NucNews - August 9, 2005 -------- NUCLEAR -------- australia Australia in uranium talks with China Tuesday, August 9, 2005 Australian Broadcasting http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200508/s1433324.htm The Federal Government has announced Australia will formally open negotiations on a nuclear cooperation agreement with China. Foreign Minister Alexander Downer says the agreement will establish safeguards to ensure Australian uranium supplied to China is used "exclusively for peaceful purposes". Mr Downer says Australian and Chinese officials have already held exploratory talks on the issue. He says China's rapidly growing demand for energy will see a four-fold increase in nuclear energy production by 2020. "Diversifying from fossil fuels will result in lower greenhouse gas and particulate emissions," Mr Downer said in a statement. Finance Minister Nick Minchin says Australia would monitor any exports. "A safeguards agreement between Australia and China would allow Australia to monitor and verify that any Australian uranium exported to China would be used solely for power generation," he said. But Greens Senator Kerry Nettle has condemned the Government's decision to begin talks. Senator Nettle says the international community still has not been able to develop satisfactory ways to dispose of nuclear waste and Australia should not export uranium at all. "The Australian Government is not looking at the concerns in Australia and elsewhere that we need to remove ourselves from this destructive industry," she said. "It doesn't provide any answers to greenhouse gas emissions, it simply creates another problem." -------- business Uranium producers rush to reopen mines Aug. 9, 2005 at 4:48PM Washington Times http://www.washtimes.com/upi/20050809-043016-9270r.htm Australia, Canada, Russia and the United States are rushing to reactivate uranium mines now that China and India have committed the nations to nuclear power. Concerns about safely disposing of nuclear waste led to a bust in uranium prices in the 1980s and systematic mine closures as nations such as the United States moved from using radioactive materials to generate electricity. However, China, India and other developing countries have committed to nuclear power as fossil fuel prices soared and global warming concerns increased. That has pushed uranium demand to 180 million tons a year while mines worldwide produce 90 million to 100 million tons, The Washington Post reported. "The price of uranium has just about tripled since 2003," U.S. Energy Department analyst Ed Cotter told the newspaper. "The analysts all seem to agree that it's going to keep going up and up as the world moves more and more to nuclear power plants. And this time, the market is global." A dozen uranium mines have reopened in Colorado and Utah and one expert told the newspaper hundreds could be operating in the next three years. -------- depleted uranium Iraq’s Children: Choir of Despair Ghali Hassan, GlobalResearch.ca August 9, 2005 Uruknet.info http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m14459&date=09-aug-2005_06:52_ECT The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is a wide range of specific rights and protection measures to protect children worldwide. It is also the most ratified international human rights treaty ever. It strictly prohibits the abuse and torture of children. In most Western countries, including the US, the abuse of children is a criminal offensive. However, this is not the case when the crimes are committed against Iraqi children by Western forces. It is part of the destructive policy brought into Iraq by the US Occupation of the country. Contrary to Western politicians, Western media and Western "progressives" who welcomed the illegal war of aggression against Iraq, the plight of Iraqi children under Occupation is worsening. On all levels – human rights abuse, healthcare, medical, educational, and psychological – the Iraqi children are enduring immense hardship and suffering. It is a cover-up of crimes against humanity. A recent investigation by Neil Mackay of the Sunday Herald, (01/08/05) has revealed that US-British forces are holding more than 100 children in jails such as Abu Ghraib and Camp Bucca in the south. Witnesses claim that the detainees – some of the children as young as 8 years old – are also being subjected to rape and torture. The investigation is based on classified UNICEF report written in June titled Children in Conflict with the Law or With Coalition Forces and on reports from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Many Iraqi children were detained indefinitely without access to their family or to lawyers. The UNICEF report has not been released, because UNICEF is no longer in the humanitarian business of criticising US power and its criminal practices of torture. UNICEF current Executive Director Ann M. Veneman, a member of the Bush cabal and former US secretary of Agriculture, is not likely to offend the Bush administration by releasing the report. The Sunday Herald noted that a section of the report reads: ‘Information on the number, age, gender and conditions of incarceration is limited. In Basra and Karbala children arrested for alleged activities targeting the occupying forces are reported to be routinely transferred to an internee facility in Um Qasr. The categorisation of these children as ‘internees’ is worrying since it implies indefinite holding without contact with family, expectation of trial or due process’. Um Qasr is a port city on Iraq’s southern border and isolated from the other centres. Further, Reports from Iraq accuse the US Marines of kidnapping children and hold them as hostages. The ICRC reports in June 2004 that there were 107 children under 18 in six US-run prisons, but did not provide any further information. However, Arlie Hochschield, a professor of Sociology at the University of California, Berkley noted in the New York Times on 29 June 2005 that, "In communications with Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, the Pentagon has lowered the cut-off to 16. For this reason among others, we don't know exactly how many Iraqi children are in American custody" because "[a]ge is not a determining factor in [US] detention" practices. Since the so-called handover of "sovereignty" in June 2004, the number has risen dramatically. At Abu Ghraib prison, where the US practices the use of torture, "boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling. And the worst above all of that is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking that your government has. They are in total terror. It's going to come out", said investigative reporter Seymour Hersh of The New Yorker. Indeed, with the exception of Seymour Hersh’s investigation in May 2004, crimes of sexual violence, rape and torture by US forces against Iraqi men, women and children are continue to be unreported and remain secret from the public. The U.S. administration blamed the crimes on a few black sheep and closed the door. Of course this is not true. The policy of torture is part of a secret interrogations program and comes directly from the top of US military, with direct approval of Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the White House. According to Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, formerly in charge of Abu Ghraib prison, most of these detainees and prisoners found to be innocent. Unfortunately there has been no public outrage in the US or in Europe to condemn these appalling practices against Iraqi men, women and children. This silence and ignorance by Western public have contributed to the normalisation of abuse and torture. The Bush administration have normalised the use of torture by violating the rules of law, and human rights and decency. According to Karen Greenberg, director of the Centre on Law and Security at the New York University School of Law, editor of ‘The Torture Papers’, the U.S. government is guilty of a ‘systematic decision to alter the use of methods of coercion and torture that lay outside of accepted and legal norms". Sanford Levinson, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Texas Law School, condemned the Bush administration justice for having the power "too close" to that of Nazi Germany. Advocates of torture and abuse of human rights are not difficult to find, especially among Western elites. Obscure academics used Bush’s "war on terror" and the illegal war on Iraq to make their names known. In Australia, one of the new breed of "experts" on terrorism is a certain law professor and a former police officer by the name of Mirko Bagaric. Professor Bagaric twists and turns his case for torture use against presumed to be guilty individuals to ‘extract information’. However, professor Bagaric provides no prove or evidence on the reliability of information extracted by their practice of torture and abuse of human rights. "The recently published views of the Deakin University academics have not formed in a vacuum. A disregard for human rights is being encouraged at the highest levels", wrote journalist Bob Briton in the weekly Australian, The Guardian. With these kinds of "experts" the chances of a just world based on the rules of law is getting bleak. The support for torture among Westerners reflects the denial of the educated classes and the "progressives" that the US is deeply involved in the gravest of international crimes. The deliberate use of torture and the intention to inflict harm and pain on helpless and defenceless children is illegal, morally wrong and counterproductive. The Bush administration policy of torture which is in use on Iraqi men, women and children has proved to be ineffective and sadistic criminal practices. It is reported that Norway and Denmark, two members of the insignificant "coalition of the willing" have protested against the abuse and torture of Iraqi children. If the Norwegian and Danish governments are serious about respecting the rights of the Iraqi children, they should withdraw their troops from Iraq and stop participating in war crimes against the Iraqi children. The healthcare situation for children in Iraq is very serious. According to a 2002 UNICEF survey, the rates of acute malnutrition among children younger than 5 in Iraq have fallen to (4 per cent) the lowest level since they peaked in 1996, at the highest of the genocidal sanctions. However, two years of US occupation, it shot up to 7.7 per cent in November 2004, according to a study conducted by Iraq's Health Ministry in cooperation with Norway's Institute for Applied International Studies and the U.N. Development Program. The new study reveals that roughly 400,000 Iraqi children suffering from "wasting", a condition characterized by chronic diarrhoea and dangerous deficiencies of protein. Malnutrition appeared in Iraq for the first time in the early 1990s, as a result of the UN genocidal sanction forced by the US and Britain against the Iraqi people. The surveys suggest the silent human cost being paid across the country as a result of US Occupation. The Anglo-American war on Iraq since 1991 and the violent policy implemented against the Iraqi children were deliberately designed to destroy Iraq as a nation. On May 12, 1996, Madeline Albright, the former US ambassador to the United Nations, told Lesley Stahl of CBS news program 60 Minutes, when asked to comment on the death of half a million Iraqi children. Albright replied without hesitation: "We think the price is worth it". In addition, the US and Britain have refused to lift the sanctions under any circumstances despite known the full scale of a deliberate atrocity. A generation of Iraqi children is lost. Today, Iraqi children are enduring immense hardship and suffering never before. Report after report by the UN and aid agencies have revealed the scale of the human tragedy orchestrated by US-Britain policy toward Iraq, and particularly the Iraqi children. The tragedy was covered-up by the demonisation of Saddam Hussein in Western media in a deliberate move to silence the Iraqi children’s cries. "We find record of not a single significant demonstration protesting the wholesale destruction of Iraqi children", wrote Professor Ward Churchill of the University of Colorado. In the Arab World, there were no dissenting voices to protest the slaughter of Iraqi children, but long trends of Arab passivity and self-defence bankruptcy. Indeed, the Arab stooges (rulers) benefited immensely from the war and sanctions against the Iraqi people. They are equally complicit in war crimes against Iraq’s children The World Health Organization (WHO) reported on March 1996 that; "Since the onset of sanctions, there has been a six-fold increase in the mortality rate for children under five, and the majority of the country's population has been on a semi-starvation diet". Denis Halliday, UN assistant secretary general and humanitarian coordinator for Iraq, said that sanctions are "undermining the moral credibility of the UN" and their continuation is "in contradiction to the human rights provisions in the UN's own Charter". In October 1996, UNICEF reported that "4,500 children under the age of 5 are dying each month from hunger and disease…The situation is disastrous for children. Many are living on the very margin of survival". The figure means the death of an Iraqi child every 10 minutes as a result of the US-Britain imposed sanctions. Philippe Heffnick of UNICEF, said; "What we are seeing is a dramatic deterioration in the nutritional well-being of Iraqi children since 1991… It is clear that the children are bearing the brunt of the current economic hardship". "They must be protected from the impact of the sanctions. Otherwise, they will continue to suffer and that we cannot accept", added Mr. Heffnick. A recent United Nations World Food Programme (UNWFP) report, found the majority of the Iraqi population lack the required daily calories to survive and remain healthy. Iraqi living condition has worsened, and many Iraqis admit openly that life before the occupation was much better and safer. An estimated 25 percent of Iraqi babies are born with low birth weights and the WHO warned that many of these children will lag in their physical or mental development, leading to long-term health problems. According to a United Nations Development Program (UNDP) study conducted in 2004, infant mortality and malnutrition findings show clearly that, '"the suffering of children due to war and conflict in Iraq is not limited to those directly wounded or killed by military activities", says the UN ILCS study. With children under the age of 15 make up 39 per cent of the country’s total population of 27 million, the ILCS study notes that, "Most Iraqi children today have lived their whole lives under sanctions and war". In other words, most Iraqi children today have lived their lives in constant fear of U.S-British sponsored terrorism against children. The "current major problems" includes "lack of health personnel, lack of medicines, non-functioning medical equipments and destroyed hospitals and health centres", the ILCS study reveals. It is a U.S-made and a U.S-accelerated tragedy. And as a consequence of the US war, "[h]undreds of thousands of children born since the beginning of the present war have had none of their required vaccinations, and routine immunization services in major areas of the country are all but disrupted. Destruction of refrigeration systems needed to store vaccines have rendered the vaccine supply virtually useless", writes Dr. César Chelala, an international public health consultant. "Even antibiotics of minimal cost are in short supply, increasing the population's risk of dying from common infections. Hospitals are overcrowded, and many hospitals go dark at night for lack of lighting fixtures. The Iraqi minister of health claims that 100 percent of the hospitals in Iraq need rehabilitation", noted César Chelala. Iraq’s education system, one of the best in the Arab World before the war, has also deteriorated by both the sanctions and the war. Again, Iraqi children are hard hit under Occupation. The literacy rate among Iraqi children between the ages of 15 and 24 is just 74 per cent, which is according to the study is only "slightly higher than the literacy rate for the population at large". The figure is lower than that for those 25-34, "indicating that the younger generation lags behind its predecessors on educational performance". According to UNICEF, almost 1 in 4 children has no access to education under the Occupation. The effects of "the sanctions policy not only reversed previous educational achievements but rendered the Iraqi education system unable to serve the population. The impact of the sanctions will affect future generations of school children and university students", writes Agustin De Santisteban, a Comparative Education specialist with the Faculty of Education at UNED in Madrid. The highly publicised US propaganda of Iraq’s ‘reconstruction’ proved to be the complete and deliberate destruction of Iraqi education system. The best example is found in the de-development of Iraq’s school curriculum, on of the best in the region. Iraq’s school curriculum has been replaced by US-crafted curriculum in order to brainwash Iraqi children in the same way as American children are brainwashed. A large number of Iraqi academics, scientists, doctors, engineers, pharmacologists, officers, and lawyers have been murdered or forced to flee the country. Others are being imprisoned without charges. Iraq is not being constructed; it is suffering from a massive brain drain. On 30 March 2004, Al-jazeera reported: "More than 1000 leading Iraqi professionals and intellectuals have been assassinated since last April, among them such prominent figures as Dr Muhammad al-Rawi, the president of Baghdad University". The deliberate destruction of Iraq’s human resources designed to create a dependent and subordinate colonial dictatorship to serve US interests and US-Zionist hegemony. The nation infrastructure – the country's service networks, like electricity grids, communications, bridges, irrigation, transport, sewage treatment systems and water purification plants – built up by the previous regime was largely destroyed by the US-British indiscriminate terror’s bombing began in 1991. The destruction was intentional in order to destroy Iraq’s economy and increase the suffering of the Iraqi people. Indeed, all targets were selected to amplify the economic and psychological impact of the sanctions on the Iraqi society for many years to come. Even after the Anglo-American troops leave Iraq, Iraqi children will continue to suffer. Unexploded cluster bombs, originally dropped by US-British troops on populated areas, continue killing and maiming children, farm animals, and wildlife-any living thing that touches them by accident. The bomblets are deliberately made to look like playing things - yellow bright and look like beer cans – to attract children. Thousands of children have been killed by dormant bomblets in Afghanistan, and Iraq. Under Article 85 of the Geneva Conventions, it is a war crime to launch "an indiscriminate attack affecting the civilian population in the knowledge that such an attack will cause an excessive loss of life or injury to civilians." Under the Hague Conventions, Article 22 and 23, ‘The right of belligerents to adopt means of injuring the enemy is not unlimited", and "It is especially forbidden to kill treacherously individuals belonging to the hostile nation or army". However, British officials, including Geoff Hoon, the British defence secretary and Adam Ingram, British Armed Forces Minister justified the use of cluster bombs, on military grounds, saying that: "Cluster bombs are not illegal. They are effective weapons. They are used in specific circumstances where there is a threat to our troops". The truth is; cluster bombs are used often on heavily populated areas. According to Asia Times (10 April 2004), after US (B52s) planes dropped their cluster bombs load, "[a]ll over Baghdad, the city's five main hospitals simply cannot cope with an avalanche of civilian casualties. Doctors can't get to the hospitals because of the bombing. Dr. Osama Saleh Al-Dulaimi at the al-Kindi hospital confirms the absolute majority of patients are women and children, victims of...shrapnel and most of all, fragments of cluster bombs. ‘They are all civilians’, he said. ‘The International Committee of the Red Cross is in a state of almost desperation...casualties arriving at hospitals at a rate of as many as 100 per hour and at least 100 per day’". In Hilla south of Baghdad, Reuters reported scenes of children with no limbs and babies cut in half. The majority of the 348 who were killed or wounded by the bombs were women and children. The use of ‘Depleted’ Uranium (DU) is another scourge of the Anglo-American war on Iraq. The long term implications of DU on Iraqi children have been documented. DU is a potent radioactive carcinogen and once absorbed by the body, DU can cause cancer in the bones, lungs or kidneys. At high risks are Iraqi children and pregnant women. The rate of Iraqi children developing cancer and born with cancer is significantly high. Furthermore, the majority of the 100,000 Iraqis killed (conservative estimate) by US-British forces were women and children, reported the reputed and peer-reviewed British medical journal, The Lancet in November 2004. The Iraqiyun Humanitarian Organization (IHO) in Baghdad estimated that 55 per cent of the at least 128,000 Iraqis killed have been women and children aged 12 and under. It is just non-Western lives do not count in the West. Thousands of Iraqi children have lost one or both parents and as a result Iraq is awash with orphaned and homeless children. The war was an illegal act of aggression in contravention of UN Charter and international law. The normalisation of this big atrocity by Western media is shameful and lacks any moral principle. The torture and killing of innocent Iraqi civilians and the deliberate destruction of Iraqi children can not be justified by countless lies and deception. It is terrorism, not ‘fight against terrorism’. Contrary to Bush-Blair allegations, Iraq had no link to "terrorism" or to the 9/11 attacks on the US. Bush’s own 9/11 Commission found there was no link between Saddam and 9/11. Iraq is not a place for "terrorists", as Mr Bush is alleging. From an Iraqi perspective, the "terrorists" in Iraq are US soldiers and mercenaries from Britain, Italy, Australia, South Korea and Japan, etc. Mr Bush is fabricating another lie to justify the ongoing occupation of Iraq. The Iraqi people have legitimate right to resist foreign occupation and liberate their country. It is clearly stated that: "International law grants a people fighting an illegal occupation the right to use ‘all necessary means at their disposal’ to end their occupation and the occupied "are entitled to seek and receive support" in order to resist the occupiers. The Bush-Blair ongoing policy of violence against Iraq is not only endangering the lives of Iraqis, but also the lives of Americans and Britons. Since 1991, the US and Britain embarked on a vicious policy of dividing Iraq in the same way the colonial Britain divided the Arab Peninsular (into protectorates) and ruled behind a façade of corrupt local gendarmes, kings and emirs. Every step in the war and Occupation was deliberately designed to destroy the Iraqi civil society and provoke divisions and civil strife among Iraqis. The Occupation is sowing the seeds for divisions among Iraqis. In order to continue the Occupation and steal Iraq’s wealth and oil resources, the US is deliberately orchestrating civil strife. The aim is an imperialist one, the creation of colonial dictatorship to serve US-Israel interests. The US-created Iraqi "army" and "police" force are ethnic-based militias. They constitute the Mossad-trained Kurdish Peshmerga militia, the Iranian-trained Badr Brigade, and the Chelabi and Allawi thugs. Their loyalties are to their parties and the Occupation, not to the Iraqi people. They are responsible for widespread of crimes and fear among the Iraqi population. The bulk of the violence is directed against Iraqis who appose the Occupation and US imperial agenda. There is no "democracy" or "freedom" in Iraq. There is no independent government; Iraq is occupied by 200,000 US troops and mercenaries. The current "government" in Iraq is a farce installed by fraudulent elections. This puppet government has betrayed the Iraqi people by failing to ask the occupiers to leave Iraq, and to provide the minimal security to protect the Iraqi people. Its presence and obsequious to the occupying forces shame every Iraqi. The majority of Iraqis are against the Occupation and its policies of privatization and looting of Iraq’s resources and Iraq’s economy. The majority of Iraqis blame the presence of US forces for the continuing violence and mayhem. The majority of Iraqis oppose to the US-promoted division and "federalism" in Iraq. In flagrant violations of UN Conventions and international law, the US-Britain war on Iraq has wrought nothing to Iraqis but destruction, a culture of corruption, sectarianism, murder and mayhem. The most vulnerable people of the Iraqi society, women and children are the largest victim of this atrocity. UNICEF has an obligation to the world community to release the report and uncover US crimes against Iraqi children. The Occupation is destroying the lives of Iraqi children and increasing the suffering of the Iraqi people. The best peaceful solution for Iraq and for the world is the immediate and full withdrawal of the Anglo-American armies from Iraq. It is immoral to think otherwise. By Ghali Hassan lives in Perth, Western Australia. ---- Depleted Uranium is WMD by Leuren Moret Published on Tuesday, August 9, 2005 by the Battle Creek Enquirer (Michigan) http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0809-33.htm http://www.battlecreekenquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050809/OPINION02/508090332/1014/OPINION My grandfather, U.S. Army Col. Edwin Joseph McAllister, was born in Battle Creek in 1895. He does not know that his first grandchild is an international expert on depleted uranium. I have worked in two U.S. nuclear weapons laboratories, and in 1991 I became a whistleblower at the Livermore lab. Depleted uranium is very, very, very nasty stuff: # Depleted uranium (DU) weaponry meets the definition of weapon of mass destruction in two out of three categories under U.S. Federal Code Title 50 Chapter 40 Section 2302. # DU weaponry violates all international treaties and agreements, Hague and Geneva war conventions, the 1925 Geneva gas protocol, U.S. laws and U.S. military law. # Since 1991, the U.S. has released the radioactive atomicity equivalent of at least 400,000 Nagasaki bombs into the global atmosphere. That is 10 times the amount released during atmospheric testing which was the equivalent of 40,000 Hiroshima bombs. The U.S. has permanently contaminated the global atmosphere with radioactive pollution having a half-life of 2.5 billion years. # The U.S. has illegally conducted four nuclear wars in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and twice in Iraq since 1991, calling DU "conventional" weapons when in fact they are nuclear weapons. # DU on the battlefield has three effects on living systems: it is a heavy metal "chemical" poison, a "radioactive" poison and has a "particulate" effect due to the very tiny size of the particles that are 0.1 microns and smaller. # The blueprint for DU weaponry is a 1943 Manhattan Project memo to Gen. L. Groves that recommended development of radioactive materials as poison gas weapons - dirty bombs, dirty missiles and dirty bullets. # DU weapons are very effective kinetic energy penetrators, but even more effective bioweapons since uranium has a strong chemical affinity for phosphate structures concentrated in DNA. # DU is the Trojan Horse of nuclear war - it keeps giving and keeps killing. There is no way to clean it up, and no way to turn it off because it continues to decay into other radioactive isotopes in over 20 steps. # Terry Jemison at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs stated in August 2004 that over 518,000 Gulf-era veterans (14-year period) are now on medical disability, and that 7,039 were wounded on the battlefield in that same period. Over 500,000 U.S. veterans are homeless. # In some studies of soldiers who had normal babies before the war, 67 percent of the post-war babies are born with severe birth defects - missing brains, eyes, organs, legs and arms, and blood diseases. # In southern Iraq, scientists are reporting five times higher levels of gamma radiation in the air, which increases the radioactive body burden daily of inhabitants. In fact, Iraq, Yugoslavia and Afghanistan are uninhabitable. # Cancer starts with one alpha particle under the right conditions. One gram of DU is the size of a period in this sentence and releases 12,000 alpha particles per second. Before my grandfather died, he told me that his generation had made a mess of this planet. I wonder what he would say to me now I would tell him to see "Beyond Treason" (www.beyondtreason.com), a new documentary about the history of treason by the U.S. government against our own troops: Atomic veterans, MK-Ultra, Agent Orange and DU. After Vietnam, Henry Kissinger said, "Military men are just dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy. . ." (from Chapter 5 in the "Final Days" by Woodward and Bernstein). Leuren Moret is an international radiation specialist, with a B.S. degree in geology from University of California at Davis, a M.A. degree in Near Eastern studies from University of California at Berkeley and has done post-graduate work in the geosciences at UC-Davis. She is environmental commissioner for the City of Berkeley, Calif. ---- Iran's wish to return to talks is 'positive'-Bush "Washington has given its blessings to a plan by Russia to supply uranium to Iran and take back the depleted uranium so it cannot be converted into bomb-grade material." By Steve Holland Reuters Tuesday, August 9, 2005; 5:19 PM http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/09/AR2005080900841_pf.html CRAWFORD, Texas (Reuters) - President Bush said on Tuesday it was a positive sign that Iran wants to return to international talks over its nuclear program and expressed a willingness to give negotiations more time before getting tougher with Tehran. But in a new friction with Iran, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said weapons used by Iraq's insurgency to attack U.S. troops were coming across Iraq's border from Iran and he said at a minimum Tehran was letting it happen. "You don't know who brought it in or who tolerated it being brought in, who facilitated it to be brought in, who sold it to someone to bring in. What you do know of certain knowledge is the Iranians did not stop it from coming in," Rumsfeld said in Washington. Bush got word from news reports that Iran's new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was willing to return to the stalled talks. He called it a positive development that "the man said he wanted to negotiate" and a sign that Iran was feeling the heat from the three European nations -- Britain, Germany and France, the so-called EU-3 -- that are negotiating with Tehran. "I think that's a positive sign that the Iranians are getting a message that it's not just the United States that's worried about their nuclear programs, but the Europeans are serious in calling the Iranians to account and negotiating," Bush said. Washington and the new Iranian leader are off to a rocky start. The State Department said on Monday the United States may deny Ahmadinejad a visa to attend a U.N. meeting because of suspicions he had a role in the 1979 storming of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. Bush said Washington will work with the EU-3 on what steps might be in order if talks failed to reach an agreement. Going to the United Nations to seek possible international sanctions against Iran remained an option, said Bush, who acknowledged he remained "deeply suspicious" that Iran was intent on developing a nuclear weapon. "It is important for the Iranians to understand that America stands squarely with the EU-3, that we feel strongly the Iranians need to adhere to the