NucNews July 13, 2006


-------- NUCLEAR 



-------- accidents and safety

DOE says it's prepared for wildfires on nuclear sites

Christopher Smith
The Associated Press
Edition Date: 07-13-2006

http://www.idahostatesman.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060713/NEWS06/607130346

In the summer of 2000, wildfires raged across nuclear compounds in the West, destroying buildings, forcing the evacuation of highly secure labs and creating a health panic over harmful radioactive contaminants being dispersed by smoke.

After five quiet fire seasons, U.S. Department of Energy fire officials say they are better prepared as the potential for a fiery summer sequel increases.

"Our training has improved, we're more focused on restricting potential human sources and we've completed the evaluation of our areas of soil contamination, so we have a better understanding of what the potential effects would be if a fire burns through one of those," said Eric Gosswiller, fire marshal for the 890-square-mile Idaho National Laboratory, a DOE nuclear research compound in Idaho's high southeastern desert.

Three huge wildfires roared across INL in July 2000, scorching nearly 100 square miles inside the secure federal site, coming close to a test reactor and forcing emergency evacuations.

That same season, an out-of-control wildfire burned 40 percent of the 586-square-mile Hanford nuclear reservation in the sagebrush of south-central Washington state and briefly threatened a nuclear waste warehouse, while the Cerro Grande fire burned 7,500 acres of the Los Alamos National Laboratory site in New Mexico, prompting an 11-day evacuation.

A subsequent federal investigation found the Energy Department was unprepared for large-scale firefighting and the unique hazards that fires on nuclear sites present.

"We learned a lot of lessons complex-wide," Gosswiller said Wednesday during a gathering of DOE fire and environmental monitoring officials at INL.

Armed with mobile water cannons and off-road fire trucks that shoot streams of foam, INL crews now have detailed site maps showing areas where the soil has higher-than-background levels of radiation, where volatile or hazardous waste was dumped or spilled, and the locations of large amounts of unexploded World War II ordnance left over from the period when the Navy used INL as a gunnery test range.

Recent Western fire seasons haven't matched the scorching summer of 2000. But the potential this season is high.



-------- australia

Expert warns of nuclear attack risk

July 13, 2006 AAP

http://couriermail.news.com.au/story/0,20797,19775361-1702,00.html?from=rss

COMPUTER networks in any Australian nuclear power plant would need to be isolated from the outside world because of the danger of a cyber attack, a study warns.

Robert Anderson, a computer security specialist at the RAND group security thinktank in the US, says an explosion or release of radioactive material would be the worst case outcome of a cyber attack.

He said in most cases the consequences of a big cyber attack directed against critical infrastructure would be akin to a serious flood or cyclone – bad but manageable.

"Australia currently does not operate nuclear electric power generation facilities," he says in an article in the latest Kokoda Foundation publication Security Challenges.

"However if it ever does, such a facility's information and control systems should be very carefully isolated from outside information networks because triggering a release or explosion in such a facility is the worst cyber-related event that this author can envisage."

Mr Anderson says the potential danger is illustrated by an incident at a US nuclear plant in 2003 when a computer worm disabled a safety monitoring system for five hours. Plant staff believed their network was completely protected by a firewall.

He said society was increasingly dependent on computer systems and the Internet for everything from health services to social security and banking.

However, the fundamental systems, undergirding all others, are those providing power and telecommunications, he says.

Mr Anderson says studies show there could be a threat to an information system if it was critical to some vital organisation of society function, if it featured vulnerabilities and if someone knew of those weaknesses and could gain access and had the technical ability and motivation to mount an attack.

But their studies had concluded too much emphasis was placed on software flaws and virus attacks and not enough on other fundamental vulnerabilities.

Mr Anderson says many critical information processing centres are on the ground floors of normal office buildings where they are vulnerable to physical attack such as a vehicle bomb.

Many organisations possessed back-up sites which could be found by anyone who knew what to look for.

"We are greatly concerned about simultaneous coordinated attacks on both the primary and secondary sites of such systems because terrorists have repeatedly shown the ability to plan and execute simultaneous attacks," he says.

Mr Anderson says there is one other serious threat – the malevolent insider.

That was the employee who knew the inner workings of a system and who was motivated by a grudge, a need for money or even blackmail by outsiders.

"One must pay special attention to the insider threat as one of the most serious to be guarded against," he says.



-------- britain

Industry 'backs new-generation nuclear power'

Terry Macalister
Thursday July 13, 2006
The Guardian

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,1819998,00.html

The government said today that its energy review had won support for a multi-billion-pound nuclear programme despite scepticism from some power companies.

But the growing optimism within Whitehall was shaken by a warning from the biggest nuclear union that it was prepared to take industrial action to save the pension position of its members threatened by privatisation.

Speaking at the sidelines of an energy conference organised by the Institute of Directors in London, the energy minister Malcolm Wicks said he was "very encouraged" by the response from companies to proposals laid out in the policy document on Tuesday. "I think there will be new nuclear power stations. The people coming forward will be very large-scale companies and not ones that have all their eggs in the nuclear basket."

The energy review met a mixed reaction this week with the Association of Electricity Producers saying if they were going to invest they needed action not "frothy" words.

Alistair Darling, the industry secretary, had played down the role of atomic power in the energy review, saying it was just part of a mix of different possibilities and would happen only if the private sector wanted it. This approach was criticised by the shadow industry secretary, Alan Duncan, who mocked the review as not only "carbon-free but content-free".

Mr Duncan was forced to backtrack at the IoD conference when a straw poll of delegates voted by a big majority in favour of a motion suggesting a new generation of nuclear plants would definitely be built. He admitted he too thought the industry would probably be revived but only after a lot of horse-trading with government over the financial and regulatory regime.

Mr Wicks insisted there would be no subsidies - direct or indirect - but a number of industry speakers made clear their view that the pricing environment would need to be clarified.

Michael Parker, chief executive of British Nuclear Fuels Ltd, said he was convinced that new nuclear "is viable" but much would depend on the carbon pricing mechanism for all low-carbon producers.

He admitted past reactor building programmes in Britain had a "chequered History" with cost overruns and delays. The nuclear leader believed a standardised international reactor design should avoid many of these problems this time round.

The government and Conservatives have both argued the need for a consensus to win political and public backing for a project that many believe could see six reactors constructed.

Among the companies at the forefront of the drive to nuclear is likely to be EDF Energy, which has experience of operating a broad range of power plants - from nuclear to renewables. This is the kind of company Mr Wicks is believed to have been referring to when he argued there would not be a repeat of the problems that forced British Energy to the brink of bankrupcy.

Meanwhile Mr Darling meets trade unions leaders from Prospect at Sellafield tomorrow to try to hammer out a national agreement on an industry-wide pension arrangements covering those employed by Westinghouse and British Nuclear Group, which are being sold by BNFL.

"If the government does not meet our concerns, this is one issue on which industrial action across the board is a certainty," said Mike Graham, national secretary of Prospect.

In a separate move, Mr Wicks gave his blessing to a controversial move by London's mayor Ken Livingstone to put the congestion charge up from £5 to £25 for the biggest cars. The energy minister said as a Londoner and a London MP he would back Mr Livingstone for trying to "discourage irresponsible motoring".



-------- business

Areva profit warning dampens nuclear energy industry optimism - UPDATE

13.07.2006 (AFX)
by Andrew Newby <Andrew.Newby@afxnews.com>

http://www.finanznachrichten.de/nachrichten-2006-07/artikel-6699168.asp

PARIS - Optimism about the European nuclear energy industry took a knock when French giant Areva (Nachrichten) warned that first-half operating profit will be lower than a year ago and full-year operating cash flow will be 'highly negative'.

The nuclear energy group's predictions came after this week's revelation that work on Finland's 3.8 bln eur Olkiluoto 3 reactor, which is the only nuclear power plant under construction in Europe, is a year behind schedule.

Areva investment certificates dropped 6 pct and analysts said they could fall much further.

Two days after the UK government confirmed that a new wave of nuclear power stations will form part of the country's future energy strategy, Areva admitted that the problems at Olkiluoto 3 will have a major impact on the company's results.

First-half operating profit will show a 'sharp fall' because of the delays at Olkiluoto 3, it said.

It maintained its annual profit targets for 2006, notably because of 'the dynamic front end division and the success of the plan to optimise the activities of the transmission and distribution division.

'Nonetheless, pretax free operating cash flow, which reached exceptionally high levels in 2004 and 2005, is set to be highly negative in 2006 due to the forecast increase in investment, which will take place mainly in the second half of the year, and the carrying forward of the advances relating to Olkiluoto 3,' it said.

Areva has forecast higher full-year sales and operating profit, with lower net profit.

Finnish energy company TVO said on Tuesday that construction of Olkiluoto 3 by a consortium of Areva and Siemens AG has fallen a year behind schedule.

'The supplier has now reported to TVO that the plant unit, according to his forecast, will be ready to be taken into commercial operation during the second quarter of 2010,' TVO said.

The reactor, near Pori in southwestern Finland, was due to begin operating in 2009 under the original timetable for the project.

It is one of only two firm orders so far for Areva's EPR pressurised water reactor and the only one on which work has begun.

The other EPR order is from Electricite de France.

Areva said yesterday it will increase its presence in the UK in the hope of winning orders after the government's energy review.

Robert Davies, Areva's UK representative, said the nuclear group will look to add substantially to its 1,700 UK staff after the Department of Trade and Industry largely followed the company's recommendations on how to approach a new build programme of nuclear power stations.

Areva's EPR design and the rival Toshiba Westinghouse AP1000 model are the two reactors thought most likely to feature in new UK nuclear power stations.

Finland's Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority (STUK) yesterday criticised the Areva-Siemens consortium for the way it has managed the construction of Olkiluoto 3, Finland's fifth nuclear reactor.

'(The consortium) has selected subcontractors with no prior experience in nuclear power plant construction to implement the project,' STUK said.

'These subcontractors have not received sufficient guidance and supervision to ensure smooth progress of their work,' it said.

At 3.20 pm, Areva certificates were down 40.20 eur or 7.75 pct at 478.80 as the CAC-40 index fell 91.60 or 1.85 pct at 4,850.13.

Pierre Boucheny of Kepler Securities said he judges Areva certificates to be worth no more than 340 eur.

'This issue doesn't change our vision on the stock. We still believe at such a price, the stock is overvalued. The nuclear cycles are long and a rebound for nuclear investments all aver the world will not boost sales and earnings before 5/10 years,' Boucheny said in a note, keeping a 'Reduce' rating.

Boucheny estimates that provisions for Olkiluoto 3 may top 100 mln eur, 'but thanks to the good performances of the other divisions, Areva looks capable to offset them at the full year earnings level.'

SG Securities lowered its fair value target to 460 eur from 500, reiterating a 'sell' recommendation.

'This warning should remind us that large project businesses remain risky by nature,' SG analysts said, cutting their EPS forecasts by 17 pct for 2006 and by 7 pct on average for 2007 and 2008.

'Companies operating in such businesses need to benefit from a very sound balance sheet to be able to offset one-off charges linked to delays/technical issues,' the analysts said.

These companies should trade at a discount to those operating in product businesses, the SG analysts added.

CA Cheuvreux maintained a '3 underperform' stance and retained its 414 eur target, saying Areva's warning 'confirms our view of the group's problems'.

----

Ceradyne buys facility, product line to enter nuclear waste business

Thursday July 13, 2006
American City Business Journals 

http://biz.yahoo.com/bizj/060713/1315364.html?.v=1

Ceradyne Inc. plans to manufacture nuclear waste containment materials and it spent $14.1 million on an industrial facility, a new product line and manufacturing equipment for the project, the company said Thursday.

