NucNews - June 3, 2005 -------- NUCLEAR New nuclear energy data just released PRESS COMMUNIQUÉ Paris, 3 June 2005 Nuclear Energy Agency, France http://www.nea.fr/html/general/press/2005/2005-03.html The latest official figures released today by the NEA reveal that, at the start of 2005, there were 352 nuclear units in operation in 17 OECD member countries, seven less than the year before. However, despite this reduction, nuclear generating capacity in the OECD increased by almost 1% and nuclear-generated electricity increased by over 4% over the previous year. In all, nuclear power plants produced 23.5% of the electricity generated in OECD member countries during 2004 and in Belgium, France, the Slovak Republic and Sweden it was over 50%. Improved performances compared to 2003 allowed nuclear power’s share of electricity generation to increase in six OECD member countries (Canada, France, Germany, Hungary, Japan and Sweden). These numbers are from the just-published 2005 edition of Nuclear Energy Data, more commonly known as the “Brown Book”, which gives an overview of the status of and trends in nuclear electricity generation and the fuel cycle up to 2025 in OECD member countries. The official statistics include data and projections complemented by short country reports. The Brown Book is considered as a standard reference for nuclear energy data. At the end of 2004, eight nuclear units representing a total capacity of 6.6 GWe were under construction in OECD countries, with firm commitments for 19 more representing a total capacity of 24.1 GWe. All but one of these are destined for the OECD Pacific region. However, one new reactor, an EPR (European Pressurised Water Reactor), has been firmly committed in OECD Europe in Finland, marking the first new unit in this region in many years. In France, the construction of a new EPR is under consideration, subject to the outcome of a national public debate to take place in 2005. At the same time, 11 reactors representing a total capacity of 3.1 GWe are expected to be shut down over the next five years, six of which are in the United Kingdom. Additionally, not reflected in the preceding figures, additional reactors in Germany are expected to be shut down in line with the governmental decision to phase out nuclear energy. Natural uranium production in OECD countries is projected to be lower than requirements in 2005. The remaining requirements will be met by secondary sources including imports, stockpiles, spent fuel reprocessing and re-enrichment of depleted uranium. For conversion, the capacity is also lower than requirements and the needs are again being matched by imports and stockpiles complementing the supply from OECD production facilities. OECD enrichment and fuel fabrication capacities remain higher than requirements. Thirty-four units use mixed-oxide fuel. All of these units are in OECD Europe, with all but four in France and Germany. #### NUCLEAR ENERGY DATA OECD, Paris, 2005 – ISBN 92-64-01100-5 € 24, £ 16, US$ 29, ¥ 3 200. Please quote the title and reference in any review. Commercial orders may be directed to Extenza-Turpin Stratton Business Park, Pegasus Drive, Biggleswade, Bedfordshire, SG18 8QB, United Kingdom OECD Customer Service: +44 (0)1767 604960 Main Switchboard: +44 (0)1767 604800, Fax number: +44 (0)1767 601640 E-mail: oecdrow@extenza-turpin.com – Website: www.extenza-turpin.com Online ordering: www.oecd.org/bookshop (secure payment with credit card) Please quote the title and reference in any review. Commercial orders may be directed to Extenza-Turpin Stratton Business Park, Pegasus Drive, Biggleswade, Bedfordshire, SG18 8QB, United Kingdom OECD Customer Service: +44 (0)1767 604960 Main Switchboard: +44 (0)1767 604800, Fax number: +44 (0)1767 601640 E-mail: oecdrow@extenza-turpin.com – Website: www.extenza-turpin.com -------- australia Carr calls for nuclear rethink The World Today - Friday, 3 June , 2005 12:37:00 Reporter: Brendan Trembath http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2005/s1384127.htm PETER CAVE: The New South Wales Premier Bob Carr has angered some in his party and the green movement by suggesting it's time to re-examine whether Australia should turn to nuclear power as an alternative to coal. Traditional conservationists have been opposed to nuclear power because of the problems of disposing of radioactive waste and the threat of power station meltdowns as happened at Chernobyl. There's also the worry that nuclear fuel can end up as nuclear weapons. But with conventional power stations blamed for greenhouse gas emissions and global warming, threatening the future of the planet, some are now asking whether the nuclear option is the lesser evil. Brendan Trembath reports. BRENDAN TREMBATH: The New South Wales Premier has hinted nuclear power may help meet his State's future energy needs. He says it's worth discussing because coal power is causing considerable environmental damage. Coal fired power plants produce the toxic gases which many scientists say have caused the climate change known as global warming. Bob Carr's spoken in Canberra before a meeting of State and Federal leaders. BOB CARR: Hydrogen and solar and wind are not being developed fast enough. There are too many barriers in the way of getting them for them to meet our need for base load power. By base load I mean reliable, day in day out power supplies. This is a bigger problem for other parts of the world, but to contemplate coal fired power stations across India and China to meet their energy needs is to contemplate a world that's really being heated up and wrecked by global warming. That's why we've got to have a debate over nuclear power. BRENDAN TREMBATH: It's a thought, not a plan, but opponents of nuclear power have been quick to condemn his suggestion. The Greens say a debate's not necessary. Ian Cohen is a Member of the Upper House of the New South Wales Parliament. IAN COHEN: Given the controversy of uranium mining, nuclear power, the nuclear industry with the Labor Party in the past, I think it would be very problematic, and it certainly is a rather provocative act. I think that the energy could be far better spent on looking at more clever alternatives and demand management. BRENDAN TREMBATH: Ian Cohen agrees coal harms the environment but he says uranium is not a sensible alternative. IAN COHEN: The Premier is looking to the big nuclear option when we really should be looking at demand management and more clever ways of dealing with the situation without creating a toxic legacy. BRENDAN TREMBATH: Critics of nuclear power plants say there's no safe way to store large amounts of hazardous waste which remains active for thousands of years, but some nuclear scientists say the waste created is smaller than many think. Among them is Professor Jim Jury from Trent University in Ontario, Canada. He's told ABC Local Radio in his country a large amount of energy is nuclear power. JIM JURY: Let's take a nuclear power plant that would provide 40 per cent of the energy needs of Sydney for 100 years and let's take all the nuclear waste, the long lived nuclear waste, from that power plant. You know, the long stuff, the dirty stuff, the bad stuff. Let's concentrate that and ask how much volume that is that we have to protect for the next 10,000 years, and the answer is the size of the refrigerator in your kitchen. BRENDAN TREMBATH: Mr Carr has stressed there's no nuclear power plan for New South Wales, but his readiness to have a debate highlights a shift in the thinking about uranium. Federal Labor frontbencher, Martin Ferguson, has said he supports expanding Australia's uranium exports, as does South Australian Premier Mike Rann. Martin Ferguson is on a parliamentary committee considering the development of non-fossil fuels such as uranium. Its findings are likely to add fuel to supporters and opponents of uranium mining and uranium-derived power. Bob Carr's not the first to raise the realistic possibility of the State using nuclear power. New South Wales came close more than three decades ago. But a proposal to build a reactor at Jervis Bay on the New South Wales south coast was shelved in 1972. PETER CAVE: Brendan Trembath reporting. ---- Outcry over call for nuclear power debate Friday June 3, 08:00 AM Australia Broadcasting http://au.news.yahoo.com/050602/21/ukns.html New South Wales Premier Bob Carr's call for a debate on the merits or otherwise of nuclear power has been labelled "ludicrous" by environmentalists, who say it is too risky an option to even consider. As speculation grows that the State Government is about to announce another coal-fired power station for NSW, the Premier yesterday called for a debate over nuclear power as a feasible alternative energy source. "Whether uranium-derived power is more dangerous than coal, coal is looking very dangerous, there ought to be a debate," he said. Prominent anti-nuclear campaigner Dr Helen Caldicott says nuclear power production creates massive amounts of global warming gases and she describes it as a "cancer industry". "It will over time produce epidemics of cancer - leukaemia and genetic disease, particularly in children," she said. The Nature Conservation Council (NCC) has labelled it mad and dangerous and argues other safer alternatives are available. Greens Senator Bob Brown says the tide of public opinion is against it. "It was sealed with Chernobyl, that was really the end," Senator Brown said. Senator Brown is suspicious of Mr Carr's motives. "Asking for a debate about nuclear power is code for getting on with more nuclear installations," he said. -------- britain Top adviser quits 'bleeding obvious' nuclear committee By Mark Henderson, Science Correspondent June 03, 2005 UK Times http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1638937,00.html GOVERNMENT plans for disposing of nuclear waste have been thrown into turmoil by the resignation of a senior adviser, who has accused a key committee of endangering public safety by ignoring scientific expertise. David Ball, Professor of Risk Management at Middlesex University, has left the panel that advises ministers on the issue in protest at its “open antagonism” to the views of nuclear specialists. The Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM) had become obsessed with public consultation at the expense of expert advice, Professor Ball told The Times. It had spent a year considering far-fetched disposal options that were dismissed years ago by scientists, such as firing spent fuel into the Sun or shipping it to Antarctica, while hazardous waste languished in tanks that were vulnerable to an accident or terrorist attack. That combination of inertia and a cavalier attitude to scientific risk management had jeopardised severely the committee’s ability to decide on the safest and most acceptable way to store 470,000 cubic metres of waste — enough to fill the Albert Hall five times. Professor Ball said: “The committee has lost all credibility as far as I am concerned, and it should be wound up to save the taxpayer the expense. Its approach to this serious issue has been appalling. We don’t have all the time in the world to resolve it. We are all standing around with nuclear waste kept in less than ideal ways, and we are at unnecessary risk because of it. There is a real risk of a terrorist strike on nuclear waste, and the consequences could be scary stuff, as it is not being stored optimally.” Professor Ball is the second scientist to leave CoRWM in acrimonious circumstances. Keith Baverstock, a former head of radiation protection at the World Health Organisation and the panel’s only health expert, was sacked in April by Elliott Morley, the Environment Minister, after attacking the committee as dysfunctional and amateurish. Similar criticisms have been made by the House of Lords Science Committee and the Royal Society, which have questioned whether CoRWM is making proper use of scientific advice. Further controversy has surrounded alleged conflicts of interest held by four of the eleven remaining members, who are