NucNews - July 28, 2005




-------- NUCLEAR 

Baby Oil and Benzene Provide Look at Earth's Radioactivity

By DENNIS OVERBYE
Published: July 28, 2005 NY Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/28/science/28neutrino.html?

Using a telescope made of 1,000 tons of baby oil and benzene in a stainless steel tank, scientists have measured the total radioactivity of Earth for the first time, they are reporting today.

The telescope they used was designed to detect subatomic particles from nuclear reactors. The researchers simply pointed it downward, in effect, toward the center of Earth. Physicists and geologists said the measurement, which agrees roughly with geologists' calculations, was the start of a new era of being able to see inside Earth. Their findings, they said, would lead to a better understanding of what keeps the planet warm, volcanoes burbling, continents drifting, magnetic field churning - all things that contribute to enabling life.

Until now, scientists have had to rely on the reverberations from earthquakes to get a handle on what is going on down there.

The baby oil and benzene detector lies two-thirds of a mile below the Japanese island of Honshu in the Kamioka zinc mine. It recorded flashes caused by ghostly particles called neutrinos, which were produced by the radioactive decay of uranium and thorium deep in the heart of the Earth as they shot up through the ground and the detector.

According to the measurements of these "geoneutrinos," Earth's radioactivity generates about 19 billion kilowatts of heat, about half of the estimated 30 billion to 44 billion kilowatts that the planet produces. By comparison, all the world's nuclear power plants collectively generate about 1 billion kilowatts.

"In some sense this is the first real measurement of this quantity, so it's a very big deal," Giorgio Gratta, a physicist at Stanford University, wrote in an e-mail message.

Dr. Gratta and Atsuto Suzuki, from Tohoku University in Japan, led a team of 87 physicists from 4 nations who are reporting their results today in the journal Nature.

John Learned, a neutrino physicist at the University of Hawaii who was a member of the team, called the work "the start of something that should be much fun in the future."

In a commentary accompanying the Nature paper, William F. McDonough, a University of Maryland geologist who was not a member of the team, called the work "a landmark result," but added that the results "were not straightforward to obtain, and are not simple to interpret."

Neutrinos, which travel almost at the speed of light and can pass gracefully through miles of lead or the entire Earth without interacting with it, were first detected streaming from a nuclear reactor in 1956.

The detector, called Kamland - short for Kamioka Liquid-scintillator Anti-Neutrino Detector - was built in 1997 to detect antineutrinos, the antimatter opposites of neutrinos, emitted by Japanese nuclear reactors. Natural nuclear reactions, the decay of uranium and thorium in Earth, also make antineutrinos that Kamland can detect.

Scientists have estimated that about half of Earth's heat comes from radioactive decay, with the rest coming from other gravitational and chemical sources. But the proportions and the total energy outflow are uncertain.



-------- accidents and safety

NRC clarifies 'catastrophic failure' at Yankee

By KRISTI CECCAROSSI
Brattleboro Reformer Staff
Thursday, July 28, 2005 - 2:15:27 AM EST

http://www.reformer.com/Stories/0,1413,102~8860~2984997,00.html

VERNON -- There was no catastrophe at Vermont Yankee this week. At least not one plant officials or regulators have yet detected.

There was, however, a "catastrophic failure" of a piece of equipment in the plant's switchyard, which bumped the 540-megawatt reactor offline, where it remains today.

Around 3:30 p.m., Monday, an 8-foot-tall electrical insulator broke, sending a signal through the plant that shut down its generator, turbines and reactor.

Staff in Vermont Yankee's control room observed the failure and, as required, they sent a report to the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The first sentence of which reads "the plant experienced a load reject ... due to a catastrophic failure in the 345 kV switchyard."

The report, which made rounds on the Internet after being published on the NRC's Web site, set off undue some alarms, said Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the agency.

"'Catastrophic' is a term used fairly frequently. It really just means there was a sudden failure of a piece of equipment. The safety significance was blown out of proportion," Sheehan said. "'Catastrophic failure' conveys something much more significant than it should."

Rob Williams, a spokesman for Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee said the "catastrophic" term, as published in some news reports, was misinterpreted.

"Catastrophic is accurate. It means the piece broke apart all at once," he said. "But it caused some unnecessary public concern."

The broken electrical insulator was sent to a laboratory to be tested, Williams said, and a new insulator has been installed. As of Wednesday night, he said engineers were preparing to restart the plant.

The governor of New Hampshire scolded Vermont Yankee officials Wednesday for not notifying his state officials sooner about the shutdown.

"It's a big concern for me that Vermont Yankee officials failed to notify New Hampshire of all the facts surrounding the incident as it was unfolding," Gov. John Lynch said in a statement released by his office.

Lynch continued, "We need a full accounting from Vermont Yankee of exactly what happened, why New Hampshire wasn't notified and how we can be assured this type of communication oversight by Vermont Yankee does not happen again. We also need assurances that the plant is indeed safe to operate in light of Monday's event."

Williams said plant officials are required to notify the Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachusetts emergency management agencies within 15 minutes when there is an emergency at the plant.

But plant officials didn't think Monday's shutdown fit within those guidelines, Williams said. It was not defined as an emergency by the NRC's standards and no radiation was released as a result of the shutdown.

While Vermont Yankee has been offline, Central Vermont Public Service and Green Mountain Power have been shopping on the open market for replacement energy.

That comes at a higher price for the state utilities, the costs of which could eventually be passed on to ratepayers, according to Stephen Costello, a spokesman for CVPS.

The last time Vermont Yankee shut down unexpectedly was slightly more than a year ago.

A transformer fire closed the plant from June 18 to July 5, 2004. The 17-day outage cost CVPS $860,000 and Green Mountain Power $525,000.

Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee officials have said the fire was due to their failure to properly maintain and monitor equipment. However, there is still a dispute between CVPS and plant owners about the cause.

If CVPS can prove the fire was related to a 20 percent power "uprate" under way at the plant right now, Vermont Yankee will have to reimburse the utility for money spent buying replacement power during the last outage.

When the state's Public Service Board approved the plant's uprate proposal last March, it did so with provisions: if the plant goes offline because of uprate-related work, Vermont Yankee is required to repay utilities for costs incurred during the outage. Whether this can be applied to last year's fire is now a question before the Public Service Board.



-------- australia

Uranium Posts Resurgence in Popularity

Thursday July 28, 12:55 PM Asia Pulse

http://sg.biz.yahoo.com/050728/16/3tssb.html

BRISBANE, July 28 - Once the problem child of the Australian resource sector, the uranium mining industry has experienced a massive resurgence in popularity over the last few years.

Shares in uranium focused companies - from the giant diversified miners to small explorers - have soared on the back of higher prices, rising demand and dwindling world supplies.

With 28 per cent of the world's known uranium reserves, Australia is in a perfect position to take advantage of the boom.

And regardless of the high politics and ethics involved in the uranium and nuclear industries, companies big and small are riding the wave - many in anticipation of the rewards to come rather than with feasible mining projects.

Rob Brierley, head of research at Patersons Securities, believes the industry has "got a little bit ahead of itself".

"It's a little bit reminiscent of the tech boom, perhaps, with some of those guys going hell for leather," he said.

"A sure sign of this is when companies change business direction and start to realign themselves to the boom commodity.

"But amongst those pretenders there are number of serious players - for want of a better word."

Regardless of cautionary tales, the share performance of many of the lesser known uranium explorers and miners has been startling.

Shares in Paladin Resources, which has a mine in Namibia and exploration rights in Australia, have risen from 16 cents to a recent high of $1.74 in 12 months.

While Paladin and other companies have proven deposits and are working towards mining, other firms' shares are more based on expectation.

This is especially the case for small explorers like Queensland-focused Summit Resources, whose shares have risen from 5.5 cents to a high of 70.5 cents.

Hindmarsh Resources, with only a few exploration licences in South Australia, listed in July and is now trading around 50 cents - almost double its initial public offer price.

And there's a healthy set of circumstances backing up this enthusiasm.

The spot price of uranium is currently trading around $US29 per pound compared to $US8 to $US10 four years ago.

The jump in price has been sparked by the general acceptance internationally of uranium as a cheap alternative to fossil fuels and as well as an environmentally friendly source of power generation.

Uranium mine production has been in deficit for over a decade and the shortfall has been made up by dwindling supplies of weapons-grade uranium from the United States and the former Soviet states.

But these stockpiles are slowly fading and there are fears miners cannot keep up with demand from the world's 441 nuclear power reactors.

Meanwhile, China plans to build 30 new reactors by 2020 while the United States, Britain, South Korea, Russia, Ukraine, India and Chile also looking at increasing their reactor programs.

Australia, with its reserves, is well placed to help fuel an expansion in nuclear power generation.

Currently there are only three working uranium mines - BHP Billiton's Olympic Dam, Heathgate Resources' Beverley mine both in South Australia and Energy Resources' Ranger mine in the Northern Territory.

There are also several advanced projects like Jabiluka in the Northern Territory, Honeymoon in South Australia and Yeelirrie in Western Australia.

But they remain on hold because of cultural and political reasons.

Mr Brierley said the uranium issue was now back on the agenda in Australia despite still being caught up in a regulatory regime stemming from the ALP's three mine policy in the 1980s.

While the federal government remains quietly supportive of an expansion in uranium mining the stance of state governments, which have the power to grant mining and exploration licences, is mixed.

South Australia and the Northern Territory are very supportive while resource rich Queensland and Western Australia tend not to favour the uranium industry.

There is the remaining concern over the possibility a nuclear accident of the scale of Three Mile Island in the US in 1979 or Chernobyl in Russia in 1986.

There is also the issue of nuclear waste disposal.

"A lot of the uranium resources are tied up in a regulatory regime that doesn't allow it to be commercialised," Mr Brierley said.

"But despite the lack of clear direction, there appears to be a growing chorus from all sides of the moral and political fences recognising the time is nigh to bring the issues to the table for debate."



-------- china 

China says 'many problems' still to discuss at nuclear talks

BEIJING (AFP) Jul 28, 2005

http://www.spacewar.com/2005/050728081733.byp4j0w1.html

Host nation China said Thursday there were still many problems to be resolved at six-party talks aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear weapons drive and it was early to say whe the discussions would end.

The talks involving China, the two Koreas, Japan, Russia and the United States are in their third day with little progress so far.

North Korea and the United States held their third bilateral meeting on Thursday to try and thrash out their differences.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang said they were still working to find common ground.

"It's far too early to say if there is a breakthrough or a breakdown," he said.

"There were difficulties but there is a willingness to continue talking. I think they are in the process of finding common ground and there are differences but what the common ground is, I'm not in a position to comment.

"There are many problems that need to be discussed ... and everyone needs to continue talking."

Pyongyang refuses to disarm until Washington normalizes relations, among other conditions. A key sticking point is an American allegation that North Korea is running a highly enriched uranium program.

The North denies this and China said it was an issue that needed to be clarified.

"This issue has to be clarified in the process of the six-party talks," said Qin.