agreements made in the Paris accord and that we will be willing to work with our partners and deal with appropriate consequences should they ignore the demand," he said. ONE LAST CHANCE? A U.S. official in Washington said the United States is willing to give Iran a final chance to resume talks before seeking to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council. "We want to give them (Iran) that last chance," the official said. Asked whether the United States had sufficient support to get the U.N. Security Council to impose sanctions on Iran, State Department spokesman Adam Ereli conceded that "broad and firm" consensus was needed for such an action. On Monday, Iran angered the Europeans and the United States by resuming uranium conversion at a nuclear facility. By doing so, Tehran defied EU warnings it could now be referred to the Security Council for possible sanctions. Bush tried to reconcile what appears to be conflicting positions on policy involving two countries with nuclear ambitions, Iran and North Korea. Washington reluctantly would go along with a civilian nuclear program for Iran but not for North Korea, whose demand for such a program is an obstacle to a six-party agreement sought for three weeks in talks in Beijing. Bush said a civilian nuclear program for Iran "makes sense only so long as the plant is under strong international inspection regimes and the uranium used to run the power plant is provided by a country with whom we're comfortable." Washington has given its blessings to a plan by Russia to supply uranium to Iran and take back the depleted uranium so it cannot be converted into bomb-grade material. In the case of North Korea, Bush said, South Korea has offered to provide electrical power to the North. "In other words, the South Koreans have said, 'We'll build and share power with you,' which seems to me to make good sense," Bush said. (Additional reporting by Patricia Wilson in Crawford and Sue Pleming and Will Dunham in Washington) -------- india Tarapur Atomic Power Station -3&4 Dr. Anil Kakodkar Secretary, Department of Atomic Energy 9 August 2005 Jans Machar http://www.jansamachar.net/display.php3?id=&num=3555&lang=English During the 51 years of its formation, the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) has taken impressive strides from fundamental scientific research to development and commercial applications of nuclear energy. The Department has mastered all the aspects of nuclear fuel cycle technology that ranges from exploration of nuclear minerals, mining and ore processing, fuel fabrication, power generation, reprocessing of spent fuel and nuclear waste management. It has also achieved high standards in safety and environment management. The nuclear technology developed in DAE’s research centres is being widely used in industry, health, agriculture, food preservation, urban waste management and desalination. The Department has been pursuing a 3-stage Nuclear Power Programme that is focused on utilization of uranium and abundantly available thorium resources of the country for power generation. The programme comprises setting up of Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors (PHWRs) and associated fuel cycle facilities; Fast Breeder Reactors (FBRs) backed by reprocessing plants and plutonium-based fuel fabrication plants, and thorium based reactors. On March 6 this year, DAE reached a momentous milestone when efforts of its organizations, mainly the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd. (NPCIL) and Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), came to fruition with the successful attainment of criticality of a 540 MWe pressurised heavy water reactor at Tarapur. Comprising twin-reactor units of PHWR type each of 540 MWe capacity, TAPP-3&4 has been built adjacent to Tarapur Atomic Power Station -1&2, on the shores of the Arabian Sea, in Thane district of Maharashtra. These reactors are based on natural uranium as fuel, and heavy water as moderator and coolant. The first concrete (high strength Grade M-60 concrete developed indigenously), was poured on March 8, 2000 and it has taken less than 5 years for TAPP-4 unit to attain criticality. Earlier, on January 22, 2005, this unit had taken a major stride when all the systems of the reactor were integrated successfully, and after the clearance of the Project Design Safety Committee of AERB, its fuel loading had commenced. The commissioning of TAPP-4 nuclear reactor, about eight months ahead of the schedule and achieving drastic reduction in the gestation period that compares well with international benchmark, has established technological and managerial prowess of NPCIL. An automatic computer controlled batching plant was established and concrete was pumped to the place of concreting. Permanent cranes and hoists were installed and commissioned well in advance, so that they could be made available for erection jobs inside the buildings. With the help of a heavy-duty crawler crane, the lowering of steam generator into position was completed in just three hours as against more than a month in earlier projects. The overall plant execution was done by contracting out mega-packages of activities rather than single activities. This approach simplified coordination, and increased speed of execution of various works. This technological and project management experience will be useful for future high-tech programme. The design of TAPP-3&4 reactors incorporates all the basic features of the existing PHWRs. The safety features in the existing 220 MWe units, such as fast acting diverse independent shutdown systems, high pressure emergency core cooling systems, double containment, supplementary control room along with the safety objectives like redundancy diversity, avoidance of common cause failure, are incorporated in these units. Since the 540 PHWR is a large reactor, some systems are much different from those used in the 220 MWe reactor of standardised design and a number of new systems are also needed in these large reactors. This necessitated research and development in several areas. Also, driven with the objective of maintaining and improving the indigenisation of nuclear power plant components, additional design innovations were carried out. Certain pieces of equipment were redesigned so that their manufacturing is within the capability of Indian industry. AERB has authorised synchronization and operation of the unit upto 90 per cent power level. Maharashtra will receive 36 percent of electricity generated from TAPP-3&4, Gujarat’s share will be 19 percent and Madhya Pradesh’s 17 percent, and rest of the power will be supplied to Goa, Union Territories of Daman, Diu and Nagar Haveli, and to deficient states. The second reactor TAPP-3 of the project will be commissioned shortly. NPCIL, that is responsible for the design, construction and operation of nuclear power reactors in India, now operates 15 reactors (2 boiling water reactors and 13 pressurised heavy water reactors). With the commissioning of TAPP-4 reactor, the total capacity stands at 3310 MWe. Five PHWRs and two light water reactors of NPCIL are under construction. After the completion of these reactors, the total installed nuclear power generation capacity will be 6730 MWe. Successful commissioning of TAPP-4 has tremendously boosted the confidence of the Indian nuclear engineers and scientists. With this, India has entered the era of electricity generation from large size nuclear reactors. The achievement of high capacity factor and low gestation period of the Indian nuclear reactors have made them competitive with other types of electricity generating units. With a view to further bring down the per unit price of electricity, a larger reactor of 700 MWe capacity is being developed by NPCIL. ---- The U.S.-India Strategic Partnership [Excerpts] By Lora Saalman, August 9, 2005 Japan Focus http://www.japanfocus.org/article.asp?id=357 Just prior to the July 18, 2005 meeting between U.S. President George W. Bush and India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, a senior official commented that the two parties would talk about "whatever is on their minds"; apparently, this turned out to be a lot. Some pursuits, such as a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, did not come to fruition. Still, India made major gains in one area of particular note: access to dual-use technology. Nuclear technology will lift India's masses to a higher level of electricity and convenience. Rocket technology will offer India's space program a giant leap forward. However, this same equipment and technology has another possible function: serving as a means to build a better bomb or a longer range missile. India and the United States have charted a course toward transforming India into a "major world power in the 21st century." While the joint U.S.-India statement issued on July 18 represents a significant step forward in strategic bilateral relations, it presents an equally significant step backward in nonproliferation norms. ……. The Newest Step As the most recent and contentious measure, the joint U.S.-India statement creates a political quagmire in which strategic and economic bilateral gains affect the international community's nonproliferation momentum. In terms of the United States' part of the bargain, the decision to sign a Science and Technology Framework Agreement for joint research and training and public-private partnerships posits U.S. provision of high-technology to India. These transfers could extend to any number of exchanges previously banned under U.S. sanctions and export control legislation. Both sides agreed to build closer ties in space exploration, satellite navigation and launch and in the commercial space arena through mechanisms such as the U.S.-India Working Group on Civil Space Cooperation. Yet, space technology also doubles for missile technology and U.S.-provided advances could be used in enhancing India's pursuit of intercontinental ballistic missile (I.C.B.M.) and submarine-launched ballistic missile capabilities. The United States also pledged to work to achieve "full civil nuclear energy cooperation and trade" with India, seeking congressional adjustment of U.S. regulations. Specifically, the July 18 joint statement mentions fuel supplies for safeguarded nuclear reactors at Tarapur. Tarapur is under International Atomic Energy Agency (I.A.E.A.) safeguards, but more than a dozen of India's nuclear reactors, heavy water production facilities, enrichment plants, and uranium purification sites are not. Full civil nuclear cooperation lends itself to dual-use dangers given the near impossibility of separating between civilian and military nuclear facilities and India's already selective approach to safeguards. India has already demonstrated its shaky commitment on both of these counts since plutonium used in its initial 1974 nuclear detonation originated in its Cirus reactor, supplied under a civilian use pledge. Even if India fulfills its pledge to place a few more civilian facilities under I.A.E.A. safeguards, the Indian Express stated it best in exclaiming that India would retain its "nuclear jewels" and keep Cirus, Dhruva and other weapons-related nuclear reactors away from inspectors. Moreover, full civil nuclear energy cooperation with a non-signatory to the N.P.T. contravenes the very essence of the treaty. India's promise to continue its unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing demonstrates an offer that, while feasible, already exists in practice. Similarly, in promising to refrain from the transfer of enrichment and reprocessing technologies to non-nuclear weapon states, India is merely reiterating its current stand and does not represent new initiatives. In promising to work with the United States for the conclusion of a multilateral Fissile Material Cut Off Treaty, India has furthermore signed onto a promise of working toward a treaty that is not expected to succeed. While the United States has relinquished many of its former policies, India has merely restated its own. The Role of U.S. Interests While the July 18 joint statement in terms of technological gains is weighted in India's favor, this does not indicate that there are no advantages for the United States. For the United States, benefits rest in the financial gains to be made through military sales to India and the preferential placement of U.S. military bids vis-à-vis European, Israeli, and Russian competitors. The Indian Air Force plans to purchase 126 new jets over the next four to five years. Not coincidentally, on March 25, 2005, the United States agreed to allow Lockheed Martin to sell F-16 fighter planes, which may be used to deliver nuclear weapons, to both India and Pakistan. If F-16s are selected over Swedish, Russian, and French competitors, the total price tag for supplying India alone could reach $3 billion. The U.S. also has been looking for markets to peddle such wares as the much touted and much failed PAC-III missile defense system, which figures prominently into the Rumsfeld-Mukherjee "New Framework for the U.S.-India Defense Relationship." Strategically, India offers the potential for increased cooperation with a country that is rapidly growing as an economic and military power in a region increasingly dominated by China. The United States has also been searching for a means of expanding the Proliferation Security Initiative and interdiction into the Indian Ocean. On issues of terrorism, India has also presented itself as a point of intelligence sharing in a crucial region. ……. The United States will also increasingly find pressure from Pakistan to provide similar technological exchanges, potentially leading to greater strains on U.S.-Pakistan cooperation. In fact, on July 25, 2005, just a week after the U.S.-India joint statement, Pakistan's foreign office spokesman Naeem Khan voiced his government's interest in U.S. cooperation on "nuclear energy, high technology and the peaceful use of space technology." Ominously, that same week, Pakistan's Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz cancelled his visit to the United States. For Russia and China, criticized in the past for their assistance to India, Iran, and Pakistan's nuclear programs, the U.S.-India joint statement opens up the playing field for future transfers to more countries than just India. The Role of Indian Interests For India, domestic news articles lament India for selling out to U.S. demands with particularly sharp criticism emanating from India's left and former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. On the whole, however, the removal of sanctions and mitigation of dual-use restrictions work in India's favor. India will gain access to technology that will enhance its civilian nuclear and space programs, as well as its nuclear weapons and missile fields. Not only will access expand, but India's market and negotiating leverage will grow vis-à-vis Russia, Israel, France and other suppliers. ………. On the negative side, India will be losing a degree of its non-alignment policy, and its military policy will face greater U.S. interference. U.S.-India alignment, even if only nominal, could lead to other countries regarding India as a U.S. lackey. This newfound role will limit India's ability to intervene as an international player, especially in areas of nonproliferation. Not only will it be seen as a U.S. "ally," India will also serve as a shining example of to what some countries would aspire, establishing a nuclear weapons program outside of the N.P.T. and later receiving acceptance and rewards. India may also wind up fulfilling the dire predictions of Indian analysts that see the United States attempting to dominate the Indian Ocean. Finally, if the cooperation develops a heavier strategic tone, any inkling of the U.S. using India to balance China or Pakistan could endanger India's own security through regional arms racing. Conclusion ……. The U.S.-India joint statement has already set in motion mechanisms that promise to test the U.S. Congress and the Nuclear Suppliers Group as to their stand on nonproliferation. While the parties pushed the joint statement nearly a year ahead of schedule, the outcome remains distant due to demands for changes in U.S. and international nuclear legislation. In the meantime, the United States has tied its hands on demanding more concrete pledges from India on cutting its fissile material production, much less placing its nuclear facilities under feasible safeguards. The United States stopped just short of calling India a nuclear weapons state and yet it conferred upon India the same benefits as an N.P.T. signatory. …….. Ultimately, while the U.S.-India joint statement is bilateral in tone, its repercussions will be global. Nuclear weapon states and military suppliers such as Russia, China, and France are carefully observing the outcome to guide their own future sales. Similarly, countries outside of the N.P.T. or countries contemplating violation of the treaty are also watching. If the agreements and changes in U.S. or international legislation that come out of the joint statement are not made with this understanding, India's gain may be the nonproliferation regime's loss. Lora Saalman is a Research Associate at the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control. Her analyses have appeared in the online journals of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, Power and Interest News Report, Monterey Institute of International Studies and Center for Nonproliferation Studies. She drafted this report for The Power and Interest News Report (PINR), where it appeared on August 5. Published at Japan Focus on August 9. -------- iran Russia joins int'l community, calls on Iran to cease enriching uranium By Yossi Melman, Haaretz Correspondent and The Associated Press Last update - 22:05 09/08/2005 http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/610492.html Russia joined the international community's efforts on Tuesday and called on Iran to cease enriching uranium as part of its nuclear program. "It would be a wise decision on the part of Iran to stop enriching uranium and renew cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency," a statement released by Russia's foreign department read. Moscow's support is seen as important in trying to prevent Iran from reaching atomic bomb capability. Earlier on Tuesday, an IAEA committee held an emergency meeting in Vienna to decide how to react to Iran's announcement that it has recently renewed enriching uranium at its nuclear power plant at Isfahan. The committe isn't expected to pass the issue on the UN Security Council that could impose economic sanctions, but instead recommend that negotiations with Teheran continue in order to find a diplomatic solution to the crisis. Oil prices have already reached a record price of 64 dollars a barrel due to fears that economic sanctions may be imposed on Iran, one of the world's major oil exporters. Iran says it increased range, accuracy of its Shihab-3 missile Iran said Tuesday it has improved the range and accuracy of its Shihab-3 missile, saying the weapon can strike targets as far away as 2,000 kilometers with an accuracy of within one meter. Admiral Ali Shamkhani, Iran's outgoing defense minister, also said Iran would halt its international cooperation on its nuclear development if the United States or Israel attacks its nuclear facilities. "If some day they attack, we will drop all our nuclear commitments," Shamkhani told reporters at a press briefing Tuesday. "We are capable of meeting our defense needs and improving (the Shihab-3's) specifications at any time." He did not mention retaliating to an attack by military means. Iran on Monday resumed activity at one of its nuclear facilities that carries out an early stage in the nuclear fuel process, defying European demands that it maintain an eight-month suspension of its program. But Iran continues to cooperate with the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, allowing it access to its sites. Meanwhile, Gen. Ahmad Vahid, the father of Iran's missile industry, told the Associated Press that Iran has boosted the missile's range from about 1,300 kilometers to 2,000 kilometers. "We have been working on the missile's range since we started manufacturing it," said Vahid, a member of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards. In July, Iran said it carried out a successful test of a solid fuel motor for the Shihab-3. Vahid did not specify whether the new fuel was behind the missile's improved performance. Iran has been careful to disperse its nuclear facilities and protect parts of it underground, wary of airstrikes to take out the program such as the 1981 Israeli air raid that destroyed neighboring Iraq's main nuclear reactor at Osirak. "Our nuclear capabilities are not annihilable," Vahid said. "We have mastered nuclear science by ourselves. In case of any damage, we could construct it somewhere else." Last year, Iran threatened to destroy Israel's Dimona nuclear reactor should the Jewish state attack Iran. Dimona is believed to be home to Israel's nuclear weapons development program. Israel maintains a nuclear monopoly in the Middle East and is thought to harbor about 200 warheads deployed on ballistic missiles, aircraft and submarines, according to the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Israeli officials do not comment on the country's nuclear weapons potential. Iran launched its arms development program during its 1980-88 war with Iraq to compensate for a U.S. weapons embargo. Since 1992, Iran has produced its own tanks, armored personnel carriers, missiles and a fighter plane. Shamkhani said Iran's missiles were not targeting any particular country. "We have reached a level of regional deterrence," he said. ---- Informant says Tehran has 4,000 centrifuges 8/9/2005 4:50 AM (AP) http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-08-09-iran-informant_x.htm VIENNA, Austria — Iran has manufactured about 4,000 centrifuges capable of enriching uranium to weapons grade, an exiled Iranian dissident who helped uncover nearly two decades of covert nuclear activity in 2002 said Tuesday. Alireza Jafarzadeh told the Associated Press that the centrifuges — which he said are unknown to the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency — are ready to be installed at Iran's nuclear facility in Natanz. (Related story: Iranians' nuclear work gets warning) Jafarzadeh, who runs Strategic Policy Consulting, a Washington-based think tank focusing on Iran and Iraq, said the information — which he described as "very recent" — came from sources within the Tehran regime who have proven accurate in the past. The Vienna-based IAEA, which was convening an emergency meeting on Iran later Tuesday, did not immediately comment on the centrifuge allegations. The agency previously had said it was aware of the existence of 164 centrifuges at Natanz. "These 4,000 centrifuge machines have not been declared to the IAEA, and the regime has kept the production of these machines hidden from the inspectors while the negotiations with the European Union have been going on over the past 21 months," Jafarzadeh said. Iran on Saturday rejected a package of EU incentives presented by envoys from Britain, France and Germany. On Monday it announced it had resumed uranium conversion activities at its nuclear facility at Isfahan. Jafarzadeh said the centrifuges were manufactured in Isfahan and Tehran, and that construction of buildings, concrete foundations and other work needed to prepare the Natanz facility for centrifuge installation has continued in recent months. The IAEA's 35-nation board of governors was meeting to assess Iran's latest nuclear activities, and diplomats said it could issue a formal warning to Tehran. The board, however, appeared unlikely to report Iran to the U.N. Security Council, which has the authority to impose economic or political sanctions on the regime. ---- Iran says will drop nuclear pledges if attacked TEHRAN, Aug 9, 2005 (Reuters) http://www.arabtimesonline.com/arabtimes/breakingnews/view.asp?msgID=9810 Iran, a signatory of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), would drop all its international nuclear pledges if its atomic facilities were attacked, the outgoing Defence Minister said on Tuesday. His comments came a day after Iran resumed uranium conversion work, fanning Western fears it may be seeking atomic weapons and defying European Union warnings that Tehran could be referred to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions. Iran insists its nuclear ambitions are limited to peaceful electricity generation. "The day our facilities are attacked, we will put aside all our nuclear commitments," Ali Shamkhani told reporters. He did not specify which commitments Iran would drop. Leading conservatives have called for Iran to follow North Korea's example and pull out of the NPT, a treaty aimed at halting the spread of nuclear arms. Shamkhani said he thought it was unlikely the United States would attack Iran's nuclear facilities, saying Washington must have learned its lesson from the bloody invasion of Iraq. U.S. officials have played down media speculation they may be planning military action against Iran. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel, which also accuses Iran of developing atomic weapons, has said his country would prefer a diplomatic rather than military offensive against Iran at this stage. "Whatever is destroyed ... will be rebuilt elsewhere," Shamkhani said. "Our nuclear capability cannot be destroyed by any bomb, because it lies in our universities." The U.N. atomic watchdog confirmed on Monday that Iran had resumed nuclear fuel work mothballed under a deal with Britain, France and Germany. Iran also formally rejected a package of political and economic incentives offered by the three on behalf of the EU and aimed at persuading it to scrap nuclear fuel work for good. Shamkhani said Iran's Shahab-3 missiles "are now accurate to within one metre of their target". Iran began upgrading the Shahab-3 in May. Tehran said last year it had begun mass production of the medium-range missiles, thought by military experts to have a range of 2,000 km (1,250 miles) -- enough to reach Israel. With speculation mounting about new President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's nominees for cabinet, Shamkhani asked for the defence candidate to be an insider. Iranian media have named the chief of the joint staff of the hardline Revolutionary Guards Ali Akbar Ahmadian as a possible candidate. But Shamkhani said Ahmadinejad had also spoken to Hossein Alaee, head of Iran's Defence Aircraft Industries Organisation. Alaee declined to comment. ---- Bush warily backs new Iran nuclear talks CRAWFORD, Texas (AFP) Aug 09, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/050809192012.byjj7uty.html US President George W. Bush on Tuesday warily welcomed signs Iran was ready to resume talks with European powers on its atomic ambitions, saying he was "deeply suspicious" of Tehran's intentions. "We'll have to watch very carefully," said Bush. "They have, in the past, said they would adhere to international norms and then were caught enriching uranium. And that's dangerous." Speaking one day after the Islamic republic resumed sensitive nuclear activities, Bush warned of possible UN sanctions on Iran if negotiations with Britain, France and Germany fail to ease fears Tehran seeks atomic weapons. "We will work with them in terms of what consequences there may be, and certainly the United Nations is a potential consequence," the president told reporters on his ranch near this tiny town. Bush took note of media reports that Iranian President Mahmood Ahmadinejad had expressed a willingness to resume negotiations with Europe, which have been teetering on the brink of collapse. "If he did say that, I think that's a positive sign that the Iranians are getting the message, that it's not just the United States that's worried about their nuclear programs, but the Europeans are serious in calling the Iranians to account and negotiating," Bush said. "We've condemned strongly Iranians' attempt to develop any kind of program that would allow them to enrich uranium to develop a weapon," he said. "We're very deeply suspicious of their desires." Earlier, the Iranian student agency ISNA quoted Ahmadinejad as telling UN chief Kofi Annan in a telephone conversation on Monday that Tehran was prepared to resume talks, albeit with "new propositions" to be unveiled shortly. But the Iranian leader described a European offer of nuclear, commercial and political cooperation in exchange for Iran renouncing ultra-sensitive nuclear activities as an "insult to the Iranian people". "The Europeans talk as though the Iranian people were a backward people, as if they were still in the last century when they dominated our country," he said. News of his comments came as the International Atomic Energy Agencymet in emergency session following the resumption on Monday of uranium conversion -- the precursor to enrichment -- at a plant on the outskirts of the central city of Isfahan. In Vienna, Iranian negotiator Cyrus Nasseri said Iran was "prepared to continue negotiations with the EU-3 (Britain, France and Germany)... as long as there are no preconditions" and the talks are in "good faith." Nasseri said Iran was "frustrated" that the EU-3 were still not acknowledging what Iran considers its right under the NPT to make nuclear fuel as part of a peaceful atomic program. "We don't want the Iranians to have a nuclear weapon," said Bush. "We'll work with our friends on steps forward, on ways to deal with the Iranians if they so choose to ignore the demands of the world." On another front, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said that weapons "unambiguously from Iran" have been found in Iraq, and said it was "unhelpful" of Tehran to allow such weapons to cross the border. He would not comment on whether there was official Iranian involvement in the transfer of weapons, but said: "It's a big border and unhelpful for Iranians to be allowing weapons those of types to be crossing the border." That came after a US official said that US intelligence believes that a cache of manufactured bombs seized in Iraq about two weeks ago was smuggled into the country from Iran by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. "We believe they came from Iran's Revolutionary Guards," the intelligence official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity. The find is significant not only because of the Iranian connection but also because it indicates manufactured bombs are now being introduced in a conflict that has seen the use of mainly improvised explosive devices. ---- Halt uranium conversion 'without delay,' Russia tells Iran MOSCOW (AFP) Aug 09, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/050809161305.l5ksqepg.html Russia, the main foreign partner in Iran's effort to develop atomic energy, called Tuesday on Tehran to suspend "without delay" its nuclear fuel conversion work, saying this would not undermine its civilian nuclear power program. "The wise decision would be to stop work that has begun on uranium conversion without delay," the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement. Russia's appeal came as the UN nuclear watchdog went into emergency session in Vienna to consider Iran's resumption of nuclear fuel work which has raised concerns that Tehran was secretly trying to pursue a nuclear weapons program. The Russian statement said: "We are convinced that the situation that has arisen now has not gone beyond the point of no return. With goodwill it can be corrected." But Tehran should immediately halt its nuclear fuel work and continue to work closely with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) "to resolve remaining question over Iran's nuclear program," it added. The statement added that while Iran had "unfortunately" resumed work on converting uranium, it could stop this again without harming its efforts to develop a nuclear energy program for civilian use. "We think that Iran could definitely maintain the moratorium without any damage to the realization of its nuclear energy program," the statement added. Russia plays a crucial role in Iran's nuclear efforts and has led the project for construction of Iran's first