NucNews - December 17, 2005 -------- NUCLEAR -------- accidents and safety Molten Metal Kills Russian Nuclear Plant Worker Hartford, CT, Courant, December 17, 2005 http://www.courant.com/news/nationworld/hc-briefs1217.artdec17,0,4058889.story ST. PETERSBURG, Russia - Molten metal splashed from a smelter at a Russian nuclear power plant, killing one worker and severely burning two others, but authorities said Friday no reactors were affected and no radiation escaped. The accident happened at the Leningrad electricity generating station in the closed nuclear town of Sosnovy Bor, 50 miles west of St. Petersburg. Russia's nuclear agency, Rosenergoatom, initially reported an explosion. It later described the incident as a "splash." -------- depleted uranium Greenpeace claims nuclear industry has a dirty secret 17 December 2005 New Scientist http://www.newscientist.com/channel/earth/mg18825302.800 THE nuclear industry has a dirty secret, says Greenpeace, which claims that nuclear plants in western Europe have offloaded 100,000 tonnes of waste uranium to Russia. Western European nuclear fuel companies and the Russian uranium enrichment company Tenex have confidential contracts under which Tenex accepts depleted uranium and returns it after treatment as low-enriched uranium fuel, containing a few per cent fissile uranium-235. But according to Greenpeace, 90 per cent of the waste remains in Russia, while only 10 per cent is returned as fuel - a claim that is confirmed by an industry body, the World Nuclear Association. Greenpeace alleges this is illegal and is taking Tenex to court in Moscow, arguing that the uranium trade breaches a Russian law forbidding the import and storage of foreign waste. Tenex says the uranium is not waste because it will be used in future fast breeder reactors. Urenco, a major uranium enrichment company based in the UK, told New Scientist it had exported "several thousand tonnes of depleted uranium" to Tenex since 1995. In return for the waste Urenco said it "purchases and takes delivery of equivalent quantities of natural uranium". -------- iran GCC fears Iran 'getting out of hand' Saturday 17 December 2005 Reuters http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/EB1FD903-6D20-4375-A872-37DF557EC926.htm Leaders of six pro-US Gulf Arab states are to discuss Iran's nuclear ambitions and a stand-off between the United Nations and Syria. Foreign ministers from the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) will meet on Saturday before a summit that some analysts expect will call for intensified diplomacy with Iran. The GCC members are Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman. N Jahardhan, analyst at the Gulf Research Centre, said: "GCC countries are getting worried that things in Iran are getting out of hand. "The GCC realises Iran is definitely a threat ... Things have reached a critical stage and they feel they will bear the brunt of any escalation. It is clear that there is no defined policy in Iran about what to do if it is attacked." An official associated with the two-day meeting, to be held in Abu Dhabi, capital of the UAE, said: "There is concern that Iran's nuclear programme could be weaponised. At the end of the day they [Iranians] are building a nuclear reactor across the Gulf. Military action "There is also concern that if there is any military action (against Iran), Iran might retaliate and attack pro-US allies in the Gulf." Iran's nuclear programme is fuelling regional and Western fears that it is seeking to develop weapons, which Tehran denies. Any talks by the GCC with Iran would also focus on Tehran's alleged influence in Iraq. Saudi Arabia and the US have already accused Iran of meddling in Iraqi affairs. "There is also concern that if there is any military action (against Iran), Iran might retaliate and attack pro-US allies in the Gulf" Gulf official A Saudi official said Riyadh was keen the Gulf leaders should demand that Syria co-operate with a UN inquiry into the killing of Rafiq al-Hariri, the former Lebanese prime minister who was assassinated in February. "King Abdullah has taken the lead to persuade Syria to meet UN demands and Riyadh expects the summit to reflect Saudi desire for full Syrian co-operation," the official said. Another official said the GCC was likely to issue a strongly worded statement on Syria. "They want Syria to comply with the United Nations and stop dragging its feet," he said. The Security Council is reviewing a report by Detlev Mehlis, its investigator, who said new evidence implicated Syria in al-Hariri's murder. Syria denies any part in the killing. Free Trade Agreements Saudi Arabia had helped to negotiate a deal between Syria and the United Nations by persuading Damascus to agree to the questioning of five Syrians about al-Hariri's assassination. On the economic front, analysts expect talks to focus on turning bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) between member states and other countries into deals with the whole bloc. The GCC has reluctantly agreed to individual bilateral FTAs with Washington, even though they infringe on a joint tariff deal, but said trade pacts might not be signed with other states. Ghazi al-Gosaibi, the Saudi employment minister, has also said ministers will propose a six-year limit for expatriates to stay in Gulf states, which rely on millions of foreign workers. He said that this was to pre-empt any international laws that might force states to grant citizenship to long-term residents. -------- israel Iran: The Israeli Factor by Chandra Muzaffar. December 17, 2005 GlobalResearch.ca http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=MUZ20051217&articleId=1494 Iran is being pressurized to abandon its nuclear programme. Tel Aviv and Washington are behind this. London has joined the duo. Paris and Berlin are lending their support just as some other Western capitals are also 'concerned' about Iran. Peaceful purposes The present Iranian leadership has made it explicitly clear that its nuclear programme---which incidentally began as an agreement between the pro-Washington Iranian monarch, Reza Shah Pahlavi and the US government in 1957---is for peaceful purposes. If it has undertaken nuclear enrichment it is because this is allowed under the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) of which Iran is a signatory. The Tehran government further asserts that it has since late 2002 facilitated countless inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). These inspections have shown that Tehran has not made any attempt to produce nuclear weapons. Besides, nuclear weapons, as the Iranian Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and numerous government officials have averred in recent years, go against the grain of Islamic teachings. This is because they kill innocent civilians; are injurious to the health of unborn generations; and devastate the environment. It is equally significant that on the 3rd of October 2004 the Director General of the IAEA, Mohamed ElBaradei, stated openly that, "Iran has no nuclear weapons program, but I personally don't rush to conclusions before all the realities are clarified. So far I see nothing which could be called an imminent danger. I have seen no nuclear weapons programme in Iran. What I have seen is that Iran is trying to gain access to nuclear enrichment technology, and so far there is no danger from Iran. Therefore, we should make use of political and diplomatic means before thinking of resorting to alternatives". And yet almost a year later, on the 24th of September 2005, the IAEA Board of Governors adopted a resolution criticizing Iran for "failures and breaches…which constitute non-compliance" with the NPT and called on Iran to re-suspend conversion of uranium at its Isfahan plant. The resolution also urged Iran to return to negotiations with the European Union (EU) 3, namely, Britain, France and Germany, on the nuclear issue. Given "the absence of confidence that Iran's nuclear program is exclusively for peaceful purposes," the IAEA resolution hinted that it (the program) "has given rise to questions that are within the competence of the Security Council". This suggests that Iran may be referred at a later date to the Security Council for possible sanctions. Iran has rejected the resolution. It maintains that it has not violated the NPT or other related protocols in any way. Its resumption of the conversion of uranium yellowcake to uranium hexafluoride at Isfahan is within the ambit of the NPT which guarantees any nation the right to pursue elements of the fuel cycle for civilian purposes. In any case, this activity is being carried out under the supervision of IAEA inspectors. Iran is prepared to re-commence discussions with the EU3 but it will not agree to the permanent suspension or the abandonment of its nuclear enrichment programme. Since other countries which have peaceful nuclear programmes are allowed such activities Iran sees no reason why it should be denied this right under the NPT. Why is Iran being discriminated against, ask its leaders. Why is Iran being singled out ? Absolute Security The answer is obvious. It is because of Israel that Iran is being singled out. Three years ago, Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, had already advocated military action against Iran. The British newspaper, The Guardian, of 5 November 2002, quoted him as saying that "as soon as the US and Britain had completed their proposed attack on Iraq" they should turn against Iran. Iran is Israel's target since the latter is determined to ensure that no nation in the Middle East which is ardently opposed to Israeli occupation of Palestine and other Arab lands and at the same time offers tangible assistance to Palestinian and Arab freedom fighters has the