NucNews - December 6, 2005 -------- NUCLEAR -------- australia Nuclear power: no solution to climate change By Jim Green - posted Tuesday, 6 December 2005 http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=3906 2005 has seen the Federal Government reverse its position on climate change, accepting that its impact is severe and serious, and that fast action is imperative. But the government has diverted attention away from real solutions and Australia’s poor performance on curbing emissions by insisting that Australia consider domestic nuclear power generation. In short, the government proposes something which is currently illegal, inordinately expensive, relying on government-subsidised capital investments and too slow to respond to the immediate challenge of climate change. Now Brendan Nelson and Ian Macfarlane (science and industry and resources ministers) want to waste more time and money on a high level inquiry into the feasibility of a nuclear power industry in Australia. The nuclear debate has been based on a false claim: that nuclear power is “greenhouse-free”. Significant emissions are produced at every stage of the nuclear fuel cycle - nuclear power can only reduce greenhouse gas emissions in comparison with fossil fuels, rather than renewable energy sources and energy efficiency. As a method of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, nuclear power is further limited because it is used almost exclusively for electricity generation, which is responsible for less than one third of global greenhouse gas emissions. A doubling of nuclear power output by 2050 would only reduce greenhouse gas emissions by about five per cent - less than one tenth of the reductions required to stabilise atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases. Nuclear power relies on an exhaustible energy source. High-grade, low-cost uranium ores are limited and will be exhausted in about 50 years at the current rate of consumption. The estimated total of all conventional uranium reserves is thought to be sufficient for about 200 years at the current rate of consumption. But in a scenario of nuclear expansion, these reserves will be depleted more rapidly. Most of the Earth's uranium is found in very poor grade ores, and recovery of uranium from these ores is likely to be considerably more greenhouse intensive. And to this problem we must add the risk of accidents at nuclear plants; routine releases of radioactive gases and liquids, the intractable problem of nuclear waste and risks of terrorism and sabotage. Safety concerns at reactors are not limited to the ex-Soviet states. For example, the Japanese nuclear power industry has been in turmoil since revelations in August 2002 of 29 cases of false reporting on the inspections of cracks in numerous reactors. There have also been a number of serious accidents, some of them fatal, at nuclear reactors and other nuclear facilities in Japan in the past decade. Commercial pressures and inadequate regulation have clearly played some part in the flawed safety standards in Japan. Such pressures are by no means unique to Japan; they will intensify if liberalisation of electricity markets proceeds. Furthermore, there’s another hazard associated with nuclear power expansion on a global scale and it’s of such concern that alone it must lead to a rejection of the nuclear proposal. As the government plans to increase Australian uranium exports, it’s time we considered the established pattern of “peaceful” nuclear facilities being used for nuclear weapons research and production. The proliferation problem is profound: * of the 60 countries which have built nuclear power or research reactors, over 20 are known to have used their “peaceful” nuclear facilities for covert weapons research and or production; * four or five countries have produced nuclear arsenals under cover of a “peaceful” nuclear program - Israel, India, South Africa, Pakistan, and possibly North Korea. Others have come close - most notably Iraq from the 1970s until the 1991 Gulf War; * nuclear power programs also provide pools of expertise for weapons programs in the five major nuclear weapons states - the US, Russia, the UK, France and China. These five countries account for almost 60 per cent of global nuclear power output; * the “peaceful” nuclear power industry has produced sufficient plutonium to produce about 160,000 nuclear weapons, each with a yield similar to the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. If 99 per cent of this plutonium is indefinitely safeguarded against military use - a monumental challenge - the remaining plutonium would suffice to produce 1,600 nuclear weapons. Australian uranium has resulted in the production of over 78 tonnes of plutonium - sufficient for about 7,800 nuclear weapons, and * the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has considered a scenario involving a ten-fold increase in nuclear power over this century and calculated that this could produce 50,000 - 100,000 tonnes of plutonium. The IPCC concluded that the security threat would be "colossal". The International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) safeguards system still suffers from flaws and limitations despite improvements over the past decade. Statements from the IAEA and US President George W. Bush about the need to limit the spread of enrichment and reprocessing technology and to establish multinational control over sensitive nuclear facilities, are an effective acknowledgement of the limitations of the international non-proliferation system. The NPT enshrines an “inalienable right” of member states to all “civil” nuclear technologies, including dual-use technologies with both peaceful and military capabilities. In other words, the NPT enshrines the “right” to develop a nuclear weapons threshold or breakout capability. Nuclear smuggling - much of it from civil nuclear programs - presents a significant challenge. The IAEA's Illicit Trafficking Database records over 650 confirmed incidents of trafficking in nuclear or other radioactive materials since 1993. In 2004 alone, almost 100 such incidents occurred. Smuggling can potentially provide fissile material for nuclear weapons or a wider range of radioactive materials for use in “dirty bombs”. Civil nuclear plants are potentially attractive targets for terrorist attacks because of the importance of the electricity supply system in many societies, the large radioactive inventories in many facilities and of the potential or actual use of “civil” nuclear facilities for weapons research or production. The problem of radioactive waste management is nowhere near resolution. Not a single repository exists anywhere in the world for the disposal of high-level waste from nuclear power. Only a few countries - such as Finland, Sweden and the US - have identified potential sites for a high-level waste repository. The legal limit for the proposed repository at Yucca Mountain in the US is less than the projected output of high-level waste from the reactors currently operating in the US. If global nuclear output was increased three-fold, new repository storage capacity equal to the legal limit for Yucca Mountain would have to be created somewhere in the world every three to four years. With a ten-fold increase in nuclear power, new repository storage capacity equal to the legal limit for Yucca Mountain would have to be created somewhere in the world every single year. Whatever Bob Hawke might think on the matter, attempts to establish international repositories are likely to be as unpopular and unsuccessful as Pangea Resources’ bid to win support for such a repository in Australia. Pangea abandoned its proposal in 2002. Synroc - the ceramic waste immobilisation technology developed in Australia - seems destined to be a permanently “promising” technology. As even nuclear advocate Leslie Kemeny concedes, Synroc "... showed great early promise but so far its international marketing and commercialisation agendas have failed". Enough of the bad news: renewable energy, mostly hydroelectricity, already supplies 19 per cent of world electricity, compared to nuclear's 16 per cent. The share of renewables is increasing, while nuclear's share is decreasing. Wind power and solar power are growing by 20-30 per cent every year. In 2004, renewable energy added nearly three times as much net generating capacity as nuclear power. (In Australia, only 8 per cent of electricity is from renewable energy - down from 10 per cent in 1999.) The biggest gains are to be made in the field of energy efficiency. Energy experts have projected that adopting a national energy efficiency target could reduce the need for investment in new power stations by between 2,500 - 5,000 MW by 2017 in Australia (equal to about 2-5 large nuclear power stations). The energy efficiency investments would pay for themselves in reduced bills before a nuclear power station could generate a single unit of electricity. The Australian Ministerial Council on Energy has identified that energy consumption in the manufacturing, commercial and residential sectors could be reduced by 20-30 per cent with the adoption of current commercially available technologies with an average payback of four years. A July 2002 study by The Australia Institute (pdf file 139KB) maps out a plan to achieve a 60 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in Australia by 2050. The study envisages widespread energy efficiency measures, a major expansion of wind power, modest growth of hydroelectricity, significant use of biomass and niche applications for solar photovoltaic electricity. And in 2004, the Clean Energy Future Group - which comprises renewable energy companies and the Worldwide Fund for Nature - produced a report which details how major greenhouse gas emissions reductions can be achieved. It finds that Australia can meet our energy needs and halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2040 using a range of commercially-proven fuels and technologies. The study envisages the following energy mix by 2040: natural gas providing 30 per cent; biomass from agriculture and plantation forestry residues, 26 per cent; wind, 20 per cent; photovoltaic and solar thermal systems, 5 per cent; hydroelectricity, 7 per cent; while coal and petroleum continue to play a minor role in electricity generation. Dr Jim Green is the national nuclear campaigner for Friends of the Earth and author of the report No Solution To Climate Change (pdf file 1.98MB) launched in September 2005. -------- china FRANCE MUST IMPROVE OFFER FOR NUCLEAR REACTOR DEAL - CHINESE PM Received Tuesday, 6 December 2005 12:16:00 GMT (AFP) http://www.ttc.org/200512061216.jb6cgzx20366.htm PARIS, Dec 6 - France must improve its offer in terms of both cost and transfers of technology if it wants to win a massive contract to build third-generation nuclear reactors in China, Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao said Tuesday. "China hopes that France will offer more attractive conditions on technology transfer as well as price so that Franco-Chinese cooperation in this field can develop," Wen said on a tour of the elite Polytechnique science university in the southern Paris suburbs. The French company Areva is bidding for an eight billion dollar (6.8 billion euro) deal to construct four reactors in China, but is facing stiff competition from Westinghouse of the US as well as the Russian AtomStroyExport. China was to have announced a winner by the end of 2005, but has put off a decision till early next year in the hope of squeezing better terms from the bidders. Wen was speaking on the third day of a four-day visit to France, whose highpoint was the announcement on Monday of an order for 150 medium-range A320 airliners from the European consortium Airbus. Airbus also signed a protocol that could lead to aircraft being constructed in China. The prime minister, who has held talks in Paris with his opposite number Dominique de Villepin and President Jacques Chirac, was to fly south Tuesday afternoon to the city of Marseille where he will visit the nearby headquarters of the helicopter manufacturer Eurocopter. On Monday Eurocopter announced a 600 million euro partnership deal with China to share development and production of a new 16-seat aircraft dubbed the EC175. Wen was also to visit the site of the future experimental nuclear fusion reactor ITER, in which China is a partner, and on Wednesday tours the space-satellite facility of the telecommunications giant Alcatel at Cannes. He leaves Wednesday for Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Portugal. The prime minister's visit to the 200 year-old Polytechnique at Palaiseau was the occasion for a partnership signature with three Chinese universities for a deal that will introduce new exchange programmes and shared qualifications. "I am in a very good mood because I love to meet dynamic young people who represent the future of the world," Wen said. Quipping that student exchanges are "more important