NucNews - July 16, 2005


-------- NUCLEAR 


-------- australia

NT Govt vows to fight nuclear dump decision

Australia Broadcasting AM - Saturday, 16 July, 2005  08:25:28
Reporter: Anne Barker

http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2005/s1415444.htm

EDMOND ROY: Remote communities in the Northern Territory are coming to terms with the possibility they could soon be living near a national nuclear waste dump.

The Federal Government has confirmed it will build its controversial nuclear waste repository at one of three Defence properties in the Territory. One near Katherine and two near Alice Springs.

The Territory Government has vowed to fight the decision, which it says blatantly disregards a Federal Coalition election promise last year.

Anne Barker reports.

ANNE BARKER: The remote community of Harts Range, north-east of Alice Springs, is home to about 240 people.

This small Indigenous community is well off the beaten track – 150 kilometres along the Plenty Highway towards the Queensland border – an ideal place for a nuclear waste dump, according to Federal Science Minister Brendan Nelson.

BRENDAN NELSON: And if the people of Sydney can comfortably live with a nuclear reactor that conducts research and produces isotopes for industry, and for medical use, why on earth can't people in the middle of nowhere have low level and intermediate level waste?

ANNE BARKER: Harts Range is now one of three sites in the Northern Territory short-listed for a national nuclear waste repository.

The Federal Government will choose one of them by next year to dump thousands of drums of waste from interstate, such as contaminated soil or radioactive material from labs and hospitals.

But the Commonwealth's decision has outraged Territorians who were promised at the last election there would never be a nuclear waste dump in the NT.

David Ross, Director of the Central Land Council, which represents traditional owners, says bureaucrats in Canberra appear to have just looked at a map and chosen three sites that seemed to be empty.

And the Alice Springs Mayor Fran Kilgariff says not one person near the Mount Everard site, 27 kilometres from town, was consulted beforehand.

FRAN KILGARIFF: There's 30,000 people in Alice Springs, and in the wider region another 45,000. So we’re not talking a small community here.

It's a very substantial population that… the possibility of being affected by this is there.

ANNE BARKER: The Commonwealth's decision now puts pressure on the Coalition's two Territory MPs, Dave Tollner and Nigel Scullion, to cross the floor against the Government's plan.

But Senator Scullion says while he won't support high level radioactive material coming to the Territory, he has less concern about low and intermediate level waste.

NIGEL SCULLION: Low level waste – more than 90 per cent of it is radioactive poo. After four years you can grow roses on it. Now, that's an important issue for people not to get frightened about.

But at the other end of the scale, fuel rods from Lucas Heights is something that everybody should be quite genuinely concerned about. And I think people need information to make a good decision.

ANNE BARKER: Will you be taking the views of Northern Territory voters to Canberra to try to overturn this decision?

NIGEL SCULLION: Well only if the views of Territorians don't support the decision. If we're only dealing with… only dealing with, low level and intermediate waste, well that's a completely different circumstance than trying to deal with high level radioactive waste.

We will be dealing with it in the Territory in any event.

EDMOND ROY: Northern Territory Senator Nigel Scullion, speaking with Anne Barker. 

----

Govt in meltdown on nuclear issues: conservationists

Saturday, July 16, 2005 Australia Broadcasting

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200507/s1415695.htm

The Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) has weighed into the debate about a radioactive waste facility to be established in the Northern Territory, saying the Federal Government has had a complete meltdown on nuclear issues.

The Commonwealth announced yesterday a dump would be established at one of three sites in the Northern Territory.

The ACF's Dave Sweeney says the Federal Government promised Territorians before the last election there would be no nuclear waste dump in the region.

He says the Government has not looked at its long-term nuclear storage policy since the South Australian Government refused to accept a similar dump a year ago.

"It's a Government that hasn't got a clue on nuclear issues and it's a Government that has played misleading and improper games and processes," Mr Sweeney said.

"We can have no confidence that this would not be the start of an ever increasing burden on the Northern Territory and that's one more reason to say no now."


-------- china 

China plays down nuclear 'threat'

Saturday, 16 July, 2005 (BBC)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4688471.stm

The Chinese government has downplayed remarks by a senior general suggesting that China might use nuclear weapons if the US attacked it over Taiwan.

Major General Zhu Chenghu was only expressing "personal views", Beijing officials said.

A foreign ministry spokesman said Beijing was committed to its policy of peaceful re-unification with Taiwan.

A US state department spokesman has described Gen Zhu's remarks as "unfortunate" and "irresponsible".

China regards Taiwan as a renegade province.

One-China commitment

The Chinese general, who is not directly involved in China's military strategy, made his remarks to foreign reporters on Friday.

"If the Americans draw their missiles and position-guided ammunition onto the target zone on China's territory, I think we will have to respond with nuclear weapons," Maj Gen Zhu told an official briefing for foreign reporters.
	
The general said his comments were "my assessment, not the policy of the government".

He said he was confident the US and China would not go to war.

The US is currently Taiwan's biggest arms supplier and has indicated it would defend the island in the event of a Chinese invasion.

Gen Zhu's remarks come at a time when many US politicians are already concerned about China's military build-up.

State department spokesman Sean McCormack said he hoped they did not reflect Chinese official policy.

On Saturday, the Chinese foreign ministry said: "We will firmly abide by the principles of peaceful re-unification and one country two systems and we will express the deepest sincerity and exert the greatest efforts to realise peaceful reunification.

The US is Taiwan's biggest arms supplier

"We will never tolerate the 'Taiwan independence'," the spokesman said.

He said China appreciated the US government's repeated commitments to the one-China policy.

"We hope the United States will fulfil its commitments with concrete actions and join efforts with China to maintain the peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait," he said. 

----

Remarks by university dean were personal views: Chinese FM spokesman
      
Source: Xinhua UPDATED: 10:42, July 16, 2005

http://english.people.com.cn/200507/16/eng20050716_196404.html

A spokesman for Chinese Foreign Ministry said Friday that the remarks made by a senior staff at China's University of National Defense were personal views.

Reports said that Zhu Chenghu, a dean at the university, had told reporters earlier that China would resort to nuclear weapons if China and the United States got into military conflicts over the Taiwan issue.