The company intends to manufacture the nuclear waster containment materials under an agreement with Alcan Inc., a Canadian aluminum producer, as part of the company's diversification strategy.

In its first transaction, Ceradyne bought an 86,000-square-foot facility in Quebec, Canada. In a seperate purchase, the company bought a boron carbide and aluminum cladding product line called Boral, along with manufacturing equipment and inventory from AAR Manufacturing Inc.

Costa Mesa-based Ceradyne (NASDAQ: CRDN - News) makes ceramic products for military and industrial uses.

Published July 13, 2006 by Los Angeles Business from bizjournals



<a name="du"></a>

-------- depleted uranium

Companies complete converting weapons-grade uranium for use in power plants

By: H. JOSEF HEBERT - Thursday, July 13, 2006 Associated Press 

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2006/07/14/news/nation/14_20_068_13_06.txt

WASHINGTON -- A milestone has been reached in the campaign to reduce the stockpile of weapons-grade uranium left over from the Cold War years.

Two private companies announced Thursday they have finished converting 50 metric tons of weapons-suitable highly enriched uranium to uranium that can be used by commercial nuclear power plants but not in weapons.

The conversion by mixing the highly enriched uranium with depleted uranium was conducted by BWX Technologies at its facility in Lynchburg, Va., for the USEC Inc., the uranium enrichment company that supplies reactor fuel for the nuclear industry.

USEC obtained the 50 metric tons -- enough for 800 nuclear warheads -- when the government's two enrichment facilities were privatized in 1998, resulting in the creation of USEC. The uranium conversion began a year later and was completed earlier this year, the officials said.

About 660 metric tons of low-enriched uranium was produced and already has been provided to dozens of utilities to be used in power reactors.

Linton Brooks, head of the Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration, said the conversion of the uranium was an important part of the government's nonproliferation effort.

"We have successfully turned weapons material into something people can use to turn the lights on in their house," said Brooks.

Brooks said the government has "several hundred" tons of highly enriched uranium that is being withdrawn from the weapons stockpile, although some of it remains in warheads awaiting to be dismantled. Most of that material is being kept for use by the Navy, although about 17 tons are expected be made available for conversion in the next few years.

Separately, the Energy Department is providing 39 tons of highly enriched uranium to the Tennessee Valley Authority, which, after converting it, uses it in TVA's power reactors. About half of that amount already has been converted.

----

Weapon of mass destruction
		
Author: Bud Deraps
People's Weekly World Newspaper, 07/13/06 16:57

http://www.pww.org/article/articleview/9495/1/330

The World Health Organization (WHO) has reported that Iraq, with a population of about 26 million, in the year 2000 had a total of 195,374 new cases of cancer and 126,677 cancer deaths, most of them children.

From 1990 to 1999, the cancer rate rose 242 percent in southern Iraq alone and birth defects increased tenfold.

Before the 1991 Gulf War, children made up 13 percent of cancer cases. By 2002, 56 percent of all cancer cases were in children under 5.

Of the 580,400 U.S. troops that served in the six-week Gulf War, 11,000 had died by the year 2000, and 325,000 are on permanent disability for physical or emotional injuries. Only 269 died in combat, while only 457 were wounded.

In 2001, I visited the Basra Children’s Hospital in Iraq. All rooms and hallways were overflowing with children dying from various forms of cancer. Many others were dying from diarrhea due to sewage-polluted water. Water refineries had been bombed during the war. The bombing of water treatment plants, power plants and the like are considered a war crime according to the UN.

The head doctor told us the children would all die because of U.S.-imposed sanctions. Due to the sanctions, medicine and parts to repair the water plants could not be obtained. He gave us dozens of pictures of the hundreds of deformed babies born in the area.

Here in the U.S., I have been in touch with Birth Defect Research for Children. This organization has compared the number of birth defects in children born to Gulf War veterans with the number for the average American family. Their research surveyed almost three dozen birth defects normally caused by exposure to radiation and revealed that babies born to the veteran parents had two to four times as many of certain specific defects.

What can be the cause of all these cancers and birth defects? Medical experts throughout the world agree that the depleted uranium used in our weapons and military equipment is responsible, despite U.S. officials’ claims that they have no idea as to the cause.

Starting in the 1960s, the U.S. government began investigating ways to utilize the countless thousands of tons of uranium left over from our atomic power plants and the manufacture of our atomic weapons. They mixed the uranium with other metals and cheaply produced the densest metal ever known. Put into everything from small artillery to the largest of bombs and into the armor of our tanks, it will penetrate almost anything.

But there is one enormous disadvantage. When the weapons or tanks explode, countless millions of dust-size toxic uranium particles are dispersed into the air, soil and water, to remain there for literally billions of years. Carried aloft by winds and sandstorms, even very small amounts inhaled by anyone are likely to result in various types of cancer.

The radioactive particles also directly affect the DNA and the reproductive system to create any of over 3,000 known birth defects.

At least 320 tons of depleted uranium were used in the Gulf War, mostly in southern Iraq.

Since 2003, we have used over 2,000 tons — over six times the amount used in 1991. Our troops, the innocent Iraqi people and the children not yet born are the victims of our government’s illegal and inhumane use of depleted uranium. Truly these are weapons of mass destruction.

Bud Deraps (peacebud@earthlink.net) is a World War II Navy veteran in St. Louis. 

----

Israel 'is using chemical ammunition' in Gaza

by Duraid Al Baik
July 13, 2006
Gulf News

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=AL%2020060713&articleId=2730

Dubai: A doctor at a Palestinian hospital has accused Israel of using a type of chemical ammunition which causes burns and injuries in soft tissue and cannot be traced by X-ray.

Chemical or depleted uranium could have been used in producing the new type of ammunition according to Dr Jomaa Al Saqqa, head of the Emergency Unit at Gaza's main medical facility, the Al Shifa Hospital.

In a telephone interview, Al Saqqa told Gulf News that operation Summer Rain was not just the code name of a military operation launched by Israel against Gaza since June 26.

"It is a live exercise on a new ammunition that, so far, has resulted in killing 50 Palestinians and injuring 200," he said.

He said he was not yet sure about the kind of chemical being used because the Israeli Army had bombed the only criminal laboratory in Gaza on the first day of the assault.

Dr Saqqa who has been working in the Al Shifa Hospital for almost 10 years said he had never seen such wounds before.

At the beginning of the Summer Rain operation I noticed that people's wounds looked strange.

I thought it was just because the attack was from a close distance or that the temperature of bullets penetrating the bodies of injured or killed people were so high they were causing burns.

I later found out that all wounds referred to the hospital since the start of the operation were very similar.

"I also noticed that despite the damage in internal soft tissue in the bodies of injured people, the fragments were not detected by X-ray. In other words, they had disappeared or dissolved inside the body."

Al Saqqa urged the international health authorities to come to Gaza and check the wounds of people in Al Shifa Hospital.

"The situation is very bad because out of the 200 injuries there are 50 children who are suffering badly because of their internal wounds caused by the new kind of ammunition," he said.

Gulf News contacted the spokesman for the Israeli Army but he was not available for comment



-------- europe

E.ON May Have to Sell Nuclear Plants to Buy Endesa, People Say

July 13, 2006 (Bloomberg)

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a4pS_PKX9q94

Spain's energy regulator will consider forcing E.ON AG, the world's largest power company, to sell nuclear and coal-fired plants in the country to win approval for a 26.9 billion-euro ($34.2 billion) bid for Endesa SA, said two people briefed on a staff recommendation.

The staff of the National Energy Commission wants E.ON to sell Endesa's stakes in seven atomic plants, its power-supply business in the Balearic and Canary islands and plants that burn Spanish coal, said the people, who wouldn't be identified because the proposal is confidential.

Spain, which has opposed E.ON's all-cash proposal in favor of a lower offer from Barcelona's Gas Natural SDG SA, gave the regulator the power to veto utility takeovers by foreigners three days after Dusseldorf-based E.ON made the Feb. 21 offer. The assets identified for sale represent half of Endesa's Spanish business, leaving units in Italy, France, Chile, Colombia, Brazil and Argentina.

``This won't stop E.ON because this takeover provides a growth platform in Southern Europe and gives it a hold in Latin America,'' said Jose Javier Ruiz, an analyst with Exane BNP Paribas in London. ``E.ON is unlikely to challenge this in court because it would just delay the takeover.''

A spokeswoman for the commission said yesterday the agency won't comment on the proposals until they are made public. Sabine Hower, an E.ON spokeswoman in Dusseldorf, Germany, said she hadn't seen the draft. Officials in the press office of Endesa didn't answer the telephone when called after normal business hours in Madrid.

The report also leaves open the possibility of an outright rejection of the bid from E.ON of Germany because it conflicts with Spanish law, the people said.

Veto Possibility

European governments have sought to create power companies big enough to compete when full market competition arrives in a year.

The recommendations, if retained in the final proposal in their entirety, would strip assets from E.ON that could supply electricity to about 22.5 million homes.

The staff report, scheduled to be delivered in final form in coming days, will be used by the full nine-member regulatory panel to rule on the takeover of Spain's largest power company.

The regulator plans to rule on the final report at the end of the month, said one of the people. The board can veto the takeover, accept the staff recommendation in full or modify it.

The remaining assets, including Madrid-based Endesa's businesses in Italy, France and Chile and its gas-fired and hydropower plants in Spain, may be attractive enough to carry on with the purchase, Ruiz said.

Seeking Growth

E.ON, based in Dusseldorf, wants to add customers in Spain and Latin America. The plan by E.ON Chief Executive Officer Wulf Bernotat was opposed by the Spanish government.

The regulator and the Spanish government have authorized a lower bid by domestic rival Gas Natural, currently worth 20.3 billion euros.

Endesa owns 3,641 megawatts of nuclear power plants in Spain, or 48 percent of the country's total. It also owns the monopoly power plants and distribution grids in Spain's Canary and Balearic islands, and three domestic coal-fed plants with an installed capacity of 3,770 megawatts. 



-------- iran

New UN resolution on Iran, but sanctions remain elusive - analysts

PARIS (AFP) Jul 13, 2006

http://www.spacewar.com/2006/060713154840.b5wqi9qg.html

The major powers have discovered a new sense of unity in their dealings with Iran over its nuclear programme but the prospect of hard-hitting sanctions to force Tehran to back down remains elusive, analysts said Thursday.

They were speaking a day after foreign ministers from the United States, France, Britain, Germany, Russia and China agreed in Paris to take Tehran back before the UN Security Council for refusing to suspend its uranium enrichment programme, as demanded by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

In an agreed statement the six also held out for the first time the threat of economic sanctions if the Islamic government refuses to heed a new call for compliance. The move was seen as highly significant because till now Russia and China have opposed talk of sanctions.

But specialists consulted by AFP agreed that the display of unity was largely influenced by this weekend's G8 summit in Saint Petersburg, which the Russian hosts want to seal with diplomatic gains of their own.

"Putin's Russia wants to present itself as a responsible power," said Didier Billion of the Paris-based Institute for International and Strategic Relations (IRIS).

According to Evgeni Volk of Moscow's Hermitage Foundation, "The Kremlin was ready to make concessions because it wants results in its bid to join the World Trade Organistion (WTO)."

"We cannot rule out Russia changing its position again once the summit is over, but on Wednesday it had no other option," said Alexei Malachenko of the Carnegie Foundation in Moscow.

