NucNews - July 26, 2005



<a name="nuclear"></a>

-------- NUCLEAR 



-------- accidents and safety

Radiation testers seeking baby teeth

July 26, 2005
By Susan Smallheer Herald Staff

http://www.rutlandherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050726/NEWS/507260391/1003

BRATTLEBORO — If you live near Vermont Yankee, anti-nuclear activists want your children's baby teeth.

Preliminary results of a small study of radioactive Strontium-90 in the teeth of babies who live around the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vernon show a "significant" increase compared to those not near the plant, according to a health study conducted by a national anti-nuclear group.

Three groups, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Citizens Awareness Network and the Traprock Peace Center in Massachusetts, will launch a public appeal today to collect at least 100 baby teeth of children who were born near the Vernon reactor for further study.

Harvey Schaktman, a board member of Citizens Awareness Network, said Monday that the first wave of results — based on 26 baby teeth — show a 61 percent increase in Strontium-90 in teeth from Windham County in Vermont and Cheshire County in New Hampshire. Those two counties are closest to Vermont Yankee.

Schaktman said the group particularly wants to collect baby teeth from children whose mothers lived near the plant during their pregnancies. The chemical structure of Strontium closely mimics that of calcium and is transferred from the mother to the bones and undeveloped teeth of unborn babies.

"The preliminary results, and I stress preliminary, show a significant increase and elevation of Strontium-90 — compared to areas not around Vermont Yankee," he said.

The Radiation and Public Health Project, a national group of scientists and health professionals based in New York, has been collecting and analyzing baby teeth from children living around seven nuclear reactors, a total of 4,500 teeth. The group says the teeth have revealed elevated and rising levels of the radioactive element in counties that are home to or close to reactors.

Strontium-90 is a byproduct of nuclear power and is a good indication of radioactivity being released to the atmosphere, Schaktman said.

The health study is being launched because of concern about Vermont Yankee, particularly since the plant's owner, Entergy Nuclear, wants to boost power production by 20 percent to 110 megawatts.

The company has said the boost will increase the radioactivity released to the environment, but that it will still be below state and federal standards.

According to the three groups, Vermont Yankee is the 11th-oldest nuclear reactor in the United States and is a boiling-water reactor — which traditionally releases more radioactivity to the environment than other types, such as pressurized-water reactors.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission generally disputes the findings, according to the Radiation and Public Health Project's Web site.

Entergy spokesman Robert Williams questioned the results of the preliminary study, calling it "junk science."

He added, "Such tactics have been tried many times by anti-nuclear groups to incite fear. They are irresponsible. Their data collection and conclusions have no credibility in the field of epidemiology."

Schaktman said that Joseph Mangano, the national coordinator of the Radiation and Public Health Project, had originally been scheduled to speak at a press conference today in Brattleboro, but had to cancel due to an illness in his family.

In his place will be Agnes Reynolds, a Connecticut registered nurse whose son is a survivor of acute lymphoblastic leukemia, according to Schaktman. She has been active in the project for the past four years, collecting the baby teeth of both cancer-stricken and healthy children.

Schaktman said the Radiation Public Health Project has been collecting baby teeth around chemical factories and nuclear reactors to test for pollution and radiation for several years.

The New England Coalition, another anti-nuclear group, has donated $1,000 toward the project, according to Raymond Shadis, senior technical advisor.

Shadis said the preliminary results show a need for further study.

"We believe it is worth pursuing, an analysis is worth pursuing," he said.

Shadis said there were legitimate reasons to question the tests' methodology.

"There are valid criticisms of their methodology, but to simply assert it's junk science?" he said.

"The results could contribute to a fuller understanding of the potential environmental impact of Vermont Yankee," he said, "particularly in light of Entergy's stated plans to increase power and extend the life of the ill-designed and aging nuclear facility."

The government first tested Strontium-90 in baby teeth while nuclear weapons were still being tested above ground. Scientists at Washington University in St. Louis collected 320,000 baby teeth from 1958 to 1970, and reported that Strontium-90 concentrations rose sharply in conjunction with above-ground bomb tests in Nevada. Once the tests were banned, the levels dropped, they said.

Testing baby teeth is the least intrusive, painless way of testing the effects of radiation deposition in the body, Shadis said.

Contact Susan Smallheer at susan.smallheer@rutlandherald.com.



-------- australia

Gallop defends stance on nuclear exports

Tuesday, July 26, 2005 5:08pm (AEST) Australian Broadcasting

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200507/s1422836.htm

Western Australian Premier Geoff Gallop has rejected criticism by the Federal Government that his opposition to uranium mining is xenophobic and silly.

Federal Environment Minister Ian Campbell says Australia should help other countries use cleaner energy sources like nuclear power and should not refuse to export uranium on ideological grounds.

The State Government has banned uranium mining in Western Australia.

Dr Gallop says its position is based on common sense.

"We live in an age of terrorism and we should be doing all we can to reduce the possibility of such horrific use of nuclear fuels," he said.

"Secondly and importantly we wouldn't want to be encouraging the world to spend the huge amount of money that would need to be spent on nuclear energy when indeed it could go down the renewable path and the energy efficiency path."



-------- britain

UK Power Industry Backs Future Role for Nuclear

REUTERS UK: July 26, 2005

http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/31790/story.htm

LONDON - Britain's biggest energy suppliers on Monday backed the future use of nuclear power in the UK and urged the government to reduce obstacles to the construction of new reactors.

The Association of Electricity Producers (AEP), whose members include EDF, E.ON, RWE and Scottish and Southern Energy, said a new fleet of reactors would benefit Britain in terms of supply security and cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

"The generating industry faces a massive program of investment in power stations," said AEP chief executive David Porter in a statement.

"They will have to be competitive and meet carbon reduction and other environmental requirements. New nuclear power may well play a part in this."

Most of Britain's aging reactors are due to start closing from 2010.

The AEP's comments come as the debate over nuclear power in Britain hots up.

The government has left the door open to another generation of reactors as it faces pressure to secure future energy supplies while also cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

Nuclear plants produce hardly any carbon dioxide (CO2), the main gas blamed for global warming.

Coal-fired stations, on which the UK still relies for about a third of its power, are among the biggest industrial emitters of CO2.

Last month E.ON said it had told the UK government it was ready to explore the possibility of building new reactors.

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Diversion plans for waste trains

By Samantha Payne
10:36am Tuesday 26th July 2005

http://www.newsshopper.co.uk/news/lewgreennews/display.var.616905.0.diversion_plans_for_waste_trains.php

A GREEN politician wants nuclear waste trains routed away from Lewisham because he fears they will become a target for terrorists.

Two hundred trains carrying spent nuclear fuel rods pass through Lewisham each year, according to London Assembly member Darren Johnson.

They start from Dungeness Power Station, passing through Chislehurst, Hither Green, Lewisham, Peckham Rye, Brixton, Kensington and Willesden Junction on the way to Sellafield nuclear plant.

Following the London bomb attacks, proposals to re-route the trains will be discussed as part of a full risk assessment to be carried out by the London Assembly and Mayor of London Ken Livingstone later this year.

Mr Johnson says the assessment, which could cost up to £35,000, is essential use of public money to help prevent a terrorist attack.

He added one of the key recommendations from a pre-September 11 study was "European government guidelines state nuclear waste trains should be diverted away from main centres of population".

Mr Johnson said: "It's a serious issue. I don't want to be a scaremonger but it would be catastrophic if these trains were attacked.

"That amount of radioactivity would affect people for years to come."

But Direct Rail Services, which has been transporting nuclear fuel since 1962, has assured the safety and security of its operations are the organisation's number one priority.

A spokesman said: "In the unlikely event of an accident involving a fuel flask, a single co-ordinated transport emergency plan exists for Great Britain.

"For security reasons it's not sensible to comment on specific anti-terrorist measures.

"But the operational arrangements, agreed with government departments, take into account perceived threats and are reviewed in light of the current climate."

FUEL FLASK FACTS:

The main activity at Sellafield is recycling used fuel from nuclear power stations worldwide.

The site also houses a series of plants which treat wastes and convert them into forms which can be disposed of safely.

All used nuclear fuel is transported in heavily shielded purpose-built containers, known as flasks. Constructed from forged steel more than 30cm thick, they weigh more than 50 tonnes and are used to transport an average of two tonnes of used fuel.

The testing criteria for flasks comply with regulations set by the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Department for Transport. They include being dropped onto concrete from 9m and exposed to temperatures of 800C for 30 minutes.



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

-------- depleted uranium

Board OKs photo exhibit

John Jensen - Lake County (CA) Record-Bee staff, July 26, 2005

http://www.record-bee.com/Stories/0,1413,255~26901~2983246,00.html

LAKEPORT -- In a surprise upset a controversial art exhibit may be shown at a Lower Lake museum after a key dissenter reversed his opinion Tuesday.

Initially, the supervisors had rejected, 2-3, a motion to approve an exhibit of photographs depicting child victims of depleted uranium exposure in Iraq at the Lower Lake Historic Schoolhouse Museum.

The show is comprised of 60 18-inch by 24-inch photographs by Japanese photojournalist Takashi Morizumi and has been exhibited throughout Japan and the U.S.

During the second vote, later in the day, the board gave discretion over the decision to Lake County Public Services Director Kim Clymire, who said the exhibit could take place as long as it has clear warning signs about the graphic content of some of the photographs.

"There are some pictures I am concerned about in the exhibit," Clymire said. "I didn't want people coming into the museum for other reasons to be exposed."

Dissenters in the first vote, Jeff Smith, Gary Lewis and Rob Brown supervisors for Districts 2, 3 and 5 respectively had opposed the exhibit on a variety of grounds but primarily relied upon a letter from Clymire.

Clymire wrote in a letter to the board that he had seen the images and that some of the photographs in the exhibit are "very disturbing" characterizing them as "horrific" and in "poor taste." Expressing opposition to the showing of the exhibit at either the museum or Redbud library, Clymire wrote that he does not "generally support censorship."

As it happens, Clymire had not seen the exhibit but instead had viewed the Web site of a scientist who is studying the affects of depleted uranium on Iraqi children where very graphic photographs of children suffering from extreme deformities are displayed under a warning that calls the photographs "horrific."

Ultimately Clymire decided that the actual exhibit contained powerful imagery and aesthetic value to viewers. "Some photos might be moving to them I'm OK with it," he said.

Brown, in the first vote, took the position that he would honor Clymire's negative position and asked that librarian Kathy Jansen weigh in on whether the show be allowed at Redbud Library. Later, Brown voted against the motion because he said, "I think the museum is there for Lake County history and issues totally related to Lake County. The library is the right place for it."

He says he probably won't be going to the show at the museum.

After sitting down with proponent Lyn Fischbein and looking at the photos, Jansen said she has "no problem," with the exhibit. And that she is "glad Lyn has agreed to take out the most shocking pictures."

Fischbein, a retired teacher living in Long Valley, requested that the exhibit be shown at the Lake County museum and at Redbud Library, and proclaimed "censorship does not have a place in a democracy."

District 1 Supervisor Ed Robey and District 4 Supervisor Anthony Farrington voted in favor of the motion. Both spoke on behalf of the exhibit, Robey voicing an objection to censorship and Farrington pointing out that much of what children see today on TV and in video games could be considered as violent or harmful as the photographs from the exhibit.

Farrington, who called the photographs "very thought provoking," also suggested that photographic depictions of the distasteful aftermath of warfare could counter the onslaught of glamorized depictions of violence on television and in video games.

One argument posed by the dissenters, that the show was not pertinent to Lake County, was addressed by Farrington who said, "this war touches soil everywhere."

Depleted Uranium was used by U.S. military forces in Operation Desert Shield, commonly called Gulf War One, which lasted from Jan. 17 to Feb. 28, 1991.

Contact John Jensen jjensen@record-bee.coM.



-------- india 

Do we need the nuclear deal with the US?

July 26, 2005 Rediff

http://in.rediff.com/news/2005/jul/26guest.htm

The new nuclear bargain means different things to different people, both here and in the United States -- a case of the elephant and the blind men!

Dire consequences to our national security are forecast by our strategic community because we would have access to nuclear power trade and international cooperation.

So the first question that we must address is: Why do we need international cooperation in nuclear power, and what would be the bargain?

To begin with, we all know how deficient the country is in total energy as well in electricity. We have a lot of coal, but it has a very high content of ash (which requires technology and capital to improve it) and is a serious environmental problem. Meanwhile we import better quality of coal from Australia.

The nuclear deal

With the rising consumption in the country, we will be importing over 90 per cent of our oil and gas needs in a few years, mostly from unstable regions to the west of us. This has its own vulnerabilities. Oil prices have soared in the past two years and are likely to keep hovering around $60 per barrel with obvious negative impact on our economy.

Energy deficient countries like Japan, France etc had to rapidly build nuclear power capacity after the oil shock of 1973. China now is building its nuclear power base from near-zero capacity to 40,000MW of electricity by 2020.

We have an ambitious plan to build 20,000MW of nuclear power by 2020. But our indigenous uranium reserves can support, at best, a capacity of only 10,000MW!

A good deal

If we want to increase our nuclear power capacity to even the targeted figure, we will need to import fuel for decades till the fast-breeder reactors are able to take over.

The NDA government was fully cognisant of this, and that is why it had included 'nuclear energy' as the first item for cooperation with the United States under the NSSP (Next Steps in Strategic Partnership) agreed upon in January 2004 by then prime minister Vajpayee and negotiated by then National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra, which have been praised so much and for which they took so much credit -- only to slam it now that those steps are moving forward!

The second big question is: Does this agreement jeopardise our national security?

Continuation of pro-US shift: Left parties

Enhancing nuclear power availability in the country would actually enhance national security since it would help economy to grow, reduce poverty and build national comprehensive power. What is less known here is that nuclear power now has become the most economical, most environmental friendly and most reliable form of energy among various types available for commercial use.

But there is no way we can access international cooperation, especially fuel for reactors, without some adjustments in our policies. What we are expected to do beyond the traditional policy of the country is that

i. We will assume all responsibilities and practices (and acquire same benefits and advantages) as other nuclear weapon states like the United States;

ii. we will separate civil and military nuclear facilities and programmes in a 'phased manner' and 'voluntarily' place them under IAEA inspections;

iii. sign and adhere to an Additional Protocol with IAEA covering such civilian nuclear facilities.

Third, what would be the implications, especially for our nuclear deterrence capabilities?

The loudest objections in the country have been that separation of civilian facilities from the military facilities would undermine our nuclear defence capability. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

India-US: The blunt truth

We have never had any problem with placing civil nuclear power reactors under IAEA inspection system (Tarapur was voluntarily placed under such inspection in 1993 when our treaty obligations expired). The two Russian supplied reactors near Chennai are under IAEA inspections, and so are the Kota reactors.

The point is that we have an efficient autonomous capability to manufacture nuclear weapons and the facilities for this all would obviously not be placed under any international oversight. But the civil nuclear power reactors built with any international cooperation component would have to be under IAEA inspection and it is crazy to claim that this jeopardises our security.

President Bush has given up the long-held US demand for India becoming a non-nuclear weapon state and in fact put India at par with the US in this respect for nuclear energy cooperation.

Fourth, would this agreement go through, and if not, would it then leave us high and dry with commitments that regress from our present positions and capabilities?

There is no doubt that Bush would find it an uphill task to get the necessary legal authority and international concurrence to the proposal. But he also has the bulk of his second term ahead of him.

US lawmakers say N-deal will be a tough-sell

A joint working group to progress this agreement has already been set up, and senior US officials have been speaking to Congress and US allies. First reactions are fairly positive and 100 Senators and Congressmen at a convention of the Indian American Friendship Council the other day have promised to make the nuclear deal a reality.

President Bush and Prime Minister Singh will meet early next year to review the progress, and the personal role of the US president would matter greatly. If for any reasons the new enterprise does not go through, India still gains by being labelled as a 'responsible State with advanced nuclear technology' (read 'State with nuclear weapons'). Surely, that is not something that we should be complaining about?

Fifth, what does the US get out of what is obviously a major shift in its policy?

Indo-US nuclear treaty: A good deal

The answer to this lies in the macro picture of global trends.

The obvious incentive is the burgeoning market (growing at an impressive rate) of a liberal democracy of over a billion people. But the second Bush administration is also seeking to re-orient its grand strategy after experiencing the negative fall-out from its first tenure. It is badly bogged down in Iraq while it is unable to get enough recruits for its army. Central Asian leaders are seeking its military withdrawal from the region at an early date.

But above all, Washington is finally beginning to readjust its strategy in the context of what has come to be accepted as the 'rise of China.' New tensions have been building in US-China relations in recent months. High-level Chinese generals have been publicly threatening America with 'hundreds of its cities' being burned by Chinese nuclear weapons if there is US-supported conflict over Taiwan.

N-deal no compromise: Saran

Above all, there has been a growing realisation of a global power shift from the West to the East, where China stands out as the rising superpower. The US National Intelligence Council in its projection for the next 15 years raised the issue of how the US would manage the rise of China and India in the coming decade.

By any logic, a successful and prosperous India would be a natural balance to China even while the two remain friendly; and strong India-US relations are crucial to Bush's stated goal of supporting India's rise to global power status. But the nuclear and the contradictory policies of the two have been at the core of their divergences for three decades.

Without finding a way out --- or around them --- the relationship would continue to be severely limited.

Air Commodore Jasjit Singh (retd) is one of India's leading experts on strategic issues.  

