NucNews - March 5, 2006 -------- NUCLEAR -------- australia Canberra may rethink uranium sales Sunday, March 5, 2006 (AP) http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/03/05/australia.india.uranium.ap/index.html SYDNEY, Australia -- Australian Prime Minister John Howard has indicated he is willing to reconsider a ban on uranium sales to India, after New Delhi agreed with Washington to open its civilian nuclear plants to inspection. Howard, on a four day trip to India, said Australia would not suddenly change its policy of blocking sales to countries that fail to sign onto the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. But he said he would be happy to discuss the issue with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during talks Monday. "We have some of the largest uranium deposits in the world and, provided the rules are followed and the safeguards are met, we are willing to sell. But we have to be satisfied about the safeguards," he told reporters in New Delhi late Sunday. Meanwhile, Singh has reportedly said he would urge Howard to lift the ban. "We are short of uranium. We need uranium and our needs will increase in years to come," The Australian newspaper quoted him as saying. Although second to Canada in production, Australia boasts the world's biggest uranium reserves. The Olympic Dam mine in South Australia state holds 38 percent of the world's known uranium resources. Visiting India last week, U.S. President George W. Bush secured a landmark nuclear energy agreement which will open most India's reactors to international inspections and provide the nation with U.S. nuclear technology. Subject to U.S. congressional approval, the United States will share its nuclear know-how and fuel with India to help power its fast-growing economy. It represents a major shift in policy for the United States, which imposed temporary sanctions on India in 1998 after it conducted nuclear tests. Following last week's announcement, Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer ruled out selling uranium to India, unless the country signed the NPT. Howard, however, said he would study the deal which he said represented a "very big step forward." "We do have a long-standing policy of only selling uranium to countries that are part of the NPT regime, but we will have a look at what the Americans have done and when we get a bit more information about that we'll further assess it," he said, adding his government had a "very positive attitude toward India." "We have a policy which we're not going to suddenly change just because the United States has entered into an agreement. But I'd be very happy to talk about the issue," he added. "I welcome the fact that for the first time, a lot of India's nuclear capacity is going to be subjected to international inspection." Howard is the third world leader to visit New Delhi in as many weeks, following French President Jacques Chirac and Bush, all looking to boost trade ties with one of the world's fastest growing economies. Howard is accompanied by a 20-member business delegation, including executives from Australia's biggest banks, retailer, and mining and energy companies. Trade between India and Australia was valued at $5.4 billion in 2004-2005. -------- britain Nuclear power: splitting the LibDems and Labour Row over lobbyist’s funding as MP threatens to quit post Sunday Herald - 05 March 2006 INVESTIGATION By Rob Edwards, Environment Editor http://www.sundayherald.com/54448 WITH nuclear power, it’s not just atoms that split. It’s the Liberal Democrat Party, the Labour Party and the government’s green advisers. An investigation by the Sunday Herald has uncovered new and damaging divisions in the ranks of the two political parties that govern Scotland, as well as within the Sustainable Development Commission, which advises ministers in Holyrood and Westminster on environmental issues. We can also reveal that public money has been used to support a vigorous pro-nuclear campaign by trade unionists from power plants. Long-standing tensions over nuclear power are now flaring up because of the energy review launched in January by the Prime Minister, Tony Blair. The review is widely expected to end up this summer recommending a new programme of nuclear power stations. The most dramatic evidence of internal squabbling comes from within the Liberal Democrats. The party, which last week elected Sir Menzies Campbell as leader, has historically been opposed to building any more nuclear stations. But leaked correspondence from shadow Scottish secretary John Thurso MP, who favours nuclear power, suggests pressure is mounting within the party to reverse this policy. In a letter to trade unions at the Dounreay nuclear plant in his Caithness constituency, he discloses the LibDems’ private disagreements. He describes how he had to abstain on an anti-nuclear motion moved by the LibDem environment spokesman, Norman Baker, in the House of Commons on January 17. “It was impossible for me to take part in the debate since the views I would have put forward would have been in contradiction to the views set out by the spokesman on the front bench,” Thurso, a hereditary peer, wrote. “I have been engaged in promoting a reassessment of the party’s policy both in shadow cabinet and in the wider party … This activity has been supported by the industry, which has been helpful with factual briefings.” Then Thurso dropped his bombshell: “It may be that a time will come when I feel obliged to resign from the shadow cabinet to pursue my views more fully. “However, for the present I believe I can best use my influence from within the shadow cabinet. Further, I believe that steady pressure is beginning to bear fruit within parliament and wider public opinion.” Suspicions that Thurso might be winning the argument within the LibDems were reinforced on Thursday when Baker, a passionate advocate of the anti-nuclear case, suddenly resigned as environment spokesman . Thurso denied that he had made any threat. “If the issue does reach criticality, I should have to consider my position, but that’s a long way in the future,” he told the Sunday Herald. The divisions have been seized upon by the Greens, who believe that LibDem opposition to nuclear power is weakening. “We are seeing signs that the LibDems are likely to roll over,” said Chris Ballance MSP, the Greens’ nuclear spokesman. “They value power more than principle. They have consistently refused to say that nuclear power will be a coalition-breaking issue, so it’s fair to assume that support for LibDems is support for new nuclear in Scotland.” Labour, too, have their fissions. A pro-nuclear motion passed at the party’s Scottish conference in Aviemore a week ago has prompted the party’s green wing, the Socialist Environment and Resources Association (Sera), to point out that Labour’s stance still had to be agreed by the Scottish Policy Forum. Controversy has also arisen over the activities of a group of trade unionists campaigning for nuclear power under the banner of Nuklear21. The group involves five trade unions, including Amicus, which moved the pro-nuclear motion at the Aviemore conference. Workers from the defunct Chapelcross nuclear plant in Dumfries and Galloway have been touring Scottish party political conferences handing out Nuklear21 leaflets. They claim that nuclear power equals “atoms for peace” and that “nuclear will help save the planet”. The group, which is planning a mass lobby of the Westminster parliament later this month, has also sent newsletters to every MSP in Scotland. It does not say where its funding comes from. But the Sunday Herald has discovered that Nuklear21 has been given support by the British Nuclear Group (BNG), the state-owned company formerly known as BNFL that runs Chapelcross and Sellafield in Cumbria. BNG admitted that it had been paying “travel and business expenses” for Nuklear21 union representatives since April 2005. In line with legal obligations, it had also provided paid time off and “administrative support facilities” such as offices and communication systems. No representatives of Nuklear21 were available for comment last week, but the revelations about their financial backers upset Sera Scotland. The group found it “disappointing” that Nuklear21 had not made it clear where its funding had come from, said spokeswoman Claudia