of its menacing propensity.”—Anthony J. Hall, founding coordinator of Globalization Studies, author of: The American Empire and the Fourth World, and associate professor of History University of Lethbridge, Canada [Lecture: the Colonial Genesis of the War on Terror, 1492-present, United Nations University, Tokyo, Japan, December 18–19, 2004] April 29, 2005—Alexander Hamilton and Iroquois (Haudenosaunee), George Bush and Iraqis, is there any relation? Can the history of Native Nations in the United States offer the ideological key to understand the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq? Although answering these two questions would delay our discussion on the pretexts for occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, the detour is vital. It will help us in defining a host of current issues. Primary among these is setting an ideological frame of U.S. colonialism, pattern of pretexts vis-à-vis official postures, as well as basic forces—capitalism, imperialism, Christian fundamentalism, Zionism. Two forces: Zionism and Christian fundamentalism have changed the American state so radically that it modified its political structure, ideology, and agenda. The result is hyper-imperialism. Hyper-imperialism as an ideology and power structure has been the guiding force of the United States for over a decade. Technically, since Gorbachev began dismantling the Soviet Union; officially, since Bill Clinton embraced Zionism to win the presidency. Recent military interventions of hyper-imperialism include but are not limited to attacks against Bosnia, Sudan, Haiti, Yugoslavia, the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, the pillage of Palestine via Israel, threats of war against Iran and Syria, the destabilization of Turkey and Arab states, harassment of Venezuela and Cuba, and the semi-occupations of several former Soviet Republics and socialist states. The current dominant ideology of the American Power is complex. It is insidious. It covers up its motives for war with abstract slogans and rationales such as building civil societies, opening free markets, instituting human rights, spreading democracy and freedom, national interests, security, and terrorism. It is pervasive. It depends on seemingly domestic democratic institutions to perpetuate its cyclic reproduction through election and re-election. Finally, it is hyper-violent. It surpassed Nazism. While Nazism’s hallmark was the genocide of European Jews, the U.S.’s hallmark was either extermination (read, genocide) of Native Nations, or mass destruction of Asian and Middle Eastern nations. Further, while Nazism was limited to a period lasting 12 years (1933–1945), American Nazi-style violence has become an uninterrupted experience since the founding of the United States. Another equally important U.S. trait is immunity from prosecution, that is, the U.S. is unaccountable for all crimes it committed since it became an independent political state. In short, after it exterminated or killed Native American Indians, Africans, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Nicaraguans, Filipinos, Koreans, Vietnamese, Panamanians, Serbians, Afghanis, Iraqis, Palestinians via Israel, and so on, the world is still unwilling, afraid, or incapable of making the United States pay for its crimes or force it to change its policy of perpetual violence. Is it true that American international violence surpasses that of Nazism? Let us compare a limited historical sampling: * It is true that when Hitler invaded France, he destroyed the Maginot Line, defeated the French army, and ransacked the countryside; but he did not destroy Paris or other French cities. Moreover, having had a sympathetic stance toward Britain via the Anglo-Saxon connection, he [Hitler] did not destroy Britain despite his intense bombardment of London. The U.S.-UK, as well as the USSR, on the other hand, had razed Berlin and most German cities. * Via the same sympathy toward the British or because of other calculations, Hitler allowed 400,000 British soldiers entrapped at Dunkirk (Northern France, 1940) to escape unharmed by halting his military offensive. He [Hitler] also allowed 100,000 French soldiers to escape from that same entrapment. On the other hand, U.S. Gen. Barry McCaffrey ordered the slaughter of tens of thousands of withdrawing Iraqi army units after an agreed upon ceasefire. * Without casus belli, Hitler invaded Austria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Poland. Yet, although he defeated the small armies of these states, he did not devastate Prague, Bratislava, Budapest, and Warsaw. This does not exclude that invaded territories had suffered damage concomitant with invasions and resistance. Of course, the generalized destruction of Europe happened after Britain and France declared war on Germany. On the other hand, the U.S., without casus belli invaded and destroyed half of Iraq in a blink of an eye. Before Baghdad, which the U.S. had already semi-destroyed in 1991, under the official motive to liberate Kuwait, the U.S. of Kissinger reduced the North Vietnamese capital, Hanoi, to rubble through massive bombardment, although North Vietnam never attacked the United States. After the U.S. forces landed in Anzio [Naples, Italy, WW II, 1944], the retreating German army passing through Tuscany while proceeding North, destroyed most bridges and roads; yet they spared Florence’s ancient bridge Ponte Vecchio from destruction for its incalculable historic value. In the Iraqi case, the American occupation force is tearing down ancient Babylonian ruins to use its rocks and bricks as barricades against attacks by anti-occupation forces. The latest archeological atrocity is the destruction of the top two stories of the Spiral Minaret of Sammarrah (North of Baghdad) which is 1,000 years old. Affirmatively, it is a historical fact that American international violence surpasses in severity and magnitude that of Nazi Germany. The extermination of Native Nations, the enslavement and mass murder of Africans, the mass destruction in the Philippines (200,000 people killed), Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq are but the most notorious acts of genocide