NucNews September 6, 2006 -------- NUCLEAR -------- accidents and safety Rumour of Kola Nuclear accident appear to be false September 6, 2006 http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Rumour_of_Kola_Nuclear_accident_appear_to_be_false Rumours of an accident at the Russian Kola Nuclear Plant appear to be false. The rumours have been circulating after an emergency shutdown of the reactor—known as a SCRAM—at unit 3 of the plant. According to the Swedish Nuclear Power Inspectorate, they have been in contact with the management of the Kola plant and they confirm a SCRAM at unit 3 of the plant that is now under investigation. -------- asia Kazakhstan Reports Jump In Uranium Output September 6, 2006 (RFE/RL) http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2006/09/67cf10aa-d7c4-4338-a024-02930320e3bd.html Kazakhstan has produced 2,400 tons of uranium in the first semester of 2006. Deputy Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Bolat Akchulakov said today that this figure represents an increase of nearly 12 percent compared to the first six months of last year. Addressing a Eurasian energy forum in the capital, Astana, he also said output had quadrupled since 1997. The vice president of KazAtomProm, Kazakhstan's atomic energy agency, Askar Kasabekov, said uranium output could reach 17,000 tons in 2010 and 20,000 tons in 2020. Kasabekov said Kazakhstan's ambition was to become the world's largest uranium producer with an annual output of 30,000 tons. Kazakhstan is currently the world's third-largest uranium producer. It exports uranium to China, Japan, the United States, South Korea, and Russia. (Kazakhstan Today, Interfax-Kazakhstan) -------- business Ceradyne receives initial order for spent nuclear fuel storage 6 September 2006 http://pepei.pennnet.com/Articles/Article_Display.cfm?ARTICLE_ID=271085&p=6 Ceradyne, Inc. received its initial order for boron carbide/aluminum metal matrix composite (MMC) components from Transnuclear for more than $1.5 million. The MMC components are for dry storage of spent nuclear fuel and are scheduled for delivery by the end of second-quarter 2007. Ceradyne Inc.'s new subsidiary, Ceradyne Canada, in Chicoutimi, Quebec, will manufacture the components from MMC ingots, which will be produced by Alcan Inc. utilizing its MMC casting process. The components will be integrated into Transnuclear's NUHOMS Systems, which are used by U.S. nuclear-powered utilities. Transnuclear is a wholly owned U.S. division of Areva Group, a French-based energy company for nuclear power generation and electricity transmission and distribution. Ceradyne develops, manufactures and markets advanced technical ceramic products and components for defense, industrial, automotive/diesel, and commercial applications. ---- Nuclear recycling study weighs value of repository American Recycler, September 6, 2006 http://www.americanrecycler.com/0906bnuclear.shtml Report demonstrates nuclear recycling should be integrated with long-term repository Nuclear fuel recycling, as part of a portfolio strategy in which a large-scale integrated recycling plant complements a repository, could be attractive for solving the long-term used nuclear fuel management requirement of the United States nuclear power market, according to a Boston Consulting Group (BCG) study. Conducted for Bethesda, Md.-based AREVA Inc., a United States nuclear vendor, BCG performed the first extensive study of proprietary operational and financial data from decades of AREVA’s nuclear recycling experience at the La Hague and Melox facilities. “This study shows that current generation recycling technologies for used nuclear fuel are in an economic range that can be competitive,” said Dennis Spurgeon, assistant secretary for Nuclear Energy. “This economic benchmark is useful as we work on advanced recycling technologies that make better use of our energy resources and reduce the space and time needed to store nuclear waste.” “As companies and governments decide how to navigate the opportunities presented by nuclear power technologies, BCG’s economic analysis of AREVA’s experience as one of the world’s leading reprocessing and recycling plant operators offers vital insight into the development of a comprehensive nuclear waste management strategy,” said Rick Peters, senior vice president and the head of BCG’s worldwide energy practice. Using AREVA’s technical experience, BCG evaluated the costs of a large scale fuel treatment plant with enhanced processes integrated with recycled fuel manufacturing. The study reports that recycling, as part of a portfolio strategy in which an integrated treatment and recycling plant complements a repository such as the planned Yucca Mountain repository, offers benefits including: * Increasing the capacity of Yucca Mountain by a factor of four by recycling newly discharged fuel within four years and cooling the vitrified high-level waste for 25 years at the recycling facility. * Providing a comparable cost of disposal while eliminating the need for a second repository during the 50 years of recycling plant operation. * Creating an effective long-term hedge on rising fuel costs by providing 20-25 percent of the annual nuclear fuel needs in the United States through recycled products. * Reducing used fuel inventory by removing the newly discharged, hotter fuel for recycling. * Eliminating the need for additional storage at reactor sites while recycling some of the older legacy fuel in dilution with new fuel. For a copy of the study, visit http://www.bcg.com/publications. ---- Lockheed Martin Awarded Contract For Sonar Upgrades For UK Nuke Missile Submarines Sep 06, 2006 Manassas VA (SPX) http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Lockheed_Martin_Awarded_Contract_For_Sonar_Upgrades_For_UK_Nuke_Missile_Submarines_999.html Lockheed Martin UK has been awarded a seven-year contract to provide combat system upgrades to the sonar systems aboard four Royal Navy Vanguard Class ballistic missile submarines. More than 70 percent of the work will be performed in the United Kingdom. The Vanguard Class submarine's 2054 sonar suite is facing near-term obsolescence. Lockheed Martin will use the Acoustic Rapid Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) Insertion (ARCI) business model, proven in U.S. Navy service, to provide the Royal Navy submarine force with an open-architecture system that will negate obsolescence issues. The move to an open architecture also will make it easier for the Royal Navy to continuously refresh is Sonar 2054 suites as new technologies become available. The ARCI program has been providing continuously increasing sonar capability at decreasing cost to the U.S. Navy's submarine force since 1998. "Winning this contract is a significant milestone for us," said Ian Stopps, chief executive of Lockheed Martin UK. "Not only does it demonstrate our commitment to the Sonar marketplace but by importing and indigenizing a range of highly specialized skills, we will help the UK maintain and develop sovereign capability in this important area now and in the future. We have a unique understanding of systems integration in the UK and are looking forward to bringing new capability to the Vanguard fleet." "We are extremely pleased by our selection as the lead integrator for the Royal Navy's Sonar 2054 program," said John O'Neill, vice president and general manager of Lockheed Martin's Undersea Systems line of business. "We look forward to working with the United Kingdom's Ministry of Defense on this important program and to employing an open business model that maximizes participation by UK small and medium-sized enterprises." Much of the Sonar 2054 work will be performed at existing Lockheed Martin UK facilities, including an integration center in Havant and the Swift Laboratory, a new demonstration and experimentation center in Farnborough that opened in June 2006. -------- canada Plant's radioactive waste a Brampton election issue Candidates being asked to sign pledge Company denies it has plans for incinerator Sep. 6, 2006. 01:00 AM MIKE FUNSTON STAFF REPORTER Toronto Star http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1157493013897&call_pageid=968350130169&StarSource=RSS A Brampton group is using the municipal election as a conventional weapon in a battle to shoot down a metal recycling company's nuclear aspirations. People Against Radioactive Contamination is enlisting the support of Brampton councillors and any candidates challenging them in the Nov. 13 vote, according to group spokeswoman Dora Jeffries. Council has supported the group's stand against an application — since withdrawn — by Mississauga Metals & Alloys Inc. to install an incinerator for low-level radioactive waste (nothing stronger than radiation from a dental X-ray, the company says), and so have other registered candidates who have been approached, Jeffries said. The group plans to ask all candidates to sign a written pledge of support as a way of discouraging a change of heart after the election, she said. It also wants elected officials to oppose any possible revival of the incinerator application or renewal of a licence to process or recycle low-level radioactive materials near residential areas. The plant is located on Sun Pac Blvd., at Williams Parkway E. The dispute heated up recently when the company fired back, warning the group to stop distributing flyers containing alleged defamatory statements. "The company is not trying to stifle public debate," said Chris Barnett, a lawyer acting for the firm. "We understand people are entitled to their opinions and we're happy to engage in public debate. But it has to be based on facts. There is material being distributed which really doesn't have a foundation in fact. "People are in their homes and someone comes to the door with a picture of a barrel with a radioactive symbol on it with the wording `Radioactive waste in our backyard.' We don't think that's promoting responsible debate," Barnett said. When the company is processing low-level radioactive waste, it makes up only 10 per cent of the overall materials being recycled, he said. In a letter to the group, Barnett wrote that the flyers "wrongly convey to members of the public that there is a health-and-safety risk posed by the ongoing operations." The term "radioactive waste" is being used "to convey a sense of dangerous and highly radioactive material." And the low-level radioactive waste present on-site "is stored in keeping with the strict requirements of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, the federal regulatory body." Statements by the group referring to "multiple fires and explosions" at the plant, with references to processing of nuclear materials, "are meant to convey that there is a persistent safety hazard," the letter said. There were fires at the plant in May and June, but they were extinguished without injury, the company said. The plant was cited for national fire code and other safety violations and was shut down for about three weeks. Jeffries said the group has stopped handing out the flyer and the wording will be changed. Barnett said the company has no further plans for an incinerator in Brampton. But it will seek renewal of its licence on Sept. 30 to process and recycle metals with low-level radiation, he said. The company hasn't processed radioactive materials in the city since Dec. 20, 2005, the letter states. The operation was stopped at the request of the nuclear commission. -------- depleted uranium EFFECTS OF DEPLETED URANIUM De Anna MySpace Blog September 6, 2006 Uruknet http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m26469&l=i&size=1&hd=0 Photo: du-baby09.jpg http://www.uruknet.de/pic.php?f=du-baby09.jpg Depleted uranium, known as DU, is a highly dense metal that is the byproduct of the process during which fissionable uranium used to manufacture nuclear bombs and reactor fuel is separated from natural uranium. DU remains radioactive for about 4.5 billion years. Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot ..that it do singe yourself. - William Shakespeare This brief presentation is aimed at conveying to the primarily Indian participants of the Conference the fateful and disastrous consequences of the indiscriminate use of depleted and non DU munitions on the people of the west, central and south Asian regions, women, children , men , animals, plant and animal life now and in the future, in gross violation of international law, the Hague convention and domestic US military law. Official Gamma Ray damage caused studies have been deficient in a number of respects..internal contamination, internal dose to individual cells, omissions of diseases other than cancer, mutagenic, long term degeneration , oncogenesis, effects of the killer isotopes in particular. The case studies of the years 1945-50 were ignored. A recent European Parliament Report ECRR 2003 (European Committee on Radiation Risk ) concludes that A Bomb studies underestimate the radiation risk by more than 1000 times and failed to consider the internal exposure and diseases caused by Alpha and Beta rays. They did not consider the Manhattan Project classified memo that, in case the Project objective of producing Plutonium fission and theA Bomb did not succeed , Depleted Uranium munitions would be deployed towards the attainment of the same objective (encl. 1). DU weapons emit Alpha particle dose to a single cell from U-238 which is 50 times the annual dose level. Cancer is initiated with one alpha particle, its daughter isotopes effect generations as the isotopes bio-concentrate in plants and animals, and travel up the food chain. It is a nuclear weapon because the energy is derived from the nucleus of the atom. They enter the body through the lungs, the digestive system or breaks in the skin. One gram of DU releases more than 12,000 particles per second. The radiation slowly kills the cells that make life possible. The Gulf War syndrome of 1991 did just that ( reported by Dr Asaf Durakovic, Prof. of Medicine , Georgetown University, and discoverer of the Gulf War Syndrome.) We are well aware that the radiation fall-out map Under the Cloud: Decades of Nuclear Testing has demonstrated the effects of 1200 nuclear weapon tests conducted at the Nevada Test Site; and the US Government admitted in Nov. 2002, that every living person in the US between 1958-63 was exposed to this fall out resulting in cancer, gene mutation, heart disease, autism, diabetes, Parkinsons, ALS, asthma, chronic fatigue syndrome , hypothyroidism in new-borns, obesity and learning disabilities. One out of twelve children in the US is disabled. The fall out did not stop at the US borders. It travelled around the world, as atmospheric dust and remains even in the biosphere/ sub-orbital space today. High breast cancer rates have been co-located in the proximity of nuclear power plants in the west and more so in the east coast areas of the US (The Breast cancer map from The Enemy Within: the high cost of living near nuclear reactors, quotes US Govt. Disease Control Centers. The Radiation & Public health Report (RPHP), rendered by a group of independent scientists collected 4000 baby teeth and by measuring Strontium 90 levels in the baby teeth ( a built in dosi-meter ) they have been able to co-relate with radiation related diseases in children living near the nuclear power plants; the main path ways being dairy products and drinking water. The induction of DU weapons in 1991 in Iraq, the radio-active trash from nuclear plants broke a 46 year taboo. This Trojan Horse of nuclear war, an omnicidal weapon has since then continued to be used more and more. DU remains radioactive longer than the age of the earth ( estimated at 4.5 billion years. ) The long-term effects from over a decade of DU exposures are emerging in Southern Iraq. They are devastating. The increased quantities of radio-active material ( including non-depleted uranium), used in Afghanistan are 3 to 5 times greater than Iraq 199. In Iraq 2003 they are already estimated to be 6 to 10 times 1991 and will travel through a larger area and affect many more people, babies and unborn. Countries within a 1000 mile radius of Baghdad and Kabul are being affected by radiation poisoning , that includes the Capital, New Delhi, where the ruling elite lives. The reported coming of an AIDS epidemic last year in India , down wind, may have a relationship to DU bombing in Afghanistan. If we think cancer is a problem now wait until more DU is released in wars against terror and for regime change, on mistaken Intelligence reports. More than 500 tons of DU munitions have been dispensed in Afghanistan. Professor Yagasaki calculated that 800 tons of DU is the atomicity equivalent to 83,000 Nagasaki bombs in a paper presented at the World Uranium Weapons Conference in Hamburg in October 2003 ( 5 months ago ). The amount of DU used in Iraq in 2003 is equivalent to nearly 250,000 Nagasaki bombs ( Busby and Leuren Moret have calculated that 1900 tons of DU is equivalent to 60 TBq of Alfa and Beta particulate activity). We need not ennumerate the DU munition types used in Iraq 199, Kosovo 1999, Afghanistan 2001-04 and Iraq 2003. They have been