NucNews January 23, 2007 -------- NUCLEAR -------- asia Report: Japan, China eyeing action plan on civil nuclear cooperation Associated Press (January 23, 2007) http://pepei.pennnet.com/news/display_news_story.cfm?Section=WireNews&Category=HOME&NewsID=143602 TOKYO - Japan and China are looking to cooperate on a joint civil nuclear energy program with an action plan expected to be formulated by the end of 2007, a news report said Tuesday. The plan will likely include measures to prevent nuclear technology being diverted to third parties, Kyodo News agency reported citing unidentified government sources. The plan aims to lay the groundwork for Japanese nuclear power-related companies to do business in China, Kyodo said. But Japan's Foreigh Ministry official denied that the two countries are considering such an action plan. Tokyo has been cooperating with Beijing on nuclear energy, just as it has been with other countries, and intends to promote cooperation with China in an appropriate manner, the official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity, citing protocol. China plans to build dozens of nuclear power plants in coming years in hopes of reducing the impact of coal-fired power plants and the country's growing reliance on imported oil and gas. Japan also wants to provide its expertise to China to help the country develop human resources in the nuclear industry, according to the report. Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Shotaro Yachi and Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo are expected to confirm the start of high-level talks on the proposal to be held Thursday and Friday in China, the report said. Bilateral relations between Japan and China have been strained in recent years by territorial disputes, rival claims to natural resource areas and visits by former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to a Tokyo shrine that many see as a symbol of Japanese militarism. But Koizumi's successor Shinzo Abe made a fence-mending visit to China in October, less than a month after he took office, where he and Chinese President Hu Jintao to strengthen energy cooperation. The thaw in diplomatic relations has prompted Tokyo to pursue bilateral cooperation on nuclear energy to help Japanese businesses enter the Chinese market, Kyodo said. -------- britain Threat to 500 clean-up jobs DOUNREAY: CASH CRISIS (The Sunday Herald Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Financial Times [January 23, 2007] http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2007/01/23/2269297.htm THE GBP3 billion clean-up of the defunct nuclear complex at Dounreay in Caithness is facing prolonged delays and the loss of up to 500 jobs because of a government financial crisis. The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), the agency that funds the dismantling of all the UK's nuclear plants, has a shortfall of GBP450 million. As a result, Dounreay could see its budget cut by GBP40 million in 2007-08, drastically reducing the sum available for spending on decommissioning. That would mean the postponement of a series of projects vital for making Dounreay safe, including the emptying of the shoreline radioactive waste shaft which exploded in 1977. Officials fear the date for finishing the site clean-up 2033 may be pushed back "several years". They also said the 2000-strong workforce of staff and contractors at Dounreay could be reduced by between 200 and 500. Staff at Dounreay have reacted with "absolute disbelief and anger", said Ian Clark, the trade union co-ordinator for the site's operator, the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA). The funding shortfall has arisen as the NDA's income from operating nuclear plants has been much lower than expected. A reprocessing plant at Sellafield has been closed because of a leak, and a plutonium fuel plant and ageing reactors are performing badly. The NDA relies on these plants to provide half of its GBP2bn annual budget. The NDA is understood to have asked the Treasury for an extra GBP290m. But it is also telling contractors, such as the UKAEA, to cut GBP160m from their cleanup programmes. Dounreay has been required to make cuts of nearly GBP6m by the end of March. The site had planned for a budget of GBP170m in 2007-08, but now staff fear this may be reduced to GBP130m. Cutbacks are also being required at Hunterston A in North Ayrshire, and Chapelcross, near Annan, in Dumfries and Galloway. -------- china China's power generating capacity tops 622 mln kilowatts Xinhua January 23, 2007 http://english.people.com.cn/200701/23/eng20070123_343745.html China's power generating capacity rose by 20.3 percent year-on-year to reach 622 million kilowatts at the end of last year. Of the total, the capacity of hydro-electric power plants was more than 128 million kilowatts, up 9.5 percent year-on-year, and the capacity of thermal power plants exceeded 484 million kilowatts, up 23.7 percent. China has also made progress in developing new energies, such as nuclear, wind power, geothermal and biomass energies, excluding conventional resources such as coal, oil, natural gas and hydropower, according to the China Electricity Council (CEC), a consolidated organization for all China's power enterprises and institutions. CEC figures show that China was operating nuclear power plants with a combined generating capacity of 6.85 million kilowatts and wind power plants with a combined capacity of 1.87 million kilowatts, up 76.7 percent year-on-year, at the end of last year. Thirty-four straw-burning power plants were being built in rural areas at the end of 2006 with a total installed capacity of 1.2 million kw. They include three plants with a combined capacity of 240,000 kilowatts have already begun operating in Shandong, Jiangsu and Hebei provinces, according to China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC). Experts said the government had been forced to develop new energy due to shortages of resources and environmental pressure. China is rich in new energy and sustainable energy resources. The country boasts a potential wind power capacity of 253 million kilowatts and a proved reserve of geothermal power totaling 3.16 billion tons of coal equivalent. Under the government's development plan, by 2010, the overall generating capacity will reach 800 million kw, of which 35 percent would be "clean power" generated from hydropower, nuclear energy and other forms of new energy including straw-fueled electricity generation. -------- depleted uranium 2006 Conflict Left Lebanon Littered with Toxic Waste BERLIN, Germany, January 23, 2007 (ENS) http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jan2007/2007-01-23-04.asp Urgent widespread environmental problems confront the Lebanese authorities as a result of the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel last summer, finds a report issued today by the United Nations Environment Programme, UNEP. On the positive side, the missiles used in the conflict did not contain depleted uranium or any other kind of radioactive material, finds the report prepared by UNEP’s Post-Conflict Branch. As evidence, the report cites detailed field tests and analysis of samples at laboratories in Europe. UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner said, "The report provides a comprehensive picture of the outstanding environmental problems facing the Lebanon and its people. Some of these, like war-related debris, cluster bombs on farmland, toxic waste - the result of bomb damage and fires at industrial facilities - and the widespread damage to water and sewage systems require urgent remedial action." "Others are more long-term in nature including the necessity for systematic monitoring of the health of local populations, and the environment, in certain key locations," Steiner said. The post-conflict assessment was carried out at the request of the Lebanese authorities following the cessation of hostilities August 14, 2006. Funded by the governments of Germany, Norway and Switzerland, the assessment was issued just ahead of a donor meeting on Lebanon reconstruction taking place in Paris on Thursday. Lebanon is expected to ask for at least US$8 billion. Public debt last year was around $38 billion, consuming at least two-thirds of government income prior to the Hezbollah war with Israel. Steiner says he hopes donors at the Paris meeting will "factor the environment into their plans for Lebanon." Many of the bombed and burned out factories and industrial complexes including the Jiyeh power plant south of Beirut, are contaminated with toxic and hazardous substances, says the report. Urgent action is needed to remove and safely dispose of these substances, which include ash and leaked chemicals, amid concerns they represent a threat to water supplies and public health. The main hot spots of concern are the Choueifat industrial area where a cluster of sites was bombed, Beirut’s International Airport, and the Ghabris detergent factory in Tyre. At these sites there are toxic or hazardous ashes, oils, heavy metals, industrial chemicals, rubble, solid waste and sewage. These may pose health risks to cleanup workers and local communities. Toxics at several sites have the potential to leak into water supplies unless the sites are thoroughly decontaminated and the pollution contained, the report states. Dealing with and disposing of large quantities of war-related debris, including medical and hospital waste, is a major environmental challenge. The UNEP team found that the sheer scale of the debris is overwhelming existing municipal dump sites and waste management regimes. Their report stresses the importance of rapidly removing unexploded cluster bombs, especially in the south of the country where large areas of economically important agricultural land have become “out of bounds” for farmers. Experts with the UN mine clearance operation estimate that the de-mining could take up to 15 months. Agricultural land should be the priority, particularly in prime areas like olive groves and fruit orchards, the team advises. "It is also important to provide alternative livelihood support for the population of southern Lebanon so that they are able to cope in this critical interim period without undermining the natural resource base," says the report. Fires caused the loss of economically valuable tree species in southern Lebanon, impairing the government’s fledgling reforestation program. Widespread damage to Lebanon’s water supply and sewage networks also occurred as a result of the recent hostilities. Prior to the 34 day conflict, the networks had been undergoing comprehensive upgrading and modernization. “These networks were extensively damaged in the conflict and hence present a risk of groundwater contamination and a potential public health hazard. Waste water management constitutes a major chronic environmental stress factor,” says the report. Oil pollution to the marine environment released by boming of the Jiyeh power plant has been largely contained and contamination levels appear to be generally typical of coastal areas of that part of the Mediterranean, good news for the country’s economically important tourism and fisheries sectors, the report found. At least 15,000 metric tons of fuel oil gushed from the damaged Jiyeh plant, affecting 150 kilometers of the Lebanese coastline and parts of Syria’s coast. Steiner praised the international emergency response effort - involving the Lebanese authorities, governments in the Mediterranean and elsewhere, the European Commission, the World Conservation Union, IUCN, local nongovernmental organizations and the United Nations, "for moving as quickly as the difficult circumstances permitted to tackle the spill at the time." The results of today’s report are based on a field assessment by 12 environmental experts carried out between late September and mid-October following a request from the Lebanese Minister of the Environment. The team was accompanied by 15 Lebanese environment ministry staff and volunteers and a scientist from the Lebanese Atomic Energy Agency. They visited over 100 selected sites. To settle the question of whether Lebanon was contaminated with depleted uranium, DU, during the conflict, the UNEP team visited sites showing the highest probability of having been attacked with deep penetrating munitions. The team also visited sites rumored to have been attacked with DU-containing weapons, including a site at Khiam. Following strict procedures, a range of smear, dust and soil samples were collected and analysed at the Swiss Spiez Laboratory. Analyses detected neither DU, nor enriched uranium, nor higher than natural uranium content, the report states. "No evidence of DU penetrators, DU-containing metal products, or any other radioactive material that could be linked to a weapon used was found." Two radioactive sources, which were not related to weapons used in the conflict, were found. At Yatar, a damaged navigation instrument at the crash site of a military helicopter showed elevated radiation levels, and thorium-containing high temperature oven bricks were found at a glass factory in Zahleh. The Lebanese Atomic Energy Commission has been informed of these findings. Samples of soil, surface and ground water, dust, ash, seawater, sediment and molluscs like oysters were collected. These were sent twice a week to specialist laboratories in Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Duplicate samples were made available to the Lebanese authorities. Short, medium and long-term measures have been drawn up for each of the sites covering issues such as waste removal, decontamination and environmental monitoring. In the conflict that began on July 12 and ended on August 14, 2006 with a UN mandated ceasefire, about 1,200 people were killed, over 4,400 were injured, and more than 900,000 people in Lebanon fled their homes. There was widespread destruction of roads and more than 100 bridges and overpasses. Beirut airport and seaports were bombed and an estimated 30,000 housing units destroyed or badly damaged. The Lebanon Post-Conflict Environmental Assessment is online at: http://postconflict.unep.ch/publications/UNEP_Lebanon.pdf -------- europe General Electric interested in Lithuania nuke plant project: official VILNIUS (AFP) 01-23-2007 http://www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?id=160201 US conglomerate General Electric is interested in a project to build a new nuclear power plant in Lithuania, officials said. "Prime Minister Gediminas Kirkilas today had a meeting with representatives of General Electric, who said the company wants to take part in the construction of the new nuclear plant," the prime minister's spokeswoman said. "The prime minister said that an open tender is to be announced for the construction of the new reactor and invited General Electric to take part in it," she told AFP. German energy giant E.ON has already expressed interest in the project to build a new nuclear facility in Lithuania to replace the ageing Ignalina plant, while France's Areva group, Canada's AECL, and Mitsubishi of Japan have said they are ready to supply nuclear technologies to build the new facility. The electricity companies of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania recently set up a working group with their Polish counterpart to discuss bringing Poland into a project to build a new nuclear power station to replace Ignalina, which uses reactors similar to the one that exploded at Chernobyl in 1986, provoking the world's worst nuclear disaster. Lithuania promised the European Union, which the Baltic state joined in 2004, to shut down Ignalina by 2009. A feasibility study conducted last year by the Baltic energy companies predicted the new facility would not come onstream before 2015. The feasibility study also showed that a new single-reactor plant with a capacity of 800 Megawatts, or a two-reactor, 1,600-Mw facility would require an investment of 2.5 billion to four billion euros. If Poland is brought on board, the capacity of the plant could be increased to 3,200 Megawatts, with a corresponding hike of the final price tag, to five billion euros (6.5 billion dollars). -------- india Russia to pitch for Indian nuclear market during Putin trip 01-23-2007 NEW DELHI (AFP) http://www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?id=160222 Russia's president will offer India nuclear power plants in a major pitch for a slice of the nation's lucrative atomic energy market when he begins a visit to New Delhi, officials said. President Vladimir Putin, seeking to counter growing US ties with India, Moscow's former Cold War ally, is bringing a large contingent of ministers, business people and officials on his two-day trip. The visit's aim is to boost the "strategic relationship" and bring new momentum to a long friendship, said Putin, who will be guest of honour at India's annual Republic Day parade on Friday marking the country's founding as a republic. "We intend to help India directly in construction of atomic energy facilities for peaceful use," Putin said in an interview with the Press Trust of India (PTI). The passage last year of a landmark US-Indian deal allowing New Delhi access to civilian nuclear technology after decades of isolation has unleashed an international race to supply energy-hungry India's atomic energy market. Moscow, which still supplies over 70 percent of India's military hardware, also hopes to sign a slew of defence deals, including on joint production of a fifth-generation supersonic fighter jet and a multi-role transport aircraft. "Many very serious and very substantial" agreements will be signed during Putin's trip, said Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov, kicking off his own five-day visit to India in the southern high-tech city of Bangalore. Russia says it has sold arms worth 10 billion dollars to India in the past five years and that deals worth a similar amount are in the pipeline with the country which is modernising its outdated defence equipment. India's military, the world's fourth-largest with around 1.3 million people in uniform, is in the market for new fighters and trainer jets, submarines, radar equipment and weaponry. Ivanov added Russia plans to would "actively" participate in an Indian Air Force tender for 126 multi-purpose fighters, a contract valued at close to 10 billion dollars, which pits Lockheeds F-16 warplane and Boeings F/A-18E/F Super Hornet up against fighters from Russia, France and Sweden. "India is pursuing a hedging strategy in its relations with Russia. They are trying not to over-rely on the US either politically, militarily or otherwise as the Russians have always proven to be fairly reliable in the past," Bharat Karnad, analyst at New Delhi's Centre for Policy Research, told AFP. Putin's visit "will strengthen and take bilateral relations between the two time-tested friends to new heights," said India's Minister of State for Planning, M.V. Rajasekharan. Russia will sign a preliminary deal with India to build four nuclear power plants as well as propose to supply four nuclear reactors, reports said. "An agreement... is being prepared for signing on the construction at the Kudankulam nuclear power station (in Tamil Nadu) of additional reactors and also construction of atomic stations at new sites in India," Ivanov also said in Moscow, according to the Interfax news agency. The reactors would be for the flagship nuclear plant Russia is building in southern Tamil Nadu state due to start operation this year and which already has two Russian 1,000-megawatt reactors. Nuclear power now just supplies a scant percentage of the energy needs of India which has been eagerly seeking new fuel supplies to feed its fast-growing economy. India and energy-rich Russia are also expected to discuss boosting cooperation in oil exploration and production. ---- Russia, India to Sign Multibillion Nuclear Reactor Deal 23.01.2007 MosNews http://www.mosnews.com/money/2007/01/23/indianuclear.shtml Russia and India will sign a multibillion dollar deal this week to build more nuclear reactors when President Vladimir Putin visits New Delhi to cement ties, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov was quoted as saying on Monday, Jan. 22. Ivanov was quoted by the Interfax agency as saying that Russia would agree to build additional reactors at the Kudankulam nuclear power plant in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu and reactors at new sites elsewhere in India. Putin is due to meet Indian leaders on January 25-26. “An agreement between the Russian and Indian governments is being prepared for signing on the construction at the Kudankulam nuclear power station of additional reactors and also the construction of atomic stations at new sites in India,” Ivanov said in Bangalore. Russia’s Atomstroyexport company has agreed to sell similar reactors to Bulgaria for 2 billion euros ($2.59 billion) each. Russia is competing with the United States for influence in India, a Moscow Cold War ally which the Kremlin sees as a swiftly growing economic and political power in Asia. India, Asia’s fourth largest economy, is eager to secure oil, gas and power supplies as energy consumption soars. Moscow is seeking to boost arms, energy and nuclear sales to India. Russia is already building two 1,000 megawatt reactors at Kudankulam as part of a deal signed in 1988. India wants four more of these reactors at the site to meet its energy needs. Reuters reported that Russian nuclear chief Sergei Kiriyenko is also on a visit to India. He told reporters on Monday that Moscow would send nuclear fuel to the first Kudankulam reactor in the second quarter of this year. Asked about the reported agreement to build new reactors, a spokesman for Russia’s atomic energy agency would only say: “There is active work in progress on a bilateral document.” The spokesman declined any further comment. Deals prepared for Putin’s visits are usually not announced before his arrival. Last year, Putin approved a revamp of Russia’s nuclear power sector designed to boost the clout of Moscow’s nuclear companies on the world market. -------- israel Israel should develop nuclear energy: minister JERUSALEM (AFP) Jan 23, 2007 http://www.spacewar.com/2006/070123143351.7cvfph0i.html Israeli Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer on Tuesday hinted that his country should consider producing nuclear power for civilian purposes. "It is our duty to keep the option to produce energy through other ways," Ben Eliezer said in a speech at an annual conference on Israel's national security in Herzliya, north of Tel Aviv. "Given the conditions that have surrounded Israel from the day it was created and its unique geo-political situation, I believe it is not enough to rely on energy production through conventional means," he said. A senior official in the ministry told AFP that Ben Eliezer was referring to "the need to develop nuclear energy technology for civilian purposes." Although Israel is considered to be the region's only nuclear power, it refuses to say whether it does or does not have nuclear technology or weapons. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert caused an international uproar last month when he placed his country on a list of states possessing nuclear weapons during an interview with German television. -------- korea North Korea Says Positive US Attitude May Bring Nuclear Breakthrough Kim Kye-Gwan by Staff Writers Beijing (AFP) Jan 23, 2007 http://www.spacewar.com/reports/North_Korea_Says_Positive_US_Attitude_May_Bring_Nuclear_Breakthrough_999.html A top North Korean envoy said Tuesday that a welcome change in attitude by the United States in nuclear negotiations could lead to initial steps in dismantling Pyongyang's weapons programme. "There was a positive change in the American side's attitude," Japan's Jiji press quoted Pyongyang's top nuclear negotiator, Kim Kye-Gwan, as saying in Beijing. Kim was referring to rare one-on-one talks held last week in Berlin with his US counterpart, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, which focused on the nuclear dispute. "I am satisfied (with the talks)," he said. When asked if the next round of six-nation talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons programme would lead to implementation of some initial steps agreed to in the forum in September 2005, Kim responded affirmatively. "We are working hard at the moment to create that possibility," he said. The Stalinist regime stunned the world last October when it tested a nuclear device for the first time, triggering global condemnation and UN sanctions but also adding urgency to efforts to resume stalled disarmament talks. North Korea had agreed in the September 2005 pact to dismantle its nuclear programme in return for diplomatic recognition and food and energy aid, but it was never implemented because Pyongyang later walked out in protest at US financial sanctions. The six-nation talks, which began in 2003, involve hosts China, the United States, the two Koreas, Japan and Russia. Kim met with South Korea's envoy to the talks, Chun Yung-Woo, in Beijing on Tuesday. Hill, who departed Beijing on Monday after briefing his Chinese counterparts on the Berlin meeting, said he expected China to announce the next round of six-party talks by the end of this week. On Tuesday, China's foreign ministry spokesman said no date for resumption of the talks had been decided, but urged all sides to maintain constructive efforts. "All sides have agreed to resume the six-party talks as soon as possible and China is actively making preparations for the resumption," Liu said. "All sides should adopt a constructive attitude, an attitude that is beneficial for pushing forward the Korean Peninsula nuclear problem through peaceful dialogue." earlier related report North Korea Offered To Freeze Reactor In Exchange For Aid Seoul (AFP) Jan 22 - North Korea offered during talks with the United States last week to freeze operations at one nuclear reactor in exchange for aid, a report said Monday. Chosun Ilbo, South Korea's largest-circulation paper, quoted sources as saying the North offered to suspend operations at its Yongbyon reactor and allow on-site monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency as the first steps towards abandoning its nuclear programme. North Korea's senior nuclear negotiator Kim Kye-Gwan made the offer in exchange for US energy and economic aid and assurances that Washington would work to unfreeze 24 million dollars of the North's assets in a Macau bank, the paper said. Kim met his US counterpart Christopher Hill three times in Berlin last week for talks which both sides described as positive. Hill, who flew to South Korea, Japan and China after his Berlin discussions, said in Beijing on Monday that six-nation talks on North Korea's nuclear programme should resume as soon as possible. The talks, which group the two Koreas with China, Japan, Russia and the United States, have been going on since 2003 but assumed added urgency after the North staged its first nuclear weapons test last October. The last round of negotiations in December ended with little apparent progress, with Pyongyang demanding that the US financial curbs be lifted before any further discussions. Hill said the US Treasury Department would resume separate bilateral talks with North Korea soon on Macau's Banco Delta Asia. Chosun Ilbo quoted other sources as saying the North demanded that Washington consider transforming the armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean War into a peace treaty as soon as it starts implementing the initial measures, and the US gave a positive response. The North's official media said last week the Berlin talks resulted in an unspecified agreement. Hill denied any deal had been reached but described the meetings as "very useful." earlier related report North and South Korean nuclear negotiators arrive in China Beijing (AFP) Jan 22 - North and South Korea's nuclear envoys arrived in Beijing Monday, state media reported, shortly after the chief US negotiator said the six-party talks should resume as soon as possible. The state Xinhua news agency said Kim Kye-Gwan had arrived in the Chinese capital to "discuss the talks with the Chinese side." South Korea's chief nuclear negotiator Chun Yung Woo also arrived in Beijing Monday and said he would meet with his Chinese counterpart, Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei, on Tuesday morning, according to Xinhua. Chun said he planned to speak with Wu about the resumption of the nuclear talks aimed at persuading Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear programmes, Xinhua reported. Chun said he may also meet Kim in Beijing before his scheduled departure on Tuesday. US envoy Christopher Hill said here Monday after holding discussions with Wu that the negotiations on dismantling Pyongyang's nuclear programme should resume quickly. "I would hope the Chinese government will be able to announce soon the start-up of the six-party talks," Hill told journalists. Hill made the comments before flying back to the United States, wrapping up a whirlwind trip to brief South Korea, Japan and China on his rare one-on-one talks with Kim in Berlin last week. Kim was in Moscow on Sunday to brief Russia's envoy to the talks, Alexander Losyukov, according to the Itar-Tass news agency. North Korea blasts US stealth jets as challenge to dialogue Seoul (AFP) Jan 22 -North Korea Monday blasted the deployment of US stealth fighter jets in South Korea as a "blatant challenge" to efforts to end a standoff over its nuclear programme through dialogue. "Dialogue and military actions can never go together," the North's official Korean Central News Agency said in a commentary, demanding the immediate withdrawal of the jets. "This is a blatant challenge to the process to have genuine dialogue and peace." A squadron of radar-evading F-117 Nighthawk Stealth fighters arrived in the South last week amid continuing speculation over a second North Korean nuclear test. US officials said the deployment was for routine training. Such deployments usually last four months, and one squadron has between 15 and 24 fighters. Some 29,000 US troops are deployed in the South to deter any attack from the North. The deployment is "a grave military action running counter to the efforts to seek a peaceful settlement of the nuclear issue and bring peace to the Korean peninsula," the agency said. "The US behavior threatening its dialogue partner with its ultra modern war means, while asserting it attaches importance to the talks, is nothing but brazen-faced double-dealing tactics." -------- space China's Test and War in Space by Karl Grossman Published on Tuesday, January 23, 2007 by CommonDreams.org http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0123-29.htm China’s successful test of an anti-satellite weapon last week brought me back to a conference I keynoted at the United Nations in Geneva in 1999 on “The Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space.” I was followed by the first secretary of the Chinese delegation to the UN. As a journalist who has written on this issue, I presented on a screen documents starting with the U.S. Space Command’s Vision For 2020, issued the year before, envisioning U.S. space-based laser weapons zapping targets on Earth by the year 2020. It spoke of the U.S. military “dominating the space dimension of military operations to protect U.S. interests and investment” and “integrating Space Forces into warfighting capabilities across the full spectrum of conflict.” This “pushes us ­- all of us ­- toward war in the heavens,” I said, because “other nations will follow leading to a new arms race and ultimately war in space. This all must be stopped before it gets completely out of hand.” The Chinese first secretary, Wang Xiaoyu, then declared: “Outer space is the common heritage of human beings. It should be used entirely for peaceful purposes and for the economic, scientific and cultural development of all countries as well as the well-being of mankind. It must not be weaponized and become another arena of the arms race.” The next day, a vote was to be held on a bill advanced by China and Russia -­ and our neighbor, Canada -­on “banning the test, deployment and use of any weapons, weapons system and their components in outer space.” On my way to watch the vote, I came upon a high official of the U.S. delegation to the UN. He attended the earlier conference and wasn’t happy with my remarks. He welcomed providing me some “background.” With limits to U.S. power, he