paid consultants for companies that have won contracts from the committee. CoRWM, which is chaired by Professor Gordon MacKerron, an economist at the University of Sussex, was established in 2003 to review Britain’s options for disposing of nuclear waste. It will report to ministers in July next year with a recommended solution that is both workable and most acceptable to the public. In April the committee announced a shortlist of four options, after narrowing down the choices from fifteen during eighteen months of consultations. All involve either burying waste deep underground or storing it in specialised facilities on the surface. Many independent experts, however, have been dismayed that it took the panel so long to rule out many options that have already been examined and rejected by scientists all over the world. Professor Ball said in his resignation letter that the options on the shortlist were, “to borrow from John Cleese, the bleeding obvious”. He said that proper use of technical expertise would have allowed CoWRM to have narrowed the list to six options within weeks. A year was wasted in trials of a public consultation technique that had to be abandoned because of its flaws, Professor Ball said. An even deeper problem, however, was the attitude of many committee members to science, which they saw as secondary in importance to public opinion. Professor MacKerron said: “We do not lack scientific expertise: over half of our members are scientists and many members have long experience and knowledge of the nuclear industry and nuclear policy. “CoRWM is not a conventional scientific ‘expert’ committee. It is an oversight committee, charged with considering all potentially serious long-term options.” -------- canada Bad Day June 3, 2005 Pulse24 (Canada) http://www.pulse24.com/News/Top_Story/20050603-020/page.asp It was a false alarm, but when you’re dealing with nuclear energy, even close calls can be petrifying. Friday afternoon, a suspicious object was found by workers at the Pickering Nuclear Station. The individuals acted quickly, bringing in Ontario Power Generation (OPG) security staff and Durham Regional Police officers who ensured that all plant employees were assembled and safely accounted for. Hundreds of workers were forced to evacuate however. It didn’t take long for the object in question to be deemed non-hazardous, and no one was harmed in the incident, but that didn’t take away from the fear of what could have been a potentially disastrous situation. The package was located in the non-nuclear area of the plant, and was later determined to be an imitation pipe bomb. It featured blasting caps at each end of a pipe, and the word “boom” was scribbled along the side. A criminal investigation is now under way by Durham Regional Police, despite the fact that no threat was posed to the employees, facility, or community. The primary concern was how even a fake bomb could be placed in such a dangerous location, without security recognizing that there might be a breach. And if that weren’t enough, residents in the Pickering area were also hurt by multi-vehicle pile-up at Brock road. Three cars were involved and eight people were treated for minor injuries. A short stretch of Highway 401 was shut down for three hours, bringing access to the area to a halt for much of the afternoon. ---- 2002 Berkeley Resolution Sweeps Through Canada By LEUREN MORET Special to the Berkeley Daily Planet Staff (06-03-05) http://www.berkeleydaily.org/text/article.cfm?issue=06-03-05&storyID=21550 Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin survived a razor-thin vote of confidence on May 17 when the House of Commons voted 152-152, putting his minority government in peril. It survived by a single vote when the Parliament speaker gave the minority government its one-vote victory. A few months earlier, Canadian citizens opposed to a secret National Missile Defense (NMD) agreement between Martin and President George Bush, forced Martin to reverse the agreement contributing to the crisis in his government. After the Berkeley City Council passed a resolution in 2002, “Endorsing the Space Preservation Act and Companion Space Preservation Treaty to Permanently Ban the Weaponization of Space,” the resolution swept through cities in Canada and helped gather thousands of signatures opposing Canada joining NMD. When citizens appeared in the Canadian Parliament with piles of paper covered with thousands of signatures, Martin was forced to reverse his secret agreement with Bush and the Canadian government rejected NMD. For several years I had wanted to thank the mayor of Bowen Island, the first municipality in the world to adopt the Berkeley resolution. In the summer of 2002, with the help of Vancouver lawyer Alfred Webre Jr., we created the space preservation resolution, which was introduced by Berkeley City Councilmember Dona Spring, and passed by the Berkeley City Council on Sept. 10, 2002. The resolution was in part a response to the bill and the “definitions” of weapons intended for space as described in HR 2977, the “Space Preservation Act of 2001,” introduced by Congressman Dennis Kucinich, which included the following: • Inflicting death or injury on, or damaging or destroying, a person (or the biological life, bodily health, mental health, or physical and economic well-being of a person). • Directing a source of energy (including molecular or atomic energy, subatomic particle beams, electromagnetic radiation, plasma, or extremely low frequency (ELF) or ultra low frequency (ULF) energy radiation) against that object [individual or targeted populations]. • Through the use of land-based, sea-based, or space-based systems using radiation, electromagnetic, psychotronic, sonic, laser, or other energies directed at individual persons or targeted populations for the purpose of information war, mood management, or mind control of such persons or populations. I suggested at the time that it seemed impossible that these weapons were even possible, but Kucinich, a member of the Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee, assured me that these weapons exist and “those people who control them are deadly serious and intend to use them if we don’t stop the weaponization of space.” In early April I was traveling to Vancouver to meet with Lisa Barrett, mayor of Bowen Island. Martin’s Liberal Party government was embroiled in a corruption scandal. The opposition insisted he no longer had enough support to govern, which threatened a government crisis. I was unaware of the impact the Berkeley resolution had on the Canadian decision to reject NMD, and how it tied into the minority government crisis. But a few days later during my visit to Bowen Island, I discovered just what role the Berkeley resolution had played in Canadian Foreign Policy. On April 10, Webre Jr., his wife Geri, and I traveled from Vancouver to meet Barrett. Bowen Island is a town much like Berkeley, with an interesting mixture of writers, artists, musicians, lots of bicycles, and a progressive flavor to the political landscape. We met in an art gallery where a local artist was having an exhibit, and together we nibbled on the artist’s homemade gingerbread cookies while mingling with citizens and artists. I even talked physics with another city councilmember. Barrett was very pleased to hear that Berkeley had adopted the Kyoto Protocol. She pointed out that even though the Canadian government had already signed on, it was still necessary that locally, towns like Bowan Island, must also make efforts to meet the standards. She said it was important for cities like Berkeley to act when the United States government refuses to sign the Kyoto protocol. It was energizing to realize that citizens of Canada and the United States can work together. We can learn from each other by implementing and sharing our ideas on issues such as energy choices, divesting pension funds from weapons manufacturers, stopping the U.S. Navy from shooting depleted uranium weaponry in United States and Canadian coastal waters, and sharing information about the spider web relationships between United States and Canadian corporations. Barrett told us that the U.S. Navy is shooting depleted uranium weapons into the waters around Nanaimo, poisoning their fisheries just as they did around Seattle and in California. Lockheed Martin Marietta has bought a controlling interest in the ferry systems of British Columbia, privatizing an essential public transportation system—and raising the cost of the services. The next day, Afred and I were interviewed on CO-OP radio CFRO 102.7 FM in Vancouver with Gail Davidson, co-founder of Lawyers Against War. We discussed the extent of Canadian government pension fund investments in United States weapons manufacturers and the Carlyle Group. Gail explained the extent of pension fund investments in United States corporations and weapons manufacturers by the British Columbia pension fund, called the British Columbia Investment Management Corp. (BCIMC), and Vancouver City pension funds. As of March 2004, investments were estimated to be $4.6 billion in 251 companies that provide goods and services to the US Department of Defense or are otherwise involved in military production. Missiles (17 kinds), bombs (16 types), and bullets (300-500 million per year by SNC-Lavalin alone) are produced for the U.S. armed forces by Canadian corporations. Vancouver antiwar activists wrote in an April 26 letter to New Democratic Party leader Carole James, “What this means is that every nurse, physiotherapist, floor cleaner, and pharmacist in every hospital in the B.C. health care system, every kindergarten teacher, college instructor and university professor, every city worker, garbage collector, computer programmer, firefighter, ferry worker, B.C. transit driver, ICBC employee, B.C. Hydro worker—in fact, virtually every municipal and provincial public sector employee—is involuntarily supporting the U.S. invasion and occupation, because of decisions taken behind closed doors by the BCIMC.” U.S. war crimes and the use of illegal weapons such as depleted uranium was also a top concern. Gail described how she had filed a lawsuit against Bush in a Vancouver court. This action discouraged and impacted his visit to Canada, and he did not visit the Canadian Parliament nor make any public appearances except in a small town in eastern Canada—for a photo op with the media. She was a party to a second lawsuit filed in Germany charging Rumsfeld with war crimes, preventing Rumsfeld from visiting Europe in February 2005 with Bush and Rice. This trip to Canada made me realize that the need for citizen oversight and participation in local government is greater than ever before. Many things that we see happening locally such as election fraud are actually broader trends, the result of global corporatization and militarization. The vast looting of pension funds began about eight years ago and will continue until we stop it. Enron was just the beginning and CalPERS, the California state government workers pension fund, is in the crosshairs now for privatization and looting. The extent of pension fund investment in the U.S. military industrial complex is shocking. We are actually unknowingly supporting and benefiting from wars we oppose. Divesting from weapons of death takes the profit out of war. Subtle implementation of police state policies—such as RFID tags in the Berkeley library—must be stopped. There are many things that can be done locally and through “cross fertilization” of ideas across borders. We are the only ones who can make this happen. And it can start with something as simple as a Berkeley resolution, Canadian paper ballots, and a determined citizen lawyer. Leuren Moret is a member of Berkeley’s Community Environmental Advisory Commission.