dispensed by all air / ground and sea systems on innocent civilians. DU burns intensely and is very hard. It releases Uranium Oxide. The aerosol contains particles of 0.5-5 microns in size, once they are in the air or dust they are inhaled or ingested, including from contaminated soil. Once in the lungs one such particle is equivalent to having one XRay per hour, for life. Because it is impossible to remove, the victim is gradually irradiated. Still births, birth defects, leukemia, damaged central nervous systems and other cancers have been common in children born since 1991. Child leukemia has risen 600 n areas of Iraq as reported by the Netherland Visie Foundation. Beyond just the health consequences, DU munitions are in fact, weapons of Silent Mass Destruction in so far as the consequences of their usage are vast, indiscriminate and violate all Human Rights Conventions . Tora Bora , Kabu , Paktia , Karises or underwater supply tunnels have been contaminated forever. All this has been documented in a comprehensive paper Uranium wars : The Pentagon steps up its use of Radio-active Munitions, by Marc W. Herold to whom this paper owes sincere acknowledgement. In another paper Dr Mohammed Daud Miraki, Director Afghan DU Recovery Fund, quotes George W Bush , we will smoke them out, condemning the unborn, the living and the future generations of Afghans and the neighbouring people to a pre-determined, death sentence. After the destruction of our village, I realised that the Americans had sentenced us all to death. When I saw my deformed grandson I realised my hopes for the future have vanished This time we are part of the invisible genocide brought on by America a silent death from which we will not escape ( Jooma Khan of Laghman province..March 2003.) Similar stories are repeated from Paktita province of Jelly Babies. Pregnant women are afraid of giving birthThis is the legacy of US ushered liberation, freedom and democracy. DU is cheap for the US, utilising nuclear waste, cheaper than titanium and tungsten, not for the liberated (non-DU is still cheaper as it is the uranium feedstock, pre-enrichment). The Uranium Medical Research Center (UMRC), Washington DC, and the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (1991) - Steve Fetter and Frank Von Hippel have reported on extensive research by Field teams of the UMRC in Afghanistan. Testimonies of fathers and mothers are horrifying What else do the Americans want ? They killed us , they turned our new-borns into horrific deformations, and they turned our farm lands into grave-yards, and destroyed our homes. On top of all this their planes fly over and spray us with bullets.. we have nothing to lose ..we will fight them the same way we fought the previous invaders (Sayed Gharib at Tora Bora). Radiological dispensing devices or warfare is the latest of the weapons of the new millenium, but it singes even those who use it , as shown in the after effects of the tests at home ground in the US, where evidence of cognitive damage during early infancy have been compiled. For us in Eurasia, Pakistan and India we have a new health epidemic to drain our scarce resources. As world citizens we need to focus on a new scourge, the reality of the PNAC - Rebuilding Americas Defenses, Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century. The Report notes that , Much has been written in recent years about the need to transform the conventional armed forces of the United States to take advantage of the Revolution in Military Affairs. Our military requires a dramatic transformation , lest we lose our ability to fight the future unconventional wars .. some may be fought in cyberspace, others under water or in outer space . And some even within our bodies. Paul Wolfowitz, William Kristol and others are some of the men representing contemporary power centers, who define US policy. History indicates that the men who define US military policy from the shadows , are worthy of our attention. GENETIC BOMBS When creating genetic-bombs or weapons to target specific groups; genetic profiles are subtler and more accurate than the coarse pseudo category called race. The group with ADHD ( the Edison Gene) uniquely share common inherited variations in their dopamine regulating genes regardless of race, geography or ethnicity. Thus anybody whos part of a group with a shared genetic profile may be at risk in the future. A virus or bacteria may attack only a particular type of person, killing, disabling or sterilising only those of a particular gene profile. Threatening a particular type would be sufficient political black-mail. Wolfowitz, Kristol and their colleagues suggested that the Pentagon should be thinking about not just germ warfare of which they have plenty of capabilities, but gene warfare. Genetic terra-forming could replace diplomacy, or it could change the face of politics if an organism got loose that killed all the people of a particular minority community who tend to vote for a particular political party. According to the PNAC, Genetically targeted weapons could change world politics for ever, and the report notes, advanced forms of biological warfare that can target specific geno-types may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool To conclude 4th generation micro-nukes, with their war-head composition, were deliberated upon and decided at the US Airforce Strategic Command Headquarters at the Offutt Airforce Base, Nebraska, between the top Corporates /weapon manufacturers and the US military brass. The former not only have prior knowledge of numbers and types of all types of nuclear weapons, but the locations of the planned and approved targets, globally. This meeting took place on Hiroshima Day, 6th August, 2003, and to reiterate, the aim was to define a new generation of nuclear weapons to be used on a pre-emptive basis against rogue enemies and terrorist organisations. (mini-nukes have an explosive capacity between one-third and six times a Hiroshima bomb). In this Strangelovian logic, nuclear weapons are now viewed as a means to ensuring peace and security against non-existent WMDs. AT A GLANCE: 1. In the 2003 war, the IraqiS were subjected to the Pentagons radioactive arsenal, mainly in the urban centers, unlike in the deserts in 1991. The aggregate effects of illnesses and long term disabilities and genetic birth defects will be apparent only 2008 onwards. 2. By now, half of all the 697,000 US soldiers involved in the 1991 war have reported serious illnesses. According the American Gulf War Veterans Association, more than 30f these soldiers are chronically ill, and receiving disability benefits from the Veterans Administration. 3. The number of disabled veterans is shockingly high . They are in their mid-thirties and should have been in the prime of health. 4. Near the Republican Palace where US troops stood guard and over 1000 employees walked in and out, the radiation readings were the hottest in Iraq, at nearly 1900 times background radiation levels. 5. At a roadside stand, selling fresh bunches of parsley, mint, and onions, children played on a burnt out Iraqi tank just outside Baghdad, the Geiger counter registered 1000 times normal background radiation. 6. The Pentagon and the United Nations estimate that the US and Britain used 1,100 to 2,200 tons of armor piercing shells made of DU during attacks in March-April 2003, far more than the 1991 Gulf War (this does not include air dispensed DU munitions and missiles), wrote the Post Intelligencer. 7. An otherwise useless by-product of the uranium enrichment process, DU is attractive to military contractors because it is so cheap and often offered for free by the Government. 8. The long term effects, as Dr Asaf Durakovic elaborates, after the early neurological symptoms are cancer, and related radiation illnesses such as chronic fatigue syndrome, joint and muscle pain, neurological and/or nerve damage, mood disturbances, auto-immuno deficiciencies, lung and kidney damage, vision problems, skin rupture, increase in miscarriages, maternal mortality and genetic birth defects/deformation. 9. For years the US government described the Gulf War Syndrome as a post traumatic stress disorder. It was labelled as a psychological problem or simply as mysterious unrelated ailments much in the same way as health problems of Vietnam veterans suffering from Agent Orange poisoning. -------- iran Iran Sanctions Essential Says US Sep 06, 2006 Washington (AFP) http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Iran_Sanctions_Essential_Says_US_999.html The United States on Wednesday said it was "essential" for the United Nations Security Council to impose sanctions on Iran, saying the prospect of Tehran with a nuclear arsenal was "intolerable." Robert Joseph, US under secretary of state for arms control and international security, said he believed a vote on sanctions could come this month, and he expected permanent council members Russia and China would sign on. The latest US call for sanctions came days after Iran ignored an August 31 deadline to stop uranium enrichment, and on the eve of six-nation talks in Berlin on the deepening nuclear crisis. The campaign also picked up pace after President George W. Bush on Tuesday branded Iran's leaders "tyrants" and said they must not be allowed to get nuclear weapons, "the tools of mass murder." "It is now essential that we move to adopt sanctions against Iran," Joseph told foreign reporters in Washington. "A nuclear-armed Iran is intolerable -- not just to the United States but to the entire international community," Joseph said. "As the president said, now there must be costs, there must be costs imposed on Iran." Joseph also said he expected China and Russia to support sanctions, despite signs they were reluctant to punish Tehran. "I think China, like Russia and the other states that voted for the resolution, will support what is called for in the resolution," he said. "I think it is very important when a country like Russia or China supports a resolution that is going to have an impact on their decision making," said Joseph, referring to UN Resolution 1696, which threatened sanctions if Iran missed the deadline. "The fundamental bargain has been struck." Joseph said it was difficult to predict how quickly diplomatic discussions would take, but asked whether a vote could take place this month, he said: "My own personal assessment would be yes." Iran denies that its nuclear program is geared toward weapons development. ---- French, Americans would back strike on Iran: poll Wed Sep 6, 2006 (Reuters) By Paul Taylor, European Affairs Editor http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=worldnews&storyID=2006-09-06T152448Z_01_L04276822_RTRUKOC_0_US-EU-USA-POLL.xml BRUSSELS - Most French and Americans would support military action against Iran as a last resort if other means fail to stop it acquiring nuclear weapons, a major transatlantic opinion survey showed on Wednesday. But among Germans polled, more said they would accept Iran getting the atom bomb rather than using force if diplomacy or sanctions do not work. The annual Transatlantic Trends survey found that while Europeans' views of U.S. foreign policy have turned even more negative in the last year, the two sides of the Atlantic share broadly similar perceptions of the threats to their security. Despite closer U.S.-EU cooperation at government level on issues ranging from Iran's nuclear program to Afghanistan and the Middle East, most voters on both sides of the Atlantic feel relations have either turned worse or stayed the same. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fried told reporters in Berlin the findings showed that both Americans and Europeans saw Iran's nuclear ambitions as a serious problem. "I don't see these high numbers as indicative of a European desire to support military attacks on Iran," he said. "I regard them much more simply, as an expression of determination that Iran not get away with it." The poll, conducted in June, also showed a profound shift in Turkish public opinion away from the West and toward sympathy with Iran, partly reflecting a decline of support for Turkey's bid to join the European Union among both Turks and Europeans. The study, conducted for the German Marshall Fund of the United States, found European disapproval of President George W. Bush's conduct of foreign policy has risen to 76 percent, the highest in five years, while only 18 percent support it. NO BOUNCE "The interesting question is why, when official relations have got better in last two years, there is no bounce in public opinion," said Ron Asmus, director of the German Marshall Fund's Transatlantic Center think-tank in Brussels. "There has been a rapprochement between policy elites but it hasn't produced visible breakthroughs or solved any big problems together that people register," he said. Most worrying for Washington was that public support for U.S. global leadership has eroded even in traditional allies such as Britain, the Netherlands and Germany, Asmus said. A parallel survey of European Parliament members and European Commission officials, conducted by the Italian think-tank Compagnia di San Paolo, found they were much more supportive of U.S. leadership although they too disapproved overwhelmingly of Bush's handling of international policies. They were also more inclined to accept a nuclear-armed Iran ultimately rather than to use force but many were ambivalent. Asked about threats, Europeans and Americans agree that terrorism is the greatest danger facing the world in the next 10 years, closely followed by the risk of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons and by radical Islamic fundamentalism. They also share similar views on the limits to restricting civil liberties to combat terrorism. But while Europeans tend to fear global warming more, Americans are more concerned about the spread of disease and the rising power of China. On Iran, 96 percent of Americans and 85 percent of Europeans see the possibility of Tehran becoming a nuclear power as a very important or somewhat important threat. Asked the best way to avert the risk, 45 percent in Europe and 28 percent of Americans favored incentives while 36 percent of Americans and 28 percent of Europeans backed sanctions. Only a handful in either the United States or Europe cited supporting opposition groups, while 15 percent of Americans and 6 percent of Europeans see military action as the best way. However, when asked what should happen if non-military measures failed to stop Tehran acquiring atomic weapons, 53 percent of Americans and 43 percent of Europeans supported taking military action rather than accepting a nuclear Iran. In France, the figure was 54 percent. In Germany, 40 percent supported military action but 46 percent said it would be better to let Iran acquire nuclear arms. The TNS Opinion poll was conducted in the United States and 12 European countries on June 6-24 among samples of about 1,000 men and women aged 18 and older in each country. The margin of error was plus/minus 3 percentage points. -------- israel Israeli Defense establishment reassesses missile defense The Defense Ministry has asked Northrop Grumman for clarifications on its Sky Guard short-range anti-missile system within 70 days. Amnon Barzilai Sep 06, 2006 Globes [online], Israel business news http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000130211&fid=942 The defense establishment has reassessed the development of active antimissile defenses. At a meeting last week with the participation of Minister of Defense Amir Peretz and Ministry of Defense director general Maj.