capacity to develop nuclear weapons. This is why it took unilateral action to destroy Iraq's nuclear reactor at Osirak in 1981. Indeed even if a nation in the Middle East has no nuclear programme but is independent minded and does not acquiesce with Israel's role or the United States' regional and global hegemony, it is bound to incur Tel Aviv's wrath. Syria, especially under the late President Hafiz Assad would be a case in point. Similarly, popular grassroots movements like the Hizbollah in Lebanon or Hamas in Palestine which regard Israel as an interloper that has annexed and usurped Arab territories and dispossessed and disenfranchised Arab peoples, are --- in Israeli eyes---mortal foes that should be destroyed and decimated at all costs. It is only if those states and movements which are opposed to Israel are emasculated and rendered impotent, will Israel be safe and secure. To put it in a different language, since the creation of Israel in 1948, one of the overriding considerations of its leadership has been the total, absolute security of the state. It will not tolerate even the slightest hint of a threat to its security. To achieve total, absolute security, it has armed itself to the teeth. Israel as is well known is the only state in the Middle East with nuclear weapons. Its clandestine nuclear programme at the core of which are an estimated 200 nuclear warheads has never ever been subjected to any form of scrutiny. The IAEA has not sought to investigate Israel's nuclear weapons programme. It does not even dare to chide Tel Aviv for its cleverly concealed nuclear operations. The unspoken understanding within the IAEA is that Israel has the sacred right to possess nuclear weapons in order to protect its security. It is not just its nuclear weapons which are designed to make Israel feel secure. The Israeli armed forces are more powerful than all the other militaries in the Middle East put together. Israel is in command of the most sophisticated and up-to-date weaponry in the region. Perhaps even more important, it is protected by the world's most formidable military power --- the United States of America. From an objective standpoint, no nation, indeed no combination of nation states, in the Middle East is in a position to challenge Israel's military supremacy. Today, Israel equates its security, nay its very survival, with its ability to perpetuate its unassailable military supremacy. In other words, it has to be totally dominant in order to be completely secure. Hegemony, in Israel's view, has become the only way of guaranteeing the nation's security. When hegemonic power becomes synonymous with national security, it is inevitable that Israel's neighbours will feel threatened and intimidated. This is perhaps what the Israeli leadership wants. If governments in the Middle East are petrified of Israeli power, it becomes easier for Tel Aviv to impose its hegemonic will upon the region. The Israeli position in this regard is slightly different from that of its Western patrons and protectors. They refuse to acknowledge that Israel's hegemonic notion of security is generating fear within its neighbourhood. They do not want to admit that Iran's - and before that Iraq's --- desire to go nuclear may well be a response to Israel's massive nuclear and military power. Travesty of Justice. If the centres of power in the West have chosen to mollycoddle Israel and its hegemonic notion of security, it is partly because of the holocaust and the sympathy that it continues to generate in the West for the Jewish state and the Jewish people. Since the Jews had suffered so much at the hands of the Christian West in the past---so the argument goes --- they should be allowed to define their security in whatever manner they deem fit. Besides, Israel is still not safe or secure today - according to many Western governments and a significant segment of the Western public---because it operates within a hostile environment where many Arabs and Muslims remain determined as ever to wipe out the Zionist state. For the vast majority of Arabs and Muslims, on the other hand, the manner in which the West had compensated the Jews for the holocaust and their centuries old persecution in Europe represents a terrible travesty of justice. Palestinians and Arabs, it is important to reiterate, were made to pay with their blood and their land for the injustices perpetrated by Christianity and Nazism against the Jews. The conquest of the home they had owned and occupied since time immemorial and their subsequent subjugation and annihilation will continue to rankle in their minds for eternity. This monumental act of injustice, embodied in the establishment of the state of Israel, was a deep and painful wound in the Arab and Muslim heart for two other reasons. The victims of the Zionist desire for a state were a people, who unlike the Christians of the West until the 18th century, had right through history treated the Jews in their midst with a certain degree of respect and had on a number of occasions provided shelter and succour to them when they were subjected to ethnic pogroms in various parts of Europe. If this wasn't tragic enough, every Zionist leadership in power in Israel since 1948 starting with David Ben-Gurion had either usurped more land or expelled more Palestinians or demolished more Palestinian homes in a cruel and ruthless manner. It is because of this --- the arrogant and aggressive behaviour of the Zionists before, during and after the establishment of their state---that there is so much antipathy and antagonism towards Israel, Israelis and their backers throughout the Arab and Muslim world. This is why for the Muslim masses Iran's nuclear programme is not a problem at all. Iran has every right to develop nuclear technology especially if it is for peaceful purposes. In fact, even if it manufactures nuclear weapons --- which would be unfortunate --- they would regard it as 'a justifiable act', given the circumstances. In their minds the crucial issues in the crisis over Iran's nuclear programme are unambiguously clear. The root cause of the crisis is Israel with its obsession for hegemonic security. Israel has nuclear weapons. Israel is militarily powerful. Israel is hegemonic. Israel is aggressive and arrogant. Israel occupies Palestinian and Arab lands. Israel demolishes Palestinian homes. Israel massacres Palestinian women and children. What infuriates a lot of Muslims is that the West, especially the US, Israel's principal patron and protector, is so biased towards Israel as evidenced in the Iran nuclear issue. The West's double standards - lucidly demonstrated in its accommodative attitude towards Israel's nuclear weapons --- and its selective persecution --- vividly reflected in its deliberate targeting of Iran---have eroded further whatever little credibility it enjoys in the Muslim world. On a number of other issues too over the last four decades, the US in particular has been unashamedly biased towards Israel even when the Zionist state's oppression of the Palestinians and Arabs is incredibly ugly and hideous. This is one of the main reasons why a huge chasm has developed between the US elite and the Muslim masses worldwide. Instead of putting Iran in the dock, the US and the West should examine Israel's conduct. They should look at how Israel's obsession with security is now expressing itself through an arrogant, aggressive hegemony that has few parallels in contemporary international relations. It is high time they realize that Israel's hegemonic political posturing in the Middle East is the single most dangerous threat to not only regional stability but also to world peace. The choice before the US and the West is stark and simple : either they continue to work in tandem with Israel and destroy the world or they curb and control Israel's drive for hegemonic power and usher in a new era of peace and justice. -------- mideast Gulf leader urges Iran to make region nuclear free Sat Dec 17, 2005 6:31 PM ET (AFP) http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20051217/wl_mideast_afp/gulfuaesummit_051217233143 ABU DHABI - The secretary general of the Gulf Cooperation Council urged Iran ahead of a summit by the oil-rich bloc on Sunday to join it in an agreement that would pledge to make the region nuclear free. "It is necessary to reach an agreement between the GCC, Iran, Iraq and other countries like Yemen to make the Gulf region free from weapons of mass destruction and nuclear arms," said Abdulrahman al-Attiyah late Saturday after a meeting of GCC foreign ministers in Abu Dhabi to prepare for the summit. The GCC includes Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the majority of which are staunch US allies. Iran is accused by Israel and the United States of using its civilian nuclear program to cover a weapons program, something Tehran strongly denies. Attiyah, a native of Qatar, said such an agreement, if concluded, could be later expanded to include Israel and other powers in the region. He said he was extending the invitation to Gulf neighbour Iran in his "own name" and not that of his organisation. "We do not want to see a nuclear race in the region. Iran's reactors are closer to our coast than to Tehran itself," he said. Sunday's summit, which comes 25 years after the GCC was established, is expected to focus on issues affecting regional stability such as the fight against terror and the situation in Iraq, according to Attiyah. Leaders will also discuss progress in creating a common market, which is now expected to be formed in 2007, and a monetary union which will be formed in 2010, said Attiyah. Although GCC states have already agreed on several key criteria to bring their economic and fiscal policies closer and also approved setting up a central bank for the