and violence perpetrated by the United States against non-European nations. Still, U.S. violence surpasses Nazism on another account: pretexts. While Nazism used German grievances (which, to certain extent, were legitimate) left from WW I as an alibi for its aggression, the United States fabricated a hypothetical Iraqi threat to invade that country. Arguably, a hypothesis on the presumed threat from an adversary is applicable when military force and strength are identifiable but information on intent and strategy are not (example, U.S. vs. USSR). In the Iraqi example, the U.S. fabricated an inexistent threat, and then built a hypothesis upon it (example, Powell’s U.N. presentation). Thus without a casus belli, but with an elaborate hypothesis, the U.S. attacked Iraq, bombarded its capital with depleted uranium and daisy cutters, annihilated the Iraqi state within just 21 days, and killed over 120,000 Iraqis in two years of colonialist occupation. One point to remember is that in states with centralized governments, such as Iraq, the destruction of the government means the inevitable collapse of the state. But since the state supports society, the collapse of the state means the parallel collapse of society. With this foreknowledge, the prospected simultaneous collapse of state pillars (ministries, police, army, civil organizations, food supply, utility services, etc., and of societal structures—economic activities, access to health systems, social activities, etc.) was the most pressing target behind the U.S. invasion of Iraq. That target was the dissolution of the Iraqi state and its re-making to serve the needs of U.S. capitalism, imperialism, military and service industry, Israel, and, of course, to restart the march for world domination. Nevertheless, the swift disintegration of Iraq under the American onslaught was not limited to one factor, as the U.S. wants us to believe. That is because of U.S. war technology. There were other concomitant structural factors; principle among them is that, after a devastating previous U.S. war against Iraq (Gulf War, 1991), a 13-year economic sanction and blockade, a long war of attrition, and world isolation, Iraq, state and society, passed, by far, the point of elasticity or functional recovery. In short, Iraq was ready to collapse under the slightest external pressure. Exactly, how did the U.S. manage to occupy Iraq? By now, the answer should be automatic: through pretexts. Pretext that Iraq possessed WMD; pretext that the U.N. was incapable of disarming Iraq; pretext that Saddam was cheating; pretext that post-invasion Iraq became the “center stage for the war on terror”; pretext to building a “free,” “democratic” and “stable” Iraq. Now that we established that pretexts are the voluntary nervous system of U.S. imperialism, then what comes next? I contend there must have been a starting point and successive stages where carefully studied colonialist impulses guided U.S. expansionism and violence to implement it. One such impulse is the determination of U.S. ruling classes to destroy all those who oppose its imperium, encroachment, colonialism, or coercion. This means U.S. imperialist actions are a product of extensive deliberation and coherent decision-making. One way to evaluate the effects of the starting point on the American society is by observing the evolving ideology of violent domination. Of course, those effects extend to the political order, popular culture, as well as to the culture of the U.S. army. This means the ideology of domination has become a natural practice that the American society accepts without discussion. On a wider ground, however, one result of the continental conquest by the United States is that the practice of exterminating Native Peoples has become a messianic option and a paradigm projected into the future. Incidentally, when I say American culture, I do not intend to constrict it to Americans of white European descent but also to many ethnic groups descending from exploited or colonized peoples. And by this, I am unequivocally pointing out to a paradox and an anomaly in the conduct of non-white ethnic groups that the U.S. had once colonized, brutalized, or enslaved. Surprisingly, Native Americans Indians, African Americans, and Hispanic are supplying the U.S. army with enough personnel to colonize, murder, and suppress foreign nations. Even more surprisingly, a multitude of non-white individuals now emulate the racism, fascism, and violence of the white masters who once enslaved and annihilated their great grandparents—they call this “patriotism.” It is ironic that African Americans (enslaved or not) helped the U.S. army in defeating American Natives, and that American Natives helped their captors in defeating other American Natives. The English settlers’ strategy to use non-Europeans to fight their wars of colonialism has persisted since Britain occupied India, mostly with conscripted Indians. That practice is now the backbone of U.S. strategy for expanding imperialism. In fact, tens of thousands of Native Americans, African Americans, and Hispanic (from the U.S. or Latin America) are now serving the aims of U.S. colonialism in Korea, Haiti, Kosovo, Bosnia, Afghanistan and Iraq. Whether these groups joined the American colonialist bandwagon out of co-option, co-habitation, subordinate participation, or just servitude to identify with an oppressive system, thus escaping discrimination and obtaining some economic or social benefits, is of no critical relevance. Opportunistically this phenomenon has an aphorism: if you cannot beat them, join them. Sociologically, it has a different name: alienation within a system. Psychologically, it has a different meaning: Occupied Mentality Syndrome, which is my definition of ethnic, cultural, or social insecurity that afflict some of the non-European segments of the American society. What is relevant, instead, is that a substantial number of underprivileged non-white Americans participate consciously in the crimes of colonialism and adopt its ideology, vocabulary, attitudes, and predilection for unjustified killing. Pointing to Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Ben Nighthorse