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Rolling the Dice on India

by Ivan Eland,  July 26, 2005 Antiwar.com

http://www.antiwar.com/eland/?articleid=6744

President George W. Bush, undeterred by the abysmal failure of his risky gamble in Iraq, is rolling the dice for even higher stakes by agreeing to share sensitive nuclear technology and advanced conventional weapons with India to aid its ascent as a world power. Such a policy could prove to be disastrous.

The administration’s fear of a rising China is driving this major policy initiative toward India. It is probably no coincidence that the policy change was announced the week after a Chinese general declared that China should use nuclear weapons against the United States upon any U.S. intervention in a China-Taiwan conflict. And, according to a recent Pentagon report, China has been increasing its defense spending.

Under last week’s agreement between President Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, which must be blessed by Congress, the United States would share advanced conventional weaponry and sensitive nuclear technology that can be used for both civilian and military purposes with India. In return, India pledged to continue its self-imposed moratorium on atomic testing, open its civilian atomic program (but not its nuclear arms) to international inspection, and refrain from exporting nuclear technology or materials to aspiring nuclear states.

India’s concessions in the agreement are meager because it had already decided to give up nuclear testing and moved to secure its nuclear material. More important, the agreement does not preclude India from producing weapons-grade plutonium that could be used to expand the nation’s arsenal of nuclear weapons.

The Bush administration has said that India should become “a major world power in the 21st century.” But India is rising as a great power fast enough—even without the Bush administration’s help in providing it with better conventional and nuclear weapons. During the last decade, India has experienced phenomenal economic growth that will likely continue well into the future.            

At the same time the Bush administration is pursuing an unofficial policy of “containment” toward China. The United States has strengthened Cold War-era formal and informal alliances with East Asian countries that ring China—for example, Japan, Taiwan, and Singapore. It has also transferred military forces to the Asia/Pacific region, and now has increased military support for India.

Although it was already obvious that any conflict over Taiwan between China and the United States, both with atomic arsenals, could go nuclear, the jury is still out on how much of a threat China will become. While China has been increasing defense spending, much of those added expenditures have gone for increases in soldiers’ pay—to keep up with the rising salaries in the rapidly growing Chinese private sector—rather than advanced weaponry. Furthermore, even the highest estimates of Chinese defense spending place it many times lower than the U.S. defense budget, which has undergone phenomenal growth since the last years of the Clinton administration.

So, although both China and India are rising as great powers, the administration is betting that India will be friendly to the United States because it is a democracy and that China will be a threat because it is not. That may be a bad bet.

First, China could go down the road of Chile, Taiwan and South Korea by opening its economy first—which it has done—and becoming more democratic later. Average Chinese citizens are already more free, both economically and politically, than they have ever been before.

Second, contrary to conventional wisdom, democracies aren’t always friendly to countries with other forms of government or even to each other. History shows that democracies are just as likely to go to war as more autocratic governments. In fact, the record of democracies launching wars against non-democracies is abysmal. The British, French, German, and other European powers’ pursuit of empires during the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries and U.S. wars in the Philippines, Russia, Latin America, East Asia, and especially the Middle East during the last century are obvious examples.

And the theory that democracies don’t go to war with each other because they have the same values is belied by intra-democratic wars—such as World War I, the Boer War and the war between the United States and the Confederate States of America. To illustrate the unfriendliness of some democracies toward each other, we need look no further than India itself. India has been a democracy since its founding in 1947 but aligned during the Cold War with the communist Soviet Union and had very frosty relations with the United States. In contrast, the United States supported India’s archrival, the authoritarian Pakistan.

The bottom line is that arming a rising power—whether democratic or not—is dangerous. In the future, India’s economic growth rates may exceed China’s, and the United States might then be tempted to support China to stop an aggressive Indian juggernaut that was built, in part, with U.S. help.

A strategic alliance with India is also bad for U.S. security because of the potential rise of anti-U.S. militancy in Pakistan, which could cause that nation’s nuclear arms to come under the sway of radical jihadists. Finally, providing nuclear technology to a nation that developed atomic weapons in secret and never signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty guts the treaty and provides an excuse for other nuclear nations to sell such technology to their favorite client states—for example, Russia selling to Iran.

To implement its new policy toward India, the administration will need to convince Congress to change a law that prevents exporting sensitive nuclear technology to countries that don’t allow full monitoring of all nuclear facilities. The Congress should block the arming of India.


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Britain welcomes India-US nuke pact

Jul. 26, 2005 India Daily

http://www.indiadaily.com/breaking_news/41786.asp

Britain has welcomed the India-US pact on civil nuclear collaboration and said it was ready to discuss further cooperation in civil nuclear matters with India. Referring to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's groundbreaking visit to the US, a spokesperson for the British High Commission said India had integrated into the international system, both in terms of civil nuclear cooperation and non-proliferation. "We welcome the fact that Dr Manmohan Singh's visit to Washington took this discussion further. India's willingness to engage on nuclear non-proliferation with the international community represents a significant step forward," said the spokesperson. The spokesperson also said Britain was pleased that Manmohan Singh had shown willingness to separate its civil and military nuclear facilities, to place the facilities under International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards, adhere to guidelines of the Missile Technology Control Regime and Nuclear Suppliers Group and to work for the conclusion of a multilateral Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty. Describing India as a "responsible actor" in preventing outward proliferation of nuclear technologies, the spokesperson said India would demonstrate its willingness to accept voluntarily a number of obligations that were taken on by nuclear weapon states under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. 



-------- iran

EU to present nuclear package to Iran in early August: official

BRUSSELS (AFP) Jul 26, 2005

http://www.spacewar.com/2005/050726132206.wqyrbpxk.html

The European Union will offer Iran a package of measures in early August to encourage Tehran to respect its nuclear commitments once its new president has been sworn in, an EU official said on Tuesday.

The package, which basically offers trade incentives to Iran for concessions on its nuclear ambitions, will probably be presented in the first week of the month, after hardliner Mahmood Ahmadinejad takes office on August

"Then we have to hear the reaction," the official said. "We cannot call for a round of talks (with Iran) before the package has been presented."

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said talks would not take place until several weeks after the package is offered.

Iran's position on its nuclear policy has been unclear since Ahmadinejad was elected president in June. Tehran insists that its nuclear program is purely peaceful despite US claims it is seeking atomic weapons.

The package, based on an agreement reached between Iran and the so-called EU3 of Britain, France and Germany, has three key elements: nuclear issues, political and security issues, and economic and technological cooperation.

The official said the bulk of the offer had already been shown to EU foreign ministers and was almost completed, but would provide no details on what it contained.

According to an Iranian nuclear negotiator, Tehran has called on the EU to let it resume some of its sensitive nuclear work to prevent the talks collapsing.



-------- korea

Nuclear talks restart after rival shows a little respect

From Jane Macartney in Beijing
July 26, 2005 UK Times

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1708023,00.html

IN A rare meeting between old enemies, top diplomats from the United States and North Korea held talks in Beijing yesterday, paving the way for long-delayed six-party negotiations on ending the North’s nuclear programme.

Officials from the communist state agreed to meet after President Bush began to refer to their leader as “Mr Kim Jong Il”, instead of using terms such as “pygmy”.

US officials said the aim was to get to know each other better, although they may also have been spurred on by the worsening situation on the Korean peninsula. The International Atomic Energy Agency has called it the world’s most dangerous proliferation issue.

Negotiators from the two protagonists, as well as China, Russia, South Korea and Japan, sit down in the Chinese capital today for a fourth round of talks.

Christopher Hill, the US Assistant Secretary of State, said of yesterday’s meeting: “I want to stress these are not negotiations. We’re just trying to get acquainted, to review how we see things coming up and compare notes.”

Mr Hill last met Kim Kye Gwan, the North Korean negotiator, on July 9 in Beijing for a dinner at which they agreed to resume the stalled talks.

The three previous rounds ended without progress and few expect a breakthrough this time. Still, the prospect of a meeting between Washington and Pyongyang, and faint progress at meetings between the two Koreas at the weekend, provided a more buoyant atmosphere for the first round of talks in nearly a year. During the three previous rounds, US envoys avoided a formal bilateral meeting — despite repeated requests from North Korea — but did hold informal discussions during breaks in the six-way negotiations.

The crisis erupted in October 2002 when US officials said North Korea — branded by Mr Bush as part of an axis of evil alongside Iran and pre-war Iraq — had admitted pursuing a clandestine uranium-based nuclear weapons programme in addition to its already frozen plutonium facilities. The North denied the admission, expelled International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors and withdrew from the Non-Proliferation Treaty. In February it announced that it possessed nuclear weapons.

Pyongyang wants the US to drop its “hostile policy” towards North Korea and has called for economic aid, security guarantees and diplomatic recognition. The US wants Pyongyang to scrap its nuclear programmes before any such deal, leaving the two sides poles apart. However, there are signs of movement.

On Friday North Korea called for a peace treaty with the US to replace an armistice reached at the end of the Korean War in 1953, saying this could persuade it to drop its nuclear programmes.

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Conciliatory tone marks resumption of North Korean nuclear talks

BEIJING (AFP) Jul 26, 2005

http://www.spacewar.com/2005/050726144933.5e7106vw.html

The United States Tuesday reassured North Korea it viewed the country as a sovereign nation which it would not attack, as a new round of talks began to address the North's nuclear weapons programs.

North Korea also struck a less confrontational tone, announcing that it wanted to work towards a nuclear-free Korean peninsula in language observers saw as a positive sign that progress could be made after a 13-month deadlock.

The US approach, just months after Washington described the secretive Stalinist state as an "outpost of tyranny", will go some way to placating the North which has long urged the US to recognise it as a legitimate government.

But the United States made no mention about normalising ties, another key demand of North Korea before it agrees to work on ways to dismantle its atomic weapons.

"We view the DPRK's sovereignty as a matter of fact. ... And we remain prepared to speak with the DPRK bilaterally in the context of these talks," chief US envoy Christopher Hill said in opening remarks.

The Democratic Peoples' Republic of Korea is North Korea's official name.

The softer line from Washington, which was instrumental in bringing North Korea back to the negotiating table, followed a rare bilateral meeting between the two sides Monday.

The two sides had another one-on-one contact Tuesday afternoon, which Hill described as "good" and "businesslike." But he predicted it would take a long time for issues to be settled.

"Everyone had the opportunity to put their issues on the table, ... but this may take a little longer than you would want and I want," he said.

Hill said the two sides also discussed a US proposal put forward last June, which required North Korea to pledge to dismantle all its plutonium and uranium weapons programs before receiving any energy and other assistance.

"I don't want to characterise their response, ... I don't want to call it positive or negative," Hill said.

Last year the North rejected the proposal, instead it wanted a step-by-step approach, fearing it could come under attack by the United States.

In his opening remarks to the talks which include South Korea, Russia, China and Japan, Hill repeated that the United States had no intention of attacking North Korea, meeting a demand for assurances of non-aggression, and offered to address concerns about aid and energy.

"All the parties have made clear we are prepared to address the DPRK's security concerns. We've made clear we're prepared to address the DPRK's energy needs," he said.

"When the DPRK makes the decision to dismantle its nuclear program permanently, fully, verifiably, other parties including my country are prepared to take corresponding measures consistent with the principle of words for words and actions for actions."

North Korea abandoned the six-party talks last year complaining of a hostile US policy, and has since claimed it already possesses nuclear weapons.

But North Korea's chief delegate said in his address that his government was "fully ready and prepared" to work on ways to rid itself of nuclear weapons.

"We think that the resuming of the talks itself is important but the fundamentally important thing is to make real progress in denuclearizing the Korean peninsula," said Kim Kye-Gwan.

"To that end, the parties concerned need to eventually remove the threat of a nuclear war from the Korean peninsula and to have a firm political will and a strategic decision to realize the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula."

Last week it called for a peace treaty with the United States to replace an armistice reached at the end of the Korean War in 1953, saying this could persuade it to drop its nuclear program.

The North's close ally China said the "atmosphere has improved" from the earlier rounds while South Korean officials called Tuesday's negotiations "more polite and civilized than before".

A North Korean source quoted by Russia's Interfax news agency however cautioned that "it's clear that there are still serious disagreements on ways of resolving the denuclearization problem".

This time South Korea has offered to provide the North with 500,000 tonnes of rice and route some 2,000 megawatts of electricity to the isolated regime.

The standoff was sparked in October 2002 when Washington accused the North of operating a nuclear weapons program based on enriched uranium in violation of a 1994 agreement.

----

'Good start' reported in U.S.-North Korean talks

By Barbara Slavin, USA TODAY
7/26/2005 11:48 PM
	
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-07-26-korean-nuke-talks_x.htm

WASHINGTON — In what could be a significant concession, the Bush administration has told North Korea that it would be willing to open a diplomatic office in Pyongyang if North Korea agreed to give up nuclear weapons, an Asian diplomat in Washington said Tuesday.

The diplomat, who said he had been briefed by State Department officials, asked not to be named because the U.S. offer was made privately.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack declined to comment apart from saying that negotiations had a "good start." Nuclear talks resumed Tuesday in Beijing after a 13-month North Korean boycott.

In advance of the talks, North Korea's official news agency said the government would be willing to trade nuclear weapons for a peace treaty formally ending the Korean War and for U.S. diplomatic recognition. Opening a diplomatic office would be a first step toward formal recognition.

The chief U.S. and North Korean envoys seemed especially determined to move ahead after three earlier rounds of talks produced no breakthroughs. The two men held a one-on-one meeting Tuesday — their second in as many days, and a departure from Washington's previous refusal to have direct contact with the North.

"These talks are at a critical juncture," U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said. "We do not have the option of walking away from this problem."
	
His North Korean counterpart, Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan, said, "The fundamental thing is to make real progress in realizing the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula."

"This requires very firm political will and a strategic decision of the parties concerned that have interests in ending the threat of nuclear war," Kim said. "We are fully ready and prepared for that."

Hill directly addressed one of the North's main sticking points, telling the conference Tuesday that the United States views North Korea as a sovereign nation that it "has absolutely no intention to invade or attack."

"Nuclear weapons will not make (North Korea) more secure," Hill said. "And in fact, on the contrary, nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula will only increase tension in the region."

After his one-on-one session with Kim, Hill told reporters that the North Koreans expressed concerns about the "sequencing" of proposals. Washington has said it wants verifiable disarmament before the North is rewarded, while Pyongyang insists on getting something in exchange for a nuclear freeze and more concessions as it disarms. (Related story: Analysts: N. Korea has little to lose)

"The North Koreans are asking a lot of the Americans," said Steve Tsang, a political specialist at Oxford University.

"Before the Americans can even know whether the North Koreans actually have nuclear weapons or not, and before the North Koreans dismantle their nuclear weapons if they have them, the Americans will have to remove any of their nuclear installations from South Korea, be they weapons or other items," Tsang said.

"It's not easy for the U.S. government to accept," he added.

In the past, the Bush administration has said that North Korea must do more to get U.S. diplomats to Pyongyang, including improving its record on human rights.

Several rights advocates, including conservatives and an influential Republican congressman, said it may be time to offer diplomatic recognition because continued estrangement hasn't worked with North Korea or with other authoritarian regimes.
	
"Our isolation of Cuba has been wonderfully successful," Rep. Jim Leach, R-Iowa, a member of the House International Relations Committee, said sarcastically. (Cuban leader Fidel Castro has been in power for 46 years, despite a U.S. embargo, and he tightly controls the nation of 11 million just 90 miles from the USA.)

Iran also lacks formal ties with the United States and has a poor human rights record. The Committee on the Present Danger, a hawkish Soviet-era U.S. group reactivated last summer, has urged the Bush administration to offer to reopen its embassy in Tehran and more narrowly target economic sanctions to increase leverage with the Islamic regime.

Under a 1994 agreement to freeze its nuclear program, North Korea and the United States came close to opening liaison offices in 1997. However, North Korea balked at pricey Washington rents and feared a U.S. diplomatic mission would provide cover for espionage, said Jack Pritchard, a Korea expert who served in the Clinton and Bush administrations. The Bush administration showed little enthusiasm for the 1994 agreement, which collapsed three years ago when the North Koreans admitted cheating on it.

The White House might get political cover for reviving the liaison offer from an unlikely source: some members of a coalition that wants human rights at the top of the agenda in U.S. dealings with North Korea.

Steve Chang, president of Korean Churches for North Koreans, a Virginia-based advocacy group, said diplomatic relations could make it easier for Americans to get visas to go to North Korea. "Why not go ahead and see what happens?" he said.

Chang was among a group of Korean-Americans, Christian evangelicals and other rights advocates who issued a statement Monday urging the Bush administration not to give North Korea financial aid without improvement on human rights.

Michael Horowitz, a fellow at the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington, who drafted the statement, said he wouldn't object to diplomatic recognition, which he said might make it easier to raise rights concerns. He called the six-nation talks in Beijing "a tactical error. Why would we want the Chinese and the South Koreans at the table if we want to raise human rights?" Japan and Russia are also taking part.

China, South Korea and Russia have increased economic ties with North Korea without demanding that the North improve treatment of its people, reasoning that a more prosperous North would be more humane.

The State Department's annual human rights report rates North Korea's record as "extremely poor" and estimates that 150,000 to 200,000 North Koreans are held under harsh conditions in labor camps. Torture and execution for political crimes are common, the report says, and North Koreans who flee to China face exploitation and deportation. (Related story: U.N.: N. Korea short on food)

U.S. ties wouldn't guarantee improved conditions. Bush has acknowledged, for example, that a U.S. desire to promote stability in the Middle East led the United States to back repressive governments for decades.

