NucNews - December 24, 2005 -------- NUCLEAR -------- depleted uranium Destructive war Dec 24, 2005 12:30 AM Joe Burton, Raleigh NC News Observer http://www.newsobserver.com/580/story/381320.html The revelation that soldiers are returning from Iraq with the terrible skin disease, leishmaniasis (news story, Dec. 19), is the latest horror among many that this ill-conceived war has spawned. The long list includes the death or maiming of thousands of American and Iraqi combatants and civilians, the torture and abuse of prisoners, the use of white phosphorous weapons and the use of depleted uranium shells that is causing incredible environmental damage and radiation poisoning. Add to all that severe damage to the mental health of many Iraq war veterans -- a problem we will be dealing with for many years to come. James Madison, our fourth president, said "war contains so much folly as well as wickedness, that much is to be hoped from the progress of reason; and if anything is to be hoped, everything ought to be tried." The truth of those words has been demonstrated many times in the past 200 years, and the current debacle was widely predicted in months prior to the invasion of Iraq. Our political leaders refused to listen or to learn from past history and started a war that has caused and continues to cause great suffering. It has been said that the most important lesson of history is that nobody ever learns history's lessons. Words of an antiwar song from the Vietnam War-era still resonate: "When will they ever learn?" When will they ever learn? ---- Pentagon Hides 'Depleted Uranium' (DU) Casualties by IRAQ-WAR.RU, December 24, 2005 Conspiracy Planet http://www.conspiracyplanet.com/channel.cfm?channelid=134&contentid=3075&page=2 There is a possibility that the Pentagon (US Department of Defense)is hiding the US casualties under a disguise of "Baghdad Boils," a disease plaguing the US troops in Iraq, which the Pentagon claims is caused by sand fly bites, but may actually be caused by depleted uranium (DU) radiation. Recent evidence proves that depleted uranium (DU) is the definite cause of Gulf War Syndrome. Fourteen years after its introduction, DU has been revealed as a death sentence, brought forth by Leuren Moret (cf. e.g. http://www.sfbayview.com/081804/Depleteduranium081804.shtml and the sources to this article). The biological particulate effect targets the Master Code in the DNA and causes numerous diseases difficult to define, but in effect devastating the human body for example with multiple malignancies and developing cancers. Out of 580,400 soldiers in first Gulf War, 11 thousand have died and already by 2000 there were 325,000 permanently disabled, the number increasing by 43,000 every year. Besides, DU has internally contaminated their sexual partners, who have developed endometriosis and have been forced to have hysteroctomies due to health problems. 67% of a test group of 251 soldiers have had babies with severe birth defects (missing members, organs, immune system diseases). The United States has deliberately developed the DU in order to utilize the deadly properties of the DU and contaminated not only 42 states in United States, Sinai in Yom Kippur war (1973), Yugoslavia, southern Iraq (and areas nearby) in the first Gulf War and from 2003 on again in Iraq. One of the reasons that the US deploys it in the southern parts of the Iraq is because it does not want to expose its own troops to the deadly radiation there from the first Gulf War. Thus the British, and the other coalition troops have been generously given the responsibility of the southern Iraq. "BAGHDAD BOIL" In a story "Skin ulcers plague men from N.C. unit’\" (cf. http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/local/13454217.htm ) we are told: "In addition to the combat casualties suffered during a tour of duty in Iraq last year, an N.C. National Guard brigade also had to medevac 13 men back to a U.S. hospital after volleyball games left them vulnerable to one of the Iraq war's most exotic hazards – an outbreak of skin ulcers that can grow for years. The victims, all men from the same small unit, contracted cutaneous leishmaniasis, characterized by weeping sores that refuse to heal, said Lt. Col Tim Mauldin, the brigade's top medical officer. The illness is nicknamed "Baghdad Boil." At the time the guardsmen contracted it last year, the only way to treat it was to fly them back to Walter Reed Army Medical Center for up to three weeks of intravenous treatments with a drug called Pentostam" Using Pentostam in the treatment of sand fly bite is most curious for two main reasons: (1) One is tempted to suspect the US diagnosis, because for leishmaniasis, phlebotomus argentipes (also known as Kala-azar), a disease indeed caused by the bite of sand fly, there is a new, oral drug (Miltefosine) is now available. The medicine is effective (cf. http://www.who.int/tdr/diseases/leish/press_release.htm ), which makes the US use of sodium stibogluconate (commercial names: Pentostam or Stibanate) instead very curious, until we