NucNews December 14, 2006 -------- NUCLEAR -------- depleted uranium Explosive Controversy Heats Up In Tracy John Iander Reporting Dec 14, 2006 (CBS13) http://cbs13.com/topstories/local_story_348215850.html TRACY, Calif. There's an explosion planned at test site in the Central Valley, and residents fear it could launch radioactive material into their air. Now there's a fight to stop those planned tests at Site 300, just outside of Tracy near the Lawrence Livermore Lab. The Lawrence Livermore Lab has been setting off 60 to 80 blasts a year; most have been small, but next year two larger 300-pound explosions are planned using depleted uranium. For Tracy shoe shop owner Bob Sarvey, that means the potential of a radioactive release. "Depleted uranium is a substance that soldiers in Iraq are suffering from, it's in the tanks and the artillery shells...I don't want that happening to my community," said Sarvey. Lab officials say any scare is totally irresponsible and completely unfounded. "We haven't fired any radio active materials around here and we never will fire any radio active materials out here," said lab spokesperson David Schwoegler. Sarvey showed CBS13 the risk assessment from the local government and says someone must be worried to have added a cancer risk footnote, and that's before any review of potential radioactivity. Scientists say they monitor any noise or air pollution. The air quality board is set to consider the appeal in January. ---- CA Developer, activist appeal bomb testing permit John Upton/Tracy CA Press Thursday, 14 December 2006 http://tracypress.com/content/view/6287/2/ The developer of the Tracy Hills project and a local shoe-shop owner have filed objections to planned explosives tests expected to contain depleted uranium at Site 300. Site 300 operators refused this week to assure the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District that radioactive material would be kept out of the planned blasts, which may be up to more than three times the size of any other local test explosion in at least 13 years. The refusal prompted Sarvey Shoes owner Bob Sarvey to appeal an air district permit issued that was issued Nov. 13 to allow the blasts. “I’ll probably lose, as usual,” Sarvey said, “but I’ve got to give it a chance, because I don’t want radiation blown all over Tracy.” Wind blows from Site 300 over the city of Tracy 45 percent of the time, according to a 1994 report commissioned by Site 300 operators. Radioactive material isn’t regulated by the air district, but California law commits public agencies to study the environmental impacts of projects they approve. Sarvey, in a letter to the air district, accused Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory of filing a misleading permit application because it said Site 300 is at a remote location 10 miles from the city. Tracy’s city limits were moved within a mile of Site 300 during the 1990s real estate boom to accommodate the 5,500-home Tracy Hills project. A hill separates Site 300 from the planned homes, the construction of which has been delayed, in part, by the city’s slow-growth law. Tracy Hills LLC, which is owned by Angelo Tsakopoulos’ AKT Investments, called for a hearing to appeal the permit, in part because of concerns about noise and emissions. Sarvey’s letter said the district failed to consider health impacts from radioactive material or from other explosive tests. The letter also said the district failed to consider noise impacts on residents or the impacts on endangered species. But Sarvey said in the letter that he had yet to thoroughly review the lab’s permit application or engineering analysis, because the district failed to warn locals about it. Sarvey said he first learned of the permit through a Tracy Press article, published last week just two business days before the cut-off date for appeals. Air district permit director Dave Warner said the permit allows the lab to emit up to 1,440 pounds of particulate matter up to 10 microns in diameter per year — well below the 20,000-pound limit that requires public notification. A Lawrence Livermore spokeswoman defended the lab against charges by Sarvey and Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment that it had been secretive about the planned blasts. “We are not bound to do a public notice for every permit we request,” Lynda Seaver said by e-mail. “We worked directly with the local air quality board and our various regulators.” Seaver pointed to the lab’s environmental impact statement to show that the public had been told of the planned blasts. A 794-page preliminary report published in February 2004 stated on a table on Page 338 that 350-pound blasts would be the largest blasts possible at the site. But the report didn’t say this would represent an increase relative to existing tests, which have been capped at 100 pounds by air district rules since the district was formed in 1992. The table was repeated in the final report published 13 months later, and 1,429 pages of appendices mentioned the 350-pound limit four times. The limit was not mentioned in the 50-plus page summaries of the preliminary or final reports. The lab held community meetings to discuss the report, but no written public comments mentioned the limit. The draft and final reports did not state that energy in outdoor blasts could increase eight-fold annually to the equivalent of 8,000 pounds of TNT, as allowed under the new permit. An air district board is expected to consider the appeals of Tracy Hills and Sarvey at its Jan. 3 meeting in Modesto. San Joaquin County Supervisor Jack Sieglock is the only air district board member from this county. All 11 board members hold elected positions with county and city governments. The lab spokewoman said the planned explosions would not be nuclear explosions. She said there has never been a nuclear weapons test at Site 300. “The uranium used in any Site 300 test is depleted and, therefore, can never achieve fission,” Seaver said. “The same is true of the tritium. The 300-pound tests will not contain tritium.” Seaver said the majority of outdoor tests at Site 300 would be 100 pounds or smaller. To reach reporter John Upton, call 830-4274 or e-mail jupton@tracypress.com. -------- europe Tunisia, France strike deal on peaceful use of nuclear energy (Comtex Community Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Dec 14, 2006 (Xinhua via COMTEX) http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/-tunisia-france-strike-deal-peaceful-use-nuclear-energy-/2006/12/14/2172080.htm TUNIS -- Tunisia and France on Thursday signed a cooperative agreement on the peaceful use of nuclear energy. Under the accord, the two countries will conduct cooperation on the peaceful use of nuclear technology in areas of environmental protection, desalination of seawater, health and power generation. With the signing of the agreement, Tunisia ushers in a new stage of nuclear research and development and nuclear power generation, said Taieb Hadhri, Tunisia's minister of scientific research, technology and capability development. As a country deficient in petroleum resources, Tunisia attaches great importance to the exploitation of nuclear energy, and alternative and renewable energy sources. In March and November, Tunisian President Ben Ali convened separate cabinet meetings on energy issues, and decided to research on and develop nuclear energy. -------- india India Unshakable Against Nukes Singh Tells Japan by Staff Writers Tokyo (AFP) Dec 14, 2006 http://www.spacewar.com/reports/India_Unshakable_Against_Nukes_Singh_Tells_Japan_999.html Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asked Japan Thursday for its moral authority to let his country into the club of civilian nuclear powers, boasting of "unshakable" commitment against proliferation. Singh and US President George W. Bush last year reached a controversial deal to give India access to civilian nuclear technology even though it has not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty on atomic weapons. The pact needs the approval of the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group, of which Japan is a pivotal member. "Like Japan, India sees nuclear power as a viable and clean energy source to meet its growing energy requirements," Singh said in an address to the Japanese parliament. "We seek Japan's support in helping put in place innovative and forward-looking approaches of the international community to make this possible," he said. In an aside from his prepared text, Singh added: "At the same time, I would like to confirm that India's commitment to work for universal nuclear disarmament remains unshakable." Japan's support for the India-US pact is seen as significant as it is the only nation to have been attacked with nuclear weapons and is also a major civilian atomic power. Japan has been seeking warmer relations with India but has yet to offer a position on the nuclear pact. Singh meets Friday with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Yohei Kono, the speaker of the lower house, who is often seen as a liberal within the ruling party, thanked the Indian parliament for its annual silent prayer for victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. "And again we call on your country to mutually cooperate to abolish nuclear weapons," Kono said in a short speech welcoming Singh. India in 1998 declared itself a nuclear weapons state, with tests replicated soon afterwards by Pakistan, which invited years of foreign sanctions on the rival neighbors. India says it will not use nuclear weapons first but opposes the Non-Proliferation Treaty on the grounds that it puts atomic arms in the hands of five countries which show no sign of giving them up. Singh's deal with Bush still faces strong opposition in India by both leftists and nationalists, who say the deal compromises India's sovereignty by allowing UN oversight of civilian nuclear facilities. ---- PM seeks Japan support for nuke needs By: Agencies December 14, 2006 http://www.mid-day.com/news/nation/2006/december/148465.htm Tokyo: Seeking a new partnership with Japan, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today pressed for its support to put in place "innovative and forward-looking" approaches of the international community to meet India's growing nuclear energy needs. Addressing the Japanese Parliament, Singh advocated a strong push for economic ties, saying they must be the bedrock of Indo-Japan relationship. "Like Japan, India sees nuclear power as a viable and clean energy source to meet its growing energy needs. We seek Japan's support in helping put in place innovative and forward looking approaches of the international community to make this possible," he told members of the joint session of the House of Representatives and House of Councillors. New Delhi is looking for the support of Japan, an influential member of the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), to back changes in its guidelines to allow international nuclear cooperation with India. -------- israel Why Israel maintains nuclear ambiguity Ehud Olmert's apparent admission that Israel has nukes calls into question the country's longtime vow of silence. By Joshua Mitnick | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor December 14, 2006 http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1214/p07s02-wome.htm TEL AVIV - Israel's nuclear policy was conceived spontaneously when a young deputy defense minister, Shimon Peres, was confronted by President John F. Kennedy at the White House about the Jewish state's rumored ambitions to become a nuclear power. Mr. Peres's response - "I can say to you clearly that we shall not introduce atomic weapons into the region. We will certainly not be the first to do so'' - became a tagline repeated for decades to signal the country's self-imposed "no comment" on its reported nuclear capabilities. This week, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert sought the cover of Peres's now-famous quip after the Israeli leader seemed to inadvertently acknowledge Israel's nuclear weapons - apparently confirming what has been taken granted for decades by much of the world. In an interview with German television, Mr. Olmert sought to portray Iran as reckless while placing Israel alongside the accepted nuclear powers. "Iran openly, explicitly, and publicly threatens to wipe Israel off the map," Olmert said while visiting Germany. "Can you say that this is the same level, when you are aspiring to have nuclear weapons, as America, France, Israel, and Russia?" The uproar that ensued in Israel and abroad highlights the fragility of one of Israel's most finely tuned defense policies, a doctrine of nuclear ambiguity that has enabled Israel to deter foes for decades in a region with only one alleged nuclear power. But as the possibility of a nuclear Iran looms, some are arguing that Israel may need to rethink that very policy. "The ambiguity so far has been useful, and we have never threatened the region with a nuclear catastrophe. But sometimes there is no way out of it," says Shlomo Aronson, a political science professor at Hebrew University. "When [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad talks about wiping Israel off the map, this may mean the end of Iran, too.'' To be sure, Olmert's aides were quick to deny that the prime minister meant to blow open the tight-lipped policy of four decades. Critics back home, however, were quick to assail the prime minister for what they called a reckless verbal slip. Most commentators, meanwhile, defended the longstanding doctrine. "It has been the right policy; it has helped Israel. The Arabs, knowing that Israel is a nuclear superpower and a conventional weapons superpower, probably reduced their aspirations or limited their plans" to attack Israel, says Yossi Melman, an Israeli journalist and historian who cowrote a forthcoming book on Iran's nuclear program. Disclosure would spur "pressure on Israel from the international community." The policy was formalized in 1969 between then-Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir and President Richard Nixon, who agreed to accept Israel's nuclear status on condition that it observe a rigorous vow of silence. In order not to disrupt the US drive to gain nonproliferation commitments from other countries, Israel committed to remain mum about its nuclear program, to avoid tests, and not to threaten other countries with attack. [ Editor's note: The original version misstated the date of the meeting between Prime Minister Meir and President Nixon.] Israel's nuclear deterrent is credited by analysts with convincing Egyptian President Anwar Sadat to abandon hopes of a military defeat of Israel, and with dissuading Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from fitting the Scuds he fired at Israel in the 1991 Gulf War with nonconventional warheads. Meanwhile, the low profile has allowed Israel to skirt any internationally imposed nuclear oversight while avoiding stirring a nuclear race with its immediate neighbors. "Breaking the ambiguity now will create two undesirable results," wrote Ron Ben Yishai, a defense commentator, for the Israeli website Ynet. "One would be to provide an excuse for Israel's neighbors to [acquire nonconventional materials], and [the other would be] to bolster efforts in the international arena to dismantle Israel of its nuclear capability." Indeed, an Arab League spokesman insisted the comment was an intentional "test balloon" and urged member states to bolster their readiness for a nuclear attack, the Egyptian official news agency reported. For years, Egypt has made occasional calls for the international community to force Israel to open up its nuclear program to inspection. For decades, discussion of its nuclear policy has been something of a taboo in Israel. Academic research and media articles are subject to a military censor, and information on Israel's nuclear program is usually attributed to "foreign sources" for safe measure. The only inside documentation of the program was made public in the 1980s by Mordechai Vanunu, a former employee at Israel's Dimona Nuclear reactor who gave pictures of the core to the London Sunday Times, a report which spurred a round of speculation about the size of Israel's nuclear arsenal. Some in Israel have questioned whether stifling discussion of the country's most important weapon is healthy for a democracy. But defenders of the policy insist that silence is the most responsible approach Israel can take. "This is viewed as something that is obviously not for use unless