Beamish. Environmentalists were incensed. “It is clearly outrageous that taxpayers’ money has been secretly funding the nuclear industry to lobby for new reactors,” said Dr Richard Dixon, the director of WWF Scotland. But even within green groups there can be disagreements over nuclear power. The Sustainable Development Commission (SDC), the main environmental adviser to ministers, led by green guru Jonathon Porritt, has spoken out against new nuclear stations in the past. But a major schism over the drafting of a new nuclear policy emerged at the commission’s plenary meeting last December in Belfast. “A number of commissioners questioned whether the UK needed every energy source available in order to combat climate change, making nuclear power a necessity,” the minutes record. But other commissioners “stated that they were inherently against nuclear”. They were worried about nuclear waste, and concerned that not enough was being done to reduce demand for energy and encourage alternative energy sources. Porritt warned that the SDC’s position “would therefore need to be more complex and reflective, which would make it more representative of society at large”. The SDC is due to publish new advice on nuclear power tomorrow. -------- business Majority owner of LES purchases interest held by Westinghouse Last Update: 03/05/2006 4:27:17 PM By: Associated Press http://www.kob.com/index.cfm?viewer=storyviewer&id=24608&cat=HOME HOBBS, N.M. (AP) - The majority owner of the company seeking to build a uranium enrichment plant in southeastern New Mexico is purchasing interest held by Westinghouse Electric Company. Urenco announced yesterday that it is buying the 24.5 percent interest held by Westinghouse in Louisiana Energy Services. LES plans to build a $1.2 billion plant near Eunice to make fuel for commercial nuclear power plants. The proposed facility needs federal regulatory approval. Westinghouse officials say the decision to sell the minority interest was to allow the Nuclear Regulatory Commission an opportunity to review Urenco as the full general partner. Urenco’s chief executive officer made the announcement from the company’s head office in the United Kingdom. -------- india Bush May Face Fight in Congress Over Nuclear Accord With India March 5, 2006 (Bloomberg) http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000080&sid=a8mWYVybUk8A&refer=asia March 6 -- President George W. Bush returned to Washington from South Asia facing the task of selling the trip's centerpiece -- a nuclear accord with India -- to a Congress increasingly willing to challenge him on foreign policy. The five-day journey to Afghanistan, India and Pakistan encompassed three of the president's top priorities: the war on terrorism, spreading democracy abroad and expanding U.S. economic opportunities. The nuclear agreement, which gives India access to U.S. technology and fuel to build up a civilian atomic power industry, touches on all three areas by drawing the U.S. closer to a country that is the world's most populous democracy, a key ally against terrorism and a growing market and competitor for U.S. companies. Bush's fellow Republicans are signaling they aren't willing to take the president's word alone on the accord amid polls showing his public approval rating at or near all-time lows. ``The president is trying to ride the nuclear tiger here,'' Republican Representative Duncan Hunter, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said on ABC's ``This Week'' program. ``This thing has to be looked at very, very carefully. I'm skeptical.'' The agreement, which would open the way for companies such as General Electric Co. and Westinghouse Electric Co. to sell power plant equipment and expertise to India, would require a change in U.S. laws that prohibit sales of nuclear material to nations that aren't part of the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It also is subject to approval by India's parliament and the 44-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group, which sets guidelines for the transfer of nuclear-related equipment. Cut Off India has been cut off from technology to expand nuclear power generation, which it needs to feed its booming economy, because of its refusal to sign the non-proliferation treaty and its atomic weapons tests in 1974 and again in 1998. Congressional concerns are focused on whether India can use the agreement as a way to expand its military nuclear program. ``As we continue to develop a pool of technicians and scientists in India who have the capability to work in the nuclear arena, those people can quickly move their talents from domestic energy production to weapons production,'' Hunter, of California, said. Democratic Representative Edward Markey of Massachusetts, who is leading congressional opposition, said the accord doesn't include enough provisions for international inspections or do enough to guard against the spread of nuclear weaponry. Lost in Negotiations ``The president lost every negotiating point that would have served as a positive nuclear non-proliferation signal,'' Markey said after Bush and India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced their agreement March 2. Other lawmakers, including Republican Senators Susan Collins of Maine and John McCain of Arizona and Democratic Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware, said they will wait to see the details of the agreement before passing judgment. Bush will be making his pitch to lawmakers amid public approval ratings at or near all-time lows in national opinion polls. In a Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times poll taken Feb. 25 to March 1, 38 percent of Americans said they approved of Bush's performance in office, a 5-point drop from a month ago. Part of that drop may stem from reaction to another issue that crosses foreign with economic policies: approval of a deal that would give state-owned DP World, based in the United Arab Emirates, control of terminal operations at six U.S. seaports, including New York and Miami. Fifty-eight percent of those polled by Bloomberg and the Times said they oppose the transaction. Illustrating the willingness of Republicans to buck the president, Congress succeeded in delaying the transaction while it is reviewed again for security concerns. Positive Reactions The nuclear accord between the U.S. and India won a favorable reaction from the head of the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency. IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei said it would ``bring India closer as an important partner in the non-proliferation regime.'' Karl Inderfurth, U.S. assistant secretary of state for South Asia in President Bill Clinton's administration, said he congratulated the Bush administration ``for finding a creative way to address the energy and non-proliferation issues India faces.'' The agreement will help address India's energy needs as well as meet U.S. interests, he said. ``There is more to commend here than condemn,'' Inderfurth, now a professor at the Elliot School of International Affairs at George Washington University in Washington, said in a March 2 interview. Pakistan's Response The accord also won limited support from India's neighbor and sometime rival, Pakistan, which also has nuclear weapons and isn't part of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. After the U.S.-India deal was announced, Pakistan's foreign ministry said the country ``has the same claim and expectation for international cooperation'' on nuclear power. Pakistan is a key U.S. ally in the war on terrorism and Bush stopped in the capital, Islamabad, after leaving India. Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, indicated yesterday that while his country wants to expand nuclear power generation, the accord with India and U.S. unwillingness to extend a similar offer to his country won't hamper U.S.