explained on the street outside the UN, the U.S. military believes “we can project power from space” and this is why the country is moving in this direction. As to other nations responding in kind, he said the U.S. military had done analyses and determined China is “30 years behind” in competing with the U.S. militarily in space and Russia “doesn’t have the money” for it. I recounted my travels in China, observing its technological strength, and noted China’s space prowess. And, I pointed to the enormous space capabilities and economic potential of Russia. A huge, potentially catastrophic miscalculation is being made, I said. We parted in disagreement. A few hours later, a near-unanimous vote was held on the measure to ban weapons in space. The U.S. voted no and, because consensus was required, it failed. This was during the Clinton administration. Under President George W. Bush the U.S. stance on space warfare has intensified. As the administration took office, a commission chaired by soon-to-be Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld issued a report proclaiming that “in the coming period the U.S. will conduct operations to, from, in, and through space to support its national interests.” Last October, the administration formally adopted a more aggressive U.S. position in a new U.S. National Space Policy that said the country will “develop and deploy space capabilities that sustain U.S. advantage.” It also said the U.S. “will oppose the development of new legal regimes or other restrictions” its “use of space.” What, in this context, does the Chinese test signify? Was it a demonstration showing that China never deserved to be trusted, its words mere rhetoric? Or, does it signify China, pushed by the U.S., indeed starting to respond in kind? Or does it mean, as China is maintaining in the face or international protests, that China is seeking to force the U.S. into negotiations on keeping weapons out of space? Two things are certain: China is not, as I was told by that U.S. diplomat, “30 years behind” in the military use of space, and there is a very a narrow window available for an international agreement keeping space free of weapons. The template is the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, a visionary pact developed by the U.S., United Kingdom and Soviet Union to prevent what 40 years ago was already feared as the weaponization of space. It bans nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction in space. What China, Russia ­- and our friends to our north, Canada -­ have been doing is trying to broaden that to all weapons. It’s high time that be done and it must done be soon. The U.S. has the technology to move into space with weapons. Believing it will end up the only nation up there with arms if it does so is a huge and tragic mistake. China and Russia ­- and who knows what country next ­- will follow us up. And, no nation will have an advantage. Meanwhile, vast amounts of financial resources will need to be expended for space weaponry by the people of these countries­money desperately needed for medical care, education, the environment and all the other great needs on Earth. The U.S. must join with the nations of the world now on an agreement (that includes a system of verification) providing the heavens not become a place for war. Karl Grossman, professor of journalism at the State University of New York College at Old Westbury, is the author of Weapons In Space (Seven Stories Press) and The Wrong Stuff (Common Courage Press) and host of the video documentary Nukes In Space: The Nuclearizaton and Weaponization of the Heavens (EnviroVideo). -------- u.s. nuc facilities Lack of Budget Could Hurt Nuclear Energy Revival, Official Says The senior member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission warned on Monday that the failure of Congress to pass a detailed budget for the current fiscal year could damage the nuclear renaissance that the government tried so hard to encourage with the energy bill of 2005. By MATTHEW L. WALD, January 23, 2007 NY Times http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/23/washington/23nuke.html WASHINGTON, Jan. 22 — The senior member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission warned on Monday that the failure of Congress to pass a detailed budget for the current fiscal year could damage the nuclear renaissance that the government tried so hard to encourage with the energy bill of 2005. No one has applied for permission to build a power reactor since the 1970s. But with the incentives offered by the federal government in 2005, utilities are considering building about 20 reactors, and several of them are expected to apply for authorization this year. The commission member, Edward McGaffigan Jr., said that if the commission received applications this year, “we basically are going to have to put them on the shelf, because we’re not going to have the folks to work on the applications until well into calendar year 2008.” Congress passed only 2 of the 11 spending bills for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1, 2006, those covering the Pentagon and the Homeland Security Department. The rest of the government has been operating under a “continuing resolution,” a stopgap measure that finances most agencies at the previous year’s levels. Democrats say they plan to extend that resolution through Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year. According to the nuclear commission, under a continuing resolution its budget would be lower by $95 million, or about 12 percent, compared with the level approved by the House and Senate Appropriations Committees but never by the full Congress. Most of the commission’s budget comes from fees paid by companies licensed to use radioactive material. The agency has been arguing on Capitol Hill that giving it the amount already approved by the Appropriations Committees would require only $13 million of general tax revenues. Mr. McGaffigan said that if the commission could not process applications, some companies wanting to build would decide to wait. But he said that “some, seeing the instability, may disappear” and build coal plants instead. Earlier this month, Mr. McGaffigan, saying he had metastatic melanoma, told the White House that he would serve only until a successor could be confirmed. He spoke Monday at a meeting with reporters organized by Platts, an energy information company. Mr. McGaffigan also said that the Energy Department should begin looking for alternatives to Yucca Mountain, in Nevada, for disposing of nuclear waste. When he came to the commission in 1996, he said, the opening of the repository was said to be 14 years away; now it is probably 20 years away. “There’s just tremendous uncertainty,” he said, “and each year that passes, we’re not going to get any closer to Yucca under the current circumstances.” He said the government should look for a site where there was local cooperation. ---- New nuclear power ‘wave’ — or just a ripple? How millions for lobbying, campaigns helped fuel U.S. industry's big plans By Mike Stuckey Senior news editor MSNBC Jan 23, 2007 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16272910/ Buoyed by billions of dollars in subsidies pushed through Congress by the Bush administration, the U.S. nuclear power industry says 2007 is the year its plans for a “renaissance” will reach critical mass. “We see a wave,” said Steve Kerekes, a spokesman with the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry’s chief lobbying arm, pointing to letters of intent by a dozen firms to seek licenses for as many as 31 new nuclear power reactors. “We definitely believe it’s going to be a whole new era of new plant construction in this country.” Kerekes credits improvements in plant design and efficiency and the ability to operate without spewing carbon into the air — a key advantage amid mounting concern about global warming — as chief reasons for the resurgence. But critics say the real catalyst has been well-funded lobbying by the industry. They believe tax dollars spent to jump-start the dormant industry would be better devoted to alternative energy sources like wind and solar power. "If this were a renaissance, you wouldn’t need to be enticing giant corporations with subsidies in order to get them to build reactors they claim are economically viable,” said Jim Riccio, nuclear policy analyst for the environmental group Greenpeace, a staunch foe of nuclear energy. A remarkable turnaround Regardless of which side is eventually proved correct, the mere discussion of building dozens of new reactors is a remarkable turnaround for an industry that less than 10 years ago was widely viewed as the energy sector’s unsafe and expensive also-ran. And it’s a textbook case of how the wheels of government can change direction quickly when enough money, influence and political will are applied. Nuclear power proponents say the interest in new plants is just one sign that the technology may finally be on the verge of achieving the widespread acceptance and use they have long envisioned. Among them: # The relicensing of four dozen U.S. commercial reactors. # The emergence of well-known environmentalists as supporters of nuclear technology. # Groundbreaking for a new uranium enrichment plant in New Mexico. # A breathtakingly ambitious Bush administration plan for a global nuclear fuel cartel to light up the developing world with electricity while avoiding the threat of nuclear proliferation. Ardent foes of nuclear energy like Paul Gunter of the Nuclear Information and Resources Service respond that these actions all are the result of pro-nuclear work by industry supporters in Congress and the Bush administration, not a genuine watershed in how investors and the public view nuclear power. “There’s a big difference between a letter of intent and the filing of an application,” he said of the new plants, predicting that problems with waste disposal, safety and security will ultimately stall what he refers to as a nuclear power “relapse.” And while key committee chairmanships will remain in the hands of strong pro-nuclear lawmakers, the retaking of Congress by the Democrats could also present some roadblocks, especially on the central issue of waste, he said. That lawmakers are once more considering such issues shows how far the nuclear energy needle has moved since the mid-1990s. Three Mile Island: The last straw After its birth as an outgrowth of weapons programs in World War II, the nuclear energy industry battled design problems, cost overruns, safety issues and environmental foes for years to wind up with the 103 U.S. reactors that remain in commercial operation today from California to New Hampshire. As construction delays and costs escalated, the meltdown at Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island nuclear plant in the spring of 1979 was the last straw for those who held the purse strings to new reactor construction. No new commercial reactors have been ordered since, although previously ordered plants continued to be built and come online until 1996. The 1986 accident at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in the Soviet Union, which is blamed for about 60 deaths by the World Health Organization, further tarnished the technology’s image. At that point, “any talk about a new plant (in the U.S.) would have been dismissed as childish optimism,” admits nuclear power’s chief congressional cheerleader, Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M. While accidents and economics halted nuclear expansion in the U.S., they did not have the same impact elsewhere. Of the 322 operating electricity-generating reactors currently in operation outside the United States, 171 began operating in the 1980s, 48 in the 1990s and 28 so far this century, according to the NEI. Twenty-nine more reactors are under construction outside the country, and 10 nations get more than 40 percent of their electricity from nuclear reactors, led by France at 78.5 percent. In the U.S., chastened nuclear operators focused on improving safety and efficiency at existing plants. They were successful: There have been no notable U.S. accidents since Three Mile Island and the U.S. reactor fleet has produced at about 90 percent of licensed capacity since 2001, up considerably from efficiency figures of the early 1980s. Nuclear plants today produce about 20 percent of the electricity used in the United States. Industry improvements are “an outgrowth, in all honesty, of the Three Mile Island accident," NEI's Kerekes said, "because the steps that were taken after that do a better job of sharing information in our industry and applying best practices.” Industry gets a second wind The industry’s first big step in its transformation from bastard stepchild to energy panacea and clean air savior came in 1997. That’s when Domenici delivered what he calls a “storied speech on nuclear power” at Harvard. The veteran senator was well-acquainted with nuclear issues by virtue of representing New Mexico, the birthplace of nuclear weapons and the home of two of the nation’s nuclear laboratories. Long fascinated by “gee-whiz-bang technical stuff,” in the words of one acquaintance, and mindful of the nuclear industry’s improving efficiency record, Domenici became convinced the technology was not getting a fair shake. Urged on by a number of true believer aides that included Alex Flint, now the industry’s chief lobbyist, and Pete Lyons, now a Nuclear Regulatory Commission member, Domenici urged U.S. policy-makers to undo “bad decisions” of the past and harness “the full potential of the nucleus.” The Domenici speech was followed up by a 1998 forum that gathered 60 participants from industry, government and academia to draft a plan to put nuclear power back on the nation’s energy agenda. With those talking points in hand, the industry saw its best opening in years in the 2000 presidential election and backed the Bush-Cheney ticket with nearly $270,000 in contributions, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The victorious Republicans welcomed industry representatives to their energy transition team and later private discussions by Vice President Dick Cheney’s task force on energy. Familiar names from the 1998 forum popped up on the energy transition team: Flint, Domenici's former aide who was in between Senate staff jobs and working as a lobbyist for the industry; Flint’s new boss, former Louisiana Sen. Bennett Johnston, a strong ally of the nuclear industry while in Congress; and Joe Colvin, then president of NEI. At least another half-dozen of their industry colleagues also were involved. Bush administration ties But nuclear interests had long had the attention of Bush and Cheney, themselves major players in the oil and gas industry. One of the biggest names on the Bush energy transition team was Thomas Kuhn, president of the Edison Electric Institute, which represents the electric power industry and its nuclear reactor owners. Not only was Kuhn the president’s Yale classmate and longtime friend, he was one of Bush’s biggest fund-raisers. A study by Common Cause found that in the six years that bracketed the 2000 election, Kuhn’s organization and its members gave $41 million to political campaigns, three-fourths of it to Republicans. Cheney also had close ties to players with stakes in the nuclear sector. When the vice president was CEO of Halliburton, the company’s portfolio included Nuclear Utility Services. His close friend, former Texas Rep. Tom Loeffler, another big Republican fund-raiser, worked as a lobbyist on nuclear issues. And Cheney’s wife, Lynne, had served on the board of directors of Lockheed Martin, which earned millions from the federal government managing the Sandia Nuclear Laboratory in New Mexico. Once in office, Cheney’s energy task force worked quickly and behind closed doors. Kuhn had regular input, though he was not a member of the group. As the administration’s energy policy began to emerge in the spring of 2001, its support for the nuclear power industry was beyond “my wildest dreams,” Christian H. Poindexter, chairman of the Constellation Energy Group, later told the New York Times. A number of the policy’s final recommendations, including broad administration support for “the expansion of nuclear energy,” streamlining the