Israel faces an extreme situation where it feels its existence is threatened," says Emily Landau, a fellow at the Tel Aviv University affiliate Institute of National Security Studies. "The international community should be happy that Israel's policy is a policy of ambiguity." But an atomic Iran would require a change in Israel's longstanding policy, say some experts. A region with more than one potential atomic power calls for a more explicit form of deterrence. "In order to make a situation that existed in the cold war, that existed between the US and Soviet Union, you need that both sides threatened by each other," says Michael Karpin, an author of a history of Israel's nuclear program, "otherwise the side that doesn't make the threat is weaker. For a balance of terror so that both sides don't use the bomb, you need to know that the other side has the bomb." -------- japan Indian PM presses Japan for investment, nuclear alliance TOKYO (AFP) Dec 14, 2006 http://www.spacewar.com/2006/061214125442.dtntblkg.html Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called Thursday for an "arc of prosperity" with fellow democracy Japan but pressed Asia's largest economy to invest more and support nuclear cooperation. Singh is the first Indian premier in five years to visit Japan, whose conservative government has made improving ties with New Delhi a top priority to balance frequent friction with a rising China. "Strong ties between India and Japan will be a major factor in building an open and inclusive Asia and in enhancing peace and stability in the region," Singh said in an address to a joint session of the Japanese parliament. "Our partnership has the potential to create an arc of advantage and prosperity across Asia, laying the foundation for the creation of an Asian economic community." Japan's ties with communist China remain strained by the legacy of its atrocities in the 1930s and 1940s, when it invaded neighboring countries in the name of creating a Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. But both Singh and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, with whom he will hold talks Friday, have been trying to repair relations with China. And India, despite warming ties with the US, has long called for a "multipolar" world. Singh is seeking Japan's blessing for a controversial India-US pact that allows civilian nuclear cooperation even though New Delhi has developed nuclear weapons. In an aside from his prepared text, Singh told lawmakers that India's commitment to stopping the spread of nuclear weapons was "unshakable" even though it refuses to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The support of Japan, the only nation to be attacked by atomic weapons, could open the door for international nuclear cooperation with India and counter Singh's critics, who say he has conceded too much to Washington. But Yohei Kono, the speaker of the lower house, offered a gentle rebuke as he welcomed Singh to the podium. He thanked the Indian parliament for offering an annual silent prayer to victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and added: "Again we call on your country to mutually cooperate to abolish nuclear weapons." Despite Japanese conservatives' bid to ally with New Delhi to balance Beijing, Singh did not mention China by name in his address -- other than to point out disapprovingly that it conducted more trade with India than Japan did. "Economic ties must be the bedrock of our relationship and a strong push is required in this area. Our trade and investment ties are well below potential," said Singh, who is accompanied by a high-level business delegation. India in 2004 replaced China as the top destination for Japan's low-interest loans, a key tool of Tokyo's diplomacy and sign of its political intentions. But investment has not followed. Japan invested 170 million dollars in India last year, less than three percent of the amount it invested in China, according to official Japanese figures. Japan had shown initial enthusiasm when India ended five decades of rigid protectionism in 1991. Singh, who as finance minister fathered the reforms, secured Japanese loans to end a balance-of-payments crisis. "I return to Japan as the prime minister of a new India," Singh said, pointing to India's breakneck macroeconomic growth. In talks with ministers Thursday, Singh sought Japanese financing for a proposed 2,800 kilometer (1,700 mile) high-speed freight railway seen as vital to improving India's creaky infrastructure. Japan will look at the proposal once details are set, Finance Minister Koji Omi told him. ---- India 'unshakable' against nukes, PM tells Japan TOKYO (AFP) Dec 14, 2006 http://www.spacewar.com/2006/061214095925.zhl9pchx.html Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asked Japan Thursday for its moral authority to let his country into the club of civilian nuclear powers, boasting of "unshakable" commitment against proliferation. Singh and US President George W. Bush last year reached a controversial deal to give India access to civilian nuclear technology even though it has not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty on atomic weapons. The pact needs the approval of the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group, of which Japan is a pivotal member. "Like Japan, India sees nuclear power as a viable and clean energy source to meet its growing energy requirements," Singh said in an address to the Japanese parliament. "We seek Japan's support in helping put in place innovative and forward-looking approaches of the international community to make this possible," he said. In an aside from his prepared text, Singh added: "At the same time, I would like to confirm that India's commitment to work for universal nuclear disarmament remains unshakable." Japan's support for the India-US pact is seen as significant as it is the only nation to have been attacked with nuclear weapons and is also a major civilian atomic power. Japan has been seeking warmer relations with India but has yet to offer a position on the nuclear pact. Singh meets Friday with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Yohei Kono, the speaker of the lower house, who is often seen as a liberal within the ruling party, thanked the Indian parliament for its annual silent prayer for victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. "And again we call on your country to mutually cooperate to abolish nuclear weapons," Kono said in a short speech welcoming Singh. India in 1998 declared itself a nuclear weapons state, with tests replicated soon afterwards by Pakistan, which invited years of foreign sanctions on the rival neighbors. India says it will not use nuclear weapons first but opposes the Non-Proliferation Treaty on the grounds that it puts atomic arms in the hands of five countries which show no sign of giving them up. Singh's deal with Bush still faces strong opposition in India by both leftists and nationalists, who say the deal compromises India's sovereignty by allowing UN oversight of civilian nuclear facilities. -------- korea US Offering North Korea Written Security Guarantees by Staff Writers Seoul (AFP) Dec 14, 2006 http://www.spacewar.com/reports/US_Offering_North_Korea_Written_Security_Guarantees_999.html The United States has offered North Korea written security guarantees in an attempt to persuade it to dismantle its nuclear arsenal, a report said Thursday. Quoting diplomatic sources, Yonhap news agency said the proposal was made at meetings between US and North Korean officials on November 27 and 28 in Beijing to pave the way for the resumption of six-party nuclear disarmament talks. The report could not be confirmed independently. The talks resume Monday in Beijing. "At the meeting, the US side reaffirmed it has no intention to attack or invade North Korea as was stated in the (2005) September joint agreement," a diplomatic source was quoted as saying by Yonhap. "The US side suggested it could give such a security guarantee in a written form in the name of President Bush," the source said. In return, North Korea should take specific steps, he said. These reportedly include freezing its nuclear facilities at Yongbyon north of Pyongyang, allowing inspections by international watchdogs and shutting down its nuclear test site at Punggyeri in the northeast. "Such a written security guarantee can be seen as a prelude to the normalization of diplomatic ties between North Korea and the United States," the source said. North Korea signed on to a vaguely worded statement in September 2005, pledging to give up its nuclear ambitions in return for security guarantees, energy assistance and improved relations with the West. But it pulled out of the talks two months later, protesting at US sanctions which froze its accounts in a Macau bank because of alleged counterfeiting and other illicit activities. It then conducted its first nuclear test in October, triggering global condemnation and United Nations sanctions. US Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said Wednesday that North Korea had indicated it was ready to "deal in specifics" about giving up its nuclear arsenal when it returns to the talks. But Hill, the chief US representative to the forum, predicted "very tough negotiations" ahead. ---- KEDO closes final deal on liquidation of N. Korean nuclear reactor project bdk@yna.co.kr, Dec. 14, 2006 (Yonhap) http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/Engnews/20061214/630000000020061214141113E2.html SEOUL -- An international energy consortium this week signed its final agreement with a South Korean firm to liquidate its 10-year project to build two light-water reactors in communist North Korea, a South Korean official said Thursday. "In a Dec. 8 meeting in New York, the executive board of the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO) approved a deal with the Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO)," Moon Dae-keun, an official from the Unification Ministry, told reporters. The so-called Termination Agreement made official the tentative agreement between the two sides in June that the South Korean electric company would pay the cost of liquidating the US$4.6-billion project in return for all of KEDO's tangible assets outside of the communist North, Moon said. The agreement comes as probably the last official document to be signed by the international consortium, which includes South Korea, Japan, the European Union and the United States, ministry officials said. About $1.65 billion has been spent on the now-defunct project, more than $1.14 billion of which came from South Korea, according to Moon. The light-water reactors were part of a 1994 agreement between the United States and North Korea, in which the communist state agreed to freeze its nuclear activities in return for various economic incentives. The 1994 agreement, known as the Agreed Framework, became a dead letter following North Korea's withdrawal from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in early 2003 and its subsequent unloading of spent fuel rods from a nuclear facility for reprocessing. North Korea is believed to have created as much as 40 kilograms of weapons-grade plutonium through reprocessing, enough to make six to eight atomic bombs. -------- missile defense Russian Military Chief Warns Of US Anti-Missile Shield Impact by Staff Writers Moscow (RIA Novosti) Dec 14, 2006 http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Russian_Military_Chief_Warns_Of_US_Anti_Missile_Shield_Impact__999.html Russia disapproves of U.S. plans to deploy an anti-missile shield in Eastern Europe, and believes the move may adversely affect global as well as European security, the head of the Russian armed forces' general staff said Wednesday. Washington is considering placing a missile defense system in Poland or the Czech Republic, which it says will protect Europe and the United States against hostile missiles from certain rogue states in Asia, such as North Korea. Speaking to a gathering of foreign military attaches in Moscow, Yuri Baluyevsky said: "The creation of a U.S. anti-missile base cannot be viewed otherwise than as a major reconfiguration of the American military presence. Vanguard groupings of the U.S. armed forces in Europe have until now had no strategic components. This raises the question as to who U.S. anti-missile plans are really targeted against, and what kind of implications they may have for Russia and Europe at large." He dismissed assurances that the base's buildup will have no noticeable effect on Russia's nuclear deterrent potential. "An ABM area near Europe's Russian borders is an unfriendly step, to put it mildly, and an unfriendly signal," he said. "The potential interception zone for ballistic missiles from this area will span much of Russia's European territory." "Given that its [the shield's] creation may prompt other countries to step up their activities in missile building, the situation in the longer term appears all the more alarming. It is clearly fraught with the potential for a nuclear arms race, which will have a negative impact on global strategic stability." "It will force us to look for certain counter-measures, which will definitely be asymmetrical and less expensive," Baluyevsky said. He also expressed concern over the potential damage that may be caused to Russia's environment by the nuclear warheads of missiles shot down over Russian soil. -------- russia Russia to spur Bushehr nuclear project 14/ 12/ 2006. (RIA Novosti political commentator Pyotr Goncharov) http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20061214/56941733.html TEHRAN - Moscow intends to speed up the construction of the Bushehr nuclear power plant in Iran. Sergei Kiriyenko, head of the Russian Federal Nuclear Power Agency, who led a delegation to Tehran earlier this week, convinced the Iranian authorities to meet Russian nuclear-equipment export monopoly Atomstroyexport halfway in solving Bushehr's long-standing problems. The highlight of Kiriyenko's visit was his meeting with Vice President Gholamreza Aghazadeh, head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization. During a news conference after the talks, Iranian officials tried to put the issue in a political context. "The two countries have mustered the necessary political will to ensure the inauguration of the NPP on the planned date," Aghazadeh told journalists. But Kiriyenko was more realistic: "Moscow sees no political obstacles to inaugurating the Bushehr plant on the agreed date, but Russia will work in Bushehr only as fast as is technologically possible." In other words, Kiriyenko told Tehran that the sides needed to either remove all obstacles or postpone the launch of the plant. He also pinpointed the main obstacles: a chronic shortage of funds and delays in the delivery of equipment, especially by other countries. These are old problems. Tehran has long been making monthly payments by installments, frequently transferring part of the monthly payment to next month and later pretending that it is for the current month, leaving the previous month's payment in limbo. As for deliveries of equipment from other countries, it was Iran's decision to order equipment from the West without bothering to obtain guarantees of compliance with contractual obligations. And now Western companies, fearing American sanctions, prefer to keep away from Bushehr. Russia and Iran found a solution during the second round of talks held from the Russian side by Atomstroyexport President Sergei Shmatko. They agreed that parallel contracts should be signed to preclude delays in the delivery of equipment, and also agreed to streamline the system for making contractual payments. Since stable financing is the main factor, Russia "does not see major risks of a failure to inaugurate the plant, although it is an ambitious project that will call for considerable efforts by both sides," Shmatko said. The Bushehr project has long gone beyond the framework of bilateral relations and pure business. The Paris-based newspaper Le Monde explains the problems hindering the drafting of a UN Security Council resolution on Iran by Russia's stubborn "refusal to approve punitive measures against Iran because they may affect its participation in the Bushehr project." Citing foreign diplomats, the newspaper writes that Russian officials are "completely intractable, and refused to heed Western recommendations on denying entry visas to the heads of Iran's sensitive programs." According to Le Monde, Moscow might agree to prohibit financial transfers to Iranian