Responding to inquiries about Zhu's remarks, the FM spokesman said Zhu met with a visiting delegation of Hong Kong-based reporters organized by the Better Hong Kong Foundation on Thursday.

"Zhu had repeatedly emphasized that he would express personal views on the issues that the reporters are interested in before they started discussions," the spokesman said.

The spokesman said the Chinese government's principles and stance on the Taiwan Issue have been consistent and clear.

"We will firmly abide by the principles of peaceful reunification and one country two systems and we will express the deepest sincerity and exert the greatest efforts to realize peaceful reunification," the spokesman said.

"We will never tolerate the 'Taiwan Independence', neither will we allow anybody with any means to separate Taiwan from the motherland," he said.

The spokesman also said China has made it clear on many occasions that properly handling the Taiwan issue is crucial to the healthy and stable development of China-US ties.

He said China appreciates US government's repeated commitments to the one-China policy, adherence to the three Sino-US joint communiques and opposition to the "Taiwan Independence".

"We hope the Untied States will fulfill its commitments with concrete actions and join efforts with China to maintain the peace and stability across the Taiwan Straits," the spokesman said.

He said China and the United States are currently dedicated to the development of good, constructive and cooperative relations while the

mutual-beneficial cooperation between the two countries in a broad range of fields has yielded fruitful results.

"We firmly believe it is in the interests of both China and the United States, as well as benefits the peace, stability and development of the Asia Pacific region and the whole world, to oppose the 'Taiwan Independence' and maintain the peace and stability across the Taiwan Straits, " he said.

----

China refuses to back down on general's nuclear threat over Taiwan

BEIJING (AFP) Jul 16, 2005

http://www.spacewar.com/2005/050716054046.ikddl20w.html

China refused Saturday to retract statements made by a leading general that it would use nuclear weapons to repulse US military intervention over Taiwan despite Washington's criticism of the remarks.

But Beijing insisted that it would resolutely seek to resolve the Taiwan issue in a peaceful manner.

"We will never tolerate 'Taiwan Independence', neither will we allow anybody with any means to separate Taiwan from the motherland," a foreign ministry spokesman told AFP.

"We hope the United States will fulfill its commitments (on Taiwan) with concrete actions and join efforts with China to maintain the peace and stability across the Taiwan Straits."

The spokesman was commenting on statements made this week by General Zhu Chenghu, dean of China's National Defense University, who said China could launch a nuclear attack on "hundreds" of US cities if Washington interfered militarily in the Taiwan issue.

"If the Americans draw their missiles and position-guided ammunition on to the target zone on China's territory, I think we will have to respond with nuclear weapons," Zhu.

His comments were reported by the Financial Times and the Asian Wall Street Journal, which attended a briefing with the general organised by a private Hong Kong organisation, the Better Hong Kong Foundation.

"If the Americans are determined to interfere (then) we will be determined to respond," said Zhu.

"We ... will prepare ourselves for the destruction of all of the cities east of Xian. Of course the Americans will have to be prepared that hundreds ... of cities will be destroyed by the Chinese."

US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack on Friday said the remarks attributed to Zhu were "unfortunate" and hoped they did not reflect the views of the Chinese government.

"I haven't seen all the remarks but what I've seen of them, I'll say that they're irresponsible," McCormack told reporters.

China's foreign ministry spokesman said that Zhu's comments reflected his personal views, but refused to clarify whether such views also represented the position of the government.

"My statement is clear, how you interpreted it is up to you," he said.

"We firmly believe it is in the interests of both China and the United States, as well as in the interests of the peace, stability and development of the Asia Pacific region and the whole world, to oppose Taiwan independence and maintain peace and stability across the Taiwan Straits," he said.

"We will firmly abide by the principles of peaceful reunification and one country two systems and we will express the deepest sincerity and exert the greatest efforts to realize peaceful reunification."

China and Taiwan split in 1949 at the end of a civil war but Beijing still claims it as part its territory and has repeatedly threatened to invade if the island formalises its 56-year separation with a declaration of independence.

In March China adopted a law allowing it to use force against any secession moves by Taiwan, triggering concerns in Washington and raising tensions in the region. The United States is bound by law to offer the island the means of self-defence if its security were threatened.

Meanwhile, the commander of the Guangdong Military District of the People's Liberation Army, Liu Zhenwu, departed China Saturday at the head of a six-member delegation for a visit to the United States at the invitation of the US Pacific Command, the official Xinhua news agency reported.


<a name="du"></a>

-------- depleted uranium

DU and independent scientific studies and DU briefing proposed for Congress 

From: "Sheree" <Sheree@nycap.rr.com>
Date: Sat Jul 16, 2005 10:31am

Keith Baverstock presented at the international DU conference 6/22-24 (?) in Brussels this year. Here is some of his (copyrighted) work, related to the need for independent science regarding DU:

PRESENTATION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT (23 June 2005)

Keith Baverstock PhD; Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Kuopio, KUOPIO, Finland

http://www.traprockpeace.org/keith_baverstock_23june05.htm

Sheree notes: In my opinion, it would be great if (possibly during the DU briefing proposed for the House of Representatives by Rep. Hinchey - NY) independent scientists would address the assumptions made in the Pentagon's Capstone DU study released in Oct./Nov. 2004, which they consider the final word on DU. There conclusion was that DU is basically not that bad, and they used the external radiation dose model, and ignored the slightly soluble nature of DU in the lungs, and they used the flawed acceptable radiation doses of the post Hiroshima/Nagasaki victims where healthy individuals were studied for a few years, thus ill effects that manifest later were not in the study, nor were effects on children, elderly, and less well people (see Goffman's work...).


-------- india 

US report moots Bush push on sensitive technology for India

S Rajagopalan
Hindustan Times
Washington, July 16, 2005
				
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1432210,00050001.htm

Just two days ahead of the Prime Minister's US visit, an influential Washington think tank has released a report urging President George W Bush to issue a formal policy directive to "produce outcomes consistent with his desire to help India become a major world power".