than the purchase of 150 Airbus," he said that "if economic cooperation between our countries represents the present, cultural cooperation is the future." In a speech to students, professors and business leaders, Wen sought to allay anxiety in Europe that China's fast-growing economic power is a threat to the rest of the world. "Having suffered enormously from foreign invasions, China knows the price of peace. This choice is a logical choice, imposed by China's history and culture. China's development is not a threat but an opportunity for the world," he said. Widespread fears have been expressed in France that China's low costs and poor standards of social security are sucking in economic activity and driving up unemployment in Europe, but Wen has argued that growing domestic demand in China will eventually lead to new opportunities for foreign exporters. France views China as a strategic ally in its pursuit of a "multipolar" world that is not dominated by the US. However their trade relations remain at a low level, with France supplying -- in 15th position -- only 1.4 percent of China''s foreign needs. ---- Chinese PM, on visit to France, eyes nuclear future Tue Dec 6, 2005 1:41 PM ET (AFP) http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20051206/wl_asia_afp/francechinaenergy_051206184109 CADARACHE, France - China's push to develop its nuclear technology to meet skyrocketing energy needs dominated the third day of a visit to France by Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao. He emphasized that goal on a trip to inspect the site of the future International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) to be built over the next decade in Cadarache, southern France. "The energy issue elicits great attention in the whole world, and the ITER site also attracts great attention in the world," he said as he stood on a hilltop clearing upon which will built the cutting-edge fusion reactor facility. China is one of the seven partners financing the ITER project and providing scientific staff and equipment. The others are the European Union, Japan, the United States, Russia, South Korea -- and, as of Tuesday, India. "I'll come back in 10 years," Wen quipped, referring to the scheduled date when the reactor is expected to be operational. The EU is putting up half the 4.6-billion-euro construction (5.4-billion-dollar) cost, with the rest equally divided up among the other partners. Wen added that he was "very happy to see the ITER established in France." The decision to locate the site in France was made in June after lengthy negotiations marked by strong competition to host the reactor from Japan -- China's rival in Asia. ITER aims to create fusion energy -- the same sort of process that occurs at the heart of the Sun, one that is much more powerful than in conventional nuclear power plants -- and find ways to harness it to one day supplant the world's reliance on dwindling fossil fuels. It will be home to 400 scientists, two-thirds of them foreign. The reactor is expected to have a life-span of 40 years. Alain Bugat, the head of France's Commission for Atomic Energy, the body overseeing the Cadarache site, where a much smaller fusion reactor is already located, showed Wen a model of what ITER will look like. China, Bugat told AFP, was "working out what portion of the project it is going to contribute," along with the other partners. He declined to elaborate. Beyond the research possibilities of ITER, Wen on Tuesday also made reference to France's bid to win an eight-billion-dollar (6.8-billion-euro) deal to construct four third-generation nuclear energy reactors in China. "China hopes that France will offer more attractive conditions on technology transfer as well as price so that Franco-Chinese cooperation in this field can develop," he said at an elite French science university in the southern Paris suburbs before travelling to Cadarache. The French company Areva is fighting to win the contract, but is facing stiff competition from Westinghouse of the United States as well as the Russian AtomStroyExport. China was to have announced a winner by the end of 2005 but has put off a decision till early next year in the hope of squeezing better terms from the bidders. Wen, addressing students, professors and business chiefs, insisted that his country's advances in nuclear development and other fields were not a threat, implicitly addressing fears by some analysts that China aims to become a formidable military power. "Having suffered enormously from foreign invasions, China knows the price of peace. This choice is a logical choice, imposed by China's history and culture. China's development is not a threat but an opportunity for the world," he said. The Asian giant, which has become the top target for Western companies keen to benefit from its burgeoning economy, has proved adept at making technology transfer a condition for any major deals. On Monday in Paris, Wen oversaw the signing of a Chinese order to buy 150 Airbus mid-range jets, worth nearly 10 billion dollars at list price. But the windfall for the European plane-maker only came after it committed to exploring the feasibility of setting up an assembly plant in China. Other technology products also grabbed Wen's interest. Before inspecting the ITER site, he spent 30 minutes touring the headquarters of Eurcopter, the helicopter subisidiary of the European Aeronoautic, Defence and Space (EADS) company which also has a controlling share of Airbus. On Monday Eurocopter announced a 600-million-euro partnership deal with China to share development and production of a new 16-seat aircraft dubbed the EC175. After his ITER visit, Wen went to Marseille to meet Chinese business leaders and community representatives living in France. On Wednesday, the last day of his four-day French visit, he was to tour the satellite facility of the telecommunications giant Alcatel at Cannes before leaving for Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Portugal. -------- india India, Russia sign agreements to strengthen ties Amitabh Roychowdhury in Moscow | December 06, 2005 Rediff (India) http://in.rediff.com/news/2005/dec/06pmrus2.htm Cementing their strategic partnership, India and Russia on Tuesday signed three agreements, including one on protection of intellectual property rights to regulate joint defence work. The agreements were signed after one-to-one summit talks between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Russian President Vladimir Putin, following delegation-level parleys covering areas of India's requirement of civilian nuclear energy, cooperation in space sector and ways of enhancing bilateral economic and trade ties. International terrorism and ways to combat it also figured prominently during the parleys. The agreements were signed in the presence of Dr Singh and President Putin after the talks. Besides Russia's Federal Space Agency and ISRO signing an agreement on cooperation in the field of solar physics, India and Russia signed a Technology Safeguard Agreement to operationalise the 2004 pact on joint use of space-based Global Navigational Satellite System to provide for joint development of new generation navigational satellites. One of the key agreements signed between the two sides was protection of intellectual property rights that will regulate joint defence work. "India and Russia share the perspective to move towards collaborative defence projects, designs, develop and market next generation military products," Dr Singh said at the joint conference with Putin. Putin said, "We have been successfully cooperating in nuclear energy and the Kudankulam nuclear power project is an example. We see India taking necessary steps to build relations with the Nuclear Suppliers Group." He added that India is separating military and civilian nuclear programmes and has adopted the necessary legislations, apart from actively working with NSG countries. "We consider India our strategic partner. We would work to ensure that India could cope with the tasks and goals it has set in the peaceful use of nuclear energy," he said. Putin was asked if there was any legal constraints in selling certain nuclear equipment to India and said - "We hope Russia will have the opportunity to participate in India's efforts towards peaceful use of nuclear power." Dr Singh, who along with Putin, witnessed the signing of the agreements, said the two countries have identified the Medium-Range Transport Aircraft and the Fifth Generation Aircraft as colloborative projects and discussion at the expert level would be held on them. "We had serious discussions on international and regional politics. Our approaches to resolve the problems are the same," Putin said. He said Russia and India firmly believe in building a multi-polar system of international relations. Asked about trilateral cooperation between India, Russia and China, Putin said the three nations were interested in establishing peace and stability in the Asian region. "We maintain active cooperation in bilateral, trilateral and multilateral fora. Our mechanism for cooperation on major international issues has been growing including at the ministerial level," he said. On the same question, Dr Singh said these three countries were the fastest developing economies of the world 'and, therefore, we believe there is enormous scope for cooperation between them'. About the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline project, Dr Singh said India's need for commercial energy were growing. "As most of these requirements were being met through imports, the dependency on foreign sources will increase. Therefore, we are utilising the gas available in the neighbourhood. If countries in the region can get together, then this problem will be resolved," he said. Putin said Russian experts were not only looking at constructing the Iran-India pipeline but also other gas pipelines in the region. The Sakhalin-I project, in which India has made major investment, involved a total amount of about $10 billion. "Today India has expressed interest in developing this project as well as participating in similar projects," he said. Therefore, there is every reason to expect that there are more joint projects to follow, Putin said. On Iran nuclear issue, Putin said Russia hoped that Tehran would fulfil all required international obligations on its atomic programme. "The International Atomic Energy Agency has the potential to resolve the issue and all the possibilities have not yet been exhausted. Dialogue is going on with all the countries concerned," Singh said and added that the matter could be resolved satisfactorily within the ambit of the IAEA. -------- iran IAEA Can Solve Iran's Nuclear Row with West: Putin By REUTERS Published: December 6, 2005 Filed at 9:56 a.m. ET http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-nuclear-russia-iran.html MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog has not exhausted all avenues to settle Iran's standoff with the West over its nuclear program. Underlining Moscow's opposition to Western calls to let the United Nations Security Council, Putin also said Russia was ready to help resume dialogue between Iran and the West which had broken down in August. ``We consider the potential of the IAEA (the International Atomic Energy Agency) to resolve all the problems of the Iranian nuclear dossier to be far from exhausted,'' Putin told reporters after a meeting with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Talks between Iran and the European Union aimed a defusing suspicion that Tehran planned to develop nuclear weapons broke down when Iran began processing uranium, the stage prior to uranium enrichment. Russia, which is helping Iran build a nuclear power plant, has opposed Western calls to refer the crisis immediately to the U.N. Security Council, where it has veto powers. It has instead offered to enrich Iranian uranium, a process essential for producing nuclear weapons, in Russia. Iran initially rejected the idea but Russian officials have said they were planning to continue talks with Tehran. French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said on Monday the EU trio of Britain, Germany and France were keen to give Russians and Iranians more time to discuss the Moscow's proposal. ``Russia for its part will continue to develop the dialogue between our Iranian partners and the other interested parties,'' Putin said. ---- ElBaradei: Protect Nuclear Material By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: December 6, 2005 Filed at 11:22 a.m. ET http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-UN-Nuclear-Terror.html LONDON (AP) -- The U.N. atomic agency chief urged the world Tuesday to step up efforts to protect existing nuclear material to prevent extremist groups from pursuing nuclear and radiological terrorism. Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said that in the last 10 years the IAEA has recorded more than 650 attempts to smuggle such material. ''Fortunately, only a relatively small number of these cases have involved high-enriched uranium or plutonium,'' ElBaradei said in a speech prepared for delivery at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. ''But this should not be a source of comfort. If an extremist group were to acquire nuclear or radiological material, they would not think twice about using it.'' ElBaradei said several agreements have been reached on how to enhance nuclear security, including U.N. resolution 1540, which the Security Council approved last year, and the International Convention on the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism, which was adopted a few months ago. Both call on countries to criminalize the illicit possession and use of radioactive material and aim to enhance efforts to detect and combat illicit trafficking. ''It is imperative that countries implement these measures as fully and as early as possible. We are in a race against time,'' he said. ElBaradei also urged better control of access to nuclear fuel cycle technology. He said more countries are seeking to master it for economic reasons ''and, in some cases, as a good insurance policy for a rainy day.'' Whatever the reason, the know-how essentially transforms them into a ''virtual or latent'' nuclear weapons state. Citing Iran, he also said more effective nuclear verification is needed, such as additional ''transparency measures.'' The IAEA's ''verification efforts will not be regarded as fully 'effective' as long as its inspection rights remain uneven,'' he said. Over the past three years, the IAEA has compiled a detailed picture of most aspects of Iran's nuclear program. But, ElBaradei said, ''given that the program was concealed for 20 years, and that a number of open questions remain, we asked that Iran provide additional transparency measures -- beyond the confines of the protocol -- to enable the agency to resolve these questions and to provide the required assurance about the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program.'' On Monday, Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, said the country plans to build at least one more nuclear power plant, despite the international concern over its atomic program. Larijani said in Tehran he did not expect the plan to affect nuclear talks with Europe. ''It is part of meeting our electricity needs; it is not a secret issue,'' he said. He said the two nuclear power plants would be open to international bidding. ElBaradei said that without adequate funding, the IAEA cannot make verification effective. ''IAEA verification today operates on an annual budget of about $120 million -- a budget comparable to that of the Chelsea football (soccer) club'' in England, he said. ---- EU and US policy won't stop Iran acquiring nuclear weapons BASIC on Iran From: FoE Sydney - Nuclear Campaign Date: Tue Dec 6, 2005 7:32pm MEDIA RELEASE - 6 December 2005 Transatlantic experts call for compromise and creative diplomacy to avert 'full-scale crisis' EU and US policies towards Tehran are unlikely to acheive the objective of preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, according to an expert statement published today. The statement, coordinated by the British American Security Information Council (BASIC) and issued by 50 experts in nuclear security, conflict prevention and Middle East affairs, calls on all sides in this dispute to adopt a more constructive and flexible approach. "The US and EU have to recognise the limits of their influence and their threats....Diplomacy and creative compromise on all sides are the only acceptable choice," they say. Among those who support this transatlantic initiative are:Professor Robert Hinde, chair of British Pugwash and co-author with the late Sir Joseph Rotblat of "War no more: eliminating conflict in the nuclear age"; Hans von Sponeck, Former UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq; Jack Mendelsohn, Adjunct Professor, Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University; Peggy Mason, former Chair of the UN Expert Study Group on Verification and former Canadian Ambassador for Disarmament at the UN; Dr Vladimir Orlov, Director of the Centre for Policy Studies in Moscow and a leading Russian authority on non-proliferation issues; Dr Ali Ansari, lecturer in Iranian politics and Associate Fellow at Chatham House, Air Marshall the Lord Garden, former assistant chief of defence staff and writer on security and foreign policy issues; Brian Eno, musician and writer; and Sir David Hare, leading British playwright. It is uncertain whether Tehran is seeking to acquire threshold nuclear weapons capability and experts agree that a nuclear armed Iran would be dangerous and destabilising. However the current EU/US strategy makes rigid demands of Iran without adequate treaty authority, appears discriminatory and is likely to strengthen the Iranian government's resolve to pursue nuclear technology and a weapons capability. Threats to refer Iran to the UN Security Council for punitive action lack credibility and do not have sufficient international support. Setting out ideas to take the diplomatic process forward, the statement says: "The current nuclear dispute is not the cause, but a symptom, of a failed relationship." With best estimates suggesting that Iran is several years and possibly a decade away from any potential nuclear weapon, the signatories make the following suggestions to reinvigorate talks: To the US and EU: … accept limited nuclear fuel production by Iran, possibly including the production of low-enriched uranium, under extensive safeguards described in the statement. … offer Iran a precise and detailed plan of action addressing its economic and security concerns. To Iran: … accept continuous, in-country IAEA inspections. … stop construction of the heavy water reactor at Arak, which is a dangerous potential source of plutonium for nuclear weapons. … give up all ambitions to reprocess spent nuclear fuel. … renounce all rights to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Iran's past concealment of important parts of its nuclear programme and the wholly unacceptable threats towards Israel recently reiterated by President Ahmadinejad fully justifies international concern. However, inflexibility on the part of the EU and US has also damaged prospects of a negotiated settlement. Stereotyping of Iran and Islamic culture - often picked up by the western media - is also hindering progress. There is no substitute for proper engagement. The half-truths and manufactured fears used to build support against Iraq must not be employed again to demonise Iran. Further information: Paul Ingram, Senior Analyst, BASIC +44 (0) 207 324 4680 Katy Cronin, Political Analyst and Campaigner, Crisis Action +44 (0) 207 324 4748 ---- A Constructive EU-US Approach to the Iran Nuclear Dispute From: FoE Sydney - Nuclear Campaign Complete BASIC statement on Iran Statement - 6 December 2005 The breakdown of negotiations between Iran and the E3/EU* threatens to become a full-scale crisis unless all sides adopt a more constructive and flexible approach. Iran claims that its development of nuclear power is benign, but like the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), we are not yet convinced that this is the case. Iran's cooperation with international inspections has helped to build some confidence, but it remains uncertain whether Tehran is seeking to acquire a threshold nuclear weapons capability. International concern is fully justified by Iran's past concealment of important parts of its nuclear programme (such as the Natanz uranium enrichment facility) and the wholly unacceptable threats towards Israel re-iterated recently by President Ahmadinejad. We strongly agree that the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Iran or any other existing non-nuclear weapon state would be destabilizing and dangerous and must be avoided. However in our judgement the current strategy of the EU and the United States is unlikely to achieve this important objective. We offer the following guidance on how to achieve the desired outcome. The failures so far The EU initially entered into what seemed to be constructive negotiations with Iran. However, inflexible negotiating positions on both sides of the table have damaged the prospects of a negotiated settlement. The EU's rigid demands are particularly difficult to fathom. Despite the lack of clear treaty backing, EU negotiators insist that the Iranian government abandon all efforts to produce nuclear fuel. But it is evident that the incentives offered by the EU to persuade Iran to voluntarily forego these treaty rights have been insufficient. Furthermore threats to refer Iran to the UN Security Council (UNSC) lack credibility without widespread international support. A great deal of political capital was expended by the EU-US in securing a resolution at the IAEA governing board in September, which declared Iran in "non-compliance" with the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), but deferred a decision on referral to the UNSC until some later date. But it is evident that, as things currently stand, reaching agreement on actual referral and then, an appropriate form of punitive sanctions within the UNSC, will be even more difficult and divisive. While these weaknesses in EU diplomacy are serious, the Iranian government's behaviour also continues to jeopardise prospects for resolving this dispute. In addition to the President's recent threat against Israel, the Iranian government has failed to cooperate adequately with IAEA inspections. The Iranian Parliament continues to refuse to ratify the Additional Protocol to its Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement with the IAEA, which would formalise increased IAEA access to Iran's nuclear sites. Finally, Iran's resumption of uranium conversion at Esfahan and continued construction of the heavy water plant at Arak, although lawful, has raised tensions further. These actions serve to make constructive dialogue more difficult. In parallel the failure of the US government to attempt any meaningful diplomacy with Iran or to rule out military action has also been damaging. US policy appears to be based on the premise that Iran's further isolation will prompt regime change. Such a policy is fanciful, almost certainly counter-productive and no substitute for the proper engagement which is now urgently needed. Stereotyping of Iran and Islamic culture, often latched on to by Western media - of bearded fanatics, support for suicide bombers and veiled gunmen - is also hindering progress. It is important to offer a truer, broader picture of contemporary life in Iran. Otherwise similar half-truths and manufactured fears to those that were used to build support against Iraq may be used to demonise Iran. The way forward: Iran Public pronouncements by EU and US policymakers and opinion shapers too often fail to reflect that Iran is a complex country. While there are clearly highly reactionary elements within the Iranian government and the state apparatus is used to perpetuate human rights abuses, the country has a rich culture and history, containing people with technological, economic and political aspirations and understandable fears of foreign attack. A limited vision can only feed tensions between Iran and the West. The current nuclear dispute is not the cause, but a symptom, of a failed relationship. It is this relationship that must, in the long-term, be improved if further political crises like the present one are to be avoided. In the short-term, we believe the best strategy lies with ensuring that controls over Iran's nuclear fuel cycle are fair and equitable. And to satisfy international concerns, Tehran should accept an intrusive nuclear inspections regime going beyond what is stipulated in its Safeguards Agreements with the IAEA. While it would be preferable in the long-term for Iran, as well as other countries, to rely on other, safer energy sources, the EU and US governments must recognise that, without evidence of nuclear weapons development, their entitlement and ability to impose restrictions on Iran's nuclear programme are limited. In this context, and in the light of proposed US nuclear cooperation with India (a non-NPT state), the EU-US insistence that Iran permanently shuts down much of its nuclear fuel activities are not backed by the NPT and appear discriminatory. It may also reinforce perceptions among Muslims that the US and EU wish to relegate them to second-class status. US and British plans to update their own nuclear arsenals, also exposes them to charges of hypocrisy. Finally, states within the Non-Aligned Movement in particular see Iran as the 'thin end of the wedge', and fear that the US-EU axis will also attempt to restrict their access to nuclear power technologies. Without flexibility on the key issue of Iranian nuclear fuel production there is little prospect of either reaching agreement with Iran or, alternatively, building the