The six powers agreed on a two-step process. A first Security Council reslution next week will restate Tehran's obligation to suspend its enrichment programme and set a deadline -- as yet undecided -- for a response.

In the meantime a second resolution will be prepared which would put into effect a graduated series of economic sanctions should Iran once again say no.

Diplomats said there was unanimous agreement at Wednesday's meeting after the EU's foreign policy chief Javier Solana reported no sign of a positive response from Iran to a package of incentives that was offered at the start of June.

However analysts said that despite signing up to the new steps, Russia and China remain very wary of sanctions.

"Right now (sanctions) are a subject of speculation and a hypothetical question," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told journalists on the plane bringing him back to Moscow.

Quoted by the Ria Novosti agency, he said that "sanctions should not be an instrument of punishment, but a way of getting Iran to cooperate fully with the IAEA."

"Russia and China are interested in putting up the pressure on Iran, but that does not mean they will agree to start applying sanctions," said Johannes Reissner of the Political Science Foundation in Berlin.

"There is a real danger that we will end up with a half measure -- sanctions that have little effect and allow the Iranians to continue with their programme of enrichment," warned Francois Gere of the French Institute for Strategic Analysis (IFAS).

US and European diplomats are persuaded that Iran is spinning out its contacts with the outside powers in order to buy time for the development of an atomic weapon.

----

Iran stands by nuclear program

Thursday, July 13, 2006 Reuters

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200607/s1686274.htm

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says Iran will not abandon its right to nuclear technology.

His country's nuclear dispute with the West has been referred back to the United Nations Security Council.

The five permanent Security Council members - the United States, France, Britain, Russia and China - plus Germany had backed a nuclear package aimed at ending the stand-off.

But they have asked the Security Council to intervene after Iran failed to reply by their deadline.

"Our answer to the P5+1 package is clear," state television quoted Mr Ahmadinejad as saying.

"The Iranian nation abides by international laws and regulations but will not abandon its obvious right to obtain nuclear technology."

The package offers Iran economic and diplomatic incentives if it suspends uranium enrichment, a process the West believes Iran is using to develop an atomic bomb.

Iran has refused to halt the work, saying it has the right to carry it out.

It insists its aims are purely for civilian purposes.

Mr Ahmadinejad says Iran is ready for talks and has repeated that the country will give its final answer to the package by August 22, despite mounting pressure for a quicker response.

"You should know that if the Iranian nation reaches a conclusion that this package is not in its interest, it will review its policies," he was quoted as saying, but television did not specify which policies would be reviewed.

In the past, Iran has threatened to reconsider its adherence to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

"Europeans will be responsible for any event in the region and they will be harmed first," Mr Ahmadinejad said without giving details.



-------- russia

Senators oppose Russia nuclear deal at G8

By Tom Doggett Thu Jul 13, 2006 (Reuters)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060713/pl_nm/group_usa_nuclear_dc_2

WASHINGTON - Top lawmakers on the U.S. Senate Energy Committee told President George W. Bush on Wednesday they would oppose a deal allowing Russia to sell more highly enriched uranium as fuel to U.S. nuclear power plants.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he will urge Bush at this weekend's rich nations' meeting in St. Petersburg to alter two supply agreements in order for Russia to ship more enriched uranium to the United States.

Russia signed agreements with the United States in 1992 that stipulate that no additional Russian nuclear fuel supplies beyond those derived from dismantled Russian nuclear weapons will be delivered to U.S. utilities with nuclear reactors.

Russia already supplies about half the enriched uranium used by U.S. nuclear power plants and the lawmakers said allowing Russia to "dump" more of the fuel in the U.S. market could scuttle construction of two planned American uranium enrichment facilities.

Republican Pete Domenici, who chairs the Senate's energy committee, and Jeff Bingaman, the top Democrat on the panel, said they are against changing the supply agreements.

"Any changes proposed in either agreement would have the potential of making the U.S. more dependent on foreign sources of nuclear fuel at a time when domestic sources are being developed," they said in a letter to Bush.

"Additionally, Russian access to the U.S. market at this time is likely to result in market destabilization potentially jeopardizing resurgence of the nuclear-related industry," the lawmakers warned.

A senior Bush administration official at a briefing on the G8 meeting on Tuesday declined to comment on what nuclear issues may be agreed to between the United States and Russia at the summit.

The two U.S. uranium enrichment facilities have a combined price tag of $3.2 billion and would be located in New Mexico, which Domenici and Bingaman both represent, and in Ohio.

Ohio's two Republican senators, Mike DeWine and George Voinovich, also signed the letter against allowing in more Russian enriched uranium.

By 2013, the two facilities could provide half of the enriched uranium required by U.S. nuclear power reactors, the lawmakers said.

The senators suggested that the U.S. government examine the options for uranium fuel supplies after 2013.

Putin doesn't want to wait that long. In answers to e-mailed

questions posted on the Kremlin's Web site, Putin said he was against U.S. "discriminatory" restrictions on the sale of Russian nuclear fuel and will raise the issue with Bush when they meet at the G8.

"The only thing we want is equal competition on external markets, including the American market," Putin said. 

----

Putin mocks Cheney's criticism as failed shot
Jibe underscores tensions ahead of G-8 summit

By STEVE GUTTERMAN
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Thursday, July 13, 2006

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/277408_russia13.html

MOSCOW -- President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday called Vice President Dick Cheney's criticism of Russia "an unsuccessful hunting shot," a caustic comment that underlines tensions ahead of the Group of Eight summit this weekend.

Under fire from critics who say his country does not deserve to be in the G-8 because of democratic backsliding during his more than six years in power, a confident Putin said the elite club of wealthy nations needs Russia because of its energy riches and nuclear might.

Meanwhile, Putin is maneuvering to take the nuclear waste the rest of the world shuns, hoping for a financial bonanza -- and Bush, in a reversal of U.S. policy, is offering to help.

The two countries will announce as part of the upcoming G-8 summit that they will begin negotiations on a civilian nuclear agreement that would clear the way for Putin to achieve one of his top energy goals: expanding his country's power reactors and using Russia's vast territory as a storehouse for the world's used reactor fuel.

A majority of the spent reactor fuel now at power plants came from the United States and can't be shipped anywhere without U.S. approval.

In three interviews with Western TV networks posted on the Kremlin Web site Wednesday, days before the summit in St. Petersburg, Putin set out what sounded like ground rules for dealing with an increasingly assertive Russia, saying his nation is open for constructive criticism but will not be pushed around.

Because of its economic weakness following the Soviet collapse of 1991, other nations had strong levers of influence on Russia, Putin said a television interview.

"Today these levers have been lost, but some of our partners have retained the desire to influence our foreign and domestic policies," he said.

Putin reserved his most acerbic words for Cheney, who angered the Kremlin with a May speech in which he accused Russia of cracking down on religious and political rights and of using its energy reserves as "tools of intimidation or blackmail."

"I think the statements of this sort by your vice president are the same as an unsuccessful hunting shot. It's pretty much the same," Putin said in an interview with NBC, referring mischievously to the errant shot by Cheney that wounded a companion on a hunting trip.




-------- security

Nuclear materials 'dangerously vulnerable'

By H. JOSEF HEBERT, Associated Press Writer Thu Jul 13, 2006

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060713/ap_on_re_eu/nuclear_threats_3

WASHINGTON - Despite progress on security, tons of nuclear material are "dangerously vulnerable" to theft by terrorists across the globe, a private group contends.

World leaders have failed to provide money promised for or to pay strict attention to securing materials that could be used for a nuclear device or "dirty" bomb, the Nuclear Threat Initiative said Thursday.

As leaders of the Group of Eight industrial powers, including President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin, meet this weekend, NIT reports note that only a fraction of the $20 billion those leaders pledged four years ago to secure nuclear materials has been spent.

"This threat is not being treated as an urgent, front-burner security threat by the United States, by Russia or by the world," said former Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., co-chairman of the group that focuses on nuclear nonproliferation.

The organization commissioned the two reports to assess the G-8's response to safeguarding nuclear materials. One was by the Managing the Atom Project at Harvard University; the other came from researchers at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.

In a related development, the Energy Department said Thursday it had reaffirmed in an agreement with Russia the 2000 commitment by each country to dispose of 34 tons of excess plutonium. The joint effort had stalled in recent years with talk that it was falling apart because of disagreements between the two nations on how to proceed.

Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman called Thursday's joint statement "a clear sign of our mutual commitment to keeping dangerous nuclear material out of the hands of terrorists."

Russia plans to begin burning some of the plutonium in a fast-neutron reactor in the 2010-12 timeframe, the statement said. The Bush administration wants to build a plant to convert its plutonium into a mixed-oxide fuel with construction beginning in the fall at the Savannah River complex in South Carolina.

The Energy Department also announced Thursday that it had finished a two-year project with Russian officials that removed highly enriched uranium from the Krylov Shipbuilding Research Center in St. Petersburg, Russia, to a nuclear complex in Dmitrovgrad where it will be converted for use in nuclear power plants.

Officials said the project was part of efforts to consolidate weapons-grade nuclear material to improve security. Under a program that began in 1999, more than 8.8 tons of such material has been secured in Russia, the Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration said.

The Harvard report cited progress in securing the material in Russia. But security upgrades are not completed at nearly half the sites and "only modest progress" has been made in consolidating the materials, the report said.

"In the rest of the world there is even less good news," the report said. "At many sites around the world, weapons-usable nuclear material remains dangerously vulnerable to either outsider or insider theft."

The United States has worked to improve security globally, but outside the former Soviet Union, "U.S.-sponsored security upgrades have barely begun or are not yet even on the agenda," the report said.

"There are still major gaps in our efforts to keep the essential ingredients of nuclear weapons out of terrorists' hands," said Matthew Bunn, co-author of the Harvard study.

Material that could be used to make a nuclear device or dirty bomb can be found in more than 40 countries, the researchers said.

At their 2002 summit, G-8 leaders committed to spend $20 billion over a decade to secure weapons of mass destruction. But that effort, the researchers said, appears to have lost steam even as the risk of terrorists obtaining the material "has only grown more acute."

Despite pledges of $17.5 billion, most came in the first year and, nearly halfway into the 10-year program, only $3.5 billion has been spent, said Robert Einhorn, co-author of the CSIS report and a former assistant secretary of state for nonproliferation.

On the Net:

Nuclear Threat Initiative: http://www.nti.org.

Managing the Atom Project report: http://www.nti.org/securingthebomb

Center for Strategic and International Studies: http://www.csis.org



-------- treaties

Defiant Iran threatens to quit nuclear treaty

by Stefan Smith Thu Jul 13, 2006 (AFP)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060713/wl_mideast_afp/irannuclearpolitics_060713162813

TEHRAN - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has warned that Tehran could halt UN inspections and quit the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in retaliation against mounting international pressure on the country.

The threat came the day after world powers referred the crisis over Iran's disputed nuclear drive back to the Security Council -- which could impose sanctions -- after Iran failed to respond to demands it suspend work that could lead to the production of nuclear weapons.

"Up to now the Iranian people have acted within the framework of the NPT and the IAEA," the president asserted, in reference to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency.

"But if they reach the conclusion that Western countries do not have goodwill and sincerity... they (the Iranian people) will revise their policy," he said in comments carried by the website of Iranian state television.

Iran says it only wants to enrich uranium to make reactor fuel, and rejects accusations that it wants to acquire the capacity to make weapons.

But on Wednesday the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany decided they had lost patience with Iran.

"The Iranians must understand that they can't wait us out and can't hope to split a coalition -- and so the first step is to go to the United Nations and speak with as common a voice as possible," US President George W. Bush said after talks in Germany with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Iran had been offered trade, diplomatic and technology incentives as well as multilateral talks -- involving the United States -- if it agreed to a suspension.

