violating disarmament treaty and plunging forward with nuclear weapons development and use is a disaster

ZNet |Foreign Policy | A Recipe for Disaster: "A Recipe for Disaster
The collapse of the 2005 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) review conference
by Lawrence S. Wittner

May 29, 2005
History News Network

On May 27, the 2005 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) review conference, designed to shore up the international commitment to creating a nuclear-free world, concluded in shambles. According to Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the gathering accomplished "absolutely nothing." He added: "We are ending after a month of rancor . . . and the same issues continue to stare us in the eyes."

Originally signed in 1968 and entering into force in 1970, the NPT provides that non-nuclear nations will forgo the development of nuclear weapons and that nuclear nations will divest themselves of their nuclear weapons through disarmament measures. Review conferences, designed to secure compliance with the treaty's provisions, occur every five years.

For decades, the NPT worked reasonably well. By 1997, no additional nations possessed nuclear weapons and, through arms control and disarmament treaties or unilateral action, the nuclear powers substantially reduced the number of nuclear weapons in their stockpiles. As late as the NPT review conference of 2000, the declared nuclear powers professed their "unequivocal" commitment to nuclear abolition.

But, since that time, the Republican-dominated U.S. Senate rejected ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (negotiated and signed by President Bill Clinton), India and Pakistan became nuclear powers, and the Bush administration withdrew the United States from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, pressed forward with the deployment of a national missile defense system (a latter day version of "Star Wars"), dropped nuclear disarmament negotiations, and proposed the development of new U.S. nuclear weapons. Furthermore, two new nations may be acquiring a nuclear weapons capability: North Korea (which claims it is) and Iran (which claims it is not).

This unraveling of the NPT is a serious matter, and became the focal point of an acrimonious debate among the delegates of 188 nations at the NPT review conference, which opened on May 2, at the United Nations.

The non-nuclear nations hit sharply at the failure of the nuclear powers, and particularly the United States, to honor their commitments to nuclear disarmament. Furthermore, a number of countries, led by Egypt and Iran, demanded that the nuclear powers pledge never to attack non-nuclear nations and that Washington ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

The U.S. government, in turn, sought to keep the spotlight on the alleged transgressions of North Korea and Iran. In one of the conference's opening addresses, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Andrew Semmel also accused the International Atomic Energy Agency of failing to report Iran's non-compliance with the treaty to the U.N. Security Council. At the same time, U.S. officials argued that the United States was complying with the treaty's requirements.

Even many of Washington's traditional allies found the U.S. position unconvincing. Apparently referring to the Bush administration, Paul Meyer, the Canadian representative at the conference, remarked acidly: "If governments simply ignore or discard commitments whenever they prove inconvenient, we will never be able to build an edifice of international cooperation."

U.S. credibility was further undermined by the Bush administration's decision to send lower-echelon officials, rather than Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, to represent it at the conference. According to observers, this snub represented an attempt to undercut the significance of the review conference and, thereby, mute the criticism that would emerge there of the U.S. government's disdain for nuclear disarmament -- or at least for U.S. nuclear disarmament.

Criticism of the U.S. role at the conference was particularly sharp among peace and disarmament groups. "The United States has had four weeks to demonstrate international leadership on nuclear proliferation," remarked Susi Snyder, secretary general of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. "Clearly, the U.S. delegation never wanted to strengthen the treaty. Instead, they have spent four weeks . . . refusing to recognize agreements they made 5 and 10 years ago." According to Alyn Ware of the Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy, it was "impossible to prevent" nuclear proliferation "while the nuclear weapons states insist on maintaining large stockpiles of weapons themselves." It was "like a parent telling a child not to smoke while smoking a pack of cigarettes."

Given the obviously self-defeating nature of U.S. nuclear policy, why does the Bush administration cling to it so stubbornly? Why has it spurned the efforts not only of the world community, but of the U.S. government's closest allies to strengthen the NPT and continue progress toward a nuclear-free world?

One possible explanation is that the Bush administration believes that it has the military capability to deter current nuclear nations and to destroy hostile nations that reach the brink of becoming nuclear powers. For example, if Iran continues to produce fissionable material, Washington will simply launch an all-out military attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. Therefore, the Bush administration sees no need to maintain the bargain between non-nuclear and nuclear powers that was struck decades ago through the NPT. As Bush administration officials frequently say, conditions in the world have changed, and U.S. policy will change with them.

A second possible explanation, which does not exclude the first, is that the Bush administration is getting ready to use nuclear weapons in future wars. Despite the massive advantage the U.S. government enjoys over other nations in conventional military forces, these U.S. forces are now overstretched in fighting an insurgency in a small country like Iraq. Furthermore, dispatching substantial numbers of U.S. combat troops overseas is quite expensive, and their death in large numbers undermines political support for a war -- as it is now doing. In this context, the development and use of nuclear weapons to maintain what the Bush administration defines as U.S. "national interests" seem quite logical to U.S. national security managers. Ominously, the new nuclear weapons for which the Bush administration has requested funding from Congress are considered "usable" nuclear weapons: so-called "bunker busters" and "mini-nukes."

As a result, the collapse of the NPT review conference of 2005 and the hard-line nuclear policies of the Bush administration that have contributed to it have seriously undermined the willingness of nations to dispense with nuclear weapons. Indeed, these factors seem to place the nations of the world back in the nuclear arms race and, perhaps, on the road to nuclear war. Of course, popular protest and wise statesmanship have turned around situations like this in the past, and they might well do so again. But, in the meantime, we should recognize that evading disarmament commitments and plunging forward with nuclear weapons development and use is a surefire recipe for disaster.

Lawrence Wittner is Professor of History at the State University of New York, Albany. His latest book is Toward Nuclear Abolition: A History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement, 1971 to the Present (Stanford University Press)."

resulted in a pool of nuclear liquor, half the volume of an Olympic swimming pool, being accidentally discharged.

News: "The leak, detected last month, was the result of a catalogue of human and engineering errors which resulted in a pool of nuclear liquor, half the volume of an Olympic swimming pool, being accidentally discharged. The magnitude of the incident throws the future of the troubled reprocessing plant into doubt this weekend as copies of an internal investigation circulate among senior ministers and officials.

British Nuclear Group, the company that runs the plant, last night admitted that workers failed to respond to 'indicators' warning a badly designed pipe had sprung a leak as long ago as last August. The pool of nuclear liquor, 83,000 litres, was eventually discovered on 19 April. The company has ordered a review to check for other potential leaks caused by metal fatigue and an urgent drive against staff 'complacency'."

Plutonium was left lying in a puddle on the floor for nine months

News: "P
Plutonium was left lying in a puddle on the floor for nine months
'Complacency' led to the spillage of 83,000 litres of highly radioactive nuclear liquor at the Thorp reprocessing plant in Cumbria. Francis Elliott on a scandal that could destroy government plans for a second nuclear age

29 May 2005

On Friday 19 April, the nation's attention was fixed on the contents of Leo Blair's lunchbox. Journalists, desperate to enliven a dull election campaign, were debating the frequency with which the Prime Minister's son was served chips at his Westminster primary school.

Hundreds of miles away something was happening on the windswept Cumbrian coast that, had it been known at the time, would have blown the campaign wide open.

Managers at the troubled thermal oxide reprocessing plant - Thorp - in Sellafield became aware that they could not account for all the spent fuel, believed to have come from German nuclear power stations, it was supposed to be reprocessing.

Earlier that day they had decided to send a remote-controlled camera into the section of the plant, far too dangerous for human exposure, where the spent fuel is weighed in giant suspended tanks. The images it relayed horrified them. There on the stainless steel floor of the concrete cell housing the tanks lay a huge pool of highly radioactive nuclear liquor.

Altogether 83,000 litres of spent fuel dissolved in concentrated nitric acid shimmered beneath the camera lights. It contained enough plutonium to make 20 nuclear weapons.

The nuclear liquor had been leaking from a badly designed pipe since at least January and possibly from as long ago as last August. The plant is now closed.

How could such a major leak have occurred and why wasn't it detected for up to nine months? These are the subjects of an on-going official inspection that could yet lead to criminal prosecutions.

At the time Barry Sneldon, managing director of the British Nuclear Group, moved quickly to downplay the incident.

"Let me reassure people that the plant is in a safe and stable state," he said in a press release initially reported only in the regional press.

Although the nuclear reprocessing plant's closure was eventually reported in the national press more than two weeks later it failed to achieve widespread coverage as Tony Blair's re-election continued to dominate the news.

In Downing Street and the rest of Whitehall there was near panic, however, as the scale of the incident began to emerge.

An IoS investigation has found that the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII) almost immediately informed Patricia Hewitt, the then Trade Secretary, and Margaret Beckett, the Environment Secretary, that they believed the leak was a significant malfunction.

The regulator also promptly informed the International Atomic Energy Authority which earlier this month classified it as Level 3 - a "serious incident" on the International Nuclear Event Scale. The scale ranges from 0 to 7, with 7 reserved for catastrophes on the scale of Chernobyl and Three Mile Island.

The last Level 3 incident in Britain (also at Sellafield) was in September 1992. There has only been one other incident as serious in the world in the past year. The most recent Level 4 incident led to the deaths from radiation sickness of three workers in a Japanese nuclear plant in 1999. They had been mixing nuclear fuel in a bucket.

Nerves were hardly calmed when the preliminary findings of a Board of Inquiry convened by the British Nuclear Group, formerly BNFL, which runs the plant, began to circulate among a small group of senior ministers and officials.

The company released a copy of that report late on Friday afternoon. It makes devastating reading.

The immediate cause of the leak is blamed on "metal fatigue" arising from a design fault in one of the pipes leading to a suspended tank, known as an accountancy tank. Engineers appear to have overlooked the fact that the tank would rise and fall placing "greater stresses to be exerted on associated pipework than had been anticipated".

Worrying though such a fault is, it is the report's next findings that are the most shocking. "There is some evidence that the pipe may have started to fail in August 2004," it admits, adding that by January of this year "significant amounts of liquor started to be released".

"In the period between January 2005 and 19 April 2005 opportunities... were missed which would have shown that material was escaping. Had these opportunities been taken the quantity of liquid released could have been significantly reduced."

The report stresses that the liquor pooled in a "secondary containment area", which prevented any release to the environment. No personnel were harmed.

In an accompanying statement the company blamed "complacency" for the fact that warning signs were missed.

"I shall be taking action to ensure that any complacency is addressed," said Barry Snelson, who has been at Sellafield since 1 August 2004. He added that the plant was "safe and stable".

Privately, the company knows that Thorp's days may be numbered. Since 1 April, the plant has been owned by a new government quango, the Nuclear Decommissioning Agency (NDA).