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-------- depleted uranium

BEARING WITNESS - Un-embedded Iraq war journalist’s tour hits San Diego

by Rebecca Romani, July 28, 2005 San Diego City Beat

http://www.sdcitybeat.com/article.php?id=3388

It’s a humid summer day in Houston, but, as he drives around town, Texas native Dahr Jamail’s mind is thousands of miles away. Temporarily back from Iraq, where he works as an un-embedded reporter, Dahr Jamail spoke to CityBeat from somewhere on a Texas expressway.

“It’s weird being back,” he said, “especially being in a country that has invaded another and is currently occupying it.

“It’s surreal. I miss Iraq.”

Jamail, who went from mountain climbing in Alaska to a freelance career covering Iraq, has spent more than a year based in Baghdad, filing reports with publications such as The New Standard, The Nation and IPS.org, and radio shows such as Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now. Thousands of people read his blog, and his articles are posted on websites from Bakersfield to the Bosporus. Jamail, 36, has developed a reputation for under-the-radar reporting and has been asked to present testimony on torture, the occupation, the state of hospitals and the general conditions in Iraq for the nongovernmental World Tribunals on Iraq in Rome and Istanbul.

He has reported on the April 2004 siege of Fallujah from inside the city, and documented the U.S. military’s practice of targeting ambulances carrying resistance fighters and its use of depleted-uranium weapons. He chronicles the lives of ordinary Iraqis and U.S. Marines along with events such as a humanitarian-aid trip to the Iraq/Jordan border last December by Escondido resident Fernando Suarez del Solar, father of a fallen Marine.

One of only a handful of independent Western journalists, Jamail does his work sans flak jacket and sans bodyguards even though at least 15 un-embedded journalists have been killed. Lebanese on his father’s side, Jamail tries to blend in, dressing like a local, traveling in a beat-up car with a friend who is also his interpreter and staying at a lower-cost hotel in a fortified compound in Baghdad.

“It’s common sense,” he said—“no one is going to talk with you with a bunch of big bodyguards behind you.”

Still, Jamail has to take precautions. The journalist, who said that at one time the U.S. occupation considered him persona non grata, pointed out that 15 independent journalists have been killed by U.S. forces. He mentioned the incident in which U.S. soldiers shot up the car of ex-hostage Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena as it approached a checkpoint on the way to the Baghdad airport.

Neither the U.S. nor the U.S.-backed Iraqi government, he said, is interested in reporting that deviates from the official embedded line, namely that things are getting better and the insurgency is run by foreigners.

Jamail, who first went to Iraq in 2003, described the country outside the U.S.-fortified Green Zone, as deteriorating daily—access to electricity for less than five hours a day, questionable potable water sources, an absence of infrastructure and daily insecurity in the streets. Turkey is in the wings, waiting to pounce should the Kurds secede.

All this contributes, Jamail said, to a sense of a failed occupation. “Even Iraqis know that international conventions require the occupier to take care of the civilian population,” he said.

The growing Iraqi resentment of the U.S. that so puzzles the American mainstream, Jamail said, is understandable if one considers what fuels it. Jamail, who has talked to hundreds of Iraqis, said that resentment stems from house-to-house searches, too many civilian deaths, the lack of progress in reconstruction two years after President Bush declared the war over, high unemployment and the lack of adequate food rations.

It is a resentment, he said, that also feeds the mostly Iraqi insurgency; Jamail dismisses reports that the insurgency is led by foreign strategists.

“That’s just the corporate media repeating Bush’s propaganda,” he said. “It’s not good PR to be fought by the Iraqis you came to liberate. And until the occupation ends, the U.S. military is the leading cause” of the insurgency.

Asked if most Iraqis see Iraq as a sovereign nation, Jamail told CityBeat that “across the board, Iraqis do not see sovereignty—they see that they are occupied. [Interim Prime Minister Iyad] Allawi’s government is just an extension of the US.”

Adds Jamail, “They are upset that there is no withdrawal [timeframe]” and that every Iraqi ministry has a US-appointed advisor.

And the much-vaunted elections in January of this year?

“The world sees them as illegitimate,” he says, “occurring as they did under occupation.”

Jamail charges that the election was marred by fraud—a charge levied also by the New Yorker’s Seymour Hersh in a recent issue—and that only 40 percent of the population turned out to vote. Many did so because they thought the vote would at least help establish a timetable for U.S. troop withdrawal. “And the government said no and the voters were had, causing even more to turn away.”

It’s not just a political failing that Jamail sees—he said the social fabric is tearing, too. “Under Saddam, Iraq was one of the most socially progressive Arab nations,” Jamail said, noting that the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in certain regions, coupled with increasing crime, has forced women back into their homes and into burqas.

Iraqis are not the only people Jamail talks to. He also senses frustration and confusion among the U.S. troops. “At first, they keep a stiff upper lip, but gradually they start to talk about the situation,” says Jamail, who finds many soldiers “disgruntled, not clear as to why they are in [Iraq] and never quite sure when they are leaving. Morale is low.”

Jamail himself thinks that the troops won’t be leaving anytime soon, and he plans to keep covering Iraq, even if there might be times when the border is closed.

“Even if I couldn’t write,” he said, “at the end of the day it’s about witnessing, bearing witness.”

Jamail is currently on a lecture tour across the U.S. talking about his work and answering questions about the conditions in Iraq. “I cannot overstate the fact that it is imperative to pay close attention…. Like Vietnam, it will have long-reaching consequences.

Dahr Jamail will be at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Hillcrest Friday, July 29, and at Palomar College in San Marcos Saturday, July 30.



-------- india 

India's Energy Policy 'Nuked' by Geopolitics

Praful Bidwai, Jul 28, 2005 (IPS)

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=29682

NEW DELHI - India, one of the world's big guzzlers of energy, is caught between securing future supplies of depleting conventional energy sources, especially petroleum, and opting for nuclear power complete with an energy-intensive development pattern.

In recent years India has been gravitating towards the first option, reflected in frenzied attempts to tie up oil and gas supplies from such diverse sources as Vietnam, Burma, Bangladesh, Qatar, Sudan, Venezuela, Nigeria, Russia and Kazakhstan.

Above all, India moved towards signing a deal for a 2,600 km-long pipeline carrying natural gas from Iran through Pakistan. The 7.4 billon US dollar project has been seen as the star of the country's energy show.

Yet, 10 days ago, the government's preference suddenly shifted towards nuclear power. Official statements say India will promote it for its ''energy security'' and as a clean, safe means of producing electricity.

This is strange considering that nuclear power accounts for under three percent of India's electricity, and less than one percent of its energy consumption, and that the country's experience with nuclear energy, especially safety, has not been happy.

What explains the shift is not so much energy planners' calculations, technical factors, or social considerations, as geopolitical calculations.

Crucial here is Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's Jul. 17-20 visit to Washington, where he signed a far-reaching nuclear cooperation agreement with President George W. Bush.

Under this, the US has agreed to sell nuclear materials and technology to India, and pledged to relax export restrictions and other controls in the global non-proliferation order, especially those imposed by the 44- state Nuclear Suppliers' Group (NSG).

India will, in return, identify and distinguish civilian and military nuclear facilities from each other and place the civilian ones 'voluntarily' under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards, while toughening export controls.

''This is indeed a landmark agreement which admits India into the world's exclusive Nuclear Club as a de facto nuclear weapons-state'', says Kamal Mitra Chenoy, of the Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace, and a professor at the School of International Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University.

''It signifies India's abandonment of its decades-long commitment to global nuclear disarmament. There isn't a word in the Bush-Singh declaration about a nuclear weapons-free world. Indian policy-makers have decided to play a purely cynical game: join the Nuclear Apartheid regime, which they stridently condemned for decadesà''

If it does go through, the Bush-Singh deal will open avenues for imports of civilian nuclear materials into India. India is running out of uranium as its old mines get depleted and new mining projects face popular opposition.

Uranium imports, like those of power reactors, could give a temporary boost to India's nuclear power programme, which has performed below par for decades. Against the promise of 10,000 Mw of nuclear electricity by 2000, India's current nuclear capacity is just 3,300 Mw.

Singh's decision to pump adrenalin into the nuclear power sector has astonished many.

In a Jul. 21 interview to The Washington Post, Singh raised doubts about the viability and bankability of the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline project: ''There are many risks, because considering all the uncertainties of the situation there in Iran. I don't know if any international consortium of bankers would probably underwrite this''.

This has been widely seen as Singh's effort to placate Washington, which has repeatedly voiced its opposition to the pipeline and warned that under its domestic laws, it will have to impose sanctions on any project that helps Iranùpart of the 'Axis of Evil'.

Politically and strategically, the nuclear power paradigm fits in with an alliance with the US. Nuclear trade with India will help the languishing US nuclear equipment industry. The US has ordered no new power reactor since 1973. It will also keep India closely aligned with the global North, which accounts for the bulk of international nuclear supplies.

Most important, the lure of recognition of India as a 'responsible' nuclear weapons-state will keep India in line with American priorities.

By contrast, the oil pipeline outlines a paradigm of South-South economic cooperation and political solidarity. It also has huge positive 'externalities' such as a breakthrough in relations with Pakistan, as well as better ties with Iran, an emerging power.

Pakistan stands to gain over 500 million dollars a year as transit fees from the pipeline. The pipeline will also signify a high level of confidence and mutual comfort between the two neighbours.

There is even a proposal to extend the pipeline to China and to develop yet another conduit from Central Asia via Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Singh supported South-South energy cooperation at the 50th anniversary of the Afro-Asian Conference in Jakarta in April saying: ''While our continents include both major producers and consumers of energy, the framework within which we produce and consume energy is determined elsewhere''. He called the role of Western governments and companies, an 'anomaly'.

The idea was widely welcomed in South Asia. But now Singh seems to be retreating from it, citing purely commercial and technical grounds.

Argues economic writer M K Venu: ''If you were to make a purely technical argument, no nuclear power plant in the world runs purely on commercial principles. There is implicit sovereign guarantee in regard to the mitigation of costs and other risk factors such as ensuring regular supply of fuel. You cannot buy enriched uranium from any private party, like you buy coal for a thermal power plant''.

India's own experience with nuclear power has not been pleasant. Nuclear power has claimed over a quarter of the country's energy research budget, but yielded very little energy, and that too of indifferent reliability. Wind turbine generation has already overtaken nuclear power in capacityùwithout fuss, high subsidies or environmental problems.

Nuclear power's generic problems of occupational and environmental safety are greatly magnified in India. ''Nobody can claim nuclear power is environment-friendly,'' says M.V. Ramana, from the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Environment and Development in Bangalore. ''Nuclear power leaves wastes that remain radioactive for tens of thousands of years. No solution exists to the problem of storing such wastes''.

Nor is the claim credible that nuclear power will help mitigate global warming. However, argues Ramana, ''There is no empirical evidence that increased use of nuclear power has contributed to reducing a country's carbon-dioxide emissions''.

The best case study is Japan, a strongly pro-nuclear energy country. From 1965 to 1995, Japan's nuclear plant capacity increased by over 40,000 Mw, but carbon dioxide emissions tripled!