"We said, 'reasonable period of time,' 'weeks, not months.' That's what we explained to the Iranians," Bush said. "They evidently didn't believe us. And so now we're going to go to the Security Council, and we're united in doing that."

The US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, said he hoped the Security Council would be able to take action "early next week" on a draft resolution that would make a halt to Iran's uranium enrichment mandatory.

"China has agreed, Russia has agreed" on the steps to be taken, a senior US official also said, but added the specific sanctions had not yet been decided on.

But Ahmadinejad told the world powers to "be patient and not disturb the current climate" and insisted Iran was still studying the offer.

"We will try to conduct a positive examination (of the offer) and will give our reply at the end of Mordad," the Iranian month that ends on August 22, he was quoted as saying.

"We want to solve the problem calmly," he asserted, rejecting accusations that Iran's hardline leadership was merely trying to buy time and exploit international divisions.

But the president also repeated that "we will not renounce our absolute right to use peaceful nuclear technology" -- in yet another signal the country was unwilling to freeze enrichment.

Iran's top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani meanwhile insisted he remained willing to discuss the nuclear issue, but he repeated Iran would not accept an enrichment freeze as a precondition to talks.

"Why do we make artificial words sacred when we want to reach great goals, and make all discussion impossible," Larijani said of the fact that an enrichment freeze remains the Security Council's central demand.

"We should not set preconditions that make negotiations pointless," he said.

Iran resumed enrichment in January, and has already ignored a non-binding Security Council demand for the work to stop pending the result of an IAEA probe.

The Vienna-based agency still says that -- after more than three years of inspections -- it is still not in a position to say whether Iran is seeking nuclear energy or weapons.

Iranian leaders have already moved to limit IAEA inspections, and have in the past threatened to follow the path of North Korea by abandoning the NPT -- the cornerstone of the global effort against the spread of nuclear weapons.



-------- u.s. nuc facilities


-------- north carolina

Duke professor Howell named director of nuclear lab

Thursday, July 13, 2006 Associated Press

http://www.fayettevillenc.com/article_ap?id=88288

DURHAM, N.C. - Duke University physics professor Calvin Howell has been named the new director of the Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratory, which serves nuclear physicists at Duke, North Carolina, and North Carolina State universities.

Howell, 50, succeeds Werner Tornow, TUNL's director for the past decade, Duke said Thursday.

Howell has been TUNL's deputy director and a researcher there since 1979. He has spent much of his career on research to precisely describe interactions among the fundamental particles that make up the centers of atoms.

Seventeen faculty members from the three universities, several dozen graduate students, and nonfaculty research scientists study nuclear physics at TUNL.

Howell is black and chairman of the American Physical Society's Committee on Minorities in Physics, a member of the National Society of Black Physicists and an adjunct physics professor at North Carolina Central University.

Howell traces his comfort with technology to growing up on a farm near South Hill, Va. He said his father's view was that "if you observed someone doing something once or twice, then you should be able to do it yourself."



-------- washington

Washington State Seeks to Bar More Waste from Hanford Nuclear Site

July 13, 2006 — By Associated Press

http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=10856
http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/nation/story/3329031p-12259870c.html

SPOKANE, Wash. — Washington state is appealing a ruling that struck down a voter-approved initiative barring the federal government from accepting more radioactive waste at the Hanford nuclear site.

U.S. District Judge Alan McDonald ruled last month that the initiative was unconstitutional. It would bar the government from accepting more nuclear waste at Hanford until what's already there has been cleaned up.

State attorneys filed a notice of appeal Wednesday with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

"We are not content to let this decision rest with a single district court judge," Attorney General Rob McKenna said in a statement.

The judge ruled that the initiative is unconstitutional because it violates federal authority over nuclear waste, as well as the Constitution's interstate commerce clause.

Voters overwhelmingly approved the initiative in 2004. The federal government immediately sued to overturn it.

Hanford was built in the 1940s as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb. It produced plutonium for the nation's nuclear arsenal for 40 years.

Today, it is the nation's most contaminated nuclear site. Cleanup costs are expected to total as much as $60 billion, with the work to be finished by 2035. 



-------- MILITARY 


-------- israel / palestine 

Israel Launches Heaviest Bombing of Lebanon in 24 Years; Airport Attacked, Over 40 Civilians Killed

Thursday, July 13th, 2006 Democracy Now!

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/07/13/1421237

Israel has launched its heaviest bombing of Lebanon in 24 years following the capture of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah. Three Israeli rockets hit runways at Beirut airport, forcing it to close. Israeli ships have entered Lebanese water to block ports. More than 20 bridges were targeted, causing heavy damage. Up to 47 civilians, including over 15 children were killed in the attacks. [includes rush transcript] Israel has launched its heaviest bombing of Lebanon in 24 years. Three Israeli rockets hit runways at Beirut airport, forcing the closure of the country's only international airport. Israeli ships have entered Lebanese water to block ports. More than 20 bridges were targeted, causing heavy damage. And an Israeli helicopter fired a missile at the headquarters of Hezbollah's Al Manar TV station in a Beirut suburb. The major offensive follows the capture of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah.

Overnight raids across southern Lebanon killed up to 47 civilians, including more than 15 children, and wounded over 100 people. Israeli Army Chief of Staff Dan Halutz told Haaretz "Nothing is safe [in Lebanon], as simple as that."

Hezbollah militants responded by firing volleys of rockets into northern Israel killing one Israeli woman and injuring 29. Eight Israeli troops were killed two injured a day earlier in the Hezbollah operation that captured the two soldiers.

Israel has said it holds Lebanon responsible for the soldiers' capture and views it as an "act of war". Hezbollah has said they will not be returned without a release deal for Palestinian, Lebanese and other Arab prisoners held in Israeli jails. The Lebanese Prime Minister has denied any knowledge of the Hezbollah operation and refused to take responsibility for the soldiers" capture.

The Israeli offensive comes as Israel continues a separate attack in the Gaza Strip over another captured soldier. In Gaza, Israeli jets attacked the Palestinian foreign ministry building in Gaza City, injuring at least 10 people. At least 23 Palestinian civilians have died in 24 hours, including nine in one family whose Gaza City home was bombed.

    * Naseer Aruri, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth. He is author of the book "Dishonest broker: America's Role in Israel and Palestine"
    * Uri Avnery, an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom. He joins us on the line from Tel Aviv.

RUSH TRANSCRIPT

AMY GOODMAN: We're joined on the phone right now by Naseer Aruri, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, author of the book, Dishonest Broker: America's Role in Israel and Palestine. And on the phone with us from Tel Aviv, we're joined by Uri Avnery, a well known Israeli peace activist. Naseer Aruri, your response to what's happening both in Gaza and now in Lebanon?

NASEER ARURI: Well, I think we can take the two situations as actually -- as an opportunity, I think, for Israel to reshape the strategic landscape in the region. I think that the Israeli invasion of Gaza and the incursion into Lebanon, which you just described very well, are considerably the product of the same strategic goals. And I would mention two main goals.

One is to forestall a diplomatic solution based on two states, for which Hamas has been more than ready. I think Hamas has really been on record since it was elected, in interviews with the Israeli press, that it is ready to accept a two-state solution. If that was not given explicitly, certainly it was made implicit. And two days ago, Ismail Haniyeh, the prime minister from Hamas, launched a peace offensive in an op-ed in the Washington Post. So it was made really very clear. And it seems that whenever Israel is threatened with a ceasefire or a peace offensive, it bombs its way out of a diplomatic settlement. I mean, the question of Hamas not accepting Israel is certainly not a valid one. So this is the first strategic goal that Israel would hope to realize.

And the second one, I think, is to try to realize objectives that remain unfulfilled since the ’82 invasion and made worse since 2000, since Israel withdrew from Lebanon. What I have in mind is that in 1982 the Israeli invasion of Lebanon carried three major objectives. One is to foreclose on the option of a Palestinian state, because I think the PLO came to be seen in Lebanon as a state in formation, a state in waiting. That's one. The second objective of 1982 was to redraw the map, the political map, of Lebanon in such a way that it would bring the rightwing Phalange, Israel's allies, into power. And the third one is to reduce Syria's influence to manageable proportion.

Well, if you look at the situation now, we find that only the first one was realized, not really realized -- I should say, postponed -- and that is the foreclosure on the option of a Palestinian state. It is still a state in waiting. So Israel calculates now that it has a chance, an opportunity to reshape the strategic landscape and to realize objectives that remain there pending, but not realized.

AMY GOODMAN: Naseer Aruri, I wanted to bring in Uri Avnery, a well known Israeli peace activist speaking to us from Tel Aviv. Your response to the situation right now, extremely dire, Israel saying that the capture of the Israeli soldiers is an act of war.

URI AVNERY: Well, there are two questions. One is, what will happen to the three Israeli soldiers captured in Gaza and on the Lebanese border? And we believe, my friends and I believe, that the solution to that is to exchange prisoners. We've done this before. It should be done now. And we are very much against the statement of our prime minister that he will not even consider exchange of prisoners. I think his statement really puts the lives of the prisoners in jeopardy.

But beyond that, this whole war is something which I think is very detrimental to the chances of peace. We are going to have in -- two hours from now we are going to have a demonstration in front of the Ministry of Defense in Tel Aviv, protesting against the war.

The question is, what is the real aim of this war in Lebanon? We know the aim of the war in Gaza. It is to destroy the elected Palestinian government led by Hamas, because our government considers Hamas a terrorist organization. Unfortunately it's helped by the United States, which is very active to stop any transfer of money to the elected Palestinian government. In Lebanon, I believe that the real aim is to destroy the accumulation of rockets by the Hezbollah army. They have been accumulating rockets, all kinds of rockets, for a long time. By now, they should have thousands of rockets, including rockets which could reach major Israeli cities. And I believe that our army, which is now led by the air force -- the chief of staff of our army is an air force officer -- and the aim is to destroy, to use our air force to destroy these rockets in southern Lebanon, even at the risk of major Israeli cities being hit in the exchange of fire.

JUAN GONZALEZ: But Uri Avnery, when we see situations, where reports of Israel bombing bridges, attacking the airport in Beirut, this seems to be far more than just going after an arms cache. This seems to be -- and I’m wondering whether the Israeli population, having already gone through decades of the situation of the previous occupation of Lebanon, how people can countenance sort of a re-opening of hostilities in Lebanon.

URI AVNERY: This operation is not similar to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. It is rather similar to the Israeli action in 1996, when Shimon Peres, who was then the prime minister, attacked South Lebanon with the idea of terrorizing the population there into fleeing, evacuating South Lebanon altogether. The idea is that if we exert enough pressure on the Lebanese population, the general population in Lebanon, then the population will pressure the Lebanese government, and the Lebanese government will pressure the Hezbollah, and so on.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to give Naseer Aruri the last word. Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz is quoting Israeli military officials as warning Lebanon's clock will be turned back 20 years, unless the soldiers are returned. We have ten seconds. Your response?

NASEER ARURI: Well, this is certainly very ominous, and it shows that what I said before about reshaping the strategic landscape. I mean, I think that Israel calculates now that its position since 2002 has really diminished. They look at Hezbollah. It's becoming a respectable political actor, part of the government. We see the revolution in Lebanon seems to have fizzled. Syria hasn’t been undermined. Iran is on the rise at the regional level. Hamas, like Hezbollah, has also become a major political actor, receiving a majority of votes. And the U.S. is bogged down in Iraq.