read the comment of Lt. Col Tim Mauldin concerning the sores (rather: 'malignancies’) known as Baghdad Boils: "No matter what you do, it just keeps getting bigger and bigger.") (2) Pentostam is administered into veins and "results in a greater than 50% decrease in parasite DNA, RNA protein and purine nucleoside triphosphate levels" (cf. http://emc.medicines.org.uk/emc/assets/c/html/displaydoc.asp?documentid=2182, section 5, Pharmacological properties ). It is not immediately obvious how the bites of tiny sandflies could cause changes in the Master Code in the DNA? (3) Although the sand flies are unlikely cause for the Baghdad Boils, we can seek a different, more natural explanation for the disease is from the the unit itself, to which all thirteen man belong. The 30th Enhanced Heavy Separate Brigade (Mech), "Old Hickory", has one battalion of M-1 Abrams Main Battle Tanks and two battalions of M-2 Bradley Fighting Vehicles (cf. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/agency/army/30in-bde.htm ). The main weapon of the M1A1 is the M256 120mm smoothbore cannon, designed by the Rheinmetall Corporation of Germany. Engagement ranges approaching 4000 meters were successfully demonstrated during Operation Desert Storm. The primary armor-defeating ammunition of this weapon is the armor-piercing, fin-stabilized, discarding sabot (APDS-FS) round, which features a depleted uranium penetrators (cf. http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/m1.htm ). On the other hand, we know already from the first Gulf War that: "Soldiers who served in Bradley fighting vehicles, where it was common to sit on ammunition boxes where depleted uranium ammunition was stored, are now reporting that many have rectal cancer." CONSEQUENCES: Having recognized the previous facts we are left with the following consequences: (1) Depleted uranium explains the changes in the Master Code in the DNA caused by Baghdad Boils much better than the 'sand flies’ (if the sand flies are not simply considered as an army code word for 'uranium particles’ or alike). In fact, the diagnosis of Baghdad Boils as 'leishmaniasis’ put forth in several connections by Dr. Roger Bate is itself highly suspicious as Dr. Bate is a visiting fellow at American Enterprise Institute, a front for international armed looting around the world. (2) As the United States treats the cancer developing multiple malignancies of its tank crews with Pentostam (and not Miltefosine), this shows that the US Armed Forces and the Pentagon are indeed aware of the effects of the depleted uranium, which again shows that they are lying in their denials of its cancer-producing effect, thus giving a direct answer to "QUESTION 11. WHAT DOES THE U.S. GOVT. KNOW ABOUT DU?" in http://traprockpeace.org/moret_25nov03.pdf. They know everything, even how to slow down the mutations caused by DU. (3) More than 2000 U.S. service members have officially contracted the disease since the Iraq War began in early 2003, most of them in Iraq (though some also in Afghanistan). When these 'walking dead’ are added to the current DoD casualty figure (2160) as soon to be dead, the US death toll tops 4,000 with a single jump. The entire US colonial expeditionary force, the 300,000 having served in Iraq are soon to be counted as US Casualties, either dead or disabled by DU. (4) As the depleted uranium penetrators are the main rounds of the US M1A1 tanks, and the extra rounds for the tanks are carried in the M2 Bradleys, there is no doubt, that after 1000 days of war, the entire US armored equipment in Iraq is totally contaminated making these vehicles literarily dead man’s chests. Actually the US tank crews are more safe outside than inside of them, despite the current conditions in Iraq. (5) As the US Armed Forces in Iraq are actually living dead, a zombie army soon to follow the destiny of the previous army in the First Gulf War and their Armored Vehiles hopelessly contaminated by DU, the US army actually has no troops nor tanks. This means that its fate is sealed. The United States has lost the war in Iraq as soon as the troops get the information of how they are and have been deceived by an enemy worse than that they face in Iraq, the US government. (6) Despite of this we may have even more to worry: in her recent articles Leuren Moret tell that the US has used more DU since 1991 than the atomicity equivalent of 40,000 Nagasagi Bombs, making four nuclear wars together. This, according to her may be enough for a death sentence for all of us, who will die in silent ways. To prevent this from happening we must not listen to Mr. Bush, who claims that the future generations will be grateful for sacrifices in Iraq (cf. http://www.denverpost.com/nationworld/ci_3331907 ). The current deception of the US solders themselves by the US Government could not make the issue more clear: no matter whether you are friend or foe, there is nobody the Government of the United States wouldn’t betray. To stop them all you have to do is pass this story to the US combat troops in Iraq. Explaining them what