The NDA has the unenviable and extremely expensive job of cleaning up after Britain's ageing nuclear installations. Income from Thorp - it was projected to earn around £560m over the next 12 months - is supposed to partially offset the cost, £2.2bn this year, of the clean-up.

Late on Friday night the NDA released a carefully worded statement on its website which gave rise to speculation that Thorp's future was in jeopardy.

The issue of whether to build a new generation of nuclear power stations is one of the most sensitive of Tony Blair's third term.

It had been expected that ministers would aggressively begin to make the case for the carbon-free energy source immediately following the election. That they knew the full scale of the Thorp leak explains why no such exercise was launched.

David Willetts, the shadow Trade Secretary, said he would be calling for ministers to answer an urgent question on the incident when the Commons meets next week.

"This seems like a basic failure of procedure worthy of Homer Simpson. We do need to rationally consider the nuclear case but every incident like this undermines public confidence."

Norman Lamb, the Liberal Democrat trade spokesman, said: "This is staggering, and a timely reminder of why we moved away from nuclear in the first place. The truth is that human error can never be eliminated from this industry."

Mr Lamb urged ministers to give serious consideration to shutting the plant for good.

A DTI spokeswoman said: "It is essential that BNG acts urgently to implement the recommendations of the investigation to improve operating practice and retrieve the escaped liquid.

"Most of Thorp remains closed and the NDA and the regulators are still looking at how best to proceed. We are going to wait for advice before taking a decision on the way forward."

Company sources say there would be huge financial implications in closing the plant. It has £5bn worth of outstanding contracts and hefty penalty payments for non-delivery would have to be met from the public purse. The Government would also have to foot the bill for returning unprocessed spent fuel to customers in countries like Germany, Canada and Japan.

Work began on Monday to pump the highly radioactive liquor back into the system. But the damage to the future of British nuclear energy will take far longer to repair.

* About 3,000 litres of radioactive water leaked on Friday at a Czech nuclear power plant near the border with Austria, it emerged yesterday. An official told AP the water was contained in a tank and did not contaminate the environment.

PAST DISASTERS

Windscale (later renamed Sellafield), UK

1957: Human error during maintenance resulted in a reactor fire, releasing a cloud of radio-isotopes. Thirty years later National Radiological Protection Board estimated 33 premature deaths.

Three Mile Island, USA

1979: Malfunction at Three Mile Island nuclear reactor in Pennsylvania caused near meltdown. Concentrated plume of radioactive smoke exposed local area to radiation.

Chernobyl, Belarus

1986: An early morning explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear plant caused an atomic fire. Ukrainian health authorities estimate the final death toll will be 125,000.

Tokinawa, Japan

1999: Three workers in a nuclear fuel plant caused "criticality accident" by bypassing safety procedure. A chain reaction lasting 17 hours produced large amounts of radiation.

Paks, Hungary

2003: A "design fault" at the Paks nuclear power plant flooded one reactor room with radioactive water 10cm deep, and fuel rods were broken.

Tom Anderson

Publication delay for secret nuclear dump list - [Sunday Herald]

Publication delay for secret nuclear dump list - [Sunday Herald]: "Publication delay for secret nuclear dump list


By Rob Edwards, Environment Editor


Publication of a highly sensitive and long-secret list of potential nuclear waste dumps, many of which are suspected of being in Scotland, has been delayed by the government in defiance of a plea from its advisers.

The Committee on Radio active Waste Management (CoRWM), which is drawing up a nuclear disposal strategy for ministers, had demanded the list be released before June. But it will not be published before the middle of the month, after it has been checked by defence and environment officials in Whitehall.

CoRWM fears the publicity generated by the release of the list could damage its attempts to win public confidence in its programme. It is considering whether radioactive waste should be stored above the ground or buried in a deep underground repository, and is due to make recommendations to ministers next year.

The list, which has been kept under wraps for 15 years, names 12 sites short-listed in the late 1980s as geologically suitable for burying nuclear waste by the government’s waste agency, Nirex. Two of the sites are known to be near the Dounreay nuclear plant in Caithness, and two near the Sellafield plant in Cumbria.

The location of the other eight, though, has always been a closely guarded secret, along with an original list of 537 sites from which they were selected. But new freedom of information legislation has forced ministers to agree to the list being unveiled.

The Sunday Herald has repeatedly asked for the list over the years and, along with others, filed a formal freedom of information request on January 4 this year. Since then, Nirex has twice refused to provide the list because it did not want it to come out in the run-up to the general election.

Nirex feared that in the heightened political atmos phere, the government could be forced to rule out some of the short-listed sites. This, it warned, “would affect the legitimacy and effectiveness of a new site selection process”.

But at a meeting with local authorities, environmental groups and journalists in Manchester last week, Nirex said it had secured government agreement to publish the list in “mid June”. It is intending to disclose the long list of 537 and the short list of 12.

“We asked CoRWM to come to the meeting and they sent a letter with their preferred timetable. It’s unfortunate but we don’t think that timetable can be met,” said David Wild, Nirex spokesman.

“We are agreeing an actual timetable with the government. What we are trying to do is to publish the information in a way that will be seen to be helpful to the future process.”

CoRWM’s chair, Gordon MacKerron, was disappointed at the delay. “It’s a pity, but I’m glad the information is going to be published shortly,” he told the Sunday Herald.

“This is a very clear demonstration of the importance of being open and transparent, because if you aren’t it inevitably leads to all kinds of mistrust and suspicion.”

MacKerron had asked Nirex, in a letter on May 12, to publish the list “no later than the beginning of June”, well before CoRWM’s national stakeholder forum in Manchester on June 7 and 8. “Further delay could cause significant risk to CoRWM’s programme”, he warned.

The delays in releasing the list have also been criticised by local authorities and environmental groups. “We have yet another delay in releasing this list, which should have been made public 15 years ago,” said Pete Roche, the policy adviser to Nuclear Free Local Authorities (Scotland).

Nirex’s plan to organise the “managed release” of the inform ation was just a way of trying to spin it in the best possible way for the government, he claimed. “Any sites on the list, more than half of which are thought to be in Scotland, are likely to feature on any future nuclear waste dump list – yet another reason to avoid building new waste-producing nuclear facilities.”

Although Nirex stresses the list is “historic”, it cannot rule out the possibility that some of the same sites would be chosen in a future selection process if deep disposal becomes the chosen option. It still regards Longlands farm, one of the short-listed sites near Sellafield, as a “very good site”, though it was rejected after a public inquiry in 1997.

29 May 2005"

The intentions and actions pursued by the presumed remaining super Power, without the slightest regard for the concerns of the rest of the internation

i-Newswire.com - Press Release And News Distribution - REVIEW CONFERENCE FOR NUCLEAR NON-PROLIFERATION TREATY CONCLUDES, WITH MANY STATES EXPRESSING DEEP DISAPPOINTMENT AT OUTCOME: "That the 2005 Conference had ended without result, despite the sincere efforts and good intentions of a great majority of States parties, was not by itself detrimental, he continued. The intentions and actions pursued by the presumed remaining super Power, without the slightest regard for the concerns of the rest of the international community, were serious. Policies and practices pursued by the United States in the last five years clearly indicated what lay ahead if they remained unchecked. The United States had adopted its Nuclear Posture Review, incorporating the breach of the obligations on “irreversibility”, “diminished role of nuclear weapons” and “lowering the operational status of nuclear weapons” by stressing the essential role of nuclear weapons as an effective tool for achieving security ends and foreign policy objectives; developing new nuclear weapon systems, and constructing new facilities for producing nuclear weapons; resuming efforts to develop and deploy tactical nuclear weapons, despite the commitment to reverse the process and reduce them; and targeting non-nuclear weapon States parties to the Treaty and planning to attack those States.



Continuing, he said the United States had replaced the principle of destruction, perceived as the most fundamental element in the process of nuclear disarmament, with a policy of decommissioning. The United States had abrogated the Anti-Ballistic Missile ( ABM ) Treaty, recognized by the international community as the cornerstone of global strategic stability, through its unilateral withdrawal from the Treaty, creating a strategic and security gap within the overall global nuclear posture, with grave and long-term consequences for the whole world. The United States had continued the deployment of nuclear forces in other territories, raising serious concerns over the command and control of such weapons. It had continued to provide a nuclear umbrella for non-nuclear weapon States parties to the Treaty, in flagrant violation of articles I and II of the Treaty by the United States and countries hosting such weaponry.



He said the United States had also signed an agreement of nuclear cooperation with Israel, whose nuclear arsenal presented the gravest danger to the peace and stability of the Middle East, providing Israeli scientists access to its nuclear facilities, thereby demonstrating its total disregard for its obligations under article I of the Treaty. The United States had rejected the CTBT, not only damaging the prospect for the Treaty’s entry into force, but also undermining its promotion in international fora. The United States had also rejected the inclusion of the element of “verifiability” in a future cut-off treaty, thereby breaking a long-standing position of the international community on a consensus over the negotiating mandate in the Conference on Disarmament.



The extremist attitude reflected in those documents and practices seemed to have learned no lessons from the nightmare of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. If history was any guide, nuclear arms were in the most dangerous hands. It was imperative, therefore, to move now with a concerned and firm resolve to stop and reverse the fast-paced drive. Nuclear weapons should not imply political clout and the capability to shape and influence world events. Holding on and expanding nuclear arsenals should be condemned, rather than condoned or tolerated. Any increase in nuclear capability should equal a reduction in political credibility. The abysmal record, achieved unilaterally by the United States in the short span of five years, testified to a mentality which sought solutions solely through demonstration of power. It was no wonder the United States had tried to create smokescreens in the Conference to deflect attention from its abysmal record.



The NPT remained the cornerstone of nuclear disarmament, nuclear non-proliferation and the ability to develop and pursue nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, he said. The United States wanted the Conference to fail, so that it could pursue its own unilateral initiatives through other more exclusive bodies. That should not be allowed. States parties needed to quickly get together, in informal and formal discussions, to reinvigorate the ways and means to achieve the Treaty’s objectives. The three pillars of the Treaty were intertwined and needed to be followed, without diminishing the significance and effectiveness of any one pillar against the others. Above all, members needed to ensure full universality of the Treaty without exception; reject any perception which permitted nuclear weapons as a means of achieving individual and collective security; strengthen collective efforts to check proliferation."