Horowitz points to the 1975 Helsinki accords, which supported talks on arms control and human rights with the Soviet Union. U.S. diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union contributed to the collapse of the Soviet system in part because of frequent contact between Soviet dissidents and Americans.

China and Vietnam remain authoritarian political systems, but their people are far freer now than they were before formal ties were opened with the United States.

"Diplomatic relations are not an end in themselves," said Leach, a former U.S. diplomat who plans to lead a congressional delegation to North Korea next month. "But the current situation is bad for the North Koreans and not good for us."
	
Other countries' spokesmen expressed optimism, however.

"This is a solid foundation for us to usher our talks into a stage of more in-depth discussion and make important progress," said Qin Gang, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry. "We need to show faith, confidence, resolve and patience. We have to make unremitting efforts."

South Korea's negotiator, Deputy Foreign Minister Song Min-soon, repeated South Korea's offer to supply the North with 2 million kilowatts of electricity if it agrees to disarm.

The latest nuclear standoff with North Korea erupted in late 2002, when U.S. officials accused the country of running a secret uranium enrichment program.

Since then, the North has pulled out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and taken steps that would allow it to harvest more radioactive materials for atomic bombs. In February, the North publicly claimed it had nuclear weapons, but there has been no independent confirmation.

----

US groups ask Bush not to compromise on North Korea rights

WASHINGTON (AFP) Jul 26, 2005

http://www.spacewar.com/2005/050725220131.42bka3ne.html

A broad coalition of non-governmental groups urged the US administration Monday not to discount human rights abuses in North Korea as it resumes nuclear talks with the hardline communist nation.

Leaders of about 100 religious, human rights, security, social, academic and other groups warned that ignoring North Korean "inhuman abuses against its own people, or entering into agreements that finance or legitimize the continuation of those abuses, will ultimately increase the risks of war."

The call came just ahead of the resumption Tuesday of six-party talks in Beijing where the United States, Russia, China, Japan and the two Koreas would discuss how to woo North Korea to end its nuclear weapons drive.

"This statement is clear indication that if the president or the administration tries to enter into another framework agreement in which it gave billions of dollars to Kim Jong Il in exchange for weapons promises, this coalition is strong enough to ensure that Congress does not appropriate the funds," coalition spokesman Michael Horowitz told a news conference here.

"The premise of this statement is, 'No American dollars to Kim Jong Il to allow him to build more gas chambers and concentration camps'," said Horowitz of the Hudson Institute, a right wing think tank.

With no progress in the previous three rounds of nuclear talks, the United States has signalled greater flexibility as it enters what is considered a crucial point after a 13-month deadlock.

A change in US rhetoric, including President George W. Bush's polite reference to North Korean leader as "Mister Kim Jong Il" and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's recognition of Pyongyang as a sovereign government, helped tempt the regime back to six-party talks.

The Bush administration has also given security assurances to Kim as a way of ending its nearly three-year nuclear standoff with the Stalinist nation. Experts say some administration hawks still want regime change in the North but this could also change.

The administration, which previously lumped North Korea with Iran and pre-war Iraq as an "axis of evil," had reportedly put off naming a special envoy for North Korean human rights as required under the law until after the six-party talks in order to avoid provoking Pyongyang.

The coalition on Monday accused Kim's regime of widespread rights abuses, including deliberate starvation, abduction, family separations, religious persecution, trafficking of women and children, inhumane prisons, the use of gas chambers and the likely practice of genocide.

The abuses had led to an exodus of North Koreans to bordering countries, especially China, which does not consider North Koreans refugees and forcibly sends them back.

"It is critical that in any agreement that is reached with North Korea, there is a human rights dimension," said Mark Palmer, the vice-chairman of Freedom House, which tracks political rights and civil liberties.

A former senior State Department official, Palmer said negotiations with North Korea could be based on the Helsinki accords -model of diplomacy that was used to push for improvements in human rights in the former Soviet Union.

Michael O'Hanlon, an arms control analyst with Brookings Institution, said putting human rights on the agenda with North Korea was in "no way antagonistic or contradictory" to denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.

"So unless they are prepared to at least assume some level of human rights, any kind of denuclearization process will fail as well," he said.

The United States, he said, need not "aim for the sky" in seeking human rights in North Korea, adding that attaining rights levels of other communist nations such as China and Vietnam could be an initial benchmark.

O'Hanlon said among other "realistic" human rights improvements that should be sought for in North Korea was allowing the Red Cross to be involved in a dialogue on prison conditions in the reclusive nation.



-------- missile defense

BMD Focus: The Test Of Reality

But it is becoming increasingly difficult to dismiss the problems that the hardware people have long warned about, and these days Congress is listening too

by Martin Sieff
Washington, (UPI) July 26, 2005
http://www.spacewar.com/news/bmdo-05zh.html

Aerospace engineers privately complain that the Bush administration is making the same mistake in its high-tech programs that the Soviet Union made in so many of its own.

The same complaints have circulated for a long time and become so familiar that they seldom make it out of the letter pages in a few specialized journals. Reporters and politicians have, therefore, long disregarded what they perceive as the habitual grumbling of hardware people. After all, engineers are expected to grumble that no one understands them the same way farmers are expected to always grumble about the weather.

Also, over the past 20 years the Information Technology Revolution has boosted the prestige of software engineers at the cutting edge of American research and technology. Consequently, that of the old fashioned rocket men -- the hardware engineers who design and build the big dumb boosters and new interceptor missiles that carry the wonder-working electronic technology -- has diminished proportionally.

But it is becoming increasingly difficult to dismiss the problems that the hardware people have long warned about, and these days Congress is listening too. Two new reports from the heart of the military -industrial complex and the Bush administration itself in the past few weeks have given official sanction to what hardware engineers have long warned:

Setting artificial timetables and deadlines for political reasons and then pushing industrial plants and engineers far too hard in developing new technology repeatedly backfires, the reports concluded. Many extra mistakes that should be avoidable are made, and programs take vastly longer and cost far more as a result.

As reported by UPI last week, on July 12 the administration's own Government Accounting office issued a statement by Robert E. Levin, director of the Acquisition and Sourcing Management division of the GAO, titled "Space Acquisitions: Stronger Development Practices and Investment Planning Needed to Address Continuing Problems." It explicitly confirmed many of the long-standing engineers' gripes about the unrealistic and impractical demands routinely made of them in major military aerospace programs.

On March 31, an earlier report commissioned by the Pentagon's own Missile Defense Agency came to a remarkably similar conclusion. It warned MDA director Lt. Gen. Henry "Trey" Obering III that the ground-based ABM interceptor program being deployed in Alaska and California was bound to suffer additional test failures and might not function properly at all if its testing regime was not revamped and made a higher priority.

This independent review team found that development of the Alaska-California ABM system, which is intended to protect the United States from long-range ballistic missile attacks from rogue states, had been driven by a White House schedule rather than performance benchmarks.

There is a remarkable familiarity in such warnings for Sovietologists who covered the long-term decline and implosion of the Soviet Union and of Moscow's once-legendary research and engineering sector.

Again and again, throughout Soviet history but with increasing seriousness and consequences in the long twilight of President Leonid Brezhnev, political leaders decreed that research projects must be rushed to triumphant conclusions within a year or five, to meet the arbitrary requirements of some Five-Year Plan, or to provide a cause of celebration for the next May Day or revolutionary anniversary.

The results were always the same: Testing of components and integrated systems were skimped or skipped entirely; programs failed miserably, often with spectacular rocket explosions or crashes of aircraft because some or even many key components had never been adequately tested, and over-ambitious, immature technologies were developed at breakneck speed when their long-term viability had never been credibly tested.

Ironically, the testimony of Pedro "Pete' Rustan, the widely respected director of the Advanced Systems and Technology at the National Reconnaissance Office to the House Armed Services Committee on July 12 could have been taken straight from the devastating assessments of Soviet political micro-management of Moscow's aerospace programs at the height of the Cold War. Rustan identified 10 profound problems that have been crippling U.S. military aerospace programs with increasing severity, and all of them could have been taken from Soviet history

In particular, he condemned what he called "overly detailed requirements from the stakeholders (in the Department of Defense and successive administrations) with little flexibility" and "proceeding to acquisition before proper technological maturity."

During the stunningly successful "first 30 years of the space program, we built capability-driven systems that provided the best that our advanced technology could offer,' Rustan testified. "During the last 15 years, however, we have swung the pendulum to the other extreme by collecting overly broad requirements sets that our space systems should meet."

Also, he said, "Enthusiastic stakeholders and space program mangers often advocate and start programs to build a spacecraft before the critical technologies have been matured." Therefore, "We often have to spend years developing the technologies" that the over-ambitious initial plans had taken for granted were there when they were not.

The root of the problem appears to be that political enthusiasts for super-high-tech ABM and space defenses often appear to have no serious background in physics or engineering.

More often than not the technical advisers they heed come from Silicon Valley and the world of Virtual Reality, where happy endings can be guaranteed, rather than the unfashionable hard-hat world of physical engineering where the unforgiving limits imposed by metal stress and melting points or rocket fuel propulsion capabilities cannot be massaged or manipulated to guarantee the required solution within some arbitrary period of time.

None of this is to say that some effective ABM defense system is impossible or cannot be deployed in the foreseeable future given sufficient funding, resources and political commitment.

But it does mean, as the new reports have warned, that the long-established verities and principles of systematic testing and step-by-step progress cannot be ignored or rushed as they have been so often.

The more that happens, the more danger there will be, as Theresa Hitchens, director of the Washington-based Center for Defense Information, a liberal think-tank, told UPI, of a "rush to failure." Then, when ABM systems are tested in America's most dangerous hour, when enemy nuclear-armed ICBMs are winging their way to incinerate U.S. cities, they may be faced by missile systems that lacked the most crucial components testing.

Air Force Gen. Obering has assured public critics and congressional skeptics that the MDA has accepted and internalized the findings of the independent review team panel and that the revived program of ABM testing now scheduled to start in September or October this year will heed the warnings.

One can only hope he is right: Behind the bewildering acronyms and bureaucratic double-talk, the lives of scores of millions of Americans may ultimately hang on how well the wonder technology actually works in the real world, as opposed to the cozy fantasies of computer screens. Like the Soviets before us, our leaders will eventually learn that ambitious high-tech dreams ultimately have to be tested in the "real world."

----

US Prepares For New Round Of Civil Aviation Missile Defense Tests

Fortunately most of the stinger missiles the US gave to Afghan insurgents in the 1980s have either been "repurchased" or have expired and pose little risk other than to the user.
by Martin Sieff
Washington, (UPI) July 26, 2005

http://www.spacewar.com/news/missiles-05zzv.html

The U.S. government will begin testing anti-missile laser defense equipment on three airliners next month as Washington beefs up aviation security, USA Today newspaper has reported.

Northrop Grumman Corp and BAE Systems will install laser defense equipment on out-of-service aircraft before a decision is made about putting it on passenger planes.

The laser systems are designed to confound heat-seeking shoulder-fired missiles that have been used in the past by terrorists trying to down passenger planes.

The result of the trials, which will be conducted by the Department of Homeland Security's systems engineering and development office, will be forwarded to Congress next year for review.

Officials have said installing such systems on all 6,800 aircraft in the U.S. passenger airline fleet would cost at least $6 billion, which would be the most expensive security upgrade ever of U.S. aviation, USA Today said.

So far, no U.S. airliner has been shot down by a ground-launched missile fired by terrorists. Allegations have circulated that a Boeing 747, TWA flight 800, was downed by a Stinger missile over Long Island Sound on July 17, 1997. But U.S. authorities have always dismissed the allegations.

However, Homeland Security authorities take the possibility of such attempts being made in the future seriously.



-------- pakistan

Factoring in Pakistan

By Siddharth Srivastava, July 26, 2005 Asia Times 

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/GG26Df02.html

NEW DELHI - Apart from other aspects, notably in the nuclear arena, one definitive conclusion can be drawn from the visit of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to the US: in its foreign policy dealings with South Asia, the US has finally and decisively moved away from bracketing India and Pakistan. Rather, the clubbing is now China and India.

For a long time India has insisted that the US should deal with New Delhi independently of Pakistan. However, Washington, weighed by the exigencies of the Cold War earlier and the "war on terror" post-September 11, has viewed India through the Pakistan prism. A few months back, the US opened its arms supplies to India, with the balancing act of similar equipment, including F-16 fighter planes, being made available to Pakistan.

Matters have changed now. One telling reminder is the refusal by the US to offer Pakistan any kind of nuclear space, after a nuclear deal on energy cooperation was signed between Manmohan and US President George W Bush last week. "There is no reason for us to have a hyphenated strategic framework for South Asia ... And certainly in the case of civil nuclear cooperation, we are going to have individual relationships," Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns said.

"And, the fact is that India has a record of non-proliferation, which is exceptional; very strong commitment to protection of fissile material, other nuclear materials and nuclear technology; and there is a transparency about India's program, which has been welcomed," he said. Pakistan is predictably miffed with the US stance and has issued a statement saying so.

Another episode is the US's rejection of granting Pakistan Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz the kind of "welcome" that was laid out for Manmohan in the US, including a dinner hosted at the White House and an address to Congress. Aziz has subsequently cancelled his US trip, after Washington informed Islamabad that Aziz was an "elected" prime minister only in a technical sense, and not a real one. The US recognizes President General Pervez Musharraf as the only leader of Pakistan and treats him so when he visits the US. However, the reason ascribed for the US's denial to Aziz is a direct snub to Musharraf, as well as the legislative functioning formulated by the general under which he essentially wields power.

Many observers believe that the US turnabout has got to do more with China than Pakistan. According to noted columnist Indian Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyar, "A country that is feared is also respected. Pakistan poses no threat to American jobs, but China does. Americans worry that manufacturing jobs will migrate to China and services jobs to India. So China and India are constantly bracketed together in media and political debates as rising economic powers. This has rubbed off on foreign policy."

Clearly, there has been a change in mindset. The Abdul Qadeer Khan episode rings, including the pardon issued by Musharraf. Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear arms program, has admitted to proliferation, notably with North Korea and the US's bugbear, Iran. More recently, Musharraf has been under the close scrutiny of both Britain and the US in the wake of the bomb attacks in London, in which three of the four bombers were of Pakistani origin and had visited Pakistan in the year prior to the attacks. While Musharraf's record of cracking down on extremists involved in sectarian violence in Pakistan has been good, the infrastructure that churns out diehard militants remains more or less intact.

The Times of India comments: "While the US continues to bet on Islamabad to help it ferret out jihadis targeting the West, the Pakistan connection of the London bombers may make the Bush administration realize that it may have overestimated General Musharraf's powers, if not intentions, in rooting out jihadi terror. After all, no one wants to worry about Pakistan's nuclear arsenal landing up in the wrong hands."

Perhaps emboldened by his US visit, Manmohan has also been singing a slightly different tune vis-a-vis Pakistan during and after his US visit. It may be noted that India has experienced a number of attacks in the past few months, especially in the Indian portion of Kashmir. Terrorists also made a bold attempt to storm the makeshift Ram temple at Ayodhya, which could have caused a communal backlash across the country had security forces not thwarted the attempt. The Manmohan government has also been criticized by the opposition as well as its coalition partners of turning India into a soft state.

Manmohan has uttered the strongest words against the ongoing peace process with Pakistan, which he termed "irreversible" this April, even in the face of terrorist attacks. Conscious of world opinion against Pakistan post the London blasts, Singh said in Washington, "I, as prime minister of a democracy, would not be able to go against public opinion if acts of terrorism can't be controlled. It affects my capacity to push forward the process of dialogue with Pakistan."

In an interview with CNN, Manmohan said that he had no doubt that Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda had a significant base in Pakistan. In perhaps his most direct attack on Musharraf, Manmohan said in Washington: "I do trust [Musharraf]. But I think there is an old saying of president [Ronald] Reagan. Trust and verify."

Of particular interest has been Manmohan's statement on the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline, which is opposed by the US, but which has witnessed both New Delhi and Islamabad hold their ground despite the pressure.

Reports in Washington quoted Manmohan, "I am realistic enough to realize that there are many risks considering all the uncertainties of the situation in Iran. I don't know if any international consortium of bankers would underwrite this [the pipeline project]." Manmohan is known for a subtle enunciation of views, but several commentators have read the statement to indicate more delays in the project as India becomes more attuned to US concerns.

The left parties, who lend their support to the government, have criticized Manmohan for his "changed" stand on the pipeline, while Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyer, who is leading the talks with Iran and Pakistan, has said that the project is on course.

Indeed, all the weekend newspapers in India have discussed in detail the implications of the Manmohan visit, which has been hailed as well as criticized.

Some have accused Manmohan of a sell-out on India's nuclear status, while others have concluded a permanent shift in US foreign policy towards India, which will continue to be reflected in future US administrations.

The broad conclusion is that India will need to separate its dire need for nuclear fuel for civilian purposes from an independent weapons program, which cannot be open to international scrutiny. Apart from a few comments to the contrary, nobody doubts that India will have to increase its nuclear power capacity in the face of depleting fossil fuels and rising international prices of crude oil if it is to emerge as an economic powerhouse.

This can only be possible if India invites nuclear technology and support from abroad. There is also the possibility that countries such as France will remove their nuclear blockages on India in response to the US move, which will only make things better for India.

The peace process with Pakistan, too, cannot be compromised. Despite all that is being said, Musharraf remains the best bet yet. As with the US, India, for the time being, will have to deal with the general.

Siddharth Srivastava is a New Delhi-based journalist.

