NucNews December 12, 2006 -------- NUCLEAR Small Nuclear War Could Lead to Cooldown Scientists Say Even a Regional Nuclear War Could Do Severe Environmental Damage By ALICIA CHANG December 12, 2006 Associated Press http://abcnews.go.com/US/print?id=2717336 SAN FRANCISCO - Some of the scientists who first advanced the controversial "nuclear winter" theory more than two decades ago have come up with another bleak forecast: Even a regional nuclear war would devastate the environment. Using modern climate and population models, researchers estimated that a small-scale nuclear conflict between two warring nations would cause 3 million to 17 million immediate casualties and lead to a marked cooldown of the planet that could lead to crop failures and further misery. As dire as the predictions seem, they fall short of nuclear winter. That theory says that smoke and dust from an atomic war between the superpowers would blot out the sun, plunge the Earth into the deep freeze and cause mass starvation, wiping out 90 percent of the Earth's population, or billions of people. The new scenario offers no estimate of the number of deaths from the environmental effects of a regional nuclear war. Still, scientists said the scenario points to the danger of small nuclear states obtaining atomic warheads. The study, presented Monday at an American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco, was described as the first to document in detail the climatic effects of a nuclear war on a regional scale. Some climate experts not connected with the research questioned some of the assumptions made in the studies. For example, the studies assume that smoke is mostly made up of soot. But other organic particles could cause smoke to scatter and not stay aloft in the atmosphere as long, lessening the impact, said scientist Steve Ghan of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. "I think the effects of the smoke are exaggerated, but it does give people pause to think about," Ghan said. "It suggests that anyone who is contemplating attacking another country is not going to be immune to the impacts on their own countries." The late astronomer Carl Sagan and four colleagues developed the nuclear winter theory, calculating in 1983 the possible effects of an all-out nuclear attack between the United States and the former Soviet Union. Other scientists have disputed the degree of damage to the Earth. The superpowers' nuclear stockpiles have shrunk considerably since the end of the Cold War. But some of the scientists behind the nuclear winter theory including Brian Toon of the University of Colorado at Boulder and Richard Turco of the University of California, Los Angeles decided to revisit the topic in light of more recent world tensions. In October, North Korea announced that it had tested a nuclear bomb. Iran is also pursuing the development of nuclear weapons. Other members or presumed members of the nuclear club include India, Pakistan and Israel. The new studies looked at the consequences if two nations dropped 50 Hiroshima-size bombs on each other's big cities. By analyzing population data and distance from blast, scientists predicted a regional nuclear war would kill 3 million people in Israel and up to 17 million in China. The U.S. would see 4 million blast deaths. But the researchers say black soot from the fires would linger in the atmosphere, blocking the sun's rays and causing average global surface temperatures to drop about 2 degrees Fahrenheit in the first three years. Although the planet would see a gradual warming within a decade, it would still be colder than it was before the war, the scientists said. The cooldown would shorten the growing season by about a month in parts of North America, Europe and Asia. Normal rainfall patterns such as summer monsoons in Africa and Southeast Asia would be disrupted, possibly causing huge crop failures. In addition, the ozone layer, which keeps out harmful ultraviolet radiation, would shrink more than 20 percent, with the poles seeing a 70 percent reduction. On the Net: American Geophysical Union: http://www.agu.org ---- Sustainable nuclear energy moves closer United Press International, December 12, 2006 http://www.politicalgateway.com/news/read/52633 DELFT, Netherlands, Dec. 12 (UPI) -- A Dutch scientist predicts a new generation of nuclear reactors will create energy while producing virtually no long-lasting nuclear waste. Wilfred van Rooijen of the Delft University of Technology received his doctorate based on research conducted at the Reactor Institute Delft. He focused on the nuclear fuel cycle and safety features of Gas-cooled Fast Reactors, or GFR -- one of the so-called fourth generation nuclear reactor designs. Fourth generation GFRs are economical in their use of nuclear fuel and are capable of rendering a great deal of their own nuclear waste harmless. They use helium as a coolant at high temperatures and create a closed nuclear fuel cycle, in which only natural uranium is used as a raw material and in which the resulting waste consists of only nuclear fission products. Von Rooijen's research showed it is possible to obtain a closed nuclear fuel cycle with a GFR and revealed the GFR could use the waste materials of other light water reactors, thus serving as an "incinerator" of nuclear waste. -------- britain Why Britain wants new nukes It has announced a $39 billion overhaul, spurring calls to bolster global nuclear weapons regulation By Mark Rice-Oxley | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor December 12, 2006 http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/world/~3/59933551/p07s02-woeu.html LONDON – When Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev first put their nuclear weapons on the negotiating table 20 years ago, it heralded a new era of disarmament and the hope - however faint - of a nuclear-free world. That hope, already overshadowed by the proliferation of nuclear weapons to four new countries, dimmed further last week after Britain unveiled plans to spend around £20 billion ($39 billion) to replace its submarine-based missile deterrent known as Trident. The system, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said, would provide crucial "insurance" against threats in a changing world. The move has divided opinion, but experts on both sides agree that the decision highlights the urgent need to revive some form of global nuclear weapons framework. The alternative is to risk a new arms race with many more powers than before and a heightened risk that a warhead might actually be used. "When the cold war was over there was a hope, even an assumption, that the main reason for having nuclear weapons would disappear and they would be negotiated away," recalls Frank Barnaby, a nuclear physicist who witnessed a test more than 50 years ago, and opposes nuclear weapons. "That hasn't happened." For a few years, it seemed that all five recognized nuclear powers - Russia, the US, France, China, and Britain - would embrace the new spirit of disarmament. The US and Russia negotiated down their stockpiles. Hollywood stopped making nuclear holocaust movies. The brinkmanship of mutually assured destruction (MAD) appeared more incongruous than ever. Nuclear was to defense what the sting is to the bee: pyrrhic. But now, major nuclear deals like the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) appear to be coming apart at the seams: On Friday, the US Congress passed a bill that reversed a 30-year policy that opposed nuclear cooperation with India because it is not an NPT signatory. Besides India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea also have atomic capabilities - not to mention Iran's nuclear pretension - and the "big five" are updating their systems, setting a poor example to powers who have thus far desisted. "You can't have it both ways," says Dr. Barnaby. "It won't work [rearming and] telling others to disarm. You either get rid of nuclear weapons, or nuclear power will increase and with it the danger that nuclear weapons will one day be used." In its defense, Britain points out that it is cutting its number of warheads from 200 to 160, leaving it with less than 1 percent of the world's warheads. Proponents argue that Britain's updated program will enable it be a "force for good." And it will keep recalcitrant enemies at bay, whoever they may be in 10, 20, or 40 years. "Given the uncertainties around the world it would be a strange time to get out of the business," says Michael Quinlan, a former top official at Britain's Defence Ministry. Opponents - which include nearly two-thirds of Britons, according to a recent survey - counter that nuclear weapons do not address current threats like climate change or terrorism. "Quite apart from the morality of being willing to kill hundreds of thousands of people, security is not being enhanced, it's being reduced," says Bruce Kent, vice president of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. "We are sending the message to anyone who feels like it that they should have the same security." That much has been made clear by big nonnuclear powers in recent weeks. A top official from South Africa, the first power to voluntarily give up its nuclear missile capability, said there were double standards at play akin to smokers telling the rest of the world not to smoke because it was bad for them. Germany's foreign minister, Frank Walter Steinmeier, recently warned that disarmament and proliferation were two sides of the same coin, the inference being that without nuclear powers disarming, others would be reluctant to forswear atomic programs. The grand bargain of the 1968 NPT treaty, sharpened by a 1996 International Court of Justice ruling, was that the nuclear five were obliged to advance nuclear disarmament. That hasn't happened. A review is due in 2010 and experts are calling for intensified global cooperation. "The NPT review in 2010 needs to be a world summit," says Dan Plesch, an antinuclear defense analyst. He adds that the 2009 expiration date on the original Moscow-Washington arms reduction treaty START is "going to concentrate US minds." Lee Willett, head of the maritime studies program at London's Royal United Services Institute, says that with nine nuclear powers and another five or six looking to go nuclear, "the nuclear genie is out of the bottle. The only way to put it back is through a multilateral framework." Failure to do so, he adds, will mean that "with nine nuclear powers out there the chances of someone using one of these things becomes less unlikely." Not everyone, however, believes that a nuclear world is a bad thing. Mr. Quinlan, who was the Defence Ministry policy director in the late 1970s when the first Trident decision was taken, says atomic weapons have "kept us free from certain forms of war for 61 years, in which time they haven't killed anyone." "With every year that goes by without them being used the taboo [of using them] becomes more and more powerful," he adds. "I hope we can get to a world where we can manage without these things, but that will need a lot of political change." -------- depleted uranium Depleted Uranium Missiles Found In Serbia December 12, 2006 6:09 a.m. EST Komfie Manalo - All Headline News Correspondent http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7005829371 Belgrade, Serbia (AHN) - Representatives from the directorate for the protection of the environment in Serbia has said that a total of 161 depleted uranium missiles have been recovered in the southern part of the country in the past weeks. The states Beta news agency said the missiles were found in Reljan near Preservo after the 1999 NATO bombing campaign. It was said that during the 78-day air strikes in the former Yugoslavia in 1991, NATO war planes dropped 31,000 missiles and bombs believed to contain depleted uranium, a kind of radioactive toxic material that has been linked to Gulf War syndrome and spiraling levels of cancer and birth defects in Iraq. NATO has admitted 112 sites in Kosovo where it used depleted uranium. But it has not given Belgrade a complete list for the rest of Serbia. Belgrade ordered a clean up operation in Reljan on October 1 and some 6.5 out of 12 hectares of contaminated grounds have been searched and cleared. A total of 2.4 cubic meters of contaminated soil has also been collected and removed. Serbia has spent an estimated $450,000 for the clean up operation in the Reljan site. -------- india India welcomes US nuclear deal, but will not allow "interference" NEW DELHI (AFP) Dec 12, 2006 http://www.spacewar.com/2006/061212165948.53zzzigd.html India on Tuesday said a landmark nuclear deal with the United States was significant as it sought to dispel fears that the agreement will curtail the country's military programme. The agreement passed by the US Congress Saturday allows the export of nuclear fuel and technology to India for the first time in more than 30 years for testing a nuclear device in 1974. "This nuclear understanding with the USA is significant from the larger perspective of our energy