NucNews - June 4, 2005 -------- NUCLEAR -------- asia U.S warns of Asian nuclear arms race The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse SATURDAY, JUNE 4, 2005 http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file=/articles/2005/06/03/news/korea.php TOKYO The development of a nuclear weapon by North Korea would put pressure on Japan and South Korea to consider building their own nuclear arsenals, the U.S. ambassador to Japan said Friday. Ambassador Thomas Schieffer told reporters at his residence in Tokyo that if North Korea were to test an atomic bomb, the strategic balance in the region would be changed. "If you had a nuclear North Korea, it just introduces a whole different dynamic," Schieffer said. "It seems to me that that increases the pressure on both South Korea and Japan to consider going nuclear themselves." Schieffer is not the first official to suggest a kind of domino effect in Northeast Asia from any verified revelation that North Korea possesses nuclear arms. But his remarks reflect the extent to which Japan, which lost 210,000 people in two atomic bomb attacks at the end of World War II, could pursue an option long considered out of the question. The United States, China, Japan, Russia and South Korea are urging the North to return to six-party talks that are intended to persuade it to give up its nuclear weapons programs. The talks were last held in June 2004. Since then, the North has stayed away from the table, citing a "hostile" U.S. policy, and it claimed in February that it had nuclear weapons. Speculation has mounted that it is preparing for a nuclear test. Schieffer, in a wide-ranging discussion with a small group of reporters, said that getting North Korea back to the six-party talks would be just the beginning of a long process of persuading the isolated nation to give up its nuclear weapons programs. "We have to be very careful that getting North Korea back to the table does not become an end in itself," he said. "The six- party talks were meant to resolve a thorny issue - they weren't meant to be just an opportunity to talk about it endlessly and achieve nothing." Japan bars nuclear weapons from its territory, and talk of developing its own nuclear deterrent has long been considered among the nation's taboo subjects. The world's only atomic-bombed nation remains under a U.S. security shield. "It is possible," Shigeru Ishiba, a former Japanese minister for defense, warned in a recent television talk show, "for one country after another to follow North Korea's example in possessing nukes. Japan will never do so." But a North Korean nuclear test could change the thinking on this question, some analysts believe. The possibility that the North is preparing a test has already begun to fuel Tokyo debate as to whether Japan should go nuclear itself. Analysts forecast that Japan would at least step up its military ties with the United States, especially the development of an antimissile system begun after North Korea's launching of a long-range missile over the main Japanese island in 1998. As a key U.S. ally, Japan has begun to cast off its pacifist mantle by sending troops on a noncombat mission to Iraq, its first military deployment since World War II in a country at war. Vice President Dick Cheney and other U.S. conservatives have warned that the failure to end North Korea's nuclear ambitions could trigger an arms race in East Asia involving Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. All of them might be capable of producing nuclear weapons. But for the moment, however, a nuclear-armed Japan is widely seen at home as unrealistic, so long as Tokyo maintains a 1967 policy against the production, possession or presence of nuclear weapons in its territory. Cheney's warning "may have been used as a diplomatic card against China and belonged to the world of rhetoric," said Hideya Kurata, a professor of security affairs at Tokyo's Kyorin University. In a May 19 report, the U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee said: "A test in North Korea would certainly raise the prospect of a major public debate in Japan over whether to turn its latent nuclear capabilities in its civilian and space sectors into an overt nuclear weapons program." The policy paper called on Washington to demand that Beijing, the main patron of the North, "make a choice: either help out or face the possibility of other nuclear neighbors." Japan has an ample stockpile of plutonium derived by reprocessing spent fuel from the country's 52 nuclear reactors with a total capacity of 45 million kilowatts. Japan has the technical capacity to produce nuclear bombs and mount them on missiles "within 90 days," said Kenichi Ohmae, a Japanese consultant on management and sociopolitical issues. In an interview with South Korea's JoongAng Ilbo newspaper in February, he estimated the stockpile at more than 50 tons, enough to make 2,000 plutonium bombs. Japan also has a space rocket that could double as an intercontinental ballistic missile. Ohmae said that 90 percent of the Japanese were opposed to nuclear armament. "But I believe that public opinion will rapidly change if we are faced with the real threat of North Korean nuclear arms," he said. On the other side of the debate, Hideshi Takesada,a professor at Japan's National Institute for Defense Studies, ruled out a nuclear chain reaction in East Asia. "South Korea has come to consider North Korean nuclear weapons more as a bargaining chip and less as a military means," he said. Japan has been seeking to "strengthen the credibility of the U.S. nuclear umbrella and jointly develop a defense system," he said. Takesada said that President George W. Bush would never tolerate nuclear armament for Taiwan at a time when a cross-Strait military clash with mainland China looms as a possibility. Scott Snyder, a senior associate at the Asia Foundation and an expert on Korean affairs, said that Japanese or South Korean commitments to remain nonnuclear would probably depend "on the quality and satisfaction that exists with the U.S. alliance system." "While there may not be an immediate chain reaction," he said, "this does mean that we need to put the alliances and their durability under greater scrutiny." South Korea has never clarified what it would do if North Korea were to refuse to abandon its nuclear weapons development and declare itself a nuclear power by testing a bomb. In the 1970s, the then government of South Korea's military strongman, Park Chung Hee, edged the country toward a nuclear weapons program. The country has since publicly renounced any nuclear arms ambitions. But in a revelation that prompted an international uproar, South Korea acknowledged last year that it had conducted a plutonium-based nuclear experiment more than 20 years ago and a uranium-enrichment experiment four years ago. Plutonium and enriched uranium are two key ingredients of nuclear weapons. South Korea has since denied any ambition to possess nuclear arms - a denial later accepted by the International Atomic Energy Agency. "A nuclear North Korea could trigger the worst arms race in the region," Kim Tae Woo, an analyst at Seoul's Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, said in May. He said the arms race could also prompt Taiwan to go nuclear. Such a scenario is one of the biggest reasons that experts believe that China would not tolerate a nuclear-armed North Korea. Japan's Kyodo news agency, citing U.S. government sources, reported Thursday that China had warned North Korea that it would have to consider stopping food aid if it carried out a nuclear test. In May, Dan Fata, Republican Party policy director for national security and trade, wrote: "The key to preventing a nuclear test lies primarily with China." -------- depleted uranium U.S warns of Asian nuclear arms race The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse SATURDAY, JUNE 4, 2005 http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file=/articles/2005/06/03/news/korea.php TOKYO The development of a nuclear weapon by North Korea would put pressure on Japan and South Korea to consider building their own nuclear arsenals, the U.S. ambassador to Japan said Friday. Ambassador Thomas Schieffer told reporters at his residence in Tokyo that if North Korea were to test an atomic bomb, the strategic balance in the region would be changed. "If you had a nuclear North Korea, it just introduces a whole different dynamic," Schieffer said. "It seems to me that that increases the pressure on both South Korea and Japan to consider going nuclear themselves." Schieffer is not the first official to suggest a kind of domino effect in Northeast Asia from any verified revelation that North Korea possesses nuclear arms. But his remarks reflect the extent to which Japan, which lost 210,000 people in two atomic bomb attacks at the end of World War II, could pursue an option long considered out of the question. The United States, China, Japan, Russia and South Korea are urging the North to return to six-party talks that are intended to persuade it to give up its nuclear weapons programs. The talks were last held in June 2004. Since then, the North has stayed away from the table, citing a "hostile" U.S. policy, and it claimed in February that it had nuclear weapons. Speculation has mounted that it is preparing for a nuclear test. Schieffer, in a wide-ranging discussion with a small group of reporters, said that getting North Korea back to the six-party talks would be just the beginning of a long process of persuading the isolated nation to give up its nuclear weapons programs. "We have to be very careful that getting North Korea back to the table does not become an end in itself," he said. "The six- party talks were meant to resolve a thorny issue - they weren't meant to be just an opportunity to talk about it endlessly and achieve nothing." Japan bars nuclear weapons from its territory, and talk of developing its own nuclear deterrent has long been considered among the nation's taboo subjects. The world's only atomic-bombed nation remains under a U.S. security shield. "It is possible," Shigeru Ishiba, a former Japanese minister for defense, warned in a recent television talk show, "for one country after another to follow North Korea's example in possessing nukes. Japan will never do so." But a North Korean nuclear test could change the thinking on this question, some analysts believe. The possibility that the North is preparing a test has already begun to