-Pakistan relations. ``Pakistan has its interests and United States has its interests in Pakistan,'' Musharraf said in an interview on CNN's ``Late Edition'' program. ``And we don't have to bother what they are doing with India.'' Commitments Bush and Musharraf reinforced their commitment to working together against terrorists, particularly those hiding in the mountains along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan. Since aligning his country with the U.S. after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the subsequent invasion by the U.S. of Afghanistan, Musharraf has been the target of four attempts on his life. The U.S. offered no agreements or announcements while Bush was in Pakistan. The administration highlighted existing pledges of $1.5 billion in military financing over the next four years and proposals to increase U.S. investment in the country. Bush also pressed Musharraf to continue moving forward on holding elections there next year. Bush's trip began with a surprise visit to Afghanistan to express his gratitude to U.S. troops there and President Hamid Karzai for his efforts to advance democracy since the 2001 U.S.- led ouster of the Taliban regime that had harbored al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Bush points to Afghanistan and its efforts to further democracy as a model for the region. In summarizing the trip on Bush's last day here, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice noted the profound changes in the region. ``It's hard to look back and think about Afghanistan five years ago when the Taliban was in power,'' Rice said. ``All in all, this is a good trip for the president.'' To contact the reporters on this story: Catherine Dodge in Islamabad at cdodge1@bloomberg.net; Richard Keil in Islamabad at Rkeil@bloomberg.net. -------- iran Iran arrests nuclear spy Sun Mar 5, 2006 (AFP) http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060305/wl_mideast_afp/iranjusticepoliticsnuclearspyus TEHRAN - Iran has arrested a nuclear spy who allegedly passed classified information to arch-foe the United States over a 10 year period. The Kayhan newspaper reported Sunday "the man recently arrested had given inside information from (Iran's) Atomic Energy Organisation to the United States". "He was arrested on the same charges before, after he expressed regret over his past action and but in order to arrest his accomplices, he was released. Later it became evident that he is still spying for the US," it added. The paper did not elaborate on the reasons behind the spy's release by Iranian authorities in a country where spying is usually punishable by death. It was not clear what information was given to the United States. Iran insists that its nuclear drive is a transparent effort to generate electricity and the Islamic regime denies allegations it is seeking nuclear weapons. Kayhan also said that an employee of Iran's state telecommunication company has been arrested for selling Iran's fibre optic plans to the US, but gave no further details. In 2004 Iran said that it had arrested a dozen people on suspicion of spying on Iran's nuclear programme for US and Israeli intelligence services. ---- Iran threatens jump in atom work By Nazila Fathi The New York Times SUNDAY, MARCH 5, 2006 http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/03/05/news/atom.php TEHRAN Iran reiterated its warning on Sunday that it would begin making nuclear fuel on an industrial scale if the United Nations nuclear agency in its meeting Monday decided to send Iran's case to the Security Council. "If Iran's nuclear dossier is referred to the UN Security Council, uranium enrichment will be resumed," Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, said at a press conference, referring to large-scale enrichment. "Nuclear research and development is part of Iran's national interests and sovereignty and we will not give it up. "We will not accept to suspend our research program but are willing to hold off on large-scale enrichment for a short period of time to remove concerns. This is our last proposal to end this standoff." The warning came before the meeting of the board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which will decide whether to send Iran's dossier to the Security Council for possible punitive actions. The agency had demanded last month that Iran suspend its research and development program before the agency's meeting this week. But Iran has brushed off the demand. The program consists of enriching uranium on a small scale. Enriched uranium can be used to make nuclear fuel; highly enriched uranium can be used to make nuclear weapons. The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, on Sunday warned Iran there would be "painful consequences" if it continued sensitive nuclear activities, adding that the United States was "beefing up defensive measures" in order to thwart its nuclear program, Reuters reported. Europe, meanwhile, rejected Iran's proposal to hold off on large-scale enrichment for a short time while continuing its research program after Larijani offered it during a meeting in Vienna on Friday. "Europe will not accept such an offer because even a research program can give Iran the capability to develop nuclear weapons," said a Western diplomat in Tehran. Iran has so far refused to quit its research program, even during talks with Russia last week over a proposal to enrich Iranian uranium on Russian soil and ship the fuel back to Iran. Although diplomats say Iran is still some way from being able to resume atomic fuel production on a commercial scale, scientists say the devices used in research could produce enough material for a warhead within a year, Reuters reported. But Iran is OPEC's second-largest oil producer after Saudi Arabia, and Iran has warned that any kind of sanctions on it could affect oil prices. Larijani said Sunday that Iran would not use "oil as a weapon," because it respects the psychological security of the international community. "But, naturally, if they change the situation, that will automatically be affected, too," he warned. He added that "sanctions will not affect us much, and some solutions have been thought about for those which would affect us." Meanwhile, the conservative daily Keyhan reported Sunday that a spy who had passed information about Iran's nuclear program for the past 10 years had been arrested. It said the man, who was not identified, had been arrested before on the same charges but was released after he expressed regret. Keyhan reported that another "spy," an employee of the state telecommunications company, had been arrested for selling fiber-optic plans to the United States. U.S. warns of 'consequences' The United States on Sunday warned that Iran faced "painful consequences" if it continued sensitive nuclear activities and said the problem would become increasingly difficult to resolve if the international community did not confront it, news agencies reported from Washington. Ahead of the meeting on Monday of the International Atomic Energy Agency on Iran, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, reaffirmed that the United States would use "all tools at our disposal" to thwart Iran's nuclear program and was already "beefing up defensive measures" to do so. "The Iran regime must be made aware that if it continues down the path of international isolation, there will be tangible and painful consequences," he told 4,500 delegates at the annual convention of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the leading pro-Israel U.S. lobbying group. Ehud Olmert, the acting Israeli prime minister, said in a video message to delegates that Iran represented a clear threat to the "civilized world." Olmert also said "all necessary measures" should be adopted to stop Iran obtaining nuclear weapons. Such a result would be possible with U.S. help, he said, and "thank God that America is with us on this issue." Israel is widely believed to be the only nuclear power in the Middle East at present.