bodies connected with nuclear and missile programs, but "refuses to freeze these bodies' foreign bank accounts." The author of the article explains Russia's refusal by the fact that Iran's Atomic Energy Organization "has bank accounts in Russia in accordance with the contract for the construction of the Bushehr nuclear power plant." He writes: "[This is why] Russia has robbed the resolution drafted by the Europeans of its most important elements, and also reneged on the clauses it seemed prepared to accept in October." Even if sanctions against Iran were introduced within weeks, "they would be symbolic at best," the author concludes. Atomstroyexport officials brush off such statements as fantasy. They say deliveries of nuclear fuel will start in March of 2007, the nuclear power plant will be commissioned in September and start generating electricity in November. ---- From Russia, With Polonium A London poisoning case suggests a dangerous leakage of nuclear materials Thursday, December 14, 2006 Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/13/AR2006121302009_pf.html IT'S STILL not known how the former Russian KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko came to ingest the deadly dose of polonium-210 that killed him in London last month. But thanks to the radioactive trail left behind by the isotope, some important conclusions about the case are now possible. First, the polonium was smuggled into Britain from Russia, where most of the known global supply of the intensely toxic substance is produced. Second, the dose was almost certainly carried by one or both of the former Russian security operatives -- one of them also a KGB alumnus -- whom Mr. Litvinenko met at a London hotel Nov. 1. Finally, the government of Vladimir Putin is making it difficult for British and German investigators to question the suspects, who are now sequestered in Moscow hospitals. Does this mean that Mr. Putin or the FSB agency -- successor to the KGB -- is responsible for the death of Mr. Litvinenko? Not necessarily: It's conceivable, as Russian and some Western investigators have lately begun suggesting, that he was a victim of a botched attempt to smuggle nuclear materials out of Russia for some other purpose. Still, Mr. Litvinenko is one of a number of opponents of Mr. Putin who have fallen victim to poisonings in the past several years; he himself charged that the FSB maintained a poisons laboratory, and he accused Mr. Putin of ordering his assassination. The Russian president retorted that enemies based abroad are staging operations to discredit him. But why, then, did the instrument of Mr. Litvinenko's death come from Moscow? And why are Russian authorities shielding the two men implicated in the smuggling? Mr. Litvinenko's case, like that of the murdered journalist Anna Politkovskaya, may never be solved. But what is already known should cause Western governments, including the Bush administration, to insist on some answers from Mr. Putin. How did a toxic dose of polonium, a substance reportedly produced and held by only three Russian government entities and one private company, come into the hands of people who could smuggle it into Britain? Polonium can be used not only to poison someone; it can trigger a nuclear weapon or fuel a "dirty bomb" that could wreak havoc in a major city. The leakage of such materials is a serious threat -- and not just to enemies of Mr. Putin. -------- ukraine Kazakhstan, Ukraine to broaden contacts in nuclear power sector, transport ASTANA. Dec 14, 2006 (Interfax-Kazakhstan) http://www.interfax.ru/e/B/politics/28.html?id_issue=11646988 Kazakh Prime Minister Danial Akhmetov and his Ukrainian counterpart Viktor Yanukovych have signed a joint statement giving the go-ahead for Ukrainian companies' participation in projects to build nuclear power plants in Kazakhstan. The Kazakh and Ukrainian authorities "ordered the two countries' agencies in charge of these issues to study Ukrainian companies' possibilities that may help implement Kazakhstan's plans to build nuclear power plants and electricity generating and transport infrastructure facilities on its territory," the statement says. The Kazakh authorities are considering building a nuclear power plant with two or three low-capacity reactors. Kazatomprom national atomic energy company head Mukhtar Dzhakishev said he believes that such a facility can be built in the country in 2014-2015. In their statement, Akhmetov and Yanukovych, who is on a two-day working visit to Kazakhstan, also underscored the need in step up bilateral cooperation in the transport sector. Ukraine calls for making the most of its transit potential to create a China-Western Europe transport corridor. "The parties discussed ways to unify both countries' tariff policy to secure larger volumes of cargo traffic as part of the aforementioned project," the document says. The two prime ministers also discussed the progress of a contract for the delivery of Antonov-148-100B airplanes manufactured by Kyiv's aircraft producer AVIANT to Kazakhstan. -------- u.n. IAEA Says Israeli Nuclear Status None Of Its Concern by Staff Writers Vienna (RIA Novosti) Dec 14, 2006 http://www.spacewar.com/reports/IAEA_Says_Israeli_Nuclear_Status_None_Of_Its_Concern_999.html The UN nuclear watchdog said Wednesday it will not respond to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's remark implying that Israel has nuclear weapons, something the Jewish state has never officially admitted. In an interview with the SAT-2 television channel ahead of his visit to Germany Monday, Olmert said: "Iran openly, explicitly and publicly threatens to wipe Israel off the map. Can you say that this is on the same level, when you aspire to have nuclear weapons, as America, France, Israel, Russia?" The remark, made against the backdrop of an Iran-hosted conference on the Holocaust, was widely interpreted as confirming Israel's nuclear power status, but Olmert's aides later dismissed that reading as unfounded. Independent analysts have said Israel holds between 80 and 200 nuclear warheads, and may be the world's sixth-largest nuclear power, but Israeli authorities have never confirmed nor denied possessing a nuclear arsenal. Israel and the West suspect Iran of pursuing a nuclear weapons program, and Olmert's hint was probably intended to deter the Islamic Republic from using its potential nuclear capability against Israel, some have argued. Many analysts believe, however, that public confirmation of Israel's assumed nuclear status could trigger an arms race across the Middle East, undermining the global non-proliferation regime. Sergei Markov of Russia's Public Chamber, for one, believes that Israel's going public about its nuclear arsenal would come as no revelation, and is unlikely to entail any sanctions on the part of the UN nuclear watchdog, but that it could represent a serious setback for non-proliferation. "This may lead to a further softening of the nuclear non-proliferation regime, which, unfortunately, would be a very dangerous development indeed," Markov told RIA Novosti. Iran and other regional foes of Israel have repeatedly accused the West of double standards in trying to prevent them from acquiring nuclear capabilities while turning a blind eye to Israel's alleged arsenal. -------- u.s. nuc facilities -------- arizona APS Replaces Head of Nuclear Unit Pinnacle West's APS Unit Names New President, Replaces Head of Nuclear Unit Thursday December 14, 2006 (AP) http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/061214/az_aps_executives.html?.v=1 PHOENIX -- Arizona Public Service, the state's largest utility, named a new president and also announced that the head of its beleaguered nuclear unit plans to retire. The company has started a search for a replacement for Jim Levine, who is chief nuclear officer for the company. The announcement was made Wednesday. Levine is in charge of the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station, which has been hit with repeated mechanical problems in the past two years that have resulted in fines, outages and the possible downgrading of the facility's safety rating by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Levine, who joined APS in 1999 after working for Arkansas Power & Light, plans to stay on until a replacement is named. Donald Brandt, who served as chief financial officer of APS and parent company Pinnacle West Capitol Corp., was named president, the company said. Brandt will retain the CFO roles. The position had previously been held by APS chief executive officer Jack Davis, who also is Pinnacle West's chief operating officer and president. -------- california Panel OKs nuclear plant repairs By Tim Reiterman Los Angeles Times December 14, 2006 http://www.topix.net/content/trb/1738339462085880812310898143121206220032 SAN FRANCISCO - After Pacific Gas & Electric Co. offered to create a 1,200--acre conservation easement along the San Luis Obispo County coastline, the California Coastal Commission unanimously approved permits Thursday to allow the utility to replace corroded steam generators at the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant. But the commission overwhelmingly rejected a more sweeping staff proposal that would have required PG&E to protect about 9,000 acres of its land around the plant to help compensate for damage to sea life that would occur when the repairs extended the plant's life about a decade. The utility company successfully argued that the demand for most of its Diablo Canyon property was illegal and that the repairs will not change the output of the plant and will have no additional effect on marine life. 'There are no significant impacts,' Donna Jacobs, the company's vice president of nuclear services, told the 12-member panel. 'No loss of coastal access . No other impacts to coastal resources.' A commission staff report said it would take 300 to 1,000 acres of artificial reef to make up for the loss of fish larvae and other marine organisms killed by the plant's cooling system, which uses up to 2.6 billion gallons per day of seawater. Using a formula, the staff instead calculated that 9,000 acres of shoreline, coastal woodlands, chaparral and grazing land would help make up for the marine loss, because it would block future development that could have adverse coastal impacts. 'This is the first time this commission has had the opportunity with legal authority to act on Diablo Canyon Power Plant with its major impacts on the environment,' said Peter Douglas, the panel's executive director. During a four-hour hearing, however, some commissioners expressed reservations about seeking PG&E land - especially so much of it - to make up for marine impacts. And the utility helped its cause by increasing the land it volunteered to place in an easement from 620 acres to 1,200 acres surrounding the Point San Luis Lighthouse and Pecho Coast Trail. 'I think the voluntary offer is more than adequate,' said Commissioner Steve Padilla. Commissioner Sara Wan argued that requiring a 9,000-acre easement was not out of line because the plant's 'impacts in the ocean are horrific.' But only she and Commissioner Mary Shallenberger voted against removal of the permit condition. The commission did side with the staff in requiring PG&E to stop using water from Diablo Creek to supplement water from its desalination plant. PG&E owns 12,791 acres, with the southern shoreline lying within the Port San Luis Harbor District near Avila Beach and the northern end of the property bordering Montana de Oro State Park. About 200 acres are in crop production, 2,500 are grazed and about 772 are part of the high-security power-plant complex, which went online in 1985. In addition to the easement, the company offered $1.8 million to the county and Point San Luis Lighthouse Keepers for a variety of public access improvements. Without new steam generators, state officials said, the plant's two reactors would probably be shut down by 2014 - but with them, the plant could operate until at least 2025, when its current federal license will expire. The work proposed by PG&E is expected to take three years, with completion in 2010. In recommending approval of the project with certain conditions, the commission staff noted that production from the plant was important to California's power grid and economy. And although nuclear power is not without environmental risks, a shift to natural gas-fired plants would have a negative impact on greenhouse gas emissions. The California Public Utilities Commission has already granted PG&E permission to charge ratepayers for more than $800 million in repairs to the plant. San Luis Obispo County approved temporary construction related to the project, but Mothers for Peace and the Sierra Club appealed to the Coastal Commission. The panel on Thursday considered that appeal along with a separate permit application from PG&E. PG&E spokesman Pete Resler said the company was pleased that the commission 'saw the merit of moving ahead with the project and decided that 1,200 acres [of easement] was adequate.' Mike Massara, director of coastal programs for the Sierra Club, said the commission vote represented a 'historic lost opportunity' to protect the coast. 'The commission showed their allegiance to PG&E and abandoned the public,' he said. ---- Fresno Nuclear Energy Group Moving Forward in Hopes of Building New Nuclear Plant D. Nail, N. Chin Story Updated: Dec 14, 2006 http://www.kmph.com/home/4912871.html For more than 30 years, nuclear power has had a bad reputation, but at the Fresno Chamber of Commerce Thursday, former Fresno Utility Commissioner John Hutson used the words to announce what he believes is a noble mission. "To explore whether or not nuclear power is an option to go in Fresno or Fresno County," said Hutson. There's good reason for the renewed interest in nuclear power. In September, President Bush signed a bill offering millions of dollars of incentives for building nuclear power plants. With rising utility rates and more demand for energy with low emissions, the newly formed Fresno Nuclear Energy Group believes a nuclear plant in Fresno is the solution. Nearly half of California's energy comes from natural gas. Almost a fifth comes from hydroelectric dams. Around 18 percent is nuclear. Mayor Alan Autry said in order to meet demand in Fresno, that amount must go up. Autry says he's receptive to the idea but admits politically speaking, the group could have an uphill battle. The group has many public meetings planned. Residents we talked to say they'll be listening to what they have to say. Currently, the state has a moratorium on building nuclear power plants, because of the lack of a place to store nuclear waste. But the nuclear group says its plant will recycle its nuclear waste in order to convince the state to drop its moratorium on nuclear plants. -------- MILITARY -------- arms France says finding too many Chinese arms in Africa 14 Dec 2006 Reuters http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L14574602.htm PARIS, Dec 14 (Reuters) - France's defence minister said on Thursday too many Chinese weapons were turning up in Africa, at a time when the Asian giant is forging alliances with many states on the world's poorest continent. Chinese business has piled into Africa, focusing primarily on oil, metals and other commodities sectors, and Beijing has assured African leaders it wants to develop a "win-win" relationship with the continent. French Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie told the upper house of France's parliament, however, that there was a more sinister side to what she said was Beijing's effort to gain a share of mineral wealth and win political influence. "It does not bother us that a big country comes to help Africa's development, which needs it and it is essential, provided that it happens in clear conditions and conditions that encourage the development of democracy," she said. "We therefore draw its attention to the fact that too often we see Chinese arms intervening in conditions that are sometimes contrary to embargoes," she said. Chad, which accuses neighbour Sudan of arming Chadian rebels opposed to President Idriss Deby, in April displayed Chinese munitions it said had been captured from insurgents who raided the capital in that month. China is a major provider of aid and investment in Sudan, especially in the growing Sudanese oil sector. Alliot-Marie said China was now Africa's second-biggest trade partner after France. China has also emerged as an important source of aid and diplomatic support for countries like