-Gen. (res.) Gabi Ashkenazi, it was decided to defend Israel against ballistic missiles, Katyushas, and other long-range and short-range rockets, using a three-tiered envelope. The outer tier will intercept incoming ballistic missiles launched from Iran and other countries in the third ring of hostility. The middle envelope will intercept missiles launched from Syria and Lebanon. The third, inner, envelope will intercept short-range Katyushas used by Hizbullah and Kassams used by Hamas. Following the discussion, Northrop Grumman Corp. (NYSE:NOC), which is developing the Sky Guard laser system to intercept short-range Katyusha rockets, has been asked to provide the Ministry of Defense clarifications about the system’s operational capabilities, effectiveness, and development and operational deployment costs, within 70 days. The laser system is one of three alternatives under discussion for procurement for the inner tier against short-range Katyusha rockets. The discussion implied that Israel already has one operational response for the outer envelope - against long-range missiles - using the Arrow anti-ballistic missile system developed by Israel Aircraft Industries Ltd. (IAI), which can intercept missiles at an altitude of 50-100 kilometers or more. In order to provide a functional answer to the Iranian ballistic missile threat, production of the Arrow has been doubled. $2.5 billion has been invested to date in the Arrow and its radar system, just over half with US financing. For the middle tier, missiles will be developed to intercept missiles launched from Syria and Lebanon. The defense establishment believes that up to $500 million will be needed to complete this program over five years, half of which will be financed by the US. Each missile will cost $250,000-300,000 a tenth of the cost of an Arrow Three alternatives have been proposed for the inner tier: Sky Guard; a project by Rafael Armament Development Authority Ltd., apparently based on an air-to-air missile; and artillery with a range of up to 10 kilometers. The latter systems include the Sky Shield system developed by Lockheed Martin (NYSE:LMT), and the Vulcan and Phalanx cannon in use with the Israel Navy. Israeli Ministry of Defense officials will attend tests of the Sky Shield at testing grounds in the US. Published by - www.globes.co.il - on September 5, 2006 -------- japan Nakasone proposes Japan consider nuclear weapons The Japan Times Wednesday, Sept. 6, 2006 http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20060906a4.html Former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone said Tuesday that Japan needs to consider developing nuclear weapons, taking into account the presence of nearby nuclear states and the uncertain future of the alliance with the United States. "There is a need to also study the issue of nuclear weapons," Nakasone said during a news conference to release a report by the Institute for International Policy Studies, an independent research institute he chairs, that proposes considering the nuclear option. "There are countries with nuclear weapons in Japan's vicinity," he said. "We are currently dependent on U.S. nuclear weapons (as a deterrent), but it is not necessarily known whether the U.S. attitude will continue." Nakasone conceded that the nuclear option should come after the country makes efforts to reinforce the global nonproliferation regime, saying, "The first priority is to keep being a nuclear-free state, and the second is to reinforce the system under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty." Prime minister from 1982 to 1987, Nakasone retired from the Diet in 2003. He has continued making political proposals from the institute, including one in January on revising the Constitution, which stirred up debate in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. The institute's report, titled "An Image of Japan in the 21st Century," says the country should consider the nuclear option while at the same time maintaining its nonnuclear status and endeavoring to strengthen the nonproliferation regime. The paper says if Japan decides to get nuclear weapons, the pacifist Constitution must be amended. -------- korea Roh Agrees to Nuclear Cooperation With Romania Sep. 6, 2006 Chosun Ilbo http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200609/200609060027.html President Roh Moo-hyun on Wednesday met with his Romanian counterpart Traian Basescu in Bucharest, where the two decided to expand cooperation in nuclear energy development, arms and information technology. It was the first visit by a Korean president to Romania since diplomatic ties were established between the two countries in 1990. President Roh Moo-hyun meets with Romanian President Traian Basescu at the presidential palace in Bucharest on Wednesday. The two signed a treaty on joint nuclear power development that will open the way for KEPCO and Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power to participate in the construction of two W2.7 trillion (US$1=W957) nuclear power facilities in Cernavoda, Seoul’s Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy said. It would be the first time Korea has succeeded in moving into the overseas nuclear energy market. In a morning meeting with Koreans living in the Balkan country, President Roh said, "There are people who worry that there is some problem with Korea-U.S. relations, and there are people in the U.S. who worry about the same thing, but when I meet with President Bush, all is quiet and calm.” He vowed his meeting with the U.S. president on Sept. 14 “will also go ahead without a hitch." (englishnews@chosun.com ) ---- US Envoy Says North Korea Talks In Bad Way Sep 06, 2006 Beijing (AFP) http://www.spacewar.com/reports/US_Envoy_Says_North_Korea_Talks_In_Bad_Way_999.html Efforts to drive North Korea back to stalled nuclear talks are in big trouble, the top US negotiator said Wednesday after meeting a senior Chinese official to try and forge a breakthrough. "I think clearly we are in a very difficult moment with the six-party talks process because the DPRK (North Korea) is not giving the signals it wants to return," Christopher Hill told reporters in Beijing. Hill's latest trip to the region comes amid media reports that North Korea could soon test a nuclear bomb. Pyongyang said in February 2005 that it was a nuclear power but is not known to have tested an atomic weapon. The US envoy, who is on a regional tour, said he had spoken with Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei about "the danger that the DPRK could take additional, provocative steps." "We talked about the need to make very clear to the DPRK that this would be a very, very unwelcome development," he told reporters, when asked directly about a possible nuclear test. The North agreed in principle in September last year to give up its nuclear weapons program in exchange for aid and security guarantees. But Pyongyang walked out of talks two months later to protest US sanctions on a Macau-based bank accused of laundering and counterfeiting money on behalf of the impoverished regime. The six-nation talks -- involving China, the United States, the two Koreas, Japan and Russia -- were further waylaid when North Korea tested ballistic missiles in July. The tests resulted in a UN Security Council resolution which called on the global community to work together to prevent North Korea from acquiring weapons of mass destruction and urged Pyongyang to return to the six-party talks. Hill nudged China to make sure it was applying the right pressure on Pyongyang, and said Washington would be looking into possible financial and other economic sanctions against North Korea in accordance with the resolution. "China understands that the UN Security Council resolution needs to be fully implemented. We would expect the Chinese to do the same pursuant to their obligations," he said. The topic was likely to soon be discussed in a meeting between US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing in New York, said Hill, the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs. According to South Korean lawmaker Choi Jae-Cheon, the international uproar over the missile tests has now led North Korea's ruling circle to believe that the launches were a mistake. "North Korea's leadership has concluded in an internal report that the missile tests were a mistake," Choi of the ruling Uri Party told AFP Wednesday. "North Korea's leadership believes the missile launch has caused unwanted political results as it deepened the country's isolation." He did not say how he learned of the report but said the North was surprised by the severity of the international condemnation, including from China. Hill said late Tuesday he believed China was "disappointed" with Pyongyang's decision to test-fire the missiles. "Clearly, what happened in July was a very difficult moment for China," Hill said. Hill arrived in Beijing from Tokyo on Tuesday as part of a five-day tour of China. He left the Chinese capital Wednesday for visits to US diplomatic missions in Chengdu, Guangzhou and Shanghai, US officials said. He will also visit Seoul on September 10. His visit has come amid South Korean press reports that North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il was either visiting or preparing to visit China. "I have asked and not gotten any more concrete information on these rumors, they remain as far as I'm concerned to be rumors," Hill said of the reports. China said Tuesday it had not made any arrangements for a visit, but previous Kim visits to Beijing have been secretive and not announced until after he returns to the North. North Korea Cites Iraq And Lebanon To Justify Strong Military Meanwhile, North Korea Wednesday cited the lessons of Iraq and Lebanon to justify its drive for a strong military to counter "US imperialists." "In order for any country to defend itself it is important to have a correct view on war, among other things. This can be proved by what happened in Iraq," said Rodong Sinmun, newspaper of the ruling communist party. "The Iraqi army and people lacked the readiness, fighting spirit and faith that they should struggle against the imperialists in a do-or-die spirit and win victory over them at any cost," it added in an article carried by the official Korean Central News Agency, monitored in Seoul. "What happened in Lebanon and Iraq prove the truth that a country with weak military capacity can neither defend its sovereignty nor contribute to the peace and security in the world," it said in reference to the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and this summer's Israeli attacks in Lebanon. The paper said that a country "can reliably defend itself only when it manufactures necessary weapons by itself. It is essential to fortify the whole country. This is more essential in case of a modern war where there is no difference between the front and the rear." North Korea, whose armed forces number around 1.2 million, is embroiled in a dispute with the West over its nuclear and missile programmes. Its test-launch of seven missiles in July prompted missile-related sanctions from the United Nations. "If the US imperialists dare test its theory of strength against the DPRK (North Korea), they will not be able to escape their final destruction," the article added. "When the progressive countries and nations of the world firmly defend themselves with their own military power, the imperialists and reactionaries will not be able to perpetrate aggression and war as they please." Since November the North has boycotted six-nation talks aimed at halting its nuclear programme. The US envoy to the talks, Christopher Hill, said in Beijing Wednesday that the United States and China are having difficulties persuading it to return to the negotiations. -------- latinamerica Energy short Chile heatedly ponders the nuclear option By Renata Stepanov The Santiago Times - News about Chile Wednesday, 06 September http://www.falkland-malvinas.com/Detalle.asp?NUM=8690 Chilean President Michelle Bachelet will stand firm on her pledge against the use of nuclear energy, government spokesperson Ricardo Lagos Weber said this week. Leaders within her own ruling Concertación coalition, however, are now forming a united front to promote further research into the alternative energy source, citing an estimated seven percent yearly increase in energy demand and diminishing prospects for gas imports from Argentina and Bolivia. On August 21, the presidents of the four Concertación parties, during a routine meeting to set the political agenda, demanded explanations for Bachelet’s steadfast opposition to nuclear energy. Though a taboo subject for decades in Chile, nuclear energy is gaining followers within Latin America, most notably Argentina, Mexico, and Brazil, as well as around the world, where 440 nuclear power plants provide for 16% of the world’s energy needs. “It is necessary to begin studying nuclear energy to decide whether it should or should not be used,” said Radical Party President José Antonio Gómez. “Doing a study does not mean we’re going to build a power plant, but it’s important to have this information.” Bachelet last month announced plans to make Chile energy independent within two years but has steadfastly rejected nuclear energy. “The responsible thing to do is to study, I reiterate, study, all of the different alternatives that are within reach, from hydroelectric to thermoelectric”, said Lagos Weber. But Bachelet has given mixed signals ever since her presidential campaign in November 2005, when she signed a pact with 20 leading environmentalists to refrain from nuclear energy. Mining and Energy Minister Karen Poniachik, along with Lagos Weber, confirmed Bachelet’s position over the last few weeks. However on August 12, the Chilean president signed a bilateral agreement with Brazil to cooperate “in the peaceful use of nuclear energy,” the implications of which are still unclear. Nuclear energy resurfaced on the Chilean political agenda in 2004 - during the height of an energy crisis with Argentina - when then President Ricardo Lagos ordered a study into alternative energy sources. One year later, in his last Congressional address, Lagos said Chile cannot ignore nuclear energy as it plans for the future. The outlook about gas-exporting countries Argentina and Bolivia is no better today. Starting next year Argentina will begin to cut its exports, thanks in part to a booming economy and a 10% annual growth in energy demand. These gas shortages may affect Chilean homes as soon as next year, said high-profile economist Alcadio Oña, and some experts predict that Argentina will cut off all exports by 2009 or 2010. Bolivia, though rich in natural gas reserves, offers no relief. Its annual production of 35 million cubic meters of gas are either consumed internally or sent to Brazil and Argentina. Neither private companies nor the government seem willing to expand production, an additional million cubic meters per day would cost 100 million US dollars. Northern Chile alone requires four million cubic meters daily. And with Bolivia’s demand for a land passage to the Pacific still unmet, prospects look even dimmer. Liquid gas and hydroelectric power are two of the most viable alternatives. ENAP, the state-owned fuel company, is erecting a liquid gas plant in Quinteros, and four hydroelectric dams to be built by the private sector along the Pascua and Baker Rivers in southern Chile will generate an estimated 2,355 MW for Chile’s central power grid, supplying 25% of the nation’s current energy needs. But a recent study by Endesa, one of two energy companies spearheading the 4 billion US dollars hydroelectric project, reported that Chile’s energy demand will grow by 10,000 MW – four times the capacity of the dams - over the next 10 years. Given that it takes an average of 10 years to build a nuclear power plant, the Concertación leaders reason that Chile must look into new energy sources as quickly as possible. One argument in favour of nuclear power is that plants are expensive to build but relatively cheap to maintain. Consultant Hugh Rudnick estimated a start-up cost of 1.6 million US dollars per MW for nuclear plants, compared to the 500,000 to 700,000 US dollars needed to construct a gas-powered plant. Once up and running, however, one megawatt hour would cost between 5 and 10 US dollars, less than half the 12 to 30 US dollars price tag for liquid or natural gas. The nuclear option becomes more attractive as the country’s overall energy needs increase. It poses too great of a risk to concentrate more than 15% of the country’s energy production in any one power plant. A 1000 MW nuclear power plant – any smaller would not be feasible – would surpass the current 15% threshold of 800 to 900 MW. In the next 10 to 12 years, however, energy output will grow to around 18,000 MW, thereby reducing the risk of nuclear energy dependence. Proponents point to Taltal, 300 kilometers south of Antofagasta, as prime real estate for a possible nuclear power plant. Taltal is located at the meeting point of Chile’s two primary energy distributors--one to the north (the Interconnected System of Norte Grande, or SING) and one to the south (the Central Interconnected System, or SIC)--which could both be served by one nuclear power plant. For now, though, the Bachelet administration is focused on developing other forms of alternative energy, primarily hydroelectric and liquid gas, as well as wind energy. The National Environmental Commission (CONAMA) listed seven wind energy projects that are approved or under review. One is a 372 million US dollars investment by the Spanish company Acciona Energía Chile S.A. Endesa Eco hopes to invest another 17 million US dollars into wind power in Region IV. Responding to concerns that these alternative energy sources will not be sufficient to attain independence without nuclear energy, Lagos Weber said that the energy crisis is not as severe as some critics have stated. “No gas stoppages have been announced,” he said. “There are indications from ‘anonymous sources’ that Argentina will not be able to meet its contracts with us. This is true for the moment, but Argentina has reiterated its promise to provide gas for both residential and commercial use in Chile, in the quantity that we need.” Chilean gas executives, who met last week with Argentine authorities in Buenos Aires, are drawing up contingency plans in case Lagos Weber’s predictions don’t come true, just as the rest of Chile’s energy sector is bracing itself for an uncertain future. -------- missile defense U.S. Anti-Missile Shield Could Spark Arms Race: Russian Army Chief By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, WARSAW 09/06/06 