regulatory process and opening the way to reprocessing spent fuel, had been included in the action plan drafted by the 1998 forum that followed Domenici’s Harvard speech. At a press conference in the spring of 2001 to herald the administration’s energy plan, Domenici congratulated Bush and Cheney for “being courageous and realistic” on the nuclear front and embarked on a four-year effort to turn the plan into law. Task force records remain secret Cheney's conduct of the task force sessions in secret angered journalists and others. Groups at opposite ends of the political spectrum sued over what Tom Fitton of the conservative group Judicial Watch, one of the plaintiffs, called an "unprecedented assertion of executive branch supremacy," but were largely unsuccessful in forcing the release of records they sought. Six months after unveiling its energy plan, the administration forged ahead with the “Nuclear Power 2010 program,” which the Department of Energy described as a cost-sharing demonstration project by government and industry to get a new generation of nuclear reactors up and running by “early in the next decade.” On Capitol Hill, however, energy legislation languished until Republicans regained control of the Senate in 2003, giving Domenici the chairmanship of the Senate Energy Committee. He hired back Flint, his former aide, from the nuclear lobbying ranks to direct the committee’s work and after 2½ years of horse-trading, parliamentary maneuvering and secret conference committee meetings, the bill finally became law in August 2005. Flint has since returned to work for the industry as its chief lobbyist. Domenici, meanwhile, led the fight to build a new uranium enrichment plant in his state to help fuel the presumed nuclear resurgence. On June 23, 2006, it became the first nuclear facility to win a new NRC license in 30 years. Both have declined repeated requests to be interviewed by MSNBC.com. The senator also has become a strong supporter of the Bush administration’s Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, a futuristic and controversial plan for the United States and other nuclear “haves” to supply technology to “have-nots.” The plan envisions the reprocessing of spent fuel, banned for decades by previous administrations because it was feared it could lead to the spread of nuclear weapons. Billions pour into ‘renaissance’ Nuclear industry perks in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 were spotlighted when President Bush signed the bill at Sandia National Lab in Domenci's home state of New Mexico. With his signature, billions in federal assistance flowed from Bush’s pen into the nuclear “renaissance,” including: # $3 billion in research subsidies. # More than $3 billion in construction subsidies for new nuclear power plants. # Nearly $6 billion in operating tax credits. # More than $1 billion in subsidies to decommission old plants. # A 20-year extension of liability caps for accidents at nuclear plants. # Federal loan guarantees for the construction of new power plants. Critics say the energy bill amply rewarded the industry for years of investment in campaign contributions and lobbying. “There no question that the utility industry lobbying and campaign contributions has had a huge influence,” said Tyson Slocum of the anti-nuclear group Public Citizen. “... These are business people and business people do not part with money easily unless they are making investments. Politics is not a charity, it’s not tax deductible. The return on that investment dwarfs anything that they could get on Wall Street.” But NEI's Kerekes said the legislation reflects the energy realities of the new century. “That would be a wonderful myth to peddle,” he said, arguing that nuclear power found new favor on Wall Street and in Congress on its own merits. “Unless they’re going to accuse us of stoking concerns about global climate change over the past 15 or 20 years, I think that argument becomes pretty hollow pretty quickly.” Patrick Moore, a co-founder of the vehemently anti-nuclear group Greenpeace and one of a number of well-known environmentalists who now back nuclear power, agrees that nuclear energy earned a second look. Greenpeace founder embraces nuclear energy “I honestly believe that the concern for emissions is why people are saying, ‘Hey we should be building more nuclear,’” said Moore, whose Vancouver, B.C.-based, consulting firm is now retained by the nuclear industry to improve its image. While the effect of the industry's campaign contributions and lobbying efforts in the years before the energy bill's passage are debatable, the amount of money invested is remarkable by any measure. Numerous reports from watchdog groups provide some details, but the fragmented nature of campaign finance disclosure and lobbying reports makes it difficult to determine cumulative figures. Many contributors, such as General Electric (owner of NBC Universal, which in turn is a partner with Microsoft in MSNBC.com), have numerous business concerns beyond nuclear energy. Others, like the U.S. Enrichment Corporation and NEI, are exclusively focused on nuclear energy. But even a partial accounting is eye opening. MSNBC.com culled these statistics from campaign finance data provided by the Center for Responsive Politics via federal reports: # Companies in the energy and natural resources sectors, which includes nuclear power, and their employees, have donated $212.2 million to the campaigns of federal candidates since 2000 alone, three-fourths of it to Republicans. # Employees and political action committees of 23 large companies involved in efforts to build new U.S. nuclear reactors gave nearly $41 million to federal candidates from 1998 through this year. The donations accelerated as nuclear power regained favor, totaling $3.5 million in the 1998 election cycle, $4.6 million for 2000, $9.5 million for 2002, $11.3 million for 2004 and more than $12 million in 2006. # Lobbying expenses reported by the same 23 firms from 1998 through 2005 exceeded $292.5 million. # Four members of Congress singled out by Bush at the signing ceremony as instrumental in the energy bill's passage have been major recipients of nuclear industry largesse. Since 1989, Domenici has received $384,923 from electric utilities with big stakes in nuclear power, and his list of donors includes at least three dozen firms on the membership roster of the NEI. Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., who succeeded Domenici as chairman of the Senate Energy Committee in January, got $406,576 from electric utilities in the same period and five of his top seven donors are tied to the nuclear industry. Former House Energy Committee Chairman Joe Barton, R-Texas, received $1 million from electric utilities and his Lone Star colleague on the panel, Republican Ralph Hall, got $536,670. Probe of energy task force promised While there is little expectation that the Democratic-controlled Congress will seek to substantially roll back provisions of the energy bill, which was approved by an overwhelming majority in both houses, skeptics say some elements of the onrushing "nuclear renaissance" could face new scrutiny. In particular, the new chairman of the House Energy Committee, Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., has vowed to investigate the Cheney energy task force, saying it was "carefully cooked to provide only participation by oil companies and energy companies." Dingell himself has been a favorite recipient of campaign contributions from the nuclear power industry over the years. Dr. Edwin Lyman of the Union of Concerned Scientists and other critics say the industry now faces the challenge of proving its economic argument. The only way to do that, he said, is by demonstrating that the resurgence will result in the construction of more than “a small number of reactors, exactly the number that receive subsidies under the Energy Policy Act.” But Adrian Heymer, NEI’s senior director for new plant deployment, said the extent of the rebound will soon be clear; applications to build a majority of the 30-plus new nuclear reactors are expected by year's end. He also brushed aside complaints that the streamlined NRC review process for the new license applications shuts out important opportunities for public comment and participation. “There’s more opportunity for public involvement, a lot more information is available earlier to the public,” he said. Besides, he added, there may be little opposition to some of the plants, slated to be built on existing nuclear sites and actively sought by community leaders who look favorably on the economic benefits of large construction projects and the permanent jobs the plants will bring. Don’t count on it, countered Gunter. “The anti-nuclear movement has been seasoned; we’re a lot more sophisticated and far more educated now as to the hazards and folly of nuclear power," he said. "None of the concerns that brought about the anti-nuclear movement in the 1970s have disappeared. They’ve only been magnified. We have no better clue as to how to manage nuclear waste now than we did in 1975.” Waste disposal remains key issue All parties agree that any large-scale nuclear renaissance will depend on answering the thorny political and technical questions surrounding the handling of spent fuel. The industry and administration’s current bid to get the Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada licensed are seen as dead by many observers because the new Senate majority leader, Democrat Harry Reid of Nevada, has always firmly opposed the facility. But new initiatives are afoot to break the Yucca deadlock. And given long lead times for licensing and construction, “that doesn’t have to happen next year or even in the next Congress,” said Scott Peterson, another NEI spokesman. Still the prediction that one or more new nuclear reactors will be operating “early in the next decade,” as envisioned by the Bush administration, remains open to question. And some experts are betting against the house. Matthew Bunn, a senior researcher on nuclear issues at Harvard and a supporter of nuclear power, doubts it. Certainly, he said, “The fast pace of growth just ain’t going to happen for some number of years.” He recalls a bet he made with a friend a couple years back that work would not begin on a single new nuclear power plant in the United States within 10 years. "We’re now down to eight years, so I’m a little more nervous, but I still think I’ll win,” he said. ---- Nuclear renaissance in neutral, NRC member says Matthew L. Wald New York Times News Service Tue, Jan. 23, 2007 http://www.sanluisobispo.com/mld/sanluisobispo/16527780.htm WASHINGTON - The senior member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission warned Monday that the failure of Congress to pass a detailed budget for the current fiscal year could damage the nuclear renaissance that the government tried so hard to encourage with the energy bill of 2005. No one has applied for permission to build a power reactor since the 1970s. But with the incentives offered by the federal government in 2005, utilities are considering building about 20 reactors, and several of them are expected to apply for authorization this year. The commission member, Edward McGaffigan Jr., said that if the commission received applications this year, "we basically are going to have to put them on the shelf, because we're not going to have the folks to work on the applications until well into calendar year 2008." The Republican-controlled Congress passed only two of the 11 spending bills for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1, 2006, those covering the Pentagon and the Homeland Security Department. The rest of the government has been operating under a "continuing resolution," a stopgap measure that finances most agencies at the previous year' levels. Democrats say they plan to extend that resolution through Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year. According to the nuclear commission, under a continuing resolution its budget would be lower by $95 million, or about 12 percent, compared with the level approved by the House and Senate Appropriations Committees but never by the full Congress. Most of the commission's budget comes from fees paid by companies licensed to use radioactive material. The agency has been arguing on Capitol Hill that giving it the amount already approved by the Appropriations Committees would require only $13 million of general tax revenues. McGaffigan said that if the commission could not process applications, some companies wanting to build would decide to wait. But he said that "some, seeing the instability, may disappear" and build coal plants instead. Earlier this month, McGaffigan told the White House he had metastatic melanoma and that he would serve only until a successor could be confirmed. He spoke Monday at a meeting with reporters organized by Platts, an energy information company. McGaffigan also said that the Energy Department should begin looking for alternatives to Yucca Mountain, in Nevada, for disposing of nuclear waste from plants around the country, including Diablo Canyon near Avila Beach. When he came to the commission in 1996, he said, the opening of the repository was said to be 14 years away; now it is probably 20 years away. "There's just tremendous uncertainty," he said, "and each year that passes, we're not going to get any closer to Yucca under the current circumstances." He said the government should look for a site where there was local cooperation. ---- One Environmentalist Confronts the Nuclear Question Tuesday, January 23, 2007 NEI Nuclear Notes http://neinuclearnotes.blogspot.com/2007/01/one-environmentalist-confronts-nuclear.html After reading an article in the San Francisco Chronicle where one Nobel Prize winner endorsed a wide-scale expansion of nuclear energy as a way to curb greenhouse gas emissions while still providing affordable power, one of the contributors to Groovy Green wrote the following: The one befuddling thing was the belief that nuclear energy will be our saving grace in the end. Is this true? I am not as knowledgeable on nuclear energy as I am on solar or wind power. Professor Smoot does make a good point when he says nuclear technology is the one thing we can produce at scale that we need, but is the ”manufacturing” of this form of energy worse than the energy itself? Will the end result of nuclear energy justify the means in which it is made? My suggestion: Take a look at a presentation that NEI CEO Skip Bowman gave to the National Academy of Engineering late last year (PPT). It's an honest assesment of why we're seeing utilities think about building new nuclear plants that also includes answers to many of the standard questions the industry gets about safety, security, waste and economics. Anyone who is interested in the issue should take time to read it. http://www.nei.org/documents/Speech_Bowman_10-16-06.ppt -------- kansas New Nuclear In Kansas? From the AP: Tuesday, January 23, 2007 http://neinuclearnotes.blogspot.com/2007/01/new-nuclear-in-kansas.html Although no one currently is planning to build a nuclear plant in Kansas, state lawmakers will consider making that possibility more attractive as part of a package of energy-related issues. The bill, which is scheduled for a public hearing Tuesday, would provide incentives for building a nuclear power plant in the state. The bill "is a recognition that as we look at energy independence for the state, nuclear, renewable energy and coal all have a place," said State Rep. Tom Sloan, R-Lawrence, a member of the House Energy and Utilities Committee. The legislation would exempt any new nuclear generation or new construction at the Wolf Creek nuclear plant near Burlington from property taxes. Sloan said the proposed bill simply would lay the groundwork for expanding nuclear power, if it ever becomes economically and politically feasible. -------- michigan Michigan attorney general opposes proposed sale of Palisades Nuclear Plant Tuesday, January 23, 2007 (AP) http://hollandsentinel.com/stories/012307/local_20070123007.shtml LANSING -- Michigan's attorney general said Monday that he opposes Consumers Energy's proposed sale of the Palisades Nuclear Plant near South Haven. The sale, which is being reviewed by the Michigan Public Service Commission, would require Consumers Energy to buy all of the plant's power output for 15 years. Attorney General Mike Cox said ratepayers would pay at least $62 million more for electricity than they otherwise would have paid if the sale doesn't go through. He also questioned whether the sale would deplete funding needed to decommission the plant and pay for cleanup in 2031, and urged state regulators to slow down the review process. "It's a phony deal," Cox said during a news conference. New Orleans-based utility holding company Entergy Corp. wants to buy the plant for $380 million. It's currently owned by Jackson-based CMS Energy Corp., whose subsidiary is Consumers Energy. A message seeking comment was left with a Consumers spokesman Monday. Cox said his office will begin testimony opposing the sale today before the Public Service Commission. The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission said last week that it had renewed the operating license of the Palisades plant for another 20 years. The plant produces about 18 percent of Consumers Energy's electricity generating capacity. ---- Michigan's Cox against Palisades sale Tue, 23 Jan 2007 UPI http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/23182.html LANSING, Mich., Jan. 23 Michigan's attorney general will ask state regulators to block the sale of the Palisades nuclear plant over fears of pricier and less reliable electricity. Mike Cox said Monday he'll testify before the Michigan Public Service Commission against the sale of Palisades by Consumer's Energy to Entergy Nuclear Palisades LLC. My experts conclude that ratepayers will pay at least $62 million more for electricity for the next nine years than they otherwise would if the sale did not go through, Cox said in a news release. He also said the state would lose its ability to regulate power prices since Entergy is an energy wholesaler and not regulated by the commission. Palisades is a single reactor plant generating 789 megawatts of power in Covert, Mich., on Lake Michigan. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission last week approved Palisades' license renewal for 20 years, allowing it to operate through 2030. Entergy would pay $380 million for the plant. Consumers would get $375 million and $5 million would be returned to ratepayers via rebates. Consumers would still purchase power from Palisades and deliver it to customers. Cox's office is also worried Entergy would opt to avoid paying expensive repairs by just shuttering the plant (a 12-month notice is required within the first 15 years of operation). Consumers is also offering to give up to $316 million to consumers from its decommissioning fund, money charged to ratepayers put into an account to pay for clearing the plant from the site. Matt Frendewey, a spokesman for Cox, said the fund would still have the minimum amount needed legally, but is far below the more than $550 million that Consumers has said it is needed to pay to decommission Palisades. Every part of this deal is a little catch that we find a problem with, Frendewey said. -------- missouri Westminster students arrested for nuclear plant breach By KIMBERLY LONG The Fulton Sun Tuesday, Jan 23, 2007 Shawn K. Milligan http://www.fultonsun.com/articles/2007/01/23/news/342news11.txt REFORM, Mo. - Two Westminster College students are out on bond after allegedly breaching security last week at the Callaway Nuclear Power Plant. Shawn K. Milligan, 22, of St. Louis, and Corey A. Meyer, 19 of Cape Girardeau, were taken into custody at the plant by the Callaway County Sheriff's Department and charged with first-degree trespassing. Law enforcement officials would not divulge the reason the students gave for being at the facility, but did state that the incident is not considered to be connected with any terrorist act. Both the FBI and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission were contacted as part of standard procedure. The Callaway County Sheriff's Department handled the investigation. “They gave us a story, but that's something we can't discuss at this time,” said Callaway County Sheriff Dennis Crane on Friday. “All we can say is that they were trespassing, they both bonded out on $500 each, and that no other charges are expected.” Crane also confirmed that a soft air pistol was found in the subjects' vehicle. According to CCSD reports, the incident occurred at approximately 8:20 p.m. when AmerenUE security observed the two subjects drive into a fenced-in area of the plant and take pictures via a cell phone. The area is not considered a high-security area of the plant, but it does have restricted access, Ameren officials said. “People have access to this area, but they have to have authorization to be there, and these two did not,” explained Michael Cleary, AmerenUE communications executive. The photos, he said, contained images of the plant's cooling tower and were deleted. “It's hard to speculate why they were there. Whatever their motives were, they were trespassing on our property,” Cleary said. “We hope this incident will help others in the community know that operations at the nuclear power plant are critical and the boundaries must be respected.” Milligan and Meyer are scheduled to appear in Callaway County Circuit Court in February. Westminster officials Monday acknowledged the arrests and stated their intentions to take appropriate actions once the investigation is concluded. “The situation is under investigation by law enforcement officials and the college is reviewing the situation as well under our disciplinary procedures,” said Rob Crouse, director of college relations at Westminster. -------- new york Deadline extended for new emergency sirens around Indian Point The Associated Press January 23, 2007 http://www.topix.net/content/ap/2117780522261817231840915926320607934421 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Tuesday extended the deadline for a new emergency siren system around the Indian Point nuclear power plants. Rather than insisting on the original deadline _ Jan. 30 _ the NRC said the plants' owner, Entergy Nuclear Northeast, had justified a delay and granted an extension to April 15. Entergy had asked for the extension, saying it needed time to strengthen a 430-foot tower that will hold some of the new system's equipment. The existing sirens have failed several times in recent tests. They are meant to warn residents within 10 miles of Indian Point if there is an emergency. -------- pennsylvania Owner of TMI increases energy output for 4th year Tuesday, January 23, 2007 Patriot News http://www.pennlive.com/business/patriotnews/index.ssf?/base/business/1169511904268160.xml&coll=1 The company that owns Three Mile Island and nine other nuclear power plants reported that it produced enough energy last year to power 16 million typical homes. Chicago-based Exelon Nuclear reported generation of 131.4 billion kilowatt-hours in 2006, according to statements released by the company. Three Mile Island, the nuclear plant in Londonderry Twp., accounted for 7.2 billion kilowatt-hours. It was the third-highest production level in plant history. The production set a record for the fourth year in a row. The previous record was 130.4 billion kilowatt-hours in 2005. In other news from the company: # Exelon finished the year with a fleet-wide production rate of 93.9 percent. # The company set a fleet capacity record of 98.1 percent during the summer months when demand is highest. Capacity factor is a ratio of the electricity produced compared with what theoretically could be produced by running at full power without interruptions. # Exelon posted its best worker safety record in company history -- 14 injuries among 6,800 full-time employees in 2006. Exelon owns 10 nuclear power plants, including the TMI, Peach Bottom and Limerick plants in Pennsylvania. -------- MILITARY -------- afghanistan India announces $100 mln more aid for Afghanistan By Reuters Tuesday January 23, 07 http://in.news.yahoo.com/070123/137/6bfhy.html KABUL (Reuters) - India is to give Afghanistan another $100 million in aid, taking its total assistance to Kabul to $750 million since 2001, Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee said on Tuesday. Bilateral relations have blossomed since the Taliban regime fell just over five years ago, and this has caused some concern in Pakistan, Afghanistan's neighbour and India's old rival. "Indian-Afghan bilateral relations are fast developing into a partnership which is very special to us," Mukherjee told a news conference with his Afghan counterpart, Rangeen Dadfar Spanta. "We are glad to be able to contribute to the reconstruction and rebuilding of Afghanistan," he said. Mukherjee said he would extend an invitation from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Afghan President Hamid Karzai to attend a south Asian summit in New Delhi this year. The seven-member South Asia Association for Regional Cooperation has agreed to make Afghanistan its eighth member. The two countries also announced new projects under which India will help establish small projects of less than $1 million and train civil servants. Both Mukherjee and Spanta said better relations between India and Afghanistan were good for peace in the region. Asked about Pakistani concern over warming Indian-Afghan ties, Mukherjee spoke of talks he held in Islamabad this month. "During my last visit to Pakistan I emphasised the need of India and Pakistan coming closer together so that we can provide peace and stability to the whole region," he said. He said he had asked Islamabad to extend land transit facilities to Indian goods and services going to Afghanistan. Pakistan had yet to allow the movement. New Delhi is providing help to Kabul in a number of fields including health, education and infrastructure. India is also helping Afghanistan build a new parliament which Spanta said symbolised India's commitment to human rights and democracy in his country. -------- asia US military power seen at risk by China's satellite-busting ability by P. Parameswaran Tue Jan 23, 2007 (AFP) http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070123/pl_afp/chinaspacemilitaryus_070123143316 WASHINGTON - China's new satellite-killing capability threatens US military supremacy in Asia, especially Washington's ability to swiftly come to Taiwan's defense, American experts say. The United States is Taiwan's security guarantor against any possible Chinese invasion. But the recent successful test of a Chinese satellite destruction missile raises the prospect of Beijing scuttling America's critical satellite network in a possible war. "The prospect of losing a good chunk of our satellite coverage, our satellite network in space in a Taiwan combat scenario really does change the equation for American planners on how we approach the defense of Taiwan should it need it," John Tkacik, a former State Department expert on China, told AFP. Taiwan has several satellites up in orbit now, including two imaging ones used for intelligence and surveillance purposes. If the Chinese pursued the satellites during hostilities, it could cause Washington to have second thoughts about getting involved. "If especially the United States felt that its satellites were equally vulnerable, it's a disturbing new development," said Tkacik, the former chief of China analysis in the State Department's bureau of intelligence and research. US officials revealed last week that China had destroyed one of its own orbiting weather satellites earlier this month using a ballistic missile, making it the third country after the former Soviet Union and the United States to shoot down an object in space. In Beijing, foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao confirmed the test on Tuesday and said it had already notified Washington. He insisted however that China never has, "and will never, participate in any form of space arms race." The successful test -- the first such intercept in more than 20 years -- means China can theoretically shoot down spy satellites or other orbiters operated by other nations, sparking fears of a space-based arms race. "There has been long a desire on China's part to try to have weapons to shoot down or at least interfere with American satellites which America depends upon in order to meet its defense commitment in Asia," said former senior Pentagon official Dan Blumenthal. "So it very much puts in the minds of American planners, policy makers how to overcome this now more costly commitment," he said. Blumenthal said Taiwan will be a "central" issue of the China's satellite-killing capability because the most likely flashpoint between Washington and Beijing is over Taiwan, which China considers a renegade province. Amid the active competition in space, "the United States is going to be taking countermeasures to protect its satellite constellations," he said. Stratfor, an American security and intelligence think-tank, said Beijing's first attempts to control space would not be an effort to match US capabilities but "rather to become master of its own domain above East Asia. "Facing the major competitor in all of space, China will tailor its offensive space capability specifically toward countering US dominance -- at least in part," it said. Japan and other challengers to Beijing's regional hegemony, however, will not be far behind, Stratfor added. The United States has a military alliance with Japan, which harbors US troops mostly in Okinawa, strategically close to the Taiwan Strait. Since the Persian Gulf War about 20 years ago, Washington has been saying that the strategic center of American military and naval power is its space networks. "The way that the United States communicates, transmits data, gets a picture of the battle space, gathers 90 percent of its intelligence, is through its space networks. And without that we are blinded, we are made deaf and dumb, and you simply couldn't function," Tkacik said. He said space networks were particularly crucial to defending Taiwan and Japan. "If it was just a local conflict and we are suddenly blinded, I think we could handle that. But in a large area like Okinawa, Taiwan, Taiwan Strait, I think it would be very difficult to communicate between ships and (from) aircraft to ships to find out where the enemy is," he said. The US Defense Department says China is spending two to three times more on its military than the 35 billion dollars a year it has acknowledged. A department report last year concluded that while Taiwan appears to be the near-term focus of China's military spending, the build-up poses a potential threat to the United States over the longer term. China has consistently maintained that its military build-up is for defensive purposes only, while claiming that it has no history of invading other countries. -------- mideast Lebanon: UN calls for urgent aid to clean up toxic debris from summer war with Israel 23 January 2007 UN News Centre http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=21304&Cr=lebanon&Cr1= Lebanon needs urgent international support to clean up widespread pollution caused by last summer’s war between Israel and Hizbollah, including a variety of toxic and health-hazardous substances as well as unexploded cluster bombs, the United Nations environmental agency warned today on the eve of a major donors’ conference. “The sheer scale of the debris is overwhelming existing municipal dump sites and waste management regimes,” the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said in releasing a report by 12 environmental experts who carried out an in-depth field assessment between late September and mid-October. “Urgent action is needed to remove and safely dispose of such substances, which include ash and leaked chemicals amid concerns they represent a threat to water supplies and public health,” UNEP added in a news release. The report stresses the importance of rapidly removing unexploded cluster bombs, especially in the south of the country where large areas of economically important agricultural land have become “out of bounds” for farmers, noting that de-mining could take up to 15 months. On a more positive note, it indicates that oil pollution to the marine environment has been largely contained and contamination levels appear to be generally typical