nuclear power station at Bushehr. Earlier this year, Russia's top nuclear official visited Tehran, where he obtained agreement from Iranian officials for the return to Russia of all spent nuclear fuel from the Bushehr plant. Although Russia is anxious to pursue its work on the 800-million-dollar Bushehr project, and has evoked the possibility of helping Iran build other nuclear power plants in the future, it has also steadily insisted that Tehran respect its IAEA and nuclear Non-Prolifereation Treaty engagements. On February 28, the day after he returned to Moscow after signing the deal with Tehran on return of spent nuclear fuel rods, Alexander Rumyantsev, the head of Russia's atomic energy agency, said Russia had tried to show Iran that uranium enrichment would be economically "ruinous" for it. "There are proven scientific documents which use mathematical calculations to show that for a country with fewer than eight or 10 nuclear reactor blocs, each capable of generating 1,000 megawatts, development of its own nuclear cycle is not just useless but ruinous," Rumyantsev said. "We have explained this to the Iranians and they are closely studying these documents," he added. Iran has insisted that it has a right to pursue uranium enrichment activity within the parameters of a peaceful nuclear energy program, an assertion that Russia has acknowledged as valid. Uranium conversion is a step before enrichment, which produces the fuel used in nuclear power plants, or in sufficient concentration, the core for a nuclear bomb. Russian President Vladimir Putin said on June 25 that Russia was prepared to continue its nuclear cooperation with Iran following the victory of hardliner Mahmood Ahmadinejad in presidential elections, but would fulfill its obligations to prevent nuclear weapons proliferation. "We are ready to continue cooperation with Iran in the atomic energy sector, while taking into account our international obligations in the area of non-proliferation, (and) to cooperate on finding a mutually acceptable political solution to existing questions," Putin said in a statement. -------- japan HIROSHIMA AND THE BIRTH OF NUCLEAR WARFARE Healing blast survivors' bodies and souls Japan sends doctors every two years -- to test, to talk Cicero A. Estrella, San Francisco Chronicle Staff Writer Tuesday, August 9, 2005 http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/08/09/MNGF6E53GB1.DTL Seiko Fujimoto won't touch watermelons. They only remind her that she failed nearly six decades ago to satisfy her little brother's final craving, for watermelon, as he lay dying of leukemia in a Tokyo hospital. "My father and I looked all over (the city) but couldn't find any watermelons," said Fujimoto, who was 7 when her brother died in 1949, a casualty of fallout from the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945. One of the estimated 1,200 hibakusha -- survivors of the devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki -- who now live in the United States, Fujimoto, 63, sees her emotional scars finally healing. She can finally talk about her brother in spite of tears that still well up. The hibakusha's physical problems continue, however. Every two years since 1977, Japanese doctors have visited San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle and Honolulu to conduct physical examinations along with American doctors. More than 400 survivors, including about 140 each in San Francisco and Los Angeles, participated in this year's tests in May and June at a cost to the Japanese government of about $400,000, said Makoto Matsumara, leader of the Japanese medical team that visited Los Angeles and Honolulu in June. By 7:30 a.m. on the final day of examinations at the Japanese Community Health Clinic in Los Angeles' Little Tokyo District, 20 people were waiting in the hall outside. The Japanese team of six doctors and four administrators took the survivors' histories before sending them for blood and urine tests, breast and pelvic examinations, electrocardiograms and other tests. "They try to discuss their problems with their American doctors, but it's harder for them to explain in English," said Kaz Suyeishi, whose American Society of Hiroshima-Nagasaki A-Bomb Survivors organized the Los Angeles examinations. "The big vocabulary, the medical terms are very difficult for them to understand." Familiar with the drill from past exams, the patients went through their physicals in a business-like manner. They kept their conversations, mostly in Japanese, near a hush as they awaited their turns in the hall outside the clinic. "The (Japanese) doctors know about the A-bomb," said Taizo Honda, a retired electrician from Monterey Park (Los Angeles County). "It's easier for them to explain our problems with us." Honda, whose dark hair and slight frame make him appear at least a decade younger than his 64 years, was returning home from a swimming hole with four siblings when the bomb fell on Nagasaki Aug. 9, 1945. He hasn't had any ailments linked to radiation. 'I was burned all over' Jennie Masae Okamura, 76, traveled more than 200 miles with her husband and sister-in-law from their home in San Luis Obispo for their exams. Okamura, a third-generation American, was studying in Hiroshima when the bomb was dropped there. "I was burned all over. I don't know how I survived," said Okamura, whose arms still itch where they were burned. Okamura, who has survived breast cancer, has come four times for tests by the Japanese team. The doctors provided each patient with a health analysis. They will keep records of the physicals in case the hibakusha ever develop problems and, by early next year, they'll release a bi-annual report on their findings. Their 2003 report revealed that hypertension was the American hibakusha's most prevalent health problem, affecting 45.4 percent. The report didn't compare disease rates among American survivors and their Japanese counterparts. The Japanese government offers survivors living in Japan free medical care, monetary compensation for diseases and injuries that are results from the blast and radiation, senior housing and funeral services. Hibakusha in the United States receive only the bi-annual exams, although they can be treated free in Japan if the exams reveal serious illness Three California hibakusha won a court ruling in May requiring the Japanese government to allow them and other survivors living outside of Japan to apply for medical stipends and funeral expenses. But the city of Hiroshima appealed, arguing it would be too difficult to validate overseas applications. Fujimoto, who has survived three bouts with cancer, including breast cancer found by Japanese doctors during a 1993 examination, said she had been taught to keep her past secret while growing up in Japan. "We weren't allowed to say we were there, especially the women," said Fujimoto, who married a Japanese American and moved to San Francisco in 1970. "Nobody knew what the atomic bomb did. Were we contagious? Were our children going to be retarded? It was never mentioned." 'You don't talk openly' Takeshi Matsumoto, a Japanese American doctor who helps the Japanese team in Los Angeles every two years, called it "cultural neglect." "With the Japanese culture, you don't talk openly about personal issues," he said. "It's not a culture that's expressive about personal pain, no matter how painful." Geri Handa, co-founder of the Friends of Hibakusha in San Francisco, said the number of hibakusha in America is probably underreported. "A lot of them still don't want to be recognized as survivors," she said. Jack Dairiki, a 74-year-old survivor who lives in San Francisco, had prostate cancer diagnosed during the 1999 examinations. More recent tests revealed he might develop liver and thyroid problems. He often speaks about his Hiroshima experience at high schools and special events such as Saturday's Coming Home to Peace interfaith service at Japantown Peace Plaza. Dairiki was born on Dec. 25, 1931, in Sacramento, and accompanied his immigrant father to Japan in August 1941 to visit his ailing grandfather. The following month, they couldn't book passage home because American civil service workers got priority. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, stranded them indefinitely and cut them off from Dairiki's mother and siblings in Sacramento. He learned his family had been interned at Tule Lake (Siskiyou County) only when the Red Cross sent a telegram in 1942 relating that his younger brother had died. Dairiki enrolled in school in Japan and by 1945 was forced to work assembling rifle parts in a factory in Kure. "It was a war effort," said the retired architect. "You do whatever you're told. At age 14, you don't have much voice in the matter." Dairiki was waiting to travel the three miles to Hiroshima to help tear down some houses when he heard the familiar sound of B-29s overhead. Moments later, a blinding flash cut across the sky. Then, a white mushroom cloud formed, its base full of smaller explosions that reminded him of fireworks. "People have only seen the black-and-white footage," he said. "They don't realize how colorful it was." Dairiki, his classmates and teachers ran to a cave that served as a bomb shelter. When they emerged a few hours later, a woman walked past like a zombie, arms extended forward. As she came closer, they saw the tattered clothing that seemed to be hanging loosely from her arms actually was her skin. As he walked to his village, Okugaitanura, about 10 miles from Hiroshima, Dairiki saw hundreds of dead bodies by the roadside, most of them burned beyond recognition. "I try to relate my story so that we'll never have this type of tragedy happen again to any human being," he said. The second generation The government medical team on its last few visits has tested the children of survivors. Noriko Ninomiya, 43, participated in the Los Angeles exams for the first time in June. "My parents (in Japan) have lived well so far, but they're worried about the second generation," she said as she waited to take her blood test. "They urged me to be tested, to get a record (with the Japanese medical team)." Yoko Asano, 46, also being tested for the first time in Los Angeles, wished the Japanese government also provided counseling. She just recently learned that her father drove himself to the hospital after sustaining serious cuts to his face and neck during the Hiroshima bombing. "My generation grew up not knowing," Asano said. "Our parents just wanted to move on. They didn't want their children to suffer, too." The hibakusha who have shared their stories find the process therapeutic. Takahashi Tanemori, 67 -- who has been a field worker, Baptist minister, restaurateur and poultry exporter since he came to Central California in 1956 -- sends a message of forgiveness when he speaks to high school students, church groups and peace organizations. The Hiroshima native emigrated as a brash 18-year-old intent on revenge against Americans. He said he once had delusions of killing "all American adults." "I realized I had to let go of my own pain," said Tanemori, who now lives in Lafayette. "Whatever happened in the past needs to stay in the past." Tanemori's mother, baby sister and paternal grandparents were never found after the blast. His father took Tanemori's surviving siblings to Kotachi, a village about 60 miles from Hiroshima. But he returned to the bombed city to look for missing family members and soon succumbed to the radiation. The 7- year-old Tanemori took out his frustrations on village elders, spiritual leaders and especially his older sister, Satsuko, who became head of their household. Tanemori left for Japan last month to spend the 60th anniversary in his hometown. He also wanted to make amends with his sister and village members. "It's a spiritual journey," Tanemori said. "Part of it is to reconnect. Part of it is to reconcile." E-mail Cicero A. Estrella at cestrella@sfchronicle.com. ---- Thousands Mark Anniversary of Atomic Bombing Of Nagasaki Tuesday, August 9th, 2005 Democracy Now! http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/08/09/142256 In Nagasaki, Japan thousands gathered today to mark the 60th anniversary of when the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on the city. At least 80,000 died in the bombing which came 69 hours after the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Today, a bronze bell rang out over city marking the precise moment 60 years ago when the atomic attack occurred. Nagasaki's Mayor Ichho Itoh called for the abolition of all nuclear weapons. ---- Nagasaki at 60: The Bombers and the Bombed Tuesday, August 9th, 2005 Democracy Now! http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/08/09/143207 Sixty years ago today, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki. We hear from a survivor of the bombing and the men who flew the B-29 bomber that dropped the bomb. [includes rush transcript] A ceremony in Nagasaki today marked the 60th anniversary of the U.S. bombing of that city. The plutonium atomic bomb caused the death of more than 80,000 people in Nagasaki, coming just three days after an equally deadly uranium bomb devastated Hiroshima. Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi addressed approximately six thousand people attending the ceremony. He said, "With the firm decision not to ever let the tragedies of Nagasaki and Hiroshima be repeated, we will adhere to a pacifist constitution and uphold the three rules for non-nuclearization. We will also take the lead in non-proliferation in the world and make effort in the abandoning of nuclear weapons." Nagasaki Mayor Iccho Itoh said at the ceremony, "The United States has 10,000 nuclear weapons, has conducted sub-critical nuclear tests and on top of that is pursuing the development of miniature nuclear weapons. Do the American people really think the policies of their country are going to bring about peace? We know that most of you are actually really seeking the abolition of nuclear weapons. We should all unite to bring peace to the world." Mayor Itoh also addressed citizens of the United States. He said "We understand your anger and anxiety over the memories of the horror of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Yet, is your security enhanced by your government’s policies of maintaining 10,000 nuclear weapons?" * Excerpt from the documentary "Hiroshima Countdown" produced by Andrew Phillips * Sakue Shimohira, a survivor of the U.S. atomic bombing of Nagasaki * Related link: Read "Atomic truths plague prize coverup" by Juan Gonzalez in today's New York Daily News RUSH TRANSCRIPT AMY GOODMAN: The Japanese Prime Minister, Koizumi, spoke out against nuclear proliferation at the ceremony. PRIME MINISTER JUNICHIRO KOIZUMI: With the firm decision not to ever let the tragedies of Nagasaki and Hiroshima be repeated, we will adhere to a pacifist constitution and uphold the three rules for non-nuclearization. We will also take the lead in nonproliferation in the world and make effort in the abandoning of nuclear weapons. AMY GOODMAN: Also at today's ceremony, Nagasaki Mayor Ichho Itoh addressed the 6,000 people assembled to remember the atomic bombing. MAYOR ICCHO ITOH: The United States has 10,000 nuclear weapons, has conducted sub-critical nuclear tests and on top of that is pursuing the development of miniature nuclear weapons. Do the American people really think that the policies of their country are going to bring about peace? We know that most of you are actually really seeking of the abolition of nuclear weapons. We should all unite to bring peace to the world. AMY GOODMAN: Mayor Itoh addressed citizens of the United States. He said, quote, “We understand your anger and anxiety over the memories of the horror of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Yet, is your security enhanced by your government's policies of maintaining 10,000 nuclear weapons?” We turn now to an account of the 1945 atomic bombing of Nagasaki by the pilots who flew the B-29 bomber that dropped that bomb. This is Frederick Ashworth from the documentary Hiroshima Countdown, produced by Andrew Phillips. FREDERICK ASHWORTH: There was a tremendous suspense and tension as we approached the target, because we had just failed to be able to bomb our primary target. We made our test as we proceeded into the dropping point. I knew that everything was functioning perfectly. At that time the bombardier took over. He did an excellent job. As soon as the bomb was released, there was considerable relief. And I knew when I saw the flash of the explosion, that the second atomic bomb had been successfully delivered to the enemy. REPORTER: This is Major Charles W. Sweeney of Quincy, Massachusetts, proud of “The Great Artiste,” the second B-29 to drop an atomic bomb on the empire. Major Sweeney, give us some of the details of the whole flight. CHARLES SWEENEY: We were briefed on, of course, a primary and a secondary target, as usual. We took off, and the flight was uneventful, except for some weather on the way up. The primary target was located, and we made three runs on it but were unable to get into it. Commander Ashworth and I held a little conference with the bombardier and the navigator, and we started for the secondary target, which was Nagasaki, at which time the flight engineer told us we had just 13,000 gallons of gasoline left. We picked our route into the secondary target and dropped it on Nagasaki. We were very relieved to have it go, much more relieved when we saw the tremendous flash and knew that it had functioned. At that point we hit the road for Okinawa, the first petrol station. NARRATOR: Physicist Philip Morrison was on Tinian Island at that time. REPORTER: Were you there when the bomber crews took off? PHILIP MORRISON: The combat bomb crews? REPORTER: Yeah, when Tibbets and Sweeney took off. PHILIP MORRISON: Oh, yes, of course. REPORTER: Could you – PHILIP MORRISON: Yes, I was responsible for loading the Nagasaki bomb, putting it together on Tinian and getting it loaded onto the aircraft. My responsibility extended really only to the nuclear core, and then somebody else had the high explosives, somebody else had the firing set, somebody else had the loading job. But we were several groups from Los Alamos, went there especially to be in charge of these two bombs. Tibbets dropped the Hiroshima bomb. That was my baby, but I was just a bystander. But the Nagasaki bomb, I was directly involved. REPORTER: This is one of a series of interviews conducted by the Air Force historical division. Today, we are interviewing Brigadier General Paul W. Tibbets, Jr. PAUL TIBBETS, JR.: They were definitely military targets. There was no question about that. And they offered such a -- well, you could almost say a classroom experiment, as far as being able to determine later the bomb damage. These were good virgin targets, and they were ideal for the purpose that we wanted to use them for. PAUL TIBBETS, JR.: The consideration of targets would be Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Niigata, Kokura, and there’s one more that I don’t remember. The 20th Air Force had been told they would not attack those targets under any circumstances. In other words, the ground was laid. NARRATOR: As well as these targets, Kyoto, Japan's ancient capital, was strongly recommended by the man with overall control of the bomb project, General Leslie Groves. But Secretary of War Henry Stimson, approaching 80 years of age, would not have it. He had visited Kyoto with his wife in the ‘20s and had enjoyed the city's cultural riches. It was a city of great religious significance to the Japanese, and Stimson felt Kyoto’s destruction would damage America’s post-war stature. UNIDENTIFIED: The selection of the targets in the month of May 1945 was actually done by the intelligence community in headquarters, U.S. Air Force. The requirements given to them was: You will select cities that have military targets in them. And they also selected the type of terrain that they wanted. They also were interested in the type of construction that they could expect to run into, because in reality not only was this a military mission, but it was also of extreme scientific importance, because they wanted to know what a weapon of this type could do against reinforced concrete, what it could do against steel, what it would do against anything that was in the building materials line. It had to be something that had not been attacked by the 20th Air Force up to that time, call it virgin targets, undamaged, unhurt by any other type of an explosive or munition. CHARLES SWEENEY: I know the type of bomb we were working on… NARRATOR: Charles Sweeney flew with Tibbets in an observer aircraft to witness the bombing of Hiroshima. Three days later he lead his crew first to Kokura, the primary target for the second bomb, and then to Nagasaki. Kokura was clouded in that day. CHARLES SWEENEY: As he was talking he picked up a handful of earth. He said, “Basically what we're working on is a single bomb that will turn a whole city into this.” And he just tossed a handful of sand into air. AMY GOODMAN: The voices of the men who loaded and flew the B-29 bomber that dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki, August 9, 1945, from the documentary Hiroshima Countdown, produced by Andrew Phillips. You can go to our website later today, and we'll have the full hour documentary. We turn now to a survivor of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki at 11:02 a.m., August 9. At the time of the explosion, Sakue Shimohira was in an air raid shelter one kilometer away from the epicenter. She was ten years old. She spoke at a rally in New York's Central Park on May 1. SAKUE SHIMOHIRA: [Translated from Japanese] Suddenly I felt a blinding flash. It was too enormous and intense to describe, just a flash. Next, the blast blew us off. When I regained consciousness, I found my youngest sister in the corner of the shelter and my nephew under the tatami mat. Auntie Matsuda, blackened all over her body with her baby also shared in arms, arrived and collapsed. She had a big open wound on her throat. We gave her water. When she was drinking it, water was also streaming out of her open wound. She said, “It tasted so good. Thank you.” And died. My brother, too, vomiting [inaudible] and crying, “I don't want to die.” And he died. Both my mother and my eldest sister were found dead and seared around the our house. My sister and my nephew and I survived in our family. We were taken separately to our relatives’ families. Later, my sister suffered appendicitis and had surgery, but the wound would not heal, perhaps because of the after-effects of radiation. Depressed so much by the wound, on a drizzly spring day, she jumped into the train and killed herself at the age of 19. Recently, one neighbor died after he had spent 38 years in hospital. When he passed away, his family said to him, “Father, now you can finally rest in peace.” At the end of 30 years suffering, Hibakusha have to give such a sad word of farewell. To whom should they direct their disconsolation and indignation? Please understand that there are still many more Hibakusha who can find escape from their suffering in death only. No one in whichever country in the world should ever experience the same suffering that we have gone through. I firmly believe that Nagasaki should be made the last victim city of the atomic bombing. Desperately wishing for world peace, please, all together: No more Hiroshima! No more Nagasaki! No more Hibakusha! No more war! AMY GOODMAN: Nagasaki bombing survivor, Sakue Shimohira, speaking in New York on May 1. I encourage people to read today’s column in the New York Daily News by my co-host, Juan Gonzalez, called "Atomic Truths Plague Prize Coverup." It focuses on the story we have been covering extensively around the anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that's the role of the Pulitzer Prize-winning The New York Times correspondent, William Laurence, as a paid government propagandist, selling the glories of the atomic bombings. He was both a New York Times reporter at the time of the bombings, as well as on the payroll of the U.S. War Department. This week I head up to the Pulitzer board at Columbia University to deliver a request that the Pulitzer strip the Times and William Laurence of that prize. ---- The destroyer of worlds By Hamid Golpira August 9, 2005 Tehran Times http://www.tehrantimes.com/Description.asp?Da=8/9/2005&Cat=14&Num=001 After the first test of an atomic bomb in July 1945 at the Trinity Site in New Mexico, Manhattan Project director Robert Oppenheimer described the event by quoting from the Bhaghavad-Gita, saying, “I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” This is something to reflect upon, especially today, since it is the sixtieth anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. Where is humanity 60 years into the Nuclear Age? Paradoxically, many people both fear nuclear war and believe their countries’ must possess nuclear weapons to defend themselves. In the 2005 Hiroshima Peace Declaration, delivered on Saturday, the sixtieth anniversary of the atomic bombing of that city, Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba criticized nuclear weapons states for opposing calls for complete nuclear disarmament and encouraging trust in the bomb, saying, “Based on the dogma ‘Might is right’, these countries have formed their own ‘nuclear club’, the admission requirement being possession of nuclear weapons. Through the media, they have long repeated the incantation, ‘Nuclear weapons protect you.’” The hibakusha (atomic bombing survivors) of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and their allies around the world are calling for total nuclear disarmament as mentioned in the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Article VI of the NPT states: “Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.” Elsewhere in the Peace Declaration, the mayor of Hiroshima said that a consensus and harmony on the abolition of nuclear weapons and the realization of genuine world peace was taking hold all over the world, adding, “The keynote of this harmony is the hibakusha warning, ‘No one else should ever suffer as we did’, along with the cornerstone of all religions and bodies of law, ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ Our sacred obligation to future generations is to establish this axiom, especially its corollary, ‘Thou shalt not kill children’, as the highest priority for the human race across all nations and religions.” There are seven declared nuclear weapons states, the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France, India, and Pakistan. The Zionist regime, which has never declared its nuclear status, is the eighth member of the nuclear weapons club. North Korea has also declared that it possesses nuclear weapons, but its claim has not been conclusively confirmed. The United States, Russia, China, Britain, and France are also veto-wielding permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and official nuclear weapons states according to the NPT. This means that they do not have to commit themselves to immediate nuclear disarmament and can set the tone of the non-proliferation debate. The United States and Russia both possess MIRVed ICBMs, which in plain English means they have intercontinental ballistic missiles with multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles armed with nuclear weapons that can hit anywhere on Earth in about 25 minutes. According to many scientists, the detonation of 7000 nuclear weapons would spread so much radioactive fallout throughout the world that it would kill every human being on Earth and would perhaps kill almost all life on the planet. In the 1970s, the United States and the Soviet Union each possessed about 25,000 nuclear weapons. This means that their combined nuclear arsenals could have destroyed the world seven times. They have since reduced their nuclear arsenals. Today, the U.S. has approximately 10,600 nuclear warheads and Russia has about 20,000, so now they can only destroy the world about four times. Some scientists say the detonation of 400 nuclear weapons would trigger a nuclear winter. In the nuclear winter scenario, hundreds of nuclear explosions would set off firestorms in targeted cities and adjacent forests, sending several hundred million tons of smoke, soot, and dust into the atmosphere that would form clouds that would screen out most sunlight for several weeks. This would in turn cause a sudden drop in temperature and interrupt plant photosynthesis, which would destroy crops and cause food shortages and starvation. The term nuclear winter was coined in the 1983 TTAPS study (from the initials of the last names of its authors, R.P. Turco, O.B. Toon, T.P. Ackerman, J.B. Pollack, and Carl Sagan). According to the TTAPS study, surface temperatures would plunge for a few weeks, perhaps by as much as 11° to 22° C (20° to 40° F). The TTAPS study set a threshold of 1000 nuclear explosions for nuclear winter to occur. The authors of the TTAPS study noted that "the possibility of the extinction of Homo Sapiens cannot be excluded." Other scientists have said that a limited nuclear exchange would only cause a nuclear autumn, but that would also damage crops and cause food shortages. In addition, studies in the 1970s showed that the ozone layer that shields living things from much of the sun's harmful ultraviolet radiation could be depleted by the large amounts of nitrogen oxides produced by hundreds of nuclear explosions. Depleted uranium (DU) weapons have been used by the U.S. military in Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Serbia. DU causes genetic damage, birth defects, cancer, immune system damage, and other serious health problems and is probably the cause of Persian Gulf War syndrome. Physicians in Iraq have documented a threefold increase in childhood cancers and a fivefold increase in birth defects since 1990. The U.S. military used DU weapons in that country for the first time in 1991. U.S. forces used DU weapons in Iraq again in 2003 and are probably still using them in the war. There were unconfirmed reports that DU weapons were used in the assault on Fallujah. The internet site Albasrah.net has a link to a site, http://www.einswine.com/atrocities/du/, which shows photos of Iraqi babies with horrible deformities. From that site there is a link to another site, http://www.web-light.nl/VISIE/extremedeformities.h tml, which shows more photos. Many physicians believe these birth defects were caused by the use of DU weapons. After the Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986, over 116,000 people were permanently evacuated from the area. Zones of Exclusion were set up, including the towns of Pripyat and Chernobyl, which were declared unfit for human habitation due to the high levels of radioactivity. It is believed that the area is so contaminated that it will not be safe for people to live there for at least 100,000 years. In a violation of the letter and spirit of the NPT, the U.S. government is currently making plans to develop a new generation of smaller tactical nuclear weapons, dubbed mini-nukes. In addition, U.S. officials have recently begun using expressions like “full spectrum dominance” and the U.S. Space Command is talking about putting nuclear weapons in space. Obviously, China and Russia are becoming extremely concerned. Due to this irresponsible nuclear brinksmanship, there is now the possibility of an arms race in space. The nuclear waste generated by both civilian and military nuclear programs is also a major problem. In the United States, they are planning to establish a permanent nuclear waste dump, perhaps in the area of the Nevada nuclear test site, which is already contaminated. They are now trying to formulate a universal warning symbol, since the site will be radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years, when every modern language will most probably be extinct. Imagine that, a universal warning symbol that would be understandable for hundreds of thousands of years. So, where is humanity 60 years into the Nuclear Age, and where are we going? Well, some people still have hope about the human race. Mayor Akiba ended this year’s Hiroshima Peace Declaration with these words: “On this, the sixtieth anniversary of the atomic bombing, we seek to comfort the souls of all its victims by declaring that we humbly reaffirm our responsibility never to repeat the evil. “Please rest peacefully; for we will not repeat the evil.” ---- Nagasaki remembers atomic attack Thousands gathered to remember more than 70,000 victims Tuesday, 9 August 2005 BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4133572.stm The Japanese city of Nagasaki has marked the 60th anniversary of its destruction by a US atomic bomb at the end of World War II. At least 70,000 people died in the world's second nuclear attack. A minute's silence was marked at the city's peace park, where survivors tearfully recalled the bombing. Correspondents say there is fresh controversy over why the attack happened just three days after the bombing of the city of Hiroshima. Some historians argue that the attack was seen as necessary because Japan had not surrendered. But others believe that the attack enabled the American military to try out plutonium as a nuclear weapon. A peace bell rang out as the city marked the exact moment 60 years ago when a US plane dropped the bomb nicknamed "Fat Man" for its rotund shape. Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi took part in the official commemoration, which also saw a memorial Mass in the city's Catholic cathedral. "This is an occasion to remember the victims, and pray for world peace," he said. A 74-year-old survivor spoke of her resolve to continue working for the abolition of nuclear weapons. Nagasaki mayor Iccho Ito asked US citizens whether their security was enhanced by their nuclear arsenal. "We understand your anger and anxiety over the memories of horror of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Yet, is your security actually enhanced by your government's policies of maintaining 10,000 nuclear weapons, of carrying out repeated sub-critical nuclear tests, and of pursuing the development of new 'mini' nuclear weapons?" he said. Mr Ito appealed to them to join hands with others to work together for a peaceful planet free from the threat of the nuclear bomb. "We are confident that the vast majority of you desire in your hearts the elimination of nuclear arms," he said. Overshadowed Nagasaki's citizens still question whether the Americans were justified in targeting their city, an important port and industrial centre, for the second atomic attack. The bomb used plutonium as its core - unlike the one dropped on Hiroshima, which used uranium. Nagasaki's mayor says he believes they were the victims of what in effect was a deadly nuclear test. The bomb dropped on Nagasaki exploded with a force equivalent to 21,000 tons of conventional explosive. Most of those killed in the second attack were melted or burnt to death immediately. The official death toll is about 70,000 people killed in the immediate aftermath of the bombing, and a further 70,000 who have died of radiation-related illnesses since. However, correspondents say that Nagasaki's plight has long been overshadowed by that of Hiroshima, where about 140,000 people were killed in the immediate aftermath, and 240,000 are now considered to have died because of the bombing. NAGASAKI ATTACK World's first plutonium bombing Bomb named 'Fat Man' because of rotund shape Killed 70,000 people outright. City says death toll has now risen to 140,000 Bomb originally destined for city of Kokura, but US plane diverted due to thick cloud 'His skin hung like seaweed' http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4748365.stm 'I could see this giant cloud' http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4742021.stm ---- Nagasaki urges US to give up nukes 60 years after last atomic bombing NAGASAKI, Japan (AFP) Aug 09, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/050809024151.11ju1ape.html Nagasaki on Tuesday marked 60 years after becoming the second city to suffer atomic attack with a call for the United States to give up its nuclear arsenal. Three days after the world's first atomic bombing reduced Hiroshima to ruins, a second bomb, code-named "Fat Man" after Winston Churchill, hit the hilly southern port of Nagasaki, killing more than 70,000 people. Some 6,000 people including Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi began with a minute of silent prayer at 11:02 am (0202 GMT), 60 years to the moment after the plutonium bomb was dropped on August 9, 1945. "To the citizens of America: we understand your anger and anxiety over the memories of horror of the 9/11 terrorist attacks," Nagasaki Mayor Iccho Ito told the ceremony in the city's peace park. "Yet, is your security actually enhanced by your government's policies of maintaining 10,000 nuclear weapons, of carrying out repeated sub-critical nuclear tests, and of pursuing the development of new 'mini' nuclear weapons?" Ito asked. "We are confident that the vast majority of you desire in your hearts the elimination of nuclear arms. May you join hands with the people of the world who share that same desire: and world together for a peaceful planet free from nuclear weapons," he said. Koizumi, who flew to Nagasaki despite a political crisis in Tokyo where he has called early elections, made nearly identical remarks to his statements Saturday in Hiroshima, where more than 140,000 died in the world's first nuclear bombing. "I give all my heart to the victims," Koizumi said. "Japan will make an effort to keep world peace and maintain the three non-nuclear principles and a peaceful constitution," Koizumi said. He was referring to Japan's 1967 commitment not to produce, possess or allow the entry into its territory of nuclear weapons. Koizumi, who faces a new election on September 11, has favored revisions to the US-imposed 1947 pacifist constitution to recognize that Japan has a military. -------- pacific Tony deBrum Describes Impact of US Nuclear Testing in Marshall Islands Aug 09, 2005 - 09:38 PM Yokwe.net Dedicated to the people of the Marshall Islands! Aenet Rowa, webmaster - yokwenet@aol.com http://www.yokwe.net/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1159&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0 "While thousands of miles and the Pacific's great ocean separate us from Hiroshima, we do have something in common: we have been witnesses to the horrors of nuclear weapons, As victims and survivors, we will do our part to eradicate this evil from the earth," says Tony deBrum, of the Lolelaplap Trust, Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI). Mr. deBrum, a former senator in the RMI parliament, lived in the Northern Marshalls for the entire 12 years of the U.S. atomic and thermonuclear testing program there. At 9 years old, he witnessed the BRAVO shot that terrorized his country. During "Many Stories, One Vision for a Nuclear Free World", a conference sponsored by Pax Christi USA, held last week at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas, deBrum told the story of the on-going struggle and suffering of the Marshallese people, the aftermath of US Cold War nuclear testing. "Hearing about the Marshall Islands is just extremely unsettling," said attendee Jada Jackson of Willingboro, N.J. Mr. deBrum's remarks, delivered at the convention on Friday, August 5, follow: Ladies and gentlemen, I am honored to be here today. I thank Pax Christi USA for inviting me to this conference to add some of my own stories to your many stories as a contribution of the Marshallese people to the vision of a world free of the evil weapons of destruction. I bring you greetings of peace from Iroijlaplap Imata Kabua and Iroijlaplap Anjua Loeak, whose domains have borne the brunt of US Nuclear experiments and missile testing. It is with their patronage and support than I am able to carry on this work. On the morning of March 1, 1954, I , like many other youngsters my age, was a fish basket carrier, following my grandfather as he netted mackerel and shad which usually school along our beaches at dawn. Suddenly a tremendous flash like lightening you could touch went off and turned the night to day. Before we could compose ourselves, a shock, and then the loudest blast ever heard hit our small island. As the following thunder rumbled without stopping, the sky in the West first turned red. It was as if we had been placed under a glass bowl, and someone was pouring blood over it. The sky above us from horizon to horizon turned colors as if sunrise and sunset had decided to occur at the same time in the North and the South, the East and the West. I can still hear the men shouting “run, run”, but I could not move. I wanted to say something to my grandfather, but I could not speak. Just a few days later, I walked into the Camp in Kwajalein set up to house the people of Rongelap Atoll, who were evacuated after the detonation. We were greeted by the leader of the Rongelap people, John Anjain, who protested to my grandfather, “Do not bring your grandson into the tent. We do not want him to catch our disease.” In that camp, 67 evacuated natives from Rongelap had been assigned a number from one to sixty seven, which was assigned to them as subjects of project 4.1, the study of human beings exposed to high levels of gamma radiation. Two more numbers, 68 and 69 were assigned to fetuses still in their mothers’ wombs. Ironically, as the people sufering severe radiation burns and infections were being treated /studied in Kwajalein, the chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was telling reporters at a news conference in Oakland, California that all was well in the Marshall Islands. I lived on the island of Likiep in the northern Marshalls for the entire twelve years of the U.S. atomic and thermonuclear testing program. Most of the detonations were either seen or heard from Likiep, and I was just nine years old when BRAVO, which I have just tried to describe to you, was detonated taking its 15 megaton of poisonous radiation miles into the sky and around the world. While BRAVO was by far the most dramatic of the tests, all 67 shots detonated in the Marshalls contibuted one way or another to the nuclear legacy which haunts us to this day. As has been described by Jonathan Weisgall, legal advisor to the Bikini people, and a good friend, if one were to take the total yield of the nuclear weapons tested in the Marshalls from 1946 to 1958, we would have the equivalent of 1.6 hiroshima shots per day, everyday, for twelve years. A frightening thought indeed. But our encounter with the bombs only began with tests themselves. Recently declassified documents released under the Clinton administration have uncovered even more horrific aspects of the Marshallese nuclear burden. These documents demonstrate that scientists conducted human radiation experiments with Marshallese citizens. Other experimentation involved the purposeful premature resettlement of people on highly contaminated islands to study how human beings absorb radiation from their foods and their environment. Much of this experimentation occurred in populations either exposed to near lethal amounts of radiation, or to “control” populations who were told they were receiving medical care as compensation for their participation. The people of Rongelap, the inhabited island closest to ground zero were not evacuated prior to Bravo, designed to be the mother of all explosions, although for smaller shots they had been taken out of harm’s way. They had no way of knowing nor were they warned about the shot. They were unable and totally unprepared to take care of themselves. The U.S. tested 67 nuclear and thermonuclear devices in the islands. More than half of which took place after the Rongelap people were resettled on their still contaminated homeland. Until high levels of plutonium were discovered within their atoll, they lived there as subjects of the 4.1 human radiation studies. They were once again, sadly removed and now live in exile on the island of Mejatto just barely out of the missile testing target currently in use. Throughout the years, America’s nuclear history in the Marshall Islands has been colored with official denial, extraordinary control of information, and abrogation of commitment to redress the shameful wrongs done to the marhallese people. Scientists and military officials involved in the testing program picked and chose their study subjects, recognized certain communities as exposed when it served scientific interest, and denied monitoring or medical attention to subgroups determined to be non essential or of little interest to the studies. I remember well their visits to Likiep and their invasive physical examinations which, as late as 1978, they denied ever carrying out. I recall with deep sense of sadness their killing of my pet dogs, which had been gifts from the Navy commander on Kwajalein to my grandfather. So American were these dogs, they were named Pal and Bowser. But they told us the dogs were sick. We have recently discovered they were taken for scientific study. The pulling of teeth, both healthy and cavitied, from many of us who thought we were receiving dental care, is remarkable even for the most callous of scientists. But it has now turned out that examination of dental enamel is a good way to trace strontium and cesium deposits in human beings. What people laughed about at the time is now repugnant to me: AEC dentists, coercing youngsters, “olani monki, olani,” which translates ,”open wide, monkey, open wide.” Even with recently released documents, officials still deny the existence of these studies claiming our recollections are juvenile, and do not take into account the public health missions of the times. For decades, scientists in U.S. agencies utilized slick mathematical and statistical representations to dismiss and marginalize the occurrence of exotic anomolies, including malformed fetuses as unrelated to radiation exposure. We have been told that birthing anomolies in our islands are the result of incestious relationships or that our gene pool is too small. Where numbers cannot be disputed, they claim ‘statistical insignificance.” I served as interpreter for the American authorities who proclaimed Bikini safe for resettlement and commenced a program to repatriate the Bikinians. I accompanied the U.S.. High Commissioner of the Trust Territory just a few years later to once again remove the Bikinians from their home because they began to show extraordinarily high levels of cesium and strontium in their urine. Documents related to the safe resettlement of Enewetak were witheld from us because, as the memo stated, ‘If the Marshallese negotiators have access to these documents, they may make overreaching demands on the United States.’ Let me take you back for a moment to 1946. U.S. Military authorities were quite congizant of the special role of faith and religion among the Marshalese people. In their efforts to convince the people of Bikini to peacefully and quietly leave their home and make way for the tests, they declared the experiments themselves and the destruction of Bikini to be “ the will of God.” In carefully rehearsed navy propoganda films of the displacement of the Bikini people, the Navy commander is heard proclaiming to the frightened islanders, “as everything is in God’s hand, it must be good.“ The Marshall Islands agreed to a settlement of matters nuclear with the United States in 1982. This agreement was based on assurances contained in the Compact of Free Association treaty that a 1978 study of radiological conditions in the Marshalls was the most accurate and comprehensive representation the United States could present. We have now discovered that even that covenant was false and the official position as enunciated by the current administration in Washington is to flee its repsonsibilities to the Marshall Islands for the severe nuclear injuries and damages perpetrated upon them. People who counted on U.S. guaranteed medical and environmental monitoring are now being deprived of those essential services. As if testing bombs was not enough, ICBM testing also took place in the Marshalls and today the Ronald Reagan Missile defense test site is testing interceptor missiles to search and destroy incoming ICBMs. This testing affects our lives the same way the bomb testing did. People are displaced and forced to live in conditions most Americans would find appalling. Relationships between the military base and the indigenious community which provides its basic labor force is sadly akin to pre-democratic South Africa. People die for lack of medical attention when the hospital at the test site has all the conveniences of modern medicine. Contamination of the environment continues in the form of fuel additives such as perchlorate and depleted uranium but our calls for meaningful and independent examination have not been heeded. We meet today to bring together our stories to form one vision of a nuclear free universe. We are here to remind ourselves and the world of the evils of nuclear weapons and the permanent and immeasurable harm it brings to human beings and their fragile societies. This threat to human life, begins in the maverick use of nuclear power, as well as in its testing and development. We must not succumb to the nuclear propaganda that has kept its ugly head invisible to too many people. With all the people of the world who have survived the force of nuclear weapons, who weep to see their lands destroyed and turned into storages for nuclear waste, to all who have seen the threat this menace holds for human life as we know it, the people of the Marshall Islands nurture a deep sense of brotherhood and unity. We wish to extricate ourselves from the legacy of the nuclear age. Many people say why don’t you guys just move away? For indigenous people, it is not that simple. Our lands and waters are sacred to us. Our lands and waters embody our culture, our traditions, our kinship ties, our social structures, and our ability to take care of ourselves. Our lands are irreplaceable. Destruction of our lands and waters is no different from destroying our souls. Our land does not belong to us, we belong to our land. We believe that no nation, no matter how powerful, has the right to destroy the well being and livelihood of any society large or small, in the name of security, even if disguised as the will of God. Security for us means healthy land, resources and body, and harmony with nature. Nuclear weapons are a threat to all of these. We call upon our friends in America and the world to join with us and declare our islands a memorial to world peace free of nuclear arms and all weapons of mass destruction. Then from there let peace spread everywhere on earth, in space, and in the universe. Jeraaman im ainemman nan komuij aolep. Peace be with you. -------- security Google Earth poses no security risk, says Canberra New Zealand Herald 09.08.05 1.00pm http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=5&ObjectID=10339884 Terrorists are able to download a bird's-eye view of sensitive Australian sites, including parliament house, the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor and airports, Google admits. But the Australian federal government today said the increasingly popular Google Earth website posed no security risk and added nothing to information already publicly available. Anyone with internet access can download high-quality satellite imagery through Google Earth, a new software program which allows users to zoom across the planet at a height of about 300 metres. The new technology has prompted the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) to ask Google to consider censoring sensitive information. "We have approached Google to find out how the technology is changing and what sort of information might be available in the future," ANSTO'S chief of operations Dr Ron Cameron said. "The current level of information disseminated is not something that really concerns us, but we thought it would be prudent to find out where the technology was going." Dr Cameron said ANSTO was not alone in its misgivings about the new software. "Some overseas countries have asked for their defence sites to be censored, but I'm not sure if that's happened here," he said. "At the moment it only shows buildings and we're about protecting what's in the buildings". A spokesman for Google Australia said the information provided by the website was already in the public domain and even if the sites were censored people could still access it elsewhere. "We are taking existing information and making it more accessible to the general public," he said. A spokeswoman for Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said security agencies had factored the Google Earth website into their assessments of threat and found it posed no risk. "If we were to receive advice from our security agencies that there were concerns, then the government would take the appropriate action," she said. "(But) medium and high resolution images have been available for several years to the public from a number of companies both at home and overseas ... the Google Earth website does not add anything to the existing publicly available data." ---- ENERGY BILL PROVIDES FOR ENHANCED SECURITY AT COMMERCIAL NUCLEAR FACILITIES Last revised Tuesday, August 09, 2005 U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/news/2005/05-109.html The energy bill signed today by President Bush contains provisions long sought by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to enhance security at nuclear power plants and other facilities, including authorization for licensee security guards to use more powerful weaponry and more extensive background checks for personnel with access to nuclear materials or safeguards information. “This wide-ranging legislation enhances our ability to ensure the protection of public health, safety and the common defense,” said NRC Chairman Nils J. Diaz. “These provisions will make an industry that is already well protected even safer from the threats of terrorism and radiological sabotage.” Under this legislation, the NRC will for the first time have regulatory authority over additional radioactive materials, including certain sources of radium-226 and materials produced in accelerators rather than in reactors. The energy bill also contains specific security-related requirements that in large degree address measures already initiated by the NRC. These include revisions to the agency’s design basis threat through rulemaking and establishment of a national tracking system for radioactive sources in the United States. The act also expands criminal penalties for anyone bringing in unauthorized weapons or explosives or committing sabotage at nuclear power plants and other licensee facilities designated by the NRC. Other provisions in the bill will facilitate NRC’s recruitment of engineers, scientists, security experts and other professionals at a time when the agency anticipates a greatly increased workload due to potential applications for new commercial power reactors and the proposed Yucca Mountain waste repository. The NRC is now authorized to support university programs for academic fields critical to the agency’s regulatory activities and to establish partnership programs with minority institutions of higher learning. NRC may also award financial assistance to undergraduate and graduate students in return for subsequent employment with the NRC. -------- u.s. nuc facilities Nuclear Energy Industry Sees Bright Future as President Signs Historic Energy Policy Act Electric Energy Online, Aug. 9, 2005 http://www.electricenergyonline.com/IndustryNews.asp?m=1&id=39112 WASHINGTON - The following is a statement by Skip Bowman, president and chief executive officer at the Nuclear Energy Institute, on President Bush's signing of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. Bowman represented the nuclear energy industry at the signing ceremony, held at Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico. "It was a privilege and an honor to witness the historic signing of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 by President Bush. The nuclear energy industry commends the president for the vision and leadership he demonstrated to arrive at this momentous occasion. Equally important was the cooperation among Senators Pete Domenici and Jeff Bingaman and Congressmen Joe Barton and John Dingell, along with their leadership and that of other members of Congress who crafted and endorsed this crucial legislation. Their bipartisan effort will help establish future energy supplies that are more secure, affordable and reliable. "The legislation includes provisions that will enhance America's energy diversity. In addition, by supporting conservation, energy efficiency, new energy production and urgently needed investment in our energy infrastructure, the Energy Policy Act of 2005 will lead the nation toward economic prosperity, greater security and even more environmentally friendly sources of energy. "With the limited investment incentives for new nuclear power plant construction, authorization for nuclear energy research and development and other provisions, the law positions the United States to continue its global leadership role in addressing the energy needs of the 21st century. "It is now time for the industry, government, consumers and other groups to work together to ensure adequate energy supply for our future. As a result of this legislation we have many of the tools necessary to move forward to new nuclear power plant construction in this country, along with pursuing the potential for the hydrogen economy, protecting our security though enhanced non-proliferation policies, and contributing to better public health and our environment by limiting air emissions." The Nuclear Energy Institute is the nuclear energy industry's policy organization. This news release and additional information about nuclear energy are available on NEI's Internet site at http://www.nei.org/. ---- "Stacked Up Like LaGuardia" Last revised Tuesday, August 09, 2005 US NRC http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/commission/speeches/2005/s-05-010.html The Honorable Jeffrey S. Merrifield Commissioner U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission at American Nuclear Society 2005 Utility Working Conference Amelia Island, Florida August 8, 2005 Introduction Good morning ladies and gentlemen. We begin this conference at a time of great expectation: a time when the President and Congress have taken a significant step to jump start new reactor orders in the U.S., and a time when the industry is poised to enter what I have called "the emerging second great bandwagon effect." While this presages a significant chapter in the history of nuclear power, I would like to share with you this morning what I believe are some significant challenges that lie ahead for the U. S. as we enter this new phase in our nation’s energy history. As the title of my speech indicates, I am looking toward the future with some trepidation as to how the NRC and our future applicants will handle the many challenges we may face in the coming years. Today, I would like to discuss my personal views on how the NRC’s licensing and budgeting process will play a critical role in the development of new reactor projects. I will also spend some of my time discussing how the anticipated turnover in the upper levels of utility management could impact the future safe operation of the industry we oversee. Budgeting for Future Challenges My fellow Commissioners and I have spent the last few weeks focused on reviewing and finalizing the agency’s budget for Fiscal Year 2007. As with any budgeting process, the NRC must attempt an educated guess as to its resource needs almost two years into the future. Normally, we do a pretty good job playing this guessing game, but for a variety of factors, this year required more than the usual amount of guesswork. Among all the usual factors, our job was made even more difficult by the rapidly changing environment for new plant orders. This prospect was underscored by President Bush’s recent visit to Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Plant, where he outlined his strong support for the rapid growth and advancement of nuclear power. With the recent passage of the president’s energy legislation, which the president will sign into law today, Congress has declared that it, too, shares his vision. For their part, a number of utilities, either through announced or unannounced efforts, are moving toward submission of combined license applications for new reactors. Additionally, the NRC has received a growing number of inquiries from vendors that may apply for design certification in the next few years. Add to this the potential for early site permit applications, including the recent notification from Southern Company that it intends to submit an early site permit application in the summer of 2006, and it is obvious the NRC will have an extensive workload. That being said, it is incredibly challenging to translate these "ifs" and "maybes" into budgetary dollars and FTE when we have no firm application dates from which to work. Yet, without concrete information that all this work will materialize, the Commission is in a particularly tough situation. We need to plan for the possibilities I mentioned, but cannot justify huge budgetary increases based on mere hearsay or splashy PowerPoint presentations. As a fiscal conservative who spent my early years on the Commission figuring out how to downsize our agency during a period of perceived nuclear decline, I don’t want to overshoot the mark to meet what I would call the "maximum credible order scenario." Yet, in a tight budget environment also, I don’t want to undershoot our request given the difficulties associated with obtaining supplemental appropriations from Congress. We will obviously be prepared to handle the few applications that we have been made aware of to date, but beyond that, I think there is some uncertainty as to how the agency would handle an unexpected bow wave of "surprise" applications for combined licenses, design certifications, or early site permits. The "Stacking Up" Phenomenon This unpleasant conundrum reminds me of what I like to call the "stacked up like LaGuardia" phenomenon. Air traffic controllers are responsible for ensuring the safe operation of flights while the planes are in the air, as well as during take off and landing. They know they have a limited number of gates with which to accommodate arriving and departing flights and a limited number of people who can arrive at these gates. But they also know that sometimes there are far more planes trying to land than there are available gates and personnel to handle them. Success of flight operations is highly dependent on maintaining the proper timing between arrivals and departures and ensuring that the airlines have all necessary personnel in the right place at the right time. Clearly, it is much easier for them to achieve their safety mission of ensuring safe flight operation if they only have one or two planes in the air. Yet, as we all painfully know, this isn’t how the system works. Even the most carefully orchestrated schedules can go out the window when the number of planes increases and unexpected flights enter the picture. What typically results in this situation is a "stacking up" of planes waiting to land and trying to take off. At busy airports, like LaGuardia, this occurs all too frequently and causes delay and frustration for travelers and airport personnel alike. I want the NRC to avoid a worst case scenario, like those faced by air traffic controllers, with incoming applications "stacked up like LaGuardia." The likelihood of this situation occurring increases dramatically as the number of possible applications for combined licenses, design certifications, and early site permits increases beyond planning assumptions. It is absolutely imperative that we know well in advance if an interested party intends to submit a license application. As with air traffic controllers, we know we have a limited number of resources to draw on to review these applications and must exercise impeccable timing and planning to ensure that we do not create unnecessary delay while moving forward with these actions. I can also tell you that the risk of "stacking up" will increase dramatically if the industry uses the same application pattern it followed with license