NucNews - July 8, 2005 -------- NUCLEAR U.S. should not restart nuclear power program NEW HAMPSHIRE Union Leader By PETER ASMUS, Guest Commentary Columns - July 8, 2005 http://www.theunionleader.com/articles_showa.html?article=57433 THE recent call by President Bush to restart a major nuclear power program in this country in response to concerns about our dependence on foreign energy sources and global climate change would have Adam Smith rolling in his grave. There is no power source less compatible with the GOP's love of free markets and disdain for regulation and subsidy than nuclear fission. Without government intervention, there simply would be no nuclear industry. Now, it is true that nuclear energy does not contribute to global climate change. And the new pebble bed modular reactor may well leak less, greatly reduce the risks of catastrophic meltdown and use less uranium fuel. But nuclear power is far from being clean or green. Consider the following: # In the nuclear fuel process, uranium enrichment depends on great amounts of electricity, most of which is provided by dirty fossil fuel plants releasing all of the traditional air pollution emissions not released by the nuclear reactor itself. Two of the nation's most polluting coal plants, in Ohio and Indiana, produce electricity primarily for uranium enrichment. # The operations of nuclear power plants release dangerous air emissions in the form of radioactive gases, including carbon-14, iodine-131, krypton and xenon. # Uranium mining mimics techniques used for coal, and similar issues of toxic contamination of local land and water resources arise — as does the matter of the unique radioactive contamination hazards to mine workers and nearby populations. Abandoned mines contaminated with high-level radioactive waste can pose radioactive risks for as long as 250,000 years after closure. # Concerns about chronic or routine exposure to radiation are augmented by the supreme risk of catastrophe in the event of power plant accidents. A major failure in the nuclear power plant's cooling systems, such as the rupture of the reactor vessel, can create a nuclear "meltdown." Catastrophic accidents could easily kill 100,000 people. I first learned about the electricity industry when I covered the battle to close the Rancho Seco nuclear plant in Sacramento in the 1980s. A long list of problems had resulted in local rate increases exceeding 200 percent. There were rumors of drug use, and even sex orgies, under the immense cooling towers. The picture painted by some insiders was of an operations crew made up of a bunch of yahoos who would fit right into an episode of "The Simpsons." Over the next 15 years, I learned the ins and outs of the electricity business, the world's largest — and most polluting — industrial enterprise. The subject is boring and complex, which has led to ignorance about its extremely important activities. Past decisions authorizing a spate of nuclear plants were made with little scrutiny of their economic or environmental impacts. The consequences of those decisions, and the government subsidies that helped promote the fiction that they were cost-effective, helped set the stage for today's crisis in energy supply. The United States, with its 103 operating nuclear power plants, is already the world's top consumer of electricity generated from nuclear fission. But we have yet to build a federal repository for nuclear waste. Given that U.S. reactors produce about 2,000 tons of high-level waste every year of operation, calling for greater reliance on nuclear power is not only supremely irresponsible but also an insult to the "conservative" wing of the Republican Party. That Republicans call for more nuclear power is truly mind-boggling. There has never been a more subsidized, socialized power technology than nuclear. Virtually all of the countries that derive the greatest amount of electricity from nuclear power — France, Lithuania, Ukraine, Sweden — feature central planning and socialistic energy policies. Real, free-market energy policies suggest smaller, smarter and cleaner power sources. The last thing the United States should embark on in these volatile times tainted by the terrorist threat is the dinosaur technology that is nuclear power. Peter Asmus is author of "Reaping the Wind" and "Reinventing Electric Utilities." -------- australia Australia: Tell us if ships carry nukes Fri, Jul 08, 2005 Australia Border Mail http://www.bordermail.com.au/newsflow/pageitem?page_id=1000687 AUSTRALIANS have a right to know if US warships moored in Sydney Harbour are carrying nuclear weapons, anti-nuclear activists say. The US Navys oldest active warship, the USS Kitty Hawk, arrived on Sunday. Accompanied by the guided-missile destroyers USS John Paul Jones and USS Cowpens, the ships have been moored at Garden Island. About 20 protesters, including NSW Greens MP Sylvia Hale and Greenpeace activists, yesterday protested at the base, demanding to know if the ships have nuclear capabilities. They claim the vessels are equipped with Tomahawk cruise missiles which sometimes have depleted uranium-tipped warheads, but the US Navy will not comment on whether the missiles in Sydney Harbour are nuclear. Ms Hale said the US Navy had no right to bring nuclear weapons into Australian waters. -------- britain Board of Inquiry Report - Thorp fractured pipe British Nuclear Group, July 8, 2005 http://www.britishnucleargroup.com/index.aspx?page=318 Thorp Feed Clarification Cell - Further Update British Nuclear Group has today published the full Board of Inquiry report into the fractured pipe in the Feed Clarification Cell in Thorp. The incident, which we first reported nine weeks ago, has highlighted several areas where improvements are needed. These are comprehensively dealt with in the report. Barry Snelson, Managing Director at Sellafield said: “By their very nature Boards of Inquiry seek to get to the root cause of an incident. The report produced is written in a no-nonsense style, to ensure that we learn real lessons from whatever has happened. We will systematically address and resolve every issue raised in this report. There is no room for complacency in our industry and I will personally be ensuring that these recommendations are implemented in Thorp and across Sellafield.” A CCTV camera inspection on 19 April identified that approximately 83m3 of liquor had escaped through a fracture in the pipe feeding one of the accountancy tanks into the secondary containment of a purpose built, thick walled concrete cell lined with stainless steel. The secondary containment is specifically designed for failure of primary containment releasing liquid in quantities significantly greater than in this event. It is fitted with engineered systems to pump liquid from the cell floor back into primary containment tanks within the cell. The event caused no harm to any individuals and did not release any radioactivity to the environment. The situation within the cell remains safe and secure and the recovery of all liquid back into primary containment was completed two weeks ago. We have successfully accounted for all of the material on the floor of the cell and have been able to focus our attention on finalising the best repair option and working to implement the recommendations of the Board of Inquiry report. The repair options presented by the engineering team have been independently reviewed on behalf of the NDA. The review was supportive of our optioneering for repair, and dialogue with the NDA and regulators to select and act upon one option is continuing. We are confident that we have the capability to return Thorp to service. Work to address the eighteen recommendations in the Board of Inquiry report has been given the highest priority and a dedicated project team under the supervision of a senior manager and ultimately accountable to Barry Snelson, Managing Director, Sellafield, has been established to quickly but methodically implement the recommendations. Eleven of the recommendations principally address the issues relating to cell instrumentation (which would indicate a plant abnormality) and the operating practices within the plant. Most of these are applicable only to Thorp and will need to be progressed before the plant can be returned to normal service. Four of the recommendations address metal fatigue assessments and design issues and are applicable across other parts of Sellafield. These will be completed as soon as possible but no later than the timescales indicated in the report, the longest of which is by the end of this year. The project team has developed an integrated recovery plan which addresses the recommendations. Workstreams associated with this plan are complete. Good progress is being made against the individual recommendations. As a result of the Inquiry’s findings, British Nuclear Group has instigated further reviews aimed at ensuring that the learning from this event is fully embedded across the organisation and that any wider implications are picked up and fully addressed. British Nuclear Group Chief Executive Lawrie Haynes will chair a comprehensive review of safety at Sellafield to reaffirm confidence in the integrity of safety management and control and supervision of operations across the site. The review will include expert representation from across the BNFL Group including Paul Thomas, Director of Environment, Health, Safety and Quality and Director of Technology Sue Ion. Additionally, Sellafield Production Director John Clarke will chair a root and branch management review to examine in detail the performance of Sellafield’s management team in response to the entire event. Alongside these reviews and the board of inquiry report published today, the Nuclear Installation Inspectorate has conducted its own review of the event and has concluded its preliminary investigations. As a result of the NII's investigations, we have received two improvement notices, the first relating to leak detection equipment and the second to operating instructions relating to the use of this equipment and the response to alarms. The NII are progressing with further investigations which will continue for a number of weeks. ---- Nuclear staff told 'stay at home' Only essential staff are being allowed into the plant Friday, 8 July, 2005, 09:11 GMT 10:11 UK (BBC) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/cumbria/4663227.stm Non-essential workers at the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant have been told to stay at home on Friday in light of the London bombings. The decision to increase the level of alert at all nuclear sites across the UK was made by the government's Office of Civil Nuclear Safety. Sellafield bosses say they have acted to restrict access and limit the number of personnel and vehicles on the site. Spokesman Pete Lutwitch said that the move was a precautionary measure. He said: "We've got very well-practiced arrangement when we increase the level of alert. Conservative response "Only those essential staff will be in place. These include our medical teams, safety teams and site management. "Our prime responsibility that everyone stays safe is right at the top of our agenda. "This is a decision made by the government. It is a prudent and conservative response to what happened in London yesterday." Mr Lutwitch dismissed claims that the emergency measures were in response to a bomb threat at Sellafield. -------- business Mitsubishi bids for Westinghouse-Nikkei July 8, 2005 (Reuters) http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2005/07/09/mitsubishi_bids_for_westinghouse_nikkei/?rss_id=Boston.com+%2F+News TOKYO - Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. has offered to buy U.S. nuclear power plant builder Westinghouse Electric Co. in a deal that could reach 200 billion yen ($1.8 billion), the Nihon Keizai Shimbun newspaper reported on Saturday. The Japanese heavy equipment builder has conveyed its intentions to Westinghouse, a unit of British nuclear energy company BNFL, and is negotiating with several U.S. companies to make a joint bid, the business daily said. State-owned BNFL, which runs the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing facility in northwest England, said earlier this month it wanted to sell the Westinghouse unit and had received several approaches. BNFL Chief Executive Mike Parker said there were 10-15 interested parties. If the Mitsubishi Heavy bid succeeds, it would be the first large merger and acquisition deal for the Japanese firm, the Nikkei said. Mitsubishi Heavy introduced technology from Westinghouse in 1961, and the two companies have been in a partnership since, it said. Earlier this year they participated in a joint Japan-U.S. bid to build a nuclear plant in China. Mitsubishi Heavy officials could not immediately be reached for comment. ($1=112.03 yen) -------- europe Over half of Czechs back nuclear power use (PDM staff with CTK) 8 July, 2005 http://www.praguemonitor.com/ctk/?id=20050707E03822;story=Over-half-of-Czechs-back-nuclear-power-use Some 54 percent of Czechs support the use and development of nuclear energy, compared to 63 percent at the end of 2000, when the Temelin nuclear power plant launched operations in South Bohemia, according to a spring poll by the STEM agency. The highest level of support for nuclear energy, around 68 percent, was in 1994. Nearly 50 percent of people living in the area surrounding the plant support nuclear power development in the long term. This year, 48 percent of them were in favour of nuclear energy use. More than two-thirds of Czechs think the technologies used in the Temelin plant are comparable to those in modern power plants around the world. In South Bohemia alone, some 69 percent of people believe that Temelin is on par with the world's top power plants, the share remaining around the same in the long term. Some 58 percent of South Bohemia's inhabitants are convinced that Temelin's security measures are sufficient, compared to 54 percent in 2000. People living near the plant have the most trust in the plant's experts, and the representatives of the local municipalities and the region. In other institutions, including environmentalist groups and the Ministries of Industry and Trade and Environment, people's trust is lower than 50 percent, the poll showed. ---- Slovene Plan Includes WMD Defense Force Global Security Newswire Friday, July 8, 2005 http://www.nti.org/d_newswire/issues/2005_7_8.html Slovenia has approved a defense plan with commitments to creating a force to defend against a biological, chemical or nuclear attack, the Slovene news agency STA reported yesterday (see GSN, May 31). The five-year plan also calls for the formation of a tactical infantry and air defenses and integration into NATO’s air defense scheme (STA/BBC Monitoring, July 7). ---- French nuclear forces, 2005 By Robert S. Norris and Hans M. Kristensen July/August 2005 pp. 73-75 (vol. 61, no. 04) Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists http://www.thebulletin.org/article_nn.php?art_ofn=ja05norris France currently has two nuclear weapons systems: submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) carried by nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) and medium-range air-to-surface missiles carried by Mirage 2000N and Super Étendard aircraft. [1] Fifteen years ago, it had four additional systems that have now been removed from service. France retired, and presumably disassembled, the 175 warheads associated with these systems. Though France is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and is bound by Article VI's goal of nuclear disarmament, it shows no signs of giving up its remaining arsenal. Instead, it is making plans to develop, procure, and deploy new nuclear weapons, and to maintain its existing arsenal without nuclear testing, for years to come. French President Jacques Chirac set out his country's nuclear plans in February 1996 when he announced broad military reforms for 1997-2002. The plans called for consolidating French