$@(Reuters, AFP) ---- Iranian says Tehran tricked EU on nukes By Philip Sherwell LONDON SUNDAY TELEGRAPH Published March 5, 2006 http://www.washtimes.com/functions/print.php?StoryID=20060305-123415-2284r Iran duped European Union negotiators into thinking it had halted efforts to make nuclear fuel while it continued to install equipment to process yellowcake -- a key stage in the nuclear-fuel process, a top Iranian negotiator boasted in a recent speech to leading Muslim clerics. "When we were negotiating with the Europeans in Tehran, we were still installing some of the equipment at the Isfahan site. There was plenty of work to be done to complete the site and finish the work there. In reality, by creating a tame situation, we could finish Isfahan," said Hassan Rowhani, who headed talks with Britain, France and Germany until last year. "From the outset, the Americans kept telling the Europeans, 'The Iranians are lying and deceiving you, and they have not told you everything.' The Europeans used to respond, 'We trust them,' " Mr. Rowhani said in a speech to the Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution. The speech, which lays out Iran's policy of nuclear deception in unprecedented detail, was published in an Iranian journal that circulates among the nation's ruling elite. He described the regime's quandary in September 2003 when the International Atomic Energy Agency demanded a "complete picture" of its nuclear activities. "The dilemma was if we offered a complete picture, the picture itself could lead us to the U.N. Security Council," he said. "And not providing a complete picture would also be a violation of the resolution, and we could have been referred to the Security Council for not implementing the resolution." Iran successfully hid a vast nuclear-weapons research effort for nearly two decades. Mr. Rowhani's remarks were disclosed at an awkward moment for the Iranian government, ahead of a meeting tomorrow of the United Nations' atomic watchdog, which must make a fresh assessment of Iran's banned nuclear operations. The judgment of the IAEA is the final step before Iran's case is passed to the U.N. Security Council, where sanctions may be considered. In his speech, Mr. Rowhani appears to have been addressing criticism from hard-liners that he gave too much ground in talks with the European troika, known as the EU-3. The United States and its European allies think that Iran is clandestinely developing an atomic bomb, but Tehran insists it is merely seeking nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. Iran's negotiating team engaged in a last-ditch attempt last week to head off Security Council involvement. In January, the regime removed IAEA seals on sensitive nuclear equipment, and last month, it resumed banned uranium enrichment. Mr. Rowhani disclosed that on at least two occasions the IAEA obtained information on secret nuclear-related experiments from academic papers published by scientists involved in the work. The Iranians' biggest setback came when Libya secretly negotiated with the United States and Britain to close down its nuclear operations. Mr. Rowhani said that Iran had bought much of its nuclear-related equipment from "the same dealer" -- a reference to the network of Abdul Qadeer Khan, the rogue Pakistani atomic scientist. From information supplied by Libya, it became clear that Iran had bought P2 advanced centrifuges. In a separate development, the opposition National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) has obtained a copy of a confidential parliamentary report making clear that Iranian lawmakers were also kept in the dark on the nuclear program, which was funded secretly, outside the normal budgetary process. Mohammad Mohaddessin, NCRI's foreign-affairs chief, told the Sunday Telegraph: "Rowhani's remarks show that the mullahs wanted to deceive the international community from the onset of negotiations with EU-3 -- and that the mullahs were fully aware that if they were transparent, the regime's nuclear file would be referred to the U.N. immediately." -------- mideast France to sign pact to develop Libya's nuclear energy By Emmanuel Jarry March 5, 2006 (Reuters) http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L0585254.htm PARIS - France will sign a pact with Libya in the next two to three weeks to help develop the North African country's civilian nuclear energy programme, a top French legislator said on Sunday on his return from Tripoli. "An agreement on cooperation in civilian nuclear power will be signed the next two to three weeks," Patrick Ollier, president of the French National Assembly's economic affairs committee, told Reuters. "The governments have already given their approval." France, home to the the world's largest maker of nuclear reactors, Areva , and top nuclear power producer EDF , expressed interest last May to develop peaceful atomic energy in Libya, after it had voluntarily agreed to give up internationally banned weapons. In 2003, Libya promised to give up nuclear, chemical and biological arms. It also signed additional protocols with the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi said at the time that he still hoped to develop a nuclear programme for peaceful means. Libya cast off more than a decade of international ostracism in 2003 when it accepted responsibility and began paying compensation for the bombing of airliners over Scotland and Niger in 1988 and 1989. Fears over oil and gas supplies and climate change have also pushed nuclear power into the limelight as a means to produce energy without emitting much carbon dioxide, blamed for global warming. Reversing a decades-old policy, U.S. President George W. Bush last week signed a deal with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to allow India access to American atomic technology and fuel to meet its soaring energy needs. -------- treaties Bush gambles with atomic rules By David E. Sanger The New York Times SUNDAY, MARCH 5, 2006 http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/03/05/news/nuke-5819461.php# WASHINGTON Has President George W. Bush just made the world a safer or a more dangerous place? That question lingered after he reached a deal with India last week recognizing that India is never giving up its nuclear weapons, and declaring that a country which America once treated as a nuclear pariah could now be trusted. In doing so, Bush took a step in his efforts to rewrite the world's longstanding rules that for more than 30 years have forbidden providing nuclear technology to countries that do not sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. "I'm trying to think differently," Bush said in New Delhi, referring to his administration's argument that a new system is needed. But in treating India as a special case - a "strategic relationship" - he has so far declined to define general rules for everyone. In essence, Bush is making a huge gamble that the United States can control proliferation by single-handedly rewarding nuclear nations it considers "responsible," and punishing those it declares irresponsible. So will other countries with nuclear ambitions react by becoming more responsible, as the administration hopes, or more envious and more determined than ever to expand their own arsenals? And will India use its new access to U.S.-branded nuclear fuel to free up its domestic supplies of uranium to make bomb fuel for new weapons? And how will the deal affect the tense relationship between India and Pakistan, or for that matter China? Perhaps the strongest and most discussed critique of the deal goes like this: Bush's timing could not be worse. In the eyes of his critics, he is creating a double standard by legitimizing an Indian weapons program that only eight years ago led Washington to impose huge sanctions, while demanding, in the same week, that Iran and North Korea give up any capacity to make their own nuclear fuel. Bush, notes Ashton Carter, a nuclear expert at Harvard, declared nearly two years ago that there should be no new nuclear states, a concept that "was violated irrevocably" when Bush and the Indians reached agreement on the broad outline of this deal last summer. Now, he says, the deal at least puts the United States in the position of dealing directly with Indian plans to maintain or expand its arsenal. But the new deal may have solved one problem at the expense of creating new ones. Bush's team says it designed the India deal as a way to build a "strategic partnership" with the world's largest democracy, after decades of estrangement. India has proved itself a responsible power, Bush said. It also does not hurt that the country is one of the fastest-growing emerging markets, a favorite destination for technology companies, and a potential friend if trouble breaks out in tense relationships with China and Pakistan. The part of the deal the administration likes to talk about allows India to buy U.S. fuel for its civilian reactors for the first time, in exchange for opening them to international inspection. But India only designated 14 of its sites as "civilian" plants that it permanently guarantees can be