''Nuclear power tends to require and promote a supply-oriented energy policy. The high cost of nuclear power also means that any potential decreases in carbon emissions due to its adoption are expensive'', added Ramana.

If India yields to US pressure on the Iran pipeline, India is likely to be stuck with the wrong paradigm and court energy insecurity. If it follows its South-South instincts, India will improve relations with its neighbours and create greater security and prosperity for South and West Asia. 



-------- iran

Iran secretly acquiring super-strong steel for nuclear bomb - exile      

Thu. 28 Jul 2005
Iran Focus

http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=3009

Paris, Jul. 28 – Iran is secretly acquiring a rare form of ultra-strong steel to use as casing for nuclear bombs it is manufacturing, an Iranian opposition figure said Thursday at a press conference in Paris.

Mohammad Mohaddessin, who chairs the foreign affairs committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, said that Tehran was “trying to obtain maraging steel both through smuggling from abroad and by producing it inside the country”.

Mohaddessin said that maraging steel, which has twice the strength of stainless steel and is 85 percent harder than pure titanium, was needed to be used as very strong casing to allow an initial explosion inside the bomb to take place in a closed area for maximum power. That, he said, could cause a chain reaction and ultimately trigger a nuclear detonation.

Tehran was also using maraging steel to build casing and containers for missiles as well as external rotors of missile engines. “This is required to increase the range of the missiles”, Mohaddessin charged.

Mohaddessin was speaking at a seminar in Paris on Iran’s nuclear program in the aftermath of the recent presidential elections. Paul Leventhal, founding president of the U.S.-based Nuclear Control Institute; Frederic Encel, a French expert on geopolitics, and Alireza Assar, a former adviser of the Revolutionary Guards on nuclear issues, dealt with different aspects of Iran’s nuclear program and its impact on regional and global peace and security.

Mohaddessin said that Iran was obtaining maraging steel in part from Malaysia, adding that the shipments were first taken to the United Arab Emirates and then rerouted to Iran.

Tehran has also been using a number of front companies to illegally purchase maraging steel and other banned materials in other countries, he said.

“These front companies are ostensibly non-Iranian, but their personnel are completely affiliated with the regime”.

Mohaddessin said ASCOTEC, a subsidiary of the Organisation for the Development and Rebuilding of Iran's Mines and Industries, was one such front company.

He said that it was headed in Tehran by Ahmad Alaghmand, and its address was “Tehran, Seyed Jamal ad-Din Assad-Abadi Street, Martyr Jahan Ara Street, West 43rd Street, number 36”.

ASCOTEC also have a branch in Düsseldorf, Germany, headed by Ahmad Katani. The deputy for commercial section is Yazdan Karimi. A woman, named Molawi coordinates some of the activities, Mohaddessin said.

ASCOTEC also had branches in the UAE and Japan. The latter is headed by Engineer Haghighi, according to the NCRI.

Mohaddessin also revealed that domestic research and production of the powerful material was being conducted at Iran’s Malek-Ashtar University, affiliated to the Defence Ministry.

“The type of steel that is being procured in Malek Ashtar University contains cobalt and has grade of 300-350. Both types are used to build rotor for centrifuges. There have also been tests for higher grade steel.

Tehran's University of Technology has carried out some research on this type of steel under the supervision of Dr. Nili, Mohaddessin said. He added that in Sahand University in Tabriz, northwest Iran, Dr. Siamak Hossein-Nejad was working on maraging steel.

In Isfahan's Mobarakeh Steel factory, a series of secret activities have been underway, the senior NCRI official charged, adding that a new assembly line was set up there last year.

The regime has also begun research on Nono Steel, he said, adding, “to build maraging and Nono steel, Iranian experts held several meetings last year with Russian experts and several meetings with Chinese experts this year. They have also travelled to Japan to get some expert advice”.

The exile coalition was the first to reveal Iran’s clandestine nuclear program. In August 2002, they revealed two massive nuclear sites at Natanz and Arak, both in central Iran, and since then have made a string of stunning revelations about Tehran’s suspected nuclear weapons program.



-------- korea

Australia says N.Korea would be more secure without nuclear program

VIENTIANE (AFP) Jul 28, 2005

http://www.spacewar.com/2005/050728064944.43uef60x.html

North Korea would be more secure without a nuclear weapons program, Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Thursday after talks with his North Korean counterpart.

"Obviously, we understand their need for security but their security, for as long as they have nuclear programs, will be less than if they abandon these programs," Downer said.

Downer was speaking after what he referred to as a "useful" half hour of talks with North Korea's Paek Nam-sun on the sidelines of a regional security meeting.

The meeting between the two foreign ministers took place as six-nation talks on North Korea's nuclear program entered a third day in Beijing.

Chung Song-il, a North Korean spokesman, said Paek had "clearly illustrated" the position of his country during the talks with Downer.

"The DPRK minister clearly pointed out the position of DPRK with regards to the resolution of the nuclear issue," he said, referring to North Korea by the abbreviation of its official name, the Democratic People's Republic or Korea.

"The Australian foreign minister said it is the consistent policy of Australia to support the process of the peaceful resolution of the nuclear issue," he said.

Paek is scheduled to meet his South Korean counterpart Ban Ki-moon later Thursday.

----

North Korea Rejects U.S. Plan on Arms

By Edward Cody
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, July 28, 2005; A19

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/27/AR2005072702126_pf.html

BEIJING, July 27 -- North Korea on Wednesday formally rejected the terms of a long-standing U.S. proposal for resolving the standoff over Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program, diplomats said.

The North Korean objections, although expected, underlined the difficulties negotiators face in newly resumed six-party talks here despite improved atmospherics and what diplomats described as increased resolve to make progress toward banning nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula.

"The DPRK is a country that prides itself on being different, and this is certainly proving true in these negotiations," a senior U.S. official said, using the initials of North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. "Things are not easy."

As described by U.S. officials, the proposal first made in June 2004 would provide aid and security assurances to North Korea if it agreed to a schedule that would do away with its nuclear weapons program.

North Korean diplomats complained, the senior U.S. official said, that the proposal was front-loaded with demands that the Pyongyang government agree to dismantle its nuclear program and allow inspections by outsiders before receiving the security assurances and economic aid it has demanded in return.

Christopher Hill, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs and head of the U.S. negotiating team at the talks, underlined the U.S. approach in remarks Tuesday at this round's opening session. He said the goal in sequencing the give-and-take should be "words for words and actions for actions."

The U.S. proposal was portrayed when first proposed 13 months ago as a sign of flexibility designed to break the deadlock in the multinational talks. Since then, however, North Korea has altered the equation, announcing last February that it possesses nuclear weapons.

The senior U.S. official, who briefed reporters on condition his name not be used, said Wednesday that the administration's proposal still represented a basis for talks despite North Korea's demand for more simultaneity. But in the first two days of contacts, he said, the six delegations -- China, Russia, Japan and South Korea in addition to the United States and North Korea -- have mainly laid out their respective positions. As the talks continue, the immediate effort will center on building a list of "agreed principles" that can be exhibited as a sign of progress and, eventually, expanded during further talks, he said.

"Our concern in putting together this basket of principles is that the basket can be turned into an agreement," he said.

This implied, however, that the more difficult issues, such as sequencing, would be put off until later.

Other particularly sensitive points of discord likely left for resolution later include a U.S. assertion that North Korea has a uranium enrichment program in addition to the plutonium-based weapons program it has acknowledged.

North Korea also has suggested that the U.S. alliance with South Korea be taken into account, implying that U.S. nuclear weapons are part of security guarantees for South Korea. That, the U.S. official said, is unacceptable to the Bush administration. But he predicted that North Korea would not push the issue so hard that it prevents the six nations gathered here from agreeing that they all desire a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula.

----

North, South Korea ministers meet on nuclear issue

Thu Jul 28, 2005 8:42 AM ET (Reuters) 
By Jon Herskovitz

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticleSearch.aspx?storyID=184952+28-Jul-2005+RTRS&srch=nuclear

VIENTIANE- North and South Korean foreign ministers met for only the third time on Thursday and agreed on the need for substantial developments in multilateral talks in Beijing to end Pyongyang's nuclear weapons ambitions.

The 50-minute meeting between South Korea's Ban Ki-moon and the North's Paek Nam-sun was held on the sidelines of a meeting of Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) foreign ministers in Vientiane, the capital of Laos.

In Beijing, negotiations aimed at defusing the crisis over North Korea's nuclear weapons programmes crept into a third day with Washington and Pyongyang still far apart on proposals for disarming the reclusive North.

"Both sides agreed that we wanted substantial developments in the six-party talks, which will be important for a resolution of the nuclear issue, peace on the Korean peninsula and regional security," the two foreign ministers said in a statement.

Before going into the talks, Paek told reporters Pyongyang was committed to resolving the nuclear dispute through dialogue.

"We are trying to make real progress in the six-party talks," he said after shaking hands with Ban and heading into the meeting.

Ban said ties between North and South Korea, divided by the world's last Cold War frontier, were warming at an unprecedented rate and he wanted more frequent meetings with his opposite number.

North and South Korea have stepped up bilateral contacts in recent months and reached deals concerning commerce, military confidence building and reuniting through video conferencing families separated by the 1950-1953 Korean War.

But Paek did not reply to the request for regular discussions, a South Korean official said.

RARE EVENT

After the meeting, North Korea held a rare news conference at which Foreign Ministry official Jong Song-il answered questions in Korean and English about the talks between the two ministers.

"Both sides agreed that having substantial and constructive developments in the talks will be very important for a peaceful resolution of the nuclear issues and for regional peace and security," Jong said.

Ban said on Wednesday Seoul was waiting for North Korea to respond to an offer to supply it with a large amount of electricity when the reclusive state dismantles its nuclear programmes, a South Korea official said.

South Korea has said its offer to supply North Korea with 2,000 megawatts of electricity, roughly equivalent to the North's total power output, if it scrapped its nuclear plans, could be key to resolving the nuclear weapons crisis.

The South Korea government official quoted Paek as saying the North appreciated the offer of electricity aid and Pyongyang was looking to explore the offer further through bilateral talks.

The foreign ministers of the two states, which stare at each other across their heavily fortified border, met for the first time in 2000 and again about a year ago.

At last year's meeting, Ban proposed they open a regular channel of communications between their delegations at the United Nations in New York. But shortly afterwards, ties became strained and the North suspended all bilateral contact.


-------- pacific

NZ keeps its ban on nuclear ships
Prime Minister Helen Clark is anxious to maintain the nuclear ban

Thursday, 28 July 2005, 10:17 GMT 11:17 UK

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4724145.stm

New Zealand's parliament has strongly rejected an attempt to lift a 20-year-old ban on nuclear-powered ships visiting its ports.

The bill was defeated by 109 votes to nine on Wednesday night.

The lawmaker behind the bill said the rejection had "all but ruled out the prospect of New Zealand signing a free trade agreement with the US".

Relations between New Zealand and the US soured when the nuclear ban was first introduced in 1985.

When the legislation was passed, Washington immediately suspended military ties with Wellington, and no US navy ship - nuclear or otherwise - has since docked in New Zealand ports.