› -------- depleted uranium Postwar Iraq Paying Heavy Environmental Price Story by Khaled Yacoub Oweis REUTERS JORDAN: June 3, 2005 http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/31090/story.htm http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L02225727.htm AMMAN - Iraq's environmental problems - among world's worst - range from a looted nuclear site which needs cleaning up to sabotaged oil pipelines, a UN official said on Thursday. "An improvement is almost impossible in these security conditions. Chemicals are seeping into groundwater and the situation is becoming worse and creating additional health problems," said Pekka Haavisto, Iraq task force chairman at the United Nations Environmental Programme. "Iraq is the worst case we have assessed and is difficult to compare. After the Balkan War we could immediately intervene for protection, such as the river Danube, but not in Iraq," Haavisto, a former Finnish environment minister, said on a visit to Jordan to meet with Iraqi officials. Lack of spare parts and Iraq's inability to maintain pollution standards during two previous wars and more than a decade of crushing sanctions have damaged the environment, including the Tigris and Euphrates rivers where most of Iraq's sewage flows untreated. The situation became worse after the 2003 US-led invasion, in which depleted uranium munitions were used against Iraq for the second time and postwar looting and burning of the once formidable infrastructure caused massive spills and toxic plumes, Haavisto said. "The bombing and war carried a cost but the looting cost the environment more, such as in the Dora refinery or Tuwaitha nuclear storage," Haavisto said. "There has not been proper cleanup and only assessment work at some of these sites. Very little has changed and Iraqi teams are in the process of getting in some of these locations." The UN official was referring to the 56 square km (22 sq mile) Tuwaitha complex south of Baghdad where 3,000 barrels that stored nuclear compounds were looted. In the Dora depot on the edge of Baghdad, 5,000 barrels of chemicals, including tetra ethylene lead, were spilt burnt or stolen, a UN survey showed. Contaminated sites near the water supply also include a 200 square km (77 sq mile) military industrial complex, torched or looted cement factories and fertiliser plants, of which Iraq was one of the world's largest producers, and oil spills. "Iraq was a modern industrial society in many ways. The chemicals are very risky on its future. The more time passes the more consequences on health," Haavisto said. He said postwar assessment of the environmental damage was proceeding despite threats to the 1,000 staff of an Iraqi environment ministry, set up as an independent unit after the American invasion. The field studies will eventually include depleted uranium, a toxic, heavy metal used to make bombs more lethal, of which the United States used an estimated 300 tonnes in 1991 Gulf War and an unknown quantity during the last invasion. ---- Bill to study effects of uranium on soldiers moves to Connecticut state Senate By STEVE COLLINS, The Bristol Press (CT) 06/03/2005 http://www.bristolpress.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=14635261&BRD=1643&PAG=461&dept_id=10486&rfi=6 HARTFORD -- A measure aimed at studying the health effects on Connecticut National Guard members of depleted uranium, a heavy metal used in armor-piercing weapons, got the unanimous backing of the state House Thursday. "This is the Agent Orange of today," said state Rep. Roger Michele, a Bristol Democrat who co-chairs the Select Committee on Veterans Affairs. "We have to make sure the members of the Armed Services we have jurisdiction over get the best treatment possible," Michele said. The bill, which heads to the state Senate next, would establish criteria for testing members of the National Guard and veterans who have served since the Gulf War for exposure to the potentially hazardous material. The bill would also create a task force to begin establishing a health registry for veterans and military personnel returning from Afghanistan, Iraq or other countries where depleted uranium or other hazardous materials have been used. It would also develop a plan to reach out to military personnel and report to service members about precautions they can take. "We want to catch it as quick as we can, diagnose it and treat it," Michele said. There is substantial debate in health circles about the hazards of depleted uranium, with some circles warning it can cripple and kill while others dismiss it as more or less harmless. State Veterans Commissioner Linda Schwartz told the veterans panel this spring the data the state collects can help document what is happening to veterans. "Something happened to them between the time they left and the time they returned," Schwartz told the committee. "We may theorize it could be depleted uranimum, but it may be a number of things." Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said that "exposure occurred during both the 1991 war and the current Iraqi war." "Unfortunately, the Defense Department has not fully acknowledged the potential scope of exposure, nor has the department fully tested all veterans who may have been exposed to depleted uranium," the attorney general said. "Regrettably, the Defense Department’s response to depleted uranium exposure approximates its approach to anthrax vaccine," he said. "Rather than fully study the problem and provide transparency, the department attempts to minimize the problem and delay or discourage testing." Blumenthal said that "Connecticut can provide leadership on this issue by assuring that our veterans have access to the best testing and information." After fiscal experts warned a first draft of the bill could be costly, lawmakers rewrote it to clarify that the testing itself would be a federal government responsibility. Michele said he’s concerned that the depleted uranium weapons the military is using so freely today could be used against American troops before long. He said that in Iraq, the military has used nearly 10,000 tank shells made of the material and expended more than 850,000 rounds from aircraft. With so much use, he said, it’s important to understand the health impact, particularly since enemies are likely to fire depleted uranium shells at U.S. troops someday. "It doesn’t take long for the other side to catch up" with technological advances, Michele said. Depleted uranium is the material left over when enriched uranium used for nuclear power plant fuel or bombs is separated from uranium. The U.S. government has immense amounts of it so its use is so cheap that weapons makers are given the metal, Michele said. It is used to make armor and armor-piercing shells more effective. State Sen. Gayle Slossberg, a Milford Democrat who is a co-chair of the veterans panel, said the state "is going to lead the nation in taking care of -- and insuring the health and well being of -- our servicemen and servicewomen. We’re keeping our promise to them." -------- korea N. Korea slams Cheney June 03, 2005 (AP) http://www.washtimes.com/world/20050603-121949-2945r.htm SEOUL -- North Korea called Vice President Dick Cheney a "bloodthirsty beast" and said yesterday that his recent remarks labeling ruler Kim Jong-il irresponsible are another reason for the nation to stay away from six-nation nuclear disarmament talks. "What Cheney uttered at a time when the issue of the six-party talks is high on the agenda is little short of telling [North Korea] not to come out for the talks," an unnamed North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman said, according to the state-run Korean Central News Agency. Nearly a year since the last session of the six-nation talks, North Korea has refused to return to the table, citing a "hostile" U.S. policy. More recently, it has also called for an apology for being labeled one of the world's "outposts of tyranny" by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. In a Sunday interview on CNN, Mr. Cheney called the North Korean leader "one of the world's most irresponsible leaders," who runs a police state and leaves his people in poverty and malnutrition. White House press secretary Scott McClellan described the communist country's comments as "more of the same kind of bluster we hear from North Korea from time to time. When they make provocative statements, they only further isolate themselves." President Bush has sounded a more conciliatory tone recently, referring to Mr. Kim this week at a press conference with the title "Mr." Miss Rice also has said the U.S. recognizes the North as a sovereign nation, and U.S. officials insist that they have no intention to attack the communist state. But North Korea said yesterday that the remarks by Mr. Cheney, "boss of the hawkish hard-liners, revealed the true colors of this group steering the implementation of the policy of the Bush administration." The North also leveled a bitter personal attack on Mr. Cheney, saying he was "hated as the most cruel monster and bloodthirsty beast as he has drenched various parts of the world in blood." The North also yesterday criticized a Defense Department decision to halt missions to recover the remains of thousands of U.S. soldiers from the Korean War and said it would disband its search unit. "In consequence, the U.S. remains buried in Korea can never be recovered but are bound to be reduced to earth with the flow of time," a North Korean army spokesman said, according to KCNA. Washington said it was halting the missions, which began in 1996, out of concerns for U.S. troops' safety. ---- White House defends Cheney after 'bloodthirsty beast' attack by N Korea WASHINGTON (AFP) Jun 03, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/050602225535.tthpmpla.html The White House on Thursday defended outspoken personal criticism of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il by Vice President Dick Cheney that may have dashed any hopes of bringing Pyongyang back to six-party nuclear talks. Cheney had called Kim an "irresponsible" leader who did not care for his people and ran a police state, drawing a strong rebuke Thursday from Pyongyang, which slammed the US vice president as a "blood-thirsty beast." "We are going to call it the way it is," White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters as he backed Cheney's verbal broadside made in an interview on CNN's "Larry King Live" program on Monday. Charles Pritchard, the special envoy for talks with North Korea during president Bill Clinton's second term in office, said Cheney's volley was "deliberate". "It certainly had an effect that many in the Bush administration would like to see and that is the cooling of the possibility of the North Koreans returning to the six party talks," he said. "The chances of the North Koreans coming back to the talks anytime soon are now less likely," Pritchard said. He noted that Cheney's criticism of the North Korean leader came just two weeks after US special envoy Joseph deTrani held a rare direct meeting with North Koreans asking them to return to the six-party meeting. North Korea has boycotted the talks -- also involving China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States -- since the last round a year ago due to what it called hostile US policy. "The stated policy of the Bush administration is to bring North Korea back to talks and precisely while the North Koreans were considering this, given the message by ambassador Joseph deTrani on May 13, the Vice-President has essentially trumped that message and it had caused the North Koreans predictably to react the way that they have," Pritchard said. But North Asia analyst Balbina Hwang of the conservative Heritage Foundation said the White House defense of Cheney did not reinforce any notion that the United States had given up hopes on the six-party talks. "Cheney's comments were not something new and does not indicate any shift in policy," she said. "And I do not think strong statements labeling North Korea for what it is, is what is preventing North Korea from coming back to the table." "They do not want to return to the talks because they want to continue with their nuclear weapons program," Hwang said. McClellan said Pyongyang's harsh