nuclear forces on fewer platforms and developing a new generation of nuclear weapons. During a visit to Moscow on September 26, 1997, Chirac confirmed that none of France's nuclear weapons remained aimed at designated targets. Chirac and the government presented a new five-year military plan on September 11, 2002. Adopted on January 27, 2003, the plan, for the most part, continues to fund programs first presented in 1996. France's 2005 budget authorizes 3.18 billion euros (about $4 billion) for nuclear weapons, with 1.85 billion euros (about $2.37 billion) of the total going toward the submarine program. Nuclear weapons spending makes up less than 10 percent of the total defense budget. Bombers. Three squadrons with a total of 60 Mirage 2000Ns currently have nuclear roles. Two of these (named Dauphiné and La Fayette) are based at Luxeuil-les-Bains, 130 kilometers southwest of Strasbourg. The third squadron (Limousin) is at Istres, 40 kilometers northwest of Marseille. Since the 1991 Gulf War, in which the night-attack capability of the then-nuclear only Mirage 2000N proved useless, the aircraft has been given some conventional capability to increase its utility. Both Dassault, the aircraft's manufacturer, and the Armée de l'Air confirm that the Mirage 2000N's "primary assignment" remains its nuclear-strike role. [2] The Mirage 2000N carries the Air-Sol-Moyenne Portée (ASMP) supersonic missile equipped with a single TN-81 warhead. We estimate that France has about 60 operational ASMPs, but additional missiles may be in inactive storage. There are conflicting reports about the inventory of missiles and warheads. A 1991 French Senate report stated that France initially produced 80 warheads and 90 ASMPs. In May 1994, however, when 15 Mirage IVs (plus three spares) still had nuclear roles and only 45 Mirage 2000Ns were operational, then-President François Mitterrand identified 60 ASMPs for use by both air force and navy aircraft. He did not disclose the number of warheads, however, and used slightly different language to describe the number of missiles assigned to the different types of aircraft. For the Mirage IV, he gave a fixed number, saying, "We possess 15 missiles." For the Mirage 2000N and Super Étendard aircraft, however, the number was less precise. "These forces possess 45 missiles," he said, indicating that the exact number may be dependent on the number of operational aircraft. Since then, the air force has made operational an additional 15 Mirage 2000Ns and retired most Mirage IVs. The aircraft's ASMP missiles may have been reassigned to the Mirage 2000N. France is also preparing to enter into service a longer-range ASMP, named ASMP-Amélioré (ASMP-A), that will have a 400-500 kilometer range, compared to the 300-kilometer range of the ASMP. The ASMP-A will be equipped with a new warhead designated Tête Nucléaire Aero-portée (TNA), a variant of the Tête Nucléaire Oceanique (TNO), and is expected to enter service with modified Mirage 2000N K3s in 2007 and with Rafale aircraft in 2008. The air force retained five Mirage IVs for reconnaissance missions as part of the 1/91 Gascogne squadron at Mont-de-Marsan, but they will be retired on August 31, 2005. France intends to eventually replace all of its Mirage aircraft with the Rafale, its new multipurpose fighter-bomber. [3] The Rafale program calls for 234 aircraft for the air force and 60 for the navy. The Rafale's roles include conventional ground attack, air defense, air superiority, and, eventually, delivery of the nuclear ASMP-A. The air force began forming its first squadron of F2-standard Rafales at Saint-Dizier in February 2005, with the goal of having it operational in the summer of 2006. The F2 configuration includes both air-to-air and air-to-ground capabilities. The second squadron will be nuclear-equipped and is scheduled to be operational in 2008. [4] The first navy Rafale M, a carrier-based version, was delivered to Flotille 12 at Landivisiau in July 2000. The navy deployed a squadron of 10 Rafale Ms aboard the carrier Charles de Gaulle in December 2001 for training and in support of the U.S.-led operation, "Enduring Freedom," in Afghanistan. The squadron was declared operational on June 25, 2004. These aircraft were configured to the F1 standard, providing only air defense capabilities. The navy plans to equip two additional Rafale M squadrons, one in 2007 and another in 2010. These aircraft will have the F2 configuration; the initial 10 aircraft will be upgraded to this standard. The final F3 standard expands the aircraft's weapon capability to accommodate the ASMP-A nuclear missile. [5] The Rafale M flew sorties with a model of the new missile on its centerline from the Charles de Gaulle in December 2002. France has built three aircraft carriers. The Clemenceau entered service in 1961 and the Foch in 1963. Both were modified to handle the AN 52 nuclear gravity bomb with Super Étendard aircraft. The AN 52 was retired in July 1991. The navy modified the Foch in 1981 to "handle and store" the ASMP and allocated about 20 missiles for two squadrons--about 24 Super Étendard aircraft. The Foch is thought to have routinely carried nuclear weapons until it was decommissioned in November 2000. The 40,500-ton nuclear-powered Charles de Gaulle can accommodate 35-40 aircraft. Nuclear capability aboard the carrier remains with a squadron of Super Étendards, presumably equipped with about 10 ASMPs. France is the only country to still deploy nuclear weapons aboard aircraft carriers. After lengthy consideration, President Chirac announced in February 2004 that a planned new aircraft carrier would have a conventional propulsion system. The ship is scheduled to enter service in 2014, and the government has earmarked approximately two billion euros (about $2.5 billion) for the program. Rafale aircraft will eventually operate from the carrier. SSBNs. France currently operates four SSBNs of two classes: three Le Triomphant-class subs and one Le Redoutable-class sub. A Triomphant-class sub can carry 16 M45 SLBMs, each with a capacity of six TN75 warheads. The navy rolled out Le Triomphant from the Cherbourg shipyard on July 13, 1993 and made it operational in September 1996. It commissioned the second Triomphant-class sub, Le Téméraire, in December 1999, some six months behind schedule, and successfully test-launched an M45 missile from the sub in May 1999. The third sub, Le Vigilant, was commissioned on November 30, 2004, and is replacing the soon-to-be decommissioned L'Indomptable in France's Strategic Oceanic Force (FOST). A fourth Triomphant SSBN, Le Terrible, is under construction at the Cherbourg shipyard and is scheduled for its initial patrol in 2010. One estimate has put the cost of the Triomphant-class program at nearly 16 billion euros (about $20 billion). This includes construction of the submarines, maintenance, personnel, and 25 years of operation. Adding the costs of missiles and warheads brings the total to 32 billion euros (about $40 billion). During his February 1996 address, Chirac announced that a new SLBM, known as the M51, will replace the M45. The missile, now designated M51.1, is scheduled to enter service in 2010 in order to coincide with the commissioning of Le Terrible. The M51.1 is expected to have a range of 6,000 kilometers and to carry up to six warheads and penetration aids. Its range could be extended by carrying fewer warheads. The missile was test-launched in early 2004 and will eventually arm all four Triomphant-class SSBNs by about 2014. Military planners initially intended for the M51 to carry an entirely new warhead, the Tête Nucléaire Nouvelle, but the combination of costs, changing strategic requirements, and the cessation of nuclear weapons testing led them to settle for the more robust TNO warhead. This warhead was presumably tested during France's last series of tests from September 1995 to January 1996. An upgraded missile, designated the M51.2, is scheduled to be deployed in 2015 and will carry the TNO warhead. France has transitioned to an operational inventory of approximately 288 TN75 warheads for three sets of M45 SLBMs (48 missiles plus spares), enough to arm three of the four operational SSBNs. Final assembly of warheads occurs at the Valduc Center near Dijon, France's Pantex. Warheads are stored at a Ministry of Defense facility contiguous to Valduc pending delivery to the military or disassembly. [6] We estimate that the TN75 warheads were produced between 1996 and 2003 at Valduc. France retired a comparable number of TN70/71 warheads beginning in the late 1990s and presumably disassembled them at Valduc. The navy maintains three of four SSBNs in the operational cycle, although only one or two are normally "on station" in designated patrol areas at any given time, compared with three in the early 1990s. [7] The SSBN force is organized under the FOST and home-ported at the Ile Longue base near Brest. Technicians mate the warheads from Valduc with their reentry vehicles and missiles at a special facility at Ile Longue. The navy relocated its SSBN command center to Brest in 2000; communication facilities continue to operate from Rosnay in the department of Indre. Four C-160H Astarté communication relay aircraft also maintain communication with SSBNs on patrol. Nuclear attack submarines, Atlantique 2 maritime patrol aircraft, antisubmarine frigates, and minesweepers all protect French SSBNs during operations. SSBN protection will be an important mission for the new Barracuda-class nuclear-powered attack submarine, which is planned to enter service in 2010. Like SSBNs, each French attack sub has two crews to optimize its operational availability. SLBM tests are coordinated from the Test Center of the Landes. The missiles are fired from down-range SSBNs toward an impact zone near the Azores. France conducted its two hundred and tenth and last nuclear test on January 27, 1996, signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty on September 24, 1996, and ratified it on April 6, 1998. The Military Applications Division of the Commissariat à l'Énergie Atomique has the exclusive responsibility for the research, development, monitoring (formerly testing), and production of French nuclear warheads. In the absence of full-scale testing, it has established a simulation program to guarantee that the warheads will perform to their design specifications. A number of new facilities comprise the program. The Ile-de-France Center at Bruyères-le-Châtel, 35 kilometers south of Paris, contains the Téra supercomputer that powers computer simulations. Located at Moronvilliers near Reims, the AIRIX linear electron beam accelerator takes flash radiographic pictures of nuclear weapons components under dynamic conditions. It began operation in January 2001. Construction of the Laser Megajoule facility began in May 2003 at the Centre d'Etudes Scientifiques et Techniques d'Aquitaine, 30 kilometers southwest of Bordeaux. The laser, which consists of 240 laser beams (30 lines of eight beams) converging on a target just a few millimeters in diameter, will simulate fusion reactions, like those caused by hydrogen bombs. It is scheduled to be fully operational (ignition) in 2011. 1. Bruno Tertrais, "Nuclear Policy: France Stands Alone," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, July/August 2004, pp. 48–55. 2. Marie Bubenicek and Yves Gérand, "La Dissuasion Nucléaire," Air Actualités, October 2004, pp. 48–49; "La Double Vie du ‘Dauphine,'" Air Actualités, September 2004, pp. 30–33. 3. Darren Lake, "Squall from the Sea," Jane's Navy International, November 2003, pp. 12–18. 4. En Brief item, Air Actualités, March 2005, p. 6. 5. Lake, "Squall from the Sea," p. 15. 6. Bruno Barrillot, France and Nuclear Proliferation, (Lyon: CDRPC, 2001), p. 16. 7. French government, Fighting Proliferation, Promoting Arms Control and Disarmament: France's Contribution (2005), p. 64. Nuclear Notebook is prepared by Robert S. Norris and Hans M. Kristensen of the Natural Resources Defense Council. Inquiries should be directed to NRDC, 1200 New York Avenue, N.W., Suite 400, Washington, D.C., 20005; 202-289-6868. July/August 2005 pp. 73-75 (vol. 61, no. 04) © 2005 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists France's arsenal Delivery vehicle Year operational No.* Missile range (kilometers)Warheads x yield (kilotons)Active warheads Aircraft**/Missile Mirage 2000N/ASMP1988 603001 TN81 x 300 50 Super Étendard/ASMP1978 103001 TN81 x 300 10 SLBMs M45N/A48***4,000+6 TN75 x 100288 Total ~348 ASMP: Air-Sol-Moyenne Portée supersonic missile; SLBM: submarine-launched ballistic missile. *Refers to number of aircraft and SLBMs. **Range of Mirage 2000N is 2,750 kilometers; range of Super Étendard is 650 kilometers. ***Three sets of 16 M45 SLBMs are deployed on three of four SSBNs in the operational cycle. French SSBNs Name/SLBM*Year operational Missile range (kilometers)Warheads x yield (kilotons) L'Indomptable**/M41976 4,0006 TN71 x 150 L'Inflexible***/M45 1985 4,000+6 TN75 x 100 Le Triomphant/M451997 4,000+6 TN75 x 100 Le Téméraire/M451999 4,000+6 TN75 x 100 Le Vigilant/M452005 4,000+6 TN75 x 100 Le Terrible/M51.12010 6,0006 TN75 x 100 SSBN: nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine; SLBM: submarine-launched ballistic missile. *Three sets of 16 M45 SLBMs are deployed on three of four SSBNs in the operational cycle. **Scheduled for decommissioning in 2005 and no longer in the operational cycle. ***Scheduled to be withdrawn in 2008. -------- india US officials visited Indian nuclear sites Pakistan Daily Times Monitor Saturday, July 08, 2005 http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_6-7-2005_pg7_46 LAHORE: American officials were given a tour of India’s nuclear installations under the guise of mutual concern over nuclear security and expanded “civilian nuclear activities,” said the news website The Asian Age. The website said that Manmohan Singh’s government facilitated the visit of a five-member US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (USNRC) delegation to Indian nuclear installations for a first-hand assessment of India’s nuclear safeguards in February 2005. The USNRC delegation was led by commissioner Jeffrey S Merrifield and visited the Dhruva reactor, some engineering research and development facilities at Barc, the Tarapur site where two US-designed boiling water reactor units are operational and two units of 540 MW each of pressurised heavy water reactors are under construction, as well as the Kota site where four PHWR units are operating and two are under construction. Sources told The Asian Age that a visit by commissioner Merrifield to the military nuclear installations was also organised, although this could not be independently confirmed. The US embassy in New Delhi arranged for a select meeting of a few Indian security experts with commissioner Merrifield, said the website, adding that he was particularly enthusiastic about Indian nuclear safeguards, saying he was “very impressed”. The visit’s significance escaped local attention at the time, unusual because it was the first time that a foreign delegation had been allowed full access to Indian nuclear sites. -------- iran IAEA: More Questions on Iran Nuclear Program Paul Kerr Arms Control Association July 8, 2005 http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2005_07-08/IAEA_Iran.asp Shortly before Iran elected a new president, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) officials reported that Tehran had still not resolved several outstanding issues about its nuclear programs. Iran has, however, continued to adhere to its November promise to suspend its uranium-enrichment program. After meeting with the IAEA Board of Governors, agency Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei told reporters June 17 that Iran has been “a bit slow” to provide relevant information but expressed hope that some of the issues will be resolved by September. Since beginning an investigation in 2002, the IAEA has revealed that Tehran conducted a variety of clandestine nuclear activities in violation of its safeguards agreement. Such agreements require states-parties to the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to allow the agency to monitor their declared civilian nuclear activities to ensure that they are not diverted to military use. The report came against the backdrop of the presidential race. Tehran mayor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad defeated former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani in a June 24 runoff election. Rafsanjani was widely viewed as being more willing to compromise on the nuclear issue. Israel’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Mark Regev, stated that “it’s clear now that no… change will take place” in Iran’s nuclear policy, Reuters reported June 25. Officials from France, Germany, and the United Kingdom had said that they did not expect their ongoing negotiations with Iran to produce results until after the election, but their diplomatic efforts have continued. A European diplomat told Arms Control Today June 24 that the three countries are formulating a specific negotiating proposal. The Europeans in May agreed to provide the proposal to Iran by August after Tehran threatened to break the suspension. (See ACT, June 2005 .) The new European proposal is expected mostly to contain the same incentives that Europeans have previously offered since negotiations began in December. (See ACT, April 2005.) But it is hoped that the complete proposal will persuade Tehran that “there’s a lot there,” the diplomat said. No new meetings have been announced. Tehran agreed in November to suspend its gas centrifuge-based uranium-enrichment program while the two sides negotiate an agreement that includes “objective guarantees” that Iran’s nuclear program is “exclusively for peaceful purposes,” as well as cooperative arrangements on economic, political, and security matters. Uranium enrichment increases the concentration of the uranium-235 isotope, producing either low-enriched uranium for civilian nuclear reactor fuel or highly enriched uranium (HEU). If enriched to high enough levels, HEU can be used as fissile material in nuclear weapons. Gas centrifuges enrich uranium hexafluoride gas by spinning it at very high speeds. Iran currently has a 164-centrifuge pilot facility and is continuing limited work on a larger commercial facility. Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazzi said June 19 that Iran is “committed to the suspension” but described the coming months as the Europeans’ “last chance.” Iran has previously expressed dissatisfaction with the European incentives. In return for any incentives, the Europeans want Iran to cease the enrichment program completely, but Tehran has repeatedly said it will not do so. Nevertheless, Iran has suggested some possible compromises. (See ACT, May 2005.) Sirus Naseri, head delegate to Iran’s talks with the Europeans, told Agence France Presse May 21 that Tehran is considering a Russian offer to enrich Iranian uranium, but the terms of the deal are unclear. Russia has told the United States that it offered to produce enriched uranium from Iranian lightly processed uranium ore, or “yellowcake.” But Iran claims that Russia offered to use Iranian uranium hexafluoride, a Department of State official told Arms Control Today June 10. Iran has a uraniumconversion facility designed to convert yellowcake into uranium hexafluoride. Uranium hexaflouride is perceived as the greater proliferation threat. Iran has also suggested that it may accept limits on its centrifuge facilities. For example, Iran offered in March to limit its enrichment program to an IAEA-monitored plant containing about 3,000 centrifuges. However, the text of an Iranian proposal reportedly presented at an informal meeting the next month reveals that Tehran ultimately intends to produce and install centrifuges “up to the numbers envisaged” for the commercial facility, which is more than 50,000, according to the IAEA. Additionally, Iranian officials have informally offered to limit the country’s centrifuge facility to a “few hundred” centrifuges, a State Department official confirmed June 24. The official did not know when they made this offer. Washington continues to support the negotiations, but U.S. officials have recently begun demanding that Iran dismantle its nuclear fuel facilities, a requirement the Europeans have not publicly articulated. However, European diplomats have privately said that dismantlement of the relevant facilities would logically follow an Iranian decision to halt enrichment. IAEA Investigation IAEA Deputy Director Pierre Goldschmidt briefed the agency’s board June 16 about the ongoing investigation. He said that the probe has raised further questions about Iran’s nuclear program and cooperation but he did not reveal any previously unknown nuclear activities. The IAEA continues to investigate Iran’s efforts to obtain P-1 gas-centrifuge technology. Goldschmidt stated that Iran must resolve some discrepancies in its account of these efforts so that the agency can determine whether Iran has failed to disclose any “enrichment design, technology, or components.” (See ACT, April 2005.) For example, Iran has told the IAEA that it received offers for centrifuge designs and components from foreign “intermediaries” in 1987 and “around 1994,” Goldschmidt said. Iran claims that only a single, handwritten document exists regarding the 1987 offer and also asserts that no government officials had contact with the intermediaries during the intervening years. The agency has not identified these “intermediaries” but has previously revealed that Iran received its centrifuge materials from a clandestine supply network run by former Pakistani official Abdul Qadeer Khan. U.S. Ambassador Jackie Sanders suggested in a statement to the board that another undisclosed entity in Iran may have received these components to conduct enrichment work. The IAEA has also found additional inconsistencies in Tehran’s account of two shipments of centrifuge components and designs it received during the mid-1990s. According to Goldschmidt, both the first shipment and related meetings with the intermediary occurred earlier than Iran had initially claimed. The agency is continuing to investigate the matter. The IAEA has also been investigating Iran’s work on a more advanced P-2 centrifuge, but Tehran has not provided any new information about that program, Goldschmidt stated. The agency is concerned that Iran has conducted undisclosed work on that program. However, the IAEA could make progress on its investigation of enriched uranium particles found in Iranian facilities. According to Goldschmidt, Pakistan provided the agency with “a number of centrifuge components” in late May. Environmental sampling of these components, which will take about two months to complete, could help the IAEA determine the particles’ origin, he said. Iran has admitted to producing uranium with very low proportions of uranium-235, but IAEA inspectors have found particles enriched to much higher levels. ElBaradei has previously reported that the IAEA’s evidence “on balance” supports Iran’s claim that the particles came from imported centrifuge components. IAEA inspectors have also taken samples from several locations in Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates. Other Concerns The IAEA has determined that Iran provided inaccurate information to the agency concerning the dates of its plutonium-separation experiments. Iran first said that it completed this work in 1993 but has now admitted continuing experiments until 1998. The agency is still investigating the matter. Separating plutonium from spent nuclear reactor fuel is another method of obtaining fissile material. Goldschmidt also expressed concern about “complex arrangements” concerning Iran’s Gchine uranium mine. Specifically, the agency is investigating why Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization suspended work on the mine between 1994 until 2000 to work on a “much less promising” deposit of uranium ore at another location. Sanders asserted that Iran “went to great lengths to conceal” the mine until the IAEA asked about it in 2004. Both the State Department official and a European diplomat said that Iran’s military or an affiliated organization may have begun working at the mine in an effort to obtain an independent uranium source. The European diplomat cautioned, however, that “politics” may explain Iran’s selection of the other site. ElBaradei said that Iran has allowed agency inspectors access to nuclear facilities and materials covered by Tehran’s IAEA safeguards agreement and additional protocol. Iran has signed but not ratified an additional protocol, which augments the IAEA’s authority to uncover secret nuclear activities. But the agency has had greater problems attempting to conduct further inspections at two sites where Iran is suspected of having performed either nuclear weapons or nuclear weapons-related work. Although agency inspectors have previously visited those sites, Iran has not allowed them to visit one for several months and the other for about a year. Arrangements for visiting the site are still under discussion, ElBaradei told the board. Naseri indicated that Iran may allow the IAEA access to the sites, Agence France Presse reported June 15. Because these sites are not safeguarded, the IAEA has limited authority to visit them without evidence that Tehran is conducting nuclear activities there. Missile Engine Tested Iranian Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani said May 31 that Iran had successfully tested a solid-fuel missile engine for its medium-range Shahab-3 ballistic missile, Agence France Presse reported. He did not say when the test was conducted. Shamkhani explained that the new engine would increase the missile’s accuracy and allow for long-term storage of fueled missiles. Most liquid fuels must be placed in a missile shortly before it is to be launched. Solid-fuel missiles are also more mobile and can be deployed more quickly. Uzi Rubin, a former top Israeli missile defense official, speculated that Iran may be attempting to add another stage to the Shahab-3 in order to increase its range, Jane’s Defense Weekly reported June 8. The United States has long expressed concern about Iran’s ballistic missile program. U.S. intelligence estimates the range of the Shahab-3, which is Iran’s most advanced, flight-proven missile, to be 1,300 kilometers. But Rafsanjani claimed last October that Iran has a missile with a 2,000-kilometer range. It is unclear whether this 2,000-kilometer range missile is an improved Shahab-3 or a new missile. -------- pacific Legacy of Pacific nuclear testing leaves scar on Pacific AUCKLAND (AFP) Jul 08, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/050708030733.46roqkd3.html A decade after the last nuclear test was held in the Pacific, islanders are still living with the legacy of hundreds of atmospheric and underground tests while fighting for compensation and recognition of radiation-related health problems. Hundreds of nuclear tests were conducted in the Pacific Islands by the US, France and Britain between 1946 and 1996. In the central Pacific the US conducted more than 100 tests, 67 of them at Bikini and Enewetak atolls in the Marshall Islands, a group of atolls about halfway between Australian and Hawaii and home to 55,000 people. Bikini, Enewetak and the nearby Rongelap atolls had to be evacuated due to the massive fallout from the tests and the Bikini and Rongolap islanders are yet to permanently return home. France started its Pacific testing program in 1966, holding 193 tests at Mururoa and nearby Fangataufa atolls in French Polynesia. The first 41 were atmospheric but testing was moved underground in 1975 in the face of loud protests from throughout the region. A total of 152 underground tests were held before testing stopped altogether in 1996. The biggest problems so far have arisen in the Marshall Islands where the atmospheric nuclear tests by the US were "dirtier and much bigger" than the French tests, according to journalist and author David Robie, who has written extensively about the legacy of nuclear testing in the Pacific. The Marshall Islands Nuclear Claims Tribunal, set up with the agreement of the US to hear claims relating to the testing, says the Marshall Islands tests comprised only 14 percent of all US nuclear tests but accounted for 80 percent of the nuclear yield or fallout of all US atmospheric tests. In 1954, the infamous Bravo test -- a bomb 1,000 times more powerful than the one which devastated Hiroshima at the end of World War II -- caused massive contamination. Test scientists underestimated its size and a change in wind direction caused fallout to quickly reach the inhabited Rongelap and Utrik atolls as well as a nearby Japanese fishing boat. Fine, white radioactive ash fell on unprotected residents of Rongelap, around 160 km (100 miles) from the test site at Bikini. The islanders rapidly developed symptoms of radiation sickness including nausea, vomiting and burning of the skin, eyes and mouth. They were evacuated two days after the test but returned in 1957. They left again in 1985 due to continuing fears about the effects of the nuclear contamination and continuing health problems, including a high incidence of thyroid cancers and birth defects. Robie was on board the Rainbow Warrior in 1985 when it evacuated over 300 people and their belongings from Rongelap atoll to Mejato Island 180 kilometres (about 112 miles) away. -- More than 500 cancers caused says US institute -- The legacy continues and hearings started in the US Congress in May over Marshall Islands claims for more than three billion dollars in compensation for the continuing effects of nuclear testing. The US government provided 270 million dollars compensation to the claims tribunal in an agreement that expired in 2001, but islanders say that level is woefully inadequate based on recent US government studies. The tribunal has also awarded payments for health problems and damage to land but has long since run out of money to pay awards totalling well over one billion dollars. The US government maintains only four atolls -- Bikini, Enewetak, Rongelap and Utrik -- were affected by radiation but Marshall Islands leaders say many other inhabited islands have also suffered. "We're finding people on remote islands with high percentages of cancers," Foreign Minister Gerald Zackios said before the US Congress hearing started. A US National Cancer Institute report issued late last year concludes that US nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands could be expected to directly cause about 530 cancers, more than half of which have yet to appear. This was to be raised as a key piece of evidence by Marshall Island representatives at the hearings. Rayon William, a Rongelap Islander, said she returned home with other islanders when US authorities said it was safe in 1957. But she said the food she ate then was contaminated with radioactivity from the test three years earlier. "I've experienced many illnesses as a result of living in a contaminated island," she said. It was not until after Greenpeace evacuated the Rongelap residents in 1985 that the US Congress funded scientific studies which confirmed islanders' fears that their home atoll was still contaminated. Subsequently Congress funded a 45 million dollar trust fund that is now paying for a clean up and resettlement program. Bikini and Rongelap are still to see the permanent return of their islanders but ironically divers have returned to both for the pristine sea life, which has flourished in the absence of humans. The impact of the French testing in French Polynesia has been difficult to ascertain with little information released by the French authorities. The test sites at Mururoa and Fangataufa were 100 kilometres (62 miles) from the nearest inhabited atoll of Tureia and 1,200 kilometres (750 miles) from French