strong international consensus for dealing with the Iranian 'nuclear dossier'. Since best estimates suggest that Iran is several years and possibly a decade away from any potential nuclear weapon we recommend a renewed EU-US effort to constructively negotiate a more equitable agreement with the Iranian government. Such an agreement might include acceptance by Iran to: * establish a continuous, in-country IAEA inspections regime with the power to visit any site, with due regard to Iran's sovereignty and security; * permanently cease construction of the heavy water reactor at Arak, which is a dangerous potential source of plutonium for nuclear weapons; * relinquish any ambitions to reprocess spent nuclear fuel, which can be more easily diverted for nuclear weapons, and * permanently renounce its rights under Article X of the NPT to withdraw from the IAEA safeguards regime, or failing that, enact domestic legislation that binds the Iranian government to a non-nuclear weapon policy indefinitely. These concessions could be made in exchange for: * international acceptance of a limited 'front end' nuclear fuel production capability in Iran, possibly including the production of low-enriched uranium, under the extensive safeguards described above, and; * a precise and detailed plan of action addressing Iran's economic and security concerns. This is only one potential formula. The Iranian government has already said that it is prepared to accept vigorous inspections and complete transparency of its nuclear fuel cycle activities. Iran's President has also stated that the deployment of nuclear weapons would break Islamic law, as has Iran's Supreme Leader. The Iranian government should therefore have no objection to renouncing its right to leave the NPT. The way forward: global control of dangerous nuclear materials Under Article IV of the NPT it is lawful for Iran to develop a nuclear power programme under IAEA safeguards, even if it reaches a threshold capability to build nuclear weapons. Many other states currently have this threshold status. The inherent dual-use nature of nuclear energy is the 'Achilles Heel' of the NPT, one that the international community must urgently resolve. While most non-nuclear weapon states are reluctant to give up their rights under Article IV they may be prepared to entertain a new regulatory approach to the nuclear fuel cycle provided that: * it is realised by universal principles applying to all states; and * the nuclear weapon states take additional, meaningful steps towards nuclear disarmament and commit to the same constraints. The full commitment by the US government to this multilateral approach is necessary if a new and stronger global system of nuclear controls is to emerge. In addition, given that nuclear power remains a highly controversial energy choice for economic, environmental and security reasons, an International Sustainable Energy Fund (ISEF) should be established by the G8 to offer a realistic alternative to 'Atoms for Peace'. Conclusion Iranians are a proud and patriotic people. US and EU policies that appear to discriminate against Iran are likely to strengthen domestic support for the present government and its pursuit of nuclear technology and limit international pressure on Iran. The present EU-US strategy is only likely to push Tehran eastwards, building further economic and political relations with Russia, China and India. Russia is keen to remain the principal supplier and therefore controller of Iranian nuclear technology. China and India depend increasingly upon oil and gas contracts with Iran for future economic growth. The US and EU have to recognise the limits of their influence and their threats. Russia, China and India could play a decisive and positive role, if given the chance. They are likely to support efforts that avoid conflict but also prevent the emergence of a nuclear-armed regime in Tehran. If negotiations are not revived this dispute may lead to stalemate at the UNSC. This could leave the Iranians with sufficient wriggle-room to develop their nuclear weapons capability transparently and under existing safeguards. Continued allusions by US officials to the prospect of military action also give the Iranian government a powerful incentive to double their efforts in this direction. Should these events occur, the prospect of military action against Iran by either the US or Israel cannot be excluded. Such action would be a disaster for global and regional security and must be avoided. Diplomacy and creative compromise on all sides are the only acceptable choice. *E3/EU refers to the parties that have conducted negotiations with Iran on the nuclear issue, being the Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom, the Foreign Ministers of France and Germany, and the EU High Representative for Common Foreign & Security Policy. For simplicity, we use EU to refer to this group. Signatories Affiliations are for purpose of identification only. Dr Ali Ansari, School of History, University of St Andrews (UK) General Sir Hugh Beach (UK) Janet Bloomfield, British Co-ordinator, Atomic Mirror (UK) Martin Butcher, Director of Security Programs, Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) (US) Lotte Christy, Master of Mediation and Conflict Resolution (Denmark) Dr Andrew Cottey Senior Lecturer and Jean Monnet Chair in European Political Integration, Departmenrt of Government, University College Cork (Ireland) David Culp, Legislative Representative, Friends Committee on National Legislation (Quakers) Washington, D.C. (US) Professor Alex Danchev, School of Politics and International Relations, University of Nottingham (UK) Dr Ian Davis, Executive Director, BASIC (UK) Brian Eno, musician and writer (UK) George Farebrother, Secretary, World Court Project UK Dr Trevor Findlay, Director, Canadian Centre for Treaty Compliance; Associate Professor Norman Paterson School of International Affairs (Canada) Air Marshal the Lord Garden KCB (UK) Professor Heinz Gärtner, Austrian Institute for International Affairs (Austria) Jonathan Granoff, President, Global Security Institute (US) Professor Nick Grief, Bournemouth University (UK) Sir David Hare, Playwright (UK) Professor Alastair Hay OBE BSc PhD, Molecular Epidemiology Unit, University of Leeds (UK) Hazel Henderson, author, Beyond Globalization and Planetary Citizenship, (US) Professor Robert Hinde, CBE, FRS, FBA, Chair, British Pugwash (UK)) Rt Revd Richard Harries, Bishop of Oxford (UK) Dr Raymond Hinnebusch, Professor of International Relations and Middle East Politics, University of St. Andrews (UK) Lorelei Kelly, Project Leader "Tools for Progress:Reframing National Security" (US) Michael Klein, former US Army Officer and CEO of Prya Capital UK (UK) Dr Claus Kold, The Turning Point (Denmark) Karel Koster, Project on European Nuclear Non-Proliferation (Netherlands) Kevin Martin, Executive Director, Peace Action and Peace Action Education Fund (US) Ms. Peggy Mason, Former Canadian Ambassador for Disarmament to the UN; Chair of the UN Expert Study on Verification 1994-95 (Canada) Dr Trevor McCrisken, Lecturer in American Politics and International Studies, University of Warwick (UK) Jack Mendelsohn, Adjunct Professor, The Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University and former Senior Foreign Service Officer, US Department of State (US) Alistair Millar, Director, Washington Office, Fourth Freedom Forum (US) Carol Naughton, independent nuclear weapons consultant (UK) Dr Daniel N. Nelson, Dean, University of New Haven and Senior Consultant, Global Concepts, Inc. (US) Rabbi Julia Neuberger (UK) Dr Götz Neuneck, Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy (IFSH), University of Hamburg (Germany) Dr Gerd Nonneman, Reader in International Relations & Middle East Politics, & former Executive Director of the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies (UK) Dr Jan Oberg, Director of the Transnational Foundation, TFF (Sweden) Dr Vladimir A. Orlov, Director of the Moscow-based PIR Center (Center for Policy Studies in Russia) and Co-Director, ETC Program at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (Russia) Dr. Miriam Pemberton, Research Fellow, Foreign Policy In Focus, Institute for Policy Studies (US) Dan Plesch, Research Associate, Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London (UK) Malcolm Savidge, Parliamentary Consultant, Oxford Research Group, former MP for Aberdeen North:1997-2005 (UK) Baroness Scott of Needham Market (UK) Professor John Sloboda, Executive Director, Oxford Research Group (UK) Dr Phyllis Starkey MP, Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Britain-Iran Group (UK) Hans von Sponeck, Former UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq (Germany) Becky Tinsley, Director, Waging Peace (UK) Dr. Dmitri Trenin, Carnegie Endowment, Moscow (Russia) Professor Biljana Vankovska, University of Skopje, Macedonian Helsinki Committee on Human Rights (Macedonia) Mazin Younis, Iraqi Human Rights activist (UK) Dr Helen Zealley OBE MD FRCPE FFPH, Chair of Friends of the Earth, Scotland (UK) -------- israel The nuclear campaign issue Haaretz Israel Editorial 06/12/2005 http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml;?itemNo=654088&contrassId=2&subContrassId=4&sbSubContrassId=0 http://www.iht.com/getina/files/294489.html Tel Aviv, Israel - The election campaign has barely begun and MK Benjamin Netanyahu has already managed to drag into it one of the most sensitive security issues: Iran's ceaseless efforts to develop nuclear weapons. Whereas other candidates have chosen their words carefully on this delicate matter, Netanyahu, who is running for the Likud leadership, threatened on Israel Radio this week that if elected prime minister he would weigh military action to prevent Iran's attaining nuclear capability. It has also been reported that a Netanyahu associate said at a European conference that Ariel Sharon's government has neglected combating Iran's nuclear efforts because of its total preoccupation with the disengagement from the Gaza Strip. The government made a correct decision about two years ago, when Netanyahu was still a cabinet member, that combating Iran's nuclearization is a matter for the international community as a whole, and that it is better that Israel not stand alone on the front lines. That decision is violated from time to time, but MK Netanyahu outdid himself in a campaign speech when he called for exercising a military option against Iran's nuclear development, pledging to carry on the "heritage of Menachem Begin" who in June 1981 ordered the destruction of the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq. One must not underestimate the grave danger posed to the Middle East and to world stability in the future if the efforts of the international community, the UN Security Council and the International Atomic Energy Agency, fail to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. That would be a failure for the United States and European nations who are leading the negotiations with Iran on this issue. The multilateral negotiations with Iran are not over. Russia, which built a nuclear reactor for Iran in Bushehr, can also play an important role in the process. The Board of Governors of the IAEA has not reached a decision yet on whether to refer the matter to the Security Council. Therefore, it is imperative that Israel not come across as advocating war against Iran - especially considering there are still those who, with marked hostility toward Israel, claim that it incited the U.S. to go to war against Iraq. Meanwhile, voices can already be heard calling for Israel to close down its nuclear reactor in Dimona. On his recent visit to Israel, former U.S. president Bill Clinton took the trouble to explain, in response to a question, the great difficulty inherent in a military option against Iran, and the difference between the nuclear case in Iraq and the situation in Iran. Clinton refrained from supporting a military option. There is no consensus among experts in the U.S. either regarding the operational aspects of a military option against Iran. Whoever publicly recommends an Israeli military option sins doubly. He incites the Israeli public unnecessarily; presents Israel as pushing the U.S. into a major new war; drags this sensitive subject into the overheated rhetoric of an election campaign; and invites Iranian threats and various anti-Israel reactions. Israel must go about making its preparations quietly and securely, not at election rallies. ---- U.S.: IAF strike on Iran won't help A report compiled by the U.S. Military Academy says an Israeli air strike on Iran's nuclear facility is unlikely to hamper Iran's nuclear ambitions Orly Azoulay, December 6, 2005 YNet http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3180143,00.html Israel lacks the military capability to neutralize Iran’s nuclear facilities, a report on strategies to deal with Iran’s nuclear program published Monday by the U.S. army revealed. According to