NucNews April 6, 2006 -------- NUCLEAR -------- asia US To Push For Asian Moratorium On Nuclear Weapons Says Rice Washington (AFP) Apr 06, 2006 Agence France-Presse http://www.spacewar.com/reports/US_To_Push_For_Asian_Moratorium_On_Nuclear_Weapons_Says_Rice.html Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Wednesday the United States would push for a South Asian moratorium on nuclear weapons production to ease tensions between India and Pakistan. "We would like to see, obviously, in the regional sense in the relationship between India and Pakistan and others, a look at regional moratorium on fissile material production," Rice told a Congressional hearing on a landmark US-India civilian nuclear deal. "We've made it very clear that we would encourage that; that we would encourage India and Pakistan to look at their nuclear relationship and the way that in some of the earlier days people were concerned about safety and security between the US and Soviet arsenals," she said. Fissile material is plutonium or highly enriched uranium that can be used for nuclear explosive devices. Rice was replying to Democratic Senator John Kerry on whether the United States could offer "real leadership" is trying to bring together the nuclear-armed neighbours, neither of whom are signatories to the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Kerry, the failed Democratic candidate in the last presidential election, said that it was hard to understand why India and Pakistan would need to continue to build nuclear weapons at levels beyond an adequate deterrent between each other and China, an NPT signatory. Kerry said he had raised this with Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf and "there seemed to be a genuine spark of interest in the notion of trying to arrive at some agreement regionally on the numbers of nuclear weapons." Rice said the United States was unable to get an undertaking from the South Asian nations on nuclear controls. "Well, what we couldn't achieve -- and I think it was unlikely -- was a constraint unilaterally by any one state," she said. "But the idea that has been pursued in some second-track arrangements, some second-track of discussions between the parties about not just absolute levels but also safety and security and confidence-building measures, I think is something we're very interested in and we'd like to pursue," she said. US relations with India and Pakistan were improving rapidly "that might make it worthwhile," she added. "I can't say that it's going to have an immediate payoff. These things are hard." India conducted nuclear weapons tests in May 1998 and Pakistan in a tit-for-tat response detonated its own devices a few days later. The rivals have fought three wars, two of them over the Himalayan region of Kashmir which is divided between them and claimed in full by both. After coming close to another war in 2002, in January 2004 they began talks to resolve their disputes, including over Kashmir. The two exchange lists of their nuclear facilities annually in line with a 1988 accord under which they agreed to refrain from attacking each other's nuclear facilities in the event of a war. -------- australia Australian prime minister says he would consider nuclear power Associated Press (April 6, 2006) http://pepei.pennnet.com/news/display_news_story.cfm?Section=WIREN&Category=HOME&NewsID=133058 CANBERRA, Australia - Australia's prime minister said Friday he would consider introducing nuclear power but added that the option was currently too expensive. Australia is the world's biggest coal exporter and most of its power stations are coal-fired. Australia also has the world's largest known reserves of uranium, but the use of nuclear technology is a politically divisive issue. There are tight government controls on opening new mines, on who can buy Australian uranium and prohibiting any military application. After signing a uranium export agreement with China this week, Prime Minister John Howard said Friday Australia would be hypocritical to export uranium and reject it outright for electricity generation at home. "There's no prohibition in my view on nuclear (power)," Howard told Radio 3AW in the southern city of Melbourne. "I would not stand in the way if I were satisfied that it was economically feasible, provided all the safeguards were there," he added. Howard said there were no plans to introduce nuclear power in Australia in the near future. "At the moment, it's not economically attractive enough to do so. But my philosophy is that if it became economically attractive, I would not oppose it," he said. Australia has refused to sign the Kyoto protocol on greenhouse gas emissions and is regarded as one of the world's biggest per capita producers of globe-heating gases because of its reliance on coal. The country has only one nuclear reactor, on the southern outskirts of Sydney, but it is used only for research and making radioactive products for medicinal purposes. -------- depleted uranium Study may help slay 'Yellow Monster' Research pioneers understanding of uranium toxicity Public release date: 6-Apr-2006 Contact: Lisa Nelson Lisa.Nelson@nau.edu 928-523-6123 Northern Arizona University http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-04/nau-smh040606.php FLAGSTAFF, Ariz.--Low-grade uranium ore is nicknamed "yellowcake" for its color and powdered consistency. The Navajo have another name: Leetso, or "yellow monster." The yellow monster surfaced on the Navajo Nation with uranium mining that started in the 1940s and continued for the next several decades. In its aftermath came illnesses such as lung cancer among mine workers and worries about environmental contamination among people who live on that land. The Navajos believe you must gain knowledge of a monster to slay it and restore nature's balance. Northern Arizona University biochemist Diane Stearns and her Navajo students are not only gaining knowledge, they are adding to that knowledge with new discoveries about uranium. The fact that uranium, as a radioactive metal, can damage DNA is well documented. But what Stearns and her collaborators recently have found is that uranium can also damage DNA as a heavy metal, independent of its radioactive properties. Stearns and her team are the first to show that when cells are exposed to uranium, the uranium binds to DNA and the cells acquire mutations. When uranium attaches to DNA, the genetic code in the cells of living organisms, it can change that code. As a result, the DNA can make the wrong protein or wrong amounts of protein, which affects how the cells grow. Some of these cells can grow to become cancer. "Essentially, if you get a heavy metal stuck on DNA, you can get a mutation," Stearns explained. Other heavy metals are known to bind to DNA, but Stearns and her colleagues are the first to identify this trait with uranium. Their results were published recently in the journals Mutagenesis and Molecular Carcinogenesis. Their findings have far-reaching implications for people living near abandoned mine tailings in the Four Corners area of the Southwest and for war-torn countries and the military, which uses depleted uranium for anti-tank weapons, tank armor and ammunition rounds. Depleted uranium is what is left over when most of the highly radioactive isotopes of uranium are removed. "The health effects of uranium really haven't been studied since the Manhattan Project (the development of the atomic bomb in the early 1940s). But now there is more interest in the health effects of depleted uranium. People are asking questions now," Stearns said. The questions include whether there is a connection between exposure to depleted uranium and Gulf War Syndrome or to increased cancers and birth defects in the Middle East. Stearns said it is estimated that more than 300 tons of depleted uranium were used during the first Gulf War. Military uses of depleted uranium in weapons continue today. Closer to home, questions continue to be asked about environmental exposure to uranium from mine tailings that dot the landscape across the Navajo Nation. "When the uranium mining boom crashed in the '80s, it really crashed and there wasn't much cleanup," Stearns said. Estimates put the number of abandoned mines on the Navajo Nation at more than 1,100. NAU senior Hertha Woody grew up on the Navajo Nation in Shiprock, N.M. Before joining Stearns' research group, Woody said she was not very aware of heavy metal contamination of soil and water from a large uranium tailing pile near her hometown. But now she wonders about the ongoing health problems of her uncle who worked in the uranium mine at Shiprock. And she worries about others living in the area. "My parents still live there and drink the water," she noted. There's another Navajo word that Woody shares. It is hozho, which relates to harmony, balance and beauty. Woody explained that the yellow monster disrupts hozho and that uranium should remain in the ground to ensure balance. In fact, in the spring of 2005, Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley, Jr., signed the Diné Natural Resources Protection Act, which bans uranium mining and processing on the Navajo Nation. Woody said she has learned a great deal and not just in the realm of science. "It opens up doors and windows everywhere else," she said, noting that the work has raised her awareness about mine safety, tribal issues and reclamation efforts. "When we first heard of the yellow monster, it was scary and not much was understood until the research began and it was passed on to the people through booklets and talks at the chapter houses," said Sheryl Martinez, a junior in NAU's nursing program and another member of Stearns' research group. Martinez, also a native of Shiprock, hopes to return to her community and put her knowledge to work after graduation. The funding for Stearns' work is tied to improving health among Native American communities. Stearns is the NAU principal investigator of a grant jointly awarded to NAU and the Arizona Cancer Center by the National Cancer Institute. Louise Canfield is the principal investigator on the grant for the Arizona Cancer Center. Collectively, these two grants comprise the Native American Cancer Research Partnership, a consortium of cancer researchers and educators at NAU and the Arizona Cancer Center. NACRP is one of only five such partnerships in the nation and the only one focused on Native American issues. "The data on Native Americans for cancer evidence is very poor," Stearns said. "Navajo and Hopi may not get cancer to a greater extent, but the survival rate is lower than the general population." Stearns said the lower survival rate might be more the result of limited access to care or cultural boundaries that may prevent people from seeking care. A goal of the partnership is to address these disparities by training Native students for cancer-related careers. In this way, Stearns and her students can help slay the yellow monster, whether on the Navajo Nation or abroad. ---- LUNG CANCER EPIDEMIC FROM DU HAS BEGUN IN U.S. By Dr. James Howenstine, MD. April 6, 2006 NewsWithViews.com http://www.newswithviews.com/Howenstine/james43.htm In the year 2005 there were 175,000 new cases of lung cancer in the United States. The months of January and February of 2006 have already yielded 172,000 new cases of lung cancer in our nation. What has lead to this shocking new development? Second hand smoke exposure and cigarette smoking obviously can not explain this dramatic rise in lung cancer. Following exposure to radioactive iodine particulate debris in the air from shells and bombs, between 2 to 5 years of time is needed to lead to the appearance of malignancies. Our bombing of Afghanistan began in October 2001 (four and a half years ago) and the new bombing in Iraq began in March 2003 (exactly three years ago). Aerial bombs are more effective than artillery shells in increasing airborne radioiodine because they release more dust into the atmosphere. The radioactive iodine increment from these bombings was registered in the UK in the Aldermaston Report[1] released on Feb. 19, 2006. The U.S. government has not released any information about the levels of radioactivity being observed in the U.S. and the controlled media in Europe and the U.S. has said nothing about the 4 genocidal nuclear wars the United States and it’s British ally have foisted off on the populace of the world. (Bosnia, Iraq twice and Afghanistan). The DU wars surely reflect the population lowering program for the world being implemented by the New World Order elitists (Tilateral Commisson., Bilderbergers, Club of Rome, 33 rd degree Masons, Illuminati, Council of Foreign Relations.) Breathing radioactive particlulate matter has long been known to cause lung cancer. Miners working in uranium mines and other types of mining where radioactivity is an occupational hazard have a higher incidence of lung cancer. This danger from airborne radioactive iodine is greater than that found from cigarette smoking. The radioactive iodine particles go directly to DNA which is “trashed”. There are no ways the human body can rid itself of the radioactive particles so the health damage is permanent. This results in severe health problems particularly malignancies which have no effective therapies. Physicians in Bosnia are seeing patients present for care with three simultaneous malignancies something never previously reported in medicine. Children in Iraq are dying in epidemic numbers from malignancies. In most nations cancer in children is uncommon. This makes depleted uranium shells and bombs an ideal vehicle to diminish the world population. The absence of media exposure critical of this genocidal program makes DU warfare a low risk program for lowering world population. One of the attractive features of using radioactive uranium for biologic warfare and population lowering is that there are no known effective ways to heal an individual who develops a malignancy after radioiodine iodine exposure. A frightening aspect of depleted uranium warfare is that there is no way to protect oneself from this hazard. Clothing and gas masks are easily penetrated. The key persons running the New World Order are brilliant planners. They would not want themselves to die from lung cancer along with the rest of humanity. My guess is they have discovered methods to protect themselves from developing lung cancer. Certainly one has to be impressed with how effectively David Rockefeller, Zignev Brezinski and Henry Kissinger appear to have managed to avoid the infirmities of aging at least to outward appearances. I do not know if persons living in the Southern hemisphere are also being exposed to radioiodine fallout. Recently Christopher Reeves wife, Dana, died of lung cancer at age 44. She was a healthy non smoker so her death appeared puzzling. The DU fallout may provide a rational explanation. Because prevailing winds have carried radioiodine dust to Europe and probably the U.S. it appears that at least half the persons on planet earth are currently breathing radioiodine. The topic of depleted uranium bombs and shells will not be discussed in the media because the world’s media is controlled by the New World Order elitists. World wide public outrage could ruin their plans to rapidly lower the world’s population by 90 % if this issue was publicly discussed. When a biologic warfare agent like the borrelia burgdorfi spirochete (Lyme Disease) turns out to spread person to person it becomes a gigantic success. We all must breath to stay alive. With at least half the persons on earth now breathing radioactive iodine the bio-warfare scientists appear to have their second big winner. Expect lung cancer deaths to rapidly increase worldwide. Footnotes: 1, CNN American Morning program March 8, 2006 Miles and Soledad O'Brien Dr. James A. Howenstine is a board certified specialist in internal medicine who spent 34 years caring for office and hospital patients. After 4 years of personal study he became convinced that natural products are safer, more effective, and less expensive than pharmaceutical drugs. This research led to the publication of his book A Physicians Guide To Natural Health Products That Work. Information about these products and his book can be obtained from amazon.com and at www.naturalhealthteam.com and phone 1-800-416-2806 U.S. Dr. Howenstine can be reached by mail at Dr. James Howenstine, C/O Remarsa USA SB 37, P.O. Box 25292, Miami, Fl. 33102-5292. E-Mail: jimhow@racsa.co.cr -------- europe Bulgaria: British Nuclear Group Interested in Bulgarian Energy Sector 06 April 2006 Sofia News Agency http://www.reporter.gr/fulltext_eng.cfm?id=60406122633 British Nuclear Group is interested in Bulgaria's nuclear energy sector, Bulgarian Economy and Energy Minister Rumen Ovcharov announced after a meeting with the company's representatives in London, Sofia News Agency reports. Ovcharov said that they discussed the company's direct involvement in Bulgaria's energy sector through the establishment of a Bulgarian subsidiary. He added that Bulgaria and the British company have discussed partnership for construction of new units and the closure of old one as the UK will have to close 6 nuclear units, whereas Bulgaria has gained experience in that field. Presently, British Nuclear Group is consultant for some of the projects connected to the closure of first and second unit of Bulgaria's only nuclear plant in Kozloduy. -------- india Rice Seeks Backing for Nuclear Deal for India By STEVEN R. WEISMAN Published: April 6, 2006 NY TIMES http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/06/washington/06nuke.html?ex=1144987200&en=78ca88ec2afa3974&ei=5070&emc=eta1 Correction Appended WASHINGTON, April 5 — Facing tough questions about the Bush administration's proposed deal to aid India's civilian nuclear program, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told Congress on Wednesday that she would press New Delhi to back up its stated commitment to stop the spread of nuclear arms. Ms. Rice said that she would push India, for example, to conclude an agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency on safeguarding its civilian nuclear plants as a way of reassuring lawmakers, but that she could not guarantee that India would do so before Congress could vote on the deal. "What I can guarantee you is that we will make every effort to push that process forward," Ms. Rice told Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, at a hearing on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In a sign that the proposal may have more support in Congress than some of its opponents had suggested, Mr. Kerry said he would probably support the deal, especially if the administration could provide the assurances he sought. A similar tentative endorsement came from another influential lawmaker, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, the ranking Democrat on the committee. The qualified support from Mr. Biden and Mr. Kerry elated administration officials, who said they now believed they could build on the momentum from the hearings to try for a vote as early as May or June. Committee officials said a vote might be delayed until July, however. Ms. Rice also testified before the House International Relations Committee, where the proposal got even more bipartisan support. That was considered significant because of the earlier vociferous criticism of some Democrats and misgivings expressed by the chairman, Representative Henry J. Hyde, Republican of Illinois. An aide said Mr. Hyde had not endorsed the plan but had not ruled out doing so. Ms. Rice said the United States was also pressing India to join a treaty to block exports of fissile material for use in making a nuclear weapon, and international conventions governing the transport of chemical weapons and nuclear technology. The nuclear deal, in which the administration has in effect proposed letting India bypass the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which it has not signed, would permit authorities there to receive vital help for their civilian nuclear program, including uranium for fuel, while being allowed to retain or increase the nation's arsenal of nuclear weapons. Many experts on proliferation have been critical of the arrangement, saying it rewards India for defying the basic underlying philosophy of the treaty, which is that only countries that forswear nuclear arms can get help with their nuclear energy needs. But there are also independent experts who favor the deal because it puts most of India's reactors under civilian auspices and therefore under international inspection. About a third would stay under military control and therefore beyond inspection by the international atomic agency. Several Democratic senators, including Barbara Boxer of California and Russell D. Feingold of Wisconsin, said at the hearing that India did not deserve the deal, despite their desire to improve relations. Other lawmakers noted great support for India as an emerging power that could serve as a counterweight to China. Ms. Rice sought to play up the importance of improving ties with India but she also warned bluntly that if the treaty negotiated by President Bush failed, bilateral relations would suffer markedly and broader American interests in Asia would suffer as well. Lawmakers expressed concern that the proposed deal curbed the power of Congress by leaving India exempt from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, rather than getting India to join and then allowing a waiver, which could be reviewed annually and approved by Congress if India lived up to its commitments. A senior State Department official, who was granted anonymity because he was not authorized to speak for the record about the administration's tactics, said afterward that the White House would be amenable to having Congress attach legislative requirements to the deal, as long as that did not require a renegotiation. For example, he said, Congress could require that the agreement not take effect until India reaches its safeguard accord with the International Atomic Energy Agency. An Indian official said India could accept such an arrangement as long as it required India to do things that it had already agreed to do. "We're moving ahead on all the things we've committed ourselves on," said the official, Raminder Jassal, deputy chief of mission at the Indian Embassy. Correction: April 7, 2006 An article yesterday about Congressional hearings on India's nuclear programs referred incorrectly to the views of some critics of the Bush administration's proposed agreement to aid India's civilian program. They have suggested that India be allowed, subject to annual Congressional review, to bypass the requirements of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which it has not signed. They have not asked that India sign the treaty before obtaining waivers of its requirements. --- Rice Appeals For Nuclear Deal for India Legislators Offer Grudging Support, Want More Details By Glenn Kessler Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, April 6, 2006; A24 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/05/AR2006040502334_pf.html In back-to-back hearings yesterday on Capitol Hill, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged lawmakers to approve a groundbreaking deal that would allow sales of civilian nuclear technology to India, winning wary expressions of support from some key lawmakers but also demands for more details and assurances that could delay approval for months. At stake is one of President Bush's boldest foreign policy initiatives. By lifting the longtime ban on nuclear trade with India -- which secretly developed a nuclear weapon and has refused to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty -- Bush hopes to build a strategic partnership with India as it rises to become a global power. Bush also argues that India's investment in nuclear power will make it less reliant on coal and oil as its demand for energy soars. Opponents say rewarding India will weaken rules preventing the spread of nuclear arms. "I know that there is a history that we are trying to overcome," Rice said. "But the time comes when you must deal with the realities and, indeed, overcome that history." During a morning hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, two key Democrats -- Joseph R. Biden Jr. (Del.), the ranking minority member, and John F. Kerry (Mass.), the 2004 presidential nominee -- suggested they were inclined to support the agreement though they were unhappy with certain aspects. Rice faced some tougher questions in the afternoon from the House International Relations Committee, though a number of lawmakers for the first time also said they supported the overall concept. The administration has pressed for quick changes in U.S. law to implement the agreement, in which India would be granted a special exception from laws that bar nuclear trade with countries that have not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Under the agreement, India would open 14 of its 22 reactors to international inspections by 2014, with the rest reserved for military use. Three critical elements must fall into place before the deal becomes a reality -- congressional changes to the 1954 Atomic Energy Act, a consensus agreement with a 45-nation international consortium known as the Nuclear Suppliers Group, and an agreement on the inspections between India and the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog. The sequencing of those events is emerging as an important factor, with the administration favoring congressional action before it seeks international approval. The Indian government has begun discussions with the IAEA, but that process is likely to take months -- and India also wants Congress to take the first step. Neither committee has set a date for approving legislation. "What we actually are trying to do is move on several fronts together," Indian Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran said in an interview last week. "Each is linked to the other as well, but I think the critical thing is the legislation. Nothing else is possible unless the law is changed." Several lawmakers said they would be reluctant to change