Ken Shirley, an MP from the small right-wing conservative party ACT, proposed the bill to lift the ban, saying it was harming New Zealand's ties with other nations.

"If parliament does not refer my bill to a select committee for further consideration, it will have passed a golden opportunity to throw out this relic from the Cold War era and restore our once strong relationship with the US," he is quoted as saying before the vote.

Principle stands

He added that the clause could be safely removed because no foreign warship could come to New Zealand without being invited by the government anyway.

But the other parties largely rejected the bill, and polls have shown that the public continues to back the nuclear-free stance of the governing Labour Party under Prime Minister Helen Clark.

Ms Clark has vowed to retain this policy if re-elected in the 17 September parliamentary elections, but she has accused her main opponent, Don Brash of the National Party, of planning to abolish it.

Mr Brash recently insisted he would not make any change to the nuclear ban without holding a referendum on the issue. 



-------- russia

Russia, China to start building floating nuclear plant
	
16:19 	| 	28/ 07/ 2005 (RIA Novosti)

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20050728/40992299.html

MOSCOW, July 28 - Russia and China have signed an $86.5-million contract for the construction of the world's first floating nuclear power plant, Vladimir Uryvsky, deputy department head at the Federal Nuclear Energy Agency, told the newspaper Trud.

China will build the body and Russia will be responsible for the power block. The plant will look like a ten-story 140m-long and 30m-wide floating building with the displacement of 21,000 tons.

It is to be sited in Severodvinsk, in the Arkhangelsk region in Russia's European north, to supply electricity and heat to the Sevmash defense enterprise there. Its will have a 70-megawatt capacity and a maximum thermal capacity of 150 gigacalories per hour, enough for a city of 200,000. The construction is to begin next year and end in 2011.

Uryvsky said the 6-billion ruble ($208.84 million) project would be recouped in 12 years with electricity returns of 46 billion rubles and thermal energy returns of 61 billion. Accrued profits are expected to top 65 billion rubles during the plant's exploitation.

The plant will use the closed technological cycle and multiple hermetic protection. The energy block will have five independent safety barriers, more than those on a nuclear submarine or icebreaker. Even the first stationary nuclear power plants did not have such protection. The block could not even be depressurized if a plane crashed down on it, giving the design full safety guarantee, Uryvsky said.

He said the design also includes anti-terrorist measures. Divers and submersible craft will be stopped a long distance from the power block.

Such plans will be in demand in Siberia and the Far East, which are short of energy. The leaders of the nuclear energy sector and the administrations of the Chukotka autonomous area and the Kamchatka region have signed declarations of intentions on the construction of similar power plants. Canada, Indonesia, India and several other countries have expressed interest in the project.


-------- space

General: Space Weapons not goal

By Chris Vaughn
Fort Worth Star-Telegram Staff Writer
Thu, Jul. 28, 2005

http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/12244137.htm

FORT WORTH - The four-star leader of Air Force Space Command, in a visit to Fort Worth on Wednesday, dismissed reports that the Air Force is pushing to deploy weapons in space.

"We're not talking about weaponizing space," said Gen. Lance Lord, who is responsible for the development and operation of the Air Force's space and missile systems.

Lord, who was in North Texas to deliver a speech to the Fort Worth Airpower Council, said the service is seeking "space superiority," comparing it to the long-held military goals of U.S. air and sea superiority.

Achieving space superiority, he said, means using both offensive and defensive measures to protect the country's satellites and military technologies. But Lord said those measures are not euphemisms for space weapons.

"We believe in the peaceful use of outer space," he said.

It is widely thought that the White House will release a new national space policy in the coming weeks, which some have said will advocate the use of weapons in space.

If so, the policy would be a sharp divergence from that of arms control in space endorsed by President Clinton.

A 2001 report, led by then-Defense Secretary-nominee Donald Rumsfeld, called for the military to ensure that "the president will have the option to deploy weapons in space."

In 2002, the Bush administration withdrew from the 30-year-old Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which outlawed space-based weapons, another sign of major changes ahead, experts say.

Lord, however, said the Air Force did not "push for a revision. ... What we're talking about is maintaining our advantage in that environment and being able to protect ourselves in case somebody tries to use space against us," he said.

But talk of U.S. space superiority and offensive space measures are considered by opponents, including other nations, as the opening salvo in another arms buildup.

Chris Vaughn, (817) 390-7547 cvaughn@star-telegram.com



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

Energy bill could spark national nuclear power surge

By John J. Fialka
The Wall Street Journal July 28, 2005

http://www.yorkweekly.com/news/07282005/world/54929.htm

WASHINGTON - The energy bill nearing passage in Congress could be the best news the nuclear-power industry has seen in many years. The question now is whether it will be enough good news to produce what the industry and the Bush administration both want: a genuine revival of nuclear power.

The bill contains at least $1.5 billion in direct subsidies to promote a new generation of nuclear power plants, plus the potential of billions of dollars more in government commitments to ensure that the plants will get financial backing on Wall Street.

"This is a great bill," said John Kane, a senior vice president for the Nuclear Energy Institute, which represents the utilities that run the nation’s 103 operating nuclear power plants. He said the bill, which provides a legal foundation and financial incentives for new nuclear plants, "will set the stage for nuclear to play a role in supporting our future economic development."

The package took months of lobbying, including last-minute intervention by President Bush, who successfully pushed for a new government-backed insurance program - "standby support insurance" - that would protect plant owners against losses caused by delays in the lengthy regulatory approval process required to win a plant operating license.

Whether this will be enough to launch construction of plants promising to be safer, easier to operate and more secure against terrorist threats remains to be seen. No new nuclear plant has been proposed since the 1970s, and there is skepticism on Wall Street and elsewhere that the new models will ever get built.

But some utilities already familiar with nuclear power are moving ahead. "Congress is to be congratulated," said Curt Hebert Jr., executive vice president of Entergy Corp. The New Orleans company runs 10 nuclear plants that produce 52 percent of its electricity, and it hopes to be the first to license a new one, with site selection possible in October. No final decision has been made, he said, but the company is "optimistic and hopeful."

Entergy currently has invitations from counties in New York, Louisiana and Mississippi to locate the new plant there. "This is the opposite of NIMBY," he explained. "This is, please build the plant in my backyard." In rural areas hosting nuclear plants, he noted, the facilities represent a good portion of the tax base.

The nuclear plant Entergy is weighing would cost between $2 billion and $2.5 billion. That is more than a similar coal or natural gas-fired plant, a factor he said the company is weighing against others, including the possibility that Congress may pass mandatory regulations on carbon dioxide over the next decade. Nuclear power plants don’t produce carbon-dioxide emissions, which are thought to be a cause of global warming.

Nuclear power will also be a hedge against the possibility that the price of natural gas - which fires some of Entergy’s other plants - will continue to rise. The downside, Hebert said, is that the plants take a long time to permit and build. If Entergy is first in line to build a new plant, as he hopes, the process could take a decade or more.

That’s where the energy bill comes in. It extends the coverage of the Price-Anderson Act, which limits the liability for current nuclear-power-plant accidents to $9 billion each, to new plants. Its "standby support insurance" will ensure the first six plants to go through federal and state licensing processes can recover up to $500 million for delays caused by regulatory logjams or lengthy legal challenges during construction.

It also provides production tax credits for the first half-dozen plants, giving them the same incentives as power produced by wind turbines, and it has $1.2 billion in tax write-offs to help offset the costs of funds needed to ensure that the plants can be safely torn down, or "decommissioned."

"At this point I think you could crawl out on a limb a little bit and say this will probably be what the industry needs to get started," Hebert said.

Not everyone is ready to get out on that limb, though. Theodore Roosevelt IV, a managing director of Lehman Brothers, said utilities have already started courting Wall Street, and bankers see the possibility of billions of dollars of new investments looming. "We’re all talking about this and there is some enthusiasm," he said.

But he added that financial analysts remain worried about an unresolved nuclear-waste problem and the proliferation of nuclear materials. They also worry about proliferation of government subsidies. "I get nervous and cautious around subsidies. These things should be able to stand on their own two feet."

Nonetheless, he thinks Congress has started a process that others, especially those worried about climate change, may have to "think through." Roosevelt said that "we shouldn’t have old nuclear taboos governing future policies."


-------- idaho

Plutonium draws fire from residents

By Michelle Dunlop
Twin Falls, ID Times-News writer Thursday, July 28, 2005

http://www.magicvalley.com/articles/2005/07/28/news_localstate/news_local_state.2.txt

TWIN FALLS -- Issues of water and waste weighed heavily on the minds of Magic Valley residents as they gathered at a Department of Energy meeting Wednesday night.

"Everybody is interested in the radioactive waste," said Tim Frazier, a DOE spokesman. "We are as well."

Last November, the DOE proposed a plan to consolidate the production of radioisotope power systems at the Idaho National Laboratory near Arco. At Wednesday's meeting, Frazier and other DOE officials laid out the details of the proposal.

However, it was the details that some nuclear opponents said the presentation lacked.

Ester Ceja of the Snake River Alliance labeled DOE's Draft Environmental Impact Statement as a "cut-and-paste" document.

"It just doesn't give us any detail as to what the real impacts are," she said. "DOE has a bad track record. You have lied to us before."

Currently, DOE manufactures the power systems through a combination of steps at three sites: INL, Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee and Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. DOE already uses INL's Advanced Test Reactor when making the power systems. The Energy Department has provided plutonium-238-based power systems for NASA and national security missions for over 35 years.

If plutonium-238 production is consolidated at INL, the operations will generate about 20 cubic meters of transuranic waste annually, Frazier said. Operations at INL currently produce about 10 cubic meters of transuranic waste per year. And, INL houses roughly 62,000 cubic meters of transuranic waste as part of its Cold War legacy.

The DOE believes that the national security mission will make the waste eligible for disposal at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, Frazier said.

The amount of waste potentially generated by consolidation doesn't trouble John Kotek, department manager of DOE in Idaho Falls. Kotek says the new waste won't hinder current cleanup plans.

"We shipped more than 100 cubic meters down to WIPP last week," Kotek said "Yeah, there's a big cleanup job out there. But we're getting it done."

Kathleen Trever, the state of Idaho's coordinator for INL oversight, monitors the DOE's progress toward its cleanup agreement with the state of Idaho.

"The INL has a cleanup mission today because during the Cold War the federal government was less accountable for how it managed waste and other environmental impacts," Trever said. "That lack of accountability resulted in environmental problems and public mistrust."

Local podiatrist and nuclear opponent Peter Rickards suggested that the Energy Department's plan for waste disposal isn't what it seems. Rickards says that the department may intend to bury the waste onsite, instead of shipping it to WIPP as DOE officials propose.

"Let's do it the Bush way," Rickards said. "Let's do it cheap."

Another environmental problem that consolidation may bring to Idaho is its use of water. Power system production already uses 27.5 million liters of water at the INL site per year. Consolidating operations would raise that to 74.4 million liters of water annually, according to the department's summary.

That extra use concerns JoEtta Abo, of Paul, who said she waited six weeks to have her well deepened.

"Thank you for using our share of water to produce something that could kill us all," Abo said.