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Naseer Aruri, we're going to have to leave it there, and I want to thank you for being with us, as well as Uri Avnery in Tel Aviv. We're sorry we could not reach Robert Fisk in Lebanon. We'll try again tomorrow. 



-------- latin america

U.S. Official Says Venezuela Has Close Ties to Terrorist States
Venezuela Denies Not Providing Protection to U.S. Ambassador

Thursday, July 13, 2006 Fox News

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,203414,00.html

WASHINGTON  — A senior State Department official said Thursday Venezuela's leftist government is "increasingly out of step with the world," citing the country's support for Iraqi insurgents and its close ties with Cuba, Iran, North Korea and other "radical rogue regimes."

Frank Urbancic, the No. 2 official in the department's counterterrorism office, said Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez "roots for the terrorists" in Iraq who are fighting the elected government there.

Testifying before the House International Relations subcommittee on terrorism, Urbancic said Venezuela has pledged to defend Iran in the event of military attacks. It also has backed Iran, he said, against efforts by the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency to curb Iran's suspected nuclear weapons development program.

On North Korea, Urbancic said Venezuela backed Pyongyang's recent launch of a long-range ballistic missile and noted that Chavez plans a visit to that country soon.

"In the international community's fight against terrorism, Venezuela is a liability," Urbancic said. He reaffirmed U.S. opposition to Venezuela's bid for a non-permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council.

Chavez has his own list of grievances against President George W. Bush, calling him a terrorist, an alcoholic and an imperialist. He has denounced the U.S.-led war in Iraq, and repeatedly accused the U.S. of trying to overthrow him to seize Venezuela's vast oil reserves.

Subcommittee Chairman Ed Royce expressed concern about Russia's decision to sell Venezuela 100,000 Kalashnikov rifles and to allow Venezuela to produce these weapons on its soil.

"It is the fear of many that these new weapons, or the weapons they replace, will end up arming left-wing terrorist groups throughout the continent," Royce said.

He noted that Venezuela has not yet been designated a state sponsor of terrorism but instead is described as "not cooperating fully" with U.S. anti-terrorism efforts. The designation precludes the U.S. sale or licensing of defense articles and services to Venezuela.

Charles Shapiro, a State Department official and former ambassador to Venezuela, said the U.S. embassy in Caracas has submitted 130 requests to Venezuelan officials for information on suspected activities by terrorists.



-------- spies

Spy or Risk Green Card: How the Bush Administration 'Recruits' Muslim Informants

Thursday, July 13th, 2006 Democracy Now!

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/07/13/1421227

We take a look at a largely covert aspect of the Bush administration's War on Terror - the government's aggressive solicitation of Muslim informants. We speak with Banafsheh Akhlaghi, the attorney for Yassine Ouassif - who had his Green Card confiscated and was asked by the FBI to be an informant in the Muslim community in San Francisco. [includes rush transcript] We now look at a largely covert aspect of the Bush administration's War on Terror - the government's aggressive pursuit of Muslim informants. This week, the Wall Street Journal ran an article titled, "A Muslim's Choice: Turn U.S Informant or Risk Losing Visa." The report detailed the case of Yassine Ouassif. Last November Yassine's green card was taken away from him when he crossed the border from Canada. Yassine was then sent home to San Francisco and told to contact a counterterrorism agent at the FBI. The article states that the agent "made him an offer: become an informant and regularly report to the FBI on what his Muslim friends in San Francisco were saying and doing. In exchange he would get back his green card." According to Yassine, if he refused, the agent threatened to deport him back to Morocco.

    * Banafsheh Akhlaghi, attorney for Yassine Ouassif. She is founder and president of the National Legal Sanctuary for Community Advancement.

RUSH TRANSCRIPT

AMY GOODMAN: We're joined in our D.C. studio by Banafsheh Akhlaghi. She’s an attorney for Yassine Ouassif. Banafsheh is also the founder and president of the National Legal Sanctuary for Community Advancement, a group working to protect the civil rights of people from the Middle East, of Middle East backgrounds, Muslims, South Asians. We did invite a spokesperson from the FBI to be on our program today, but they declined our request. Banafsheh Akhlaghi, tell us more about your client.

BANAFSHEH AKHLAGHI: Good morning, Amy. Yes, Yassine Ouassif entered my office at the latter part of last year. And when he entered, he was placed in what's called deferred inspections, so he wasn't yet placed in deportation proceedings and removal proceedings. And deferred inspections is this quasi-administrative aspect functionality of the immigration system.

Well, he had an appointment. We entered the facility at 630 Sansome in San Francisco, California, for that appointment. When we were waiting to be seen on the issue of having his green card being taken away from him -- and he had received his green card, I should say, through the lottery system -- and when we were waiting to be seen, we noticed that the FBI agent that Yassine had met with in Oakland at the Bay Area Rapid Transportation system -- it’s a location where he and the FBI agent had been basically moving around, walking around the BART station for some hour-and-a-half to two hours while the FBI agent was attempting to have Yassine agree to become an informant for the FBI -- that FBI agent, along with another gentleman with the Joint Terrorism Task Force, entered the same floor, and they asked me to come in first. And they explained to me that they were going to, out of respect and out of not protocol, definitely not out of protocol, allow me to sit in with the investigation and the interview, in representation of my client. But they were also quite clear in stating that I shouldn't speak too much and that if I had gotten in the way of their investigations, that they could ask me to leave.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Now, when they first confronted him, the FBI agents apparently told him that they had been monitoring him and some of his friends for quite some time. Do you have any information now about what kind of surveillance was being done even before they approached him?

BANAFSHEH AKHLAGHI: Once we received the green card back months later, what I was told by the Department of Homeland Security's attorney was that there were transcripts, and the transcripts were finally unclassified, declassified, and that he had a moment to be able to glance at those transcripts. Now, I haven't actually been able to access the transcripts myself. But allegedly what has appeared in those transcripts are communications between Yassine and his friends. One individual, in particular, according to the attorney for the Department of Homeland Security, was not truly a friend, but an informant, as well, for the FBI, and that in those communications, that there was some political speech and viewpoint by Yassine and his friends and his colleagues that would have been and are protected by the First Amendment as free speech, political speech.

But in this case, it had risen to the level of suspicion and the level of investigation. Now, in terms of how heightened that level was, they didn't have enough -- the government didn't have enough, in terms of evidence, to be able to place Yassine in removal proceedings. In fact, what was stated by the Department of Homeland Security's attorneys was, go and find evidence before I can proceed, we can proceed, on deportation claims. So for several months, five months, we were waiting for what was called future possible evidence to come through. And in the meantime, Yassine's life was literally placed on hold.

AMY GOODMAN: The FBI refused to come on, but they did send a statement from special agent -- I’m not sure if I’m pronouncing her name right -- LaRue Quy, spokesperson for the FBI in Northern California, who said, “The FBI did not arbitrarily choose Mr. Ouassif from a group of young Muslim men. The FBI was in receipt of specific information that indicated Mr. Ouassif was either directly involved in or had knowledge of terrorist-related activities. After conversations with Mr. Ouassif and further investigation, our concerns about Mr. Ouassif have considerably diminished.” That, the spokesperson for the FBI. Your response, Banafsheh Akhlaghi?

BANAFSHEH AKHLAGHI: You know, the course of action is really the issue, the way in which the FBI decided to really just target this individual. I mean, let's be very clear on what occurred. My client went back to Casablanca, Morocco, where he's a native of, to visit his family. Through the Charles de Gaulle Airport in France, he boarded a plane and was heading towards San Francisco. Three hours en route, three hours en route, the pilot comes on to the intercom and states that there's a security breach on that flight. My client, along with the rest of the passengers on that flight, became quite distressed and distraught. They turned the flight back around. They land. Two French officials board the plane and approach my client. And it's at that point that Yassine discovers that he is the security breach.

And from there, he has to purchase his own ticket back to Casablanca, where again he's handed over to the officials, the Moroccan officials, and he is investigated and questioned there for over a month. And during the course of the investigations and the questioning and interrogations, he's literally told that the United States government wants for his cooperation. He really truly believes that they have the wrong name, the wrong individual, so he attempt to come back into the United States through Montreal, Canada, so that he can access the government here and try to figure out exactly where the problem was. Now, when he enters back through New York, the FBI come and visit him, and they give him a card, and they say the FBI agent in San Francisco is awaiting his response.

AMY GOODMAN: We just have 30 seconds, Banafsheh.

BANAFSHEH AKHLAGHI: The issue is, if you are looking for terrorists, if you are looking for national security threats, these are not the mechanisms and the ways to do it, because if Yassine was truly a threat, back within the community, these types of evidence are being collected. And individuals, if they had a negative thought about the United States, based on these actions, can truly start to look at ways to be able to harm us. Yassine is not one of those individuals.

AMY GOODMAN: We want to thank you very much for being with us. Banafsheh Akhlaghi is the attorney for Yassine Ouassif. In the Wall Street Journal piece by Peter Waldman, "A Muslim's Choice: Turn U.S. Informant or Risk Losing Visa," it ends with a quote of Mr. Ouassif. He says, "It's okay to ask me or anyone else if you see a dangerous person, an extremist, will you call us," he says. "Of course, I will. But I don't want to live a secret life." 



-------- us

Bush may seek $110B more to fund wars

Jul. 13, 2006 Washington Times

http://washtimes.com/upi/20060713-065309-2185r.htm

The White House might ask the U.S. Congress for another $110 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan early next year.

      The $110 billion figure includes a fiscal 2007 supplemental request in the $60 billion range, followed by another $50 billion "bridge fund" as part of the regular fiscal 2008 budget to fund military operations through the first part of that fiscal year according to the Bush administration's annual "mid-session" budget review released Tuesday and reported by CongressDaily Wednesday

      The review is only a rough estimate of anticipated war-related spending. However, it tracks with funding levels appropriated during the last few fiscal years, CongressDaily said.

      The $110 billion request would boost military spending in Iraq and Afghanistan to about $560 billion since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, with associated foreign aid pushing that figure closer to $600 billion, the report said.

      Earlier this year as part of its fiscal 2007 budget submission, the administration for the first time included an allowance for an initial $50 billion installment to pay for the wars. But inclusion of future anticipated war costs in preliminary budget estimates is unprecedented for the Bush administration, and is the result of prodding by senior Republicans like Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, CongressDaily said.

      Including the fiscal 2006 supplemental and fiscal 2007 bridge fund, for example, Congress during the current fiscal year will have enacted about $116 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

      "This is the first time we've projected these costs this far in advance, and looking this far ahead, I will tell you, is very difficult. There's a lot of uncertainty involved in it," Office of Management and Budget Director Rob Portman told reporters. 



-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE


-------- terrorism

Officials: Terror plotters targeted flood wall at Trade Center

Posted 7/13/2006 (AP) 

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-07-13-tunnel-plot_x.htm

NEW YORK — The suspects in a terrorist plot targeting lower Manhattan hoped to unleash a catastrophic flood by destroying a huge underground wall that keeps Hudson River water out of the World Trade Center site, two law enforcement officials said Thursday.

It was unclear how the suspects hoped to bring down the so-called slurry wall, which was quietly put under 24-hour police protection in recent weeks once details of the plot began to emerge, the officials told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because the scheme was still under investigation.

A yearlong investigation had revealed that the eight suspects "specifically wanted to take out the slurry wall in hopes of flooding the financial district," one of the officials said.