Sudan and Zimbabwe which the West strongly criticises for human rights violations. Beijing is among the new breed of fast-growing powers that have come under fire at international meetings for lending money to impoverished nations in Africa at market rates, even as rich countries have been cancelling debt they are owed. -------- landmines Apparent landmine kills Lebanese soldier Three additional soldiers wounded in incident, Lebanon declines Israeli offer of aid Hanan Greenberg Published: 12.14.06, http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3340167,00.html A Lebanese soldier was killed and three additional soldiers were wounded on Thursday afternoon after apparently driving over a landmine or unexploded ordinance along the western sector of the Israeli -Lebanese border. The IDF offered to provide immediate medical treatment to the wounded soldiers via the military liaison division but the offer was declined by Lebanon. The wounded soldiers were then evacuated to a hospital in Sidon. Several weeks ago the UN reported that Israel had planted new landmines in southern Lebanon during the last war, the first time since IDF forces withdrew in 2000. The UN Mine Action Coordination Center in south Lebanon reported their estimation following the injury of two European disposal experts and a Lebanese medic who were dismantling mines near the border. The explosion took place in a field located three km from the Israeli-Lebanese border, the two experts – David Alderson of Britain and Damir Paradzik of Bosnia – entered a field after a wandering flock of sheep triggered what they thought was cluster munitions. They triggered the landmine as they entered the field, both men lost a leg. The UN determined that the explosion was caused by Israeli anti-personnel landmine placed during the fighting in July and August of this year in south Lebanon. The IDF said it wasn't convinced the mine was recently laid or used by Israel, saying it could have placed by Hezbollah or another party (such as Syria) during the decades of conflict in Lebanon. The army would not comment on whether or not mines were indeed laid down during the last war. The reports of new landmines have been added to the international criticism against Israel following 'disproportionate use' – according to human rights groups - of cluster bombs during the war. UN experts say up to one million cluster bombs dropped by Israel during the war remain unexploded in south Lebanon. At least 24 people have died in cluster bomb explosions since the war ended Aug. 14, the UN considers the bombs as a substantial threat. The Associated Press contributed to this report -------- nato Serbia and Bosnia sign for Nato Bosnia signed on 11 years after the end of its war Thursday, 14 December 2006 (BBC) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6179393.stm Nato is welcoming three Balkan nations into the fold, as part of an effort to consign the region's recent wars and troubles to history. Serbia, Bosnia-Hercegovina and Montenegro are entering the alliance's Partnership for Peace programme, putting them on the path to membership. Ceremonies were held on the 11th anniversary of the Dayton Agreement, which ended the war in Bosnia. Other Balkan nations will become full members of Nato in coming years. Slovenia became the first of the former Yugoslav nations to achieve full membership two years ago. Croatia and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia are expected to join in 2008. At a ceremony to induct Bosnia, Nato Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said: "Bosnia-Hercegovina has finally moved from the Dayton era to the Brussels era." Bosnian Serb leader Nebojsa Radmanovic said more than a decade after the war, "the dream of Bosnia-Hercegovina has come true". -------- pacific Fiji coup leader: Army could rule for 50 years RAY LILLEY Associated Press Thu, Dec. 14, 2006 http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/world/16236758.htm SUVA, Fiji - Fiji's coup leader said Thursday that the military could rule for "up to 50 years" unless the Pacific island's powerful tribal chiefs approve an interim government. The editor of one of Fiji's three daily newspapers, meanwhile, said he was being deported for opposing the regime. Commodore Frank Bainimarama's declaration escalated a standoff with the Great Council of Chiefs, which has the power to give the military takeover a veneer of legality by approving his plans for an appointed government. It has so far refused to do so. "If the Great Council decides to hold off appointing a president, this transitional regime can rule for up to 50 years," Bainimarama told Radio Fiji. Bainimarama wants the council to reappoint President Ratu Josefa Iloilo, whose powers the commander assumed on Dec. 5 so he could dismiss the government. Under Bainimarama's plan, Iloilo would then swear in the military's caretaker government, which would rule until elections restore democracy. That would allow Bainimarama to claim he was working within the constitution when he ousted Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase. Under the constitution, the tribal chiefs appoint the president and vice president on the advice of the elected government, Meanwhile, Robert Wolfgramm, the editor of the Fiji Daily Post, the smallest of the island's three daily papers, widely known for its consistent stand against military involvement in politics, said he is being kicked out of the country by the military. "We have been consistent in our clear voice for democracy and letting the elected government rule. It's not the place of the military to have a political role and we have made that clear," Wolfgramm said. Also Thursday, two dozen protesters from a women's activist group marched through the capital demanding a return to democracy, as soldiers raided more offices looking for files the coup makers say are evidence of the ousted government's corruption. Soldiers manning checkpoints throughout the city did not interfere with the protest. The coup - Fiji's fourth in nearly two decades - was the culmination of a long impasse between Bainimarama and Qarase over bills offering pardons to conspirators in a 2000 coup and handing lucrative coastal land ownership to indigenous Fijians. Bainimarama, himself an indigenous Fijian, said the bills were unfair to the island's ethnic Indian minority. -------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE -------- immigration / refugees More Than 1,200 Arrested in Six-State Immigration Raid Thursday, December 14th, 2006 Democracy Now! http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/12/14/1458237 At least 1,280 workers have been arrested in a series of immigration raids targeting meatpacking plants owned by the company Swift. The raids took place in Colorado, Nebraska, Texas, Utah, Iowa and Minnesota It marks the largest sweep of its kind ever against a single company. We host a roundtable discussion on the issue. [includes rush transcript] At least 1,280 workers have been arrested in a series of immigration raids targeting meatpacking plants owned by the company Swift. The raids took place in Colorado, Nebraska, Texas, Utah, Iowa and Minnesota It marks the largest sweep of its kind ever against a single company. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff justified the raids saying many of the detained men and women were using false or stolen identities. The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union has filed an emergency lawsuit in an effort to release the workers who they say were illegally detained and are being held without access to legal counsel. In Iowa, immigration lawyers have accused the federal government of holding the arrested workers at the military site Camp Dodge near Des Moines. * Mariano Espinoza, executive director of the Minnesota Immigration Freedom Network. The group is working with community in Worthington, Minnesota. * Sylvia Martinez, a leader of the community group Latinos Unidos in Greeley Colorado. * Kim Salinas, an immigration rights attorney who was inside an immigration detention center yesterday trying to meet with some of the detained workers. * Jim Papian, spokesperson the United Food and Commercial Workers union. RUSH TRANSCRIPT AMY GOODMAN: Joining us in the studio in St. Paul, Minnesota, is Mariano Espinoza. He is the executive director of the Minnesota Immigration Freedom Network. The group is working with communities in Worthington, Minnesota. Three guests also join us on the telephone. From Colorado, where the meatpacking company Swift is based, Sylvia Martinez, a leader of the community group Latinos Unidos in Greeley, Colorado. Kim Salinas is with us,immigration rights attorney who was inside an immigration detention center all day yesterday, trying to meet with some of the detained workers. And on the line with us from Washington, D.C., where we’ll begin, is Jim Papian, spokesperson for the United Food and Commercial Workers union. Can you explain the scope of these raids? How did they go down, Jim? JIM PAPIAN: Yes. On Tuesday morning, 13,000 workers kissed their spouses goodbye. They fixed the lunches for their kids. They took transportation into their meatpacking plants, where they had been working, and they began doing their job. Shortly after that, in the early dawn, in many of those plants, ICE agents surrounded the plants, stormed into the plant, locked the gate, blocked the plant, dressed in riot gear and with military weapons in some of these plants, jumped on tables, began segregating and herding people, terrorizing, you know, 13,000 folks -- terrorizing and criminalizing, essentially, 13,000 people who had gone in to do their work that day. Subsequent to that, they began interviewing and detaining people and then eventually shipping them out to distant cities into other states. Now, why did they do this? Well, they went into federal court, and they got a warrant. They said that there had been some identity theft. People were in effect stealing Social Security numbers from other people and then using those in terms of their I-9 regulation to gain employment. So, what the ICE agents did was say, you know, ‘We’ve got 170 folks that we suspect of identity theft, but what we’re really going to do is we’re going to terrorize 13,000 people. We’re going to separate parents from children.” Children were left in schools that day, no one there to pick them up. If you see the headlines from around the country, you’ll see from the Des Moines Register, it says “A breast-feeding mother missing in raid.” A Utah headline, “Families ripped apart, communities are ripped apart,” you know, to essentially go in and interview 170 people. Now, I mean, these plants have HR departments. You know, there is a process for identifying folks for bringing them in for interviews, if that’s necessary, and for the ICE agents to make their determinations. But what the government chose to do in this case was to engage in an act that really can’t be described other than terrorizing an entire work force. So I think that’s -- in a nutshell, I think that sums up what happened on that day. JUAN GONZALEZ: And how many people were actually detained as suspected of being in the country illegally? JIM PAPIAN: Well, I think that 62 people, I think, were detained for identity theft violations. And I believe somewhere around 1,200 were detained for being here without proper status. AMY GOODMAN: Mariano Espinoza, you’re in the St. Paul studio, executive director of Minnesota Immigration Freedom Network. Talk about what’s happened in your community? MARIANO ESPINOZA: Good morning to all. Well, it’s a sad day today for the immigrant community here, and it’s a human tragedy. American children are left without their parents, their brothers and their sisters, and we are just trying to figure out how to help the community right now. I just want to make sure that it’s clear: we need to stop this. America is using the excuse of being a nation of laws to criminalize those workers. None of the 230-plus workers being detained right now are charged with identity theft. So this is just an excuse to terrorize our community, to divide our families. And why do we need to have this situation right now on the 12th of December, a very, very important date for our communities in Latin America? And why do we have to do this to children before Christmas, before the end of the year, where every year we celebrate our families? We need to stop this. This is not right, and this is a shame for this country. JUAN GONZALEZ: I’d like to bring in Sylvia Martinez from Latinos Unidos in Colorado. Some of the reports that I heard yesterday said that there were numerous cases of children of some of these workers in the plants who ended up -- school officials at the end of school had no one to pick them up, and many children in some parts of the country spent hours and hours after school, as officials tried to figure out what family members could be located to pick them up. Could you talk about that or the impact in Colorado, as well? SYLVIA MARTINEZ: It’s a huge impact on children, absolutely, and on families as a whole. There were definitely children -- there are definitely children without parents. A lot of these families were comprised of a single-parent households, and so, yes, there are children -- what happened is after school they ended up -- these children who did not have a mother or a father, or a mother and father to go to, they ended up with neighbors, with uncles, with aunts, that sort of situation. We’re thinking -- trying to calculate specifically -- it’s pretty difficult because there are still a lot of people not willing to come forward for fear that Social Services might get involved and take these children and, you know, pull them apart, not willing to come forward. But we have an estimate of about 100 children that are without parents right now, that are with neighbors and friends. AMY GOODMAN: Kim Salinas, you’re an immigration rights attorney. You spent the day in the detention centers in Greeley, Colorado. Can you describe who you found there, what you were telling people? KIM SALINAS: Sure. And, Amy, I just wanted to kind of pick up on what the first speaker said about this being an act of terrorism. And, in fact, it is. The choice of one of the holiest days in Mexico is no accident. And not only were the 1,300 people that were arrested terrorized, but the entire community has been terrorized, and that continues in that people still don’t know where their family members are. ICE is not giving out any information about these people. Locally, we have, we estimate, 300 people missing. We don’t have any lists about exactly who those people are. We have no idea where those people are. We’ve been told that there are between four or five different facilities, including county jails, a federal facility and the immigration jail. We went yesterday to the immigration detention facility. It was a pro bono project that works on the detention facility to try to give some know-your-rights presentations to the detainees and kind of give them an evaluation of their case. And we saw 12 people. We spent the entire afternoon there. We were only allowed to see 12 people. While we were there, the director of the pro bono project heard that there were some buses out back. She went out to investigate. People were being given their own deportations to sign on those buses, and we protested and said, “Hey, here we are, a bunch of bilingual attorneys here to give free legal advice. Let us advise these people before you have them sign their own deportation.” And we were denied that opportunity to go back and advise these people of their rights. They have set up a -- well, they have a toll-free number that they say families can call to find out where their family members are, but in fact the only thing they’ll tell you on that toll-free number is the name of the person and the state they’re arrested in. They give absolutely no information about where these people are. JUAN GONZALEZ: Kim Salinas, I heard ICE Commissioner Julie Myers say last night that the Swift Company had been very cooperative in the entire process on this. Have you had any contact with the management of Swift, and had any sense that the company knew this was happening? KIM SALINAS: I haven’t had any contact with the Swift Company, but the whole identity theft sort of cover gives a really easy out to Swift. I mean, Swift can then just say, ‘Well, gee whiz, we were duped by these bad people who were stealing the identity of US citizens. And we were really just trying to comply with the