http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?F=2083525&C=airwar The planned U.S. anti-missile shield is a threat to global security as it could lead to another arms race, Russia’s army chief, General Yuri Baluyevski, said in an article published in a Polish newspaper Sept. 6. ”Deploying the large-scale U.S. anti-missile shield threatens to spark a new arms race,” Baluyevski said in the Polish daily Dziennik. Of particular concern, according to Baluyevski, was Washington’s intention to base some of the anti-missile shield in central Europe. Poland and the Czech Republic are being considered for the European base of the anti-missile shield, although opposition to that plan is rising in both countries. Other countries where the United States could base its interceptor missiles and radar are Bulgaria, Hungary or Turkey. ”We are firmly convinced that, if the U.S. project is carried out, it could lead to the deployment near the Russian border of systems which threaten to upset the strategic balance in weapons positioning,” Baluyevski said. The U.S. missile defense system employs radar and satellites to detect enemy missile launches and guide interceptors to their targets. The command center is based in the southwestern U.S. state of Colorado, and interceptor missiles are located in Alaska and at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The head of the U.S. missile defense agency, Gen. Henry Obering, said last month he expects to make recommendations in a matter of months on where to position interceptor missiles and radar in Europe. The European site would be the first expansion outside of the United States of an unproven missile defense system that currently is aimed at thwarting a limited long-range missile attack from North Korea, the Middle East or terrorist groups. ---- France Looks to Airborne Missile Detection System September 6, 2006 :: Jane’s Information Group http://www.missilethreat.com/news/200609060041.html The French Ministry of Defense is considering the development of an airborne ballistic missile detection system, reports the October 1 issue of Jane’s Defence Industry. According to the Delegation Generale pour l’Armement (DGA), the procurement arm of the Ministry of Defense, “Detection and alarm, two keystones of this system, can be satisfied by means of airborne infrared detection.” Documentation issued by the French government states that missile defense equipment is due to enter service by 2015. -------- phillipines Philippine Congress Urged To Probe Nuclear Waste Shipment Wednesday September 6, 2006 Yahoo News http://au.news.yahoo.com/060906/3/10ff2.html MANILA, Sept 6 Asia Pulse - The Philippine Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and Congress should conduct an immediate investigation on the shipment to the country of about two million litres of waste from a nuclear plant overseas to determine and punish those responsible. Lawmakers, led by House Deputy Majority Leader Antonio Cerilles and Leyte Rep. Eduardo Veloso, warned that if the government does not act decisively, the country could become a dumping ground of hazardous substances which could affect the safety of people and the environment. Cerilles, former secretary of environment and natural resources, said the immediate concern of authorities should be to determine where the barge carrying the one million litres of nuclear waste was registered to know who should be held responsible for the nuclear waste import. "Although it has been reported that the barge carrying the nuclear waste came from Palau, we still need to verify who owns the barge and its country of origin so all those responsible will be held liable," he said. Cerilles said the nuclear waste transshipment through Philippine waters was in clear disregard of the Prior Consent Convention which requires that identified chemicals will not be exported unless prior consent has been provided by the government of the importing country. "The Prior Consent Convention provides that exporting countries will also be legally obligated to inform importing countries about exports of chemicals banned or severely restricted in the exporting country," he said. During his stint at the DENR, Cerilles said, he had the opportunity to attend the forum which was held in the Netherlands and he was elected vice president for Asia. "I was a signatory for the Philippines of the Prior Consent Convention, hence, we have a right to be informed about any intention or move by other countries to import waste here and to reject such shipment," he said. Veloso, former chair of the House committee on environment, said he will file a resolution calling on Congress to probe the nuclear waste dumping. "One or two million litres of nuclear waste is no laughing matter. This is enough for national alarm because of the possible ill effects of the nuclear wastes presence here on the health of the people and our environment," he said. While it is fortunate that the Bureau of Customs managed to intercept the nuclear waste shipment, Veloso said, government still has to know how long this has been going on, those involved and whether there are private businessmen or government officials abetting this operation. "Probers should summon officials of Powerzone Philippines to where the shipment was consigned and Goldmark Sea Carriers Inc., which owns the vessel. It's about time that we implement our anti-smuggling and environmental laws firmly to protect public safety and our environment," he said. -------- russia Rumour of Kola Nuclear accident appear to be false From Wikinews, the free news source you can write! September 6, 2006 http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Rumour_of_Kola_Nuclear_accident_appear_to_be_false Rumours of an accident at the Russian Kola Nuclear Plant appear to be false. The rumours have been circulating after an emergency shutdown of the reactor—known as a SCRAM—at unit 3 of the plant. According to the Swedish Nuclear Power Inspectorate, they have been in contact with the management of the Kola plant and they confirm a SCRAM at unit 3 of the plant that is now under investigation. -------- security U.S. Nuclear Plants Solid on Safety in Latest Assessments September 6, 2006 Occupational Health & Safety http://www.ohsonline.com/Stevens/OHSPub.nsf/frame?open&redirect=http://www.ohsonline.com/stevens/ohspub.nsf/NewNews/D5909D6764BE0459862571E1004628AC?Opendocument Assessment letters covering the first half of 2006 for 103 U.S. nuclear power plants "show that U.S. commercial nuclear power plants continue to operate safely," the Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced Sept. 1. The mid-cycle assessment letters are online at www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/listofasmrpt.html, where an alphabetical list of the plants makes several letters available for each one. The commission's chairman, Dale Klein, recently said he expects applications for 27 new U.S. nuclear plants to be filed fairly soon and hopes NRC can use a faster process for acting on them. President Bush strongly endorses commercial nuclear power, and construction firms are eager to get the work. Every six months, each plant receives a mid-cycle review letter or an annual assessment letter along with an NRC inspection plan. The next annual assessment letters will be issued in March 2007. A sample of the latest batch of letters show they are routine, with all inspection findings for most being classified as having very low safety significance (Green). These reviews do not address physical protection information; those letters are exempt from public disclosure and are covered by separate reviews and NRC inspection plans. -------- terrorism US fears attack using nuclear, biological weapon By Deborah Charles Wed Sep 6, 2006 (Reuters) http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060906/us_nm/sept11_security_usa_dc_2 WASHINGTON - While most Americans focus on the threat of another aviation attack like the September 11 hijackings, the U.S. government is quietly working to prevent something far worse -- a catastrophic strike with a weapon of mass destruction. Five years after the September 11 attacks killed nearly 3,000 people, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has once again bolstered aviation security in high-profile fashion in response to a failed plot in Britain to blow up U.S.-bound planes. But in a sign he fears other, more devastating attacks, Chertoff has also made his department focus on worst-case scenarios which could include nuclear or biological weapons. Some analysts say the government is still not spending enough money to address such threats. "An improvised nuclear device would be devastating with potentially hundreds of thousands of casualties and ... the damage would run in the trillions of dollars," said Vayl Oxford, director of the department's Domestic Nuclear Detection Office. "One of the concerns we have is that a weapon could be manufactured inside the U.S.," Oxford said. His office is trying to protect against such a U.S.-built weapon being brought into locations such as major cities where it could cause a great deal of damage. The department this year began buying modernized equipment to scan cargo at ports and border cities for nuclear material -- with equipment still in use at many sites, ordinary substances such as cat litter can set off radiation alarms. Another concern is what experts fear is becoming a global nuclear arms race. "That just increases ... the potential that the technology will find its way to terror organizations," said P.J. Crowley, a spokesman for the U.S. government and military for 28 years who is now director of national defense and homeland security at the Center for American Progress. On the biological-weapons front, the department is building a secret restricted laboratory to study infectious diseases such as smallpox and other pathogens that could be turned into weapons, five years after deadly anthrax-tainted letters were mailed to U.S. political and media targets. "The real danger is that with biological materials you could kill large numbers of people," said John Vitko, director of biological countermeasures. At the laboratory outside Washington, scientists will try to determine what can be used as a weapon and how hard it is to produce. "Most of what we're doing is trying to get a better understanding of existing agents," Vitko said. "It's still not well-known how much agent it takes to make you or me sick if we either inhaled it or if we eat it." Crowley said the Homeland Security Department needs more money to adequately prepare for an attack with mass-destruction weapons. It plans to spend about $536 million in the next fiscal year on preventing nuclear terrorism, while $337 million is earmarked for biological countermeasures. "I am convinced that DHS is underfunded," he said. "If we do believe these risks are imminent, then we've got to get to a better place faster. But the level of resource being given ... we're on a five or 10 year track and I'm not sure we have that much time." Despite the department's work on threats of greatest consequence, analysts said militants have traditionally targeted airplanes -- either by hijacking them, putting a bomb on them, or using them as suicide weapons as al Qaeda did on September 11. "The reality is, the threat we face every day is the threat to commercial aviation," said Brian Jenkins, RAND senior terrorism analyst and author of a recent book on the threat to the United States. -------- u.s. nuc facilities -------- new jersey Terrorism threat to be part of review? NRC to hold vote on Oyster Creek BY NICHOLAS CLUNN STAFF WRITER Asbury Park Press on 09/6/06 http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060906/NEWS/609060338 LACEY — Whether the threat of terrorism will be made part of a special safety review of the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant will be decided this afternoon by the highest officials at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. In an up-or-down majority vote, the agency's five commissioners are expected to rule on an appeal put forth by the state Department of Environmental Protection. It asks regulators to include the terrorism threat in their assessment. Since July 2005, regulators have conducted special inspections at the Lacey plant and have reviewed thousands of pages of documents to determine if it would be safe enough to run for an additional 20 years under a renewed license. The threat of terrorism is not part of the license-renewal review because it's evaluated regularly in other oversight programs, according to the NRC. But state officials say Oyster Creek is more vulnerable to an air attack than other commercial reactors and is therefore worthy of additional scrutiny. "The possibility of a terrorist attack on Oyster Creek goes well beyond mere speculation," state lawyers wrote in a legal brief filed before the commission. The commission is also expected to rule on two other DEP challenges. Environmental officials argue that Oyster Creek should be required to use tougher safety standards when it comes to assessing the condition of metal parts. They also took issue with a back-up power source that would be used to run the plant during a blackout. The power supply is off site and is operated by another company, according to the DEP. Yet another appeal, one raised by six activist groups, is also on the commission docket for today. They would like the commission to allow evidence in their challenge of an Oyster Creek plan that would monitor a key radiation barrier for signs of aging. The plan for the barrier, called the drywell liner, is inadequate, the groups argued. In its decisions, the commission will either uphold or strike down prior rulings made by a separate NRC panel on the same issues. That panel of three administrative law judges turned down the state's request for a hearing on its three contentions in February. That means the state would win a hearing if the commission overturns the decision today. Plant's location cited More formal than most governmental hearings, NRC hearings of this kind would involve lawyers presenting positions before the three-judge panel. It offers a chance for those directly affected by the plant to bring a quasi-legal case against it. In the end, the judges can require plant operators to meet certain conditions to obtain a renewal. As part of its argument on the terrorism issue, the DEP pointed out that Oyster Creek is the most centrally located nuclear facility in the Washington-Boston corridor. The department also noted that the cooling pool where Oyster Creek stores highly radioactive nuclear waste is elevated and "poorly protected." Regulators say they already look at terrorism. As part of the NRC's normal regimen, security specialists inspect every plant to make sure operators are adhering to federal standards, several of which were created after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The commissioners are expected to vote about 2 p.m. at NRC headquarters in Rockville, Md., though decisions on all four appeals have been postponed twice this summer. Nicholas Clunn: (732) 643-4072 or nclunn@app.com -------- tennessee Council OKs grant application for nuke facility study September 6, 2006 By BOB FOWLER, fowlerb@knews.com Knoxville News Sentinel http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/local_news/article/0,1406,KNS_347_4970581,00.html OAK RIDGE - City Council on Tuesday voted 7-0 to endorse a grant application for a study of Oak Ridge as a possible site for a new nuclear facility that would treat highly radioactive spent fuel. Eyed as part of a new Bush administration push to revive interest in nuclear power is a processing plant that would recycle spent nuclear fuel. Also under consideration: A burner reactor that would remove long-lived radioactive elements from spent fuel. Council members said Tuesday they would want to receive a revenue stream for hosting either facility, and they want a study of "stakeholder sentiment'' before proceeding. A nuclear waste processing facility is "large and nasty,'' warned audience member Ellen Smith. "It has the largest potential for environmental releases, exposures and accident risks,'' Smith said. "The perception is going to be we're trading exposure for dollars,'' Smith said of the council's move to seek remuneration for hosting either facility. The council approved a resolution to support a pre-application for up to $5 million in grant money for the feasibility study, Mayor David Bradshaw said. "With this resolution, we're not supporting this (nuclear) facility in Oak Ridge,'' Councilman Leonard Abbatiello said. "Let's make that very clear.'' East Tennessee Economic Council and DOE contractor UT-Battelle are in favor of the study, Bradshaw said. A 4,000-acre tract near Highway 95 on the west end of the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge Reservation would be studied for either or both of the two facilities. The Community Reuse Organization of East Tennessee, a nonprofit group that seeks economic development of former DOE properties, is filing the grant application, due Thursday. CROET has contracted with Science Applications