Polynesia's capital in Tahiti. Inhabitants of the Gambier islands in the southeast corner of French Polynesia called in May for access to defence ministry files on the impact on their health of 30 years of French nuclear tests on Pacific atolls. Roland Oldham is president of the "Mururoa e Tatou" (Mururoa and Us) association of some 5,000 Polynesians who worked on the two nuclear sites in Polynesia between 1966 and 1996. He says reports stamped "Secret" from 1966 mentioned considerable radioactive fallout on the inhabited islands and atolls close to Mururoa, in particular on the island of Mangareva in the Gambier archipelago. The French defence ministry in May described as "baseless" allegations by two French dailies that the army knowingly exposed the people of French Polynesia to heightened risks during nuclear tests. "The conditions under which the people of French Polynesia were protected at the time of the atmospheric nuclear tests were strictly the same as those applied to military personnel conducting the tests," defence ministry spokesman Jean-Francois Bureau said. ---- Twenty years on, specter of Rainbow Warrior still haunts France PARIS (AFP) Jul 08, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/050708042806.n1kb7emy.html Twenty years after two of its secret agents blew up the Rainbow Warrior in New Zealand, France is still haunted by the bombing of the Greenpeace vessel, which forever tarnished its image in the South Pacific. The sinking of the 40-metre former trawler in Auckland harbor on the night of July 10, 1985 still ranks as one of the biggest political and diplomatic scandals of the reign of the late president Francois Mitterrand. The explosion inadvertently killed a Portuguese photographer on board the ship and earned France a reputation as an arrogant nuclear power prepared to go to any lengths to defend its interests. "The death of the photographer, Fernando Pereira, was the gravest failure of the operation. His death continues to weigh on me," the head of France's DGSE foreign intelligence service at the time, Pierre Lacoste, told AFP. Lacoste, today aged 81, was in charge of Operation Satanic, which was aimed at neutralizing the Rainbow Warrior, which was to participate in protests against French nuclear testing on the Pacific atoll of Muraroa. The former DGSE chief now says that the operation -- which involved the planting of two mines aboard the Greenpeace ship -- was organized too hastily and was "far too complicated for us not to end up with any victims". "The fact that the operation failed, and that it sparked such a scandal in a country like New Zealand, shows that the operation was indeed a bad solution to the problem," Lacoste admitted. An inquiry by New Zealand police quickly led to the arrest of two French secret agents, Alain Mafart and Dominique Prieur. Subsequent exposes in the press revealed the extent of France's involvement in the incident. Paris initially denied any responsibility for the bombing, and an administrative inquiry exonerated both the government and the DGSE. Two months later, in a spectacular turn of events, then Socialist prime minister Laurent Fabius revealed the "cruel truth". "DGSE agents were responsible for the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior" and "they acted on orders," Fabius said, adding that the government had hidden the truth from investigators. Mitterrand's government was rocked by the scandal -- defense minister Charles Hernu was forced to resign, Lacoste was replaced, and the two agents were sentenced to 10 years in a New Zealand prison on manslaughter charges. After tough negotiations with New Zealand, the pair was later transferred to a French base in the South Pacific, before being repatriated in 1988. No one else was ever convicted in connection with the bombing. France paid seven million dollars in compensation to New Zealand, and eight million dollars to Greenpeace, a sum which allowed the environmental pressure group to fit out the Rainbow Warrior II. The new Greenpeace ship planned to lead a new round of protests when French nuclear testing resumed in 1995, but this time around, the French navy -- under close watch by the world's media -- kept protestors out of the testing zone. In 1996, one year after French President Jacques Chirac took office, Paris ended its nuclear testing program in the Pacific, which had long soured its relations with New Zealand, Australia and other Pacific nations. Since then, France has worked hard to regain its standing with its Pacific partners, but there is still work to be done. One question remains: exactly how much did Mitterrand know about Operation Satanic, and did he give the DGSE the green light to bomb the Rainbow Warrior? Lacoste says yes. "A few days later, in July 1985, after the 'accident' and the arrests (of the two agents), a close aide to Francois Mitterrand told me, 'The president told me that if it went poorly, Hernu would go and Lacoste would go.' "He didn't have any illusions about what was going on." -------- russia Russia to Complete Tests on New Sea-Launched Ballistic Missile in 2006 Created: 08.07.2005 MosNews http://mosnews.com/news/2005/07/08/bulavamissile.shtml Russia plans to complete its experiment on the new Bulava intercontinental ballistic missile system by the end of 2006, the Russian navy’s commander-in-chief, Vladimir Kuroyedov, was quoted by Itar-Tass as saying. The research and manufacture of the new missile have been going on as scheduled, and only after the process is 70 percent completed can the related departments decide when to hand the missile over to the navy and other troops, Kuroyedov reported. The solid-fuel Bulava missile, which is under a three-year testing program, is capable of carrying up to 10 individually guided nuclear warheads, with a range of up to 8,000 kilometers. The Bulava (SS-NX-30) is the submarine-launched version of Russia’s most advanced missile, the Topol-M (SS-27) solid fuel ICBM. The SS-NX-30 is a derivative of the SS-27, except for a slight decrease in range due to conversions in the design for submarine launch. The SS-27 is 21.9 meters long, far too large to fit in a typical submarine. The largest previously deployed Russian SLBM was the R-39 / SS-N-20 STURGEON, which was 16 meters long. The Bulava will have a range of no less than 8,000 kilometers, and reportedly features a 550 kT yield nuclear warhead. ---- Russia possible partner to build 20 nuclear power stations in Iran: deputy MOSCOW (AFP) Jul 08, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/050708140136.btr7t18z.html Russia is a likely partner in a plan envisaging construction of 20 nuclear power stations in Iran, a senior member of Iran's parliament said Friday. "A plan has been approved in parliament obliging the government to study the possibility of building 20 nuclear power stations ... Various countries, including Russia, can participate and we hope Russia will continue to cooperate with us on this question," Kazem Jalali, head of the Iranian parliament's foreign affairs committee, said. Jalali was speaking during a visit by an Iranian delegation to the Russian capital aimed at developing economic ties between the two countries. Russia is constructing Iran's first nuclear reactor at Bushehr, part of a technological cooperation agreement with Tehran in 2002 that opened the way for construction of up to five reactors over the coming 10 years. Both the United States and Israel have objected to the building of the Bushehr reactor, which could be turned on next year, as they claim Iran is secretly trying to develop nuclear weapons and that having such a facility will be a proliferation risk. ---- U.S.-Russia Nuclear Working Group Reveals Plans Global Security Newswire Friday, July 8, 2005 http://www.nti.org/d_newswire/issues/2005_7_8.html The U.S.-Russia nuclear security working group has issued its first progress report, the White House announced in a June 30 press statement (see GSN, July 1). The U.S.-Russia Senior Interagency Working Group on Nuclear Security Cooperation, established in February and co-chaired by Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman and Federal Atomic Energy Agency Director Alexander Rumyantsev, has agreed to: — Prioritize the schedule for repatriating highly enriched uranium from U.S.- and Russian-designed research reactors in other countries; — Produce a plan for security upgrades at Russian facilities; — Schedule a series of bilateral workshops in September; and — Conduct a tabletop nuclear emergency response exercise in October. The group is expected to report again in December, according to the statement (White House release, June 30). -------- security Georgia reports 4 new nuclear smuggling attempts 08 Jul 2005 07:20:58 GMT Reuters By Margarita Antidze http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L07499128.htm TBILISI, July 8 (Reuters) - Georgia has foiled at least four attempts to smuggle highly enriched uranium out of the former Soviet country over the last two years, a senior nuclear official said. "There were four attempts at smuggling highly enriched uranium (HEU) via Georgia during the last two years," Soso Kakushadze, head of Georgia's Nuclear and Radiation Safety Department at Georgia's Ministry of Environment, told Reuters. "In all these cases, Georgian security officials prevented attempts to smuggle HEU through Georgia to other countries. The HEU had been brought to Georgia from abroad," he said on Thursday. When enriched to low levels, uranium can be used in nuclear power plants to generate electricity. But when enriched to very high levels it can be used in atomic weapons. Kakushadze did not say from what countries the HEU had been brought or whether the uranium seized was weapons grade. According to the U.N. nuclear watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the last confirmed case of illicit trafficking of HEU was in July 2001 in Paris, where three people were looking for buyers for half a gram of weapons-grade HEU. Prior to the newly reported incidents, the last smuggling attempt Georgia reported was in September 2000 and involved a small amount of plutonium, which can also be used in weapons if it is pure enough. In Vienna, a Western diplomat close to the IAEA, said agency officials only learned about the new incidents during a recent inspection trip to Georgia. The diplomat said the news was disturbing because they could indicate there is an active black market for HEU. "It's unclear why the Georgians waited so long to tell the IAEA," said the diplomat on condition of anonymity. Kakushadze said Georgia did not want to report the HEU seizures before as officials were investigating these cases. Nuclear experts say countries that might be secretly developing nuclear weapons or militant groups would be eager to buy up HEU. They also say that the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union opened the door to rampant nuclear proliferation, due to poor security of many stockpiles of atomic material. QUESTIONS ABOUT ABKHAZIA An IAEA team arrived in Georgia last month to try to assess the status of Georgia's nuclear material. Due to security fears, the IAEA experts did not to go to the breakaway region of Abkhazia, though Vienna diplomats say they would like to go there as soon as possible. Speaking on condition of anonymity, several IAEA officials said there were questions about whether some 9 kg (20 lb) of plutonium might have gone missing from a nuclear institute in Abkhazia. However, one IAEA diplomat said this week any such plutonium may have come from Soviet nuclear generators that use plutonium to produce heat and electricity in remote locations. If the plutonium comes from such a generator, it would not be pure enough to use in atomic weapons and would not represent a significant health hazard, the diplomat said. "But it's good to be sure," the diplomat said, adding that the IAEA wanted to account for all potentially lost, missing or stolen nuclear materials in Georgia and other ex-Soviet states. (Additional reporting by Louis Charbonneau in Vienna) ---- DoE Seeks Star Trek Phasers For A-Plants US scientists have unveiled details of a project that aims to develop Star Trek-style ray guns that could keep "security adversaries" out of DoE nuclear sites. by Martin Sieff Washington (UPI) Jul 08, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/news/terrorwar-05zk.html The Department of Energy is turning to old Star Trek phasers to protect its 103 civilian nuclear plants. Energy weapons capable of harmlessly stunning intruders are being developed and should be in general use by 2008. But many experts warn they will be inadequate and unnecessary for the real security dangers nuclear plant guards would face. U. S scientists have unveiled details of a project that aims to develop Star Trek-style ray guns that could keep "security adversaries" out of DoE nuclear sites, the vnu.com web-site in the Netherlands reported this week. The DoE's Office of Security and Safety Performance Assurance together with the Department of Defense, is "exploring the potential" of directed-energy weapons based on millimeter-wave rays, vnu.com said. The report comes amid increasing fears that the 103 civilian nuclear power stations in the United States and the Department of Energy's other nuclear facilities are insufficiently guarded. A recent in-depth investigation by Time magazine found that there are only 8,000 full-time guards employed to cover all the nuclear power plants in America, giving an average of only 80 per power plant, of whom not more than 60 and probably even less would be on duty on any given shift. The magazine also reported that the guard towers around the plants are called "iron coffins" by the guards who man them and that they could not repel even a .50-caliber rifle bullet. The appeal of the weapon is that it would permit security guards in nuclear power stations and other facilities to fire more freely against assailants who had penetrated into the plant without having to worry that stray bullets would smash crucial pieces of machinery. Terrorists who had penetrated into such installations would not be worried about inflicting such damage and would therefore have the potential advantage in any shoot-out. The proposed new weapons being developed have been designated Active Denial Technology (ADT). And they are an emerging class of non-lethal weaponry using 95GHz millimeter-wave directed energy, vnu.com said. According to the DoE, the technology is capable of rapidly heating human skin to a pain level that has been demonstrated as "very effective at repelling people" without apparently burning the skin or causing other secondary effects. ADT emits a 95GHz non-ionizing electromagnetic beam of energy that penetrates approximately 1/64 of an inch into human skin tissue, where nerve receptors are concentrated. Within seconds, the beam will heat the exposed skin tissue to a level where intolerable pain is experienced and natural defense mechanisms take over. This intense heating sensation stops only if the individual moves out of the beam's path or the beam is turned of, vnu.com said. The sensation caused by the system has been described by test subjects as feeling like touching a hot frying pan or the intense radiant heat from a fire. Burn injury is prevented by limiting the beam's intensity and duration, the web-site said. Sandia National Laboratories, a Nuclear Security Administration lab, will investigate how the technology could be used on adversaries by developing a small ADT system to protect U.S. nuclear sites. However, the project still faces many technical challenges, so Sandia has launched partnerships with the Raytheon Corporation and the Air Force Research Laboratory as both organizations have significant experience with earlier ADT developments, vnu.com said. The idea of developing energy-directed hand-weapons to be able to inflict non-lethal and non-destructive damage in guarding technologically complex installations is not a new one. In the mid 1990s the US Air