Campbell, and others as an example of achievement of non-European groups in the American system is invalid. These personalities are exponents of co-option, and, as such, are alien to the issues of true emancipation and social empowerment of the groups just mentioned. (Note: Campbell, a former US senator, first as Democrat, and then as a Republican, from Colorado is partly Northern Cheyenne Indian via his father; his mother was Portuguese. He was an aggressive advocate of the U.S. imperialist policy toward Iraq in the 1990s. His recent voting record indicates an ingrained colonialist ideology, imperialist militarism, and it includes the resolution for war on Iraq in 2002, the approval of $82 billion dollars to continue the war on the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, and the resolution to relocate the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, thus acknowledging the essence of Israeli colonialism.) Having outlined an incremental historical approach to the occupation of Iraq, we have to investigate whether we can connect past and present when dealing with the ideology of colonialism. For instance, the similarity between the Indian Holocaust to implement conquest, and the cumulative Iraqi holocaust also to implement conquest is striking. Despite difference in magnitude, this statement is true. One reason is that the ideology of conquest that animated Spaniards, British, Portuguese, French, Dutch, and, later, the emerging Americans is identical in makeup and finality to the ideology of conquest that is now animating the United States. This ideology has a name: exterminate to dominate. Peter Montague, co-founder and director of Environmental Research Foundation (E.R.F.) in Annapolis, Maryland, highlights the Indian Holocaust with a piercing statement: By then [1891] the native population had been reduced to 2.5 percent of its original numbers and 97.5 percent of the aboriginal land base had been expropriated. . . . Hundreds upon hundreds of native tribes with unique languages, learning, customs, and cultures had simply been erased from the face of the earth, most often without even the pretense of justice or law. [Source] [Read statistics] In the U.S. example, what was the pressing rationale to exterminate Native Peoples? Thomas Jefferson, among others, explained the situation with astounding clarity and unflinching determination. In a letter to Baron Von Humboldt (a German naturalist, geologist and explorer [1769–1859]. He wrote: The interested and unprincipled policy of England has defeated all our labors for the salvation of these unfortunate people. They have seduced the geater part of the tribes within our neighborhood, to take up the hatchet against us, and the crule massacres they have committed on the women and children of our frontiers taken by surprise, will oblige us now to pursue them to extermination, or drive them to new seats beyond our reach” [Quoted in Facing West by Richard Drinnon, Schocken Books, 1980, page: 98] [Emphasis added] We can interpret Jefferson’s thought as follows: 1. The United States is a racist and supremacist state: it considered Native Nations, unfortunate people. Did Jefferson consider their extermination as an unfortunate episode? Or did he consider them unfortunate because history put white European settlers on their land? 2. The United States of Jefferson was a nation of foreign settlers and colonialist encroachers, yet it considers the Original Peoples as an accidental presence on their own soils and in the settlers’ neighborhoods. In addition, Jefferson admits colonialism as when he used the phrase, “our frontiers.” 3. The United States does not consider its massacres of the natives as cruel, yet it considers the struggle of the natives to defend their land and existence as cruel. 4. The United States is keen to describe how the Natives killed the women and children of their frontiers, but never describe how it killed Native women and children who once owned those frontiers. 5. The United States can pursue and exterminate its adversaries (Native Indians or others) at will, and there is no compunction for the use of the word, “extermination.” 6. The United States of Jefferson appeared to have invented Apartheid long before the Afrikaners of South Africa invented it—Jefferson proposed to exile the Natives to seats beyond the reach of the settlers. 7. The United States implicitly considers any Native’s retaliation for U.S. barbarity, a form of savagery. 8. The United States implicitly does not accept responsibility for causing adversarial actions by forces opposing its imperialism or imperialism. Each of the points I deduced from Jefferson’s quote confirms an article of specific ideology that I already called: exterminate to dominate. Consequently, since the U.S. objective is domination by extermination, can we then establish, through examples, an ideological and practical continuity from a Nazi-like Jefferson to present day American leaders, thinkers, and the military in Iraq? Another matter that we shall discuss next, relates to Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton offers a powerful synthesis of American violence. Although he was never president, but as one of the framers of the Constitution, as a thinker, and as the first secretary of the treasury who shaped American capitalism and Wall Street, Hamilton is accredited for being the man who created modern America. It is appropriate, therefore, to use him as a reference point, especially in his role for eradication of the Iroquois confederacy, a reasonably developed state that included closely related Native Nations: Cayuga, Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Seneca, and Tuscarora. In the end, what is that Starting Point that I alluded to in this article? Next, Part 33: Facing East: Iraqi Hating and Empire Building* * In honor of Richard Drinnon for his monumental work: Facing West: Indian Hating and Empire Building B. J. Sabri is an Iraqi American anti-war activist. Email bjsabri@yahoo.com The views expressed herein are the writers' own and do not necessarily reflect those of Online Journal. Email editor@onlinejournal.com -------- POLITICS -------- corruption Buried