Israel's leading newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, the report compiled by the U.S. Military Academy said the Israel Air Force could not carry out a complicated maneuver to strike targets deep in Iranian territory due to the lengthy distance separating the two countries, and Israel’s inaccessibility to military bases of neighboring Arab countries situated closer to Iran. The report however acknowledged Israel’s “impressive” aerial superiority against the rest of its Arab neighbors. Entitled “To be ready for Iran’s nuclear ambitions,” the report noted that the prospect of an Israeli strike on Iran hinges on the capability of the F15-I and F16 fighter jets to strike targets as far as 600 kilometers from their bases. Iran is 1000 kilometers away from the Jewish State, making it all the more complicated for the air force to carry out an aerial adventure over the Arab Peninsula and Persian Gulf to reach Iran’s nuclear facilities. Iran strike is complicated maneuver If in fact Israel decides to take the bull by the horns, a military operation of this scope would not just require fighter jets but also jets for refueling, spying and rescue. “Israel can attack pinpoint targets yet could not lead a campaign against all Iranian nuclear targets,” the report read. An attack on the Bushehr nuclear plant in southern Iran is unlikely to debilitate the Islamic Republic’s nuclear ambitions since other major reactors are planted deep in Iran, some 1700 kilometers away from Israel. The report casts doubt on whether India or Turkey, two countries who have friendly relations with Israel and are closer to the Persian Gulf, would allow Israel to launch attacks against Iran from their territory. Iran undeterred by international pressure On Monday Iran announced plans to construct a second nuclear power plant despite international concern over its nuclear program. Iranian state television said President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and cabinet ministers decided Sunday night to build the reactor in Khuzistan province, southwestern Iran. The decision alarmed the head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog, Mohamed el-Baradei, who reinforced the Israeli and American stance as to Iran's nuclear threat, telling British daily The Independent that the international community is concerned about Iran’s nuclear activities "because lots of people feel it could be a dual purpose program." El-Baradei estimated that once Iran's mothballed Natanz underground enrichment plant becomes operational, Iranians could be "a few months" away from a nuclear weapon. International Atomic Energy Agency officials have said that it would take at least two years for the facility to become fully operational. The Associated Press contributed to this report -------- japan Japan's MHI wins S. Africa nuclear contract Tuesday December 6, 8:04 PM http://asia.news.yahoo.com/051206/3/2bxtt.html CAPE TOWN, Dec 6 (Reuters) - South Africa has awarded Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) two contracts worth $15 million to help build a demonstration advanced nuclear reactor. The company developing the reactor said in a statement on Tuesday MHI would supply parts for the core barrel assembly, an integral component within the reactor pressure vessel of the new reactor design. It will also provide professional services for the assembly's design that will form part of the reactor's demonstration plant to be built at Koeberg, South Africa's existing nuclear facility near Cape Town. South Africa plans to build a multi-billion-rand pebble bed reactor as it scrambles to find new energy sources to meet growing demand for electricity, with demand already almost outstripping supply. "In signing the core barrel design and long lead items for the core, PBMR (pebble bed modular reactor) has entered a new phase in the development of the PBMR technology," the PBMR company said. The reactor is an advanced design that claims to dramatically improve safety and efficiency, but which environmentalists say is unsafe and creates radioactive waste. The government sees nuclear power as central to meet future energy demands and aims to produce a commercial pebble bed reactor within 10 years. The PBMR company said a third contract with HCI is expected to be signed in 2006 to manufacture the core barrel assembly, the value of which has not yet been finalised. The reactor is being developed by South African electricity utility Eskom, the Industrial Development Corporation and British Nuclear Fuels Limited, although Eskom is looking to dilute its majority stake. -------- korea N.Korea Says US Finance Row Blocking Nuclear Talks By REUTERS Published: December 6, 2005 Filed at 5:47 a.m. ET http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-korea-north-talks.html SEOUL (Reuters) - A U.S. crackdown on North Korea's financial assets makes it impossible to resume multilateral talks on dismantling the state's nuclear weapons programs, a commentary in Pyongyang's official media said on Tuesday. It was the first time the North has openly linked a possible halt in the six-party nuclear talks to the U.S. moves against its finances, South Korean officials said. Washington has offered to brief North Korean officials on the legal reason for its clamping down on firms the United States suspects of involvement in counterfeiting, money laundering and the drugs trade. It says these have helped finance Pyongyang's nuclear programs. North Korea's communist party newspaper Rodong Sinmun called the U.S. measures ``sanctions'' and demanded that they be lifted, the North's official KCNA news agency reported. ``It is impossible to resume the six-party talks under such provocative sanctions applied by the U.S. upon the DPRK,'' the Rodong Sinmun said. DPRK is short for the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Pyongyang often uses brinkmanship to bolster its bargaining position, North Korea experts say. China, the North's main benefactor, appealed for calm. ``We hope each side can, through the six-party talks, have full consultations and talks to find as quickly as possible an appropriate way to solve problems,'' Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang told a regular news briefing. In the latest diplomatic dispute between the two countries, a planned December 9-11 meeting between North Korean and U.S. Treasury officials was canceled after what U.S. officials said were differences over the nature of the discussions. Christopher Hill, the chief U.S. negotiator to the nuclear talks that also include China, Japan, Russia and South Korea has offered to brief North Korean officials on the matter. But he said the U.S. actions, which include freezing some North Korean assets, were ultimately linked to law enforcement and were not part of the six-party talks. South Korean officials have also said this week the financial issue was separate from the six-party talks. But South Korea's chief envoy to the six-party talks cautioned on Monday that Pyongyang and Washington needed to resolve differences on the financial crackdown issue to help keep the nuclear talks on track. Sources have indicated the next round of the nuclear talks could be held in January. In a separate statement on KCNA, the North repeated its call made last month for compensation after the collapse of an international project to provide it with civilian nuclear reactors as a part of a 1994 deal. The beleaguered project had been suspended since 2002 when Washington accused Pyongyang of cheating on the deal with a clandestine plan to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons. ---- N.Korea threatens to boycott nuke talks 12/6/2005 (UPI) http://www.upi.com/InternationalIntelligence/view.php?StoryID=20051206-125250-6996r PYONGYANG, North Korea, Dec. 6 -- North Korea Tuesday threatened to boycott nuclear disarmament talks unless the United States lifts its financial sanctions on the communist state. The U.S. Treasury Department in September suspended transactions between its financial institutions and Macau-based Banco Delta Asia after it was named as North Korea's money laundering instrument, forcing the bank to cut off transactions with North Korea. The U.S. administration also has frozen the assets of entities linked to the spread of weapons of mass destruction, including those connected to North Korea. U.S. nuclear negotiators said that the issue is not relevant to the nuclear talks but a matter to be handled by law-enforcement authorities. But North Korea said it is "nonsense both logically and diplomatically to argue that the financial sanctions are unrelated with the six-way talks." "It is impossible to resume the six-party talks under such provocative sanctions applied by the United States upon the DPRK (North Korea)," said Rodong Sinmun, North Korea's state-run newspaper. "The United States should respect its dialogue partner to comply with the spirit of the agreement and it should not take any action to create obstacles that impede the progress of the six-party talks," said the newspaper carried by the North's official Korean Central News Agency. -------- space Union tells NASA to halt work on Pluto spacecraft Boeing workers fret about safety BY TODD HALVORSON FLORIDA TODAY December 6, 2005 http://www.floridatoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051206/NEWS02/512060330 CAPE CANAVERAL - The union representing striking Boeing machinists asked NASA on Monday to halt work on a plutonium-powered spacecraft, claiming it is irresponsible to allow five replacement workers to complete the job. NASA said the managers and supervisors have the skills needed to complete the work safely, and the agency intends to press ahead with plans to launch its Pluto-bound New Horizons spacecraft next month. The replacement workers "are certified, have extensive previous experience and have met the safety criteria," NASA launch services manager Steve Francois said. "No exceptions to either safety or quality assurance have been made and none are planned." The New Horizons mission must be launched during a time-critical 35-day window that opens Jan. 11. A delay past Feb. 14 would force NASA to postpone the launch until early 2007, the next time the planets are aligned properly for the trip. The mission is one of four that Delta rocket machinists were working on before they went on strike Nov. 2. Work on the other missions ceased then. The grounded missions include launch of an advanced weather satellite for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. On hold at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California are a NASA atmospheric science mission and a classified flight for the National Reconnaissance Office. "If it's not safe to work on all the other projects with replacement workers, it's irresponsible to continue with New Horizons," said Robert Wood, a spokesman for the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. NASA officials noted that only five replacement workers are needed to finish the job that strikers otherwise would be doing on the New Horizons mission. More than 200 people are required to finish work on the Delta rockets that were being readied for the other launches. "That's the difference," Kennedy Space Center spokesman George Diller said. The union represents 288 local strikers, including the five involved in the third stage of the Horizons mission. In total, the union represents 1,500 workers who went out on strike in Florida, California and Alabama. Most work on the Boeing Delta rocket program. The New Horizons craft is set for launch on a Lockheed Martin Atlas 5 rocket at Cape Canaveral. The probe is to be outfitted with a Boeing upper-stage rocket motor later this week. At issue are plans to use replacement workers to mate the upper-stage motor with the spacecraft. The union claims the managers and supervisors are not properly trained and certified to perform the work. "They are cutting corners," Wood said. "This is a special spacecraft. It's one of a kind. With this mission, you want your first-stringers on the job." NASA said a crane to be used on the job would be operated by fully trained and certified workers from Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, which built the spacecraft. Replacement workers will make the necessary mechanical and electrical connections. Boeing says the managers and supervisors have an average of 16 years of experience on the Delta rocket program, including an average of nine years doing hands-on work with similar upper-stage motors. Contact Halvorson at 639-0576 or thalvorson@flatoday.net -------- ukraine Ukrainian Nuclear Generating Unit Halted for Refuelling Text of report by Ukrainian news agency UNIAN Tuesday, 6 December 2005, 06:00 CST http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/322049/ukrainian_nuclear_generating_unit_halted_for_refuelling/index.html?source=r_science Kiev, 6 December: The No 3 generating set of the Rivne nuclear power plant was halted for scheduled maintenance at 