International Corp. to file the 20-page grant application. If Oak Ridge wins the grant, SAIC or a subcontractor would do the study. DOE official Sherrell Greene said the decision on where the two facilities would be located is expected in 2008. Audience member Robert Kennedy questioned whether the Oak Ridge Reservation land is suitable for either facility. He said there are issues about the land's geology and hydrology. Smith and other audience members expressed concern about CROET's involvement in the grant application. That organization hasn't involved the community in its prior decision-making processes, they said. Bob Fowler, News Sentinel Anderson County editor, may be reached at 865-481-3625. -------- texas Nuclear plant's security faulted South Texas Project guards didn't follow rules, study says 07:50 AM CDT on Wednesday, September 6, 2006 By ELIZABETH SOUDER / The Dallas Morning News http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/stories/090606dnbusstp.30cb17e.html Whistleblowers at the South Texas Project nuclear power plant have reported instances of security guards failing to follow protocol, leaving the facility vulnerable to intruders, according to a study by the Union of Concerned Scientists. The nonprofit group released a report Tuesday outlining instances when security guards didn't follow rules, such as failing to search an equipment truck and allowing it to park 40 yards from a container of spent fuel and allowing a convicted felon into the plant. An official with the South Texas Project, which is 90 miles southwest of Houston and co-owned by NRG Energy and the cities of Austin and San Antonio, said the plant has addressed each of the complaints. "The issues that are identified in here have all been identified to us. We have investigated them and taken actions. We've done some fairly significant management changes," said Mark McBurnett, vice president of oversight and regulatory affairs for two new reactors that the South Texas Project intends to build. The report further states that guards' radio equipment doesn't work properly, some mock intrusion drills don't reflect real-world situations, and cleaning and maintenance staff has access to a room where weapons are stored. Mr. McBurnett said the guards told plant officials about the problems. He said the complaints seem to stem from friction during the last nine months between guards and management at the company that provides security at the plant, Wackenhut Corp. NRG is planning to expand the South Texas Project in the next 10 years, and rival TXU Corp. plans to build six nuclear reactors at three sites, possibly in Texas. Email esouder@dallasnews.com -------- MILITARY -------- afghanistan Friendly fire lessons not learned, says U.S. pilot Wednesday, September 06, 2006 Glen McGregor, CanWest News Service; Ottawa Citizen http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.html?id=07a5bbcc-76f4-49f1-8c48-9ea0747ecf5e&k=35434 -------- arms U.S. Seeks to Block New Missiles for Hezbollah September 6, 2006 :: Jane’s Information Group http://www.missilethreat.com/news/200609060439.html The U.S. is helping Israel prevent Hezbollah from receiving shipments of new missiles to replace the thousands fired or destroyed in the recent 34-day conflict, reports the October 1 issue of Jane’s Missiles and Rockets. The Lebanese-based terrorist organization is currently being resupplied by Iran across Syria’s mountainous western border with Lebanon into the Bekaa Valley, Hezbollah’s strategic center and the location of its main command centers and missile arsenals. Despite massive Israeli air strikes destroying virtually all the bridges and road networks in the region, Israel believes that Iranian missiles are still moving across the Syrian-Lebanese border, mostly along ancient smuggling trails. The U.S. has called for the support of regional allies such as Turkey and Iraq, and has pressured key global arms suppliers such as Russia and China to ensure that these missiles do not reach the Hezbollah. Sources indicate that at least two aircraft flying from Iran to Damascus have been challenged by aviation authorities in Iraq and Turkey, one on July 20 and another two days later. On August 17, seven transports—six Iranian and one Syrian—were forced to land at Dyarbakir, Turkey, after U.S. satellites spotted missiles, including C-802 anti-ship cruise missiles, and launchers being loaded onto them in Iran. According to Israel, however, some flights carrying weapons for Hezbollah have made it to Syria, and have possibly crossed the border into Lebanon. ---- Peres: Moscow asked Syria to explain why Hezbollah had Russian missiles 06/09/2006 By The Associated Press http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/759631.html Vice Premier Shimon Peres said in an interview broadcast in Russia on Wednesday that despite Russian officials' claims that no Russian-made weapons were used by Hezbollah during the war, Israeli authorities were aware that Russia had asked Syria to explain how the weapons came into Hezbollah's possession. Peres told Ekho Moskvy radio that Hezbollah militants had used Russian-made weapons against Israel during the fighting in south Lebanon in July and August, despite Russia's denial. "We saw these weapons, they had certain markings," Peres said. "As far as we know, the Russians demanded explanations from Syria." Last month, a senior delegation went to Moscow to complain that Hezbollah guerrillas had used Russian-made anti-tank missiles in their 34-day conflict with Israeli forces in Lebanon. The officials said that Iran and Syria had passed the anti-tank missiles to Hezbollah after buying them from Russia. The Fagot and Kornet anti-tank missiles proved to be among Hezbollah's most effective weapons in combat, killing many of the 118 Israel Defense Froces soldiers who died in combat. Russian officials had rejected the allegations, saying that Moscow has maintained strict controls over its weapons sales to prevent them from falling into the wrong hands. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said last month that Israel had provided no evidence that Hezbollah had used the Russian-designed missiles. Ruslan Pukhov, the head of the Moscow-based Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, said that it was unlikely that Hezbollah had any significant numbers of the sophisticated missiles, which are capable of piercing the thick, multi-layer armor of the IDF's Merkava tanks. The think-tank monitors Russia's global arms trade. "Even if Hezbollah indeed got any of these weapons, they only could have got several pieces," he told The Associated Press. "Syria has few modern weapons and wouldn't scatter them around." ---- US Senate rejects restraints on cluster bombs 06/09/2006 The News http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=23091 WASHINGTON: The Senate on Wednesday rejected a move by Democrats to stop the Pentagon from using cluster bombs near civilian targets and to cut off sales unless purchasers abide by the same rules. On a 70-30 vote, the Senate defeated an amendment to a Pentagon budget bill to block use of the deadly munitions near populated areas. The vote came after the State Department announced last month that it is investigating whether Israel misused American-made cluster bombs in civilian areas of Lebanon. Unexploded cluster bombs, anti-personnel weapons that spray bomblets over a wide area, litter homes, gardens and highways in south Lebanon after Israel’s 34-day war with Hizbullah activists. Democratic Sens Dianne Feinstein and Patrick Leahy have long sought to keep cluster bombs from being used near concentrated areas of civilians. They say that as many as 40 per cent of the munitions fail to detonate on impact, they can still can explode later, leaving innocent civilians and children vulnerable to injury or death long after hostilities have ceased. -------- chemical weapons U.S. Struggling With Chemical Weapons Deadline WASHINGTON, DC, September 6, 2006 (ENS) http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/sep2006/2006-09-06-09.asp#anchor3 Fifty percent of the total munitions in the United States' declared chemical weapons stockpile has been destroyed, the U.S. Army announced last week, but the nation is unlikely to meet a treaty obligation to destroy its entire stock by next year. The 50 percent figure represents more than 1.7 million munitions of the total stockpile originally estimated, according to the Army's Chemical Materials Agency. The figure includes bombs, rockets, mortars, projectiles, land mines and spray tanks filled with nerve agents (including sarin and VX), plus blister agents (including mustard gas). The total destroyed to date represents 39 percent of the U.S. stockpile by weight. The Army says the 50 percent milestone "demonstrates the United States' commitment to its international obligations as a signatory to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC)." The CWC, which entered into force April 29, 1997, bans the development, production, acquisition, stockpiling, retention and direct or indirect transfer of chemical weapons. Ratified by the United States in 1997, the treaty also prohibits the use or preparation for use of chemical weapons and the assistance, encouragement or inducement of anyone else to engage in activities prohibited by the convention. But permitting delays and facility work stoppages have held up the overall effort to eliminate the national stockpile, according to the Army. These challenges prompted the United States in July to submit a draft request that would extend the deadline for the destruction of the entire U.S. chemical weapons stockpile from April 2007 to April 2012. It took the United States "longer than anticipated to build facilities and to obtain the necessary permits and consent to begin destruction of chemical weapons, and we have found that, once operating, our facilities have not destroyed weapons as rapidly as we initially projected," said Ambassador Eric Javits, head of the U.S. delegation to the CWC council. The U.S. Chemical Materials Agency has been disposing of chemical weapons since 1990. In that year, it began to dispose of munitions at a destruction facility on Johnston Atoll, which is more than 1,290 kilometers southwest of Honolulu. Complete destruction of that stockpile was achieved in 2000, and the Army says the site "remains a wildlife refuge." After Johnston Atoll, disposal efforts were initiated in Utah, Alabama, Oregon, and Indiana and Arkansas. Earlier this year a site in Aberdeen, Maryland became the first to completely destroy its stockpile. -------- iran Iran unveils locally made fighter plane Wed, Sep. 06, 2006 NASSER KARIMI Associated Press http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/world/15449153.htm TEHRAN, Iran - Iran unveiled its first locally manufactured fighter plane Wednesday during large-scale military exercises, state-run television reported. The report said the bomber Saegheh is similar to the American F-18 fighter plane, but "more powerful." It also said the plane was "designed, optimized and improved by Iranian experts." State TV said the Iranian air force had commissioned the Saegheh plane after many test flights in the past year. Television footage showed the airplane taking off and launching two rockets. The plane had a small cockpit and only one pilot. "Saegheh is capable of launching both rockets and bombs," the report said. General Karim Ghavami, commander of Iran's air force, told state-run television that the war games were being held "to show the trans-regional forces that we are ready to defend our country up to the latest drop of our blood." The Islamic republic is concerned about the U.S. military presence in neighboring Iraq and Afghanistan at a time when the international community has threatened to impose sanctions against Tehran because of its disputed nuclear program. During the war-games, which began Aug. 19 and have been dubbed "The Blow of Zolfaghar," Iran has test-fired short-range, surface-to-surface missiles, submarine-to-surface missiles, a new air defense system and laser bombs. Iran's military also test-fired a series of missiles during war games in the Persian Gulf in March and April, including a missile it claimed was undetectable by radar and could use multiple warheads to hit several targets simultaneously. After decades of relying on foreign weapons purchases, Iran now says it is increasingly self-sufficient, claiming it annually exports more than $100 million worth of military equipment to more than 50 countries. Since 1992, Iran has produced its own tanks, armored personnel carriers and missiles, the government said. It announced in early 2005 that it had begun producing torpedoes. The government has not said how many warplanes it will build. -------- iraq Eye on Iraq: Adrift in a complex war Sept. 6, 2006 By MARTIN SIEFF UPI Senior News Analyst http://www.upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?StoryID=20060906-123006-4048r WASHINGTON, -- U.S. policymakers and forces in Iraq are now adrift in a complex, many-sided war and the democratic political system that was the centerpiece of U.S. strategy is collapsing before Washington's eyes. Mahmoud al-Mashadani, the speaker of the Iraqi parliament, warned deputies Wednesday morning they might only have three or four months to prevent the irreversible collapse of their country and its splintering into mutually hostile religious and ethnic enclaves. 'We have three to four months to reconcile," he said. "If the country doesn't survive, it goes under." Mashadani's warning came the day after the parliament voted to continue the emergency powers of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for another month and as violence and terror continued to erupt on all sides. Applying a relatively rational analysis, several overlapping conflicts are currently raging simultaneously in Iraq. First, the long-running, three-and-a-half-year-old Sunni insurgency against U.S, forces and the new Iraqi government continues unabated in two western provinces and in the capital Baghdad. As our companion "Iraq Benchmarks" has confirmed, despite other conflicts erupting one very side the Sunni insurgents have been able to keep up their level of attrition attacks and rates of inflicting casualties on U.S, forces through this year. Second, since the bombing of the al-Askariya, or Golden Mosque, in Samara in Feb, 22, Shiite militia forces have reacted with much greater force against the general Sunni community, launching campaigns of random killings. The focus of this conflict has been also in and around Baghdad, and in central provinces with mixed Sunni and Shiite populations. Third, at the prompting of U.S, leaders and military commanders, the shaky new Iraqi army -- intended to eventually function at a full strength of 10 divisions -- has launched a series of campaigns against some of the Shiite militias, especially Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi army, to try and get them under control. However, the performance of regular Iraqi forces, who are generally Shiite commanded and dominated by Shiites, has so far been very disappointing and in some recent clashes they have had to rely on the Badr Brigades, another Shiite irregular militia force, for support. Therefore, far from asserting the control and credibility of the regular Iraqi army over the Shiite militias as U.S. commanders intended, the recent campaigns have weakened its standing still further and made it appear a mere cats-paw in a fourth struggle, that between the Mahdi Army, and the Badr Brigade, with other quasi-independent Shiite militias either allied to them or watching closely to see which of them comes out on top. Nor do these four conflicts -- the Sunni insurgency against U.S. and allied forces, the Sunni-Shiite conflict, the Iraqi army battle with the Shiite militias and the internal struggles between the Shiite militias -- exhaust the number of potential conflicts in Iraq. The Kurds look likely to try and fully secede from the central government in Baghdad and that could open up a new conflict between them and the Shiite dominated Maliki government. In addition, anti-American Shiite militias led by the Mahdi Army could erupt in revolt at any time against U.S. forces as well as the Maliki government and threaten to cut the crucial overland supply route from Kuwait to Central Iraq that is essential to provision the 140,000 U.S. troops in the country. At least, this last threat appears to have receded partially following the halting of Israeli military operations against the Shiite Hezbollah, or Party of God, in southern Lebanon. The Middle East has seen no conflict as many-sided and complicated as this since the Lebanon civil war from 1975/6 through 1991. The reasons for that similarity and the implications to be drawn from it are very alarming. The main parallel is that the complexity, longevity and high cost in human life of the Lebanese civil war were primarily caused by the collapse of the central government and the inability of the warring parties to agree on creating a new one. That condition already exists in Iraq, where the Mailiki's government is