U.S. laws until they understood the scope of the inspections -- the terms of which will be unique to India. Rice offered a compromise yesterday. She said any changes in the law would not take effect until the president certifies that he is satisfied with India's agreement with the IAEA. But some lawmakers balked at that idea, saying it would leave the matter entirely in the hands of the Bush administration. Rice's solution would "move Congress out of the decision-making process," said Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes (D-Md.). Alternatively, the administration could seek a waiver from current law, but that would subject the deal to annual renewal, which Rice said would make it impractical for businesses seeking to sell nuclear technology to India. One Democratic Senate staff member said whether the changes in U.S. law or the IAEA agreement come first is important because "this is a president who has a very low stockpile of trust left." He said lawmakers are also likely to seek a number of assurances written into the legislation, including commitments that India will not divert nuclear material from civilian to military facilities, and that India will not tap U.S. technology to reprocess or convert nuclear material for weapons use. Complicating matters, the administration has already decided it will not seek approval from the Nuclear Suppliers Group -- which sets guidelines for the export of nuclear materials -- until it wins congressional approval, administration officials said yesterday. U.S. officials briefed suppliers group representatives several weeks ago in Vienna, but the reaction was skeptical and tough, two officials said. The group -- which the United States created in response to India's first test of an atomic device in 1974 -- operates by consensus. In yesterday's hearings, lawmakers generally lauded the idea of improving relations with India but expressed concern that the agreement might set a bad precedent for other nations seeking nuclear weapons. Rice argued that India shares common democratic values with the United States and has demonstrated it can handle nuclear power responsibly. She asserted the Non-Proliferation Treaty had failed to halt India's nuclear weapons program, and that it would be better to gain oversight over a majority of India's nuclear facilities. Biden argued that the treaty "succeeded in limiting the size and sophistication of India's nuclear weapons program and nuclear power program." Biden said he is "probably going to support this" because the downside of ruining relations with India by rejecting the deal is worse than accepting a problematic agreement. ---- Rice appeals to Congress for support on India nuclear deal Australian Broadcasting - Thursday, 6 April, 2006 Reporter: John Shovelan http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2006/s1610218.htm ELEANOR HALL: India's military ties with Iran have emerged as a stumbling block for the Bush administration as it attempts to win Congressional support for its plan to share nuclear technology with India. The US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice testified today before Senate and House Committees that the Bush administration is concerned about the ties. But she said the US would not demand that India sever the relationship for the nuclear agreement to proceed and she urged members of Congress to support the deal. In Washington, John Shovelan reports. JOHN SHOVELAN: The nuclear technology exchange agreement between the US and India upends 30 years of US law and Government policy. For it to be implemented the Congress must approve the deal and so Dr Rice spent the day trying to answer congressional doubts. CONDOLEEZZA RICE: President Bush and I look forward to Congress as a full partner in this initiative. Your support for this legislation is crucial and we ask you to lend it. JOHN SHOVELAN: She listed Heads of State who had supported the agreement including Australia's. CONDOLEEZZA RICE: Prime Minister Howard has made clear that he thinks the US-India civil nuclear deal is a good deal. JOHN SHOVELAN: There is resistance to the deal in the Congress. Although two key Democrats, Senator Joe Biden and Senator John Kerry, indicated today they will probably support it. Unease about the deal was only increased with reports that two Iranian Navy ships had recently docked in India. The Indian Navy is reported to be helping to train the Iranian Navy. Democrat Senator Barbara Boxer says she would be insisting that the India end their military to military ties with Iran before she could vote to support the nuclear technology agreement. BARBARA BOXER: Did you make a condition of this deal their ending this support of Iran's military? CONDOLEEZZA RICE: Well, thank you Senator. First, let me just address the first… BARBARA BOXER: Could you just answer that question first. CONDOLEEZZA RICE: Well, first of all, the Indians say that they do have some low level military to military contacts with Iran. BARBARA BOXER: Did you make this part of the deal? Yes or no, because the reason I'm asking is I think some of us would like to make it a condition. JOHN SHOVELAN: Dr Rice conceded the US Government is concerned about the ties, but she said it wouldn't demand that India sever the relationship for the nuclear deal to proceed. BARBARA BOXER: Let just the record show that the Secretary… I'm assuming by her answer, this wasn't even an issue that was brought up and it's of deep concern to me and I'm sure to others in the Senate. CONDOLEEZZA RICE: Well Senator, let me correct the record. The United States has made very clear to India that we have concerns about the relationship with Iran. We've made clear to them we have concerns about the pipeline, we have made clear to them that we had concerns about their initial vote in the IAEA. So, of course we have concerns about the relationship with Iran. BARBARA BOXER: That's not my question, whether we have concerns. Did we make it part of the condition of the deal? So I just think your words are a bit hollow specifically on this matter and if you put it together with what Senator Sarbanes was able to ascertain that you're really in many ways ducking around the Congress. I think this deal has to have more checks and balances. That's it. JOHN SHOVELAN: Iran, which the US Government believes is trying to build a nuclear bomb, is close to an agreement with India and Pakistan for a natural gas pipeline project worth about $10 billion. Despite these ties, India overcame its initial reservations and recently voted to refer the Iranian nuclear program to the UN Security Council. CONDOLEEZZA RICE: I would note for instance that India was the only member of the non-aligned movement to vote for the referral of the Iranian nuclear program to the IAEA. JOHN SHOVELAN: Dr Rice told the Committee today it was unfair to single out India, when there were many US allies which had links with Tehran, although the United States has no diplomatic links with the Islamic republic. -------- iran We in Iran don't need this quarrel Javad Zarif The New York Times THURSDAY, APRIL 6, 2006 International Herald Tribune http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/04/05/opinion/edzarif.php NEW YORK The controversy over Iran's peaceful nuclear program has obscured one point in particular: There need not be a crisis. A solution to the situation is possible and eminently within reach. Lost amid the rhetoric is this: Iran has a strong interest in enhancing the integrity and authority of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. It has been in the forefront of efforts to ensure the treaty's universality. Iran's reliance on the nonproliferation regime is based on legal commitments, sober strategic calculations and spiritual and ideological doctrine. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the leader of the Islamic Republic, has issued a decree against the development, production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons. Let me be very clear. Iran defines its national security in the framework of regional and international cooperation and considers regional stability indispensable for its development. We are party to all international agreements on the control of weapons of mass destruction. We want regional stability. We have never initiated the use of force or resorted to the threat of force against a fellow member of the United Nations. Although chemical weapons have been used on us, we have never used them in retaliation. We have not invaded another country in 250 years. Since October 2003, Iran has accepted a robust inspection regimen by the United Nations. We have allowed more than 1,700 person-days of inspections and adopted measures to address past reporting failures. Most of the outstanding issues in connection with uranium conversion activities, laser enrichment, fuel fabrication and the heavy-water research reactor program have been resolved. Iran has gone beyond its international obligations and allowed the International Atomic Energy Agency to repeatedly visit military sites - and to allow inspectors to take environmental samples. The agency has concluded time and again that there is no evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program. Last September, it concluded again that "all the declared nuclear material in Iran has been accounted for, and therefore such material is not diverted to prohibited activities." Another point that has been obscured: Iran is ready for negotiations. Since October 2003, Iran has done its utmost to sustain and even resuscitate negotiations with Britain, France and Germany, the three European countries responsible for negotiating with us. Since August 2004, Iran has made eight far-reaching proposals. What's more, Iran throughout this period adopted extensive and costly confidence- building measures, including a voluntary suspension of its rightful enrichment activities for two years, to ensure the success of negotiations. Over the course of negotiations, Iran volunteered to do the following within a balanced package: Present the new atomic agency protocol on intrusive inspections to the Parliament for ratification, and to continue to put it in place pending ratification; Permit the continuous on-site presence of IAEA inspectors at conversion and enrichment facilities; Introduce legislation to permanently ban the development, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons; Cooperate on export controls to prevent unauthorized access to nuclear material; Refrain from reprocessing or producing plutonium; Limit the enrichment of nuclear materials so that they are suitable for energy production but not for weaponry; Immediately convert all enriched uranium to fuel rods, thereby precluding the possibility of further enrichment; Limit the enrichment program to meet the contingency fuel requirements of Iran's power reactors and future light-water reactors; Begin putting in place the least contentious aspects of the enrichment program, like research and development, in order to assure the world of our intentions; Accept foreign partners, both public and private, in our uranium enrichment program. Iran has recently suggested the establishment of regional consortiums on fuel-cycle development that would be jointly owned and operated by countries possessing the technology and placed under atomic agency safeguards. Other governments, most notably the Russian Federation, have offered thoughtful possibilities for a deal. Iran has declared its eagerness to find a negotiated solution - one that would protect its rights while ensuring that its nuclear program would remain exclusively peaceful. Pressure and threats do not resolve problems. Finding solutions requires political will and a readiness to engage in serious negotiations. Iran is ready. We hope the rest of the world will join us. Javad Zarif is the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations. ---- Iran's Nukes: Are the U.S. and Europe Out of Sync? Analysis: To resolve the nuclear standoff with Iran, Europe wants to offer incentives as well as sanctions. But that will require the U.S. to give up, for now, its pursuit of regime change By TONY KARON Thursday, Apr. 06, 2006 (TIME) http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1181181,00.html The international community is united, as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says, in demanding that Iran refrain from building nuclear weapons. But behind the statements of common purpose, there is not nearly as much agreement on how to achieve that end as the U.S. would like to admit. That's because the Europeans, who are running the diplomatic process, are not only talking about threatening greater penalties, but also offering Iran more incentives, particularly security guarantees . This carrot and stick approach may be standard diplomatic practice, but it raises an awkward question for an administration whose own de-facto Iran policy veers towards regime change. Almost every nation that backs the U.S. against Iran going nuclear would be equally adamant against any U.S. effort to force a change of regime in Tehran. The Europeans believe that regime change, although desirable, must occur as a result of internal pressure, because — as the nuclear standoff has shown — any external threat rallies even opponents of the mullahs behind their regime, and any attack on Iran would create chaos in the region. Thus, while Secretary Rice was telling British audiences last week that military action "is not what is on the agenda now" but that President Bush "never takes any option off the table," her host and British counterpart Jack Straw has repeatedly and strenuously made clear that military action is "inconceivable." Until now, the Bush administration and the Europeans have done their best to paper over the inherent conflicts in their respective positions. But that is fast becoming untenable: Security guarantees, after all, involve giving Tehran cast-iron promises that it will not be attacked and working to normalize relations with the regime, in order to remove any incentive it might have for creating a nuclear deterrent. The conflict in strategies was visible this week when administration officials rebuffed the suggestion by Germany, backed by Britain, that Washington hold direct talks with Tehran to break the nuclear deadlock. The dynamic with Iran, in fact, is starting to look a lot like the diplomatic wrangling over that other notorious member of the "Axis of Evil," North Korea. In that on-again, off-again six-party negotiating process, which includes North Korea, South Korea, Russia, China, the U.S. and Japan, the consensus among everyone but the U.S. is that walking Pyongyang back across the nuclear threshold requires offering it security guarantees and direct talks with the U.S. Washington hawks have long balked at those conditions, but the agreement of principles concluded last September does, in fact, include a security guarantee from the U.S. in exchange for North Korea renouncing nuclear weapons. Those talks have remained deadlocked since last fall, but the suspicion that Washington is seeking the collapse of the regime in Pyongyang has resulted in an increasingly open split between the U.S. and South Korea, the democracy whose protection is the reason U.S. still has troops on the Korean peninsula. Long before the current nuclear standoff heated up, this preference for regime change has caused the White House to duck opportunities for dialogue with Tehran. Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell, says an Iranian offer of talks to address all U.S. concerns was rebuffed in 2003 at the behest of the regime-change faction of the Bush administration. Former Bush National Security Council official Flynt Leverett has confirmed this account, and warns that the administration lacks a serious Iran policy by virtue of President Bush's refusal to engage with a regime he considers fundamentally illegitimate. Everett notes: "Because of the administration's deliberate decision to rule out serious strategically grounded diplomacy with Iran on this issue, [Security Council action and a military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities] are the only two options they've got, and neither is going to work." The Europeans know that, which is why in the coming months they will insist, ever so delicately, that Iran be offered expanded incentives along with the threatened penalties. The really bad news for Washington hawks is that the only incentives that matter are those that can be offered by, you guessed it, the U.S. And if Washington balks at offering Tehran what most of the international community would regard as reasonable security guarantees, it won't only be Iran that finds itself isolated. ---- UN nuclear watchdog head calls for Iranian cooperation Thu Apr 6, 2006 (AFP) http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060406/wl_mideast_afp/usuniranspainnuclear_060406185902 MADRID - The head of the International Agency for Atomic Energy (IAEA), the United Nations nuclear watchdog, said he hoped for "cooperation and transparency" from Tehran over its nuclear power standoff with the world body ahead of an inspection in Iran due Friday. "There are still outstanding issues in Iran that we need to clarify," IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei told a Madrid news conference. "I hope we will get the maximum cooperation and transparency from Iran that will enable us to provide a positive report, but I can only tell you that when our inspectors come back," ElBaradei said. "We have seen issues in Iran that we need to understand before we can say that we are satisfied that all activities in Iran are exclusively for peaceful purposes," he added. IAEA inspectors are due in Iran on Friday to visit the country's uranium enrichment facility and other sites amid concern that Iran may harbour ambitions of developing nuclear arms. "We need to do our best to find a diplomatic solution to the crisis that we are facing, whether in Iran, whether in North Korea," ElBaradei said. "We report all the facts we see in Iran -- but having said that, we have not seen any indication that nuclear material has been diverted or is being diverted to develop nuclear weapons," said ElBaradei. "We still have time to negotiate, we still have time for diplomacy," he insisted. "A number of issues have not been clarified, and that is why the international community is asking Iran to take a number of confidence-building measures like the suspension of enrichment-related activities. "I hope that the message is clear to Iran about the need to clarify these issues. I hope we can avoid sanctions; if we can avoid escalation, it will be better for everyone," he concluded. Iran has so far refused to comply with a UN Security Council demand to freeze uranium enrichment, defying a warning from major world powers which fear that it secretly wants to develop an atomic bomb. A non-binding statement approved unanimously by the United Nations on March 29 gave Iran 30 days to abandon the sensitive nuclear work, but without issuing a threat of sanctions. Iran has refused to freeze its nuclear research and development -- which includes uranium enrichment -- that it resumed in January, insisting it has the right to develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. -------- korea N Korean nuclear negotiators to meet in Tokyo AFP Thursday April 6, 2006 http://asia.news.yahoo.com/060406/afp/060406141304asiapacificnews.html TOKYO (AFP) - Japan approved a rare visit by a senior North Korean official, bringing together chief negotiators from all six nations in the stalled talks on ending Pyongyang's nuclear drive. North Korea's Kim Gye-Gwan and his counterparts from the five other countries will be in Tokyo during a private security forum next week and are expected to meet one another on the sidelines, officials said. The Japanese government gave permission to Kim and several other North Korean officials to attend the conference, Foreign Ministry Press Secretary Yoshinori Katori said. "Vice Foreign Minister Kim Gye-Gwan has completed procedures and obtained permission to enter the country," Katori told AFP. Japan and North Korea have no diplomatic relations and visits here by Pyongyang officials are very rare. The forum, organized by the University of California's Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, brings together government officials and academics from the six nations -- China, Japan, North Korea, Russia, South Korea and the United States. It will be the first gathering of officials from the countries since talks aimed at dismantling the North's nuclear program bogged down in November after Washington accused Pyongyang of counterfeiting US dollars and laundering money. The North has denied the charge and demanded the United States lift financial sanctions before it returns to the talks. The forum, which has met 17 times since 1993 to discuss security affairs in Northeast Asia, will open a five-day conference on Sunday with a main session scheduled for Monday and Tuesday. "We give great emphasis on this conference and have always participated in it," Kim told reporters at Beijing airport. "About other problems, we will wait and see," Kim said. Kim's US counterpart, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Christopher Hill, is scheduled to attend the meeting, a US embassy spokesman here said earlier. He said Hill had no immediate plan to meet Kim face to face. South Korea will be represented at the forum by Deputy Foreign Minister Chun Young-Woo, who is also Seoul's chief delegate to the six-nation talks, Katori said. China's chief delegate to the talks, Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei, will visit Tokyo and meet his counterparts, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said Thursday. "Wu Dawei doesn't plan to attend this meeting but he will be in Tokyo at the same time, and he will have contacts with other heads of delegation to exchange views with them on the six-party talks," Liu said. Kim's Russian counterpart Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Alexeyev, currently visiting for talks with Japanese officials, told public broadcaster NHK that he or his deputy will attend the private conference. Kenichiro Sasae, director general of Asian and Oceanian affairs at the foreign ministry, heads the Japanese delegation. Sasae will meet Hill and most likely Chun on the sidelines of the security conference, Katori said. "It is not clear at the moment if he will meet the other counterparts." -------- missile defense UK denies talks with US on missile interceptors By Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington Published: April 6 2006 Financial Times http://news.ft.com/cms/s/f3bc23fc-c5b5-11da-b675-0000779e2340.html John Reid, the UK defence minister, has denied that Washington and London have discussed the possibility of Britain hosting missile interceptors as part of the US “Star Wars” missile defence system. US Lieutenant General Trey Obering, the head of the Missile Defense Agency, told a conference in Washington last month that the UK was one of three candidates – along with Poland and the Czech Republic – to host missile interceptors in Europe. Pentagon and British defence officials said at the time there had been no discussions between the countries. The missile interceptors, which would be placed in Europe by 2010, would be part of the ballistic missile defence system, for which Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, is a strong advocate. Any European site would be the third location for interceptors, in addition to Alaska and California. A Pentagon spokesman confirmed on Thursday that the Missile Defense Agency was hoping to make a decision by October on whether, and where, to deploy interceptors in Europe. In spite of the fact that the UK was listed in an MDA document as a possible host site, Mr Reid said no discussions had taken place. Speaking in Washington on Wednesday evening, Mr Reid acknowledged that any decision to place interceptors in the UK would require consultations between the two governments. But Mr Reid emphasised that the US had not made any requests to the UK. At the Pentagon on Thursday Mr Reid said the issue had not come up in talks with Mr Rumsfeld. When asked why the two sides had not held discussions despite the MDA’s desire to make a decision by October, Mr Reid replied: “You’d have to ask them.” Mr Rumsfeld said the MDA had not yet presented him with any specific proposals. Mr Reid was in Washington for meetings with Mr Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, which included discussions on the $257bn (£147bn) Joint Strike Fighter programme. Lord Drayson, the British minister for defence procurement, told Congress last month that the UK would pull out of the US-led international programme to build next-generation fighter jets unless the US agreed to provide the UK with the technology that would allow the British military to make adjustments to the aircraft without relying on Lockheed Martin, the lead contractor, or other manufacturers. Mr Reid said on Thursday that he was certain there would be a “positive outcome”. The UK insists that it has a “plan B” if the Pentagon does not agree to share the technology, which includes computer codes for radar and other equipment. Britain is the top international partner in the programme. It has already committed $2bn in development money and plans to buy 150 F-35s. -------- u.s. nuc weapons U.S. Rolls Out Nuclear Plan The administration's proposal would modernize the nation's complex of laboratories and factories as well as produce new bombs. By Ralph Vartabedian, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer April 6, 2006 http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-nuke6apr06,0,5989419.story?coll=la-home-headlines http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/040606M.shtml The Bush administration Wednesday unveiled a blueprint for rebuilding the nation's decrepit nuclear weapons complex, including restoration of a large-scale bomb manufacturing capacity. The plan calls for the most sweeping realignment and modernization of the nation's massive system of laboratories and factories for nuclear bombs