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace's report, authored by noted South Asia expert Ashley Tellis, makes out the case that bureaucratic and inter-agency wrangles have thwarted substantial changes in civilian nuclear energy, space and high technology cooperation between the two countries.

Nuclear energy is indeed one of the top issues to be flagged by Dr Manmohan Singh at his meeting with Bush on Monday. There has been considerable speculation lately that a deal may finally be clinched on this long-pending issue during this visit, but Indian officials have opted for caution. 

Tellis, a former senior adviser to the US Ambassador in India and now a senior associate at Carnegie, proposes that "Bush should enshrine his intention to advance the growth of Indian power in a formal National Security Decision Directive (NSSD)".

The NSSD, he says, will not only serve as a statement conveying seriousness of purpose and clarity of intention, but will also provide an objective benchmark for judging different policy choices while ensuring that inter-agency decisions reflect presidential aims.

The report, titled "India as a new global power: An action agenda for the United States", makes a strong pitch for the US taking steps to "integrate India as a friendly nuclear weapon state into the evolving global nuclear regime". It makes several proposals for the three ongoing dialogues dealing with strategic, energy and economic issues.

On the issue of backing India's candidature for a permanent seat in the UN Security Council, the report suggests that such a move would prove to be in the US' own interest.

Former US Ambassador to India Robert Blackwill, who introduced the report, was optimistic that by the time Bush leaves office, the US would have helped India take a permanent seat on the UNSC. It would also be supporting India's nuclear program, weapons supply and space exploration.

"I'm optimistic. I feel the momentum," said Blackwill, currently president of Barbour Griffith and Rogers International. In his view, the war on terror, weapons proliferation and the rise of China are among the imperatives that will guide Indo-US cooperation a great deal.

----

The way ahead for a safer world

L. Ramdas, Saturday, Jul 16, 2005 The Hindu
(The writer is a former Chief of the Naval Staff.)

http://www.hinduonnet.com/2005/07/16/stories/2005071607181100.htm

Whilst the ultimate goal must remain to eliminate nuclear weapons, even partial success like achieving a consensus on `de-alerting' will be a great step forward.

TOWARDS THE end of July 1945, Japan was on the verge of surrendering to the Allies. Despite military advice to the contrary, United States President Harry. S. Truman authorised the dropping of the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and on Nagasaki on August 9. The President was fully aware of the deadly consequences of deploying this weapon, from the results of the Nevada test conducted just a month earlier. Analysts believe this decision was primarily taken to convey a message to the rest of the world community and especially to the Soviet Union: the emergence of the U.S. as the sole leader of the post-war world. Predictably, other nations followed suit to produce the atomic bomb: the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, France, and lastly, China in 1964. Ten years later, India demonstrated its technical capability and conducted its first "Peaceful Nuclear Explosion" in 1974. Twenty-four years later, in May 1998, India and Pakistan conducted further tests and declared themselves nuclear weapon capable states.

It was in protest against nuclear testing by France that the valiant ship "Rainbow Warrior" belonging to Greenpeace was lost. She was sunk by French agents on July 10, 1985, whilst moored at Auckland harbour, in New Zealand. She was due to sail the next day for Mururoa Atoll, the venue of the French tests. Needless to say, this triggered a worldwide outcry and David Lange, then Prime Minister of New Zealand, described it as "a sordid act of international state-backed terrorism." Not only have Greenpeace and other anti-nuclear activists in civil society protested against nuclear testing, but India too has been at the forefront, calling for global nuclear disarmament. Despite almost 35 years of the Non Proliferation Treaty's (NPT) existence, the Nuclear Weapons States (NWSs) have failed to carry out nuclear disarmament as per Article VI. All that the world community has been able to achieve during this period is to give the NPT a fresh lease of life into perpetuity. Meanwhile, efforts to bring the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) into force have also failed. The U.S. rejected the CTBT in the Senate, and that virtually sealed its fate. The two five yearly NPT review meetings held at the United Nations in 2000 and recently in May this year, have both resulted in virtual disaster. Nothing tangible has been possible in persuading the NWSs to move towards nuclear disarmament.

In a few weeks from now, we shall be remembering the hundreds of thousands lost in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki. If anything, the world is becoming more and more of a dangerous place to live in. Despite the end of the Cold War, both Russia and the U.S. have nearly 3,000 nukes under hair trigger alert. We have enough nuclear warheads to destroy this beautiful planet many times over. Not content with this, every NWS has been engaged in upgrading its nuclear inventories with the latest technologies. Whilst all this may sound exciting, the problem of managing nukes with safety is yet to be attained. Many questions still remain unanswered. How are we to ensure correct interpretation of intent, especially if deception is in the mind of the adversary? If things are going very badly in the conventional warfare scene, can we be sure that the losing party will still not raise the level to a nuclear exchange? Can these weapons not be deployed either by accident or due to a misinterpretation of detection on any one of the many sensors? What then is the way ahead?

India needs to take the initiative to address nuclear disarmament very seriously. Perhaps the best time is now. Let India build on the Rajiv Gandhi plan for total nuclear disarmament as presented by him to the U.N. in 1988. India should convene an International Conference by inviting all the Nuclear Weapons States and also those 43 states listed for bringing the CTBT into force. This would provide a great opportunity to all the countries to put on the table their concerns and contributions for making this world a safer place to live in. Now that India is a nuclear weapons capable nation, an initiative of this nature at this stage would be widely welcomed by the world community.

Whilst the ultimate goal must remain to run down nuclear weapons to zero, even partial success like achieving a consensus on `de-alerting' will be a great step forward. For as long as these horrible weapons exist, there is always the danger that they could be used either by accident or design. Let the loss of so many innocents and that of the "Rainbow Warrior" not go in vain. The struggle must continue to make this planet a safe place for all of us and successive generations to come.



-------- iran

Iran warns scientists against US, Israeli 'traps'

TEHRAN (AFP) Jul 16, 2005

http://www.spacewar.com/2005/050716140804.qvqgbbef.html

Iran's spy chief on Saturday warned the country's nuclear scientists against "traps" laid by Israeli and American intelligence agencies.

"Iranian scientists must beware of enemy plots," Intelligence Minister Ali Yunessi was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency.

"Americans and Israelis are trying to approach (them) through different means."