----

India-US nuclear cooperation and Pakistan

Pakistan Daily Times EDITORIAL: July 26, 2005

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_26-7-2005_pg3_1

Pakistan’s reaction to news of US-India nuclear cooperation agreement has so far been mature. It has not betrayed panic. This is good. Panic is not going to solve anything and in any case the movement that we have seen along the India-US track should not come as a surprise for those who have been plotting the course of India’s US diplomacy since the Clinton administration. The increasing tendency of the Bush administration to seek allies and supporters for its causes outside the United Nations framework has also ensured that Washington should look upon an ambitious India as a strategic partner. To take the edge off the agreement on nuclear cooperation, the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called up General Pervez Musharraf after the signing and assured him that it would have no impact on power relations in the region since the cooperation is confined to India’s civilian nuclear programme and energy generation.

Dr Rice’s assurance, of course, hides the fact that by extending this cooperation, the United States has virtually accepted India as a de jure nuclear weapons state, albeit outside the framework of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. This means that at least bilaterally India is now kosher and none of the NPT provisions meant to deny know-how to a non-signatory will apply to India as far as the US is concerned. The agreement also takes care of US domestic legislation against a hold-out state that has tested nuclear weapons.

This is a major development. While it is good to see Pakistan acting with equanimity in the face of it, it definitely calls for a coherent short- to long-term strategy to deal with the full implications of this development. General Musharraf has already held a meeting of the National Command Authority on July 23 and one of the items on the agenda was the India-US nuclear cooperation pact. We do not know the details of what was discussed in camera but at least two possibilities have been indirectly reported. There is word that Pakistan would initiate talks with the US for a similar arrangement; and two, it may slow down the pace of talks on nuclear CBMs scheduled for August 5-6 in New Delhi. Additionally, General Musharraf has indicated that Pakistan, while keeping an eye on the next steps by India, would refrain from getting into an arms race with that country.

All these steps, as reported, are commendable. Striving for symmetry with India has long been rejected as a viable policy. General Musharraf’s statement on that count simply reinforces the continuation of the policy of working out ratios and retaining the balance on their basis within an asymmetric relationship. As for engaging the US on a similar deal, there is no harm in doing that, though Pakistan should be cautious about the nature of the quid pro quo the US might demand.

India is already working towards scuttling any such possibility and Dr Manmohan Singh’s reference while in the US to the danger of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal falling in the hands of extremists was basically a crude attempt to present Pakistan as an “irresponsible” state. This has been a motif with India since the Kargil conflict in 1999. That it should surface again while the two states are embarked on a normalisation process should not surprise anyone. Not only has Dr Singh cast doubts over the security of Pakistani arsenal, he has also cast a shadow over the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline.

The real question that Pakistan faces is the maintenance and upgrading of its nuclear capability. How much of that can be done without a cooperative agreement with the US? Pakistan has done it so far and it can continue with its present course while trying to engage the US. The other issue is legitimacy, which is what India has secured through its agreement with the US. Legitimacy is important and we have constantly argued that the world should grant that to the three second-generation nuclear weapons states. We referred to an arrangement that granted legitimacy to all three — India, Pakistan, Israel — by the five legitimate weapons states. But the US has scripted bilateral arrangements with Israel and now India. That leaves out Pakistan. At the same time these arrangements do not involve the other nuclear weapons states. The United States has therefore embarked on a course that can be dangerous for non-proliferation. *



-------- security

Radiation Portal Monitors at Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach

Jul 26, 2005 By Government Technology News Staff

http://www.govtech.net/magazine/channel_story.php/95629

U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Robert C. Bonner recently unveiled the first Radiation Portal Monitors now operational at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. The event was part of a seaport security summit designed to acquaint port officials and the public with the role played by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in safeguarding the nation's busiest seaport.

"When it comes to the continued vibrancy of the United States economy, it is safe to say that as the ports of LA and Long Beach go, so goes the nation," Commissioner Bonner stated. "Today I am confident to say we are striving to meet the challenge of securing our ports against terrorists and their weapons, without choking off the flow of our vital trade."

The recent recommendations that Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Michael Chertoff announced on July 13, called for "better systems to move people and goods more securely". Bonner said, "Streamlining and flattening the DHS organizational structure will enable CBP to be even more effective in protecting our homeland".

Commissioner Bonner, fresh from a major policy victory at the World Customs Organization in Brussels, Belgium, where the member nation's adopted United States' standards for cargo security, pointed to the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach as seaports where these standards are exemplified. 45 percent of all oceangoing cargo enters the U.S. through the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. "CBP uses a layered approach to security that begins before a container is even laded onto a U.S. bound vessel at a foreign port. And, our CBP officers are highly-trained and equipped to examine every container that arrives," Bonner noted.

Part of the layered approach Commissioner Bonner outlined is the Radiation Portal Monitor (RPM) system, designed to detect any radiological emission coming from a vehicle or container. More than ninety will be installed in the ports of LA and Long Beach and will screen every container leaving the ports toward the major population centers. By the end of the year, Commissioner Bonner stated, every container arriving at California sea ports and every private vehicle, truck or rail car coming into California through the land border crossings from Mexico will be monitored by these high tech devices.



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

US considers new nuclear generation 60 years after first bomb

WASHINGTON (AFP) Jul 26, 2005

http://www.spacewar.com/2005/050726110432.kmqf5lk8.html

Sixty years after the first atomic bomb was tested in the New Mexico desert, the United States still has some 2,000 nuclear weapons on hair trigger alert and is considering new weapons such as earth-penetrating bunker busters.

The US administration has agreed to pare back its nuclear arsenal from about 10,000 warheads today to about 6,000 in 2012 under the Moscow Treaty reached with Russia in 2001.

But even as it moves to retire much of its Cold War arsenal, it has pressed a reluctant Congress for funds for nuclear bunker-buster studies, refurbished nuclear testing facilities, and a facility to build the plutonium triggers for new weapons.

The US Strategic Command in Omaha, Nebraska, is reported to be developing "global strike" options, including a nuclear option, against potential adversaries with nuclear weapons such as Iran and North Korea.

More than 15 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, nuclear weapons "are alive and well," said Robert S. Norris, an expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an arms control and environmental advocacy group.

Norris points to the administration's Nuclear Posture Review of 2001 as "the revealing document" that shows its intention to use nuclear weapons to counter a new cast of potential adversaries armed with weapons of mass destruction.

The review called for a "new triad" in which conventional and nuclear forces would be meshed in a "global strike" capability, enabling the United States to respond to a threat anywhere in the world on very short notice.

It envisioned more precise long-range missiles armed with conventional warheads as well as smaller, lower yield nuclear tips.

The other parts of the triad are missile defense systems and a revived infrastructure of weapons labs and production facilities that had deteriorated since the end of the Cold War.

"So the vision of the Bush administration is that we are going to need nuclear weapons well out into the middle of the 21st century, and beyond. I mean for decades to come," said Norris.

But the administration appears not to have counted on Representative David Hobson.

The Ohio Republican, chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees the Energy Department's nuclear weapons programs, stunned the administration by rejecting last year's request for new nuclear weapons funding.

He nixed nine million dollars in funding for research into new low yield "mini-nukes;" denied another 27.6 million dollars request for study of a Robust Nuclear Earth-Penetrating Weapon; and put off a request for another 30 million dollars for a new plant to manufacture the plutonium pits that trigger nuclear explosions.

"The development of new weapons for ill-defined future requirements is not what the nation needs at this time," Hobson said in a speech February 3 to the Arms Control Association.

"What is needed, and what is absent to date, is leadership and fresh thinking for the 21st Century regarding nuclear security and the future of the US stockpile," he said.

The United States currently has 5,300 operational nuclear warheads, and another 5,300 in reserve, said Victoria Sampson, an expert at the Center for Defense Information.

"We have about 2,000 which are on hair trigger alert, which means they can be ready to go within minutes of that decision to launch," she said.

Hobson and others are worried that new nuclear weapons initiatives could lower the threshhold for their use, and warned it would send the wrong signal at a time when the United States was demanding that North Korea and Iran stop their weapons programs.

But the administration has struck back with a request for 8.5 million dollars of renewed funding for the nuclear earth penetrator in 2006.

It also has asked for 25 million dollars to get its Nevada test site ready to resume testing in 18 months if needed, instead of the 24 to 36 months it would currently take. Those requests are working their way through Congress where opposition remains strong.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld argued that only "very large, very dirty nuclear bombs" could now destroy the increasing numbers of facilities that potential adversaries have buried deep underground.

"So the choice is: do we want to have nothing and only a large, dirty nuclear weapon, or would we rather have something in between. That is the issue," he said in April.

"It seems to me studying it makes all the sense in the world," he said.

But scientists warn that no earth-penetrating nuclear weapon could bore deep enough to trap devastating fallout that the National Academy of Sciences has concluded would still kill more than a million people on the surface if it was near a densely populated urban area.


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


-------- colorado

Uranium Tailings Heap Could Be Hauled Off Colorado Riverbank

WASHINGTON, DC, July 26, 2005 (ENS)

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jul2005/2005-07-26-01.asp

The U.S. Energy Department Monday released its final proposal for dealing with nearly 12 million tons of radioactive mine tailings left from a private uranium mine operation. The tailings are now sitting in a massive heap on the west bank of the Colorado River near Moab, Utah and immediately adjacent to Arches National Park.

In its final environmental impact statement (EIS) for the Moab site, the Department of Energy (DOE) says the preferred course of action is to move the tailings by rail more than 30 miles from the Colorado River, to a proposed site at Crescent Junction, Utah. This new site consists of undeveloped land administered by the federal Bureau of Land Management interspersed with lands owned by the state of Utah.

"Taking all facts into account, we believe the recommendations issued today provide the best solution to cleaning up Moab and protecting the river," said Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman. "The Colorado River is the life blood of the Southwest."

Utah Congressman Jim Matheson has said that the Utah Congressional delegation, together with Utah Governor Jon Huntsman Jr., have all urged Secretary Samuel Bodman to move the pile. Matheson submitted comments to the draft EIS in February asking that the tailings be moved, a request signed by a bipartisan group of 20 House members from Utah, Arizona and California.

Dennis Underwood, vice president of Colorado River Resources for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, has said 18 million of his customers get drinking water from the Colorado River.

"Metropolitan strongly supports the off-site disposal option, as this is the only option which offers long-term permanent protection to the quality of water received by downstream Colorado River users," said Underwood.

Total cost of removing the pile of tailings to Crescent Junction is estimated at $392 million over an eight year period.

In the development and preparation of this EIS, the Energy Department entered into agreements with 12 federal, tribal, state, and local agencies to be cooperating agencies including six federal agencies - the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The state of Utah and the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe participated as cooperating agencies as did Grand County and San Juan County, as well as the City of Blanding and the Community of Bluff.

The Moab Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action Project Site was occupied by a uranium ore processing facility owned and operated by the Uranium Reduction Company and later by Atlas under a license issued by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The mill ceased operations in 1984 and has been dismantled except for one building. The site covers roughly 400 acres and includes a 130 acre uranium mill tailings pile that occupies much of the western portion. Uranium mill tailings are the radioactive residue from the processing of uranium ore.

Decommissioning of the mill began in 1988, and an interim cover was placed on the tailings pile between 1989 and 1995.

In 2001 Congress transferred responsibility for cleanup at Moab to the Energy Department.

In exploring whether to move the pile of tailings or leave it in place, many reasons for moving it were advanced in public comments to the DOE after the draft environmental impact statement released in November 2004.

The pile should be relocated because it emits radon gas and poses a public health risk, commenters said. The DOE agreed, but pointed out that under any of the off-site disposal alternatives, during the period of surface remediation, there will be some increased public risk stemming from the need to disturb the existing tailings pile cover and transport the radioactive tailings.

The pile should be relocated because it has no liner and will eventually come into permanent contact with ground water, commenters said, and because contamination is migrating under the river and affecting the Matheson Wetlands Preserve.

The pile should be relocated because it is leaching contaminated ground water into the river, which poses a threat to four species of endangered fish. In addition, episodic flooding of the site has occurred in the past, will occur in the future, and will wash contaminants into the river, commenters said.

Many comments expressed concern that a catastrophic failure of the disposal cell caused by an earthquake or a 500-year flood could spill the contents of the pile into the Colorado River and thereby pose an unacceptable downstream risk to human health, the environment, and the recreational use and value of the river. While the DOE agreed with many of the other reasons for moving the pile, the agency did not agree that earthquakes are a concern, and said a catastrophic flood could be expected only once in 500 years.

Still, the DOE selected as its preferred alternative removal of the pile 30 miles away from the river.

In addition to moving the pile, the DOE will develop and implement a ground water compliance strategy for the Moab site.

Ground water at the site was contaminated by ore processing operations. The Colorado River adjacent to the site has been affected by this contamination, mostly due to ground water discharge. The primary contaminant of concern in ground water and surface water is ammonia. Other contaminants of potential concern are manganese, copper, sulfate, and uranium.

The $906,000 per year cost of ground water remediation would continue for an estimated 75 to 80 years, according to the EIS.

In addition, some 39,700 tons of radioactive tailings may have been removed from the Moab millsite and used as construction or fill material at homes, businesses, public buildings, and vacant lots in and near Moab, the DOE explains in the environmental impact statement.

As a result, the agency says, these vicinity properties may have elevated concentrations of radium-226 that exceed the maximum allowable concentration limits. On the basis of preliminary surveys conducted in the 1970s by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 130 potential sites may require remediation. However, using past statistics and experience, the DOE says that only about 98 vicinity properties would actually need to be remediated.

In the final environmental impact statement, the DOE analyzed the possibilities of on-site disposal of the contaminated materials and off-site disposal at one of three alternative locations in Utah using one or more transportation options: truck, rail, or slurry pipeline.

The EIS evaluates the environmental consequences that may result from implementing the reasonable alternatives, including health impacts to the public, impacts to ground water and surface water, traffic impacts, and impacts to other resources.

The EIS also analyzes a No Action alternative, under which DOE would not implement any surface or ground water remedial actions.

The tailings are now located in a pile that averages 94 feet above the Colorado River floodplain and is about 750 feet from the Colorado River. The pile was constructed with five terraces and consists of an outer compact embankment of coarse tailings, an inner impoundment of both coarse and fine tailings, and an interim cover of soils taken from the site outside the pile area.

Debris from dismantling the mill buildings and associated structures was placed in an area at the south end of the pile and covered with contaminated soils and fill. Radiation surveys indicate that some soils outside the pile also contain radioactive contaminants at concentrations above EPA standards.

For the off-site disposal alternative preferred by the DOE, the agency says it would remove about 11.9 million tons of contaminated material - the estimated 10.5-million ton tailings pile; an estimated 600,000 tons of soil that was placed on top of the pile; 566,000 tons of subpile soil; 234,000 tons of off-pile contaminated site soil; and 39,700 tons of vicinity property material that would be brought to the Moab site before shipment to an off-site location. In addition to the Crescent Junction site that is the DOE's preferred location for the tailings, the final EIS explored moving them to Klondike and to White Mill Mesa.

The White Mill Mesa alternative was rejected because of its proximity to the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe. "The White Mesa Mill disposal alternative would present unique and unavoidable potential adverse impacts to at least 10 traditional cultural properties," the EIS states.

Although only the Moab site and the White Mesa Mill site have been field surveyed for cultural sites, some cultural sites would probably be adversely affected under any of the proposed action alternatives, including on-site disposal. Under any of the action alternatives, four to 11 cultural sites at the Moab site could be adversely affected, according to the EIS.

But in addition, the EIS states that the pile should not be relocated to White Mesa Mill by truck due to the major traffic impact on highly congested areas, especially in Moab and Blanding.

Other traffic impacts were considered for each of the alternatives considered, and transport by rail was chosen as the least environmentally harmful and disruptive.

In its Biological Opinion added to the EIS, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agreed with the DOE determination that off-site disposal at the Crescent Junction site would not jeopardize the continued existence of plant species, nor would bird or terrestrial animal species be jeopardized.

The Service also concurred with DOE’s determination that off-site disposal and active ground water remediation at the Moab site would not jeopardize endangered aquatic species and critical habitat in the Colorado River at Moab, as long as the conservation recommendations included in the Biological Opinion are followed.

The Energy Department will specify its final decision on which alternatives to implement in a Record of Decision, to be issued no sooner than 30 days after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issues a Notice of Availability of the final EIS in the Federal Register.

Copies of Remediation of the Moab Uranium Mill Tailings, Grand and San Juan Counties, Utah, Final Environmental Impact Statement will be placed in the Moab Project public reading rooms in the Grand County Public Library, Blanding Branch Library, and the White Mesa Ute Administrative Building.

A copy will also be available on the Moab Project website at http://gj.em.doe.gov/moab, on the DOE website at http://www.eh.doe.gov/nepa, and in the DOE Public Reading Room in Grand Junction, Colorado.

Questions or comments about the Moab, Utah Project can be sent to: moabcomments@gjo.doe.gov or call toll free at 1–800–637–4575.


-------- idaho

Residents question project
A couple of hundred turn out for meeting about the plutonium project at INL

By NICOLE STRICKER
nstricker@postregister.com
July 26, 2005 Idaho Post Register

http://www.headwatersnews.org/pr.plutonium072605.html

Cooler heads tend to prevail in Idaho Falls when it comes to nuclear projects than in some surrounding communities.

More than 200 people turned out for a public meeting Monday night about a proposal to base the nation's nuclear battery work at Idaho National Laboratory.

The vibe was opposite of meetings in Sun Valley and Jackson, Wyo., where participants were emotional, confrontational and almost universally opposed to the project.