Perhaps the Treaty should be renamed the “Treaty on Disarmament and Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons”.

i-Newswire.com - Press Release And News Distribution - REVIEW CONFERENCE FOR NUCLEAR NON-PROLIFERATION TREATY CONCLUDES, WITH MANY STATES EXPRESSING DEEP DISAPPOINTMENT AT OUTCOME: " SYLVESTER EKUNDAYO ROWE ( Sierra Leone ), associating himself with the statement of Malaysia on behalf of the Non-Aligned Movement, said the Movement had, in the spirit of multilateralism, conceded far more than was necessary under the circumstances, to ensure that the Conference produced not a perfect document, but a realistic, balanced and forward-looking strategy to advance the safety of all. Each State party would assess the Conference from the perspective of its own national, regional and subregional perspectives. Given the gravity of the threat of nuclear weapons, it was absolutely necessary to assess the Conference’s work from a global perspective. Until all States, in particular those who possessed weapons, worked towards both complete disarmament and non-proliferation, no one should be surprised if future review conferences ended in the same manner, he said. Perhaps the Treaty should be renamed the “Treaty on Disarmament and Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons”. That could serve to remind members of the three interrelated pillars of the Treaty.



While his delegation had not spoken during the general debate, it had listened to every State party and the voice of the people, the potential victims of nuclear weapons, he said. States parties could not escape the subtle, but resolute pleas of civil society and individuals, including one expressed in verse by a survivor of Hiroshima. In his view, those were among the highlights of the 2005 Review Conference. He paid tribute to civil society representatives who reminded delegates not just what the Conference was about, but more importantly about the moral obligation to rid mankind of the threat of nuclear weapons.

the only way to avoid the proliferation of nuclear weapons was through their total elimination

i-Newswire.com - Press Release And News Distribution - REVIEW CONFERENCE FOR NUCLEAR NON-PROLIFERATION TREATY CONCLUDES, WITH MANY STATES EXPRESSING DEEP DISAPPOINTMENT AT OUTCOME: "
YURI ARIEL GALA LOPEZ ( Cuba ) said his country attached great priority to the question of nuclear non-proliferation and the only way to avoid the proliferation of nuclear weapons was through their total elimination. The question of non-proliferation, in all its aspects, was not an end in itself, but rather a step towards achieving nuclear disarmament. Concerns related to such proliferation should be resolved through political and diplomatic means in the context of international law, including the United Nations Charter. Noting the selective implementation of the NPT, he repeated that it was based on three fundamental pillars, namely non-proliferation, disarmament and cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Cuba had actively participated in the Conferences’ work, by seeking to reach agreement on a final document today, which would have enhanced the commitment of the nuclear-weapon States to transparency of their nuclear arsenals. A strange Review Conference was concluding today, having dedicated a large part of its time on procedural matters.



In the context of debate on agenda item 16, it was clear that the main nuclear Power was questioning the reference to the consensus agreement at the review conferences in 1995 and 2000, he said. That had been a discouraging element in the discussions, revealing the complexity of the current unipolar world. What had happened was part of a regrettable trend in other disarmament forums, which had also been affected by the hegemony of the main nuclear Power, which used manipulation to disguise its lack of political will to achieve complete disarmament. Given the situation, it was necessary to preserve multilateralism in negotiations, based on strict respect for the principles of international law and the United Nations Charter."

Pentagon to release base closing data

The State | 05/28/2005 | Pentagon to release base closing data: "Posted on Sat, May. 28, 2005

Pentagon to release base closing data

WASHINGTON — Under fire from Congress, the Defense Department on Friday promised to give lawmakers access by next Tuesday to detailed material backing up its recommendations to shut down about 180 military installations across the country.

Parts of the report are classified, so the Pentagon said lawmakers and staff with security clearances who want to see the classified information must review that data at a secure location in northern Virginia."

depleted uranium, its effect on soldiers returning from Iraq

The Hudson Reporter - JERSEY CITY REPORTER - 05/28/2005 - The dangers of D.U.

JC resident produces video documentary on depleted uranium, its effect on soldiers returning from Iraq: "
05/28/2005
The dangers of D.U.

JC resident produces video documentary on depleted uranium, its effect on soldiers returning from Iraq
Ricardo Kaulessar
Reporter staff writer

POISON DUST - "Poison Dust" is the new documentary by Jersey City resident Dr. Susan Harris about the dangers of depleted uranium.
Jersey City resident Dr. Susan Harris has produced the new documentary "Poison Dust," which tells of three National Guard officers from New York City who, after returning from a tour of duty in Iraq in 2003, noticed that they were suffering from unusual ailments, including migraine headaches, blurred vision and painful urination.

What the three found out was that they were the victims of exposure to depleted uranium (DU), which is the waste left over when the highly radioactive types or isotopes of uranium are removed for use as nuclear fuel or nuclear weapons.

Twice as heavy as lead, DU has been utilized in the U.S. military since the Persian Gulf War in 1990 for certain types of artillery shells, and for armor-plating in Abrams tanks.

However, DU stays in the body, unlike natural uranium, which the body can release. Prolonged exposure has been cited as cause of cancer and skin ailments.

The documentary, directed and edited by Harris and a team of video producers and researchers from the New York City-based Peoples Video Network (PVN), is a follow up to the 1997 PVN video, Metal of Dishonor, which told the story of soldiers who fought in the Persian Gulf War in the 1990s and how they suffered from exposure to DU.
For Harris, a practicing psychologist, there was a simple reason for doing her recent documentary.

"This information is still being covered up by the military and is not getting out to the mainstream," said Harris. "We need to inform the public further of the dangers of depleted uranium since it is being used more frequently and the soldiers in Iraq are serving much longer."

The story

"Poison Dust" tells the story of Sgt. Agustin Matos, Army National Guard Spec. Gerard Darren Matthew and Army Officer Raymond Ramos, all of whom are victims of exposure to DU.

The documentary also traces how DU was first considered for use by the military, as well as the history of radioactive weapons being employed upon unsuspecting natives of such places as the Marshall Islands and Vieques, Puerto Rico, where the U.S. military has done atomic testing in years past.

Also, there are interviews with scientists, activists and others knowledgeable about the dangers of DU. They include Dr. Helen Caldicott, one of the world's foremost experts on nuclear weapons, New York Daily News reporter Juan Gonzalez, whose investigative reports on the effects of DU in 2004 led to U.S. Senate investigation on its use, Jersey City resident and longtime activist Sara Flounders, who has been researching the subject for years, and Major Doug Rokke, former head of the U.S. Army DU Project, who became a critic of its use and ended up losing his job.

Harris said last week that she also interviewed Rosalie Bertell, who became one of her great sources on how DU becomes lodged in the body. Bertell is a nun who is one leading critics and authorities on the abuse of nuclear power.

"Bertell educated on how depleted uranium forms into tiny balls in the lungs, and how it spreads in the air in the first place after the DU shells explode," said Harris.

Harris has completed shorter versions of the documentary in the past year, but had the complete 84-minute version finished earlier this month. She already has shown the documentary at some schools and public forums, and she is getting mixed reactions.

"At certain forums, there has been anger and outrage, with people calling for this practice by the military to end," said Harris. "But I remember recently a screening at a community college, where a large segment of the student population was in military service. They were angry but the consensus was 'this is how the military does things.'

Harris is working presently on arranging some screenings in Jersey City and in Hudson County, especially in schools.

For more information on acquiring a copy of "Poison Dust," call Harris at (917) 566-2257, or call the Peoples Video Network at (212) 633-6646, ext. 15

©The Hudson Reporter 2005
"

Shut bases could get nuclear waste - The Boston Globe - Boston.com - Washington - News

Shut bases could get nuclear waste - The Boston Globe - Boston.com - Washington - News: "Boston.com THIS STORY HAS BEEN FORMATTED FOR EASY PRINTING
The Boston Globe
Shut bases could get nuclear waste
A $15.5m funding plan allows for reprocessing

By Susan Milligan, Globe Staff | May 28, 2005

WASHINGTON -- Closed military bases could become repositories for nuclear waste under a little-noticed section of a spending bill that was passed by the House this week, exacerbating the fears of local lawmakers who are fighting the scheduled closure of four of New England's biggest bases.

The energy and water bill from the House Appropriations Committee includes $15.5 million for reprocessing of nuclear waste from power plants and construction of an interim nuclear waste dump. The legislation does not specify where that dump would be. But the Appropriations Committee report, which explains the bill, suggests that mothballed military bases be considered as potential sites for the waste.

Lawmakers said the idea adds to the pain of a region that faces the loss of 14,500 jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars if the recommendations by the Base Realignment and Closure Commission are adopted.

Maine lawmakers met yesterday with the chairman of the BRAC to plead for Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine, which is on the closure list, and the Brunswick Naval Air Station which is to be ''realigned," or shrunk.

''I'm very, very concerned about this. Our citizens would be very upset," Maine Governor John Baldacci said when he was shown the committee report language. He said he had been unaware of the proposal, and ''to think that someone could put nuclear waste there. . .is outrageous."

Also slated for closure are Otis Air National Guard Base on Cape Cod and the New London Naval Submarine Base in Groton, Conn. All told, the closures in New England would represent half of the 29,000 job losses nationwide under the closure plan.

Meanwhile, under fire from Congress, the Defense Department promised yesterday to give lawmakers access by next Tuesday to detailed material backing up its recommendations to shut down about 180 military installations across the country. Parts of the report are classified, so the Pentagon said legislators and staff with security clearances must review that data at a secure location in northern Virginia.

The announcement comes in the wake of increasing demands from lawmakers and state and local officials for the release of what will be an unprecedented amount of data in defense of the base closing plan. Lawmakers hope to use the information to persuade the independent commission reviewing the base closings to remove certain installations from the hit list.

Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Malden, said the proposal to put nuclear waste on closed bases was an insult to local communities that face a hardship from the job losses attached to the closings. ''Congratulations -- you may have lost your military facility, but you may be the winner of nuclear waste coming to your community," Markey said.

He sought to kill the idea of temporary nuclear waste dumps by defunding it in the energy and water bill, but his amendment was defeated, 312 to 110.

The report language emphasizes the need to find interim sites for nuclear waste while the nation awaits the opening of a permanent nuclear waste repository. Yucca Mountain, in the Nevada desert, has been selected for permanent commercial nuclear waste disposal, but administrative and court actions have delayed the opening until at least 2012.

Sites such as shut military bases and other federally owned lands would be more cost-effective as temporary nuclear waste sites than privately owned parcels since they are federally owned and have security systems in place, the report said. It did not recommend any bases by name or location, or indicate a preference between bases that have been closed and those facing closure.

Other federal locations would also be considered, said Sara Perkins, a spokeswoman for Representative David Hobson, the Ohio Republican who filed the Appropriations Committee report. They include the Savannah River site in South Carolina and the site in Hanford, Wash. Both were used for nuclear weapons development by the federal government. Currently, the two sites do not accept commercial nuclear waste, a Department of Energy official said.