"We call on scientists and specialists to be vigilant when they travel abroad so they don't fall into enemy intelligence services' traps," he said.

"We have identified a number of scientists who involuntarily fell into the traps of enemy intelligence services and we are saving them."

Yunessi announced in December that around 10 people had been arrested on charges of spying for American and Israeli intelligence, including a number of workers at the Iranian Atomic Energy Organisation.

Some of them were allegedly sent by the United States and Israel to try and sell nuclear material in a sting operation aimed at showing Tehran was seeking the bomb even as it insists its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful.

Washington and Israel have repeatedly accused the Islamic Republic of diverting its civilian nuclear energy programme into manufacturing atomic weapons, charges Tehran strenuously denies.


-------- japan

Bound by the bomb
'A blinding flash of light filled the sky'

July 16, 2005 Tri-City Herald

http://archive.tri-cityherald.com/BOMB/bomb19.html

NAGASAKI - The little home is tucked away in an alley, so narrow neighbors wait politely for each other to walk past.

Along the flagstone path and stairs leading to Akiko Sakita's home, cats cluster and flowers flourish.

Sakita's father inherited the tiny plot of land and built a home on it that later would be destroyed by atomic fire.

Today, Sakita's eldest son has been given that same piece of ground, on which he has built a home now shared by three generations.

In 1945, from this small corner of the Zenza-machi district, Akiko Sakita watched the atomic destruction of the city of his birth.

And at that location, he rebuilt his home and his life.

Sakita stood in a small but elegant room at his son's home one recent day and cast his cane aside. With seeming ease, he lowered himself into a legless chair and folded his knees under a table.

When he was settled, Sakita told his story:

By the summer of 1945, "Japan had already lost the war," he said.

But the war waged on as Japan's military leaders vowed to fight to the death of the last man, woman and child.

On the last two days of July and again Aug. 1, bombs rained on Nagasaki. Shrapnel from the last attack fell through the tile roof of Sakita's house.

"My father did not even attempt to repair the roof, claiming that the number of air raids was only going to increase anyway."

Instead, his parents rented a small piece of land outside the city at the foot of Mount Iwaya. They were there Aug. 9, 1945, building what they hoped would be a safer shelter.

Back in the city, 16-year-old Sakita finished the graveyard shift at the Mitsubishi arms factory and returned home. At that same factory four years earlier, torpedoes were made to bomb Pearl Harbor in the sneak attack that pushed the United States into the war.

Sakita recalled, "It was so hot, so humid when I got home that morning ... I couldn't sleep. I took off my shirt and went out into the backyard to do wash and cool myself."

Through the open back door, he heard the clock chime 11 a.m.

"Almost at that moment, I heard the faint drone of airplane engines in the sky above Mount Kompira behind my house.

" 'Oh no, not another air raid,' I thought. Then I remembered the alarm had been lifted that morning, so I concluded the sound was coming from Japanese aircraft.

"Suddenly, a loud full boom like the burst of an anti-aircraft shell sounded in the direction in which the airplane would have passed, and just as I looked up to see if it had been the enemy, a blinding flash of light filled the sky and my body was showered in a wave of intense heat."

He felt a searing pain on his face and threw himself onto the ground with his eyes shut. Sakita was about a mile south of the center of the blast.

The upper half of his body was badly burned. The family's home was pushed over like a "flimsy match-stick toy" and Sakita was trapped by debris.

He managed to squeeze free. The long row of houses along his street was broken wood and rubble. Nearby factories were enveloped in flames, and thick smoke churned into the darkening sky.

Directly north, Sakita could see hundreds of people stumbling through the smoke toward the nearby mountains.

"I suddenly realized I, too, should flee for my life."

Barefoot and shirtless, skin peeling from the left side of his face, he turned and ran toward a cave dug into the steep hillside behind his home.

That shelter was crammed with people hiding for their lives. Sakita could not get inside.

He clawed his way up the burning hill behind the cave and came to a road halfway up Mount Kompira.

"The ground was strewn with countless numbers of corpses. I could no longer bear to walk among them. I jumped into a sweet potato patch, tripping over the vines as I ran."

After two days of wandering, he made his way to a makeshift hospital. "Two or three nurses were desperately trying to care for the injured, but they were hopelessly outnumbered. It became obvious that however long I waited, my turn was not going to come.

A nurse threw a small tin of petroleum jelly to him. "It was pointless to wait for more. I left, and started home."

The road home was barred by civilian guards. He tried to get through. "My parents and sister may be there. ... Please let me go look for them," he pleaded.

Guards turned him away, and Sakita wept. "I lamented over the fact that I might never see my parents again and wondered how on Earth I would be able to go on living alone. I did not know what to do."

He roamed aimlessly, looking for friends among the dead. He spent two days and nights in the middle of a pine grove, hungry, bleeding, in pain and in shock.

On the third day, he made his way to a relative's home and collapsed into a coma.

Those relatives carried Sakita on a pull cart past the demolished arms factory where he had worked to another temporary hospital set up in the nearby town of Mogi.

With no doctors, nurses treated his wounds with mercurochrome and zinc ointment. He regained consciousness at the end of August, his sores covered but festering.

He learned later his parents were walking home on the street in Nishima-chi when the bomb exploded. They were carried to a makeshift hospital in Isahaya City, where they spent a month recovering from their injuries.

They died several years later from what Sakita said were radiation-related illnesses.

In the next four decades, Sakita, now 66, was hospitalized 14 times - the longest period for 30 months - and underwent 10 operations. "Sometimes I feel a great weariness."

When that happens, he turns for comfort to the large framed picture of his dead wife that hangs over the doorway of his home.

Then he speaks of his two sons, three daughters, six grandchildren, and he smiles.

"There must never be another Nagasaki. Your family and mine must all be able to live in peace, without fear." 


-------- treaties

IAEA wants to bring 8-10 nuclear facilities under its control: report

TOKYO (AFP) Jul 16, 2005

http://www.spacewar.com/2005/050716093742.d63dn5g1.html

The International Atomic Energy Agency wants to put eight-10 nuclear facilities, including in Japan, the United States, Russia and Finland, under international management, a press report said Saturday.