renewal. Initially, the industry as a whole was skeptical that the NRC could successfully review and approve an application for renewal of an operating license. Consequently, there were only one or two licensees bold enough to test the NRC’s renewal process. After the agency demonstrated its review process was reasonably efficient and effective, however, we experienced a dramatic influx of renewal requests from a number of licensees. We were forced to do two things in order to manage the situation. First, while maintaining our safety focus, we took numerous steps to streamline our process and reduced our review time to 22 months from docketing to approval. Second, we mandated a policy of "first in-first out" for the handling of applications, while simultaneously limiting the number of license renewal applications we are working on in-house. I would fully expect that if faced with a similar situation in the future, the Commission would mandate the same policy for applications for combined licenses, design certifications, and early site permits. To return to my flight analogy, we only have so many "gates" and so many people who can manage these gates. Of course, as a fee-based agency, any over-budgeting is passed on to our licensees. This is not an ideal situation. For example, when we plan for review of a design certification or for pre-application activities, we allocate personnel and funds sufficient to ensure a timely review. If these applications are subsequently delayed or withdrawn, as was the case with the ACR-700 and the PBMR, our staffing level remains the same and the cost for it is borne by all of our licensees. Not only is this wasteful of our human resources, but it is also unfair to our licensees. Clearly, the NRC is not the only party that could be dubbed "unpredictable" when it comes to the nuclear arena. At the end of the day, it is in the best interest of all, if those who are intending to submit future applications to the NRC understand our budgetary and resource constraints and use that understanding to establish and follow realistic timetables. In my opinion, if it is reasonable for Congress and the industry to expect timeliness on the part of the NRC, it is also reasonable for the NRC to expect the same of vendors and licensees. Additionally, at a time when we are faced with a multiplicity of vendors competing for our review time, I believe the NRC must focus its efforts on designs that already have licensee interest rather than on designs that vendors wish to certify in hopes of leveraging reactor orders. We are well beyond the time when the agency can waste resources certifying designs that will never be ordered in the United States. We must focus on those designs that have a realistic possibility of being ordered and built. That having been said, we need to do a better job communicating these expectations to our licensees, and particularly to the vendors. If we are alerted to an incoming application three to five years in advance, we can make the necessary adjustments to our budget proposal and staffing plans. If we have a letter of intent in hand, we are far more likely to receive the necessary funding increases from Congress. For us to meet our safety mission, ensuring the safe operation of both the currently operating fleet of reactors and those that may be built in the future, we need utilities and vendors to be candid with us about their realistic intentions. The Pendulum Swings Next, I would like to switch gears and discuss the potential impact of recent and future changes in utility management personnel. In the past few decades, we have observed a swinging of the pendulum a number of times between utility managers who come from a nuclear background and those who are more grounded in finance or law. As this pendulum appears to be on the move once again, I would like to share a few thoughts with you regarding this shift. Prior to the accident at Three Mile Island in 1979, it was rare for a utility Chief Executive Officer to have risen from a nuclear operations background. More often than not, CEOs were of a more general technical background or had business or legal expertise. This generation of managers seemed to believe that nuclear plants were "just another way to boil water." The accident at TMI and the difficult period that followed had a significant impact on this mindset. In large part, it was TMI that caused the management pendulum to swing in the opposite direction. From this mishap emerged a new breed of utility leaders that were both "battle hardened" from dealing with the TMI action items and sensitive to the critical importance of nuclear safety. One CEO in particular deserves an honorable mention for the key role he played during this time period. Chairman of the Board and CEO of Duke Power, Bill Lee, was a symbol of the reform the nuclear industry accomplished in the 1980s and 90s. Following the accident at TMI, Mr. Lee, in his role as Duke’s president, led the creation of the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations, which strengthened and standardized the industry’s nuclear safety and training programs. Later, as Duke’s Chairman of the Board, he again took the lead for the industry, organizing the World Association of Nuclear Operators after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in the Soviet Union. Both of these organizations did much to restore public confidence in nuclear power as a safe source of energy. This was by no means an easy task, and efforts to maintain public confidence continue even today. Lee and his contemporaries learned the hard way what a delicate undertaking it can be to maintain a fair balance between ensuring financial profit of a nuclear operation while at the same time ensuring that its safety is preserved. These CEOs understood that a nuclear plant required special "care and feeding," and that operation of these plants could not be approached with the fossil plant mentality of "operate it until it breaks and then fix it." They also struggled through the period of fear and suspicion that followed the TMI accident and saw firsthand how important candid communication with the public can be. Today, we are in the midst of a transitional time when many of these leaders have left the industry, and it appears that the pendulum will once again swing back to an era where a large number of these senior managers may not hail from a nuclear background. A new generation of CEOs will be managing the future of the industry, and will be facing an entirely different backdrop as they enter their new positions. These men and women will run their organizations during a period of time when the nation’s nuclear fleet is operating near peak performance. Reactors today are running at a much higher capacity than in the past, and with the notable exception of Davis-Besse, we have enjoyed a period of increasingly safe operations when compared to the 80s and 90s. This situation, although preferable from my perspective as a regulator, can be deceptive to the unwary. It is essential that new industry leaders understand the inherent pitfalls of running a nuclear power plant. As I mentioned before, these plants must have safety infused into their systems and procedures, as well as into the minds of the employees that operate them. Our licensees must be proactive about discovering potential equipment problems early on to prevent equipment failures. Short term goals based on the bottom line cannot be allowed to overtake safety goals. As I have said on many occasions, good performers save money. I don’t have to highlight how expensive poor performance has been for certain utilities. These new utility leaders will also have to familiarize themselves with the way in which the NRC interacts with its licensees. I know full well that much of the industry believes that we are far too intrusive in our regulation of their nuclear facilities. Compared with other federal and state agencies, the NRC is probably a greater presence in the daily workings of our licensees than other regulators may be. But it is precisely this strong presence that enables us to fulfill our safety mission of ensuring protection of public health and safety. Please do not get me wrong. I know that these executives with their extraordinary credentials can live up to my expectations. Indeed, one would expect me of all people to say that, given the fact that I came into my current position seven years ago as an attorney with a limited understanding of nuclear technologies. It would certainly be the "pot calling the kettle black" if I implied this would or could not be done. I know better than most the steep learning curve necessary to understand this technology, its promise, and its pitfalls. A strong commitment to learning about nuclear safety must certainly have been in the mind of Bill Lee when he helped establish INPO. Programs offered by INPO, like its "Reactor Technology Course for Utility Executives," offer an invaluable forum for learning and discussion. In the end, this industry has had and will continue to have a number of key participants who do not come from a nuclear background. The clear need, however, is to ensure that this diversity of backgrounds enhances safe operation, rather than degrades it. Dedication to understanding nuclear safety and nuclear technology must be foremost in the mind of all future leaders in this arena. We cannot demand otherwise. Conclusion In summary, I can confidently say that the Commission is working hard to prepare for the future, whatever it may entail. We are planning to the best of our ability, but in my opinion, it will be the new generation of industry management that will help us avoid the "stacking up" phenomenon of which I spoke. I am positive that continued productive relationships between the NRC and industry leadership will help prevent us from becoming the "LaGuardia" we all hope the NRC will never be. Thank you very much. -------- michigan Environmentalists oppose Van Buren County nuclear plant Local environmental groups are worried about the plant's age, which is why they are protesting against another 20 years 08/09/2005 06:05 pm Van Buren County, MI WNDU http://www.wndu.com/news/082005/news_44002.php Some environmentalists say they don't want another 20 years of the Palisades Nuclear Plant in Van Buren County! The plant's operating license expires in 2011. Plant owner, Consumers Energy is asking the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to extend the license through 2031. Local environmental groups are worried about the plant's age. Palisades has been generating electricity for over 30-years. However, a plant spokesperson says safety is never compromised. -------- nevada New EPA radiation standard is called outrageous EPA says revised limits would protect public for 1 million years By Suzanne Struglinski SUN WASHINGTON BUREAU August 09, 2005 http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/sun/2005/aug/09/519178960.html?"yucca%20mountain" WASHINGTON -- The Environmental Protection Agency's change in its radiation protection standard, announced this morning, is shocking and outrageous, members of Nevada's team opposing the Yucca Mountain nuclear dump said. The EPA is keeping the 10,000-year radiation protection standard for the proposed dump at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, while creating a different exposure limit after 10,000 years, for up to 1 million years. One part of the new proposed standard has a 15 millirem radiation exposure for up to 10,000 years, the same limit a federal court threw out last year. Another part of the standard limits exposure to 350 millirem per year for 10,000 to 1 million years, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. The proposed standards "limit the maximum radiation from the facility so that people living close to Yucca Mountain for a lifetime during the 1 million-year time frame will not receive total radiation any higher than natural levels people currently live with in other areas of the country." Joe Egan, a lawyer who represents Nevada on Yucca issues, said he was shocked by the new numbers. "That is far more outrageous than anything we even expected," Egan said. "If more than 15 millirems is harmful now, it is going to be equally harmful 50,000 years from now. People aren't just going to develop an immunity to radiation." Nevada Nuclear Projects Agency Director Bob Loux said the new standard was "outrageous" because 350 millirem is so high. EPA spokesman John Millett said the 350 millirem standard was an appropriate number given the uncertainties of calculating radiation standards so far into the future. Other Nevada officials initially withheld comments. They said they wanted a chance to examine the EPA's proposal. Attorney General Brian Sandoval said the state must "have the opportunity to review" the proposed standard to see "if it meets scientific muster." He noted the EPA originally said the 10,000 years was a safe standard, but a federal appeals court found it violated the law. Gov. Kenny Guinn is expected to issue a statement later today about the EPA announcement. Egan said it will be up to Sandoval to decide what legal option to pursue, but he would not be suprised if more litigation came out of this. Egan said the proposed standards are worse than those suggested in a study done by the Electric Power Research Institute earlier this year. The state strongly objected to the study. EPRI is an energy and environmental research group that promotes the benefits of nuclear power. Its study advocated that the federal government keep the 10,000-year standard as it stands now and consider the uncertainties that exist when trying to measure things out beyond that time frame. It recommended a "two-tiered dose limit," which means one level for the first 10,000 years and a higher one for after that time consistent with "the increased uncertainty." It did not recommend a specific dose beyond the 15-millirem per year limit now, a little more than a chest X-ray, but the report says a 100-millirem per year dose would be "considered protective under all potential exposure situations." Egan said the 100-millirem recommendation was bad enough. The proposed standard announced today is a "lawyer's dream." "This is a total abdication of science and the law," Egan said. A federal appeals court said last year that the 10,000-year time period previously established by the agency did not follow the law. That ruling threw the proposed nuclear waste dump off schedule until a new standard could be established. The court said the earlier standard was not "based upon and consistent with" a National Academy of Sciences recommendation. Congress wanted the standard to follow what a panel of the academy's experts wanted. The EPA originally set a 10,000-year radiation standard for Yucca in 2001. Under that standard, the department would have to prove people would not be exposed to more than 15 millirems of radiation, a little more than a chest X-ray, each year for 10,000 years. The National Academy of Sciences said it would be better to go to "peak dose" when the radiation levels would be at their highest. This could come 100,000 years into the future or more. Now that the proposed standard is complete, it will have to go through a public comment period before becoming final. EPA will have to evaluate the comments and can make changes before implementing the final standard. Rod McCullum, senior project manager for waste at the Nuclear Energy Institute, could not comment specifically on what EPA proposed, but said he had always believed a two-tiered standard was a "sound, scientific approach." Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., sent a letter to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson Monday reminding him of a promised public hearing in Las Vegas once the agency issues the rule. The senators also want the agency to hold hearings in Reno and Amargosa Valley and want a public comment period of no less than 180 days. "Because of the enormity, time span and risk of the proposed project, any standard must err on the side of caution in order to guarantee the protection of public health and the environment for hundreds of thousands of years," the senators wrote. Reid spokeswoman Tessa Hafen said the senators got EPA to agree to hearings during talks on Deputy Energy Secretary Clay Sell's confirmation hearing. She said the office had heard the proposal would be coming out in the next two weeks, so they wanted to make sure a formal request for the meetings had been sent. In May, the agency said it would put finish the proposed new standard by September. Peggy Maze Johnson, director of Nevada-based Citizen Alert, and Judy Treichel of the Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force met with EPA officials a few weeks ago to discuss how to inform the public about the new standard, they said. Johnson said she asked for details about public protection and the compliance period as they relate to the new proposed standard, but the EPA people she met with "sidestepped" her questions. The new EPA standard is what Johnson feared, she said. She and many other Yucca critics objected to a two-tiered standard. "We don't believe that it's safe,' she said. Treichel said that last time opponents gave comments on a radiation standard, they wanted to see "zero exposure forever" but instead saw 15 millirem for 10,000 years. "I am not sure if this would be any different now," Triechel said. ---- EPA Proposing Radiation Exposure Limits 8/9/2005 7:42 p.m. ET By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-08-09-yucca_x.htm http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Yucca-Mountain.html?pagewanted=print WASHINGTON (AP) -- Conceding there's no way to know what life will be like in a million years, the Environmental Protection Agency nevertheless proposed limits Tuesday on how much radiation a person should be exposed to from a nuclear waste dump in that distant time. The proposal would limit exposure near the proposed Yucca Mountain facility in Nevada to 15 millirems a year for 10,000 years into the future, but then increase the allowable level to 350 millirems for up to 1 million years. That higher level is more than three times what is allowed from nuclear facilities today by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. A standard chest X-ray is about 10 millirems. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., a staunch critic of the Yucca project, called the standard the product of ''voodoo science and arbitrary numbers.'' The state's other senator, Republican John Ensign, said the standard had no scientific basis and was ''a blatant disregard for ... the health of Nevadans.'' Asked if there was any way to assure such a standard would be relevant or be met that far in the future, the EPA's Jeffrey Holmstead replied, ''That's a pretty darn good question. ... We do the best job given all the science we have.'' The radiation exposure issue has threatened to cripple the government's plans to bury 77,000 tons of highly radioactive waste -- mostly used reactor fuel rods now at commercial power plants -- beneath a volcanic ridge at Yucca Mountain in the Nevada desert 90 miles from Las Vegas. A year ago a federal court said the EPA standard, which is supposed to ensure nearby residents won't be harmed by leaking radioactivity from the dump, was inadequate because it didn't establish exposure limits beyond 10,000 years. On Tuesday, the EPA announced a revised standard that reaches out to a million years. ''That's longer, many times longer than human history,'' said Holmstead, adding that he's certain the rule will be protective of the public. Once the standard is made final after a comment period, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will decide whether the Yucca facility's design is adequate to meet it. ''We're setting a standard that not only protects our children, our grandchildren ... it will protect the next 25,000 generations,'' said Holmstead. But opponents of the Yucca waste project, including state officials in Nevada., saw it differently. ''In short they've decided to kill a few people,'' said Joe Egan, an attorney who represented Nevada in the court fight over the project. ''This is an obvious effort to give the project a pass'' after the 10,000 year period. Egan said the standard would allow as much as 700 millirem of radiation exposure a year, when added to the 350 millirem of natural background radiation in the Yucca area. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which must still approve a permit for the Yucca waste site, limits public radiation exposure from nuclear facilities it licenses to no more than 100 millirems per year. Holmstead, who is the EPA's head of air and radiation office, said a person living near the Yucca site will not be subjected to radiation ''higher than people are routinely exposed to throughout the country'' from natural background sources. He noted that background radiation in Denver is 700 millirems, partly because of its high elevation. The EPA in its document cited natural background radiation levels in Colorado, North and South Dakota and Iowa in some cases was well over 700 millirems a year because of elevation and geology. But Arjun Makhijani, a nuclear physicist who has been critical of the Yucca project and other government nuclear programs, called the standard ''lax'' and too vague and said to link Yucca Mountain exposure standards to background radiation is misleading if -- as the EPA does -- you include radiation from naturally occurring radon. Radiation from radon, which occurs naturally in some rocks, can be extremely high in some areas. The NRC says 55 percent of human exposure to ionized radiation comes from radon. The average background radiation from natural sources including radon is about 300 millirem nationwide, according to the NRC. Craig Stevens, a spokesman for the Energy Department, said the administration is firmly committed to pushing ahead with the Yucca project. It plans to submit a formal application for a license to the NRC next year. ''This is a standard that we can certainly meet,'' said Stevens, when told of the EPA's two-tier approach. Reaction to the standard in Nevada was mixed. ''It's not a protective standard,'' said Judy Treichel, director of the Las Vegas-based Nuclear Waste Task Force, which opposes the Yucca project. ''It's a way, I guess, for the EPA to help the Department of Energy build its dump.'' David Swanson, chief of the nuclear repository oversight office in rural Nye County, called it ''probably appropriate'' ''You take your best shot with what you have predicting what will happen in the future, and then you monitor it,'' he said, adding he feels ''comfortable'' with the requirements out to 10,000 years. ''It's just ridiculous to attempt to project farther than that.'' Associated Press writer Ken Ritter contributed to this story from Las Vegas. On the Net Yucca Mountain project: http://www.ymp.gov Environmental Protection Agency www.doe.gov ---- Million Year Yucca Mountain Safety Standards Proposed WASHINGTON, DC, August 9, 2005 (ENS) http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/aug2005/2005-08-09-04.asp The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing public health standards for the planned high-level radioactive waste disposal facility at Yucca Mountain, Nevada that the agency says will protect public health for one million years. If built, the facility would contain 77,000 tons of nuclear waste from U.S. nuclear power plants and weapons production facilities across the country. The EPA issued standards in 2001 that are supposed to protect the public from the nation's highly radioactive waste for 10,000 years. The standards proposed today retain and add to these original standards issued in 2001. The new standards are required as the result of a July 2004 ruling by the DC Court of Appeals in a lawsuit brought by the state of Nevada. The court ruled that the EPA's original standards did not conform to those recommended by the National Academy of Sciences as Congress mandates in the Energy Policy Act of 1992. The Academy said the most dangerous peak radiation levels from nuclear waste isotopes would persist for 300,000 years. "It is an unprecedented scientific challenge to develop proposed standards today that will protect the next 25,000 generations of Americans," EPA Assistant Administrator for Air and Radiation Jeffrey Holmstead said. "EPA met this challenge by using the best available scientific approaches and has issued a standard that will protect public health for a million years." The EPA says that under the new one million year standards, people living close to the facility would not receive total radiation higher than natural levels of background radiation people experience routinely in other areas of the country. For the first 10,000 years, the proposed standards: # Retain the original 15 millirem of radiation exposure per year individual protection standard. By comparison, 15 millirem is equivalent to the radiation exposure of a passenger who took three coast to coast round trip flights in a year. # Ensure that people living near Yucca Mountain are protected to the same level as those living near the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad, New Mexico , currently the only operational deep geologic radioactive waste disposal facility in the U.S. From 10,000 years up to one million years, the proposed standards: # Add a limit of 350 millirem per year. # Limit the maximum radiation from the facility so that people living close to Yucca Mountain for a lifetime during the one million year time frame will not receive total radiation any higher than natural levels people currently live with in other areas of the country. The University of California - Davis gives 300 millirem as the average yearly dose of background radiation to which people in the United States are exposed. U.S. Senator Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat and Senate Minority Leader, said, "I am astounded that the EPA actually put those recommendations on paper. What the agency released today is nothing more than voodoo science and arbitrary numbers. At the time when the public faces the highest risk of radiation exposure, EPA proposes easing the overall public health standard, including throwing out the groundwater standard." The EPA states in its new standards document that, "The groundwater protection standards were a subject of the Court decision, were upheld, and are not a subject of today’s proposal." There are two major aquifers beneath Yucca Mountain. Regional ground water in the vicinity of Yucca Mountain is believed to flow generally in a south-southeasterly direction. The DOE plans to build the repository about 300 meters below the surface and about 300 to 500 meters above the water table. Senator Reid is still opposed to the Yucca Mountain project. "This is the latest attempt by the Bush Administration to ignore sound science and disregard the health and safety of Nevadans, and I vow to continue fighting on behalf of Nevadans against this ill-conceived project.” The EPA will accept written public comment for 60 days after the rule is published in the Federal Register. The agency will also hold public hearings during the comment period. But Senator Reid says the public comment period is inadequate. “In addition to risking the health of the public, EPA is also trying to silence voices of opposition by limiting the comment period," he said "It took EPA more than a year to put together this proposal, but the agency is giving the public less than two months to review hundreds of pages of documents and put their concerns on record." Reid and fellow Nevada Senator John Ensign, a Republican, wrote in a joint letter to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson on Monday, "The comment period for this proposal must be no less than 180 days." The senators wrote that evaluation of the EPA standard "may depend on assessments in DOE's draft license application that to date DOE has been unwilling to provide. Nevadans may not be in a position to respond fully to the EPA rule until DOE releases this key information." The Nevada senators reminded Johnson of the EPA's agreement to hold a public hearing in Las Vegas and urged him to attend in person "so that you can hear and see the depth of Nevadans’ opposition to a weak radiation standard that does not meet the National Academy of Sciences guidelines, thus needlessly exposing them to public health risks." Congress authorized three federal agencies to perform different functions related to Yucca Mountain. EPA sets standards to protect human health and safety, and the Yucca Mountain facility will open only if it meets EPA's standards to protect human health and the environment.. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is responsible for implementing EPA's standards and determining if the Yucca Mountain facility can be safe enough to contain nuclear waste. The Department of Energy owns, constructs, applies for licenses, and will operate the facility, should it be approved. Under the new proposed standards, the Department of Energy (DOE) is required conduct analyses covering a one million year time frame to assess the potential effects of natural processes or disruptive events that could affect how well Yucca Mountain contains the waste. These include: * Earthquakes, which could affect the facility tunnels and breakdown of the waste containers * Volcanic activity, which could affect the waste containers directly or cause releases of radionuclides to the environment * Climate change, which could cause increased water flow through the facility, resulting in the release of radionuclides to the environment * Corrosion processes, which could cause breakdown of the waste containers In its new standards document, the EPA emphasizes how difficult it is to accurately predict what conditions will be like for long periods of time into the future. "Clearly, we believe that calculations beyond 10,000 years have value, or we would not have previously required DOE to include them in its EIS [environmental impact statement]. However, we also believe that over the very long periods leading up to the time of the peak dose, the uncertainties in projecting climatic and geologic conditions become extremely difficult to reliably predict and a technical consensus about their effects on projected performance in a licensing process would be very difficult, or perhaps impossible, to achieve." This is one of the major reasons that the 10,000 year time frame was originally selected in the generic standard for land disposal of the types of waste intended for the Yucca Mountain repository, the EPA document explains. The EPA relies on the concept of "reasonable expectation" to rescue the situation from the dilemma that the uncertainties create - either giving little or no weight to highly uncertain projections as a basis for a licensing decision - or - precluding the possibility of licensing at all. "We believe that the performance projections at Yucca Mountain, if constructed and interpreted consistent with the concept of “reasonable expectation,” can provide useful information on the facility’s performance and can form a key part of the basis for a licensing decision," the EPA says. The agency cites the opinion of National Academy of Sciences in its report, "No analysis of compliance will ever constitute an absolute proof; the objective instead is a reasonable level of confidence in analyses that indicates whether limits established by the standard will be exceeded.” The Yucca Mountain site was approved by Congress and President George W. Bush signed the bill into law in February 2002. However, the site is still opposed by the State of Nevada and the Nevada Congressional delegation. Plans are to transport the waste by road and rail from the power plants and Department of Defense sites where it is stored through 44 states to Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Reid says this is perhaps the most dangerous part of the project. "The Achilles heel of the Yucca Mountain proposal is transportation," the senator says on his website. "The tragic events of September 11, 2001 showed us what terrorists can do. Transporting thousands of shipments across our country would provide thousands of targets for terrorists, and putting the millions of Americans along the transportation routes in danger is irresponsible." -------- new jersey Oyster Creek plant back at full power NRC praises response to alert; Brick mayor calls for "intense scrutiny" Published in the Asbury Park Press 08/9/05 BY ERIK LARSEN MANAHAWKIN BUREAU http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050809/NEWS02/508090419/1070 LACEY — The Oyster Creek nuclear power plant was operating at full power Monday, two days after a large clump of eel grass and sea lettuce became trapped in three of its intake screens, prompting plant operators to go to an "alert" status. The alert was declared at 4:03 a.m. Saturday, when engineers in Oyster Creek's control room detected a reduction in cooling water entering the plant's north intake system, according to a preliminary report of the event submitted to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Monday. The north intake is one of two primary systems beneath the waters of the plant's cooling channel — a man-made, horseshoe-shaped river at the rear of the plant that draws water from the south branch of the Forked River to condense steam produced by the nuclear reactor. "Our view of the Oyster Creek event on Saturday morning is that the plant operators responded appropriately and conservatively by reducing power in light of the grass-fouling problem affecting the water intakes," said Neil A. Sheehan, a NRC spokesman. Brick Township Mayor Joseph C. Scarpelli, a vocal critic of the plant, said in light of AmerGen seeking relicensing for the plant, everything that happens at Oyster Creek should come under intense scrutiny. "Here we have seaweed . . . we've looked at whether the evacuation routes are adequate, a threat of a terrorist attack, corrosion, I guess it's all relative, but it shows that something insignificant can slow down a plant. We have here a situation there that is dangerous." Jerry Beer of Berkeley retired from Oyster Creek in 1996 after more than 20 years with the plant's maintenance department. He said Monday he knows from experience that at no time was the public ever at risk. "Even if both intakes went, they would simply shut the reactor down," Beer said. "A radioactive release wouldn't happen." The human and electronic fail-safes in place are designed to prevent a catastrophic cascade effect that would lead to an emergency, he said. Paul D. "Pete" McLain, a retired state wildlife official and naturalist at Island Beach State Park, said it's not uncommon in the summer for dead eel grass and sea lettuce to float in matted clumps along coastal areas. But he also said he is disturbed by the amount of the decaying vegetation he's seen along the shore this summer. "You wonder why. I never saw it like this before," said McLain, who used to survey eel grass at the mouth of the Forked River before he retired as a deputy director with the state Division of Fish and Wildlife in 1985. He suspects a biological pathogen is attacking the eel grass, similar to the "wasting disease" which decimated nearly 90 percent of eel grass in Barnegat Bay in the 1930s. "This is the time of year when the bay is more polluted than normal, the nitrogen phosphorus builds up and you get these big algae blooms, they settle down and they cover the eel grass and shut the sunlight out like a rug over your lawn and this is where it dies," McLain said. To compensate for the water drop, the control room had reduced power to 44 percent, according to the NRC's report, and the plant remained in stable condition with all safety systems continuing to function. After three minutes, at 4:06 a.m. Saturday, the plant's status was downgraded to "unusual event," the lowest of the NRC's four-tier classification system which remained in effect until 7:55 a.m. Full power was restored by 7:30 p.m. Sunday. State and county authorities were notified of the incident, as NRC guidelines require, but no action on the part of emergency management officials was taken. Pete Resler, a spokesman for AmerGen, Oyster Creek's corporate owners, said the weight of the debris combined with the water pressure on the grates caused a partial collapse of the grating on all three screens in the north intake and had to be replaced. They were removed by cranes Saturday and divers went down into the channel to remove the grass and algae, Resler said. -------- utah Homeland Security to review PFS nuke proposal Jennifer Talhem THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Tuesday, August 09, 2005 - 12:00 AM http://www.harktheherald.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=61653&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0 WASHINGTON -- The Department of Homeland Security next week will review a plan to store nuclear waste on the Goshute Indian reservation in Utah's Skull Valley, a move state officials hope will help defeat the proposal. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is expected to decide by the end of the summer whether to grant a license to Private Fuel Storage, which wants to store 44,000 tons of waste on the reservation 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. A team from the Department of Homeland Security will spend about a week looking at the security risks posed by the facility and how well state and local officials could respond in an emergency, said Michelle Petrovich, a spokeswoman for the agency. Investigators will then report back to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. Many in Utah oppose the storage facility, which they contend is too close to Salt Lake City and could be vulnerable to a terrorist attack or a fighter jet crash from Hill Air Force Base. Utah's senators have made numerous attempts to block the facility. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said in a statement that he hopes the results of the Homeland Security report will prove key to defeating Private Fuel Storage's proposal. "Combined with the threats that we now face in the war on terrorism, the selection of this site -- so close to major population centers and to an international airport -- is an unacceptable risk," Hatch said. Hatch last month unsuccessfully attempted to amend the national energy bill with a provision requiring a terrorism-threat study before the private spent nuclear fuel storage facility could be licensed. The amendment stalled because of concern from Nevada Sen. Harry Reid, who worried it would affect plans for a permanent nuclear waste dump at Nevada's Yucca Mountain, which Reid is trying to block. Utah state officials have said they would go to court if Private Fuel Storage gets its license. -------- MILITARY -------- balkans Former Yugoslavia and the Role of British Forces What is the role of the British Forces? Wednesday, 9 Aug 2005 Politics UK http://www.politics.co.uk/issues/former-yugoslavia-and-role-british-forces-$2081725.htm British forces have been involved in the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia since the mid-1990s through their involvement in multilateral peacekeeping and conflict missions mandated by the United Nations (UN) and the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance (NATO). In 2004, there were British forces based in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo and Macedonia. Background The multinational, multiethnic federation of Yugoslavia began to crumble with the death of the long-serving President Marshall Tito in 1980. The disintegration of the state reached a climax in 1991, when the republics of Croatia and Slovenia declared their independence. The federal government, dominated by Serbia, rejected the declaration and war broke out that year. After European Union monitoring had failed to halt the progression of the conflict, the UN intervened, first through the implementation of multilateral sanctions, and then through the authorisation of a number of peacekeeping operations. The UN Protection Force (UNPROFOR) that was in Croatia and Bosnia between 1992 and 1995 was granted extended authority to deliver humanitarian assistance and provide protection for so-called 'safe areas'. NATO air forces (which included UK personnel) were also mandated to provide support for the delivery of the peacekeepers' mandate on the ground. However, the weakness of the UN mandate was highlighted following the Srebrenica massacre of 1995, where UN peacekeepers were left helpless under the limited terms of their mandate to halt the unfolding slaughter of Muslims. Exhausted by economic sanctions and under the threat of further action from NATO, the combatants agreed to bring the war to an end under the Dayton Peace Accords of 1995. UK forces subsequently formed part of the post conflict mission initially mandated under UN Security Council Resolution 1031 (1995) - the military Implementation Force (IFOR) and subsequently the Stabilisation Force (SFOR), the latter being provided with an ambitious and broad mandate, ranging from the traditional conflict prevention to the modern roles of institution building and reconstruction tasks. However, during 1998, conflict began to return in the Serbian province of Kosovo, an area dominated by ethnic Albanians that was left out of the Dayton settlement. International diplomacy - notably the 'Rambouillet Accords', failed, and brutal repression and widespread displacement of ethnic Albanians followed. The UN proved unable to act, and NATO threats against Serbia, led by President Slobodan Milosevic, were ignored. In March 1999, the Organisation began an air campaign against Serbia. Following such a major blow to its authority, the UN was keen to ensure the post-war situation was kept within its multilateral framework, and in UNSCR 1244 authorised an unprecedented multilateral peacekeeping operation (KFOR and UNMIK). In 2002 the UK was contributing some 3,000 personnel to KFOR operations. Peacekeeping in Macedonia also saw high levels of British involvement, in the period of instability that almost broke out into full-scale war between the government and ethnic Albanian guerrillas, still armed from the Kosovo crisis, in 2001. Controversies The legality of the air strikes in Kosovo in 1999 is one of the most controversial political and legal issues of recent years, challenging the very core of the UN and international law. This controversy was created by what some saw as the impotence of the United Nations against the resistance of pro-Serbian Russia and China, and then by the unabating slaughter occurring by the Serbian army in Kosovo. NATO intervention in Kosovo was justified on the legally dubious grounds of 'humanitarian intervention'. The air strikes themselves proved highly controversial, with NATO forces launching attacks within Serbia itself and killing many civilians. The need for the ongoing presence of British troops in the Balkans is questioned in some quarters - as is the share of the burden for peacekeeping between participating countries. Also controversial have been claims that veterans of the Balkan campaigns have been exposed to radiation from depleted uranium ammunition. This ammunition, which is mainly used for piercing armour, has been linked to leukaemia and mental health problems. Although the British and US governments are on record as having known about the potential health and environmental hazards of the ammunition, both continued to authorise their use. Depleted Uranium (DU) first emerged as a cause for concern in association with 'Gulf War Syndrome'. During the Gulf War, British tanks fired about 100 DU shells. None were used by British forces in the Balkans. However, the US fired around 860,000 DU shells during the Gulf War, along with 10,800 rounds in Bosnia and about 31,000 in Kosovo. Statistics # In 2002, the British presence in the Balkans was 4,900 # British troops in Kosovo are based in the capital, Pristina. In Bosnia, they are headquartered in Banja Luka Statistics 1 and 2: (Source: Ministry of Defence, 2002) Quotes "The United Kingdom remains committed to the security and stability of the Balkans and will continue to play its full role in achieving the international community's objectives for the region." # MoD website 2004 "Since we first sent forces to the Balkans much has changed and improved, and we are changing with them. What hasn't changed though is our determination to work with the people of the region to build peace and prosperity together. Make no mistake, these forces will still be robust enough, tough enough and flexible enough to maintain a safe and secure environment." # Lord Robertson, then NATO Secretary General, commenting on a new NATO plan in the Balkans 2002 "It must be assumed that not only the interior but also the surrounding area of an armoured vehicle destroyed by DU ammunition is contaminated. There is a potential health hazard in the form of DU exposure stemming from ammunition parts and destroyed DU-contaminated vehicles. Long-term hazards may also result from drinking water and soil contamination." # Regulations issued to German troops in Kosovo -------- britain Government 'is losing its grip' on anti-terror strategy By Nigel Morris, Home Affairs Correspondent Published: 09 August 2005 UK Independent http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article304646.ece There was disarray in the Government yesterday over how to tackle the threat from Islamic extremism as a suggestion that radical preachers who backed terrorism could be prosecuted for treason appeared to unravel. A former Home Office minister accused the Government of losing its nerve in recent days, dismissing its latest anti-terror proposals as "half-baked". Tony Blair produced a 12-point action plan for combating terrorism on Friday, leaving officials to work the proposals into legislation for the autumn. Since then it has emerged that the Crown Prosecution Service was considering whether to levy treason charges against three preachers, Omar Bakri Mohammed, Abu Izzadeen and Abu Uzair. The Government was in retreat over both sets of proposals yesterday, prompting accusations that its response to last month's terrorist attacks in London was in confusion. Lord Carlile, the independent reviewer of anti-terror legislation, warned that treason charges were not very practical or sensible and said he would be "very surprised" if treason was used. "It is remotely possible, but treason law is very specific. I suspect that there are far more appropriate crimes already on the statute book," he told Radio 4's Today programme. "I don't think there is a lawyer still working who has ever appeared in any part of a treason case and I think we should tread in that historic territory very carefully. Treason tends to apply to war between nations." Downing Street yesterday played down the prospects of prosecutions for treason being mounted. As talks began between the CPS and police over bringing charges against the three preachers, the CPS signalled that a charge of treason was the least likely course of action. A former Home Office minister, John Denham, chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, said he was very disturbed at the latest handling of the crisis. He said media pressure meant Downing Street had returned to its "old instincts" to try to win back the headlines. "The issues at stake here are just far too serious to play it like that," he told Radio 4's PM programme. "The last few days really give the sense the Government has got into a real state of nerves about the whole thing, displaying a lack of confidence in its own strategy. "They have got to get a grip on it very, very quickly, stop floating half-baked ideas and get back to proper cross-party consensus on the serious measures that need to be taken." Edward Garnier, a Tory home affairs spokesman, said: "They will get the support of the Opposition for proper, fair, good proposals that deal with the problem. But what we find difficult to deal with is a Government which says one thing on one day and another thing on another. We are getting mixed signals." Sadiq Khan, Labour MP for Tooting, said fellow Muslims in his constituency in south London were worried by several elements of the Government's anti-terror package. The former human rights lawyer said sections of the Human Rights Act could not be simply suspended and criticised moves to close down mosques used by controversial preachers. Simon Hughes, the Liberal Democrat legal affairs spokesman, warned that such serious charges as treason were less likely to secure a conviction and could affect community relations. "If you start resurrecting treason to apply to specific people at a specific time it looks to me as if it will aim at a particular part of the community. That won't be generally helpful. "Where we can get consensus, we will deliver. If there isn't consensus in Parliament, that means there won't be consensus in the country either, and the law will be less widely respected." Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, welcomed the intention of the anti-terror legislation, but warned it could penalise the wrong people. "Any laws must be precisely worded to deal with the terror threat without criminalising those who are our allies in fighting it," he said. "Unfortunately, the wording presently reported is so vague that 20 years ago it would have meant banning Nelson Mandela or anyone supporting him." There was disarray in the Government yesterday over how to tackle the threat from Islamic extremism as a suggestion that radical preachers who backed terrorism could be prosecuted for treason appeared to unravel. A former Home Office minister accused the Government of losing its nerve in recent days, dismissing its latest anti-terror proposals as "half-baked". Tony Blair produced a 12-point action plan for combating terrorism on Friday, leaving officials to work the proposals into legislation for the autumn. Since then it has emerged that the Crown Prosecution Service was considering whether to levy treason charges against three preachers, Omar Bakri Mohammed, Abu Izzadeen and Abu Uzair. The Government was in retreat over both sets of proposals yesterday, prompting accusations that its response to last month's terrorist attacks in London was in confusion. Lord Carlile, the independent reviewer of anti-terror legislation, warned that treason charges were not very practical or sensible and said he would be "very surprised" if treason was used. "It is remotely possible, but treason law is very specific. I suspect that there are far more appropriate crimes already on the statute book," he told Radio 4's Today programme. "I don't think there is a lawyer still working who has ever appeared in any part of a treason case and I think we should tread in that historic territory very carefully. Treason tends to apply to war between nations." Downing Street yesterday played down the prospects of prosecutions for treason being mounted. As talks began between the CPS and police over bringing charges against the three preachers, the CPS signalled that a charge of treason was the least likely course of action. A former Home Office minister, John Denham, chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, said he was very disturbed at the latest handling of the crisis. He said media pressure meant Downing Street had returned to its "old instincts" to try to win back the headlines. "The issues at stake here are just far too serious to play it like that," he told Radio 4's PM programme. "The last few days really give the sense the Government has got into a real state of nerves about the whole thing, displaying a lack of confidence in its own strategy. "They have got to get a grip on it very, very quickly, stop floating half-baked ideas and get back to proper cross-party consensus on the serious measures that need to be taken." Edward Garnier, a Tory home affairs spokesman, said: "They will get the support of the Opposition for proper, fair, good proposals that deal with the problem. But what we find difficult to deal with is a Government which says one thing on one day and another thing on another. We are getting mixed signals." Sadiq Khan, Labour MP for Tooting, said fellow Muslims in his constituency in south London were worried by several elements of the Government's anti-terror package. The former human rights lawyer said sections of the Human Rights Act could not be simply suspended and criticised moves to close down mosques used by controversial preachers. Simon Hughes, the Liberal Democrat legal affairs spokesman, warned that such serious charges as treason were less likely to secure a conviction and could affect community relations. "If you start resurrecting treason to apply to specific people at a specific time it looks to me as if it will aim at a particular part of the community. That won't be generally helpful. "Where we can get consensus, we will deliver. If there isn't consensus in Parliament, that means there won't be consensus in the country either, and the law will be less widely respected." Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, welcomed the intention of the anti-terror legislation, but warned it could penalise the wrong people. "Any laws must be precisely worded to deal with the terror threat without criminalising those who are our allies in fighting it," he said. "Unfortunately, the wording presently reported is so vague that 20 years ago it would have meant banning Nelson Mandela or anyone supporting him." -------- china China protest turns ugly as demonstrations spread 09 Aug 2005 10:32:48 GMT Source: Reuters By John Ruwitch http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/PEK31100.htm BEIJING, Aug 9 (Reuters) - Thousands of residents of a central Chinese city ransacked government offices, trashed cars and attacked a police station after police dogs bit petitioners while breaking up a protest, a resident and media said. It was the latest in a string of outbursts as discontent grows in the world's most populous nation over a range of issues including a widening wealth gap and widespread corruption. About 100 residents from Daye, a city within the larger city of Huangshi, petitioned the Huangshi government on Thursday over a plan to change its status to that of district, Hong Kong's Wen Wei Po newspaper reported on Monday. An online bulletin board with postings by people claiming to be witnesses said the protesters felt that downgrading Daye to a district would allow Huangshi to siphon away its funds. The change in the status of Daye, rich in mineral resources, would "affect the interests of a small number of people" in the city in Hubei province, a police official said by telephone. But more than a few Daye residents were apparently upset by the pending change. Police ultimately brought out dogs to end the protest and four petitioners were bitten, the newspaper said. Two days later, on Saturday, a crowd of about 10,000, angered by the dog attack, converged on the Huangshi city government and party offices, smashing windows and property, Wen Wei Po said. A Huangshi hotel employee who gave only her surname, Li, also said that about 10,000 people participated. The crowd wrecked more than 10 vehicles, the newspaper said. The city government in Huangshi, some 600 km (370 miles) west of Shanghai, appealed for calm on Tuesday. "The city party committee and government call on the entire city to make clear the distinction between right and wrong, keep calm, and not be poisoned and bewitched by a small number of people with ulterior motives," it said on a government Web site. Hotel employee Li corroborated the Wen Wei Po's report on the reason for the protest. Several other residents said the case was too sensitive to comment upon. Li said there were rumours that people had been paid to take part. "These people were really fierce. I think there must be someone or some group behind it, otherwise the common people would not care about such government affairs," she said. But postings on the online bulletin board denied the demonstrators had been hired. Calls to the Huangshi government office authorised to comment on the violence went unanswered. Other officials declined comment. Land disputes, corruption, abuse of power and a widening rich-poor gap have led to a rise in the number of protests in recent years. A Hong Kong newspaper quoted the Minister of Public Security as saying there were more than 74,000 last year alone. The protesters blocked the highway between Huangshi and Wuhan, and stopped traffic on a bridge, the city government said on its Web site, quoting the Huangshi Daily. The government urged the people not to spread rumours about the incident and called for stability. But it warned it would "resolutely and severely" punish people involved in the attack. -------- iraq IRAQ: US $20 billion needed for electricity projects in next five years. 09 Aug 2005 06:16:17 GMT Source: IRIN http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/984e51bc93371a18245657eb66a53a34.htm BAGHDAD, 8 August (IRIN) - Iraq has been in intensive discussions with major Western donors to accelerate disbursement of billions of dollars of pledges for electricity projects, designated as priority needs to speed up reconstruction, the country's electricity minister said. "We are going to the big donor countries like Japan, Germany and Iran and even the Kuwait Fund, there are amounts which we can utilise to put a basic foundation for the electricity sector which needs huge amounts," Iraqi Electricity Minister Mohsen Shlash told IRIN in the Jordanian capital, Amman during a recent stopover. "When we are talking to countries we are not asking for US $100 to $120 million from every country," he said. "It's several billion from every country." All the funds for electricity projects in Iraq's 2005 budget had been used up, Shlash said. He added that the country's strategy was to rely on donors to finance an estimated US $20 billion worth of projects earmarked for completion by 2010 to end power shortages and raise capacity to 18,000 megawatts. Shlash said despite ongoing sabotage, electricity supplies were expected to reach 6,000 megawatts in August surpassing the pre-war levels that fluctuated between 3,000 to 4,400 megawatts. This was due to more hydroelectric power generated under a recent accord with Turkey that increased the flow of water from the Euphrates to Iraqi dams, generating at least an extra 500 megawatts along with higher imports from, Iran, Syria and Turkey. "Now there are no funds in the budget at all, it's finished. The only thing that is left are the long term soft loans and this is what we are working on seriously with the Japanese, Iranians, Germans and Kuwaitis to secure," Shlash said. The Germans, for the first time since the 2003 war, had promised as much as $1 billion in soft loans after a recent visit to Berlin, Shlash said. The minister added that most of the $3.5 billion pledged by Japan would be allocated to power projects, while new agreements with Iran could utilise as much as $2-3 billion in loans for projects that would be executed by Iranian companies. "We found responsiveness – this is the first time Germany will join the donors," Shlash said. "Iran pledged US $1 billion for all of Iraq and they promised us maybe $2-3 billion for electricity projects on condition they construct the plants," he explained. Over 1,000 megawatts would be supplied by Iran through nine border links by next summer against 145 megawatts now supplied through a cable near the northern district of Khaniqeen, along the border. But sabotage by insurgents continued to be a main obstacle to resolving Iraq's chronic electricity shortages, Shlash said. "Unfortunately we are facing intensive sabotage and it's clear they are feeling an improvement in electricity – intensifying sabotage of towers and lines that link to Baghdad," he said. "I wouldn't be surprised if they have people inside the sector and even within the security circle inside the grid. We need to have people to cooperate and inform us about anything they suspect." Baghdad's six million residents were getting around 1,650 megawatts of electricity with three hours on followed by three hours off. With sabotage it was reduced to two hours on. The capital needs at least 2,500 megawatts of supplies, Shlash said. The Iraqi official criticised local councils in some parts of the country who were intentionally drawing more electricity at the expense of other less endowed regions. "We warned the local councils and governors several times but they are not cooperating with us," he said. "They try to get more electricity than their share and are affecting other regions and they even lifted the equipment from our control division that organises the electricity supply schedule in Iraq." But Shlash struck an optimistic note for next year, saying supplies could rise to at least 8,000 megawatts, which is close to what is required on a daily basis. The new supplies would come from delayed projects including a new 500 megawatt 10 unit gas turbine plant in Musayab in Babylon governorate, south of Baghdad, constructed by US firm South Texas - STIC. Other major power plants of Nasiriyah in the south, Musayab, Baiji and Baghdad's Dura will be rehabilitated by the end of the year, the official said. -------- latin america U.S. Threatens to Pull Venezuela Drug War Certification Reactions to Venezuelan Government’s Split with the DEA By Dan Feder Special to The Narco News Bulletin August 9, 2005 http://www.narconews.com/Issue38/article1401.html United States “anti-drug” policy faces a major setback in Venezuela this week, and the drug warriors are loosening their ties as the heat rises. At the State Department’s press briefing yesterday, Deputy Spokesman Adam Ereli responded to Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez’s warnings on Sunday that Venezuela would no longer work with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. Chávez said that, far from abandoning efforts to combat trafficking and money laundering in his own country, his government had decided that – as Narco News has reported for over five years – the DEA’s war on drugs has nothing to do with actually shutting down the business, but is rather part of a strategy of political intervention in Latin American affairs. Ereli’s limp response was to charge that Venezuela’s statements about DEA crimes are merely noise designed to distract from what he said was the country’s own increasingly poor performance on drug control, a claim which the U.S. government’s own past statements and reports show to be untrue. Ereli furthermore revived one of the U.S.’s oldest political weapons in the drug war, threatening to end Venezuela’s certification as a country participating in anti-drug efforts. Ereli told the press in Washington: Well, first of all, the accusations that somehow the Drug Enforcement Agency is involved in espionage are baseless. There’s no substance or justification for them. And as for reports that Venezuela is going to end cooperation with the Drug Enforcement Agency on fighting drug trafficking, those are certainly regrettable. First of all, cooperating in the fight against illicit drug trade is beneficial to both United States and to Venezuela and failure to cooperate only benefits narcotraffickers. Second of all, we, for our part, want to continue counternarcotics cooperation but I would note that over the past several months, we’ve seen a steady deterioration in the Government of Venezuela’s commitment on this front. Looking ahead, I mean obviously, a decision—if Venezuela did indeed go forward with severing this or ending cooperation, that would obviously have an impact on deliberations concerning our annual decision-making process regarding Venezuela’s counternarcotics cooperation efforts under the International Narcotics Control Act. If Venezuela has been “steadily deteriorating” in its anti-narcotics work, why are we just hearing about it now? U.S. officials jump at the chance to disparage the Venezuelan government, consistently repeating allegations with “no substance or justification,” by any standard, that Chávez funds Colombian rebel groups or engineers protests in Bolivia or any number of other claims. So why wasn’t the U.S. making a stink about this earlier? The fact is that the U.S. has repeatedly, though without much fanfare, recognized the success of the Chávez government in this area, despite some law enforcement corruption problems similar to those that affect all countries through which narco-dollars move. Some key excerpts from the State Department’s International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR) for 2005: Cocaine seizures during the first six months of 2004 equaled the amount seized in Venezuela during all of 2003, thanks in large part to two multi-ton seizures made by Venezuelan task forces that worked closely with USG and UK law enforcement. The GOV also carried out some 400 cocaine and heroin seizures during the first half of the year. Several important cocaine and heroin trafficking organizations were effectively attacked during 2004, and several important extraditions were made.