since the end of the Cold War. Until now, the nation has depended on carefully maintaining aging bombs produced during the Cold War arms race, some several decades old. The administration, however, wants the capability to turn out 125 new nuclear bombs per year by 2022, as the Pentagon retires older bombs that it says will no longer be reliable or safe. Under the plan, all of the nation's plutonium would be consolidated into a single facility that could be more effectively and cheaply defended against possible terrorist attacks. The plan would remove the plutonium kept at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory by 2014, though transfers of the material could start sooner. In recent years, concern has grown that Livermore, surrounded by residential neighborhoods in the Bay Area, could not repel a terrorist attack. But the administration blueprint is facing sharp criticism, both from those who say it does not move fast enough to consolidate plutonium stores and from those who say restarting bomb production would encourage aspiring nuclear powers across the globe to develop weapons. The plan was outlined to Congress on Wednesday by Thomas D'Agostino, head of nuclear weapons programs at the National Nuclear Security Administration, a part of the Energy Department. Though the weapons proposal would restore the capacity to make new bombs, D'Agostino said it was part of a larger effort to accelerate the dismantling of aging bombs left from the Cold War. D'Agostino acknowledged in an interview that the administration was walking a fine line by modernizing the U.S. nuclear weapons program while assuring other nations that it was not seeking a new arms race. The credibility of the contention rests on the U.S. intent to sharply reduce its inventory of weapons. The administration is also quickly moving ahead with a new nuclear bomb program known as the "reliable replacement warhead," which began last year. Originally described as an effort to update existing weapons and make them more reliable, it has been broadened and now includes the potential for new bomb designs. Weapons labs currently are engaged in a design competition. The U.S. built its last nuclear weapon in 1989 and last tested a weapon underground in 1992. Since the Cold War, the nation has had massive stockpiles of nuclear weapons to deter potential attacks. By contrast, it would increasingly rely on the capability to build future bombs for deterrence, D'Agostino said. The blueprint calls for a modern complex to design a new nuclear bomb and have it ready in less than four years, allowing the nation to respond to changing military requirements. Similar proposals in the past, such as for a nuclear bomb to attack underground bunkers, provoked concern that they undermined U.S. policy to stop nuclear proliferation. The impetus for the plan is a growing belief that efforts to maintain older nuclear bombs and keep up a large nuclear weapons industrial complex are technically and financially unsustainable. Last year, a task force led by San Diego physicist David Overskei recommended that the Energy Department consolidate the system of eight existing weapons complexes into one site. Overskei said Wednesday that the cost of security alone for the current infrastructure of plants over the next two decades was roughly $25 billion. Security costs have grown, because the Sept. 11 attacks have led the Energy Department to believe terrorists could mount a larger and better armed strike force. Peter Stockton, a former Energy Department security consultant who is now an investigator for the Project on Government Oversight, criticized the plutonium consolidation plan in House testimony, saying it would delay the difficult work too far into the future. Stockton added in an interview that the plutonium transfer at Livermore could be accomplished in a few months. Until now, Livermore lab officials have sharply disagreed with the idea of removing plutonium from their site, saying it was essential to their work. On Wednesday, a lab spokesman said the issue was "far less controversial" and the "decision rests in Washington." The Bush plan, described at a hearing of the strategic subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee, would consolidate much of the weapons capacity, but not as completely or quickly as outside critics would like. The overall plan would not be fully implemented until 2030. A crucial part of restarting U.S. nuclear bomb production involves so-called plutonium pits, hollow spheres surrounded by high explosives. The pits start nuclear fission and trigger the nuclear fusion in a bomb. The plutonium pits were built at the Energy Department's former Rocky Flats site near Denver until the weapons plant was shut down in 1989 after it was found to have violated environmental regulations. In recent years, Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico has tried to start limited production of plutonium pits and hopes to build a certified pit that will enter the so-called war reserve next year. Los Alamos would be producing about 30 to 50 pits per year by 2012, but the Energy Department said that was not enough to sustain the U.S. nuclear deterrent. In his testimony, D'Agostino estimated plutonium pits would last 45 to 60 years, after which they would be unreliable and might result in an explosion smaller than intended. Critics outside the government sharply dispute that conclusion, saying there is no evidence that pits degrade over time and that the nation can keep an adequate nuclear deterrent by maintaining its existing weapons. ---- Test blast in Nevada: A nuclear rehearsal Pentagon apparently looks for an optimal size of a 'bunker buster' By Robert Gehrke 04/06/2006 Salt Lake Tribune http://www.sltrib.com/ci_3678364 WASHINGTON - A powerful blast scheduled at the Nevada Test Site in June is designed to help war planners figure out the smallest nuclear weapon able to destroy underground targets. And it has caused a concern that it signals a renewed push toward tactical nuclear weapons. The detonation, called Divine Strake, is intended to "develop a planning tool to improve the warfighter's confidence in selecting the smallest proper nuclear yield necessary to destroy underground facilities while minimizing collateral damage," according to Defense Department budget documents. Irene Smith, a spokeswoman for the Pentagon's Defense Threat Reduction Agency, said the document doesn't imply that Divine Strake "is a nuclear simulation." She said it will be used to assess computer programs that predict ground shaking in a major blast. While it will not be a nuclear explosion - no nuclear or radioactive material will be used - the Divine Strake blast will be five times larger than the military's largest conventional weapon, the Massive Ordinance Air Blast Bomb, or MOAB, nicknamed the Mother of All Bombs. It will still be many times less powerful than the smallest weapon in the U.S. nuclear stockpile. "It seems like what they're doing is trying to use the explosive power to shake the interior into pieces, rather than sending an earth penetrator down to dig it up," said Hans Kristensen, a nuclear weapons expert with the Federation of American Scientists. "What it apparently does is envision the use of the nuke on the surface, and that is a very dirty business, because it sucks up the material and throws it into the atmosphere." Divine Strake has some advocates concerned that the Bush administration is using the test to pursue development of low-yield, tactical nuclear weapons. "We certainly have reason for concern," said Vanessa Pierce, a project director with Health Environment Alliance of Utah. "I think this test shows that the weapons designers are so obsessed with creating new nuclear weapons like mini-nukes that they'll do whatever it takes to get their fix." "There really is a deep commitment on the part of this administration to creating new types of nuclear weapons," Pierce said. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid has expressed concern about the mushroom cloud the test will produce, and asked Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for a classified briefing on Divine Strake. Reid is scheduled to meet with James Tegnelia of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency this afternoon. The June 2 test will entail piling 700 tons of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil atop a buried limestone tunnel on the Nevada Test Site, then detonating it to measure the damage that would be done to the chambers. The mixture that will be used is similar to the bomb that Timothy McVeigh used to blow up the Alfred P. Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995, only the Nevada bomb will use 280 times as much material. Equipment inside and near the tunnel will monitor damage and ground shaking from the blast. Dust from the mushroom cloud, which could reach heights of 10,000 feet, will also be tracked. J. Preston Truman, director of the group Downwinders, which represents individuals sickened by radioactive fallout from Cold War-era nuclear tests, scoffs at the Pentagon's suggestion that it is not a nuclear simulation, arguing no military plane could drop a 700-ton conventional bomb. "It's for one thing and one thing only," he said. "It just says they're still pursuing these stupid, insane weapons." The nuclear tie-in to Divine Strake test was rooted out by Kristensen and Andrew Lichterman, a nuclear weapons opponent and blogger. "It's not a step toward nuclear testing. It is nuclear testing. It's just nuclear testing the way it's done today," since actual nuclear tests are banned by treaties, Kristensen said. Similar above-ground detonations, some many times larger, have been conducted at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, according to planning documents for Divine Strake, but none since 1991. The Defense Department's 2001 Nuclear Posture Review lays out a new, broader role envisioned for nuclear weapons than the part played during the Cold War. "Non-nuclear strike capabilities may be particularly useful to limit collateral damage and conflict escalation. Nuclear weapons could be employed against targets able to withstand non-nuclear attack, (for example, deep underground bunkers or bio-weapon facilities)," the report says. In addition, the Bush administration has pushed for funding for a nuclear bunker buster, and money to enable the Nevada Test Site to be able to test a weapon within two years if an order is given. It has also supported the repeal of a 1994 congressional ban on the development of low-yield mini-nuclear weapons. The ban was repealed by Congress in 2003, allowing research of low-yield nuclear weapons, but requiring specific approval by Congress before engineering or other work on mini-nukes can begin. ---- Strange How This Generation Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb by Ron Fullwood OedNews April 6, 2006 http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_ron_full_060406_strange_how_this_gen.htm The Bush regime today took the lid off of their blueprint for rebuilding the U.S. nuclear weapons complex and declared their intention to put the cold-war facility back in the business of building bombs. The nuclear hawks want the ability to produce 125 new nuclear bombs a year by 2022. How did it come to this? The Bush administration's nuclear program is a shell game with their ambitions hidden within the Energy and Defense bills, most under the guise of research. Their proposals originated in a position paper which is referenced in the Energy Policy Act of 2003, entitled, "A Roadmap to Deploy New Nuclear Power Plants in the United States by 2010". The nuclear industry, along with government supporters, developed a roadmap for the realization of these goals. They intend to portray nukes as a safe, clean alternative to CO2 based plants. The energy bill references the "Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems Program." This is a determined, deliberate hard sell to get the nation back in the nuclear game. The nuclear provisions in the Energy bill are a tough read but they are designed to confuse. The legislation designates INEEL, The Idaho Engineering and Environmental Laboratories, as the lead facility for nuclear R&D. This has been the nation's primary lab for all of the nuclear madness since 1952. INEEL's primary function since the mid 70's was the clean-up of their own toxic waste. This clean-up is still going on. There is money allocated in this bill for that. New plants are contemplated in the Energy and Defense legislation which would utilize the new generation of recycled nuclear fuels (MOX mixed-oxide, hydrogen based, depleted uranium, etc.). These centers will almost certainly be formatted to accommodate the next generation of nuclear weapons, such as, mini tactical nukes and bunker- busters. INEEL will undoubtably be at the center of this effort. At the end of the decade support for nuclear energy was on the decline because of waste and safety issues and disarmament. Right before Bush II got in office, the industry, still fat from clean-up money sought to bolster their flagging industry. (INEEL gets 70% of their funding for waste disposal) Waste storage had become so controversial that it had soured the public to the idea of more nukes and more nuke plants. (Yucca Mountain, storage sites in New Mexico, transportation, safety issues, etc.). So, they began promoting the view that the 'spent' nuclear fuel from decommissioned weapons and nuclear power plants could be broken down and reconstituted for weapons (depleted uranium) and a new generation of nuclear plants which would accommodate (recycle) and use the waste instead of immobilizing it in glass and storing it. The industry makes the dubious claim that the recycled waste keeps it out of the hands of terrorists and makes proliferation more difficult. It will more likely disperse the waste and create more opportunity for abuse or mishap. But, they are pressing on, perhaps emboldened by the lack of effective opposition, or maybe it's just the last gasp of a fracturing plutocracy as they rape the Treasury to benefit their military industry benafactors. I often wonder why there was no massive outcry from the public as Bush packed the government with military industry cronies from the start of his administration. I'm equally puzzled why we seemed to shrug off the scrapping of a generation of nuclear disarmament without so much as a blink as the Bush regime continues to advance their plans for a new generation of nuclear weaponry with new justifications for its use. People of my generation, and the ones before mine fought a valiant battle against nuclear weapons. Perhaps the desire grew out of our childhood spent crouching under our school desks every Wednesday or Friday as the air raid siren blared out its nuclear drill. 'Duck and cover!' counseled Bert the animated turtle in the '60's era filmstrip. I grew to fear and hate communists and dread the inevitable nuclear attack. The Japanese started campaigning against nuclear weapons in 1946 after the U.S. dropped the bomb on them. Citizens' groups in Hiroshima started a mass movement after March 1954, when a U.S. nuclear test dropped radiation on the crew of a Japanese fishing boat, the Lucky Dragon, and citizens of Bikini. An petition was drawn up and signed by 32 million people in the world's largest anti-nuclear protest. In August 1955 the First World Conference Against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs met in Hiroshima. The Japan Council Against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs (Gensuikyo) was organized in Japan at the same time. In the years that followed we saw the enactment of the Partial Test Ban Treaty; the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaties (I and II); the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty; the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaties (I and II); and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. These important restraints on the proliferation and spread of nuclear weaponry did not occur in a vacuum. These restraints were the result of direct action by communities and individuals engaging in massive, worldwide campaigns of public protest, over the strenuous objections of ruling parties and government powers. Notable among the modern nuclear resistors in the United States, included the Federation of American Scientists, the Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy (SANE), Women Strike for Peace, Physicians for Social Responsibility, and the Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign. In 1980 Randall Caroline Forsberg, Executive Director of the Institute for Defense and Disarmament Studies, wrote the "Call to Halt the Nuclear Arms Race which launched the national Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign. In 1989 Forsberg briefed BushI and his Cabinet officials on US-Soviet arms control issues. In 1995 she was appointed by President Clinton to the Advisory Committee of the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. In March 1981, representatives from over 30 states met at Georgetown University in a campaign for a comprehensive nuclear freeze between the U.S. and Soviet Union. Although Reagan deployed nuclear missiles to Western Europe during his term, in October 1983, he proposed eliminating all nuclear weapons in a speech in January 1984. Earlier, in April 1982, obviously affected by the Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign, he had pronounced that "a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. And, he also improbably declared, "To those who protest against nuclear war, I can only say: 'I'm with you!'" Gorbachev subsequently initiated a unilateral Soviet nuclear testing moratorium and decided against building a Star Wars anti-missile system. Reagan refused to abandon the U.S. version of Star Wars, but the disarmament die had been cast. Gorbachev put the U.S. on the defensive by exercising what was termed the 'zero option', agreeing to remove all nuclear missiles from Europe. In late 1984, twenty-two people got themselves arrested as they blocked the entrance to the Great Lakes Naval Training Center in Wake Forest, Illinois to protest U.S. warships in Central America and to protest the Navy’s part in spreading weapons and ammunition to the countries in the region. Sixteen went to trial, charges against eight were dropped and a ninth was dismissed. Seven protesters stood trial in the People v. Jarka No. 002170 in the Circuit Court of Lake County, Waukegan, Illinois. After a one-week trial defendants were found “not guilty” by the jury. The judge in the case, Alphonse F. Witt, gave the following instruction to the jury regarding international law: — International law is binding on the United States and on the State of Illinois. — The use or threat of use of nuclear weapons is a war crime or an attempted war crime because such use would violate inter­national law by causing unnecessary suffering, failure to dis­tinguish between combatants and noncombatants, and poisoning targets by radiation. (Source: Robert Aldridge and Virginia Stark, “Nuclear War, Citizen Intervention, and the Necessity Defense,” Santa Clara Law Review 26, no. 2 : 324—325.) The Jarka trial served as the basis for the defense of subsequent actions and protests against the Reagan administration's escalating militarism, mindless military buildup, and meddling military interventions abroad. In the years that followed the anti-nuclear activism, New Zealand banned nuclear warships from their ports, Australia banned the testing of MX missiles, India halted work on nuclear weapons, and called for nuclear disarmament, the Philippines voted for a no nuke constitution and closed down U.S. military bases harboring nuclear weapons. South Africa abandoned an infant nuclear weapons program. BushI was intimidated into unilaterally withdrawing short-range missiles from Western Europe. Later there were the influential protests at the Nevada Test Site which fostered a Nevada-based, Semipalatinsk nuclear disarmament movement in the Soviet Union which led to the closure of the Soviet nuclear test sites. In 1992 underground nuclear testing was halted for nine months, and stringent restrictions were enacted on further U.S. testing, and test ban negotiations and an end to U.S. testing by late 1996 were initiated. The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) was achieved, despite resistance from Democrats including candidate Clinton during his presidential campaign. In spite of the resistance, anti-nuclear Congressmen and women organized a test ban and the Clinton administration extended the U.S. nuclear testing moratorium, encouraging a worldwide treaty. In September 1996, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty was signed by several nuclear and non-nuclear countries. That was then . . . Now, we have been made to endure the mindless idiocy of BushII. For the first time since the U.S. banned the production of nuclear weapons in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty; signed by the U.S. and Russia in 1968, entered into force in 1970; and since the moratorium on nuclear testing, which has been in place since 1992, the nuclear arms race has been restarted by the Bush administration, aided in part by an underground Pentagon campaign. Gen. Lee Butler, of the Strategic Air Command, along with former Air Force Secretary Thomas Reed, and Col. Michael Wheeler, made a report in 1991 which recommended the targeting of our nuclear weaponry at "every reasonable adversary around the globe." The report warned of nuclear weapons states which are likely to emerge." They were aided in their pursuit by, John Deutch, President Clinton's choice for Defense Secretary; Fred Iklé, former Deputy Defense Secretary, associated with Jonathan Pollard; future CIA Director R. James Woolsey; and Condoleezza Rice, who was on the National Security Council Staff, 1989-1991. The new nuke report recommended that U.S. nuclear weapons be re-targeted, where U.S. forces faced conventional "impending annihilation ... at remote places around the globe," according to William M. Arkin and Robert S. Norris, in their criticism of the report in the April 1992 issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists ("Tiny Nukes"). At the same time, two Los Alamos (Lockheed) nuclear weapons scientists, Thomas Dowler and Joseph Howard, published an article in 1991 in the Strategic Review, titled "Countering the Threat of the Well-Armed Tyrant: A Modest Proposal for Smaller Nuclear Weapons." They argued that, "The existing U.S. nuclear arsenal had no deterrent effect on Saddam and is unlikely to deter a future tyrant." They advocated for "the development of new nuclear weapons of very low yields, with destructive power proportional to the risks we will face in the new world environment," and they specifically called for the development and deployment of "micro-nukes" (with explosive yield of 10 tons), "mini-nukes" (100 tons), and "tiny-nukes" (1 kiloton). Their justification for the smaller nuclear weapons was their contention that no President would authorize the use of the nuclear weapons in our present arsenal against Third World nations. "It is precisely this doubt that leads us to argue for the development of sub-kiloton weapons," they wrote. In a White House document created in April 2000, "The United States of America Meeting its Commitment to Article VI of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons," the administration stated that, "as the United States reduces the numbers of its nuclear weapons, it is also transforming the means to build them." Over the past decade, the United States has dramatically changed the role and mission of its nuclear-weapon complex from weapon research, development, testing, and production to weapon dismantlement, conversion for commercial use, and stockpile stewardship. That was his father's nuclear program. George II wants bombs. "The Bush administration has directed the military to prepare contingency plans to use nuclear weapons against at least seven countries, and to build new, smaller nuclear weapons for use in certain battlefield situations," according to a Pentagon report uncovered by the Los Angeles Times. The report, which was provided to Congress on Jan. 8, 2003 says the Pentagon needs to be prepared to use nuclear weapons against China, Russia, Iraq, North Korea, Syria, Iran and Libya. It says the weapons could be used in three types of situations: against targets able to withstand non-nuclear attack, in retaliation for attack with nuclear biological or chemical weapons, or in the event of ‘surprising military developments.' The new report, signed by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, is being used by the U.S. Strategic Command in the preparation of a nuclear war plan. As reported by the World Policy Institute, the National Institute for Public Policy's, January 2001 report on the "rationale and requirements" for U.S. nuclear forces, was used as the model for the Bush administration's Nuclear Posture Review, which advocated an expansion of the U.S. nuclear "hit list" and the development of a new generation of "usable," lower-yield nuclear weapons. Three members of the study group that produced the NIPP report - National Security Council members Stephen Hadley, Robert Joseph (undersecretary of Defense), and Stephen Cambone (Pentagon Intelligence director) - are now directly involved in implementing the Bush nuclear policy. Stephen Hadley, who replaced Rice as National Security Advisor, co-wrote a National institute for Public Policy paper portraying a nuclear bunker-buster bomb as an ideal weapon against the nuclear, chemical or biological weapons stockpiles of rouge nations such as Iraq. "Under certain circumstances," the report said, "very severe nuclear threats may be needed to deter any of these potential adversaries." Reuters reported on the Bush administration plans to promote and push for the expansion of the nation's nuclear arsenal with the unveiling of an initiative produced by the ‘Defense Science Board'. The supporting document, named the “Future Strategic Strike Force”, outlines a reconfigured nuclear arsenal made up of