The UN nuclear watchdog plans to submit a draft to its board of directors in September and put the idea into practice by 2010, when the next Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference gathers, Kyodo News quoted diplomatic sources as saying.

But the IAEA's drive for the international management of sensitive parts of the nuclear fuel cycle, in particular uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing technology, has drawn opposition from Japan, the United States and Iran, the report said.

These countries view the move as infringing state sovereignty on the use of nuclear energy, the sources said, adding that Russia and some other countries basically support the idea.

Enriched uranium as well as plutonium can be used to produce nuclear weapons.

IAEA director general Mohamed ElBaradei set out the idea of international management in late 2003 to prevent nuclear proliferation via nuclear projects in North Korea and Iran under the guise of peaceful purposes, Kyodo said.

The goal is to allow uranium enrichment and plutonium extraction from nuclear waste only at the internationally managed facilities and use them to provide nuclear fuel for countries that do not host them.

The draft calls for first imposing a five-year moratorium on building new nuclear fuel cycle facilities and establishing a system to guarantee that the international supply of fuel from the facilities is placed under international management, the report said.

It then seeks to establish the eight-10 IAEA-controlled facilities as regional centres for producing, providing and reprocessing nuclear fuel while storing and disposing of nuclear waste.


-------- u.s. nuc weapons

Trinity test 60 years ago changed world

This story was published Saturday, July 16th, 2005
By Annette Cary, Tri-City Herald staff writer

http://www.tri-cityherald.com/tch/local/story/6712677p-6599843c.html

The worry for Sgt. Ben Benjamin in the pre-dawn hours 60 years ago today as he stood on top of a building in the New Mexico desert was not that the course of world events was about to change.

He most feared that nothing would happen.

Benjamin, now 82, was among the Manhattan Project workers who gathered for the Trinity test, the world's first nuclear explosion.

Five states away at the then-secret Hanford nuclear reservation, more than 150,000 construction workers and thousands of scientists and engineers had toiled for more than two years to produce plutonium for a new type of weapon.

By the time Manhattan Project workers had gathered in the New Mexico desert for the bomb test, more than 40 million people had died in World War II.

The United States was preparing to drop the world's first nuclear bombs on Japan. But first, leaders wanted to know if the design to detonate the plutonium would work.

Benjamin, who was assigned to do photo-optical work for the Army, knew only that he was to record a large explosion with Hollywood motion picture cameras that had been modified to record 100 frames a second.

He'd been told if the explosion happened, it would be very bright and he would need filters to protect his eyes, he said in a phone interview from his Albuquerque home. But even physicists on the project were worried what they called the "gadget" that had been hoisted to the top of a 100-foot tower would be a dud, Benjamin said.

Their doubts were put to rest at 5:29 a.m. on July 16, 1945.

As cameras rolled, a flash of light turned the early morning brighter than midday and Benjamin was hit with a wave of heat.

"My god, it's beautiful," he remembers saying to his boss.

"No, it's terrible," his boss replied as the fireball rose and the first atomic mushroom cloud spread across the sky.

The test proved that Hanford's product was workable, said Michele Gerber, historian and president of the Hanford B Reactor Museum Association.

Only three weeks later, the United States dropped a bomb built with uranium on Hiroshima. Then on Aug. 9, 1945, a B-29 named Bock's Car dropped the Fat Man bomb made with Hanford plutonium on Nagasaki, wreaking incredible destruction. About 35,000 people were killed and 60,000 injured.

Within five days, a war that had involved 50 countries had ended.

"Hanford workers really were important in ending the war, which really was a horrible war," Gerber said. "It was not just the killing that ended, but fascism was defeated and freedom triumphed."

Before the B Reactor hastily was built during World War II on the banks of the Columbia River at Hanford, the entire world supply of plutonium totaled about 500 micrograms, only enough material to form the head of single pin.

In February 1945, just four months after B reactor began operating, Hanford workers had produced enough plutonium for Col. Franklin Matthias to deliver the first shipment to Los Alamos, N.M., where a team was designing the first nuclear weapons.

Matthias boarded a Portland train and entered the private compartment he had booked, carrying a small parcel wrapped in plain brown paper.

"It looked like I was carrying something I had bought at the store," he said in a 1993 interview.

Inside the box was suspended a small test tube holding the first Hanford plutonium.

At the Los Angeles train station, he was met by a courier from New Mexico.

First, Matthias asked the man if he knew what he'd be carrying. The man said no.

Then Matthias wanted to know whether the courier had secured a locked room on the train back to Los Alamos. Again the man said no.

"I told him, 'I think you better go ahead and get one because what you are going to carry has cost us $350 million,'" Matthias said in the 1993 interview.

After that initial shipment, Army ambulances began making regular plutonium runs, carrying the man-made element to Utah, where couriers from Los Alamos would take over for the rest of the trip to New Mexico.

With plutonium in production, the Los Alamos Laboratory had to come up with a way to detonate a bomb.

When shooting two pieces of material didn't work, scientists came up with a plan to use the supersonic shock waves from high explosives to crunch a ball of plutonium to a supercritical state.

The "gadget" was created to test the theory in the desert south of Los Alamos known as the Jornada del Muerto, the Journey of the Dead Man.

At 5:29 a.m. 60 years ago today, the gadget exploded with a force of 21,000 tons of TNT. It instantly vaporized the 150-foot tower and turned the surrounding asphalt into green sand.

Gen. Thomas Farrell would write that the searing light was "golden, purple, violet, gray and blue. It lighted every peak, crevasse and ridge of the nearby mountain range with a clarity and beauty that cannot be described but must be seen to be imagined.

Seconds after the explosion came first the air blast pressing hard against the people, to be followed almost immediately by the strong, sustained awesome roar that warned of doomsday ...."

J. Robert Oppenheimer, the Los Alamos director, summed up his feeling that morning with a quote from a Hindu holy book that would become associated with the race to produce the atomic bomb: "I am become death, the destroyer of worlds."