words for Cheney were "more of the same kind of bluster we hear from North Korea from time to time." "All of the parties are saying to North Korea that it needs to abandon its nuclear weapons ambitions. We all share the goal of a nuclear-free (Korean) peninsula. North Korea is the one that must make a strategic decision" if it wants to have better relations with the international community, said McClellan. "They may make provocative statements, but they will only further isolate themselves from the international community. We've made very clear that we are committed to the six-party talks," he said. Pyongyang relaunched its nuclear arms program in violation of a 1994 accord. Washington insists Pyongyang has several atomic bombs in its arsenal. -------- russia Former Soviet nukes still a threat By PHILIP TURNER, June 3, 2005 (UPI) http://www.spacewar.com/news/nuclear-blackmarket-05v.html http://interestalert.com/brand/siteia.shtml?Story=st/sn/06030004aaa05382.upi&Sys=siteia&Fid=WORLDNEW&Type=News&Filter=World WASHINGTON -- Nuclear materials from the former Soviet Union remain a dangerous proliferation and environmental threat, Russian and U.S. experts warned Friday. Russian researchers from the Bellona Foundation, a Norway-based environmental organization, released their latest report on the state of the Russian nuclear industry and the need to reform it. They said the Soviet nuclear legacy has left Russia and the world vulnerable to nuclear materials left over from the Cold War. Joining the Russians on a panel at Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies was Mark Helmke, a staff member for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He said the lack of security around nuclear sites in Russia was a much larger threat than the environmental one. Helmke has been a major supporter of the program crafted by former Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., and Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, that since 1991 has provided billions of dollars to Russia to tighten security around nuclear facilities and dispose of nuclear materials. Helmke said the issue is more or less a race against time in trying to keep terrorists from getting nuclear materials from the former Soviet Union. "There are a number of unreconstructed cold warriors on both the American and Russian sides, and they often use that to slow down important non-proliferation work," he said. "We have to understand the sense of urgency here. It is remarkable that no terrorist in the past 10 years has been able to get ahold of and use any of the nuclear, biological or chemical weapons that are spread all over the former Soviet Union." Helmke said the issue still needed to become a top global priority for political leadership. "For some reason, this does not seem to rise up as a concern in Europe," he said. Helmke said issues such as global warming that have held the attention of world leaders need to be put aside for more immediate concerns. "What is the more immediate threat that we face? Is it climate change or is it a terrorist getting his hands on and fashioning a dirty bomb?" Helmke asked. "The problem is that too many of us are whistling past the graveyard on this threat. The threat is so frightening to so many people that we tend to discount it politically and focus on other issues that might be easier to get your heads wrapped around and motivate the public." A lack of technology has made it impossible to dispose of large stores of nuclear material that if released into soil or water would pose serious threats to those nearby. "Thirty-seven percent of former usable nuclear weapons have been disposed of, but it is the advanced and technological projects that hit the wall," said Igor Kudrik, a Russian researcher and co-author of the report. Kudrik said the Russian nuclear program needed to be reformed to ensure the proper disposal of these materials. "We need to separate ourselves from the Cold War legacy waste that is taking away from today's activities," he said. Alexander Nitkin, a contributing author to the report, said Russia needed to comprehensively re-evaluate the nuclear policies it had inherited from the Soviet Union. He said funds given by the United States to dispose of materials were often misspent on unnecessary infrastructure. Nitkin and Kudrik also called for international oversight to account for the massive amounts of foreign funds pledged to Russia for nuclear remediation projects. "We also need to establish what are the most important nuclear hazards that need to be addressed," he said. One major area of concern is the Mayak Fissile Material Storage Facility near St. Petersburg, Russia's second-largest city. It has reportedly been bankrupt since 2003 and has been a habitual violator of anti-dumping policies in nearby rivers. Mayak is Russia's only spent nuclear fuel reprocessing facility. It has also been the scene of serious security threats in the past decade. A soldier was arrested for allegedly attempting to break into a warehouse on the premises, copper cabling has been stolen, a stash of aluminum rods was discovered outside the perimeter of the plant and scrap stainless-steel valves with a high level of radioactive contamination were found off the premises. Still, Russia has come a long way in downsizing its once highly threatening nuclear program, the experts said. This summer, 10,000 nuclear warheads will be disposed of. Lisa E. Gordon-Hagerty, executive vice president of global energy firm USEC, said her company had helped achieve one of the most successful non-proliferation stories. "Ten percent of the electricity we use in this country comes from (the fuel for nuclear reactors provided by) nuclear warheads that were once aimed at us," she said. Bellona researchers said they hope their report will grab the attention of major world leaders so they can work more efficiently to modernize the Russian nuclear industry and properly downsize and dispose of nuclear materials. "The victims of a future dirty-bomb attack won't want to know what we have or have not done," said Helmke. "This absolutely must become a priority." -------- space Immaculate Destruction By FRANCES FITZGERALD June 3, 2005 NY TIMES http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/03/opinion/03Fitzgerald.html?pagewanted=print FOR some time now the Air Force has been pressing the White House for a new national-security directive that would permit the deployment of space weaponry. A decision could come within weeks. Most space-to-ground weapons remain futuristic, but previous presidents and Congresses have chosen not to deploy anti-satellite weapons, fearing that doing so would set off an arms race and endanger the information systems the United States relies on. The new directive, if approved, would constitute a historic change in policy as radical as President Bush's doctrine of pre-emptive war. Yet the idea of putting weapons in space has its roots in American national mythology and in a strain of 19th-century strategic thinking that, curiously enough, seems quite close to that of the Bush administration. In January 2001 the National Space Commission, which had been led by Donald H. Rumsfeld, the secretary of defense designate, warned the incoming President Bush of the potential for a "space Pearl Harbor." The bumper-sticker phrase dramatized a real concern for American defense planners. Over the years the military has become more and more dependent on satellites for navigation, targeting, command-and-control and other essential functions, yet satellites are highly vulnerable. They can be shot down with guided missiles, their ground transmitters can be attacked and the communication links between the two can be jammed. The space policy of the Clinton administration emphasized defensive measures and arms control to deal with these threats, but the Rumsfeld commission called for "the option to deploy weapons in space" and a new policy to guide their development. In 2002 President Bush withdrew from the Antiballistic Missile Treaty, which banned space-based missile defenses, and ordered a policy review. Since then the Air Force and other military commands have called for deploying weapons that could cripple other countries' orbiters, a space-based missile defense system and other weapons that could rapidly attack targets anywhere on earth. The strategic advantage of some of these systems, however, is difficult to discern. A space-based ground attack system would require dozens of satellites and cost 50 to 100 times as much as ballistic missiles that can do the same job. As for antisatellite weapons, they would do nothing to defend our satellites. Whatever utility such weapons might have, the problem with all of them is that spacecraft in orbit are vulnerable to relatively low-tech countermeasures. And if other countries, particularly Russia or China, were faced with a space weapon that could cripple their communications or strike them without warning, they might react just as the United States would under similar circumstances. Air Force reports speak of establishing "space control" or "space superiority," defining both as "freedom to attack as well as freedom from attack" in space. The metaphors that surround these assertions tend to come from old-fashioned conventional warfare. "The first principle that should guide air and space professionals is the imperative to control the high ground," a policy paper, "Counterspace Operations," tells us. Yet space is not so much a high ground as it as a highway - and in some orbits it is as crowded as the New Jersey Turnpike, mostly with commercial satellites and space debris. Any space-based weapon would have to join this procession and roll along with the rest of the traffic. How putting more or better weapons in orbit would end their vulnerability Air Force officials have yet to explain. But clearly they have faith that technology will find a way. "Space superiority is not our birthright, but it is our destiny," Gen. Lance Lord, chief of the Air Force Space Command, said at an Air Force conference last September. "Simply put, it's the American way of fighting," he told Congress recently. The Air Force's enthusiasm for space weaponry accords with the Bush administration's preference for military superiority over arms control and with Mr. Rumsfeld's view that the United States should fight with high-tech weaponry and as few troops as possible. As General Lord's rhetoric suggests, these approaches are hardly novel. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Midwestern Republicans, among them Senator Albert Beveridge of Indiana and Senator Robert A. Taft of Ohio, promoted similar strategies. They were isolationists in regard to Europe, which they considered the corrupt Old World, but they rivaled Theodore Roosevelt in their enthusiasm for American imperial adventures to the south and the west. They therefore became advocates of a powerful navy, for it could defend American shores against European powers and extend American reach through the Caribbean and into the Pacific. Later they resisted plans for enlarging the Army because the only function of a large army, as they saw it, would be to intervene in European conflicts. With the advent of the airplane, they championed the air force as a substitute for boots on the ground. In effect their strategy was to project power while remaining isolated: in terms of the national mythology, they wanted America to pursue its God-given mission abroad while remaining the virgin land. While the Democrats would fight land wars, compromise and negotiate, Midwestern Republicans would preach the American way of life and command the world from the heights of the air and the distances of the sea. Their ideal would surely have been space weaponry. But the record of the last century suggests that, like long-range bombers and aircraft carriers, killer satellites will not save the United States from the messy realities of international engagement. Frances FitzGerald is the author of "Way Out There in the Blue: Reagan, Star Wars and the End of the Cold War." -------- u.s. nuc facilities -------- nevada Yucca Mountain license efforts set for August STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU Friday, June 03, 2005 Las Vegas Review-Journal http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2005/Jun-03-Fri-2005/news/26656588.html WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department tentatively estimates it will take the next step toward licensing a Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site in August, according to a DOE report prepared this week. That's when DOE officials expect to be ready to certify they have properly posted 3.5 million documents to an Internet database for the proposed waste repository. Full operation of the Yucca Mountain "licensing support network" is a major requirement before DOE can ask the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a license to build nuclear waste facilities on the site. Attorneys for DOE said in the report that the August date still may be revised, depending on how fast technicians can black out portions of documents shielded for privacy and business propriety reasons. The report was filed Wednesday with an NRC judicial board that is monitoring the assembly of the electronic licensing database. The Energy Department attempted to certify the licensing database last summer. It was rejected following complaints from Nevada state officials and other parties that the database was incomplete and poorly organized. -------- new jersey Ocean County nuclear plant shuts down because of voltage problem The Associated Press June 3, 2005 10:41 AM http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/104-06032005-497820.html LACEY TOWNSHIP, N.J. - The Oyster Creek nuclear power plant remained shut down Friday because of problems with the electricity coming into the plant. Federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokeswoman Diane Screnci said Friday that the reactor shut down automatically around 9 p.m. on Wednesday after the voltage coming into the plant changed rapidly. The problem came from electricity generated elsewhere coming into the plant and not the power generated by the Ocean County facility. The plant was stable and there was no danger to the public, she said. Pete Resler, a spokesman for Exelon Corp., which owns the plant, said repairs have been made in an electrical switchyard where the problem began. He would not say when the plant might be restarted. ---- Oyster Creek sirens ready if needed Published in the Ocean County Observer 6/3/05 By JESSICA STENSTROM Staff Writer http://www.injersey.com/observer/story/0,2554,1282778,00.html TOMS RIVER -- If an emergency were to occur at Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station the public would be alerted in just three clicks of a mouse. All 42 sirens that would alert residents to turn to their emergency broadcast station, either on television or radio, were tested at 10 a.m. yesterday. Steve Mannix, facilities and equipment manager for Exelon Nuclear -- the company that owns the plant -- said that the test was successful and everything worked properly. The sirens were activated from the radio room at the Ocean County Communications Center, Chestnut Street, Toms River. A computer screen displayed 42 green dots. Mannix said that each dot represented one of the sirens, which are located within a 10-mile radius of Oyster Creek, spanning 12 municipalities. "It's very simple. You just point and click," Mannix said of the process that would sound the sirens. "You click on activate, click sound Ocean County sirens and then click the confirmation." He said that all shift supervisors working in the communications radio room are trained and know the procedure to activate the sirens. Senior Public Safety Operator Mike Tarricone activated the sirens in seconds. Once the sirens were activated, the green dots began blinking, signifying that the three-minute siren was sounding off. Mannix said that if there was a true emergency at Oyster Creek, a member of an emergency response organization of the Emergency Preparedness Department would man the technical support center located within the plant. "If the emergency was serious, they would then notify the county," Mannix said. He said that all sirens have to be activated by the county or state. There is a procedure that Exelon employees would follow when notifying the county of the emergency and the need to activate sirens. "Four times a year we practice with the county (by) sending them simulated messages," he said. Mannix said that if for any reason the siren system in the county office was to fail, state police would be notified and they would sound the sirens from their system. He said that in the plant's entire operating period there has never been an emergency that warranted sounding off the sirens. Sirens are audibly tested once a year, being activated for the full three-minute period from the county dispatch room. Electrical tests are performed there weekly to ensure that the equipment is ready for use, he said. Mannix said that sirens were tested twice yesterday. The county office activated the alarms at 10 a.m. sounding them for the full three minutes. The alarms were again activated from the state office at 2 p.m., sounding only for 30 seconds. There have been times when other sirens, such as those police, fire departments and first aid squads use, have been mistaken for the power plant's emergency sirens. Mannix said that the sirens Oyster Creek use are very loud, making them unmistakable. "They sound at 125 decibels and run for a full three minutes," he said. "That is a long time -- a long wail." He said that sirens used by other companies usually sound at 110 decibels. "Their motor cycles on and off. Ours is steady," Mannix said. He added that other sirens usually will sound for a minute and half at the most, while the Oyster Creek sirens will always be activated for three minutes during an emergency. Results from yesterday's test will be reported to the New Jersey State Police Department, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the county. There are six sirens in Barnegat, one in Barnegat Light, one in Beachwood, eight in Berkeley, three in Dover Township, one in Harvey Cedars, two in Seaside Park, nine in Lacey, two in Long Beach Township, three in Ocean Township, five in Stafford Township and one in Surf City. -------- new mexico NM Governor, company reach agreement on proposed uranium plant Last Update: 06/03/2005 4:47:06 PM By: Associated Press http://www.kobtv.com/index.cfm?viewer=storyviewer&id=19613&cat=NMTOPSTORIES http://www.kvia.com/global/story.asp?s=3429289&ClientType=Printable ALBUQUERQUE (AP) - Gov. Bill Richardson says a company proposing a uranium enrichment plant near Eunice will limit the amount of radioactive waste it stores in New Mexico. Louisiana Energy Services also will be required to dispose of waste outside the state, Richardson said. The governor says the compromise gives the state everything it wants, including safeguards to protect the environment. If the company violates the agreement, the government can close the plant. The company plans to spend $1.2 billion on a facility that refines uranium for nuclear reactors. Before the plant can be built, however, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission must approve the agreement. Nuclear power industry watchdog groups say the deal fails to solve New Mexico’s radioactive waste disposal problem. -------- vermont Panel: Yankee accord can wait June 3, 2005 By DAVID GRAM The Associated Press http://www.rutlandherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050603/NEWS/50603002/1003/NEWS02 MONTPELIER - A state panel that advises lawmakers and the governor on nuclear power voted Thursday to urge against passage this year of a bill that would allow Vermont Yankee to store high-level radioactive waste in dry casks on the plant grounds in Vernon. The 4-3 vote of the Vermont State Nuclear Advisory Panel came after members of the House committee that gave a green light for the bill acknowledged they were unaware of a 1991 study warning against disposing of much less radioactive material at the same site. "We received a lot of information," Rep. Robert Dostis, D-Waterbury and chairman of the House Natural Resources and Energy Committee, said at a special meeting of the advisory panel, known as V-SNAP. "Whether we received that report specifically I don't recall." Dostis was responding to a question posed by Sen. Mark MacDonald, D-Orange and a member of the advisory panel, who followed up by polling other members of the House panel in the room. None could recall hearing about the 1991 study by the Battelle consulting group of Columbus, Ohio. MacDonald used the exchange to underscore his contention that the Senate should not be in a hurry to pass the bill approved by the House on Tuesday that allows Vermont Yankee to seek Public Service Board approval of its plan to store highly radioactive spent fuel in concrete and steel canisters on the plant grounds in Vernon. MacDonald pushed for the special meeting of the panel in advance of a Senate vote, which could come as soon as today or Saturday, especially if legislative leaders stick to their plan to try to adjourn for the year this weekend. He repeatedly questioned witnesses about whether the issue could wait until lawmakers reconvene in January, and the Senate, which just got the House-passed bill on Wednesday, can give it more study. David O'Brien, who as commissioner of the Department of Public Service serves as V-SNAP's chairman, said after the vote that "members of the panel, one more member than the others, thought that the Senate should have more time to deliberate on this. That was their opinion. I don't agree with it." Plant officials and supporters said Tuesday night that Vermont Yankee is running out of room to store spent nuclear fuel in its spent fuel storage pool, and needs to add storage in the form of the dry casks on a concrete pad in the plant yard if it is to continue operating through the end of its current license in 2012. "We run out of physical space to put fuel in 2008," Vermont Yankee senior engineer David McElwee told the panel. He said the plant needed enough lead time to get regulatory approvals for dry cask storage, construct the needed facilities and train staff to use them. Vermont Yankee's supporters, including several business groups, say they want to see the plant stay open because of the power it provides under a contract with Vermont power companies that is cheap relative to today's prices for wholesale electricity. They also say the plant provides well-paying jobs to hundreds of workers in southeastern Vermont and neighboring parts of New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Thursday's meeting was tense from the outset, with MacDonald moving that the panel vote to urge the Senate to wait until next year at the beginning of the session, and O'Brien replying that he was "flabbergasted" at MacDonald's motion. They and other panel members agreed that the agenda O'Brien had just outlined would serve as discussion of MacDonald's motion. Later, when MacDonald accused department and Vermont Yankee officials of concealing the 1991 study from his Senate committee, William Sherman, the state nuclear engineer, replied that he thought MacDonald had been asking about permanent disposal of low-level radioactive waste at the Vernon site, not temporary storage of high-level waste in steel and concrete casks. Sherman also questioned why MacDonald hadn't asked him more explicitly about the low-level waste study, which found that the Vermont Yankee site on the banks of the Connecticut River was unsuitable for low-level radioactive waste disposal. "I resent kind of the idea of trickery," Sherman said. -------- washington Energy chief pledges Hanford cleanup effort Friday, June 3rd, 2005 By Annette Cary, Tri-City Herald staff writer http://www.tri-cityherald.com/tch/local/story/6563832p-6446639c.html Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman pledged to do his best to uphold the Tri-Party Agreement, the legally binding document that regulates cleanup at the Hanford nuclear reservation, during his first visit to the site Thursday. "We agreed to it. We're going to honor it," he said. He spent 11 hours in the Tri-Cities on an exhaustive tour of Hanford and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. That's more time than any of his predecessors spent there, pointed out Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., who accompanied him on the tour. The energy secretary made the visit just four months after taking office, another sign of his interest in cleaning up the legacy of nuclear waste from World War II and the Cold War. Hanford is contaminated from more than 40 years production of plutonium for the nation's nuclear weapons program. The visit also was a chance for a fresh start between the Department of Energy and Washington, despite two ongoing lawsuits in federal court over whether the state has the authority to bar nuclear waste from being sent to Hanford. Both the state and DOE want the same thing: compliance with the Tri-Party Agreement, said Gov. Christine Gregoire after she and Jay Manning, the director of the state Department of Ecology, met with Bodman. But they remain at odds on how to achieve that. Bodman emphasized that cost is not a measure of cleanup progress. DOE proposed cutting the Hanford budget for next year by $267 million and Bodman said that reduced budget of about $1.8 billion would still allow Tri-Party Agreement cleanup deadlines to be met. That budget would "doom" cleanup to Tri-Party Agreement standards, Gregoire said. She praised Hastings' work to get the House to approve a $200 million increase, as the fight for increased funding now moves to the Senate. "We agreed to have our staffs work together," Bodman said. "We will see if we can reach some common ground." It's the same cooperative approach he'd like to work toward with the state on other Hanford matters, ranging from governance of the site to importing and exporting waste from the site, he said. Bodman made his remarks in a videotaped meeting with Hanford employees, a brief news conference and a meeting with the Herald. He is an engineer by education, he pointed out to employees, drawing laughter when he added, "That may say it all." His technical background gives him an appreciation of the challenges of building the $5.8 billion vitrification plant planned to turn some of Hanford's worst wastes into a stable glass form for permanent disposal, he said. "This is hard stuff," he said. "You're dealing with construction of a one-off chemical plant with unknown feed stocks." Neither Congress nor the Office of Management and Budget fully understand the complexity of what Hanford employees are being asked to do at the vitrification plant, and to do it on time and on budget, he told employees. The project "is mind blowing," he said after touring the construction site. He's not shocked that it appears to be headed toward huge price overruns, but neither is he pleased, he emphasized. More information should be available in a few weeks on the cost and schedule of the plant, he said. A new study has indicated that parts of the plant may not be adequately designed to withstand a worst-case earthquake. Construction has slowed on the plant and about 1,000 employees laid off while design calculations are reviewed and other difficulties are addressed. To not have adequate earthquake information when construction is well under way "is just shocking to me," Gregoire said. "But one thing that is clear is we have to move forward on the vitrification plant." Now waste that will be vitrified in the plant is stored in massive underground tanks, the oldest of them built during World War II. The waste must be removed to protect the ground water which flows toward the Columbia River. Much of Gregoire's time with Bodman was spent discussing how much residual waste may be left in the bottom of the tanks, she said. The Tri-Party Agreement calls for no more than one percent of the waste to remain, and Bodman said as early as his Senate confirmation hearings that he would follow the agreement on tank waste removal. "It appeared our respective goals are the same," Gregoire said. But Bodman is concerned that even if DOE complies with the agreement it could be vulnerable to lawsuits from other parties who believe all the waste can be removed, Gregoire said. Last year DOE unsuccessfully pushed legislation that would allow it to leave up to 10 percent of waste in Hanford tanks. Bodman's wide-ranging tour of Hanford included not only a look at some of the technical difficulties facing the site during cleanup, but also a look at the B Reactor where workers raced to produce the plutonium used in the bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, helping to end World War II. He appreciates the challenge of doing "work consistent with the extraordinary history of this place," he told workers. "I am determined that we will manage our affairs better than we have in the past." -------- MILITARY -------- china China's military on the rise, Rumsfeld says Posted 6/3/2005 6:46 AM Updated 6/4/2005 2:10 AM http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-06-03-rumsfeld-asia_x.htm SINGAPORE (AP) — China's military buildup, particularly its positioning of hundreds of missiles facing Taiwan, is a threat to Asian security, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Saturday. Rumsfeld rebuked China at a regional security conference here, saying it was pouring huge resources into its military and buying large amounts of sophisticated weapons despite facing no threat from any other country. The Pentagon chief's remarks signaled a harder line against China from the Bush administration, which has criticized Beijing over trade and human rights issues but not directly challenged its military buildup. The director of the Asia bureau of China's foreign ministry, Cui Tiankai, was in the audience for Rumsfeld's speech and reacted strongly. "Since the U.S. is spending a lot more money than China is doing on defense, the U.S. should understand that every country has its own security concerns and every country is entitled to spend money necessary for its own defense," Cui told The Associated Press after Rumsfeld's remarks. Rumsfeld said the Pentagon's annual assessment of China's military capabilities shows China is spending more than its leaders acknowledge, expanding its missile capabilities and developing advanced military technology. China now has the world's third-largest military budget, he said, behind the United States and Russia. He did not say how large the U.S. believes China's military budget is. "Since no nation threatens China, one must wonder: Why this growing investment? Why these continuing large and expanding arms purchases?" Rumsfeld said at the conference organized by the International Institute of Strategic Studies, a private, London-based think tank. Cui responded sharply to Rumsfeld during a question-and-answer session. "Do you truly believe that China is under no threat by other countries?" Cui asked. "Do you truly believe that the U.S. is threatened by the emergence of China?" Rumsfeld said he does not think any country threatens China and that the United States does not see China as a threat. Central to the disagreement is Taiwan, a self-governing island Beijing regards as a renegade territory. China has said it will attack Taiwan if the island tries to declare independence, and it repeatedly calls on the United States to stop selling weapons to Taiwan. Beijing denounced a joint U.S.-Japan statement earlier this year saying the two allies shared the objective of a peaceful resolution of the Taiwan issue. The United States is urging the European Union to keep in place its ban on selling weapons to China. Washington argues that any European weapons sold to China could be used in a conflict over Taiwan. "I just look at the significant rollout of ballistic missiles opposite Taiwan, and I have to ask the question: If everyone agrees the question of Taiwan is going to be settled in a peaceful way, why this increase in ballistic missiles opposite Taiwan?" Rumsfeld said. He also questioned China's government, saying political freedom there has not kept pace with increasing economic freedom. "Ultimately, China will need to embrace some form of a more open and representative government if it is to fully achieve the political and economic benefits to which its people aspire," he said. The defense secretary, who has said he would like to visit China this year, also pressed Beijing to use its influence with North Korea to restart six-nation talks over Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program. North Korea has stayed away for a year from the talks with China, the United States, South Korea, Japan and Russia. Rumsfeld said the United Nations may need to decide what to do about the nuclear threat from North Korea, which declared in February that it has atomic bombs. North Korea says it needs a nuclear deterrent because of what it calls Washington's "hostile policy" against it. Rumsfeld said North Korea is a worldwide threat because of its record of selling missile technology and other weapons. "One has to assume that they'll sell anything, and that they would sell nuclear weapons," he said. Similar U.S. criticism of North Korea has sparked an angry response from Pyongyang. The state-run Korean Central News Agency this week called Vice President Dick Cheney a "bloodthirsty beast" for saying that North Korean leader Kim Jong Il was irresponsible. President Bush and other administration officials say the U.S. has no intention of attacking North Korea. Tensions between the two nations have been rising in recent months. Last week, the Pentagon suspended its only contact with North Korea efforts to search for the remains of missing servicemen from the Korean War. U.S. officials said they could not guarantee the search teams' safety in remote areas. -------- latin america Mass Protests Continue in Bolivia Friday, June 3rd, 2005 Headlines, Democracy Now! http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/06/03/1337216 Massive protests continue to spread across Latin America's poorest country, Bolivia. Late yesterday, the embattled US-backed president, Carlos Mesa, signed an emergency decree ordering a referendum on greater autonomy for the richest area of the country and a vote in mid-October to elect members for an assembly to rewrite the constitution. Mesa made the announcement late yesterday after the country's Congress failed to reach a consensus for the third day in a row and with indigenous-led protests raging in the streets of La Paz, bringing the capital to a standstill. The protests have cut off the capital from the airport and blockades have shut down two-thirds of the country's highways. Meanwhile, the Bolivian Foreign Ministry rejected what it called "international mediation" after the US State Department said Bolivia would be discussed at the Organization of American States general assembly next week. Riot police armed with tear gas continue to guard Congress and protests have spread to other areas in the country. Jim Shultz of the Democracy Center in Cochabamba reports that there are rumors of a coup in the air and said the protests "show all the signs of growing more intense and bold in their willingness to shut the country down." --- Indigenous Uprising: The Rebellion Grows in Bolivia Friday, June 3rd, 2005 Democracy Now! http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/06/03/1347232 Rebellion is in the air in Latin America's poorest country, Bolivia. For weeks, indigenous-led protests have rocked the country and have brought the government to a near shutdown. The protests began as demonstrations calling for nationalization of the country's natural gas resources but that was just the spark for a much bigger war; a war over the rights of the country's majority indigenous population. We