Times-News reporter Michelle Dunlop can be reached at 735-3237 or by e-mail at mdunlop@magicvalley.com.

----

Bills Passing Congress Will Benefit Idaho

7/29/05 KMVT TV (Idaho)

http://www.kmvt.com/news/state/1753787.html

Congress has spent hundreds of billions of dollars in the last couple of days approving a massive defense spending bill, an energy bill, the highway spending bill, and money for veterans' medical care.

In the highway bill, Idaho Congressman Mike Simpson says three Southern Idaho projects get more than $40 million over the next four years.

There's money to overhaul Highway 75 from Timmerman Hill to Ketchum, to build stages two and three of the Highway 93 bypass near Twin Falls and to continue the work to widen North Washington Street.

If the Senate OK's the energy bill, already passed by the House, $1.25 billion could be going to the Idaho National Laboratory for an energy demonstration project. The “Next Generation Nuclear Plant Project” involves developing a nuclear reactor that would generate electricity, but also produce hydrogen that could be used as fuel.

The project would be broken into two phases. The first would involve research and initial design of a prototype nuclear reactor, while the second phase would include applying for a license and building the plant.

Under the current plant, the first phase would be completed by September 2011, and the second phase by September 2021.



-------- nevada

Yucca Mountain Project management defended

DOE official says delays are allowing time to `improve' program
By STEVE TETREAULT
STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU
Thursday, July 28, 2005
Las Vegas Review-Journal

http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2005/Jul-28-Thu-2005/news/26955495.html

WASHINGTON -- A Department of Energy official on Wednesday defended DOE management at Yucca Mountain, saying recent senior staff departures were to be expected and that long delays are allowing time to "tweak and improve" the nuclear waste program.

Eric Knox, associate director for the Yucca project, blamed outside forces for holdups. The Energy Department last fall postponed a self-imposed deadline of December to file a license application with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission following judicial rulings last summer that set back the repository effort.

A new timeline has not been set. Knox maintained delays are giving DOE "extra time" to scrutinize its license application.

"It's kind of like having a college exam coming up and all of a sudden the professor gets sick or the building catches on fire and you have to reschedule it for a week or two weeks or a month later," Knox said. "You have extra time to prepare for the exam. That's how I look at what we are doing right now.

"We are going back and improving quality and enhancing quality, not to say it was bad before," Knox said.

But Knox said the extra scrutiny is adding pressure for Yucca managers to "have it right" when they do submit a repository license application.

"One thing we cannot afford is to submit a license application and then two, three years down the process, it is rejected," Knox said.

Knox delivered the assessment to a conference organized by the Nuclear Energy Institute trade association.

In his presentation Knox downplayed the departure of senior managers from the Yucca project this year, including director Margaret Chu, deputy director Ted Garrish, quality assurance manager Denny Brown and licensing manager Joseph Ziegler.

"The staff changes mean that people have lives and they have other things they need to do and want to do," he said.

Knox is a former Yucca Mountain official who returned to the project in April from another DOE assignment. Paul Golan, a deputy assistant secretary overseeing environmental cleanup at DOE sites, was named in April to replace Garrish. Last week, Golan was named acting director of the Yucca project.

Bob Loux, a Nevada official who coordinates the state's opposition to Yucca Mountain, said the Energy Department was trying to cast a positive light on flaws that hamper the project.

"They can't maintain a schedule because they are not in control of events any longer," said Loux, director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects. "Of course they are not schedule-driven because it is out of their hands."


-------- washington

Supreme Court Rules Hanford Initiative Can Stand

July 28, 2005
By KOMO Staff & News Services

http://www.komotv.com/stories/38224.htm

YAKIMA - An initiative that bars the U.S. Department of Energy from sending any more waste to the Hanford nuclear site until all existing waste there is cleaned up can stand even if parts of it are later found to be unconstitutional, the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

The federal government has sued in U.S. District Court, seeking to overturn Initiative 297 on grounds that it violates federal law governing nuclear waste and interstate commerce. The initiative has not been enforced pending resolution of the lawsuit.

The state, which is defending the initiative, had asked U.S. District Judge Alan McDonald in Yakima to allow the state Supreme Court to first decide how the measure should be interpreted.

Specifically, the state wanted its highest court to decide if the entire measure would be nullified if the McDonald finds part of the initiative unconstitutional.

Citing previous case law, the court ruled that the parts of the initiative that are constitutional could be enacted even if other parts are found to be unconstitutional.

The state court did not decide whether I-297, or parts of it, are unconstitutional. The case now returns to Judge McDonald for a decision on that question.

At issue are the federal government's plans for disposing of waste from nuclear weapons production nationwide. The Energy Department chose Hanford to dispose of some mildly radioactive waste and mixed low-level waste, which is laced with chemicals.

The south-central Washington site also would serve as a packaging center for some transuranic waste before it is shipped elsewhere for long-term disposal. Transuranic waste is highly radioactive and can take thousands of years to decay to safe levels.

Waste shipments to the site had already been halted under another lawsuit.


-------- MILITARY 


-------- haiti

Amnesty International Declares Father Jean-Juste a "Prisoner of Conscience"

Thursday, July 28th, 2005 Democracy Now!

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/07/28/149242

Haitian Priest Gerard Jean-Juste has been declared a "prisoner of conscience" by Amnesty International after his recent arrest and incommunicado detention. We speak with Amnesty International about his case and the ongoing violence in Haiti on the 90th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Haiti. [includes rush transcript] Today marks the 90th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Haiti. On July 28, 1915, U.S. forces invaded Haiti, launching an occupation that would last 19 years.

In an Op-Ed in the Miami Herald, Haitian-American novelist Edwidge Danticat writes "The 1915-1934 U.S. occupation is not the only problem that Haiti has or has ever faced in the last nine decades. Yet it is one more hurdle that the country has had to overcome in a long and painful cycle of destruction and reconstruction, self-governance and subjugation." Today, Haiti's first democratically-elected leader Jean Bertrand Aristide lives in forced exile in South Africa. He was overthrown a year and a half ago in what he calls a "modern-day" kidnapping in the service of a coup d'etat backed by the United States.

In the aftermath of the coup, armed gangs roam the country and UN forces patrol the streets. In the capital of Port-au-Prince, more than 700 people have been killed since last September. A raid by UN forces earlier this month left as many as 23 civilians dead.

Meanwhile, Haitian Priest Gerard Jean-Juste, a leader in Aristide's Lavalas party, was arrested last week and charged with the assassination of journalist Jaques Roche even though he was in Miami at the time of the murder. Father Jean-Juste is now being held incommunicado. Amnesty International has announced it considers Father Jean-Juste a prisoner of conscience. Amnesty is also releasing a new report today on human rights abuses titled, "Haiti: Disarmament delayed, justice denied."

    * Eric Olson, Advocacy Director for the Americas, Amnesty International.

Past Democracy Now! Interviews & Coverage On Father Gerard Jean-Juste:

    * "Father Jean-Juste Arrested in Port-au-Prince, Held Incommunicado" (7/25/05)
    * "Day of Protest Decries Deaths in Haiti" (7/21/05)
    * "Freed Haitian Priest Gerard Jean-Juste: Aristide Supporters 'Are Not Only Targeted, We Are Being Chased'" (12/20/04)
    * "Haitian Priest Gerard Jean-Juste Released After Seven Weeks in Jail" (12/01/04) 

RUSH TRANSCRIPT

AMY GOODMAN: We're joined right now by Eric Olson in our Washington studio, Advocacy Director for the Americas for Amnesty International. Welcome to Democracy Now!

ERIC OLSON: Thank you. Glad to be here.

AMY GOODMAN: It’s good to have you with us. First, can talk about Father Jean-Juste being held incommunicado in solitary at the national penitentiary charged with murder?

ERIC OLSON: Well, as you have already said, that's the information we have. There's not been much information and contact with him. He is being held incommunicado. He was detained while he attended the funeral of this journalist, Jacques Roche. And he was first put in the prison with – a small cell with 43 others, and subsequently has been moved to the national penitentiary, where he is in solitary confinement.

AMY GOODMAN: And Amnesty had declared him a “prisoner of conscience?”

ERIC OLSON: Yeah. We have declared him a prisoner of conscience. That generally – that means for us that the sole reason he is being imprisoned, in our estimation, is because he has expressed a political -- for his political beliefs or his religious beliefs, in this case because he has been critical of the government and expressed his political beliefs freely and openly. And that's the real basis for his incarceration.

JUAN GONZALEZ: You’re also releasing a new report on Haiti today. Could you tell us about it?

ERIC OLSON: Yeah, this is a report that looks back at the – basically the last 18 months since the ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. We’ve focused particularly on the issue of weapons in the hands of human rights violators. We think it's enormously urgent that the interim government and the U.N. and the international community focus on disarming, dismantling and reintegrating many of these former military and members of paramilitary groups that have returned to Haiti and are in control of large parts of country, are committing gross and widespread human rights violations against the Haitian civilians, and which the interim government sadly is just turning a blind eye to in so many instances. So we're focused primarily on the need, the urgent need for disarmament of Haiti. There are an estimated 170,000 small arms in Haiti in the hands of former military and former paramilitary and armed gangs, and that’s the source of much of the human rights abuse and violations going on there today.

AMY GOODMAN: Eric Olson, in the last months, we reported on the U.S. government actually sending something like 1,000 weapons to Haiti and this, well, what many call an illegitimate government, certainly not a democratically-elected government that has replaced President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Your response?

ERIC OLSON: Yeah. We have been very concerned about the fact that the U.S. government has been considering a request to license the sale of weapons to Haiti. Haiti is awash in weapons right now. There's no effective way to control them. They are cause of many of the human rights violations, as I say. So we are deeply concerned that the U.S. government was considering that. The good news is that just a few weeks ago, the House of Representatives agreed to an amendment by members of the Congressional Black Caucus, which would prohibit the sale of weapons to Haiti. That's not become law yet. It still, you know needs to go to the President and be signed, so we don't know the outcome, but at least there was that positive step under the leadership of members of the Congressional Black Caucus.

JUAN GONZALEZ: What about the U.N. peacekeepers themselves? Did your report look into any abuses by them at all?

ERIC OLSON: Well, it did. We talked about their weak response to so many of the human rights violations, the fact that they have not worked effectively with the interim government to develop and come up with a credible disarmament plan. We are deeply concerned that they have been a weak link in this chain. Nevertheless, it's important for the U.N. mission and the international community together to play a very strong and forceful role in trying to re-establish respect for human rights in Haiti.

AMY GOODMAN: On that issue of calling them a weak link, I mean, there were recently protests at a lot of Brazilian embassies from Brazil through the United States up to Canada, because the head of the U.N. forces is Brazilian, but the issue, for example, of the City Soleil, what some are calling a massacre, up to 23 people killed, this was by the U.N. forces. So, not just a weak link, but actually perpetrating the violence.

ERIC OLSON: It's very possible. We didn't -- the report we just came out that just came out didn't cover that particular incident. It's a new incident. It's one that we're very concerned about and trying to investigate, but you're right. I mean, I think there have been some very credible reports of their involvement directly in committing abuses and violence in the community of Cite Soleil. So it is a major concern.