----

US tested first nuclear explosion 60 years ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) Jul 16, 2005

http://www.spacewar.com/2005/050716143325.jj00nquo.html

Sixty years ago, on July 16, 1945, the United States tested the world's first nuclear explosion three weeks before Hiroshima was devastated, in a secret operation dubbed "Trinity" in the New Mexico desert.

Three atomic bombs were ready by the end of June 1945 as the United States planned what promised to be a very tough and bloody invasion of imperial Japan.

Two of the bombs -- nicknamed "Little Boy," a uranium device; and "Fat Man," a plutonium bomb -- were readied for shipment to the Pacific in the hope of ending World War II and avoiding a US massacre on Japanese beachheads.

But while the scientific team was confident the uranium bomb would work, the plutonium device had to be tested as quietly as possible before it was dropped on Japan.

The most powerful weapon in history, dubbed the "gadget" by its designers, was hoisted onto a 100-foot (30-meter) steel tower at the new Trinity Site after US president Harry Truman gave the go-ahead.

All that was left was for scientists to electronically trigger the detonation of the bomb, identical to the one that would be dropped on Nagasaki, from their bunker 10 kilometers (six miles) away.

A few seconds before 5:30 am on July 16, the countdown ended and a massive conventional explosion took place, sparking a nuclear reaction in the weapon's plutonium core and turning the night sky to day.

After sunrise, a team armed with gear to protect them from radiation made their way to the blast site, from which a huge circle of scorched earth had radiated.

The tower there had completely vanished, apart from two steel footings set in concrete, and a shallow 800-meter (800-yard) crater that was coated in green glass had appeared where the heat had melted the desert sand.

Just four hours after the test, the Navy cruiser "USS Indianapolis" set sail from San Francisco towards the Pacific island of Tinian with a secret cargo on board: "Little Boy," which would wreak death and destruction on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on August 6.


-------- u.s. nuc facilities


-------- georgia

Feds look at nuclear plant risk
Progress Energy and federal officials will talk in Atlanta about a problem at the Crystal River plant.

By JIM ROSS and ABBIE VANSICKLE
Published July 16, 2005 St. Petersburg Times

http://www.sptimes.com/2005/07/16/Citrus/Feds_look_at_nuclear_.shtml

CRYSTAL RIVER - The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission will meet with Progress Energy officials on Friday in Atlanta to discuss a problem the agency discovered - and that Progress Energy has since corrected - when inspecting the nuclear power plant north of Crystal River.

The problem involved "the lack of protection from fire damage to electrical cables at the plant," according to an NRC news release. "Fire damage to the cables could adversely affect a safe shutdown."

The inspection found that "a local manual action by an operator to recover from the effects of the fire damage to the cables" would not be practical because it would require "entering a potentially smoke-filled room."

Progress Energy officials already have fixed the plant to ensure it's up to the inspectors' standards, company spokesman Mac Harris said Friday.

"There is no issue today," he said.

He said the inspectors concerns' were unrelated to the fire at one of the fossil plants Friday morning at the complex.

NRC findings are classified by color: green (very low safety significance), white, yellow or red. This issue is classified greater than green.

At the Atlanta meeting, federal regulators and Progress officials will discuss the risk significance of the finding. But the NRC won't make any decisions, or announce any possible enforcement action, until later.

The meeting is open to the public. It begins at 10 a.m. at the NRC office in the Atlanta Federal Center.


-------- massachusetts

Snooze costs Pilgrim $60,000

By KEVIN DENNEHY
and DAVID SCHOETZ
STAFF WRITERS
Cape Cod Times
(Published: July 16, 2005)

http://www.capecodonline.com/cctimes/snoozecosts16.htm

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission yesterday slapped a $60,000 fine on the owners of the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station 13 months after a control room supervisor fell asleep on the job, and another worker failed to wake him.
	
Asleep at the switch

A Nuclear Regulatory Commission probe found that on June 29, 2004, a Pilgrim control-room supervisor fell asleep and that fellow workers did not wake him for several minutes.

The supervisor and another worker who took cell-phone video of the sleeping man were both fired by the plant last year.

The NRC has levied four other fines this year in similar cases at nuclear-power plants.

Instead, the worker, a reactor operator, took cell-phone video of his dozing superior.

The NRC concluded that the incident, which occurred in the early morning hours of June 29, 2004, violated four agency requirements. In particular, they pinpointed the supervisor's lack of attentiveness and his subordinate's failure to report the transgression appropriately.

The incident occurred at a time when union leaders were negotiating a new contract that, among other things, called for the hiring of more staff to reduce the number of hours worked by employees.

A union leader yesterday denied rumors that the video taken by a union employee of a non-union member was a negotiating tactic.

Both employees were fired last year.

A spokesman from Entergy Corporation, the Louisiana-based energy giant that owns Pilgrim, said yesterday the company will not appeal the NRC decision.

The 34-year-old reactor, which produces 670 megawatts of power at any one time, provides electricity for about 670,000 homes in the region, about 20 percent of which are on Cape Cod.

Some fear that Pilgrim is a potential target for a terrorist attack, particularly since the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon.

The NRC emphasized there were safeguards at Pilgrim to prevent a disaster at the time the supervisor nodded off, but that the federal agency remained troubled by the incident.

''There's no more important a job at a nuclear power plant than the control room,'' said NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan. ''Not only should they be awake, but they need to be ready to spring into action at a moment's notice.''

Pilgrim management conducted an internal investigation to determine if it was a one-time episode or a trend, said spokesman David Tarantino. He insisted it was an isolated incident, but the company took it seriously.

''It certainly didn't live up to our expectations of performance,'' said Tarantino. ''The NRC action only reinforces that.''

According to the NRC, a third employee, the shift manager, was not fired but agreed to attend a dispute-resolution program.

The shift manager slammed a desk to wake up the sleeping worker, but did not submit a report about the incident, according to the NRC investigation.

In addition to receiving a letter of reprimand, the shift manager was required to speak to Pilgrim co-workers about the incident.

There were six employees on shift in the control room area, but not all were necessarily aware of the supervisor's dozing. If they did know - and reported nothing - they would have been just as guilty, Tarantino said.

More than a month passed before an unidentified Pilgrim employee notified the NRC about the incident and provided video taken by cell phone of the napping man.