Force funded development of an ADT prototype which resulted in several ongoing projects, such as the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate's Vehicle Mounted Active Denial System Force Transformation's project Sheriff program, vnu.com said. In 2004, Sandia conducted simulations of how the smaller ADT system might be used and how it would perform against "adversary attack scenarios" within a nuclear facility using the Joint Conflict and Tactical Simulation software modeling tool. "Recently there has been significant progress with this project," said Willy Morse, Sandia's principal investigator told vnu.com. "On 5 May we took acceptance of a prototype system built by Raytheon's Advanced Electromagnetic Technologies center in partnership with CPI and Malibu Research. Initial characterization and performance tests were completed at the end of May." The web-site said that a second-generation small-size ADT system is expected to be fielded at several DoE nuclear facilities as early as 2008. The Department of Defense has stated that it has successfully experimented with millimeter wave "human effectiveness testing" since 2001, and that it has demonstrated ADT is both effective and safe without any long-term effects. The effects of the new technology promise to be far-reaching. It could offer reliable non-lethal force weapons that would prove invaluable in prison security, riot control and even to beat cops. But although the weapons could prove a valuable adjunct to guards in nuclear and other power-generating installations, they would solve only a fraction of the challenges that federal agencies charged with protecting such institutions face. Time magazine reported that many security experts believe U.S. nuclear power stations currently lack the number of guards, fire-power and defensive systems to repel determined attempts to storm them and wreck their operating systems in order to provoke catastrophic core meltdowns by as few as 19 or 20 terrorists. Such attempts are certainly conceptually feasible: That was the size of the group that al-Qaida's Mohammed Atta led when they highjacked the airliners that crashed into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center and into the Pentagon killing 2,800 people on Sept. 11, 2001. -------- terrorism Mass Transit “Ideal Target” for Use of Unconventional Weapons, U.S. Official Says Global Security Newswire Friday, July 8, 2005 http://www.nti.org/d_newswire/issues/2005_7_8.html#EAD45FCE Mass transit is an “ideal target” for terrorists to use conventional weapons or weapons of mass destruction, the head of the U.S. National Transportation Security Center said yesterday following the bombings in London (see GSN, July 7). “First, it’s public, so there’s ease of access,” said center Director Brian Jenkins. “Second, these are congregations of strangers that guarantees attackers anonymity. And third, it’s concentrations of people in a contained environment, and that enhances the effects of explosives as well as unconventional weapons. It guarantees them high body counts.” “To say we’re going to seal it off against terrorism cannot be done,” he told the Washington Post. Authorities in the Washington, D.C. area sharply increased patrols of mass transit systems following the London bombings, the Post reported (Layton/Ginsberg, Washington Post, July 8). Other cities also took additional measures. Authorities are monitoring the air and water supply in New York City for biological and chemical agents, the Post reported today. In addition, New York City yesterday morning doubled the number of police officers assigned to patrol its transit systems. A police officer was assigned to every train, with a total of 6,000 officers patrolling the system, according to the Post (Goo/Eggen, Washington Post, July 8). New York Senator Charles Schumer (D) yesterday said he planned to seek a quadrupling of the $100 million in federal funding designated in a homeland security spending bill for mass transit and rail security, the Associated Press reported. “It seems clear mass transit is the terrorists’ target of choice,” he said. “The bottom line is, we are not doing enough to protect mass transit.” He also said $50 million of the homeland security funds should be allocated for developing explosive and WMD detection devices for subways (Sam Dolnick, Associated Press/1010wins.com, July 7). Walk-through explosive detection portals are now being tested at some U.S. airports, but such screening procedures are unlikely to be used in subways or other mass transit systems, Inside Bay Area reported today. While airline security screening is already a fairly time-consuming process, “imagine the line at a subway entrance,” said Susanne Gordon, a Sandia National Laboratory physicist who works on chemical and biological weapons detection. In addition, while explosives leave detectable traces, chemical and biological weapons are more difficult to uncover, she said (William Brand, Inside Bay Area, July 8). One expert said mass transit security issues could not be solved quickly, AP reported. “Very little technology can be applied in this area in an effective way,” said security consultant Rafi Ron (Associated Press/USA Today, July 8). Elsewhere, Japan today responded to the London bombings by boosting security at its nuclear plants, among other measures, AP reported (Mari Yamaguchi, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, July 8). -------- treaties Nonproliferation Sees Little Headway at G-8 Summit By Greg Webb Global Security Newswire Friday, July 8, 2005 http://www.nti.org/d_newswire/issues/2005_7_8.html EDINBURGH, Scotland — Leaders of the Group of Eight nations ended their Scottish summit today without agreeing to any new WMD nonproliferation measures. The annual meeting closed earlier than scheduled to allow British Prime Minister Tony Blair to return to London where multiple terrorist bombs yesterday killed more than 50 people and injured several hundred more (see GSN, July 7). In a joint statement issued this afternoon at the summit site in Gleneagles, the leaders said they supported a wide range of existing efforts to curb the spread of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and to prevent terrorists from acquiring such materials. “The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their delivery means, together with international terrorism, remain the pre-eminent threats to international peace and security. The threat of the use of WMD by terrorists calls for redoubled efforts,” says the statement. The leaders praised international agreements banning or restricting the possession of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, although those pacts have suffered political damage in recent years (see GSN, May 31; GSN, Dec. 13, 2004). In addition, their statement praises newer efforts such as the U.S.-led Proliferation Security Initiative — under which nations have agreed to intercept shipments of suspected WMD cargo — and a U.N. Security Council resolution on fighting terrorism (see GSN, Dec. 10, 2004). The statement also supports a U.S. push to restrict non-nuclear nations from developing the technology to produce nuclear fuel, a capability that could also be used to produce nuclear weapons. None of these endorsements, however, represent any new initiatives, and leaders mentioned none of the initiatives during the summit or in briefings so far today. Furthermore, no breakthrough was made toward resolving a key U.S.-Russian dispute over the liability protections for U.S. personnel and contractors working to dismantle and secure WMD materials in Russia. That disagreement has already led to the suspension of projects to redirect Russian nuclear weapon development sites toward peaceful activities and to dispose of Russian weapon-grade plutonium. Some nonproliferation experts said the inaction was regrettable, particularly in light of yesterday's terror. “The fact that nonproliferation issues were not front and center was a missed opportunity that is underscored by the London bombings,” said Michele Flournoy, a senior adviser to the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “As tragic as the bombings were, it is quite plausible to envision a future attack that would be worse because it involved weapons of mass destruction.” “If we really believe that threat [of terrorists acquiring weapons of mass destruction], then we have to keep placing that at the top of the agenda,” she said. Terrorist and nonproliferation issues had been given a lower profile at this summit than at the past three G-8 sessions. Meeting host Blair had sought major agreements on African aid and climate change, and he was pleased to announce a doubling of international aid to Africa today. Changing the meeting's painstakingly developed focus would have been difficult, said another expert, but should have been attempted after the bombings. “You would think if anything would galvanize the G-8 it would be a terrorist attack during the summit. We can only hope we don't look back at this as one of the greatest missed opportunities,” said Jon Wolfsthal, deputy director of the Carnegie Endowment's Nonproliferation Project. “Terrorism experts have long been warning about attacks on transportation lines. They have also been warning that there will be WMD strikes and the G-8 has not heeded their warnings. It has not done enough to prevent those predictions from coming true,” he added. ---- U.N. Nuclear Agency Expands Treaty to Fight Threats Posed by Terrorism 07/08/2005 (AP) http://www1.wsvn.com/news/articles/world/MIA2957/ http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-07-08-un-nuke-agency_x.htm VIENNA, Austria -- An 89-nation conference on Friday approved broadening a treaty meant to keep nuclear material from the hands of terrorists, opening the way for states to ratify the agreement. Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, called the development an "important step toward greater nuclear security by combating, preventing, and ultimately punishing those who would engage in nuclear theft, sabotage and even terrorism." ElBaradei, whose Vienna-based agency acts as the U.N. nuclear nonproliferation watchdog, said the agreement reached in the Austrian capital over five days demonstrates "a global commitment to remedy weaknesses in our nuclear security regime." The Convention of the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material originally obligated the 112 countries that have accepted it to protect nuclear material during international transport. The amended version expands such protection to materials at nuclear facilities, in domestic storage and during domestic transport or use. An IAEA statement said the revamped treaty also will provide for expanded international cooperation for "rapid measures to locate and recover stolen or smuggled nuclear material, mitigate any radiological consequences of sabotage, and prevent and combat related offenses." Conference approval, however, is only the first step. The amended treaty enters into force only after ratification by at least two-thirds of the 112 countries abiding by it -- a process expected to take years. Agreement was reached just a day after the London bombings. but the push to shield nuclear facilities gained urgency after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, amid new security concerns and nightmare scenarios of fuel-laden jumbo jets smashing into an atomic power plants. "We can't go on with an old instrument in a new world," the conference chairman, Alec Jean Baer of Switzerland, said after the opening session Monday. The existing treaty was drawn up in Vienna and New York in 1980, long before the threat of terrorist nuclear attacks had become a pressing fear. Though experts have long worried nuclear plants and materials could be targeted by terrorists, creating new rules to protect them from such attacks has taken time because the efforts cost money and require expertise some countries don't have. ---- Nuclear Pact Countries Toughen Atomic Rules By REUTERS July 8, 2005 Filed at 7:14 a.m. ET http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-nuclear-security.html?oref=login&pagewanted=print VIENNA (Reuters) - Nearly 90 countries including the world's largest nuclear powers agreed on Friday to close loopholes in an international pact on the protection of atomic materials against terrorists and saboteurs. The United Nations nuclear watchdog said 89 countries at a conference in Vienna adopted changes to a 1979 treaty that will require states to boost security at nuclear sites and cooperate more to track down stolen or smuggled atomic materials. A key change extends the convention's existing rules for securing international shipments to cover nuclear materials being shipped or stored within a country, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in a statement. ``This new and stronger treaty is an important step toward greater nuclear security by combating, preventing, and ultimately punishing those who would engage in nuclear theft, sabotage or even terrorism,'' IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei said. The changes to the 1979 Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material (CPPNM) were proposed by the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan and 20 European states and backed by Russia and China. According to the IAEA's Web site, among the countries not party to the CPPNM are Iran, Georgia and Kazakhstan -- all states that at some time represented significant nuclear security threats, according to non-proliferation analysts. The amendments require signatories to protect nuclear material by adopting proper legislation, ensuring that a competent regulatory body is chosen and taking any other appropriate measures. The IAEA said the new rules will come into effect once they have been ratified by two-thirds of the 112 states that are parties to the original convention, a process that is expected to take several years. ---- Experts tighten rules on nuclear use to avert terrorism risk VIENNA (AFP) Jul 08, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/050708131954.rithoc8o.html In a measure aimed at reducing the risk of nuclear terrorism, experts from 89 nations agreed here Friday to tighten restrictions on fissile material that could be used for making atomic devices. The delegates tightened aspects of the 1980 Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material to match "the current level of the threats posed by nuclear terrorism," according to the chairman of the Vienna conference, Alec Blair. The director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, said the strengthening of the convention would lead to greater security by "combating, preventing and ultimately punishing those would would engage in nuclear theft, sabotage or even terrorism." The amended convention will make it "legally binding" on states to protect all nuclear facilities and materials, whether in use, storage or transport. The original convention dealt with fissile materials only during international transportation. The communique said the amended agreement would "provide for expanded cooperation between and among states regarding rapid measures to locate and recover stolen or smuggled nuclear material, mitigate any radiological consequences of sabotage, prevent and combat related offenses." Of the 112 countries that signed the original convention, two thirds will have to ratify the revision before it can come into effect, and that could take several years. However, Anita Nilsson, director of the IAEA office of nuclear security, said the agency already is helping several countries put into effect the kind of safety measures called for in the upgraded convention. -------- u.s. nuc facilities -------- arkansas Pine Bluff Facility to Test WMD Protective Gear Global Security Newswire Friday, July 8, 2005 http://www.nti.org/d_newswire/issues/2005_7_8.html The U.S. Army’s Pine Bluff Arsenal in Arkansas opened a new $18 million dollar facility yesterday to