… The GOV recognizes that drug consumption is high in Venezuela and is working hard to reduce it. There are dozens of private, state, and NGO demand reduction and treatment groups in Venezuela. These are organized into larger associations that meet and cooperate on a regular basis. By law, all private companies employing more than 200 workers must donate one percent of their profit to public awareness and demand reduction programs. There is no shortage of resources in Venezuela for demand reduction.… DEA and British law enforcement work closely with vetted GOV counternarcotics units. These units continue to be very successful, not only in seizing multi-ton loads of cocaine, but also in breaking apart the organizations that traffic drugs in and through Venezuela. The GOV affords complete operational latitude to these vetted units. And as Gregory Wilpert reports in Venezuelanalysis.com: According to the 2003 annual report of the U.S. Embassy in Venezuela, drug interdiction efforts in Venezuela increased dramatically when Chavez came into office. For example, the interdiction of cannabis more than doubled in the first four years of Chavez’s presidency, relative to the four years prior to his presidency. Also, the interdiction of heroin more than tripled in this time period. The U.S. Embassy stopped posting annual drug control reports on its website in 2003. According to this last report, the Venezuelan government managed to improve its drug control work despite the political upheavals that took place in 2002. “the number of interdictions was high, to a large degree thanks to the implementation of a variety of new programs.” As for the certification process that Ereli alluded to, the record is pretty clear that “certification” from the U.S. on either drugs or human rights is essentially a political exercise, meant to reward countries cooperating with U.S. interests and pressure those from whom the U.S. wants certain concessions. Colombia is a perfect example of this; see this interview with former Colombian Attorney General Gustavo de Greiff in the Mexican newspaper Por Esto!: The government most interested and invested in the policy of the drug war and at the same time is its grand promoter, he said, is the United States government, which has used the policy to subjugate the countries of Latin America. On one end they use the “de-certification” process. De Greiff notes: “They’ve used this on multiple occasions as a threat when U.S. conditions that have nothing to do with the drug war are imposed, as was the case in 1995 when the U.S. Ambassador in Colombia conditioned that country’s certification on changes in a banana export agreement with Europe.” On the other end they use political and military intervention, more and more, to try and maintain domination and protect the warehouse of cheap natural resources for the United States. (See also this 2002 report by Al Giordano on a typical case of certification hypocracy in Mexico.) In fact, coincidentally enough, Colombia’s “human rights certification” has just been approved after nearly a year-long holdup (see this report at the Center for International Policy for more details). And after those chummy moments between Bush and Uribe in Crawford, Texas, you can bet Colombia ain’t gonna have too many problems with its drug war certification for a while either. Never mind that, among other things, the new “peace and justice law” in Colombia is essentially encouraging paramilitary traffickers to sell off their cocaine stocks, safe in the knowledge that they will be able to hold on to their profits while they legally reenter society. On the one hand, the “de-certification” threat is a pathetic one, as it appeals to the old logic that a country had to bend over backwards to win approval from the U.S. in order to maintain international legitimacy. Chávez has been one of the principal people to break that trance, and such a move won’t faze him or his supporters. But read between the lines and there is the further threat of violence that Chávez has so often denounced and U.S. officials so indignantly dismiss. The United States has only ever denied counter-narcotics certification to two Latin American countries. One is Colombia. The other is Panama, and that certification denial was quickly followed by a bloody U.S. invasion. ---- U.S. denies Venezuela spy allegations By UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL Published August 9, 2005 http://www.wpherald.com/storyview.php?StoryID=20050809-111956-6136r CARACAS, Venezuela -- The United States denies using the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency to spy on Venezuela as asserted by its president, Hugo Chavez. U.S. State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said Chavez was trying to cover up the fact that Venezuela was not as committed to combating drug trafficking as it was in the past, El Nacional newspaper reported Tuesday. "The motivation is an effort to detract from the government's increasingly deficient record of cooperation," said Ereli. On Sunday, the Venezuela president said that the DEA was using its cover as drug trafficking investigators to "carry out intelligence" of the president and Venezuelan government, El Universal newspaper reported Monday. He said the country would sever ties with the DEA completely. Relations between the United States and Venezuelan have been tense in recent years. The leftist Venezuelan leader maintains that Washington is intent on forcing his removal from office by supporting opposition political groups and promoting instability. Chavez also accused the United States of playing a role in the April 2002 coup that deposed him briefly. The White House denies being involved in any plot to overthrow Chavez. -------- pacific Mathematician reveals flaws in Japan's war code By Judy Skatssoon for Science Online Tuesday, August 9, 2005. 7:07pm (AEST) http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200508/s1433847.htm The Japanese Navy was brought down by a fatal flaw in its secret war code that Allied code breakers exploited during the Pacific War, an Australian mathematician has revealed. Dr Peter Donovan, a senior lecturer at the University of New South Wales, says he is the first to identify the truth about Japan's operational code JN-25 since archives became available in 1975. Dr Donovan discussed his discovery ahead of Australia's 60th anniversary of Victory in the Pacific Day on August 15. He has discovered that the cipher used groups of numbers that were multiples of three. For instance, he says 0009 may have stood for a certain type of fuel oil. "The truth was that having multiples of three in the code book was a flawed process which was systematically exploited by the Allies," he said. Secret revealed The US, Australia and Britain had originally decided to keep the code-breaking secret for ever but this decision was reversed, giving Dr Donovan and his colleagues access to reams of previously unseen archives. Having a recognisable pattern made it easy for Allied code busters, including a team of 10 Australians working from a converted office block in Melbourne, to decipher encoded messages between Japanese navy ships. "Recognising that pattern and putting an awful lot of time into it, [the code] became breakable," he said. The Japanese Navy introduced JN-25 in 1939. By 1940, British computer scientist and code breaker Alan Turing, who cracked the code used by German submarines in the Atlantic, had worked it out. By 1942, the Allies were beginning to read the code, the next stage after cracking it. By that time the Japanese had revised the code several times, but it was still based on the same flawed code book. Cracking the code came too late to prevent Pearl Harbour in 1941 but it gave the Allies a leg-up in the Coral Sea Battle of 1942 and provided knowledge about the Japanese advance in what was then New Guinea in the same year. Dr Donovan says it also made it possible for the Allies to ambush and sink Japanese aircraft carriers in the crucial Battle of Midway in 1942. Code breakers At the peak of activity around 35,000 people were engaged in Allied code breaking. During the Pacific War this involved intercepting Japanese radio waves and using a machine made from old cash register parts in the deciphering process. None of these devices are believed to remain today but Dr Donovan has made a working model. "It's just wheels turning and being pushed by rods and you win when you've got the right pattern of colours," he said. He says the old codes and the methods used to break them are now obsolete thanks to advances in technology and code breaking techniques. New codes, for example those used to send banking information over telephone wires, are virtually unbreakable. "The old codes are totally dead," he said. "The modern codes are essentially uncrackable, which is why no sane person would ever re-invent JN-25." Dr Donovan reported his finding in a paper published in the journal Cryptologia and is writing a book on the subject. -------- prisoners of war Lack of Abu Ghraib abuse charges queried By UPI Aug 9, 2005, 19:00 GMT http://news.monstersandcritics.com/northamerica/printer_1040086.php WASHINGTON, DC, United States (UPI) -- Human rights groups are questioning why no civilian contractors have been charged with abuses at Baghdad`s Abu Ghraib prison. A Pentagon investigation last year said \"several of the alleged perpetrators of the abuse of detainees\" were private contractors, but noted they may not be subject to criminal prosecution because of the legal vacuum created during the U.S. administration of Iraq. The study covers the period from the start of May 2003 to the end of October 2004, and acknowledges employees of private contractors were directly involved in interrogating Iraqi detainees, the Financial Times reported. \"To date, no charges have been filed, however the cases remain under active investigation by the (Department of Justice),\" the report said. Six U.S. soldiers have pleaded guilty to abuse, and two others have been convicted at courts-martial. -------- space India To Set Up Military SBS System By 2007 India does not want to rely on foreign suppliers New Delhi (SPX) Aug 09, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/news/india-05zq.html India is building up a satellite-based Military Surveillance and Reconnaissance (SBS) System, which will become operational by 2007. "The program is in the advanced stages of development and is planned to be operational by 2007," Indian Defense Minister Pranab Mukherjee said in Parliament Thursday. Mukherjee's comments assume significance as the project- a joint venture between the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) and the Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO)- had recently received a setback. The system was to be operational by 2005 but the defense minister said validation of technologies had taken more time than anticipated. Though ISRO and DRDO officials were tightlipped about the project, experts said the set up of extensive ground-based surveillance systems, hooked up to the country's remote sensing satellites, would enable the country to keep a watch on all explosive spots, missile silos, any movements in the neighborhood, as well as sudden military build-ups. ---- EU clears Boeing/Lockheed Martin space launch joint venture BRUSSELS (AFP) Aug 09, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/050809164322.2k2982ic.html The European Union's executive commission said Tuesday that it has cleared a joint venture in space launch services between US defence contractors Lockheed Martin and Boeing. The commission, which polices competition issues in the EU, said the creation of the partnership -- named the United Launch Alliance -- would not "significantly impede competition" in the 25-nation block. ULA is structured as a 50-50 percent joint venture and will incorporate the production, engineering, test and launch operations of rockets for the US government. The commission said the venture did not have a "direct impact on customers" in the EU. -------- spies CIA asked us to let nuclear spy go, Ruud Lubbers claims By Expatica News 08/09/05 "EN" http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9717.htm AMSTERDAM — The CIA asked the Netherlands not to detain Pakistani scientist Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan for stealing nuclear secrets from a Dutch facility, former Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers has claimed. Speaking on Dutch radio programme Argos on Tuesday morning, Lubbers said the Dutch authorities held off from taking action against Khan in 1975 and 1986 because the US security agency wanted to gain more information about the scientist's activities. Khan was hailed a national hero in Pakistan in 1997 when the then prime minister Nawaz Sharif announced that the country possessed nuclear weapons. It emerged later that Khan also headed a clandestine network that sold on nuclear know-how to Libya, North Korea and Iran. Although there was mounting evidence of Khan's illicit activities by 2001, this was only made public in 2004. Born in Bhopal, Khan trained as a metallurgist in Germany. From May 1972 to December 1975 he was employed by Physics Dynamic Research Laboratory (also known as FDO), an engineering firm based in Amsterdam and a subcontractor to the URENCO consortium specialising in the manufacture of nuclear equipment. Urenco's primary enrichment facility was in Dutch city of Almelo, near the German border. Khan had an office there by late 1974, the website of globalsecurity.org says. In early 1976, Khan left the Netherlands with secret Urenco blueprints for an uranium centrifuge. He was convicted in absentia by a court in the Netherlands in 1983 for stealing the designs. The conviction was later overturned on a technicality. Lubbers was the longest serving prime minister in the Netherlands (1982 - 1994). He was appointed UN High Commissioner for Refugees in 2001 but resigned last February due to sexual harassment allegations. He told the radio station that when Minister of Economic Affairs in 1975 he discussed the Khan case with US officials. The Americans, Lubbers said, suggested blocking Khan's access to Urenco would be sufficient. As Prime Minister in the mid 1980s Lubbers again raised the issue as the CIA had been monitoring Khan for 10 years, without any obvious breakthrough in the investigation. Again the Americans did not want action taken against Khan, Lubbers said. -------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE -------- courts / tribunals Secret courts for terror cases Security-cleared judges would decide how long suspects could be held Alan Travis, home affairs editor Tuesday August 9, 2005 The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/attackonlondon/story/0,16132,1545404,00.html?gusrc=rss Special anti-terror courts sitting in secret to determine how long suspects should be detained without charge are now under active consideration, it emerged yesterday. Home Office sources confirmed that ministers are considering making a French-style "security-cleared judge" responsible for assembling a pre-trial case against terrorist suspects, with in-camera access to sensitive intelligence evidence, including currently inadmissible phone-tap evidence. The plan under consideration, which echoes elements of David Blunkett's proposal last year for secret anti-terrorist courts, could also involve the use of security-vetted "special advocates" as legal representatives of those detained. But they would not be able to disclose the nature of the evidence under which their clients were held before being charged. The proposal puts flesh on the point outlined by Tony Blair last Friday, when he said that part of the new anti-terror package would include "a new court procedure which would allow a pretrial process". He said it would provide a way of meeting requests by the police and security services that detention before charge should be extended from the current 14 days up to three months. It was also confirmed yesterday that the prime minister's plan to ban Hizb-ut-Tahrir and its successor organisation, al-Muhajiroun, the two Islamist extremist organisations with the highest profile in Britain, is likely to need primary legislation before it can be enforced, as neither group is officially considered a terrorist organisation. Whitehall sources said that the current Terrorism 2000 Act only allows "terrorist" organisations to banned; for Hizb-ut-Tahrir to be proscribed, legislation to extend the definition to radical extremist groups as well will be required. It is not known at present how "extremist" will be defined, and whether it would catch groups such as the British National party. The list of "unacceptable behaviours" published by the Home Office includes fomenting terrorism, advocating violence and expressing "extreme views that are in conflict with the UK's culture of tolerance". In a BBC2 interview broadcast last night, President Per vez Musharraf of Pakistan called for Britain to ban both organisations, saying they had issued an edict calling for his assassination. Australia also announced an investigation into Hizb-ut-Tahrir. The decision to adopt secret anti-terrorist courts will mark a huge departure from England's centuries old "adversarial" system of justice. In France, where an inquisitorial system is used, an examining magistrate hears evidence from witnesses and suspects, orders searches and authorises warrants, before deciding if there is a valid case. The approach was recommended by Lord Newton's committee of privy councillors in December 2003 as an alternative to Belmarsh detentions in cases where a conventional trial was not possible. He said the approach could deal with the risk that prosecution would lead to the need to disclose sensitive material, and the risk that intelligence-based evidence might be excluded because of the rules of admissibility. Roger Smith, director of Justice, the all-party law reform group, said there were enormous dangers in using "preventitive detention" and in not disclosing the case against somebody held without charge. "How does a person refute the allegation against them if they do not know what that allegation is?" he asked. The official reviewer of the government's anti-terrorist legislation, Lord Carlile QC, yesterday endorsed the Newton approach. But the Liberal Democrat peer warned that the current attempt to charge three prominent radical Islamists with treason was unlikely to proceed. Senior figures from the Crown Prosecution Service are to meet Scotland Yard officers this week to see if it is possible to charge the three radicals with a range of offences, including solicitation to murder as well as treason. The Treason Act was last used to hang the wartime Nazi propagandist William Joyce, alias Lord Haw-Haw, in the 1940s. It emerged last night that Omar Bakri Mohammed, the radical cleric who claimed that the British government and public were to blame for last month's London bombings, has left the UK for Lebanon. ---- 650 years of treason law By Nigel Morris Published: 09 August 2005 UK Independent http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/legal/article304644.ece Launching court cases under the Treason Act would mean dusting down legislation so venerable that it was originally written in Norman French. The threat by the Crown Prosecution Service to use the medieval statute against so-called "preachers of hate" in the 21st century has startled politicians, lawyers and human rights groups. * 1351 The Treason Act was passed by the English Parliament during the reign of Edward III, shortly after the start of the Hundred Years' War against France. It established offences of high treason, punishable by execution and the forfeiture of all property to the Crown, and of petty treason. A person was guilty of high treason if he plotted the death of the sovereign, waged war against the crown or gave "aid and comfort" to the monarch's enemies. Petty treason was defined as offences against a person's superior, such as a servant killing their master or a wife her husband. * 1535 Sir Thomas More, who had been Henry VIII's Lord Chancellor was found guilty of treason. He clashed with the king over his desire to break with Rome and was prosecuted over his refusal to accept Henry's claim to be head of the Church of England. The following year Anne Boleyn, Henry's second wife, was also executed for treason and adultery. * 1606 Guy Fawkes and his fellow Gunpowder Plot conspirators were hung, drawn and quartered after being caught attempting to blow up King James I at the opening of the 1605 session of Parliament. * 1848 As revolutions swept across Europe, the Treason Felony Act made it an offence, punishable by life imprisonment, to advocate abolition of the monarchy, even by peaceful means, in print. An attempt to repeal the law two years ago failed, so it still technically stands. * 1916 The Dublin-born Sir Roger Casement had been knighted by George V for his work with the Colonial Service. But he became active in the Irish Republican movement and was arrested off the coast of Co Kerry with a shipload of German arms for the Easter Rising. A campaign to save his life failed and he was hanged four months later. * 1946 William Joyce, popularly known as Lord Haw-Haw, who broadcast Nazi propaganda to Britain during the Second World War, became the last person to be hanged for treason. He was found guilty on three counts of assisting or giving comfort to the "King's enemies". * 1998 The death penalty for treason was finally abolished. The last working gallows in Britain had been quietly put out of commission five years earlier. Launching court cases under the Treason Act would mean dusting down legislation so venerable that it was originally written in Norman French. The threat by the Crown Prosecution Service to use the medieval statute against so-called "preachers of hate" in the 21st century has startled politicians, lawyers and human rights groups. * 1351 The Treason Act was passed by the English Parliament during the reign of Edward III, shortly after the start of the Hundred Years' War against France. It established offences of high treason, punishable by execution and the forfeiture of all property to the Crown, and of petty treason. A person was guilty of high treason if he plotted the death of the sovereign, waged war against the crown or gave "aid and comfort" to the monarch's enemies. Petty treason was defined as offences against a person's superior, such as a servant killing their master or a wife her husband. * 1535 Sir Thomas More, who had been Henry VIII's Lord Chancellor was found guilty of treason. He clashed with the king over his desire to break with Rome and was prosecuted over his refusal to accept Henry's claim to be head of the Church of England. The following year Anne Boleyn, Henry's second wife, was also executed for treason and adultery. * 1606 Guy Fawkes and his fellow Gunpowder Plot conspirators were hung, drawn and quartered after being caught attempting to blow up King James I at the opening of the 1605 session of Parliament. * 1848 As revolutions swept across Europe, the Treason Felony Act made it an offence, punishable by life imprisonment, to advocate abolition of the monarchy, even by peaceful means, in print. An attempt to repeal the law two years ago failed, so it still technically stands. * 1916 The Dublin-born Sir Roger Casement had been knighted by George V for his work with the Colonial Service. But he became active in the Irish Republican movement and was arrested off the coast of Co Kerry with a shipload of German arms for the Easter Rising. A campaign to save his life failed and he was hanged four months later. * 1946 William Joyce, popularly known as Lord Haw-Haw, who broadcast Nazi propaganda to Britain during the Second World War, became the last person to be hanged for treason. He was found guilty on three counts of assisting or giving comfort to the "King's enemies". * 1998 The death penalty for treason was finally abolished. The last working gallows in Britain had been quietly put out of commission five years earlier. -------- terrorism Hijackers 'identified pre-9/11' The remarks will fuel controversy over missed chances to prevent 9/11 9 August 2005, BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4135400.stm A year before the 9/11 attacks a secret US intelligence unit had identified four of the hijackers as likely linked to al-Qaeda, a US congressman says. But the unit's request for the FBI to be informed was turned down, according to Representative Curt Weldon. One of the men identified was said to be 9/11 ringleader Mohammed Atta. Mr Weldon has a reputation for bold statements, but his comments are being taken seriously after claims from an unnamed former intelligence official. Controversy The New York Times quotes the official as saying the programme - named Able Danger - was set up in secret by the US military's Special Operations Command. "Ultimately, Able Danger was going to give decision makers options for taking out Al-Qaeda targets," the former official said. The paper also said the former spokesman for the 9/11 Commission, Alvin Felzenberg, confirmed that members of its staff were told in 2003 about the military programme. US military officials were not able to confirm the existence of the unit. But Mr Weldon's remarks will fuel controversy over the opportunities that were missed by US government agencies to prevent the 9/11 attacks. He spoke publicly about the issue on 27 June in a little-noticed speech on the house floor, and to a local paper in his Pennsylvania constituency. He says the unit prepared a chart that included visa photographs of the four men and recommended to Special Operations Command that the FBI be informed. The course of action was said to have been rejected in part because the men were in the US on valid entry visas. -------- ENERGY Officials Earn High Marks on the Hill Bodman Hires Bush Loyalists Who Can Work Well With Members of Both Parties By Justin Blum Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, August 9, 2005; A15 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/08/AR2005080801226_pf.html In his first months on the job, Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman has created a corporate-style structure to oversee day-to-day operations, depending on a group of Bush administration loyalists and experienced energy officials to oversee a department with more than 100,000 employees and a budget of $24 billion. The group of upper-level appointees has been well received by Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill, who praise their management and openness. Several of Bodman's top staffers were heavily involved in pushing lawmakers to approve the energy bill -- one of the Bush administration's top priorities, which Congress approved last month and the president signed yesterday. "While they certainly support very strongly the president's initiatives relating to energy, they are not big ideologues," said Bob Simon, Democratic staff director for the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. "They are very interested and willing to work with both sides of the aisle on the Hill." Bodman aides said the secretary starts the week with a Monday senior leadership meeting. More than 20 top department leaders discuss current issues in their areas, such as aspects of the energy bill, crafting the department budget and the status of presidential initiatives on hydrogen or nuclear power. The meetings last for about an hour; Bodman moves the location around the building periodically to add some variety, aides said. The secretary sees the meetings as a way to learn what is going on within the department -- and to encourage communication among managers. "It's a great forum to let each other know what we're up to," said Eric Burgeson, Bodman's chief of staff. Bodman holds daily morning meetings that last about half an hour with a smaller roster of top assistants: Burgeson; Clay Sell, the deputy secretary; and Anne Womack Kolton, director of public affairs. They discuss Bodman's schedule and what's in the news related to the department. It is here that Bodman typically asks for more information on pressing topics; in recent months, his requests have been dominated by legislative developments relating to the energy bill. Here are sketches of the key players who make up Bodman's inner circle: · Sell , 38, the deputy secretary, also serves as chief operating officer with responsibility for policy and program oversight. Before taking office in March, Sell worked as a special assistant to the president for legislative affairs. He promoted the White House legislative agenda in the Senate, focusing on energy, natural resources and budget. He also was a special assistant to the president for economic policy. In that job, he was Bush's main adviser on energy and natural resources issues and coordinated the development of administration energy policy. Sell, who has worked for Republicans on Capitol Hill, got his start with the administration working on the Bush-Cheney transition team dealing with energy issues. · Burgeson , 33, assists Bodman with daily management and carrying out the secretary's policies. Before taking the job in April, he served as a special assistant to the president and associate director for presidential personnel at the White House. He was in the Energy Department under former secretary Spencer Abraham, working as a deputy chief of staff and senior policy adviser. · Kolton , 29, is Bodman's top communications adviser and accompanies him on major trips. Kolton, hired in February, worked with Bodman at the Treasury Department, where she served as director of public affairs. Kolton has strong administration ties, having worked on both the 2000 and 2004 Bush campaigns. She joined the Bush administration in 2001 as an assistant press secretary at the White House. · David K. Garman , 48, was confirmed as undersecretary in June and is responsible for energy science and environment programs. His portfolio includes research and development, environmental cleanup and radioactive waste management. An Energy Department official from Bush's first term in office, Garman served as assistant secretary for energy efficiency and renewable energy. He has worked for several senators and Senate committees. · Molly K. Williamson , 59, became senior foreign policy adviser in March. She previously worked as interim ambassador in Bahrain and served as a deputy assistant secretary of commerce, responsible for advancing trade relations with a number of countries. Williamson also served as a principal deputy assistant secretary of state, responsible for programs affecting various U.N. matters, and as deputy assistant secretary of defense, working on foreign policy issues in the Middle East. · Linton F. Brooks , 66, is administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, a job he began on an acting basis in 2002 before being confirmed to the post in 2003. He oversees an agency that handles the Energy Department's nuclear security responsibilities. Brooks had previously worked in several other government jobs dealing with nuclear weapons and national security. · Jill Sigal , 44, is assistant secretary of energy for congressional and intergovernmental affairs. Before assuming the post on an acting basis in 2005, Sigal held other positions in the department, including deputy assistant secretary for environment and science and principal deputy assistant secretary. -------- alternative energy Power Purchase Pact Signed for World's Largest Solar Facility ROSEMEAD, California, August 9, 2005 (ENS) http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/aug2005/2005-08-09-09.asp#anchor1 A massive, 4,500 acre solar generating station