The federal investigation lasted until March, when each of the three employees, as well as Pilgrim management, was given the opportunity to respond to the charges.

Mary Lampert of Duxbury, a critic of nuclear power and plant watchdog, questioned why it took the NRC so long to issue a ruling.

''Did it require a huge investigation? The guy was asleep. The other guy didn't report it,'' Lampert said. ''It's pretty cut and dry. It gives the impression that this isn't important, but it is important.''

The 2004 episode, she said, also reflected how overworked Pilgrim employees are.

It occurred in the middle of a contentious contract dispute between Local 369 of the Utility Workers Union of America, which represent plant technicians, and Entergy officials, in which staffing levels and employee fatigue were union gripes.

The staff size of the Pilgrim plant has dropped steadily in recent years. The number of employees dropped from 670 to 580 after voluntary severance packages were offered in 2003.

While rumors swirled that the 2004 incident was a union tactic, Gary Sullivan, president of Local 369, insisted otherwise. They did not even learn about the incident until the fall, after the new contract was approved, he said.

''There's no truth to that at all. The (video) was not of a union person so it wouldn't have reflected union fatigue.''

Still, Sullivan did say the union is moving forward with a grievance on behalf of the reactor operator who was fired.

This $60,000 fine is the fifth fine levied by the NRC against a nuclear plant for this type of offense this year.

Kevin Dennehy can be reached at kdennehy@capecodonline.com. David Schoetz can be reached at dschoetz@

capecodonline.com.



-------- us nuc waste

Union seeks risk assessment for nuclear waste transport

Saturday, July 16, 2005. 7:14am (AEST)
Australia Broadcasting

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200507/s1415606.htm

The Transport Workers Union (TWU) says nuclear waste can be successfully transported by land but all safety procedures must be of the highest standard and operated by union members.

The Federal Government has announced that a new radioactive waste facility will be located at a Commonwealth-owned site in the Northern Territory.

It has indicated that the waste will be transported by land but no routes have been made public.

TWU spokesman Mark Crowsdale says the operation must be handled by professionals.

"We'd like to see a risk assessment of the whole process," he said.

"We'd like to see a major transport operator with unionised transport workers because if someone is a member of a union then they have the power to say when something is going wrong, they don't fear for their job.

"Now the worst thing that could happen is if that waste was on a vehicle with someone who was forced to do something wrong and couldn't say anything about it and we had a major accident as a result."

Meanwhile, CLP Senator Nigel Scullion says all Territorians, including himself, need more information about the waste to be stored at the Commonwealth nuclear dump.

Senator Scullion previously said he would not allow such a dump "on his watch".

But he says he is less concerned about low or intermediate-level waste coming to the Territory.

He says it is the used rods from the Lucas Height Reactor in Sydney that concern him.

"You will not get my support for this if this a high-level nuclear active waste and that's what most Territorians are concerned about," Senator Scullion said.

"As a CLP policy, we're not having other people's waste, particularly concerned with the Lucas Heights Waste so that I think that I'm going to have to wait and see what Brendan Nelson has to say about that."

"It's all about making some informed decision and I don't think Territorians can make an informed decision at the moment," he said.


-------- MILITARY 


-------- israel / palestine 

Israel fires at Palestinian refugee camp
Witnesses say Israel used its Apache helicopters in the attacks

Saturday 16 July 2005, 7:10 Makka Time, 4:10 GMT  

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/0CA2740E-F9FC-4AD4-B9F9-77308B929168.htm

Israeli forces have fired two missiles into a Gaza refugee camp, hours after the military killed six Hamas fighters in air strikes and a shooting.

There were no immediate reports of casualties or comment from the Israeli army.

Earlier on Friday, six Palestinians, believed to be members of the resistance movement Hamas, were killed by Israel in what is seen as a resumption of Israel's policy of "targeted killings".

According to witnesses, Israeli helicopter gunships fired missiles at a vehicle in Gaza, destroying it and scattering body parts of the occupants.

Witnesses said Israeli Apache helicopter gunships had fired three missiles at the car in Gaza.

Aljazeera's Gaza correspondent quoted medical sources at al-Shifa hospital in the Gaza Strip as saying that four Palestinians had been killed by the Israeli helicopter strike.

Five were confirmed dead; five civilians, including a child, were also wounded in the attack, medical sources told Aljazeera.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli occupation army.

An AFP correspondent in Gaza also saw a headless corpse and the gutted car following the attack.
 
West Bank attack

In another Israeli attack on Friday, Aljazeera's correspondent in Ram Allah, Shirin Abu Aqla, reported that two Palestinians, Muhammad Aiyash and Muhammad Mirai, were killed and one seriously injured in an Israeli helicopter missile strike in the West Bank town of Salfit, near Nablus.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli army regarding this attack, either.

The missile strikes were part of a heavy Israeli offensive against Palestinian resistance groups.

As part of the peace deal, reached in February, Israel had promised Palestinians to halt targeted killings, but has now reaffirmed the resumption of its assassination policy against Palestinian resistance groups.

Attacks condemned

Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas has been in Gaza since Thursday for crisis talks with the resistance groups in a bid to rescue the flagging truce.

The Palestinian Authority condemned the Israeli attacks as a "dangerous escalation" and said Israel is trying to destroy its own efforts to impose the rule of law in the occupied territories.

"We strongly condemn the dangerous Israeli escalation. At the same time that the Palestinian Authority is trying to impose the law, Israel wants to destroy all such efforts," chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erikat said.

Hamas's military wing, the Izzaddin al-Qassam Brigades, said the four, who were assassinated in Gaza, were Hassem Abu Ras, Adel Hanyiah, Saber Abu Assi and Amjad Arafat.

Israeli threats

Israel has threatened to re-occupy Palestinian cities, if necessary, to ensure the safety of Jewish settlers during the "disengagement plan" from the Gaza Strip and four settlements in the northern West Bank.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announced in a television interview late on Friday that he had ordered the army to take "all necessary measures" against what he said were Palestinian "terrorist organisations".

"I have ordered the army to take all necessary measures," Sharon said.

Asked whether this meant the resumption of targeted killings against Palestinian resistance movements, Sharon said there was "no limit" on the orders handed down to the army.