laws.” And it definitely gives Swift an out. And obviously they’re not really looking for people who are committing identity theft, because they’re not going after people who are making and selling false identifications. They were after terrorizing the Latino and the immigrant community. AMY GOODMAN: Mariano Espinoza in St. Paul and Worthington, the community, how were you able to reach out to the community? Was there Spanish-language newspaper, television? MARIANO ESPINOZA: Yeah. It was very, very difficult to communicate with people and with the families here. Just to give you an idea, Worthington is located about three-and-a-half or four hours from the Twin Cities. We don’t have a Latino radio station working 24 hours a day. We don’t have Latino newspapers. So it was difficult. There was not a communication line open to the public working. We needed to work with one of the English radio stations to make something happen, but it was only after 7:00 p.m., so it was really difficult. But members of the UFCW and the president of the local UFCW there was able to be in the Swift, so that’s how we got the first calls. And after that, it was just a very chaotic situation, because the word was spread really quickly, but within hours, the families were trying to hide instead of trying to communicate, because it’s a very -- right now it’s a very isolated population. It’s only 12,000 people. It’s in the middle of nowhere. So basically the federal agents [inaudible], and it was -- everybody knew that immigration was there, so it was a communication like talking to a cell by cell and trying to just inform the neighbor next door to you about the situation. JUAN GONZALEZ: And, Mariano, I’d like to ask you, in terms of the importance of the Latino community to the meat plant there in your community, and how important the plant is to the Latino community there? KIM SALINAS: Yeah, the Swift right now here employs about 25% of the entire population in Worthington, Minnesota. This is the number one employer in the southwestern part of the state. It’s a $2 billion company. So there is going to be no doubt an impact in the economy, but basically we already know that some community members need our money to pay rent, and we know that some don't have any place to go. So we really need to think about how this immigrant community, the Latino community in Worthington, Minnesota, has brought life to the community. And right now, we don’t know what is going to happen, not just to the Latino community, but how this is going to affect businesses, how this is going to affect people in other communities. It was not just Worthington. AMY GOODMAN: Mariano, we’re going to have to leave it there. But Mariano Espinoza of the Minnesota Immigration Freedom Network; Sylvia Martinez, leader of Latinos Unidos; Kim Salinas, immigrant rights attorney, Greeley, Colorado; Jim Papian of the United Food and Commercial Workers union, I want to thank you all for being there. I want to say that we did call the Department of Homeland Security. They refused to come on with us, but we will certainly continue to follow this story. -------- POLITICS -------- investigations Omissions in the Iraq Study Group Report Posted: 2006/12/14 From: Mathaba By Stephen Lendman http://mathaba.net/news/?x=547237 Noted historian Eric Foner in a December 7 article on OpEd News.com calls George Bush "the worst president in US history....(who) in his first six years in office....managed to combine the lapses of leadership, misguided policies and abuse of power of his failed predecessors." Equally noted historian Gabriel Kolko agrees, and along with his other comments, calls the Bush administration "the worst set of incompetents ever to hold power in Washington." And referring specifically to the war in Iraq, Kolko colorfully describes what former Reagan administration National Security Agency (NSA) chief General William Odom calls "....the worst strategic mistake in the history of the United States" by saying the Bush administration "shocked and awed....itself." Hard to say it better than that. Enter James Baker and the Iraq Study Group (ISG) that reported its findings publicly on December 6 after most of it was leaked well in advance making its release and full-court corporate media press hyping and griping anti-climactic as well as disappointing and disturbing. The ISG was formed in March with at least four crucial aims: --to avoid a perceived inevitable political and fiscal train wreck caused by the disastrous Bush administration policy over the past six years. -- to buy time for the failed and discredited Bush administration attempting to save it along with the family's name and reputation. -- to devise a scheme to assure US dominance in the Middle East, fast slipping away, is restored and maintained going forward so this country doesn't lose control over what a State Department spokesperson in 1945 called a "stupendous source of strategic power and one of the greatest material prizes in world history -(the region's oil)." -- to be a (thinly-veiled) attempt to assuage public anger over a war gone sour, that's illegal, can't be won, is taking a terrible toll, and never should have been waged. The ISG did it by proposing 79 recommendations supposedly comprising a change of course strategy that, in fact, amounts to little more than moving the existing chess pieces around the Iraq board, ending up almost where we are now - in a hopeless unresolvable quagmire approaching an apocalypse with no possibility of winning an unwinnable war and no high-level policy-makers thinking we can save for a president mired in a state of denial. He's out of touch with reality, and according to Capitol Hill Blue editor Doug Thompson from insider reports he's getting calling the president "a dangerous cornered animal" he writes: Bush is a man "living on the edge" growing "more sullen and moody with each passing day....his paranoia....increasing to manic levels as he launches into tirades about traitors in his own party, in the press and among his allies (and) feels betrayed by....James Baker (whose ISG report he feels humiliated his administration)." The president, hasn't a clue that Jim Baker didn't do this. George Bush did a very thorough job of it himself. What the ISG Should Have Addressed but Didn't That said and well reported, what's most striking about the ISG report isn't what it says but what it leaves out. Beginning in 1991, the US conducted an unending war of aggression in two phases, with a dozen years of punishing and unjustifiable sanctions sandwiched between them, against a country posing no threat to us or its neighbors following its long and costly war in the 1980s with Iran (that the US urged Saddam to wage and supported him throughout) from which it needed financial help to recover but hadn't gotten enough to make a significant difference. It began after Saddam misread US intentions regarding his troubled relations with Kuwait, allowing himself to be deceived by the first Bush administration into believing we had no interest in how he chose to settle his justifiable dispute which Washington had a hand in creating. With US urging, Kuwait demanded repayment of $14 billion in outstanding loans incurred to help finance Saddam's war with Iran, it also helped keep oil prices low when Iraq needed them higher to oblige, and it was slant drilling into Iraqi territory and provokingly refusing to negotiate a reasonable settlement to all disputes. Finally, Iraq took matters into its own hands to do by invasion what it couldn't achieve through months of failed diplomacy but only with de facto US approval it thought it got that proved not to be. Saddam fell into the trap, and the rest is history. He's now still in the dock after one conviction, was sentenced to be hanged by the US-administered kangaroo court after the first of his trials, his country is occupied and in ruins, and his people are living in a state of out-of-control violence and desparation because of an illegal and brutal occupation that must end unconditionally for them to have any hope for a normal life again. The ISG report ignores this history and the reasons we went to war with Iraq in the first place. It began with Saddam's misguided invasion of Kuwait in August, 1990 with the US then claiming it would liberate the country forcibly even though he was willing to negotiate a settlement and pull out his forces. But once the trap was baited with Saddam in it, there was no turning back from a war the US wanted. Events were unstoppable which was clear from GHW Bush's belligerent language saying "(Saddam's) Naked aggression will not stand" and refusing all his overtures to negotiate and his willingness to remove his occupying forces wanting only reasonable redress. GWH Bush got the war he wanted, but the US plan wasn't to liberate Kuwait. It was to remove or fatally weaken a leader we couldn't dominate and liberate his nation's oil and sovereignty from his control to ours. It was also a way to accomplish what GHW Bush said at war's end six weeks after it began on January 17, 1991: "It's a proud day for America - and, by God, we've kicked the Vietnam syndrome once and for all," but he failed to explain what he meant was this now gave the US license to attack and invade another country any time henceforth it could convince the public a threat existed to justify it. Given the power and complicity of the corporate-controlled media, that hasn't been a problem since. So faced with the syndrome's resurgence from the disaster today in Iraq, the ISG is waging a frontal attack to contain it deceiving the public to believe a new course is at hand hoping to assuage its anger so essentially the same failed policy can continue unabated. It's also to buy enough time for George Bush to get through the next two years, hold together his failed administration slowly coming apart for lack of public support, and keep the ship of state from being wrecked on the shoals of the administration's ineptness and arrogance extreme enough for a growing number of former adherents to walk away not wanting the taint of it to tarnish them any more than it already has. It doesn't matter what was proposed on December 6 or that there's no chance it can work any better than current policy. That's for the next administration in 2009 to worry about. What does matter is to convince the public it's a new course, even though it's only smoke and mirrors, and one sensible enough to work that will end the US occupation and involvement in the country but at an unspecified time left unstated because there is none or any intention to leave the country or give up control of its oil treasure. Just like in the run-up to the March, 2003 attack and invasion, the public again has been had, and it remains to be seen how long it will take for it to catch on and continue opposing an illegal war of aggression that never should have been waged in the first place. Other Omissions in the ISG Report Start with its members and the interests they represent. Overall it's an assemblage of high-level elitists from past government service working with their counterparts in the military and ideologically-driven right wing think tank experts brought together to find a way to assure the US imperial agenda stays on track meaning despite what its report said, the US is in Iraq to stay as long as there's enough oil in the region to make it worthwhile as that's why we came in the first place along with neutering Saddam to remove Israel's main obstacle to its regional hegemony. Jim Baker led the group along with his co-chair and leading figure of the 9/11 commission whitewash, former Democrat congressman Lee Hamilton, who's another long-standing loyal servant of empire and serial abuser of the public trust. They and the others on the Commission share another dubious attribute. Like George Bush and his administration co-conspirators, these figures, too, are war criminals along with their other abuses of the public trust that should have put them in the dock of justice and made them be held to account along with George Bush, Dick Cheney and their band of neocon rogues. They never will be in a nation ruled by victor's justice meaning none at all for the law-breakers and a whole lot of injustice for its victims. Jim Baker's association with crime and scandal is long-standing, but he's always emerged unscatched, his reputation, in fact, enhanced, with each new episode of lawlessness he's played a central role in while navigating safely through each of them. He's done it almost without breaking a sweat in his role as a man at the center of power since the inception of the Reagan administration in 1980. Outside the Bush family, no one is closer or more important to the president's father and former president than Baker. And no one has more influence with him or with other major players in the nation's power establishment, at least on the dominant Republican side. It's why, along with others of his status, he's able to get away with murder and most anything else. From 1985 - 1988, he was Ronald Reagan's Secretary of the Treasury after serving as the president's influential White House Chief of Staff from inception (as part of the Baker, Ed Meese, Michael Deaver power troika) till he took over the treasury post. While there, he, more than anyone else (but with a lot of co-conspiratorial help), bore responsibility for the grand theft of over $100 billion in the notorious Savings and Loan scandal that allowed the looting of deregulated banks to take place throughout the country, especially in his home state of Texas where anything goes as long as there's a buck in it for the power elite. He then served as GHW Bush's Secretary of State from 1989 - 1992 playing a major role in crafting administration policy leading to the Gulf war and the unjustifiable sanctions of aggression at its conclusion. Baker formed his own think tank in 1993 after leaving the Bush administration, the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy in Houston, where the former president happens to live when he's not at his summer home in Maine. It supports "oil and petrodollar conquest" policies, played a major role in post 9/11 policy and the fraudulent "war on terror" making it possible, and is also a prominent attorney connected with the notorious Carlyle Group that's profited enormously from all things connected to the defense establishment and uses the services of GHW Bush in the role of "senior consultant" and master rainmaker/fixer-arranger at a very high price for his services. Baker also engineered the theft of the 2000 presidential election for the younger Bush by assuring he got the necessary 25 Florida electoral votes and not Al Gore who won them and the presidency he never got because George Bush was chosen for the role regardless of the will of the electorate. Five complicit US Supreme Court justices went along with the scheme to seal the deal and in so doing abrogated their constitutional duty to uphold the law of the land. One of them was commission member Sandra Day O'Connor, now rewarded for her participation in the infamous judicial coup d'etat giving her an encore performance as legal advisor and expert law twister/subverter for the interests of wealth and power she swears allegiance to like all the other members of the "Gang of Ten" co-conspirators. Baker is their leader and is presented as an respected diplomat and elder statesman sent to rescue the ship of state and Bush administration to keep it afloat and him in the White House at least for another two years. What he is, in fact, is a master criminal/manipulator/schemer, a dangerous and ruthless power broker deserving no public trust who should be made to answer for his malfeasance according to the law he doesn't respect or acknowledge unless he can twist it to serve his interests or those of his clients. More Omissions - Trashing International Law Including the UN Charter and US Constitution to Wage An Illegal War of Aggression How could a nation born as a great democratic experiment rebelling against the divine right of monarchs become instead now one worshipping the divine right of capital and capable of being even more repressive. Ben Franklin warned about this early on saying "(The US Constitution) is likely to be administered for a course of years and then end in despotism....when the people shall become so corrupted as to need (or not be vigilant enough to prevent) despotic government, being incapable of any other." Much earlier, Roman historian Tacitus explained what then happens: "They (pillage) the world. When the land has nothing left for