group ahead of a monetary union, they are criticized by many as moving too slow in implementing the measures. The UAE's Vice President and Prime Minister Sheikh Maktoum bin Rashid al-Maktoum said that, despite the delays, the GCC was committed to an integrated market. That has been one of the main conditions of the European Union to conclude a long-stalled free trade deal with the bloc. "The process will not stop. It may be slow at times, but this does not mean we will stop before achieving our goals," said Sheikh Maktoum, who is also ruler of Dubai. The GCC and the EU signed a framework economic cooperation agreement in 1988 but have so far failed to agree on a free trade deal. Attiyah said a deal with the EU now looked more likely in 2006 after one had been promised at the end of 2005 following several rounds of talks with European officials over the past few months. "We have dealt with most of the issues ... I am an optimist, an agreement will be signed early next year God willing," he said. Besides the delays in creating one market, GCC states have been slow in implementing a shared defense strategy with members now likely to scrap a 5,000-strong military force called the "Peninsula Shield", according to an official attending the Abu Dhabi meeting. Member states are likely to focus on sharing intelligence and conducting joint military exercises, said the official, who did not wish to be identified. The joint military force was created in 1986 at the peak of the Iran-Iraq war but proved ineffective in defending Kuwait against the Iraqi invasion in 1990. Another thorny issue which the GCC will postpone tackling for now is a proposal made in September to limit the stay of expatriate labourers in countries of the region to six years. Attiyah said ministers decided Saturday that the issue needed further study. Nearly 12 million foreigners, most of them Asian labourers, work in Gulf countries, which are seeking to make their nationals take over many of the more mid- to high-level jobs performed by expatriates. ---- Gulf Arabs warn against regional nuclear arms race By Heba Kandil Sat Dec 17, 2005 9:38 AM ET (Reuters) http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051217/ts_nm/mideast_gulf_dc ABU DHABI - Gulf Arab leaders will call on Iran to shun nuclear weapons to avoid more instability in the energy-rich region already affected by volatility in Iraq, a senior official said on Saturday. The six-nation, pro-U.S. Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), whose leaders meet on Sunday, will also urge Syria to cooperate with a UN probe into the killing of a former Lebanese prime minister, GCC Secretary-General Abdul Rahman al-Attiya said. "We don't want a nuclear arms race in this region. We are very worried and concerned about this," he told reporters, referring to Iran's nuclear program as well as Israel's nuclear facilities. "I think it is time for an agreement to have the Gulf region free of nuclear weapons. ... This will no doubt pave the way to urge Israel to submit its (nuclear) facilities (to inspection)," he told reporters in Abu Dhabi after Gulf foreign ministers met to draft the summit's agenda. The GCC groups Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar. Israel has never admitted it has a nuclear weapons program but is widely believed to have some 200 nuclear warheads. Iran's nuclear program is fuelling regional and Western fears that it is seeking to develop atomic weapons. Tehran says its program is for energy, but President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's verbal salvos at Israel -- in which he called for the Jewish state to be wiped off the map -- are making Gulf states anxious. STRONG WORDS FOR SYRIA Accusations of Syrian involvement in the February assassination of Rafik al-Hariri are also worrying Gulf states, especially Saudi Arabia which enjoyed closed ties with the slain former Lebanese prime minister. Saudi Arabia had helped broker a deal between Syria and the United Nations by persuading Damascus to agree to the questioning of five Syrians over Hariri's death. Syria insists it had no role in the killing but reports by a UN investigator have implicated Syrian officials. Attiya said the GCC was monitoring the progress of the UN probe, adding that the bloc hoped Damascus would cooperate. "We hope that everything will be done in the interest of truth," he said. "We are confident that the Syrian leadership is aware of all the steps it needs to take to achieve stability and preserve the brotherly and historic ties with Lebanon." A Gulf official earlier said the summit was likely to issue a strongly worded statement on Syria. "They want Syria to comply with the United Nations and stop dragging its feet," he added. Delegates said the Sunni-led GCC would also discuss ways to curb what they see as Shi'ite Iran's growing influence in Iraq where Shi'ites gained power after the ouster of Saddam Hussein. Saudi Arabia has bluntly accused Iran of meddling. On the economic front, Attiya said the summit would discuss steps toward launching a monetary union, which analysts said needs a political thrust to move to the next phase. The talks will also cover a GCC-European Union trade agreement under negotiation for 15 years and which Attiya said the bloc hoped to finalize early next year. Delegates said the summit would also call on GCC members to turn any bilateral free trade agreements into deals for the whole bloc. The GCC has reluctantly agreed to bilateral FTAs with Washington, even though they infringe on a joint tariff deal, but said trade pacts may not be signed with other states. -------- russia Radioactive alert in Chechnya Grozny is a bombed-out ruin and rebels are active every day Saturday 17 December 2005 Aljazeera http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/CB0C3694-0984-43DC-8F58-0B337D319CCE.htm Investigators have found nuclear material capable of being used in a dirty bomb in an abandoned factory in Chechnya. It was not clear why the radioactive source had been kept in the factory in Grozny, but officials said it posed a severe threat to anyone who came near it. Site contamination was found to be tens of thousands of times more than normal levels. Valery Kuznetsov, a Chechen prosecutor, told NTV television: "This is above all now a threat to the population, because the leadership and officials of the firm did not take the necessary steps to isolate the isotope." Almost all of Grozny was destroyed by Russian bombing in 1999-2000 when Russian troops poured back into the region to reassert central control over separatist rebels, who still attack troops and police every day. Once a mighty industrial centre, Grozny's factories are now derelict, many of them dotted with machinegun nests. Looters Other Chechen officials did not wish to comment on the presence of the radioactive material, which was named by the prosecutors as Cobalt-60, an isotope of cobalt used as a source of radiation in food processing, hospitals and elsewhere. Cobalt-60 has also been identified as one of the most likely elements to be used to make a "dirty bomb". Prosecutors said it had raised radiation levels to 58,000 times above normal. A member of Chechnya's emergencies committee, who asked not to be named, said: "This is not a one-day problem. This problem of radiation leaking into Grozny's air has been going on for a decade." He said looters had uncovered the materials. ---- Nuclear Waste Found in Ruined Chechen Factory By REUTERS December 17, 2005 http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-nuclear-russia-chechnya.html?pagewanted=print GROZNY, Russia (Reuters) - Investigators have found nuclear contamination tens of thousands of times above safe levels on the premises of a ruined factory in Russia's Chechnya, officials said on Saturday. It was not clear why the radioactive source had been kept in the factory, but prosecutors said it posed a severe threat to anyone who came near to it. ``This is above all now a threat to the population, because the leadership and officials of the firm did not take the necessary steps to isolate the isotope,'' said Chechen prosecutor Valery Kuznetsov on NTV television. Almost all of Grozny was destroyed by Russian bombing in 1999-2000 when Russian troops poured back into the region to reassert central control over separatist rebels, who still attack troops and police daily. Once a mighty industrial center, Grozny's factories are now a wasteland of twisted steel -- many of them dotted with machine gun nests. Other Chechen officials did not wish to comment on the presence of the radioactive material, which was named by the prosecutors as Cobalt-60 -- a variation of cobalt used as a source of radiation in food processing, hospitals and elsewhere. Prosecutors said it had raised radiation levels to 58,000 times above normal. ``This is not a one-day problem. This problem of radiation leaking into Grozny's air has been going on for a decade,'' said a member of Chechnya's emergencies committee who asked not to be named. He said looters had uncovered the materials. There was no suggestion the radioactive materials could fall into the hands of Chechen militants, although Cobalt-60 has been identified as one of the most likely elements to be used to make a so-called ``dirty bomb.'' -------- u.s. nuc facilities -------- georgia Nuclear fuel missing Southern Co. can't find radioactive material Justin Rubner Staff Writer, Atlanta Business Journal, December 19, 2005 http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/stories/2005/12/19/story1.html?from_rss=1 One day last May, workers at Southern Co.'s nuclear power plant near Baxley, Ga., made a disturbing discovery: 68 inches of dangerous used nuclear fuel rods were missing. An "exhaustive search" during the seven months since has