AMY GOODMAN: Eric Olson, I want to thank you for being with us, of Amnesty International, which has declared Father Jean-Juste a prisoner of conscience, being held in solitary confinement at the national penitentiary in Haiti. The Amnesty report, "Haiti: Disarmament Delayed, Justice Denied." You will be able to link to it through our website. Also at democracynow.org, you can link to our last conversation with Father Jean-Juste. We spoke to him last Thursday on a cell phone as he was making his way to the funeral where he was beaten up and arrested. He said police were following him as he was doing the interview. 


-------- us

Military's Opposition to Harsh Interrogation Is Outlined

By NEIL A. LEWIS (NYT) July 28, 2005, Thursday 
Late Edition - Final , Section A , Page 21 , Column 3

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FA0A11FF3B5B0C7B8EDDAE0894DD404482

DISPLAYING FIRST 50 OF 885 WORDS - Senior military lawyers lodged vigorous and detailed dissents in early 2003 as an administration legal task force concluded that President Bush had authority as commander in chief to order harsh interrogations of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, newly disclosed documents ... Despite the military lawyers' warnings, the task force concluded...

----

US army computers 'shut down by hacker'

By Catriona Davies
(Filed: 28/07/2005) UK Telegraph

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/07/28/nhack28.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/07/28/ixhome.html

A Briton facing extradition to America for perpetrating "the biggest computer hack of all time" left a message criticising American foreign policy on an army computer, a court heard yesterday.
	
Gary McKinnon, 39, is accused of accessing 97 US government computers, causing damage estimated at $700,000 (£370,000).

An extradition hearing at Bow Street magistrates' court was told that McKinnon, of Wood Green, north London, deleted files that shut down more than 2,000 computers in the US army's military district of Washington for 24 hours "significantly disrupting governmental function".

It was claimed he left a note on an army computer in 2002 saying US foreign policy was "akin to government-sponsored terrorism". The note allegedly said: "It was not a mistake that there was a huge security stand down on September 11 last year. I am Solo. I will continue to disrupt at the highest levels."

McKinnon is accused of 20 counts relating to the American army, navy and air force, Nasa and the Department of Defence.

One allegation is that he deleted files and logs from computers at the US Naval Weapons Station Earle at a critical time after the Twin Towers attacks, rendering the base's network of 300 computers inoperable.

Mark Summers, for the American government, said: "The defendant was acting from his own computer in London. He effectively owned those computers by virtue of the software he had transmitted. His conduct was intentional and calculated to influence and affect the US government by intimidation and coercion."

It is also alleged that McKinnon obtained secret passwords or information which might become "indirectly useful to an enemy", and interfered with maritime navigation facilities in New Jersey.

When McKinnon was indicted, Paul McNulty, the US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, said: "Mr McKinnon is charged with the biggest computer hack of all time."

The hearing was adjourned until Oct 18.


-------- war crimes

Colonel tells of concerns over trial decisions

By Thomas Harding, near Basra
(Filed: 28/07/2005) UK Telegraph

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/07/28/ndun28.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/07/28/ixnewstop.html

One of the most senior British officers in Iraq said yesterday that his officers and men were concerned and indignant about the "alacrity" with which "people in nice cool offices" were bringing charges against serving soldiers.

The unusual criticism of the prosecuting authorities by Col Bill Dunham, the chief of staff of the British-led division deployed in Iraq, followed uproar last week at the charges laid against Col Jorge Mendonca, of the Queen's Lancashire Regiment, over the death of an Iraqi, allegedly at the hands of his troops.
 	
Col Bill Dunham: concerns

"I think that privately officers are concerned at the seeming alacrity with which people who were doing their jobs have been brought into the system and charged," Col Dunham told The Daily Telegraph at the division's headquarters outside Basra.

"What I think worries not just me but other people is that even when operating with the best interests at heart someone sitting in a nice cool office back in London can take judgments on people who have to make snap decisions in very short order."

His comments follow the warning from six former chiefs of the defence staff in the Lords that soldiers could fatally hesitate in opening fire against terrorists for fear of legal action.

It has also been announced that soldiers are to be prosecuted for the first time under the International Criminal Court Act.

But Col Dunham said that he did not believe that morale had been affected.

"I have detected no sense of an unwillingness to take unpalatable actions as a result of them," he said.

His officers had examined the implications of the prosecutions but that had had no impact on "the way we are conducting business here". While there was a "sense of indignancy" among soldiers over the charges against colleagues, they were still conducting themselves in a professional manner.

As a senior officer, Col Dunham was concerned that something his soldiers might do could land him in court but he said it did not keep him awake at night.

Referring to the impending legal actions, he said: "We are all confident that justice will out in the end."

In contrast with the violence in Baghdad and the north of Iraq, the British are experiencing relative peace around Basra.

Compared with almost daily American deaths, there have been five British fatalities in the past three months and the base outside Basra has not been attacked with mortars since November.

The Shia-dominated area has most to gain through the political process and, since the first democratic elections in January, the sting appears to have been taken out of last year's uprising.

British troops have so far trained six battalions of Iraqi infantry and will have four others ready for action before the referendum on the new constitution in October.



-------- POLICE


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

Subway Shakedowns: Necessary Security or Unconstitutional Violation?

Thursday, July 28th, 2005 Democracy Now!

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/07/28/149236

New York City police are now conducting random searches of subway passengers in a program of stepped-up security following the London subway and bus blasts earlier this month. Civil liberties groups say the searches are unconstitutional and ineffective. We host a debate. [includes rush transcript] Will random bag searches on public transportation make Americans safer? Following the July 7 bombings in London, New York increased police presence on the city's vast subway system at a cost of 1.9 million dollars per week. And starting Friday, police began random searches of passenger bags at selected subway stations throughout the city. New Jersey transit police began searches on Monday. Police officials say that passengers going into the subway who wish not to be searched can choose not to ride the subway.

An editorial in Tuesday's New York Times urged the city to continue the searches for an extended period. The editorial reads "Travelers have long since gotten used to extensive searches before they board airplanes, and they should be relieved to see security measures on the subways and commuter trains as well."

But questions remain about the effectiveness of searches that cover only a small fraction of subway ridership. And civil liberties groups say the searches are unconstitutional under the 4th Amendment, which guards against unreasonable search and seizure. City officials say the mandate to deter terrorism represents a special need and justifies the practice.

Police authorities say they will not engage in racial profiling targeting Muslim, Arab and South Asian passengers because the searches are random. Yet that policy may be hard to enforce in practice. Eric Adams of 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care told the New York Times "You can say 'no profiling,' but when you have a police department that has a history of profiling, it is going to practice what it knows."

In addition to the searches, frequent announcements in the subway and on buses urge riders to look out for suspicious behavior among other passengers, such as clenched fists, excessive sweating, or strong cologne -- all considered indicators of a suicide bomber. One such tip off on a double-decker tourist bus led to the unwarranted arrest last weekend of several Sikh passengers visiting New York from England.

We're joined by several people with differing perspectives on the legality and effectiveness of the new searches, which could extend to other major U.S. cities in the coming weeks.

    * Paul Brown, spokesperson for the New York Police Department
    * Fernando Ferrer, New York City mayoral candidate. He issued a statement in support of the subway searches.
    * Bill Goodman, attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights.
    * Charles Peña, director of defense policy studies at the Cato Institute. He co-authored an editorial opposing the searches.

RUSH TRANSCRIPT

PAUL BROWN: Well, beginning with the second bombing of the -- second rash of bombings in the London subway system, the department moved to begin random searches throughout the system. By tomorrow we will have had inspection of packages, backpacks in all the stations in the city at one point or another. Admittedly, we cannot cover all of the stations all the time. And we are doing it in a way not to be predictable, but it certainly is not foolproof by any means. It's just another measure to help disrupt any plans that may be in the works to attack our subway system. And also to provide some measure of protection.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Paul, what about the allegations of, for instance, Eric Adams, who says that the department's history of profiling opens up the possibility this will continue again, no matter what you say?

PAUL BROWN: Well, as a supervisor, I mean he's a captain, and it will be his responsibility, as well as others, to make certain that doesn't happen. We have captains now being trained exactly in the laws that apply, and the sergeants and lieutenants under their command in the subways themselves, or at the entrances, rather, will be making certain that doesn't happen. I think it was a gratuitous remark that is not -- does not bear out in reality.

AMY GOODMAN: Bill Goodman of the Center for Constitutional Rights, your concerns? Your view, your stance on the subway searches?

BILL GOODMAN: Oh, it's on several levels. The first is that I think the New York Police Department does have indeed, as Juan said, does have a history of racial profiling. We saw that with the street crime unit. And if Eric Adams, who as Mr. Brown points out, is a police officer who is on the job is worried about it, he probably knows very well what goes on on a very daily basis. So I do anticipate that despite the fact that they call it random, these are chaotic areas. They can pick out whoever they want and say, that person was the fifth or that person was the seventh. I expect you will see more Arabs, more South Asians, more Muslims targeted in these searches than others. So that's one area of concern. Another area of concern is that these seem to me to be ineffective. It involves a massive intrusion of the Police Department in the daily lives of New Yorkers. And at the same time, as they say, you can voluntarily walk away from it. So if you can voluntarily walk away from it, what terrorist, what suicide bomber is going to say, ‘Yes, sure, search my bag?’

AMY GOODMAN: But you can't go back on the subway. You can leave and not get on the subway.

BILL GOODMAN: You can leave and then you can go -- if you are a terrorist, you can go to the next stop. You can walk four or five blocks and go to the next stop. And if it really is random, you are going to get in, probably. And if you are stopped there, you can go on to the next one.

AMY GOODMAN: Mayoral candidate, Fernando Ferrer.

FERNANDO FERRER: Look, none of the alternatives are pleasant. However, when you balance that against -- we have got to talk about balance here. When you balance that against the prospect of a major incident in the subways -- I ride the subways, my family rides the subways, I talk to subway strap hangers every day -- then you’ve got to take some action. Now by the way, we’ve got to look very carefully at what we're talking about. Random searches is but one element of this. I think the far more important one is security on the subways that is consistent. We had a wake-up call about this before the London blast, a week before, when we were told that subway crime had spiked 15%. Second one is surveillance cameras, and people demand those stations to see to security on every platform and every corner and every nook and cranny of our sprawling subway system. With respect to random searches, that has to be done with Constitutional balance. It has to be random. It has to be fair. And it has to be done in a way that doesn't shut off our system. In fact, the way we're beginning to get it right on our airlines is an important indicator that it cannot always guarantee against a terrorist incident, but it can assist in bringing that down. It can assist in diverting that, and if that happens, if passengers don't get hurt, if passengers don't get killed, that's an important thing for us to get involved in.