The vulnerability of the wall — viewed each day by hundreds of tourists visiting ground zero — became a concern for law enforcement and engineers following the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

The FBI and police did not mention the retaining wall as a target last week while confirming reports that plotters envisioned an attack in the fall on rapid transit tunnels, which run under the river and connect to the Trade Center site. The plot also allegedly involved suicide bombers on trains.

The FBI and NYPD declined comment Thursday.

Officials last week said FBI agents monitoring Internet chat rooms used by overseas extremists learned of the plot. They described the conversations as mostly extremists discussing and conceptualizing the plot, which was disrupted before suspects could come to New York and become a more serious threat.

Officials cited the arrest of a Lebanese suspect — described as the scheme's mastermind — as a significant break in the investigation. Lebanese authorities said the Beirut man claimed he was acting on Osama bin Laden's orders.

The slurry wall was built to surround the foundations of the twin towers when they were being built in the late 1960s, resisting pressure from the Hudson River and waterfront land. The wall is 3-feet thick, more than 70-feet deep and stretches about four blocks.

The towers also helped hold the river back; when they were destroyed — leaving a 16-acre, 70-foot deep construction site — there was little to support the wall, except for some protruding steel cables.

Engineers have worked over the years to reinforce the wall while the site is being rebuilt. The estimated cost of repairing it contributed to the once $1 billion proposed price tag for the planned Sept. 11 memorial.

The site's owner, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, has since agreed to pay $150 million to shore up the wall and do other work to make sure the memorial can be built on the spots where the towers stood.



-------- POLITICS


-------- us politics

Lessons unlearned: Why Bush is failing in Iraq

By Steve Weinberg, Boston Globe Correspondent  |  July 13, 2006

http://www.boston.com/ae/books/articles/2006/07/13/lessons_unlearned_why_bush_is_failing_in_iraq/

The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created a War Without End, By Peter W. Galbraith, Simon & Schuster, 260 pp., $26

Books criticizing the three-year-old presence in Iraq of US military personnel and civilian contractors abound. Each of those books, naturally, offers a somewhat unique perspective. Of all the books I have read, Peter W. Galbraith's ``The End of Iraq" contains the most useful information for readers across the bitterly divided spectrum: readers who support George W. Bush's war policy and readers who oppose it, readers who already know a lot about the history of Iraq and readers who are mostly unschooled, readers who believe the United States should serve as the world's police force and readers who believe socioeconomic problems within American boundaries ought to receive priority.

Before learning about the unalloyed virtues of Galbraith's book, know this: It is a bitter book, an indictment of Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and many others who serve the administration. Although Galbraith is a Democrat , the indictment is based not so much on partisan politics as on Galbraith's outrage at the administration's failure to make decisions based on historical and contemporary fact .

Unlike many critics and supporters of the American presence in Iraq, Galbraith has considerable firsthand experience in that part of the world. As a US Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff member during the 1980s and 1990s, he traveled there multiple times and also saw reams of non-public information provided to Congress. Since leaving government service, Galbraith has been to Iraq more than a dozen times, as a freelance writer and as a consultant to ABC News. Furthermore, Galbraith has watched another nation, Yugoslavia, atomize along ethnic and religious lines much as Iraq has done. During the Clinton White House years , Galbraith served as an ambassador to Croatia while helping to mediate a ceasefire of sorts in the former Yugoslavia.

Yugoslavia is especially relevant to a discussion of the book's overarching messages: Neither Yugoslavia nor Iraq ever should be considered a legitimate ``country" in semantic terms, with an easily identifiable national interest. Instead, those locales served as constructs convenient to outside powers like the United States, places where traditionally warring populations became unwilling neighbors in the interests of postwar geopolitical compromises.

In modern-day Iraq, the mix involves three primary group s: the Shiite Persian branch of Islam, the numerical majority; the Sunni Arab branch of Islam, a sometimes violent minority as exemplified by dictator Saddam Hussein; and the Kurdish population, who considered themselves worthy of a separate nation.

So, Galbraith wonders, given peoples who despise one another, why would Bush or anybody else who understands the lessons of history invade their territory under the guise of establishing a unified democratic government?

In one of his more charitably worded criticisms, Galbraith writes, ``With regard to Iraq, President Bush and his top advisors have consistently substituted wishful thinking for analysis and hope for strategy."

The imperfect course of action, circa 2006 : Withdraw American troops and advisers, Galbraith says . ``The conventional response to discussions of Iraq's breakup is to say it would be destabilizing. This is a misreading of Iraq's modern history. It is the holding of Iraq together by force that has been destabilizing. This has led to big armies, repressive governments, squandered oil revenues, genocide at home, and aggression abroad. Today, America's failed effort to build a unified and democratic Iraq has spawned a ferocious insurgency and a Shiite theocracy."



-------- ENERGY 

'Global fear' over energy plans

Thursday, 13 July 2006 (BBC)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/5170152.stm

People fear energy policies are threatening the environment and global stability, a BBC poll suggests.

The findings from across 19 countries come in the run-up to the G8 summit in St Petersburg, Russia, which will focus on energy security.

Carried out for the BBC World Service, the poll of nearly 20,000 people indicates concern that some energy suppliers will withhold oil exports.

The study also found wide support for alternative energy strategies.

The poll illustrates a perceived triple threat from the way the world produces and uses energy.

Majorities across all 19 countries indicate that citizens fear:

    * the climate and environment are being harmed
    * that the global economy will be destabilised
    * that competition for energy will lead to greater conflict

Some eight out of 10 of those questioned were worried about the threat to the environment. In Australia, Great Britain, Canada and Italy the level of concern topped 90%.

The findings back a conclusion by an expert panel recently convened by BBC News that climate change is "real and dangerous" and that politicians were unlikely to cut emissions to prevent global warming.

Alternative energy

Doug Miller, president of the poll firm GlobeScan, said: "What's fascinating is that in the midst of historically high energy prices and geopolitical tensions, the number one energy concern in every industrialised country we surveyed is the environmental and climate impacts."

Creating tax incentives to encourage the use of alternative energy sources such as wind and solar power found favour with 80% of respondents.

But there was lukewarm support for more nuclear energy to reduce reliance on fossil fuels. On average, 49% were in favour of building more nuclear plants.
	
Save energy - but not at any cost

This week's G8 meeting coincides with a new surge in oil prices, which are hovering around $70 a barrel.

Majorities of 60% or more in 18 of the 19 countries polled said they feared energy shortages and prices would destabilise the world economy.

The least concerned was Russia, a major oil and gas producer, which benefits from higher prices.

Both US and EU leaders have warned Russia not to use energy as a tool of foreign policy. Earlier this year, the nation's monopoly, Gazprom, cut off gas supplies to Europe during a price dispute with Ukraine.

However, world opinion was evenly divided on whether to trust Russia to honour its energy commitments. On average, 45% said they trusted Russia, while Iran was the least trusted.

Some 73% of those questioned were worried that energy shortages would lead to greater conflict among nations.

In total, 19,579 citizens were interviewed in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Egypt, France, Germany, Great Britain, India, Israel, Italy, Kenya, Mexico, Philippines, Poland, Russia, South Korea, Ukraine and the US.

Polling was conducted for the BBC World Service by polling firm GlobeScan and its research partners. 

Graph showing snapshot of poll results

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/5170152.stm#map

Graph showing trust in Russian energy supply:
Figure shows % who trust Russia "a lot" and "some"
Polling conducted: 26 May - 2 July 2006
Sample size: 19,579 people in 19 countries
Margin of error +/-2.5 - 4%

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41877000/gif/_41877918_russia_energy_203.gif

----

For energy security, think nuclear

By Graham Allison International Herald Tribune
Published: July 13, 2006

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/07/13/opinion/edallison.php

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts Who is the No. 1 producer of energy in the world today? Russia. Measured in barrels of oil equivalent, Russia produces over 20 million barrels of oil and gas a day. The United States ranks second, and Saudi Arabia third with 11 million.
 
Who is the No. 1 exporter of energy in the world today? Again, Russia. While Saudi Arabian oil production exceeds Russia by 1.5 million barrels a day, Russia's natural gas exports dwarf those of Saudi Arabia.
 
Who is the No. 1 consumer of energy in the world today? The United States. The United States consumes approximately one quarter of all the energy
 
produced from all sources in the world (and accounts for about 25 percent of global GNP). No. 2 is Europe, burning 17 percent of the world's energy.
 
So it is no accident, as the Russians say, that President Vladimir Putin chose "energy security" as the banner for the G-8
 
in St. Petersburg this week. No issue so vividly highlights Russia's strength and underscores the other members' weakness.
 
The G-8 communiqué will disguise differences among the parties, calling for increases in supply, conservation, respect for free-market principles, and affordable prices. The brute fact, however, is that what divides energy producers from energy consumers is more significant than what unites them.
 
When consumers talk about energy security, they mean assured supply, free from interruption, at low prices. They urge Russia and Saudi Arabia to invest in rapid expansion of production in the hope that this will trigger significant declines in prices. They seek
 
to bring Russia's pipeline network under international rules that will prevent any use of oil and gas supplies as a political weapon.
 
For producers, energy security means principally security of demand. From their perspective, high prices equal more income and more valuable reserves. They worry about overinvestment in new capacity that could cause sharp price declines as occurred in the 1990s.
 
Russia wants to be known as a reliable supplier - indeed, the most reliable supplier - in order to discourage consumers from pursuing alternatives. But to the extent that it can create dependencies in ways that provide potential political leverage, this is not an unintended byproduct.
 
The best hope for useable results in St. Petersburg lies in the nuclear arena. Here the central truth is that for peaceful nuclear energy to prosper, dangerous atoms must be effectively secured.
 
Building on the foundation laid by George W. Bush and Putin, this summit should announce a U.S.-Russian civil nuclear agreement - a new global "gold standard" to which all nuclear weapons and materials will be secured; a supply of guaranteed fuel at bargain prices for nations that forgo national enrichment of uranium, and a principle of nuclear accountability by which each state will be held to account for all nuclear weapons and materials it produces.
 
Graham Allison, director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, is the author of "Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe."
 


-------- alternative energy

US Road Trip Rallies for Ethanol Stations

Story by Bernie Woodall
REUTERS US: July 13, 2006

http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/37221/story.htm

LOS ANGELES - Recent graduate Mark Pike and his two best college buddies take off Wednesday on a 10-day trip across the United States to see a few baseball games and visit some friends before devoting their lives to careers.

Sounds like a fairly typical right of passage voyage until one learns that Pike will drive a Ford Crown Victoria fueled only with ethanol-gasoline blends and will stop to rally for more E85 fuel stations along the way.

E85 is a mix of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline. Ethanol is ethyl alcohol that in the United States is primarily made from corn. It is currently the most available alternative to gasoline.

Not all cars can run on such a high mix of ethanol-gasoline, but there are 5 million "flex fuel" vehicles in the US like the one Pike will drive, and their number is rising.

Steve Geer, manager of online advocacy for the Center for American Progress, which is sponsoring the trip, said that of the 170,000 US gasoline stations, only 750 offer E85.

"We're worried about having to take huge detours. We are going to have to plot our course way in advance to ensure that only E85 is used in the trip," said primary driver Pike.

The Washington, D.C.-to-Los Angeles trip will be launched by Illinois Democratic Senator Barack Obama and is geared toward creating more awareness among young Americans of ethanol as an alternative to gasoline.

The Center for American Progress claims to have progressive members from both major political parties.

The trip is also part of the organization's "Kick the Oil Habit" campaign, which harkens back to President George W. Bush's call in last January's State of the Union Address to wean Americans from their addiction to foreign oil.