0005 today [2205 gmt 5 December]. Fresh fuel will be loaded into the reactor during the maintenance that will last till 26 January. As of today, 13 out of 15 generating sets are operational at Ukraine's four nuclear power plants. In addition to Rivne, scheduled maintenance is under way at the No 2 generating set of the Khmelnytskyy power plant. ---- Fuel Unloaded From Chernobyl Reactor By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: December 6, 2005 Filed at 4:58 p.m. ET http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Ukraine-Chernobyl.html KIEV, Ukraine (AP) -- Experts have begun unloading radioactive fuel from one of the closed reactors at Ukraine's Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the plant said Tuesday. Reactor No 3. -- the last to continue operating -- was closed for good in 2000, but it was never emptied of fuel. The remaining fuel in reactor No. 3 and reactor No. 1 made it impossible to start construction of a new shelter over the fourth reactor, destroyed in the 1986 explosion and fire that spewed radiation over much of northern Europe. In an effort to prevent further radiation release, engineers hastily erected a concrete-and-steel shelter over the damaged reactor, but parts of it are crumbling, and a new shelter is needed. Originally officials had planned to unload the remaining fuel into a new storage depot, but plans for its construction were suspended until 2010. The plant's spokesman, speaking on customary condition of anonymity, said the fuel will instead be unloaded into a Soviet-era used fuel depot. Unloading the fuel, which began Monday, is necessary to make the plant entirely inoperative, Chernobyl staff said. Reactors -- even those that are closed -- are considered potentially dangerous as long as fuel remains inside. The plant spokesman said the disposal work meets all international safety requirements. He could not say how long the process would take. It was not clear when they would start removing fuel from reactor No. 1. Ukraine has asked for additional international aid since the cost of building a new sarcophagus over the reactor is estimated at more than $1 billion, far more than the previous figure of $758 million. -------- u.n. ElBaradei: Protect Nuclear Material By THOMAS WAGNER, Associated Press Writer Tue Dec 6, 2005 10:29 AM ET http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051206/ap_on_re_eu/un_nuclear_terror_2 LONDON - The U.N. atomic agency chief urged the world Tuesday to step up efforts to protect existing nuclear material to prevent extremist groups from pursuing nuclear and radiological terrorism. Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said that in the last 10 years the IAEA has recorded more than 650 attempts to smuggle such material. "Fortunately, only a relatively small number of these cases have involved high-enriched uranium or plutonium," ElBaradei said in a speech prepared for delivery at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. "But this should not be a source of comfort. If an extremist group were to acquire nuclear or radiological material, they would not think twice about using it." ElBaradei said several agreements have been reached on how to enhance nuclear security, including U.N. resolution 1540, which the Security Council approved last year, and the International Convention on the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism, which was adopted a few months ago. Both call on countries to criminalize the illicit possession and use of radioactive material and aim to enhance efforts to detect and combat illicit trafficking. "It is imperative that countries implement these measures as fully and as early as possible. We are in a race against time," he said. ElBaradei also urged better control of access to nuclear fuel cycle technology. He said more countries are seeking to master it for economic reasons "and, in some cases, as a good insurance policy for a rainy day." Whatever the reason, the know-how essentially transforms them into a "virtual or latent" nuclear weapons state. Citing Iran, he also said more effective nuclear verification is needed, such as additional "transparency measures." The IAEA's "verification efforts will not be regarded as fully 'effective' as long as its inspection rights remain uneven," he said. Over the past three years, the IAEA has compiled a detailed picture of most aspects of Iran's nuclear program. But, ElBaradei said, "given that the program was concealed for 20 years, and that a number of open questions remain, we asked that Iran provide additional transparency measures — beyond the confines of the protocol — to enable the agency to resolve these questions and to provide the required assurance about the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program." On Monday, Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, said the country plans to build at least one more nuclear power plant, despite the international concern over its atomic program. Larijani said in Tehran he did not expect the plan to affect nuclear talks with Europe. "It is part of meeting our electricity needs; it is not a secret issue," he said. He said the two nuclear power plants would be open to international bidding. ElBaradei said that without adequate funding, the IAEA cannot make verification effective. "IAEA verification today operates on an annual budget of about $120 million — a budget comparable to that of the Chelsea football (soccer) club" in England, he said. ---- IAEA can solve Iran's nuclear row with West: Putin Tue Dec 6, 2005 9:56 AM ET (Reuters) http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2005-12-06T145625Z_01_SIB653661_RTRUKOC_0_US-NUCLEAR-RUSSIA-IRAN.xml&archived=False MOSCOW - Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog has not exhausted all avenues to settle Iran's standoff with the West over its nuclear program. Underlining Moscow's opposition to Western calls to let the United Nations Security Council, Putin also said Russia was ready to help resume dialogue between Iran and the West which had broken down in August. "We consider the potential of the IAEA (the International Atomic Energy Agency) to resolve all the problems of the Iranian nuclear dossier to be far from exhausted," Putin told reporters after a meeting with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Talks between Iran and the European Union aimed a defusing suspicion that Tehran planned to develop nuclear weapons broke down when Iran began processing uranium, the stage prior to uranium enrichment. Russia, which is helping Iran build a nuclear power plant, has opposed Western calls to refer the crisis immediately to the U.N. Security Council, where it has veto powers. It has instead offered to enrich Iranian uranium, a process essential for producing nuclear weapons, in Russia. Iran initially rejected the idea but Russian officials have said they were planning to continue talks with Tehran. French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said on Monday the EU trio of Britain, Germany and France were keen to give Russians and Iranians more time to discuss the Moscow's proposal. "Russia for its part will continue to develop the dialogue between our Iranian partners and the other interested parties," Putin said -------- u.s. nuc facilities -------- michigan Michigan nuclear plant goes on the block Consumers Energy's parent plans to sell Palisades facility in likely consolidation. Associated Press / Tuesday, December 06, 2005 http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051206/BIZ/512060329/1001 JACKSON-- One of Michigan's three operational nuclear power plants is up for sale. CMS Energy Corp. on Monday announced its intention to solicit bids to sell the Palisades plant. The Jackson-based parent of utility Consumers Energy said it expects to close on a sale by 2007. The plant's next owner will have at least one major customer right away: CMS Energy. The company said it will enter into a long-term power-purchasing agreement with the buyer. David Joos, the company's president and chief executive officer, said the decision to sell the plant -- which is in Van Buren County's Covert Township about five miles south of South Haven -- reflects market realities. "Ownership of nuclear power plants is consolidating as companies with multiple nuclear units are able to share operating practices, experience and resources and benefit from economies of scale," Joos said in a written statement. CMS Energy has seen improvements made at the Palisades plant since turning over its operations to Nuclear Management Co. LLC in 2000, but the Hudson, Wis.-based management company has shrunk as other utilities have divested their plants, Joos said. He said the plant would be sold only if the company receives a satisfactory bid. Federal and state regulators would have to approve any sale. Palisades' lone reactor produces up to 798 megawatts, or about 18 percent of Consumers Energy's electricity generating capacity. The plant has been generating electricity since 1971 and is licensed to operate until 2011. The company has asked the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to renew the license for another 20 years. Michigan's other operational nuclear power plants are the single-reactor Fermi 2 plant near Newport in Monroe County and the Cook plant, which has two reactors, near Bridgman in Berrien County. -------- missouri Nuclear options Atomic power finds new popularity. By KEVIN COLEMAN of the Columbia, MO, Tribune’s staff Published Tuesday, December 6, 2005 http://www.columbiatribune.com/2005/Dec/20051206Busi001.asp Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman Scott Burnell late last week promptly returned a reporter’s phone call seeking comment on plans by a local utility to build a new nuclear power plant near Fulton. The Callaway Nuclear Plant, which is located about 10 miles southeast of Fulton, has been operating since 1984 and accounts for about 12 percent of AmerenUE’s electricity generation. AmerenUE, the company that owns the power plant, wants to add a second reactor. Company officials said the addition would cost about $2 billion and take a staff of about 300 to operate. "Hey, no problem," he said when thanked for the speedy response. "It’s good to have something to do on a Friday." Burnell’s comment summarized the past 30 years in a dormant nuclear power industry that appears to be coming out of hibernation to compete with coal, natural gas and wind power to turn the turbines that generate electricity. "It’s interesting how the tide turns," said Roger Clark, chief executive officer of Boone Electric Cooperative. "Ten years ago you wouldn’t mention it." Ameren Corp. Chief Executive Officer Gary Rainwater disclosed last week that the company was "seriously considering" a second reactor unit at the Callaway Nuclear Plant. "On paper, nuclear is clearly the right choice," Rainwater told the Tribune in Friday’s edition. "I want to emphasize the ‘on paper’ part.’ " A new reactor at the Callaway plant, operated by the company’s AmerenUE subsidiary, means about 2,000 construction jobs during the five years it would take to build the $2 billion second unit. It also means a staff of 300 to operate the plant, which could be online by 2017. The possibility of another reactor unit at Callaway is "very speculative," said Paul Sloca, spokesman for Missouri’s Department of Economic Development, but he said the benefits could be positive for the state. "Anytime there’s a project of that magnitude with jobs and economic activity, it’s a good thing," he said. The additional electric power generation also would help attract industry to the area, he said. Industry proponents say the technology is better and safer than it was 30 years ago when the most-recent plant construction license was issued, and it doesn’t pollute the air as does burning fossil fuels, such as coal. Opponents say it’s costly and dangerous and fraught with waste-disposal and security issues. One local expert says it’s time that nuclear energy gets a second chance. "I’m pleased to see the industry start moving forward," said Bill Miller, University of Missouri-Columbia professor of nuclear engineering. "There’s a lot of advantages to nuclear power. It’s extremely safe technically. Fossil fuels are finite and are going to run out, and there’s the global warming issue." Forty years ago, nuclear power seemed the ideal solution for generating electricity, and utilities jumped on the bandwagon to build the costly plants. During the early 1960s, three prototype commercial plants were built with government cooperation to test electric generation. The technology and design from those prototypes served as models for a second generation of plants that were built during the 1970s and early 1980s. Today, 104 commercial plants operate around the country. In 1979, a partial meltdown at the Three Mile Island plant near Middletown, Pa., spooked the nation, and several partially completed plants were mothballed. In 1986, the