security," India's Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee told parliament. "Energy has become a critical constraint to expanding our economic growth and development," Mukherjee said. India's main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party and the government's communist allies have criticised the agreement over fears it would impose conditions on India. Under the accord announced by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and US President George W. Bush in July 2005, India -- a non-signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) -- agreed to place its civilian-use nuclear reactors under scrutiny. The agreement includes a set of international safeguards to be approved by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the global nuclear watchdog, and to which India must adhere. The law also asks for India's participation in US efforts to "dissuade, isolate, and, if necessary, sanction and contain Iran". Mukherjee said India would not allow interference in its strategic programme or in foreign policy. "The government has taken note of certain extraneous and prescriptive provisions in the legislation," he said. "We have always maintained that the conduct of foreign policy determined solely by our national interests is our sovereign right." "We have also been clear that our strategic programme remains outside the purview of these discussions. We will not allow external scrutiny of or interference with the strategic programme." Critics say there are still question marks over the reliability of fuel supplies for civilian reactors. The deal still needs the endorsement of the influential 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). The Indian media welcomed the deal over the weekend, saying it will strengthen ties between New Delhi and Washington. -------- israel In interview, Israeli leader alludes to nuclear weapons By Greg Myre Tuesday, December 12, 2006 International Herald Tribune http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/12/12/news/israel.php JERUSALEM - Prime Minister Ehud Olmert appeared to acknowledge inadvertently during a TV interview that Israel has nuclear weapons, an issue on which the Jewish state has sought to maintain ambiguity for decades. However, Olmert's aides said after the interview was aired Monday that there was no change in Israel's policy of refusing to confirm or deny that it has nuclear arms. In an interview with N24, a German cable news channel, Olmert was asked about Iran's nuclear program. He gave a lengthy response, saying that the United States, France, Britain and Russia had nuclear weapons and were "civilized countries that do not threaten the foundations of the world." Olmert then added: "Iran openly, explicitly and publicly threatens to wipe Israel off the map. Can you say that this is the same level, when they are aspiring to have nuclear weapons as America, France, Israel, Russia?" The interview took place Friday in Israel but was shown Monday, timed with Olmert's visit to Germany. Olmert's spokeswoman, Miri Eisin, said by telephone, "Israel's policy has not changed." The prime minister and other officials have consistently said that Israel would not be the first country in the Middle East to possess nuclear weapons. For decades, Israel has refused to say whether it has nuclear arms, despite the seemingly universal belief that it does. Its policy of intentional ambiguity is seen as a way of creating a deterrent without making it explicit. Openly possessing nuclear arms, it is thought, could invite sanctions or encourage an arms race in the Middle East. Avner Cohen, an Israeli who has written about the country's nuclear program, said, "Israel's ambiguity policy has become so anachronistic." "The world has taken Israel as a nuclear weapons state for about 40 years," said Cohen, a senior research fellow at the University of Maryland and the author of "Israel and the Bomb." In the 1970s, Cohen said, an Israeli president, Ephraim Katzir, caused a stir when he accidentally acknowledged that Israel had nuclear capability. "An older generation of leaders had a real taboo about talking about this," Cohen said. But Olmert, he added, is of a generation that "treats the issue much more normally. The world doesn't need any official confirmation at this point." In Washington last week, Robert Gates, President George W. Bush's nominee to be secretary of defense, also seemed to acknowledge an Israeli nuclear arsenal at his Senate confirmation hearing. ---- Olmert's nuclear slip creates uproar in Israel JERUSALEM (AFP) Dec 12, 2006 http://www.spacewar.com/2006/061212190340.xufg5j7x.html Prime Minister Ehud Olmert Tuesday sparked an uproar after an apparent slip of the tongue in which he for the first time listed Israel as a nuclear power, but few expected the blunder to alter the Jewish state's "policy of nuclear ambiguity." Israel, widely considered the Middle East's sole nuclear power, has for decades refused to admit or deny whether it has the atomic bomb. But on Monday, Olmert appeared to break the taboo in an interview with a German television station as he began a visit to Berlin. "We never threatened any nation with annihilation," Olmert told the N24 Sat1 station, speaking in English. "Iran openly, explicitly and publicly threatens to wipe Israel off the map. Can you say that this is the same level, when they are aspiring to have nuclear weapons, as France, America, Russia and Israel?" he asked. Olmert's spokeswoman Miri Eisin was quick to deny that Olmert had admitted to Israel having nuclear weapons, saying that "Israel will not be the first country to introduce nuclear weapons to the region." The Israeli premier stuck to the same line on Tuesday, telling a news conference after a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel: "Israel will not be the first country to introduce nuclear weapons to the region. That is our policy and it has not changed. There is no need to explain it any further." But the blunder -- which came less than a week after Israeli officials rounded on the incoming US defense secretary Robert Gates for the same slip-up during his Senate confirmation hearings -- sparked outrage, with lawmakers from across the political spectrum calling on the premier to resign. "The staggering comments of Ehud Olmert only serve to reinforce the doubts on his capacity to remain prime minister," said leftist MP Yossi Beilin. Right-wing opposition Likud MP Yuval Steinitz called on Olmert to step down after having made "an irresponsible slip which puts into question a policy that dates back almost half a century." Meanwhile observers warned that Olmert's statement threatened to undercut efforts by Israel and the West to prevent Iran from pursuing its nuclear program, which Tehran says is for civilian purposes and the West fears is a cover for acquiring atomic weapons. Mordechai Vanunu, who served 18 years in jail after blowing the whistle on Israel's nuclear program in 1986, welcomed the premier's remarks. "Olmert's remark is nothing new, but it is a good thing that Israel decided to make it public," he told AFP. "The world should now not only talk about Iran but also about Israel as a nuclear threat that has to be dealt with in order to make a nuclear-free Middle East and bring peace." But in scrambling to contain the damage, Israeli officials said Olmert's slip would not change the decades-old policy of keeping mum on whether the country has atomic weapons. "I support the policy of ambiguity and I don't see Olmert's statement as a declaration that Israel has nuclear weapons," Infrastructure Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer told army radio. "I would suggest that all those who want to talk about the issue, for God's sake and for the sake of Israel's security, stop it," he said. Said a senior government official: "This is a real slip of the tongue which was not planned. It is embarrassing for Israel, particularly when it is dealing with such a sensitive issue. But this does not change a thing. Our policy stays the same." Israel's policy of nuclear ambiguity dates back to the early 1960s, to an agreement struck with the United States and France. Under this policy, the Jewish state would not carry out any nuclear tests and stay silent on the issue in order to prevent a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. The head of the Gulf Cooperation Council demanded the application of the UN charter's Chapter Seven on Israel after Olmert's Monday statement. "We call for application against Israel of Chapter VII, that is to say, the imposition of sanctions," Secretary General Abderrahman al-Attiya said in Kuwait. He urged the United States not to apply a policy of "double standards" and to "work for the application (against Israel) of the resolutions of international legitimacy and of Chapter VII." Chapter VII deals with action the UN Security Council might take regarding threats to the peace, breaches of the peace and acts of aggression. ---- Gulf states demand UN action on Israeli nuclear arms KUWAIT CITY (AFP) Dec 12, 2006 http://www.spacewar.com/2006/061212171735.ywzbwd8l.html The head of the Gulf Cooperation Council Tuesday demanded the application of the UN charter's Chapter Seven on Israel after its premier implied the Jewish state has nuclear weapons. "We call for application against Israel of Chapter VII, that is to say, the imposition of sanctions," Secretary General Abderrahman al-Attiya said in Kuwait, on the sidelines of a conference on cooperation between the GCC and NATO. Attiya called on the United States not to apply a policy of "double standards" and to "work for the application (against Israel) of the resolutions of international legitimacy and of Chapter VII." Chapter VII deals with action the UN Security Council might take regarding threats to the peace, breaches of the peace and acts of aggression. As a first step, it says the council may call for member states to impose sanctions, including complete or partial interruption of economic relations and the severance of diplomatic relations. If those measures are deemed to have failed, military action can be called for. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert sparked an uproar after an apparent slip of the tongue in which he for the first time listed Israel as a nuclear power. Israel, widely considered the Middle East's sole nuclear power, has for decades refused to admit or deny whether it has the atomic bomb. But on Monday, Olmert appeared to break the taboo in an interview with a German television station as he began a visit to Berlin. "We never threatened any nation with annihilation," Olmert said. "Iran openly, explicitly and publicly threatens to wipe Israel off the map. Can you say that this is the same level, when they are aspiring to have nuclear weapons, as France, America, Russia and Israel?" he asked. Olmert's spokeswoman Miri Eisin was quick to deny that Olmert had admitted to Israel having nuclear weapons, saying "Israel will not be the first country to introduce nuclear weapons to the region." ---- Olmert Admits Israel Has Nuclear Weapons Tuesday, December 12th, 2006 Democracy Now! Headlines http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/12/12/1459211 Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has apparently confirmed for the first time that Israel has nuclear weapons. On Monday, during an interview on German television, Olmert listed Israel among countries with nuclear arms. Olmert's comment came as he was asked about Iran's alleged nuclear program. * Ehud Olmert: "Israel does not threaten any country with anything. Never did. The most that we tried to get for ourselves is to be able to live without terror. But we never threatened any nation with annihilation. Iran openly, explicitly and publicly threatens to writ Israel off the map. Can you say that this is the same level when they are aspiring to have nuclear weapons as America, France, Israel, Russia?" After the interview, an Israeli government spokesperson denied Olmert intended to suggest that Israel has nuclear weapons. Last week in Washington, incoming U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates shocked many when he said Israel had nuclear arms. Gates said it is a leading reason why Iran may be seeking its own nuclear weapons. * Robert Gates: "And I think that while they are certainly pressing, in my opinion, for a nuclear capability, I think that they would see it in the first instance as a deterrent. They are surrounded by powers with nuclear weapons -- Pakistan to their east, the Russians to the north, the Israelis to the west, and us in the Persian Gulf." Israel is believed to have over 100 nuclear warheads but it has never publicly acknowledged it. ---- Peres: Ambiguity has achieved its goal By GIL HOFFMAN, Dec. 12, 2006 Jerusalem Post http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1164881879510&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull Vice Premier Shimon Peres, credited for creating Israel's nuclear program and its policy of nuclear