Roughly 200 people turned out in both those towns -- more than 30 people spoke against the proposal in Sun Valley and 20 voiced opposition in Jackson. Two people spoke in favor of the project at each meeting. Of the roughly 240 people at Monday's meeting, at least half of the speakers supported the project.

Few yelled at Department of Energy officials, and most applauded at the end of each public comment, even those opposing the project.

The meeting started with a 30-minute presentation by Tim Frazier, head of the DOE's nuclear battery program. He explained why the DOE wants to make batteries of plutonium-238 (not the weapons-grade 239 isotope): They provide energy for deep-space probes and national security devices. The DOE will restart domestic production of the battery plutonium and is trying to decide where to base the work. The current infrastructure uses three national labs, but the DOE wants to base the entire project at INL.

"This project is an opportunity for Idaho," said Kathleen Trever, who coordinates INL oversight for the state. "But we must do our homework to make sure it merits our support."

Trever urged the DOE to protect the health of workers and residents, make sure the project doesn't compromise the environment or lab cleanup, and seek independent oversight.

Tami Thatcher, a former nuclear safety analyst at INL's Advanced Test Reactor, where the plutonium would be generated, had concerns about the DOE's safety priorities.

"There are many troubling aspects of how DOE has historically and is currently conducting its nuclear reactor operations," she said. "Because contractor award fees depend on production and schedule, I know firsthand what priority DOE's contractors give to safety."

Like Thatcher, a few others voiced concerns about the safety of workers, the environment and the nation. But many spoke in support of the proposal, including Idaho legislators Mel Richardson, Russ Mathews and Jack Barraclough.

"It's not just about jobs, it's about national security," Barraclough said. "We need to get rid of this image that nuclear is bad -- it's done a lot more good than bad."

The support of the crowd was evident during the question-and-answer period, when several questioned claims that plutonium is one of the deadliest substances known to man and that the project would result in massive plutonium releases.

Barbara Dolphin of Idaho Falls asked why she's never heard of a plutonium disaster in the 40 years the DOE has been making nuclear batteries.

"Are you lying or are there people dying in the streets?" she asked.

Frazier responded that no American deaths have been associated with cancer linked to plutonium exposure.

DOE officials will hold three more public meetings in Idaho to gather comments about the draft Environmental Impact Statement that outlines its preference for INL. Comments will be considered when writing the final impact statement, which should come out in November. The Secretary of Energy will use that document to decide where the DOE should make plutonium-238 for batteries.

The final meeting in eastern Idaho will be today at the Fort Hall Tribal Business Center. Meetings in Twin Falls and Boise will be Wednesday and Thursday.

Science and Medicine reporter Nicole Stricker can be reached at 542-6763.

INSIDE

• INL awards grants to schools, teachers / C3

If you go

The Department of Energy will host several public meetings to hear comments about its proposal to consolidate plutonium battery production at Idaho National Lab.

When: 7 p.m. today

Where: Fort Hall Tribal Business Center, Interstate 15 Exit 80, Fort Hall

To learn more

Copies of the draft Environmental Impact Statement for the plan to consolidate plutonium battery production in Idaho are available at the Idaho Falls Public Library (457 Broadway), the DOE public reading room (1776 Science Center Drive) and online at http://consolidationeis.doe.gov under "publications."

Get involved

Submit comments using any of the following methods.

Phone: (800) 919-3706

Fax: (800) 919-3765

E-mail: consolidationeis@nuclear .energy.gov

U.S. mail: Timothy Frazier, document manager; U.S. Department of Energy; NE-50/GTN Building; 1000 Independence Ave. S.W.; Washington, D.C. 20585-1290


-------- louisiana

Blanco favors nuclear option
She backs new plant in St. Francisville

Tuesday, July 26, 2005
By Laura Maggi
Capital bureau NOLA.com

http://www.nola.com/business/t-p/index.ssf?/base/money-0/1122354032189000.xml

BATON ROUGE -- Gov. Kathleen Blanco threw her support behind the concept of a new nuclear plant in West Feliciana Parish, saying Monday she hopes a group of energy companies will choose Louisiana as a site for one of the facilities they plan to begin constructing within the next decade.

A site next to the River Bend Nuclear Station in St. Francisville is among six being considered by the energy consortium NuStart Energy Development LLC. The consortium includes Entergy Corp., which runs Louisiana's two nuclear plants.

NuStart is expected to select by October two sites for new nuclear reactors that, if given federal authorization, would be the first start-ups in 30 years. The federal regulatory process itself is expected to take years, so the facilities wouldn't be ready to produce power until at least 2015, officials said.

Speaking at a news conference at the Capitol with local politicians and business officials, Blanco said that a new plant, which could cost up to $2 billion, would create 2,000 to 3,000 construction jobs and be a boon to the economy. A new nuclear reactor would also necessitate as many as 400 permanent operating jobs.

With the cost of natural gas remaining high, the governor said it made sense to add more nuclear power to Louisiana's energy mix.

"The main point is to try to be as diversified as you can," Blanco said.

Blanco said that if a plant is built in Louisiana, it would be eligible for the "standard" package of subsidies offered to all businesses that come to the state.

The governor's support comes on the heels of a resolution approved late last week by the Public Service Commission that urges the NuStart consortium to consider the River Bend site for a new reactor. The PSC regulates utilities in the state.

Proponents of nuclear power tout it as an increasingly cost-effective energy source that does not generate greenhouse gases, which are suspected of contributing to global warming. After years of no growth as an industry, supporters say nuclear power is poised for an upswing, with NuStart planning to submit the first applications for new reactors since 1973.

Renae Conley, chief executive officer of Entergy Louisiana Inc., said that streamlined regulation and more standardized design plans should keep the costs of building new facilities in line. She said some of the cost overruns that hampered construction of plants after the Three Mile Island accident in 1979 were the result of changes in regulatory policy.

But nuclear opponents, including many environmental groups, are still skeptical of the energy source, saying the federal government still does not have a permanent repository ready for the highly radioactive waste byproduct.

Charles Reith, executive director of the Alliance for Affordable Energy of New Orleans, said his organization is skeptical about the purported economic advantages that would be provided by additional nuclear capacity. The capital costs of building the facility would likely be passed on to ratepayers, he said.

Conley said ratepayers would benefit by Entergy's adding more nuclear energy to its capacity, saying she expects it to be a cost-effective alternative to gas-generated facilities.

One of the other reactor sites under consideration also is operated by Entergy: the Grand Gulf Nuclear Station in Port Gibson, Miss. NuStart also is considering the Tennessee Valley Authority's Belefonte Nuclear Plant in northeastern Alabama; the Department of Energy's Savannah River reactor facility near Aiken, S.C.; Constellation Energy Group's Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant in Lusby, Md.; and Nine Mile Point Nuclear Station in Scriba, N.Y. All of the sites under consideration are next to existing reactors.

. . . . . . .

Laura Maggi can be reached at lmaggi@timespicayune.com or (225) 342-5590. 


-------- mississippi

Miss. officials mum on possible incentives for nuclear plant

EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS
Associated Press
Tue, Jul. 26, 2005

http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/12228210.htm
http://www.picayuneitem.com/articles/2005/07/27/news/11nuclear.txt

JACKSON, Miss. - Mississippi economic-development officials won't say what incentives the state might offer to try to lure a new nuclear power plant to the state.

NuStart Energy, a consortium of 11 energy companies, is seeking federal permission to build the nation's first new nuclear power plants in 30 years. The group wants to build two plants and is considering sites in six states: Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, South Carolina, Maryland and New York.

NuStart representatives on Tuesday met privately in Jackson with Mississippi Development Authority officials and a county supervisor from Claiborne County, home of Mississippi's only nuclear power plant.

The site NuStart is considering is next to the Grand Gulf plant, in a rural area near the Mississippi River between Vicksburg and Natchez. The site is about 60 miles southwest of Jackson.

"In Mississippi, we want to be the location to build one of these plants," Gray Swoope, MDA's deputy director and chief operating officer, said during a news conference after the meeting.

Swoope said Mississippi will propose helping with infrastructure, but he wouldn't say specifically whether that meant new roads, new water lines or other site improvements. He also wouldn't say what tax breaks or other incentives the state would offer the energy group.

"That will all be between us and NuStart at this time," Swoope said.

Garry Miller is manager of license renewal and NuStart activities for one of the companies involved in NuStart, Progress Energy in Raleigh, N.C. He said sites for the proposed plants will be selected by Sept. 30.

The nonprofit group Public Citizen says on its Web site that it, the Mississippi Sierra Club, the Claiborne County NAACP and the Nuclear Information and Resource Service filed a petition objecting to an early site permit application filed by Entergy Nuclear for a proposed new nuclear reactor at the Grand Gulf site. The Public Citizen Web site says the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission rejected the groups' arguments.

Entergy is part of NuStart.

A spokesman for the Claiborne County NAACP could not immediately be reached Tuesday.

Allen Burks, the Claiborne County supervisor who met with NuStart representatives, said he supports the proposed new plant because it would bring jobs.

"We really accept and appreciate nuclear power," Burks said.

Other finalists for the proposed new plants are Bellefonte Nuclear Plant in northeast Alabama; River Bend Nuclear Station in St. Francisville, La.; Savannah River Site near Aiken, S.C.; Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant in Lusby, Md.; and Nine Mile Point Nuclear Station in Scriba, N.Y.

NuStart representatives plan to go to each state to discuss the project. Mississippi was the first stop, and Louisiana will be the second.

On Monday, Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco called a news conference in Baton Rouge to announce her support for putting a new nuclear plant north of the city, at the site of an existing nuclear facility along the Mississippi River.

She said a new plant would bring thousands of temporary construction jobs, and between 250 and 400 permanent white collar jobs once it's running.

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour did not attend the news conference with MDA and NuStart representatives on Tuesday, but he issued a statement saying: "In Mississippi, we know that abundant, secure, affordable energy and clean air and water are keys to our economic future and quality of life. For these reasons, we are thrilled that NuStart Energy is considering Mississippi for a new generation nuclear energy facility."

On the Net:

NuStart Energy: http://www.nustartenergy.com

Public Citizen: http://www.citizen.org

U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission: http://www.nrc.gov


-------- nevada

AmerGen renewal filing OK with NRC
Agency reverses ruling on reactor

Published in the Asbury Park Press 07/26/05
BY NICHOLAS CLUNN
MANAHAWKIN BUREAU

http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050726/NEWS/507260323

Federal regulators have changed their minds and will accept an Oyster Creek nuclear power plant application to renew the Lacey reactor's operating license, though a computer glitch that rendered the application unacceptable on Friday still exists, they announced Monday.

The reversal means that plant owner AmerGen has now met the end-of-July filing deadline set by the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission in December.

According to commission spokesman Neil Sheehan, agency staff on Monday were still unable to search numerous pages on an electronic version of the application copied onto compact disc, but anticipated that AmerGen officials would resolve the problem soon.

Retiree Betty Bujnowski, 68, of Lacey said she had mixed feelings about the license renewal. She appreciates the plant keeping her property taxes low, but also wants her neighbor to do all it can to operate safely while posing little threat to the environment.

"If they put in the cooling tower, then I would feel more secure that they're doing their best," she said.

A cooling tower at the plant was proposed last week by state environmental officials as a way for AmerGen to meet new standards requiring that its cooling system kill fewer fish, clams and shrimp.

AmerGen submitted its renewal application Friday, but it was turned back about five hours after plant Vice President Bud Swenson had hand-delivered the compact disc to commission headquarters in Maryland.

Agency staff said initially they could not accept it because of the technical blunder, but they changed their minds Monday, Sheehan said.

"They now consider the technical glitch of searchability to be something that needs to be resolved, but for the purpose of accepting the document, they believe it meets that threshold," he said.

A license renewal would allow the 650-megawatt reactor, the nation's oldest commercial nuclear plant, to stay open for another 20 years beyond the end of its initial 40-year license, which expires in 2009.

Once AmerGen resolves the document glitch, agency staff will comb through the 2,500-page application to determine whether it contains the necessary information.

Due on Web site

Agency staff also will soon post the entire application on the commission Web site, though it's not expected to appear until early next week, Sheehan said.

Oyster Creek's application may have been the first one turned away because of a technicality, according to Sheehan. The pages that were not searchable appeared to be old documents that had been scanned into the application, he said.

The commission had set the Friday deadline when it exempted the plant from a rule requiring reactors to close when initial licenses expire during renewal reviews.

Nicholas Clunn: (609) 978-4597 or nclunn@app.com



-------- utah

Crews to Move 12 Million Tons of Radioactive Waste away from River in Utah

July 26, 2005 — By Mark Thiessen, Associated Press

http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=8326

SALT LAKE CITY — The Department of Energy plans to move a 12 million ton heap of radioactive waste away from the banks of the Colorado River, a major source of drinking water for about 25 million people, officials said Monday.

The mound is just 750 feet from the river in southeastern Utah. Environmentalists have long feared its contaminants are leaching into the soil and could eventually poison the water supplies of Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Phoenix and other cities.

"We have identified a solution that will help to ensure the environmental quality of the region for generations to come," Energy Department spokesman Mike Waldron said in announcing the plan Monday.

The radioactive waste is to be moved mostly by rail starting in 2007 to a proposed holding site near Crescent Junction, Utah, about 30 miles from the Colorado River. The cleanup and move have been estimated to cost more than $300 million.

The current site covers 130 acres near Moab and is the only decommissioned uranium mill overseen by the Energy Department that has yet to be cleaned up.

The waste began piling up in the 1950s as the Atomic Age created uranium mining boom towns in Utah. The government took control of the site in 2001 after the most recent owner, Denver-based Atlas Corp., declared bankruptcy in 1998. The 94-foot-tall pile remaining contains dirt, toxic chemicals and traces of radioactive substances.

The immediate concern is that the waste is seeping into the soil and groundwater, and working its way into the Colorado River, a concern that was heightened this winter by flooding in southern Utah.

"It was very much a real issue, and I'm very glad this chapter will be behind us," said Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman. "We've had a convergence of lot of positive things here."

Environmentalists have argued that the contamination from the site is already killing fish in the river.

Critics of moving the waste argue that it has been there for decades with little effect.

---

DOE details plan to ship tailings by rail

07/26/2005 01:06:39 AM
By Robert Gehrke
The Salt Lake Tribune

http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_2890635

WASHINGTON - The Energy Department said Monday it is moving ahead with its plan to relocate nearly 12 million tons of uranium tailings and contaminated soil away from the banks of the Colorado River.

   "Taking all facts into account, we believe the recommendations issued today provide the best solution to cleaning up Moab and protecting the river," Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman said. "The Colorado River is the life-blood of the Southwest."

   Bodman had announced in April the DOE planned to move the tailings, but Monday, the department released the final environmental impact statement, a key step in the process.

   The document details the DOE plans to ship the 10.5 million tons of tailings by rail to a lined disposal cell at Crescent Junction, 30 miles to the north, and remediation of the groundwater at the defunct Atlas Corp. mill site.

   "Millions of people near Moab and throughout the Southwest have good reason to fear for their drinking water," said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, in a statement. "We shouldn't have this radioactive waste so close to the Colorado River. The DOE made the right decision to move this pile to a safe location."

   Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, said he is "very happy with how this worked out."

   "This is something I've been working on for three years and this is where we want it be," he said. "Now we've got to raise the money to move it."

   He said the Energy Department has already asked for more money in its remediation fund than it has in the past and made a commitment to funding the move.

   The Energy Department expects surface and groundwater remediation of the site to cost $472 million.

   "The Department of Energy recognizes this is what they've got to do and I think the money is going to be there," Matheson said. He says there should still be money provided to study the extent to which the site has contaminated the aquifer that provides drinking water for Moab and the area.

   The Atlas Corp. mill processed uranium during the Cold War.

   The mill was shut down in 1984 and Atlas declared bankruptcy in 1998, leaving the federal government responsible for the pile, which despite having an interim cap to keep the tailings in place continued to contaminate the groundwater and the nearby Colorado River.

   The public will have 30 days to comment on the environmental impact before the decision is finalized.



-------- MILITARY 


-------- iraq

Gov't Study Estimate War Cost to Reach $700B

Tuesday, July 26th, 2005 Democracy Now!

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/07/26/1419236

A new government study has found that the total cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will top $700 billion over the next decade. Already $300 billion has been spent. The total cost estimate comes from the Congressional Budget Office. The San Francisco Chronicle reports this would make the combined campaigns the most expensive military effort in the last 60 years. It is estimated that the Vietnam War cost about 600 billion in current dollars. The Korean War cost about 430 billion in current dollars.


-------- mideast

US military in Saudi told not to travel except on duty

RIYADH (AFP) Jul 26, 2005

http://www.spacewar.com/2005/050726133914.6sc99cib.html

US military personnel in Saudi Arabia have been ordered not to travel around the country except on duty, days after the US embassy in Riyadh warned of the threat of new terror attacks.

"In response to continued indications of operational planning for a terrorist attack or attacks in the kingdom, US military personnel stationed in Saudi Arabia have been instructed to suspend all non-duty related leisure travel outside of their work or housing stations," said a US embassy message.

The warden message, which went out late Monday and has been posted on the embassy's website, urged US citizens to "maintain a high level of vigilance".

It reiterated the embassy's statement last week that it has "no specific information concerning timing, target or method of any possible attack(s)".

The embassy said last Wednesday that it had "received indications of operational planning for a terrorist attack or attacks in the kingdom," where suspected Al-Qaeda militants launched a spate of bombings and shootings in May 2003, often targeting Westerners.