explosion and fire at the Chernobyl plant in the former Soviet Union further squashed most remaining optimism. Nuclear power plants use heat from atomic chain reactions to boil water and produce steam, which turns turbines that generate electricity. The chain reaction splits uranium atoms, which attach to long fuel rods as radioactive waste. Chris Hayday, a spokesman for the Osage Group of the Sierra Club, agrees there is a renewed interest to build nuclear power plants, but he said the industry still has two major problems: Where to build plants and how to pay for them. "Nobody wants to be near a nuclear power plant," Hayday said, but he added that expanding a plant, such as building a second unit at Callaway, might be a different story. "They might have less opposition." Hayday also says the technology is "prohibitively expensive" and would require "massive federal subsidies." And he’s not convinced the technology is any safer now than it was 30 years ago, when the last permit was issued to build a plant. "It’s a fools quest," he said. "Before adding more energy supply we need to do everything we can to curb demand. It’s about using less. That’s where we need to be investing our dollars. If we use energy as efficiently as possible we can delay the need for more plants." Energy analysts, however, predict a constantly growing need for energy generation. An energy report from the Missouri Economic Research and Information Center released four years ago predicted that over the next 20 years the nation’s electricity demand would increase by 45 percent. Local leaders say it’s the same story on the regional level. Earlier this year, Columbia Mayor Darwin Hindman said he’d be interested in buying a portion of a new nuclear power plant outside the Columbia area as a way to meet future energy needs of the city as an alternative to doubling the size of the city’s coal-fired Municipal Power Plant on the Business Loop. Clark of Boone Electric, part of Springfield-based Associated Electric Cooperatives Inc., calls the nuclear option "extremely interesting." "We’re looking at it and will probably be involved with it in the future," he said. "But we’ll need to partner with someone who has the size to spend those kind of dollars." With a lead-time of some 10-15 years to build a nuclear power plant, industry planners are taking the first steps away from fossil fuels and toward nuclear. More than 85 percent of electricity generated by AmerenUE for its 2.3 million electric customers in Missouri and Illinois comes from coal-fired plants, a process that’s becoming increasingly unpalatable for clean-air advocates and regulatory agencies. It’s also becoming expensive for private industry. Rainwater estimates that Ameren could spend $1.9 billion or more for smokestack scrubbers and other equipment to deal with the carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions and meet Environmental Protection Agency standards. AmerenUE is not alone in working an analysis between fossil fuels and nuclear power to meet future energy demand. NRC spokesman Burnell said six utilities and a consortium - made up of eight utilities, the Tennessee Valley Authority, General Electric and Westinghouse - have been talking to the NRC "at some length" about soon applying for combined construction and operating licenses for new nuclear power plants. One of these is Southern Nuclear, a subsidiary of Atlanta-based Southern Co., which serves some 4.2 million electrical customers throughout most of Georgia and Alabama, southeastern Mississippi and the panhandle region of Florida. Next year, the company, which operates six reactor units, plans to submit an "early site permit" for two additional units at its Vogtle plant located near Waynesboro in eastern Georgia near the South Carolina border. If all goes well, two years later the company will apply for a construction and operating permit and could be up and running by 2015. "It’s the most reliable and best-cost alternative for additional generating capacity," said Steve Higginbottom, corporate communications director for Southern Nuclear. "For nearly 30 years it has been a safe and reliable source of electricity generation with low environmental impact." Higginbottom says nuclear power compares "favorably" when stacked up against the cost of environmental retrofits and upgrades for coal-fired plants to meet clean air standards. He says the company expects the "typical anti-nuclear backlash" but is pushing forward. The 40 Associated Electric cooperatives in Missouri, with a combined 5,000 megawatt generating capacity, are looking at investing $400 million over the next decade to meet EPA clean air requirements for burning coal and natural gas, Clark said. Faced with those numbers, the state cooperative group has done the same analysis as Ameren and is taking the nuclear alternative "seriously," he said. MU professor Miller says the past is the past. A new unit at Callaway would have "safer and simpler" technology evolved from the lessons learned from building the nation’s current generation of plants, he said. "We did learn a lot from the Three Mile Island experience," he said. "Mostly we learned the human error side of the equation." Miller said new technology has created passive safety systems that automatically perform shutdowns and other emergency responses. "Running these plants will always be a rigorous operation," he said, "but it’s not as critical with the new technology." Even so, concern and suspicion surround the nuclear industry, apprehensions that probably will require an onslaught of public relations to allay. But Miller says many of those fears are based on false notions. He said anxieties that plutonium from nuclear power production could be diverted to make weapons are overblown because the nuclear power reaction process creates a variety of isotopes unfit for bomb production. And, he says, all the waste, now stored in steel and concrete canisters on-site at each of the operating plants, could easily fit in the nation’s designated storage repository under Yucca Mountain in Nevada. And once that’s filled, it’s no problem to build another one, he said. "Physically, there’s no problem," he said, "but politically there is." The state of Nevada is dragging its heels on the Yucca repository, in the works since 1978, because of concerns about being the industry’s landfill. Three years ago, Congress passed a law ordering the Department of Energy to take the next step, and the agency is preparing an application for a license from the NRC to construct the storage site. Burnell said security and safety issues also have been addressed. "Since 9/11, we have re-examined many aspects of security and safety in nuclear power plants," he said. "Nuclear power plants are among the strongest-built man-made structures in the world." And Burnell said it’s important to keep in mind the actual safety record of the nation’s nuclear power plants. "Evidence is out there that no member of the public was ever harmed from radiation coming from a nuclear power plant," he said. "There is a benefit to be gained through nuclear fission, and our job is to ensure that the benefit is obtained safely." Reach Kevin Coleman at (573) 815-1709 or kcoleman@tribmail.com. -------- utah Utah nuke case gets dumped by court By Robert Gehrke The Salt Lake Tribune 12/06/2005 http://www.sltrib.com/ci_3282352 WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court has declined to review a lower court's ruling striking down a series of Utah laws aimed at blocking a private high-level nuclear waste storage site in the state. The justices met Friday to consider Utah's appeal and announced Monday, without comment, that they would not hear arguments in the case. State officials said they had expected as much, even while hoping for a different outcome. "We had concluded our odds were fairly low on this," said Mike Lee, counsel to Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. "The governor is disappointed by that, but not terribly surprised." Huntsman was in Washington on Monday, pressing the fight on another front - helping with last-minute lobbying on a provision seeking to block rail access to the proposed waste storage site. Leaders of House and Senate armed services committees are expected to decide the issue soon and the provision's fate remains uncertain. Sue Martin, spokeswoman for Private Fuel Storage, a group of electric utilities that wants to store 44,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel on the Skull Valley Indian reservation in Utah's west desert, said the company was relieved by the Supreme Court's announcement Monday. "We're very pleased," Martin said. "Hopefully this lays to rest this particular strategy that the state has tried over and over again, and we're glad that we don't have the specter of those punitive laws hanging over our heads." The case involves a series of changes to state law passed by the Utah Legislature between 1998 and 2001, aimed at blocking the PFS project. Among the provisions, the state laws required a spent nuclear fuel facility to clear a series of health and safety hurdles to be licensed by the state and imposed substantial licensing fees on such a facility - $5 million upfront, plus posting a bond of at least $2 billion. They also stripped Tooele County of ownership of the only road leading to the reservation, and required counties to either ban storage and transportation of spent nuclear fuel or adopt a comprehensive plan for land use and mitigation of any health effects. The laws were initially struck down by U.S. District Judge Tena Campbell in July 2002. The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Campbell's ruling in April 2004, agreeing that Utah lawmakers overstepped their legal bounds by pre-empting the role of Congress and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in regulating nuclear material under the Atomic Energy Act. Utah asked the Supreme Court to reconsider, arguing that the appeals court shouldn't have struck down the laws before they had been applied to a nuclear facility seeking a license. The Bush administration's solicitor general, Paul Clement, filed a brief in the case in September, arguing the court should not hear the case. That brief was a serious blow to Utah's case. The Supreme Court gets about 7,500 petitions to hear cases each year, but generally accepts about 100. It takes four of the nine justices voting to hear the case for the court to grant it a full review. What's ahead in the state's fight against PFS: The Interior Department must grant PFS permission to build a rail line across federal land to deliver waste to the reservation. Before that can happen, the Air Force is required to complete a study on the impacts of the waste dump on the Air Force's nearby Utah Test and Training Range. Congress is considering a provision that would create a wilderness area near the reservation and take other steps to prohibit the rail line to the reservation. PFS has said it would force them to truck waste to the site. The state and members of the Skull Valley Band of Goshutes filed a lawsuit last month in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit challenging the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's decision to approve the PFS license. The Interior Department, in its role as trustee for American Indians, must give final approval to the lease agreement between PFS and the Skull Valley Band. Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid has proposed a plan to keep waste at the nuclear reactors that produced it until it can be reprocessed. It has the support of Utah's governor and congressional delegation, with the exception of Sen. Orrin Hatch. -------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE -------- torture Rice Denies U.S. Engages In Torture Tuesday, December 6th, 2005 Headlines Democracy Now! http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/06/152217 Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice denied Monday that the U.S. is engaging in torture and defended how the Bush administration's waging of the so-called war on terror. Rice's comments came ahead of a trip to Europe where she is expected to be questioned about the existence of secret CIA prisons and about the CIA's practice of kidnapping wanted individuals overseas. Rice did not deny the U.S. has secretly picked up detainees overseas and flying them to other countries but she denied this is being done "for the purpose of being tortured." "The United States does not permit, tolerate, or condone torture under any circumstances. Moreover, in accordance with the policy of this administration, the United States has respected and will continue to respect the sovereignty of other countries," Rice said. "The U.S. does not transport and has not transported detainees from one country to another for the purpose of being tortured. The United States does not use the airspace or the airports of any country for the purpose of transporting a detainee to a country where he or she will be tortured." Human Rights Watch Accuses Rice of Misleading Statements Officials from Human Rights Watch accused Rice of failing to acknowledge that the United States has transported detainees to countries such as Egypt and Syria where it knows torture is used. The group said Rice also failed to address the existence of secret CIA prisons inside Europe. -------- POLITICS -------- us politics Anti-War Democrats to Challenge Sen. Hillary Clinton's Re-Election Bid Tuesday, December 6th, 2005 Headlines Democracy Now! http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/06/152217 In other political news, New York Senator Hillary Clinton is about to face a challenge in her re-election bid from within her own party. Jonathan Tasini -- the former president of the National Writers Union -- has announced plans to run against Clinton. His campaign will focus on opposing the Iraq war, renegotiating so-called free trade deals and extending Medicare to all Americans. The Nation Magazine described Tasini as "one of the most outspoken progressive activists in the U.S. labor movement." Meanwhile a former Green Party candidate named Steve Greenfield has also announced plans to run on the Democratic ticket against Clinton. Greenfield says the centerpiece of his campaign will be the rapid withdrawal of all US troops from Iraq. -------- voting With new legislation, Ohio Republicans plan holiday burial for American Democracy by Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman December 6, 2005 Columbus, Ohio Free Press http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2005/1607No A law that will make democracy all but moot in Ohio is about to pass the state legislature and to be signed by its Republican governor. Despite massive corruption scandals besieging the Ohio GOP, any hope that the Democratic party could win this most crucial swing state in future presidential elections, or carry its pivotal US Senate seat in 2006, are about to end. House Bill 3 has already passed the Ohio House of Representatives and is about to be approved by the Republican-dominated Senate, probably before the holiday recess. Republicans dominate the Ohio legislature thanks to a heavily gerrymandered crazy quilt of rigged districts, and to a moribund Ohio Democratic party. The GOP-drafted HB3 is designed to all but obliterate any possible future Democratic revival. Opposition from the Ohio Democratic Party, where it exists at all, is diffuse and ineffectual. HB3's most publicized provision will require positive identification before casting a vote. But it also opens voter registration activists to partisan prosecution, exempts electronic voting machines from public scrutiny, quintuples the cost of citizen-requested statewide recounts and makes it illegal to challenge a presidential vote count or, indeed, any federal election result in Ohio. When added to the recently passed HB1, which allows campaign financing to be dominated by the wealthy and by corporations, and along with a Rovian wish list of GOP attacks on the ballot box, democracy in Ohio could be all but over. The GOP is ramming similar bills through state legislatures around the US, starting with Georgia and Indiana. The ID requirements in particular have provoked widespread opposition from newspapers such as the New York Times. The Times, among others, argues that the ID requirements and the costs associated with them, constitute an unconstitutional discriminatory poll tax. But despite significant court challenges, the Republicans are forcing changes in long-standing election laws that have allowed citizens to vote based on their signature alone. Across the US, GOP Jim Crow laws will eliminate millions of Democratic voters from the registration rolls. In swing states like Ohio, such ballots are almost certain to be crucial. The proposed Ohio law will demand a valid photo ID or a utility bill, a bank statement, a paycheck or a government document with a current address. Thousands of Ohio citizens who are elderly, homeless, unemployed or who do not drive will be effectively disenfranchised. Many citizens, for example, rent apartments where the utilities are paid by landlords. In such cases, the number of people living in utilities-included apartment rentals could actually determine an election. During the 2004 presidential election, Ohio's Republican Secretary of State, J. Kenneth Blackwell, also issued statewide threats against ex-felons and people whose names resembled those of ex-felons. Thousands of such threats were delivered to registered voters who were never convicted of anything, or who were eligible to vote after being released from prison. In 2004 a "Mighty Texas Strike Force" came to Columbus with a specific mandate to threaten ex-felons with arrest if they dared to vote. It is legal for ex-felons in Ohio to vote, even if they are in half-way houses or on parole. But HB3's identification requirement, combined with the confusion Blackwell has introduced into the process, will intimidate such Ohioans from voting in 2006 and beyond. HB3 will also reduce voter rolls by ordering county boards of elections to send cards to registered voters every two years. If a card comes back as undelivered, the voter must rely on a provisional ballot. But tens of thousands of provisional ballots were arbitrarily discarded in 2004, and some 16,000 are known to remain uncounted to this day. HB3 also imposes severe restrictions on voter registration drives. It allows the state attorney-general and local prosecutors wide powers to prosecute vaguely defined charges of fraud against those working to sign up voters. The restrictions are clearly meant to chill the kind of Democratic registration drives that brought hundreds of thousands of new voters to the polls in 2004 (even though many were turned away in Democratic wards due to a lack of voting machines). Those electronic machines will also be exempted from recounts by random sampling, even in close, disputed elections like those of 2000 and 2004. In 2004, scores of Ohio voters reported, under oath, that they had pressed John Kerry's name on touchscreen machines, only to see George W. Bush's name light up. A board of elections technician in Mahoning County (Youngstown) has admitted that at least 18 machines there suffered such problems. Sworn testimony in Columbus indicates that votes for Kerry faded off the screen on touchscreen machines there. Other charges of mis-programming, re-programming, recalibrating, mishandling and manipulation of electronic voting software, hardware and memory cards have since arisen throughout Ohio 2004. For the 2005 election, some 41 additional Ohio counties (of 88) were switched to Diebold touchscreen machines. Despite polls showing overwhelming voter approval, two electoral reform issues went down improbable defeat. Issue Two, meant to make voting easier, and Issue Three, on campaign finance reform, were shown by highly reliable Columbus Dispatch polls to be passing handily. The Dispatch was within 0.5% on Issue One, a bond issue, and has rarely been significantly wrong in its many decades of Ohio polling. And even opponents of Issues Two and Three conceded that they were highly likely to pass. On the Sunday before the Tuesday 2005 election, the Dispatch predicted Issue Two would pass by a vote of 59% to 33%, with about 8% undecided. But Tuesday's official vote count showed Issue Two failing with just 36.5% in favor and 63.5% opposed. For that to have happened, the Dispatch had to have been wrong on Issue Two's support by more than 20 points. Nearly half those who said they would support Issue Two would have had to vote against it, along with all the undecideds. The numbers on Issue Three are equally startling. The Dispatch showed it winning with 61%, to just 25% opposed and some 14% undecided. Instead just 33% of the votes were counted in its favor, with 67% opposed, an almost inconceivable weekend turnaround. No other numbers were comparable on November 8, 2005, or elsewhere in the recent history of Dispatch polling. The startling outcome has thus raised even more suspicion and doubt about the use of electronic voting and tabulating machines in Ohio, which account for virtually 100% of the state's vote count. The federal General Accountability Office (GAO) has recently issued a major report confirming that tampering with and manipulating such machines can be easily done by a very small number of people. Charges are widespread that this is precisely what gave George W. Bush Ohio's electoral votes, and thus the presidency, in 2004, not to mention the suspicious referenda outcomes in 2005. HB3 will make it virtually impossible for any challenge to be mounted involving any votes cast or counted on electronic machines or tabulators---meaning virtually every vote cast in Ohio. Indeed, HB3 will raise the cost of mounting a recount from $10 per precinct to $50 per precinct. In 2004, Secretary of State Blackwell forced citizen groups to raise private funds for a recount, which he proceeded to sabotage. The process, which became a futile electronic charade, cost donors committed to democracy more than $100,000. Three partial, meaningless faux recounts resulted. To date more than 100,000 votes cast in Ohio remain uncounted, including some 93,000 easily-read machine-rejected ballots. . During the 2004 election process Blackwell, manipulated the number of precincts in Ohio, and issued inaccurate information about their location and boundaries, making a meaningful precise number hard to come by. But with more than 10,000 precincts still in existence, HB3 would make funding an attempt at another recount in 2006 or 2008 cost more than $500,000. Such an effort might also result in official retaliation. In 2004, Blackwell and Ohio Attorney-General Jim Petro---both of whom are now Republican candidates for governor---tried to impose stiff financial sanctions against attorneys who filed a legal challenge to the seating of the Ohio electors who gave George W. Bush the presidency. The Ohio Supreme Court disallowed the sanctions after the challenge was withdrawn. But HB3 would make such a federal election challenge illegal altogether. With the electoral process in Ohio all but disemboweled, those hoping for a change of party in upcoming state and national elections are probably kidding themselves. The 2004 election in the Buckeye state was riddled with deception, fraud, intimidation, manipulation and outright theft, all of which were essential to the triumph of George W. Bush. In 2005, four electoral reform ballot initiatives were allegedly defeated despite huge poll margins showing the almost certain passage of two of them. The most credible explanation for their defeat lies in electronic manipulation of voting machines, tabulators and memory cards which the GAO confirms have no credible security safeguards. With campaign finance, voter registration, electronic voting, public recounts, district gerrymandering and overall electoral administration now firmly in the pocket of the GOP, and with Democratic opposition that is virtually non-existent on the issue of vote fraud and election manipulation, there is little reason to believe the Republican grip on Ohio will be loosened at any point in the near future. In traditional terms, the scandal-ridden Ohio GOP would appear to be more vulnerable than ever. Governor Robert Taft has become the only Ohio governor to be convicted of a crime while in office. With an astonishing 7% approval rating, he has been compared to Homer Simpson by the state's leading Republican newspaper. Republican US Senator Mike DeWine appears highly vulnerable. The GOP has never won the White House without winning the Buckeye State. But HB3 will solidify the GOP's iron grip on the electronic voting process and all that surrounds it. Unless they break that grip, Democrats who believe they can carry any part of Ohio in 2006 or 2008 are kidding themselves. When it comes to 2008, can you say "Jeb Bush"? Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman are co-authors of HOW THE GOP STOLE AMERICA'S 2004 ELECTION & IS RIGGING 2008, available at www.Freepress.org. Their WHAT HAPPENED IN OHIO, written with Steve Rosenfeld, will be published by the New Press in 2006. Fitrakis was one of the attorneys targeted by Blackwell and Petro in 2004. -------- ACTIVISTS Five Women Arrested At Yankee Protest Group Wants Nuclear Plant Shut Down POSTED: 9:40 am EST December 6, 2005 WPTZ-VT http://www.thechamplainchannel.com/news/5475060/detail.html BRATTLEBORO, Vt. -- Five women were taken away in handcuffs Monday during a protest outside Vermont Yankee's headquarters. Police said the women trespassed onto company property to rally against a proposed power boost at the nuclear plant. They were part of a group that wants the plant to be shut down. “Vermont Yankee is an aging, old, decrepit reactor. It releases radioactive waste into the environment,” said Deb Katz of the Citizens Awareness Network. Several protesters also were arrested last month.