inspected, up from four a few months ago, meaning that the additional eight can be used to make bomb fuel. That part of the deal drives its critics up the cooling tower. The administration never expected the Indian nuclear establishment to give up its ability to make bomb-grade fuel. So the administration's negotiator "caved on that one early on," in the words of Robert Einhorn, a nonproliferation expert who served under President Bill Clinton and in the early days of Bush's tenure. Critics have noted that since the United States would now sell India fuel for civilian reactors - assuming the U.S. Congress goes along - the Indians can devote their domestic uranium supply to weapons. Bush argues that the Indians were going to build more weapons anyway. And he said Thursday in New Delhi that a way had to be found to help India build safe civilian nuclear plants. Otherwise, it and China, the other country with a billion-plus population and a rising appetite for energy supplies, would end up struggling with each other and the West over resources to keep their economies growing. Bush saw a pocketbook issue: "Increasing demand for oil from America, from India and China, relative to a supply that's not keeping up with demand, causes our fuel prices to go up," he said. "It's a start," said Xenia Dormandy, a Southeast Asia expert who was involved in the deal as an official at the U.S. National Security Council, before leaving for the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. "It acknowledges that over the years, India has played according to the rules, never proliferated." Dormandy applauds the deal for another reason: The politics of Pakistan, the nuclear power next door, are driven by jealousy over anything that India gets. The government there, she argued, may be driven to clean up its nuclear act in hopes of one day getting a similar deal. Maybe so, but it could be a long wait: Robert Blackwill, a former U.S. ambassador to India and an early architect of the agreement, said that because of the huge nuclear black market that Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani nuclear engineer, operated from Islamabad for two decades, "there's not the slightest possibility that this deal is going to be made available to Pakistan." But if there is a plan to keep Pakistan from boosting its own relatively small arsenal to keep up with India, no one in the administration has yet explained it. That is why some experts believe the deal could make the world more dangerous: Even if India is a responsible player, the deal could touch off a regional race to produce more bomb fuel. In that case, more of that fuel would be floating around - perhaps to tempt terrorists. If India shows restraint and Bush's gamble pays off, nations that defiantly built weapons may gradually be drawn back into a new club whose membership rules are still being written. ---- Bush Nukes Legal and Ethical Constraints How does the U.S. go after Iran after a sweet deal with India? by Haroon Siddiqui, Toronto Star Sunday, March 5, 2006 http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0305-25.htm Eye-Ran. That's what the Americans call Iran — pronounced Ee-Ra'an. This is a minor matter, compared to how the U.S. is bullying Iran over its nuclear program, even while rewarding India for committing worse transgressions of international nuclear rules. All nation-states operate in their own interests, of course. But American disregard for the law, and the moral and political inconsistency of its foreign policy, has hit a new low under George W. Bush. On Thursday, he signed an historic nuclear deal with India — "a Santa Claus giveaway," said the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace — with little or no regard for its impact on the effort to contain Iran and North Korea. Friday, he was in Pakistan rejecting a plea from his hosts that, they, too, be given access to civilian nuclear technology, since they are in the same boat as India, having developed the bomb on the sly and refusing to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Bush responds, correctly, that India, a transparent democracy, has not had an A.Q. Khan-like nuclear bazaar. So you would think that the president — an advocate of democracy in the Muslim world — would be leaning hard on Gen. Pervez Musharraf to hasten civilian rule, rather than gathering more power in his hands. Yet Bush only offered lame rhetoric: Yes, Musharraf must move towards democracy but ... The president needs the general in the war on terrorism, especially hunting down Al Qaeda and Taliban remnants along the Afghan-Pakistan border. Bush needs India even more, for a host of reasons, including its booming economy, which U.S. businesses want to tap. Hence the nuclear concessions. Ignoring both U.S. and international law, Bush has promised India access to high-end technology and a guaranteed supply of nuclear fuel. In return, India gets to keep its nuclear arms program. It will have to open up only 14 of its 22 reactors for inspection. The rest it can keep secret, including a fast-breeder reactor that produces the plutonium for bombs. It can even build more breeders. There is, however, an argument that, rather than a gift from Santa Claus, this is a tough bargain. It opens up two-thirds of India's secret program to inspection. Which is why the International Atomic Energy Agency, the nuclear inspection arm of the UN, welcomes it. But the lesson nuke-seeking nations can draw is clear: As the late Z.A. Bhutto, prime minister of Pakistan, once famously said, eat grass if you must to free up the resources to develop the bomb, and the world will, eventually, embrace you. "With one simple move, the president has blown a hole in the nuclear rules that the world has been playing by," said Representative Edward Markey, the leading critic of the deal in Congress. How do you now go after Iran? Unlike India, Pakistan or Israel, it signed the non-proliferation treaty. It has not violated the treaty, which entitles it to develop nuclear energy. What Iran is guilty of is cheating — hiding some aspects of its program — and a lot of fiery anti-American and anti-Israeli rhetoric. But its cheating has been minuscule compared to Israel's, India's and Pakistan's. That's why the Atomic Energy Agency report, which goes before its board of governors tomorrow, is so mild: The agency cannot give Iran a clean bill of health but it can find no proof of a nuclear weapons program. "India is more guilty than Iran could be," says Dilip Hiro, a London-based expert on Iran. "North Korea is more guilty than Iran could be." All this is awkward enough, but there's more. Trying to sell the India deal to a skeptical Congress, Bush says that giving India more nuclear power will "take the pressure off the global demand for energy." This is precisely what Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford said in the 1970s to rationalize their plan to sell the Shah of Iran nuclear power plants. "But, flush with a bulging exchequer, thanks to rising oil prices from 1973 and 1974, he ignored U.S. corporations and awarded the first contract for a nuclear plant to Siemens of West Germany," wrote Hiro in The Iranian Labyrinth (Nation Books, 2005). One is left with no other conclusion than that the U.S. basically does what it wants and tries to rationalize it by dictating the media mantra of the day. None of this should come as a surprise. After all, the U.S. was once a great friend of Saddam Hussein. -------- MILITARY -------- prisoners of war Guantanamo inmates despair of ever leaving MIRANDA LEITSINGER Associated Press Sun, Mar. 05, 2006 http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/world/14025438.htm GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba - Ahamed Abdul Aziz has been in the Guantanamo Bay prison for more than three years and, by his account, has been interrogated 50 times without being charged with any crime. He waits with anguish for freedom but fears it will never come. "We are in a grave here," he told his lawyers, echoing the despair felt by many of the roughly 490 prisoners held as suspected terrorists at the U.S. naval base in eastern Cuba. Charges have been filed against only 10 of them. Transcripts of hearings, which the Pentagon released Friday after a successful Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by The Associated Press, show the frustration among prisoners waiting for the military to decide whether to charge them, transfer them or release them. "I don't want to spend any more time here. Not one more minute," Afghan prisoner Mohammed Gul said at a combat status review tribunal. Another unidentified Afghan man told his tribunal: "I was not a Taliban. I was not against the Americans. I want to go home." An Afghan man, identified only as Abdul in one of the transcripts, urged U.S. military officers overseeing his tribunal to free him so he could feed his family. "I don't know what they have to eat," he said. The United States has released or transferred to authorities in their home countries about 270 detainees since the prison opened in January 2002, months after the U.S.