failed to find the missing parts of rods, tubes a little wider than a pencil and as long as 14 feet. Fuel rods are placed in "assemblies" and then placed in reactors to generate energy. Southern Co. (NYSE: SO) on Nov. 10 disclosed publicly that the nuclear material was missing from its Edwin I. Hatch Nuclear Plant. Officials of Southern Co.'s nuclear power subsidiary, Southern Nuclear Operating Co., had been scheduled to hold a public meeting with Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials in Atlanta on Dec. 15 to discuss the issue. But that meeting was canceled and has been postponed indefinitely so the company can further search for the material. Officials at Southern Co. have said the possibility of theft is "not plausible" and that there is no threat to public health or safety. Nonetheless, the NRC is watching the matter closely. "We want to know what happened and see that it doesn't happen again," said NRC spokesman Ken Clark. Southern Nuclear officials say the missing material might be somewhere in the plant's used fuel-storage pools or it could have been inadvertently shipped to a storage facility for less dangerous nuclear waste in Barnwell, S.C. About 30 Plant Hatch employees are conducting a search of paper and computer records as well as video recorded by robotic cameras inside the plant's two 40-foot deep Olympic-sized pools, said Southern Nuclear spokesman Steve Higginbottom. The facility in Barnwell, however, is not being searched, he said. Southern Nuclear CEO Barnie Beasley has been "very involved" with the search, Higginbottom said, and Southern Co. CEO David Ratcliffe is aware of the search but has not had a "hands-on role." In addition to examining millions of inches of nuclear waste, the team also is interviewing current and former employees who have worked there since the 1980s, Higginbottom said. Plus, Southern Nuclear has commissioned Marietta-based GE Energy to assist. (The plant is powered by two GE Energy boiling water reactors.) "You want to get another set of expert eyes, especially when you're dealing with small pieces," Higginbottom said. He added that the amount of missing inventory could go up or down during the process. The discrepancy is the fourth such reported incident in U.S. history and the second-largest, according to the NRC. However, the NRC stresses there is no threat of any lost materials falling into the wrong hands. "No one stole that fuel and walked out with it," Clark said. "You can't just take that fuel out and walk out with it in your pocket. It would be deadly -- the radiation from the material would kill you quickly. Nevertheless, we still want an accounting for where it is." Breaching security would be nearly impossible. On top of physical barriers at Hatch and other plants, a would-be thief would have to get past armed guards and radioactivity and intrusion sensors, experts say. However unlikely, if a terrorist acquired even a few inches of used fuel rod parts, he could create a "dirty bomb," said William Miller, a professor of nuclear science and engineering at the University of Missouri-Columbia. A dirty bomb combines conventional explosives, such as dynamite, with radioactive material. According to the NRC Web site, a dirty bomb could contaminate several city blocks, "creating fear and possibly panic and requiring a potentially costly cleanup." "It could be used in that fashion," Miller said. "But so could thousands of sources, such as medicine. There are sources everywhere." Miller emphasized that the nuclear industry is extremely safe -- much safer since the Three Mile Island meltdown in 1979 -- and for that reason was surprised by Southern Nuclear's announcement. "I'd be terribly embarrassed if I was working at that plant," Miller said. "It's certainly not something that should be happening." New reactors planned The nuclear material is missing at a time when Southern Nuclear wants to build two new reactors. Southern Nuclear hopes to have one operational by 2015 -- possibly at Plant Vogtle near Waynesboro, Ga. Southern Co. and other nuclear power plant operators also are pushing the federal government to build a permanent nuclear waste storage facility in Yucca Mountain, Nev. The Yucca Mountain complex, which is facing intense opposition from Nevada residents and environmentalists, was supposed to be complete by 2010, but that now looks unlikely. Southern Co. is embroiled in a lawsuit against the Department of Energy to recover costs associated with the delay. As a result of the delay, Southern Nuclear is planning to expand its storage capacity at Hatch by 2009, said Stan Wise of the Georgia Public Service Commission. Wise said costs associated with storage since December 2004 total $77 million. During the week of Dec. 12, Wise met with U.S. House of Representatives energy leaders and Department of Energy officials to press them on the Yucca Mountain issue. Wise estimates that Georgia Power customers have paid at least $518 million into a fund to pay for Yucca Mountain. Currently, Southern Nuclear is storing 6,540 used fuel rod assemblies in the two pools at Plant Hatch. The fuel inventory in Plant Hatch's two reactor cores and the two pools totals more than 57 million inches. Not the first time Southern Nuclear is not the first company to lose fuel rods. In 2002, the Millstone plant in Waterford, Conn., operated by Dominion Nuclear Connecticut Inc., reported it had lost two irradiated fuel rods -- about 288 inches' worth, according to the NRC. The NRC fined the company $288,000, or about $1,000 per inch. David Lochbaum, a nuclear safety engineer at the Union of Concerned Scientists, an environmental safety advocacy group, said the Millstone incident sparked stricter policies in tracking nuclear inventory. Prior to the reported discrepancy, plants were required only to track complete fuel assemblies -- which are made up of 60 or so rods of varying lengths -- but now must track even small pieces of rods. In February, new rules passed by the NRC prompted Southern Nuclear to conduct such an inventory. The company became aware something was awry in May. Lochbaum, who worked at Plant Hatch in the early 1980s, said plants used to track inventory with index cards before computerization. "The tracking system didn't really track rods," he said. "It did an even worse job at tracking segments." Another discrepancy was reported at the Humboldt Bay plant near Eureka, Calif. The plant, decommissioned in 1976, was operated by Pacific Gas & Electric Co. The company reported in 2004 it was unable to find three 18-inch sections of a rod, according to the NRC. And in June 2005, the Vermont Yankee plant, operated by Entergy Nuclear Operations Inc., reported it had "temporarily" lost but later found 26 inches of spent fuel rod pieces, according to the NRC. Higginbottom said Southern Nuclear believes the Hatch parts were lost sometime in the 1980s. During a lengthy replacement process then, many rods were moved from one assembly to another, he said, and some pieces might have fallen into one of the pools or into one of the assemblies themselves. The materials are so deadly, they have to be handled underwater in the concrete and stainless-steel-lined pools. Higginbottom said those pieces over the years could've been "vacuumed" up or could still be caught in pool filters. As a result of the lost inventory and the new NRC rules, Southern Nuclear has changed its procedures to account for such parts, Higginbottom said. Other operators, experts say, have likely done the same thing. Southern Nuclear is scheduled to present a report on its search to the NRC sometime during the first quarter. Reach Rubner at jrubner@bizjournals.com. -------- north carolina McGuire Nuclear Plant Sirens Fail Test During Ice Storm Posted by Jason Saine on 2005/12/17 14:38:43 Lincolnton, NC Tribune http://www.lincolntribune.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=3494 Lake Norman - The Charlotte Observer is reporting that half of the emergency sirens near the McGuire nuclear station failed during tests that were conducted on Thursday. The tests coincided with Thursday's freezing-rain storm. The station is owned by Duke Power. Weather apparently interfered with radio frequencies that test the sirens to make sure they are capable of sounding during an emergency situation. Duke Power saied that 38 of 67 sirens failed, but, after a retest, only four failed to operate as they should. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission was notified of the failures. According to Duke Power, other back up systems exists such as automated phone dialers that will call residents in case of an emergency. -------- MILITARY -------- arms Air Force's F-22A Raptor ready for combat 12/17/2005 (AP) http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-12-17-raptor_x.htm NORFOLK, Va. — The F-22A Raptor, an advanced stealth fighter jet in development since the 1980s, is ready for combat, the Air Force announced. "If we have to go out the door to a conflict that starts tomorrow, we're going to take the Raptor with us," said Gen. Ronald Keys, head of Air Combat Command, at Langley Air Force Base. The Raptor has reached "initial operational capability," the Air Force said Thursday, meaning it is certified as ready to fight and supported by a properly trained and equipped force. It also means the aircraft is qualified to fly homeland defense missions, officials said. The Air Force says the fighter will ensure America's air dominance for years to come. Critics, however, say the Raptor is too expensive at a time when U.S. combat aircraft already dominate the skies, and that it was designed for a high-tech enemy that no longer exists — the Soviet Union. Previously designated the F/A-22, the Raptor was intended primarily as a stealthy replacement for the F-15 Eagle, which was built to shoot down other planes. Unlike its predecessor, the Raptor can fly at supersonic speeds for long distances. The Raptor is the most expensive aircraft in the Air Force's inventory, said Doug Karas, an Air Force spokesman in Washington. The most recent Raptors, not including research and development, cost about $133 million each to produce, he said. With research, development and testing, the cost is about $350 million per aircraft, he said. So far, the Air Force has 56 Raptors, including training and test fighters, at Langley, Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida and Edwards Air Force Base in California. The current budget plans include about 180, and the Air Force wants more, Karas said. Twelve jets will head to Alaska in June for their first routine peacetime exercise deployment, Keys said. The first combat-ready Raptors are flying with the 27th Fighter Squadron of the 1st Fighter Wing, at Langley. Analyst John Pike called the Raptor "the greatest air-to-air fighter plane ever built." "You've got an airplane that the enemy cannot see that ... can maneuver around the sky very quickly," said Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a research center on security issues. "You just would not want to go up against it because you would know that you would lose." It's too soon to tell whether the Raptor will be worth the expense, though, Pike said. "You do have to wonder who we're going to use it against," he said. ---- Why are the arms makers formulating EU policy? Looking at the weapons industry's key role in formulating EU military policy. December 17, 2005 18:06 | by Rae Street | Spectre Zine http://www.spectrezine.org/europe/street.htm The militaristic heart of the European Union was revealed in all its ugly glory last month by European Commissioner for external relations Dr Benita Ferrero-Waldner. During a debate on arms exports, nuclear non-proliferation and defence procurement in the European Parliament, he set out the European Commission's aims to boost the military-industrial complex. "The ultimate objective of the commission is to open up defence markets, which are today highly fragmented and to increase the efficiency of public spending by encouraging competition and transparency in these markets. This should be of benefit to both buyers and taxpayers but also to the European defence industry, which is suffering from a market structure which prevents it competing in the global marketplace." Ferrero-Waldner also stated the need to press on with the European Defence Agency (EDA). Its title might sound innocuous, but the EDA is a central component in the development of a common European foreign and defence policy. The impetus for common policy in this area has been growing since the early 1990s. It began to be formulated in the 1992 Maastricht Treaty and appears within the proposed EU constitution so roundly rejected by the French and Dutch. The document urges member states "to progressively improve their military capabilities." It is lying dormant but could be resurrected at any time. However, much of the policy laid down in the proposed constitution is going on apace regardless of its rejection by ordinary people. The EDA is key to this. It first met in September 2004 and exists to support member states in their effort to "improve European defence capabilities." What this means in plain English is more arms sales, more trade in weapons and research into more effective killing machines. But what is fuelling this drive to spend taxpayers' money on rearming Europe? Weapons are big business. Basically, the EDA is an arms agency. Defence manufacturers are scrambling to get a slice of the military budget. At the moment, the market is dominated by the big three US corporate manufacturers - Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Northrop Grumman. But they are closely followed by the European big three - BAE Systems, Thales and EADS. The last of these took out full-page newspaper adverts in 2004 to coincide with European foreign ministers' approval of the EDA. They urged the EU to boost military spending. George Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld have encouraged greater military spending following September 11 2001 and "intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq." This begs the question, whose agenda is EU militarisation serving? The Group of Personalities is an advisory body to the European Commission that was brought together in the wake of the September 11 2001 attacks and the Madrid bombings. Its brief was to advise on the European security research programme. Eight of its 25 members came directly from big arms companies. Several others came from defence-related research institutes and ministries of defence. The people missing were representatives of civil society or those working on non-military solutions to conflict. Dutch Campaign Against the Arms Trade activist Frank Slipker has produced a comprehensive pamphlet entitled The Emerging EU Military Industrial Complex. He points out that the Group of Personalities' 2004 report Research for a Secure Europe has major failings. "A shortcoming of the report is its almost exclusive focus on technocratic and technical solutions to a problem the complexity of which requires far more than technological (and often repressive) measures." War, military bases and weapons of mass destruction are all good for the defence industry. But throwing more and more money at weapons and repressive technologies will not bring security to Europeans or the wider world. These issues need to be raised with our elected representatives. The policy of allowing corporate defence contractors to virtually formulate European defence strategy must be challenged. Rae Street is vice-chairwoman of the UK Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. See also http://www.spectrezine.org/europe/Hudson.htm -------- business Put an End to CEO Excess By Sarah Anderson, AlterNet, December 17, 2005 http://www.alternet.org/story/29709/ Executives at some companies with military contracts have increased their salaries by 200 percent since 9/11. It's time to close the loopholes that permit war profiteering. Tools By nearly any measure, the party David H. Brooks threw recently for his daughter's bat mitzvah was absurdly over the top. The New York businessman flew in musical mega stars Stephen Tyler and Joe Perry (from Aerosmith), 50 Cent, Tom Petty, Kenny G. and a gaggle of other celebrity acts, many by private jet, to perform for the girl in the Rainbow Room in Rockefeller Center. That the money for the bash, estimated by the New York Daily News at $10 million, came from war profits, made this excess even more obscene. Brooks, CEO of bulletproof vest maker DHB Industries, has seen his fortunes soar since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Last year, he earned $70 million, most of it from stock options. That represented an increase of 13,349 percent over his pre-9/11 compensation, according to Executive Excess, co-published by the Institute for Policy Studies and United for a Fair Economy. Brooks' flaunting of his war wealth is exceptionally tasteless, given that the equipment which boosted his fortunes appears not to work very well. In May 2005, the Marines recalled more than 5,000 DHB armored vests after questions were raised about their effectiveness in stopping 9 mm bullets. Last month, the Marines and Army announced a recall of an additional 18,000 DHB vests. Brooks is also under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission for suspected financial wrongdoing and faces a number of investor class action lawsuits for fraud and insider trading. For any CEO who has spent the war in the comfort of his executive suite to flaunt his war wealth sends the wrong message to those on the frontlines. As the body count continues to mount, news like this must be especially galling to U.S. troops. Most likely, they will never earn as much in their lifetimes as Brooks earned in one year. Brooks is just one example of the many executives who are cashing in on the boost in military spending since 9/11. Defense contractor CEOs received raises on average of 200 percent between 2001 and 2004, compared to only 7 percent for average large company CEOs. What can be done about war profiteering? It's important to remember that this is public money, in the form of defense contracts, which is driving these CEOs' personal profits. Taxpayers should have every right to insist that strings be attached to that money, including requirements that executive pay be restrained to reasonable levels during times of war. In theory, U.S. law already imposes a ceiling on executive pay for defense contractors at about $430,000 per year. But loopholes in the law and technical difficulties with enforcement has made it meaningless in practice. The principle behind that law should be strengthened and loopholes closed. Times of war call for a spirit of shared sacrifice, not greed. While those on the frontlines are paying the highest price for this war, American taxpayers are also making a tremendous sacrifice. In exchange, we should be able to feel confident that the hundreds of billions spent on the war are going to support a stable and prosperous Iraq. Instead we see massive sums lining the pockets of defense CEOs -- and, in this case, their favorite entertainers. Sarah Anderson is a fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies and the co-author of Field Guide to the Global Economy (New Press, 2005) and the Executive Excess report on CEO pay. This essay originally appeared in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel -------- iraq Pale Fire The White Death of Fallujah CHRIS FLOYD December 17, 2005 Counterpunch http://www.counterpunch.org/floyd12172005.html