Treasure By Chris Floyd Global Eye Published: April 29, 2005 Moscow Times http://context.themoscowtimes.com/story/142022/ It seemed, at first, like nothing more than a novelty item in the news briefs, the kind of odd, meaningless side-fact thrown off by most major stories: "New Pope, President's Brother Had Link in Swiss Group." But a look beneath the surface of this innocuous connection reveals a vast web of sinister alliances -- and moral corruption on a world-shaking scale. The network links a bewildering line-up of players -- the Bushes, the Vatican, bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and China's Communist overlords, among others -- in a staggering array of crime and turpitude: prostitution, pedophilia, mass death and war profiteering. Yet this is not some grand "conspiracy theory," a serpent's egg hatched in Bilderberg or Bohemian Grove. It's simply the way the Bush boys do business, trawling the globe for sweetheart deals and gushers of blood money from the war and terror they foment. At the center of this particular nexus is the unlikely figure of Neil Bush, the feckless, fraudulent brother of the current president. Neilsy, as he's known in the family, is most famous for costing American taxpayers $1 billion to bail out a savings-and-loan he had ruined with secret insider loans to his own business partners. For this massive fraud, he was fined -- by his father's administration -- the princely sum of $50,000, which was actually paid by one of his dad's political bagmen, of course. You see, the Bushes are robber barons, not capitalists: They never risk any of their own money in the competition of the marketplace. Nor do they ever pay the price when their deals go belly-up. Just ask George W., whose first business was jump-started with secret cash from the bin Ladens, laundered through their U.S. frontman, James Bath -- who was also hired by W.'s dad, then-CIA director George Bush Sr., to set up offshore companies for shifting CIA money and aircraft between Texas and Saudi Arabia, the Texas Observer reported. Neilsy's latest business ventures include a partnership with one of China's own influence-peddling oligarchs: Jiang Mianheng, son of former President Jiang Zemin. He's paying Bush $2 million for "advice" in a field – the semiconductor industry -- which Neilsy cheerfully confesses he knows nothing about. Bush also trousered $1 million for "introductions and advice" from the CP Group, a Bangkok conglomerate spreading bipartisan gravy around Washington. In return for supplying his paymasters with a golden conduit to the White House, Neilsy received a special perk: free prostitutes, served up fresh to his hotel room during business trips to Asia. But between his sessions of bouncy-bouncy with trafficked women, Neilsy was also sitting down with hard-line cleric Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the former soldier for Nazi Germany now translated to glory as Pope Benedict XVI. The two men were board members of an obscure Swiss institute ostensibly devoted to "interfaith dialogue." Although the organization did have some prominent ecumenical figures on the board, none of them could say exactly why pimp-daddy Neilsy was invited to join, Newsday reported. Perhaps there's a clue in the group's incorporation. Dunn & Bradstreet lists the supposedly nonprofit foundation as a "management trust," designed for "purposes other than education, religion, charity or research." The group's spokesman says this designation was a "mistake," and anyway, the institute is hastily being "re-launched" with a "new focus" on its religious mission. But a cynic -- i.e., anyone with the slightest acquaintance of Bush business practices -- might think that a "management trust" masquerading as a religious charity would be an excellent place to launder money or park assets away from the taxman's prying eyes. Meanwhile, Ratzinger spent his time on the Swiss board trying to bury the Vatican's massive pedophilia scandal, the London Observer reported this week. In a secret 2001 letter, he ordered Church officials to prevent police from learning about abuse allegations -- a theological innovation more commonly known in the United States as "obstructing justice." Given this criminal high-wire act, perhaps the good cardinal thought it prudent to cultivate some personal ties with a presidential sibling. Whatever Neilsy and Das Panzerkardinal were up to in Switzerland, Ratzinger repaid their camaraderie with a decisive intervention in brother George's 2004 election, issuing a fatwa that essentially condemned any Catholic voting for John Kerry to eternal hellfire. With the Vatican's iron hand on the scales, Bush reaped an extra six percent of the Catholic vote -- a huge boost in a tight race. But it's Neilsy's long-time partnership with Syrian-born businessman Jamal Daniel that has provided the true mother lode: war profiteering. Daniel, also a boardmate in the Swiss adventure with Ratzinger, is a principal in New Bridge Strategies, a firm set up by top Bush insiders to steer corporate clients to the fountains of blood money flowing from George W.'s conquest of Iraq. The company makes frequent use of Neilsy's "introductions" and Middle East connections, The Financial Times reported. It also operates a profitable sideline in mercenaries. Daniel brings his own unique connections to the regional porkfest: His family was instrumental in the creation of the Baath Party in Syria and Iraq, The Financial Times noted. And of course, the Bush Family's covert arm, the CIA -- whose headquarters bears the name of George Sr. -- assisted not one, but two, Baathist coups in Iraq, including the bloody upheaval that brought Saddam Hussein's family faction to power, historian Roger Morris reported. Still later, the CIA would supply Osama bin Laden and his fellow extremists with weapons, money and terrorist training: a shrewd investment whose long-term consequences -- the current "war on terror" -- are still paying fat dividends for Bush coffers. Sure, thousands die and millions suffer from these dirty deals -- but it's not a "conspiracy." It's just business -- the Bush way. Annotations Neil Bush, Ratzinger Co-Founders of Ecumenical