exactly stepping into US tanks means, will leave them unmanned. This in turn will stop the armored brigades, which in turn stops the US divisions and armies – and in the end the US government war. As soon as the war is stopped, all of mankind must step in and help the Iraqi people to clean the country from the depleted uranium. Section I: Depleted Uranium (more sources from articles themselves) 1. Depleted uranium: "Dirty bombs, dirty missiles, dirty bullets: A death sentence here and abroad" LINK: http://www.sfbayview.com/081804/Depleteduranium081804.shtml 2. Depleted Uranium: The Trojan Horse of Nuclear War LINK: http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2004/DU-Trojan-Horse1jul04.htm 3. QUESTION 11. WHAT DOES THE U.S. GOVT. KNOW ABOUT DU? LINK: http://traprockpeace.org/moret_25nov03.pdf 4. A Monumental War Crime ... DU http://www.iraqwar.mirror-world.ru/article/74185 5. Leuren Moret Speaking on Depleted Uranium LINK: http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2003/DU-Leuren-Moret21apr03.htm 6. Cancer Epidemic Caused by U.S. WMD LINK: http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/cancer_epidemic_.html 7. Marin Depleted Uranium Resolution Heats Up GI's Will Come Home To A Slow Death LINK: http://www.coastalpost.com/04/08/01.htm 8. The United States is Actively Engaged in War Crimes and Polluting with Deadly Nuclear Materials LINK: http://www.albasrah.net/en_articles_2005/1205/HRA_141205.htm 9. New Information on Iraq LINK: http://www.albasrah.net/en_articles_2005/1205/du_141205.htm 10. The UNITED STATES of MONSTERS: DEPLETED URANIUM LINK: http://uruknet.info/?p=18218&hd=0&size=1&l=x 11. Iranian president calls for war crimes charges on US LINK: http://www.iraqwar.mirror-world.ru/article/71438 12. Squeezed To Death LINK: http://uruknet.info/?p=18640&hd=0&size=1&l=x 13. World Uranium Weapons Conference 2003 LINK: http://www.uraniumweaponsconference.de/speakers.htm 14. International Criminal Tribunal For Afghanistan at Tokyo LINK: http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2004/Afghanistan-Criminal-Tribunal10mar04.htm 15. Leuren Moret: Depleted Uranium Is WMD LINK: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0510/S00138.htm 16. Discounted casualties – the human cost of depleted uranium LINK: http://www.chugoku-np.co.jp/abom/uran/index_e.html 17. Heads roll at Veterans Administration Mushrooming depleted uranium (DU) scandal blamed LINK: http://www.sfbayview.com/012605/headsroll012605.shtml 18. Casualties in Iraq LINK: http://democracyrising.us/content/view/46/74/ 19. Pentagon Brass Suppresses Truth About Toxic Weapons LINK: http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/pentagon_brass.html Section II: Baghdad Boil (some samples, google yourself for more hits): Baghdad Boil to Return? (by Dr. Roger Bate, 05/13/2004) LINK: http://www.techcentralstation.com/051304C.html Topic: BAGHDAD BOIL: parasites infect many U.S. troops LINK: http://knoxville.wate.com/sound_off/index.php/topic,132.0.html 'Baghdad Boil' Afflicting U.S. Troops LINK: http://www.veteransforpeace.org/Baghdad_boil_041804.htm Soldiers, Civilians Returning from Middle East: Be Aware of "Baghdad Boil" LINK: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=27577 RELIEF FROM BAGHDAD BOILS http://www.tothepointnews.com/content/view/1346/44/ ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: http://www.iraqwar.mirror-world.ru/article/74482 -------- iran Moscow again offers to process uranium for Iran MOSCOW (AFP) Dec 24, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/051224153058.nqqv4pro.html Russia Saturday repeated its offer to process uranium for Iran's controversial nuclear programme, a proposal Tehran has already rejected. Moscow's proposal to create "on Russian soil a joint Russo-Iranian undertaking to enrich uranium still stands," the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement. It said the suggestion had been put to the Iranian government on Saturday. "This proposal represents Russia's contribution to the search for a solution acceptable to all in the context of the settling of the situation... by political and diplomatic methods," the statement said. The Europe Union wants Iran to accept the Russian idea that enrichment operations should take place in Russia without the direct involvement of Iranian scientists. Tehran has turned down both this offer and a "Libyan-style" compromise that it should renounce sensitive activities in exchange for various types of aid. Russia is building Iran's first nuclear reactor. EU negotiators Britain, France and Germany restarted talks Wednesday with Iran over Western concerns that Tehran seeks nuclear weapons and agreed to meet again in January. But the two sides acknowledged that wide differences remained, with Iran insisting on its right to make nuclear fuel, and the West fearful that this could be used to manufacture an atomic weapon. -------- russia RF, Ukraine to sign deal to extend operation of strategic missiles 24.12.2005, 21.22 TASS http://www.tass.ru/eng/level2.html?NewsID=2751309&PageNum=0 