"The reason for the new warden message is to inform American citizens that this is the security posture of the US military," embassy deputy spokesman Andrew Mitchell told AFP on Tuesday.

He did not give more details.

According to Pentagon officials, several hundred US military personnel remained in Saudi Arabia after the US Air Force relocated its Gulf headquarters to the tiny neighboring emirate of Qatar in 2003, ending a 13-year presence in the kingdom.

The Prince Sultan Air Base south of Riyadh was once home to the largest US air operations in the region with a state-of-the-art command center, thousands of troops and squadrons of fighter jets, AWACS radar surveillance and tanker planes.

Pentagon officials said at the time that the military personnel staying behind would perform tasks such as training and tending to military sales.


-------- POLICE


-------- courts / tribunals

The Federalist (Society) Papers: John Roberts and the Right’s Move to Take Control of the Judiciary

Tuesday, July 26th, 2005 Democracy Now!

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/07/26/1419244

There is growing focus on an organization that Supreme Court justice nominee John Roberts claims he cannot remember if he joined or not: the Federalist Society. We speak with Alfred Ross of the Institute for Democracy Studies who uncovered John Roberts' membership in the right-wing organization. [includes rush transcript] Ever since President Bush announced in prime time that his nominee to the Supreme Court would be John Roberts, momentum has been building for a showdown at Robert's confirmation hearings scheduled for September. At this point it seems unlikely that Roberts is in any great risk of not being confirmed, but Democrats have made clear that they intend to ask him to publicly state his views on some of the most politically divisive issues on Capitol Hill--most prominent among them, a woman's right to choose.

The White House has painted Roberts as a candidate made for the Supreme Court and his resume has gained praise from both sides of the aisle. But John Roberts has left a rather short paper trail. What we do know is drawn largely from his career as a lawyer, where he has defended Operation Rescue, has made the argument that Roe v. Wade has no constitutional basis. We know that he advised Florida Gov. Jeb Bush during the 2000 election showdown and that as a Bush appointed judge, he sat on a 3 judge panel that a week and a half ago handed the Bush administration a key propaganda victory by allowing military trials to go ahead at Guantanamo instead of giving prisoners access to the rights guaranteed under the US constitution. We also know that he is described as a solid conservative who worked for President Bush's father and Ronald Reagan. We also know that the Bush administration lobbied conservative groups to support Roberts for a year leading up to his nomination.

As the TV ad war continues, the Roberts story has taken a new twist. There is growing focus today on an organization that Roberts claims he cannot remember if he joined or not: the Federalist Society. Roberts and the White House say the nominee has no recollection about his possible membership. But yesterday, the Washington Post reported that it had obtained a 1997-98 Federalist Society leadership directory listing Roberts, then a partner in a private law firm, as being a steering committee member in the group's Washington chapter.

On Monday, Roberts declined to say why he was listed in the directory when asked by a reporter about the discrepancy during a morning get-acquainted meeting with Sen. Dianne Feinstein. White House spokesperson Scott McClellan was asked about Roberts and the Federalist Society at the daily press briefing.

    * White House press briefing, July 25, 2005.

We are joined in our Washington DC studio by the man who uncovered John Roberts membership in the Federalist Society. Alfred Ross is the founder and president of the Institute for Democracy Studies.

    * Alfred Ross, founder and president of the Institute for Democracy Studies.

RUSH TRANSCRIPT

AMY GOODMAN: White House Spokesperson, Scott McClellan, was asked about Roberts and the Federalist Society at the daily press briefing.

      REPORTER: It was reported, as you know, that he was in the Federalist Society, which is an important legal group in conservative -- on the conservative side. Then the White House said, ‘No, it was not the case.’ And now it appears that he was part of the leadership group. What is the real story here?

      SCOTT McCLELLAN: He has no memory of ever joining or paying dues to the Federalist Society. He has no recollection of that. He has participated in events and panel discussions. He has given speeches at Federalist Society forums, but he doesn't have any recollection of ever paying dues or joining the organization.

      REPORTER: Isn’t that kind of a simple thing to nail down? Prior to now?

      SCOTT McCLELLAN: Well, David, he has answered this over the last few years. The issue has come up, and he certainly has participated in some of the events that they have sponsored or that they’ve hosted, but he just doesn't have any memory of ever paying any dues to the organization. 

AMY GOODMAN: White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan being questioned Monday at the White House. Meanwhile, another man with close ties to the Federalist Society, Timothy Flanigan, is on Capitol Hill today, where his confirmation hearings begin in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He has been nominated as Deputy Attorney General. We are joined now in Washington, D.C. by the man who uncovered John Roberts's membership in the Federalist Society. Alfred Ross is founder and President of the Institute for Democracy Studies. Welcome to Democracy Now!

ALFRED ROSS: Well, Amy, it’s a pleasure to be here.

AMY GOODMAN: It’s good to have you with us. Can you tell us about what you know, what evidence you have that John Roberts is a member of the Federalist Society, and then, of course, what the Federalist Society is?

ALFRED ROSS: Well, Roberts, whether he’s paid his dues or not, was prominently listed in the 1997/1998 leadership directory published by the Federalist Society itself. So it is very difficult to believe that he didn't have any membership. He was on the Steering Committee. The important question is not whether he paid dues as a member or not. The question really at stake here is where does Roberts and his Federalist Society cronies plan to steer our ship of state. If one looks at the history of the Federalist Society, which was established at the inspiration of Robert Bork in the early 1980s, their entire trajectory has been to move our judicial system in an extremely radically right wing direction.

In order to effectuate this, the Federalist Society has established 15 practice groups which you can find on their own website which is fed-soc.org. These 15 practice groups are busy developing new legal theories for every area of American jurisprudence, from civil rights law to national security law, international law, securities regulations law, and so on. And if one goes through the publications of their practice groups, one can only gasp not only at the breadth of their agenda, but the extremism of their ideology.

It is not insignificant that today Timothy Flanigan will have hearings at the Senate Judiciary Committee on his nomination to be Deputy Attorney General of the United States. In the same leadership directory that lists John Roberts on the Steering Committee to the Federalist Society, it lists Timothy Flanigan on the Program Committee of the Federalist Society. And both men have their own personal track records in the right wing of American jurisprudence. In 1987 the Senate Judiciary decided that Robert Bork's ideology was so far outside the mainstream of American jurisprudence that he was not fit to serve on the Supreme Court. The same kind of strict scrutiny should be applied to John Roberts who is on the Steering Committee of the organization that Robert Bork inspired.

AMY GOODMAN: So the Federalist Society founded under the first term of Ronald Reagan?

ALFRED ROSS: Yes, it was established in early 1980s, on their website, they claim 1982.

AMY GOODMAN: And how did you get a hold of the documents? Here you have The Washington Post first doing a piece, saying that John Roberts is a member of the Federalist Society, then they retracted that, and now yesterday another piece saying that they were wrong, that in fact they were right the first time that he was a member.

ALFRED ROSS: Well, we were able to obtain the document, which is not particularly secret, although it was their own internal leadership directory. I mean, it has a very glossy cover, it must have had hundreds, if not thousands of copies made and distributed all across the country. My recollection is that someone handed it to me at one of their meetings, which anyone can go to. The question is not the document itself, the issue is why did the White House issue this unprecedented series of calls to the national media to try to cover up his membership? And the answer to that question is that the White House does not want the Senate Judiciary Committee or the American people to understand the full agenda of the Federalist Society. Timothy Flanigan was one of the people who signed onto the Supreme Court brief in 2000 in Bush v. Gore to try to get this born-again Christian, George Bush, into the White House. The goal was not just to get Bush into the White House. The goal was to use the Bush Administration to implement the wide-ranging agenda of the Federalist Society, and it wasn't coincidental that along with Flanigan on the cover of the brief was the name of Ted Olson, Chair of the Federalist Society in D.C., who then became Solicitor General of the United States and argued strenuously against affirmative action and other programs while he was Solicitor General.

AMY GOODMAN: Timothy Flanigan, the man who is before the Senate Judiciary Committee today, nominated as Deputy Attorney General of the United States.

ALFRED ROSS: Yes, I think it’s important for the Senate Judiciary Committee to inquire into the jurisprudence of the practice groups of the Federalist Society. But their agenda goes beyond just the substantive law of the different practice groups. As the right wing legal groups begin to push their theories of devolution, basically states' rights, moving more of American law into the states, the Federalist Society recently launched a state judicial selection project so they could move not only their judges into the federal courts, but also into the state courts. If they accomplish their agenda of dominating the federal and state courts, they will have an effective stranglehold on the American legal system.

The man who was chosen to head the Federalist Society state judicial selection project is a chap named Clint Bollick, who wrote a book called The Affirmative Action Fraud and edited another book called Unfinished Business: Civil Rights Strategy For the Next Century. Again, it is not coincidental that the introduction to Unfinished Business was by Charles Murray, who wrote The Bell Curve, arguing basically that African Americans had a lower IQ than white people, and therefore were basically forever limited in how far they should get, making affirmative action programs useless.

AMY GOODMAN: We're talking to Al Ross, head of the Institute for Democratic Studies, who got a hold of the document that said that John Roberts, the Supreme Court nominee, was on the -- in the directory of the Federalist Society in 1997/1998. Now, John Roberts claims he cannot remember if he joined or not. Your response to that, Al Ross?

ALFRED ROSS: Well, we can't yet do an MRI scan of his brain to see whether there is a memory cell there or not. But it would be very difficult, indeed, for him to deny his association with the organization. How does he get to be listed as a member of the Steering Committee? And I suppose the Senate Judiciary Committee could inquire and ask for whatever correspondence existed. But again the important point here is not this memory lapse, which is strange given his reputation as having one of the more spectacular memories in the legal community in Washington, D.C., but again the growth of this organization within the Bush Administration and the implementation of its views.

The Inspector General of the Department of Defense had been also with Roberts on the Steering Committee of the Federalist Society, and Paul Clement, the current Solicitor General of the United States chaired the litigation practice group for the Federalist Society. Alex Acosta, another Federalist Society member and leader was recently deployed to be the U.S. Attorney in the critical state of Florida having served as Assistant Attorney General of the United States for Civil Rights.

So Roberts can deny it, and people can decide whether or not to believe him. But it would be hard for him to deny his association with a group of lawyers furthering the agenda of the Federalist Society. Before the election of 2000, we actually published a brief on the Federalist Society, which people can obtain by contacting our office, the Institute for Democracy Studies in New York. But the agenda is there, it's on their website. It ‘s clear that Roberts was on the Steering Committee. Whether his partners at Hogan and Hartson realize that he was there feeding information to the Federalist Society and presumably trying to recruit and helping develop their agenda.

AMY GOODMAN: Al Ross, why the title Federalist Society? Why the name?

ALFRED ROSS: Well, it's interesting. At one of their recent conferences at Yale Law School, which was opened to anyone who wanted to attend, they actually chuckled about the fact that originally they were going to name it the Anti-Federalist Society, but it didn't sound very good, so they called it the Federalist Society. The point here is the -- this organization of extremist lawyers really has no principles about what they call themselves, whether they remember if they were members of the Steering Committee or not. The point is whatever sells and moves their agenda forward, they're prepared to use. And this debate over Federalist or the Anti-Federalist is really illustrative of the underlying cynicism and ruthlessness of this organization.

AMY GOODMAN: Are you saying that the White House called The Washington Post to get them to retract that Roberts was a member of the Federalist Society, which then they did and now with the documents they are reasserting that he was?

ALFRED ROSS: Well, that’s clear. They not only called The Washington Post but they called a number of other prominent newspapers across the country. And the reason why they were doing it is they very much did not want the Senate Judiciary Committee or the American people to unravel the thread of the Federalist Society and begin to discover the incredible penetration of its membership throughout our judicial system and, more importantly, the underlying ideology that the group represents. Roberts himself has only sat on a federal court for basically about two years, which is amazing for someone to be appointed to the Supreme Court. And the question is how does one begin to access his underlying ideology? And this is a very important way for the Senate Judiciary and the American people to understand Roberts, Flanigan, and the Bush administration's goals for our legal system.

AMY GOODMAN: Al Ross, while you may not agree with the Federalist Society, apparently there are tens of thousands of members. Why doesn't, with conservatives in the ascendancy in the government, why don't they just say, ‘Sure, he represents our ideology? What is wrong with that?’

ALFRED ROSS: Well, it’s interesting. A number of conservatives actually were upset with the White House for trying to cover up the connection because they're quite proud of it. But I think the issue here is the, I believe, correct awareness by the Bush administration's spin masters, that the majority of the American people would not support the ideology of the Federalist Society, even though admittedly thousands of right wing lawyers are very glad to further their agenda.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, do they take a stance on abortion?

ALFRED ROSS: Well, officially the Federalist Society, as an organization, doesn't take a stance on anything. But that's rather a sham. Throughout their literature and at their forums, they endorse not only anti-abortion ideology, but extremist ideology on civil rights, national security law, telecommunications law, and every other issue you can possibly imagine.

AMY GOODMAN: Alfred Ross, I want to thank you very much for being with us, founder and president for the Institute for Democracy Studies based in New York. Thanks for joining us.

ALFRED ROSS: Thank you very much, Amy. 


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

Senate votes to move up Homeland Security secretary in presidential line of succession

Tuesday, July 26, 2005 (AP)

http://news.findlaw.com/ap/p/56/07-27-2005/d4a8000c42a5bfb1.html

WASHINGTON-The Senate approved a bill to move the secretary of Homeland Security from last to eighth in the line of succession to the presidency, just after the attorney general.

The bill, sponsored by Republican Sen. Mike DeWine of Ohio, passed without dissent just before the chamber adjourned. A companion bill in the House of Representatives, sponsored by Republican Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia, is pending in committee.

If the House should pass the bill, the order of those in line to assume the presidency if President Bush is unable to serve would be:

Vice President Dick Cheney, who also acts as president of the Senate

House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois

Senate President Pro Tempore Ted Stevens of Alaska

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice

Treasury Secretary John Snow

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld

Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff

Secretary of the Interior Gale A. Norton

Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns

Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez

Labor Secretary Elaine Chao

Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson

Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta

Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman

Education Secretary Margaret Spellings

Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson

Since the Constitution requires that the president be a natural-born citizen, however, Gutierrez, born in Cuba, and Chao, born on Taiwan, would be ineligible.
2005-07-27T00:35:05Z


-------- justice

Our Rights Suspended for 10 More Years

by Rep. Ron Paul,  July 26, 2005 Antiwar.com

http://www.antiwar.com/paul/?articleid=6743

Congress passed legislation last week that reauthorizes the PATRIOT Act for another 10 years, although the bill faced far more opposition than the original Act four years ago. I'm heartened that more members of Congress are listening to their constituents, who remain deeply skeptical about the PATRIOT Act and expansions of federal police power in general. They rightfully wonder why Congress is so focused on American citizens, while bin Laden and other terrorist leaders still have not been captured.

The tired arguments we're hearing today are that same ones we heard in 2001 when the PATRIOT Act was passed in the emotional aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. If the PATRIOT Act is constitutional and badly needed, as its proponents swear, why were sunset provisions included at all? If it's unconstitutional and pernicious, why not abolish it immediately? All of this nonsense about sunsets and reauthorizations merely distracts us from the real issue, which is personal liberty. America was not founded on a promise of security; it was founded on a promise of personal liberty to pursue happiness.

One prominent Democratic opined on national television that "most of the 170 page PATRIOT Act is fine," but that it needs some fine tuning. He then stated that he opposed the 10-year reauthorization bill on the grounds that Americans should not have their constitutional rights put on hold for a decade. His party's proposal, however, was to reauthorize the PATRIOT Act for only four years, as though a shorter moratorium on constitutional rights would be acceptable! So much for the opposition party and its claim to stand for civil liberties.

Unfortunately, some of my congressional colleagues referenced the recent London bombings during the debate, insinuating that opponents of the PATRIOT Act somehow would be responsible for a similar act here at home. I won't even dignify that slur with the response it deserves. Let's remember that London is the most heavily monitored city in the world, with surveillance cameras recording virtually all public activity in the city center. British police officials are not hampered by our 4th Amendment nor our numerous due process requirements. In other words, they can act without any constitutional restrictions, just as supporters of the PATRIOT Act want our own police to act. Despite this they were not able to prevent the bombings, proving that even a wholesale surveillance society cannot be made completely safe against determined terrorists. Congress misses the irony entirely. The London bombings don't prove the need for the PATRIOT Act – they prove the folly of it.

The PATRIOT Act, like every political issue, boils down to a simple choice: Should we expand government power, or reduce it? This is the fundamental political question of our day, but it's quickly forgotten by politicians who once promised to stand for smaller government. Most governments, including our own, tend to do what they can get away with rather than what the law allows them to do. All governments seek to increase their power over the people they govern, whether we want to recognize it or not. The PATRIOT Act is a vivid example of this. Constitutions and laws don't keep government power in check; only a vigilant populace can do that.


-------- POLITICS


-------- propaganda wars

Film series provokes thought, talks

By JESSIE SALISBURY, Nashua, NH Telegraph Correspondent
Published: Tuesday, Jul. 26, 2005

http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050726/NEWS01/107260008/-1/news

WILTON – Two independent films presented at the Town Hall theater Sunday by Democracy for New Hampshire spurred some debate from those who saw them.

The two films, “Toxic Sludge Is Good for You” and “Independent Media in the Time of War,” were produced by Democracy Now and narrated by Amy Goodman, an award-winning New York City journalist who founded Democracy Now in 1996. She is generally considered a voice of the left.