ambiguity, told a reporter in Paris on Tuesday that Israel's nuclear option had achieved its goal of deterring its enemies. Speaking after a meeting with French Socialist Party presidential candidate Segolene Royal, Peres was responding to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's statement on Monday to German television about Iran "working to get nuclear weapons like the US, France, Israel and Russia." Peres praised Israel's nuclear program and said that Olmert had not said what was attributed to him. "We didn't build a nuclear option in order to create a nuclear bomb," Peres said. "The very suspicion that we have one is enough. It's intended for deterrence and it has achieved its goal." Peres built Israel's nuclear program in the 1950s when he was Defense Ministry director-general. The policy that "Israel will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons to the Middle East" was first wielded by Peres in April 1963 in a meeting at the White House with US president John F. Kennedy. Peres has been accused of violating the nuclear ambiguity policy in the past, most notably as prime minister in December 1995 when he said, "Give me peace and we will give up the nuclear program," and in September when he said that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad should "bear in mind that his country could be destroyed, too." Olmert's statement was criticized across the political spectrum, most notably by his opponents inside Kadima. Coalition chairman Avigdor Yitzhaki said Olmert "made a mistake and needs to be careful. He suggested that Olmert "read from the text" prepared for him instead of ad-libbing in interviews with the foreign press. Kadima MK Marina Solodkin said she did not believe Olmert had damaged the country with his statement but that he did harm himself. She said she thought Olmert made the statement purposely, to hint to Iran that Israel had nuclear weapons. "He did damage to himself because he didn't think," Solodkin said. "I have no love for the prime minister but I think he is a master of nuances and hints. He wanted to hint that we have [a nuclear capability]. After 30 years of political experience, it's shocking that he still doesn't know what he gets himself into." Olmert's rivals said his statement was another of a long list of statements he has ended up regretting. Just last week, Olmert got in trouble on the issue of Israel's kidnapped soldiers in Lebanon for saying, "I hope they are alive," and that a prisoner exchange would merely decide whether the soldiers would "remain in captivity for a bit longer or a bit less." The prime minister has also been criticized for saying that a prime minister did not need an agenda; urging US President George W. Bush to remain in Iraq; claiming that Kadima had the election won three weeks before it was held; boasting of victory in the war in Lebanon; and suggesting that the war could lead to the implementation of his realignment plan. "The outcome of the operations in the South and the North will ultimately lay the foundations for movement in the framework of the realignment," Olmert said, in a statement that was widely criticized by soldiers who fought in the war but stood to lose their homes in the event of a West Bank withdrawal. -------- japan PM's Japan visit: Nuke talks, FTA on agenda 12 Dec, 2006 Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/PMs_visit_to_Japan_Nuclear_cooperation_FTA_on_agenda/articleshow/792240.cms NEW DELHI: India and Japan are expected to decide on launch of talks on bilateral free trade agreement to expand commerce and discuss civil nuclear cooperation during the four-day visit of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Tokyo from Wednesday. The two countries are also expected to agree on expansion of flights besides a number of new FDI ventures in petrochemicals, automobiles, auto components, pharmaceuticals and the financial sectors. In Tokyo, Singh will hold talks with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on a wide range of issues. He will also meet Japanese Emperor and have the honour of addressing the joint session of Japanese Parliament 'Diet'. Civil nuclear energy cooperation is expected to be one of the main issues of discussions between Singh and Abe. The Indian side is expected to seek Japan's support for its quest for nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. Discussions with Japan on civil nuclear issue in the backdrop of the Indo-US nuclear deal are "ongoing" and the situation is still "evolving", officials here said. The two countries are also expected to decide on launching negotiations on bilateral free trade agreement. "We believe that our bilateral relations are poised to enter an even more vibrant and dynamic phase based on converging long-term strategic political and economic interests and our shared desire to enhance the relationship," Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon said here last week while briefing media on the Prime Minister's visit. India attaches significance to the visit as it considers Japan to be a "focal point" in its 'Look East' policy. -------- mideast Israel supports Arabs on N-power Abraham Rabinovich, Jerusalem December 12, 2006 The Australian http://theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20912216-2703,00.html A DECLARATION by Arab Gulf states that they intend to pursue a nuclear energy program has drawn a surprising welcome from Israeli officials. Leaders of six Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia, ordered a feasibility study of a joint atomic energy program at the conclusion of a two-day summit of the Gulf Co-operation Council in Riyadh. The oil-rich countries, all predominantly Sunni Arab states, made it clear their declaration was intended to prod the West into stopping Shia Iran from gaining nuclear weapons, lest the Sunni Arab world also embark on a nuclear arms race. Israel has always feared the Arab world obtaining nuclear arms but is now encouraging an unspoken alliance with Sunni states, which share an interest in curbing the growth of Iranian power. Israeli officials in Jerusalem said they viewed "positively" the pressure that Gulf states were beginning to direct at Iran, including the atomic announcement. "This move is directed against Iran," said an official, who requested anonymity. "You have a situation where these countries see Iran going full-steam ahead without any external interference. They want to send a clear message to major countries that more needs to be done." This assessment was echoed by Abdelaziz Sager, chairman of the Gulf Research Centre, in Dubai. "They are trying to say that if the Iranian program continues, you (the West) will oblige us to become nuclear-capable too." The Gulf Co-operation Council is made up of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman. Israeli officials say non-Gulf Sunni nations, such as Egypt and Jordan, share the council's concerns about Iran's nuclear program. Israel has felt itself increasingly exposed to the Iranian nuclear threat as Europe and even the US appear to step back from confrontation with Tehran, whose leaders have called for Israel's destruction. But Jerusalem has drawn some comfort from the convergence of interests with Sunni states that is emerging on the Iranian issue. News of the council's announcement came amid persistent reports in the Israeli media that the army was preparing for a major war with Syria, and perhaps Hezbollah, next year. At the weekend, two Israeli generals offered assessments that appeared to contradict each other. Brigadier General Yossi Baidatz, the No2 in Israeli military intelligence, told the cabinet that Syrian President Bashar Assad had stepped up production of long-range missiles and ordered that anti-tank missiles be moved closer to the border in anticipation of war. "He is preparing the Syrian army for the possibility of a military conflict with Israel," General Baidatz said. "On the other hand, he is not ruling out the possibility of reaching a political settlement with Israel." But a member of the general staff, speaking anonymously, said there was no indication from either Hezbollah or Syria that they were preparing for imminent war. "All the talk of war in the (northern) summer of 2007 is irresponsible," he said. The comments came days after a report by a high-level US panel recommended that Israel relaunch peace talks with Syria, which have been frozen since 2000. The Baker-Hamilton report said Israel should return the Golan Heights, seized from Syria in the 1967 Six Day War, as part of a peace deal with Damascus that would halt Syrian support for radical Palestinian and Lebanese militants and end Syrian meddling in Lebanon. -------- russia Russia to deliver nuclear fuel to Iran MOSCOW (AFP) Dec 12, 2006 http://www.spacewar.com/2006/061212205605.z1ur52m7.html Moscow plans on delivering fuel in March for Iran's first atomic power plant amid heightened international debate over Tehran's nuclear program, Russian state monopoly Atomstroiexport told Russian news agencies Tuesday. "We plan to launch preliminary work in January to deliver fuel in March," Sergei Shmatko, head of Atomstroiexport, was quoted by the Ria Novosti agency as saying. Shmatko said the nuclear fuel would be delivered on schedule to the southern plant of Bushehr, six months before its expected opening in September 2007. Moscow clinched a deal with Tehran in 1995 to build Bushehr, but the project has faced delays -- partly due to suspicions by Washington that Tehran is trying to build a nuclear weapon. Under a separate agreement signed last year, Russia would provide nuclear fuel to Iran and ferry back spent fuel to prevent it from being diverted into a weapons program. Tehran also consented to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to monitor Bushehr and the fuel deliveries. Russia is part of a group of six world powers mulling United Nations sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program. -------- u.s. nuc facilities -------- florida Florida could get another nuke plant December 12, 2006 Florida Today http://www.floridatoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061212/BREAKINGNEWS/61212023/1086 ST. PETERBURG — Progress Energy Florida says it may build a nuclear power plant in Levy County a few miles north of its existing Crystal River plant, according to a report by FLORIDA TODAY news partner Tampa Bay's 10. The state's second-largest electric company said last year it's considering building another nuclear plant to meet Florida's growing power needs. Company officials say the decision to move forward with the plant still hasn't been finalized, but that if the company decides to build it would use the Levy County site. Progress serves almost two million Florida customers, mostly in the St. Petersburg area and the Orlando suburbs. The state's largest electric company, Florida Power and Light, also has notified government regulators of its intent to build a new nuclear plant in Florida. A new nuclear plant would be the first one in Florida since 1983, when FPL opened a second reactor at its St. Lucie nuclear complex near Fort Pierce. ---- Progress Energy may build nuclear plant in Levy County Tuesday, December 12, 2006 (AP) http://www1.wsvn.com/news/articles/local/MI35024/ ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- Progress Energy Florida says it may build a nuclear power plant in Levy County a few miles north of its existing Crystal River plant. The state's second-largest electric company said last year it's considering building another nuclear plant to meet Florida's growing power needs. Company officials say the decision to move forward with the plant still hasn't been finalized, but that if the company decides to build it would use the Levy County site. Progress serves almost two (m) million Florida customers, mostly in the St. Petersburg area and the Orlando suburbs. The state's largest electric company, Florida Power and Light, also has notified government regulators of its intent to build a new nuclear plant in Florida. A new nuclear plant would be the first one in Florida since 1983, when F-P-L opened a second reactor at its St. Lucie nuclear complex near Fort Pierce. -------- south carolina Nuclear plant leaders discuss emergency plan Tuesday, Dec 12, 2006 SC Now http://www.scnow.com/midatlantic/scp/news.apx.