go to Cochabamba for a report from human rights activist Jim Shultz of the Democracy Center. [includes rush transcript] Bolivia's US-backed President, Carlos Mesa, is scrapping to maintain control of the government and there are rumors in the air of coup plots. Late yesterday, Mesa signed an emergency decree ordering a referendum on greater autonomy for the richest area of the country and a vote in mid-October to elect members for an assembly to rewrite the constitution. The protests have cut off the capital from the airport and blockades have shut down two-thirds of the country's highways. RUSH TRANSCRIPT JUAN GONZALEZ: We go now to Bolivia where we are joined by Jim Shultz, the Executive Director of the Democracy Center in Cochabamba. He writes a blog on the developments in Bolivia that can be found at DemocracyCtr.org. Welcome to Democracy Now! JIM SHULTZ: Good morning. Thanks for having me on, and thanks for continuing to keep this important story alive in the United States and for your other listeners. JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, the story has gotten very little coverage here in the corporate press. I'd like to get some sense from you what's been going on in the last 24 hours and your sense of some of the underlying factors that haven't yet surfaced. JIM SHULTZ: Well, let's start with sort of looking at what's happening on the ground. To orient people, the capital of Bolivia, La Paz, is this city of a million people basically at the base of a bowl, 12,000 feet high. It is surrounded by this plain 2,000 feet higher than that called El Alto and the Altiplano outside of that. What has happened for the last 2 1/2 weeks is the indigenous Aymara communities from the Altiplano and from the twin poor city of El Alto have descended onto the capital and essentially shut it down. I mean, there isn't food coming in and out. There isn't bus transport in or out. A number of the airlines have cancelled their flights. And there is, you know, 10-20,000 people that have been coming in every day and trying to literally shut the government down by taking over the heart of the city, which is Plaza Murillo, where the congress and the presidential palace are located. This has spread to other parts of the country, as well. Here in Cochabamba, the center of the city has been blockaded now every day for the last three days. There's limited bus transport out of Cochabamba today, as well. All of this is aimed at forcing the government to take back control of the nation's oil and gas resources, which were privatized under I.M.F. pressure in the mid-1990s. And really what's happening is this is the end of a process that has been in motion for more than two years. This is the same issue over which Bolivia kicked out its last president, Gonzales Sanchez de Lozada, in very similar uprisings in October of 2003. JUAN GONZALEZ: Now, but at the same time there's also a developing autonomy movement in the richest state or province of Bolivia. Could you talk a little bit about that? JIM SHULTZ: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, part of what's going on here is traditionally the mineral resources of this country, silver, tin, have been in the highlands where the indigenous communities are strongest and most represented. The oil and gas -- and we're talking about a lot of oil and gas. We're talking about 53 trillion (with a T) cubic feet. This is the second-largest reserve on the continent after Venezuela. This is a lot of natural gas. It's in Santa Cruz [inaudible] on the other side of the country, the lowlands, the jungle lands, as well, which is a wealthier part of the country. The response to the demand by the people in the highlands for nationalization and public control has been an effort, especially in the province of Santa Cruz, to demand autonomy, essentially to demand that the national government stay out of certain affairs, and it doesn't take a lot of reading between the lines to understand what it’s really about is the people who are sitting on the land where the gas is located really want to make sure that they get the biggest share and the most control. And the oil companies have very clearly been manipulating this. This is not an uprising in Santa Cruz of the poor. This is an uprising of the business class. And it is very simple for foreign oil companies to manipulate that process and foment that discontent, and so -- I mean, it's interesting every time the indigenous community has an uprising, the U.S. government likes to blame it on narco-traffickers but they don't seem to pay attention to the fact that you have this uprising on the other side of the country for autonomy that has oil company fingerprints all over it. JUAN GONZALEZ: We're talking with Jim Shultz, the Executive Director of the Democracy Center in Cochabamba, Bolivia. He writes a blog on developments on Bolivia that can be found at DemocracyCtr.org. We're going to return and talk with him about the role of the United States and the I.M.F. in the current crisis in Bolivia. [break] JUAN GONZALEZ: We're talking right now on the phone with Jim Shultz, the Executive Director of the Democracy Center in Cochabamba, Bolivia, about the crisis in Bolivia. Jim, could you talk to us a little bit about the U.S. role in the current crisis and in Bolivian politics, in general, and that of the I.M.F.? You have been writing quite a bit about that on your blog that can be found at DemocracyCtr.org. Can you talk to us about that? JIM SHULTZ: Well, Juan, it’s important to put the story in the context both of sort of U.S. and I.M.F. policy but also in what's happening in Latin America more broadly. Bolivia has for the past 20 years been the lab rat for the I.M.F. and the World Bank's economic policies. Bolivia did it all, privatization of water, privatization of oil and gas, relaxation of labor standards, all of the deficit reduction coming in from the backs of the poor. All of this has been done at the command of the I.M.F. and the World Bank. And Bolivia doesn't have a lot of choice. When the I.M.F. and the World Bank tell Bolivia, “Thou shalt privatize your water” or “Thou shalt privatize your oil and gas,” those are commandments that are very difficult for a poor country like Bolivia to say no to. The fact is it hasn't worked. I mean, this is a country that has had two major civic uprisings over water privatization, both of which have kicked big international companies out of the country, and now it’s having this uprising over gas privatization. It just hasn't worked. I think this is related to what's happening all over Latin America. If you think about the last 30 years in Latin America, South America in particular, you know, we went in the period in the 1960s and 1970s of right-wing dictatorships and left-wing insurgencies and then we went through a period of elected governments that were very conservative, very tied to the United States and very dedicated to the policies of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, and what's happening now is this movement from the left to, you know, take over governments in Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela through the political process, and in the streets in Bolivia, it is a practical rebellion against a practical failure of the economic policies imposed on these countries from abroad by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. We just released a report in April called Deadly Consequences, which people can find in its entirety on our website. It’s a small book. It traces very clearly how the International Monetary Fund’s demands in this country two years ago for tax increases to reduce its deficit to pay its foreign debtors off more quickly, how that descended into 34 people being killed in the country's capital, a shooting war between the police and the army in front of the national palace, directly, directly the result of I.M.F. economic policy. So what's happening in Bolivia is not just the story of Bolivia. It is absolutely the story of Latin America and South America and it is the story of indigenous peoples rising up against a set of economic ideologies imposed on them completely against their will, completely without their consent from institutions abroad. JUAN GONZALEZ: Jim, in your analysis, why has this been happening at this particular time? Is it that Latin America moved forward with the neoliberal program faster than other parts of the world, and therefore the populations began to recognize sooner the total bankruptcy of that approach? Is it that the United States and the Bush administration are so distracted and overextended by their battle to control the Middle East that they have not been paying attention? What's been the particular reasons, in your opinion, why it seems the whole continent, the democratic vote and the whole continent is rapidly turning against U.S. policies? JIM SHULTZ: It is -- again, Juan, I think it's a very practical rebellion against the effect of these policies. It's important to note because you know, the new article du jour of the press is to talk about the rise of the left in South America. This is not the second coming of Ché Guevara. This is not even an ideological rebellion. It’s more interesting than that. You know, I live in this country. I have lived here for eight years. These are my neighbors. By and large, people who live on the margin don't have the luxury of ideology. What they want is practical solutions to their practical problems like: Can they get water? Can they find a job? And what's happening is, people in Bolivia, in particular, and it’s the same trend in Brazil -- I was just there not long ago -- people are basically saying, “This whole package of economic policies, it isn't working. It hasn't delivered the goods.” If it had, if privatization of water, for example, had delivered water, if privatization of oil and gas had actually increased public revenues and made it possible to lift up people's lives, I think people here would have embraced it. That's the point to me that's the most important, is what's going on is a reaction to these policies that is not rooted in ideology, by and large. It is rooted in the absolute practical failure of those policies to do anything but make the lives of the poor more miserable. JUAN GONZALEZ: And the current situation now in Bolivia, if President Mesa is forced out of office, given the fact that you have a very strong right-wing autonomy movement in the richest province and that Evo Morales, the popular leader, has been almost sidelined by this indigenous revolt that continues to grow, what do you see as the potential developments that could occur once Mesa steps down, if he does? JIM SHULTZ: Right. Well, you know there is an expression in Bolivia that people use a lot called, “Todo es posible,” everything is possible. Usually when people say it they mean, “Can you bring a 1982 Toyota Corolla back to life after it’s died?” Now when people say, “Todo es posible,” they are talking about politics, and everything is possible. We could have a coup. That is entirely possible, although I'm optimistic that won't happen. We could have the conflict in the streets turn deadly and violent. That has happened. I think that the most likely scenario at this point is the following: I think that there will be some negotiation through which there is the convening of an asemblia constituente, and we haven't talked about that, that the president has called for it in October. We need to see the details. But I think there will be some sort of settlement in which this issue of gas will be turned over to a constituent assembly, elected at large from the grass roots across the country, and that that's where the gas issue will be decided. And the side issue to that is to make sure that this call for autonomy doesn't pre-empt some national decision-making about how to develop the gas. I think we're headed toward some sort of a negotiated settlement. That is generally what happens here. Usually the Catholic Church, the Human Rights Assembly step in and are able