men who ravage everything, they scour the sea. They....are greedy....they crave glory....They covet wealth....They plunder, they butcher, they ravish, and call it....'empire.' They make a desert and call it peace." Today they pillage, destroy and enslave in serfdom and call it democracy. They believe it's their right, divine or otherwise, and their cause is just. They lead this nation, and the rest of the world trembles and suffers dearly as long as they rule. The Iraq conflict is just their latest excursion to satisfy their insatiable lust for more wealth, power and glory. The initial Bush-led "shock and awe" attack against that afflicted country didn't start on March 18, 2003. It began in small, incremental steps continuing the intermittent harassing mostly below-the-radar strikes that went on throughout the 1990s and picked up again after 9/11 as violence in the so-called No-Fly Zone increased and the Washington anti-Saddam demonization rhetoric was rolled out prepping the public for the Iraq war the Bush administration wanted as soon as it came to town. It only reached full fury in the opening days of the war that began in mid-March, 2003. It's now gone on longer than WW II with no resolution in sight, despite all the lofty disingenuous talk and one over-hyped commission practicing the Sun Tzu Art of War deception on the US public in its cooked up reworked version of the same failed policy of aggressive war and permanent occupation. It has no chance to end the resistance to it unless or until all our forces are unconditionally withdrawn, something this country won't ever agree to but, in the end, will be forced to do just like it had to acknowledge defeat and leave Southeast Asia in 1975. History has a way of repeating for those failing to learn its lessons. This time the price being paid looks a lot stiffer and more painful than the last misadventure, but the full amount won't be known until the current exercise in futility finally ends. Unstated in any part of the ISG report or in any Washington or mainstream commentary on Iraq policy since the confrontation with Saddam began in January, 1991, is that the US planned and carried out a war of illegal aggression now near completing its 16th year. Early on, this country got some UN-cover by dint of its high-pressure to shape Security Council policy to fit its own. That process, however, broke down in the run-up to the current conflict beginning in March, 2003 when the US pretext for war was so outrageous, enough countries with clout and Security Council veto power opposed us forcing Washington to go it alone with an embarrassing "coalition of the willing." Those countries in it became shameless co-conspirators by agreeing to join in partnership with the US defiantly flaunting international laws and norms as participants in this exercise of lawlessness. You won't find any of that hinted at in the ISG report. It's not mentioned that this country began by violating Article I, Section 8 of the US Constitution that gives the power to declare war solely to the Congress, although it hasn't exercised it since it declared war against the Axis powers in WW II. It also ignores our violating what the Nuremberg Tribunal trying Nazi war criminals called the "supreme international crime" stating: "To initiate a war of aggression....is not only an international crime, it is the supreme crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." And it doesn't mention this country violated the UN Charter that's international law this country is bound by. It allows a nation the right to use force in its self-defense only under two conditions: when authorized to do it by the Security Council or under Article 51 that permits the "right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member....until the Security council has taken measures to maintain international peace and security." By attacking Iraq without provocation and with no Security Council authorization for it prior to March, 2003, the US violated this sacred covenant it's a signatory to. It also violated the US Constitution that says...."all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land." The Bush administration flaunts that law, but the ISG is unperturbed, allows this elephant in our face to go unmentioned, by its silence supports its continuance, and is unwilling to act responsibly to assure going forward this country abides by all laws and standards as a first prerequisite to resolving the conflict in Iraq and most important to preventing future ones. It can't do it, because if it does it would then have to acknowledge this country attacked, invaded and now occupies Iraq in violation of international laws and norms, must now end its illegal occupation, and those responsible must be held to account for what they've done in the world and national bodies established to deal with these type crimes of war and against humanity. It would also have to acknowledge that all the commission members have their own closets filled with disturbing skeletons including, of course, the former High Court justice exposed above whose judicial act of infamy allowed this holocaust to happen and never spoke out publicly against it indicating she finds mass slaughter and destruction quite acceptable by her legal and moral standards - the same rogue standards all commission members and those in the Bush administration endorse so they act co-conspiratorially to cover for each other. The ISG also ignored other international laws this country is legally bound to obey but didn't and won't ever under a Bush administration that mocks them. Nonetheless, the US can't hide its use of banned chemical and poisonous depleted uranium weapons outlawed by the 1925 Geneva Convention Gas Protocol and various succeeding Geneva Conventions banning the use of chemical and biological weapons in any form for any reason in war. In addition, under various UN Conventions and Covenants that are binding international law for its signatories, the use of any weapons that cause harm after the battle including away from the battlefield, harm the environment, or kill, wound or cause harm inhumanely are illegal and banned. In the Gulf war and thereafter, the US military routinely used illegal weapons including depleted uranium munitions for 16 years in Iraq that spread deadly toxic irremediable radiation over a vast area of the country. These weapons are poisonous under international law and violate all the above conditions. The Pentagon also willfully violated international statutes by using an array of banned and questionable weapons with no restraint including against non-military civilian targets as a tactical strategy, a practice prohibited by these codes of law. By its silence, the ISG tacitly endorses these practices as well as the administration's use of torture outlawed by various binding international statutes including the significant 1984 UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT) that includes rape and the kinds of sexual abuse routinely used in US-administered prisons in Iraq as part of the interrogation, dehumanizing and terror-inducing social control process authorized by the December 18 departing Secretary of Defense and unindicted war criminal Donald Rumsfeld. Jim Baker and the other commission members also are comfortable with the way the US military treats the thousands of prisoners it holds even though they're denied all rights guaranteed them under the Third Geneva Convention of 1949 (GCIII) that provides for humane treatment including an array of services like enough proper food and medical care and prohibits the kinds of abusive practices the US routinely engages in. The ISG report also ignores any change of policy regarding the rights of civilians guaranteed under the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 (GCIV) that covers a range of protections routinely denied them as another part of the Bush administration's flaunting of all international laws that prohibit whatever practices it wishes to engage in, law or no law. No problem for Jim Baker and his "Gang of Ten" including the former High Court justice member who understands the law and was sworn to uphold it while on the bench, domestic and international that's binding US law under the Constitution. Omissions About the Human Cost in Iraq The few ISG findings deserving mention and discussion have largely been ignored in the corporate-controlled media because doing so would be embarrassing to the Bush administration trying to cover them up as further evidence of its failure in Iraq that can only be characterized as criminal, disastrous and hopeless short of a full and unconditional US withdrawal not in the cards. One of them at the end of the long report mentions a "significant underreporting of the violence in Iraq." It's part of the cover-up from the White House and Department of Defense the commission says acts "as a filter to keep events out of reports and databases (to distort) events on the ground." It cites an example that last July the Pentagon report of 93 attacks one day was distorted to hide the reality that "a careful review of the reports....brought to light 1,100 acts of violence (on that day, or a slight 11-fold greater amount of it)." Noting that is fine as far as it goes, but it's not near enough as the ISG's mini-revelation hides the greater truth about the US-inflicted holocaust against the Iraqi people that began in January, 1991, continues unabated and won't end until the occupation does. That's the key "reality" the ISG report suppresses as does the corporate-controlled media including parts buried deep in it they're silent on. For 16 years, the US created a living hell in Iraq. It willfully and illegally destroyed essential infrastructure like power generating stations and clean water and sanitation facilities vital to health, welfare and public safety. It wantonly targeted and slaughtered many thousands of civilians. It unjustifiably imposed a dozen years of punishing economic sanctions causing the deaths of as many as 1.5 million innocent Iraqis two UN heads of humanitarian relief resigned in protest over, being unwilling to participate in a US-imposed policy one of them characterized as "genocide." Even today, little, if anything meaningful, has been done to ameliorate a hopeless situation on the ground in most of the country. The ISG report ignores US war crimes in destroying a once prosperous nation, leaving in its wake a surreal lawless armed camp wasteland with few or no essential services by design including electricity, clean water, medical care, fuel and most everything else needed for sustenance and survival. The commission report is also silent on the shocking 2006 Lancet study that accurately assessed the human toll of the war since 2003 using statistically reliable random household "cluster sampled" personal interviews with death certificate verifications in most cases. It estimated 655,000 violent deaths since March, 2003 attributable to the war stating the true number might be as high as 900,000 as interviewers were unable to survey the most violent parts of the country like Fallujah and Ramadi in al Anbar province (comprising one-third of the country) where mass killing still goes on daily as well as to include in the study the thousands of families in which all its members were killed. By its silence, the ISG is willfully participating in the cover-up of this massive crime against humanity and by its failure to offer redress is co-conspiratorially part of it. The ISG also ignores the true cost to US forces in Iraq that began in the Gulf war and continues today. One-third or more of the 696,841 military personnel who served in the Gulf from August 2, 1990 to July 31, 1991 have filed claims for or have been reported by the Veteran's Administration (VA) to be on some form of disability in 2004, most likely from the deadly effects of depleted uranium (DU) or other toxic poisoning the Pentagon tries to suppress and deny. Today the situation is far worse, but it'll be years before the final human toll is known. The effects of DU poisoning alone may be much more devastating now than in the Gulf war. In this conflict, the DU used in munitions is much more toxic than the kind used earlier. In addition to U-238 used earlier, today's DU weapons contain plutonium (the most toxic of all known substances), neptunium, and the highly radioactive uranium isotope U-236. According to a 1991 study by the UK Atomic Energy Authority, these elements are 100,000 times more dangerous than the U-238 in DU. It takes only the most minute, nearly unmeasurable, amount of this substance in one's body (that can easily be inhaled or otherwise ingested) to be fatal. Further, the situation today is exacerbated by the current war having been ongoing for over three and one-half years (longer now than WW II) compared to the earlier six week one in 1991. Also, twice as many US forces have been engaged in this toxic environment for extended multiple tours of duty setting up the possibility for an enormous human calamity in years ahead as more of them return home, their bodies poisoned, and their lives and future health put seriously at risk. In addition, daily life on the ground has been difficult to unbearable for US forces. Many have been ill-equipped with weapons, vehicles, ordinance, body armor and most everything else being consumed and not replaced. It's even worse for Forward Operating Bases often unable to get enough drinking water and other necessities such as proper food, clean clothes, a daily shower and a comfortable bed to sleep in. The effects of conflict and conditions on the ground have taken a devastating toll already with many there increasingly stressed and terrified out of their minds from physical and/or psychological trauma often ignored by commanders. Most disturbing is the cover-up of the true death and injury toll already that's far higher than the published figures that are phony to avoid likely public anger if they were known. One incident suppressed happened on October 10, 2006 when Forward Base Falcon was attacked by mortars and rockets causing huge stocks of fuel and ammunition to explode most of the night killing or wounding hundreds of the 3,000 troops based there. Pictures gotten out show how extensive the damage was that leveled buildings to the ground explaining why the Pentagon wanted none of this to get out. It did but not in the major media and not in the ISG report. Despite public disclosures, more accurate data overall is quietly coming out of the Pentagon, unreported in the corporate media, and unmentioned in the ISG report that shows the number of US forces killed is about four times the "official" total, and the number wounded may be about twice the official figure. Almost never mentioned is that many injuries include loss of limbs, brain and severe psychological damage and pain and other debilitations that will scar those affected and their families for the rest of their lives if after treatment and recovery they even survive. None of this bothers the "Gang of Ten" commission members whose families are safe from this carnage and whose verdict rendered in their report effectively is to let the war go on without end, the enormous and rising human toll on Iraqis and Americans notwithstanding. For them, it's a price worth paying as it serves the interests of empire in which human beings are just another commodity to extract value from and then discard when no longer of further use. That's how the Bush administration and ISG members think and act. Omissions on the Domestic Front Related to the Iraq War and the "War on Terror" Allowing It to Happen Domestic and foreign affairs are inextricably linked, and when the nation goes to war, or is planning to, everything is fair game on the home front, but don't expect it will serve the public interest. Ordinary people always pay dearly and gain nothing beyond the right to make the weapons and pay the bills that in the current conflict are huge enough at the least to put an enormous strain on the economy and over time as the out-control costs mount may endanger the nation's economic health. The ISG report doesn't address this reckless endangerment that Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz believes may have an eventual price tag of well over $2 trillion exacerbating already massive budget deficits far higher ($760 billion in 2005, not the "official" $318.5 billion) than the phony numbers reported to hide how bad things really are and on top of an alarming current account deficit now in the range of $800 billion a year and climbing. It also