effectively helplessly outside the heavily defended Green Zone in the heart of Baghdad. It is not even master of significant enclaves outside the Green Zone in its own capital. The lesson to be drawn from this ongoing condition is that the many-sided Iraqi conflict, like the Lebanese one before it, is already so intractable that it is almost certain to last for many years at the cost of scores of thousands more lives, most of them innocent civilians, just as the Lebanese one did. The total death toll of the Lebanon civil war is believed to have run as high as 150,000 people, most of them in the more intense, early years of the conflict. That level of suffering and deaths no longer appears inconceivable in Iraq, even while U.S. troops remain in the country. The number of people killed in militia clashes, attacks on regular armed forces and inter-ethnic reprisal killings and massacres is already put at around 100 a day and it has been running at that level for at least two or three months. Years of killing at that level would produce more than 36,000 dead -- a bloodbath easily on the Lebanese scale. In the Bible, the prophet Habakkuk warns sinners that if they do not change their ways, "the Violence of Lebanon" shall engulf them. That curse seems to have already overtaken the 28 million people of Iraq. -------- latin america Nicaragua braced for the return of the ugly Americans Wednesday September 6, 2006 New Zealand Herald By Andrew Buncombe http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10399886 For the people of Nicaragua, there must be a sense of deja vu, coupled with a deep feeling of foreboding, as they again come under the harsh spotlight of a Republican American Administration. More than 20 years after the United States intervened to brutally oust a democratically elected government, it is again being accused of interfering in the Central American nation's domestic politics to ensure the victory of its preferred candidate. And again, it is acting against the left-wing Sandinista party and its candidate, Daniel Ortega. US intervention 2006-style does not involve spending US$300 million ($465 million) to support anti-government Contra forces, an intervention that led to a vicious war and the death of up to 30,000 people. This time, America's involvement involves making clear its preferences by having its ambassador denounce Ortega as "anti-democratic", a "candidate from the past" and a "tiger who hasn't changed his stripes". There is also the veiled threat that the US may not co-operate with a government headed by the Sandinistas. One senior US official wrote in a Nicaraguan newspaper last year that should Ortega be elected, "Nicaragua would sink like a stone". Some experts say the Americans' behaviour in Nicaragua continues a pattern in a region where the US has for decades sought to undermine governments it opposes - through peaceful means or otherwise - to secure one it believes it can do business with. Under the Administration of President George W. Bush, the policy has, if anything, gathered pace. "US policy in Latin America under the Bush Administration has been uniquely ideologically driven, far more than it was even under the Reagan Administration," said Larry Birns, director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, a Washington think tank. "The latest thing is that US ambassadors in places such as Bolivia, El Salvador and Costa Rica all walk in and say, 'The US has made it clear it supports free and fair elections, but if a non-US-friendly candidate wins we will cut off US aid'. They are quite open about it." He added: "That is why [Cuban leader] Fidel Castro is so popular in Latin America, because he is defiant. That is why [Venezuela's elected President] Hugo Chavez is so popular in Latin America, because he gives the finger to Washington. He makes obscene gestures literally and metaphorically." American policy in Nicaragua is being most clearly delivered by its ambassador in Managua, Paul Trivelli, who has spoken of his disapproval of Ortega and his Sandinista party, and indicated his support for Eduardo Montealegre, the candidate for the National Liberal Alliance. His outspokenness - in contrast to the more considered language usually used by diplomats - has created a stir in Nicaragua. Ortega, a former president who is heading the polls for November's election, told the Houston Chronicle: "Even in the worst of times during the Reagan Administration, the US envoy was careful with his words. But the current ambassador acts like he is the governor of Nicaragua." Trivelli was confronted about his comments by Carlos Chamorro, a leading Nicaraguan television journalist and son of former Nicaraguan president Violet Chamorro, the woman who beat the Sandinistas in the 1990 election. Chamorro said no foreign diplomat had ever acted with such "belligerence" in the nation's domestic affairs. "Why," Chamorro asked the ambassador, "do you mention the names of the presidential candidates the US thinks well or badly of, making it appear that the US vetoes certain candidates?" Trivelli replied: "Since [last] October we have been trying to speak in a more direct way so that people understand what our decision is. I think it is important that people have no doubts about what we think." When Chamorro cited polls showing most Nicaraguans believed Trivelli had overstepped the line, he replied: "I am not going to stop defending democracy. That is part of our policy and it will continue to be part of our policy ... I believe that speaking is not intervening." But several former US diplomats with experience in Central America have said Trivelli has stepped well beyond usually understood diplomatic boundaries. Experts also say America's history in Nicaragua and its military intervention give Trivelli's comments a weight beyond the words used. Professor Karen Kampwirth, a Latin America expert at Knox College in Illinois who sits on an independent panel commissioned by a Nicaragua support group to investigate American interference in Nicaragua, said the US carried much historical baggage. "It's not like the ambassador from Zimbabwe expressing a preference for a candidate. Zimbabwe does not have the history of interfering in Nicaragua," she said. "One of the Ortega billboards in Nicaragua was spray-painted 'We don't want another war'. What it was saying was that if you vote for Ortega you are voting for a possible war with the US." The US intervention in Central and Latin American often involves giving money to favoured parties. Two years ago, the Independent reported how hundreds of thousands of dollars of American money was being sent to opposition groups seeking a no-confidence vote against Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. Some of it went to people and groups involved in the short-lived 2002 coup against Chavez. This week, it was revealed that US money is being sent to "pro-democracy" groups seeking to remove Chavez in Venezuela's presidential contest in December. Much of this money is channelled through the National Endowment for Democracy, which gets US$80 million a year from the US Congress. It dispenses the cash to groups around the world "to strengthen democracy". Critics say it routinely meddles in other countries' affairs, supporting groups that believe in free enterprise, minimal government intervention in the economy and opposition to socialism. It gives grants either directly or through four core "grantees". One of these, the International Republican Institute (IRI) was involved in helping organise opponents of Haiti's former president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the democratically elected leader, who was forced from office in 2004. Bill Berkowitz of the non-profit group Working for Change wrote: "The NED ... provides money, technical support, supplies, training programmes, media know-how, public relations assistance and state-of-the-art equipment to select political groups, civic organisations, labour unions, dissident movements, student groups, book publishers, newspapers, and other media. "Its aim is to destabilise progressive movements, particularly those with a socialist or democratic socialist bent." The study in which Professor Kampwirth participated found the US had spent US$10 million in Nicaragua on financing political education and civil society groups. Ivania Vega Rueda, a programme officer for the IRI in Nicaragua, told the report's authors that the IRI had been active in helping organise marches against the Sandinistas and another political party, the Constitutional Liberal Party. The IRI had "created" the Movement for Nicaragua, which she said organised marches against the two parties. The US embassy in Nicaragua did not return calls seeking comment. But Thomas Shannon, the US assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, in an interview with the Houston Chronicle, defended US actions. "We see ourselves as pushing the democratic process," he said. "It's about creating political systems that are open, transparent and inclusive." -- INDEPENDENT -------- un Annan: Troops not There to Disarm Hezbollah Wednesday, September 06, 2006 By ANKA zaman.com http://www.zaman.com/?bl=hotnews&alt=&trh=20060906&hn=36317 Amid tight security precautions, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan met Turkish foreign ministry officials on Wednesday in Ankara, but there was no discussion over the technical points of Turkey’s contribution to the U.N.-led force in Lebanon, reporters said. Annan expressed his delight at the parliamentary approval of a decision to join the U.N.-led troops when he said that the Turkish contribution would be quite helpful in sorting out the question of Lebanon, a close neighbor of Turkey. Annan said that the Rome conference held in July failed to be a strong beginning; however, the U.N. decision would be an important step forward. Annan praised Turkey's decision to join the expanded U.N. force, calling such contributions “a sign of international solidarity,” the AP reported. “We will speedily send a delegation to New York; after that the situation will be clearer,” Erdogan told a joint news conference with Annan, according to the AP. There was also discussion about the apparent hesitation on the part of Turkey to allow Turkish troops to join the U.N.-led forces. Annan said in response that he appreciated such feelings of hesitation. Namik Tan:‘Careful’ Research will be Carried out Asked to comment on Annan’s meeting with officials in Ankara, Namik Tan, spokesman for the foreign ministry, said that Annan shared the view with the Turkish officials that the U.N.-led peacekeeping force should not be assigned to disarm Hezbollah. Abdullah Gul has not yet had talks with foreign officials after the Turkish parliament’s consent to deploy Turkish forces in Lebanon, said Tan, and added that it was difficult to guess how long it would take to get all the technical work done prior to the troop deployment. Tan said that the Turkish troops’ plans in Lebanon would be based on detailed and careful research. Any such research would be carried out in plain sight, with complete access available to the public, he said. Iraq became an important conversation topic during discussions in Ankara, permitting Turkish officials to bring up the issue of Kirkuk. Emphasizing the possibility of Kirkuk turning into a future problem, Turkish officials underlined the need to do away with discrepancies prior to the expected 2007 referendum in Kirkuk. Officials in Ankara are pleased that Annan has been attaching great importance to a request from Ankara to the U.N. to create a proportional structure on which different groups in Kirkuk can agree. Tan said that the officials in Ankara got the impression that Annan had ideas in mind to carry out plans regarding Kirkuk. Cypriot Leaders Urged to Meet Discussions in Ankara also brought attention to the need to lift the embargo on the isolated Turks in Northern Cyprus. Annan received a request from officials in Ankara to arrange a meeting of leaders from both sides of Cyprus. The impression was that Annan welcomed this request, reporters said. -------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE -------- courts / tribunals Closed hearings ordered in Libby CIA leak case Use of classified information as defense at issue Sept. 6, 2006 By Joel Seidman NBC News http://msnbc.msn.com/id/14705954/ A federal judge has ordered a series of closed hearings to determine if Vice President Cheney's former top aide, I Lewis "Scooter" Libby, can use certain classified information as a defense during his trial in the CIA/Leak case. Judge Reggie Walton ordered two sets of closed door hearings. The first, to begin on September 25th, and "continue everyday thereafter until completed," will be to make all determinations concerning the use, relevance, or admissibility of classified information that would otherwise be made during the trial. The second set of closed hearing, set to begin October 10th, will deal with classified information the judge has determined to be admissible at trial. The judge also ordered that the government's declassification team be present at both hearings. According to rules governing classified documents known as CIPA, the Classified Information Procedures Act, in many cases, the government will propose a redacted version of a classified document as a substitution for the original, having deleted only non-relevant classified information. Misremembering defense Libby's attorneys have requested and have been given in recent weeks two batches of summaries and redacted versions of classified morning intelligence briefings which Libby attended with Cheney in order to prepare his defense. Libby's attorneys wish to present at trial a picture of their client as being overwhelmed by the crush of critical national security work at the White House - a client who may have misremembered, what they wish to portray as insignificant, the identity of former ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife who was a CIA employee at the time. Using certain classified documents at trial could underscore the important work was involved with at the time of the Plame leak. Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's case rests on the premise that Libby lied to the FBI and to a grand jury about his own conversations with reporters confirming that Plame worked for the CIA and was somehow responsible for her husband's fact finding trips to Africa in search of proof about Iraq's alleged quest for fissile materials. Wilson wrote in a New York Times op-ed, that that quest did not exist, and that the administration was "twisting" the facts about Iraq's determination to procure Niger's yellowcake. Fitzgerald has said in court filings that the Plame leak from Libby was orchestrated specifically to undermine the credibility of Wilson's public pronouncements - which Fitzgerald says consumed the Vice President's office for several weeks in the summer of 2002. Libby was charged in October, 2005 with lying to the FBI and a federal grand jury about how he learned the name of CIA officer Valerie Plame and when he subsequently told three reporters about her. He faces five counts of perjury, making false statements and obstruction of justice. Libby's trial is scheduled to begin in January 2007. -------- terrorism US plays down al-Qaeda in list of terror threats By Caroline Daniel and Edward Alden in Washington Published: September 6 2006 Financial Times http://www.ft.com/cms/s/f2a16b84-3d43-11db-9b3d-0000779e2340.html The Bush administration yesterday defended its record in combating terrorism, and identified the principal terrorist threat facing the US as a "transnational movement of extremist organisations" that exploit Islam, rather than the al-Qaeda group. The White House report, "Combating Terrorism", was an updated version of a 2003 strategy report. It made no mention of Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader, and said the US had made "substantial progress in degrading the al-Qaeda network, killing or capturing key lieutenants, eliminating safe havens and disrupting existing lines of support". As President George W. Bush prepared to give the second in a series of five speeches on terrorism, the administration was trying to walk a fine line in its statements on progress in the war. While trying to gain political advantage by insisting that progress was being made and victories were being won - such as the recent uncovering of the alleged UK airline bombing plot - the White House is also warning that the danger of terrorist attacks remains high, and that the struggle could take generations. "Are we going to acknowledge that this is a long war, analogous to the cold war?" said Tony Snow, the president's spokesman. Although the report did not use Mr Bush's evocative phrase "Islamo-fascism", it painted the war as a much broader ideological battle, with an enemy that was seeking "to create and exploit a division between the Muslim and non-Muslim worlds". "We're engaged in a global struggle against the followers of a murderous ideology that despises freedom and crushes all dissent, and has territorial ambitions and pursues totalitarian aims," Mr Bush said