As for the shuttered military sites, ''some communities may look at that as something they may be able to compete for because of the jobs it could bring," Perkins said.

Mike Waldron, a Department of Energy spokesman, said the agency ''is reviewing the proposal."

''However, we believe that a permanent geological repository is the right policy for America," he said, underscoring the administration's determination to open Yucca Mountain as a permanent site.

The issue fuels concern among environmentalists about the health and safety of residents near closed bases. President Bush last month suggested putting oil refineries on shuttered bases. The energy bill approved by the House last month would limit the state and local role in issuing permits for refineries -- a provision opposed by local officials.

Environmental activists are also concerned about language in the Department of Defense authorization legislation making its way through Congress. The DOD is required by law to clean up closed military sites, many of which have accumulated toxins from handling radioactive material and lead paint among other substances, said Phil Clapp, president of the National Environmental Trust.

The Senate version of the Defense Department's bill says the fund for realignment and closures should be the ''sole source" of funds to clean up the sites. Such language could be interpreted to mean that the Pentagon isn't responsible for cleanup once the BRAC funds are exhausted, or the fund is retired, Clapp said.

''There is literally no way of calculating how many billions -- or even up to a trillion dollars -- how much liability would be dumped on state and local governments for clean-up," Clapp said. ''It's saying, 'once it's [depleted], that's your problem'," he said.

The House language states that the Defense Department cannot shirk its obligation to clean up contaminated former military sites. A Democratic House energy staff member said a revised House version made the language explicit once lawmakers realized it might free the Pentagon from responsibility to clean up the sites.

A BRAC spokesman did not return calls seeking comment.

Baldacci joined other Maine lawmakers yesterday in a group appeal to Anthony Principi, chairman of the BRAC Commission. The lawmakers said that the Department of Defense has not produced the data, and that the documentation is required under law to support the closure decisions.

''This is typical stonewalling and obfuscation by the Department of Defense on base closings," Senator Olympia J. Snowe, Republican of Maine, said after the meetings. Senator Susan M. Collins, Republican of Maine, said Principi ''seemed alarmed at some of the information we gave him" about the security implications of closing the Maine facilities.

Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.
© Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

"

China Committed to Non-proliferation

China CRIENGLISH: "2005-5-28 10:39:38 CRIENGLISH.com
Chinese Ambassador for disarmament affairs Hu Xiaodi has reaffirmed China's commitment to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty.
Hu Xiaodi told the UN non-proliferation conference that China will continue to implement the treaty, which advocates nuclear disarmament, non-proliferation and the peaceful use of nuclear energy.

He also described the treaty as the cornerstone to address key concerns, such as world peace and security.

Meanwhile, UN nuclear chief Mohamed ElBaradei said the failure of the UN non-proliferation conference to adopt new measures to fight the spread of nuclear weapons was 'distressing' and that world leaders must now focus on the issue.

ElBaradei has criticized the treaty for not including measures to automatically punish nations that breach their nuclear obligations, for not giving the IAEA stronger investigatory powers and for not clarifying when peaceful nuclear activities can be used to develop nuclear weapons. "

People's Daily Online -- Iran condemns US uncooperativeness on nuclear disarmament

People's Daily Online -- Iran condemns US uncooperativeness on nuclear disarmament: "Iran condemns US uncooperativeness on nuclear disarmament
font size ZoomIn ZoomOut

Iran has blasted the United States for its uncooperative stance on nuclear disarmament, calling for the strengthening of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the official IRNA news agency reported Saturday.

'The US tried to create smoke screens in the NPT conference in order to deflect attention from its abysmal record,' Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, was quoted as saying.

Zarif made the comments in New York on Friday after the 2005 Review Conference on the NPT wrapped up without positive fruits.

The diplomat also condemned the increase of nuclear weapons and urged the world community to strengthen the NPT.

'Holding and expanding nuclear arsenal should be condemned rather than condoned or tolerated. Any increase in nuclear capability should equal a reduction in political credibility,' Zarif said.

'The NPT remains the cornerstone of nuclear disarmament, nuclear non-proliferation and the ability to develop and pursue nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. Therefore, the NPT must be preserved and strengthened,' he added.

Zarif further stressed that Iran is committed to the NPT and the non-proliferation regime, urging the international community to act with a concerted and firm resolve to stop the 'fast pace' of nuclear proliferation.

Iran, accused of secretly developing nuclear weapons by Washington, has rebuked the US for applying 'double standards' on the issue of nuclear non-proliferation.

Tehran said its nuclear program is fully peaceful and insists that it will never give up its natural rights granted by the NPT.

Source: Xinhua

"

Birds of hope swoop on Downing St

ThisisLondon: "
Birds of hope swoop on Downing St
27 May 2005

Paper cranes fashioned by schoolchildren from Hiroshima were handed in to Downing Street by anti-nuclear campaigners.

The model birds, regarded as a symbol of hope in Japan, were accompanied by a 14,700-strong petition calling for disarmament.

The CND and Abolition 2000 delegation is part of a world-wide campaign and visited No 10 on what is the last day of the nuclear non-proliferation conference at the UN in New York."

Ban the bomb back on the agenda

BBC NEWS | UK | Ban the bomb back on the agenda: " Ban the bomb back on the agenda
By Hannah Goff
BBC News website

As negotiators from 160 countries make last ditch efforts to agree how to tackle nuclear arms and their proliferation, a five-million-name petition calling for disarmament is being handed into Downing Street.

Veteran campaigner Bruce Kent talks of the movement's renewed hope.

Campaigning for nuclear disarmament is back in vogue.

Seemingly out of fashion since the collapse of the Soviet Union, support for CND is now something young people are proud of - or so the organisation claims.

Membership has increased significantly since protests against the Iraq war began - a conflict predicated on the need to stop the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

And a new generation of young activists now campaign alongside more elderly peace lovers.

The campaign's vice president Bruce Kent, who led CND during the 1980s, says: "There was a period of time when campaigning for nuclear disarmament was, in those terms, not fashionable.

"Especially once the threat of a conflict between the US and the Soviet Union was out of the picture."

But now, with a 5m-name petition calling for "real steps" towards disarmament in the UK in his back pocket ready to hand in to Downing Street on Friday, "all sorts of voices around the world" are joining the disarmament debate, he says.

We can't have preparations for war and make poverty history at the same time
Bruce Kent

Mr Kent points to converts like Vietnam war era US secretary for defence Robert McNamara, and Labour's Roy Hattersley.

Even the last pope was anti-nuclear, he says, recalling Pope John Paul II's claim that nuclear deterrents were "obstacles to world peace".

He even predicts that the campaign for nuclear disarmament will form part of the anti-poverty debate being led by the much-celebrated Make Poverty History Campaign.

"More and more anti-poverty organisations recognise that war is a major contributor to poverty and we can't talk about one without the other.

"We can't have preparations for war and make poverty history at the same time."

This issue in the world is not whether the existing powers cease to be nuclear...I think the issue is whether we can prevent proliferation
Gordon Brown

But will these sentiments be reflected in the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) review talks which are entering their last day in New York?

Despite huge efforts from non-nuclear states, such as New Zealand and Malaysia, the treaty looks unlikely to push the disarmament agenda forward - despite an agreement in 2000 that nuclear weapons states take steps towards disarmament.

And, CND admits, there is little appetite within the Cabinet for dropping Britain's nuclear deterrent, Trident.

Chancellor Gordon Brown has said: "The issue in the world is not whether the existing powers cease to be nuclear...I think the issue is whether we can prevent proliferation."

'Loopholes'

Fears about North Korea and Iran's quest for nuclear weapons have overshadowed the conference.

In March, President Bush called for "strong action to confront non-compliance with the NPT" and for "loopholes" that allow states to build nuclear bombs under the cover of civilian nuclear programmes to be closed.

Critics charge the US with breaching its disarmament obligations by undertaking new nuclear weapons research, even though the administration says it has eliminated 13,000 nuclear weapons since 1998.

As Democrat congressman from Massachusetts Ed Markey told a recent press conference: "The US cannot preach temperance from a bar stool."

And the same goes for Britain, Mr Kent argues.

'High wire'

"If we tell other countries by our behaviour that these are essential for our security then I can't see the logic in telling other countries they can't have them."

This battle between the haves and the have-nots has been at the heart of the month-long NPT review which is threatening to end in deadlock.

But if no new statement is agreed, does it mean the treaty talks have failed?

Not so long as the hard-won commitment for weapons states to take steps towards disarmament remains, says Mr Kent.

His main concern now is the potential for a catastrophe caused by a nuclear accident.

"Sooner or later we are going to see that. We are walking across the high wire," he warns.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/uk/4584509.stm

Published: 2005/05/27 03:16:03 GMT
"

Despite danger, world split on nuclear arms

Reuters AlertNet - Despite danger, world split on nuclear arms: "Despite danger, world split on nuclear arms
27 May 2005 06:19:57 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Louis Charbonneau

UNITED NATIONS, May 27 (Reuters) - The danger of a nuclear holocaust may never have been greater, yet the 188 signatories to the global pact against nuclear weapons have rarely been more divided, arms experts and diplomats said.

Friday is the final day of the review conference of the 1970 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, a monthlong meeting held once every five years to take stock of the landmark accord.

Delegates at the conference, which began on May 2, had hoped to agree on a plan of action to repair loopholes in the treaty that enable countries to acquire sensitive atomic technology and to hear from the five NPT members with nuclear weapons that they remained committed to disarming.

But it descended into procedural bickering led by the United States, Iran and Egypt.

"Beneath all the rhetoric and procedural games that have been played out in the NPT review conference lies a stark and unpalatable fact -- defending these privileges is put before protecting peoples' lives," said Rebecca Johnson, head of the Acronym Institute, a British think-tank.

As the United States backed down on its previous pledge to support a ban on testing nuclear weapons or developing new bombs, Iran made sure the conference did nothing to increase the pressure on Tehran to give up its uranium enrichment program, which could be used to make fuel for weapons.

Egypt delayed work at the conference after failing to focus criticism on Israel's assumed nuclear arsenal.

"Why does it matter that it's a dismal conclusion? It's the most important nuclear conference and takes place at a very critical stage," said arms expert Joe Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a U.S. think-tank.

30,000 NUCLEAR BOMBS IN THE WORLD

The delegates had been trying to reach agreement in three committees that cover the three pillars of the accord -- disarmament, verification of safeguards on national nuclear programs and the peaceful use of atomic energy. The committees failed to reach any conclusions.