TATISHCHEVO, Saratov region, December 24 (Itar-Tass) - Russia and Ukraine will sign an agreement within days on Ukraine’s participation in extending the operation of Russian strategic missiles “Voevoda”, commander of the Strategic Missile Force Colonel-General Nikolai Solovtsov said on Saturday. Speaking at a ceremony to put Russia's fifth missile regiment armed with silo-based intercontinental Topol-M missiles on combat duty, Solovtsov said he is hopeful that Russia and Ukraine would continue cooperation in this field. “We should always remember that our ‘nuclear umbrella’ defends not only Russia but also all CIS countries, including Ukraine.” “To put missile regiments armed with Topol-M intercontinental missiles on combat duty is Russia’s response to all threats,” the military said. -------- security US confirms it monitors private sites for nuclear radiation: report WASHINGTON (AFP) Dec 24, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/051224065344.4iv1nnab.html US officials have confirmed that the FBI and Energy Department have conducted thousands of searches for radioactive materials at private sites nationwide in the past three years, The New York Times reported Saturday. The existence of such a search program was disclosed Thursday by US News and World Report's website. That report said the US government has a secret program to monitor homes, workplaces and mosques of Muslims in at least six cities for signs of nuclear radiation. Up to 120 Muslim sites in the Washington area, and more in New York, Chicago, Seattle, Detroit and Las Vegas, have been regularly monitored for radiation for more than three years over concerns about nuclear terrorism following the September 11, 2001 attacks, US News reported. "Government agencies (had) disclosed that they have installed radiation-detection equipment at ports, subway stations and other public locations, but extensive surreptitious monitoring of private property has not been publicly known," the Times noted. The Times said the US federal government has given thousands of radiation alarms, worn like cellphones on the belt, to police and fire departments in major cities. It quoted a spokesman for the Justice Department, Brian Roehrkasse, as confirming that law enforcement personnel were conducting "passive operations in publicly accessible areas to detect the presence of radiological materials, in a manner that protects US constitutional rights." President George W. Bush's administration has been criticized over revelations that government agencies -- including the National Security Agency, the Department of Defense, and the FBI -- spied on US citizens without first obtaining court orders as mandated by law. Bush, who authorized the NSA surveillance, maintains that the spying is legal and that he has the legal authority to permit such activities. ---- US monitors mosques for nuclear radiation: report WASHINGTON (AFP) Dec 24, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/051223235708.nh9d8eqf.html The US government has a top secret program to monitor the homes, workplaces and mosques of Muslims in at least six cities for signs of nuclear radiation, the magazine US News and World Report reported on its website. But a senior Muslim community official said Friday the program amounted to "scapegoating" US Muslims and "governing by fear". Up to 120 Muslim sites in the Washington area, and more in New York, Chicago, Seattle, Detroit and Las Vegas, have been regularly monitored for radiation for more than three years over concerns about nuclear terrorism following the September 11, 2001 attacks, US News reported. However, it said, the monitoring by the FBI and the Department of Energy's Nuclear Emergency Support Team has sometimes involved government agents entering properties without search warrants or court orders, an act some agents and outside lawyers believe is illegal. "The targets were almost all US citizens," an unnamed source involved in the program told the magazine. "A lot of us thought it was questionable, but people who complained nearly lost their jobs," the source said. Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, told CNN television that the surveillance program was moving in the direction of "governing by fear". "I'm afraid that we are moving into a nation of fear ... and scapegoating minorities like American Muslim communities," he said. President George W. Bush's administration has been criticized over revelations that government agencies -- including the National Security Agency, the Department of Defense, and the FBI -- spied on US citizens without first obtaining court orders as mandated by law. Bush, who authorized the NSA surveillance, maintains that the spying is legal, and that he has the legal authority to permit such activities. -------- MILITARY -------- africa Famine fear as Kenya calls for aid Kibaki called on foreign donors to fill a $100million shortfall (AFP) Saturday 24 December 2005 http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/DF38904D-9CCB-4C7A-80AF-D1FA96871399.htm The president of