fuel Tokyo debate as to whether Japan should go nuclear itself. Analysts forecast that Japan would at least step up its military ties with the United States, especially the development of an antimissile system begun after North Korea's launching of a long-range missile over the main Japanese island in 1998. As a key U.S. ally, Japan has begun to cast off its pacifist mantle by sending troops on a noncombat mission to Iraq, its first military deployment since World War II in a country at war. Vice President Dick Cheney and other U.S. conservatives have warned that the failure to end North Korea's nuclear ambitions could trigger an arms race in East Asia involving Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. All of them might be capable of producing nuclear weapons. But for the moment, however, a nuclear-armed Japan is widely seen at home as unrealistic, so long as Tokyo maintains a 1967 policy against the production, possession or presence of nuclear weapons in its territory. Cheney's warning "may have been used as a diplomatic card against China and belonged to the world of rhetoric," said Hideya Kurata, a professor of security affairs at Tokyo's Kyorin University. In a May 19 report, the U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee said: "A test in North Korea would certainly raise the prospect of a major public debate in Japan over whether to turn its latent nuclear capabilities in its civilian and space sectors into an overt nuclear weapons program." The policy paper called on Washington to demand that Beijing, the main patron of the North, "make a choice: either help out or face the possibility of other nuclear neighbors." Japan has an ample stockpile of plutonium derived by reprocessing spent fuel from the country's 52 nuclear reactors with a total capacity of 45 million kilowatts. Japan has the technical capacity to produce nuclear bombs and mount them on missiles "within 90 days," said Kenichi Ohmae, a Japanese consultant on management and sociopolitical issues. In an interview with South Korea's JoongAng Ilbo newspaper in February, he estimated the stockpile at more than 50 tons, enough to make 2,000 plutonium bombs. Japan also has a space rocket that could double as an intercontinental ballistic missile. Ohmae said that 90 percent of the Japanese were opposed to nuclear armament. "But I believe that public opinion will rapidly change if we are faced with the real threat of North Korean nuclear arms," he said. On the other side of the debate, Hideshi Takesada,a professor at Japan's National Institute for Defense Studies, ruled out a nuclear chain reaction in East Asia. "South Korea has come to consider North Korean nuclear weapons more as a bargaining chip and less as a military means," he said. Japan has been seeking to "strengthen the credibility of the U.S. nuclear umbrella and jointly develop a defense system," he said. Takesada said that President George W. Bush would never tolerate nuclear armament for Taiwan at a time when a cross-Strait military clash with mainland China looms as a possibility. Scott Snyder, a senior associate at the Asia Foundation and an expert on Korean affairs, said that Japanese or South Korean commitments to remain nonnuclear would probably depend "on the quality and satisfaction that exists with the U.S. alliance system." "While there may not be an immediate chain reaction," he said, "this does mean that we need to put the alliances and their durability under greater scrutiny." South Korea has never clarified what it would do if North Korea were to refuse to abandon its nuclear weapons development and declare itself a nuclear power by testing a bomb. In the 1970s, the then government of South Korea's military strongman, Park Chung Hee, edged the country toward a nuclear weapons program. The country has since publicly renounced any nuclear arms ambitions. But in a revelation that prompted an international uproar, South Korea acknowledged last year that it had conducted a plutonium-based nuclear experiment more than 20 years ago and a uranium-enrichment experiment four years ago. Plutonium and enriched uranium are two key ingredients of nuclear weapons. South Korea has since denied any ambition to possess nuclear arms - a denial later accepted by the International Atomic Energy Agency. "A nuclear North Korea could trigger the worst arms race in the region," Kim Tae Woo, an analyst at Seoul's Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, said in May. He said the arms race could also prompt Taiwan to go nuclear. Such a scenario is one of the biggest reasons that experts believe that China would not tolerate a nuclear-armed North Korea. Japan's Kyodo news agency, citing U.S. government sources, reported Thursday that China had warned North Korea that it would have to consider stopping food aid if it carried out a nuclear test. In May, Dan Fata, Republican Party policy director for national security and trade, wrote: "The key to preventing a nuclear test lies primarily with China." -------- iraq / inspections White House Downplays Missing Arms Report By JENNIFER LOVEN The Associated Press Saturday, June 4, 2005; 12:06 AM http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/03/AR2005060301300_pf.html http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Bush-Iraq-Weapons.html?pagewanted=print WASHINGTON -- The White House on Friday played down a report in which U.N. weapons inspectors documented additional materials missing from weapons sites in Iraq. White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the Bush administration had taken steps to ensure sites were secured, and he suggested it was doubtful the looted material was being used to boost other countries' weapons programs. In a report to the U.N. Security Council, acting chief weapons inspector Demetrius Perricos said that satellite imagery experts had determined that material that could be used to make biological or chemical weapons and banned long-range missiles had been removed from 109 sites, up from 90 reported in March. The sites have been emptied of equipment to varying degrees, with the largest percentage of missing items at 58 missile facilities. For example, 289 of the 340 pieces of equipment to produce missiles _ or about 85 percent, had been removed, the report said. Biological sites were the least damaged, according to the analysts at the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission. Perricos said he's reached no conclusions about who removed the items or where they went. He said it could have been moved elsewhere in Iraq, sold as scrap, melted down or purchased. He said the missing material can be used for legitimate purposes. "However, they can also be utilized for prohibited purposes if in a good state of repair." McClellan said that the United States has helped to remove low enriched uranium and radioactive sources, offered jobs to weapons experts from Saddam Hussein's programs to keep them from taking their expertise elsewhere, and helped Iraq establish an independent radioactive source regulatory authority. "We have been working closely with the government in Iraq to ensure that Iraq's former weapons of mass destruction personnel and proliferation materials do not contribute to proliferation programs in other countries," McClellan said. U.N. inspectors have been blocked from returning to Iraq since the U.S.-led war in 2003. They have been using satellite photos to see what happened to the sites that were subject to U.N. monitoring because their equipment had both civilian and military uses. Since the war, U.S. teams took over the weapons search. Former chief arms hunter Charles Duelfer and his Iraq Survey Group found no weapons of mass destruction in the country, discrediting President Bush's stated rationale for invading Iraq. McClellan referred to findings by Duelfer, saying that "any looting was the work of uncoordinated elements rather than directed at an effort to try to export equipment to a country that might obtain or have a weapons of mass destruction program." He also noted that Duelfer had concluded that, since the looted materials are easily obtained elsewhere, "other governments are not likely to look to Iraq to buy used versions of it." -------- pacific Exiled islanders return to radioactive paradise By Hannah Cleaver on the Marshall Islands (Filed: 04/06/2005) UK Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/06/04/wbikini04.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/06/04/ixworld.html Exiles from a tropical paradise poisoned by American nuclear tests are at last preparing to return to the island where they were used as human guinea pigs to monitor radiation. But the people of Rongelap will not be the only ones making a pilgrimage to their dreamy mid-Pacific atoll, one of the Marshall Islands. Among the palm trees a small hotel will welcome tourists looking for the ultimate getaway. Whether discreet honeymooners or celebrities hoping to escape paparazzi, the visitors will be as remote from civilisation as it is possible to be. The huge appeal of an undiscovered destination already fills the Oleanda, the only dive boat touring its pristine waters. In such heaven it is easy to forget why there is no one else here, save for a small trickle of construction workers. Rongelap atoll, a series of low-lying islands, sandbanks and coral reefs around a huge lagoon, is about 100 miles downwind of Bikini atoll where America detonated the Bravo hydrogen bomb in 1954. More than 1,000 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb, Bravo provoked a global sensation. Those on Rongelap at the time thought they were witnessing the end of the world. "We saw a second sun rising in the west, the light was so bright, and we heard this big noise," said Lemyo Abon, who was 14 when the bomb exploded. "Later, stuff fell from the sky, it tasted bitter but some of us children were playing in it. We did not become frightened until we saw the eyes of the older people and we realised that they were scared." Dreadfully contaminated, the islanders were removed by American soldiers and held in camps for three years before being taken back and told they would be safe as long as they avoided local foods such as the coconut crab. In fact, the Rongelapese stayed on their beloved island for nearly 30 years. But the rates of miscarriage soared, as did the number of strange and aggressive cancers. "I had five babies but only one is still alive," said Namiko Anjain, who was in her late teens when Bravo