of coastal areas of that part of the Mediterranean – good news for the country’s economically important tourism and fisheries sectors. In a further positive finding, particularly in light of various high profile media reports, detailed field tests and analysis of samples from sites struck by munitions found no evidence that missiles contained depleted uranium or other kinds of radioactive material, although they confirmed the use of white phosphorous, an incendiary and smoke-producing agent. “The report provides a comprehensive picture of the outstanding environmental problems facing the Lebanon and its people,” UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner said. “Some of these, like war-related debris, cluster bombs on farmland, toxic waste – the result of bomb damage and fires at industrial facilities – and the widespread damage to water and sewage systems require urgent remedial action. “Others are more long-term in nature including the necessity for systematic monitoring of the health of local populations, and the environment, in certain key locations,” he added, voicing the hope that the report will galvanize the international community, including those attending a Lebanon reconstruction meeting in Paris in two days time to face up to the environmental challenge. -------- prisoners of war The Waste Land: Declassified poetry from Guantánamo Bay Posted on Tuesday, January 23, 2007. Harpers Magazine By Ken Silverstein. http://www.harpers.org/sb-the-waste-land-1169582427.html Jumah al-Dossari, originally from Bahrain, was seized by Pakistani security forces in late 2001 and turned over to the United States. The U.S. military brought him to the Guantánamo Bay detention facility in Cuba, where, he claims, he was beaten, his life was threatened, and he was isolated from other prisoners for long stretches of time. Dossari, who denies any connection to Al Qaeda or terrorism, and has never been charged with any such crime, has repeatedly attempted to commit suicide while imprisoned. His most recent attempt, according to Amnesty International, was in March 2006, when he tried to slit his throat. Death Poem By Jumah al-Dossari Take my blood. Take my death shroud and The remnants of my body. Take photographs of my corpse at the grave, lonely. Send them to the world, To the judges and To the people of conscience, Send them to the principled men and the fair-minded. And let them bear the guilty burden, before the world, Of this innocent soul. Let them bear the burden, before their children and before history, Of this wasted, sinless soul, Of this soul which has suffered at the hands of the “protectors of peace.” That poem will be included in a collection of poetry by Guantánamo detainees that is being assembled by Marc Falkoff, a law professor at Northern Illinois University and an attorney for seventeen clients at the prison camp. Poems from Guantánamo: The Detainees Speak will be published this fall by the University of Iowa Press and will include essays by several prominent literary and cultural figures. Most of the poems were written in Arabic and translated by non-professionals. Falkoff, who has a doctorate in literature, was intrigued when several of his clients began sending him poems. “I didn't think much of it,” he told me, “until I was reading a terrifically moving volume of poems called Here, Bullet by Brian Turner, an Iraq War vet. I started thinking about the power of topical poetry, and it occurred to me that the public should read the poetry that my clients wrote. I was curious if other lawyers had clients who’d written poetry, so I asked around and learned that there was a lot of it in their files. It hit me that we could pull a lot of this stuff together as a collection so the public could, yes, hear the voices of Guantánamo, and perhaps move [[beyond]] the administration's sloganeering.” Falkoff won't be able to include all of the works he had hoped to, because the Pentagon has classified some of the poems. In a September 18, 2006 memo, a Pentagon official explained that several poems submitted for declassification had been rejected because poetry “presents a special risk” due to its “content and format.” It was not made clear whether the Pentagon believes the danger lies in the power of words or in the risk that detainees could send coded messages to terrorist operatives through their poems. “As much as I'd like to think it's the former, I presume it's the latter,” Falkoff replied when I asked him about the military's thinking on the matter. Of the work that has been cleared for publication, Falkoff plans to include “Ode to the Sea” by Ibrahim al Rubaish (“Your beaches are sadness, captivity, pain and injustice whose bitterness eats away at patience/Your calm is death, and your sweeping is strange and a silence rises up from you, holding treachery in its fold”) and “Even if the Pain” by Saddiq Turkestani. The latter is one of nine ethnic Uighurs whom the Pentagon long ago determined not to be “enemy combatants” but continues to hold because they would likely be tortured and killed if sent home to China. The Bush Administration won't allow them into the United States, and no other government has volunteered to take them. Several of the poets in the volume were released from Guantánamo after long periods of incarceration, without ever having been charged. They include the Moazzam Begg of Britain (“Freedom is spent, time is up/Tears have rent my sorrow’s cup/Home is cage, and cage is steel/Thus manifest reality’s unreal”) and Abdur Rahim Muslim Dost of Afghanistan (“Those who argue or reason unjustly and foolishly with Dost the Poet/They can't help to surrender or runaway”). Dost's brother, Badruzzaman Badr, was also detained at Guantanamo and later freed (his work, too, will appear in the collection). Both men returned to their home in Peshawar, Pakistan, and last September published The Broken Shackles of Guantanamo, which describes their experiences there. The book is also critical of the ISI, Pakistan's intelligence agency, and its collaboration with the United States in the “war on terror.” On September 29 of last year, Dost was arrested as he left a local mosque; he has thus far not been charged but has been prevented from seeing an attorney or his family. His brother has reportedly gone into hiding. -------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE -------- human rights Cities go further to help homeless Posted 1/23/2007 By Charisse Jones, USA TODAY http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-01-23-homeless_x.htm NEW YORK — It took a new kind of shelter to bring Thomas Malinowski in off the streets where he has slept and lived for 13 years. At the 2-month-old Safe Haven, the first shelter of its kind in the city, there is no curfew and no requirement that residents give up alcohol or drugs in order to have a bed. It gave Malinowski, 48, comfort to see other men he'd met during his years roaming from the Lower East Side to Harlem. "I said if they got this person off the street and that person off the street, something's got to be right," he says. Safe Haven is one of several steps the city is taking to achieve Mayor Michael Bloomberg's ambitious goal of reducing the homeless population here by two-thirds by 2009. As New York and other cities throughout the USA conduct a biennial count this month of those living on their streets, at least 285 communities are creating or implementing plans to end homelessness in a decade. More than 2 million Americans experience homelessness during the course of a year, according to the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, the federal agency overseeing the government's response to the issue. Cities are going far beyond providing emergency shelter, focusing on creating housing and even giving families rent money to avoid eviction. "The question is why have so many mayors signed on," says Philip Mangano, the council's executive director. "They recognize it's the right thing to do morally, and it's also the right thing to do economically." Ten-year plans In 2000, the National Alliance to End Homelessness, a Washington-based advocacy group, proposed the 10-year goal. President Bush issued a similar call in 2002. Bush focused on the chronically homeless, which federal rules define as adults who have an addiction, mental health problem or disability and who have been homeless for at least a year or four times within three years. "We'll never have a time where people don't have housing crises," says Nan Roman, president of the National Alliance to End Homelessness. "What we're looking for is a time that a housing crisis doesn't mean you enter the shelter system and languish there for years." The 10-year timelines vary depending on when communities put them into effect. Among those that have begun to implement their plans, about 30 cities, including Denver and Miami, have seen a drop in their chronic homeless populations, Mangano says. Some homeless advocates say many of the initiatives are inadequately funded or lack strategies for preventing people from becoming homeless to begin with. "With rare exceptions, most communities don't advocate or haven't put in the resources to truly implement their 10-year plans," says Bob Erlenbusch, president of the board of directors for the National Coalition for the Homeless. But he and other advocates agree that some cities have shown progress. Those include: •Atlanta, whose homeless population dropped 8% from 2005 to 2006. Under a plan scheduled to conclude in 2013, $900,000 has been given to families to pay rents or mortgages, says Horace Sibley, chair of Atlanta's Regional Commission on Homelessness. Since November 2003, more than 3,000 homeless people have been reunited with friends or family members willing to help them get back on their feet. •Chicago, which has phased out 1,900 emergency shelter beds and created 1,500 units of permanent housing. "We're going to move you into housing first and help you develop the skills and address the challenges that led to your homelessness," says Ellen Sahli, the mayor's liaison on homelessness. •San Francisco, where the goal was to find housing for 3,000 chronically homeless people. It has placed 2,134, says Angela Alioto, the program's chairwoman. An additional 232 housing units are due by April. "Our plan is so far ahead of itself, we're moving into adding families to the target population," Alioto says. Some neighbors object San Francisco has rented entire apartment buildings and built units to fill the void. Alioto says some residents resist having the formerly homeless as neighbors. "You don't want them on the streets, but you don't want them in your neighborhoods," Alioto says of some residents' feelings. "And that doesn't work." The federal budget for homeless services has grown from $2.7 billion in 2001 to a proposed $4.2 billion this year, Mangano says. But money for federally subsidized housing is shrinking, critics say, potentially driving more people toward homelessness. "It's really doublespeak from the federal government," Erlenbusch says. In June 2004, when Mayor Bloomberg declared his five-year goal, more than 38,000 men, women and children lived in shelters and more than 4,200 lived on New York's streets, says Robert Hess, commissioner of the city's Department of Homeless Services. The number of families living in shelters rose to 9,111 in December from 8,798 in June 2004. From 2005 to 2006, the number of homeless living on the streets dropped 13% to 3,843. More than 10,000 leases have been signed since 2004, enabling homeless families to move into their own apartments. Camp La Guardia, which began housing the homeless in 1934, is slated to close by July. The shutting of that shelter will free up $19.1 million to pay for other programs aimed at reducing homelessness. New York plans 12,000 more units of housing by 2015. Peter Diaz, 51, an alcoholic, lived on Manhattan's streets for six years. The cleanliness of Safe Haven, located in the Bowery neighborhood, and the persistence of outreach workers finally persuaded him to move there in early December. Though he is not in an alcoholism treatment program, he says, "I haven't drunk since I've been here. That's amazing. Really." He sees a future where he is never again homeless. "I would like to either get me an apartment or a room," says the onetime construction worker. "I'd like to stay sober, which I will as long as I have a place. … I have something to look forward to." -------- POLITICS -------- investigations Legal Scholars: Congress Has Constitutional Power to Limit Scope of Iraq War & Block Escalation Tuesday, January 23rd, 2007 Democracy Now! http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/23/1530250 President Bush delivers his State of the Union address tonight where he is expected to re-state his intention to escalate the war by adding over 21,000 troops to Iraq, regardless of whether Congress supports him or not. However constitutional law experts say Congress has the power to cap the number of soldiers sent to fight and to limit the use of appropriated funds for the war. [includes rush transcript] Congressional Democrats and Republicans have already spoken out against the President's plan. Yesterday, Republican Senator John Warner, a member of the Armed Services Committee, who until recently, had been a staunch supporter of the war, announced plans to introduce a resolution calling escalation “a mistake.” Some have questioned whether Congress has the legal constitutional authority to affect the plans implementation. Recently, 21 legal scholars from law schools around the nation wrote a letter to the House and Senate leadership arguing that Congress does have the constitutional authority to limit the scope of the war. According to the scholars, Congress not only has the power to cap the number of soldiers sent to fight but also to limit the use of appropriated funds for the war. * David Golove, New York University law professor who specializes in executive power issues. He teaches constitutional and international law, and is the Hiller Family Foundation Professor of Law at NYU School of Law. He serves on the Executive Committee of the NYU Institute for International Law and Justice. He is one of the signatories of the letter to congressional leaders. RUSH TRANSCRIPT AMY GOODMAN: With us now is Professor David Golove. He is the Hiller Family Foundation Professor of Law at New York University School of Law, one of the signatories to the letter to the congressional leaders. Welcome to Democracy Now! DAVID GOLOVE: Thank you. AMY GOODMAN: It’s good to have you with us. Explain what you have written to them. DAVID GOLOVE: Well, there had been some discussion and public debate that casts some doubt upon whether Congress had the powers that you specified to limit and control the President in conducting the Iraq war. And we were all unified in thinking that that was incorrect, as an understanding of US constitutional law, and that it was on such an important issue it needed to be clarified as quickly as possible. So we wrote the letter to members of Congress to let them know our views about that. AMY GOODMAN: Now, it’s not so much the Republicans or President Bush who’s saying “You can’t stop me.” It's the Democrats who are saying, “Well, we are very limited here in what we can do. This is really the President’s war.” DAVID GOLOVE: Well, I hope that that's not entirely true. I know that some statements by some senators and members of Congress were to that effect. I hope that isn’t a general view in the Democratic Party. And I haven’t heard it said quite as frequently in the last period of time. So I’m hopeful that Congress is more aware of its own powers than those statements may reflect. AMY GOODMAN: So explain exactly what Congress can do. DAVID GOLOVE: Well, you know, there's been so much discussion about the relative powers of Congress and the President with respect to war and the conduct of war in the last five or six years, since 9/11. There's a kind of myopia about the Constitution, which has emanated, I think, from the executive branch during this period of time. The executive branch sees only the Commander-in-Chief clause, which makes the President the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. But, in fact, the Constitution gives vast war powers to