Kenya has appealed for aid for more than two million people in drought-afflicted northeastern and coastal regions of the country. Mwai Kibaki, who sent troops to the affected areas yesterday to help distribute food and water, called on Kenyans and foreign donors on Saturday to fill a $100 million aid shortfall. In a statement released by the president's office, he said: "To meet this gap, I am appealing to the Kenyan public and development partners to come forward and make a contribution to this noble cause." Against a background of warnings that the number of needy could reach 2.5 million by February, almost double the current figure of 1.3 million, Kibaki said: "As we celebrate Christmas, let us remember those of our people who are experiencing food and water shortages." He said 7.5 million bags of maize and 2.5 million bags of beans were being sent to affected districts but that "the population in need continues to increase due to the rapidly worsening conditions". Money was required to buy and distribute supplies of staple foods, powdered milk, nutritional supplements and livestock fodder, he said. Photos of famine Kibaki's statement came as photographs of malnourished children and rotting animal carcasses appeared in newspapers for the second day, and as officials continued to offer conflicting reports about the severity of the situation that some predict might result in famine. On Friday, John Munyes, Kenya's special programmes minister, announced that the military had been deployed to assist in relief operations in 17 districts. But he and three other cabinet colleagues played down claims by local politicians that the situation was getting out of control and that 12 people had already died from starvation. Munyes, along with some aid workers, said the number and cause of the deaths reported in northeastern Kenya - an arid region bordering drought-plagued Somalia - was not clear. An official with the Kenya Red Cross Society said: "Yes, we are getting normal reports of death, but it is hard to link the deaths to any new food shortages given that the region has experienced food shortages for some time." Accusations On Saturday, Nairobi's two leading daily newspapers accused the government of being too slow to respond to deteriorating conditions. The Standard said: "Famine, drought and desperation sweeps through the country but military steps in as government is blamed." A headline in the Nation newspaper said, "At last help is coming" above a picture of a malnourished infant and a story that began: "Tales of famine at the time of the Feast [Christmas] have pricked the conscience of the nation." The paper said it had been besieged with offers of assistance from "kind-hearted Kenyans" and noted that Britain, the former colonial power, pledged $4.7 million on Friday to a UN appeal for $25 million launched last month to deal with the crisis. -------- business Godalming geek made millions running the Pentagon's propaganda war in Iraq By Patrick Foster and Tim Reid in Washington December 24, 2005 UK Times http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,175-1958479,00.html IT WAS astounding enough for Washington’s political elite: last month they discovered that the man at the heart of a scandal over the planting of US propaganda in Iraqi newspapers was a dapper but unknown 30-year-old Oxford graduate who had somehow managed to land a $100 million Pentagon contract. What is even more remarkable however, after an investigation by The Times, is that just ten years ago Christian Bailey, whose US company is under investigation for planting fake news stories in Iraqi newspapers, was a nerdy, socially awkward English school-leaver called Jozefowicz. The transformation of the geeky but ambitious Christian Jozefowicz, who just a few years ago was growing up in a modest terraced house in Godalming, Surrey, to the charming, baby-faced multimillionaire Christian Bailey now rubbing shoulders with some of the most powerful figures in Washington — and who next year will probably face questions on Capitol Hill about his company — is one of the more extraordinary stories to have emerged from the Iraq war. This month it was revealed that Mr Bailey’s US company, the Lincoln Group, was the recipient of a Pentagon contract to help to fight the information war in Iraq. It then emerged that the company was paying Iraqi journalists to plant optimistic news “stories” in Iraqi papers that had been written by the US military. Interference with the press touches a raw nerve in America. The fake stories revelation provoked a furore among Republicans and Democrats. President Bush said he was “very troubled” by it. Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary, has promised a Pentagon investigation. Congress plans hearings into the scandal. The journey from the Royal Grammar School, Guildford, which Mr Bailey left in 1994, to the heart of K Street in Washington, the centre of money and influence in the US capital, has been remarkably rapid. Today he has a reputation in Washington for being a socialite with links to influential Republicans. He is a helicopter and aircraft pilot and his home is in a fashionable area. Through a Lincoln Group spokesman, Mr Bailey answered questions from The Times to help to explain how, at just 30, he landed the Pentagon as an important client. He was born Christian Martin Jozefowicz on November 28, 1975, in Kingston upon Thames, to Jerzy and Anne Jozefowicz. His father, a Polish architect, died in April 1998. His mother, who has since reverted to her maiden name of Seifert, was born in West Germany. The family lived in East Molesey, southwest London, before moving to Godalming, Surrey. Mr Bailey’s Royal Grammar School contemporaries recall a business-obsessed, “geeky” individual with few friends. “He was a nerd at school,” one told The Times. Another described him as a “school joke” who told everyone he was going to be a millionaire. He was the first at school to have a mobile phone and was interested in early versions of the personal computer. He founded a Young Enterprise company, Chameleon, which led to his selection as one of the top six Young Enterprise participants in Britain. His school yearbook records Christian Jozefowicz as “Mr Business himself” and that he was elected vice-president of the International Student Forum, a business gathering in the US. In 1994 he won a place at Lincoln College, Oxford, where he read economics and management. He kept computers in his room, thought for monitoring the stock markets. In his third year at Oxford he hired an assistant to help him to run his first proper company, Linck Ltd, which sold self-help tapes. In 1998, he changed his name to Bailey. “Following his father’s death, Bailey assumed the name for family reasons, something which children commonly do,” a Lincoln Group spokesman said. In the late 1990s he moved to San Francisco to try his hand as a dotcom entrepreneur, and then to New York, where he became treasurer of the Oxonion Society, a club for intellectual Anglophiles. He became co-chairman of a networking group for young Republicans. With his Republican contacts growing, Mr Bailey moved to Washington, where he spotted a golden business opportunity: the looming war in Iraq. He formed a partnership with Paige Craig, a former US Marine who served in Iraq. In early 2003, just before the invasion, Mr Bailey formed a Lincoln subsidiary, the Lincoln Alliance Corp, offering “tailored intelligence services [for] government clients faced with intelligence challenges”. He also formed another subsidiary, Iraqex, which won a $6 million Pentagon contract to launch “an aggressive advertising and PR campaign that will accurately inform the Iraqi people of the c oalition’s goals and gain their support”. The big breakthrough came in June this year when the Pentagon awarded the Lincoln Group a contract worth up to $100 million over five years to support the US military’s “joint psychological operations”, known as “psyops”. Lincoln group defended the planting of stories and the company has emphasised that none of them were factually incorrect. “By not speaking through the local media, the coalition would allow a vacuum for rumours and untruths perpetrated by the insurgents’ thuggery and threats,” a spokesman said. -------- chemical weapons 170 Parties to Pay $10 million Omega Chemical Superfund Cleanup LOS ANGELES, California, December 24, 2005 (ENS) http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/dec2005/2005-12-24-09.asp#anchor4 The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has reached a $10 million settlement with 170 parties that are potentially responsible for pollution at the Omega Chemical Superfund site in Whittier, California. The EPA settlement is with a group of what the agency calls "de minimis parties," which are parties that individually sent less than 10 tons of waste to the Omega site, a former recycling company that caused extensive soil and groundwater contamination in the area. The settlement is expected to provide funding for future cleanup at the site. “With this settlement, the EPA will be able to complete the ongoing groundwater investigation and support future site cleanup work at the Omega site,” said Keith Takata, director of the Superfund Division in the EPA’s Pacific Southwest Region. The former Omega Chemical Corporation on East Whittier Blvd. was a refrigerant and solvent recycling facility that operated between 1976 and 1991. Soil and groundwater at the Omega site are contaminated with high concentrations of tetrachloroethene (PCE), trichloroethene (TCE), chlorinated hydrocarbons and Freon. PCE and TCE are solvents that have been widely used by industry as cleaning and degreasing agents. Freon is used as a refrigerant and pressurizer in spray can products. In May 1995, the EPA removed more than 3,000 drums of hazardous waste, 60 cubic yards of hardened resin material and hundreds of empty contaminated drums from the Omega site. Because of the release of hazardous substances into the groundwater, the EPA placed the Omega site on the Superfund List – a list of severely contaminated