exploded. "One of them was miscarried and three came out dead during the birth." She, like around 90 per cent of those who saw the bomb, has had her cancerous thyroid gland removed and must take drugs every day to maintain her metabolism. The sick were flown by the Americans to Hawaii for treatment and tested so the US army could study the long-term effects of radiation. Eventually, the Rongelapese escaped their homes, fleeing on the Rainbow Warrior, Greenpeace's flagship which in 1985 was leading a nuclear-free Pacific campaign. Their refuge, Mejato, about 100 miles away, had previously been uninhabited for good reason: it is less than a mile long, with waters too shallow for decent fish or to land a large boat, and the soil is salty and poor. Today there are around 450 people living there, but there is nothing to do and only a handful of paid jobs. The nearest supplies are an eight-hour boat trip away. Life is funded by American compensation money, managed by the Rongelap mayor who, along with the town hall, is on the Marshalls' capital island Majuro, more than 200 miles away. It is an artificial life which some compare to prison. Kias Tima, a bullish man in his 50s, hates living on Mejato and said his people were losing skills such as navigating by wave patterns. "This land isn't ours," he said. "We are lucky that people let us come to this island but we are not supposed to be here." The mayor, James Matayoshi, 35, wants to help them go home. "We are going to build houses and create jobs on Rongelap so they have something to go back to." The US Department of Energy maintains a "full body counter" facility on Rongelap which measures everyone on the island for radiation monthly. US scientists say Rongelap is safe if people eat imported as well as local food. But this is little consolation to those understandably sceptical of men in white coats. Ericsson Arelong, 25, operates the body counter. "I tell them that the island is really safe," he said. "But my friends and family don't trust me because I work for the Department of Energy. "They want to come back but they don't want to hear that there is even a little bit of radiation on the island." -------- security A Small but Dangerous Clause in the Energy Bill June 4, 2005 NY Times Editorial http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/04/opinion/04sat1.html?oref=login&pagewanted=print At a time when world leaders are struggling to keep dangerous nuclear materials from terrorists and rogue nations, a devious provision in the energy bill now in Congress heads in the opposite direction. The provision would weaken controls on exporting bomb-grade uranium to plants abroad for use in making medical isotopes - radioactive materials used to diagnose and treat various illnesses. The measure is described as vital to keep the isotopes flowing, but its real purpose is to exempt isotope producers from pressure to work toward using safer forms of uranium. The highly enriched uranium serves as "target" material that is irradiated in a reactor to produce the medical isotopes. Each year, the major isotope producers use or stockpile enough target material to make a small number of bombs. Arms controllers hope to convert the plants to low-enriched uranium that cannot be used in weapons, thus eliminating any risk of theft by terrorists or renegade nations. The United States has great leverage because it provides highly enriched uranium to the largest producer, MDS Nordion in Canada, and can impose conditions on its use. Under a 1992 law sponsored by Senator Charles Schumer of New York, the government can export bomb-grade uranium only if the recipient agrees to switch to low-enriched uranium as soon as feasible and, by implication, cooperates in efforts to devise low-enriched targets for its reactors. Nordion, to its credit, has converted to low-enriched fuel for two reactors. But critics say it has deliberately dragged its feet on converting its targets, a more difficult technical feat that the company fears could be costly and disruptive. Lobbyists for the isotope makers, backed by medical groups fearful that supplies might be disrupted, have pressed to ease the rules for producers in Canada and four European nations. The energy bills eliminate any requirement that the companies work toward conversion by deftly dropping the word "target" from a clause that now refers only to "fuel." The change is so subtle that hardly any senators, even those familiar with nuclear issues, would be apt to spot it. The measure punts the issue to the National Academy of Sciences for a feasibility study, gives the energy secretary five to six years to deliver a report on options, and exempts companies from any conversion that would increase production costs by 10 percent, a distressingly low ceiling that ignores the huge potential costs of terrorist activity. All this seems needlessly reckless given that medical isotopes have flowed consistently under the current law and can continue to do so provided that companies work diligently toward conversion. Instead of easing that pressure, Congress needs to step it up, perhaps by taxing the use of isotopes made from highly enriched uranium and using the proceeds to support conversion. At a minimum, senators concerned about nuclear proliferation need to insist that the word "target" be reinserted in any crucial clauses from which it is missing. ---- Radiation detectors to scan all incoming cargo at LA port complex 6/4/2005 12:20 AM (AP) http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-06-04-port-security_x.htm http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Port-Security.html?pagewanted=print http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/04/AR2005060400010_pf.html LOS ANGELES — The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach will receive radiation detectors to scan every incoming cargo container for nuclear weapons or dirty bombs, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Friday. The 20-foot-high devices, already in use in at seaports in Jersey City, and elsewhere, should be at the Southern California ports by the end of the year, Chertoff said. They are part of the U.S. government's strategy to prevent a possible attack by terrorists using nuclear or radiological weapons at the nation's busiest port complex. "A key element of that strategy is detection," Chertoff said after touring the waterways surrounding the ports aboard a Coast Guard ship. "If we know this radiological material is coming in ... we can take the appropriate steps to intercept a threat." About 4.3 million containers are shipped to the dual ports each year. The Southern California harbor will become the second major U.S. harbor to have all incoming cargo screened, Chertoff said. In April, officials announced Oakland was the first major harbor to install enough radiation machines to check all incoming cargo. It has 25. Trucks carrying containers unloaded from ships will pass through the detectors. If the machines find signs of radiation, containers will get another scan and possibly inspection by hand-held devices. At a cost of about $250,000 each, the machines were funded by federal dollars and take about five seconds to screen each container, officials said. Union officials representing port workers said some cargo containers linger on the docks for hours or days — and might not be checked right away. "We think it's hypocritical that they don't screen it immediately after it's unloaded, said Miguel Lopez, port representative of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, whose union has about 500 truckers at the ports. "It puts everybody in jeopardy, not just the truckers." Chertoff said the process of checking containers could be optimized to reduce delays in scanning, citing officials in Baltimore who found ways to speed up the process. He also said scanning would not slow the flow of cargo at the ports, which last year experienced delays handling a large volume of cargo from the Far East. "Taking an extra couple minutes to promote homeland security is something the trucking industry would endorse," said Patty Senecal, vice president of Transport Express Inc., a harbor trucking and warehouse company. "It's a different story if trucks are delayed for hours and hours ... but we don't expect that." -------- u.s. nuc weapons US not hypocritical in pursuing nuclear "bunker buster" option: Rumsfeld SINGAPORE (AFP) Jun 04, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/050604053902.fu4wdtjc.html The United States is not hypocritical in considering using nuclear weapons as "bunker busters" while urging other nations to give up their atomic programs, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Saturday. In a speech to an Asia-Pacific conference of regional defence ministers and military chiefs in Singapore, Rumsfeld raised the nuclear issue in reiterating US concerns over North Korea's atomic program, "Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions threaten the security and stability of the region, and indeed the world," he said. But he bristled at a question following his speech when asked if the United States was hypocritical in developing nuclear weapons when at the same time it insists that others refrain from doing so. The question specifically referred to US plans to study the feasibility of developing smaller nuclear weapons that can penetrate deep under ground, known as "bunker busters". "With respect to hypocrisy, I find the discussion amusing if it didn't worry so many people," Rumsfeld said. "People are now manufacturing, developing, testing, storing, deploying military capabilities underground in ways that are very difficult for anyone to access." Rumsfeld said penetrating these underground areas using conventional arms "doesn't work", which left the United States, under current arrangements, with only the "very unattractive option" of using very large nuclear weapons. He said a study had been proposed "to see it if it's feasible to take some of the vastly more powerful nuclear weapons and rearrange them into considerably less powerful nuclear weapons". "It has nothing to with developing more, quote, useable nuclear weapons, or making the world safe for nuclear weapons," he said. "It has to do with addressing a real growing problem about underground capabilities that may or may not sometime need to be addressed." -------- u.s. nuc facilities -------- alaska Alaska city lobbies for nuclear plant By MATT VOLZ The Associated Press