test protective equipment that would be used by military personnel in a chemical or biological attack, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, June 24). Representative Vic Snyder (D-Ark.) said planning for the Quality Evaluation Facility began in 1987. Snyder said money for the facility, appropriated by Congress after several attempts to secure funding, came from the Defense Department. “We need to stay focused on what is going on and part of that is facilities like this,” Snyder said. An older, smaller testing facility is now home to 14 scientists. Transfer to the new facility is set to take place over the next two months, said Col. Thomas Woloszyn. “It will give us a significant increase in the ability to meet the demands of the war fighter,” he said. The new facility is expected to house 40 scientists from the private and public sectors. Battelle Memorial Institute of Columbus, Ohio, a firm specializing in biological, chemical, radiological and nuclear research has already been promised space at the test site, AP reported (Carolyn Rousseau, Associated Press, July 7). -------- connecticut Regulators tell Millstone owners to improve emergency assessments (Waterford-AP, July 8, 2005 5:40 AM) http://www.wtnh.com/Global/story.asp?S=3569785&nav=3YeXbuNV Federal regulators have told Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, owner of Millstone Power Station, to improve the way it assesses emergencies like the unplanned shut-down that occurred on April 17th. A filament of metal called a "tin whisker" on a computer circuit card triggered an accidental shut-down of the Unit Three reactor. Some mechanical malfunctions and an alert followed. The alert overstated the seriousness of the shut-down. The Day of New London reports that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission wants the company to improve the way supervisors and workers operate the plant during emergencies and keep equipment in more reliable condition. A spokesman for Dominion says software used to simulate conditions has been corrected and workers and supervisors at Unit Three have been retrained under new guidelines. Dominion says it has replaced faulty circuit cards and shared information with other reactor owners. -------- idaho Don't be too hard on INL naysayers Idaho State Journal, July 8, 2005 Editorial http://www.journalnet.com/articles/2005/07/08/opinion/opinion01.txt Critics nagging the federal Department of Energy over its plans to revive plutonium production at the Idaho National Laboratory are growing increasingly shrill, so much so that vocal contrarian Peter Rickards was shushed at a public meeting on the plutonium topic last week in Idaho Falls by others present in the audience. While the constant complaining can grow tiresome, these critics serve a purpose. If nothing else, they've managed to bring to the fore issues of safety and secrecy surrounding the government's plan to begin making plutonium-238 in our own backyard. Given the political climate of the day, it's certainly necessary for our government to keep some of the details of this program, and plans for consolidating plutonium production in Idaho, under wraps. We don't have to like it, but we ought to at least understand the need for it. The government, on the other hand, owes it to our community to ensure the production process is safe. On the whole, given the constant reassurances that P-228 production in Idaho will be a carefully monitored endeavor governed by strict safety and environmental regulations, the program seems to be one that's beneficial to our area's economy - certainly the new production facility will provide high-paying jobs, and the DOE's consolidation of plutonium production to the INL certainly gives the site a longer lifespan. This, coupled with provisions in the new energy bill that fund research into the construction of a next-generation nuclear reactor at the site, give the INL even more long-term stability. Nuclear power, like it or not, is, on the whole, cleaner and more efficient than power generated from fossil fuels. The only way to continue improving the safety and efficiency of nuclear power is to move forward with its research. That the INL is at the forefront of this effort is remarkable. That our area will benefit from this effort is our good fortune. That said, it wouldn't hurt the average eastern Idahoan to take a critical look now and then at the site and how it's operated. There have been mistakes in the past, both due to negligence and ignorance. It's up to us as a community to hold the DOE, the INL and the site's contractors accountable for public and environmental safety. Rather than telling a vocal critic to sit down and shut up, it might behoove us to pay some attention to the often valid concerns of the site's naysayers. On the whole, they're reasonable people with reasonable worries. If their nagging and nitpicking results in a safer INL, we've got nothing to complain about. If their criticism results in a greater understanding of the operations at the INL, then we ought to thank them, not shush them. -------- nevada New leader named at Yucca firm By STEVE TETREAULT STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU Friday, July 08, 2005 Las Vegas Review-Journal http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2005/Jul-08-Fri-2005/news/26848861.html WASHINGTON -- Bechtel SAIC, the company operating the Yucca Mountain Project for the federal government, disclosed a change in top leadership Thursday. John Mitchell will leave as president and general manager on Aug. 12, a company spokesman confirmed. He will be succeeded by Ted Feigenbaum, who most recently headed the Maine Yankee Atomic Power Co. In an e-mail to employees this week, Mitchell said he will receive a new assignment from parent company Bechtel National Inc. His departure from the nuclear waste program first was reported by Platts Nuclear Publications, an energy newsletter group. Mitchell's departure was not related to delays that caused the Energy Department to postpone its license application to build a spent nuclear fuel repository at the Nevada site, Bechtel SAIC spokesman Jason Bohne said. Bechtel National customarily moves its managers every two or three years, Bohne said. Mitchell was appointed head of the Yucca Mountain contract in December 2002, when the program shifted focus to preparing a comprehensive license application. "That puts him in the time span to move," Bohne said. "John accomplished what Bechtel wanted to accomplish." Besides heading Maine Yankee, Feigenbaum oversaw operations at the nuclear plant in Seabrook, N.H., from 1992 to 2002. He also held senior positions at the New Hampshire Yankee nuclear utility. Feigenbaum, who was in Las Vegas for meetings this week, was hired because of his experience running nuclear facilities regulated by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Bohne said. The Yucca project is headed into similar waters when its license application is considered by the NRC. -------- new jersey Group urges bolstering NRC relicensing rules Published in the Asbury Park Press 07/8/05 BY NICHOLAS CLUNN, STAFF WRITER http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050708/NEWS/507080359 BRICK — A coalition that wants the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant closed when its operating license expires announced Thursday its intention to petition federal regulators to strengthen the rules under which nuclear plants seek to renew their licenses. The announcement comes as plant owner AmerGen prepares to apply for a 20-year renewal sometime this month. Without a renewal from the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Lacey reactor would likely close in 2009. In the petition, Brick Mayor Joseph C. Scarpelli and leaders from several state environmental advocacy groups ask regulators to increase the number of factors they look at when considering renewal applications. They want the NRC to consider security, emergency evacuation plans and the size of the surrounding population. "The process is flawed, and it must be changed," Scarpelli said during a news conference at Bayside Park on the barrier peninsula. If an attorney for the coalition submits the petition next week as planned, it would become the second such request made to the NRC. Andrew J. Spano, county executive in Westchester County, N.Y., submitted a similar petition in May. Spano has been critical of the Indian Point nuclear power plant, about 24 miles north of New York City. Because it takes regulators at least two years to decide on rule-change petitions and up to 30 months to review renewal applications, an amendment to the rules governing license extensions may come too late to help Oyster Creek's critics. If regulators accept Scarpelli's petition, they would then open a window to accept public comments, a period that would last several months. For instance, regulators will accept comments on Spano's petition through late August, though they received it in May. Both petitions ask regulators considering renewals to apply the same standards they would use in reviewing proposals for new plants. Scarpelli said he did not invite lawmakers or local elected officials to cosign the petition but wanted them to support it. His supporters echoed this hope. "I wish other public officials will step up to join you in this petition," Paula Gotsch, coordinator of Grandmothers, Mothers and More for Energy Safety, told Scarpelli during the press conference. Gotsch joined Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey chapter of the Sierra Club, Dena Mottola, executive director of the New Jersey Public Interest Research Group, and several officials from the New Jersey Environmental Federation in signing the petition. Regulators will consider Spano's petition and take a look at the one Scarpelli and other leaders intend to submit, but the agency as a whole is confident with the rules it has in place, said Neil Sheehan, a commission spokesman. "Our view is that the current license renewal process was developed over a considerable amount of time and it's worked very well," he said. The commission also disagrees with the idea of including emergency planning as a factor when considering renewals. It feels the topic should be reviewed separately and on a regular basis, he said. Nicholas Clunn: (609) 978-4597 or nclunn@app.com WHAT'S NEXT The attorney for an ad-hoc coalition opposed to the relicensing of the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant plans to submit a petition next week to federal regulators requesting they amend rules governing license renewal. Regulators will then decide whether to allow the public to comment on the petition. -------- MILITARY -------- biological weapons National Institutes of Health Decision Delayed on Anthrax Vaccine Testing on Children By David Ruppe Global Security Newswire Friday, July 8, 2005 http://www.nti.org/d_newswire/issues/2005_7_8.html WASHINGTON — A plan to conduct safety tests of two experimental anthrax vaccines on children could proceed, despite the recent removal of any reference to such testing from a notice on the National Institutes of Health Web site (see GSN, June 27). Researchers from the National Institute for Child and Human Development (NICHD) last year proposed including 100 first- and second-graders along with 350 adults in a clinical study assessing the relative safety, safe dosage levels, and side effects of a currently used vaccine and a new one for protection against inhalation anthrax. A NICHD review board approved the study in July 2004, but directed that a decision on whether to include children be deferred until after the adults, ages 18-30, were tested and the results assessed. The study formally began Sept. 8, 2004 and its completion is dependent, in part, upon recruiting volunteers. As of last week, 52 adult patients had been vaccinated using either the focal point of the testing, a genetically engineered anthrax vaccine now under development by NIH, or the controversial Anthrax Vaccine Adsorbed, which is now administered to U.S. military personnel deployed to certain regions of concern (see GSN, July 7). The National Institutes of Health has published advertisements seeking participants for the trials in the Washington, D.C. area, offering compensation totaling $400 for eight clinical visits over the course of a year. Compensation is not unusual and typically covers expenses and time, said Dr. Stephen Kaler, clinical director of the NICHD intramural research program. The institute would obtain parental consent for children to participate, if that component of the study is approved, he said. Web Site Notice Changed Complaints have surfaced in recent weeks that the trial, at least initially, should not include children and that no children should be vaccinated with the older vaccine because of doubts about its safety. “I have grave concern about any intent to proceed with clinical trials with children at this point,” Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) wrote in a July 1 letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt. “Surely considerable information regarding the safety of the new vaccine, as well as about its potential effectiveness, should be obtained in adults long before any consideration is given to providing it to children. And, based on what already is known about the adverse event profile of the older vaccine, it should not be ‘tested’ in children at all,” he added. Critics have also expressed their doubts in U.S. newspapers. “There is almost no risk to these children of being exposed to a form of … anthrax that has been weaponized,” Barbara Loe Fisher of the National Vaccine Information Center told the Kansas City Star. “The benefits are zero and the risk is quite high.” A notice published in 2004 by the NIH Patient Recruitment and Public Liaison Office, which said the trial planned to include 100 children, prompted the criticisms. The institute recently removed that statement from the notice. Kaler said there was a misunderstanding that children were already part of the trial. He said an additional decision by the Institutional Review Board, following the outcome of testing on adults, would be needed before children might be included. Whether children would ultimately be included is an “open question, because it hasn’t been approved,” he said Kaler said some view a perceived benefit from testing the new vaccine on children. “Whether we do this in children is tempered by the feeling of some that children would be at risk in a bioterrorism attack and it would be unfortunate if children weren’t included in the study,” he said. Safety Questions There are uncertainties about the safety of both vaccines. This trial phase is the first human testing for the NIH vaccine, which is still under development, according to Kaler. If the vaccine passes, it could then be subjected to two additional phases of trials involving larger numbers of patients, according to Food and Drug Administration regulations. One phase would evaluate its effectiveness and further evaluate its safety, and the second would seek to confirm its effectiveness, monitor side effects, compare it to commonly used treatments, and collect information that would allow the drug or treatment to be used safely, according to the regulations. After that, the Food and Drug Administration could determine whether to license the vaccine as safe and effective against inhalation anthrax, the method of contraction of foremost concern from biowarfare or terrorism. The entire process apparently could take years. The NIH vaccine is distinct from another genetically engineered anthrax vaccine, under development by the company VaxGen. The Health and Human Services Department in November purchased 75 million doses of that vaccine for $878 million, enough to vaccinate 25 million people against inhalation anthrax, according to the company (see GSN, May 6). The department also awarded the company up to $69 million for, among other things, testing on children and the elderly after the Food and Drug Administration has approved the vaccine, according to Vice President of Public Affairs Paul Laland. The VaxGen vaccine is in its second phase of testing. The older Anthrax Vaccine Adsorbed was licensed in 1970 as safe and effective against anthrax contracted through the skin, the disease form likely to infect textile and farm workers, and veterinarians. The Food and Drug Administration has not yet licensed it effective against inhalation anthrax. Questions recur about its safety, with rare reports of debilitating reactions after vaccination and experts questioning whether there is a link to multisymptom illnesses effecting soldiers after the first Gulf War (see GSN, Nov. 16. 