One of the first stops Wednesday will be outside Exxon Mobil's offices in Fairfax, Virginia near Washington to deliver a letter the organization is offering on its Internet website. http://www.kicktheoilhabit.org/

The letter calls on six big oil companies -- Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips, Chevron, BP, Royal Dutch Shell and Valero -- to "double the number of E85 pumps over the next year and provide the green fuel at half of all gas stations within a decade."

STEP IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION

Ethanol is not universally supported and opponents include more than the Big Oil companies.

While its costs are higher than gasoline, the Center for American Progress's Geer said the price of ethanol will drop once production increases.

Ethanol gets less gas mileage, and energy used to grow and refine corn into the fuel consumes a lot of energy that causes pollution anyway, according to the Consumer Energy Council of America.

The same group points out the benefits of ethanol, including the lower polluting emissions, support for local economies and independence from foreign sources of oil.

"The central issue is America's dependence on oil and kicking the oil habit," said Geer. "Ethanol is not a final solution but a very good step in the right direction."

"We are committed to making it from D.C. to L.A. on American vehicles on American fuel," he added.



-------- OTHER


-------- environment

Poisonous mud wreaks havoc on Java

13/07/2006 Australia Broadcasting

http://www.abc.net.au/nature/news/NatureNews_1686353.htm

Poisonous mud and gas is erupting from kilometres below the earth and 8,000 people are displaced and hundreds hospitalised on the Indonesian island of Java.

The calamity has been caused by a gas exploration project near Surabaya in East Java that has gone horribly wrong, and for the past six weeks, has unleashed hundreds of tonnes of hot toxic mud.

Indonesia's police are threatening to charge some of the drill operators with criminal negligence, with two Australian companies caught up in the row.

Oil and gas giant Santos is a minority shareholder in the venture, while the expertise of another Australian company - Century Resources - has been called in to try and halt the blow out.

Six weeks ago, a drilling rig on this site reached three kilometres underground and encountered a problem.

Attempts were made to shut the well, but then the earth opened up.

First, a major crack appeared and now they have appeared all around, spewing at least 500 cubic metres of toxic mud every day.

An area of 12 square kilometres has now been covered and four entire villages have been affected, displacing almost 8,000 people.

The house of the residents of Sidoarjo are chest-deep in mud, along with their rice paddies and the factories where they work.

Thousands of the internally displaced now live at this new concrete market complex, turned refugee camp.

Each person surviving on handouts of $11 a week.

Imam Kholili has lost both his family's home, and his livelihood.

His street is now under more than 1m of mud and he says the inside of his home is even worse.

"It came from that direction, the one who saw it coming first was my wife, because she was selling stuff out here," he said.

"The men were actually working out here fixing the dam, but the dam was not strong enough, so my wife started rescuing our children and our belongings to take them to the camp when the mud came, flowing like hot water."

Compensation

Stopping the mud flows could take months, despite attempts to do so with a snubbing unit brought in by the project's coordinator and majority shareholder, Lapindo Brantas.

The final compensation bill is expected to run into the hundreds of millions of dollars.

One of the project's minority partners: the Australian gas and oil giant, Santos, released a statement saying that it has appropriate insurance cover for such occurrences.

Santos, which has an 18 per cent stake in the venture, does not want to comment further, other than to say that: "Santos is deeply concerned by [the] incident, particularly its impact on the local community and the environment".

"Santos is monitoring the response efforts closely, with an immediate priority of supporting measures by the Operator of the well to assist those affected and to minimise the environmental impact."

The project's other partner is PTMedco with a 32 per cent stake. W

While it will not comment publicly, a leaked letter to Lapindo Brantas makes it clear where it stands.

"We consider Lapindo Brantas has committed a gross negligence [for not] anticipating potential hole problems [and setting the right drill-casing] as agreed in the drilling program," the letter reads.

Santos declined an opportunity to comment on the letter, but a representative of the Bakrie family group, S Zudhi Pane, which owns Lapindo Brantas, says all the project's partners agreed to the drilling program.

"Of course, even from the very beginning when we propose, Lapindo Brantas proposed to drill this, the drilling proposal as well as the agreed drilling procedure and program agreed by all the parties, including Santos," he said.

Police investigation

The drilling contractor hired by Lapindo is currently the focus of a police investigation.

Fifty people have been interviewed and six may face charges punishable by up to 12 years in jail.

Environmentalists say the searing mud is a toxic brew of harmful chemicals churned up with dangerous gases.

Indonesian Environment Forum spokesman Torry Kuswardono says it can cause infection to the respiratory systems.

"There are two things: first, it's the mud and second, it's the gas, the hydrogen sulphide," he said.

Hundreds hospitalised

Hundreds of people, particularly the young and old, have been hospitalised, complaining of nausea, diahorrea and breathing problems, others just get burnt.

"Bad, the skin is peeled off on both legs. It's been one week and they're still feeling hot," patient Achmad Basyori said.

The Sidoarjo incident is a toxic cocktail of political power, corporate negligence and environmental disaster, which has the nation's activists looking for someone on whom the mud might stick.

Bandung Institute of Technology spokesman Harya Setyaka S Dillon says the country has never seen a disaster like this in such magnitude.

"The backyard of all these people, so many affected by this, and sort of a blatant disregard by the very senior officials of the government," he said.

Mr Kushwardono says he things everybody who were involved to invest in Lapindo in Brantas plot has to be embarrassed because of these accidents.

"Because they invest in a very irresponsible project," he said.

No imminent solution is in sight, but another Australian company - Century Resources - is on its way, hoping that its 1,500 tonne drilling rig might relieve at least some of the pressure underground.

----

Gas exploration disaster hits Indonesia

Reporter: Geoff Thompson
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
TV PROGRAM TRANSCRIPT
Broadcast: 13/07/2006

http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2006/s1686339.htm

MAXINE MCKEW: Poisonous mud and gas erupting from kilometres below the earth, 8,000 people displaced and hundreds hospitalised: it all sounds like another of Indonesia's frequent natural disasters, but not this time. The latest calamity on the island of Java has been caused by a gas exploration project that has gone horribly wrong, and for the past six weeks, has unleashed hundreds of tonnes of hot toxic mud. Indonesia's police are threatening to charge some of the drill operators with criminal negligence. And caught up in it all are two Australian companies. Oil and gas giant Santos is a minority shareholder in the venture, while the expertise of another Australian company - Century Resources - has been called in to try and halt the blow out. Indonesia Correspondent Geoff Thompson filed this report from the affected area near Surabaya in East Java.

MAN #1: A disaster like this has never occurred before.

MAN #2: This is very deep and we don't know yet until today what's happened in Sidoarjo.

MAN #3: This is a disaster for the people.

GEOFF THOMPSON, INDONESIA CORRESPONDENT: Perched atop the Pacific Rim of fire, Indonesia is certainly no stranger to natural catastrophes, and when hot toxic mud first burst from the ground near a gas exploration well in east Java, people were quick to blame the earthquake in Yogyakarta, 270 kilometres away. But this misfortune is of man's making. Six weeks ago, a drilling rig on this site reached three kilometres underground and encountered a problem. Attempts were made to shut the well, but then the earth opened up. First, a major crack appeared here and now they've appeared all around, spewing at least 500 cubic metres of toxic mud every day. An area of 12 square kilometres has now been covered and four entire villages have been affected, displacing almost 8,000 people.

IMAM KHOLILI (Translation): When smeltered, I had trouble breathing and a sore throat and felt like I wanted to be sick.

GEOFF THOMPSON: There's been no World Cup fun for the residents of Sidoarjo. Their houses are chest-deep in mud, along with their rice paddies and the factories where they work. Thousands of the internally displaced now live at this new concrete market complex, turned refugee camp. Each person surviving on handouts of $11 a week. Imam Kholili has lost both his family's home, and his livelihood. He took us back to where life as he knew it hit the end of the road. His street is now under more than 1m of mud and he says the inside of his home is even worse.

IMAM KHOLILI (Translation): It came from that direction, the one who saw it coming first was my wife, because she was selling stuff out here. The men were actually working out here fixing the dam, but the dam was not strong enough, so my wife started rescuing our children and our belongings to take them to the camp when the mud came, flowing like hot water.

GEOFF THOMPSON: Stopping the mud flows could take months, despite attempts to do so with a snubbing unit brought in by the project's coordinator and majority shareholder, Lapindo Brantas. Amir Hamzah represents the Indonesian Government's gas and oil regulator responsible for the project.

AMIR HAMZAH, BP MIGAS: But the competition is not finished yet, of course. We are awaiting the team to calculate any possible... any possible compensation that we have to do it.

GEOFF THOMPSON: The final compensation bill is expected to run into the hundreds of millions of dollars. Not exactly welcome news to one of the project's minority partners: the Australian gas and oil giant, Santos, which has released a statement saying that it has appropriate insurance cover for such occurrences. Santos, which has an 18 per cent stake in the venture, does not want to comment further. Other than to say that: "Santos is deeply concerned by [the] incident, particularly its impact on the local community and the environment. Santos is monitoring the response efforts closely, with an immediate priority of supporting measures by the Operator of the well to assist those affected and to minimise the environmental impact." The project's other partner is PTMedco with a 32 per cent stake. And while it won't comment publicly, a leaked letter to Lapindo Brantas makes it clear where it stands. "We consider Lapindo Brantas," the letter reads, "has committed a gross negligence [for not] anticipating potential hole problems [and setting the right drill-casing] as agreed in the drilling program", it says. Santos declined an opportunity to comment on the letter, but a representative of the Bakrie family group, which owns Lapindo Brantas, says all the project's partners agreed to the drilling program.

S. ZUDHI PANE, PT BUMI RESOURCES TBK.: Of course, even from the very beginning when we propose, Lapindo Brantas proposed to drill this, the drilling proposal as well as the agreed drilling procedure and program agreed by all the parties, including Santos.

AMIR HAMZAH: I don't know yet, I don't know yet, so this is very difficult because they have their own business. We don't know what's happened between Santos and also Lapindo Brantas as well. We'll be waiting on it.

GEOFF THOMPSON: The drilling contractor hired by Lapindo is currently the focus of a police investigation. 50 people have been interviewed and six may face charges punishable by up to 12 years in jail.

M. AMHAR AZETH, CHIEF OF DETECTIVES, EAST JAVA: We started from the man in the field - what you said just now - the little people, because he is the doer, you know. He was done something.

GEOFF THOMPSON: So you're starting from the bottom and working your way up?

AMHAR AZETH: That's right. This is, you know, the Indonesian, you know, procedure of setting up the law.

GEOFF THOMPSON: Indonesian procedure also allowed Lapindo's drilling contract to go to a company also under the influence of the powerful Bakrie family, of which Indonesia's ambitious chief welfare minister, Aburizal Bakrie, is the leading light.

ZUDHI PANE: I'm quite sure that Lapindo already do everything in accordance with the normal procedure; at least, in this country.

GEOFF THOMPSON: The normal procedures, but that still means that family-linked companies can get the contract?

ZUDHI PANE: Mm, I'd rather not comment on that. (Laughs)

GEOFF THOMPSON: Environmentalists say the searing mud is a toxic brew of harmful chemicals churned up with dangerous gases.

TORRY KUSWARDONO, INDONESIAN ENVIRONMENT FORUM: There are two things: first, it's the mud and second, it's the gas, the hydrogen sulphide. It can cause severe infection to the respiratory systems.

GEOFF THOMPSON: Hundreds of people, particularly the young and old, have been hospitalised, complaining of nausea, diahorrea and breathing problems. Others just get burnt.

ACHMAD BASYORI (Translation): Bad, the skin is peeled off on both legs. It's been one week and they're still feeling hot.