smaller-scale missiles which could be targeted at smaller countries and other lower-scale targets. The report is a retreat from decades of understanding that these destructive weapons were to be used as a deterrent only; as a last resort. In September 2004 the Senate went along with a White House push to reduce the preparation time required for nuclear testing in Nevada; clearing the way for a resumption of nuclear test explosions which have been banned since 1992. It seeks to cut the time it would take to restart testing nuclear weapons in the Nevada desert from three years to two years. The Bush administration wants the period cut to 18 months. Congress plans to build the first permanent U.S. nuclear waste repository in the desert northwest of Las Vegas, scheduled to open in 2010 and would hold up to 77,000 tons of radioactive waste. The Energy bill that has emerged from the recent Congress would provide $580 million for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste disposal project in 2004 — around $11 million less than Bush had requested but far above a $425 million limit earlier endorsed by the Senate. The bill would also provide $11 million for a new factory to make plutonium "pits" for the next generation of nuclear weapons. The last U.S. facility for manufacturing nuclear triggers closed in 1989. Citing "classified analyses" the DOE claims it needs to have a new pit facility capable of producing 125-500 pits per year. The DOE's Notice of Intent for the MPF also states that one of the functions for the facility will be to have the ability to produce new design pits for new types of nuclear weapons. Most modern nuclear weapons depend on a plutonium pit as the "primary" that begins the chain reaction resulting in a thermonuclear explosion. A pit is a critical component of a nuclear weapon and functions as a trigger to allow a modern nuclear weapon to operate properly. The Department of Energy announced on September 23, 2002, its intent to begin an examination of several possible sites for a Modern Pit Facility to produce plutonium pits for new and refurbished nuclear weapons. The United States is the only nuclear power without the capability to manufacture a plutonium pit. About three-fourths of the U.S. surplus plutonium is relatively pure in the form of so-called pits, which have been removed (and deactivated) from existing warheads. The remaining fourth of the surplus was in the process pipeline, mostly as plutonium residues, when processing was suddenly discontinued. The Soviet government processed all of its material to completion, so now all of the Russian surplus is in the form of pits or its weapon-form equivalent. The Foster Panel Report, also known as the FY2000 Report to Congress of the Panel to Assess the Reliability, Safety, and Security of the United States Nuclear Stockpile, found that it could take 15 years from the point of developing a conceptual design for a pit facility until the final construction of the facility is completed. The report stated that, "If it is determined through the science-based Stockpile Stewardship Program that one or more of our existing pit designs is no longer reliable, and therefore is not certifiable, our nuclear stockpile would, in effect, be unilaterally downsized below a level which could maintain a strong nuclear deterrence." That is the hook which supporters of an expanded nuclear program will use to justify an abrogation of the treaty ban, and begin their new-generation arms race. If they don't get their way - to fiddle with and refurbish the existing nukes - they will argue that deterrence is at risk; a preposterous notion, as our existing arsenal is more than enough to blow us all to Pluto. If new money is released, the nuclear weapons laboratories are expected to refurbish the casings on the existing nuclear B-61 and B-83 warheads, according to Energy Department nuclear czar and former UK Lockheed executive, Everett Beckner, in testimony before a Senate committee. Beckner claimed that both weapons have yields "substantially higher than five kilotons," so he has determined that the study will not violate a 1994 U.S. law prohibiting research on "low-yield" nuclear weapons. A version of the B-61, modified to strike hardened and deeply buried targets, was added to the U.S. stockpile without nuclear testing in 1997. There is a serious question about the effectiveness of such a weapon on underground bunkers, and there is a concern that the neighboring effect of the radiation cloud would be devastating. A nuclear strike on North Korea, for example, could generate deadly radioactive fallout, poisoning nearby countries such as Japan. Most observers do not believe that the new weapons can be developed without abandoning the non-proliferation treaty and sparking a new and frightening worldwide nuclear arms race. The nuclear hawks are stepping out from behind their Trojan Horses of nuclear space travel and ‘safe', new nuclear fuels and are revealing a frightening ambition to yoke the nation to a new legacy of imperialism. President Bush has decided that America's image around the globe is to be one of an oppressive nuclear bully bent on world domination. Mohamed El Baradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (the man at the UN charged with managing U.S. demands against Iran's uranium enrichment) said in 2003 that developing new nuclear weapons could hamper efforts to reach agreement with other countries who might want to expand their nuclear programs; like Iran and Pakistan, for example. In September 2004 the Senate went along with a White House push to reduce the preparation time required for nuclear testing in Nevada; clearing the way for a resumption of nuclear test explosions which have been banned since 1992. It seeks to cut the time it would take to restart testing nuclear weapons in the Nevada desert from three years to two years. The Bush administration wants the period cut to 18 months. Congress plans to build the first permanent U.S. nuclear waste repository in the desert northwest of Las Vegas, scheduled to open in 2010 and would hold up to 77,000 tons of radioactive waste. The Energy bill that has emerged from Congress would provide $580 million for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste disposal project in 2004 — around $11 million less than Bush had requested but far above a $425 million limit earlier endorsed by the Senate. The bill would also provide $11 million for a new factory to make plutonium "pits" for the next generation of nuclear weapons. The last U.S. facility for manufacturing nuclear triggers closed in 1989. President Bush recently signed into law a Defense bill for 2004 which includes $9 billion in funding for research on the next generation of nuclear weaponry. "It's an important signal we're sending," President Bush remarked at the signing of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2004, "because, you see, the war on terror is different than any war America has ever fought." "Our enemies seek to inflict mass casualties, without fielding mass armies," he cautioned. "They hide in the shadows, and they're often hard to strike. The terrorists are cunning and ruthless and dangerous, as the world saw on September the 11th, 2001. Yet these killers are now facing the United States of America, and a great coalition of responsible nations, and this threat to civilization will be defeated." This is a posture usually reserved for nation-states who initiate or sponsor terrorists. The devastating neighboring effect of a potential nuclear engagement would contaminate innocent millions with the resulting radioactive fallout, and would not deter individuals with no known base of operations. Yet, this administration, for the first time in our nation’s history, contemplates using nuclear weapons on countries which themselves have no nuclear capability, or pose no nuclear threat. In September 2000, the PNAC drafted a report entitled "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century." The conservative foundation- funded report was authored by Bill Kristol, Bruce Jackson, Gary Schmitt, John Bolton and others. Bolton, now Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, was Senior Vice President of the conservative American Enterprise Institute. The report called for: ". . . significant, separate allocation of forces and budgetary resources over the next two decades for missile defense," and claimed that despite the "residue of investments first made in the mid- and late 1980s, over the past decade, the pace of innovation within the Pentagon had slowed measurably." Also that, "without the driving challenge of the Soviet military threat, efforts at innovation had lacked urgency." The PNAC report asserted that "while long-range precision strikes will certainly play an increasingly large role in U.S. military operations, American forces must remain deployed abroad, in large numbers for decades and that U.S. forces will continue to operate many, if not most, of today's weapons systems for a decade or more." The PNAC document encouraged the military to "develop and deploy global missile defenses to defend the American homeland and American allies, and to provide a secure basis for U.S. power projection around the world." The paper claimed that, "Potential rivals such as China were anxious to exploit these technologies broadly, while adversaries like Iran, Iraq and North Korea were rushing to develop ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons as a deterrent to American intervention in regions they sought to dominate. Also that, information and other new technologies – as well as widespread technological and weapons proliferation – were creating a ‘dynamic' that might threaten America's ability to exercise its ‘dominant' military power." In reference to the nation's nuclear forces, the PNAC document asserted that, " reconfiguring its nuclear force, the United States also must counteract the effects of the proliferation of ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction that may soon allow lesser states to deter U.S. military action by threatening U.S. allies and the American homeland itself." "The (Clinton) administration's stewardship of the nation's deterrent capability has been described by Congress as "erosion by design," the group chided. The authors further warned that, "U.S. nuclear force planning and related arms control policies must take account of a larger set of variables than in the past, including the growing number of small nuclear arsenals –from North Korea to Pakistan to, perhaps soon, Iran and Iraq – and a modernized and expanded Chinese nuclear force." In addition, they counseled, "there may be a need to develop a new family of nuclear weapons designed to address new sets of military requirements, such as would be required in targeting the very deep underground, hardened bunkers that are being built by many of our potential adversaries." The PNAC ‘Rebuilding America' report was used after the Sept. 11th terrorist attacks to draft the 2002 document entitled "The National Security Strategy of the United States," which for the first time in the nation's history advocated "preemptive" attacks to prevent the emergence of opponents the administration considered a threat to its political and economic interests. It states that ". . . we will not hesitate to act alone, if necessary, to exercise our right of self-defense by acting preemptively against such terrorists, to prevent them from doing harm against our people and our country." And that, "To forestall or prevent such hostile acts by our adversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act preemptively." This military industry band of executives promoted the view, in and outside of the White House that, " must be prepared to stop rogue states and their terrorist clients before they are able to threaten or use weapons of mass destruction against the United States and our allies and friends. . . We must deter and defend against the threat before it is unleashed." Their strategy asserts that "The United States has long maintained the option of preemptive actions to counter a sufficient threat to our national security. The greater the threat, the greater is the risk of inaction - and the more compelling the case for taking anticipatory action to defend ourselves, even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy's attack." The 2002 PNAC document is a mirrored synopsis of the Bush administration's foreign policy today. President Bush is projecting a domineering image of the United States around the world which has provoked lesser equipped countries to desperate, unconventional defenses; or resigned them to a humiliating surrender to our rape of their lands, their resources and their communities. President Bush intends for there to be more conquest - like in Iraq - as the United States exercises its military force around the world; our mandate, our justification, presumably inherent in the mere possession of our instruments of destruction. We are unleashing a new, unnecessary fear between the nations of the world as we dissolve decades of firm understandings about an America power which was to be guileless in its unassailable defenses. The falseness of our diplomacy is revealed in our scramble for ‘useable', tactical nuclear missiles, new weapons systems, and our new justifications for their use. Our folly is evident in the rejection of our ambitions by even the closest of our allies, as we reject all entreaties to moderate our manufactured mandate to conquer. Isolation is enveloping our nation like the warming of the atmosphere and the creeping melt of our planet's ancient glaciers. Who will stand up against this new generation of nuclear madness? If we stand firm there is no limit to what we can achieve. If we refuse to stand up against this administration's push for new nukes, if we are indifferent, if we shrink away and accept their weak excuses and justifications we will undo a generation of resistance and activism. This is our chance to make a difference. This is our moment to rise up against another mindless escalation into a new nuclear arms race. Are we ready? Ron Fullwood, is an activist from Columbia, Md. and the author of the book 'Power of Mischief' : Military Industry Executives are Making Bush Policy and the Country is Paying the Price -------- u.s. nuc facilities Plutonium won't stay in Livermore By Betsy Mason CONTRA COSTA TIMES Thu, Apr. 06, 2006 http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/rss/14276858.htm?source=syn The Department of Energy announced plans Wednesday to move plutonium from Lawrence Livermore Laboratory by 2014 and to consolidate all U.S. work involving plutonium at a single facility by 2022. The move, intended to enhance security and increase efficiency, is part of a larger plan to renovate the nuclear weapons complex by 2030. "We're looking to make the complex safer and more secure," said Bryan Wilkes, spokesman for the National Nuclear Security Administration -- the DOE branch that oversees the weapons complex. Plutonium is now scattered across the country at seven different DOE facilities, requiring high-level security tailored to each site. Livermore may be the most problematic because of its proximity to the surrounding community, and to the densely populated Bay Area. Livermore recently beefed up defense of its plutonium facility with the addition of multiple six-barreled Gatling guns, capable of firing more than 50 shots per second. Community groups including Livermore-based Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment have long argued that the 7 million people living within a 50-mile radius of the lab make it an inappropriate place to store plutonium. The new plan, outlined by the NNSA during a House Armed Services Committee meeting in Washington, involves moving plutonium from Livermore to Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico. A new facility being built there would ramp up to take over the production of pits -- the explosive cores of nuclear warheads -- and the plutonium work currently being done at both labs. By 2022, the plutonium would be moved again to a new facility whose location has not been determined. Peter Stockton of the Project on Government Oversight says plutonium needs to be moved from Livermore, but doesn't think it should wait until 2014. "We totally don't agree with the time frame," he said. "I'd say we want it out of there in a year." Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Alamo, a member of the House Armed Services Committee who has opposed removing all plutonium from the lab in the past, is supportive of the new plan. "My priority has always been to buy down the risk for the community while at the same time assuring there is no diminishment of the lab's role, its pedigree and its opportunities," she said. The plutonium issue has come to a head in Livermore in recent years. In April 2004, NNSA administrator Linton Brooks testified before Congress that eliminating plutonium from Livermore would get in the way of important work related to maintaining the current weapons stockpile. But the following month, then-Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham hinted during a speech in South Carolina that he would consider moving nuclear materials from Livermore. Less than a year later, in April 2005, in a move directly counter to Abraham's suggestion, the NNSA proposed doubling plutonium allowed at Livermore from 1,540 pounds to 3,080 pounds. That plan was approved in November. The actual amount of plutonium currently stored at the lab is classified, but the official amount is 880 pounds. In January 2005, safety concerns led to a nine-month stand-down of operations at Livermore's plutonium site. Several recent assessments recommended consolidation of all special nuclear materials -- plutonium and highly enriched uranium that can be used to make nuclear weapons -- to a single site. In September, an independent security review of the complex by retired Adm. Richard Mies pointed to the Nevada Test Site or an underground storage facility at Idaho National Lab as potential places to store the material. The DOE's new plan is in response to a fairly negative assessment released in October by a special task force commissioned by Abraham that concluded the weapons complex is "neither robust, nor agile, nor responsive, with little evidence of a master plan." The task force also recommended a new facility to house all special nuclear materials. "They pose a threat to the civilian community," report author David Overskei said in October when the report was approved. NNSA deputy administrator Tom D'Agostino presented the NNSA's response to the report on Wednesday. "It's the first time a senior official has laid out a blueprint like this," said NNSA spokesman Wilkes. "It's all about maintaining a nuclear deterrent while reducing the total number of weapons in the stockpile." Among the most sweeping plans D'Agostino laid out are designing a nuclear warhead to replace existing Cold War-era weapons, and consolidating all special nuclear materials to one site. The plan also includes shutting down the Livermore lab's Site 300 hydrodynamic facility near Tracy. Wilkes stressed the plan to move Livermore's plutonium does not mean the NNSA questions the lab's future. "We will always have a need for Livermore lab," he said. "Livermore lab has a bright future." Times staff writer Dogen Hannah contributed to this story. Reach Betsy Mason at 925-847-2158 or bmason@cctimes.com. LAWRENCE LIVERMORE LAB AND PLUTONIUM • The lab has 880 pounds of plutonium and is allowed to have about 3,080 pounds. • In Livermore and at two facilities in Nevada, the lab uses plutonium for nuclear weapons research. It conducts experiments to learn how plutonium performs as it ages; how it behaves under high pressure, such as with the impact of high explosives; and how to dismantle nuclear weapons safely, without causing contamination. • Plutonium is dangerous to humans when inhaled or taken into the body. For instance, it can cause mutations that can lead to cancer. • Amassing too much plutonium can trigger a "criticality," or a spontaneous release of energy that includes harmful radiation. How much is too much depends on the plutonium's shape, temperature and other factors. A criticality is not a nuclear detonation. -------- illinois Illinois Slaps Exelon With Another Tritium Enforcement Action SPRINGFIELD, Illinois, April 6, 2006 (ENS) http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/apr2006/2006-04-06-09.asp#anchor5 Exelon is in trouble with the state of Illinois again for leaks of water contaminated with radioactive tritium from one of its nuclear power plants. A Violation Notice, the first step in formal enforcement proceedings, has been sent to Exelon Generation by the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA), as the result of leaks of water containing tritium, identified during an ongoing investigation at the company’s Dresden Station facility. IEPA has already sent two violation notices to the Exelon Generation Company for violations at the Braidwood Station facility. Both were subsequently referred to the Attorney General for enforcement action, and the state filed charges against Exelon in March for leaking millions of gallons of radioactive water laced with tritium. Leaks began at Braidwood in 1996, but Exelon first notified authorities in December 2005, after a member of the public had already done so. The Dresden Violation Notice specifically identifies violations of state environmental regulations relating to the impairment of resource groundwater. Exelon has reported tritium in several monitoring wells on and off plant property, as well as four private drinking water wells off-site. The private wells located directly south of the facility have detectable levels of tritium, but the levels were well below health based drinking water standards. Exelon is also being cited for discharging wastewater containing contaminants from areas of the discharge canals other than the outfall points allowed by its National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) water discharge permit, as well as violating other operational and reporting requirements of its NPDES discharge permit. Exelon will have 45 days from receipt of the Violation Notice to respond and provide an enforceable plan for addressing each of the specified violations to prevent a re-occurrence. During that time, they may document that the charges are not applicable, or demonstrate to the Illinois EPA how they will resolve the violation through a proposed Compliance Commitment Agreement. The Illinois EPA would have to concur with the plan. The letter also advises Exelon that, because of the nature and seriousness of the violations, further enforcement action may be required that could include imposition of statutory penalties and fines. The Illinois EPA will continue oversight of Exelon's eight nuclear power plants in the state in order to ensure compliance with the Illinois Environmental Protection Act and Illinois Groundwater Regulations. -------- nevada Bush Administration Ramps Up Yucca Mountain Nuclear Dump WASHINGTON, DC, April 6, 2006 (ENS) http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/apr2006/2006-04-06-09.asp#anchor2 On Wednesday, Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman sent a legislative proposal to Congress that attempts to infuse new life into the troubled Yucca Mountain high-level nuclear waste repository, stalled in the pre-permitting phase. The proposed bill would eliminate the current statutory 70,000 metric ton cap on disposal capacity at Yucca Mountain, in order to allow maximum use of what Bodman called "the mountain’s true technical capacity." Currently, more than 50,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel are stored at more than 100 above-ground sites in 39 states, and every year, American reactors produce an additional 2,000 metric tons of spent fuel. Yucca Mountain was approved by Congress and President George W. Bush, but opposition from the state of Nevada, where the site is located, technical issues and a scandal over falsified scientific data have stalled the project. Originally supposed to be in operation by the year 2010, optimistic estimates now put the opening date at 2015. By then the entire 70,000 metric ton disposal capacity mandated by law would be filled, before the first ton was deposited. The proposed legislation would withdraw permanently from public use the land at and surrounding the Yucca Mountain repository site, which is located about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas at the border of the Nevada Nuclear Test Site. Permanent withdrawal is needed to meet a Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing requirement for the Yucca Mountain repository and will help assure protection of public health and the environment, Bodman said. The measure would facilitate Congress’ ability to provide adequate funding for the Yucca Mountain Project, he said. Also included are provisions for a more streamlined NRC licensing process, and for initiation of infrastructure activities, including safety and other upgrades and rail line construction, to enable earlier start-up of operations. Other provisions are designed "to consolidate duplicative environmental review," Bodman said. The Energy Department recently announced the new Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), which would recycle spent nuclear fuel generated in the United States and other nations and sell it to nations who agree to employ nuclear energy for power generation purposes only. Even with the potential waste minimization function of the GNEP program, the Yucca Mountain repository would still be needed to provide for the safe, permanent geologic disposal of spent nuclear fuel, Bodman said. The bill will run into opposition from the Nevada Congressional delegation, particularly from Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, a long-time foe of Yucca Mountain on safety grounds. ---- White House Renews Call for Nevada Nuke Waste Site Story by Chris Baltimore REUTERS US: April 6, 2006 http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/35917/newsDate/6-Apr-2006/story.htm