Last month, the broadcast of a shattering new documentary provided fresh confirmation of a gruesome war crime covered by this column nine months ago: the use of chemical weapons by American forces during the frenzied, Bush-ordered destruction of Fallujah in November 2004. Using filmed and photographic evidence, eyewitness accounts, and the direct testimony of American soldiers who took part in the attacks, the documentary ­ "Fallujah: The Hidden Massacre" ­ catalogues the American use of white phosphorous shells and a new, "improved" form of napalm that turned human beings into "caramelized" fossils, with their skin dissolved and turned to leather on their bones. The film was produced by RAI, the Italian state network run by a government that backed the war. Vivid images show civilians, including women and children, who had been burned alive in their homes, even in their beds. This use of chemical weapons ­ at the order of the Bushist brass ­ and the killing of civilians are confirmed by former American soldiers interviewed on camera. "I heard the order to pay attention because they were going to use white phosphorous on Fallujah," said one soldier, quoted in the Independent. "In military jargon, it's known as Willy Pete. Phosphorous burns bodies; in fact it melts the flesh all the way down to the bone. I saw the burned bodies of women and children. Phosphorus explodes and forms a cloud. Anyone within a radius of 150 meters is done for." The broadcast is an important event: shameful, damning, convincing. But it shouldn't be news. Earlier this year, as reported here on March 18, a medical team sent to Fallujah by the Bush-backed Iraqi interim government issued its findings at a press conference in Baghdad. The briefing, by Health Ministry investigator Dr. Khalid ash-Shaykhli, was attended by more than 20 major American and international news outlets. Not a single one of these bastions of a free and vigorous press reported on the event. Only a few small venues ­ such as the International Labor Communications Association ­ brought word of the extraordinary revelations to English-speaking audiences. Yet this highly credible, pro-American official of a pro-occupation government confirmed, through medical examinations and the eyewitness testimony of survivors ­ including many civilians who had opposed the heavy-handed insurgent presence in the town ­ that "burning chemicals" had been used by U.S. forces in the attack, in direct violation of international and American law. "All forms of nature were wiped out" by the substances unleashed in the assault, including animals that had been killed by gas or chemical fire, said Dr ash-Shaykhli. But apparently this kind of thing is not considered news anymore by the corporate gatekeepers of media "truth." As we noted here in March, Dr ash-Shaykhli's findings were buttressed by direct testimony from U.S. Marines filing "after-action reports" on websites for military enthusiasts back home. There, fresh from the battle, American soldiers talked openly of the routine use of Willy Pete, propane bombs and "jellied gasoline" (napalm) in tactical assaults in Fallujah. As it says in the scriptures: by their war porn ye shall know them. This week, as in March, the Pentagon said it only used white phosphorous shells in Fallujah for "illumination purposes." But the documentary's evidence belies them. Although there are indeed many white bombs bursting in air to bathe the city in unnatural light, the film clearly shows other phosphorous shells raining all the way to the ground, where they explode in fury throughout residential areas and spread their caramelizing clouds. As Fallujah biologist Mohamed Tareq says in the film: "A rain of fire fell on the city, the people struck by this multi-colored substance started to burn, we found people dead with strange wounds, the bodies burned but the clothes intact." As word of the documentary spread across the Internet and into a very few mainstream media sources, intrepid investigators dug out even more confirmation of how Bush's battalions whipped out the Willy Pete and flayed Fallujah's heathen devils with flesh-eating fire. A Daily Kos diarist, Stephen D., dug up one of the U.S. military's own publications, Field Artillery Magazine, which eagerly related the use of white phosphorous, which "proved to be an effective and versatile munition," the article said. "We used it for screening missions at two breeches and, later in the fight, as a potent psychological weapon against the insurgents in trench lines and spider holes when we could not get effects on them with HE. We fired 'shake and bake' missions at the insurgents, using WP to flush them out and HE to take them out." Mr. D also points to a comment on Altercation.com, that provides further ammunition ­ for "illumination purposes" ­ on the effect of white phosphorous on human beings. There, Mark Kraft writes: "There is no way you can use white phosphorus like that without forming a deadly chemical cloud that kills everything within a tenth of a mile in all directions from where it hits. Obviously, the effect of such deadly clouds weren't just psychological in nature." Another Kossack, "Hunter," digs up mention of Willy Pete use as a weapon in Washington Post reports from the battlefield itself last November. He then takes on the hair-splitters who immediately arose on the Right to declare that white phosphorous is not itself a banned substance, so it's OK to incinerate children with it. Hunter's incandescant irony is worth quoting at length: "First, I think it should be a stated goal of United States policy to not melt the skin off of children. As a natural corollary to this goal, I think the United States should avoid dropping munitions on civilian neighborhoods which, as a side effect, melt the skin off of children. You can call them 'chemical weapons' if you must, or far more preferably by the more proper name of 'incendiaries.' The munitions may or may not precisely melt the skin off of children by setting them on fire; they do melt the skin off of children, however, through robust oxidation of said skin on said children, which is indeed colloquially known as 'burning' "And I know it is true, there is some confusion over whether the United States was a signatory to the Do Not Melt The Skin Off Of Children part of the Geneva conventions, and whether or not that means we are permitted to melt the skin off of children, or merely are silent on the whole issue of melting the skin off of children[However] I am going to come out, to the continuing consternation of Rush Limbaugh and pro-war supporters everywhere, as being anti-children-melting, as a matter of general policy." Meanwhile, in the Guardian, Mike Marquesse pounded home the reality of the overarching atrocity of the attack: "One year ago this week, US-led occupying forces launched a devastating assault on the Iraqi city of Falluja. The mood was set by Lt Col Gary Brandl: 'The enemy has got a face. He's called Satan. He's in Falluja. And we're going to destroy him.' "The assault was preceded by eight weeks of aerial bombardment. US troops cut off the city's water, power and food supplies, condemned as a violation of the Geneva convention by a UN special rapporteur, who accused occupying forces of "using hunger and deprivation of water as a weapon of war against the civilian population". Two-thirds of the city's 300,000 residents fled, many to squatters' camps without basic facilities "By the end of operations, the city lay in ruins. Falluja's compensation commissioner has reported that 36,000 of the city's 50,000 homes were destroyed, along with 60 schools and 65 mosques and shrines. The US claims that 2,000 died, most of them fighters. Other sources disagree. When medical teams arrived in January they collected more than 700 bodies in only one third of the city. Iraqi NGOs and medical workers estimate between 4,000 and 6,000 dead, mostly civilians -- a proportionately higher death rate than in Coventry and London during the blitz." The atrocity-breeding mindset behind the attack was evident from the very first, as I noted in my Moscow Times column of November 18, 2004: "One of the first moves in this magnificent feat of arms was the destruction and capture of medical centers. Twenty doctors ­ and their patients, including women and children ­ were killed in an airstrike on one major clinic, the UN Information Service reports, while the city's main hospital was seized in the early hours of the ground assault. Why? Because these places of healing could be used as "propaganda centers," the Pentagon's "information warfare" specialists told the NY Times. Unlike the first attack on Fallujah last spring, there was to be no unseemly footage of gutted children bleeding to death on hospital beds. This time ­ except for NBC's brief, heavily-edited, quickly-buried clip of the usual lone "bad apple" shooting a wounded Iraqi prisoner ­ the visuals were rigorously scrubbed." When you begin by bombing hospitals, devouring innocent people with hot jellied death is not exactly a stretch. It is simply part and parcel of the inhumanity of the Bushist mindset. Indeed, the slaughter in Fallujah was a microcosm of the entire misbegotten enterprise launched by those two eminent Christian statesmen, Bush and Blair: a brutal act of collective punishment for defying the imperial will; a high-tech turkey shoot that mowed down the just and unjust alike; an idiotic strategic blunder that has exacerbated the violence and hatred it was meant to quell. The vicious overkill of the Fallujah attack alienated large swathes of previously neutral Iraqis and spurred many to join the resistance. It further entangled the United States and Britain in a putrid swamp of war crime, state terrorism and atrocity, dragging