-content-articles-FMN-2006-12-12-0006.html FLORENCE — Emergency planners with the H.B. Robinson Nuclear Plant briefed media Tuesday of their contingencies that would be put into effect should the facility experience an emergency. A big part of such an effort would revolve around Progress Energy’s Joint Information Center, a special meeting area located at the energy supplier’s Florence location. It would serve as the focal point for local and state officials to coordinate data as it comes in. Owen Barker Jr., Robinson’s senior nuclear emergency preparedness specialist, said the plant, located near Hartsville, serves as a model for others with its clean record of providing nuclear energy for more than three decades. Even so, it’s his job to plan every day for the unthinkable. The worst-case scenario would be a total containment breach of the housing that encases Robinson’s nuclear reactor. If this occurred, radioactive fallout would escape into the surrounding atmosphere. It eventually would be deposited across a plume extending away from the facility in accordance with the prevailing winds. The primary zone of concern, Barker said, extends about 10 miles outward from the plant and is rated as the maximum area that radioactivity could extend. In all likelihood, it would not travel even half that distance. Barker said the concept of information dissemination has come a long way since the nuclear accident in 1979 at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, where lags and gaps in communication complicated a critical situation. “Emergency preparedness came about as a result of Three Mile Island,” he said. “This facility (Robinson) really takes pride in being able to get information out as quickly as possible regarding any situation that occurs. This is a public safety issue, and it’s much more important for you to get this information out to the public.” In the event of a site emergency, the command center would serve as a critical link with the Robinson plant’s emergency operations facility. Its job is to work closely with onsite technical and support personnel to evaluate the situation and how it will affect the community. Helping to closely monitor this situation would be the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control, as well as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Barker said. Sirens located at the site would sound in the event of an emergency. Tests of these units are conducted periodically, with low-volume tests occurring every three months and a full-volume test conducted annually. -------- MILITARY -------- un Kofi Annan Accuses U.S. of Abandoning Its Ideals Tuesday, December 12th, 2006 Democracy Now! Headlines http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/12/12/1459211 Outgoing United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan accused the United States of abandoning its ideals as it fights its so-called war on terror. Annan's comments came in an address in Independence Missouri at the library of former President Harry Truman. * Kofi Annan: "As President Truman said, "the responsibility of the great states is to serve and not dominate the peoples of the world." He showed what can be achieved when the US assumes that responsibility. And still today, none of our global institutions can accomplish much when the US remains aloof. But when it is fully engaged, the sky's the limit." Kofi Annan also said human rights and the rule of law are vital to global security and prosperity. * Kofi Annan: "More than ever today Americans, like the rest of humanity, need a functioning global system through which the world's peoples can face global challenges together. And in order to function, the system still cries out for far-sighted American leadership, in the Truman tradition." -------- POLITICS -------- us politics Kucinich to Run For President; Calls For End to Iraq War Funding Tuesday, December 12th, 2006 Democracy Now! Headlines http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/12/12/1459211 Congressman Dennis Kucinich is planning to announce today that he will run again for president. The Ohio Democrat accused the leadership of his party of not pushing hard enough to end the Iraq war. * Rep. Dennis Kucinich: "Our president does not seem to understand the necessity to get out of Iraq. Thus it is imperative Congress do the one thing the constitution of the United States provides for. Congress must cut off future war funds and demand the president use current funds in the pipeline from the October 1st $70 billion dollar appropriation -- to bring the troops home." Dennis Kucinich spoke on Monday at a hearing featuring the authors of the recent Lancet study that found as many as 660,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed during the war in Iraq. ---- Kucinich launches another presidential bid Updated 12/12/2006 (AP) http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-12-12-kucinich-2008_x.htm CLEVELAND — Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich launched his second bid for president on Tuesday, a long-shot candidacy fueled by his frustration with his party's effort to end the Iraq war. "I am not going to stand by and watch thousands more of our brave, young men and women killed in Iraq," Kucinich said to applause from a crowd gathered at City Hall. "We Democrats were put back in power to bring some sanity back to our nation. "We were expected to do what we said we were going to do — get out of Iraq." Kucinich is a six-term, liberal congressman from Cleveland whose presidential candidacy in 2004 made headlines more for his bachelorhood than his policies. This time around Kucinich has a wife. ---- Taking the Hill: New Doc Chronicles War Veterans On the Campaign Trail Tuesday, December 12th, 2006 Democracy Now! http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/12/12/1459227 In November 2006, more than 50 veterans of the U.S. armed forces from around the country competed for seats in Congress. Since WWII, there had never been this many veterans running for national office at the same time. "Taking the Hill," a new documentary by the award-winning filmmaking team of Brent and Craig Renaud follows five of these candidates as they hit the campaign trail. [includes rush transcript] One sub-plot of this year's mid-term elections was the more than 50 candidates who once served in the armed forces. A new documentary premiering tonight on the Discovery Times Channel chronicles five of these candidates as they hit the campaign trail -- Rick Bolanos of Texas, Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, Andrew Horne of Kentucky, Eric Massa of New York and Patrick Murphy of Pennsylvania. Their range of experience runs from Vietnam to Iraq -- but they all ran as Democrats in opposition to the Bush administration's handling of the Iraq war. The documentary is called "Taking the Hill" and it's by the filmmaker brothers Craig and Brent Renaud, our colleagues here at the Downtown Community Television Center. Their last documentary, "Off to War" followed members of the Arkansas National Guard as they deployed to Iraq. * Craig Renaud, co-director and producer of the documentary "Taking the Hill" which premiers on Discovery Times channel tonight. Tammy Duckworth is one of the Iraq war veterans who ran for Congress in November. She served as an Army helicopter pilot in Iraq. She lost both her legs and damaged her right arm when her helicopter was shot down in an RPG attack north of Baghdad. Tammy Duckworth ran for Congress on the Democratic ticket in Illinois" sixth district. She lost by just two percent of the vote. She was recently appointed the director of the Illinois Veterans" Affairs Department by governor Rod Blagojevich. She joins us on the line from Chicago. * Tammy Duckworth, Iraq war veteran and former congressional candidate. RUSH TRANSCRIPT AMY GOODMAN: Craig Renaud joins us now here in the studio. Welcome to Democracy Now!, Craig. CRAIG RENAUD: Thanks for having us. AMY GOODMAN: So this film, lay it out for us. CRAIG RENAUD: Well, we had actually just finished Off to War, and we got a call from a veteran who was organizing an event. Eric Massa and a guy by the name of Mike Lyon were organizing a gathering of about 42 veterans at the time, who were going to come out to Capitol Hill and make an announcement and declare their candidacies for office. And so, we went down to film it and were just amazed, because this was back in February. It was months before any of the generals were calling for the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld. And here, you had a group of military veterans who had fought in wars, standing in front of Capitol Hill, saying things that hadn’t been said yet, telling basically President Bush that he could no longer use the military as a political backdrop for political purposes. So we were just amazed to see so many veterans to come out and actually run for Congress. So we started filming the documentary at that point. AMY GOODMAN: Now, of these five, one won? CRAIG RENAUD: Of the five that we followed, only one won. Out of the 62 that ran, only four won. So, we were amazed by that, because this was the most veterans you had running for office at any time in US history. And at the end of the campaign, now, 2007 Congress will have less veteran representation since before World War I. So, you know, considering how much talk there was about the war in Iraq in this particular election, it was surprising to us that so few veterans were actually elected to Congress. AMY GOODMAN: Let's go to an excerpt of Taking the Hill. In this clip, New York candidate, Eric Massa, is on the campaign trail, when he gets a visit and some campaign orders from Illinois Congress member and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chair, Rom Emanuel. ERIC MASSA: Congressman. Thank you, sir. REP. ROM EMANUEL: Hi, Eric. How are you? ERIC MASSA: Thank you for being here today. REP. ROM EMANUEL: Yeah, not a problem. How are you doing? ERIC MASSA: I’m doing well. REP. ROM EMANUEL: I don’t want you tonight on TV to be angry. ERIC MASSA: Alright. REP. ROM EMANUEL: Okay, just take it down a notch. ERIC MASSA: Okay. REP. ROM EMANUEL: Okay? Good luck. ERIC MASSA: There are 62, 62, veterans who are Democrats, who are running for the House of Representatives. All of us have a wonderful shot at taking that experience, taking the flag out of the hands of Tom DeLay and showing this president he can no longer use our military as a backdrop for political purposes. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Most of those people in Congress don’t have your experience. I’m not asking you to be angry or anything like that. But you can say words and have the courage to say it, that we do not have enough people like you right now. And that’s why I hope you win, and I’ll do everything I can to help. ERIC MASSA: Thank you very much. We’ll catch you in a little bit. We have to head to our next event. Thank you all very, very much. God bless. I never had an admiral walk on my ship that wasn’t inspecting me, so I think that anybody in the military knows that a visit from higher headquarters often brings bad news. He wants to fine tune me. He wants to refine me. My problem is, I am who I am, and that’s -- I’m not very refinable. He thinks I’m too fiery. Did I sound angry? GIRL IN VAN: You always sound angry. ERIC MASSA: I don't think they like the idea that I brought up all the other veterans running. But I do, everywhere I go. Obviously Congressman Emanuel is not a veteran, and so when the guy sits there and says, “You have what we need,” the implication is that people who are not veterans in Congress don’t have what we need. And that rankles some people. UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: They’re going to support you? ERIC MASSA: Well, he said, “Hey, listen. I’ll invest money wherever there’s money already invested.” So he’s following that. So do you have people I can call? Friends, family? $100, $500? $1,000? Max is $4,200. REP. ROM EMANUEL: See you, guys. Good luck. ERIC MASSA: Nice to meet you, Rom. REP. ROM EMANUEL: I hope that phone call worked. UNIDENTIFIED MAN: I hope so. We’ll follow it up. REP. ROM EMANUEL: Can I grabbed Eric for one second? Do you mind? You’ve got to raise $200,000 per month for the next four months. ERIC MASSA: I know. REP. ROM EMANUEL: Otherwise, it ain’t going to happen. REP. ROM EMANUEL: I agree. REP. ROM EMANUEL: Alright. So don’t let your family down. Second, you’ve got to smile, have fun. If all people see is anger, they’ll see anger. Do you ever remember a person not likeable winning? Okay, be likeable. ERIC MASSA: Alright, got it. AMY GOODMAN: Rom Emanuel. He has got a hold of the purse strings for the Democrats who run for Congress, head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, speaking to Eric Massa, Eric Massa of New York, who is a veteran of Desert Storm. He ran in the Rochester area of New York and lost to Randy Kuhl, the Republican incumbent. Craig Renaud, with us now. Craig, explain what we just watched in this excerpt of Taking the Hill. You basically have Eric Massa wired, because you're following him, and Rom Emanuel is taking him to the side and saying, “Don’t be angry. Don’t be angry.” CRAIG RENAUD: Right. Yeah, you know, this was an issue for all the candidates throughout the campaign. It’s just -- one of the things that I think a lot of them didn’t realize early on, when they first declared, was how much money it was going to take to run their campaign successfully. And one of the benchmarks that they were all given was basically, until you can raise $1 million on your own, you're not really a viable candidate. And so, Eric Massa, in particular, throughout his entire campaign, he was very successful at