Nine countries possess some 30,000 atomic weapons, nearly all of them in the United States and Russia -- enough to destroy the planet many times over. And dozens more nations could build a bomb if they wanted to.

By signing the treaty, the acknowledged nuclear powers, the United States, Russia, Britain, China and France, pledged to eventually scrap their deadly arsenals but have not done so.

Israel is assumed to have around 200 nuclear weapons but neither confirms nor denies it. Like atomic-armed India and Pakistan, Israel has never signed the NPT. North Korea, which says it has the bomb, withdrew from the treaty in 2002.

Before the meeting began, Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the U.N.'s Vienna-based nuclear watchdog, said there were three reasons the treaty is in urgent need of an upgrade.

"They are the emergence of a nuclear black market, the determined efforts by more countries to acquire technology to produce the fissile material usable in nuclear weapons, and the clear desire of terrorists to acquire weapons of mass destruction," ElBaradei wrote.

Ambassador Thomas Graham, a former U.S. diplomat who helped negotiate every major arms control agreement over the last three decades, said some delegates believed the nuclear threat was similar to the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when the United States and Soviet Union were close to nuclear war.

"There's a lot to worry about out there, and this treaty is at the heart of it," he said. This conference "is definitely going to have a somewhat negative effect on efforts to keep the non-proliferation regime afloat and to strengthen it."

LATVIA RETURNS RUSSIAN-MADE HIGHLY ENRICHED URANIUM BACK TO RUSSIA

RIA Novosti - Russia - LATVIA RETURNS RUSSIAN-MADE HIGHLY ENRICHED URANIUM BACK TO RUSSIA: "LATVIA RETURNS RUSSIAN-MADE HIGHLY ENRICHED URANIUM BACK TO RUSSIA

MOSCOW, May 27 (RIA Novosti) - Latvia has returned to Russia slightly more than 2.5 kilograms of Russian-made highly enriched uranium, the Russian Federal Agency for Nuclear Energy (Rosatom) reported. RIA Novosti received the information on Thursday.

On May 25, 2005, non-irradiated fuel of the Salaspils research nuclear reactor was brought to Russia from Latvia.

'Soon, the nuclear fuel will be sent to the state research institute of the Luch Scientific and Industrial Association (Moscow region) to be processed into a nuclear material of low enrichment from which fuel elements for Nuclear Power Plants' energy reactors will be made,' the press release says.

The importation of fuel is carried out by the Rosatom under the Russian-American intergovernmental agreement of May 27, 2004 on cooperation in bringing into Russia of the fuel of research reactors, made in the Russian Federation, with the assistance of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the document says.

This is the sixth operation of this kind, the press release says, in which the enterprises of the Rosatom take part.

Earlier, the document continues, the following deliveries of highly enriched nuclear fuel to Russia were carried out: from the VINCA Institute of Nuclear Sciences on August 22, 2003, from the Institute for Nuclear Research and Nuclear Energy (Sofia, Bulgaria) on December 23, 2003, from the Tajura Nuclear Research Center (Libya) on March 8, 2004, and from the Nuclear Research Institute of the Uzbek Academy of Sciences on September 10, 2004."

NRC released a list specifying reactors sites without power back up

Nuclear Information and Resource Service: "s, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has revealed that 28 reactor emergency plan zone siren systems are entirely reliant upon electricity from their regional grid. Another 18 sites have only partial emergency power backup available to siren systems. Only 17 reactor sites have siren systems that are fully backed up with emergency power systems so that they would remain operable independent of the failure of main power lines. The Department of Homeland Security /Federal Emergency Management Agency have been engaged in revising public notification systems since the August 14, 2003 northeast regional electricity blackout but no date for completion is available. The information was contained in a NRC denial issued May 20, 2005 of an emergency enforcement petition submitted on February 23, 2005 requesting that emergency back up power supplies (rechargeable batteries preferably on photovoltaic solar panels) be backfitted to all public alert systems around the nation’s nuclear power stations. The NRC released a list specifying reactors sites without power back up, partial back up and full back up, today."

NUCLEAR NON-PROLIFERATION TREATY REVIEW CONFERENCE HOLDS BRIEF OPEN MEETING; SPEAKERS SAY CONSE

i-Newswire.com - Press Release And News Distribution - NUCLEAR NON-PROLIFERATION TREATY REVIEW CONFERENCE HOLDS BRIEF OPEN MEETING; SPEAKERS SAY CONSENSUS STILL POSSIBLE ON OUTCOME TEXT: " i-Newswire, 2005-05-28 - Japan’s speaker, highlighting once again the grave challenges facing the landmark Treaty, urged all States parties to deploy all possible efforts to convey a consensus message to preserve the Treaty. Each State party was responsible for the Conference’s success. An agreed document was indeed achievable.

Similarly, Luxembourg’s speaker, on behalf of the European Union, said he had imposed on delegations the same instruction to work towards consensus. Egypt’s representative, as Coordinator of the Arab Group, assured parties that the Group was fully ready to cooperate on a consensus outcome document.

Conference President Sergio de Queiroz Duarte explained that the Chairs of the three main committees would present their reports in a formal meeting tomorrow morning. That would be followed, either in the morning or the afternoon, by consideration and adoption of final text( s ) and concluding statements.

The agenda for the three main committees, adopted on 11 May, after the preparatory process and well into the Conference itself allocated the following substantive items, as follows: Main Committee I, nuclear disarmament and security assurances, led by the non-aligned movement; Main Committee II, safeguards and regional issues, including the creation of a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East, under the helm of the Eastern European and Other States Group; and Main Committee III, headed by the Western European and Other States, on implementation of the Treaty’s provisions related to the peaceful uses of nuclear energy.

In connection with the agenda’s adoption, the President had made a statement, as follows: “It is understood that the review will be conducted in the light of the decisions and the resolution of previous Conferences, and allow for discussion of any issue raised by States parties”.

In other business today, the Vice-Chairman of the Credentials Committee, Ivan Piperkov, said that, in two meetings, the Committee had been able to approve the credentials of 149 States parties. The remaining credentials would be kept under review, and the Committee would meet again today in that regard at 5 p.m.

Four requests had been received from intergovernmental organizations wishing to address the Conference. Those were the League of Arab States, the Organization of the Islamic Conference, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization Preparatory Committee.

At the close of the meeting, Mr. Duarte announced the resumption of informal consultations for the remainder of the day.

The NPT Review Conference will meet again, in two meetings tomorrow, to hear the reports of its main committees and to conclude its review.

Nuclear leak went on for five months, and possibly more

IOL: Sellafield leak a damning indictment, says Minister: "The investigation by British Nuclear Group found the pipe may have begun to fail as early as August 2004 and that opportunities were missed between January 2005 and April 19, which would have shown material was leaking.

The secondary containment cell ensured there was no release of radioactivity to the environment and the leak could not have been prevented, but the amount of liquid released could have been reduced, the report found.

“What is clear is firstly the crack should never have occurred, and secondly if it did occur and when it occurred, no matter how small or big it was, it should have been immediately detected,” Mr Roche said.

“To say this went on for five months, and possibly from last August, does nothing to give us any confidence and re-emphasises our determination to press ahead with the legal actions we have in place.”

The minister said he had written to seek an early meeting over the Thorp incident with the UK Environment Secretary and the Trade and Industry Secretary.

Mr Roche has also raised the issue with the European Commissioner for Energy, and said the European Commission’s suggestion it was going step down the level of inspections of nuclear plants in Europe was “a very bad decision”.

"

testing plutonium fuel with a Nuclear reactor which is, "substantially more likely to fail than other U.S. plants"

KRT Wire | 05/27/2005 | Nuclear reactor prepares to test fuel with plutonium: "A 2000 study for the NRC concluded that nuclear plants designed like Catawba and McGuire are substantially more likely to fail in certain types of accidents. Both plants would use ice to condense escaping radioactive steam, relieving internal pressure. But their outer shells of concrete and steel aren't designed to withstand the same pressures as most other U.S. plants, which rely solely on stronger shells.

'Those ice condensers are still as dangerous as they were in 2000,' Lyman said.

Nesbit, Duke's project manager, said the company never accepted the report's finding because it was based on overly pessimistic assumptions. The NRC has said the plants' risks remain within safe boundaries.

If Duke expands its MOX use, fuel shipments to Catawba and McGuire would contain enough weapons material for thousands of nuclear bombs.

Critics say trucking plutonium to and from the fuel-making facility at the Savannah River Site, about 135 miles south of Charlotte, invites terrorism. The test fuel was made in France. A secretive federal agency that says it has logged 1.6 million miles successfully hauling nuclear material around the country will truck the fuel to Duke's plants.

MOX's low plutonium concentration, packaged inside 1,500-pound fuel assemblies, doesn't make it an inviting terrorist target, the NRC says.

MOX makes environmental sense because it recycles plutonium that had already been created when conventional fuel was burned, said Rosa Yang of the Electric Power Research Institute, an industry research center.

'You would hope that Duke would quickly use up this material so it doesn't fall into the wrong hands,' she said. 'I find it strange for people to be against it.'

"

Nuclear reactor prepares to test fuel with plutonium

KRT Wire | 05/27/2005 | Nuclear reactor prepares to test fuel with plutonium: " Posted on Fri, May. 27, 2005
Nuclear reactor prepares to test fuel with plutonium

BY BRUCE HENDERSON

Knight Ridder Newspapers

ROCK HILL, S.C. - (KRT) - Duke Power's nuclear plant on Lake Wylie is about to become the first commercial reactor to make electricity from plutonium meant for nuclear weapons.

Without fanfare, tests that begin in June will cross a line that for decades separated military and commercial nuclear uses. The current policy, dating to the Clinton administration, is to make surplus bomb material unusable by burning it in power plants.

Plutonium-239, blended in small amounts into a fuel that Duke will test at its Catawba, N.C., plant, is chilling stuff. A single speck inhaled into the lungs can cause cancer. A softball-size lump flattened Nagasaki. It remains radioactive for at least 24,100 years.

Duke's test fuel, called mixed-oxide or MOX for short, won't blow up because of its diluted content. A blend of 4 percent plutonium and 96 percent uranium, the usual nuclear fuel, MOX is designed to mimic the more familiar fuels.

Nuclear nonproliferation groups say it's still a bad idea. Terrorists could steal the fuel and fashion a crude nuclear device, they say, although government experts say that wouldn't be easy. Duke won exemptions to some federal security rules for handling plutonium.

More than 20 years of MOX use in European nuclear plants, most experts agree, established its safe track record. The fuel Duke will test, however, contains more of the purer type of plutonium desirable for weapons.