-led military campaign that ousted Afghanistan's hard-line Taliban regime for harboring Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida bases. Pentagon officials say detainees can be released if a review panel determines they no longer pose a threat to the United States and have no intelligence value in its war on terrorism. U.S. officials say the camp houses only people who want to kill American troops or civilians. "The folks that are at Guantanamo Bay all have a valid reason for being sent here," said Army Maj. Jeffrey Weir, a prison spokesman. "Some are mainly security, others are intelligence. It's across the board." Aziz, who is from Mauritania in West Africa, was captured in Pakistan in 2002, according to one of his lawyers, Anna Cayton-Holland. His lawyers do not know what he is accused of. "He thinks he's going to die here," said another member of his defense team, Agnieszka Fryszman. Many detainees are accused of specific deeds, but some complain they spend years in confinement before learning the allegations. Boudella al Hajj, an Algerian cleric who said he worked with orphans in Bosnia for a humanitarian group and the Bosnian army, was accused of being in contact with al-Qaida member Abu Zubaydah and belonging to an Algerian militant organization, among other things. In the transcripts, he denied the allegations and asked why he had never heard them before. "I've been here for three years, been through many interrogations and no interrogator ever mentioned any of these accusations, so how did they just come now?" he said. "It's weird how this just came up now." One tribunal member, who was not identified, later said: "We didn't realize you had never been confronted with these allegations." Another man, Pakistani millionaire Saifullah A. Paracha, was told by a U.S. Air Force colonel running his hearing that he would one day be able to pursue his case in American courts. "I've been here 17 months - would that be before I expire?" Paracha asked. With some Bush administration officials now referring to the war against terrorism as the "long war," Guantanamo appears to be turning into a more permanent detention site. A two-story prison building that can house 200 detainees is slated to open this summer. It is modeled after a mainland maximum-security prison and will be located near a similar facility that can house 100 detainees. "It's becoming clear that we will need to continue to house some number of detainees for an extended period," said a Pentagon spokesman, Maj. Michael Shavers. -------- space World's nations will shoot for the moon in the next decade Keay Davidson, San Francisco Chronicle Science Writer Sunday, March 5, 2006 http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/03/05/MOON.TMP&feed=rss.news In the "space race" of the early 1960s, when reporters asked U.S. rocket pioneer Wernher von Braun what he expected to find on the moon, he jokingly replied: "Russians." Nowadays, his answer might be: "Indians, Chinese, Japanese and Europeans." India, China, Japan and Europe are busy launching, or planning to launch, robotic spaceships to the moon and points beyond. Their goals will include tasks ranging from mapping minerals to seeking ice from which future astronauts might extract drinking water. More distant goals include looking for a mineral called ilmenite that some experts think is rich in an isotope called helium-3. In theory, that isotope could be shipped to Earth and burned in futuristic nuclear fusion reactors. "It's going to be a very exciting decade," said Carle Pieters, a planetary geoscientist at Brown University who is the prime scientist behind the development of a U.S. instrument that will ride aboard India's Chandrayaan-1. The device, the Moon Mineralogy Mapper -- M3 or "M Cubed" for short -- will measure wavelengths of light from the lunar surface in order to identify elements. The international space competition worries some politicians. "I know that the United States is beginning its long journey back to the moon, and then on to Mars through the Exploration program, but I worry that we are not taking these challenges from other nations seriously. The United States must maintain its global position," said Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Corona (Riverside County), chairman of the House Science Committee, during a budget hearing on Feb. 16. More upbeat is veteran astronaut Russell "Rusty" Schweickart, a Bay Area resident flew on the Apollo 9 mission, a 1969 test flight in Earth's orbit for a capsule that would only months later fly other astronauts to the Moon. "Lotsa room in space. ... Hopefully there will be room for all without the attitude that the presence of others is necessarily threatening," Schweickart said in an e-mail from Vienna, where he is chairing a discussion of asteroid exploration at the annual meeting of the Science and Technology subcommittee of the United Nations' Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. "I'd welcome others going to the moon ... or anywhere else. We are all Earth people," he said. Michael O'Brien, NASA's assistant administrator for external relations, which oversees the space agency's relations with the programs of other nations, is also optimistic about the skyward surge of nations. "Space is a great unifier," O'Brien said. "Compared to the time during the Cold War, when space activities really tended to separate us (as nations), now just exactly the opposite is happening. Instead of concentrating on the competitive aspects of space, we at NASA are concentrating on the aspects of space that unify us and allow us to do things that will be to the benefit of mankind." The fact that India has a space program at all surprises many Americans. The Indian space agency opened for business in 1962 and has become a respected launcher of communications and remote-sensing satellites. Still, until recently, when its lunar ambitions made news, it got little publicity in the West. Before he went into politics, India's President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam was a pioneer of India's space program. "Mars and the moon have a tremendous commercial potential," he said in a 2005 interview with an Indian journal, The Hindu. "The moon has a lot of helium-3 material and also certain types of minerals. ... We have to develop complex fusion technology to use helium-3 (as fuel)." Paul Spudis, who was deputy leader of the science team for a previous U.S. robotic mission to the moon, is slated, like Pieters, to place a scientific instrument aboard India's moon-bound space probe next year. His instrument will scan the lunar surface with radar beams to try to detect any reflections characteristic of ice. In the United States, he said, "people don't know anything about the Indian space program, so they assume the Indians are overreaching (by sending a probe to the moon). But they've had their own space program for a long time ... I attended their preliminary design review (for their lunar probe) at Bangalore in November for three days, and I was very impressed. "They've thought this out very well. So I'm anticipating a successful mission." India has hundreds of well-educated space scientists, some of international stature. One, associate professor S.A. Haider of the Physical Research Laboratory at Navrangpura, Ahmedabad, said in an e-mail that "India has capability to launch not (only a) 'Moon mission' but also (missions to) Mars, Venus and other planets." Japan has five long-term plans for space, according to a March 2005 report on it space agency's Web site -- among them to "prepare