AMY GOODMAN: We have to go to break. When we come back, we'll get response from Charles Pena of the CATO Institute in Washington D.C. Our guests: Fernando Ferrer, New York City mayoral candidate; Bill Goodman of the Center for Constitutional Rights. We also want to ask him about the government refusing to hand over videotape pictures of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Also on the line with us, Paul Brown of the New York Police Department. Stay with us.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: We continue the debate on subway searches. Yes, they're in New York, could spread all over the country. Our guests are the New York City mayoral candidate, former Bronx Borough President, Fernando Ferrer. We are also joined in our New York studio by Bill Goodman of the Center for Constitutional Rights, Legal Director. Paul Brown is on the line with us, of the New York Police Department, and Charles Pena is in the Washington studio, of the Cato Institute. Juan?

JUAN GONZALEZ: Charles Pena, I'd like to go to you now. Your perspective on these new decisions by the New York Police Department.

CHARLES PENA: Well, unfortunately, I call this the Nike approach to Homeland Security, which is just do something, regardless of whether the something is going to be effective. And if these searches are truly random, then the odds of catching a would-be terrorist are next to zero when you have millions of people riding the subway every day. It's like playing the lottery. In fact, the terrorist probably has a better chance of being successful than we have of catching them. I think it's pretty telling, first, the British in the aftermath of the London bombings are not instituting random searches, because they realize that they're not going to be effective. They realize they're going to be disruptive. T.S.A. here in the United States has stopped doing random searches at airplane gates. Why? Because T.S.A. decided it was ineffective and actually a stupid idea, and those searches caught exactly how many terrorists? Zero. So, if you want some security on subways, and I'm not suggesting we don't have any security, I think a better approach would be to put bomb sniffing dogs in subway stations maybe even have them patrol platforms. If the dog picks up a scent of what might be a bomb, then you have a reason to stop somebody, detain them, search their bag and question them. You have real probable cause. And you avoid any potential Fourth Amendment violations.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Paul Brown, your response that this is more public relations than actually effective crime fighting?

PAUL BROWN: Well, I think the Cato Institute needs to be a little more diligent in what they know about what we're doing and what they don't know. That statement shows a lot about what they don't know. This is just one of many efforts that we have put in place to protect not only mass transit, but the city at large. We -- three-and-a-half years ago, the department established a counterterrorism bureau. We have over 1,000 police officers engaged every day in counterterrorism duties. Our intelligence decision defeated an attempt to bomb the Herald Square Station just last August. These are one --

CHARLES PENA: That wasn't a random search, though, was it, sir?

PAUL BROWN: No, it was not, but that’s not --

CHARLES PENA: Right. That's my point. My point is -- but my point is I agree that you are engaged in lots of good activities in New York. I just disagree that random searches falls into the category of an effective counterterrorism activity.

PAUL BROWN: But to claim – I mean, to make a parallel where everyone is screened going into an airport, and then say they don't do random searches. I mean, the point is they're stopping everybody before they get on a plane because they can do it. We can’t do that in New York. We add randomness to a lot of what we do to protect the city, for one thing to prevent the kind of – to defeat the kind of reconnaissance that we know that al-Qaeda engages in. In many of their attacks that they planned, including ones in the financial district in New York, they spent months watching and trying to measure exactly what we had in place. You could do the same thing now. Look at our heavily armed drills. You can look at the random searches in the subway. You can look at them for months and you will never discern a pattern. That's helpful. It may not be foolproof, but it's helpful. And I think the City of New York wants helpful things done in light of what appears to be a continuing attack on the mass transit systems in London.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Fernando Ferrer. You have given qualified support to this new initiative, but at the same time you're critical of the Bloomberg administration's approach to subway security. What would you, if you were elected mayor, do differently.

FERNANDO FERRER: Well, first of all, the M.T.A. still hasn't spent $390 million of $590 million that was allocated by the state legislature to provide for the kind of security measures in subways that I have been talking about before and that people want and that would help enormously in deterring any possible acts of violence or terror in our subway system. That failure is costing us enormously today.

And let's talk about something else, as well: the prospect of racial profiling. That is a concern to everybody who is watching this and watching this with great care. There is a law on racial profiling. In fact, it was a law that I had drafted in 2001 that was adopted by Councilman from East Harlem, Phil Reed, who got it passed into law. It's a statement about where this city should be in terms of policing and avoiding racial profiling, keeping that very delicate balance with all of our Constitutional requirements. We have got to hold ourselves to that standard, and in a business that is inherently human, policing, we’ve got to understand that we got to be always vigilant against that kind of propensity. There is no doubt that there had been that history, and there is no doubt that a law applies today. There is no doubt that there's the United States Constitution. Those things must be adhered to carefully and completely. And we all have an obligation notwithstanding our positions on subway security, to hold authorities' feet to the fire on those things.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to read from, Juan, your paper, The New York Daily News, a piece out yesterday talking about M.T.A. investigators keeping a secret database of people stopped and questioned for filming or photographing bridges and tunnels, as part of the agency's efforts to thwart terror. “The information is used to try to determine whether shutterbugs are simply putting together vacation slide shows or gathering intelligence to plot mayhem,” law enforcement sources said. In one instance, a man was questioned for filming the Verrazano Bridge, questioned and released. A few days later, authorities in another state stopped someone filming on a bridge and asked the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Inter-Agency Counterterrorism Task Force if it had information about the person. It turns out the other state's shutterbug was using the same vehicle as the man who was stopped for filming on the Verrazano. The sources declined to elaborate on the investigation. One source noted, in general, if someone pops up twice filming a crossing, you start to develop a case. Charles Pena, Cato Institute, your response.

CHARLES PENA: Well, you know, we live in a different world, obviously, post-9/11, but you have to ask -- you have to ask the fundamental question. Any security measure has got to be proven to be a effective, not make you feel better, make you feel like you're more secure, but actually make you more secure. And we have got to be very careful about a lot of these measures that we have put in place. I go to New York fairly regularly. I see the pictures on – or the signs on – you know, that say “no photography.” I assume the “no photography” signs are there for security purposes. But, you know, is that really going to stop a would-be terrorist, and why -- are you going to then detain and question tourists every time they're taking pictures. Look, if we want to live in a completely safe and secure environment, there's a solution. It's called create a police state. In fact, if you look historically at the countries that have very low incidents of terrorism, they all tend to be police states and ruled by dictators. Nobody wants that here in the United States. Yes, we do have to try and find that balance, if you will, between security and our Constitutional rights, but I would argue that we should always be looking at our Constitutional rights because that's what this country is about.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, let me ask Bill --

CHARLES PENA: Yes, we want to be safe. We want to be protected, but what our country is is not you, me and everyone else here as living beings, it's also the Constitution and the fundamental principles upon which our society is based.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, speaking of the Constitution, Bill Goodman, the Center for Constitutional Rights, M.T.A. having this secret film file.

BILL GOODMAN: Well, look, I agree strongly with what Charles Pena just said. The First Amendment protects freedom of speech and freedom of expression, and there have been – there’s been case after case in which courts have held that photography is a form of expression. Therefore it has the really strong protection of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. Police stopping someone who’s taking a photograph of the Verrazano Bridge is two or three steps away from the police stopping me taking a picture of my kids in Central Park. And this freedom is really disappearing under our noses as we watch it. We can see it going. We can see it evaporating. And as Charles Pena just said, if we're not careful, if we are not vigilant, not only against terrorism, but against this tendency, we will end up living in a police state, and that would be just as great a tragedy. The elimination of Constitutional protections, just as great a tragedy as a terrorist attack in the subway, which is also a great tragedy.

JUAN GONZALEZ: But Bill, what do you say to those law enforcement people who are trying to protect the public or to the citizen who is in fear of the spread of terrorism? What do you tell them in terms of helping them cope with the new situation?

BILL GOODMAN: I think that there are sensible measures that can be taken. I do not think that random stops on a subway from which a terrorist can walk away if he chooses anyway, is the sensible measure to start with. I don't think eliminating the ability to take photographs when anyone can go on out and take a picture of the Verrazano Bridge from somewhere in Staten Island is a sensible measure. But I think that the real way to stop terrorism is to take a look at the policies that are engendering terrorism in this country. Get out of Iraq to start with.

PAUL BROWN: Can I address a few points?

AMY GOODMAN: Paul Brown, Police Department.

PAUL BROWN: About using shows of force, which I think the representative from the Cato Institute was kind of denigrating as kind of, you know, just publicity. Iyman Faris, an al-Qaeda operative, before we knew he was in this country, came to the Brooklyn Bridge with plans to take it down. What he saw there were efforts we put into place, including a high-visibility presence, a harbor unit underneath the bridge. We had secured certain parts of the bridge that we thought were vulnerable. He famously wired back to his handlers that the weather was too hot, meaning that security on the Brooklyn Bridge was too tight for him to operate, and they abandoned that plot. In the subway platform in Queens approaching a tunnel under the East River, we saw two individuals taking photographs of the tracks, which is not your typical tourist activity. They turned out to be Iranian agents, agents of the Iranian state who were then returned personae non gratae to Iran. So, there's real threats to New York. We have defeated a number of them since 9/11. And we are taking reasonable precautions to do that. To claim that we're going after people taking pictures of their kids in Central Park, etc., is just a gross exaggeration and doesn't show an accurate picture of the reasonable measures the Police Department is taking to protect New York.

AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask Fernando Ferrer. You say, yes, you are for searches if there is not racial profiling. But, the people who would be racial profiled, perhaps in the subway, might be the least able to lobby and let people know what is going on. I mean, you took a strong stance years ago, 1999, on the Amadou Diallo case. Street Crimes Unit. Racial profiling killed this man in a hail of 41 bullets. And, of course, that's just a famous case. Your response?

FERNANDO FERRER: Look, I think it's clear that racial profiling has to not only be avoided because it's bad, because now in this city it's against the law. We all have to conduct ourselves lawfully.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you mean it's against the law?

FERNANDO FERRER: Oh, there's a city law. There's a local law against all profiling. I happen to know about it because I drafted the language. Councilman Phil Reed adopted that into legislation. It was passed in the City Council a couple of years ago.

AMY GOODMAN: That says what? Authorities can’t racially profile?

FERNANDO FERRER: That's correct. Similar to Chicago's law against racial profiling. By the way, the City of Chicago beat us to that. High officials of the Police Department, the Police Commissioner himself, came down to testify against this law at the City Council. And that's bewildering to me. Why?

PAUL BROWN: Well, that's because we already had the policy in place.

AMY GOODMAN: Paul Brown, police.

PAUL BROWN: The Police Commissioner, one of the first things that he did, I don't know if you talked to --

FERNANDO FERRER: Excuse me, but let me finish what I was saying.

PAUL BROWN: Let me just say that the --

FERNANDO FERRER: If you just allow me to finish what I was saying, I would be delighted to hear the rebuttal. Policies or not, nothing beats a law.

AMY GOODMAN: Paul Brown.

PAUL BROWN: Well, my point is, one of the first acts the Police Commissioner did -- Police Commissioner Kelly, upon returning to New York, was to put in effect a bar on racial profiling in the Police Department and that is very important when --

FERNANDO FERRER: Then there shouldn't have been an objection to a law.

AMY GOODMAN: The Police Department opposed it?

PAUL BROWN: The Police Department had it in effect is what I'm saying.