them ever deeper into a moral equivalency with the murderous extremists that the Christian leaders so loudly and self-righteously condemn. Let's give the last word to Jeff Engelhardt, one of the ex-servicemen featured in the documentary, who recently issued this plea to his fellow U.S. soldiers on Fight to Survive, a new dissident web site run by Iraqi War vets: "I hope someday you find solace for the orders you have had to execute, for the carnage you helped take part in, and for the pride you wear supporting this bloodbath. Until then, you can only hope for an epiphany, something that stands out as completely immoral, that convinces you of the inhumanity of this war. I don't know how much more proof you need. The criminal outrage of Abu Ghraib, the absolute massacre of Fallujah, the stray .50 caliber bullets or 40mm grenades or tank rounds fired in highly packed urban areas, 500-pound bombs dropped on innocent homes, the use of depleted uranium rounds, the inhumane use of white phosphorus, the hate and the blood and the misunderstandingsthis is the war and the system that you support." Chris Floyd is a columnist for The Moscow Times and regular contributor to CounterPunch. A new, upgraded version of his blog, "Empire Burlesque," can be found at www.chris-floyd.com. -------- israel / palestine Israeli cluster bombs found in southern Lebanon Sat Dec 17,10:28 AM ET (AFP) http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20051217/wl_mideast_afp/lebanonisraelbomb_051217152804 BEIRUT - The Lebanese army has said it found 25 cluster bombs that had been dropped by Israeli aircraft into southern Lebanon but had not exploded. "In the framework of operations to find unexploded cluster bombs dropped by Israeli aircraft on the border region during its last aggression, the army found 25 cluster bombs," the army said. The discovery was made near the village of Kfar Hamam, around five kilometers (three miles) north of the disputed Shebaa Farms, a border area that is occupied by Israel and claimed by Lebanon. Four members of the radical Shiite movement Hezbollah were killed in the area at the end of November during clashes with the Israeli army, which saw 11 of its soldiers wounded. The fighting was the most violent in the area since Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000. -------- spies Bush: Eavesdropping helps save U.S. lives Posted 12/17/2005 10:43 AM Updated 12/18/2005 4:58 AM (AP) http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-12-17-bush-acknowledges_x.htm WASHINGTON — Facing angry criticism and challenges to his authority in Congress, President Bush on Saturday unapologetically defended his administration's right to conduct secret post-Sept. 11 spying in the U.S. as "critical to saving American lives." One Democrat said Bush was acting more like a king than a democratically elected leader. Bush's willingness to publicly acknowledge some of the government's most classified activities was a stunning development for a president known to dislike disclosure of even the most mundane inner workings of his White House. Since October 2001, the super-secret National Security Agency has monitored, without court-approved warrants, the international phone calls and e-mails of people inside the United States. News of the program comes at a particularly damaging and delicate time. Tonight at 9 p.m. ET, the president plans a national address, announced Friday to focus on Iraq. Already, the Bush administration is under fire for allegedly operating secret prisons in Eastern Europe and shipping suspected terrorists to other countries for harsh interrogations. The NSA program's existence surfaced as the administration and its GOP allies on Capitol Hill were fighting to save the expiring provisions of the USA Patriot Act, the domestic anti-terrorism law enacted after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. In a stinging failure to Bush, Democrats and a few Republicans who say this law gives so much latitude to law enforcement officials that it threatens Americans' constitutional liberties succeeded Friday in stalling its renewal. So Bush scrapped the version of his weekly radio address that he had already taped — on the recent elections in Iraq — and delivered a live speech from the White House's Roosevelt Room on the Patriot Act and the NSA program. The gravity with which the White House regarded the situation was evident by the presence in the West Wing on a normally quiet Saturday of many of Bush's closest aides. Often appearing angry in his eight-minute address, the president lashed out at the senators who blocked the Patriot Act's renewal, branding them as irresponsible. He also made clear that he has no intention of halting his authorizations of the NSA's monitoring activities and said the public disclosure of the spy operation endangered Americans. Bush said his authority to approve what he called a "vital tool in our war against the terrorists" came from his constitutional powers as commander in chief. He said that he has personally signed off on reauthorizations more than 30 times since the Sept. 11 attacks. "The American people expect me to do everything in my power under our laws and Constitution to protect them and their civil liberties," Bush said. "And that is exactly what I will continue to do, so long as I'm the president of the United States." James Bamford, author of two books on the National Security Agency, said the program could be problematic because it bypasses a special court set up by the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to authorize eavesdropping on suspected terrorists. "I didn't hear him specify any legal right, except his right as president, which in a democracy doesn't make much sense," Bamford said in an interview. "Today, what Bush said is he went around the law, which is a violation of the law — which is illegal." Susan Low Bloch, a professor of constitutional law at Georgetown University Law Center, said the president needs authorization from Congress for this kind of activity. "He's taking a hugely expansive interpretation of the Constitution and the president's powers under the Constitution," she said. "It's consistent with everything the White House has been doing since 9/11. And every time that any of these measures have been challenged in the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court has ruled against the administration. The administration just doesn't seem to learn from that." That view was echoed by congressional Democrats. "I tell you, he's President George Bush, not King George Bush. This is not the system of government we have and that we fought for," Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., told The Associated Press. Added Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.: "The Bush administration seems to believe it is above the law." Republican Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, on Friday said the NSA program was inappropriate and he promised hearings soon. Bush defended the monitoring program as narrowly designed and used "consistent with U.S. law and the Constitution." He said it is employed only to intercept the international communications of people inside the U.S. who have been determined to have "a clear link" to al-Qaeda or related terrorist organizations. Government officials have refused to provide details, including defining the standards used to establish such a link or saying how many people are being monitored. The program is reviewed every 45 days, using fresh threat assessments, legal reviews, and information from previous activities under the program, the president said. Intelligence officials involved in the monitoring receive extensive training to make sure civil liberties are not violated, he said. Bush also said members of the congressional leadership have been briefed more than a dozen times on the activities. The program through the nation's largest spy agency is designed in part to fix problems revealed by the 2001 attacks, in which it came to be learned that two of the suicide hijackers were communicating from San Diego with al-Qaeda operatives overseas. "The activities I have authorized make it more likely that killers like these 9/11 hijackers will be identified and located in time," Bush said. "The activities conducted under this authorization have helped detect and prevent possible terrorist attacks in the United States and abroad. The president had harsh words for those who revealed the program to the media, saying they acted improperly and illegally. The surveillance, was first disclosed in Friday's New York Times. "As a result, our enemies have learned information they should not have," Bush said. "The unauthorized disclosure of this effort damages our national security and puts our citizens at risk." Bush has more to worry about on Capitol Hill than his difficulties with the Patriot Act. Lawmakers have begun challenging Bush on his Iraq policy, reflecting polling that shows half of the country is not behind him on the war. On Sunday, the president was continuing his effort to reverse that by giving his fifth major speech in less than three weeks on Iraq. This latest one was a 15-minute address, set in prime time from the Oval Office, that was to focus on his vision for Iraq for 2006. One bright spot for the White House was a new poll showing that a strong majority of Americans oppose, as does Bush and most lawmakers, an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. The AP-Ipsos poll found 57% of those surveyed said the U.S. military should stay until Iraq is stabilized. ---- Agents' visit chills UMass Dartmouth senior By AARON NICODEMUS, Standard-Times staff writer, December 17, 2005 http://www.southcoasttoday.com/daily/12-05/12-17-05/a09lo650.htm NEW BEDFORD -- A senior at UMass Dartmouth