raising a good amount of money. By the end of the campaign, he raised over $1 million without any corporate-backed money, pretty much on individual donations. But yet, he was never fully able to get the support of the party. So what you see in this scene is a visit by Rom Emanuel to basically assess and evaluate Eric’s campaign at this point, in terms of his ability to raise money. AMY GOODMAN: Has Rom Emanuel respond to this film yet, Taking the Hill? CRAIG RENAUD: We’re not sure. You know, we’re not sure. We haven’t heard yet. AMY GOODMAN: And what was exactly he saying about the amount of money? CRAIG RENAUD: You know, it’s something that was pretty out there and open in terms of the amount of money that Eric needed to raise at that point. You know, one of the things that he had said is that he needed to raise $200,000 per month. AMY GOODMAN: This is what Rom Emanuel told him? CRAIG RENAUD: Exactly, to be viable, to be able to compete and to have any chance of beating the incumbent that he was running against. One of the things that happened with Eric Massa at the very end of the campaign, you know, according to Eric, the Republican National Committee came into his district, spent $750,000 in the last week or so of the campaign. And so, even though Eric was able to raise $1 million, he didn’t have any money left at the end to counter that, and he actually ended up losing by less than 1%. AMY GOODMAN: Well, Tammy Duckworth is one of the Iraq war veterans who ran for Congress in November, profiled in Taking the Hill. She served as an Army helicopter pilot in Iraq. She lost both her legs and damaged her right arm when her helicopter was shot down in an RPG attack north of Baghdad. Tammy Duckworth ran for Congress on the Democratic ticket in Illinois's Sixth District. She lost by just 2% of the vote. She was recently appointed the director of Illinois Veterans’ Affairs Department by the governor. Tammy Duckworth joins us now in Chicago. Welcome to Democracy Now! TAMMY DUCKWORTH: Good morning. How are you today? AMY GOODMAN: It’s very good to have you with us. As you reflect back on your time, as you ran, talk about what you think worked and didn’t, and also about what we just listened to, Rom Emanuel, in this case, talking to a vet in Upstate New York, about what he had to do to make money. TAMMY DUCKWORTH: Well, you know, I think what worked for me was just getting out there and being myself and talking to people. What worked was the fact that I was not a career politician, but someone who has served this country my entire adult life. And then that -- you know, people understood the drive, the commitment of us veterans who were running, because none of us ever wanted to become politicians. We were running because we came from a place where we served our nation and we're just appalled that our nation was headed down this wrong path. The conversation that you just watched with Eric Massa and Congressman Emmanuel was really funny, because I had the same conversations. I ended up raising over $4 million in my race. Overall, we spent about $6 million. But, you know, just to -- same thing happened to me that happened with Eric. The Republican Party came in at the last minute and spent an extra $2 million. They ended up spending $11 million against me. And so, you know, there was just such an overwhelming flood of money on the other side, that you get to a point where no matter how much money you raise, they were going to outspend you. And in these close races, it does come down to money. I mean, I lost by 2,000 votes. Eric lost by, you know, less than 1%. And it was that same way all across the country. You can be out there, talking truth to power, but ultimately at the end, we just couldn’t withstand the tide of money that was coming against us. AMY GOODMAN: If the Democratic Party had given you more money, could you have done it? TAMMY DUCKWORTH: If there had been money spent right at the end to counter the flood of negative, I think so. You know, we lost by 2,000 votes, and most of that was a result of the 74 pieces of negative mail that came out against me and the last $2 million in negative TV commercials that came out right in the last, I would say, three days. So, you know, it comes down to money. The Republican Party went into debt at the last minute. And I think the speaker drew a line in the sand. My district was one where my western border was Denny Hastert’s and the eastern border was Rom Emanuel’s, so I always joked that my district was a DMZ between the two parties. AMY GOODMAN: Tammy Duckworth, why did you decide to run? And talk a little about your experience in Iraq. TAMMY DUCKWORTH: Well, it was sort of slow in coming. In Iraq, I wasn’t one of these people who went out and kicked down doors. I flew helicopters. So I was sort of above the fray in a lot of things. And then, right at the end there, I was injured. And what got me thinking about running was the fact that in March of 2005 -- I was injured in November 2004 -- so just about three months after I was injured, I was asked to testify to the Senate and then to the House Veteran Affairs Committee about what I thought injured veterans were going to need in terms of support from this country for the rest of their lives. And I went into the Senate VA Committee, and I had prepared this testimony, done a lot of research, the Senators put their arms around me, had their pictures taken with me, called me a war hero and all of these things, and then the chairman of the committee proceeded to ignore everything I had to say and tried to get me to say things that were not true in the middle of this hearing. And I realized this man does not care what I have to say. He has an agenda, and it is not the interest of the veterans. And he doesn’t care. And then a few weeks after that, I found out that they had cut funding for research out of the VA budget by $9 million, to include funding for amputee research. I still had stitches in my leg from where they took my leg off, and I find out that after I testified on the Hill, they cut funding for amputee research. And that just made me mad. You don’t want to get a bunch of vets mad, because we stand up and fight for what we think is right then. And so it was a slow progression of realizing that people were not listening to us. People were not listening to the military commanders on the ground and to those of us who had come home. And just getting to the point where you decided, you know, maybe it is time for me to do something. Maybe it is time for my generation to step forward, because certainly the Vietnam generation had, and the WWII generation had before them. AMY GOODMAN: Tammy Duckworth, I’m looking at a transcript of an interview that CNN senior national correspondent John Roberts did with you right after you won the Democratic primary in Illinois, asking if your, quote, "narrow victory indicated maybe this idea of running Iraq war vets for the Democratic Party isn’t as hot an idea as some Democrats originally thought it was." Later in the interview, Roberts noted that some political analysts, who he emphatically described as “very smart,” don’t think that the Iraq war veteran thing is going to work for the Democratic Party and that you're not going to win the overall race and that you’re being held out there as sacrificial lambs just to get the Democrats a little more credibility. Your response? TAMMY DUCKWORTH: Well, my race wasn’t focused on the Iraq war. My race was focused on healthcare. And I think the best explanation of how well we did was the fact that any time my opponent and I competed for an endorsement, where we were given equal shot at taking the endorsement, I won. I won every single newspaper endorsement: the Chicago Tribune, the Sun-Times, the Daily Herald. Every single major newspaper endorsement in the district, I won. I won the Fraternal Order of Police endorsement after they initially had endorsed my opponent in the primary. And any time that it was a third party, nonpartisan, unbiased, critical look at the two of us on all of the issues, I came away with the endorsement. So I think it was important that I had focused my campaign not so much on Iraq, as on the need for change in this country. But ultimately, we didn’t have the money that my opponent did. AMY GOODMAN: Craig Renaud, this film was scheduled to air before the election by Discovery Times, but it didn’t. It’s airing tonight. CRAIG RENAUD: Yeah. There was some discussion early on when we first started filming this about possibly doing this as two parts: one part that would air before the election and another part after the election, to show the results. And then, as we went along, the decision was made basically to wait until after the election. The concern really was that, you know, especially with all these candidates being Democrats, all the veteran candidates being Democrats, the concern mainly was, you know, not influencing the election one way or the other. AMY GOODMAN: Tammy Duckworth, do you think if this had run when it was scheduled to run, it would have made a difference? TAMMY DUCKWORTH: You know, I don’t know. I think that ultimately, in my race, it was about money and just being so totally outspent by the other side. I think for some of the other candidates, it may have helped a little bit. But this election cycle really wasn’t -- yes, overall, the theme was about Iraq, but I think if you look at the individual races where you had an open seat and you didn’t have an incumbent where you could sort of rail against their vote on the war, it wasn’t about the war always. It was about, you know, the change in direction on healthcare and those things. AMY GOODMAN: Do you have plans to run in 2008, Tammy? We just have ten seconds. TAMMY DUCKWORTH: I haven’t ruled it out. But, you know, right now I have a job to do to advocate for veterans, and I’m going to work as hard as I can on this new mission. AMY GOODMAN: Craig Renaud, when does this film air tonight? CRAIG RENAUD: It airs tonight at 9:00 p.m. on the Discovery Times Channel. AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you for being with us. Craig Renaud, together with his brother Brent Renaud, Arkansas filmmakers, have directed the film Taking the Hill, premiering tonight. And Tammy Duckworth ran for Congress. Thanks so much for both being with us. -------- OTHER -------- environment Community in Erin Brockovich Film at Risk of Sewage Sludge SAN BERNARDINO, California, December 12, 2006 (ENS) http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/dec2006/2006-12-12-09.asp#anchor5 Four environmental groups have filed an appeal with the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors seeking to overturn the Planning Commission’s approval of an open air sewage sludge treatment facility near the community of Hinkley. The Center for Biological Diversity, Helphinkley.org, Desert Citizens Against Pollution, and the Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment say the proposed project would allow more than 500 daily vehicle trips to truck up to 2,000 tons of sewage sludge per day from up to 200 miles away in the Inland Empire to this small desert community. It would also spread the waste - 400,000 tons processed per year - across 160 acres of desert. Sewage sludge contains pathogens, metals, pesticides and fungi that can cause disease in humans and animals. The citizens of Hinkley have been dealing with the toxic legacy of hexavalent chromium 6 contamination for decades. Their situation was dramatized by Julia Roberts in the Hollywood film “Erin Brockovich.” “For our local citizens, especially the young and old, who already have compromised health issues, this project adds insult to injury,” said Norman Diaz of Helphinkley.org, a local citizen’s group fighting to keep the sludge out. "It is completely irresponsible of the county to approve this project less than eight miles directly upwind from our local elementary school that my own kids and 350 other children attend and less than three miles upwind from some local residences," Diaz said. "They are rushing this project through without proper environmental review and public input." The project would increase traffic, air pollution, greenhouse gases, volatile organic compounds, and noxious odors as well as potentially introducing non-native invasive weeds, impacting water quality, increasing wildfire danger and destroying habitat occupied by the threatened desert tortoise and other species. The county refused to consider requiring an enclosed facility and failed to adequately address the many environmental impacts of the project, the four groups complain. The county refused to provide any information about the project in Spanish in an area where about 40 percent of the residents are Spanish speakers and many requested information in Spanish. -------- imf / world bank / wto (economics) Wolfowitz Clashes With World Bank Staff and Mideast Chief Exits By Christopher Swann December 12, 2006 (Bloomberg) http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=a6VAazXTmeWc&refer=us Dec. 