2004). The Defense Department insists the vaccine is as safe as other commonly used vaccines, or safer. “Study after study shows: people vaccinated against anthrax are as healthy as unvaccinated people,” according to a statement on the DOD Web site. It is uncertain how many military and civilian personnel have experienced severe reactions from the existing vaccine. However, of approximately 1.3 million personnel vaccinated against anthrax during 2003 and 2004, hundreds were said to have been treated for “complex” cases following those and other vaccinations at four special vaccine treatment clinics, ranging from muscle and joint weakness and pain to multiple sclerosis (see GSN, May 6). The military since May has been administering the vaccine to select military personnel on a voluntary basis, after a judge found that the treatment could not be required because the Food and Drug Administration had not yet properly licensed it against inhalation anthrax. About half the civilian and military personnel offered the vaccine have refused the shot. A Food and Drug Administration review for that license is under way, which could allow mandatory vaccinations to resume. The new vaccine however should be safer, according to an NIH advertisement for trial volunteers, provided by Kaler. “The vaccine is expected to be as effective as the licensed anthrax vaccine (AVA) but it is purer and should be safer,” it says. ---- U.S. Army to Test Hand-Held Pathogen Detector Global Security Newswire Friday, July 8, 2005 http://www.nti.org/d_newswire/issues/2005_7_8.html U.S. Army scientists next week plan to begin testing at the Dugway Proving Ground in Utah a handheld device that can detect biological agents, KSL TV reported yesterday (see GSN, March 8). The detector, developed by AnzenBio, is capable of identifying a large number of pathogens quickly, according to Chief Executive Officer Gary Crocker. “By simply loading the biosensor chip with a different antibody or assay targeted to a different pathogen, the same basic device can be targeted for the detection of a very wide range of pathogens,” he said. Samples from a bus, train or building could be loaded into the handheld detectors to determine if a pathogen is present, KSL reported. Cocker said the device, which costs less than $2,000, could also be used to detect avian flu, pathogens used against crops or allergens and fungus (KSL TV, July 7). ---- Pennsylvania Postal Site Receives Anthrax Detector Global Security Newswire Friday, July 8, 2005 http://www.nti.org/d_newswire/issues/2005_7_8.html A system capable of detecting anthrax in the mail is being installed at a U.S. Postal Service facility in Bethlehem, Pa., the Express-Times reported yesterday (see GSN, July 5). Postal Service spokeswoman Cathy Yarosky expects the Biohazard Detection System to be installed by July 23 as part of a nationwide effort to protect the mail. Yarosky said she did not know whether the system, designed after the 2001 anthrax attacks, would be installed at other Lehigh Valley postal facilities (Jeff Schogol, Express-Times, July 7). -------- britain Clarke set to rush through emergency arrest powers By Robert Verkaik, Legal Affairs Correspondent Published: 08 July 2005 UK Independent http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/legal/article297645.ece Ministers are expected to rush through measures to arrest and detain suspects accused of acts associated with terrorism as an immediate reaction to yesterday's bombings. A draft Bill outlined in the Queen's Speech in May set out plans to create offences to bring more terror suspects before the courts and is expected to lead to convictions for those accused of acts preparatory to terrorism. -------- nato NATO meets to show solidarity with Britain after attacks BRUSSELS (AFP) Jul 08, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/050708094811.18k69wuf.html Representatives of NATO's 26 member countries met Friday to show their support for Britain, one of the military alliance's founding members, the day after deadly rush-hour bombings in London. Ambassadors at the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation were to mark a minute of silence in support of the victims at the beginning of a meeting of the policy-setting North Atlantic Council Friday morning, officials said. Flags were also flying at half mast in front of the alliance's Brussels headquarters, where security checks had been stepped up, according to an AFP reporter. NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer condemned on Thursday the "appalling attacks" that hit London, calling for "the international community and members of the Alliance to remain united in the fight against terrorism." Terrorist bombs killed at least 37 people Thursday and injured around 700 on London's transport network. -------- us U.S. finally does right by sick soldiers Originally published July 8, 2005 Norwich, CT Bulletin http://www.norwichbulletin.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050708/NEWS01/507080312/1002/NEWS01 With several legal holidays invoking those who have put their lives at risk in defense of their country -- Memorial Day, Veterans Day and, just past, Independence Day -- the United States might seem to be a country with special respect for those who serve and have served in the military. If that appearance came closer to reality, the life of Air Force Maj. Michael W. Donnelly of South Windsor, who died last week at 46, would not have had to be so heroic. As a career F-16 fighter pilot and instructor, Donnelly represented the U.S. military's highest discipline, skill and precision. Indeed, the multi-million-dollar cost of a U.S. jet fighter, by far the best in the world and probably the most important and practical weapon in the country's arsenal, is substantially less than the military's investment in the pilot who flies it. Replacing the machines is a lot easier than replacing pilots. But flying 44 combat missions in the first war against Iraq in 1991 turned out to be the easy part for Donnelly. In early 1996 he fell ill while training pilots at an Air Force base in Texas and months later was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Lou Gehrig's disease, which gradually shuts down the nervous system and paralyzes the body while leaving the mind intact, the cruelest imprisonment. Since he was on active duty when he became ill, Donnelly qualified for medical treatment and disability pay from the Air Force. But many Gulf War veterans seemed to be coming down with ALS and similar illnesses of the nervous system, like multiple sclerosis and Parkinson's disease, and most of them already had left the service and so, in fighting their diseases, were pretty much on their own. The government was not there to help them since no connection between their illnesses and their service in the military had been proven. So Donnelly flew into action a second time. With the help of his extraordinary family, he amassed the evidence that something more than bad luck was afflicting Gulf War veterans. He wrote a book, "Falcon's Cry," and, even as his body deteriorated, campaigned among other veterans, the local and national news media, and the government in support of research into the problem and a change of policy to provide medical and disability benefits to Gulf War veterans with nervous-system diseases. Of course, the government can't be expected to accept and cover every claim that comes its way. It canbe expected to be concerned about claims involving the health of present and former military personnel. Instead, for years the government resisted issues raised by Maj. Donnelly and others, uncooperative with research, and occasionally even contemptuous. But slowly Donnelly and his family got through to responsible people, including members of Congress, one by one, and began opening minds. Hearings were held and studies were commissioned. And in 2001, the U.S. Veterans Affairs Department, admitting the statistical evidence that Gulf War veterans are twice as likely as other people in the military to come down with ALS, changed its policy; henceforth ALS in Gulf War veterans, whenever it occurred, would be considered a service-related disability, and the government would conduct more research on the problem. Principi cited Donnelly In making the announcement, Secretary Anthony Principi cited Donnelly's work. Advocates for disabled veterans said government policy never would have changed without it. A causal link between the Gulf War and nervous system diseases is yet to be discovered. To explain the greater incidence of ALS among those who fought in that war, there is only speculation that it might have something to do with their exposure to certain toxic elements believed to have been disproportionately present in the war zone, like nerve gases, oil smoke, and depleted uranium. More compelling question But the more compelling question may be why Maj. Donnelly's second round of heroism should have been so necessary -- why it should have been so important to prove a link between someone's catastrophic illness and his military service before the government would underwrite the cost of his medical treatment and a decent disability pension, or, indeed, why military service should even have to figure in the matter in the first place. Either a community -- a country -- acknowledges that dealing with such overwhelming troubles is precisely what community is for, or it tells people -- war veterans even -- to fend for themselves, in the often capricious maws of the private insurance and welfare systems. Government delights in bestowing trivial and often unnecessary and unrequested honors upon military veterans -- property tax breaks, vanity license plates, and such -- but, as Maj. Donnelly discovered, the government cannot always be found when veterans and their families are in serious need. If, instead of looking for ways of curtailing the public health and social insurance systems, the government ever again looks for ways of expanding them for people with catastrophic illness, increasing medical insurance and disability and regular pension benefits for those who have served in the military might be a good place to start. They could name such a program for the fighter pilot from South Windsor who was twice a hero. Powell is managing editor of the Journal Inquirer in Manchester. -------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE -------- homeland security / national intelligence Man Sentenced to 19 Years for Anthrax Hoaxes Global Security Newswire Friday, July 8, 2005 http://www.nti.org/d_newswire/issues/2005_7_8.html A Pennsylvania man who sent hundreds of letters with fake anthrax to abortion clinics was sentenced to 19 years in prison yesterday, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Aug. 24, 2004). Clayton Lee Waagner, who believed God told him to kill abortion providers, was convicted of 51 charges in 2003 including extortion and threatening to use a weapon of mass destruction. He was also found guilty of posting threatening messages on an anti-abortion Web site, according to AP. The letters were sent from a Federal Express office in Philadelphia in late 2001, in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks and anthrax mailings. “He wanted to exploit the moment to use the anxiety and panic caused by those other terrorist acts to fuel his own brand of terror,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Barrett (Associated Press/Yahoo!News, July 8). -------- ENERGY PCP - Hydrogen Economy - Time to check the real numbers By Andre Beltempo 4A Mechanical Friday July 8, 2005 The Iron Warrior http://iwarrior.uwaterloo.ca/?module=displaystory&story_id=1960&format=html Firstly, let’s get a couple of things squared away. Hydrogen is NOT a replacement for oil, nor should we treat it as such. Hydrogen is the smallest atom in the universe, and is fairly reactive, so it is not generally found on the Earth in its pure form. Fortunately it’s abundant, so we can find it in many things, such as hydrocarbons and water. Unfortunately, when the time comes to extract that hydrogen back into its pure form, then we need to expend energy to do so. Regardless of how we do it, this step will require an input of energy. This energy input usually is fairly significant. Oil is what is called a ‘primary’ energy source, meaning that we find it in nature, and then we burn it and get energy. Although extraction and distillation steps require energy, bituminous sands and shales aside, more energy is generated from one barrel of oil then is required to extract it. That leaves a plus on the energy balance sheet, and that extra ‘plus’ is what adds energy and hence power into our economy. If it takes more energy to extract the oil than we get out of it, then we tend not to do it. The additional step to convert the hydrogen back to its pure form requires a significant energy input that is not required in the current energy infrastructure, and immediately introduces an additional process and attendant inefficiency to the energy cycle. That means additional energy will be lost simply to get the hydrogen, and once hydrogen is actually separated another problem occurs: storage. Hydrogen, as mentioned, is the smallest atom in the universe, and at room temperature it exists in the gaseous phase. Since it is of such low density, it is essential that it be concentrated to increase the energy density, either by compressing the gas, liquefying the hydrogen, or a bit of both. The problem with both these methodologies is that they require more energy to initiate and sustain, add another process to the cycle, creating additional losses, and introduce another level of complexity. Liquid hydrogen would need to be kept below it’s boiling point of 33 K, requiring parasitic cooling energy requirements and heavy insulation. Gaseous compressed hydrogen requires heavy compression due to it’s inherent low density, again imposing parasitic energy requirements. Even if someone invents an extremely innovative way of ‘fixing’ the hydrogen in a reliable storage medium (some people mention a kind of porous media, like a foam) it will never be as easy to store as liquid gasoline in a tank. But the final point about hydrogen is the most damning, and the most difficult to contend with. Returning to the original point: hydrogen is a CARRIER of energy, meaning we have to expend energy to MAKE it, as opposed to finding it in nature. The two major sources are: hydrocarbons, which we’re trying to avoid to begin with, and water. Let’s assume we’re not trying to burn more hydrocarbons, so let’s stick with water. So, let’s examine the actual energy requirements for the generation of hydrogen. In 2002, the Province of Ontario consumed 695.392 Petajoules of energy for transport alone. That’s the equivalent of a constant demand of 22050.7 MW of power, when in the same year, the peak energy demand for electricity in the Province was only 25000 MW. What does that mean? Assuming, for the sake of argument, that all of the end losses discussed above were zero, and that electricity could somehow be converted at 100% efficiency into hydrogen, to simply generate the hydrogen required to drive our transportation sector would take 88% of Ontario’s total PEAK electrical generation capacity running for a year. Assuming that we aren’t