was visited by federal agents two months ago, after he requested a copy of Mao Tse-Tung's tome on Communism called "The Little Red Book." Two history professors at UMass Dartmouth, Brian Glyn Williams and Robert Pontbriand, said the student told them he requested the book through the UMass Dartmouth library's interlibrary loan program. The student, who was completing a research paper on Communism for Professor Pontbriand's class on fascism and totalitarianism, filled out a form for the request, leaving his name, address, phone number and Social Security number. He was later visited at his parents' home in New Bedford by two agents of the Department of Homeland Security, the professors said. The professors said the student was told by the agents that the book is on a "watch list," and that his background, which included significant time abroad, triggered them to investigate the student further. "I tell my students to go to the direct source, and so he asked for the official Peking version of the book," Professor Pontbriand said. "Apparently, the Department of Homeland Security is monitoring inter-library loans, because that's what triggered the visit, as I understand it." Although The Standard-Times knows the name of the student, he is not coming forward because he fears repercussions should his name become public. He has not spoken to The Standard-Times. The professors had been asked to comment on a report that President Bush had authorized the National Security Agency to spy on as many as 500 people at any given time since 2002 in this country. The eavesdropping was apparently done without warrants. The Little Red Book, is a collection of quotations and speech excerpts from Chinese leader Mao Tse-Tung. In the 1950s and '60s, during the Cultural Revolution in China, it was required reading. Although there are abridged versions available, the student asked for a version translated directly from the original book. The student told Professor Pontbriand and Dr. Williams that the Homeland Security agents told him the book was on a "watch list." They brought the book with them, but did not leave it with the student, the professors said. Dr. Williams said in his research, he regularly contacts people in Afghanistan, Chechnya and other Muslim hot spots, and suspects that some of his calls are monitored. "My instinct is that there is a lot more monitoring than we think," he said. Dr. Williams said he had been planning to offer a course on terrorism next semester, but is reconsidering, because it might put his students at risk. "I shudder to think of all the students I've had monitoring al-Qaeda Web sites, what the government must think of that," he said. "Mao Tse-Tung is completely harmless." Contact Aaron Nicodemus at anicodemus@s-t.com -------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE -------- justice Civil Liberties Become a Casualty of War By RON FOURNIER, AP Political Writer Saturday, December 17, 2005, (AP) http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2005/12/17/national/a003245S70.DTL (12-17) 00:32 PST WASHINGTON -- Given a free hand after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush followed the uncertain footsteps of Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, John Adams and other past presidents who made civil liberties the first casualty of war. Eavesdropping without warrants, redefining torture, building loopholes into the Geneva Conventions and the USA Patriot Act will be parts of Bush's legacy — and a cautionary tale for the next president who struggles with the balance between safety and civil liberties. Congress is raising its voice. Emboldened by Bush's political woes, lawmakers seem determined after four years of acquiescence to play their role as a check on presidential powers. On Friday alone: _Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said it was inappropriate for the super-secret National Security Agency to eavesdrop without warrants on people inside the United States. He promised hearings on Bush's NSA directive. _Senate Democrats blocked extension of the Patriot Act, which expanded legal eavesdropping and allowed secret warrants for books, records and other items from businesses and libraries. _The House called on the administration to give Congress details of secret detention facilities overseas. On Thursday, Bush reversed course and accepted Sen. John McCain's call for a law banning cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of foreign suspects in the war on terror. While the White House's stance on torture did not affect civil liberties of U.S. citizens, it raised questions about the nation's values at home and abroad. In a related debate, the president has long insisted that hundreds of prisoners held in the war on terrorism are enemy combatants, not prisoners of war, and are not entitled to the same rights afforded under the Geneva Conventions. Have we gone too far to defend the nation? What happens if we don't go far enough? Those are the questions that haunted Lincoln, Roosevelt, Adams and others who stretched the U.S. Constitution in the nation's defense. "Civil liberties are always most endangered during wartime and there does seem to be a greater tendency to look for and find domestic and internal enemies during wartime," said Marc Kruman, chairman of history and director of the Center for the Study of Citizenship at Wayne State University in Detroit. Lincoln suspended the right of habeas corpus — the guarantee against being held indefinitely without being charged with a crime — during the Civil War, arousing opposition throughout the country. In one case, he ignored the order of Chief Justice Roger Taney to grant a writ to a Southern agitator who had been jailed by military authorities in Maryland. Fearing war with the French, Adams approved the Alien and Sedition Acts, which, among other things, prohibited people from speaking against the government. Franklin Roosevelt ordered the internment of Japanese-Americans in camps during World War II. "There has to be a balance when we're at war between national security and what I call core American values," said Tom Newcomb, assistant professor of criminal justice and security studies at Tiffin University in Tiffin, Ohio. Newcomb has observed the balancing act at several levels of government: He has been a CIA station chief, counterterrorism expert at the White House, legislative aide to the House Intelligence Committee and legal adviser to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the secret Washington court that handles national security issues like NSA eavesdropping. "The best overt example of this is ... the so-called libraries provision of the Patriot Act. There's no doubt in my mind that it is constitutional, but it seems offensive to the sensibilities of a lot of Americans and may be an example of how protecting our national security can go too far into the core American values," Newcomb said. In the debate over torture, Newcomb said the White House may be fighting to protect executive-branch prerogatives that are not needed by the intelligence community. "I do think that any interrogators need some broad guidelines to enable them to do their jobs," he said. "However, it's axiomatic among spooks like me — former spooks like me — that the more duress the less reliable the information is that you get." Harvard lecturer Juliette Kayyem, author of "Protecting Liberty in an Age of Terror, said it's "as traditional as apple pie to recalibrate the balance between security and civil liberties in times of crises. The question we're starting to ask here — with the torture debate, the NSA eavesdropping and the Patriot Act — is how do we calibrate that balance after September 11?" Lincoln, Roosevelt and Adams struggled with the balancing act. Congress and history will judge how well Bush handled it. EDITORS: Ron Fournier has covered politics and the White House for The Associated Press since 1992. -------- torture Report: Prisoners tortured in British-run post-World War II interrogation camp ASSOCIATED PRESS, Dec. 17, 2005 http://famulus.msnbc.com/famulusintl/ap12-17-164548.asp?reg=europe&vts=121720051724 LONDON — Prisoners were tortured and starved to death in a post-World War II interrogation camp run by Britain for former Nazis and others, a newspaper reported Saturday. The Guardian's report cited documents recently released under the Freedom of Information Act that described the suffering of some of 372 men and 44 women detained at the camp in Bad Nenndorf, a spa town in northwest Germany occupied by the British after the war. The camp was closed in July 1947, the Guardian reported. Many prisoners had been former Nazi party members or former SS members, rounded up to prevent any insurgency, the Guardian said. Other detainees included businessmen and industrialists who had flourished under Adolf Hitler's regime. The documents detail an investigation by Inspector Tom Hayward, a Scotland Yard detective. The report included the result of an investigation into the death of one inmate, Walter Bergmann, who had offered to spy for the British but came under suspicion because he spoke Russian. ''There seems little doubt that Bergmann, against whom no charge of any crime has been made, but on the contrary, who appears to be a man who has given every assistance, and that of considerable value, has lost his life through malnutrition and lack of medical care,'' Hayward reported. Prisoners told Hayward they had been whipped and beaten. Hayward wrote that he initially found the charges incredible but ''our inquiries of warders and guards produced most unexpected corroboration.'' Hayward's reports led to courts martial of three men. Two were acquitted and the other was found guilty of neglecting inmates and dismissed, the newspaper reported.