12-- World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz faces mounting criticism from directors of the international lending organization who say he relies on a coterie of political advisers with little expertise in development while driving away seasoned managers. Half of the bank's 29 highest-level executives have departed since Wolfowitz, the former U.S. deputy Defense secretary and an architect of President George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq, took office in June 2005. Among them is Christiaan Poortman, vice president for the Middle East and a 30-year World Bank veteran, who left in September after resisting pressure to speed up the pace of lending and adding staff in Iraq. ``It was very sad to see someone of Mr. Poortman's caliber leaving,'' Eckhard Deutscher, one of 24 executive directors who oversee the management of the Washington-based lender, said in an interview. ``The bank needs to be very careful not to lose too much of its human capital.'' The exodus is damaging the world's leading poverty-fighting institution, which provided $23.6 billion last year for projects such as schools and clinics, say directors and outside observers. Three directors, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said they are concerned governments might be less willing to contribute because of unhappiness with Wolfowitz. Connections The only other World Bank chief to sweep aside as many senior managers was Wolfowitz's predecessor, James Wolfensohn, said Devesh Kapur, a former economist at the lender and author of ``The World Bank: Its First Half Century.'' The difference, he said, is that Wolfowitz's appointees are short on expertise and long on political connections. New faces include counselor to the president Robin Cleveland, who as associate director of the White House Office of Management and Budget helped secure congressional funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Kevin Kellems, a former spokesman for Vice President Dick Cheney, was named director of external strategy. Suzanne Rich Folsom, a lawyer who joined in 2003 and is the bank's chief corruption-fighter, is married to George Folsom, who was principal deputy director of the Iraq Reconstruction Management Office and served as president of the International Republican Institute. Wolfowitz, 62, ``has placed considerably more trust in a small group of outsiders from the Republican Party than in the seasoned experts in the bank,'' said Alison Cave, head of the World Bank staff association, which represents more than 13,000 employees. `Unprecedented' ``The changes under Wolfowitz are unprecedented in the calculated manner in which inexperienced or ideological replacements are being placed in senior positions,'' said Kapur, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Among those who left the bank after disagreements with Wolfowitz are Roberto Danino, general counsel and a former prime minister of Peru; Ian Goldin, vice president for external affairs; and Gobind Nankani, vice president for Africa. Of the 14 executives who left, three had reached mandatory retirement age, according to the staff association. Poortman, the Mideast chief, resigned rather than accept an assignment in Kazakhstan, according to a colleague who spoke on condition of anonymity. Poortman declined to comment. Donor Requests Wolfowitz, in a written statement from his press office, said plans for a ``modest, incremental upgrading'' of Iraq operations came in response to donor nations and were approved by the Mideast department. Kellems, in an interview, said that ``change in senior posts throughout the bank has been more gradual than most people expected, and the senior management team is very international and composed of experienced professionals from a wide range of backgrounds and viewpoints.'' The push to beef up the World Bank's presence in Baghdad has been a subject of clashes with officials over safety. ``The German government has been very skeptical of the bank operating in Iraq because of the danger,'' said Deutscher, the director from Germany. Wolfowitz said in his statement that staff safety is ``at the top of our list of priorities.'' Bush's nomination of Wolfowitz last year raised concern among employees that he would use his position to promote U.S. Iraq policies. His plan to step up activities in Baghdad ``exposes him to charges of attempting to provide political cover for the White House,'' said Nancy Birdsall, a former director of the bank's policy research department and president of the Washington-based Center for Global Development. Poverty Reduction ``Mr. Wolfowitz managed to silence a lot of his critics in the first months of his tenure by listening and by promising to focus on poverty reduction in Africa,'' Birdsall said. ``But many of the early doubts have resurfaced.'' Hartwig Schafer, the bank's director of African operations, said Wolfowitz's attention to Africa has won plaudits from borrowers and bank officials assigned to the continent. ``President Wolfowitz's consistent message that Africa is a priority for the World Bank has been welcomed,'' Schafer said in an e-mail. Ian Vasquez, a director at the Cato Institute, a think-tank that supports limited government, said it's no surprise that the arrival of a new president has caused some discontent. ``So long as Wolfowitz is taking his job seriously, he will make some of the staff uncomfortable,'' Vasquez said in an interview in Washington. ``Even so, the appointment of Republican aides may not have been the smartest political move within the World Bank.'' To contact the reporter on this story: Christopher Swann in Washington at cswann1@bloomberg.net -------- ACTIVISTS Cindy Sheehan, Medea Benjamin Convicted of Trespassing for Delivering Peace Petition to UN Tuesday, December 12th, 2006 Democracy Now! http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/12/12/1459218 Peace activists Cindy Sheehan, Medea Benjamin, Missy Beattie, and Reverend Patricia Ackerman delivered a peace petition to the U.S Mission to the United Nations on Monday. Hours before, a Manhattan criminal court had found the women guilty of trespassing for trying to do the same thing in honor of International Womens Day in March. [includes rush transcript] The women's peace group CODEPINK had collected 72,000 signatures on a petition entitled Women Say No to War and attempted to deliver the petition to the office of UN Ambassador John Bolton on March 6th. The office refused to meet with them and the women were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, trespassing and obstructing government administration. The trial began December 5th and lasted a week. Yesterday they were acquitted of all but the trespassing charge. And after the verdict was read, the women went back to the US Mission to try and deliver the peace petition again. This time they were successful. Cindy Sheehan and Medea Benjamin join me now -- Cindy is the co-founder of Gold Star Families for Peace. Her son Casey was killed in Iraq in April of 2004. Medea is a long time peace activist and founder of Code Pink. * Cindy Sheehan, her son Casey was killed in Iraq in April 2004. She is the co-founder of Gold Star Families for Peace. * Medea Benjamin, longtime peace activist and founder of Code Pink. RUSH TRANSCRIPT AMY GOODMAN: Cindy Sheehan and Medea Benjamin join us now. Cindy is co-founder of Gold Star Families for Peace. Her son Casey was killed in Iraq, April 4, 2004. Medea Benjamin is a longtime peace activist and founder of CODEPINK. We welcome you both to Democracy Now! CINDY SHEEHAN: Hey, it’s great to be here. MEDEA BENJAMIN: Good morning. AMY GOODMAN: So, you were found guilty. CINDY SHEEHAN: Of the trespassing charge, which is very interesting, because that’s the only charge we were arrested for on March 6, and we were supposed to just get a ticket and get out of jail, but the lieutenant told us from higher up it said that they were going to add resisting arrest, so we had to spend the night in jail. We have had to spend six days in court on these piled-on charges, and then we were just convicted of trespassing, which was the original charge. And I just think it was a huge waste of taxpayers' money and our time. And just really, it wasn’t really private property. It was a US mission to the UN, where we were arrested on, so it was really, really incredible. AMY GOODMAN: You did it again, right afterwards. You went to the UN. MEDEA BENJAMIN: Well, we felt compelled to make a point. We should never have been arrested in the first place. We had an appointment. We had no interest in doing civil disobedience. We had done this the year before. This is literally, Amy, handing a piece of paper to a person. This is a diplomatic mission. They should have taken the paper, shook our hands, said “Thank you very much,” and gone about their business. And we would have gone about our business. Instead, they escalated. They dragged Cindy across the pavement. They forcibly took four women. They were trying to prove some kind of point, I guess, that they aren’t really a diplomatic mission, that their aggressive policies towards the world are the same policies they use towards peace women at home. It was absolutely absurd. And sitting in court for six days on these charges, I think, showed them to be the ones who were in the wrong. AMY GOODMAN: Did the now-outgoing US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, have anything to say about what you attempted to do, deliver these peace petitions? MEDEA BENJAMIN: Well, it was his office, so I think we can only take the assumption that he sets the tone in that office. But in the end, Amy, after we were convicted and we went back, the same people from the mission who testified against us in court had to come down, give us a big smile, and accept our petitions. AMY GOODMAN: And what did the petitions say exactly, Cindy Sheehan? CINDY SHEEHAN: It was just tying in women's issues with war and peace, how we are the ones that bury our children, we're the ones that bury our husbands, and that when the women unite around the world, we will put an end to war. And it was not a threatening petition. You know, the wording was very positive, very supportive of peace. Last year -- in March when we tried to deliver it, we had five Iraqi women with us, and they saw how we were treated. One of the Iraqi women was punched in the stomach. And they just said on interviews, “You’re trying to spread freedom and democracy to our country, and this is the way you treat people in your own country?” You know, harassed and abused for just walking down a public sidewalk and trying to deliver a petition, which even the Iraqi women understood that that’s our right as Americans to do so. So it was just a very positive, life-affirming petition, as CODEPINK and Gold Star Families for Peace, we’re just positive and life-affirming groups. AMY GOODMAN: As we come dangerously close to that 3,000 number of US soldiers dead in Iraq and now hear about, for example, the Lancet study that says perhaps 655,000-660,000 Iraqis have died -- you lost your son in Iraq, Casey -- your thoughts today? CINDY SHEEHAN: Well, my thoughts are that it, of course, never should have happened. It’s a war based on lies. I agree with Congressman Kucinich that we have to cut the funding. There is another bill coming up in the spring for -- appropriations bill for $130 billion, which will fund the war until the end of George Bush’s administration, so he could just walk away, wash his hands of the whole entire mess. And we know in Vietnam it stopped when Congress stopped the funding. So we peace activists have to organize around the country in our own districts, in Washington, D.C., to pressure our congress people to vote no for future money to continue the killing. There’s enough money only to complete this war through the end of June. And like Congressman Kucinich said, there’s enough money to bring our troops home, and we have to start bringing them home. We have to start working diplomatically. And we’ve seen, at firsthand experience, that that’s not what our government wants to do, but that’s what it’s going to have to do to stop the killing. It just gets worse and worse every day. AMY GOODMAN: When we come back from break, I want to play for you an interview I did last night with the new senator from Ohio, Sherrod Brown, a congress member for many terms, beat out the two-term incumbent, Senator DeWine, talking about his vision for this country and the Democratic plan, as they move forward. And I want talk to you about the plan for the peace movement. We're talking to Cindy Sheehan and Medea Benjamin. Stay with us. [break] AMY GOODMAN: Sherrod Brown is one of the six Democrats who defeated Republican incumbents in the Senate in November. Brown has served as a congress member in Ohio's Thirteenth District since 1993 and has been one of the most progressive lawmakers on Capitol Hill. He voted against the war in Iraq, against the PATRIOT Act, against warrantless wiretapping and against the gay marriage amendment. The New