is unperturbed by the grim picture economist Laurence Kotlikoff presented in a recent detailed report for the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis in which he stated, by some measures, the US is already bankrupt and unable to pay its creditors. Professor Kotlikoff believes US fiscal policy is so out-of-control, including for the reckless spending for wars, that the country's debt is rising exponentially and will reach an incomprehensible and unmanageable $65.9 trillion creating a fiscal calamity forcing the nation to default on its debt obligations. He later updated his figures and now believes the country's future overall liability may reach the $80 trillion level that will trigger an inevitable economic meltdown if it happens. Spending hundreds of billions annually and rising for "defense" including all the off-the-books (but out of taxpayers' pockets) allocations for Iraq will only speed up the pace to the future apocalypse Kotlikoff potentially foresees ahead. No problem for the Baker collective who operate with tunnel vision, and like those three monkeys, hear no, see no, and neither speak nor write anything beyond their re-flavored stay the course agenda for Iraq disguised to look like a new drawdown policy it isn't. Other Domestic Front Omissions - The Destruction of Democracy and Loss of Personal Freedoms The ISG was formed to serve US imperial interests including its wars of aggression for wealth and power. It doesn't matter how destructive they are to the public welfare or how they're allowing the nation to pass from a republic to tyranny. For every blow the US military strikes against the people of Iraq (and Afghanistan), the political establishment here and its "homeland security" enforcers inflict a similar amount of damage in kind against the body politic at home, not through the barrel of a gun (yet) but by the destruction of our civil liberties and human rights that stand in the way of the grandiose schemes people like Jim Baker and his "Gang of Ten" allies hope to pull off - to gain total imperial control over planet earth and the heavens above it with ordinary working people everywhere just more commodity inputs for their production meat grinder to be chewed up for profit and then discarded. So for Baker and the ISG team, keeping mum about the war at home is part of the scheme to let it go on largely under the radar until the time comes to strip off the mask and send the jackboots and tanks to the streets making them look like the ones in Baghdad and with some of the same horrific fallout as things get ugly. For their plan to work, they must crush the last remnants of a free society and create the Orwellian vision he described saying: "If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever." The ISG is trying to do with guile and deceit what George Bush already did in the new legislation he signed into law on October 17 giving himself what noted British journalist John Pilger calls "the power of unrestricted lawlessness" with scant public awareness it even happened. On that day, with ISG tacit blessing and approval by its silence, Bush signed into law the infamous Military Commissions Act effectively giving himself the power to subvert the Constitution and Bill of Rights. The bill authorizes the use of torture and allows the president the right to call anyone an enemy of the state on his say alone with no corroborating evidence and strips the accused of all constitutional rights. It means anyone can be arrested, interrogated, tortured and incarcerated in a secret prison anywhere in the world, subject to the justice of a military tribunal like in Iraq or Guantanamo, with no competent defense or habeas right of appeal. It makes everyone an "enemy combatant" subject to the will of a man willing to use his power recklessly with no concern for its consequences. George Bush went further that day privately and quietly signing into law a provision revising the Insurrection Act of 1807 that along with the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 prohibits the use of federal and National Guard troops for law enforcement inside the country except as allowed by the Constitution or expressly authorized by Congress in times of a national emergency like an insurrection. No longer. The new Public Law 109-364 (HR 5122) allows the president the right to claim a public emergency, effectively declare martial law on his say alone, and send the jackboots to the streets to suppress whatever he calls public disorder that may include peaceful protests to redeem our constitutional rights now lost. These new repressive laws add to the ones already on the books including infamous repressive Patriot Acts I and II and the National ID Act that will enable the government to track and control everyone in the country in the "Big Brother" fashion George Orwell foresaw in his dystopian book Nineteen Eighty-Four depicting a totalitarian national security police state society the US has now become. This act alone legalizes tyranny, but it's only one among others including the president having given himself unlimited power by designating himself a "unitary executive" with the right to circumvent the law in the name of national security on his say alone that a threat exists, with no evidence needed to warrant it or congressional approval. The Congress approves, and again silence from the ISG members plotting their own schemes while watching the country's founding principles being destroyed making it all the easier for them to pull off their heist of the republic to go along with controlling Iraq and the rest of the Middle East and its oil treasure they'll go to any lengths to hold onto - and that's only for starters. What Chance for ISG Success The Commission members believe their plan can succeed, but don't be deceived by their (thin) veneer of confidence. Other insiders aren't so sure, and according to the New York Times on December 9 the report "exposed deep fissures among Republicans over how to manage a war that many fear will haunt their party - and the nation - for years to come." From the hard right, critics call the ISG report a shameful retreat while moderate party voices expressed hope George Bush would adopt the Commission's principle recommendations and "begin a process of disengagement from the long and costly war." In the middle, White House officials concluded their own initial assessment of Baker's work saying many of its proposals are "impractical or unrealistic." The Wall Street Journal's editorial page had its own ideologically-driven say. As expected, it wants no part of engaging Iran and Syria and supports the Israel Lobby position instead. It called the report "a bipartisan strategic muddle ginned up for domestic political purposes." The Journal editorial writers do have a way with words leaving nothing to their readers' imagination. Unmentioned in the Times story is the unreported view from the Pentagon high command that apparently is much different from its public stance agreeing with the blunt mid-October assessment of Britain's Army Chief of Staff General Richard Dannatt who stated (in contradiction to the Blair government) the presence of UK forces in Iraq "exacerbates the security problems (and they should) get out some time soon" - meaning as soon as possible. In simple terms, General Dannett and the Pentagon brass believe what most every honest observer understands - that the presence of an occupying force in Iraq is the cause of the problem, not its solution. The longer it remains, the more unstable and intolerable conditions will become. Increasing the force size and/or reshuffling the deck with fewer combat troops and more trainer/advisors will only increase the level of Iraqi resistance against them and ultimately elevate public opposition at home once people catch on and realize they've again been had and the Baker plan is just another scheme to keep our forces in Iraq in perpetuity to maintain the country as a colony and the region's oil under US control. Middle East expert and scholar Gilbert Achcar states in his new book Perilous Power, co-authored with Noam Chomsky, that the longer US forces remain in the region, the worse things will get, no matter what role they adopt that's just cover for the US to maintain tight control. Achcar says the Bush administration since March, 2003 has been "stupid" and "will go down in history....as the undertaker of US interests in the region." It doesn't get any clearer, stronger, or more on the mark than that, and it goes to the heart of the problem the ISG was formed to deal with - maintaining US control over Middle East oil now in jeopardy and getting the US public to go along. If the US occupation of Iraq ever ends without a reliable client state government in place, it will create the possibility of Washington's worst nightmare - a majority Shiite ruled Iraq allied with Shiite Iran that might link with the Saudi Shias located in the bordering oil-rich part of the kingdom. If that Tripartite Shia Middle East alliance forms, it will control most of the world's oil supply. It might then choose to align with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) formed to compete with the US for control of Central Asia's huge energy reserves and whose core members are China and Russia giving those countries a chance for a leg up on the US at least for access to Middle East oil. The ISG and Bush administration will do all in its power to prevent this from happening, but the US has lost so much credibility in the region, they face a daunting task and long odds for success. The ISG report mentions none of this, but does stress the importance of Iraq's oil by mentioning it 63 times and calling for the US to help Iraq privatize its state-owned oil industry, opening it up to Big Oil foreign exploitive investment and the profits from it. If or when the US ends its occupation without leaving a reliable client state in place, it would be hard to imagine Iraq will quickly forgive and forget and be willing to conduct business as usual with oil or other corporations from the country that laid waste to it and only left in humiliation and defeat. It shows how hard it will be for the US to get out of this mess, and it's likely to prove more than Jim Baker, his high-powered team, and "all the king's horses and men" are up to. They stand virtually no chance to implement a coherent, workable plan for success short of the only operable one they'll never agree to until they no longer have a choice - a full and unconditional withdrawal. It only remains to be seen how long it will take for them and whatever administration is in power in Washington to draw that conclusion and how much time the public's willing to give them, the Bush administration and the majority Democrats in the Congress elected to chart a new course they've so far indicated no intention of doing. It all adds up to an exercise in deception and futility, but in the end things will end up where they all began in 1990 before the long US assault against Iraq started. When it does, that country will again be free from a foreign occupier but will face a long, expensive and painful struggle to mend and rebuild. As happened when the US left Vietnam, this country will leave it to the Iraqis to recover and regenerate from the carnage and misery on their own that may take a generation or more to achieve and that for most now alive may never be possible. This will be the legacy of the US invasion and occupation and tainted presidency of George Bush and his corrupted notion of moral superiority, claiming to have brought democracy, liberation and the benefits of western civilization to this blighted country but having to do it through the barrel of a gun. This time things unraveled faster than usual, but it only showed the people of Iraq reject what too many at home still believe - that the US is a benevolent democratic republic serving the will and needs of its people and supporting the rights and sovereignty of free people everywhere to live in peace and security. It's an illusion understood by most others around the world and gaining recognition at home as being just as hollow here as on the streets of Baghdad and Kabul. It remains to be seen how long it will take for a mass awakening to occur to arouse the public at home, as it did in Iraq and Afghanistan, making them no longer willing to put up with the kind of abuse and neglect they've so far failed to resist. If history is a guide, it will happen, and when it does it may signal the denouement of another repressive imperial state succumbing to the arrogance of its own overreach, excess, hubris and disregard for the needs of its own people demanding redress. It can't come soon enough for the many around the world oppressed by it crying out "freedom now" and beginning to do something about getting it. Mathaba author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached below. Also, visit his blog site at: endmanstephen@sbcglobal.net http://sjlendman.blogspot.com -------- us politics The Charge of the Muny Light Brigade Posted on Dec 14, 2006 By Joshua Scheer http://www.truthdig.com/interview/item/20061214_battle_muny_light/ Editor’s note: Twenty-eight years ago today, 31-year-old Dennis Kucinich, then the youngest-ever mayor of a major American city, famously pushed Cleveland into economic default rather than capitulate to the demands of a group of bankers eager to gobble up the city’s power plant. Today, as Kucinich kicks off his White House bid, he speaks to Truthdig about a stand of integrity that nearly cost him his political career, but which has striking relevance in the current political landscape—where such integrity seems in short supply. This interview was conducted by Truthdig research editor Joshua Scheer*. TRUTHDIG: Twenty-eight years ago, you were the “Boy Mayor” of Cleveland—the youngest-ever mayor of any major U.S. city. And you were also the first mayor to put a city into default since the Great Depression. What happened there? KUCINICH: When people find out the nature of the default, they’re pretty shocked. Because what happened is that Cleveland went into default because I refused a bank’s demand to sell Cleveland’s municipal electric system as the price of renewal of the city’s credit. TRUTHDIG: What happened to your political aspirations because of that episode? KUCINICH: Corporations aren’t used to public officials who say no. So I couldn’t get a job in Cleveland. I was not able to make a living in this city. It was very tough to win any elected office. But an interesting thing happened: I saved the municipal electric system because I refused to accept this Faustian bargain that was offered me by the city’s lead bank, which was: You sell the city’s electric system, and the bank will give you—the city—$50 million worth of new credit. But if you don’t sell, we’re going to put the city of Cleveland into default. And so this was a moment when I had to determine who I was, what I was made of. Was I ready to take a stand on behalf of the people, or was I just about to become like anyone else who caves in and goes along to get along? TRUTHDIG: Do you consider yourself a rebel? What made you do this? KUCINICH: Integrity, clarity, a willingness to see exactly what was going on in the moment. The banks, together with this privately owned utility, which was trying to get a monopoly, with the support of the Cleveland media, had basically decided that the price of the city’s credit was going to be the privatization—or sale—of the city’s municipal electric system to a business partner, with whom the bank had numerous business relationships—including four interlocking directorates. Kucinich’s refusal to sell Muny Light made him the target of a Mafia hit plot. Check out this news story on the episode. I was elected mayor of the city of Cleveland on a platform of saving the people’s electric system. My first act in office was to cancel a sale that had already been consummated by the City Council and the preceding mayor. I had blocked the sale with a citizens’ petition drive and ran for mayor while the sale was in limbo. This was a movement which brought me into the mayor’s office; people insisted that they not give up an electric system that provided savings on electric rates of anywhere from 20 to 30 percent, and provided electric utility service to at least a third of the city. How much people pay for electricity is no small matter. For some people, it is a real hardship to be able to meet the monthly electric bill, gas bill, telephone bill. I remember when I was growing up in Cleveland, standing in a