to sort of pull people together. We are at the brink of not being able to do that, but I suspect that's where this will go. JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, I want to thank you for being with us. Jim Shultz, the Executive Director of the Democracy Center in Cochabamba, Bolivia. He writes a blog on developments in Bolivia that can be found at DemocracyCtr.org. His latest book is called Deadly Consequences: The International Monetary Fund and Bolivia’s Black February. -------- mideast Syria Test-Fires 3 Scud Missiles, Israelis Say By STEVEN ERLANGER June 3, 2005 NY TIMES http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/03/international/middleeast/03syria.html?pagewanted=print TEL AVIV, June 2 - Syria test-fired three Scud missiles last Friday, including one that broke up over Turkish territory and showered missile parts down onto unsuspecting Turkish farmers, Israeli military officials revealed Thursday. These were the first such Syrian missile tests since 2001, the Israelis said, and were part of a Syrian missile development project using North Korean technology and designed, the Israelis contend, to deliver air-burst chemical weapons. The missiles included one older Scud B, with a range of about 185 miles, and two Scud D's, the Israelis say they believe, with a range of about 435 miles. Little was especially startling about the tests, Israeli officials said, except the embarrassment to Turkey - a member of NATO - and the timing, during the Lebanese elections. The Israeli military officials said they interpreted the launchings as a gesture of defiance to the United States and the United Nations by the Syrian president, Bashir al-Assad, who has been pushed in a humiliating fashion to remove Syrian troops from Lebanon since the assassination of the anti-Syrian politician, Rafik Hariri. "This is really putting your fingers in the eyes of the Americans, saying, 'I'm not dancing to your flute,' " a senior Israeli military official said. "The tests are probably needed for the missile project, but this is Bashir taking a risk here and sending a message." Israeli officials, who are familiar with the intelligence but asked that their names or departments not be identified, decided to publicize the tests in part because they were puzzled by the American silence about them, and because Israel sees them as part of a troubling pattern of behavior by Mr. Assad. Israel - which occupies the Golan Heights, taken from Syria in the 1967 war - is particularly concerned about the Syrian missile program and the Syrian hold, now shaken, over bordering Lebanon. Syria harbors the leadership of the Palestinian militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad and helps them, as well as the Iranian-sponsored Hezbollah, with money, arms and sponsorship. The Israeli officials say they are disturbed by Mr. Assad's recent actions, including the missile tests and the killing of an anti-Syrian journalist, Samir Kassir, in a car bombing on Thursday outside his home in Beirut. Mr. Kassir openly blamed Syria for the death of Mr. Hariri. (Related Article) Israeli officials say Syria continues to have intelligence agents in Lebanon, even though all uniformed military personnel have left. The officials say Syria continues to support terrorism in Iraq as well as sponsoring Islamic Jihad, which has been trying to smuggle suicide bombers into Israel, including a cell that intended to blow up two buses in Jerusalem on Thursday. Syria also played host to a May 22 meeting of Farouk Kaddoumi, the leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization, with the leaders of all the militant Palestinian factions and publicized the meeting, the senior Israeli official said. "Kaddoumi wants to derail Abu Mazen," the common name for the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, who has called for an end to violence against Israeli civilians, the senior official said. "The message from Syria to the Palestinians is not to stop shooting," he said. Syria is doing all this, he added, "when everyone is trying to tell Syria to stop being out of step in the region, and U.S. messages to Assad are clear." All the missiles were launched from northern Syria, near Minakh, north of Aleppo, the Israeli officials said. One was sent about 250 miles to southernmost Syria, near the Jordanian border. The one that broke up was fired southwest toward the Mediterranean, over the Turkish province of Hatay, the ancient Antioch, and shed debris over two villages there. The Israelis said they had film of the launching and breakup. In Washington, the Turkish ambassador, Osman Faruk Logoglu, said there were no casualties in the incident on May 27. The Syrian ambassador was asked to explain and "said that during a military exercise, there was a technical mishap," Mr. Logoglu said, "and that the Syrian government was sorry about this." But the Israelis noted that the test was the first time Syria had fired a missile over another country - a member of NATO - when Damascus could easily have moved its mobile launchers to the center of the country to avoid flight over Turkey altogether. The Israelis also noted that Mr. Assad planned to convene a national conference of his Baath Party on Monday, and might have wanted to send a signal of defiance and technological prowess to his domestic audience as well. Douglas Jehl contributed reporting from Washington for this article. -------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE -------- homeland security / national intelligence Homeland Security misspent $18M, probe finds; 146 arrested Updated 6/3/2005 7:18 PM (AP) http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-06-03-homeland-fraud_x.htm WASHINGTON — Investigations by the Homeland Security Department's internal watchdog yielded the arrests of 146 workers and grant recipients and identified $18.5 million in unsupported costs during a six-month period that began last fall. The semiannual report to Congress, issued by Homeland Security's inspector general, details findings of 325 internal investigations, audits and inspections between October 2004 and March 2005. A copy of the 54-page report, which has not yet been released publicly, was obtained Friday by The Associated Press. Homeland Security "has made notable progress in securing the homeland and integrating its programs and operations," Acting Inspector General Richard L. Skinner told Secretary Michael Chertoff in a May 1 letter accompanying the report. "However, as you have repeatedly pointed out, further work is needed." Homeland Security spokesman Brian Roehrkasse declined to comment. Fines, restitutions and other funds recovered as a result of the investigations totaled $106 million over the six months, the report showed. Of $27.6 million in costs questioned by investigators, $18.5 million were found to be unsupported. Of the 146 arrests, 65 employees, contractors or grant recipients were indicted and 43 convicted. Additionally, 24 personnel actions were taken. Among the findings: • Wasteful spending at the Transportation Security Operations Center included $500,000 in authorized decorative artwork and plants and the purchase of extravagant kitchen appliances and excessive fitness center equipment. • A contract worker with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement sexually abused two male transgender detainees at a correctional facility in San Pedro, Calif. He was sentenced to 36 months probation and required to file as a sexual offender. • A U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer accepted bribes to, among other cases, help immigrants enter the country. He was indicted on counts of conspiracy, extortion, bribery and other charges and is on unpaid leave awaiting trial. • A Coast Guard employee stole alcohol worth thousands of dollars from a Coast Guard exchange warehouse. He was fired, sentenced to five years of probation and ordered to pay $30,000 in restitution. -------- OTHER -------- health Poisons may pass down generations Chemicals can change the way genes work http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4605847.stm Toxic chemicals that poisoned your great-grandparents may also damage your health, US research suggests. A team from Washington State University has produced evidence that some inherited diseases may be caused by poisons polluting the womb. Research on rats indicates man-made environmental poisons may alter genetic activity, giving rise to diseases that pass down at least four generations. The research is published in the journal Science. The scientists exposed pregnant rats to two agricultural chemicals during the period that the sex of their offspring was being determined. The compounds were vinclozolin, a fungicide commonly used in vineyards, and the pesticide methoxychlor. Both are known as endocrine disruptors - chemicals that interfere with the normal functioning of reproductive hormones. Rats exposed to the compounds produced male offspring with low sperm counts and poor fertility. They were still able to produce young, however. When these rats were then mated with females that had not been exposed to the poisons, their male offspring had the same problems. The effect persisted through at least four generations, impairing the fertility of more than 90% of male offspring in each generation. The researchers found the damage was not caused by alterations in the DNA code, but changes in the way the genes work. These epigenetic changes, as they are known, are caused by small chemicals that become attached to the DNA, modifying its activity. Epigenetic changes have been observed before - but were not previously known to pass onto later generations. Cancer clue Lead researcher Dr Michael Skinner believes they may contribute to diseases such as breast cancer and prostate cancer. Both diseases are becoming more common, and Dr Skinner says that cannot be down to genetic mutations alone. The researchers believe their findings suggest exposure to environmental toxins may play a key role in the evolutionary process. Evolution may not be driven entirely by genetic mutations, as commonly thought. Dr Skinner said: "It is a new way to think about disease. We believe this phenomenon will be widespread and be a major factor in understanding how disease develops." However, Dr Skinner stressed more work was needed to corroborate the findings. The levels of chemicals the rats were exposed to were very high - much higher than people normally ever encounter. Professor Alan Boobis, a toxicologist at Imperial College London, UK, told the BBC News website the findings were interesting, but he said there was no need for people to be alarmed. "This effect is likely to be concentration dependent, and these animals were exposed to very high levels of chemicals," he said. "We need to find out whether this trans-generational effect is translated to much lower doses." -------- ACTIVISTS Court Rules Seattle Had Right to Limit Protest at WTO in 1999 Friday, June 3rd, 2005 Headlines, Democracy Now! http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/06/03/1337216 An appeals court has ruled that the city of Seattle had the right to create a restricted area, the so-called "no protest zone" in downtown Seattle during the 1999 protests of the World Trade Organization. The case is being heard as part of a series of lawsuits stemming from the protests. The decision from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overturns a lower court decision challenging the restricted zone as a violation of the right to freedom of assembly and freedom of speech. The case now moves to a federal court in Seattle to determine if the constitutional rights of protesters were viloated on an individual basis. The case is considered an important one for First Amendment rights. Some legal observers believe it will set a precedent for litigation resulting from various demonstrations around the US where protesters have been barred from certain locations during major demonstrations in New York, Philadelphia, Miami and Washington, DC.