Saturday, June 04, 2005, 12:35 A.M. Pacific http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/PrintStory.pl?document_id=2002300956&zsection_id=2002111777&slug=nuclear04m&date=20050604 JUNEAU, Alaska — Galena officials' idea to bring nuclear power to the residents of their isolated Yukon River community took a step forward when the Legislature approved $500,000 as part of the capital budget to study the plan. City manager Marvin Yoder, in San Diego yesterday for the American Nuclear Society's annual meeting, said the state money would be used to conduct a series of 90-day studies to see if it could work. "We think there are some real general questions to be answered before this can be considered for Alaska," Yoder said. "We are going to hire the right scientific people to answer these questions." Among the questions Galena and Toshiba, the corporate backer of the proposed 10-megawatt plant, will attempt to answer are what would happen to the reactor core after its 30-year life, what the safety issues would be and what would be necessary to guard it, Yoder said. Critics previously have said they were concerned with how nuclear reactors would be affected by Alaska's extreme climate. Because of Galena's inaccessibility and the necessity to ship diesel fuel by barge, residents pay from 20 cents to $1 per kilowatt hour, while the national average is less than 9 cents. With nuclear power, residents could pay a third of what they now pay to power their homes, Yoder said. If it's feasible in Galena, nuclear power could be used to lower energy costs throughout rural Alaska, state lawmakers said. "Nuclear power is something folks might frown on, but it's self-contained," said House Speaker John Harris, R-Valdez. "It has a lot of potential for areas" with high fuel costs. Harris and Senate President Ben Stevens, R-Anchorage, both supported the studies and pushed to include the $500,000 appropriation in next year's capital budget. "The amount of money we spend on fuel in rural Alaska is staggering, and it gets more and more expensive every year," Stevens said. Many questions will have to be answered, Stevens said, such as how the plant would be regulated and what its security requirements would be. Several Democratic lawmakers, when contacted yesterday, said they were unfamiliar with the proposal and declined to comment. Galena's representatives, Sen. Albert Kookesh, D-Angoon, and Rep. Woodie Salmon, D-Beaver, could not be reached. The capital budget has yet to be transmitted to Gov. Frank Murkowski, but his staff already is reviewing the appropriations in it, said spokeswoman Becky Hultberg. She indicated Murkowski would not be inclined to veto the Galena study. "Gov. Murkowski believes that affordable energy is critical to ensuring economic development in rural Alaska," she said. "He will be evaluating the Galena appropriation with that in mind." Yoder and Toshiba representatives are scheduled to hold a panel discussion on the proposal Monday at the American Nuclear Society meeting. He said all the key players will be at the meeting. By Tuesday, he said, "we'll have a real plan of attack on this." -------- colorado Company Wants to Drill at Colo. Nuke Site By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS June 4, 2005 Filed at 10:40 a.m. ET http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Drilling-Radioactive-Zone.html?pagewanted=print DENVER (AP) -- A company says it plans to drill for natural gas near the site of an underground nuclear blast nearly four decades ago, despite opposition from local residents and the concerns of Energy Department officials. Presco Inc., based in the Houston area, had received permission from county commissioners to drill one well inside a state-imposed buffer zone around Project Rulison in western Colorado. Project Rulison was part of a federal project to explore peaceful uses for nuclear devices. The Atomic Energy Commission detonated a 43-kiloton bomb at the site in 1969 to free gas below the surface. But local officials withdrew their support of Presco's drilling project this week after learning that Presco planned to drill four wells inside the buffer zone. That decision prompted the state agency that issues drilling permits to cancel plans to consider a rule change that would have allowed the company to drill inside the buffer zone if the bottom of the well is outside the prohibited area. Tresi Haupt, the only commissioner who opposed allowing the company one well in the buffer zone, said she believes there should be no drilling inside the zone until the Department of Energy determines it is safe. ''I don't understand why they feel the need to drill in this location until everyone has cleared it,'' she said. The state has asked Presco to revise its application or submit a new one because of the county's concerns, Beaver said. The commission then will schedule a hearing on the concerns of officials and residents. ''Our intent is to develop the area to the extent that it's safe and reasonable to do so,'' said Dave Wheeler, Presco executive vice president. The DOE expects to complete a study by the fall of 2007 examining whether radioactive gas or other material is spreading underground. Pete Sanders, the agency's manager of the site, said that while the DOE can provide that data, the state decides whether or not to permit drilling. Still, ''we would be more comfortable if drilling didn't take place until we're done with our study,'' he said. After the 1969 nuclear blast, the gas was considered too radioactive to be sold commercially. The Department of Energy -- the Atomic Energy Commission's successor -- began deactivating and cleaning the surface of the site in the 1970s, finishing in 1998. Monitoring has not found any increase in radioactivity in surface or groundwater above normally occurring levels, a DOE report released in January found. Sanders, the site manager, said officials must determine whether radioactivity is spreading underground. Garfield County, which is experiencing a boom in natural gas drilling, projected that allowing Presco to operate the one well inside the buffer zone would have provided some of that information. ''No one realized they were talking about four wells,'' said county administrator Ed Green. ---- Drilling Near Nuclear Blast Site on Hold By JUDITH KOHLER The Associated Press Saturday, June 4, 2005; 5:17 AM http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/04/AR2005060400297_pf.html DENVER -- A company says it plans to drill for natural gas near the site of an underground nuclear blast nearly four decades ago, despite opposition from local residents and the concerns of Energy Department officials. Presco Inc., based in the Houston area, had received permission from county commissioners to drill one well inside a state-imposed buffer zone around Project Rulison in western Colorado. Project Rulison was part of a federal project to explore peaceful uses for nuclear devices. The Atomic Energy Commission detonated a 43-kiloton bomb at the site in 1969 to free gas below the surface. But local officials withdrew their support of Presco's drilling project this week after learning that Presco planned to drill four wells inside the buffer zone. That decision prompted the state agency that issues drilling permits to cancel plans to consider a rule change that would have allowed the company to drill inside the buffer zone if the bottom of the well is outside the prohibited area. Tresi Haupt, the only commissioner who opposed allowing the company one well in the buffer zone, said she believes there should be no drilling inside the zone until the Department of Energy determines it is safe. "I don't understand why they feel the need to drill in this location until everyone has cleared it," she said. The state has asked Presco to revise its application or submit a new one because of the county's concerns, Beaver said. The commission then will schedule a hearing on the concerns of officials and residents. "Our intent is to develop the area to the extent that it's safe and reasonable to do so," said Dave Wheeler, Presco executive vice president. The DOE expects to complete a study by the fall of 2007 examining whether radioactive gas or other material is spreading underground. Pete Sanders, the agency's manager of the site, said that while the DOE can provide that data, the state decides whether or not to permit drilling. Still, "we would be more comfortable if drilling didn't take place until we're done with our study," he said. After the 1969 nuclear blast, the gas was considered too radioactive to be sold commercially. The Department of Energy _ the Atomic Energy Commission's successor _ began deactivating and cleaning the surface of the site in the 1970s, finishing in 1998. Monitoring has not found any increase in radioactivity in surface or groundwater above normally occurring levels, a DOE report released in January found. Sanders, the site manager, said officials must determine whether radioactivity is spreading underground. Garfield County, which is experiencing a boom in natural gas drilling, projected that allowing Presco to operate the one well inside the buffer zone would have provided some of that information. "No one realized they were talking about four wells," said county administrator Ed Green. -------- new mexico N.M. leaders strike deal on uranium waste plant Ben Neary | The Santa Fe New Mexican June 4, 2005 http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/14465.html State leaders have hammered out an agreement with the private company that proposes to build a uranium-enrichment plant near Hobbs to limit the storage of radioactive waste there. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has stymied the state's efforts to raise concerns about waste-storage and disposal issues in the plant's ongoing federal permitting process. The commission has disallowed several contentions that both the New Mexico Environment Department and the state attorney general's office had sought to raise. Gov. Bill Richardson said Friday that the agreement with Louisiana Energy Services, the private company pushing to open the plant, gives the state assurances it's been unable to secure otherwise. "We have been shut out on every issue, storage and disposal, at the NRC licensing process," Richardson said. "And I believe that this agreement is a strong assurance on these two important issues." Under the agreement, LES would pledge not to store more than about 5,000 canisters of radioactive waste at the plant site -- about eight to 10 year's production. The company would also pledge not to allow any single canister to remain on the site longer than 15 years. If LES ever violated those restrictions, it would have to shut down operations at the enrichment plant, which is intended to make fuel for nuclear reactors. The state could enforce its agreement with the company in either state or federal court. If the NRC agrees to incorporate the agreement between the state and LES into the company's federal permit, the state will drop out from further participation in the federal permitting process. That would leave only two citizens' groups, the Nuclear Information and Resource Service and Public Citizen, to press concerns about the plant in the federal permitting process. "We've gotten some substantial assurances that I believe satisfy my conditions on storage and safety, and enforcement," Richardson said. "So I believe that we have an environmentally sustainable agreement that balances the jobs created in southeastern New Mexico with strong, responsible financial assurances and environmental safeguards." Richardson said the state will hold off on issuing a groundwater-quality permit the plant still requires before it could operate. "There still has to be some commitment and oversight on behalf of LES, but I think this is a major step forward," Richardson said. Since announcing plans to build the enrichment plant, LES has contributed thousands of dollars to Moving America Forward, Richardson's political-action committee. The company has also retained as a consultant Butch Maki, a close friend of Richardson's and a member of Richardson's staff when he served in Congress. Richardson said Friday that the company's contributions haven't had any effect on his decisions. "If anything, I think this is an agreement that is quite tough on LES, and I've insisted that those are the only conditions under which they would be welcome in New Mexico," Richardson said. "There's no factor here; there's no political factors. I believe I've gotten a very strong environmental agreement for the state." Lindsay Lovejoy, a Santa Fe lawyer who represents both citizens groups before the NRC, said Friday that he wants to make sure the commission allows his clients to challenge the provisions of the state agreement before final permitting. Yet he said he's afraid the company will want to avoid any such public hearing. Lovejoy said LES had earlier committed to Richardson that it wouldn't attempt to store waste at the site beyond the life of the plant. However, he said under the deal announced Friday, the company apparently can seek to leave depleted uranium containers on site for as long as 15 years after the plant ceases operation. Lovejoy also questioned the adequacy of the financial assurances LES agrees to post under the agreement to address ultimate cleanup of the plant. The agreement announced Friday calls for LES to put up $7.15 per kilo of uranium byproduct. That amount could rise over time based on a review of disposal costs. Lovejoy said his clients believe actual processing costs for the waste byproduct could prove to be closer to $30 per kilo. "The state could be holding the bag for that," Lovejoy said. Michael Mariotte, executive director of Nuclear Information and Resource Service in Washington, D.C., said Friday that the state's willingness to enter into the agreement directly with LES shows the state's frustration with the federal permitting process. While Mariotte said the state's frustration is understandable, he said he still doesn't believe what the state got out of the agreement is enough. "When you look at it from the perspective of people in Eunice, 5,000 canisters of waste is an awful lot of waste," Mariotte said. "We still don't see a storage site on the horizon." There's currently no facility in the United States that can process the plant's waste to make it safe for disposal. Hundreds of thousands of tons of similar waste are stockpiled at U.S. government enrichment plants in Ohio and elsewhere awaiting eventual construction of a treatment plant. Ned Farquhar, Richardson's environmental adviser, said the $7.15 per-kilo figure is substantially higher than suggested figures released by the NRC. He said workers at the attorney general's office and the state Environment Department are satisfied the figure is adequate and also emphasized the agreement calls for the figure to rise as storage at the site approaches the limit specified in the agreement. LES president Jim Ferland said Friday that his company is happy with the agreement. He said LES expects a French company to construct a treatment plant for the waste in the United States. At the $7.15 per-kilo rate, Ferland said, his company would have to post a bond of more than $300 million with the federal government to assure ultimate treatment of the maximum 5,000 canisters of waste. The company would also have to post an additional bond to cover decommissioning the plant, he said. While LES has emphasized it would prefer to have private industry process the waste from its plant, the company has also cooperated with U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., on legislation that specifies the U.S. Department of Energy would take the waste for disposal if necessary. The agreement announced Friday specifies that if LES ever attempts to turn waste from its plant over to the DOE, it must first ensure the federal agency will take the waste out of New Mexico. Ferland said he expects a groundbreaking for the plant to occur late in the summer of next year. There's strong support in southeastern New Mexico for the plant, and the Lea County government has approved industrial-revenue bonds giving tax breaks to the multibillion-dollar plant. LES is largely owned by a coalition of European energy companies, including Urenco. Based in the Netherlands, Urenco specializes in centrifuge technology that allows uranium to be enriched either to the level of reactor fuel or further enriched to the level used in nuclear weapons. Decades ago, Urenco technology fell into the hands of the Pakistanis, authorities say. From there, it has spread to North Korea and possibly other rogue nations that have used it to develop nuclear weapons. LES officials have said the loss of the technology is no reflection on their operations in the United States. -------- vermont Bill lets Yankee apply for fuel storage June 4, 2005 By Louis Porter Vermont Press Bureau http://www.rutlandherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050604/NEWS/506040343/1003 MONTPELIER — The bill allowing Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant to apply for state permission to store spent fuel in on-site "dry casks" was approved in the Senate on Friday Under a deal reached between plant owner Entergy Nuclear and legislative leaders, the company will pay $2.5 million a year if it receives permission from federal regulators to increase the power produced by the facility. That money, combined with payments from the company under a separate agreement with the state, will go to a fund to support the development of renewable energy in Vermont. The bill gives the company the right to apply to the Public Service Board for permission to use dry casks for storing spent fuel. That bill was approved by the House earlier this week and by an 18-6 Senate vote late Friday. Sen. Rod Gander, D-Windham, returned to the Statehouse for the first time this session to oppose it. "If it's buying a certificate of public good, it's wrong whatever the dollar figure is," said Gander, who has been undergoing chemotherapy for cancer. His illness resurfaced soon after he was re-elected last fall. Gander is a member of the Senate Finance Committee, where anti-nuclear activists hoped for a last chance to stop the deal. But the committee voted 4-2 to approve it, a recommendation the full Senate followed later in the evening. "The only chance to stop it was here," said Peter Alexander, executive director of the New England Coalition. "I am deeply disappointed in the vote. There is so much information that is missing from the picture." Gander and committee Chairwoman Ann Cummings, D-Washington, voted against approving the bill in the committee. Brian Cosgrove, director of communications for the plant, said the Legislature had done "an admirable amount of work" on the issue. The company looks forward to the Public Service Board process as a chance to "further educate the public about the benefits of dry cask storage," Cosgrove said. Entergy needed the Legislature to grant permission for dry cask storage, giving lawmakers a chance to weigh in on the issue. Legislators heard testimony this year that dry cask storage, in which the spent fuel is stored in canisters made of several layers of steel and concrete, is safer than storing it in water-filled fuel pools. "My vote is not against dry cask," Gander said. He said the legislature has not done enough work on the issue and should wait to take it up next year. The vote was more about the company's desire to increase its power production and win re-licensing in 2012 than dry cask, Gander said. "I have only been up here for a couple of these last minute closings, but that's when you make all of your mistakes," said Gander, a retired editor for Newsweek magazine. The deal with Entergy was announced last week by Senate President Pro Tem Peter Welch, D-Windsor, Speaker of the House Gaye Symington, D-Jericho, and other legislative leaders. Welch, a member of the Finance Committee, said the safety of the plant was not impacted by the agreement with Entergy. "We took very, very seriously this question of safety," he said. "Safety is not for sale; it cannot be for sale. "If we wait, we are also taking some risk," Welch said. "If we delay … it puts us closer to that time when we have to have dry cask or there is a shut down." But Sen. Jeanette White, D-Windham, said the issue of timing is not as serious as it is made out to be. "Vermont Yankee has created this crisis," she said. "We are asked two days before adjournment to make a decision on the most irreversible decision we can make." The Finance Committee heard testimony Friday that Entergy will run out of room to store its spent fuel in 2007, and the regulatory procedure to authorize it will take some time. Sen. Claire Ayer, D-Addison, a member of the Finance Committee, voted for the bill allowing the agreement. "I don't think there is anything to be gained by waiting until January," she