After a few years of tests, Duke - alone among U.S. utilities - plans to use the mixed-oxide"

Combination of nuke stockpiles called for

Combination of nuke stockpiles called for: "
Combination of nuke stockpiles called for

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M., May 20 (UPI) -- Combining U.S. stockpiles of nuclear weapons materials could make the substances easier to secure and save billions of dollars, an advocacy group claims.

The Project on Government Oversight, which has often criticized the storage of nuclear materials in the United States, issued a report Thursday calling for the number of storage sites to be reduced to seven from 13. Federal officials had no comment on the report, the Albuquerque Journal reported.

POGO claims using laboratories, such as Los Alamos, N.M., to store nuclear weapons materials increases costs of security. Consolidation would make it easier to guard the material while saving some $3 billion over three years, the group said.

Officials said some of the recommendations in the POGO report had already been implemented and the Energy Department will have a report on consolidation in June, the Journal said.

POGO describes itself as a "politically independent, nonprofit watchdog that strives to promote a government that is accountable to the citizenry."

Copyright 2005 by United Press International. All Rights Reserved.

Make your own A-bomb off the the Internet

Make your own A-bomb off the the Internet: "Make your own A-bomb off the the Internet

MOSCOW, May 26 (UPI) -- Russia and the United States agree -- even those who hardly know any laws of physics can make an atomic bomb with the help of instructions on the Internet.

The Russian Council for foreign and defense policy and Harvard University presented a 120-page report titled "Securing the Bomb 2005: The New Global Imperatives," the Russian newspaper Pravda said.

The report, prepared by Harvard professors Matthew Bunn and Anthony Wier, has been recognized as the first targeted work on the issue of the nuclear terrorism.

Sam Nunn, the former Democratic senator from Georgia and the author of a well-known project about initiatives for the reduction of nuclear threat, presented the document in Washington at the beginning of this month, Pravda said. "Securing the Bomb 2005" has been recently presented in Russia as well.

Making a nuclear bomb is not a hard task to do, Pravda said. U.S. specialists conducted a special experiment, in which two men, who were hardly familiar with laws of physics, made a nuclear bomb only with the help of instructions, which they found on the Internet.

Copyright 2005 by United Press International. All Rights Reserved."

Valley polluted by nuclear waste part of Russia's legacy of neglect

KRT Wire | 05/26/2005 | Valley polluted by nuclear waste part of Russia's legacy of neglect: " Posted on Thu, May. 26, 2005
Click to learn more...

Valley polluted by nuclear waste part of Russia's legacy of neglect

BY ALEX RODRIGUEZ

Chicago Tribune

MUSLYUMOVO, Russia - (KRT) - The Techa River meanders through this tiny village of ramshackle cabins and garden plots on the southern edge of the Ural Mountains, seemingly a source of life for a sleepy farming hamlet that has lived off the land for nearly three centuries.

For decades, villagers swam in the Techa, ate its carp and pike, and grazed their cattle along the banks, unaware that the river had become a conduit for lethal radioactive waste from a Russian plutonium plant upstream.

Today, Russians in the region surrounding the plant get thyroid cancer at nearly twice the nation's average rate, according to a recent study. The incidence of lung cancer in the Techa region is 70 percent higher than the average for Russia; the rate of colon cancer is 44 percent higher.

'We think of ourselves as mice - laboratory mice,' said Vera Ozhogina, 57, a retired math teacher from Muslyumovo. She blames the plant for the heart disease that killed her 47-year-old husband and now afflicts her 31-year-old daughter.

Located near the source of the Techa River in the closed city of Ozersk, the sprawling Mayak complex once was a vital cog in the Soviet Union's rush to build up its nuclear arsenal. Mayak produced 73 tons of plutonium from 1948 until 1990, supplying plutonium for the first Soviet atomic bomb.

Plutonium is one of the world's deadliest substances; a millionth of a gram is enough to cause cancer. Its half-life is 24,000 years.

Mayak and other weapons production plants that made up the Soviet military complex existed behind a Cold War shroud of secrecy, and the extent of the harm they caused to the environment was not fully disclosed until after the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991. By the early 1990s i"

conference heads for failure amidst sharp differences

outlookindia.com | wired: "NPT conference heads for failure amidst sharp differences
DHARAM SHOURIE UNITED NATIONS, MAY 26 (PTI)

The month-long conference reviewing the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) is virtually heading for a failure with sharp disagreements among members, including the five nuclear weapon states, over Iran, North Korea and disarmament issue.

Diplomats say differences are so extrmee that even the five nuclear weapons states -the United States, Britain, Russia, France and China- have so far not been able to agree among themselves on the minimum acceptable language for the declaration on Iran and North Korea as also other issues and thus have failed to put up a joint front.

The basic differences arise from the perception of non nuclear weapon states that the five are not doing enough to eliminate their own atomic weapons as they had pledged.

Suspicions were strengthened by the reports that the United States is developing smaller nuclear warheads and nuclear bunker buster weapons.

Diplomats from non nuclear weapons states say if Washington develops such weapons, others are bound to follow the suit, thus defeating the very purpose of the treaty to make the world safe and free from nuclear arms.

The US wants to focus on Iran and North Korea but Tehran's objections have derailed Washington's attempts.

Another point of difference is Israel which is estimated to have as many as 200 nuclear weapons but has never admitted to possession of atomic arms. Cairo wants the conference to call on Israel to joint the treaty.

India, Pakistan and Israel do not subscribe to the treaty which has been ratified by 188 member states."

Nuclear Approach May Help Climate Researchers Pinpoint Volcanic Eruptions

Nuclear Approach May Help Climate Researchers Pinpoint Volcanic Eruptions: "Source: Penn State
Date: 2005-05-25
URL: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/05/050525104903.htm
Nuclear Approach May Help Climate Researchers Pinpoint Volcanic Eruptions

There's gold in them thar rings. Tree rings that is, and Penn State researchers are using the Breazeale Nuclear Reactor to measure gold and link the rings to volcanic eruptions.

'Initially, when we began this work at Cornell University, we were simply looking to see what elements in tree rings could be measured using neutron activation analysis,' says Dr. Kenan Unlu, professor of nuclear engineering and associate director for research of Penn State's Radiation Science and Engineering Center. 'We can see a lot of elements, but it is easy to see the gold peak.'

When Peter I. Kuniholm, professor of archaeology and dendrochronology and director of the Malcolm and Carolyn Wiener Laboratory for Aegean and Near Eastern Dendrochronology at Cornell, saw which tree rings held the highest gold levels, he quickly recognized that they dated to years of known volcanic eruptions.

Because trees add a ring a year to their trunks, if researchers know the cutting date of a tree or can calibrate the tree's rings against a previously dated tree, researchers can assign each ring accurately to a specific year. By isolated wood from just one ring, neutron activation analysis can measure the gold that the tree took up during that year with parts per billion sensitivity.

Neutron activation analysis uses the neutrons produced by a nuclear reactor to create temporary radioactive isotopes in a sample. Because each isotope has its own gamma radiation signal, the gamma radiation signal strength indicates the amount of that element present.

When Cornell's nuclear reactor at the Ward Center for Nuclear Sciences was shut down, Unlu moved the project, which was funded in part by the National Science Foundation, to Pe"

nother Step Toward Nuclear Dump

www.tbsource.com Thunder Bay's Source Local News 2005: "Another Step Toward Nuclear Dump
Tb News Source, Web Posted: 5/25/2005 1:01:33 PM

A decision on where to bury nuclear waste--whether in the Precambrian Shield of northern Ontario or somewhere else, is still years away. But an important step has been taken with the release of an interim report by the Nuclear Waste Management Organization. The report outlines a twenty-four billion dollar process to bury spent nuclear fuel.

The waste would go into a storage facility deep within Earth's rock. Ontario Energy Minister Dwight Duncan says once a way to store the waste is decided, the next steps will be the hardest, especially choosing a location for the repository.

Greenpeace Canada's David Martin says dealing with nuclearwaste is too risky, and the country has to stop producing it by phasing out its nuclear plants."

Nuclear Power Not Needed to Reduce Global Warming

U.S. PIRG: "WASHINGTON -- May 25 -- With the nuclear industry running an aggressive public relations campaign to promote itself as the solution to global warming, a report released today by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) demonstrates that the goals of the McCain-Lieberman Climate Stewardship Act can be met while slashing America's reliance on nuclear energy in half.

'Nuclear power is not a solution to global warming. We can meet our energy needs, tackle global warming, and save consumers billions of dollars by taking advantage of America's vast supplies of renewable energy and energy efficiency,' said U.S. PIRG Legislative Director Anna Aurilio.

The report, 'A Responsible Electricity Future: An Efficient, Cleaner and Balanced Scenario for the U.S. Electricity System,' conducted for PIRG by Synapse Energy Economics, shows the potential for a clean and secure energy future that relies on energy efficiency and renewable energy sources such as wind, biomass, and solar instead of polluting fossil fuels and nuclear power. Under this 'balanced case,' the U.S. could reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from the electricity sector by 16 percent by 2010 compared to business-as-usual, while holding nuclear power generation steady and saving $3 billion annually.

Shifting investments to energy efficiency and renewable energy would pay off even more in the long run, according to the report. By 2025, the U.S. would reduce its CO2 emissions from power plants by 47 percent, reduce nuclear power generation by nearly half, and save $36 billion annually compared to business-as-usual.

The Climate Stewardship Act would reduce CO2 emissions from the electricity sector by 12 percent in 2010 compared to business-as-usual, according to the Energy Information Administration. The bill does not require deeper cuts after 2010.

'Nuclear power is the most dangerous and expensive of all energy sources. We shouldn't gi"

Prospects at Nuclear Conference Unravel

Prospects at Nuclear Conference Unravel: "Prospects at Nuclear Conference Unravel

By CHARLES J. HANLEY
The Associated Press
Wednesday, May 25, 2005; 4:46 PM

UNITED NATIONS -- The world's nuclear tensions, distilled into words on paper, threatened on Wednesday to wreck a conference to strengthen the nonproliferation treaty, as diplomats labored on into the monthlong meeting's final days.

One of three committees ended its closed-door work with no recommendations to forward, in part because of Iran's objection to being singled out as a proliferation concern. "It's a sobering moment, a very bad signal," Chairman Laszlo Molnar of Hungary said of his committee's failure late Tuesday.

The two other committees also wrangled behind closed doors over a long list of divisive issues, among them U.S. objections to wording related to the disarmament obligations of nuclear-weapons states under the 1970 treaty.

"The Americans have requested deletion of some fundamental issues. We cannot agree," Mexico's Luis Alfonso de Alba told a reporter. Of prospects for an overall accord, the Mexican ambassador said, "It doesn't look good."