York Times says Brown opposed President Bush's stated position more frequently in 2005 than any other member of Congress. In the early days of the invasion of Iraq, Brown took to the House floor nearly every night to read letters from constituents opposing war. I spoke with Sherrod Brown last night here in New York. He began by talking about his election in Ohio to the US Senate. REP. SHERROD BROWN: I think that people feel in Ohio that their government betrayed them, that they saw a state government that was corrupt, they saw a federal government, where the drug companies and the oil companies and Halliburton and companies like that simply had too much power and betrayed the middle class. And voters wanted a United States senator who would fight for the middle class and fight for working families and stand up for the poor. AMY GOODMAN: Are you concerned about the voting in Ohio, the key battleground state as we move into 2008, and even what happened now? REP. SHERROD BROWN: We have a new Secretary of State in Ohio, who’s terrific. She is as concerned about the electronic voting and concerned about the whole election system as anybody that’s watching this or anybody I know around the country or in Ohio. I am very confident that in 2008 people’s votes will count. I don’t think they did in 2004. I think in 2008, they will. AMY GOODMAN: You called for the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld in November of 2003. That’s a long time ago. REP. SHERROD BROWN: Well, Rumsfeld -- I mean, if Rumsfeld had held your job or the job of darn near anybody in America, he would have been fired long before he was. I mean, he clearly was incompetent. He clearly didn’t tell the truth. He clearly continued to deceive. And, I mean, the war was wrong to begin with, but the way Rumsfeld argued for it and pushed the administration, and then his conduct of the war and his conduct of all the civil liberties questions around the world were simply wrong. AMY GOODMAN: There has been a lawsuit filed against him in Germany by the Center for Constitutional Rights here in New York, charging him with war crimes. Do you agree with that? REP. SHERROD BROWN: I don’t know. I don’t know enough about the lawsuit. I do know that there will be and should be oversight investigations about his conduct of the war. There will be and should be oversight of Halliburton non-bid contracts. And there will be, throughout the Congress, we need to hold them accountable. We still need to move forward on minimum wage. We need to end this war. We need to deal with helping middle-class kids get a college education. We also need to do the kind of investigative oversight that I think the public wants and that our government deserves and needs. AMY GOODMAN: What you think is the solution for Iraq right now? REP. SHERROD BROWN: I think the solution in Iraq is that we instruct the generals to come up with an exit strategy that will get us out of Iraq. I said in my campaign within 18 months. Now, I think the redeployment needs to be, as the situation’s gotten worse, needs to be accelerated so that it’s quicker than that. Otherwise, Iraq will never build their own security, police and military forces, and they’ll never come to the compromise that they need to among the Shiites, Kurds, and Sunnis, until we tell them we’re leaving and this is when we’re leaving. AMY GOODMAN: Why not call for the troops to come home now? REP. SHERROD BROWN: I think you call for -- I think if we leave immediately, the Iraqis don’t really prepare for our leaving. You give a date. It can be 12 months from now, it can be 18 months from now. But you begin the troop redeployment immediately, but you give them that end date, when they need to be ready to take back their country. AMY GOODMAN: What’s going to be your first act in office as a senator? REP. SHERROD BROWN: My first act, I hope, is to vote for a minimum wage increase, the first or the second day in office. AMY GOODMAN: Well, you’re leaving the House, and Nancy Pelosi has called for impeachment off the table and is against pulling the funding of the war. What are your thoughts, as you move into the Senate, on those two issues? REP. SHERROD BROWN: I think we, rather than impeachment or censuring of the president, I think we need -- because will look to the public as just more tit-for-tat. We need to do things for the country. That means increase the minimum wage, set up direct negotiations for drug prices, to get the Medicare law working for seniors rather than for the drug companies, pass the 9/11 Commission recommendations, pass middle-class and working people incentives for going to college. We need to do things for this country. And the investigations of the White House, the investigations for wrongdoing should be part of that, but I don’t want to get into looking like we’re engaging in retribution. I want to do things for the people of this country. AMY GOODMAN: Right before the election, you voted for the Military Commissions Act, which stripped habeas corpus. Why? REP. SHERROD BROWN: I think that if we had done nothing, the prisoners would continue in Guantanamo Bay with no resolution. That will at least move the process forward. They’re either tried, or they’re freed. I didn’t think they should be given more rights than American troops who are court-martialed. I think we can fix that. I think we can make the bill better. I think we ought to go back and do that, come this year. AMY GOODMAN: Restore habeas corpus? REP. SHERROD BROWN: Yeah. AMY GOODMAN: You would support that? REP. SHERROD BROWN: I would support that. AMY GOODMAN: Would you introduce that? REP. SHERROD BROWN: Probably not. AMY GOODMAN: Why not? REP. SHERROD BROWN: Because I have other priorities. AMY GOODMAN: What are your priorities? REP. SHERROD BROWN: My priorities are a fair trade policy in this country, increasing the minimum wage, going after the drug companies for the way that they charge and their whole pricing structure that have put absolutely amazing drugs out of reach for so many Americans. AMY GOODMAN: In 2008, what do you think of what’s going to happen? Are you coming out as an early supporter for any of the Democratic candidates for president? REP. SHERROD BROWN: I frankly don’t have much opinion yet about who runs. My interest is that whoever runs runs the kind of populist campaign, stands up for the middle class, stands up for working families, the kind of campaign I ran in Ohio, because if you’re -- it’s the question of whose side are you on. I want a presidential candidate, not to move to the middle and stand for nothing, but to be a progressive voice that will stand up for working families, stand up for the middle class, stands up for people with less advantage. That’s how you win elections. That’s how you build a base to govern in this country the way that we should turn our government towards. AMY GOODMAN: Finally, we interviewed a man this week, Lieutenant Ehren Watada. He’s the first officer to refuse deployment to Iraq. He’s about to be court-martialed. What do you say to soldiers who are saying no, they think it’s immoral, they think it’s wrong to go to Iraq? REP. SHERROD BROWN: I think you say that there are -- I don’t know. I don’t know what you say. I think that there are a lot of people in this country that have had it with this war. And I think the best thing I can say to him is we want to end this war as fast as we can. AMY GOODMAN: Do you think that there should be pressure on the military not to court-martial these men and women who are saying, just like many politicians, just like you have said, that the war is wrong? REP. SHERROD BROWN: I don’t know. I really don’t know. I mean, I’m not a military person. You know, the way military law works, I don’t know. I don’t know the answer to that. AMY GOODMAN: The senator-elect from Ohio, Sherrod Brown, many term Democratic congress member. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, the War and Peace Report. We were speaking last night in New York. Medea Benjamin and Cindy Sheehan, two of the leading peace activists in this country are with us in studio. Your response? Let's begin with you, Medea. MEDEA BENJAMIN: Well, it’s a shame that somebody who is so good on economic issues and one of our best allies on things like stopping the free trade agreements doesn’t understand that the only way to stop this war is to cut off the funds. He avoided the whole question. You asked him, was he going to vote to cut off the funds. He didn’t answer. The fact that he wouldn’t praise Ehren Watada and those who are saying no to a war that he himself thinks is wrong is also a reflection of his inability to just be straightforward and say, “The war is wrong. The troops have to come home. The only way we’re going to bring them home is if we cut off new funding for the war, and I applaud those who say they’re not going to fight in this war.” AMY GOODMAN: Your son fought in this war, Cindy Sheehan, and you lost him in Iraq. Your response to the issue of cutting off funds means you're not supporting the troops? CINDY SHEEHAN: Well, first of all, he has a very ambitious domestic agenda. How is he going to get this through, when we're spending $10 million dollars an hour in Iraq? Where’s the money going to come from? We need to take care of our people at home. Our trip should not be in Iraq. This month, almost five of them a day are dying. Nobody in Congress, nobody in the Senate, has children over there. How many more are going to die in this 18 months? How many more Iraqis are going to be slaughtered? And we can’t allow our elected officials to say that they’re against the war if they vote for more money. Clearly, in Campbell v. Clinton in 1999, the Supreme Court said that our elected officials give explicit approval for war when they vote for funds. So we have to stop letting our elected officials say they’re against the war, if they’re going to vote for funds. And our kids never should have been there in the first place. And the only way we can support them now is to bring them home, because they’re not the ones getting these billions of dollars, anyway. They’re still going without so much. They’re still going without things to help them survive. The people that are getting the money are Halliburton and Exxon and the private contractors there. So, cutting off the funds means cutting off the profits for the war profiteers. AMY GOODMAN: Medea Benjamin, your thoughts on the idea of immediate withdrawal today, tomorrow? You’ve been to Iraq many times. What about the assertions of the Iraqi government now, which ultimately criticized the Iraq Study Group, which wasn’t even talking about an immediate withdraw, concerned about abandonment? MEDEA BENJAMIN: I think our role as the peace movement is to say bring the troops home now. If there is a timeline that is set that is the end of 2007, I would support that, because I think that gives a chance then to move towards a reconciliation plan, where the Iraqis themselves could sit down and work out some kind of post-US occupation government. AMY GOODMAN: And do you see that happening? MEDEA BENJAMIN: I see it happening, if we do our job. And what I see as the real danger ahead is the peace movement thinking, ah, the Democrats are coming to power, oh, there’s a plan out there, let's give them a little time. This is the hardest time for the peace movement, and this is when we have to be the strongest. We have possibilities now coming up in January. As soon as they are sworn in in the new congress, we have to be there. January 3rd and 4th, Gold Star Families, CODEPINK and other groups are planning on being in Washington, D.C. We have a big mobilization. United for Peace and Justice is organizing for January 27th. We have the next anniversary of the war coming up, March 17th. We’ve got to be out on the streets. We’ve got to be in the offices of our congress people. If not, this war is going to go on and on, and we’re going to be facing another presidential election with two pro-war major candidates from the Democrats and Republicans. AMY GOODMAN: You were just in South Korea, both of you, Medea Benjamin and Cindy Sheehan. Why? CINDY SHEEHAN: We were there to -- we were invited by Korean peace groups to come. We went to a village, Daechuri, and Pyong-taek, by Camp Humphreys, a US military base that is slowly eating the entire village. It’s taken their farmlands. It’s demolished their houses. Part of the reason they’re taking their lands is for a golf course. So we went there to resist this creeping and cancerous militarism basically around the world, that is compromising and oppressing peoples in other countries. And this is US militarism that’s going on. And also, the people of South Korea that we talked to want unification, and they say that that --- with North Korea, reunification. They say that can’t happen with the US military presence there. So we just went as part of a delegation to stand in solidarity with the Korean peace movement, with the anti-militarism movement there in South Korea. AMY GOODMAN: Medea Benjamin? MEDEA BENJAMIN: We