areas within the United States – in January 1999. Since 2001, under the terms of a consent decree, a large group of major potentially responsible parties have been conducting investigations to determine how to clean up soil and groundwater at the site. -------- russia / chechnya Moscow again offers to process uranium for Iran MOSCOW (AFP) Dec 24, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/051224153058.nqqv4pro.html Russia Saturday repeated its offer to process uranium for Iran's controversial nuclear programme, a proposal Tehran has already rejected. Moscow's proposal to create "on Russian soil a joint Russo-Iranian undertaking to enrich uranium still stands," the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement. It said the suggestion had been put to the Iranian government on Saturday. "This proposal represents Russia's contribution to the search for a solution acceptable to all in the context of the settling of the situation... by political and diplomatic methods," the statement said. The Europe Union wants Iran to accept the Russian idea that enrichment operations should take place in Russia without the direct involvement of Iranian scientists. Tehran has turned down both this offer and a "Libyan-style" compromise that it should renounce sensitive activities in exchange for various types of aid. Russia is building Iran's first nuclear reactor. EU negotiators Britain, France and Germany restarted talks Wednesday with Iran over Western concerns that Tehran seeks nuclear weapons and agreed to meet again in January. But the two sides acknowledged that wide differences remained, with Iran insisting on its right to make nuclear fuel, and the West fearful that this could be used to manufacture an atomic weapon. -------- spies NSA spy program broader than Bush admitted ‘Pattern analysis’ performed on main U.S. telecommunication channels Reuters Updated: 11:33 p.m. ET Dec. 24, 2005 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10592932/ NEW YORK - The volume of information gathered from telephone and Internet communications by the National Security Agency without court-approved warrants was much larger than the White House has acknowledged, The New York Times reported Saturday. Citing current and former government officials, the Times said the information was collected by tapping directly into some of the U.S. telecommunication system’s main arteries. The officials said the NSA won the cooperation of telecommunications companies to obtain access to both domestic and international communications without first gaining warrants. A former telecommunications technology manager told the Times that industry leaders have been storing information on calling patterns and giving it to the federal government to aid in tracking possible terrorists since the Sept. 11 attacks. Searching for patterns Government and industry officials with knowledge of the program told the newspaper the NSA sought to analyze communications patterns to gather clues from details like who is calling whom, how long a phone call lasts and what time of day it is made, as well as the origins and destinations of phone calls and e-mail messages. Calls to and from Afghanistan were of particular interest to the NSA, the Times said. This so-called “pattern analysis” on calls within the United States would often otherwise require a warrant if the government wanted to trace who calls whom. “We're not going to comment on news stories that may or may not focus on classified intelligence operations as part of the war on terror,” White House spokesman Allen Abney said on Saturday. “In a broader context, this administration has fought and will continue to fight the war on terror while trying to uphold the individual liberties of Americans.” President Bush and his aides have said his executive order allowing eavesdropping without warrants was limited to monitoring international phone and e-mail communications linked to people with connections to al-Qaida. What has not been acknowledged, according to the Times, is that NSA technicians combed large amounts of phone and Internet traffic seeking patterns pointing to terrorism suspects. Feds sought access to telecom gateways Some officials described the program as a large data mining operation, the Times said, and described it as much larger than the White House has acknowledged. Several officials said senior government officials went to the nation’s big telecommunications companies to get access to switches that act as gateways between U.S. and international communications. Many calls going from one foreign country to another are routed through U.S. switches and a communications expert who once worked at the NSA said in recent years government officials have been encouraging the telecommunications industry to bring more international traffic through U.S.-based switches. The officials who spoke to the newspaper requested anonymity because the program’s details remain classified. Bush administration officials declined to comment on the operation’s technical details, the Times said.