Group Newsday, April 21, 2005 http://www.nynewsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ny-wochar214226829apr21,0,2092802,print.story Pope 'Obstructed' Sex Abuse Inquiry The Observer, April 24, 2005 http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1469055,00.html New Bridge: New Strategy for GOP Insider's Iraq Development Company Congressional Quarterly Weekly, Feb. 12, 2005 (subscription required) http://context.themoscowtimes.com/story/142022/www.cq.com/corp/show.do?page=products_cqweekly Neil, Prince of Bush: Why his Latest Outrage Provoked So Little Outrage Harper's, May 1, 2004 http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1111/is_1848_308/ai_n6134154 The Barrelling Bushes Los Angeles Times, Jan. 11, 2004 http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0111-01.htm President's Brother Helped New Bridge Businessmen Financial Times, Dec. 12, 2003 http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=9375 Neil Bush's Business Dealings Financial Times, Dec. 12, 2003 http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=9433 Ratzinger and the N Word Max Blumenthal, April 19, 2005 http://maxblumenthal.blogspot.com/2005/04/ratzinger-and-n-word-please-dont-say.html With Great Diligence, In Iraq (New Bridge Security Spin-Off) Haaretz, July 7, 2004 http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/objects/pages/PrintArticleEn.jhtml?itemNo=440524 A Tyrant 40 Years in the Making New York Times, March 14, 2003 http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/bush/morris.htm The Bush Family's Favorite Terrorist Consortiumnews.com, April 24, 2005 http://www.consortiumnews.com/2005/042405.html US Insider's New Firm Consults on Iraq New York Times, Sept. 30, 2003 http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=8668 The Profiteering Bush Brothers Scoop, Jan. 31, 2005 http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0501/S00274.htm?mode=print New Pope Intervened Against Kerry in 2004 Election Agence France Presse, April 19, 2005 http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1521&u=/afp/20050419/pl_afp/vaticanpopeus_050419222002&printer=1 The Bush-bin Laden Connection Texas Observer, Nov. 9, 2001 http://www.texasobserver.org/showForPrint.asp?IssueDate=11%2F9%2F2001&IssueFolder=zxd%5F011109&ArticleFileName=011109%5Faw%2Ehtm&Title=Andrew+Wheat The Bush-bin Laden Connection One Nation, Dec. 7, 2004 http://www.0nenation.com/external-webpages/angelfire-book7.htm Influence Peddling, Bush-Style The Nation, Oct. 23, 2000 http://www.moldea.com/Bush-China-hypocrisy.html Ratzinger Defends Violence Against Gays Americablog, April 19, 2005 http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/04/ratzinger-defends-violence-against.html Priestly Sin, Cover-Up ABC News, April 26, 2002 http://web.archive.org/web/20020607141945/http://abcnews.go.com/sections/2020/DailyNews/2020_Vatican_coverup_020426.html -------- ENERGY -------- alternative energy Windmills Turn in Power-Starved China Story by Nao Nakanishi REUTERS CHINA: April 29, 2005 http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/30627/story.htm NAN'AO, China - Windmills line the mountain ridges of the picturesque southern Chinese island of Nan'ao, sending power into the grid of Guangdong province, the world's manufacturing centre. And soon the tiny island, 330 km (200 miles) northeast of Hong Kong, will be home to China's first offshore wind farm as the world's seventh-largest economy seeks to end crippling power shortages and choking air pollution. China's parliament passed a renewable energy law in February, which experts say should attract investors to clean power. The law, effective next year, sets tariffs in favour of non-fossil energy, such as wind, water and solar power. "It's very exciting. Once you have the right policy in place, the industry really booms. That has been the case all around the world," said Robin Oakley, a Greenpeace campaign manager for climate and energy issues, based in Beijing. "Because of its sheer size, if China enters the game -- both as the world's leading market and in the long run as the world's leading producer -- it could easily transform the whole renewable energy sector worldwide." Greenpeace estimated Chinese wind power potential at 1 million megawatts (MW), more than twice China's current total installed power generating capacity of 440,700 MW. But with capacity now only a fractional 600 MW and the primary source of power -- coal -- delivering 70 percent of China's electricity, there is a long way to go before the young wind power industry can establish a place in China's energy mix. Still China's turn towards non-fossil energy comes at a time when the country is wrestling with its worst power crunch in decades. More than two-thirds of its provinces suffered blackouts last year due to a shortage of generators, coal and transport links. It plans to expand its nuclear power industry. At the same time, China wants to boost renewable energy to cover 10 percent of its needs by 2010, raising its green capacity to 60,000 MW, including 50,000 MW of hydropower and 4,000 MW of wind power. That is in line with the Kyoto Protocol, which came into force in February as the international community steps up efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions to fight global warming. China, the world's top coal producer and consumer, is already the world's second-largest producer of greenhouse gases. Its notoriously dangerous mines aim to dig 2.2 billion tonnes of coal from the ground a year by 2010. "OTHERS WILL FOLLOW" Far from China's mines and hit hard by the power crunch, Guangdong became the first Chinese province last year to introduce fixed prices for wind energy, a policy common among countries with rapid growth in wind energy, such as Denmark. "The security regarding the tariff is the number one issue for making sure wind development projects take place," said Wim Lansink, from Shantou Dan Nan Wind Power Co. Ltd., which is developing Nan'ao's 100-MW offshore wind farm. "I do believe if it is successful here -- and it looks to be -- then other provinces will follow," the general manager told Reuters in Shantou, a coastal city in northern