said. Gander was not the only member of the Senate to return for the vote. Sen. Mark Sheppard, R-Bennington, changed his plans, returned to the Senate and supported the vote in the Finance Committee and on the floor. Sen. Mark MacDonald, D-Orange, another member of the committee and a vocal critic of plant, was not there. "I feel terrible not being there. Sometimes in a citizen Legislature, family comes first," said MacDonald, who was attending a relative's college graduation in Long Island, N.Y. "I feel sort of sorry, since I stirred up the issue," he said by telephone. Seven senators were absent from the vote on the floor. In the end, the majority of senators said the time they would gain by not approving the bill this year would not make a significant difference. "I want to leave the most amount of time between now and the future to deal with a year-long process with the Public Service Board," said Hull Maynard, R-Rutland, who supported the bill. Gander urged caution. "We are voting to put this deadly stuff with a half-life of tens of thousands of years on the banks of the Connecticut River for the foreseeable future," he said. Staff writer Darren M. Allen contributed to this story. Contact Louis Porter at louis.porter@rutlandherald.com. -------- us nuc waste Panel Sets Aside Proposal on Nuclear Waste By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS June 4, 2005 Filed at 12:07 a.m. ET http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Radioactive-Waste.html?pagewanted=print WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has put on hold a proposal to allow some very low-level radioactive waste to be routinely put into public landfills or recycled instead of shipped to special disposal sites. By a 5-0 vote, the commission decided against issuing a final regulation on the matter, although it did not rule out considering the issue again in the future. The agency's staff had recommended that the rule change be approved, saying the waste under consideration has such a low level of radioactivity that it does not pose a public health risk. The NRC acted earlier this week, but the vote only became public Friday in a news release from several environmental and nuclear industry watchdog groups. The groups applauded the action, saying the proposed rule change would have allowed radioactive material to be mixed with normal garbage and reused in consumer products and in roadbeds. NRC spokesman Elliott Brenner, confirming the commission's action, said the agency did not reject the proposal outright. ''It is in a holding pattern because of higher priorities. That's not to rule out looking at it again later,'' he said. ''Most of these materials have no residual radioactivity,'' he said. ''Some have very small amounts, so low that potential exposure to the public would have negligible impact.'' Brenner said the commission decided to put the issue aside because of the ''urgent need to put resources in higher priority areas'' such as nuclear power plant security and a rush of applications for power reactor relicensing. The material subject to the proposed rule change is located at nuclear power plants and other facilities licensed by the NRC and includes such items as office furniture, tools, equipment, routine trash, soil and concrete. Diane D'Arrigo of the Nuclear Information and Resources Service, a watchdog group, said the NRC's decision is ''a victory for public health and environmental protection,'' although she expressed concern that the agency might reverse course. ''The NRC clearly backed down from this crazy idea because it recognized the firestorm of public concern that would be triggered,'' said Daniel Hirsch, head of the Los Angeles-based Community to Bridge the Gap. ''The public doesn't want radioactive waste in their local garbage dump, children's braces or tools.'' On the Net: Nuclear Regulatory Commission: http://www.nrc.gov ---- Don't put nuclear waste on military bases By Allison M. Macfarlane | June 4, 2005 Boston Globe Editorial http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/06/04/dont_put_nuclear_wasteon_military_bases/?page=full IS A NUCLEAR waste storage facility coming to a former military base near you? Last week the House of Representatives voted to establish temporary storage facilities for nuclear waste at federally owned facilities, including military bases slated for closure in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Maine. Republican Representative David Hobson of of Ohio, who sponsored the measure, claims it is a stop-gap solution to the problem created by delays in licensing the waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Congress approved Yucca Mountain as a geologic repository for the nation's high-level nuclear waste. But we can solve this problem without increasing the environmental burden on already contaminated military bases in New England. The nation has a nuclear waste crisis, but this is not the way to resolve it. The current crisis is a time bomb that Congress set ticking in 1982 when it passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. The Department of Energy was to begin shipping spent fuel from nuclear power reactors to a permanent storage facility in 1998. But a permanent repository has not yet opened and it is questionable if it ever will. In 1987 Congress selected Yucca Mountain as the sole national site for high-level nuclear waste. The site turned out to have complex geological and hydrological conditions, forcing the Energy Department into years of study. Last summer, licensing of Yucca Mountain was further delayed when the US Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency standards on Yucca Mountain violated federal law and must be rewritten. To make things worse, the site became embroiled in allegations of scientific fraud in April when the US Geological Survey disclosed e-mail messages implying that scientists made up data to meet quality assurance requirements. In the meantime, utility companies that owned nuclear power plants became angry that they were still paying to store the waste at reactor sites. When the 1998 deadline came and went, the utilities filed lawsuits against the federal government for breach of contract. Hobson is attempting to resolve these issues by proposing temporary nuclear waste storage facilities at federal sites. This is the wrong solution for four reasons. First, many nuclear reactor sites already have their own temporary storage. After its life in the reactor core, used nuclear fuel is placed in deep pools adjacent to the reactor facility. Once the pools began to fill up, utility companies bought dry casks to store the overflow. These dry casks are concrete and steel structures that passively cool the fuel. About 25 reactor sites (out of about 70) already use such technology. Second, plans already exist in the private sector for a large temporary spent fuel storage facility in Utah. Private Fuel Storage wants to open a 40,000-metric-ton site west of Salt Lake City on the Goshute Indian reservation. It is close to receiving a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Third, the facility envisioned by the current legislation would have to be licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission -- a lengthy process. It has taken Private Fuel Storage eight years to obtain a license. Fourth, and most significant, the $10 million appropriated is a fraction of what such a plan would finally cost. The $10 million will perhaps buy a study of where such a facility should be sited, but it will not cover the costs of opening such a facility by 2006, as Hobson has requested. At a reactor facility it costs at least $10 million just to pay for the concrete storage pads, licensing, security systems, cask welding systems, transfer casks, slings, tractor-trailers, and startup testing. This doesn't pay for the casks themselves, which run about $90 to $210 per kilogram of spent fuel. For a small, 5,000-metric-ton facility, the casks alone would cost $360 million to $840 million. There may indeed be a need for a small amount of federally funded storage for nuclear waste. But, rather than dumping the waste on former military bases, the government should offer to pay for at-reactor dry cask storage and take title to the waste as well. This proposal, already suggested by Democratic Senator Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, would provide a cheaper alternative to developing an entirely new site. What's most important though, is that Congress take the problem of nuclear waste seriously. Temporary storage facilities are just that: temporary. They do not solve the problem of what to do with this highly toxic material that will outlast many generations. We, as the producers of this material, have an obligation to develop and implement a solution. And so far, we have decided that the best solution is geologic disposal. What Congress may have to grapple with is whether Yucca Mountain is the right site. What New England needs is for the closing military bases to be cleaned up and put to good use, not to add to their already-large waste burden. Allison M. Macfarlane is a researcher at MIT and editor of ''Uncertainty Underground," a forthcoming book on the technical uncertainties in nuclear waste disposal at Yucca Mountain. -------- MILITARY -------- china Rumsfeld Issues a Sharp Rebuke to China on Arms By THOM SHANKER June 4, 2005 NY Times http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/04/international/asia/04rumsfeld.html?pagewanted=print SINGAPORE, Saturday, June 4 - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, in an unusually blunt public critique of China, said Saturday that Beijing's military spending threatened the delicate security balance in Asia and called for an emphasis instead on political freedom and open markets. In a keynote address at an Asian security conference here, Mr. Rumsfeld argued that China's investment in missiles and up-to-date military technology posed a risk not only to Taiwan and to American interests, but also to nations across Asia that view themselves as China's trading partners, not rivals. He said no "candid discussion of China" could neglect to address these military concerns directly, and criticized China for not admitting the full extent of what he described as its worrisome military expansion. "Since no nation threatens China, one wonders: why this growing investment?" Mr. Rumsfeld asked. His remarks come as Washington's stance regarding Beijing appears