GEOFF THOMPSON: The Sidoarjo incident is a toxic cocktail of political power, corporate negligence and environmental disaster, which has the nation's activists looking for someone on whom the mud might stick.

HARYA SETYAKA S. DILLON, BANDUNG INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY: The country has never seen a disaster like this, such magnitude, you know, the backyard of all these people, so many affected by this, and sort of a blatant disregard by the very senior officials of the government.

TORRY KUSHWARDONO: I think everybody who were involved to invest in Lapindo in Brantas plot has to be embarrassed because of these accidents. Because they invest in a very irresponsible project.

GEOFF THOMPSON: No imminent solution is in sight, but another Australian company - Century Resources - is on its way, hoping that its 1,500 tonne drilling rig might relieve some of the pressure; underground, at least.



-------- ACTIVISTS

The Rev. Billy Graham is No Phil Berrigan!

by William Hughes
(Thursday July 13 2006) Media Monitors Network

http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/32462

"The Rev. Billy Graham was in Baltimore recently doing his religious revival thing. For years, he was a crony of warmongering presidents, like Richard M. Nixon. Rev. Graham’s preaching never attracted me. However, the life work of the late Phil Berrigan, an ex-Josephite priest, had a profound influence on me, and others. Berrigan spoke the truth to power. He relentlessly took on the War Party and spent 11 of his 79 years in prison for his protest actions."

“Phil Berrigan took the Gospel...personally!”

-- Martin Sheen

Baltimore, MD - The Rev. Billy Graham, now 87 years old and once a crony of the disgraced President, Richard M. Nixon, was in town recently doing his evangelical thing. He rallied the faithful at Camden Yards, located near Harborplace, over a three day period. Graham’ call, according to his PR flacks, brought crowds estimated at 83,000 to the baseball facility, including about 3,200, who made the big decision to “dedicate their lives to Christ." [1] Camden Yards sits near a site, that once housed a pub owned by the father of George Herman “Babe” Ruth, the home-run hitting legend, New York Yankee great, and native Baltimorean. [2]

Rev. Graham has been doing his preaching gig for over 60 years. He has reportedly spoken to “more than 210 million people in 185 countries and territories.” [1] My question is this: To what end? Rev. Graham has made no impression on me at all. None. While the late Phil Berrigan, an ex-Josephite priest, who lived for many years in Baltimore, and died there, on Dec. 6, 2002, has. [3] Why was I influenced so profoundly by Berrigan? Because he, unlike the timid Rev. Graham, dared to speak the truth to power! He took on the nation’s War Party, whether it was headed by Richard Nixon, LBJ, that union-bashing Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, or Bush 1 or Bush 2. Berrigan courageously acted out his Biblical duties. He spent 11 of his 79 years in prison protesting the excesses of America’s militarism, nuclear weapons' proliferation, and its War and Death Machine. What was Rev. Graham doing all of that time? Well, he was busy, "praying" with presidents, and traveling around the globe “talking” about the Gospel!

Berrigan, a WWII U.S. Army veteran, a 2nd Lieutenant in the infantry, saw protests “as prophetic acts,” based on the Biblical injunction of beating swords into plowshares. [4] Rev. Graham, who brought his type of religious crusades to Baltimore before, in 1949 and 1981, on the other hand, has been in league with the warmongers. He comforted, cozied up to, and covered for them. And, as a result, Rev. Graham regularly got his invitations to the White House, along with photo ops, too, on the lawn or in the Oval office, with whomever was the president at that moment. All of it was very nice, indeed. Rev. Graham was giving these presidents’ warmongering policies his imprimatur, while the gutsy Berrigan was doing hard time in a federal prison hole for saying "no" to them.

Also, Rev. Graham never heard a shot fired in anger during his long career. Berrigan did! He learned about the horrors of war at Normandy and the Battle of the Bulge, and in the trenches of Western Europe, and not from watching any Steven Speilberg movie. He also stood against the war in Vietnam and mentored a new generation of antiwar activists, while also opposing the oppression of the poor in Central and South America, Apartheid in South Africa, the crime of British colonialism in the north of Ireland and the brutal Israeli occupation of the Palestinian people. [5]

Back, in May, 1968, Berrigan railed against the mousey leaders in the Christian churches, and synagogues, too, in the U.S. He, and eight others, were arrested in Catonsville, Baltimore County, for protesting the Vietnam War by burning 378 "1-A" draft card records. (6) On that auspicious occasion, he declared: "We confront the Catholic Church, other Christian bodies and the synagogues of America with their silence and cowardice in the face of our country's crimes. We are convinced that the religious bureaucracy in this country is racist, is an accomplice in this war and is hostile to the poor." [4] Rev. Graham didn't listen then to that antiwar message. Will he listen, now?

I hope no one thinks I'm just picking on the Protestants here? I'm not! I'm also married to one, whose grandfather was a Lutheran minister. I believe the leaders of the Roman Catholic Church in this country, particularly most of the RC Bishops, are just as bad as Rev. Graham, or worse. They are in bed with the Bush-Cheney Gang. Hardly a word against the Iraqi War has come out of their mouths. To date, that conflict has cost the taxpayers $295.5 billion ($10 billion a month) and the lives of 2,545 of U.S. military personnel. God only knows how many Iraqis have been slaughtered in this Neocon-inspired disaster, which was based on a pack of rotten lies. [7] Some estimate the Iraqi dead at over 300,000. [8]

Oh sure, the Bishops and the RC Church have a policy paper saying that they are against the Iraqi conflict, but I believe that is only for show. On Aug. 3, 2004, at a Knights of Columbus-sponsored convention, held in Dallas, Texas, the Bishops did everything but endorse George W. Bush, Jr. for his presidential reelection bid. [9] I suspect, but I can’t prove, that in return for their “implicit” support, the White House gave them two seats on the Supreme Court, Judge John Roberts and Judge Samuel Alito. Meanwhile, the Bishops continue to insist to the world that they are pro-LIfe. I don’t buy that one either. I think that they are only pro-fetus. If they were truly pro-Life, they would stand against this terrible Iraqi War, the arms race and Israel's monstrous treatment of the Palestinians. They would also advocate for life-affirming stem cell research, instead of keeping their heads buried in a totally irrelevant, and outdated, theology script, written probably by some female-hating, socially warped, 16th century monk.

Getting back to Rev. Graham. His ministry has been about bringing “Jesus” (pbuh), to people and “peace” into their hearts, and giving them "a new start" in their lives. [1]. I think that is all for the good and he deserves praise for that effort. Somehow though, it hasn’t been nearly enough. Where are the voices of the Evangelicals, including his, against the Iraqi War? [10] I believe that if you truly “know” God, (use your own name here for the deity), then you would be incapable of supporting an illegal and immoral war, bombing Fallujah back into the Stone Age, repeatedly lobbing artillery shells into a refugee camp in Occupied Palestine, or cutting off the head of an innocent hostage, like Nick Berg. "Knowing God" brings with it a spirituality that embraces the oneness of humankind. This important principle is found in all of the great religions. It only needs to be taught by their so-called "leaders." Berrigan's life, as a Christian warrior for peace and justice, was an exemplary lesson of that kind of higher spirituality.

Finally, even as Berrigan was slowing dying from cancer, his voice rang out for a better America and a saner world. In his last public appearance, at an event sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee, (AFSC), a Quaker group, on March 19, 2002, in Baltimore, he warned against the dangers of nuclear weapons, the emerging threats towards our civil liberties, and the spread of toxic depleted uranium. Berrigan, a quintessential man of conscience, and the Antiwar Movement's dissenter emeritus, also said, prophetically, referring to the insidious evil that is the Bush-Cheney Gang: “The times are ominous.” [11] He was buried in a coffin made of plain wood. [3] Berrigan's undaunted spirit, however, was covered in God's glory.

Notes:

[1]. “Baltimore Hears Graham’s Call,” Baltimore Sun, 07/10/06, by Matthew Brown.

[2]. “The LIfe and Times of Babe Ruth” by Leigh Montville.

[3]. http://homepage.mac.com/bhughes2/iMovieTheater74.html

[4]. http://www.why-war.com/news/2002/12/07/philipbe.html

[5]. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13952.htm

[6]. http://www.jonahhouse.org/catonsville9.htm

[7]. http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/

[8]. http://www.irishantiwar.org/news/item.tcl?scope=public&news_item_id=102238

[9]. http://baltimore.indymedia.org/newswire/display/10734/index.php

[10]. http://www.counterpunch.org/boston07122006.html

[11]. http://homepage.mac.com/bhughes2/iMovieTheater22.html

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Government Monitored Anti-War Group E-Mails
Report Shows Department of Defense Surveillance of UC Berkeley Students’ Plans to Hold Protest

BY Kaitlin Anderson
Contributing Writer
Thursday, July 13, 2006

http://www.dailycal.org/sharticle.php?id=20897

Cal Quarterback Suspended At Least One Game After Bar Fight - Jul 3, 2006

Newly surfaced government surveillance reports reveal that the U.S. Department of Defense monitored anti-war and anti-military e-mails sent by UC Berkeley students in April.

The students' e-mails contained plans to host a campus protest against the war in Iraq and against the presence of military recruiters on campus.

The reports, released on June 15 following a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network in January, contained information copied from an e-mail circulated by student group UC Berkeley Stop the War Coalition regarding a protest planned for April 21, 2005 on Sproul Plaza.

Multiple protest e-mails were submitted to the department's Talon database-which stores information about potential terrorist threats-and were subsequently processed, reviewed and stored, according to the report.

The UC Berkeley coalition planned to protest the presence of campus military recruiters at the annual campus career fair. In March 2005, the ASUC passed a resolution charging recruiters' presence violates the campus anti-discrimination policy because of the military's opposition to recruitment of gays and lesbians.

Nothing in the e-mail specifically referenced terrorism or outlined specific plans of the protesters, but the surveillance report stated that there was "a strong potential for a confrontation at this protest given the strong support for anti-war protests and movements in the past."

"When I saw the report, I thought, 'What are they talking about?'" said Ehud Appel, a UC Berkeley senior majoring in Middle Eastern studies and a member of the Stop the War Coalition. "They trumped up and exaggerated security concerns that we intended harm."

The reports, which also included detailed information about anti-war protests copied from student e-mails at UC Santa Cruz, New York University, William Paterson University and Southern Connecticut State University, came from the department's Talon reporting system.

The Talon reporting system compiles and analyzes information reported as suspicious to help the department avert potential terrorist attacks.

Civilians and department personnel report suspicious activity through a web-based system, and the information is stored in the larger Talon database Pentagon spokesperson Cmdr. Greg Hicks said in an e-mail.

"The DoD does not do surveillance on student activism," Hicks said. "We do not monitor student e-mails."

Hicks said he did not know whether civilian or military personnel provided the information about the protest at UC Berkeley.

Hicks said because the e-mails did not contain a foreign terrorist threat nexus, the e-mails were stored in error and have since been removed.

For some, the surveillance reports raise concerns about free speech and privacy rights.

"This is a suppression of constitutional rights," said Rebecca Sawyer, a Servicemembers Legal Defense Network associate. "The federal government has no business peeping through the keyhole of Americans exercising their First Amendment rights."

Appel said the report references information that was not contained in the e-mails, which he said indicates actions by the department could extend beyond the monitoring of e-mail.

"I don't know what they were looking for, but that they actually put (the e-mails) through the process, applying scrutiny and resources," he said. "I find that telling there is some kind of concern for student counter- recruit action."

Contact Kaitlin Anderson at kanderson@dailycal.org.