BILL GOODMAN: I might say --

FERNANDO FERRER: And what I'm saying is that the Police Commissioner came to argue against the passage of the law.

BILL GOODMAN: The only reason there was a written policy against racial profiling is because the city was under the pressure of a lawsuit challenging racial profiling practices by the New York Police Department, in particular by the Street Crime Unit.

PAUL BROWN: That's not the only reason. As a matter of fact, Commissioner Kelly had been U.S. Customs Commissioner, where he put into effect the same kind of bars against racial profiling, because of at least perceived abuses in the customs service.

AMY GOODMAN: But Paul Brown, if the Police Department, you are saying, had a policy anyway, why would they speak out, testify against passing a law?

PAUL BROWN: Well, I'm not -- I'm not familiar with the whole legislative history and what your speaker is actually talking about. All I can tell you is it was in effect and it reflects the policy of this department.

JUAN GONZALEZ: But, obviously, Paul, the -- while Commissioner Kelly may have had the policy, a future commissioner might just as well have changed the policy. The difference between a law and a policy is that the law then supersedes any commissioner that may hold that seat, no?

PAUL BROWN: I'll let you reach your own conclusions.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, we're going to leave it there, and I want to thank you all for being with us. Paul Brown of the Police Department; Charles Peña of the Cato Institute; Fernando Ferrer, New York City mayoral candidate; and Bill Goodman of the Center for Constitutional Rights. But before we go to break, Bill, I would like to ask you to stay with us just for a few minutes to tell us about the latest situation, the Pentagon refusing to cooperate with a judicial order to release photographs and videos taken by the military at Abu Ghraib in Iraq. In June, a federal judge ordered the Pentagon to hand over 87 photos and 4 videotapes to the ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights after the groups had filed a Freedom of Information Act request. Bush administration attorneys have said that the release of the photos will violate the Geneva Conventions by subjecting detainees to additional humiliation or embarrassment. The photos are expected to show widespread torture of Iraqi detainees and even incidents where Iraqis were raped or murdered inside the U.S.-run jail. Last year, the Pentagon Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, said there are other photos that depict incidents of physical violence towards prisoners, acts that can only be described as blatantly sadistic, cruel and inhumane. “It's going to get a good deal more terrible, I'm afraid,” he said. So what's the latest? Will you get these photographs?

BILL GOODMAN: We don't know. The government has appealed, essentially, has asserted these – a variety of privileges, and is now refusing to turn them over; however, as you said, this is blatantly in contradiction to a judicial order that's out there, and presumably, they should obey what the court has ordered. We expect that these will be turned over, that they will attempt to turn them over under seal, which means that we can’t turn them over to people like you and let the American public see what has really happened and, of course, this is what democracy is all about. People see what's going on, and then they know what kinds of decisions they can make about their governments. They're going to attempt to, as I said, release it under seal. We're going to fight that, and I think that we ought to be able to win that, and when we do, we can all see what Secretary Rumsfeld has seen and has decided that it's best for only his eyes only.

AMY GOODMAN: Have you gotten a bunch of photographs and videotape already?

BILL GOODMAN: Not yet. We’re expecting it any day.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you very much for being with us.

BILL GOODMAN: You’re welcome. Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: Bill Goodman of the Center for Constitutional Rights. 



-------- ENERGY 

U.S. Energy Bill Won't Cut Gasoline Prices, DOE Chief Says

July 28, 2005 — By Reuters

http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=8352

WASHINGTON — American motorists should not expect lower gasoline prices to follow quickly on the heels of this week's expected passage of legislation to overhaul U.S. energy policy, Energy Secretary Sam Bodman said on Wednesday.

The energy bill, submitted to the House of Representatives for a vote on Thursday, includes $14.5 billion in tax breaks and incentives over a decade, according to the House Ways and Means Committee. Of that, nearly $9 billion is earmarked for oil and gas production, electricity reliability and coal technology projects.

"There are no magic bullets in this law that will change energy prices in the next day, week or month," Bodman told reporters on Capitol Hill, where the energy bill was formally introduced.

"It's going to take a number of months, if not years, to deal with energy prices," Bodman said. He said the legislation will encourage long-term investment by the private sector in new nuclear power plants, coal-fired electric generating facilities and drilling for more oil and natural gas supplies.

The national average gasoline price hit a record high of $2.33 a gallon two weeks ago, according to the Energy Department's survey of retail stations.

The Senate is expected to approve the bill on Friday, so President George W. Bush can sign it into law next week.

Bush also came to the Capitol on Wednesday and spoke about energy policy during a private meeting with Republican lawmakers. People at the meeting said the president listed terrorism as the biggest threat to U.S. national security, with energy independence next.

NO CURBS ON OIL DEMAND

Environmental and consumer groups criticized the energy legislation for doing little to cut U.S. oil consumption, which averages close to 21 million barrels a day, or to reduce America's dependence on foreign oil suppliers.

"This bill funnels billions of taxpayer dollars to polluting energy industries, and opens up our coastlines and wildlands to destructive oil and gas activities," said Carl Pope, director of the Sierra Club.

"It's unfortunate that, as Americans head to the beach for summer vacation, their representatives in Congress are considering opening up these very coasts to destructive oil and gas drilling," Pope added, referring to a provision requiring an inventory of offshore oil and gas reserves.

Other green groups criticized the bill's incentives to cut down trees to use in ethanol and biomass production, and to allow federal land exchanges for oil shale development.

Democrats were expected to approve it, despite complaints that the final version dropped some environmentally friendly measures. Eliminated were proposals that U.S. utilities use more wind and solar power, a ban on the fuel additive and suspected carcinogen MTBE, and a requirement that the White House find savings of 1 million barrels of oil by 2015.

WHITE HOUSE WILL SIGN BILL

Texas Republican Joe Barton, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said there was no way the energy legislation could have boosted domestic oil production enough to end crude imports. "We're going to have imported oil as part of our economy for a long, long time," he said.

Bodman said the administration was happy with the overall bill, although it opposed tax breaks for oil and gas companies. "The oil and gas companies don't need incentives with oil and gas prices where they are today," Bodman said.

To avoid a Senate filibuster and win approval of the energy bill, House lawmakers dropped their push to open Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. However, that issue will be included this September in budget legislation to fund the federal government, which can't be filibustered.

Although the bill's incentives will cost $14.5 billion, negotiators inserted about $3 billion in budget "offsets" that should trim the final cost to about $11.5 billion. Most of the offsets are expected to come from reinstating a federal fund to clean up oil spills, which collects a per-barrel fee on oil imports and domestic production. 

----

An inefficient energy policy

Thursday, July 28, 2005
San Francisco Chronicle Page B - 8

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/07/28/EDGSHDU0R51.DTL

    THE ENERGY bill making its way through Congress this week is notable for what it doesn't do. It doesn't end this nation's dependence on foreign oil. And it doesn't end the oil and gas industry's reliance on generous tax breaks from the federal government.

    The version on the brink of final passage in the House and Senate this week fails to include what should have been the central element of a genuine federal energy policy: A required increase in fuel-efficiency standards for cars and trucks. But the domestic auto industry successfully lobbied against higher mileage standards.

    So the result was an energy bill with an undue emphasis on costlier ways to narrow the gap between fuel supplies and this nation's voracious consumption. At the moment, the United States imports 58 percent of the oil it uses, a figure expected to rise to 68 percent by 2025. This "national energy policy" would slightly slow that rate of growth.

    At the same time, it is loaded with goodies for various energy industries. The nuclear industry's benefits include $2 billion in "risk insurance" for any permitting or regulatory delays in building power plants; the coal industry gets loan guarantees and $2.9 billion in tax breaks to develop cleaner coal; agriculture gets a requirement for refineries to double the use of ethanol; oil and gas producers get $1.5 billion in tax breaks. The list goes on and on.

    The bill does take some important steps toward conservation, such as new efficiency standards on commercial appliances including refrigerators and air conditioners. It also adds $3 billion in tax breaks for renewable energy sources.

    Overall, this bill keeps energy companies healthy and profitable, but without making a serious attempt to reduce a dependence on Middle East oil that has jeopardized this nation's economy and national security for more than three decades.


-------- OTHER


-------- environment

Six nations agree new climate pact
Environmental groups skeptical about effectiveness

Thursday, July 28, 2005; Posted: 4:47 a.m. EDT (08:47 GMT)

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/07/28/sixnations.climate.ap/index.html?section=cnn_world

VIENTIANE, Laos (AP) -- The world's top two air polluters -- the U.S. and China -- joined Australia, India, Japan and South Korea on Thursday to unveil a new Asia-Pacific partnership to develop cleaner energy technologies in hopes of curtailing climate-changing pollution.

They described the initiative as a complement to the Kyoto Protocol that commits 140 countries to cutting emissions of the greenhouse gases blamed for global warming, but environmentalists said the new pact lacked firm obligations to cut pollution and that it might undermine the Kyoto accord.

The Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate, also announced overnight in Washington, aims to create cleaner technologies for energy-hungry economies such as China and India, meeting long-term energy needs while reducing pollution and addressing climate concerns.

"We view this as a complement, not an alternative" to the Kyoto treaty, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick said at a joint news conference by the six countries at an annual Asia-Pacific security conference in the Laotian capital Vientiane.

Emissions of carbon dioxide and five other gases are believed to be behind rising global temperatures that many scientists say are disrupting weather patterns.

A landmark agreement negotiated in Japan's ancient capital of Kyoto in 1997 and ratified by 140 nations requires them to take steps to reduce the emissions. The Kyoto Protocol went into force on February 16 this year.

However, the United States, the world's largest emitter of such gases, and Australia refused to ratify the agreement, saying it would harm the economy by raising energy prices, and cost five million jobs.

Their other objection is that China -- second only to the U.S. in emissions -- and India are not required to follow the Kyoto Protocol because they are considered developing economies.

Australian Environment Minister Ian Campbell said Wednesday that Canberra and Washington had negotiated the new agreement for the past 12 months among the countries accounting for 40 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions.

The pact was finalized during secret talks in Honolulu on June 20-21, a diplomat said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

It said the countries could collaborate on clean coal, liquefied natural gas, methane, civilian nuclear power, geothermal power, rural energy systems, solar power, wind power and bio-energy. In the long-term, they could develop hydrogen nanotechnologies, next-generation nuclear fission and fusion energy, it said.

Environmental group Friends of the Earth was skeptical about the pact because it contained no legally binding requirements to cut emissions.

"It looks suspiciously as though this will be business as usual for the United States," said the U.K.-based group's member, Catherine Pearce.

"A deal on technology, supported by voluntary measures to reduce emissions, will not address climate change. This is yet another attempt by the U.S. and Australian administrations to undermine the efforts of the 140 countries who have signed the Kyoto Protocol," she said.

The Kyoto Protocol imposes legally binding requirements on 35 industrialized states to cut emissions of greenhouse gases an average of 5 percent below 1990 levels.

Average global temperatures rose about 1 degree Celsius in the 20th century, and scientists say that has contributed to the thawing of the permafrost, rising ocean levels and extreme weather.

Experts say further increases could seriously disrupt ecosystems, agriculture and human lifestyles.