hallway, listening to my parents count the pennies to pay the electric bill. I can still hear the pennies dropping—click, click, click—on our old chipped, white and metal table. So I was sitting in a board room with the head of Cleveland’s largest bank, Cleveland Trust, and he was telling me that unless I agreed to sell Cleveland’s municipal electric system to the Cleveland Electric Illumination Co., which had many relationships with the city’s banks, he was not going to renew the city’s credit. And all the time I’m thinking about my parents, back when I was a child. I’m hearing them counting the pennies. I’m hearing “click, click, click,” and this banker is telling me, “You had better sell, or we’re putting this city into default.” And I’m thinking of my folks and everybody like them, to whom it matters what they pay for electricity, to whom it matters that there’s somebody standing by, defending their interests—even if they don’t know about it. For me this was a moment that brought together everything I ever believed in. TRUTHDIG: Did the press vindicate you? Does the municipal power system right now have a lower rate than the privately owned one? KUCINICH: It’s still competitive. The answer to the first part of your question is that 15 years after I refused the bank’s deal to take Muny Light off the hands of the city of Cleveland, Cleveland Municipal Electric System undertook the largest expansion of any municipal electric system in America. It had saved the people of Cleveland hundreds of millions of dollars in lower electric rates and also in tax dollars, by providing electricity for street lighting and for city facilities. And this year, 2006, Muny Light, now called Cleveland Public Power, observed its 100th anniversary. I take great pride in [having been] mayor at a time when this enormous effort was made to push the city of Cleveland to sell the electric system. It was on my watch. I had to make a decision. I had to decide if I was going to knuckle under to the wave of media coverage that, one editorial after another, one news story after another, basically reconstructed the social and political reality of the city to make it seem like I had no other alternative but to sell the electric system. But there are times in one’s life when you have to realize the illusions which surround you; you have to be able to pierce that unreality and to understand exactly what’s going on in the moment. And I understood what was going on in the moment. And when I saw things that were not true, I called them like that. And so I had to let the people know, “Look, there’s no reason the city of Cleveland should have to go into default.” We went into default over $15 million. In a city like New York, I suppose that would be the cost of some department’s stationery budget. And yet it was about an effort to take away something that belonged to the public. And so here I am: America’s youngest mayor, with one of the most powerful banks in America, and one of the most powerful utilities in America, backed by the entire business establishment, backed by the media, backed by a number of community organizations, and they’re all saying, “Sell, sell, sell.” The message was coming from all directions. I was told that I had no other choice but to sell. And it was all based on a hoax. It was a fraud. It was a moment when I was called upon to have foresight and clarity and take a stand, and let the chips fall where they may. And I’ll tell you something: I knew at that moment, I knew absolutely, that my career was on the line. I knew that if I refused to sell, the banks would put the city of Cleveland into default and I would likely lose the next election because people wouldn’t understand what happened. But any of us have to decide at some point in our lives what we stand for—whether we have integrity, whether we really believe that there is such a thing as a government by the people, of the people and for the people. TRUTHDIG: When the chips fell, they fell pretty hard. You were forced out of public life for nearly 20 years. In hindsight, do you stand by your decision to do this? KUCINICH: Every public official or aspiring public official who would read this interview should remember that when you take a public trust, the most important thing is to defend the public interest. There’s always some kind of a deal out there where someone is out there to convince you that if you just go along with this particular matter, it’ll be good for your career; it’ll show people that you know how to come to reason. Deals like Muny Light are out there every day for politicians who want to get in with certain interest groups, who want to advance their career. This isn’t condemnation of people who do it, but that’s just so much of what politics is about: People decide, “Well, I’m going to do something I really don’t like, but I’ll stay in office and I’ll be able to help people some other time.” There are millions of little bargains that take place like that every day. It’s just that I saw something else: I saw that this had immediate economic relevance for the people of Cleveland, and also for everyone who was ever in public life who felt like they needed to take a stand and were looking for the courage to do it. Because any one of us can inform all of us that it’s OK, that life is going to go on, that you can stand up for what you believe in, that you don’t have to sell out, that you don’t have to sell your soul, that you don’t have to let someone else determine the circumstances under which you are in public service. So this was a wonderful opportunity for me, having been the youngest mayor of the city of Cleveland, who had this chance to stand up for the public interest—at a critical moment, when everything was on the line, and all the odds were stacked against me ... I stood up for the people. And years later they knew I was right. Years later they put me back in the state Senate, and they followed up by putting me in Congress, and I win elections in Cleveland now by huge majorities. And I’m grateful for that. But I knew in 1978 when I refused to sell that electric system, I knew the bank was going to follow up on its threat to put the city of Cleveland in default. I also knew I’d lose the next election—which I did. But there are, believe it or not, some things more important than holding public office. And what’s important is that when it comes your turn to make the decision, you stand up, you don’t relent, and you—in the words of “Prometheus Unbound” by Shelley—you defy power which seems omnipotent. And that is what it means to be joyous and free. If you are going to want to be a torchbearer for the freedom of the people, you have to be free yourself. TRUTHDIG: There’s a lot of debate over the regulation and deregulation of energy companies. But this was not really a deregulation-regulation debate, right? You were trying to prevent a monopoly. KUCINICH: Right. This was an issue of: Do the people have the right to own their own utility? The question is: Is there such a thing as the public domain? Is it appropriate for governments to operate water systems, sewer systems, parks, libraries, public services? The man who founded Muny Light 100 years ago, Mayor Tom Johnson, said something to this effect: I believe in the public ownership of all municipal service utilities, because if you do not own them, they will in time own you. They will rule your politics, corrupt your institutions, and finally destroy your liberties. The issue of public ownership has huge implications today for the people of the United States: It relates to whether or not we can have a public retirement system like Social Security, which has been under attack in a privatization scheme. It relates to whether or not we can have a public health system through a universal single-payer system instead of this system we have today, in which 100 million people are either uninsured or under-insured, because the system is held by private interests. It relates to the question of whether public education is going to be adequately funded. It relates to the theft of natural resources—of oil companies using their power to get leases and mining companies using their power to grab public lands, or everyone looking at public resources as something to be looted. This same destructive impulse is evident in the policies of the International Monetary Fund—the so-called structural adjustment policies, which force communities to give up publicly owned assets in order to gain access to capital, and then the people end up paying exorbitant amounts of money for services which used to be provided directly to the people. This question of public control was at the center of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s farewell speech, where he said to beware of the military/industrial complex. Today we see the privatization of war reflected in mercenaries and contractors in Iraq, who will make of the war in Iraq a perpetuating industry. It relates to this destructive ethic of privatization, which is being visited on the people of Iraq right now, with the attempt by interest groups to push changes in national law which pave the way for the privatization of the oil industry. These are the kinds of questions that are central to issues of democratic governance. These are questions that are central to the very idea of a polity which exists for the public interest, as opposed to the private interest. So go all the way back to Dec. 15, 1978, and my decision had implications far into the future. And I can see the same kinds of schemes that are out there today that try to steal or defraud the public of what is really a heritage of the people. And for my part, what I learned in Cleveland in 1978 is that it is possible to stand up; and you may pay a price, but what is the most important thing in life is the triumph of principle; and nothing, no high office, no monuments, no false praise from media working against the public interest, is a substitute for being at peace and one with integrity. TRUTHDIG: Thanks for shedding light on this; because when you read encapsulations of your public career, you usually only read that you ended your mayorship in controversy. KUCINICH: When people look at the issue of default and they connect it with my name, they should also connect with my name a “Not for Sale” sign. They should connect with my name the essence of public power. *Truthdig interviewer Joshua Scheer worked as an entry-level staffer on Kucinich’s state Senate campaign and was later a summer associate in his congressional office. In this weekly interview series, Rep. Kucinich gives his take on the goings-on in Congress in the wake of the Democrats’ victory and addresses other matters. -------- ENERGY Nuclear power no green alternative to fossil fuels: study Talk of nuclear energy in Alberta, Ontario moves institute to write report Thursday, December 14, 2006 CBC News http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2006/12/14/nuclear-study.html Nuclear power is not an environmentally friendly alternative to fossil fuels, says a new study released Thursday by a Canadian environmental group. The Pembina Institute says the nuclear industry likes to promote itself as a solution to the problem of global warming caused by greenhouse gases, but its study suggests otherwise. "Nuclear power, like other non-renewable energy sources, is associated with severe environmental impacts," the Pembina Institute says in a 129-page report. The Pembina Institute compiled the report after learning Ontario is considering the expansion of nuclear power facilities, and that Alberta might use nuclear energy to process bitumen from the oilsands. Mark Winfield, a director at the institute, told CBC News the nuclear industry claims that nuclear energy emits less greenhouse gases than fossil fuels and can be a useful response to reduce climate change. "We're quite clear this is not a good response," Winfield said. "It involves trading off perhaps some reductions in greenhouse gas emissions but taking on a whole range of other risks and costs." -------- alternative energy REC to Build World's Biggest Solar Plant in Norway REUTERS NORWAY: December 14, 2006 http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/39480/newsDate/14-Dec-2006/story.htm OSLO - Renewable Energy Corporation will build the world's biggest solar energy equipment plant in its Heroeya facility in southwestern Norway for 2.5 billion Norwegian crowns (US$407.8 million). REC, a leading maker of such equipment, said the investment in two plants in Heroeya will expand silicon wafer production -- the key component of solar panels -- sufficient to generate an additional 650 megawatts of energy. "When up and running, total annual production will be close to 1.3 gigawatts, making Heroeya by far the largest solar production site in the world," REC said in a statement on Wednesday. REC said the two plants will go into production in the fourth quarter of 2008 and second quarter of 2009, respectively. "Annualised revenues from the new plants alone will represent between 5 and 6 billion crowns, calculated using estimated industry pricing for 2006, on long-term contracts," said REC. REC shares have jumped in recent weeks on the back of strong results, growing demand for solar power and hopes that government policy would pile cash into renewable energy to cut the use of fossil fuels and emissions of greenhouse gasses. The company's shares were up 1.4 percent at 109.5 crowns at 0811 GMT on a weaker Oslo bourse, valuing the company at around US$8.8 billion. ---- Energy Bill Savings from Biofuels Overrated - Wbank Story by Chris Baltimore REUTERS US: December 14, 2006 http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/39481/newsDate/14-Dec-2006/story.htm WASHINGTON - Biofuels like ethanol might not be the panacea to soaring energy bills and demand for farm-grown supply could bring even more volatility to global crop prices, a World Bank official said Wednesday. Ethyl alcohol -- better known as ethanol -- is leading the development of alternative fuels as volatile prices for crude oil and gasoline push consumers to use more "green" fuels produced from renewable resources like sugar, corn and soybeans. But judged strictly on energy bill savings, big bets on ethanol by producers in the United States and elsewhere are unlikely to pay off in the near-term, said Todd Johnson, a senior energy specialist at the World Bank's Latin American and Caribbean section. "We don't believe that straight financial cost savings are going to be there for very many countries in the near term," Johnson told Reuters in an interview. Many officials are "being told that they can actually save money on it and we don't know very many countries where that's true," he said. The obvious exception to the rule is Brazil, which has the lowest ethanol production costs in the world, he said. Unlike the United States, which now relies heavily on corn for its ethanol production, Brazil's ethanol comes from cheap and plentiful supplies of sugarcane, which it can produce for about US$150 a tonne - the lowest cost in the world. But other factors could make increased ethanol use attractive, he said, like industrialized nations' growing focus on shoring up "energy security." Increased ethanol use is also a boon to agricultural development and rural economies, and has environmental benefits that are harder to quantify in dollar terms, he said. The World Bank is also concerned that rising use of ethanol as a transport fuel could expose crop prices to a new level of volatility, Johnson said. "Are we inadvertently going to raise food prices?" for crops like corn, sugarcane, and coconuts, he asked. "That's certainly a concern that we don't hear being voiced very much." Ethanol has linked petroleum and sugar markets like never before and "there still is a concern for the price impact. Do we want petroleum prices to be driving all of our food markets?" he asked. That phenomenon is beginning to show already. US growers will collect one of the highest prices ever for corn with this year's crop, a lofty farm-gate average of US$3.10 a bushel thanks to explosive demand for fuel ethanol, the US government said on Monday. Corn prices have exceeded a season-average US$3 a bushel only four other years and the record is US$3.24, set in 1995/96. Last's year's crop averaged US$2 a bushel. And US ethanol demand is going nowhere but up. According to the Energy Department, ethanol output could hit 11.2 billion gallons in 2012, 49 percent above the 7.5 billion gallons required by law. (Additional reporting by Gilbert Le Gras)