Guangdong. Shantou Dan Nan, a joint venture between Dutch power utility Nuon and power authorities of Shantou city, has run a 24-MW wind farm on Nan'ao since 1998. It is developing five wind power projects in China, including two others in Guangdong. Wind power could offer a quick solution to China's power woes as wind farms are relatively faster to set up, experts say. China would benefit from rapid technological advances in the global wind power industry, on the back of annual growth of about 30 percent over the past decade, they said. "We can erect a 150-200 MW plant in one year," said Jens Olsen, chief representative of Vestas Asia Pacific A/S, a unit of the world's biggest wind turbine manufacturer Vestas Wind Systems A/S head-quartered in Denmark. "If you build a coal-fired power plant, it usually takes three to five years. Nuclear power plants need even longer." Experts said China, with its large land mass in the north and the west and a coastline stretching thousands of kilometres, was blessed with wind resources. "Small-scale hydro power has the biggest potential in the short run, say 10 to 20 years," said Li Junfeng, secretary general of Chinese Renewable Energy Industries Association. "But in the longer term -- 20 to 50 years -- the potential for wind power may be even bigger than hydro. Wind energy is one of the fastest-developing areas in China," Li told Reuters. Prices for wind power are falling fast in line with technological innovations and growing economies of scale, while crude oil prices nearly trebled in the past few years, partly due to surging demand from China. The Chinese Renewable Energy Industries Association said costs for wind power had dropped from 20 US cents per kilowatt hour (kwh) 20 years ago to 5 cents, equivalent to the costs of conventional energy. "With new turbines today, we are competitive. And the prices are still coming down because turbines are getting bigger and more efficient," said Vestas's Olsen. Many communities in Europe are against wind turbines because of the incessant whirring noises and the impact on their farmland views. Olsen said that would not be a problem in China. "There's so much wasteland which can be utilised," he said. ---- Report: California Could Buy Its Way Out of Solar Power Subsidies SACRAMENTO, California, April 29, 2005 (ENS) http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/apr2005/2005-04-29-09.asp#anchor7 California can make solar power affordable for the average homeowner and business within 10 years, says the Environment California's Research & Policy Center in a new report issued this week. Using an economic model based on the theory of “progress ratio” in which industry experience and price are inversely related, the report estimates the upfront cost of solar power could drop to the point where government rebates are no longer needed by 2016. “The biggest roadblock to solar power becoming as mainstream as McDonald’s is its price tag,” said Bernadette Del Chiaro, clean energy advocate with the Environment California Research & Policy Center and co-author of the report. “By driving up demand, California can catapult solar power from the backwoods boutique of the '70s to having its own aisle at Home Depot.” The report, "Bringing Solar to Scale: What California Can Do to Create a Thriving, Self-Sufficient Residential Solar Market," details how developing a thriving, self-sufficient solar power market can benefit the state - reducing air pollution, protecting consumers from volatile electricity prices, and reducing the need for expensive upgrades to electricity transmission and distribution systems. “Energy independence, clean air, lower electric bills - making solar power mainstream will benefit everyone,” said Del Chiaro, whose nonprofit group Environment California represents 80,000 members. The report advises that the best way to lower solar power costs is for California to commit to long-term market development through financial incentives and new construction design policies. Experience in California and in other countries, especially Japan, has shown that such government programs can increase demand, lower prices, and ultimately lead to a robust, self-sufficient solar market in which government incentives are no longer needed to drive demand, Del Chiaro says. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger introduced a legislative proposal in February for a million solar roofs in the state within 10 years. The measure would extend the current structure of financial incentives for 10 years on a declining schedule of no less than seven percent per year. The Million Solar Roofs Bill, SB 1, co-authored by State Senators Kevin Murray, a Los Angeles Democrat, and John Campbell, an Orange County Republican, passed its first policy committee vote in the Senate Energy, Utilities, and Commerce Committee on Tuesday. “Today’s vote shows that legislators on both sides of the aisle agree that solar power is a common-sense solution to California’s energy and air pollution problems,” said Del Chiaro. Most environmentalists have endorsed the idea of one million solar roofs, but there have been doubts that the subsidies paid would outpace the benefits of solar power. Solar dealers outside of California expressed concern that all the solar panels now available for the rest of the country would be sent to meet the demand in California. The report "Bringing Solar to Scale" is available at: www.environmentcalifornia.org ---- Florida House Unanimous in Support of Hydrogen Tax Credits TALLAHASSEE, Florida, April 28, 2005 (ENS) http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/apr2005/2005-04-28-09.asp#anchor4 A bill offering tax credits and uniform standards for development of the Florida hydrogen industry, was unanimously adopted by the Florida House of Representatives Thursday. The Florida Hydrogen Energy Technologies Act now awaits approval from the state Senate. The act provides Florida companies with a four year 75 percent corporate tax credit for expenditures and a 100 percent sales tax exemption on related equipment purchases. The industry hopes this part of the bill will increase capital investment and job creation by reducing the costs