just moving pollution around, and are trying to avoid any nasty ‘thermal’ power plants, the only viable ‘zero-emission’ electrical producers are Nuclear and Wind power. Examining nuclear power, we would need to build, at minimum, 25 Third Generation CANDU reactors (equivalent to each of Darlington’s) and run them flat out to do it. It takes almost 10 years to commission a nuclear reactor and costs billions of dollars; Darlington took almost 15 years. How about wind power? Assuming that each turbine is the size of the one at OPG Pickering (one of North America’s largest), generating 1.8 MW continuously (not likely), then we’d need to build 12251 wind turbines (Denmark has about 5800 and took 25 years to do it). Again, remember, we’re assuming that there are no losses at the front end (i.e. that the nuclear/wind power is 100% efficient and operates at full capacity without fail constantly), that no additional energy is lost in generation, that no additional energy is required to process the hydrogen for storage (We would need to convert 22 billion joules of electrical power into hydrogen every second, remember), and lastly, that the energy required by the transportation sector does not increase yearly (it does). Even if a combination of nuclear, wind, solar, biomass, geothermal and any other exotic power generation scheme were required, we’re still faced by the fact that to generate hydrogen for transportation only, we would need to literally double Ontario’s total electrical generation capacity in a really short time frame. The capital expenditure required to do anything of the kind would, in all seriousness, require at least several tens of billions of dollars of investment in the largest expansion of electrical generation capacity in the history of the province. Of course, this would also require a similar dramatic and sweeping retooling of the automotive, aerospace and petrochemical industries, which is outside the scope of this article. In conclusion, any claim that hydrogen is a panacea near-term replacement for oil is pure bunk. Hydrogen replacing oil in what, 10 years? Don’t make me laugh. Personally, when the oil runs out, I intend to take horseback riding lessons. ---- Europe Opens Hydrogen Fuel Testing Center PETTEN, The Netherlands, July 8, 2005 (ENS) http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jul2005/2005-07-08-01.asp New hydrogen storage and fuel cell testing facilities were opened Thursday at the European Commission’s Institute for Energy in Petten. The new facilities are part of the European Commission’s attempt to provide policymakers and industry with independent evaluation of the performance of hydrogen and fuel cell technologies, said European Commissioner for Science and Research Janez Potocnik, who presided over the opening ceremonies. Maria van der Hoeven, Dutch Minister for Education, Culture and Science, attended the opening. “We are all aware of the need to find clean, safe and affordable sources of energy, as energy demand rises, and Europe becomes ever more dependent on imported energy,” said Commissioner Potocnik. "Oil production will peak relatively soon; energy demand is growing – the equation cannot continue to balance," the commissioner said. "The European Union is currently 50 percent dependent on imported energy and this is projected to increase to 70 percent by 2030," he said. This dependence leaves Europe vulnerable to shocks due to fluctuations in oil price, or problems in supply. There is also the environmental impact of fossil fuels to consider, Potocnik said. Hydrogen and fuel cell technologies have the potential to offer cost-effective solutions to problems such as greenhouse gas emissions, air quality and noise. The Commission, the EU's executive branch, sees hydrogen as an important part of the energy mix that will power the Europe of the future in place of fossil fuels. The transition to a hydrogen economy is a key plank of the EU’s long-term energy policy, for a whole range of uses from electricity generation to transport. “The potential of hydrogen is very exciting and can provide one element of a future sustainable energy mix," said Potocnik. By developing these new facilities, the Commission is showing its clear commitment to exploring this potential.” The new facility will simulate lifetime operational conditions of fuel cells and hydrogen fuel tanks, and conduct tests of the efficiency, safety, environmental impact and reliability of hydrogen systems and fuel cells. There are two sections to the new test facility, Potocnik explained to the crowd at the opening. "First is the facility for testing of fuel cell stacks. "While fuel cell technology is not yet mature, testing is ongoing, and developers have defined their proper testing procedures," the commissioner said. "But potential customers need to be able to compare performance and efficiency and therefore need standard testing procedures for real-life conditions. This is exactly what this facility is for – developing harmonized performance testing procedures." The second section of the facility is for testing hydrogen storage in vehicle tanks. "Use of hydrogen as fuel in vehicles poses considerable challenges for its safe handling including storage," Potocnik said. "This facility will, therefore, help us address one of the most important issues connected to future daily use of hydrogen – safety." When hydrogen is combined with fuel cell technology to generate electricity, the only waste product is water. Hydrogen can be easily stored and transported and, in combination with fuel cells, it can provide energy in remote locations not served by the electricity grid. Scientists at the Institute for Energy will simulate operational lifetime conditions on fuel cells under all foreseeable conditions from arctic to tropical and from motorway driving to navigation of forest tracks. Realistic simulation of fast filling - 1,000 times at less than three minutes per filling - and slow emptying will be investigated. Potocnik said the Commission has helped to establish the public-private coalition, known as the European Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technology Platform (HFP). It brings together industry, public authorities and the research community to craft an action plan, outlining the concrete steps and measures required to move Europe towards a hydrogen economy. "I had the privilege to discuss their progress and to be reassured that this public-private partnership can be very successful, just few months ago," recalled Potocnik, saying, "I should admit I also had great fun test driving hydrogen powered cars." CEO of Shell Hydrogen and chair of the HFP, Jeremy Bentham, who attended the opening, has predicted that early markets for hydrogen products such as portable power generators could realistically be established by 2007 to 2010, with mass markets for hydrogen transport becoming a reality before 2020. The Institute for Energy, part of the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, provides scientific and technical support for the conception, development, implementation and monitoring of European Community policies related to energy. -------- ACTIVISTS From Iraq To The G8: The Polite Crushing Of Dissent And Truth By John Pilger Jul 8, 2005, 05:24 Axis of Logic http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_19072.shtml http://www.dissidentvoice.org/July05/Pilger0707.htm Over the past two weeks, the contrast between two related "global" events has been salutary. The first was the World Tribunal on Iraq held in Istanbul; the second the G8 meeting in Scotland and the Make Poverty History campaign. Reading the papers and watching television in Britain, you would know nothing about the Istanbul meetings, which produced the most searing evidence to date of the greatest political scandal of modern times: the attack on a defenceless Iraq by America and Britain. The tribunal is a serious international public inquiry into the invasion and occupation, the kind governments dare not hold. "We are here," said the author Arundathi Roy in Istanbul, "to examine a vast spectrum of evidence (about the war) that has been deliberately marginalised and suppressed, its legality, the role of international institutions and major corporations in the occupation, the role of the media, the impact of weapons such as depleted uranium munitions, napalm, and cluster bombs, the use and legitimising of torture . . . This tribunal is an attempt to correct the record: to document the history of the war not from the point of view of the victors but of the temporarily anguished." "Temporarily anguished" implies that, even faced with such rampant power, the Iraqi people will recover. You certainly need this sense of hope when reading the eyewitness testimonies which demonstrate, as Roy pointed out, "that even those of us who have tried to follow the war closely are not aware of a fraction of the horrors that have been unleashed in Iraq." The most shocking testimony was given by Dahr Jamail. Unless you read the internet, you will not know who Dhar Jamail is. He is not an amusing Baghdad blogger. For me, he is the finest reporter working in Iraq. With the exception of Robert Fisk, Patrick Cockburn and several others, mostly freelancers, he shames the flak-jacketed, cliché crunching camp followers known as "embeds". A Lebanese with American citizenship, Jamail has been almost everywhere the camp followers have not. He has reported from the besieged city of Fallujah, whose destruction and atrocities have been suppressed by western broadcasters, notably by the BBC. (See www.medialens. org/ alerts). In Istanbul, Jamail bore his independent reporter's witness to the thousands of Iraqis tortured in Abu Ghraib and other American prisons. His account of what happened to a civil servant in Baghdad was typical. This man, Ali Abbas, had gone to a US base to inquire about his missing neighbours. On his third visit, he was arrested without charge, stripped naked, hooded and forced to simulate sex with other prisoners . This was standard procedure. He was beaten on his genitals, electrocuted in the anus, denied water and forced to watch as his food was thrown away. A loaded gun was held to his head to prevent him from screaming in pain as his wrists were bound so tightly that the blood drained from his hands. He was doused in cold water while a fan was held to his body. "They put on a loud speaker," he told Jamail, "put the speakers on my ears and said, 'Shut up, fuck, fuck, fuck!' He was refused sleep. Shit was wiped on him and dogs were used on him. "Sometimes at night when he read his Koran," said Jamail, "(he) had to hold it in the hallway for light. Soldiers would come by and kick the Holy Koran, and sometimes they would try to piss on it or wipe shit on it." A female soldier told him, "Our aim is to put you in hell . . . These are the orders from our superiors, to turn your lives into hell." Jamail described how Fallujah's hospitals have been subjected to an American tactic of collective punishment, with US marines assaulting staff and stopping the wounded entering, and American snipers firing at the doors and windows, and medicines and emergency blood prevented from reaching the hospitals. Children were shot dead in front of their families, in cold blood. The two men responsible for this, George Bush and Tony Blair, attended the G8 meeting at Gleneagles. Unlike the Iraq Tribunal, there was saturation coverage, yet no one in the "mainstream" - from the embedded media to the Make Poverty History organisers and the accredited, acceptable celebrities - made the obvious connection of Bush's and Blair's enduring crime in Iraq. No one stood and said that Blair's smoke-and-mirrors "debt cancellation" at best amounted to less than the money the government spent in a week brutalising Iraq, where British and American violence was the cause of the doubling of child poverty and malnutrition since Saddam Hussein was overthrown (Unicef). In Edinburgh, a shameless invitation-only meeting of Christian Aid supporters and church leaders was addressed by Britain's treasurer, Gordon Brown, the paymaster of this carnage. Only one person asked him, "When will you stop the rape of the poor's resources? Why are there so many conditions on aid?" This lone protestor was not referring specifically to Iraq, but to most of the world. He was thrown out, to cheers from among the assembled Christians. That set the theme for the G8 week: the silencing and pacifying and co-option of real dissent and truth. It was Frantz Fanon, the great intellectual-activist of Africa, who exposed colonial greed and violence dressed up as polite do-goodery, and nothing has changed, in Africa, as in Iraq. The mawkish images on giant screens behind the pop stars in Hyde Park beckoned a wilful, self-satisfied ignorance. There was none of the images that television refuses to show: of murdered Iraqi doctors with the blood streaming from their heads, cut down by Bush's snipers. On the front page of the Guardian, the Age of Irony was celebrated as real life became more satirical than satire could ever be. There was Bob Geldof resting his smiling face on smiling Blair's shoulder, the war criminal and his jester. Elsewhere, there was an heroically silhouetted Bono, who celebrates men like Jeffrey Sachs as saviours of the world's poor while lauding "compassionate" George Bush's "war on terror" as one of his generation's greatest achievements; and there again was Brown, the enforcer of unfair rules of trade, saying incredibly that "unfair rules of trade shackle poor people"; and Paul Wolfowitz, beaming next to the Archbishop of Canterbury: this is the man who, before he was handed control of the World Bank, devised much of Bush's so-called neo-conservative putsch, the mendacious justification for the bloodfest in Iraq and the notion of "endless war". And if you missed all that, there is a downloadable PDF kit from a "one Campaign" e-mail to "help you organise your very own ongoing Live8 party". The suppression of African singers and bands, parked where Geldoff decreed, in an environmental theme park in Cornwall, in front of an audience of less than 50 people, was described correctly by Andy Kershaw as "musical apartheid". Has there ever been a censorship as complete and insidious and ingenious as this? Even when Stalin airbrushed his purged comrades from the annual photograph on top of Lenin's mausoleum, the Russian people could fill in the gaps. Media and cultural hype provide infinitely more powerful propaganda weapons in the age of Blair. With Diana, there was grief by media. With Iraq, there was war by media. Now there is mass distraction by media, a normalising of the unmentionable that "the state has lost its mind and is punishing so many innocent people", wrote the playwright Arthur Miller, "and so the evidence has to be internally denied." Deploying the unction of Bono, Madonna, Paul McCartney and of course Geldof, whose Live Aid 21 years ago achieved nothing for the people of Africa, the contemporary plunderers and pawnbrokers of that continent have pulled off an unprecedented scam: the antithesis of 15 February 2003 when two million people brought both their hearts and brains to the streets of London. "(Ours) is not a march in the sense of a demonstration, but more of a walk, " said Make Poverty History's Bruce Whitehead. "The emphasis is on fun in the sun. The intention is to welcome the G8 leaders to Scotland and ask them to deliver trade justice, debt cancellation and increased aid to developing countries." Really? In Lewis Carroll's classic, Alice asked the Cheshire Cat and the Mad Hatter to show her the way out of wonderland. They did, over and again, this way, that way, until she lost her temper and brought down her dream world, waking her up. The people killed and maimed in Iraq and the people wilfully impoverished in Africa by our governments and our institutions in our name, demand that we wake up. http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=PIL20050707&articleId=659