The films were followed by about an hour and a half of discussion by the viewers in the downstairs courtroom. About 25 people viewed the films with half of them staying for the discussion which followed.

The series will continue Sundays, 4:30 p.m., through Aug. 21. The programs are free with donations accepted.

“Toxic Sludge” (subtitled “Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry), documented the roll of public relations in what we get as news, how it is slanted toward big corporations and “spin” provided to soften or distort unpleasant facts.

The narrator noted that the term “toxic sludge” is no longer used – it has become bioproducts, while the use of human waste is touted as the fertilizer of the future.

She also noted the coverage of the Exxon Valdez disaster, the development of genetically engineered plants and animals, and the coverage of the Gulf War. Much of what the public gets as news, she said, is public relations material supplied by large corporations and presented locally as such things as “science news” and “health news,” frequently using “expert testimony” in the form of nationally-recognized spokespeople.

“Independent Media in the Time of War” focuses on coverage of the war in Iraq, and notes the lack of pictures of civilian casualties, pictures shown everywhere in the world but here.

Some of the pictures shown were quite graphic and emphasized the toll of civilian casualties, especially children. Reasons given for not showing such pictures is that they are “too upsetting,” according to Goodman.

Afterwards, Nancy White of Women Making a Difference, a political/social action group, stated that New Hampshire is in need of alternative radio stations and sources of news other than that provided by the national media.

The discussion centered around low-power FM radio stations and Democracy Now. It was led mostly by White and John Fridee of Peterborough. Fridee is connected with the low power station at Keene State College.

Fridee said there about 375 low-power stations across the country, with three in New Hampshire, in Keene, Dover and Portsmouth. Attempts have been made, he said, to get Democracy Now programs aired by N.H. Public Radio, but the efforts have failed.

“They said they didn’t like the tone of Amy Goodman,” he said.

A low power station has a range of about 10 miles, Fridee said. He has been with the KSC station about 16 months “and it has been an unquestionable success.”

While most of those present condemned the national media, Kerry McDonald of Temple put in a word of caution. “There are good aspects to public relations,” she said, acknowledging that “P.R. does bad things for corporations. However, we all need to recommit ourselves to our (national) Constitution. We need to raise people’s awareness, have (programs like this one) to show people videos that most people haven’t seen.”

The series will continue Sunday at 4:30 p.m. through Aug. 21. Upcoming topics include, July 31, “We Become Silent: the Last Days of Health Freedom;’ Aug. 7, “Invisible Ballots” with Secretary of State William Gardner and Anthony Stevens, his assistant; Aug. 14, “Depleted Uranium or Helen’s War,” told by Helen Caldicott; and on Aug. 21, “Reopening 9/11,” questions regarding the committee report, or a showing of “Arlington West,” a collection of interviews about war with soldiers, children and military families set in a series of temporary cemeteries on popular beaches.

Democracy for New Hampshire is a grassroots organization established in 2004. It is a state Political Action Committee registered with the N.H. Department of State.

Its stated goals are to help fiscally responsible and socially progressive candidates win elections; restore balanced representation and democratic values within in state political system; and lead movement for national election protection by preserving and enhancing the state’s election system.

For information, contact White at 672-8270; Nancy Tobi at 654-3541, or Susan Carr at 487-2009.

Jessie Salisbury can be reached at 654-9704 or jessies@tellink.net.

----

Wagging the Puppy
And unleashing the deadly dogs of war

by Norman Solomon, July 26, 2005 Antiwar.com

http://www.antiwar.com/solomon/?articleid=6740

Midway through this month, the Karl Rove scandal was dominating the national news – until the sudden announcement of a Supreme Court nominee interrupted the accelerating momentum of the Rove story. Since then, some anti-Bush groups and progressive pundits have complained that the White House manipulated the media agenda. But when it comes to deploying weapons of mass distraction, the worst is yet to come.

Changing the subject is a key aspect of political damage control. Media spin is often most effective when it displaces one storyline with another.

No one is in a better position to shift the country's media focus than the president. And no technique has been more successful than military action.

Just two days after a truck bomb killed 241 Americans at a Marine headquarters in Beirut, the U.S. invasion of Grenada quickly pushed the Lebanon disaster out of the media spotlight. On the day of the invasion (Oct. 25, 1983), President Reagan told reporters that the factor "of overriding importance" was the need to protect "innocent lives, including up to a thousand Americans, whose personal safety is, of course, my paramount concern."

That pretext for the invasion was bogus; the U.S. citizens in Grenada had not been in danger and they didn't want to be "rescued." Yet the invasion of Grenada was a big hit in the United States, and opinion polls showed a net gain of several points for Reagan's favorable numbers. On the front pages and TV networks, he had changed the military subject from disaster in Lebanon to triumph in Grenada.

Instead of critically examining the assumptions and effects of militarism, the news media celebrated it. Within 48 hours, the president had accomplished a remarkable public-relations feat – all the more notable because he directly transformed the public view of his role as commander-in-chief.

Fast forward two decades: The summer of 2002 began with Republicans on Capitol Hill in a near-panic. Congressional elections were just a few months off, and the front pages were filled with stories about economic distress. Widespread unemployment, fear of layoffs and spiking health-care costs had created a political atmosphere that threatened the Republican Party's control over both houses of Congress. But then war drums started beating – very loud.

It wasn't necessary for the president to "wag the dog" by starting a war before the November 2002 election. Wagging the puppy would suffice. The summer was filled with a rising chorus of alarms – sounded by the Bush administration and echoed by many reporters, pundits, think-tank allies, and other spinners. By the time the first leaves fell that autumn, the economy was off the front pages, replaced by a huge focus on the possibility of invading Iraq.

The current Rove scandal could hoist the Bush administration on its own "national security" petard. Certainly, if the key political strategist for a Democrat in the White House had leaked the name of an undercover CIA operative, the Republicans would be howling. But anti-Bush media forces lack the kind of massive echo chamber that the right wing enjoys. And the Bush regime can rely on more than the usual White House prerogative to launch some kind of military attack at an opportune moment.

In political terms, 9/11 is a gift that keeps on giving to George W. Bush. It's a golden goose that the right wing is determined to keep feeding.

The previous few presidents could rely on intermittent warfare to rally their domestic forces around the flag. But today, the "war on terror" provides the president with a nonstop set of options for drawing attention away from scandalous stories that could undermine his administration.

The Bush team has made good on a promise from Donald Rumsfeld, two weeks after 9/11, that "this will be a war like none other our nation has faced." In an op-ed article that appeared in the New York Times on Sept. 27, 2001, Rumsfeld declared: "Forget about 'exit strategies'; we're looking at a sustained engagement that carries no deadlines."

This "sustained engagement" – the supposed "war on terrorism" – has become the ultimate propaganda weapon and open-ended cashier's check for an administration that will do whatever it can to retain power. Already, vast amounts of taxpayer money have been squandered and countless lives have been destroyed. Sooner rather than later, we must void this blank check.

This article is adapted from Norman Solomon's new book War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death. Book excerpts are posted at: www.WarMadeEasy.com 

----

U.S. Officials Retool Slogan for Terror War

By ERIC SCHMITT and THOM SHANKER
July 26, 2005 NY TIMES

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/26/politics/26strategy.html?adxnnl=1&pagewanted=print&adxnnlx=1122492585-WYKrjzpmwCD6029KDR7ckA

WASHINGTON, July 25 - The Bush administration is retooling its slogan for the fight against Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, pushing the idea that the long-term struggle is as much an ideological battle as a military mission, senior administration and military officials said Monday.

In recent speeches and news conferences, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and the nation's senior military officer have spoken of "a global struggle against violent extremism" rather than "the global war on terror," which had been the catchphrase of choice. Administration officials say that phrase may have outlived its usefulness, because it focused attention solely, and incorrectly, on the military campaign.

Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the National Press Club on Monday that he had "objected to the use of the term 'war on terrorism' before, because if you call it a war, then you think of people in uniform as being the solution." He said the threat instead should be defined as violent extremists, with the recognition that "terror is the method they use."

Although the military is heavily engaged in the mission now, he said, future efforts require "all instruments of our national power, all instruments of the international communities' national power." The solution is "more diplomatic, more economic, more political than it is military," he concluded.

Administration and Pentagon officials say the revamped campaign has grown out of meetings of President Bush's senior national security advisers that began in January, and it reflects the evolution in Mr. Bush's own thinking nearly four years after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Mr. Rumsfeld spoke in the new terms on Friday when he addressed an audience in Annapolis, Md., for the retirement ceremony of Adm. Vern Clark as chief of naval operations. Mr. Rumsfeld described America's efforts as it "wages the global struggle against the enemies of freedom, the enemies of civilization."

The shifting language is one of the most public changes in the administration's strategy to battle Al Qaeda and its affiliates, and it tracks closely with Mr. Bush's recent speeches emphasizing freedom, democracy and the worldwide clash of ideas.

"It is more than just a military war on terror," Steven J. Hadley, the national security adviser, said in a telephone interview. "It's broader than that. It's a global struggle against extremism. We need to dispute both the gloomy vision and offer a positive alternative."

The language shifts also come at a time when Mr. Bush, with a new appointment for one of his most trusted aides, Karen Hughes, is trying to bolster the State Department's efforts at public diplomacy.

Lawrence Di Rita, Mr. Rumsfeld's spokesman, said the shift in language "is not a shift in thinking, but a continuation of the immediate post-9/11 approach."

"The president then said we were going to use all the means of national power and influence to defeat this enemy," Mr. Di Rita said. "We must continue to be more expansive than what the public is understandably focused on now: the military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq."

By emphasizing to the public that the effort is not only military, the administration may also be trying to reassure those in uniform who have begun complaining that only members of the armed forces are being asked to sacrifice for the effort.

New opinion polls show that the American public is increasingly pessimistic about the mission in Iraq, with many doubting its link to the counterterrorism mission. So, a new emphasis on reminding the public of the broader, long-term threat to the United States may allow the administration to put into broader perspective the daily mayhem in Iraq and the American casualties.

Douglas J. Feith, the under secretary of defense for policy, said in an interview that if the nation's efforts were limited to "protecting the homeland and attacking and disrupting terrorist networks, you're on a treadmill that is likely to get faster and faster with time." The key to "ultimately winning the war," he said, "is addressing the ideological part of the war that deals with how the terrorists recruit and indoctrinate new terrorists."


-------- ENERGY 

US negotiators finish work on energy bill

Tue Jul 26, 2005 3:13 AM ET (Reuters)
By Tom Doggett and Chris Baltimore

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticleSearch.aspx?storyID=96364+26-Jul-2005+RTRS&srch=nuclear

WASHINGTON, July 26 - House of Representatives and Senate negotiators finished work on Tuesday on energy legislation that aims to boost traditional oil, natural gas and electricity supplies and would double production of the gasoline additive ethanol.

The panel of lawmakers rejected a proposal to reduce U.S. oil consumption by 1 million barrels per day and also turned down a plan to require utilities to generate more electricity from renewable energy sources like wind and solar power.

The full House and Senate will vote on the compromise bill this week. President George W. Bush on Sunday urged leaders of the conference committee to wrap up work on the energy bill this week so he could sign it into law by Aug. 1.

The ethanol compromise, which would raise production of the motor fuel additive to 7.5 billion gallons a year by 2012, is larger than the 5 billion gallons approved by the U.S. House of Representatives, but smaller than the 8 billion gallons called for by the Senate.

Ethanol, derived mostly from corn, is a popular political cause in farm country, where it is regarded as a homegrown answer to oil imports and a boon to farm income.

It is usually blended directly into gasoline in a mix of 10 percent ethanol and 90 percent gasoline, which makes motor fuel burn more cleanly to meet federal air pollution requirements.

Ethanol is more difficult for oil companies to transport because it evaporates more quickly than conventional gasoline.

House negotiators voted against a Senate plan requiring the president to come up with ways to cut America's oil demand by 1 million barrels a day by 2015.

'RELENTLESS ADDICTION TO OIL'-SENATOR

"We have a relentless addiction to oil. We need to address it," said Democratic Sen. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota and sponsor of the oil savings amendment. The United States has to import 60 percent of its oil to meet its 21 million barrel daily demand.

House opponents said the proposal would force Americans into carpools and automakers to boost vehicle fuel standards.

A separate Senate proposal that also failed would have required 10 percent of U.S. electricity to be generated by renewable sources by 2020.

Republican Pete Domenici of New Mexico, the chief Senate energy bill negotiator, said the electricity plan would have helped reduce U.S. demand for natural gas, which has increased in price due in part to new power plants fueled by gas.

Chances for the bill's passage have improved, after negotiators on Sunday dropped a proposal for legal protection for oil refiners that make a rival fuel additive to ethanol -- methyl tertiary butyl ether, or MTBE.

Rep. Joe Barton, Texas Republican and chairman of the energy bill conference committee, proposed creating an $11.4 billion fund to clean up water supplies caused by MTBE contamination in return for shielding refiners such as Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM.N: Quote, Profile, Research) from lawsuits. But the plan was criticized by the oil industry, municipal water officials and key U.S. senators.

While Barton did not win liability protection for the oil companies, he was able to include language in the bill to permit new MTBE liability lawsuits to be reviewed by federal courts, setting a higher bar for such lawsuits to proceed.

CHANGE TO DAYLIGHT-SAVING TIME

A multibillion-dollar package of energy tax breaks and subsidies will be added to the bill. Negotiators are working on a compromise tax package of about $10 billion, which is higher than the $6.7 billion sought by the Bush administration.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan reiterated on Monday that the administration "doesn't think we need to be providing tax credits to oil companies when the price of oil is above $50 a barrel."

Other provisions in the bill would:

* Move the start of daylight-saving time in 2007 from the first Sunday in April to the second Sunday in March, and extend it by one week to the first Sunday in November. Extending daylight-saving time would save the energy equivalent of thousands of barrels of oil a day.

* Impose a 141-day delay in a U.S. government review of the Chinese-government owned CNOOC Ltd (0883.HK: Quote, Profile, Research) oil company's $18.5 billion bid for American-oil giant Unocal (UCL.N: Quote, Profile, Research).

*Repeal a Depression-era law, the Public Utility Holding Company Act, which prevents certain utility mergers.

* Require the federal government to provide $2 billion in insurance to cover delays in the building of 6 new nuclear power reactors.

* Impose reliability operating standards on utilities to protect the U.S. electric grid from blackouts.

* Conduct an inventory of offshore oil and natural gas resources, including in areas where drilling is banned.

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National Energy Bill a Dirty and Dangerous Failure
House and Senate Should Reject Legislation

JULY 26, 2005 Union of Concerned Scientists

http://www.commondreams.org/news2005/0727-03.htm

WASHINGTON - July 26 - The Union of Concerned Scientists today urged Congress to reject an energy bill that ignores our oil dependence, fails to promote renewable energy, disregards global warming, and even raises the risk of nuclear terrorism.

"For the third time in four years, Congress is on the brink of passing an energy bill that will pollute our air and water while costing the average consumer more money," said Alden Meyer, Director of Strategy and Policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists. "This bill does virtually nothing to relieve the twin energy burdens on energy consumers -- high gasoline prices and high home energy costs - and adds insult to injury by jeopardizing the security of every American."

The House conferees ignored overwhelming evidence that renewable energy will save consumers money and stripped the renewable electricity standard (also known as a renewable portfolio standard) from the final bill. The renewable standard, which passed the Senate with bi-partisan support, would have required major electric companies to gradually increase sales of electricity from wind, solar, and other renewable sources from two percent today to about 10 percent by 2020.

"The energy bill funnels billions of dollars in taxpayer money to polluting industries while ignoring practical solutions to global warming such as a renewable electricity standard, which would create jobs, spur economic development and save consumers money," said Meyer. "The legislation also includes a provision that will harm U.S. energy security by increasing our oil dependence. The proposed extension of the "dual-fuel vehicle" loophole in the energy bill will increase our gasoline consumption by 10 billion gallons through 2015, increasing oil demand in 2014 alone by nearly 130,000 barrels per day.* At the same time, the energy bill ignores conventional technology that could increase fuel economy, generate hundreds of thousands of new jobs, and save consumers billions at the pump."

The small bright spot for vehicles policy is a radically pared down tax credit package for hybrids and other advanced technology vehicles.

One of the most startling aspects of the bill is a provision that would severely weaken export controls on highly enriched uranium, the key ingredient in the most basic nuclear weapons. If terrorists were to acquire about 100 pounds of this material they could fashion a crude but devastating nuclear explosive in short order.

"At a time when the threat of nuclear terrorism is growing, Congress should not make it easier for highly enriched uranium to fall into the wrong hands," said Dr. Ed Lyman, a senior scientist in UCS's Global Security Program. "This reckless provision is reason enough to reject the energy bill."

* This loophole allows automakers to receive credit toward meeting fuel economy standards by selling vehicles that have the capability of running on alternative fuel but almost always run on gasoline.


-------- alternative energy

US Energy Bill would Nearly Double Ethanol Output

Story by Tom Doggett and Chris Baltimore
REUTERS USA: July 26, 2005

http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/31787/story.htm

WASHINGTON - To stretch America's gasoline supplies, the leaders of a joint Senate-House conference committee racing to finish a US energy bill agreed Monday to almost double production of the motor fuel additive ethanol to 7.5 billion gallons a year by 2012.

The ethanol compromise is larger than the 5 billion gallons approved by the House, but smaller than the 8 billion gallons called for by the Senate.