WASHINGTON - The proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage site in the Nevada desert would be authorized to hold twice as much nuclear waste as currently planned under legislation the Bush administration said it will send to Congress on Wednesday. US Energy Secretary Sam Bodman on Tuesday said the legislation "will speed the process of opening the Yucca Mountain repository and make it an even more valuable national asset once it is up and running." But Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, an adamant opponent of the project, said the facility is "not even on a life support system." "It's dead when it gets here," Reid told reporters. Energy Department officials said the proposed legislation would not answer the thorny question of when the underground waste dump about 90 miles (150 km) northwest of Las Vegas would open its doors to accept waste from the 103 US nuclear power plants. The project, more than 10 years behind schedule, is still plagued by scientific foul-ups and political stonewalling. Republican Pete Domenici, chairman of the Senate Energy Committee and a nuclear industry proponent, said he will shepherd the bill through the Senate for the administration. The proposal would eliminate the current 77,000-ton limit (70,000 metric tons) on waste allowed at the site, and allow shipments to rise to their technical capacity of 132,000 tons (120,000 metric tons), Energy Department officials said. The administration proposal would also reserve about 147,000 acres of federally owned land to build a railway corridor to transport spent fuel to the Yucca Mountain site. The Nuclear Energy Institute, which lobbies for nuclear operators, said that unless the storage limit was raised the repository would be fully allocated before the first shipment arrived. Spent fuel from the nation's nuclear plants -- which supply about 20 percent of US electricity -- is piling up, with over 50,000 tons (45,500 metric tons) of it stored at over 100 temporary locations in 39 states. The Energy Department gave no date certain for when it will send its application to build the repository to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, a key regulatory step. Paul Golan, acting director of the Energy Department's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, said the department will set an NRC application schedule this summer. After receiving the application, the NRC would have up to four years to review it on safety grounds. Then, it would take the Energy Department and its contractors up to four years to build the site, department officials said. The final step would be for the NRC to give the Energy Department final authorization to accept waste from nuclear operators, which would take up to 18 months under the administration's new proposal. If the Energy Department sends its application to the NRC by the end of the year, its current schedule suggests that Yucca Mountain could begin accepting waste sometime in 2016. (additional reporting by Tom Doggett) -------- washington UW Reactor To Be Dismantled April 6, 2006 By Associated Press http://www.komoradio.com/stories/42817.htm SEATTLE - The University of Washington plans to begin dismantling a nuclear reactor on campus that has sat idle for nearly 20 years. The project, to begin Monday, will cost $4 million and take six months to remove all the dangerous materials, said Elizabeth Peterson, the UW project manager. Testing and final approval from federal regulators to demolish the building will take another six months, she said. The reactor was built for training and educational purposes in 1959 and became operational two years later. It may be the only reactor to be contained in a glass building, Peterson said. The idea was to allow students to peek in and show them there was nothing to fear. But a small leak of plutonium dust in 1972 during an experiment didn't help that cause. When officials found residual radiation in the reactor room floor, they covered it with paint and tiles, which were later removed, according to a UW report. The reactor stopped operating in 1988 and the fuel rods were removed in the following years. By 1992, the university Department of Nuclear Engineering also was dissolved. But despite several efforts, the university had trouble getting state money to dismantle the reactor and demolish the building. After the dismantling, the radioactive waste will be shipped to facilities at the Hanford nuclear reservation in Eastern Washington and in Utah, Peterson said. ---- Investigators say government, contractor share blame for rising waste treatment plant costs Matthew Daly, Associated Press Last update: April 06, 2006 http://www.startribune.com/587/story/356816.html WASHINGTON — Poor management by the Energy Department, mistakes by a contractor and technical challenges are to blame for skyrocketing cost estimates for a waste treatment plant at a nuclear complex in Washington state, according to congressional investigators. In testimony submitted Thursday to Congress, the Government Accountability Office said it will cost nearly $11 billion for a plant to dispose of millions of gallons of radioactive waste at the sprawling complex. That figure is in line with a report this week by experts assembled by the Energy Department. It also is nearly triple the $4.3 billion cost estimated in 2000, when the current contractor took over the long-delayed project. The report said Bechtel National Inc., hired to build the plant for the Energy Department, "has performed poorly" since taking over the project six years ago. Bechtel also failed on several occasions to ensure that nuclear safety requirements were being met, the report said. Bechtel's president, Tom Hash, acknowledged the company's mistakes and pledged to do better. "We have a solution in front of us to finally solve a 60-year-old environmental nightmare," Hash told a House Appropriations subcommittee. Bechtel was fined nearly $200,000 last month for violating safety requirements. The plant will convert millions of gallons of radioactive waste into glasslike logs for permanent disposal. The waste now is stored in leaking underground tanks near the Columbia River. The plant long has been considered the cornerstone of cleanup at the highly contaminated Hanford site, created in the 1940s as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb. Hash said the project has proved more complex than even his best engineers predicted. The report also faulted the Energy Department for a "fast-track" approach to design and construction, calling it dangerous for such a one-of-a-kind project involving potentially deadly nuclear waste. On the Net: Hanford: http://www.hanford.gov -------- wisconsin UW to dismantle nuclear reactor By Nick Perry The Seattle Times Company Thursday, April 6, 2006 http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002914016_uwnuke06m.html The nuclear reactor at the University of Washington campus in Seattle was built for training and educational purposes in 1959. A nuclear reactor in the heart of the University of Washington campus will be dismantled beginning Monday. The odd relic of the nuclear heyday has sat idle for nearly 20 years, its purpose unknown to many of the young students who stream past it every day on their way to and from the gym. But though the reactor is "teeny tiny" compared with those that generate power, it will still cost $4 million and take six months to remove all the dangerous materials, said Elizabeth Peterson, the UW project manager. Testing and final approval from federal regulators to demolish the building will take another six months, she said. Some students are collecting signatures and plan to wear hazmat suits on campus today to protest the UW's choice of contractor, New York-based LVI Services. The students say the company has a questionable track record with safety procedures and its treatment of workers. John Leonard, LVI's co-chief operating officer, declined comment Wednesday. Emily Bae, 21, a junior who is helping organize the protests, said she found out about the reactor five months ago. "I was outraged," she said. "I didn't know what its purpose was and why we would still have it around." But Alan Nygaard, a director in the UW's Capital Projects Office, said safety is the primary concern. "We've done a very thorough job doing background checks and safety checks on this particular company," he said. "Extreme precautions are being taken." Those include tight oversight by federal regulators and expert consultants, he said. The reactor was built for training and educational purposes in 1959 and became operational two years later. It is perhaps the only reactor to be contained in a glass building, Peterson said. The idea was to allow students to peek in and show them there was nothing to fear. But a small leak of plutonium dust in 1972 during an experiment probably didn't help instill confidence. When officials found residual radiation in the reactor room floor, they covered it with paint and tiles, which were later removed, according to a UW report. The reactor stopped operating in 1988, and the fuel rods were removed in the following years. By 1992, the UW's Department of Nuclear Engineering also was dissolved. But, despite several efforts, UW officials could never secure state funding to dismantle the reactor and demolish the building — until now. Inside the containment room remain 1960s-style beakers, notebooks and control knobs, Peterson said. Dismantling the reactor will involve enveloping the contamination room within a larger, airtight structure before the door can be opened and the materials removed, Nygaard said. The radioactive waste then will be shipped to facilities at Hanford, in Eastern Washington, and in Utah, Peterson said. Nick Perry: 206-515-5639. -------- us nuc waste Tank Cleanup at Defense Sites Will Leave Radioactive Waste April 6, 2006 WASHINGTON, DC, (ENS) http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/apr2006/2006-04-06-03.asp High-level radioactive material will remain in nuclear waste the Department of Energy plans to dispose of at its Savannah River Site in South Carolina, warns a new report from the National Research Council on cleanup of waste in underground tanks at three defense sites. It is not practical to remove all of the waste from the tanks, the committee of authors acknowleged. Saying that the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) overall plan for cleaning up the radioactive waste in 246 underground tanks at the three sites is "workable," the committee expressed concern about the "large volume of radioactive material" that DOE plans to place in saltstone vaults at Savannah River, and other issues of safety and reliability at all three sites. Fifty-one of the tanks are located at the Department of Energy (DOE) Savannah River Site in South Carolina. There are 177 tanks situated at the Hanford Site in Washington state, and 11 tanks and seven calcine vaults at the Idaho National Laboratory. In total, they contain more than 93 million of gallons of high-level radioactive waste from over 40 years of making plutonium for America's nuclear weapons. The DOE plans to remove the waste from the tanks and separate out high-level radioactive waste, which will eventually be shipped to an off-site geological repository, such as the site at Yucca Mountain, Mountain, which is still in the pre-permitting stage. The remaining radioactive waste will be disposed of on-site, and residual waste in the tanks will be covered by grout. So far, only two of the 246 tanks have been cleaned out and backfilled with grout, and none has had a permanent cover installed. The report assessing the DOE's plan of work and progress on tank cleanup was written by a panel of the Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board, Division of Earth and Life Sciences, of the National Research Council. It is chaired by Dr. Frank Parker, distinguished professor of civil and environmental engineering at Tennessee's Vanderbilt University, and a former head of radioactive waste disposal research at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The panel includes 18 other experts in nuclear and environmental engineering, concrete stability, computing, chemistry, geology, robotics and law. Their report points out that the DOE faces technical hurdles, such as retrieving waste from tanks with "significant obstructions" at the Savannah River Site and from tanks with leaks at the Hanford Site. In addition, the committee expressed concern that more radioactive material than planned could remain in the waste to be disposed on-site of at the Savannah River Site after the waste-separation process. To reduce the amount of radioactive material to be disposed of at the Savannah River Site, DOE should develop alternatives or enhancements to one of its planned interim waste-processing techniques, the panel advised. The committee also had "serious reservations" about some of the assumptions the agency made regarding how much waste will remain in closed tanks at Savannah River after cleanup. The safety and reliability of a proposal to immobilize large amounts of the Hanford Site's non-high-level radioactive waste in glass before on-site disposal were also of concern. This process, known as bulk vitrification, needs to undergo a more detailed transparent and independent technical review of its likely performance and safety, the committee said. The Idaho facility, on the other hand, is making good progress in tank cleanup and closure, the committee found, although there are fewer tanks at the site and they are simpler to clean. Answering the question - how clean is clean enough? - is difficult, the panel admitted. The DOE must consider the feasibility of technologies to retrieve and separate waste, the risk to workers, the potential risks posed by wastes left on-site, and costs. Making these assessments would be easier if DOE pursued a more consistent risk-informed process with greater participation by other stakeholders, especially the public, the panel recommended. They applauded the increased transparency in some of DOE's recent waste assessments. The final report repeated a finding from its interim report issued last year that DOE should "decouple" the schedules for cleaning tanks and permanently closing them, particularly for those tanks that still contain significant amounts of radioactive material after initial waste retrieval is completed. This would allow more time for the development of technologies that could remove more wastes from those tanks, the panel said, adding that because the DOE is in the early stages of the tank cleanup process, there is time to pursue a research and development program to improve waste retrieval, tank stabilization, and immobilization of low-level radioactive waste. The committed concluded that a 10 year program supported by $10 million to $50 million per year would be appropriate for generating improved knowledge about tank waste management and disposal. In addition, DOE should begin planning now for how it will monitor tanks after they are closed so monitoring systems can be built in and around tanks before they are covered. The report was requested by Congress and sponsored by the Department of Energy. The National Research Council is the principal operating arm of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering. It is a private, nonprofit institution that provides science and technology advice under a congressional charter. The report, "Tank Waste Retrieval, Processing, and On-site Disposal at Three Department of Energy Sites: Final Report," is available from the National Academies Press online at: http://www.nap.edu/catalog/11618.html?onpi_newsdoc04042006 -------- MILITARY -------- iraq 1,000 bodies found in Iraq 06/04/2006 News24 http://www.news24.com/News24/World/Iraq/0,,2-10-1460_1912229,00.html Kirkuk - Eight mass graves containing around 1 000 bodies have been found near Iraq's northern oil hub of Kirkuk, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) announced on Thursday. "Most of the victims were Kurds, as well as some Christians and Turcoman, who lived in these two majority Kurdish villages," the PUK said in a statement. Also included among the victims were Shi'ites killed during the 1991 repression of an uprising by former dictator Saddam Hussein, it said. The graves were found in the villages of Al-Asri and Tubazawa, west of Kirkuk. Numerous mass graves of Kurds in the north and Shi'ites in the south have been discovered since the fall of Saddam's regime in 2003. United States officials believe there could be at least 300 000 bodies buried across Iraq. On Tuesday, a local religious organisation said two mass graves dating from the time of Saddam had been found near the southern city of Nasiriyah. The court trying Saddam over the killing of Shi'ites in the 1980s announced on Tuesday that he would face genocide charges over the Anfal campaign against Kurds that left around 180 000 people dead. Similar charges are also being laid against six co-defendants including Ali Hassan al-Majid, also known as Chemical Ali. -------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE -------- drug war Colombia: Drug Wars Force Forest Nomads To Flee Thursday, 6 April 2006 Press Release: Survival International http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0604/S00107.htm 150 Indians belonging to one of the last nomadic tribes in the Amazon have been forced to flee their land after becoming caught up in Colombia's drugs war. Large numbers of left-wing guerrillas have taken over the Indians' territory, and are engaged in fighting with the Colombian army and right-wing paramilitaries. All sides are seeking to control the lucrative drugs trade which thrives in this remote region. The Indians belong to the Nukak-Makú tribe, who live in the eastern Colombian Amazon. The tribe first made contact with white people in 1988. Around half the tribe have died since then from diseases such as flu and measles, leaving a population of about 500. In 1997 a Survival campaign succeeded in gaining legal protection of the Indians' territory on paper. Until recently most of the Nukak were trying to continue their nomadic hunter-gatherer way of life in the face of waves of violence against them and the colonisation of their lands by poor Colombians growing coca. However, the scale of the fighting now taking place has made their life in the forest impossible, and the very survival of the tribe is now at risk. -------- homeland security / national intelligence US review of security database 06apr06 Australia Herald Sun http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,18727743%255E1702,00.html THE Pentagon said today a review launched after revelations that it had collected data on US peace activists found that roughly 260 entries in a classified database of possible terrorist threats should not have been kept there. But the review reaffirmed the value of the so-called Talon reporting system on potential threats to Pentagon personnel or facilities by international terrorists, said Bryan Whitman, a senior Pentagon spokesman. He said the Pentagon was putting in place new safeguards and oversight intended to prevent improper information from going in the database. Mr Whitman said "less than two per cent" of the more than 13,000 database entries provided through the Talon system "should not have been there or should have been removed at a certain point in time". Mr Whitman disputed critics' assertions that the program amounted to Pentagon domestic spying, although he declined to state the nature of these entries or the people they involved, saying the database's contents were classified. Mr Whitman said that to be properly placed in the database, a threat must have a suspected link to international terrorism. Under the Talon system, Defence Department civilian and military personnel are asked to report on activities they deem suspicious. These reports go in the Cornerstone database, handled by a Pentagon agency called the Counterintelligence Field Activity, or CIFA. The review was ordered in December by Stephen Cambone, under secretary of defence for intelligence, after revelations that the database included information on US citizens including peace activists and others who did not represent a genuine security threat. NBC News and defence analyst William Arkin disclosed at the time a sample of the database containing reports of 1519 "suspicious incidents" between July 2004 and May 2005, including activities by anti-war and anti-military protesters. This included a military intelligence unit monitoring a Quaker meeting in Lake Worth, Florida, on plans to protest against military recruiting in high schools. The Pentagon is legally restricted in the type of information it can gather about activities and individuals inside the United States. A memo from Deputy Defence Secretary Gordon England said the Talon system "has detected international terrorist interest in specific military bases and has led to and supported counter-terrorism investigations". It called the data "unfiltered and non-validated potential threat information". Mr Whitman said data reported through Talon could be turned over the FBI or local law enforcement. The Pentagon said it will conduct annual oversight reviews of the Talon program, designate supervisors to review each Talon report before submission to the database, and direct CIFA to review submissions to ensure they are proper. Mr Whitman said he did not know if the Pentagon had disciplined anyone for putting improper information in the database, but was "not aware of any malicious or deliberate attempts" to use the Talon system against a specific person or group. Some critics have noted similarities in the Pentagon's activities during the Iraq War and those of the Vietnam War period, when it spied on antiwar activists. "If the Pentagon has been collecting information improperly on Americans, it should provide a full accounting of what kind of information it collected, on whom and why, subject only perhaps to protecting the privacy of individuals," said Kate Martin, director of the Centre for National Security Studies, a civil liberties group interested in government surveillance. -------- POLITICS -------- investigations In Court Filings, Cheney Aide Says Bush Approved Leak By DAVID JOHNSTON and DAVID E. SANGER April 6, 2006 New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/06/washington/06cnd-leak.html?ei=5094&en=cc5a0128b83c317e&hp=&ex=1144382400&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print WASHINGTON, April 6 — President Bush authorized Vice President Dick Cheney in July 2003 to permit Mr. Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby Jr., to leak to a reporter key portions of a classified prewar intelligence estimate on Iraq, according to Mr. Libby's grand jury testimony disclosed in court papers filed late Wednesday. The court filing provided the first indication that Mr. Bush, who has long assailed leaks of classified information as a national security threat, played a direct role in the disclosure of the intelligence report on Iraq and was also involved in the swirl of events leading up to the disclosure of the identity of an undercover C.I.A. officer. The grand jury testimony by Mr. Libby, who has been charged with perjury and obstruction in the C.I.A. leak case, is said by prosecutors to indicate that Mr. Cheney obtained explicit approval from Mr. Bush to permit Mr. Libby to divulge portions of a National Intelligence Estimate regarding Iraq's efforts to develop nuclear weapons. The disclosure prompted Democrats to demand that the White House be forthcoming about Mr. Bush's role. Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, released a statement saying: "In light of today's shocking revelation, President Bush must fully disclose his participation in the selective leaking of classified information. The American people must know the truth."The court filing, which was first reported this morning on the New York Sun Web site, said that Mr. Libby testified that the "Vice President advised defendant that the President had authorized defendant to disclose certain information in the N.I.E." The prosecutors said that Mr. Libby testified that he recalled the circumstances "getting approval from the President through the Vice President to discuss material that would be classified but for that approval — were unique in his recollection." The leak was intended, the court papers suggested, as a rebuttal to the Op-Ed article published in The New York Times on July 6, by Joseph C. Wilson IV, a former ambassador, who wrote that he had traveled to Africa in 2002 after Mr. Cheney had raised questions about possible nuclear purchases. Mr. Wilson wrote that he concluded it was "highly doubtful" that Iraq had sought to purchase nuclear fuel from Niger. At Mr. Cheney's office, the Op-Ed article was viewed "as a direct attack on credibility of the Vice President (and the President) on a matter of signal importance: the rationale for the war in Iraq," according to the court papers. The presidential authorization was provided, the court papers said, in advance of a meeting on July 8, 2003 between Mr. Libby and Judith Miller, then a reporter for the New York Times. Mr. Libby brought a brief abstract of the N.I.E.'s key judgments to the meeting with Ms. Miller in the lobby of the St. Regis Hotel about two blocks from the White House. Mr. Libby testified, the prosecutors said, that he was "specifically authorized in advance of the meeting to disclose the key judgments of the classified N.I.E. to Miller on that occasion because it was thought that the N.I.E. was 'pretty definitive' against what Ambassador Wilson had said and that the Vice President thought that it was 'very important' for the key judgments of the N.I.E. to come out." The court filing said that Mr. Libby said "he understood that that was to tell Ms. Miller, among other things, that "a key judgment of the N.I.E. held that Iraq was 'vigorously trying to procure' uranium." Mr. Libby, the prosecutors, said, testified that the meeting with Ms. Miller was the "only time he recalled in his government experience when he disclosed a document to a reporter that was effectively declassified by virtue of the President's authorization that it be disclosed." Mr. Libby testified that he first told Mr. Cheney that he could not have such a conversation with Ms. Miller because the intelligence estimate on Iraq was classified. Mr. Libby testified that Mr. Cheney later told him that Mr. Bush had authorized the release of "relevant portions." In addition, Mr. Libby told the grand jury that he also spoke with David Addington, then a lawyer for Mr. Cheney whom Mr. Libby regarded as an expert on national security law. "Mr. Addington opined that Presidential authorization to publicly disclose a document amounted to declassification of the document." Mr. Libby testified that at the meeting he did not discuss Mr. Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame Wilson, the C.I.A. officer at the center of the leak inquiry, because "he had forgotten by that time that he learned about Ms. Wilson's C.I.A. employment a month earlier from the Vice President." Ms. Miller in her Oct. 16, 2005, account of the meeting said that her notes showed that the two had discussed Mr. Wilson's wife, who, according to her notes, worked in a unit of the C.I.A. that is engaged in the intelligence assessments of unconventional weapons. Ms. Miller said that Mr. Libby discussed a chronology of what she said he described as "credible evidence" of Iraq's efforts to acquire uranium. She made no reference to whether Mr. Libby referred to any material as derived from the intelligence estimate, but said that he alluded to two reports, one in 1999 and another in 2002, that seemed to support the contention that Iraq was interested in obtain uranium. ---- Libby Says Bush Authorized Leaks By Murray Waas, National Journal Thursday, April 6, 2006 http://news.nationaljournal.com/articles/0406nj1.htm Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff has testified that President Bush authorized him to disclose the contents of a highly classified intelligence assessment to the media to defend the Bush administration's decision to go to war with Iraq, according to papers filed in federal court [PDF] on Wednesday by Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor in the CIA leak case. I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby testified to a federal grand jury that he had received "approval from the President through the Vice President" to divulge portions of a National Intelligence Estimate regarding Saddam Hussein's purported efforts to develop nuclear weapons, according to the court papers. Libby was said to have testified that such presidential authorization to disclose classified information was "unique in his recollection," the court papers further said. Libby also testified that an administration lawyer told him that Bush, by authorizing the disclosure of classified information, had in effect declassified the information. Legal experts disagree on whether the president has the authority to declassify information on his own. The White House had no immediate reaction to the court filing. Although not reflected in the court papers, two senior government officials said in interviews with National Journal in recent days that Libby has also asserted that Cheney authorized him to leak classified information to a number of journalists during the run-up to war with Iraq. In some instances, the information leaked was directly discussed with the Vice President, while in other instances Libby believed he had broad authority to release information that would make the case to go to war. In yet another instance, Libby had claimed that President Bush authorized Libby to speak to and provide classified information to Washington Post assistant managing editor Bob Woodward for "Plan of Attack," a book written by Woodward about the run-up to the Iraqi war. Bush and Cheney authorized the release of the information regarding the NIE in the summer of 2003, according to court documents, as part of a damage-control effort undertaken only days after former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV alleged in an op-ed in The New York Times that claims by Bush that Saddam Hussein had attempted to procure uranium from the African nation of Niger were most likely a hoax. According to the court papers, "At some point after the publication of the July 6 Op Ed by Mr. Wilson, Vice President Cheney, [Libby's] immediate supervisor, expressed concerns to [Libby] regarding whether Mr. Wilson's trip was legitimate or whether it was in effect a junket set up by Mr. Wilson's wife." Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, was a covert CIA officer at the time, and Cheney, Libby, and other Bush administration officials believed that Wilson's allegations could be discredited if it could be shown that Plame had suggested that her husband be sent on the CIA-sponsored mission to Niger. Two days after Wilson's op-ed, Libby met with then-New York Times reporter Judith Miller and not only disclosed portions of the NIE, but also Plame's CIA employment and potential role in her husband's trip. Regarding that meeting, Libby "testified that he was specifically authorized in advance... to disclose the key judgments of the classified NIE to Miller" because Vice President Cheney believed it to be "very important" to do so, the court papers filed Wednesday said. The New York Sun reported the court filing on its Web site early Thursday. Libby "further testified that he at first advised the Vice President that he could not have this conversation with reporter Miller because of the classified nature of the NIE," the court papers said. Libby "testified that the Vice President had advised [Libby] that the President had authorized [Libby] to disclose relevant portions of the NIE." Additionally, Libby "testified that he also spoke to David Addington, then counsel to the Vice President, whom [Libby] considered to be an expert in national security law, and Mr. Addington opined that Presidential authorization to publicly disclose a document amounted to a declassification of the document." Addington succeeded Libby as Cheney's chief of staff after Libby was indicted by a federal grand jury on Oct. 28, 2005 on five counts of making false statements, perjury, and obstruction of justice in attempting to conceal his role in outing Plame as an undercover CIA operative. Four days after the meeting with Miller, on July 12, 2003, Libby spoke again to Miller, and also for the first time with Time magazine correspondent Matthew Cooper, during which Libby spoke to both journalists about Plame's CIA employment and her possible role in sending her husband to Niger. Regarding those conversations, Libby understood that the Vice President specifically selected him to "speak to the press in place of Cathie Martin (then the communications person for the Vice President) regarding the NIE and Wilson," the court papers said. Libby also testified, Fitzgerald asserted in the court papers, that "at the time of his conversations with Miller and Cooper, he understood that only three people -- the President, the Vice President and [Libby] -- knew that the key judgments of the NIE had been declassified. "[Libby] testified in the grand jury that he understood that even in the days following his conversation with Ms. Miller, other key officials-including Cabinet level officials-were not made aware of the earlier declassification even as those officials were pressed to carry out a declassification of the NIE, the report about Wilson's trip and another classified document dated January 24, 2003." It is unclear from the court papers what the January 24, 2003 document might be. During those very same conversations with the press that day Libby "discussed Ms. Wilson's CIA employment with both Matthew Cooper (for the first time) and Judith Miller (for the third time)," the court papers further said. Although the special prosecutor's grand jury investigation has not uncovered any evidence that the Vice President encouraged Libby to release information about Plame's covert CIA status, the court papers said that Cheney had "expressed concerns to [Libby] regarding whether Mr. Wilson's trip was legitimate or whether it was in effect a junket set up by Mr. Wilson's wife." Cheney told investigators that he had learned of Plame's employment by the CIA and her potential role in her husband being sent to Niger by then-CIA director George Tenet, according to people familiar with Cheney's interviews with the special prosecutor. Tenet has told investigators that he had no specific recollection of discussing Plame or her role in her husband's trip with Cheney, according to people with familiar with his statement to investigators. Two senior government officials said that Tenet did recall, however, that he made inquiries regarding the veracity of the Niger intelligence information as a result of inquires from both Cheney and Libby. As a result of those inquiries, Tenet then had the CIA conduct a new review of its Niger intelligence, and concluded that there was no evidence that Saddam Hussein had in fact attempted to purchase uranium from Niger or other African nations. Tenet and other CIA officials then informed Cheney, other administration officials, and the congressional intelligence committees of the new findings, the sources said. Six days after Libby's conversation with Cooper and Miller regarding Plame, on July 18, 2003, the Bush administration formally declassified portions of the NIE on Iraqi weapons programs in an effort to further blunt the damage of Wilson's allegations that the Bush administration misused the faulty Niger intelligence information to make the case to go to war. It is unclear whether the information that Bush and Cheney were said to authorize Libby to disclose was the same information that was formally declassified. One former senior government official said that both the president and Cheney, in directing Libby to disclose classified information to defend the administration's case to go to war with Iraq and in formally declassifying portions of the NIE later, were misusing the classification process for political reasons. The official said that while the administration declassified portions of the NIE that would appear exculpatory to the White House, it insisted that a one-page summary of the NIE which would have suggested that the President mischaracterized other intelligence information to go to war remain classified. As National Journal recently disclosed, the one-page summary of the NIE told Bush that although "most agencies judge" that an Iraqi procurement of aluminum tubes was "related to a uranium enrichment effort", the State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research and the Energy Department's branch "believe that the tubes more likely are intended for conventional weapons." Despite receiving that assessment, the president stated without qualification in his January 28, 2003, State of the Union address: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production." The former senior official said in an interview that he believed that the attempt to conceal the contents of the one-page summary were intertwined with the efforts to declassify portions of the NIE and to leak information to the media regarding Plame: "It was part and parcel of the same effort, but people don't see it in that context yet." Although the court papers filed Wednesday revealed that Libby had testified that Bush and Cheney had authorized him to disclose details of the NIE, two other senior government officials said in interviews that Libby had asserted that Cheney had more broadly authorized him to leak classified information to a number of journalists during the run-up to war with Iraq as part of an administration effort to make the case to go to war. In another instance, Libby had claimed that Bush authorized Libby to speak to and provide classified information to Washington Post assistant managing editor Bob Woodward for "Plan of Attack." Other former senior government officials said that Bush directed people to assist Woodward in the book's preparation: "There were people on the Seventh Floor [of the CIA] who were told by Tenet to cooperate because the President wanted it done. There were calls to people to by [White House communication director] Dan Bartlett that the President wanted it done, if you were not co-operating. And sometimes the President himself told people that they should co-operate," said one former government official. It is unclear whether Libby will argue during his upcoming trial that these other authorizations by both the President and Vice President show that he did not engage in misconduct by disclosing Plame's CIA status to reporters, or that he considered these other authorizations giving him broad authority to make other disclosures. Fitzgerald has apparently avoided questioning Libby, other government officials, and journalists about other potential leaks of classified information to the media, according to attorneys who have represented witnesses to the special prosecutor's probe. Outside legal experts said this might be due to the fact that other authorized leaks might aid Libby's defense, and because Fitzgerald did not want to question reporters about other contacts with Libby because of First Amendment concerns. In a Feb. 17, 2006 letter to John D. Negroponte, the Director of National Intelligence, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., wrote that he believed that disclosures in Woodward's book damaged national security. "According to [Woodward's] account, he was provided information related to sources and methods, extremely sensitive covert actions, and foreign intelligence liaison services." Woodward's book contains, for example, a detailed account of a January 25, 2003 briefing that Libby provided to senior White House staff to make the case that Saddam Hussein had aggressive programs underway to develop chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. Two former government officials said in interviews that the account provided sensitive intelligence information that had not been cleared for release. The book referred to intercepts by the National Security Agency of Iraqi officials that purportedly showed that Iraq was engaging in weapons of mass destruction program. Much of the information presented by Libby at the senior White House staff meeting was later discarded by then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and then-CIA Director George Tenet as unreliable, and would not have either otherwise been made public. One former senior official said: "They [the leakers] might have tipped people to our eavesdropping capacities, and other serious sources and methods issues. But to what end? The information was never presented to the public because it was bunk in the first place." In the letter to Negroponte, Sen. Rockefeller complained: "I [previously] wrote both former Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) George Tenet and Acting DCI John McLaughlin seeking to determine what steps were being taken to address the appalling disclosures in [Woodward's book]. The only response that I received was to indicate that the leaks had been authorized by the Administration." -- Previous coverage of pre-war intelligence and the CIA leak investigation from Murray Waas. Brian Beutler provided research assistance for this report. -------- propaganda wars Fake TV News: Widespread and Undisclosed... How Corporate-Funded Propaganda Is Airing On Local Newscasts As "News" Thursday, April 6th, 2006 Democracy Now! http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/04/06/1432239 A new study being released today by the Center for Media and Democracy found at least 77 TV stations around the country have aired corporate-sponsored video news releases over the past 10 months. The report accuses the TV stations of actively disguising the content - which has been paid for by companies like General Motors, Panasonic and Pfizer - to make it appear to be their own reporting. In a broadcast exclusive we speak with the authors of the report and air examples of the video news releases. [includes rush transcript] A new study being released today by the Center for Media and Democracy reveals that at least 77 TV stations around the country have been caught airing corporate-sponsored propaganda disguised as news news releases in the past 10 months. Companies funding the video news releases include General Motors, Intel and Pfizer. The stations are scattered throughout 30 states and are affiliated with all of the major networks: ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox. And many of the stations are owned by some of the country's largest media companies including Clear Channel, News Corp, Viacom, the Tribune Company and Sinclair Broadcast. The study by the Center for Media and Democracy is called "Fake TV News: Widespread and Undisclosed" [Read Report]. The authors of the report charge that these TV stations actively disguise the corporate-sponsored content to make it appear to be their own reporting. Until now, television news directors have downplayed how often VNRs made it onto air. Last year Barbara Cochran, president of the Radio-Television News Directors Association, compared VNRs to the Loch Ness monster. She said "Everyone talks about it, but not many people have actually seen it." Today we are going to spend the hour looking at how fake news is making its way onto the airwaves of local newscasts. We will speak with the authors of the report, as well as a consultant who has appeared in several video news releases [See Part II of DN's Fake TV News Special] and with FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein [See Part III of DN's Fake TV News Special] who has said he was stunned by the findings of Fake TV News report. But first we will air some examples of how video news releases are used. Four weeks ago, the Fox affiliate in South Bend Indiana aired a video news release produced by the PR company Medialink for General Motors. The video was narrated by Medialink's Andrew Schmertz. When the VNR aired on March 16, the local anchor introduced Andrew as if he were a Fox reporter. - WSJV broadcast That video news release aired on WSJV in South Bend Indiana. The station's news director, Ed Kral, declined to join us on today's program. He described it as an accident that the VNR aired as it did. The same VNR aired on two other stations: KOSA Channel 7 in Odessa Texas and WWTV Channel 9 in Cadillac Michigan. None of the three stations divulged to listeners that the feature was produced by Medialink and funded by General Motors. In fact, of the 87 VNR broadcasts documented in the Fake TV News study, not once did the TV station specifically disclose who funded the VNR to the news audience. Medialink also produced a video news release about ethanol, funded by the company Siemans which supplies automation systems to two-thirds of the ethanol plants in the country. Medialink sent a publicist named Kate Brookes to Iowa to act like a reporter covering the story. Here is part of the original Video News Release that was distributed by Medialink in January. - Video news release from Medialink At least five stations then took that corporate-funded VNR and broadcasted it. KTNV Channel 13 in Las Vegas aired it on January 19th. - Watch broadcast from KTNV That video news release is one of the 36 VNRs highlighted in the new study by the Center for Media and Democracy called Fake TV News. The authors of the study, Diane Farsetta and Daniel Price, join us now in Washington for this broadcast exclusive interview. Welcome to Democracy Now! - Diane Farsetta, senior researcher at the Center for Media and Democracy. She is co-author of the report, "Fake TV News: Widespread and Undisclosed" - Daniel Price, co-author of the Center for Media and Democracy's report "Fake TV News: Widespread and Undisclosed." AMY GOODMAN: Today, we’re going to spend the hour looking at how fake news is making its way onto the airwaves of local newscasts. We’ll speak with the authors of the report, as well as a consultant who has appeared in several video news releases. And we’ll talk to F.C.C. Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein, who says he’s stunned by the findings of “Fake TV News” report. JUAN GONZALEZ: But first, we will air some examples of how video news releases are used. Four weeks ago, the FOX affiliate in South Bend, Indiana, aired a video news release produced by the P.R. company Medialink for General Motors. The video was narrated by Medialink’s Andrew Schmertz. When the VNR aired on March 16, a local anchor introduced Schmertz as if he were a FOX reporter. FOX ANCHOR: Many of you know computers have changed our lives in so many ways, from entertainment to transportation. They’ve even affected jobs. FOX’s Andrew Schmertz looks at one surprising career that has evolved along with the computer. ANDREW SCHMERTZ: Are you looking for a great paying job where recruits are in high demand and there’s no chance of the work being sent overseas? Who isn't, right? Well, pay attention next time you take your car into the dealer for maintenance or repair. AMY GOODMAN: That video news release aired on WSJV in South Bend, Indiana. The station's news director, Ed Kral, declined to join us on today's program. He described it as an accident that the VNR aired as it did. The same VNR aired on two other stations: KOSA Channel 7 in Odessa, Texas, and WWTV Channel 9 in Cadillac, Michigan. None of the three stations divulged to viewers that the feature was produced by Medialink and funded by General Motors. In fact, of the 87 video news release broadcasts documented in the “Fake TV News” study, not once did the TV station specifically disclose who funded the VNR to the news audience. JUAN GONZALEZ: Medialink also produced a video news release about ethanol, funded by the company Siemens, which supplies automation systems to two-thirds of the ethanol plants in the country. Medialink sent a publicist named Kate Brookes to Iowa to act like a reporter covering the story. Here's part of the original video news release that was distributed by Medialink in January. KATE BROOKES: With this better market comes the need for greater efficiency at ethanol plants. SPOKESPERSON: Automation technologies help the producers make ethanol more efficiently. As the demand for ethanol grows, the producers rely more and more on automation technologies to help them meet their goals in the industry. AL JENTZ, Plant Manager, Amaizing Energy: The growth is phenomenal, and with the renewable fuel standard bill, we are looking at expanding this plant here hopefully within the next 12 to 18 months. KATE BROOKES: To date there is more than a hundred ethanol plants here in the United States. But as the demand for renewable fuels continues to rise and as the technologies to help produce them continue to improve, it’s expected that number will grow, perhaps even double in the years ahead. I'm Kate Brookes. AMY GOODMAN: So that was the video news release. At least five stations then took that corporate-funded VNR and broadcast it. KTNV Channel 13 in Las Vegas, aired it on January 19. DAVID REISZ, Farmer: For our operations it’s like a dream come true, you know. We used to farm this ground where the plant sits, and it just makes a better market for our corn. KATE BROOKES: To date there is more than a hundred ethanol plants here in the United States. But as the demand for renewable fuels continues to rise and as the technologies to help produce them continue to improve, it’s expected that number will grow, perhaps even double in the years ahead. I'm Kate Brookes. AMY GOODMAN: That video news release is one of 36 VNRs highlighted in the new study by the Center for Media and Democracy. The report is called "Fake TV News.” The authors of the study are Diane Farsetta and Daniel Price. They join us now in Washington for this broadcast exclusive. Welcome to Democracy Now! DIANE FARSETTA: Thanks for having us. DANIEL PRICE: Hi. AMY GOODMAN: It’s good to have you with us, Diane and Daniel. Diane Farsetta, you’re the senior researcher at the Center for Media and Democracy, co-author of this report. Explain how -- well, the subtitle of your study is how “widespread and undisclosed” this is. DIANE FARSETTA: Well, we would say, as you mentioned earlier, there were 36 different video news releases that we tracked, in terms of how the television news rooms used those. We found 77 different stations total that aired those VNRs or related canned interviews called satellite media tours, including stations in the largest market. We saw 13 stations in the ten largest media markets in the United States. We added up what percentage of the U.S. population is in the broadcast area of those markets. It’s something like 53% of the U.S. population. So that gives you a sense of how widespread it is. Undisclosed of the 98 different total broadcasts of fake news that we saw, not once did the station tell the viewing audience, ‘This was funded by Siemens. This was funded by Pfizer.’ And that's what we see in terms -- but that's what we’re saying would be meaningful disclosure. We saw two instances of partial disclosure, but the clients were not named in those cases. JUAN GONZALEZ: And, Diane, were you able to detect any trends or patterns in these VNRs? Were they being fed by the major networks to the local affiliates? Were they actually just being taken by the different affiliates? I was most surprised by the fact that you found quite a bit in the big cities, because you would normally think that the smaller cities, the TV stations that don't have very much news staff, would be the ones more likely to run these kinds of prepackaged video releases. DIANE FARSETTA: That's right. And that also gives you a sense of how widespread the practice is, that even the most resource rich -- you know, relatively resource rich stations are using them. In terms of patterns, I would say one thing that really stood out is that in more than one-third of the cases where we saw video news releases being broadcast, the entire prepackaged part, so video news releases contain a prepackaged ready-to-air portion and then usually extra video called b-roll. In more than one-third of the times that we saw video news releases being broadcast on these stations, they just put on the air in their local newscast, without disclosure, the entire prepackaged segment. And that was something that was pretty interesting and pretty unanticipated by myself and Daniel Price, looking at this -- going into this study. AMY GOODMAN: Daniel Price, let's talk about the FOX report that we saw. Now, this was a case where they didn't use their own reporter, taking the scripts from the corporation that pays for the VNR. They actually called the P.R. flack their reporter, by saying “FOX's.” DANIEL PRICE: Correct. AMY GOODMAN: Explain. DANIEL PRICE: One of the things that they do to help pass off the story as their own journalism is when they don't revoice it with their own reporter, they will introduce the voice of the original narrating publicist as if he or she were a reporter at the station. So, instead of saying “G.M.'s Andrew Schmertz” or “Medialink’s Andrew Schmertz,” which would be the more truthful disclosure, they just say that basically this is “FOX’s Andrew Schmertz,” or, in most cases, they’ll just say, ‘Sonya Martin has the story.’ JUAN GONZALEZ: And you don't have any indication that the companies or the public relations firms are actually paying for these releases. They are just trying to get them disseminated to get the particular perspective of the company on the issue involved with the product line that's being promoted. DANIEL PRICE: Right. Exactly. We have no evidence that there's any financial compensation. However, it’s very important to note that the newsrooms are very cost-conscious, and every minute they get of someone else's content that’s just ready to plug in is lots of money saved for them. So, some newscasts have four to six hours a day of local news airtime to fill and not enough people to fill it. So, VNRs are kind of like manna from heaven for them. AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn now to a video news release about the prescription skin cream Mimyx, manufactured by Stiefel Laboratories. PUBLICIST: More than 15 million Americans are diagnosed with atopic dermatitis, commonly referred to as eczema. The chronic inflammatory disease that affects 90% of patients within the first five years of their lives is characterized by red dry, itchy skin that rashes. This uncomfortable and unpleasant condition largely affects children but can also affect adults and often leads to sleep interruption due to the severity of the itch. While the cause of eczema is unknown, doctors say it can result from genetics, environmental factors or an over-reactive immune system. While many products to treat eczema are currently available, the F.D.A. has recently cleared a new approach in managing the signs and symptoms of eczema, called Mimyx cream. SPOKESPERSON: Our goals in managing eczema are basically twofold. First of all, we want to relieve the signs and symptoms of the disease. And secondly, we want to try to rebuild the skin barrier that is usually compromised in individuals with eczema. AMY GOODMAN: On December 19, 2005, WYTV Channel 13 in Youngstown, Ohio, ran a news segment based on this video news release. Viewers were never notified that the segment was paid for by the skin cream manufacturer, nor were viewers provided with any of the medical warnings included in the original V.N.R. NEWSCASTER: The government has approved a new treatment for a chronic skin condition that usually begins in childhood but can stretch into adulthood. In Len Rome’s “Local Health,” we’ll show you this new approach to eczema. LEN ROME: If you have eczema, chances are the first symptoms showed up before the age of five. It affects 15 million Americans. Your skin develops a red dry, itchy rash. While the cause is unknown, doctors say it can simply run in the family, or you might have an overactive immune system. The new treatment is called Mimyx. It’s a prescription cream. SPOKESPERSON: It has a dual function to both rebuild the skin barrier and to reduce the signs and symptoms of eczema. AMY GOODMAN: That news segment ran on WYTV Channel 13 in Youngstown, Ohio. The station's news director, Pat Livingston, declined to come on Democracy Now! today, but he defended the airing of the video news release. He said the station's health reporter checked the claims of the report with local doctors. JUAN GONZALEZ: Another station that aired portions of this V.N.R. was WCPO Channel 9 in Cincinnati, Ohio. The station's news director, Bob Morford, also declined to come on the program, but he did issue a statement to Democracy Now! He wrote, "I understand and share concern about the use of video news releases. They can be misleading, given that they are often created at the behest and expense of a company an activist group or a governmental agency. Therefore, we treat them carefully. However, we do not refuse to use them for the same reason newspapers do not ignore or fail to read and use written press releases.” Bob Morford from WCPO in Cincinatti went on to say, “In the specific case to which you refer, [our] story ends with ‘Right now, Mimyx is only available by prescription.’ We feel this more than adequately covers the ‘contraindications’ concern. It’s the doctor’s job to know the problems and to warn the patient. It’s also a reasonable patient who asks the doctor about any possible side effects.” AMY GOODMAN: Diane Farsetta, can you talk about the use of this VNR as a health news report? DIANE FARSETTA: Right. Well, I would say what's important to know is that if this company, if Stiefel Laboratories were to put out just an advertisement, an out-and-out television advertisement, that that advertisement would need to include, when it was broadcast, risk or contraindication information. The F.D.A. regulations, as far as video news releases that promote a prescription drug or other regulated product, is that when it leaves the broadcast P.R. firm, it needs to include that risk information. But the ability of the F.D.A. to regulate the information that goes out ends at the newsroom door. So it’s concerning to hear that at least some stations are thinking that the fact that they flagged this kind of thing just as a prescription is sufficient disclosure, because, obviously, you have -- and this gets into the difference between the print press release and a video news release, is that the entire thing is scripted, who is on, what they say. Oftentimes it’s rehearsed beforehand. The entire job of a broadcast P.R. firm is to create a segment that leaves viewers with a message that the paying client wants them to have. And I would say just lastly, in addition, a print press release is generally, although sometimes they are copied and pasted, which is obviously also bad journalism, but the intent of a print press release is to give journalists a heads-up about something, to inform them about something, to be a starting point of a story, whereas a video news release is the ending point. It actually replaces the journalist. JUAN GONZALEZ: So, in other words, what you are saying then is some of these cases, like with some of these prescription drug situations, that the news broadcast is actually providing an even more one-sided view than the video news release produced by the companies, in terms of the information it provides. DIANE FARSETTA: That's correct. And if you just look at some of the studies that have been done of the direct-to-consumer drug advertising, which the U.S. is only one of two countries that allows that, you’ll see that increasingly patients go the their doctors, asking for specific brand name, of course, medications, in a way that's sort of instead of talking about their symptoms. So this is part of a larger problem in many different ways. But, certainly, it is a very one-sided and, I would say, irresponsible way to provide especially complex medical information. AMY GOODMAN: We are talking to Diane Farsetta, senior researcher at the Center for Media and Democracy, co-author with Daniel Price of the report "Fake TV News: Widespread and Undisclosed." When we come back from break, we’ll go to -- well, who some have called the “Queen of VNRs.” [break] JUAN GONZALEZ: As we continue our discussion about video news releases, we turn now to a VNR released last year about holiday gift ideas. NARRATOR: Before you hit the stores this holiday season, technology experts warn some of the best gifts have the potential to go bad. ROBIN RASKIN: One of the scariest examples is Apple's new iPod Nano. It’s capable of video, and now there’s pornography all over the internet. NARRATOR: It’s called iPorn, and hundreds of websites are selling it or offering it for free for the new video iPods. CONCERNED MOTHER: Parents may not realize, you know, exactly what they are getting their kids. NARRATOR: Another example is the new gaming system, Gizmondo. ROBIN RASKIN: It has a G.P.S. system built in it so friends can find other friends and play with them. That means intruders can be there, too. NARRATOR: And even track down your kids. CONCERNED MOTHER: It’s very, very frightening. NARRATOR: So what types of safe alternatives are parents turning to? ROBIN RASKIN: I predict that one of the things parents are going to like are the retro games, and Coleco from Techno Source has 12 different arcade games bundled into one. NARRATOR: Another comeback from the ‘80s is Pac-Man, but he’s reinvented in the 25th anniversary game, and this time he talks. PAC-MAN: Did someone say cake? NARRATOR: You’ll also see more games with plotlines and Asian inspirations. ROBIN RASKIN: One of the great things this year is the influence of Japanese artwork on games. In We Love Katamari, kids get to roll a ball around, picking up all sorts of whimsical items as they attempt to restore the universe. NARRATOR: Raskin says after picking a great gift, you may also want to add accessories. ROBIN RASKIN: Well, people are buying digital cameras, but they’re thinking about megabytes and megapixels, and they should be thinking about battery life. In a manufacturers test, we found that the Panasonic Oxyride, a brand-new battery with new technology, gets at least double the number of photos, digital still photos, compared to Panasonic's original alkaline batteries. AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined now on the phone by Robin Raskin, who appeared in that video news release. Robin Raskin is the former editor-in-chief of the magazine Family PC She’s written extensively about technology and parenting and now appears in some video news releases. We welcome you to Democracy Now!, Robin Raskin. ROBIN RASKIN: Thanks, Amy. Thanks for having me. AMY GOODMAN: It’s good to have you with us. So, you’re identified as a technology consultant by the local newscast. Who were you working for when you made this VNR? ROBIN RASKIN: When I make a VNR, I’m working for -- and I think you took from two different ones, but the people who -- Panasonic and Namco, the people who are, you know, represented as examples of good technology. And so, you know, I have been pretty upfront actually in my VNR life, in telling both stations and [inaudible] people as I can exactly what I do, that I'm a technology expert and spokesperson, which was a very conscientious decision on my part after my last magazine closed, and I said I had to broaden my interests and do different things, really to support my family and to support and expand my career. JUAN GONZALEZ: But now, when the news organizations, the local stations, play these, they almost never identify you as someone working for the companies. Do you have any concerns about how they are, in essence or in effect, misrepresenting the VNRs that they are getting? ROBIN RASKIN: I do. I mean, I have so many concerns, I could write a book of concerns. You know, I actually -- stepping back from my concerns for a moment, I don't think there's a line in that that would have been different, no matter who paid me, to do it, whether a station paid me or whether they paid me, but that's actually beside the point. I think that the stations should call me a spokesperson, which I am. And I think that they should identify me as a spokesperson. I don't pretend to be a journalist in those instances. I don't -- I'm very careful not to do anything in my life now that would be perceived as journalism. I don't write for my P.C. magazine, where I was the editor, anymore, because I don't review products. When I do write about technology, it’s to educate, not to say this is the best, this is the worst. So I'm very careful. I do a lot of public speaking. I try to do what I do and what I made a very conscious effort to do, I tried to do it as best I can. And, yes, do I think there’s something in the report to be learned? Absolutely. AMY GOODMAN: Robin Raskin, I want to ask you about what are known as satellite media tours. I know you did a number of live interviews during newscasts, on behalf of Panasonic, Namco and Techno Source. Let's play a clip of your appearance on KGUN Channel 9 in Tucson, Arizona. KGUN ANCHOR 1: The latest and greatest high-tech gadgets are on many wish lists this coming Christmas. KGUN ANCHOR 2: Yeah, I got a few myself. The only problem, how do you tell if they are good or not? Tech expert Robin Raskin joins us now with tips. So, you have your list, you’re checking it twice, all that kind of stuff? ROBIN RASKIN: Yeah, and interesting this year, it wasn't that there are so many bad products. It’s like the things that can happen with your good products are kind of the astounding, like I'm shocked this year. So, I’ll give you the best example. Everybody has one of these on their gift list for somebody? KGUN ANCHOR 2: Oh, yeah, an iPod. KGUN ANCHOR 1: Sure, iPod. I love them. ROBIN RASKIN: Well, no sooner did they announce the iPod Nano, the video one, there was scores of iPorn everywhere. KGUN ANCHOR 2: Oh, yuck! ROBIN RASKIN: It’s become a pedophile’s playground, and so parents really need to know. If you’re going give your kids an iPod, you must go on and check it to make sure -- this stuff is free. It’s on Apple iTunes. It’s not like they’re hiding it anywhere. So, it’s just a whole new thing to watch for. AMY GOODMAN: That was a clip of an interview our guest, Robin Raskin, gave to KGUN Channel 9 in Tucson, Arizona. This new study from the Center for Media and Democracy criticized the interview, because viewers were never informed that you were being funded by the makers of the very products you were praising. Your response, Robin Raskin? ROBIN RASKIN: Oh, you know, if I had my druthers, yes, the viewers would be informed. And I certainly do the best I can to inform the stations and, you know, as I’ve said before, make no bones about what I do. I use products as examples to educate viewers. And I would use those same products regardless. I'm very careful about how I choose my products. That said, do I wish the stations would do a better job of identifying? Absolutely. JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, I would like to follow up the issue of disclosure. On your own website, robinraskin.com, you’ve published a column called “The Best and the Worst of the Holidays 2005,” and you’ve posted a video file of the related news releases. But you don't appear to disclose the fact that you’re being paid by these companies to promote their items. The closest to a disclosure you come is a small disclaimer at the bottom of one page that reads, "These broadcasts are sponsored by their participants. For more information, contact robin@robinraskin.com." ROBIN RASKIN: Right. Yes. And if you read my bio, it says I consult for various companies. And I consult in various ways. I do speaking engagements live. I do websites. I do white papers. I give my opinion on bringing products to market. So, I think that -- I think in some ways, and I won't call it journalism, there is a message that is personality-driven. I’ll give you an example. Let’s take an Arthur Frommer. Certainly, you know, there are things that Arthur does that sort of are both sides of the line, but if you take examples like that, I think there's a journal-- I’m not going to use the word “journalism” -- I think there is a messaging that is a valid message, and I think, you know, you disclose it as best that you can. Could I do better? Possibly. AMY GOODMAN: Let's turn now to the co-authors of the study, to Diane Farsetta and to Daniel Price, who are in the Washington studio. Diane, your response to Robin Raskin. DIANE FARSETTA: Well, I guess I would start off by saying that in the material that we did see coming out of the broadcast P.R. firms, there was disclosure funding in the opening and closing slates. But I would say, you know, it’s a question of where -- there's a lot of places where responsibility lies. The main recommendation of our report is actually for any provided or sponsored video, there should be continuous on-screen disclosure, and that would deal with some of the concerns that are being raised here. I would say one of the satellite media tours, not the one that you showed, but another one -- Robin Raskin was actually the overlay, the text overlay -- in January of this year called her a tech journalist. So, you know, again that’s where she was identified to the viewing audience actually as a journalist. And I think just lastly, one thing to point out about the video news release that you did play about the holiday gifts, the two products that Robin warned people about, the Apple iPod and the Gizmondo handheld gaming product, were products of competitors of the companies that had funded that segment. So, I would be interested in hearing Robin's explanation of that. ROBIN RASKIN: Well, thanks, Diane. First of all, I appreciate what you have done. And the irony in all of this is I don't think you could have done your report unless people like myself disclosed what they were doing, because we disclose it with every release that we send out to a station, saying we’re available. We disclose it in many different ways throughout the process over and over again, so that there’s no mistake about it. I don't know that I would call the iPod and Gizmondo competitors of the other products I talk about. And actually, through my segments, all the time, I bring in other products who are -- who can help -- if the anchor were to ask me a question, I answer as honestly as I can, whether it’s about the product that's being -- that I’m a paid representative for or not. I’m an expert in technology, and I try and bring that expertise in a very fair uniform way to all the products that I talk about. So if I were there talking about these three, but you asked me about the iPod, you know, I would answer as honestly and as best I could. And that doesn’t change. As I said, that's sort of separate to the argument of should there be ongoing disclosure. I think there will be movement. I think that the industry is changing. I think you’re looking at not just television, but what's happening on the internet, too. But I think there's room for messaging on many different sides, as long as you are transparent and honest about what you do. DIANE FARSETTA: Would you support our call for a continuous on-screen disclosure of video news-sponsored video news releases and satellite media tours? ROBIN RASKIN: Oh, I fight so many other battles, I'm not sure I want to get in, you know, this one, but, yes, I think it makes a lot of sense, honestly. I do. The segments that I have been the happiest with are when I’ve actually worked hand in hand with a company; for example, when Microsoft and I worked together to create an internet safety message, when Verizon and I worked together to actually explain to people how to use voice over the internet voices services. And I worked on -- worked with some of the paid telephones which I thought were a great answer to keep children on a phone plan. So I think that every instance when I’ve actually worked with a company, I am very proud of those segments. And I'm also very proud of being a spokesperson in the technology industry. I think it’s a great industry that by and large tries to educate people, and television is one of those ways. I do think your report is important. And I do think that it should be paid attention to and, you know, I hope by coming on this program, I'm kind of letting another side of it be known. There is disclosure. There is every attempt made to make it an educational segment that shows products in the appropriate light. And that's where I feel like my part of the job comes in. JUAN GONZALEZ: I would like to ask Daniel Price, Barbara Cochran, the head of the Radio-Television News Directors Association, has said in the past that this whole issue of video news releases is akin to the Loch Ness monster, that it’s more hyped than real. Your response, after finishing this report, as to whether the Loch Ness monster is alive and breathing? DANIEL PRICE: Well, we managed to find 98 of them without really looking that hard. It was very, very easy. We had just a small sample of video news releases to work from. We searched for a total of 88 of them, and out of those, 36 wound up getting used in newscasts deceptively, that’s without any form of disclosure whatsoever to viewers. So -- and that's 98 instances spread out over 36 video news releases. So, if that's a Loch Ness monster then we’ve got a lot of them out there. AMY GOODMAN: Robin Raskin, have you ever had a conversation with a host of a local newscast who identifies you as an internet mom or a technology expert or a producer of a program, and said “I really feel you should say, ‘I'm a paid Pentagon’ -- rather, ‘I'm a paid Panasonic spokesperson’”? ROBIN RASKIN: Not on-air discussions. But certainly -- certainly it’s a subject that's debated off the air. And, you know, after you -- I mean, you know the people that you work with, and it’s a hotly debated subject. And I really think stations -- you know, I'm not a station. I don't want to get second-guessed what they are thinking, but I know that they have certain pressures and things that they have to do. AMY GOODMAN: What if they said off the air, when you say, ‘You should identify me for who I am. I'm representing a company. When I put down iPod, I'm representing its competitor.’ ROBIN RASKIN: You know, I think if I could sort of, you know, talk about the character of the conversations, we wrestle more with the fact of what's the right thing to do. And nobody’s made a clear decision. So, it’s like, ‘Jane, this has come up. You know, we’re figuring out what to do.’ And as you know, some stations have said this segment is funded, and that's absolutely, you know, fine and desirable, in my book. The [inaudible] is funded, and a number of stations, probably more and more are doing that. And, you know, as I said about the study, the study almost couldn't have been done if there hadn’t been disclosure, because that’s how you find out these things are being done. This is a very publicly open thing that this is a funded segment. AMY GOODMAN: But it’s not public on the newscasts. They don't often identify you as being a paid representative of a company. But let me ask, we are talking about corporate VNRs. There’s already been a big expose on government VNRs. Have you ever done work for the government, in reading a transcript that one of the agencies has put out? ROBIN RASKIN: I did -- I served on the National Academy of Sciences Committee, and we did a report on internet safety. And I did a satellite media tour, not a VNR, where I spoke live to stations, but that's pretty standard for them to, once they have a report, to have a spokesperson work to issue. AMY GOODMAN: And were you identified as a government spokesperson? ROBIN RASKIN: As a member of the committee, which I was. AMY GOODMAN: Robin Raskin, I want to thank you very much for joining us, for talking about the work you do, making these video news releases. And Daniel Price, I want to thank you as well, co-author of the study for the Center for Media and Democracy. Diane Farsetta, I would like to ask you to stay. We will also be joined by a commissioner of the F.C.C. to hear what the F.C.C. is considering doing about the issue of disclosure in corporate and government VNRs. [break] JUAN GONZALEZ: The Center for Media and Democracy and the media reform group Free Press have announced they are filing formal complaints with the Federal Communications Commission over news stations airing corporate-funded video news releases. In their official complaint, the groups write, "Undisclosed VNRs have compromised local news programming in every market. This situation must be remedied immediately. The Commission should clarify and enforce its sponsorship identification rules and strongly penalize stations that air fake news." AMY GOODMAN: The letter also suggests there are direct ties between consolidation of local TV stations and the apparent increase of the use of television VNRs. Free Press and the Center for Media and Democracy are asking the F.C.C. to determine whether station consolidation contributes directly to these types of violations, before the Commission reconsiders rewriting the nation's broadcast ownership rules. We’re joined now in Washington, D.C. by F.C.C. Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein. Welcome to Democracy Now! JONATHAN ADELSTEIN: Good morning. AMY GOODMAN: It’s good to have you with us. Can you talk about what you want to see the F.C.C.'s role is in these corporate VNRs? JONATHAN ADELSTEIN: Well, the issue here isn’t just broadcasting ethics. Clearly, these are unethical when they are not being disclosed to the public. But further, there’s a federal law that requires that the public be informed about the source of who is behind what goes on broadcast media. Failure to disclose that to the public is a violation of federal law and, in fact, can be subject to criminal penalties of up to a year in jail. JUAN GONZALEZ: So, are you surprised by this report, in terms of the extent of how many of these VNRs are being used on a regular basis? JONATHAN ADELSTEIN: Frankly, I was surprised. I mean, I’m pessimistic to begin with. I mean, I thought this was a widespread problem, but I was stunned that these really enterprising public interest advocates can come up with such a vast array of evidence. It seems clear that this is just the tip of the iceberg. Given how hard it is for them to even find the few VNRs that they did and to track them, imagine how many VNRs are actually finding their way into the daily diet of the American public on the media without any disclosure, without any fairness to the people who think that this is a real news story but, in fact, are being subject to propaganda and shills, who are being laundered, essentially, through the news operations. It’s outrageous. AMY GOODMAN: You know, it’s interesting to be doing this expose today with the latest news on Merck, the trial that has ended in the awarding of a man who had a heart attack as a result of taking Vioxx, getting millions of dollars, and how many of these are actually drug companies that are paying for these VNRs. Interestingly enough, in the VNRs themselves, the video news releases, they will list -- because they have to, because of the F.D.A. -- the side effects. But when the local newscast takes them, they actually sometimes slice off the part that warns you about the side effects, so the corporate VNR is more responsible than the news release that is the VNR. JONATHAN ADELSTEIN: Well, the irony of this all is that broadcasters are supposed to operate in the public interest. They have a legal obligation that their licenses are there, because they serve the needs of the viewers and the public. And here, they’re taking important information that the public needs, stripping it out, basically belying their obligation to the public, and at the same time, potentially violating federal law by not disclosing to the public that, in fact, the prescription drug company paid for that, essentially, an ad, even though it ran in the middle of a news program. JUAN GONZALEZ: But I’d like to ask you also in terms of the fact that these companies are putting out these releases and that the laws that are being violated here are not getting nearly the kind of attention that, for instance, the obscenity problems on radio and television have got widespread coverage. But this practice of violating the law by these media companies in terms of VNRs has gotten virtually no attention. JONATHAN ADELSTEIN: I wonder if it’s a coincidence that the media companies that are not covering this are the same ones who are implicated by the evidence that's been uncovered today. It would be very instructive to see if any of the networks run stories about this, if any of the local stations that misled their viewers will now take the time to tell their viewers, ‘I’m sorry. We made a mistake. We ran propaganda in place of news, and we did it on such-and-such a date. We’re sorry. We won't let it happen again.’ Frankly, I would be surprised if they did that. But if I were running a station, that would be the moral obligation I think I would have to my viewers. And I think all of them, under the laws of this land, under the public interest obligations, have a responsibility to both stop this from happening in the future and to apologize to their viewers for the outrageous behavior and the disgraceful journalism that has taken place on their broadcast outlets. AMY GOODMAN: We are talking to F.C.C. Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein. I also want to ask you about government-sponsored video news releases. Last year, the New York Times revealed how the Bush administration has aggressively used prepackaged ready-to-serve news reports to promote its policies. The Times found at least 20 federal agencies, including the Pentagon and the Census Bureau, have made and distributed hundreds of television news segments over the past four years. Many were subsequently broadcast on local stations across the country without any acknowledgement of the government's role in their production. This is one VNR produced by the State Department. NARRATOR: The televised images from Baghdad prompted celebrations from Iraqi Americans all across the United States. They seemed to revel in the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime, as much as they did in Baghdad. In suburban Detroit, hundreds of Iraqi Americans marched triumphantly through the streets. The community of Dearborn is home to America's largest Arab community. On Warren Avenue people chanted, "No more Saddam," as they honked horns and waved Iraqi and American flags. IRAQI AMERICAN 1: We love the United States! We love America! They help us! IRAQI AMERICAN 2: Yes! NARRATOR: In this Kansas City cafe, Iraqi Americans watch the historic events on TV. IRAQI AMERICAN 3: I'm very, very happy. I said, thank you, Bush. Thank you, U.S.A. I love Bush, I love U.S.A., because they do that for Iraqi people’s freedom. NARRATOR: At the Arab American Center in San Jose, California: IRAQI AMERICAN 4: To see him toppled and destroyed, it's very gratifying. It's very gratifying to all of the Iraqis. NARRATOR: At this Mid-Eastern market in Denver, Colorado: IRAQI AMERICAN 5: I never heard anybody who said he wants to see Saddam stay, so they all want Saddam to go. NARRATOR: For Iraqis living in the U.S., the nearly quarter century-long nightmare in their homeland is now drawing closer to the end. AMY GOODMAN: F.C.C. Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein, that was a VNR, a government video news release that aired as a news report on many local stations around the country. What about this? The government, as well as the corporate VNRs. JONATHAN ADELSTEIN: Well, the good news on that is that the Congress has since passed a law in the wake of some of these revelations that requires government-sponsored VNRs to be disclosed to the public throughout the airing of that particular segment. Now, that doesn’t mean that that happened in the past and, in fact, we at the F.C.C. have under investigation some of these previous incidents that have been brought to our attention. For example, the Armstrong Williams incident, where he, working for the Department of Education, went on the air to publicly support the No Child Left Behind program and was paid to do so without apparently disclosing it to the public. So we’re looking into some of the past cases. Going forward, the government now is required to disclose, but one of the issues is that the corporations, while often disclosing this, are not being held to the same account, because if they do disclose it, it’s not getting put on the broadcast outlets as they’re required to do by law. And in some cases, the disclosure isn't as clear as it needs to be from the corporations. So, all of these VNRs need to be disclosed to the public. And I’m afraid that it’s not happening now with regard to corporate VNRs, and it hasn’t happened in the past with regard to government VNRs. AMY GOODMAN: Jonathan Adelstein, how much do you have from your fellow commissioners at the F.C.C. to regulate this, to enforce this? JONATHAN ADELSTEIN: Well, again, the news here is that as a result of all the controversy last spring, in April the Commission unanimously on a bipartisan basis adopted a public notice saying that we were going to enforce the rules vigorously, explaining to the broadcasters what the rules were, because apparently they seemed to have forgotten. So, we reminded them gently in April, and guess what happened. All of these revelations that the Center for Media and Democracy has come up with happened after the F.C.C. warned the broadcasters to be on notice. So apparently these warnings went unheeded. Apparently, the only way to make them actually toe the line is to enforce the law, and that's what I have committed to do, and that's what all my fellow commissioners voted unanimously to do last April. And now it’s time for us to step up to the plate and do what it is that we said we would do. AMY GOODMAN: You’re going to fine them? JONATHAN ADELSTEIN: Well, you know, we have to determine first that a violation occurred. We have to give them a chance to respond and to say whether or not they thought that they did disclose this or that somehow they weren't obligated to do so. You know, the F.C.C. -- innocent until proven guilty in this country. But if, in fact, we do determine that violations of the law occurred, we will fine them, and it’s also possible that we could launch revocation proceedings over their licenses. That's available to us as a remedy under the law. JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, I’d be interested to see if this becomes a big topic of conversation at the National Association of Broadcasters convention, which always happens the month of April and is a highly attended convention, especially by the electronics industry. But I’d like ask you, Commissioner, on another issue, there have been all kinds of hearings in Congress in recent weeks. Just yesterday, there was a House subcommittee meeting and decision on legislation that would provide national franchises to telephone telecommunications companies that want to get into cable production. Your sense of how this legislation is going and what the role of the F.C.C. will be on these issues? JONATHAN ADELSTEIN: Well, the F.C.C. does whatever Congress tells us to do. There was a defeat of an amendment requiring a build-out by these new telephone companies that are getting into the video business. There is a defeat of an effort to require network neutrality by these providers. So, you know, if Congress doesn't ask us to implement those provisions, we won't do it. I guess if people are concerned, if they’re in a minority community, a low-income community, that they’re not going to get service, they need to let their members of Congress know that, because the F.C.C. will simply do what it is that the law tells us to do. AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Diane Farsetta of the Center for Media and Democracy, where can people go to watch these corporate VNRs that have run as local news pieces on newscasts around the country? DIANE FARSETTA: Our website is www.prwatch.org, and you can see the whole report there, including the video. And just quickly, I also want to point out that we’re working with the media reform group, Free Press, as was mentioned earlier. They are doing an online action at freepress.net which will allow people to complain to the F.C.C. to make sure -- AMY GOODMAN: We’ll have to leave it there, Diane. I want to thank you for being with us. -------- ENERGY -------- alternative energy Tokyo Embraces Renewable Energy TOKYO, Japan, April 6, 2006 (ENS) http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/apr2006/2006-04-06-05.asp Renewable energy has a bright future in Japan's largest city. On Monday, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government issued its Renewable Energy Strategy in an attempt to go beyond the level of pilot projects and increase renewable energy use in the city to 20 percent of all energy supplies by the year 2020. Tokyo's Bureau of Environment says this target is proposed "from the view point of being in line with other advanced countries and regions on renewable energy use to avoid serious future effects of global warming." Japan is a signatory to the Kyoto climate protocol, and the bureau says renewable energy use and energy efficiency are the keys to reducing the emission of greenhouse gases linked to climate warming. And in addition, the agency reasons, the growing renewable energy market can create new business opportunities, The government has installed several pilot projects - wind generators in the Tokyo waterfront area, and a water treatment plant that uses one of Japan's largest solar generators. Today, renewable energy supplies about 2.7 percent of the total energy demand from Tokyo's approximately 12.5 million people. Power and heat from waste incineration plants, and solar light and heat are the major sources of renewable energy in the Tokyo metropolitan area. The Bureau of Environment says that as a city facing the risk of periodic earthquakes, an effective integration of energy policy and disaster preparedness and mitigation policy is needed and renewable energy sources can help. With the publication of its strategy, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TMG) is opening a public discussion and will set the final target in the TMG Environmental Basic Plan expected to be issued in Fiscal Year 2008. During this discussion phase, the bureau says energy use should be reexamined, with a view to the reduction of energy consumption. "Not only can renewable sources be established within Tokyo, but the tremendous purchasing power can also be utilized, thereby boosting levels of renewable energy within Japan as a whole," the Bureau of Environment said. The bureau said that creating demand for renewables through public education will drive the creation of this new energy sector and enhance local energy choices. In addition, the TMG will launch pilot projects to experiment with new uses of renewable energy and methods of collaboration among various entities. These pilot projects will examine the links between demand and policies, ways to increase added value, and ways to create other advantages, said the bureau. Some of the pilots planning include enhancing green purchasing to promote renewable energy use among business, power suppliers and governments, and corporate sponsorship for the installation of renewable energy. A study of how best to use natural energy in housing is planned. The bureau is considering how to promote the design of low energy, comfortable housing with the use of renewable energy, particularly solar heating. Japan is largely dependent on imported fossil fuels for energy. In 2001, 50.2 percent of all Japanese power came from oil; 16.8 percent came from coal; and 13.6 percent came from natural gas. Nuclear energy was by far the most prominent non-carbon energy source; it contributed 14.4 percent of Japan's total energy consumption. In 2001, Japan released a Revised Long-Term Energy Supply and Demand Outlook emphasizing efficient use of energy and the development of nuclear power plants as effective means of reducing carbon dioxide emissions. The Outlook complements the 1999 Revised Energy Savings Law, which calls on central and local governments to offer effective economic incentives to promote wider use on environmentally friendly products and technologies and calls for dramatic increases in the use of renewable energy sources by 2010. Solar energy's installed capacity is expected to reach 5,000 megawatt (MW) by 2010 in Japan as a whole, while the targets for wind power and geothermal energy are 300 MW and 1,000 MW, respectively. As a volcanic island country, Japan has significant potential for geothermal electricity generation. However, potential sites are difficult to develop, because almost all are located in National Parks. Renewable energy, especially wind power, benefited from two important pieces of legislation in 2003. The first was a revision of the Electricity Utility Law, which allowed new providers to the sell to a broader array of clients. It is intended to allow independent providers with comparatively little capacity to enter the electricity retailing business. The Japanese government enacted a Renewable Portfolio Standard law in April 2003 with the aim of stimulating renewable energy to provide 1.35 percent of the country's total electricity supply by 2010. -------- OTHER -------- environment China's Waterways Facing Major Chemical Pollution Risks April 06, 2006 By Associated Press http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=10210 SHANGHAI, China — China's major waterways are threatened with severe pollution because of poor planning and a lack of waste treatment facilities, a top environmental official said in remarks published by state media Thursday. A review of 127 major chemical and petrochemical projects found many were located too close to major bodies of water, the official Xinhua News Agency cited Pan Yue, deputy director of the State Environmental Protection Agency, as saying. "These environmental risks cannot be solved within a short time, as the cost of relocation of the projects is too high," Pan was quoted as saying. The inspections of the chemical projects, prompted by an explosion last November at a chemical plant that released tons of toxic chemicals in the Songhua River in northeastern China, found 20 with serious environmental safety problems, Pan said. The projects included oil refining, ethylene and methanol factories involving 60.6 billion yuan (US$7.6 billion; euro6.2 billion) in investments. Eleven were located along the Yangtze River, one on the Yellow River and two at Daya Bay, near Hong Kong. The government has ordered those plants to take immediate actions to fix the problems, and allocated 1.62 billion yuan (US$202 million; euro165 million) to fund improvements, the report said. The environmental agency has suspended approval of 44 projects with a total planned investment of 149.5 billion yuan (US$18.7 billion; euro15.3 billion) because of their locations. China needs to further strengthen pre-construction environmental assessment procedures to prevent future problems, Pan said. The environmental agency has repeatedly seen its attempts to close down or stop construction of projects accused of violating environmental safeguards overridden or ignored. The government earlier reported that China has suffered 76 more water pollution accidents since the November spill into the Songhua River. Some areas have reported progress in cleaning up heavily polluted waters, but most canals, rivers and lakes are severely tainted by industrial, agricultural and household pollution. Only a bit more than a third of the 3.7 billion tons of waste water discharged by China's huge cities each year is treated. -------- ACTIVISTS British Women Face One-Year Prison Term For Military Base Protest Thursday, April 6th, 2006 Headlines Democracy Now! http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/04/06/1432231 In Britain, two grandmothers above the age of 60 years old are facing up to a year in prison for protesting outside a military base. The women, Helen John and Sylvia Boyes, will be prosecuted under anti-terrorism legislation that outlaws all protests at military bases and nuclear research facilities. ---- Helen and Sylvia, the new face of terrorism By Nigel Morris and Jonathan Brown Published: 06 April 2006 UK Independent http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/legal/article356033.ece Two grandmothers from Yorkshire face up to a year in prison after becoming the first people to be arrested under the Government's latest anti-terror legislation. Helen John, 68, and Sylvia Boyes, 62, both veterans of the Greenham Common protests 25 years ago, were arrested on Saturday after deliberately setting out to highlight a change in the law which civil liberties groups say will criminalise free speech and further undermine the right to peaceful demonstration. Under the little-noticed legislation, which came into effect last week, protesters who breach any one of 10 military bases across Britain will be treated as potential terrorists and face up to a year in jail or £5,000 fine. The protests are curtailed under the Home Secretary's Serious Organised Crime and Police Act. Campaigners expressed their outrage yesterday at Charles Clarke's new law, which they say is yet another draconian attempt to crack down on legitimate protest under the guise of the war on terror. In October last year a protester in Whitehall was convicted for merely reading out the names of British soldiers killed in Iraq. And at the Labour Party conference in September the Government suffered severe embarrassment when Walter Wolfgang, a veteran peace activist who survived the Nazis, was detained for heckling Jack Straw. Mrs John and Mrs Boyes, who have 10 grandchildren between them, were held by Ministry of Defence police after walking 15ft across the sentry line at the United States military base at Menwith Hill in North Yorkshire. They were held for 12 hours before being released on police bail. They will learn whether they are to face prosecution when they return to Harrogate police station on 15 April. "We thought this was a really important issue and we just had to challenge it," said Mrs John, who was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize last year. Mrs Boyes, who was cleared by a jury at Manchester Crown Court in 1999 of causing criminal damage to a British nuclear submarine, said: " I am quite willing to break the law and prepared to be charged and to go to prison. The Government thinks it can do whatever it wants and that it has a passive public which accepts whatever it throws at it. I find it very worrying." The women, who have been arrested more than a dozen times between them, went equipped with a hammer and a small pair of bolt cutters as well as placards declaring their opposition to the new law. They had prepared statements denouncing United States military policy and expressing their support for the people of Diego Garcia and the Chagos Islands, who were evicted from their homes to make way for US military bases. As well as Menwith Hill, the sites covered under the new law include Fylingdales, the early warning station on the North York Moors and the US air bases at Mildenhall and Lakenheath in East Anglia. From next week the powers will also cover three nuclear sites - Aldermaston in Berkshire, its research facility at neighbouring Burghfield and the Devonport naval base at Plymouth. The Government's decision suggests it is already preparing for the protests that would follow the expected decision to replace Trident with a new generation of nuclear weaponry. Similar restrictions will be announced soon on selected non-military sites such as royal palaces and government buildings. The Ministry of Defence said the sites had been chosen because they had been the scene of regular protests. A spokeswoman said: "Persistent activity by protesters places them at risk of being mistaken for terrorists. It also unnecessarily diverts police resources ... People will still be allowed to protest outside sites. This legislation is about keeping police focused on the job they are paid to do." Kate Hudson, who chairs the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, said: " The Government has a responsibility to safeguard its citizens - we would be the first to argue that. But there is a very fine line between protecting people and introducing legislation that is an infringement of civil liberties. In recent legislation the Government has got on the wrong side of that fine line." Shami Chakrabarti, the director of Liberty, said: "When does a peaceful protester become a trespasser? In a free society, when does he become a criminal? In Britain in 2006, only one man - the Home Secretary - will now decide instead of Parliament and the court. Just when our politicians lament the demise of participatory democracy they increasingly criminalise both free speech and protest." Mrs John described the new law as a "kick in the teeth for the Magna Carta" and said the need for opponents of the Government to take direct action was greater now than ever. "We have seen two million people standing in Hyde Park and Tony Blair had no compunction in ignoring them. Even though there are huge numbers of people who oppose what the Government is doing, the only effective protests have been where direct action is taken. We have to demonstrate at the bases where the killing capacity exists - we have to attack it at source. These are the eyes and ears of the US war fighting machine and they are on our soil." Before Mr Clarke's announcement military police only had the power to escort protesters off the military sites and prosecute them for civil trespass. Gagging orders John Catt AGE: 81 CRIME?: Wearing an anti-Blair T-shirt in Brighton during the Labour conference. WHAT HAPPENED: He was stopped under section 44 of the 2000 Terrorism Act as he walked towards the seafront for an anti-war demonstration outside the conference. His T-shirt accused Mr Blair and George Bush of war crimes. He was released after signing a form confirming he had been questioned. The police record said the purpose of the stop and search was "terrorism" and the official grounds for intervention were "carrying plackard + T-shirt with anti-Blair info" (sic). Walter Wolfgang AGE: 82 CRIME?: Heckling Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, during his speech to the Labour Party conference. WHAT HAPPENED: The veteran peace activist shouted "That's a lie" as Mr Straw justified keeping British troops in Iraq. He was manhandled by stewards out of his seat and ejected from the Brighton Centre. When he tried to re-enter he was briefly detained under Section 44 of the 2000 Terrorism Act. Amid the disastrous publicity, senior ministers, from Tony Blair down, apologised. Maya Evans AGE: 25 CRIME?: Protesting over British casualties in Iraq. WHAT HAPPENED: Standing on the Cenotaph in Whitehall, she read out a list of soldiers killed in Iraq. She was arrested under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, which requires police permission to make a protest within one kilometre of Parliament. She was given a conditional discharge after being found guilty. Lord Falconer of Thoroton, the Lord Chancellor, later denied that the prosecution was an "undue infringement" of individual liberties. Flt Lt Malcolm Kendall-Smith AGE: 37 CRIME?: Refusing to serve in Iraq. WHAT HAPPENED: The RAF doctor served in Iraq twice, but refused to return for a third spell of duty last June. He argued that the military action was not justified as Iraq had not attacked the UK or one of its allies. He is being court-martialled, facing five charges of refusing to comply with an order. After a pre-trial hearing rejected his argument that the orders were unlawful, the court martial will open at Aldershot next week. Brian Haw AGE: 56 CRIME?: Maintaining an anti-war vigil outside Parliament. WHAT HAPPENED: Mr Haw has become a permanent fixture in Parliament Square since June 2001, when he erected a series of placards berating Tony Blair and President George Bush. The Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, was designed mainly with his vigil in mind. But the High Court ruled that the legislation did not cover his protest as it could not be applied retrospectively. The Government is appealing against that decision.