The latest deaths raised the overall toll since the September 2000 start of the second Palestinian Intifada (Uprising) to 4793, including 3720 Palestinians and 998 Israelis, according to an AFP count.


-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE


-------- homeland security / national intelligence

NYC, other cities angry over Chertoff's remarks

7/16/2005 12:07 AM  (AP)

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-07-16-homeland-security_x.htm

NEW YORK  — In New York and other big cities, some commuters fumed Friday about Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff's remarks that cities will have to pay to protect trains and buses because airplanes are a higher priority.

"I think it stinks," psychologist David Amarel said as he boarded the subway.

Like many New Yorkers, he said he felt the government's foreign policy makes the city a target, so the government should assume responsibility for its security.

But cities will be largely on their own when it comes to securing trains and buses, Chertoff told The Associated Press on Thursday, explaining that airplanes are a higher priority for Washington.

"Michael Chertoff is a very smart guy, but I couldn't disagree more," New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.

The free subway tabloid amNew York summed up the secretary's comments Friday: "Pay Your Own Way," the headline declared over a close-up of a grim-faced Chertoff.

Chertoff told the AP on Thursday that "A fully loaded airplane with jet fuel, a commercial airliner, has the capacity to kill 3,000 people. A bomb in a subway car may kill 30 people. When you start to think about your priorities, you're going to think about making sure you don't have a catastrophic thing first."

New York's bus and subway system, which carries 7 million riders a day, has been the target over the years of at least two alleged attempted terrorist attacks, both of which were stopped before they could be carried out.

"It's because New York symbolizes America, in other people's eyes anyway," said Sayyed Nabaweyyah, a retired teacher commuting into Manhattan.

The federal government is temporarily footing the extra nearly $2 million a week New York is spending to move police officers from around the city into the transit system in the wake of the London terror attacks.

In San Francisco, Bay Area Rapid Transit spokesman Linton Johnson said officials were "very disappointed" and "completely stunned" by Chertoff's comments.

BART carries 310,000 passengers a day, nearly twice as many as the San Francisco Bay area's three major airports combined, Johnson said.

"A terrorist can affect more people on a train," he said. "One fully loaded BART train holds more people than a 747."

Washington's Metro system has an average daily ridership of 700,000 on the subways and 500,000 on buses serving the District of Columbia and its suburbs.

"Fully half of the peak period users of the Metro system are federal employees," Metro Board Chairman Dana Kauffman said. "Is he saying to his own people, 'Good luck?'"

Fueling local officials' fury was the Senate approval Thursday of a $31.8 billion Homeland Security spending measure that rejected a plan to spend $1.16 billion on mass transit, favoring instead a competing $100 million proposal.

Homeland Security will pay for virtually all of New York's extra transit security costs as long as the nation's transit system remains on orange, or high, alert, police said. New York has been on high alert since shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center, and the city is negotiating a deal with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority for it to assume much of the extra costs once the national alert level is lowered.

Chicago's transit system is the nation's second-largest, serving 1.5 million riders a day. Chicago Transit Authority President Frank Kruesi said he was "shocked" at Chertoff's comments.

"They're basically telling us what we should be doing, but they're not funding it, even though the threat is from international terrorism," Kruesi said.

In Boston, John McQuen, 60, who commutes by train from his home in Lexington, said the federal government "should be part of the mix" when it comes to protecting the nation's rail and bus system.

"The transit system certainly can't afford to do it on their own," he said. "They have scarcely enough money to run the system as it is."

But not all commuters across the country were angered by Chertoff's remarks.

Ivar Hyngstrom, 43, who rides the Metra train nearly every week to get to business meetings in Chicago from his suburban home, said he agrees that the government's focus should be on airlines.

"Airplanes can be used as a weapon, and trains can't," Hyngstrom said at a train station in downtown Chicago. "I always feel safe on the train. I always feel like they're watching things closely here." 


-------- ENERGY 


-------- alternative energy

Danish Scientists Developing Solar Cell

Jul 16, 2005 9:57 PM ET (AP)
By CHRISTIAN WIENBERG

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20050717/D8BCRLT00.html

COPENHAGEN, Denmark - Danish scientists say they have built a new type of plastic solar cell that lasts significantly longer than previous versions and could pave the wave for cheaper solar power.

Plastic cells cost only a fraction of the more common silicon cells used in solar-powered products, such as calculators. But plastic cells typically are fragile and only last for a few days.

"Our new cell has a life span of 2 1/2 years, which must be a world record for plastic cells," said Frederik Krebs, senior scientist with the state-owned Risoe national laboratory, which presented its research Friday.

Some experts not affiliated with the project said the plastic cells wound need to become more efficient before they could be used for consumer products.

The Danish scientists said they were using a more stable form of plastic as the active substance in the cell, which converts energy from the sun's rays into electricity.

The market price for a silicon cell is up to 5,000 kroner (US$800, euro675) per square meter, while a plastic cell of the same size costs less than 100 kroner (US$15, euro13), they said.

However, plastic cells have relatively low efficiency as they only exploit 0.2 percent-5 percent of the sun's energy, compared with 12 percent-15 percent for silicon cells.

"We have focused on durability and succeeded, now we will make it more efficient," Krebs said.

Silicon cells are widely used in items such as calculators and watches, and some houses get all their energy supply from silicon solar cells. There are also solar-powered cars, but they are extremely expensive and therefore not mass-produced.

"There's a huge demand for solar cells, and the silicon cell producers can't meet the strong demand. With the new increased durability, plastic solar cells should soon be competitive and appear on the market," Krebs said. "People could for example have a strip of plastic solar cells on their mobile phones instead of a battery."

Tom Markvart, head scientist at the solar research group at the University of Southampton called the new research "a major development," but emphasized there were still many hurdles before plastic solar cells would become available on the market.

"Plastic cells still need to become more stable and have better efficiency," he said. "And maybe the answer to the solar cell of the future is a combination of silicon and plastic, where you exploit the best of the two worlds."

The research will be presented at a solar cell convention in San Diego next month.

On the Net:

Risoe national laboratory:

http://www.risoe.dk