to be growing more critical. The United States has accused China of manipulating the value of its currency, for example, in order to increase exports, and of exerting heavy-handed pressure on Taiwan. A joint warning from the American and Japanese defense and foreign ministers has rankled Chinese leaders, as has the Bush administration's insistence that Europe must not ease curbs on arms sales to China. The administration has also been increasingly disappointed by China's apparent reluctance to press North Korea to resume talks on its nuclear weapons programs, as Mr. Rumsfeld again urged China to do. Perhaps because of his emphasis on military developments, as well as trade and democracy, Mr. Rumsfeld's remarks, while measured, were more critical in tone than those heard in recent months from other administration officials, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who visited China in March. Before the election last year, she and her predecessor, Colin L. Powell, both said relations were better than they had been in years. Mr. Rumsfeld's comments on China also stood in contrast to those on another power in Asia: India. On the flight to Singapore, he said ties with India would strengthen while those with China could fray if Beijing did not open up society more. Mr. Rumsfeld previewed findings of the Pentagon's annual report to Congress on the Chinese military, saying: "China's defense expenditures are much higher than Chinese officials have publicly admitted. It is estimated that China's is the third-largest military budget in the world, and now the largest in Asia." Warnings about China's military modernization have been issued before, but Mr. Rumsfeld's remarks were notable because they came at an Asian security conference attended by defense ministers and military specialists from across Asia and the Pacific Rim. "The world would welcome a China committed to peaceful solutions and whose industrious and well-educated people contribute to international peace and prosperity," Mr. Rumsfeld said. But that requires China to match its economic liberalizations with domestic political freedoms, he said, which in turn would bring clear benefits to Beijing because "China would appear more as a friend and a welcome partner." "China has fundamental decisions to make about its goals and its future," he said. "Ultimately, China will need to embrace some form of open, representative government if it is to fully achieve the benefits to which its people aspire." That echoed the Bush administration's broad theme of encouraging democracy around the world, a message that Mr. Bush himself had carried to China when he visited there in February 2002, in a speech broadcast on state television. Mr. Rumsfeld, for his part, has long taken a tough stance on China. He ordered American military relations with China to be frozen shortly after he became defense secretary in 2001, when a Chinese fighter jet shadowing an American Navy surveillance aircraft in international airspace collided with the plane, forcing it to land on Chinese territory. The crew members were held as virtual hostages for 11 days. But the American Navy's port calls have slowly resumed over recent months, and Mr. Rumsfeld now says he hopes to pay an official visit to China before the end of the year. In recent weeks, American officials have compiled reports detailing how China has carefully analyzed the strengths and weaknesses of the United States military to focus its growing spending on weapons systems that could exploit perceived American weaknesses in case the United States ever responds to fighting in Taiwan. These military and intelligence officials say China has purchased or built enough amphibious assault ships, submarines, fighter jets and short-range missiles that pose an immediate threat to Taiwan and to any American force that might come to Taiwan's aid. Asked about the speech before Mr. Rumsfeld delivered it, Scott McClellan, press secretary for President Bush, declined to discuss any change in tone in the way that the administration is talking about China. Referring to Mr. Rumsfeld, Mr. McClellan added: "He speaks for the administration as secretary of defense. I haven't seen his remarks." How to assess the Chinese military buildup has been the source of some debate within the administration. Mr. Rumsfeld's speech here, to a forum held by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, was circulated among senior administration officials, including Ms. Rice, before delivery, one Pentagon official said. The Pentagon's report to Congress on China is two months late, and one administration official said drafts of the document have been written, circulated and re-written as officials try to strike the right balance between warnings to Beijing and praise of its help on North Korea and its openness to investment. In a clear indication of the complicated nature of the relationship, Mr. Rumsfeld stressed the critically important role that China plays, along with the United States and three other nations, in a six-party negotiation aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear program. Those talks have been stalled for a year. "One nation that can make a notable contribution in persuading North Korea to return to the six-party talks is China," Mr. Rumsfeld said. He was also harshly critical of North Korea, which he labeled an impoverished, Stalinist regime, but he did not offer new policy pronouncements. Before his arrival here, Mr. Rumsfeld did note that the Bush administration's policy toward North Korea was under review. "Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions threaten the security and stability of the region, and indeed the world," he said. "President Bush and the other four leaders have urged the regime to return to the six-party talks. The United States also urges the regime to embrace the openness and freedom that have helped so many of its neighbors thrive." Mr. Rumsfeld described the American military in the region as poised to battle terrorism and the proliferation of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons, but he also highlighted the emergency assistance given by American armed services after the tsunami in December killed more than 170,000 people across Southeast Asia. David E. Sanger contributed reporting from Washington for this article. ---- Rumsfeld Explains U.S. Pressure on China By MATT KELLEY The Associated Press Saturday, June 4, 2005; 11:18 PM http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/04/AR2005060400268_pf.html SINGAPORE -- Pentagon chief Donald H. Rumsfeld said Saturday that U.S. pressure for political and economic change in China is not intended to undermine the Beijing government. He criticized China for increasing military spending despite the absence of a threat from another country and said the Asian power risks diminishing its global influence unless it opens up its political system. Political and economic freedom are in China's best interests, the U.S. defense secretary said. "The implication that freedom means destabilization, I believe, is incorrect," Rumsfeld said in response to a question from a participant in an Asian security conference. Conveying a hard line from the Bush administration, Rumsfeld used his keynote speech to challenge China's military buildup and urge political change. "Economic success depends on increasingly freer economic systems. That will put pressure on a political system that is less free," Rumsfeld said. "The task for China is to resolve that issue." Rumsfeld said the Pentagon's annual assessment of China's military capabilities shows China now has the world's third-largest military budget, behind the U.S. and Russia. He did not say how large the U.S. believes China's military budget is. A report last month by a U.S. think tank put China's military spending between $69 billion and $78 billion a year, estimated in 2001 U.S. dollars. That ranges between 2.3 percent and 2.8 percent of China's gross domestic product, according to the RAND Corp. That compares with the $430 billion spent by the U.S. on defense in 2004 _ 3.9 percent of the country's GDP. Cui Tiankai, the director of the Asia bureau of China's foreign ministry, was in the audience for Rumsfeld's speech. He questioned Rumsfeld afterward. "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 U.S. does not view China as a threat. But he did question why China has stationed hundreds of missiles within range of 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. China has said it will attack Taiwan if the self-governing island tries to declare formal independence. China repeatedly has urged the U.S. to stop selling weapons to Taiwan, which Beijing views as a renegade province that must be reabsorbed by the mainland. This year, China denounced a joint U.S.-Japan statement that said the two allies shared the objective of a peaceful resolution of the Taiwan issue. The U.S. wants 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 against Taiwan. Cui rejected the suggestion that China is spending more than necessary on its military. "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. Turning his attention to North Korea, Rumsfeld said China is in the best position to persuade the North Koreans to return to six-nation talks about its nuclear weapons program. Nearly a year has passed since North Korea, which has said its possesses nuclear weapons, last participated in the talks. South Korea's defense minister, who met with Rumsfeld on Saturday, said Seoul agrees that China should try to persuade North Korea to rejoin the talks. "I believe these efforts are very much respected," Yoon Kwang Ung told reporters. Rumsfeld branded North Korea a worldwide threat because of its record of selling missile technology and weapons. "One has to assume that they'll sell anything, and that they would sell nuclear technologies," Rumsfeld said. In other developments Saturday: _Rumsfeld said Al-Jazeera, the Qatar-based pan-Arab television network, promoted terrorism by airing beheadings and other attacks. He said the station provides a platform for Muslim extremists and that the U.S. has a hard time combating terrorists' claims. "Governments have to be accurate. Extremists don't," he said. Al-Jazeera denies it holds any anti-American bias and says it reports the news objectively. _In Beijing, the U.S. commerce secretary said Saturday that China's mounting trade surplus, surging textile exports and rampant product piracy could fuel opposition