for the establishment of a human lunar base" by 2025. A graphic on the site -- www.jaxa.jp/2025/index_e.html -- shows a design for a Japanese lunar base that would be electrified by energy transmitted via microwave beams from a giant array of solar-electric cells orbiting the moon. The Japanese also hope to develop a lunar "robot that can work with people." The Chinese are planning to send an astronaut -- a "taikonaut," as they call them -- on a "space walk" in 2007. They also hope to build a permanent space station and to develop a satellite that can be launched into lunar orbit, according to published reports. The Chinese space agency "spends about $2.6 billion per year," said Ed Buckbee, a former public affairs person at NASA. "That's a big investment for them." Some news media inside China display mixed attitudes toward their space program. In October, the Internet edition of the Oriental Daily News warned that China remains a poverty-stricken country and that "we must never crave greatness and show off, and start a space contest with America, Russia and other countries. ... Although developing space science and technology is important, it is inferior to the more pressing task of building the motherland." Bernard H. Foing, chief scientist at the European Space Agency and Smart-1 project scientist, visited NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View on Feb. 13. Now orbiting the moon, Smart-1 carries several scientific instruments that are scanning its chilly, nearly airless lunar surface. These include what Foing called "eternal peaks of light" -- mountaintops at the lunar poles that are so high they are always bathed in solar rays. They'd be ideal spots for solar-electric arrays to energize lunar bases, he said. Europe's long-term goal is a "human outpost on the moon," he said. Why go? Among many reasons, Foing said, is that the moon might contain relics of the origins of Earthly life. Billions of years ago, asteroid impacts on Earth could have splattered terrestrial crust onto the moon. That means that primeval fossils of Earth's earliest creatures might be scattered across the lunar terrain. For this reason, Foing jokingly calls the moon "Earth's attic." Pieters of Brown University doesn't know what kinds of benefits -- say, new types of energy sources or valuable elements that might be extracted more easily and cost-effectively than on Earth -- might come from the moon. But she's confident benefits are there, only 240,000 miles from Earth. Speaking metaphorically, she said: "I'm certain there will be 'gold in them thar hills.' I just don't know what the 'gold' looks like.' " Moon missions Lunar missions planned by nations worldwide include: China: A lunar orbiter is being prepared for launch in 2007 or 2008, followed by lunar-landing probes and, after 2017, landings by astronauts. Europe: A probe, Smart-1, is circling the moon. The European Space Agency hopes to send landing probes to our sister orb in later years. India: Chandrayaan-1, a robotic spaceship, is scheduled for launch in September 2007. Its goals include orbiting the moon to map its minerals and seek frozen-water deposits that might be consumed by future astronauts. Japan: A robotic probe, SELENE (Selenological and Engineering Explorer) is slated to visit the moon later this decade. However, its timing is uncertain because of repeated launch delays and the Japanese space program's well-publicized technical problems of the past decade. United States: NASA plans to launch its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter in late 2008 as a prelude to President Bush's goal to send American astronauts back to the moon, perhaps as soon as the second half of the next decade. ---- Senator Opposes Pentagon Plan To Downgrade Space Command by Staff Writers Washington DC (SPX) March 5, 2006 http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Senator_Opposes_Pentagon_Plan_To_Downgrade_Space_Command.html Sen. Wayne Allard (R-Colo.) has told the Defense Department he will oppose any Air Force proposal to downgrade its U.S. Space Command and said he is asking Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to justify the Pentagon's plan. The Space Command's headquarters, currently in Colorado Springs, Colo., would be relocated to the U.S. Strategic Command headquarters in Omaha, Neb., under the plan, and the space operation would be downgraded to a division within the USSC. Allard, a member of the Appropriations subcommittee on military construction and veterans' affairs, said the 2001 Commission to Assess United States National Security Space Management and Organization had concluded that "the security and well being of the United States, its allies and friends depend on the nation's ability to operate in space… The pursuit of U.S. national interests in space requires leadership by the president and senior officials." Secretary Rumsfeld chaired the commission. "Space is critical to our armed forces," Allard said in a statement. "Nearly every military operation we carry out makes use of assets in space in one way or another, be it using our satellites to locate the position of the enemy, providing instant communications or gathering dependable intelligence." Allard said he has asked Rumsfeld "to provide me with information on whether he is supportive of those in the Air Force who wish to reduce the importance of space within that particular service." In a March 1 letter to the Defense Secretary, Allard wrote: "Despite this national security imperative, it appears that the Department of Defense has not been devoting sufficient attention to enhancing and defending our nation's space dominance. In fact, several recent management and organizational changes suggest that this trend is accelerating, much to the detriment of our nation's security." The letter continues, "A more recent example is the on-going discussions within the Air Force regarding the reorganization of its various components. These discussions have included the possible reduction of the rank of the Commander of Air Force Space Command from a four-star major command to a three-star billet and the transfer of Air Force Space and Missile Command to Air Force Material Command." Allard called the Air Force "the Department of Defense's executive agent for space" and said the service "remains responsible for executing most of the department's resources for space research, development, acquisition and operations. This mission requires leadership with sufficient rank and credibility to ensure that space remains a top priority within the Air Force and that sufficient resources are allocated for this purpose." -------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE -------- courts / tribunals Thousands of federal cases kept secret By Michael J. Sniffen And John Solomon, Associated Press Writers 3/5/2006 http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-03-05-secret-justice_x.htm WASHINGTON — Despite the Sixth Amendment's guarantee of public trials, nearly all records are being kept secret for more than 5,000 defendants who completed their journey through the federal courts over the last three years. Instances of such secrecy more than doubled from 2003 to 2005. An Associated Press investigation found, and court observers agree, that most of these defendants are cooperating government witnesses, but the secrecy surrounding their records prevents the public from knowing details of their plea bargains with the government. Most of these defendants are involved in drug gangs, though lately a very small number come from terrorism cases. Some of these cooperating witnesses are among the most unsavory characters in America's courts — multiple murderers and drug dealers — but the public cannot learn whether their testimony against confederates won them drastically reduced prison sentences or even freedom. In the nation's capital, which has had a serious problem with drug gangs murdering government witnesses, the secrecy has reached another level — the use of secret dockets. For hundreds of such defendants over the past few years in this city, should someone acquire the actual case number for them and enter it in the U.S. District Court's computerized record system, the computer will falsely reply, "no such case" — rather than acknowledging that it is a sealed case. At the request of the