in the foreword. The report defended the administration's assertive foreign policy, which has made combating terrorism and promoting democracy central. "We have broken old orthodoxies that once confined our counter-terrorism efforts primarily to the criminal justice division." That shift was underlined by a report this week from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a data research organisation linked to Syracuse University. It found that although the number of prosecutions of international terrorists jumped in the year after September 11 2001, "the total number" of these prosecutions has returned to roughly what it was just before the attacks. There were 355 prosecutions in 2002, but just 46 in 2005 and only 19 so far this year. For those who were prosecuted in the two years after September 11, the median sentence was just 28 days, falling to 20 days for cases since then. Moreover, 91 per cent of the cases this year have been rejected by federal prosecutors. "The investigation of international terrorism must be the single most important target area for the FBI and other agencies. The turn-down rate is hard to understand," the report said. The White House report was countered by an analysis from the Third Way, a think-tank, launched with senior Democrats, which looked at Mr Bush's national security record. "We set out to measure whether President Bush is making America safer. And the answer is no, based on our analysis." The report noted that, although the Bush administration had said it had "arrested or otherwise dealt with" much of al-Qaeda's command structure, the estimated number of al-Qaeda members had jumped from 20,000 in 2001 to 50,000 today. -------- torture Army Bans Some Interrogation Techniques Wednesday, September 6, 2006 By PAULINE JELINEK, Associated Press Writer http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2006/09/06/national/w063422D91.DTL A new Army manual bans torture and degrading treatment of prisoners, for the first time specifically mentioning forced nakedness, hooding and other infamous procedures used during the five-year-old fight against terrorism. Delayed more than a year amid criticism of the Defense Department's treatment of prisoners, the revised Army Field Manual released Wednesday updates a 1992 version. It also explicitly bans beating prisoners, sexually humiliating them, threatening them with dogs, depriving them of food or water, performing mock executions, shocking them with electricity, burning them, causing other pain and a technique called "water boarding" that simulates drowning, said Lt. Gen. John Kimmons, Army Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence. Officials said the revisions are based on lessons learned since the U.S. began taking prisoners after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Release of the manual came amid a flurry of announcements about U.S. handling of prisoners, which has drawn criticism from Bush administration critics as well as domestic and international allies. The Pentagon also announced an overall policy statement on prisoner operations. President Bush acknowledged the existence of previously secret CIA prisons around the world where terrorist suspects have been held and interrogated. He said 14 such al-Qaida leaders had been transferred to the military prison at Guantanamo Bay and will be brought to trial. Human rights groups and some nations have urged the Bush administration to close that prison almost since it opened in 2002 with prisoners from the campaign against al-Qaida in Afghanistan. Scrutiny of U.S. treatment of prisoners reached to a new level in 2004 with the release of photos showing U.S. troops beating, intimidating and sexually abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib in Iraq — and then again with news of the secret facilities. Though defense officials earlier this year debated writing a classified section of the manual to keep some interrogation procedures a secret from potential enemies, Kimmons said Wednesday that there is no secret section. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has said from the start of the fight against terrorism that prisoners are treated humanely and in a manner "consistent with Geneva Conventions." But Bush decided shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks that since it was not a conventional war, "unlawful enemy combatants" captured in the fight against al-Qaida would not be considered POWs and thus would not be afforded the protections of the convention. The new manual, called "Human Intelligence Collector Operations," applies to all the armed services. It doesn't cover the CIA, which also has come under investigation for mistreatment of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan and for keeping suspects in secret prisons. Sixteen of the manual's 19 interrogation techniques were covered in the old manual and three new ones were added on the basis of lessons from the counter-terror war, Kimmons said. The additions are that interrogators may use the good-cop/bad-cop tact with prisoners, they may portray themselves as someone other than an American interrogator, and they may use "separation," basically keeping prisoners apart from each other so enemy combatants can't coordinate their answers with each other. The last will be used only on unlawful combatants, not POWS, only as an exception and only with permission of a high-level commander, Kimmons said. The Pentagon also on Wednesday released a new policy directive on detention operations that says the handling of prisoners must — at a minimum — abide by the standards of the Geneva Conventions and lays out the responsibilities of senior civilian and military officials who oversee detention operations. "The revisions ... took time," Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs Cully Stimson said at the briefing. "It took time because it was important to get it right, and we did get it right." He said the directive pulls together policy changes recommended in a dozen investigations done after the Abu Ghraib scandal broke. "By publishing this document and the Army Field Manual, we will have addressed over 95 percent of the recommendations from those 12 major investigations since Abu Ghraib," Stimson said. Amnesty International USA's director, Larry Cox, said he was "pleased to see a direct repudiation of tactics previously approved for use against detainees such as hooding, the use of dogs," as well as the acknowledgment that the Geneva Conventions apply. Among members of Congress briefed on the manual Wednesday, Democrats praised it as a step in the right direction and potentially helpful in preventing future prisoner abuse. Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas said he was concerned that, because the techniques are unclassified, information from the manuals could be used by terrorists to resist interrogations. -------- POLITICS -------- investigations Book: Valerie Plame Worked on CIA’s Covert Iraq WMD Program Wednesday, September 6th, 2006 Democracy Now! Headlines for September 6, 2006 http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/09/06/1359223 A new book has revealed that former undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame was the chief of operations on the CIA’s Joint Task Force on Iraq at the time of her outing three years ago. According to journalists David Corn and Michael Isikoff, Plame was part of a secret CIA team that was mounting espionage operations to gather information on Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destructions. The Joint Task Force on Iraq was trying to find evidence that would back up the White House's assertion that Iraq was a WMD danger. Plame was forced to leave her position after her identity was leaked. -------- propaganda wars Book: In lead up to war, Bush's temper flared over reporters; Cheney aides mistook watering hole for WMD hiding place Wednesday September 6, 2006 RAW STORY http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Book_Bush_told_aides_he_would_0906.html Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War, a new book arriving in stores today by veteran Newsweek investigative reporter Michael Isikoff and Nation Washington editor David Corn reveals a flurry of new details on the inner workings on the Administration in the lead-up to the Iraq war -- many of which cast unflattering light on the aggressive nature of the Bush-Cheney team that discounted facts from the intelligence community in favor of a policy that involved attacking Iraq, RAW STORY has learned. Among the book's myriad disclosures will include: - President Bush was driven by a visceral hatred of Saddam Hussein, which he privately demonstrated in expletive-laden tirades against the Iraqi dictator. In May 2002--months before he asked Congress for authority to attack Saddam-Bush bluntly revealed his ultimate game plan in a candid moment with two aides. When told that reporter Helen Thomas was questioning the need to oust Saddam by force, Bush snapped: "Did you tell her I intend to kick his sorry mother fucking ass all over the Mideast?" In a meeting with congressional leaders, the President angrily thrust his middle finger inches in front of the face of Senator Tom Daschle to illustrate Saddam's attitude toward the United States. - As part of an aggressive prewar covert action program--codenamed Anabasis (after an ancient text about a botched invasion of Babylon)--the CIA was authorized by the White House in the winter of 2002 to blow up targets in Iraq and engage in "direct action" (an agency euphemism for assassination) to weaken Saddam's regime and to prepare for his ouster by the U.S. military. For Anabasis, the agency smuggled Iraqi exiles to a top-secret site in the Nevada desert and trained them in sabotage and explosives. The Iraqi force, known as the Scorpions, was being trained to seize an isolated Iraqi military post-in order to create a provocation that could trigger a war with Iraq. - When Bush was first briefed that no WMDs had been found in Iraq, he was totally unfazed and asked few questions. "I'm not sure I've spoken to anyone at that level who seemed less inquisitive," the briefer told the authors. - Colin Powell remains intensely bitter and angry about his UN Security Council Speech, during which he presented the case for war. After it became clear that much of his speech was wrong, he refused to have anything to do with CIA director George Tenet. "It's annoying to me," Powell told the authors. "Everybody focuses on my presentation....Well the same goddamn case was presented to the U.S. Senate and the Congress and they voted for [Bush's Iraq] resolution....Why aren't they outraged....The same case was presented to the President. Why isn'' the President outraged? It's always, 'Gee, Powell, you made this speech to the UN.'" - After the invasion, Dick Cheney's aides desperately sifted through raw intelligence nuggets in search of any evidence that would justify the war. On one occasion they sent the WMD hunters in Iraq a satellite photo that they suspected showed a hiding place for WMDs. But it was only an overhead photo of a watering hole for cows. - A critical memo in the CIA leak case was based on notes of a State Department official that were (as this official told the authors) inaccurate. This memo reported that former ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife was a CIA employee who played a key role in sending him on his trip to Niger. Yet the State Department official now acknowledges his notes did not describe Valerie Wilson's role accurately. - At the time of her outing, Valerie Wilson was an undercover officer in the CIA whose mission had been to gather intelligence about WMDs in Iraq. She was the operations manager of the Joint Task Force on Iraq, a unit in the clandestine service of the CIA. This unit desperately tried to obtain evidence to back up the Bush administration's assertions about Saddam's WMDs, yet it found no such evidence. - Richard Armitage, the deputy secretary of state, was the original leaker in the CIA leak case. But as he was disclosing information to columnist Robert Novak, Karl Rove, Scooter Libby and other top White House aides were engaged in a fierce campaign to discredit Joseph Wilson. Rove even told MSNBC anchor Chris Matthews that the Wilsons "were trying to screw the White House so the White House was going to screw them back." - Many of the White House's most dramatic claims about the threat posed by weapons of mass destruction were repeatedly questioned by senior members of the U.S. intelligence community-but these dissents and views were suppressed or ignored by the White House. Admiral Thomas Wilson, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency until May 2002, is quoted in the book as casting doubt on virtually the entire White House case for an invasion of Iraq. "I didn't really think [Iraq] had a nuclear program," retired Admiral Wilson told the authors. "I didn't think [Saddam and Iraq] were an immediate threat on WMD." - The CIA missed an obvious clue that showed that the infamous Niger documents--the basis for Bush's false statement in a State of the Union speech--were crude forgeries. The clue was a bizarre companion document detailing a supposed global alliance of rogue nations (including Iraq and Iran)--a notion so unlikely that one State Department intelligence analyst immediately labeled it a hoax. The CIA also blew the call on these documents partly because an officer misplaced the papers. - U.S. intelligence officials suspected Iranian intelligence was trying to influence U.S. decision-making through Ahmad Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress-yet they felt they could do nothing about it because the INC had support within the White House and Pentagon. - Congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle seriously doubted the case for war-and questioned the top-secret briefings they received directly from Cheney. One senior Republican, House Majority Leader Dick Armey, warned the President in a September 2002 meeting that Bush would be stuck in a "quagmire" if he invaded Iraq. But Armey and others were afraid for political reasons to challenge the White House on the prewar intelligence. - An obscure academic, derided as a virtual crackpot by U.S. law enforcement and the intelligence community, greatly influenced top Bush administration officials, who adopted her farfetched theory that Saddam was the source of most of the terrorism in the world, including the 9/11 attacks. But, oddly, this researcher, Laurie Mylroie, had once been a Saddam apologist and had engaged in secret, back-door diplomacy aimed at brokering a peace accord between Israel and Iraq. After Saddam invaded Kuwait, Mylroie developed bizarre allegations about Saddam and terrorism. Her theories were debunked by the CIA and FBI, yet Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz embraced them, cited them in official meetings, and repeatedly pressed the agency and bureau to come up with evidence to substantiate Mylroie's work. - The intelligence community's top nuclear experts were afraid to challenge publicly the Bush administration's claim that Iraq had obtained aluminum tubes for a nuclear weapons program, though they disagreed with this assessment. The tubes case was relentlessly pressed by one CIA analyst whose technical expertise did not match those of these scientists and whose name is revealed for the first time in HUBRIS. - The CIA came close to recruiting Saddam Hussein's foreign minister, Naji Sabri, to be an American spy. Through a Lebanese journalist, Sabri passed word to the CIA's station chief in Paris that Iraq had no active nuclear or WMD programs. But senior CIA and White House officials dismissed the intelligence and opposed the effort to recruit Sabri, fearing it would undercut the case for an invasion. The chief of the CIA's Iraq Operations Group told the Paris station chief, "One of these days you're going to get it. This is not about intelligence. This is about regime change." - Even as colleagues of Judith Miller at The New York Times were suspicious of her reporting on Iraq's WMDs, her editors stubbornly stood by her. HUBRIS details how some of the Times' most significant-and wrong-stories about Saddam's WMDs came to be written. - CIA analysts, over the objections of other intelligence community analysts, rigged a post-invasion report to show that a trailer found in Iraq was a mobile bioweapons lab. - Before the invasion, Bush and General Tommy Franks only briefly discussed how Iraq would be secured after the invasion-and did so in the most general terms. The one idea they discussed--appointing a "lord mayor" in each Iraqi city and town--was not even shared with the military officers in charge of drawing up the plans for a post-invasion Iraq. - Karl Rove and his lawyer did not turn over a critical piece of evidence in the CIA leak case (a document covered by a subpoena from the special prosecutor) for nearly a year. Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War will be released on September 8 by Random House's Crown Publishing Group. ---- President Bush Likens Bin Laden to Hitler Wednesday, September 6th, 2006 Democracy Now! Headlines for September 6, 2006 http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/09/06/1359223 President Bush warned Tuesday that pulling troops out of Iraq would help Osama Bin Laden establish a totalitarian Islamic empire stretching from Europe to North Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. In the speech Bush repeatedly quoted Bin Laden’s own words and compared him to Adolph Hitler. * President Bush: "Bin Laden and his terrorists allies have made their intentions as clear as Lenin and Hitler before him. The question is will we listen? Will we pay attention to what these evil men say? America and our coalition partners have made our choice. We are taking the words of the enemy seriously. We are on the offensive we will not rest, we will not retreat and we will not withdrawal from the fight until this threat to civilization has been removed." President Bush also vowed to stay the course in Iraq. * President Bush: "These evil men know that a fundamental threat to their aspirations is a democratic Iraq that can govern itself, sustain itself and defend itself. The know that given a choice, the Iraqi people will never choose to live in the totalitarian state the extremists hope to establish. And that is why we must not, and we will not, give the enemy victory in Iraq by deserting the Iraqi people." On Tuesday the White House released an updated version of its "National Strategy for Combating Terrorism." Despite President Bush’s claim that Iraq is the central front on the war on terrorism, Iraq is only mentioned nine times in the 29-page document. -------- ENERGY -------- alternative energy Wind vs nuclear energy? No competition Zane Alcorn Green Left Weekly On-line Edition, September 6, 2006. http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2006/682/682p10.htm Despite PM John Howard’s call for a “full-blooded debate” about energy, greenhouse and uranium mining, there has been little discussion about renewable energy sources such as wind power. Wind power is the fastest-growing energy generation industry in the world. Notwithstanding a lack of government support, across the world the industry has grown at an average rate of 29% over the past 10 years, concentrated in California in the US, Spain, Germany, Denmark and several other European countries. During that time, the amount of wind energy production has risen from 5000 megawatts (MW) to more than 60,000 MW. By 2010, the amount is expected to double to 120,000 MW. Wind power has become more technologically advanced and reliable since it emerged commercially around 25 years ago. One of the most important advancements has been the evolution of larger turbines, which has had a couple of advantages. First, the most consistent and strongest airflow is found higher above the ground; lower-altitude breezes are generally weaker and more erratic. Whereas wind farms used to be viable only in special areas with excellent year-round breezes, newer large turbines are suited to a far wider range of locations. The second advantage of large turbines is that they generate more electricity. The latest generation of mass produced wind turbines has a blade diameter of 90 metres, with the generator, a nacelle, sitting on top of an 80 or 105 metre-high tower. Such turbines consistently produce about 3 million MW of electricity per unit, and cost about $3.6 million each (or about $1200 per kilowatt). A South Australian wind farm recently placed an order for 53 V90 3 MW turbines. Vestas, of Denmark, now has a factory in Tasmania that is equipped to produce several types of large turbines. Next generation turbines are larger again, with 5 MW turbines with a 126-metre blade diameter. While the reliability of wind power has improved, problems remain with consistent supply. One of these is overloading the grid with electricity in times of high wind and, to a lesser extent, under-powering the grid in low wind. A South Australian consortium is investigating using “burst power” by running electricity-hungry seawater desalination plants during peak wind power periods as a way of “soaking up” excess power. The concern that wind power inadvertently kills birds can be minimised by ensuring that the turbines are not built in known flight paths, or near nesting areas and waterholes. Wildlife groups are generally well aware of the benefits of wind power, and are happy to let authorities know about these critical locations. Some birds and bats will still be killed, but only a tiny fraction compared to those killed each year by vehicles. Solutions to community concerns might include building wind farms on private land, where farmers can still graze livestock and grow crops beneath the turbines while earning lease payments for hosting the turbines, and by placing the turbines along roadways and the edges of large public reserves. Turbines do emit some blade noise, but modern models are much quieter due to improved blade aerodynamics. Some argue that turbines are “unsightly”, but these anti-wind groups, often supported by the nuclear industry, should consider how aesthetically pleasing deformed babies and cancer victims are. The electricity grid in Australia, like most around the world, is based around a few centralised power plants that feed high voltages out to a progressively lighter network of transmission lines. Wind farms built around the perimeter of existing power networks would need to be properly linked back into the grid, requiring the construction of new cable infrastructure. Any nuclear power plant would require a similar investment in transmission lines to link them back into the grid. For wind power to be the dominant source of power, it would require a substantial restructure of the grid, and technological advances to further refine the reliability of wind power. However Ben Carmichael of Vestas Australia told Green Left Weekly that, in the immediate future, Australia could derive up to 20% of its national electricity needs from wind without a massive overhaul of the transmission network and without compromising the reliability of supply. According to Carmichael, 20% wind power nationally would require the construction of about 2500 V90 turbines, or equivalent, at a cost of around $9 billion. Expense Compare this to the financial costs of nuclear energy. To achieve a situation where 20% of current national electricity production was nuclear power would require the construction of at least five typical nuclear power plants, each with a capacity of around 1000-1500 MW (a typical reactor size). Based on several recently commissioned third-generation reactors in Japan and South Korea, these reactors would cost between $1500 and $2000 per kilowatt to commission, and therefore between $11.25-$15 billion in total. Clearly, nuclear power is more expensive. Once built, the plants require fuel rods, an additional cost, and these must be enriched at a separate facility, which would cost upwards of $500 million. Nuclear power has higher operational and maintenance costs compared to wind power, and nuclear power stations take longer to commission (seven to 10 years) than wind turbines (three to six months once delivered). More carbon dioxide is emitted in the construction of a nuclear power plant, and in the enrichment of fuel rods, than in the construction of wind towers. Once a wind turbine is up and running it will have generated as much clean energy after six months as “dirty” energy used in its manufacture. It takes about seven years for a nuclear power station to generate more carbon dioxide-free electricity than was spent building the plant and getting it operational. Over the lifetime of a wind turbine, it will generate 17-39 times the amount of energy as was used to build it. Nuclear power plants produce only about 16 times the energy used to build them. Each 1000 MW nuclear power generator would produce about 33 tonnes of highly radioactive waste per year, which would then need to be stored at additional cost, reprocessed at an even greater cost, or dumped — the cheapest and most likely option for dollar-saving corporations. If Australia has its own nuclear power plants, nuclear waste dumps and enrichment facilities, it will be easier to argue for it to become a world dumping ground for nuclear waste. If Australia leases enriched fuel rods to other nations and takes the waste back, a stockpile of dangerous nuclear waste will accrue. The US is partway through constructing a US$28 billion dump in Yucca Mountain, Nevada, due to open in 2017. But the US will still have another 30,000 tonnes of nuclear waste and 22,000 barrels of high-level waste to get rid of within 30 years. Australia might be a cheaper option than hollowing out another Yucca Mountain. But unlike wind turbines, nuclear power plants cannot be disassembled once their operational life is over. A nuclear plant must be properly decommissioned and decontaminated, a multi-billion dollar process usually paid for by taxpayers rather than the corporations that have profited. Risks Although modern nuclear reactors are safer than Cold War-era ones, the ever-present risk with nuclear power is a meltdown that spreads toxic vapour and fragments of nuclear waste and particles. This happens when the ultra-hot fuel rods, through human, mechanical or technical faults, overheat and melt through the core, then floor of the reactor, and come into contact with moisture, causing an explosion. This is what happened in 1986 in the Chernobyl reactor in the Ukraine. A more likely scenario is the overheating, and resultant over-pressurising of the reactor core, which can lead to radioactive steam being vented into the atmosphere. This happened at the Three Mile Island reactor in Pennsylvania in 1979. Then, the hot fuel rods in the core of the reactor caused a “meltdown” when they overheated and started burning through the steel and concrete reactor casing. This destroyed the reactor core and toxic gases leaked into the atmosphere, but did not cause an explosion like at Chernobyl. No new nuclear power plants have been built in the US since the Three Mile Island meltdown. The global nuclear power industry has grown at a rate of 1.7% over the last 10 years, compared to 29% for wind and 28% for solar. The other danger associated with nuclear power is weapons proliferation. Each 1000 MW reactor produces about 200kg of plutonium per year, of which only 5kg is required to make a rudimentary bomb. Even the nuclear industry acknowledges there are no guarantees that plutonium from “peaceful reactors” will not end up in weapons programs, legally or otherwise. Uranium for weapons and for power plants are component parts of the same dangerous nuclear fuel cycle. [For more information, visit http://www.wwf.org.au/publications/clean_energy_future_report/, http://www.worldwatch.org/node/1646, http://www.uic.com.au/nip16.htm, and http://africameetsafrica.com/index.php?menuoption=article14.] -------- ACTIVISTS Peace prize for microcredit pioneer Wednesday 06 September 2006, AFP http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/A809772E-ABCE-4988-9731-11A613692464.htm A Bangladeshi who established a bank for the poor and is regarded as one of the key developers of microcredit has been awarded the eighth Seoul Peace Prize. Muhammad Yunus won the biennial prize of $200,000, which honours peace efforts by politicians, academics, activists and international organisations. "His tireless endeavour to root out poverty and create a new model of giving credit to the poor will bear fruit in terms of greater peace in the world," the Seoul Prize Cultural Foundation said. It said Yunus, dubbed Banker to the Poor, began fighting poverty during a 1974 famine in Bangladesh. He set up a small bank, Grameen Bank, to give locals access to credit. Yunus is seen as one of the main developers of the concept of "microcredit", which gives entrepreneurs who are too poor to qualify for traditional bank loans very small sums to start up their own enterprises. The success of Grameen and Yunus's new banking concept has been emulated in 23 countries, the foundation said. Reaction Reacting to the news, Yunus said: "I am happy and proud to receive the award. Not only does it recognise the Grameen Bank initiative, but it also puts the poor people of Bangladesh and their struggle to fight poverty on the global map. "The Grameen Bank has now 6.5 million borrowers. Some 96%of them are women. "Our bank is now giving scholarships to 28,000 poor students annually and some 12,000 students have completed higher studies with our education loans. "Our aim is now to create a whole new generation of empowered men and women out of our 6.5 million borrowers." The Seoul Peace Prize, established in 1990, commemorates the 1988 Seoul Olympics, which drew as many as 160 countries and were seen as breaking the ideological wall between East and West. Yunus is the eighth winner of the prize, whose other recipients Kofi Annan, the UN secretary-general; Vaclav Havel, the former Czech president; and international relief organisations such as Doctors Without Borders and Oxfam. The awards ceremony will be held in Seoul on October 19. ---- Antiwar Message Travels From Texas to Washington Military Families Group Expands Agenda By Petula Dvorak Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, September 6, 2006; A05 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/05/AR2006090501225_pf.html The antiwar activists who picketed near the president's ranch this summer traded dusty Texas for soggy Washington yesterday, when they set up camp near the White House to continue their vigil. "Every day, we realize there is a war in Iraq," said Charlie Richardson, co-founder of Military Families Speak Out and whose son is a U.S. Marine recently returned from Iraq. "But the vast majority of Americans don't; they forget. Less than 1 percent of this population has gone to war. And we need to get those troops out -- now." Richardson and about 100 other military family members, veterans and peace activists kicked off a 17-day demonstration called "Camp Democracy" yesterday. With piles of military boots to represent slain soldiers and banners calling for an end to the war as their backdrop, they rallied in the pouring rain and stayed throughout the day's relentless drizzle. Camp Democracy, a spinoff from Camp Casey in Crawford, Tex., started by antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan, will feature a series of speeches, lectures and discussions under white tents pitched on the Mall at 14th Street and Constitution Avenue NW. Sheehan, whose older son, Casey, was killed in Iraq in 2004, started the Crawford protest camp early last month on a five-acre lot she bought in July, after her roadside vigil last year drew about 10,000 supporters from across the country. She wasn't in Washington yesterday, but organizers expect she will be a speaker before they pull up stakes. The main voices heard yesterday were those of veterans. Charlie Anderson, 29, spoke loudly through the rainstorm. "I was so optimistic," said the Toledo native, who joined the military when he was 19. Then he "rode into Iraq without body armor," he said. And "I had no idea what the mission was, because it was changing every day." Dozens of other veterans nodded when Anderson said this. A Vietnam War veteran in a wheelchair clapped. A naval recruiter from the Vietnam era raised her fist in the air. A Gulf War veteran mouthed the word "yes." They talked about shortfalls in veterans' benefits and medical care. They discussed ways to end the war and tactics to starve the war machine of its essential fuel -- young recruits like them. "I've been to dozens and dozens of counter-recruitment actions," said Joe Hatcher, who served in Dawr, Iraq, from February 2004 until March 2005 with the 1st Infantry Division. Now, the 25-year-old California native tours the country and sets up camp outside schools, where he gives students his real-life version of the recruiters' pitch about military life. His group also advises families on ways to opt out of military recruiting. Camp Democracy will have similar themes every day for the next few weeks: Organizing the Progressive Agenda Day, which will feature several members of Congress; Immigrants' Rights Day; Labor Speaks Out Day; Climate Crisis Day; and others. Camp Democracy has no single message, though its organizers said they wanted the veterans and their families front and center because "they are the ones affected most by this war, except for the Iraqi people," said David Swanson, coordinator of Camp Democracy, which was born when the people protesting in Crawford wondered what they could do next. The variously themed days and speakers from causes across the spectrum are one way to demonstrate that war affects all parts of American life, organizers said. They want to show that funding to rebuild New Orleans is hamstrung by war costs, and immigration legislation is threatened by the drumbeat of war on foreign soil, Swanson said. "People keep telling us that this will muddle our message," Swanson said. "But this is not a three-week PR campaign. It's more complicated than that. We're trying to bring people together to make a stronger movement."