in the United States to free trade. Carlos Gutierrez was on his first visit to Beijing amid a storm of Chinese criticism over U.S. textile quotas. The administration and many U.S. lawmakers also are pressing for an overhaul of China's currency system. U.S. manufacturers say China's practice of keeping the yuan tightly linked to the U.S. dollar has contributed to the loss of millions of U.S. jobs and America's soaring trade deficit. -------- mideast Syria Denies Claims It Tested Missiles By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS June 4, 2005 Filed at 6:19 a.m. ET http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Syria-Israel.html?pagewanted=print DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) -- Syria's information minister on Saturday denied Israeli claims his country is developing new weapons and test-fired Scud missiles last week, calling the accusations an ''expression of Israel's hostile intentions.'' In remarks carried by Syria's official news agency, Mahdi Dakhlallah said the Israeli allegations were also part of a pressure campaign against Syria. Israeli military officials said that Syria test-fired three Scud missiles late last week, reinforcing Israeli worries about Damascus' ability to deliver a missile-borne chemical attack against Israeli civilian targets. They said one of the missiles broke up over Turkey. The Turkish military said apparent missile debris from Syria landed on two agricultural villages in the southern province of Hatay, causing no injuries or damage. A Turkish Foreign Ministry official said Syria had apologized for the incident and assured Turkey it was ''just an accident'' that occurred during routine military training. Israeli security officials said the missile test was Syria's first since 2001. They said they saw the launches as a Syrian gesture of defiance to the United States and the United Nations, which pushed Syria to withdraw its troops from Lebanon after the February assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, a critic of Syria's influence in Lebanon. Lebanon is in the midst of parliamentary elections that the anti-Syrian opposition hopes to win and end Damascus' control of the legislature. Dakhlallah said the Israeli accusations were part of efforts to pressure Syria. ''It's normal for a state to possess all defense potentials, especially if it is in a region shrouded with tension, aggression and continuous Israeli occupation, in addition to Israel's unbridled desire to expand the circle of aggression and occupation,'' he said. He warned against the danger posed by Israel's nuclear arsenal, and called on the international community to free the Middle East of all weapons of mass destruction. -------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE -------- homeland security / national intelligence Air marshals sue Homeland Security over rules June 04, 2005 By Audrey Hudson THE WASHINGTON TIMES http://www.washtimes.com/national/20050604-122747-1631r.htm A group of federal air marshals is suing top Homeland Security Department officials to challenge internal rules that forbid them from disclosing waste, fraud and abuse within the agency. The case filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia this week against Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Federal Air Marshal Director Thomas Quinn says the rules "smother and prevent the disclosure of information" that could improve public safety efforts aiding the war against terrorism. The lawsuit also challenges internal investigations of the Federal Air Marshal Association (FAMA) and says marshals are being threatened with disciplinary action and criminal prosecution if they do not reveal other marshals belonging to the nonunion group. FAMA legal counsel Stephen G. DeNigris says the agency rules are unconstitutional and "nothing more than an attempt by the Federal Air Marshal Service to prevent oversight by Congress and the public at large of an agency rife with mismanagement and pettiness." Policy Directive ADM 3700 prevents air marshals from "criticizing or ridiculing" policies or employees, creating or participating on nongovernment Web sites, and bans employees from speaking at public gatherings, appearing on radio or television or releasing information on any matter pertaining to the service, the lawsuit says. The complaint was filed Thursday and notice sent to the Homeland Security Department (DHS), which has 60 days to respond. "Because it's pending litigation, we're unable to comment," department spokesman Manny Van Pelt said. Leaks to the press have made Federal Air Marshal Service (FAMS) managers "paranoid" and they are conducting "fishing expeditions" to discover who is criticizing management and polices, Mr. DeNigris said. According to one air marshal and FAMA member, the group acts a fraternal organization for marshals and federal flight deck officers (armed pilots) to pursue airline safety issues. The group has been critical of Mr. Quinn and his policies, including the recently redesigned dress code. The marshal said Mr. Quinn is hoping to "silence the masses from being able to criticize problems in aviation security." Several marshals in the organization have been interrogated about who the members are, its board of directors and other private information, the lawsuit states. Marshals were threatened with prosecution for even admitting they were interrogated. "If you want to know what happened, I would refer you to the lawsuit," a second marshal said. The lawsuit says that FAMA President Terry Babb was interrogated on Nov. 17 and told "his failure to answer their questions could subject him to disciplinary and/or criminal action for interfering with or impeding an official investigation." Mr. Babb was ordered to answer questions on the group's organization, details of its incorporation, dues and money spent and whether members made public statements about the service. -------- ACTIVISTS Hong Kong protesters remember Tiananmen 6/4/2005 7:26 PM (AP) http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-06-04-hong-kong-tiananmen_x.htm HONG KONG — Thousands of protesters in Hong Kong raised candles in the air and sang solemn songs Saturday to mark the 16th anniversary of China's bloody crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations on Tiananmen Square, while security was tightened in Beijing to block any memorials there. China's Communist Party has eased many of the social controls that spurred the 1989 student-led protests, which ended when soldiers and tanks attacked, killing hundreds of people. But Chinese leaders still crush any activity that they fear might challenge its monopoly on power. Tiananmen Square was open to the public, but extra carloads of police watched tourists on the vast plaza and there was no public mention of the anniversary or any sign of attempts at commemorations. In Hong Kong, people holding candles filled an area the size of five soccer fields at Victoria Park — the only large-scale protest on Chinese soil. Police estimated that 22,000 people attended the annual vigil, but organizers said the crowd numbered 30,000 to 40,000. Many residents of the former British colony remain emotional about the Tiananmen crackdown because it happened just a few years before the city returned to Chinese rule in 1997. "My heart is heavy," said Shum Ming, 58, a construction worker. "Hong Kong people will not forget this history when a government uses guns and tanks to crush students. It's very atrocious." Protester Henry Ho, 19, a Hong Kong University student, said, "If the Chinese government can say what happened that night and can say that they're sorry, it can show that they are not the same government from the past." Many feel a duty to speak out because they have freedoms of speech and assembly that don't exist on the mainland. Hong Kong is ruled under a "one country, two systems" formula that allows the city a wide-degree of autonomy. Banners and signs said, "Don't forget June 4" and "Democracy fighters live forever." Vigil organizer Lee Cheuk-yan, vice chairman of the Hong Kong Alliance, said, "Our slogan is 'Recognize history' and we're asking Beijing to do just that." But Donald Tsang, the front-runner campaigning to become Hong Kong's next leader, said China has made great strides in improving its economy and people's livelihood. "I had shared Hong Kong people's passion and impetus when the June 4 incident happened. But after 16 years, I've seen our country's impressive economic and social development," Tsang said. "My feelings have become calmer." A booming private economy has freed millions of Chinese from the structure of state jobs that controlled where they lived and worked — and even whom they could marry. In their rare public comments about 1989, Chinese leaders defend the crackdown by pointing to the nation's emergence as an economic powerhouse since then, saying it would have been impossible without the enforced stability of one-party rule. In Australia, a senior Chinese diplomat who abandoned his post and is seeking political asylum came out of hiding Saturday to speak at a Sydney rally to observe the anniversary. Chen Yonglin, 37, the consul for political affairs at the Chinese Consulate in Sydney, said he was defecting because of a lack of freedoms in China. "In 16 years, the Chinese government has done nothing for political reform," he said. "People have no political freedom, no human rights." Chen claimed he still was being chased by Chinese security agents and feared they might kidnap him. Neither Australia's foreign ministry nor the Chinese Embassy in Canberra could be reached for comment on Chen's statement. The anniversary, always sensitive for communist leaders, is especially touchy this year because it follows the death in January of Zhao Ziyang, the former Communist Party boss who was purged in 1989 after sympathizing with the protesters. A retired senior Chinese official, Li Pu, called on Beijing to vindicate the 1989 pro-democracy movement, which was branded a "counterrevolutionary riot" by the Communist leadership. "The students made big mistakes, but the government's military crackdown was even worse. It was extremely wrong to send troops against ordinary people," Li, former vice president of China's official Xinhua News Agency and a friend of Zhao's, said in an interview with Hong Kong's government-owned radio RTHK. "History will give Zhao Ziyang justice. Some years later, June 4 must be vindicated," he said in the radio program.