of purchasing, manufacturing and developing hydrogen energy technologies. The measure establishes the nation’s first statewide siting standard for hydrogen fueling infrastructure that creates a single, uniform standard. The industry hopes this standard will attract capital investment in Florida, reduce costs and ensure consistent safety codes across all regulatory jurisdictions. Quick off the line in the development of hydrogen energy, Florida currently has 28 mobile and stationary hydrogen demonstration projects either underway, in development or in the planning stage. The state is purchasing eight of the world’s first commercially available hydrogen shuttle buses for visitor transit in the Orlando area, and recently Governor Jeb Bush broke ground on Florida’s first hydrogen energy station. “Hydrogen energy technology can make an important contribution to Florida’s future, helping ensure energy independence and stable fuel prices, secure clean air, and add jobs to the workforce,” said Allan Bedwell, deputy secretary for regulatory programs and energy in the Department of Environmental Protection. “This legislative proposal will expand revolutionary energy technology, increase corporate investment and help diversify Florida’s economy,” Bedwell said. Last month, the Washington Economics Group, Inc. released an in-depth economic analysis of the proposed legislation, projecting that the bill would bring in $47.3 million in hydrogen energy investments and 142 jobs to Florida in the first year. Florida is aiming to become a center for the $2 billion a year global hydrogen industry, competing in global markets and expanding the state’s exports. -------- OTHER -------- environment Congress Endorses Budget Resolution Allowing Arctic Drilling WASHINGTON, DC, April 29, 2005 (ENS) http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/apr2005/2005-04-29-09.asp#anchor7 Congressional negotiators from the House and Senate reached agreement Thursday on a budget blueprint that includes $2.4 billion in leasing revenues from oil and gas development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). Senate Democrats failed by a vote of 51 to 49 to remove the provision affecting the refuge from the 2006 budget conference report resolution. This resolution is a framework for the budget - it is not something that will be signed by President George W. Bush, and all provisions are subject to change. Although the resolution does not mention the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge by name, conservation groups working to keep drilling out of the refuge say it is intended to provide the chairmen of the House Resources and Senate Energy Committees everything they need to push drilling through by circumventing the normal 60 vote requirement for controversial legislation in the Senate. Both committees’ chairmen, Senator Pete Domenici of New Mexico and Representative Richard Pombo of California, have made it clear that they will try to use these instructions to force Arctic drilling through the reconciliation bill. By requiring those committees to “reduce spending” by $2.4 billion over 6 years, the budget conferees are sending those committees a clear and unambiguous signal to “drill away,” said a statement by a coalition of groups that includes: the Alaska Wilderness League, the National Audubon Society, Defenders of Wildlife, Earthjustice, the Gwich’in Steering Committee, the League of Conservation Voters, the National Wildlife Federation, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club, the Wilderness Society, Trustees for Alaska, and the US Public Interest Research Group. "It is no coincidence," the groups said, "that $2.4 billion is almost exactly the federal share of the unrealistic projection for Arctic National Wildlife Refuge leasing revenue released several months ago by the Congressional Budget Office. At Thursday’s press conference, Senator Judd Gregg, a New Hampshire Republican, acknowledged that this budget resolution would allow the Senate to consider drilling in the filibuster-proof reconciliation bill. REP America, the national grassroots organization of Republicans for environmental protection, does not support the budget resolution because it opens the door to drilling in the refuge. “We are thankful for the Republicans in the House and Senate who voted against the budget conference report. Unfortunately, they couldn’t overcome the faulty thinking on Capitol Hill that yesterday’s ideas are the solution to today’s energy problems,” said Jim DiPeso, REP America policy director. Calling drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge "a distraction that fails to solve the critical energy problems facing America," DiPeso said, “The central energy problem facing our nation is overdependence on oil, an increasingly dangerous habit that exposes America to serious economic, environmental, and security risks." “The single most important step we must take now is lowering oil consumption by strengthening motor vehicle fuel efficiency standards," DiPeso said, a view in line with that of most environmental groups. “Between now and 2025, American oil demand will rise by a projected eight million barrels per day," DiPeso pointed out. "There is no prospect whatsoever that drilling the Arctic Refuge would close the gap. If we do nothing to curb demand, imports will fill the gap – which means more dependence on OPEC, more exposure to price shock, and more potential for international conflict." "This vote is another example of the extraordinary disconnect between public opinion and Congressional action," said the coalition of environmental groups, citing the hundreds of thousands of letters, emails, and faxes opposing Arctic refuge drilling. The groups, which together represent millions of members, say they will encourage members to contact their Congressional representatives again to express their views. "We have a moral responsibility to save wild places like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for future generations," the groups state. -------- ACTIVISTS Rallies Planned Ahead of Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Meeting Friday, April 29th, 2005 Democracy