may soon be built 70 miles northeast of Los Angeles in Southern California. When completed, the proposed power station would be the world's largest solar facility, capable of producing more electricity than all other U.S. solar projects combined. Southern California Edison (SCE), the nation's leading purchaser of renewable energy, and Stirling Energy Systems today signed a 20 year power purchase agreement for the electricity to be generated by the facility. The agreement is subject to California Public Utilities Commission approval. Plans call for development of a 500 megawatt (MW) solar project using innovative Stirling dish technology. The agreement includes an option to expand the project to 850 MW. One MW is roughly enough electricity to power 400 typical homes. Initially, Stirling would build a one MW test facility using 40 of the company's 37 foot diameter dish assemblies. Subsequently, a 20,000 dish array would be constructed near Victorville, California, during a four year period. "At a time of rising fossil-fuel costs and increased concern about greenhouse-gas emissions, the Stirling project would provide enough clean power to serve 278,000 homes for an entire year," said SCE Chairman John Bryson. "Edison is committed to facilitating development of new, environmentally sensitive, renewable energy technologies to meet the growing demand for electricity here and throughout the U.S," he said. Although Stirling dish technology has been successfully tested for 20 years, the SCE-Stirling project represents its first major application in the commercial electricity generation field. Experimental models of the Stirling dish technology have undergone more than 26,000 hours of successful solar operation. A six-dish model Stirling power project is currently operating at the Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico. "We are especially pleased about the financial benefits of this agreement for our customers and the state," said Alan Fohrer, SCE chief executive officer. "The contract requires no state subsidy and provides favorable pricing for ratepayers because tests have shown the Stirling dish technology can produce electricity at significantly lower costs than other solar technologies." The Stirling dish technology converts thermal energy to electricity by using a mirror array to focus the Sun's rays on the receiver end of a Stirling engine. The internal side of the receiver then heats hydrogen gas which expands. The pressure created by the expanding gas drives a piston, crank shaft, and drive shaft assembly much like those found in internal combustion engines but without igniting the gas. The drive shaft turns a small electricity generator. The entire energy conversion process takes place within a canister the size of an oil barrel. The process requires no water and the engine is free of emissions. Tests conducted by SCE and the Sandia National Laboratories have shown that the Stirling dish technology is almost twice as efficient as other solar technologies such asparabolic troughs which use the sun's heat to create steam that drives turbines similar to those found in conventional power plants, and photovoltaic cells which convert sunlight directly into electricity by means of semiconducting materials like those found in computer chips. An Edison International company, Southern California Edison is one of the nation's largest electric utilities, serving a population of more than 13 million via 4.6 million customer accounts in a 50,000-square-mile service area within central, coastal and Southern California. -------- OTHER -------- environment Energy Bill: Fueling Corporations/Depleting Native Lands Tuesday, August 9th, 2005 Demoracy Now! http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/08/09/143202 The recently signed energy bill means more benefits for energy companies and a revival for the nuclear power industry. Also included is a provision changing how energy development decisions are made on Native American lands. We speak with Karen Wayland with the Natural Resources Defense Council and Clayton Thomas-Muller with the Indigenous Environmental Network. [includes rush transcript] Yesterday, President Bush signed a massive energy bill at the Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Bush had traveled from his ranch in Crawford, Texas in order to sign the $14.5 billion dollar bill which is the first major overhaul of the nation's energy policies in 13 years. * President Bush, "The bill will allow America to make cleaner and more productive use of our domestic energy resources including coal and nuclear power and oil and natural gas. By using more of these reliable resources to supply more of our own energy we'll reduce our reliance on energy from foreign countries and that'll help our economy grow so people can work." Energy executives and industry lobbyists have been working on variations of this bill for five years. In fact, the legislation grew out of a task force led by Vice President Dick Cheney, the former CEO of Halliburton. The Cheney Energy Task Force, which was formed in 2001, was charged with developing a national energy policy. Some documents released under court order showed that the task force met exclusively with industry executives. Supporters of yesterday's energy bill, which was passed with bi-partisan support, claim that the new law will refocus the country's energy priorities and promote cleaner and alternative sources of energy. Critics however point out that the bill gives huge tax breaks and subsidies to energy companies that are already enjoying record-high profits. And as crude oil prices reached a new high above $63 dollars a barrel yesterday, they point out that the energy bill does nothing that would impact today's energy prices or promote sustainable energy by decreasing dependence on oil imports. The bill also revives the nuclear power industry by giving loan guarantees for builders of nuclear power plants. No new nuclear plants have been built in the U.S since the 1970s, reflecting intense public skepticism about the safety and costs of nuclear power. The energy bill also has major implications for Native Americans living on reservations. Some Indian leaders have praised the law, which creates an Office of Indian Energy Policy & Programs at the Department of Energy. The office is supposed to increase the supply of electricity to reservation homes and businesses. However, other leaders and activists denounce the law for allowing further exploitation of Native energy resources through provisions for sending nuclear waste to reservations and renewing uranium mining on Indian land. The Indigenous Environmental Network, a Native grassroots organization, said the energy bill "poses threats to our lands, people and culture." And on this 60th anniversary of the U.S. bombing of Nagasaki, the first new nuclear power plants to be built in 30 years will likely be sited on reservations as well. Title V Section of the bill deals directly with energy development on Indian lands, including Alaska. Native activists condemn Title V for the dramatic changes it brings to how energy development decisions are made in Indian Country. The provision releases the federal government of its traditional "trust responsibility" to tribes in the negotiation and enforcement of energy development agreements. Some tribal activists fear unfair deals will be made between powerful energy corporations and tribal governments. * Karen Wayland, Legislative Director of the Natural Resources Defense Council * Clayton Thomas-Muller, Native Energy Organizer at the Indigenous Environmental Network RUSH TRANSCRIPT AMY GOODMAN: Yesterday, President Bush signed a massive energy bill at the Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Bush had traveled from his ranch in Crawford, Texas, in order to sign the $14.5 billion bill, which is the first major overhaul of the nation's energy policies in 13 years. PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: This bill will allow America to make cleaner and more productive use of our domestic energy resources, including coal and nuclear power and oil and natural gas. By using these reliable sources to supply more of our own energy, we’ll reduce our reliance on energy from foreign countries, and that will help this economy grow, so people can work. AMY GOODMAN: Energy executives and industry lobbyists have been working on variations of this bill for five years. In fact, the legislation grew out of a task force led by Vice President Dick Cheney, the former C.E.O. of Halliburton. The Cheney Energy Task Force, which was formed in 2001, was charged with developing a national energy policy. Some documents released under court order show the task force met exclusively with industry executives. Supporters of yesterday’s energy bill, which was passed with bipartisan support, claimed the new law will refocus the country's energy priorities and promote cleaner and alternative sources of energy. Critics, however, point out the bill gives huge tax breaks and subsidies to energy companies that are already enjoying record high profits, and as crude oil prices reached a new high, above $63 a barrel Monday, they point out the energy bill does nothing that would impact today’s energy prices or promote sustainable energy by decreasing dependence on oil imports. The bill also revives the nuclear power industry by giving loan guarantees for builders of nuclear power plants. No new nuclear power plants have been built in the U.S. since the 1970s, reflecting intense public skepticism about the safety and cost of nuclear power. We're joined in our D.C. studio by Karen Wayland, Legislative Director of the National Resources Defense Council. Welcome to Democracy Now! KAREN WAYLAND: Good morning. Thank you. It’s actually Natural Resources Defense Council. AMY GOODMAN: Natural Resources Defense Council. Can you talk about the significance of this energy bill? KAREN WAYLAND: Well, Congress only gets to write energy legislation about once every decade, once every 15 years, and so what the Congress passed right now is going to set our energy policy for the next generation at least, and it is a huge missed opportunity, because it really is the same old same old. It gives huge subsidies and incentives to the conventional energy production and misses great opportunities to really shift the direction of energy policy towards clean, renewable sources that will decrease our dependence on foreign oil. AMY GOODMAN: I just wanted to let people know that the shuttle just landed, as we broadcast live today. The shuttle just landed in California. Talk more about who influenced this bill. KAREN WAYLAND: Well, it's clear when you look at public opinion, over 80% of the American public is worried about our dependence on oil. You've got national security experts on the right talking about our dependence on oil. We have seen editorials across the country saying that we need a new direction in energy policy, and they're all saying that this energy bill misses the mark. So you have to ask yourself who Congress listened to when they were writing this bill, and if you look at the beneficiaries of the bill, the oil, gas, nuclear, and coal industries are receiving billions of dollars in tax breaks and subsidies, and I think that if you look at campaign contributions, you know, the oil and gas industry gave millions of dollars in campaign contributions over the last five to seven years, and I think they have gotten a very good return on their investment with the billions they're getting back with this energy bill. AMY GOODMAN: I also wanted to talk about the effect on Native America of this energy bill. The energy bill that was signed yesterday has major implications for Native Americans on reservations. Some Indian leaders have praised the law, which creates an Office of Indian Energy Policy & Programs at the Department of Energy. The office is supposed to increase the supply of electricity to reservation homes and businesses. But other leaders and activists denounced the law for allowing for further exploitation of native energy resources through provisions for sending nuclear waste to reservations and renewing uranium mining on Indian land. The Indigenous Environmental Network, which is a Native grassroots organization, said the energy bill, quote, “poses threats to our lands, people, and culture.” And on the 60th anniversary of the U.S. bombing of Nagasaki, the first new nuclear power plants to be built in 30 years will likely be sited on reservations, as well. Title V Section of the bill deals directly with energy development on Indian lands, including Alaska. Native activists condemned the Title V for the dramatic changes it brings to how energy development decisions are made in Indian country. The provision releases the federal government of its traditional trust responsibility to tribes in the negotiation and enforcement of energy development agreements. Some tribal activists fear unfair deals will be made between powerful energy corporations and tribal governments. We are joined on the telephone by Clayton Thomas-Muller, who is a Native energy organizer with the Indigenous Environment Network in Ottawa, Canada, but works out of Bemidji, Minnesota. Welcome, as well, to Democracy Now! CLAYTON THOMAS-MULLER: Yeah, good to be here. Thank you for having me. AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk further about the effect particularly on reservations in this country? CLAYTON THOMAS-MULLER: Well, you see, the Indian provisions within the Title V of this monstrous bill that has just been signed into law by President Bush, you know, has all types of implications for American Indians and Alaska Natives. You see, bottom line, the main thing that this Title V legislation brings to our communities is it definitely strips protections that, you know, grassroots indigenous peoples utilize to ensure their full and meaningful participation in major decisions related to energy development in our homelands. See, the energy bill, basically under the guise of tribal sovereignty, the Title V puts the responsibility of enforcement of environmental review on policy and regulations in the hands of tribal governments, and the problem with this is many tribes, you know, i.e., the energy resource tribes, the tribes of, you know, infrastructure to have these kinds of policies in place already, you know, definitely are in a position to be able to do that. However, many more of our tribes are not, and basically what this bill does is it rolls back the protections of the National Environmental Policy Act, the protections of the National Historical Preservation Act, both of which are critical pieces of legislation that grassroots indigenous peoples utilize to protect our sacred sites, and what this bill does is it puts that responsibility in the hands of tribal governments and basically puts all of the responsibility and liability on the hands of tribal governments. And the bill goes even further to provide an explicit waiver of the sacred trust obligation that this federal government has to tribes to ensure, you know, that energy development agreements between powerful corporations and tribal governments, you know, that there is a fair and equitable negotiating field. And so, tribal community members are very concerned about this bill and the implications that it brings to our homelands over the next, you know, ten years. AMY GOODMAN: Clayton Thomas-Muller, did tribes in this country lobby on this bill? CLAYTON THOMAS-MULLER: Well, definitely. You know, there was a very powerful, powerful, you know, push by the Council of Energy Resource tribes to pass this legislation through. The Indigenous Environmental Network, however, for the last three years has been supporting our grassroots community members to try and educate members of Congress about our concerns with this bill. You know, we did bring on a few occasions a couple of our frontline activists, you know, that are fighting oil and gas development, the destructive oil and gas development in our homelands, that are fighting the citing of nuclear waste facilities in their homeland to D.C. to talk about the fact that Native Americans, American Indians, Alaska Natives are not opposed to development; however, we want it done in a right way, and providing and promoting more unsustainable development in our homelands is not the right way to go about it. Unfortunately, though, we're here today where we are and having to look at other steps to move forward with with the passage of this legislation. AMY GOODMAN: We're talking to Clayton Thomas-Muller, Native energy organizer with the Indigenous Environmental Network, and Karen Wayland, Legislative Director for the Natural Resources Defense Council. Karen, can you talk about how your group, the NRDC, got the documents of energy -- of Cheney's Energy Task Force? KAREN WAYLAND: Yes, NRDC sued the administration, because the Bush-Cheney Energy Task Force had been meeting in secret to develop the administration’s energy policy, and we wanted to know who exactly the task force met with when they came up with their policy recommendations for how energy policy is going to be done in this country. The administration stonewalled, and so we had to go to court. The Sierra Club also had a separate suit against the administration. We originally got a set of documents through the first court case that showed that the task force met primarily with representatives from the oil, gas, coal and nuclear industry, and I can tell you that they were not meeting with environmental organizations during that time. We subsequently lost the second round of the case and haven't been able to get anymore documents out of the administration on how that task force proceeded. But it is quite clear from the documents that we did get that -- and if you look at the policies that came out of that task force, that the industry was writing the energy policy for this country. AMY GOODMAN: And the most important industries that lobbied? The companies? KAREN WAYLAND: I don't have the company names for you. AMY GOODMAN: We're going to go to break. When we come back, we will talk about nuclear politics and the energy bill with Karen Wayland, Legislative Director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, and Clayton Thomas-Muller, Native energy organizer with the Indigenous Environmental Network. [break] AMY GOODMAN: We continue on the energy bill that President Bush signed into law yesterday in New Mexico at Sandia National Labs. Well, we're joined by Karen Wayland, Legislative Director of Natural Resources Defense Council, and Clayton Thomas-Muller, Native energy organizer with the Indigenous Environmental Network. Karen Wayland, can you talk about nuclear power in this bill? KAREN WAYLAND: The nuclear industry gets a lot of the giveaways in this bill. In the tax section alone, they get 37% of the tax breaks, on the order of about $7 billion, and then there's another probably $5 billion in the nuclear section of the bill. So they certainly are getting a huge push. There is an attempt to get at least six nuclear power plants online over the next ten years through this bill, and also the bill restarts the United States reprocessing industry, which since the Ford administration we've had a ban on reprocessing because of the national security implications, so there are some huge policy changes for the nuclear industry in the energy bill. AMY GOODMAN: And let's talk about the issue of nuclear power on Native lands. CLAYTON THOMAS-MULLER: Hello? AMY GOODMAN: Hi, the whole issue of nuclear power on Native lands. CLAYTON THOMAS-MULLER: Well, you know, the Indigenous Environmental Network views this move to give a boost to the very destructive nuclear industry as basically nuclear colonialism of our homelands. You know, bottom line, no matter which way you cut it, nuclear energy is totally not clean, and indigenous peoples, you know, Native Americans here in the United States have suffered disproportionately as a result of this industry. You know, one only has to go to the Navajo Nation to see the legacy that uranium mining has put on the shoulders of our people. Many of our indigenous community members have worked in the uranium mines, have died, you know, way before their time as a result of working with this toxic substance. You know, bottom line in the energy bill, it promotes, you know, the expansion of nuclear power plants, the building of new nuclear power plants. And, of course, indigenous peoples being, you know, the place where a majority of the uranium in the United States is mined from our homelands, of course, we’ll see within the life cycle of this uranium a lot of impacts associated to it because of the fact that, you know, a lot of the nuclear waste in the United States is destined for the sacred homeland of the Western Shoshone and Yucca Mountain and, of course, the temporary home of this nuclear waste is being targeted for the Skull Valley Goshutes territory in Utah. And, of course, another piece of this energy bill that it contains $30 million to the uranium mining industry for research and development of the new In-situ uranium mining or solution mining, which basically one of the communities that we're supporting in the Navajo Nation is an organization called the Eastern Navajo Dine Against Uranium Mining, or ENDAUM. And they have been fighting an In-situ uranium mining company that wants to come in and inject toxic chemicals into their homeland basically to suck up the liquefied uranium out of the ground. And this kind of approach to uranium mining has all kinds of implications for that desert region. AMY GOODMAN: But Clayton Thomas-Muller, what about the ban on uranium mining? CLAYTON THOMAS-MULLER: Well, this is where it gets a little bit interesting. You see, the area that is proposed for development is all checker-boarded. In other words, there's both Native and non-Native land side by side, and this Texas-based company that wants to go in there and take the uranium out is directly challenging the Navajo Nation’s ban on uranium mining, and so it set a battleground, if you will, between the Navajo Nation’s sovereignty and this federal government, because this federal government still has what’s called plenary power. AMY GOODMAN: The name of that corporation? CLAYTON THOMAS-MULLER: I'm afraid I don't have that in front of me. But if you go and google ENDAUM, Eastern Navajo Against Uranium Mining, or go to the Nuclear Information Research Society, NIRS’ website, you can find that information out. AMY GOODMAN: Is it Peabody Coal? CLAYTON THOMAS-MULLER: No, it's not Peabody Coal. It is a uranium mining company. But basically, you know, what we see happening is, you know, not just in the Navajo Nation, but also up in Alaska, we have the Athabascan community of Galena, which has become another victim in this nuclear colonialism. They plan on building a small nuclear reactor which is actually buried 30 meters underground up there. And the way that they’re trumping this nuclear power plant that they want to build up in the Athabascan community of Galena, and they happen to be Gwich’in, many of you are aware of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Well, the community of Galena is part of the Gwich’in Nation, which has been fighting oil and gas development in that region, they want to build a nuclear reactor in their community, as well. and so this whole nuclear industry, bottom line, our position at the Indigenous Environmental Network is that it is not a solution. AMY GOODMAN: Clayton Thomas-Muller, on that note we're going to wrap up, but we’re going to continue to talk about the issue of nuclear power and nuclear weapons in our next segment, when we talk to Nagasaki. Clayton Thomas-Muller is with the Indigenous Environmental Network, Karen Wayland, Legislative Director for the Natural Resources Defense Council. I want to thank you both for joining us. -------- ACTIVISTS Military Families to Join Cindy Sheehan in Crawford; Gold Star and Military Families from Across Country on Their Way to Texas 8/9/2005 9:00:00 AM /U.S. Newswire/ http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=51471 To: National Desk Contact: Ryan Fletcher, 202-641-0277; or Dante Zappala 215-520-7040 CRAWFORD, Texas, Aug. 9 -- More members of Gold Star Families for Peace (GSFP) and Military Families Speak Out (MFSO) are traveling to Texas to join the protest outside of President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, where he is vacationing for the month of August. Starting today, Gold Star families from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Arkansas and other states whose loved ones have died as a result of the war in Iraq will be joining one of their members, Cindy Sheehan, at the protest. Ms. Sheehan, whose son Army Specialist Casey Sheehan was killed in Sadr City, Iraq on April 4, 2004, has been in Crawford since August 5th, demanding a meeting with the President. These families will be joined by military families with loved ones currently serving in Iraq or about to deploy or redeploy to Iraq. All of these families are coming to Crawford, Texas to share their stories about the personal costs of the war in Iraq and add their voices to the call for a meeting with President Bush. On August 3, 2005 President Bush, speaking about the dreadful loss of life in Iraq in early August, said "We have to honor the sacrifices of the fallen by completing the mission... The families of the fallen can be assured that they died for a noble cause." Gold Star and military families coming to Crawford know that the cause was not noble; that their loved ones died, or are currently in harm's way, serving in a war based on lies. In the first 8 days of August, 36 service members died in Iraq; countless Iraq children, women and men are dying each day. All of the families traveling to Crawford will carry the message to the vacationing President: Honor our fallen and honor our loved ones' service by ending the occupation, bringing the troops home now and taking care of them when they get here. President Bush has consistently tried to hide, and to hide from, the cost of the war in Iraq. This August, these costs are being brought right to his doorstep. Members of Gold Star Families for Peace and Military Families Speak Out who are traveling to Crawford will be available for interview beginning on Tuesday afternoon August 9th. For More Information: -- Military Families Speak Out: http://www.mfso.org -- Gold Star Families for Peace: http://www.gsfp.org ---- German anti-nuclear activists break into US base to mark Nagasaki bombing BERLIN (AFP) Aug 09, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/050809160237.cco885mg.html Three German anti-war activists broke into the US military's European headquarters and called for its closure on Tuesday to mark the 60th anniversary of the dropping of an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Nagasaki, police and activists said. The three anti-nuclear activists cut the fence surrounding the US military European headquarters (EUCOM) in the southwestern German city of Stuttgart and marked off a "human protection zone" inside the base with ribbons, said Paul Russmann of the Life Without Weapons group. The group also displayed a huge placard calling for the base's closure before leaving. German police carried out a brief identity check and then released the three, who were likely to face charges for destruction of property, said Stuttgart police spokesman Klaus-Peter Arand. A US military spokesman confirmed the incident but did not provide any details. On August 9, 1945 the United States dropped a plutonium bomb on the Japanese city of Nagasaki, three days after destroying the city of Hiroshima with a uranium bomb. ---- Musicians take anti-war message to D.C. Associated Press Tue, Aug. 09, 2005 http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/12340856.htm WASHINGTON - An eclectic lineup of punk, country and ambient musicians will gather on the National Mall in September to build support for ending the war in Iraq. Jello Biafra, formerly of the group Dead Kennedys, will host the "Operation Ceasefire" concert at the Washington Monument on September 24. Other acts include iconoclastic country crooner Steve Earle and Wayne Kramer from 1960s-era radical rockers MC5. The concert is a chance for like-minded musicians to take their anti-war message to a large audience, said organizer Eric Hilton of the experimental pop duo Thievery Corporation, which also will perform. "If it can get a few more people thinking about the issue and not just pushing it to the back of their brains, it would be a good thing," Hilton said. Hilton said he expects 30,000 to 40,000 people to attend to concert, where commentators, political figures and families of deployed troops are slated to share the stage with the musicians. The concert is part of a weekend-long series of anti-war marches and rallies in Washington that organizers have timed to coincide with International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings in the city. ON THE NET United for Peace and Justice: http://www.unitedforpeace.org/ ---- Activists object to Navy as concert sponsor Joe Garofoli, San Francisco Chronicle Staff Writer Tuesday, August 9, 2005 http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/08/09/BAGLJE50C21.DTL Anti-war activists are asking San Francisco radio station KMEL-FM to remove the U.S. Navy as a sponsor of the annual Summer Jam concert in Mountain View, saying the station is "using hip-hop to promote the military to young people of color." The high-profile event, set for Aug. 21, usually sells out the 20,000- capacity Shoreline Amphitheatre. San Francisco's Global Exchange, the group Code Pink: Women for Peace and two dozen other organizations are leading a protest at noon today in front of the San Francisco offices of Clear Channel, which owns KMEL and nine other Bay Area stations. In the weeks before the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, Clear Channel -- the nation's largest owner of radio stations -- sponsored "Rallies for America" in several U.S. cities. The conglomerate's officials defended the events as supporting the military. Anti-war activists called them "pro-war" rallies. The protesters allege in a letter they sent Clear Channel and KMEL last week that the Navy's sponsorship of the concert was an attempt to "promote the Bush administration's pro-war agenda." Clear Channel spokeswoman Gabby Medecki downplayed the sponsorship. "The decisions made for Summer Jam have all been made locally," she said, "including the decision to include the military, which has been a longtime sponsor." In the Bay Area, Clear Channel also owns KQKE-AM, which carries the liberal Air America network's talk shows, and KNEW-AM, home to conservative Michael Savage. "I think the diversity of our stations here speaks for itself," Medecki said. KMEL and Navy officials did not return calls and e-mails Monday. Clear Channel officials said the Navy and other military recruiters had sponsored the Summer Jam concert for at least 10 of its 19 years. But activists are particularly concerned this year. Only one Bay Area music station has more listeners than KMEL-FM, according to the most recent Arbitron ratings. A Clear Channel official confirmed that roughly 40 percent of the station's audience are people of color. "For many people in these communities (of color), the military is an escape from the violence they see in their neighborhoods," said Jen Low, an organizer for the protesters. With several branches of the military not reaching recruiting goals and with public opinion polls turning against President Bush's handling of the war, activists see an opportunity to show "the Navy is attempting to use any and all means to meet its goals," according to the activists' letter. They want KMEL to sever its "ties" with the Navy or grant "counter- recruitment groups equal access to the 2005 KMEL Summer Jam as that granted to the U.S Navy." Medecki said counter-recruiters were welcome to have a booth at the event at Shoreline Amphitheatre for the same price other sponsors paid -- $5,000 to $10,000. Low said the organization didn't have enough money to sponsor a booth, but it does plan to buy tickets to the show and do counter-recruiting inside. E-mail Joe Garofoli at jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com.