Those two committees ended their work Wednesday and forwarded proposals to the main conference body, but without consensus endorsement.

It was left to conference President Sergio de Queiroz Duarte to try to cobble together some kind of final document by Friday, the meeting's final day. Disputes over the agenda had kept delegates from serious negotiation until last week.

With no input from a main committee, sharp differences on pressing issues, and so little time, it seemed the most Duarte might produce would be a vague declaration, rather than a concrete plan of action, since the gathering requires unanimity among the more than 180 treaty members.

"I am still trying to have the conference adopt whatever it can adopt," the Brazilian diplomat said as he rushed from one meeting to another.

Member states of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty meet every five years to identify weaknesses in the 1970 pact and win commitments on steps to remedy them. Though not legally binding, like a treaty, these consensus positions give a boost to nonproliferation initiatives.

Under the treaty, five nuclear weapons states _ the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China _ undertook to eventually eliminate their nuclear arsenals, in exchange for a pledge by other treaty states not to develop nuclear arms. The nonweapons states, meanwhile, are guaranteed access to peaceful nuclear technology.

That guarantee underlies the confrontation over Iran's uranium-enrichment program, which can produce both fuel for nuclear power plants and material for bombs. Washington contends Tehran has plans for such weapons, a charge Iran denies.

The German, French and British foreign ministers met with Iranian negotiators on Wednesday in Geneva in the latest round of long-running talks to get Iran to roll back its nuclear program in exchange for political and economic incentives.

The U.S. delegation here sought to have the conference focus heavily on Iran, and Main Committee II's proposal included a paragraph urging Tehran, among other things, to continue its current suspension of nuclear activities. But the Iranians objected to any mention in the text, since the situation is being handled in other forums, an Iranian delegate said privately.

Some delegations had hoped the U.N. meeting might jump-start an examination of ways to limit access to sensitive dual-use technology, such as enrichment equipment. But that looks unlikely.

Egypt also objected to Committee II's proposed document on the Middle East, where Arab nations have long sought a nuclear weapons-free zone, requiring Israel to dismantle its undeclared nuclear arsenal. The details of Egypt's objection were not immediately available.

Behind the closed doors of Main Committee I, meanwhile, the U.S. delegation objected to clauses in the text relating to weapons states' disarmament obligations, participants reported. Among other things, the proposal took a stand against "nuclear sharing," a term applicable to longstanding U.S. basing of nuclear weapons in European countries.

Many nuclear "have-nots" complain the weapons states are moving too slowly toward disarmament, and cite in particular Bush administration talk of "modernizing" the U.S. nuclear arsenal and its rejection of the 1996 treaty banning nuclear tests.

In reply, U.S. officials point to sharp reductions in strategic nuclear forces since the early 1990s. American actions "have established an enviable record of Article VI compliance," U.S. delegate Jackie Sanders told Committee I last week, referring to the treaty article on disarmament.
© 2005 The Associated Press

U.S. Newswire : Releases : "The Realities Behind North Korea's Nuclear Threat"

U.S. Newswire : Releases : "The Realities Behind North Korea's Nuclear Threat": "The Realities Behind North Korea's Nuclear Threat

5/25/2005 7:02:00 AM

To: National Desk

Contact: Jason Deal, 512-744-4309

WASHINGTON, May 25 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The realities behind renewed concerns that North Korea might test a nuclear bomb -- and the likely outcome of such a test -- are discussed in a report from Strategic Forecasting, Inc. (Stratfor), a leading global intelligence company.

The report provides the geopolitical background to the recent secret meeting between U.S. and North Korean officials in New York. At that meeting, the U.S. reportedly reiterated that the Bush administration recognizes the sovereignty of North Korea.

Stratfor notes that a nuclear test by North Korea this summer or fall would trigger an international crisis, with serious military, political and economic consequences throughout the region. It would alter the strategic balance in Northeast Asia, potentially leading to armed conflict, a proliferation of nuclear weapons and U.S. military intervention.

Stratfor examines the likelihood and the probable fallout from a nuclear test, and concludes that North Korea will go ahead with the test 'only if it sees no other recourse.'

North Korea is not seeking military confrontation with the United States, Stratfor notes, but is looking for normalization of relations based on respect for its sovereignty and the continuation in power of the current regime of Kim Jong Il.

'For North Korea, this is a simple proposition -- it will suspend its nuclear program in return for removal from the list of state sponsors of terrorism and for assurances, preferably in treaty form, that the United States will not attempt to attack North Korea or undermine its regime.'

The Stratfor report discusses the probability of this outcome, North Korea's economic needs, and the current positions of the United States, China and South Korea. 'In the end,' it says, 'Kim Jong Il wil"

U.S. and NATO nuclear policies immoral, illegal, militarily unnecessary, very, very dangerous in terms of the risk of inadvertent or accidental launc

Reuters | Latest Financial News / Full News Coverage: "At the conference on Tuesday, U.S. and NATO nuclear policies were condemned as immoral, dangerous and destructive of the global nuclear non-proliferation regime by former U.S. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara.

As defense secretary in the 1960s under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, he was architect of early U.S. policy in the Vietnam War.

'If I were to characterize U.S. and NATO nuclear policies in one sentence, I would say they are immoral, illegal, militarily unnecessary, very, very dangerous in terms of the risk of inadvertent or accidental launch and destructive of the non-proliferation regime that has served us so well,' he said.

McNamara, 88, said the monthlong conference should strengthen the treaty and 'ensure that North Korea and Iran do not become nuclear powers,' but he predicted failure.

He urged the Bush administration to open bilateral talks with Tehran and Pyongyang, which fear Washington wants to topple their regimes.

"

North Korea's nuclear weapons program threat global security and an urgent challenge to the globe

Scoop: Regional Issues Relating to the NPT: "A.Q. Khan's confession of the uranium enrichment assistance his network rendered to North Korea, as well as other reports. In January 2004, North Korea showed a group of U.S. scientists that the spent-fuel storage building at Yongbyon was empty of the almost 8,000 spent fuel rods previously stored there and presented material that it claimed was plutonium separated from those fuel rods. North Korea also stated in February 2005, that it had manufactured nuclear weapons and most recently said that it shut off its five megawatt reactor in order to increase 'its deterrent.' Today, we believe that North Korea's plutonium-based and its uranium-based weapons programs are both still ongoing."

VERMONT / ENTERGY nuclear waste NEGOTIATIONS SHROUDED IN SECRECY

: "Debate over dry cask fee heats up in House
By CAROLYN LORIé
Reformer Staff

Tuesday, May 24, 2005 - BRATTLEBORO -- The debate over whether Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee should pay the state an annual fee for dry casks storage continues, as a bill on the issue is making its way through the Vermont House of Representatives.

...

Using data from the sale of the plant in 2002, however, legislative consultant Richard Cowart estimated the plant will most likely earn a profit of $29 million a year until the end of its license. The company stands to make an additional $40 to $50 million a year if the bid to increase power by 20 percent is approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
...
Last Thursday, the House Natural Resources and Energy Committee approved the bill allowing construction of concrete containers, or dry casks, for the storage of spent nuclear fuel at the Vernon plant.
...
Spent fuel is currently stored in a 40-foot deep pool in the reactor building. It will be filled to capacity by 2008 or 2007, if the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approves Entergy's bid to increase power by 20 percent.

The casks will be used to store the older -- less "hot" -- fuel assemblies stored in the pool, making way for newer ones that will be taken from the reactor's core during the next refueling outage.

The bill calls for a minimal annual payment of $4 million from Entergy to the state. The money would go into a renewable energy fund, which will be administered by the Vermont Department of Public Service. It would be adjusted every year according to the consumer price index, which is used to gauge inflation.

According to members of the Natural Resources and Energy Committee, who crafted the bill, the charge is a means of offsetting the burden future Vermonters may bear because of the presence of the high-level nuclear waste site.

...
Negotiations continue between Entergy officials and members of the Committee on Natural Resources and Energy. Neither side will disclose what exactly is being discussed or whether an agreement is close at hand.
"

TODREAS SPELLS NUCLEAR WASTE

i-Newswire.com - Press Release And News Distribution - Todreas receives Statesman Award: "

i-Newswire, 2005-05-24 - The award, established by the American Nuclear Society ( ANS ) and the Nuclear Energy Institute in 1972, was presented May 18 by James S. Tulenko, ANS president.

Tulenko said of Todreas, 'He has bridged academia and public service in contributing to the advancement of the peaceful uses of nuclear technology. His stewardship and leadership in the Nuclear Power Reactor Safety Courses at MIT has had a great influence on utility executives, helping to develop a strong safety culture in our utility industry.'

Todreas' career began in the late 1950s when he was an engineer on the Naval Reactors program staff of the legendary Adm. Hyman Rickover. He joined the MIT faculty in 1970 and served as head of the school's Nuclear Engineering Department from 1981-89. In 1992, the Korea Electric Power Co. named Todreas the first KEPCO Professor of Nuclear Engineering at MIT, establishing the professorship with a $2 million endowment.

Todreas has served in various advisory roles with the Department of Energy since 1985, most notably as co-chair of the Generation IV initiative, participating in a wide-ranging discussion on the development of next-generation ( or Generation IV ) nuclear energy systems.

In accepting the award, Todreas said, ''Nuclear energy is uniquely suited to contribute to the growing energy challenge--environmentally, economically and geopolitically. It produces no greenhouse gases, utilizes uranium fuel, which is abundant worldwide, and can contribute to hydrogen production.

'The receipt of the Smyth Award in part for my efforts "

NO WAY TO CONTAIN POISONS THAT LAST A MILLION YEARS. MUST END NUKE POWER NOT START RADIOACTIVE WASTE DUMPS.

PR Direct: "ENVIRONMENTALISTS CHALLENGE RADIOACTIVE WASTE PLAN
ENVIRONMENTALISTS CHALLENGE RADIOACTIVE WASTE PLAN
Toronto/Ontario, May 24 /PR Direct/ - Canadian environmental groups say that a draft recommendation released today by the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) has ignored a primary concern of Canadians -- as a first priority, no more high level radioactive waste should be produced..

"They refuse to consider waste reduction by shifting electricity production from nuclear power to cleaner, safer options. Nobody wants a radioactive waste dump in their backyard" said Dave Martin, Energy Coordinator for Greenpeace Canada.

In 2002 the federal government gave NWMO a three-year mandate to choose between three radioactive waste management alternatives: "deep geological disposal in the Canadian Shield"; "storage at nuclear sites"; or "centralized storage". However, as NWMO admits, all of these options have serious problems.