Ethanol, derived mostly from corn, is a popular political cause in farm country, where it is regarded as a homegrown answer to oil imports and a boon to farm income.

It is usually blended directly into gasoline in a mix of 10 percent ethanol and 90 percent gasoline, which makes motor fuel burn more cleanly to meet federal air pollution requirements.

Ethanol is more difficult for oil companies to transport because it evaporates more quickly than conventional gasoline, requiring refiners to remove more smog-forming emissions.

The federal ethanol requirement was set to be cleared Monday evening, when the full panel of Senate and House negotiators meet to finalize additional terms of the broad energy legislation.

Sunday, the bill negotiators dropped a proposal for legal protection for oil refiners that make a rival fuel additive -- methyl tertiary butyl ether, or MTBE.

MTBE is added to make fuel burn cleaner, but has polluted groundwater in many states. It makes water taste and smell like turpentine and is a possible carcinogen.

Rep. Joe Barton, Texas Republican and chairman of the energy bill conference committee, proposed creating an $11.4 billion fund to clean up MTBE contamination in return for shielding refiners such as Exxon Mobil Corp. from lawsuits. But the plan was roundly criticized by the oil industry, municipal water officials and key US senators.

While Barton was unable to win liability protection for the oil companies, he was able to include draft language in the bill to require MTBE liability lawsuits to be reviewed by federal courts, setting a higher bar for such lawsuits to proceed.

The negotiating session Monday night was expected to consider several important amendments to the bill.

House lawmakers will decide whether to accept a Senate proposal that 10 percent of US electricity must be generated by renewable sources such as solar and wind power by 2020.

House negotiators will also consider a Senate proposal to reduce US oil consumption by 1 million barrels a day.

Yet to be finalized is a multibillion-dollar package of energy tax breaks and subsidies. The House tax package totals $8 billion while the Senate's is $14 billion. Both are higher than the $6.7 billion sought by the Bush administration. Negotiators are working on a compromise tax package of about $10 billion.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan reiterated on Monday that the administration "doesn't think we need to be providing tax credits to oil companies when the price of oil is above $50 a barrel."

Bush spoke with leaders of the conference committee Sunday and urged them to approve a final energy package this week so the full Senate and House can clear it and then send it to him to sign into law by Aug. 1.

Under the draft language, US ethanol production on an annual basis would total as follows (in billions):


YEAR GALLONS

2006 4.0

2007 4.7

2008 5.4

2009 6.1

2010 6.8

2011 7.4

2012 7.5

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Queen Elizabeth to Use Water to Help Power Windsor Castle

July 26, 2005 — By Associated Press

http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=8334

LONDON — Queen Elizabeth II plans to use water from the River Thames to help power Windsor Castle in the Royal family's latest environmental project, Buckingham Palace announced Monday.

The 1 million pound (US$1.7 million; euro1.4 million) project, to be completed by the end of 2006, will power nearly one-third of Windsor Castle -- the largest occupied castle in the world. Buckingham Palace said it was pleased that approval had been granted to power the residence.

Queen Elizabeth, Prince Charles and other members of the Royal household have long embraced environmental causes and projects. The Queen's husband, Prince Phillip, uses a taxi powered by natural gas when he is driven around London. Previously he used an electrically driven minibus.

"We're constantly looking at ways of saving energy. We use energy efficient light bulbs at Buckingham Palace," an announcement said.

The project will generate 200 kilowatts of electricity from four turbines that will be submerged in an existing weir, or dam system, near the castle. According to the palace, the underwater turbines will be virtually invisible and silent.

This project should also contribute to an effort by the government to produce 10 percent of the country's power from renewable sources by 2010 and 15 percent by 2015. The targets are part of an effort to help combat global warming.

Environmental groups say that small scale electricity production, using solar, wind or water systems could help Britain meet those targets.

"We're delighted that the queen is taking a lead in the use of green electricity to help tackle global warming," said Tony Juniper, director of the environmental group Friends of the Earth. "Most homes wouldn't use hydroelectricity, but they could install solar panels or small wind turbines instead." 


-------- ACTIVISTS

U.S. NUCLEAR SITES HOST HIROSHIMA / NAGASAKI SURVIVORS ON 60th
ANNIVERSAY OF ATOMIC BOMBINGS

From: Jackie Cabasso <wslf@earthlink.net>
Date: Tue Jul 26, 2005 3:42pm

Media Advisory

AUGUST 6th and 9th - NATIONAL DAYS OF REMEMBRANCE AND ACTION

WHAT: Over 50 demonstrations around the nation on August 6th  and August 9th, marking the 60th anniversary of US atomic bombings of  Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Information and links to local sites are available  at: http://www.besafenet.com/2005Calendar.htm

Four major nuclear weapons facilities will be the site of  large rallies including entertainment, direct action, etc. Three of the  fours sites will host hibakusha , the aging survivors of the 1945  bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki , who will tell their stories and  make direct appeals for the world to renounce nuclear weapons.

• Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab, California: August 6th &  9th 2005

August 6, 5pm: “Seeds of Change”- celebrate the vision of a  nuclear free world with music, a dinner rally and candlelight march.

August 9, 8am: Non-violent direct action at Livermore  Nuclear Weapons Lab. Rally featuring Dr. Satoru Konishi, 75, a Hiroshima  survivor and professor emeritus of German literature at Tokyo Metropolitan University. Dr. Konishi is also Assistant Secretary General  of Nihon Hidankyo, the Japanese Confederation of A- and H- bomb  Sufferers' Organizations.

Where: William Payne Park, 5800 Patterson Pass Rd. Livermore, CA

Contact: Tara Dorabji, Tri-Valley CAREs,  tara@trivalleycares.org ,  (925) 443-7148, all event  information is located at: www.trivalleycares.org  <http://www.trivalleycares.org/>.

• Los Alamos Nuclear Weapons Lab, New Mexico Saturday,  August 6, 8:30am – 10pm “Hiroshima, 60 Years: It Started Here -- Let's Stop It Here!” – teach-in, sunflower pageant, workshops, music, candle ritual, meditation, and more.

Featuring Ms. Masako Hashida, 75, a Nagasaki survivor and  board member of Kumamoto Prefectural Hidankyo. This event is the first  time that Ms. Hashida has traveled outside of Japan.

Also featuring Mr. Koji Ueda, 63, a Hiroshima survivor and  Assistant General Secretary of the Tokyo Federation of A-Bomb Sufferers' Association. Mr. Ueda was a delegate to the 2005  Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference at the United Nations in May.

Where: Ashley Pond Park in Los Alamos, NM

Contact: Los Alamos Study Group, (505) 265-1200, http://www.lasg.org/ ; Pax Christi New Mexico, (505) 870-2275, http://www.paxchristinewmexico.org ; and Upaya Zen Center, Joan  Halifax, (505) 986-8182, http://www.upaya.org .

• Nevada Test Site, Nevada: August 4-7, 2005

“Many Stories, One Vision for a Nuclear Free World” -  conference, speakers and public witness including storytelling, nonviolence trainings, liturgy, music, performance, workshops and  nonviolent direct action.

Featuring Tony de Brum, a resident of the Northern Marshall  Islands for the entire 12 years of the U.S. atomic and thermonuclear  testing program in that country. At 9 years old he witnessed the infamous  BRAVO shot that terrorized his country. A legal advisor to the Marshall  Islands, he has described the nuclear legacy that haunts the Marshall  Islands this way: “If one were to take the total yield of nuclear weapons  tested in the Marshall Islands and spread them out over time, the  Marshallese were victims of the equivalent of 1.6 Hiroshima shots every day  for 12 years.”

Where: University of Nevada, Las Vegas and the Nevada  (Nuclear) Test Site

Contact: Nevada Desert Experience, (702) 646-4814, nde_youth@peacenet.org http://www.nevadadesertexperience.org/ and  http://www.paxchristiusa.org/

• Y-12 Nuclear Facility, Tennessee: Saturday, August 6,  2005, all day

“Stop the Bombs!” - remembrance/names ceremony; peace march,  rally and direct action; and peace lantern ceremony.

Featuring Mr. Eiji Nakanishi, 63, a Hiroshima survivor and  Assistant Secretary General of Hidankyo. Mr. Nakanishi recently toured  Nebraska and New Jersey speaking on behalf of the hibakusha .

Where: Y-12 National Security Complex, Oak Ridge , TN

Contact: Ralph Hutchison, Oak Ridge Environmental Peace  Alliance, orep@earthlink.net, (865) 483-8202, http://www.stopthebombs.org/

 WHY: The United States ushered in the nuclear age with the  atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki . Today, the US is the  leading proliferator of nuclear weapons of mass destruction. The 60th commemoration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki will focus the  world's attention on nuclear weapons, and especially on the US . Thousands  will gather at key weapons sites in response to the call for a National Day of Remembrance and Action to stand shoulder to shoulder to say  NO! to nuclear weapons and YES! to disarmament.

Additional information about the events can be found at: http://www.wagingpeace.org/august6and9 

Jackie Cabasso wslf@earthlink.net EarthLink Revolves Around You.

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Parliament Square protester wins right to challenge ban

Press Association
Tuesday July 26, 2005

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,11026,1536267,00.html

Brian Haw protesting in Parliament Square: 'For centuries, British citizens have had the right to protest outside the mother of parliaments.' Photograph: PA
http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Politics/Pix/pictures/2005/07/26/hawpa26222.jpg

An anti-war protester who has held a four-year vigil outside parliament won the high court's permission today to challenge changes to the law which could lead to his removal.

Because of the urgency of the case, three senior judges started hearing the full challenge brought by 56-year-old Brian Haw immediately after granting leave.

Mr Haw has been protesting in Parliament Square since June 2001, initially against western sanctions on Iraq and later against the UK's involvement in the US-led war and its aftermath.

He sleeps in the square and has built up a large display of anti-war banners, placards and flags, many presented by well-wishers.

He said before today's hearing: "The government clearly do not want me as a constant reminder of the immense suffering they are causing the people of Iraq.

"For centuries, British citizens have had the right to protest outside the mother of parliaments. Now this is to be left to the diktat of the police."

Today he left the square and, accompanied by many supporters, went to London's high court to apply for permission to seek judicial review of new laws and regulations which could end his marathon protest.

Allowing his application, Lady Justice Smith, sitting with Mr Justice Simon and Mr Justice McCombe, said the court had read the papers and found he had an arguable case which should go to a full hearing.

Normally a full judicial review hearing takes place some weeks after a successful application, but Lady Justice Smith said the court was prepared to proceed with the full hearing today.

Richard Drabble QC, appearing for Mr Haw, said he was seeking "as a matter of some urgency" a declaration that Mr Haw did not need to apply for authorisation if he wishes to continue the demonstration he started some years ago.

Mr Drabble said: "On the face of it, the deadline for an application would be August 1."

Mr Drabble said Mr Haw was "a well-known protester" and a committed Christian with a passion for peace and human rights. No one had suggested that he posed a security problem.

The threat to his vigil arose after the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act became law earlier this year and a notice and authorisation regime was introduced under it, said Mr Drabble.

The result was that protesters had to obtain police permission before staging any demonstration in an area designated by the home secretary, Charles Clarke, around the houses of parliament, including Parliament Square and Whitehall.

Section 130 (1) of the act made it a criminal offence to demonstrate in a designated area "if, when the demonstration starts, authorisation has not been given under the act", said Mr Drabble.

"At the heart of the case is the proposition that, on the ordinary principles of statutory construction, it is quite clear that the section does not apply to demonstrations which had already started before commencement (of the new act)."

Mr Drabble said Mr Haw's solicitors wrote to the home secretary in April pointing this out, and attempts were then made to amend the law so that it did catch demonstrations which had already started.

But the attempt to modify the law was flawed and it still failed to catch Mr Haw, said Mr Drabble.

Both the home secretary and the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police are resisting the legal challenge.

In 2002, Mr Haw successfully fought off an attempt by Westminster City council to evict him on the grounds he was obstructing the highway. A high court judge ruled that his right to freedom of speech and assembly under the European convention on human rights outweighed any obstruction he was causing.

His solicitor, David Thomas, of Bindman and Partners, said before today's hearing: "Whatever the government may have intended, we think the wording of the act is clear. It does not cover demonstrations which started before August 1 2005.

"If Brian wins this case, the new system will remain in place for everyone else. However, it will be susceptible to a human rights challenge, as it strikes at the heart of the right to peaceful protest."

Nathalie Lieven, appearing for the home secretary, said the new law applied to continuing as well as new demonstrations and described the arguments being put forward by Mr Haw's legal team as "absurd".

Ms Lieven said Mr Haw's display of anti-war banners, placards and flags gave rise to a potential security risk.

The concern was not that Mr Haw himself would leave a bomb, but there was always the possibility for someone else to put something behind his display.

"It would be easy to leave items that would cause a serious risk to members of the public and MPs," argued Ms Lieven.

Parliament had clearly intended the new law to apply to Mr Haw, and the most that could be said was that the parliamentary draftsman had made a mistake when using the word "starts".

Ms Lieven said: "Nobody is infallible, including parliamentary draftsmen. It is plain it was a mistake. The wrong words were used."

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Lawyers-to-be give free help to environmental groups

By Eliza Strickland | Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor
July 26, 2005 edition

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0726/p14s02-legn.html

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. - One student negotiated a $40,000 settlement. Another faced off against a roomful of Exxon-Mobil's high-powered lawyers. A third got snapped at by a judge for failing to stand while addressing the court.

Relaxing around a broad conference table, the students of Pace University Law School's environmental law clinic share the triumphs and crises of the past year, when they received their first taste of professional practice. Even before they took the bar exam, many already had legal victories on their résumés.

Founded in 1987, the clinic at the White Plains, N.Y., school offers experience in the application of environmental law. The second- and third-year students negotiate settlements, write briefs, and appear in court.

"On the first day of class, you become a lawyer," says Pete Putignano. "Ready or not."

The budding lawyers are beneficiaries of "student practice rules" common to many states, which allow them to represent clients and argue cases under the supervision of an instructor. But clinic codirectors Karl Coplan and Robert Kennedy Jr. take a back seat, insisting that students act as lead attorneys.

Mr. Putignano was well aware that the work he did for the clinic had weightier repercussions than other coursework. His primary client - a Long Island environmental group fighting the use of a pesticide - couldn't afford the expert witness and per-hour professional fees that environmental litigation normally includes. The pro-bono services from the clinic gave the group its one shot at a day in court.

"It can be a bit scary the first few weeks," Putignano says. "It's not about getting a grade; it's about winning a case."

Pace's program is one of the most prestigious environmental law clinics, but it's far from alone. About 30 such clinics operate in law schools around the United States, almost half of them founded in the past decade.

Their proliferation points to a larger trend: the addition of real-world cases to law school classrooms, says Catherine Carpenter, who completed a survey of law school curricula for the American Bar Association earlier this year. The survey found that 85 percent of American law schools now offer at least one clinic where students work with real cases and clients.

Clinics exist in just about every legal field, from family law to securities arbitration, in keeping with the move toward specialization in legal training.

But environmental clinics grapple with conflicts that don't often arise in other fields, says Jeremy Clemans, a student at Vermont Law School and former chairman of a student committee of the National Association of Environmental Law Societies. Environmental clinics often make powerful enemies, because of "the kind of cases they take on, who they're likely to be representing, and who they're likely to be going after," Mr. Clemans says. When challenging a large corporation or a government-funded project, an environmental clinic needs "the right level of support from the administration to make it work."

Several environmental clinics have run afoul of state governments. The one at the University of Pittsburgh, founded in 2000, was nearly done in by one of the first cases it accepted, representing a citizens' group that opposed the construction of a $2 billion turnpike between Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

State legislators, angered by the opposition, passed a bill forbidding the university from using state funds on the law clinic. University faculty took up the clinic's cause in the name of academic freedom, and the school eventually agreed to fund the clinic with private money.

Pace University's clinic hasn't gotten embroiled in a controversy of that magnitude, but Mr. Coplan says the possibility of turmoil comes with the clinic's watchdog role. "We usually take the cases that government agencies aren't willing to step in and take the lead on," he says.

The Pace clinic's main client is Riverkeeper, an environmental organization that Mr. Kennedy helped found to protect the Hudson River from pollution. Inside the modest brick building that houses the clinic, its riverine focus is evident: A freshwater aquarium greets visitors in the foyer, and the conference room is decorated with detailed maps of the Hudson, from source to harbor.

According to Alex Matthiessen, Riverkeeper's executive director, the Pace clinic donates about $1 million worth of pro bono services to Riverkeeper each year.

Coplan says the clinic's work is an attempt to level the legal playing field. "We make these legal resources available to ... environmental groups, which allows them to go head-to-head with corporations that have the best staff, unlimited budgets, and armies of lawyers.... We don't quite have an army, but we have a good contingent of students, and they've got a lot of energy."

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Ani Lobbies Against Nuclear Waste

Jul 26, 2005 CMJ

http://www.cmj.com/articles/display_article.php?id=4047202

Power to the people. But not nuclear power. Despite a diagnosis of severe tendonitis in the spring, which forced her to cancel all upcoming tours, Ani DiFranco has been keeping busy. DiFranco and fellow musicians Erin McKeown and the Indigo Girls joined actor James Cromwell, Nader ticket VP Winona LaDuke and Skull Valley Goshute tribal members in organizing a national lobby day against a federal energy bill proposing the storage of 44,000 tons of nuclear waste on Goshute land in Utah. On Monday, the group met to speak with Congress and several Senate offices to argue against the proposal and its "environmental racism." To find out more about the plan and problems with it, Ani and friends suggest you visit here and here.