AP, the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts conducted its first tally of secrecy in federal criminal cases. The nationwide data it provided the AP showed 5,116 defendants whose cases were completed in 2003, 2004 and 2005, but the bulk of their records remain secret. "The constitutional presumption is for openness in the courts, but we have to ask whether we are really honoring that," said Laurie Levenson, a former federal prosecutor and now law professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. "What are the reasons for so many cases remaining under seal?" "What makes the American criminal justice system different from so many others in the world is our willingness to cast some sunshine on the process, but if you can't see it, you can't really criticize it," Levenson said. The courts' administrative office and the Justice Department declined to comment on the numbers. The data show a sharp increase in secret case files over time as the Bush administration's well-documented reliance on secrecy in the executive branch has crept into the federal courts through the war on drugs, anti-terrorism efforts and other criminal matters. "This follows the pattern of this administration," said John Wesley Hall, an Arkansas defense attorney and second vice president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. "I am astonished and shocked that this many criminal proceedings in federal court escape public scrutiny or become buried." The percentage of defendants who have reached verdicts and been sentenced but still have most of their records sealed has more than doubled in the last three years, the court office's tally shows. Of nearly 85,000 defendants whose cases were closed in 2003, the records of 952 or 1.1% remain mostly sealed. Of more than 82,000 defendants with cases closed in 2004, records for 1,774 or 2.2% remain mostly secret. And of more than 87,000 defendants closed out in 2005, court records for 2,390 or 2.7% remain mostly closed to the public. The court office also found a sharp increase in defendants whose case records were partly sealed for a limited time. Among newly charged defendants, the numbers in this category grew from 9,999 or 10.9% of all defendants charged in 2003 to 11,508 or 12.6% of those charged in 2005. But the AP investigation found, and court observers agree, that the overwhelming number of these cases sealed for a limited time involve a use of secrecy that draws no criticism: the sealing of an indictment only until the defendant is arrested. AP's investigation found a large concentration of both kinds of secrecy at the U.S. District Court here: limited sealing of records and extensive sealing that continues even after the courts are done with a defendant. "When the sentences are sealed, that's a con on the community," said Lexi Christ, a Washington defense lawyer for a man acquitted in a crack cocaine case. In that case, all the defendants' names became public when the indictment was unsealed. But all other records for six defendants who pleaded guilty remained sealed more than two years after the public trial in which two of the drug dealers were convicted. One of the cooperating witnesses admitted to seven murders and testified in open court against co-defendants who had committed fewer, Christ said. But like the others who pleaded guilty and cooperated, that witness' plea deal and sentence were sealed. "Cooperating witnesses are pleading guilty to six or seven murders, and the jury doesn't know they'll be sitting on the Metro (subway) next to them a year later. It's a really, really ugly system," Christ said. Prosecutors argue that plea agreements must be sealed to protect witnesses and their families from violent retaliation. But Christ said that makes no sense after the trial when the defendants know who testified. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press found the U.S. District Court here has 469 criminal cases, from 2001-2005, that are listed by this court's electronic docket as "no such case." An AP survey over a shorter period found similar numbers here and got oral acknowledgment from the clerk's office that the missing electronic docket numbers corresponded to sealed cases. However, these figures include an unknown number of sealed indictments that will be made public if arrests are made. "That's horrifying," said Loyola's Levenson. "When I was a prosecutor from 1981 to 1989, I never heard of secret dockets." No matter how few turn out to be almost totally sealed after the defendant's case was completed, "it's still significant," said Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee and a pioneer in campaigning against court secrecy. "The Supreme Court has said that criminal proceedings are public," Dalglish added. "In this country, we don't prosecute and lock up convicts and have no public track record of how we got there. That violates the defendants' rights not to mention the public's right to know what it's court system is doing." Although Justice Department does not keep comprehensive nationwide statistics on secrecy in federal prosecutions, it does track how often prosecutors ask permission from headquarters to hold a secret court proceeding, like an arraignment, hearing, trial or sentencing. The department estimates it got 100 such requests from October 2000 though October 2004, Justice Department spokesman Bryan Sierra said. Another 100 arrived during the 12 months that ended October 2005, he said. Sierra said the large recent increase occurred because the department sent a memo to all federal prosecutors in 2004 reminding them they need Washington's approval before requesting or agreeing to secret courtroom proceedings. Filing of secret papers in cases doesn't require such permission. -------- ACTIVISTS World in peril, Chomsky tells overflow crowd By Brian Liberatore NY Press & Sun-Bulletin 03/05/06 http://www.pressconnects.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060305/NEWS01/603050342/1006 VESTAL - There are dire consequences to the current direction of the U.S. foreign policy, said Noam Chomsky in a speech Saturday at Binghamton University. Among those consequences, he said, is a nuclear Armageddon. "Under the current U.S. policies, a nuclear exchange is inevitable," the 77-year-old MIT professor said in his presentation, "Imminent Crises: Paths Toward Solutions." He spoke to an over-capacity crowd in BU's Osterhout Concert Theater. Chomsky cited nuclear proliferation and environmental collapse as the two greatest crises that "literally threaten survival." Since the 1960s Chomsky, a widely acclaimed professor of linguistics, has crusaded against political contradiction, nuclear proliferation and Israel's treatment of Palestinians. Regarded by many as the greatest intellectual alive today and dismissed by others as a radical, Chomsky has voiced harsh criticism against the foreign policy of the United States since World War II. About 1,500 people crammed into the main theater, while a television broadcast the speech to a room of about 500 next door. Ushers were forced to turn hundreds of people away as the building filled beyond its capacity. Asked whether he had anticipated the number of people, the building's operations director, Darryl Wood, responded, "Not this many, no." Inside the theater, Chomsky delivered an account of the world's ills. He addressed the history of the Iraq conflict, the unrest it has fostered, and Iran's intentions for nuclear armament - a path, he said, that is directly tied to U.S. aggression in the Middle East. Chomsky outlined a course of action. "All of this is under our control if we're not willing to observe passively and obediently," he said. "Take democracy seriously." Peter Klotz drove two hours from Siena College in Loudonville to see the professor. "He knows what he's talking about," Klotz said. "His ideas are certainly not new, but he presents things in a very concise manner." John Hamilton, who drove from Ithaca to see Chomsky, stood up to ask a question during the question-and-answer period following Chomsky's speech. "My question is, what do you find hopeful?" Hamilton said. "I think one should be very optimistic for the reasons I just mentioned," Chomsky said. "The large majority of the population already agrees with the things activists are committed to. All we have to do is organize people who are convinced."