NWMO has released a draft recommendation combining all three flawed options in a 300-year, $24 billion "phased" approach moving from storage at nuclear plants, to centralized storage, and finally to deep rock disposal. It says the high-level radioactive waste dump should be located in either Quebec, Ontario, or Saskatchewan, and will make a final recommendation to the federal government by November 15, 2005.

"The Nuclear Waste Management Organization is leading the public down a radioactive garden path. This is just a re-packaged version of the standard nuclear industry options" said Brennain Lloyd, Coordinator for Northwatch, a coalition of groups in north-eastern Ontario. "The phased approach is the worst of all worlds - it combines all the problems of site-storage, centralized storage and deep-rock disposal."

"There's no way to contain poisons that last a million years. The first priority should be the phase-out of nuclear power not the phase-in of a radioactive waste dump" said. Dr. Gordon Edwards of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility.

Agreement on a nuclear waste strategy, environmentalists say, depends on waste reduction through the phase-out of Canada's 22 nuclear reactors by 2020, at the end of their operational lives. NWMO says it has "not examined nor [made] a judgment about the appropriate role of nuclear power". However, NWMO's board members - Ontario Power Generation, New Brunswick Power and Hydro-Quebec - are all rebuilding or planning to rebuild their aging reactors, potentially doubling the amount of Canada's radioactive waste.

- 30 -

For more information, contact:
Dave Martin, Greenpeace Canada, office 416-597-8408 X 3050 cell 416-627-5004
Brennain Lloyd, Northwatch, 705-497-0373
Gordon Edwards, Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, cell 514-839-7214

- END PRESS RELEASE - 5/24/2005

CO: Greenpeace Canada
ST:
IN: AGRICULTURE ENVIRONMENT POLITICS
PRD: 200505240007

"

Rumsfeld has asked for more than $8 million to continue research on Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP) weapons.

Tri-City Herald: Local: "
This article appears in the May 27, 2005 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.

U.S. Nuclear First Strike Doctrine Is Operational

by Jeffrey Steinberg

The Bush Administration has quietly put into place contingency plans for the use of nuclear weapons in pre-emptive attacks on at least two countries—Iran and North Korea. Confirmation of the new "global strike" plan appeared in the Washington Post on Sunday, May 15, in a column by William Arkin, a former Army Intelligence analyst. EIR has interviewed several senior U.S. intelligence officials, who have confirmed the essential features of Arkin's report. They link the accelerated drive to prepare for offensive nuclear strikes against Iran and North Korea to the failure of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq, and the dismal results of the use of "shock and awe" massive conventional bombings against Afghanistan and Iraq.

The Afghanistan war of 2003 provided the U.S. Air Force with the opportunity to test, under live combat conditions, the conventional "bunker buster" mega-bombs, which were supposed to penetrate and take out deep-underground hardened targets. But one senior U.S. intelligence source told EIR that, when U.S. troops arrived to do damage assessments, they found that the Taliban and Al Qaeda mountain bunkers were still largely intact, after being hit with the bunker busters.

The sources further emphasized that "military strategists see our vulnerabilities, especially after Iraq." U.S. military doctrine, one source said, had previously presumed a capability to engage in two sustained conflicts in two different regions of the world. "Such engagements are no longer possible, as the Iraq occupation shows. So there is now a shift to a doctrine of quick wars. The alternative to this change was to have the U.S. status as the last global superpower exposed as a fraud." The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, noted: "We have 150,000 U.S. troops and thousands of spies—the biggest spy contingent globally—and we can't identify the Iraqi insurgents.... There was a presumption that you could invade and occupy without engaging in any kind of nation-building. And that is an oxymoron."

The source cautioned that the Bush Administration's new global strike plans are premised on the "fantasy" that you can develop a limited nuclear weapons capability that will not radioactively contaminate the area and kill large numbers of people. His final indictment of the new Bush Administration pre-emptive nuclear war doctrine was that, ultimately, when you talk about targetting North Korea, which is the number one target for a possible Bush Administration pre-emptive nuclear strike, you are really talking about war with China.
CONPLAN 8022

The Arkin story in the May 15 Washington Post, which has been picked up by news outlets around the world, offered a chronology of the recent steps taken by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, on the road to pre-emptive nuclear war. This updated a EIR timeline of the Bush-Cheney Administration's drive to pre-emptive nuclear war, which was published on March 7, 2003, and is reprinted below. That original story tagged John Bolton as a pivotal player in the drive to end a quarter-century American policy of no first nuclear strike against any non-nuclear power. It traced the origins of the pre-emptive nuclear war policy to the early 1990s and then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, who launched a plan to include "mini-nukes" in the conventional arsenal.

Arkin's article continues the chronology from mid-2004: "Early last summer," Arkin wrote, "Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld approved a top secret 'Interim Global Strike Alert Order' directing the military to assume and maintain readiness to attack hostile countries that are developing weapons of mass destruction, specifically Iran and North Korea.... In the secret world of military planning, global strike has become the term of art to describe a specific pre-emptive attack. When military officials refer to global strike, they stress its conventional elements. Surprisingly, however, global strike also includes a nuclear option, which runs counter to traditional U.S. notions about the defensive role of nuclear weapons."

Arkin traced the Global Strike schema to a January 2003 classified Presidential Directive, in which President Bush defined a "full-spectrum" global strike as "a capability to deliver rapid, extended range, precision kinetic (nuclear and conventional) and non-kinetic (elements of space and information operations) effects in support of theater and national objectives." Along the way, the Strategic Command (Stratcom), headquartered at Offert Air Force Base in Omaha, Nebraska, which formerly had been exclusively responsible for America's nuclear weapons triad, was merged with the Space Command, and given responsibility for global operations involving both nuclear and conventional weapons.

Already, the September 2002 National Security Strategy of the United States, for the first time, had codified the doctrine of pre-emptive war, stating that the U.S. "must be prepared to stop rogue states and their terrorist clients before they are able to threaten or use weapons of mass destruction against the United States and our allies." Stratcom then established an interim global strike division, to devise plans by the end of 2002.

Arkin reported that "COMPLAN 8022-22 was completed in November 2003, putting in place for the first time a pre-emptive and offensive strike capability, against Iran and North Korea. In January 2004, [Admiral James O.] Ellis certified Stratcom's readiness for global strike to the Defense Secretary and the President."

Arkin warned that "This blurring of the nuclear/conventional line, wittingly or unwittingly, could heighten the risk that the nuclear option will be used." He then detailed elements of CONPLAN 8022, which could involve the use of nuclear bunker busters, to take out hardened command structures and WMD depots in Iran or North Korea. CONPLAN 8022 could be activated if the U.S. determined there was an imminent threat of a nuclear attack, or "for a more generic attack on an adversary's WMD infrastructure."

"The global strike plan," Arkin wrote, "holds the nuclear option in reserve if intelligence suggests an 'imminent' launch of an enemy nuclear strike on the United States or if there is a need to destroy hard-to-reach targets." COMPLAN 8022 does not envision "boots on the ground," he said, but combines precision weapons attacks with commando-style short-term operations, thus vastly reducing the time required to stage and launch an attack.
Nuclear Bunker Busters Already Deployed?

One of the most controversial issues arising from the new Bush-Cheney Global Strike plan effort surrounds the potential use of nuclear bunker busters. The Bush Administration has attempted, in every defense budget, to add funding for research and development of a new generation of mini-nuclear weapons. This year, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld has asked for more than $8 million to continue research on Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP) weapons.

On April 28, Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.) issued a press release, citing a just-released government-mandated study on RNEPs by the National Research Council. The study debunked the fundamental premise of nuclear bunker busters: that they will penetrate so deep below the Earth's surface before detonating that there will be minimal radioactive fallout. Tauscher stated, "In this report, the National Research Council affirmed critical warnings about the deadly effects of nuclear fallout—both in risks posed to the local population and to troops—possibly American or allied forces .... In yesterday's study, they conclude: 'Current experience and empirical predictions indicate that earth-penetrator weapons cannot penetrate to depths required for total containment of the effects of a nuclear explosion,' a sentiment voiced earlier this year by National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) head Linton Brooks."

Tauscher continued, "The report finds that the majority of deeply buried targets lie only 250 meters below the surface. These findings, coupled with the 'Sedan' tests conducted decades ago at the Nevada Test Site, clearly demonstrate that exploding nuclear 'bunker busters' would pose an incredible risk to civilians on the ground and in neighboring areas [with] 'casualties ranging from thousands to more than a million.' "

Beyond the issue of the persistent Bush-Cheney Administration push for more money for R&D on a new generation of bunker busters, it appears that bunker busters are already an integral part of the existing U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal. According to Greg Mello, the head of the Los Alamos Study Group, which closely monitors the U.S. nuclear weapons program, the Pentagon already has a deployable stockpile of B-61 "mod 11" bunker busters. The 1,200-pound bombs, which can be carried on B-2A Stealth bombers and even F-16 fighter jets, had been developed as a "modification" of existing bunker busters, replacing the older B-53 8,900-pound, 9-megaton "City Busters." By claiming that there were no new physical principles introduced with the B-61 "mod 11," the Pentagon sidestepped the Spratt-Furce attachment to the FY 1994 Defense Appropriation Bill, which banned any R&D on low-yield nuclear weapons (under 5 kilotons). The B-61 "mod 11" can carry a nuclear bomb with a payload as small as 300 tons.
Rumsfeld Lets It All Hang Out

So as to remove any ambiguity from the Bush-Cheney nuclear madness, on March 15, 2005, the Pentagon placed on its public website a draft version of Joint Publication 3-12, "Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations." This 69-page report made clear that the Bush Administration has fully integrated nuclear weapons into the conventional war-fighting. The Executive Summary stated: "For many contingencies, existing and emerging conventional capabilities will meet anticipated requirements; however, some contingencies will remain where the most appropriate response may include the use of U.S. nuclear weapons. Integrating conventional and nuclear attacks will ensure the most efficient use of force and provide U.S. leaders with a broader range of strike options to address immediate contingencies. Integration of conventional and nuclear forces is therefore crucial to the success of any comprehensive strategy."

Elsewhere in the Executive Summary, it was declared, "The U.S. does not make positive statements defining the circumstances under which it would use nuclear weapons. Maintaining U.S. ambiguity about when it would use nuclear weapons helps create doubt in the minds of potential adversaries, deterring them from taking hostile action."

For 25 years, up to the inauguration of George W. Bush, U.S. policy was that there would be no American first-use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear armed states. George Shultz, Dick Cheney, John Bolton and company have fulfilled their impulse to hold the world hostage to unilateral nuclear weapons use in the hands of a President who shows increasing signs of madness.