Now! http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/29/1351245 On Monday, May 2, nearly all of the governments in the world will meet at the United Nations to review the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, a Review Conference that takes place every five years. A coalition of over 2,000 organizations around the world, have teamed up with United for Peace and Justice to organize a big march and rally this Sunday, the day before the conference opens, to demand global nuclear disarmament. Thousands of people are expected to attend including the mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. RUSH TRANSCRIPT AMY GOODMAN: Joining us in our studio is Rhianna Tyson, Project Manager of Reaching Critical Will, which is a project of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, known as WILPF. She's based the at the United Nations. Welcome to Democracy Now! RHIANNA TYSON: Thank you very much. AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about Sunday and then the next week? RHIANNA TYSON: Sure. First, I would actually like to say a little bit about the treaty itself and what this conference is to explain why thousands of people from around the world are coming here. This treaty is reviewed every five years, but what makes this year particularly interesting and important is that the treaty is basically in its biggest crisis to date. As you know, U.S. keeps threatening that Iran is developing nuclear weapons. North Korea withdrew from the treaty. Other questionable activities have popped up around the world, but the nuclear weapon states themselves, while threatening and accusing all of these other countries have completely reneged on their disarmament commitments in the treaty and in international law, as well. They're also modernizing and upgrading their own arsenals, thereby provoking others to develop nuclear weapons, which in turn gives the U.S. justification to go to war. So at this particular time, with the growing peace movement, the movement against the Iraq war, thousands of us are going to be in Central Park to say, "Adhere to your disarmament commitments, no to the war in Iraq, and no to any more nuclear excuses for war." So, we have labor groups coming. We have environmental groups coming. Youth, dozens of hibakusha, the atomic bomb survivors are coming. Not just the mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but mayors from all over the world will be marching through the heart of Manhattan and rallying at Central Park at 2:00 on Sunday. AMY GOODMAN: What does it really mean to have this conference next week? I mean, is this sort of U.N. bureaucracy, or does it have meaning? RHIANNA TYSON: It can have meaning. It's actually not a U.N. conference. It just happens to be held at the U.N. That's the forum of choice. What can happen is that they can come up with a package of decisions that are politically binding. They can put time frames for disarmament. They can tighten the rules for non-proliferation and the trade and so called peaceful uses of nuclear technology. The problem now is that the package of decisions that was adopted in 2000, the Bush administration has completely ripped up and said that has no more relevance in a post-September 11 world. By doing that, it is they that are undermining not only the N.P.T. review process, but international law as a whole. What's the point of negotiating until 4:00 in the morning, as they did in 2000, if it can be so easily discarded? So really this is about not just upholding disarmament law, but international law as a whole. JUAN GONZALEZ: And for people who want more information about the march and rally or the conference, where can they go? RHIANNA TYSON: About the march and rally, the best place to go is either UnitedForPeace.org or AbolitionNow.org. And to follow the developments of the conference itself, ReachingCriticalWill.org, we do daily reporting from that conference throughout the month of May. AMY GOODMAN: Finally, President Bush in his news conference last night talked about a new development of nuclear power plants. Does that have any impact on this? RHIANNA TYSON: We believe, the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, as well as Abolition 2000, the coalition that you mentioned, are strongly opposed to nuclear energy. We believe that nuclear energy powers the bomb. So for the U.S. to continually promote nuclear energy will give not only the justification but the technology for others to proliferate, which again is further justification for future wars. AMY GOODMAN: Rhianna Tyson, thanks very much for being with us, of Reaching Critical Will, project of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom based at the United Nations. -------- Stalker Law Used on Anti-War Protesters By Stephen Howard, PA, Fri 29 Apr 2005 The Scotsman http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=4481441 A law designed to combat stalkers was used today to impose temporary injunctions on a group of anti-war activists. They are alleged to have conducted a campaign of unlawful harassment against defence industry management and staff. EDO MBM Technology Ltd’s managing director, David Jones, launched the High Court action on behalf of 156 employees at the Brighton, Sussex, plant who claim they have been subjected to assault, intimidation and insults from protesters. Mr Justice Gross, sitting in London, said the primary intention of the Protection from Harassment Act was to deal with the “phenomenon of stalking”. But it had already been used in cases involving animal rights and GM crops protesters. “Great care needs to be taken in applying the Act to situations of public protest,” said the judge. But he said he could not accept argument from the protesters that strict limits should be set on the use of the Act. All the protesters seemed willing to commit criminal acts in pursuit of their campaign against the claimants, he said. There was a real risk that the defendants would join in activities which would result in harassment of the claimants, he added. The injunction, which will last until the full trial of the action, imposes limitations on any protest with an exclusion zone around the EDO premises.