also were there because South Korea has the third largest contingent of troops in Iraq, after the US and the UK. And so, there has been a movement in South Korea to force the government to bring their troops home. In fact, we met with members of parliament from all the different parties who had just returned from Iraq and said South Korean troops have no business in Iraq. So we were there to support that movement to bring their troops home. AMY GOODMAN: Speaking of meeting with members of legislative bodies, soon after the Democrats took over Congress, you and a group of people went to meet with Nancy Pelosi. Does Nancy Pelosi -- is she your congress member? MEDEA BENJAMIN: Yes. AMY GOODMAN: And she is also the first woman Speaker of the House. What did she say? What are your comments about her saying the cutting off of funding for the war is off the table, the cutting off of -- impeachment is off the table? MEDEA BENJAMIN: We say nothing is off the table, that Nancy Pelosi has to represent the voice of the people in her district first, which is the most progressive district, perhaps, in the country. We have already voted very democratically that we want to see President Bush impeached. We have already voted that we want to see the troops out immediately from Iraq. So she has to represent her district. And we have an opportunity right now, with her having this powerful position, to really put the pressure on her. So I am very anxious for the new year to start, because we have plans both in her district and at her office in Washington, D.C., to say she must be a leader, she must listen to the people. She can’t decide she’s taking off the table something that is so important to now the majority of people in this country, which is end the war. And the only way you're going to end the war, Nancy, is not talking bad about President Bush's policy, but cutting the funding for the war. AMY GOODMAN: The last act of outgoing Congressmember Cynthia McKinney of Georgia was to call for the impeachment of President Bush. Your response, and also to her ouster? She will be leaving Congress now, Congressmember McKinney. CINDY SHEEHAN: Well, we, Medea and I, both were in Georgia the day of her first election, when she failed to get enough votes to -- she had to have a runoff. Cynthia McKinney has been a very outspoken and very courageous member of Congress, who, you know, was very outspoken against the war, against George Bush and his policies. And I believe that impeachment needs to be talked about. It needs to be debated. It needs to be discussed, but it has to be from the people. We have to put pressure on Congress. It can’t come from a special prosecutor. It can’t come from anything else, but we the people saying that we want it on the table, that we set the table. And when that happens, then Congress will have the courage to do the same thing. So I just believe that Cynthia McKinney's proposal just brought the debate out. And we just had a whole weekend full of impeachment forums, 60 of them all over the country. I spoke with Liz Holtzman, who sat on Richard Nixon’s investigative body. And it has to be reasoned. It has to be reverent. We have to obey the Constitution. We have to take everybody's feelings into consideration. It has to be nonpartisan for it to be effective. Bill Clinton’s impeachment was a miscarriage of the Constitution. It was a travesty. It wasn’t good for the country. But I believe George Bush's impeachment and removal from office will be good for the country and good for the whole world. AMY GOODMAN: And your response to the outgoing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld visiting Iraq for a final time in that surprise weekend trip? MEDEA BENJAMIN: Well, I think we’re delighted that Donald Rumsfeld is gone, not that Robert Gates is such a great replacement. But I think it’s important that we see some of the worst warmongers leaving. We're delighted that John Bolton is leaving from the United Nations. And we're looking forward to a new year, where the peace movement feels reinvigorated. AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you both for being with us, Medea Benjamin and Cindy Sheehan. CINDY SHEEHAN: Thank you, Amy. AMY GOODMAN: Cindy is one of the founders of Gold Star Families for Peace, lost her son Casey on April 4, 2004, in Sadr City, Iraq. And Medea Benjamin is one of the co-founders of Global Exchange and CODEPINK. ---- Student Protesters Interrupt Ahmadinejad Speech Tuesday, December 12th, 2006 Democracy Now! Headlines http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/12/12/1459211 In Iran, a group of students disrupted a speech by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday. It marked the first major public protest against Ahmadinejad since he took office. The students screamed Death to the Dictator, set photographs of the president on fire and threw firecrackers at him. Ahmadinejad cut his speech short. As he left, students kicked at the car that carried him away. The president's guards did not remove the students or use force to stop the protests. Meanwhile Iran is hosting an international conference questioning whether the Holocaust occurred. Holocaust deniers from around the world are attending including former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke who claimed that the gas chambers in which millions perished actually did not exist. ---- brian haw court case (day 1) - superintendent terry in the dock rikki | 12.12.2006 00:14 | Anti-militarism | Repression | London IndyMedia http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/12/358202.html parliament square protestor, brian haw, was at marylebone magistrates court today facing criminal charges arising earlier in the year for alleged breach of conditions imposed on his demo. as an 'organiser' he could face a custodial sentence. the case is set to last three days and supporters are welcome - there is a public gallery. today, superintendent peter terry appeared in the dock. he had cut his hair especially for the occasion, and coughed nervously, asking for a drink of water on more than one occasion. the prosecution took him through his police career to the point when, after various internal public order training courses, he took up his superintendent role at charing cross in 2004. the court watched an excellent video from 2004 in which inspector andy robinson and another officer named engledew(?) were seen approaching and talking to brian haw to relate their concerns about the size of his demo site and the potential for terrorists that they believed it posed. in the video, brian spoke peacefully and eloquently. highlights were when the police took him to show how easily bombs could be concealed and discovered that four 'suspicious' bags contained no more than sand - not known as a great catalyst for explosive devices. they then claimed that traffic cones had been used in terrorist attacks previously (although it is not known if students were involved in these). brian pointed out that you'd NEED to be a suicide bomber if you intended to skulk behind the placards and then run in front of the busy road traffic towards the palace of westminster. in the video, the police continued to express their concern to brian about the size of his demo on security grounds, but he kept minding them of the reasons why his display was there in the first place - that the placards were a reminder of the genocide being perpetrated in our names. brian suggested that if the police wanted his display to be smaller or even to disappear then they'd be better off going after bush and blair - he told them that his display simply grew in direct proportion to the crimes committed. when asked how long he intended to remain there, brian said 'as long as it takes - do you know what the half-life of depleted uranium is?' the police continued with their threats that unless brian co-operated they would have to initiate proceedings against him. brian's dignified performance in the video won warm applause from the public gallery after it was shown. brian had previously won a court case against westminster who had claimed that he was 'obstructing the pavement' and that he was 'breaking advertising guidelines'. they hadn't even brought up any issue of security. it emerged in court that the police concerns and their threat of action in that 2004 video had amounted to nothing as it became clear they had absolutely no legal power over him. in fact they ended up breaking off 'negotiations' with his solicitor and retreated. but then, the serious organised crime and police act (specifically sections 132 to 138) came along. at first, brian won a high court ruling that because his demo had pre-dated the act he would become the ONLY person in britain to be exempt from it. but in may 2006, the government appeal was won, the circle was squared, black and white became grey, and brian became subject to the act written specifically against him. the very next day, the superintendent slapped a set of conditions on him, but as the defence pointed out, there was one small problem - only the commissioner of police could impose conditions. a letter was produced which was signed by the commissioner in which he delegated power under the act to superintendent terry, but there was another small problem - the letter wasn't dated. under cross-examination, superintendent terry agreed that it was 'most unusual' to have an undated letter, but it had been placed in a file which WAS dated (12th july 2005), so that was alright then. brian haw's defence barrister for this case is a queen's counsel named ian macdonald who has an impressive pedigree, working for the manchester-based civil liberties chambers, 'garden court north'. he has been involved in major political trials over the last few decades, but is especially recognised for his immigration and race relations work, involving many anti-deportation hearings. six years after his appointment as attorney general at the special immigration appeals commission he resigned as a matter of principle in december 2004 over the detention without trial of suspected terrorists. he certainly put superintendent terry on the defensive in his rigorous cross-examination. i'll give more details in a summing-up later in the week, but one small example today was when he took terry through various scenarios which ridiculed the conditions imposed so that in the end the superintendent had to agree that brian could end up in prison for making a cup of tea! amusing though all this was, it only highlights the tremendous implications that the socpa legislation has. it hands over legislative control to the police. by imposing conditions, superintendent terry effectively can write laws which only apply to one man, brian haw. and as brian is notified as an 'organiser' of a demonstration, if he breaks those 'laws' he can end up in prison. this is an enormous power, and clouds the long-established distinction between parliament, the police, and the courts. that is why socpa is so dangerous, such an affront to a democratic society, and so insidious. terry can write laws criminalising the behaviour of anyone who dares to organise a protest - it could be you! incidentally, it also came out in court that, since socpa came into effect, only five demonstrations have had conditions imposed, and of those, three have had them imposed by terry. ALL THREE were in parliament square and involved peace protests. this is in stark contrast to the demo held by tamil supporters who staged a hunger strike for several days in the square with many people involved, some staying overnight, with plenty of bags, and various supporters coming and going, at all times unrestricted - they were protesting in support of the 'tamil tigers' who were actually a proscribed terrorist organisation, but apparently terry didn't have any security fears over that protest. meanwhile, terry had to admit that brian, who has been there for five and a half years, has never been associated in any way with any terrorist scare, threat, or suspicion. in fact it seemed that the best terry could come up with was that he'd seen two written complaints from tourists that brian had spoiled their view of parliament. the case continues tomorrow, tuesday at 10.30am, and is likely to last a third day. supporters are warmly welcomed in court and outside. the outcome will have huge repercussions. if brian wins, then the police raid on his site in may 2006 will have been unlawful, and their power to impose conditions in future may be severely curtailed. if the police win, then it will be another dark day for democracy and human rights in this country, establishing the freedom of the police to take a legislative role against protesters, and destroying centuries of hard-won progress in justice and rights. it could also mean a prison sentence for brian haw, and the end of his peace vigil which has been a constant conscience-pricker to blair and parliament for more than 2000 days and nights since before the twin tower attacks in 2001. rikki - e-mail: rikkiindymedia@googlemail.com