Congress. It’s very, very explicit in the article of the Constitution which gives Congress powers. Congress has the power to raise money, borrow money to provide for the common defense. It has the power to raise and support armies. It has the power -- these are all explicit powers -- the explicit power to make rules for the government of the land and naval forces. It has the power to define offenses against the law of nations, which includes the laws of war. It has, most famously of all, of course, the power to declare war, as well as the power to issue letters of mark and reprisal, which is a kind of archaic practice now, but dealt with privateers during the 18th and the 19th century, which was a very important form of limited warfare. It has the power to make rules for captures on land and sea. All of these powers and others are very explicitly granted to Congress, and it should be very clear that the Commander-in-Chief power is not the only clause in the Constitution which deals with war powers. I’m going to add one other thing, which is that the administration is very myopic even about executive powers, because although the President is made Commander-in-Chief, he’s also, very explicitly in the Constitution, enjoined faithfully to execute the laws, and that does not mean disregarding the laws that Congress chooses to pass. So I think it’s important to bring a fuller view of what the Constitution itself says, let alone the history of its interpretation, to the public and to public officials in Congress. AMY GOODMAN: Professor Golove, you have Nancy Pelosi, the House Speaker, saying that cutting off the funds is off the table, that when soldiers are sent in harm’s way, you don’t take away money from them. DAVID GOLOVE: Well, to the extent that those are policy judgments or they’re political judgments, that the American people might misinterpret Congress’s effort to limit funds to the military as in some way undermining US soldiers, and that that puts Congress in a bad light in the political realm, I don’t think the Constitution says one thing or another. It reflects that funding may not be the most effective mechanism for checking executive conduct in war than maybe others that need to be in place, as well. That’s certainly one that the Constitution creates for Congress, but it is one which historically has become difficult to use. Now, remember, when the Constitution was passed, there was no standing army. The idea of a standing army was anathema to the founding generation and for many generations after that. So when Congress was given the power to fund the military, to raise and support armies, that meant the President wouldn’t have military forces at his disposal to use. He would have to go affirmatively and get Congress to raise and support an army for him to use in a foreign adventure of some kind. That meant the check was very, very significant on the President. Today, where there’s a standing military of a huge size, the power seems to be much weaker, because it involves taking money from the military when it’s actively engaged in military confrontation. AMY GOODMAN: Could Congress pass a law that says we will -- to do something to stop these soldiers from being sent? DAVID GOLOVE: Absolutely -- as a matter of constitutional power, I believe, as well as the other signatories to the letter, and I think very, very widely in the world of constitutional scholars and constitutional lawyers, Congress has plenary authority, virtually, to pass laws that restrict the scope of war and conflict in which the President engages. So it’s not a question of constitutional power at all. And when some senators or congressmen suggest that the reason they might not be able to adopt measures which block or limit the President’s ability to escalate the war in Iraq, and they try to place that on constitutional grounds, I think they’re without any foundation for their constitutional argument. Now, there may be political reasons why they think that’s not a good policy for Congress to pursue, but that’s, of course, a wholly different matter than whether they’re constitutionally compelled to let the President do whatever he wants. AMY GOODMAN: Do you see any promising movement in Congress right now? DAVID GOLOVE: Well, I don’t know quite how to answer that question. Now, clearly there are resolutions by prominent members of Congress and the Senate that are being introduced now. Now, remember, from a strictly constitutional point of view, these so far, for the most part, are non-binding resolutions, at least the main ones that we are hearing about and reading about in the press. And if they are non-binding, then they will not prevent the President, even legally -- the President will be clearly within his constitutional authority to disregard those resolutions and go ahead with his plans. Congress has authorized this war and has placed no limits, legally binding limits, on the number of troops the President can use in this war. And until they do, the President is within his legal rights to send more troops to Iraq. So Congress has to come forward and pass a binding resolution, not just a non-binding resolution. The President isn’t bound by non-binding resolutions. AMY GOODMAN: And an issue of setting a time limit? DAVID GOLOVE: That’s also something that’s within, I think, Congress’s constitutional authority. Time limits are, again, like cutting off funds, they’re a treacherous area for Congress, because they predict the future, they predict future conditions, they demand that very definite steps be taken when the conditions that will exist on the ground at that moment aren’t entirely clear. So Congress has always historically been quite weary of adopting those kinds of -- during the Vietnam war, at some point, it became the only mechanism left for Congress, and they did do it. AMY GOODMAN: So you could have the very senators, for example, who voted for authorization of war, who are now opposed to it, and say that. I mean, you have people like John Kerry and Edwards, the presidential and vice presidential candidates for the Democratic Party, now saying that they were wrong to authorize war. Hillary Rodham Clinton hasn’t said that. But they could introduce a resolution to stop the authorization of war, a binding resolution. DAVID GOLOVE: They could, indeed. And they could do something short of that, which would be a binding resolution that limits the number of troops that can be put into Iraq, that specifies conditions that need to be met before additional troops are sent. So if the Congress believes that the Iraqi government should be meeting certain benchmarks before the US sends additional troops to Iraq, the Congress can pass a resolution, a binding resolution, that specifies no further troops could be sent to Iraq until certain conditions are met by the Iraqi government. AMY GOODMAN: Professor Golove, you’re also an expert on signing statements, and I wanted to ask you about a headline today, the Bush administration being asked to release more information about the President’s assertion that he has the authority to open and read the mail of US citizens without a warrant. Last month, President Bush issued a signing statement that claimed he could ignore a new law that expressly prohibits the opening of first-class mail without a warrant. First, quickly explain the signing statement, and then respond to that. DAVID GOLOVE: Yes. Presidential signing statements are not a practice that President Bush and his administration developed first. It’s something that goes back through several administrations, and it has antecedent roots going back very far in constitutional history. But President Bush has used them -- you know, and the magnitude of his use of them has been beyond what any other president has ever done by, you know, many orders of magnitude. They are statements which the President issues. They have no formal legal effect in the constitutional order. They’re not binding law, although they may be binding on lower executive branch officials, who the President has authority over. But they’re not binding legal documents, but they state the opinion of the President and the intentions of the President, with respect to the law which he’s signing. And the President has used those to suggest that he thinks many, many laws that Congress has passed over the past six years are unconstitutional in a huge variety of respects, mostly in that they impose some kind of limitations on executive power. So he did that again with respect to the statute dealing with the mail and searching the mail. AMY GOODMAN: So he signs the law, and then he quietly signs a signing statement that says he doesn’t have to necessarily abide by this. DAVID GOLOVE: That’s right. And it’s very ironic, because, of course, he has the option, which the Constitution explicitly gave him, to veto the laws if he thinks they’re -- the very purpose, the core purpose of the veto, not the only purpose, but the core purpose was to enable the President to veto laws that he thought were unconstitutional, particularly those that intruded on his own authority. But this president has generally avoided, almost entirely avoided, vetoing bills, but instead signs them, makes them law, but then issues a signing statement saying he thinks that they’re unconstitutional and he doesn’t necessarily intend to comply with them. AMY GOODMAN: And so, very quickly, what does this mean for surveillance of first-class mail in this country? DAVID GOLOVE: Well, with all these signing statements, they’re merely -- they’re a shot across the bow. We don’t know what they mean, in terms of what the President will actually do and not do. He doesn’t tell us. I mean, that’s part of the ambiguity and obfuscation, is that he’s claiming an authority not to follow the law, but he doesn’t say he won’t follow the law. So, you know, now the administration has announced it will follow the FISA law, the law on foreign surveillance, which up ’til now the President has not been willing to follow. So sometimes he follows the laws, even though he thinks they’re unconstitutional, sometimes he doesn’t. So we don’t know the answer, as to what will actually happen. It’s worth pointing out that the claim that Congress has no authority to pass laws that deal with electronic surveillance or with mails and so on, that those are with -- again, these are an area that’s fully within the discretion of the executive, exclusively within the discretion of the executive, Congress has no right to regulate. That’s the claim being made in these presidential signing statements. We can distinguish between two types of cases dealing with war issues. One is where Congress passes laws that regulate the conduct of war vis-à-vis the enemy outside the United States, alien enemies outside the United States. AMY GOODMAN: We just have 30 seconds. DAVID GOLOVE: The other is where they pass laws that deal with the rights of American citizens and their liberties. Now, when they’re acting in that second category, Congress is in its strongest field, where Congress is actually protecting the American citizenry from potentially overreaching by the executive, which then violates civil liberties in the United States. That those are being challenged is, I think, the disturbing trend. AMY GOODMAN: Professor David Golove, I want to thank you very much for being with us, a law professor at New York University School of Law. Thank you. ---- Libby: White House sacrificed him for Rove Fitzgerald says Libby lied about Cheney; first witness takes stand MSNBC staff and news service reports Jan 23, 2007 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16770023/ WASHINGTON - Top White House officials tried to blame vice presidential aide "Scooter" Libby for the 2003 leak of a CIA operative's identity to protect President Bush's political strategist, Karl Rove, Libby's defense attorney said Tuesday as his perjury trial began and the first witness took the stand. I. Lewis Libby is accused of lying to FBI agents, who began investigating after syndicated columnist Robert Novak revealed that a chief Bush administration critic, Joseph Wilson, was married to CIA operative Valerie Plame. When the leak investigation was launched, White House officials cleared Rove of wrongdoing but stopped short of doing so for Libby. Libby, who had been asked to counter Wilson's criticisms, felt betrayed and sought out his boss, Vice President Dick Cheney, Wells said. "They're trying to set me up. They want me to be the sacrificial lamb," attorney Theodore Wells said, recalling Libby's end of the conversation. "I will not be sacrificed so Karl Rove can be protected." White House infighting Rove was one of two sources for Novak's story. The other was then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage. Nobody, including Rove and Armitage, has been charged with the leak. Libby is accused of lying to investigators and obstructing the probe into the leak. Cheney's notes from that meeting underscore Libby's concern, Wells said. "Not going to protect one staffer and sacrifice the guy that was asked to stick his neck in the meat grinder," the note said, according to Wells. The description of the White House infighting was a rare glimpse into the secretive workings of Bush's inner circle. It also underscores how hectic and stressful the White House had become when the probe was launched. By pointing the finger at Rove, whom he referred to as "the lifeblood of the Republican party," Wells sought to cast Libby as a scapegoat. "He is an innocent man and he has been wrongly and unjustly and unfairly accused," Wells said. The first witness Marc Grossman, the former under secretary of state, was the first person to be called to the witness stand by prosecutors. Grossman is said to have advised Libby on June 12, 2003 that former ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife worked for the CIA and helped arrange for his fact-finding trip to Niger. Defense attorneys have called him "a critical witness for the government." Grossman according to prosecutors is one of the first officials to tell Libby that Wilson's wife was employed by the CIA and had a role in the Niger trip. Fitzgerald said Tuesday that Cheney also told Libby about Wilson's wife working at the CIA in early June. Libby has told FBI investigators and a grand jury that he first learned Plame's identity from NBC Washington Bureau Tim Russert, in a conversation on July 10 or 11, 2003. Russert has testified that Plame never came up in their talk. Libby is charged with five felony counts. He allegedly obstructed an investigation into the leaking of C-I-A officer Valerie Plame's identity in 2003 and lied to the F-B-I and a grand jury. Wilson's Africa trip The June-July 2003 time period is crucial to the charges brought against Libby. In the spring of 2003, two newspaper articles reported on a trip by a former ambassador to Africa sponsored by the C.I.A. to check reports that Iraq was seeking enriched uranium to help with its nuclear arms program. Neither article identified the ambassador, but it was known inside the government that he was Joseph C. Wilson IV, Valerie Plame Wilson's husband. White House officials wanted to know how much of a role she had in selecting him for the assignment. In May 2003, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof was first to write that an unnamed ambassador traveled to Niger to investigate uranium sales. The envoy, Kristof wrote, reported to the C.I.A. and State Department that the information was unequivocally wrong and that the documents had been forged. Fitzgerald contends that the Kristof column sparked a frenzy of queries from the office of the vice president to both the State Department and the CIA about ambassador Wilson and who arranged his trip. The defense's approach The prosecution says Grossman recalls telling Libby that "Joe Wilson's wife works for the CIA" and that "our people say that she was involved in the organization of the trip." Ted Wells, Libby's may take aim at Grossman, and cast doubt on the accuracy of any testimony by Grossman, who is identified as a longtime friend and traveling partner of Wilson's, suggesting they are biased against Libby because of their connections to one another and to Wilson. The defense says that Grossman was visited by the state department's second in command Richard Armitage, the night before his interview with the FBI. Armitage admitted this summer that he was the first to reveal Plame to columnist Robert Novak. Ted Well's says Armitage told Grossman that he spoke to Novak and he already told the FBI about Novak. Wells says "this is cooking the books" Wells said Grossman and Wilson went to college and came up through the ranks of the State Department together. Tuesday's testimony ended with Grossman still on the stand. He is expected to resume his testimony on Wednesday, when the court resumes at 9:30am ET. Sorting conflicting statements As the trial opened with a preview of each side's position, it was clear that the jury will be tasked with sorting through conflicting statements in a high-profile case that has opened a very public window on the behind-the-scenes Washington practice of leaking sensitive information to the news media. Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald told a far different story from Wells. He described for jurors a Bush administration effort to beat back early criticism of the Iraq war and accused Libby of lying to investigators about his role in that campaign. Using a computerized calendar during opening statement, Fitzgerald described a tumultuous week in 2003 when he said the White House was under "direct attack" from Wilson. Fitzgerald said Libby learned from five people -- from Cheney to members of the CIA and State Department -- that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA. Libby discussed that fact to reporters and others in the White House, Fitzgerald said. "But when the FBI and grand jury asked about what the defendant did," Fitzgerald said, "he made up a story." Memory or lying? Libby told investigators he learned about Plame from NBC News reporter Tim Russert. But Fitzgerald told jurors that was clearly a lie because Libby had already been discussing the matter inside and outside of the White House. "You can't learn something on Thursday that you're giving out on Monday," Fitzgerald said. Libby says he didn't lie but was simply bogged down by national security issues and couldn't remember his conversations with New York Times report Judith Miller, Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper and Russert. "He spends his day trying to connect the dots to be sure we don't have another 9/11," Wells said. Opening statements were expected to continue into Tuesday afternoon. The trial is expected to last four to six weeks. fact file POSSIBLE LIBBY TRIAL WITNESSES Attorneys are not required to submit witness lists but many possible witnesses have been named in court documents. PROSECUTION • John (Jack) Eckenrode • Robert Grenier • Marc Grossman • Craig Schmall • Judith Miller • Ari Fleischer • David Addington • Cathie Martin • Bill Harlow • Tim Russert • Matt Cooper • Stephen Hadley • George Tenet DEFENSE • I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby • Dick Cheney • Colin Powell • Reporters • Robert Novak • Bob Woodward • Richard Armitage • Joseph Wilson -------- ACTIVISTS Hibakusha: Poetry portrays anti-war message January 23, 2007 MAINICHI http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/features/news/20070123p2g00m0fe014000c.html "I suppose they think anything's okay, as long as there's money to be had." Hiroshi Maruya's mood as the new year begins is anything but buoyant. Eighty-one years old and the honorary director of Hiroshima's Kyoritsu Hospital, he hails originally from Iwakuni, Yamaguchi Prefecture, home to an American military base whose expansion, as part of an ongoing U.S. armed forces realignment, was approved late last year by the neighboring city of Otake, Hiroshima Prefecture. Maruya believes local governments cooperating with the realignment are motivated purely by the chance to gain central government subsidies. A bill containing the relevant legislation is due to be introduced at the Diet session opening Jan. 25. More than half a century ago, the Iwakuni base was on the front lines of the Korean War. American fighter planes took off from there with a deafening roar. Maruya, recovering from tuberculosis at the time, recalls lying on his hospital bed and quivering with helpless rage. Only five years had passed since Hiroshima and Nagasaki were leveled by atomic bombs. Maruya, a poet consumed by anti-war feelings, threw himself into the production of an epic poem, The Iwakuni Suite. It was his first work. He signed it Hiromi Misho, his pen name ever since. It was a dark time. Japan's defeat still hung heavy. In an anti-war poem published in the hospital patients' bulletin, Maruya compared the American fighter planes to bugs. This was enough to get him arrested for criticizing the Occupation authorities. In the fall of 1951 Maruya paid a visit to the poet Sankichi Toge (1917-53), with whom he had much in common. Toge, in his Hiroshima apartment, had just finished a poetry collection titled "Genbaku Shishu" (Poems of the Atomic Bombs), one of which, "Ningen o Kaese" (Give us Back our Humanity) became particularly well-known. This year marks the 90th anniversary of Toge's birth. As Maruya's contemporaries pass on, he finds himself increasingly alone, as determined as ever to continue his work as a physician and poet. "Writing poems is my way of confronting life," he says. In "Genkyo," his sixth book of poetry published last autumn, he raises issues ranging from the predicament of atomic bomb survivors living in South Korea to the suffering of Iraqi children afflicted by fallout from depleted uranium bullets. In his view, the Hiroshima tragedy is not over; new atomic victims are joining those of his own generation. "There are things," he says, "which I must write, thoughts I must leave behind me." It's that conviction which gives him the strength to carry on. (By Noboru Ujo, Mainichi Shimbun) ---- Lt. Ehren Watada Faces Court Martial for Refusing to Serve in Iraq Tuesday, January 23rd, 2007 Democracy Now! http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/23/1530235 Last week a military judge ruled Watada cannot present evidence challenging the war’s legality nor explain what motivated him to resist his deployment order. He is the first officer to refuse to go to Iraq. With his court martial less than two weeks away, Lt. Watada is facing up to six years in prison. [includes rush transcript] He faces one charge of missing troop movement, and four counts of conduct unbecoming an officer. Each of the later four charges relates to his public comments on why he refuses to deploy to Iraq. The military judge also rejected defense arguments that Lt. Watada's remarks are protected by the First Amendment. Lt. Ehren Watada joins me now from Seattle. * First Lieutenant Ehren Watada, the nation's first Army officer to refuse deployment to Iraq. For more information on his case visit ThankYouLT.org RUSH TRANSCRIPT AMY GOODMAN: Lieutenant Ehren Watada joins us live now from Seattle. We welcome you to Democracy Now! LT. EHREN WATADA: Thank you, Amy. AMY GOODMAN: It’s good to have you with us. First of all, explain why you have refused deployment and when you refused. LT. EHREN WATADA: Well, basically, back in January of 2006, even before that, maybe a few months prior to that, in my preparation for deployment to Iraq, in order to better train myself and my soldiers, I began to research the background of Iraq, including the culture, the history, the events going on on the ground and what had led us up into the war in the first place, and what I found was very shocking to me and dismaying, and it really made me question what I was being asked to do, and it caused me to research more and more. And as I found out the answers to the questions I had, I became convinced that the war itself was illegal and immoral, as was the current conduct of American forces and the American government on the ground over in Iraq. And as such, as somebody who has sworn an oath to protect our Constitution, our values and our principles, and to protect the welfare and the safety of the American people, I said to myself that's something that I cannot be a part of, the war. I cannot enable or condone those who have established this illegal and immoral policy. And so, I simply requested that I have my commission resigned and I separate completely from the military, because of those reasons, and I was denied several times, and I was basically given the ultimatum, “Either you deploy to Iraq or you will face a court-martial.” AMY GOODMAN: And so, now you are facing a court-martial. LT. EHREN WATADA: Yes. AMY GOODMAN: And you’re the first officer who has refused deployment to Iraq. LT. EHREN WATADA: That I know of, correct. AMY GOODMAN: Tell us about the judge's ruling last week. LT. EHREN WATADA: Well, the judge’s ruling is very unfortunate. You know, during the Article 32, which is a pretrial hearing, the prosecution asked some of the witnesses we brought, including Denis Halliday, Ann Wright and Francis Boyle, if there had been any congressional representatives or congressional hearings or investigations, any courts of law that had determined the war to be illegal or immoral. And, of course, at this point, the answer would be no. And I think it would have been an excellent opportunity to bring to light in a court of law evidence and witnesses who could testify to the illegality and immorality of the war and its conduct. Unfortunately, just like Vietnam, my judge, just like the judges back then, have refused to bring to light any of the evidence or challenge the policies of the administration. And I think it’s also very unfortunate that under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which is military law, all service members are obligated and have the right to refuse unlawful orders, and in this case, you know, you do so at your own peril, but the judge has simply predetermined that the war is lawful, that the order to go to war is lawful, and that it would not be debated in his court. And they have simply skirted the issue of whether that order was lawful or not. AMY GOODMAN: And so, what is heard in the court, that you just refused to show up? LT. EHREN WATADA: Correct. It will simply be -- it will be a non-trial. It will not be a fair trial or a show of justice, in any sense. I think that they will simply say, “Was he ordered to go? Yes. Did he go? No. Well, he’s guilty.” And that also goes for the conduct unbecoming charges: “Did he make those statements? Can we verify that? Yes. OK, he’s guilty.” And then it will be pretty much a disciplinary hearing, in terms of how much punishment should we give this lieutenant. AMY GOODMAN: Can you appeal this, even before the court-martial takes place, the judge's decision to exclude your reasons? LT. EHREN WATADA: No. We will have to wait until after the verdict is rendered. AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you about a press issue that’s come out in your case, and that involves military and press freedom. The US Army subpoenaed two journalists to testify on whether you made some of the antiwar statements that they are charging you for. Earlier this month, we interviewed one of the two journalists, Sarah Olson. SARAH OLSON: I think it’s my job as a journalist to report the news. It’s not my job to participate, again, in the Army, in the military or government prosecution of political speech. I think when journalists do that, they really risk being turned into kind of the investigative arm of the government, really being seen as the eyes and ears of the military and the government. It really threatens to erode kind of that separation between the press and our government. I think that this is particularly ironic, because the Army is, again, asking me, a journalist, to build the case against military personnel speaking to the press, against dissenting voices in the media. And I think, you know, kind of the final thing that I find really alarming about that is that it really does threaten to kind of eliminate those voices from the media. What kind of future war resisters would agree to speak with me or with other journalists if they thought that it was reasonable that they would be facing very high prison sentences, four years in prison, for explaining, you know, the reasons for their opposition to the Iraq war? AMY GOODMAN: Independent journalist Sarah Olson. There’s a petition going around in support of her, as well as Honolulu Star Bulletin reporter Gregg Kakesako, the other journalist who has been subpoenaed in this case. Independent journalist Dahr Jamail and videographer Sari Gelzer have also been added to the prosecution’s witness list. Lieutenant Ehren Watada, can you talk about Sarah Olson and her case? LT. EHREN WATADA: Sure. I think that when it comes to, if it's a national security issue and it has to do with public safety that has the possibility of being in danger, I think, of course, you know, reporters will be compelled to testify in that case. But I think, as the prosecutors determined, my speaking out has nothing to do with national security or public safety. They simply said that it’s offensive to the Army. And Miss Olson is right, that once you start using reporters to testify against their sources, what -- not just war resisters -- what whistleblowers, what minority opinions will be willing to go out there and testify to reporters in order to get the truth out, if they know that the government will use those reporters to testify against them? And I think that becomes very dangerous in our society, and it’s going to have a chilling effect that’s going to stifle free speech. It’s going to stifle people having the courage to bring the truth out. And it’s going to stifle the freedom of the press. AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to First Lieutenant Ehren Watada. He has refused deployment to Iraq, the first officer to do so. Next week, he will be court-martialed. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. We'll be back with him in a minute. [break] AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to First Lieutenant Ehren Watada, first officer to refuse deployment to Iraq. He faces court-martial next week. Lt. Ehren Watada, you went to Hawaii. You went home. Is that right? Can you talk about your experience there and what other soldiers there, going back to different wars, how they responded to you? LT. EHREN WATADA: I think that Hawaii, like everywhere else around the United States, there's tremendous support out there. I think it's unfortunate that we haven't been able to get into the national media as much as we wanted to. And therefore, the more east you go, the less people know about the case. And I think, just looking at how much support I’ve received in Washington state and back home in my home state, in Hawaii, there are a lot of people who are coming out, and not just people on one spectrum of the political ideology, but people from the mainstream, they are all coming out -- the unions, the interfaith groups, the students, universities -- they are all coming out to support. And I think that's just a testament to how people feel about the war and the policies of this administration. AMY GOODMAN: We were speaking with your mother here in studio in New York, as she speaks out for you around the country. She went to Congress. She spoke with congress members, tried to speak with senators. And she talked about your background and the response of -- can you explain who the No-No boys are? LT. EHREN WATADA: Sure. During World War II, when the Japanese Americans were interned by the United States government, I think over 100,000 Japanese Americans were forcibly removed from their homes, their civil rights were stripped, their property was taken away without any compensation whatsoever, and they were placed in concentration camps. And there were Japanese Americans, young men who were conscripted, or they volunteered to join the United States military and fight over in Europe and the Pacific Theater. And many of them volunteered, because they felt that they needed to prove their loyalties to the United States government in any way possible in order to free their families and to prove that they were still Americans. And there was also a minority of those young Japanese American men who refused to swear loyalty and who refused to fight in the army or the military until their civil